Читать книгу The Raft - Coningsby Dawson - Страница 18

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People who loved Ocky Waffles always loved him for his good; he would have preferred to have been loved for almost any other purpose. Affection, in his experience, turned friends into schoolmasters. There was Barrington, a fine chap and all that; but why the dickens did he take such endless pains to be so uselessly unpleasant?

Ocky was on the lookout for Jehane when she returned from Topbury. As she turned the corner, he espied her from behind the curtains and lit his pipe to give himself confidence. No sooner had she entered than she commenced an account of her visit, indignantly underlining her interview with Barrington. Ocky seated himself on the edge of the table, puffing away and swinging his legs.

“Wants to see me, does he? He can go on wanting. I’m sick of his interfering. A fat lot he’s ever done to help me! And with his position and friends he could have helped me—instead of that he gives me his advice. Truth is, Jehane, he doesn’t want to see us climb; he’d rather be the patron of the family. With the best intentions in the world, he’s out to put a spoke in my wheel. Oh, I know him!—If he’s so anxious for information, he can come here to get it.”

While he spoke he scrutinized his wife, judging the effect of his blustering independence. She was suspicious of some hidden knowledge; he felt it. Something had been said behind his back at Topbury—something derogatory. Could Barrington have heard already.

Pressing down the ashes in the bowl of his pipe, he struck a match. Jehane was between himself and the door; he wondered whether he could slip past her and make his exit if things became unpleasant. He detested being cornered; he could be so much braver when the means of escape lay behind him. Meanwhile, it seemed good policy to continue talking.

“I don’t like the way they treat you at Topbury; you always come home down-hearted. There’s too much condescension. Nan overdoes it when she tries to be kind. The rich relation attitude! It riles me. When she makes you a present it’s always a dress—might just as well tell you to your face that you’re shabby. And last Christmas, sending Peter’s cast-off clothes to Eustace! Thank God, we’re not paupers and never shall be!”

As he worked himself into a passion Jehane eyed him somberly. The everlasting pipe, dangling from his mouth, annoyed her immensely. His trousers, bagging at the knees, and his pockets, stuffed with rubbish, were perpetual eyesores; she hated his slack appearance. Other men with his income at least attained neatness. It was not that he spared money on his clothes——. She caught herself comparing him with Barrington—Barrington whose tidy body was the outward sign of his well-ordered mind. Her husband went on talking and her irritation took a new direction.

“I’ll bet a fiver what they said when you told ’em. ‘My dearest, if it could only happen’—that’s Nan. ‘Ah yes! Humph! sand at Sandport! We must talk this over before he decides’—that’s Barrington. We can guess what his advice’ll amount to, can’t we, old Duchess?”

It was safe to venture the endearment now. If they had nothing else in common, they were partners in their animosities. When running down an enemy together, he could dare to express his affection for her; his way of doing this was to call her Duchess. At other times she would brush him aside with, “Don’t be silly, Ocky.” She often called him “silly,” treating any demonstration as tawdry sentimentality. She had no idea how deeply it wounded.

Now, as she sank into the chair, he bent over and kissed her awkwardly. “Poor old gel, they’ve tired you out. Had nothing to eat since you left here, I’ll warrant. Put up your tootsies and I’ll pull off your shoes; then I’ll order some supper for you.”

“I couldn’t eat anything.”

The room was in darkness and the window wide. In the street children were screaming and playing. A mother, standing on her doorstep, called to her truants through the dusk—— Oh, for a gust of silence—a desert of sound without footsteps; Jehane felt that her life was trespassed on, jostled, undignified. Through the cramped suburb of red-brick villas crept the summer night, like a shameful woman footsore and clad in lavender. Red-brick villas! They were so similar that, if you shook them up in a gigantic hat and set them out afresh, the streets would look in no way different. They were all built in the same style. The mortar had fallen out in the same places. The front gardens were of equal dimensions. They had no individuality. If anyone attempted to be original in the color of her paint or the shape of her curtains, next day she was copied.

With the stale odor of tobacco mingled the sweet fragrance of June flowers. She had only to close her eyes and she was back in Oxford—Oxford which she had exchanged for this rash experiment. She wondered, had she been more patient, would something more delightful have happened. The sameness of economy had worn out her strength and its prospect appalled her.—If Ocky could contrive her escape, even at this late hour, what right had Barrington to prevent him?

He had gone to fetch her slippers—that at least was kind and thoughtful. She treated him with spite. She shrank from the familiarity of his touch. She hated herself for it; and yet she eked out the seconds of her respite from him.

A lamp-lighter shuffled by the garden railings; at his magic, primrose pools weltered up in the dusk.—This business of marriage—had she been less hasty, she might have done better for herself. Oh well, the wisdom which follows the event …

Footsteps on the stairs! As he knelt to put on her slippers, she conquered her revulsion and let her hand rest on his head. He started, surprised: it was long since she had shown him affection. His voice was shaky when he addressed her.

“Now you’re better, old dear. More rested, aren’t you?” She held him at arm’s length, her palms flat against his breast. In the darkness she felt the pleading in his eyes. “Oh, Ocky, you’ll do it this time, won’t you?”

“Do what, Duchess?”

“Don’t call me Duchess; just for once be serious.”

“I am serious, darling. What is it?”

“D’you remember years ago, when you asked me to marry you? D’you remember what you said?”

“Might, if you told me. Was I more than ordinarily foolish?”

“You said, ‘I need your strength. With you I could be a man.’ ”

“I’d clean forgotten. Funny way of proposin’—eh?”

“It wasn’t funny. That was just what you needed—a woman’s strength. I’ve tried so hard. But I’ve sometimes thought——”

“Go on, old lady.”

“I’ve sometimes thought we never ought to have married.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t you find me good enough? Come Jehane, I’ve not been a bad sort, now have I?”

“I’m accusing myself. I’ve tried to help you in wrong ways. I’ve been angry and sharp and nervous. You’ve come home and attempted to kiss me, and I’ve driven you out with my temper. And I don’t want to do it any more, and yet——”

“You’re upset.”

“No, I’m not. I’m speaking the truth. I’ve been a bad wife and I had to tell you.”

“ ’Pon my word, can’t see how you make that out. You’ve given me your money to invest through Wagstaff, so he might think I had capital. And you’ve given me children, and——”

“It isn’t money that counts. It isn’t even children. Heaps of women whose husbands beat them bear them children. It’s that I haven’t trusted you sufficiently. I haven’t loved you.”

“I’ve not complained, so I don’t see—— But what’s put all this into your head?”

“D’you want to know? Seeing Billy and Nan together. They’re so different—you can feel it. They’re really married, while we—we just live together.”

Her voice broke. He put his arms about her, but even then she withdrew herself from him.

“Just live together! And isn’t that marriage? Whether you’re cross or kind to me, Jehane, I’d rather just live with you than be married to any other woman.”

“That’s the worst of it—I know you would. And I nag at you and I shall go on doing it. I feel I shall—and I do so want to do better.”

“Won’t money make a difference? That’s what’s the matter with us, Jehane; we’ve not had money.”

She placed her arms about his neck. “And that’s what I started to say, Ocky. You’ll do it this time, won’t you?”

“Make money? Rather. I should think so. Was talking to Playfair only this morning and he—— But look here, what makes you ask that? You’ll take all the stuffing out of me if you begin to doubt. Who’s been saying anything?”

“It isn’t what they said.”

He lit his pipe and crossed over to the window. In the darkness his outlined figure looked strangely round-shouldered and ineffectual. Her heart sank and her hope became desperate. His voice reached her blustering and muffled. She did wish he would remove his pipe when he spoke to her.

“I know. I know. Confound him! He’s been throwing cold water on my plans as usual. Wants to see me, does he? Well, if he wants badly enough to cross London, Ocky Waffles is his man. I shan’t go to him. That’s certain.”

Jehane strove to believe that his opposition to Barrington was a token of new strength.

Four days later a note arrived. She was tempted to open it, but it was addressed to her husband. Directly he came in she placed it in his hands.

“Read it aloud. What does he say?”

She watched Ocky’s face and saw how it faltered; then he hid the expression behind a mask of cynicism.

“If you won’t read it to me, let me read it myself.”

He crumpled it into his pocket hurriedly, as though he feared that she would snatch it from him. When all was safe, he turned toward the mantel-shelf, hunting for a match.

“Why did you do that?”

“It was addressed to me, wasn’t it? Barrington don’t let his wife read his letters, I’ll bet. Neither do I; I’m not a lawyer’s clerk in an office any longer—I’m going to be a big man.”

“But what did he say?”

Forced to answer, Ocky became reproachful. “Duchess, you’re suspecting me again—you remember what you promised the other night. He says he wants to see me—thinks there may be something in my plan. Daresay, he’ll offer to put money into it. You may bet, this little boy won’t let him. Of course on the surface he advises caution.”

“If that’s all, why can’t you let me read his letter?”

“Because if I did, I’d be acting as though you didn’t trust me. You could have read it with pleasure, if you hadn’t made such a fuss.”

Jehane knew his weak obstinacy of old and gave up the contest. “You won’t see him, of course—unless he comes to the house.”

“Don’t know about that.”

“But you were so emphatic.”

“I can change my mind, can’t I? His letter puts a different complexion on it.”

“But, Ocky, Barrington isn’t two-faced. He doesn’t say one thing to me and another thing to you. He may be awkward, but he isn’t underhand. If he’s in favor of your schemes now, he must have heard something that’s changed him.”

“Not a doubt of it. Very soon a good many people who’ve thought me small beer’ll hear something.”

“But you’ve not answered my question. Where are you going to see him?”

“Oh, maybe at his office.”

Whistling, with feigned cheerfulness, he strolled out. As she watched him slouch down the road, her fingers itched to correct the angle of his hat.

That night she searched his pockets and found the letter. It read, “Mr. Wagstaff has told me the truth. You must meet me at my place of business at twelve to-morrow.”

It was capable of the construction her husband had put on it; it was capable of many others.

Feeling through the coat next morning, searching for his tobacco-pouch, Ocky was shrewd enough to notice that the letter was in its envelope. Such neatness was not his habit. When he came back in the evening from seeing Barrington and Jehane enquired what he had been doing, he handed her the letter with generous frankness.

“You can read it now. I wanted to be sure before I told you. I was right. Barrington’s been talking to Wagstaif and has heard all about it. Oh yes, I can tell you, he’s a very different Barrington.”

“How?”

“He’s discovered that Ocky Waffles Esquire is a person to be respected.”

She scorned herself for her mean suspicions. He deserved an atonement. “Ocky, darling, I’m so glad.”

As her arms went about him, he patted her on the back. “That’s all right, old Duchess. You’ll believe in me now—eh?”

She lifted her face from his shoulder. It was tear-stained with penitence. “God knows, I’ve always tried to, Ocky.”

He must go her one better in generosity. Having deceived her, he could afford to be magnanimous.

“You’ve succeeded, old dear. You’ve given me your strength and made a man of me. I’m your doing.”