The Mouse by Frances King. Part 4
Watch on KineScope.
Go back to Part 3
When they had shut the door of their flat, Vernon said, ‘I’m going to be at least half an hour late. I’d better call the whole thing off. It’ll look better than keeping him waiting all that time.’
‘Oh, darling!’ Stella looked at him in horror. ‘But I thought you were hoping to persuade him to give you an advance.’
‘Well, I shall have to persuade him to do that some other time. It’ll take you at least five minutes to sew on that button. You’re not exactly a needlewoman, are you, poor dear?’ He kissed her on the forehead.
‘Couldn’t- couldn’t you wear another suit?’ Stella suggested timidly.
‘You talk as if I had a dozen to choose from.’
‘Well, you have got the grey flannel-
‘Light grey flannel at the Athenaeum!’ He laughed indulgently. ‘And I can’t wear the blue, it needs pressing. You remember I asked you to take it-‘
‘Oh, dear!’ She remembered, appalled. ‘I’ve been so busy.’
‘Yes, I know. That’s why I really think you’d better stop working for Mr Errin. I’ve noticed that you’ve been looking awfully run down and seedy just these last few days, and obviously the whole thing is becoming far too much for you.’
‘But I enjoy going’, Stella protested; and at once, from the tightening of Vernon’s mouth, she noticed her mistake.
‘Oh, I’ve no doubt you do. But that doesn’t alter the fact that you can’t hope to run two households at one and the same time. However much you enjoy it.’ He gave the last two words the faintest and most subtle of emphases. ‘I don’t like to think of Mavis being neglected – and particularly neglected for an old bore like Errin. He’ll have to find himself a daily woman.’
‘But I don’t look on him as an employer, he’s a—’ she broke off.
‘Yes, my dear?’ She was silent. ‘Well, what is he?’ Stella made no answer; her large blue eyes were filling with tears. Vernon once more put his arm round her:
‘Anyway we can discuss all this later – when we’re a little calmer, eh?’ He gave the smile which the wives of their little circle found so irresistible. ‘The immediate problem is this damned lunch party. Would you ring up the old man and tell him that I’ve got another of my migraines? I expect he’s still at his office – otherwise leave a message at the Athenaeum’
‘Oh, Vernon! Couldn’t you possibly – if you take a taxi—?’
‘Look, my sweet, do let me decide what I should, or should not do!’ He picked up the telephone receiver and handed it to her, himself dialling the number.
Stella, who had been well rehearsed in such falsehoods, told his lie for him in the tone of worried innocence which she usually adopted on such occasions.
Then she put back the receiver and burst into tears.
‘Now what’s the matter?’ Vernon asked, surprised.
Stella sobbed loudly, making strange gulping noises in the back of her throat.
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Vernon said rather than shouted. ‘Darling!’ Now he was putting his arm again about her. ‘What on earth is the matter?’
‘Oh, I’m so hopeless – so useless -! I know it’s all my fault.’
‘It’s just your kindness,’ Vernon said. ‘That’s all it is, darling – that excessive kindness of yours. I know it’s simply that you feel sorry for Mr Errin, and that of course there’s nothing else – on your side, at least. Oh, darling – please!’ Stella was now howling. ‘Darling! For God’s sake, be quiet! You know that I hate scenes.’
At last he picked up the latest number of the Connoisseur from his bureau and decided to go to the garden; one’s nerves could stand just so much, and then no more. ‘Darling!’ he remonstrated once again as he passed out of the door.
But Stella either did not, or would not, hear him. Really, she was so emotional, he told himself, as he took the stairs in twos. And a scene like this quite ruined one’s appetite for lunch – apart from making it impossible for one to work.
But in the garden there was no peace either. Mavis was sobbing hysterically and battering some object, again and again, with a stone from the rock garden.
Vernon went across: ‘What on earth are you doing?’
Mavis continued to beat the stone wildly on the earth while the old dog, his mangy head raised, blinked glassy eyes at her from the neighbouring flower-bed.
‘My God! It’s – it’s your mouse’, Vernon said.
‘I told it – and told it – and told it’, Mavis cried between each stroke. ‘I said it was not to go near the dog!’ Her hair was falling about her face, and there was blood on her pinafore. Then suddenly she looked up at Vernon with a glance so cold and so penetrating that he found that he could not hold it.
‘Where’s Mummy?’ she asked.
Go back to Part 3