All the following day, he told himself that he would not say a word
to Mrs. Smeeth about the extra money until he had made arrangements
to save most of it. Once he had committed himself, it would be
safe--though not pleasant--to tell her. In the meantime, if she asked
him why he wasn’t getting the rise he had been promised, he would have
to put her off with some tale or other. That wouldn’t be very pleasant
either and not at all simple. To look at Mrs. Smeeth, with her free and
easy style, you would think she was easy to lie to, but she wasn’t--or
so it seemed to Mr. Smeeth. Whenever he tried he found himself, at his
age too, still blushing and stammering. But there it was; that was the
plan. And he spent some of his lunch time, all that could be spared
from the usual poached egg and cup of coffee, “looking into” one or two
things, insurance and National Savings chiefly, and when he returned
to the office and made a few notes and calculations in his neat little
script, he felt vaguely rich and rather important for once in his life.
The only person in the office who noticed any change in him was
Stanley. Stanley’s interest in the affairs of Twigg and Dersingham,
never strong at any time, had almost entirely lapsed now that Mr.
Golspie was away, and that afternoon he found Mr. Smeeth unbearably
tyrannical. He had to comfort himself by imagining a certain dramatic
scene in the future, in which Mr. Smeeth, now the victim of a desperate
gang, called in despair on the great detective, S. Poole, only to
discover, after bowing humbly, that he was face to face with Stanley,
the boy he had once bullied and despised. “Yes, Smeeth,” said S. Poole,
lighting another cigar, “you little imagined then who it was copying
your letters and filling your inkwells. But we will let bygones be
bygones. Come, I will rid you of these pests.” And the great S. Poole,
after slipping a revolver into the pocket of his fur coat, strode out,
followed by an amazed and trembling Smeeth. “Courage, man, courage,”
said S. Poole, as he climbed into the driving seat of his powerful
roadster. “I can never thank you enough, Mr. Poole----”
“And just get on with your work, Stanley,” said the same voice. But
oh!--the difference in intonation. “I told you those letters have
to catch the country post. Be ready to slip out with them. Got the
envelopes there?”
On his tram, going home, Mr. Smeeth turned the pages of his evening
paper, looking for those appeals to “The Saving Man” and “The Small
Investor.” One of the advertisements asked him, not for the first time,
what he was going to do in the Evening of Life, and though he still had
no answer ready, for once he could look at it without feeling himself
shrinking somewhere. Already he carried a good insurance for a man in
his position; he had a bit, for emergencies, in the Post Office Savings
Bank; and now he would have over a pound a week to put away. Now if he
did that for ten years, fifteen years, perhaps increased it if the firm
went on doing so well and gave him another rise, why, then, surely--and
he lost himself in pleasant speculations.
He arrived home to find Edna sitting over the fire, hugging herself in
misery, and red and swollen about the eyes.
“Hello, hello,” he cried. “What’s the matter here?”
“Lost my job,” Edna mumbled into the fire.
“Yes, she’s a fine one, isn’t she?” And Mrs. Smeeth bounced into the
room with a saucepan in her hand. “I told her to be careful, last
night, the way they were getting their knife into her, and in she
comes, half an hour ago, and tells me they’ve had a regular dust-up and
the long and short of it all is, my lady’s sacked.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” said Edna, who had obviously said this a great
many times before.
“Just you go upstairs and tidy yourself up,” cried her mother. “Dinner
will be ready in a minute and the face you’ve got now isn’t fit to be
seen at a table. It would put us off our food. And don’t start telling
me you don’t want any dinner, just because you’ve got sacked. Get along
upstairs and don’t keep us waiting all night when you do get up.”
“What’s all this about?” Mr. Smeeth asked, with the quiet despair of
a man who has known something like it happen before, and not a few
times before. He put on that look familiar to all wives, who are left
wondering why men should imagine that domestic life, unlike any other
kind of life, ought really to be entirely lacking in disturbing events.
“Look at me with this saucepan in my hand,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, laughing
at herself. “Just you sit down and keep calm, and I’ll have dinner on
the table in a minute, though what it’ll be like, Lord only knows, the
way I’ve been badgered and rushed.”
Left to himself, Mr. Smeeth came to the conclusion once again that his
wife was to be envied. She made a great fuss, far more noise than he
ever did, but she didn’t really dislike these disturbances and strokes
of bad luck. Any sort of happening, even an apparent misfortune, braced
her up and left her really enjoying it. What she didn’t like was a
quiet life, the same thing day after day.
She came in now like a savoury whirlwind. “Draw up, Dad. We won’t wait
for Edna. She’ll be down in a minute. Help yourself to that stew and
take plenty of it because the meat’s nearly all bone. Dig down and
you’ll get the barley, and that’ll do your old inside good.”
“What’s this about Edna, then?”
“Far as I can see, you can’t really blame her, though she’s probably
been acting a bit too independent. Edna _is_ independent, though better
that, in the long run, than too much the other way. But she’s only a
child, when all’s said and done, and I know she liked the work and
wanted to stop on there. For two pins, I’d slip down to Finsbury Park
to-morrow and give that floor manager or whoever he is a piece of my
mind. All favouritism really, that’s what it boils down to, and of
course Edna hadn’t been there long and ought to have kept quiet--though
a girl’s a right to speak up for herself, and I’d be the last to say
she hasn’t--but they begin picking on her and she stands up for herself
and lets out one or two things she oughtn’t to and the next thing is,
she’s told to go.”
This was not a very clear account of how a girl came to be suddenly
dismissed from an important firm of retail drapers, but it seemed to
satisfy Mr. Smeeth, who did not ask for any details. The truth is, he
had gone through this scene before, and he knew now that it was not
worth trying to discover exactly what had happened. Edna returned,
looking her usual self except that she wore a slightly tragic air.
“When do you finish then, Edna?” her father asked.
“This week. And the sooner the better. I wouldn’t go to-morrow if I
hadn’t to get my week’s money. Lot of pigs, they are. I knew one or two
girls--Ivy Armitage, for one--who’s been there and they told me what it
was like, but of course I wouldn’t believe ’em but it didn’t take me
long to see they weren’t talking so silly as I thought.”
“And what’s the next move, then?” demanded Mr. Smeeth rather wearily.
“Don’t you worry, Dad. I’m not going to stick about home long. I’ll
find something.”
“What she’d like to do is to go to Madame Rivoli’s in the High Street,”
Mrs. Smeeth explained, “and learn the business properly.”
“What business? I’ll trouble you for the greens, Edna.”
“Millinery. You know Madame Rivoli’s in the High Street, the place
where I got that very nice purple hat of mine that fell into the water
at Hastings that time? Mrs. Talbot keeps it now. You know, her husband
died of eating oysters about four years ago, and nobody round here
would touch ’em for months--well, that’s Mrs. Talbot, a little woman,
looks a bit Frenchified--smart, y’know, Dad, but overdoes it a bit. I
pointed her out to you one day, and you said if you’d legs as thin as
that you’d take the trouble to hide ’em and I thought she heard you.”
“And then you talk about _me_ talking,” cried Edna. “That’s a nice
way to talk, isn’t it? And about Mrs. Talbot, too. You couldn’t want
anybody nicer than Mrs. Talbot.”
“All we want is for you to mind your own business,” said Mrs. Smeeth,
forgetting that this really was Edna’s business. “But if you want
something to do, you can be fetching that pudding in and making
yourself useful, while I finish this. And be careful getting it out.
Use the cloth.”
“And where does Madame Rivoli come in?” asked Mr. Smeeth.
“She doesn’t come in. It’s just a _name_, y’see, Dad. Miss Murgatroyd
had it before Mrs. Talbot. It catches people, makes them think all the
hats are Paris models. For all that, it’s the best little hat shop
we’ve got about here. If you know of a better one in Stoke Newington,
I’d like to know where it is, I would really. Only thing that keeps
_me_ away from that shop is the prices they ask--oh, wicked, they
are--you might as well go to the West End and have done with it. But
Mrs. Talbot does a fine business--I don’t think it’s altogether her
shop, I think she just manages it, and somebody told me two Jews really
owned it. Now then, Edna,” and Mrs. Smeeth sprang to her feet and took
the pudding from her daughter, “just nip back for the plates and then
we’re all right. There we are. It’ll taste better than it looks. This
pudding always does. Plenty for you, Dad?”
“Just middling, Mother,” said Mr. Smeeth.
“Well, if that isn’t enough, you can always come again, can’t you? What
about you, Edna? Don’t want any, I suppose? Well, you’re going to have
some. You eat that and see if it doesn’t make you feel better.”
“I’ve tasted worse,” said Mr. Smeeth judicially. “Bit heavy, though,
isn’t it?”
“Oo, Mother, you can’t have mixed it properly,” cried the fastidious
Edna. “It’s like lead. It is really. I’ll have a bit more of the apple,
please. I can’t eat the crust.”
“Now if you’d been me and I’d been _my_ mother,” said Mrs. Smeeth with
an attempt at severity, “you’d have been made to eat what was on your
plate and not gone picking and choosing like that. But it’s not come
out as well as it might, I must say.”
“Well, to get back to what we were talking about,” said Mr. Smeeth,
laying down his spoon and shaking his head at an offer of more pudding.
“Where does this Mrs. Talbot or Madame Rivoli or whoever it is come in?
What’s she got to do with us? I’ve forgotten how it all started. You go
on and on and what with purple hats and oysters and legs and Jews, I
don’t know where I am. Now then, start again, if we _must_ have it.”
“Oh, you tell him, Edna, while I go and make the tea. And for goodness’
sake be careful you don’t mention purple hats and oysters or else your
father will be leaving home. Old silly!” And Mrs. Smeeth, as deft as a
juggler, swept herself and half a dozen plates and a few dishes out of
the room.
“It’s like this, Dad,” Edna began. “My friend, Minnie Watson, knows
this Mrs. Talbot who’s managing Madame Rivoli’s because her mother has
known her a long time and Minnie Watson introduced me to Mrs. Talbot
and we got on talking and Minnie Watson told her afterwards I wanted to
go in for the millinery if I could----”
“Ah, we’re coming to it at last, are we?”
“Well, the point is, Mrs. Talbot told Minnie Watson that she liked the
look of me and that if I wanted to go as an apprentice, I could do, and
they’d teach me the business. Only I’d have to go for six months first
without getting any money at all, and then they’d pay me something
after that--not much at the start, but afterwards I could earn a lot,
because you can if you’re a proper milliner and know the business.”
“That’s the idea now, you see, Dad,” said Mrs. Smeeth, coming in with
the tea. “Learning the millinery. I don’t say it’s a bad idea, because
it’s not, and, if you ask me, I should say Edna had as good a chance of
making something out of it as any girl I know, because she’s good with
her fingers--when she cares to use ’em and that’s not often in the
house--and she likes altering hats, which is more than I ever did.”
“Everybody says I’m clever at it,” said Edna, looking rather defiant.
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘everybody,’ but if you mean your Minnie
Watsons and such like, I don’t think whatever they say amounts to much.
They’d tell you anything for tuppence. But still, Dad, it’s not a bad
idea--but, as I told her, this apprenticeship business is coming a bit
hard on us because it’s working for nothing and now that she’s been
earning money, she’s used to having it to spend, and we’ve got to keep
her looking decent and she’ll still want to be spending something and
she’ll be bringing nothing in for a long time. You say I haven’t a head
for business, Dad--and I dare say I haven’t and I don’t know that I
want to have--but I saw that as soon as she mentioned it and asked her
what she thought we were going to get out of it.”
“Dad can’t talk,” cried Edna, looking across at him triumphantly, “’cos
he wanted me to be a teacher and if I’d started to be a teacher, I’d
have been going to college now, and then he’d have had to be paying for
me, never mind me not earning anything.”
“Yes, but you didn’t want to be a teacher, did you?” said Mrs. Smeeth,
as if that somehow settled the matter.
“Besides, my girl,” Mr. Smeeth began, rather pompously.
“Take your tea, Dad.” It was a curious thing, but whenever Mr. Smeeth
had some really dignified statement to make, Mrs. Smeeth invariably
broke in to hand him a cup or a plate or to ask him to put some coal on
the fire or to see if there was somebody at the front door.
“Go on, Dad, what were you saying?” said Mrs. Smeeth, observing that he
was frowning a little at his cup.
“I was going to say that teaching’s one thing and millinery’s another
thing. If you’d have decided to be a teacher, Edna, I was ready to
make a sacrifice to see that you became one. Teaching’s a profession.
Safe, too. Once you become a teacher, you’re safe for the rest of your
life----”
“Awful old maids they look too, some of the old ones. Lord help us,
what a life!” Mrs. Smeeth shuddered, shook her head, then smiled at her
husband, encouraging him to continue with his little speech.
“But this millinery business is quite a different thing. There may be
money in it and there may not--I don’t know. What I do know is, it’s
in a different class altogether, not the same standing at all. I’d do
for one what I wouldn’t do for the other. So don’t throw that teaching
affair in my face because it’s outside the argument altogether.”
“Oh, all right.” Edna wriggled her shoulders. “Don’t go on and on about
it. If I can’t go, I suppose I can’t, that’s all.” She pushed her cup
away and rose from the table. Then she stopped and looked at them, and
Mr. Smeeth saw, to his dismay, that her eyes were filling with tears.
Like that, she looked hardly a day older than she had done when he
still played childish games with her. “But I did want to go. It’s the
only thing I’ve really wanted to do since I left school. And if I went,
I might be earning quite a lot in a year or two and some day I might
be able to have a shop of my own. If George had wanted to do something
like this, you wouldn’t have said no to him--oh----”
She was making for the door, but her father’s shout stopped her.
“Here, wait a minute,” he called out. Then, when she halted, he threw a
quick glance at her streaming little face, looked across at her mother
and then down at the table-cloth, and said: “Well, I suppose you’d
better have a try at it then, Edna.”
“Oo, can I?” She was all delighted eagerness now, and darted across to
him. “I can, can’t I?”
Awkward, a trifle shamefaced, Mr. Smeeth made a movement as if to put
his arm round her, but apparently thought better of it and merely
patted her nearest shoulder-blade. “That’s all right,” he muttered.
“That’s all right.”
“Can I go round and see her now?” said Edna, her eyes shining and her
feet dancing with impatience. Then she flew out of the room.
“Well, Dad,” said Mrs. Smeeth. “I won’t say I’m sorry you’ve decided
that way, because I’m not. I believe it’s what she’s wanted some time.
She doesn’t know whether she’s on her head or her heels now. Ah!--” and
she gave a tremendous sigh--“I like to see them happy. After all, we’ve
only got to live once----”
“How do you know?” demanded her husband.
“Well, I don’t know, if it comes to that, Mister Clever,” she retorted
good-humouredly. “All the same, I’ve a very good idea. But what I
wanted to say is this, Dad. I wasn’t going to give her permission to
start this business. And don’t say I persuaded you, because I didn’t.
You did it yourself. You know what it means. She’ll be earning next to
nothing for a year or two, and though she’ll have to pull herself in a
bit now she’s not earning anything, she can’t be kept on nothing. So
don’t you turn round on me and tell me I don’t know that twelve pennies
make a shilling or something of that sort. It’s your own doing, this
time. I made up my mind I wouldn’t say a word. And if you think you can
do it all right, well and good; I’m glad.”
“Of course I can do it,” he told her, rather indignantly. Then out it
came. “Matter of fact, I’ve got that rise.”
“You’ve not?”
“Yes, I have.”
“How much?”
“I’ve been put up to three seventy-five, that’s more than a pound a
week more than I’ve been getting.” And as he said it, Mr. Smeeth asked
himself if he wasn’t behaving like a complete fool.
Mrs. Smeeth descended on him impetuously and gave him a resounding
kiss. “I knew there was something coming,” she cried jubilantly. “I
told you about Mrs. Dalby’s sister, didn’t I? She told me again that
money and good luck were coming through a stranger, a middling-coloured
man in a strange bed. And that was this Mr. Golspie of yours, I’ll bet.
Nearly four hundred a year, isn’t it, now? That’s something like. My
cousin, Fred Mitty, was boasting the other night about what he could
make sometimes, and now this will be something to tell him to-morrow
night. And fancy you just sitting there as if nothing had happened and
never saying a word! I never knew anybody so close, you old oyster
you! But that shows what they think of you, doesn’t it? And you always
worrying about your job and talking as if you were going to be out in
the street next minute!” She ran on and on, happy and excited, while he
filled his pipe and tried to appear very cool and collected. Actually
he was being pulled two ways. One half of him was gratified, no, more
than gratified, delighted by her pleasure and her pride in him, and the
other half was dubious and demanded to know if he realised what he had
done.
“Now look here, Dad,” said Mrs. Smeeth, “we must celebrate the great
occasion somehow to-night. It’s no good luck coming to the house if
we’re not going to take any notice of it. Let’s go out somewhere. Let’s
enjoy ourselves.”
“I thought we were going to do that to-morrow,” he told her drily,
“when Fred Mitty and company arrive.”
“But that’s different. I mean, just ourselves, just you and me. Let’s
go and see a good picture or down to the second house at Finsbury Park
or something like that, and sit in the best seats, and you buy yourself
a cigar and buy me some chocolates for once, and let’s do it properly.
Come on, boy. What do you say?”
The Saving Man and the Small Investor in Mr. Smeeth went down before
the affectionate husband and the proud male. When she looked at him
like that, it would be a sin and a shame to refuse her. “All right,
Edie. You decide where you want to go, and we’ll go.”
“I’ll just put George’s dinner out and put the dirty things under the
tap,” she announced breathlessly, flushed and bright-eyed, a girl
again, “and while I’m doing that, you look at the paper and see where
you’d like to go. Give me those two cups. No, I can manage. You just
sit there and have a quiet smoke.”
He could hear her singing, in her own cheerful vague fashion, above
the faint clatter of crockery in the kitchen, while he had his quiet
smoke. He did not look at the paper to see where he would like to go.
She could decide that, and she would soon enough when she had washed
up. For a week or two, she would be feeling rich and would be bringing
out all sorts of plans. If by the end of this night she had not thought
of twenty different ways of getting rid of a good deal more than an
extra pound or so a week, he would be surprised. She had a weakness
for hire purchase schemes, to begin with, and he detested them, both
as a man of business and a careful householder. Well, after the first
excitement had gone he would have to put his foot down; no more of
these fairy tale views of life; somebody had to do the thinking. Now
his thoughts took on a sombre colouring. He had never envied the rich
their luxurious pleasures; he was a simple chap, and their way of life
seemed to him ridiculous; he did not want a great deal for himself; but
what he did want--and for this he was prepared to envy anybody--was
security, to know that decency and self-respect were his to the end of
his days. To be safe in his job while he was fit for it, and after that
to have a little place of his own, with a garden (he had never done any
real gardening, but he always found it easy to imagine himself doing
it very well and enjoying it) and a bit of music whenever he wanted
it--that was not asking much, and yet, for all the firm’s increased
turnover and its rises, he could not help thinking it was really like
asking for the moon.
“’Lo, Dad,” cried George, entering briskly. “How’s things?”
“Pretty good, boy. How’s the car trade?”
“Not so dusty. You don’t know anybody who’d like to lend me sixty quid,
do you, Dad?”
“I don’t,” replied Mr. Smeeth very decidedly.
“Pity,” said George, who showed no signs of disappointment. “If I could
put my hand on sixty quid this minute, I could make money. A cert.
Sounds like horse racing, doesn’t it, but it isn’t----”
“And I should hope not,” said his father, looking at him severely.
“Second-hand car deal. Money for nothing. Ah, well--you wait a bit.”
“Well, you be careful, with your money for nothing.”
“Leave it to me, Dad,” said George coolly.
Mr. Smeeth looked wonderingly at him. It seemed only yesterday when
he was filling his stocking and putting the Meccano set by the boy’s
bedside. And now--leave it to him, sixty quid, a cert! Mr. Smeeth took
his pipe out, stared at it, and then whistled softly.
V
“Come along, Dad,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, pouring out the Rich Ruby Port
for the ladies. “Buck up. Join in the fun.” She had herself a rich ruby
look, for what with eating and drinking and shouting and laughing and
singing, her face was crimson and almost steaming.
Unfortunately, Mr. Mitty overheard her. “That’s right,” he roared,
drowning every other voice in the room. “Come on, Pa. Take your turn.
No shirking. Take your turn, Pa. Show us a conjuring trick.”
“Oh, shut up, Fred,” Mrs. Mitty screamed, pretending to chide him,
as usual, and really drawing attention to his astonishing drollery.
“You’ve gone far enough.”
Mr. Smeeth could not do any conjuring, but if he had been given
unlimited powers, he knew one trick he would have liked to perform that
instant, a trick that involved the immediate disappearance of Mr. Fred
Mitty. It was Saturday night, the little party was in full swing, and
they were all in the front room, all, that is except the Mitty girl and
Edna, who had gone out together for an hour or so, probably round to
the pictures. In addition to the Mitty pair, there were Dalby and Mrs.
Dalby (whose sister told fortunes with cards). Mr. Smeeth had seen the
room when it had had more people in it, but he had never known it when
it had seemed so full. He had always thought of Dalby, who lived at 11,
Chaucer Road, was a bandy-legged insurance agent, and fancied himself
as a wag and a great hand at parties, as a noisy chap, but compared
with Fred Mitty he was quiet and decent and merely another Smeeth. It
had not taken Mr. Smeeth ten minutes to discover that he disliked Mitty
intensely, and every thing that Mitty had done and said since (and for
the last hour or so he had insisted on calling Mr. Smeeth “Pa”) had
only increased that dislike, which did not stop short at Fred, but
extended to Mrs. Mitty and the girl, Dot. He had never known three
people he had disliked more.
Mrs. Smeeth’s cousin was a fellow in his early forties who had probably
not been bad-looking once in a cheap flashy style. He had curly fair
hair, very small, light-coloured greedy eyes, a broken nose, and a
large loose mouth that went all out to one side when he talked. He
reminded Mr. Smeeth at once of those cheap auctioneer chaps who take
an empty shop for a week or two and pretend they are giving everything
away. Mr. Mitty’s complexion seemed to be permanently rich and ruby,
and it had evidently cost somebody a good deal in its time, though--as
Mr. Smeeth assured himself, vindictively--not necessarily Mr. Mitty
himself, who clearly brought out visiting with him a colossal thirst
and appetite. He was a funny man, a determined wag, and the noisiest
Mr. Smeeth had ever known. He shouted all the time, just like one of
those cheap auctioneers. His jokes gave you a pain in the stomach
and his voice a headache. Moreover, he seemed to Mr. Smeeth quite
obviously a silly boaster, a liar, and a man not to be trusted a yard.
Such men frequently ally themselves to quiet little women, but Fred
Mitty--fortunately for some quiet little woman--had found a female of
his own kind. Mrs. Mitty, who had a long blue nose and hair that was
bright auburn at the ends and grey-brown near the roots, was as brassy
as her husband. Her scream accompanied his roar. If she said anything
playful to you, she hit your nearest rib with her bony elbow; and if
you said anything playful to her, she slapped you on the arm. Here she
differed from Fred, who banged you on the back and poked you in the
ribs, unless you were a woman and not too old, and then he hugged you
or invited you to sit on his knee. Dot, the solitary offspring of this
brassy pair, was about Edna’s age and was all legs and golden curls and
a hard blue stare. She talked of becoming a film actress. Mr. Smeeth,
who did not know much about Hollywood, but nevertheless had a horror
of the place, told her quite sincerely that he hoped she would get
there, and added, with perfect truth, that she reminded him of those
Broadway girls on the pictures. Edna of course--the silly child--had
been fascinated at once by Dot; and as for Mrs. Smeeth, who really
had no more sense about people at times than a baby, she seemed to be
infatuated with all three of them.
“Will you have a little port wine, Mrs. Dalby?” said Mr. Smeeth, who
felt that he must do something.
“Just the tiniest, weeniest sip, Mr. Smeeth,” she replied. And when he
had brought her the Rich Ruby she continued, “Lively to-night, aren’t
we?”
“Very,” he told her.
She gave him a quick look. “Well, it’s nice to see people enjoying
themselves. But you look a bit tired to-night, Mr. Smeeth.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Do I? Feel all right, y’know, Mrs. Dalby.” Did he
feel all right? What about that little tick-tick of pain somewhere
inside him? “I’ve been working hard just lately. We’ve been busy, for
once.”
“You’re inside all the time, aren’t you?” said Mrs. Dalby seriously
and sympathetically. “And that’s what tells on you. Tom works very
hard--though you wouldn’t think so, to hear him talk--but he’s out most
of the time, on his round, you know, and so it’s not so bad for him,
unless we get a spell of nasty damp weather and then he begins to feel
it in the chest. He’s had chest trouble before.”
“Has he really?” said Mr. Smeeth. This was not a very cheerful
conversation, but nevertheless it pleased him. Mrs. Dalby was a nice,
quiet, ladylike sort of woman, and talking to her in this company was
like having a few words with a sane person in a madhouse.
“That’s right, Fred,” Mrs. Smeeth shouted. “Do help yourself.”
“Trust me!” roared Fred, who was pouring himself out some whisky. Yes,
there was a bottle of whisky, as well as some beer and the Rich Ruby.
So far as Mr. Smeeth could see, half the week’s housekeeping money must
have been spent on this racket.
“Yes, trust _’im_,” screamed Mrs. Fred, putting down her empty glass.
“If you don’t take that bottle away from him, he’ll have it all before
you know where you are.”
“Ah like ma droap o’ Scoatch, d’ye ken,” Fred bellowed in a very hoarse
voice and in what he imagined to be a Scots accent. “Wha’ day ye say,
Meesees Macphairson? Hoch aye!”
“Oh, stop it, Fred,” cried his wife.
“Good as a turn, you are, Fred,” said Mrs. Smeeth admiringly.
“Reminds me of the chap from Aberdeen,” Dalby began. But it was no use.
It was not his evening.
“There was a Scottie I knew in Brum,” Fred shouted.
Mrs. Fred let out a piercing shriek. “Oh, yes, tell ’em about him.”
Fred did, but Mr. Smeeth, by a tremendous effort, contrived not to
listen, although Fred’s voice more than filled the room. Indeed, there
was so much of it that it was possible not to take it in properly.
Mr. Smeeth thought about other things, and paid no attention until he
suddenly discovered that he was being addressed.
“Yes, do let’s have that,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, her face very red and her
eyes moist with laughter. “Y’know, that one you did the other night for
me--that man in Birmingham. Laugh! I thought I’d have died. Dad, you
remember me telling you? Do listen to this.”
“That’s right, Pa,” roared Fred, with mock severity. “A little of your
attention, please, while I endeavour to give you a slight impersonation
of--Mis-ter Snook-um of Brum.”
“That wasn’t his real name, you know,” Mrs. Fred screamed, turning on
Mr. Smeeth so that he got the full force of it. “That was the name
these chaps gave him. Do it properly, Fred, this time. Dress up for it.”
“Shall I? What about it?”
“Yes, go on, do. Like you did that time at Mr. Slingsby’s. I’ll tell
you all about that night in a minute,” Mrs. Fred added, with the air
of one about to confer a great favour. “That _was_ a night. But go on,
Fred.”
“All right,” replied Fred, noisily finishing his whisky. “I will--by
special request.”
“Looks as though we’re going to have a performance,” said Dalby, not
very pleasantly. There had been rather too much of Fred for his taste.
“That’s right,” Fred shouted at him, not too pleasantly either. “Any
objections?”
“Hurry up, Fred,” cried Mrs. Smeeth beaming at him. “We’re all waiting.”
“Allow me one minute in which to change my costume,” Fred replied, “and
I will oblige.” And out he went, and the others were moved about to
allow a clear space near the door, and Mrs. Dalby and Mrs. Mitty were
pressed to take a little more of the Rich Ruby or to have a sandwich or
a piece of cake, and Mrs. Dalby had a sandwich and Mrs. Mitty, whose
long nose was a much deeper shade of blue than it had originally been,
accepted another glass of the Rich Ruby.
“I ought to tell you that this chap he’s going to take off,” Mrs. Fred
explained to them, “was a chap Fred had some business dealings with in
Birmingham. He owned one of the picture theatres there. He wasn’t a bad
sort of chap really, but he was an absolute comic--didn’t mean to be,
y’know, didn’t know he was funny--but he _was_, and Fred and the other
fellows used to make game of him. To start with, he always talked, you
see, with his mouth on one side----”
“Well, so does Fred,” said Mr. Smeeth, bluntly and boldly.
“Now, Dad,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, “how can you say that!”
“That’s right, Mrs. Smeeth,” said Dalby. “He does talk with his mouth
on one side. I noticed it myself. Just a habit, you know. Easy to get
into. Probably you never notice it now,” he remarked considerately to
Mrs. Fred. “You’ve got used to it.”
“Oh, that’s quite different,” she said stiffly. But she did not
continue with her explanation. “Wait till he comes in. You’ll see what
I mean.”
What Mr. Smeeth did see when Fred came in was that Fred was wearing
his best overcoat and hat. He must have chosen these things because
they were obviously too small for him and so added to the comic effect.
The coat was strained across his shoulders, and the hat, a good grey
soft felt, which Mr. Smeeth only wore at the week-end and for special
occasions, had been jammed on his head and punched in at the top in a
horrible manner. Mr. Smeeth was so annoyed he could hardly sit still.
“Good evening, you people,” said Fred, speaking in a queer voice and
throwing his mouth round to the other side. “I’m Mister Snookums of
Brum, and I’d loike you to understand that I’m the propreeotor of the
Luxydrome Peecture Palaice, situated in one of our main thoroughfares
of the city and built ree-gardless of expense. Hem!” Here Fred coughed
in a silly way, with a quick movement of one hand to his mouth, a
movement that nearly split the seams of the overcoat. His wife and
Mrs. Smeeth shrieked with laughter; Dalby and his wife smiled; and Mr.
Smeeth merely looked glum. This went on for several minutes, at the end
of which, Fred, in a frantic attempt to capture the whole audience, was
shouting at the top of his voice, nearly bursting the overcoat, and
punching the hat out of any recognisable shape. At last, Mr. Smeeth
could stand it no longer.
“Just a minute,” he said, advancing upon Fred. “I’m sorry to interrupt,
if you’ve not finished. But, y’know, that’s my hat, my _best_ hat--when
you’ve done with it.” And he held out his hand for it.
“All right, old sport,” said Fred, giving it to him and resuming his
normal appearance. “No damage done. And ber-lieve me, people,” he
added, mopping his brow, “that’s nearly like work. Yes, I think I will,
Cousin Edie.” And he made for the whisky.
Edna and Dot returned now from the pictures. It was Dot’s turn to
entertain the company. “Oo, I say,” she cried, like a suddenly
galvanised doll, “oo, I say, you oughter see Ducie Dellwood in this
picture we’ve just seen. A college girl, what they call over there a
co-ed.”
“I thought she was sorful,” said Edna. “Didn’t you, Dot?”
“I didn’t like her much. This was her. Watch me, everybody. Just
watch me a minute. This was her.” And Dot, after screaming everybody
into attention, began jazzing about and rolling her eyes and flinging
herself into a chair and then jumping out of it again. “That song’s
in this picture, mother,” she gasped. “You know--what is it?--_It’s
Necking or Nothing Now_--and Ducie Dellwood sings it--like this.” She
stood facing them with her legs apart and knees bent, crooked her
elbows, spread out her fingers, then swayed as she sang, or tried to
sing in a little nasal voice, what she remembered of the song. Mr.
Smeeth, after noticing that Edna was regarding this performance with
open admiration, told himself that in spite of the fact that he was a
quiet and good-tempered man, he would dearly like to get up and give
this Dot girl a good box on the ears and then pack her off to bed.
“Well, I really think we’d better be getting along now,” said Mrs.
Dalby.
“Yes, time to be off,” said her husband.
“No, don’t go yet, Mrs. Dalby,” cried Mrs. Smeeth.
“The night is yet young,” roared Fred. “I thought you London people
kept it up till all hours. Why, up in Brum, when a few of us got
together, some of the bo-hoys and some of the ger-hirls, we used to be
settling down to it now, I give you my word.”
“And how much longer does he think he’s going to stay here?” Mr. Smeeth
asked himself bitterly, as the irrepressible Fred went roaring on. Mrs.
Dalby was firm about going and edged towards the door, smiling at her
hostess; Dalby followed her and when they did finally go, Mr. Smeeth,
glad to escape even for a minute or two, saw them to the door. The
night was beautifully dark and quiet, delighted in its entire lack of
Mitties.
“Lively card, all right,” said Dalby, as they halted a moment.
“A bit too lively for me,” said Mr. Smeeth in a low, confidential tone.
“A little of him goes a long way, it seems to me. Mrs. Smeeth’s cousin,
y’know,” he added, disclaiming all responsibility.
“Well, to be quite truthful, Mr. Smeeth,” Mrs. Dalby declared, “I
must say I thought the way they allowed that girl to carry on was
ridiculous. My words, if she’d been a girl of mine----!”
“Or mine,” said Mr. Smeeth grimly.
“Still, we’ve had a very enjoyable evening, haven’t we, Tom?” said Mrs.
Dalby, who had plainly had nothing of the kind but was a polite woman.
After they had said good night, Mr. Smeeth remained at the door for
a few minutes, enjoying the quiet and the cool fresh air. When he
returned to the others he made straight for the fire and raked it
together with the poker, but did not put any more coal on it. Then
he yawned once or twice, and did not try very hard to pretend he was
not yawning. Ten minutes later, he told Edna to get upstairs to bed,
pointing out very firmly that on any other night she would have been
there some time. There were signs then, after Edna had reluctantly and
with much wriggling of shoulders taken her departure, that the Mitty
family was about to go, but unfortunately George made his appearance
and that kept them another half-hour, towards the end of which Mr.
Smeeth merely stared at them in despair. When they did go Mrs. Smeeth
and George saw them to the door, and Mr. Smeeth stayed where he was.
Somehow the room looked as if fifty people had been eating and drinking
and smoking in it for days. There were two sandwiches and a flattened
cigarette end on the carpet; somebody had spilled some port on the
little table; there was the glass that Fred had broken; there were the
forlorn bottles, the dirty glasses, the remnants of food, the cigarette
ash, the smoke rapidly going stale: the whole room, the pride of the
house and as nice a parlour as you would find in the length of Chaucer
Road, looked tipsy, bedraggled, and forlorn, and as its disgusted
owner wearily moved about, throwing bits of stuff into the fire and
straightening things, he felt as if the Mitty crew had left their sign
and mark on it for ever. He threw open the windows and was just in time
to hear from outside the last good nights.
His wife came in. “George has gone to bed,” she announced. “I was
telling him he seemed quite struck with young Dot.”
Mr. Smeeth grunted.
She followed her usual practice on these occasions, sitting down by the
fire with a last sandwich, prepared for a cosy little gossip about the
evening. “I’m not going to touch a thing to-night. It’ll have to wait
until the morning. Well, well, I must say I’ve enjoyed myself to-night;
whether other people have or not.” For a moment her face was alight
with reminiscent mirth, that pleasant afterglow of jolly evenings, but
it died out as she looked at her husband. “But I must say, too, Dad, I
never saw you in such a mood. I expect you thought I wasn’t noticing
you, but I was. Couldn’t help it. Quite grumpy you were, half the time,
and downright rude, if you ask me, once or twice. Fred’s wife noticed
it, too.”
Mr. Smeeth mumbled something to the effect that he did not much care
what Fred’s wife noticed.
“Perhaps you’re tired. Are you, boy?” she said, her manner changing. “I
thought once or twice you looked tired, and Mrs. Dalby told me _she_
thought you were looking a bit tired to-night.”
“I expect I am,” said Mr. Smeeth.
“Ah, well, that’s different, isn’t it, when you’re tired and you don’t
feel in the humour for it? Never mind; next time I expect you’ll be
ready to join in the fun. They’ve asked us all down for one night next
week--they’ll let us know which night--to meet some people they know
who used to be in Birmingham, too.”
“Well, I hope you told them I wasn’t going.”
“Of course I didn’t, Dad. The very idea!”
“Well, I’m not going.”
“Why, what for?”
“Because I’m _not_. If you want to know,” Mr. Smeeth added, his voice
trembling, “I’ve had quite enough of ’em here to-night, without going
to look for some more.”
His wife looked at him indignantly and sat up straight. “That’s a nice
way to talk, isn’t it? What harm have they done you? It’s not Fred’s
fault--or his wife’s fault--if you didn’t enjoy yourself to-night.”
“It is. If it’s not their fault, whose fault is it?” Mr. Smeeth
retorted. “I can’t stand him--and I can’t stand his wife--and I can’t
stand that jazzing girl of theirs either. And the less Edna, or George,
for that matter, sees of that little----”
“Now just you be careful what you’re saying,” cried Mrs. Smeeth.
“You’ll be saying something in a minute you’ll be sorry for afterwards.
Now, Dad, you’re tired to-night, and I expect they were a bit too noisy
for you. Fred does get noisy when he gets going, I’ll admit. But you’ll
feel different about it in the morning. Let’s go to bed.”
“All right. I’m ready. But understand this, Edie. I’m not going down
to Fred Mitty’s this next week or any other week. If you want to go,
I can’t stop you, and if you want to ask them here again, I suppose I
can’t stop you--though if he starts coming here regularly, drinking the
amount of whisky he drank to-night, I’m going to have something to say.
But he doesn’t see _me_ again for a long time, I can tell you that.”
“The way you talk!” said Mrs. Smeeth on her way to the door. “But I’m
not going to argue with you to-night. I’m tired myself and I’m sure
you’re so tired you don’t know what you _are_ saying. I’ll leave you to
lock up, Dad.”
No doubt he _was_ tired. He was still trembling a little as he went
round, turning off the lights and seeing that both outside doors were
locked and bolted; but his mind was made up on the Mitty question.
There is a certain pleasure in making up your mind, putting your
foot down, taking a firm stand, especially if, like Mr. Smeeth, you
do it very rarely, not being a wilful or autocratic man; and as he
walked along the dark little hall and climbed the stairs, Mr. Smeeth
experienced that pleasure, and the hand that he placed on the banisters
was that of a strong determined man, the natural head of a house. Yet
even before he had reached the bedroom door there was mixed with that
pleasure, absorbing it gradually, an uneasiness, a faint foreboding, a
sense of worse things to come.
_Chapter Seven_: ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS
I
“Yersh,” said Mr. Pelumpton, staring at Turgis and pulling hard at his
little pipe, which replied with a sickening gurgle--“yersh, that’sh
what you want, boy, shome short of ’obby, to parsh the time--shee?”
“That’s right,” cried little Mrs. Pelumpton, sitting down but only on
the edge of the chair to show that this was a mere breathing-space in
the long battle with beds and stairs and dirty plates and potatoes and
legs of mutton. “You oughter get out of yourself more, Mr. Turgis--if
you catch my meaning. That’s what you’re telling him, isn’t it?”
“Yersh,” said Mr. Pelumpton, who was busy now poking at his pipe with a
very large hairpin.
“Oh--I dunno,” said Turgis, vaguely and mournfully.
“Look at Edgar,” Mrs. Pelumpton continued. “What with
’arriering--y’know, a lot of ’em all running together, miles and miles,
and not as much on as you might go in the water with if you was at the
seaside--though he ’asn’t done much of that lately----”
“Don’t blame him,” Turgis muttered, shuddering. The last thing on earth
he wanted was to be a harrier, who not only ran and ran until he nearly
dropped but also contrived to look silly. Ugh!
“What with that and now these racing dog dirt tracks----”
“Hear that,” Mr. Pelumpton broke in, pointing a derisive pipe-stem,
“d’hear that, Mishter Turgish? Dog dirt tracksh! That’sh a good one.
You’ve got it wrong, Mother. Nobody’d pay to shee a dog dirt tracksh;
you can shee them any time, outshide in the shtreet. Plenty of ’em
round ’er. That makesh me laugh, that doesh.” And to show that it did,
he cackled a little.
“It wouldn’t take much to make you laugh. But you know what I mean?”
and she turned to Turgis.
“Greyhound racing.”
“That’s right,” cried Mrs. Pelumpton triumphantly. “He goes to see ’em
once or twice a week--never misses--and though it costs money----”
“Yersh,” said Mr. Pelumpton. “Think it doesh. It’sh a betting
bishnish--shame ash ’orsh racing, a betting bishnish.”
“Oh, is it?” Mrs. Pelumpton was thoughtful. “Well, that’s not as good
as it might be, is it? I don’t want Edgar starting with them betting
tricks--two to one each way and all that. Never any good came of
_that_, in _my_ opinion.”
“A mug’s game,” said Turgis, with the air of a rather gloomy man of the
world.
“I thought they just went to see the dogs run about, just a bit of
fun,” Mrs. Pelumpton continued, dubiously. Then she brightened. “But I
can trust Edgar to behave and not do anything silly.”
“Yersh, yersh. Matter of a bob or two, that’sh all. The boy’sh all
right. Mindjew, for _my_ part, I never cared for thish betting game,
neither ’orshesh or anything elsh. Wouldn’t touch it. Fellersh
’ave shaid to me, ‘You put all you’ve got on sho-an’-sho--it’sh a
shert,’--but I’ve told ’em, ‘No.’ Matter of prinshiple, shee? I don’t
want the bookiesh’ money and they’re not going to ’ave my money. What
I’ve made,” Mr. Pelumpton added, apparently under the impression
that he had made whole fortunes in his time, “I’ve honeshtly earned.
There’sh quite enough gambling in the dealing bishnish for me, quite
enough.”
“Well, I’d rather see Edgar going up there, even if it means he’s
putting his shillings on now and then,” said Mrs. Pelumpton, getting
up, “than see him going round the pubs. That’s an expensive ’obby, if
you like. And you can’t say you’ve never had a try at that, Dad. If
you ever had any principles against the publicans ’aving your money,
all I can say is they never took you very far. What you’ve honestly
earned you’ve mostly honestly spent, too.” And Mrs. Pelumpton waddled
into the kitchen.
“Yersh,” said Mr. Pelumpton, completely ignoring his wife’s speech and
now fixing Turgis with his watery stare, “quite enough gambling in the
dealing bishnish for me. Now here’sh an inshtansh.”
“Oh, blow you and your instances!” Turgis cried to himself.
“Chesht o’ drawersh going up in Holloway and I’m requeshted to ’ave a
look at it. Very pretty piesh, very pretty piesh. Worth money, that
piesh. I’m tellin’ you now what I thought, at the time. I went back
and shaw Mishter Peek an’ tellsh him that piesh’sh worth a ten pound
note if it’sh worth a penny. ‘Go back,’ he shaysh, ‘and go right up to
sheven if nesheshary.’ I go back and thish piesh’sh gone. Old Craggy
up the road there had bought it--’ad to pay sheven too--an’ I could
have kicked myshelf. Well, that’sh what?--oh, eight munsh, ten munsh, a
year ago. All right. I’m looking round in old Craggy’sh the other day
and what do I shee--the very shame piesh. I shaysh to ’im ‘I know that
piesh’ and I told him ’ow and why I did know it. Then I shaysh to him,
‘What you wanting now for that piesh?’ An’ what do you think he shaid?”
“Fifty pounds,” said Turgis promptly. He had heard this type of story
many, many times from Mr. Pelumpton.
“Now that’sh jusht where you’re wrong, boy,” cried Mr. Pelumpton,
delighted. “Jusht where you’re wrong. Not fifty poundsh but _five_
poundsh, two lesh than he’d given for it. Couldn’t get rid of
it--shee?--and had pulled it down and down--and I give you my word, I
believe I could have ’ad that piesh from him for _four_--he was sho
shick of sheeing it about the shop. And I’d have bought it for sheven,
sho would Mishter Peek, sho would you, sho would anybody. It jusht
showsh you. The dealing bishnish ish a gamble.”
“If you ask me,” said Turgis, all gloomy and profound, “it’s all a
gamble.”
“Well, don’t loosh ’eart, boy, don’t loosh ’eart. Take a ninterest in
thingsh like I do. Shtart a nobby----”
“What’s your hobby?” asked Turgis, not too graciously. And he
immediately gave himself the answer silently, “Finding free beer, you
old soak, that’s your hobby.”
“My work ish my ’obby now,” replied Mr. Pelumpton very solemnly. “In
my time I’ve ’ad all manner of ’obbiesh, from pigeonsh to joining the
volunteersh, but now my work ish my ’obby. It’sh not only my work but
my play, ash you might shay. And if you’re going to make anything at
all out of dealing, if you’re going to be a _real_ dealer, that’sh the
only way to do it--make it a full time job, wherever you are, be on the
look-out, keep your eyesh open, your earsh open, turn thingsh over in
your mind. If you’d a bit more money, d’you know what I’d shay to you?”
Turgis could think of several things that Mr. Pelumpton would say to
him, the very minute he had some more money, but he was certain that
not one of them was in Mr. Pelumpton’s thoughts at the moment. So he
merely shook his head.
“What I’d shay to you ish--shtart collecting. In a shmall way, y’know,
to begin with. Doeshn’t matter what you collect. And I’d put you on to
thingsh. That’sh where you’d be lucky ’cosh you’d ’ave the benefit of
my experiensh and knowledge of the trade.”
Turgis did not think he would care very much for collecting, and Mrs.
Pelumpton, returning at that moment, wiping her hands on an apron, said
that she didn’t think of collecting either. “Just wasting your money
and littering the place up, that would be,” she added. “So don’t you go
and put ideas into his head, Dad. I’d sooner see you taking an interest
in these politics, same as Mr. Park.”
“You know what he ish, Mishter Park?” said her husband. “He’sh a
Bolshie, that’sh what he ish.”
“Well, it keeps him quiet enough,” Mrs. Pelumpton retorted. “And sober,
too. Never makes any noise or trouble. Nobody will make me believe he’s
a real Bolshie, a nice quiet young chap like that. And he’s never been
to Russia, never once set eyes on it. He told me so himself.”
“That doeshn’t matter,” said Mr. Pelumpton.
“What does matter then?” asked Mrs. Pelumpton triumphantly.
No doubt her husband could have told her, but he did not choose to; he
merely made a contemptuous noise, and then took up the evening paper.
Turgis decided to go to bed. It was not late, but there was nothing to
do. He was tired of talking to the Pelumptons, though he felt vaguely
grateful to them, or at least to Mrs. Pelumpton, for taking an interest
in him. What they actually said did not mean much to him--for he did
not want any of their silly hobbies and had not the slightest desire to
be like either Edgar or Park--but it was pleasant to feel that somebody
was interested in him. His father took no interest in him, hadn’t done
for years, and he had no other near relations. They didn’t care much
about him at the office. Even Poppy-with-the-fringe had kept away from
him lately, and the others simply took him for granted. He had no
friends. He was just a chap in the crowd. Nearly all his time away from
the office was spent in a crowd somewhere, getting back to his lodgings
in the packed Tube, returning to the thronged streets afterwards,
perhaps eating in some crowded place, then waiting in a queue to get
in a picture theatre, making one of a huge audience, wandering along
the lamp-lit pavements, and he was for ever surrounded by strange,
indifferent or hostile faces, looking into millions of eyes that never
lit up with any gleam of recognition, and spending hour after hour in
the very thick of packed humanity without exchanging a single word with
anybody. His existence was noticed only when he bought something, when
he turned himself into a customer.
And yet, of course, this was not entirely true. There were innumerable
people in London who were not only ready to make the acquaintance of
Turgis, but were actually longing for him. There were Park’s comrades,
the communists, who would be only too glad to obtain another recruit;
possibly the Socialists; and certainly the Anti-Socialists, who would
have been delighted to show him how to mount a soap-box. There were
clergymen of all denominations and sects on the prowl for him, willing
to lead him in prayer, to instruct him in the Scriptures, to teach him
anthems, to show him lantern slides of the Norfolk Broads, to smoke
a manly pipe at him, to play a game of chess, draughts, dominoes,
bagatelle, or billiards with him, to give him a right hook and then
a straight left with the gloves on, according to their varied tastes
and dispositions. There were men who were not clergymen, but had the
habits and outlook of clergymen, leaders of ethical societies and the
like, who would be pleased to talk to him about their own particular
universes, lend him a few books, and welcome him twice a week at their
philosophical-literary-musical services. No doubt there were criminals
who could have made good use of a youth with such a guileless air.
There were thousands of other young men in lodgings and offices,
young men who were not very clever or strong or handsome or brave or
artful, young men who were for ever packing themselves into tubes and
buses, eating hastily in corners of crowded teashops, and then using
the music-halls, picture theatres, saloon bars, and lighted streets
as their drawing-rooms, studies, and clubs, who would soon have been
overjoyed, once the mumbling preliminaries were passed, to spend their
evenings with Turgis.
But then he did not really want any of these people, did not want
company for company’s sake. What he really wanted was Love, Romance, a
Wonderful Girl of His Own. And these had lately all been assuming the
same shape in his mind, that of Miss Lena Golspie. He had never spoken
to her, had never seen her except once, at a distance, since that day
she appeared at the office, but he had thought a great deal about
her. To say that he had fallen in love with her at sight would be to
exaggerate. If an attractive girl--and she need not have been anything
like so pretty as Miss Golspie--had turned up and had been kind to him,
no doubt he would soon have forgotten all about Lena. But no such girl
turned up; indeed no girl of any kind appeared. If Lena Golspie was
not the prettiest girl he had ever seen (and he could not remember a
prettier, not even if he included the beautiful shadow people, Lulu
Castellar and the other film stars), she was certainly the prettiest
girl he had ever spoken to, and the fact that she had actually made her
appearance at the office door in Angel Pavement somehow brought her
definitely into his own world. That she was not really a creature of
that world only made her more fascinating, mysterious, romantic, like
the beautiful heroine of a love story of the films. She was a lovely
bird of passage. He imagined her against a background of strange places
and fantastic luxuries. It was as if Lulu Castellar had stepped out of
the screen, taken on colour and solid shape, and had actually spoken
to him, smiled at him. And yet, there it was, her father worked in the
very same business, in the very same office, with him. No wonder he
could not get the girl out of his head, which for a long time now had
been haunted by a vague but infinitely desirable feminine shape. It was
vague no longer; it had definite form and features; it had a name.
It had also an address, and Turgis, his wits suddenly sharpened,
had contrived to learn it at the office. The Golspies lived at 4a,
Carrington Villas, Maida Vale, W. 9. He had seen the very house, or
rather the upper half of the house, in which they lived. He had, in
fact, seen it several times, and had actually been watching when lights
were being turned on and off there. Before this, Maida Vale had been
for him a mere name, but now he was rapidly becoming familiar with the
district, and it had for him a most curious fascination. He had never
really decided what he would do if he was lucky enough to run into
Miss Golspie. She had been friendly that day she came to the office,
though condescending to him, of course, as she had every right to do;
but on the strength of that, he did not see how he could very well
stop her, perhaps in one of the darkest parts of Carrington Villas,
and say: “Do you remember me. I’m Turgis and I’m the clerk at Twigg
and Dersingham’s. And how are you, Miss Golspie?” And if he wasn’t
to do that, what was he to do? He did not know, and so left it to
the inspiration of the moment. That moment never arrived. He was not
very surprised or disappointed. He went across to Maida Vale several
nights, not so much because he felt he had a good chance of meeting her
there or even of seeing her, but because on these particular evenings
every other part of London seemed terribly dreary, and Maida Vale drew
him across these desolated spaces like a magnet. He only went when
it was fine, and then he took a turn or two up and down Carrington
Villas, sometimes stopping near the house to see if anything was
happening there (it was a detached house with two pillars before the
door and three steps leading up to it, and there was a broken statue
in the dingy bit of garden in front), perhaps walked along the street
at the top a little way, towards the main road, then did the same at
the bottom, had a last saunter along Carrington Villas, perhaps ended
up with a glass of bitter at the high-class little pub just round the
corner at the top, and went home. The first few evenings he had spent
like that he had enjoyed; there was to him something enchantingly
mysterious and romantic in the winter-evening gloom of this Maida Vale;
as he moved about the quiet streets, a shadow among shadows, he became
aware of an intense secret inner life of his own; but the pleasure
rapidly decreased. Too often the upper half of the house was all dark,
and then of course the whole neighbourhood lost its charm, which was
transferred to some other, unknown, part of the city, where she was
spending the evening. Probably in the West End, that brilliant jungle,
where you might meet anybody, the last person in the world you expected
to meet, and where you might miss for ever the one person you wanted
to meet. It was in the West End he caught sight of her. He had been to
a picture theatre and it was late, and he saw her with her father and
another man. Mr. Golspie was shouting for a taxi, and in another moment
he had got one and they were gone. But he saw her distinctly, and it
was strange seeing her, for though he had thought so much about her,
she had almost stopped being real.
He was beginning to mope now, for he was tired of going over to Maida
Vale, and yet could not settle down to spend his evenings in the old
way, and that was why the Pelumptons, seeing him hanging about and
looking vaguely miserable, had begun to give him advice about hobbies.
They did not understand, he told himself gloomily, that he wasn’t
simply another Edgar or Park. But he admitted once again that it was
decent of them to take an interest in him, even if they missed the
great fact about him--namely, that he was entirely different from Edgar
or Park or anybody else they knew. The innermost self of Turgis was
always being surprised and hurt by the general ignorance of this simple
fact. Having reached his little room, he now did what he had done
many hundreds of times before: he examined his face carefully in the
tiny cracked mirror to see if there were any signs of this difference
written there; and once again he came to the conclusion that there
were, only you had to look closely and sympathetically at him, not just
give a hard stare and then march off, to notice them.
For once, the little gas-fire did not explode when the match came near
and then wheezily complain. It gave only a soft pop and then merely
murmured. Its master knew that that meant that the meter demanded
another shilling, and as he had not got a shilling and was too lazy to
return to the back room for possible change, he let it murmur and sink,
until its flames were like tiny blue flowers. Then he did something he
had not done hundreds of times before. He began brushing his clothes.
Mr. Smeeth had already noticed, as we saw, that Turgis had smartened
himself up. We are now behind the scenes of this smartening. It had
occurred to Turgis that his next meeting with Lena Golspie, if there
ever was one, might easily take place in the office, like the first
meeting, and then he realised at once that he would have to take some
trouble with his appearance during the day. He went to the length of
spending one-and-three-pence on a clothes brush of his own. A day or
two later, he went to the further length of buying a few collars, very
smart soft collars with long points on them, and was quite surprised
at the difference they made. Then he had taken to folding his trousers
and putting them under the mattress, and had even taken his better
pair downstairs once and ironed them. Now, after brushing the coat
and waistcoat and doing a little scratching here and there with his
penknife, he took these trousers from under the mattress and thoroughly
examined them.
He sat down on the edge of his bed, the trousers over his arm, staring
at the large hole in the old rug. But he was not looking at the hole,
but through it, into Angel Pavement, into the office. Mr. Golspie
had just gone away, and now Turgis suddenly realised that that fact
was tremendously important. It might mean that there was no chance
whatever of Lena coming near the office, now that her father was not
there. On the other hand, it might mean just the opposite, that there
was a very good chance of her visiting the office, just because her
father _was_ away. She might want something; she might be in trouble;
and Mr. Golspie might easily have told her to come to the office. And
now he remembered hearing _something_, something that Mr. Golspie, at
the outer door, had shouted to Mr. Dersingham sitting in the private
office, a something that had to do with Lena and “you people here,”
as Mr. Golspie had called them. Turgis knew definitely that Lena was
being left behind. Well then, she might call at the office any day.
There was quite a chance, anyhow. So there and then, he decided that
for the next twelve days or so, while Mr. Golspie was away, he would
shave carefully every morning, put on his better suit and wear a clean
collar, and have his hair cut at lunch time on the following day.
Having thus made up his mind, he felt quite excited, and, as people
do, if they have drifted for a long time and then suddenly come to a
decision and adopted a programme, he found himself visited obscurely by
a conviction that something was bound to happen, just as if by drawing
a firm straight line he could compel circumstance to come and toe it.
The gas-fire retired from service with a very sad little pop. He moved
and the bed immediately gave a groan. (Everything in the room creaked
and groaned and constantly complained. It was tired of people, that
little room.) Very carefully he raised the mattress and replaced
the trousers underneath. Then, with something like an air of sheer
dandyism, he put out an absolutely clean collar for the morning. He
went to the little dormer window and stared through the few inches
of open space at the dark and the faint glimmer of the town. Here he
was, high up above Camden Town, in his own little room. There she was,
Lena Golspie, perhaps in _her_ little room in Maida Vale, perhaps just
above those two pillars he had seen, peering through the open gate,
perhaps looking down on that broken statue in the front garden. It made
his eyes water, staring there like that, but still he remained. His
lips moved. “Listen, Lena,” he began; but then stopped. “Listen, Miss
Golspie, Miss Lena Golspie. Listen. Do come to the office, do come to
the office. And make it something I can do. Turgis, you know, the one
you saw that day. Do come to the office.”
As soon as he stepped back into the little room, it told him, in its
various creaky voices, not to be a damned fool.
“Oh!--you!” he said to it, aloud, and then made haste to undress and
get the light out.