“Well, we’ll have to see,” said Mrs. Pelumpton dubiously. “That’s what
we’ll have to do, we’ll have to see.”
Turgis had been trying to explain, without any reference to the real
facts, why he hadn’t gone to the office that Saturday morning, why he
wasn’t going there again, and why he couldn’t immediately pay Mrs.
Pelumpton what he owed her. He had not come down to breakfast until
late, and both Pelumptons were convinced that he had been uproariously
drunk on the previous night, when he had made all that noise.
“I’m sure they’ll let me have this fortnight’s money all right, Mrs.
Pelumpton,” he told her. “And then I’ll settle up at once, before I do
anything else.”
Mrs. Pelumpton stopped bustling about for a minute, stood and looked at
him, making herself as compact as possible, so that she seemed exactly
square from the front; and suddenly said in a startlingly deep voice:
“Will you promise me one thing?”
Turgis said he would. He was ready to promise anything to her.
“Well, it’s this. Promise me to keep right off the drink this next week
or two.”
“I promise,” he replied promptly. Two glasses of bitter a week were
usually enough for him at any time. The Pelumptons were positive,
however, that he had been drinking heavily for weeks. Mr. Pelumpton, a
beer man himself, said that whisky made you look and behave like that,
if you could only get enough of it.
“In or out of work, that ’abit’s bad,” Mrs. Pelumpton continued. “But
far, far worse it is, out of work. Keep off it for a bit. Don’t touch a
drop. I’m not one of these prohibiters and temperancers--though I did
sign the pledge when I was a girl, but then I wouldn’t ’ave touched
a drop then anyhow, didn’t like the taste of it--but I do say that a
young feller like yourself who’s going to ’ave to look for a job is
better without a single drop, if only for the sake of not being smelt.”
“I’m sure you’re right, Mrs. Pelumpton,” said Turgis, who was hoping
that this good advice meant that she was willing to let him stay on
while he was looking for another job.
“I know I am. And what’s just ’appened--’cos you can talk about
business until you’re blue in the face, but you won’t make me believe
you haven’t got into trouble with your little goings-on lately and
that’s why they’ve given you the sack--but I say, what’s just ’appened
ought to be a lesson. You can’t afford it and you ’aven’t got the ’ead
for it, so you’ve just got to let the booze alone. Pa can’t afford it,
but I will say ’e’s got the ’ead for it. You ’aven’t. That’s why it’s a
lesson. Promise me that, and I’ll let you run on a bit, paying me what
you can, while you’re out of a job. We’ve got to live and let live in
these times, and I will say that up to lately you’ve been as quiet and
reg’lar paying a young chap as I’ve ever let to. And just you keep on
Pa’s right side too, for ’e won’t like it, being in business himself
you might say and a bit of a stickler, but I’ve got a softer nature
and I’m not for turning a young chap out just ’cos he’s got his bit of
trouble and can’t pay all he’s agreed to pay----”
“Thanks very much, Mrs. Pelumpton,” said Turgis warmly.
“--For a few weeks anyhow,” she added cautiously.
Turgis thanked her again, but with considerable less warmth this time.
It might be more than any few weeks before he saw another three pounds
a week or anything like it, and the way Mrs. Pelumpton talked before
she said that, he had imagined she was ready to let him stay on for
months. Still, a few weeks were something. He had dreaded telling her
that he had lost his job, had not even got this fortnight’s money,
and would have to keep her waiting. He felt a bit better now that he
had told her, but nevertheless he was still feeling pretty miserable.
He wondered what was happening in the office, whether Mr. Golspie
had explained to Mr. Dersingham what had occurred last night, whether
they would send his money on to him, whether they would give him a
reference. He had exactly eightpence now and he wanted a cigarette
badly this morning. It was no use, he would have to have a smoke. So
he went down the road for a packet of ten gaspers, and then decided to
go and look at some advertisements of jobs and perhaps have a peep at
the Labour Exchange. It was one of those uncomfortable streaky days, a
minute or two of sunshine, then clouds and a bitter east wind. It was
miserable walking about in it with just twopence in your pocket, no
job, a terrifying Mr. Golspie (with possible police) somewhere about,
and no hope in any direction. When he saw the Labour Exchange, he was
sorry he had gone that way, for the very look of it made him feel still
more wretched. He hated Labour Exchanges.
It was late when he had dinner, and when it was over and Mrs. Pelumpton
was washing and tidying up in that despairing fury at which she always
arrived on Saturday, Mr. Pelumpton returned from the pub down the
road, immensely oracular, and insisted on talking to Turgis for the
next hour. This time Turgis was compelled to stay there and listen,
for already he was beginning to feel that he was there on sufferance.
Moreover, with only twopence in his pocket, and an east wind blowing
outside, he was better off there than he would be anywhere else.
Something must have told Mr. Pelumpton this, for he never took his dim
boiled eyes off Turgis, and droned on and on, sometimes touching on
the dusty mysteries of “dealing,” sometimes offering ridiculous good
advice. It was awful. Turgis sat there, steadily hating the old bore.
“That’s right, Mr. Pelumpton,” he would say, with dreary politeness,
adding to himself: “You silly old devil, you ought to give those
whiskers of yours a good wash and brush up.” But there was not much
satisfaction in that.
At about half-past three, Mr. Pelumpton’s steady flow was suddenly
checked. Somebody was at the front door. Mrs. Pelumpton immediately
made a dramatic appearance from nowhere, crying, “You go and see, Pa.
It might be Maggie,” and then waited, tense, with lifted brows and open
mouth, while Pa shuffled out of the room and along the hall.
“Yersh, that’sh right,” they heard him say. “Come inshide. Jusht a
minute.” And then he came shuffling back, so maddeningly deliberate
that his wife’s eyes began rolling round with sheer impatience. “Is it
Mrs. Foster?” she cried.
“No, it ishn’t Mishish Foshter,” he replied, with dignity. He looked at
Turgis. “It’sh a young lady from your offish who’sh been shent to shee
you.”
“Take her in the front,” said Mrs. Pelumpton, before Turgis could get
out of the room.
It was little Poppy Sellers, and Turgis took her into the front; which
only made it all the more queer, for he hardly ever went into that
room. It was used only on the most special occasions, and for about
three hundred and sixty days of the year it remained a shrouded and
mysterious chamber. It housed, behind faded lace curtains, some of Mr.
Pelumpton’s best bargains in “pieshesh,” a piano with a pleated silk
front, two armchairs that were very shiny and plushy, half a bearskin
rug, several books in one glass case, dozens of butterflies in another
case, two real oil paintings of waterfalls, and a fine collection of
shells, glass paper-weights, wool mats, marble ash-trays, and souvenirs
of all the South-Eastern seaside resorts. Above the mantelpiece, and
flanked by two tall mirrors that had storks painted on them, Mrs.
Pelumpton’s father, so immensely enlarged in sepia that at a first
glance he seemed to be a generous view of the Alps, stared down in
mild astonishment. The air inside this room was quite different from
that of the rest of the house; it did not smell of food at all; it was
unlived-in, chilly, with hints of wool and varnish in it. There was a
large paper fan in the fireplace, and immediately the two human beings
entered the room, a host of indignant specks ran down the folds of this
fan, making a queer little flicker of movement and sound in that dim
quiet place.
“I’ve brought your money,” said Poppy, bringing an envelope out of her
scarlet handbag. She was very smart, this afternoon, in a black and
white check coat, a hat nearly the same colour as her handbag, a yellow
scarf with red dots in it, and dark silky stockings and shiny black
shoes. Not the Japanese style this time--more French. She looked well
in that front parlour, sitting in one of the plushy armchairs. “Yes,
this is it,” she continued, handing it over. “I think you’ll find that
all right. Mr. Smeeth said somebody had better take it, and I said I
would, ’cos I have a cousin that lives up here, in Bartholomew Road,
and I sometimes come up here, so I said I didn’t mind bringing it, ’cos
I know the district, even if I do live a long way off, and I hadn’t
anything special to do to-day.” She rattled this off very quickly, as
if it were a set piece she had rehearsed a good many times on the way.
“Thanks very much,” said Turgis. Recent events had left him with an
imagination that was capable of leaping into life very suddenly. It
leaped now. Here was Poppy Sellers bringing his money to him just as
he had taken the money to Lena Golspie. She had been ready with a good
excuse just as he had. This thought did not immediately pluck him out
of his despondency, but it certainly made him feel several inches
taller at once. Besides, the kid had made herself look so neat and
smart, quite pretty in fact.
“Aren’t you well?” she asked him, looking at him very earnestly.
“I’m not too bright,” he admitted. “Matter of fact, I’ve been a bit off
colour for some time. Nothing much, y’know. Nerves, really, that’s what
it is. I’m one of those highly strung people I am.”
“You look pale, and you’ve got a mark on your nose, haven’t you?” She
examined his face in that special detached way that all women seem to
have at times, looking at your face as if it was not part of you, but
something you were showing them, like a picture or a piece of china.
Then she nodded wisely at it. “I believe something’s been up. Here,
listen,” she continued eagerly, “something’s happened, hasn’t it? I
mean, you’re not coming back, are you?”
Turgis admitted sadly that he was not.
“I’ve been puzzling and puzzling my head about it,” she told him, a
mounting excitement in her face and voice. “When you didn’t come this
morning, Mr. Smeeth said you must be ill, and he wasn’t surprised.
And I thought so, too. And Miss Matfield didn’t say anything, and I
thought she looked a bit queer, as if she knew something. She does,
too, I’m sure, though I don’t know what. She doesn’t tell me much--bit
stand-offish, you know, though she’s nice, she really is--but she knows
a lot, and something’s been going on with her some time, if you ask me.
But, anyhow, Mr. Golspie came in, later on, and he was talking to Mr.
Dersingham, and then they sent for Mr. Smeeth, and after a bit, Mr.
Smeeth came back and said later on, y’know, just trying to be ordinary
like, as if nothing special had happened, that you weren’t coming back.
I knew all the time there was something funny about it. And I didn’t
see how they’d told you, ’cos you didn’t know last night, did you?
Course it’s not my business, I know,” she added, with a wistful note,
“but I couldn’t help wondering. And I’m sorry, too.”
“You’re sorry I’m not coming back?”
“Yes, I am,” she declared, tightening her lips, nodding, then looking
him full in the face. “I don’t care what anybody says--I am.”
“I’m sorry, too. Can’t be helped, I suppose. I’ve been in trouble.” His
voice trembled slightly as a wave of self-pity swept over him.
She kept her eyes fixed on his, and they were dark and round. “Did
you--do something?”
He nodded. Already, even in this nod, there was a certain gloomy
romantic suggestion.
“Course you needn’t tell me if you don’t want,” she said hastily, “but
p’r’aps you’d like to, ’cos I’m not trying to poke my nose in--it’s
not that--but I’d reelly, reelly, like to know--’cos--well, it doesn’t
seem a bit fair, turning you off like that, and I said so this morning.
You’ve always done your work all right, and you knew a lot about it,
didn’t you? I’m sure you’ve helped me a lot, and I don’t care who knows
it. And I said so straight out. I spoke up for you. They can say what
they like about me, but I do stick up for my friends and anybody I
like.” Then she lowered her voice. “You didn’t take something, did you?”
“D’you mean--pinch some money?”
“Yes,” she replied, looking down at her brilliant handbag.
“I should think I didn’t. Nothing like that. It wasn’t anything to do
with Twigg and Dersingham’s at all. It was something--quite different.”
“I see.” She ran a finger up and down the bag. Nothing was said for a
minute. As the room, chill and shuttered, waited for somebody to speak,
there stole into it all the Saturday afternoon noises of Nathaniel
Street, but all faint, muffled. Mrs. Pelumpton’s father stared down at
them with mild astonishment. Turgis, sitting up in the other armchair,
tapped a foot, and a few more specks stirred in the paper fan. This
front room made him feel miserable, hopeless. He looked at the girl,
and though she was so quiet now, she seemed delightfully vivid, warm,
alive, human. He did not tell himself that, but he felt it.
“Well, I suppose,” she began, grasping her bag properly and making a
movement of her body.
“Listen, I’ll tell you what happened,” he said quickly.
“You needn’t if you don’t want, y’know.”
He did want. He told her almost the whole story, as he saw it then, and
he did not see it then quite as he had seen it when he had returned
in abject misery to his room the previous night. It took on a certain
romantic colouring, and, as the history of a poor, virtuous, infatuated
young man and a rich, wicked syren, it was not unlike a good many
films that both the narrator and his hearer had seen and admired. She
listened enthralled, exclaiming now and then, her eyes round with
wonder.
Her first question, when he had done, was about Lena. What was she
like, and did he still think she was as pretty as all that? This was
not an easy question to answer, for he had to convey the impression
that Lena was immensely seductive and at the same time to suggest that
she had no further attraction for him. But he contrived to answer it,
a trifle awkwardly, perhaps, but he satisfied Poppy.
“Course you never ought to have done that,” she cried, thinking of his
terrible assault upon the jeering “vamp.” The glance she gave him,
however, had more wonder and awe in it than disgust. It made him feel
that he was not a man to be trifled with. “That was awful, that was.
You didn’t reelly know what you were doing at the time, did you?”
“That’s it. I didn’t. Nerves, y’know. Highly strung. A sort of madness,
it was. Can’t imagine now how I did it, ’cos I’ve never been that sort
of chap, though, mind you, I’ve always had a temper if I got properly
roused. Still, I don’t know how I came to do it, I don’t, really I
don’t. Must have been properly mad at the time. Seems strange now, I
can tell you, ’cos I don’t feel anything about it now, nothing at all.”
“Well, I don’t say you ought to have done it, ’cos you oughtn’t,
and it’s turned out lucky the way it has.” She had a moment of real
distress, imagining how it might have turned out. Then she went on to
consider other aspects of the matter. “But I must say she very near
deserved it, whatever happened, going on the way she did.” She had
throughout shown the greatest indignation with Lena. “Horrible, I call
it. Some girls haven’t any real feelings at all. Girl I know--she lives
near us, and she’s one of these manicurists--she’s just the same.
Treats boys and talks about them, too, in the most awful way. If they
only heard what she said about them, they’d never look at her again.
She’s asking for trouble too, and she’ll get it before long, and it’ll
serve her right--I haven’t a bit of sympathy for her. I wouldn’t behave
to a boy like that, I don’t care who he was, not if I’d never liked him
at all and he was always follering me round and all that. And look at
the way she went and encouraged you at first, making herself as cheap
as anything--that ought to have told you, but of course boys can never
see that.”
“I can see it now,” said Turgis, with the air of a man purged and
purified by great suffering, a pale romantic figure.
“Boys haven’t a bit of sense like that,” she cried indignantly. “And
you were just as silly as the rest, in that business. Mind you, I can
see there’s a good excuse for you, ’cos a girl like that, with her
father so well off and able to have all the clothes she wants and make
herself look nice all the time--course you think it’s all natural,
her looking like that, but it’s having the money and nothing else to
do that does it--well, there is some excuse, and I admit it. Fancy
you going on with Mr. Golspie’s daughter like that! And I never knew!
Doesn’t it just show you?”
Undoubtedly it did. They continued a little longer, dramatically and
not unpleasantly, in this strain, and then Miss Sellers asked what
time it was, and Turgis, instead of telling her the time, said: “Just
a minute. Don’t go. I want to give my landlady some of this money, and
I’d rather not keep her waiting for it. I’ll be back in half a minute.”
Mrs. Pelumpton, who was making tea, was very pleased to see the money.
“This young lady works in the same office, you see,” Turgis explained,
“and they sent her up with it. We’ve been having a good talk about all
the business and all that.”
“Quite so,” said Mrs. Pelumpton, affably but with dignity, as if the
very presence of a strange member of her own sex in the house, even
though not in the same room, made her put on a special manner, affable,
dignified, ladylike. “Perhaps the young lady would like a cup of tea,
with yourself--that is, if she cares to take us as she finds us?”
“Thanks very much, Mrs. Pelumpton,” cried Turgis. “I’ll go and ask her.”
Miss Sellers was easily persuaded to abandon a projected visit to
her cousin in Bartholomew Road, and stayed to tea, during which
she and Mrs. Pelumpton discovered, after a great deal of elaborate
cross-questioning, that Miss Sellers and her sister had actually
stayed for a week in a boarding-house at Clacton that had been kept,
three years before they went there, by Mrs. Pelumpton’s sister, whom
therefore, they had only missed meeting by two years and ten months.
Delighted to discover once more they were living in a world so small,
so cosy, Miss Sellers and Mrs. Pelumpton were very pleased with one
another. After tea, when the Pelumptons were out of the way, Turgis,
though still the same young man, without prospects, without hope,
actually went to the length of indulging in that mysterious badinage
which is the signal of sexual attraction and interest among the young
inarticulate creatures of this country. “What d’you mean?” they cried
to one another. “Oh, I don’t mean what _you_ mean!”
Then, at the end of half an hour or so of this, “Well, I _half_
promised to see a girl friend to-night.”
“Oh, well, don’t bother,” he told her. “She can do without you, can’t
she, just for to-night?”
“Just for to-night, eh? Well, can’t you do without me too, Mister
Cheeky?”
“No, I can’t. I want somebody to cheer me up.”
“Oh, that’s it, is it? Thanks for the compliment. Anybody will do, eh?”
“No, I didn’t say that. You know I didn’t.”
“Well, you meant it.”
“No, I didn’t. Reelly, I didn’t. Come on. What d’you say?”
“All right then,” she said, turning her perky little head on one side
and smiling. Then she looked serious. “Listen, though. If we do go,
I must pay for myself. Yes, I must. I believe in that,” she added
earnestly, as if she had thought about it for years and had not just
invented this rule for herself, knowing only too well that he would be
hard up in the near future and that every extra shilling would make a
great difference. “I’ll come if you’ll let me pay for myself. There
now!”
As they walked down Nathaniel Street, they decided that it must be one
of the big West End picture theatres, but could not settle which it
should be, and argued pleasantly about it, and she pretended to care
more about it than she actually did and he pretended to care less;
she was the eager, excited, imploring female, and he was the large,
knowing, tolerant, protective male. Out in the smoky blue and gold of
the lighted streets, they were more at ease than they had been in the
house. Already they may have felt that they were going further together
now than the way to the remotest picture theatre could take them.
Perhaps this was the best day’s work in one or other of their lives;
perhaps the worst. Saturday night: the children of the pavements and
chimney-pots came pouring out, seeking adventure, entertainment, profit
or forgetfulness in the vast impersonal thunder and glare of the city;
and soon these two were lost in the crowd.
_Chapter Eleven_: THEY GO HOME
I
It was coming to a close like any other Friday afternoon. They were
short-handed, for though the new boy, Gregory Thorpe from Hatcham,
S.E., a lad with a singularly long face and spectacles, far more
conscientious than Stanley but not so engaging, had been with them
since Monday, Turgis had been absent since Monday too, and his place
had not yet been filled. Fortunately, they had not been very busy this
last day or two; the rush of a few weeks before appeared to be over
now; Mr. Golspie had not been near the office since Tuesday, and had
not sent in any new orders; and the next Anglo-Baltic boat was not due
in until the following Monday; so that things were easier. Even without
Turgis, they were getting through the work at the usual pace. Mr.
Smeeth, glancing round over the top of his desk, thought they ought to
have finished in another half-hour or three-quarters. He would get away
about six, have his tea in comfort, with plenty of time to spare before
the concert began. He was going to hear that symphony by Brahms, the
same symphony he had heard before, the one that suddenly and gloriously
broke into Ta _tum_ ta ta _tum_ tum. Another orchestra was playing
it this time. It was lucky that the advertisement of the concert had
caught his eye: Brahms’ Symphony No. 1. He had been looking forward
all the week to hearing that symphony again, especially to that moment
when the great melody would come sweeping out of the strings again.
He had tried to remember it for weeks and weeks, and then suddenly it
had returned to him--Ta _tum_ ta ta _tum_ tum. Brahms might be as
classical and highbrow as they said he was (and Mr. Smeeth had been
making a few inquiries), but the fact remained that the thought of his
first symphony, that dark but splendid adventure, now warmed the heart
of Herbert Norman Smeeth. Ta _tum_ ta ta _tum_ tum--but no, he must get
on with his work, finish off and see that the others were finishing off
too.
“Miss Matfield, have you anything for Mr. Dersingham to sign? Have you,
Miss Sellers? Take them in now if you have.”
Mr. Dersingham was in the private office. He had been there most of
the day. This was unusual, and rather queer because Mr. Dersingham did
not appear to be very busy. He seemed to be waiting for something or
somebody. Several times during the afternoon, when the outer door had
opened, Mr. Smeeth had heard Mr. Dersingham come out of the private
office, as if he could not bear to wait an extra half minute or so. He
seemed to be jumpy, too, about telephone calls. Very unusual, rather
queer, not like Mr. Dersingham. Mr. Smeeth came to the conclusion that
it must be some private business, and therefore no affair of his.
“Now where’s that letter from Poppett and Sons?” he demanded. “It
was on this desk an hour ago, I’ll swear. It’s a letter about their
account, and I told one of you this morning we’d have to answer it
to-day. It was you, wasn’t it, Miss Sellers? Well, have you taken their
letter away, then? Just see if you have. Yes, there you are--that’s it.
Bring it here and I’ll answer it now. Poppett and Sons, Poppett and
Sons,” Mr. Smeeth repeated idly as he re-read their letter. “Ye-es.
Are you ready? No, half a minute, though--my mistake. I’ll have to
check that figure. Fi-ifty-fo-our pounds, thi-irte-een shillings--yes,
yes, that’s all right. Now then----” and here Mr. Smeeth adjusted his
eyeglasses and cleared his throat, giving a faintly pompous little
cough. Even now, the thought that he, Herbert Norman Smeeth, was
sitting there, a cashier, dictating letters to this firm and that, gave
him a thrill. “--er--We are in receipt of your--er--communication--put
the date in there, Miss Sellers--respecting our statement of account
dated so-and-so--and beg to point out that this account was quite in
order. You asked us to send down the goods by special road delivery
and agreed that the extra carriage, paid by us, should be added to our
account--no, just a minute--extra carriage, which had to be paid by us
in the first place, should be charged to you, and this we accordingly
did. We refer you to your letter--I have a note of that letter--ah!
here it is--to your letter of the 4th of December last----”
Mr. Smeeth rounded off his letter and Miss Sellers hurried it away to
her machine. Miss Matfield, who appeared to be in a great hurry, pulled
a sheet of paper out of her typewriter with one fine sweep of the hand,
and then furiously tidied a little pile of typewritten sheets. The new
boy, Gregory, laboriously worked away at his letter copying, with the
air of a man engaged in not very hopeful bacterial research. It was
wearing away like any other Friday afternoon. There was nothing to
suggest that it might blow up any minute, unless the unusual activities
of Mr. Dersingham, who appeared to be moving uneasily now in the
private office, were considered to be fantastically significant.
“Who was that?” Mr. Smeeth asked, after several doors had banged and
Gregory had returned from behind the frosted glass partition.
“I think it was a telegraph boy, sir,” replied Gregory sadly.
“How d’you mean--you _think_ it was?”
“Mr. Dersingham was there, sir. He got there first, and he was holding
the door open and taking something, so I couldn’t see who it was
properly. I only saw an arm, and it looked like a telegraph boy. You
see what I mean about the door, sir? It comes back, inside, when it
opens, and Mr. Dersingham was holding it with one hand, and so the door
was in the way, you see----”
“Yes, yes, yes, I see. No need to make such a song about it, boy.”
There was a sad earnestness about this new boy that had been rather
impressive at first, but now it only irritated Mr. Smeeth. He liked a
boy to be conscientious with his work, but this one was too dolefully
dutiful. You could not even relieve your feelings by telling him
sharply to get on with his work, because he never stopped doing
something, toiling away like a spectacled young sheep. Mr. Smeeth
wished now he had chosen a brighter boy, even if the lad would have
larked about a bit.
“Smeeth. Smeeth.”
“Yes, Mr. Dersingham,” Mr. Smeeth called back, frowning a little. He
did not like to be summoned in this fashion, by a shout from the door
of the private office; it was not dignified. He hurried in, however,
for Mr. Dersingham sounded as if he had something important he wanted
to say.
“Shut the door, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, who did not look so pink
and cheerful as usual. “Oh, look here--have they nearly finished out
there?”
“Just clearing up, sir.”
“All right, then,” said Mr. Dersingham wearily. “Have I signed
everything? Tell ’em to let me have everything that must go off
to-night, will you? I want ’em to clear out, and leave us alone. Do
that now. Just get them to finish up as quick as possible.”
Wondering, rather apprehensive now, Mr. Smeeth bustled to and fro
with letters to be signed, hurried on Miss Sellers and the boy, and
in ten minutes had everything signed, copied, sealed up, and stamped.
“Yes, yes,” he told them, “that’ll be all. You can go now. That’s
right. Good-night, Miss Matfield. What’s that? Yes, I remember. Mr.
Dersingham said you could have to-morrow morning off, didn’t he? Off
for the week-end, eh? Lucky to be some people, Miss Matfield. Yes, yes,
quite all right. Good-night. Good-night, Miss Sellers. And--what’s
your name--Gregory, don’t forget you’ve got three registereds there;
bring me the receipts in the morning. No, that’ll do. Good-night,
good-night.” He returned to the private office. “All finished now, Mr.
Dersingham. Yes, all gone.”
“All right, Smeeth. Bring the order book in, then the other books.
Bring the order book in first.”
It looked as if he was going to have a little stock-taking and general
survey of the business, a very wise thing to do too, now and again.
Mr. Smeeth hoped that he would not be kept long, but otherwise he was
quite pleased and proud, for there was nothing he liked better than
these confidential talks about the business, and he was glad to see
that Mr. Dersingham was taking himself seriously now as the head of a
very flourishing little concern.
“Nothing wrong, I hope, Mr. Dersingham?” he said, when he had brought
in all the books.
Mr. Dersingham gave a short laugh, and it was a very unpleasant sound.
It startled Mr. Smeeth.
“Everything’s wrong, Smeeth, every damned thing, unless you can see a
way out. Sit down, man, sit down. We’re going to be hours and hours on
this job.”
Mr. Smeeth sat down, staring at him.
“Golspie’s cleared out,” Mr. Dersingham continued, “and he’s done us
in, absolutely done us in. Oh, the rotten swine! God, I was a fool to
trust that chap a yard! I ought to have known, I ought to have known.
And now he’s gone. I rushed up to that flat of his in Maida Vale at
lunch time, hoping to catch him in and have it out with him, but he’d
gone--at least, the maid said he had, and it was only a furnished place
he’d taken, and she’d been taken over with it, so I suppose she wasn’t
lying about it. He’s going abroad, if he isn’t already gone. Clearing
out properly, the rotten crook! This isn’t the only dirty game he’s
been playing here, if you ask me. I always thought he had a few more
irons in the fire besides his work here. He never spent more than half
his time with our business. But he’s had plenty of time to do us down.”
He was out of his chair now, kicking a ball of crumpled paper about the
room.
“But what’s happened, Mr. Dersingham? I thought you knew he might leave
us. You told me so a week or two ago, and you said you were getting him
to sign an agreement, when he drew all that forward commission, so that
you would have the agency.”
“Oh, we’ve got the agency all right,” cried Mr. Dersingham, with great
bitterness. “No mistake about that. Only it’s not worth having now,
that’s all. Mikorsky’s have raised all their prices. They say it’s
owing to the increased cost of their new process and to some labour
troubles and to some new government tax--oh, they’ve got all kinds of
reasons, and they may be true and they may not, but the fact remains
they’ve raised all their prices. They’re all up fifty and sixty and
even seventy per cent.”
“As much as that? Good Lord, Mr. Dersingham, that’s a ridiculous
advance. It makes them as dear as the most expensive of the old firms
we were dealing with before, doesn’t it? I see, now.”
“No, you don’t see, you don’t see at all yet,” Mr. Dersingham yelled at
him. “It’s a lot worse than that. Look at that telegram. Just look at
it.”
“I don’t understand this, sir,” said Mr. Smeeth, after carefully
reading the telegram. “Why did they send it?”
“They sent it because I’d wired to them asking if what Golspie had
written to me was true. I thought he might have been bluffing, just out
of devilish spite. But he wasn’t. They’re all in league together, of
course, if you want my opinion, just a lot of rotten foreign swindlers
with this chap Golspie the worst of the lot.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Dersingham. I can see it’s a bad business. But I don’t
quite get the hang of it yet. They can’t have raised their prices
already.”
“My God!--that’s just what they have done, and that filthy telegram
confirms it.” Mr. Dersingham banged it so hard with his fist that he
hurt his hand. Then he became quieter and sat down again. “I’m getting
too excited. Sorry I yelled like that, Smeeth, though it’s enough to
make any man shout his head off. I’ll explain. I got a letter from
Golspie this morning, saying that he was clearing out. Here, you can
read it for yourself.”
Mr. Smeeth read it through twice. It pretended to be an ordinary
business letter, but there was a good deal of unpleasant irony in it.
One phrase, which practically said that Mr. Dersingham had tried to
sneak the agency for himself and had not succeeded, made Mr. Smeeth
look up and ask a question. “Did you really write to those people and
try to get the agency yourself, sir?” he asked.
Mr. Dersingham nodded.
Mr. Smeeth hesitated a moment. “I don’t think you ought to have done
that, sir,” he said finally, respectful but reproachful.
“That’s my business, Smeeth.”
Mr. Smeeth looked down and remained silent. Neither of them spoke for a
minute or two, and the room was strangely quiet.
“Oh well,” cried Mr. Dersingham, struggling with his embarrassment,
“perhaps I oughtn’t to. As it’s turned out, it was a bad move. But I
wasn’t really trying anything underhand, y’know, Smeeth. It wasn’t as
if I was trying to take a fellow’s living away from him, working behind
his back. I know it might look a bit like that, to anybody who didn’t
know the circumstances, but it wasn’t. This chap Golspie was obviously
one of these here-to-day-and-gone-to-morrow fellows--didn’t make any
secret of it, boasted of it--and I never liked the look of him and I
didn’t know what tricks he might be up to. He came here, made use of
our connection with the trade and our organisation and everything and
drew a heavy commission, as you know, and all the time he walked about
the place as if he owned it. As I told you before, I couldn’t stand
the chap--a terrible bounder. I tried to be as friendly as possible
at first, but it wouldn’t work. And my wife took a strong dislike to
him--she only met him once, but you know what women are, and she saw
what he was in five minutes--and she was always telling me to have
nothing more to do with him, to get rid of him. So I just wrote a
confidential letter to Mikorsky’s, saying it would pay them to have the
agency properly in the hands of a wholesale firm here like ours, and
that the--er--present arrangement wasn’t really satisfactory to them or
to us either, and that they ought to consider it. All in confidence,
mind. That was just before he went over there, and of course they told
him all about it. I didn’t know they were friends of his. I thought
they had an ordinary business agreement, and I considered I was
entitled to suggest another business agreement, leaving Golspie out.”
“Yes, I see that,” said Mr. Smeeth, still a little doubtful. “And I
suppose they told him then, and that’s what put his back up?”
“Oh, they did that, but I think he’d been ready to play any dirty
little trick right from the first. He isn’t a gentleman--never looked
like one--and he isn’t even an ordinary decent business man. He’s
just an adventurer, trying his hand at anything for tuppence. No
wonder he never stopped anywhere long--too crooked! But you see what
he says there, that he encloses a little document that had--what is
it?--escaped his memory. Well, there’s the little document, there--that
statement of Mikorsky’s, dated when he was there, raising all the
prices. There’s the full list of ’em--up fifty to seventy per cent.”
“But--but,” Mr. Smeeth stammered, as he looked at this list, “we can’t
be expected to pay these prices. We’ve already bought heavily on the
old prices.”
“Have we? Golspie did the buying, and I can’t find any acknowledgment
from them.”
“Well, can’t we cancel the last orders then, Mr. Dersingham? I never
heard of such a thing. It’s not reasonable. Here their prices have
been up for weeks and weeks, and we’ve been thinking we were buying at
the old rates. They can’t force us to take the stuff at these prices,
surely.”
“I don’t know. That side of it doesn’t matter, anyhow. The point is,
Smeeth--don’t you see?--whether we’ve bought the stuff or not, we’ve
_sold it_.”
Mr. Smeeth did see; he saw with fatal clearness; and his dismay must
have been written on his face.
“Yes,” Mr. Dersingham continued, “we’ve sold it, stacks and stacks of
it, thousands of square feet, big orders, Smeeth, big orders, all those
orders we paid Golspie that commission on. You might well look like
that. I’ve been feeling like that all day, even though I still hoped
there might be a mistake--before that telegram came.”
“But, Mr. Dersingham--it’s--it’s ruination, sheer ruination.”
“And it’s damnably, damnably unfair, Smeeth. We’ve simply been
swindled. Listen, d’you think there’s any chance of us getting all
those orders cancelled here?”
Mr. Smeeth thought for a minute, then slowly shook his head. “We’ve
undertaken to deliver the stuff, Mr. Dersingham, and there’s no getting
out of that. I mean to say, if our customers say ‘We want it,’ then
they’ll have to have it and they can compel us to let them have it at
the price we sold it, or compel us to go out of business. No argument
about that at all, sir.”
“What I’m wondering is this, Smeeth. It’s not our fault this has
happened. I mean to say, it’s not the ordinary case of selling the
stuff before you’ve bought it, hoping for a fall in prices, and then
getting nipped because the price goes up when you have to deliver
the stuff. It’s nothing like that, you see. We’ve been let down by
sheer rotten trickery. Not our fault at all. Now I’m wondering if our
customers would agree to cancel the orders if I explained the situation
to them, told them straight out that Golspie was a wrong ’un and we’ve
been let down. It’s worth trying, isn’t it? Where’s that order book? I
want to see who are about the biggest buyers of these last lots that I
can get hold of at once. What about Brown and Gorstein? They’re not far
away.”
“And they’ve bought as much as anybody,” said Mr. Smeeth. “We’ve a lot
to deliver to them. You might get hold of Mr. Gorstein.”
“I’ll ring up and see if he’s there.” And while he waited, receiver in
hand, he added: “Jot down what Brown and Gorstein have bought, will
you, Smeeth?” By the time Mr. Smeeth had done this, Mr. Dersingham had
learned that Gorstein was still there and was willing to see him at
once. “I’ll go over at once,” said Mr. Dersingham. “I’ll just tell my
wife first not to expect me back in a hurry. I believe we were going
out to play bridge with somebody. My hat!--I feel as much like playing
bridge to-night as I do like--like--spinning tops.”
When the other had finished his telephoning, Mr. Smeeth had the
order book and some paper in front of him. “While you’re there, Mr.
Dersingham, I’ll try and work out the whole thing on the new prices.”
“I was going to tell you to do that,” said Mr. Dersingham, as he took
down his hat and coat. “Get it all worked out while I’m up at Brown and
Gorstein’s. God!--we’re in a mess. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Left to himself, Mr. Smeeth did not think. He refused to think. He
applied himself sternly to the task before him, and for the next
quarter of an hour never looked up from his books and his calculations.
He was not Herbert Norman Smeeth, but simply the master of the neat
little figures, and he added and subtracted and multiplied them without
letting his mind wander away from their austere but calculable world,
in which he had spent so many pleasant hours. He had plenty to do. All
the orders of the last few weeks, back to the early part of December,
in fact, had to be estimated on the basis of these new prices, and he
had to add the usual costs and then the commission already paid to
Golspie. He did it with his usual neatness, accuracy, thoroughness,
producing a statement that could be understood at a glance. At the end
of quarter of an hour, the telephone rang and disturbed him, but it was
not a call for them. Mechanically, then, he filled his pipe, and spent
a minute or two listening idly to the various sounds that came from the
steps outside, from Angel Pavement, from the City beyond, a sort of
vague symphony, and the only one, it seemed, that he would hear that
night. He put his pipe in his mouth unlit, and bent over his figures
again. Time slipped away as the totals mounted up on the statement,
and soon half an hour had gone. He turned now to other books, to the
general financial side of the matter, estimating what they had in hand
and what was due to them.
Mr. Dersingham came bursting in, large and active, but a figure of
misery. “It’s no use, Smeeth. We’re absolutely done.”
“What did Mr. Gorstein say?”
“I told them as much as I could, and they laughed at me, they did,
honestly they did, they just laughed at me. Pretended not to,
pretended to be very sympathetic and all that, but I knew. That fellow
Gorstein’s another rotter, if you ask me. Very sorry and all that, hard
luck on us, but of course they’d bought what we’d offered them, and
they’d undertaken to supply _their_ customers and made contracts on
what they’d bought from us, and we’d have to deliver, and no nonsense
about it. And they practically told me that everybody else in the trade
would say the same thing, but only be a bit more damned insolent about
it. No, I see that now, plainly enough. There’s no getting out of it.”
“But, Mr. Dersingham, it’s a terrible position we’re in, it really is.”
“Good God! man, you’ve no need to tell me that. It’s the foulest mess I
ever dreamed of, and all because of that dirty crook. Honestly, Smeeth,
I don’t pretend to be a bruiser or anything of that sort, but if I saw
that chap now, I’d go for him. I’d either knock him down or he’d have
to knock me down. Have you been working it all out? What does it look
like?”
Mr. Smeeth now considered his totals and the full implication of them
for the first time. He handed the papers across the table.
Mr. Dersingham, running a finger across his teeth and allowing his jaw
to drop, stared at them for several minutes without saying a word. Then
he queried one or two figures, and Mr. Smeeth worked them out again,
for his benefit. The order book was referred to several times. But
there was no escaping from those totals.
“I’ve just been working out how we stand, too, Mr. Dersingham. I
thought you’d want to know now. This is the position, counting
everything in.”
They went over that now, spending about half an hour in what was mostly
futile discussion, as Mr. Smeeth, sick at heart, knew only too well.
“It’s no good, Smeeth,” the other said finally, “there’s no getting
away from it. It was a tight squeeze paying that swine all that
commission in advance, and now we’ve got to sell every square foot of
stuff at a loss, on all those orders.”
“It’s a terrible loss. The business as it is will never stand it, Mr.
Dersingham.”
“I know that. And what’s left of the business, even supposing I could
borrow enough to see me through this mess? Where should we be? Only
back where we were before we began handling this stuff, before Golspie
came, doing just about enough trade to pay expenses, and on top of
that I’d be up to the neck in debt. I couldn’t carry on a month. I’ve
borrowed as much as I can, and even if I could borrow any more, I
wouldn’t--it’s only throwing money away. Honestly, Smeeth, how can I go
on?”
Mr. Smeeth looked through the papers again, though there was no real
meaning in the glances he gave them. He was trying to think of a way
out, but it was impossible to find one.
“What are you going to do, then, Mr. Dersingham?” he asked, miserably.
“Nothing. Finish. What else can I do? I’ll buy what I can of this
lot, deliver it, and then finish. And if they bankrupt the firm, they
bankrupt it, and there’s the end of it. If they don’t, I close down and
clear out, anyhow, and that’s the end of it, too. I don’t suppose it’s
the first time a dam’ fool’s been robbed clean out of a business, is
it?”
“I don’t know what to say, Mr. Dersingham.” And Mr. Smeeth didn’t. He
was staring at the opposite wall in utter dejection.
“What’s the good of saying anything? But what makes me sick is the way
that rotter Golspie has cleared out----”
“I thought at the time it was a bit fishy, sir, when he wanted all that
commission in advance.”
“Well, if you thought so, why the devil didn’t you say so at the time.
No good saying so now.”
“I did say something at the time, Mr. Dersingham, I did really.”
“Well, I must say I don’t remember you saying anything. Anyhow, it’s
too late now. You know, Smeeth, that fellow’s robbed me just as much
as if he’d broken into my flat--it’s worse, when you think of it. And
there isn’t even a charge against him. All he’s done is to collect
some commission and keep a letter back. You can’t go to the police
about that. The swine! That’s what maddens me. What’s the time? Quarter
past eight? Come on, let’s get out of this.” They walked down the
stairs and out of the building together.
Across the way, the only sign of life came from the bar of the “White
Horse.” “I don’t know about you, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham,
stopping, “but I want a drink. It’s a long time since I wanted one so
badly. You could do with a spot, couldn’t you? Of course you could.
Let’s have one, while we can still pay for it.”
The private bar was completely deserted, except for a long, grey cat
that stretched itself arrogantly in front of the little fire. The
barmaid came round the corner, swept away several glasses, polished a
foot or two of counter, said, “Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom,” to the cat,
then smiled at the gentlemen in the way a lady ought to smile, and,
“Good evening. Nicer now, iserntit?”
“Two double whiskies, please, and two small sodas,” said Mr. Dersingham.
“Two doubles,” murmured the barmaid.
Mr. Smeeth could not help being reminded of the time when Mr. Golspie
had brought him in here and had insisted on his having a double whisky.
That was the night when Mr. Golspie had told him that he ought to have
a rise. Everything was going too wonderful that night.
“Here’s luck, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, raising his glass, “and I’m
sorry for your sake it’s turned out like this, though you’re not losing
what I’m losing, not by a long chalk. But here’s luck--here’s to your
next job, and I hope it’s a better one than Twigg and Dersingham ever
gave you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth shyly. “And here’s luck to
you too, sir----”
“You’d think that cat, to look at it,” said the barmaid, “was a good
mouser if ever a cat was. Wouldn’t you now? Well, it isn’t. No good at
all. Won’t touch a mouse. Will you, Tom? No, you won’t, you lazy old
rascal. Don’t earn your keep at all, you don’t. Come here, Tom. Tom,
Tom, Tom.”
“I’m going to try for a job out East as soon as I’ve straightened
things up,” said Mr. Dersingham confidentially. “No more City for me.
I never did care for it. Not really my style at all, y’know, Smeeth.
I always wanted to go out East. You get a gentleman’s life out there.
A man I know--he’s just retired and he’s a neighbour of mine--told me
some time ago he could get me a good job out there any time. I shall
have a shot at it.”
Mr. Smeeth nodded and looked gloomy. There was no job out East for
him, and these remarks of Mr. Dersingham’s suddenly opened out a vast,
dreary prospect. At the moment, he preferred not to think about the
future.
“Look at him, the silly old thing,” said the barmaid, who had the long
cat in her arms now. “Aren’t you a silly old thing, Tom? He’s got nice
markings though, hasn’t he? Reg’lar, aren’t they? Go on then, go down
then, if you want to, Tom. There! Boo! Boo! Just watch him. He can open
the door by himself. Artful as anything, I can tell you.”
Mr. Dersingham gulped down the rest of his whisky and soda. “Rotten
luck. The worst possible. Where I made the mistake though, Smeeth,
was not trusting to what’s-it--instinct, intuition, you know. About
Golspie, I mean. I was trying to be the smart City bounder, with an eye
for a tricky bit of business and nothing else--y’know, like that awful
fellow, Gorstein, and all the rest of ’em. Not my style at all, really.
I didn’t like the chap and I ought to have known he’d do me down. Never
mind, he’ll come to a sticky finish before he’s done. And so will that
daughter of his. You never met her, did you, Smeeth? Very good looking,
in the film and chorus girl style, but a terrible little minx. You
ought to hear my wife on Miss Golspie! She came to my place once--but
never again, never again. That was a queer business, y’know, Smeeth,
about Turgis and that girl, when Golspie came and said Turgis would
have to be sacked because he’d been up to some mysterious games with
the daughter. I never really understood what it was all about--though
I’d like to bet that Golspie’s daughter was up to her tricks there--she
looked that sort.”
“I never understood that business,” said Mr. Smeeth mournfully. “I
wasn’t properly told about it.”
“Neither was I, for that matter. But I didn’t bother much, because I
never thought that chap Turgis was much good, anyhow, and was rather
glad to get rid of him. Thinking it over now, though, I feel a bit
sorry for the poor devil. Have you heard anything about him, Smeeth?”
“Miss Sellers has seen him once or twice, I believe. I fancy she’s a
bit sweet on him. He’s not got another job yet, of course, and it’s not
likely he will for some time.” He breathed hard, like a man who wants
to sigh but has forgotten how to do it, looked down at the remainder of
his drink, and slowly finished it.
“Well, I’d better be getting along,” said Mr. Dersingham. “That drink’s
made me feel hungry. I’ll stop at the club and see if I can get a bite.
I might see a fellow there who could give me one or two tips about this
miserable business. Then I’ll go home, and that’s the part I’m not
looking forward to, I can tell you. Are you going home now?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Smeeth slowly, buttoning his overcoat. “I’m going home.”