A JOBBING SECRETARY
The next morning Nora did not start for Fountain Court with Mr. Gibb;
he positively forbade her, explaining that he had certain duties to
perform immediately on his arrival which he preferred, and which Mr.
Hooper preferred, that he should perform before anybody else appeared
upon the scene; so he started at half-past nine, and she followed
thirty minutes later. When she reached Fountain Court the door was
promptly opened by Mr. Gibb, who called her attention to a curtained
recess, with the remark--
"Please hang your hat and coat up there."
Behind the curtain she found three pegs and a looking-glass; which
articles, if she had not been too nervous to observe closely, might
have struck her as being even suspiciously new. She had no coat on,
but she had a hat, which she hung upon one of the pegs, with a
breathless feeling, as if the simple action, in that strange place,
stood to her as an emblem of the passage she was about to take from
the old world to the new; as she hung up her hat, with Mr. Gibb's
stony gaze fixed on her coldly from behind, it almost seemed to her
that with it she hung up her freedom, and passed into servitude. Nor
was this feeling lessened by the unaccustomed, and unnatural, rigidity
of Mr. Gibb's bearing; she being unaware of the fact that Mr. Hooper
had informed the young gentleman, not ten minutes before she came,
that if he did not treat her with the profound and distant respect
with which a divinity ought to be treated, the consequences would be
serious for him. While she was still touching her hair with her
fingers, as a girl must do when she has just taken her hat off, he
inquired, with what he felt to be cutting coldness--
"Have you quite finished?"
"Yes, Eustace, I--I think I have--quite, thank you."
"Then Mr. Hooper is waiting to see you; kindly step this way."
She stepped that way, Mr. Gibb moving as stiffly as if he had a poker
down his back. She found Mr. Hooper seated at a table which was
littered with a number of papers and documents which were of a most
portentous looking nature, over one of which he was bending with an
air of earnest preoccupation which, it is to be feared, had been put
on about thirty seconds before she had entered the room, and would be
taken off in less than thirty seconds after she had left it.
"Miss Lindsay has come, sir." As Mr. Gibb made this announcement Mr.
Hooper looked up with a start, which was very well done, as if nothing
could have surprised him more; he rose, a little doubtfully, as if the
professional cares of this world were almost more than he could bear.
"Miss Lindsay? Yes, yes, quite so; Miss Lindsay, of course. I hope,
Miss Lindsay, I see you well."
"Quite well, thank you."
She ignored the hand which he extended, possibly in a moment of
absence of mind, in a manner which seemed to him to be marked; he
trusted Mr. Gibb had not noticed it before he left the room. He
continued to be as professional in his manner as he knew how.
"Miss Lindsay--eh--might I--eh--ask you to take a seat?"
"Thank you, sir, I prefer to stand."
Really this young woman was trying; she was reversing the positions;
it was she who was keeping him at a distance, not he her; there was
something in the way in which she said "sir" which made him wince;
however, he was still professional.
"Quite so, Miss Lindsay, quite so--whichever you prefer. Now, Miss
Lindsay, here are some papers of a--of an abstract nature; privacy
with regard to them is of the first importance; serious consequences
might result were their character to become known outside these
chambers." The jobbing secretary inclined her head; he thought she did
it very gracefully. "Now, what I require are copies of these papers;
you understand, copies--perfectly clean copies. How long do you think
it will take you to let me have them?"
"There seem to be a good many."
"There are--oh, there are; quite a number; only they are not all of
the same character. Now, for instance, how long will it take you to
let me have a perfectly clean copy of that?"
He held out what looked like a musty document, consisting of several
foolscap pages, covered with close writing on both sides of each page.
She turned it nervously over.
"Is it--is it to be typed?"
"Certainly; oh yes, emphatically."
"What--what machine have you?" He mentioned the maker's name;
fortunately it was on one of the same maker's machines she had learnt.
"I told you that I had not used a machine recently; I fear, therefore,
that I may be rather awkward at first, so that I can hardly tell how
long it will take me to let you have a perfectly clean copy of this.
There--there appears to be a good deal of it."
"There does--oh yes, I admit it, there does--and of course I shouldn't
want an absolutely clean copy." She looked at him; there was something
in her look which caused him to look away, with some appearance of
confusion; he realized that he had made a mistake. "By that I--I
should wish you to understand that--that I shouldn't require you to
destroy the entire document merely--merely because of one slight
error."
She spoke with what seemed to him to be magisterial severity; he felt
that there was more than a touch of that severity in her demeanour.
"You said that you wanted perfectly clean copies, and you shall have
perfectly clean copies; I quite understand that only perfectly clean
copies will be of the slightest use. I hope you do not think that I
wish you to put up with indifferent work. I merely wished to point out
that I am afraid that I may be a little clumsy at first."
She turned to go.
"The--the typewriter's in the next room."
"I saw it as I came in."
"Pray--pray allow me to open the door for you." But she would not.
"If you don't mind, sir"--the stress upon that "sir"!--"I would rather
open it for myself; and I do hope that you won't allow a difference in
sex to alter the relations which ought to exist between employer and
employed. You wouldn't open the door for Eustace Gibb; I would like
you to regard me in the same light as you do him."
No, he certainly would not open the door for Eustace Gibb, but the
idea of regarding her in the same light as Mr. Gibb was preposterous;
the trouble was that he could only see her through a golden haze. The
typewriter was in the next room to Mr. Hooper's, with beyond it the
lobby which Mr. Gibb termed his office; the room was known to Mr. Gibb
as the waiting-room, though no one had ever been known to wait in it.
It was furnished with an old wooden table, and three older wooden
chairs, and nothing else. On the table was the typewriter, and a
plentiful supply of paper. After about an hour's interval, Mr. Hooper,
who felt as if he were a prisoner in his own rooms, began to find
himself in a state of fidgetiness which was beyond endurance. It was
ridiculous to suppose that he did not dare to venture into the
presence of his own jobbing secretary, yet--he did not dare. What was
worse, he found himself incapable of smoking in the room next to her,
and that in spite of her expressed desire that he should treat her as
he treated Mr. Gibb. When the tension had reached a point at which he
could stand it no longer, snatching up his hat, he burst into the room
with an air of haste, seeming, when he was in it, to realize her
presence there with a touch of surprise.
"Miss Lindsay!--oh yes, yes, quite so. And--and how are we getting on?"
The moment he had asked he saw that he had made another mistake. This
time there was something on her face which moved him in a manner which
really did surprise him. She looked as if she had at least been near
to tears, and still was not far off.
"I--I'm not getting on at all well," she said.
"I've not the slightest doubt, Miss Lindsay, that you are getting on
much better than you imagine."
"I--I suppose I ought to know how I am getting on."
"But your--yours is such a strenuously high standard."
"I--I've spoilt I don't know how many sheets of paper."
"What does it matter how many sheets of paper you spoil? The more you
spoil the better I'll be pleased."
"Will you? Then all I can say is that if I--I spoil many more I shall
know that I'm not fit for the situation which you've been so kind as
to offer me, and--I shall go."
"Really you must not talk like that." He picked up one of the
ominously numerous sheets of paper which lay at her side, all of which
had plainly had at any rate some slight acquaintance with the machine.
"Now this is not at all bad."
"There are three errors in the first line."
"Are there? So many as that?"
"And five in the second."
"Indeed! you don't say so!"
"And the third line's wrong altogether."
"That only shows that with a little practice you'll regain all your
old facility."
"I'm not sure that I ever had any facility; I can see that now; I'm
afraid I only used to play at typing."
"Then in that case you shall copy them by hand; I'm disposed to think
that perhaps good clear writing is best after all."
"Copy them by hand?" Suddenly a look came on her face which actually
frightened him; his words had evidently been to her an occasion of
serious offence. "I applied for your situation, Mr. Hooper, in the
belief that I could work a typewriter; you gave it me on that
understanding. If, now, it turns out that I cannot work a typewriter
it would look as if I had applied for your situation under false
pretences; do you suppose that I will continue to hold it knowing that
to be the case, and that you are paying me for something which it
turns out I cannot do? Either you shall have perfectly clean
typewritten copies, Mr. Hooper, or I must resign; I will not go
through the farce of pretending to occupy a position for which I have
been proved to be unfit."
He could have answered her many things, but he answered her nothing;
he was afraid. Instead, he shuffled out of the room, excusing himself.
"I've a most pressing appointment, Miss Lindsay." He was longing for a
pipe; the appointment was to smoke, all by himself, in the Temple
Gardens. "When I return I've no doubt you'll have advanced beyond your
expectations. Rome wasn't built in a day; you must persevere,
persevere!" In the office Mr. Hooper, placing his hand on King
Solomon's shoulder, whispered in his ear, as if anxious not to be
overheard, "Mr. Gibb, I am inclined to the opinion that having a
divinity on the premises is not all lavender."
To which Mr. Gibb replied, with a sigh, as if he himself was vaguely
conscious of a feeling of being "cribbed, cabined and confined"--
"No, sir; that's what I was thinking."
For two days Nora continued to wrestle with the typewriter, and on the
third something happened which ultimately resulted in another upheaval
of the world for her. She had found the "document" which she had to
copy--it was one of those which Mr. Hooper had discovered stuffed up
the chimney--not easy to decipher, which perhaps was not surprising;
she was puzzling over a part of it which seemed even worse than usual
when the office door was opened, and a masculine person came striding
in who had not even troubled to remove his hat. At sight, however, of
the girl poring over that refractory passage, with her pretty brows
all creased, off came his hat; but no sooner was he uncovered than,
with something in his bearing which almost suggested that he was
unconscious of what he was doing, he stood and stared. The girl
glanced up and looked at him. For some seconds there was silence;
then, seeming to come to himself with a start, he ejaculated--.
"I beg your pardon; I--I'd no idea!"
He did not stay to explain what he had no idea of, but passed into Mr.
Hooper's room beyond. As he entered Mr. Hooper rose from his chair;
then stared in his turn, as if this was not at all the kind of person
he had expected to see.
"Frank!" he exclaimed. "What on earth has brought you here?"
The gentleman addressed as Frank replied to the question with a
statement which was sufficiently startling.
"Jack, I've seen a ghost!"
Mr. Hooper, as was not unnatural, stared still more.
"You've seen what?"
"Of course I don't mean that I've seen an actual ghost, but I feel as
if I had."
"What's given you such a very curious feeling at this hour of the
morning? And what's brought you here, anyhow?"
The gentleman addressed seemed genuinely disturbed.
"I'll tell you, what's brought me if you'll give me time; I'm in a
frightful mess, that's what's brought me; but before I tell you
anything, you tell me who--who's that girl in the next room?"
Mr. Hooper's bearing betrayed annoyance, which was perhaps caused by
the singularity of the other's demeanour.
"The lady in the next room, whom you speak of as 'that girl,' is----"
There was a tapping; the door was opened; the girl in question
entered, the "document" over which she had been puzzling in her hand.
She crossed to Mr. Hooper.
"I beg your pardon if I am interrupting you, but there is something
here which I cannot make out; I thought that perhaps you would not
mind telling me what it is before you become really engaged."
Mr. Hooper took the paper which she held out to him, with a glance
towards the gentleman who had just now entered, in which there was a
hint of mischief.
"Will you allow me to present to you my cousin, Mr. Frank Clifford?
Frank, this is Miss Lindsay."
"Lindsay!" Mr. Clifford was staring more than ever. "Lindsay!
Not--not--I beg your pardon, but--would you mind telling me if you are
related to Mr. Donald Lindsay of Cloverlea?"
"I am his daughter."
"His--daughter? Thank you; thank you."
He sank on to a chair as one who had been dealt a crushing blow.
Nora's bearing was frigid; the stranger's unexpected question had
touched in her a chord of memory which hurt her more than she would
have cared to say. She returned to Mr. Hooper.
"Can you tell me what that sentence is? One or two of the words seem
quite illegible."
He explained, to the best of his ability, which was not much greater
than hers. When she had gone back to her own apartment, Mr. Hooper
said to his visitor, with what was possibly meant to be an air of
politeness--
"May I venture to inquire if that is how you generally behave when
you're introduced to a lady, Frank? because if it is I shall know
better than to attempt to introduce you to another."
Mr. Clifford's reply was remarkable.
"I told you that when I first saw her I felt as if I had seen a
ghost; now I know my instinct was right; I have seen a ghost. If you
knew--what I know, and had had to go through what I've had to go
through, and still have to go through, you would understand how
meeting Donald Lindsay's daughter like this makes it seem to me as if
the hand of God had been stretched out of the skies."