Payment Deferred · Chapter 8 (2/2)

Mrs. Marble’s mind was working, too. That day had seen the arrival of the first of the things she had bought last Saturday⁠—large boxes delivered by carrier, and full of the most delectable things her imagination had ever pictured. She had lingered over them lovingly. There were hats, wonderful hats, which suited her marvellously, although, as she confessed to herself, she did not much care for the fashionable cloche shape with its severely-untrimmed lines. There were jumpers, matronly jumpers, which she realized with amazement looked very well on her although up till then she had only considered jumpers as suitable for young girls. There were boxes and boxes of underclothing, whose price had horrified her at first, until she had taken heart of grace from the knowledge of all the money there was to spend. Naturally, she had not yet received the tailored costume and the coatfrock for which she had been measured by a woman’s tailor who had appeared startlingly in the shop as she finished her other purchases⁠—startlingly, that is to say, to Mrs. Marble, unacquainted with the commission-sharing system of ladies’ shops and with the conveniences of the telephone.

But that costume and the coatfrock would not have been any good to her even if she had had it. Mrs. Marble had indeed roused herself to put on some of the underclothing, priceless things, warm and weightless, costing as much as her husband had earned in a month before all this started happening, but she had not the heart to put on a pair of the thick silk stockings while she had so much housework still to be done, and she wore over the wonderful underclothing her usual draggled housefrock. With the other things arriving shortly she might as well have put on her best frock, but she had not the heart to do that with so much washing-up to be done that evening. Mrs. Marble felt aggrieved. Besides, she was tired, and her back really did hurt.

A day or two ago she had pictured herself sitting at her ease in the evenings, wearing a wonderful frock, with her skin deliciously thrilled by the contact of the silken underclothing. As it was, she wore a shabby frock and there was a bowlful of washing-up clamouring for her attention in the kitchen. It was this that roused her to surprising rebellion⁠—very mild rebellion, but any sort of rebellion was surprising in Mrs. Marble.

“I’ll have Mrs. Summers in during the daytime when you don’t know anything about it,” she said.

The words brought Mr. Marble out of his chair in a panic. That would be worse than the other thing; it would start gossip of a more poisonous sort than ever, and gossip better directed towards the real food for suspicion, for Mrs. Marble would have to tell Mrs. Summers that he did not like having other people about the house. He glared at her with frightful intensity.

“You mustn’t, you mustn’t ever do anything like that,” he said, and his voice was cracked and shrill. His clenched fists shook in his agitation. Mrs. Marble could only stare at him, surprised and speechless.

“You mustn’t do it. Do you hear me?” he shrieked.

His agitation infected his wife, and she fumbled nervously with the sewing on her lap.

“Yes, dear.”

“Yes, dear! Yes, dear! I don’t want any of your ‘yes, dears.’ You must promise me, promise me faithfully, that you won’t ever do that. If ever I find out, I’ll⁠—I’ll⁠—”

Mr. Marble’s high-pitched scream died away as the door swung open. John had come running down as soon as he heard his father’s voice at that hysterical pitch. It was not very long since the last time he had heard it like that, and then he had had to carry his mother up to bed, and she had a bruise on her face.

John stood by the door with the light on his face. Mr. Marble shrank back a little, and his lips wrinkled back from his teeth. He was the rat in the corner once more. Hatred flashed from the father to the son. It was not John’s fault, nor, by that time, was it Mr. Marble’s. For James Medland, he who had come in that memorable evening, nearly a year ago now, was John’s cousin when all was said and done, and there was a considerable family likeness. As John stood by the door he was in the same attitude and in the same light as Medland had been in, that evening, when he had entered the dining-room after Winnie had opened the door to him. No wonder that Mr. Marble hated John, and had hated him ever since he first noticed the likeness, that evening when he had struck his wife.

Father looked at son, son looked at father. The room was all aglare with gilded furniture. The diamond in Mr. Marble’s tiepin winked and glittered as he shrank slowly back before John’s slow and menacing advance. John had come to protect his mother, but the desperate challenge in his father’s attitude had roused him to the limit of his self-control. It was Mrs. Marble who saved the situation. She glanced terror-stricken at her husband’s snarling countenance, and at the wrinkled scowl of her son. In utter fear she flung herself into the breach.

“John, go away,” she said. “Go⁠—quickly⁠—it’s all right.”

John checked himself, and his hands unclenched. Mrs. Marble’s hand was on her heart; for in that same second she had seen what her husband had seen long before, and she had guessed that it was this that had called up that ferocity into his face. She was frightened, and she did not yet know why.

“Go, go, go,” wailed Mrs. Marble, and then, with a supreme effort, “There’s nothing to worry about John. You had better go to bed. Good night, sonny.”

When he had gone, silent, wordless as when he had entered, Mrs. Marble sank into a chair and laid her face on her arms on the gilded table and sobbed and sobbed, heartbroken, while her husband stood morosely beside her, hands in pockets, the gaudy glare of the ornate furniture mocking him, mocking his hopes of the future, mocking his submerged, sensual dreamings of Madame Collins.