Джон Пристли - Benighted

Sir William blew out a column of smoke, leaned back in his chair, stretched out his legs, looked about him, and then remarked easily: "Not very cheerful, is it? What's become of Gladys and that other chap, Penderel? Funny I never missed "em. Are they wandering about the house somewhere?"

She replied that she wasn't sure. They might have gone out. He doesn't seem to be bothering much about his Gladys, she told herself. What a queer relationship! She felt suddenly curious about it, about him too, and stared across at his heavy face.

"We're a bit dictatorial with these people, when you come to think of it," he mused. "Don't know that I'd like it. Though we've every excuse, of course."

"I know. If they were ordinary sort of people, I should say we were behaving very badly. But they're so queer, aren't they?" And then she suddenly thought how horrible it would be if he stared at her in surprise and blandly contradicted her. It would only need a touch like that, she felt, to throw her off her balance.

He only smiled, however, and there was comfort in his hearty rejoinder, for there seemed to be a whole sensible world behind it. "A bit mad, I should say," he replied. "Both of "em. They get like that, living in these places, miles from anywhere. Just imagine year after year, with many and many a night like this, and hardly seeing anybody. I know, because my own part of the world's a bit like this."

She took the cigarette out of her mouth and looked her astonishment. "Why, I see you against a background of telephones and cars and express trains and offices and factories. Nothing like this."

"Now, yes. But not always. I came originally from a little village in East Lancashire on the edge of the moors. A few miles away from where I used to live it's as wild as this, and you get some queer folk – people – up there." She seemed to hear the flat Lancashire accent creeping back into his voice. "I still go back sometimes. They tell me what they think of me up there. I've a brother and sister there yet, living in the same old way."

She didn't know anything about these people, but she remembered certain Scots novels. "They don't make a fuss of you, I suppose, because you're now an important person and have made a lot of money?"

He laughed. "Well, this is the way it works. They respect the money but not me. They care about money up there, know what it's worth, and don't pretend to despise it. Now in other places, particularly in the South of England, they pretend they don't care about money and they also pretend to think a lot about me, who happen to have plenty. The other's the best way, though I don't think so when I'm there and they're putting me through it."

Margaret couldn't resist it, he seemed so willing, almost anxious, to be communicative. "How did you come to make such a lot of money? I mean, how did you begin?"

He looked across at her with thick, raised brows. "That's a queer question."

"I'm sorry, it's rather a rude question, I know. But it's a question I've always wanted to ask someone like you."

"Oh, I'm not offended, don't think that," he cried, leaning forward and then settling himself more comfortably in his chair. "It was queer because I happened to be thinking about the very same thing." He stopped and looked with half-closed eyes at the fire. Margaret, released from her curiosity for a moment, wondered what Philip was doing. He was a long time returning from that mysterious top landing. But was he though? No, he had only been gone a few minutes. She returned with a rush to her companion, who had suddenly lifted his head and was now looking across at her. "Would you really like to know?" he enquired.

She nodded. "Yes, I'm really curious." If it was to be a tale of high finance, Philip would be back before it had hardly got under way. But she couldn't help feeling that it was going to be something more personal, for even in that dim light she seemed to recognise on his face that plunging look which men put on when they were about to unburden themselves.

"Unless you're very lucky," he began, "you only make money by wanting to make it, wanting hard all the time, not bothering about a lot of other things. And there's usually got to be something to start you off, to give you the first sharp kick. After you've got really started, brought off a few deals and begun to live in the atmosphere of big money, the game gets hold of you and you don't want any inducement to go on playing – d"you follow me? It's the first push that's so hard, when you're still going round with your cap in your hand. It's my experience there's always something keeps a man going through that, puts an edge on him and starts him cutting, and it may be some quite little thing. A man I knew, a Lancashire man too, was an easy-going youngster, thought more about cricket than his business, until one day, having to see the head of a firm, he was kept waiting two hours, sitting there in the general office with the clerks cocking an eye at him every ten minutes. He's told me this himself. 'All right,' he said to himself, 'I'll show you.' He walked out when the two hours were up, and that turned him, gave him an edge. He did show "em, too. I don't say, of course, that every man who says something like that to himself brings it off, but some do. Well, it was the same with me."

"What was it then that made you so ambitious?" And Margaret looked at him speculatively.

"It was a cotton frock," he said quietly.

She stared and hastily smothered a laugh; obviously he was in grim earnest. He reminded her of a big brooding schoolboy. "Tell me what happened," she said softly.

"All right, I will, though I don't know why I should," he remarked. Then he changed his tone. "Just after I left school, I got a job in a cotton office in Manchester. I met a girl when I was twenty and very soon we were engaged. Couldn't get married for a year or two because I hadn't enough to do it on. At last they told me to leave my desk and start going on "Change, in other words promoted me and gave me a good rise. That was enough for us, we got married. We hadn't much money, but what we had gave us a very good time. I was in love and very happy then. I wanted to do well at my job and kept my nose down to it during working hours, but forgot all about it at night and at the week-end. Still, I wanted to get on, and my wife encouraged me. Well, I was promoted again, this time to the London office, with more responsible work and another rise. We were excited about that, I can tell you. I can see us now, getting all our things packed – not that that took us long – ready for the great move. We found a little flat, very cheap, near Swiss Cottage, and Lucy – my wife – slaved away cleaning it up and I helped her when I came home at night, and we enjoyed ourselves I can tell you, though we'd no friends and nobody hardly spoke to us for months. But it was London and we felt we were getting on and we were happy together. We managed to spread the money out, and we'd have dinner in Soho once or twice a week and go to the theatre, in the pit. It was a bit lonely for her, but she didn't mind it at first. We'd soon find our feet, move up in fact. I bought a dress-suit, my first." He stopped, stared at her, and cleared his throat. "I don't suppose you want to hear all this. Don't know why I'm bothering you with it."

"Go on, go on. I want to hear it," she told him.

"Well, I'll make it as short as I can," he went on. "One of the directors gave a party, and we were invited. This was the great event. We felt everything was beginning for us. They were taking us up. You can just hear us talking it over, Lucy all nervous and excited, hoping to make a good impression for my sake. Well, I put on my dress-suit and she made herself as pretty as a picture. During the evening I didn't see much of her. I was among the men most of the time, talking business, making the most of the opportunity. Once or twice I looked across and gave her a smile and she smiled back, but I thought she looked a bit forlorn. I was full of it all going home, but she was very quiet, tired I thought. Then when we got to bed I pretended to go to sleep, but I heard her crying. When I asked her what was wrong, she said she was tired, got a headache. As a matter of fact she hadn't been feeling too well, so I left it at that. But I noticed she never mentioned that party. There was another a month or two afterwards, but she wouldn't go. She'd a good excuse then because by that time she was really ill. Within a year she was dead. But I found out what was the matter that night. She let it slip. She'd only had a cheap cotton frock on (it looked pretty enough to me, and I knew a bit about dress goods) and the other women there had let her know it. She was a little provincial nobody in a cotton frock and they didn't forget to let her see it. She'd had a wretched evening, had felt snubs and sneers in the air all the time. It kept coming out later, when she was weak, half delirious. I remember sitting by her bedside. . . ." He stopped and looked down into the fire.