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.
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.
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, 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Next to the Army was a bony, shabby chap, a Bolshie, possibly 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 _The Repuiblic_. 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!
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 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.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
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.
“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?” he asked himself, with a sneer. There was a rustle and a
shuffle: the silent meditation was over.
“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.
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.
“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 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 _is_ 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 ...”
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.
“Come again, young man,” said the fussy little man, at the door.
“Always glad to see you here.”
“Thank you very much,” said Turgis earnestly, still glowing.
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 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!
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.
“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.”
Turgis disliked this contemptuous tone. “Are you
what-is-it--class-conscious, Park?” he asked.
“Yes, I am.”
“Well, you can have it,” Turgis retorted, in a voice that told Park
pretty plainly that he was a dreary devil.
“All right then, my friend, all right. I will have it. And you keep on
with the dope.”
“I don’t want any dope. Don’t believe in it.”
“Well, what do you want, then?” demanded Park, who thought he saw in
this a chance of a fine long argument.
“I dunno,” said Turgis, finishing his tea. “Yes, I do, though. I want
to go to bed.”
“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.”
And then all that was left of Sunday was a walk upstairs.
V
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.
“Good afternoon. Is my father here, please?” She had a queer,
fascinating voice.
“Your father?”
“Yes. Mr. Golspie. This is the place, isn’t it? He told me to call for
him here.”
“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?”
“You needn’t yet if he’s busy with somebody,” said the glorious
creature, smiling at him. “I can wait.”
“I can tell him now, if you like.” He was trembling with eagerness to
help, to serve.
“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?”
“I’m sure he won’t,” he told her fervently. “Will you wait here or in
the office? It’s warmer in the office.”
“This will do,” and she made a movement towards the chair.
“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.”
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?”
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.
“Quite happy, thanks.”
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.
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.”
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----”
“Yes, sir,” replied Turgis smartly.
“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.”
“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.
“That’s the chap,” Mr. Golspie grunted. “Afternoon, everybody.” And he
departed.
“That was Mr. Golspie’s daughter then who came to the door, was it?”
said Mr. Smeeth.
“His daughter, eh?” Miss Matfield raised her eyebrows, then looked at
Turgis, and said casually: “What was she like? Pretty?”
“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.
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.
_Chapter Five_: MISS MATFIELD WONDERS
I
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?”
“As a matter of fact, it isn’t.” And Miss Matfield raised her eyes and
gave him a steady level glance.
“As a matter of fact, it isn’t, eh? Then what is it, as a matter of
fact? Just a little improvement, eh?”
Miss Matfield coloured slightly. “Well, if you want to know, Mr.
Golspie, all I’ve done is to change _was_ into _were_ twice, simply for
the sake of making it more grammatical. That’s all.”
“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.
“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
_was_ and when to use _were_. It’s one of the few things they taught
me. And so I thought you wouldn’t object if I changed them.”
“Much obliged.” He regarded her amiably. “By the way, what is it you do
pretend to be particularly marvellous at?”
“Does that matter?” This in her best haughty manner. Everybody in the
office knew it and respected it.
But Mr. Golspie only gave her a friendly leer. “Of course it matters,”
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?”
“I am.” Miss Matfield looked at her typewriter.
“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.
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 _their_ 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.
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.
“He’s funny, isn’t he?” said Miss Sellers, referring to Mr. Golspie.
“A bit weird.”
“I wish you’d tell me, Miss Matfield,” Miss Sellers continued,
earnestly and deferentially, “d’you reelly _like_ him?”
Miss Matfield raised her thick black brows and produced a long _mmm_
sound that went up and then down again. Having gone through this little
performance, she said, “Do you?”
“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.”
Miss Matfield knew exactly what she meant, but did not say so. She
merely gave the other girl an encouraging glance.
“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----”
“A what?”
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.”
“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.
“Now who asked you your opinion?” Miss Sellers demanded. “You go away.”
“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.”
“You an’ your advenshers!” Miss Sellers was very contemptuous. “What
d’you know about it?”
“I’ve heard things, I have,” said Stanley, very slowly and impressively.
“What have you heard?”
“Shan’t tell you.”
“No, because you’ve got nothing to tell. You run away and get your work
done, little boy.”
“I’m as big as you are.”
“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.
“Huh! Shan’t learn ’em from you.”
“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, 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.
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 _him_. 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, 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.
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 _Alice_), 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.
“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.
“The whole way.”
“How revolting!”
“It is. Absolutely foul! Where do you get it, Morrison? You don’t work
in the City, do you?”
“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.”
“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.”
“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 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?”
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?”
“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.”
“Well, here we are at our beautiful home,” said Miss Matfield, looking
up at the Club entrance.
“I know. Isn’t it revolting?”
“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.”
“Mine’s a bill,” Miss Morrison groaned. “Are you always getting bills?
I never seem to get anything else. Just millions of foul bills.”
“Foul! Cheerio.”
“Oh--er--cheerio.”