Gibraltar Road by Philip McCutchan Read Free Book Online Page B

giggle broke into his oratory—which he was ready to admit had become a trifle impassioned. He stopped. Debonnair, the giggle stifling into a throaty little chuckle, said, “And just think how you’d loathe all that!”
    He said vigorously, “But I wouldn’t, don’t you see? I mean it. God! How I’ve dreamed of it. Debbie, I’d love it.” Shaw wasn’t much of a one for continued high living; his pay and his expense account allowed him, if he wanted to and if he used discretion, to indulge in all London had to offer when he wasn’t on a job; the romance, the glitter of the West End was his, had been his for more years than he cared to remember, when he wanted to use them; and he didn’t stint what he spent on Debonnair whenever she would let him, so it was all hers too, for the asking. But they both knew that it wasn’t real, knew how spurious it all was, that it didn’t lead anywhere. Neither of them wanted that as a life. Yet a routine existence was the one point, other than the basic one of getting married while he was still with the outfit, on which they didn’t see eye to eye ... it might be aiming low in a way, Shaw thought, but it had a reality, a solidity. He had a mental image of a cottage, and as he saw that picture now—the old, half-timbered walls, the stone, the shady garden, possibly the thatch—he said again, “I’d love it.”
    She said, “Yes, Esmonde, I know you think you would. And you would, too—for a month or so, perhaps. After that you’d start looking at me and thinking to yourself, Why, the old hag! If it wasn’t for her I’d be off again somewhere to-morrow. She’s the millstone—she’s the old woman in the corner by the fire who’s got me on to the 8.15 racket where it’s Mr This and Mr That and what did you see on the telly last night? And then the office, with a nice little desk and a chair and dozens of other people all half dead from the waist up. And I’d be responsible—me, and the dormitory of little cots upstairs! You ought to realize what it’d be like . . . that’s how you’d feel, Esmonde—wouldn’t you?” She was facing him now, breasts heaving a little, eyes almost angry. “Wouldn’t you?”
    “I would not.”
    “Yes, you would! Anyway, I’d always be feeling that about myself, and come to that I don’t think I’m cut out to be an 8.15 wife myself. I do want you to get out, but in a way I—I’m frightened.” She looked at him accusingly. “Esmonde, if you really feel that way—why don’t you get out, now?”
    Shaw flushed. He said, “Darling, I’ve tried to. I’ve told the Old Man—not once, but often. Again to-day.”
    “And he said no, so you’re still in it. Esmonde, you’re hopeless. You know damn’ well they wouldn’t keep you at it if you were firm. But that’s not the reason.” The girl came close to Shaw, took his hands in hers. “That’s not the reason,” she repeated, “and I’ll tell you what the reason is: you don’t really want to get out, not deep down, because you’re a Man! A damn’ stupid, pig-headed Man, and without being in the least conceited about it you do know you’re the best man they’ve got, and you feel you’ve got to do your duty for England and the Service and—and all the other things Men think are important. You’re just old-fashioned, and ought to have been pensioned off years and years ago.” Her voice broke a little as she went on, “Well, it’s not much comfort to you or me, but a lot of those people who sleep tight every night and go safely to the office and yammer about their delphiniums and cabbages ought to be bloody well glad there are men like you and—and—and—I know I’m difficult and bad for you and I seem to keep contradicting myself, but I love you, oh, God, I do—but I’m not going to marry you—not yet . . . oh, Esmonde! "
    Shaw had crushed her tight in his arms, arms which emotion had made into steel-wire hawsers, his mouth seeking hers and fastening upon