It had looked as if Philip were going to plunge into an explanation,
as if they were going to have it out together at last. They had drawn
away from the others and were standing near the fire, intent upon one
another. They ought to have begun as soon as that curious talk, which
had pretended to be a mere game round the table, had come to an end.
Indeed, their eyes had begun, Margaret told herself, and then admitted
that it was mean of her to have left the actual cold plunge into talk
to Philip. Poor Philip was so dreadfully handicapped. If he wasn’t too
proud to talk to her properly—and she was sure the night had withered
away all but the merest husk of pride in both of them—he was still shy.
Why had she stupidly waited and then squandered the precious moments in
chatter. No, it wasn’t really chatter, nothing they said now could be
called that, but it wasn’t the talk they wanted. Their eyes condemned
it. Eyes were doing that everywhere, watching in despair the world
being chattered away.
Then it had seemed as if he were about to begin. He had tightened his
lips for a moment and that familiar little frown had appeared. How
well she knew that look! There had been times too—and they weren’t
pleasant to think about now—when she had hated it, had turned away
and had allowed other faces (Murrell smiling down at her, the sickly
fool!—how could she have been so silly!) to come flashing into her
mind. The little speech that had followed that look on his face had
seemed to confirm her judgment. He had said, very gravely: ‘Did you
understand what I meant when I was talking at the table, Margaret? It
was important, you know—I mean important for _us_.’
There was everything in that plural. Of course she had understood.
As if she didn’t know him, know every twist and turn of his mind, so
anxious, blundering, honest, yes, gloriously honest! She had waited a
moment before replying, but only to pick out the right words so that
she could get the two of them really launched. And then, before she had
spoken a word, it had happened. The lights had gone out. It was
as if the house couldn’t leave them alone. She was just finding her
feet in it, that queer experience in that horrible room with Miss Femm
was just beginning to look like a mere attack of nerves, everything
was settling down into decency and friendliness, and now the light was
gone. At first they seemed to be in total darkness, but it was soon
partly dispelled by the dull glow from the fire. Now she stood among
shadows in a faintly crimsoned cavern.
The fuss that followed was rather welcome; it did at least keep the
house at bay. The men began shouting to one another about fusing and
short circuiting and accumulators. Philip, who knew all about these
things, offered to try and make the lights work again, but Mr. Femm
seemed to think it was hopeless. Margaret didn’t listen very carefully,
being content that their loud, cheerful voices filled the darkness. But
when Sir William struck a match and held it up and there was talk of
candles, she remembered the one she had brought back with her from Miss
Femm’s room.
They lit this candle and put it on the table, and then they all drew
a little closer and looked down on its tiny wavering flame. At this
moment, Miss Femm marched in upon them, carrying another lighted
candle.
‘You’ve got one, have you,’ she yelled at them. ‘Well, look at it. It’s
guttering. There’s a draught.’ She looked round the room. ‘The door’s
wide open.’ She went over and closed it with a bang. Then she returned
to the table, put down her candlestick, and let her little button eyes
run from one to the other of them.
‘Look here,’ cried Sir William, heartily, ‘isn’t there anything else we
could have, a lamp or something? Not much of a light this.’
‘What’s that?’ Miss Femm screamed, looking at her brother. He explained
in his curious hissing voice that always contrived to reach her ears.
Meanwhile, Margaret seemed to hear a faint knocking, but as no one else
appeared to hear it, she thought she must be mistaken. Then Miss Femm’s
voice drove all thought of it from her head. You couldn’t think of
anything else the moment that woman opened her mouth.
‘Let them have the big lamp then,’ she was saying. Miss Femm always
talked about them to her brother as if they weren’t there. ‘There’s
oil in it. We used it the last time the lights went out. We must
have some light down here, and not just to please them either. There’s
Morgan, remember. Go and get the big lamp, Horace. You know the one.’
He stared at her, his face an edge of bone in the candle-light. Then
after a few moments’ hesitation he stammered: ‘Yes, I—I think so. I
cannot remember where it is though. You get it, Rebecca.’
‘Not I!’ she cried. ‘Too big for me. And if you don’t know where
it is, I’ll tell you; though you know as well as I do. It’s on the
little table on the top landing.’ Her voice rose to a scream of savage
derision. ‘You know where the top landing is, don’t you? You’ve heard
of it, I dare say. You can perhaps believe there’s a top landing, even
though you do believe so little. Well, it’s up there, next to the roof.’
It was strange that Mr. Femm should seem so agitated. It wasn’t the
mere screaming that was upsetting him; he frowned his resentment at
that; yet he was still hesitant and disturbed. ‘I remember it now. Yes,
the big lamp. It is very heavy, too heavy for me.’ He shook his head.
‘I couldn’t carry it down all those stairs.’
‘You mean you’re afraid to go up there alone,’ she screeched,
pointing a finger at him. ‘Well, I’m not going up, I’ve enough to do.
You go with him.’ And the finger was sharply turned until it pointed at
Philip.
Margaret jumped and felt like crying out that Philip shouldn’t go,
but then suddenly realised she would be making a fool of herself. Why
shouldn’t he go? Yet she was half alarmed, half annoyed, when he nodded
across at Mr. Femm. ‘Yes, I’ll go with you, of course, and help to get
it down.’
‘Get it myself, if you like,’ Sir William put in, looking from one to
the other.
Philip grinned at him. ‘No; I’ve been chosen, and I’ll go. We’d better
have one of these candles, hadn’t we?’ He took up a candlestick, gave
a smiling glance at Margaret, and moved a few paces forward. Mr. Femm
joined him at the foot of the stairs, was given the candle, and then
slowly led the way up. The others stared at them in silence, and it
was not until both the men themselves and their jigging shadows had
disappeared that anybody turned away or spoke.
‘I want this,’ cried Miss Femm, laying a hand on the remaining candle.
Margaret exclaimed in protest against being left in the dark for
even a moment. Philip’s queer little exit had somehow left her shaken,
and now she regarded Miss Femm with positive hatred.
‘Must leave us a light, you know,’ Sir William shouted. And he gave
Margaret a friendly glance, as if to suggest that he knew what she
was feeling, a glance for which Margaret, who hadn’t expected it,
was instantly grateful. ‘If you’re going,’ he went on, bellowing
cheerfully, ‘you must leave us this. Can’t sit in the dark.’
In reply to this, Miss Femm, surprisingly enough, produced from the
grey fat folds of her face a kind of smile. ‘It would do you good to
sit in the dark,’ she told him, ‘but I’ll see. I can’t go about in the
dark and I’ll have to find another for myself.’ She fumbled in the
bottom of the candlestick and found there an old candle-end, which she
lit and held before her as she waddled away to the door that led into
the corridor. The other two watched her for a moment and then settled
themselves in front of the fire.
‘I think I’ll try a cigarette,’ said Sir William, producing his case.
‘Will you have one?’
She didn’t really want to smoke, but she took one because it
would help her to feel easy and companionable. Their being left alone
together and the fire and the candle-light all combined to suggest,
quite definitely if not strongly, a certain intimacy. You felt you
ought to begin talking of something very personal and important almost
at once.
Sir William blew out a column of smoke, leaned back in his chair,
stretched out his legs, looked about him, and then remarked easily:
‘Not very cheerful, is it? What’s become of Gladys and that other chap,
Penderel? Funny I never missed ’em. Are they wandering about the house
somewhere?’
She replied that she wasn’t sure. They might have gone out. He doesn’t
seem to be bothering much about his Gladys, she told herself. What a
queer relationship! She felt suddenly curious about it, about him too,
and stared across at his heavy face.
‘We’re a bit dictatorial with these people, when you come to think of
it,’ he mused. ‘Don’t know that I’d like it. Though we’ve every excuse,
of course.’
‘I know. If they were ordinary sort of people, I should say we were
behaving very badly. But they’re so queer, aren’t they?’ And then
she suddenly thought how horrible it would be if he stared at her in
surprise and blandly contradicted her. It would only need a touch like
that, she felt, to throw her off her balance.
He only smiled, however, and there was comfort in his hearty rejoinder,
for there seemed to be a whole sensible world behind it. ‘A bit mad, I
should say,’ he replied. ‘Both of ’em. They get like that, living in
these places, miles from anywhere. Just imagine year after year, with
many and many a night like this, and hardly seeing anybody. I know,
because my own part of the world’s a bit like this.’
She took the cigarette out of her mouth and looked her astonishment.
‘Why, I see you against a background of telephones and cars and express
trains and offices and factories. Nothing like this.’
‘Now, yes. But not always. I came originally from a little village
in East Lancashire on the edge of the moors. A few miles away from
where I used to live it’s as wild as this, and you get some queer
folk—people—up there.’ She seemed to hear the flat Lancashire accent
creeping back into his voice. ‘I still go back sometimes. They
tell me what they think of me up there. I’ve a brother and sister there
yet, living in the same old way.’
She didn’t know anything about these people, but she remembered certain
Scots novels. ‘They don’t make a fuss of you, I suppose, because you’re
now an important person and have made a lot of money?’
He laughed. ‘Well, this is the way it works. They respect the money but
not me. They care about money up there, know what it’s worth, and don’t
pretend to despise it. Now in other places, particularly in the South
of England, they pretend they don’t care about money and they also
pretend to think a lot about me, who happen to have plenty. The other’s
the best way, though I don’t think so when I’m there and they’re
putting me through it.’
Margaret couldn’t resist it, he seemed so willing, almost anxious, to
be communicative. ‘How did you come to make such a lot of money? I
mean, how did you begin?’
He looked across at her with thick, raised brows. ‘That’s a queer
question.’
‘I’m sorry, it’s rather a rude question, I know. But it’s a
question I’ve always wanted to ask someone like you.’
‘Oh, I’m not offended, don’t think that,’ he cried, leaning forward
and then settling himself more comfortably in his chair. ‘It was
queer because I happened to be thinking about the very same thing.’
He stopped and looked with half-closed eyes at the fire. Margaret,
released from her curiosity for a moment, wondered what Philip was
doing. He was a long time returning from that mysterious top landing.
But was he though? No, he had only been gone a few minutes. She
returned with a rush to her companion, who had suddenly lifted his head
and was now looking across at her. ‘Would you really like to know?’ he
enquired.
She nodded. ‘Yes, I’m really curious.’ If it was to be a tale of
high finance, Philip would be back before it had hardly got under
way. But she couldn’t help feeling that it was going to be something
more personal, for even in that dim light she seemed to recognise on
his face that plunging look which men put on when they were about to
unburden themselves.
‘Unless you’re very lucky,’ he began, ‘you only make money by wanting
to make it, wanting hard all the time, not bothering about a lot
of other things. And there’s usually got to be something to start you
off, to give you the first sharp kick. After you’ve got really started,
brought off a few deals and begun to live in the atmosphere of big
money, the game gets hold of you and you don’t want any inducement to
go on playing—d’you follow me? It’s the first push that’s so hard, when
you’re still going round with your cap in your hand. It’s my experience
there’s always something keeps a man going through that, puts an edge
on him and starts him cutting, and it may be some quite little thing. A
man I knew, a Lancashire man too, was an easy-going youngster, thought
more about cricket than his business, until one day, having to see the
head of a firm, he was kept waiting two hours, sitting there in the
general office with the clerks cocking an eye at him every ten minutes.
He’s told me this himself. “All right,” he said to himself, “I’ll show
you.” He walked out when the two hours were up, and that turned him,
gave him an edge. He did show ’em, too. I don’t say, of course, that
every man who says something like that to himself brings it off, but
some do. Well, it was the same with me.’
‘What was it then that made you so ambitious?’ And Margaret looked
at him speculatively.
‘It was a cotton frock,’ he said quietly.
She stared and hastily smothered a laugh; obviously he was in grim
earnest. He reminded her of a big brooding schoolboy. ‘Tell me what
happened,’ she said softly.
‘All right, I will, though I don’t know why I should,’ he remarked.
Then he changed his tone. ‘Just after I left school, I got a job in a
cotton office in Manchester. I met a girl when I was twenty and very
soon we were engaged. Couldn’t get married for a year or two because
I hadn’t enough to do it on. At last they told me to leave my desk
and start going on ’Change, in other words promoted me and gave me
a good rise. That was enough for us, we got married. We hadn’t much
money, but what we had gave us a very good time. I was in love and very
happy then. I wanted to do well at my job and kept my nose down to
it during working hours, but forgot all about it at night and at the
week-end. Still, I wanted to get on, and my wife encouraged me. Well,
I was promoted again, this time to the London office, with more
responsible work and another rise. We were excited about that, I can
tell you. I can see us now, getting all our things packed—not that that
took us long—ready for the great move. We found a little flat, very
cheap, near Swiss Cottage, and Lucy—my wife—slaved away cleaning it up
and I helped her when I came home at night, and we enjoyed ourselves
I can tell you, though we’d no friends and nobody hardly spoke to us
for months. But it was London and we felt we were getting on and we
were happy together. We managed to spread the money out, and we’d have
dinner in Soho once or twice a week and go to the theatre, in the pit.
It was a bit lonely for her, but she didn’t mind it at first. We’d soon
find our feet, move up in fact. I bought a dress-suit, my first.’ He
stopped, stared at her, and cleared his throat. ‘I don’t suppose you
want to hear all this. Don’t know why I’m bothering you with it.’
‘Go on, go on. I want to hear it,’ she told him.
‘Well, I’ll make it as short as I can,’ he went on. ‘One of the
directors gave a party, and we were invited. This was the great event.
We felt everything was beginning for us. They were taking us up.
You can just hear us talking it over, Lucy all nervous and excited,
hoping to make a good impression for my sake. Well, I put on my
dress-suit and she made herself as pretty as a picture. During the
evening I didn’t see much of her. I was among the men most of the time,
talking business, making the most of the opportunity. Once or twice I
looked across and gave her a smile and she smiled back, but I thought
she looked a bit forlorn. I was full of it all going home, but she was
very quiet, tired I thought. Then when we got to bed I pretended to
go to sleep, but I heard her crying. When I asked her what was wrong,
she said she was tired, got a headache. As a matter of fact she hadn’t
been feeling too well, so I left it at that. But I noticed she never
mentioned that party. There was another a month or two afterwards, but
she wouldn’t go. She’d a good excuse then because by that time she
was really ill. Within a year she was dead. But I found out what was
the matter that night. She let it slip. She’d only had a cheap cotton
frock on (it looked pretty enough to me, and I knew a bit about dress
goods) and the other women there had let her know it. She was a little
provincial nobody in a cotton frock and they didn’t forget to let
her see it. She’d had a wretched evening, had felt snubs and sneers in
the air all the time. It kept coming out later, when she was weak, half
delirious. I remember sitting by her bedside....’ He stopped and looked
down into the fire.
Margaret waited, afraid of marching briskly into that reverie of his.
At last she moved a little in her chair and he looked up. There was
just light enough for her to see his face tightening.
‘That did it for me,’ he cried. ‘Up to then I’d been the nice honest
decent little servant of the Company. Well, that was finished. They
couldn’t give a poor little nobody in a cotton frock, all eyes and
smiles and nervousness, a friendly word or look, couldn’t they! I told
myself I’d put them all in rags. I was mad, but it put an edge on me,
strung me up as if I was a fiddle-string. Going home to that empty
little flat night after night during the first year, I swore to myself
I’d spend the rest of my life beggaring every woman who’d been to that
party. Couldn’t do it, of course, but I did what I could. Before I’d
done, I took a lot of cotton away from some of those fellows and
piled it on the backs of their women. Within three years I’d wrecked
that company and walked over to its biggest competitor. That started
me. You wouldn’t think I was sentimental, would you? But that began it.
And it wasn’t hard because there was nothing for me to do but to make
money. I didn’t even want to spend it at first, nobody to spend it on,
and didn’t want to enjoy myself or take it easy, not with that cotton
frock stuck in my throat.’
He rose from his chair and kicked a log back into its place on the
fire. Then he stood looking down at her, his massive face very clear in
the candle-light.
‘You’ll hear some tales of me, probably heard ’em already. I’m one of
the rudest of the rude self-made men. I’ve no respect for charming
hostesses, nice ladies whose husbands could do with a bit of capital,
or dainty aristocratic girls who wouldn’t be above marrying a man
twice their age if he happened to have bought a title and owned a few
factories and ships and a newspaper. They’ll tell you that, and they’re
right. I keep my respect for the young men’s wives who turn up in cheap
frocks. I suppose a man’s got to be sentimental about something,
and that’s how it takes me. I’ve slipped many a year’s dress allowance
into an envelope. Queer, isn’t it?’
Margaret murmured something, but she hardly knew what it was, for she
was troubled by a vision of factories and ships and crowded offices,
and against this background there stood out the figure of this
man, no, this huge resentful boy with his oddly commonplace little
romance, someone lost, now smiling, now crying, in a tiny flat, one of
thousands, nearly thirty years ago. She stared at him. He had never
really grown up. Were they all like that, these men who grabbed power,
who wrecked whole countrysides, who sent other men flying all over the
world? Once again she seemed to ache beneath the sudden pressure of
life. It was time Philip returned. Why didn’t he come, bringing the
lamp? She felt lost herself in this queer light. The very look of that
single candle, pointing at the shadows, made her ache.