Love in Our Time (19 page)

“That is nice of you,” said Mrs. Sneyd. “I shan't ever forget.”

“Just something to look at,” said, Gerald self-depreciatingly.

The platform porter came along slamming doors and Mrs. Sneyd realised that she was about to go. She leant out of the window and kissed Gerald warmly.

“Thank you so much,” she said. “You
and
Alice. You've been splendid. You really have.”

He kissed her back. “Not at all,” he said gallantly. “Least we could do.”

A whistle blew and Mrs. Sneyd sank back in her seat. Then, as the train began to move out, she leant out of the window again arid called to him.

“See you on Tuesday,” she said. “Don't be late.”

“O.K.,” said Gerald.

“We'll be expecting you.”

A trolley stood in his way and when he had walked round it Mrs. Sneyd had already out-distanced him. He stood looking after her as she waved to him; he could see the tiny square of cambric moving excitedly up and down against the drooping folds of black. Then she was lost to sight altogether.

He turned and walked away slowly, looking down at his feet as he walked.

At the back of his mind lurked the suspicion that in a strange foolish fashion Mrs. Sneyd had rather enjoyed herself. Into a life of suffocating tedium this jaunt to town had come as an adventure. It was something that she would be able to look back on for years.

She was a widow, admittedly; but, within her special circle, she was, temporarily at least, also news.

For the first time in his life Mr. Biddle was disappointed in the Order: it had turned down Mrs. Sneyd.

Not that the application had been cursorily dealt with. On the contrary a Sea Lord, two Admirals and a bench of Commodores had given the matter their consideration. But they were unanimously of the opinion that a lapsed Mariner was less than no Mariner at all. Upon occasion. the Order had been known to pay the subscription of one or other of their number who had fallen on evil times—putting your hand in your pocket to help a brother, the Fleet Admiral had said, was one of the privileges of membership. But it was a very different matter being asked to contribute to the upkeep of a widow whose husband in life had thought so little of the Order that he had dropped out of it altogether like a stranger. Indeed, the whole attitude of the Order towards Mr. Sneyd was something like that of a jilted and rather vindictive virgin.

Mr. Biddle sat in the corner of the third-class carriage and considered the point. He considered how he was going to break the news to Mrs. Sneyd. It was something that he hadn't reckoned on. Right up to the Sea Lord's concluding speech he had thought that the Order was going to be big and do the generous thing. And now he had been let down. Telling Mrs. Sneyd that
the Mariners simply washed their hands of her was something that he did not look forward to.

In a sense it was to make up for the uncompromising official attitude of the Order that he was travelling up to Tadford on the day before the funeral. The thought had occurred to him that he might be useful. He remembered very clearly what it had been like in his own home when Alice's aunts had arrived, tearful and self-important, to bury Alice's mother. There had been enough to do and think of then—even with plenty of money in the house to make things easy. He could picture what it must be like for an agitated woman with barely enough to live on to attempt to cope with the verger and the stone-mason, the cemetery and the mutes, the organist and the chaplain. It required such a lot of people to bury one person in a state of civilisation.

When at last he got to Tadford it was not greatly different from what he had been used to. The walls were plastered with the same advertisements which covered the London Underground, and the same multiple stores shone out like ugly and familiar faces. Mr. Biddle asked for Station Approach and was directed towards the other end of the town.

Apparently there were two stations, and the Approach where the Sneyds lived was at the second one. Carrying a suitcase containing his nightclothes and his toilet things and his black, ceremonial tie—he was already dressed in a dark suit—he set out to walk. It was some distance. On the way, he passed the Bon Marché where Mr. Sneyd's business life had been spent; Mr. Biddle remembered what Mr. Sneyd had said about it and guessed how much they must be missing him inside. He also thought, as he caught sight of his reflexion in one of the
plate-glass windows how pleased Mr. Sneyd would have been if only he could have seen him, too.

The thought comforted him, as he walked away. But not for long. The suitcase seemed to have grown very heavy and Station Approach seemed a very long way off. And it was hot; the afternoon—it was about three o'clock—had settled down to a kind of Saharan fierceness. He paused for a moment and undid his waistcoat. At the corner of Corporation Street he loosened his tie as well. Then he carried his hat and kept passing his handkerchief across his forehead. When he finally arrived at number six he was like a dusty and perspiring bagman.

Mrs. Sneyd did not recognise him when she opened the door and Mr. Biddle was too much out of breath to say who he was. They just stood there, both in black, staring at each other. Quite suddenly Mrs. Sneyd came to her senses.

“Good gracious,” she said, “it's Mr. Biddle. You did give me a turn.”

“I—I came along early to see if I could do anything,” Mr. Biddle said lamely.

“Oh, that's all right,” Mrs. Sneyd answered. “Come on in. I was afraid you'd mistaken the day or something.”

The hall through which Mrs. Sneyd led him was dark and narrow: it was necessary to sidle by the hat-stand in order to get past. And the little drawing-room with the looped curtains seemed unnaturally small and obscured. After the brilliant sunshine outside it was like diving into a tank. Mr. Biddle sat back on the corner of the couch and looked around him. To a man in his line of business there was obviously a distressing amount that wanted doing. In the language of his trade he could see at a glance that the place was in need of a
thorough inside and out. In short the property was in a state.

But he was distracted from further thoughts by Mrs. Sneyd.

“Well, this is a surprise,” she said, “seeing you to-day instead of to-morrow.”

She had changed into a plain black dress without any lace on it and looked a different woman. He could even see from the tilt of her head as she sat there that she must have been quite good looking when she was a girl.

“If I'm in the way just turn me out,” Mr. Biddle responded.

“Oh, I couldn't do that,” Mrs. Sneyd replied promptly. “Won't you stop and have some tea?”

Mr. Biddle looked at his watch.

“Thanks,” he said. “I don't mind if I do.”

He was in that state of exhaustion when a cup of tea seemed something to lift a man over the gulf between collapse and recovery.

Mrs. Sneyd was an expert tea maker. In her lifetime she had always met crises with tea, and great khaki-coloured tides of the stuff had flowed through number six Station Approach. On the day on which Mr. Sneyd had returned home from the Bon Marché and announced that he was too ill to go back to work it had been like Chekhov.

Mr. Biddle was still idly trying to figure out mentally what it would cost to do up the house properly from top to bottom when Mrs. Sneyd returned carrying a tray. She had managed to find a piece of Swiss roll as well. They held off at first saying that they were not hungry and then set to and finished it between them. Mrs. Sneyd
went and filled up the teapot and came back again. There was a luxurious domesticity about it that comforted Mr. Biddle. He hadn't been so comfortable since Mrs. Biddle had died. When Mrs. Sneyd told him not to mind her if he wanted to smoke a pipe he was a happy man.

But in one stroke she destroyed his composure.

“I heard afterwards he need never have died,” she said bitterly. “He'd got as much chance as you or me.”

“How do you mean?” Mr. Biddle asked.

“I know someone who knows one of the Sisters,” she replied. “He was going along all right till something happened.”

Mr. Biddle shook his head. It was terrible to think that, but for somebody else's blunder, his momentary friend, Mr. Sneyd, would be alive and with them to-day.

“
What did happen?
” he asked. A little chilling doubt had started up in his mind; perhaps she knew.

“It was that Order of his,” she answered fiercely. “I always said it would kill him and it did.”

Mr. Biddle sat up very straight.

“Eh?” he said.

“They got up a party to go and see him,” Mrs. Sneyd went on. “The Night Sister told me. Twenty or thirty of them there were … ”

“Oh, no,” said Mr. Biddle. “There were only four of… ” He was about to say “us” but stopped himself in time; there was something in Mrs. Sneyd's attitude that did not make him very anxious to admit that he had been there at all. “Four of them,” he finished up.

“How do you know?” Mrs. Sneyd asked.

Mr. Biddle looked at her and then lowered his eyes. “Don't forget that I'm in the Order too,” he said.

They sat for a while after that in silence, Mr. Biddle smoking and Mrs. Sneyd staring into the empty fireplace. It was some minutes before he noticed that she was crying. They were not noisy tears this time. In fact, she was silent. She was simply sitting there, her shoulders rising and falling and large, glyceriny tears running down her cheeks. When she saw that he was looking at her she shook her head and tried to smile.

“It's only that I just saw his slippers,” she said. “Nobody thought to put them away.”

He got up and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Try not to think about it,” he said. “It'll only make it harder for you.”

And then the extraordinary thing happened. She took hold of his hand and kissed it. They neither of them said a word and, when he finally removed his hand, the incident might never have occurred.

“I—I think I ought to be getting along now,” he said.

Mrs. Sneyd got up and smoothed her hair.

“You can leave your bag here,” she said. “Are you coming back to supper?”

“Thanks—thanks very much,” he said. “I'd like to.”

At the door Mrs. Sneyd hesitated for a moment.

“If you remember,” she said. “You might buy an evening paper. Stan always used to bring one with him.”

When Mr. Biddle left the house he set out with the determined air of a man on important business. He was looking for the Pyramid Hotel. Not that it was difficult to find. On the contrary, when they put it there at the corner of Corporation Street, Messrs. Rawling and Mews, the brewers, gave a certain and unmistakable centre to
their little bit of the universe. Mr. Biddle paused for a moment to satisfy himself that this yellow stucco Parthenon was the pub he was looking for, and then went into the gold and frosted splendour of the saloon bar. The atmosphere was rich with palms and singing birds and barmaids with black silk bosoms.

“Can you tell me if the Mariners are meeting here to-night?” he asked.

The lady whom he had addressed looked up. She was evidently the owner—there was just that subtle Bernhardt air of authority about her.

“You're late, dear,” she said. “The boys have just gone through.”

Mr. Biddle followed them and came to a door outside which two men were standing. An outsider would have taken them to be simply two large complacent loafers, leaning up against a door-post, chatting. But Mr. Biddle knew better. He recognised them at once as the Harbour Watch placed there to give the “Strange Craft” warning on the approach of any invader.

“Your business?” the larger of the two men demanded.

“Brother Mariner seeking refuge,” Mr. Biddle replied almost without thinking.

“What is the password of the Venerable Order?”

“——” Mr. Biddle replied.

“Pass, Brother,” said the larger man.

Mr. Biddle went inside and put on his Commodore's chain. It was more comfortable round his neck than in his pocket; it had been digging into him as he walked, ever since he had left East Finchley.

Then he pushed open the green baize door and joined his brothers within. The formal part of the proceedings was over. The oath had been taken standing, and now
they were down to smaller local business. Mr. Biddle's entry caused quite a stir—they noticed the Commodore's chain at once. It wasn't every evening that a visiting Commodore dropped in on them like this, and the Tadford Captain (it was only a Sub-Fleet without a Commodore of its own) was not slow to take advantage of his presence.

“Would our visiting Brother Commodore care to say a few words?”

The local Captain leant invitingly forward over the table like a conjurer choosing an assistant for a card trick.

“Thank you,” said Mr. Biddle simply and mounted the platform in front of him.

He was surprised to find that he was nervous. He wasn't usually nervous; certainly never nervous at East Finchley. But now that he was facing them here at Tadford he felt awkward and self-conscious. It was somehow all so difficult to explain.

“Brother Mariners,” he began in a voice so low that they could scarcely hear him. “I'm here because of Brother Sneyd that was.”

“Mr. Sneyd left the Order,” said a voice.

“I know that,” said Mr. Biddle. “He left the Order because he was too hard up to continue and didn't want to ask for help.”

“It doesn't make any difference,” replied the man who had interrupted him. “He left the Order, didn't he?”

“Well, even if he did,” Mr. Biddle continued, “it might seem sort of friendly if a few of us could be there to pay a bit of respect.”

There was still no sign of response from the five rows
of faces in front of him; they might not have heard what he was saying. And somehow or other he couldn't deliver the sort of address that he'd been planning.