The Listening Eye

2-1

2Sally Foster had two rooms at the top of the first flight of stairs in the house that Ambrose Paine had left to his niece. One of the rooms looked to the front over the small square and the rather decayed-looking garden in the middle of it where the laurels and lilacs which had survived the war continued their struggle for existence. No bombs had fallen amongst them, but most of the windows in the Square had been shattered when a land-mine fell in the neighbouring thoroughfare. The houses were all about a hundred years old, and had been designed with basements and attics for a numerous staff. Nothing could be shabbier, more inconvenient, and less adapted to modern conditions. Ambrose Paine had always refused to move with the times, but Paulina had contrived a couple of extra bathrooms. Sally cooked on the latest baby gas stove, shared a sink with Paulina, and thought herself lucky. She had a job as secretary to Marigold Marchbanks, whose publishers confidently asserted that her sales ran into millions. In private life Marigold was Mrs Edward Potts, with a vague husband somewhere in the past and a couple of daughters, one of whom had just made her a grandmother. When she felt like it Marigold dictated to Sally from ten to half-past twelve. Added to which there was typing, checking of proofs, and fan mail. Sally answered the fan mail, and Marigold appended a flowing signature. It wasn’t a bad job at all, and with what her parents had left her Sally lived comfortably enough. On occasion she drove the car and they got out into the country.

Whilst Paulina Paine was trying to make up her mind what to say to her cousin Hilda Gaunt, Mrs Gaunt’s son Wilfrid was lounging in Sally’s most comfortable chair and hindering her. She had already told him so in no uncertain terms. There never was anything uncertain about Sally, from the bright chestnut of her hair, the bloom of her complexion, and the sparkle of her eyes, to the forthright manner in which she dealt with a time-wasting young man.

‘Look here, Wilfrid, I can’t do with you—not when I’m answering fan mail.’

‘Darling, you’ve said that before.’

The typewriter clicked.

‘And I shall go on saying it until you go.’

Wilfrid extended himself into what was practically a straight line. He was long and slim, and he had sleek dark hair.

‘You wouldn’t be so harsh.’

Sally laughed. Even when she was preparing to be harsh it was an uncommonly pleasant sound—one of those laughs that go with a kind heart and an even temper. She turned her brown eyes on him and said,

‘I can be fierce!’

Wilfrid produced a slightly supercilious smile.

‘Not with me, darling.’

‘And why not?’

‘You wouldn’t have the heart.’

She frowned, typed an exclamation mark in a perfectly uncalled for place, and said,

‘You’re wrecking this letter—and it’s rather a special one to a professor who has taken a cross-section of twenty-five of Marigold’s books and counted up how many times she has split an infinitive, so it simply won’t do for me to provoke him by making mistakes in my typing. Please do go away.’

He slid down another inch in the capacious chair, closed his eyes, and said,

‘I don’t feel strong enough. Besides I’m just working up to a proposal of marriage.’

Sally planted an asterisk in the middle of a sentence and took her hands off the typewriter.

‘You proposed to me yesterday.’

‘And the day before, and the day before that. I’m just wearing you down, darling.’

‘And how many times do I have to say no?’

‘I have no idea. You’ll get tired of it some day.’

‘Look here, Wilfrid——’

He waggled a hand at her.

‘Let us change the subject. I don’t feel strong enough to wrangle. Besides I’ve got a grievance. Against Paulina. Or does one say with? A grievance with—a grievance against—anyhow it’s still with or against your Aunt Paulina.’

Sally’s colour rose becomingly.

‘Wilfrid, she is not my aunt! She is your mother’s cousin, and that is all there is about it!’

He moved his head in a slight negative gesture.

‘I am not talking about cousins, I am talking about aunts. If a helpless girl finds shelter with an elderly female, the elderly female automatically becomes an aunt and is so addressed. It is what is known as a courtesy title. You would not be discourteous to Paulina? Anyhow this is no time for idle badinage. As I started out by saying, I have a Grievance, and I wish to enlist your support in getting it removed. Are you any good at sabotage?’

‘Now, Wilfrid——’

The hand flapped again.

‘Don’t hurry me. It weakens the system, depletes the energies, and makes me come all over a doodah. As you may have guessed, the grievance concerns the attic. Why should Paulina have allowed David Moray to intrude himself into her top floor? It has an excellent north light. If she was prepared to let it as a studio, why in the name of the tables of kindred and affinity should she let a stranger have it rather than her own cousin’s son?’

‘What on earth are the tables of kindred and affinity?’

Wilfrid opened his hazel eyes sufficiently to allow a reproachful glance to travel in her direction.

‘Ah—you weren’t brought up in the bosom of the Church like I was!’

‘No. What are they?’

‘A compendious list of all the people you mustn’t marry and no one in their senses would want to. In the Book of Common Prayer.’ He closed his eyes again and intoned, ‘ “A Man may not marry his Grandmother—” But we digress. At least you do. I return to the point, which is Pressure to be brought on Paulina. By you.’

Sally’s eyes widened in the way which had in the past caused a good many young men to be emotionally disturbed.

‘My good Wilfrid, what has it got to do with me?’

‘You will be the agent for bringing pressure to bear. Paulina is fond of you—she eats out of your hand. If you were to burst into tears and say that life without me in the attic would be valueless, or words to that effect, she might be nerved to the point of giving David Moray the push.’

Sally said briefly, ‘It wouldn’t be.’

He drew himself up about an inch.

‘What do you mean, it wouldn’t be? What wouldn’t?’

‘Life. It wouldn’t be valueless. In fact quite the contrary. Why on earth should you try and turn David out?’

He looked at her maliciously.

‘Being a little stupid, aren’t you, darling. I’m coveting my neighbour’s studio. What I have is only a room, and a foul one at that. The stair smells of cabbage-water, and Mrs Hunable smells of drink. If I am laid low, nobody holds my stricken hand or smoothes my stricken brow. I would, in fact, be a good deal better off with Paulina. Added to which there are the sacred claims of relationship. An inspiring thought that we shall be under the same roof! Who was it who said, “If propinquity be the food of love, play on”?’

Sally was betrayed into a faint engaging giggle.

‘I suppose you mean Shakespeare—only I should think he would be a good deal surprised, because he didn’t say propinquity, he said music.’

‘He said such a lot of things,’ said Wilfrid in an exhausted voice. Then, sitting up another inch or two and brightening a little, ‘Consider what it would be to wake in the morning and think, “Wilfrid is only two floors up,” and to sink into slumber at night with the same beautiful thought! Only, of course, there might be times when I should be burning the midnight oil elsewhere.’

‘I can well believe it.’

‘Oh, I always get home in the end—sometimes a little the worse for wear, but no matter. And as already stated, Paulina would be there to soothe the anguished brow next day. Or you, my sweet!’

‘No.’

The word was pronounced in a peculiarly firm and resonant manner.

Wilfrid sighed deeply.

‘Not a womanly nature.’

Sally said ‘No’ again, and then spoilt the effect by a little gurgle of laughter. ‘Wilfrid, will you get out! I’ve got to concentrate on the professor, and then get on with a kind “No, I couldn’t possibly” letter to a woman who says she has written a novel, and she’s afraid her writing is dreadfully bad and she can’t afford to have it typed, but will Marigold read it? And that’s only a beginning, because there are three people who want autographs, and one who wants advice, and two that I’m saving up to the last who just say how grateful they are because Marigold has given them a lot of pleasure. So will you please get up and go away, because I’m not getting on, and I’ve got to if I don’t want to sit up half the night, which I don’t.’

‘Why don’t you?’ said Wilfrid in his laziest voice. ‘If you don’t sit up at night, when do you sit up? All my best ideas come to me then. No distractions, no interruptions. The mind just floating—not quite detached, but almost imperceptibly linked with the abstract. There is a rhythm, a sense of the imponderable, a kind of floating haze.’

‘It sounds like drugs or drink,’ said Sally frankly.

‘There might be some flavour of alcohol. But not drugs, darling—they are lowering to the Moral Tone so conspicuous in my Work.’

‘I hadn’t noticed it.’

‘Dim-witted of you. However one can’t have everything, and your looks are pleasing. I did ask you to marry me? These things slip the memory. What is much more important at the moment is the matter of the outing or ousting of David Moray. You wouldn’t like to wake up in the morning and read in the paper that I have been driven to the violent elimination of Mrs Hunable. My nature is one of peace, but I have an exceptionally sensitive psyche—if that is what they call the thing that takes charge and nerves you to murder the people who have been annoying you. I don’t think it is, but no matter. What emerges is the horrid fact that I am being driven to desperation, and that if I can’t oust David and have Paulina’s attic, almost anything may happen at almost any moment. You will notice that I have now decided upon oust rather than out. It is more forcible and has a richer flavour.’

Sally was about to raise her voice in a final ‘Wilfrid, will you go!’ when there came a rapping on the door. She said ‘Come in!’ instead, and Mr David Moray walked into the room. He was a large, uncompromising young man of Scottish appearance, with blunt features and fair hair burnt to the colour of dry grass. His eyes were between blue and grey, and his eyebrows and lashes very fair and thick. He viewed Wilfrid with disfavour and addressed himself to Sally.

‘Are you busy?’

‘Frightfully.’

‘With him?’

Wilfrid said, ‘Yes,’ and Sally said, ‘No.’

David Moray frowned.

‘Because if you’re not, there was something I rather wanted to ask you about.’

Wilfrid pulled himself up a little farther in his chair.

‘Not another word. You wish to give up your attic, and you want somebody to break it to Paulina. Don’t worry—it doesn’t really need breaking at all. You want to give it up, I am ready and willing to take it. The whole thing is as good as done. Except for the mere physical transaction you have already moved out and I have moved in. Blood is thicker than water and a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse. Paulina will be delighted. Sally walks on air.’

David looked at him bleakly.

‘If you know what you are talking about, nobody else does.’

Wilfrid’s tone became tinged with malice.

‘Sally and I do. The proverbial two hearts that beat as one. A stroke of the wand and we change over. I to Paulina’s attic, and you to my Mrs Hunable, now mine no more. I have bestowed her upon you freely. I will go and pack.’

Under a particularly menacing look from Sally, he rose, kissed his hand to her, turned a charming smile on David, and drifted out of the door, which he left open behind him.

David didn’t wait for his footsteps to die away. He gave the door a push with his shoulder, and derived some satisfaction from the fact that Wilfrid must have heard the resulting slam.