The Burpenfield Club, called after Lady Burpenfield, who had given five
thousand pounds to the original fund; was one of the residential clubs
or hostels provided for girls who came from good middle-class homes in
the country but were compelled, by economic conditions still artfully
adjusted to suit the male, to live in London as cheaply as possible.
Two fairly large houses had been thrown together and their upper floors
converted into a host of tiny bedrooms, and there was accommodation for
about sixty girls. For twenty-five to thirty shillings a week the Club
gave them a bedroom, breakfast and dinner throughout the week, and
all meals on Saturday and Sunday. It was light and well ventilated and
very clean, offered an astonishing amount of really hot water, and had
a large lounge, a drawing-room (No Smoking), a small reading-room and
library (Quiet Please), and a garden stocked with the hardiest annuals.
The food was not brilliant--and no doubt it returned to the table too
often in the shape of fish-cakes, rissoles, and shepherd’s pie--but it
was reasonably wholesome and could be eaten with safety if not with
positive pleasure. The staff was very efficient and was controlled,
as everybody and everything else in the Club was controlled, by the
secretary, Miss Tattersby, daughter of the late Dean of Welborough, and
perhaps the most respectable woman in all Europe. The rules were not
too strict. There were no compulsory religious services. Male visitors
could not be entertained in bedrooms, but could be brought to dinner
and were allowed in the lounge, where they occasionally might be seen,
sitting in abject misery. Intoxicants were not supplied by the Club but
could be introduced, in reasonable quantities, into the dining-room
when guests were present. Smoking was permitted, except in the dining
and drawing-rooms. There were a good many regulations about beds and
baths and washing and so forth, but they were not oppressive. In the
evenings, throughout the winter months, fires, quite large cheerful
fires, brightened all the public rooms. The lighting was good. The beds
and chairs were fairly comfortable. Dramatic entertainments and dances
were given two or three times a year. All this for less than it would
cost to live in some dingy and dismal boarding-house or the pokiest of
poky flats.
What more could a girl want? Parents and friends of the family who
visited the Burpenfield found themselves compelled to ask this
question. The answer was that there was only one thing that most girls
at the Burpenfield did want, and that was to get away. It was very
odd. You were congratulated on getting into the Burpenfield when you
first went there, and you were congratulated even more heartily when
you finally left it. During the time you were there, you grumbled,
having completely lost sight of the solid advantages of the place. The
girls who stayed there year after year until at last they were girls
no longer but women growing grey, did stop grumbling and even pointed
out to another these solid advantages, but their faces always wore a
resigned look.
There was, to begin with, that institution atmosphere, which was
rather depressing. The sight of those long tiled corridors did not
cheer you when you returned, tired, rather cross, head-achy, from
work in the evening. The food was monotonous and the dining-room too
noisy. Then, if you were not going out, you had to choose between your
little box of a bedroom, the lounge (usually dominated by a clique of
young insufferable rowdies), or the silent and inhuman drawing-room.
Moreover, Miss Tattersby, known as “Tatters,” was terrifying. Very
early, Miss Tattersby had arrived at the sound conclusion that a brisk
rough sarcasm was her best weapon, and she made full use of it. You
felt the weight and force of it even in the notices she was so fond of
pinning up: “Need residents who have First Dinner take up _so_ much
time ...”; “Some residents seem to have forgotten that the Staff has
other duties besides ...”; “Is it necessary _again_ to remind residents
that washing stockings in the bathrooms ...”; that is how they went.
But this, after all, was only a pale reflection of her method in direct
talk, and some girls, finding themselves involved in an intricate
affair concerning a pair of stockings or something of that kind,
preferred to conduct their side of the case by correspondence, in the
shape of little notes to Miss Tattersby hastily left in her office
when she was known to be out. Many a girl, after a little brush with
“Tatters,” who was immensely tall and bony and staring, and looked like
a soured Victorian celebrity, had faced the most infuriated director
at her office with a mere shrug. The confident Burpenfield manner in
commercial life, of which we have seen something in Miss Matfield in
Angel Pavement, was probably the result of various encounters with Miss
Tattersby.
But what Miss Matfield, who was cursing the place all over again as
she left Miss Morrison and went upstairs to her room, disliked most
about the Burpenfield was the presence of all the other members, whose
life she had to share. There were too many of them, and their mode of
life was like an awful parody of her own. The thought that her own
existence would seem to an outsider just like theirs infuriated or
saddened her, for she felt that really she was quite different from
these others, much superior, a more vital, splendid being. Those whose
situation was not at all like her own only annoyed her still more.
There were the young girls, all rosy and confident, many of whom were
either engaged (to the most hopelessly idiotic young man) or merely
filling in a few months of larking about, trying one absurd thing after
another, while their doting fathers forwarded generous monthly cheques.
Then there were the women older than herself, downright spinsters in
their thirties and early forties, who had grown grey and withered at
the typewriter and the telephone, who knitted, droned on interminably
about dull holidays they had had, took to fancy religions, quietly went
mad, whose lives narrowed down to a point at which washing stockings
became the supreme interest. Some of them were frankly depressing. You
met them drooping about the corridors, kettle in hand, and they seemed
to think about nothing but hot water. Others were mechanically and
terribly brisk and bright, all nervy jauntiness, laborious slang, and
secret orgies of aspirin, and these creatures--poor old things--were
if anything more depressing, the very limit. Sometimes, when she was
tired and nothing much was happening, Miss Matfield saw in one of these
women an awful glimpse of her own future, and then she rushed into her
bedroom and made the most fantastic and desperate plans, not one of
which she ever attempted to carry out. Meanwhile, time was slipping
away and nothing was happening. Soon she would be thirty. Thirty!
People could say what they liked--but life was foul.
There was still half an hour before dinner, and, after tidying herself,
she sat on her bed trying to repair a ladder in a second-best pair of
stockings. She was interrupted by a knock at the door and the entrance
of an extraordinary figure. It had a greeny-brown face and was dressed
in what appeared to be Oriental costume, and the general effect was
that of a seasick Arab chieftain.
“Help!” cried Miss Matfield, but only to her visitor. “What is it? Who
are you? It can’t be you, Caddie.”
The green face never moved a muscle, but a careful voice came from it,
and the voice, though muffled and lacking its usual variety of tones,
was undoubtedly that of her neighbour, Miss Isabel Cadnam, otherwise
“Caddie.” She had put a mud pack on her face and had wrapped her head
in a towel.
“And you haven’t to smile or anything,” she announced cautiously, “or
it’ll crack. But I’ve come to ask you a favour. Are you in to-night?
I mean you’re not dressing or anything grand? Well, can I borrow your
shawl, the reddy-black one? You promised to lend it to me, if I wanted
it terribly some night.”
Miss Matfield nodded.
“Well, this is the night. A great do. My dear, Ivor’s got tickets for a
new cabaret, dance and supper place, opening night to-night, and we’re
going. Marvellous!” The face did not move, but the eyes rolled and
flashed their appreciation.
“All right, you can have the shawl, Caddie,” said Miss Matfield, lazily
rising to stretch out a hand for it. That is all you have to do to find
anything in a Burpenfield bedroom. “It sounds marvellous. But I thought
you’d had a row with Ivor, parted for ever for the umpteenth time and
all that. Why, it’s only last Friday you spent hours and hours telling
me about it.”
“We made it up this morning,” the green mask replied, rolling its eyes.
“Started over the telephone, too, my dear. Ivor tried to explain and
then I tried to explain and then about forty people in the office went
off the deep end, so I said I’d meet him for lunch. We met. And there
you are. And now we’re going on the razzle.”
“Lucky you!”
“I will say that for Ivor. He can be terribly, terribly stupid,
almost stupider than anybody I know, except those foul brutes at the
office--honestly, my dear, they _are_ the limit--but the minute we’ve
made it up, he always has tickets for something amusing. Free list, you
know.”
“I believe he waits until he has the tickets, then rings you up that
morning and makes it up,” said Miss Matfield. “I wouldn’t put it past
him.”
“What a perfectly loathsome idea, Mattie! What a foul mind you have!
Still, he might do that. Rather sweet of him, really, when you think
about it. Well, I shall have to fly. I’ve got to get this stuff off.
I’ve been wearing it for hours and I feel I shall never be able
to smile again. Thanks for the shawl, and, my dear, I’ll take the
greatest, the very greatest care of it, and you shall have it back in
the morning.”
“Have a good time,” said Miss Matfield, with no particular enthusiasm.
“Give my love to Ivor.”
When her visitor had gone, she gave a little impatient shake, sat down
again, but threw the stocking on one side. Caddie was really rather
a silly creature, but nevertheless she contrived to have quite an
amusing, even exciting time. Ivor, a goggly-eyed young man who was
with a firm of publicity people, was even sillier than she was, and
Miss Matfield admitted to herself at once that she could not possibly
endure a single hour of his company, but he pleased Caddie, took her
out, quarrelled with her, made it up, took her out more luxuriously,
created a continual excitement. It was possible to envy Caddie’s state
of mind while despising her taste. Miss Matfield’s ripe mouth, which
hardly needed lipstick, took on a discontented curve. It was a pity
that silly young men did not amuse her, for there were plenty of Ivors
about, whereas there were very few real grown-up men about, men who
could make her feel she was still a mere girl. She was beginning to
like, definitely to prefer, middle-aged men--and admitted as much to
her intimates--but the trouble was that the really nice attractive
ones were nearly always terribly domesticated, up to the neck in wives
and families, and had hardly more than an occasional faint gleam of
interest to spare for a Miss Matfield. The middle-aged men who were
interested were always the awful ones, with swollen faces and little
boiled eyes, dreary rotters. Mr. Golspie? No, he wasn’t as bad as that,
wasn’t quite that type. But quite impossible, of course. Quite absurd.
The gong went clanging below, and as it sounded, a head popped into the
room. “You’re in, aren’t you, Mattie?” it said. “Come on, then. I’ve
got some _News_. Very exciting.”
This head, which was decorated with a thick shock of fair hair, horn
spectacles, a freckled and turned-up nose, and a wide and amusing
mouth, belonged to Evelyn Ansdell, who had had a room close to Miss
Matfield’s for the last two years, and who was one of the very few
friends she had made at the Burpenfield. She was a slap-dash, untidy,
scatter-brained sort of girl, younger than Miss Matfield, and though
she had all manner of minor faults, she had the two outstanding virtues
of being good-hearted and extremely entertaining.
The two girls went down to the dining-room together and were fortunate
enough to get a little table to themselves. There, amid the chatter and
clatter that went with the mutton stew and the prunes and custard, Miss
Ansdell broke the news, in a series of shrieks and gasps.
“I’m nearly dead,” she began, impressively. “No, really nearly dead.
I’ve been ringing up parents like mad for the last hour and a half.
Don’t I sound hoarse? Honestly, I’ve been screaming and screaming down
the telephone.”
There was nothing novel about this. Miss Matfield knew all about
Evelyn’s parents. They were a queer pair, and had been separated for
the last four or five years. Mrs. Ansdell roamed about the country,
sometimes trying her hand at odd things, while Major Ansdell, no longer
in the army but now the representative of some mysterious imperial
organisation, roamed about the whole world, completely disappearing for
months on end. Now and then, each of them descended upon London and
the Burpenfield, and by some odd chance it frequently happened that
their London visits coincided, and then Evelyn had to work desperately
hard to make sure that they did not arrive at the Club together.
Evelyn herself, who had once been sent flying between them like an
amused shuttlecock, did not take sides, except perhaps in certain
minor differences, but preserved an amiable detachment, not unlike
that of a good old referee. Everything was complicated by the fact
that all three of them were rather eccentric. All this was strange to
Miss Matfield, whose parents adored one another in their dull elderly
fashion and were, anyhow, far too sensible and too busy for such alarms
and excursions; but the actual novelty of it had passed. So she merely
prepared herself to listen to yet another instalment of the Ansdell
family row saga.
“It all began with a letter from mother,” Miss Ansdell continued,
excitedly. “It came this afternoon. My dear, the maddest letter. But
the point is, mother’s going to run a shop, selling antiques. I forget
the name of the place, but anyhow she’s actually got the shop and it’s
a marvellous place, all oak beams and bow windows and all that, and
rich motorists stopping every minute. That’s not so crazy as it sounds,
because mother does really know about antiques and old embroideries and
things like that, and could make anybody buy anything if she wanted to.
And she wants me to go and live with her, and help her in the shop.”
“Oh, Lord!” Miss Matfield groaned. “But you’re not going, are you?
She’s wanted you to go before, hasn’t she?”
“Yes, but this is rather different. Quite different, in fact. It really
would be rather fun helping her in a shop. I’d much rather do that,
swindling the rich motorists, than go on with this secretary rot. You
know how I loathe typing and shorthand. And this time she wants me
very badly--her own little darling girl by her side sort of thing--you
should have seen her letter. So I rang her up--trunk call, my dear, and
I’m absolutely broke--to know all about it, and honestly it does sound
rather marvellous. Lovely shop, nice old town, lots of nice people,
and a car--you have to have a car in this antique business. I must
say--even though I know what mother is--I must say it sounds rather
marvellous.”
“It does,” Miss Matfield admitted, grudgingly.
“But wait a minute, wait a minute, Mattie, my dear. That isn’t all
the excitement. Oh, no! Before I rang off, mother gave me a message
to father about some money. He’s in town, you know. So I rang him up
and then, after I’d given him the message, I told him what mother had
suggested. Well, you should have heard him. I thought every minute I
should hear him going up in sheets of flame. Then he was very quiet,
and I knew he was going to be pathetic. He can do it even better than
mother. If he really gets going, I’d agree to anything--while he’s
there. And he said he had a plan he’d had in his mind for months, been
thinking about nothing else, and that he’d have mentioned it before
only he thought I was so happy here at the Burpenfield. He’s going away
again very soon on this Empire rot, and he wants me to go with him as
his secretary. He’s going to America--Montreal and Toronto and those
places--and then on to Australia, and I’d go everywhere with him. What
do you think about that? He said he’d been thinking about it for ages,
but I believe he’d invented the job five minutes before, just to do
mother in the eye. And now they both want an answer at once. Isn’t it
crazy?”
“Completely mad.” But why did nothing like that ever happen to her?
“What are you going to do?”
“My dear, I’m going to take _one_ of them. Wouldn’t you? But which, I
don’t know. What do you think?”
“Let’s get our coffee,” said Miss Matfield. “Then we can talk about it
afterwards.”
This was a blow. Whether Ansdell went off to Canada and Australia or
joined her mother at the antique shop, she was lost to the Burpenfield.
Another decent and amusing one gone! Something exciting happening to
somebody else, as usual! And Miss Matfield was so busy feeling sorry
for herself that if her advice had really been demanded over the
coffee, she would not have found it easy to give it. Miss Ansdell,
however, like many people who ask to be advised, apparently only wanted
a listener, for she never stopped talking herself and when she put a
question, promptly answered it without giving her friend time to frame
a reply.
When they came up from the dining-room, they saw a tall figure standing
just inside the entrance hall. “I believe it is,” Miss Ansdell gasped.
“Yes, it is. It’s father. Oh, help!”
And Major Ansdell it was. Miss Matfield had met him, just for a few
minutes, two or three times before. He was still a handsome, soldierly
looking man, though quite elderly, and was immensely courteous in the
Roger de Coverley style to all Evelyn’s friends. But there was in
him an extraordinary theatrical strain. Quite frequently he behaved
as if he were the hero of some old-fashioned melodrama; and was very
emotional, very rhetorical, and absurd. He was quite capable of talking
just as men talk in bad stories in popular magazines, and Miss Matfield
had sometimes wondered whether it was because he had read a great many
bad stories or because the stories were nearer the truth than one
thought and were worked up, on the fringes of Empire, out of men like
Major Ansdell.
Miss Matfield hung back and saw the Ansdells greet one another and then
go upstairs, obviously to Evelyn’s room. There was no talking to Major
Ansdell in a public room; he was far too fond of a scene and was not at
all shy. Miss Matfield went into the lounge, to smoke a cigarette, and
spent an envious ten minutes glancing through one of those illustrated
weeklies that seem to be produced simply to glorify that small section
of society which works only to keep itself amused. It showed her
photographs of these demigods and goddesses racing and hunting in the
cold places, bathing and lounging in the warm places, and eating and
drinking and swaggering in places of every temperature. By the time
she had finished her cigarette, Miss Matfield quite understood the
temptation to start a revolution, and told herself that these papers
simply asked for one. Then she too went upstairs to her room.
She had not been there more than a few minutes when Evelyn Ansdell
burst in, crying: “My dear, mother’s on the phone. Do go in and talk
to father until I come back. If you don’t, he’ll come down and do
something absurd. I’ll be as quick as I can.” And off she went.
Evelyn’s bedroom seemed almost entirely filled by her father, who
welcomed his daughter’s friend--and Miss Matfield felt herself
thrust into the part of daughter’s friend at once--with his usual
grave and elaborate courtesy. He was, she felt, enjoying himself,
and was probably the only man who ever had enjoyed himself visiting
the Burpenfield. He addressed her as “Miss Mattie,” having heard
Evelyn refer to her as “Mattie,” and Miss Matfield did not feel like
correcting him. This only made everything more absurd. It was like
taking part in a charade.
“I think you know why I’m here, Miss Mattie,” he began, in deep
vibrating tones. “I want to persuade this little girl of mine to go
overseas with me, to help me with the great work I am doing and to be
by my side.”
She nodded and made a vague affirmatory noise. It was all she could do,
but then he did not want anything more.
“A father has his feelings, Miss Mattie. We don’t hear much about them.
He keeps them to himself. He hides them, buries them,” he continued,
with fine emotional effect, clearly enjoying himself. “An Englishman
doesn’t like to make a display of these things. It’s part of the
tradition--the great tradition--of our race. If we suffer, Miss Mattie,
we like to suffer in silence. Isn’t that so? The Britisher--now, just a
moment. I know what you’re going to say.”
“Do you?”
“I do. You’re going to say that you don’t like that word ‘Britisher.’”
“I don’t like it much, I must say,” Miss Matfield confessed.
“I knew you didn’t. I didn’t at one time. I detested the term. I
wouldn’t have it at all. But my work, my travels up and down the Empire
have taught me better. We must have something that describes not an
Englishman, not a Scotsman, or a Canadian or an Australian, but simply
a subject of the great Empire itself, and the only word for that is
‘Britisher.’ Don’t resent it, Miss Mattie. It stands for a great
ideal. And I say that the Britisher doesn’t wear his heart on his
sleeve. But he feels deeply. He may have his work to do, taking him
away from his home into the loneliest places, and be glad and proud to
do it.” Here the Major made a fine gesture and came within an ace of
wrecking his daughter’s toilet stand. So he sat down on the edge of
the bed, where he looked enormous and rather like the White Knight in
_Through the Looking Glass_.
“You’re my little girl’s friend, aren’t you, Miss Mattie?” he asked.
Miss Matfield said she was, and added that she would be very sorry to
lose her.
“I understand that, I understand that,” and he reached over and patted
her lightly on the shoulder. “She’s a very lovable child, isn’t she?
And you can understand a father’s feelings. I have my work to do, Miss
Mattie, and I have many acquaintances, friends if you like, in all
parts of the world, but fundamentally, at heart, I’m a lonely man--yes,
a lonely man. Evelyn’s my only child, and I want her companionship, I
want her by my side, unless of course I should be called upon to visit
places where one’s womenfolk couldn’t be taken. If it were a question
of our tropical possessions, that would be different, quite different.
I don’t like to see a white woman, especially a young girl, in such
places. They’re for men, for us rough fellows who like to clean up some
backward part of the globe. If you’ve any influence with her--and I’m
sure you have, and a very good influence too, a steadying influence
naturally, being older----”
“Thank you, Major Ansdell,” said Miss Matfield drily. “You make me
sound about fifty. It’s not very complimentary of you.”
“A thousand apologies, my dear Miss Mattie,” cried the Major gallantly.
“I know very well you’re under thirty, a mere girl, and a very charming
one, I assure you. But Evelyn’s a mere _child_, you see, isn’t she?”
Miss Matfield said nothing, but thought that some of the child’s antics
and talk might possibly astonish him.
“But what I was about to say is this. I want you to use your influence
with my little girl to persuade her to come with her old father and
join her life with mine. There’s some ridiculous talk,” he continued
hurriedly and more naturally, “of her joining her mother in some
wild-cat scheme for selling old furniture and broken crockery and silly
knick-knacks down in the country somewhere. You know the sort of place.
Ye oldy antique shoppy! Faked warming pans! Rubbish! Even if she won’t
come with me, I’d fifty times rather see the child staying here and
doing her typewriting than embarking on such a gim-crack, nonsensical
scheme. Trying to sell faked warming pans to a lot of cads and old
women!”
At this moment the door flew open and Evelyn joined them, breathless.
The little room was completely full now, and Miss Matfield wanted to
escape, to let them talk it out together, but she could not manage it
unless she pushed Evelyn out of the way.
“I’ve been talking to mother,” Evelyn began.
The Major jumped up. “Don’t tell me she’s still trying to persuade you
to bury yourself among her fenders and warming pans and go smirking
behind a counter. It’s the most preposterous idea I ever heard of. It
won’t even pay. All good money thrown away.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, father,” Evelyn protested. “Mother really
does know a lot about antiques. I know that. I wouldn’t be surprised if
she didn’t make quite a lot out of it.”
Neither of them took any notice of Miss Matfield, but nevertheless she
could not very well leave the room until she had a good opportunity to
push past Evelyn.
“Your mother may or may not know a good deal about antiques,” said the
Major very impressively, “though I seem to remember her being taken
in every day or so by some piece of faked-up rubbish. But she knows
nothing whatever about human nature and has no head for business. And
if you’re going to keep a shop, my child, you have to know something
about human nature and business. Now I could keep a shop and make a
success out of it, if I wanted to, because I understand people and know
how to organise. Your mother knows no more about organisation than a--a
prize rabbit.”
“Well, listen to me, father, and never mind about that. I’ve been
talking it over with mother, and I’ll tell you what I’ve decided to
do. I’m coming with you on this trip--and, by the way, you’ll have to
give me some money for clothes, I haven’t a thing--and then afterwards,
if I don’t like it, I shall try mother’s scheme, if the shop’s still in
existence.”
“It won’t be. But that doesn’t matter. This is good news, Evelyn. Just
the two of us, side by side----”
It looked as if a magnificent parental embrace were arriving. Miss
Matfield, murmuring something about letters, slipped out. The Ansdells
were absurd, all three of them, but she could not help envying Evelyn.
Major Ansdell might be ridiculous, but if he had asked _her_ to go
roaming round the Empire with him, she would have accepted like a shot.
As it was, she stayed on in Angel Pavement and at the Burpenfield, and
would soon have lost an amusing Club neighbour too, almost the only one
left with whom she could be friendly and confidential. Foul.
The late post had arrived and there were two letters for her. One was
from her mother and was merely the regular hasty bulletin. Dad was
working too hard as usual, looking after everybody for miles around
except himself, and not looking at all well. The Wesleys’ little girl
was down with pneumonia. Those new people, the Milfords, the elderly
people who had taken Rogerson’s old house, had a son and his wife home
from India, quite nice. There was no chance of her getting up to town
this next month but Dad said he might have to come up and would let her
know in good time. And when did Lilian think she could manage another
week-end at home? Oh--and Mary Fernhill, the quite plain one who went
out to South Africa last year and came back so suddenly, well, she
was engaged. There was nothing very exciting in all that. Just the
usual stuff. Poor mother, poor dad! He did work too hard, and he was
beginning to have a terribly pinched look. That was the trouble about
being a doctor, you never bothered, went on until you dropped. That was
pretty foul too. There didn’t seem to be much good luck going in life,
and what there was completely escaped the Matfield family.
The other letter was more interesting, and she kept it until she
reached her own room again. It was dated from the Chestervern
Agricultural College:
_Dear Lilian,_
_I have to be in London to-morrow (the 16th) and am wondering if
you would care to spend the evening with me, have dinner and then
go somewhere. It would be a great treat for me. I’m sorry the
notice is so short, but couldn’t help that. Will you let me know at
once--c/o Holborn Palace Hotel--and tell me what time to call for
you if you are free._
_Yours sincerely,
Norman Birtley._
So Norman Birtley hadn’t forgotten her existence. She sent a dashing
note to him at his rather ghastly Holborn Palace Hotel, telling him she
was free and could be called for at the Burpenfield at seven o’clock.
And after slipping out to post it, she felt slightly better.
Ansdell looked in, having disposed of her father, not without first
making him promise her a new outfit. “And we sail in a fortnight, my
dear,” she crowed. “And to-morrow I give those beastly people the sack,
after which I hand out the same to Tatters _in person too_. Yes, I am.
That will probably close the dear old Burp to me for ever, and not a
bad thing too. Except I shall be very sorry to leave you, Mattie. I
will really. After all, we’ve had some great conferences in these queer
little dens, haven’t we? I’ll have to tell father he must have two
secretaries, and then we’ll both go out, slip away and marry big brown
men from the West and the great open spaces. What do you say?”
“I’d love it,” said Miss Matfield, forcing a smile. “I’m terribly sorry
you’re going. They’ll put some awful creature into your room, either
one of the old hot water brigade or some devastatingly bright young
person from the lounge set. I suppose it’s nearly time I joined the hot
water school, the kettle fillers----”
“Don’t be absurd. You’re one of the very few people here who are really
alive--and look it. Let’s change the subject. I believe it’s depressing
you. Had any letters?”
“One from mother, very dull, and one from a man I’ve known off and on
for years. He’s coming up to town to-morrow and wants me to spend the
evening with him, seeing the sights.”
“A-ha! Is he a big brown man? Do you like him?”
“He’s not bad,” Miss Matfield replied, indifferently. “A bit feeble.
He’s from my part of the world and used to hang about a lot at one
time, but we haven’t seen much of one another for ages.”
“I scent a roam-a-ance,” cried Miss Ansdell. “His sweetheart when a
boy. And you have cared all these yee-ars and I never knew----”
“Don’t be an ape. You’re making me feel sick.”
“But seriously, Mattie. Is he going to ask you to marry him, after the
coffee has been served in a shaded corner?”
Miss Matfield smiled, but thought this over. “He might, you know,”
she admitted, staring into nothing, her eyes growing sombre. “And if
I thought I was doomed to stay in this place much longer, spending my
evenings washing stockings and pattering round with kettles, I’d marry
him next week. But I haven’t the least desire to marry him. He’s quite
decent, but--oh--he’s just rather feeble. Most young men seem rather
feeble, these days. I suppose most of the other sort were killed in the
war. I hate feeble men, don’t you? I mean, I like a man to have plenty
of character, a solid lump of it, and I don’t even care if it isn’t a
terribly good character so long as there’s plenty of it. There’s a man
in my office----”
“You don’t mean Mr. Dirty--Dersy--what’s it?” Miss Ansdell asked.
“No. He’s rather sloppy too. Not a bit amusing. But there’s a man who’s
just come lately, Golspie----”
“I know. But you said he was awful.”
“So he is,” Miss Matfield admitted hastily. “I told you about him,
didn’t I? I don’t say I like him. He’s rather a brute, and looks it,
or at any rate looks weird. But he has got some character, and could do
something without asking everybody’s permission. That’s all I meant. Of
course, from every other point of view, even poor Norman Birtley, who
really isn’t so bad, is worth fifty of him. Imagine going out to dinner
with Golspie!” And she laughed aloud at the thought.
They talked of other things, yawned, stared, talked again, more idly,
yawned again, and then went to bed.