Payment Deferred

not tell her anything, and she was not much good at guessing. It was a little bit of a pity that Will said so little, for he could talk so nicely when he was in the mood. But, there, you can’t have everything. And Will was such a dear all the time. And just now he looked such a baby, such a nice little baby. She did wish she could take him in her arms just for a moment or two, the way she used to hold John, and Winnie too, when they were little. They weren’t such babies now, and tried to get on without their mother, and she felt a little bit lonely sometimes. When Will wasn’t worried by things she could still love him like that, though. It was a pity that he was worried such a lot nowadays. But now that Jim had done something for him it would be all right perhaps. She would buy some new nightdresses, like those in the windows in Rye Lane, very warm and nice, but looking quite nice, too, with nearly real lace on the edges of the sleeves. Then perhaps⁠—but here the alarm on the table at her side went off, and she had to stop thinking.

The sudden noise brought her husband to a sitting-up position in an instant. He was still grasping the sheets, and his erect hair made him look so like a frightened baby that Mrs. Marble laughed. He glared and blinked at her uncomprehendingly for a while.

“W⁠—what is it?” he demanded.

To Mrs. Marble, mentally constituted as she was, no strange mood came amiss, or seemed strange to her.

“It’s just the clock, dear,” she said, “half-past seven.”

“The clock?” said Mr. Marble. “I thought⁠—I was dreaming. Just the clock?”

He still muttered to himself as he snuggled down into the bed again, with his face hidden by the pillows. Annie had never known him mutter to himself before, but he was still muttering and mumbling to himself as she began to dress. Then suddenly he stopped muttering, and sat upright again in the bed.

“By God!” he said. “I wasn’t dreaming.”

He threw off the bedclothes and climbed stiffly out of the bed. He looked like a pathetic little boy in his striped blue and white pyjamas as he hobbled across the room, to where his clothes were piled untidily on a chair. He tumbled some of these on the floor as he seized his coat, and he plunged his hand into the breast-pocket. Annie could not see what he found there, but apparently it confirmed his suspicions. He stared vacantly across the room for several seconds, the coat dangling from his hands.

“No,” he repeated, “I wasn’t dreaming.”

He hobbled stiffly but feverishly back across the room and thrust his feet into his carpet slippers, and then hurried out of the room. Annie, amazed, heard him enter Winnie’s bedroom next door. Then she heard him pull up the blind there, while Winnie sleepily inquired what was the matter, unanswered. Annie simply did not understand it. It was the first time she could ever remember his getting out of bed before breakfast was ready. But she could not wait to reflect on the matter. She huddled on the rest of her clothes and hastened downstairs to look after breakfast.

There was no end to the surprises of that day. To begin with, Mr. Marble came down in his Sunday clothes of neat blue serge, instead of the dilapidated suit which he usually wore to business, and he only replied to Annie’s innocent and inevitable remark on this strange phenomenon with a scowl. He had not come straight down into the dining-room, as was his wont, either. Instead, he had gone into the tiny and seldom entered sitting-room at the back, and Annie, hastening in duty bound to see what he wanted, found him staring out of the window at the little patch of muddy backyard beyond. It was the same view as he must have seen when he went so surprisingly into Winnie’s bedroom. He could see it at any time when he was home, and he must have seen it several hundred, but for all that he was peering through the window at the muddy bed, flowerless as ever, with an intentness that even Annie noticed. It was extraordinary. It was true that by getting up as soon as she had done he was a quarter of an hour ahead of his usual time, yet even that was no reason for his wasting a good five minutes after his breakfast out in the yard wandering aimlessly up and down as though he was looking for something. Yet even Annie could see that he was relieved not to find anything.

During breakfast there was nothing unusual. Mr. Marble ate little, but that was his way, and he said less, but no one ever said anything at breakfast at 53 Malcolm Road. John was deep in homework he had to prepare for school, and Winnie sewed a button on her glove in the interval of eating porridge. But after breakfast, while Mrs. Marble was in the passage with her husband helping him on with his coat, he pulled from his pocket, loose, as though he had laid them there ready, a small roll of Treasury notes.

“Here,” he said, “take these, and for God’s sake go and pay Evans off this morning. And we aren’t going to deal with him any more. Get what you want from Richards’ in the future. There’s enough there for Evans’ bill and a bit over.”

Annie took the notes thankfully.

“Oh, I am so glad, dear,” she said. “So Jim did do something for you after all?”

“Eh?” said Mr. Marble suddenly, and she shrank back as she caught sight of the expression on his face. “What do you mean?” he said.

“Nothing, dear, except that. Why⁠—what⁠—?”

But Mr. Marble had snatched open the door and was striding off. He was muttering again.

Truly, Annie had much to think about as she began her daily