Many a time afterwards Miss Matfield wondered if Mr. Golspie
deliberately engineered that staying late on New Year’s Eve. She
never asked him and never made up her own mind about it. At the time,
it seemed accidental enough. He had looked in at the office during
the morning, had gone out quite soon and had not returned until six
o’clock, when they were all busy clearing off the last odds and ends of
work. Mr. Dersingham had already gone. Mr. Golspie arrived, shouted for
her, and went into the private office.
“Sorry, Miss Matfield,” he began, “but I’ll have to ask you to do a bit
of work for me at once.”
“What, now?”
“Yes, now. Don’t look at me like that, Miss Matfield--spoiling your
handsome features. It can’t be helped, and an extra hour for once isn’t
going to hurt you, is it?”
“I suppose not, Mr. Golspie. It’s only--well, it’s New Year’s Eve,
isn’t it?”
“So it is. I’d clean forgotten. Old Year’s Night, we always used to
call it. Still, there’ll be plenty of it left when we’ve finished.”
“Yes, that’s all right--only, I’d arranged to go to a dance to-night.”
“O-ho, the gay life, eh?” he boomed, grinning at her. “Now I remember,
my daughter’s going to one to-night. One of these balloon, confetti,
and false noses affairs, eh? Champagne at midnight, eh?”
“No such luck. It’s only a dance at the girls’ club where I live, a
very modest affair.”
“Oh, a dance at a girls’ club, eh? That’s nothing. You’re as well off
here with me as at a dance at a girls’ club. What time does it start?”
“About nine, I suppose.”
“I shan’t keep you here until nine, unless you want me to. Now you go
back and finish what you were doing, and you can tell the rest of ’em
they can go when they like, as far as I’m concerned. Then come back
here, bring your notebook, and we’ll get down to it. I’ve some letters
I must get off to-night. Somebody’s got to earn some money for this
firm, y’know.”
When she returned to the private office, Mr. Golspie, meditating over a
cigar and occasionally jotting down some figures, motioned her towards
a chair and did not speak for several minutes. She heard the outer door
bang behind the other people, going home, heard other doors banging and
noisy footsteps on the stairs, and then everything suddenly sank into
silence.
“Now then,” said Mr. Golspie, “let’s make a start. You can take the
whole lot down at once, if you like, or you can take two or three, go
and type ’em, then come back for more, just as you please. All I care
about is that they go to-night.”
She took down several letters, then went to type them out while he
looked at his figures and thought about the rest of them. It was very
strange to be at work in the deserted general office, to go back to
the private office and find Mr. Golspie there, almost lost in his
cigar smoke, to return again to her machine under the solitary light.
As the quarters of an hour slipped by, so many little noises from
outside disappeared into the silence that at last she did not seem to
be working in a place she knew at all. The instant the familiar and
now cheerful clatter and _ping_ of her typewriter stopped, everything
turned ghostly, until she found herself again in the private office,
which was not at all ghostly. There was nothing spectral about Mr.
Golspie.
“But what about copying them?” she cried, when they were all done, all
signed, and ready for their envelopes.
“They can stay uncopied,” replied Mr. Golspie.
“But, you know, we always copy all letters.”
“Well, this time we don’t. It isn’t worth the bother. I know what I’ve
said to these people, and they’re my letters, not Dersingham’s. Help
me to put them into their envelopes and bring some stamps, then we’ve
done. That’s the way. A good job of work, that, Miss Matfield. I’m much
obliged. Most girls would have kicked up a fuss and then done the work
dam’ badly just to show their independence. What time is it? Would you
believe it?--nearly eight! I thought I was hungry.”
Miss Matfield had given a little cry of dismay.
“Hello, what’s the matter with you?”
“I’d no idea it was so late, though I feel terribly hungry, too. Dinner
will be over at the Club when I get back there now, though I suppose I
shall be in time to get something.”
“You’re hungry, too, are you? What did you have for lunch?”
“I never had much lunch, you see,” said Miss Matfield. “I had an egg
and a roll and butter and a cup of coffee.”
“And then you had a cup of tea and a biscuit, and now it’s nearly eight
and you feel hungry and you think if you run all the way back to your
Club they’ll give you a bite of something there--that’s it, isn’t it?
Well, that’s no good at all. That’s the way you girls do yourselves in.
You don’t feed. It’s all wrong. If you don’t have at least one thumping
big meal a day in this town at this time o’ the year, you might as well
send for the doctor at once and have done with it. Now, Miss Matfield,”
and he rose and put a hand on her shoulder, “you’re not one of those
half-starved wizened little monkeys of creatures that pass for girls
nowadays; you’re a fine upstanding girl, a real woman; and you can’t
play those tricks with yourself. Now listen--you’re coming to feed with
me. We’ve both been working; we’re both hungry; and we’re going to feed
together.”
“Oh, are we?” It was all she could find to reply at the moment.
“If you want me to make a favour of it, I’ll do it,” he continued.
“Here I am--on the last night of the year, too--going to have dinner
all by myself, and here are you, as hungry as I am, and we’ve been
working together, and you won’t join me to cheer me up a bit. How’s
that?”
She laughed. “All right, I will. Thank you. Only I can’t go anywhere
very marvellous, looking like this, you know.”
“You could go anywhere looking like that, believe me,” he assured her.
“But I suppose you mean you’re not all dressed up. That doesn’t matter.
We’re not going where they’re slinging the confetti at one another,
we’re going where the food is. You go and get ready while I stamp these
letters.”
It was a clear cold night. Angel Pavement looked strangely dark and
deserted, a little black gulf with a faint spangle of stars above it.
“Do you know why I came to your place?” said Mr. Golspie, as they
walked along. “I looked up the names of the firms in this line of
business, and Twigg and Dersingham took my fancy not because of _their_
name, but because of the address. Angel Pavement did it. I was so
tickled by that name, I said to myself, ‘I must have a look at that
lot, first of all.’ And if I hadn’t said that, I shouldn’t have been
here, and you wouldn’t have been trotting along here with me, would
you?”
“Didn’t you know anything about this business before?” she asked.
“Not a thing. But I’ve picked up a good many different sorts of
business in my time, and I haven’t finished yet, not by a long chalk.
But I don’t call this veneer trade a proper business. It’s a side-line.
There’s no size to it. You might as well be selling sets o’ chessmen or
rocking-horses. No size to it, no chance of real growth, you see? It’s
all right for Dersingham--it’s about his mark--but then he’s not really
in business. He’s only got one leg in it instead of being up to the
neck in it. He thinks he’s a gentleman amusing himself. Too many of his
sort in the City here. That’s how the Jews get on, and the Americans.
None of that nonsense about _them_.”
The main road, into which they had turned now, still showed a few
lighted windows, behind which the last orders of the year were being
booked and the last entries made in the ledgers, and there were still
a few belated clerks and typists hurrying away on each side; but
compared with its usual appearance, the hooting muddle of the day
and early evening, its appearance now was that of a lighted stone
wilderness. A tram came grinding down, looking as if it expected
nothing. A bus slipped through, curiously swift and noiseless. They
walked down to the end of the road, past the narrow openings of little
streets and alleys already sunk into midnight and the mouths of wider
streets that were illuminated emptiness. At the bottom they turned to
the right. A taxi came jogging along at that moment, and Mr. Golspie at
once claimed it, shouted “Bundle’s” to the driver, and then sat very
close to Miss Matfield.
“Thought we’d go to Bundle’s,” he said, “if it’s all the same to you.
D’you know it?”
“I’ve heard of it, of course,” she told him, “but I’ve never been
there. It’s more a restaurant for men, isn’t it?”
“More men than women there certainly, but women do go. And if they’d
more sense, they’d go oftener. Bundle’s is the place if you’re really
hungry and you want a good solid feed. It’s English, too, and I like it
for that--good old-fashioned tack. I don’t suppose there’ll be a lot of
people there now--lunch is the crowded time at Bundle’s--and there’s no
need to dress up to go there.”
“Thank Heaven for that!” cried Miss Matfield.
“Mind you, Bundle’s isn’t a cheap place, by any means,” Mr. Golspie
continued, apparently anxious to suggest that he was not skimping his
hospitality. “Don’t get that idea into your head. It’s plain, but it
works out as expensive as most places, even though the other places
are giving you ten courses and a band and rattles and confetti and God
knows what else. There’s nothing like that at Bundle’s, but there’s
real food and some good drink.”
“Well, Mr. Golspie, I’ll be quite candid, and confess that I could do
with both at this very moment. Even,” she added mischievously, “if they
will cost you a lot of money.”
“I didn’t say that, Miss Matfield,” he said, pinching her arm. “All I
said was that Bundle’s isn’t cheap. As for costing me a lot of money, I
don’t honestly think you could do if you tried, not at Bundle’s. You’d
be sick before you could eat that amount, and drunk long before you
could drink it. I took a feller there, just before Christmas, and he
_did_ cost me money. He found they had some Waterloo brandy there, and
fancied a few goes of that after lunch.”
“Well, suppose I do, too,” said Miss Matfield, as St. Paul’s went
jogging past the window on her side of the cab. “What about that?”
“I’ll promise you one, though, if you ask me, it’s a waste of beautiful
stuff, because I’m sure you can’t appreciate it. But you won’t get any
more out of me. If you did, you’d turn round afterwards and tell me I
made you drunk. No, no.”
“Don’t be absurd. I was only joking. I don’t like brandy, as a matter
of fact; the taste of it always reminds me of being ill. I loathe
whisky, too. I like wine, though, you’ll perhaps be glad to know. You
will also be glad to know that I can drink quite a lot of it--if it’s
good--without feeling tight.”
“All right. Now I know. The sooner he gets there now, the better it
will be. I’m getting hungrier and hungrier.”
“So am I. If I’d gone back to the Club, I’d never have been able to
find enough to satisfy my appetite to-night. The food’s not really too
bad there, but it isn’t quite real--if you know what I mean. It’s like
the food you get in cheap hotels.”
“I know,” said Mr. Golspie grimly. “You can’t tell me anything about
cheap hotels and bad grub. And when you say it’s not real, you mean it
all tastes alike and never quite leaves you satisfied. Nothing like
that about Mr. Bundle. And here he is.”
Mr. Bundle, whoever he was, had remembered one simple fact when he
first established his tradition of catering, and that was that Man
is one of the larger _carnivora_. You went to Bundle’s to eat meat.
The kitchen turned out acceptable soups, vegetables, puddings, tarts,
savouries, and the like, but all these were as nothing compared with
the meat. The place was a vegetarian’s nightmare. It seemed to be
perpetually celebrating the victory of some medieval baron. Whole
beeves and droves must have been slaughtered daily in its name. If
you asked for roast beef at Bundle’s, they took you at your word, and
promptly wheeled up to you the red dripping half of a roasted ox, and
after the waiter had implored you to examine it and had asked you a
few solemn questions about fat and lean, under-done and over-done, he
cut you off a pound or two here, a pound or two there. A request for
mutton was not treated perhaps with the same high seriousness, but
even that meant that legs and shoulders came trundling up from all
directions, and you found yourself facing a few assorted pounds of it
on your plate. The waiters themselves had a roasted jointy look, though
most of them were lean and under-done, whereas most of the guests were
obviously fat and over-done and suffering from gigantic blood pressures
that took another leap upward every time they went out of these doors.
It was the meatiest place Miss Matfield had ever seen, and she had a
suspicion that if she had not been feeling really hungry, it might have
made her feel rather sick. As it was, she welcomed the look of it and
smell of it, and enjoyed, too, its very definite masculine atmosphere.
Mutton was wheeled at Miss Matfield and beef was wheeled at Mr.
Golspie, and, while acolytes brought vegetables, the high priests
gravely pointed to fat and lean and under-done and over-done, and then
sliced away with their exquisite long narrow knives. Mr. Golspie, after
consulting briefly with her, ordered a good rich burgundy. Then, after
Mr. Golspie, a true Bundle’s man, had polished off his gigantic helping
of beef, and Miss Matfield had eaten about a third of her mutton, he
had a savoury and she had some apple tart and cream.
“We’ll finish the wine before we have coffee,” said Mr. Golspie,
pointing the bottle at her glass, which she had emptied. “It’s a good
burgundy this.”
“Only about half a glass, please. It’s lovely rich sunshiny stuff, but
I daren’t drink much more. I feel as if I’d had about fifteen of my
Club dinners rolled into one. I don’t believe I shall ever be hungry
again.”
“You look well on it,” said Mr. Golspie, who perhaps looked a shade too
well on it himself. “You’ve a fine colour, Miss Matfield, and your eyes
are sparkling, and altogether you look full of fight and fun, too good
for Angel Pavement, I can tell you.”
“Oh, but I am,” she cried humorously. She suddenly felt that life was
rich and gay.
“Of course you are. I said that to myself the first time I set eyes on
you. There’s a girl with some spirit and sense, I thought--she’s alive,
not like these other poor devils. ‘She don’t belong,’ I said to myself.
That’s why I kept my eye on you. Did you notice me keeping my eye on
you?”
“Mmmm, ye-es,” looking at him and hoping that her eyes were still
sparkling. “Sometimes I thought you seemed quite human.”
“Human!” he roared, so that a waiter jumped forward. “I’m human enough,
I can tell you. I’m a dam’ sight too human.”
“If you’re in the City, you can’t be _too_ human, Mr. Golspie. Not
for me. I’ve spent months there sometimes and never spoken to anyone
who seemed to me really human. Awful creatures. Then people like Mr.
Smeeth, all grey and withered and not bad really, but just--pathetic.”
“No, Smeeth’s not a bad feller. But he’s not pathetic. He doesn’t make
me weep, anyhow. All he wants is to be safe, that’s what’s the matter
with him. Anything to be safe--that’s his line. Pay him a pound or two
a week, give him some little cash-books to play with, tell him he’s
safe, and he’s as happy as a king. But he’s better than that dreary
youngster you have in there--what’s his name?--Turgis.”
“Oh, he’s hopeless, I agree.”
“Not your style, eh?”
“What, Turgis! Help!”
“He’s a typical specimen of what they’re breeding here now--no sense,
no guts, no anything. I can’t even remember the look of the lad,
although I see him nearly every day. That shows you what impression
_he_ makes. He might be a shadow flickering about the place.”
“I know. And yet that funny little Cockney girl, Poppy Sellers, thinks
he’s marvellous. I’ve watched her worshipping him at a distance. Isn’t
it strange--I mean, the way everybody amounts to something different to
everybody else?”
“Well, a lad like that’ull never mean anything to me, never amount to
anything to anybody, I should think, no more than a bit of straw or
paper blowing about the streets,” said Mr. Golspie.
The waiter who had jumped forward was still waiting expectantly a few
yards away. Mr. Golspie called him. “You’ll have some coffee, won’t
you? And I’m going to have some brandy, not the Waterloo, though.
Will you have a liqueur? Have one of the sweet ones. What about a
Benedictine or a Kümmel? What do you say? Here, look at the list.”
She examined it. What fascinating names they had, these liqueurs! “I
don’t know. Shall I? All right then, I’ll have a Green Chartreuse.”
Mr. Golspie lit a cigar and then, over the coffee and liqueurs,
answered some questions she asked about his recent trip abroad, and
went rambling on about his experiences in those Baltic countries and
in other places still more mysterious and romantic to her. As she
listened, feeling very gay and confident inside, his blunt staccato
talk seemed to open a series of little windows upon a magical world
she had always known to be somewhere about, although she had never
walked in it herself, and his own figure took colour from the blue and
golden lights flashing through these little windows. He talked in the
way she had always felt a man should talk. He was so tremendously and
refreshingly un-Burpenfieldish. And he was interested in her; he was
not merely filling in an idle hour; she attracted him, had attracted
him, she felt now, for some time; and--oh!--it was all amusing and
exciting.
“It’s quarter to ten,” Mr. Golspie suddenly announced. “What about that
dance of yours?”
“O Lord!--I don’t know. It’s hardly worth it now. What a nuisance!”
“Like dancing, eh?”
“Adore it.”
“All right. You listen to me. I remember now I had an invitation from
one or two of those Anglo-Baltic chaps; they weren’t giving the show,
but a friend of theirs was, and a lot of people I know were going to be
there. Dancing, too. We’ll go there, and then you won’t be able to say
I’ve done you out of your Old Year’s Night celebration. What d’you say?
Good! I’ve got the telephone number down in my notebook, and now I’ll
just ring up to make sure. Shan’t be a minute.”
He returned, smiling, with the news that the party had just begun.
“Yes, I know what you’re trying to say now,” he continued. “What about
clothes, eh? Well, any clothes are right for this affair. They’re not
a dressy lot. If you went without clothes, they wouldn’t care. We’ll
have to stop on the way to buy something--a bottle or two and something
to eat--to take with us. It’s not necessary, but it’ll be appreciated.
These people will be a change for you--not the sort you meet in a
girls’ club at all--and it’ll amuse you, if you’re the girl I take you
to be.”
There wasn’t even time to ask him then what exactly was the girl he
took her to be.
V
They went in a taxi and the place was somewhere Notting Hill way,
but that was as near as she ever came to-knowing where it was. She
could have asked, of course, but she preferred to be without exact
information; it was more amusing. The road in which they finally
stopped looked one of those dingy, shabby-genteel streets, but she
could not be sure even about that. They walked up a garden path, but
instead of going up the steps to the house itself, they turned to the
right, by the side of the house, until they came to a lighted door and
a great deal of noise. Apparently the party was being held in one of
those large detached studios.
She found herself shaking hands with a very small woman with frizzy
black hair, tiny black eyes that seemed to jump and snap, a long
humorous nose, and an outrageous purple dress. After that she shook
hands with a very tall fair man who looked like a retired Siegfried.
These were obviously the host and hostess, and they were both
foreigners, but she never caught their names. Clearly it was the sort
of party at which names were of little importance. The studio was
filled with people; most of whom had a foreign look. None of the men
wore evening dress, and among the women, she was glad to see, there
was an astonishing variety of clothes, so that she was not at all
conspicuous. Mr. Golspie recognised a good many acquaintances, and she
was introduced to some of them, mostly youngish men of a nondescript
foreign appearance who drew themselves up sharply, looked grave for
a moment, then suddenly smiled and widened their eyes, as if to say:
“I am being introduced to a lady, by my friend Mr. Golspie. This is
serious, important. Ah, but how charming, how beautiful a lady!” It
was a pleasure being introduced to men with such a manner. One of
them, the youngest, a nice, smiling boy with bright hazel eyes, called
Something-insky, insisted upon her smoking a long cigarette, and
brought her a mysterious, greeny-yellow drink. Mr. Golspie, who had
found a whisky and soda, grinned at her, and exchanged knowing remarks
in a mixed language with various men, who patted him on the shoulder
and slapped him on the back and were patted and slapped in return.
The little hostess, her eyes snapping furiously, came rushing through
and screamed in an unknown tongue at two young men in a corner, a small
crooked Jew, almost a hunchback, and a thin red-haired young man, very
serious behind enormous spectacles. When she finished screaming at
them and had held out both her arms in an imploring gesture, these two
bowed gravely, and then the Jew sat down at the grand piano and the
red-haired spectacled one seated himself behind some drums. They began
playing--and very well they played, too--and in a moment the centre of
the room was cleared for dancing.
“You veel danz, eh? Pleass?” said Something-insky.
He was a good dancer, and though he was not quite tall enough for
her, they got on very well together. As he piloted her in and out,
for nearly everybody was dancing and the floor was crowded, he talked
the whole time. “I study here ee-conom-eegs,” he told her, “at
Lon-don School of Ee-conom-eegs,” and he was very serious about his
economics, but it was difficult to understand much of what he said
about them. Very soon he passed to more intimate matters. “Yes, I
like Eng-lish girls vairy moch. Oh, but I am vairy saad, vairy, vairy
saad now,” he told her, his hazel eyes dancing with pleasure. “I leef
in High-gate and in High-gate I have a girl, an Eng-lish girl, vairy
beautiful--Flora. She leefs, too, in High-gate, Flora, and she has
blue eyess and golden hair. For two veeks, you see, we have a quarrel.
Oh yes, it is vairy seely, but it is vairy saad, too. One night I
go to movees. I ask Flora to go too, but no--she cannot go. So I
go-by-myself. I am standing outside and I see a girl I know, a girl
from High-gate. Vairy nice girl--but--aw, she is noding to me. But I
am pol-ite, I say to her, ‘Good-evening, mees. You go to movees too?’
I am by-myself. I take her weet me into movees. Noding, noding at all.
But after, she tell Flora--at High-gate--‘Oh, I go weet your foreign
friend to movees.’ Flora comes to me and we have a beeg quarrel.” He
squeezed Miss Matfield’s hand as if he felt that at this point he must
have sympathy or die. “Yes, a beeg quarrel. For two veeks, I do not see
Flora at all. I am vairy saad now.”
Miss Matfield said it was rather sad, but told herself that in its
mixture of Highgate and foreign-ness it was really quite absurd and
wonderlandish, and somehow it gave the key to the whole evening. Nobody
in this studio, except herself and Mr. Golspie (and she was not sure
about him), was quite real. Something-insky and his friends were very
charming, but it was rather a relief when Mr. Golspie marched up, very
solid and dominating, and said, “Well, what about a dance with me?”
“Of course,” she told him. “I thought perhaps you didn’t dance. You’ve
not been dancing, have you?”
“No. I thought I’d wait for you, Miss Matfield. You’re the partner I
want. I can dance all right, but, mind you, I don’t pretend to be good
at it, not like some of these lads. Have another drink before we start,
eh?”
“If I have another drink to-night, I shall probably be quite drunk. I
feel hazy now.”
“No harm in feeling hazier. I’ll look after you, don’t you worry.”
But she shook her head. The music started again, the little Jew wagging
his black locks over the piano and his companion solemnly nodding above
his drums, and Mr. Golspie grasped her masterfully. He was obviously
not a very good dancer, but even if he had been, there would not have
been much chance for him to show what he could do in that crowded
space, for now there seemed to be twice as many people on the floor.
“How d’you like this show?” he asked, grinning at her.
“I do like it. It’s amusing.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“You sound as if you don’t care for it very much.”
“It’s not bad,” he told her. “But too much of a crowd for my liking.
Just the pair of us somewhere would please me better.”
Afterwards there was an interval, during which everybody ate and drank
and smoked and talked all at once, and a girl who appeared to be a
secretary at some legation came up with Something-insky and another,
older man, and the girl who was a secretary was very giddy and gay and
apparently rather tight, though not unpleasantly so, and then a little
foreign girl with a hideous fur-trimmed jacket joined them, and the six
of them made a little group in one corner, where they ate and drank and
smoked and talked as hard as anybody. Then the little hostess screamed
again, and this time the tall host produced a number of astonishing
syllables in a rasping tenor and then put on a colossal smile, and at
once everybody sat down somewhere and most of the lights were turned
out. Only the corner where the Jew still sat at the piano was fully
illuminated. Then there appeared in front of the piano a smallish
plump man with an enormous bald head and a yellow fat face, who stood
there, smiling vaguely at them while they applauded, like another but
alien Humpty-Dumpty. The Jew played a few sonorous and melancholy
chords. Humpty-Dumpty put his hand to his mouth, as if to press a
button, for when he lowered his hand, his face was quite different;
the smile had been wiped off; his eyebrows had descended at least an
inch and a half; and his eyes stared tragically out of deep hollows.
Miss Matfield noticed all these details. It was queer, but though
things in general were curiously hazy, she had only to concentrate her
attention upon anything and every detail of it, like Humpty-Dumpty’s
lips and eyebrows, stood out in clear relief. This made everything
seem tremendously amusing, and she was very happy. Humpty-Dumpty began
singing now in a great rich bass voice, which immediately plunged Miss
Matfield, who delighted in rich bass voices, into a dreamy ecstasy. He
sang one song after another, sometimes sinking into the profoundest
melancholy and the bitterness of death, and at other times breaking
into high spirits that were as strange and wild as a revolution. With
her eyes fixed on that great yellow moon of a face from which these
entrancing sounds came, Miss Matfield allowed her mind to be carried
floating away on these changing currents of music, and her body to
rest against the stalwart arm and shoulder of Mr. Golspie. She was
sorry when it came to an end, and Humpty-Dumpty, after bowing, smiling,
frowning, shaking his head in an amazingly rapid succession, walked
away to eat a whole plateful of sandwiches, wash them down with lager
beer, and talk to five people at once with his mouth full.
There was just time for another dance and then it was twelve o’clock.
Everybody was silent for a moment. At the end of that moment, they all
behaved like men and women who had been reprieved in the very shadow
of the gallows, which is perhaps how they saw themselves. Never before
had Miss Matfield seen such a raising and clinking of glasses, so much
back-slapping, hand-shaking, embracing, and kissing. Something-insky
kissed the little girl in the fur-trimmed jacket and the secretary
girl from the legation, and then kissed Miss Matfield’s hand fifteen
times while the girl in the fur-trimmed coat, who had suddenly burst
into tears, kissed her on the cheek. Mr. Golspie shook her by the hand,
then gave her a big hug. It was at this moment that the only unpleasant
event of the evening occurred. Once or twice before, Miss Matfield
had had to escape from a tall bleary-eyed man, one of the very few
Englishmen there, who was rather drunk and had been bent on dancing
with her. Now he suddenly lurched into the middle of their little
group, murmuring something about a happy New Year, and tried to embrace
her. Mr. Golspie, however, stepped forward smartly and with one shove
of his heavy shoulder sent the man reeling back.
“I think I’d better go now,” she said to Mr. Golspie. “I’m terribly
late as it is.”
“All right. I’ll come with you.” Taking no notice of the unpleasant
fellow, who was mumbling threats just behind them, he took her by
the arm, marched her through the crowd to shake hands with the host
and hostess, and then led her towards the door. There they separated
to look for their things. When Miss Matfield returned to the little
entrance hall of the studio, the unpleasant man was there. Fortunately,
Mr. Golspie appeared, too.
“Now wha’s the idea, eh?” said the unpleasant one, thickly and
truculently to Mr. Golspie, trying to put a hand on his shoulder.
“The idea is--you go home to bed,” replied Mr. Golspie, giving him one
contemptuous glance.
“Home to bed!” the other sneered. “T-t-t-t-t-talk like a dam’ fool.
Bed!” Then he recollected himself. “All I wanner do is to wish thish
young lady a Hap-py New Year.” And he made a clutch at her.
This time Mr. Golspie instantly pinned both the man’s arms to his
side with so powerful a grasp that the man cried out. “Talk like a
dam’ fool, do I?” said Mr. Golspie, pushing his face forward. “If you
don’t make yourself scarce, you’ll start the worst new year you ever
remembered. See?” And he shook the man. “See?” And with that, he sent
the man flying back, took three or four steps forward to see if any
more persuasion was needed, and when he saw it was not--for the man
had obviously had quite enough of Mr. Golspie--he returned to Miss
Matfield’s side. “I’ve rung up for a taxi,” he said calmly. “There’s
a telephone in there where I had my hat and coat. It’ll be here in a
minute. We’ll wait just outside and get a breath of fresh air.”
Miss Matfield, who had been half frightened, half elated by the little
scene, and now, what with the wine and the dancing and the music and
the embracing and the general excitement of the long evening, was in
a fantastic condition, tired and excited and timid and audacious and
thrilled all at once, followed her brutal or heroic friend out of the
studio and into the shadow of the neighbouring house. Just before the
shadow ended, he stopped. “We can wait here as well as anywhere,” he
said.
She did not tell him that it would be still more sensible to wait at
the front gate. She stopped, and said nothing.
“Well, that wasn’t bad,” he said, “though I’d had enough of it when you
said you had to go. They’ll keep it up till the milk comes. I shouldn’t
have gone, though, if you hadn’t said you’d come with me. If you want
to know my opinion, we’ve had a good Old Year’s Night. We’ve got to see
more of each other.”
“Oh, have we?” She was in no condition to be femininely cool and
mocking, but she did her best.
“Yes, of course we have,” he replied coolly. “You’re the sort of girl I
like, and I don’t often find one.”
“Thank you for the compliment,” she said, and was instantly annoyed
with herself for sounding so feeble.
“Well, Miss Matfield--oh, damn it, I can’t keep calling you Miss
Matfield, not out of the office, anyhow. What’s your other name?”
“Lilian,” she replied, in a tiny voice.
“That’s good--Lilian. Well, Lilian, now that we’re out of that monkey
house in there, with everybody snatching and pecking at each other, I
can wish you a proper Happy New Year.” And, saying no more, he swept
her to him, kissed her several times, and held her close, so close that
she could hardly breathe.
She could not have described it as being either pleasant or unpleasant.
It was not an experience that could fall into such easy categories.
It could not be tasted, examined, reported on, like most of Miss
Matfield’s experiences. If it belonged anywhere, it belonged to the
fire, flood and earthquake department. Her quickening blood faced and
replied to this huge masculine onslaught, but the rest of her was
simply dazed and shaken.
“There’s our taxi,” he said, breathing hard, but otherwise cool enough.
“What’s the address?”
Inside the taxi, she suddenly felt very tired and quite disinclined
to talk. She drooped, leaned against him, and could only repeat to
herself that it was all quite absurd, though all the time she knew
very well that whatever else it might be, it was not absurd. Mr.
Golspie was quiet too, though in that little enclosed space he seemed
now a gigantically vital creature, a being essentially different from
herself, a huge throbbing engine of a man.
“Getting near your place?” he inquired, as the taxi began to mount the
hill.
“Yes, it’s only about half-way up this hill.”
“We’ll have some more nights out together, shall we? Not all like this,
y’know. Just the two of us, roaming round a bit, going to a show or
two, and so on. What d’you say?”
“Yes, I’d like to. In fact--I’d love it.” She glanced out of the
window, then rapped on it. “We’re just outside now. Please, don’t come
out. No, no more. All right then--there! Good-bye--and--and thank you
for my nice big dinner.”
The dance was over at the Club and most of the lights were out, but a
few girls were still drifting about the hall and chattering softly on
their way upstairs.
“Hello, Matfield!” somebody cried. “Happy New Year!”
Would it be? It had begun strangely enough. Now that she was back in
the familiar and despised Burpenfield atmosphere, the night’s antics
ought to have appeared in retrospect gayer and more delightfully
adventurous than ever, with Mr. Golspie directing them like a droll and
massive fairy prince; but oddly enough, they cut no such figure and
she found herself wanting to avoid the thought of them. As she slowly
climbed the darkening stairs she shivered a little. She was tired,
rather cold, and her head ached. There floated into her mind, as if
borne there by white virginal sails, the comforting thought of aspirin
and her hot water bottle.