There was just light enough, and time enough, for him to notice that
the broken statue, really a plaster thing, was that of a little boy
playing with two large fishes, and that the two pillars were peeling
badly. There were two bells, one for 4, the other for 4a. He was
careful to press the 4a one. He pressed it several times and altogether
waited nearly five minutes, but nobody came. It looked as if she was
out, after all. In despair, he tried the bell for 4. Instantly a light
was switched on in the hall, and the door--there was only one door for
both flats--flung open.
“Is it you here again, young man,” cried an enormous woman in an apron,
standing there. “Because if it is, I’ve to give you the mistress’s word
that she’s paying out no more money for the machine because the girl
that could work it has left and it’s no use to us at all the way we are
now, and not another penny will she pay out for it, so take it itself
and leave us in peace.”
“I don’t know anything about your machine,” Turgis told her.
“Aren’t you the same young man? Well, you’re the very image of him.”
“I want to see Miss Golspie.”
“The young lady above, isn’t it? Then ring the other bell, with the _a_
on it, and she’ll hear it soon enough.”
“But I’ve been ringing it,” he explained. “I’ve rung it about six
times.”
“For the love of God!” cried the enormous woman, coming out and looking
at the bell-push, as if that might explain something. “Haven’t they
got that bell of theirs ringing yet? Every time it’s us, it’s really
them. Come inside, young man, come inside, or if we stand here talking
another minute the mistress’ll be raising Cain the way she’ll say she’s
destroyed with the draught. Does she know you’re coming at all?”
“Yes, she does,” replied Turgis, following her into the hall. “I’ve
been sent to see her on business. It’s very important. I hope she’s in.”
“Ah, she’s in, too, because I heard the mistress say she was going to
see her. At the top of the stairs you’ll see a bit of a door--it may be
open and it may be shut--and if you knock on it, you’ll make her hear.
The servant they have is out to-day because I met her here myself this
afternoon, all dressed up and telling me she’s to meet her young man, a
sailor in the Royal Navy. Up the stairs then, it is, and a hard knock
on the door.”
Just beyond the head of the stairs, there _was_ a door, and it was
open a little, so that he could plainly hear the sound of a gramophone
playing jazz. He knocked hard. The gramophone stopped abruptly.
It was Miss Lena herself who came to the door. She was dressed in a
shimmering greenish-blue, and she was prettier than ever. At the sight
of her standing there, solid and real again at last, his heart bumped
and his mouth went suddenly dry.
“I’ve come from Twigg and Dersingham’s, Miss Golspie,” he announced,
stammering a little.
Her face lit up at once. “Oh, have you brought that money?” she cried,
in that same queer fascinating voice he remembered so well. “How much
is it? Come in, though. This way.”
The room was very exciting. It was a big room, but in spite of its
size it was full of things. Turgis had never seen, except on the
pictures, so many cushions; there seemed to be dozens of them, huge
bright cushions, piled up on a big deep sofa sort of thing, stuffed
into armchairs, and even scattered about the floor. And then there were
gramophone records and books and magazines all over the place, and
bottles and tins of biscuits and fancy boxes heaped together on little
tables, and then enough glasses and fruit and cigarettes and ash-trays
for a whist drive or a social; and all in this one rich bewildering
room. It was lit with two big, crimson and yellow, shaded lamps, and
it was very cosy and warm; almost too warm, even though it was a cold
afternoon, for an excited young man who had hurried there from the bus.
“It’s twelve pounds,” he explained, “and I have a receipt here that you
have to sign.”
“Good! I could do with it, I don’t mind telling you. I adore having
money. Don’t you? It’s beastly when you suddenly find you haven’t got
any, and can’t go anywhere or buy anything. Oh, I remember you. You’re
the one I spoke to that day when I called at the office, aren’t you? Do
you remember me?”
Turgis assured her fervently that he did. He was still standing,
awkwardly, with his hat in his hand and his overcoat hanging loose from
his shoulders, and he felt rather hot and uncomfortable.
“You seem jolly sure about it,” she said lightly. “How did you remember
so well?”
“You won’t be annoyed with me if I tell you, will you, Miss Golspie?”
he said humbly.
She stared at him. “Why, what is it?”
“Well, I remembered you,” he replied, gasping a little, “because I
thought you were the prettiest girl I’d ever spoken to in all my life.”
“You didn’t, did you? Are you serious?” She shrieked with laughter.
“What a marvellous thing to say! Is that why _you_ brought the money?”
“Yes, it is,” he said earnestly.
“It isn’t. You were just sent here. I believe you’re pulling my leg.”
“No, I’m not, Miss Golspie. The minute I knew some one had to come
here,” he continued with sudden recklessness, “I specially asked to be
sent--just to see you again.” The hand that was still in his overcoat
pocket tried to make a sweeping gesture, with the result that his
overcoat brushed the top of one of the little tables and emptied a box
of cigarettes on to the floor.
“Look what you’ve done now,” cried Miss Golspie, greatly entertained.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” muttered Turgis, confused and sweating now with sheer
awkwardness and shyness. “I’ll pick them up.”
“Wait a minute. Take your overcoat off and put your hat down, and then
you’ll feel much better. That’s right. Dump them down there--anywhere.
Now you can pick the cigarettes up and you can also give me one of
them. Take one yourself.” Unsteadily he lit her cigarette, picked up
the others, and then lit his own. “Now what about the money?” she
continued. “What do I have to do to get it?”
“Only sign this receipt,” he explained. “You ought to count it first to
see if it’s all right.”
When they had concluded this little transaction, she said suddenly,
“Have you had any tea?”
“No, I haven’t,” said Turgis promptly.
“Well, I haven’t, either. I was too lazy to make it. The maid’s out
to-day. Let’s have some. Shall we? Most of it’s ready on a tray, but I
just couldn’t bother boiling some water and making the tea. You come
and help and then you shall have some.” He followed her into the little
kitchen, where he filled a kettle and watched it come to the boil while
she chattered in a drifting haze of cigarette smoke and languidly
produced another cup and saucer and some things to eat. Then, when
everything was ready, he carried the tray into the other room and set
it down on a low table in front of the fire. Lena reclined, like a
lovely lazy animal, on a pile of cushions, while Turgis, at the other
side of the low table, sat in a low, fat armchair. It was a wonderful
tea. The tea itself was good, for there were little sandwiches and all
kinds of rich creamy chocolate cakes and biscuits, all piled up anyhow,
like everything in this careless and sumptuous place. And then, far
more important than sandwiches and cake, there was Lena herself, so
real, so close, so magically illuminated there in the firelight and
shaded lamplight. She asked him all manner of questions, beginning with
“What’s your name?”
“Turgis,” he told her shyly.
“What’s your first name?”
“Harold,” he mumbled. It was years since anybody (anybody, that is,
who didn’t merely want him to fill up a form) had asked him what his
Christian name was. He brought it out with desperate embarrassment, but
when it came out, he felt better.
“I don’t like Harold much. Do you? Mine’s Lena.”
“Yes, I know it is.”
“It seems to me you know everything about me,” she cried, laughing.
“You’ll be telling me next how old I am and where I was born and all
the rest of it. Who do you think you are--a detective?”
This was a good opportunity to be bright and entertaining, so he told
her all about Stanley at the office and how Stanley wanted to be a
detective and went about “shaddering” people. After which, Lena, who
seemed to enjoy Stanley, asked him about the other people at the office.
“You don’t like it there, do you?” she said, wrinkling her nose in
distaste. “I’d die if I had to work every day in a place like that. So
dark and dismal, isn’t it? And they call that street Angel Pavement!
What a name for it! I nearly passed straight out when my father told
me. If ever I have to work for my living, I’d rather work in a shop
than in an office like that. I wouldn’t mind being a mannequin. Or go
on the stage. That would be best of all. I want to go on the stage. I
nearly went on when I was in Paris. And a man wanted me to go in for
film work--he said he’d get me a part right away. Do you think I’d be
any good for the films?”
“Yes, I’m sure you would,” said Turgis earnestly, all solemn adoration.
“You’d be wonderful on the pictures--like Lulu Castellar or one of
those stars--only better. I’d go anywhere to see you.”
If he had thought about it for days, he could not have produced a
speech more calculated to please her than this, because it chimed with
her own innermost aspirations and beliefs. And his solemn adoration, a
change from the usual obvious gallantry, was very pleasant. She smiled
at him, slowly, with a kind of sweet deliberation, and he sat looking
at her, silent, intoxicated.
The silence was broken by a sharp _rat-tat-tat_. “Oh, damn!” cried
Lena. “Who’s that?” and went out to see. She returned, raising her
eyebrows comically at Turgis, followed by a very strange figure. It was
an old woman who looked like a dressed up and painted witch. She had an
enormous nose, hollow cheeks, deeply sunken eyes, but, nevertheless,
her face had the pink and white colouring of youth. This was because
it was thickly painted, and when it caught the light, it shone, just
as if it was enamelled and varnished. She was wearing, above a purple
dress, a gigantic yellow shawl with a pattern of scarlet flowers on it,
and she glittered with brooches, necklaces and rings. Never in his life
before had Turgis been in the same room with anybody as fantastic as
this old woman, and suddenly he felt frightened. For a second or so, he
even forgot about Lena, and simply wished he was not there, wished he
was somewhere familiar, sensible and safe. It was a queer moment, and
he remembered it long afterwards.
Lena introduced him, in an off-hand, slap-dash fashion, so that he
never caught the name of this extraordinary visitor. All he knew was
that it was something foreign; and he guessed that she was the woman
who lived downstairs, the mistress mentioned by the fat Irish cook, or
whatever she was who had admitted him into the house.
“No, no, no, my dee-air,” cried the old woman in a cracked foreign
voice, “I’ll not stay at oll, onlee one seengle minute. I haf asked
my nephew and hees vife and hees friend from de Legation to com’ to me
to-night because I am again in vairy great troble. Yes, yes, yes, yes,
yes--in vairy, vairy great troble again. Dere ees no end of eet.” At
this point she sat down, shot out a claw-like hand and took a cake, and
promptly gobbled it up. Turgis stared at her, fascinated.
“What’s the matter?” asked Lena, trying to sound concerned, but
obviously ready to giggle at any moment.
“Aw!” cried the old woman, repeating this “Aw” a great many times and
wagging her head as she did so. “My daughtair again, _of_ course--need
you ask? Always de same--onlee a deef’rent troble.” She swooped down
upon a cigarette, and popped it in her mouth and lit it with uncommon
dexterity. After blowing a cloud of smoke in Lena’s direction, she
resumed: “I haf com’, my dee-air, for two t’ings. First, here are de
plomss I said to you I would geef you. No, no, no, no. Dey are noding,
noding, noding at oll. Steel, dey are vairy, vairy nice plomss.”
Apparently these plums were in the little box she now handed to Lena.
“Next, I ask your fadair, Meestair Colspie--does he say ven he com’
back ’ere?”
“He didn’t say exactly,” said Lena. “I don’t think he quite knows yet.
But it ought to be some time next week. Perhaps you know, do you?” And
she looked at Turgis.
“That’s all I’ve heard, Miss Golspie,” replied Turgis, very conscious
of the fact that the old woman was staring at him. “We expect him back
some time next week.”
“No, no, no, no. I should like to ask your fadair about dees troble for
my daughtair--dat ees oll--and eenoff! Aw yes!--eenoff. My nephew’s
friend from de Legation, he may do somet’ing. Eef not, I ask your
fadair next veek.” She threw her cigarette into the fireplace, and
got up from her chair surprisingly quickly. “Aw, my dee-air, dat ees
a nice, a vairy nice dress you ’ave on now. Aw yes, eet ees.” She ran
a be-ringed claw over some of it. Then she looked at Turgis, who
immediately wished she wouldn’t. “Eesn’t eet a nice dress, eh? You
t’eenk so?”
The embarrassed Turgis said it was.
“She ees vairy preety, Mees Colspie? Aw, yes--loffly, you t’eenk, eh?”
“Yes, I think she is,” replied Turgis, after clearing his throat.
“You are in loff wit’ her, eh?”
These foreigners! What a question to put to a chap? What had it got
to do with her, the nosy old hag? He made some sort of noise in his
throat, and it was enough to stop her staring at him and to set her
moving towards the door, chuckling just as if she was a witch. “The
young man ees afraid of me. He ees in loff. Geef ’im a plom, dee-air.”
When Lena came back, after closing the outer door behind the old woman,
a new feeling, of friendly ease and lightness, immediately descended
upon them both. They were young together. They laughed at the old
woman, whom Lena imitated with some skill.
“She’s our landlady,” she explained. “Not a bad old thing,
really--she’s always giving me things--but quite cracked, of course.
And the daughter she talks about, the one who’s in ‘troble’--she’s some
sort of a countess--seems to be completely dippy. Everybody who ever
comes downstairs is a bit mad, and they’re the only people I’ve spoken
to these last few days, so you can tell the sort of time I’ve had. It’s
just my damnable luck!--when my father’s away and I could do what I
liked--three friends, all three, take it into _their_ heads to go away,
too, this week. I could have screamed, I’ve been so bored.” She lounged
over to the window and looked out. “Looks very thick now. Another fog
coming, I suppose. That’s the worst of London, all these foul fogs.
What shall we do now? You haven’t to go home or anything, have you?”
Turgis, looking his devotion, said at once that he hadn’t to go home or
anywhere.
“Let’s go to the movies. We can go to the place near here. It’s not
bad. Just wait; I shan’t be long. Or, look here, you could take these
tea things back into the kitchen.”
He had taken them all in and had seriously begun to think of washing
them long before Miss Golspie appeared again. What he did, when she
did appear, was to wash himself in a bathroom that had more towels and
bottles and jars and tins in it than all the other half-dozen bathrooms
he had ever seen put together. And now they were ready for the pictures.
It was not far, but they had to grope their way through a mist that
was rapidly turning into a thick fog, and once or twice Lena put her
hand on his arm, and they were cosy together in the blank woolly night,
and it was all rather wonderful. It was better still when they were
sitting, close, cosier than ever, in the scented and deep rose-shaded
dimness of the balcony in the picture theatre. (Turgis had paid for
these best seats, and was left with exactly three-and-threepence to
take him through the rest of the week.) They were both enthusiastic
and knowing patrons of the films, so that they had a good deal to talk
about, and frequently as they whispered, her head came close to his
and her hair even brushed his cheek. It was tremendously exciting. The
chief picture, a talkie--it was _Her Dearest Enemy_, with Mary Meriden
and Hunter York--was good stuff, but it was nothing compared to merely
sitting in that balcony with Lena Golspie, who, incidentally, was much
prettier than Mary Meriden. She herself thought she was just as pretty,
but Turgis was sure that she was much prettier, and told her so several
times. On this occasion he abandoned his usual tactics. He did not
even try to hold her hand. He was content to sit there, to whisper, to
be so near to this fragrant dim loveliness, with his hunger, which he
had taken into so many picture theatres, momentarily appeased. A dream
had come true. He reminded himself of this, time after time, if only
because the dream, which had been haunting him so long, was still more
real than this sudden actuality. He longed to make everything stand
still, knowing only too well that it was all flowing away from him.
Every photograph that leaped on to the screen and then leaped away
again was nibbling at the evening. Very soon the programme would be
completing its circle, and she would be wanting to go, and it would
be all over. Turgis felt all this, even if he did not find phrases to
express it, so that he was not completely and perfectly happy. He was,
as we have seen, a born lover, and a romantic, and what he wanted at
heart was not ordinary human happiness, but a golden immortality, a
balcony seat high above Time and Change.
“You can come back and have some supper, if you like,” said Miss
Golspie casually, when they descended into the gloom of Maida Vale
again. “You can help me to make it. I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”
He _was_ hungry, and if she didn’t mind, he would like to help her with
supper. He could have shouted for joy at the thought that he had not to
leave her yet, that the evening was being thus magically extended. All
the way back, they talked about pictures and film actors and actresses
they liked and disliked, and as there was not really much difference in
their points of view, for they both went to the films in search of an
amorous dream life and the mere difference of sex only added spice to
the discussion, they got on very well indeed. After the fog, the room
at 4a seemed richer and cosier than ever, and as Turgis helped to put
odds and ends of food, mostly out of tins, on the little table in front
of the fire, he felt as if he had wandered into a glorious film.
“Can you mix a cocktail?” asked Lena.
“No,” he replied. Cocktails were not a part of real life at all to him,
and in a sudden burst of candour he added: “Matter of fact, I’ve never
tasted one in my life.”
“Don’t be silly,” she screamed at him. “You’re trying to be funny. You
_must_ have had.”
“I haven’t really,” he assured her. “I’ve had beer and whisky and port
wine and sherry and all that, but I’ve never had a cocktail.”
“All right, my good little boy,” said Lena gaily, “you’re going to have
one now--one of the special Golspie Smashers.”
He watched her take bottle after bottle from the sideboard and then
shake a tall silver flask, just as he had seen people do on the stage
and in films. “Now just you taste that, Mr. Angel Pavement,” she
commanded, giving him a little glass. It had a queer flavour, rather
sweet at first, then slightly bitter, and ending with a sort of golden
glow, which seemed to travel all over him.
“Like it?” and she put her own glass down.
“It’s fine.”
“Have another then. We’ll just have one more and then we’ll eat.” After
the second one, he felt larger and more important and even happier
than he had done before. He insisted upon showing her a trick with
three pennies. He knew three tricks, one with the pennies and the
other two with cards. The other two could wait; it would not do to
show her everything at once. She thought the trick with pennies very
smart, and they postponed eating until he had shown her how to do it
and she had practised it several times. They were better friends than
ever when they sat down to eat the sardines and the two salads in
the cardboard jars and the sliced veal loaf and the fruit salad and
chocolate cake. Lena ate very quickly and left things and started again
on them and pushed them aside and altogether dined in a delightfully
fussy extravagant fashion that was quite new to Turgis, who was used to
seeing people walk through a meal at a good round pace.
When she had finished eating, Lena lit a cigarette and then darted to
the large gramophone in the corner. Having wound it up, she could not
find the record she wanted (there seemed to be records all up and down
the room), and he had to help her, when she had told him half the name
and tried to whistle a bit of it at him. At last they found it, and the
gramophone came gloriously to life, filling the room with the lilt and
throb of this fashionable tune.
“Can you dance?” she asked him, gliding and twirling to the music.
“Not much,” he mumbled, ashamed of himself.
“Well, let’s see. Shove that rug back, there. That’s enough. Now then.”
And she came up to him. “Not that way. Like this. That’s it. Go on, you
can hold me tighter than that.”
He could, and he did. If they had been standing still, it would have
been a rapturous moment, but though he was delightedly conscious of the
body against one arm and of the hand that gripped his, he had to try
and dance, and he was very awkward.
“You’re ghastly,” she told him, with lips that were not four
inches from his, “but you’ll improve. I’ve known worse. You’ve
got some idea of the rhythm, and some men never even get that.
Now--left--right--left--that’s better. Only you’re so stiff--put some
pep into it. Oh, hell!--the gramophone’s stopped. Shove another dance
record on and we’ll try again.”
They tried several times, with an interval during which they had
another cocktail each, and Turgis improved considerably, and towards
the end was holding her as she wanted to be held, close to him, and had
time to enjoy the situation. When they stopped, his arm left her waist
reluctantly and she did not seem to resent it. She told him all about
the dances she had been to in Paris, and then, having come to the end
of them, suddenly yawned. He glanced at the clock.
“Well,” he said slowly, “I suppose I’d better be going now.”
“All right,” she replied, yawning again. “I suppose you had. I’m tired
all at once--must be this rotten heavy weather.”
“What about all this stuff?” He pointed to the little table.
“Oh, they don’t matter. The maid will clear them in the morning. She’ll
be in soon--unless her sailor boy’s persuaded her to stay out all
night. And that would be nice for _me_, wouldn’t it?--here all night by
myself. No, she’ll be in soon. I thought I heard her then.”
Very slowly, reluctantly, Turgis put on his coat, carefully buttoning
it and lingering over every button. While he did this, he stared at
her, wondering how he could possibly say what was in his mind.
She, too, had been thoughtful. “Look here,” she cried at last. “Have
you been to the Colladium this week? Well, I haven’t either, and I want
to go, and I hate going by myself. If I can get two seats for the first
house to-morrow night, will you come with me? I might go down and get
them to-morrow afternoon if I feel like it. I want to spend some of
that twelve pounds, anyhow.”
Would he go? Oh, my gosh!
“All right then,” she continued, walking towards the door with him.
“Listen. I’ll telephone to you at the office some time in the afternoon
if it’s all right. I’ll tell you where to meet me and all that then.”
They were standing at the door now, and he was still holding her hand,
as if he were about to shake it, but was at the moment too busy trying
to stammer out a few adequate phrases. Nor was he merely holding the
hand, for, involuntarily, he was pulling it too, so that there was less
and less space between them as his little speech floundered on. This
made Lena impatient.
“I don’t know what on earth you’re trying to say,” she told him, “so
don’t bother. And you might as well go now before the girl does get
back. And I’ll telephone to-morrow. Oh, don’t dither so much, silly.
There!” And with that she leaned against him, putting a hand on each
shoulder, kissed him swiftly on the mouth, drew back, laughed, and then
shut the door on him.
Turgis stared at the door, drew a long breath, and then wandered down
the stairs and through the hall below like a man drifting drunkenly out
of some Arabian Night. He walked up to Kilburn, where he caught a 31
bus that took him most of the way home. The fog was not very thick, but
it was wretchedly cold damp stuff that made people shiver and cough and
wipe their eyes and blow their noses and look miserable. But Turgis did
not care. As he sat gazing at nothing in the bus or marched along the
blackened pavements, he was warmed by the fire inside him and cheered
by a host of coloured fancies that were rocketing in his mind.