The Gazebo

ELEVEN

I CAN’T THINK why you want it,’ said Ella Harrison.

Fred Worple flashed his teeth in what he considered to be a fascinating smile.

‘You don’t have to think about it at all, ducks.’

They were lunching together in town. Since a crowd of people were doing the same thing and a jazz band was playing, it was as good a place for private conversation as anyone could wish. To both of them noise, glitter and plenty to drink were the essentials of enjoyment. Mr Worple’s hint that she could mind her own business was not taken amiss. She said,

‘You know, I could help you if I had any idea of what you were driving at.’

‘I just want to buy that house – that’s all.’

‘Sure?’

‘Certain.’

‘It’s too big for you.’

‘Not when I get married and have half a dozen kids.’

There was a sharp anger in her. She spoke just a little too quickly.

‘Who is the girl?’

‘Nobody – anybody – what about Miss Althea Graham?’

She said, ‘Nonsense!’

He laughed. He had better not laugh at her like that.

‘Well, I don’t know – she’s not bad-looking. And I’ll tell you something – the house is in her name.’

‘What!’

He nodded.

‘Bert Martin let it for them last year, and it was the girl who signed the agreement. He didn’t mean to give anything away, but we were talking, and when I said, “Give me a chance and I’ll get round the old lady,” he came out with, “Well, the house belongs to Miss Graham – you’d be wasting your time.” So I thought to myself, “Fred, my boy, what about it? If you can get round an old woman you can get round a young one. Marry the girl and you get the house, free, gratis and for nothing. Money in your pocket, and nothing to pay for except a wedding ring.” What do you think of that for a bright idea?’

What Ella Harrison thought about it wouldn’t bear saying. He was kidding of course, poking at her to see if he couldn’t make her wild just like he used to do in the old days. She’d been fool enough to rise for it then, and she’d be a fool if she rose for it now. What did he want, stirring her up again like this? If she wasn’t so bored with Jack, if everything wasn’t so damned flat, she would tell him where he got off! Dangling another girl at her, even if he was only kidding! She said with an appearance of frankness,

‘She wouldn’t look at you.’

‘That’s all you know. There she is, a good-looking girl moped to death with an invalid mother, and I come along, take her out a bit, splash the money around and give her a good time – it stands to reason she’d jump at it.’

Ella shook her head. She wasn’t going to let him get that rise.

‘You’re not her sort. Besides there’s someone she was more or less engaged to, only her mother got it broken off and he went abroad, but he’s come back and from what I can make out it’s likely to be on again. Though what he sees in her…’

He laughed.

‘Oh, well, it was just a thought. I might think about cutting him out, or I mightn’t. What’s the odds so long as I get the house?’

She said, ‘I don’t know what you want it for.’

It was next day that Althea found Mr Worple at her elbow in the High Street. He said ‘Good-morning,’ and before she had any idea what he was going to do he took her shopping-bag out of her hand.

‘It’s much too heavy for you. I’ll carry it.’

She stiffened.

‘Thank you, but I’d rather…’

He didn’t give her time to finish her sentence. A smile was flashed at her.

‘Now, now, you just leave it to me. You do the shopping, and I’ll do the carrying. You don’t want a heavy bag like this pulling you all down on one side. Mustn’t spoil a figure like yours – wouldn’t do at all.’

‘Mr Worple, will you please give me back my bag.’

No one could have called Fred Worple a sensitive plant, but it was borne in upon him that he had given offence. With no more than a murmured protest he gave her the bag, but he continued to walk beside her undeterred by the fact that she neither looked at him nor spoke.

‘You know, Miss Graham, I do hope you are thinking about my offer for your house.’

After some unsuccessful small talk this obtained a reply. Althea said,

‘No, I am not thinking about it. We do not wish to sell.’

She was becoming very angry, not only with Mr Worple himself, but with Mr Jones the house-agent who had no excuse for inflicting him upon her. The house was not on his books – it was not on anybody’s books – but whereas her mother had given Mr Martin a pretext for introducing the Blounts, nobody had given, or would give, Mr Jones any pretext at all. Her colour rose brightly and Mr Worple’s next remark incurred the snub direct.

‘I am really not prepared to discuss the matter, either now or at any other time. Good-morning!’ She turned as if to enter the post office and almost ran into Nicholas Carey, who was coming out.

Mr Worple, observing the encounter, was not so much discouraged as annoyed. She would give him the brush-off, would she? Well, they would see about that. He had a comfortable theory that girls liked to play hard-to-get, and that rudeness was really an encouraging sign. They put it on to make you keener, and if they appeared to be friendly with somebody else it was just a stunt to play you up. He saw Nicholas Carey take over the shopping-bag which he himself had not been allowed to carry and watched them to the corner of Sefton Street, where they turned and went into the café.

Nicholas said,

‘This is new since my time. Let’s get one of the green rabbit-hutches right at the back – the end one if there isn’t someone there already.’

The alcoves really were rather like hutches – something about the way the green draperies were arranged. The end one was vacant and they took possession of it. When Nicholas had ordered coffee he said,

‘What was all the nice bright colour for, Allie? Was it for me – or had the character who looked as if he might be a spiv been annoying you?’

Even in the pale greenish light of the alcove the return of the nice bright colour was discernible.

‘Nicky, he’s dreadful! And he’s the other person who wants to buy The Lodge – the one who says he will always go a hundred pounds better than Mr Blount. He doesn’t look as if he’s got a lot of money, does he?’

‘Millionaires have been known to go about in rags.’

‘But they’re not rags – that’s just it. They’re quite new and quite dreadful.’

‘He might have won a pile on the pools, or he might have put a possibly tattered shirt on a horse. Or he might be the enterprising type of footpad who rustles bullion on its way from post offices and banks – I gather there’s quite an opening in that direction for a bright young man. Those are the only three ways I can think of in which you can put away any money nowadays – the Chancellor sees to that. I think there should be an Association for making burglars pay income tax. At present the harder you work, the less you earn and the more you pay. It’s a fascinating topic, but as a matter of fact there’s something else I want to talk about.’

A waitress brought their coffee and set it down on a shiny green table. When she had gone away again Nicholas Carey said,

‘What I want to talk about is our getting married. What about it, Allie?’

She had known that it was coming. She hadn’t known just how it would make her feel. She didn’t know quite how she did feel, but you couldn’t take the most important step of your life unless you did know how you felt about it. She looked at him in a soft, distressed kind of way and said,

‘Oh, Nicky, I don’t know – don’t rush me…’

Those narrow dark eyebrows of his went up.

‘Do you get the idea that we are rushing our affairs? After seven years? One can believe most things if one tries hard enough, but I can’t manage that one.’

She went on looking at him without any change of expression.

‘I feel as if we were on a hill – and it’s steep. We’ve started to run down it and it keeps on getting steeper – we’re running faster and faster and we can’t see where we’re going – we can’t see the bottom of the hill.’

He said,

‘Wake up, Allie! Don’t you see the way you’re feeling is just what everyone does feel when they’ve been bullied within an inch of their lives or in prison for years, and then quite suddenly there’s an open door in front of them and they are free to walk out? They have only got to take that one step and shut the door behind them, and they are afraid to do it. It’s the common reaction – they think it’s a trap – they think they’ll be caught and brought back again. And they’ve been conditioned to being at someone else’s orders – they can’t face having to take their own decisions and act on their own initiative. Wake up and realize that there’s nothing on earth to stop you from walking out and marrying me!’

‘Suppose I did, and suppose she died…’

‘Suppose she didn’t do anything of the sort.’

‘She might…’

He said,

‘Look here, Allie, you can’t tell me anything about your mother that I don’t know. She was much younger than your father, and she was pretty and he spoiled her. Incidentally, he knew perfectly well what she was like. He tied up the money so that she couldn’t touch it and he left the house to you. Outside his job he let her have her own way. And when he died you took over, only you haven’t got a job to escape into. There isn’t one turn or twist in the game of getting her own way that she hasn’t got at her fingertips, and as long as she has anything to gain by it she’ll use them all.’ He said the last words over again with a heavy emphasis on them – ‘As long as she has anything to gain. But once we are married, Allie, the game will be out of her hands and she’ll know it. If she goes on and throws fits she will only be hurting herself, and as I’ve said before, she is a great deal too fond of herself to do that.’

Althea listened. She hadn’t looked away. He could see right down into her eyes. The green hangings made them look very green indeed, and the colour had gone out of her face and left her pale. They ought to have run away together seven years ago. They ought never to have let Winifred Graham drive them apart. It wasn’t going to happen again. He laughed and said,

‘I’ve got a present for you, my sweet. Wait a minute – it’s in my wallet.’

He produced the leather case, opened it, took out a paper, and spread it in front of her on the shiny green table.

‘Marriage licence.’ He dipped into his waistcoat pocket. A screw of tissue paper came up and was unwrapped. A plain gold ring dropped down upon the licence. ‘Wedding ring,’ he said. ‘Just try it on and see if it fits.’