There are many ways of achieving distinction, but few are more
effectual than a steady habit of punctuality. By this you may shine
even in the appalling gloom of the underground railway. Among all the
women who wait every morning for the City trains at Gower Street
Station, there was none more conspicuously punctual than Miss Flossie
Walker. The early clerk who travelled citywards was always sure of
seeing that little figure on the same spot at the same moment,
provided he himself were punctual and kept a sharp look-out. This you
may be sure he took good care to do. To look at Flossie once was to
look again and yet again. And he was fortunate indeed if his route lay
between Moorgate Street Station and the Bank, for then he had the
pleasure of seeing her sharply threading her way among the traffic, if
that can be said of anything so soft and round as Flossie.
If Flossie's figure was small and round, her face was somewhat large,
a perfect oval moulded in the subtlest curves, smooth and white
moreover, with a tinge of ivory sallow towards the roots of her black
hair. Wonderful hair was Flossie's. In those days she parted it in the
middle and waved it symmetrically on either side of her low forehead;
she brought it over her ears, covering all but the tips and the
delicate pink lobes; she coiled it at the back in an elaborate spiral
and twisted it into innumerable little curls about the nape of her
neck. Unfortunately that neck was rather short; but she wore low
collars which made the most of it. And then Flossie's features were so
very correct. She had a correct little nose, neither straight nor
aquiline, but a distracting mixture of both, and a correct little
mouth, so correct and so small that you wondered how it managed to
display so many white teeth in one diminutive smile. Flossie's eyes
were not as her mouth; they were large, full-lidded, long-lashed, and
blacker than her hair. No wonder if the poor clerk who passed her on
her way to and fro in the City rejoiced as they looked up at him. She
might be going to her work as he to his, but what with her bright eyes
and her blue ribbons, she looked the very genius of holiday as she
went.
At first she was a little subdued and awed by the Bank, and by her own
position in it. But when this feeling wore off, the plump girl rolled
into her place with a delicious abandonment. Flossie was one of fifty
girls who sat, row after row, at long flat desks covered with green
cloth. A soft monotonous light was reflected from the cream-coloured
walls against which Flossie's head stood out with striking effect,
like some modern study in black and morbid white. You would have
picked her out among the fifty at once. Hers was the lightest of light
labour, the delicate handling of thousands of cancelled notes--airy,
insubstantial things, as it were the ghosts of bank-notes, released
from the gross conditions of the currency. Towards the middle of the
morning Flossie would be immersed in a pale agitated sea of
bank-notes. The air would be full of light sounds, always the sharp
brisk rustling of the notes, and now and then a human undertone, or
towards lunch time, a breath that was like a sigh. A place to grow
light-headed in if you began to think about it. Happily no thought was
required beyond the intelligence that lives in sensitive finger-tips.
It was almost mechanical labour, and for that Flossie had more than a
taste, she had a positive genius. It was mechanical labour idealized
and reduced to a fine art, an art in which the personality of the
artist counted. The work displayed to perfection the prettiness of
Flossie's hands, from the rapid play of her fingers in sifting, and
their little fluttering, hovering movements in arranging, to the
exquisitely soft touches of the palms when she gathered all her
sheaves of notes into one sheaf, shaking, caressing, coaxing the rough
edges into line. Flossie worked with the rhythm and precision of a
machine; and yet humanly, self-consciously, almost coquettishly, as
under the master's eye.
But all this was of yesterday. To-day Flossie was different. She was
not quite so precise, so punctual as she had been. Something had gone
wrong with the bright little mechanism. It worked erratically, now
under protest, and now with spurts of terrifying activity. The fine
fly-wheels of thought had set off whirring on their own account and
had got mixed up with the rest of the machinery. Flossie had begun to
philosophise, to annoy destiny with questions. There was time for that
in the afternoon when the worst of the sorting was done. She was in
the stage of doubt so attractive in philosophers and women, asking
herself: Is knowledge possible? And if so, what do I know? She was
aware that there are certain insurpassable limits to human knowledge;
all the same, woman-like, she raised herself on tip-toe, and tried to
peep over the boundaries. What did she know? She knew that somebody
pitied her, because, poor little woman, she had to earn her own living
like a man. Well, she would not have to do that if he--if he--Yes, and
if he didn't? And how was she to know? And yet, and yet she had an
idea. Anybody may have an idea. Then the long desks became the green
tables where Flossie gambled with fate; trying--trying--trying to
force the invisible hand.
For with Flossie it was spring-time too. Under the little clerk's
correctness and demureness there ran and mingled with her blood the
warm undercurrent of a dream. The dream had come to her many springs
ago; and as Flossie grew plumper and rosier it grew plump and rosy
too. To be married (to a person hitherto unspecified in fancy, whose
features remained a blur or a blank), to be the mistress of a dear
little house (the house stood out very clear in Flossie's fancy), and
the mother of a dear little girl (a figure ever present to her,
complete in socks and shoes and all the delicious details of its
dress). Compared with that vision of Flossie's, no dream was ever so
soft, so rosy and so young.
And now in the Spring-time all her being moved softly under the
current of the dream. Flossie's fancy did not associate it consciously
with Keith Rickman (she would have blushed if the association had been
made apparent to her); the Spring did that for her, mingling with her
blood.
Meanwhile, as Flossie dreamed, the same hour every week-day morning
Rickman was awakened by the same sounds, the click of the door-latch
in the bedroom overhead and the patter of a girl's feet on the stairs.
He knew it was Miss Flossie Walker going down to early breakfast. And
when he heard it, he turned in his bed on the side farthest from the
window and sighed. Such a deep unhappy sigh.
Lucia had delivered him from Lucia, but there were other troubles from
which she could not save him. Not, in the warm spring days, from the
newly awakened trouble of his youth; not, in the sleepless summer
nights, from the brief but recurrent tyranny of sense, and not from
the incessant hunger of the heart. Though it was she who had created
that hunger in him, it was not (at five and twenty) to be satisfied by
the mere image of her, however vividly present to him. He was only
five and twenty, and the spring had come with its piercing sweetness,
its irresistible delicate lure, to the great stirring, melting, and
unbinding of his manhood. He could be faithful to Lucia for ever in
his soul; but there were moments in this season when he was aware of a
distinct cleavage between his soul and his senses.
It seemed to him that Miss Flossie Walker lay in wait for him in just
those moments, with the secret but infallible instinct of the
creatures whom the Spring touches to its own uses. He could not blame
her. Flossie was innocent, being but the unconscious handmaid of the
Spring.
It was not because Lucia was forever absent and Flossie forever on the
spot. At first he was unaware of the danger that lurked for him in
Flossie's ways, because his soul in its love for Lucia was so utterly
secure. At first the sighs were all on Flossie's account; poor
Flossie, who had to be up so early while he settled himself for
another luxurious slumber. At first he only pitied Flossie. He thought
of her at odd moments as a poor little girl (rather pretty) who worked
too hard and never had any fun to speak of; but the rest of the time
he never thought of her at all.
And in the early days of their acquaintance, Miss Flossie Walker (then
only an apprentice to a firm of type-writers in Holborn) was very much
to be pitied. He could remember how she had come (a little while
before that memorable Bank holiday) to Mrs. Downey's boarding-house, a
plump but rather anaemic maiden, black-haired, and demure. He had
begun by talking to her at table, because she sat next to him, and he
had ended, if there ever is an end to these things, by taking her to
matinées, picture-galleries, restaurants, and the British Museum. The
girl was so young, so confiding, and so obviously respectable, that he
was careful to keep to the most guileless of middle-class
entertainments. A few weeks of this existence brought shy smiles and a
lively play of dimples on Flossie's face. She grew plumper still, less
anaemic, though hardly less demure. A few months, and Flossie's beauty
flowered and expanded, she began to dress as became it, entering into
rivalry with Miss Ada Bishop, until it dawned on him that Flossie was
really, in her own place and way, a very engaging little creature.
About this time Flossie's circumstances had improved as much as her
appearance. Her father had been a clerk in the Bank of England, and on
his death she obtained a post there as a sorter. That position gave
Flossie both dignity and independence; it meant light work and hours
which brought hope with them every day towards three o'clock. Under
these circumstances Flossie's beauty went on flowering and expanding,
till she became more than ever a thing of danger and disaster.
Her intimacy with Mr. Rickman, which had lapsed lately, owing to his
increasing passion for solitude and separation, revived suddenly in
the spring of ninety-five. It happened in this manner. With the
spring, Mrs. Downey's was once more agitated by the hope of the Bank
holiday, and Mr. Spinks inquired of Rickman if he were going out of
town for Easter. (Rickman was incautiously dining that evening at the
general table.) But Rickman wasn't going out of town. He said he
thought of going somewhere up the river. He had also thought, though
he did not say so, that in fulfilment of an ancient promise he would
take Miss Flossie to the play on Saturday afternoon. Yet when it came
to the point he had some diffidence in asking her. She might not think
it proper.
It was Mr. Soper who precipitated his resolve. He wanted to know if
Rickman had made up a party for the River, and 'ad any companion?
No. He hadn't made up a party. Thanks, awfully. He was going by
Himself.
Mr. Soper didn't think now that was a very enjoyable way of spendin' a
Bank holiday.
He put it that if it was Rickman's intention to hire a row-boat, it
wouldn't be at all a bad idea if he, Soper, and Mr. Spinks, say, were
to join.
As Soper's incredible suggestion sank into him, the expression of
Rickman's face was pitiable to see. It was then that casually, as if
the idea had only just occurred to him, he wondered whether Miss
Walker would by any chance care for a matinée ticket for the play? He
was anxious to give his offer an uncertain and impromptu character,
suggesting that Miss Walker must be torn between her many engagements,
and have matinée tickets in large numbers up the sleeve of her
charming blouse.
Flossie was so shy that when you spoke to her she never answered all
at once; so shy that when she spoke to you she never turned her head
to look at you, but left you to judge of the effect you made on her by
the corners of her mouth and eyes. So now he had to look very
carefully at her to see whether she were saying yes or no. Casually
again (as if this course were not necessarily involved in acceptance)
he inquired whether he might have the pleasure of taking her.
Miss Bishop looked another way. Her loose mouth hung desirous. (Miss
Bishop's face was flagrantly frank, devoid of all repose. None of
these people had any repose about them except Flossie.) Flossie was
dubious and demure. Was he quite sure it was a pleasure? He protested
that in a world where few things were certain, that, at any rate,
admitted of no doubt. Flossie deliberated whether this further step
were or were not a departure from her ideal of propriety. And it was
not until he showed signs of retracting his proposal that she
intimated her consent. But as for pleasure, if Flossie were pleased
she did not allow it to appear. And although her heart beat excitedly
under her blue blouse, it was on the side that was not next to Mr.
Rickman.
Then Miss Roots began to talk of incomprehensible things excitedly.
So excitedly, that she had, for the moment, quite a colour. And while
they talked, all the other boarders turned in their places and watched
Mr. Rickman as if he had been some wonderful enchanter; Mr. Soper
alone emphasizing by an attitude his entire aloofness from the general
interest.
And all the time Miss Roots was talking, Flossie, without saying a
word, contrived to seize upon the disengaged portion of his mind. He
wondered what she was thinking about.
She was thinking, first, that it really paid to put on your best
blouse every evening. Next, that it wasn't worth while if he would
keep on talking to the lady on his right. Then that she couldn't
decide the point until she knew where he was going on Sunday.
That she never knew; but she went to the play with him on Saturday,
and on many Saturdays after that. There was nobody so gay that spring
as Flossie.
Coming fresh to Flossie after a long estrangement, Rickman couldn't
recognize her from his old account of her as a poor little girl who
worked too hard and never had any fun to speak of. In so describing
her, no doubt he had been influenced by the melancholy of his earlier
mood. But there were other reasons why he still insisted on regarding
her in this pathetic light. It provided him with several very
agreeable sensations, and the most agreeable of all was the voluptuous
passion of pity. It kept him detached, always in the superior position
of a benefactor. Benefactor, indeed! He was in a fair way of becoming
Flossie's deity, her Providence, the mystic source of theatre-tickets
and joy. No really brave man ever shrinks from the dangers of
apotheosis, when the process involves no loss of personal dignity. And
apart from the gratification of his natural healthy vanity, Rickman's
heart was touched by the thought that the little thing turned to him
instinctively for all her innocent pleasures.
Then all at once the innocent pleasures ceased. They ceased just as
Flossie's palpitating heart told her that she was really making an
impression on this singularly unimpressionable young man. She knew it
by the sudden softening of his voice as he spoke to her, by the
curious brilliant dilation of his eyes as they followed her about the
room. For after much easy practice on Mr. Spinks she knew precisely by
what movements and what glances she could best produce these
interesting effects. And yet nothing could be farther from Flossie's
fancy than flirtation. The little clerk was nothing if not practical,
even under the tender impulse of her dream.
Flossie was determined that whatever else she failed in she would not
fail in her woman's trade. She would have considered herself disgraced
by such bankruptcy. Not that she feared it. Nature had started her
with a sufficient capital of fascination, and at Mrs. Downey's she
had, so to speak, established a connection. And now it seemed there
had come a period of depression. It still rained tickets, more tickets
than ever, but there was no Mr. Rickman to escort her to the concert
or the play; Mr. Rickman always had another engagement, never
specified. No Mr. Rickman to take her into the suburbs on a Sunday;
Mr. Rickman was off, goodness knew where, scouring the country on his
bicycle. No Mr. Rickman to talk to her at dinner; Mr. Rickman took all
his meals in his own room now. For these and all other delinquencies
his invariable excuse was that he was busy; and Flossie, mind you, was
sharp enough to see through _that_.
No. Mr. Rickman had changed, suddenly, unaccountably, without a
moment's warning. First of all, the other boarders noticed that he had
become most frightfully irritable in his temper. He had not been over
polite to any of them lately, but to her he was insufferably rude,
most ungentlemanly, she called it. He would pretend not to see her if
by any chance she looked his way, not to hear her if by any chance she
spoke to him. Once (they were quite alone) he had broken off in the
middle of an exciting conversation and rushed out of the room, out of
the house. She saw him over the balcony railings, walking up and down
the street like a lunatic, with his hands thrust down into his pockets
and no hat on. And he was not only ungentlemanly but positively
unkind. If they met on the stairs (somehow they did this very often)
he would draw himself up flat against the wall as if he was afraid of
the frill of her dress touching him. If she came into the drawing-room
he would walk out of it; or if he stayed, it was only to sit staring
at her (poor innocent little Flossie, who was so pretty) with an ugly
scowl on his face. There were times when poor innocent little Flossie
said to herself that she positively believed he hated her. And she was
so innocent that she couldn't think what she had done to make him hate
her.
She was right about the hatred. An indignant anger was certainly what
he felt when he first realized that she had power to make him feel at
all. Her prettiness tormented him; therefore he hated her, and
everything about her. He hated the sound of her little tongue upraised
among the boarders, and of her little feet running up and down the
stairs. He hated every glance of her black eyes and every attitude and
movement of her plump little body. More than all he hated the touch of
her soft arms as they stirred against him at the tightly packed
dinner-table. Therefore he avoided the dinner-table, and the
drawing-room; he avoided as far as possible the house, filled as it
was with the disastrous presence. He fatigued himself with excesses of
walking and cycling, in the hope that when he flung himself into his
bed at midnight he would be too tired to feel. And sometimes he was.
At last poor Flossie, weary of conjecture, unbent so far as to seek
counsel of Miss Bishop. For Miss Bishop gave you to understand that on
the subject of "gentlemen" there was nothing that she did not know. It
was a little humiliating, for only a month ago Flossie had said to her
in strictest confidence, "I feel it in my bones, Ada, that he's going
to come forward this spring."
Ada laughed coarsely, but not unkindly, at the tale of her perplexity.
Ada had every reason to be sympathetic; for Mr. Rickman once securely
attached, Mr. Spinks would be lonely, unappropriated, free. "Don't you
worry," said she, "_he's_ all right."
"All right? Can't you see how frightfully rude he is to me?"
"I should think I did see it. A jolly lot you know about gentlemen.
You've nothing to go on when they're so everlastingly polite, but when
they turn mad like that all of a sudden, you may be sure they're
coming to the point. To tell you the truth, I didn't use to think
you'd very much chance, Flossie; but when I saw him walk out of the
room the other day, I said to myself, 'She's got 'im!'"
"I wish I knew. I don't want it hanging on for ever."
"It won't. If he doesn't propose in May, he will in June, when you've
got a new dress and a new hat."
Flossie shook her head despairingly. "I wonder," said she, "what I'd
really better do. I think sometimes I'd better go away."
"Well, sometimes that _does_ fetch them; and then, again, sometimes it
doesn't. It's risky. Some girls," she added reflectively, "try doing
their hair another way; but I wouldn't, if I was you. That's risky,
too. If they're really fond of you, as often as not it only puts them
off."
"Then what _am_ I to do?"
"If you take my advice," said Miss Bishop, "you'll not do anything.
You'll just go on the same as before, as if you hadn't noticed
anything out of the way."
And Flossie went on just the same as before, with the result that
every morning Mr. Rickman sighed more and more heavily as he heard the
early patter of those feet upon the floor.