The House Opposite. J. Farjeon Jefferson

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СКАЧАТЬ blinked Ben, struggling against an increase of the sheepishness.

      ‘Now, listen,’ said the woman, opening a little evening bag and extracting a little cigarette-case. Gold. Or looked like it. ‘I’m going to sit down on that uninviting bottom stair for two minutes, and I’m going to smoke half a cigarette. And by that time I hope we shall know each other and understand each other … Do you mind?’

      ‘Eh? Corse not, mum,’ answered Ben, wondering what difference it would have made if he’d said he had.

      But, then, he wasn’t sure that he did mind. A two minutes’ chat with a dazzling creature like this? It did not often come within a poor sailor’s experience. Just him and her, and the stairs! And the queer, tantalising scent she had on her! And the marvellous hair, as exact as a battleship. And that white throat of hers …

      It may surprise you that Ben should have been affected by these things. You may consider it ridiculous, even presumptuous. But Ben, for all his dirt and his grime, his hunger and his ineffectiveness, was a bit of life, and the last thing that Life stamps out of us is the little spark of romance within us. When that is gone, we may as well go too.

      About to sit on the stairs, the woman suddenly paused and held out her case.

      ‘Won’t you join me?’ she asked.

      Ben shook his head. That might be too presumptuous! But she continued to hold her case out, and he advanced in response to her urging and took a dainty, gold-tipped cigarette with fingers unprepared for the honour. Then his spirit failed him again, and he slipped the cigarette into his pocket.

      ‘Presen’ly, if yer don’t mind, mum,’ he mumbled.

      She shrugged her shoulders. One shoulder actually peeped out for a moment from its warm nest of fur.

      ‘As you like,’ she said, lighting her own cigarette. ‘But here is a match, ready?’

      She bent forward with the match. The light glowed on her deliciously made-up cheeks, and her darkened lashes, and her very perfect lips. No man in her station could have refused the moment. But Ben again shook his head, hardly knowing why. Perhaps he was still struggling against presumption, even while she admitted it.

      ‘Even in small things, I see you are consistently dogged!’ She sighed, as the light went out, and with it, for the moment, her face. She seemed only a wonderful shadow now, with a little glow, first bright, then soft, before it. But her voice came from the stairs on which she sat, proving her substance. ‘Well, that only increases my interest in you. The cigarette—that is nothing! But this house—that is another matter. Why are you dogged about that? Why won’t you leave?’

      So this was why she had called! This was what she wanted to talk to him about!… Of course, she’d already implied it …

      ‘It’s very foolish of you, Mr Strong Man, really it is,’ her voice continued. Had a tinge of irony dropped into the voice now? ‘It won’t do you any good to stay in this house.’

      Suddenly Ben faced her, and tackled matters squarely.

      ‘Wot’s wrong with the ’ouse?’ he demanded.

      ‘Wrong with it?’ she repeated. Now the voice was perplexed. ‘Nothing is wrong with it. Why should there be?’ Ben was silent. ‘The only thing that is wrong with it, if I may say so without offending you, is your own presence in it. That, of course, is wrong. But it’s a wrong that can be so easily righted.’

      ‘Can it?’

      ‘Yes. And must be, before the little wrong becomes a big wrong. My father has a terrible temper, when he’s roused.’

      Ben stared at her.

      ‘Yer father, mum?’ he murmured.

      ‘Yes, my father,’ she nodded. ‘You don’t mind my having a father, do you? It seems we all have to have one. If you would like to get the position quite clear, this house belongs to my father, who lives opposite, and when I dropped in just now, on my way to a theatre, I found him in a frightful state. It seems he’d been trying to turn you out—forgive my gauche expressions—and that you had refused to go. I suggested a policeman—you mustn’t mind, because you really are trespassing, you know—but he wouldn’t hear of it. He prefers to deal with things himself, and I’m afraid he said, “Policeman be damned!” If you don’t go at once, he’ll get into one of his really, really bad states, and there may be murder done. So, you see,’ she concluded, ‘I decided to come here myself, because I knew I could persuade you, and could make you see reason. Was I right?’

      It certainly seemed reasonable enough when she put it like that. But—was it really reason—or just her scent?

      ‘Yes—but ’e tried ter shoot me!’ blurted Ben, struggling against both her scent and her sense, and striving feebly to make out a case for himself.

      She jumped up from the stairs, and seized his arm. Now her face was very close, and almost hypnotised him. A little wisp of hair was nearly touching his cheek.

      ‘Tried to shoot you?’ she cried, in alarm. ‘Good heavens! He’s in that condition! Don’t you see, you must leave—you must! Now! This moment!’

      Her fingers tightened convulsively on his sleeve. Unconsciously, he had strengthened her case instead of weakening it. He felt himself being impelled imperiously towards the door, while rich fur brushed against shabby cloth and Houbigant mingled with stale tobacco … Now the front door was wide. The damp street opened its misty arms … And now he was on the pavement, his mind in a whirl, being bundled into the taxi …

      ‘Wot’s this?’ he protested.

      ‘My taxi,’ whispered the woman’s voice in his ear. ‘I’ll get another, but you mustn’t wait a second! I’ve told the man to drive you away, and I’ve paid him—’

      He felt her final shove. The soft fingers could be hard and capable. The next instant the taxi began to move, and he was being driven away from Jowle Street.

      His brain swam. He must steady it, and think. He groped for his cigarette.

       8

       Ben Finds New Quarters

      THERE was no doubt about it, Ben needed a few soothing whiffs to regain his normal balance. Abruptly, within the space of a single minute, his little world had been uprooted and his immediate future changed; moreover, he was struggling to throw off the effects of the bemusing beauty that had entered the little world and had uprooted it. It had entered from a world much vaster than Ben’s. It had enveloped him with almost sinister potency, and with all the cynicism of the unattainable; yet its design had been backed by ruthless logic, or else the semblance of it, and he could not put his finger on the flaw. A flaw there must be. But where was it? That was the problem Ben hoped, with the aid of his cigarette, to solve.

      He little realised, as he inserted the dainty, gold-tipped thing, how definitely it was going to assist him in his search for the catch!

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