II
When, after imperceptible manoeuvres by Mrs. Larkins, he found himself
starting circuitously through the inevitable recreation ground with
Miriam to meet Annie, he found himself quite unable to avoid the topic
of the shop that had now taken such a grip upon him. A sense of danger
only increased the attraction. Minnie's persistent disposition to
accompany them had been crushed by a novel and violent and urgently
expressed desire on the part of Mrs. Larkins to see her do something
in the house sometimes....
"You really think you'll open a shop?" asked Miriam.
"I hate cribs," said Mr. Polly, adopting a moderate tone. "In a shop
there's this drawback and that, but one is one's own master."
"That wasn't all talk?"
"Not a bit of it."
"After all," he went on, "a little shop needn't be so bad."
"It's a 'ome," said Miriam.
"It's a home."
Pause.
"There's no need to keep accounts and that sort of thing if there's no
assistant. I daresay I could run a shop all right if I wasn't
interfered with."
"I should like to see you in your shop," said Miriam. "I expect you'd
keep everything tremendously neat."
The conversation flagged.
"Let's sit down on one of those seats over there," said Miriam. "Where
we can see those blue flowers."
They did as she suggested, and sat down in a corner where a triangular
bed of stock and delphinium brightened the asphalted traceries of the
Recreation Ground.
"I wonder what they call those flowers," she said. "I always like
them. They're handsome."
"Delphicums and larkspurs," said Mr. Polly. "They used to be in the
park at Port Burdock.
"Floriferous corner," he added approvingly.
He put an arm over the back of the seat, and assumed a more
comfortable attitude. He glanced at Miriam, who was sitting in a lax,
thoughtful pose with her eyes on the flowers. She was wearing her old
dress, she had not had time to change, and the blue tones of her old
dress brought out a certain warmth in her skin, and her pose
exaggerated whatever was feminine in her rather lean and insufficient
body, and rounded her flat chest delusively. A little line of light
lay along her profile. The afternoon was full of transfiguring
sunshine, children were playing noisily in the adjacent sandpit, some
Judas trees were brightly abloom in the villa gardens that bordered
the Recreation Ground, and all the place was bright with touches of
young summer colour. It all merged with the effect of Miriam in Mr.
Polly's mind.
Her thoughts found speech. "One did ought to be happy in a shop," she
said with a note of unusual softness in her voice.
It seemed to him that she was right. One did ought to be happy in a
shop. Folly not to banish dreams that made one ache of townless woods
and bracken tangles and red-haired linen-clad figures sitting in
dappled sunshine upon grey and crumbling walls and looking queenly
down on one with clear blue eyes. Cruel and foolish dreams they were,
that ended in one's being laughed at and made a mock of. There was no
mockery here.
"A shop's such a respectable thing to be," said Miriam thoughtfully.
"_I_ could be happy in a shop," he said.
His sense of effect made him pause.
"If I had the right company," he added.
She became very still.
Mr. Polly swerved a little from the conversational ice-run upon which
he had embarked.
"I'm not such a blooming Geezer," he said, "as not to be able to sell
goods a bit. One has to be nosy over one's buying of course. But I
shall do all right."
He stopped, and felt falling, falling through the aching silence that
followed.
"If you get the right company," said Miriam.
"I shall get that all right."
"You don't mean you've got someone--"
He found himself plunging.
"I've got someone in my eye, this minute," he said.
"Elfrid!" she said, turning on him. "You don't mean--"
Well, _did_ he mean? "I do!" he said.
"Not reely!" She clenched her hands to keep still.
He took the conclusive step.
"Well, you and me, Miriam, in a little shop--with a cat and a
canary--" He tried too late to get back to a hypothetical note. "Just
suppose it!"
"You mean," said Miriam, "you're in love with me, Elfrid?"
What possible answer can a man give to such a question but "Yes!"
Regardless of the public park, the children in the sandpit and
everyone, she bent forward and seized his shoulder and kissed him on
the lips. Something lit up in Mr. Polly at the touch. He put an arm
about her and kissed her back, and felt an irrevocable act was sealed.
He had a curious feeling that it would be very satisfying to marry and
have a wife--only somehow he wished it wasn't Miriam. Her lips were
very pleasant to him, and the feel of her in his arm.
They recoiled a little from each other and sat for a moment, flushed
and awkwardly silent. His mind was altogether incapable of controlling
its confusion.
"I didn't dream," said Miriam, "you cared--. Sometimes I thought it
was Annie, sometimes Minnie--"
"Always liked you better than them," said Mr. Polly.
"I loved you, Elfrid," said Miriam, "since ever we met at your poor
father's funeral. Leastways I _would_ have done, if I had thought. You
didn't seem to mean anything you said.
"I _can't_ believe it!" she added.
"Nor I," said Mr. Polly.
"You mean to marry me and start that little shop--"
"Soon as ever I find it," said Mr. Polly.
"I had no more idea when I came out with you--"
"Nor me!"
"It's like a dream."
They said no more for a little while.
"I got to pinch myself to think it's real," said Miriam. "What they'll
do without me at 'ome I can't imagine. When I tell them--"
For the life of him Mr. Polly could not tell whether he was fullest of
tender anticipations or regretful panic.
"Mother's no good at managing--not a bit. Annie don't care for 'ouse
work and Minnie's got no 'ed for it. What they'll do without me I
can't imagine."
"They'll have to do without you," said Mr. Polly, sticking to his
guns.
A clock in the town began striking.
"Lor'!" said Miriam, "we shall miss Annie--sitting 'ere and
love-making!"
She rose and made as if to take Mr. Polly's arm. But Mr. Polly felt
that their condition must be nakedly exposed to the ridicule of the
world by such a linking, and evaded her movement.
Annie was already in sight before a flood of hesitation and terrors
assailed Mr. Polly.
"Don't tell anyone yet a bit," he said.
"Only mother," said Miriam firmly.
