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diff --git a/78329-h/78329-h.htm b/78329-h/78329-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9d5da29 --- /dev/null +++ b/78329-h/78329-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,19871 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no,date=no,address=no,email=no,url=no"> + <title> + Angel Pavement | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +a {text-decoration: none;} +a:hover {text-decoration: underline;} + +p { + text-indent: 1.5em; + margin-top: .5em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .5em; +} + +hr { + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + clear: both; + border: 0; + background: #bbb; + height: 1px; +} + +hr.chap {width: 50%; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;} +@media print {hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} +hr.front {width: 10%; margin-left: 45%; margin-right: 45%;} + +.pagenum { + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; + color: #999; +} + +blockquote { + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 5%; +} + +.center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + +.larger {font-size:larger;} +.end {margin-top: 2em; text-align:center; font-size:larger;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78329 ***</div> + +<h1> +<i>Angel<br> +Pavement</i> +</h1> + +<p class="center"> +BY<br> +<br> +<span class="larger">J. B. PRIESTLEY</span><br> +<br> +<br> +HARPER & BROTHERS<br> +<span class="smcap">New York</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">London</span><br> +1930 +</p> + +<hr class="front"> +<p class="center"> +<i>Angel Pavement</i><br> +<i>Copyright, 1930, by J. B. Priestley</i><br> +<i>Printed in the U. S. A.</i><br> +<i>Fourth Printing</i> +</p> + +<hr class="front"> +<p class="center"> +<i>To</i><br> +<i class="larger">C. S. EVANS</i><br> +<br> +<i>because he is not only a good friend and a fine publisher,</i><br> +<i>but also because he is a London man and will know</i><br> +<i>what I am getting at in this London novel.</i> +</p> + + +<hr class="front"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Angel_Pavement"> + <i>[Contents]</i> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class="larger center"> +<i><a href="#Prologue">Prologue</a></i><br> +<br> +<span class="allsmcap">I. THEY ARRIVE</span>—<a href="#p12">12</a><br> +<br> +<span class="allsmcap">II. MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED</span>—<a href="#p51">51</a><br> +<br> +<span class="allsmcap">III. THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME</span>—<a href="#p87">87</a><br> +<br> +<span class="allsmcap">IV. TURGIS SEES HER</span>—<a href="#p128">128</a><br> +<br> +<span class="allsmcap">V. MISS MATFIELD WONDERS</span>—<a href="#p169">169</a><br> +<br> +<span class="allsmcap">VI. MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE</span>—<a href="#p219">219</a><br> +<br> +<span class="allsmcap">VII. ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS</span>—<a href="#p264">264</a><br> +<br> +<span class="allsmcap">VIII. MISS MATFIELD’S NEW YEAR</span>—<a href="#p313">313</a><br> +<br> +<span class="allsmcap">IX. MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED</span>—<a href="#p356">356</a><br> +<br> +<span class="allsmcap">X. THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT</span>—<a href="#p402">402</a><br> +<br> +<span class="allsmcap">XI. THEY GO HOME</span>—<a href="#p444">444</a><br> +<br> +<i><a href="#Epilogue">Epilogue</a></i> +</p> + +<hr class="front"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p1">[1]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Prologue"> + <i>Prologue</i> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>She came gliding along London’s broadest street, and then halted, +swaying gently. She was a steamship of some 3,500 tons, flying +the flag of one of the new Baltic states. The Tower Bridge cleared +itself of midgets and toy vehicles and raised its two arms, and then +she passed underneath, accompanied by cheerfully impudent tugs, +and after some manœuvring and hooting and shouting, finally came +to rest alongside Hay’s Wharf. The fine autumn afternoon was +losing its bright gold and turning into smoke and distant fading +flame, so that it seemed for a moment as if all London bridges +were burning down. Then the flare of the day died out, leaving +behind a quiet light, untroubled as yet by the dusk. On the wharf, +men in caps lent a hand with ropes and a gangway, contrived to +spit ironically, as if they knew what all this fuss was worth, and +then retired to group themselves in the background, like a shabby +and faintly derisive chorus; and men in bowler hats arrived from +nowhere, carrying dispatch cases, notebooks, bundles of papers, to +exchange mysterious jokes with the ship’s officers above; and two +men in blue helmets, large and solid men, took their stand in the +very middle of the scene and appeared to tell the ship, with a glance +or two, that she could stay where she was for the time being because +nothing against her was known so far to the police. The ship, for +her part, began to think about discharging her mixed cargo.</p> + +<p>This cargo was so mixed that it included the man who now +emerged from the saloon, came yawning on to the deck, and looked +down upon Hay’s Wharf. This solitary passenger was a man of medium +height but of a massive build, square and bulky about the shoulders, +and thick-chested. He might have been forty-five; he might have +been nearly fifty; it was difficult to tell his exact age. His face was +<span class="pagenum" id="p2">[2]</span>somewhat unusual, if only because it began by being almost bald +at the top, then threw out two very bushy eyebrows, and finally +achieved a tremendous moustache, drooping a little by reason of its +very length and thickness; a moustache in a thousand, with something +rhetorical, even theatrical, about it. He wore, carelessly, a suit +of excellent grey cloth but of a foreign cut and none too well-fitting. +This passenger had come with the ship from the Baltic state +that owned her, but there was something about his appearance, in +spite of his clothes, his moustache, that suggested he was really a +native of this island. But that is perhaps all it did suggest. He was +one of those men who are difficult to place. The sight of him did not +call up any particular background, and you could not easily imagine +him either at work or at home. He had come from the Baltic to +the Thames, but it might just as well have been from any place +to any other place. As he stood there, straddling at ease, a thick +figure of a man but not slow and heavy, with his gleaming bald +front and giant moustache, looking down at the wharf quite incuriously, +he seemed a man who was neither coming home nor +leaving it, and yet not a simple traveller, and this gave him a faint +piratical air.</p> + +<p>“Lon-don, eh?” cried a voice at his elbow. It came from the +second mate, a small natty youngster not unlike a pale and well-brushed +monkey. “Vairy nice, eh?”</p> + +<p>“All right.”</p> + +<p>“You com’ ’ere, Misdair Colsbee? You stay ’ere?” The second +mate liked to air his English and had not had much opportunity +of doing so during the voyage.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I stay here,” replied Mr. Golspie, for that was the name the +second officer was trying to pronounce. “That is,” he boomed, as +an afterthought, “if there’s anything doing.”</p> + +<p>“You leef ’ere, in Lon-don?” pursued the other, who had missed +the force of the last remark.</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t. I don’t live anywhere. That’s me.” And Mr. Golspie +said this with a kind of grim relish, as if to suggest that he might +<span class="pagenum" id="p3">[3]</span>pop up anywhere, and that when he did, something or somebody +had better look out. He might have been one of the quieter buccaneers +sailing into harbour.</p> + +<p>Then, nodding amiably, he stepped forward, looked up and down +the wharf again, and returned to the saloon, where he took a cigar +from the box the captain had bought at the entrance to the Kiel +Canal, and helped himself to a drink from one of the many bottles +that overflowed from the sideboard to the table. It had been a +convivial voyage. Mr. Golspie and the captain were old acquaintances +who had been able to do one another various good turns. The captain +had promised to make Mr. Golspie very comfortable, and one +way of making Mr. Golspie very comfortable was to lay in and +then promptly bring out a sound stock of whisky, cognac, vodka, +and other liquors. There had been nothing one-sided about this +arrangement, for the captain had been able to keep pace with his +guest, even though his progress had not had the same steady dignity. +The captain, who had once served in the Russian Imperial Navy and +had only resigned from it by escaping in his shirt and trousers over +the side one night, was apt to turn fantastic in his drink. On two +nights out of the three, during the voyage, he had insisted upon +declaiming a long speech from Goethe’s <i>Faust</i> in four different +languages, to show that he was a man of culture. And on the +night before they had entered the Thames Estuary, the previous +night, in fact, he had gone further than that, for he had laughed +a great deal, sung four songs that Mr. Golspie could not understand +at all, told a long story apparently in Russian, cried a little, +and shaken Mr. Golspie’s hand so hard and so often that as he +thought about it all now, over his cigar in the saloon that seemed +so strangely still, Mr. Golspie could almost feel the ache again in +his hand. Mr. Golspie himself did not perform any of these antics; +he merely mellowed as the evening waned and the bottles were +emptied; and he was mellowing now, early though it was, for he +and the captain had sat a long time over lunch. Apparently, however, +<span class="pagenum" id="p4">[4]</span>Mr. Golspie did not consider that he was sufficiently mellow, for +he now helped himself to another drink.</p> + +<p>The men in bowler hats were by this time on board. Some of them +were interviewing the captain. Others were interested in Mr. Golspie, +for they had to decide whether he was fit to land in the island of his +birth. His relations with these officials were quite amiable, but they +did not prevent him from expressing his views.</p> + +<p>“Regulations! Of course they’re regulations!” he boomed through +the great moustache, mellow but pugnacious. “But that doesn’t +mean they’re not a lot o’ damned nonsense. There’s more palaver +getting into England now than there was getting into Russia and +Turkey before the blasted war. And we used to laugh at ’em. Backward +countries we used to call ’em. Passports!” Here he laughed, +then tapped the young man on the lapel of his blue serge coat. +“Never kept a rogue out yet, never. Only wants a bit of cleverness. +All they do is to make trouble for honest men—fellows like +me, wanting to do a bit of good to trade. Isn’t that right? You bet +it is.”</p> + +<p>He then saw the customs officers, who dipped a hand here and +there in his two steamer trunks and three battered suitcases.</p> + +<p>“I expect you’d like to get away,” said one of them, beginning +to chalk up his approval of the luggage.</p> + +<p>Mr. Golspie watched him with idle benevolence, looking quite +unlike a man who has two hundred and fifty cigars cunningly +stowed away in a steamer trunk. “Not this time. No hurry, for +once. I’m staying aboard to pick a bit of dinner with the skipper +here.” He waved a hand, presumably to indicate the city that lay +all round them. “It can wait.”</p> + +<p>“What can?” And the young man gave a final flourish of chalk.</p> + +<p>“London can,” replied Mr. Golspie. “All of it.”</p> + +<p>The young man laughed, not because he thought this last remark +very witty, but because this passenger suddenly reminded +him of a comedian he had once seen at the Finsbury Park Empire. +“Well, I dare say it can. It’s been waiting a long time.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p5">[5]</span></p> + +<p>Left to himself, with his cigars all safe, Mr. Golspie ruminated +for a minute or two, then climbed to the upper deck, perhaps to +decide what it was that had been waiting so long.</p> + +<p>He found himself staring at the immense panorama of the Pool. +Dusk was falling; the river rippled darkly; and the fleet of barges +across the way was almost shapeless. There was, however, enough +daylight lingering on the north bank, where the black piles and +the whitewashed wharf edge above them still stood out sharply, to +give shape and character to the waterfront. Over on the right, the grey +stones of the Tower were faintly luminous, as if they had contrived +to store away a little of their centuries of sunlight. The white +pillars of the Custom House were as plain as peeled wands. Nearer +still, two church spires thrust themselves above the blur of stone +and smoke and vague flickering lights: one was as blanched and +graceful as if it had been made of twisted paper, a salute to Heaven +from the City; the other was abrupt and dark, a despairing appeal, +the finger of a hand flung out to the sky. Mr. Golspie, after a brief +glance, ignored the pair of them. They in their turn, however, were +dominated by the severely rectangular building to the left, boldly +fronting the river and looking over London Bridge with a hundred +eyes, a grim Assyrian bulk of stone. It challenged Mr. Golspie’s +memory, so that he regarded it intently. It was there when he was +last in London, but was new then. Adelaide House, that was it. But +he still continued to look at it, and with respect, for the challenge +remained, though not to the memory. Both the blind eyes and the +lighted eyes of its innumerable windows seemed to answer his +stare and to tell him that he did not amount to very much, not +here in London. Then his gaze swept over the bridge to what +could be seen beyond. The Cold Storage place, and then, cavernous, +immense, the great black arch of Cannon Street Station, and high +above, far beyond, not in the city but in the sky and still softly shining +in the darkening air, a ball and a cross. It was the very top of +St. Paul’s, seen above the roof of Cannon Street Station. Mr. Golspie +recognised it with pleasure, and even half sung, half hummed, the +<span class="pagenum" id="p6">[6]</span>line of a song that came back to him, something about “St. Paul’s +with its grand old Dome.” Good luck to St. Paul’s! It did not challenge +him: it was simply there, keeping an eye on everything but +interfering with nobody. And somehow this glimpse of St. Paul’s +suddenly made him realise that this was the genuine old monster, +London. He felt the whole mass of it, spouting and fuming and +roaring away. He realised something else too, namely, the fact that +he was still wearing his old brown slippers, the ones that Hortensia +had given him. He had arrived, had crept right into the very heart +of London, wearing his old brown slippers. He had slipped two +hundred and fifty cigars past their noses, and had not even changed +into his shoes. James Golspie was surveying London in his slippers, +and London was not knowing, not caring—just yet. These thoughts +gave him enormous pleasure, bringing with them a fine feeling of +cunning and strength: he could have shaken hands with himself; +if there had been a mirror handy he would probably have exchanged +a wink with his reflection.</p> + +<p>He walked round the deck. Lights were flickering on along the +wharf, immediately giving the unlit entrances a sombre air of mystery. +A few men down there were heaving and shouting, but there +was little to see. Mr. Golspie continued his walk, then stopped to +look across and over London Bridge at the near waterfront, the +south bank. Such lighting as there was on this side was very gay. +High up on the first building past the bridge, coloured lights +revolved about an illuminated bottle, to the glory of Booth’s Gin, +and further along, a stabbing gleam of crimson finally spelt itself +into Sandeman’s Port. Mr. Golspie regarded both these writings on +the wall with admiration and sympathy. The sight of London +Bridge itself too, pleased him now, for all the buses had turned on +their lights and were streaming across like a flood of molten gold. +They brought another stream of pleasant images into Mr. Golspie’s +mind, a bright if broken pageant of convivial London: double +whiskies in crimson-shaded bars; smoking hot steaks and chops and +a white cloth on a little corner table; the glitter and velvet of the +<span class="pagenum" id="p7">[7]</span>music-halls; knowing gossip, the fine reek of Havanas, round a club +fender and fat leather chairs; pretty girls, a bit stiff perhaps (though +not as stiff as they used to be) but very pretty and not so deep as +the foreign ones, coming out of shops and offices, with evenings to +spend and not much else: he saw it all and he liked the look of it. +There was a size, a richness, about London. You could find anything +or anybody you wanted in it, and you could also hide in it. +He had been a fool to stay away so long. But, anyhow, here he was. +He took a long and wide and exultant look at the place.</p> + +<p>Dinner that night was very good indeed, the best the boat had +given him. Mr. Golspie and the captain shared it with the chief +engineer, who came beaming and shining from the depths, and the +first mate, usually a very wooden fellow, for ever brooding over +some mysterious domestic tragedy in Riga, but now for once gigantically +social and cheerful. The steward, the one with the cropped +head and gold tooth, lavished his all upon them. Bottles that had +not been emptied before were emptied now, together with some that +were produced for the first time. The talk, so far as Mr. Golspie +had any part in it, was conducted in a fantastic mixture of English, +German, and the ship’s own Baltic language, a mixture it would be +impossible to reproduce here, but it went very well, smashing its +way through the entanglements of irregular verbs and doubtful +substantives, for nothing removes the curse of Babel like food, drink, +and good-fellowship. All four grew expansive, bellowed confidences, +roared through the fog of cigar smoke, threw back their heads to +laugh, and were gods for an hour.</p> + +<p>“Very soon we shall meet again,” said the captain to Mr. Golspie, +clinking glasses for the third time. “Is that not so, my friend?”</p> + +<p>“Leave it to me, my boy,” replied Mr. Golspie, very flushed, with +tiny beads of perspiration on that massive bald front of his.</p> + +<p>“You come back when you have finished your business here in +London?”</p> + +<p>“As to that, I can’t say. If I can, I will.”</p> + +<p>“That is good,” said the captain. Then he looked very deep, and +<span class="pagenum" id="p8">[8]</span>put a finger as big as a pork sausage to his forehead. “And now you +will tell us what this business is, eh? In secret. We will not tell.”</p> + +<p>The chief engineer tugged at the ends of his moustache, which +was nearly as large as Mr. Golspie’s, and tried to look even deeper +than the captain, like the repository of innumerable commercial +secrets.</p> + +<p>“I say this,” cried the huge first mate, who was in no condition +now to wait until his opinion had been asked. “I say this. It is good +business. It is for the good of our country. I drink to you,” he +shouted, and promptly did so, with the result that he immediately +remembered that disastrous affair at Riga, and sat silent, with the +tears in his eyes, for the next twenty minutes.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Mr. Golspie, taking out his cigar and +looking at it very knowingly, as if it was a fellow conspirator. +“There’s no need to make a mystery of it. D’you remember Mikorsky? +Wait a minute. Not the little fellow with the office in Danzig, +but the big fellow with the beard, in the timber trade. That’s the +one. Remember him?”</p> + +<p>The captain did, and was evidently so pleased by this effort of +memory that he appeared to conduct several bars of one of the +stormier symphonies. The mate remembered, too, but only nodded, +his tearful blue eyes being still fixed on that tragic interior in Riga. +The chief engineer did not remember Mikorsky, and, in what +seemed nothing less than mental anguish, repeated the name in +twenty different tones, beginning very high and ending in a despairing +bass.</p> + +<p>“I’ve done one or two little jobs for him,” Mr. Golspie continued, +“during the time I had a bit of a pull. We’d a night or two together, +too. I met him one day, not a month ago, and he said he was just +going down into the country, to see his cousin, and I ought to go +with him. So I did. I’d nothing better to do. Hot as hell it was +down there, too, and I was bitten to death. This cousin of Mikorsky’s +was in the furniture end of the timber trade, and he’d invented a +new process, machine, treatment, everything, for turning out veneers +<span class="pagenum" id="p9">[9]</span>and inlays. And labour costs next to nothing down there. I asked +where all this stuff was going. Well, they’d got orders from Germany +and Czecho-Slovakia and Austria and a chance of something +in Paris. ‘What’s it going to cost in London?’ I said, showing ’em +one of their lines, and they told me. It sounded all right to me, but +I didn’t say anything. Not then. I went away and made a few +enquiries. I found out what they were paying for this sort of stuff +in Bethnal Green and Hoxton and those parts, in London, you +know, where the furniture’s made⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Bednal Green, yes,” said the chief engineer proudly. “My uncle +Stefan was there, yes, old Stefan in Bednal Green. Socialist,” he +added, as a melancholy afterthought.</p> + +<p>“He was, was he?” Mr. Golspie boomed, with a certain brutal +heartiness characteristic of him. “Well, good luck to him! I’ll get on +with the tale. They were paying half as much again for the same +sort o’ stuff, veneers and inlays, not a bit better, here in London. +Couldn’t get it where it was produced so cheap, y’see? Didn’t look +about ’em. They’re getting slow here. There’s something in this for +me, I said to myself, and off I went down there again, to see this +other Mikorsky, the cousin. I wanted to know how much of this +stuff I could have every month, various lines, and the prices. They +told me, and guaranteed it. We had a few drinks on it, and I walk +out, with a contract in my pocket, so much of this, that, and the +other, at so much, whenever I liked to take it up, and me the sole +agent for Great Britain.”</p> + +<p>“Very good business,” said the captain, with a grave judicial air, +in spite of his rather goggly eyes. “And now, you sell it all, eh? You +make big profit?”</p> + +<p>“What I do is to find somebody who’s in the way of selling it, +somebody who’s in this line o’ business, and then go in with ’em.” +Mr. Golspie refreshed himself noisily. “And if I haven’t laid my +hand on somebody by this time the day after to-morrow, my name’s +not Jimmy Golspie.”</p> + +<p>“Make plenty of money, be rich, eh?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p10">[10]</span></p> + +<p>“No, it’s too honest. But I’ll pick a bit up, to be going on with.”</p> + +<p>“Ah no, no!” cried the captain, reaching over and patting Mr. +Golspie on the shoulder. “You make plenty, here in London. Ho-ho, +yes! Plenty! Money here in London—oh!—” And he held out his +hands as if he expected the Bank of England to be emptied into +them.</p> + +<p>“Not so much as you think,” said Mr. Golspie, shaking his head +very slowly. “Oh no, not at all. They may have it, but it’s all tied +up. It’s not—er—shir—circulating. I tell you, they’re slow here, they’re +slow.”</p> + +<p>“You think they sleep?”</p> + +<p>“That’s right. Half asleep, most of ’em.”</p> + +<p>“Ho-ho,” roared the captain. “And you will put them awake?”</p> + +<p>“One or two, p’rhaps, I might be able to shake up a bit. If not, +I’m on the move again. And I’ll have to be on the move now, boys. +I told that steward’s mate—the fellow that plays the concertina—to +go and get me a taxi and take my traps ashore. It ought to be +there, at the corner, any minute now. All right then. Just a last +one for luck.”</p> + +<p>They were having this last one, with some formality, when the +man returned to say that the taxi was waiting. Mr. Golspie led the +way to the deck, and then stopped near the gangway to say good-bye.</p> + +<p>“Now for it,” he cried, more for his own benefit than for his +listeners’. “Straight back into the old rabbit warren. God, what a +place! Millions and millions, and most of ’em don’t know they’re +born yet! Eyes and tails, that’s all they are, diving in and out of their +little holes. The good old rabbit warren. Look at it! Ah, well, it’s +no good looking at it here because you can’t see it. But I’ve been +looking at it. What a place! Well, Chief—well, Captain—this is +where I go.”</p> + +<p>“And the beautiful daughter, the little Lena?” the captain inquired. +“Is she here, waiting for you?”</p> + +<p>“Not yet. She’s still in Paris, with her aunt, but she’ll be coming +over as soon as I’ve settled down. Golspie and Daughter, that’ll be +<span class="pagenum" id="p11">[11]</span>the style of the firm then, and we’ll see what London makes of it. +And—my God—if I don’t waken some of ’em up, she will, the artful +little devil! But she’ll have to behave here. Yes, she’ll have to +behave. Well, Captain, keep her afloat, and remember me to all the +girls and boys at the other end, and let’s meet again next time you’re +over. Drop me a line to the office here. I’ll tell ’em where to find me. +Where the devil’s the lad? Oh, he’s there, is he? Has he taken +everything ashore? Right you are! So long!”</p> + +<p>After a final wave of the hand, Mr. Golspie, a very massive +figure now in his huge ulster, made a slow, steady, and very dignified +progress down the gangway. When he found himself treading +at last the stones of London, he turned his head and nodded, then +strode off more briskly to the corner of Battle Bridge Lane, where +the taxi was waiting. Two minutes later, he had gone hooting into +the lights and shadows of the city, which sent whirling past the +windows a crazy frieze, glimmering, glittering, darkening, of shops, +taverns, theatre doors, hoardings, church porches, crimson and gold +segments of buses, little lighted interiors of saloon cars, railings and +doorsteps and lace curtains, mounds and chocolate, thousands of +cigarette packets, beer and buns and aspirin and wreaths and coffins, +and faces, faces, more and more faces, strange, meaningless and +without end. But the lights that came flashing in found a tiny answering +gleam in Mr. Golspie’s eyes; and when they had gone, in +the double darkness of the cab and the shadow of that great +moustache, he grinned. London neither knew nor cared; nevertheless, +there it was: Mr. James Golspie had arrived.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p12">[12]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_One_THEY_ARRIVE"> + <i>Chapter One</i>: <span class="allsmcap">THEY ARRIVE</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Many people who think they know the City well have been +compelled to admit that they do not know Angel Pavement. +You could go wandering half a dozen times between Bunhill Fields +and London Wall, or across from Barbican to Broad Street Station, +and yet miss Angel Pavement. Some of the street maps of the district +omit it altogether; taxi-drivers often do not even pretend to +know it; policemen are frequently not sure; and only postmen who +are caught within half a dozen streets of it are triumphantly positive. +This all suggests that Angel Pavement is of no great importance. +Everybody knows Finsbury Pavement, which is not very far away, +because Finsbury Pavement is a street of considerable length and +breadth, full of shops, warehouses, and offices, to say nothing of +buses and trams, for it is a real thoroughfare. Angel Pavement is +not a real thoroughfare, and its length and breadth are inconsiderable. +You might bombard the postal districts of E. C. 1 and E. C. 2 +with letters for years, and yet never have to address anything to +Angel Pavement. The little street is old, and has its fair share of +sooty stone and greasy walls, crumbling brick and rotting woodwork, +but somehow it has never found itself on the stage of history. +Kings, princes, great bishops, have never troubled it; murders it +may have seen, but they have all belonged to private life; and no +literary masterpiece has ever been written under one of its roofs. +The guide-books, the volumes on London’s byways, have not a word +to say about it, and those motor-coaches, complete with guide, that +<span class="pagenum" id="p13">[13]</span>roam about the City in the early evening never go near it. The guide +himself, who knows all about Henry the Eighth and Wren and +Dickens and is so highly educated that he can still talk with an +Oxford accent at the very top of his voice, could probably tell you +nothing about Angel Pavement.</p> + +<p>It is a typical City side-street, except that it is shorter, narrower, +and dingier than most. At one time it was probably a real thoroughfare, +but now only pedestrians can escape at the western end, +and they do this by descending the six steps at the corner. For anything +larger and less nimble than a pedestrian, Angel Pavement is a +<i>cul de sac</i>, for all that end, apart from the steps, is blocked up by +<i>Chase & Cohen: Carnival Novelties</i>, and not even by the front of +Chase & Cohen but by their sooty, mouldering, dusty-windowed +back. Chase & Cohen do not believe it is worth while offering Angel +Pavement any of their carnival novelties—many of which are given +away, with a thirty shilling dinner and dance, in the West End every +gala night—and so they turn the other way, not letting Angel Pavement +have so much as a glimpse of a pierrot hat or a false nose. Perhaps +this is as well, for if the pavementeers could see pierrot hats +and false noses every day, there is no telling what might happen.</p> + +<p>What you do see there, however, is something quite different. +Turning into Angel Pavement from that crazy jumble and jangle of +buses, lorries, drays, private cars, and desperate bicycles, the main +road, you see on the right, first a nondescript blackened building +that is really the side of a shop and a number of offices; then <i>The +Pavement Dining Rooms: R. Ditton, Propr.</i>, with R. Ditton’s usual +window display of three cocoanut buns, two oranges, four bottles +of cherry cider picturesquely grouped, and if not the boiled ham, +the meat-and-potato pie; then a squashed little house or bundle of +single offices that is hopelessly to let; and then the bar of the <i>White +Horse</i>, where you have the choice of any number of mellowed +whiskies or fine sparkling ales, to be consumed on or off the premises, +and if on, then either publicly or privately. You are now halfway +down the street, and could easily throw a stone through one of +<span class="pagenum" id="p14">[14]</span>Chase & Cohen’s windows, which is precisely what somebody, maddened +perhaps by the thought of the Carnival Novelties, has already +done. On the other side, the southern side, the left-hand side when +you turn in from the outer world, you begin, rather splendidly, with +<i>Dunbury & Co.: Incandescent Gas Fittings</i>, and two windows almost +bright with sample fittings. Then you arrive at <i>T. Benenden: Tobacconist</i>, +whose window is filled with dummy packets of cigarettes +and tobacco that have long ceased even to pretend they have anything +better than air in them; though there are also, as witnesses to +T. Benenden’s enterprise, one or two little bowls of dry and dusty +stuff that mutter, in faded letters, “Our Own Mixture, Cool Sweet +Smoking, Why not Try it?” To reach T. Benenden’s little counter, +you go through the street doorway and then turn through another +door on the left. The stairs in front of you—and very dark and dirty +they are, too—belong to <i>C. Warstein: Tailors’ Trimmings</i>. Next to +T. Benenden and C. Warstein is a door, a large, stout, old door +from which most of the paint has flaked and shredded away. This +door has no name on it, and nobody, not even T. Benenden, has +seen it open or knows what there is behind it. There it is, a door, +and it does nothing but gather dust and cobwebs and occasionally +drop another flake of dried paint on the worn step below. Perhaps +it leads into another world. Perhaps it will open, one morning, to +admit an angel, who, after looking up and down the little street for +a moment, will suddenly blow the last trumpet. Perhaps that is the +real reason why the street is called Angel Pavement. What is certain, +however, is that this door has no concern with the building +next to it and above it, the real neighbour of T. Benenden and +C. Warstein and known to the postal authorities as No. 8, Angel +Pavement.</p> + +<p>No. 8, once a four-storey dwelling-house where some merchant-alderman +lived snugly on his East India dividends, is now a little +hive of commerce. For the last few years, it has contrived to keep +an old lady and a companion (unpaid) in reasonable comfort at The +Palms Private Hotel, Torquay, and, in addition, to furnish the old +<span class="pagenum" id="p15">[15]</span>lady’s youngest niece with an allowance of two pounds a week in +order that she might continue to share a studio just off the Fulham +Road and attempt to design scenery for plays that are always about +to be produced at the Everyman Theatre, Hampstead. It has also +indirectly paid the golf-club subscription and caddie fees of the +junior partner of Fulton, Gregg & Fulton, the solicitors, who are +responsible for the letting and the rents. As for the tenants themselves, +their names may be found on each side of the squat doorway. +The ground floor is occupied by the <i>Kwik-Work Razor Blade Co., +Ltd.</i>, the first floor by <i>Twigg & Dersingham</i>, and the upper floors +by the <i>Universal Hosiery Co.</i>, the <i>London and Counties Supply +Stores</i>, and, at the very top, keeping its eye on everybody, the <i>National +Mercantile Enquiry Agency</i>, which seems to be content with +the possession of a front attic.</p> + +<p>This does not mean that we have now finished with No. 8, Angel +Pavement. It is for the sake of No. 8 that we have come to Angel +Pavement at all, but not for the whole of No. 8, but only for the first +floor. No doubt a number of tales, perhaps huge violent epics, could +be started, jumped into life, merely by opening the door of the +<i>Kwik-Work Razor Blade Co., Ltd.</i>, or by trudging up the stairs to +the <i>Universal Hosiery Co.</i> and the <i>London and Counties Supply +Stores</i>, or by looking up at the grimy skylight, and giving a shout +to the <i>National Mercantile Enquiry Agency</i>, but we must keep to +the less mysterious but more respectable first floor—and <i>Twigg & +Dersingham</i>.</p> + + +<h3 id="II"> + II +</h3> + +<p>On this particular morning in autumn, Mrs. Cross was rather later +than usual. That did not matter very much because it was not one +of the floor-washing mornings, but just one of the ordinary dust-round-and-sweep-up-a-bit +mornings. But somebody, one of the interfering +sort, had left a note for her in the general office, that is, the +room just behind the frosted glass partitions and the sort of ticket +<span class="pagenum" id="p16">[16]</span>office window with <i>Enquiries</i> on it, and this note said: <i>Mrs. Cross. +What about turning this room out for a change? Thank you!!</i></p> + +<p>“An’ thank <em>you</em>!” said Mrs. Cross, quite aloud and with grim +irony, as she tore up this note and popped it in the top of the stove. +To show that she was not the kind of woman to be dictated to in +this fashion, she immediately went and gave the other room, Mr. +Dersingham’s private office, a thoroughly good sweeping and dusting. +Having done that, she waddled straight across the general office +to the other room, which, with its long counter and cupboards and +drawers and samples of wood and litter, was the one she liked least, +being always in a terrible mess. On her way, she completely ignored +the general office, did not even give it a look, just as if it were full +of people in the habit of leaving notes. Her back told it very plainly +that she would clean up the office in her own way. Once in the other +room, the nasty one, she felt so pleased about this rebuff that she +set to work with a will, and for the next ten minutes was enveloped +in a cloud of dust. By the time she had finished, there may have +been very few articles in the room that were free from dust, but +nearly all of them had at least exchanged their old dust for another +variety that came perhaps from quite a distant corner. Then she +thrust back a wisp of grey hair from her swollen face, on which +time and trouble had first sketched a few lines and then deepened +them by puffing out the surrounding flesh; she dragged her swollen +feet across to the discarded leather office chair in the corner; she +flopped into the chair and put her swollen hands—for though she +said with some truth that she worked her fingers to the bone, hot +water and soap and wet scrubbing brushes had piled sodden, nerveless +flesh on those bones—in her lap, and rested. Immediately she +plunged into a fierce reverie, in which the figure of Mr. Cross, who +suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, the two rooms between the City +Road and the black Regent’s Canal that were her home, Mrs. Tomlinson, +the woman she was going to clean for later in the morning, +and the image of a pound of stewing steak, all played their parts. +Then she returned to the general office.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p17">[17]</span></p> + +<p>This time, she noticed its existence, and what she saw suddenly +gave her a little fright. She had been a bit too hasty (her old fault) +about that note. It really did want a good tidying. She had neglected +it a bit lately, because for the last three mornings she had been +late, all because she was not getting her proper sleep, and all because +Mrs. Williams and her husband on the next floor had got a loud +speaker, one of them little horns, and it was not only a loud speaker +but also a late speaker, and in fact would speak your head off. And +if she didn’t get on with this office a bit, the one that left that note +would be complaining to Mr. Dersingham, and then that might +mean another job gone, all due to hastiness. She had better be putting +her hastiness behind a brush and duster. And, as if to give her +a final push, a clock somewhere outside sounded the half-hour. Half-past +eight!—well, now she would have to bustle round.</p> + +<p>She was still bustling round—though, to be accurate, she was only +engaged in passing a languid, duster-holding hand over the tin cover +of the typewriter—when Messrs. Twigg & Dersingham’s next employee +arrived, and their day really began. The frosted glass door +that opened from the little space in which enquirers were kept waiting +for a few minutes, now swung back to admit into the general +office the body of a boy about fifteen, whose eyes were focussed upon +a paper, folded into a very small compass, that he held about four +inches away from them. This was the office boy or very junior clerk, +Stanley Poole, who had just come all the way from Hackney, which +remained with him as a combined flavour of cocoa and bread dipped +in bacon fat that still haunted his palate. His body, which was small +and thin but sufficiently tough, and was crowned by a snub nose, +some freckles, greyish-greenish eyes, and some unbrushed sandy +hair, had been in the service of Twigg & Dersingham for the last +twenty minutes, when it had boarded a tram and a bus and had +walked down several streets. Now it had arrived in the office. But +his mind had not yet begun the day’s work. Even now, when the +very threshold had been passed, it was still in the wilds of Mexico, +enjoying the heroic and exhilarating companionship of Jack Dashwood +<span class="pagenum" id="p18">[18]</span>and Dick Robinson, the Boy Aviators, the terror of all +Mexican bandits.</p> + +<p>“So you’ve come,” said Mrs. Cross, putting back that wisp of hair +again. “It’s about time I was ’opping it if you’ve come.”</p> + +<p>Stanley looked up and nodded. With a sigh, he withdrew from the +world of the Boy Aviators and the Mexican bandits. He tried to fold +his paper into a still smaller compass, before cramming it into his +pocket.</p> + +<p>“Read, read, read!” cried Mrs. Cross derisively. “Some of yer’s +always at it. What they find to put in all the time beats me. What’s +that yer reading now? Murders, I’ll bet.”</p> + +<p>“’Tisn’t,” replied Stanley, balancing himself on one leg for no +particular reason that we can discover. “It’s a boys’ paper.” He made +this announcement with a kind of sullen reluctance, not because he +was really a sullen lad, but simply because he had discovered that +when his elders asked these questions, they were usually not in +search of information, but were trying to get at him.</p> + +<p>“Penny bloods, them things is.”</p> + +<p>“’Tisn’t,” said Stanley, balancing himself on the other leg now. +“This is tuppence. I buy it ev’ry week, have done ever since it come +out. <i>Boy’s Companion</i>, it’s called. It’s got the best tales in,” he added, +in a sudden burst of confidence. “All about boys who fly in airplanes +an’ go to Mexico an’ Russia an’ all over an’ have advenshers!”</p> + +<p>“Advenshers! They’d be better off at ’ome—with their advenshers! +You’ll be wantin’ to go an’ ’ave advenshers yerself next—and then +what will yer poor mother say?”</p> + +<p>But this only goaded Stanley into making new and even more +dangerous admissions. “I’m going to try and be a detective,” he +mumbled.</p> + +<p>“Well now, did y’ever!” cried Mrs. Cross, at once shocked and +delighted. “A detective! I never ’eard of such a thing! What d’yer +come ’ere for if yer want to be a detective. There’s no detectin’ ’ere. +Go on with yer! ’Ere, yer not big enough, and yer never will be +<span class="pagenum" id="p19">[19]</span>either, ’cos yer’d ’ave to be a pleeceman first before they’d let yer +be a detective, and they’d never ’ave yer as a pleeceman.”</p> + +<p>“You can be detective without being a bobby first,” replied Stanley +scornfully. He had gone into this question, and was not to be put +off by a mere outsider like Mrs. Cross. “’Sides, you can be a private +detective an’ find jewels an’ shadder people. That’s what I’d like to +do—shadder people.”</p> + +<p>“What’s that? Follerin’ ’em about, is it? Oh, that’s nasty work, +that is. Shadderin’! I’d shadder yer if I caught yer at it, my words +I would.” And Mrs. Cross took up her brush and dust-pan and gave +them a fierce little shake, almost as if she had just caught <em>them</em> at it. +“Now you just get on with yer work like a good boy, and don’t you +go tellin’ anybody else yer want to be shadderin’ else yer’ll be gettin’ +yerself into trouble. Yer can’t expect people to ’ave any patience with +shadderers. If Mr. Dersingham knew what was goin’ on in that ’ead +of yours, ’e’d tell yer to go straight ’ome and ’ave nothing more to do +with yer, and yer’d find yerself shadderin’ for another job, and that’s +all the shadderin’ <em>you’d</em> get.”</p> + +<p>Stanley turned away, and then pulled a face, not so much at Mrs. +Cross as at the whole narrow school of thought represented at this +moment by Mrs. Cross. He went to the letter-box and brought back +the morning’s post, which he placed on the nearest high desk. There +he remembered something, and looked with a grin at Mrs. Cross, +who was now having a final bustle round.</p> + +<p>“Did you see that note left for you?” he inquired.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cross suspended operations at once. “Yes, I did see it, and if +yer want to know where it is, I can tell yer, ’cos it’s in that stove.” +She struck an attitude that suggested a counsel for the prosecution of +the high-handed type. “And oo, might I ask, left that there note? +Oo wrote it? Just you tell me that, that’s all?”</p> + +<p>“Miss Matfield wrote it.”</p> + +<p>“An’ I thought as much. Soon as I set eyes on it, I knew. Miss +Matfield wrote it! Miss Matfield!” Her irony was now so terrible +that she shook all over with it, and her head seemed in danger of +<span class="pagenum" id="p20">[20]</span>falling off. “And ’ow long, might I ask, ’as Miss Matfield been in +this office, doin’ ’er typewriting? ’Ow long? Two munce. All right—three +munce. An’ ’ow long ’ave I been cleaning for Twiggs and +Dersingham’s, coming ’ere ev’ry morning, week in an’ week out, to +clean this office? Yer don’t know. No, yer don’t know, and yer Miss +Matfield doesn’t know. Well, I’ll tell yer. I’ve been cleaning for +Twiggs and Dersingham’s for seven years, I ’ave. It wasn’t this Mr. +Dersingham that started me, it was ’is uncle, old Mr. Dersingham, +’im oo’s dead now—an’ a nice old gentleman ’e was, too, nicer than +this one an’ a better ’ead on ’im to my way of thinking—and when +this Mr. Dersingham took on, ’e sent for me and said, ‘You keep +on cleaning, Mrs. Cross, and I’ll pay yer whatever my uncle did,’ +that’s what ’e said to me in that very room there, and I said, ‘Much +obliged, sir, and the very best attention as always,’ and ’e said, ‘I’m +sure it will, Mrs. Cross.’ Typewriters! Coming and going so fast I +can’t be bothered learning their names. If there’s been one ’ere since +I started, there’s been eight or ten or a dozen. Miss Matfield! Now +when she comes in, just give ’er a message from me,” she cried, +thoroughly reckless by this time. “Just say to ’er: ‘Mrs. Cross ’as seen +the note left and only asks oo is cleaning this office, Miss Matfield or +’er, and if ’er, then them oo’s been doing it for seven years, week +in and week out, knows their own business better than them oo’s +only been typewriting ’ere for three munce, and so Mrs. Cross’ll +thank ’er to keep ’er notes to ’erself in future till they’re asked for.’ +Just you tell ’er that, boy. And I’ll say good-morning.”</p> + +<p>With that, Mrs. Cross unfastened her apron and gathered up her +things with great dignity, gave Stanley a final shake of the head, +and waddled out, closing the outer door behind her, a moment later, +with a decisive bang.</p> + +<p>Left to himself, Stanley, with the contemptuous air of a man who +is meant for better things, began his morning’s work. After taking +off the two typewriter covers, dumping a few books on the high +desks, and filling up all the ink-pots and putting out clean sheets of +blotting paper (which duty was a little fad of Mr. Smeeth’s), he +<span class="pagenum" id="p21">[21]</span>remembered that he was a creature with a soul. So, grasping a short +round ruler in such a way that it remotely resembled a revolver, he +crouched behind Mr. Smeeth’s high stool for a few tense moments, +then sprang out, pointing his gun at the place where the great +criminal’s bottom waistcoat button would have been, and said +hoarsely: “Put ’em up, Diamond Jack. No, you don’t! Not a move!” +He gave a warning flourish of the gun, then said casually, over his +shoulder, to one of his assistants or a few police sergeants or somebody +like that, “Take him away.” And that was the end of Diamond +Jack, and yet another triumph for S. Poole, the young detective +whose exploits were rivalling even those of the Boy Aviators. And +having thus refreshed himself, Stanley replaced the round ruler and +condescended to perform one or two more of those monotonous and +trifling actions that Messrs. Twigg & Dersingham demanded of him +at this hour of the morning. These left him ample time for thought, +and he began to wonder if he would be able to get out during the +morning. Once outside the office—even though he was only going to +the post office or the railway goods department or some firm not +four streets away—he could enjoy himself, for the affairs of Twigg +& Dersingham faded to a grey thread of routine; he plunged at once +into the drama of London’s underworld; and as he hopped and +dodged about the crowded streets, like a sandy-haired sparrow, he +was able to do some marvellous shadowing. There also loomed already, +early as it was, a problem that would become more and more +disturbing as the long morning wore on and he became hungrier +and hungrier. This was the problem of where to go and what to buy +for lunch, for which his mother allowed him a shilling every day. +He always ate his breakfast so quickly that his stomach forgot about +it almost at once and left him hollow inside by ten o’clock and absolutely +aching by twelve. He often wondered what would happen to +him if, instead of being the first to go to lunch, at half past twelve, +he was the last, and had to wait until about half past one. There are +innumerable ways of spending a shilling on lunch, from the downright +solid way of blowing the lot on sausage or fried liver and +<span class="pagenum" id="p22">[22]</span>mashed potatoes, say at the <i>Pavement Dining Rooms</i>, to the immediately +delightful but rather unsatisfying method of spreading it out, +buying a jam tart here, a banana there, and some milk chocolate +somewhere else; and Stanley knew them all.</p> + +<p>He was trifling with the thought of trying the nearest Lyons again, +and was actually searching his memory to discover the exact price of +a portion of Lancashire Hot-pot in that establishment, when he was +interrupted by the arrival of a colleague. This was Turgis, the clerk, +who might be described as Stanley’s senior or Mr. Smeeth’s junior. +He was in his early twenties, a thinnish, awkward young man, with +a rather long neck, poor shoulders, and large, clumsy hands and feet. +You would not say he was ugly, but on the other hand you would +probably admit, after reflection, that it would have been better for +him if he had been actually uglier. As it was, he was just unprepossessing. +You would not have noticed him in a crowd—and a great +deal of his time was spent in a crowd—but if your attention had +been called to him, you would have given him one glance and then +decided that that was enough. He was obviously neither sick nor +starved, yet something about his appearance, a total lack of colour +and bloom, a slight pastiness and spottiness, the faint grey film that +seemed to cover and subdue him, suggested that all the food he ate +was wrong, all the rooms he sat in, beds he slept in, and clothes he +wore, were wrong, and that he lived in a world without sun and +clean rain and wandering sweet air. His features were not good nor +yet too bad. He had rather full brown eyes that might have been +called pretty if they had been set in a girl’s face; a fairly large nose +that should have been masterful but somehow was not; a small, still +babyish mouth, usually open, and revealing several big and irregular +teeth; and a drooping rather than retreating chin. His blue serge +suit bulged and bagged and sagged and shone, and had obviously +done all these things five days after it had left the multiple cheap +tailors’ shop, in the window of which a companion suit, clothing the +wax model of a light-weight champion, still maliciously challenged +<span class="pagenum" id="p23">[23]</span>Turgis with its smooth surface and sharp creases every time he +sneaked past it. His soft collar was crumpled, his tie a little frayed, +and there was a pulpy look about his shoes. Any sensible woman +could have compelled him to improve his appearance almost beyond +recognition within a week, and it was quite clear that no sensible +woman took any interest in him.</p> + +<p>“Morning, Stanley,” he said, not very cheerfully.</p> + +<p>“Hello,” said Stanley, in the toneless voice of one who expects +nothing.</p> + +<p>Turgis went over to his own high desk, pulled a blotting-pad out +of the drawer, put a book or two on his desk, examined a note he +had left on his pad, reminding him to “ring Whishaws first thing,” +and then spent a melancholy five minutes at the telephone.</p> + +<p>“Will I have to call there this morning?” Stanley asked hopefully, +when Turgis had rung off.</p> + +<p>“No, they’re sending somebody. Good job, too! We don’t want you +off half the morning. You’ll stop in and do a bit of work, my son, +for a change. Do you good.”</p> + +<p>“What work?” demanded Stanley, with scorn.</p> + +<p>“By jingo, I like that!” cried Turgis. “There’s plenty to do, if +you’ll only look for it instead of dodging it. You ask Smeethy, he’ll +find you some. Haven’t you got enough? You can do some of mine, +if you like. I’ve got more than I want.”</p> + +<p>Stanley changed the subject. “I say,” he began, grinning, “you +ought to have heard old Ma Cross on about that note. She let herself +go all right, didn’t she just! Oo, you ought to have heard her.”</p> + +<p>“What did she say?” Turgis inquired. But he did it very languidly, +just to show that what amused small fry like Stanley might not +amuse him.</p> + +<p>At that moment, however, they heard the outer door opening, and +the next moment the cause of all the trouble, Miss Matfield herself, +walked in. She flung down a library book, her large handbag, and +a pair of gloves on her table, then marched over to her hook and +<span class="pagenum" id="p24">[24]</span>removed her coat and hat, while the other two waited in silence. +They were both rather frightened of Miss Matfield. Even Mr. Smeeth +and Mr. Dersingham himself were rather frightened of Miss +Matfield.</p> + +<p>“<em>Good</em> morning,” she cried, looking from one to the other of them, +and, as usual, putting a disturbingly ironical inflection into her tones. +“Are we all very well this morning? Well, I’m not,” and here, her +voice changed. “O Lord! I thought I’d never get here. That bus +journey gets fouler every morning, slower and slower and fouler and +fouler.” She sat down opposite her machine, but took no notice of it.</p> + +<p>“You ought to try the Tube,” Turgis suggested, not very boldly +or hopefully. He had made this suggestion before. Everything had +been said before, and they all knew it.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I can’t bear the Tube.” Once more she seemed to annihilate +the whole vast organisation.</p> + +<p>It was now Stanley’s turn. “Oo, I like it. I think it’s exciting. I +wish they had ’em where we live.”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield was now busy rummaging in her handbag, and all +she said was “Curse!” rather like a villain in an old-fashioned melodrama. +It is only these strictly modern young ladies, who live their +own life by pounding a typewriter all day and then retiring to +tiny bed-sitting rooms in clubs, these beings who are supposed to be +the inheritors of the earth, who can afford to talk like villains in +old-fashioned melodramas. Miss Matfield, after a final and unsuccessful +rummage, said “Curse!” again, then closed the bag with a +sharp snap, seized her gloves, and marched them over to her coat. +The other two said nothing, but looked at her. What they saw was +a girl of twenty-seven or twenty-eight, or even twenty-nine, with +dark bobbed hair, decided eyebrows, a smouldering eye, a jutting +nose, a mouth that was a discontented crimson curve, and a firm +round chin that was ready to double itself at any moment. She was +not pretty, but she might have been handsome if somebody had +kept telling her she was pretty. She was a trifle taller and bigger-boned +<span class="pagenum" id="p25">[25]</span>than the average girl of her class and type, with a good neck +and good shoulders, but her figure as a whole—and it was plain to +the view in her belted orange-coloured jumper, her short dark skirt, +and artfully silky stockings—was perhaps too top-heavy, too masterful +in the bust for the flattened calves below, to please everybody. +(Including that distant and wistful connoisseur, Turgis, who by +making an effort at times was able to see her as a female figure and +not as a personality.) For the rest, her face, her voice, her manner, +all pointed to the conclusion that Lilian Matfield nursed some huge, +some overwhelming grievance against life, but though she gave +tongue to a thousand little grievances every day, she never mentioned +the monster. But there it was, raging away, when she was +complaining or being bitter about everything; and there it was, +raging away more furiously than ever, when she was being bright +and jolly, which was not often, and hardly at all during business +hours.</p> + +<p>“The char must have got my note,” she announced on her return +to her table, “but I must say she doesn’t seem to have done much +about it. Look at that. This is the foulest office I’ve ever worked in. +She never makes any attempt to clean it properly. All she’s done now +is to walk round with a duster. And we’ve got to spend all day in +the beastly place, all filthy, just because she won’t take the least +trouble. Well, I’m going to make a row about it.”</p> + +<p>“She got it all right,” cried Stanley, delighted to be important and +to make a little trouble for somebody. “You ought to have heard +her. Didn’t she go on!” And, in order to show exactly how she did +go on, he opened his mouth and his eyes still wider. But then he +stopped. The outer door had been opened, and feet were being wiped. +That meant that Mr. Smeeth had arrived, and Mr. Smeeth liked to +find Stanley busy during these first few minutes. So Stanley broke +off, and dashed at a bit of work he had saved for this moment.</p> + +<p>“<em>Good</em> morning, everybody,” said Mr. Smeeth, putting down his +hat and his folded newspaper, and then rubbing his hands. “It’s getting +a bit nippy in the mornings now, isn’t it? Real autumn weather.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p26">[26]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="III"> + III +</h3> + +<p>You could tell at once, by the way in which Mr. Smeeth entered +the office that his attitude towards Twigg & Dersingham was quite +different from that of his young colleagues. They came because they +had to come; even if they rushed in, there was still a faint air of +reluctance about them; and there was something in their demeanour +that suggested they knew quite well that they were shedding a part +of themselves, and that the most valuable part, leaving it behind, +somewhere near the street door, where it would wait for them to +pick it up again when the day’s work was done. In short, Messrs. +Twigg & Dersingham had merely hired their services. But Mr. +Smeeth obviously thought of himself as a real factor of the entity +known as Twigg & Dersingham: he was their Mr. Smeeth. When +he entered the office, he did not dwindle, he grew; he was more +himself than he was in the street outside. Thus, he had a gratitude, +a zest, an eagerness, that could not be found in the others, resenting +as they did at heart the temporary loss of their larger and brighter +selves. They merely came to earn their money, more or less. Mr. +Smeeth came to work.</p> + +<p>His appearance was deceptive. He looked what he ought to have +been, in the opinion of a few thousand hasty and foolish observers +of this life, and what he was not—a grey drudge. They could easily +see him as a drab ageing fellow for ever toiling away at figures of +no importance, as a creature of the little foggy City street, of crusted +ink-pots and dusty ledgers and day books, as a typical troglodyte of +this dingy and absurd civilisation. Angel Pavement and its kind, too +hot and airless in summer, too raw in winter, too wet in spring, and +too smoky and foggy in autumn, assisted by long hours of artificial +light, by hasty breakfasts and illusory lunches, by walks in boots +made of sodden cardboard and rides in germ-haunted buses, by fuss +all day and worry at night, had blanched the whole man, had +thinned his hair and turned it grey, wrinkled his forehead and the +<span class="pagenum" id="p27">[27]</span>space at each side of his short grey moustache, put eyeglasses at one +end of his nose and slightly sharpened and reddened the other end, +and given him a prominent Adam’s apple, drooping shoulders and +a narrow chest, pains in his joints, a perpetual slight cough, and +a hay-fevered look at least one week out of every ten. Nevertheless, +he was not a grey drudge. He did not toil on hopelessly. On the +contrary, his days at the office were filled with important and exciting +events, all the more important and exciting because they were +there in the light, for just beyond them, all round them, was the +darkness in which lurked the one great fear, the fear that he might +take part no longer in these events, that he might lose his job. Once +he stopped being Twigg & Dersingham’s cashier, what was he? He +avoided the question by day, but sometimes at night, when he could +not sleep, it came to him with all its force and dreadfully illuminated +the darkness with little pictures of shabby and broken men, trudging +round from office to office, haunting the Labour Exchanges and the +newspaper rooms of Free Libraries, and gradually sinking into the +workhouse and the gutter.</p> + +<p>This fear only threw into brighter relief his present position. He +had spent years making neat little columns of figures, entering up +ledgers and then balancing them, but this was not drudgery to him. +He was a man of figures. He could handle them with astonishing +dexterity and certainty. In their small but perfected world, he moved +with complete confidence and enjoyed himself. If you only took time +and trouble enough, the figures would always work out and balance +up, unlike life, which you could not possibly manipulate so that it +would work out and balance up. Moreover, he loved the importance, +the dignity, of his position. Thirty-five years had passed since he was +an office boy, like Stanley, but a trifle smaller and younger; he was +a boy from a poor home; and in those days a clerkship in the City +still meant something, cashiers and chief clerks still wore silk hats, +and to occupy a safe stool and receive your hundred and fifty a year +was to have arrived. Mr. Smeeth was now a cashier himself and he +was still enjoying his arrival. Somewhere at the back of his mind, +<span class="pagenum" id="p28">[28]</span>that little office boy still lived, to mark the wonder of it. Going +round to the bank, where he was known and respected and told it +was a fine day or a wet day, was part of the routine of his work, +but even now it was something more than that, something to be +tasted by the mind and relished. The “Good-morning, Mr. Smeeth,” +of the bank cashiers at the counter still gave him a secret little thrill. +And, unless the day had gone very badly indeed, he never concluded +it, locking the ledger, the cash book, and the japanned box for petty +cash, away in the safe and then filling and lighting his pipe, with +out being warmed by a feeling that he, Herbert Norman Smeeth, +once a mere urchin, then office boy and junior clerk to Willoughby, +Tyce & Bragg, then a clerk with the Imperial Trading Co., then +for two War years a lance-corporal in the orderly room of the depot +of the Middlesex Regiment, and now Twigg & Dersingham’s cashier +for the last ten years, had triumphantly arrived. It was, when you +came to think of it—as he had once boldly ventured to point out to +a friendly fellow boarder at Channel View, Eastbourne (they had +stayed up rather late, after their wives had gone upstairs, to split a +bottle of beer and exchange confidences)—quite a romance, in its +way. And the fear that grew in the dark and came closer to the +edge of it to whisper to him, that fear did not make it any less of +a romance.</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth now unlocked the safe, took out his books and the +petty cashbox, looked over the correspondence and attended to that +part meant for him, made a note that Brown & Gorstein, and North-Western +and Trades Furnishing Co., and Nickman & Sons had not +fulfilled their promises and sent cheques, dealt with the two small +cheques that some other people had sent, gave Miss Matfield three +letters to type, asked Turgis to telephone to Briggs Brothers and the +London and North-Eastern Railway, delighted Stanley by giving +him a message to take out, and, in short, plunged into the day’s work +and set Twigg & Dersingham in motion, even though Twigg had +been quiet and unstirring for years in Streatham Cemetery, and +<span class="pagenum" id="p29">[29]</span>the present Mr. Dersingham was only in motion yet on the District +Railway, on his way to the office.</p> + +<p>Stanley disappeared, as usual, like a shell from a gun, before Mr. +Smeeth could possibly change his mind; Miss Matfield contemptuously +rattled off her letters (the little <i>ping</i> of the typewriter bell +sounding like a repeated ironical exclamation); Turgis talked down +the telephone rather gloomily; and Mr. Smeeth made the neatest +little figures, sometimes in pencil, sometimes in ink, and opened +more and more books on his high desk. And for ten minutes or so, +no word was spoken that had not immediate reference to the affairs +of the office.</p> + +<p>They were interrupted by the entrance of yet another employee of +the firm. This was Goath, the senior traveller, whose job it was to +visit all the cabinet-makers in London and the home counties and +to persuade them to buy the veneers and inlays of Messrs. Twigg +& Dersingham. He entered in the usual fashion, came trailing in, +with one large flat foot feeling reluctantly for the new bit of ground +and the other large flat foot equally reluctantly taking leave of the +old bit of ground. He was smoking the usual cigarette, which left +a faint and fading spurt of smoke vanishing happily into nothing +behind him. He wore the same shapeless old overcoat, bagging +monstrously at the pockets, and he wore it in the same way, that is, +almost hanging off his drooping shoulders. The familiar dusty +bowler hat was tilted, not cheerfully but depressingly, back from his +furrowed and pimply forehead. He did what he always did. He +turned upon the activities of the office a dull and knowing eye, an +eye like a wet morning in February, just as damp and grey and +hopeless, and at once these activities seemed to dwindle, to shrink +from it. Mr. Dersingham had often said to Mr. Smeeth, and Mr. +Smeeth had often said to Mr. Dersingham, that what Goath didn’t +know about selling inlays and veneers and the like was not worth +knowing. But when you looked at him standing there, it seemed as +if what he did know was also not worth knowing: it had had such +a bad effect upon him. Everything about Goath was the same as +<span class="pagenum" id="p30">[30]</span>usual except his appearance at this hour, on this day, for Goath only +called at the office, his base of operations, on certain days and this +was not one of them.</p> + +<p>“Busy are’n’cher,” said Goath. It was not an inquiry. It was not +a greeting. It was a kind of gloomy sneer.</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth laid down his pen. “Hello, what are you doing here?”</p> + +<p>“Told to come,” replied Goath. “Mr. Dersingham told me to come +in this morning—wanted to see me.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, did he?” It was obvious from Mr. Smeeth’s tone that he did +not like the look of this, quite apart from not liking the look of +Mr. Goath, for which he can hardly be blamed.</p> + +<p>“He did. Why he did, I don’t know,” Goath continued drearily, +“so don’t ask me because I can’t tell you. He simply said, ‘Come +here first thing in the morning the day after to-morrow’—that’s this +morning now—and I’ve come. And I’ve got here too early, into the +bargain.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Dersingham didn’t tell me anything about it,” said Mr. +Smeeth, with the air of a man who liked to be told something +about it.</p> + +<p>Goath gave a ferocious pull at the last half inch of his cigarette +and made a horrible hissing noise. “He wanted to make it a surprise—a +pleasant little surprise for you all—that’s it.” And as he said this +he tried to make Miss Matfield, who had just got up from her machine, +accept a friendly leer, but all that it encountered was a stare +like a high wall with broken glass along the top.</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth ran a finger backwards and forwards along his lower +lip, a trick of his in a reflective moment. Now that he had looked +at it a little longer, he plainly liked it still less. But then, after a short +pause, he brightened up. “Perhaps he’s got some new stuff to show +you? Perhaps he wants to ask you something about it?”</p> + +<p>“Haven’t heard of anything new. I’d have heard. It always gets +round; everything gets round: ‘No good showing us that,’ they say. +‘Show us some of this new stuff. That’s what we want,’ they tell you. +That’s what they say, soon enough. And they don’t know what they +<span class="pagenum" id="p31">[31]</span>want, not half their time, they don’t. There’s fellers making furniture +now—<em>and</em> making money out of it—who don’t know a good bit +of wood from a bit of oilcloth. How they get away with it,” Goath +concluded mournfully, “beats me.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right, Goath,” said Mr. Smeeth. “It beats me, too. It’s cheek +that does it, really, that’s my opinion—cheek, and a bit of luck. But +honestly now, how are things going? You’ve been on the North +London round this time, haven’t you? How’s it going? Better than +last time, eh?”</p> + +<p>“No,” the other replied, with all the satisfaction of the confirmed +pessimist. “Worse.” He took off his bowler hat and for once examined +it with the distaste it deserved. “Much worse.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth’s face fell at once, and he made a tut-tut-tutting noise. +“That’s bad.”</p> + +<p>“Bloody bad, I call it, if Ethel here’ll excuse me.”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield turned on him at once. “My name is Matfield,” she +told him. “If you want to say ‘bloody’ you can, for all I care, but +I’m not ‘Ethel here’ or Ethel anywhere else, and I don’t intend to be.”</p> + +<p>“I’m crushed,” said Goath, putting on a faint and entirely repulsive +air of vocal dandyism, “quite crushed.” But, being in his +fifties, indeed, having apparently been in them almost longer than +anybody else has ever been, and a hardened offender, he was not +crushed.</p> + +<p>“That’s all right, Miss Matfield,” Mr. Smeeth told her, uncomfortably. +And he gave Goath a warning little frown.</p> + +<p>“Well, as I was saying,” Goath continued, “things are rotten. I’ve +been in the trade thirty years, and I’ve never known ’em worse. If +the price is right, then the stuff’s wrong. And if the stuff’s right, +the price’s wrong. And it’s mostly the price. They want it cheap +now, want it given away, no mistake about it, though the money +they’re getting for the finished article is more than ever. You look +at what furniture’s fetching now, retail, and then go and hear some +of ’em talk—make you sick. It would—make you sick.”</p> + +<p>“I believe you,” Mr. Smeeth assured him earnestly. Then he hesitated. +<span class="pagenum" id="p32">[32]</span>“But—after all—somebody must be selling veneers, even if the +inlays have gone out a bit. I mean, they’ve got to buy it from somebody, +haven’t they?”</p> + +<p>“Well, whether they have or they haven’t, all I can say is, they’re +not buying it from <em>me</em>. And I’ve been going to some of ’em for +twenty years. Yes, I have, young feller,” he added, for some unaccountable +reason catching the eye of Turgis and talking to him +quite sternly, “for twenty years. I was calling on some of them +houses—Moses & Stott, f’r’instance—when you was a baby or nothing +at all.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a long time, isn’t it, Mr. Goath?” replied Turgis, proud to be +noticed by such terrific seniority and rather proud, too, to think that +though he might not be anybody of much importance even now, +at least he was more than a baby or nothing at all.</p> + +<p>“You’re right, young feller,” said Mr. Goath with heavy patronage, +“it <em>is</em> a long time. Hello! Is this him?”</p> + +<p>But the person who had just opened the outer door and was now +standing at the other side of the frosted glass partition was obviously +not Mr. Dersingham, so Turgis, in the absence of Stanley, went out +to discover the caller’s business.</p> + +<p>“Good-morning,” said a brisk but ingratiating voice. “Any typewriter +supplies? Ribbons, carbons, wax stencil sheets, brushes, +rubbers?”</p> + +<p>“Not this morning, thank you,” said Turgis.</p> + +<p>“Rubbers, brushes, stencil sheets, best quality papers, carbons? +Ribbons?”</p> + +<p>“No, not this morning.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said the voice, a little less brisk and ingratiating now, “if +you should want any typewriter supplies any time, here’s my card. +Good-morning.”</p> + +<p>“It’s surprising the number of those chaps we get round,” said +Mr. Smeeth, rather sadly, “all trying to sell the same bits of things. +If you bought anything, what would it amount to? A shilling or +two, that’s all. It beats me how they make anything out of it. Smart, +<span class="pagenum" id="p33">[33]</span>well-dressed chaps too, some of them. I don’t know how they do it, +I really don’t.”</p> + +<p>“You’d think that chap was making thousands a year,” said Turgis, +speaking in an aggrieved tone, as if somehow his own shabbiness +came into the question. “He’s always all dressed up, spats and everything. +He comes round here about once a fortnight and we’ve never +bought anything from him yet.”</p> + +<p>“He’s ’oping, that’s what he’s doing, just ’oping, like me,” Mr. +Goath remarked grimly. “Only it doesn’t run to spats with me. I’d +better try ’em, then I might get a big order or two. ‘Here’s old +Goath with spats on,’ they’d be saying up Bethnal Green way. ‘We’ll +have to give him an order now.’ P’r’aps they would. And then again, +p’r’aps they wouldn’t. Ah well—” and he yawned hugely and kept +his eyes closed even after the yawn was done—“I dunno, I dunno, +I dunno.” He sent this rumbling away into the mournful distance. +“Fact is, some of these mornings my inside’s all wrong, dead rotten. +Doctor says it’s liver—that’s all because I take a drop of whisky—but +I say it’s ’eart. And whether it’s ’eart or liver, I’m going to sit +down.”</p> + +<p>The room sank into a kind of mild sadness, rather like that of the +atmosphere outside, where rich autumn had been bleached and deadened +into a mere smokiness and gathering grey twilight, in which +the occasional smell of a sodden dead leaf came like a remembrance +of another world, as startling as a spent arrow from some battle still +raging in the sun.</p> + +<p>The faces of the three men—Mr. Smeeth’s grey oval, Goath’s +purpled pulp, Turgis’s tarnished youth—sank with the room, were +half frozen into immobility, and seemed for a moment or two to be +vacant, staring into nothing. Miss Matfield, who had risen from her +table, saw it all for one queer second tangled with a whole jumble +of deathly images: they were all under a spell, powerless to stir while +the sky rained soot, dust poured from every crevice, and cobwebs +wound about them. She wanted to scream. Instead, quite without +thinking, she swept off her table a little brass box crammed with +<span class="pagenum" id="p34">[34]</span>paper fasteners, and the clatter it made restored her to her normal +senses.</p> + +<p>“Sorry!” she cried harshly, stooping.</p> + +<p>“And I should think so,” said Goath.</p> + +<p>“That should be Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth, cocking an +ear towards the approaching footsteps.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dersingham put his head inside the general office. “Good +morning, everybody,” he cried. “You’re here then, Goath. Are the +letters in my room, Turgis? All right then, I’ll just have a peep at +them, and then I want to see you, Goath, and you too, Smeeth. I’ll +give you a shout when I’m ready. Stanley about?... All right—doesn’t +matter if he isn’t. Send him in when he comes. I’ve forgotten +to buy some cigarettes. I may want you in about five minutes, Miss +Matfield. And if a man called Bronse rings up for me, don’t put +him through. Tell him I’m out. Oh—and I say—Smeeth, just make +out a what-you-call-it, will you—a statement of outstanding accounts—you +know, just rough and ready? I shall want that. Anything +come this morning? It doesn’t matter, though; you can tell me +later.”</p> + +<p>“And if I know anything,” Mr. Goath mumbled, when the head +of Mr. Dersingham had been withdrawn, “that won’t take you long, +Smeeth—telling how much you’ve got in this morning.”</p> + +<p>“It won’t,” said Mr. Smeeth cheerlessly.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>Seated at his table, looking through the morning’s letters, as he +was now, Howard Bromport Dersingham might have been accepted +as a typical specimen of the smart younger City man. At a first +glance, he seemed the brother of all those smart younger City men +who figure in advertisements, wearing unique collars, ties, suits, +examining the infallible watch, or looking at a vision of less successful +men who have never taken the particular correspondence +course. He looked much too good for Angel Pavement, where business +<span class="pagenum" id="p35">[35]</span>is merely business and a rather haphazard and dusty affair at +that. He would not have seemed out of place in one of those skyscrapers +filled with terrifically efficient and successful operatives and +administratives, in those regions where business is not at all a haphazard +and dusty affair and takes on a solemn air, even a mystical +tinge, as if it really explained the universe. It appeared absurd that +such a fellow and all his concerns should be sandwiched between +the <i>Kwik-Work Razor Blade Co.</i> and the <i>London and Counties +Supply Stores</i>.</p> + +<p>Another glance or two, however, would reveal the fact that he +was only a rough, weakly unfinished sketch of the type. The hard-boiled +eye, the chiselled nose, the severely controlled mouth, the +masterful chin, all these were missing, and in their place were ordinary +masculine English features, neither very good nor very bad, +very strong nor very weak. Mr. Dersingham was a year or two +under forty, tallish, fairly well-built but beginning to sag a little; +his hair, which was now rapidly taking leave of him, was light +brown, and his eyes light blue, and they neither sparkled nor pierced +but just regarded the world blandly and amiably; he had retained +one of those short pruned moustaches that crept under the noses +of so many subalterns during the War; and he looked clean, healthy +and kind, but a trifle flabby and none too intelligent. It was only +after the War, during which he had assisted, with rapidly diminishing +enthusiasm, one of the new battalions of the Royal Fusiliers, +that he had joined his uncle at Twigg & Dersingham’s. Before the +War he had tried various things with no particular success, though +he liked to suggest that the War had almost ruined his prospects. +(In strict fact, it had improved them, for his uncle would never +have taken him into the business, and left it to him when he died, +if he had not taken pity on him as a returned hero.) It had been +the intention of his parents to send Howard Bromport to Oxford +or Cambridge, but they had lost money suddenly and Howard +Bromport, no scholar, had failed to obtain a scholarship, so he had +been compelled to stroll into business. In spirit, however, he went +<span class="pagenum" id="p36">[36]</span>on to the university, and thus he became one of those men who are +haunted by a lost Oxford or Cambridge career. These are not the +scholars or the brilliant athletes who have been denied their chance +of distinction, but simply the fellows who have been robbed of an +opportunity of acquiring more striped ties, college blazers, and +tobacco jars decorated with college coats-of-arms, in short, the fervent +freshmen who never had the freshman nonsense knocked out of +them. They it is who turn into the essential public school “old boys.” +Dersingham was a tremendous “old boy.” He never missed a reunion, +never failed to renew his stock of school ties. The public +school spirit worked for ever in him. He was always ready to do +the decent thing—and this was not hard, for he was really a decent, +kindly soul, stupid though he might be—not for your sake, not for +his own, but “for the sake of the old school.” Strictly speaking, that +school, Worrell (one of the second-class public schools, fatally second-class +but terrifically public school) is not very old, but it has turned +out so many fellows like Dersingham that it has acquired, by verbal +association, the antiquity of Eton. Perhaps the shortest definition of +Dersingham—and he himself would have asked for no other—was +that he was an old Worrelian.</p> + +<p>He did not play games very well and was not even a good judge +of them, but he liked nothing better than solemn long discussions +about them, in which minor pedantries could be thrashed out to the +bitter end. Still, he played golf nearly every week-end, a little lawn +tennis, and when the Charlatans had to turn out a third side at +cricket, he sometimes turned out with them, as a possible slow +bowler. (For four weeks every year he dropped the old Worrelian +and wore the Charlatan tie.) He smoked considerable quantities of +<i>Sahib Straight Cut Virginia</i> cigarettes, drank steadily but not too +much for reasonable health and decency, delighted in detective and +adventure stories, humorous anecdotes, jigging easy tunes, musical +comedies, and good loud talk in which everybody agreed with everybody +else except about things that could not matter very much to +anybody, disliked literature, art and music, cranks and fanatics of +<span class="pagenum" id="p37">[37]</span>every kind, most foreigners, anything or anybody really mean or +cruel (when he could see the meanness and cruelty), and all the +opinions that newspaper editors asked him to dislike. He had one +or two real friends, a host of acquaintances, and a wife and two +children whom he did not understand but of whom he was genuinely +fond.</p> + +<p>And now, after glancing through the letters, most of which were +merely offers to sell him something he did not want, he sat on, +stroking his ruddy cheek, looking puzzled and feeling puzzled. +After a few minutes of this, he took a sheet of paper and carefully +made some notes upon it. He did this all the more carefully because +he felt that somehow by writing down what was already in his head, +he was really grappling hard with the problem. Having frowned +at these notes for another minute or so, he shook himself, set his +face in hard business-like lines, reached out for a cigarette and then +remembered that there were none, and rang the bell.</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield appeared, or rather a notebook and pencil appeared, +with a shadow of Miss Matfield in charge of them.</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry, Miss Matfield,” said Mr. Dersingham, with true old +Worrelian courtesy. “I’d forgotten I’d told you to come in. I think +I’d better see Mr. Smeeth and Mr. Goath first, and you can take +down some letters afterwards. Will you ask them to come in—and +then—er—just carry on with something, eh?”</p> + +<p>“Very well,” said Miss Matfield.</p> + +<p>“Good!” said Mr. Dersingham. He never felt sure how he ought +to handle Miss Matfield, quite apart from the fact that she seemed +to him a rather formidable sort of girl. Her father, he knew, was +a doctor, only a doctor in the country now, miles from anywhere, +but he had once played scrum half with the Alsations. Ordering +about the daughter of a scrum half of the Alsations, just as if she +was some ordinary little tuppenny-ha’penny typist, was a ticklish +business. And that was why Mr. Dersingham added “Good!”: it +meant that he knew all about the surgery and the Alsations.</p> + +<p>“You fellows had better sit down,” he said to Smeeth and Goath. +<span class="pagenum" id="p38">[38]</span>“We may be some time over this. That’s right. Now wait a minute. +Let me see, Goath, you’re making—what? Two hundred, plus commission, +that’s it, isn’t it? And you, Smeeth, what are you getting +now? Three-fifteen, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth, troubled, admitted that it was. He had seen what +was coming all along, had seen it for days and days and horrible +nights.</p> + +<p>“And what am I making?” Mr. Dersingham gave a short and +embarrassed laugh. “Well, you can imagine for yourself, Goath, and +you know well enough, Smeeth. Just lately I’ve been making nothing, +not a bean. Just paying expenses, that’s all.”</p> + +<p>“Er,” Mr. Goath began with a pessimistic rumble.</p> + +<p>“Just a minute. Don’t think I’m beginning like this because I think +you fellows are not earning all you make. I know you are. There’s +no question about that. But we’ve got to go into it all, haven’t we?—got +to see where we stand. I’ll tell you in strict confidence that if it +hadn’t been for my wife having a little money of her own, I couldn’t +have carried on as long as I have done. You’ve only to look at the +figures to see that for yourselves.”</p> + +<p>Here he stopped long enough to give Mr. Goath a chance of +describing the state of the cabinet-making and wholesale furnishing +trades. As we have heard him already, we do not want to hear him +again. It is sufficient to say that his theme was that if the price was +right, the stuff wasn’t, and if the stuff was right, the price wasn’t, +and that this theme was elaborated by many variations in the minor +key. And something in the nature of a second subject, repeated continually +in the bass, was added by the statement that the speaker +had been thirty years in the trade. To all of which Mr. Dersingham +and Mr. Smeeth listened with gloomy attention.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Mr. Dersingham, looking at his miserable little notes, +“we’ll have to go into all that later on. We’re getting the wood from +all the same people we dealt with in my uncle’s time—and in some +cases we’re getting it on better terms than he did, isn’t that so, +Smeeth?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p39">[39]</span></p> + +<p>“Ah, but there’s more competition now, a lot more,” said Goath +dejectedly. “More and more competition, that’s the way it is. Some +of these people in the trade must be cutting it as fine as that”—and +he waggled a very dirty thumb-nail—“to get orders. Nearly giving +it away. Pay when you like, too. Foreigners,” he added darkly, +“that’s what we’re up against now, foreigners, coming over here to +unload the stuff like mad. I met one coming out of Nickman’s only +yesterday morning, coming out as I was going in, and looking as +pleased with himself as if he’d just backed a dozen winners. German +he was. Speaking English as good as you and me, and dressed all +up to the nines, but German all over him. And he had backed the +winners all right, you bet he had. Got a pocket full of orders, he had. +What’s the good of having a war, I say, if it only means Germans +coming over here and pinching trade right under our noses. Cor!—makes +me sick—thirty years in the trade and tramping round week +in and week out, and nothing doin’ two-thirds o’ the time, not a +thing, and foreigners coming here with fur coats on—fur coats! +Taking the bread right out of your mouth, that’s all they’re doing.”</p> + +<p>“Quite so, Goath,” cried Mr. Dersingham. “I don’t say I’m not +with you there. But we can buy from Germany, just the same, and +have been doing for some time, but it’s beginning to look as if we +can’t compete. That’s what I was going to talk about, to begin with. +We shall have to try and do some cutting, too. It’s our only chance. +And the only way to do that—I think you fellows will agree, especially +you, Smeeth—is to reduce expenses. The—er—what’s-its-name—er—overhead +charges are too big.” Having found this word “overhead,” +so suggestive of big business, of keen men piling up fortunes +in forty-two storey buildings, Mr. Dersingham clutched at it thankfully: +it was a floating plank on the wide ocean of puzzle and +muddle into which he had suddenly been plunged. “That’s it. The +first thing, the very first thing, we’ve got to do is to reduce the +overheads in this business.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth tried to look very brisk and business-like, but he +seemed greyer than ever and there was a mournful droop in his +<span class="pagenum" id="p40">[40]</span>voice. “Well, we can try, sir. But it won’t be easy. We’re spending +as little as we can, here in the office.”</p> + +<p>“Dash it all, Smeeth, I know that.” Mr. Dersingham rubbed his +cheek irritably. “But we shall have to spend less. I don’t want to do +it—I want to do the decent thing by everybody here—but you see +how it is, don’t you? Must cut something down. Now look here, to +begin with, there’s Turgis. What’s he getting? A hundred and +seventy-five, isn’t he? And Miss Matfield? We started her at three +pounds a week, didn’t we?”</p> + +<p>“That’s right, Mr. Dersingham. It was less than she’d been getting +before, but she said she’d start at that with us, and then we’d see +about giving her a rise when she’d settled down with us. She’s a very +capable girl, very capable, and very intelligent, too, much better than +the last we had; no comparison at all.”</p> + +<p>“And Turgis? What about him?”</p> + +<p>“I can’t really grumble, sir,” replied Mr. Smeeth. “He does his +best. He’s a bit careless sometimes, I’ll admit, and he’s not to be +trusted far with figures yet—you remember the terrible mess he +made of the books when I was on my holidays this year?—but as +these boys go nowadays, he’s as good as the next. He doesn’t take +the interest in his work and in the firm that I did when I was his +age, but then they don’t these days, and that’s all you can say about +it. Miss Matfield’s just the same, for that matter. She does her work +all right, but she’s not <em>interested</em>, doesn’t think of herself, you might +say, as one of the firm, but just comes in the morning, does what +she’s told to do, and then goes in the evening.”</p> + +<p>“Thinking about young men, that’s what they are, all these typewriters,” +said Goath. “Young men and dancing and going to the +pickshers, that’s what’s running in their ’eads, and you can’t expect +anything else of ’em, not in <em>my</em> opinion. Cheeky with it, they are, +too.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m sorry, Smeeth, I really am, but I don’t see anything +else for it. One of them will have to go, either Turgis or Miss Matfield. +We can’t spare you, Smeeth⁠——”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p41">[41]</span></p> + +<p>“Thank you, sir.” And as he said it—quite simply and not with +any touch of irony—Mr. Smeeth looked still greyer. Indeed, he shook +a little.</p> + +<p>“No question of it at all,” Mr. Dersingham continued heartily, +“absolutely none. But we’ll have to get rid of one of these two and +divide the work between us. I’ll do something. I’ll begin to type my +own letters. I’ll have a good shot at it anyhow. It’s a question now +whether you’d rather keep Turgis and let him do some of the letters +or keep Miss Matfield and divide his work between the two of you. +Stanley might do a bit more, too, if he’s got any sense. In any case, +we must have a boy, so there’s no question of getting rid of him. +Now what d’you think, Smeeth? Turgis or Miss Matfield? Nothing +much in it, I know, but you ought to decide. You’ll have most of +the extra work yourself, I expect, when it gets down to brass tacks, +though, mind you, I’m going to do a lot more myself, if I’ve time, +in the office.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth did not feel quite so bad as he had felt a minute ago, +but he felt bad enough. He tried to give all his attention to the +immediate problem, which was serious enough for him, for he knew +very well that it was he who would have to do most of the extra +work, but, try as he would, his mind wandered darkly. He could +not pretend to himself now that such pitiful economies as these +could stop the rot. He had seen it coming for months. The firm, his +position, his very living, they were all crumbling away together. The +next thing would be that he would have to accept a cut in his salary. +And the next thing after that would be finding himself outside, in +Angel Pavement, with a hat on his head and no salary, no office, +nothing. He hesitated, stammering something, rather painfully.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t want to spring it on you,” said Mr. Dersingham, “and +I suppose you’d really like a day or two to think it over.”</p> + +<p>“Wouldn’t think a minute if I was you,” said Mr. Goath. “Get +rid of the girl, right away, without ’esitation. They never should +have started girls in the City. The place has never been right since. +Powderin’ noses! Cups o’ tea! You don’t know where y’are.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p42">[42]</span></p> + +<p>“I would like to think it over, Mr. Dersingham,” Mr. Smeeth told +him slowly. “I don’t want to get rid of the wrong one.”</p> + +<p>“I’d like to get it settled to-day while we’re at it, but you think +it over between now and five o’clock, and then we’ll have another +talk about it. All right then.” And Mr. Dersingham examined his +notes again, and then looked very severe. “The next thing is this +question of what-d’you-call-it—these rotters who won’t pay up. You’ve +made out a statement, have you?”</p> + +<p>But there was a knock at the door, and Stanley sidled in, a card +in his hand. “Somebody wants to see you, sir.”</p> + +<p>“I’m busy. Who is it? Shut the door.” He examined the card. +“Never heard of this chap. Look at this, Goath. Anybody you know? +What does he want?”</p> + +<p>“Wanted to speak to you, sir,” replied Stanley, looking very mysterious +and important, with a hint of the “shadderer” in his manner. +“Very important. That’s what he said.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll bet he did,” said Mr. Dersingham, with a grin at the other +two. “Probably wants to sell me some ridiculous office gadget. If he +did, though, he’d probably have something about it on his card. +This is a private card. Golspie, Golspie? No, I don’t know him. +Look here, Stanley, just tell him I’m having a discussion—no, a +thingumty—a conference, just now, but if it’s something really important, +not trying to sell me typewriters and files and muck, I’ll see +him soon. He can either call again or he can wait there. Tell him +that.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Golspie decided to wait.</p> + + +<h3 id="V"> + V +</h3> + +<p>He was still waiting there, sitting in the little chair beside the door +and behind the partition, ten minutes later. Sometimes, Stanley and +Turgis and Miss Matfield heard him stir and clear his throat. They +also caught the fragrance of the excellent cigar he was smoking. Its +fumes seemed to turn the office into a dull little box and their duties +<span class="pagenum" id="p43">[43]</span>into the most mechanical and trivial tasks. There was something +rich and adventurous about that drifting luxuriant smoke. It unsettled +them.</p> + +<p>“Who is he?” Turgis whispered. “What’s he like?”</p> + +<p>Stanley crept nearer and curved a hand round his mouth. “He’s +biggish and broad and got a big moustache,” he whispered in reply. +“D’you know what I bet he is?”</p> + +<p>“No, I give it up.”</p> + +<p>“Inspector from Scotland Yard.”</p> + +<p>“You’ve got ’em on the brain, you little chump,” said Turgis. +“Course he isn’t.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll betcher. He looks just like one. You go and have a look +at him.”</p> + +<p>But Turgis was saved from the necessity, for the visitor suddenly +marched into the office itself.</p> + +<p>“Where’s that boy?” he demanded. “Oh, look here, just go in +again and tell Mr. What’s-it⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Dersingham, sir,” said Stanley brightly, proud to serve Scotland +Yard or anybody who suggested it.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Dersingham. Tell him I can’t wait much longer—I’m not +used to hanging about like this—and that if I go, <em>I go</em>, for good and +all, and then he’ll be sorry. D’you get that? All right then, trot off +and speak out. Wait a minute, though. He doesn’t know what I +want, doesn’t know who I am, so I’d better show him I’m not going +to waste his time.” He took something out of the small despatch case +he was carrying, and the others recognised it at once as a sample +book of veneers and inlays, a few square inches of each specimen +wood, thin as cardboard, being fastened to each stout page. “Now +give him this, tell him to look it over, and say that’s what I’ve come +to talk about. D’you understand?”</p> + +<p>Having thus despatched the boy, Mr. Golspie stood there at ease, +his feet wide apart, his big chest thrown out, coolly enjoying his +cigar. It was one of the strictest rules of the place that casual callers +were not allowed beyond the partition, and Turgis ought to have +<span class="pagenum" id="p44">[44]</span>ordered him out of the office at once. But somehow Turgis felt that +this was not a man to be ordered out of the office by him.</p> + +<p>“Not much of a place this, I must say,” Mr. Golspie observed, +looking about him, then addressing Turgis. “But they keep you +pretty busy, eh?”</p> + +<p>“Well, they do and they don’t,” Turgis mumbled. “I mean to say, +sometimes we’re busy and sometimes we’re not. It all depends, you +see.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t see, but I’ll take your word for it. Must be a dark hole, +this, a bit later on, when you get the fogs. Too dark for my taste. +Not enough air either. I like plenty of air, though God knows it’s +not worth having when you get it, in this neighbourhood. What do +they call this street? Angel Pavement, isn’t it? That’s a dam’ queer +name for a street, though I’ve known queerer names in my time. +How did it get it, d’you know?”</p> + +<p>Turgis admitted that he didn’t.</p> + +<p>“Didn’t suppose you would,” the stranger told him. “Perhaps this +young lady knows. They know everything nowadays.”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield looked up. “No, I don’t know,” she replied, with +a hint of distaste in her tone. Then she bent her eyes to her work +again. “And I don’t care.”</p> + +<p>“No, you don’t care,” said Mr. Golspie, bluff, hearty, and completely +unabashed. “I don’t suppose you care tuppence about the +whole concern. Why should you, anyhow? I wouldn’t, if I were a +good-lookin’ girl, not tuppence.”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield looked up again, this time wearily, wrinkling +various parts of her face. Then she brought to bear upon this intruder +the full force of her contemptuous gaze, which would instantly have +routed Turgis, Mr. Smeeth, or Mr. Dersingham, and a great many +other people of her acquaintance. On this objectionable man it had +no effect at all. He stared hard at her, and then smiled, or rather +grinned broadly. Defeated by such complete insensitiveness, Miss +Matfield made a gesture of annoyance, and then went on with her +work, without looking up again.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p45">[45]</span></p> + +<p>“Now what the devil’s that boy doing in there!” Mr. Golspie +boomed to Turgis. “You’d better go and see if they’ve killed him. +You needn’t, though. He’s coming.”</p> + +<p>He came, followed by Mr. Smeeth, who said: “I’m sorry you’ve +been kept waiting. Mr. Dersingham can see you now.”</p> + +<p>They waited until they heard the door close behind him before +any of them spoke again.</p> + +<p>“What does he want, Mr. Smeeth?” asked Turgis.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know what he wants exactly, Turgis,” Mr. Smeeth replied. +“I take it he wants to sell us some stuff. He sent some good +samples in; really first-class Mr. Dersingham and Goath said it was. +I don’t pretend to know much about it. But I expect the price will +put it out of the question.”</p> + +<p>“He’s a funny sort of chap, isn’t he?”</p> + +<p>“A loathsome brute!” cried Miss Matfield from her machine. +“Imagine working for a man like that! Ghastly!”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth regarded her thoughtfully, and then, after telling +Stanley to get on with his work and if he hadn’t any work to go +and find some, he turned to regard Turgis equally thoughtfully. +One of them had to go. Should he put it to them now? Miss Matfield +would probably not care very much—it was hard to imagine +her caring, though she had been anxious enough to get the job—whereas +Turgis, who had an oldish poverty-stricken father somewhere +up in the Midlands, lived in lodgings here in London, and +was lucky if he had five pounds in all the world, would be very +hard hit and would not easily find another job. It would have to be +Miss Matfield. Yet Miss Matfield, who had a good education behind +her, was the more promising worker of the two, and would take +over some of Turgis’s work and be glad to do it. Well, well, this +wanted a bit more thinking about, and, in the meantime, there were +a hundred and one little things to be done.</p> + +<p>The three in Mr. Dersingham’s room remained there for the next +half hour, giving no sign of their existence beyond an occasional +rumble of voices. At the end of that time, the door opened, louder +<span class="pagenum" id="p46">[46]</span>voices and a fresh reek of cigars invaded the general office, and Mr. +Dersingham called out: “I say, Smeeth, we’re all going out. Shan’t +be back before lunch. I’ll give you a ring if I’m going to be any +later.” And then they were gone, leaving Mr. Smeeth and Turgis +staring at one another. The various lunch hours, beginning with +Stanley’s (he went to the <i>Pavement Dining Rooms</i> and had sausage +and mash, after all), came and went, the afternoon wore on, and +still there was no message from Mr. Dersingham or Goath. The +crescendo of the last hour of the day, when Stanley turned berserk +with the copying press and Turgis snarled at the telephone and then +yelled into it, had begun when the message actually did arrive.</p> + +<p>“Hello! Is that you, ol’ man—I mean, Smeeth? Dersingham +speakin’.” Even through the telephone, a strangeness, a certain richness, +could be remarked in Mr. Dersingham’s voice. He seemed +quite excited.</p> + +<p>“Smeeth speaking, Mr. Dersingham.”</p> + +<p>“Good, very good. Well, look here, Smeeth, I shan’t be back this +afternoon. Nothing important, is there? You just carry on then—and +then—er—you know, finish off, sign anything that wants signing, +then finish off, lock up, go home.”</p> + +<p>“That’ll be all right, Mr. Dersingham. There’s nothing very important. +But what about that business we talked about this morning? +Yes, Turgis and Miss Matfield?”</p> + +<p>“All done with,” and the telephone seemed to chuckle. “No need +to bother about that, not the slightest. Turgis stays. Miss Matfield +stays. D’you know, Smeeth, that that girl’s father played scrum half +with the Alsations? He did—same fella, Matfield. No, she stays. +Both stay.”</p> + +<p>“I’m very glad, sir,” said Mr. Smeeth, who really was glad, though +perhaps he was mostly puzzled. There seemed to be no sense in +all this.</p> + +<p>“Explain ev’rything in the morning, Smeeth,” continued the voice +of Mr. Dersingham. “Only person who goes is Goath.”</p> + +<p>“What! I didn’t catch that, sir.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p47">[47]</span></p> + +<p>“Goath, Goath. We’ve done with him. Goath’s finished with. Don’t +want to see him again. If he comes for his money, pay him at once, +d’you understand, Smeeth, at once, up to end of month. Then tell +him—to clear—right out, right out.”</p> + +<p>“But—but what’s happened, Mr. Dersingham? I don’t understand.”</p> + +<p>“Explain ev’rything in the morning. But you understand about +Goath, eh? Pay the blighter off if he comes, finish with him. You +understand that, eh? Righto. Carry on then, ol’ man.”</p> + +<p>Bewildered, Mr. Smeeth laid down the receiver and walked over +to his desk. He had hardly time to collect his thoughts and to begin +to wonder whether he ought to say something to the others, when +the door flew open, almost like a vertical trap-door, to shoot into +the middle of the office, where it suddenly stopped dead, the figure +of a man. It was Goath. His ancient overcoat was still hanging from +his shoulders as if it hardly belonged to him, but, on the other hand, +his bowler hat, instead of being at the back of his head, was now +tilted forward, giving him an unusual and almost sinister look. His +face was purpler than ever; his eyes were glaring; and his mouth +was opening and shutting, as if he were an indignant fish. To say +of Goath that he had been drinking was to say nothing, for he was +obviously always drinking, but this time he had plainly had more +than usual or had been mixing his liquors. And his appearance, +his manner, everything about him, was so extraordinary that everybody +in the office stopped work at once to look at him.</p> + +<p>“Smeeth,” the apparition cried in a thick, hoarse voice, “you pay +me my money, d’y’ear. Sala’y to end of mun’ an’ commission to +yesserday. I’ve finished wi’ Twigg an’ Dersi’am, finished, finished—com-pletely.” +Here he produced a magnificent cutting gesture that +nearly upset his balance. “I’ve finished wi’ them. They finished wi’ +me. All over.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Dersingham’s just told me, Goath,” said Mr. Smeeth, looking +at him in astonishment. “And I’ll give you your money if you really +want it now⁠——”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p48">[48]</span></p> + +<p>“Mus’ ’ave it. Finished—com-pletely, com-pletely.”</p> + +<p>“But what’s happened?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you what’s ’appened,” replied Goath with tremendous +solemnity, lowering his head so far that it looked as if his hat would +fall off. “Go—Golspie, tha’s wha’s ’appened—Gol-sss-pie.”</p> + +<p>“Who’s that? Do you mean⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Feller came s’mornin’.”</p> + +<p>“But what about him?”</p> + +<p>Goath now threw back his head and looked defiant. “Mister +Wha’sit bloody Gol-spie,” he announced with great deliberation, +“tha’s the feller. An’ he’s a—devil. I tol’ him, I tol’ him ‘Thirry years—thirry +<em>years</em>—in the trade, tha’s me.’ An’ wha’ did he say to tha’? +Wha’ did he bloody well say?”</p> + +<p>“Here, old man, steady, steady,” Mr. Smeeth cautioned him.</p> + +<p>“Don’t mind me,” said Miss Matfield coolly. “Go on, Mr. Goath. +What did he say? Tell us all about it.”</p> + +<p>“Never mind wha’ he said,” cried Goath aggressively, glaring round +at them all. “Does’n’ ma’er wha’ <em>’e</em> said. Who is ’e? Where’s ’e come +from? With ’is drinks an’ cigars! All ri’—very nice—drinks an’ +cigars—but anybody can buy drinks an’ cigars, an’ <em>do</em> buy drinks an’ +cigars <em>and</em> big lunches. It’s wha’ <em>I</em> say—thirry years, don’ forge’ tha’, +thirry years—wha’ <em>I</em> say tha’ ma’ers. An’ I say—wha’s the game?—where’s’e +get this stuff from?—who tol’ ’im to come here?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but what’s this chap doing?” Mr. Smeeth asked. “That’s what +I want to know.”</p> + +<p>“Bullyin’ an’ twistin’, tha’s wha’ ’e’s doin’,” replied Goath promptly, +taking off his hat. “An’ he’s got Mr. Dersi’am like tha’, jus’ like tha’.” +And, to the intense delight of Stanley, one hand fell heavily on the +hat. “It’s jus’ like wha’s it—y’know—wha’s it, wha’s it?” And to show +what he did mean, Goath glared harder than ever and then wiggled +his fingers in front of his eyes, directing them at Miss Matfield, who +let out a sudden peal of laughter.</p> + +<p>“Hypnotism,” suggested Turgis.</p> + +<p>“Tha’s ri’, boy, tha’s ri’. Hyp-no-tism. Jus’ like tha’. But not me,” +<span class="pagenum" id="p49">[49]</span>he continued, speaking very slowly and more distinctly now, “not +me. I tell ’em what I think. Begins tellin’ me I oughter to do this an’ +oughter do that, an’ I won’t ’ave it. I know the trade an’ I speak my +mind. An’ another thing. If I don’t like a feller, I don’t like ’im, and +that finishes it. That feller comes ’ere, very well, I don’t, I finish.”</p> + +<p>“Is he coming here?” demanded Mr. Smeeth.</p> + +<p>“You’ll see, you’ll see, Smeeth. I say no more. Finish. You just let +me ’ave my money.”</p> + +<p>“All right, Goath,” said Mr. Smeeth, who had been jotting down +some figures for the last minute or two. “I won’t keep you a minute. +Then you’d better get straight home, old man⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Have no ’ome,” Goath announced. “Lodgings.” He lurched up to +the desk, which was high enough for him to rest his elbows on the +edge of it. “That’s the way, Smeeth, a nice lil cheque. I tell you, +Smeeth, ol’ man, you’ve always been decent to me, an’ now I’m sorry +for you.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m sorry too, Goath, and I must say I don’t understand +what’s happening at all. Mr. Dersingham rang up and told me you +were leaving. Are you sure it’s not all a mistake? I mean, you chaps +seem to have—er—had rather a lot to-day, you know, and in the +morning you might all feel different about it.”</p> + +<p>With an effort Goath stood erect, and then held out his hand to Mr. +Smeeth. “No, no, I’ve finished. Shake hands, ol’ man. See you again +sometime. Meet some day—still in the trade, y’know, can’t change +after thirty years—have to stick to the trade. Goo’-bye, all.” And +Goath, after removing the dent from his hat with one fierce jab, +crammed it on the back of his head and, with a final wave of the +hand, departed.</p> + +<p>“Well, this beats me,” Mr. Smeeth confessed. “I can’t make head +or tail of it, I really can’t.”</p> + +<p>“It looks as if that other chap is taking his place, don’t you think?” +said Turgis. “Though I must say he didn’t look as if he wanted that +sort of job. I mean, he looked too smart and bossy.”</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t think that’s it,” Mr. Smeeth told him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p50">[50]</span></p> + +<p>“Thank the Lord, we’ve seen the last of Mr. Goath, anyhow!” +cried Miss Matfield fervently. “I loathed the sight of him, he always +looked so dirty and dilapidated. I’m sure he was a rotten man to +have going round calling on people.”</p> + +<p>“But what if the other chap comes?” said Turgis, grinning. “You +didn’t like the look of him, did you?”</p> + +<p>“I should think not! I never thought of that.” She groaned as she +stuck another sheet of paper into the typewriter. “What a life!”</p> + +<p>“That’s right, let’s get finished. Turgis, Stanley, come on, get a +move on,” said Mr. Smeeth sharply. And down below, in Angel Pavement, +now a deep narrow pool of darkness sharply spangled with +electric lights, you could hear a little host of other people finishing +for the night, a final clatter of typewriters, a banging of doors, the +hooting of homing cars, the sound of footsteps hurrying up the +street towards liberty.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p51">[51]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_Two_MR_SMEETH_IS_REASSURED"> + <i>Chapter Two</i>: <span class="allsmcap">MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth, still puzzling and pondering over the sullen departure +of Goath and the arrival of this mysterious Mr. Golspie, +put his books away for the night, and, as his habit was, pulled +out his pipe and tobacco pouch. The others had gone, and the office +was in darkness except for the solitary light above his desk. His +pouch, one of those oilskin affairs, was nearly empty, and he had to +take out the last crumbs in order to get a decent pipeful. He had +just lit up, blown out the first few delicious clouds, and switched off +his light, when the telephone rang sharply, urgently, in the gloom. As +he groped back to the receiver, he felt almost frightened. What was +coming now? He found himself wishing he had gone earlier, just a +little earlier, but nevertheless he had not the strength of mind to +ignore the telephone’s peremptory challenge.</p> + +<p>“Hello?” he began.</p> + +<p>A huge voice cut him short, came roaring out of the dark. “Look +’ere, Charlie, what abart makin’ it fifty? Carm on, yer gotter do it, +ol’ son, yer can’t get away from it⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Wait a moment,” Mr. Smeeth told him. “This is Twigg and Dersingham. +Who do you⁠——”</p> + +<p>“I know, <em>I know</em>,” the voice continued, smashing its way across +London and entirely ignoring Mr. Smeeth’s protest. “I know wotcher +goin’ to say, but it’ll ’ave to be fifty this time. I been talkin’ ter Tommy +Rawson s’afternoon, an’ ’e says yer’ll be lucky if yer get it at that. +‘Tell Charlie from me,’ ’e says, ‘’e won’t touch it under fifty an’ ’e’ll +<span class="pagenum" id="p52">[52]</span>be lucky if ’e gets it at that.’ Tommy’s own words them. An’ I agree, +<em>I agree</em>. Nar then, what d’yer say, Charlie?”</p> + +<p>“You’ve got the wrong number,” cried Mr. Smeeth.</p> + +<p>“What’s that? I want Mr. ’Iggins.”</p> + +<p>“There’s no Mr. Higgins here. This is Twigg and Dersingham.”</p> + +<p>“Wrong number again,” said the voice, disgusted. “Ring off—for +gord’s sake.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth, relieved, rang off with pleasure, and departed, chuckling +a little. Who was Charlie, and what was it he had to pay fifty +for, and why did Tommy Rawson think he’d be lucky if he got it? +“Might easily be crooks,” he concluded, with a little romantic thrill, +worthy of Stanley himself, and then smiled at himself. More likely +to be fellows buying second-hand cars, loads of scrap iron, or something +like that. At the bottom of the stairs, he ran into the tall fellow +with the broad-brimmed hat, who was just coming out of his <i>Kwik-Work +Razor Blade</i> place.</p> + +<p>The tall man nodded. “Turning colder.”</p> + +<p>“Just a bit,” replied Mr. Smeeth heartily. These little encounters +and recognitions pleased him, making him feel that he was somebody. +“Not so bad, though, for the time of year.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right. Business good?”</p> + +<p>“So-so. Not so good as it might be.” And then Mr. Smeeth let the +tall man stride away down Angel Pavement, for he remembered that +he was out of tobacco and so turned into the neighbouring shop, the +one occupied by T. Benenden.</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth was one of T. Benenden’s regular customers, a patron +(perhaps the only one) of T. Benenden’s Own Mixture (<i>Cool Sweet +Smoking</i>). “No,” he liked to tell some fellow pipe-smoker, “I don’t +fancy your ounce-packet stuff. I like my tobacco freshly mixed, +y’know, and so I always get it from a little shop near the office. It’s +the chap’s own mixture and so it’s always fresh. Oh, fine stuff!—you +try a pipeful—and very reasonable. Been getting it for years now. +And the chap I get it from is a bit of a character in his way.” Saying +this made Mr. Smeeth feel that he was a connoisseur of both tobacco +<span class="pagenum" id="p53">[53]</span>and human nature, and it gave an added flavour to his pipe, which +could do with it after being charged with nothing but T. Benenden’s +own mixture. It was hardly possible that he was right about the +tobacco being “freshly mixed,” for though mixed—and well mixed—it +may have been, it could not come from T. Benenden’s little shop, +with its hundreds of dusty dummy packets, its row of battered tin +canisters, its dilapidated weight scales, its dirty counter, its solitary +wheezing gas mantle, its cobwebs and dark corners, and still be fresh. +On the other hand, he was certainly right when he described T. +Benenden himself as a bit of a character in his way.</p> + +<p>T. Benenden’s way was that of the philosophical financier turned +shopkeeper. He was an oldish man who wore thick glasses (which +only magnified eyes that protruded far enough without their help), +a straggling pepper-and-salt beard, one of those old-fashioned single +high collars and a starched front, and no tie. When Mr. Smeeth first +visited the shop, years ago, he was at once startled and amused by +this absence of tie, jumping to the conclusion that the man had forgotten +his tie. Now, he would have been far more startled to see +Benenden <em>with</em> a tie. He had often been tempted to ask the chap why +he wore these formal collars and fronts and yet no tie, but somehow +he had never dared. Benenden himself, though he was ready to talk +on many subjects, never mentioned ties. Either he deliberately ignored +them or he had never noticed the part these things were now playing +in the world, simply did not understand about ties. What he did +like to talk about, perhaps because his shop was in the City, was +finance, a sort of Arabian Nights finance. He sat there behind his +counter, steadily smoking his stock away, and peered at old copies +of financial periodicals or the City news of ordinary papers, and out +of this reading, and the bits of gossip he heard, and the grandiose +muddle of his own mind, he concocted the most astonishing talk. It +was difficult to buy an ounce of tobacco from him without his making +you feel that the pair of you had just missed a fortune.</p> + +<p>As soon as he recognised Mr. Smeeth, T. Benenden very deliberately +pulled down his scales and then placed on the counter the particular +<span class="pagenum" id="p54">[54]</span>dirty old canister set apart for his own mixture. “The usual, +I suppose, Mr. Smeeth?” he said, picking up the pouch and then +smoothing it out on the counter. “I saw your chief this morning, +the young fellow—Mr. Dersingham. Came in for some <i>Sahibs</i>. Got +somebody with him too, new to me, well set up gentleman, with a +good cigar in his mouth, a very good cigar. You’ll know who I +mean?”</p> + +<p>“He called this morning at the office,” said Mr. Smeeth.</p> + +<p>“Well, I didn’t say anything,” Benenden continued, very seriously +as he weighed out the tobacco. “It’s not my business to say anything. +I <em>don’t</em> say anything. But I keep my eyes open. And I said to myself, +the minute they went out, ‘This looks to me as if Twigg and +Dersingham’s are moving on a bit. This has the look of a merging job, +or a syndicate job, or a trust job. And,’ I said, ‘if Mr. Smeeth does +happen to come in for the usual, I’ll put it straight to him. It’s no +concern of mine, but he’ll tell <em>me</em>. I’ll test my judgment,’ I said.”</p> + +<p>“Sorry, Mr. Benenden,” said Mr. Smeeth, smiling at him, “but +I’ve nothing to tell you. I don’t rightly know what’s happening, but +you can depend on it, it’s nothing in that line.”</p> + +<p>“Then,” cried Benenden, quite passionately, rolling up the pouch +and then slapping it down on the counter, “you’re wrong. I don’t +mean you, Mr. Smeeth, I mean the firm. That’s the way things are +going all the time now, Mr. Smeeth, big combinations—merging +away till you don’t know where you are—and sweeping the deck, +until—dear me—there isn’t a picking, not a crumb, left. You see what +I mean? Now there’s a bit here in one of the papers—I was just reading +it when you came in—and I don’t suppose you’ve seen it. Just a +minute and I’ll find it. Now here it is. Suppose, Mr. Smeeth, just +suppose,” and here T. Benenden leaned across the counter and his +eyes seemed colossal, “I’d come to you a fortnight since, a week +since, and said to you, ‘What about picking up a bit on South Coast +Laundries?’—what would you have said?”</p> + +<p>“I’d have said it takes me all my time to pay my own laundry +bill,” Mr. Smeeth replied, much amused by this retort of his.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p55">[55]</span></p> + +<p>T. Benenden made a slight gesture of contempt to show that this +was mere trifling. Then he looked very solemn, very impressive. +“You’d have said, ‘I can’t be bothered with South Coast Laundries. +I’m not touching ’em—don’t want ’em—take your South Coast Laundries +away. And you’d have been right—as far as you could see, <em>then</em>. +But what happens, what happens? Read your paper. It’s there, under +my very ’and. Along comes a big merger—a bit of syndicate and trust +work—and up they go, right up to the top—bang! Now—you see—you +can’t touch ’em. And there’s a feller here—you can see it in the +paper—who’s been clearing anything out of it—a hundred thousand, +two hundred thousand—a clean sweep, made for life. And he’s not +the only one, not a bit of it! And we sit here, pretending to laugh at +South Coast Laundries or whatever it might be, and what are we +doing? We’re missing it, that’s what we’re doing, we’re missing it.” +Here, a dramatic pause.</p> + +<p>“And if your Mr. Dersingham isn’t careful,” Benenden concluded, +still impressive even if a trifle vague now, “<em>he’s</em> going to miss it. He +wants to keep his eyes open. There’s one or two bits in this paper +I’d like to show him. Let’s see, what was it you gave me? Half a +crown, wasn’t it? That’s right then—one and six change. And good-night +to <em>you</em>, Mr. Smeeth.” And T. Benenden, after stooping down +to the tiny gas-jet to relight his pipe, retired to his corner to ruminate.</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth made his way to Moorgate, where, as usual, he bought +an evening paper and then climbed to the upper deck of a tram. +There, when he was not being bumped by the conductor, jostled by +outgoing and incoming passengers, thrown back or hurled forward +by the tram itself, an irritable and only half tamed brute, he stared +at the jogging print and tried to acquaint himself with the latest and +most important news of the day. An excitable column and a half +told him that a young musical comedy actress, whom he had never +seen and had no particular desire to see, had got engaged, that it +had been quite a romance, that she was very very happy and not +sure yet whether she would leave the stage or not. Mr. Smeeth, not +caring whether she left the stage or dropped dead on it, turned to +<span class="pagenum" id="p56">[56]</span>another column. This discussed the problem of careers for married +women, a problem that had been left absolutely untouched since the +morning papers came out, ten hours before. It did not interest Mr. +Smeeth, so he tried another column. This reported an action for +divorce, in which it appeared that the petitioning wife had only been +allowed a hundred and fifty pounds a year on which to dress herself. +The judge had said that this seemed to him—a mere bachelor +(laughter)—an adequate allowance, but the paper had collected the +opinions of well-known society hostesses, who all said it was not +adequate. Mr. Smeeth, who found he could not share the editor’s +passionate interest in this topic, now tried another page, which +promptly informed him that evening gowns would certainly be +longer this winter, and then went on to tell him, to the tune of three +solid columns, that the modern business girl (with her latch-key) +had quite a different attitude towards marriage and therefore must +not be confused with her grandmother (Victorian, with no latch-key). +Mr. Smeeth, feeling sure that he had read all this before, passed on, +and arrived at the sports page, where the prospects of certain women +golfers were discussed at considerable length. Never having set eyes +on any of these Amazons and not being interested in golf, Mr. Smeeth +next tried the gossip columns. The tram was swaying now and the +print fairly dancing, so that it was at the cost of some eye-strain and a +slight headache that he learned from these paragraphs that Lord +Winthrop’s brother, who was over six feet, intended to spend the +winter in the West Indies, that the youngest son of Lady Nether +Stowey could not only be seen very frequently at the Blue Pigeon +Restaurant but was also renowned for the way in which he painted +fans, that the member for the Tewborough Division, who must not +be mistaken for Sir Adrian Putter, now in Egypt, had perhaps the +best collection of teapots of any man in the House, and that he must +not imagine, as so many people did, that Chingley Manor, where +the fire had just occurred, was the Chingley Manor mentioned by +Disraeli, for it was not, and the paragraphist, who seemed to go about +a great deal, knew them both well. Indeed, he and his editor seemed +<span class="pagenum" id="p57">[57]</span>to know all about everybody and everything, except Mr. Smeeth and +all the other staring men on the tram, and the people they knew, and +all their concerns and all the things in which they were interested. +Nevertheless, Mr. Smeeth reflected, as he carefully folded the paper, +there were a lot of things in it that his wife would like to read. They +seemed to have stopped writing penny papers for men.</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth occupied a six-roomed house (with bath) in a street +full of six-roomed houses (with baths), in that part of Stoke Newington +that lies between the High Street and Clissold Park—to be precise, +at the postal address: 17, Chaucer Road, N. 16. Why the late +Victorian speculative builder had fastened on Chaucer is a mystery, +unless he had come to the conclusion that the Canterbury Pilgrims, +who have never vanished from this island, might come to rest in the +twentieth century behind his brick walls. But there it was, Chaucer +Road, and Mr. Smeeth had once tried his hand at Chaucer, but what +with one thing and another, the queer spelling and all that, had not +made much of him. All that he remembered now was that Chaucer +had called birds “Smally foulies,” and to this day, when he was in a +waggish mood, Mr. Smeeth liked to bring in “smally foulies,” only +to be countered with “You and your ‘smelly foulies!’” from a delighted +Mrs. Smeeth. Towards 17, Chaucer Road, Mr. Smeeth now +stepped out, swinging his folded newspaper, through the alternating +lamplight and gloom, the crisping air, of the autumn evening. Dinner, +with a cup of tea to follow, awaited him, for during the week, +Mr. Smeeth, like a wise man, preferred to dine when work was done +for the day.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_1"> + II +</h3> + +<p>“Cut some off for George,” said Mrs. Smeeth, “and I’ll keep it warm +for him. He’s going to be late again. You’re a bit late yourself to-night, +Dad.”</p> + +<p>“I know. We’ve had a funny day to-day,” replied Mr. Smeeth, but +for the time being he did not pursue the subject. He was busy carving, +<span class="pagenum" id="p58">[58]</span>and though it was only cold mutton he was carving, he liked +to give it all of his attention.</p> + +<p>“Now then, Edna,” cried Mrs. Smeeth to her daughter, “don’t sit +there dreaming. Pass the potatoes and the greens—careful, they’re +hot. And the mint sauce. Oh, I forgot it. Run and get it, that’s a good +girl. All right, don’t bother yourself. I can be there and back before +you’ve got your wits together.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth looked up from his carving and eyed Edna severely. +“Why didn’t you go and get it when your mother told you. Letting +her do everything.”</p> + +<p>His daughter pulled down her mouth and wriggled a little. “I’d +have gone,” she said, in a whining tone. “Didn’t give me time, that’s +all.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth grunted impatiently. Edna annoyed him these days. +He had been very fond of her when she was a child—and, for that +matter, he was still fond of her—but now she had arrived at what +seemed to him a very silly awkward age. She had a way of acting, +of looking, of talking, all acquired fairly recently, that irritated him. +An outsider might have come to the conclusion that Edna looked +like a slightly soiled and cheapened elf. She was between seventeen +and eighteen, a smallish girl, thin about the neck and shoulders but +with sturdy legs. She had a broad snub nose, a little round mouth that +was nearly always open, and greyish-greenish-blueish eyes set rather +wide apart; and scores of faces exactly like hers, pert, pretty-ish and +under-nourished, may be seen within a stone’s-throw of any picture +theatre any evening in any large town. She had left school as soon as +she could, and had wandered in and out of various jobs, the latest +and steadiest of them being one as assistant in a big draper’s Finsbury +Park way. At home now, being neither child nor an adult, neither +dependent nor independent, she was at her worst; languid and complaining, +shrill and resentful, or sullen and tearful; she would not +eat properly; she did not want to help her mother, to do a bit of +washing-up, to tidy her room; and it was only when one of her silly +little friends called, when she was going out, that she suddenly +<span class="pagenum" id="p59">[59]</span>sprang into a vivid personal life of her own, became eager and vivacious. +This contrast, as sharp as a sword, sometimes angered, sometimes +saddened her father, who could not imagine how his home, +for which he saw himself for ever planning and working, appeared +in the eyes of fretful, secretive and ambitious adolescence. These +changes in Edna annoyed and worried him far more than they did +Mrs. Smeeth, who only took offence when she had a solid grievance, +and turned a tolerant, sagely feminine eye on what she called Edna’s +“airs and graces.”</p> + +<p>There was a bustle and clatter, and Mrs. Smeeth returned to dump +upon the table a little jug without a handle. “I’m getting properly +mixed up in my old age,” she announced, breathlessly. “First I +thought it was there, in front of the bottom shelf. Then when I went, +I thought I couldn’t have made any, because it wasn’t there. And +then—lo and behold—it was there all the time, right at the back of +the second shelf. Oh, you’ve given me too much, Dad. Take some +back. I’m not a bit hungry somehow to-night, haven’t been all day. +You know how you get sometimes, can’t fancy anything. Here, Edna, +you want more than that. Well, I dare say you don’t, but you’re going +to have it, miss. None of this silly starving yourself, a girl your age! +Because your mother doesn’t feel hungry for once in her life, it +doesn’t mean you’re just going to sit there, pecking worse than a +little sparrow.” And here she stopped, to take breath, to snatch Edna’s +plate and put some more meat on it, to sit down, to do half a dozen +other things, all in a flash.</p> + +<p>According to all the literary formulas, the wife of Mr. Smeeth +should have been a grey and withered suburban drudge, a creature +who had long forgotten to care for anything but a few household +tasks, the welfare of her children, and the opinion of one or two +chapel-going neighbours, a mere husk of womanhood, in whom Mr. +Smeeth could not recognise the girl he had once courted. But Nature, +caring nothing for literary formulas, had gone to work in another +fashion with Mrs. Smeeth. There was nothing grey and withered +about her. She was only in her early forties, and did not look a day +<span class="pagenum" id="p60">[60]</span>older than her age, by any standards. She was a good deal plumper +than the girl Mr. Smeeth had married, twenty-two years before, but +she was no worse for that. She still had a great quantity of untidy +brown hair, a bright blue eye, rosy cheeks, and a ripe moist lip. She +came of robust country stock, and perhaps that is why she had been +able to conjure any amount of bad food into healthy and jolly womanhood. +By temperament, however, she was a real child of London, a +daughter of Cockaigne. She adored oysters, fish and chips, an occasional +bottle of stout or glass of port, cheerful gossip, hospitality, +noise, jokes, sales, outings, comic songs, entertainments of any kind, +in fact, the whole rattling and roaring, laughing and crying world +of food and drink and bargaining and adventure and concupiscence. +She liked to spend as much money as she could, but apart from +that, would have been quite happy if the Smeeths had dropped to a +lower social level. She never shared any of her husband’s worries, +and was indeed rather impatient of them, sometimes openly contemptuous, +but she had no contempt, beyond that experienced by all +deeply feminine natures for the male, for the man himself. He had +been her sweetheart, he was her husband; he had given her innumerable +pleasures, had looked after her, had been patient with her, had +always been fond of her; and she loved him and was proud of what +seemed to her his cleverness. She knew enough about life to realise +that Smeeth was a really good husband and that this was something +to be thankful for. (North London does not form any part of that +small hot-house world in which a good husband or wife is regarded +as a bore, perhaps as an obstacle in the path of the partner’s self-development.) +Chastity for its own sake made no appeal to her, and +she recognised with inward pleasure (though not with any outward +sign) the glances that flirtatious and challenging males, in buses and +shops and tea-rooms, threw in her direction. If Mr. Smeeth had +started any little games—as she frankly confessed—she would not +have moaned and repined, but would have promptly “shown him” +what she could do in that line. As it was, he did not require showing. +He grumbled sometimes at her extravagance, her thoughtlessness, her +<span class="pagenum" id="p61">[61]</span>rather slap-dash housekeeping, but in spite of all that, in spite too, +of the fact that for two-and-twenty years they had been cooped up +together in tiny houses, she still seemed to him an adorable person, at +once incredible and delightful in the large, wilful, intriguing, mysterious +mass of her femininity, the Woman among the almost indistinguishable +crowd of mere women.</p> + +<p>“And if this pudding tastes like nothing on earth,” cried Mrs. +Smeeth, rushing it on to the table, “don’t blame me, blame Mrs. +Newark at number twenty-three. She came charging in, like a fire +brigade, just as I was in the middle of mixing it, and shrieked at me—you +know what a voice she has?—she said, ‘What d’you think, +Mrs. Smeeth!’ And I said, ‘I’m sure I don’t know, Mrs. Newark. +What is it this time?’ I slipped that in just to remind her it wasn’t +the first time she’d nearly frightened the life out of me, breaking the +news about nothing. ‘Well,’ she said—just a minute, mind your +hand, Dad, that’s hot. Pass the custard, Edna. Dad wants it. That’s +right.” And Mrs. Smeeth sat down, flushed and panting.</p> + +<p>“Bit on the heavy side, p’raps,” said Mr. Smeeth, who had now +tasted his pudding, “but I’ve had worse from you, Mother, much +worse.” Another spoonful. “Not so bad at all.”</p> + +<p>“No, it isn’t, is it?” his wife replied. “But if it isn’t, it ought to be. +I thought Mrs. Screaming Twenty-three had done it in properly. +‘Well,’ she said, and nearly bursting she was, ‘do you know, Mrs. +Smeeth, I’ve had a letter from Albert, and he’s been in hospital in +Rangoon, and now he’s all right, and the letter came not ten minutes +since.’ ‘You don’t say!’ I said. ‘Where’s he been in hospital?’ And she +said, ‘Rangoo-oon’—just like that. Reminded me of that Harry Tate +sketch, you remember, Dad? Rangoo-oon! I nearly laughed in her +face. And talk about sketches! If you want a sketch you couldn’t +beat this Albert she’s making so much fuss about. ’Member him, +Edna?—teeth sticking out a yard, and all cross-eyed. They saw something +in Rangoo-oon when they saw Albert.”</p> + +<p>“Oo, he was sorful!” cried Edna, shuddering in a refined way.</p> + +<p>“Still, we can’t all be oil-paintings,” Mrs. Smeeth remarked philosophically. +<span class="pagenum" id="p62">[62]</span>Then she looked mischievous. “And we can’t all look +like Mr. Ronald Mawlborough either.”</p> + +<p>“Who’s he when he’s at home?” Mr. Smeeth inquired.</p> + +<p>“There you are, you see, Dad, you’re not up in these things. You’re +behind the times. Matter of fact, you have seen him, ’cos I remember +the two of us seeing him together, in that picture at the Empire.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, one of those movie chaps, is he?” Mr. Smeeth was obviously +more interested in pudding than in movie chaps.</p> + +<p>“I should think he is. Isn’t he, Edna?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, do shut up, Mother,” cried Edna, crimson now and wriggling.</p> + +<p>“What’s this about?”</p> + +<p>“He’s the latest, isn’t he, Edna?” said Mrs. Smeeth wickedly. “And +I must say he’s a good-looking young fellow—curly hair, dark eyes, +and all that. Free with his photographs too. Yours sincerely, Ronald +Mawlborough, that’s him. Nothing stand-offish about him when he +addresses his sweet young admirers⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Mother!” Edna screamed, nothing now but two imploring eyes in +a scarlet face.</p> + +<p>“That’s what comes of not doing your bedroom out, miss,” her +mother retorted. “I go up to her bedroom, Dad, and what do I find? +Mr. Ronald Mawlborough, hers sincerely, on a big photo. You can +nearly count his eyelashes. That’s the latest now. Not content with +cutting ’em out of these movie papers, they send to Hollywood for +them. Darling Mr. Ronald, they write, I shall die if you don’t send +me your photo, signed in your own sweet handwriting. Yours truly, +Edna Smeeth, seventeen Chaucer Road, Stoke Newington, England.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth looked severe. “Well, I must say, Edna, I call that a +silly game.”</p> + +<p>“I only did it for fun,” she muttered, “just to see what would happen, +that’s all. Some of our girls have got dozens⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Pity they’ve got nothing better to do,” was her father’s comment.</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, they might be doing worse,” said Mrs. Smeeth, rising +from the table. “It won’t do them any good, but it won’t do them +any harm either. We’ve all been a bit silly in our time. I’m sure I +<span class="pagenum" id="p63">[63]</span>was when I was a girl. Girls <em>are</em> a bit silly, if you ask me, and it’s a +good job for the men they are. But that doesn’t mean they can’t help +to clear a table. Come on, Edna, get these things away while I make +the tea.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, all ri-ight,” Edna sighed wearily, and rose in slow-motion time. +Ten minutes later, after gulping down her tea, she rushed out of the +room, leaving her parents sitting at ease, Mrs. Smeeth over her second +cup of tea, Mr. Smeeth over his pipe.</p> + +<p>The room was small and contained far too much furniture and +too many knick-knacks. Nearly everything in it was shoddy and ugly, +manufactured hastily, in the mass, to catch a badly-informed eye, to +be bought and exhibited for a brief season by the purchaser, and +then to be in the way and finally rot out of the way. Nevertheless, the +total effect of the room was not displeasing, because it had a cosy, +homelike atmosphere, which Mr. Smeeth, whose imagination, heightened +by fear, perhaps told him that outside beyond the firelight and +the snug walls were stalking poverty, disgrace, shame, disease, and +death, enjoyed even more than Mrs. Smeeth. It was probably this +feeling, and not so much the strain of the day’s work, that made +him a man difficult to rouse and get out of the house in the evening, +as his wife, who was all for going out somewhere, or, failing that, +inviting somebody in, knew to her cost.</p> + +<p>“You’re an old home-bird, you are,” she said, with a sort of affectionate +contempt, as she saw him settling deeper now into his chair. +“Well, what’s been bothering you to-day? You started to tell me and +then didn’t.”</p> + +<p>“I got a real fright this morning, I don’t mind telling you, Edie,” +he began. “Not that I hadn’t seen it coming the way things were +going on,” he added, with a gloomy pride.</p> + +<p>“Now then, don’t start on,” she warned him, shaking a teaspoon. +“You see too much coming. Always looking into the middle of next +week and noticing how black it’s getting. Talk about depressions in +Iceland! They ought to give you the job, and then there’d be plenty. +However, go on, my dear. Mustn’t interrupt.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p64">[64]</span></p> + +<p>“Well, somebody’s got to look, haven’t they?” he replied. “And if +Mr. Dersingham had looked a bit harder, we’d all be better off.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to say you won’t get that rise at Christmas he was +talking about?”</p> + +<p>“Rise at Christmas! I thought this morning I was in for a rise +outside. I tell you, Edie, when he started, my heart went into my +boots.” And he plunged into an account of the scene in Mr. Dersingham’s +room that morning and then discussed the mysterious events +that followed it, all of which Mrs. Smeeth punctuated with nods and +ejaculations, such as “Did he really?”, “Well, I never!”, and “Silly old +geezer!” She gave him more of her attention than she usually did, +because she could see that he was seriously concerned, but at the +same time she did not really bother her own head about it, as he +knew very well. To her it was all rather unreal, and he was convinced +that the idea that he might lose his job, be thrown into the +street with only the gloomiest prospect of getting anything half as +good, never really entered her head. And this indifference, this +childlike confidence in his ability to produce the usual six or seven +pounds every week, did nothing to restore his own self-confidence, at +least not at such moments as these, but only made him feel that he +had to think for two, and in the end left him lonely with his fear.</p> + +<p>“All I’m hoping now,” he went on, earnestly, “is that this chap +who called has got something up his sleeve. It’s so funny Goath going +like that. Looks to me as if this chap, Golspie, thought Goath wasn’t +any good—and I’ve thought so once or twice myself lately—and +worked it so that Mr. Dersingham got rid of him. Perhaps he’s going +to take his place. I must say, it’s a funny business. In all my experience⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you worry, it’ll be all right,” cried Mrs. Smeeth. “We’re +going to be lucky, we are. I don’t care if Mr. Dersingham goes mental, +we’re going to be lucky. Soon too! I don’t think I told you, but Mrs. +Dalby’s sister—the one with the fringe and the jet ear-rings, who +reads the cards—told me my fortune the other afternoon, and she +said luck was coming, money and good luck, and all through a +<span class="pagenum" id="p65">[65]</span>stranger, a middling-coloured man in a strange bed. Is this man you’re +talking about middling-coloured?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t ask me, I never noticed what colour he was. He hadn’t any +colour. He’d got a big moustache, if that’s any use to you. But what +puzzles me is this, why did Mr. Dersingham⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you worry yourself, Dad, why Mr. Dersingham did anything,” +his wife interrupted. “Think he’s spending his time worrying +about you? Not him! And don’t you bother your old head about +him, either. Let’s have a bit o’ music. It’ll cheer us up.” She bounced +over to the corner in which George, who had a head for these things, +had fixed up that tangle of wires which still passes by the name of +“wireless,” a loud speaker apparatus. “What starts it? I can never +remember,” she said, with one hand hovering over the various +knobs. “Is it this thing you pull out?”</p> + +<p>It must have been, for she pulled it, and immediately a loud, patronising +voice filled the room. “Let us turn to anothuh aspect of this +problam,” it shouted. “As we have already seen—ah—a company +cannot barrow unless it is aixpressly authorised—that is, authorised +by its memorandum of association—ah—to do so. Let us see what this +invalves. Suppose a companay has been formed for the purpose—we +will say—ah—of discounting cammercial bills⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, help!” cried Mrs. Smeeth, and promptly turned the voice out +of the room. “A lot of cheering up you’ll do!” she told the loud +speaker severely. “Look in the paper and see when the singing and +playing comes on.”</p> + +<p>There was a glimpse of Edna, all dressed up, very white about the +nose, very red about the lips.</p> + +<p>“Where you’re going, Edna?” her mother shrieked.</p> + +<p>“Out.”</p> + +<p>“Who with?”</p> + +<p>“Minnie Watson.”</p> + +<p>“Well, don’t be late then, you and your Minnie Watson.” A bang +of the front door was Edna’s only reply. “It’s Minnie Watson ev’ry +night now,” said Mrs. Smeeth. “Next month it’ll be all somebody else. +<span class="pagenum" id="p66">[66]</span>I said to her last night, ‘Where’s Annie Frost now you used to be so +friendly with?’”</p> + +<p>“Is that Frost’s girl?” inquired Mr. Smeeth. “The chap who keeps +the <i>Hand and Glove</i>?”</p> + +<p>“That’s right, Jimmy Frost. So when I said that to her, the little +madam turns up her nose at once and says, ‘Catch me going with +Annie Frost!’ Just like that. And it doesn’t seem a minute since +they were as thick as thieves. I could have died laughing. Just the +same, I was, at her age.”</p> + +<p>“You won’t make me believe that,” said Mr. Smeeth sturdily. +“You’d more sense. Seems to me these young girls now haven’t a +scrap of sense. The bit they leave school with is knocked out of them +by pictures nowadays. They think about pictures—movies and talkies—from +morning till night. They’re getting jazzed off their little +heads.”</p> + +<p>“That sounds like Georgie,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, starting up. “I’ll +go and get his dinner out of the oven. Come on, boy, hurry up if you +want any dinner to-night. It’s nearly cinders now.”</p> + +<p>Left to himself, Mr. Smeeth slowly knocked out his pipe in the +coal-scuttle and then stared into the fire, brooding. He was always +catching himself grumbling about the children now, and he did not +want to be a grumbling father. He had enjoyed them when they were +young, but now, although there were times when he felt a touch of +pride, he no longer understood them. George especially, the elder of +the two, and once a very bright promising boy, was both a disappointment +and a mystery. George had had opportunities that he himself +had never had. But George had shown an inclination from the +first, to go his own way, which seemed to Mr. Smeeth a very poor +way. He had no desire to stick to anything, to serve somebody faithfully, +to work himself steadily up to a good safe position. He simply +tried one thing after another, selling wireless sets, helping some pal +in a garage (he was in a garage now, and it was his fourth or fifth), +and though he always contrived to earn something and appeared +to work hard enough, he was not, in his father’s opinion, getting anywhere. +<span class="pagenum" id="p67">[67]</span>He was only twenty, of course, and there was time, but Mr. +Smeeth, who knew very well that George would continue to go his +own way without any reference to him, did not see any possibility of +improvement. The point was, that to George, there was nothing +wrong, and his father was well aware of the fact that he could not +make him see there was anything wrong. That was the trouble with +both his children. There was obviously nothing bad about either of +them; they compared very favourably with other people’s boys and +girls; and he would have been quick to defend them; but nevertheless, +they were growing up to be men and women he could not +understand, just as if they were foreigners. And it was all very +perplexing and vaguely saddening.</p> + +<p>The truth was, of course, that Mr. Smeeth’s children <em>were</em> foreigners, +not simply because they belonged to a younger generation but +because they belonged to a younger generation that existed in a different +world. Mr. Smeeth was perplexed because he applied to them +standards they did not recognise. They were the product of a changing +civilisation, creatures of the post-war world. They had grown +up to the sound of the Ford car rattling down the street, and that +Ford car had gone rattling away, to the communal rubbish heap, +with a whole load of ideas that seemed still of supreme importance to +Mr. Smeeth. They were the children of the Woolworth stores and +the moving pictures. Their world was at once larger and shallower +than that of their parents. They were less English, more cosmopolitan. +Mr. Smeeth could not understand George and Edna, but a host of +youths and girls in New York, Paris and Berlin would have understood +them at a glance. Edna’s appearance, her grimaces and gestures, +were temporarily based on those of an Americanised Polish Jewess, +who, from her mint in Hollywood, had stamped them on these +young girls all over the world. George’s knowing eye for a machine, +his cigarette and drooping eyelid, his sleek hair, his ties and shoes +and suits, the smallest details of his motor-cycling and dancing, his +staccato impersonal talk, his huge indifferences, could be matched +<span class="pagenum" id="p68">[68]</span>almost exactly round every corner in any American city or European +capital.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Smeeth returned with the food, and a minute or two later, +George descended from his bedroom, shining, sleek, brushed. He was +better looking, better built, tougher in body, than his father had ever +been, and he owed far more to his mother, though there was about +her a certain generosity of the blood, a suggestion of ruddy mounting +sap, that was absent in him: he was drier, more compressed and +blanched; and though he was a good-looking youth, who moved +easily, quickly, he had hardly any more of the bloom of twenty than +had the moving pictures of Mr. Ronald Mawlborough and his kind. +In short, he looked too old for an English boy of that age. It was as if +the Americanised world he had grown up to discover about him, had +contrived to introduce into North London the drying and ageing +American climate.</p> + +<p>“You’re late to-night, George,” said his father.</p> + +<p>“Been busy,” he replied, dispatching his dinner quickly, quietly, +efficiently, but with no signs of taking any pleasure in his food. After +a few minutes’ silence, he continued: “Feller came in with an old +<i>Lumbden</i>, twelve horse. Could have had it for fifteen quid. Nothing +much wrong with it. Wanted new plugs and mag. and brakes re-lining +and something doing to the differential, and just cleanin’ up a bit. +All right then. Take you anywhere. Thought once of sellin’ the ol’ +bike and having a shot at this <i>Lumbden</i>.”</p> + +<p>“I wish you would, Georgie,” cried Mrs. Smeeth. “You could take +us all out then. See us going out in style, eh, Dad? Besides, I hate that +stinking rattling ol’ bike of yours. Nasty dangerous things they are +too. Get rid of it, Georgie, before it gets rid of you.”</p> + +<p>“That’s all right,” said George, “but the ol’ bike goes—travels like +a bird. This <i>Lumbden</i> couldn’t look at her. No, me for the little ol’ +bike, till I can put my hand on something in the super-sports style. +And don’t worry, I shan’t do that in a hurry—costs too much. Doesn’t +matter, though—Barrett’s buying this <i>Lumbden</i>. We’ll do her up a +bit, paint her up, and sell her. There won’t be any hurry either, so +<span class="pagenum" id="p69">[69]</span>when we’ve put a few works in her, if you want a ride, pass the +word on, and we’ll have a run in her.”</p> + +<p>“We’ll go down to Brighton and see your aunt Flo,” cried Mrs. +Smeeth, her eyes brightening at the thought of an outing. “Now +don’t forget, Georgie boy. That’s a promise to your old mother. Don’t +go spending all your time taking the girls out in it. Give your mother +a chance. She can enjoy a ride as well as the next.”</p> + +<p>“Righto,” said George briskly. He rose from the table.</p> + +<p>“Here, you want some pudding.”</p> + +<p>“Not to-night. Off pudding to-night. Couldn’t look it in the face. +’Sides, I haven’t time.”</p> + +<p>“Time!” cried his mother. “You’re never in. Where you going?”</p> + +<p>“Out.”</p> + +<p>“Out where?”</p> + +<p>“Just knocking about with some of the fellers.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth looked at him, rather gravely. He felt it was his turn +to speak now. “Just a minute,” he said sharply. “What does ‘knocking +about’ mean exactly, may I ask?”</p> + +<p>At this, George looked a shade less confident, a trifle younger, as +he stood there tapping his cigarette. “I dunno. Might do one thing, +might do another. Might have a game of billiards at the Institute, +or look in at the pictures, or go down to the second house at Finsbury +Park. Depends what everybody wants to do. No harm in that, Dad.” +He lit his cigarette.</p> + +<p>“Course there isn’t,” said Mrs. Smeeth. “Your father never said +there was.”</p> + +<p>“No, I didn’t,” said Mr. Smeeth slowly. “That’s all right, George. +Only don’t take all night about it, that’s all. Oh!—there’s just another +thing.” He hesitated a moment. “Somebody told me he’d seen you +once or twice with that flash bookie chap—what’s his name?—y’know—Shandon. +Well, you keep away from that chap, George. I don’t +interfere—and you know I don’t—but that chap’s a wrong ’un, and +I don’t want to see a boy of mine in his company.”</p> + +<p>“Shandon’s no friend of mine,” said George, flushing. “I don’t +<span class="pagenum" id="p70">[70]</span>knock about with him. He comes into the garage sometimes, that’s +all. He’s a friend of Barrett’s.”</p> + +<p>“Well, if half of what I hear’s true,” Mr. Smeeth remarked, “he’s a +friend to nobody, that chap. And you just keep out of his way, +George, see?”</p> + +<p>“First I’ve heard of this,” said Mrs. Smeeth, looking severely at her +son.</p> + +<p>“All ri’, Dad,” George muttered, nodding. “So long, Ma.” And he +was off.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Smeeth promptly rushed the remaining dirty plates into the +kitchen, and then returned, five minutes later, to find her husband +looking at a battered copy of a detective story that had somehow found +its way into the room. You could not say he was reading it. So far, +he was merely glancing suspiciously at it. Mrs. Smeeth took up the +evening paper, pecked at it here and there, then pottered about a +minute or two, then turned on the wireless, which only let loose +another patronising gentleman, switched it off, brought two socks +and some darning wool from the top of the little bookcase, examined +them with distaste, looked across at her husband, then said: “I can’t +settle down to anything to-night, somehow. How d’you feel about +a little walk round? We might look in at Fred’s for an hour. What +d’you say? Oh no, I thought not—won’t stir, the old stick-in-the-mud. +One of these days I’ll be finding a nice young man to take me to the +pictures. Well, if you won’t stir, I will. I think I’ll just slip round to +Mrs. Dalby’s for an hour. She asked me if I would.”</p> + +<p>“You do,” said Mr. Smeeth. “I’m all right here.”</p> + +<p>He lit his pipe again, made up the fire, and tried to settle down +with the detective story, which at once hustled him into the library +of the old Manor House, where the baronet’s body was waiting to be +discovered. But he did not make much headway with it. Goath and +Mr. Dersingham and this Golspie kept appearing in that library. +Angel Pavement was just outside the old Manor House. So he put +the book away and tried the wireless. This time the patronising gentlemen +had all gone home, and in their place was a rich and adventurous +<span class="pagenum" id="p71">[71]</span>flood of sound. It was not unfamiliar to Mr. Smeeth, and, +after a pleasant tussle with his memory, he recognised it as something +by Mendelssohn, an overture it was, a sea piece, either Whats-It’s +Cave or Hebrides or something. Unlike his wife and children and +most of his friends, Mr. Smeeth had a genuine, if unambitious, passion +for music, and this was the kind of music he knew and liked +best. He sank into his chair, and the sharp lines on his face softened +as the music came swirling out of the little cone and there arrived +with it the old mysterious enchantment of the ear. A phantom sea +rolled about his chair: the room was filled with foam and salt air, +the green glitter of the waves, the white flash and the crying of great +sea birds. And Mr. Smeeth, a magically drowned man, worried no +longer, and for a brief space was happy.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_1"> + III +</h3> + +<p>The next day Mr. Smeeth struggled out of sleep to find himself +faced with one of those dark spouting mornings which burst over +unhappy London like gigantic bombs filled with dirty water. At the +first sign of the approach of one of these outrages, all clocks ought +to be put back three hours, so that everybody might stay in bed +until their fury is spent. There is no end to their malice. They sweep, +lash, and machine-gun the streets with rain; they send up fountains +of mud from every passing wheel; they contrive that fires shall not +burn and water boil, that tea shall be lukewarm, bacon fat congealed, +and warranted fresh eggs change in their very cups to mere +eggs and dubious; they make the husband turn on the wife, the +father on the child, and thus help to ruin all family life; and they +lavishly sow all the ills that townsmen know, colds, indigestion, +rheumatism, influenza, bronchitis, pneumonia, and are indeed the +industrious hirelings of Death.</p> + +<p>“Got your umbrella?” said Mrs. Smeeth. She had been out of bed +over an hour, but somehow looked as if her real self was still there, +as if this was a mysteriously wrapped wraith of herself she had +<span class="pagenum" id="p72">[72]</span>projected downstairs. “Goo’-bye, then. You’ll have to run for it, +Dad.”</p> + +<p>Dad did not run for it, but he managed to trot down Chaucer +Road and then along the neighbouring street, but after that he had +a pain over his heart and was reduced to a sort of quick shamble. +Before he reached the High Street and his tram, the bottom of his +trousers were unpleasantly heavy, his boots (one of Mrs. Smeeth’s +bargains and made of cardboard) gave out a squelching sound, and +the newspaper he carried was being rapidly reconverted into its original +pulp. The tram, its windows steaming and streaming, was more +crowded than usual, of course, and carried its maximum cargo of +wet clothes, the wearers of which were simply so many irritable +ghosts. After enormous difficulty, Mr. Smeeth succeeded in filling +and lighting his morning pipe of T. Benenden’s Own, and then—so +stubborn is the spirit of man—succeeded in unfolding and examining +his pulpy newspaper. Before he had reached the end of City Road, +he had learned that the cost of a public school education was too +high, that the night clubs on Broadway were not doing the business +they had done, that a man in Birmingham had cut his wife’s throat, +that students in Cairo were again on strike, that an old woman in +Hammersmith had died of starvation, that a policeman in Suffolk +had found six pound notes in the prisoner’s left sock, and that +bubonic plague is conveyed to human beings by fleas from infected +rats. And Angel Pavement, when he arrived there, looked as if it +had been plucked, grey and dripping, from the bottom of an old +cistern.</p> + +<p>It was an unpleasant morning at the office. To begin with, the +situation was more puzzling than ever. Once more, Mr. Dersingham +did not appear, but telephoned about half past ten to say that he +would not be there until late afternoon and would Mr. Smeeth “just +carry on.” Goath did not reappear, and Mr. Smeeth felt sure now +that he had vanished for ever. Then Miss Matfield was haughtier +than usual, and very cross. Young Turgis, who had contrived to get +wetter than anybody else on his way up to the office, went slouching +<span class="pagenum" id="p73">[73]</span>about with a long pale face, and every now and then startled and +intimidated everybody by sneezing explosively. Stanley, at odds with +the weather, the world, and his present destiny, hung about and +got in people’s way, and when told to get on with his work, pointed +out, not very respectfully, that he hadn’t any work, and Mr. Smeeth +did not find it easy to supply him with any. Several inquiries by +telephone could not be properly answered, always an unsatisfactory +state of affairs. Mr. Smeeth had sufficient routine work to carry him +through the morning, but he felt queerly insecure, not at all happy +with his books, his neat little figures, his pencil, rubber, blue ink +and red ink, now that he no longer knew what was happening to +the firm. It was like trying to post a ledger swinging above a +dark gulf.</p> + +<p>Lunch time found him at his usual teashop, sitting at a wet marble-topped +table and waiting for his poached egg on toast and cup of +coffee. The wet morning had perished outside, where there was even +a faint gleam of sunshine, but it had found a haven in this teashop, +which seemed to be four hours behind the weather in the street, +for it was all damp and steaming. Mr. Smeeth was jammed into a +corner with another regular patron, a man with a glass eye, bright +blue and with such a fixed glare about it that the thing frightened +you. Mr. Smeeth was sitting on the same side as the glass eye, and +as the owner of it, who was busy eating two portions of baked beans +on toast and drinking a glass of cold milk, never turned his head +as he talked, the effect was disconcerting and rather horrible.</p> + +<p>“Firm we’ve been doing business with,” said the man, disposing +of a few beans that had quitted their toast, “has come a nasty cropper—a +ve-ery nasty cropper. Claridge and Molton—d’you know ’em? +Oh, very nasty.”</p> + +<p>“Is that so?” said Mr. Smeeth politely, looking from his poached +egg at the glaring blue eye and then looking away again. “Don’t +think I know the firm.”</p> + +<p>“No, well, you mightn’t,” the eye continued, as if it had its doubts +about that, though. “But they’ve been a well-known house in the +<span class="pagenum" id="p74">[74]</span>wholesale umbrella trade for donkeys’ years, specially for ribs, handles, +and tips. I remember the time when they carried a line of ribs +nobody else could touch—same with the tips. If you’d come to us +ten years ago, or five years ago, or even three years ago, and said, +‘We can offer you a line in ribs and tips that’ll make Claridge and +Molton look silly,’ if you’d said that, we’d have laughed at you.”</p> + +<p>“No doubt,” said Mr. Smeeth, quite seriously.</p> + +<p>“And up to eighteen months ago, I’d have told you that Claridge +and Molton was one of the soundest concerns in the business. And +look at ’em now. Properly in Queer Street. Absolutely down the +river.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth manfully faced the blue glare. “How d’you account +for it?” he inquired, not out of mere politeness but because he really +wanted to know.</p> + +<p>“This milk doesn’t taste right this morning,” his neighbour remarked +mournfully. “They’ve had it near something. I’m giving it +a miss. What was that?” And here the eye turned balefully. “Oh, +about Claridge and Molton. Well, young Molton’s the one that’s +upset their little apple-cart. He took charge about a couple of years +ago, then began staying away all day—likes his whisky, y’know—drew +heavily on the firm—sacked their oldest man, old Johnny +Fowler, for something and nothing. Probably tight at the time—young +Molton, I mean, not Johnny Fowler—he never took a drop. +And there you are! You can’t do it, y’know, you can’t do it. Can +you?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Mr. Smeeth sadly, “you can’t.”</p> + +<p>“Course you can’t,” the eye concluded. “Not nowadays. It’s all too +keen, too much competition. You’ve got to watch yourself all the +time. Isn’t that so? Eh, miss, miss! My check, miss. And, I say, +what about this milk?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth finished his coffee, mechanically filled and lit his pipe, +then pushed his way out of the place. He felt miserable. For all he +knew to the contrary, Mr. Dersingham might be following the example +of this young Molton. Hadn’t Mr. Dersingham just started +<span class="pagenum" id="p75">[75]</span>staying away from the office all day? Hadn’t he just sacked <em>their</em> +oldest man, Goath? As he moved slowly along, sometimes staring +into the windows of shops that meant nothing to him, Mr. Smeeth +found himself going over all the possible ways in which a firm +might come a nasty cropper, arrive at Queer Street, go down the +river, and they seemed so numerous, so inevitable, that he saw himself +joining the wretched army of the hangers-on, the dispossessed, +at any moment. And, at the corner of Chiswell Street, he gave a man +twopence for a box of matches.</p> + +<p>When he let himself quietly into the office, he heard loud voices, +and thought for a moment that something exciting was happening. +But then he caught the words.</p> + +<p>“I shaddered him all down Victoria Park Road,” Stanley was saying +triumphantly, “and he never knew.”</p> + +<p>“Well, why should he?” Turgis demanded, contemptuously. “He +didn’t know you were following him, you little chump.”</p> + +<p>“I know he didn’t,” cried Stanley. “That’s it. That’s where shadderin’ +comes in⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Well, shadowing can come out,” Mr. Smeeth announced. “And +if you don’t get on with some work, my boy, you’ll be finding +yourself shadowing down those steps. Come on, Turgis, you ought +to know a bit better. Standing there talking a lot of nonsense!”</p> + +<p>“I was telling him it was nonsense,” said Turgis, rather sullenly. +“He’s got this shadowing on the brain. He goes following some +chap for miles, and then because this chap doesn’t take any notice +of him—he doesn’t know he’s there, of course, and doesn’t care, +anyhow—he thinks he’s a little Sexton Blake.”</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t,” said Stanley, wrinkling up his freckled face until it +achieved a look of intense disgust.</p> + +<p>“The best thing you can do, Stanley,” said Mr. Smeeth, sitting +down at his desk, “is to drop these silly tricks. They’ll get you into +trouble one of these days. Why don’t you do something sensible in +your spare time? Get a hobby. Do a bit of fretwork or collect foreign +stamps or butterflies or something like that.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p76">[76]</span></p> + +<p>“Huh! Nobody does them things now. Out of date,” Stanley +muttered.</p> + +<p>“Well, work’s not out of date, not here, anyhow,” Mr. Smeeth +retorted, in time-old schoolmaster fashion. “So just get on with +a bit.”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield arrived, quarter of an hour late, as usual. “Don’t talk +to me, anybody,” she commanded. “I’m furious. Of all the foul +lunches I’ve ever had in this city, to-day’s was the foulest. It makes +me sick to think about it. Look here, is Mr. Dersingham ever coming +here again? It’s absurd—I’ve got umpteen things for him to sign. +Can you do anything with them, Mr. Smeeth?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll have a look at them, Miss Matfield,” said Mr. Smeeth wearily. +The afternoon dragged on.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_1"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>At five o’clock, Mr. Dersingham arrived, bursting in like a large +pink bomb. He was breathless, perspiring, and all smiles. “Afternoon, +ev’rybody,” he gasped. “Is there a late spot of tea goin’? +Doesn’t matter if there isn’t. I say, Miss Matfield, just drop ev’rything, +will you, and bring your notebook to my room. I want to dictate +some letters and a circular. Stanley, you get ready to copy the circular. +And, Turgis, you ring up Brown and Gorstein and say I +want to speak to Mr. Gorstein. And Smeeth, I shall want you when +I’m through with these letters, about a quarter of an hour’s time, and +will you bring that statement of the outstanding accounts right up +to date and let me know all about Gorstein’s and Nickman’s payments +this last year? Good man!”</p> + +<p>Mr. Dersingham liked to signalise his arrival in this fashion—it +looked as if he was starting the day for everybody, and it still looked +like that even if he did it at five o’clock—but now there was a difference. +His voice had a triumphant ring, in spite of the fact that he +was short of breath. There was about his whole manner a Napoleonic +abruptness and self-confidence. He presented the spectacle—rare +<span class="pagenum" id="p77">[77]</span>enough too—of an Old Worrelian in big business. At one bound the +temperature of the office rose about ten degrees, and Mr. Smeeth, +as he investigated the firm’s somewhat melancholy relations with +Brown & Gorstein and Nickman & Sons, was visited once more by +quite wildly optimistic fancies. Undoubtedly, something had +happened.</p> + +<p>When at last he was called into Mr. Dersingham’s room, he soon +learned what it was that had happened. It was, as he had suspected +more than once, this Mr. Golspie.</p> + +<p>“And the position is this, Smeeth,” Mr. Dersingham continued. +“He’s got the sole agency for all this new Baltic stuff. They won’t +sell it to anybody here but Golspie. It’s good wood, all of it, quite +up to standard, and he can get it at prices, thirty, forty and fifty +per cent. lower than we’ve been paying. I don’t mind telling you +that when he first explained what he was after, I wasn’t keen at all, +not a bit keen. It sounded fishy to me.”</p> + +<p>“Does seem a bit queer he should come along like that, doesn’t +it, sir?”</p> + +<p>“It does, Smeeth, and that’s what I thought. But we’ve been going +round with some of his samples at prices we could sell the stuff at +on his figures, and they’ve been absolutely leaping at them. We can +cut everybody out, absolutely clean cut. We can do more business, +Smeeth, with this new stuff in a fortnight than the firm’s ever done, +even in its best days, in a month. And you know what business +we’ve been doing lately? Awful! A ghastly show! By the way, +Smeeth, Goath was partly to blame for that. Oh yes, he was. Thirty +years in the trade and all that—but the fact is, they were all tired +of seeing his depressing old mug, and he’d given up trying. Golspie +soon showed me that, though I must say I’d had my suspicions for +some time.”</p> + +<p>“So had I, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Exactly! Goath had to be booted out, and as it was he booted +himself out. He’ll be feeling very sorry for himself soon. Now then, +this is what’s happening. Golspie came along here to see me quite +<span class="pagenum" id="p78">[78]</span>by chance. He’d got this contract, but he wanted some firm already +in the trade to join up with. All this is—er—in—y’know—between +ourselves, Smeeth.”</p> + +<p>“I understand, sir,” said Mr. Smeeth, flattered and delighted.</p> + +<p>“Golspie—Mr. Golspie—doesn’t want a partnership, can’t be bothered +with it. He’s coming in here as a sort of general manager, +working on a jolly good commission. You’ll have to know all about +that, of course, because of the books. It’s a hefty commission all right, +but then he’s bringing all the business really, and he’ll be responsible +for getting the wood over and all that side of it. And the two of us +will be working together, running things here. I’ll go out a good +deal myself for the next few months, and we’ll have to get some +fellow—somebody young and keen—to take Goath’s place.”</p> + +<p>“You won’t be cutting down the office staff then?” said Mr. +Smeeth, greatly relieved.</p> + +<p>“Cutting it down! We’ll have to jolly well increase it, and quickly +too. That far sample room will have to be cleared out and tidied +up this week, we shall want that. You’d better get another typist +to help Miss Matfield—a young girl will do—as soon as possible. +This next week or two, Smeeth,” and here Mr. Dersingham sprang +up and clenched his fists, just as if he had never seen a decent public +school, “we’ve got to drive it hard, go all out, and I’m depending +on you for the office side of it. You people have got to stand behind +me in this. It’s a great chance for all of us, and, of course, a tremendous +stroke of luck, Golspie’s coming here. He’s going all out +himself on this—he’s that sort of chap, very keen and all that—and +we’ve got to keep pace.”</p> + +<p>“You can count on me doing my best, Mr. Dersingham,” Mr. +Smeeth assured him fervently. “There’s one or two things I’d like +to know about, of course. F’r’instance, what’s his arrangement with +these foreign people of his about payments?”</p> + +<p>“He’s going to talk to you about that, Smeeth. We’ve only just +touched on that, so far.”</p> + +<p>“And another thing, sir,” Mr. Smeeth continued, more hesitantly +<span class="pagenum" id="p79">[79]</span>now. “You know how we stand at the bank just now. If we’re +branching out, we’ve got to have something behind us there.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve been looking into that this afternoon,” said Mr. Dersingham. +“We can’t do anything more with the bank at present, but I think +I can borrow a bit to see us through. We’ve got to have something +to jolly well play with, this next month or so, particularly as Mr. +Golspie talks about wanting some of his commission in advance, so +to speak.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth looked grave, then coughed. “Do you think that would +be wise, Mr. Dersingham? I mean—er—after all, you’ve no +guarantee⁠——”</p> + +<p>“You mean—the whole thing may be just a swindle. Come on, +isn’t that it?” cried the other, grinning. “Well of course I thought +of that. I thought of God knows how many swindles yesterday +morning, because, as I said, the whole thing seemed fishy to me, +and, between ourselves, I thought Golspie himself a terrible outsider +at first. But I’ve gone into all that. He doesn’t draw his commission +until the stuff has been delivered to our people, of course, but he +wants his money then, without waiting until the account’s finally +settled. Though, by the way, Smeeth, we’re not going to give these +fellows so much rope in future. With this new stuff on our hands, +we can afford to tighten it up a bit, don’t you think?”</p> + +<p>“That’s so, Mr. Dersingham. I’d like to see one or two of these +accounts closed altogether. They’re more bother than they’re worth,” +Mr. Smeeth hesitated. “I’m not quite clear yet about this Mr. Golspie, +sir. Is he going to be in charge of the office?”</p> + +<p>“In a way, yes,” the other replied, with the air of a man who had +given this question a great deal of thought. “You can take it, he is. +Though of course it’s still my show⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Of course, Mr. Dersingham.”</p> + +<p>“Suppose, by any chance, you disagree violently with anything he +suggests, you’ll come to me,” said Mr. Dersingham, looking at that +moment like a large pink conspirator. “But you needn’t tell that to +the other people out there.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p80">[80]</span></p> + +<p>“I see what you mean, sir,” said Mr. Smeeth, who felt that he +would see in time.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Golspie has a good deal to learn, of course,” Mr. Dersingham +continued, airily. “He doesn’t know the trade, and he doesn’t know +the City. But—he seems to have knocked up and down all over the +place in his time, and he’s got ideas, y’know, and colossal push. Rum +sort of chap, I must say.” Then he became business-like again. “Now +look here, Smeeth, I want to push off as soon as I can because I +want that money—or some of it—into the bank by to-morrow afternoon. +Ask Miss Matfield to hurry up with those letters so that I can +sign ’em. And just see those circulars get away to-night, will you?”</p> + +<p>“I will, Mr. Dersingham.” And Mr. Smeeth turned away, but +stopped before he reached the door. “And if you don’t mind me saying +so, sir, I’m very pleased things are looking up like this. I was +beginning to feel worried, very worried, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Thanks, Smeeth! Good man!” You could not mistake the Old +Worrelian now. “Things will be humming here soon, you’ll see. +Colossal luck, of course, his turning up like this! Oh, by the way, +he’s probably coming in soon.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Golspie did come in, but only after Mr. Dersingham had gone +and for about half an hour or so, during which he merely asked Mr. +Smeeth a few questions. He came again the next morning, and Mr. +Smeeth had to join him and Mr. Dersingham in a little conference. +Mr. Golspie then returned about half past four, dictated some letters, +nosed about the office, examined the far room, and did some telephoning +at Mr. Dersingham’s table, Mr. Dersingham himself being +out visiting Nickman and Sons. The others had gone, and Mr. +Smeeth was putting away his books for the night, when Mr. Golspie +came out of the private office and began asking more questions, +chiefly about accounts. The two of them stayed there another twenty-five +minutes, at the end of which Mr. Golspie suggested they should +round off the proceedings by having a drink.</p> + +<p>When they were at the bottom of the stairs, Mr. Smeeth remembered +that he was nearly out of tobacco (he smoked two and a half +<span class="pagenum" id="p81">[81]</span>ounces of T. Benenden’s Own Mixture every week) and said he +would slip in for some. Mr. Golspie followed him in, and T. +Benenden was so surprised to see this massive and large-moustached +stranger again, in company with Mr. Smeeth this time, too, that he +weighed out the tobacco and put it in the pouch without saying +a word.</p> + +<p>“You got any good cigars, <em>good</em> cigars?” Mr. Golspie demanded in +his resonant bass, at the same time staring hard, even harder than +the tobacconist had stared at him.</p> + +<p>“Certainly, I have,” replied T. Benenden with dignity. And he +produced two or three boxes.</p> + +<p>Mr. Golspie chose two cigars, cut them, then popped one into his +own mouth, stuck the other into Mr. Smeeth’s, and lit the pair of +then, without a word. Then, after blowing a stream of smoke at +Benenden, he said: “How much?”</p> + +<p>“Three shillings, for the two.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Golspie slapped down two half-crowns on the counter. This +was the tobacconist’s opportunity.</p> + +<p>“What about this big Cement slump, gentlemen?” he began. +“Where’s that going to land us⁠——?”</p> + +<p>“It’s not going to land me anywhere,” said Mr. Golspie. “Where’s +it going to land you?”</p> + +<p>T. Benenden looked rather pained, and still nursed the two shillings +change in his hand. “Well, what I mean is this. That’s a big +combine, isn’t it? A year ago, they were bang at the top, like nearly +all the big combines. All right. But what’s happening now? A slump. +And why⁠——?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, and I’ll bet you don’t know,” said Mr. Golspie +heartily. Then he gave a short bellow of a laugh. “Well, I’ll be +damned,” he roared, “I’ve been puzzling my head for the last five +minutes wondering what was wrong with you.”</p> + +<p>“Me?” T. Benenden was startled.</p> + +<p>“Yes, you. Didn’t you notice I was staring at you?” He turned to +Mr. Smeeth. “Couldn’t make it out. I knew there was something +<span class="pagenum" id="p82">[82]</span>wrong. You see it, don’t you?” He now returned to Benenden, at +whom he pointed a thick brutal finger. “Why, man, you’ve forgotten +to put your tie on. Have a look at yourself. I <em>knew</em> there was something. +Is that my change? That’s correct—two shillings.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth followed him out of the shop, gasping. He had been +visiting Benenden’s shop two or three times a week, year after year, +and never once had he dared mention the word “tie.” And now this +chap comes along with his “You’ve forgotten to put your tie on.” +Mr. Smeeth began to chuckle softly.</p> + +<p>Mr. Golspie piloted him across the road and into the private bar +of the <i>White Horse</i>.</p> + +<p>“Give it a name,” said Mr. Golspie.</p> + +<p>“Thanks, Mr. Golspie. Oh—er—just a glass of bitter,” said Mr. +Smeeth modestly, from behind his large cigar.</p> + +<p>“Don’t have a glass of bitter. Too cold a night like this and after +a hard day’s work, too. Have a whisky. That’s right. Two double +whiskies and some soda.”</p> + +<p>It was quiet and cosy in the <i>White Horse</i>. Mr. Smeeth had not +been in for a long time, and he was enjoying this. The fire winked +cheerfully over the grate; the rows of liqueur bottles glimmered and +glittered; the glasses shone softly; there was a pleasant hum of talk; +the cigars plunged them at once into an atmosphere of rich, fragrant, +luxurious conviviality; the whisky tasted good, and washed away +that foggy, smoky, railway tunnel flavour of Angel Pavement; and +Mr. Golspie, still mysterious and masterful but genial now too, was +obviously anxious they should be on friendly terms.</p> + +<p>“You’ve got a fellow working in the Midlands and the North, +haven’t you?” Mr. Golspie inquired, after they had both taken a +pull at their whiskies. “What’s he like?”</p> + +<p>“Dobson? He’s a decent young chap, and he’s got a good connection +up there. He’s not sold much lately, but it’s not been for the +want of trying.”</p> + +<p>“We ought to be hearing from him soon, then,” said Mr. Golspie. +“If he can’t sell these new veneers, he’d better be walking. They +<span class="pagenum" id="p83">[83]</span>sell themselves. We’ve orders pouring in, just pouring. But, mind +you, Smeeth, we’ve got to get a move on. We’ve got to pile up the +orders now—make hay while the sun shines. We want another man +for London and district, soon as we can get one. And one that’s +alive, too, not like that dreary old devil I booted out the first day. +You might as well send the dustbin round looking for orders. There +ought to be three of us, me, Dersingham, and this other man, whoever +he is, doing London and neighbourhood these next few months. +Rush ’em. That’s the way, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth, taking out his cigar and trying to look keen and +aggressive, said it was.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you what I believe in,” Mr. Golspie continued, not +troubling to lower his voice, or rather to moderate it, for it was low +enough. “I believe in working like hell and in playing like hell. If +you’re going to work, for God’s sake—work. And if you’re going +to enjoy yourself, well, for the love of Mike, enjoy yourself, get on +with it.”</p> + +<p>At this point, Mr. Smeeth started back, for suddenly a head, a +large head wearing a very dirty cap, but only about the height of +his shoulder, stuck itself between him and Mr. Golspie. “That’s all +very well, gents,” it said, with an impudent whine, “but what if yer +can’t get work, ’ow yer goin’ ter enjoy yerself then, eh? Wotcher +goin’ ter do then, eh?”</p> + +<p>“There’s one thing you can do,” said Mr. Golspie promptly.</p> + +<p>“Wha’s that?”</p> + +<p>“You can mind your own bloody business,” said Mr. Golspie, +pushing his face out in a most intimidating and disagreeable fashion. +The intruder shrank back at once. “Here y’are,” Mr. Golspie said +in a milder, contemptuous tone, “here’s threepence. Go away and +buy yourself something.”</p> + +<p>“Thank yer, mister.” And the head vanished.</p> + +<p>“This city’s got more and more rats like that in it every time I +come back to it.”</p> + +<p>“There isn’t the work, you know,” said Mr. Smeeth earnestly. “I +<span class="pagenum" id="p84">[84]</span>don’t say they all want it, but there isn’t the work. I’ll tell you +candidly, Mr. Golspie, it frightens me sometimes to see all the chaps +looking for work. If we’ve to take on a few new people, and we +advertise for them, you’ll see what I mean. Crowds and crowds—ready +to work for next to nothing. It’s a heart-breaking job interviewing +them.”</p> + +<p>“I dare say,” Mr. Golspie replied, in the tone of a man whose +heart is not easily broken. “But I know this. A man who’s ready to +work for next to nothing is no good to me. I wouldn’t have him +as a gift. And that reminds me, Smeeth. What’s this firm paying +you?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth hesitated a moment, then told him.</p> + +<p>“And do you think that’s enough?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth hesitated again. “Well, if business was good, I was +going to ask for a rise this Christmas, but as you know, it’s not +been good.”</p> + +<p>“No, but it’s going to be good, don’t make any mistake about +that,” cried Mr. Golspie. “It’s going to be a dam’ sight better than +Twigg and Dersingham have ever seen it before. Who the devil +was Twigg? Never mind about him, though. I’m going to tell you +straight out, I don’t think you’re getting enough. I know a good +man when I see one, and when people stand by me—you know what +I do?—that’s right—I stand by them. And I’m going to stand by +you.”</p> + +<p>“Very good of you, Mr. Golspie,” muttered the embarrassed +Smeeth.</p> + +<p>“The minute these orders that are coming now are turned into +solid business—and, mind you, it means more work and responsibility +for you all along the line—the minute they do, you’re going +to get a rise, a good rise, a hundred or two a year right off, or I’m +not Jimmy Golspie. And we shake hands on that.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth, overwhelmed, found himself shaking hands on it.</p> + +<p>“And now,” Mr. Golspie added masterfully, “we’ll just sign and +seal that by having a little quick one.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p85">[85]</span></p> + +<p>“All right. But—er—it’s my turn.”</p> + +<p>“Not a bit of it. Not to-night. You haven’t a turn to-night. Wait +till the big rise comes. Two singles, please. Married man, aren’t +you, Smeeth?”</p> + +<p>“I am. Wife and two children, boy just out of his teens and girl +nearly eighteen.”</p> + +<p>“All I’ve got’s a girl. I’m expecting her over soon. Does this girl +of yours take much notice of you?”</p> + +<p>“Not much. Seems to me they don’t, nowadays.”</p> + +<p>“You’re right there. That girl of mine doesn’t—the wilful, artful +little devil. She’s been spoilt all her life, and always will be. Too +good-lookin’, that’s her trouble. Doesn’t take after her father, +y’know,” and here Mr. Golspie disturbed the whole bar with a sudden +deep guffaw. “Well, here’s the best! This is a dam’ rum +business, y’know, Smeeth, when you come to think of it. I’ve had a +finger in all sorts of trades, all over the place, and this is a bit more +respectable than some of ’em. But when you think of it—it’s a dam’ +rum trade—selling thin bits of wood to glue on to other bits of +wood, eh?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve often thought that,” said Mr. Smeeth eagerly, the philosopher +waking in him too. “I’ve often thought—well, I dunno—but this +trade’s like a good deal of the rest of life. Veneers? Well, Mr. +Golspie, just think of them. They’re only there to make a piece of +furniture look as if it was made of better wood than it is made of, +a sort of fake. But everybody knows about it. There’s no deception. +And I’ve often thought a lot of life’s like that, particularly when +I’ve gone into company. You know, everybody setting up to be +mahogany and walnut through and through⁠——”</p> + +<p>“And the lot of ’em veneered to hell,” cried Mr. Golspie jovially. +“Never mind, let’s see if we can’t slap all our stuff on to their rotten +chairs and wardrobes and sideboards, and make money and enjoy +ourselves. That’s the game.”</p> + +<p>With that, they swung out into the little night of Angel Pavement, +where the diapason of Mr. Golspie could be heard thundering +<span class="pagenum" id="p86">[86]</span>out again that it was the game. With rich Havana still in his nostrils, +the golden liquor of the glens wandering round his inside like +an enchanted Gulf Stream, and Mr. Golspie’s promises singing their +madrigals in his head, Mr. Smeeth felt for once that it really might +be all a game.</p> + +<p>Waiting for his tram that night, he bought two evening papers +instead of one, and read neither of them.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p87">[87]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_Three_THE_DERSINGHAMS_AT_HOME"> + <i>Chapter Three</i>: <span class="allsmcap">THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>By the middle of the following week, there were several changes +at Twigg & Dersingham’s. The greatest change was in the +atmosphere of the place. Even if you had merely opened the outer +door, remaining on that side of the frosted glass partition, you +would have felt the difference at once. No doubt the typewriters +rattled and <i>pinged</i>, the telephone bell rang, voices came through, all +in a new and bustling, optimistic fashion. The very chair you were +invited to sit on, when you waited behind that partition, had been +dusted. Mrs. Cross had not found herself immune from this new +influence: she had given the general office a thorough cleaning. +There was no question now of anybody not having enough work +to do. Stanley still went out, indeed he went out more than ever, but +he was compelled to speed up his “shaddering” methods and was +only able to follow men who were in a tremendous hurry. Mr. +Smeeth among his little figures was as busy and happy as a monk +at his manuscript. Turgis, whose duty it was to see that goods were +duly forwarded to and from Twigg & Dersingham’s, became both +hoarse and haughty down the telephone to all manner of forwarding +agents, and spoke to railway goods clerks as if they were strange +and unwelcome dogs. Miss Matfield rattled off her letters with +slightly less contempt and disgust, rather as if they were no longer +the effusions of complete lunatics but were now merely the work +of village idiots. And she had acquired an assistant. The staff of +Twigg & Dersingham had been enlarged at the beginning of this +<span class="pagenum" id="p88">[88]</span>week by the appointment of a second typist. Miss Poppy Sellers +had arrived.</p> + +<p>The girls who earn their keep by going to offices and working +typewriters may be divided into three classes. There are those who, +like Miss Matfield, are the daughters of professional gentlemen and +so condescend to the office and the typewriter, who work beneath +them just as girls once married beneath them. There are those who +take it all simply and calmly, because they are in the office tradition, +as Mr. Smeeth’s daughter would have been. Then there are those +who rise to the office and the typewriter, who may not make any +more money than their sisters and cousins who work in factories +and cheap shops—they may easily make considerably less money—but +nevertheless are able to cut superior and ladylike figures in their +respective family circles because they have succeeded in becoming +typists. Poppy belonged to this third class. Her father worked on the +Underground, and he and his family of four occupied half a house +not far from Eel Brook Common, Fulham, that south-western +wilderness of vanishing mortar and bricks that are coming down in +the world. This was not Poppy’s first job, for she was twenty and +had been steadily improving herself in the commercial world since +she was fifteen, but it was easily her most important one. She had +been chosen out of a large number of applicants, had been started +at two pounds and ten shillings a week, and had been told confidentially +by Mr. Smeeth, who seemed to her a terrifying figure, +that she had good prospects if she would only learn and work hard. +This Poppy fully intended to do, for—as her testimonials were compelled +to admit—she was a very industrious and conscientious girl. +She was not sufficiently plain to escape entirely the attentions of the +youths who hung about the entrance to the Red Hall Cinema in +Walham Green (and Poppy frequently visited the Red Hall with +her friend, Dora Black, for she liked entertainment), but nobody +yet had said that she was pretty. She was small and slight, had dark +hair and brown eyes, and she aimed, rather timidly, at a Japanese +or Javanese or general Oriental effect, wearing a fringe and all that, +<span class="pagenum" id="p89">[89]</span>but only succeeded in looking vaguely dingy and untidy. Whenever +she despairingly made a special effort, plying hard the lipstick, being +lavish with the Oriental-effect face-powder, and raising and keeping +her eyebrows so high that it hurt, people asked her if she wasn’t +feeling very well. This failure to achieve the exotic beauty that was—as +both she and Dora Black believed—“her type,” tended to keep +poor Poppy slightly depressed and out of love with herself. During +her first few days at Twigg & Dersingham’s she was like a mouse. +She was overawed by the newness and importance of everything, +and she saw that it would be impossible for her to make a friend of +the large, superior, infinitely knowledgeable, tremendously condescending +Miss Matfield. But, like a mouse, she kept her eyes open, +missing nothing, with her busy little Cockney mind fastening on +every crumb of information and gossip. After three days, Miss Dora +Black of Basuto Road, Fulham, knew more, though at second-hand, +about the office staff at Twigg & Dersingham than Mr. Dersingham +himself had learned in three years.</p> + +<p>One of Miss Poppy Sellers’ first tasks had been to copy out replies +to the letters answering Twigg & Dersingham’s advertisement in +the <i>Times</i> and the <i>Daily Telegraph</i>. This was for another man, to +take Goath’s place, though he would have to spend much of his +time further afield. He had to be as unlike Goath as possible in +character, but not unlike him in experience. In short, he had to be +“young, keen, energetic,” and “with some connection in furnishing +trade and knowledge of veneers and inlays.” And the change brought +about by Mr. Golspie was such that Twigg & Dersingham were able +to declare that for the right man there was “a good opening.”</p> + +<p>It has been said that the modern English do not like work. It cannot +be said that they do not look for it and ask for it. The day after +this advertisement appeared, the postal heavens opened and a hurricane +of letters fell upon Twigg & Dersingham. Into Angel Pavement +all that day there poured a bewildering stream of replies. It +seemed as if street after street, whole suburbs, had been waiting for +this particular opening. There were, it appeared, dozens of men +<span class="pagenum" id="p90">[90]</span>with vast connections in the furnishing trade and the most thorough, +the most intimate knowledge of veneers and inlays, and most of +these men, though they had apparently refused scores of offers recently, +were only too willing to assist Messrs. Twigg & Dersingham. +Then there were men who had not perhaps exactly a connection, +but had been for years, so to speak, on the fringe of the furnishing +trade, men who had sold pianos, who had given removing estimates, +who had done a little valuing, who knew something about +upholstering. Then there were older men, ex-officers many of them, +who knew about all kinds of things and were ready to enclose the +most astonishing testimonials, who admitted that the furnishing +trade and veneers and inlays were all new to them but who felt +that they could soon learn all there was to know, and in the meantime +were anxious to show how they could command men and to +display their unusual ability to organize. And, last of all, there were +the public school men, fellows who knew nothing about veneers and +inlays and did not even pretend to care about them, but pointed out +that they could drive cars, manage an estate, organise anything or +anybody, and were willing to go out East, being evidently under +the impression that Twigg & Dersingham had probably a couple of +tea plantations as well as a business in veneers and inlays. These +correspondents expressed themselves in every imaginable sort of +handwriting and on every conceivable kind of notepaper, from superior +parchment to dirty little pink bits that had been saved up in a +box on the mantelpiece, but in one particular they were all alike: +they were all keen, all energetic.</p> + +<p>“This tells you something about the old country, doesn’t it?” said +Mr. Golspie, who always talked as if he came from some newer +one. He and Mr. Dersingham and Mr. Smeeth had been going +through the pile.</p> + +<p>“It’s only the slump,” said Mr. Dersingham, who was feeling optimistic +these days. “It’s not so bad as it was, is it, Smeeth?”</p> + +<p>“I suppose it isn’t, really, Mr. Dersingham.” But Mr. Smeeth +<span class="pagenum" id="p91">[91]</span>sounded rather doubtful. These letters had given him another glimpse +of the dark gulf. It was a sight that left him feeling shaky.</p> + +<p>Mr. Golspie grunted. “Far as I can see from this lot, you can have +the pick of England’s talent for four or five quid a week. There +isn’t a dam’ thing these fellows can’t do—except find work. Well, +I’ve got about four likely ones here. What have you chaps got?”</p> + +<p>After a good deal more trouble and talk, they finally narrowed +the possible applications down to ten, and these ten were asked to +appear at the office in the early afternoon, two days later. They all +came at once, and so had to wait their turn on the landing outside, +while Stanley, enjoying himself hugely, dashed in and out to summon +them. Mr. Smeeth, going round to the bank, had to make his +way through this little crowd, and at the first moment, when he +stepped outside the office and the two or three of them nearest the +door made way for him with almost ostentatious smartness, he felt +triumphant, proud, a solid and successful man among a lot of failures. +But the very next moment, this feeling disappeared. They were +all very well brushed, in their best clothes, and were already looking +keen and energetic, especially those nearest the door, who looked +the keenest and most energetic, their faces having already taken on +the expression most likely to impress the mysterious powers within +the office. A few of them were young and had an easy confident +look, that of men merely seeking a change of job. Others were +older, less confident, tense or wistful. Mr. Smeeth bumped into +one, the last in the group, who was standing at the corner near the +top of the stairs.</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon,” the man cried, eagerly, anxiously. He was indeed +an anxious man, about Mr. Smeeth’s age and not unlike him, +greyish, lined, brittle; a man with a wife and family and vanishing +possessions; a man who time after time had found himself the last +in the group, waiting at the corner, with the hope inspired by the +letter, the letter that came thunderingly, triumphantly, that morning, +like an act of deliverance, now dying in him.</p> + +<p>“My fault,” Mr. Smeeth assured him, stopping, and offering the +<span class="pagenum" id="p92">[92]</span>smile of a polite culprit. But when their eyes met fairly, this smile +trembled, then fled, leaving Mr. Smeeth himself grave, anxious. He +suddenly felt for this man a swelling sympathy, a deep stir of pity, +that he had not known for many a month. They might have been +brothers; and, indeed, brothers they were for a second or so, peering +at one another in some darkened house of tragedy.</p> + +<p>“Good luck!” Mr. Smeeth heard himself saying.</p> + +<p>“Thanks,” and there came the ghost of a smile.</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth never saw him again. He had no luck. The successful +applicant was very different, much younger, a tall fellow with a +remarkably small head, an inquisitive pink nose, and a very wide +mouth that opened to show about twice the ordinary number of +teeth. His name was Sandycroft, and he knew the trade, for though +he had never sold veneers and inlays, he had bought them, having +been at one time with Briggs Brothers. This set him apart from all +the other applicants. Moreover, he appeared to be all keenness and +energy, and threw the most passionate emphasis into the slightest +remark he made.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Twigg,” he cried, addressing Mr. Golspie, “and Mr. Dersingham, +you can rely on me. I know the trade. I know the people. I +know the ropes, if you don’t mind me saying so.”</p> + +<p>“All right,” said Mr. Golspie with his usual genial brutality. “But +don’t go knowing too many ropes. Eh, Dersingham?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, quite!” replied Mr. Dersingham, who did not quite follow +this, but looked knowing all the same.</p> + +<p>“I understand, sir. I know what you mean. I couldn’t do it, sir. +It’s not in my character. Honesty isn’t everything, but I believe it’s +the first thing. And I’m straight. I believe in being straight, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Good!” said Mr. Golspie heartily, for he, too, believed in Sandycroft +and his like being straight.</p> + +<p>“And if it’s possible, gentlemen,” Sandycroft continued, looking +from one to the other of them, “I’d like to stay on now and just +pick up the threads, so that I can start right away on the road +to-morrow morning. I’m keen to get going, desperately keen. You +<span class="pagenum" id="p93">[93]</span>know what it is, sir. After only a week or two doing nothing much, +a man like me feels rusty. I want to get on with it. My wife laughs +at me. ‘Have a rest,’ she says. But no, I’m not like that. I must be +getting on with something.”</p> + +<p>“Good man,” said Mr. Dersingham approvingly.</p> + +<p>“Well, I think we’ll have to be getting on with something, too,” +said Mr. Golspie. “He’d better come round here in the morning and +learn what there is to know about it then, before we send him out.”</p> + +<p>“I think he had,” replied Mr. Dersingham. “Look here, you’d +better go home now—break the news to your wife and that sort of +thing, eh?—and then be down about nine or so in the morning. If +we’re not here then, you have a talk to Smeeth—that’s the cashier, +out there—and he’ll be able to tell you something.”</p> + +<p>“Very good, sir,” and you would have thought the speaker was +about to salute smartly before retiring. He did not, however, but +threw a keen and energetic glance at Mr. Golspie (whom he had +recognised at once as the dominant partner), then a keen and energetic +glance at Mr. Dersingham, picked up his hat (and in such a +manner as to suggest that he could do some wonderful things even +with that, if he wished to), brought his hat in front of the second +button of his overcoat, gave three brisk nods, then wheeled about and +made an exit like a torpedo from its tube.</p> + +<p>Actually, what Mr. Dersingham and Mr. Golspie did get on with +was an invitation to dinner, delivered by Mr. Dersingham and +accepted by Mr. Golspie. It had come to that. There were things +about Golspie that did not please Mr. Dersingham, for he was dogmatic, +rough, domineering, and was apt to jeer and sneer in a way +that left Mr. Dersingham’s mind bruised and resentful. A few +terms at Worrell would obviously have made a great difference to +Golspie, who now, in his middle age, showed only too plainly both +by word and deed that he was not a gentleman. From that there +was no escape: Golspie was not a gentleman. But Dersingham did +not think of him as an Englishman who is not a gentleman, a bit +of a bounder, an outsider (and there can be no doubt that Golspie +<span class="pagenum" id="p94">[94]</span>at times did talk and act like a bounder, a complete outsider); he +contrived to think of him as a kind of foreigner who had acquired +an extraordinary command of the English language. This was not +difficult, because Golspie did seem to have spent most of his time +outside England and to have no roots in this country. And the fact +remained that he had presented the firm of Twigg & Dersingham +with a new and glorious lease of life, as if he were a god, a commercial +god with a baldish head and a large moustache. So the +Dersinghams had talked it over and decided that he must be asked +to dinner, properly asked to dinner and not merely invited to take +pot-luck some Sunday. And this meant something, for though your +Old Worrelian who has to hack out his living in the City will smoke +a cigar and drink a whisky or share a couple of club chops, if +necessary, with any fairly decent sort of fellow he meets in the way +of business, he draws the line—his own words—at inviting most of +these fellows into his home, to meet his wife and possibly another +Old Worrelian or two. Thus it says something for Mr. Golspie’s +standing that, in spite of certain pronounced defects, he received such +an invitation, which, by the way, he accepted calmly enough, with +no show of surprise or gratitude.</p> + +<p>“There’ll be some other people I think you’d like to know,” said +Mr. Dersingham, “but we won’t make it too formal. Just a black +tie, y’know, black tie.” He said this as people always say it, that is, +as if a white tie weighed a ton and they are letting you down +lightly.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean? Wear a dinner jacket?”</p> + +<p>“That’s the idea,” said Mr. Dersingham, telling himself that +really Golspie was extraordinarily out of touch. “And—er—eightish +then, next Tuesday, eh?”</p> + +<p>“Right you are,” replied Mr. Golspie. “Very pleased.”</p> + + +<h3 id="II_2"> + II +</h3> + +<p>The Dersinghams occupied a lower maisonette in that region, +eminently respectable but a trifle dreary, between Gloucester Road +<span class="pagenum" id="p95">[95]</span>and Earl’s Court Road: 34<span class="allsmcap">A</span>, Barkfield Gardens, S.W. 5. Nearly all +the people who live in that part of London have the privilege, as the +estate agents point out in all their advertisements, of “overlooking +gardens,” which means that their windows stare down at iron railings, +sooty privet and laurel hedges, and lawns and flower-beds that +look as if they are only too willing to give up the unequal struggle. +Some of these gardens are better than others, but Barkfield Gardens +is not one of them. It is one of the smallest and dreariest of the +squares, and is rapidly losing caste, its houses slipping through the +maisonette and large flat era too quickly and already coming within +sight of the small flats, the nursing homes, the boarding houses, the +girls’ clubs. The Dersinghams did not like Barkfield Gardens. They +did not like their maisonette, all the rooms of which seemed higher +than they were long or broad and were singularly cheerless. Mr. +Dersingham never did anything about it, because he was waiting—as +he always said—until he knew where he stood financially. (From +which you might gather that he knew where he stood philosophically +or socially or politically or artistically.) Now and again, however, +Mrs. Dersingham would read all the advertisement columns devoted +to desirable residences, rush round to some agents, and even inspect +a few houses, but as she had never really decided what it was she +wanted, and her husband never succeeded in knowing where he +stood financially, they remained at 34<span class="allsmcap">A</span>, in the rooms that made them +seem like insects at the bottom of a test-tube, grumbling, while a +stream of cooks and housemaids, endlessly diverted from four local +registries, flowed through the dark basement, leaving as sediment innumerable +memories of glum looks, impertinent answers, lying references, +missing silk stockings, broken crockery and ruined meals. For +some women this state of affairs, making comfort and tranquillity impossible, +would have had its compensations, for it would have provided +unlimited material for talk, but Mrs. Dersingham prided +herself on not being the sort of woman who spends her time discussing +the shortcomings of her servants. Most of her friends prided themselves +on this fact too, and they told one another what they could +<span class="pagenum" id="p96">[96]</span>have said had they been that sort of women, and then gave examples. +“I know, but listen to this, my dear,” they all cried at once.</p> + +<p>At seven-forty-five on the evening of the dinner party to which +Mr. Golspie had been invited, Mr. Dersingham was busy being his +own butler, attending to the wines. He poured some claret into one +decanter, some Sauterne into another, and some port into a third, +then poured a little gin and a great deal of French and Italian vermouth +into a cocktail shaker, and carried the shaker and some glasses +into the drawing-room. Having done this, he remembered the cigarettes +and filled the silver cigarette box, a wedding present bearing +the Worrell colours in enamel, with <i>Sahibs</i> and some Turkish that +his wife always said she preferred to any other, no matter what they +happened to be. Then he presented himself with a cocktail, looked +at the fire, which was blazing cheerfully, looked at the chairs, which +were long, low, fat, and brown, glanced round the room, which +seemed to him a very handsome and friendly place now that the +two shaded lights took away the attention from the great bleak +expanse of wall above, sipped the cocktail, tried to hum a tune, and +began to feel a certain warm glow, a feeling proper to a host.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Dersingham, who was in the bedroom, trying to powder the +space between her shoulder blades, was less fortunate. She felt +anxious. Cook had been rather cross all day and might spoil everything, +and even when she tried, she was apt to make the soup greasy +and forget the salt in the vegetables. And Agnes, the new maid, +had pretended to understand all about serving, but she was so stupid +that she might easily go sticking vegetable dishes under people’s +noses anyhow, and there was bound to be some awful confusion +when it came to clearing the table for dessert. You could laugh it +off, of course, but you got so tired of laughing it off. It was a pity this +sort of thing couldn’t be done properly or laughed off altogether. +How terribly tiresome it was! And then, too, all the time you were +so worried and anxious about the food and the serving, you were +expected to be keeping the conversation going, terribly bright and +hostessy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p97">[97]</span></p> + +<p>“I wish,” said a silly girl at the back of Mrs. Dersingham’s mind, +a girl who had always been there but who did not say much except +when she was rather tired or cross—“I wish I was a terribly successful +actress who lived in a marvellous little flat and had a terribly +devoted maid and a dresser and a huge car and nothing much to +eat before the performance and then went on and was absolutely +marvellous and everybody applauded and then I put on a wonderful +Russia sable coat and diamonds and went out to supper and everybody +stared. No, I don’t. I wish I was a terribly successful woman +writer with a villa somewhere on the Riviera with orange trees and +mimosa and things and lunch in the sunshine and marvellous distinguished +people coming to call. No, I don’t. I wish I was terribly +rich with a housekeeper and about fifteen servants and a marvellous +maid of my own and umpteen Paris model gowns every season and +a house in Town and a place in the country and a very attractive +dark young man, very aristocratic and a racing motorist or yachtsman +or something like that, terribly in love with me but just devoted +and respectful all the time and coming and looking so miserable +and me saying ‘I’m sorry, my dear, but you can see how it is. I can +never love anybody but Howard, but we can still be friends, +can’t we?’”</p> + +<p>This silly girl still went rambling idiotically on while there returned +into the rest of Mrs. Dersingham’s mind various queries and +worries about the sauce for the fish and the crême caramel not setting +properly and Agnes spilling things. And all the time she was powdering +her back or neck, trying on the crystal beads and then the +amber, rubbing her cheeks with a tiny reddened pad, and staring +at her reflection in the Jacobean mirror that she had bought at +Brighton and that turned out to be a poor mirror and not Jacobean +at all. The one consolation was that you always knew that you actually +looked better than you did in that stupid mirror. Remembering +this for the thousandth time, Mrs. Dersingham switched off the light, +stood outside the night nursery a moment to discover if the children +were quiet, then joined her husband in the drawing-room.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p98">[98]</span></p> + +<p>“Oh, thank goodness, nobody’s here yet,” she said, pulling a cushion +or two about, then warming her hands. “It’s such a ghastly rush. +It’s wonderful to have a few minutes’ peace and quietness.” She was +already talking as if company were present.</p> + +<p>“Rather,” said Mr. Dersingham, loyally.</p> + +<p>She stood in front of him now. “I suppose I look a thorough +mess,” she continued with a relapse into her natural manner.</p> + +<p>“Not a bit. Jolly fine,” Mr. Dersingham mumbled, feeling awkward +as usual. He always had a suspicion that he ought to have +said something first: “My word, you’re looking jolly fine to-night,” +something of that sort. But somehow he never did.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be <em>too</em> complimentary, will you, darling? Well, I must say +I <em>feel</em> a thorough mess to-night. What I’d <em>really</em> like is early bed +and a book. This rush and seeing people all the time is so terrible.” +Once more, she was beginning to put on her company manner.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Dersingham did not look a thorough mess, but neither did +she look as attractive as she hoped she did. She looked like hundreds +of other English wives in their earlier thirties, that is, fair, +tired, bright, and sagging. She had pleasant blue eyes, a turned-up +nose, and a slightly discontented mouth. Her life, apart from the +secret saga of the kitchen and nursery, where creatures with the +most astoundingly good references were for ever turning out to be +lazy, impudent, and thieving, was really rather dull, for she had +no strong interests and very few friends in London. But this she +would not admit, not even to her husband, except on rare occasions +when she lost her temper, broke down, and the truth came blazing +through. She pretended that her life was one exciting and multi-coloured +whirl of people and social events. She did not actually tell +lies, but she created an atmosphere in which every little occurrence +was instantly distorted and magnified, like objects dropped into a +glass tank full of water. A tea on Monday and a dinner party on +Friday were transformed into a week’s feasting, a rushing here, +there, and everywhere, not enjoyed but endured. If she met a person +two or three times, then she had met whole crowds of him or +<span class="pagenum" id="p99">[99]</span>her, day and night. Two matinées (with an old school friend or her +mother up from Worcester) coming within one week reduced her +to the condition of a dramatic critic at the end of a heavy autumn +season. Even when she admitted that she had not attended a certain +function, met a person, seen a play, read a book, she contrived to +give these confessions a positive instead of a negative flavour, and +so strong a positive flavour that somehow she seemed to be in close +contact with the function, person, play, or book. She did this partly +by throwing the emphasis on the auxiliary verb: “No, I <em>haven’t</em> seen +her,” or: “No, I <em>haven’t</em> seen it,” which suggested to the listener that +Mrs. Dersingham had attended a series of important committee +meetings, had thrashed it out, and had decided with the rest that +there should be nothing done about these people, these plays, these +books, just yet. Thus, by this and other methods, she created an +atmosphere in which a few outings and encounters were transformed +into a rich and strenuous social life, which, so strong are our dreams, +frequently left her genuinely fatigued. All this puzzled that simple +man, her husband, but he never said anything now. The last time +he had asked, after the company had gone, why she had complained +so much about having to rush about, when he, for his part, could +not see she had done much rushing about, she had turned on him +quite fiercely and said that if it depended on him she would be +sitting moping in the flat, never seeing anybody or anything, from +one week’s end to another, and that the less he said the better; an +answer that left him completely bewildered.</p> + +<p>The Dersinghams, standing together now on their bearskin rug, +heard the first guest arrive. It must be either Golspie or the Trapes. +It could not be the Pearsons, who, living in the maisonette above, +always waited until they heard some one else arrive below, before +they made their appearance. And Golspie it was, looking strangely +unfamiliar to Mr. Dersingham in a rather voluminous dinner jacket +and a very narrow black tie. He had hardly been introduced to Mrs. +Dersingham before the Pearsons, who were just as anxious not to be +late as they were not to be first, came in, breathless and smiling.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p100">[100]</span></p> + +<p>“A-ha, good evening!” cried Mr. Pearson, as if he had found +them out.</p> + +<p>“And how are <em>you</em>, my dear?” cried Mrs. Pearson to her hostess, +in such a tone of voice that nobody would have imagined that they +had met less than four hours ago.</p> + +<p>The Pearsons were a middle-aged, childless couple, who had recently +retired from Singapore. Mr. Pearson was a tallish man, with +a long thin neck on which was perched a pear-shaped head. His +cheeks were absurdly plump, a sharp contrast to all the rest of him, +so that he always appeared to have just blown them out. He was +both nervous and amiable, and consequently he laughed a great +deal at nothing in particular, and the sound he made when he +laughed can only be set down as <i>Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee</i>. Mrs. Pearson, +who was altogether plump, had her face framed in a number of mysterious +dark curls, and looked vaguely like one of the musical +comedy actresses of the picture postcard era, one who had perhaps +retired, after queening it in <i>The Catch of the Season</i>, to keep a jolly +boarding-house. They were a lonely, friendly pair, who obviously +did not know what on earth to do to pass the time, so that this was +for them an occasion of some importance, to be looked forward to, +to be referred to, to be enjoyed to the last syllable of small talk.</p> + +<p>They were now all shouting at one another, after the fashion of +hosts and guests in Barkfield Gardens and elsewhere.</p> + +<p>“Found your way here all right then?” Mr. Dersingham bellowed +to Mr. Golspie.</p> + +<p>“Came in a taxi,” Mr. Golspie boomed over his cocktail.</p> + +<p>“That’s the best way if you’re going to a strange house in London, +isn’t it?” Mr. Pearson shouted. “We always do it when we can +afford it. Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”</p> + +<p>“And how’s the little darling to-night?” Mrs. Pearson inquired at +the top of her voice, affectionately maternal as usual.</p> + +<p>“Oh, we took the infant’s temperature, and it was normal. He’s +all right,” Mrs. Dersingham screamed in reply, elaborately unmaternal +as usual.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p101">[101]</span></p> + +<p>“I’m so glad, <em>so</em> glad.” And as she said it, Mrs. Pearson looked all +beaming and moist. “I was so afraid there might be something really +wrong with the dear kiddy. I was telling Walter that you thought +it might be a chill. I’m <em>so</em> glad it wasn’t, my dear. You can’t be too +careful with them, can you?”</p> + +<p>“This Russian business looks pretty queer, doesn’t it?” Mr. +Dersingham shouted.</p> + +<p>“Very queer. What do you make of it?” Mr. Pearson shouted in +reply. He made nothing of it himself yet, because the evening paper +had not told him what to make of it and he had heard nobody’s opinion +yet. On any question that had its origin west of Suez, Mr. +Pearson liked to agree with his company. When it was east of Suez, +he sometimes took a line of his own, and when Singapore itself was +actually involved, he had been known to contradict people.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll tell you, Dersingham,” said Mr. Golspie who as usual +knew his own mind. “It’s all a lot of tripe, bosh, bunkum. I know +those yarns. Fellows up in Riga trying to earn their money, they send +out that stuff.”</p> + +<p>“That’s terribly interesting, Mr. Golspie,” Mrs. Dersingham +shrieked at him, suddenly looking like a woman of the world who +had wanted to get to the bottom of this business for some time. +“Of course, you’ve been up there, haven’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Round about.” And Mr. Golspie gave her a grin, at once sardonic +and friendly. It seemed to tell her that she was all right, not +a bad-looking girl, but she mustn’t try to draw him, for that wasn’t +her line at all, not at all.</p> + +<p>“It makes a difference when you’ve been there, doesn’t it?” cried +Mr. Pearson. “You know the facts. Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”</p> + +<p>“And where do you live <em>now</em>, Mr. Golspie?” Mrs. Pearson inquired, +rather archly and with her head on one side.</p> + +<p>“Just got a furnished flat in Maida Vale,” replied Mr. Golspie.</p> + +<p>“Now I don’t think I know that part,” Mrs. Pearson said, girlishly +reflective.</p> + +<p>“There’s a lot of London we still don’t know. Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p102">[102]</span></p> + +<p>“You’re not missing much if you don’t know Maida Vale, from +what I’ve seen of it,” Mr. Golspie boomed away. “Where I live seems +to be full of Jews and music-hall turns. Old music-hall turns, not +the good-lookin’ young uns.”</p> + +<p>“Tee-tee-tee,” Mr. Pearson put it, rather doubtfully.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you men!” cried Mrs. Pearson, who had not lived at Singapore +for nothing: she knew her cues.</p> + +<p>“Tee-tee.” Triumphant this time.</p> + +<p>Miss Verever was announced, and very resentfully, for already +Agnes had had enough of the evening and she had not liked the +way this particular guest had walked in and looked at her.</p> + +<p>There is something to be said for Agnes. Miss Verever was one +of those people who, at a first meeting, demand to be disliked. She +was Mrs. Dersingham’s mother’s cousin, a tall, cadaverous virgin +of forty-five or so, who displayed, especially in evening clothes, an +uncomfortable amount of sharp gleaming bone, just as if the upper +part of her was a relief map done in ivory. In order that she might +not be overlooked in company and also to protect herself, she had +developed and brought very near to perfection a curiously disturbing +manner, which conveyed a boundless suggestion of the malicious, +the mocking, the sarcastic, the sardonic, the ironical. What she +actually said was harmless enough, but her tone of voice, her +expression, her smile, her glance, all these suggested that her words +had some devilish inner meaning. In scores of smaller hotels and +<i>pensions</i> overlooking the Mediterranean, merely by asking what time +the post went or inquiring if it had rained during the night, she +had made men wonder if they had not shaved properly and women +ask themselves if something had gone wrong with their complexions, +and compelled members of both sexes to consider if they had just +said something very silly. After that, she had only to perform the +smallest decent action for people to say that she had a surprisingly +kind heart as well as a terrifyingly clever satirical head. This was +all very well if people had booked rooms under the same roof for +the next three months, but on chance acquaintances, wondering +<span class="pagenum" id="p103">[103]</span>indignantly what on earth she had against <em>them</em>, this peculiar manner +of hers had an unfortunate effect.</p> + +<p>She now advanced, kissed her hostess, shook hands with her host, +and then, pursing her lips and screwing up the rest of her features, +said: “I hope you’ve not been waiting for <em>me</em>. I’m sure you have, +haven’t you?” And strange as it may seem, this remark and this +simple question immediately made the whole dinner party appear +preposterous.</p> + +<p>“No, we haven’t really,” Mr. Dersingham told her, at the same +time asking himself why in the name of thunder they had ever +thought of inviting her. “Somebody still to come. The Trapes.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m glad I’m not the last, then,” said Miss Verever, with a +bitter little smile, which she kept on her face while she was being +introduced to the other guests.</p> + +<p>A minute later, the Trapes arrived to complete the party. Late +guests may be divided into two classes, the repentant, who arrive, +perspiring and profusely apologetic, to babble about fogs and ancient +taxis and stupid drivers, and the unrepentant, who stalk in haughtily +and look somewhat aggrieved when they see all the other guests, +their eyebrows registering their disapproval of people who do not +know what time their own parties begin. The Trapes were admirable +specimens of the unrepentant class. They were both tall, cold, +thin, and rather featureless. Trape himself was an Old Worrelian +and a contemporary of Dersingham’s. He was a partner in a firm +of estate agents, but called himself Major Trape because he had +held that rank at the end of the war and had become so soldierly +training the vast mob of boys who were conscripted then that he +could not bring himself to say good-bye to his outworn courtesy +title. He was indeed so curt, so military, so imperial, that it was +impossible to imagine him letting and selling houses in the ordinary +way, and the mind’s eye saw him mopping up, with a small raiding +party, all flats and bijou residences, and sallying out with an expeditionary +force to plant the Union Jack on finely timbered, residential +and sporting estates. His wife was a somewhat colourless woman, +<span class="pagenum" id="p104">[104]</span>very English in type, who always looked as if she was always faintly +surprised and disgusted by life. Perhaps she was, and perhaps that +was why she always talked with a certain ventriloquial effect, producing +a voice with hardly any movement of her small iced features.</p> + +<p>Leaving them all to shout at one another, Mrs. Dersingham now +slipped out of the room, for it was imperative that dinner should be +announced as soon as possible. She returned three minutes later, +trying not unsuccessfully to look as if she had not a care in the +world, a sort of <i>Arabian Nights</i> hostess, and then, after the smallest +interval, Agnes popped her head into the room, thereby forgetting +one of her most urgent instructions, and said, without any enthusiasm +at all: “Please, m’, dinner’s served.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Dersingham smiled heroically at her guests, who, with the +exception of Mr. Golspie, looked at one another and at the door +as if they were hearing about this dinner business for the first time +and were mildly interested and amused. Mr. Golspie, for his part, +looked like a man who wanted his dinner, and actually took a step +or two towards the door. Then began that general stepping forward +and stepping backward and smiling and hand-waving which take +place at this moment in all those unhappy sections of society that +have lost formality and yet have not reached informality. There they +were, smiling and dithering round the door.</p> + +<p>“Now then, Mrs. Pearson,” cried Mr. Golspie in his loudest and +most brutal tones. “In you go.” And, without more ado, this impatient +guest put a hand behind Mrs. Pearson’s elbow, and Mrs. Pearson +found herself through the door, the leader of the exodus. They +crowded into the small dining-room, where the soup was already +steaming under the four shaded electric lights.</p> + +<p>“Now let me see,” Mrs. Dersingham began, as usual, feeling that +these guests were not people now but six enormous bodies of which +she, the wretched criminal, had to dispose. “Now let me see. Will +you sit there, Mrs. Trape. And Mrs. Pearson, there.” And then, +having disposed of the bodies, she had time to notice that the soup +looked horribly greasy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p105">[105]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="III_2"> + III +</h3> + +<p>The soup was bad, and Miss Verever left most of hers and contrived +to be looking down at it very curiously every time Mrs. +Dersingham glanced across the table at her. As there were eight +of them, Mrs. Dersingham was not sitting at the end of the table, +opposite her husband. Mr. Golspie was there, and very much at +his ease, putting away a very ungentlemanly quantity of bread +under that great moustache of his. On Mr. Golspie’s right were Mrs. +Dersingham, Major Trape, and Mrs. Pearson, and on the other side +were Miss Verever, Mr. Pearson, and Mrs. Trape.</p> + +<p>“And how,” said Miss Verever to Mrs. Dersingham, “did you +enjoy your Norfolk holiday this summer? You never told me that, +and I’ve been dying to know.” The smile that accompanied this +statement announced that Miss Verever could not imagine a more +idiotic or boring topic, that you would be insufferably dull if you +answered her question and terribly rude if you didn’t.</p> + +<p>“Not bad,” Mrs. Dersingham shouted desperately. “In fact, quite +good, on the whole. Rather cold, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Really, you found it cold?” And you would have sworn that +the speaker meant to suggest that the cold had obviously been +manufactured for you and that it served you right.</p> + +<p>At the other end of the table, Major Trape and his host were +talking about football, across Mrs. Pearson, who nodded and smiled +and shook her mysterious curls all the time, to show that she was +not really being left out.</p> + +<p>“Do you ever watch rugger, Golspie?” Mr. Dersingham demanded +down the table.</p> + +<p>“What, Rugby? Haven’t seen a match for years,” replied Mr. +Golspie. “Prefer the other kind when I do watch one.”</p> + +<p>Major Trape raised his eyebrows. “What, you a soccah man? Not +this professional stuff? Don’t tell me you like that.”</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter with it?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p106">[106]</span></p> + +<p>“Oh, come now! I mean, you can’t possibly—I mean, it’s a dirty +business, selling fellahs for money and so on, very unsporting.”</p> + +<p>“I must say I agree, Trape,” said Mr. Dersingham. “Dashed +unsporting business, I call it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, certainly,” Major Trape continued, “must be amatahs—love +of the game. Play the game for its own sake, I say, and not as all +these fellahs do—for monay. Can’t possibly be a sportsman and play +for monay. Oh, dirty business, eh, Dersingham?”</p> + +<p>“I’m with you there.”</p> + +<p>A sound came from Mrs. Trape’s face and it seemed to declare +that she was with him too.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m not with you,” said Mr. Golspie bluntly. He did not +care tuppence about it, one way or the other, but there was something +in Trape’s manner that demanded contradiction, and Mr. +Golspie was not the man to ignore such a challenge. “If a poor man +can play a game well, why shouldn’t he allow that game to keep +him? What’s the answer to that? A man’s as much right to play +cricket and football for a living as he has to clean windows or sell +tripe⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Tripe indeed! How can you, Mr. Golspie?” cried Mrs. Pearson, +girlishly shaking her curls at him.</p> + +<p>“My wife hates tripe,” said Mr. Pearson. “Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”</p> + +<p>“I disagree,” said Major Trape, stiffer than ever now. “Those +things are business, quite diff’rent. Games ought to be played for +their own sake. That’s the proper English way. Love of the game. +Clean sport. Don’t mind if the other fellahs win. Sport and business, +two diff’rent things.”</p> + +<p>“Not if sport <em>is</em> your business,” Mr. Golspie returned, looking +darkly mischievous. “We can’t all be rich amachures. Let the chaps +have their six or seven pounds a week. They earn it. If one lot of +chaps can earn their living by telling us to be good every Sunday—that +is, if you go to listen to ’em: I don’t—why shouldn’t another lot +be paid to knock a ball about every Saturday, without all this talk +<span class="pagenum" id="p107">[107]</span>of dirty business? It beats me. Unless it’s snobbery. Lot o’ snobbery +still about in this country. It pops up all the time.”</p> + +<p>“What <em>is</em> this argument all about?” Miss Verever inquired. And, +perhaps feeling that Mr. Golspie needed a rebuke, she put on her +most peculiar look and brought out her most disturbing tone of +voice, finally throwing in a smile that was a tried veteran, an Old +Guard.</p> + +<p>But Mr. Golspie returned her gaze quite calmly, and even conveyed +a piece of fish, and far too large a piece, to his mouth before +replying. “We’re arguing about football and cricket. I don’t suppose +you’re interested. I’m not much, myself. I like billiards. That’s one +thing about coming back to this country, you can always get a good +game of billiards. Proper tables, y’know.”</p> + +<p>“I used to be very fond of a game of billiards, snooker too,” said +Mr. Pearson, nodding his head so that his fat cheeks shook like beef +jellies, “when I was out in Singapore. There were some splendid +players at the club there, splendid players, make breaks of forty +and fifty. But I wasn’t one of them. Tee-tee-tee⁠——”</p> + +<p>“We went to see Susie Dean and Jerry Jerningham the other +night,” said Major Trape, turning to Mrs. Dersingham. “Good show. +Very clevah, very clevah. You been to any shows lately, Mrs. Dersingham?”</p> + +<p>“That’s true,” Mrs. Pearson informed her host and anybody else +who cared to listen. “When we were out in Singapore, my husband +was always going over to the club for billiards. And now he hardly +ever plays. I don’t think he’s had a game this year. Have you, +Walter? I’m just saying I don’t think you’ve had a game this year.”</p> + +<p>“And so what with one thing and another,” Mrs. Dersingham told +Major Trape, “I’ve simply not been able to see half the plays I’ve +wanted to see. Something has to go, hasn’t it? We were out at the +Trevors’—I think you know them, don’t you?—the shipbuilding +people, you know, only of course these Trevors are out of that—they’re +terribly in with all that young smart set, Mrs. Dellingham, +young Mostyn-Price, Lady Muriel Pagworth, and the famous Ditchways. +<span class="pagenum" id="p108">[108]</span>Well, what with that, and then going to Mrs. Westbury’s +musical tea-fight—Dossevitch and Rougeot <em>ought</em> to have been there +and were only prevented from coming at the last minute, but Imogen +Farley was there and played divinely. Oh, and then on top of all +that, I went to see that new thing at His Majesty’s—what’s it called?—oh, +yes—<i>The Other Man</i>. And so I haven’t had a single moment +for any other show.”</p> + +<p>“No, by Jove, you haven’t, have you?” said Major Trape, with +whom this miracle of the social loaves and fishes worked every time. +“You’re worse than Dorothy, and I tell her she overdoes it. Mustn’t +overdo it, you know.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Dersingham, wondering how long Agnes was going to be +bringing up the cutlets, shrugged her shoulders, and did it exactly as +she had seen Irene Prince do it in <i>Smart Women</i> at the Ambassadors. +“It <em>is</em> stupid, I know,” she confessed charmingly, “and I’m +always saying I’ll cut most of it out—but—well, you know what +happens.”</p> + +<p>Miss Verever, wearing her most peculiar smile, leaned forward, +caught the eye of her hostess, and said, “But what <em>does</em> happen, my +dear?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Dersingham was able to escape, however, by plunging at +once into the talk at the other end of the table, as if she had not +heard Miss Verever’s inquiry. “Oh, have you been reading that?” +she cried across the table to Mrs. Trape, who did not look as if +she had spoken for weeks, but nevertheless had actually just conjured +out several remarks. “No, I <em>haven’t</em> read it, and I don’t mean +to.” But did Agnes mean to bring the cutlets?</p> + +<p>The talk at Mr. Dersingham’s end, as we have guessed, had suddenly +turned literary. Mrs. Trape had just read a certain book. It +was, she added, apparently throwing her voice into the claret decanter, +a very clever book. Mr. Dersingham had not read this book, +and did not hesitate to say that it did not sound his kind of book, +for after a jolly good hard day in the office he found such books +too heavy going and preferred a detective story. Mrs. Pearson was +<span class="pagenum" id="p109">[109]</span>actually reading a book, had been reading it that very afternoon, +had nearly finished it and was enjoying it immensely.</p> + +<p>“And I’m sure it’s a story <em>you’d</em> like, Mr. Dersingham,” she cried, +“even though there aren’t any detectives in it. I could hardly put it +down. It’s all about a girl going to one of those Pacific Islands, one +of those lovely coral and lagoon places, you know, and she goes +there to stay with an uncle because she’s lost all her money and when +she gets there she finds that he’s drinking terribly, and so she goes +to another man—but I mustn’t spoil it for you. Do read it, Mrs. +Trape.”</p> + +<p>The claret decanter murmured that it would love to read it, and +asked what the name of the book was, so that it might put it down +on its library list.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you the title in a moment,” and Mrs. Pearson, bringing +her curls to rest, bit her lip reflectively. “Now how stupid of me! +Do you know, I can’t remember. It’s a very striking title, too, and +that’s what made me take it when the girl at the library showed it +to me. Now isn’t that silly of me?”</p> + +<p>“I can never remember the titles either,” Mr. Dersingham assured +her heartily. “What was the name of the chap who wrote it? Was +it a man or a woman?”</p> + +<p>“I <em>think</em> it was a man’s name, in fact I’m nearly sure it was. It +was quite a common name, too. Something like Wilson. No, it +wasn’t, it was Wilkinson. Walter, do you remember the name of +the author of that book I’m reading? Wasn’t it Wilkinson?”</p> + +<p>“You’re thinking of the man that came to mend the wireless set,” +Mr. Pearson replied, shooting his long neck at her. “That was +Wilkinson. You know the people, Dersingham—the electricians in +Earl’s Court Road?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, so it was. How silly of me!”</p> + +<p>“Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pearson smiled vaguely but amiably, then said: “So you see +I can’t tell you <em>now</em>, but I’ll tell Mrs. Dersingham in the morning +and then she can tell you.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p110">[110]</span></p> + +<p>A sudden silence fell on the table at that moment, perhaps because +there was a sort of scratching sound at the door, which opened, +but only about an inch or two. That silence was shattered by the +most appalling crash of breaking crockery, followed by a short +sharp wail. Then silence again for one sinking moment. The cutlets +and the vegetables had arrived at last, and a brown stain, creeping +beneath the door, told where they were.</p> + +<p>“My God!” cried Mr. Golspie to Miss Verever, as Mrs. Dersingham +dashed to the door, “there goes our dinner.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed!”</p> + +<p>“You bet your life!” Mr. Golspie, earnest and unabashed, assured +her.</p> + +<p>Miss Verever and Major Trape exchanged glances, which removed +Mr. Golspie once and for all from decent society and handed him +over to the social worker and the anthropologist.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, Mrs. Dersingham had disappeared through the doorway, +and Mr. Dersingham was trying to follow her example but +could not do so because, what with cutlets, vegetables, gravy, broken +dishes and plates, a weeping Agnes, and a panic-stricken Mrs. Dersingham, +there was no space for him. So he stood there, holding +the door open, with his body inside the dining-room and his head +outside.</p> + +<p>“Oh, do shut the door, Howard,” the guests heard Mrs. Dersingham +cry.</p> + +<p>“All right,” the invisible head replied hesitatingly. “But I say—can’t +I—er—do anything? I mean, do you want me to come out or—er—well, +what do you want me to do?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, go-in-and-shut-the-door.” And there was no doubt that in +another moment Mrs. Dersingham would have screamed, for this +was the voice of a woman in an extremity.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dersingham closed the door and returned to his chair. He +looked at Major Trape, and Major Trape looked at him, and no +doubt they were both remembering the good old school, Worrelians +together.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p111">[111]</span></p> + +<p>“Sorry, but—er—” and here Mr. Dersingham looked round apologetically +at his guests—“I’m afraid there’s been some sort of accident +outside.”</p> + +<p>Immediately, Mrs. Trape, Mrs. Pearson, Major Trape, and Mr. +Pearson began talking all at once, not talking about this accident but +about accidents in general, with special reference to very queer accidents +that had happened to them. Miss Verever merely looked +peculiarly at everybody, while Mr. Golspie finished his claret with +a certain remote gloom, as if he were a man taking quinine on the +summit of a mountain.</p> + +<p>Then the door, which had not been properly fastened, swung open +again, to admit a mixed knocking and gobbling and guggling noise +that suggested that Agnes was now lying on the floor, in hysterics, +and drumming her feet. Then came a new voice, very hoarse and +resentful, and this voice declared that it was all a crying shame, +even if the girl was clumsy with her hands, and that one pair of +hands was one pair of hands and could not be expected to be any +more, and that while notices were being given right and left, <em>her</em> +notice could be taken, there and then. In short, the cook had arrived +on the scene.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dersingham arose miserably, but whether to shut the door +again or to make an entrance into the drama outside we shall never +know, for Mrs. Pearson, fired with neighbourly solicitude, sprang +up, crying, “Poor Mrs. Dersingham! I’m sure I ought to do something,” +and was outside, with the door closed behind her, before +Mr. Dersingham knew what was happening.</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Pearson, once outside, did not simply intrude, did not +gape and hang about and get in the way, but took charge of the +situation, for though Mrs. Pearson may have been a foolish table-talker, +may have worn mysterious curls and been old-fashioned and +monstrously girlish and affectionate, she was a housewife of experience, +who had weathered the most fantastic tropical domestic storms +in Singapore.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p112">[112]</span></p> + +<p>“I <em>knew</em> you wouldn’t mind my coming out,” she cried, “and I +felt I must help, because after all we are neighbours, aren’t we? +and that makes a difference.”</p> + +<p>“It’s too absurd,” Mrs. Dersingham wailed. “This wretched girl’s +smashed everything and ruined the dinner, and now she’s going off +into a fit or something out of sheer temper. And it’s all her own +fault. I engaged her sister to come and help her to-night, and then +when her sister couldn’t come, at the last minute of course, she +wouldn’t let me get anybody else, she said she could do it herself.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pearson was looking at Agnes, who was still guggling and +drumming on the floor. “Only stupid hysterics. Get up at once, +you silly, silly girl. Do you hear? You’re in the way. We’ll pour cold +water over her. That will soon bring her round, you’ll see.”</p> + +<p>The cook, who was standing in the hall, a few yards away, and +had been looking on with the air of a complacent prophetess, now +began to lose some of her rigidity. The mournful triumph died out +of her face. She had no respect for Mrs. Dersingham, but for some +strange reason she had almost a veneration for Mrs. Pearson, who +was possibly a far more ladylike and commanding figure in her eyes.</p> + +<p>“That’s so,” the cook hoarsely declared now. “A jug of water’s +what she wants. Accidents will happen and one pair of hands can’t +be two or three pairs of hands, eight for dinner being out of all +reason with them steps and no service lift, but there’s no call to be +lying there all night, Agnes, having your hysterics and carrying +on silly when there’s all this mess to be cleared, let alone anything +else.”</p> + +<p>This treacherous withdrawal of a stout ally, combined with the +talk of cold water, soon brought the hysterics to mere choking and +sniffing, and in a minute or two Agnes was bending over the ruins. +“I’ll clear these away,” she announced between sniffs and chokes, +“but I won’t bring anything else and serve it, I won’t. I couldn’t +if I tried, I couldn’t. I haven’t a nerve in me body, not after what’s +happened, I haven’t.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p113">[113]</span></p> + +<p>“But I shall have to give them <em>something</em>,” Mrs. Dersingham was +saying. Clearly she no longer included Mrs. Pearson among the +guests. Mrs. Pearson had ceased to be one of “them.”</p> + +<p>“Of course you will, my dear,” cried Mrs. Pearson, her eyes gleaming +with a happy excitement. “Not that <em>we’d</em> mind, of course. It’s +the men, isn’t it? You know what the men are? Now then, what +about eggs?”</p> + +<p>“Eggs,” the cook repeated hoarsely and gloomily. “There’s two +eggs, an’ two eggs only, in that kitchen. Just the two eggs, and +them’s for the morning.”</p> + +<p>“Listen, my dear.” And Mrs. Pearson clutched at her neighbour +affectionately and imploringly. “<em>Do</em> leave it to me and I promise you +I won’t be ten minutes. I won’t, really. Now not a word! Don’t +bother about <em>anything</em>. Just you leave it to me.” She hurried towards +the outer door, pulled herself up before she reached it, and cried over +her shoulder, “But warm some plates, that’s all.”</p> + +<p>During the subsequent interval, Mrs. Dersingham had not the +heart to return to the dining-room, though she did just look in, +put her face round the door and smile apologetically at everybody +and say that it was <em>too</em> absurd and annoying and that the two of +them, she and Mrs. Pearson, would be back in a few minutes. She +spent the rest of the time superintending the salvage work outside the +dining-room door and helping cook to find enough fresh plates to +warm. She felt hot, dishevelled and miserable. She could have cried. +Indeed, that was why she did not slip upstairs to her bedroom to +look at herself and powder her nose, for once there, really alone +with herself, she was sure she would have cried. Oh, it was all too +hateful for words!</p> + +<p>“There!” And Mrs. Pearson stood before her, breathless, flushed, +and happy, and whipped off the lid of a silver dish.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” cried Mrs. Dersingham in the very reek of the omelette, a +fine large specimen. “You angel! It’s absolutely perfect.”</p> + +<p>“I remembered we had some eggs, and then I remembered we +<span class="pagenum" id="p114">[114]</span>had a bottle of mushrooms tucked away somewhere, and so I rushed +upstairs and made this mushroom omelette. It ought to be nice. I +used to be good with omelettes.”</p> + +<p>“It’s marvellous. And I don’t know how to begin to thank you, +my dear.” And Mrs. Dersingham meant it. From that moment, +Mrs. Pearson ceased to be a merely foolish if kindly neighbour +and became a friend, worthy of the most secret confidences. In the +steam of the omelette, rich as the smoke of burnt offerings, this +friendship began, and Mrs. Dersingham never tasted a mushroom +afterwards without being reminded of it.</p> + +<p>“Don’t think of it, my dear,” said Mrs. Pearson happily, for +her own life, after months of the dull routine of time-killing, had +suddenly become crimson, rich and glorious. “Now have you got +the plates ready? You must have this served at once, mustn’t you? +Where’s that silly girl? Gone to bed? All right, then, make the +cook serve the rest of the dinner. She must have everything ready +by this time. Call her, my dear. Tell her to bring up the plates.” +And they returned at last to the dining-room, two sisters out of +burning Troy.</p> + +<p>Alas, all was not well in there. Something had happened during +the interval of waiting. It was not the women, who were all sympathetic +smiles and solicitude: Mrs. Trape even dropped the ventriloquial +effect, actually disturbed the lower part of her face, in +order to explain that she knew, no one better, what it was these +days, when anything might be expected of that class; and Miss +Verever, though retaining automatically some peculiarities of tone +and grimace, contrived to say something reassuring. No, it was not +the women; it was the men. Mr. Golspie looked like a man who +had already said some brutal things and was fully prepared to say +some more; Major Trape looked very stiff and uncompromising, +as if he had just sentenced a couple of surveyors to be shot; Mr. +Pearson gave the impression that he had been faintly tee-teeing on +both sides of a quarrel and was rather tired of it; and Mr. Dersingham +looked uneasy, anxious, exasperated. There was no mistaking +<span class="pagenum" id="p115">[115]</span>the atmosphere, in which distant thunder still rolled. The stupid +men had had to wait for the more substantial part of dinner; they +had felt empty, then they had felt cross; and so they had argued, +shouted, quarrelled, not all of them perhaps, but certainly Mr. Golspie +and Major Trape. Probably at any moment, they would begin +arguing, shouting, quarrelling again. Mrs. Dersingham, very tired +now and with a hundred little nerves screaming to be taken out of +all this and put to bed, would have liked to bang their silly heads +together.</p> + +<p>Cook came in, breathing heavily and disapprovingly, and gave +them their omelette. There was not a single movement she made +during the whole time she was in the room that did not announce, +quite plainly, that she was the cook, that the kitchen was her place, +that she did not pretend to be able to wait at table and that if they +did not like it they could lump it. Her heavy breathing went further, +pointing out that when she did condescend to wait at table, +she expected to find a better company than this seated round it. +Even Mrs. Pearson had apparently lost favour, for she had her plate +shoved contemptuously in front of her, like the rest. Real ladies, +that plate said, don’t rush away and cook omelettes for other people’s +dinner tables. “P’raps you’ll ring when you want the next,” +the cook wheezed, and then slowly, scornfully, took her departure.</p> + +<p>“If you don’t mind my saying so, Mrs. Dersingham,” said Major +Trape, “this omelette’s awf’ly good, awf’ly good. And there’s nothing +I like better than a jolly good omelette.”</p> + +<p>A voice from Mrs. Trape’s direction said that it agreed with him.</p> + +<p>“They’re right there,” said Mr. Golspie to Mrs. Dersingham, as +if the Trapes were not often right. “It’s as good an omelette as I’ve +had for months and months, and that’s saying something, because +I’ve been in places where they can make omelettes. They can’t make +’em here in England.” And he said this in such a way as to suggest +that it was really a challenge to Trape, who was nothing if not +patriotic. Obviously, he and Trape had been quarrelling.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p116">[116]</span></p> + +<p>Major Trape stiffened, then smiled laboriously at his hostess. “Mr. +Golspie seems to think we can’t make anything in England. That’s +where he and I diffah. Isn’t it, Dersingham?”</p> + +<p>“Well, yes, in a way, I suppose,” Mr. Dersingham mumbled unhappily. +He felt divided between Worrell and Angel Pavement, +between his old and respected school friend, Trape, with whom he +instinctively agreed, and the forceful man who was now saving +Twigg & Dersingham and making it prosperous, his guest for the +first time, too; and it was a wretched situation. He muttered now +that there was a lot to be said on both sides.</p> + +<p>“There may be,” said Major Trape. “But I don’t like to hear a +man continually runnin’ down his own country. Tastes diffah, I +suppose. But I feel—well, it isn’t done, that’s all.”</p> + +<p>“Time it was done then,” said Mr. Golspie aggressively. “Most +of the people I meet here these days seem to be living in a fool’s +paradise⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Now, Mr. Golspie,” cried his hostess with desperate vivacity, +“you’re not to call us all fools. Is he, Mrs. Trape? We won’t have it.” +Then, saving the situation at all cost, she turned to Miss Verever. +“My dear, I forgot to tell you, I’ve had the absurdest letter from +Alice. When I read it, I simply howled.”</p> + +<p>“No, did you?” said Miss Verever.</p> + +<p>“A-ha!” cried Mr. Dersingham, doing his best. “What’s the latest +from Alice? We must all hear about this.”</p> + +<p>They were all listening now, all at peace for the moment.</p> + +<p>“Oh, it was too ridiculous,” cried Mrs. Dersingham, despairingly +racking her brains to remember something amusing in that letter, +or, failing that, something amusing in any letter she had ever had +from anybody. “You know what Alice is—at least, you do, my dear, +and so do you. I suppose it isn’t really funny unless you know her. +You see, the minute I read a letter of hers, of course I can see her +in my mind and hear her voice and all that sort of thing, and unless +you can do that, well I dare say it isn’t so funny, after all. But, you +<span class="pagenum" id="p117">[117]</span>see, Alice—she’s my youngest sister, I must explain, and they live +down in Devon—oh, miles from anywhere. Will you ring, please, +darling? Well, Alice has a dog, the absu-u-urdest creature⁠——”</p> + +<p>She struggled through with it somehow, and fortunately cook made +such a noise clearing and then serving the sweet that most of the +anecdote, presumably the funniest part, was lost in the clatter. The +cook had been so noisy, so incredibly heavy in her breathing, and so +obviously disapproving, when she was serving the sweet, that Mrs. +Dersingham dare not have her up again to clear the table for dessert, +so as the fruit-plates and the finger-bowls, the port decanter and +glasses, were all on the sideboard, she made a joke of it—showing +the last gleam of vivacity she felt she would be able to show for +months—and she and Dersingham, assisted by Mr. Pearson, who +said—tee-tee-tee-tee-tee—that he was used to clearing a table, having +been well brought up, did what they could to make the dinner look +as if it were coming to a civilised end. Mrs. Dersingham felt that +Mr. Golspie, plainly a porty sort of man, and Major Trape might +not want to argue so unpleasantly once they had some port inside +them. This was the longest and most ghastly dinner she ever remembered. +It was not really very late, but it seemed like two in the +morning. As she tried to peel a very soft pear, she felt she wanted +to throw it at the opposite wall and then scream at the top of her +voice.</p> + +<p>It was then they heard a ring at the outer door. Perhaps the +postman, rather late and with something special to deliver. A minute +or so later, there came another and longer ring.</p> + +<p>“The only time we were there it rained for a whole week,” said +Major Trape, concluding his account of the watering places, “and +so I said, ‘Nevah again.’ Can’t imagine how these towns get their +reputation. These weathah reports they give out⁠——”</p> + +<p>Another ring, very determined this time.</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry, but do go and see who that is at the door, my dear,” +Mrs. Dersingham cried, apologetically. “I’ve just remembered. Agnes +<span class="pagenum" id="p118">[118]</span>has gone to bed, and cook probably can’t hear or won’t hear. I +don’t suppose it’s anybody but the late post.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Dersingham was absent several minutes, and somehow during +that time nobody appeared to want to talk. Mrs. Dersingham did +not press the fruit upon her guests. The moment the last piece was +eaten, she intended to rise from the table, and then—oh, thank +Heaven!—the worst was over. The men could stay on drinking +port and quarrel like cats and dogs if they liked. She would be out +of it, among nice, silly, comfortable women in the drawing-room, +and so it would all be over. And then, just as she was nearly succeeding +in consoling herself, her husband reappeared, and he was +not alone. The idiot had brought a complete stranger into the dining-room +with him, a girl.</p> + +<p>She was a very pretty girl, quite young, and on his face was that +fatuous smile which husbands always seem to wear in the company +of young and very pretty girls. All wives recognize and detest that +fatuous smile. It is bad at any time, but when it accompanies a girl +who is a complete stranger into the dining-room at the conclusion of +a disastrous dinner, and brings her into the presence of a wife who +has not felt even decently presentable for hours and hours and who +has been ready to scream for the last forty-five minutes, then it is a +catastrophe and a mortal injury. And so Mrs. Dersingham gave Mr. +Dersingham one look that sent that fatuous smile trembling into +oblivion. And then, half rising from her chair, Mrs. Dersingham +looked at the stranger, and decided at once that she had never before +seen a girl she disliked so much at sight as this one.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid—er—I don’t⁠——” she began.</p> + +<p>But the girl was not even looking at her. She was busy having +her left cheek brushed by the large moustache of Mr. Golspie, who +had flung an arm round her shoulders.</p> + +<p>“Well, hang me, Lena girl,” Mr. Golspie was roaring, “if I hadn’t +forgotten all about you.”</p> + +<p>“You would,” said the girl coolly. “You’re a rotten father. I’ve +told you that before. Now introduce me.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p119">[119]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="IV_2"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>“Now this is my fault,” Mr. Golspie boomed at the Dersinghams, +turning from one to the other, “my fault entirely. I ought to have +told you. I meant to, but I forgot. This girl of mine wrote to say she +was coming from Paris to-day, but of course she didn’t say how and +when and what and where, just left it all vague, y’know, as usual, +all up in the air. When it got to be half past seven and she hadn’t +turned up, I began to wonder. What was I to do?” And as he +asked this he stared fiercely at Mr. Pearson, who happened to catch +his eye.</p> + +<p>“Quite so, Mr. Golspie,” Mr. Pearson, startled, jerked out.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll tell you what I did do. I left a message with the caretaker +of the flats, so that if she did come she’d know where I +was⁠——”</p> + +<p>“All right, my dear,” his daughter interrupted, “you needn’t go +on and on. Nobody wants to hear all about it. I got the message. +I wasn’t going to spend hours all alone in that poisonous flat. So I +took a taxi and came here. And that’s that.” And having thus dismissed +the subject, Miss Golspie, who seemed an astonishingly cool +and composed young lady, smiled at Mrs. Dersingham, who did +not return the smile. Miss Golspie then produced a small mirror +from her handbag and carefully examined her features in it.</p> + +<p>And even Mrs. Dersingham would have been compelled to admit +that they were very charming features. Lena Golspie still remained, +after closer inspection, a very pretty girl. She had reddish-gold hair, +large brown eyes, an impudent little nose, and a luscious mouth. +She looked rather smaller than she actually was. Her neck, shoulders, +and arms were slenderly, even too delicately, fashioned, but +she had strong, well-shaped legs; and was indeed the complete +attractive young female animal. Only in a certain slant of the eye +and some movements of the mouth did she resemble her father, +though a very acute listener might have found some likeness in their +<span class="pagenum" id="p120">[120]</span>voices. Their accent, however, was quite different, for Mr. Golspie +spoke with a breadth of vowel sound and roughness of consonants +that suggested the toned-down Lowlander or North-country Englishman, +whereas his daughter’s English did not properly belong to any +part of England but seemed to be that international English, of a +kind that a clever foreigner might pick up in the Anglo-Saxon colony +in Paris and that is sometimes spoken by both English and +Americans on the stage, a language without roots and background, +a language for “the talkies.” Indeed, in Lena’s company you might +have felt you were taking part in a “talkie.”</p> + +<p>“And I intended to tell you when I first came in,” Mr. Golspie +continued, determined to have his say. “Just to warn you that this +daughter o’ mine—who doesn’t behave herself as nicely as she looks, +I can tell you—might be landing herself on you.”</p> + +<p>“Quite all right, of course,” said Mr. Dersingham. “I mean—delighted!”</p> + + +<p>“Good! No harm done, then.” And Mr. Golspie sat down, grinned +at his daughter, noticed the decanter in front of him, and promptly +helped himself to another glass of port.</p> + +<p>“But I must say,” cried Lena, who had now concluded the examination +of her own features and was busy examining everybody +else’s, “I thought you’d have finished dinner hours ago. Did you +begin late or have you been wolfing an awful lot?”</p> + +<p>“I think we’d better all go straight into the drawing-room,” said +Mrs. Dersingham hurriedly, “unless you men feel you <em>must</em> stay and +drink some more port.”</p> + +<p>“Not a bit,” said Mr. Golspie heartily. “I’m ready, for one.” And +to show that he was, he drained his glass in one sharp gulp.</p> + +<p>“Only too delighted, Mrs. Dersingham,” said Major Trape, bowing +and looking very severe, as if indirectly to rebuke the uncouth +Golspie.</p> + +<p>“Good work!” said Mr. Dersingham, who obviously felt that +something was still wrong somewhere and was trying in vain to +<span class="pagenum" id="p121">[121]</span>appear hearty and enthusiastic. He opened the door. “Much better +if we all barge in together now.”</p> + +<p>“Come along, Miss Golspie,” and the patient little smile that Mrs. +Dersingham contrived to produce was itself a studied insult. “We +don’t mind a <em>bit</em> your not being dressed. It doesn’t matter at all, +I assure you.”</p> + +<p>Miss Golspie turned wondering large brown eyes upon her. “Oh, +did you want me to change? I would have done if I’d known—specially +as I’ve brought over one or two marvellous new dresses—but +it didn’t seem worth it. Sorry and all that!”</p> + +<p>“Not in the least,” replied Mrs. Dersingham, pale with weariness +and vexation. Cheerfully—oh, so cheerfully!—she could have murdered +this girl.</p> + +<p>They trooped rather silently into the drawing-room, which did +not seem particularly pleased to see them. It had been neglected +itself for some time—so that the fire was low and ashy—and now +it did not seem to welcome visitors. Cook arrived with coffee, and +put down the tray with the air of a camel exhibiting the last straw. +She did not attempt to serve it. She put it down on the rickety little +table and immediately made that table seem ten times more rickety. +There was no cup for Miss Golspie, who of course said at once that +she would have some coffee, and so Mr. Dersingham, with what +seemed to his wife a great deal of unnecessary fuss and silliness, +insisted that he should go without. And then, having taken the +tiniest sip of coffee, this Golspie girl ostentatiously put the cup on +one side, and, on being asked by Mr. Pearson, who had also turned +silly and officious, if she would have some more, replied that she +did not really want any coffee.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you what, though,” she declared, in a loud clear voice, +“I’d adore a cocktail, if there are any going.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, would you, Miss Golspie?” Mr. Dersingham began. “Well, +I dare say I could rake up⁠——” But he was not allowed to continue.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid there aren’t any cocktails going,” said Mrs. Dersingham, +<span class="pagenum" id="p122">[122]</span>in a voice that was if anything louder and clearer, and as +frosted as the best Martini.</p> + +<p>And the insensitive Mr. Golspie did not improve the situation by +chiming in with “I should think not. Don’t you take any notice of +her, Mrs. Dersingham. I’ll give her cocktails!”</p> + +<p>“When you get her home, eh?” Mr. Pearson cried, with rash +facetiousness. “Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”</p> + +<p>It was easily his least successful “Tee-tee” of the evening. Mrs. +Pearson looked surprised at him. Mr. Golspie gave him a glance +that told him quite plainly to mind his own business and not try to +be funny. Lena herself shot a furious glance at both her father and +Mr. Pearson, but did not cast a single look in Mrs. Dersingham’s +direction—a very ominous sign. As for Mrs. Dersingham, she could +not decide which was the more awful, Mr. Golspie or his terrible +daughter. She tried to start a conversation with Mrs. Pearson, who +was now all embarrassed smiles, and Mrs. Trape, whose face had +been completely frost-bound for the last ten minutes.</p> + +<p>Miss Verever, every feature in battle order, now bore down on +Lena, opening the engagement with a long-range smile of the most +sinister peculiarity. “Do I understand, Miss Golspie,” she said, with +the most mysterious grimace and the most baffling inflections, “that +you’ve just come from Paris? Have you been living there?”</p> + +<p>“Hello, hello!” cried Lena’s startled expression. “What have I +done to you?” But all she actually said in reply was, “Yes, I’ve just +come from there, and I’ve been living there.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you <em>have</em> been living there?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, for the last eighteen months. With an uncle. You see, he +lives there, and I’ve been living with him.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, your <em>uncle</em> lives there?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, he’s lived there nearly all his life. He is half French, anyhow. +And my aunt’s completely French.”</p> + +<p>“Then is your father—Mr. Golspie—half French?” asked Miss +Verever, in one of her strangest whispers.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p123">[123]</span></p> + +<p>“No, not at all,” said Lena, with a little impatient shake of her +head. “You see, this uncle’s my mother’s brother, not my father’s.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, your <em>mother’s</em>.” And now Miss Verever produced her most +famous glance of inquiry, awfully enigmatical in its final meaning +and yet immediately challenging. She followed it up with a new +smile, crooked, terrible. “Well, then, of course, your mother must +be half French, I suppose, just like your uncle?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, she was.” And then Lena’s little nose wrinkled, partly in +bewilderment, partly in distaste. Then she looked straight at Miss +Verever, who was bending over her and searching her with an +unwinking gaze. “But what about it? I mean, there’s nothing particularly +funny about that, is there? Lots of people are half French, +aren’t they?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I suppose so.” Miss Verever was taken aback.</p> + +<p>“Well, then, what are you looking at me like that for?” cried +Lena, at once registering a direct hit. “I mean, you look as if there +was something terribly weird about it all. There really isn’t, you +know. It’s all quite simple.” The shell crashed through and exploded +somewhere near the magazine.</p> + +<p>Miss Verever was jerked upright by her surprise. Then she turned +glacial. “I beg your pardon.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t mind, but⁠——”</p> + +<p>Miss Verever did not wait to hear, but turned away at once and +joined the other three women. Lena, after staring after her for a +moment, gave a tiny wriggle and then broke into a duet of Old +Worrelian talk between Mr. Dersingham and Major Trape, who +were merely chivalrous at first but very soon began to wear that +fatuous smile. And towards the three of them an icy current began +to flow from the group of women. Too tired, too cross, even to pretend +to be a good brisk hostess, Mrs. Dersingham let the whole +thing slide, and merely prayed for the end. It was not long in +coming.</p> + +<p>“Shall I?” Miss Golspie was heard to cry to the two men.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p124">[124]</span></p> + +<p>They nodded and smiled, a little doubtfully perhaps, but still +they nodded and smiled, men under a spell.</p> + +<p>“All right, then, I will. Just to cheer us all up. We’re getting terribly +dismal.” And Miss Golspie, with a final and coquettish nod +and smile of her own at the other two nodders and smilers, marched +across the room, puffing away at one of her host’s <i>Sahibs</i>. Then she +sat down at the baby grand.</p> + +<p>“That’s the way, Lena,” her father shouted approvingly. He had +been talking in a corner to Mr. Pearson. “Let’s have a tune. Do us +good.”</p> + +<p>Before anybody else could say a word, Lena had begun playing. +She played some dance tunes, very sketchily, but with great speed +and noise. The first two or three minutes were bad, but the next two +or three minutes were much worse, for then her left hand, guessing +wildly, began hitting any note roughly in the neighbourhood of the +right one, and the very fire irons joined in the din. After ten minutes, +she reached a grand <i>fortissimo</i>. Mrs. Dersingham could bear it no +longer.</p> + +<p>“Oh, do <em>stop</em> that noise!” she shrieked, rushing forward, white and +trembling with fury.</p> + +<p>Lena stopped at once. They were all fixed, rooted, in a vast sudden +silence.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Dersingham bit her lip, recovered herself. “I’m sorry,” she +said, coldly and curtly, “but I really must ask you to stop playing. +I’ve—got a bad headache.”</p> + +<p>“I see,” replied Lena, getting up from the piano. “Sorry.” She +walked forward a step or two, then looked at Mrs. Dersingham. +“Have you had it all the evening or has it just come on now?” And +this was not a polite inquiry, but a challenge. The tone of voice +made that obvious.</p> + +<p>“Does that matter?” And Mrs. Dersingham turned away.</p> + +<p>Into the silence that fell now there came the voice, quavering a +little, of Mrs. Pearson. “Now I really think it’s time we were going,” +it began. But nobody took any notice of it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p125">[125]</span></p> + +<p>For Lena burst into a torrent of speech. “No, it doesn’t matter, of +course. But I just asked because I thought you might have started +that headache since I came, because you’ve just been as rotten as +you could be, and I didn’t ask to come—I’ve been travelling half +the day and I’m as tired as you are—and I wouldn’t have come at +all if my father hadn’t told me to, and I thought you were friends of +his, but from the minute I came in, you’ve not said a decent word +to me or given me a decent look⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Hoy!” roared her father, seizing her by the arm and shaking her +a little. “What the blazes is all this? What’s the matter with you, +girl? That’s not the way to behave⁠——”</p> + +<p>“No, and that’s not the way to behave either,” cried Lena, shaking +herself free. “What have I done? I didn’t want to push myself +into her beastly house.” And then she grabbed her father’s arm and +burst into tears. “I’m going,” she sobbed. “Take me home.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Golspie put an arm round her and she continued her sobbing +on his shoulder. “Sorry about this,” he said, over her head. “My fault, +I expect. I oughtn’t to have told her to come. The kid’s a bit nervy—tired, +y’know.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course—travelling and all that,” said Mr. Dersingham, +feeling that some reply was expected.</p> + +<p>This was Mrs. Dersingham’s chance, but she did not take it. She +might have accepted the apology if her husband had not been so +ready to accept it and make an excuse for the girl. But now she +turned her back on Mr. Golspie and his terrible daughter, and said +to Mrs. Pearson: “Must you <em>really</em> go? It’s quite early, you know. +Oh, Mrs. Trape, <em>you’re</em> not going, are you? Why?” And it was well +done, bravely done, but it was a mistake, perhaps the biggest mistake +she ever made.</p> + +<p>Mr. Golspie’s face changed its expression, all the good-humour +dying out of it at once. “All right,” he said shortly. “Come on, Lena, +shake yourself up a bit. We’re going now. Good-night, all. See +you in the morning, Dersingham. Good-night.” And immediately +he marched himself and his daughter out of the room, and, a minute +<span class="pagenum" id="p126">[126]</span>later, before Dersingham had followed him up, out of the +house.</p> + +<p>Half an hour later, the Dersinghams were alone, and Mrs. Dersingham +was curled up in the largest chair, crying. “I don’t care, I don’t +care,” she sobbed. “They were <em>awful</em>, both of them. The man was +nearly as bad as his terrible daughter. They were ghastly, and I +hope to Heaven I never see either of them again. Or any of those +people, except Mrs. Pearson. Oh, what a horrible, ghastly evening!”</p> + +<p>“I know, I know, my dear,” said her husband, hovering about +vaguely and trying to be consoling. “Everything went wrong. I +know.”</p> + +<p>“No, you don’t, you can’t possibly know how awful it was for me. +No, don’t touch me, leave me <em>alone</em>. I just want to go miles and +miles away, and never see anybody for months. Don’t ever let me +see those vile Golspies again. And I don’t care what I said or did. +It couldn’t be too bad for them. Next time, if you want to invite +anybody from Angel Pavement, invite the clerks and the typists, +anybody before those awful Golspies.”</p> + +<p>“There, there,” said Mr. Dersingham, “there, there, there.” And +when dialogue is reduced to this, it is time we quitted the scene.</p> + +<p>Lena, in the taxi that carried them away from Barkfield Gardens, +had stopped crying and was now fiercely resentful, like the spoilt +child she was. “Well, they <em>were</em> rotten snobs. And it wasn’t <em>my</em> fault +that half her beastly dinner had been dropped outside the door; I +didn’t even know until you told me; and it was probably a good +job for you, it <em>was</em> dropped, for I’ll bet it was the most awful muck. +But there wasn’t one of those old cats who gave me a decent look +or spoke a decent word to me. You ought to have seen that long +thin bony one when I asked her what she was looking so funny +about! And you needn’t think it was only <em>me</em> they didn’t like, either. +They didn’t like you, I could see that. They weren’t real friends, any +of them.”</p> + +<p>“Who said they were, young woman?” her father demanded. +“Don’t make such a palaver about it. I know all about ’em. The +<span class="pagenum" id="p127">[127]</span>best of the lot was that chap with the long neck and the wobbly +cheeks—Pearson, the chap from Singapore—and he was only half-baked. +If Dersingham’s wife doesn’t think we’re good enough for +them, let her go on thinking so. I’ll bet she thinks I’m good enough +to keep on putting some ginger in that half dead concern of theirs. +After what I’ve seen of the Dersingham end of Twigg and Dersingham, +all I can say is that Twigg, whoever he was, must have been +a dam’ smart chap to have got the firm going at all.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean to say you’re making money for those blighters?” +cried Lena, winding an arm round his.</p> + +<p>“The people I’m going to make money for,” replied Mr. Golspie +grimly, at the same time squeezing the arm, “are these people, these +two here. Just you keep quiet and leave it to me, Miss Golspie.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p128">[128]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_Four_TURGIS_SEES_HER"> + <i>Chapter Four</i>: <span class="allsmcap">TURGIS SEES HER</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Turgis was not lazy and while he was in the office he preferred +doing something to doing nothing, but he did not share Mr. +Smeeth’s enthusiasm for office work and never regarded himself +as one of the firm. It was all very well for Twigg & Dersingham to +be suddenly busy again, indeed much busier than they had ever been +before, but Turgis did not see the fun of going hard at it all day and +every day and frequently having to stay an hour later. No doubt +somebody was doing well out of it, but he, Turgis, was getting +nothing out of it but a great deal more work. He grumbled about +this to Mr. Smeeth. It was Saturday morning; he had just received +his fortnight’s pay, six pound notes, one ten-shilling note, and two +florins; and it was a time for such confidences.</p> + +<p>“All right, all right,” said Mr. Smeeth, with the manner of a person +who knew a great deal. “That’s your point of view, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>Turgis, a little diffidently now, for he had a considerable respect +for Mr. Smeeth if no particular liking for him, replied that it was.</p> + +<p>“Now let me tell you something, my boy,” Mr. Smeeth continued +gravely. “Just a week or two ago—I’ll tell you exactly what day +it was; it was the day Mr. Golspie first called here—Mr. Dersingham +was talking things over with me, in that room there. I’m telling +you this in confidence, mind. And Mr. Dersingham said the office +expenses were too big and somebody would have to go. And it +looked as if that somebody would be you.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p129">[129]</span></p> + +<p>“Me!” Turgis’s mouth, always open a little, was now wide open, +for his jaw suddenly dropped.</p> + +<p>“You, Turgis,” said Mr. Smeeth, with the satisfied air of a man +who has produced the desired effect. “It was touch and go whether +I told you that very day. I’m glad I didn’t because you might have +got a fright for nothing. Now it’s all right, of course. We’re busy, +and we need everybody. But when you want to start grumbling +about a bit of extra work, my boy, just you remember that. You +might have been looking for work now, and I’ll bet you wouldn’t +have liked that, would you?”</p> + +<p>“No, I wouldn’t, Mr. Smeeth,” replied Turgis, humbly enough.</p> + +<p>“And I don’t blame you.” Feeling fairly confident, for once, about +his own job, Mr. Smeeth had a great desire to enlarge upon this +topic, which had for him a terrible fascination. “Jobs aren’t easy to +get, are they?”</p> + +<p>“Not if you haven’t influence and you’re not in the know, Mr. +Smeeth,” said Turgis, who was a great believer in the mysterious +power of influence and being in the know, and realised only too +well that there were few people in London who had less influence or +were further from the know than himself. “That’s the trouble. I seen +it myself. You can’t get a look in. I’d a packet—my words, I’d a +packet—before I got taken on here. Trailin’ round, queueing up, +round again—oh, dear! You know what it’s like.”</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t,” Mr. Smeeth returned, sharply.</p> + +<p>“Beg your pardon, Mr. Smeeth. Of course, you don’t. I do, though. +Oo, it’s sorful,” cried Turgis earnestly. “’S’not getting any better +either. Well I’m glad you told me, Mr. Smeeth. I’d better keep my +mouth shut a bit, hadn’t I? It is all right now, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Quite all right. You do your best for us,” Mr. Smeeth added +sententiously, “and we’ll do our best for you.”</p> + +<p>Turgis came nearer, and lowered his voice when he spoke. “D’you +think, Mr. Smeeth, there’ll be any chance of a rise, now I’m getting +all this extra work? Ought to be, oughtn’t there? I mean, I’m not +getting a lot really, am I?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p130">[130]</span></p> + +<p>“You leave it alone a bit, Turgis, and just do your best, and then +I’ll see what I can do for you.”</p> + +<p>“I wish you would, Mr. Smeeth. You see, it’s not as if I’d got +anybody helping me with my work, ’cos this new typist doesn’t +really help me out much, does she? And if you could—just—you +know—say something to Mr. Golspie or Mr. Dersingham, because, +you know, Mr. Smeeth, I am doing my best, and you mustn’t think +I want to grumble, ’cos I don’t.”</p> + +<p>The new typist had been a great disappointment to Turgis, not +because she was of no assistance to him in his work but because she +was not the attractive young creature his heated fancy had conjured +up to fill the post. Miss Poppy Sellers, with her unfortunate +Oriental effect which merely resulted in dinginess and untidiness, +did not seem to him at all pretty. At the end of the first morning, +though he was flattered by her awe of him, he had dismissed her +as a very poor bit of girl stuff. When he had heard that the firm +was advertising for another typist, a younger girl to help Miss +Matfield, he had had instant visions of working side by side with +one of those really pretty ones he often noticed making their way +about the City. There were one or two good ones in Angel Pavement +itself: quite a pretty piece downstairs with the <i>Kwik-Work +Razor Blade Co.</i>; another not so dusty who went up the stairs next +door to <i>C. Warstein: Tailors’ Trimmings</i>; and a real beauty—one +to make your mouth water, a peach—at <i>Dunbury & Co.: Incandescent +Gas Fittings</i>, at the end of the street. And there were two or +three worth looking at, the flashy young Jewessy type, at <i>Chase & +Cohen’s Carnival Novelties</i> place at the end. Any one of these girls, +walking into Twigg & Dersingham’s, would have lit up the place +for him, and the day’s routine would have become an adventure. +But they must go and choose this dreary-looking kid with the fringe. +It was just his luck. Two girls working in the same office, and +neither of them any good. Miss Matfield was all right in her way, +of course, but then she was too big, too old, and far too “posh” and +bossy for him, even if she had ever showed any sign—and, so far, +<span class="pagenum" id="p131">[131]</span>she hadn’t—of being really interested in his existence. This other +one, Polly Sellers, was interested enough, quite ready to be friends, +but then, well—look at her.</p> + +<p>The maddening thing about it—and it really was maddening to +Turgis—was that all these other ripe and adorable girls (he thought +of them as “fine bits”) were all over the place, walking in and out +of offices, sitting in corners of teashops, elbowing him sometimes +(and he was always there to be elbowed) in buses and tube trains, +so that you might have thought they worked for everybody in the +City but Twigg & Dersingham. And it was no better, perhaps it +was worse, when he was roaming about for pleasure and not simply +going to and from the office. Everywhere he saw them, never missed +seeing them. His mind was for ever busy with their images, for ever +troubled by them. No matter where he went, he was tantalised, the +path underneath his feet a narrow dusty track of wilderness but all +hung about with rich forbidden clusters of feminine fruit, shrinking, +withering, vanishing, at a touch.</p> + +<p>Turgis was by temperament a lover. His thoughts never left the +other sex long; happiness had for him a feminine shape; the real +world was illuminated by the bright glances of girls; and at any +moment, one of them might reveal to him an enchanted life they +could share together. It would be easy to see him as a lonely lad +seeking sympathy in that crowd in which he was lost. It would be +just as easy to see him as a figure of furtive lusts, whose mind descended +and there lived eagerly in an underworld of tiny mean +contacts, seemingly accidental pressures of the arm and the foot. Yet +behind both these figures was the lover. And this, in spite of his +shabbiness and unprepossessing looks, the shiny baggy suit, and the +frayed tie, the open mouth, that slight pastiness and spottiness, that +faint grey film which seemed to cover and subdue his physical self. +He was no dapper lady-killer. But then if Turgis, even with his +scanty means, did not try very hard to make himself superficially +attractive to the sex that despises crumpled clothes, matted hair, +pasty cheeks, youth that has lost all vividness and glow, it was because +<span class="pagenum" id="p132">[132]</span>he believed that the cry from within, urgent, never ceasing, +must receive an answer. He knew that he had little to offer on the +surface, was nothing to look at, nobody in particular, but he felt that +inside he was different, he was wonderful, and that sooner or later a +girl, a beautiful and passionate girl, caring nothing for the outside +show, would recognise this difference, this wonder, within, would +cry, “Oh, it’s you,” and love would immediately follow. Then life +would really begin. So far it had not begun; in the tangle, blather, +jumble of mere existence, of eating, sleeping, working, journeying +and staring, it had only made a number of false starts. In other +words, Turgis had had his little adventures but was not yet in love, +or rather—for he was perpetually in love—had not yet found the +single outlet for all this flood, the one girl.</p> + +<p>After returning to his own desk, Turgis thought about these other +girls who might so easily have come to work by his side instead of +continuing with the <i>Kwik-Work Razor Blade</i> or <i>Dunbury & Co.</i>, +and then, dismissing them reluctantly, he began to tidy up his desk +and finish off the week’s work. It was after twelve and the week-end +was in sight. He leaned forward on his high stool, and breathed +hard over communications from the London and North Eastern +Railway and the City Transport Company. There was a girl at the +City Transport—he had never seen her but she often answered the +telephone—who sounded nice, lovely voice she had, and once or +twice he had made her laugh. If he had been in the office by himself, +he would have talked to her properly, perhaps suggested an +appointment—on the pictures they called it a “date” but Turgis +thought of it as a “point”—but he was never alone, and even if there +was only that silly kid, Stanley, there, it would spoil it. But it was +fine to hear her laugh down the telephone. Silvery, that was it—silvery +laughter—her silvery laughter—just like in a book.</p> + +<p>He was interrupted by a touch on his arm, and he looked round +to find the new typist at his elbow, looking up at him with her +biggish brown eyes. She had a lot of powder on one side of her nose, +and none at all, just shiny skin, on the other side. No good.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p133">[133]</span></p> + +<p>“Please,” said Miss Sellers in her chirpy little Cockney voice, +“please, have you written to the Anglo-What’s-It Shipping?”</p> + +<p>“No, I haven’t,” he replied.</p> + +<p>She merely stared.</p> + +<p>“I haven’t written to the Anglo-What’s-It Shipping,” he continued +severely, “because I’ve never heard of the Anglo-What’s-It +Shipping. Don’t know them—see?”</p> + +<p>“Oo, I’m sorry,” though she did not sound very sorry. “Have I +said something wrong? I can’t remember all these names yet. Give +me a chance. You know who I mean, don’t you? It is Anglo-something, +isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“If it’s the Anglo-Baltic Shipping Co. you’re talking about,” said +Turgis with dignity, “then I have written to them. Wrote yesterday, +’s’matter of fact. But to the Anglo-Baltic, mind you. There’s no +what’s-it about it.”</p> + +<p>The girl looked at him for a moment. “Oo!” she cried softly, +“squashed!” And then she promptly walked away.</p> + +<p>Turgis glanced after her with distaste. “Getting cheeky now,” he +told himself. “That’s the latest—getting cheeky. And just because +she can’t make up to me. All right, Miss Dirty Fringe, you’ll have +to be told off soon, you will. Try it again, that’s all, just try it +again.” And he was filled with a righteous indignation, pointing +out to himself that these girls didn’t know their place in an office, +wouldn’t get on with their work properly, and were always trying +their little tricks on men who wanted to do their job with no nonsense +about it.</p> + +<p>There was a familiar scurrying, as of some small animal of the +undergrowth that had got itself shod with leather and iron tips; +the door burst open; Stanley had returned.</p> + +<p>“Come on, boy, come on,” said Mr. Smeeth, looking over his +eyeglasses. “Get those letters copied, sharp as you can. Don’t want +us to be here all day, waiting for you, do you?”</p> + +<p>“I want to get the one-five from London Bridge, if I can, Mr. +<span class="pagenum" id="p134">[134]</span>Smeeth,” said Miss Matfield. “I’m spending the week-end in the +country, thank God.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll get it all right, Miss Matfield,” Mr. Smeeth told her. +“Plenty of time. Now then, Stanley—bustle about. Sharp’s the world, +my boy.”</p> + +<p>“Oo, Miss Matfield,” Miss Sellers began, staring at her, “d’you reely +like the country this weather? I don’t know how you can bear it. +I couldn’t, not now, when it’s winter. It’s not as if it was summer, +is it?”</p> + +<p>“Like it best in winter, if it’s not raining too hard. Jolly good! +Nothing like so filthy as London is in winter.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m sure it would give me the ’ump,” Miss Sellers declared. +“But I do like it in summer. It’s lovely in summer, I think.” You +could almost see her looking at the buttercups and daisies. “I like +the seaside best, though. Don’t you, Miss Matfield? It’s lovely at the +seaside in summer, I think. I’ve never been in winter. It’s nice in +summer even when it rains at the seaside, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield replied, shortly but amiably, that it was, and then +began clearing up her papers.</p> + +<p>“Here,” cried Stanley, in the middle of his copying, “I seen a +smash right in Moorgate.” He looked round triumphantly.</p> + +<p>“I’ll bet you didn’t,” said Turgis.</p> + +<p>“I did, and I bet you I did. Anyhow, if I didn’t see it, I was there +just after, when the bobby was taking names. Oh, what a crowd! +I got right to the front. Car and a lorry it was. The lorry was all +right, but you oughter seen the car. Oh, no, it wasn’t a mess—oh, +no!”</p> + +<p>“And how many hours did you stand there, eh?” Mr. Smeeth inquired. +“That’s what takes your time, my boy—doing your bit of +nosy-parkering.”</p> + +<p>“I had to go that way and I couldn’t get past, Mr. Smeeth,” Stanley +cried indignantly. “So I had to see what was up, couldn’t help it. +I thought the bobby might take my name as a witness, but he didn’t. +I wish he had done,” he added wistfully. “I’d like to be a witness.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p135">[135]</span></p> + +<p>“If you don’t finish those letters in ten minutes,” said Mr. Smeeth, +wagging a finger at him, “you’ll be in the dock, and never mind +being a witness. How are you getting on, Turgis?”</p> + +<p>“Nearly finished, Mr. Smeeth,” Turgis replied. “I’ll just give the +City Transport a ring to see if they’ve heard anything about that lot +we sent to Norwich.” And he promptly went to the telephone.</p> + +<p>There was no silvery laughter this time from the City Transport +Company. The voice that answered him was not only a masculine +voice but also an irritated, badgered, weary, despairing voice, that +of a man who was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he would +be spending all Saturday afternoon answering idiotic inquiries. “Yes, +I know, I know,” it barked. “You rang me up before about it. Well, +we’re doing our best. We’ve got the matter in hand. Yes, yes, yes, +I’ve told our Norwich people. I’ll let you know on Monday. The +first thing, the very first thing, on Monday, I’ll let you know.” It +was pleading now. “Can’t do more than that, can I?” And now it +was tired of pleading. “All right, all ri-ight, we’re doing what we +ca-a-an. Ring you on Mo-o-onday.”</p> + +<p>“They’ve got through to Norwich about it, Mr. Smeeth,” said +Turgis, “but they say it’ll have to stand over till Monday.”</p> + +<p>“That’s all right then, Turgis. Give them a ring on Monday.”</p> + +<p>There was now a feeling throughout the office that all manner of +things would have to stand over until Monday. This feeling was not +confined to Twigg & Dersingham, but could have been discovered +operating upstairs at the <i>Universal Hosiery Co.</i> and the <i>London and +Counties Supply Stores</i>, and downstairs at the <i>Kwik-Work Razor +Blade Co.</i>, and at <i>Chase & Cohen: Carnival Novelties</i> on the one +side and at <i>Dunbury & Co.: Incandescent Gas Fittings</i> on the other +side, in fact, all up and down Angel Pavement, and far beyond Angel +Pavement, in all the banks and offices and showrooms and warehouses +of the City. Very soon the City itself would be standing over +until Monday: the crowds of brokers and cashiers and clerks and +typists and hawkers would have vanished from its pavements, the +bars would be forlorn, the teashops nearly empty or closed; its trams +<span class="pagenum" id="p136">[136]</span>and buses, no longer clamouring for a few more yards of space, +would come gliding easily through misty blue vacancies like ships +going down London River; and the whole place, populated only by +caretakers and policemen among the living, would sink slowly into +quietness; the very bank-rate would be forgotten; and it would be +left to drown itself in reverie, with a drift of smoke and light fog +across its old stones like the return of an army of ghosts. Until—with +a clatter, a clang, a sudden raw awakening—Monday.</p> + +<p>Papers were swept into drawers, letters were stamped in rows, +blotters were shut, turned over, put away, ledgers and petty cash +boxes were locked up, typewriters were covered, noses were powdered, +cigarettes and pipes were lit, doors were banged, and stairs +were noisy with hasty feet. The week was done. Out they came +in their thousands into Angel Pavement, London Wall, Moorgate +Street, Cornhill and Cheapside. They were so thick along Finsbury +Pavement that the Moorgate Tube Station seemed like a monster +sucking them down into its hot rank inside. Among these vanishing +mites was one with a large but not masterful nose, full brown eyes, +a slightly open mouth, and a drooping chin. This was Turgis going +home.</p> + +<p>He had to stand all the way, and though there were at least five +nice-looking girls in the same compartment—and one was very close +to him, and two of the others he had noticed several times before—not +one of them showed the slightest interest in him.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_3"> + II +</h3> + +<p>When Turgis returned again to the earth’s surface, he plunged +at once into the noise and litter of High Street, Camden Town, and +then turned up the Kentish Town Road, for he lodged in Nathaniel +Street, which lies in that conglomeration of short streets between the +Kentish Town Road and York Road. He was rather later than usual, +for this new Golspie business was having its effect even on Saturday +morning, and so he walked quickly for once. He was ready for +<span class="pagenum" id="p137">[137]</span>dinner and he knew that dinner would be ready for him. On Saturdays +and Sundays, his landlady provided dinner as well as breakfast, +and, indeed, was not averse to laying out a bit of tea, too, if that +should be called for, Turgis having been with her now for eighteen +months and having proved himself to be—by Nathaniel Street +standards, which are based on a bitter knowledge of this world—a +good quiet lodger, sober, and punctual in his payments. During the +week, he had, officially, nothing but breakfast in the house, and +had to shift for himself for his other meals, which followed a +descending scale of luxury every fortnight, beginning with the alternate +week-ends when he was paid. Thus, every other Monday, Tuesday, +Wednesday, Turgis was well fed, and every other Wednesday, +Thursday, Friday, he was comparatively half starved. At a pinch, +however, his landlady would always give him a little supper. They +were all friendly together. They had to be, for they all used the +same back room for meals. The bed-sitting-room that Turgis had +at the top of the house, so small that the iron bedstead, the yellow +washstand, the three deal drawers, the lopsided and groaning basket +chair, and the little old gas-fire, a genuine antique among gas-fires, +made it seem uncomfortably crowded with furniture and fittings, was +no place in which to feed. It did not like being sat in, resented the +sight of a cup of tea and a biscuit, and the presence of one good +plateful of roast beef, potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and gravy, would +have completely finished it.</p> + +<p>Number 9, like all the other houses in Nathaniel Street, was +small and dark, and its gloomy little hall was haunted by a mixed +smell of cabbage, camphor, and old newspapers. Turgis never noticed +this smell, but on the very rare occasions when he visited some other +and less odorous house, then he noticed the absence of it, his nose +declaring at once that it had found itself in an unfamiliar atmosphere. +Now he hung up his hat and coat and marched straight into +the back room. There he discovered his landlady, who, having +finished dinner, was enjoying a cup of tea by the fire. She was not +enjoying this cup of tea, however, in an easy leisurely fashion; she +<span class="pagenum" id="p138">[138]</span>was sitting, almost tense, on the very edge of the chair; and she had +something of the air of a cavalry general between two phases of a +battle.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pelumpton had every right to such an air. She was a short +and very broad woman, with a mop of untidy grey hair and a +withered apple face, and it was easy to see that all her adult life +had been one long struggle, and that unless she suffered a paralytic +stroke or was driven out of her wits, she would die fighting. In her +presence, progress seemed the most absurd myth. If Mrs. Pelumpton +could have been turned into the wife of a marauding viking or one +of the women following Attila’s horde, she would have felt she +had been given a well-earned rest and would have been astonished +at, perhaps horrified by, the sudden colour and gaiety of life.</p> + +<p>As soon as she saw Turgis she put down her cup and, as it were, +jumped into the saddle again. She placed on the table two covered +plates, her lodger’s dinner, meat and vegetables under one cover, +pudding under the other.</p> + +<p>“I’m a bit late to-day, Mrs. Pelumpton,” said Turgis, settling down.</p> + +<p>“Well, I said to myself you might have been or you might not, +according to whether that clock’s gone and got fast again, and it +might well have done that, the way he’s been playing about with it.”</p> + +<p>“About quarter of an hour fast, I make it—might be twenty +minutes.”</p> + +<p>“And that,” said Mrs. Pelumpton very decisively, “is what comes +of messing about with it. ‘Leave it alone,’ I told him. ‘Clocks isn’t +in your line.’ Not that quarter of an hour’s going to hurt anybody +in this house—except Edgar, and he’s got his own watch with proper +railway time on it.” Edgar, her son, who also lived in the house, +worked on the railway down at King’s Cross. Turgis rarely saw +him.</p> + +<p>“That’s a nice bit o’ meat you’re having there, Mr. Turgis, isn’t +it?” Mrs. Pelumpton continued, after taking a noisy sip of tea and +then staring over the cup at him. “Chilled, that is. You’d have +thought that was English if I hadn’t told you, wouldn’t you?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p139">[139]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, I would, Mrs. Pelumpton.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I won’t deceive you. It isn’t. It’s chilled. And it all depends +on the picking. Take what they offer, and you don’t know where +you are. You’ve got to look about a bit and pick it yourself. They +know me now.” And here Mrs. Pelumpton produced a short triumphant +laugh. “They know me all right. ‘Pick where you like, Ma,’ +he always says to me. ‘Oh, I’ll watch it,’ I tells him. ‘I’ll watch it.’ +And I do.”</p> + +<p>“That’s the style. It’s a very nice dinner, Mrs. Pelumpton.”</p> + +<p>A certain shuffling noise indicated that the master of the house, +the messer-about with clocks, Mr. Pelumpton, was now approaching. +Mr. Pelumpton moved very slowly, partly because he suffered from +rheumatism, and partly because he was a man of great dignity. To +look at him, at his slack and dingy figure, at his watery eyes, bottle +nose, ragged and drooping grey moustache, to mark his leisurely +air, was to imagine at once that Mr. Pelumpton was one of those +men who do not work themselves but merely see that their wives +and children work for them. But this was not the truth. Mr. Pelumpton +did work, as his talk would quickly inform you. He was a dealer. +He had no shop of his own, but he had some vague connection +with a shop, where an astonishing variety of second, third, or +fourth hand goods were sold, owned by a friend of his. He passed +his time in a dusty underworld in which battered chests of drawers +and broken gramophones changed hands and the deals were in shillings +and the commission in pence. He interviewed parties who +had for sale a cracked toilet set or an old bicycle or five mildewed +volumes of <i>The Stately Homes of England</i>. He could sometimes +be found in the humblest auction rooms, ready to bid up to half +a crown for the odds and ends. Every Friday he became a <i>bona-fide</i> +merchant by making an appearance in Caledonian Market, +where, on that grey and windy height, he stood beside a small but +very varied stock, consisting perhaps of a Banjo Tutor, two chipped +pink vases, a silk underskirt, a large photograph of General Buller, +five dirty tennis balls, a zither with most of the strings missing, and +<span class="pagenum" id="p140">[140]</span>the <i>Letters of Charles Kingsley</i>. Dealing thus in things that were +only one remove from the dustbin, Mr. Pelumpton did not contrive +to make much money, and indeed he had been dependent for some +time on Mrs. Pelumpton and Edgar; but, on the other hand, you +could not say he did not work. He was in the second-hand trade, +in the buying and selling line, a legitimate dealer, and took himself +and his mysterious business with enormous seriousness. If he was +not doing very well, that was because trade was so bad. Mr. Pelumpton +had all the deliberation and dignity of an antique merchant +prince. He smoked a foul little pipe, liked a glass of beer, was a +great reader of newspapers, and always talked in a very solemn +and confidential manner. Like many dealers and Caledonian Market +men, who have drooping moustaches, very few teeth, and a confidential +manner, he softened all the sibilants, putting an “h” behind +every “s.” There is no doubt that a dealer who can only say “Yes” +is not in such a strong position as the dealer who can draw it out +into a mysterious “Yersh.” Mr. Pelumpton was essentially a +“Yersh” man.</p> + +<p>He now advanced very slowly into the room, carefully seated +himself by the fire, took out his evil little pipe, looked at Turgis in +a watery fashion, nodded solemnly, put back his pipe, and waited +for somebody to ask him something.</p> + +<p>“Well, did you catch him in?” his wife inquired. Mr. Pelumpton +was always having to slip round the corner to catch somebody in, +even if he had only just finished his own dinner.</p> + +<p>“Out till five,” replied Mr. Pelumpton. “And a shaushy ansher +for me trouble.”</p> + +<p>“Who’s bin giving you a saucy answer?”</p> + +<p>“Hish mishish,” said Mr. Pelumpton, “if it ish hish mishish. +‘Can’t expect to find ’im in on Shaturday arfternoon,’ she shaysh to +me. ‘You’ll excuse me, mishish,’ I told her, ‘but in my bishnish, +you’ve got to work Shaturday arfternoon shame ash any other +arfternoon. Yersh,’ I told her, ‘an’ Shunday arfternoon too, if you’re +not careful.’ Jusht telling her politely, shee? All right, what doesh +<span class="pagenum" id="p141">[141]</span>she shay to that? She shaysh, ‘Well, we’re diff’rent ’ere, shee?’ and +then shlamsh the door in me faysh.”</p> + +<p>“The cheeky monkey!” cried Mrs. Pelumpton indignantly. “I’d +slam it in <em>her</em> face if I’d anything to do with her. It’s downright +ignorance, that’s what it is. There’s people round here has no more +idea ’ow to behave than a—a—a parrot.”</p> + +<p>“Ar, well,” Mr. Pelumpton continued, philosophically, “we’ve got +a lot to put with in our bishnish. And you can take that from +me, Mishter Turgish. But if the shtuff’sh there, we don’t mind. All +in the day’sh work, shee?”</p> + +<p>“After something good, Mr. Pelumpton?” Turgis inquired.</p> + +<p>“That’sh right. A lovely piesh he’sh got to shell—a shideboard—oh, +a lovely piesh, it ish—only wantsh a bit of polishing and it’sh +good enough for anybody, that piesh ish, fit for a palash. I can’t +’andle it myshelf, not ash trade ish now, but I know who can. It’sh +a commission job.”</p> + +<p>“That’s the idea,” said Turgis, with vague approval. He was a +youth who liked to agree with his company, not because he felt +kindly disposed towards other people, but simply because it was less +trouble to agree and applaud. He really thought Mr. Pelumpton a +ridiculous old bore.</p> + +<p>“Now that’s one thing I’ve always wanted,” cried Mrs. Pelumpton. +“A sideboard, a proper nice sideboard, cupboards and all, and room +for everything. Mahogany, I’d like.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, that’sh what a lot o’ people would like. They’re fetching +good money them thingsh are. Show me a good shideboard, a sholid +piesh—not sho much of your shtuff about it, Mishter Turgish⁠——”</p> + +<p>“What’s his stuff, for Heaven’s sake?” Mrs. Pelumpton demanded. +“He hasn’t got any stuff, have you, Mr. Turgis? What you talking +about, Dad?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Pelumpton took out his pipe for this, and looked very reproachfully +at his wife. “What am I talking about? I’m talking +about what I know, that’sh what I’m talking about. ’Ow many +pieshesh of furnisher have been through my handsh? Thoushandsh. +<span class="pagenum" id="p142">[142]</span>All right then. Don’t I know the trade? Ho, no! Ho, no! I don’t +know the trade.” Then he pointed his pipe at Turgis, who was very +busy with his treacle pudding, and then said very slowly, very solemnly: +“Veneersh. You know what them are. Well, that’sh hish +shtuff. Am I right, Mishter Turgish?”</p> + +<p>“That’s right,” said Turgis. “That’s what we sell at our place, +Mrs. Pelumpton. Veneers for furniture, and inlays, and all that. +’S’matter of fact, I don’t have anything to do with ’em personally, +’cos it isn’t my particular job, but that’s what we sell all right.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I never did!” Mrs. Pelumpton was filled with honest +wonder at a world in which so many different things were bought +and sold. “And I never knew that. Thought you was in an office, +down in the City, y’know—a clurk.”</p> + +<p>“Sho he ish,” her husband assured her, “but that’sh what hish +firm shellsh. He told me long shinsh, didn’t you, Mishter Turgish. +Well, ash I wash shaying, show me a good shideboard, a sholid +piesh, and I’ll get you what you like for it—in reashon, in reashon, +y’know. Trade may be bad. Trade <em>ish</em> bad. But for shome thingsh +you ’ave a shteady demand, that’sh what you ’ave—a shteady demand. +Where we’re feeling it in our bishnish ish in the shmall thingsh⁠——”</p> + +<p>Mr. Pelumpton was now settling down to a good long monologue, +but he reckoned without his audience, both of whom knew these +monologues too well. His wife, seeing that Turgis had finished, +pounced upon his used plates and bore them off, with a bustle and +clatter that brought a frown to her husband’s face. He now tried to +buttonhole Turgis, who was lighting a cigarette. “Now you take me, +Mishter Turgish,” he began.</p> + +<p>But Turgis refused to take him; he had taken him too often +before; and now he promptly escaped upstairs, to his own room. +It is difficult for a room to be both stuffy and cold, but this room +contrived it somehow, and offered you the choice, if you chose to +interfere with it, of being still stuffier or still colder. Turgis, who +preferred stuffiness to cold, lit the gas-fire, that tiny antique, which +so deeply resented being called into service again that it exploded +<span class="pagenum" id="p143">[143]</span>with an indignant bang and then wheezily complained every other +second. After the last breath of raw November had been driven out +of the room, Turgis took off his collar and his shoes and stretched +himself out on the bed. First, he read all the advertisements in +his newspaper, which specialised on Saturdays in the mail-order +business. There was a whole page of these advertisements, offering +everything from Orientally perfumed cigarettes to electric belts for +rheumatism, and Turgis carefully read them all. In public he pretended +to be very knowing and cynical about advertisements, but +in private he was still their willing victim, and nearly every shilling +he spent, whether on clothes, drink, tobacco, or amusement, was +conjured out of his pocket by the richest and most artful advertising +managers. Perhaps that is why his suits bagged so soon, his +shoes soaked up the rain, his cigarettes shredded and split, and his +amusements failed to amuse.</p> + +<p>When he had done with the newspaper, he took from the mantelpiece +(and he could do this without getting up from the bed) the +latest issue of a twopenny periodical that was devoted to the films, +though more especially to the film actors with the longest eyelashes +and the actresses with the largest eyes. He spent the next half-hour +staring at the photographs in this paper and reading its scrappy +paragraphs, not with any particular enthusiasm. Turgis was not +really a film enthusiast. He knew nothing about camera angles and +“cutting” and all the intricacies of crowd work, and never in his +life had he seriously compared one film with another. He could +laugh at the comic men with the rest, but he did not fully appreciate +the clowning on the screen, simply because he had not a very +strong sense of humour. No, what drew him to the films was the +fact that he and they had a common enthusiasm, they had both a +passionate interest in sex. In those dim sensuous palaces, filled with +throbbing music and shifting coloured lights, Turgis the lover +entered his dream kingdom. You could say that the money he +paid at their doors was silver tribute to Aphrodite, to whose worship +the Phœnicians of the Californian coast have built more temples +<span class="pagenum" id="p144">[144]</span>than ever the old Phœnicians of Cyprus did; and for a few moments, +as he sat in the steep darkened galleries, Turgis would be shaken +and then intoxicated by the golden presence of the goddess as she +flashed through with her train, Eros and the Hours and the Graces, +though of all that retinue only two remained with him, to see him +home, Pothos and Himeros, shapes of longing and yearning.</p> + +<p>The paper slipped from his fingers. His eyes closed; his jaw +dropped a little; and his head turned on the pillow, so that the +light of the gas-fire, now coming to life in the dwindling daylight, +for the window was no brighter than a slate, played faintly but +rosily on his features, the pleasant width of the brow, the nose that +had missed masterfulness, the round chin that fell away, and as his +breathing grew more regular and he slipped into unconsciousness, +that light brought something at once grotesque and sad, the red +gleam and deep shadow of some Gothic tragedy, into the little room. +And for an hour or so Turgis slept, while Saturday went rattling +and roaring on, gathering momentum, through the dark little abysses +of brick and smoke outside, the streets of London.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_3"> + III +</h3> + +<p>The Turgis who came out of 9, Nathaniel Street, later that Saturday +afternoon, was quite different from the youth we have already +met. He was washed, brushed, conscientiously shaved, and he moved +briskly. This was for him the best time of all the week. Saturday +sang in his heart. If the Great Something ever happened, it would +happen on Saturday. The trams, buses, shops, bars, theatres, and +picture palaces, they all gleamed and glittered through the rich murk +to-day for him. Even now, Adventure—in high heels and silk stockings—might +be moving his way. He was making for the West End, +for on Saturdays, especially the alternate Saturdays when he received +his pay, he despised Camden Town and Islington and Finsbury +Park, those little centres that broke the desert of North London with +oases of flashing lights and places of entertainment. These were +<span class="pagenum" id="p145">[145]</span>good enough in their way, but if you had a few shillings to spend, +the West was a great deal better, offering you the real thing in giant +teashops and picture theatres. For this was his usual Saturday night +programme, if he had the money: first, tea at one of the big teashops, +which were always crowded with girls and always offered a chance +of a pick-up; then a visit to one of the great West End cinemas, in +which, once inside, he could spin out the whole evening, perhaps on +the edge of adventure all the time. And this was his programme for +this night, too, though, of course, he was always ready to modify it +if anything happened in the teashop, if he found the right sort of +girl there and she wanted to do something else.</p> + +<p>At the very time he was setting out, hundreds and hundreds of +girls, girls with little powdered snub noses, wet crimson mouths, +shrill voices, and gleaming calves, were also setting out—nearly all +of them, unfortunately, in pairs—to carry out the very same programme. +Turgis knew this, or perhaps only a hunter’s instinct led +him to where the game were thickest; but he did not visualise them, +luckily for him, for the tantalising image would have driven him +nearly to madness. But there they were, tripping down innumerable +dark steps, chirping and laughing together in buses and trams without +end, and making for the same small area, the very same buildings, +perhaps to jostle him as they passed. It would have been easier +for Turgis, as he knew only too well, if he too had had a companion, +to match all these pairs of girls, but he had only a few +acquaintances, no friends, and, in any event, he preferred to hunt in +solitude, to thread his way through the brilliant jungle alone with +his hunger and his dream.</p> + +<p>A bus took him to the West End, where, among the crazy coloured +fountains of illumination, shattering the blue dusk with green +and crimson fire, he found the café of his choice, a teashop that +had gone mad and turned Babylonian, a white palace with ten +thousand lights. It towered above the older buildings like a citadel, +which indeed it was, the outpost of a new age, perhaps a new civilisation, +perhaps a new barbarism; and behind the thin marble front +<span class="pagenum" id="p146">[146]</span>were concrete and steel, just as behind the careless profusion of +luxury were millions of pence, balanced to the last halfpenny. Somewhere +in the background, hidden away, behind the ten thousand +lights and acres of white napery and bewildering glittering rows of +teapots, behind the thousand waitresses and cashbox girls and black-coated +floor managers and temperamental long-haired violinists, behind +the mounds of shimmering bonbons and multi-coloured +Viennese pastries, the cauldrons of stewed steak, the vanloads of +harlequin ices, were a few men who went to work juggling with +fractions of a farthing, who knew how many units of electricity it +took to finish a steak-and-kidney pudding and how many minutes +and seconds a waitress (five feet four in height and in average +health) would need to carry a tray of given weight from the kitchen +lift to the table in the far corner. In short, there was a warm, +sensuous, vulgar life flowering in the upper stories, and cold science +working in the basement. Such was the gigantic teashop into which +Turgis marched, in search not of mere refreshment but of all the +enchantment of unfamiliar luxury. Perhaps he knew in his heart +that men have conquered half the known world, looted whole kingdoms, +and never arrived at such luxury. The place was built for him.</p> + +<p>It was built for a great many other people too, and, as usual, +they were all there. It steamed with humanity. The marble entrance +hall, piled dizzily with bonbons and cakes, was as crowded and +bustling as a railway station. The gloom and grime of the streets, +the raw air, all November, were at once left behind, forgotten: the +atmosphere inside was golden, tropical, belonging to some high midsummer +of confectionery. Disdaining the lifts, Turgis, once more +excited by the sight, sound, and smell of it all, climbed the wide +staircase until he reached his favourite floor, where an orchestra, +led by a young Jewish violinist with wandering lustrous eyes and +a passion for tremolo effects, acted as a magnet to a thousand girls. +The door was swung open for him by a page; there burst, like a +sugary bomb, the clatter of cups, the shrill chatter of white-and-vermilion +girls, and, cleaving the golden, scented air, the sensuous +<span class="pagenum" id="p147">[147]</span>clamour of the strings; and, as he stood hesitating a moment, half +dazed, there came, bowing, a sleek grave man, older than he was +and far more distinguished than he could ever hope to be, who +murmured deferentially: “For one, sir? This way, please.” Shyly, +yet proudly, Turgis followed him.</p> + +<p>That was the snag really, though. This place was so crowded +that you had to take the seat they offered you; there was no picking +and choosing your company at the table. And, as usual, Turgis was +not lucky. The vacant seat he was shown, and which he dare not +refuse, was at a table already occupied by three people, and not one +of them remotely resembled a nice-looking girl. There were two +stout middle-aged women, voluble, perspiring, and happy over +cream buns, and a middle-aged man, who no doubt had been of no +great size even before this expedition started, but was now very small +and huddled, and gave the impression that if the party stayed there +much longer, he would shrink to nothing but spectacles, a nose, a +collar, and a pair of boots. For the first few minutes, Turgis was so +disappointed that he was quite angry with these people, hated them. +And of course it was impossible to get hold of a waitress. After five +minutes or so of glaring and waiting, he began to wish he had gone +somewhere else. There was a pretty girl at the next table, but she +was obviously with her young man, and so fond of him that every +now and then she clutched his arm and held it tight, just as if the +young man might be thinking of running away. At another table, +not far away, were three girls together, two of whom looked very +interesting, with saucy eyes and wide smiling mouths, but they +were too busy whispering and giggling to take any notice of him. +So Turgis suddenly stopped being a bright youth, shooting amorous +glances, and became a stern youth who wanted some tea, who had +gone there for no other purpose than to obtain some tea, who was +surprised and indignant because no tea was forthcoming.</p> + +<p>“And mindjew,” cried one of the middle-aged women to the other, +“I don’t bear malice ’cos it isn’t in my nature, as you’ll be the first +to agree, my dear. But when she let fly with that, I thought to +<span class="pagenum" id="p148">[148]</span>meself, ‘All right, my lady, now this time you’ve gone a bit <em>too</em> +far. It’s my turn.’ But mindjew, even then I didn’t say what I <em>could</em> +have said. Not one word about Gravesend crossed my lips to her, +though it was there on the tip of my tongue.”</p> + +<p>Turgis looked at her with disgust. Silly old geezer!</p> + +<p>At last the waitress came. She was a girl with a nose so long and +so thickly powdered that a great deal of it looked as if it did not +belong to her, and she was tired, exasperated, and ready at any +moment to be snappy. She took the order—and it was for plaice and +chips, tea, bread and butter, and cakes: the great tea of the whole +fortnight—without any enthusiasm, but she returned in time to +prevent Turgis from losing any more temper. For the next twenty +minutes, happily engaged in grappling with this feast, he forgot +all about girls, and when the food was done and he was lingering +over his third cup of tea and a cigarette, though no possible girls +came within sight, he felt dreamily content. His mind swayed +vaguely to the tune the orchestra was playing. Adventure would +come; and for the moment he was at ease, lingering on its threshold.</p> + +<p>From this tropical plateau of tea and cakes, he descended into +the street, where the harsh night air suddenly smote him. The +pavements were all eyes and thick jostling bodies; at every corner, +the newspaper sellers cried out their football editions in wailing +voices of the doomed; cars went grinding and snarling and roaring +past; and the illuminated signs glittered and rocketed beneath the +forgotten faded stars. He arrived at his second destination, the +Sovereign Picture Theatre, which towered at the corner like a vast +spangled wedding-cake in stone. It might have been a twin of that +great teashop he had just left; and indeed it was; another frontier +outpost of the new age. Two Jews, born in Poland but now American +citizens, had talked over cigars and coffee on the loggia of a +crazy Spanish-Italian-American villa, within sight of the Pacific, +and out of that talk (a very quiet talk, for one of the two men was +in considerable pain and knew that he was dying inch by inch) +there had sprouted this monster, together with other monsters that +<span class="pagenum" id="p149">[149]</span>had suddenly appeared in New York, Paris, and Berlin. Across ten +thousand miles, those two men had seen the one-and-sixpence in +Turgis’s pocket, and, with a swift gesture, resolving itself magically +into steel and concrete and carpets and velvet-covered seats and +pay-boxes, had set it in motion and diverted it to themselves.</p> + +<p>He waited now to pay his one-and-sixpence, standing in the queue +at the balcony entrance. It was only a little after six and the Saturday +night rush had hardly begun, but soon there were at least a hundred +of them standing there. Near Turgis, on either side, the sexes were +neatly paired off. There were one or two middle-aged women but +no unaccompanied girl in sight in the whole queue. The evening +was not beginning too well.</p> + +<p>When at last they were admitted, they first walked through an +enormous entrance hall, richly tricked out in chocolate and gold, +illuminated by a huge central candelabra, a vast bunch of russet +gold globes. Footmen in chocolate and gold waved them towards +the two great marble balustrades, the wide staircases lit with more +russet gold globes, the prodigiously thick and opulent chocolate +carpets, into which their feet sank as if they were the feet of archdukes +and duchesses. Up they went, passing a chocolate and gold +platoon or two and a portrait gallery of film stars, whose eyelashes +seemed to stand out from the walls like stout black wires, until +they reached a door that led them to the dim summit of the +balcony, which fell dizzily away in a scree of little heads. It was +an interval between pictures. Several searchlights were focussed on +an organ keyboard that looked like a tiny gilded box, far below, and +the organ itself was shaking out cascades of treacly sound, so that +the whole place trembled with sugary ecstasies. But while they +waited in the gangway, the lights faded out, the gilded box dimmed +and sank, the curtains parted to reveal the screen again, and an +enormous voice, as inhuman as that of a genie, announced that it +would bring the world’s news not only to their eyes but to +their ears.</p> + +<p>“One? This way, sir,” and the attendant went down, flashing +<span class="pagenum" id="p150">[150]</span>his light. This was always an exciting moment for Turgis. He might +find himself next to some wonderful girl, as lonely as he was, who +would talk to him, squeeze his hand, let him take her home, and +kiss him in the darkness of some mysterious suburb. The great +adventure might begin at the end of that pointing pencil of light. +On the other hand, he might find himself miserably wedged in +between two fat middle-aged people. It was all a gamble, with the +odds heavily against the wonderful girl, as he knew too well. But +still, there was always a chance, and he never walked down these +dark steps behind the electric torch without feeling a mounting +excitement.</p> + +<p>The light pointed along a row, and he followed it, pushing past +a dozen indignant knees. The last pair was very stubborn, and he +negotiated them without enthusiasm. He had no luck. Here, on +one side of him was the owner of the knees, an enormous woman, +bulging over her seat, and on the other was a man with a beard +and a noisy pipe. And it was too late to change his place now. +Once again the miracle had not happened. Gloomily he turned his +attention to the news film, and not one single inch or roar of it +entertained him. It was followed by a comedy, all about a lot of +silly kids, and he sat there, steadily hating it. He also hated the +enormous woman, who laughed so much that great lumps of her +hit him on the shoulder. He decided, miserably, that he ought not +to have come to the Sovereign. Next time he would give the Sovereign +a miss. Stiff with fat women and men with stinking pipes, +that’s what it was—oh, cripes!—awful hole! And another Saturday +night going, gone!</p> + +<p>Then came the film of the evening, the star feature, and Turgis +soon began to take an interest in it and found himself lifted out of +his gloom. It was a talkie called “The Glad-Rag Way,” and it was +all about a beautiful girl (and she was beautiful, for she was Lulu +Castellar, one of his favourites) who went to New York to dance +in cabarets and for a time forgot all about her sweetheart, a poor +young inventor who lived in the most dismal lodgings, like Turgis, +<span class="pagenum" id="p151">[151]</span>but, unlike Turgis, also contrived to have his hair exquisitely waved +at regular intervals. This beautiful girl behaved in the most foolish +way. She accepted presents from rich men with ugly leering mouths; +she went out to supper with them and got tipsy, as well she might, +for the whole atmosphere consisted sometimes of champagne bubbles; +she attended parties, very late at night, in their flats, and +though the rooms in these flats were three hundred feet long and +two hundred feet broad, the parties themselves were undoubtedly +intimate affairs, at which a girl was able to express herself by +dancing on the table and throwing off some of her clothes. Everything +this girl wore, every movement she made, only called the +attention of these leering fellows to some part of her ravishing +figure; and even when she herself had stopped making eyes and +smiling at them and undulating round them, with a champagne +glass in her hand, her charming legs still insisted on claiming their +notice. It was obvious that at any moment these rich cads would +make their old mistake, they would assume that she was not a +virtuous girl and would act accordingly, to her astonishment and +indignation and shame at being so misunderstood, so treated. Meanwhile, +the young inventor had received a letter (and you heard him +tear it open) asking him to come to New York to meet three heavy +men who had just been barking at one another about him in the +previous scene. It was, as he himself admitted, his “beeg chaince.”</p> + +<p>His train was still roaring across the screen when Turgis, whose +interest had been thoroughly roused, heard a voice say “’Scuse +me” and saw a dim feminine shape that was obviously trying to +get past.</p> + +<p>“’S’quite all right,” he said affably, withdrawing his knees to +let her pass.</p> + +<p>She dropped into the seat on his left, taking the place of the man +with the foul pipe, who must have crept out, towards the other +gangway, without Turgis noticing him. This girl who had just +arrived was still only a dim shape, but he felt sure she was young +and pretty.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p152">[152]</span></p> + +<p>“’Scuse me,” she whispered again, “but is this the big picture?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it is,” he replied eagerly.</p> + +<p>“Has it been on long?”</p> + +<p>“No, not so long. It isn’t half through yet, I’m sure,” he told her, +trying to talk as if he were a confidential old friend. “I’ll bet the +best’s coming on.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I hope you’re right,” she said, settling herself in the rather +narrow seat and then giving her attention to the screen.</p> + +<p>A faint sweet whiff of scent had come his way. His senses did +not wait for any more evidence; they reported at once to his +imagination, which immediately dowered the vague dark figure +beside him with all sweetness and prettiness, not unlike that of +Lulu Castellar, who was at the moment absent from the screen, the +young inventor, having arrived in New York, being barked at by +the three heavy men. Turgis took in all that the film had to offer +him, but now he was no longer lost in it; he was living intensely +in the tiny darkened space between him and the girl. Instinctively, +he edged a little her way. Their elbows touched on the arm of the +seat, and even that trifling contact sent a thrill through him. A +little later, his left leg encountered something at once firm and soft, +another leg, a beautifully rounded feminine leg, and the two remained +in contact. This, like the other, may have been casual, but +to Turgis the effect was electric. And then it chanced that his hand, +hanging loose by his side, touched another hand, which was not +withdrawn when it was touched again, this time deliberately. The +two hands now met fairly; they grasped one another, squeezed; their +fingers were intertwined; they sent and received messages in the +dark. Turgis could now regard the graceful antics of Lulu Castellar +with a benevolent detachment. The dream life of the screen was +nothing compared with the pulsating real life of those contacts in +the warm gloom, those little pressures and squeezes that were signals +from that other enchanted world. He did not try to talk to her +again. That would come later. He said nothing, hardly looked her +way, afraid lest he should break the spell.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p153">[153]</span></p> + +<p>When the film ended and a kind of soft russet dawn broke as +the screen disappeared behind the curtains, they moved away from +one another, and he did not even catch a glimpse of her face. A +great many people went out, and a great many others came in, but +they were not disturbed. Then the curtains moved again; a soft +russet twilight came, only to fade into darkness; and the programme +artfully continued. But would this other and far more exciting programme +continue? His heart bounded in the new darkness. He +leaned towards her again; she did not evade him; and hand clasped +hand again, stickily perhaps now but still exquisitely, thrillingly. +Turgis had not been so happy for months.</p> + +<p>It was not until the young inventor’s train to New York was +again roaring across the screen, after the programme had gone round +its full circle, that the girl loosened her hand and began to put on +her gloves. Turgis had been waiting for this moment for some time. +When she rose, he rose too; and she followed him past the indignant +knees and up the stairs. It was when they reached the exit +steps, descending into the real world, that he turned and spoke to +her. And he knew instinctively that they were not now the two +people who had been holding hands for so long in the darkness +inside; those two intimates were ghosts now; these two on the steps, +in the light, were strangers and would have to begin over again. +When he spoke he acted upon this instinctive or intuitive knowledge.</p> + +<p>“How did you like the picture then?” he asked, casually.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t think it was so very good,” she replied, just as casually. +“I don’t like that Lulu Castellar. Pulls herself about a bit too much, +she does, if you ask me. Might as well have Saint Vitus’ dance and +have done with it. Do you like her?”</p> + +<p>“Oh—I dunno—she’s all right,” he muttered. He was recovering +from a horrible shock. This girl was not pretty at all, not even +reasonably good-looking. She was years older than he was, and she +was hideous. He had just caught sight of her face properly for the +first time. Her nose was all twisted and she had a bit of a squint. +She was thirty if she was a day. Oh, hell—what a wash-out! She +<span class="pagenum" id="p154">[154]</span>was still talking, but he could not bother listening to what she was +saying. Sheer vexation made his eyes smart. He kept pace with her +down the steps, mumbling an occasional “Yes” and “No,” but +somewhere inside him was a hot little angry man who screamed and +cursed at everything.</p> + +<p>“Well,” she said, when they reached the bottom door, “I’ve got +my sister to meet, so I’ll say good-night to you.”</p> + +<p>“Good-night,” said Turgis miserably.</p> + +<p>Saturday night was roaring away outside, but for him the heart +had gone out of it. He walked on mechanically, so sorry for himself, +so angry with everything, that he could have cried. His head ached +from being in that rotten balcony so long. There were queer aches +in his body too. Where could he go now? Nowhere worth going +to. If you had plenty of money, evening dress and all that, you +could go to restaurants and night clubs and dance with beautiful +girls with fine bare arms. But he wasn’t in that seam. He’d no +evening dress; no money; and anyhow he couldn’t dance. He +couldn’t do anything. No, perhaps he couldn’t, but he was as good +as most of those fat rotten blighters who had the money, who just +went chucking it away while he had to count every penny. Look +at that lot in the big car, with their fur coats and diamonds and +white shirt fronts, probably going somewhere to dance and get +boozed up and God knows what before they’d finished! Swine! +He was as good as them any day. And better—he did do some +work. What did they do? It was enough to make any chap turn +Bolshie. He didn’t like the other chap who lodged at Mrs. Pelumpton’s +very much; Park was a dreary, unfriendly sort of devil, and +a Sheeny at that; but he didn’t blame Park for turning Bolshie. +For two pins, he’d turn Bolshie, too. Yes, but what was the good +of that?</p> + +<p>All this time he had been walking on and on, through a Saturday +night with the bottom dropped out of it, and now had left the +spangled West End behind him. He stopped at a coffee stall, where +<span class="pagenum" id="p155">[155]</span>several fools were arguing about nothing as usual, and had two +buns and a cup of coffee—poor stuff it was too, too sweet and +nearly cold. As he turned his back to the counter, he saw a girl, +a really nice kid with a red hat and big dark eyes, smiling in his +direction, and he smiled back at her hopefully, but then he saw her +eyes move slightly and the smile instantly vanish. She had not been +looking at him before, when she smiled; she had been looking at +the chap standing next to him, who was ordering two coffees. And +what a chap to be out with, to be smiling at! If that’s what she +wanted, she could have him. One vast sneer, Turgis moved away, +and boarded the first bus he found that would take him to Camden +Town, back to Nathaniel Street with the ruins of his evening.</p> + +<p>“’Ad a good time, boy?” said Mr. Pelumpton, now mellow with +beer, as Turgis looked into the back room. “That’sh the way. Yersh. +Enjoy yershelf while you’re young, I shay, and while you <em>can</em> enjoy +yershelf. I did when I wash your age an’ don’t ferget it, boy.” Here +Mr. Pelumpton chuckled and then coughed. “I ’ad a good time and +nobody could shtop me ’aving one.”</p> + +<p>“What’s this about you and your good times?” said his wife, +popping out from nowhere.</p> + +<p>“I’m jusht telling our friend ’ere that I don’t blame him for enjoying +himshelf while he’sh young, ’cosh I did the shame thing when +I wash young.”</p> + +<p>“Ar, you was a wicked devil you was,” said Mrs. Pelumpton, with +reluctant admiration.</p> + +<p>“Oh dear, oh dear!” Mr. Pelumpton chuckled. “Lishen to that. +Ar well, boy, I don’t blame yer. Good old Shaturday night. I’ve ’ad +’em. I know.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll bet you never had, you silly old fathead,” Turgis muttered +under his breath.</p> + +<p>“Only jusht remember thish, boy. Don’d overdo it, that’sh all. +Don’d overdo it. You’re only young wunsh. Enjoy yershelf, if yer +like, but don’d overdo it.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p156">[156]</span></p> + +<p>Turgis looked at him in disgust. “Good-night all,” he said, +mournfully, and climbed the chilling stairs to his room.</p> + +<p>So much for Saturday.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_3"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>Sunday was fine, that is, there was no rain, sleet, or snow falling. +There was also very little sunlight falling, and the streets of Camden +Town and Kentish Town were like echoing slatey tunnels. Turgis +saw them when he went out to buy a paper and a packet of cigarettes, +and as usual he disliked the look of them. They were not +very cheerful on a weekday, but they were a pantomime and a +bean feast then compared with what they were on Sunday. It was +on Sunday that Turgis felt his loneliness most keenly.</p> + +<p>It must be admitted, though, that on this particular Sunday morning +he had received and refused two invitations. The first was +from Mr. Pelumpton, who had decided that he must pay a visit +to Petticoat Lane—“jusht to shee ’ow the shtuff’s goin’,” he said, with +an impressive professional air. He had suggested, with some condescension, +that Turgis might like to go with him. Turgis had +promptly declined. He had been to Petticoat Lane before, and he +saw quite enough of old Pelumpton in Nathaniel Street and had +no desire to go to Whitechapel with him, merely to provide him +with a listener and some free beer.</p> + +<p>The other invitation came from his fellow lodger, Park, the +Bolshie. Park, a neat dark Jewy sort of chap, quiet and civil enough +but with something machine-like and vaguely menacing about him, +just as if he was not quite human, worked in the printing trade and +apparently had to go at all hours, so that Turgis hardly ever saw +him. Moreover, he was a tremendous communist worker, for ever +attending meetings and conferences and addressing envelopes to +distant comrades and circulating what seemed to Turgis, who had +inspected it, some terribly dreary literature. The two young men +did not like each other very much, but Park always saw in Turgis, +<span class="pagenum" id="p157">[157]</span>who had the depressed look of a faintly class-conscious proletarian, +a possible convert. Hence the invitation, which this time was for +some communist affair, a meeting or two and coffee and cake for +the comrades, somewhere out at Stratford or West Ham. Turgis +turned it down, though not ungraciously, for though he did not +care much for Park, he had a vague kind of respect for him. But +he did not see himself with the comrades. Perhaps the real reason +was that he could not imagine any girls, real nice girls, not glaring +female comrades, in the picture. He did not tell Park so, did not +even admit it to himself; and when Park, with the drab innocence +of his kind, accused him of being a timid slave of the bourgeois +classes, a would-be bourgeois himself, he had no defence but a grin +and a jeering noise.</p> + +<p>The paper kept him amused until dinner time. After dinner he +went for a walk, which chiefly consisted of penny bus rides. They +finally landed him, as they had landed a few thousand other people, +at the Marble Arch corner of Hyde Park, where the Sunday orators +congregate. Turgis often visited this forum and listened to the +orators. He had no intellectual curiosity and never really attended +to the arguments, such as they were, but he had a sort of genial +contempt for the speakers that was a warming, comforting feeling. +He felt that they were a great deal sillier than he was, and that +was pleasant. Moreover, any leisurely crowd always had an attraction +for him, because there was always a chance that there might be, +somewhere in the middle of it, bored and lonely, a wonderful girl +who would suddenly smile back at him.</p> + +<p>He drifted from speaker to speaker with the crowd, which was +largely composed of youths like himself, all feeling pleasantly superior, +with a sprinkling of aggressive dialecticians and religious and +political fanatics. There was a fantastic old man in a greenish +frock coat who banged a large chart and talked in a high sing-song +that left five words out of six quite unintelligible. His subject—of +all things—was shorthand. Turgis stared at him for a minute or two, +concluded that he was mad, and moved on. The next meeting, a +<span class="pagenum" id="p158">[158]</span>large one, was political, and the only words Turgis caught—“What +about Russia, where your socialism, my friends, has been put into +practice?”—drove him away at once. Then there was a tiny group +of people round a harmonium, played by a young man with bulging +eyes and a straggling beard. They were drearily singing a hymn, +and nobody was taking any notice of them. Next to them, one of +those involved discussions, typical of the place, was in heated progress, +and the audience, in its own ironical fashion, was enjoying it. +All that Turgis, at the back, could hear was the speaker himself, +a young man with spectacles and long yellow hair who had something +to do with the Catholic Church, who kept crying: “One +mewment, my friend, just one mewment! Kindly allow me to +speak. Yes, yes, but one mewment! You have asked me if I would +considah such a person insane. Now, one mewment!” Turgis lingered +for some time at this meeting. There were one or two nice +girls in the crowd, but not one of them was by herself. It was no +good. He would have to find a pal.</p> + +<p>The speaker on the right was being heckled by a woman who +looked rather like Mrs. Pelumpton. He was an elderly man, dressed +in an old-fashioned black suit, and he was shaking a Bible almost +in her face. “Well, what do Ah do?” he cried, his eyes gleaming. +“Ah turn once mo-ore to the graa-aate Boo-ook. Yes, Ah’ve a Bahble +text for tha-at.” Turgis did not learn what the text was, for there +came a tremendous bellow from this man’s neighbour, a dirty little +fellow with a broad flat nose and an india rubber mouth, who looked +like a nasty compromise between Hoxton and Manchuria. “What is +thee yighest idee-al of thee yole universe, my friends?” he was +screaming, in a lather of oratory. “I’ll tell you. Thee yighest idee-al of +thee yole universe is Man—Man.” And he thumped himself on the +chest. Turgis did not like the look of him at all. He also did not +like the look of the Salvation Army lasses who were conducting +the service on the other side. They were all so pimply. They looked +as if they were always eating things that disagreed with them.</p> + +<p>Next to the Army was a bony, shabby chap, a Bolshie, possibly +<span class="pagenum" id="p159">[159]</span>one of Park’s pals. Turgis had heard him before, and only stayed +long enough to make sure that he was on the same tack. He was. +“Noo where did communism firrst appearr, ma frien’s?” he was +asking. “Noat in Russia—oh no! Noat in England—oh no! Noat in +Frrance—oh no! Bu’ in Grreece, ma frien’s, in ancient Grreece, +where a mon called Playto wrote a buik called <i>The Repuiblic</i>. +Yes, Ah know that this mon should rightly be called Plarto, but if +Ah said Plarto, Ah know everybody would be staring at it an’ +wondering who this Plarto was, so Ah call him Playto. An’ he was +the firrst communist.” It was like listening to a Scots comedian who +had gone sour. Turgis moved on, passing with the merest glance a +very tiny group that everybody had ignored. There were three of +them, two bearded and bare-headed men and a faded woman, and +they were standing close together, apparently praying. Nobody was +taking any notice of them, except a battered and boosy old actor +(he recited a sort of story that introduced the names of all the +successful plays running at the time, and Turgis knew him of old) +who was waiting to claim the pitch. Why did these people come +here? Who were they? What did they do at home? Once more, +Turgis concluded they were all mad, but this time the thought did +not give him any pleasant feeling of superiority. It depressed him. +Suppose he was suddenly taken that way!</p> + +<p>But there were roars of laughter coming from the crowd on the +right, and above it Turgis recognised another familiar figure, an +atheist chap, and quite a turn too. He was a fat young man, with +a glittering squint and a nose so resolutely turned up that it could +be described as a snout; and he had a very self-confident perky +manner and a shrill voice. Turgis edged himself into the audience. +“Now, where was Oi? Losing me plice, wasn’t Oi?” he cried humorously. +“Ow, Oi know. Fish on Froiday, thet was it. Whoi dew the +Catholics eat fish on Froiday? They down’t know. They down’t—strite! +Yew arsk ’em an’ see. They down’t know. But Oi know.” +Here the crowd roared its approval. “It’s in nonner of the old +goddess, Froiyer, goddess of plenty. Froiyer—Froiday—see? Thet’s +<span class="pagenum" id="p160">[160]</span>whoi they eat fish on Froiday. It is—strite.” The crowd roared +again. “Then there’s the Trinity. What’s thet? Yew arsk ’em. They +down’t know. They’re not allowed to talk about it. Whoi? Tew +sycred. Thet’s what they’ll tell you—tew sycred. Secret and sycred—come +from the sime root—mean the sime thing. They do—strite!” +His audience did not care very much if secret and sacred did come +from the same root, but it thoroughly approved of the piggy young +man. And Turgis shared the general delight.</p> + +<p>By the time he had returned down the line of speakers to the +place where the old shorthand enthusiast had been (his pitch had +been taken by a Christadelphian evangelist, a burly red-faced fellow +who looked like a bookie), it was nearly dark and he found himself +thinking about tea. He left the park, and walked along Oxford +Street. Every teashop he came to was crammed. People were eating +and drinking almost in one another’s laps. And already there were +queues for the pictures. “If they’ve got homes to go to,” Turgis +told himself, “why don’t they go to ’em.” He was sick of them. +They were no good to him, these jumbles of faces. Finally, in +somewhat low spirits, he found a place just off Oxford Street, one +of those humble teashops with tall urns or geysers on the counter, +a slatternly girl in attendance, a taxi-driver or two sitting at the +first table and three Italians sitting at the back. He had a poor tea +and it cost him fourpence-halfpenny more than he thought it would. +When he went out again, it was drizzling, and miserably cold and +damp. The queues for the pictures were enormous. All the cheaper +seats were probably filled for the night.</p> + +<p>He crossed Oxford Street and, without thinking where he was +going, cut into the streets to the north of it. In one of these, a number +of people, mostly women, were hurrying up some lighted steps. +A notice informed him that the Higher Thought Alliance, London +Circle, was meeting in that hall, to hear a lecture by Mr. Frank +Dadds of Los Angeles, and that admission was free and that all +would be heartily welcome. He lingered on the steps, where he was +sheltered from the thickening drizzle, and wondered whether to +<span class="pagenum" id="p161">[161]</span>go in or not. Now and again, on Sundays, he looked in at various +services and meetings (though he had never tried the Higher +Thought Alliance before, and had never heard of it), partly for +want of something better to do, and partly because he always hoped +he might strike up an acquaintance with a girl there, perhaps share +the same hymn-book or programme. As he was hesitating, a large +middle-aged woman in a fur coat, who had been fussing about in +the entrance, noticed him and said: “Do come inside. Everybody is +welcome.” So he shook the raindrops from his overcoat, clutched +at his hat, and, shyly, awkwardly, with his mouth wide open, he +entered the hall. There, of course, before he had time to look round +and see if there were any vacant seats near any nice-looking girls, +an officious little man insisted on showing him to a seat. There +were only about four men in the hall, but about two or three +hundred women, mostly middle-aged and very dull. His own uncomfortable +cane chair was between two of the dullest. On the +platform, two women with short grey hair and a strained, gulping +sort of expression, played the violin and the piano, and went on +playing for the next ten minutes. Turgis began to feel sorry he had +come, even though the place was warm and dry and the affair would +not cost him anything.</p> + +<p>Then the middle-aged woman in the fur coat, who had spoken to +him outside, mounted the platform, and announced that they would +begin with a hymn. It was not an ordinary sort of hymn—even +Turgis could see that—and unfortunately nobody seemed to know +the tune. Even the violinist had some difficulty in arriving at it. +When the hymn finally trailed away into silence, they all remained +standing, and then the woman in the fur coat said: “We affirm +health, which is man’s divine inheritance. Man’s body is his holy +temple,” and everybody else, except Turgis, looked down at slips of +paper and repeated it after her: “We affirm health, which is man’s +divine inheritance. Man’s body is his holy temple.” Several of the +people near Turgis had some trouble in affirming this, because they +were interrupted by fits of coughing, but they did their best. After +<span class="pagenum" id="p162">[162]</span>that, they affirmed all sorts of things, divine love and power and +truth and a general sort of oneness in the universe. Then they sat +down, and nothing happened for a minute or two, during which +time the universe had an opportunity of taking stock of their +attitude towards it. Turgis was bewildered and not too happy, for +the chair was very uncomfortable and his feet were cold.</p> + +<p>He did not listen to what the woman in the fur coat said when +she began talking again. She seemed to be reading a poem by a +friend of hers, and then leaving a thought with them all. Turgis +heard this remark because she repeated it several times and looked +straight at him, the last time she said it. “And I’ll just leave that +great thought with you,” she cried, and stared hard at Turgis, who +felt embarrassed. The next moment, the two women with short grey +hair were playing the violin and piano like mad, and the fussy little +man and two others were rushing round with collection boxes. Two +hundred and fifty women dived into handbags and then sat bolt +upright, trying to look as if they did not know that their right +hands were all clutching sixpences. Turgis left his pocket alone, and +when the collection box came his way, he gave it a mysterious shake +and then passed it on very quickly.</p> + +<p>“A few minutes’ silent meditation,” the woman in the fur coat +announced, composing her face meditatively. All the other women +composed their faces meditatively too, and then looked down at +their shoes. Turgis looked down at his, and noticed that one of +them was splitting at the side. He wanted to waggle his toes to +warm his feet, but if he began waggling, the shoe might split still +more. They were rotten shoes. Everything he ever bought always +turned out to be rotten. He was always being taken in. What he +ought to buy was a pair of good thick Army boots; there were still +some about in those ex-government stores shops; and they were +cheap and they would last. But there again, what was a girl going +to think of him if she found him clumping about in boots like a +navvy’s? What girl, though? “Where d’you get your girls from?” +<span class="pagenum" id="p163">[163]</span>he asked himself, with a sneer. There was a rustle and a shuffle: +the silent meditation was over.</p> + +<p>“And I’m sure Mr. Frank Dadds needs no introduction from me,” +the woman in the fur coat was saying. “We are delighted to have +him here with us again. We remember the inspiring talks he gave +us last time, and we realise that we have a treat in store.” And there +was an appreciative murmur.</p> + +<p>Mr. Frank Dadds of Los Angeles suddenly shot up as the woman +in the fur coat sat down. He was a tallish, fattish, fairish American +in a light brown suit and a pink tie. He clasped his hands, then +rubbed them together. He smiled at them all. He was obviously +at home in the universe, and filled with divine love and power and +truth and a general sort of oneness. Even Turgis was impressed by +him, and all the women sat up and gazed at him with adoration. +Then Mr. Frank Dadds burst into speech.</p> + +<p>“My friends,” he began, without any hesitation, “the title of my +lecture this evening is Understanding and Yew. Let me commence +by talking about Yew, jast Yew. Perhaps yew don’t think much of +yourselves. Life doesn’t seem to yew to offer very much. There +are people—and there may be some of them here with us to-night—who +jast haven’t got livingness. They think that life is always jast +the same old thing. They can even talk of killing time. Killing +time!—when every noo moment of time is diamonded with the +greatest passibilities of lahv and trewth and bewdy. Once we have +got livingness—once we have got understainding—once we are in +toon with the in-fy-nyte—then there is a power within us, yes, within +every one of us, that can cree-ate the world anoo. Our external selves +can easily be fladdered. It is easy to make too much of what we’ve +done. But it is com-pletely im-passible for any words—no matter if +the greatest poets utter those words—to fladder what we have within +us, our po-tentialities in baddy, mind, and spirrut. We’ve got to get +rid of what some people like to call our in-feriority camplexes. +We’ve got to realise that power within us. That doesn’t mean—as +some people seem to think—that we should develap sooperiority +<span class="pagenum" id="p164">[164]</span>camplexes. And why? Bee-cause, as Noo Thought shows us, there +is a Oneness in the Universe and we are all united in that Oneness. +It isn’t jast the potes who sing lahv songs. The whole Universe sings +a lahv song. The whole Universe <em>is</em> a lahv song. If it isn’t, the very +atoms of which we are composed would disintegrate. I tell you, my +friends, there is radiant health, there is power, there is wanderful +bewdy, there is lahv, all without stint, without measure, eternal, +awaiting all of us, and if we only open our eyes, find the way, +develap understainding, get in toon, get livingness, there is not only +a heaven above but a heaven here upon earth ...”</p> + +<p>For some twenty-five minutes more, the voice went sounding on, +offering them radiant health, power, truth, beauty, and love, without +ever once faltering. Turgis could not understand it all, but he listened +in a happy dream, forgetting that his chair was uncomfortable +and his feet were cold. He realised that he had only to do something +or other, get this livingness and oneness and understanding, just +turn a corner, and everything would be different, everything would +be marvellous. Vaguely he saw himself trim and sleek, with evening +clothes, a huge overcoat, white trousers for summer, money in his +pocket, money in the bank, an office of his own perhaps, a flat with +shaded lights and big chairs and a gramophone and a wireless set, +even a car, and by his side, worshipping him, the loveliest and kindest +of girls. It was wonderful.</p> + +<p>“Come again, young man,” said the fussy little man, at the door. +“Always glad to see you here.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you very much,” said Turgis earnestly, still glowing.</p> + +<p>And then, somehow, outside in the wet streets, among the black +figures hurrying home, it all went. Angrily he tried to recapture the +glow and the dream, but they would not return. Inside the steaming +bus, swaying with the strap he held, he found there was nothing +left. He did not know how to get understanding or livingness or +oneness or any of those things, could not even imagine what they +were. Neither radiant health nor power, truth nor beauty, was +<span class="pagenum" id="p165">[165]</span>coming his way. As for love, well, he had better chuck thinking +about it. There was a girl standing next to him, not a bad sort of +girl, but every time the bus went swaying round a corner, he +bumped into her, not hurting her but just gently bumping into +her. He wasn’t doing it on purpose, but the third time it happened, +she drew back and looked daggers at him—silly little idiot! Oh, +yes, the universe was a love song all right!</p> + +<p>Park was having a cup of tea and a bite of bread-and-butter with +Mrs. Pelumpton in the back room when he got back, and he joined +them, telling them where he had been and what he had heard.</p> + +<p>“Dope, my friend, that’s all you’ve had,” said Park contemptuously, +“nothing but dope! Comes from America, doesn’t it? Yes, and why? +Because the masses there have got to be doped, that’s why. You come +with me next time and you’ll hear something that’ll open your eyes +a bit; no dope, but the real thing. What’s the matter with you, +Turgis, is that you don’t see how your leg’s being pulled, you’re +not properly class-conscious yet.”</p> + +<p>Turgis disliked this contemptuous tone. “Are you what-is-it—class-conscious, +Park?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I am.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you can have it,” Turgis retorted, in a voice that told Park +pretty plainly that he was a dreary devil.</p> + +<p>“All right then, my friend, all right. I will have it. And you keep +on with the dope.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t want any dope. Don’t believe in it.”</p> + +<p>“Well, what do you want, then?” demanded Park, who thought +he saw in this a chance of a fine long argument.</p> + +<p>“I dunno,” said Turgis, finishing his tea. “Yes, I do, though. I +want to go to bed.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right,” said Mrs. Pelumpton approvingly. “Bed. You +couldn’t go to a better place. I’m sure I’m ready for mine. We’re all +in now, except Edgar, and I’m not waiting for him.”</p> + +<p>And then all that was left of Sunday was a walk upstairs.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p166">[166]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="V_1"> + V +</h3> + +<p>Then, the very next day, on Monday of all days, it happened. It +happened in the afternoon. Somebody came in, and, as Stanley was +out, Turgis dashed to the other side of the frosted glass partition to +see who it was. There, like a being from another world, stood a +girl all in bright green, a girl with large brown eyes, the most impudent +little nose, and a smiling scarlet mouth, the prettiest girl +he had ever seen.</p> + +<p>“Good afternoon. Is my father here, please?” She had a queer, +fascinating voice.</p> + +<p>“Your father?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Mr. Golspie. This is the place, isn’t it? He told me to call +for him here.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, he is, Miss—Miss Golspie,” cried Turgis eagerly, his eyes +devouring her all the time. “He’s in that room there. But I think +there’s somebody with him. Shall I tell him you’re here?”</p> + +<p>“You needn’t yet if he’s busy with somebody,” said the glorious +creature, smiling at him. “I can wait.”</p> + +<p>“I can tell him now, if you like.” He was trembling with eagerness +to help, to serve.</p> + +<p>“No, it doesn’t matter. I know he hates being interrupted. I’ll wait +for him. I don’t suppose he’ll be long, will he?”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure he won’t,” he told her fervently. “Will you wait here +or in the office? It’s warmer in the office.”</p> + +<p>“This will do,” and she made a movement towards the chair.</p> + +<p>“Excuse me, Miss Golspie.” He brought it stumbling out somehow, +and at the same time he dusted the seat of the chair with his +handkerchief. “It—it—might be dirty, y’know.”</p> + +<p>She looked him full in the eyes, deliciously, drowning him in +sweetness, and then smiled. “Thank you. I’d hate to spoil my new +coat. Everything looks a bit grimy here, doesn’t it? It’s such a frightfully +dark place, too, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p167">[167]</span></p> + +<p>He supposed it was, and tried to imagine her walking up Angel +Pavement outside. He still lingered. “Is there anything else,” he began +vaguely, hovering, adoring her.</p> + +<p>“Quite happy, thanks.”</p> + +<p>There was no excuse possible to stay a moment longer. Reluctantly +he returned to his desk, with his heart swelling with excitement. +The others looked at him inquiringly, but he pretended to be busy +with something. He did not even want to explain about a girl like +that. He wanted to keep the very thought of her being there to himself. +Meanwhile, he was determined to listen hard. The moment that +he heard Mr. Golspie’s visitor going, he would rush out, tell Mr. +Golspie she was there, and thus see her again.</p> + +<p>But he was not able to manage it. Mr. Golspie must have shown +his visitor out, for immediately after the door was opened, Turgis +heard Mr. Golspie’s voice booming behind the partition. “Hello, +Lena girl!” he heard him say. “Forgotten about you coming. Won’t +keep you a minute.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Golspie then came into the office. “I’ve got to go out,” he told +Mr. Smeeth, “and I shan’t be coming back to-day. Be in about eleven +in the morning though, if anybody wants me. Mr. Dersingham’ll +be back to-morrow afternoon, if anybody wants him. And I say, +what’s your name—Turgis⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” replied Turgis smartly.</p> + +<p>“Get hold of the Anglo-Baltic—Mr. Borstein, nobody else, mind, +Mr. Borstein—and tell him from me that if we’ve any more delays +like that with the stuff, there’s going to be heap big trouble. They +said they wouldn’t let us down, and they’re letting us down like +hell. And you can tell him that from me.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir, I will. Did you say Mr. Borstein?” And Turgis stared +at Miss Lena Golspie’s father, at his massive bald front, at his great +moustache, at his big square shoulders. Mr. Golspie had never seemed +an ordinary man, but now he had for Turgis the power and fascination +of a demi-god. Already his very name spelt sweetness and +wonder.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p168">[168]</span></p> + +<p>“That’s the chap,” Mr. Golspie grunted. “Afternoon, everybody.” +And he departed.</p> + +<p>“That was Mr. Golspie’s daughter then who came to the door, +was it?” said Mr. Smeeth.</p> + +<p>“His daughter, eh?” Miss Matfield raised her eyebrows, then +looked at Turgis, and said casually: “What was she like? Pretty?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Turgis mumbled, “she was.” And he would say no more. +He was not going to talk about her. He preferred to think about +her. Lena Golspie.</p> + +<p>Then, with something like amorous urgency, he went to the telephone, +rang up the Anglo-Baltic, and sternly demanded Mr. Borstein. +He would tell Mr. Borstein something! He would show him +whether he could let them down like hell! Lena Golspie. Lena +Golspie. Lena, Lena, Lena. “Hello, is that Mr. Borstein? This is +Twigg and Dersingham. Yes, Twigg and Dersingham. Mr. Golspie +asked me to ring you up—Mr. Gols-pie, Mr. Gol-spie ...” Lena’s +father. Lena, Lena, Lena.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p169">[169]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_Five_MISS_MATFIELD_WONDERS"> + <i>Chapter Five</i>: <span class="allsmcap">MISS MATFIELD WONDERS</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Mr. Golspie took the typewritten sheets from Miss Matfield and +then spread them out on her table. “All six letters alike, eh? +That’s the style, Miss Matfield. Hello, is this exactly what I said?”</p> + +<p>“As a matter of fact, it isn’t.” And Miss Matfield raised her eyes +and gave him a steady level glance.</p> + +<p>“As a matter of fact, it isn’t, eh? Then what is it, as a matter of +fact? Just a little improvement, eh?”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield coloured slightly. “Well, if you want to know, Mr. +Golspie, all I’ve done is to change <em>was</em> into <em>were</em> twice, simply for the +sake of making it more grammatical. That’s all.”</p> + +<p>“Half a minute, half a minute,” Mr. Golspie boomed at her. “Not +more grammatical. Just grammatical. You made it grammatical +when before it wasn’t grammatical. Either it’s grammatical or it +isn’t, d’you see? And now I’m being more grammatical, eh?” He +guffawed, suddenly, dreadfully.</p> + +<p>“I don’t pretend to be particularly marvellous about grammar,” +she replied, trying to be severe, “but I do happen to know when to +use <em>was</em> and when to use <em>were</em>. It’s one of the few things they taught +me. And so I thought you wouldn’t object if I changed them.”</p> + +<p>“Much obliged.” He regarded her amiably. “By the way, what is +it you do pretend to be particularly marvellous at?”</p> + +<p>“Does that matter?” This in her best haughty manner. Everybody +in the office knew it and respected it.</p> + +<p>But Mr. Golspie only gave her a friendly leer. “Of course it matters,” +<span class="pagenum" id="p170">[170]</span>he declared heartily. “Now I like to know these things. Take +me. I used to play a good game at billiards, and I can still play +poker with the best, bridge, too. Oh, and I can crack walnuts between +my finger and thumb—fact!” He held up a very large thick +hairy finger and thumb that matched it. “And that’s not all either. +Still—we are a bit busy, aren’t we?”</p> + +<p>“I am.” Miss Matfield looked at her typewriter.</p> + +<p>“And so,” he continued cheerfully, “for the time being, we’ll say +it doesn’t matter. I’ll take these nice grammatical letters away with +me. You’ve addressed the envelopes, have you? Right.” He turned +his broad back on her, gave Mr. Smeeth a wink, whistled softly, and +departed for the private office.</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield drew her full lower lip between her teeth and +frowned at her typewriter. As usual, she was left with a vague sense +of defeat. It was, of course, the man’s insensitiveness—and she saw +again that large thick hairy finger—that made him so difficult to +snub. Nobody else in the office had dared to talk to her as he did, +not after she had spent her first hour in the building. It was a +nuisance, not being able to put him in his place, as Mr. Dersingham, +Mr. Smeeth, and the others had been put in <em>their</em> places. It was +annoying to think that the very next time he spoke to her he would +probably talk in the same strain, not altogether an unfriendly strain, +but disrespectful, jeering, humiliating in a fashion. She could not +really stand up to it, but found herself wanting to lower her eyes, +turn her head away, and almost retreat in maidenly blushes—oh, +gosh! Lilian Matfield feeling like that! How her friends would howl +if they knew! Yet she didn’t really dislike him, not now.</p> + +<p>A little later, when they were clearing up for the night, she was +presented with this problem of Mr. Golspie again by some artless +questions from the little Sellers girl, who still treated Miss Matfield +with great deference and thus was still in favour.</p> + +<p>“He’s funny, isn’t he?” said Miss Sellers, referring to Mr. Golspie.</p> + +<p>“A bit weird.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p171">[171]</span></p> + +<p>“I wish you’d tell me, Miss Matfield,” Miss Sellers continued, +earnestly and deferentially, “d’you reelly <em>like</em> him?”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield raised her thick black brows and produced a long +<i>mmm</i> sound that went up and then down again. Having gone +through this little performance, she said, “Do you?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Miss Sellers, wrinkling her little nose in an agony of +mental effort, “I do an’ I don’t—if you see what I mean.”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield knew exactly what she meant, but did not say so. +She merely gave the other girl an encouraging glance.</p> + +<p>“Sometimes I think he’s nice,” Miss Sellers went on, staring at +nothing, “an’ sometimes I don’t like him a bit. Not that he ever says +anything or does anything, y’know—course I don’t see as much of +him as you do, Miss Matfield—but sometimes I catch a crool +look⁠——”</p> + +<p>“A what?”</p> + +<p>Miss Sellers’ voice had dropped to a whisper. “A crool look,” she +repeated, her eyes enormous. “An’ a reel nasty tone of voice he’s got +too, sometimes. And then I think ‘Well, I don’t like you, and I +wouldn’t like to cross your path, that I wouldn’t.’ And then the next +time, he’s as nice as anything. But I don’t like him as much as I like +Mr. Dersingham. Do you, Miss Matfield? Mr. Dersingham’s a reel +gentleman, isn’t he? I like him best.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t.” This came in a hoarse whisper. It was from Stanley, +who, free from his letter-copying for a minute, had quietly joined +them.</p> + +<p>“Now who asked you your opinion?” Miss Sellers demanded. +“You go away.”</p> + +<p>“I like Mr. Golspie best,” said Stanley, contriving to introduce an +enthusiastic note into his hoarse whisper. “An’ I’ll tell you why. He’s +what they call a man’s man. I’ll bet he’s had advenshers.”</p> + +<p>“You an’ your advenshers!” Miss Sellers was very contemptuous. +“What d’you know about it?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve heard things, I have,” said Stanley, very slowly and impressively.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p172">[172]</span></p> + +<p>“What have you heard?”</p> + +<p>“Shan’t tell you.”</p> + +<p>“No, because you’ve got nothing to tell. You run away and get +your work done, little boy.”</p> + +<p>“I’m as big as you are.”</p> + +<p>“Cheeky! Here, you want to go an’ shadder a few manners the +next time you go shaddering,” Miss Sellers jeered, singling out, with +feminine swiftness and accuracy, the weak joint in the other’s armour.</p> + +<p>“Huh! Shan’t learn ’em from you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, be quiet, the pair of you,” cried Miss Matfield, and began +tidying her table. Nothing more was said about Mr. Golspie, but on +her way home Miss Matfield could not help thinking about him. +She always had a book with her for the journey on the 13 bus to and +from the office, but the jogging and the crowding and the changing +lights did not make reading easy, especially on the return journey +to West Hampstead, and frequently she spent more time with her +own thoughts than she did with those of her author. On this particular +evening Mr. Golspie claimed her attention, almost to the +exclusion of anybody or anything else. She could not make up her +mind about him, had no label or pigeonhole ready for him, and +this annoyed her, for she liked to know exactly what she felt and +thought about people; to be able to dismiss them in a phrase. The +fact that Mr. Golspie spoke to her every day, if only for a few +minutes, gave her work to do, was sufficient to make her anxious +to determine her attitude towards him. Men, with their thick skins +and yawning indifference, might be able to work with people for +years and not know or care anything about them as persons, but +this drab stuff about “governors” and “colleagues” could find no +place to stay in Miss Matfield’s mind. In the talk among the girls +at the Club, all the men who dictated letters to them became immense +characters, comic, grotesquely villainous, or heroic and adorable. +Their femininity, frozen for a few hours every day at the +keyboard of their machines, thawed and gushed out in these perfervid +personalities. Behind their lowered eyes, their demure expressions, +<span class="pagenum" id="p173">[173]</span>as they sat with their notebooks on hard little office chairs, +these comic and romantic legends buzzed and sang, to be released +later in the dining-room, the lounge, the tiny bedrooms, of the Club. +Thus, something had to be done about Mr. Golspie, who would have +appeared to most of the girls, as Miss Matfield knew only too well, +a gigantic find, a mine of glittering material. So far he had merely +passed as “weird,” but that would not do. It had not sufficed in Miss +Matfield’s private thoughts since the first two days.</p> + +<p>She knew exactly what she thought about the others at the office. +Mr. Dersingham she neither liked nor disliked; she merely tolerated +him, with a sort of easy contempt; he was “sloppy and a bit feeble,” +and a familiar type, with nothing at all weird about <em>him</em>. Smeeth +seemed to her a vaguely pathetic creature who lived a grey life in +some grey suburb; the pleasure he got from what seemed to her his +drudgery sometimes irritated her, but at other times it roused something +like pity; and when she was not despising him, she liked him. +Turgis she despised and occasionally resented. She resented his shabbiness +and dinginess, his unhealthy skin and open mouth, his whole +forlorn air, simply because these things, which were always there in +the office, beside her, hurt her own pride by indicating the indignity +of her situation. Occasionally, perhaps after a week-end in the country, +when the thought of going back to Angel Pavement almost—as +she said—made her feel sick, there flashed through her mind an +image of Turgis. There had been moments when she had felt sorry +for him, but they were very rare. Stanley and the funny little +Cockney girl she tolerated and even liked, so long as they behaved +themselves, and they might have been a couple of amusing little +animals, a pair of spaniels perhaps, inferior and somewhat neglected. +All these people were securely in their places. But not Mr. Golspie, +the mysterious, large, jocular, brutal man, who always contrived—and +for the life of her she could not discover how he did it—to get +the best of her in any talk between them, who irritated one half of +her, the sensible half, by making the other half feel fluttered and +foolish, all girlish—ugh! How she had loathed him at first! Well, +<span class="pagenum" id="p174">[174]</span>she still loathed him, or at least she disliked him, despised him, +because he was nothing but a middle-aged bullying lout. He had a +ridiculous moustache. He reeked of cigars and whisky, bar parlours. +He was at once comic and awful.</p> + +<p>As the bus rattled and roared up the long straight slope of Finchley +Road on its way to Swiss Cottage, she told herself several times that +Golspie was comic and awful and found something comforting in +this conclusion. It was not, however, much of a conclusion; it only +remained one for a few minutes, for Mr. Golspie, even in memory, +even as an image, a faintly illuminated leer in the dark of her mind +(like the Cheshire Cat in <i>Alice</i>), refused to stay in his place and +wear his label. He escaped, and mocked her. It was all too stupid, +and when she got up to leave the bus she determined to leave Mr. +Golspie behind her, too. She found another girl from the Club +waiting for the bus to stop, and when it did stop, they smiled at one +another and walked up from the Finchley Road together. Mr. +Golspie faded away.</p> + +<p>“Do you come all the way from the City in that bus, Matfield?” +the other girl inquired languidly. She was a very languid girl, rather +affected, and her name was Morrison.</p> + +<p>“The whole way.”</p> + +<p>“How revolting!”</p> + +<p>“It is. Absolutely foul! Where do you get it, Morrison? You don’t +work in the City, do you?”</p> + +<p>“No, Bayswater,” Miss Morrison sighed. “I get it just in Orchard +Street. I have to take another bus first along Bayswater Road. Unless +I walk, and I loathe walking, specially on these beastly dark nights. +Even then, it seems an awfully long way.”</p> + +<p>“Nothing to the way I have to come,” said Miss Matfield, sternly. +When there was any grumbling about, and there usually was some +about, she liked to have her share. “Sometimes it takes hours and +hours.”</p> + +<p>“I know. I took a job in the City once and I only stuck it a week.” +Miss Morrison groaned in the darkness at the thought of it. “I +<span class="pagenum" id="p175">[175]</span>nearly died. Honestly, Matfield, if I’d to go to the City every day +and come back here, I’d die, I’d absolutely pass out, I would really. +I don’t know how you stick it. But then you’re so energetic, aren’t +you?”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield at once denied this terrible charge, and told herself +that the Morrison girl was pretty awful. “I’m worn out now,” she +continued. “Only I’d rather have the City because I can’t bear those +private secretary jobs. Yours is one of them, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” with another sigh. “And pretty ghastly. The woman I’m +working for now means well, but she’s an idiot, she really is, Matfield, +a full-sized idiot. No man in any office could ever be such an +idiot. She’s just dotty.”</p> + +<p>“Well, here we are at our beautiful home,” said Miss Matfield, +looking up at the Club entrance.</p> + +<p>“I know. Isn’t it revolting?”</p> + +<p>“Absolutely vile,” she replied mechanically, as they walked in. “I +don’t suppose there are any letters for me. No, of course not. There +wouldn’t be.”</p> + +<p>“Mine’s a bill,” Miss Morrison groaned. “Are you always getting +bills? I never seem to get anything else. Just millions of foul bills.”</p> + +<p>“Foul! Cheerio.”</p> + +<p>“Oh—er—cheerio.”</p> + + +<h3 id="II_4"> + II +</h3> + +<p>The Burpenfield Club, called after Lady Burpenfield, who had +given five thousand pounds to the original fund; was one of the +residential clubs or hostels provided for girls who came from good +middle-class homes in the country but were compelled, by economic +conditions still artfully adjusted to suit the male, to live in London +as cheaply as possible. Two fairly large houses had been thrown together +and their upper floors converted into a host of tiny bedrooms, +and there was accommodation for about sixty girls. For twenty-five +to thirty shillings a week the Club gave them a bedroom, breakfast +<span class="pagenum" id="p176">[176]</span>and dinner throughout the week, and all meals on Saturday and +Sunday. It was light and well ventilated and very clean, offered an +astonishing amount of really hot water, and had a large lounge, a +drawing-room (No Smoking), a small reading-room and library +(Quiet Please), and a garden stocked with the hardiest annuals. +The food was not brilliant—and no doubt it returned to the table +too often in the shape of fish-cakes, rissoles, and shepherd’s pie—but +it was reasonably wholesome and could be eaten with safety if +not with positive pleasure. The staff was very efficient and was controlled, +as everybody and everything else in the Club was controlled, +by the secretary, Miss Tattersby, daughter of the late Dean of Welborough, +and perhaps the most respectable woman in all Europe. +The rules were not too strict. There were no compulsory religious +services. Male visitors could not be entertained in bedrooms, but +could be brought to dinner and were allowed in the lounge, where +they occasionally might be seen, sitting in abject misery. Intoxicants +were not supplied by the Club but could be introduced, in reasonable +quantities, into the dining-room when guests were present. +Smoking was permitted, except in the dining and drawing-rooms. +There were a good many regulations about beds and baths and +washing and so forth, but they were not oppressive. In the evenings, +throughout the winter months, fires, quite large cheerful fires, +brightened all the public rooms. The lighting was good. The beds +and chairs were fairly comfortable. Dramatic entertainments and +dances were given two or three times a year. All this for less than +it would cost to live in some dingy and dismal boarding-house or +the pokiest of poky flats.</p> + +<p>What more could a girl want? Parents and friends of the family +who visited the Burpenfield found themselves compelled to ask this +question. The answer was that there was only one thing that most +girls at the Burpenfield did want, and that was to get away. It was +very odd. You were congratulated on getting into the Burpenfield +when you first went there, and you were congratulated even more +heartily when you finally left it. During the time you were there, you +<span class="pagenum" id="p177">[177]</span>grumbled, having completely lost sight of the solid advantages of the +place. The girls who stayed there year after year until at last they +were girls no longer but women growing grey, did stop grumbling +and even pointed out to another these solid advantages, but their +faces always wore a resigned look.</p> + +<p>There was, to begin with, that institution atmosphere, which was +rather depressing. The sight of those long tiled corridors did not +cheer you when you returned, tired, rather cross, head-achy, from +work in the evening. The food was monotonous and the dining-room +too noisy. Then, if you were not going out, you had to choose +between your little box of a bedroom, the lounge (usually dominated +by a clique of young insufferable rowdies), or the silent and inhuman +drawing-room. Moreover, Miss Tattersby, known as “Tatters,” +was terrifying. Very early, Miss Tattersby had arrived at the sound +conclusion that a brisk rough sarcasm was her best weapon, and she +made full use of it. You felt the weight and force of it even in the +notices she was so fond of pinning up: “Need residents who have +First Dinner take up <em>so</em> much time ...”; “Some residents seem to +have forgotten that the Staff has other duties besides ...”; “Is it +necessary <em>again</em> to remind residents that washing stockings in the +bathrooms ...”; that is how they went. But this, after all, was only +a pale reflection of her method in direct talk, and some girls, finding +themselves involved in an intricate affair concerning a pair of stockings +or something of that kind, preferred to conduct their side of +the case by correspondence, in the shape of little notes to Miss Tattersby +hastily left in her office when she was known to be out. Many +a girl, after a little brush with “Tatters,” who was immensely tall +and bony and staring, and looked like a soured Victorian celebrity, +had faced the most infuriated director at her office with a mere +shrug. The confident Burpenfield manner in commercial life, of +which we have seen something in Miss Matfield in Angel Pavement, +was probably the result of various encounters with Miss +Tattersby.</p> + +<p>But what Miss Matfield, who was cursing the place all over again +<span class="pagenum" id="p178">[178]</span>as she left Miss Morrison and went upstairs to her room, disliked +most about the Burpenfield was the presence of all the other members, +whose life she had to share. There were too many of them, +and their mode of life was like an awful parody of her own. The +thought that her own existence would seem to an outsider just like +theirs infuriated or saddened her, for she felt that really she was +quite different from these others, much superior, a more vital, splendid +being. Those whose situation was not at all like her own only +annoyed her still more. There were the young girls, all rosy and +confident, many of whom were either engaged (to the most hopelessly +idiotic young man) or merely filling in a few months of +larking about, trying one absurd thing after another, while their +doting fathers forwarded generous monthly cheques. Then there +were the women older than herself, downright spinsters in their +thirties and early forties, who had grown grey and withered at the +typewriter and the telephone, who knitted, droned on interminably +about dull holidays they had had, took to fancy religions, quietly +went mad, whose lives narrowed down to a point at which washing +stockings became the supreme interest. Some of them were frankly +depressing. You met them drooping about the corridors, kettle in +hand, and they seemed to think about nothing but hot water. Others +were mechanically and terribly brisk and bright, all nervy jauntiness, +laborious slang, and secret orgies of aspirin, and these creatures—poor +old things—were if anything more depressing, the very limit. +Sometimes, when she was tired and nothing much was happening, +Miss Matfield saw in one of these women an awful glimpse of her +own future, and then she rushed into her bedroom and made the +most fantastic and desperate plans, not one of which she ever attempted +to carry out. Meanwhile, time was slipping away and +nothing was happening. Soon she would be thirty. Thirty! People +could say what they liked—but life was foul.</p> + +<p>There was still half an hour before dinner, and, after tidying herself, +she sat on her bed trying to repair a ladder in a second-best +pair of stockings. She was interrupted by a knock at the door and +<span class="pagenum" id="p179">[179]</span>the entrance of an extraordinary figure. It had a greeny-brown face +and was dressed in what appeared to be Oriental costume, and the +general effect was that of a seasick Arab chieftain.</p> + +<p>“Help!” cried Miss Matfield, but only to her visitor. “What is it? +Who are you? It can’t be you, Caddie.”</p> + +<p>The green face never moved a muscle, but a careful voice came +from it, and the voice, though muffled and lacking its usual variety +of tones, was undoubtedly that of her neighbour, Miss Isabel Cadnam, +otherwise “Caddie.” She had put a mud pack on her face and +had wrapped her head in a towel.</p> + +<p>“And you haven’t to smile or anything,” she announced cautiously, +“or it’ll crack. But I’ve come to ask you a favour. Are you in +to-night? I mean you’re not dressing or anything grand? Well, can +I borrow your shawl, the reddy-black one? You promised to lend +it to me, if I wanted it terribly some night.”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield nodded.</p> + +<p>“Well, this is the night. A great do. My dear, Ivor’s got tickets for +a new cabaret, dance and supper place, opening night to-night, and +we’re going. Marvellous!” The face did not move, but the eyes rolled +and flashed their appreciation.</p> + +<p>“All right, you can have the shawl, Caddie,” said Miss Matfield, +lazily rising to stretch out a hand for it. That is all you have to do +to find anything in a Burpenfield bedroom. “It sounds marvellous. +But I thought you’d had a row with Ivor, parted for ever for the +umpteenth time and all that. Why, it’s only last Friday you spent +hours and hours telling me about it.”</p> + +<p>“We made it up this morning,” the green mask replied, rolling its +eyes. “Started over the telephone, too, my dear. Ivor tried to explain +and then I tried to explain and then about forty people in the office +went off the deep end, so I said I’d meet him for lunch. We met. +And there you are. And now we’re going on the razzle.”</p> + +<p>“Lucky you!”</p> + +<p>“I will say that for Ivor. He can be terribly, terribly stupid, almost +stupider than anybody I know, except those foul brutes at the office—honestly, +<span class="pagenum" id="p180">[180]</span>my dear, they <em>are</em> the limit—but the minute we’ve made +it up, he always has tickets for something amusing. Free list, you +know.”</p> + +<p>“I believe he waits until he has the tickets, then rings you up that +morning and makes it up,” said Miss Matfield. “I wouldn’t put it +past him.”</p> + +<p>“What a perfectly loathsome idea, Mattie! What a foul mind you +have! Still, he might do that. Rather sweet of him, really, when you +think about it. Well, I shall have to fly. I’ve got to get this stuff off. +I’ve been wearing it for hours and I feel I shall never be able to +smile again. Thanks for the shawl, and, my dear, I’ll take the +greatest, the very greatest care of it, and you shall have it back in +the morning.”</p> + +<p>“Have a good time,” said Miss Matfield, with no particular enthusiasm. +“Give my love to Ivor.”</p> + +<p>When her visitor had gone, she gave a little impatient shake, sat +down again, but threw the stocking on one side. Caddie was really +rather a silly creature, but nevertheless she contrived to have quite +an amusing, even exciting time. Ivor, a goggly-eyed young man who +was with a firm of publicity people, was even sillier than she was, +and Miss Matfield admitted to herself at once that she could not +possibly endure a single hour of his company, but he pleased Caddie, +took her out, quarrelled with her, made it up, took her out more +luxuriously, created a continual excitement. It was possible to envy +Caddie’s state of mind while despising her taste. Miss Matfield’s +ripe mouth, which hardly needed lipstick, took on a discontented +curve. It was a pity that silly young men did not amuse her, for +there were plenty of Ivors about, whereas there were very few real +grown-up men about, men who could make her feel she was still +a mere girl. She was beginning to like, definitely to prefer, middle-aged +men—and admitted as much to her intimates—but the trouble +was that the really nice attractive ones were nearly always terribly +domesticated, up to the neck in wives and families, and had hardly +more than an occasional faint gleam of interest to spare for a Miss +<span class="pagenum" id="p181">[181]</span>Matfield. The middle-aged men who were interested were always +the awful ones, with swollen faces and little boiled eyes, dreary +rotters. Mr. Golspie? No, he wasn’t as bad as that, wasn’t quite that +type. But quite impossible, of course. Quite absurd.</p> + +<p>The gong went clanging below, and as it sounded, a head popped +into the room. “You’re in, aren’t you, Mattie?” it said. “Come on, +then. I’ve got some <em>News</em>. Very exciting.”</p> + +<p>This head, which was decorated with a thick shock of fair hair, +horn spectacles, a freckled and turned-up nose, and a wide and +amusing mouth, belonged to Evelyn Ansdell, who had had a room +close to Miss Matfield’s for the last two years, and who was one of +the very few friends she had made at the Burpenfield. She was a +slap-dash, untidy, scatter-brained sort of girl, younger than Miss +Matfield, and though she had all manner of minor faults, she had +the two outstanding virtues of being good-hearted and extremely +entertaining.</p> + +<p>The two girls went down to the dining-room together and were +fortunate enough to get a little table to themselves. There, amid the +chatter and clatter that went with the mutton stew and the prunes +and custard, Miss Ansdell broke the news, in a series of shrieks and +gasps.</p> + +<p>“I’m nearly dead,” she began, impressively. “No, really nearly dead. +I’ve been ringing up parents like mad for the last hour and a half. +Don’t I sound hoarse? Honestly, I’ve been screaming and screaming +down the telephone.”</p> + +<p>There was nothing novel about this. Miss Matfield knew all about +Evelyn’s parents. They were a queer pair, and had been separated +for the last four or five years. Mrs. Ansdell roamed about the country, +sometimes trying her hand at odd things, while Major Ansdell, +no longer in the army but now the representative of some mysterious +imperial organisation, roamed about the whole world, completely +disappearing for months on end. Now and then, each of them +descended upon London and the Burpenfield, and by some odd +chance it frequently happened that their London visits coincided, +<span class="pagenum" id="p182">[182]</span>and then Evelyn had to work desperately hard to make sure that +they did not arrive at the Club together. Evelyn herself, who had +once been sent flying between them like an amused shuttlecock, did +not take sides, except perhaps in certain minor differences, but preserved +an amiable detachment, not unlike that of a good old referee. +Everything was complicated by the fact that all three of them were +rather eccentric. All this was strange to Miss Matfield, whose parents +adored one another in their dull elderly fashion and were, anyhow, +far too sensible and too busy for such alarms and excursions; but the +actual novelty of it had passed. So she merely prepared herself to +listen to yet another instalment of the Ansdell family row saga.</p> + +<p>“It all began with a letter from mother,” Miss Ansdell continued, +excitedly. “It came this afternoon. My dear, the maddest letter. But +the point is, mother’s going to run a shop, selling antiques. I forget +the name of the place, but anyhow she’s actually got the shop and it’s +a marvellous place, all oak beams and bow windows and all that, +and rich motorists stopping every minute. That’s not so crazy as it +sounds, because mother does really know about antiques and old +embroideries and things like that, and could make anybody buy +anything if she wanted to. And she wants me to go and live with +her, and help her in the shop.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Lord!” Miss Matfield groaned. “But you’re not going, are +you? She’s wanted you to go before, hasn’t she?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but this is rather different. Quite different, in fact. It really +would be rather fun helping her in a shop. I’d much rather do that, +swindling the rich motorists, than go on with this secretary rot. +You know how I loathe typing and shorthand. And this time she +wants me very badly—her own little darling girl by her side sort of +thing—you should have seen her letter. So I rang her up—trunk +call, my dear, and I’m absolutely broke—to know all about it, and +honestly it does sound rather marvellous. Lovely shop, nice old town, +lots of nice people, and a car—you have to have a car in this antique +business. I must say—even though I know what mother is—I must +say it sounds rather marvellous.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p183">[183]</span></p> + +<p>“It does,” Miss Matfield admitted, grudgingly.</p> + +<p>“But wait a minute, wait a minute, Mattie, my dear. That isn’t +all the excitement. Oh, no! Before I rang off, mother gave me a +message to father about some money. He’s in town, you know. So +I rang him up and then, after I’d given him the message, I told +him what mother had suggested. Well, you should have heard him. +I thought every minute I should hear him going up in sheets of +flame. Then he was very quiet, and I knew he was going to be +pathetic. He can do it even better than mother. If he really gets +going, I’d agree to anything—while he’s there. And he said he had +a plan he’d had in his mind for months, been thinking about nothing +else, and that he’d have mentioned it before only he thought I was +so happy here at the Burpenfield. He’s going away again very soon +on this Empire rot, and he wants me to go with him as his secretary. +He’s going to America—Montreal and Toronto and those +places—and then on to Australia, and I’d go everywhere with him. +What do you think about that? He said he’d been thinking about +it for ages, but I believe he’d invented the job five minutes before, +just to do mother in the eye. And now they both want an answer +at once. Isn’t it crazy?”</p> + +<p>“Completely mad.” But why did nothing like that ever happen +to her? “What are you going to do?”</p> + +<p>“My dear, I’m going to take <em>one</em> of them. Wouldn’t you? But +which, I don’t know. What do you think?”</p> + +<p>“Let’s get our coffee,” said Miss Matfield. “Then we can talk +about it afterwards.”</p> + +<p>This was a blow. Whether Ansdell went off to Canada and Australia +or joined her mother at the antique shop, she was lost to the +Burpenfield. Another decent and amusing one gone! Something exciting +happening to somebody else, as usual! And Miss Matfield was +so busy feeling sorry for herself that if her advice had really been +demanded over the coffee, she would not have found it easy to give +it. Miss Ansdell, however, like many people who ask to be advised, +apparently only wanted a listener, for she never stopped talking herself +<span class="pagenum" id="p184">[184]</span>and when she put a question, promptly answered it without +giving her friend time to frame a reply.</p> + +<p>When they came up from the dining-room, they saw a tall figure +standing just inside the entrance hall. “I believe it is,” Miss Ansdell +gasped. “Yes, it is. It’s father. Oh, help!”</p> + +<p>And Major Ansdell it was. Miss Matfield had met him, just for +a few minutes, two or three times before. He was still a handsome, +soldierly looking man, though quite elderly, and was immensely +courteous in the Roger de Coverley style to all Evelyn’s friends. But +there was in him an extraordinary theatrical strain. Quite frequently +he behaved as if he were the hero of some old-fashioned melodrama; +and was very emotional, very rhetorical, and absurd. He was quite +capable of talking just as men talk in bad stories in popular magazines, +and Miss Matfield had sometimes wondered whether it was +because he had read a great many bad stories or because the stories +were nearer the truth than one thought and were worked up, on +the fringes of Empire, out of men like Major Ansdell.</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield hung back and saw the Ansdells greet one another +and then go upstairs, obviously to Evelyn’s room. There was no +talking to Major Ansdell in a public room; he was far too fond of +a scene and was not at all shy. Miss Matfield went into the lounge, +to smoke a cigarette, and spent an envious ten minutes glancing +through one of those illustrated weeklies that seem to be produced +simply to glorify that small section of society which works only to +keep itself amused. It showed her photographs of these demigods +and goddesses racing and hunting in the cold places, bathing and +lounging in the warm places, and eating and drinking and swaggering +in places of every temperature. By the time she had finished her +cigarette, Miss Matfield quite understood the temptation to start a +revolution, and told herself that these papers simply asked for one. +Then she too went upstairs to her room.</p> + +<p>She had not been there more than a few minutes when Evelyn +Ansdell burst in, crying: “My dear, mother’s on the phone. Do go +in and talk to father until I come back. If you don’t, he’ll come +<span class="pagenum" id="p185">[185]</span>down and do something absurd. I’ll be as quick as I can.” And off +she went.</p> + +<p>Evelyn’s bedroom seemed almost entirely filled by her father, who +welcomed his daughter’s friend—and Miss Matfield felt herself thrust +into the part of daughter’s friend at once—with his usual grave and +elaborate courtesy. He was, she felt, enjoying himself, and was +probably the only man who ever had enjoyed himself visiting the +Burpenfield. He addressed her as “Miss Mattie,” having heard Evelyn +refer to her as “Mattie,” and Miss Matfield did not feel like +correcting him. This only made everything more absurd. It was like +taking part in a charade.</p> + +<p>“I think you know why I’m here, Miss Mattie,” he began, in deep +vibrating tones. “I want to persuade this little girl of mine to go +overseas with me, to help me with the great work I am doing and +to be by my side.”</p> + +<p>She nodded and made a vague affirmatory noise. It was all she +could do, but then he did not want anything more.</p> + +<p>“A father has his feelings, Miss Mattie. We don’t hear much about +them. He keeps them to himself. He hides them, buries them,” he +continued, with fine emotional effect, clearly enjoying himself. “An +Englishman doesn’t like to make a display of these things. It’s part +of the tradition—the great tradition—of our race. If we suffer, Miss +Mattie, we like to suffer in silence. Isn’t that so? The Britisher—now, +just a moment. I know what you’re going to say.”</p> + +<p>“Do you?”</p> + +<p>“I do. You’re going to say that you don’t like that word +‘Britisher.’”</p> + +<p>“I don’t like it much, I must say,” Miss Matfield confessed.</p> + +<p>“I knew you didn’t. I didn’t at one time. I detested the term. I +wouldn’t have it at all. But my work, my travels up and down the +Empire have taught me better. We must have something that describes +not an Englishman, not a Scotsman, or a Canadian or an +Australian, but simply a subject of the great Empire itself, and the +only word for that is ‘Britisher.’ Don’t resent it, Miss Mattie. It +<span class="pagenum" id="p186">[186]</span>stands for a great ideal. And I say that the Britisher doesn’t wear +his heart on his sleeve. But he feels deeply. He may have his work +to do, taking him away from his home into the loneliest places, and +be glad and proud to do it.” Here the Major made a fine gesture and +came within an ace of wrecking his daughter’s toilet stand. So he +sat down on the edge of the bed, where he looked enormous and +rather like the White Knight in <i>Through the Looking Glass</i>.</p> + +<p>“You’re my little girl’s friend, aren’t you, Miss Mattie?” he asked. +Miss Matfield said she was, and added that she would be very +sorry to lose her.</p> + +<p>“I understand that, I understand that,” and he reached over and +patted her lightly on the shoulder. “She’s a very lovable child, isn’t +she? And you can understand a father’s feelings. I have my work +to do, Miss Mattie, and I have many acquaintances, friends if you +like, in all parts of the world, but fundamentally, at heart, I’m a +lonely man—yes, a lonely man. Evelyn’s my only child, and I want +her companionship, I want her by my side, unless of course I should +be called upon to visit places where one’s womenfolk couldn’t be +taken. If it were a question of our tropical possessions, that would +be different, quite different. I don’t like to see a white woman, especially +a young girl, in such places. They’re for men, for us rough +fellows who like to clean up some backward part of the globe. If +you’ve any influence with her—and I’m sure you have, and a very +good influence too, a steadying influence naturally, being older⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, Major Ansdell,” said Miss Matfield drily. “You make +me sound about fifty. It’s not very complimentary of you.”</p> + +<p>“A thousand apologies, my dear Miss Mattie,” cried the Major +gallantly. “I know very well you’re under thirty, a mere girl, and +a very charming one, I assure you. But Evelyn’s a mere <em>child</em>, you +see, isn’t she?”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield said nothing, but thought that some of the child’s +antics and talk might possibly astonish him.</p> + +<p>“But what I was about to say is this. I want you to use your influence +with my little girl to persuade her to come with her old father +<span class="pagenum" id="p187">[187]</span>and join her life with mine. There’s some ridiculous talk,” he continued +hurriedly and more naturally, “of her joining her mother in +some wild-cat scheme for selling old furniture and broken crockery +and silly knick-knacks down in the country somewhere. You know +the sort of place. Ye oldy antique shoppy! Faked warming pans! +Rubbish! Even if she won’t come with me, I’d fifty times rather see +the child staying here and doing her typewriting than embarking on +such a gim-crack, nonsensical scheme. Trying to sell faked warming +pans to a lot of cads and old women!”</p> + +<p>At this moment the door flew open and Evelyn joined them, +breathless. The little room was completely full now, and Miss Matfield +wanted to escape, to let them talk it out together, but she could +not manage it unless she pushed Evelyn out of the way.</p> + +<p>“I’ve been talking to mother,” Evelyn began.</p> + +<p>The Major jumped up. “Don’t tell me she’s still trying to persuade +you to bury yourself among her fenders and warming pans and go +smirking behind a counter. It’s the most preposterous idea I ever +heard of. It won’t even pay. All good money thrown away.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know about that, father,” Evelyn protested. “Mother +really does know a lot about antiques. I know that. I wouldn’t be +surprised if she didn’t make quite a lot out of it.”</p> + +<p>Neither of them took any notice of Miss Matfield, but nevertheless +she could not very well leave the room until she had a good opportunity +to push past Evelyn.</p> + +<p>“Your mother may or may not know a good deal about antiques,” +said the Major very impressively, “though I seem to remember her +being taken in every day or so by some piece of faked-up rubbish. +But she knows nothing whatever about human nature and has no +head for business. And if you’re going to keep a shop, my child, you +have to know something about human nature and business. Now +I could keep a shop and make a success out of it, if I wanted to, +because I understand people and know how to organise. Your +mother knows no more about organisation than a—a prize rabbit.”</p> + +<p>“Well, listen to me, father, and never mind about that. I’ve been +<span class="pagenum" id="p188">[188]</span>talking it over with mother, and I’ll tell you what I’ve decided to do. +I’m coming with you on this trip—and, by the way, you’ll have to +give me some money for clothes, I haven’t a thing—and then afterwards, +if I don’t like it, I shall try mother’s scheme, if the shop’s +still in existence.”</p> + +<p>“It won’t be. But that doesn’t matter. This is good news, Evelyn. +Just the two of us, side by side⁠——”</p> + +<p>It looked as if a magnificent parental embrace were arriving. Miss +Matfield, murmuring something about letters, slipped out. The Ansdells +were absurd, all three of them, but she could not help envying +Evelyn. Major Ansdell might be ridiculous, but if he had asked <em>her</em> +to go roaming round the Empire with him, she would have accepted +like a shot. As it was, she stayed on in Angel Pavement and at the +Burpenfield, and would soon have lost an amusing Club neighbour +too, almost the only one left with whom she could be friendly and +confidential. Foul.</p> + +<p>The late post had arrived and there were two letters for her. One +was from her mother and was merely the regular hasty bulletin. Dad +was working too hard as usual, looking after everybody for miles +around except himself, and not looking at all well. The Wesleys’ +little girl was down with pneumonia. Those new people, the Milfords, +the elderly people who had taken Rogerson’s old house, had +a son and his wife home from India, quite nice. There was no chance +of her getting up to town this next month but Dad said he might +have to come up and would let her know in good time. And when +did Lilian think she could manage another week-end at home? Oh—and +Mary Fernhill, the quite plain one who went out to South +Africa last year and came back so suddenly, well, she was engaged. +There was nothing very exciting in all that. Just the usual stuff. +Poor mother, poor dad! He did work too hard, and he was beginning +to have a terribly pinched look. That was the trouble about +being a doctor, you never bothered, went on until you dropped. +That was pretty foul too. There didn’t seem to be much good luck +<span class="pagenum" id="p189">[189]</span>going in life, and what there was completely escaped the Matfield +family.</p> + +<p>The other letter was more interesting, and she kept it until she +reached her own room again. It was dated from the Chestervern +Agricultural College:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>Dear Lilian,</i></p> + +<p><i>I have to be in London to-morrow (the 16th) and am wondering +if you would care to spend the evening with me, have +dinner and then go somewhere. It would be a great treat for me. +I’m sorry the notice is so short, but couldn’t help that. Will you +let me know at once—c/o Holborn Palace Hotel—and tell me +what time to call for you if you are free.</i></p> + +<p class="right"> + <i>Yours sincerely,</i><br> + <i>Norman Birtley.</i> +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>So Norman Birtley hadn’t forgotten her existence. She sent a dashing +note to him at his rather ghastly Holborn Palace Hotel, telling +him she was free and could be called for at the Burpenfield at seven +o’clock. And after slipping out to post it, she felt slightly better.</p> + +<p>Ansdell looked in, having disposed of her father, not without first +making him promise her a new outfit. “And we sail in a fortnight, +my dear,” she crowed. “And to-morrow I give those beastly people +the sack, after which I hand out the same to Tatters <em>in person too</em>. +Yes, I am. That will probably close the dear old Burp to me for ever, +and not a bad thing too. Except I shall be very sorry to leave you, +Mattie. I will really. After all, we’ve had some great conferences in +these queer little dens, haven’t we? I’ll have to tell father he must +have two secretaries, and then we’ll both go out, slip away and +marry big brown men from the West and the great open spaces. +What do you say?”</p> + +<p>“I’d love it,” said Miss Matfield, forcing a smile. “I’m terribly +sorry you’re going. They’ll put some awful creature into your room, +either one of the old hot water brigade or some devastatingly bright +<span class="pagenum" id="p190">[190]</span>young person from the lounge set. I suppose it’s nearly time I joined +the hot water school, the kettle fillers⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be absurd. You’re one of the very few people here who are +really alive—and look it. Let’s change the subject. I believe it’s +depressing you. Had any letters?”</p> + +<p>“One from mother, very dull, and one from a man I’ve known +off and on for years. He’s coming up to town to-morrow and wants +me to spend the evening with him, seeing the sights.”</p> + +<p>“A-ha! Is he a big brown man? Do you like him?”</p> + +<p>“He’s not bad,” Miss Matfield replied, indifferently. “A bit feeble. +He’s from my part of the world and used to hang about a lot at one +time, but we haven’t seen much of one another for ages.”</p> + +<p>“I scent a roam-a-ance,” cried Miss Ansdell. “His sweetheart when +a boy. And you have cared all these yee-ars and I never knew⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be an ape. You’re making me feel sick.”</p> + +<p>“But seriously, Mattie. Is he going to ask you to marry him, after +the coffee has been served in a shaded corner?”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield smiled, but thought this over. “He might, you +know,” she admitted, staring into nothing, her eyes growing sombre. +“And if I thought I was doomed to stay in this place much longer, +spending my evenings washing stockings and pattering round with +kettles, I’d marry him next week. But I haven’t the least desire to +marry him. He’s quite decent, but—oh—he’s just rather feeble. Most +young men seem rather feeble, these days. I suppose most of the +other sort were killed in the war. I hate feeble men, don’t you? +I mean, I like a man to have plenty of character, a solid lump of it, +and I don’t even care if it isn’t a terribly good character so long as +there’s plenty of it. There’s a man in my office⁠——”</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean Mr. Dirty—Dersy—what’s it?” Miss Ansdell +asked.</p> + +<p>“No. He’s rather sloppy too. Not a bit amusing. But there’s a man +who’s just come lately, Golspie⁠——”</p> + +<p>“I know. But you said he was awful.”</p> + +<p>“So he is,” Miss Matfield admitted hastily. “I told you about him, +<span class="pagenum" id="p191">[191]</span>didn’t I? I don’t say I like him. He’s rather a brute, and looks it, or +at any rate looks weird. But he has got some character, and could +do something without asking everybody’s permission. That’s all I +meant. Of course, from every other point of view, even poor Norman +Birtley, who really isn’t so bad, is worth fifty of him. Imagine going +out to dinner with Golspie!” And she laughed aloud at the thought.</p> + +<p>They talked of other things, yawned, stared, talked again, more +idly, yawned again, and then went to bed.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_4"> + III +</h3> + +<p>Miss Matfield awoke next morning with a vague feeling that +something pleasant and rather exciting was about to happen. Norman +Birtley. So that was it. She could think of nothing else, and +was rather disappointed, slightly cross with herself, when it all +dwindled to Norman. That showed the sort of existence she led, +these days. There had been a time when Norman Birtley was only +a joke. When he became serious she had brushed him aside. After +that, when he turned into the attentive admirer, popping up at odd +intervals and popping down again wistfully, it is true she had liked +him better. But now, the very thought of an evening with him could +bring her out of sleep in a vague sense of excitement. It was absurd. +It was pathetic. No, it was simply revolting.</p> + +<p>Before she reached the office, she had completely reversed this +judgment. There was nothing revolting about it. Perfectly right and +natural. Norman Birtley was quite decent; he liked her, admired her, +perhaps was in love with her; and she had every right to look forward +to an evening with him, to an evening out with anybody +(except girls from the Club, sharing Pit seats and sandwiches), for +that matter. The 13 bus, grinding away through the slight fog, +agreed with this conclusion, hinted that she was too proud, and +seemed to say that for its part it took all it could get, like the stout-hearted +Cockney it was. There was some fog too in the City, and +it was a raw yellow morning for Angel Pavement. Everybody in +<span class="pagenum" id="p192">[192]</span>the office yawned a good deal and was rather irritable for the first +two hours. It was that sort of morning. The rest of the day was +more comfortable, but dull and slow, lumbering towards five-thirty +like a stupefied elephant. Miss Matfield had not much to do. Mr. +Golspie was out all day, and it was he who usually kept her busy. +Mr. Dersingham, who found himself getting pink and flustered when +Miss Matfield coolly stared at him and waited, with a kind of ironic +resignation, for his next halting sentence, preferred to dictate his +letters, whenever possible, to little Poppy Sellers, in whose eyes, as +he rightly suspected, he was a large fine gentleman. The only amusing +thing that happened in the afternoon was that poor Mr. Smeeth, +returning importantly and fussily from the bank, tried to tell them +a funny story he had heard there and completely failed to bring out +the point. He was rather pathetic, Mr. Smeeth. After that there were +huge blank spaces, during which yellow wisps of fog seemed to creep +into one’s mind. But she was able to get away early and have a +really good Burpenfield bath, tons of hot water, before changing.</p> + +<p>She was quite ready when the message came that Mr. Birtley was +waiting below. In the corridor she ran into Kersey, one of the depressing +old inhabitants who, as usual, was trailing along with a +kettle. She meant well—poor old thing—but she had a horrid trick +of saying things that depressed you at once.</p> + +<p>“Hello, Matfield,” she droned damply. “Going out, are you? +That’s the way. You have to enjoy yourself sometimes, haven’t you? +That’s right, dee-ar.”</p> + +<p>This was Kersey’s usual speech if she saw that you were dressed +to go out. She had another speech ready for you if she saw you were +not dressed. “Not going out to-night, eh, Matfield? No, I thought +not. Well, you can’t expect to go out every night, can you, dee-ar?” +And you left her drooping there, with her kettle, but not before +she had set your spirits drooping too, whether you were staying in +or going out. It was as if the horrible future addressed a few remarks +to you.</p> + +<p>Norman Birtley was waiting in the lounge, looking very tall, very +<span class="pagenum" id="p193">[193]</span>awkward, very uncomfortable. Round the fire was the usual set, +two or three of the bright young ones with Ingleton-Dodd lounging +in the middle of them. Ingleton-Dodd was a large woman, about +forty, with a curious white face, her hair plastered back, severe +mannish clothes, and a bass voice. She seemed to have more money +than anybody else in the Club, and owned quite a good little car, +about which she talked a great deal. She was talking about it, or +about some car, when Miss Matfield walked in.</p> + +<p>“Oh, the man was a complete fool,” she was saying, in that deep +bass voice of hers. “I told him to have a look at the mag. ‘Put the +mag right,’ I told him, ‘and the whole thing will be right. Clean +those points a bit, to start with.’ By this time, he’d taken the mag out +and was staring at it like a stuck pig.”</p> + +<p>“Marvellous!” cried one of the bright children. They all thought +Ingleton-Dodd “the very last word.”</p> + +<p>“‘Oh, give it to me,’ I said, and snatched it out of his hand. Then +I sent for the manager. ‘Look here,’ I said to him, ‘does anybody in +this place know how to time a mag?’ You should have seen his +face.”</p> + +<p>Awful creature! <em>She</em> ought to have seen Norman Birtley’s face. He +was looking at Ingleton-Dodd with fascinated repulsion written +clearly on his simple and expressive features. He greeted Miss Matfield +confusedly, dropping his hat when he shook hands. His hands +were hot and damp, and there was a glint of perspiration on his +pink forehead. He had not changed at all, except that he now wore +rimless eyeglasses and his sandy moustache was a trifle more in evidence. +He was only a year or so older than Miss Matfield and, as +he was far less sophisticated than she was, not at all at home in +London, which he only visited at long intervals, she felt the older of +the two.</p> + +<p>“How are you, Lilian?” he inquired, smiling nervously. “You’re +looking very well.”</p> + +<p>“Am I? I don’t feel it. I’m feeling pretty foul.”</p> + +<p>“You’re not, are you?” He looked at her anxiously. “What’s +<span class="pagenum" id="p194">[194]</span>wrong? You haven’t got anything the matter with you, have you? +Are you seeing a doctor?”</p> + +<p>This obvious concern ought to have pleased her, for it was very +flattering. But these questions, demanding as they did a definite +answer, a disease or two, only irritated her. It was understood at the +Burpenfield that you were nearly always pretty foul, with nothing +exactly wrong with you perhaps, but nevertheless in a fairly permanent +state of being worn out, nerve-racked, tottering on the brink +of something ghastly. Miss Matfield had forgotten that this simple +visitor from the country knew nothing of this convention.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m all right really, I suppose,” she replied, dismissing the +subject. “Shall we go now? Where do you propose to take me, +Norman? Have you any plans?” She moved to the door.</p> + +<p>“Well, I didn’t know exactly what to do. I suppose I ought to have +asked you first, but there wasn’t time. There seems to be a rather +good show on at the Colladium this week, so I got two seats for +that, second house. Do you like music halls?”</p> + +<p>“Not bad. It all depends.”</p> + +<p>“A fellow I was talking to at the hotel said it was a very good +show, so I thought that would be all right. But if you don’t want +to go, I suppose I can get rid of the tickets, can’t I?”</p> + +<p>“No, that will be all right. I’d like to go,” she told him. They +were walking down the hill now, towards Finchley Road.</p> + +<p>“Good. And about dinner,” he continued, struggling laboriously +with his duties as host. “I thought we might go to a place in Soho. +Old Warwick—he’s our principal at the Chestervern Agricultural, +and he’s been here a good deal—told me there was a good little +place, one of those French or Italian places, you know, a bit bohemian +but very good cooking—I’ve got the name and address in +my book and I’ll find it in a minute. Anyhow, I thought, if you +didn’t mind, we might go there.”</p> + +<p>“All right,” she replied, not very enthusiastically. Some of those +little Soho places were rather foul, and old Warwick of the Chestervern +Agricultural might not be a very good judge. “Let’s go there, +<span class="pagenum" id="p195">[195]</span>and you can dig out the name and address on the way. We’ll hurry +and catch a bus.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, will a bus be all right?” he cried, obviously relieved. “I +thought perhaps we might have to take a taxi.”</p> + +<p>“No, a bus will do,” she told him. A taxi, though, would have done +a great deal better. She loved riding in taxis. Perhaps—who knows?—if +Mr. Birtley had insisted upon their having a taxi, the whole +evening might have been different.</p> + +<p>Once again she went jogging down the long hill, past the sudden +sparkle of Swiss Cottage, the genteel gloom of St. John’s Wood, and +a Baker Street that was now like a series of captivating peepshows. +They did not talk much inside the bus, which was full and uncommonly +noisy, but he shouted a few questions about the Club and +Ingleton-Dodd (whom he regarded with horror) and the office and +her father and mother, and she screamed fairly adequate if brief +replies. Her spirits rose when they actually arrived in Soho, for +though she had some mournful memories of its <i>table d’hôte</i> and had +been in London long enough to be sceptical about its romantic bohemianism, +she could not resist the place itself, the glimpses of +foreign interiors, the windows filled with outlandish foodstuffs, +chianti flasks, and bundles of long cheroots, the happy foolish little +decorations, the strange speech, the dark faces, the girls leaning out +of the first-floor windows. It was quite a long time since she had +last walked along Old Compton Street. It made her sigh for an adventure. +Meanwhile, that very evening took on a faint colouring of +adventure while they were still searching for old Warwick’s restaurant, +though, with all the good will in the world, she could not +transform Norman Birtley, fresh from the Chestervern Agricultural +College, into a romantic and adventurous companion.</p> + +<p>At last, they found old Warwick’s restaurant. It might have been +French or Italian or even Spanish or Hungarian; there was no telling; +but it was determinedly foreign in a de-nationalised fashion, +rather as if the League of Nations had invented it. No sooner was +Norman’s hand on the door than a very fierce-looking, moustachioed, +<span class="pagenum" id="p196">[196]</span>square-jawed Latin flung it open very quickly and with a great +flourish, so that they were almost sucked in. The place was very +small, rather warm, and smelt of oil. The lights were shaded with +coloured crinkly paper. There were only four other people there, +two oldish tired girls masticating rather hopelessly in the far corner, +and a queer middle-aged couple sitting almost in the window. The +fierce Latin swept them across to a tiny table, thrust menus into +their hands, rubbed his hands, changed all the cutlery round and +then put it all back again, rubbed his hands once more and then +suddenly lost all interest in them, as if his business was simply to +drag people in and then, having got them seated, to create a momentary +illusion of brisk service before they had time to change their +minds.</p> + +<p>“You can have the whole dinner for three and sixpence,” said +Norman, looking up from his menu. “Wonderful how they do it in +these places, isn’t it? I mean to say, what would you get in an English +restaurant for that? Nothing worth eating, I’ll bet. But these +foreigners can do it. Of course, it’s their job. They know how to cook. +Shall we have the dinner?”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield thought that they might, and looked about her, not +very hopefully, while Norman gave the order to a waitress, a very +tall fat girl with a chalky face and no features, who had just appeared. +The queer middle-aged couple looked queerer still now, for +the man appeared to be dyed and the woman enamelled and it was +incredible that they should ever eat food at all. You felt they ought +to feed on wood and paint.</p> + +<p>Having given the order, Mr. Birtley was now looking about him +too, and when he had finished doing this and had obviously noted +the more picturesque details for the benefit of the other members of +the staff of the Chestervern Agricultural College, he beamed at her +through his rimless eyeglasses. “Nothing I enjoy better than studying +these queer types,” he whispered. “A place like this is a treat to me, +if only for that reason. Old Warwick told me I’d enjoy that part of +it. He’s had some very funny experiences in his time. I must try to +<span class="pagenum" id="p197">[197]</span>remember some of the yarns he’s told me, once or twice when I’ve +been sitting up with him over a pipe at the Chestervern.”</p> + +<p>While Miss Matfield was asking idly what sort of man Mr. Warwick +was and Norman was telling her, the waitress had brought +them the two halves of a grapefruit, the juice of which had apparently +been used some time before. They had not finished with +old Warwick, who seemed to Miss Matfield a silly old man, when +the waitress returned to give them some mysterious thick soup, +which looked like gum but had a rather less pronounced flavour.</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield tried three spoonfuls and then looked with horror +at her plate. Something was there, something small, dark, squashed. +There were legs. She pushed the plate away.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter, Lilian? Don’t you like the soup?”</p> + +<p>She pointed with her spoon at the alien body.</p> + +<p>Mr. Birtley leaned across and peered at it through his glasses. “No, +by George, it isn’t, is it? Is it really? Oh, I say, that’s not good +enough, is it? That’s the worst of these foreigners. Do you think +I ought to tell them about it?”</p> + +<p>“If you don’t, I will,” said Miss Matfield indignantly. “Absolutely +revolting!”</p> + +<p>But there was nobody to tell. Even the fierce Latin had disappeared. +It seemed as if when soup was served, the whole staff hid +in the kitchen. Miss Matfield was sure now that her first instinctive +disapproval had been right, as usual. This was a foul little place. +Unfortunately, she was really hungry, having had a very small lunch.</p> + +<p>The next member of the staff they did see obviously could not be +blamed for the soup, for he was the wine waiter, an ancient gloomy +foreigner. He padded across to Mr. Birtley, who was trying not very +successfully to explain a very funny thing that had happened last +term at the College, held out a wine list decorated with dirty thumb +marks, and waited apathetically.</p> + +<p>“A-ha!” cried Mr. Birtley jovially. “Let’s have something to drink, +shall we? Do you think we could manage a whole bottle? I think +<span class="pagenum" id="p198">[198]</span>we could. Yes, let’s have a whole bottle. Now then, what is there? +Will you have red or white wine, Lilian? It’s all the same to me.”</p> + +<p>“I’d like red, I think,” she replied. “Burgundy perhaps.” It was +more sustaining. After all, with bread and butter and some burgundy, +it might be possible to stun one’s appetite. She had no hopes +of the dinner.</p> + +<p>“Burgundy it is,” cried Mr. Birtley, with the air of a reckless +musketeer. “All right, then. A bottle of Number Eleven. Beaune.”</p> + +<p>“You geef me moanay,” murmured the ancient foreigner.</p> + +<p>“Righto. Money. There you are.” And then he gave Miss Matfield +a wink and smiled at her. She smiled back, softening towards him +a little, for he was so obviously enjoying himself and thinking it all +so wonderful. Poor Norman!</p> + +<p>“You ought to come and see us at the College next time you’re +home, Lilian,” he said. “You’d like it. We’ve got one or two amusing +fellows on the staff, and the students aren’t a bad crowd. We have +little dances sometimes, and tennis in the summer. It’s growing too. +In a year or two, if I can scrape up some money, I may get a partnership. +Not bad, eh? The fact is,” and he lowered his voice, as if to +keep these confidences away from the waitress, who had just deposited +some microscopic pieces of fish in front of them and was still +standing near, as if to see if they would have the audacity to eat +them, “the fact is, I can get on better with old Warwick than any +of the other fellows. He’s taken rather a fancy to me, thinks I’ve got +more drive than the others. And as a matter of fact,” he added, +looking earnestly at her, “I have. And I wish you’d come and look +me up down there.”</p> + +<p>She said she would, if she could manage it, and then explained, +while the ancient foreigner poured out the wine, how difficult it was +to do all one wanted to do, what with one thing and another, and +then, fortified by the burgundy and determined to drive old Warwick +out of the conversation for a time, she went on to tell him +more about the office and the Club. He listened attentively, though +with just the faintest suggestion of patronage. Obviously he thought +<span class="pagenum" id="p199">[199]</span>a good deal more of himself these days, now that he had made such +a hit with his old Warwick of the Chestervern Agricultural. But +then all men were alike in that: they all thought they were marvellous. +However, she could tell from the way he looked at her that +he still thought she was marvellous too, which was very pleasant. +She could feel herself getting steadily better looking and more +attractive.</p> + +<p>This could not be said about the dinner. The chicken was not +marvellous, was not even pleasant. Like many other places in Soho, +this restaurant evidently had a contract that compelled it to accept +only those parts of a chicken that could not be called breast, wing, +or leg. It specialised in chicken skin. The salad could be eaten, but +its green stuff seemed to have been grown in some London back +garden behind a sooty privet hedge. The sweet was composed of +a very small ice, the paper in which it had been delivered from the +van at the back door, and some coloured water that might have been +part of the ice two hours before. That was the dinner, a miserable +affair. Even Norman seemed to have a suspicion that it had not been +very good, but he did not apologise for it, perhaps out of loyalty to +old Warwick. Miss Matfield, in despair, had had two full glasses of +the burgundy, a raw and potent concoction, which had produced at +once a rather muzzy effect in her mind so that everything seemed +a little larger and noisier than usual. Once, just before the coffee, she +had found herself wanting to giggle at the thought of Norman +taking his sandy moustache back to Chestervern and old Warwick. +The coffee, black and bitter, stopped all that nonsense. They smoked +a cigarette together over it, and Norman, with tiny beads of perspiration +on his ruddy forehead and his glasses slightly misty, talked +about old times and smiled sentimentally across the cruet at her.</p> + +<p>It was time to be gone. The Latin suddenly decided to notice their +existence again, brought the bill, accepted money, proffered change, +swept away the tip, and then apparently threw them both into the +street, where the air seemed at once remarkably pure and unusually +cold. They arrived at the Colladium just at the right moment, a few +<span class="pagenum" id="p200">[200]</span>minutes after the doors had been opened for the second house. The +place was, as usual, besieged by a mob of pleasure seekers who all +looked like demons in the red glare of the lights at the entrance. +Norman led the way, a little uncertainly, and they went swarming +down thick-carpeted corridors.</p> + +<p>“Didn’t that man say ‘Round to the left and up the stairs’?” Miss +Matfield asked. She had a slight headache now. Those peculiar red +lights outside the Colladium look exactly like a headache, and perhaps +they had inspired the burgundy. “I’m sure he did, you know.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t hear him,” replied Norman, not too amiably. He was +somewhat fussed. “Talking to somebody else, p’raps.”</p> + +<p>Feeling a little dubious, she followed him down the gangway on +the ground floor of the auditorium, which looked as if it were recovering +from a fire, there was so much smoke about. There were +programme girls showing people to their seats, but you had to wait +your turn and Norman, anxious to secure his two beautiful seats, +would not wait his turn. He marched on, glancing at his tickets and +the lettered rows of stalls, then finally found the row he wanted, +and they pushed past a few people, sought and found the right +numbers, and sank into their seats.</p> + +<p>“This is all right, isn’t it?” said Norman, after breathing a sigh +of relief. “Jolly good seats, eh?” He looked round triumphantly. +More lights were being turned on; the orchestra was beginning to +tune up again; and the place was filling rapidly. Miss Matfield’s +headache retreated, dwindled to an occasional twinge.</p> + +<p>“What about a programme?” said Norman, and began to make +vague, fussy, ineffectual signs.</p> + +<p>Then two large determined men, coarse-looking fellows with +heavy jowls and cigars stuck in the corners of their insensitive +mouths, came pushing down the row. They stopped when they came +to Mr. Birtley and Miss Matfield. “Here, I say,” the first one called +back to the programme girl, after looking at his ticket, “is this the +right row?” Apparently it was, for now he turned his attention to +Norman.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p201">[201]</span></p> + +<p>“I think you’re sitting in the wrong seats, my friend,” he said, not +unpleasantly.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think so,” replied Norman, rather sharply. He brought +out his own tickets and gave them a reassuring glance.</p> + +<p>“Well, I do,” said the other. He had a loud voice, the kind of +voice that attracts attention. “Row F, fourteen and fifteen. Isn’t that +right? Well, those are my seats, bought and paid for. Ask the girl. +She sent us here.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t see that,” said Norman stiffly. “Mine are Row F, fourteen +and fifteen. And we were here first. They must have made a mistake +at the box office.”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield had risen from her seat. People were looking round +at them. If there was anything she hated, it was this stupid sort +of scene.</p> + +<p>The second large determined man, who had nothing like the +amount of room to stand in his bulk demanded and deserved, now +made a number of impatient noises. These noises goaded his friend +into more direct action.</p> + +<p>“Here, come on,” he said roughly, “let’s have a look at your +tickets. Here are mine. Now let’s have a look at yours.” He almost +snatched them out of Norman’s hand. The instant he saw them, +he cried triumphantly: “There y’are. Balcony Stalls, <em>Bal-cony</em> Stalls. +These aren’t Balcony Stalls. Cor!—you’re in the wrong part of the +theatre, boy, in the wrong part of the theatre.”</p> + +<p>“Wouldjer believe it!” cried the second man contemptuously.</p> + +<p>“Cor! Up there you want to be, right up there, boy.”</p> + +<p>“Sorry. I didn’t know.” Poor Norman was very flustered now. Miss +Matfield might have been sorry for him, but she wasn’t. She was +furious. Even after they had left the seats and were pushing their +way back to the gangway, the two brutes were still talking about it +and laughing and making contemptuous noises. Then as she arrived, +scarlet, in the gangway, she ran into a little party of three that was +waiting to be shown to its place. The first was a tall man with a +bristling moustache, obviously a foreigner; the second was a youngish +<span class="pagenum" id="p202">[202]</span>girl, very smart and pretty; and the third, who was still interviewing +the girl with the chocolates was—yes, no other—Mr. Golspie, rather +flushed, very jovial. There was some congestion in this part of the +gangway; they had to stop; and he looked up and saw her.</p> + +<p>“Evening, Miss Matfield,” he said, grinning at her in his usual +fashion. “So this is where we come, is it?”</p> + +<p>She stammered something.</p> + +<p>“Had a good day at the office? You’ll see me there to-morrow. +Half a minute, Lena. Well, Miss Matfield, see you enjoy yourself. +Here, take one of these.”</p> + +<p>She found one of the boxes of chocolates in her hand. Before she +could do anything or even say anything, he had given her another +of his vast grins and had turned away. As she followed Norman up +the gangway, most of the lights were lowered and the overture +blared out. Their seats were in the first tier and by the time they +found them, the curtain had risen and the stage was occupied by +three very grave young men who were busy throwing one another +about.</p> + +<p>“That was a bit of a mix-up, wasn’t it?” said Norman, when they +had settled themselves. “But it wasn’t really my fault. They should +give their seats proper names. I’ve never heard of stalls being up +here.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you might have asked. I told you what that man said.”</p> + +<p>“By George, so you did. Sorry! But, I say, who was that rum +looking chap you were talking to down there?”</p> + +<p>“He’s a man who’s just joined the firm I’m working with. I do +his letters.”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t he give you that box of chocolates?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, he did. As a matter of fact, he just shoved it into my hand.”</p> + +<p>“Funny thing to do,” Norman continued, half resentfully. “What +did he want to do that for?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. You’d better ask him.” She stared at the three +young men, who were now climbing on to piles of chairs and tables +in order to throw one another a greater distance.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p203">[203]</span></p> + +<p>“I must say I didn’t like the look of him very much.”</p> + +<p>“That’s sad, isn’t it, Norman?” replied Miss Matfield. “Hadn’t +you better call at the office to-morrow morning and tell him so? +What had I better do? Get another job?”</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean to tell me you like that chap?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know whether I do or not,” she told him, with perfect +truth. But her voice betrayed irritation. “It doesn’t matter, anyhow. +I’ll admit, though,” she added, more amiably, “that he does look +a bit weird. But he’s rather amusing. Have one of his chocolates, +seeing that they’re here, and don’t talk so much.”</p> + +<p>The subject was dropped and when they talked again, as they did +at odd moments throughout the performance, Mr. Golspie was not +mentioned. The show itself was neither better nor worse than the +others she had seen there. She liked the white-faced clown with the +squeaky voice who nearly fell into the orchestra pit, and the two +men who got involved in the most passionate argument all about +nothing, and the Spanish dancers, and the wildly ridiculous schoolmaster. +On the other hand, she did not like the American cross-talking +and dancing pair, or the two girls who sang at the piano or +the various acrobats and trick cyclists. Norman, who soon recovered +from the ticket scene and settled down to enjoy himself, to like as +much as he could of the show and to patronise the rest, was rather +more human than he had been during the misery of dinner. Old +Warwick was banished at last, and the dull shade of Chestervern +never fell on the talk.</p> + +<p>When they came out of the Colladium into the astonishing sanity +of the night, and Norman not only suggested a taxi but actually +found one, she felt she was beginning to feel friendly towards him +again. And if he had said, “You know, Lilian, I <em>am</em> rather feeble +and a bit of an ass, and I know you’re marvellous and far above my +style, but I’ve been in love with you a jolly long time and still am, +honestly I am, worse than ever in fact, so will you marry me? I’m +not doing anything very wonderful, I know, and you might easily +find it dull at first down at Chestervern, but we’d have some fun +<span class="pagenum" id="p204">[204]</span>and things would get better all the time”; if he had said something +like that, in the proper tone of voice—rather wistful—and with a +dumbly devoted look in his eyes, she felt there was no telling what +she might reply. She could just see herself marrying him.</p> + +<p>But he made no such speech, and was clearly not in that dumbly +devoted mood at all. All the way home, he was vaguely sentimental—what +fun they’d had in the old tennis club days and what good +pals they’d been!—and was timidly amorous, like some faint-hearted +Don Juan taking one home after a dance. Unluckily, Miss Matfield +was not sentimental, at least not on conventional or Christmas card +lines, and she heartily despised and disliked the timidly amorous +male, who could not let one alone but had not passion enough, or +courage, to make him risk a sound snubbing. He would slip an +arm round her waist and she would tell him to take it away because +it was uncomfortable, as indeed it was. And then he would say, “Ah, +Lilian, you’re not very kind to me,” in a ridiculous mooing voice, +like a farm hand trying to ape the artful philanderer. It was all +terribly irritating. When at last, as the taxi began grinding up the +last hilly half mile, she was so tired of this that she actually asked +him questions about his prospects at Chestervern, dropping into the +part of the cool interested woman friend with a sound business head, +he turned rather sulky and answered her in a poor half-hearted +fashion.</p> + +<p>“I suppose I can get a bus back?” he said as they stood at the +entrance to the Burpenfield and the taxi departed.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, of course. Just at the bottom there, on the Finchley Road. +They run until after twelve, and they’re much quicker at this time +of night, too. You’re going back to-morrow, aren’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, on the 10.20. I suppose I’d better be getting along now. +Rather cold standing here, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Well, Norman,” she said, trying to look bright and friendly and +not ungrateful, “it’s been nice seeing you again. And thanks awfully +for the dinner and everything. I adored that clown with the chairs, +didn’t you? Good-bye.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p205">[205]</span></p> + +<p>He shook hands. “Good-bye. I’m glad you liked it,” he muttered. +“Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>She stood in the entrance a minute or two after he had gone, +fumbling for her key, and suddenly from that great ocean of deep +depression which she always felt was not far away, rose in the dark +a great breaker and swept her away. She could have cried. It was not +Norman Birtley—he was a feeble fool who was rapidly getting worse—but +the endless cheating of life itself that frightened her and stifled +her. She was Lilian Matfield, Lilian Matfield, the same that had gone +playing and laughing and singing and looking forward to everything +only a few years ago, no different now except a little older and more +sensible, and yet she felt, obscurely, darkly, that somehow she was +being conjured into somebody miserably different, somebody stiff +and faded and dull.</p> + +<p>Another girl came up. Miss Matfield steadied herself, found her +key, and walked in. Isabel Cadnam was just coming out of the +lounge, and they met.</p> + +<p>“Hello, Matfield. Been on the razzle? Look here, I hope you didn’t +want that shawl I borrowed. I didn’t get in last night until the crack +of dawn, and then I was in such a hurry this morning, I forgot +about it.”</p> + +<p>“No, it didn’t matter, thanks, Caddie. I’m going up. I’m tired.”</p> + +<p>“So am I. Had a good night. That show that Ivor took me to +last night was rather a wash-out, I must say. The most ghastly +people, and millions of them. And Ivor wanted to join in with +some of the ghastliest, and I didn’t, of course, and that started it all +over again. Another row, my dear. Isn’t it foul?”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield said dispiritedly that it was.</p> + +<p>“What did you do to-night, Matfield? Anything thrilling?”</p> + +<p>“Not very. Rather dull, in fact. I’ve got a headache. I think I’ve +eaten too many chocolates. I’ll try some aspirin.”</p> + +<p>“Nothing like it,” said Miss Cadnam. “Look here, I’ll fetch your +shawl and bring it round, and then, if you have any to spare, I’ll +borrow a couple of aspirins. If I don’t take <em>something</em>, I’ll never get +<span class="pagenum" id="p206">[206]</span>a wink of sleep all night. It’s always the same after I’ve had a row +with Ivor. I begin <em>arguing</em> with him the minute I get to bed, and +then I go on and on all night until I think my head’s going to burst. +Isn’t it foul?”</p> + +<p>“Completely,” said Miss Matfield, opening her door. “All right, +then. Hurry up with the shawl and I’ll get you the aspirin.” She +closed the door behind her.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_4"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>It was rather queer seeing Mr. Golspie again, in the grey light of +Angel Pavement, after that strange meeting at the Colladium. It was +rather like seeing someone you had just met in a vivid dream. +She did some letters for him the next morning, and when he had +finished them, he dropped his impersonal stare and tone of voice, +grinned at her, and said: “Enjoy the show last night?”</p> + +<p>“Not very much,” she told him. “Did you?”</p> + +<p>“No, I didn’t,” he boomed. “Dead as mutton. Not a patch on the +old halls. They call it Variety now, but that’s about all the variety +you get. All the same, isn’t it? I keep trying it, but it’s poor stuff. +That girl of mine likes to go. She enjoys it all right. Did you see +her last night? She was there with me.”</p> + +<p>“I wondered if it was your daughter. She’s awfully pretty, isn’t +she?”</p> + +<p>“Think so?” He was pleased at this. “Well, she’s pretty enough, +and knows it, the little monkey. Was that the young man, the one +I saw you with?”</p> + +<p>He really had some ghastly expressions. The young man! “Good +Lord, no!” she cried. “He was just an old friend who comes from +my part of the world. Shall I bring these letters in to sign as soon +as I’ve done them?”</p> + +<p>“I’d like them as soon as possible, Miss Matfield. I want to be off +before lunch. I’ve got several members of the Chosen Race to see +this afternoon.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p207">[207]</span></p> + +<p>That was all. The awful “young man” question was, of course, in +his favourite vein, but apart from that, he was much quieter and +pleasanter than usual in this little talk. For once he had dropped +the jeering and leering style that made her feel so uncomfortable. +He was friendlier. And she had never thanked him for the chocolates. +She would have to do that when she went back with the letters.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mr. Golspie,” she cried, when he had finished signing the +letters, “I forgot to thank you for the lovely box of chocolates. I don’t +know why you gave them to me—so suddenly, like that⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Just to celebrate the little meeting, that’s all,” he replied, waving +a hand. “‘Here’s our Miss Matfield,’ I thought, ‘looking a bit uncomfortable +because her young man’s landed in the wrong seats.’”</p> + +<p>“Oh, did you notice that? It was a stupid business.”</p> + +<p>“Bit of a box-up, certainly,” he said, grinning at her. “Yes, I saw +you all right. You looked very annoyed, too. Anyhow, I thought +something ought to be done about it.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it was very nice of you,” she said, though she was not altogether +pleased at the turn the conversation had taken.</p> + +<p>“Ah, but I’m a very nice man,” he assured her, looking very +solemn for a moment. Then he produced a short disconcerting +guffaw, and waved his hand again. She turned away. “And another +thing,” he called out. She stopped. “You never catch me getting into +the wrong seats, you try me sometime, Miss Matfield, you just try +me. You’d be surprised.” He chuckled a little as she went out. This +time she felt hot and uncomfortable again, and felt ready to dislike +him just as much as she had done when he first came. It was odd +how uncomfortable he could make her feel. After all, she had worked +for unpleasant men before to-day. But this was rather different.</p> + +<p>Messrs. Twigg & Dersingham were now busy making what Mr. +Dersingham, who was beginning to wear a look of great self-importance, +called a “big drive.” He and Mr. Golspie and the two +travellers were visiting as many firms as they could, showing the +new stuff that Mr. Golspie had introduced and piling up the orders. +Apparently, it was important that as many orders as possible should +<span class="pagenum" id="p208">[208]</span>be obtained during this little period, for some reason that was not +made plain to the office staff, and perhaps was not plain to anybody +but Mr. Golspie. It meant a great deal of work for everybody. Miss +Matfield was kept at her machine nearly all day making out lists, +invoices, and advices. It was not difficult work but it was rather +close work and very dreary, and it left her fagged and feeling quite +unfit to plan some amusement for herself. There were plenty of +mildly amusing things that could be done with a little planning, but +she was too tired to bother, like so many of the girls at the Club. +Going anywhere, even if it was only attending a concert or doing +a theatre, always meant so much fuss and arranging that she let it +all slide, not excepting the week-end. If somebody had come along +with a cut and dried plan for doing something entertaining, that +would have been quite different, indeed heavenly; but nobody did. +She spent a good deal of her time at the Club listening to Evelyn +Ansdell, who was in the thick of her preparations for the Empire +tour with the Major and talked at great length about every single +thing she had to buy. Evelyn was quite amusing about it, of course, +but it was distinctly depressing to think that very soon she would +be gone, probably for ever. On the Sunday they both went round +to have tea with Major Ansdell who was quite absurd and provided +them with an enormous sticky tea—bless him!—but it was really all +rather sad. And on Monday and Tuesday there was quite a frantic +bustle at the office. Mr. Smeeth turned himself into a faintly apologetic +slave-driver, and Mr. Dersingham ran in and out like a large +pink fox terrier.</p> + +<p>The next morning they learned the reason for all this fuss. Mr. +Smeeth, after visiting the private office, came back looking rather +important, and said, “Mr. Golspie’s leaving us to-day.”</p> + +<p>Every one of them looked surprised, and three of them, Miss Matfield, +Turgis, and Stanley, looked either startled or disappointed.</p> + +<p>“He’s not going for good, is he, Mr. Smeeth?” asked Turgis, before +anyone else could speak.</p> + +<p>He had spoken for Miss Matfield, who felt, she did not know why, +<span class="pagenum" id="p209">[209]</span>the most acute anxiety. For some strange reason, which had certainly +nothing to do with business, for at heart she did not care a rap +whether Twigg & Dersingham sold all the veneers and inlays in +England or drifted into bankruptcy, she hated the thought of Mr. +Golspie leaving them. At one stroke it flattened the whole life of +Angel Pavement.</p> + +<p>“He’s not going for good, I’m glad to say,” Mr. Smeeth replied, +enjoying their suspense. “He’s only going back for a short visit, on +our business, to the place he came from, up there in the Baltic. I +don’t know how long he’ll be away. He doesn’t know exactly himself +yet. But he’s sailing this afternoon, going the whole way by boat on +the Anglo-Baltic. And,” here Mr. Smeeth glanced out of the window +at the raw damp morning, “I don’t envy him. It’ll be a cold job +crossing the North Sea, this weather. I remember I once had a sail +on a boat at Yarmouth one Easter, not very far out, y’know, but—my +word!—it was perishing. I was glad to get back. Well, what’s it +going to be like right in the middle, this time of year. I wouldn’t be +paid, wouldn’t be paid, to do it.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll bet he doesn’t care,” said Stanley boastfully. Mr. Golspie was +still one of Stanley’s heroes—though nobody could discover why, +except that he looked rather like a detective—and Stanley had no half +measures in the heroic. “I’ll bet he likes it. I would. I wish he’d take +me with him. I wouldn’t go. Oh no, oh no! Wouldn’t I just!”</p> + +<p>“You get on with your work, Stanley,” said Mr. Smeeth mechanically. +“We all know what you’d do and what you wouldn’t do. +Well, he’s sailing this afternoon, all the way to the Baltic Sea, and, +as I say, I don’t envy him.” And Mr. Smeeth returned, well content, +to his cosy desk and his neat little rows of figures.</p> + +<p>Half an hour afterwards, Mr. Golspie, wearing an enormous +ulster, looked in on them. “You won’t see me for a week or two,” +he announced cheerfully. “Keep it going. Shoulders to the wheel! +Full steam ahead, as people say—though why they say it, God only +knows, because nobody in a ship ever said it—doesn’t mean anything. +Make ’em all pay up, Smeeth. Keep your eye on that cut rate with +<span class="pagenum" id="p210">[210]</span>the Anglo-Baltic, Turgis. Just remember me in your prayers, you +girls, if you do pray. Do you pray, Miss Matfield? Never mind, tell +me another time. And, Stanley⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” said Stanley, springing to attention.</p> + +<p>“Run down and get me a taxi, sharp as you can. Good-bye, everybody.”</p> + +<p>When they had all said good-bye, too, and he had gone and they +had heard the outer door slam behind him, in the sudden quiet that +followed, the whole office had appeared to shrink and darken a little. +Miss Matfield, aware of this, resented it, and, compressing her lips, +threw herself into what work she had on hand with a sort of grey +determination, never looking up and only speaking when compelled +to answer a question. By lunch time she felt so discontented that, +instead of spending the usual ninepence or so at the little teashop +not far away, she went further afield, to a superior place just off +Cannon Street, and had cutlet and peas, apple tart and cream, and +a cup of coffee, paying her half-crown manfully. After that she was +more cheerful and more honest. She had been depressed because +though all kinds of things seemed to be happening to other people, +nothing was happening to her. It was hard luck losing Evelyn Ansdell. +It was hard luck losing Mr. Golspie, if only for a week or two. +She could not say yet whether she really liked the man, but at least +he made Angel Pavement more amusing. It would be terribly flat +now without him. Everything, it seemed, was sinking into dullness. +Well, she must make an effort and think of something amusing to +do. When she returned to the office, quarter of an hour late, as usual, +she was cheerful and comparatively friendly with everybody.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the little gods who look after these minor affairs decided +that she must be encouraged, for at once they found something +amusing for her to do. Shortly after three, Mr. Smeeth took a telephone +message and then called Miss Matfield to him.</p> + +<p>“That was Mr. Golspie, Miss Matfield,” he began, in his pleasantly +fussy and important way. “He says they’re sailing later than he +thought, about five or so, and he wants you to go down to the ship +<span class="pagenum" id="p211">[211]</span>and take down a few important letters he’s just remembered about. +And you’ve also got to take that sample book—it’s in the private +office—he forgot it. I haven’t got Mr. Dersingham’s permission for +you to go, and I can’t get it, because he’s out, but of course it’s all +right. I accept all responsibility. You don’t mind going, do you?”</p> + +<p>“I’d love it,” cried Miss Matfield. “But where exactly do I go?” +Mr. Smeeth adjusted his eyeglasses and then examined the slip of +paper he had been carrying. “You go to Hay’s Wharf, that’s on the +south side of the river between London Bridge and the Tower +Bridge, you go over London Bridge and turn straight to the left to +get there. And the ship’s the <i>L-e-m-m-a-l-a, Lemmala</i>. Can you remember +that, Miss Matfield? And he says, ‘Take a taxi,’ so I’d better +give you half a crown out of the petty cash for that—I’ll have to put +it down as travelling expenses. Now you get your notebook and +pencil and your things on, and I’ll get that sample book out of the +private office for you. It’ll be a little jaunt for you, something out +of the common, won’t it? Stanley’d give his ears to go, wouldn’t you, +Stanley? Oh, he’s not there. Where is that lad?”</p> + +<p>Yes, it was a little jaunt for her. It was great fun. First, Moorgate +Street, the Bank, then King William Street, went rattling past the +taxi window; then came London Bridge, with leaden gleams of the +river far below on either side; then a slow progress along a narrow +street on the other side, a turn to the left up a street still narrower, +a mere passage, at the end of which the taxi had to stop altogether. +She dodged up another dark lane, asked a pleasant large policeman +if she was going the right way, and finally found herself at the +water’s edge, where men were busy loading and running about with +papers and shouting to one another. There, about fifty yards further +down, was the <i>Lemmala</i>, a steamship with one tall thin funnel, not +very large and rather dingy but nevertheless a fine romantic sight. +A flag she had never seen before drooped from its little mast. As +she drew nearer, she heard some of the men shouting down from +the deck, and they were speaking in a language she had never heard +before, a tremendously foreign language. Up to that moment, business +<span class="pagenum" id="p212">[212]</span>had been for her an affair of clerks and desks and telephones +and stupid letters that always began and ended in the same dull way, +but now, in a flash, she suddenly realised that it was all very romantic. +It was as if Mr. Dersingham had stalked into the office in +Elizabethan costume. The wood they sold in Angel Pavement came +in boats like this, indeed in this very ship, and at the other end, +where the veneers began, there was quite a different sort of life +going on, huge forests, thick snow and frosts all winter, wolves on +the prowl, bearded men wearing high boots, women in strange bright +shawls, scenes out of the Russian Ballet. Miss Matfield, like most +members of the English middle classes, was incurably romantic at +heart, and now she was genuinely thrilled, and could hardly have +been more astonished and delighted if a few nightingales had suddenly +burst into song in one of the dark archways. London was +really marvellous, and the wonder of it rushed up in her mind and +burst there like a rocket, scattering a multi-coloured host of vague +but rich associations, a glittering jumble of history and nonsense and +poetry, Dick Whittington and galleons, Muscovy and Cathay, East +Indiamen, the doldrums far away, and the Pool of London, lapping +here only a stone’s throw from the shops and offices and buses.</p> + +<p>She had arrived now at the foot of a gangway that came down +steeply from the rusty side of the <i>Lemmala</i>. She looked up, hesitating. +Somebody was calling. It was Mr. Golspie above, and he was +waving her up. When she reached the head of the gangway he was +there, waiting for her.</p> + +<p>“We’ve a couple of hours at least before she moves,” he explained, +piloting her along the deck, then up a short flight of stairs to the +deck above, “but I shan’t keep you so long, y’know. Awkward if +she moved off and you were still aboard, eh? Have to take a trip +then, eh?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know that I’d mind very much,” she told him, looking +about her on the upper deck. “It would be rather amusing.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you wouldn’t have a bad time at all, so long as you weren’t +<span class="pagenum" id="p213">[213]</span>seasick. These fellows here would make a great fuss of you, I can +tell you.”</p> + +<p>“Well, that would be rather a nice change.”</p> + +<p>“Would it now?” He grinned. “Well, we won’t kidnap you this +time. We’ll go in here.” And he led the way into a little saloon, quite +neat and cheerful. On the table, which was covered with a hideously +bright cloth, were some cigars, a mysterious tall bottle of a shape she +had never seen before, and several small glasses. Some newspapers +and illustrated papers, printed in fantastic characters, were scattered +about, and these helped more than anything else, unless it was the +tall bottle, to make it all seem very foreign. Yet through the windows +at each side she could see the roofs and spires, the familiar +smoky mass, of London.</p> + +<p>“Ah, I’d better look after that sample book,” said Mr. Golspie. +“Now then, you sit down there, Miss Matfield, with your notebook.”</p> + +<p>She sat down and tried to pull the chair nearer to the table, but of +course it would not move, or at least would only swing round. She +was forgetting that she was on board a ship. It was all very odd +and delightful.</p> + +<p>The letters were not difficult and were all more or less alike, and +in half an hour they had done. Once or twice, while they were at +work, various faces, foreign faces, had peeped in at them, had nodded, +smiled, and then disappeared. The only other interruptions were +occasional shouts and hootings outside.</p> + +<p>“I think that’s all,” said Mr. Golspie, lighting a cigar and pouring +himself out a drink from the tall bottle. “But just you read through +what you’ve done while I try to think if there’s anything else. +There’s plenty of time. D’you smoke? That’s right. Well, have a +cigarette. Here, have one of these.” And he threw over a very fancy +cardboard box, from which she took a long cigarette that was half +stiff paper, like a Russian. It was a fine romantic cigarette and she +enjoyed it.</p> + +<p>“Can’t think of anything else,” said Mr. Golspie, puffing out a +cloud of smoke. “Just run through that lot quickly, will you?” She +<span class="pagenum" id="p214">[214]</span>did, and there was only one change to be made. “I’ll sign some sheets +now for you,” he continued, “and then you can take ’em back with +you to the office. I brought plenty of the firm’s stationery with me. +Always do, wherever I am. That’s the worst of being on your own. +Have to buy your own stationery. It’s a thing I hate doing. Funny, +isn’t it? I’d spend money like water on all sorts of silly rubbish +and never turn a hair, but I hate spending money on paper. Expect +you’re the same, aren’t you, about something?”</p> + +<p>“Pencils,” replied Miss Matfield promptly. “I loathe and detest +having to buy pencils. If I can’t borrow or steal one, and actually +have to go to a shop and pay money for one of the wretched things, +I simply hate it.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, we’re all a queer lot, even the best-looking of us,” Mr. Golspie +ruminated while he signed the blank sheets. “We’re all both crooks +and old washerwomen rolled into one, though I expect you’ll tell +me that <em>you</em> aren’t, eh?”</p> + +<p>“No, I shan’t. I know exactly what you mean.”</p> + +<p>If they were on the very edge of a pleasant sympathetic talk, as it +appeared at that moment, then Mr. Golspie only yanked them miles +away at one swoop with his next remark. “Well, if you do,” he +said, “you know more than I do. And that’s a nuisance.” He looked +up, having finished with the sheets. “Here, you’re shivering.”</p> + +<p>“Am I? I didn’t know I was. But I am rather cold now,” she +admitted. She was still wearing her thick coat, but the little saloon +was not warmed and there was a nipping air along the river.</p> + +<p>“You’ve finished here now,” said Mr. Golspie, looking at her, “but +if you’ll take my tip you won’t go like that, you’ll have a drink of +something to warm you up first. Might get a cold before you could +say ‘knife.’”</p> + +<p>This was Mr. Golspie in a new and unsuspected vein. She could +have laughed in his face.</p> + +<p>“If the steward’s about,” he continued, “I could get some tea for +you. These people aren’t great on tea but they can make it all right. +<span class="pagenum" id="p215">[215]</span>Or coffee, if you’d rather have that. It just depends if he’s handy.” +He got up, passing the signed sheets to her.</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t bother, Mr. Golspie. They’re probably all frightfully +busy now, and I’d rather not, thanks. I can get some tea on my way +back to the office.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you must have something. You can’t leave the ship shivering +like that. Have some of this stuff,” and he pointed to the tall +bottle. “It’ll warm you up. I’m going to have some. You join me.” +He poured out two small glasses of the colourless liquor.</p> + +<p>“Shall I? What is it?”</p> + +<p>“Vodka. It’s the favourite tipple in these ships.”</p> + +<p>Vodka! She picked up the glass and put her nose to it. She had +never tasted vodka before, never remembered ever having seen it +before, but of course it was richly associated with her memories of +romantic fiction of various kinds, and was tremendously thrilling, +the final completing thrill of the afternoon’s adventure. At once she +could hear herself bringing the vodka into her account of the adventure +at the Club. “And then, my dear,” it would run, “I was +given some vodka. There I was, in the cabin, swilling vodka like +mad. Marvellous!”</p> + +<p>“Come along, Miss Matfield,” said Mr. Golspie, looking at her over +his raised glass. “Down it goes. Happy days!” And he emptied his +glass with one turn of the wrist.</p> + +<p>“All right,” she cried, raising hers. “What do I say? Cheerio?” +Boldly she drained her glass, too, in one gulp. For a second or so +nothing happened but a curious aniseedy taste as the liquor slipped +over her palate, but then, suddenly, it was as if an incendiary bomb +had burst in her throat and sent white fire racing down every channel +of her body. She gasped, laughed, coughed, all at once.</p> + +<p>“That’s the way, Miss Matfield. You put it down in great style. +Try another. I’m going to have one. Just another for good luck.” +He filled the glasses again.</p> + +<p>She floated easily now on a warm tide. It was very pleasant. She +took the glass, hesitated, then looked up at him. “I’m not going to be +<span class="pagenum" id="p216">[216]</span>tight, am I? If you make me drunk I shan’t be able to type your +letters, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you worry about that,” he told her, grinning amiably and +then patting her shoulder. “You couldn’t be soused on two glasses of +this stuff, and you’ll be as sober as a judge by the time you get back +to Angel Pavement. It’ll just make you feel warm and comfortable, +and keep the cold out. Now then. Here she goes.”</p> + +<p>“Happy days!” cried Miss Matfield, smiling at him, and once more +there came the aniseedy taste, the incendiary bomb, the racing white +fire, and the final warm tide.</p> + +<p>“Now I like you, Miss Matfield,” he told her, with a full stare of +approval. “That was done in real style, like a good sport. You’ve got +some character, not like most of these pink little ninnies of girls you +see here. I noticed that right at the start. I said to myself, ‘That girl’s +not only got looks, but she’s got character, too.’ I wish you were +coming with us.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s a real compliment. Though I don’t know that you’d like +it. It’ll be perishingly cold, and by to-morrow she’ll be rolling like the +devil all the way across the North Sea, and she’ll start rolling again +when we get into the Baltic. I know her of old. How d’you feel +now?”</p> + +<p>“Marvellous!” And she did. She rose and gathered her things +together. “Not too sober, though.”</p> + +<p>When they went out on to the upper deck, she stopped and looked +down the river. Daylight had dwindled to a faint silver above and +an occasional cold gleam on the water, and at any other time she +would probably have been depressed or half frightened by the leaden +swell of the river itself, the uncertain lights beyond, and the melancholy +hooting, but now it all seemed wonderfully mysterious and +romantic. For a minute or so, she lost herself in it. She was quite +happy and yet she felt close to tears. It was probably the vodka.</p> + +<p>“Sort of hypnotises you, doesn’t it?” said Mr. Golspie gruffly, at +her elbow.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p217">[217]</span></p> + +<p>“It does, doesn’t it?” she said softly. At that moment, she decided +that she liked Mr. Golspie and that he was an unusual and fascinating +man. She also felt that she herself was fascinating, really rather +wonderful. Then she gave a quick shiver.</p> + +<p>“Hello, you’re not starting again?” he said, humorous but concerned +too, and he took hold of her arm and drew her closer to his +side. They stayed like that for a few moments. She did not mind +being there. All that she felt was a sudden sense of warmth and +safety.</p> + +<p>She stepped aside, and announced that she must go. He made no +effort to detain her, said nothing, but simply led the way back to the +lower deck and the gangway. There he stopped and held out his +hand.</p> + +<p>“Very pleased to have met you, Miss Matfield,” he said, taking her +hand and, for once, smiling rather than grinning.</p> + +<p>“I hope you have a good trip, Mr. Golspie,” she told him hurriedly, +“and it isn’t too cold and the crossing isn’t too bad.” Then, without +knowing why, she added: “And don’t forget to come back.”</p> + +<p>He gave a sudden deep laugh. “Not I. You’ll be seeing me again +soon. I’ll be back in Angel Pavement before you can turn round.” +And he gave her hand a huge squeeze, then released it.</p> + +<p>She turned round once and waved, though it was almost impossible +to see if he was still there, then hurried down the narrow lane, +which brought her gradually back into the ordinary world. By the +time she crossed London Bridge again and looked through the bus +window, there was hardly anything to be seen of that other world, +only a glimmer of lights. By the time she was back at her table, +holding her notebook up to the nearest shaded electric light, that +other world was infinitely remote and might never have existed +outside a daydream in the November dusk. Yet there, on the very +paper she slipped behind the typewriter roller, was the sign that it +was there, the sprawling <i>J. Golspie</i> of the signature. And it was +queer now to think that he would be coming back, returning from +his tall bottle and rolling ship and the snow and forests of the Baltic +<span class="pagenum" id="p218">[218]</span>place, to walk through that swing door there, not a yard from +Smeeth’s elbow. It was queer and it was also rather exciting, which +was more than could be said of the 13 bus and the lounge at the +Burpenfield and her room there and the aspirin and the hot water. +She sent the typewriter carriage flying along. It gave a sharp <i>ping</i>.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p219">[219]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_Six_MR_SMEETH_GETS_HIS_RISE"> + <i>Chapter Six</i>: <span class="allsmcap">MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth was happier than he had been for some time. The +shadow of dismissal, unemployment, degradation, ruin, had +gone, except in occasional dreams, when, after a bit of fried liver or +toasted cheese had refused to be digested, he had found himself out +of a job for ever and walking down vague dark streets with nothing +on but his vest and pants. It had vanished from his waking hours. +The firm had not only staved off bankruptcy, but it was doing a +brisk trade—you might almost call it a roaring trade—in these new +Baltic veneers and inlays. This meant that Mr. Smeeth had more +and more columns of neat little figures to enter and then add up, +and that no matter how hard he worked during the day he had to +put in an extra half hour or so with the ledger and day books in +the evening. He did not mind that, though sometimes when it was +nearer seven than six and the electric light above his desk had been +burning half the day and any real air there might have been in +Angel Pavement during the morning had been used over and over +again, well, he did find himself with a bit of a headache. Once or +twice too he had that nasty little ticking sensation somewhere in +his inside, but it never went on long, so he never said anything about +it to anybody. If he had mentioned it to his wife, she would have +dosed him with half a dozen different patent medicines and would +have rushed out for half a dozen more. She did not care for doctors, +but she loved patent medicines and would try one after another, not +as an attempt to cure some definite ailment, for she could not claim +<span class="pagenum" id="p220">[220]</span>to have one, but simply in the hope that there would be some mysterious +magic in the bottle. Mrs. Smeeth called at the chemist’s in the +same spirit in which she called on her fortune-telling friends. Mr. +Smeeth was sceptical about both, though not so sceptical as he +imagined himself to be.</p> + +<p>Occasional little pains, however, were nothing compared with the +relief of seeing the firm busy again. There had been times when he +had almost hated going to the bank, for he felt that even the cashiers +were telling one another that Twigg & Dersingham were looking +pretty rocky, but now it was a pleasure again. “Just going round to +the bank, Turgis,” he would say, trying not to sound too important. +(Not that it mattered with Turgis, who really thought Mr. Smeeth +<em>was</em> important. But once or twice, when he had said something like +this, he had caught a certain look, a kind of gleam, in Miss Matfield’s +eye. With that young madam you never knew.) Then he +would button up his old brown overcoat, which had lasted very well +but would have to be replaced as soon as he got a rise, put on his +hat, fill his pipe as he went down the steps, stop and light it outside +the <i>Kwik-Work Razor Blade</i> place, and then march cosily with it +down the chilled and smoky length of Angel Pavement. Everywhere +there would be a bustle and a jostling, with the roadway a bedlam +of hooting and clanging and grinding gears, but he had his place +in it all, his work to do, his position to occupy, and so he did not +mind but turned on it a friendly eye and indulgent ear. The bank, +secure in its marble and mahogany, would shut out the raw day +and the raw sounds, and he would quietly, comfortably wait his turn, +sending an occasional jet of fragrant <i>T. Benenden</i> towards the ornamental +grill. “Morning, Mr. Smeeth,” they would say. “A bit nippy, +this morning. How are things with you?” And then, if there was +time for it, one of them might have a little story to tell, about one +of those queer things that happen in the City. Then back again in +the office, at his desk, and very cosy it was after the streets. The very +sight of the blue ink, the red ink, the pencils and pens, the rubber, +the paper fasteners, the pad and rubber stamps, all the paraphernalia +<span class="pagenum" id="p221">[221]</span>of his desk, all there in their places, at his service, gave him a feeling +of deep satisfaction. He felt dimly too that this was a satisfaction +that none of the others there, Turgis, the girls, young Stanley, would +ever know, simply because they never came to work in the right +spirit. His own two children were just the same. They were all alike +now. Earn a bit, grab it, rush out and spend it, that was their lives.</p> + +<p>“And it beats me, Mr. Dersingham,” he said to that gentleman, +one morning, “who is going to be responsible in this lot, when the +time comes. And the time must come, mustn’t it? I mean, they can’t +be young and careless all their lives.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you worry, Smeeth. They’ll all settle down,” replied Mr. +Dersingham, who felt that he stood between these two different +generations, and also felt that anyhow he knew a lot more about +everything than Smeeth. “I can remember the time, and not so long +ago, when I felt just the same,” he continued, evidently under the +impression that he was now a tremendously responsible person. +“When the time comes, we take the responsibility all right. That’s +the English way, you know, Smeeth.”</p> + +<p>“I hope that is so, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth doubtfully, +“but this new lot does seem different, I must say. I know from my +own two. Anything for tuppence, that’s their style, and let next week +look after itself. It frightens me to hear them talk, though I say their +mother’s always been a bit like that and they may have got it from +her.”</p> + +<p>Both George and Edna, however, unsatisfactory as their general +outlook might be, seemed to be going on all right just then, and +this too was a great source of pleasure to Mr. Smeeth, who saw +them—and had seen them ever since they were babies—surrounded +by snares and pitfalls without number. He had to worry for two, for +their mother never seemed to worry about them or anything else, +for all her fortune tellings and bottles from the chemist’s, and to +listen to her, you might think life was a fairy tale. To Mr. Smeeth—though +he did not say so—life was a journey, unarmed and without +guide or compass, through a jungle where poisonous snakes were +<span class="pagenum" id="p222">[222]</span>lurking and man-eating tigers might spring out of every thicket. +Only when he saw a little clear space in front of him could he be +easy in mind. His was a naturally apprehensive nature, and in a religious +age he would never have overlooked the least comforting +observance. But he did not live in a religious age, and he had no +faith of his own. In his universe, the gods had been banished but +not the devils. He saw clearly enough all the signs and marks of +evil in the world, having a mind that could foreshadow every stroke +of malice out of the dark, and so was surrounded by demons that +he was powerless either to placate or to vanquish. If, desiring as he +did to be honest, decent, kind, good and happy, his courage failed, +he could call upon nobody, nothing—but the police. Thus he lived, +this man who went so cosily from his little house to his little office, +more apprehensively, more dangerously, than one of Edward the +Third’s bowmen. He touched wood, and desperately hoped for the +best. Just now, it seemed to be arriving. He was happier than he had +been for some time.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_5"> + II +</h3> + +<p>The morning after Mr. Golspie’s departure, two things happened +to Mr. Smeeth. The first seemed of little importance at the time, +though afterwards he remembered it only too well. George rang up +from his garage, with a message from his mother. “She’s here now, +only she doesn’t fancy herself at the phone,” said George. “So I’ve +got to give you the message. This is it. Do you remember hearing +her talk about her cousin, Fred Mitty? Well, he’s here in London +with his wife. She’s just had a letter from them, and they want her +to go round and see them to-night, somewhere Islington way. She +didn’t think you’d want to go.”</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t want to go,” Mr. Smeeth told him. “But that’s all +right.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know it is,” said George, “but the point is this. She’s going +there to tea, and she’ll be gone some time before you get home. +<span class="pagenum" id="p223">[223]</span>What she wants to know is this, has she to leave something for you, +she says, or will you have your tea out somewhere and amuse yourself +for once⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Now then, George,” his father cried down the telephone sharply, +“that’s enough of that.”</p> + +<p>“I’m only telling you what she says,” George’s voice explained. +“Keep cool, Dad. Nothing to do with me. You can either have your +tea out and amuse yourself⁠——”</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to amuse myself. As I’ve told some of you before,” +he added rather grimly, “I like a quiet life.”</p> + +<p>“All right then, she can leave something for you. You’ll only have +to warm it up yourself. I shan’t be in and Edna won’t be either.”</p> + +<p>“Here, all right,” said Mr. Smeeth, who was not fond of warming +things up for himself. “I’ll stop out for once. Tell your mother that’s +all right. And tell her I hope she enjoys herself with Mr. Mitty.”</p> + +<p>He had heard his wife talk about her cousin, Fred Mitty—she was +rather given to talking about her relations—but he had never met +him. Mitty had been living in one of the big provincial towns, +Birmingham or Manchester, for the last few years. He could have +stopped there, for all Mr. Smeeth cared. However, his wife would +enjoy herself. She liked nothing better than going out for the evening +and having a good old gas with somebody fairly lively, and Mr. +Smeeth remembered now that Fred Mitty—what a name!—was supposed +to be very lively, one of the dashing members of his wife’s +family, the chief comedian at all the weddings, and all the funerals, +too, for that matter. So long as Mrs. Smeeth’s lot could all get together +and eat and drink and gas and kiss one another, they didn’t +much care whether they were marrying them or burying them. The +Smeeths, what was left of them, were different. When they met, it +meant business. Four of them had not spoken to one another for ten +years, all because of two cottage houses in Highbury. His wife’s lot +would have sold the pair and eaten and drunk away the proceeds in +less than a week.</p> + +<p>“But it wouldn’t do for us all to be alike, would it, young lady?” +<span class="pagenum" id="p224">[224]</span>he cried, almost gaily, to Miss Poppy Sellers, who came up to him +at that moment with some invoices she had just typed.</p> + +<p>“That’s what my dad’s always saying, Mr. Smeeth,” she replied +in her own queer fashion, half perky half shy. “And my mother +always says, ‘Well, you might try a bit anyway.’”</p> + +<p>“And what does she mean by that?” asked Mr. Smeeth, amused.</p> + +<p>Miss Sellers shook her dark little head. “I might be able to give +a guess, and then again I mightn’t. I’ve done all these, Mr. Smeeth. +Are they all right?”</p> + +<p>“Well, now, let’s have a look,” he said, adjusting his eyeglasses. +“I might be able to tell you—and then again I mightn’t.”</p> + +<p>She laughed. She was a nice little thing, even though Turgis +had kept on grumbling about her. But he had not grumbled so +much lately. He had not done anything much lately, except get on +with his work—he had done that all right—and then sit mooning. +The only time he looked lively and brisk and up-to-the-minute was +when Mr. Golspie came in and asked him to do something. A queer +lad, Turgis. But he was beginning to smarten himself up a bit, that +was something; he had taken to brushing his hair and his clothes +and changing his collars a little more often; and about time too. +Mr. Smeeth shot a glance at him over his glasses, then read through +the invoices.</p> + +<p>“Please, Mr. Smeeth,” said Stanley, returning from the private +office, “Mr. Dersingham wants to see you.”</p> + +<p>And this was the second thing that happened that morning, this +little interview with Mr. Dersingham.</p> + +<p>“What I feel, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, after a few preliminaries, +“is that you’ve been doing your bit for the firm, and the +firm now ought to do its bit for you. You’ve had a good deal of +extra work lately, haven’t you, just as we all have?”</p> + +<p>“I have, Mr. Dersingham. It’s been a very busy time for me—and +I’m glad to say so, sir.”</p> + +<p>“For me too, I can tell you. I’ve been putting my back into it +these last few weeks. Jolly heavy going, if you ask me. Particularly +<span class="pagenum" id="p225">[225]</span>this last week, with the big drive—and it’s not over yet, not by a +long chalk it isn’t. However, what I wanted to say is this, you’ve +stood by the firm, done your best and all that, and now I propose +to give you a rise.” He paused, and looked at his employee.</p> + +<p>“Thank you very much, sir,” cried Mr. Smeeth, flushing. “I didn’t +want to say anything just yet, knowing how things have been, but +Mr. Golspie did say something, just after he came⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Well, of course, this isn’t Golspie’s show at all. I mean to say, +he has his work here and, to a certain extent, he’s in charge, but +whether you get a rise or not or anybody else gets a rise or not has +nothing to do with him. It’s my affair entirely.”</p> + +<p>“Quite so, Mr. Dersingham. I quite understand that,” said Mr. +Smeeth apologetically, though he was already silently thanking Mr. +Golspie for this.</p> + +<p>“Though it’s—er—only fair to tell you that Mr. Golspie did mention +it to me. But, as a matter of fact, I’d practically made up my +mind then. He mentioned you, and he also mentioned Miss Matfield. +He seemed to think she had been doing some very good work.”</p> + +<p>“Miss Matfield’s been working very well, sir. And she certainly +isn’t getting as much as she might. We promised her a rise, if +possible, after the first six months, when she was taken on.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I thought from now on we’d give her three ten instead +of three pounds. Perhaps you’ll tell her, Smeeth. Do it quietly. I +don’t think I can give Turgis any more yet.”</p> + +<p>“He’s improving, Mr. Dersingham.”</p> + +<p>“He’ll have to wait, though. As for you, Smeeth, I thought we’d +make it three seventy-five for you.”</p> + +<p>This was a fine rise, well over a pound a week. “Thank you very +much, Mr. Dersingham. I’m sure I’ll do my best⁠——”</p> + +<p>But Mr. Dersingham, large, pink, benevolent, cut him short with +a friendly wave of the hand. “That’s all right, Smeeth. I hope it +won’t be the last, either. You’ll rise with the firm, and at the present +rate there’s no telling where we shall land. Mr. Golspie has suggested +several side-lines, quite profitable, handled properly, and I propose +<span class="pagenum" id="p226">[226]</span>to look into our end of it while he’s away. Oh—by the way—I think +those increases, both yours and Miss Matfield’s, had better begin +this fortnight, eh?”</p> + +<p>At odd intervals throughout the day, Mr. Smeeth thought about +this extra money and delightedly considered what might be done +with it. He was, of course, all in favour of saving it. They lived +comfortably as they were but they saved little or nothing, and now +at last they had a chance of really putting something away. Insurance? +That ought to be looked into, for they had all kinds of +schemes. National Savings? A good safe investment. They might +buy a house through one of the Building Societies. He saw himself +looking into all these things, smoking his pipe over them and then +making notes and putting down a few rows of neat little figures. +It almost made his mouth water.</p> + +<p>It was not until late afternoon, when they were finishing off, that +he began to tackle the major problem, for, like most people, he +preferred to examine the little problems, the pleasant, cheerful little +fellows, first. Plump in the middle of this major problem was Mrs. +Smeeth. If she was told about this extra money, she would want +to spend it. That was her nature; she was a born spender. She was +not a grabber and she was not a grumbler; if the money was not +there, she made no complaint, and could make a little go a long +way with the best of them, if there was no help for it. Tell her +there was more money coming into the house, and she would +never rest until it had been all frittered away, on clothes and ornaments +and meals in cafés and visits to the theatre and the pictures +and trips to the seaside and chocolate and bottles of port wine. +Insurance and National Savings and Building Societies!—he could +hear her telling him what she thought about <em>them</em>, and what she +thought about him too for suggesting such a miserable way of +spending their money. (She never understood the idea of saving, +except when it merely meant putting a few shillings in a vase until +Saturday. Giving money to an insurance company or a bank seemed +to her simply spending it and getting nothing in return.) She would +<span class="pagenum" id="p227">[227]</span>make him appear a mean ageing sort of chap, almost an old miser, +cutting a contemptible figure in her eyes, and would refer to other +men of her acquaintance, big, open-handed, dashing fellows. That +would be so hateful that, finally, he would give in, and then what +would they have for the future, for the rainy day? Empty bottles +and chocolate boxes and old programmes and souvenirs of Clacton. It +wasn’t good enough. He saw one way out, of course, and that was +not to tell her at all, to say nothing about his rise until he had made +a good start with his savings; but he hated the thought of doing +that. It meant lying to her, not once but perhaps scores of times. +It would be all for the best, but he had an idea that he would feel +mean all the time. Some chaps seemed to think of their wives as +people you always felt mean with, and to hear them talk you would +think they had married their worst enemies, but though he and Edie +were often pulling different ways, that wasn’t their style at all. So +what was he to do?</p> + +<p>His mind was still busy with this problem when he left the office +for the night and called in T. Benenden’s, round the corner. As he +watched Benenden take down the familiar canister, he wondered +if Benenden was married. He had exchanged remarks with him all +these years and never found that out. Surely Benenden couldn’t be +married. A man who never wore a tie couldn’t possibly have a wife, +unless of course he left home with a tie and then took it off in +the shop.</p> + +<p>“You a married man, Mr. Benenden?” he inquired casually.</p> + +<p>T. Benenden stopped his weighing at once. “Now that’s a queer +question,” he said, staring.</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon, I’m sure,” said Mr. Smeeth, rather embarrassed. +“No business of mine at all.”</p> + +<p>“Not at all, not at all,” said T. Benenden, still staring. “No offence +taken, I assure you. What I really meant was it’s a queer question +for me to answer. You say to me ‘Are you a married man, Mr. +Benenden?’ Well, the only answer I can give to that is, I <em>am</em>—and +then again I’m <em>not</em>. What do you make of that?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p228">[228]</span></p> + +<p>Before Mr. Smeeth had time to make anything of it, a youth +rushed in, flung some coppers on the counter, and cried “Packet +o’ gaspers. Ten.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Benenden contemptuously threw down a packet of cigarettes, +contemptuously swept the coppers away, and watched the youth +rush out again with even greater contempt.</p> + +<p>“You saw that, you ’eard it?” he said scornfully. “‘Packet o’ +gaspers. <em>Packet o’ gaspers.</em>’ Rushes in, rushes out, never stops to say +<em>please</em> or <em>thank you</em>, never stops to think. Just—packet o’ gaspers. +Can’t even say <em>of</em>. A packet <em>of</em> gaspers. Now that,” he continued +gravely, his eyes fixed on Mr. Smeeth’s apparently without once +winking, “is the ruin of the tobacco trade to-day. I don’t mean there’s +no money in it. There <em>is</em> money in it. That’s where the big forchewns +’ave been made—packets o’ gaspers. If you and me had had +the sense to realise, when the War started, that this packet-o’-gasper +business was bound to come, <em>bound</em> to come—men smoking ’em, +women smoking ’em, boys and girls smoking ’em—we could have +made out forchewns, as easy as that. You watch for the big dividends +in our trade—where are they? It isn’t tobacco that’s behind ’em—it’s +packets o’ gaspers. Same with the shops. Quick turnover, in and +out, throw ’em down, pick ’em up, outchew go. Easy money. All +right. But I say it’s the ruin of the tobacconist to-day. And why? +It takes the ’eart out of the business. Some of ’em have started putting +rows of automatic machines outside at closing time. You’ve seen +’em. Well, I say they might as well keep ’em all day and have done +with it. Packet o’ gaspers. Ten. There’s your sixpence. Twenty. +There’s your shilling. Am I a man or am I an automatic machine?”</p> + +<p>“Quite so,” said Mr. Smeeth, nodding his head.</p> + +<p>“I’m a man, and what’s more, I’m a man with expert knowledge, +I am. You come to me, and you say, ‘I want such and such a +smoke, a bit of Virginia, a bit of Lati-kee-ya’—or you mightn’t say +that because you mightn’t know so much about it—but anyhow +you’ve got your idea of what you want and you come to me and +I fix you up, just as I’ve fixed <em>you</em> up with this mixture of mine. +<span class="pagenum" id="p229">[229]</span>There’s some pleasure in that. But this packet o’ gasper business. I +might as well stand in the door there, and every time you put sixpence +in my mouth, a packet of ten drops out of my waistcoat.”</p> + +<p>“You’d look well, wouldn’t you?” Mr. Smeeth watched him filling +the pouch, and could not help thinking that T. Benenden’s Own +looked dustier than usual.</p> + +<p>“Getting a bit down with that,” T. Benenden admitted, rolling +up the pouch, “though if you ask me, I’d tell you to give me the +bottom of the tin every time. That’s not ordinary dust, y’know. +That’s good short stuff, best Oriental. It’s rich, that, and the Prince +of Wales wouldn’t want anything better than that in his pipe—and +I believe he smokes one.”</p> + +<p>“I believe he does,” said Mr. Smeeth, handing over his money. +“But what was that you were saying about being married?”</p> + +<p>“Ar, yes,” said T. Benenden, preparing to consume some of his +own stock. “Well, my answer to that question of yours was, ‘I <em>am</em> +and I’m <em>not</em>.’ And how do you puzzle that out?” he asked with +the air of a man who had produced a rare riddle. “Bit of a facer +that, eh?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know. I’d say—offhand—that you say you <em>are</em> married +because you’re still legally married and have a wife living, but +at the same time you say you’re not married because you’re not +living the life of a married man. In fact, you’re separated from your +wife. How’s that Mr. Benenden?”</p> + +<p>The other’s face fell at being robbed so quickly of the chance of +explaining himself. “That was a bit of smart thinking on your part, +Mr. Smeeth,” he said, brightening up. “There aren’t many men +about here who could have got on to it like that. And you’re right. +I’ve been separated for nearly ten years. She goes her way, and I +go mine. We were only married three years, and that was quite +enough for me, a regular cat-and-dog life that was. If she wanted +to go out, I wanted to stay in, and if she wanted to stay in, I wanted +to go out. Well, that’s all right, isn’t it? If she wants to go out, +let her go out. If she wants to stay in, let her stay in. What’s the +<span class="pagenum" id="p230">[230]</span>matter with that? Ar, but that’s a man’s point of view. This is where +the unfairness of the sex comes in. I was ready to let her go out or +stay in, just as she pleased. But what about her? Had she the same +fair-minded attitude, the same broad principles?” Mr. Benenden here +removed his pipe to make room for a short bitter laugh. “When she +wanted to go out, I’d to go out too, and when she wanted to stay +in, I’d to stay in as well. That was her idear. Dog in the manger, +she was, all the time, and specially on Saturdays and Sundays, just +when you wanted a bit of give and take. We didn’t get on. Why +some men like to tell you they get on well with women’s a mystery +to me. I never did get on with ’em, and I don’t care who knows it.”</p> + +<p>“That’s the spirit,” said Mr. Smeeth, for no particular reason +except that he felt Benenden ought to be encouraged.</p> + +<p>“Yes, well, as I say, we’d three years of it, and she left me three +times and I left her twice during them three years. Interfering +relations always ‘brought us together’—as they called it—but it was +a miserable business. One of us was always packing up. I never +knew whether I was going home to find a bit of supper or a note +to say she’d gone to her sister’s at Saffron Walden. So the last time, +I left a note saying she’d better stay for good at Saffron Walden and +I went into lodgings down Camberwell way for a week and didn’t +go back for over a week. When I did go back, she’d just gone again +to Saffron Walden—she’d been back, you see, and waited a few days—and +she stayed there.”</p> + +<p>“And don’t you ever see her now?”</p> + +<p>“Let me see,” said T. Benenden, tickling his beard with the stem +of his pipe. “Last time I ran across her by accident, a year or two +ago, or it might be three years ago. I was walking round the Confectionery +and Grocery Exhibition at the Agricultural Hall, and I +suddenly saw her and her sister—they’re in that line—and another +woman all eating free samples of custard or jelly or potted meat or +something, which is what I might have known they <em>would</em> be +doing. I gave them one look and then went the other way.”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t you stop at all?” said Mr. Smeeth.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p231">[231]</span></p> + +<p>“If I’d gone up to them there,” said Mr. Benenden earnestly, +“what would have happened? A lot of argument. ‘You did this—Oh, +did I?—Well, you did that.’ What she wouldn’t have said, her +sister’ud said for her. Her sister had a tongue a yard long, noted for +it up in Saffron Walden. I know that because a man from there +came into this very shop one morning. Well, you can’t have that +sort of argument at a free custard and jelly stall, can you? I had +a picture postcard from her last year, from Cromer—all show-off, +y’know. No, I’m better without them. Let’s see, Mr. Smeeth, I think +you’re married, aren’t you? I seem to recollect you’re a family man.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right,” said Mr. Smeeth, feeling very much at that moment +the affectionate father and husband. “And I like it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it suits some people,” said Mr. Benenden judicially. “They +have the knack or an inclination that way. I’m not laying down +any rules about it. But it never suited <em>me</em>. I like a quiet life of my +own, to do <em>what</em> I like <em>when</em> I like, and have time to think things +over. Good-night.”</p> + +<p>As Mr. Smeeth walked away, he came to the conclusion that he +had solved the mystery of the absent tie. Benenden did not wear a +tie just to show his independence. Mr. Smeeth, however, did not +envy him, although the question of Mrs. Smeeth and the extra +money had yet to be settled. He was glad that he was not going +home for once and would not have to meet his wife until late that +night. He dismissed the problem and asked himself instead how he +should spend the evening. The first thing to do was to have a meal +and as he had once or twice had a respectable sort of high tea in +a place in Holborn, he decided to go there again, so turned down +Aldermanbury and Milk Street, caught a bus in Cheapside and, +ten minutes later, was seated snugly at a little table in the teashop.</p> + +<p>He could not help feeling richer than he had done that morning. +Now he was practically a four-hundred-a-year man instead of a +three-hundred-a-year man. He felt that he was entitled to celebrate +this promotion in his own quiet way. So he began by ordering a +good solid high tea, and then searched his paper to discover what +<span class="pagenum" id="p232">[232]</span>was happening that night in the world of entertainment. There was +a symphony concert at the Queen’s Hall. He would go there. He +had never been to the Queen’s Hall, had always thought of the +concerts there as being a bit above his head. Symphony concerts at +the Queen’s Hall—it did sound rather heavy, rather alarming too, +but he would try it. After all, though he didn’t pretend to know +much about it, he did like music, indeed liked nothing better than +music, and there would sure to be something he could enjoy, and +the Queen’s Hall, expensive and highbrow as it sounded, couldn’t +kill him. So far, he had got his music from gramophone records and +the wireless, bands in the park or at the seaside, popular concerts +in North London or occasionally at the Kingsway Hall and the +Central Hall, and nights in the gallery in the old days to hear the +Carl Rosa Company do <i>Carmen</i> and <i>Rigoletto</i> and that one about +the pierrots, <i>Pag-lee-atchy</i> he supposed they called it. Well, this +would be a new move, this symphony concert in the Queen’s Hall, +a bit of an adventure. He ate his tea deliberately, as usual, but with +a little inner glow of excitement.</p> + +<p>He arrived at the Queen’s Hall in what he imagined to be very +good time, but was surprised to find, after paying what seemed to +him a stiffish price, that there was only just room for him in the +gallery. Another ten minutes and he would have been too late, a +thought that gave him a good deal of pleasure as he climbed the +steps, among all the eager, chattering symphony concert-goers.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_5"> + III +</h3> + +<p>His seat was not very comfortable, high up too, but he liked +the look of the place, with its bluey-green walls and gilded organ-pipes +and lights shining through holes in the roof like fierce sunlight, +its rows of little chairs and music stands, all ready for business. +It was fine. He did not buy a programme—they were asking a shilling +each for them, and a man must draw a line somewhere—but +spent his time looking at the other people and listening to snatches +<span class="pagenum" id="p233">[233]</span>of their talk. They were a queer mixture, quite different from anybody +you were likely to see either in Stoke Newington or Angel +Pavement; a good many foreigners (the kind with brown baggy +stains under their eyes), Jewy people, a few wild-looking young +fellows with dark khaki shirts and longish hair, a sprinkling of +quiet middle-aged men like himself, and any number of pleasant +young girls and refined ladies; and he studied them all with interest. +On one side of him were several dark foreigners in a little party, +a brown wrinkled oldish woman who never stopped talking Spanish +or Italian or Greek or some such language, a thin young man +who was carefully reading the programme, which seemed to be full of +music itself, and, on the far side, two yellow girls. On the other +side, his neighbour was a large man whose wiry grey hair stood +straight up above a broad red face, obviously an Englishman but +a chap rather out of the common, a bit cranky perhaps and fierce +in his opinions.</p> + +<p>This man, moving restlessly in the cramped space, bumped against +Mr. Smeeth and muttered an apology.</p> + +<p>“Not much room, is there?” said Mr. Smeeth amiably.</p> + +<p>“Never is here, sir,” the man replied fiercely.</p> + +<p>“Is that so,” said Mr. Smeeth. “I don’t often come here.” He felt +it would not do to admit that this was the very first time.</p> + +<p>“Always crowded at these concerts, full up, packed out, not an +inch of spare room anywhere. And always the same. What the +devil do they mean when they say they can’t make these concerts +pay? Whose fault is it?” he demanded fiercely, just as if Mr. +Smeeth were partly responsible. “We pay what they ask us to pay. +We fill the place, don’t we? What do they want? Do they want +people to hang down from the roof or sit on the organ pipes? They +should build a bigger hall or stop talking nonsense.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth agreed, feeling glad there was no necessity for him +to do anything else.</p> + +<p>“Say that to some people,” continued the fierce man, who needed +no encouragement, “and they say, ‘Well, what about the Albert Hall? +<span class="pagenum" id="p234">[234]</span>That’s big enough, isn’t it?’ The Albert Hall! The place is ridiculous. +I was silly enough to go and hear Kreisler there, a few weeks +ago. Monstrous! They might as well have used a race course and +sent him up to play in a captive balloon. If it had been a gramophone +in the next house but one, it couldn’t have been worse. Here +you do get the music, I will say that. But it’s damnably cramped +up here.”</p> + +<p>The orchestral players were now swarming in like black beetles, +and Mr. Smeeth amused himself trying to decide what all the various +instruments were. Violins, ’cellos, double-basses, flutes, clarinets, bassoons, +trumpets or cornets, trombones, he knew them, but he was +not sure about some of the others—were those curly brass things +the horns?—and it was hard to see them at all from where he was. +When they had all settled down, he solemnly counted them, and +there were nearly a hundred. Something like a band, that! This was +going to be good, he told himself. At that moment, everybody +began clapping. The conductor, a tall foreign-looking chap with +a shock of grey hair that stood out all round his head, had arrived +at his little railed-in platform, and was giving the audience a series +of short jerky bows. He gave two little taps. All the players brought +their instruments up and looked at him. He slowly raised his arms, +then brought them down sharply and the concert began.</p> + +<p>First, all the violins made a shivery sort of noise that you could +feel travelling up and down your spine. Some of the clarinets and +bassoons squeaked and gibbered a little, and the brass instruments +made a few unpleasant remarks. Then all the violins went rushing +up and up, and when they got to the top, the stout man at the back +hit a gong, the two men near him attacked their drums, and the +next moment every man jack of them, all the hundred, went at it +for all they were worth, and the conductor was so energetic that +it looked as if his cuffs were about to fly up to the organ. The noise +was terrible, shattering: hundreds of tin buckets were being kicked +down flights of stone steps; walls of houses were falling in; ships +were going down; ten thousand people were screaming with toothache; +<span class="pagenum" id="p235">[235]</span>steam hammers were breaking loose; whole warehouses of +oilcloth were being stormed and the oilcloth all torn into shreds; +and there were railway accidents innumerable. Then suddenly the +noise stopped; one of the clarinets, all by itself, went slithering and +gurgling; the violins began their shivery sound again and at last +shivered away into silence. The conductor dropped his arms to his +side. Nearly everybody clapped.</p> + +<p>Neither Mr. Smeeth nor his neighbour joined in the applause. +Indeed, the fierce man snorted a good deal, obviously to show his +disapproval.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t care for that much, did you?” said Mr. Smeeth, who +felt he could risk it after those snorts.</p> + +<p>“That? Muck. Absolute muck,” the fierce man bellowed into Mr. +Smeeth’s left ear. “If they’ll swallow that they’ll swallow anything, +any mortal thing. Downright sheer muck. Listen to ’em.” And as +the applause continued, the fierce man, in despair, buried his huge +head in his hands and groaned.</p> + +<p>The next item seemed to Mr. Smeeth to be a member of the same +unpleasant family as the first, only instead of being the rowdy one, +it was the thin sneering one. He had never heard a piece of music +before that gave such an impression of thinness, boniness, scragginess, +and scratchiness. It was like having thin wires pushed into +your ears. You felt as if you were trying to chew ice-cream. The +violins hated the sight of you and of one another; the reedy instruments +were reedier than they had ever been before but expressed +nothing but a general loathing; the brass only came in to blow +strange hollow sounds; and the stout man and his friends at the +top hit things that had all gone flat, dead, as if their drums were +burst. Very tall thin people sat about drinking quinine and sneering +at one another, and in the middle of them, on the cold floor, was +an idiot child than ran its finger-nail up and down a slate. One last +scratch from the slate, and the horror was over. Once more, the +conductor, after wiping his brow, was acknowledging the applause.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p236">[236]</span></p> + +<p>This time, Mr. Smeeth did not hesitate. “And I don’t like that +either,” he said to his neighbour.</p> + +<p>“You don’t?” The fierce man was almost staggered. “You don’t +like it? You surprise me, sir, you do indeed. If you don’t like that, +what in the name of thunder <em>are</em> you going to like—in modern +music. Come, come, you’ve got to give the moderns a chance. You +can’t refuse them a hearing altogether, can you?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth admitted that you couldn’t, but said it in such a way +as to suggest that he was doing his best to keep them quiet.</p> + +<p>“Very well, then,” the fierce man continued, “you’ve got to confess +that you’ve just listened to one of the two or three things written +during these last ten years or so that is going to <em>live</em>. Come now, +you must admit that.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I dare say,” said Mr. Smeeth, knitting his brows.</p> + +<p>Here the fierce man began tapping him on the arm. “Form? +Well, of course, the thing hasn’t got it, and it’s no good pretending +it has, and that’s where you and I”—Mr. Smeeth was given a +heavier tap, almost a bang, to emphasise this—“find ourselves being +cheated. But we’re asking for something that isn’t there. But the +tone values, the pure orchestral colouring—superb! Damn it, it’s +got poetry in it. Romantic, of course. Romantic as you like—ultra-romantic. +All these fellows now are beginning to tell us they’re +classical, but they’re all romantic really, the whole boiling of ’em, +and Berlioz is their man only they don’t know it, or won’t admit +it. What do <em>you</em> say?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth observed very cautiously that he had no doubt there +was a lot to be said for that point of view. When the interval came +and he went out to smoke a pipe, he took care to keep moving so +that the fierce man, who appeared to be on the prowl, did not +find him.</p> + +<p>The concert was much better after the interval. It began with a +longish thing in which a piano played about one half, and most of +the orchestra, for some of them never touched their instruments, +played the other half. A little dark chap played the piano and there +<span class="pagenum" id="p237">[237]</span>could be no doubt about it, he <em>could</em> play the piano. Terrum, ter-<em>rum</em>, +terrum, terrum, trum, trum, trrrrr, the orchestra would go, +and the little chap would lean back, looking idly at the conductor. +But the second the orchestra stopped he would hurl himself at the +piano and crash out his own Terrum, ter-<em>rum</em>, terrum, terrum, trum +trum trrr. Sometimes the violins would play very softly and sadly, +and the piano would join in, scattering silver showers of notes or +perhaps wandering up and down a ladder of quiet chords, and +then Mr. Smeeth would feel himself very quiet and happy and sad +all at the same time. In the end, they had a pell-mell race, and the +piano shouted to the orchestra and then went scampering away, +and the orchestra thundered at the piano and went charging after +it, and they went up hill and down dale, shouting and thundering, +scampering and charging, until one big bang, during which the +little chap seemed to be almost sitting on the piano and the conductor +appeared to be holding the whole orchestra up in his two arms, +brought it to an end. This time Mr. Smeeth clapped furiously, and +so did the fierce man, and so did everybody else, even the violin +players in the orchestra; and the little chap, now purple in the +face, ran in and out a dozen times, bowing all the way. But he would +not play again, no matter how long and loud they clapped, and +Mr. Smeeth, for his part, could not blame him. The little chap +had done his share. My word, there was talent for you!</p> + +<p>“Our old friend now,” said the fierce man, turning abruptly.</p> + +<p>“Where?” cried Mr. Smeeth, startled.</p> + +<p>“On the programme,” the other replied. “It’s the Brahms Number +One next.”</p> + +<p>“Is it really,” said Mr. Smith. “That ought to be good.” He had +heard of Brahms, knew him as the chap who had written some +Hungarian dances. But, unless he was mistaken, these dances were +only a bit of fun for Brahms, who was one of your very heavy +classical men. The Number One part of it he did not understand, +and did not like to ask about it, but as the elderly foreign woman +on his right happened to be examining the programme, he had a peep +<span class="pagenum" id="p238">[238]</span>at it and had just time to discover that it was a symphony, Brahms’ +First Symphony in fact, they were about to hear. It would probably +be clean above his head, but it could not possibly be so horrible +to listen to as that modern stuff in the first half of the programme.</p> + +<p>It was some time before he made much out of it. The Brahms +of this symphony seemed a very gloomy, ponderous, rumbling sort +of chap, who might now and then show a flash of temper or go +in a corner and feel sorry for himself, but for the most part simply +went on gloomily rumbling and grumbling. There were moments, +however, when there came a sudden gush of melody, something +infinitely tender swelling out of the strings or a ripple of laughter +from the flutes and clarinets or a fine flare up by the whole orchestra, +and for these moments Mr. Smeeth waited, puzzled but excited, +like a man catching glimpses of some delectable strange valley +through the swirling mists of a mountain side. As the symphony +went on, he began to get the hang of it more and more, and these +moments returned more frequently, until at last, in the final section, +the great moment arrived and justified everything, the whole symphony +concert.</p> + +<p>It began, this last part, with some muffled and doleful sounds +from the brass instruments. He had heard some of those grim +snatches of tune earlier on in the symphony, and now when they +were repeated in this fashion they had a very queer effect on him, +almost frightened him. It was as if all the workhouses and hospitals +and cemeteries of North London had been flashed past his eyes. +Those brass instruments didn’t think Smeeth had much of a chance. +All the violins were sorry about it; they protested, they shook, they +wept; but the horns and trumpets and trombones came back and +blew them away. Then the whole orchestra became tumultuous, +and one voice after another raised itself above the menacing din, +cried in anger, cried in sorrow, and was lost again. There were queer +little intervals, during one of which only the strings played, and +they twanged and plucked instead of using their bows, and the +twanging and plucking, quite soft and slow at first, got louder and +<span class="pagenum" id="p239">[239]</span>faster until it seemed as if there was danger everywhere. Then, just +when it seemed as if something was going to burst, the twanging +and plucking was over, and great mournful sounds came reeling +out again, like doomed giants. After that the whole thing seemed +to be slithering into hopelessness, as if Brahms had got stuck in +a bog and the light was going. But then the great moment arrived. +Brahms jumped clean out of his bog, set his foot on the hard road, +and swept the orchestra and the fierce man and the three foreigners +and Mr. Smeeth and the whole Queen’s Hall along with him, in a +noble stride. This was a great tune. Ta <em>tum</em> ta ta <em>tum</em> tum, ta <em>tum</em> +ta-ta <em>tum</em> ta <em>tum</em>. He could have shouted at the splendour of it. The +strings in a rich deep unison sweeping on, and you were ten feet +high and had a thousand glorious years to live. But in a minute or +two it had gone, this glory of sound, and there was muddle and +gloom, a sudden sweetness of violins, then harsh voices from the +brass. Mr. Smeeth had given it up, when back it came again, swelling +his heart until it nearly choked him, and then it was lost once +more and everything began to be put in its place and settled, +abruptly, fiercely, as if old Brahms had made up his mind to stand +no nonsense from anybody or anything under the sun. There, there, +there there, <em>There</em>. It was done. They were all clapping and clapping +and the conductor was mopping his forehead and bowing and then +signalling to the band to stand up, and old Brahms had slipped away, +into the blue.</p> + +<p>There was a cold drizzle of rain outside in Langham Place, where +the big cars of the rich were nosing one another like shiny monsters, +and it was a long and dreary way to Chaucer Road, Stoke Newington, +but odd bits of the magic kept floating back into his mind, and +he felt more excited and happy than he had done when he had +heard about the rise that morning. Undoubtedly a lot of this symphony +concert stuff was either right above his head or just simply +didn’t mean anything to anybody. But what was good <em>was</em> good. Ta +<em>tum</em> ta ta—now how did that go? All the way from the High +Street to Chaucer Road, as he hurried down the darkening streets +<span class="pagenum" id="p240">[240]</span>and tried to make his overcoat collar reach the back of his hat, he +was also trying to capture that tune. He could feel it still beating and +glowing somewhere inside him.</p> + +<p>His wife and Edna were in. He heard their voices as he shut the +front door. George was probably still out. “Hello, there. Only +me,” he shouted. “George in yet?” They told him that George +was in bed (George was always out very late or in bed quite early. +A puzzling lad), so he carefully locked and bolted the front door.</p> + +<p>“Well, here’s the wanderer,” cried Mrs. Smeeth gaily. She had +still got her hat and coat on, and was refreshing herself with a piece +of cake and half a tumbler of stout. “And where did you get +to, Dad?”</p> + +<p>“Went to a concert,” he replied, a trifle self-consciously. He drew +nearer the fire and began taking off his boots.</p> + +<p>“Get your dad his slippers, Edna, that’s a good girl,” said her +mother. “And where was this concert then?”</p> + +<p>“Queen’s Hall.”</p> + +<p>“Oo! classy, aren’t we?” cried Mrs. Smeeth. “Did you like it?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll bet he didn’t,” said Edna, an aggressive low-brow.</p> + +<p>“How do you know he didn’t, miss. Some people like a bit of +good music, even if you don’t. We’re not all jazz-mad. There’s +nobody round here who enjoys good music, classical pieces, better +than your father. Isn’t that so, Dad? Nobody knows that better +than I do, the times I’ve had to listen to it as well, and a little bit +goes a long way with me. Now you get off to bed, Edna, now, else +you won’t be getting up in the morning and then you’ll be in a +bit more trouble at the shop.”</p> + +<p>“What’s this?” asked Mr. Smeeth, looking at his wife and then +at his daughter. “Has she been getting into any trouble?”</p> + +<p>“It wasn’t my fault at all, and you needn’t have mentioned it, +Mother,” Edna began, but she was cut short by her mother.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t say it was, but it will be if you don’t pop off upstairs.” +She waited then until Edna had disappeared. “Tells me she’s had +some bother with the buyer or floor manager, all something and +<span class="pagenum" id="p241">[241]</span>nothing, but she thinks one or two of them there are getting their +knife into her, and I’ve just been telling her to keep quiet a bit and +not give any back answers until it’s blown over. Well,” she continued, +settling back in her chair, after disposing of the stout, “I +think George told you I was going to see Fred Mitty and his wife.”</p> + +<p>“He did,” said Mr. Smeeth. “And how’s Cousin Fred? What’s +brought him here?”</p> + +<p>“I can’t quite make out what it is. Something to do with advertising +and something to do with picture theatres and all that. He +didn’t explain it properly. But he’s looking well, and so is his +wife, and the daughter. Quite grown up, she is, about Edna’s age +but bigger than Edna. But laugh!” Her face lit up. “Laugh! I +thought I’d have died. I wish you’d been there, Dad. Oh, dear, dear, +dear! Fred was always a lively card, never knew him when he +wasn’t, but he gets funnier as he gets older, and he set us off to-night +and I thought we’d never have stopped. He started taking off a +man he knew in Birmingham—I believe he worked for him—and +it seems this man talks on one side of his mouth, can’t help it, you +see, and Fred started⁠——”</p> + +<p>“I think, if you don’t mind, we’ll have all this to-morrow, Edie,” +said Mr. Smeeth, standing up. “I feel like going to bed. I’m tired.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, all right, Mister Methodical,” cried Mrs. Smeeth good-humouredly. +“Fat lot of good it is saving a joke for you, isn’t it? +Never mind, you’ll see for yourself on Saturday. I’ll ask Fred to +do it again. They’re all coming up on Saturday night.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, they are, are they,” said Mr. Smeeth with an entire lack +of enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I know what you’d like to say,” she told him, as they moved +to the door. “But I had to ask them back, hadn’t I? Besides, we’ve +got to have a bit of life sometime.”</p> + +<p>That was true enough. He didn’t want to spoil her fun. He hadn’t +told her about the rise yet, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to +tell her. Somebody had to do the worrying and saving at 17, Chaucer +<span class="pagenum" id="p242">[242]</span>Road. Tum <em>tum</em> tum tum—no, he couldn’t get it. He turned out +the light and followed his wife upstairs.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_5"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>All the following day, he told himself that he would not say a +word to Mrs. Smeeth about the extra money until he had made +arrangements to save most of it. Once he had committed himself, +it would be safe—though not pleasant—to tell her. In the meantime, +if she asked him why he wasn’t getting the rise he had been promised, +he would have to put her off with some tale or other. That +wouldn’t be very pleasant either and not at all simple. To look at +Mrs. Smeeth, with her free and easy style, you would think she +was easy to lie to, but she wasn’t—or so it seemed to Mr. Smeeth. +Whenever he tried he found himself, at his age too, still blushing +and stammering. But there it was; that was the plan. And he spent +some of his lunch time, all that could be spared from the usual +poached egg and cup of coffee, “looking into” one or two things, +insurance and National Savings chiefly, and when he returned to +the office and made a few notes and calculations in his neat little +script, he felt vaguely rich and rather important for once in his life.</p> + +<p>The only person in the office who noticed any change in him was +Stanley. Stanley’s interest in the affairs of Twigg and Dersingham, +never strong at any time, had almost entirely lapsed now that Mr. +Golspie was away, and that afternoon he found Mr. Smeeth unbearably +tyrannical. He had to comfort himself by imagining a +certain dramatic scene in the future, in which Mr. Smeeth, now the +victim of a desperate gang, called in despair on the great detective, +S. Poole, only to discover, after bowing humbly, that he was face +to face with Stanley, the boy he had once bullied and despised. +“Yes, Smeeth,” said S. Poole, lighting another cigar, “you little +imagined then who it was copying your letters and filling your inkwells. +But we will let bygones be bygones. Come, I will rid you of +these pests.” And the great S. Poole, after slipping a revolver into +<span class="pagenum" id="p243">[243]</span>the pocket of his fur coat, strode out, followed by an amazed and +trembling Smeeth. “Courage, man, courage,” said S. Poole, as he +climbed into the driving seat of his powerful roadster. “I can never +thank you enough, Mr. Poole⁠——”</p> + +<p>“And just get on with your work, Stanley,” said the same voice. +But oh!—the difference in intonation. “I told you those letters have +to catch the country post. Be ready to slip out with them. Got the +envelopes there?”</p> + +<p>On his tram, going home, Mr. Smeeth turned the pages of his +evening paper, looking for those appeals to “The Saving Man” and +“The Small Investor.” One of the advertisements asked him, not +for the first time, what he was going to do in the Evening of Life, +and though he still had no answer ready, for once he could look at +it without feeling himself shrinking somewhere. Already he carried +a good insurance for a man in his position; he had a bit, for emergencies, +in the Post Office Savings Bank; and now he would have +over a pound a week to put away. Now if he did that for ten years, +fifteen years, perhaps increased it if the firm went on doing so well +and gave him another rise, why, then, surely—and he lost himself +in pleasant speculations.</p> + +<p>He arrived home to find Edna sitting over the fire, hugging herself +in misery, and red and swollen about the eyes.</p> + +<p>“Hello, hello,” he cried. “What’s the matter here?”</p> + +<p>“Lost my job,” Edna mumbled into the fire.</p> + +<p>“Yes, she’s a fine one, isn’t she?” And Mrs. Smeeth bounced into +the room with a saucepan in her hand. “I told her to be careful, +last night, the way they were getting their knife into her, and in +she comes, half an hour ago, and tells me they’ve had a regular +dust-up and the long and short of it all is, my lady’s sacked.”</p> + +<p>“It wasn’t my fault,” said Edna, who had obviously said this a +great many times before.</p> + +<p>“Just you go upstairs and tidy yourself up,” cried her mother. +“Dinner will be ready in a minute and the face you’ve got now isn’t +fit to be seen at a table. It would put us off our food. And don’t +<span class="pagenum" id="p244">[244]</span>start telling me you don’t want any dinner, just because you’ve got +sacked. Get along upstairs and don’t keep us waiting all night when +you do get up.”</p> + +<p>“What’s all this about?” Mr. Smeeth asked, with the quiet despair +of a man who has known something like it happen before, and not +a few times before. He put on that look familiar to all wives, who +are left wondering why men should imagine that domestic life, +unlike any other kind of life, ought really to be entirely lacking in +disturbing events.</p> + +<p>“Look at me with this saucepan in my hand,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, +laughing at herself. “Just you sit down and keep calm, and I’ll have +dinner on the table in a minute, though what it’ll be like, Lord +only knows, the way I’ve been badgered and rushed.”</p> + +<p>Left to himself, Mr. Smeeth came to the conclusion once again +that his wife was to be envied. She made a great fuss, far more +noise than he ever did, but she didn’t really dislike these disturbances +and strokes of bad luck. Any sort of happening, even an apparent +misfortune, braced her up and left her really enjoying it. What she +didn’t like was a quiet life, the same thing day after day.</p> + +<p>She came in now like a savoury whirlwind. “Draw up, Dad. +We won’t wait for Edna. She’ll be down in a minute. Help yourself +to that stew and take plenty of it because the meat’s nearly all +bone. Dig down and you’ll get the barley, and that’ll do your old +inside good.”</p> + +<p>“What’s this about Edna, then?”</p> + +<p>“Far as I can see, you can’t really blame her, though she’s probably +been acting a bit too independent. Edna <em>is</em> independent, though +better that, in the long run, than too much the other way. But she’s +only a child, when all’s said and done, and I know she liked the +work and wanted to stop on there. For two pins, I’d slip down to +Finsbury Park to-morrow and give that floor manager or whoever +he is a piece of my mind. All favouritism really, that’s what it +boils down to, and of course Edna hadn’t been there long and ought +to have kept quiet—though a girl’s a right to speak up for herself, +<span class="pagenum" id="p245">[245]</span>and I’d be the last to say she hasn’t—but they begin picking on her +and she stands up for herself and lets out one or two things she +oughtn’t to and the next thing is, she’s told to go.”</p> + +<p>This was not a very clear account of how a girl came to be suddenly +dismissed from an important firm of retail drapers, but it +seemed to satisfy Mr. Smeeth, who did not ask for any details. The +truth is, he had gone through this scene before, and he knew now +that it was not worth trying to discover exactly what had happened. +Edna returned, looking her usual self except that she wore a slightly +tragic air.</p> + +<p>“When do you finish then, Edna?” her father asked.</p> + +<p>“This week. And the sooner the better. I wouldn’t go to-morrow +if I hadn’t to get my week’s money. Lot of pigs, they are. I knew +one or two girls—Ivy Armitage, for one—who’s been there and +they told me what it was like, but of course I wouldn’t believe ’em +but it didn’t take me long to see they weren’t talking so silly as I +thought.”</p> + +<p>“And what’s the next move, then?” demanded Mr. Smeeth rather +wearily.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you worry, Dad. I’m not going to stick about home long. +I’ll find something.”</p> + +<p>“What she’d like to do is to go to Madame Rivoli’s in the High +Street,” Mrs. Smeeth explained, “and learn the business properly.”</p> + +<p>“What business? I’ll trouble you for the greens, Edna.”</p> + +<p>“Millinery. You know Madame Rivoli’s in the High Street, the +place where I got that very nice purple hat of mine that fell into the +water at Hastings that time? Mrs. Talbot keeps it now. You know, +her husband died of eating oysters about four years ago, and nobody +round here would touch ’em for months—well, that’s Mrs. Talbot, +a little woman, looks a bit Frenchified—smart, y’know, Dad, but +overdoes it a bit. I pointed her out to you one day, and you said +if you’d legs as thin as that you’d take the trouble to hide ’em and +I thought she heard you.”</p> + +<p>“And then you talk about <em>me</em> talking,” cried Edna. “That’s a nice +<span class="pagenum" id="p246">[246]</span>way to talk, isn’t it? And about Mrs. Talbot, too. You couldn’t want +anybody nicer than Mrs. Talbot.”</p> + +<p>“All we want is for you to mind your own business,” said Mrs. +Smeeth, forgetting that this really was Edna’s business. “But if you +want something to do, you can be fetching that pudding in and +making yourself useful, while I finish this. And be careful getting +it out. Use the cloth.”</p> + +<p>“And where does Madame Rivoli come in?” asked Mr. Smeeth.</p> + +<p>“She doesn’t come in. It’s just a <em>name</em>, y’see, Dad. Miss Murgatroyd +had it before Mrs. Talbot. It catches people, makes them think all +the hats are Paris models. For all that, it’s the best little hat shop +we’ve got about here. If you know of a better one in Stoke Newington, +I’d like to know where it is, I would really. Only thing that +keeps <em>me</em> away from that shop is the prices they ask—oh, wicked, +they are—you might as well go to the West End and have done with +it. But Mrs. Talbot does a fine business—I don’t think it’s altogether +her shop, I think she just manages it, and somebody told me two +Jews really owned it. Now then, Edna,” and Mrs. Smeeth sprang +to her feet and took the pudding from her daughter, “just nip back +for the plates and then we’re all right. There we are. It’ll taste better +than it looks. This pudding always does. Plenty for you, Dad?”</p> + +<p>“Just middling, Mother,” said Mr. Smeeth.</p> + +<p>“Well, if that isn’t enough, you can always come again, can’t you? +What about you, Edna? Don’t want any, I suppose? Well, you’re +going to have some. You eat that and see if it doesn’t make you feel +better.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve tasted worse,” said Mr. Smeeth judicially. “Bit heavy, though, +isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Oo, Mother, you can’t have mixed it properly,” cried the fastidious +Edna. “It’s like lead. It is really. I’ll have a bit more of the +apple, please. I can’t eat the crust.”</p> + +<p>“Now if you’d been me and I’d been <em>my</em> mother,” said Mrs. +Smeeth with an attempt at severity, “you’d have been made to eat +<span class="pagenum" id="p247">[247]</span>what was on your plate and not gone picking and choosing like that. +But it’s not come out as well as it might, I must say.”</p> + +<p>“Well, to get back to what we were talking about,” said Mr. +Smeeth, laying down his spoon and shaking his head at an offer of +more pudding. “Where does this Mrs. Talbot or Madame Rivoli or +whoever it is come in? What’s she got to do with us? I’ve forgotten +how it all started. You go on and on and what with purple hats and +oysters and legs and Jews, I don’t know where I am. Now then, +start again, if we <em>must</em> have it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you tell him, Edna, while I go and make the tea. And for +goodness’ sake be careful you don’t mention purple hats and oysters +or else your father will be leaving home. Old silly!” And Mrs. +Smeeth, as deft as a juggler, swept herself and half a dozen plates +and a few dishes out of the room.</p> + +<p>“It’s like this, Dad,” Edna began. “My friend, Minnie Watson, +knows this Mrs. Talbot who’s managing Madame Rivoli’s because +her mother has known her a long time and Minnie Watson introduced +me to Mrs. Talbot and we got on talking and Minnie Watson +told her afterwards I wanted to go in for the millinery if I +could⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Ah, we’re coming to it at last, are we?”</p> + +<p>“Well, the point is, Mrs. Talbot told Minnie Watson that she +liked the look of me and that if I wanted to go as an apprentice, +I could do, and they’d teach me the business. Only I’d have to go for +six months first without getting any money at all, and then they’d +pay me something after that—not much at the start, but afterwards +I could earn a lot, because you can if you’re a proper milliner and +know the business.”</p> + +<p>“That’s the idea now, you see, Dad,” said Mrs. Smeeth, coming in +with the tea. “Learning the millinery. I don’t say it’s a bad idea, because +it’s not, and, if you ask me, I should say Edna had as good +a chance of making something out of it as any girl I know, because +she’s good with her fingers—when she cares to use ’em and that’s +<span class="pagenum" id="p248">[248]</span>not often in the house—and she likes altering hats, which is more +than I ever did.”</p> + +<p>“Everybody says I’m clever at it,” said Edna, looking rather defiant.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know what you mean by ‘everybody,’ but if you mean +your Minnie Watsons and such like, I don’t think whatever they say +amounts to much. They’d tell you anything for tuppence. But still, +Dad, it’s not a bad idea—but, as I told her, this apprenticeship business +is coming a bit hard on us because it’s working for nothing and +now that she’s been earning money, she’s used to having it to spend, +and we’ve got to keep her looking decent and she’ll still want to be +spending something and she’ll be bringing nothing in for a long +time. You say I haven’t a head for business, Dad—and I dare say +I haven’t and I don’t know that I want to have—but I saw that as +soon as she mentioned it and asked her what she thought we were +going to get out of it.”</p> + +<p>“Dad can’t talk,” cried Edna, looking across at him triumphantly, +“’cos he wanted me to be a teacher and if I’d started to be a teacher, +I’d have been going to college now, and then he’d have had to be +paying for me, never mind me not earning anything.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but you didn’t want to be a teacher, did you?” said Mrs. +Smeeth, as if that somehow settled the matter.</p> + +<p>“Besides, my girl,” Mr. Smeeth began, rather pompously.</p> + +<p>“Take your tea, Dad.” It was a curious thing, but whenever Mr. +Smeeth had some really dignified statement to make, Mrs. Smeeth +invariably broke in to hand him a cup or a plate or to ask him to +put some coal on the fire or to see if there was somebody at the +front door.</p> + +<p>“Go on, Dad, what were you saying?” said Mrs. Smeeth, observing +that he was frowning a little at his cup.</p> + +<p>“I was going to say that teaching’s one thing and millinery’s another +thing. If you’d have decided to be a teacher, Edna, I was +ready to make a sacrifice to see that you became one. Teaching’s +a profession. Safe, too. Once you become a teacher, you’re safe for +the rest of your life⁠——”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p249">[249]</span></p> + +<p>“Awful old maids they look too, some of the old ones. Lord help +us, what a life!” Mrs. Smeeth shuddered, shook her head, then +smiled at her husband, encouraging him to continue with his little +speech.</p> + +<p>“But this millinery business is quite a different thing. There may +be money in it and there may not—I don’t know. What I do know +is, it’s in a different class altogether, not the same standing at all. +I’d do for one what I wouldn’t do for the other. So don’t throw that +teaching affair in my face because it’s outside the argument +altogether.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, all right.” Edna wriggled her shoulders. “Don’t go on and +on about it. If I can’t go, I suppose I can’t, that’s all.” She pushed +her cup away and rose from the table. Then she stopped and looked +at them, and Mr. Smeeth saw, to his dismay, that her eyes were +filling with tears. Like that, she looked hardly a day older than +she had done when he still played childish games with her. “But I +did want to go. It’s the only thing I’ve really wanted to do since I +left school. And if I went, I might be earning quite a lot in a year +or two and some day I might be able to have a shop of my own. If +George had wanted to do something like this, you wouldn’t have +said no to him—oh⁠——”</p> + +<p>She was making for the door, but her father’s shout stopped her.</p> + +<p>“Here, wait a minute,” he called out. Then, when she halted, he +threw a quick glance at her streaming little face, looked across at +her mother and then down at the table-cloth, and said: “Well, I suppose +you’d better have a try at it then, Edna.”</p> + +<p>“Oo, can I?” She was all delighted eagerness now, and darted +across to him. “I can, can’t I?”</p> + +<p>Awkward, a trifle shamefaced, Mr. Smeeth made a movement as +if to put his arm round her, but apparently thought better of it and +merely patted her nearest shoulder-blade. “That’s all right,” he muttered. +“That’s all right.”</p> + +<p>“Can I go round and see her now?” said Edna, her eyes shining +<span class="pagenum" id="p250">[250]</span>and her feet dancing with impatience. Then she flew out of the +room.</p> + +<p>“Well, Dad,” said Mrs. Smeeth. “I won’t say I’m sorry you’ve +decided that way, because I’m not. I believe it’s what she’s wanted +some time. She doesn’t know whether she’s on her head or her heels +now. Ah!—” and she gave a tremendous sigh—“I like to see them +happy. After all, we’ve only got to live once⁠——”</p> + +<p>“How do you know?” demanded her husband.</p> + +<p>“Well, I don’t know, if it comes to that, Mister Clever,” she retorted +good-humouredly. “All the same, I’ve a very good idea. But +what I wanted to say is this, Dad. I wasn’t going to give her permission +to start this business. And don’t say I persuaded you, because +I didn’t. You did it yourself. You know what it means. She’ll be +earning next to nothing for a year or two, and though she’ll have +to pull herself in a bit now she’s not earning anything, she can’t be +kept on nothing. So don’t you turn round on me and tell me I don’t +know that twelve pennies make a shilling or something of that sort. +It’s your own doing, this time. I made up my mind I wouldn’t say +a word. And if you think you can do it all right, well and good; +I’m glad.”</p> + +<p>“Of course I can do it,” he told her, rather indignantly. Then out +it came. “Matter of fact, I’ve got that rise.”</p> + +<p>“You’ve not?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have.”</p> + +<p>“How much?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve been put up to three seventy-five, that’s more than a pound +a week more than I’ve been getting.” And as he said it, Mr. Smeeth +asked himself if he wasn’t behaving like a complete fool.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Smeeth descended on him impetuously and gave him a resounding +kiss. “I knew there was something coming,” she cried +jubilantly. “I told you about Mrs. Dalby’s sister, didn’t I? She told +me again that money and good luck were coming through a stranger, +a middling-coloured man in a strange bed. And that was this +Mr. Golspie of yours, I’ll bet. Nearly four hundred a year, isn’t it, +<span class="pagenum" id="p251">[251]</span>now? That’s something like. My cousin, Fred Mitty, was boasting +the other night about what he could make sometimes, and now +this will be something to tell him to-morrow night. And fancy you +just sitting there as if nothing had happened and never saying a +word! I never knew anybody so close, you old oyster you! But that +shows what they think of you, doesn’t it? And you always worrying +about your job and talking as if you were going to be out in the street +next minute!” She ran on and on, happy and excited, while he +filled his pipe and tried to appear very cool and collected. Actually +he was being pulled two ways. One half of him was gratified, no, +more than gratified, delighted by her pleasure and her pride in him, +and the other half was dubious and demanded to know if he realised +what he had done.</p> + +<p>“Now look here, Dad,” said Mrs. Smeeth, “we must celebrate the +great occasion somehow to-night. It’s no good luck coming to the +house if we’re not going to take any notice of it. Let’s go out somewhere. +Let’s enjoy ourselves.”</p> + +<p>“I thought we were going to do that to-morrow,” he told her drily, +“when Fred Mitty and company arrive.”</p> + +<p>“But that’s different. I mean, just ourselves, just you and me. Let’s +go and see a good picture or down to the second house at Finsbury +Park or something like that, and sit in the best seats, and you buy +yourself a cigar and buy me some chocolates for once, and let’s do +it properly. Come on, boy. What do you say?”</p> + +<p>The Saving Man and the Small Investor in Mr. Smeeth went down +before the affectionate husband and the proud male. When she +looked at him like that, it would be a sin and a shame to refuse her. +“All right, Edie. You decide where you want to go, and we’ll go.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll just put George’s dinner out and put the dirty things under +the tap,” she announced breathlessly, flushed and bright-eyed, a girl +again, “and while I’m doing that, you look at the paper and see +where you’d like to go. Give me those two cups. No, I can manage. +You just sit there and have a quiet smoke.”</p> + +<p>He could hear her singing, in her own cheerful vague fashion, +<span class="pagenum" id="p252">[252]</span>above the faint clatter of crockery in the kitchen, while he had his +quiet smoke. He did not look at the paper to see where he would +like to go. She could decide that, and she would soon enough when +she had washed up. For a week or two, she would be feeling rich +and would be bringing out all sorts of plans. If by the end of this +night she had not thought of twenty different ways of getting rid +of a good deal more than an extra pound or so a week, he would be +surprised. She had a weakness for hire purchase schemes, to begin +with, and he detested them, both as a man of business and a careful +householder. Well, after the first excitement had gone he would +have to put his foot down; no more of these fairy tale views of +life; somebody had to do the thinking. Now his thoughts took on a +sombre colouring. He had never envied the rich their luxurious +pleasures; he was a simple chap, and their way of life seemed to +him ridiculous; he did not want a great deal for himself; but what +he did want—and for this he was prepared to envy anybody—was +security, to know that decency and self-respect were his to the end +of his days. To be safe in his job while he was fit for it, and after +that to have a little place of his own, with a garden (he had never +done any real gardening, but he always found it easy to imagine +himself doing it very well and enjoying it) and a bit of music +whenever he wanted it—that was not asking much, and yet, for all +the firm’s increased turnover and its rises, he could not help thinking +it was really like asking for the moon.</p> + +<p>“’Lo, Dad,” cried George, entering briskly. “How’s things?”</p> + +<p>“Pretty good, boy. How’s the car trade?”</p> + +<p>“Not so dusty. You don’t know anybody who’d like to lend me +sixty quid, do you, Dad?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t,” replied Mr. Smeeth very decidedly.</p> + +<p>“Pity,” said George, who showed no signs of disappointment. “If +I could put my hand on sixty quid this minute, I could make money. +A cert. Sounds like horse racing, doesn’t it, but it isn’t⁠——”</p> + +<p>“And I should hope not,” said his father, looking at him severely.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p253">[253]</span></p> + +<p>“Second-hand car deal. Money for nothing. Ah, well—you wait +a bit.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you be careful, with your money for nothing.”</p> + +<p>“Leave it to me, Dad,” said George coolly.</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth looked wonderingly at him. It seemed only yesterday +when he was filling his stocking and putting the Meccano set by +the boy’s bedside. And now—leave it to him, sixty quid, a cert! Mr. +Smeeth took his pipe out, stared at it, and then whistled softly.</p> + + +<h3 id="V_2"> + V +</h3> + +<p>“Come along, Dad,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, pouring out the Rich +Ruby Port for the ladies. “Buck up. Join in the fun.” She had herself +a rich ruby look, for what with eating and drinking and shouting +and laughing and singing, her face was crimson and almost +steaming.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, Mr. Mitty overheard her. “That’s right,” he roared, +drowning every other voice in the room. “Come on, Pa. Take your +turn. No shirking. Take your turn, Pa. Show us a conjuring trick.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, shut up, Fred,” Mrs. Mitty screamed, pretending to chide +him, as usual, and really drawing attention to his astonishing drollery. +“You’ve gone far enough.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth could not do any conjuring, but if he had been given +unlimited powers, he knew one trick he would have liked to perform +that instant, a trick that involved the immediate disappearance +of Mr. Fred Mitty. It was Saturday night, the little party was +in full swing, and they were all in the front room, all, that is except +the Mitty girl and Edna, who had gone out together for an hour +or so, probably round to the pictures. In addition to the Mitty pair, +there were Dalby and Mrs. Dalby (whose sister told fortunes with +cards). Mr. Smeeth had seen the room when it had had more people +in it, but he had never known it when it had seemed so full. He +had always thought of Dalby, who lived at 11, Chaucer Road, was a +bandy-legged insurance agent, and fancied himself as a wag and a +<span class="pagenum" id="p254">[254]</span>great hand at parties, as a noisy chap, but compared with Fred +Mitty he was quiet and decent and merely another Smeeth. It had +not taken Mr. Smeeth ten minutes to discover that he disliked Mitty +intensely, and every thing that Mitty had done and said since (and +for the last hour or so he had insisted on calling Mr. Smeeth “Pa”) +had only increased that dislike, which did not stop short at Fred, +but extended to Mrs. Mitty and the girl, Dot. He had never known +three people he had disliked more.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Smeeth’s cousin was a fellow in his early forties who had +probably not been bad-looking once in a cheap flashy style. He had +curly fair hair, very small, light-coloured greedy eyes, a broken nose, +and a large loose mouth that went all out to one side when he +talked. He reminded Mr. Smeeth at once of those cheap auctioneer +chaps who take an empty shop for a week or two and pretend they +are giving everything away. Mr. Mitty’s complexion seemed to be +permanently rich and ruby, and it had evidently cost somebody a +good deal in its time, though—as Mr. Smeeth assured himself, +vindictively—not necessarily Mr. Mitty himself, who clearly brought +out visiting with him a colossal thirst and appetite. He was a funny +man, a determined wag, and the noisiest Mr. Smeeth had ever +known. He shouted all the time, just like one of those cheap auctioneers. +His jokes gave you a pain in the stomach and his voice +a headache. Moreover, he seemed to Mr. Smeeth quite obviously a +silly boaster, a liar, and a man not to be trusted a yard. Such men +frequently ally themselves to quiet little women, but Fred Mitty—fortunately +for some quiet little woman—had found a female of his +own kind. Mrs. Mitty, who had a long blue nose and hair that was +bright auburn at the ends and grey-brown near the roots, was as +brassy as her husband. Her scream accompanied his roar. If she +said anything playful to you, she hit your nearest rib with her bony +elbow; and if you said anything playful to her, she slapped you on +the arm. Here she differed from Fred, who banged you on the back +and poked you in the ribs, unless you were a woman and not too +old, and then he hugged you or invited you to sit on his knee. Dot, +<span class="pagenum" id="p255">[255]</span>the solitary offspring of this brassy pair, was about Edna’s age and +was all legs and golden curls and a hard blue stare. She talked of +becoming a film actress. Mr. Smeeth, who did not know much +about Hollywood, but nevertheless had a horror of the place, told her +quite sincerely that he hoped she would get there, and added, with +perfect truth, that she reminded him of those Broadway girls on +the pictures. Edna of course—the silly child—had been fascinated +at once by Dot; and as for Mrs. Smeeth, who really had no more +sense about people at times than a baby, she seemed to be infatuated +with all three of them.</p> + +<p>“Will you have a little port wine, Mrs. Dalby?” said Mr. Smeeth, +who felt that he must do something.</p> + +<p>“Just the tiniest, weeniest sip, Mr. Smeeth,” she replied. And when +he had brought her the Rich Ruby she continued, “Lively to-night, +aren’t we?”</p> + +<p>“Very,” he told her.</p> + +<p>She gave him a quick look. “Well, it’s nice to see people enjoying +themselves. But you look a bit tired to-night, Mr. Smeeth.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know. Do I? Feel all right, y’know, Mrs. Dalby.” +Did he feel all right? What about that little tick-tick of pain somewhere +inside him? “I’ve been working hard just lately. We’ve been +busy, for once.”</p> + +<p>“You’re inside all the time, aren’t you?” said Mrs. Dalby seriously +and sympathetically. “And that’s what tells on you. Tom works +very hard—though you wouldn’t think so, to hear him talk—but +he’s out most of the time, on his round, you know, and so it’s not +so bad for him, unless we get a spell of nasty damp weather and +then he begins to feel it in the chest. He’s had chest trouble before.”</p> + +<p>“Has he really?” said Mr. Smeeth. This was not a very cheerful +conversation, but nevertheless it pleased him. Mrs. Dalby was a +nice, quiet, ladylike sort of woman, and talking to her in this company +was like having a few words with a sane person in a madhouse.</p> + +<p>“That’s right, Fred,” Mrs. Smeeth shouted. “Do help yourself.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p256">[256]</span></p> + +<p>“Trust me!” roared Fred, who was pouring himself out some +whisky. Yes, there was a bottle of whisky, as well as some beer and +the Rich Ruby. So far as Mr. Smeeth could see, half the week’s +housekeeping money must have been spent on this racket.</p> + +<p>“Yes, trust <em>’im</em>,” screamed Mrs. Fred, putting down her empty +glass. “If you don’t take that bottle away from him, he’ll have it all +before you know where you are.”</p> + +<p>“Ah like ma droap o’ Scoatch, d’ye ken,” Fred bellowed in a very +hoarse voice and in what he imagined to be a Scots accent. “Wha’ +day ye say, Meesees Macphairson? Hoch aye!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, stop it, Fred,” cried his wife.</p> + +<p>“Good as a turn, you are, Fred,” said Mrs. Smeeth admiringly.</p> + +<p>“Reminds me of the chap from Aberdeen,” Dalby began. But it +was no use. It was not his evening.</p> + +<p>“There was a Scottie I knew in Brum,” Fred shouted.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fred let out a piercing shriek. “Oh, yes, tell ’em about him.”</p> + +<p>Fred did, but Mr. Smeeth, by a tremendous effort, contrived not +to listen, although Fred’s voice more than filled the room. Indeed, +there was so much of it that it was possible not to take it in properly. +Mr. Smeeth thought about other things, and paid no attention +until he suddenly discovered that he was being addressed.</p> + +<p>“Yes, do let’s have that,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, her face very red +and her eyes moist with laughter. “Y’know, that one you did the +other night for me—that man in Birmingham. Laugh! I thought +I’d have died. Dad, you remember me telling you? Do listen to +this.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right, Pa,” roared Fred, with mock severity. “A little of +your attention, please, while I endeavour to give you a slight impersonation +of—Mis-ter Snook-um of Brum.”</p> + +<p>“That wasn’t his real name, you know,” Mrs. Fred screamed, +turning on Mr. Smeeth so that he got the full force of it. “That +was the name these chaps gave him. Do it properly, Fred, this time. +Dress up for it.”</p> + +<p>“Shall I? What about it?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p257">[257]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, go on, do. Like you did that time at Mr. Slingsby’s. I’ll tell +you all about that night in a minute,” Mrs. Fred added, with the air +of one about to confer a great favour. “That <em>was</em> a night. But go +on, Fred.”</p> + +<p>“All right,” replied Fred, noisily finishing his whisky. “I will—by +special request.”</p> + +<p>“Looks as though we’re going to have a performance,” said Dalby, +not very pleasantly. There had been rather too much of Fred for his +taste.</p> + +<p>“That’s right,” Fred shouted at him, not too pleasantly either. +“Any objections?”</p> + +<p>“Hurry up, Fred,” cried Mrs. Smeeth beaming at him. “We’re all +waiting.”</p> + +<p>“Allow me one minute in which to change my costume,” Fred +replied, “and I will oblige.” And out he went, and the others were +moved about to allow a clear space near the door, and Mrs. Dalby +and Mrs. Mitty were pressed to take a little more of the Rich Ruby +or to have a sandwich or a piece of cake, and Mrs. Dalby had a +sandwich and Mrs. Mitty, whose long nose was a much deeper +shade of blue than it had originally been, accepted another glass of +the Rich Ruby.</p> + +<p>“I ought to tell you that this chap he’s going to take off,” Mrs. Fred +explained to them, “was a chap Fred had some business dealings +with in Birmingham. He owned one of the picture theatres there. +He wasn’t a bad sort of chap really, but he was an absolute comic—didn’t +mean to be, y’know, didn’t know he was funny—but he <em>was</em>, +and Fred and the other fellows used to make game of him. To +start with, he always talked, you see, with his mouth on one +side⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Well, so does Fred,” said Mr. Smeeth, bluntly and boldly.</p> + +<p>“Now, Dad,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, “how can you say that!”</p> + +<p>“That’s right, Mrs. Smeeth,” said Dalby. “He does talk with his +mouth on one side. I noticed it myself. Just a habit, you know. Easy +<span class="pagenum" id="p258">[258]</span>to get into. Probably you never notice it now,” he remarked considerately +to Mrs. Fred. “You’ve got used to it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s quite different,” she said stiffly. But she did not continue +with her explanation. “Wait till he comes in. You’ll see what +I mean.”</p> + +<p>What Mr. Smeeth did see when Fred came in was that Fred was +wearing his best overcoat and hat. He must have chosen these things +because they were obviously too small for him and so added to the +comic effect. The coat was strained across his shoulders, and the hat, +a good grey soft felt, which Mr. Smeeth only wore at the week-end +and for special occasions, had been jammed on his head and punched +in at the top in a horrible manner. Mr. Smeeth was so annoyed he +could hardly sit still.</p> + +<p>“Good evening, you people,” said Fred, speaking in a queer voice +and throwing his mouth round to the other side. “I’m Mister Snookums +of Brum, and I’d loike you to understand that I’m the propreeotor +of the Luxydrome Peecture Palaice, situated in one of our +main thoroughfares of the city and built ree-gardless of expense. +Hem!” Here Fred coughed in a silly way, with a quick movement +of one hand to his mouth, a movement that nearly split the seams +of the overcoat. His wife and Mrs. Smeeth shrieked with laughter; +Dalby and his wife smiled; and Mr. Smeeth merely looked glum. +This went on for several minutes, at the end of which, Fred, in a +frantic attempt to capture the whole audience, was shouting at the +top of his voice, nearly bursting the overcoat, and punching the hat +out of any recognisable shape. At last, Mr. Smeeth could stand it +no longer.</p> + +<p>“Just a minute,” he said, advancing upon Fred. “I’m sorry to interrupt, +if you’ve not finished. But, y’know, that’s my hat, my <em>best</em> +hat—when you’ve done with it.” And he held out his hand for it.</p> + +<p>“All right, old sport,” said Fred, giving it to him and resuming +his normal appearance. “No damage done. And ber-lieve me, people,” +he added, mopping his brow, “that’s nearly like work. Yes, I +think I will, Cousin Edie.” And he made for the whisky.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p259">[259]</span></p> + +<p>Edna and Dot returned now from the pictures. It was Dot’s turn +to entertain the company. “Oo, I say,” she cried, like a suddenly +galvanised doll, “oo, I say, you oughter see Ducie Dellwood in this +picture we’ve just seen. A college girl, what they call over there +a co-ed.”</p> + +<p>“I thought she was sorful,” said Edna. “Didn’t you, Dot?”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t like her much. This was her. Watch me, everybody. +Just watch me a minute. This was her.” And Dot, after screaming +everybody into attention, began jazzing about and rolling her eyes +and flinging herself into a chair and then jumping out of it again. +“That song’s in this picture, mother,” she gasped. “You know—what +is it?—<i>It’s Necking or Nothing Now</i>—and Ducie Dellwood +sings it—like this.” She stood facing them with her legs apart and +knees bent, crooked her elbows, spread out her fingers, then swayed +as she sang, or tried to sing in a little nasal voice, what she remembered +of the song. Mr. Smeeth, after noticing that Edna was regarding +this performance with open admiration, told himself that in spite +of the fact that he was a quiet and good-tempered man, he would +dearly like to get up and give this Dot girl a good box on the ears +and then pack her off to bed.</p> + +<p>“Well, I really think we’d better be getting along now,” said Mrs. +Dalby.</p> + +<p>“Yes, time to be off,” said her husband.</p> + +<p>“No, don’t go yet, Mrs. Dalby,” cried Mrs. Smeeth.</p> + +<p>“The night is yet young,” roared Fred. “I thought you London +people kept it up till all hours. Why, up in Brum, when a few of +us got together, some of the bo-hoys and some of the ger-hirls, we +used to be settling down to it now, I give you my word.”</p> + +<p>“And how much longer does he think he’s going to stay here?” +Mr. Smeeth asked himself bitterly, as the irrepressible Fred went +roaring on. Mrs. Dalby was firm about going and edged towards +the door, smiling at her hostess; Dalby followed her and when +they did finally go, Mr. Smeeth, glad to escape even for a minute +<span class="pagenum" id="p260">[260]</span>or two, saw them to the door. The night was beautifully dark and +quiet, delighted in its entire lack of Mitties.</p> + +<p>“Lively card, all right,” said Dalby, as they halted a moment.</p> + +<p>“A bit too lively for me,” said Mr. Smeeth in a low, confidential +tone. “A little of him goes a long way, it seems to me. Mrs. Smeeth’s +cousin, y’know,” he added, disclaiming all responsibility.</p> + +<p>“Well, to be quite truthful, Mr. Smeeth,” Mrs. Dalby declared, +“I must say I thought the way they allowed that girl to carry on +was ridiculous. My words, if she’d been a girl of mine⁠——!”</p> + +<p>“Or mine,” said Mr. Smeeth grimly.</p> + +<p>“Still, we’ve had a very enjoyable evening, haven’t we, Tom?” +said Mrs. Dalby, who had plainly had nothing of the kind but +was a polite woman.</p> + +<p>After they had said good night, Mr. Smeeth remained at the door +for a few minutes, enjoying the quiet and the cool fresh air. When +he returned to the others he made straight for the fire and raked +it together with the poker, but did not put any more coal on it. +Then he yawned once or twice, and did not try very hard to pretend +he was not yawning. Ten minutes later, he told Edna to get +upstairs to bed, pointing out very firmly that on any other night +she would have been there some time. There were signs then, after +Edna had reluctantly and with much wriggling of shoulders taken +her departure, that the Mitty family was about to go, but unfortunately +George made his appearance and that kept them another +half-hour, towards the end of which Mr. Smeeth merely stared at +them in despair. When they did go Mrs. Smeeth and George saw +them to the door, and Mr. Smeeth stayed where he was.</p> + +<p>Somehow the room looked as if fifty people had been eating and +drinking and smoking in it for days. There were two sandwiches +and a flattened cigarette end on the carpet; somebody had spilled +some port on the little table; there was the glass that Fred had +broken; there were the forlorn bottles, the dirty glasses, the remnants +of food, the cigarette ash, the smoke rapidly going stale: the +whole room, the pride of the house and as nice a parlour as you +<span class="pagenum" id="p261">[261]</span>would find in the length of Chaucer Road, looked tipsy, bedraggled, +and forlorn, and as its disgusted owner wearily moved about, throwing +bits of stuff into the fire and straightening things, he felt as if +the Mitty crew had left their sign and mark on it for ever. He +threw open the windows and was just in time to hear from outside +the last good nights.</p> + +<p>His wife came in. “George has gone to bed,” she announced. “I +was telling him he seemed quite struck with young Dot.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth grunted.</p> + +<p>She followed her usual practice on these occasions, sitting down +by the fire with a last sandwich, prepared for a cosy little gossip +about the evening. “I’m not going to touch a thing to-night. It’ll have +to wait until the morning. Well, well, I must say I’ve enjoyed myself +to-night; whether other people have or not.” For a moment her +face was alight with reminiscent mirth, that pleasant afterglow of +jolly evenings, but it died out as she looked at her husband. “But I +must say, too, Dad, I never saw you in such a mood. I expect you +thought I wasn’t noticing you, but I was. Couldn’t help it. Quite +grumpy you were, half the time, and downright rude, if you ask +me, once or twice. Fred’s wife noticed it, too.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth mumbled something to the effect that he did not +much care what Fred’s wife noticed.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps you’re tired. Are you, boy?” she said, her manner changing. +“I thought once or twice you looked tired, and Mrs. Dalby +told me <em>she</em> thought you were looking a bit tired to-night.”</p> + +<p>“I expect I am,” said Mr. Smeeth.</p> + +<p>“Ah, well, that’s different, isn’t it, when you’re tired and you +don’t feel in the humour for it? Never mind; next time I expect +you’ll be ready to join in the fun. They’ve asked us all down for +one night next week—they’ll let us know which night—to meet +some people they know who used to be in Birmingham, too.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I hope you told them I wasn’t going.”</p> + +<p>“Of course I didn’t, Dad. The very idea!”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m not going.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p262">[262]</span></p> + +<p>“Why, what for?”</p> + +<p>“Because I’m <em>not</em>. If you want to know,” Mr. Smeeth added, his +voice trembling, “I’ve had quite enough of ’em here to-night, without +going to look for some more.”</p> + +<p>His wife looked at him indignantly and sat up straight. “That’s +a nice way to talk, isn’t it? What harm have they done you? It’s +not Fred’s fault—or his wife’s fault—if you didn’t enjoy yourself +to-night.”</p> + +<p>“It is. If it’s not their fault, whose fault is it?” Mr. Smeeth +retorted. “I can’t stand him—and I can’t stand his wife—and I can’t +stand that jazzing girl of theirs either. And the less Edna, or George, +for that matter, sees of that little⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Now just you be careful what you’re saying,” cried Mrs. Smeeth. +“You’ll be saying something in a minute you’ll be sorry for afterwards. +Now, Dad, you’re tired to-night, and I expect they were a +bit too noisy for you. Fred does get noisy when he gets going, I’ll +admit. But you’ll feel different about it in the morning. Let’s go to +bed.”</p> + +<p>“All right. I’m ready. But understand this, Edie. I’m not going +down to Fred Mitty’s this next week or any other week. If you want +to go, I can’t stop you, and if you want to ask them here again, I +suppose I can’t stop you—though if he starts coming here regularly, +drinking the amount of whisky he drank to-night, I’m going to have +something to say. But he doesn’t see <em>me</em> again for a long time, I can +tell you that.”</p> + +<p>“The way you talk!” said Mrs. Smeeth on her way to the door. +“But I’m not going to argue with you to-night. I’m tired myself and +I’m sure you’re so tired you don’t know what you <em>are</em> saying. I’ll +leave you to lock up, Dad.”</p> + +<p>No doubt he <em>was</em> tired. He was still trembling a little as he went +round, turning off the lights and seeing that both outside doors +were locked and bolted; but his mind was made up on the Mitty +question. There is a certain pleasure in making up your mind, +putting your foot down, taking a firm stand, especially if, like +<span class="pagenum" id="p263">[263]</span>Mr. Smeeth, you do it very rarely, not being a wilful or autocratic +man; and as he walked along the dark little hall and climbed the +stairs, Mr. Smeeth experienced that pleasure, and the hand that he +placed on the banisters was that of a strong determined man, the +natural head of a house. Yet even before he had reached the bedroom +door there was mixed with that pleasure, absorbing it gradually, an +uneasiness, a faint foreboding, a sense of worse things to come.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p264">[264]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_Seven_ARABIAN_NIGHTS_FOR_TURGIS"> + <i>Chapter Seven</i>: <span class="allsmcap">ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>“Yersh,” said Mr. Pelumpton, staring at Turgis and pulling hard +at his little pipe, which replied with a sickening gurgle—“yersh, +that’sh what you want, boy, shome short of ’obby, to parsh +the time—shee?”</p> + +<p>“That’s right,” cried little Mrs. Pelumpton, sitting down but only +on the edge of the chair to show that this was a mere breathing-space +in the long battle with beds and stairs and dirty plates and +potatoes and legs of mutton. “You oughter get out of yourself more, +Mr. Turgis—if you catch my meaning. That’s what you’re telling +him, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Yersh,” said Mr. Pelumpton, who was busy now poking at his +pipe with a very large hairpin.</p> + +<p>“Oh—I dunno,” said Turgis, vaguely and mournfully.</p> + +<p>“Look at Edgar,” Mrs. Pelumpton continued. “What with ’arriering—y’know, +a lot of ’em all running together, miles and miles, +and not as much on as you might go in the water with if you was +at the seaside—though he ’asn’t done much of that lately⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Don’t blame him,” Turgis muttered, shuddering. The last thing +on earth he wanted was to be a harrier, who not only ran and ran +until he nearly dropped but also contrived to look silly. Ugh!</p> + +<p>“What with that and now these racing dog dirt tracks⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Hear that,” Mr. Pelumpton broke in, pointing a derisive pipe-stem, +“d’hear that, Mishter Turgish? Dog dirt tracksh! That’sh a +good one. You’ve got it wrong, Mother. Nobody’d pay to shee a dog +<span class="pagenum" id="p265">[265]</span>dirt tracksh; you can shee them any time, outshide in the shtreet. +Plenty of ’em round ’er. That makesh me laugh, that doesh.” And +to show that it did, he cackled a little.</p> + +<p>“It wouldn’t take much to make you laugh. But you know what +I mean?” and she turned to Turgis.</p> + +<p>“Greyhound racing.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right,” cried Mrs. Pelumpton triumphantly. “He goes +to see ’em once or twice a week—never misses—and though it costs +money⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Yersh,” said Mr. Pelumpton. “Think it doesh. It’sh a betting +bishnish—shame ash ’orsh racing, a betting bishnish.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, is it?” Mrs. Pelumpton was thoughtful. “Well, that’s not as +good as it might be, is it? I don’t want Edgar starting with them +betting tricks—two to one each way and all that. Never any good +came of <em>that</em>, in <em>my</em> opinion.”</p> + +<p>“A mug’s game,” said Turgis, with the air of a rather gloomy +man of the world.</p> + +<p>“I thought they just went to see the dogs run about, just a bit +of fun,” Mrs. Pelumpton continued, dubiously. Then she brightened. +“But I can trust Edgar to behave and not do anything silly.”</p> + +<p>“Yersh, yersh. Matter of a bob or two, that’sh all. The boy’sh all +right. Mindjew, for <em>my</em> part, I never cared for thish betting game, +neither ’orshesh or anything elsh. Wouldn’t touch it. Fellersh ’ave +shaid to me, ‘You put all you’ve got on sho-an’-sho—it’sh a shert,’—but +I’ve told ’em, ‘No.’ Matter of prinshiple, shee? I don’t want +the bookiesh’ money and they’re not going to ’ave my money. What +I’ve made,” Mr. Pelumpton added, apparently under the impression +that he had made whole fortunes in his time, “I’ve honeshtly earned. +There’sh quite enough gambling in the dealing bishnish for me, +quite enough.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’d rather see Edgar going up there, even if it means +he’s putting his shillings on now and then,” said Mrs. Pelumpton, +getting up, “than see him going round the pubs. That’s an expensive +’obby, if you like. And you can’t say you’ve never had a try at that, +<span class="pagenum" id="p266">[266]</span>Dad. If you ever had any principles against the publicans ’aving +your money, all I can say is they never took you very far. What +you’ve honestly earned you’ve mostly honestly spent, too.” And Mrs. +Pelumpton waddled into the kitchen.</p> + +<p>“Yersh,” said Mr. Pelumpton, completely ignoring his wife’s speech +and now fixing Turgis with his watery stare, “quite enough gambling +in the dealing bishnish for me. Now here’sh an inshtansh.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, blow you and your instances!” Turgis cried to himself.</p> + +<p>“Chesht o’ drawersh going up in Holloway and I’m requeshted +to ’ave a look at it. Very pretty piesh, very pretty piesh. Worth +money, that piesh. I’m tellin’ you now what I thought, at the time. +I went back and shaw Mishter Peek an’ tellsh him that piesh’sh +worth a ten pound note if it’sh worth a penny. ‘Go back,’ he shaysh, +‘and go right up to sheven if nesheshary.’ I go back and thish +piesh’sh gone. Old Craggy up the road there had bought it—’ad to +pay sheven too—an’ I could have kicked myshelf. Well, that’sh +what?—oh, eight munsh, ten munsh, a year ago. All right. I’m +looking round in old Craggy’sh the other day and what do I shee—the +very shame piesh. I shaysh to ’im ‘I know that piesh’ and I told +him ’ow and why I did know it. Then I shaysh to him, ‘What you +wanting now for that piesh?’ An’ what do you think he shaid?”</p> + +<p>“Fifty pounds,” said Turgis promptly. He had heard this type of +story many, many times from Mr. Pelumpton.</p> + +<p>“Now that’sh jusht where you’re wrong, boy,” cried Mr. Pelumpton, +delighted. “Jusht where you’re wrong. Not fifty poundsh but +<em>five</em> poundsh, two lesh than he’d given for it. Couldn’t get rid of +it—shee?—and had pulled it down and down—and I give you my +word, I believe I could have ’ad that piesh from him for <em>four</em>—he +was sho shick of sheeing it about the shop. And I’d have bought it +for sheven, sho would Mishter Peek, sho would you, sho would anybody. +It jusht showsh you. The dealing bishnish ish a gamble.”</p> + +<p>“If you ask me,” said Turgis, all gloomy and profound, “it’s all +a gamble.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p267">[267]</span></p> + +<p>“Well, don’t loosh ’eart, boy, don’t loosh ’eart. Take a ninterest +in thingsh like I do. Shtart a nobby⁠——”</p> + +<p>“What’s your hobby?” asked Turgis, not too graciously. And he +immediately gave himself the answer silently, “Finding free beer, +you old soak, that’s your hobby.”</p> + +<p>“My work ish my ’obby now,” replied Mr. Pelumpton very solemnly. +“In my time I’ve ’ad all manner of ’obbiesh, from pigeonsh +to joining the volunteersh, but now my work ish my ’obby. It’sh +not only my work but my play, ash you might shay. And if you’re +going to make anything at all out of dealing, if you’re going to be +a <em>real</em> dealer, that’sh the only way to do it—make it a full time job, +wherever you are, be on the look-out, keep your eyesh open, your +earsh open, turn thingsh over in your mind. If you’d a bit more +money, d’you know what I’d shay to you?”</p> + +<p>Turgis could think of several things that Mr. Pelumpton would +say to him, the very minute he had some more money, but he was +certain that not one of them was in Mr. Pelumpton’s thoughts at +the moment. So he merely shook his head.</p> + +<p>“What I’d shay to you ish—shtart collecting. In a shmall way, +y’know, to begin with. Doeshn’t matter what you collect. And I’d +put you on to thingsh. That’sh where you’d be lucky ’cosh you’d +’ave the benefit of my experiensh and knowledge of the trade.”</p> + +<p>Turgis did not think he would care very much for collecting, +and Mrs. Pelumpton, returning at that moment, wiping her hands +on an apron, said that she didn’t think of collecting either. “Just +wasting your money and littering the place up, that would be,” she +added. “So don’t you go and put ideas into his head, Dad. I’d sooner +see you taking an interest in these politics, same as Mr. Park.”</p> + +<p>“You know what he ish, Mishter Park?” said her husband. “He’sh +a Bolshie, that’sh what he ish.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it keeps him quiet enough,” Mrs. Pelumpton retorted. +“And sober, too. Never makes any noise or trouble. Nobody will +make me believe he’s a real Bolshie, a nice quiet young chap like +<span class="pagenum" id="p268">[268]</span>that. And he’s never been to Russia, never once set eyes on it. He +told me so himself.”</p> + +<p>“That doeshn’t matter,” said Mr. Pelumpton.</p> + +<p>“What does matter then?” asked Mrs. Pelumpton triumphantly.</p> + +<p>No doubt her husband could have told her, but he did not choose +to; he merely made a contemptuous noise, and then took up the +evening paper. Turgis decided to go to bed. It was not late, but there +was nothing to do. He was tired of talking to the Pelumptons, +though he felt vaguely grateful to them, or at least to Mrs. Pelumpton, +for taking an interest in him. What they actually said did not +mean much to him—for he did not want any of their silly hobbies +and had not the slightest desire to be like either Edgar or Park—but it +was pleasant to feel that somebody was interested in him. His father +took no interest in him, hadn’t done for years, and he had no other +near relations. They didn’t care much about him at the office. Even +Poppy-with-the-fringe had kept away from him lately, and the others +simply took him for granted. He had no friends. He was just a +chap in the crowd. Nearly all his time away from the office was +spent in a crowd somewhere, getting back to his lodgings in the +packed Tube, returning to the thronged streets afterwards, perhaps +eating in some crowded place, then waiting in a queue to get in a +picture theatre, making one of a huge audience, wandering along +the lamp-lit pavements, and he was for ever surrounded by strange, +indifferent or hostile faces, looking into millions of eyes that never +lit up with any gleam of recognition, and spending hour after hour +in the very thick of packed humanity without exchanging a single +word with anybody. His existence was noticed only when he bought +something, when he turned himself into a customer.</p> + +<p>And yet, of course, this was not entirely true. There were innumerable +people in London who were not only ready to make the +acquaintance of Turgis, but were actually longing for him. There +were Park’s comrades, the communists, who would be only too glad +to obtain another recruit; possibly the Socialists; and certainly the +Anti-Socialists, who would have been delighted to show him how +<span class="pagenum" id="p269">[269]</span>to mount a soap-box. There were clergymen of all denominations +and sects on the prowl for him, willing to lead him in prayer, to +instruct him in the Scriptures, to teach him anthems, to show him +lantern slides of the Norfolk Broads, to smoke a manly pipe at +him, to play a game of chess, draughts, dominoes, bagatelle, or billiards +with him, to give him a right hook and then a straight left +with the gloves on, according to their varied tastes and dispositions. +There were men who were not clergymen, but had the habits and +outlook of clergymen, leaders of ethical societies and the like, who +would be pleased to talk to him about their own particular universes, +lend him a few books, and welcome him twice a week at their +philosophical-literary-musical services. No doubt there were criminals +who could have made good use of a youth with such a guileless air. +There were thousands of other young men in lodgings and offices, +young men who were not very clever or strong or handsome or brave +or artful, young men who were for ever packing themselves into +tubes and buses, eating hastily in corners of crowded teashops, and +then using the music-halls, picture theatres, saloon bars, and lighted +streets as their drawing-rooms, studies, and clubs, who would soon +have been overjoyed, once the mumbling preliminaries were passed, +to spend their evenings with Turgis.</p> + +<p>But then he did not really want any of these people, did not want +company for company’s sake. What he really wanted was Love, +Romance, a Wonderful Girl of His Own. And these had lately all +been assuming the same shape in his mind, that of Miss Lena +Golspie. He had never spoken to her, had never seen her except +once, at a distance, since that day she appeared at the office, but +he had thought a great deal about her. To say that he had fallen in +love with her at sight would be to exaggerate. If an attractive girl—and +she need not have been anything like so pretty as Miss Golspie—had +turned up and had been kind to him, no doubt he would soon +have forgotten all about Lena. But no such girl turned up; indeed +no girl of any kind appeared. If Lena Golspie was not the prettiest +girl he had ever seen (and he could not remember a prettier, not +<span class="pagenum" id="p270">[270]</span>even if he included the beautiful shadow people, Lulu Castellar +and the other film stars), she was certainly the prettiest girl he had +ever spoken to, and the fact that she had actually made her appearance +at the office door in Angel Pavement somehow brought her +definitely into his own world. That she was not really a creature +of that world only made her more fascinating, mysterious, romantic, +like the beautiful heroine of a love story of the films. She was a +lovely bird of passage. He imagined her against a background of +strange places and fantastic luxuries. It was as if Lulu Castellar had +stepped out of the screen, taken on colour and solid shape, and had +actually spoken to him, smiled at him. And yet, there it was, her +father worked in the very same business, in the very same office, +with him. No wonder he could not get the girl out of his head, +which for a long time now had been haunted by a vague but +infinitely desirable feminine shape. It was vague no longer; it +had definite form and features; it had a name.</p> + +<p>It had also an address, and Turgis, his wits suddenly sharpened, +had contrived to learn it at the office. The Golspies lived at 4a, Carrington +Villas, Maida Vale, W. 9. He had seen the very house, or +rather the upper half of the house, in which they lived. He had, in +fact, seen it several times, and had actually been watching when +lights were being turned on and off there. Before this, Maida Vale +had been for him a mere name, but now he was rapidly becoming +familiar with the district, and it had for him a most curious fascination. +He had never really decided what he would do if he was +lucky enough to run into Miss Golspie. She had been friendly that +day she came to the office, though condescending to him, of course, +as she had every right to do; but on the strength of that, he did +not see how he could very well stop her, perhaps in one of the +darkest parts of Carrington Villas, and say: “Do you remember me. +I’m Turgis and I’m the clerk at Twigg and Dersingham’s. And +how are you, Miss Golspie?” And if he wasn’t to do that, what was +he to do? He did not know, and so left it to the inspiration of the +moment. That moment never arrived. He was not very surprised +<span class="pagenum" id="p271">[271]</span>or disappointed. He went across to Maida Vale several nights, not +so much because he felt he had a good chance of meeting her there +or even of seeing her, but because on these particular evenings every +other part of London seemed terribly dreary, and Maida Vale drew +him across these desolated spaces like a magnet. He only went when +it was fine, and then he took a turn or two up and down Carrington +Villas, sometimes stopping near the house to see if anything +was happening there (it was a detached house with two pillars +before the door and three steps leading up to it, and there was a +broken statue in the dingy bit of garden in front), perhaps walked +along the street at the top a little way, towards the main road, then +did the same at the bottom, had a last saunter along Carrington +Villas, perhaps ended up with a glass of bitter at the high-class little +pub just round the corner at the top, and went home. The first few +evenings he had spent like that he had enjoyed; there was to him +something enchantingly mysterious and romantic in the winter-evening +gloom of this Maida Vale; as he moved about the quiet +streets, a shadow among shadows, he became aware of an intense +secret inner life of his own; but the pleasure rapidly decreased. Too +often the upper half of the house was all dark, and then of course +the whole neighbourhood lost its charm, which was transferred to +some other, unknown, part of the city, where she was spending +the evening. Probably in the West End, that brilliant jungle, where +you might meet anybody, the last person in the world you expected +to meet, and where you might miss for ever the one person you +wanted to meet. It was in the West End he caught sight of her. He +had been to a picture theatre and it was late, and he saw her with +her father and another man. Mr. Golspie was shouting for a taxi, +and in another moment he had got one and they were gone. But +he saw her distinctly, and it was strange seeing her, for though he +had thought so much about her, she had almost stopped being real.</p> + +<p>He was beginning to mope now, for he was tired of going over +to Maida Vale, and yet could not settle down to spend his evenings +in the old way, and that was why the Pelumptons, seeing him +<span class="pagenum" id="p272">[272]</span>hanging about and looking vaguely miserable, had begun to give +him advice about hobbies. They did not understand, he told himself +gloomily, that he wasn’t simply another Edgar or Park. But +he admitted once again that it was decent of them to take an interest +in him, even if they missed the great fact about him—namely, that +he was entirely different from Edgar or Park or anybody else they +knew. The innermost self of Turgis was always being surprised +and hurt by the general ignorance of this simple fact. Having +reached his little room, he now did what he had done many hundreds +of times before: he examined his face carefully in the tiny +cracked mirror to see if there were any signs of this difference +written there; and once again he came to the conclusion that there +were, only you had to look closely and sympathetically at him, not +just give a hard stare and then march off, to notice them.</p> + +<p>For once, the little gas-fire did not explode when the match came +near and then wheezily complain. It gave only a soft pop and then +merely murmured. Its master knew that that meant that the meter +demanded another shilling, and as he had not got a shilling and +was too lazy to return to the back room for possible change, he +let it murmur and sink, until its flames were like tiny blue flowers. +Then he did something he had not done hundreds of times before. +He began brushing his clothes. Mr. Smeeth had already noticed, as +we saw, that Turgis had smartened himself up. We are now behind +the scenes of this smartening. It had occurred to Turgis that his next +meeting with Lena Golspie, if there ever was one, might easily take +place in the office, like the first meeting, and then he realised at +once that he would have to take some trouble with his appearance +during the day. He went to the length of spending one-and-three-pence +on a clothes brush of his own. A day or two later, he went +to the further length of buying a few collars, very smart soft collars +with long points on them, and was quite surprised at the difference +they made. Then he had taken to folding his trousers and putting +them under the mattress, and had even taken his better pair downstairs +once and ironed them. Now, after brushing the coat and waistcoat +<span class="pagenum" id="p273">[273]</span>and doing a little scratching here and there with his penknife, +he took these trousers from under the mattress and thoroughly +examined them.</p> + +<p>He sat down on the edge of his bed, the trousers over his arm, +staring at the large hole in the old rug. But he was not looking at +the hole, but through it, into Angel Pavement, into the office. Mr. +Golspie had just gone away, and now Turgis suddenly realised that +that fact was tremendously important. It might mean that there was +no chance whatever of Lena coming near the office, now that her +father was not there. On the other hand, it might mean just the +opposite, that there was a very good chance of her visiting the office, +just because her father <em>was</em> away. She might want something; she +might be in trouble; and Mr. Golspie might easily have told her to +come to the office. And now he remembered hearing <em>something</em>, +something that Mr. Golspie, at the outer door, had shouted to Mr. +Dersingham sitting in the private office, a something that had to +do with Lena and “you people here,” as Mr. Golspie had called +them. Turgis knew definitely that Lena was being left behind. Well +then, she might call at the office any day. There was quite a chance, +anyhow. So there and then, he decided that for the next twelve days +or so, while Mr. Golspie was away, he would shave carefully every +morning, put on his better suit and wear a clean collar, and have +his hair cut at lunch time on the following day. Having thus made +up his mind, he felt quite excited, and, as people do, if they have +drifted for a long time and then suddenly come to a decision and +adopted a programme, he found himself visited obscurely by a conviction +that something was bound to happen, just as if by drawing a +firm straight line he could compel circumstance to come and toe it.</p> + +<p>The gas-fire retired from service with a very sad little pop. He +moved and the bed immediately gave a groan. (Everything in the +room creaked and groaned and constantly complained. It was tired +of people, that little room.) Very carefully he raised the mattress +and replaced the trousers underneath. Then, with something like an +air of sheer dandyism, he put out an absolutely clean collar for the +<span class="pagenum" id="p274">[274]</span>morning. He went to the little dormer window and stared through +the few inches of open space at the dark and the faint glimmer of +the town. Here he was, high up above Camden Town, in his own +little room. There she was, Lena Golspie, perhaps in <em>her</em> little room +in Maida Vale, perhaps just above those two pillars he had seen, +peering through the open gate, perhaps looking down on that broken +statue in the front garden. It made his eyes water, staring there like +that, but still he remained. His lips moved. “Listen, Lena,” he began; +but then stopped. “Listen, Miss Golspie, Miss Lena Golspie. Listen. +Do come to the office, do come to the office. And make it something +I can do. Turgis, you know, the one you saw that day. Do come +to the office.”</p> + +<p>As soon as he stepped back into the little room, it told him, in its +various creaky voices, not to be a damned fool.</p> + +<p>“Oh!—you!” he said to it, aloud, and then made haste to undress +and get the light out.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_6"> + II +</h3> + +<p>Turgis kept his word to himself. Every day he appeared at the +office all shaved and brushed and as spruce as it was possible for him +to be. The others congratulated him and chaffed him and invented +the most elaborate reasons for the change. Sandycroft, the tall traveller +with the small head, the inquisitive nose, and the extraordinary +number of teeth, paid one of his flying visits to headquarters and +pretended, possibly at the instigation of Mr. Smeeth, not to know +Turgis.</p> + +<p>“I say, Smeeth,” Sandycroft barked—and he really did bark; +it was like having an enormous terrier about the place when Sandycroft +arrived—“what’s become of that other chap—you know, what’s +his name—that chap who used to wear the dark brown collars⁠——?”</p> + +<p>“Now who was that, Sandycroft?” said Smeeth, frowning and +putting his head on one side. Smeeth was as conscientious and painstaking +<span class="pagenum" id="p275">[275]</span>a wag as he was a cashier. It was not often that he joined +in a joke, but when he did he was almost alarmingly thorough.</p> + +<p>“You <em>know</em> the chap I mean, Smeeth,” replied Sandycroft, sniffing +with that queer little nose of his. “Never had his hair cut—wore +a beard—looked like a Spring Poet in the autumn. Sat at the +desk over there,” he continued, lowering his voice, “where that smart +young feller is. Oh, what <em>was</em> his name?”</p> + +<p>Here Stanley gurgled and spluttered, not perhaps because he +thought this was very brilliant humour, but because he thought +comic relief in any form should be encouraged. Miss Poppy Sellers +was giggling a little, too, and Miss Matfield smiled at them, not +without condescension.</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t be so funny,” Turgis mumbled, giving Stanley a +ferocious scowl.</p> + +<p>“That’s queer, Smeeth. The same voice—the very same voice.”</p> + +<p>“I believe you’re right, Sandycroft. I believe you’re right,” said +Mr. Smeeth, with the air of a dutiful cross-talk comedian.</p> + +<p>“Sure I am,” the other barked. Then he stepped forward, with a +large polite smile on his face, displaying at least a hundred teeth. +“Not Mr. Turgis? Surely it can’t be Mr. Turgis?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Turgis, who was not very good at this sort of thing, +“it’s Charlie Chaplin.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Mr. Charlie Chaplin Turgis,” said Sandycroft, “I must +congratulate you, I really must. All in favour, show in the usual +way. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.” And he turned +away, grinning.</p> + +<p>“Ah, well,” said Mr. Smeeth, settling down to his books again, +rather as if he had just come to the end of some great gusty epic +of humour, “a bit of fun won’t do any of us any harm now and +again. Here, Stanley, slip round to Nickman and Sons with this +and say it’s for Mr. Broadhurst—for Mr. Broadhurst, mind. And +hurry up, don’t take all morning about it. Don’t go shadowing somebody +all round London.”</p> + +<p>A week had passed, and though news of Mr. Golspie himself had +<span class="pagenum" id="p276">[276]</span>trickled through into the general office, Turgis had heard nothing +about Lena. It seemed as if he was making a fool of himself—and +being laughed at by the others for his pains—and he was beginning +to feel very disheartened. On two evenings, he had returned to Maida +Vale and had hung about the neighbourhood of 4a, Carrington Villas, +but had been rewarded by nothing more than a glimpse of a shadow +on a curtain. He had been tempted then to walk boldly up to 4a +and offer some wild excuse for trying to see Miss Golspie. But he +could think of nothing that did not sound insane, and, realising +that this crazy step might spoil everything and get him into trouble +at the office, he dismissed the notion. The other evenings went very +heavily. He had begun to tell himself that he was silly to bother his +head about the girl at all, but it was one thing to tell himself that +and quite another thing to stop bothering.</p> + +<p>Stanley returned, and was sent out again. Mr. Smeeth departed +for the bank. Turgis and the two girls worked away quietly; there +was not a lot to do that morning. Then Poppy Sellers came over +to Turgis with some advice notes she had just typed.</p> + +<p>“Are these all right?” she asked.</p> + +<p>He looked them over. “Yes, they’re all right. You’ve got into it +now, haven’t you?” he added, deciding to give her a good word +for once. She wasn’t a bad kid, really. “Wish I could type as neat +as that. I used to have to do it sometimes, before you came, but I +used to make a nasty mess of it, I did.”</p> + +<p>Her sallow little face brightened at once at such praise. But her +manner was as perky as ever. “My word! we are coming on, aren’t +we! What have I done to deserve this? But I say,” and here she +became more confidential in tone, “you didn’t mind what they said—y’know +when they were trying to pull your leg. I had to laugh, +and I thought you looked a bit mad.”</p> + +<p>“If it amuses ’em, I don’t care,” replied Turgis loftily. “Bit silly, +I call it, all the same. I don’t go round making personal remarks +about other people. Matter of fact, I don’t mind what old Smeethy +says, ’cos he’s a decent sort and anyhow it isn’t often <em>he</em> breaks +<span class="pagenum" id="p277">[277]</span>loose. But I don’t like that chap Sandycroft. He’s a cocky devil, he is. +And, anyhow, he’s only just come here—what does he want to be +trying to be funny for?”</p> + +<p>“That’s right,” said Poppy, nodding her head. “I don’t think much +of him, either. Not my style at all, he isn’t. Too many teeth, if you +ask me. And I don’t like them noses that turn up the way his +does. If he worked here all the time, he’d have that nose and +teeth into everything. I know that sort.”</p> + +<p>“So do I. We’d a school teacher the very image of him when I +was a kid, and he used to try it on with us—oh, what a hope!”</p> + +<p>“Mind you,” Poppy continued, looking at him a little uncertainly, +“you do look diff’rent—smarter, y’know.”</p> + +<p>“Well, that’s nobody else’s business but mine,” Turgis declared. +“What’s it got to do with anybody else?”</p> + +<p>“Oo, all right, don’t jump at me. I only meant—well, you look +a lot nicer now. In fact, I think you look very nice.”</p> + +<p>Turgis did not know what reply to make to this, so he merely +grunted.</p> + +<p>“You don’t mind me saying so, I hope?”</p> + +<p>“No, ’s’all right,” he replied awkwardly.</p> + +<p>“I say, listen. Are you going anywhere to-night?” She stopped +for a moment, but then, before he had time to answer, went on with +a rush. “’Cos if you aren’t—well, it’s like this, my friend—her +father’s a policeman—and she got two tickets given for the Police +Minstrels to-night and now she can’t go ’cos she’s in bed with the +flu and I’ve got the tickets and I wondered if you’d like to come +with me.” And she drew a deep breath.</p> + +<p>“Well, thanks very much,” he stammered, “but—I don’t know—you +see⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Have you fixed up already to go somewhere?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I have—<em>really</em>⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, sorry.” Her face fell. She was silent for a moment, then +looked up—rather cheekily, he thought—and said, “Going out with +your girl, p’raps?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p278">[278]</span></p> + +<p>This annoyed him, just as if she had jabbed at some sore place. +“Well, that’s my business, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Oo, sorry, sorry, sorry! Squashed again. I’d better shut up.” And +she marched away, a compact little figure, and began typing with +great vigour and noise. Miss Matfield threw a curious glance at her.</p> + +<p>Turgis wondered if he had been foolish to pretend that he wasn’t +free to go to that entertainment. It would be a lot better than doing +nothing. He supposed it was too late to change his mind, particularly +now that she had walked off in a huff. He would wish, when +the evening did come and he had nothing to do but mope about, +that he had accepted her offer. She really hadn’t a bad face when +you took a good look at it. Yes, perhaps he’d been silly not to +accept.</p> + +<p>But when the evening did come and he suddenly remembered +how he had refused this other engagement, how glad he was! It +seemed like fate. And afterwards, when he suddenly remembered +yet again how he had refused this other engagement, how sorry he +was! And still it seemed like fate.</p> + +<p>He and Miss Matfield came back from lunch at the same time +that afternoon (Miss Matfield had gone out first, but then she +always took quarter of an hour longer than anybody else), running +into one another in Angel Pavement, near T. Benenden’s. “You +know, Turgis,” she announced, in that clear hard voice of hers +which always rather frightened him, “I do think you’re beastly rude +to little Miss Sellers.”</p> + +<p>“Why, what have I done to her?” he demanded.</p> + +<p>“I saw this morning you’d hurt her feelings again,” Miss Matfield +continued. “And why you should, I can’t imagine. She’s quite +a nice child, really, underneath that silly perky manner of hers, and +I think she’s rather lonely, and you could be quite good friends. You +see, she happens to think you’re rather marvellous.”</p> + +<p>“And you don’t, Miss Matfield,” said Turgis, bold for once with +her. “Go on, you might as well put that in properly. I could hear it +in your tone of voice.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p279">[279]</span></p> + +<p>“I certainly don’t think you’re at all marvellous,” she said coolly. +“Why should I? What I do think is that you’re being very rude +to somebody who is prepared to like you a good deal. And when +people really like you,” she added severely, “you ought to be +specially nice to them and not rude. Now don’t say anything to +her about what I’ve just said or I shall be really annoyed.”</p> + +<p>“All right,” said Turgis sulkily, wondering why he couldn’t say +something sharp to her, for her cool cheek. “But I don’t see what +I’ve done to her. She takes offence too quickly, that’s it. And whose +fault’s that? And for that matter, who’s ever considered <em>my</em> feelings +in the office?”</p> + +<p>“You’re different,” she said airily, “or if you’re not, you ought to +be. You’re a man.”</p> + +<p>Turgis, pleased by this statement that he was a man, but still +labouring under a grievance, could do nothing but mumble and +mutter, and Miss Matfield, taking no further notice of him, led the +way upstairs. The next time he saw Miss Sellers, Turgis looked +curiously at her. So she thought he was “rather marvellous,” did +she? He found himself returning to this, and to her, several times +during the afternoon.</p> + +<p>But then something happened, something so important that it +promptly blew away all thought of Miss Sellers or anybody or anything +in that office. Mr. Dersingham, who had only been there long +enough in the morning to go through the first post, returned about +four to examine the later posts, and he had not been in ten minutes +before he sent for Mr. Smeeth. After a short interval, during which +one of them telephoned to somebody from the private office, Mr. +Smeeth came out, looking fussy, as he always did when he had +something special to do.</p> + +<p>“Let’s see,” he said, looking round the office, “does anybody here +live Maida Vale way?”</p> + +<p>What was this? Turgis’s heart jumped and knocked.</p> + +<p>“Well, I live in Hampstead and that’s roughly the same way,” +Miss Matfield began, dubiously.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p280">[280]</span></p> + +<p>“What is it, Mr. Smeeth?” cried Turgis eagerly. “I know Maida +Vale very well.”</p> + +<p>“Thought you lived Camden Town way?” said Mr. Smeeth.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I do, but—er—I know somebody in Maida Vale, often go +there. Is it anything I can do, Mr. Smeeth?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I think you’d better have the job, Turgis,” said the unconscious +Mr. Smeeth, little knowing what effect his words were having. +“You see, Mr. Golspie’s got a daughter living with him—well, you +know that, because she came here one day, didn’t she?”</p> + +<p>Oh, my gosh!—didn’t she!</p> + +<p>“She hasn’t got a bank account,” Mr. Smeeth continued, “and +apparently the girl’s got through all the money her father left her—these +girls, my word, they think we’re made of money!—wait till +you’re a father, Turgis, and then you’ll know—and he’s arranged +with us to let her have some from his account here. She wants it at +once, to-day, and we’ve just telephoned to see if she’ll be in, and +she will—trust her!—they’ll always be in if they get something for +it—so somebody had better take it up to her, Mr. Dersingham says. +I’d make the young madam wait if I’d anything to do with it,” +he went on, maddeningly, “because this is only encouraging extravagance, +upon my word it is—but Mr. Dersingham says she’d better +have it now.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll take it, Mr. Smeeth.” Oh, wouldn’t he just!</p> + +<p>“All right, then. You’d better clear off that work you’ve got on +hand, Turgis, and then when you go, you needn’t come back. If +you leave here about five, you’ll get there about half-past five, and +that’ll leave her ample time to put in a full evening spending it. +I’ve got the address here all ready.”</p> + +<p>Got the address! If old Smeethy only knew! Turgis could have +banged his desk and sent all his advice notes and bills of lading +and railway and shipping accounts flying about the office. He did +contrive to clear up a few odd jobs, but he did not do as much +work as he pretended to do, for it was impossible to keep his mind +crawling there, among the papers, and to prevent it from taking a +<span class="pagenum" id="p281">[281]</span>wild leap now and then. At a few minutes to five, he cleared his desk +ruthlessly, so that it looked as if the last crumb of work had been +gobbled up. “I’m ready now, Mr. Smeeth,” he announced.</p> + +<p>“Right you are,” said Mr. Smeeth. “I’m putting twelve pounds, +twelve pound notes, into this envelope, and it has the name and +address on, you see—Miss Golspie, 4a Carrington Villas, Maida Vale. +I’ll seal that. Now here’s a form of receipt I’ve made out, and you +must get her to sign that, so that there’s no possible mistake. You +understand that?”</p> + +<p>Turgis assured him fervently that he did. He was delighted at +the receipt idea. Once or twice he had thought what a dismal ending +it would be if he merely handed over the money at the door—“Is +that the money? Thank you. Good afternoon.” But signing a receipt +was a different matter; it could not be done properly at the door; +you should read a receipt carefully before you sign it; you might +want to have it explained; you must ask the messenger in, and +then of course he might have a chance to talk. The receipt made it +a piece of real business. Good old Smeethy! It was just like him +to insist on a proper receipt.</p> + +<p>“And you needn’t come back, of course,” said Mr. Smeeth. “Just +pop off home. I’ll just tell Mr. Dersingham I’ve fixed it all up.”</p> + +<p>“What’s all this about?” Miss Matfield asked, as he was taking +his overcoat from its peg.</p> + +<p>He explained shortly.</p> + +<p>“Where do they live?”</p> + +<p>“In Maida Vale. 4a, Carrington Villas,” he told her.</p> + +<p>“I say, listen,” cried Miss Sellers, sweeping away her grievance. +“If you get a chance of going in, go in, and then tell us what it’s like +to-morrow. I’d like to know what sort of place Mr. Golspie lives in. +Wouldn’t you, Miss Matfield?”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield, to Turgis’s surprise, for he expected her to be +disdainful of such idle curiosity, admitted at once that she would. +“I’m rather sorry I didn’t ask for the job,” she added. “It would +be amusing to see what the daughter’s like. I have just seen her, +<span class="pagenum" id="p282">[282]</span>but that’s all. And I can’t imagine what sort of place Mr. Golspie +lives in, though it’s probably some furnished maisonette they’re +camping in. Maida Vale’s stiff with them.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I can’t fancy that Mr. Golspie having a ’ome at all,” Miss +Sellers put in. “Seems a ’omeless sort of man to me.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll say ‘Good afternoon,’” cried Turgis loudly and cheerfully, +and off he went, the money and the receipt form snugly tucked +away in the inside pocket of his coat, the best coat he had and +all brushed and as natty as you like. Now for Maida Vale, and no +hanging about this time, but straight as a shot from a gun through +the front gate of 4, Carrington Villas. He hurried out, running down +the stairs, in fear of Mr. Dersingham or Mr. Smeeth or Miss Golspie +or the gods suffering a change of mind at the last minute and +dragging him back to his desk.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_6"> + III +</h3> + +<p>There was just light enough, and time enough, for him to notice +that the broken statue, really a plaster thing, was that of a little +boy playing with two large fishes, and that the two pillars were peeling +badly. There were two bells, one for 4, the other for 4a. He +was careful to press the 4a one. He pressed it several times and +altogether waited nearly five minutes, but nobody came. It looked as +if she was out, after all. In despair, he tried the bell for 4. Instantly +a light was switched on in the hall, and the door—there was only +one door for both flats—flung open.</p> + +<p>“Is it you here again, young man,” cried an enormous woman +in an apron, standing there. “Because if it is, I’ve to give you the +mistress’s word that she’s paying out no more money for the machine +because the girl that could work it has left and it’s no use to us +at all the way we are now, and not another penny will she pay out +for it, so take it itself and leave us in peace.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know anything about your machine,” Turgis told her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p283">[283]</span></p> + +<p>“Aren’t you the same young man? Well, you’re the very image +of him.”</p> + +<p>“I want to see Miss Golspie.”</p> + +<p>“The young lady above, isn’t it? Then ring the other bell, with +the <i>a</i> on it, and she’ll hear it soon enough.”</p> + +<p>“But I’ve been ringing it,” he explained. “I’ve rung it about six +times.”</p> + +<p>“For the love of God!” cried the enormous woman, coming out +and looking at the bell-push, as if that might explain something. +“Haven’t they got that bell of theirs ringing yet? Every time it’s +us, it’s really them. Come inside, young man, come inside, or if +we stand here talking another minute the mistress’ll be raising Cain +the way she’ll say she’s destroyed with the draught. Does she know +you’re coming at all?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, she does,” replied Turgis, following her into the hall. “I’ve +been sent to see her on business. It’s very important. I hope she’s in.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, she’s in, too, because I heard the mistress say she was going +to see her. At the top of the stairs you’ll see a bit of a door—it +may be open and it may be shut—and if you knock on it, you’ll +make her hear. The servant they have is out to-day because I met +her here myself this afternoon, all dressed up and telling me she’s +to meet her young man, a sailor in the Royal Navy. Up the stairs +then, it is, and a hard knock on the door.”</p> + +<p>Just beyond the head of the stairs, there <em>was</em> a door, and it was +open a little, so that he could plainly hear the sound of a gramophone +playing jazz. He knocked hard. The gramophone stopped +abruptly.</p> + +<p>It was Miss Lena herself who came to the door. She was dressed +in a shimmering greenish-blue, and she was prettier than ever. At +the sight of her standing there, solid and real again at last, his heart +bumped and his mouth went suddenly dry.</p> + +<p>“I’ve come from Twigg and Dersingham’s, Miss Golspie,” he +announced, stammering a little.</p> + +<p>Her face lit up at once. “Oh, have you brought that money?” she +<span class="pagenum" id="p284">[284]</span>cried, in that same queer fascinating voice he remembered so well. +“How much is it? Come in, though. This way.”</p> + +<p>The room was very exciting. It was a big room, but in spite of +its size it was full of things. Turgis had never seen, except on the +pictures, so many cushions; there seemed to be dozens of them, +huge bright cushions, piled up on a big deep sofa sort of thing, +stuffed into armchairs, and even scattered about the floor. And then +there were gramophone records and books and magazines all over +the place, and bottles and tins of biscuits and fancy boxes heaped +together on little tables, and then enough glasses and fruit and +cigarettes and ash-trays for a whist drive or a social; and all in this +one rich bewildering room. It was lit with two big, crimson and +yellow, shaded lamps, and it was very cosy and warm; almost too +warm, even though it was a cold afternoon, for an excited young +man who had hurried there from the bus.</p> + +<p>“It’s twelve pounds,” he explained, “and I have a receipt here that +you have to sign.”</p> + +<p>“Good! I could do with it, I don’t mind telling you. I adore +having money. Don’t you? It’s beastly when you suddenly find you +haven’t got any, and can’t go anywhere or buy anything. Oh, I +remember you. You’re the one I spoke to that day when I called at +the office, aren’t you? Do you remember me?”</p> + +<p>Turgis assured her fervently that he did. He was still standing, +awkwardly, with his hat in his hand and his overcoat hanging loose +from his shoulders, and he felt rather hot and uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>“You seem jolly sure about it,” she said lightly. “How did you +remember so well?”</p> + +<p>“You won’t be annoyed with me if I tell you, will you, Miss +Golspie?” he said humbly.</p> + +<p>She stared at him. “Why, what is it?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I remembered you,” he replied, gasping a little, “because +I thought you were the prettiest girl I’d ever spoken to in all my +life.”</p> + +<p>“You didn’t, did you? Are you serious?” She shrieked with laughter. +<span class="pagenum" id="p285">[285]</span>“What a marvellous thing to say! Is that why <em>you</em> brought the +money?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it is,” he said earnestly.</p> + +<p>“It isn’t. You were just sent here. I believe you’re pulling my leg.”</p> + +<p>“No, I’m not, Miss Golspie. The minute I knew some one had +to come here,” he continued with sudden recklessness, “I specially +asked to be sent—just to see you again.” The hand that was still in +his overcoat pocket tried to make a sweeping gesture, with the result +that his overcoat brushed the top of one of the little tables and +emptied a box of cigarettes on to the floor.</p> + +<p>“Look what you’ve done now,” cried Miss Golspie, greatly entertained.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m sorry,” muttered Turgis, confused and sweating now +with sheer awkwardness and shyness. “I’ll pick them up.”</p> + +<p>“Wait a minute. Take your overcoat off and put your hat down, +and then you’ll feel much better. That’s right. Dump them down +there—anywhere. Now you can pick the cigarettes up and you can +also give me one of them. Take one yourself.” Unsteadily he lit +her cigarette, picked up the others, and then lit his own. “Now what +about the money?” she continued. “What do I have to do to get it?”</p> + +<p>“Only sign this receipt,” he explained. “You ought to count it +first to see if it’s all right.”</p> + +<p>When they had concluded this little transaction, she said suddenly, +“Have you had any tea?”</p> + +<p>“No, I haven’t,” said Turgis promptly.</p> + +<p>“Well, I haven’t, either. I was too lazy to make it. The maid’s +out to-day. Let’s have some. Shall we? Most of it’s ready on a tray, +but I just couldn’t bother boiling some water and making the tea. +You come and help and then you shall have some.” He followed her +into the little kitchen, where he filled a kettle and watched it come +to the boil while she chattered in a drifting haze of cigarette smoke +and languidly produced another cup and saucer and some things +to eat. Then, when everything was ready, he carried the tray into +the other room and set it down on a low table in front of the fire. +<span class="pagenum" id="p286">[286]</span>Lena reclined, like a lovely lazy animal, on a pile of cushions, while +Turgis, at the other side of the low table, sat in a low, fat armchair. +It was a wonderful tea. The tea itself was good, for there were +little sandwiches and all kinds of rich creamy chocolate cakes and +biscuits, all piled up anyhow, like everything in this careless and +sumptuous place. And then, far more important than sandwiches +and cake, there was Lena herself, so real, so close, so magically +illuminated there in the firelight and shaded lamplight. She asked +him all manner of questions, beginning with “What’s your name?”</p> + +<p>“Turgis,” he told her shyly.</p> + +<p>“What’s your first name?”</p> + +<p>“Harold,” he mumbled. It was years since anybody (anybody, that +is, who didn’t merely want him to fill up a form) had asked him +what his Christian name was. He brought it out with desperate +embarrassment, but when it came out, he felt better.</p> + +<p>“I don’t like Harold much. Do you? Mine’s Lena.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know it is.”</p> + +<p>“It seems to me you know everything about me,” she cried, laughing. +“You’ll be telling me next how old I am and where I was born +and all the rest of it. Who do you think you are—a detective?”</p> + +<p>This was a good opportunity to be bright and entertaining, so he +told her all about Stanley at the office and how Stanley wanted to be +a detective and went about “shaddering” people. After which, Lena, +who seemed to enjoy Stanley, asked him about the other people +at the office.</p> + +<p>“You don’t like it there, do you?” she said, wrinkling her nose +in distaste. “I’d die if I had to work every day in a place like that. +So dark and dismal, isn’t it? And they call that street Angel Pavement! +What a name for it! I nearly passed straight out when my +father told me. If ever I have to work for my living, I’d rather work +in a shop than in an office like that. I wouldn’t mind being a mannequin. +Or go on the stage. That would be best of all. I want to +go on the stage. I nearly went on when I was in Paris. And a man +<span class="pagenum" id="p287">[287]</span>wanted me to go in for film work—he said he’d get me a part +right away. Do you think I’d be any good for the films?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’m sure you would,” said Turgis earnestly, all solemn +adoration. “You’d be wonderful on the pictures—like Lulu Castellar +or one of those stars—only better. I’d go anywhere to see you.”</p> + +<p>If he had thought about it for days, he could not have produced a +speech more calculated to please her than this, because it chimed +with her own innermost aspirations and beliefs. And his solemn +adoration, a change from the usual obvious gallantry, was very pleasant. +She smiled at him, slowly, with a kind of sweet deliberation, +and he sat looking at her, silent, intoxicated.</p> + +<p>The silence was broken by a sharp <i>rat-tat-tat</i>. “Oh, damn!” cried +Lena. “Who’s that?” and went out to see. She returned, raising her +eyebrows comically at Turgis, followed by a very strange figure. +It was an old woman who looked like a dressed up and painted +witch. She had an enormous nose, hollow cheeks, deeply sunken +eyes, but, nevertheless, her face had the pink and white colouring +of youth. This was because it was thickly painted, and when it +caught the light, it shone, just as if it was enamelled and varnished. +She was wearing, above a purple dress, a gigantic yellow shawl with +a pattern of scarlet flowers on it, and she glittered with brooches, +necklaces and rings. Never in his life before had Turgis been in +the same room with anybody as fantastic as this old woman, and +suddenly he felt frightened. For a second or so, he even forgot about +Lena, and simply wished he was not there, wished he was somewhere +familiar, sensible and safe. It was a queer moment, and he +remembered it long afterwards.</p> + +<p>Lena introduced him, in an off-hand, slap-dash fashion, so that he +never caught the name of this extraordinary visitor. All he knew +was that it was something foreign; and he guessed that she was the +woman who lived downstairs, the mistress mentioned by the fat +Irish cook, or whatever she was who had admitted him into the +house.</p> + +<p>“No, no, no, my dee-air,” cried the old woman in a cracked foreign +<span class="pagenum" id="p288">[288]</span>voice, “I’ll not stay at oll, onlee one seengle minute. I haf asked +my nephew and hees vife and hees friend from de Legation to +com’ to me to-night because I am again in vairy great troble. Yes, +yes, yes, yes, yes—in vairy, vairy great troble again. Dere ees no end +of eet.” At this point she sat down, shot out a claw-like hand and +took a cake, and promptly gobbled it up. Turgis stared at her, +fascinated.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter?” asked Lena, trying to sound concerned, but +obviously ready to giggle at any moment.</p> + +<p>“Aw!” cried the old woman, repeating this “Aw” a great many +times and wagging her head as she did so. “My daughtair again, <em>of</em> +course—need you ask? Always de same—onlee a deef’rent troble.” +She swooped down upon a cigarette, and popped it in her mouth +and lit it with uncommon dexterity. After blowing a cloud of smoke +in Lena’s direction, she resumed: “I haf com’, my dee-air, for two +t’ings. First, here are de plomss I said to you I would geef you. +No, no, no, no. Dey are noding, noding, noding at oll. Steel, dey +are vairy, vairy nice plomss.” Apparently these plums were in +the little box she now handed to Lena. “Next, I ask your fadair, +Meestair Colspie—does he say ven he com’ back ’ere?”</p> + +<p>“He didn’t say exactly,” said Lena. “I don’t think he quite knows +yet. But it ought to be some time next week. Perhaps you know, +do you?” And she looked at Turgis.</p> + +<p>“That’s all I’ve heard, Miss Golspie,” replied Turgis, very conscious +of the fact that the old woman was staring at him. “We +expect him back some time next week.”</p> + +<p>“No, no, no, no. I should like to ask your fadair about dees troble +for my daughtair—dat ees oll—and eenoff! Aw yes!—eenoff. My +nephew’s friend from de Legation, he may do somet’ing. Eef not, +I ask your fadair next veek.” She threw her cigarette into the fireplace, +and got up from her chair surprisingly quickly. “Aw, my +dee-air, dat ees a nice, a vairy nice dress you ’ave on now. Aw yes, +eet ees.” She ran a be-ringed claw over some of it. Then she looked +<span class="pagenum" id="p289">[289]</span>at Turgis, who immediately wished she wouldn’t. “Eesn’t eet a +nice dress, eh? You t’eenk so?”</p> + +<p>The embarrassed Turgis said it was.</p> + +<p>“She ees vairy preety, Mees Colspie? Aw, yes—loffly, you t’eenk, +eh?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I think she is,” replied Turgis, after clearing his throat.</p> + +<p>“You are in loff wit’ her, eh?”</p> + +<p>These foreigners! What a question to put to a chap? What had +it got to do with her, the nosy old hag? He made some sort of +noise in his throat, and it was enough to stop her staring at him +and to set her moving towards the door, chuckling just as if she was +a witch. “The young man ees afraid of me. He ees in loff. Geef ’im +a plom, dee-air.”</p> + +<p>When Lena came back, after closing the outer door behind the +old woman, a new feeling, of friendly ease and lightness, immediately +descended upon them both. They were young together. They +laughed at the old woman, whom Lena imitated with some skill.</p> + +<p>“She’s our landlady,” she explained. “Not a bad old thing, really—she’s +always giving me things—but quite cracked, of course. And +the daughter she talks about, the one who’s in ‘troble’—she’s some +sort of a countess—seems to be completely dippy. Everybody who +ever comes downstairs is a bit mad, and they’re the only people +I’ve spoken to these last few days, so you can tell the sort of time +I’ve had. It’s just my damnable luck!—when my father’s away +and I could do what I liked—three friends, all three, take it into +<em>their</em> heads to go away, too, this week. I could have screamed, I’ve +been so bored.” She lounged over to the window and looked out. +“Looks very thick now. Another fog coming, I suppose. That’s the +worst of London, all these foul fogs. What shall we do now? You +haven’t to go home or anything, have you?”</p> + +<p>Turgis, looking his devotion, said at once that he hadn’t to go +home or anywhere.</p> + +<p>“Let’s go to the movies. We can go to the place near here. It’s +<span class="pagenum" id="p290">[290]</span>not bad. Just wait; I shan’t be long. Or, look here, you could +take these tea things back into the kitchen.”</p> + +<p>He had taken them all in and had seriously begun to think of +washing them long before Miss Golspie appeared again. What he +did, when she did appear, was to wash himself in a bathroom that +had more towels and bottles and jars and tins in it than all the other +half-dozen bathrooms he had ever seen put together. And now they +were ready for the pictures.</p> + +<p>It was not far, but they had to grope their way through a mist +that was rapidly turning into a thick fog, and once or twice Lena +put her hand on his arm, and they were cosy together in the blank +woolly night, and it was all rather wonderful. It was better still +when they were sitting, close, cosier than ever, in the scented and +deep rose-shaded dimness of the balcony in the picture theatre. +(Turgis had paid for these best seats, and was left with exactly +three-and-threepence to take him through the rest of the week.) +They were both enthusiastic and knowing patrons of the films, +so that they had a good deal to talk about, and frequently as they +whispered, her head came close to his and her hair even brushed +his cheek. It was tremendously exciting. The chief picture, a talkie—it +was <i>Her Dearest Enemy</i>, with Mary Meriden and Hunter York—was +good stuff, but it was nothing compared to merely sitting +in that balcony with Lena Golspie, who, incidentally, was much +prettier than Mary Meriden. She herself thought she was just as +pretty, but Turgis was sure that she was much prettier, and told +her so several times. On this occasion he abandoned his usual tactics. +He did not even try to hold her hand. He was content to sit there, +to whisper, to be so near to this fragrant dim loveliness, with his +hunger, which he had taken into so many picture theatres, momentarily +appeased. A dream had come true. He reminded himself of +this, time after time, if only because the dream, which had been +haunting him so long, was still more real than this sudden actuality. +He longed to make everything stand still, knowing only too well +that it was all flowing away from him. Every photograph that leaped +<span class="pagenum" id="p291">[291]</span>on to the screen and then leaped away again was nibbling at the +evening. Very soon the programme would be completing its circle, +and she would be wanting to go, and it would be all over. Turgis felt +all this, even if he did not find phrases to express it, so that he was +not completely and perfectly happy. He was, as we have seen, a +born lover, and a romantic, and what he wanted at heart was not +ordinary human happiness, but a golden immortality, a balcony seat +high above Time and Change.</p> + +<p>“You can come back and have some supper, if you like,” said +Miss Golspie casually, when they descended into the gloom of Maida +Vale again. “You can help me to make it. I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”</p> + +<p>He <em>was</em> hungry, and if she didn’t mind, he would like to help her +with supper. He could have shouted for joy at the thought that he +had not to leave her yet, that the evening was being thus magically +extended. All the way back, they talked about pictures and film +actors and actresses they liked and disliked, and as there was not +really much difference in their points of view, for they both went +to the films in search of an amorous dream life and the mere difference +of sex only added spice to the discussion, they got on very +well indeed. After the fog, the room at 4a seemed richer and cosier +than ever, and as Turgis helped to put odds and ends of food, +mostly out of tins, on the little table in front of the fire, he felt +as if he had wandered into a glorious film.</p> + +<p>“Can you mix a cocktail?” asked Lena.</p> + +<p>“No,” he replied. Cocktails were not a part of real life at all +to him, and in a sudden burst of candour he added: “Matter of +fact, I’ve never tasted one in my life.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be silly,” she screamed at him. “You’re trying to be funny. +You <em>must</em> have had.”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t really,” he assured her. “I’ve had beer and whisky and +port wine and sherry and all that, but I’ve never had a cocktail.”</p> + +<p>“All right, my good little boy,” said Lena gaily, “you’re going +to have one now—one of the special Golspie Smashers.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p292">[292]</span></p> + +<p>He watched her take bottle after bottle from the sideboard and +then shake a tall silver flask, just as he had seen people do on the +stage and in films. “Now just you taste that, Mr. Angel Pavement,” +she commanded, giving him a little glass. It had a queer flavour, +rather sweet at first, then slightly bitter, and ending with a sort of +golden glow, which seemed to travel all over him.</p> + +<p>“Like it?” and she put her own glass down.</p> + +<p>“It’s fine.”</p> + +<p>“Have another then. We’ll just have one more and then we’ll eat.” +After the second one, he felt larger and more important and even +happier than he had done before. He insisted upon showing her a +trick with three pennies. He knew three tricks, one with the pennies +and the other two with cards. The other two could wait; it would +not do to show her everything at once. She thought the trick with +pennies very smart, and they postponed eating until he had shown +her how to do it and she had practised it several times. They were +better friends than ever when they sat down to eat the sardines and +the two salads in the cardboard jars and the sliced veal loaf and the +fruit salad and chocolate cake. Lena ate very quickly and left things +and started again on them and pushed them aside and altogether +dined in a delightfully fussy extravagant fashion that was quite new +to Turgis, who was used to seeing people walk through a meal at +a good round pace.</p> + +<p>When she had finished eating, Lena lit a cigarette and then +darted to the large gramophone in the corner. Having wound it up, +she could not find the record she wanted (there seemed to be +records all up and down the room), and he had to help her, when +she had told him half the name and tried to whistle a bit of it at +him. At last they found it, and the gramophone came gloriously +to life, filling the room with the lilt and throb of this fashionable +tune.</p> + +<p>“Can you dance?” she asked him, gliding and twirling to the +music.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p293">[293]</span></p> + +<p>“Not much,” he mumbled, ashamed of himself.</p> + +<p>“Well, let’s see. Shove that rug back, there. That’s enough. Now +then.” And she came up to him. “Not that way. Like this. That’s +it. Go on, you can hold me tighter than that.”</p> + +<p>He could, and he did. If they had been standing still, it would have +been a rapturous moment, but though he was delightedly conscious +of the body against one arm and of the hand that gripped his, he +had to try and dance, and he was very awkward.</p> + +<p>“You’re ghastly,” she told him, with lips that were not four inches +from his, “but you’ll improve. I’ve known worse. You’ve got some +idea of the rhythm, and some men never even get that. Now—left—right—left—that’s +better. Only you’re so stiff—put some pep into +it. Oh, hell!—the gramophone’s stopped. Shove another dance record +on and we’ll try again.”</p> + +<p>They tried several times, with an interval during which they had +another cocktail each, and Turgis improved considerably, and towards +the end was holding her as she wanted to be held, close to him, +and had time to enjoy the situation. When they stopped, his arm +left her waist reluctantly and she did not seem to resent it. She told +him all about the dances she had been to in Paris, and then, having +come to the end of them, suddenly yawned. He glanced at the +clock.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he said slowly, “I suppose I’d better be going now.”</p> + +<p>“All right,” she replied, yawning again. “I suppose you had. I’m +tired all at once—must be this rotten heavy weather.”</p> + +<p>“What about all this stuff?” He pointed to the little table.</p> + +<p>“Oh, they don’t matter. The maid will clear them in the morning. +She’ll be in soon—unless her sailor boy’s persuaded her to stay out +all night. And that would be nice for <em>me</em>, wouldn’t it?—here all +night by myself. No, she’ll be in soon. I thought I heard her then.”</p> + +<p>Very slowly, reluctantly, Turgis put on his coat, carefully buttoning +it and lingering over every button. While he did this, he stared +at her, wondering how he could possibly say what was in his mind.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p294">[294]</span></p> + +<p>She, too, had been thoughtful. “Look here,” she cried at last. “Have +you been to the Colladium this week? Well, I haven’t either, and +I want to go, and I hate going by myself. If I can get two seats +for the first house to-morrow night, will you come with me? I might +go down and get them to-morrow afternoon if I feel like it. I want +to spend some of that twelve pounds, anyhow.”</p> + +<p>Would he go? Oh, my gosh!</p> + +<p>“All right then,” she continued, walking towards the door with +him. “Listen. I’ll telephone to you at the office some time in the +afternoon if it’s all right. I’ll tell you where to meet me and all +that then.”</p> + +<p>They were standing at the door now, and he was still holding +her hand, as if he were about to shake it, but was at the moment +too busy trying to stammer out a few adequate phrases. Nor was he +merely holding the hand, for, involuntarily, he was pulling it too, so +that there was less and less space between them as his little speech +floundered on. This made Lena impatient.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know what on earth you’re trying to say,” she told him, +“so don’t bother. And you might as well go now before the girl does +get back. And I’ll telephone to-morrow. Oh, don’t dither so much, +silly. There!” And with that she leaned against him, putting a hand +on each shoulder, kissed him swiftly on the mouth, drew back, +laughed, and then shut the door on him.</p> + +<p>Turgis stared at the door, drew a long breath, and then wandered +down the stairs and through the hall below like a man drifting +drunkenly out of some Arabian Night. He walked up to Kilburn, +where he caught a 31 bus that took him most of the way home. The +fog was not very thick, but it was wretchedly cold damp stuff that +made people shiver and cough and wipe their eyes and blow their +noses and look miserable. But Turgis did not care. As he sat gazing +at nothing in the bus or marched along the blackened pavements, +he was warmed by the fire inside him and cheered by a host of +coloured fancies that were rocketing in his mind.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p295">[295]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="IV_6"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>When he awoke next morning, he knew at once that he was in +possession of an exquisite secret and was quite different from the +Turgis who had rubbed his eyes so often in that little room. He +was the chap who had been kissed by Miss Lena Golspie the night +before. He was also the chap she was going to telephone to this +very day and take to the Colladium this very night. He jumped out +of bed and then jumped into the part of this new and splendid chap. +The fact that he still looked like the old Turgis, to whom nothing +wonderful had ever happened, only made it all the more amusing.</p> + +<p>“Another raw morning, my word,” said Mrs. Pelumpton, as she +handed him his breakfast. “Them’s best off this morning who has +to stay in. Edgar’s been gone these two hours, and a nasty cold +job it must be in that station this morning.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it must, Mrs. Pelumpton,” said Turgis heartily. “I’m sorry +for Edgar.” And so he was. Edgar would never be kissed by a girl +like Lena Golspie, not if he lived to be a thousand. Poor dreary +devil!</p> + +<p>Old Pelumpton shuffled in, unwashed, blue about the nose, and +wearing a greasy muffler. Turgis had seen him like that many times +before, but this morning he resented the appearance of this dirty +apparition. If Lena Golspie knew that he had to eat his breakfast +looking at that nasty old mess, who might have just crawled out +of the dustbin, she would probably never speak to him again.</p> + +<p>“No letter, I shee,” said Mr. Pelumpton, going to the fire and +warming his hands. “That meansh he doeshn’t want me to go and +shee the shtuff thish morning. I’ll go round jusht before dinner and +catch ’im in then. That’sh the idear.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, that is the idea,” said his wife sharply, as she bustled about. +“Wait till the pubs is open and then catch him in. I know that +idea. It’s a good idea, that is. If it wasn’t for that idea, I don’t know +<span class="pagenum" id="p296">[296]</span>why the pubs ’ud ever open at dinner time, ’cos they wouldn’t have +any custom.”</p> + +<p>“You hear that,” Mr. Pelumpton said to Turgis, who was putting +away his breakfast as fast as he could. “Deary me, they’ve got pubsh +on the brain, the women ’ave. If a man shtops in a bit, they want +to know when he’sh going to do a bit o’ work, an’ if he goesh out, +then it’sh the pubsh.”</p> + +<p>“And you don’t go in the pubs, do you, Mr. Pelumpton?” said +Turgis, with a very marked ironical inflection.</p> + +<p>“Oh no! He ’ates them, he does,” cried Mrs. Pelumpton. “You +couldn’t get him to go near one.”</p> + +<p>“What shome o’ you people don’t realishe,” retorted Mr. Pelumpton +with dignity, “ish that the pub may be nesheshary in bishnish. +And until you’ve been in bishnish—a bishnish like mine, I mean—it’sh +shomething you don’t undershtand. The amount of bishnish +transhacted in pubsh, my wordsh⁠——”</p> + +<p>“’Morning, Mrs. Pelumpton,” cried Turgis, wiping his mouth and +dashing out. What a life the Pelumptons had! It seemed incredible +that anybody could find so dingy an existence worth living. Hurrying +down to the Camden Town Tube Station, cramming himself +into the lift, waiting for a City train, swaying near the doors among +a mass of elbows, newspapers and parcels all the way to Moorgate, +he hugged his grand secret. When he arrived at the office, he swelled +exultantly, for this was where Mr. Golspie gave his orders, and they +all knew Mr. Golspie and they had heard about his daughter, but +they did not know what Turgis knew. It was a delightful feeling. +He wanted to laugh out loud every time one of the others spoke +to him or even looked at him. Ah, little did they know!</p> + +<p>“You got that receipt all right, did you, Turgis?” said Mr. Smeeth.</p> + +<p>It was extraordinary. He had forgotten all about the money and +the receipt. But he had the receipt in his pocket, nevertheless, and +when he handed it over he found himself swelling again inside, +nearly bursting with secret knowledge and happiness.</p> + +<p>“Did you go inside?” said Mr. Smeeth casually.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p297">[297]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes,” replied Turgis. Did he go inside!</p> + +<p>“Oo, did you?” cried Poppy Sellers, who missed nothing. “Tell +us what it was like? What did you say to his daughter? Is she nice? +Tell us all about it—go on.”</p> + +<p>Not a bad kid, really, though that fringe effect was a distinct +mess. And she thought him—what was it?—rather marvellous. (And +so <em>she</em> ought. Why, if Lena Golspie—oh, well, I-mean-to-say!) Poor +kid—a bit pathetic, when you came to consider it. And she had +wanted him to go with her to the Police Minstrels last night! And +he had half thought of going! Dear, dear, dear!</p> + +<p>“Well, Miss Sellers, if you really want to know,” he said, “I’ll tell +you.”</p> + +<p>“My words, aren’t we getting grand!” cried Poppy. “Go on. Very +good of your lordship, I’m sure.”</p> + +<p>“They live in the top half of a detached house,” said Turgis, “and +the room I went into was a large room, bigger than this office here, +and it had all sorts of things in it, and shaded lights and a big +gramophone and dozens of cushions all over the room⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Did it look like a furnished flat?” asked Miss Matfield.</p> + +<p>“I suppose so. I don’t know. I don’t know anything about furnished +flats.”</p> + +<p>“Well, what about his daughter?” Miss Sellers enquired. “What’s +she like?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve seen her—for a minute,” said Miss Matfield. “She’s rather +pretty, isn’t she?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, she is,” replied Turgis, keeping a hold on himself. He was +bubbling inside.</p> + +<p>“Yes, but what’s she <em>like</em>?” Miss Sellers persisted, staring at him. +And when he made no reply, but turned away and pretended to be +suddenly busy with some work, she gave him a curious look before +she herself turned away too. He never saw it, and if he had seen it, +he would not have been interested.</p> + +<p>Fortunately, both for him and for Twigg & Dersingham, he was +not very busy that afternoon. Otherwise, he might have muddled +<span class="pagenum" id="p298">[298]</span>every consignment of veneers and inlays, and so confused the whole +trade that it might not have recovered for a fortnight. The disadvantage +of pinning your whole afternoon on a possible telephone +call in an office is that the telephone is ringing every few minutes +and you are for ever on the jump. Up to three-thirty, Turgis was +comparatively calm; from three-thirty to four, he was on the tiptoe +of expectation; from four to four-fifteen he was desperate; from four-fifteen +to four-thirty he was swaying on the brink of a vast abyss +of misery, only to be plucked back by every ring of the bell and +then hurled forward again by each unwelcome voice (“And if you +ask me,” said the girl at Brown & Gorstein’s, after making one of +these calls, “I think it’s time Twigg and Dersinghams just veneered +a few manners on. The way they snap your head off!”); and, at +four-thirty-five he was sitting staring at a desk in hell, all hope +gone, and at four-forty-five he was breathing heavily down a telephone +receiver in heaven. Yes, she had got the tickets and would he +meet her just inside the entrance to the Colladium at twenty-five +past six.</p> + +<p>Even now, there was no peace for him. The instant he had put +down the receiver he had realized that it would not be easy for +him to be at the Colladium at twenty-five past six. Sometimes they +did not finish until nearly that time, and indeed, on really busy +nights, it was often considerably later. He had to get from Angel +Pavement to the Colladium, and if possible he had to have some tea.</p> + +<p>“What time do you think we’ll be finishing to-night, Mr. Smeeth?” +he enquired respectfully.</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth looked up from his neat little wonderland of figures. +“Oh, I dunno, Turgis. Just after six, I suppose. Why, have you got +something special on?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve got to be up in the West End at twenty-five past six,” said +Turgis. (“And if you knew who I’m going to meet, Smeethy, old +man, you’d have a fit.”) Then he thought for a moment. “Would +you mind if I sent Stanley out for some tea for me, Mr. Smeeth?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p299">[299]</span></p> + +<p>“Well, as long as you do it now, before he’s busy copying the +letters, it’ll be all right.”</p> + +<p>So Stanley was dispatched to the Pavement Dining Rooms for +one pot of tea, one buttered teacake, and a bun—total eightpence. +“And do I keep the change?” asked Stanley, who had been given +a shilling.</p> + +<p>“I should think you don’t, my lad!” cried Turgis, whose finances +were now in a desperate state. The pictures last night had left +him with three and threepence; the bus going home had cost him +twopence; lunch had been ninepence (it cost him nothing travelling +to the office because he had a pass on the Underground); and now, +after paying out this eightpence, he would be left with one and +eight. On that one and eight, he would have to travel to the Colladium +and get home afterwards, and then exist all the next day, +Friday. And he had only two cigarettes left. If Lena wanted anything +in the Colladium—and he could imagine her asking for chocolates +and cigarettes and ices—he was in a hole.</p> + +<p>He got away at five minutes past six, after having a very thorough +wash-and-brush-up in the little office lavatory, hurled himself into +the flood of west-bound travellers, and arrived, breathless and triumphant, +under the red glare of the Colladium entrance exactly on time. +He had ten minutes in which to cool off before Miss Golspie appeared, +wearing a handsome coat with a huge fur collar and cuffs +and looking so rich and beautiful that he was almost too shy to talk +to her. Their seats were down at the front—Turgis had never sat +in such seats before—and it would all have been perfect if it had +not been for two little incidents. The first occurred when Lena, +during the second turn, a silent juggling affair, announced that she +would like some chocolates. “Can you get hold of that girl there,” +she said. “She always has some nice boxes.”</p> + +<p>Nice boxes! “How much are they?” he asked her, miserably.</p> + +<p>“Well, you are a mean pig! How much are they? I like that, and +after I’ve paid for the seats, too!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p300">[300]</span></p> + +<p>“I’m sorry,” he stammered, “but—you see—I’ve only got one and +sixpence.” He had paid tuppence on the bus, getting there.</p> + +<p>“One and six!” Lena laughed. It was not an unfriendly laugh, +but it was not a very sympathetic one either. “That’s worse than +I was, before you brought that money, yesterday. It doesn’t matter, +though. I don’t know that I do want any chocolates. But would +you spend your wonderful one and six if I asked you to?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I would. Of course I would. If I’d,” he added, as the curtains +swept down on the smiling jugglers, “if I’d hundreds and +hundreds of pounds, I’d spend them all if you asked me to. I would, +honestly.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it’s easy to say that,” said Lena, not displeased, however, +at his fervent tone. She gave him a brilliant glance, and no doubt +remarked that his face was flushed and his eyes were at once hot +and moist, as if he stared through a steam of embarrassed adoration.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, not all her brilliant glances were reserved for him, +and that fact formed the basis of the second disturbing incident. +There was a young man, a rather tall handsome chap with wavy +hair, who was sitting with a girl in the row in front of them and +a little to their right. Turgis had noticed that this fellow was turning +round a good deal whenever the lights went up and that every +time he did so his glance always came to rest finally on Lena. After +this had happened several times he noticed that she was returning +this glance. At last, during the interval, he caught her smiling, +yes, actually smiling, at the chap. Instantly, he felt miserable, then +angry, then miserable again.</p> + +<p>He could stand it no longer. “Do you know that chap there?” he +asked, trying to appear light and easy.</p> + +<p>“Which one? What are you talking about?”</p> + +<p>“Well, you keep smiling at him—I mean, that one there, the chap +who’s just had a permanent wave, by the look of him.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, the one who keeps looking round. He seems to think he +knows me, doesn’t he? He’s rather attractive, as a matter of fact.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I suppose as long as you think so, it’s all right, isn’t it?” +<span class="pagenum" id="p301">[301]</span>said Turgis bitterly. He could feel a pain, a real pain, as bad as +toothache, somewhere inside him. “He doesn’t attract me,” he mumbled. +“If you ask me, he looks a rotten twister—bit of a crook or +something.” But in his heart he knew that the chap was taller and +stronger and better-looking and better-dressed and altogether more +important than he was, and he could have killed him for it.</p> + +<p>“He doesn’t at all,” said Lena. Then she laughed and made a +face at him. “You’re jealous, that’s all. And you oughtn’t to be +jealous, it isn’t nice. I’ll smile at him again now. I think he’s lovely.”</p> + +<p>When she said that and looked so determinedly in that fellow’s +direction, Turgis was filled with a desire to take hold of her there +and then, dig his nails into her soft flesh, and hurt her until she +screamed. He was suddenly shaken with the force of this desire, +which was like nothing he had known before. But at that moment +this little game of glancing and smiling came to an end, and the +person who put a stop to it was the girl with the other man. She +turned round too—and good luck to her, thought Turgis—then +frowned and said something to her companion, and after that there +was no more turning round and Lena divided her attention between +the stage and Turgis, who was left in a queer state of mind and +body.</p> + +<p>“You can come and have some supper again, if you like,” said +Lena, when it was all over. “The maid wanted to go out again, so +I said she could, and if you’d like to come and help me again, you +can.”</p> + +<p>“I should think I would like to,” he cried enthusiastically. “And +I’m sorry if I was silly—y’know, in there.”</p> + +<p>“Jealous boy,” she said, smiling. “That’s what you are, aren’t +you? Oh, it’s cold out here, isn’t it. Let’s get a taxi. Oh, never +mind about your precious one and six—I’ll pay. I want to get home +quick, out of the cold. Come on. Stop that one, there.”</p> + +<p>Turgis had only been in a taxi once before in all his life. As he +sat close to Lena in the dark leathery interior and saw the familiar +crowded streets go reeling past the window, this effortless journeying +<span class="pagenum" id="p302">[302]</span>seemed magical. They were in Maida Vale in no time. It made +life seem at once wonderfully rich and simple. When they entered +the house, they heard a tremendous babble of talk coming from +the lower flat. It sounded as if that fantastic old foreign woman +had summoned all her relations and friends and all their friends +and relations to discuss her “troble.” In the room above, there +appeared to be even more cushions, gramophone records, boxes +and bottles than there were the day before. Once more, Lena mixed +some cocktails, and Turgis encountered the queer flavour, sweet +at first, then slightly bitter, and ending with a sudden glow. Once +more, he had a second and bigger one, and found everything enlarged, +including himself. Once more, they sat down to supper at +the little table in front of the fire, though this time there was more +luxurious food and it all seemed to come out of little cardboard +containers. They were very friendly over the cocktails and the food, +and Lena, dressed in bright green, a colour that seemed to throw +her red-gold hair and light brown eyes, her scarlet mouth and white +neck, into brilliant relief, was lovelier than ever. It was wonderful.</p> + +<p>“Do you know Mrs. Dersingham?” she asked him.</p> + +<p>He shook his head. “She came to the office once, and I just saw +her, that’s all.”</p> + +<p>“She’s not as pretty as I am, is she? Or do you think she is?”</p> + +<p>“Pretty as you!” Turgis gave a gasp, and meant it. “Why, there’s +no comparison. She’s just ordinary—and you’re lovely. Yes, you are, +really.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean it. You’re just teasing me.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not,” he said, solemnly. Teasing her indeed! A fat chance +he would ever have of teasing <em>her</em>. “I’ve never known any girl as +pretty as you—never seen one—in all my life before—and I never +shall, never, never.”</p> + +<p>She rewarded him with a smile. Then she frowned. “I don’t like +Mrs. Dersingham. I met her once. I loathe her. She’s a snob and a +rotten cat.”</p> + +<p>“Is she?” Turgis didn’t care what Mrs. Dersingham was.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p303">[303]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, she is. I hate her. My father doesn’t like her either. He +doesn’t like Mr. Dersingham much either. He thinks he’s a fool.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think he’s a bad chap though,” said Turgis thoughtfully. +“I’ve never really had much to do with him. But I don’t believe +he’s much good at business. I know the business was in a rotten +state just before your father came. Good job for us he did come. I +don’t pretend to know much about it, but I do know that. Mr. +Golspie’s clever, isn’t he?”</p> + +<p>She nodded. “He’s always making a lot of money, but he usually +spends it all or loses it in some mad scheme. He hates staying in +one place long, and if it wasn’t for that, he could have made a lot +more money and been really rich. But he doesn’t care about that. +When he wrote to tell me he was coming to London, he said I’d +have to come, too, because he was going to stay a long time +and make a proper home for us, but now he’s here, he says he +doesn’t like London, and he’s going away again soon.”</p> + +<p>“Is he?” Turgis stared at her. “What—how do you mean ‘soon’?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, quite soon,” she replied carelessly. Then she remembered +something. “Look here, I may be wrong, though. And you mustn’t +say anything to anybody, will you? Promise you won’t.”</p> + +<p>“All right, I won’t. But if he went,” Turgis continued, regarding +her earnestly, “would you go too?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s it, is it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it is. You wouldn’t be going, would you?”</p> + +<p>“I might—pass me a cigarette, will you?—and then again, I might +not. It all depends. But, look here, if my father knew I’d been +saying anything, he’d be furious, and though he usually lets me +have my own way, when he’s really furious, he’s hellish, I can tell +you.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll bet he is,” said Turgis, who had never had any doubts about +that. “I wouldn’t like to see him in a temper.”</p> + +<p>“What a dreary depressing conversation!” she cried, getting up. +“Let’s have another drink. Have you ever been tight? I expect you +have. I got tight once or twice in Paris, with some Americans. We +<span class="pagenum" id="p304">[304]</span>were drinking champagne and liqueurs all night. I fell on the floor +once and rolled under a table and went to sleep for hours and hours. +Shove the gramophone on, with something decent on. Then come +and have this drink and I’ll see if you can dance yet.”</p> + +<p>They did not dance long, however, for Lena announced that she +was too tired and that he was too clumsy. She turned off one of +the two shaded lights and went and stood by the fire. He joined her +there, standing quite close, trembling a little. He put his arm round +her tentatively and when she did not move away, he tightened it. +She half turned so that she was lightly pressing against him, and +then she lifted her glamorous face, looked at him with huge mysterious +eyes, raised her lips to within an inch or two of his, and +whispered, “Wouldn’t you like to kiss me?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” and he made a quick movement.</p> + +<p>But she was quicker still, and in a second had broken away from +him and was laughing. “Well, you can’t then—unless you say you +adore me and are madly in love with me and that I’m the most wonderful +person you’ve ever met and that you’ll do anything in the +world I ask. Now then.”</p> + +<p>“But you are. Oh, you are,” he stammered, all his heart trying +to break through. “I’ve thought that ever since I saw you that day +in the office. I’ve never thought about anything else. I used to come +and stand outside this house, hoping to see you again, just to look +at you.”</p> + +<p>“You didn’t.” There was a faint suggestion of giggling in her +voice. “You didn’t.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I did. Lots of nights. I did, really. Oh, Lena⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, funny boy!” she cried, mocking him. “Well, you can kiss +me—if you can catch me.”</p> + +<p>And she dodged behind enormous armchairs and round the various +tables and he went almost blindly after her, until at last she darted +across to the big deep sofa thing, and there sank down among the +cushions. “No, no,” she cried, laughing and breathless, as he came +up, “you didn’t catch me.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p305">[305]</span></p> + +<p>But now he bent over her, clasped her fiercely in his arms, and +kissed her hard. When he drew back, she began laughing and protesting +again, but in another minute her arms were about his neck +and her body was crushed against his and they were kissing again. +After a few minutes of this, she pushed him away and sat up, but +she gave him her hand and he knelt there, holding it, with great +roaring tides sounding in his ears.</p> + +<p>“And now you’ve got to behave yourself,” she said, strangely calm.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said humbly, looking up at her. If she had spoken kindly +to him then he would have cried.</p> + +<p>She smiled at him, and then, leaning forward, rubbed his cheek +gently with her other hand. She brought her face nearer his, so +that her mouth flamed again in his misty sight, but as he raised +his head, she retreated, until at last he sprang up and clasped her +to him as fiercely as before, and they were kissing again. For an +hour she kept him swaying and lunging and beating about in this +wild dark tide, and sometimes he was only gripping her hand and +pressing it to his cheek and at other times she was completely in +his arms for a few moments, answering his drive of passion with +sudden bright flares of her own. And then, strangely calm again, +she told him he must go.</p> + +<p>Dazed and aching, he leaned against the back of a chair and +stared at her with hot pricking eyes.</p> + +<p>She looked at herself in the mirror above the fireplace, humming +a little dance tune. Then she turned round, met his stare with a +slight frown, and pointed out again that he really must go.</p> + +<p>He wanted to say all manner of wonderful things to her, but +could not find words for them. He tried to put them into the look +he gave her. “Can I see you to-morrow?” he said at last.</p> + +<p>“Mmmm?” She pretended to look very thoughtful. “Well, perhaps. +What do you want to do?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t mind what it is so long as I’m with you,” he assured her, +trying to smile, but finding his face all stiff, so stiff that a smile +<span class="pagenum" id="p306">[306]</span>would crack it. “What would you like to do? Can’t I take you +somewhere?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I’ll tell you what. I’d like to see that Ronald Mawlborough +talkie, that new one, you know—where is it? at the Sovereign. Isn’t +that it—the Sovereign? I believe it’s terribly crowded, so you’d have +to book seats.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll do that if you’ll only come,” said Turgis stoutly.</p> + +<p>“All right. We’ll go there, then. And you get the seats, don’t +forget.”</p> + +<p>“I shan’t forget. What time?”</p> + +<p>“Let me see. Oh, I’ll meet you just outside at quarter to eight. I +believe that’s just before the Ronald Mawlborough picture starts, +because I looked it up in the paper, this morning.”</p> + +<p>“Quarter to eight. All right then. And—I say—Lena⁠——”</p> + +<p>But she pointed to his hat and coat, and when he had got them +on she took his arm and led him to the door. “You can tell me all +that to-morrow. But just tell me this. Am I nice?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Lena—you’re the most marvellous girl—oh, I don’t know +what to say⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you, dar-ling?” she replied, laughing at him. She came very +close, held up her mouth, drew it back suddenly, laughed again, but +finally allowed herself to be kissed.</p> + +<p>Turgis was still dazed, still aching, still hot and pricking about the +eyes, as he went out into the street and turned to have a last look at +the enchanted window above; and desire burned and raged in him +as it had never done when he had vainly searched the long lighted +streets for an answering smile, had stared at red mouths, soft chins, +rounded arms and legs in tube trains and buses and teashops, had +felt those exciting little pressures in the darkness of the picture theatres, +had returned to his little room, tired in body but with a heated +imagination, as he had done so many times, to see its dim corners +conjure themselves tantalisingly into the shapes of lovely beckoning +girls. The flame of this desire was fed from the heart. He was now +in love, terribly in love. The miracle had happened; the one girl +<span class="pagenum" id="p307">[307]</span>had arrived; and with this single magical stroke, life was completed. +He merely existed no longer; but now he lived, and, a lover at last, +was at last himself. Love had only to be kind to him, and there was +nothing he would not do in return; he was ready to lie, to beg, to +steal, to slave day and night, to rise to astounding heights of courage; +all these trifles, so long as he could still love and be loved.</p> + +<p>The conductor of the 31 bus, noticing the young man with the +rather large nose, the open mouth and irregular teeth, the drooping +chin, whose full brown eyes shone as they stared into vacancy, whose +face had a queer glowing pallor, might easily have concluded that +there was a chap who was sickening for something. But Turgis was +alight with love. He sat there in a dream ecstasy of devotion, in +which remembered kisses glittered like stars.</p> + + +<h3 id="V_3"> + V +</h3> + +<p>“Please, Mr. Smeeth,” he said, next morning, “could you let me +have a pound to-day?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth rubbed his chin irritably. “Well, you know, Turgis, +I don’t like doing this,” he said, fussily. “It’s not so much the thing +itself⁠——”</p> + +<p>“It’s only till to-morrow morning,” Turgis pointed out, for the +next day, Saturday, was the fortnightly pay day.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know that, and it’s a small thing in itself, but it’s a bad +system. Once you start doing that sort of thing, you don’t know +where you’re going to end. When I was with the Imperial Trading +Company, before the war, they’d a very easy-going cashier there, an +old chap called Hornsea, and we used to be paid every month. The +result was, some of the fellows, particularly one or two of the lively +sparks, were subbing all the time and old Hornsea would let them +have it out of the petty cash. What happened in the long run? He +got let down, badly let down. Now I don’t mean to say you’re going +to let me down⁠——”</p> + +<p>“You know I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Smeeth.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p308">[308]</span></p> + +<p>“Well, you couldn’t, not even if you tried,” said Mr. Smeeth with +great emphasis. “It wouldn’t work here at all. I’m not old Hornsea. +But, believe me, my boy, it’s a bad system. Can’t you last out until +to-morrow morning? I could lend you a bob or two myself, for that +matter.”</p> + +<p>“No, thank you, Mr. Smeeth. I’d rather have the pound on account, +if you don’t mind. It’s something special I have on to-night.” +And he added to himself that old Smeethy would be just about +dumb with surprise if he knew too.</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, in that case, I suppose you’d better have it. But it’s a +special case, mind. And don’t forget you’ll have a pound less to-morrow +morning.” He carefully made out a slip, <i>Sub. H. Turgis</i>—£1 0s. +0d., placed it in the petty cashbox, and then handed over the pound +note.</p> + +<p>“Thank you very much, Mr. Smeeth,” said Turgis, quietly, humbly. +That was the first thing done. The next was to book the seats +at the Sovereign. He could have telephoned and then paid for them +in the evening, but this did not occur to him, for he did not belong to +the seat-booking classes, and even if it had occurred to him, he would +have rejected it as being too precarious. To make certain of getting +good seats, he curtailed his lunch to a mere gobble and gulp, then +hurried off to the West End and the Sovereign, which was already +open. Indeed, for the last hour or so, the Sovereign had been doing +excellent business, chiefly with young wives who had come in from +distant suburbs to buy three and a half yards of curtain material and, +having saved ninepence, felt they were entitled to a glimpse or two +of Ronald Mawlborough. Early as it was, there were several people +in front of Turgis at the advance booking office, but he was able +to get two fairly good seats at four and sixpence each. Nine bob +for the pictures! This was easily his record, and it certainly seemed +a lot of money, nearly as much as he earned in a whole day. Nevertheless +he paid it gladly. With the tickets in his pocket, to say nothing +of eleven shillings to meet emergencies, he had nothing to do +now but quietly exist until quarter to eight, and then—Lena.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p309">[309]</span></p> + +<p>It was not worth while going back to his lodgings after he had +finished at the office, so he went to a teashop not very far from the +Sovereign and there spun out his meal as long as he decently could. +Even then, however, it was only half-past seven when he arrived at +the Sovereign; but he did not mind that, for it would be pleasant +just standing there, watching the crowd, and knowing that every +minute brought Lena nearer to him. There was a queue waiting for +the cheaper seats. Turgis had stood in that queue many a time. Now +he looked at it with a mingling of pity and scorn. It seemed to belong +to some ancient and desiccated past. In the entrance hall, under the +russet globes, the footmen and pageboys in chocolate and gold were +handing the people on to one another and sending them, in two +jerky dark streams, up the two great marble staircases. For the first +ten minutes, Turgis merely lounged about, but after that, when he +knew that Lena might arrive any moment, he carefully planted himself +in the centre, in sight of all the doors in front, so that there +was no chance of missing her. Hundreds of girls passed in with +their young men, but not one of them as pretty as Lena. A few days +ago he would have envied a good many of those fellows, but now +he could afford to pity them. They didn’t know what a girl was. +“Wait till you see Lena,” he told them, under his breath, as they +passed, unconscious, smiling.</p> + +<p>At five minutes to eight, he pointed out to himself that Lena had +been ten minutes late the night before at the Colladium. Girls always +kept a chap waiting. They were famous for it. At eight o’clock he +began to be anxious. He wondered if he was waiting in the wrong +place, and he hastily searched the whole breadth of the entrance. At +quarter past eight, his eyes began to smart. Time, which had passed +so slowly at first, was now rushing away. The Ronald Mawlborough +picture had started long ago. A lump, compact of sheer misery, rose +in his throat and then wobbled up and down there, trying to choke +him. Half-a-dozen times he stepped forward eagerly, only to retire +again, under the stare of strange girls who thought they were about +to be accosted, and to pretend to himself that it was still worth while +<span class="pagenum" id="p310">[310]</span>staying there a little longer. The last half-hour was nothing but a +dismal farce, for he knew that she could not be coming now, yet +somehow his feet refused to move more than a yard or two away. +It was nine o’clock when he finally left the place, with two useless +tickets in his pocket. One of them he could have used, but he never +thought for a moment of doing so. It was Lena he wanted to see, +not Ronald Mawlborough.</p> + +<p>He thought of a hundred excuses for her. She might have been +taken ill quite suddenly, for girls often were, he believed. Something +might have happened at the house. Her father might have +come back unexpectedly. What he could not believe was that there +was any mistake about the meeting itself, for she had suggested both +the time and the place. Still struggling with his disappointment, he +hurried along, through the stupid idiotic crowds, and caught the +first bus that would take him to Maida Vale. More excited every +minute, he turned at last into Carrington Villas, and almost ran to +get a sight of 4a. There was no light coming from the sitting-room. +She was not there. Nevertheless, he came to the conclusion that +somebody was in, for after waiting a few minutes, he thought he +saw a light go on in one of the other windows. Once he had made up +his mind, he did not hesitate at all, but marched straight up to the +door and rang the bell. He remembered then that it was probably +out of order. Still, he rang again.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said a voice, as the door opened a few inches, “what is it?”</p> + +<p>“Is Miss Golspie in, please?”</p> + +<p>The girl, obviously the maid who had been out the two previous +nights, now opened the door properly and came forward to have a +look at him. “Oo no, she isn’t.”</p> + +<p>“Do you know where she’s gone?”</p> + +<p>“Oo no, I don’t.”</p> + +<p>“Oh—I see,” said Turgis miserably. “I was hoping to see her +to-night.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said the girl confidentially, “I think she went out with a +friend, because she got all dressed up just after seven and she told +<span class="pagenum" id="p311">[311]</span>me she wouldn’t be back till very late, and then about half-past seven +a young gentleman called for her in a motor-car. And that’s all I can +tell you. Would you like to leave a message?”</p> + +<p>No, no message. He walked slowly down the garden, out of the +gate, across the road. He had to stop at the corner, because he was +biting his handkerchief, which he had screwed into a ball. Then, +when at last he was quiet and had put his handkerchief away, he +walked on and on through a blank misery of a night.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pelumpton was sitting up alone, just finishing his last pipe +and a mouthful of beer, when Turgis burst into the back room.</p> + +<p>“Can you lend me some ink, please?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Yersh, I think sho. I got a drop shomewhere. But you’re not +going to shtart writing lettersh thish time o’ night, boy, are yer? +If I wash like you, clerking all day in a norfish, writing lettersh about +thish, that, an’ the other, never shtopping, why, deary me!—you +wouldn’t catch me wanting to write lettersh thish time o’ night, my +wordsh you wouldn’t⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, for God’s sake,” Turgis screamed at him, “let me have the +ink if you’ve got any and stop yapping.”</p> + +<p>“’Ere, ’ere, ’ere, ’ere, ’ere! Thatsh a way to talk now, ishn’t it!” +Mr. Pelumpton, offended and on his dignity, produced the ink-bottle +and put it down on the table and then promptly turned his +back on it. “There’sh shuch a thing,” he continued, still with his back +turned, “ash mannersh an’ ashkin’ for a thing in a proper way. And +you can’t ’ave everything you want the minute you want it, not in +thish world you can’t, and it’sh no good you or any other man⁠——”</p> + +<p>But Turgis had banged the door behind him and was on his way +upstairs. He sat in his little room, a pen in his hand, a writing pad +on his knee, but at the end of half-an-hour there were only a few +stiff sentences down on the paper, although a torrent of phrases, +angry, reproachful, bitter, appealing, had gone raging through his +head. When, in despair, he crumpled the paper and flung down his +pen and then wandered wretchedly to the window, the night out +there was filled with tall handsome young men with wavy hair and +<span class="pagenum" id="p312">[312]</span>evening clothes, all with Lena in their arms. They were laughing +at him. She was laughing at him. He left the window, and told himself +that perhaps she wasn’t, though, perhaps she was sorry now. He +wished he had waited in Carrington Villas until she had returned, +no matter how late that might have been. He smoothed out the +writing pad and tried to decide whether he should write something +short and forceful or long and appealing. Oh, but what was the use +of writing! He would see her, speak to her, tell her what he thought +while looking her straight in the eyes. He would show her she +wasn’t dealing with a kid now, but with a Man.</p> + +<p>He undressed, and, as usual emptied his pockets. Two tickets, four +and six each, for the Sovereign Picture Theatre. And it was she who +had suggested it, and she had never even bothered letting him know +she wasn’t coming, but had just gone out with somebody else, had +dressed up, got into a car, and laughed at him or forgotten his existence. +He turned out the light, got into bed, and found himself in a +hot salty darkness, his eyes filling with tears.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p313">[313]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_Eight_MISS_MATFIELDS_NEW_YEAR"> + <i>Chapter Eight</i>: <span class="allsmcap">MISS MATFIELD’S NEW YEAR</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>A day or two before Mr. Golspie returned, Miss Matfield, sitting +with cold feet and a novel she disliked in the 13 bus, realised +with a shock that it was nearly Christmas. The shops she passed +every day in the bus along Regent Street and Oxford Street had been +celebrating Christmas for some time; and it was weeks since they +had first broken out into their annual crimson rash of holly berries, +robins, and Father Christmasses. The shops, followed by the illustrated +papers, began it so early, with their full chorus of advertising +managers and window dressers, shouting “Christmas Is Here,” at a +time when it obviously wasn’t, that when it did actually come creeping +up, you had forgotten about it. Miss Matfield told herself this, +and then remembered that every year her mother used to cry, “What, +nearly Christmas already! I never thought it was so near. It’s taken +me completely by surprise, this year.” Yes, every year she used to +say that, and year after year, Miss Matfield would tease her about it. +And now, Miss Matfield told herself, she had begun to say it, just as +if she was on the point of becoming forgetful and absurd and middle-aged. +Oh—foul! She stared out of the window. Those two miles of +<i>Xmas Gifts</i> and lavish electric lighting and artificial holly leaves +and cotton wool snow were still rolling past. The festive season—help! +It was all an elaborate stunt to persuade everybody to spend +money buying useless things for everybody else. She tried her novel +again: <i>The months passed, and still Jeffrey made no sign. He had +not forgiven her. In despair, Jenifer accepted an invitation to join +<span class="pagenum" id="p314">[314]</span>the Mainwarings in Madeira, returned to a gay but feverish fortnight +in Chelsea (where John Anderson sought her out everywhere +and never left her side), and then appeared, still smiling, still audacious, +but with a vaguely haunted look, at Cap d’Antibes. It was +there she heard that Jeffrey had been seen at Miami—“And with +Gloria Judge, my dear.”</i> And that was quite enough of that. Who +cared what happened to Jenifer and Jeffrey, the pair of ninnies? And +why were all these novels always filled with people who spent all +their time travelling about to mere resorts and spas, and deciding +whom to live with next? Nobody ever did any work in them.</p> + +<p>She returned to the subject of Christmas. It was, on the whole, +she decided, revolting. You gave people a lot of silly things, diaries +and calendars and rot, or useful things that were not right, gloves +of the wrong size and stockings of the wrong shade (and she +would have to be thinking out her presents now, and she was terribly +hard up); and they in their turn gave you silly things and the useful +things that were not right. You ate masses of food you didn’t want +(and even Dr. Matfield, who had ideas about diet, said it didn’t +matter at Christmas), and then you sat about, pretending to be jolly, +but really stodged, sleepy, headachy, and in urgent need of bicarbonate +of soda. If you stayed at home, you yawned, tried to convince +your mother that you hadn’t a rich secret life you were hiding from +her, and drearily sampled the family supply of literature. If you went +out, you had to pretend you were having a marvellous time because +you were wearing hats from crackers and playing pencil and paper +games (“Let me see, a river beginning with ‘V’?”). And what was +so terribly depressing and revolting about it all was that it was possible +to imagine a really good Christmas, the adult equivalent of +the enchanting Christmasses of childhood, the sort of Christmas that +people always thought they were going to have and never did have. +As the bus stopped by the dark desolation of Lord’s cricket-ground, +swallowed two women who were all parcels, comic hats, and fuss (a +sure sign this that Christmas was near, for you never saw these +parcels-and-comic-hat women any other time), and then rolled on, +<span class="pagenum" id="p315">[315]</span>Miss Matfield took out from its secret recess that dream of a Christmas. +She was in an old house in the country somewhere, with firelight +and candlelight reflected in the polished wood surfaces; by +her side, adoring her, was a vague figure, a husband, tall, strong, not +handsome perhaps but distinguished; two or three children, vague +too, nothing but laughter and a gleam of curls; friends arriving, +delightful people—“Hello,” they cried. “What a marvellous place +you’ve got here! I <em>say</em>, Lilian!”; some smiling servants; logs on the +fires, snow falling outside, old silver shining on the mahogany +dining table, and “Darling, you look wonderful in that thing,” said +the masculine shadow in his deep thrilling voice. “Oh, you <em>fool</em>, +stop it,” Miss Matfield cried to herself. She had only brought out +that nonsensical stuff to annoy herself. She liked reminding herself +how silly she could be. It braced her.</p> + +<p>She would go home, as usual, for Christmas, and on the way there +she would look forward to it and imagine that <em>this</em> time it was going +to be rather nice, and once she was there she would wonder how she +could have thought it would be anything but depressing. All as +usual. Still, it would be a change, a break in what had lately been +the very dull round of the office and the Burpenfield. Never had +the round been duller. The Burpenfield was getting worse; Evelyn +Ansdell—lucky child!—had gone off with her absurd father; and +nobody amusing had arrived. She had not met a single interesting +new person for ages. Then, life in Angel Pavement had merely been +so much typewriter-pounding since the one amusing person there, +Mr. Golspie, had been away. Mr. Golspie, she admitted to herself, +with unusual candour, <em>was</em> amusing, easily the most amusing person +on the horizon—bless him!—and she would be glad when he came +back. It would be fun, if only one had the cheek and courage to do +it, to bring Mr. Golspie into the Club, to introduce him to Tatters, to +say “Miss Tattersby, this is the <em>only</em> amusing man I know just now.” +But—O Lord!—she must keep off Tatters. In the Club, they talked +about Tatters day and night.</p> + +<p>She had further proof of this, if she had wanted it, when she +<span class="pagenum" id="p316">[316]</span>reached the Club, for on the landing outside her room she met the +depressing Miss Kersey. “Is that you, Matfield?” Kersey wailed, all +damp and droopy as usual. “Don’t, <em>don’t</em>, go near Tatters to-night, +whatever you do. I went in to ask her about sub-letting my room +and she simply snapped my head off, didn’t give me an earthly +chance to tell her when I wanted to sub-let or anything. She just +<em>flew</em> at me, Matfield, as if I’d been caught stealing or something. +Isn’t Tatters really <em>awful</em>? And yet the last time I went in, she was +as nice as anything and even asked me about my sister, the one who’s +gone to Burma. I won’t go near her now for months,” she added, +really enjoying the fact that Miss Tattersby could be so ferocious, +so unpredictable in manner. “I’ll send her notes as some of the others +always do. Don’t you go near her to-night.”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield said she had no intention of doing so, and then hurried +into her room, where she came to the conclusion, as she tidied +herself for dinner, that it was really Tatters who made the Burpenfield +endurable for people like Kersey, for she gave their lives a +colouring of danger and drama, poor old things. At dinner, she had +to share a table with Isabel Cadnam, the languid Morrison, and a +recent arrival who had taken Evelyn Ansdell’s old room, and annoyed +Miss Matfield just because she was not Evelyn Ansdell. But, +apart from that, this new girl was an irritating creature. Her name +was Snaresbrook; she had untidy dark hair, huge staring eyes (heavily +made up), and white, flabby, sagging cheeks; and she was soulful, +gushing and psychic. So far she had been a great success because +she went round talking to people about themselves very sympathetically, +offering to tell their fortunes, and going in tremendously +for this heart-to-heart business. Miss Matfield, a tougher subject than +most, refused to be taken in. When she sat down the other three +were already there, and were talking about work.</p> + +<p>“I’ll bet you’ll agree, Mattie,” said Miss Cadnam.</p> + +<p>“What’s that?” inquired Miss Matfield.</p> + +<p>“I was just saying that it’s part of the cussedness of everything that +nearly every girl here has the wrong job, I mean, if you like <em>one</em> kind +<span class="pagenum" id="p317">[317]</span>of thing, then it’s ten to one you have to work in a place where it’s +all another kind of thing. I’ve just discovered that Snaresbrook here +works for a film renting show, and she loathes it⁠——”</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t say that,” Miss Snaresbrook put in softly in her soulful +contralto, “because I don’t loathe anybody. I don’t think one +ought to⁠——”</p> + +<p>“I do,” said Miss Morrison. “I loathe nearly everybody. I think the +world’s full of people who are absolutely foul.”</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t loathe these film people. But I do feel they’re not my +own kind. I don’t feel really sympathetic towards them, and I feel +there is work of a better kind waiting for me.” And Miss Snaresbrook +turned her huge staring eyes, like the headlights of a car, +round the table.</p> + +<p>“That’s just what I’m saying,” cried the excitable Caddie. “Now +I’d adore to work at a film place; just my style. And here I am, +assistant secretary to the League of the Divine Lotus, and I’m sure +you’d adore that, wouldn’t you, Snaresbrook? Whereas, if you don’t +mind my saying so, I think these Divine Lotus people are all too +sloppy to live, and the minute they begin to talk now, they get on +my nerves. If I stay there much longer I’ll go potty too and break +out into robes and mystic stars and Wisdom from the East. If anybody +mentions the East now, I want to scream. A lot of fat film men +smoking cigars would be a marvellous change. And to go to trade +shows if you want to—marvellous!”</p> + +<p>“You two ought to swop jobs,” said Miss Matfield. “Then you’d +both be satisfied. What about that, Caddie?”</p> + +<p>“That’s just where the cussedness comes in. They’d never have +the right ones. It’s the same with nearly everybody here. If you’re +heavily West End, you’re landed with a job at a wholesale cheap +milliner’s somewhere in the City⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Revolting!” murmured Miss Morrison.</p> + +<p>“And if you’re a wild Socialist or something, like that Colenberg +girl, you find yourself secretary to Lady Thomson-Greggs in Berkeley +Square and grumble like anything because the place is stiff with +<span class="pagenum" id="p318">[318]</span>footmen. I told Ivor about that, the other night, and he said I ought +to write an article about it for the papers.”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you?” said Miss Snaresbrook. “I’m sure you could +write. You have the gift of expression. I don’t think I’ve looked at +your hand yet, have I? I’m sure it’s written in your hand.”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield looked across the table in time to catch a disgusted +glance from Morrison, whose grey eyes had also the gift of expression +and announced quite clearly that Snaresbrook was revolting. +“Well, I don’t think much of my job,” said Miss Matfield, “but I +don’t know that I particularly want anybody else’s here. The fact +is, they’re all pretty rotten, and that’s the real trouble. We don’t any +of us get a chance to do anything really important. They’re all silly +little mechanical jobs. If we were men, we’d be doing something +decent now. What chance has a girl? The rot they talk about women +working! The men jolly well see where all the decent jobs go to. +And you know it.”</p> + +<p>“True, Miss Matfield,” said Miss Snaresbrook, turning on all the +sympathetic stops. “I feel it’s particularly unjust in your case. A girl +with a strong character like you is entitled to an important, responsible +post. We have a long way to go yet. Men are still trying to +hold women back, to keep them in inferior places. And their attitude! +The things some of those film men have said to me!” She +sighed, then switched on the headlights.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’ll bet they’re a tough crowd,” said Caddie cheerfully, “but +that ought to make it amusing. Men are easy enough to handle. It’s +women who are so awful. There are some frightful old cats among +those Lotus creatures. They come swarming and drooping all over +you, and all the time they’re poking their long noses into your affairs +and making up the most fiendish lies. Give me men. I wish there +were some in this club.”</p> + +<p>“Miss Cadnam, you don’t really,” said Miss Snaresbrook reproachfully.</p> + +<p>“Yes, she does, and so do I,” said Miss Morrison, roused for once +from her languid disgust, “and so will you when you’ve been here +<span class="pagenum" id="p319">[319]</span>as long as we have. I’m not so terribly keen on men—most of them +are pretty foul, so far as I can see—but a few here would be a pleasant +change. The ones we do get as visitors are usually fairly hopeless, +but even then I like to see them down here, trying to pretend they +don’t mind the foul food. There are too many girls here. Ugh! Too +much feminine slush and slop. Too much powder and lipstick and +cold cream. Too many stockings and silk jumpers. Too many hot-water +bottles and bedroom slippers. Too much messiness and brightness +and depressingness and sympathy. Every time I hear some +man clumping about here, and see him sit down, all solid and thick, +I’m delighted—I don’t care how terrible he is. Too many women +about. Revolting!”</p> + +<p>“Whoops!” cried Caddie. “Go on, my dear. Don’t stop now.”</p> + +<p>“Talk about girls living their own independent lives!” Miss Morrison +continued, pink and defiant. “It’s a marvel to me that after +living here a year or two and being faced with the prospect of living +here for donkey’s years like some of the poor old things⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t!” Miss Matfield groaned.</p> + +<p>“I say that it’s a marvel to me we don’t just marry anybody, anybody +at all, or, failing that, run away with somebody. A place like +this simply encourages wild matrimony and risky adventures. And +if there isn’t more of it, I’ll tell you why. It’s not just because we’re +all such ni-ice, ni-ice girls, so ni-icely brought up, but because there +aren’t many chances going about.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, aren’t there, Morrison?” said Caddie. “Speak for yourself.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not speaking for myself or for anybody in particular⁠——”</p> + +<p>“You’re certainly not speaking for <em>me</em>, Miss Morrison,” said Miss +Snaresbrook, with large, sweet, forgiving smile. “I like the society of +men, but I like the society of other girls too. Whoever they are, I +find they interest me, and we have something to say to one another, +very often some little secret to share, some confession to make. Of +course, I admit those little clairvoyant gifts of mine have helped me +a great deal, and have brought me friends, dear friends, among girls +who probably imagined at first that they and I hadn’t much in common. +<span class="pagenum" id="p320">[320]</span>And I’m sure I intend to enjoy <em>my-self</em> at the Burpenfield.” +And, smiling sympathetically at them all, she rose and left the table.</p> + +<p>“And I hope it keeps fine for you,” muttered Miss Morrison to her +retreating back. “You know, of the many ghastly specimens who +have turned up here this year, I think that one the worst.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” said Miss Cadnam. “She’s not so bad, +really⁠——”</p> + +<p>“That’s because she’s going to read Caddie’s palm to find her gift +of expression,” Miss Matfield explained.</p> + +<p>“Of course it is,” said Miss Morrison. “You’re feeble, Caddie. I +saw you swallowing the bait, as if you’d just been born. Vile!”</p> + +<p>“Have you people realised that it’s nearly Christmas?” said Miss +Matfield as they moved upstairs, where they could smoke.</p> + +<p>“My dear Mattie,” cried Miss Cadnam, “you don’t mean to say +you’ve only just found that out! I’ve bought all my presents and +sent half of them off. If I don’t send some of my people very early +presents, they never remember to send me anything.”</p> + +<p>“Christmas, yes,” said Miss Morrison, with languid distaste. “Isn’t +it foul? I haven’t bought a thing yet, haven’t even made out a list. +Anyhow, I haven’t any money. I loathe Christmas, even though one +does have a holiday. What good is it? Are you going home, +Matfield?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I always do.”</p> + +<p>“So am I. It’s pretty ghastly. It wasn’t so bad before my brother +went out to the Sudan. We used to have rather an amusing time.”</p> + +<p>“But you’ve another brother, haven’t you, Morrison? I thought I +saw him here once.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Anthony. He’s at Cambridge, researching. By the way,” +Miss Morrison continued, “he wants to come along early next week +and bring his researching friend Jiggs or Hoggs or something and +take me and any lady friend o’ mine out for what passes for a gay +evening up in the Cambridge research labs. If either of you is dying +to come, you can, but I don’t advise it. I’m trying to get out of it.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p321">[321]</span></p> + +<p>“I thought you were bursting to go round with a few men, +Morrison.”</p> + +<p>“No, it’s not as bad as all that. I’ve tried this before. Anthony, my +brother, is pretty glum and dumb—quite different from Tom, the +Sudan one—and his researching friend, Higgs or Joggs, is the limit. +He’s frightfully tall and awkward, with very short hair, a very long +nose, and spectacles, and when you try to make conversation with +him, he thinks you’re asking scientific questions. If he doesn’t know +exactly, he just says ‘I don’t know’; but if he does know, he explains +all about it, gives you a short lecture, and then completely shuts up. +It’s like being back at school, only worse. He’s a horror. Anthony, of +course, adores him, and thinks he’s conferring an immense favour +on you by bringing this monster. He said to me, ‘One day you’ll be +proud to think you’ve talked to Jiggs’—or Hoggs. And so I told him +I wasn’t ambitious and I’d risk having missed the great Higgs. No, +on second thoughts, you can’t come. I’m definitely going to put him +off. Talking about Joggs has brought it all back too clearly.”</p> + +<p>“Hello!” cried Miss Cadnam, looking at her watch. “I must fly.”</p> + +<p>“Ivor?”</p> + +<p>“Ivor—thank God! We’re supposed to be in the middle of another +row, but I know he’ll be there.”</p> + +<p>“What a ridiculous pair!” said Miss Matfield, smiling, as she +watched Caddie leave the lounge.</p> + +<p>“Who? Caddie and her Ivor? Oh, quite mad, of course, from +what I’ve heard about them. Still,” said Miss Morrison carefully, +“it does pass the time for her, doesn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it does a lot more than that. Caddie lives a wonderfully +dramatic life. She probably would, anyhow, if there wasn’t Ivor to +quarrel with and then make it up with. She and Evelyn Ansdell were +the only two people here I’ve ever envied, because they both contrived +to have an exciting life all the time, even if they <em>were</em> absurd. +I think I shall have to find a nice little Ivor.” And Miss Matfield +gave a short laugh.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p322">[322]</span></p> + +<p>“You don’t lead a double life or anything of that kind, do you, +Matfield?” Miss Morrison inquired, almost wistfully.</p> + +<p>“Heavens, no! What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Let’s have another cigarette, shall we? Make a night of it. I only +meant—well, it’s a compliment, really⁠——”</p> + +<p>“It doesn’t sound like one.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I meant that you looked as if you had a more interesting +sort of life going on <em>somewhere</em>. You go down to your office in the +City—it is in the City, isn’t it?—yes, I remember your telling me +it was—and you come back here and don’t seem to do anything +much, but at the same time you look quite alive, as if something’s +happening somewhere.”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t.” Miss Matfield laughed, then lit her cigarette. “I wish it +was. All perfectly dull, respectable, ordinary. A typical Burpenfield +existence.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, foul! Well, I’m disappointed in you, I really am, Matfield. +I’ve been suspecting some time that you were a dark horse. Tell me, +what sort of men are there in that office of yours. Did I ever tell +you I was in the City once? I nearly died. I don’t believe it was a +typical City place at all, though I was only there a week. There +were four men there, two young ones with adenoids and whiny +voices, who always called me ‘Miss,’ and two older ones with red +faces and waxed moustaches who either shouted at me at the top of +their voices or came over slimy and breathed down my neck and +put their hot hands on my shoulder. Revolting! Don’t tell me they’re +all like that. What are your lot like?”</p> + +<p>They were in a quiet corner of the lounge, which was not so full +as usual, indeed almost empty, and Miss Matfield found herself +drifting into a fairly detailed description of the people in Angel +Pavement, concluding at some length with the newest arrival there, +Mr. Golspie. She ended with an account of her visit to the <i>Lemmala</i>, +the foreign sailors, the cabin, the vodka, all the strange romantic +accessories. She described it well, and Miss Morrison, who appeared +<span class="pagenum" id="p323">[323]</span>to have dropped her usual attitude of languid disdain towards this +life, listened eagerly.</p> + +<p>“But, my dear Matfield,” she cried when it was done, “I think that +was a most amusing adventure. I like the sound of that man, even +if he is middle-aged and what not. Now, if I met people like that +when I went to work, I wouldn’t grumble. No such luck, not in +Anglo-Catholic and ladies’ bridge circles in Bayswater—nothing but +old tabbies. I think I shall have to try the City again, after all. I +didn’t know there were such entertaining, mysterious, brigandish +sort of men down there.”</p> + +<p>“That’s exactly what Mr. Golspie is—brigandish.”</p> + +<p>“Quite right, too. I’m all for it. You ought to lure him in here, +so that I can meet him. But tell him to shave off that large moustache +first.”</p> + +<p>“Why should I? It doesn’t matter to me. I’m not going to kiss +him,” Miss Matfield added quickly, without thinking what she was +saying.</p> + +<p>“No, I suppose you’re not,” said Miss Morrison meditatively. “By +the way, has he suggested you should?”</p> + +<p>“No, of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. I believe you’re suffering +from a complex, Morrison. Why should he?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know. He sounds vaguely like it to me. I don’t mean +he sounded like those awful creatures with waxed moustaches that +I worked for—not a bit. Quite a different type. But still⁠—— +However, I’ll say no more. Did you say he was away, this mystery man? +When is he coming back? Quite soon? All right, Matfield, you must +tell me more about this, you really must. I’m interested for once in +my young but embittered life. You must tell me more.”</p> + +<p>“There won’t be anything to tell,” said Miss Matfield casually. +“I think I’ll write home, think about Christmas presents, have a +bath, and go to bed early. Good-night, Morrison.” No, of course, +there wouldn’t be anything to tell. And if there was, it was no business +of Morrison’s. (But Morrison was not a bad sort, much better +than she used to appear to be.) But then, there wouldn’t be. Absurd.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p324">[324]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="II_7"> + II +</h3> + +<p>“Just read that over, please, Miss Matfield,” said Mr. Dersingham, +and then listened self-consciously. “Does that sound all right to +you?” he inquired, when she had done. “I want to send them—y’know—a +jolly stiff letter. They’ve asked for it, by George!”</p> + +<p>“I think it sounds rather feeble,” replied Miss Matfield. She had +no respect for Mr. Dersingham; he was too vague, pink, and flabby; +he was like too many men she had met at home, the sort who cry +“Shooting!” when somebody makes a good stroke at tennis; he did +not really exist, in her eyes, as an individual at all; there were hundreds, +thousands of him. She knew that though he might be her +employer he was really frightened of her. Impossible for her to have +any respect for him. Quite a decent fellow, of course, but then the +place is stiff with dull, decent fellows; a few fascinating crooks +would be a change.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know about that, Miss Matfield,” he said. “Seems +to me to touch ’em up a bit. What’s wrong with it exactly?”</p> + +<p>“I should change it—there”—she pointed—“and there, don’t you +think so?” What was it like being Mrs. Dersingham, she wondered, +and came to the conclusion that it must be rather fussing half the +day, boring the other half, but on the whole pleasanter than being +Lilian Matfield at the Burpenfield. But that was leaving out Dersingham +himself. She couldn’t marry him. Help! She stared at his nose, +which was quite a healthy, sound nose, slightly bulbous, a shiny +pink deepening to a fishy red at the blunted tip; there was really +nothing wrong with it; nevertheless, it annoyed her; it was a silly +nose. What was Mrs. Dersingham’s real opinion now, of that nose? +Did she think it was marvellous? Was she indifferent to it? Had +she been irritated by it so long that she was ready to scream at the +very thought of that nose?</p> + +<p>Happily unconscious of what was buzzing about in the dark head +so close to his, Mr. Dersingham frowned down upon the letter he +<span class="pagenum" id="p325">[325]</span>was answering, an evasive, slinking, slimy letter from the mysterious +fellow who ran the Alexander Imperial Furnishing Company. “He’s +a dirty dog, y’know, Miss Matfield,” he mused. “This is the fourth +letter he’s sent explaining why he can’t pay, and every time it’s a +different excuse. By the way, remind me to send Sandycroft a note, +telling him not to call there any more. All right, I’ll write something +shorter and stronger. ‘Unless our account is settled within the next +fourteen days, we shall be obliged to take—what is it?—proceedings.’ +Something like that, eh? Right you are, then. Cancel that +one. We’ll start again.”</p> + +<p>That did not take long. The note to Sandycroft could be left to +Miss Matfield. She was given several letters that Mr. Smeeth could +attend to, and then there was nothing left. “I’m expecting Mr. +Golspie back this morning,” said Mr. Dersingham. “He’ll probably +have some letters for you. He rang me up last night, at home, to +say he’d just arrived and would be down this morning. Just take +this lot, will you? Half a minute, though, I must have another look +at that North-Western and Trades Furnishing letter. Hang on a +minute.”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield, hanging on, found she was quite excited by the +prospect of seeing Mr. Golspie again so soon, though they had been +expecting him to return any time these last few days. It was not +quite three weeks since she had stood by his side on the deck of +that steamer in the Thames, but, nevertheless, Mr. Golspie, strictly +as a person, a face, a body, a voice, had become curiously dim and +unreal, though as a figure in outline and as a mass of character he +had been constantly in her thoughts, where he had appeared, especially +during the last few days, hardly as a real person she knew, +but rather as a particularly vivid and memorable character in a play +she had seen or a novel she had recently read. It was queer and +exciting to think that he would actually walk into the office at any +moment.</p> + +<p>“I think I’d better have a talk to Mr. Smeeth about that letter,” +said Mr. Dersingham, putting it on one side. “You might tell him, +<span class="pagenum" id="p326">[326]</span>Miss Matfield⁠——” But now two doors were flung open and banged +to in rapid succession. Mr. Golspie had arrived.</p> + +<p>“Hello, Dersingham,” he boomed, clapping and rubbing his hands. +“Hello, Miss Matfield. Brrrrr—but it’s devilish cold here. I can feel +it creeping up and down my bones. Funny thing, but it’s colder +here than it ever is in places that pretend to be really cold, twenty +below and all the rest of it. Damp, I suppose. Ten years of this would +do me in. Well, how’s everything? Making money?”</p> + +<p>“All right, Miss Matfield,” said Mr. Dersingham.</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield could not decide whether she had exaggerated the +size of Mr. Golspie’s moustache or whether he had had it trimmed. +The fact remained that it seemed considerably smaller. Another fact +remained, and that was that she felt disappointed. She walked out +of the room feeling absurdly disappointed. It was quite unreasonable, +but there it was.</p> + +<p>This feeling persisted throughout the day. Mr. Golspie came into +the general office and shouted genial greetings at everybody. Afterwards, +when Mr. Dersingham had gone, he dictated a few letters to +her, but he said little or nothing, and neither that day nor any of the +days before Christmas did he once refer to her visit to the <i>Lemmala</i>. +There was no particular reason why he should, but still it was disappointing, +and he was disappointing, and everything was disappointing.</p> + +<p>Those last few days before Christmas were so awful that she found +herself looking forward more and more eagerly to the holiday at +home, to that train which would take her away, on Christmas Eve, +from the vast glittering muddle of London. Mr. Golspie, who was +apparently going to spend Christmas in Paris with his daughter, +and Mr. Dersingham, whose spirits rose at the approach of all holidays, +were in a good temper, but everybody else in the office seemed +unusually gloomy. Mr. Smeeth was not exactly gloomy, but he was +worried and fussy, as if something was troubling his grey and shrinking +little mind. Turgis, who was not very cheerful at any time, was +simply terrible; he went slouching about the place, sat at his desk +<span class="pagenum" id="p327">[327]</span>staring out of the window at the black roofs, made a mess of his +work, and almost snarled his replies to any civil question. Several +times she had to speak to him quite sharply, the lout. The little +Sellers girl, perhaps because Turgis was either so aloof or so rude, +was not her usual perky self, and even Stanley, though ready to +give Christmas or any other holiday the warmest welcome, had suffered +so much lately from the moods of Mr. Smeeth and Turgis, +who accused him unjustly of dawdling over every errand, that he +was now turning into quite a sulky boy. And although Miss Matfield, +who considered herself merely a visitor to Angel Pavement, <em>in</em> it but +not <em>of</em> it, had always preserved her independence, she had to sit in +the same room all day with these others, to work with them, and +could not help being influenced by the prevailing outlook and their +various attitudes. It was depressing.</p> + +<p>Outside the office it was as bad, if not worse. She had her presents +to buy, which meant frantic rushes to the shops during lunchtime +or the short space left to her in the evening before they closed. +They were packed out with people, and, of course, you could never +find the things you wanted, and if you went late, the assistants, who +had not drawn a proper breath for several hours, hated the sight +of you and would not help. At last the army of advertising managers, +copy writers, commercial artists, colour printers, window +dressers, bill posters, which had been screaming “Buy, buy. +Christmas is coming. Buy, buy, buy” for weeks and weeks, was +charging to victory. London was looting itself. Those damp dark +afternoons seemed to rain people down into the shopping streets; +whole suburbs burst upon Oxford Street, Holborn, Regent Street; the +shops themselves were full, the pavements were jammed, and the +vehicles on the crowded road could hold no more. Never before had +Miss Matfield seen so many boxes of figs and dates, obscenely naked +fowls, cheeses, puddings in basins, beribboned cakes, and crackers, +so much morocco and limp leather and suede and pig-skin, so many +calendars, diaries, engagement books, bridge-scorers, fountain-pens, +pencils, patent lighters, cigarette-holders, dressing-cases, slippers, +<span class="pagenum" id="p328">[328]</span>handbags, manicure sets, powder-bowls, and “latest novelties.” There +were several brigades of Santa Clauses, tons and tons of imitation +holly, and enough cotton-wool piled in the windows and dabbed on +the glass to keep the hospitals supplied for the next ten years. Between +those festive windows and a line of hawkers, street musicians, +beggars, there passed a million women dragging after them a million +children, who, after a brief space in some enchanted wonderland +were dazed, tired, peevish, wanting nothing but a rest and another +bun. From a million bags, bags of every conceivable shape and colour, +money, wads of clean pound notes straight from the bank, dirty +notes from the vase on the mantelpiece, half-crowns and florins from +the tin box in the bedroom, money that had come showering down +out of the blue, money that had been stolen, money that had been +earned, begged, hoarded up, was being pushed over counters and +under little glass windows and then conjured into parcels, parcels, +parcels, with whole acres of brown paper and miles of string called +into service every few minutes. Hundreds of these parcels, especially +the huge three-cornered ones, seemed to find their way into every +bus that Miss Matfield, after waiting and running forward and returning +and waiting again, contrived to board. She felt like a shivering +and bruised ant. Never had she hated London so much. She +wanted to scream at it. When she got back to the Club, the only +thing she wished to do was to have a long hot soak in the bath, and +of course it was precisely the thing that everybody else wanted to +do too, so she would find herself hanging about, still waiting, after +waiting to leave the office, waiting to get a bus, waiting to be served +in the shop, waiting at the cash desk, waiting for her parcel, waiting +for another bus; and then Kersey would come up and say: “Going +out to-night, Matfield? No? Well, you can’t expect to go out every +night, can you, dee-ar?” Hell!</p> + +<p>Mr. Golspie left for Paris—lucky man—on the morning of Christmas +Eve; Mr. Dersingham wished them all a merry Christmas and +departed early; Mr. Smeeth gave them all an extra week’s money, +brightened up a little, and hoped they would have a very good time. +<span class="pagenum" id="p329">[329]</span>Miss Matfield, after working miracles, arrived at Paddington, a +Paddington that suggested that some invading army had already +reached the Bank and that shells were falling into Hyde Park and +that the seat of government had already been transferred to Bristol, +and she was just in time to get three-quarters of a seat and no +leg space in the 5.46. The lights of Westbourne Park and Kensal +Green, such as they were, blinked at her and then were gone. Thank +God she was done with this nightmare of a London for a few +days! Perhaps Christmas at home this time would be amusing. At +any rate, it would be reasonable and quiet, and her father and +mother would be glad to see her, and she would be glad to see them. +As the train gathered speed, shrugging off the outer western suburbs, +she thought of her parents with affection, and for a little time +felt nearer the child she had once been, the child who had thought +her father and mother so wonderful and had found Christmas the +most radiant and magical season than she had done for many a +month. She closed her eyes; her mouth gradually lost its discontented +curve; her whole face softened. Angel Pavement would hardly have +recognized her.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_7"> + III +</h3> + +<p>“Hello, Matfield! What sort of a Christmas did <em>you</em> have?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, the usual thing, you know—rather feeble.”</p> + +<p>“Do anything special?”</p> + +<p>“No, just stodged and sat about and yawned. Stayed in bed every +morning for breakfast and never got up till nearly lunch time. That +was about the best thing that happened. What about you?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, awful!” replied the other girl, Miss Preston, who worked +at the Levantine Bank, but based her claim to attention at the Club +on the fact that her brother, under another name, was a well-known +actor. He had visited the Club twice, and each time Preston’s reputation +had soared. “The minute I got home I started the vilest cold, +and then Archie—my brother, you know, the actor—had promised +<span class="pagenum" id="p330">[330]</span>to come for Christmas, but wired at the last second that he couldn’t.”</p> + +<p>“Hard luck!” cried Miss Matfield, but not with much conviction. +You had to give out so much sympathy at the Burpenfield that you +were apt to become very mechanical, and if something really terrible +and tragic had happened there, if, for example, half a dozen girls +had gone down with ptomaine poisoning, the other girls would +probably have been struck dumb, having over-worked so long all +the possible expressions of pity and horror.</p> + +<p>Now they were all discussing their holidays. The youngish ones, +who had probably enjoyed themselves thoroughly, were mostly going +about crying “Vile! Absolutely ghastly, my dear!” The oldish ones, +the lonely hot water bottle enthusiasts, who had probably had nothing +but a mocking shadow of a Christmas, were busy pretending, +with a strained creaking brightness, that they had had a wonderful +time. The members in between these two groups, such as Miss Matfield, +gave fairly truthful accounts. The entrance hall, the lounge, +the stairs and the corridors above, all buzzed with these descriptions. +The Burpenfield Club was returning to its normal life. With +admirable forethought, Miss Tattersby had pinned up half a dozen +new notices all written in her most exclamatory and sardonic style, +and already these notices, especially a very bitter and tyrannical +one about washing stockings and handkerchiefs, were feeding the +mounting flames of talk. “My dear, but <em>have</em> you seen Tatters’ +latest?” they cried, along the landings and in and out of their little +bedrooms.</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield went up to her little room, found a space on the +wall for two framed Medici prints she had brought back from home, +cleared out of her tiny bookshelf several books she had borrowed +and forgotten to return, and put in their place some books she +had contrived to borrow during the holidays. There were two travel +books and three novels or romances, and all three stories had for +their settings such places as Borneo and the South Seas. This was +not a mere coincidence. Miss Matfield liked her fiction to be full of +jungles, coral reefs, plantations, lagoons, hibiscus flowers, the scent +<span class="pagenum" id="p331">[331]</span>of vanilla, schooners on the wide Pacific, tropical nights. So long +as the young man was first shown to her dressed in white and +lounging on a verandah, while a noiseless brown figure brought him +something long and cool to drink, she was ready to follow his love +story to the end. If the story had no love in it but had the right +exotic setting, she would read it, but she preferred a fairly strong +love interest. She had not bad taste, and if the story was written +for her by Joseph Conrad, so much the better; but she was ready +to endure if not to delight in authors of a very different cut from +Conrad if they would only give her the jungles and lagoons and +coral reefs and mysterious brown faces. The worst story about Malaysia +was preferable to the best story about Marylebone. She did all +her reading on the bus to and from the office, in some teashop at +lunch time, and in bed, and as her one desire was to escape from any +further consideration of buses, teashops, and girls’ club bedrooms, +these stories of the other end of the world, strange, savage, beautiful, +might have been specially created for her; indeed, many of them +were. She never admitted that she had a passion for these exotic +and adventurous tales. She did homage to them negatively by +looking through other and very different novels, novels about London +and Worcestershire, and then sneering heavily at them. A long +acquaintance with these heroes in bungalows and schooners and +bars run by Chinese had gradually shaped and coloured her attitude +towards men, though here again she admitted nothing and +only paid these distant creatures a negative tribute, by criticizing +adversely the fellows who were quite different and much nearer +home. The idea of a man that warmed her secret heart was that +of the strong, adventurous, roving male with a background of alien +scenes, of little ships and fantastic drinking haunts. If she married +him, she might want to domesticate him in that beautiful old country +house in which she had spent so many imaginary Christmasses, but +he would have to be that kind of man first, and not born in +captivity.</p> + +<p>It was not possible to change her room very much—though she +<span class="pagenum" id="p332">[332]</span>always tried after being away—because it was far too small; it +was like trying to re-arrange three or four toys in a boot-box; but +now, as before, she did what she could. She had come back determined, +as she told herself, to fight against the Burpenfield atmosphere. +No more drooping and whining, no more waiting for something +to turn up while you knew all the time it wouldn’t, no more +wistful hanging about on the roadside of life! She would lead a +real life of her own, full, adventurous, gay. This was not the first +time—alas!—she had come back to the Club with such a resolution +and had promptly tried to change her room about as an early outward +sign of it; but now it was different; she was older, more +experienced, and this time she meant it. Moreover, she had now a +total of five pounds a week instead of four pounds ten, for they +had given her a ten-shilling rise at the office, and though she had +told her father, he had only congratulated her (with that tired +smile and that faint irony which frequently accompany long experience +of a general medical practice, that constant round of births +and deaths), and had not proposed cutting down his allowance of +six pounds a month. Any girl at the Burpenfield would have instantly +appreciated the profound distinction between five pounds a +week and four pounds ten shillings, for whereas on four pounds +ten you have still to be careful, on five pounds you can really begin +to splash about a bit.</p> + +<p>“Well, if you ask me, Mattie,” said Miss Cadnam, who had looked +in and had been promptly told about this new mood, “you’re absolutely +<em>rolling</em>. I only get four, you know, including what I get from +home, when they don’t forget, and I know if I suddenly got an +extra pound, I’d simply break out in all directions. Do you know, +Ivor only gets six pounds a week, that’s all. Don’t say anything, of +course. He’d be furious if he knew I’d told anybody—men are +awfully silly about things like that, aren’t they?—terribly secretive—but +honestly that’s all he gets, and he seems to have an awful lot +to spend.”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield shut a drawer with a bang, turned to face her +<span class="pagenum" id="p333">[333]</span>visitor, and looked very determined. “I always think this time that’s +coming now—the next two months or so—the foulest part of the +whole year. Awful weather, cold and slush and everything, and +Easter and spring a long time away, and nothing happening very +much, and it’s just the time when, if you let yourself go, you +get depressed beyond words.”</p> + +<p>“I absolutely agree,” said Miss Cadnam earnestly.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ve made up my mind this time I’m not going to have it. +If things don’t happen, I’ll <em>make</em> them happen. If anybody asks me +to go anywhere or do anything that’s at all decent, I shall accept. +I shall go to theatres and concerts more, and if there’s any dancing +about, I’m having it. By the way, mother’s given me what seems to +me <em>rather</em> a nice dress. I’ll show it to you. The only thing I’m not +certain about is the length at the front. What do you think?”</p> + +<p>There was a short interlude, during which the dress was held up, +pulled down, examined, and finally approved.</p> + +<p>“Anyhow, that’s <em>my</em> programme, Caddie,” said Miss Matfield, after +the dress had been put away again. “I’ve come to the conclusion that +one gives in too much—I don’t mean that you do, my dear, because +you’re one of the very few people here who definitely don’t—it’s +something in the Burpenfield atmosphere that does it, sort of saps +your initiative and makes you frightened—and if you let yourself +drift here, it’s fatal. I’m not going to have it. And that’s to-day’s +great thought and resolution, Caddie.”</p> + +<p>“Good! I always come back feeling like that. You know, feeling +I must start all over again <em>somehow</em>, whether it’s leading a gay life +or leading a quiet life or what it is.”</p> + +<p>There was a tap on the door, which opened to admit the head +of Miss Morrison. “Hello, Matfield. Hello, Cadnam. Is this terribly +private? Sure?” She came in. “This is to announce that I’ve changed +my room and am now your neighbour, four doors down on the +other side.”</p> + +<p>“That’s Spilsby’s room,” said Miss Matfield.</p> + +<p>“It was, but is Spilsby’s no longer. Spilsby is not coming back. +<span class="pagenum" id="p334">[334]</span>She’s going to New Zealand or Australia, I forget which, and it’s +just the place for her, whichever it is. I’ve discovered Spilsby’s secret +vice—reading those American magazines that you can buy cheap +at Woolworth’s and other places, you know the kind—Western +Yarns with a Punch.”</p> + +<p>“I know,” cried Miss Cadnam. “But not Spilsby?”</p> + +<p>“Spilsby. She’d bought hundreds of them. I’ve just had them +turfed out. You couldn’t move for them. All Westerns or the big +wild North-West or the red-blooded Yukon, all bunches of gripping +yarns with a punch. Spilsby was a red-blooded Western addict—Revolting! +Are you sure you wouldn’t like some, Matfield, before +they’re all gone? You look a bit fierce to-night.”</p> + +<p>“She is,” said Miss Cadnam. “Aren’t you, Mattie? She’s just been +telling me that she’s come back full of grand resolutions.”</p> + +<p>“Ugh!” Miss Morrison looked disgusted. “Don’t tell me you’ve +made up your mind to spend all your evenings learning Italian and +German or something like that.”</p> + +<p>“You’re quite wrong.”</p> + +<p>“Quite.”</p> + +<p>“Thank the Lord for that,” said Miss Morrison. “It would have +been completely foul. Besides, you’re not young enough and not +old enough, if you see what I mean, for that sort of thing. When I +was a few years younger, I used to come back full of good intentions +and ambition and tell myself I was going to learn commercial +Spanish or qualify as an accountant or something equally crazy. +You feel like that after the holidays. But what’s this new attitude?”</p> + +<p>It was explained to her, and she listened with a dubious smile +on her smooth pale face. “Ah, my children,” she said, “I like to +hear you talk. I, too, have felt like that in my time. It won’t work.”</p> + +<p>“In your time! Why, Morrison, I’m two years older than you +at least,” cried Miss Matfield.</p> + +<p>“And I’m nearly as old as you, Morrison,” said Miss Cadnam. +“I’m getting terribly old.”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t just the years, little ones. It’s the experience. You make +<span class="pagenum" id="p335">[335]</span>me feel old with your charming youthful illusions. However, I’m +all for you leading a dashing worldly life, Matfield. I’m all in +favour of you going to the devil, for that matter. How do you do +it, by the way? I used to hear an awful lot of vague talk about +the temptations of a poor girl’s life in London. Where do they +come in? Nobody ever tempts me. The only temptations I have are +to steal some of my worthy employeress’s terribly expensive bath +salts when I’m allowed to enter her bathroom to wash my hands, +and—there must be something else—yes, not to give the bus conductor +my penny when he doesn’t ask for it. What chance have I +then to be really virtuous or to be wicked either? I admit, Matfield, +that you’re different. You go down to the great City, to begin with, +and meet mysterious men on romantic ships⁠——”</p> + +<p>“When was this?” cried Miss Cadnam. “Did you, Mattie, or is +she making it up?”</p> + +<p>“Quiet, child! You will understand in time. And then again, my +dear Matfield, you have a <em>look</em>. I don’t say you look terribly marvellous, +my dear⁠——”</p> + +<p>“I don’t pretend to,” Miss Matfield told her.</p> + +<p>“But there’s a <em>something</em>—a hint, you might say, of dark, wild +forces. I don’t suppose you have any, really, but there’s a <em>look</em>. That’s +where you completely beat me. I haven’t that look at all, whereas +if people only knew what I was <em>really</em> like⁠—— Well, never mind. +But you have it, though if I were you—particularly now, when +you’ve made up your mind to be a One—I should do my hair rather +differently. You ought to have it out at the side more. I’ll show +you what I mean. You watch, Cadnam, and see if you don’t agree.”</p> + +<p>“Ye-es, I think you’re probably right,” said Miss Matfield finally.</p> + +<p>“By the way,” said Miss Morrison, “there’s a dance here on +New Year’s Eve. And as nobody has asked me anywhere else, I think +I’ll go, and I might be able to persuade a couple of men I know +vaguely to look in. They’re not very bright lads, but they’re energetic +and harmless and better than nothing. What about you, Matfield? +<span class="pagenum" id="p336">[336]</span>A dance at the Burpenfield is perhaps hardly a proper start +on the downward path—but still, you never know.”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes, I’ll be there,” said Miss Matfield. But she wasn’t.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_7"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>Many a time afterwards Miss Matfield wondered if Mr. Golspie +deliberately engineered that staying late on New Year’s Eve. She +never asked him and never made up her own mind about it. At +the time, it seemed accidental enough. He had looked in at the office +during the morning, had gone out quite soon and had not returned +until six o’clock, when they were all busy clearing off the last +odds and ends of work. Mr. Dersingham had already gone. Mr. +Golspie arrived, shouted for her, and went into the private office.</p> + +<p>“Sorry, Miss Matfield,” he began, “but I’ll have to ask you to +do a bit of work for me at once.”</p> + +<p>“What, now?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, now. Don’t look at me like that, Miss Matfield—spoiling +your handsome features. It can’t be helped, and an extra hour for +once isn’t going to hurt you, is it?”</p> + +<p>“I suppose not, Mr. Golspie. It’s only—well, it’s New Year’s Eve, +isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“So it is. I’d clean forgotten. Old Year’s Night, we always used to +call it. Still, there’ll be plenty of it left when we’ve finished.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, that’s all right—only, I’d arranged to go to a dance to-night.”</p> + +<p>“O-ho, the gay life, eh?” he boomed, grinning at her. “Now I +remember, my daughter’s going to one to-night. One of these balloon, +confetti, and false noses affairs, eh? Champagne at midnight, +eh?”</p> + +<p>“No such luck. It’s only a dance at the girls’ club where I live, +a very modest affair.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, a dance at a girls’ club, eh? That’s nothing. You’re as well +off here with me as at a dance at a girls’ club. What time does it +start?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p337">[337]</span></p> + +<p>“About nine, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>“I shan’t keep you here until nine, unless you want me to. Now +you go back and finish what you were doing, and you can tell the +rest of ’em they can go when they like, as far as I’m concerned. Then +come back here, bring your notebook, and we’ll get down to it. +I’ve some letters I must get off to-night. Somebody’s got to earn some +money for this firm, y’know.”</p> + +<p>When she returned to the private office, Mr. Golspie, meditating +over a cigar and occasionally jotting down some figures, motioned +her towards a chair and did not speak for several minutes. She +heard the outer door bang behind the other people, going home, +heard other doors banging and noisy footsteps on the stairs, and +then everything suddenly sank into silence.</p> + +<p>“Now then,” said Mr. Golspie, “let’s make a start. You can take +the whole lot down at once, if you like, or you can take two or +three, go and type ’em, then come back for more, just as you please. +All I care about is that they go to-night.”</p> + +<p>She took down several letters, then went to type them out while +he looked at his figures and thought about the rest of them. It was +very strange to be at work in the deserted general office, to go back +to the private office and find Mr. Golspie there, almost lost in his +cigar smoke, to return again to her machine under the solitary light. +As the quarters of an hour slipped by, so many little noises from +outside disappeared into the silence that at last she did not seem +to be working in a place she knew at all. The instant the familiar +and now cheerful clatter and <i>ping</i> of her typewriter stopped, everything +turned ghostly, until she found herself again in the private +office, which was not at all ghostly. There was nothing spectral about +Mr. Golspie.</p> + +<p>“But what about copying them?” she cried, when they were all +done, all signed, and ready for their envelopes.</p> + +<p>“They can stay uncopied,” replied Mr. Golspie.</p> + +<p>“But, you know, we always copy all letters.”</p> + +<p>“Well, this time we don’t. It isn’t worth the bother. I know what +<span class="pagenum" id="p338">[338]</span>I’ve said to these people, and they’re my letters, not Dersingham’s. +Help me to put them into their envelopes and bring some stamps, +then we’ve done. That’s the way. A good job of work, that, Miss +Matfield. I’m much obliged. Most girls would have kicked up a +fuss and then done the work dam’ badly just to show their independence. +What time is it? Would you believe it?—nearly eight! +I thought I was hungry.”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield had given a little cry of dismay.</p> + +<p>“Hello, what’s the matter with you?”</p> + +<p>“I’d no idea it was so late, though I feel terribly hungry, too. +Dinner will be over at the Club when I get back there now, though +I suppose I shall be in time to get something.”</p> + +<p>“You’re hungry, too, are you? What did you have for lunch?”</p> + +<p>“I never had much lunch, you see,” said Miss Matfield. “I had +an egg and a roll and butter and a cup of coffee.”</p> + +<p>“And then you had a cup of tea and a biscuit, and now it’s nearly +eight and you feel hungry and you think if you run all the way +back to your Club they’ll give you a bite of something there—that’s +it, isn’t it? Well, that’s no good at all. That’s the way you girls do +yourselves in. You don’t feed. It’s all wrong. If you don’t have at +least one thumping big meal a day in this town at this time o’ the +year, you might as well send for the doctor at once and have done +with it. Now, Miss Matfield,” and he rose and put a hand on her +shoulder, “you’re not one of those half-starved wizened little monkeys +of creatures that pass for girls nowadays; you’re a fine upstanding +girl, a real woman; and you can’t play those tricks with yourself. +Now listen—you’re coming to feed with me. We’ve both been working; +we’re both hungry; and we’re going to feed together.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, are we?” It was all she could find to reply at the moment.</p> + +<p>“If you want me to make a favour of it, I’ll do it,” he continued. +“Here I am—on the last night of the year, too—going to have +dinner all by myself, and here are you, as hungry as I am, and +we’ve been working together, and you won’t join me to cheer me +up a bit. How’s that?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p339">[339]</span></p> + +<p>She laughed. “All right, I will. Thank you. Only I can’t go anywhere +very marvellous, looking like this, you know.”</p> + +<p>“You could go anywhere looking like that, believe me,” he +assured her. “But I suppose you mean you’re not all dressed up. +That doesn’t matter. We’re not going where they’re slinging the +confetti at one another, we’re going where the food is. You go and +get ready while I stamp these letters.”</p> + +<p>It was a clear cold night. Angel Pavement looked strangely dark +and deserted, a little black gulf with a faint spangle of stars above it.</p> + +<p>“Do you know why I came to your place?” said Mr. Golspie, as +they walked along. “I looked up the names of the firms in this +line of business, and Twigg and Dersingham took my fancy not because +of <em>their</em> name, but because of the address. Angel Pavement did +it. I was so tickled by that name, I said to myself, ‘I must have a +look at that lot, first of all.’ And if I hadn’t said that, I shouldn’t +have been here, and you wouldn’t have been trotting along here +with me, would you?”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t you know anything about this business before?” she +asked.</p> + +<p>“Not a thing. But I’ve picked up a good many different sorts +of business in my time, and I haven’t finished yet, not by a long +chalk. But I don’t call this veneer trade a proper business. It’s a +side-line. There’s no size to it. You might as well be selling sets o’ +chessmen or rocking-horses. No size to it, no chance of real +growth, you see? It’s all right for Dersingham—it’s about his mark—but +then he’s not really in business. He’s only got one leg in it +instead of being up to the neck in it. He thinks he’s a gentleman +amusing himself. Too many of his sort in the City here. That’s how +the Jews get on, and the Americans. None of that nonsense about +<em>them</em>.”</p> + +<p>The main road, into which they had turned now, still showed +a few lighted windows, behind which the last orders of the year +were being booked and the last entries made in the ledgers, and +there were still a few belated clerks and typists hurrying away on +<span class="pagenum" id="p340">[340]</span>each side; but compared with its usual appearance, the hooting muddle +of the day and early evening, its appearance now was that of a +lighted stone wilderness. A tram came grinding down, looking as if +it expected nothing. A bus slipped through, curiously swift and +noiseless. They walked down to the end of the road, past the +narrow openings of little streets and alleys already sunk into midnight +and the mouths of wider streets that were illuminated emptiness. +At the bottom they turned to the right. A taxi came jogging +along at that moment, and Mr. Golspie at once claimed it, shouted +“Bundle’s” to the driver, and then sat very close to Miss Matfield.</p> + +<p>“Thought we’d go to Bundle’s,” he said, “if it’s all the same to +you. D’you know it?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve heard of it, of course,” she told him, “but I’ve never been +there. It’s more a restaurant for men, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“More men than women there certainly, but women do go. And +if they’d more sense, they’d go oftener. Bundle’s is the place if +you’re really hungry and you want a good solid feed. It’s English, +too, and I like it for that—good old-fashioned tack. I don’t suppose +there’ll be a lot of people there now—lunch is the crowded time at +Bundle’s—and there’s no need to dress up to go there.”</p> + +<p>“Thank Heaven for that!” cried Miss Matfield.</p> + +<p>“Mind you, Bundle’s isn’t a cheap place, by any means,” Mr. +Golspie continued, apparently anxious to suggest that he was not +skimping his hospitality. “Don’t get that idea into your head. It’s +plain, but it works out as expensive as most places, even though the +other places are giving you ten courses and a band and rattles and +confetti and God knows what else. There’s nothing like that at +Bundle’s, but there’s real food and some good drink.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Mr. Golspie, I’ll be quite candid, and confess that I could +do with both at this very moment. Even,” she added mischievously, +“if they will cost you a lot of money.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t say that, Miss Matfield,” he said, pinching her arm. “All +I said was that Bundle’s isn’t cheap. As for costing me a lot of +money, I don’t honestly think you could do if you tried, not at +<span class="pagenum" id="p341">[341]</span>Bundle’s. You’d be sick before you could eat that amount, and +drunk long before you could drink it. I took a feller there, just +before Christmas, and he <em>did</em> cost me money. He found they had +some Waterloo brandy there, and fancied a few goes of that after +lunch.”</p> + +<p>“Well, suppose I do, too,” said Miss Matfield, as St. Paul’s went +jogging past the window on her side of the cab. “What about that?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll promise you one, though, if you ask me, it’s a waste of beautiful +stuff, because I’m sure you can’t appreciate it. But you won’t +get any more out of me. If you did, you’d turn round afterwards +and tell me I made you drunk. No, no.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be absurd. I was only joking. I don’t like brandy, as a +matter of fact; the taste of it always reminds me of being ill. I +loathe whisky, too. I like wine, though, you’ll perhaps be glad to +know. You will also be glad to know that I can drink quite a lot +of it—if it’s good—without feeling tight.”</p> + +<p>“All right. Now I know. The sooner he gets there now, the better +it will be. I’m getting hungrier and hungrier.”</p> + +<p>“So am I. If I’d gone back to the Club, I’d never have been +able to find enough to satisfy my appetite to-night. The food’s not +really too bad there, but it isn’t quite real—if you know what I +mean. It’s like the food you get in cheap hotels.”</p> + +<p>“I know,” said Mr. Golspie grimly. “You can’t tell me anything +about cheap hotels and bad grub. And when you say it’s not real, +you mean it all tastes alike and never quite leaves you satisfied. +Nothing like that about Mr. Bundle. And here he is.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Bundle, whoever he was, had remembered one simple fact +when he first established his tradition of catering, and that was that +Man is one of the larger <i>carnivora</i>. You went to Bundle’s to eat +meat. The kitchen turned out acceptable soups, vegetables, puddings, +tarts, savouries, and the like, but all these were as nothing compared +with the meat. The place was a vegetarian’s nightmare. It seemed +to be perpetually celebrating the victory of some medieval baron. +Whole beeves and droves must have been slaughtered daily in its +<span class="pagenum" id="p342">[342]</span>name. If you asked for roast beef at Bundle’s, they took you at your +word, and promptly wheeled up to you the red dripping half of a +roasted ox, and after the waiter had implored you to examine it +and had asked you a few solemn questions about fat and lean, under-done +and over-done, he cut you off a pound or two here, a pound or +two there. A request for mutton was not treated perhaps with the +same high seriousness, but even that meant that legs and shoulders +came trundling up from all directions, and you found yourself +facing a few assorted pounds of it on your plate. The waiters themselves +had a roasted jointy look, though most of them were lean +and under-done, whereas most of the guests were obviously fat and +over-done and suffering from gigantic blood pressures that took another +leap upward every time they went out of these doors. It was +the meatiest place Miss Matfield had ever seen, and she had a suspicion +that if she had not been feeling really hungry, it might have +made her feel rather sick. As it was, she welcomed the look of it +and smell of it, and enjoyed, too, its very definite masculine +atmosphere.</p> + +<p>Mutton was wheeled at Miss Matfield and beef was wheeled at +Mr. Golspie, and, while acolytes brought vegetables, the high priests +gravely pointed to fat and lean and under-done and over-done, and +then sliced away with their exquisite long narrow knives. Mr. Golspie, +after consulting briefly with her, ordered a good rich burgundy. +Then, after Mr. Golspie, a true Bundle’s man, had polished off his +gigantic helping of beef, and Miss Matfield had eaten about a third +of her mutton, he had a savoury and she had some apple tart and +cream.</p> + +<p>“We’ll finish the wine before we have coffee,” said Mr. Golspie, +pointing the bottle at her glass, which she had emptied. “It’s a good +burgundy this.”</p> + +<p>“Only about half a glass, please. It’s lovely rich sunshiny stuff, +but I daren’t drink much more. I feel as if I’d had about fifteen +of my Club dinners rolled into one. I don’t believe I shall ever be +hungry again.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p343">[343]</span></p> + +<p>“You look well on it,” said Mr. Golspie, who perhaps looked a +shade too well on it himself. “You’ve a fine colour, Miss Matfield, +and your eyes are sparkling, and altogether you look full of fight +and fun, too good for Angel Pavement, I can tell you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, but I am,” she cried humorously. She suddenly felt that +life was rich and gay.</p> + +<p>“Of course you are. I said that to myself the first time I set eyes +on you. There’s a girl with some spirit and sense, I thought—she’s +alive, not like these other poor devils. ‘She don’t belong,’ I said to +myself. That’s why I kept my eye on you. Did you notice me keeping +my eye on you?”</p> + +<p>“Mmmm, ye-es,” looking at him and hoping that her eyes were still +sparkling. “Sometimes I thought you seemed quite human.”</p> + +<p>“Human!” he roared, so that a waiter jumped forward. “I’m +human enough, I can tell you. I’m a dam’ sight too human.”</p> + +<p>“If you’re in the City, you can’t be <em>too</em> human, Mr. Golspie. Not +for me. I’ve spent months there sometimes and never spoken to +anyone who seemed to me really human. Awful creatures. Then +people like Mr. Smeeth, all grey and withered and not bad really, +but just—pathetic.”</p> + +<p>“No, Smeeth’s not a bad feller. But he’s not pathetic. He doesn’t +make me weep, anyhow. All he wants is to be safe, that’s what’s +the matter with him. Anything to be safe—that’s his line. Pay him +a pound or two a week, give him some little cash-books to play +with, tell him he’s safe, and he’s as happy as a king. But he’s better +than that dreary youngster you have in there—what’s his name?—Turgis.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, he’s hopeless, I agree.”</p> + +<p>“Not your style, eh?”</p> + +<p>“What, Turgis! Help!”</p> + +<p>“He’s a typical specimen of what they’re breeding here now—no +sense, no guts, no anything. I can’t even remember the look of the +lad, although I see him nearly every day. That shows you what +<span class="pagenum" id="p344">[344]</span>impression <em>he</em> makes. He might be a shadow flickering about the +place.”</p> + +<p>“I know. And yet that funny little Cockney girl, Poppy Sellers, +thinks he’s marvellous. I’ve watched her worshipping him at a distance. +Isn’t it strange—I mean, the way everybody amounts to something +different to everybody else?”</p> + +<p>“Well, a lad like that’ull never mean anything to me, never +amount to anything to anybody, I should think, no more than a bit +of straw or paper blowing about the streets,” said Mr. Golspie.</p> + +<p>The waiter who had jumped forward was still waiting expectantly +a few yards away. Mr. Golspie called him. “You’ll have some +coffee, won’t you? And I’m going to have some brandy, not the +Waterloo, though. Will you have a liqueur? Have one of the sweet +ones. What about a Benedictine or a Kümmel? What do you say? +Here, look at the list.”</p> + +<p>She examined it. What fascinating names they had, these liqueurs! +“I don’t know. Shall I? All right then, I’ll have a Green Chartreuse.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Golspie lit a cigar and then, over the coffee and liqueurs, +answered some questions she asked about his recent trip abroad, and +went rambling on about his experiences in those Baltic countries +and in other places still more mysterious and romantic to her. As +she listened, feeling very gay and confident inside, his blunt staccato +talk seemed to open a series of little windows upon a magical world +she had always known to be somewhere about, although she had +never walked in it herself, and his own figure took colour from +the blue and golden lights flashing through these little windows. +He talked in the way she had always felt a man should talk. He +was so tremendously and refreshingly un-Burpenfieldish. And he +was interested in her; he was not merely filling in an idle hour; +she attracted him, had attracted him, she felt now, for some time; +and—oh!—it was all amusing and exciting.</p> + +<p>“It’s quarter to ten,” Mr. Golspie suddenly announced. “What +about that dance of yours?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p345">[345]</span></p> + +<p>“O Lord!—I don’t know. It’s hardly worth it now. What a +nuisance!”</p> + +<p>“Like dancing, eh?”</p> + +<p>“Adore it.”</p> + +<p>“All right. You listen to me. I remember now I had an invitation +from one or two of those Anglo-Baltic chaps; they weren’t giving +the show, but a friend of theirs was, and a lot of people I know were +going to be there. Dancing, too. We’ll go there, and then you won’t +be able to say I’ve done you out of your Old Year’s Night celebration. +What d’you say? Good! I’ve got the telephone number down +in my notebook, and now I’ll just ring up to make sure. Shan’t be a +minute.”</p> + +<p>He returned, smiling, with the news that the party had just begun. +“Yes, I know what you’re trying to say now,” he continued. “What +about clothes, eh? Well, any clothes are right for this affair. They’re +not a dressy lot. If you went without clothes, they wouldn’t care. +We’ll have to stop on the way to buy something—a bottle or two +and something to eat—to take with us. It’s not necessary, but it’ll +be appreciated. These people will be a change for you—not the sort +you meet in a girls’ club at all—and it’ll amuse you, if you’re the +girl I take you to be.”</p> + +<p>There wasn’t even time to ask him then what exactly was the +girl he took her to be.</p> + + +<h3 id="V_4"> + V +</h3> + +<p>They went in a taxi and the place was somewhere Notting Hill +way, but that was as near as she ever came to-knowing where it +was. She could have asked, of course, but she preferred to be without +exact information; it was more amusing. The road in which +they finally stopped looked one of those dingy, shabby-genteel streets, +but she could not be sure even about that. They walked up a garden +path, but instead of going up the steps to the house itself, they +turned to the right, by the side of the house, until they came to +<span class="pagenum" id="p346">[346]</span>a lighted door and a great deal of noise. Apparently the party was +being held in one of those large detached studios.</p> + +<p>She found herself shaking hands with a very small woman with +frizzy black hair, tiny black eyes that seemed to jump and snap, a +long humorous nose, and an outrageous purple dress. After that +she shook hands with a very tall fair man who looked like a retired +Siegfried. These were obviously the host and hostess, and they were +both foreigners, but she never caught their names. Clearly it was +the sort of party at which names were of little importance. The +studio was filled with people; most of whom had a foreign look. +None of the men wore evening dress, and among the women, she +was glad to see, there was an astonishing variety of clothes, so that +she was not at all conspicuous. Mr. Golspie recognised a good many +acquaintances, and she was introduced to some of them, mostly +youngish men of a nondescript foreign appearance who drew themselves +up sharply, looked grave for a moment, then suddenly smiled +and widened their eyes, as if to say: “I am being introduced to a +lady, by my friend Mr. Golspie. This is serious, important. Ah, but +how charming, how beautiful a lady!” It was a pleasure being +introduced to men with such a manner. One of them, the youngest, +a nice, smiling boy with bright hazel eyes, called Something-insky, +insisted upon her smoking a long cigarette, and brought her a +mysterious, greeny-yellow drink. Mr. Golspie, who had found a +whisky and soda, grinned at her, and exchanged knowing remarks +in a mixed language with various men, who patted him on the +shoulder and slapped him on the back and were patted and slapped +in return.</p> + +<p>The little hostess, her eyes snapping furiously, came rushing +through and screamed in an unknown tongue at two young men +in a corner, a small crooked Jew, almost a hunchback, and a thin +red-haired young man, very serious behind enormous spectacles. +When she finished screaming at them and had held out both her +arms in an imploring gesture, these two bowed gravely, and then +the Jew sat down at the grand piano and the red-haired spectacled +<span class="pagenum" id="p347">[347]</span>one seated himself behind some drums. They began playing—and +very well they played, too—and in a moment the centre of the room +was cleared for dancing.</p> + +<p>“You veel danz, eh? Pleass?” said Something-insky.</p> + +<p>He was a good dancer, and though he was not quite tall enough +for her, they got on very well together. As he piloted her in and +out, for nearly everybody was dancing and the floor was crowded, +he talked the whole time. “I study here ee-conom-eegs,” he told her, +“at Lon-don School of Ee-conom-eegs,” and he was very serious +about his economics, but it was difficult to understand much of what +he said about them. Very soon he passed to more intimate matters. +“Yes, I like Eng-lish girls vairy moch. Oh, but I am vairy saad, +vairy, vairy saad now,” he told her, his hazel eyes dancing with +pleasure. “I leef in High-gate and in High-gate I have a girl, an +Eng-lish girl, vairy beautiful—Flora. She leefs, too, in High-gate, +Flora, and she has blue eyess and golden hair. For two veeks, you +see, we have a quarrel. Oh yes, it is vairy seely, but it is vairy saad, +too. One night I go to movees. I ask Flora to go too, but no—she +cannot go. So I go-by-myself. I am standing outside and I see a girl +I know, a girl from High-gate. Vairy nice girl—but—aw, she is +noding to me. But I am pol-ite, I say to her, ‘Good-evening, mees. +You go to movees too?’ I am by-myself. I take her weet me into +movees. Noding, noding at all. But after, she tell Flora—at High-gate—‘Oh, +I go weet your foreign friend to movees.’ Flora comes +to me and we have a beeg quarrel.” He squeezed Miss Matfield’s +hand as if he felt that at this point he must have sympathy or die. +“Yes, a beeg quarrel. For two veeks, I do not see Flora at all. I am +vairy saad now.”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield said it was rather sad, but told herself that in its +mixture of Highgate and foreign-ness it was really quite absurd and +wonderlandish, and somehow it gave the key to the whole evening. +Nobody in this studio, except herself and Mr. Golspie (and she was +not sure about him), was quite real. Something-insky and his friends +were very charming, but it was rather a relief when Mr. Golspie +<span class="pagenum" id="p348">[348]</span>marched up, very solid and dominating, and said, “Well, what about +a dance with me?”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” she told him. “I thought perhaps you didn’t dance. +You’ve not been dancing, have you?”</p> + +<p>“No. I thought I’d wait for you, Miss Matfield. You’re the partner +I want. I can dance all right, but, mind you, I don’t pretend to be +good at it, not like some of these lads. Have another drink before +we start, eh?”</p> + +<p>“If I have another drink to-night, I shall probably be quite drunk. +I feel hazy now.”</p> + +<p>“No harm in feeling hazier. I’ll look after you, don’t you worry.”</p> + +<p>But she shook her head. The music started again, the little Jew +wagging his black locks over the piano and his companion solemnly +nodding above his drums, and Mr. Golspie grasped her masterfully. +He was obviously not a very good dancer, but even if he had been, +there would not have been much chance for him to show what he +could do in that crowded space, for now there seemed to be twice +as many people on the floor.</p> + +<p>“How d’you like this show?” he asked, grinning at her.</p> + +<p>“I do like it. It’s amusing.”</p> + +<p>“I’m glad you think so.”</p> + +<p>“You sound as if you don’t care for it very much.”</p> + +<p>“It’s not bad,” he told her. “But too much of a crowd for my +liking. Just the pair of us somewhere would please me better.”</p> + +<p>Afterwards there was an interval, during which everybody ate +and drank and smoked and talked all at once, and a girl who appeared +to be a secretary at some legation came up with Something-insky +and another, older man, and the girl who was a secretary was +very giddy and gay and apparently rather tight, though not unpleasantly +so, and then a little foreign girl with a hideous fur-trimmed +jacket joined them, and the six of them made a little group in one +corner, where they ate and drank and smoked and talked as hard as +anybody. Then the little hostess screamed again, and this time the +tall host produced a number of astonishing syllables in a rasping +<span class="pagenum" id="p349">[349]</span>tenor and then put on a colossal smile, and at once everybody sat +down somewhere and most of the lights were turned out. Only the +corner where the Jew still sat at the piano was fully illuminated. +Then there appeared in front of the piano a smallish plump man +with an enormous bald head and a yellow fat face, who stood there, +smiling vaguely at them while they applauded, like another but +alien Humpty-Dumpty. The Jew played a few sonorous and melancholy +chords. Humpty-Dumpty put his hand to his mouth, as if +to press a button, for when he lowered his hand, his face was quite +different; the smile had been wiped off; his eyebrows had descended +at least an inch and a half; and his eyes stared tragically out of +deep hollows. Miss Matfield noticed all these details. It was queer, +but though things in general were curiously hazy, she had only +to concentrate her attention upon anything and every detail of it, +like Humpty-Dumpty’s lips and eyebrows, stood out in clear relief. +This made everything seem tremendously amusing, and she was very +happy. Humpty-Dumpty began singing now in a great rich bass +voice, which immediately plunged Miss Matfield, who delighted +in rich bass voices, into a dreamy ecstasy. He sang one song after +another, sometimes sinking into the profoundest melancholy and +the bitterness of death, and at other times breaking into high spirits +that were as strange and wild as a revolution. With her eyes fixed +on that great yellow moon of a face from which these entrancing +sounds came, Miss Matfield allowed her mind to be carried floating +away on these changing currents of music, and her body to rest +against the stalwart arm and shoulder of Mr. Golspie. She was sorry +when it came to an end, and Humpty-Dumpty, after bowing, +smiling, frowning, shaking his head in an amazingly rapid succession, +walked away to eat a whole plateful of sandwiches, wash them +down with lager beer, and talk to five people at once with his mouth +full.</p> + +<p>There was just time for another dance and then it was twelve +o’clock. Everybody was silent for a moment. At the end of that +moment, they all behaved like men and women who had been +<span class="pagenum" id="p350">[350]</span>reprieved in the very shadow of the gallows, which is perhaps how +they saw themselves. Never before had Miss Matfield seen such a +raising and clinking of glasses, so much back-slapping, hand-shaking, +embracing, and kissing. Something-insky kissed the little girl in the +fur-trimmed jacket and the secretary girl from the legation, and +then kissed Miss Matfield’s hand fifteen times while the girl in +the fur-trimmed coat, who had suddenly burst into tears, kissed her +on the cheek. Mr. Golspie shook her by the hand, then gave her a +big hug. It was at this moment that the only unpleasant event of +the evening occurred. Once or twice before, Miss Matfield had had +to escape from a tall bleary-eyed man, one of the very few Englishmen +there, who was rather drunk and had been bent on dancing +with her. Now he suddenly lurched into the middle of their little +group, murmuring something about a happy New Year, and tried +to embrace her. Mr. Golspie, however, stepped forward smartly and +with one shove of his heavy shoulder sent the man reeling back.</p> + +<p>“I think I’d better go now,” she said to Mr. Golspie. “I’m terribly +late as it is.”</p> + +<p>“All right. I’ll come with you.” Taking no notice of the unpleasant +fellow, who was mumbling threats just behind them, he took +her by the arm, marched her through the crowd to shake hands +with the host and hostess, and then led her towards the door. There +they separated to look for their things. When Miss Matfield returned +to the little entrance hall of the studio, the unpleasant man was +there. Fortunately, Mr. Golspie appeared, too.</p> + +<p>“Now wha’s the idea, eh?” said the unpleasant one, thickly and +truculently to Mr. Golspie, trying to put a hand on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>“The idea is—you go home to bed,” replied Mr. Golspie, giving +him one contemptuous glance.</p> + +<p>“Home to bed!” the other sneered. “T-t-t-t-t-talk like a dam’ fool. +Bed!” Then he recollected himself. “All I wanner do is to wish thish +young lady a Hap-py New Year.” And he made a clutch at her.</p> + +<p>This time Mr. Golspie instantly pinned both the man’s arms to +his side with so powerful a grasp that the man cried out. “Talk +<span class="pagenum" id="p351">[351]</span>like a dam’ fool, do I?” said Mr. Golspie, pushing his face forward. +“If you don’t make yourself scarce, you’ll start the worst new year +you ever remembered. See?” And he shook the man. “See?” And +with that, he sent the man flying back, took three or four steps +forward to see if any more persuasion was needed, and when he +saw it was not—for the man had obviously had quite enough of Mr. +Golspie—he returned to Miss Matfield’s side. “I’ve rung up for a +taxi,” he said calmly. “There’s a telephone in there where I had +my hat and coat. It’ll be here in a minute. We’ll wait just outside +and get a breath of fresh air.”</p> + +<p>Miss Matfield, who had been half frightened, half elated by the +little scene, and now, what with the wine and the dancing and the +music and the embracing and the general excitement of the long +evening, was in a fantastic condition, tired and excited and timid +and audacious and thrilled all at once, followed her brutal or heroic +friend out of the studio and into the shadow of the neighbouring +house. Just before the shadow ended, he stopped. “We can wait here +as well as anywhere,” he said.</p> + +<p>She did not tell him that it would be still more sensible to wait +at the front gate. She stopped, and said nothing.</p> + +<p>“Well, that wasn’t bad,” he said, “though I’d had enough of it +when you said you had to go. They’ll keep it up till the milk comes. +I shouldn’t have gone, though, if you hadn’t said you’d come with +me. If you want to know my opinion, we’ve had a good Old Year’s +Night. We’ve got to see more of each other.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, have we?” She was in no condition to be femininely cool +and mocking, but she did her best.</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course we have,” he replied coolly. “You’re the sort of +girl I like, and I don’t often find one.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you for the compliment,” she said, and was instantly +annoyed with herself for sounding so feeble.</p> + +<p>“Well, Miss Matfield—oh, damn it, I can’t keep calling you Miss +Matfield, not out of the office, anyhow. What’s your other name?”</p> + +<p>“Lilian,” she replied, in a tiny voice.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p352">[352]</span></p> + +<p>“That’s good—Lilian. Well, Lilian, now that we’re out of that +monkey house in there, with everybody snatching and pecking at +each other, I can wish you a proper Happy New Year.” And, saying +no more, he swept her to him, kissed her several times, and held +her close, so close that she could hardly breathe.</p> + +<p>She could not have described it as being either pleasant or unpleasant. +It was not an experience that could fall into such easy categories. +It could not be tasted, examined, reported on, like most of Miss +Matfield’s experiences. If it belonged anywhere, it belonged to the +fire, flood and earthquake department. Her quickening blood faced +and replied to this huge masculine onslaught, but the rest of her +was simply dazed and shaken.</p> + +<p>“There’s our taxi,” he said, breathing hard, but otherwise cool +enough. “What’s the address?”</p> + +<p>Inside the taxi, she suddenly felt very tired and quite disinclined +to talk. She drooped, leaned against him, and could only +repeat to herself that it was all quite absurd, though all the time +she knew very well that whatever else it might be, it was not absurd. +Mr. Golspie was quiet too, though in that little enclosed space he +seemed now a gigantically vital creature, a being essentially different +from herself, a huge throbbing engine of a man.</p> + +<p>“Getting near your place?” he inquired, as the taxi began to +mount the hill.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it’s only about half-way up this hill.”</p> + +<p>“We’ll have some more nights out together, shall we? Not all +like this, y’know. Just the two of us, roaming round a bit, going +to a show or two, and so on. What d’you say?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’d like to. In fact—I’d love it.” She glanced out of the +window, then rapped on it. “We’re just outside now. Please, don’t +come out. No, no more. All right then—there! Good-bye—and—and +thank you for my nice big dinner.”</p> + +<p>The dance was over at the Club and most of the lights were out, +but a few girls were still drifting about the hall and chattering +softly on their way upstairs.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p353">[353]</span></p> + +<p>“Hello, Matfield!” somebody cried. “Happy New Year!”</p> + +<p>Would it be? It had begun strangely enough. Now that she was +back in the familiar and despised Burpenfield atmosphere, the night’s +antics ought to have appeared in retrospect gayer and more delightfully +adventurous than ever, with Mr. Golspie directing them like +a droll and massive fairy prince; but oddly enough, they cut no +such figure and she found herself wanting to avoid the thought +of them. As she slowly climbed the darkening stairs she shivered a +little. She was tired, rather cold, and her head ached. There floated +into her mind, as if borne there by white virginal sails, the comforting +thought of aspirin and her hot water bottle.</p> + + +<h3 id="VI"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>When he asked her, two days later, to spend another evening with +him, she gladly accepted, although she had told herself several times +before that she would refuse; and after that they spent a good deal +of time together. They would have dinner somewhere, and then +amuse themselves by visiting some show of his choice. They saw +the new Jerry Jerningham musical comedy and a crook play; they +went twice to the Colladium; they tried a Talkie or two; and one +exciting night he took her to a big boxing match. She never really +learned a great deal about him; he would talk about odd experiences +he had had by the hour, but he remained mysterious; she never +discovered what his plans were, and at times she suspected that he +did not intend to stay in England much longer, but this suspicion +was only based on casual vague remarks; she never went near his +flat, never met his daughter, and never heard a single word from +him about his dead wife, if indeed she was dead; and yet she felt +she knew him as she had never known a man before. Sometimes +he was simply friendly or uncle-ish, dismissing her with a pat on +the shoulder or a squeeze of the arm; sometimes he turned cynically +and grossly amorous, and when he tried to paw her and she repulsed +him, he jeered at her and said things that were all the more brutal +<span class="pagenum" id="p354">[354]</span>because there was in them a hard core of truth, and then she saw +him as a gross middle-aged toper, loathed him, and despised herself +for having anything to do with him; but then, at other times, after +a happy exciting evening, he would reach out to her in sudden +passion and her own mood would flare up to match with his, and +in some little patch of darkness or in the taxi going home, they +would kiss and clutch and strain to one another, without a single +word of love passing between them, and she would be left shaken +and gasping, unable to decide whether she was a woman who was +falling in love with this strange unlikely man or a crazy little +fool who had just had too much excitement and wine, who ought +to go and have a good hot bath and learn sense and decency. And +that was all, so far, though even she guessed it could not go on like +that. Meanwhile, between these curious expeditions, she chatted and +grumbled as usual at the Club, wrote home in the old strain once +a week, and quietly worked away at the office, where nobody knew +what was happening to her.</p> + +<p>Then, one night, as he took her back to the Club, he said, quite +casually: “I see they’re having a nice fine spell on the South Coast. +What about a trip down there next week-end, Lilian? Might get +hold of a car.”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes,” she cried at once, without thinking, for week-ends out +of London were her dream, even in January. “Let’s do that.”</p> + +<p>“Is it a bargain?” he said quickly, triumphantly.</p> + +<p>And then she realised what it meant. “No, no. I’m sorry. I spoke +without thinking.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, she spoke without thinking, did she? You do far too much +thinking. Girls shouldn’t think too much, not good-looking ones, +anyhow. When I first met you, you’d done nothing but think for a +long time, and you weren’t looking too cheerful on it.”</p> + +<p>She made no reply. She was annoyed, partly because she was compelled +to recognise the truth behind this little jeer. When he talked +about her in his casual, rather brutal fashion, he had a strange +knack of fastening upon some unpleasant truth. He seemed to take +<span class="pagenum" id="p355">[355]</span>aim quite wildly, but somewhere in her mind, a bell rang nearly +every time.</p> + +<p>He changed his tone now. “Oh, come on. Nobody’s going to hurt +you. Let’s enjoy ourselves while we’re here.”</p> + +<p>“No, thank you,” she said quietly, though she found it far more +difficult to resist this kind of appeal.</p> + +<p>He pressed her.</p> + +<p>“No, I won’t. Sometime, perhaps. But not now. No, I mean it.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m disappointed in you. Still, I’ll try again. Otherwise, +y’know, you might regret saying that, some day. Oh, you can +laugh⁠——”</p> + +<p>“I might well laugh. I think men are the limit. You just want +your own way, no matter what it costs—to me, and you’re quite +hurt and disappointed because you can’t have it, and anybody would +think to hear you that you’d been spending weeks thinking it all +out purely for my benefit.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right,” said Mr. Golspie cheerfully, and she knew, though +she could not see him properly, that he was grinning. “Just what I +have been doing. That’s why I’m disappointed.”</p> + +<p>“And that’s why I’m laughing,” she retorted, though she did not +feel like laughing now. “At your impudent selfishness. Marvellous!”</p> + +<p>“And I tell you, young woman, you might regret it one day. I’m +going to ask you again. You think it over.”</p> + +<p>“I won’t.”</p> + +<p>But she did think it over, and unfortunately she began that very +night, so that it was hours and hours before she got to sleep. Her +angry taut body refused to relax; her head was a huge hot ring +round which her thoughts went galloping dustily; and as she turned +in the uneasy darkness she heard the late taxis and cars go hooting +far away, melancholy hateful sounds in the deep night, like flying +rumours of disaster.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p356">[356]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_Nine_MR_SMEETH_IS_WORRIED"> + <i>Chapter Nine</i>: <span class="allsmcap">MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>“Where you going to?” asked Mr. Smeeth, turning round in +his chair to look at his wife, who had suddenly made her +appearance in the doorway, wearing her hat and coat. She was still +flushed with temper. It was surprising how young and smart she +looked. Still, she could not go on like that, no matter how young +and smart she looked.</p> + +<p>“Out,” she replied, with that special look and special voice she +had for him when they had quarrelled. Oh dear!</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know that,” he pointed out, “but where you going to?”</p> + +<p>Up she blazed then, with her colour flaming and her fine blue +eyes flashing at him: “Just <em>out</em>, and that’s enough for you. Begrudge +every penny you give me, keep me as short as you possibly can, tell +me I mustn’t buy this and mustn’t buy that, go peeping and spying +about and then lose your silly temper because you’ve seen something +you don’t like to see—though—goodness me!—there can’t be +a woman in this street who hasn’t a few bills like that in the house, +and most of them a lot more and instalments, too, to pay and their +husbands not bringing in anything like what you are⁠——” Here +Mrs. Smeeth stopped, not because this fine rhetorical sentence had +got out of control (it had, but she was capable of finishing it somehow), +but simply because she wanted to draw a deep breath. “And +then you want to know where I’m going! I suppose you’d like me +to give an account of that as well, wouldn’t you? Yes, of course. +Oh, of course!” Her head wagged as she brought out these vast +<span class="pagenum" id="p357">[357]</span>sneers. “That would be very nice for you, wouldn’t it? I’ll come +and ask if I can spend a penny or tuppence. Then I’ll ask if I +can walk down the road⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t be so silly, Edie,” cried Mr. Smeeth, who hated this +sort of wild ridiculous talk and could not see what good it did. Even +after all these years, he was still innocent enough to imagine that +his wife was trying to argue and failing absurdly, and he did not +realise that she was merely exploding into speech.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be so silly!” she repeated indignantly, at the same time +coming forward into the room. “I’d like to ask anybody who’s the +silly one here. They’d soon tell you. And I’d rather be silly than +mean. Yes—<em>mean</em>. If you’re not careful, Herbert Smeeth, you’ll +soon be too mean to live. Pinching and scraping as if you didn’t +know where the next penny was coming from! And the more money +you’re getting, the worse you are. It’s growing on you, this meanness. +My words, I’d like you to be married to some women, that’s +all. They’d teach you something about spending.”</p> + +<p>“No, they wouldn’t,” he said crossly, “’cos I wouldn’t have it, +wouldn’t have it for a single minute. I’d soon put a stop to <em>their</em> +little games. As for being mean, you know as well as I do, Edie, I’m +not mean, and never have been. There’s nothing you’ve ever really +wanted, or the children either, you haven’t had. But somebody’s +got to be careful, that’s all. We’re not made of money. When I got +this rise, I hoped we’d begin to save properly. Anybody’d think to +hear you talk they’d given me the Bank of England instead of +another pound a week. Have a bit of sense, Edie. If we’re going +to spend every penny we have now and get into debt, where are we +going to be if anything happens to us? Just tell me that.”</p> + +<p>“And what is going to happen to us? Bless me, the way you talk! +A proper old Jonah you’re turning into! You give me the pip, Dad, +honestly you do. Anybody’d think to hear <em>you</em> talk that we’ll have +to sell up any day. You can’t enjoy yourself a minute for thinking +about what might happen to you the year after next or sometime. +<span class="pagenum" id="p358">[358]</span>We’ve only got to live once and we’ve only got to die once, and +for heaven’s sake let’s enjoy ourselves while we can, I say.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and when we can’t—what then? I’ve heard this kind of +talk before, and I know where it lands people. And anyhow, I can +enjoy myself as well as the next, only I can do it sensibly and I don’t +need to spend every penny we get and go and ask any Fred Mittys +to help me to do it.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right. Bring him in. I’ve been waiting for that, I’ve just +been waiting for that. I wondered how long you’d be able to keep +Fred Mitty out of this. That’s you all over. You got your knife into +him the first time he came here, and after that of course he had to +be blamed for everything. Go on. Don’t mind me. Why don’t you +say I give him all my housekeeping money, and have done with it. +Go on.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll say this,” said Mr. Smeeth, his temper rising. “That +bill from Sorley’s there’s been all this bother about wouldn’t have +been that size and would have been paid before now, if you hadn’t +taken it into your head to ask Mitty and his wife and their guzzling +pals up here those two nights round Christmas. It’s bad enough +them coming here at all—most men wouldn’t have it for a minute, +not if they couldn’t stand the sight of ’em and never stayed in the +house when they were there, like me—but it’s fifty times worse +when you go and run yourself into debt to do it, just so they can all +swill it down at my expense. It’s not good enough, and you know it +isn’t.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, isn’t it? Well, next time Christmas comes round, I’ll tell +Fred and everybody else to keep away, and we’ll all go into the +workhouse, and then you’ll be satisfied. If you wasn’t getting too +mean to live, you’d have thought nothing about it. You talk as if I +owed Sorley’s about fifty pounds. Three pounds fifteen, that’s all +it is, and you make all this bother.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s three pound fifteen more than you can pay, it seems,” +he retorted.</p> + +<p>“Who says it is? I haven’t even asked you to pay it yet. Keep +<span class="pagenum" id="p359">[359]</span>your money. I can pay it all right in time. Sorley’s can wait, for +all I care.”</p> + +<p>“Well, they can’t for all I care. I believe in paying cash down +and no debts running on, always have done, and you know it. And +I’ll have that to pay, just because you’ve decided to open a free pub +for Mitty and his fine little lot. That’s what it amounts to.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right, start again now. You can argue with yourself for +an hour or two, and see how you like it. I’m going out. And if you +want to know, I’ll tell you where I’m going. I’m going,” she added +deliberately, “down to Fred Mitty’s.”</p> + +<p>He was furious, but he knew that he could not prevent her from +going. He looked at her, and he had to twist round in his chair, +for she had retreated towards the door: “Well, see you come back +sober,” he said.</p> + +<p>“What’s that?”</p> + +<p>But he did not repeat it. He wished it unsaid. The instant after it +had slipped out, he wanted to call it back. And, for all her “What’s +that?” she had heard him all right; she was staring at him now, +with some of her high colour gone and her mouth curiously drawn +down; her whole attitude was different from what it had been during +their noisy argument; she was really hurt, this time; he had +gone too far, miles and miles too far.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I heard you, though,” she said quietly, “and it’s the nastiest +thing, by a long, long way, that you’ve said to me in twenty years. +Did you ever know me come back in any other way but sober?”</p> + +<p>“No, no,” he muttered. “I’m sorry ... bit of a joke.” He couldn’t +look her in the face.</p> + +<p>“Bit of a joke! I wish it was. But it wasn’t. You meant it, Herbert +Smeeth. You meant to be as nasty as you could be. There’s only +another thing worse you could say to your wife, and you’d better +hurry up and get that said.”</p> + +<p>“I tell you, I’m sorry.” He got up from his chair now, and looked +at her, mumbling something about “going too far.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and I’m sorry too,” she said bitterly. “I didn’t think you’d +<span class="pagenum" id="p360">[360]</span>got a nasty thing like that in your head to say. Oh, I know it slipped +out, and now you wish it hadn’t. But it oughtn’t to have been there +to slip out. That’s what hurts me.”</p> + +<p>“Well, after all, you’ve as good as called me a miser—or at any +rate, a mean devil—half a dozen times to-night,” he told her, but +not with much confidence.</p> + +<p>“Oh!—that’s different—and you know it is.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t see that. Still, if you think so, all I can say, Edie, is—I’m +sorry.”</p> + +<p>But before he had finished, she had gone, slamming the door contemptuously +behind her. A few seconds later, she was outside the +house. Mr. Smeeth returned wretchedly to his chair by the fire. There +was nothing he disliked more than a quarrel with his wife, and this +looked like being a particularly bad one. That remark of his would, +he knew, take some living down. If she had been a woman who +never took a drink at all, there would have been nothing in that +remark; but she liked a drink or two, especially in company, and +was liable at times to get flushed and excited, as she well knew +herself; and if he had thought for months, he could not have said +a thing that would have hurt her more. He was still sorry that he +had said it, though there was one part of him that could not help +enjoying the fact that the shot had told so well. “That got home on +her all right, didn’t it?” it chuckled, even while the rest of him, the +part that loved Mrs. Smeeth and was her willing slave, grieved and +repented. Mr. Smeeth did not often swear, but now he called Fred +Mitty, under his breath, every foul name at his command. That +earlier argument would not have taken such a bad turn if it had not +been for Mitty. They had had these little squabbles about money +before, like most couples, he imagined, one of whom is nearly +always a spender and the other a saver. This had been a bit more +serious than most of their squabbles, if only because the extra money +had made her all the more eager to spend and had made him all +the more anxious to begin saving. But Mitty and his wife even came +into this part of the quarrel, for the whole thing began when he +<span class="pagenum" id="p361">[361]</span>came across that bill from Sorley’s for three pounds fifteen, which +she had not paid and couldn’t pay, and Sorley’s off licence and Mr. +and Mrs. Swilling Mitty and their bright pals had been responsible +for that bill. He had not seen what they had had because on both +occasions, being duly warned, he had taken himself off, once to hear +“The Messiah,” and the other time to play whist with Saunders, and +had taken care each time, being a peaceable man, to arrive back +home as late as possible, when Mitty and Co. were no longer there. +He didn’t believe for a moment that his wife was so tremendously +fond of the Mitty lot as all that, but just because he had grumbled +at first and been a bit heavy-handed about them, she had kept it up, +out of devilment and to show her independence. She was like that, +if you took the wrong line with her, and he had admitted to himself +for a week or two now that, if it was peace and quietness he wanted +and not a tussle to decide who was master, he had certainly taken +the wrong line.</p> + +<p>After brooding over it all for about quarter of an hour, he felt so +uncomfortable that if his wife had gone anywhere else but the +Mitty’s, he would have gone after her, to call for her and then to +try and make it up on the way home. But he had his pride, and it +refused to allow him to call for her at the Mitty’s. He tried to dismiss +the whole wretched business. He lit his pipe and picked up +the evening paper. There was nothing in it he wanted to read and +had not read before. He tried the wireless, and the first station +plunged him into the middle of a talk on modern sculpture by a +young gentleman who was apparently very tired. Finding no satisfaction +in him, Mr. Smeeth went over to the other station, which +was running a sort of pierrot show. The pierrots themselves seemed +to be enjoying themselves immensely and so did their audience, who +laughed and clapped unceasingly, but Mr. Smeeth merely felt rather +out of it and thought the jokes not good enough, for all that laughing, +and the songs not worth all that applause. “Overdoing it,” he +muttered darkly at the loud speaker, which replied by bombarding +him with more tinny laughter and applause. But he was the master; +<span class="pagenum" id="p362">[362]</span>he had only to make a little movement and the pierrots and their +cackling friends were banished at once, simply hurled into silence; +and now he made this little movement, and the loud speaker was at +once emptied of sound, nothing more than a bit of a horn. He had +a book from the Public Library somewhere about, and now, in +despair, he found it and began reading. It was <i>My Singing Years</i> +by the great soprano, Madame Regina Sarisbury, whom he had +once heard in an oratorio years ago, and the young woman at the +Library had told him it was a most interesting book, on the word +of her sister, who was taking singing lessons and had two or three +professional engagements. But so far it had not appealed to him +very much. As a matter of fact, he was a reluctant and unenterprising +reader, one of those people who hold their books almost at arm’s-length +and examine them in a very guarded manner, as if at any +moment a sentence might explode with a loud report; and he had +probably returned more books half-read than any other member of +the local Public Library. Nevertheless, he liked to have a Library +book about, and to be discovered reading it.</p> + +<p>He was discovered now. Edna came in, pulling off her close-fitting +little hat, and fussy and breathless, as usual. In a few minutes, she +would swing completely round, becoming slack, indifferent, languid, +as if the house bored her. Mr. Smeeth knew this, and it irritated +him, though he was very fond of the girl.</p> + +<p>“Where’s mother?”</p> + +<p>“Your mother’s out.”</p> + +<p>“Where’s she gone to? She said she wasn’t going out to-night!”</p> + +<p>“The question is, not where she’s gone to, but where you’ve been +too,” he said, rather severely, looking at her over the top of his +eyeglasses.</p> + +<p>Edna did not stop to examine the logic of this, or if she did, she +did not comment upon it, being still young enough to recognize the +right of parents to talk in this fashion. “Been to the pictures—first +house,” she replied.</p> + +<p>“What again! I’m surprised you don’t go and live there. You’ve +<span class="pagenum" id="p363">[363]</span>been once this week, haven’t you? Yes, I thought so. And I suppose +you’ll be wanting to go on Saturday. That’ll be three times in one +week—three times. Paid ninepence too, I suppose. And who gave +you the money to go to-night?”</p> + +<p>“Mother did.” And Edna looked slightly confused. Her father, +noticing this, jumped at once to the wrong conclusion, namely, that +Edna had been told to say nothing about this extra visit to the pictures +to him and had suddenly realized what she had done. The +truth was, however, that Edna was confused, not because she had +spent another ninepence, but because the money was still in her possession, +for she had gone to the pictures as the guest of one Harry +Gibson, Minnie Watson’s friend’s friend, who, in his turn, was +supposed, by his parents in their turn, to have been attending an +evening class in accountancy on this particular night.</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth nodded grimly and tightened his lips. “There’ll have +to be something said about this, Edna. When I agreed to let you +go and learn this millinery business, I didn’t agree to let you go +to the pictures every night in the week, too.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t go every night, and you know very well I don’t, Dad. +Some weeks I only go once.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a funny thing I never seem to notice those weeks,” said +Mr. Smeeth with fine irony. It would have been still finer irony +if he had stopped to consider that it really was not funny at all +but quite natural. “But apart from the waste of money, I don’t like +all this picture-going. Doing you no good at all. Doing you harm. +I don’t object to a girl having her amusement,” he continued, dropping +into that noble, broad-minded tone of voice that all parents, +schoolmasters, clergymen, and other public moralists have at their +command. “I go to the pictures now and again myself. But going +to the pictures now and again’s one thing, and <em>living</em> for pictures +is another thing altogether. Teaches you nothing but silliness. Get +false ideas into your head. Why don’t you settle down with a +book?” He held out his own book. “Do a bit of quiet reading. +Amuse yourself and learn something about the world at the same +<span class="pagenum" id="p364">[364]</span>time. Take this book I’m reading, f’r’instance—<i>My Singing Years</i> +by Madame Regina Sarisbury—this is a book that tells you something +worth knowing, all about the—er—musical career.”</p> + +<p>“I read a book last week,” Edna announced.</p> + +<p>“Yes, and been to the pictures three times since then,” said her +father, who was determined to have his grievance. “Too much going +out and amusing yourself altogether, my girl. Why, you’re worse +than George was at your age. It’s my belief you girls are worse +than the boys nowadays, more set on having amusement, pictures +and dances and what not. I walked from the tram to-night with Mr. +Gibson, who lives in the corner house at the bottom of the next +street, and he was telling me that his son—I forget his name, but +he’s about your age, perhaps a year or so older⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean Harry Gibson?” asked Edna.</p> + +<p>“Is it Harry? Yes, I think it is. Well, Mr. Gibson was telling +me that this boy of his is attending three evening classes a week—accountancy, +book-keeping, and something else—three evening +classes. That boy means to get on and be somebody in the world. +He’s not wasting all his time, he’s using it to some purpose. I’m +not saying that you ought to go to evening classes⁠——”</p> + +<p>Here he broke off because he noticed that a mysterious smile that +had been hovering for the last minute now seemed to have definitely +settled on Edna’s face. This smile made him angry, or rather gave +him an excuse for exploding the anger that had been waiting inside +him. “And for goodness’ sake, Edna, take that silly grin off your +face when I’m trying to talk sense to you,” he shouted, making her +jump. “You’re not at the pictures now. You’re nothing but a great +silly baby.”</p> + +<p>“What have I done now?” she began indignantly.</p> + +<p>“Any more of that impudence from you,” Mr. Smeeth shouted +at her, glaring. But there was no more of that impudence, which +suddenly melted to tears. Edna, not a strong character at any time +and now completely taken aback by her father’s sudden rage, hastily +left the room, whimpering.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p365">[365]</span></p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth spent the next few minutes telling himself all the +things that were wrong with his daughter and that justified any +man getting angry with her now and then. He worked hard, but +he did not succeed in convincing himself. He put away <i>My Singing +Years</i> and turned the wireless on again. At half-past ten, George +came in, got a grunt or two from his father (who was, in truth, +afraid of talking), retired to the kitchen in search of food and then +went to bed. At eleven Mrs. Smeeth returned.</p> + +<p>“Have you had anything to eat?” she asked. Sometimes he had +a little snack just before going to bed.</p> + +<p>He shook his head.</p> + +<p>“Can I get you something?” she enquired politely.</p> + +<p>He knew now that he was in for a serious quarrel. Mrs. Smeeth +easily lost her temper and squabbled, but she recovered it with +equal swiftness and ease. If she had marched in and called him a +few names and looked as if she was about to throw something at +him, he would have known that the whole thing could have been +settled before they went to sleep. But when Mrs. Smeeth was quietly +polite to him, it meant that for once she had really hardened her +heart. She would now turn herself into a very efficient housewife. +Nothing would be allowed to go wrong; every meal would be on +the table at the proper time and every dish done to a turn; he would +not be given the slightest chance to grumble. But as a wife, a real +wife, she would cease to exist. Not a smile, not a friendly glance, +would come his way; and they would be estranged for days, perhaps +weeks.</p> + +<p>“No, thanks. I don’t want anything. Don’t feel like it.” Which was +true enough, but he hoped it would suggest that he was not very +well. She remained quite stony, however.</p> + +<p>“Both the children in?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Look here, Edie,” he began desperately, “don’t be silly.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not silly. I’m going to bed now.” And off she went.</p> + +<p>He was in for it now, days of it, perhaps weeks of it; and in order +to get out of it, not only would he have to apologize at great length, +<span class="pagenum" id="p366">[366]</span>but he would probably have to buy something as well, in short to +spend more money. Yet the root of the whole trouble was that too +much money was being spent already. He wished he had never +set eyes on Sorley’s miserable bill. He wished he had gone out and +paid it without a word. He wished—“Oh, damn and blast!” he cried, +and in his sudden spasm of fury he screwed up his face so hard and +shook his head so violently that his eyeglasses fell off and he spent +several minutes groping about the black wool rug before he could +find them. Oh—a miserable evening!</p> + + +<h3 id="II_8"> + II +</h3> + +<p>Between Thursday evening, when hostilities began, and Saturday +morning, Mr. Smeeth had tried unsuccessfully once or twice to make +his peace and to replace this strange polite woman by his real wife. +On Saturday morning he determined to do no more; she could have +her sulk, if she wanted it; he would simply make the best of his +position as a sort of super-lodger. He trotted down Chaucer Road, +on his way to the tram, hardening his heart. The morning, which +already had a companionable Saturday look about it, smiled upon +him, if only faintly. For a day in late January, it was beginning well; +no fog, snow or rain; but a slight sparkle and nip of frost and +the early ghost of a sun somewhere above. Mr. Smeeth was very +fond of Saturday; he liked the morning in the office (he always +had a pipe at about half-past eleven, unless he was very busy), and +he liked the afternoon out of the office. It was difficult for him to +forget that his wife had quarrelled with him, but he hardened his +heart and did his best to forget. Unfortunately—as he knew only +too well, for he had said it often enough—it never rains but it pours. +This treacherous Saturday was destined to give him a series of shocks, +of varying degrees of severity.</p> + +<p>The first, and slightest, of these shocks arrived when he walked +over to his desk, rubbing his hands as usual and exchanging a +<span class="pagenum" id="p367">[367]</span>remark or two with everybody. His inkwells had not been filled +up, and no fresh blotting-paper had been put on his desk.</p> + +<p>“Hello!” he cried, looking round. “Where’s Stanley?”</p> + +<p>“Hasn’t turned up,” replied Turgis.</p> + +<p>“Well, well, well, well,” said Mr. Smeeth fussily. “Does anybody +know what’s happened to him? Is he ill or something?”</p> + +<p>Nobody knew. Miss Sellers thought he had probably caught a +cold, because she was sure she had heard him sneeze several times +while he was copying the letters the night before. Turgis said with +gloomy satisfaction that he had probably been knocked down and +run over while trying to shadow somebody on his way to the office.</p> + +<p>“I don’t suppose for a minute he has,” said Mr. Smeeth sharply. +“But you needn’t seem so pleased about it, Turgis. Not a nice way +of saying a thing like that at all. I don’t like to hear anybody talking +like that in this office. Don’t know what has come over you +lately, Turgis.” And it was true. He hadn’t liked the way Turgis +had looked and talked for some time now.</p> + +<p>The mystery of Stanley was cleared up when Mr. Dersingham, +very much the Saturday man in plus fours, arrived to go through the +letters, for among these was one from Stanley’s father, apparently +a man of few words, who announced that Stanley was needed badly +by his uncle, just returned to the ironmongering in Homerton, where +the boy would be nearer home and have a better chance of getting +on than in Angel Pavement—and sorry no better notice given but +half fortnight’s wages due could be kept but please send Insurance +Card all filled in—<i>Yrs truly, Thos. Poole.</i></p> + +<p>“That means getting another boy,” said Mr. Dersingham. “I’m +sorry about that one, too. He was a lazy little devil like all of ’em, +but he looked rather bright, didn’t he?”</p> + +<p>“Wasn’t a bad boy at all, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth, +meditatively. “I’m sorry he’s left us, too. We might get a lot worse. +He fancied himself as a budding detective, Stanley did—we used to +pull his leg about shadowing people and all that.”</p> + +<p>“Did he? A detective, eh? And I never knew that. He’d got that +<span class="pagenum" id="p368">[368]</span>from reading about ’em, you know. I’m fond of a good detective +yarn myself. But I never wanted to be one when I was a boy. They +weren’t quite so much the thing then, were they? I remember I +wanted to be an explorer—you know, expeditions across the desert +and all that sort of thing. All the exploring I’ve done lately, Smeeth, +has been looking for some of those mouldy Jew cabinet-making +places in back streets in North London. Ah—well!” And for a +moment the large pink face of Mr. Dersingham looked clouded, +as if he had suddenly discovered that life was quite different from +what he imagined it would be when he was in the Fourth at Worrell.</p> + +<p>“We live and learn, sir, don’t we?” said Mr. Smeeth vaguely.</p> + +<p>“Do we? I dunno. People always say we do, don’t they? But I +dunno. I doubt it sometimes, I do, Smeeth, honestly,” the other +replied, first glancing at Mr. Smeeth and then looking out of the +window, through which nothing could be seen but a ramshackle +roof and a few chimney pots beyond. A queer melancholy, quite +unlike the proper spirit of any office on Saturday morning, invaded +the room, and for a minute the pair of them were lost in it.</p> + +<p>“Well, well,” cried Mr. Dersingham with a sudden briskness, +“you’ll have to see about getting another boy. I’m sorry about that, +though. That boy might have been a useful chap later on. He’s +missed a good opening. If that other fellow, Turgis, had gone, I +don’t think I’d have minded very much. How’s he getting on, that +fellow? I don’t see much of him, but I must say I don’t like the +look of him these days. He slouches about, looking like nothing on +earth. What’s the matter with him?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, Mr. Dersingham. I’ve noticed it, too. There’s been +something wrong with him lately. He does his work, but only after +a fashion, and it’s not a fashion I like, I must say. Something on his +mind, I should say.”</p> + +<p>“And a thoroughly nasty mind too, by the look of him! Well, +look here, Smeeth, you’d better take him on one side and have a +good talk to him. Tell him I’m not satisfied with him and you’re +not satisfied with him, and that if he doesn’t buck up pretty soon, +<span class="pagenum" id="p369">[369]</span>he’ll have to clear out. Tell him he’s a fool to himself, too, with +the business growing as it is and all sorts of chances coming along +for smart fellows. You know the kind of thing to say. Threaten him +with the sack, if you like; I don’t mind. I shouldn’t care if I saw +the last of the fellow this morning. I never did think much of him. +Got a Bolshie look about him. All right, then, Smeeth—see about +that, and about getting another boy. And I shall be off in about half +an hour or so, and Mr. Golspie won’t be in, this morning. So just—er—carry +on, will you.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth was really sorry that Stanley had gone, and not +merely because it meant getting another boy and showing him what +to do. He realized now that he had liked Stanley and would miss +that freckled snub nose of his, that sandy bullet head, and all the +ridiculous detective talk. But that was not all. Nobody knew better +than Mr. Smeeth that office boys come and go, are here to-day and +gone to-morrow, but nevertheless this sudden departure of Stanley +troubled him, if only because he disliked change of any kind and +found himself visited by a vague mistrust, a flicker or two of apprehension, +whenever it occurred. Stanley had become part of the office +for him, and now Stanley had gone. It was not important, but still, +he did not like it.</p> + +<p>“If we finish in good time this morning,” he said to Turgis, after +he had told them all about Stanley and had handed over the copying +and posting of the letters to little Poppy Sellers, “I want to have +a little talk with you, Turgis. You’re not in a great hurry to get +away, are you?”</p> + +<p>Turgis wasn’t. Indeed, the outside world appeared to have lost +as much favour with him as the office had.</p> + +<p>It was an easy morning. At twelve, Miss Matfield had nothing +more to do, and was allowed to go, looking rather more pleased +with herself and the world than she usually did. Turgis lounged +up and gave Miss Sellers a hand with the copying, for which he +received several grateful glances from the brown eyes beneath the +fringe. Mr. Smeeth, sending out a fragrant drift of Benenden’s Own +<span class="pagenum" id="p370">[370]</span>Mixture, fussed about and locked up, then gave the letters to Poppy +and packed her off.</p> + +<p>“Now then,” he said to Turgis, as soon as they were alone.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mr. Smeeth?” replied Turgis mournfully.</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth looked at him, and perhaps saw him clearly for the +first time for weeks. There were dark rings under his eyes, and the +eyes themselves had a queer reddish look, as if their owner was +not getting enough sleep. He never had much colour, but now he +was very pale, and the bony ridge of his rather large nose shone as +it caught the light, as if the skin had been drawn back from it at +each side. The lad didn’t look at all well. Mr. Smeeth, who knew +that Turgis lived in lodgings and was a lonely sort of chap, felt +sorry for him.</p> + +<p>“Here, Turgis,” he said, “there’s plenty of time. We’ll go out and +talk there. Can you drink a glass of beer?”</p> + +<p>Turgis, pleased and flattered by this invitation, said that he could.</p> + +<p>“Well, we’ll go across the road and have a glass of beer there. +Do us no harm. Everything’s locked up, I think, isn’t it? All right, +then. We’ll go.” And so they went down the stairs, Mr. Smeeth kept +up a cheerful clatter of talk: “I’ll just pop round the corner to +Benenden’s to get some tobacco first. Always get my tobacco there, +have done for years. His own mixture, y’know—mixes it himself. +Better than this ounce packet stuff. You get it fresh. You don’t +smoke a pipe, do you? Cigarettes, eh? You ought to try a pipe. +Cheaper and a better smoke and better for your health, too. I’ve +tried to get my boy George to start a pipe, but he won’t drop his +cigarettes. Gaspers all the time. Too much trouble just to fill and +light a pipe, that’s it. I wonder how these <i>Kwik-Work</i> people are +going on? Always seem to be busy enough, but I never knew anybody +that used their blades. I stick to the old-fashioned razor. I’ve +used the same two for twenty years. I call it a silly waste of money +buying these safety razor blades. No wonder they give the razors +away nowadays. They know once you’ve got the razor you’ll have to +<span class="pagenum" id="p371">[371]</span>keep on buying their blades. That’s the catch, you see. Well, just +wait a minute. I’ll call on my old friend, Mr. Benenden.”</p> + +<p>But he didn’t, because his old friend Mr. Benenden was not there. +Behind the counter was a plump young woman with bright ginger +hair, and if Cleopatra herself in full regalia had been standing there, +Mr. Smeeth could not have stared at her in greater astonishment.</p> + +<p>“Yes?” said the plump young woman.</p> + +<p>To explain what he wanted in T. Benenden’s, when year after year +he had merely had to put his pouch on the counter, was in itself so +novel an action that Mr. Smeeth found himself at a loss to perform +it. “But—where’s Mr. Benenden?”</p> + +<p>The young woman smiled. “You a regular customer here?” she +asked.</p> + +<p>“I should think I am,” said Mr. Smeeth. “I’ve been coming in +here, week in and week out, for Mr. Benenden’s Own Mixture for +years. It made me jump to see anybody else here. What’s happened? +He’s not given it up, has he?”</p> + +<p>“No, he’s not given it up,” she explained. “He’s in hospital. He +got knocked down by a car last night in Cheapside, and they took +him to St. Bartholomew’s.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you surprise me! I’m sorry to hear that. Is he bad?”</p> + +<p>“We don’t know yet. He didn’t seem so bad last night, because +he got a message through to my mother and she went to see him +and he gave her the key here and asked if I’d look after the shop +for him, because he knew I wasn’t doing anything and I’d worked +once in a tobacconist’s before—well, tobacconist’s and sweets’, it +was, not like this, y’know—so it didn’t sound as if it was bad, with +him being able to talk and arrange things like that, but the doctor +told my mother it was worse than it looked, for all that, and it +might be a nasty long job, and she’s going again to-day. I’m his +niece, you see.”</p> + +<p>“Poor old chap! I <em>am</em> sorry about this,” said Mr. Smeeth, who was +indeed genuinely distressed. “You must let me know how he goes +on.” He had to point out to her the tin canister that held T. Benenden’s +<span class="pagenum" id="p372">[372]</span>Own Mixture and had even to tell her the price of it. When +he rejoined Turgis outside, he could talk of nothing else for the next +five minutes. This one morning, not content with removing Stanley +from Angel Pavement for ever, had gone and swept Benenden out +of sight, put a plump young woman with ginger hair behind that +counter, and turned Benenden into a mysterious suffering figure +in a hospital. Benenden and Angel Pavement had been inseparable +in his mind for years, and now the thought of Benenden not being +there, no longer waiting, tie-less, behind his dusty counter, gave +the whole place a queer look. Turgis had been in the shop many +a time for cigarettes, but, being one of the “packet o’ gaspers” +customers, he could not really claim to be acquainted with Benenden. +By the time Mr. Smeeth had finished talking to him about the +tobacconist, the pair of them were in the private bar of the <i>White +Horse</i> across the road and had two glasses of bitter placed in front +of them.</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth had not been in this bar since that night, two or +three months before, when Mr. Golspie took him in, gave him a +double whisky and a cigar, and talked about the business. It was +still as cosy as ever, but this time it was not so quiet. It was entirely +dominated by a large man with an enormous red face, who roared +and spluttered and coughed and wheezed very loudly at his two +companions, men of ordinary size, who could only make ordinary +noises back at him. All conversation in the bar was provided with +a thundering accompaniment by this large man. There was no +escaping him.</p> + +<p>“You see, Turgis,” said Mr. Smeeth, “I thought I’d better have +a little talk to you, because, for one thing, I’ve been noticing a few +little things myself, and for another thing, Mr. Dersingham’s been +saying something to me about you. If you remember, I said something +when we had a little talk a month or two ago.”</p> + +<p>“I remember that, Mr. Smeeth. When you said they’d been thinking +of giving me the push.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right. Well, Mr. Dersingham talked to me about you this +<span class="pagenum" id="p373">[373]</span>morning—rather in the same strain, Turgis, and I said I’d have a +talk to you.”</p> + +<p>“But what have I done wrong?” cried Turgis bitterly. “Why’s he +always picking on me? I do my work all right, don’t I? You’ve +never said anything about it to me, Mr. Smeeth. Seems to me they +want to get rid of me whether I’ve done anything wrong or not⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Outch-ch-ch-ch,” went the large man. “Wait a minute, Charlie, +wait a minute, let me tell it. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. +’Ere, this is it. Simmy come up to me, that morning, and I’m standing +as I might be ’ere, see—and old Simmy⁠—— Just a minute, Charlie, +let me tell it⁠——”</p> + +<p>“This is the point, Turgis,” said Mr. Smeeth earnestly. “And, +mind you, I’m talking in a friendly way. Nobody’s got anything +against you at all. Put that out of your head. But as Mr. Dersingham +says—you’ve got to buck up. Just lately, you’ve not been taking +your work in the right spirit at all. I know you’re not a lazy chap +and I know you can do your work all right, but if I hadn’t known +it, I don’t mind telling you, I might have come to a wrong conclusion +just lately. Now, we all have our troubles. I’ve plenty of +my own, I can tell you,” he continued, with the air of a modest +hero, “though you mightn’t think it. That’s because I’ve learned +not to bring ’em to the office with me. I’m old enough and experienced +enough not to let my troubles interfere with my work. You’re +not, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. My opinion is, Turgis—you’ve +not been feeling up to the mark lately.”</p> + +<p>“That is so, Mr. Smeeth,” said Turgis. “You’re right there. I +haven’t.”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t he, Charlie?” roared the large man, drowning everybody. +“He did. It’s as true as I’m standing ’ere. Next time you see Simmy, +you say to ’im ‘What price Lady Flatiron at Newbury?’—that’s all. +Just say that. Laugh! O Gord! Outch-ch-ch-ch-ch.” The enormous +face was purple now.</p> + +<p>“It’s no business of mine, Turgis,” said Mr. Smeeth in his ear, +“and I’m only asking in a friendly spirit. But it’s my opinion you’ve +<span class="pagenum" id="p374">[374]</span>got yourself into trouble somehow. If it isn’t that, you’d better go +round and see a doctor. Perhaps you’re just not feeling well.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not feeling so well, Mr. Smeeth, but it isn’t that, really. It’s +just—oh, I dunno—well, you see, Mr. Smeeth, it’s a girl. That’s +what’s been bothering me just lately.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s it, is it? Ought you to be marrying her or something +of that sort? No? Nothing like that, eh? Oh, well, had a bit of +a quarrel, eh?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, in a way,” replied Turgis, guardedly, looking very uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, don’t you let that bother you,” cried Mr. Smeeth, +astonished to discover that this was nothing but a lovers’ tiff. “I +know what it is, of course. You’re talking to an old married man +now, my boy. I’ve got a son nearly as old as you. It doesn’t matter +how you’ve quarrelled, you don’t want to take it as hard as that. +Bless me!—you’ll be making yourself ill over it.”</p> + +<p>“That’s what I think sometimes,” said Turgis bitterly.</p> + +<p>“Ridiculous! It’ll soon blow over. And if it doesn’t, why, go and +find another girl who isn’t so quarrelsome. I can tell you this, if +she’s quarrelsome now, she’ll be past living with, if you’re not careful, +later on. You’re too sensitive about it, Turgis—that’s your +trouble.”</p> + +<p>Turgis produced a smile that was abject misery itself, the tortured +ghost of a grin.</p> + +<p>“No, no, not at all,” the large man shouted. “We’ve ten minutes +yet. Plenty of time for another. What is it? Same again? Three +double Scotches, miss. I ’aven’t told you yet what ’appened the other +night, ’ave I? I mean, with Jack Pearce and old Joe, down at Staines—oh +dear!—splooch-ooch-ooch-ooch-ooch!”</p> + +<p>“He seems to be enjoying himself all right,” said Turgis. “I +don’t know how some of these chaps do it—spending money all +day, no work, knocking about all the time, and not giving a damn +for anybody. How do they do it, Mr. Smeeth?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t ask me,” replied Mr. Smeeth, a trifle irritably, as if he +<span class="pagenum" id="p375">[375]</span>too had felt a sudden spasm of envy at the thought of this rich +careless life, but would not admit it to himself. “Racing chaps, I +suppose. Easy come and easy go—that’s their motto. All right while +it lasts—but how long does it last?”</p> + +<p>“How long does anything last?” Turgis muttered.</p> + +<p>“Now that’s silly talk from a young fellow like you,” said Mr. +Smeeth. “It’s that sort of talk that lets you down with everybody. +Now listen to me. I believe if you’ll only smarten yourself up a bit, +don’t be so gloomy, look as if you didn’t hate the sight of everybody⁠——”</p> + +<p>“I don’t, Mr. Smeeth, honestly I don’t.”</p> + +<p>“—and settle down to your work properly, there’s a good steady +job waiting for you with Twigg and Dersingham. As Mr. Dersingham +said, only this morning, what with all this new business, the +firm’ll be growing and expanding, and that’ll be just the opportunity +for a young fellow like yourself.”</p> + +<p>Turgis swallowed desperately. “I’m not so sure about that,” he +declared.</p> + +<p>“What d’you mean?” cried Mr. Smeeth, staring at him.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think it’s all so rosy as all that. I’ve been thinking it +over. All this new business—and as far as I can see, it’s about all +the business we’re doing—came with Mr. Golspie.” He brought +out this name with a sudden jerk.</p> + +<p>“Well, what if it did? You’re not telling me anything now, Turgis. +I know that as well as you do—and better.”</p> + +<p>“If he goes, what happens then, Mr. Smeeth?”</p> + +<p>“If he goes? That would depend. A lot might happen, or nothing +might happen. But, anyhow, Mr. Golspie’s not going.”</p> + +<p>“I think he is—soon, too.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth stared at him. Turgis was obviously quite serious. +“Where did you get that idea from?”</p> + +<p>“I think he is.”</p> + +<p>“What’s the good of talking like that! You think he is! Why +should he now? What’s the object? He’s making plenty of money +<span class="pagenum" id="p376">[376]</span>out of the business, as I know better than you do. He’s making +a surprising amount, for a trade like this—I don’t mind telling +you. He’d been a fool if he did go, unless, of course—well⁠——” And +Mr. Smeeth thought of several possibilities, but kept them to +himself. “No, that’s silly talk, Turgis. What put that into your +head?”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t silly, Mr. Smeeth,” cried Turgis, goaded into saying +more than he had ever intended to say. “I <em>know</em> he’s going. At least, +I know he’s not staying with the firm long. I know he doesn’t think +much of Mr. Dersingham either. I know that, too.”</p> + +<p>“But where have you got all this from?” Mr. Smeeth was more +angry than alarmed. “This is the first I’ve heard of it. How did you +learn it? You’re not trying to be funny, are you?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” roared the large man. “Get a move on, eh? You coming +to eat with me, Charlie? That’s right. See you Monday, Tom, eh? +Course I’ll be there. You betcher life, boy! Wouldn’t miss it. Am I +what? Oh—you wicked feller, Tom, you wicked feller! So long, +boy. Morning, miss. Morning, Sam.” And the silence he left behind +him was almost startling.</p> + +<p>In this silence, Mr. Smeeth and Turgis looked at one another. +Then Turgis turned his eyes elsewhere, but Mr. Smeeth continued +looking at him.</p> + +<p>“I don’t make head or tail of this, Turgis.”</p> + +<p>Turgis frowned, shut his mouth tight for once, and moved uneasily. +Finally, he said: “I—heard something, Mr. Smeeth, that’s +all. I can’t tell where I heard it or anything. I’m sorry I spoke now.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth saw that Turgis was terribly in earnest. There could +be no doubt about that. “Do you mean to say you won’t tell me +where you heard it, how you heard it, or anything?”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry, Mr. Smeeth. I oughtn’t to have said anything. I can’t +tell you any more, honestly I can’t. Don’t mention it to anybody, +please, Mr. Smeeth. If you do, you might get me into trouble, +though I haven’t done anything really wrong, I haven’t, honestly. +Only I did hear that about Mr. Golspie.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p377">[377]</span></p> + +<p>“When was that? You can tell me so much, anyhow.”</p> + +<p>“Not long before Christmas, a week or two.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Golspie was away then, was he?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Turgis admitted sullenly. “It was while he was away.”</p> + +<p>“Then somebody told you while Mr. Golspie was away,” said Mr. +Smeeth sharply, not taking his eyes off the unhappy Turgis for a +second. He thought quickly. “It must have been his daughter, that +time when you took the money to her. You got talking and then +she told you. Is that it?”</p> + +<p>Turgis said nothing, but he had no need to, for his face replied +for him. “Well, what did she say exactly?” Mr. Smeeth continued, +far more concerned now that he knew Mr. Golspie’s daughter was +the informant. “Come on, Turgis, you might as well tell me now. +What did she say?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t remember any more,” Turgis mumbled miserably. “That +was all. It was nothing. I oughtn’t to have said anything. Mr. +Smeeth, please don’t you say anything, please don’t, will you? +Promise.”</p> + +<p>“All right. I don’t suppose there’s anything in it. I know what +these girls are. They’ll say anything. Well⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I must be getting on now,” said Turgis. “And thank you +for telling me—you know about what Mr. Dersingham said. I’ll do +my best, Mr. Smeeth. I’m a bit worried just now, that’s all.”</p> + +<p>As his tram climbed the swarming City Road, Mr. Smeeth considered +this Golspie gossip. It made him feel uneasy, although he +was still ready to dismiss it as girls’ nonsense. It seemed unlikely +that Mr. Golspie would leave them, but then it seemed unlikely that +Stanley would be spirited away by an uncle in Homerton and that +Benenden would be lying in Bart’s Hospital. There was no connection +between these events, as Mr. Smeeth knew very well, but the +sudden disappearance of Stanley and Benenden had left him with +a feeling of insecurity. They made him realise the fact that things +simply happened and that he had no control over them, no more +than he would have if the tram suddenly left the lines and charged +<span class="pagenum" id="p378">[378]</span>the nearest shop. In the dark hollows of his mind, apprehension +stirred again. He decided to talk all this over with his wife, who, +perhaps because she was so unreasonable, had got something that +he had never had, a large confidence in life. With all her faults, +there was nobody like Edie for him at these times, when he felt +a bit down in the mouth. Then he remembered that they were still +not on proper speaking terms, and that, in her present state of mind, +he could no more talk to her about what he felt than he could +talk to the strange woman sitting in front of him in the tram. “We +just would be quarrelling now, wouldn’t we!” he cried to himself, +with that gloomy satisfaction, that faint sweetness which comes with +the last bitter drop, known only to the pessimist. Life could do many +dreadful things to Herbert Norman Smeeth, but it couldn’t take +him in. He was one of those people who are always there first, +who are standing at the grave before the doctor has even begun +shaking his head.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_8"> + III +</h3> + +<p>This treacherous Saturday, however, was still capable of giving +him another shock, from an unexpected quarter. Mrs. Smeeth was +out when he arrived home, and he had a solitary dinner, with Edna +flitting about and trying to keep out of his way. After dinner, he +smoked his pipe and pottered about for half an hour or so, and +then, as the afternoon sent some gleams of pale sunlight creeping, +like a returned convalescent, into Chaucer Road, he went out for a +walk. Fate, which had for once an easy task, directed him to Clissold +Park, where his shock was awaiting him.</p> + +<p>The fifty green acres of Clissold Park are surrounded by miles +and miles of slates and bricks, chimney-pots and paving stones, and +so, in the middle of it, placed there perhaps as a sign that the round +green world of mountains, forests and oceans still exists somewhere, +or at least once had an existence, there are a number of animals +and bright birds. If you are a Stoke Newington ratepayer, you +<span class="pagenum" id="p379">[379]</span>have only to turn a corner or two to catch the soft shining glances +of deer, to meditate upon the spectacle of birds so fantastically fashioned +and coloured that it is impossible to believe that both they +and North London are equally real, that one or the other is not a +crazy dream. You stand there, a litter of peanut shells and paper bags +all round you, with a Stoke Newington dinner inside you struggling +with your digestive juices, and you suddenly hear a scream +from the jungle and a green and scarlet wing from the Orinoco is +flashed at you.</p> + +<p>There are links, however, between these two worlds. One of them +was standing beside Mr. Smeeth, and wore a short grey beard and +a dusty bowler. “Yus,” he remarked, looking at the gorgeous birds, +then at Mr. Smeeth, then at the birds again, and doing it masterfully, +as if to keep both the birds and Mr. Smeeth there, “yus, I been +where them things comes from. Common as sparrers there, yer +might say. Bigger than these, too—yus, and brighter colours on ’em. +Yus, I been where them birds comes from.”</p> + +<p>“Is that so?” said Mr. Smeeth. “And when was this? Not lately, +I’ll bet.”</p> + +<p>“And you’d win, mister. Forty years ago, that was, in good old +Queen Victoria’s time. Ah, yer little devils!” he cried, addressing +the birds now. “What d’yer think o’ that, eh? Forty years ago. I +left the sea thirty-five years ago, mister, but I’d stopped going to them +places five years before I left the sea for good an’ all. Yus, the last +five years I was on the North Atlantic run, and you don’t see any o’ +them little dazzlers up there—fog and icebergs is what you see up +there, mister. But I’ve seen the time when I’ve brought them things +’ome, proper old sailor style. Yus, I have. If yer don’t believe me, +ask the pleece; they know everything there is to know, isn’t that so, +Sergeant?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth discovered that an acquaintance of his, a Stoke Newington +man and a very good hand at a whist drive, Sergeant Gailey +of the local division, had strolled up. “Now then, Mr. Lee, telling +<span class="pagenum" id="p380">[380]</span>lies again! Dear, dear, dear! Oh, it’s you, Mr. Smeeth, is it? You’re +the victim, this time.”</p> + +<p>“That’ll do, Sergeant,” retorted Mr. Lee amiably, “yer only giving +away your ignorance. Yer’ve seen nothing yet, and I don’t think +yer ever will now. Good afternoon.” And off he toddled.</p> + +<p>“You know him, don’t you, Mr. Smeeth?” said Sergeant Gailey. +“Oh, he’s a rum old devil. Keeps a second-hand shop—furniture and +curios and all that stuff—down by the Green. His daughter runs +it now, but it’s his shop, and he’s better off than you’d think, that +old devil is. Won’t part with nothing, you know, but his reminiscences +and good advice. He’s a character.”</p> + +<p>“When he started, I thought he was going to try and cadge a +bob,” said Mr. Smeeth, moving away slowly with the sergeant.</p> + +<p>“He’d have it all right if you offered it him, though he could buy +you and me up, Mr. Smeeth, a good many times. But how are you +getting on, these days? Here, what’s the name of that boy of yours?”</p> + +<p>“You mean George?”</p> + +<p>“That’s right. George Smeeth, Chaucer Road—eh? I saw the name +a day or two ago, and thought it must be that boy of yours. We’re +having him up at the North London next week, Tuesday, I think.”</p> + +<p>“At the North London!” Mr. Smeeth stopped, and gaped at him. +“Do you mean the police court?”</p> + +<p>“That’s right. Case comes on on Tuesday, I think. What, didn’t +you know?”</p> + +<p>“No, of course, I didn’t know,” cried Mr. Smeeth in horrified +amazement. “Do you mean—my boy George?”</p> + +<p>“Here, steady, steady, Mr. Smeeth! We’re not charging him. He’s +only up as a witness.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth breathed again, but he was still puzzled and worried, +and the sergeant, noticing this, began to explain.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know why he’s not told you. It’s one of these car stealing +jobs. We’re always getting ’em now. What with cars running over +people and then skipping off, and cars in these smash-and-grab outfits, +and cars being lost and pinched—coo!—we get a proper packet +<span class="pagenum" id="p381">[381]</span>of cars! I don’t know what the Force did in the old horse traffic days. +’Owever, this is one of the car stealing jobs and by a bit o’ luck <em>and</em> +judgment, we traced this particular car to that garage where your +lad’s been working lately. Chap o’ the name of Barrett runs it, and +between you and me, we’ve had an eye on him for some time. Well, +he bought this car—a good car, nearly new; I don’t remember the +make, but it was a <em>good</em> car, worth money—for fifteen quid. He +doesn’t deny it. Now we’re taking the line that he bought that car +knowing it to be stolen, not the property o’ the chap that offered it +to him. It’s our belief he’s done this before, and a good many times, +too. As I say, we’ve had an eye on him. If he’s not a wrong ’un, +I give it up. Whether we’ll get him this time or not, I don’t know. I +wasn’t on the case myself. But that fifteen quid’ll take a bit of explaining. +They’ll be saying they get cars given ’em soon.”</p> + +<p>“But where does George come in?” said Mr. Smeeth, who did not +care what happened in the car-stealing world, but cared a great deal +about his son.</p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s nothing. He worked there, see, and was there when +the car went into the garage, and so on. We’ve nothing against him, +of course. He’ll only be asked to say what he saw.”</p> + +<p>“Thank goodness for that! You gave me a fright, I can tell you, +Sergeant. I don’t mean by that, mind you, that I thought for a +minute my boy’d be mixed up in anything dishonest. I don’t see +as much of him as I ought these days, and he just goes his own +way, but I know the boy’s as straight as you like.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll bet he is,” said Sergeant Gailey with a certain forced heartiness, +which he immediately dropped for a more serious, cautionary +tone. “But, all the same, Mr. Smeeth, he ought to have told you, +you know. And another thing. You get him away from that garage +and that chap Barrett. He’s in bad company there. Doesn’t matter if +Barrett walks out of that court next Tuesday with the case against +him in bits; never mind about that; you get your boy out of it and +away from that chap. If we can’t prove it this time, we’ll prove it +<span class="pagenum" id="p382">[382]</span>next time, and there always is a next time with those cocky birds. I +wouldn’t let a boy of mine put his nose in a dump like that.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you worry about that, Sergeant,” cried Mr. Smeeth, his +voice trembling with excitement. “George doesn’t stay there another +day. I should think not! And I’m very much obliged to you for +telling me, Sergeant, very much obliged.”</p> + +<p>“That’s all right, Mr. Smeeth. Thought you ought to know. Which +way you going now?”</p> + +<p>“Straight home. That’s my way now,” replied Mr. Smeeth, and +he went as fast as he could go to Chaucer Road. He was still rather +alarmed and astonished, for police court affairs were remote from +his experience and he had a horror of them, but he was chiefly indignant, +indignant at the thought that this business, which took George +to court and might take his employer to gaol, should have been kept +from him. Did his wife know all about it, and had she deliberately +hidden it out of his sight? He could hear her saying to George, +“Now don’t you say a word to your father about this. You know +what he is.” Yes, something like that. If she really had done that, +then they <em>would</em> have a quarrel. This was serious. My word, what +a life! You never knew what was happening.</p> + +<p>He arrived home to find his wife still absent and Edna and her +friend, Minnie Watson, screaming with laughter in the dining-room. +“Just a minute, Edna, I want you,” he said sternly. She followed +him into the other room.</p> + +<p>“Where’s George?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, Dad. Working, I suppose, down at the garage. +What’s the matter?”</p> + +<p>“Did you know anything about this police court business?”</p> + +<p>Edna stared at him, her chocolate-stained mouth open. “What +police court business? What are you talking about, Dad? Has it +something to do with George?”</p> + +<p>“Never mind about that. You don’t know anything about it, eh?” +It certainly didn’t look as if she did, but Mr. Smeeth told himself +<span class="pagenum" id="p383">[383]</span>wearily that you could never tell, not with children like these, such +a strange secretive lot. “All right, it doesn’t matter. Where is this +garage? You can tell me that, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>She gave him precise directions, and ten minutes later he was +there, confronting a queer George in greasy overalls, who was doing +something incomprehensible to the inside of a car. He was probably +astonished to see his father, but he only raised his eyebrows and +grinned. George had ceased for some time to show any signs of +surprise.</p> + +<p>Telling himself that this was his son, who had been a child only +yesterday, Mr. Smeeth looked sternly at him, and summoning all +the forces of parental authority, he said curtly: “Just clean yourself +up and get your hat and coat on, George.”</p> + +<p>“What d’you mean, Dad? What’s up? Anything wrong at home?”</p> + +<p>“No, there isn’t, but just do what I tell you.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I don’t understand.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, come outside if you’re going to argue about it,” said Mr. +Smeeth impatiently, and led the way out into the street. “It’s the +police court business. I’ve just heard all about it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh—I see,” said George slowly.</p> + +<p>“I’m glad you do see. I’d like to have seen a bit earlier,” said his +father bitterly. “Why didn’t you tell me? Have to have a police +sergeant telling me what’s happening to my own son!”</p> + +<p>“Well, you needn’t go at me, Dad. I’ve done nothing, and they’ll +tell you I haven’t.”</p> + +<p>“I know all about that. And you’re not going to do anything +either. That’s why I came round. You’re finishing here now, George. +I was warned not to let you stop on—though I didn’t need any +warning. I’m not going to have you mixed up with this sort of +business. So you can just tell them you’re finishing now, this +minute.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I can’t do that, Dad. We’re busy.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t care how busy you are, George. You’ve got to stop.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p384">[384]</span></p> + +<p>“Oh, all right—if you feel like that about it. But look here, Dad, +I must finish that job I’m doing now.”</p> + +<p>“How long will that take you?”</p> + +<p>“Ten minutes. Quarter of an hour. Shouldn’t be longer.”</p> + +<p>“All right,” said Mr. Smeeth grimly, “I’ll wait.” And he waited +twenty minutes; but at the end of that time George came out, +washed and brushed and without his overalls.</p> + +<p>“I might have lost the week’s money, walking out like that,” he +told his father, “but they paid up—like good sports.”</p> + +<p>“Who are ‘they’?”</p> + +<p>“There’s another chap running this besides Barrett, a chap called +McGrath—proper motor mechanic, he is.”</p> + +<p>“And is he a wrong ’un, too?”</p> + +<p>“Not more than most. McGrath’s all right.”</p> + +<p>“Tell me this, George,” said Mr. Smeeth, halting and looking +very earnestly at his son, “did your mother know anything about +this police court business?”</p> + +<p>“Course she didn’t, Dad. I wasn’t going to tell <em>her</em>.”</p> + +<p>“I see,” said Mr. Smeeth, relieved to find there had been no general +conspiracy. “But why didn’t you tell <em>me</em>, boy? I can’t understand +you keeping a thing like this to yourself.”</p> + +<p>They were walking on again now. “Oh, I didn’t want to bother +you about it,” replied George coolly. “I knew there’d be a lot of +gassing and fussing if I did. And there was nothing to get excited +about. I hadn’t done anything. They weren’t running <em>me</em> in, +were they?”</p> + +<p>It was incredible. Mr. Smeeth gave it up. Here was this boy of +his, who had been playing with clockwork trains on the floor only +the day before yesterday, so to speak, and now he could talk in +this strain, as cool as you please, as if he were Sergeant Gailey or +somebody! Mr. Smeeth waited a minute or two, then said very +quietly: “About that car, George—did you know it was stolen?”</p> + +<p>George grinned; no wincing, shrinking, anything of that kind; +<span class="pagenum" id="p385">[385]</span>just a plain grin. “I didn’t <em>know</em>, but I had a few ideas of my +own about it. And about one or two others, too.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to tell me that you’d a good idea of what was going +on there and you didn’t do anything about it?” Mr. Smeeth was +shocked and astounded.</p> + +<p>“What could I do about it, Dad? If I’d been dragged into it, that +would have been different. But they didn’t try. And you needn’t +worry—I wouldn’t have had it. Buying cars that have been pinched +like that is a mug’s game, if you ask me. Barrett’s a fool, though he’s +not a bad sort, really, and he’s treated me all right. Doesn’t know +anything about cars though, not like McGrath does. I believe he <em>had</em> +to take over some of those cars. I saw one or two fellows who called +to see him, and I didn’t like the look of them at all—real toughs, +they were. But mind you, Dad, I don’t <em>know</em> anything about those +cars, don’t forget that.”</p> + +<p>The boy talked about buying stolen cars as if it was simply a +little weakness on Barrett’s part, a silly hobby. He didn’t seem to +be in the least shocked or frightened. Mr. Smeeth could not make +it out at all. It was just as if he had brought up a boy who had +suddenly turned into an Indian. The boy was all right, really; he +had left the garage without making a fuss; but, nevertheless, his +point of view appeared to be whole worlds away from anything +his father could understand. “I must say I don’t like to hear you +talking like that, George,” he said. “Seems to me you don’t understand +the seriousness of this business. It’s criminal, this is, work for +the police, and you talk about it as if it was a tea-party or something. +Talk like that, and you don’t know where you’ll land yourself.”</p> + +<p>“That’s all right, Dad,” said George tolerantly. “Don’t you worry. +I can look after myself.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you’re going to do it outside that place now,” Mr. Smeeth +told him.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I meant to leave there soon, anyhow,” George remarked +airily.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p386">[386]</span></p> + +<p>“I should think so! And the next job you find for yourself, I +hope, will be in a concern that the police aren’t interested in. You’d +better tell me something about it, first. Easy to get yourself a bad +name, y’know, boy, even if you don’t do anything wrong yourself.”</p> + +<p>George, who seemed to live in a world in which bad names didn’t +count, a world his father didn’t know, made no reply, but merely +whistled softly as he walked along. When they arrived home, tea +was waiting for them, with Mrs. Smeeth sitting behind the teapot. +She was surprised to see George walk in with his father. Mr. Smeeth +gave her a look that said “Quarrel or no quarrel, you’ve got to +recognize that this is serious,” and cut short her inquiries by remarking, +“We’ll have a talk about this afterwards, Mother.”</p> + +<p>As soon as the two children were out of the room, he told her +what had happened, and she gave him all her attention, realizing at +once that this affair transcended any quarrel.</p> + +<p>“You did right, Dad,” she told him, when he had finished.</p> + +<p>“I hope you realize,” he added, not without bitterness, “that this +means the boy may be out of a job for some time, and that means +both of them earning nothing. It’s all right, of course, but still—we’ll +have to be careful.”</p> + +<p>“George’ll soon get something. He always does,” she said confidently. +“I shouldn’t wonder if he hasn’t got a better job in his eye +now. You were right to do what you did, but you leave him alone +now and don’t worry. He’ll find something.”</p> + +<p>This seemed a good opportunity to tell what had happened during +the earlier part of this eventful day, with special reference to the +disturbing rumour about Mr. Golspie. But she wouldn’t listen. She +turned herself again into a woman who had quarrelled with him, +merely listened to a few words with a distant politeness, excused +herself and then gathered up the tea things in a very grand, dignified +manner, rather like a duchess visiting a poor cottager. Mr. +Smeeth was left to smoke his pipe, alone, a solitary little figure in +a huge, dark, mysterious world of cracking walls and slithering +foundations, with echoes and rumours of catastrophe in every wind.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p387">[387]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="IV_8"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>On Tuesday morning, Mr. Golspie and Mr. Dersingham spent +more than an hour talking together in the private office, and Mr. +Smeeth, whose chief duty during that time was to examine a number +of replies to Twigg & Dersingham’s advertisement for an office boy, +found it difficult to concentrate his attention upon these rather +monotonous letters, all in round handwriting that began well, but +always wobbled towards the end. He was curious to know what +was happening in the private office. Now and again he had heard +voices raised, and once the door had opened, so that Mr. Golspie’s +booming tones had come flying out into the general office, but the +next minute the door had been closed again. Just after half-past +eleven, the bell in the private office rang dramatically. Miss Sellers, +now the junior, answered it, and came back to say: “Mr. Smeeth, +Mr. Dersingham wants to see you.”</p> + +<p>The private office was filled with cigar and cigarette smoke, and +Mr. Golspie, who stood in front of the fire, his legs wide apart, +clearly dominating the scene. Mr. Dersingham, sitting at his table, +was rather rumpled and flushed and obviously not at ease.</p> + +<p>“A-ha!” Mr. Golspie cried, “here’s Smeeth. He’s the man. He’ll +tidy us up a bit. You know, Smeeth, if I’d been as tidy as you, as +good at putting down little figures every day, never forgetting ’em, +adding ’em up, I’d have been a rich man now.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m not a rich man, Mr. Golspie,” said Mr. Smeeth, smiling +nervously.</p> + +<p>“No, but I didn’t say—if I could do that and nothing else, d’you +follow me? What I meant was, if I could do what you do, <em>plus</em> what +I can already do. I’d be a very rich man now, and you wouldn’t +find me in a dustbin, eh? Now if you want to make money, Dersingham, +<em>really</em> make money, pile up a big fortune, you’ve only to +be like me and like Smeeth here both together, two in one. Quite +simple.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p388">[388]</span></p> + +<p>Mr. Dersingham nodded vaguely. He was not interested in this +talk and did not like the sound of it, for Mr. Golspie’s voice had +dropped into a jeering tone. He caught Mr. Smeeth’s eye, and then +began: “Look here, Smeeth, Mr. Golspie and I have come to a new +arrangement. I’ll just explain it⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’ll explain it,” Mr. Golspie broke in roughly. “It’s simple +enough. Up to now, I’ve been drawing commission on all this Baltic +stuff as soon as it’s delivered to your customers, haven’t I? That’s +right. Well, that’s too slow for me. I don’t want to have to wait for +my money like that. Some of these new orders are spread over +months.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and don’t forget how long we’ll have to wait for our money, +Golspie,” said Mr. Dersingham, “or rather, I’ll have to wait +for mine.”</p> + +<p>“Quite so, sir,” said Mr. Smeeth, who knew how long it took to +get accounts settled better than they did.</p> + +<p>“That’s up to you,” Mr. Golspie replied, in his hearty brutal way. +“I don’t want to point out again that if it hadn’t been for me there’d +have been no orders and no money to come in, whether it comes +in this year or next.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, that’s all right, Golspie. I agree. You needn’t harp on +it, needn’t rub it in.”</p> + +<p>“Rub it in!” Golspie laughed. “You’re talking now as if you were +sore somewhere. There’s nothing to rub in but a lot of good new +business. Anyhow, Smeeth, this is the point. I can’t wait now for +all this big lot of orders to be delivered. I want my commission on +the orders as they stand. They’ve gone through; the stuff’s on the +other side all right, as you know; and your people are here all right; +so I want my cut now. I’m not as good as you at figures, but that’s +what I make it, right up to date.” He handed over a slip of paper. +“That’s a rough total, of course.”</p> + +<p>It may have been a rough total, but what leaped to Mr. Smeeth’s +eye was the fact that it was a surprisingly large total.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p389">[389]</span></p> + +<p>“Pretty big, eh? Bigger than you thought, eh? That shows you +the business that’s come into this office just lately.”</p> + +<p>“It does, Mr. Golspie,” said Smeeth, glancing down at the figure +again.</p> + +<p>“Yes, that’s true.” Mr. Dersingham’s face cleared at the thought. +“Jolly good. Of course, it’s—what-is-it?—phenomenal—a sudden rush, +y’know, because they’ve been booking this stuff of yours ahead as +fast as they can.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t blame ’em,” said Mr. Golspie, looking at his cigar.</p> + +<p>“You want me to check this, I suppose?” said Mr. Smeeth, glancing +from one to the other.</p> + +<p>Mr. Golspie yawned. “That’s it. When can you have it done, +with the figures right bang up to date, Smeeth? By to-morrow morning, +eh? All right. And you’ll see how you can arrange the payment, +Dersingham, eh? Yes, yes, I know how it is—you told me—but if +you can split it into three, say, and let me have the first cheque this +week and the other two as soon as you can, that’ll do me. I’ll leave +you to work it out. I’ll be looking in this afternoon.”</p> + +<p>They said nothing until they heard the outer door close behind +him and his footsteps die away on the landing. They seemed to be +in a much larger room now. Mr. Dersingham himself was much +larger. “Get a chair, Smeeth,” he said, and lit another cigarette. They +looked at one another through the sudden spurt of smoke from it.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dersingham gave a short laugh. “Friend Golspie’s putting the +screw on this morning. My God! Smeeth—I’ll tell you candidly—and +this is very much between ourselves, you understand—that +chap’s getting on my nerves. He’s such a damned outsider, he +really is. He’s brought all this business here, it’s true, but—my +God!—he doesn’t let you forget it either. If we hadn’t been in such +a rotten bad way before he came, well—I don’t know—I think I’d +have told him to take his stuff somewhere else. Don’t repeat a word +of this, Smeeth, for the love of Mike! But that’s just how I feel, and +I must let steam off for a minute. He gets worse. Talk about rough +riding or whatever they call it! He’s the complete bouncing bounder. +<span class="pagenum" id="p390">[390]</span>Business may be business, but give me a gentleman to deal with +in it, every time. Friend of mine, Major Trape—we were at Worrell +together—met the chap at my house, just after he came and I asked +him to dinner, the first <em>and</em> the last time, and Trape summed him +up after half an hour, and several times since he’s said to me that +he wouldn’t have a chap like that working with him, sharing the +same office, not if he brought a quarter of a million pounds’ worth +of business in his pocket. He’s getting worse, too. Ouf!”</p> + +<p>“Well, Mr. Dersingham, you’ve got to meet all kinds in business, +haven’t you?” said Mr. Smeeth, astonished at this outburst.</p> + +<p>“Looks like it,” replied Mr. Dersingham bitterly. He remained +silent for a minute, and his face gradually cleared. “Still, there’s no +doubt we’re doing the business. Golspie’s total—and I don’t suppose +it’s far out, even though it is rough—surprised me, and of course +he’s drawn a fair amount of commission, on the actual deliveries +here, already, hasn’t he?”</p> + +<p>“I suppose this new arrangement’s all right,” said Mr. Smeeth +dubiously.</p> + +<p>“If you mean it’s a damned nuisance, I agree with you, Smeeth. +It’s that all right. Look what we’ve got to pay him, and he wants +it all these next two or three weeks—says he’s a lot of old debts +to meet, though God knows where they are. That’s what I want to +talk to you about. We’ll have to go into this pretty carefully. I don’t +know how much you expect to get in these next two weeks, but +I imagine we’ll have to ask the bank to help us out. That’ll be all +right, of course, because I can explain to Townley there how +we stand.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth nodded. “Well, I suppose it’s all right, sir,” he said +once more, still dubiously.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, Smeeth?” Mr. Dersingham was impatient.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he hesitated, “I don’t quite know. I’m just wondering if +it’s all right.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t keep saying that,” cried Dersingham angrily. “Of +course it’s all right. I’m not a fool. It’s a nuisance, and I wouldn’t +<span class="pagenum" id="p391">[391]</span>do it if I could help it, but it’s all right. Plenty of fellows who work +on commission have this arrangement and get their money as soon +as the order goes through.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose they do, Mr. Dersingham. But you’re thinking of ordinary +travellers, aren’t you, sir, chaps who just get a very small +commission, not like this?”</p> + +<p>“No, I’m not. I’m thinking of other fellows who—er—work in a +big way,” said Mr. Dersingham rather vaguely.</p> + +<p>“Suppose Mr. Golspie leaves us? I can’t help thinking about that, +you know, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Why should he? My hat!—he’s doing well, isn’t he? He’s making +more out of this firm than I am, just now. No, I know what +you’re thinking, Smeeth, and I know what you’re going to say. +You mean, there’s nothing to prevent him walking over to some +other firm in our business, if they made it worth his while. Or +another thing. He might sell out the whole agency—he’s got a tight +grip on that, y’know, Smeeth; I know that for a fact—for this Baltic +stuff to somebody else, and then clear out.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right, sir. I thought of both those things.”</p> + +<p>“And so did I, Smeeth. Don’t you worry about that. I don’t blame +you for being cautious—does you credit, and I know you’re a good +safe chap—but you mustn’t think I was born yesterday, you know. +I don’t pretend to be one of these born City men, the real old cunning +sharks—that’s not my style at all, Smeeth, and if I could afford +it, I’d be out of business to-morrow and be in some snug little country +place—but I’ve had some experience and I’m no fool, y’know. Oh +no!” he cried confidently to Mr. Smeeth and perhaps to the listening +gods. “I’ve thought about that for some time, and this morning, +when he brought up this commission idea and wanted to clear our +account at one swoop, for that’s what it amounts to—though he’s +earned it fairly, y’know, we must admit that—I tackled him on +those points.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m glad about that, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth, +greatly relieved.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p392">[392]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, and he agreed to meet me half-way. I agree to pay this commission +over to him as soon as possible, and he’ll sign an agreement, +promising not to take the agency elsewhere and to see that we keep +the agency on here if he decides to clear out. That’s fair enough, +isn’t it? You can’t get away from that. In fact, we stand to gain by +this new arrangement, don’t we? We’re only paying out, a little +in advance, what’s due to him, and on the other hand, we make +the business safe for ourselves. If Golspie goes after he’s signed this +agreement—and I’m going over to my solicitors this afternoon to +have it drafted out; we’ll do it properly—then he leaves us with the +new business in our hands, and all I can say is, the sooner he goes +the better. And I’ll tell you another thing, Smeeth. When he’s +signed this agreement, he’s going to drop some of his little blighterish +tricks, that nasty jeering tone of his, because I’m not going to +put up with it any longer. I shan’t need to, after this. By George!” +and Mr. Dersingham’s voice had a triumphant ring now and he +tried to look like a very crafty man of affairs. “I’d never thought +of that, not properly. It didn’t occur to me that, after this, if he +doesn’t like it, he can lump it, if you see what I mean. He’ll have +to change his tune, thank God!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I see, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth slowly. “It’s funny +he didn’t think of that, too, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, he wants his money in his pocket. That’s what he’s thinking +about. And then he probably imagines I like that nice cheerful +manner of his, and like to be told every day or so that if it hadn’t +been for him the firm wouldn’t be paying its way. I tell you, these +loud bounders never think what’s going on in other people’s minds.”</p> + +<p>“I shouldn’t think Mr. Golspie cared very much, certainly,” said +Mr. Smeeth thoughtfully. “But I don’t know that I quite see him +in that light, though you know him better than I do, I’ll admit that, +Mr. Dersingham. But—I don’t know⁠——”</p> + +<p>“If you don’t mind my saying so, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, +grinning at him, “there are times when you’re just a bit of an old +washerwoman, and I’m not sure this isn’t one of them. No, no, don’t +<span class="pagenum" id="p393">[393]</span>mind that—I know you’re a good chap, and I can honestly say I +wouldn’t like to run this show without you. Now, look here, will +you work out that total properly, as soon as you can, and let me +know what we’re likely to get in these next two weeks, what we’ve +got in hand, and so on, and then we’ll settle the whole thing. Right +you are.”</p> + +<p>The latter part of this speech was all so friendly that Mr. Smeeth +could not take offence at the “bit of an old washerwoman.” He left +the room feeling that he ought to be convinced, and almost ashamed +of himself because he could not share Mr. Dersingham’s sudden +burst of confidence. The fact remained, though, that he still felt +dubious. There was something in Mr. Dersingham’s tone of voice +that made him wince. He did not like this easy dismissal of Mr. +Golspie; there was a catch in it somewhere; and he felt that Mr. +Dersingham was taking the wrong line with Mr. Golspie. What +was it that Turgis had said, reporting the daughter? He wondered +if he ought to have mentioned that, but then quickly dismissed the +possibility. Mr. Dersingham knew what he was doing. He talked +as if he did. Indeed, he talked too much as if he did. Mr. Smeeth, +with his apprehensive mind, always felt a slight alarm when anybody +was triumphantly confident. You had to be careful.</p> + +<p>He settled down at his desk, with the various books in front of +him, to work out the exact figures. For the next hour he was lost +in them, quite happy, at home in this familiar little world of unchanging +numerals and balancing columns, this world in which you +had only to have patience enough and everything worked out beautifully, +perfectly.</p> + + +<h3 id="V_5"> + V +</h3> + +<p>“And how’s Mr. Benenden?” Mr. Smeeth asked. He had called +in the shop as he returned from lunch on Wednesday, and had +found the plump niece still behind the counter there.</p> + +<p>She remembered him, and at once smiled at the prospect of a +<span class="pagenum" id="p394">[394]</span>little chat and then looked sad because the subject would be her +stricken uncle. After that, she compromised neatly between the two. +“He’s not as well as he might be, thank you,” she replied. “Now +they’ve got him in there and had a good look at him, they’ve found +a lot of things wrong with him. He never would go to a doctor +himself, didn’t believe in them, he said—you know—silly. No, it +isn’t just with him being knocked down like that, though that was +bad enough, but they examined him, you see, and now they say +he’s not in a good way at all. They may have to operate.”</p> + +<p>“That’s bad, isn’t it? What’s wrong exactly?”</p> + +<p>“Now I couldn’t tell you. You know what they are in these +hospitals. If they know themselves, they don’t let on. I went to see +him on Sunday, and I told him about the shop and who’d been in +and all that. You’re not Mr. Bromfield, are you?”</p> + +<p>“No. My name’s Smeeth.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Smeeth. Yes, that’s right. He mentioned you as well.”</p> + +<p>“Did he now?” Mr. Smeeth felt all the gratification of a person +who has been singled out, no matter by whom. “Asked if I’d been +in, I suppose, eh? Well, I wish you’d tell him how sorry I am to +hear he’s laid up. Tell him I say that Angel Pavement doesn’t seem +the same place without him. And I hope he’s stirring again soon.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I will.” The plump young woman hesitated a moment. +“I’ll tell you what, Mr. Smeeth, if you just happened to have a +spare half-hour this afternoon, perhaps you might like to go and see +him. It’s visiting day up there to-day, you know. Three to four. My +mother’s going about half-past three, but if you could have a look +at him, just to give him a word or two and pass the time of day, +sometime before then, just after three, he’d be ever so pleased. But +perhaps you’re busy.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know.” Mr. Smeeth thought it over, then looked at +his watch. “I think I will, you know. It wouldn’t take me long to +slip round to Bart’s. Where shall I find him?”</p> + +<p>She gave him elaborate directions. He remembered then that he +had wanted to have a word with Brown & Gorstein, whose place +<span class="pagenum" id="p395">[395]</span>was just off Old Street. He could go round to Bart’s first, and then +up to Brown & Gorstein’s. It did not look like being a very busy +afternoon, and he had still three-quarters of an hour in which to +clear up a few odds and ends of jobs in the office before he went.</p> + +<p>At three o’clock he came out into Little Britain, beneath the innumerable +blue-curtained windows of Bart’s new building. As he +crossed the road, something huge in the sky, to the left, caught his +eye and made him stop and look that way when he reached the +other pavement. It was the dome of St. Paul’s, and never before +had he seen it look so massive and majestic; it was almost frightening. +He had never seen the dome from that distance and that +particular angle before, and it was as if he was seeing it for the +first time. He might have been in a strange city. For once his sense +of wonder was quickened, and after that, throughout the afternoon, +until he returned to the office, it never slept. The wide space between +the main entrance to the hospital and Smithfield Market was filled +with carts coming from the market, a very decided smell of meat, +and a narrowing stream of people, mostly women carrying paper +bags and little bunches of flowers, who were pouring into the +hospital entrance. It was all very strange to him, for he had not +been near a hospital for years and had never visited one of this size +before. It was like walking into a fantastic little town, a strange +city within the city. He went through an archway and found himself +in a great courtyard or quadrangle with a fountain in it. Here +there was all the bustle of a market-place, but not of any market-place +he had ever seen before. Doctors in white coats and bare-headed +students ran in and out of the many doorways; nurses fluttered +snowily across the quadrangle; and now and then he caught a +glimpse of a patient, strapped and rigid on a stretcher, being wheeled +away to God knows where. One passed him close, and he saw a face +cut out of yellow bone and staring unfathomable eyes. It was terrifying. +The whole place, this little town of white uniforms and +mysterious silent traffic within the roaring city, terrified him. He +could have sworn that the little pain somewhere inside began tick-ticking +<span class="pagenum" id="p396">[396]</span>again; and for a moment or two it seemed to him astonishing +that he should still be one of the uneasy invaders swarming in +here, one of the workers, eaters, drinkers, smokers, pleasure lovers, +movers about, from outside. Any day now, he felt, he would be on +one of those stretchers.</p> + +<p>Somehow it had never occurred to him that he would see Benenden +actually in bed. He had vaguely imagined a hospital and had +imagined Benenden in it, but he had really thought of him as being +still behind a counter, the familiar half-length figure, beginning +about the second button of the waistcoat and then going on to the +old-fashioned high collar and stiff front (with no tie), the straggling +sandy-grey beard and the thick glasses. In all the time he had known +him, Mr. Smeeth had never once seen Benenden away from his +counter; and for all he knew to the contrary, Benenden might have +had no legs at all. Now, as he approached the white-enamelled iron +bed, he saw less of Benenden than ever, but what he did see gave +him a shock. It was not that Benenden looked very ill (for that +matter, he had never looked very well), but simply that he looked +quite different. Mr. Smeeth wanted to laugh. That head of Benenden’s +above the sheet looked idiotic. It was as if Benenden had taken +to wild joking.</p> + +<p>“Hello, Mr. Benenden. Your niece in the shop suggested I might +call and see you. How are you feeling now?”</p> + +<p>The enormous eyes behind the glasses had slowly swivelled round, +and now there was a slow faint creasing of the face that did duty +for a smile. “Very pleased to see you, Mr. Smeeth. Very good of +you to call.” This came in tiny high explosions of sound, as if Benenden’s +ordinary tones had been raised an octave or two and only +allowed to emerge in separate little puffs.</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth could see that he really was ill. Every movement of +the face and his speech were so slow, as if they had to be thought +out first. And though he had been away from his shop such a little +time, he gave the impression that he had been away for years and +years, had gone round and round the world, had even changed his +<span class="pagenum" id="p397">[397]</span>nationality. He did not belong any more to the workers and bustlers +and movers about. He was now a citizen of this inner city.</p> + +<p>“Not a bit,” said Mr. Smeeth, wanting to be cheerful and hearty, +but not outrageously so, “not a bit. I’m only too glad. I’ve missed +you at the shop. Quite a shock to hear what had happened to you. +How are you feeling then?”</p> + +<p>“Not good, Mr. Smeeth. No, not good. Baddish.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Benenden. I suppose that accident of +yours was a shock to the system, eh?”</p> + +<p>“That was nothing, that wasn’t,” replied Benenden, speaking in +a slow, oracular fashion. “They say there’s all sorts o’ things wrong +with me. Heart bad. Kidneys bad. Inside all wrong. They don’t tell +me much. When they do, they think they’re teaching me something.” +The eyes behind the thick glasses seemed to gleam with pride. +“They’re not teaching me anything. I could have told ’em that, Mr. +Smeeth. I could have told ’em that—yes, and a bit more—a long time +since. I’ve known all about it for years, years and years.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t say so!” Mr. Smeeth looked concerned.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’ve known it for years. They can’t tell me anything about +that heart of mine. It’s rotten. There’s many and many a man—and +I’ve known some of ’em—who’s dropped in the street with a +heart not so bad as mine. Been missing the beat for years, missing +it all over the place. Same with the kidneys. They’re rotten, too. But, +mind you, Mr. Smeeth, it’s not all the kidneys. There’s the liver to +be taken into consideration. They’re overlooking that, so far they +are, but I’m just waiting for ’em to come round to my opinion. I’m +not saying anything. I’m just letting ’em find out a few things for +themselves. One of these days, that young doctor’s going to notice +my liver and then he’s going to have another surprise. And that +isn’t all, either.” Here the astonishing image, after a little effort, +produced something like a chuckle. T. Benenden was exiled from +his shop and his financial columns and his chats with customers, +but now he had discovered in his ailments and dubious organs a +new and absorbing interest, and, stretched out there, he saw himself +<span class="pagenum" id="p398">[398]</span>as a romantic and exciting figure. Within sight of death, he was +beginning life all over again.</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth caught a fleeting glimpse of this fact, but he was +in no mood to appreciate it. The spectacle of Benenden, suddenly +transformed from a familiar Angel Pavement character, and comic +at that, to this infirm shadow of himself, filled him with dismay and +foreboding. Try as he might, he could not help believing that he +would never see T. Benenden behind that counter again. As he listened—for +Benenden did most of the talking, slowly boasting of +the severity and complication of his ailments—Mr. Smeeth told himself +that never again would the tobacconist bring out the canister of +Benenden’s Own Mixture for him.</p> + +<p>Yet there was no real evidence for this. “How is he?” he asked +the nurse who had first shown him the bed.</p> + +<p>“Who? Seventy-five? Oh, getting along all right,” she replied +briskly. “We’re operating at the end of this week or early next week. +He’ll be all right.”</p> + +<p>She sounded confident enough, but Mr. Smeeth did not know +whether to believe her or not. As he left the hospital, a clammy air +of dissolution and mortality clung to him. Barbican and Golden +Lane, through which he passed on his way to Old Street and Brown +& Gorstein’s, spoke to him only of decay. It was a curious afternoon, +belonging to one of those days that are in the very dead heart of +winter. The air was chilled and leaden. The sky above the City was +a low ceiling of tarnished brass. All the usual noises were there, +and the trams and carts that went along Old Street made as much +din as ever, yet it seemed as if every sound was besieged by a tremendous +thick silence. Cold as it was, it was not an afternoon that +made a man want to move sharply, to hurry about his business; +there was something about it, something slowed down and muffled +in the heavy air, the brooding yellowish sky, the stone buildings that +seemed to be retreating into their native rock again, that impelled a +man to linger and stare and lose himself in shadowy thought.</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth found himself doing this, after he had left Brown & +<span class="pagenum" id="p399">[399]</span>Gorstein’s, and had turned down Bunhill Row on his way back to +the office. He halted opposite that large building boldly labelled <i>The +Star Works</i>, and wondered what was made there and whether it had +anything starry about it. Then he turned round, idly, and stared +through the iron railings at the old graves there. He had been this +way before, many a time, in fact, but he never remembered noticing +before that the earth of the burying-ground was high above the +street. The railings were fastened into a wall between two or three +feet high, and the ground of the cemetery was as high as the top +of this little wall. There was something very mournful about the +sooty soil, through which only a few miserable blades of grass found +their way. It was very untidy. There were bits of paper there, broken +twigs, rope ends, squashed cigarettes, dried orange peel, and a battered +tin that apparently had once contained Palm Chocolate Nougat. +This dingy litter at the foot of the grave-stones made him feel sad. +It was as if the paper and cigarette ends and the empty tin, there +in the old cemetery, only marked in their shabby fashion the passing +of a later life, as if the twentieth century was burying itself in there +too, and not even doing it decently. He moved a step or two, then +stopped near the open space, where there is a public path across the +burying-ground. He stared at the mouldering headstones. Many of +them were curiously bright, as if their stone were faintly luminous +in the gathering darkness, but it was hard to decipher their lettering. +One of them, which attracted his attention because it was not upright +in the ground but leaned over at a very decided angle, he +found he could read: <i>In Memory of Mr. John Willm. Hill, who died +May 26th, 1790, in the eighteenth year of his age.</i> That had been a +poor look-out for somebody.</p> + +<p>“’Aving a look at the good old graves, mister?” said a voice. It +belonged to an elderly and shabby idler, one of those dreamy and +dilapidated men who seem to haunt all such places in London, and +who will offer to guide you, if you are obviously a stranger and +well-to-do, but are quite prepared to pour out information for nothing +to a fellow-citizen.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p400">[400]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, just having a look,” said Mr. Smeeth.</p> + +<p>“Ar, there’s some pretty work ’ere, if yer know where to look for +it, mister. I know the Fields well, I do. Some big men’s buried ’ere. +An’ I’ll tell yer one of ’em. Daniel Defow’s buried in ’ere, boy, and +I could take yer straight to the plice. Yers, the grite Daniel Defow.”</p> + +<p>“Is that so? Now, let me see, who was he exactly?”</p> + +<p>“Oo was ’e? Daniel Defow! Yer know Rawbinson Crusoe, +doncher? Rawbinson Crusoe on the island and Man Friday an’ all +that? Thet’s ’im. Defow—’e wrote that. Cor!—think ’e did! Known +all over the world, that piece, all over the wide world. Well, ’e’s in +’ere, Daniel Defow, and I could take yer straight to the plice. Yers, +that’s right. Monument, too—ee-rected by the boys and girls of England +to Daniel Defow ’cos ’e wrote Rawbinson Crusoe—in ’ere. I +tell yer, boy, there’s some big men in there—what’s left of ’em.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth nodded and continued to stare idly through the railings +of Bunhill Fields, where the old Nonconformists are buried in +mouldering eighteenth century elegance, to which they had at least +conformed in death if not in life; and where, among the divines and +elders, not only Defoe, but also Bunyan and Blake, the two God-haunted +men, lie in the sooty earth, while their dreams and ecstasies +still light the world. As Mr. Smeeth stared, something floated down, +touched the crumbled corner of the nearest headstone, and perished +there. A moment later, on the curved top of the little wall beside him +was a fading white crystal. He looked up and saw against the brassy +sky a number of moving dark spots. He looked down and saw the +white flakes floating towards the black pavement. In all his life, he +had never been so surprised by the appearance of snow, and for one +absurd moment he found himself wondering who had made it and +who was responsible for tumbling it into the City. He hurried away +now, and as he went the snow came faster and shook down larger +and larger flakes upon the town. Before he had reached Angel Pavement, +not only had it whitened every cranny, but it had stolen away, +behind its soft curtains, half the noises of the City, which only roared +and hooted now through the white magic as if in an uneasy dream. +<span class="pagenum" id="p401">[401]</span>It was so thick that Mr. Smeeth was no longer one of ten thousand +hurrying little figures, but a man alone with the whirling flakes. +The snow was storming the City and all London. In Twigg & +Dersingham’s, they had turned on the lights, but they could still see +a queer dim scurrying through the windows. Mrs. Smeeth, in her +little dining-room up at Stoke Newlington, watched it with delight +and remembered her childhood, when they had cried, “Snow, snow +faster, White alabaster.” Mrs. Dersingham, who had been shopping +in Kensington High Street, had to shelter from it in a doorway, and +was wondering if it had caught the children. The Pearsons, secure +in their warm maisonette in Barkfield Gardens, stood at the window +for quarter of an hour, calling one another’s attention to the size +of the flakes, for there had never been anything like this in Singapore. +Miss Verever, who had missed her usual visit to the Italian Riviera, +wrote another angry little note to her solicitor, because it was he +who had insisted upon her staying in London. Lena Golspie, in +Maida Vale, watched it for a minute or two, then switched on one +of the big shaded lights and curled among the cushions, with a +magazine, voluptuously, like a sleek blonde cat. Mr. Pelumpton was +just prevented in time from making a bid of twelve and six for a +marble clock (out of order), and stayed at home, in Mrs. Pelumpton’s +way. Benenden, having dozed off, never knew it was there. For +an hour it was unceasing, and all the open spaces on the hills, from +Hampstead Heath on one side to Wimbledon Common on the other, +were thickly carpeted, and everything in the city, except the busier +roadways and the gutters, was magically muffled and whitened and +plumed with winter, just as if it had been some old town in a +fairy-tale.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p402">[402]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_Ten_THE_LAST_ARABIAN_NIGHT"> + <i>Chapter Ten</i>: <span class="allsmcap">THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The outward changes in Turgis, already noticed by Miss Matfield +and Mr. Smeeth, were only tiny scattered hints and clues, and +by no means in proportion to the changes within, for during these +last seven weeks, ever since that night when Lena Golspie had failed +to keep her appointment with him, his life had been like a bad +dream. There are some dreams, trembling on the edge of nightmare, +in which the dreamer goes rushing frantically through dismal reeling +phantasmagoria of familiar scenes and places trying to find a lost +somebody or something. This had been Turgis’s real life. He had +got up as usual, bolted his breakfast and exchanged a word or two +with the Pelumptons, hurried down to the Tube, climbed into the +City, sent and received advice notes, telephoned to this firm and +that, fed variously in teashops and dining-rooms, looked at newspapers, +even gone to the pictures, all as usual; but these customary +activities had merely been a dream within a dream, a shadowy +routine of existence. His real life had been this pursuit of Lena, and +so far it had had all the urgency and dark bewilderment of a bad +dream.</p> + +<p>He had been able to call again at the flat before her father had +returned, but she had only spent half an hour with him and had +been vague and shifty in her excuses. He had flung away his resentment, +had made the most abject apologies, and at last had made her +promise to meet him again. She had kept him waiting twenty minutes +on this occasion, and when she did come, she only turned the +<span class="pagenum" id="p403">[403]</span>evening into a misery. She had been cold, had criticized his appearance, +his manners, and had made him jealous. When he had tried +to kiss her, she had laughed at him and evaded him. Then her father +had returned, Christmas came, and the two of them had gone to +Paris, leaving Turgis to imagine, with a vividness and force that +brought a curious mingling of pain and pleasure, a host of scenes in +which Lena went smiling in the arms of rich and handsome Frenchmen +and Americans. But at least he could not see her, and so he was +free for a few days to make what he could of life by himself. He +made nothing of it. He could not forget her for a single minute. +London was a jumble of silly meaningless faces. Before he had met +her he had spent most of his leisure looking for adventures with +girls and hardly ever finding them, but now, of course, they were +offered at every turn, thrust on him, and they had no interest at all. +He tried once—a girl outside one of the smaller picture houses had +smiled at him and he had taken her in—but it was merely dull and +savourless, like trying to eat sawdust. After that, he never bothered, +living entirely in his thought of Lena and in the memory of those +two first rapturous nights. He could not believe—how should he?—that +those two nights did not mean as much, or nearly as much, +to her as they meant to him, and so he was ready, was eager, to see +in everything she had done since merely so many mysterious feminine +moods, a queenly wilfulness and waywardness that would +gradually be consumed in the mounting fires of passion. He knew +that this was what happened with these wonderful creatures: he had +seen it happen many a time on the pictures.</p> + +<p>At first, he had realized, with wonder and humility, that it was all +miraculous, that he was nobody in particular, with nothing very +much to offer. But she herself had changed that. She had kissed him +into being somebody, and now he had a great deal to offer—his love, +his life. Very soon, being a born lover and romantic, it seemed to +him that no girl could want more than that. Living over and over +again as he did that hour or so of passionate embraces and kisses, +he could look back on what appeared to him a long intimacy with +<span class="pagenum" id="p404">[404]</span>her, far removed from any casual encounter (for he knew all about +them, and this was quite different), so that he felt he had a claim, +a right, and that when she avoided him or in any way challenged +that claim, she was trying to escape from the very condition of life +itself. Thus, if it was not wilfulness and waywardness, then it was +something abominably wicked stirring in her to be regarded as a +bigoted and militant priest would regard a heresy. None of this, of +course, moved on the surface of his mind, but it coiled and uncoiled +below that surface and obscurely determined what did eventually +move there or what at last came bursting through, exploding beyond +thought, into action.</p> + +<p>When the Golspies came back, after Christmas, it took two imploring +letters and a final telephone call (he rang up from the +nearest call box to the office during a time when Mr. Golspie was +safely away from the flat) to induce her to agree to another meeting, +and even then, after all the crescendo of excitement, she never turned +up. He was left in a hot and salted misery of shame and resentment, +but he could no more turn his mind away from her than he could +walk about with his eyes closed. And now all London and every +familiar way of life were like the flickering background of a film, +a film in which he pursued and she evaded him. He could think of +nothing, nobody, but Lena.</p> + +<p>The sleep that would not come to him at night hovered perilously +near him during the morning at the office, when, heavy, drowsy, +brooding, he would lean forward, chin in hand, one elbow on the +desk, and leave his work untouched until his attention was called to +it. He spoke little, and hardly let his dull gaze rest for a moment on +one of the others there. They told one another that he seemed stupid, +and stupid he was too, in everything that did not concern Lena. +In what did concern her, he developed a wonderful acuteness and +foresight. Thus, for example, any telephone call from the private +office could be overheard at the receiver in the general office, if the +little switchboard was rightly manipulated; and it often happened +that the Golspies talked over the telephone to one another, usually +<span class="pagenum" id="p405">[405]</span>with reference to what one or other of them proposed doing during +the evening; and Turgis became expert at catching these talks while +pretending to be at the receiver waiting for some number to be given +him. He was able, too, to work on the least hint that might be +dropped in Mr. Golspie’s casual talk. Then he would wait hours, +even on cold, sleety nights, in the neighbourhood of 4a, Carrington +Villas; sometimes in time to see her come out, perhaps with a young +man, perhaps with her father and one of his friends, and then to +stalk her down the road to the bus or the taxi rank; sometimes late +enough to see her returning home, to hear her laughter suddenly +break the silence. Twice, he had watched her, with an escort, go +into a large expensive restaurant, where he could not possibly follow +her. Once he had been able to get to the same theatre, and had sat +in the corner of the gallery, looking down at her in the stalls. He +had often jeered at young Stanley and his “shaddering,” but now, +inspired by his jealous misery, he suddenly turned himself into a +master shadower. Icy winds pierced and smote him; his feet ached +in the slush; his hands grew numb and his eyes watered; he caught +colds that ought to have sent him to bed, but he never heeded them +and somehow they disappeared; and all this discomfort hardly troubled +him at the time, for he carried a fire inside him, a burning +excitement. It was only afterwards, when he trailed back to Nathaniel +Street, sat in his little room pulling off his wet boots, turned +and tossed and coughed in his bed hour after hour, dragged himself +out in the leaden mornings, that he suffered in the body.</p> + +<p>His mind, however, lived as it had never lived before, knowing +exquisite agonies, finding pleasure and pain inextricably confused in +these hours of waiting and shadowing. Sometimes when he was returning +to his lodgings, cold, tired out, hopeless, or rose to meet +another heavy blank morning, he would tell himself that he had +done with it all, and then he might creep through a day or two +trying to live a life of his own, but everything would seem then so +dull, so savourless, that he hurried back to Carrington Villas, to the +waiting and dodging and hurrying round corners. He discovered, +<span class="pagenum" id="p406">[406]</span>too, that when he knew where Lena was, what she was actually +doing, his jealous feelings were less strong and sharply barbed than +when he did not know where she was and whom she was with: it +was bad to realise that for the next two or three hours she would +be dancing with that tall fellow who sometimes brought a car, but +it was much worse to be miles away from her and to know nothing. +When he was pursuing her, though only in this strange, shadowy +fashion, Lena and he alone were real, the only real human beings +in a city that had been turned, with all its winter magnificence of +lighted lamps and shop windows, golden buses, glittering night signs, +and shining wet pavements, into an illuminated jungle. When he +tried to put her out of his mind, however, there was nothing in the +whole city that would let him forget. It had been tantalising, maddening +enough before he had met Lena, when he had gone wandering +about the streets in an amorous hunger, but now it was a +hundred times worse. Everything he saw spoke to him of women +and love. The shops he passed were brilliant with hats and clothes +that Lena might wear; they showed him her stockings and underclothes; +they were piled high with her entrancing little shoes; they +invited him to look at her powder-bowls, her lipstick, her scent +bottles; there was nothing she wore, nothing she touched, they did +not thrust under their blazing electric lights. The theatres and picture +houses shouted to him their knowledge of girls and love. The +hoardings were covered with illustrations, nine feet high, of happy +romances. The very newspapers, under cover of a pretended interest +in Palm Beach or feminine athletics, gave him day by day photographs +of nearly naked girls with figures like Lena’s. And in and +out of the buses, tube trains, theatres, dance-halls, restaurants, teashops, +public-houses, taxis, villas, flats, went boys and their sweethearts, +girls and their lovers, men and their wives, smiling at one +another, laughing together, holding arms, clasping hands, kissing. +Slinking through this Venusberg, like a shabby young wolf, he could +not forget. It never gave him a chance. He had never given himself +a chance. He had nothing to put in the way, no ambition, no interests, +<span class="pagenum" id="p407">[407]</span>no friends; so far he had asked for little, merely food, shelter, +and trifling amusement, except love. In his heart of hearts, he did +not want to forget.</p> + +<p>That first phase of unusual smartness, brushed hair, clean collars, +creased trousers, had passed; he could not bother with that any +more; if Lena wanted him to be smart again, well and good, she +could tell him so, but meanwhile, he was his old shabby self, indeed +shabbier than ever. Mr. Dersingham, Mr. Smeeth, Miss Matfield +were beginning to give him some queer glances at the office. Well, +they could look; so long as he kept the job at all (and that was certainly +important), it did not matter to him; he was careless of all +that. He was careless of most things these days. His finances, always +difficult, had now drifted into a very bad state, and he owed Mrs. +Pelumpton a pound or two, and even then he had to cut his ordinary +expenses down to the lowest level, which meant that he had to feed +cheaply and scantily. That did not matter either, for only now and +then did he feel really hungry. Mr. Pelumpton, the old fool, had +told him several times he ought to see a doctor, and even Mrs. +Pelumpton was beginning to ask him if he hadn’t a pain anywhere, +he looked “that bad,” she said. He told her that he hadn’t a pain, +though this was not true, for very often now he had a sort of pain, +not easy to describe, but roughly amounting to a tender hollowness, +in his head. He tried one or two things at the chemist’s, just to make +him sleep, for the nights following these vigils were the worst, when +he turned and tossed and his eyes burned and the hollow place in +his head enlarged itself; but these things did not do him much +good, and what sleep he got, he paid for in the morning, when he felt +heavy and shivery, so that the scantiest wash and shave was a hard +drudgery. His work in the office was that too, though after Mr. +Smeeth had taken him into the “White Horse,” he tried to appear a +bit more energetic, for he knew very well that if he lost his job, he +was in a hopeless situation. All these things, however, were only on +the dream-like fringe of life. What was there in the centre, though +this was like a dream too, a very different dream, dark, urgent, and +<span class="pagenum" id="p408">[408]</span>with a terrible beauty, was his pursuit of Lena, the outward Lena +who was behaving so strangely to him, whom she had welcomed and +kissed and held so close. Even yet he believed that she was merely +teasing him, holding him off for a little space, and that soon all +would be well.</p> + +<p>At last, after seeing her several times in one week, at a distance +and never once alone, he made a desperate throw and spoke to her. +It was a queer night, unlike any other he had seen during the time +he had haunted Maida Vale, for during the afternoon, a Wednesday, +there had been a sudden heavy fall of snow, so sudden, so heavy, +that for once it had remained as snow and had not changed immediately +into a black slush. The roofs and gardens and privet hedges +in Carrington Villas were still white with it; even the gates and +railings here and there were snow lined; and the night was at once +curiously light and muffled. He did not pay any close attention to +these details, did not consciously observe the brilliance of the stars, +the unusually solid velvety black of the houses, the white-blanketed +spaces, the sudden crystal glitter now and again, the crunch of the +trodden snow as the night crispened; but nevertheless they stole into +his consciousness and worked obscurely there. He thought of his +boyhood, which he had not left behind him long, though usually +it seemed a hundred years away, a faded muddle. Now it returned +to him vividly, evoked by the unfamiliar sight of the snow. He had +not had a very happy boyhood, but in this hour, when it came back +purged of its shame and distresses, it seemed magical and the thought +of it warmed and melted him, so that something suspicious, something +grudging, something in his mind that matched a certain furtive +look he had, shook itself free and then vanished. It left him +feeling confident, eager, a young man in a world full of friends.</p> + +<p>Then he saw her coming up the street, the tall fellow by her side. +He was not sure at first, but then he heard her voice. He hurried +forward to meet them before they could turn in the entrance to 4a, +and he contrived it so easily that he was able to slow up and then +come face to face with them before they had reached the gate. He +<span class="pagenum" id="p409">[409]</span>stopped, raised his hat, and cried: “Good evening.” He did not know +whether to add “Miss Golspie” or “Lena,” had no time to decide, +but felt that something must be added, so ended with a mumble +that might have been anything. His heart knocked painfully. She +looked lovelier than ever in the mysterious snowy half-light.</p> + +<p>The tall young man stopped at once, raising his hat, too, and +smiling.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” Lena’s soft little cry was charged with meaning; there was +dismay, irritation, disgust in it. She hesitated a moment, threw him +a quick frowning glance, then said, coldly: “Oh—good evening,” and +at once moved away, leaving the tall young man staring after her +for a second or two. Then he gave Turgis a nod and hurried away.</p> + +<p>Turgis saw them turn in at the gate. He heard the young man’s +short gruff laugh and then an exclamation of some sort followed by +a little trill from Lena. The door closed behind them, and it might +have been banged to in his face. For several minutes he never moved. +Then he slowly walked past the house, and, looking up, saw the +light in the window above, in that room where she had given him +supper and danced with him and kissed him. For a moment he +thought wildly of marching up there, striding in and demanding to +know this and that; but he knew there was no sense in that, for not +only was the tall young man there, but also Mr. Golspie himself +might be there. He crossed the road, turned to look at the lighted +window again, stared at it until at last it was nothing but a vague +crimson blur, then walked away, his shoulders humped in misery.</p> + +<p>“Yersh,” said Mr. Pelumpton, as he shuffled into the conjugal bedroom, +three-quarters of an hour later, “e’sh jusht come in, proper +blue look on ’im, too. No, I didn’t arshk ’im where ’e’d been. I like +ter get a shivil arnsher when I arshksh a man a shivil queshen, I do. +‘Leave you alone, boy,’ I shaysh to myshelf. ‘You go your way an’ I +go mine. Yersh.’ What you shay, Mother?”</p> + +<p>“I say it’s a pity, too,” replied Mrs. Pelumpton, above the bedclothes. +“Worries me, it does, to see a quiet young feller goin’ the +<span class="pagenum" id="p410">[410]</span>wrong way like that. ’E’s got a nasty broodin’ look. And if you want +<em>my</em> opinion, ’e’s got ’imself into trouble with some girl—one of these +flappers, as they call ’em. My words, I’d give ’em flapper if I’d anything +to do with ’em!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I dare shay, I dare shay,” said Mr. Pelumpton, with philosophic +melancholy. “If it’sh bother yer want, that’sh where to find +it, that’sh my ecshperiensh. Oo, I got a narshty pain in my back to-night. +It’sh the cold, yer know.”</p> + + +<h3 id="II_9"> + II +</h3> + +<p>“Is that Mr. Levy?” Turgis cried down the telephone. “Yes, this +is Twigg and Dersingham’s. It’s about the next delivery—you know, +you were asking. Well, I’m sorry, but we can’t manage it for Tuesday. +No, they say they can’t do it. I’ve been on to them. But they’ll +manage it for Thursday—yes, the whole lot. Yes, Thursday certain, +Mr. Levy—you can depend on that. Yes, I’ll advise you. All right.”</p> + +<p>He put down the receiver and returned to his desk. He was shaking +a little. There had been something queer about his voice when +he had been speaking to Levy. As he left the telephone, he had +noticed both Miss Matfield and little Poppy Sellers glancing curiously +at him. Let them look, silly fools, and then mind their own business! +He had come to a sudden decision, and the very thought of it made +him shake with excitement, though that was not very difficult, because +he was not feeling at all well. That great hollow inside his +head was filled now with jagging hot wires; his bones ached vaguely; +his hands shook a little as he wrote; and his face kept twitching, as +if it disliked the feel of his heavy burning eyes. Yet he had not the +least desire to go to bed or to see a doctor; he did not feel ill in the +ordinary way at all; it was only nerves, he concluded, just imagination. +He had only to sleep better and eat more and all would be well.</p> + +<p>His decision was to see Lena and have it out with her that very +night, if by chance he could find her in the flat. He knew that her +<span class="pagenum" id="p411">[411]</span>father would not be there, because when he had gone to the telephone +to ring up Levy, Mr. Golspie had put a call through from the +private office, and it had been to book a table for two at a restaurant. +On this the cunning shadower in Turgis pounced at once. Mr. +Golspie sometimes took his daughter out for the evening, but Turgis +was certain that he would not trouble to book a table for her. He +had not sounded like a man who was spending the evening with his +daughter. If Lena was out, then she was out, and Turgis would have +to wait, but he knew she did not go out every night and this was a +chance not to be missed. At eight o’clock or just after, when Mr. +Golspie was well out of the way, sitting down in his West End +restaurant, he would go to the flat and, if Lena was there, he would +see her and talk to her in that room of theirs again. He would see +her, whatever happened. <i>Whatever happens, whatever happens</i>—a +voice inside him said it over and over again as the Friday afternoon, +fussy and irritable because of its week-end rush of things-that-must-be-settled-at-once, +dragged on, with the last dripping traces of snow +fading outside the window.</p> + +<p>“Finished that copying, Miss Sellers?” said Mr. Smeeth, as he +began to put away his books. “That’s the way. We’ll have that new +boy here on Monday, and then you’ll have it easier, eh? You cleared +up, Turgis? Did you have a word with Ockley and Sons—y’know, +I mentioned it to you this morning?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I did, Mr. Smeeth. It’s all right.”</p> + +<p>“You’re through, then, eh?”</p> + +<p>“All I can do to-night, Mr. Smeeth. One or two things I’ve had +to leave till to-morrow morning—couldn’t help it.”</p> + +<p>“Quite so,” said Mr. Smeeth, taking out his pipe and pouch. +“Well, I don’t think there’ll be much fear of you not turning up +here to-morrow morning. What do you say? Pay day, eh, Turgis? +That’s one of the days we <em>don’t</em> like to miss.”</p> + +<p>Turgis smiled faintly. “No, I’ll be sure not to miss that, Mr. +Smeeth. You can count on me for that.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p412">[412]</span></p> + +<p>“It’s as well we can count on somebody for something these +days,” Mr. Smeeth remarked jocularly, “Well, you can get away now, +Turgis—you, too, Miss Matfield, of course—and I’ll see you in the +morning.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right,” said Turgis. But as he was taking down his hat +and coat, he said to himself, for no particular reason: “How does he +know he’ll see me in the morning? He doesn’t want to be so jolly +sure about it.” Then as he was putting his overcoat on, he looked +across at Smeeth, who was now lighting his pipe, and said to himself: +“Old Smeethy there, with his eyeglasses and his pipe and his +nice clean collar every day and his nice home with his wife and kids +and his walk round to the bank and his seven or eight quid a week, +he’s all right and he deserves it, for all his fussing about, ’cos he’s not +a bad old stick. But he’s a bit of a dreary devil for all that, and he +thinks everything’s settled the way it is with him, and he knows no +more really about what’s going on than an old charwoman. Still, if +I got on a bit and Lena married me and we’d a nice little home the +same as his, I’d like to ask him in sometimes with his wife and we’d +have a smoke and a drink.”</p> + +<p>And Mr. Smeeth, looking up from his pipe and catching Turgis’s +eye, said to himself: “That lad’s looking bad, my words he is, worse +than ever to-day. He ought to knock off for a day or two, even if we +are short-handed. Doesn’t look after himself, that’s the trouble. And +nobody to look after him—in lodgings. Bit miserable that. But then +he’s no responsibilities, no worries, only himself to provide for, and +he could have a good life—go to concerts and all that—if he only set +about it properly. Probably doesn’t know how to look after himself. +I ought to ask him up to tea or supper one of these week-ends—be +a nice change for him—bit of home life. Yes, I’ll do that when we’re +a bit more settled and Edie’s in a good temper.”</p> + +<p>Thus, with these thoughts buzzing in their heads, they looked at +one another, almost staring as people stare at a familiar word that has +suddenly grown strange. Then, with a sober nod across the office, +they turned away, Turgis to the door and Smeeth to his desk.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p413">[413]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="III_9"> + III +</h3> + +<p>It was fine that night, and in the slight stir of wind there was a +faint warmth that hurried the black slush into the gutters. Once out +of the main road, where the bright lamps and the passing cars and +buses were crazily mirrored in the wet stone, Turgis turned into a +Maida Vale that was quite unlike the one he had seen two nights +before, when the snow lay thick on the ground. Now it was close, +dark, and dripping. Carrington Villas was one great gloomy <i>drip-drip</i> +and it smelt slightly of wet grass. Turgis, shivering a little, not +with cold, but from excitement, never gave these things a thought, +but nevertheless he noticed them. He noticed everything that night. +The least thing, a shadow moving on a curtain, a boy’s whistle far +down the road, stood out clearly, rammed itself home. At No. 2 +somebody was playing the piano, and he recognised the very piece; +he had heard it many a time at the pictures.</p> + +<p>He stood outside the gate. There was a light up there. She was in, +that was certain. Some one might be with her, but he would have +to risk that. He did not care very much now if there was somebody +there, for he could go up and say something. He waited a moment.</p> + +<p>Then, as he waited, he was suddenly visited by an impulse to go +away, to drop it all then and there and never to think about the girl +again. He felt for a second as if he had only to turn on his heel and +walk straight forwards until he reached the top of the street, just the +top of the street, that was all, and he was free and a different kind +of fellow, stronger and happier. It was almost as if a voice whispered +sharply in his ear: “Come on. Have done with it. Come away, <em>now</em>.” +There was a cold emptiness somewhere in his stomach. He wasn’t +well. He could easily have cried. If that light up there had suddenly +vanished from the window, he could have turned away without +regret. The faint crimson glow remained, however, and he could not +leave it now for a safe but empty world.</p> + +<p>Once again, he passed the broken statue of the little boy playing +<span class="pagenum" id="p414">[414]</span>with two large fishes, climbed the steps between the two peeling +pillars, and carefully rang the bell marked <i>4a</i>. When nobody seemed +to hear it, he remembered what had happened before, and tried the +other bell. The door was opened by the enormous woman in the +apron.</p> + +<p>“Do you know if Miss Golspie’s in, please?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m wearing me feet out for them people!” cried the woman. +“Up and down, and every time our own bell rings, it’s for them. +Miss Golspie, is it? I believe she’s in too, though it’s no business of +mine whether she’s in or out or gone to the devil, young man. Would +she be expecting you coming at all?”</p> + +<p>“No, she isn’t. Do you know if she’s by herself—I mean, is there +anybody else there?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll see, I’ll see. I’ll give her a shout. Just come inside and close +the door gently behind you, so there’s no draught in the place, and +then I’ll give her a shout.” And the woman went down the hall, +climbed a few stairs, and gave a shout that soon opened the door +above. “Miss Golspie, there’s a young man here, known to you—I’ve +seen him before meself—he wants to know if you’re alone up there +and can he come up to see you.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’m all on my lonesome to-night,” Turgis heard Lena cry. +“Tell him to come up, please, and I won’t be a minute.” She sounded +as if she was pleased. It was wonderful to hear her like that.</p> + +<p>“You’ve to go up and then when you get there, she says she won’t +keep you a minute, meaning you’ll wait while she tidies herself and +makes herself pretty.”</p> + +<p>“Thanks very much,” said Turgis fervently, and up he went. The +door was open and he walked forward, straight into the big sitting-room, +which he had revisited so many times in his imagination these +last few weeks that it was quite strange to see waiting quietly there +for him, the very same room, with the very same piles of bright +cushions, the same deep sofa thing, the same gramophone records, +books, magazines, bottles, fancy boxes, fruit, and glasses all over the +place, the same two big shaded lamps. He shook to see it there, +<span class="pagenum" id="p415">[415]</span>solid, real. He did not sit down, but stood in the middle of the room, +holding his hat, glancing quickly, nervously, at this thing and that.</p> + +<p>“Hel-<em>lo</em>!” cried Lena gaily in the doorway. Then the sound was +cut short. He turned to face her.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” she cried, staring at him. “It’s you.” And her face fell, her +voice dropped.</p> + +<p>He tried to say something.</p> + +<p>“Do you want to see my father about something?” she demanded.</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t. I want to see you—Lena.”</p> + +<p>“What do you want to see me about?”</p> + +<p>“Oh!—you know, Lena. Everything.”</p> + +<p>She came forward a little now. “I don’t know. My father will be +coming back soon—any minute.”</p> + +<p>“He won’t,” he told her sullenly.</p> + +<p>“How do you know he won’t? You don’t know anything about +it!”</p> + +<p>“I do. I know where he is, and I know he won’t be back for +some time.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, you <em>would</em>! That’s why you’re here. You’ve been spying and +following me about, haven’t you? Making me look a fool! <em>You</em> look +a fool too, let me tell you that, a nasty fool.”</p> + +<p>“Well, what if I have? I wanted to see you.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I didn’t want to see you,” she cried, furious now. “And you +ought to have known I didn’t. You can’t take a hint. I told you as +plainly as I could I didn’t want to see you any more.”</p> + +<p>“Lena, why don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Because I <em>don’t</em>, and that’s why. If I don’t want to see you, why +don’t you go away and stop away? I don’t want you hanging about +me and coming slinking in here, looking like nothing on earth. Just +because I felt sorry for you once and hadn’t anything much to do +and was nice to you, do you think I’ve got to spend all my time +trailing round to the pictures with you?”</p> + +<p>“But, Lena, listen⁠——”</p> + +<p>“I tell you I won’t listen. I don’t want to hear. If you only <em>saw</em> +<span class="pagenum" id="p416">[416]</span>yourself! Go away. I won’t listen. I didn’t want to be rude to you, +but you’re so <em>stupid</em> and you just make me look silly too.”</p> + +<p>“Lena, please, please, just listen a minute⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, go away, can’t you! Fool!”</p> + +<p>“You’ll have to listen,” he screamed. He sprang forward, dropping +his hat, and seized both her wrists and held them tight. As she +struggled to break loose, he poured it all out in a wild unbroken +rush of short phrases, the whole story of his first distant adoration, +his desire and his passion, all the ecstasies and miseries of his love. +As he came to the end, his grasp suddenly slackened and she was able +to free her wrists. She had not listened to him. She was in a fury.</p> + +<p>“You damned rotten rotten⁠——” she gasped, fighting for breath. +Then she flared up into a shriek: “Keep your filthy hands off me,” +and she flung her own hands into his face, pushing him away.</p> + +<p>Things were snapping inside him now like taut fiddle-strings. +“All right, I’ll kiss you for that,” he cried, and caught hold of her +before she could get away. He was not a muscular youth, but he was +strong enough now. He pressed her body to his and forced a few +brief kisses upon her before she had a chance to do anything but +push and wriggle. The feel of her body, the soft cheek burning beneath +his lips, the scent of her hair, touched a spring inside him; all +tenderness for her vanished; his blood leaped and sent a murderous +cataract roaring in his ears. He still held her, but hardly noticed her +hands on his face.</p> + +<p>She gave a violent twist, partly freeing herself. “You dirty, filthy +pig!” she cried. “Let me go. I hate you. If you touch me again, I’ll +scream and scream until somebody comes.”</p> + +<p>He looked at her and there came, like a flash of lightning, the +conviction that she was hateful, and something broke, and a great +blinding tide of anger swept over him. Her scream was cut short, +for his hands were round her soft white throat, pressing and pressing +it as he shook her savagely. Her head wobbled like a silly mechanical +doll’s. Her mouth was open and her eyes were bulging, and so she +wasn’t even nice to look at any more, but just silly and ugly, so silly +<span class="pagenum" id="p417">[417]</span>and ugly that his hands, which had an independent life of their +own now and were strong and masterful, pressed harder than ever. +A horrible rusty noise came from that open mouth. She suddenly +went limp, and, as his hands released their grip, her eyes closed and +she slipped backwards, striking her head against the corner of the +divan as she fell and then rolling over on to the floor, a huddle of +clothes and white flesh. She made no movement at all, not a twitch, +not a tremor. He crept forward, his eyes fixed on what could be +seen of her face, purply-white and still. The whole figure was completely +motionless. He waited a minute, raising his eyes in a slow +strained fashion until they took in nothing but the shape and colour +of a fancy box of cigarettes on the little table by the divan. There +was a gay picture of a Turkish woman on the box. He had had some +cigarettes from that box; they were very good; they were foreign +cigarettes; Turkish, of course, but not sold in England; foreign words +just above the picture of the Turkish woman, foreign words. Very +slowly his eyes left the box and returned to the figure on the floor. +Lena. Not a movement. No, that wasn’t Lena any more; that was +a body. You couldn’t lie there like that unless you were dead. Lena +was dead.</p> + +<p>He stopped thinking then; no more thoughts came, not one. He +picked up his hat and shambled quickly out of the room, out of the +flat, leaving the door wide open behind him. When he reached the +hall below, somebody came out from somewhere, perhaps spoke to +him, but he took no notice. He left the house. It was better outside, +in the dark.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_9"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>Down the straight length of Maida Vale, past the detached villas, +past the great blocks of flats that were like illuminated fortresses, he +moved at a steady pace, never lingering, just as if he were a young +man who knew exactly where he was going and knew exactly how +long it would take him to get there. But he wasn’t going anywhere; +<span class="pagenum" id="p418">[418]</span>he was only moving on, simply leaving that room with the bright +cushions and the fancy boxes and the quiet huddle of clothes and +limbs by the end of the deep sofa. He wasn’t quite real. He was +a young man walking in a film. Somebody spoke to him once. It +was a big man in a cap and mackintosh, and he planted himself +squarely in front of the dazed Turgis and said, almost angrily: +“Here, I say, how do I find Nugent Terrace?” And when Turgis +muttered that he didn’t know, that he was a stranger in that district, +the big man said that he was a stranger too and that everybody he +asked was a stranger, that they were all bloody strangers. When +Turgis was walking on again, he kept repeating that—“all bloody +strangers.” He noticed things as he went along, though they weren’t +very real, only like the things you see in the background of a film. +Maida Vale turned itself into Edgware Road, and immediately became +bright and crowded, a gleaming medley of shop windows, +pubs, picture theatre entrances, hawkers’ barrows, and pale faces. +There was a shop where you could get sixpenny packets of gaspers +for fivepence. A woman was shouting at a pub door; she was drunk. +A lot of people were waiting to see the pictures, and a fellow with +a banjo was singing to them. Two Chinamen came out of a sweet +shop: <i>All These Chocolates Our Own Make</i>. That fried fish smelt +bad. Two men starting a row, and a woman trying to pull one of +them away. A good raincoat for 25/6. Funny what a lot of these +imitation bunches of bananas there were, and didn’t look a bit like +the real ones either. That chap standing in the shop doorway was +just like Smeeth, might be his double. It streamed on and on, like +a coloured film, a film with heavy bumping bodies and real eyes in +it. Marble Arch, and some people waiting for buses.</p> + +<p>Now, quite suddenly, he felt sick and terribly tired. There was +nothing left of his body but some tiny aching old bones, but his +head was enormous and there was more screeching and grinding +and dull roaring in the great hollow inside it than there was among +the cars in the road. He tried to think. Had he really gone there +and done that? He had gone to that room so many times in his +<span class="pagenum" id="p419">[419]</span>imagination, had so many scenes there, so many vivid encounters +with Lena, that perhaps this last visit wasn’t real either. Had he +done that? His fingers, closing round ghostly flesh, sent a sharp +message to say he had done it. Yes, he had. Then there was no +changing it at all. It was there. As if curtains had suddenly parted +and been drawn up, he saw the room again; he was back in it; a +Turkish woman on a box of cigarettes, and then—on the floor, not +a movement. Something inside him, a little wild thing, trapped, mad, +sent up a scream. Something else muttered over and over again that +it was an accident, only an accident, a pure accident, just an accident, +all accidental, simply an accident; and then it said that he +wasn’t well, not at all well, ill in fact, nerves and all that, yes nerves, +quite ill, not healthy, not well. The tears came into his eyes as he +thought how true this was, for lots of people had said that he wasn’t +well and he knew he wasn’t well. Then a bus came up and everybody +got on it, so he got on it too, and sat inside. The man next to +him had a big swelling at the back of his neck, and for a moment +Turgis was sorry for him, but after that he forgot all about him, +forgot about all the other people in the bus, forgot all about Oxford +Street and Regent Street that rolled past like a gleaming and glittering +frieze. He did not notice where the bus was going; he did not +care; he sank into a sick stupor.</p> + +<p>“’Ere, come along,” said the conductor. “Fares, please.”</p> + +<p>Mechanically, vacantly, Turgis handed him twopence and received +his ticket.</p> + +<p>Nobody else bothered about him at all. They glanced in his direction +and then looked indifferently away. Yet in a week or two +perhaps they might all of them be talking about him. But then he +would not be Turgis any more, Mrs. Pelumpton’s lodger and the +railway and shipping clerk at Twigg & Dersingham’s; he would be +the Maida Vale Flat Murderer; and as that he could set huge machines +in motion, send men running here and there, men with notebooks, +men with cameras; news editors would mention him at +conferences; sub-editors would rack their brains for good headlines +<span class="pagenum" id="p420">[420]</span>for him; reporters would describe his little room in Nathaniel Street +and interview Mrs. Pelumpton; columns on his “ill-fated romance” +would be commissioned for the Sunday papers; good money would +be paid for the smallest snapshot of him; every detail of his past +would be sent roaring through the printing machines; men who had +known him would boast of it; special contributors would comment +on his story and his fate for twenty guineas a thousand words; +scholarly criminologists would make a note of his case for future +reference; novelists and dramatists would see if he could be worked +up into anything good; millions would talk about him, would denounce +him, would cry for his execution, would sign petitions, or +perhaps pray for his soul; if he were set free, ten thousand women +would be ready to marry him, and any halting sentences he could +produce about himself would be handsomely paid for and conjured +into The Story of My Life, announced on innumerable placards +and hoardings: he would be somebody at last—the Maida Vale Flat +Murderer. As yet, however, he was only a shabby, hollow-eyed youth +with a vacant look, huddled in a seat that slowly moved round +Piccadilly Circus, where, against the night sky, commerce was clowning +it royally in a multi-coloured fantasy of lights. Nobody bothered +about him yet; they were, as the big man had said, all strangers.</p> + +<p>At the corner of the Strand and Wellington Street the bus turned +and then stopped, and there he left it and began walking eastward. +He had no destination, no plan; his mind issued no commands to +his body to move, this way or that; his legs simply went on; while +his mind was half in a dream and, for the rest, a vague jangle of +conflicting voices. It was quieter now, less crowded, for he was going +along Fleet Street, where later, perhaps, the machines would pound +him into brisk news just as the other machines had pulped the tall +trees into paper for such news. They were waiting, just round the +corner, down the dark alleys, these machines, ready to pounce on +some unhappy morsel of humanity. But as yet he was still only +Turgis, Mrs. Pelumpton’s, Twigg & Dersingham’s, and now he +drifted on, up Ludgate Hill, turning his face towards the old grey +<span class="pagenum" id="p421">[421]</span>ghost of St. Paul’s, then curving in its shadow round Church Yard, +up Old Change, down Cheapside, along Milk Street and Aldermanbury. +It was better here in the City; not so much glare and noise, +not so many people; it was huge, dark, and wettish, like a big cellar, +a cave. It made his head feel better; and at last he could think a bit, +though it was like trying to think in a nightmare. His legs were +taking him somewhere now. There was no sense in it, but then there +was no sense in anything. Oh, what had he done, what had he done? +A street lamp, set queerly at the side of a great blank wall, threw +its uncertain light on to a short curving flight of stone steps. While +he questioned himself, his feet sought these steps and trod them with +an ease that suggested familiarity. His hand touched the stout little +iron post at the top, as it had done many and many a time before, +for the blank wall belonged to <i>Chase & Cohen: Carnival Novelties</i>, +and these were the steps that prevented Angel Pavement from being +a <i>cul de sac</i>.</p> + +<p>Two little yellow lights flickered at him, like a dubious pair of +eyes, from somewhere down the little street. He walked towards +them, quite slowly now, as if at last his mind was attempting to +control his legs. The lights were those of a car. They were the feeble +headlights of a taxi. And above this taxi, there was one lighted window, +on the first floor, and on the first floor of No. 8. Somebody was +in the office, Twigg & Dersingham’s, at this time, ten o’clock. He had +to tell himself so very slowly and clearly, and he did it while he was +standing in front of the waiting taxi.</p> + +<p>He put his head round the corner, to look in the driver’s seat. “I +say,” he began, with difficulty as if his voice was rusty, “I say⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Hel-lo, hel-lo!” the driver suddenly shouted, so that Turgis +jumped back. “What the hel-lo! You give me a start, mate. I must +ha’ dropped off.”</p> + +<p>“I say,” said Turgis, returning to look at him earnestly, “did you +bring somebody here? In there, I mean.”</p> + +<p>“I did,” replied the driver. “And I’m waiting for the party to +come out.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p422">[422]</span></p> + +<p>“Who was it? I mean, what was he like?”</p> + +<p>The driver pushed forward a wrinkled red face. “Now I should +say—that’s my business. Who d’you think you are, young feller? +Scotland Yard or what?”</p> + +<p>“No, but you see, I happened to be passing, you see,” he hesitated +a moment, “and, well, I work up there—where the light is—in that +office, and I wondered who it was.”</p> + +<p>“Your place—like?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.” Turgis gulped. He felt sick; he was trembling; he couldn’t +talk like this long. “My place, where I work.”</p> + +<p>“I see. Well, matter of fact, there’s two of ’em in there, and I +brought ’em here from a restaurant in Greek Street. There’s a young +lady and a stiffish gent—big moustache. That’s who’s in there, mate. +Now are you satisfied?”</p> + +<p>“Yes—thanks.”</p> + +<p>“’Ere,” said the driver, after a pause, pushing his face over the +edge of his door and staring at Turgis, “’ere, half a minute, boy, +what’s the matter? You’re not crying, are you? Got the jim-jams, boy, +or what?”</p> + +<p>But Turgis had disappeared into the dark doorway.</p> + + +<h3 id="V_6"> + V +</h3> + +<p>The office door was slightly open, so that a thin pencil of light +pointed across the landing. Turgis waited a minute, staring at it from +the shadow. He passed a hand roughly over his wet face. Then, +summoning all the courage left him in the world, he blundered in, +almost flinging himself into the private office beyond.</p> + +<p>“Now who the hell are you?” roared Mr. Golspie, jumping up +from his chair at the table. Somebody gave a scream. It was Miss +Matfield, in the corner.</p> + +<p>“Lena,” said Turgis, choking over the name.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll be damned! If it isn’t What’s-his-name—Turgis.” Mr. +Golspie glared at him, and advanced ferociously. “And what the +<span class="pagenum" id="p423">[423]</span>devil do you want charging in here like this, eh? What’s the game, +eh?”</p> + +<p>“Lena. Lena.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean my daughter, Lena? What are you talking about? +What about her? What the blazes has she got to do with you?”</p> + +<p>“I think—I’ve killed her.”</p> + +<p>“<em>Killed</em> her?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.” And Turgis stumbled to a chair and began sobbing.</p> + +<p>“My God! he’s mad, he’s clean mad,” cried Mr. Golspie to Miss +Matfield, who had risen from her chair and was looking from Turgis +to Mr. Golspie in startled bewilderment. “Here, you, stop that blubbering, +and try to talk sense. What do you know about my daughter, +Lena? You’ve never even set eyes on her.”</p> + +<p>“I have,” cried Turgis, almost indignantly. “I was with her to-night, +in your flat. I’ve been there before. I took some money there +first⁠——” He hesitated.</p> + +<p>“That’s right, he did take some money there,” said Miss Matfield +quickly. “Oh!—I believe it’s true.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Golspie pounced on him at once, clapping a heavy hand on his +shoulder. “Come on, then. What happened? Get it out, quick.”</p> + +<p>Turgis blurted out a few sentences, broken and confused, but they +were quite enough.</p> + +<p>“My God, if she is, I’ll kill <em>you</em>. Come on, get up, you—you bloody +little rat, you—we’re going straight into that taxi and we’re going +to see, and you’re coming with us.”</p> + +<p>“But can’t you telephone?” cried Miss Matfield, wildly.</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course—no, I can’t. I knew I’d have thought of it. The +rotten telephone’s out of order—been out of order for two days. +Come on, let’s get away. You turn the lights out, Lilian; I’m going +to look after this fellow. Hurry up, for God’s sake.”</p> + +<p>It was a long long journey. For the first five minutes or so, nothing +was said, but after that Mr. Golspie, out of sheer impatience, +began to ask questions, and piece by wretched piece, he dragged the +whole miserable story out of Turgis, who sat facing him, on one of +<span class="pagenum" id="p424">[424]</span>the little seats, trembling, afraid every minute that Mr. Golspie was +going to hurl himself across the tiny space at him. His misery was +so great, now that his brain was clearer, that he felt that he would +not mind being killed, but nevertheless Mr. Golspie’s huge violence, +repressed but apparently ready to burst out any moment, terrified +him. Miss Matfield hardly spoke a word the whole time, and when +she did it was in a very soft shaky voice. But she stared at Turgis, +and when the lights flashed in he saw that her face was pale. It +never occurred to him to wonder what she was doing there so late +with Mr. Golspie.</p> + +<p>“It just shows you, doesn’t it?” said Mr. Golspie to Miss Matfield. +“If I hadn’t suddenly thought during dinner I ought to slip back +there for quarter of an hour, to tot those figures up to show that +chap in the morning, we’d never have seen this fellow. What were +you doing there anyhow? I don’t know if it’s much good asking you, +because you seem to me wrong in your damned head—but what were +you doing there?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” Turgis muttered. “I just went there. I didn’t know +where I was going. I suppose when I got to the City, well, I just +went to Angel Pavement—sort of force of habit.”</p> + +<p>“Another ten minutes and we shouldn’t have been there, and then +I shouldn’t have got back home till twelve. What time is it now? +Quarter past ten, eh? What time did you leave my place?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know really. I’m all mixed up⁠——”</p> + +<p>“My God!—you are,” said Mr. Golspie bitterly. “And you’re going +to be a worse mix up soon, let me tell you.”</p> + +<p>“I think—it couldn’t have been much after eight—I don’t know, +though—might have been half-past eight.”</p> + +<p>“Nearly two hours—och!” Mr. Golspie groaned. “Here, this fellow’s +got to drive faster than this, or we’ll be all the damned night +getting there.”</p> + +<p>It was horrible stumbling back up that garden path again, going +through the hall and climbing the stairs once more. It was worse +inside the flat. “You go in there and wait, you,” said Mr. Golspie, +<span class="pagenum" id="p425">[425]</span>and gave him a mighty shove that landed him in the middle of the +sitting-room, which seemed to him now, of all the places he had +ever known, the most horrible, the most closely packed with misery, +and the very sight of its cushions and fancy boxes made him feel +sick. Nevertheless, he had not been there more than a minute before +he knew somehow that Lena was not dead. Then, after a few more +minutes, voices came through the open door behind him, and he +turned and crept nearer to it.</p> + +<p>“No, no, no!” cried a voice, and he recognised it at once as that +of the foreign, witch-like old woman who lived downstairs, “she +would not ’ave a doctair. I loosen her dress and geef her cognac and +do dees teeng and odair teengs, and ven I say, ‘You ’ave a vairy great +shock, my dee-air, ve call a doctair,’ she say: ‘No, no, no. No doctair.’ +Vell den, eet does not mattair. But I say, ‘You go to bed. Aw, +yes, you go to bed, at vonce, my dee-air.’ And she deed not vant +to go to bed, but I make her go.”</p> + +<p>“Little monkey!” Mr. Golspie rumbled. “Good job you thought +something was up, though, and came in. I’m much obliged. Very +grateful. Just take Miss Matfield here in to her, will you, and I’ll be +back in a minute or two.”</p> + +<p>“Is she all right?” cried Turgis, as Mr. Golspie came into the room.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know about that,” he replied grimly, “but she’s a damned +sight better than she was when you left her lying here, you crazy +little skunk. Come here.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!—thank God!”</p> + +<p>“Come here. You can do your thanking afterwards.” And he +grabbed Turgis by the lapel of his coat and yanked him nearer. +“Just listen to me. There are one or two things I could do to you. +To start with, I could give you such a damned good hiding you’d +never want to look at a girl, never mind put your hands on her, for +the next six months. See?” And he shook Turgis with a sort of +menacing playfulness, like a terrier with a rat. “And while I’m +about it, here’s a bit of good advice for you. Keep away from ’em. +You’re not a lady-killer, y’know—though, by God, you nearly were +<span class="pagenum" id="p426">[426]</span>to-night—and if you take a good look at yourself, you’ll see why. +Drop it. You’re no good at it. And another thing I could do to you, +mister half-starved caveman, is to hand you over to the police. I +could do that all right, couldn’t I?” he demanded, looking sternly +at his wretched prisoner, who, hearing that tone and meeting that +look, had every excuse for not realising that this was the last thing +Mr. Golspie had any idea of doing.</p> + +<p>“Yes, you could, Mr. Golspie,” he replied miserably. He saw himself +marched off, locked in a cell.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m not going to, not yet, anyhow. But, listen—if I ever set +eyes on you again, I will. If you come within a mile of this +place⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I won’t, I won’t.” And Turgis certainly meant it.</p> + +<p>“And you don’t go back to that office, understand? You don’t go +near it again. Keep right away from it. Keep away from me altogether, +see?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, yes,” Turgis gasped, for now Mr. Golspie had stopped +shaking him, but was pulling him backwards through the sitting-room +doorway, almost lifting him bodily with that huge powerful +grasp on his coat shoulder.</p> + +<p>“I don’t ever want to see you again, unless it’s in the dock or the +madhouse,” said Mr. Golspie, throwing open the door of the flat with +one hand while with the other he gave a violent twist and brought +Turgis round in front of him. “The very sight of you turns my +stomach, see? You understand? You’re not going back to that office, +and you’re not coming within a mile of this flat, and you’re going +to keep out of my sight and you’re going to keep your nasty mouth +shut, too. You’ve been lucky to-night, my God you have! But if ever +I see you again, you won’t be lucky. So get out and bloody well stay +out. There!” And Mr. Golspie, spinning him round, released his coat +collar, put a hand in the small of his back, and with a short run +and a tremendous heave sent him sprawling down the stairs. He +pitched forward badly, banged his nose so hard that it bled, and was +<span class="pagenum" id="p427">[427]</span>bruised, but managed to pick himself up at the bottom and go blindly +along the hall to the front door.</p> + +<p>He waited a minute outside, leaning dizzily against one of the +pillars. The cool darkness rocked round him. In the garden, just by +the broken statue of the boy and the two fishes, he was violently sick.</p> + + +<h3 id="VI_1"> + VI +</h3> + +<p>Nearly all Nathaniel Street was in darkness when he returned +there that night. At No. 5 they were still up, and he could hear +them singing; a rum lot at No. 5. Across the street there was a light +or two and a gramophone going somewhere. But that was all. No. 9 +was in complete darkness; obviously they had all gone to bed, Edgar +too, for when Edgar was out, Mrs. Pelumpton always left a light in +the hall for him, a courtesy she did not extend to her two lodgers, +Park and Turgis. If they were so late, they had to grope. Very, +quietly, slowly and painfully, for he had walked all the way from +Maida Vale, partly because he wanted to arrive late and so avoid any +questions, and was tired out, aching all over, Turgis crawled upstairs +to his room at the top. There he lit the tiny gas mantle, and then +sat down on his bed, resting his head in his hands.</p> + +<p>All his face felt stiff. Laboriously, he removed his soaking shoes, +and was not surprised to find that his socks were wet. He put a +match to the little gas-fire, which exploded with a startling bang in +that stillness. He did not take his socks off, but held out in turn the +sole of each foot towards the gas-fire and watched it steam. He had +no slippers; he was always meaning to buy some, but never did. He +stared at his reflection, holding the cracked little mirror in the +wooden frame near the gaslight. There was a bruise on the ridge of +his rather prominent nose; dried blood caked about the nostrils; a +long smear down one cheek and just above one eyebrow. The eyes, +red-rimmed, stared back at him in despair. In all his life he had +never hated himself as much as he did then. The cracked face in the +black wooden frame began to twitch a little, and he banished it. The +<span class="pagenum" id="p428">[428]</span>water he had used before going out was still in the basin, and now +he soaped his hands in it and rubbed them over his face, until his +eyes smarted. When he had finished wiping his face, he looked at it +again in the mirror, and found that the smears and dried blood had +gone, but that the bruise was more marked than before. He did not +look long. His face, pale and silly, disgusted him. Going through his +pockets, he discovered a crumpled cigarette and had the first smoke +for several hours. He remembered the last one, when he was on his +way to Maida Vale, not five hours ago. Not five hours ago! A hundred +years ago.</p> + +<p>The haze had completely vanished from his mind, leaving a dreadful +clarity. He saw himself quite clearly, and loathed what he saw. +He knew now that Lena was simply a little flirt, who had happened +to be bored, her friends being away, when he first called at the flat +with the money, and had amused herself with him for a few hours +because she had nothing better to do and, for the time being, his +obvious worship entertained her. Then the minute somebody better +came along, she had dropped him at once, and had afterwards been +so annoyed that she had disliked the very sight of him. Now it +seemed all quite clear, and it was unbelievable that he could not see +it like that before, that he could have gone on dreaming away and +hanging about to see her and deluding himself. He did not even +hate her now. She simply did not interest him.</p> + +<p>What did interest him, however, was the figure he cut himself, +and that was what he saw with such terrible clearness. As he sat +drooping on the bed, pulling away mechanically at the last inch of +the cigarette, he put himself through a pitiless cross-examination. +How could he ever have thought that he could make a girl like Lena +fall in love with him, a girl who was pretty, who could meet all +kinds of fellows, who had lived in places like Paris, who had a father +with money? The very thought of Mr. Golspie crushed the last +grains of self-respect in him. What had he, Harold Turgis, been +fancying himself for? What was he? What could he do? What had +he got? Nothing, nothing, nothing. Only a silly face, with a big +<span class="pagenum" id="p429">[429]</span>useless nose and a trembling mouth and eyes that began to water +almost if anybody looked hard at them. He threw the stump of his +cigarette at the dirty saucer in front of the gas-fire, missed it, and had +to go down painfully on his knees and retrieve the glowing end.</p> + +<p>He returned to the bed and curled up on it, his eyes fixed on some +photographs, cut out of a film weekly, pinned up on the opposite +wall; but he did not see the photographs, for he was staring through +them, through the wall, into the future, a vague darkness, in which +he, a small lonely figure, moved obscurely. His job was gone. He had +finished with Twigg & Dersingham and Angel Pavement. Perhaps +they might have given him a rise soon; he might have had Smeeth’s +job and seven or eight pounds a week before long, a proper home +and carpets and armchairs and a big wireless set of his own; and +now it might be a long time before he got a job as good as the one +he had just lost. What could he do? A bit of typing and clerking, +that was all, and anybody could do that; even girls could do it; +some of them, really educated ones like Miss Matfield (yes, and +what had she been doing with Mr. Golspie?), just as well as he +could. And when he had queued up and looked at advertisements +and written letters and trailed round and waited and got a job at +last, what then? What would he get out of it? Nothing. He saw the +world before him with no happiness in it, only foolish work and +weariness, and unnamed fears, a place of jagged stones, shadows, dim +menacing giants.</p> + +<p>Having got so far, he could go no further. A little voice, like that +of some tiny erect indignant figure in a great gloomy assembly, spoke +up now, protesting. It was not right. It was not fair. There had been +a time when it had looked as if everything was going to be quite +different. Something had gone wrong. Where, how had it gone +wrong? He could be happy; he could be as happy as anybody, if +only he had a chance to be; and why hadn’t he a chance to be? +Here!—if he’d a chance, he could be a lot happier than Park or +Smeeth or even Mr. Dersingham—yes, he could! Then why shouldn’t +he be? What was wrong? What <em>was</em> it, what <em>was</em> it? The little voice +<span class="pagenum" id="p430">[430]</span>asked these questions, but no answer came. No answer. It was as if +the erect figure suddenly collapsed and the gloomy assembly remained +untroubled, unstirring.</p> + +<p>It was no good. Every bit of him, from the damp soles of his feet +to his tangled hair (which seemed to have a separate and equally +miserable existence of its own, this night), agreed that it was no +good. He stood up. He looked about him, as if searching the little +room in despair for something to touch, to hold, to cling to, now +that the night was pouring in, through the decayed woodwork of +the window frame, through the cracked mortar and the foul old +stone, its malevolent influences, its beckoning and gibbering ghosts. +The calm, the clarity, were gone; the dream fumes rose and drifted +again; but when he moved, he still moved slowly, as if led here and +there by uncertain spectral hands. He fastened the window tight, +and stuffed paper in its various crevices. The door fitted badly, and +he had to stuff more paper, indeed all the paper he had, between the +door and the frame, and then in the keyhole. He turned off the gas +from the tiny mantle, leaving the room uncertainly illuminated by +the gas-fire. For a moment he considered the dying glow of the +mantle. Could he use that gas? If he had a tube he could, but he +hadn’t a tube; and if he turned it on full, it gave out so little gas +that it would be painfully, horribly slow doing anything to him. No, +the gas-fire was the thing. He had only to turn it out now, wait a +minute or two until the burners had cooled, then put a hand to that +tap again, lie on his bed and hear the gas hissing out for a minute +or two, fall asleep and all would be over.</p> + +<p>He sat on the floor, in front of the fire, leaning his elbow against +the side of his bed. Staring at the three twisted glowing pillars of +the fire, he contemplated with sombre satisfaction his approaching +end. It would be painless, that he knew, for he had once talked to a +man in the Pavement Dining Rooms, and this man had a brother +who was a policeman, and this policeman had had a lot of experience +with people who had done it with gas and he gave it as his +opinion that they all passed quietly away in their sleep without a bit +<span class="pagenum" id="p431">[431]</span>of pain and fuss and worry: it was far easier getting out of the world +altogether than taking a train to the City at Camden Town Tube +Station. They would find him in the morning, peacefully asleep. +There would be an inquest and it would get into the papers. Some +of them, Mr. Golspie and Lena, perhaps, would have to give evidence. +Mrs. Pelumpton, too. Had the deceased been strange in his +actions lately, had he something on his mind? A promising young +fellow—would anybody say that? Tragic End, Young Clerk’s Fatal +Romance. Who would be really sorry? Nobody. No, no, one or two, +perhaps a lot of people; you never knew. Poppy Sellers, for instance; +Miss Matfield had said that little Poppy, poor kid, was keen on him; +so that she ought to be sorry, very sorry; perhaps it would be the +great sorrow of her life—“He meant everything to me, that boy. I +worshipped him”—he could hear these, and other heart-broken +phrases from the pictures, coming from a rather vague Poppy Sellers, +very pale and dressed in black. It made him feel sorry himself, and +it was the pleasantest feeling he had had for hours, quite warm and +luxuriant.</p> + +<p>“A very sad case, gentlemen,” said the coroner, mournfully. “Here +you have a young man full of promise⁠——” Turgis interrupted him, +for somehow Turgis was there too: “It’s all right saying that <em>now</em>,” +he cried to them all, triumphant in his bitterness, “but why didn’t +you do something about it before? It’s too late now, and you know +it is. Too late, too late! Let this,” he continued sternly, “be a warning +to you.” But that was silly. He would be dead and gone. Perhaps +he ought to leave a letter; they usually left letters; but he hated +writing letters, and he knew there was no ink in the room. No, of +course, he hadn’t any ink! He’d nothing! He might as well finish it +off now, and show them all, the rotten swine!</p> + +<p>As he arrived at this savage conclusion, he noticed for the first +time that the three little glowing pillars of the gas-fire were dwindling. +They shrank rapidly until they were nothing but quivering +blue blobs that shot up once and popped, shot up again and popped, +then popped out altogether. No more gas. He hadn’t a shilling, he +<span class="pagenum" id="p432">[432]</span>had only eightpence. He couldn’t even commit suicide, couldn’t +afford it.</p> + +<p>After a short silence, an unusual sound, a most strange sound, a +fantastic and incredible sound, came from the side of the bed and +travelled round the dark little room. It came from Turgis, and he +may have been crying, he may have been laughing, or doing both +at once. He was certainly not committing suicide.</p> + +<p>He made a great deal of noise now. Putting out a hand, quite +instinctively, to the tap of the gas-fire, he touched something hot in +the darkness there, gave a sharp cry, and banged his hand on the +floor. Then he stumbled to the window to pull out the paper, and +somehow the window stuck and he pushed so hard that when it did +open, the rotten old woodwork of the frame partly gave way, and +as it suddenly flew open and the night air rushed in, there was a +loud crack. The door was noisier still. He was determined to get all +the paper away, but it was not easy and he was impatient, and he +began pulling away at the knob of the door until at last the door +suddenly swung in and he sat down with a bump, the knob still in +his hand. It was then that he heard sounds from below, and saw +through the open door a light travelling jerkily upwards. The next +minute he was looking at the extraordinary figure of Mr. Pelumpton, +who was standing outside in his nightshirt, holding a candle.</p> + +<p>“Now let’sh ’ave reashon, let’sh ’ave reashon,” said Mr. Pelumpton +reproachfully. “Bangin’ and knocking the housh about like that! +The mishish thought shomebody was breakin’ in. ’Ave a bit o’ +shensh, boy, jusht ’ave a bit o’ shensh! Can’t go on like that, thish +time o’ night. It’sh all very well going out an’ ’aving a pint or two +an’ coming in late—done it myshelf in me time—but that’sh no +reashon for carrying on like that, ish it? Blesh me shoul!—like a +nearthquake, jusht like a nearthquake. Now jusht get yourshelf to +bed quietly, boy, and let other people shleep even if you can’t.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry,” Turgis told him. “It was an accident. I’m all right. +I’m not drunk or anything.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you might be in the ratsh, properly in the ratsh, green +<span class="pagenum" id="p433">[433]</span>sherpentsh all round you, the way yer going on,” said Mr. Pelumpton +severely, as he withdrew.</p> + +<p>In ten minutes, Turgis was fast asleep.</p> + + +<h3 id="VII"> + VII +</h3> + +<p>“Well, we’ll have to see,” said Mrs. Pelumpton dubiously. “That’s +what we’ll have to do, we’ll have to see.”</p> + +<p>Turgis had been trying to explain, without any reference to the +real facts, why he hadn’t gone to the office that Saturday morning, +why he wasn’t going there again, and why he couldn’t immediately +pay Mrs. Pelumpton what he owed her. He had not come down to +breakfast until late, and both Pelumptons were convinced that he +had been uproariously drunk on the previous night, when he had +made all that noise.</p> + +<p>“I’m sure they’ll let me have this fortnight’s money all right, Mrs. +Pelumpton,” he told her. “And then I’ll settle up at once, before I do +anything else.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pelumpton stopped bustling about for a minute, stood and +looked at him, making herself as compact as possible, so that she +seemed exactly square from the front; and suddenly said in a +startlingly deep voice: “Will you promise me one thing?”</p> + +<p>Turgis said he would. He was ready to promise anything to her.</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s this. Promise me to keep right off the drink this next +week or two.”</p> + +<p>“I promise,” he replied promptly. Two glasses of bitter a week +were usually enough for him at any time. The Pelumptons were +positive, however, that he had been drinking heavily for weeks. +Mr. Pelumpton, a beer man himself, said that whisky made you +look and behave like that, if you could only get enough of it.</p> + +<p>“In or out of work, that ’abit’s bad,” Mrs. Pelumpton continued. +“But far, far worse it is, out of work. Keep off it for a bit. Don’t +touch a drop. I’m not one of these prohibiters and temperancers—though +I did sign the pledge when I was a girl, but then I wouldn’t +<span class="pagenum" id="p434">[434]</span>’ave touched a drop then anyhow, didn’t like the taste of it—but +I do say that a young feller like yourself who’s going to ’ave to +look for a job is better without a single drop, if only for the sake of +not being smelt.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure you’re right, Mrs. Pelumpton,” said Turgis, who was +hoping that this good advice meant that she was willing to let him +stay on while he was looking for another job.</p> + +<p>“I know I am. And what’s just ’appened—’cos you can talk about +business until you’re blue in the face, but you won’t make me +believe you haven’t got into trouble with your little goings-on lately +and that’s why they’ve given you the sack—but I say, what’s just +’appened ought to be a lesson. You can’t afford it and you ’aven’t +got the ’ead for it, so you’ve just got to let the booze alone. Pa +can’t afford it, but I will say ’e’s got the ’ead for it. You ’aven’t. +That’s why it’s a lesson. Promise me that, and I’ll let you run on a +bit, paying me what you can, while you’re out of a job. We’ve got +to live and let live in these times, and I will say that up to lately +you’ve been as quiet and reg’lar paying a young chap as I’ve ever +let to. And just you keep on Pa’s right side too, for ’e won’t like it, +being in business himself you might say and a bit of a stickler, but +I’ve got a softer nature and I’m not for turning a young chap out +just ’cos he’s got his bit of trouble and can’t pay all he’s agreed +to pay⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Thanks very much, Mrs. Pelumpton,” said Turgis warmly.</p> + +<p>“—For a few weeks anyhow,” she added cautiously.</p> + +<p>Turgis thanked her again, but with considerable less warmth this +time. It might be more than any few weeks before he saw another +three pounds a week or anything like it, and the way Mrs. Pelumpton +talked before she said that, he had imagined she was ready to +let him stay on for months. Still, a few weeks were something. He +had dreaded telling her that he had lost his job, had not even got +this fortnight’s money, and would have to keep her waiting. He +felt a bit better now that he had told her, but nevertheless he was +still feeling pretty miserable. He wondered what was happening +<span class="pagenum" id="p435">[435]</span>in the office, whether Mr. Golspie had explained to Mr. Dersingham +what had occurred last night, whether they would send his money +on to him, whether they would give him a reference. He had exactly +eightpence now and he wanted a cigarette badly this morning. It +was no use, he would have to have a smoke. So he went down the +road for a packet of ten gaspers, and then decided to go and look +at some advertisements of jobs and perhaps have a peep at the +Labour Exchange. It was one of those uncomfortable streaky days, +a minute or two of sunshine, then clouds and a bitter east wind. +It was miserable walking about in it with just twopence in your +pocket, no job, a terrifying Mr. Golspie (with possible police) +somewhere about, and no hope in any direction. When he saw the +Labour Exchange, he was sorry he had gone that way, for the very +look of it made him feel still more wretched. He hated Labour +Exchanges.</p> + +<p>It was late when he had dinner, and when it was over and Mrs. +Pelumpton was washing and tidying up in that despairing fury at +which she always arrived on Saturday, Mr. Pelumpton returned +from the pub down the road, immensely oracular, and insisted on +talking to Turgis for the next hour. This time Turgis was compelled +to stay there and listen, for already he was beginning to feel +that he was there on sufferance. Moreover, with only twopence in +his pocket, and an east wind blowing outside, he was better off there +than he would be anywhere else. Something must have told Mr. +Pelumpton this, for he never took his dim boiled eyes off Turgis, +and droned on and on, sometimes touching on the dusty mysteries +of “dealing,” sometimes offering ridiculous good advice. It was +awful. Turgis sat there, steadily hating the old bore. “That’s right, +Mr. Pelumpton,” he would say, with dreary politeness, adding to +himself: “You silly old devil, you ought to give those whiskers of +yours a good wash and brush up.” But there was not much satisfaction +in that.</p> + +<p>At about half-past three, Mr. Pelumpton’s steady flow was suddenly +checked. Somebody was at the front door. Mrs. Pelumpton +<span class="pagenum" id="p436">[436]</span>immediately made a dramatic appearance from nowhere, crying, +“You go and see, Pa. It might be Maggie,” and then waited, tense, +with lifted brows and open mouth, while Pa shuffled out of the +room and along the hall.</p> + +<p>“Yersh, that’sh right,” they heard him say. “Come inshide. Jusht +a minute.” And then he came shuffling back, so maddeningly deliberate +that his wife’s eyes began rolling round with sheer impatience. +“Is it Mrs. Foster?” she cried.</p> + +<p>“No, it ishn’t Mishish Foshter,” he replied, with dignity. He looked +at Turgis. “It’sh a young lady from your offish who’sh been shent +to shee you.”</p> + +<p>“Take her in the front,” said Mrs. Pelumpton, before Turgis +could get out of the room.</p> + +<p>It was little Poppy Sellers, and Turgis took her into the front; +which only made it all the more queer, for he hardly ever went +into that room. It was used only on the most special occasions, and +for about three hundred and sixty days of the year it remained a +shrouded and mysterious chamber. It housed, behind faded lace +curtains, some of Mr. Pelumpton’s best bargains in “pieshesh,” a +piano with a pleated silk front, two armchairs that were very shiny +and plushy, half a bearskin rug, several books in one glass case, +dozens of butterflies in another case, two real oil paintings of waterfalls, +and a fine collection of shells, glass paper-weights, wool mats, +marble ash-trays, and souvenirs of all the South-Eastern seaside resorts. +Above the mantelpiece, and flanked by two tall mirrors that +had storks painted on them, Mrs. Pelumpton’s father, so immensely +enlarged in sepia that at a first glance he seemed to be a generous +view of the Alps, stared down in mild astonishment. The air inside +this room was quite different from that of the rest of the house; +it did not smell of food at all; it was unlived-in, chilly, with hints +of wool and varnish in it. There was a large paper fan in the fireplace, +and immediately the two human beings entered the room, a +host of indignant specks ran down the folds of this fan, making +a queer little flicker of movement and sound in that dim quiet place.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p437">[437]</span></p> + +<p>“I’ve brought your money,” said Poppy, bringing an envelope out +of her scarlet handbag. She was very smart, this afternoon, in a +black and white check coat, a hat nearly the same colour as her +handbag, a yellow scarf with red dots in it, and dark silky stockings +and shiny black shoes. Not the Japanese style this time—more +French. She looked well in that front parlour, sitting in one of the +plushy armchairs. “Yes, this is it,” she continued, handing it over. +“I think you’ll find that all right. Mr. Smeeth said somebody had +better take it, and I said I would, ’cos I have a cousin that lives +up here, in Bartholomew Road, and I sometimes come up here, so +I said I didn’t mind bringing it, ’cos I know the district, even if I +do live a long way off, and I hadn’t anything special to do to-day.” +She rattled this off very quickly, as if it were a set piece she had +rehearsed a good many times on the way.</p> + +<p>“Thanks very much,” said Turgis. Recent events had left him +with an imagination that was capable of leaping into life very suddenly. +It leaped now. Here was Poppy Sellers bringing his money +to him just as he had taken the money to Lena Golspie. She had +been ready with a good excuse just as he had. This thought did +not immediately pluck him out of his despondency, but it certainly +made him feel several inches taller at once. Besides, the kid had +made herself look so neat and smart, quite pretty in fact.</p> + +<p>“Aren’t you well?” she asked him, looking at him very earnestly.</p> + +<p>“I’m not too bright,” he admitted. “Matter of fact, I’ve been a bit +off colour for some time. Nothing much, y’know. Nerves, really, +that’s what it is. I’m one of those highly strung people I am.”</p> + +<p>“You look pale, and you’ve got a mark on your nose, haven’t +you?” She examined his face in that special detached way that all +women seem to have at times, looking at your face as if it was not +part of you, but something you were showing them, like a picture +or a piece of china. Then she nodded wisely at it. “I believe something’s +been up. Here, listen,” she continued eagerly, “something’s +happened, hasn’t it? I mean, you’re not coming back, are you?”</p> + +<p>Turgis admitted sadly that he was not.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p438">[438]</span></p> + +<p>“I’ve been puzzling and puzzling my head about it,” she told +him, a mounting excitement in her face and voice. “When you +didn’t come this morning, Mr. Smeeth said you must be ill, and he +wasn’t surprised. And I thought so, too. And Miss Matfield didn’t +say anything, and I thought she looked a bit queer, as if she knew +something. She does, too, I’m sure, though I don’t know what. She +doesn’t tell me much—bit stand-offish, you know, though she’s nice, +she really is—but she knows a lot, and something’s been going on +with her some time, if you ask me. But, anyhow, Mr. Golspie came +in, later on, and he was talking to Mr. Dersingham, and then they +sent for Mr. Smeeth, and after a bit, Mr. Smeeth came back and +said later on, y’know, just trying to be ordinary like, as if nothing +special had happened, that you weren’t coming back. I knew all the +time there was something funny about it. And I didn’t see how +they’d told you, ’cos you didn’t know last night, did you? Course +it’s not my business, I know,” she added, with a wistful note, “but +I couldn’t help wondering. And I’m sorry, too.”</p> + +<p>“You’re sorry I’m not coming back?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I am,” she declared, tightening her lips, nodding, then looking +him full in the face. “I don’t care what anybody says—I am.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry, too. Can’t be helped, I suppose. I’ve been in trouble.” +His voice trembled slightly as a wave of self-pity swept over him.</p> + +<p>She kept her eyes fixed on his, and they were dark and round. +“Did you—do something?”</p> + +<p>He nodded. Already, even in this nod, there was a certain gloomy +romantic suggestion.</p> + +<p>“Course you needn’t tell me if you don’t want,” she said hastily, +“but p’r’aps you’d like to, ’cos I’m not trying to poke my nose in—it’s +not that—but I’d reelly, reelly, like to know—’cos—well, it doesn’t +seem a bit fair, turning you off like that, and I said so this morning. +You’ve always done your work all right, and you knew a lot about +it, didn’t you? I’m sure you’ve helped me a lot, and I don’t care +who knows it. And I said so straight out. I spoke up for you. They +can say what they like about me, but I do stick up for my friends +<span class="pagenum" id="p439">[439]</span>and anybody I like.” Then she lowered her voice. “You didn’t take +something, did you?”</p> + +<p>“D’you mean—pinch some money?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she replied, looking down at her brilliant handbag.</p> + +<p>“I should think I didn’t. Nothing like that. It wasn’t anything to +do with Twigg and Dersingham’s at all. It was something—quite +different.”</p> + +<p>“I see.” She ran a finger up and down the bag. Nothing was +said for a minute. As the room, chill and shuttered, waited for +somebody to speak, there stole into it all the Saturday afternoon +noises of Nathaniel Street, but all faint, muffled. Mrs. Pelumpton’s +father stared down at them with mild astonishment. Turgis, sitting +up in the other armchair, tapped a foot, and a few more specks +stirred in the paper fan. This front room made him feel miserable, +hopeless. He looked at the girl, and though she was so quiet now, +she seemed delightfully vivid, warm, alive, human. He did not tell +himself that, but he felt it.</p> + +<p>“Well, I suppose,” she began, grasping her bag properly and making +a movement of her body.</p> + +<p>“Listen, I’ll tell you what happened,” he said quickly.</p> + +<p>“You needn’t if you don’t want, y’know.”</p> + +<p>He did want. He told her almost the whole story, as he saw it +then, and he did not see it then quite as he had seen it when he had +returned in abject misery to his room the previous night. It took +on a certain romantic colouring, and, as the history of a poor, +virtuous, infatuated young man and a rich, wicked syren, it was not +unlike a good many films that both the narrator and his hearer had +seen and admired. She listened enthralled, exclaiming now and then, +her eyes round with wonder.</p> + +<p>Her first question, when he had done, was about Lena. What was +she like, and did he still think she was as pretty as all that? This +was not an easy question to answer, for he had to convey the impression +that Lena was immensely seductive and at the same time +to suggest that she had no further attraction for him. But he contrived +<span class="pagenum" id="p440">[440]</span>to answer it, a trifle awkwardly, perhaps, but he satisfied +Poppy.</p> + +<p>“Course you never ought to have done that,” she cried, thinking +of his terrible assault upon the jeering “vamp.” The glance she gave +him, however, had more wonder and awe in it than disgust. It +made him feel that he was not a man to be trifled with. “That +was awful, that was. You didn’t reelly know what you were doing +at the time, did you?”</p> + +<p>“That’s it. I didn’t. Nerves, y’know. Highly strung. A sort of +madness, it was. Can’t imagine now how I did it, ’cos I’ve never +been that sort of chap, though, mind you, I’ve always had a temper +if I got properly roused. Still, I don’t know how I came to do it, +I don’t, really I don’t. Must have been properly mad at the time. +Seems strange now, I can tell you, ’cos I don’t feel anything about +it now, nothing at all.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I don’t say you ought to have done it, ’cos you oughtn’t, +and it’s turned out lucky the way it has.” She had a moment of +real distress, imagining how it might have turned out. Then she +went on to consider other aspects of the matter. “But I must say +she very near deserved it, whatever happened, going on the way +she did.” She had throughout shown the greatest indignation with +Lena. “Horrible, I call it. Some girls haven’t any real feelings at +all. Girl I know—she lives near us, and she’s one of these manicurists—she’s +just the same. Treats boys and talks about them, too, in +the most awful way. If they only heard what she said about them, +they’d never look at her again. She’s asking for trouble too, and +she’ll get it before long, and it’ll serve her right—I haven’t a bit of +sympathy for her. I wouldn’t behave to a boy like that, I don’t care +who he was, not if I’d never liked him at all and he was always +follering me round and all that. And look at the way she went and +encouraged you at first, making herself as cheap as anything—that +ought to have told you, but of course boys can never see that.”</p> + +<p>“I can see it now,” said Turgis, with the air of a man purged and +purified by great suffering, a pale romantic figure.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p441">[441]</span></p> + +<p>“Boys haven’t a bit of sense like that,” she cried indignantly. +“And you were just as silly as the rest, in that business. Mind you, +I can see there’s a good excuse for you, ’cos a girl like that, with +her father so well off and able to have all the clothes she wants +and make herself look nice all the time—course you think it’s all +natural, her looking like that, but it’s having the money and nothing +else to do that does it—well, there is some excuse, and I admit it. +Fancy you going on with Mr. Golspie’s daughter like that! And +I never knew! Doesn’t it just show you?”</p> + +<p>Undoubtedly it did. They continued a little longer, dramatically +and not unpleasantly, in this strain, and then Miss Sellers asked +what time it was, and Turgis, instead of telling her the time, said: +“Just a minute. Don’t go. I want to give my landlady some of this +money, and I’d rather not keep her waiting for it. I’ll be back in +half a minute.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pelumpton, who was making tea, was very pleased to see +the money.</p> + +<p>“This young lady works in the same office, you see,” Turgis explained, +“and they sent her up with it. We’ve been having a good +talk about all the business and all that.”</p> + +<p>“Quite so,” said Mrs. Pelumpton, affably but with dignity, as +if the very presence of a strange member of her own sex in the +house, even though not in the same room, made her put on a special +manner, affable, dignified, ladylike. “Perhaps the young lady would +like a cup of tea, with yourself—that is, if she cares to take us as +she finds us?”</p> + +<p>“Thanks very much, Mrs. Pelumpton,” cried Turgis. “I’ll go and +ask her.”</p> + +<p>Miss Sellers was easily persuaded to abandon a projected visit to +her cousin in Bartholomew Road, and stayed to tea, during which +she and Mrs. Pelumpton discovered, after a great deal of elaborate +cross-questioning, that Miss Sellers and her sister had actually stayed +for a week in a boarding-house at Clacton that had been kept, three +years before they went there, by Mrs. Pelumpton’s sister, whom +<span class="pagenum" id="p442">[442]</span>therefore, they had only missed meeting by two years and ten +months. Delighted to discover once more they were living in a world +so small, so cosy, Miss Sellers and Mrs. Pelumpton were very pleased +with one another. After tea, when the Pelumptons were out of the +way, Turgis, though still the same young man, without prospects, +without hope, actually went to the length of indulging in that +mysterious badinage which is the signal of sexual attraction and +interest among the young inarticulate creatures of this country. +“What d’you mean?” they cried to one another. “Oh, I don’t mean +what <em>you</em> mean!”</p> + +<p>Then, at the end of half an hour or so of this, “Well, I <em>half</em> promised +to see a girl friend to-night.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, don’t bother,” he told her. “She can do without you, +can’t she, just for to-night?”</p> + +<p>“Just for to-night, eh? Well, can’t you do without me too, Mister +Cheeky?”</p> + +<p>“No, I can’t. I want somebody to cheer me up.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s it, is it? Thanks for the compliment. Anybody will +do, eh?”</p> + +<p>“No, I didn’t say that. You know I didn’t.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you meant it.”</p> + +<p>“No, I didn’t. Reelly, I didn’t. Come on. What d’you say?”</p> + +<p>“All right then,” she said, turning her perky little head on one +side and smiling. Then she looked serious. “Listen, though. If we do +go, I must pay for myself. Yes, I must. I believe in that,” she added +earnestly, as if she had thought about it for years and had not just +invented this rule for herself, knowing only too well that he would +be hard up in the near future and that every extra shilling would +make a great difference. “I’ll come if you’ll let me pay for myself. +There now!”</p> + +<p>As they walked down Nathaniel Street, they decided that it must +be one of the big West End picture theatres, but could not settle +which it should be, and argued pleasantly about it, and she pretended +to care more about it than she actually did and he pretended +<span class="pagenum" id="p443">[443]</span>to care less; she was the eager, excited, imploring female, +and he was the large, knowing, tolerant, protective male. Out in +the smoky blue and gold of the lighted streets, they were more at +ease than they had been in the house. Already they may have felt +that they were going further together now than the way to the +remotest picture theatre could take them. Perhaps this was the best +day’s work in one or other of their lives; perhaps the worst. Saturday +night: the children of the pavements and chimney-pots came +pouring out, seeking adventure, entertainment, profit or forgetfulness +in the vast impersonal thunder and glare of the city; and soon +these two were lost in the crowd.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p444">[444]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_Eleven_THEY_GO_HOME"> + <i>Chapter Eleven</i>: <span class="allsmcap">THEY GO HOME</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>It was coming to a close like any other Friday afternoon. They +were short-handed, for though the new boy, Gregory Thorpe +from Hatcham, S.E., a lad with a singularly long face and spectacles, +far more conscientious than Stanley but not so engaging, had +been with them since Monday, Turgis had been absent since Monday +too, and his place had not yet been filled. Fortunately, they +had not been very busy this last day or two; the rush of a few weeks +before appeared to be over now; Mr. Golspie had not been near the +office since Tuesday, and had not sent in any new orders; and the +next Anglo-Baltic boat was not due in until the following Monday; +so that things were easier. Even without Turgis, they were getting +through the work at the usual pace. Mr. Smeeth, glancing round +over the top of his desk, thought they ought to have finished in +another half-hour or three-quarters. He would get away about six, +have his tea in comfort, with plenty of time to spare before the +concert began. He was going to hear that symphony by Brahms, +the same symphony he had heard before, the one that suddenly and +gloriously broke into Ta <em>tum</em> ta ta <em>tum</em> tum. Another orchestra was +playing it this time. It was lucky that the advertisement of the +concert had caught his eye: Brahms’ Symphony No. 1. He had been +looking forward all the week to hearing that symphony again, +especially to that moment when the great melody would come +sweeping out of the strings again. He had tried to remember it for +weeks and weeks, and then suddenly it had returned to him—Ta <em>tum</em> +<span class="pagenum" id="p445">[445]</span>ta ta <em>tum</em> tum. Brahms might be as classical and highbrow as they +said he was (and Mr. Smeeth had been making a few inquiries), +but the fact remained that the thought of his first symphony, that +dark but splendid adventure, now warmed the heart of Herbert +Norman Smeeth. Ta <em>tum</em> ta ta <em>tum</em> tum—but no, he must get on +with his work, finish off and see that the others were finishing +off too.</p> + +<p>“Miss Matfield, have you anything for Mr. Dersingham to sign? +Have you, Miss Sellers? Take them in now if you have.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Dersingham was in the private office. He had been there +most of the day. This was unusual, and rather queer because Mr. +Dersingham did not appear to be very busy. He seemed to be +waiting for something or somebody. Several times during the afternoon, +when the outer door had opened, Mr. Smeeth had heard Mr. +Dersingham come out of the private office, as if he could not bear +to wait an extra half minute or so. He seemed to be jumpy, too, +about telephone calls. Very unusual, rather queer, not like Mr. Dersingham. +Mr. Smeeth came to the conclusion that it must be some +private business, and therefore no affair of his.</p> + +<p>“Now where’s that letter from Poppett and Sons?” he demanded. +“It was on this desk an hour ago, I’ll swear. It’s a letter about their +account, and I told one of you this morning we’d have to answer it +to-day. It was you, wasn’t it, Miss Sellers? Well, have you taken +their letter away, then? Just see if you have. Yes, there you are—that’s +it. Bring it here and I’ll answer it now. Poppett and Sons, +Poppett and Sons,” Mr. Smeeth repeated idly as he re-read their +letter. “Ye-es. Are you ready? No, half a minute, though—my mistake. +I’ll have to check that figure. Fi-ifty-fo-our pounds, thi-irte-een +shillings—yes, yes, that’s all right. Now then⁠——” and here Mr. +Smeeth adjusted his eyeglasses and cleared his throat, giving a faintly +pompous little cough. Even now, the thought that he, Herbert +Norman Smeeth, was sitting there, a cashier, dictating letters to this +firm and that, gave him a thrill. “—er—We are in receipt of your—er—communication—put +the date in there, Miss Sellers—respecting +<span class="pagenum" id="p446">[446]</span>our statement of account dated so-and-so—and beg to point out that +this account was quite in order. You asked us to send down the goods +by special road delivery and agreed that the extra carriage, paid by +us, should be added to our account—no, just a minute—extra carriage, +which had to be paid by us in the first place, should be +charged to you, and this we accordingly did. We refer you to your +letter—I have a note of that letter—ah! here it is—to your letter of +the 4th of December last⁠——”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth rounded off his letter and Miss Sellers hurried it +away to her machine. Miss Matfield, who appeared to be in a great +hurry, pulled a sheet of paper out of her typewriter with one fine +sweep of the hand, and then furiously tidied a little pile of typewritten +sheets. The new boy, Gregory, laboriously worked away at +his letter copying, with the air of a man engaged in not very +hopeful bacterial research. It was wearing away like any other +Friday afternoon. There was nothing to suggest that it might blow +up any minute, unless the unusual activities of Mr. Dersingham, who +appeared to be moving uneasily now in the private office, were considered +to be fantastically significant.</p> + +<p>“Who was that?” Mr. Smeeth asked, after several doors had +banged and Gregory had returned from behind the frosted glass +partition.</p> + +<p>“I think it was a telegraph boy, sir,” replied Gregory sadly.</p> + +<p>“How d’you mean—you <em>think</em> it was?”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Dersingham was there, sir. He got there first, and he was +holding the door open and taking something, so I couldn’t see who +it was properly. I only saw an arm, and it looked like a telegraph +boy. You see what I mean about the door, sir? It comes back, inside, +when it opens, and Mr. Dersingham was holding it with one hand, +and so the door was in the way, you see⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, yes, I see. No need to make such a song about it, boy.” +There was a sad earnestness about this new boy that had been rather +impressive at first, but now it only irritated Mr. Smeeth. He liked +a boy to be conscientious with his work, but this one was too dolefully +<span class="pagenum" id="p447">[447]</span>dutiful. You could not even relieve your feelings by telling +him sharply to get on with his work, because he never stopped +doing something, toiling away like a spectacled young sheep. Mr. +Smeeth wished now he had chosen a brighter boy, even if the lad +would have larked about a bit.</p> + +<p>“Smeeth. Smeeth.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mr. Dersingham,” Mr. Smeeth called back, frowning a little. +He did not like to be summoned in this fashion, by a shout from +the door of the private office; it was not dignified. He hurried in, +however, for Mr. Dersingham sounded as if he had something important +he wanted to say.</p> + +<p>“Shut the door, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, who did not look +so pink and cheerful as usual. “Oh, look here—have they nearly +finished out there?”</p> + +<p>“Just clearing up, sir.”</p> + +<p>“All right, then,” said Mr. Dersingham wearily. “Have I signed +everything? Tell ’em to let me have everything that must go off +to-night, will you? I want ’em to clear out, and leave us alone. Do +that now. Just get them to finish up as quick as possible.”</p> + +<p>Wondering, rather apprehensive now, Mr. Smeeth bustled to and +fro with letters to be signed, hurried on Miss Sellers and the boy, +and in ten minutes had everything signed, copied, sealed up, and +stamped. “Yes, yes,” he told them, “that’ll be all. You can go now. +That’s right. Good-night, Miss Matfield. What’s that? Yes, I remember. +Mr. Dersingham said you could have to-morrow morning off, +didn’t he? Off for the week-end, eh? Lucky to be some people, +Miss Matfield. Yes, yes, quite all right. Good-night. Good-night, +Miss Sellers. And—what’s your name—Gregory, don’t forget you’ve +got three registereds there; bring me the receipts in the morning. +No, that’ll do. Good-night, good-night.” He returned to the private +office. “All finished now, Mr. Dersingham. Yes, all gone.”</p> + +<p>“All right, Smeeth. Bring the order book in, then the other books. +Bring the order book in first.”</p> + +<p>It looked as if he was going to have a little stock-taking and general +<span class="pagenum" id="p448">[448]</span>survey of the business, a very wise thing to do too, now and +again. Mr. Smeeth hoped that he would not be kept long, but +otherwise he was quite pleased and proud, for there was nothing +he liked better than these confidential talks about the business, and +he was glad to see that Mr. Dersingham was taking himself seriously +now as the head of a very flourishing little concern.</p> + +<p>“Nothing wrong, I hope, Mr. Dersingham?” he said, when he had +brought in all the books.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dersingham gave a short laugh, and it was a very unpleasant +sound. It startled Mr. Smeeth.</p> + +<p>“Everything’s wrong, Smeeth, every damned thing, unless you can +see a way out. Sit down, man, sit down. We’re going to be hours and +hours on this job.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth sat down, staring at him.</p> + +<p>“Golspie’s cleared out,” Mr. Dersingham continued, “and he’s done +us in, absolutely done us in. Oh, the rotten swine! God, I was a fool +to trust that chap a yard! I ought to have known, I ought to have +known. And now he’s gone. I rushed up to that flat of his in Maida +Vale at lunch time, hoping to catch him in and have it out with him, +but he’d gone—at least, the maid said he had, and it was only a +furnished place he’d taken, and she’d been taken over with it, so I +suppose she wasn’t lying about it. He’s going abroad, if he isn’t +already gone. Clearing out properly, the rotten crook! This isn’t the +only dirty game he’s been playing here, if you ask me. I always +thought he had a few more irons in the fire besides his work here. +He never spent more than half his time with our business. But he’s +had plenty of time to do us down.” He was out of his chair now, +kicking a ball of crumpled paper about the room.</p> + +<p>“But what’s happened, Mr. Dersingham? I thought you knew he +might leave us. You told me so a week or two ago, and you said +you were getting him to sign an agreement, when he drew all that +forward commission, so that you would have the agency.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, we’ve got the agency all right,” cried Mr. Dersingham, with +great bitterness. “No mistake about that. Only it’s not worth having +<span class="pagenum" id="p449">[449]</span>now, that’s all. Mikorsky’s have raised all their prices. They say it’s +owing to the increased cost of their new process and to some labour +troubles and to some new government tax—oh, they’ve got all kinds +of reasons, and they may be true and they may not, but the fact +remains they’ve raised all their prices. They’re all up fifty and sixty +and even seventy per cent.”</p> + +<p>“As much as that? Good Lord, Mr. Dersingham, that’s a ridiculous +advance. It makes them as dear as the most expensive of the +old firms we were dealing with before, doesn’t it? I see, now.”</p> + +<p>“No, you don’t see, you don’t see at all yet,” Mr. Dersingham +yelled at him. “It’s a lot worse than that. Look at that telegram. +Just look at it.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t understand this, sir,” said Mr. Smeeth, after carefully +reading the telegram. “Why did they send it?”</p> + +<p>“They sent it because I’d wired to them asking if what Golspie +had written to me was true. I thought he might have been bluffing, +just out of devilish spite. But he wasn’t. They’re all in league together, +of course, if you want my opinion, just a lot of rotten foreign +swindlers with this chap Golspie the worst of the lot.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry, Mr. Dersingham. I can see it’s a bad business. But I +don’t quite get the hang of it yet. They can’t have raised their +prices already.”</p> + +<p>“My God!—that’s just what they have done, and that filthy telegram +confirms it.” Mr. Dersingham banged it so hard with his fist +that he hurt his hand. Then he became quieter and sat down again. +“I’m getting too excited. Sorry I yelled like that, Smeeth, though it’s +enough to make any man shout his head off. I’ll explain. I got a +letter from Golspie this morning, saying that he was clearing out. +Here, you can read it for yourself.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth read it through twice. It pretended to be an ordinary +business letter, but there was a good deal of unpleasant irony in it. +One phrase, which practically said that Mr. Dersingham had tried +to sneak the agency for himself and had not succeeded, made Mr. +<span class="pagenum" id="p450">[450]</span>Smeeth look up and ask a question. “Did you really write to those +people and try to get the agency yourself, sir?” he asked.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dersingham nodded.</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth hesitated a moment. “I don’t think you ought to have +done that, sir,” he said finally, respectful but reproachful.</p> + +<p>“That’s my business, Smeeth.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth looked down and remained silent. Neither of them +spoke for a minute or two, and the room was strangely quiet.</p> + +<p>“Oh well,” cried Mr. Dersingham, struggling with his embarrassment, +“perhaps I oughtn’t to. As it’s turned out, it was a bad move. +But I wasn’t really trying anything underhand, y’know, Smeeth. It +wasn’t as if I was trying to take a fellow’s living away from him, +working behind his back. I know it might look a bit like that, to +anybody who didn’t know the circumstances, but it wasn’t. This +chap Golspie was obviously one of these here-to-day-and-gone-to-morrow +fellows—didn’t make any secret of it, boasted of it—and I never +liked the look of him and I didn’t know what tricks he might be +up to. He came here, made use of our connection with the trade +and our organisation and everything and drew a heavy commission, +as you know, and all the time he walked about the place as if he +owned it. As I told you before, I couldn’t stand the chap—a terrible +bounder. I tried to be as friendly as possible at first, but it wouldn’t +work. And my wife took a strong dislike to him—she only met him +once, but you know what women are, and she saw what he was in +five minutes—and she was always telling me to have nothing more +to do with him, to get rid of him. So I just wrote a confidential letter +to Mikorsky’s, saying it would pay them to have the agency properly +in the hands of a wholesale firm here like ours, and that the—er—present +arrangement wasn’t really satisfactory to them or to us either, +and that they ought to consider it. All in confidence, mind. That +was just before he went over there, and of course they told him all +about it. I didn’t know they were friends of his. I thought they had +an ordinary business agreement, and I considered I was entitled to +suggest another business agreement, leaving Golspie out.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p451">[451]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, I see that,” said Mr. Smeeth, still a little doubtful. “And I +suppose they told him then, and that’s what put his back up?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, they did that, but I think he’d been ready to play any dirty +little trick right from the first. He isn’t a gentleman—never looked +like one—and he isn’t even an ordinary decent business man. He’s +just an adventurer, trying his hand at anything for tuppence. No +wonder he never stopped anywhere long—too crooked! But you see +what he says there, that he encloses a little document that had—what +is it?—escaped his memory. Well, there’s the little document, +there—that statement of Mikorsky’s, dated when he was there, raising +all the prices. There’s the full list of ’em—up fifty to seventy +per cent.”</p> + +<p>“But—but,” Mr. Smeeth stammered, as he looked at this list, “we +can’t be expected to pay these prices. We’ve already bought heavily +on the old prices.”</p> + +<p>“Have we? Golspie did the buying, and I can’t find any acknowledgment +from them.”</p> + +<p>“Well, can’t we cancel the last orders then, Mr. Dersingham? I +never heard of such a thing. It’s not reasonable. Here their prices +have been up for weeks and weeks, and we’ve been thinking we +were buying at the old rates. They can’t force us to take the stuff +at these prices, surely.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. That side of it doesn’t matter, anyhow. The point +is, Smeeth—don’t you see?—whether we’ve bought the stuff or not, +we’ve <em>sold it</em>.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth did see; he saw with fatal clearness; and his dismay +must have been written on his face.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Mr. Dersingham continued, “we’ve sold it, stacks and +stacks of it, thousands of square feet, big orders, Smeeth, big orders, +all those orders we paid Golspie that commission on. You might well +look like that. I’ve been feeling like that all day, even though I still +hoped there might be a mistake—before that telegram came.”</p> + +<p>“But, Mr. Dersingham—it’s—it’s ruination, sheer ruination.”</p> + +<p>“And it’s damnably, damnably unfair, Smeeth. We’ve simply been +<span class="pagenum" id="p452">[452]</span>swindled. Listen, d’you think there’s any chance of us getting all +those orders cancelled here?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth thought for a minute, then slowly shook his head. +“We’ve undertaken to deliver the stuff, Mr. Dersingham, and there’s +no getting out of that. I mean to say, if our customers say ‘We +want it,’ then they’ll have to have it and they can compel us to +let them have it at the price we sold it, or compel us to go out of +business. No argument about that at all, sir.”</p> + +<p>“What I’m wondering is this, Smeeth. It’s not our fault this has +happened. I mean to say, it’s not the ordinary case of selling the +stuff before you’ve bought it, hoping for a fall in prices, and then +getting nipped because the price goes up when you have to deliver +the stuff. It’s nothing like that, you see. We’ve been let down by +sheer rotten trickery. Not our fault at all. Now I’m wondering if +our customers would agree to cancel the orders if I explained the +situation to them, told them straight out that Golspie was a wrong +’un and we’ve been let down. It’s worth trying, isn’t it? Where’s that +order book? I want to see who are about the biggest buyers of these +last lots that I can get hold of at once. What about Brown and +Gorstein? They’re not far away.”</p> + +<p>“And they’ve bought as much as anybody,” said Mr. Smeeth. +“We’ve a lot to deliver to them. You might get hold of Mr. +Gorstein.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll ring up and see if he’s there.” And while he waited, receiver +in hand, he added: “Jot down what Brown and Gorstein have +bought, will you, Smeeth?” By the time Mr. Smeeth had done this, +Mr. Dersingham had learned that Gorstein was still there and was +willing to see him at once. “I’ll go over at once,” said Mr. Dersingham. +“I’ll just tell my wife first not to expect me back in a hurry. +I believe we were going out to play bridge with somebody. My hat!—I +feel as much like playing bridge to-night as I do like—like—spinning +tops.”</p> + +<p>When the other had finished his telephoning, Mr. Smeeth had +the order book and some paper in front of him. “While you’re there, +<span class="pagenum" id="p453">[453]</span>Mr. Dersingham, I’ll try and work out the whole thing on the new +prices.”</p> + +<p>“I was going to tell you to do that,” said Mr. Dersingham, as he +took down his hat and coat. “Get it all worked out while I’m up at +Brown and Gorstein’s. God!—we’re in a mess. I’ll be back as soon +as I can.”</p> + +<p>Left to himself, Mr. Smeeth did not think. He refused to think. He +applied himself sternly to the task before him, and for the next +quarter of an hour never looked up from his books and his calculations. +He was not Herbert Norman Smeeth, but simply the master +of the neat little figures, and he added and subtracted and multiplied +them without letting his mind wander away from their austere but +calculable world, in which he had spent so many pleasant hours. +He had plenty to do. All the orders of the last few weeks, back to +the early part of December, in fact, had to be estimated on the basis +of these new prices, and he had to add the usual costs and then the +commission already paid to Golspie. He did it with his usual neatness, +accuracy, thoroughness, producing a statement that could be +understood at a glance. At the end of quarter of an hour, the telephone +rang and disturbed him, but it was not a call for them. +Mechanically, then, he filled his pipe, and spent a minute or two +listening idly to the various sounds that came from the steps outside, +from Angel Pavement, from the City beyond, a sort of vague symphony, +and the only one, it seemed, that he would hear that night. +He put his pipe in his mouth unlit, and bent over his figures again. +Time slipped away as the totals mounted up on the statement, and +soon half an hour had gone. He turned now to other books, to the +general financial side of the matter, estimating what they had in +hand and what was due to them.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dersingham came bursting in, large and active, but a figure of +misery. “It’s no use, Smeeth. We’re absolutely done.”</p> + +<p>“What did Mr. Gorstein say?”</p> + +<p>“I told them as much as I could, and they laughed at me, they +did, honestly they did, they just laughed at me. Pretended not to, +<span class="pagenum" id="p454">[454]</span>pretended to be very sympathetic and all that, but I knew. That +fellow Gorstein’s another rotter, if you ask me. Very sorry and all +that, hard luck on us, but of course they’d bought what we’d offered +them, and they’d undertaken to supply <em>their</em> customers and made +contracts on what they’d bought from us, and we’d have to deliver, +and no nonsense about it. And they practically told me that everybody +else in the trade would say the same thing, but only be a bit +more damned insolent about it. No, I see that now, plainly enough. +There’s no getting out of it.”</p> + +<p>“But, Mr. Dersingham, it’s a terrible position we’re in, it really is.”</p> + +<p>“Good God! man, you’ve no need to tell me that. It’s the foulest +mess I ever dreamed of, and all because of that dirty crook. Honestly, +Smeeth, I don’t pretend to be a bruiser or anything of that sort, but +if I saw that chap now, I’d go for him. I’d either knock him down +or he’d have to knock me down. Have you been working it all out? +What does it look like?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth now considered his totals and the full implication of +them for the first time. He handed the papers across the table.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dersingham, running a finger across his teeth and allowing +his jaw to drop, stared at them for several minutes without saying +a word. Then he queried one or two figures, and Mr. Smeeth +worked them out again, for his benefit. The order book was referred +to several times. But there was no escaping from those totals.</p> + +<p>“I’ve just been working out how we stand, too, Mr. Dersingham. +I thought you’d want to know now. This is the position, counting +everything in.”</p> + +<p>They went over that now, spending about half an hour in what +was mostly futile discussion, as Mr. Smeeth, sick at heart, knew only +too well.</p> + +<p>“It’s no good, Smeeth,” the other said finally, “there’s no getting +away from it. It was a tight squeeze paying that swine all that commission +in advance, and now we’ve got to sell every square foot of +stuff at a loss, on all those orders.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p455">[455]</span></p> + +<p>“It’s a terrible loss. The business as it is will never stand it, Mr. +Dersingham.”</p> + +<p>“I know that. And what’s left of the business, even supposing I +could borrow enough to see me through this mess? Where should +we be? Only back where we were before we began handling this +stuff, before Golspie came, doing just about enough trade to pay +expenses, and on top of that I’d be up to the neck in debt. I couldn’t +carry on a month. I’ve borrowed as much as I can, and even if I +could borrow any more, I wouldn’t—it’s only throwing money away. +Honestly, Smeeth, how can I go on?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth looked through the papers again, though there was +no real meaning in the glances he gave them. He was trying to think +of a way out, but it was impossible to find one.</p> + +<p>“What are you going to do, then, Mr. Dersingham?” he asked, +miserably.</p> + +<p>“Nothing. Finish. What else can I do? I’ll buy what I can of this +lot, deliver it, and then finish. And if they bankrupt the firm, they +bankrupt it, and there’s the end of it. If they don’t, I close down +and clear out, anyhow, and that’s the end of it, too. I don’t suppose +it’s the first time a dam’ fool’s been robbed clean out of a business, +is it?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know what to say, Mr. Dersingham.” And Mr. Smeeth +didn’t. He was staring at the opposite wall in utter dejection.</p> + +<p>“What’s the good of saying anything? But what makes me sick is +the way that rotter Golspie has cleared out⁠——”</p> + +<p>“I thought at the time it was a bit fishy, sir, when he wanted all +that commission in advance.”</p> + +<p>“Well, if you thought so, why the devil didn’t you say so at the +time. No good saying so now.”</p> + +<p>“I did say something at the time, Mr. Dersingham, I did really.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I must say I don’t remember you saying anything. Anyhow, +it’s too late now. You know, Smeeth, that fellow’s robbed me +just as much as if he’d broken into my flat—it’s worse, when you +think of it. And there isn’t even a charge against him. All he’s done +<span class="pagenum" id="p456">[456]</span>is to collect some commission and keep a letter back. You can’t go +to the police about that. The swine! That’s what maddens me. +What’s the time? Quarter past eight? Come on, let’s get out of this.” +They walked down the stairs and out of the building together.</p> + +<p>Across the way, the only sign of life came from the bar of the “White +Horse.” “I don’t know about you, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, +stopping, “but I want a drink. It’s a long time since I wanted one +so badly. You could do with a spot, couldn’t you? Of course you +could. Let’s have one, while we can still pay for it.”</p> + +<p>The private bar was completely deserted, except for a long, grey +cat that stretched itself arrogantly in front of the little fire. The barmaid +came round the corner, swept away several glasses, polished a +foot or two of counter, said, “Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom,” to the +cat, then smiled at the gentlemen in the way a lady ought to smile, +and, “Good evening. Nicer now, iserntit?”</p> + +<p>“Two double whiskies, please, and two small sodas,” said Mr. +Dersingham.</p> + +<p>“Two doubles,” murmured the barmaid.</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth could not help being reminded of the time when Mr. +Golspie had brought him in here and had insisted on his having a +double whisky. That was the night when Mr. Golspie had told him +that he ought to have a rise. Everything was going too wonderful +that night.</p> + +<p>“Here’s luck, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, raising his glass, +“and I’m sorry for your sake it’s turned out like this, though you’re +not losing what I’m losing, not by a long chalk. But here’s luck—here’s +to your next job, and I hope it’s a better one than Twigg and +Dersingham ever gave you.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth shyly. “And +here’s luck to you too, sir⁠——”</p> + +<p>“You’d think that cat, to look at it,” said the barmaid, “was a good +mouser if ever a cat was. Wouldn’t you now? Well, it isn’t. No good +at all. Won’t touch a mouse. Will you, Tom? No, you won’t, you +<span class="pagenum" id="p457">[457]</span>lazy old rascal. Don’t earn your keep at all, you don’t. Come here, +Tom. Tom, Tom, Tom.”</p> + +<p>“I’m going to try for a job out East as soon as I’ve straightened +things up,” said Mr. Dersingham confidentially. “No more City for +me. I never did care for it. Not really my style at all, y’know, Smeeth. +I always wanted to go out East. You get a gentleman’s life out there. +A man I know—he’s just retired and he’s a neighbour of mine—told +me some time ago he could get me a good job out there any time. +I shall have a shot at it.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth nodded and looked gloomy. There was no job out +East for him, and these remarks of Mr. Dersingham’s suddenly +opened out a vast, dreary prospect. At the moment, he preferred not +to think about the future.</p> + +<p>“Look at him, the silly old thing,” said the barmaid, who had the +long cat in her arms now. “Aren’t you a silly old thing, Tom? He’s +got nice markings though, hasn’t he? Reg’lar, aren’t they? Go on +then, go down then, if you want to, Tom. There! Boo! Boo! Just +watch him. He can open the door by himself. Artful as anything, +I can tell you.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Dersingham gulped down the rest of his whisky and soda. +“Rotten luck. The worst possible. Where I made the mistake though, +Smeeth, was not trusting to what’s-it—instinct, intuition, you know. +About Golspie, I mean. I was trying to be the smart City bounder, +with an eye for a tricky bit of business and nothing else—y’know, +like that awful fellow, Gorstein, and all the rest of ’em. Not my +style at all, really. I didn’t like the chap and I ought to have known +he’d do me down. Never mind, he’ll come to a sticky finish before +he’s done. And so will that daughter of his. You never met her, did +you, Smeeth? Very good looking, in the film and chorus girl style, +but a terrible little minx. You ought to hear my wife on Miss +Golspie! She came to my place once—but never again, never again. +That was a queer business, y’know, Smeeth, about Turgis and that +girl, when Golspie came and said Turgis would have to be sacked +because he’d been up to some mysterious games with the daughter. +<span class="pagenum" id="p458">[458]</span>I never really understood what it was all about—though I’d like to +bet that Golspie’s daughter was up to her tricks there—she looked +that sort.”</p> + +<p>“I never understood that business,” said Mr. Smeeth mournfully. +“I wasn’t properly told about it.”</p> + +<p>“Neither was I, for that matter. But I didn’t bother much, because +I never thought that chap Turgis was much good, anyhow, and was +rather glad to get rid of him. Thinking it over now, though, I feel +a bit sorry for the poor devil. Have you heard anything about him, +Smeeth?”</p> + +<p>“Miss Sellers has seen him once or twice, I believe. I fancy she’s +a bit sweet on him. He’s not got another job yet, of course, and it’s +not likely he will for some time.” He breathed hard, like a man who +wants to sigh but has forgotten how to do it, looked down at the +remainder of his drink, and slowly finished it.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’d better be getting along,” said Mr. Dersingham. “That +drink’s made me feel hungry. I’ll stop at the club and see if I can +get a bite. I might see a fellow there who could give me one or two +tips about this miserable business. Then I’ll go home, and that’s the +part I’m not looking forward to, I can tell you. Are you going +home now?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Mr. Smeeth slowly, buttoning his overcoat. “I’m +going home.”</p> + + +<h3 id="II_10"> + II +</h3> + +<p>As her bus turned into that hive of buses in front of Victoria +station, Miss Matfield shivered a little. She was nervous; she was +excited; and her mind was facing two different ways. She spent the +next few minutes getting from the bus to the station, which was very +crowded and week-endy, and then to the place where she had arranged +to meet Mr. Golspie, which was on the departure side, between +the bookstall and that large clock with four faces. Mr. Golspie +was not to be seen. This did not surprise her, for she was rather +<span class="pagenum" id="p459">[459]</span>early. She was somewhat relieved to find that he was not there. It +left her with a welcome breathing space. She was by no means single-minded +about this adventure.</p> + +<p>It had been planned, if a few hasty and last-minute questions and +answers can be called planning, three days before, on Tuesday night, +which was the last time she had seen him. He had not been to the +office since and she had had no message from him, but that did not +worry her. She had a strong suspicion that he was going away very +soon, but she did not know when he would be going and she did +not believe that he knew. Last Tuesday, just before they parted, he +had asked her once again to go away for the week-end with him, +anywhere she pleased, and this time, moved obscurely by many +different feelings and forces, something genuinely eager and passionate +in the man’s voice, a sudden desire to clutch at experience, to +throw herself upon life, a contempt for her qualms and misgivings +and timidities, she had agreed to go. An hotel on the Sussex coast +she had once seen was to be their destination, and the time and +meeting place were hastily settled. Several times since, she had been +tempted to write to him or ring him up, to say that she had changed +her mind. Her pride, however, would not let her do this. She had +said she would go, and now she would carry it through. She had +wanted adventure, and though she would not have admitted it, +there was always a man in this adventure, and now that it offered +itself and she had accepted it, she could not run away. Yet there was +a creature in her, and not merely a brain phantom, but a creature +that had some of her rich blood flowing through it, that very blood +which this coarse, middle-aged man could so inspire that it dazzled +and inflamed her, a shrinking and fastidious creature that cried to +run away, to run away and hide. It protested against the shabbiness +and furtiveness of this adventure, and pounced upon the sinister lack +of fairness in it. It loathed the cheap imitation wedding ring that +was now tucked away in her bag, a ring that was part of the adventure, +and that had seemed rather a joke when it first had been +mentioned last Tuesday. She had heard about those rings before, +<span class="pagenum" id="p460">[460]</span>and they had always seemed rather a joke, perky, glittering little +stage properties in amusing escapades, and it was not difficult for +her to force herself to see that ring in her bag in the same theatrical +light; but, nevertheless, the protest was not silenced and the loathing +remained. If Golspie had asked her to marry him, no matter if he +had told her that they would have to settle in the most outlandish +place, she would have agreed; but he had not asked her to marry +him. Yet he wanted her, not idly either, and, when all was said and +done, that was a heartening and exciting fact; and after this, he +might want her still more, the last traces of self-sufficiency in him +(and he had appeared unusually self-sufficient at first, and that had +made him all the more attractive) might vanish, and then—well, +everything might be different.</p> + +<p>If you delight in movement and change, the appeal of a large +railway station is irresistible; you are still in the dark cocoon of the +city, but one end is splintering already and you can see the blue +beyond; the rumbles and shrieks and snortings are only part of the +tuning up; and even the smoky smell has the savour of adventure. +There had been moments during the last two days when this week-end, +this arrival at Victoria, had loomed in Miss Matfield’s mind +like some unusually desperate appointment at the dentist’s, and at +the thought of it something coldly writhed inside her. Now that she +was here, however, she was less introspective and her spirits gradually +rose. It was almost better that something extremely unpleasant +should happen than that nothing at all should happen; and it was +very unlikely that anything extremely unpleasant <em>would</em> happen. +She responded to the lively and adventurous bustle of the station. +As she strolled over to the bookstall, carrying her small suitcase, she +felt tall, healthy, strong, a fine woman of the world. One or two +middle-aged men had smiled in her direction and several young +men had looked earnestly at her, all of which meant that she was +looking her best. The bookstall offered her an almost unlimited +choice of reading matter, light periodicals, heavy periodicals, books +that were “amazing successes,” books that were “very outspoken,” +<span class="pagenum" id="p461">[461]</span>books that were simply “great bargains.” She did not accept any of +them, but the knowledge that they were there somehow gave her +pleasure. It was impossible to resist a holiday feeling. The sight of +all the fussy and bewildered people, of whom there were an unusually +large number, the people who went rushing up to any man in +a railway uniform, who looked in despair at the notice-boards, who +mopped their brows and snapped at one another, who blankly surveyed +great mounds of luggage, who flitted like uneasy ghosts from +one platform entrance to another, only brought her a pleasing sense +of her own superiority. They were nothing to do with her; she was +not behaving like that; and so she looked on, amused, contemptuous, +failing to see in this spectacle of the harassed and inexperienced +travellers any symbol of this life of ours.</p> + +<p>There were two trains, and they had hoped to catch the earlier +one. It was now only a few minutes from the time of starting. She +returned to her former place, nearer the clock, and looked about +her anxiously. He would get the tickets, of course, before he came +on to the main platform, so that there was still plenty of time for +them to catch the train if he appeared at all. There seemed to be +more and more people about, though round her there was a small +clear space. It was just possible that he might have missed her. Only +two minutes now. She hurried over to the entrance to No. 17 platform +and looked over the barrier down the waiting train. Then she +returned, even more hastily, to her place near the clock. From there +she heard the train go out.</p> + +<p>It was annoying. They would have more than three-quarters of an +hour to wait now. It was her turn to keep him waiting. Very deliberately, +she made her way to the tearoom, which was not very +full though it looked vaguely as if it had just been wrecked by a +revolutionary mob, and she spent ten minutes over a cup of tea and +a cigarette. She would have liked to have stayed longer, but it is +almost impossible to linger successfully with only a sheet of glass +between you and a host of trains and passengers. She tried to loiter +on her way back to the four-faced clock and the bookstall, but an +<span class="pagenum" id="p462">[462]</span>inner restlessness prevented her, and she arrived there as if her train +might start any moment. He was not there. Now she began making +little circular tours with the clock as their centre. After quarter of an +hour of these, she returned to the meeting place and remained there, +her suitcase at her feet, erect, motionless, sullen. She was there, and he +must find her. People came and went, bought papers and books, +looked at the clock, looked at the departure board, glanced at her; +porters wheeled their loaded barrows and trucks at this side of her +and that; the trains snorted and puffed and sent red gleams to the +glass roof; but now she paid no attention at all. She was tired of +Victoria, tired of waiting. This time, when the later train was nearly +due to start, she stayed where she was and made no attempt to discover +if he was already on the platform. When the train had gone, +she stood quite still for a minute or two longer, then walked away.</p> + +<p>She had to wait again before she could get a telephone call put +through to his flat. The telephone boxes were in brisk demand. She +knew his telephone number and knew, too, that the instrument at +his flat, which had been out of order the week before, was all right +now. But she would not have been surprised to find that there was +no reply to her call, for she was sure at least that he would not be +there. Something had gone wrong; and even now he was probably +trying to get to Victoria. There was a reply, however, and it obviously +came from a maid.</p> + +<p>“Is Mr. Golspie there, please?”</p> + +<p>“No, he’s not. He’s gone. So has Miss Golspie. They’ve both +gone,” said the voice.</p> + +<p>“Gone? Do you mean—he’s out?”</p> + +<p>“No, gone. Gone for good.”</p> + +<p>“But—I don’t understand. Are you sure? I had an appointment +with him to-night.”</p> + +<p>“All I know is—he’s gone, Miss Golspie too. They’ve gone to +South Africa or South America or one of them places. In a boat, I +<em>do</em> know. I helped ’em to pack, and a job it was too, and a nice mess +they’ve left this place in, I can tell you. I’m cleaning it up now, after +<span class="pagenum" id="p463">[463]</span>’em, ’cos they only took it furnished and I stayed on with the place. +There was a gentleman came when I was having my dinner,” the +voice continued, as if it was rather pleased to have a little chat with +somebody, “and he wanted Mr. Golspie badly, but I couldn’t tell +him anything except they’d gone, went this morning, luggage and +everything, and you never saw such a pile.”</p> + +<p>“Did Mr. Golspie leave any message—for anybody?”</p> + +<p>“No, he just went⁠——”</p> + +<p>“All right, thank you,” said Miss Matfield, interrupting and then +ringing off.</p> + +<p>He had gone, left the country, without even telling her he was +going, without even telling her he could not keep this appointment +at the station. He had simply tossed the week-end away, and her +with it, as if it had been a crumpled bit of paper. If he had not forgotten +all about it, then he had not cared enough to see her for the +last time or even to send a message. And this was the man—oh, +the humiliation of it all! She left the station, burning with shame +and resentment. An hour earlier she might have felt relieved if Mr. +Golspie had come and told her that it would be impossible for them +to go away this week-end. But she had waited there, suitcase in hand, +that filthy little ring in her bag, had waited there, and all the time +he was miles away, not caring if she spent the rest of her life standing +in Victoria station. Never before had she felt such bitter contempt +for herself. She could have cried and cried, not because he +had gone and she would probably never set eyes on him again, but +because his sudden indifference, at this time of all times, left her +feeling pitiably small and silly. The misery of it was like the onslaught +of some unexpected, terrible disease. Her mangled pride +bled and ached inside her, so that she felt faint.</p> + +<p>That was why she did not return, as a sudden impulse commanded +her to do, to the station and take the first train anywhere, +to get away for the week-end at any cost from London and the +Club. She could not do it; all energy and initiative were drained +away; she was too tired. She found a No. 2 bus, climbed on top, +<span class="pagenum" id="p464">[464]</span>and then watched, with smarting eyes that refused to see anything +properly, the glitter and blue murk of half London go lumbering +past, Hyde Park Corner, Park Lane, Oxford Street, Baker Street, +Finchley Road, all a meaningless jumble of light and dark, offering +nothing to Lilian Matfield, no more than if it had been some Chinese +river flickering past on a cinema screen.</p> + +<p>Once in the Club, she hurried upstairs, as if she had stolen the +suitcase she carried. Hastily, mechanically, she washed, tidied her +hair, changed her dress, powdered her face, and then went down to +the dining-room. She did not really want food, but something impelled +her to throw herself back into the routine of the Club. But +she was careful to find one of those nondescript tables for latecomers, +at which there was little talk, and what talk there was merely +the occasional impersonal remarks of acquaintances. She ate little, +and the sight and smell of the food, the look of everybody there, the +high chatter and clatter of the room, made her feel sick. Nevertheless, +she stayed on, and had her coffee with the rest. When she got back +to her room, she began examining all her clothes and grimly set aside +some stockings to be mended. Then she remembered something.</p> + +<p>“<em>Can</em> I come in?” said Miss Morrison. “Hello, Matfield, what +on earth are you doing? Something desperate, by the look of you.”</p> + +<p>“Hello, Morrison. I was only throwing something away,” she +replied, closing the window. Somewhere out there was a cheap imitation +of a wedding ring.</p> + +<p>Miss Morrison, who was wearing bedroom slippers, contrived to +shuffle elegantly—for she never quite lost her slim elegance—into +the room, and hoisted herself on to the bottom of the bed, resting +her back against the wall. “Oh, by the way,” she cried, “you oughtn’t +to be here. Weren’t you going away for the week-end?”</p> + +<p>“I was,” said Miss Matfield shortly, hanging a dress up, “but I +changed my mind.”</p> + +<p>“Good!” And that was all Miss Morrison had to say about that. +It was one of her virtues, as Miss Matfield had begun to notice, that +she did not ask questions when they were obviously unwelcome, +<span class="pagenum" id="p465">[465]</span>made no attempt, except in fun, to nose things out of you. Most +girls at the Burpenfield, if you were on room-visiting terms with +them, did not allow you to have any private life of your own. “I +ought to have gone out to-night,” Miss Morrison continued, in her +usual languid manner, “but I can’t bother to. I feel foul. I never +remember feeling more completely foul, except when I’ve had ’flu +or something like that. I’d go and see a doctor only I can’t afford +to, and then again I disapprove of the way we females run after +doctors and worship them. Cadnam’s just been raving to me about +some doctor she’s just been to. ‘He’s fifty, of course, and heavily +married,’ she said, ‘but the most marvellously attractive man, my +dear.’ She went raving on and on. I think it’s revolting the way +these young females adore their doctors and dentists. I refuse to join +in, don’t you? After that it’ll be vicars and curates and dear, dear +doggies—vile! But, as I said before, I feel thoroughly ill. It’s partly +the idiocy of my respected employer, who really is the silliest woman +there ever was—she gets sillier—and then again it’s partly the time +of year. Don’t you honestly think this is the very, very foulest time +of all the year? It’s such a long way from anything or anywhere +interesting, isn’t it? Just fiendishly dull. I don’t blame all those illustrated +paper people—Lady Chagworth, Colonel Mush, and Friend—for +going away and slacking about on the Riviera or in Madeira, or +wherever it is they do go. I say ‘good luck to them!’—don’t you? +Though I must say it oughtn’t to be the same people who go every +year and the same people who stay at home, like us, and push into +buses on wet nights. They ought to change round a bit. Your turn +this year. Our turn next year. That sort of thing.”</p> + +<p>“I should think so,” said Miss Matfield, somewhat indifferently. +She was still busy putting clothes away. “I call it beastly unfair. I +think I’ll turn Bolshie.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve often thought of turning <em>something</em>,” said Miss Morrison +meditatively. “Have you got a cigarette, by the way?”</p> + +<p>“Some over there somewhere. Can you reach over and get them? +I’ll have one, too.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p466">[466]</span></p> + +<p>Having found the cigarettes, Miss Morrison handed one over, +accompanying it with a curious glance. “I went to that Chehov play, +last night. I didn’t tell you, did I? My dear, don’t go. I wept and +wept—yes, honestly I did. It was just like the Burpenfield with the +lid off, really it was—awful! When I got back last night, I said to +myself, ‘I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it.’”</p> + +<p>“I think that’s stupid, Morrison,” said Miss Matfield, sitting in the +only chair.</p> + +<p>“What’s stupid?”</p> + +<p>“All that—about not bearing it and about the Club being the +Chehov play. It’s not a bit like it.”</p> + +<p>“How do you know, my dear? You haven’t seen the play.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve read it.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t suppose it’s the same, just reading it. I admit it’s not like +this at all on the surface, but honestly it’s got the same what-is-it—atmosphere.”</p> + + +<p>“It hasn’t a bit, I tell you,” said Miss Matfield earnestly. “And I +really think it’s stupid talking like that about this place. It’s ridiculous—all +silly exaggeration. When you talk like that, Morrison, you +annoy me⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Since when, my dear?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ve made up my mind that it’s simply absurd, besides being +terribly depressing, going about talking like that about the life we +lead here. It makes it seem fifty times worse than it is. And, anyhow, +it’s not bad really. It’s our own fault if it is. Yes it is.”</p> + +<p>“My dear, you can’t mean it.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I do mean it.”</p> + +<p>Having said this, Miss Matfield put down her cigarette, looked at +the floor for a minute, then quite suddenly and unaccountably burst +into tears.</p> + +<p>“Sorry!” she cried, five minutes later, when it was all over. “I’m +not going mad, though I dare say it seemed like it. I think—I’ve +been feeling rotten too, all strung up, you know.”</p> + +<p>“My dear,” said Miss Morrison, who had been very tactful, “if I +<span class="pagenum" id="p467">[467]</span>hadn’t wept buckets last night at that play, I don’t know what I’d +be doing to-night.”</p> + +<p>“Listen,” cried Miss Matfield, jumping to her feet and smiling +damply. “I’ve made up my mind now. Yes, I have. It’s serious. Listen. +I’m going to work properly, and I’m going to get a better job and +make more money.”</p> + +<p>“You’re not going to leave your present job, are you?”</p> + +<p>“The Lord forbid! If I did, the scheme wouldn’t work at all. No, +but I’m going to tell them there isn’t anything in the office, or connected +with it, I won’t and can’t do, if they’ll only give me a chance. +I’m going to be <em>really</em> in business, not just sort of hanging on there. +I’ve got a jolly good chance because my firm’s very busy now and +we’re short-handed, and the man who really sold all the veneers +and inlays has just left us⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Not the man you told me about, the fascinating one?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Miss Matfield continued hurriedly. “He’s gone, and that +means there’ll be an awful lot to do and they’ll have to get new +people. Well, I’m going down to Angel Pavement in the morning—and +I needn’t go if I don’t want, because I got the morning off when +I thought I was going away for the week-end⁠——”</p> + +<p>“Wait a minute. Do you mean to say that you’ve actually got the +morning off and yet you’re going all the same? You do? My dear, +it sounds desperate.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I am. And I’m going to Mr. Dersingham, and I shall tell +him that I believe I could do anything that any man could do—and +I don’t care if it’s going round to the weirdest Jewy East End +furniture places selling veneers—and that he ought to give me a +chance. I believe he will too, particularly now, when business is so +good and he’s so short of people. He could easily get another girl +to do my typing, and that sort of thing, and I’d go and do some real +work and then ask for more money. Very soon, I might have a real +job, with a decent salary and proper responsibility and everything.”</p> + +<p>“Quite crazy! Though I believe you could do it, if they’d give you +a chance.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p468">[468]</span></p> + +<p>“They’ll have to give me a chance, and I’m sure I could do it.”</p> + +<p>She kept returning to the subject for the next hour, and then, +when Miss Morrison had gone, she made up her mind all over again, +and saw Messrs. Twigg & Dersingham growing more and more prosperous +and herself, a real member of the firm, growing more and +more prosperous with it. She arrived at Angel Pavement in a neat +little car, and stepped out of it a cool, capable business woman, +dressed with a certain austerity, but still attractive. Before she finally +got to sleep, she had furnished not only her tiny flat in town, but +also her little week-end cottage, which was the delighted admiration +of her mother and other occasional guests. “Lilian, you <em>are</em> lucky,” +they cried; but she told them it was all the result of sheer hard work. +This was the last dream of the day, and it was very pleasant. The +dreams that followed in the night, the dreams that came without +being asked, were curiously different, all dark and troubled, like the +dreams of a child who has been hurried away to a strange place.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_10"> + III +</h3> + +<p>Mrs. Dersingham, Miss Verever and Mr. and Mrs. Pearson were +playing bridge upstairs at 34, Barkfield Gardens, in the Pearsons’ +drawing-room. Mr. Dersingham should have been there, but he had +telephoned to say that urgent business kept him at the office, so Miss +Verever, who was usually abroad at this time of the year but had +stayed in London because she was quarrelling with her solicitors, +had taken his place. She was always ready to take anybody’s place at +any dining or bridge tables, though she never gave the least sign +that she was enjoying herself. The card table was in the middle of +the room, and there was only just space enough for it and its four +players, in spite of the fact that this was a large room, larger than +any of the Dersinghams’ downstairs. The trouble was that the Pearsons +had so many things. They had furnished the room first with +good solid late Victorian furniture, and then they had poured into it +the glittering East, all the loot of Singapore. If the Federated Malay +<span class="pagenum" id="p469">[469]</span>States had been destroyed by an earthquake and a great tidal wave, +their life could have been re-constructed out of that room, which put +any missionary exhibition to shame. Everybody looked out of place +in it, and nobody more out of place than the Pearsons themselves.</p> + +<p>They were now playing their third rubber of auction. Mrs. Dersingham +had Mr. Pearson for her partner, and they were not badly +paired, for she was rather a bold, slap-dash player, while he was +very dull, cautious, obvious, though he always tried to give the impression +of immense cunning. Nobody believed in this cunning of +his except his wife, who would shake her mysterious dark curls at +him and girlishly protest against his sinister subtlety. “Isn’t he dreadful?” +she would cry, after Mr. Pearson, with much stroking of his +chin and narrowing of his eyes, had succeeded in some commonplace +<i>finesse</i>. Mrs. Pearson, though she had been sitting at bridge +tables for years, was one of those cheerfully bad players who continually +ask for and receive advice, but have not the slightest intention +of improving their play. Probably she only saw the cards as so +many vague pieces of pasteboard, and what was real to her was +simply the social scene, the faces round the green cloth and the +pleasant chatter between games. If somebody had suggested playing +<i>Snap</i> with the cards or telling fortunes with them, she would have +been delighted, but as people seemed to prefer bridge, whether in +Singapore or in London, she gladly made one at the table. And if all +Barkfield Gardens had been combed, it would have been impossible +to find a worse partner for Miss Verever, who played a good, keen, +close, give-no-quarter game, and loathed all idle chatterers at the +table, all idiots who would <em>not</em> get trumps out, all the fools who +clung to their wretched aces, all the witless monsters who said, +“Have you seen her lately? I haven’t seen her for weeks and weeks. +Let me see, <em>what</em> are trumps?” Mrs. Pearson combined smilingly +every fault in bridge-playing known to Miss Verever, and Miss +Verever’s glances and tone of voice, queer and disturbing at any +time, were now more queer and disturbing than ever, so that Mrs. +Dersingham felt quite frightened and wished she had never asked +<span class="pagenum" id="p470">[470]</span>her to take Howard’s place. On Mrs. Pearson herself, however, these +very peculiar glances, these biting accents seemed to have no effect.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Mr. Pearson, picking up his pencil, “that’s three down, +doubled—three hundred to us. Simple honours to you, eighteen. +Didn’t do badly that time, eh partner? Must make something while +we can. Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t he dreadful?” cried Mrs. Pearson. “And you’re nearly as +bad, my dear, you’re encouraging him. You see what it is, playing +against my husband, Miss Verever. He’s a dreadful man. Never +mind, we’ll do better next time, won’t we?”</p> + +<p>“But was it necessary to go Three Spades?” Miss Verever enquired +bitterly.</p> + +<p>“Well, wasn’t it? Oh, do tell me if it wasn’t. When you’d gone +One, you see, and I had some spades, I thought we might win the +rubber if we played the spades. If you think I did anything wrong, +Miss Verever, don’t be afraid of telling me, because I know you’re +ever so much better than I am. Should I have played that king first?”</p> + +<p>Miss Verever drew a deep breath, but Mrs. Dersingham was too +quick for her. “Oh, don’t let’s have post-mortems,” she cried. “Whose +deal is it? Mine, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“I suppose Mr. Dersingham will come up when he gets back, +won’t he?” said Mrs. Pearson, who never failed to snatch at any little +opportunity for a chat. “He’s late, isn’t he? It must be so tiring for +him, poor man. We know what it is, don’t we?”</p> + +<p>“We do,” replied her husband. “At least I do, my dear. Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”</p> + +<p>“He used to work terribly late sometimes out in Singapore,” Mrs. +Pearson explained. “Night after night, sometimes in the hot season, +too.”</p> + +<p>“Couldn’t grumble though,” said Mr. Pearson. “It meant that +business was good.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course, that’s what I feel,” said Mrs. Dersingham, pausing +in her dealing. “I suppose they’ve had a sudden rush or something.”</p> + +<p>“That’s splendid, isn’t it?” cried Mrs. Pearson. “I do like to hear +<span class="pagenum" id="p471">[471]</span>of anybody I know doing so well. So many people don’t now, do +they?”</p> + +<p>“It’s made a great difference to Howard, being so busy,” said +Mrs. Dersingham, still with the cards motionless in her hand. “He +really likes being in the City now. He was getting very depressed +about it some time ago. Now let me see⁠——”</p> + +<p>“The next card should be mine,” said Miss Verever coldly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, should it? That’s all right, then.” And she continued dealing.</p> + +<p>“Well, I didn’t want to say anything at the time, my dear,” Mrs. +Pearson began, but she was cut short. Mrs. Dersingham looked up +to see Miss Verever, on her right, giving her a terrible glance, and +so she hastily declared “Pass.”</p> + +<p>“But I thought he seemed rather depressed about it, too,” Mrs. +Pearson continued. “About six months ago, wasn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“<em>One Heart</em>,” said Miss Verever, quietly, but with a fearful intonation. +“<em>One Heart.</em>”</p> + +<p>“Oh dear, have you started bidding already? How quick you are +with your cards!” Mrs. Pearson began sorting hers in a frantic +fashion. “Did you say One Heart? You did, didn’t you? Well, after +last time, I shall say—nothing.”</p> + +<p>“But it’s not your turn to say anything,” Mr. Pearson pointed out. +“In this game, your husband for once gets a chance to speak. And I +say—One No Trumps. Yes, this is where your husband’s allowed to +speak, my dear. Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”</p> + +<p>They were a game all in this rubber, so Miss Verever struggled +up to Three Hearts, but her opponents went Three No Trumps, +got them, won the rubber, and put her down eight hundred points.</p> + +<p>“Is there time for another rubber?” said Mrs. Pearson, who was +always quite willing to go on playing, perhaps because she never +really started.</p> + +<p>“I hardly think there is,” said Miss Verever, with one of her peculiar +smiles.</p> + +<p>“No, let’s stop now,” cried Mrs. Dersingham.</p> + +<p>“Somebody owes me four and ninepence,” Mr. Pearson pointed out.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p472">[472]</span></p> + +<p>“Listen to him! Isn’t he really a dreadful man when he plays this +game? I believe I’ve lost four and nine—or is it five and nine?” Mrs. +Pearson shook her curls at the score. “But I refuse to pay <em>you</em> anything, +so there!”</p> + +<p>“Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I suppose I must pay <em>my</em> debts,” said Miss Verever, looking +at her score as if it was composed of something filthy, then glancing +round without removing all the last expression from her face. “I pay +you, I think, my dear. I’m afraid—yes, I’m afraid—I shall have to +ask you for change.”</p> + +<p>“It doesn’t matter,” said Mrs. Dersingham hastily. “I haven’t got +any change.”</p> + +<p>“Please remind me then, the next time.” Miss Verever said this as +if they would soon be meeting in some torture chamber.</p> + +<p>Somebody had arrived. It must be—it was—Mr. Dersingham. He +came forward, blinking a little. His wife did not like the look of +him. He was flushed and rather untidy.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pearson rushed at him. “Come along, you poor, poor man! +Sit down here. Make yourself comfortable. You’ve been working all +this time while we’ve been enjoying ourselves. Walter, give poor +Mr. Dersingham a drink this minute. I’m sure you’d like one, +wouldn’t you?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Dersingham said that he would, and the next minute he was +taking a good swig of a large whisky and soda. When he put the +glass down, he caught his wife’s eye, and for a moment he just +stared at her. She liked the look of him now less than ever. To begin +with, this was by no means the first large whisky he had had that +night. She saw that at once. But that was not all. There was something +wrong. She glanced round and saw Miss Verever staring at +him, and decided immediately that the sooner Miss Verever left them +the better. She did not mind much about the Pearsons, who were +kind and homely people, but she did not want Maud Verever to see +or hear anything. She was about to suggest that they must go, when +Mr. Pearson spoke.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p473">[473]</span></p> + +<p>“Had a long day, Dersingham, eh?” said Mr. Pearson, his cheeks +wobbling sympathetically. “We were just talking about it. I know +what it is. I’ve had these rushes, you know, working half the night—in +the hot season too, not a breath of air. Takes it out of you, I’ll +tell you. Still, it’s good for business, isn’t it? Better than the other +way round, eh? Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”</p> + +<p>“I think I really ought to be going now,” said Miss Verever, with +one of her dreadful smiles.</p> + +<p>“Enjoyed yourself?” said Mr. Dersingham.</p> + +<p>She started back. “Oh—of course,” she replied, keeping her eyes +fixed on him.</p> + +<p>“Good. I’m glad to hear it. I like to hear of anybody enjoying +themselves, and specially you, Miss Verever.”</p> + +<p>There was something very extraordinary about this, but Miss +Verever did not care to stop and investigate it. She began saying +Good-night. Mrs. Dersingham said that they must go too, but Mr. +Dersingham refused to stir, so Miss Verever left by herself, though +Mrs. Dersingham accompanied her down the stairs.</p> + +<p>“Howard doesn’t seem to be very well to-night, does he?” said +Miss Verever, when they reached the hall below, in the Dersingham +half of the building.</p> + +<p>“He’s tired, that’s all. I don’t think he’s very well. He’s been working +tremendously hard. It’s terribly tiring working late like this +down in the City.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose it is.” And it would be impossible to cram a larger +amount of dubiety into four words than Miss Verever did into +those four.</p> + +<p>“Of course it is,” cried Mrs. Dersingham, a trifle impatiently. +“You just try it and see.”</p> + +<p>“Why, have you tried it, my dear? If you have, it’s news to me. +However, I hope Howard’s better soon. He shouldn’t tire himself +out like that. It must be very bad for him. Don’t you think so? +Well, it was very nice of you to ask me to make the four up and +play with Mrs. Pearson. Good-bye, my dear.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p474">[474]</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Dersingham hurried back to the Pearsons, slightly alarmed +and considerably annoyed. It looked as if Howard had not been +kept late at the office at all, but had sneaked off to his club, where he +had had more drinks than were good for him. There was always +just a little, a little, danger of that with Howard. She found him +sitting with his legs stretched out straight in front of him, listening +to the Pearsons, who were still talking about Singapore.</p> + +<p>“Taking it all round, y’know, the good with the bad,” Mr. Pearson +concluded, “it’s not such a bad life out there, though it’s not so good +as it was. It isn’t anywhere in the East. Still, even so, I believe if I’d +my time over again, I’d go out there again, I really believe I would.”</p> + +<p>“Good!” said Mr. Dersingham, with a kind of dreary solemnity. +“All right then, Pearson, what about that job out there you promised +to get me?”</p> + +<p>“Any time, any time! Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee. When would you like it? +Tee-tee-tee.” Mr. Pearson evidently regarded this as a great joke.</p> + +<p>“You can start getting it for me now, old man.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pearson joined in the joke. “You’d better be getting your +clothes ready, my dear,” she told Mrs. Dersingham, who smiled, +though not very brightly. She did not see anything very funny in all +this, and her husband was behaving very stupidly. It was time she +got him away.</p> + +<p>“I’m serious, y’know,” he declared now, with the same dreary +solemnity. “I’m not joking. You get me that job out there as soon +as you can. I’m serious.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right. So are we. When would you like it then? Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Dersingham drained his glass, then examined what was left +in it, the last golden drops, with a thoroughness that suggested he +was conducting a chemical experiment.</p> + +<p>“We <em>really</em> must go, yes, really we must,” cried Mrs. Dersingham, +with a forced brightness; and in less than two minutes she had said +all there was to say and had hustled her husband and herself out of +the room. There was no fire in the drawing-room below, but there +<span class="pagenum" id="p475">[475]</span>was the whitening ruin of one in the dining-room, and immediately +he stumped in there in a heavy sort of way and sat down. She walked +in after him, but did not sit down.</p> + +<p>“I’m going to bed,” she announced coldly.</p> + +<p>“Just a minute,” he said in a muffled voice.</p> + +<p>“I prefer to go to bed. I’m tired, even if you’re not.” And she +turned away.</p> + +<p>“No, don’t go,” he cried, quite sharply now, with hardly anything +of that thickness in his voice that had been there before. “You +mustn’t, Pongo. I’ve got something to tell you.”</p> + +<p>She closed the door and came back. “Pongo” was his old specially +silly delightful name for her, and even now, when she was annoyed +with him, when he was a large, pink, sagging creature, whose every +stupidity she knew by heart, when he was sitting there, flushed and +thick with whisky, not at all the sort of man she ever imagined she +was marrying, a hundred times less attentive and considerate and +clever and courageous, even now, the sound of that “Pongo” gave +her a little thrill. She was annoyed with herself for feeling it. If he +imagined he was going to be forgiven at once, simply because he +had called her by that name, he was sadly mistaken.</p> + +<p>She took up a position on the other side of the hearth, and stood +looking down on him. “I should think you have something to say! +Have you been to the club?”</p> + +<p>He nodded and waved an impatient hand. “That was nothing,” +he muttered.</p> + +<p>“No, but if you <em>must</em> pretend you have to work late and then you +go on to the club and fuddle yourself with drinks, you might at +least have the sense to keep out of the way, instead of barging in +like that and behaving so stupidly. No, Howard, I’m really disgusted. +You know I’m not silly about drinking, as some women +are. But there’s a limit. I believe you’re drinking a jolly sight too +much these days, a lot more than is good for you. Yes, I mean it. +Anybody could see what was the matter with you to-night, up there.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, could they?” He gave a little laugh.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p476">[476]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, of course they could.”</p> + +<p>“Well, believe me, my dear, they <em>couldn’t</em>. Not one of ’em. Not +you, even. No, not you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t be silly, Howard.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not being silly. I wish to God I was. You know when I asked +Pearson about that job? I suppose you thought I was being funny +then, didn’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t think you were being particularly funny,” she told him, +“though you obviously thought you were. If you want to know what +I thought, it was that you were just being rather stupid.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I wasn’t, Pongo,” he said quietly. “I was quite serious. No, +listen. We’re absolutely done—I mean the firm, Twigg and Dersingham—completely +finished.”</p> + +<p>“Howard, you don’t mean it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I do. That’s what kept me to-night. I had a drink or two just +because I felt played out, and I suppose I did show it—sorry about +that—but I’ve had a hell of a day. Golspie’s cleared out and left +us⁠——”</p> + +<p>“But you told me the other day that even if Golspie did go, it +wouldn’t matter and you’d arranged everything so that you could +do without him.”</p> + +<p>“I know, but the rotten swine did me down⁠——”</p> + +<p>“But how? I don’t understand. Howard, you don’t really mean +it’s as serious as all that? The firm can go on, can’t it?”</p> + +<p>He shook his head, and kept his face turned away. He looked like +a great foolish baby. She swept down on him. “Tell me what’s happened. +Why didn’t you tell me at once? I’m sorry I was cross with +you. I didn’t know it was anything serious—naturally. Now tell me.”</p> + +<p>He told her the whole wretched story.</p> + +<p>“But do you mean to say that brute has gone and you can’t do +anything, anything at all? But it’s ridiculous. Can’t you tell the +police? Why, it’s just as bad as burglary or swindling. It <em>is</em> swindling. +But I knew, I <em>knew</em> all the time that something would happen +because of that man. He hated us after that night he came here +<span class="pagenum" id="p477">[477]</span>and I lost my temper with that vile little minx of a daughter. I felt +all the time he did. I told you to get rid of him, didn’t I? Oh, +Howard, you have been stupid. Yes, you have. I’ll never believe in +you again as a business man. You used to tell me I didn’t understand +about these things, but I’m sure I understand about people—and +that’s the main thing—better than you. But what’s going to +happen now?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” he mumbled miserably, and he explained as best +he could the position they were in. As she listened, she suddenly +saw the four walls enclosing them, the table and chairs and sideboard, +everything in sight, no longer as solid objects, fixed, rooted +in a secure existence, but as things brittle as glass, unstable and wavering +as water. Nor did her imagination stop there. It explored the +whole maisonette, the drawing-room, the kitchen below, the nursery +and bedrooms, and discovered nothing substantial there, except the +two children asleep upstairs and a few personal possessions that had +long ceased to be mere things. She realised now, with a shock of +dismay, that something absurd and fantastic could happen in Angel +Pavement, far away, that could change all this. Their life here in +Barkfield Gardens, not their personal life, but everything else, all the +cleaning and cooking and shopping and visiting, was a mere candle-flame—one +puff of wind, a wind that came from nowhere, and it was +gone. She understood how millions of people live. It was a moment +of revelation.</p> + +<p>“What are we going to do?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know yet,” he replied wearily. “Give me time. I haven’t +had a chance to think yet. Hang it all, this has all been dropped on +me like a ton of bricks. God!—I’m tired.”</p> + +<p>He sounded helpless, looked helpless. Her mind began working +furiously now, and the effect, after months and months of stagnation, +of pretending and dreaming and vague discontent, was curiously +exhilarating. “Do you think Mr. Pearson could get you a job +out East?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p478">[478]</span></p> + +<p>“No, I don’t.”</p> + +<p>“But why? You haven’t asked him properly. He doesn’t know you +want one—if you really do want one, and I’m not sure about that.”</p> + +<p>“I know he doesn’t, my dear. But I’m sure when he does he’ll +change his tune. I felt that when he was talking to-night. It’s all +right,” he added bitterly, as if he had suddenly discovered what the +world was like and what men were made of, “while it’s still a joke. +The minute he finds I’m serious, he’ll pull a long face. I don’t mean +he’s not a decent chap and all that. But he thinks he’s talking to a +prosperous business man who doesn’t really want a job. That’s the +difference.”</p> + +<p>“I must have some tea,” she announced. “It’s no good; we must +talk it over; if I went to bed I shouldn’t sleep a wink—and if we’re +going to stay up, I must have some tea. I’ll go down and make some. +No, I can do it by myself. You stay here, and, Howard, do, do try +and think of something. Try and find out how much money we’ll +have left—and everything.”</p> + +<p>When she returned with the tea, he was still sitting in the same +huddled fashion. “Listen, I’ve been thinking,” she began, almost +gaily. But seeing him there, a large melancholy heap of man, she +put down the tray, came across, pushed him back in his chair, and +stood looking down at him, her hands still on his shoulders.</p> + +<p>“Do you love me?” she asked.</p> + +<p>He found this question as difficult as ever, but this time there was +none of that masculine impatience or grinning intolerance. “As a +matter of fact, I do,” he told her in a shamefaced mumble, “but I +don’t feel this is the time to say so.”</p> + +<p>“Of course it is. Why not?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ve let you down. I’ve let you down badly. I’ve been a fool. +I’ll admit I have. But I never liked the business, you know that, +don’t you? If it hadn’t been for the cursed War, I’d never have gone +into it. Not my style at all. I always hated it really—Angel Pavement +and all those damned furniture places and sniffling East End Jews, +<span class="pagenum" id="p479">[479]</span>and the whole thing. I’ve tried my best, but it’s always gone against +the grain. I’m not excusing myself, mind, though honestly I think +anybody might have been let down the same way by that artful +devil. Smeeth—and he’s been in business all his life—never had a +suspicion. He was more surprised than I was. And a fellow I talked +to at the Club said he’d never heard of such a thing, said I couldn’t +be blamed at all. But there it is. What bothers me is that there’s +some of your money gone, too. I’m sorry, Pongo. I seem to have +made a mess of it.”</p> + +<p>“I have some money left, though.”</p> + +<p>“Not much,” he told her gloomily. “About twelve hundred, perhaps. +No, not quite that.”</p> + +<p>“Well, that’s something, isn’t it? It’s quite a lot, really. And after +all you’ve had very good business experience now. Then—you remember +what Uncle Phil said? Just a minute; I’ll pour out the tea. +Yes, you must have some.” She did not sound at all depressed.</p> + +<p>She was not depressed. In a few weeks, she might be miserable—she +knew that too; she seemed to know everything to-night—but +now, at this moment, she might have just had good news instead of +very bad. Unlike her husband, who appeared to be only half the +man he usually was, a listless lump, she felt twice her customary +self. The footlights had blazed out, the curtain had shot up, and she +had responded at once to the call of the drama. But there was more +in it than that. She was no longer playing and pretending in the +background. The situation, leaving him crushed, challenged her, and +there was something exhilarating in accepting the challenge. Everything +was suddenly real and exciting. Plans by the score, some of +them born of old idle day-dreams, were stirring in her mind, and +now while he listened, sometimes shaking his head, sometimes looking +at her hopefully, they came tumbling out. “Of course, we’ll give +this place up as soon as we can—we ought to get a decent premium +too—look what we’ve spent on the decoration—and then I’m sure +mother would take the children for a few months....”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p480">[480]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="IV_10"> + IV +</h3> + +<p>Yes, Mr. Smeeth was going home. It never occurred to him to go +and hear what was left of the concert. He had done with Brahms +& Co. for a long time, perhaps for ever. As he waited for his tram, +he remembered that tune again—Ta <em>tum</em> ta ta <em>tum</em> tum—and now it +seemed like something that was going on a long, long way off, like +a birthday party in Australia. He said good-bye to that tune. As the +tram went lumbering and groaning up the City Road, he said good-bye +to many things.</p> + +<p>He was feeling rather queer. He had missed his usual evening +meal and was empty; that double whisky had had its effect; there +was undoubtedly a pain somewhere in his side; and then of course +there was the shock of the bad news. He had for years moved gingerly, +apprehensively, through a world in which the worst might +happen at any moment. The worst had happened. He could have +said to himself, with satisfaction, “What did I tell you?” Perhaps +there ought not to have been any shock. But it was not so simple as +that. He had never expected to be hurled out of his job in this fashion. +He had always seen danger coming from many quarters, but +nevertheless this blow had arrived from quite an unexpected quarter. +The more he thought about it, the angrier he grew. His anger +was not directed against Mr. Dersingham, not even against Golspie, +but against the whole world, the very nature of things.</p> + +<p>You go on for years and years building up a position for yourself +until at last you have a place of your own, a little world of your own, +in which the figures do what you tell them to do, the books reveal +their secrets, the fellows at the bank say “Good morning, Mr. +Smeeth,” and everything is snug and sensible. Then a chap turns +up from nowhere, looks at a trade directory and happens to choose +your firm, wanders in to Angel Pavement, and then, in less than six +months’ time, without your having any hand or say in it, he blows +you clean out of it all, without even knowing or caring a thing about +<span class="pagenum" id="p481">[481]</span>it. You are quietly finishing off for the day, and then suddenly—bang! +What was the good of trams going up and down the City +Road and conductors taking fares and nobody smoking inside or +spitting on top under penalty of a fine? What was the good of having +a City Road at all and lighting it with street lamps and opening shops +and sending policemen to walk up and down it; what was the good +of paying rates and taxes and shaving yourself and seeing that you +had a clean collar and going round to doctors and dentists and reading +the newspapers and voting, if this is what could happen any +minute? My God!—what was the good of it all?</p> + +<p>This blanched middle-aged man, sitting in a corner of the moving +tram, an unlighted pipe trembling beneath his grey moustache, the +wrinkles on his face deeper than ever, peered through his glasses +now at the familiar panorama of the North London roads and saw +not a glimmer of it. His gaze was really fixed on the crazy structure +of things, and of that he could make neither head nor tail. He was +shaking a little, not with fear, but with indignation. For years +there had been a great shadow haunting and terrifying him, for he +had seen all the little lighted things of his life menaced by it. Now +the lights had gone, blown out; he sat in the shadow itself; the tram +was crawling through it; the Stoke Newington Road was in it; and +all his fear had been used up before by that shadow, when he had +been a man who had something precious to lose. Now he had lost +it. In a week or two, he would have to start again, and at a time +when even the boys were lining up in their hundreds for a chance of +a mere beginning at ten shillings a week. It wasn’t good enough. +That was the phrase he used, the first that sprang into his mind, and +he repeated it over and over again with tremendous emphasis. “Not +good enough,” he said as he left the tram. “Not good enough,” as he +made his way to Chaucer Road, “not good enough.”</p> + +<p>It was only too evident, he told himself grimly, that they were not +expecting him back so soon at 17, Chaucer Road. Everything seemed +to be in full swing there. You might have thought somebody had +just been left a fortune. He heard a great noise coming from the +<span class="pagenum" id="p482">[482]</span>front room, and he saw a light in the dining-room. He chose the +dining-room, and found George there, tinkering about with the +wireless set.</p> + +<p>“Who’s in there?” asked Mr. Smeeth.</p> + +<p>“The Mitty crowd,” said George, with a tiny grin. “I came in here +out of the way. I’ve had enough of that lot. Mitty owes me a quid, +too. He’s no good.” He looked curiously at his father. “Anything +up, Dad?”</p> + +<p>“You got anything to do yet, George?”</p> + +<p>“Not yet. I thought I was on to something to-day, but it was no go. +I’m going round to see a chap to-morrow morning, big garage up at +Stamford Hill. Why? Anything wrong?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I look like being out of a job within the next fortnight, and +you know what that means.”</p> + +<p>It was not the tragedy to George that it was to his father, not +merely because George was much younger, but also because his +whole outlook was different, for he lived in a newer world in which +jobs came and went and nobody troubled to spend years consolidating +a position. Nevertheless, the youth had sufficient imagination +to realise what this meant to his father. “I’m sorry about that, Dad—by +gosh, I am! Rotten luck, isn’t it? How’d it happen? They’d never +sack you, would they? Has the firm gone broke?”</p> + +<p>“That’s it. Try and get something as soon as you can, George. +You know how we’ll be fixed.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t worry, Dad, I’ll get something soon, something good, too. +Edna’s not earning anything now, either, is she? She’d better make +another start, too, hadn’t she?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll attend to that. We’ll all have to make another start now, if +you ask me,” said Mr. Smeeth grimly. They looked at one another, +with approval on both sides, in silence for a moment. They could +hear sounds of merriment from the other room. “Seem to be enjoying +themselves in there,” said Mr. Smeeth, his temper rising.</p> + +<p>George came nearer. “Dad, boot ’em out. I would if it was my +house. I told mother so, too⁠——”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p483">[483]</span></p> + +<p>“Taking something on yourself, boy, aren’t you, these days?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I did. I can’t stand that lot. That’s why I came in here.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth nodded. “That’s just what I’m going to do, George. +I want some peace and quietness to-night, and I’m going to have it.” +He walked out, and his son followed him.</p> + +<p>The front room was just as it had been the first time the Mitty +family visited them. There were only five people in it, Mitty and +his wife and daughter, Mrs. Smeeth and Edna, but it seemed quite +crowded and as thick, hot, and smelly, as if people had been eating, +drinking and smoking in it for weeks. It made Mr. Smeeth feel very +angry and disgusted.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Smeeth stared at him, and looked uneasy. “Hello, Dad,” she +cried. “I didn’t expect you back so soon.”</p> + +<p>“So it seems.”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t you go to the concert?”</p> + +<p>Fred Mitty, very flushed, was about to help himself from a bottle +that stood, with other bottles, glasses, and some cake and biscuits, +on a little table in the centre of the room. He was leaning forward, +but straightened himself when he saw Mr. Smeeth standing there. +“Thought you was having some classical music to-night, Pa,” he +roared. “Gave it a miss, eh?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Smeeth advanced into the room, breathing hard. He looked +at Mitty. “I’ve been working hard,” he said pointedly, “and I want +some peace and quietness now. So I’ll say Good-night.”</p> + +<p>“What d’you mean, Dad?” cried Mrs. Smeeth.</p> + +<p>But the irrepressible Fred could not resist this. “Well, night-night, +Pa,” he yelled, “if you’re going to bed. Don’t let me keep you.” He +looked round with a grin, asking for applause, and got it from the +two girls, who giggled. Then he made a move towards the bottle +again.</p> + +<p>“I’m not going to bed, just yet,” said Mr. Smeeth, his voice trembling. +“But you’re going home. That’s what I meant.”</p> + +<p>“Here, half a minute, Dad.” Mrs. Smeeth’s voice rose in indignation. +“What a way to talk!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p484">[484]</span></p> + +<p>“I should think so indeed,” cried Mrs. Mitty, sitting up sharply.</p> + +<p>“For the more we are too-gether,” Fred sang, as his hand closed +round the whisky bottle, “the merrier we will bee-yer.”</p> + +<p>The fuse had been burning briskly for some time, and now its +travelling spark reached the explosive. Mr. Smeeth blew up. “Get +out!” he screamed at Mitty. “Get out of here! Go on! Get out!”</p> + +<p>“That’s the stuff,” shouted George from the doorway.</p> + +<p>But that scream was not enough for such an explosion of wrath. +Two seconds later, Mr. Smeeth had flung down the little table and +sent whisky and port and dirty glasses and cake and biscuits and +oranges flying about the room. All was roaring chaos, with Fred +Mitty shouting, the two wives screaming, Dot Mitty shrieking with +laughter, Edna bursting into tears, George charging forward, and +Mr. Smeeth standing in the middle, bellowing and stamping among +the ruins. All the others jumped up and there was a pushing and +jostling and Mr. Smeeth lost his eyeglasses and had no hope of finding +them in the scrimmage. Nothing could be plainly heard in the +din, and now, for Mr. Smeeth, robbed of his glasses, nothing could +be plainly seen. His wife seemed to be shaking his arm and shrieking +at him; Mrs. Mitty seemed to have hurled herself at Fred, to prevent +further violence; and George appeared to be taking a hand in +all the proceedings. But in another minute, he was alone in the room, +and all the others seemed to be talking at the top of their voices +outside. Feeling shaky, he made a step or two towards a chair, and +trod on some glass. His own eyeglasses were still on the floor somewhere, +and no doubt somebody had trodden on them. He collapsed +into the chair, and in a dazed fashion removed a strange soggy substance +from his left bootsole. It was what had once been a very generous +slice of sandwich cake. Then a piece of broken glass, a jagged +fragment of tumbler, cut his hand. He felt ill. It would not have +been very difficult for him to have been sick on the spot. The sound +of the voices outside did not abate for several minutes, but he stayed +where he was. They could argue it out between them, could say and +do what they liked; he didn’t care.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p485">[485]</span></p> + +<p>The door had been left open, and he heard the Mitty family go, +and then he heard George say something to Mrs. Smeeth and Edna. +The three of them went into the dining-room and closed the door +behind them, but the sound of their voices, raised in heated discussion, +came to him in his armchair. He had groped about a little with +the hand that was not cut, but all he had found were two biscuits +and these he had eaten in that mechanical fashion in which biscuits +are nearly always eaten. The voices were lower now and suggested +that their owners were no longer merely shouting at one another, +but were really talking. More minutes passed, and then he heard +Edna go upstairs to bed. Then, after a short interval, during which +he listened intently, shakily, to every sound, his wife came into the +room. She did not burst in, as he had expected her to do; she came +in quietly and shut the door after her. But this did not necessarily +mean that there would not be a storm, and he braced himself to +meet it.</p> + +<p>There was no storm, however. Mrs. Smeeth’s first fury had passed, +though she was still very agitated. “If it hadn’t been for George, I +was going to say something to you, Herbert, you wouldn’t forget for +a long, long time. But he says you’re very upset about your work.”</p> + +<p>“I am,” said Mr. Smeeth in a very low voice.</p> + +<p>“He says you’re going to lose your job. Is that right?”</p> + +<p>“That’s right, Edie. It’s all up with Twigg and Dersingham. In +a week or two I’ll be finding myself without a job.”</p> + +<p>“You’re sure this time, Dad? I mean—it’s not one of your false +alarms, is it?”</p> + +<p>“I wish it was. No, there’s no false alarm about it this time.”</p> + +<p>“Mind you,” cried Mrs. Smeeth hastily, shakily, “that’s no reason +why you should have gone and behaved like this. My word, if anybody’d +told me you’d have gone and done a thing like that—you of +all men—my word, I’d have told <em>them</em> something! Smashing the +place up, too! Look at this room! Look at yourself! But I suppose if +you were upset, you weren’t responsible. Here, Dad, are you sure, +<span class="pagenum" id="p486">[486]</span>really sure, about your job? You’re not—you’re not trying to frighten +me again, are you?”</p> + +<p>“No, of course I’m not.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t believe it. Here, what happened?”</p> + +<p>He tried to tell her what had happened, and at least succeeded in +convincing her that he was entirely serious. “And if you think I’m +going to get another job as good as that, or a job worth having at +all, in a hurry, you’re mistaken, Edie. I know what it is, with office +jobs; and it’ll have to be an office job because that’s what I’ve always +done. I’m nearly fifty, and I look it. I dare say I look older⁠——”</p> + +<p>“That you don’t, Dad.”</p> + +<p>“Well, that’s your opinion, but you won’t be employing me. I +know what it is.” And there came back to him suddenly, poignantly, +the memory of that tiny scene outside the office door, several months +ago, when he had said to that anxious man, the last in the line of +applicants, “Good luck!” and had received the ghost of a smile. +“There are four of us here. George is out of work, though he might +get something soon. He’s a good lad, really. There’s Edna. She’s +earning nothing now.”</p> + +<p>“She will be before this time next week,” said Mrs. Smeeth +quickly. “I’ll see to that.”</p> + +<p>“She might be, and then again, she might not. And in a week or +two I’ll be among the unemployed. And we’ve got about forty odd +pounds saved up, that’s what we’ve got, all told, unless you count +this furniture.”</p> + +<p>“I can work,” cried Mrs. Smeeth fiercely. “You needn’t think +there’ll be me to keep in idleness. I’ll get something. I’ll go out +charring first.”</p> + +<p>“But I don’t want you to go out charring,” Mr. Smeeth told her, +almost shouting. “I didn’t marry you and I haven’t worked all this +time, never missing a minute if I could help it, and we didn’t save +and plan to get this home together, so you could go out charring. +My God, it’s not good enough. When I think of the way I’ve worked +<span class="pagenum" id="p487">[487]</span>and planned and gone without things to get us a decent position⁠——!” +His voice dropped.</p> + +<p>“We’ll manage somehow.” And having said this, Mrs. Smeeth, +the gay and confident partner, suddenly and astonishingly burst +into tears.</p> + +<p>“Manage? We’ll have to manage,” Mr. Smeeth had begun, grimly. +Then he changed his tone. “Here, Edie. That’s all right, that’s all +right. Now then, now then. I’m sorry I lost my temper too⁠——”</p> + +<p>“It was my fault,” she sobbed. “Yes, it is. I deserved it. I know I’ve +spent too much money. Yes, I have.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, never mind. You weren’t to know the firm was going broke +like that. I didn’t know myself. Never more surprised in my life. +Here, Edie. Now then, now then.” He was standing beside her now.</p> + +<p>“Oh dear,” she gasped, a few minutes later, trying to wipe her +eyes. She was both laughing and crying now. “Oh, dear, dear, +dear, dear!”</p> + +<p>He looked at her solemnly.</p> + +<p>“Oh dear, dear, you do look a sight, Dad. I don’t know who looks +the worst, you or this room. I never saw such a sketch, though I +expect I’m bad enough, goodness knows!”</p> + +<p>“I’ve dropped my eyeglasses, that’s all that’s wrong with me,” Mr. +Smeeth announced, not without dignity.</p> + +<p>“I can see that, Dad, I can see that,” she told him, dabbing at her +face. “Here, I’ll look for them. You sit down. But, mind you, if +they’re broken, don’t blame me. It wasn’t me that started throwing +things about to-night, was it? Here they are.”</p> + +<p>“Broken?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, somebody made no mistake when they trod on them. You’ll +have to wear your old ones for a day or two, that’s all. I’ll go and +get them for you, and then you can help me to clear this mess up.”</p> + +<p>“All right, Edie.” Mr. Smeeth hesitated. “Is there anything to eat +in the house? I’m getting hungry now.”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t you have anything? Haven’t you had anything at all to-night? +You silly man, why didn’t you say so? I’ll go and get you +<span class="pagenum" id="p488">[488]</span>something now. You go and get your glasses, you know where they +are—in the drawer upstairs. If you can’t see them, you can feel for +them. Yes, in the top drawer. And I’ll get you something to eat while +you’re finding them. Oh dear, what a life! Still, it’s the only one +we’ve got, I suppose, so we’d better make what we can out of it.”</p> + +<p>She bustled out and Mr. Smeeth followed her. He was very shortsighted, +almost helpless without his glasses, and after he had stumbled +upstairs to their bedroom he spent some time groping about +for the old pair. Annoyed by the dim shapelessness of everything, +he told himself that he ought to have been wearing his glasses before +he started on such a search. Then he saw the irony of it and was +quite entertained for a few moments, during which he felt for the +first time for a long while a curiously reassuring detachment from +things, and when he found the old glasses and put them on, he +seemed, for one brief interval, to be staring at another and smaller +world, and it was a world that could play all manner of tricks with +Herbert Norman Smeeth but could never capture, swallow, and +digest the whole of him. The newly-born ironist then returned downstairs, +to eat his supper.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p489">[489]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Epilogue"> + <i>Epilogue</i> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>Mr. Golspie, pottering about in his cabin, would not have known +she was moving off if he had not suddenly seen a blue funnel +go wandering across the open porthole. He could feel no motion, +but then she was not moving under her own steam, but was being +taken out of the docks by tugs. Mr. Golspie put his head into the +next cabin, where his daughter was still fussing about with her +things. “We’re off,” he said, grinning at her. Lena showed no sign +of excitement. You might have thought she had been travelling to +the River Plate all her life.</p> + +<p>“Coming out?” said her father.</p> + +<p>“Not yet. Are we really going? There doesn’t seem to be any +excitement.”</p> + +<p>“There isn’t. If that’s what you want, we ought to have gone on +a liner, and then you’d have had palaver enough—kissing and crying +and cheering and God knows what. These boats do it quietly.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m disappointed. But I’ll come out when there’s something +to see and I’ve put these things away. I’m rather tired of staring at +these silly docks, though. Tell me when anything happens.”</p> + +<p>He nodded, grinned again at her, then withdrew, and went out +on to the main deck, where several of the other passengers were +standing. There were only a dozen passengers all told, for this was +primarily a cargo boat. One of these fellow travellers caught Mr. +Golspie’s eye, nodded, and then came nearer. They had exchanged +a few remarks already, each having recognised in the other an old +hand and a kindred spirit. They knew even now that the moment +the steward was at liberty to dispense his liquors, they would be having +a drink together, the first of many, many drinks. This other +man, Sugden, was a tallish fellow with a long bony face and a vast +<span class="pagenum" id="p490">[490]</span>shaven upper lip, a Lancashire man who travelled for some chemical +firm. He had one of those hard, flat, Lancashire voices that give every +statement they make a lugubrious and disillusioned air.</p> + +<p>“Moving,” that voice announced now, to Mr. Golspie.</p> + +<p>“Moving,” said Mr. Golspie.</p> + +<p>They stood together, two solid middle-aged men, and together +they watched the long line of masts and funnels in the Royal Albert +Dock go sliding away. They were still in London, and no great distance +from the buses and trams, the teashops and the pubs, yet all +that London seemed to have disappeared long ago. Here was another +city with streets and squares of dark water, a city of wharves +and sheds, masts and funnels and cranes, barges, tugs, and lighters. +Wherever you looked there appeared to be nothing but these things, +though in the far distance a haze of smoke, hanging above the multitudinous +chimney-pots of Poplar and Bow, suggested that the +other London, the brick and paving-stone London, was still there. It +was not a bad morning for the time of year. Now and then the +sunlight struggled through and set the water glittering or brought +out ghostly rainbow hues on the darker oilier patches.</p> + +<p>“This is where they bring all the meat,” said Sugden. “This, and +Liverpool. If you blocked this place up for a week or two, a lot o’ +people would find themselves without their Sunday dinners. Not +me, though. Give me English meat, when I can get it. And when +I’m at home, I insist on having it. Get enough o’ the other sort when +I’m away.”</p> + +<p>“You’ve been on these boats before, haven’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I have. I’ve been on this very ship twice before. They know me +here. You ask ’em.”</p> + +<p>“Food all right?”</p> + +<p>“Suits me,” replied Sugden. “Should suit you, too. Good quality +and plenty of it. Nothing fancy, y’know—not like these liners, with +their chefs and what not—but plenty o’ good solid stuff. That’s what +I like.”</p> + +<p>Apparently it was what Mr. Golspie liked too. He produced a +<span class="pagenum" id="p491">[491]</span>cigar case, and the two men lit up and through a fragrant dribble +of smoke regarded the moving docks with half-closed eyes and a +vague air of patronage.</p> + +<p>“This port of London’s a bit of an eye-opener to me,” Mr. Golspie +remarked.</p> + +<p>“Ever been all round it? Tremendous—oh tremendous! There’s +the West India Docks further up here, and then the Surrey Commercial +on the other side. You never saw such a place. It’s a hard +day’s work looking round the Surrey Commercial. Chap tried to +show me once, but I gave it up. And then you’ve got the London +Docks further up still. And Tilbury, of course. If you go out on one +of the regular liners and mail boats, you get on down at Tilbury. +I’ve done that once or twice, but this suits me better. When I’m +aboard a ship, I like to travel quietly. I don’t like all this floating +hotel, song-and-dance, fancy-dress ball business. What d’you say?”</p> + +<p>“Haven’t been on one of those big ships for donkeys’ years,” Mr. +Golspie confessed. “I’ve never been out to South America before, as +a matter of fact. I’ve been to the States, in my time, and I’ve been +to Central America, but not to south. But an old pal of mine’s out +there—Montevideo’s his headquarters—and he’s put up a good proposition, +so I’m going to see what it looks like.”</p> + +<p>“Plenty o’ money there, plenty. Only place where there is now, +there and the States. I shouldn’t like to live there though. Wouldn’t +suit me.”</p> + +<p>“And where do you live when you’re at home?”</p> + +<p>“St. Helens. That’s where my firm is, and that’s where I live. Been +there all my life. D’you know it?”</p> + +<p>“Saw it once from the train,” Mr. Golspie replied. “Bit ugly, +isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Sugden was not surprised. Obviously he had heard this before. +“Yes, it’s a bit ugly, if you’re not used to it. But I’m a bit ugly +myself. And if it comes to that, you’re no beauty.” And he roared +with laughter.</p> + +<p>Mr. Golspie laughed too, companionably. They strolled round the +<span class="pagenum" id="p492">[492]</span>deck, on which Miss Lena Golspie, in a fur coat and with a scarlet +scarf about her neck, soon made an appearance, to the delight of +several of the younger male passengers and ship’s officers, who had +been waiting for this moment, after hoping, with the despair born +of many previous disappointments, that she was not merely a fleeting +vision, one of those lovely creatures who come aboard for an hour +or two and then depart, leaving the whole ship under a shadow. She +joined her father and was introduced to Mr. Sugden (not an impressionable +man), and then wandered away, to stare with disdainful +interest at the other ships and to gather out of the corners of her +brilliant eyes a good deal of exciting preliminary information about +her fellow passengers. The scene before her—the ship had stopped +now in that unaccountable fashion that ships have—seemed to her +very ugly and dull, and it was incredible that this dirty water and +drab messiness should be the beginning of a voyage to South America, +of which her fancy entertained the liveliest and most exciting +pictures, chiefly derived from the films. After that awful night with +the boy from the office, she had been only too glad to leave London, +which seemed to her, on the whole, a stupid place, but she could +hardly believe now that in a fortnight or so she would be staring at +South American young men with black side-whiskers and absurd +hats. She was annoyed with the ship for stopping like this, as if it had +nothing better to do than loiter about these dingy sheds and flat +boats full of barrels, and when one of the officers hung about, looking +as if he wanted to pour out information, she gave him a haughty +glance and walked away.</p> + +<p>Her father and his new acquaintance, having finished their cigars, +leaned over the rail, and decided that they were ready for lunch. +Meanwhile, they talked idly.</p> + +<p>“I don’t blame you,” said Mr. Sugden. “I don’t like London myself—never +did. I had a year there once. Didn’t like it at all. I +couldn’t get on with the Londoners—too much of this haw-haw-haw +stuff and the striped trousers and black coat and white spat business. +Didn’t suit me, I can tell you. They thought they were smart, too.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p493">[493]</span></p> + +<p>“They’re not—most of ’em,” said Mr. Golspie. “I soon found +that out.”</p> + +<p>“So did I,” the other continued in his curiously flat mournful +voice, “and when I did find it out and told ’em as much, they didn’t +like it. No, they didn’t like it.” Mr. Sugden did not go on to explain +why they should have liked it. He merely repeated several times +more that they didn’t like it. But he was yawning rather than +talking.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ve just had about four or five months of it,” said Mr. +Golspie, indifferently, “and that was quite enough for me. They’re +half dead, most of ’em—half dead. No dash. No guts. I want a place +where everybody’s alive, where there’s something doing.”</p> + +<p>“Where were you in London?”</p> + +<p>“What—working? Well, my headquarters were in a funny little +street—I don’t suppose you’ve heard of it—down in the City +it is.”</p> + +<p>“I know the City fairly well.”</p> + +<p>“I wonder if you know this place. I’d never heard of it before. +Angel Pavement.”</p> + +<p>“Angel Pavement? No, I never heard of that. You win. Well, I +must say I’m ready for my lunch. I think I’ll slip down and wash +my hands. Well, <em>well</em>, well, we-ell.” He sang these, at the same time +stifling a yawn. “Meet any angels there?”</p> + +<p>“What, in Angel Pavement? I can’t say I did.”</p> + +<p>“Not on view, eh?”</p> + +<p>“Not while I was there. I met somebody who nearly turned into +one, but not quite. No, they were all just human, and they hadn’t +got too dam’ much of that. I was sorry for the poor devils—some +of ’em.”</p> + +<p>“All I’m sorry for just now is my inside,” said Mr. Sugden, with +great deliberation. “It’s crying out for a piece of steak nicely done +and a few chips. Hello, there go the Customs chaps. We ought to +be moving again soon. And—my word!—it’s time they thought +about a bit o’ lunch. Look at the time. Let’s go down.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p494">[494]</span></p> + +<p>“Listen. That’s it,” said Mr. Golspie. “Come on. Oh, I’ll get hold +of that daughter of mine.”</p> + +<p>When they returned after lunch, they found that they had left +the docks behind and were now in the river. There was a new chill +freshness in the air and a vague hint of the sea. On one side, the +last of Woolwich was straggling past, with a misty Shooters Hill +behind; and on the other side there were some old piers and a +gas works.</p> + +<p>“Better take a last look at London,” said Mr. Golspie to his daughter, +as they walked round the deck. “There it is, see?”</p> + +<p>“There’s nothing to see,” said Lena, looking back at the glistening +streaky water and the haze and shadows beyond. “Not worth looking +at.”</p> + +<p>“All gone in smoke, eh? I mean the proper London. As a matter +of fact, we’re not out of London yet. That’s right, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Not quite out of it yet,” replied Mr. Sugden, “but you’ve seen +all there is to see. I think I’ll go down and have my little afternoon +snooze.”</p> + +<p>A string of barges passed them, moving slowly on to the very +heart of the city. A gull dropped, wheeled, flashed, was gone, and +with it went what little sun there was. The gleam faded from the +face of the river; a chill wind stirred; the distant banks, a higgledy-piggledy +of little buildings and green patches, retreated; and even +the smoky haze of London city slipped away from them, thinning +out into grey sky. “Well, the sun’s gone in,” said Mr. Golspie, “so +I’ll go in, too.” Somewhere a steamer hooted twice out of the +ghostliness. He gave a last look, then turned away. “And that’s that.”</p> + +<p class="end">THE END</p> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78329 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/78329-h/images/cover.jpg b/78329-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..336d210 --- /dev/null +++ b/78329-h/images/cover.jpg |
