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 office window with _Enquiries_ on it, and this note said: _Mrs.
Cross. What about turning this room out for a change? Thank you!!_
“An’ thank _you_!” 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.
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.
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 and Dick Robinson, the Boy Aviators, the terror of all
Mexican bandits.
“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.”
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.
“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.”
“’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.
“Penny bloods, them things is.”
“’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.
_Boy’s Companion_, 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!”
“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?”
But this only goaded Stanley into making new and even more dangerous
admissions. “I’m going to try and be a detective,” he mumbled.
“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 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.”
“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.”
“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 _them_ 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’ _you’d_ get.”
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.
“Did you see that note left for you?” he inquired.
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?”
“Miss Matfield wrote it.”
“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 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.”
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.
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 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 mashed potatoes, say at the _Pavement Dining Rooms_, 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.
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
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.
“Morning, Stanley,” he said, not very cheerfully.
“Hello,” said Stanley, in the toneless voice of one who expects nothing.
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.
“Will I have to call there this morning?” Stanley asked hopefully, when
Turgis had rung off.
“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.”
“What work?” demanded Stanley, with scorn.
“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.”
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.”
“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.
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 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.
“_Good_ 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.
“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.
“Oh, I can’t bear the Tube.” Once more she seemed to annihilate the
whole vast organisation.
It was now Stanley’s turn. “Oo, I like it. I think it’s exciting. I
wish they had ’em where we live.”
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 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.
“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.”
“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.
“_Good_ 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.”