The Eye of Love Page 17

  At the same moment, Miss Diver remembered the duster about her head and pushed it back. Her night-coloured hair had always been her chief beauty; she still dressed it with care. Now a ray of sunlight between the pink curtains burnished it black and sleek and Spanish. All it lacked was a butterfly-shaped tortoiseshell comb.

  Miranda paused.

  “I’ll write to you,” she said abruptly. “What’s your name?”

  “Diver,” said Dolores. “Miss.”

  “I’ll write to you,” repeated Miranda Joyce.

  4

  She believed it only out of inherited instinct. If the facts were incontrovertible, one had to credit them. (So old man Joyce, buying another business than Gibsons, had once been forced to cut a loss: the facts proving incontrovertible, he let the firm go bankrupt and got out.) Miranda was luckier. The incontrovertible facts, however immediately painful, could be made use of.

  For she couldn’t imagine Harry ever again regarding his Past with the eye of love.

  5

  “Arn.”

  “Well, what is it?” asked Mr Phillips, frowning over his cross-word. “There’s been a lady to look at a room.”

  Dolores had meant to give this piece of news boldly, as a bold reminder, so to speak, that he wasn’t the only pebble on the beach. But even to her own ears the effort was unsuccessful, and Mr Phillips snubbed it at once.

  “They’re no good, more trouble than they’re worth. Besides, what room would you put her in, with Martha still here?”

  “I showed her mine …”

  “Oh ho! There’ll be other uses for that,” said Mr Phillips, with pleasant meaning. “She didn’t take it?”

  “She said she’d write …”

  “There you are: shilly-shally,” said Mr Phillips, “Find me a word of six letters, first w, last t—and not too fancy.”

  Dolores turned obediently back to the dictionary. She hadn’t really hoped. Even at the time of the morning’s encounter, she hadn’t really hoped anything would come of it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  1

  “Another party!” groaned Mr Joyce. “A fortnight only to the wedding, and Miranda wants to give another party! I ask you!”

  But it was no use asking Harry; for once Harry had no advice, no sympathy even, to offer. To avoid thinking of the dreadful event so swiftly rushing towards him, he had to keep his mind, except for matters of business, as much as possible in a coma. He asked, “Why?” but it was simply an opening and closing of the lips.

  “She says it will be nice to ask your girls, also some of our staff from Bond Street.” Mr Joyce groaned again. “Very nice I say too, let them come to the reception, drink all the champagne they want, I shall be pleased to see them. But no, Miranda says, they must come to a cocktail-party as well, if not they will be disappointed. Is that right, Harry boy?”

  “I dare say,” said Harry Gibson.

  “Well, would La Harris be disappointed?” argued Mr Joyce. “Mind you, there is no one I like better! But how can she be disappointed, not coming to a party she doesn’t know to expect?”

  “I don’t know,” said Harry Gibson.

  “I don’t either!” said Mr Joyce fiercely. “And so I shall tell Miranda!”

  Miranda nonetheless got her way. The superabundant festivity was essential to her new-laid scheme; though inviting the staff was merely an excuse, for she intended it to be a very smart party indeed, it was an excuse she could lean on, and she did. Within twenty-four hours her parent had given in; and the invitations were sent out for Wednesday week.

  One went to Miss Diver at 5, Alcock Road. Since Miranda had no doubt but that Harry needed only to set eyes on her again, to be finally released from amorous bondage, obviously the best and kindest thing was to bring this, if possible, about.

  Actually Miranda was confident of Miss Diver’s acceptance. Judging the feelings of Harry’s Past by her own, she relied equally on curiosity and jealousy to bring Miss Diver to Knightsbridge.

  Then she and Harry could have a good laugh together afterwards—for what Miss Diver would look like, in the Joyce drawing-room, among all the smart people, was something Miranda could easily and pleasurably imagine.

  2

  Jealousy and curiosity are among the more vigorous emotions. Both curious and jealous was Dolores indeed—in the earlier days of her loss. For neither emotion had she now the energy. Receiving Miss Joyce’s invitation, she spent all her strength in suffering. Luckily it arrived, the gay little card (Miranda went in for little cocks embossed in colour, cherries brightly embossed on crossed cherry-sticks) after Mr Phillips had left; Dolores needed an hour even to stop crying.

  For to Dolores, it seemed that Miss Joyce could have no possible way of knowing her address, unless Harry gave it: therefore Harry joined in the bidding. He was willing to display himself before her in his quality as Miss Joyce’s betrothed. She did him bitter justice; most probably this aspect of the situation hadn’t even occurred to him; on the contrary, love, and with it memory, thought Dolores, between fresh bouts of tears, had so thoroughly withered from his heart that a little indifferent good-will could spring there instead: he’d thought perhaps she’d like to come to a party—and why not? In its indifferent kindness, it was as hard a blow as the return of her Spanish comb.

  Of course she would not go.

  3

  By evening she was dry-eyed; but no amount of make-up could restore even her usual looks.

  “Have you been upsetting your aunt again?” enquired Mr Phillips gravely.

  “No,” said Martha.

  “Well, I think you have,” said Mr Phillips.

  “Well, I haven’t,” said rude Martha.

  How rude she had grown!

  “Do you know what happens to little girls who contradict? They get whipped,” said Mr Phillips, “as I dare say you’ll soon find out.”

  Martha stamped from the kitchen, where they now ate their evening meal all together, before she could be told to leave the room, thus frustrating Mr Phillips’ next intention. Dolores took no notice. She didn’t even glance, as she usually did, during such all-too-frequent scenes, to see whether the child had emptied her plate. Dolores’ fingers inside her apron-pocket were still twisting and tormenting a square of pasteboard gay with cherry-sticks—now not so gay, having been so wept upon.

  4

  Of course she would not go.

  Even to show herself equally indifferent, she would not.

  Even out of curiosity to behold her supplanter—slightly the emotion revived!—she would not.

  There was only one possible reason why she might consider going.

  To see Harry again.

  To see her Big Harry again, just once more, to feast her eyes on King Hal for the last time, Dolores would have walked, like the Little Mermaid in the tale, on knives.

  She’d known from the first moment that she would go.

  In the morning, after a night of so little sleep that she rose sick and faint, Miss Diver penned a note of acceptance—as formal as the invitation, in the third person, and herself went out to post it. Then she took a pair of scissors and laid them to her Spanish shawl.

  At the pillar-box, she unexpectedly encountered Martha, engaged in tracing out the VR monogram with a careful forefinger.

  “Whatever are you doing now?” scolded Dolores automatically.

  “It’s lucky,” mumbled Martha. “If you like, I’ll show you the way …”

  Dolores laughed harshly and went back to the house, and cut up her Spanish shawl.

  5

  This was actually an offer of sympathy on Martha’s part, in their common predicament. How critical that predicament was she didn’t exactly know, but she was very uneasy. Her plan to become self-supporting she recognised a failure: even in her best week, after the first, her earnings fell too sadly below the pound she ate. Actually for whole days at a time Martha had tried to eat less, but though her strength of mind was great her appetite was greater. Her
savings would have been greater too, but for her appetite; sad to relate, she often blew as much as fourpence at a go on cocoanut-ice. In short, Martha was by now only too well aware that if Mr Phillips stopped hinting and came out with a plain eviction order, she hadn’t an economic leg to stand on.

  How mad the dreams of youth! It must be revealed that Martha once actually dreamed of earning enough to evict Mr Phillips—heard, in rosy dreams, Dolores giving him his notice, as she herself, in true Ma Battleaxe style, hurled his bags over the banisters. Now she was both wiser and sadder; and at the same time, as for the first time, saw her aunt equally involved, and equally unhappy, in her economic defeat.

  “Do you like Mr Phillips?” asked Martha, suddenly in the middle of lunch.

  “No,” said Dolores.

  “I don’t either,” said Martha.

  Across the kitchen-table Dolores raised her head. Her long thin neck, wasted like all the rest of her person, reared scraggier than ever: her fine dark eyes, sunken from sleeplessness, made charcoal holes in the pallid mask of her face. Martha—again for a first time—regarded her aunt appreciatively. At that moment, she would have liked to try and draw her. But it obviously wasn’t the right time to get a chalk.

  “When things are too much for you,” said Dolores deliberately, “you have to give way and take your best chance. Try and remember that.”

  “Am I going somewhere?” asked Martha uneasily.

  “I expect so,” said Dolores. “I can’t help it. Remember that too.”

  Extraordinarily, her mouth full of kipper, Martha choked. More extraordinarily still, she thrust back her chair, and stumped round the table, and pushed her head into her aunt’s lap.

  “I can earn half-a-crown a week, regularly,” muttered Martha, “for writing cards in shops. Or nearly half-a-crown, anyway one-and-nine. I’ve been doing it. I have tried …”

  “Have you? Harry always told me you’d be a comfort,” said Miss Diver sadly. “Really a whole one-and-nine?”

  “I know it isn’t enough,” muttered Martha.

  Dolores didn’t pretend. They were both of them past pretending.

  “Just remember we’ve been fond of each other,” said Dolores, sadly.

  Miss Diver posted her letter on the Friday. During the next five days, except for the week-end period when Mr Phillips required her attendance, she kept almost entirely to her bedroom, and when Martha tried to come in sent her off on an errand. (To buy a reel of silk at the Praed Street draper’s. Martha was feeling so depressed she didn’t even turn from the Haberdashery into the Veilings, where she still kept up good relations.) Though no time had been happy for her, of late, in Alcock Road, this was by far the unhappiest. Mr Phillips, however, as Martha grew daily more subdued, appeared to notice nothing save a welcome, halcyon calm.

  “Mind you, it’s too late now,” he warned.

  “What is?” asked Dolores.

  “Martha behaving as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.”

  “Everything’s too late,” said Dolores.

  “And may I ask what you mean by that?” enquired Mr Phillips sharply.

  “Nothing,” said Dolores. (Only that roses withered, only that the tide of love ebbed, only that a mistress too undemanding must look to be discarded … nothing.) “Nothing,” repeated Dolores; and opened the dictionary where he’d just told her to, at L for love, with placative haste. “Did you say a word of six letters or seven, Arn?”

  6

  It took her a long time to get ready, when Wednesday arrived, for she wished to look her best; even so she was out of the house before six, before Mr Phillips returned. She should thus have reached Knightsbridge in very good time, and in fact did so.

  At the entrance to the block of flats, however, her courage failed, and she walked away again. It wasn’t only that the uniformed commissionaire intimidated her—guarding the portals to a world of such evident wealth and luxury; now that she was so near to coming face to face with her King Hal again, she was overtaken by panic. “I must be calm and dignified,” thought Dolores—walking on while she mastered the hysteria of her nerves. “I must show how little I care …” She walked until she was tired out, gathering her courage and losing it again, summoning her poise and panicking again; and in the end was the last guest to arrive.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  1

  The first guests to arrive had been Miss Harris and Miss Molyneux. They’d looked forward to the party immensely, and meant to crown the evening by going to a cinema together afterwards, unless Miss Molyneux clicked. (Miss Harris never clicked. As she recognised herself, she hadn’t the figure.) “We won’t stick together all evening, dear,” murmured Miss Molyneux, as they entered, “we’ll just meet downstairs afterwards, unless.” Neither of them had any idea of not staying till the very end.

  Someone has to be first, or how would any party start?—and how graciously Miss Joyce received them! How well she looked! (“Blue’s certainly your colour, Miss Joyce,” said Miss Harris admiringly. “If I may say so, it certainly is!”) Mr Gibson too they admired, in a handsome dark suit; his manner was slightly absent, which was not to be wondered at, so near the happy day, but perfectly kind, and as for Mr Joyce, he greeted them like old friends. “Here come my two young ladies from Kensington!” cried Mr Joyce, introducing them to Miss Joyce’s aunt. “Why ever must I be in Bond Street?” It was all as jolly as could be, and with further cordial exchanges, and all the lovely buffet to look at before it was spoiled, the time fairly flew until more people came …

  Soon they were coming in a rush, the drawing-room filled. All the bridesmaids turned up, and their parents, the Grandjeans and the Conrads, and old Mr Demetrios, and a sufficiency of unattached men, and several of the staff from Joyces, democratically mingling. The noise was like the noise in a swimming-bath, the atmosphere, as each lady added her quota of scent, like that of a high-class florist’s. Mr Joyce, as the champagne-cocktails resolved into neat champagne, developed a tendency to make speeches. “Do I know why we’re putting on this party? I don’t,” proclaimed Mr Joyce, amid universal plaudits. “In one week, it will be put on again. All fathers with daughters going to marry I warn here and now—not one wedding-party they’ll want, but two or three! So they push around their old Papas!” Miranda, again to applause, hid behind her fiancé. No one took Harry’s lesser vivacity amiss, he was by now accepted as a bit of a dull dog, and it was famous that he spent every evening at Knightsbridge. “A son-in-law in a thousand!” people told Mr Joyce; who from time to time nipped behind the buffet to open more champagne himself.

  It was very late when Miss Diver entered; but when she did, nothing could have given Miranda greater satisfaction than, in every sense, her appearance.

  2

  It was to a certain degree fashionable. Gay jumpers were in fashion, and Dolores’ was gay as a Spanish shawl. In fact it was made from a Spanish shawl; she had made it herself. Tiny tilted hats were in fashion, and she had bought a new one. Black fox was still a fashionable fur, all women were wearing a good deal of make-up: Miranda was still well satisfied by Miss Diver’s appearance.

  She caught sight of her at once, across the length of the room; not for an instant, in the thickest of the party, had she forgotten to watch the door. Dolores paused just within, as it happened beside Miss Harris and Miss Molyneux, momentarily converging to compare notes. (“I believe it will be the movies, dear,” murmured the latter philosophically. “So far I’ve just given my telephone-number …”) They eyed the newcomer curiously—Miss Molyneux with a lift of the brows. “Are you from Joyces?” asked Miss Harris kindly. Dolores shook her head—and continued to stare across the room at where Harry Gibson stood.

  To feast her eyes on him, for the last time, was her only admitted motive in coming; and if there had been foolish hopes, hopeless dreams, unadmitted, they died now, killed by the brilliance of the company and the luxury of the room. She didn’t distinguish, to recognise, Miss Joyce; it was a scene, to D
olores, simply overpowering—and Mr Gibson stood at its centre. To this world of brilliance and luxury, it broke on her, he rightly belonged. This was the moment when she finally surrendered him. Dolores feasted her eyes indeed, but did not, now, even want him to see her …

  Harry didn’t see her.

  Miranda watched him impatiently—they were a little separated. He had actually been facing towards the door; now he turned, giving way before a cluster of guests. Miranda couldn’t wait a moment longer. In a moment, she managed to regain his side.

  “There’s someone you know, Harry!” whispered Miranda playfully. “See, an old friend!”—and pointed Miss Diver out to him.

  3

  Thus to Miss Diver’s moment of defeat succeeded Miranda’s moment of triumph. Watching Harry’s face, she saw her plan so successful, she almost laughed with pleasure. How appalled poor Harry looked! and what wonder! For it was hard to say which was most grotesque, the ill-cut garish jumper, or the ropy old black fox, or the fashionable hat perched uneasily on such coils of ropy hair, or the long bedaubed countenance beneath. Perhaps the last: Miss Diver having indeed laid on her cosmetics with a liberal, and shaking, hand.

  “Go and speak to her, Harry!” urged Miranda. “Go and say something nice!” She thought he would never move.

  He moved then. Stiffly, one stiff step after the other, Mr Gibson crossed the room: as stiffly Miss Diver stood and watched him come: alone, for the girls beside her had drifted away. Miranda glanced round for her parent, and edged through the crowd to slip behind the buffet.

  “Look, Dadda, over there!”

  “Look at what?” asked Mr Joyce, with his nose in a champagne-bucket.

  “At Harry’s Past!” whispered Miranda. “She’s here, I invited her! Haven’t I been clever?”