Реймонд Маршалл - The Paw in the Bottle

She could scarcely believe her ears, and stared at him, blood rising in her neck and face.

‘I’ll never marry again,’ he went on. ‘But I could give you security, your own home, and I would settle a thousand a year on you. I wouldn’t bother you a great deal and I believe we could make each other happy.’

She realized he was serious. A home of her own! A thousand a year! She was quick to realize what this meant. It was his price for her silence. He was offering her this to be sure she wouldn’t tell anyone he could see. She was sure of that, but that made no difference to her rising excitement. For this was what she wanted; what she had longed for and hadn’t thought possible. She had to control herself not to betray her astonished delight.

‘Think it over, Julie,’ he was saying. ‘There’s plenty of time. We have other things to do first. But I thought I would let you know what’s been going on in my mind. Ever since I first saw you I have been thinking of this.’

‘No, he’s lying,’ she thought. ‘I don’t care. If he wants my silence he can pay for it.’

‘I... I don’t know what to say...’ she began, but he waved her to silence.

‘Then don’t say it. Think about it. I’ll talk to you again when this is over, but I wanted you to know that if you wished I would look after you. Now run along, Julie, I have work to do.’

It was a pity he was so matter-of-fact about it all. If he had only made love to her it would have been so much easier. But he was so calm, distant and cold-blooded that she felt embarrassed. It was as if he knew she knew he was buying her silence, and didn’t care.

She was relieved to leave the room.

When Julie had recovered from the surprise of Wesley’s proposal everything else became of secondary importance. Even Theo drifted into the background of her mind as an unpleasant nightmare not to be thought of — anyway, not for the time being.

Wesley wanted her to be his mistress. He wanted to buy her silence. She was quite prepared to accept the terms. She would have in return for her silence security, money, clothes, a flat of her own, even, perhaps, a car. Wasn’t he enormously wealthy? Hadn’t he promised to give her a thousand a year?

It wasn’t as if he was some horrible, fat old man who would paw her about and be jealous of her. He was marvellous. Even before he had made his suggestion she had been attracted to him.

She had to admit he was a little disappointing and undemonstrative. He scarcely spoke to her at breakfast the following morning. When Gerridge had left the room to collect some papers, he did say abruptly, ‘You’re not worrying, are you?’

‘Oh no... not now,’ she said and smiled at him, but there was no answering smile. The face, partly hidden by the black-lensed glasses was inscrutable.

‘It’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘I wanted to know you hadn’t changed your mind,’ and he went from the room.

But if his attitude was disappointing there were plenty of nice things to think about. ‘I wonder where I shall live. He might find me a flat in Mayfair. It’s marvellous how everything has turned out. Only seven months ago I was working in a tuppenny library, and now I’m to have a place of my own and a thousand a year!’

Blanche’s bell shattered this day-dreaming.

‘Well, it won’t be much longer now,’ Julie thought as she went along the passage to Blanche’s room. ‘Then I’ll have a maid to wait on me.’

Blanche was in a poisonous mood. Julie could see that the moment she entered the room.

‘Get my bath,’ Blanche said curtly, ‘and don’t crash about the room like an elephant. I’ve a splitting headache.’

Julie didn’t say anything. She went into the bathroom and ran the water. Returning to the bedroom, she found Blanche out of bed and pacing the floor.

‘You’re to leave at the end of the week,’ Blanche snapped. ‘I don’t want any arguments. You’re to go.’

Julie could have laughed. As if she wanted to stay when a new life was waiting for her.

‘Yes, madam,’ she said, so cheerfully that Blanche stared at her in furious astonishment.

‘And if you try to make mischief you’ll be sorry for it,’ Blanche said. ‘Get out of my sight!’

Some time later, Julie heard Blanche go out and she heaved a sigh of relief. She now had the place to herself, and deciding she wouldn’t do any more housework she went into the lounge, settled herself in a comfortable arm-chair, and read the newspaper.

‘In a little while,’ she told herself, ‘this is going to be my usual routine. I shan’t have anything to do except enjoy myself. I may as well get used to it now.’

She lit a cigarette, put her feet up on another chair and made herself comfortable.

But after a while she became restless, and finally decidedly bored. She tried to interest herself in a novel she found on the occasional table near-by, but it didn’t hold her for long. She put on the wireless, but the boisterous strains of a military band soon irritated her and she turned it off.

She felt lonely. The flat depressed her, and she began to wonder if the new life Wesley was offering her would be such fun after all.

‘It’ll be different when I have a place of my own,’ she thought, trying to reassure herself. ‘I can spend hours trying on clothes and making myself look nice. Then there’ll be the shops to look at, and, of course, I needn’t get up until late.’

But she knew at the back of her mind that there was nothing worth looking at in the shops, and she never really cared for lying in bed once she was properly awake.

By lunch-time she was thoroughly depressed, and for the sake of something to do she settled down to clean the silver.

It was extraordinary then how quickly the time passed, and she was irritated.

‘I shouldn’t be doing this,’ she told herself. ‘I’ve got to get out of this slavish habit of working to pass the time. It’s ridiculous.’

Blanche returned a few minutes after five o’clock and sat in the lounge with the novel that Julie had tried to read. Hearing restless movements, Julie guessed Blanche was as bored with herself as Julie had been with herself. The novel apparently didn’t hold her either.

‘Perhaps I’d be happier in a job,’ Julie told herself. Then, realizing that this was against all her principles, she went on: ‘That’s ridiculous, of course. I don’t want a job. That’s what I’m trying to escape from. It’s money really. If I had money I could pass the time all right. I could go to the cinema every afternoon. There’d be dances and a musical show now and then. It’s being stuck in this flat without money that bores me. I wonder where she’s been today?’

The sound of an orchestra came floating out of the lounge and then Blanche’s impatient, ‘Oh, damn the thing and the wireless was turned off.’

Blanche’s obvious boredom thoroughly depressed Julie.

‘If she doesn’t know what to do with herself with all her money,’ she thought, ‘will it be the same for me? The trouble is there isn’t any fun these days. Howard was right. We do have to find a new standard of life.’

She wished Wesley would return. If she could get him alone for a few minutes he might give her some proof that he was fond of her. She felt that at least would be some consolation for a depressing day. She did hope he wasn’t going to continue to be so impersonal. He had been so cold-blooded about the whole business. Then there was this extraordinary secrecy about his sight. Why was he pretending that he was blind? She didn’t believe that it had to do with his work. She had an uneasy feeling that there was something a little sinister about his pretended blindness and it worried her.