The Fifteen Streets Page 10

  As he heard the quick, muffled footsteps descending the stairs, he almost sprang back away from her into the centre of the room again, and faced the door. Mary Llewellyn came in smiling, and as he looked at her he wondered at his nerve in daring to come and see this woman. Never before had he come into contact with anyone like her, and he was struck dumb. She seemed to move in a radiance. Did it emanate from the softness of her eyes or from the tenderness of her lips, or from the quick movements of her hands as she spoke? He did not know—he knew only that she was different.

  ‘Hallo, Mr O’Brien.’ Like her eyes, her voice was warm; and a slight catch of huskiness in it added to its charm. ‘You wanted to see me? Come up to the fire and sit down.’

  He followed her, his eyes fixed on the piled coils of her hair, and his inarticulateness was passed over in the process of sitting down.

  He sat, half in the big chair, his cap in his hand, and she sat on the couch, across the hearth from him. She was wearing a blue dress with a dark red belt . . . she was like her room, full of warm, embracing colour.

  ‘I suppose you’ve come to talk about Katie?’ she smiled at him and waited.

  ‘Yes.’ The voice didn’t sound like his own; it was as if he were shouting in a large, empty hall.

  ‘I’m so glad you have, for I should like to know your plans for her . . . Would you like her to become a teacher?’

  ‘Yes.’ Damn! Couldn’t he say anything but yes! She would get the impression he was nothing but a numbskull.

  ‘I’m glad of that. I know what to do now—I’ll speak to the headmistress about her. Even if she only becomes an uncertified teacher, it would be something, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Oh yes.’ Was he a fool altogether? Yes, yes, yes. Why couldn’t he be himself and say something, badly as he might express it?

  There followed a silence, during which their eyes met and held. Hers were the first to drop away, and he felt she was embarrassed by his staring . . . perhaps annoyed. She leant forward and stirred the fire, and he suddenly began to talk—to straighten matters, as he put it to himself.

  ‘I’m a poor envoy.’ He wasn’t sure if this was the right word, but he liked his placing of it; and he went on, ‘There is so much I want to say about Katie, and so much to ask you. There’s nothing I want more in the world than for her to become a teacher, but . . . Well, it’s like this. You can guess how we are . . .’ he substituted the word ‘situated’ for ‘fixed’—‘You can guess how we are situated. It’s no good pretending, is it?’ Without being aware of the transition, he was at his ease, talking frankly as he would have done to someone who knew all there was to know about him. ‘There won’t be any money to help her as far as I can see. If it’s going to mean money, well, I’m afraid . . .’ He lifted his shoulders expressively. ‘If it was left to me and I could earn it I would, but I’m rarely on full time.’ This was coming down to earth with a vengeance, he thought. So much for his coat.

  Mary was leaning back against the couch now, and she too, as she listened to him, was thinking about his coat. Remembering how she had seen him before, she had expected to find him dressed in much the same way. The coat so altered his appearance that she hardly recognised him as the same person; he looked rather handsome. Well, not handsome. There was something too rugged about his face for it to be handsome. Attractive? Yes, he looked very attractive. His eyes, particularly, were nice, especially when he smiled. It was strange what a difference clothes could make, outwardly at any rate. Yet the first time she saw him, she remembered imagining how he might look if he could dress like Gilbert. It seemed odd now that she should have met him the day she refused Gilbert . . . Suddenly she thought, I like him; he’s nice—he’s like Katie in a way.

  She stood up hastily, saying, ‘I haven’t had any tea. Perhaps you’ll have a cup with me, and then we can talk the whole thing out. Excuse me a moment.’

  She gave him no time to refuse, but hurried away; and when she reached the door she turned, saying, ‘Would you care to take off your coat? . . . you’ll feel the benefit of it when you go out; it’s nippy tonight.’

  John stood up, staring down the empty room. This was a contingency for which he hadn’t bargained. Against the coat, he knew his suit looked cheaper and shabbier than ever . . . Well, she was no fool to be taken in by the coat—no doubt she had guessed he had come by it second-hand. He took it off and laid it with his cap over the chair. Then he stood on the hearthrug looking down at his suit, and a determination was born in him: this was the last suit he’d ever get from a tally man. The coat had told him one thing: there were clothes that were made to fit a man. And he’d have them. How? He didn’t know; but have them he would. If one rig-out had to last him a lifetime; he’d be dressed decent for once.

  And she had asked him to stay and have a cup of tea . . . tea with Miss Llewellyn! It was fantastic.

  He ran his finger round the inside of his collar; it felt tight against his neck. He glanced into the mirror over the mantelshelf, and hardly recognized himself; the soft glow of the light seemed to make him look different. Or perhaps it was the collar . . . And that was another thing . . . never again would he wear a muffler at the weekends, and perhaps not at nights either.

  He had just sat down again when she came in with a tray; a silver one, with a teapot and jug on it. As he would have done to relieve his mother from carrying anything, he got up and took it from her. She smiled her thanks, and brought a little table, and set it between the chair and the settee, and he placed the tray on it.

  The maid came in carrying another tray, which Mary took from her, saying, ‘All right, Phyllis, I’ll see to it.’

  With a sense of unreality, John watched her pour out the tea. She had set a little table at his hand and told him to help himself. The bread and butter was so thin he could have put the plateful in his mouth at once. He watched Mary double her piece in two, and followed suit, refusing her offer of jam, for that would mean too much palaver.

  And so, like one in a dream, he took tea with Miss Llewellyn, and listened with only half his mind while she talked of Katie. He was thinking of this room and of her and of the strangeness of the whole thing . . . They were sitting here alone together, having tea, just as if . . .

  He was startled back to the full import of what she was saying by hearing her repeat something he had said weeks ago: ‘A day of high winds and far mastheads, and bonnie lassies.’

  She laughed at his startled expression, and said, ‘Now, when I find phrases like that in Katie’s composition, although I know she’s a clever child, I don’t think she’s that clever. Nor when she writes this: “The morning sky was massed with white clouds, like brakes ready for a day off.”’

  He felt the hot colour flooding up from his neck, and she asked, ‘Have you tried writing these thoughts down and working them into something?’

  ‘Writing them down?’ he repeated. ‘Me? Good Go . . . lord, no.’

  ‘Why not?’ she said. ‘Burns did, and many others. I think you should. I was sorry when I had to make Katie scrap the composition in which she stated that ore on her tongue and sweat in her hair and bleeding nails meant gold on a Saturday and roaming round the market, hemmed in with the smell of tallow and the flapping of skirts.’

  Now his face was scarlet, and he said, ‘I’ll have to be more careful of what I say . . . You see, we go for walks—’ He stopped.

  ‘You should write them up, you know,’ she put in; ‘a lot of what Katie repeats has poetry in it. Why don’t you try?’

  He had been leaning back in the chair, quite at ease. He still leant back, but he was no longer at ease. His face drooped into a sadness, which conveyed itself to his voice, together with reproach and stark frankness as he said, ‘I can’t even speak properly.’

  ‘Oh, please don’t say that!’

  It was Mary’s turn to flush now. She stood up, and taking his cup, refilled it. ‘You don’t speak differently from anyone else. And that has nothing to do with putting your t
houghts to paper.’

  ‘I’ve been told there’s such a thing as grammar.’ There was a touch of bitter sarcasm in his voice.

  ‘Yes, but that comes . . . you learn as you go.’

  He made no reply, and she, too, became silent, furious with herself for being a tactless fool. He had been so at ease, with quite a charming naturalness, and she had to bring up such a suggestion as him starting to write, of all things! But on the other hand, she was perfectly sincere in all she said, for some of the things Katie repeated were surprising in their poetical content. But be careful of what you are about, she warned herself. Don’t put into his head ideas that will make the life he has to lead more obnoxious to him. Remember, you are not talking to Gilbert.

  She glanced at the clock . . . half-past six. She hoped Gilbert wouldn’t put in one of his friendly visits; visits that were, she knew, manoeuvred by her mother.

  John, noting her glance, said rather flatly, ‘Well, I’ll think over what you’ve said. I’d better be going now . . . Saturday night isn’t a very convenient time to call.’

  ‘No, no’—she put out her hand as if to press him back into his chair from the distance—‘you haven’t finished your tea yet, and I’m not going out again. And anyway,’ she laughed in a renewed effort to put him at ease—‘there are many things I want to ask you. Who, for instance, are Mr Bracken and Christine? Oh, Christine’s wonderful!’ She gave an imitation of Katie, closing her eyes and screwing up her face. ‘You see, I get them every morning—while Katie is walking with me to school.’

  John laughed with her. ‘Our Katie’s a chatterer. They are the people who live next door.’

  ‘And Christine has a wonderful house, and cooks wonderful food, and has wonderful clothes . . . Oh, she’s wonderful!’

  John’s laugh rang out, free and unrestrained now—her imitation was so like Katie when describing anyone. ‘I’m afraid Katie thinks a number of people are wonderful. Not that she isn’t right,’ he added hastily, realising that sitting before him was, to Katie, the most wonderful of them all.

  Mary, looking intently at him, wondered if he was in love with this Christine, about whom she heard so much. Katie talked of only two people, John and Christine; before, it was only John . . . Our John said this, Our John said that . . . and the child had managed to convey a picture of someone quite out of the ordinary. Mary knew that the O’Briens were poor; not just clothes-poor, but of the poor who did not always eat well, which was a different and more potent kind of poverty; but the child had made this John emerge as someone untouched by poverty, an independent being, living with yet not of them. Then lately, to this worship was added that of this Christine . . . Christine and John, Christine and John.

  How was it, Mary wondered, that some girls got men like this to love them, big kind men with a sense of humour as he had. At their first meeting, she’d thought he was to be pitied, but now she saw that she was wrong—he was intelligent and entertaining, the latter without making any effort to be so. He was certainly better company than Gilbert, even if he lacked Gilbert’s taste in literature and art . . . or perhaps, because of it. Being a big man, like her father, was he attracted to small women, she wondered. This Christine, according to Katie’s description, was apparently small. So was her own mother, small and helpless. Helpless! The word brought a cloud over Mary’s eyes, for she had come to recognise that beneath her helpless exterior her mother was pure granite; and to live in peace with anyone like her meant submerging oneself entirely. When she was young, her happy, loving nature did not question her mother’s tyranny, and it was easy to accept ‘Mother knows best’. How different her life would have been had she stood against her; for now her art study would have been finished. And who knows where it would have taken her—London—even Paris. Because her mother considered it wicked to draw bodies with no clothes on, she obediently put clothes on them. And again, when her mother said she would never make an artist . . . and anyway, artists weren’t nice people . . . she subdued her natural talent becoming a schoolteacher, not through necessity, but because her father insisted she should have an occupation. But during these last few years had come a change, until now a state of undeclared war existed between her and her mother. The request to have a room of her own began it, and the refusal to be pushed into marriage with Gilbert Culbert, the son of her mother’s old friend, widened the breach. And when, answering some inner urge, she bought the statue, and her mother demanded that it be removed from the house, the breach was further widened.

  Lost in her thoughts, she did not notice that they were sitting in silence. How strange. She could never sit in silence with Gilbert. She lifted her gaze from her hands and found John looking at her, not intently, but rather reflectively. She smiled, and he blinked and roused himself.

  ‘Are you interested in boats?’ she asked. ‘I mean the building of them.’

  ‘Well, I know nothing about the building of them. I only know I get certain feelings when working in them. A feeling of friendliness for some and dislike for others. I suppose it has a lot to do with their cargo . . . and,’ he laughed, ‘the sweat in my hair.’

  She laughed with him and asked, ‘Would you like to see some models my father has made?’

  ‘Yes, I would, very much.’

  ‘Come into his workshop, then.’

  She rose and went down the length of the room, and John followed her towards the green curtains. Before she drew them aside she gently moved the box and the statue. He watched her steady the statue with her hand, and it occurred to him as being strange that the statue no longer looked indecent but rather lovely . . . very like what she would be . . .

  He was red in the face when she looked up at him, and she said hastily, almost apologetically, ‘I came across it in an antique shop in Newcastle. It’s an octoroon. I don’t suppose you know any more than I did what an octoroon is; but, on looking it up, I found that she is the offspring of a quadroon and a white person, and a quadroon is one part negro and three parts white. Sounds very complicated, doesn’t it?’

  They were standing regarding each other now. Her hand was on the curtain and her face was unsmiling, and in her eyes he fancied he detected an appeal. For what exactly, he didn’t know. But he said, ‘I think it’s very beautiful.’ He, too, was unsmiling. And when she answered simply, ‘Thank you,’ it almost appeared as if the compliment had been meant for her. She turned swiftly and opened the french window, and stepped into the conservatory. He followed, going through a door close by and into the workroom.

  It was in darkness, and she said, ‘Just a moment. There are matches here, I’ll light the gas.’

  She gave an impatient exclamation as the box fell from her hand, and when, instinctively, they both stooped to retrieve it, causing them to collide and she to overbalance, his hands naturally were thrust out to steady her, and in the darkness he supported her . . . for one brief second his hands held her arms, and in that second the thing was done—the fuse that might have smouldered and died was fanned.

  When the room was plunged into stark light from the double burner, John was still standing near the door. Mary did not speak for a moment, and when she asked, ‘What do you think of them?’ he moved slowly into the room and began to look round. There were dozens of models of small craft, set in stocks, on the shelves. In amazement, he asked, ‘Your father made all these?’

  ‘Yes. And most of them he’s built full-size and sold. Do you recognise Mary, the tug?’

  It was with genuine astonishment that he exclaimed, ‘Your father’s Llewellyn the boatbuilder then!’

  ‘Yes. Didn’t you know?’

  He shook his head. He had never associated Llewellyn, the boatbuilder, with Miss Llewellyn the teacher. He knew Llewellyn by sight, as most of the dock men did. He had a little boatbuilding yard, tucked away on the side of the river. It still went under the name of Haggart’s Yard, and it was known that Llewellyn worked in it as a lad by the side of his father. But that hadn’t suited young Llewellyn; and
he and his father built a boat on their own and sold it. It was said they built it in their backyard. That was a start, and eventually, when old Haggart died, and his own father too, Llewellyn bought the yard. He was known as a rising man . . . And he was her father!

  With this knowledge, she again assumed to him the unapproachableness of an hour ago. How had he the nerve to come here!

  When she spoke to him, smiling over her shoulder and saying, ‘Come and look at this little yacht, my father hopes to build her some day,’ he went to her; but the ease had left him, and he held the model in his hand without making any comment. Her nearness made him uneasy. He suddenly wanted to get away from her and her politeness . . . she would act like this towards anyone, a beggar on the road, even . . . she was made that way, courteous, easy of manner.

  ‘What do you think of it? You have seen lots of boats, but have you seen anything like her?’

  She was looking up into his straight face, trying to draw him out again, when a voice from the doorway said, ‘Hallo, Mary.’

  They both started at the sound of the quiet, even tone.

  ‘Oh! hallo, Gilbert,’ she said, and after a pause, added, ‘Come in a minute . . . This is Mr O’Brien. Mr O’Brien, Mr Culbert.’

  Neither of the men made the usual gesture to shake hands, but inclined their heads . . . John in an abrupt nod, and Culbert in a more leisurely movement. John knew that he was under Culbert’s scrutiny, and after his first concentrated stare, he did not look at the man but at Mary; for he was asking himself how anyone like her could take up with a fellow like Culbert, a weed of a man, narrow all the way up, right to the pointed head, over which his thin hair was meticulously brushed.

  When Mary led the way back into her room John made straight for the chair over which his coat and cap lay, and she said nothing to delay his departure.