He had hardly opened his mouth from the moment he had entered the dining-room until he left it. Talk about arms and legs; he could have been a wood louse, and he felt sure he had appeared just about as much at home too at that table as one might have done. Nor had it helped matters that she had been quiet an’ all. She usually kept the conversation going, even giving herself the answers, and now here they were and the game had come to an end, the cards were face up.
He felt sorry. In so many different ways he felt sorry, but most of all he knew that at this moment he was feeling sorry for her because he could see from her face, and her attitude, that she, too, was in a bit of a spot, and he was wishing, sincerely wishing that it could have been possible for him to help her out of it, when she spoke.
Sitting perfectly still, staring straight ahead as if she were concentrating on the picture of her grandfather above the mantelpiece, she said, I . . . I really don’t know how to begin, but this thing must be brought into the open. You . . . you are aware of that as much as I am, aren’t you?’ It was some seconds before she turned her head towards him, and now such were his feelings of pity that he couldn’t hold her gaze. He looked down on his hands, as she herself had done earlier and, like hers, his fingers rubbed against each other.
She was speaking again, softly now, her voice scarcely above a whisper. ‘I am putting you in a very embarrassing situation. I’m aware of that. Even if your feelings were such that you wanted to put a certain question to me, you wouldn’t under the circumstances have the courage to do so, but let me tell you one thing immediately. I know that you have no wish to put that question to me. If you agree to what I am going to ask of you, I won’t be under the illusion it is through any personal attraction, but that it will be for what my offer can bring to you in the way of advantages.’
His head was up now. ‘I don’t want advantages that way.’
‘Thank you at least for that.’ As she made a deep obeisance with her head towards him, he put in quickly, ‘Don’t get me wrong. What I meant was—’ He shook his head, bit hard down on his lip as he found it impossible to explain what he meant, and she said, ‘I know what you meant, but . . . but you haven’t yet heard my proposition.’
She turned her face away and once again stared at the picture as she went on, ‘Suppose I were to ask you to marry me, you would . . . you would, on the face of it I know, refuse, forgoing all the advantages that would go with such a suggestion, but suppose I were to say to you that this would be no ordinary marriage, that I . . . I would expect nothing from you that an ordinary wife would from her husband. You could have your own apartments, all I would ask for is . . . is your companionship, and your presence in this house, of which . . . of which you would be the master.’ She again turned her face towards him.
He was sitting bolt upright in the chair now; his eyes were wide and his mouth slightly open. He said under his breath, ‘That would be the poor end of the stick for you, wouldn’t it?’
‘Poor end of the stick?’ She gave a short laugh. ‘Well, if I would be quite satisfied with the poor end of the stick, shouldn’t that be enough for you?’
He shook his head. ‘No! No! It wouldn’t be right, for as I see it you wouldn’t be gettin’ any more out of me than you do now . . . . So why not let things be as they are?’
There now came upon them an embarrassing silence, before she said, ‘Because I need companionship, male companionship. Not just anyone, someone, an individual, someone whom I consider special, and . . . and I chose you. What is more, I feel I know you, I know you very well. I know that you like this house, you like this way of living, I know that you could learn to appreciate finer things. Not that I dislike the roughness in you; no, it is part of your attraction, your bumptiousness, your arrogance. It is more difficult to be arrogant when you have nothing to be arrogant about than when you have something.’
His face took on its blank look. This was the kind of clever talk that maddened him, and he had no way of hitting back except by using the arrogance she was on about. He said gruffly, ‘You seem to think you know a lot about me, everything in fact.’
‘No, not everything, but quite a bit. I’ve always given myself the credit of being able to read character. I know a lot of things about a lot of people, especially in this town, and I know what a good many of them are saying at this very moment—and about us.’
‘About us?’
‘Oh yes, yes, about us. Don’t you know that we’re being talked about? Don’t you know they’re saying—’ she now dropped into the local inflexion which patterned the speech of even many of the better-off of the townsfolk —“What d’you think, eh? Kean’s daughter and the rent collector. And her five years older than him and as plain as a pikestaff. She’s brazen, that’s what she is, she’s buying him. And, of course, he’s willing to be bought. He’s no fool, who would turn down that chance? She should be ashamed of herself though, using her money as bait. You can’t blame the fellow. And you know, this didn’t start the day, or yesterday; they were going at it when his wife was alive”? . . . That’s what they’re saying.’
His face was burning, the colour suffusing it was almost scarlet.
‘Oh, please don’t get upset about it; you must have been aware that our association would cause a minor scandal?’
‘I wasn’t!’ His answer was vehement. If . . . if I’d thought they’d been saying that I . . . I wouldn’t have gone on. I . . . I was your manager. Anyway, if you knew this, why didn’t you put a stop to it? Why did you let it go on?’
‘Oh . . . huh! Why? Well, to tell you the truth, it made me all the more determined to go on. I don’t care a fig for their chatter. What are they after all, the majority of them? Braggarts, strutting little nonentities, men who have clawed their way up over the dead bodies of miners, or of their factory workers. Oh, there are a good many hypocrites in this town. I could reel them off, sanctimonious individuals, leading double lives. You know, you’d think Newcastle was at the other end of the world, and it is for some of them, keeping their second homes . . . It is very strange you know but women talk to me, they confide in me; perhaps it’s because to them I’m unfeminine. But anyway—’ she tossed her head to the side—‘I have no room to speak, at least on the point of clawing one’s way up, for what did my father do for anyone except himself? And for that matter what have I done but talk? But this is where you come in. I have thought that with you I might begin to do things for other people. I—’ her voice dropped—‘I might become so at peace with myself that I could turn my thoughts on to the needs of others, and there are many in need in this town. And you know that better than I do, because you have been on that side of the wall. You have had to say “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir,” and of course—’ she nodded dt him—‘ “Yes, miss,” and “No, miss,” and it’s only recently and only through you that I have realized how people such as you, in your position, must feel.’
She now rose from the couch abruptly and, going to the mantelpiece, she put her hands on it and looked down into the fire as she muttered, ‘I am not saying this in order to make the future appear more attractive. If . . . if closer association with me would be intolerable to you, very well, you have only to say so.’
‘And what if I did, what then?’ The question was quiet, soft, and her answer equally so. ‘I don’t know, because . . . because I haven’t allowed myself to look into the future and face the desolation there.’
As he stared up at her he thought, She’s remarkable. By aye, she’s a remarkable woman. He had never imagined anyone talking as frankly as she had done; no man would ever have been as honest. He said softly, ‘Will you give me time to think it over?’
‘
The word was barked and it brought him to his feet as if it had been the crack of a gun. He watched her march down the room, then back again towards him. At the head of the couch she stopped, and he saw her fingers dig into the upholstery as she said tersely, ‘It must be now, yes or no. I . . . I cannot go on in uncertainty. I . . . I’m not asking anything from you but to come into this house and stay with me as a . . . a friend, a companion. You don’t believe it now, but you’ll find out there’s more lasting happiness stems from friendship than has ever done from love. I know you don’t love me, couldn’t love me, and never will . . . No! No! Don’t protest.’ She lifted her hand. ‘Let us start from the beginning being honest. When you lost your wife I knew that you must have loved her deeply, and that kind of love only happens once, but there are other emotions comparable with love. A man can have them towards a woman and be happy. That can also apply to a woman, although’—She swallowed deeply in her throat here before ending, ‘In most cases she needs to love even if she’s not loved in return.’
God, he was hot, sweating. What could he say? What could he do? Strangely, he knew what he had the desire to do, and it was scattering to the winds all his previous decisions, for at this moment he wanted to go behind that couch and put his arms about her, comfort her. Just that, comfort her. Nothing else, just comfort her.
