“Is that Mr. Levy?” Turgis cried down the telephone. “Yes, this is
Twigg and Dersingham’s. It’s about the next delivery--you know, you
were asking. Well, I’m sorry, but we can’t manage it for Tuesday. No,
they say they can’t do it. I’ve been on to them. But they’ll manage it
for Thursday--yes, the whole lot. Yes, Thursday certain, Mr. Levy--you
can depend on that. Yes, I’ll advise you. All right.”
He put down the receiver and returned to his desk. He was shaking a
little. There had been something queer about his voice when he had
been speaking to Levy. As he left the telephone, he had noticed both
Miss Matfield and little Poppy Sellers glancing curiously at him. Let
them look, silly fools, and then mind their own business! He had come
to a sudden decision, and the very thought of it made him shake with
excitement, though that was not very difficult, because he was not
feeling at all well. That great hollow inside his head was filled now
with jagging hot wires; his bones ached vaguely; his hands shook a
little as he wrote; and his face kept twitching, as if it disliked the
feel of his heavy burning eyes. Yet he had not the least desire to go
to bed or to see a doctor; he did not feel ill in the ordinary way at
all; it was only nerves, he concluded, just imagination. He had only to
sleep better and eat more and all would be well.
His decision was to see Lena and have it out with her that very night,
if by chance he could find her in the flat. He knew that her father
would not be there, because when he had gone to the telephone to ring
up Levy, Mr. Golspie had put a call through from the private office,
and it had been to book a table for two at a restaurant. On this the
cunning shadower in Turgis pounced at once. Mr. Golspie sometimes took
his daughter out for the evening, but Turgis was certain that he would
not trouble to book a table for her. He had not sounded like a man who
was spending the evening with his daughter. If Lena was out, then she
was out, and Turgis would have to wait, but he knew she did not go out
every night and this was a chance not to be missed. At eight o’clock
or just after, when Mr. Golspie was well out of the way, sitting down
in his West End restaurant, he would go to the flat and, if Lena was
there, he would see her and talk to her in that room of theirs again.
He would see her, whatever happened. _Whatever happens, whatever
happens_--a voice inside him said it over and over again as the
Friday afternoon, fussy and irritable because of its week-end rush of
things-that-must-be-settled-at-once, dragged on, with the last dripping
traces of snow fading outside the window.
“Finished that copying, Miss Sellers?” said Mr. Smeeth, as he began to
put away his books. “That’s the way. We’ll have that new boy here on
Monday, and then you’ll have it easier, eh? You cleared up, Turgis? Did
you have a word with Ockley and Sons--y’know, I mentioned it to you
this morning?”
“Yes, I did, Mr. Smeeth. It’s all right.”
“You’re through, then, eh?”
“All I can do to-night, Mr. Smeeth. One or two things I’ve had to leave
till to-morrow morning--couldn’t help it.”
“Quite so,” said Mr. Smeeth, taking out his pipe and pouch. “Well, I
don’t think there’ll be much fear of you not turning up here to-morrow
morning. What do you say? Pay day, eh, Turgis? That’s one of the days
we _don’t_ like to miss.”
Turgis smiled faintly. “No, I’ll be sure not to miss that, Mr. Smeeth.
You can count on me for that.”
“It’s as well we can count on somebody for something these days,” Mr.
Smeeth remarked jocularly, “Well, you can get away now, Turgis--you,
too, Miss Matfield, of course--and I’ll see you in the morning.”
“That’s right,” said Turgis. But as he was taking down his hat and
coat, he said to himself, for no particular reason: “How does he know
he’ll see me in the morning? He doesn’t want to be so jolly sure
about it.” Then as he was putting his overcoat on, he looked across
at Smeeth, who was now lighting his pipe, and said to himself: “Old
Smeethy there, with his eyeglasses and his pipe and his nice clean
collar every day and his nice home with his wife and kids and his walk
round to the bank and his seven or eight quid a week, he’s all right
and he deserves it, for all his fussing about, ’cos he’s not a bad old
stick. But he’s a bit of a dreary devil for all that, and he thinks
everything’s settled the way it is with him, and he knows no more
really about what’s going on than an old charwoman. Still, if I got on
a bit and Lena married me and we’d a nice little home the same as his,
I’d like to ask him in sometimes with his wife and we’d have a smoke
and a drink.”
And Mr. Smeeth, looking up from his pipe and catching Turgis’s eye,
said to himself: “That lad’s looking bad, my words he is, worse than
ever to-day. He ought to knock off for a day or two, even if we are
short-handed. Doesn’t look after himself, that’s the trouble. And
nobody to look after him--in lodgings. Bit miserable that. But then
he’s no responsibilities, no worries, only himself to provide for, and
he could have a good life--go to concerts and all that--if he only set
about it properly. Probably doesn’t know how to look after himself. I
ought to ask him up to tea or supper one of these week-ends--be a nice
change for him--bit of home life. Yes, I’ll do that when we’re a bit
more settled and Edie’s in a good temper.”
Thus, with these thoughts buzzing in their heads, they looked at one
another, almost staring as people stare at a familiar word that has
suddenly grown strange. Then, with a sober nod across the office, they
turned away, Turgis to the door and Smeeth to his desk.