The Jury (38 page)

“But
why
did you have a look at her?”

“To see if she was the right sort, of course,” said Molly, rather indignantly. “I couldn't have you taking up with some nasty piece of goods. I had to see for myself. And a great relief it was, I can tell you. Quite took my fancy from the first, she did.”

Oliver got up from the table. “And so she told you everything, did she?”

“All she knew,” said Molly, with a hint of mischief.

“She told you we went away together?”

“Well, naturally. She seemed to think I ought to know,” said Molly, with dangerous innocence.

He struggled to explain. “Of course I oughtn't to have done it. I was carried away.” Recognizing the falsity of that, he withdrew it. “No, I wasn't. I walked right into it with my eyes open. There's no excuse. I was bored and lonely, but——”

“You were fond of her,” said Molly. “And still are, I should hope. Well, that's natural enough. Now I've had a talk with her it makes all the difference. So long as you don't go getting her into trouble, Olly. That
would
be a shame, poor little thing!”

He moved nearer to her, and put out a tentative hand. Meeting him half-way, she took hold of his arm and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
“We're
all right, aren't we, Olly?”

“You do know,” he said, “that I feel just the same to you?”

She nodded. “When I came back from Mother's you were glad to see me. You weren't pretending. You couldn't. When I remembered that … well, it made everything all right again.”

Oliver had nothing to say. Nothing he could say would be adequate to this astonishing occasion, and he had the sense to know it. … And, all these years later, in the jury-room, he
found it impossible to embark on the story: not merely because it would have been an uncomfortable story in the telling, but because he read clearly, in the faces of his fellow-jurors, something that made him despair of its being believed.

MARRIAGE is what you make of it, thought Mrs Henstroke, as she approached her daughter's house. What you make of
him,
she corrected herself. Poor Gertie, on the whole, had done pretty well with the material that God had rather thoughtlessly provided. She's her mother's daughter in some things, bless her, said Mrs Henstroke: not many could have made a better job of that Roger. The Coates family lived in one of a row of villas designed and built in the eighteen-eighties. It had steps leading up to the front door, steps leading down to the basement-kitchen, and railings in front. Though still respectable, it was a street that had seen better days, and these better days were with Mrs Henstroke as she picked her way neatly along.

She was a small slight woman, very active and serene, her step light and unhurried, her complexion rosy. She wore a mackintosh coat and carried a tightly-rolled umbrella, which she used as a walking-stick; her white hair, bobbed and fringed in the style of a Tudor page, and not entirely hidden by her small close-fitting hat, gave her an appearance rather of youth than of age; and her expression of blue-eyed resolution, emphasized by a slight pursing of the lips, had been as characteristic of her at seven years old as it was now, at seventy-three. In this street, and in the very house now occupied by Roger and Gertie and the two children, she had lived the nineteen years of her married life and the first five of her widowhood. Then gracefully, and in her heart almost gleefully, she had cleared out, to begin a new life for herself elsewhere, in two comfortable rooms, managing very nicely, as she said, on what little her husband had left her, augmented by the rent that Roger paid—and punctually, she
would
say that for him—for this house in Prince Albert Avenue. “Why
don't you have a room with us, Mother?” Gertie had said anxiously. “It's all right, my dear,” answered Mrs Henstroke soothingly. “You needn't be afraid I'll say yes.” There were a hundred reasons why she should not say yes, and Roger was ninety-five of them. Not that she thought so ill of Roger: he was steady and solid and meant well by his wife. But she wasn't so fond of Roger as Roger was, and she had no intention of putting Gertie under an obligation to him. But, beyond all that, she wanted a quiet life, a quiet and busy life, chewing the cud of her many memories, making new friends here and there, doing things (concerts and theatres) that she had never been able to do before, and finding out much that she had always wanted to know. I'm an ignorant woman, she said to herself at fifty-six: time I went to school a bit. Of family problems she had had her fill for the time being. Tom Henstroke had been a problem, and two sons killed in the war had been another. This new loneliness was a problem too, but it was also a challenge and she went gladly to meet it. I've had a good life all said; and I've time for another yet. … And here she was, detached, affectionate, pleasantly warmed and excited, knocking like any stranger at the door of her daughter's house.

“Why, Mother!” exclaimed Gertie. “Now isn't that nice I” She opened the door wider and drew back to let her mother pass in. As they leaned forward to kiss, the younger woman said: “I mustn't come too near, darling. I'm all pastry.” She was wearing a blue print apron; her cheeks were flushed; looking much younger than her forty-one years, in Mrs Henstroke's eyes she was still the large romping daughter struggling out of her teens. There's more of Tom in her than of me, after all, she thought.

“Well, Gertie, how are you?”

“I'm all right, Mother. How are you? Quite a stranger you are.”

“Just what I was saying to myself as I came along,” said Mrs Henstroke equably.

“Were you? How funny!”

“A stranger to my daughter. It's rather nice, don't you think?”

“Nice, Mother? That's a funny way to look at it.” Gertie
laughed uncertainly. You never did know quite how to take Mother.

“Nice when we do meet, I mean. Makes it more fun.”

Gertie's brow cleared. “Oh, I see what you mean. Well, shall we go downstairs? I'm in the kitchen. Do you mind?”

“I'm interrupting your bit of cooking,” said Mrs Henstroke. “But the pastry's in the oven, I hope?”

She followed Gertie down the dark stairs, into the kitchen that for so long had been her own, and for a moment it was as though she had never left it. Though she and Gertie had exchanged visits with reasonable frequency—reasonable when a journey of an hour and a half was taken into account —not for many years had she penetrated into this semi-subterranean region. It was like stepping back into the past. As she stood for a moment at the window peering up into what they used to call 'the area', she caught herself listening for her husband's cough as he turned in at the gate, or for the sound of a child whimpering into wakefulness in the room behind her.

She turned round, and saw at the table, with her hands in the mixing-bowl, an ample, middle-aged, aproned woman.

“You haven't made many changes in the kitchen, my dear.”

Gertie gave her a placid smile. “Time we lighted up, almost. How short the days are now. You're staying the night, aren't you, Mother?”

“I haven't brought anything with me.”

“That doesn't matter. It won't take a minute to get the spare room ready.”

“We'll see,” said Mrs Henstroke.

After a pause Gertie remarked: “Quite like old times for you, Mother.” She suddenly saw what Mrs Henstroke had meant about the kitchen. “Wouldn't you like to take a peep at the smoking-room? It's just as it was, you know. And seldom used, I must say. Wouldn't you like to?”

“Time enough,” said Mrs Henstroke. She spoke rather briskly, a little nettled to find her moment's sanctuary so easily invaded.

“Just as you like,” said Gertie unnecessarily.

I hope you're cleverer than this with Roger, my girl,
thought Mrs Henstroke. “Of course,” she said, “I could sleep naked.”

Gertie laughed. “Mother! What extraordinary things you say! You're just the same, only younger.”

“It wouldn't be the first time,” said Mrs Henstroke.

“As if I couldn't provide my own mother with a nightdress!” cried Gertie, indignantly hospitable. “So you
will
stay. That's lovely. …”

And presently, when Gertie's attention was on her oven, Mrs Henstroke slipped away for a moment and opened the door of the room where Tom's billiard-table and Tom's inherited unread books went on existing, curiously, almost incredibly, in the absence of Tom. It was a place now of silence and shadows. Beyond the window was an asphalted gully enclosed by a wall shoring up the little back-garden, which stood level with the half-way line of the window; and beyond the garden, invisible now except to the eye of memory, was the railway-line, at which Maurice and Eric, and Gertie too, had once loved to stare. The handful of westering daylight that came in through that window served only to lend phantasmal existence to the bookcase and table and chairs. One somehow could not think of Tom Henstroke as a ghost haunting the room: there had been too much flesh on him for that, and he had been heartily fond of his victuals. But she found it easy, before going back to the kitchen (which Gertie had lighted in her absence), to call back the past itself for one strange instant, and see Tom himself, in an atmosphere pungent with masculinity and tobacco-smoke, dealing out the cards to his dubious cronies. Where did he pick such people up? She had often asked herself the question, but it no longer troubled her that it would never be answered. Gertie's right, she thought: I'm younger than I was then. I could manage things better if I'd my time over again. Though I didn't manage so badly, she added, with a self-appreciation by no means diminished by her ironical recognition of it.

It was pleasant to be back with Gertie.

“Oh, I wrote to you yesterday, Mother.”

“Yes, dear. A very nice letter, too.”

“Did I tell you Roger was away?” asked Gertie hypocritically.

Bless you, my child, why else am I here? “Yes, I think you did. Something about a jury, wasn't it?”

“Yes. Awkward for him at this time of the year.”

“Why's that?” asked Mrs Henstroke. “ 'Tisn't his own business after all.”

“No, but it puts them out at the office, Roger says.”

“I've no doubt they miss him,” said Mrs Henstroke politely.

“Well,” remarked Gertie, with disarming candour, “all men seem to think themselves indispensable, don't they?”

Mrs Henstroke laughed softly. “So they do, my dear.” There followed a warm comfortable silence. “Where's Marjorie and Master Vincent?” asked their grandmother. “The schools have broken up, surely?”

“Three days since,” said Gertie. “Vincent's at business of course.” She spoke with careful casualness, thinking that her mother had forgotten this vital fact, and anxious not to ruffle her by seeming to think so. “Marjorie's out doing a bit of shopping. And a long time she is.”

Mrs Henstroke had always had difficulty in remembering what was told her about Vincent. “How's Vincent getting on?” she asked.

“Quite nicely,” said Gertie. “Early days yet, you know. He's only been at it four months. But he seems to like it. He's got a lot of ambition, that boy has. That's why Roger put him to the rag trade.”

Mrs Henstroke smiled. How sweet Gertie is! she thought, with indulgent irony. “When d'you expect Roger back home?”

“Well … any time now,” admitted Gertie, almost defensively. “But you can never tell with these juries, Vincent says. We rather think he must be on that awful murder case. You know, the Merrion Square Murder. Of course we don't know. We hear nothing. But it's the right court and everything.”

“You haven't heard?” Mrs Henstroke was surprised.

“Not a word,” declared Gertie, enjoying the importance of the situation. “They're frightfully strict, Vincent says, in a murder trial. They lock the jury up, and no one's allowed to speak to them. Once the case has started, there they are, practically prisoners, no matter how many days it lasts,
Vincent says. He's a wonderful boy for knowing things, Mother.”

“I'm sure he is, dear,” said Mrs Henstroke.

“They have to sleep all together, at an hotel.” Seeing a gleam in Mrs Henstroke's eye, Gertie added, uncertainly: “You know what I mean …”

“I know. Not all in one bed. But at the same hotel. I suppose it's only right, when you come to think of it.”

Having finished her cooking, Mrs Coates was now able to give more of her mind to wondering what had become of Marjorie. “It
makes
you wonder, with the streets so dangerous. I don't like her being out like this.” But, in the midst of the wondering, Marjorie arrived, an overgrown buxom creature of sixteen. She was flushed, and secretly smiling. She saluted her grandmother with an air of thinking about something else, and answered her mother's questions with the lofty assurance: “I ran across someone I knew, and we got talking.” She was adept at wheedling people into a state of fond indulgence of her, but seldom troubled to exercise her arts on her mother. Among males, Vincent was her one failure in this department, and Roger her conspicuous success. As for Granny, she was a more or less unknown quantity, and for that reason might be worth taking into account. Feeling the old lady's appreciative smile upon her she bounced to the dresser, fished out a tablecloth, and began busily laying the table for tea. “Is the kettle boiling, Mum? No, I'll do it. You sit down a bit.” With a comfortable smile Gertie obeyed, wishing Mother would come to see them every day.

“Did you get a paper, dear?” she asked Marjorie. To Mrs Henstroke she explained: “We quite miss Roger's evening paper, you know.”

“There!” exclaimed Marjorie. “I left it in the hall. I'll fetch it.”

“After tea'll do,” said her mother. “Granny's staying the night with us. Isn't it nice?”