Elsie’s return home caused far less sensation than she had feared. Mrs.
Palmer, indeed, was very angry, but principally at Elsie’s folly in
having come away without her trunk or the money due to her.
When a week had elapsed, and nothing had come from Mortimer Crescent,
Mrs. Palmer declared her intention of going to a solicitor.
“However you could be such a fool, young Elsie--and I don’t half
understand what happened, even now. What was the row about?”
Elsie had decided upon a half-truth. “Oh, she was a jealous old fool,
and couldn’t bear her hubby to look the same side of the room as
anyone else. That’s all it was, really. She spoke to me very rudely, I
consider--in fact she was decidedly insulting--so I simply up and said:
‘Mrs. Woolley,’ I said, ‘that’s not the way I’m accustomed to be spoken
to,’ I said, ‘and what’s more I won’t stand it.’ Quite quietly, I said
it, looking her very straight in the face. ‘I won’t stand it,’ I said,
quite quietly. That did for her. She didn’t know how to take it at all.
But, of course, I wasn’t going to stay in the house a moment after
that, and I simply walked straight upstairs and put on my things and
left her there. She knows what I think of her, though.”
“Yes, and she knows what she thinks of you,” remarked Mrs. Palmer
shrewdly, “and it probably isn’t so far out, either. She may be jealous
as you say--those fleshy women often are, when their figures come to be
a perpetual worry, so to speak--but there’s no smoke without a fire,
and I know you, Elsie Palmer. I suppose this doctor fellow was for
ever giving you sweets and wanting to take you out at nights, and sit
next you in the ’bus coming home, with his wife on the other side of
him as like as not. You were a young fool, let me tell you, to lose a
good place like that for a man who can’t be any use to you. What you
want to look out for is a husband. I shan’t have a minute’s peace about
you till you’re married.”
“Why?” asked Elsie, rather gratified, and very curious.
“Never you mind why. Because Mother says so, and that’s enough. Now you
can get on your hat and come with me to Mr. Williams’ office and see
what he can do to get this trunk of yours away from that woman. She’s
no lady, as I saw plainly the very first time I ever laid eyes on her.”
On the way to the City, Mrs. Palmer questioned Elsie rather
half-heartedly. “You’ve not been a bad girl in any way while you’ve
been away from Mother, have you?”
“No, of course not. I don’t know what you mean,” Elsie declared, sick
with sudden fright.
“I should hope you didn’t. Because mind, Elsie, any gurl of mine who
disgraced herself wouldn’t get any help from _me_. And though I don’t
object to a bit of fun while a gurl’s young, skylarking may lead to
other things. I hope there’s no need for me to speak any plainer. I’ve
brought you gurls up innocent, and I intend you shall remain so. Not
that Geraldine’s ever given me a moment’s worry.”
“Oh, Geraldine!” Elsie was profoundly relieved at seeing an opportunity
for changing the subject indirectly. “She’s a sheep.”
“You’ve no call to speak like that of your elder sister, miss. I wish
you were half as steady as she is. She’s the one to help her widowed
mother, for all she has such poor health.”
“What do you suppose is the matter with her, Mother?”
“Bile,” said Mrs. Palmer laconically. “Your father was the same, but it
doesn’t matter so much in a man.”
“Why ever not?”
“It doesn’t interfere with his prospects. Now I often think Geraldine
won’t ever get a husband, simply because of the bad colour she
sometimes goes, and the way her breath smells. She can’t help it, poor
gurl.”
Elsie felt contemptuous, rather than compassionate. When they came to
the office, a very young clerk, who stared hard at Elsie, explained
that Mr. Williams was away. He had suffered a family bereavement.
“His wife?” gasped Mrs. Palmer, greatly excited.
“I am sorry to say that Mrs. Williams died yesterday morning. Mr.
Williams was not at the office, and a telephone message came through
later to the head clerk, giving the melancholy intelligence. I believe
Mrs. Williams had been ill for some time.”
“Why, goodness me, we knew her ever so well, my daughter and I! They
stayed with us in the autumn.... Elsie, fancy poor Mrs. Williams dying!”
“Fancy!”
“Would you care to see the head clerk, Mr. Cleaver, madam?” said the
youth politely, still gazing at Elsie.
“Yes, yes, I think I’d better. He may be able to tell us something
more, Elsie,” cried Mrs. Palmer gloatingly.
But when the clerk had gone away to see whether Mr. Cleaver was
disengaged, Mrs. Palmer remarked to her daughter:
“Not that he’ll be able to say much, naturally not. It’s an awkward
subject to enter on at all with a gentleman, poor Mrs. Williams being
in the condition she was.”
“I heard Doctor Woolley say she was very ill.”
“It’s a funny thing, Elsie, but many a time I’ve felt a presentiment
like. I’ve looked at Mrs. Williams, and seen death in her face. And
that Nellie Simmons, she told me she’d had a most peculiar dream about
Mrs. Williams one night. Saw her lying all over blood, she said, and it
quite scared her. I knew then what it meant, though I told Nellie not
to be a silly gurl. But dreams can’t lie, as they say, not if they’re a
certain sort.”
Elsie shuddered, as a thrill of superstitious terror went through her.
Dreams played a large part in her life, and Mrs. Palmer had always
shown her children that she “believed in dreams,” especially in those
of a _macabre_ nature.
The young clerk came back, and took them into a small room where a
bald-headed, pale-faced man sat at a writing-table. Mrs. Palmer’s
delicacy ran no risk of affront from him, for he was monosyllabic on
the subject of Mrs. Williams’ death, and only said that Mr. Williams
would not be back until the following week.
Mrs. Palmer, looking disappointed, launched into a voluble story of
Elsie’s trunk and its non-return.
Mr. Cleaver said that the firm would write a letter to Mrs. Woolley
that evening. He seemed disinclined to enlarge on that, or any other
subject.
“It’s been a great worry, as you can imagine,” Mrs. Palmer said,
reluctant to terminate an interview which was anyhow to cost her money.
“However the girl could have been so silly, I don’t know. But we
mustn’t look for old heads on young shoulders, I suppose.”
“I suppose not.”
For the first time, Mr. Cleaver glanced at Elsie as though he really
saw her. “Your young lady will be looking for another post, no doubt?”
“By-and-by,” said Mrs. Palmer with a sudden languor. “I’m afraid if I
had my way, Mr. Cleaver, I’d keep both my girlies at home with their
mother. And this one’s my baby, too. I really only let her go to that
Mrs. Woolley to oblige poor Mrs. Williams, who was a dear friend of
mine. My daughter has been trained for the shorthand-typing, really,
haven’t you, Elsie?”
“’M.”
“I see. Well, Mrs. Palmer, the letter shall go off to-night, and I am
very much mistaken if the lady does not----”
“Don’t call her a lady, Mr. Cleaver. She’s no----”
Mrs. Palmer had said all this before, and Mr. Cleaver held open the
door for her, and compelled her to pass through it before she had time
to say it all over again.
Elsie and Mrs. Palmer were in the omnibus that was to take them back to
their own suburb very much earlier than they had expected to be.
“I’ll tell you what, we’ll stop at the corner shop and have a wreath
sent in time for the funeral. I’ve got some money on me,” said Mrs.
Palmer.
They chose a wreath and were given a black-edged card upon which Mrs.
Palmer inscribed the address of Mr. Williams and: “With true sympathy
and every kind thought from Mrs. Gerald Palmer, Miss Palmer and Miss
Elsie Palmer.”
“I’d meant to say a few very sharp words to them about introducing
_that_ Mrs. Woolley to me, and persuading me to let you go to her, but
of course, it’ll have to be let drop now. I daresay poor Mrs. Williams
was taken in by the woman herself.”
For two or three days Elsie lounged about at home, obliged by her
mother to help in the house, but spending as much time as she could
with Irene Tidmarsh, whose old father was still living, although
suffering from incurable disease. Sometimes when Elsie and Irene were
gossiping in the dining-room, they would hear the old man roaring with
pain overhead, and then Irene would run up to him, administer a drug,
and come down again looking rather white. A desiccated spinster aunt
made occasional appearances, and took Irene’s place whilst Irene went
to the cinema with Elsie. But Irene never mentioned Arthur Osborne, and
Elsie saw neither him nor his brother.
She told herself that she did not care, and that she was sick of men
and their beastly ways.
She one evening repeated this sentiment to Geraldine, whom she
suspected of disbelieving her version of the quarrel with Mrs. Woolley.
“So you say. I s’pose that’s because there isn’t anyone after you. If
that Begg boy turned up again, or Johnnie Osborne or any of them, you’d
sing quite a different song.”
“You’re jealous,” said Elsie candidly.
Her sister laughed shrilly. “That’s a good one, young Elsie. Me jealous
of a kid like you! I should like to know what for? Why, you’re not even
pretty.”
The taunt enraged Elsie, because she knew that it was true, and that
she was not really pretty. What she did not yet realise was that she
would always be able to make men think her so.
“Your trunk’s come, Elsie,” Mrs. Palmer screamed at the door. “Carter
Paterson brought it, carriage to pay, of _course_. You’d better see
there’s nothing missing out of it.”
Elsie made a perfunctory examination, noticing nothing but that there
was a letter lying just under the newspaper spread over her untidily
packed belongings.
“It’s all right.”
Mrs. Palmer had gone back into the kitchen again, and Elsie, who did
not care what Geraldine thought of her, pulled out the note and read
it. It was from Doctor Woolley, as she had expected.
“MY OWN DEAR LITTLE GIRLIE,
“What a rotten world it is, kiddie, and what a shame you being turned
away like that. Believe me, dear little girlie, if I had been at home
it would never have happened. Now, Elsie, you and I have had a very
nice friendship, and I know you will understand what I mean if I say
that it must come to an end _for the present_. Burn this letter,
dear, won’t you, and don’t answer it on any account. The letters that
come for me to this house are not safe from interference, so you see
what trouble it might make. With all best wishes for your future, and
thanking you for your sweet friendship, which I shall never forget,
“Yours,
“H.”
“The cad!” said Elsie disgustedly.
She had not really expected Doctor Woolley to write to her at all,
although there had been in her mind a vague anticipation of seeing him
again very soon. But the letter, with its perfunctory endearments and
cautionary injunctions, suddenly made it clear to her that the whole
episode of their relationship was at an end.
“The swine,” said Elsie, although without violent emotion of any kind.
She felt that life, for the moment, was meaningless, but rather from
the familiar and sordid surroundings of her home, and from her own
listlessness and fatigue, than from the defection of Doctor Woolley.
It failed to excite her when a letter arrived for Mrs. Palmer, from
the office of Mr. Williams and written by himself, saying how much he
regretted that Mrs. Woolley, the merest acquaintance of his dear late
wife, should have failed to make Miss Elsie happy in her house. If
Miss Elsie desired to find an appointment in the clerical line, as he
understood, then Mr. Williams would be most happy to make a suggestion.
Could Mrs. Palmer, with Miss Elsie, make it convenient to call at the
office any afternoon that week?
“He may want to take you into his own office, Elsie, as like as not.
He’d feel he ought to do something, I expect, considering they sent you
to those people, those Woolleys, as they call themselves, in the first
place.”
“I’m not sure I want to go into an office, Mother.”
“Now look here, Elsie, let me and you understand one another,” said
Mrs. Palmer with great determination. “I’ve had enough of your wants
and don’t wants, my lady. One word more, and you’ll get a smack-bottom
just exactly as you got when you were in pinafores, and don’t you
forget it. If you think you’re going to live at home, no more use in
the house than a sick headache, and wasting your time running round
with God-knows-who, then I can tell you you’ve never made a bigger
mistake in your life. Off you pop this directly minute, and get on your
hat, and come with me to Mr. Williams. If he’s heard of a job for you,
we’ll get it settled at once.”
“I suppose,” said Geraldine bitterly, “I’ll have to see to the teas and
everything else, while you’re out. It seems to me it’s always Elsie
that’s being thought about, and sent here, and taken there, and the
rest of it.”
“More shame for her,” said Mrs. Palmer sombrely. “I declare to goodness
I don’t know how I’m to face your aunties next time they come here,
unless there’s something been settled about Elsie. I’m sick and tired
of being told I spoil that girl.”
“Whatever job she gets, she’ll be home in a month,” said Geraldine.
“She’ll get something she won’t relish from me if she is,” Mrs. Palmer
retorted. She pinned on her hat and pulled a pair of shiny black kid
gloves out of a drawer in the kitchen dresser.
Elsie, rather sulky and unwilling, was obliged to follow her mother
once more to the dingy office, but it cheered her to see the pleased,
furtive smile on the face of the young clerk who had admitted them
before. It was very evident that he had not forgotten her. Elsie
thought more about him than about the desiccated, wooden-faced little
solicitor, with the crêpe band round his arm, who responded to all Mrs.
Palmer’s voluble condolence with solemn little bows and monosyllables.
Mrs. Palmer was evidently disappointed at extracting from him no
details about his wife’s illness and death, and at last she turned the
subject and began to speak of Elsie’s qualifications as a typist.
“You see, Mr. Williams, I always felt it was waste, her going to be a
kind of mother’s help to that Mrs. Woolley. ‘It’s not what you’ve been
trained for, my dear,’ I said, ‘but still, if you want to, you shall
try it for a bit.’ I’ve always been a one to let my girlies try their
own wings, Mr. Williams. ‘The old home nest is waiting for you when
you’re tired of it,’ is what I always say. You’ve heard mother tell you
that many and many a time, haven’t you, Elsie?”
“Yes,” said Elsie, bored.
She had often heard her mother make the like statements, in order to
impress strangers, and she had no objection to backing her up, since it
was far less trouble to do so than to have a “row” afterwards.
Mr. Williams bowed again. “I am sorry that Miss Elsie was exposed to
unpleasantness of any sort, through an introduction of mine, and I
may add that I entirely agree with you, Mrs. Palmer, in thinking that
the--the domestic duties embarked upon were quite unworthy of her. Now,
I am in want of a confidential clerk in this office.”
Elsie saw her mother’s eyes glistening behind the coarse fibre of her
mended veil, and felt that her fate was sealed.
“Yes, Mr. Williams?”
“If I could persuade you to allow Miss Elsie to come to me.... Nine to
six, and twenty-five shillings a week to begin with. Her duties would
be light, simply to take down, type, and file my personal letters.”
“It would be a very good beginning for her,” said Mrs. Palmer, firmly,
but with no undue enthusiasm. Elsie knew that her mother’s mind was
quite made up, but that she did not want to seem eager in the eyes of
Mr. Williams.
“You’d like to give it a trial, Elsie?”
“I don’t mind,” said Elsie. She met the eyes of Mr. Williams and
managed to smile at him, and for an instant it seemed to her that an
answering pin-point of light appeared behind the pince-nez.
“It would be quite usual,” said Mr. Williams gravely, “for me to give
you a short test. Take this pencil and paper, please, and take this
down.”
He handed Elsie a shorthand pad and a pencil. She took down in
shorthand the brief business letter that he dictated to her, and then,
more nervously, read it aloud, stumbling over the pronunciation of one
or two words, and once substituting one word for another, of which the
shorthand outlines were similar, without any perception of the bearing
of either upon the context.
Mr. Williams corrected her. “It’s always the same,” he told Mrs. Palmer
in a low, rather melancholy voice. “These young people are wonderfully
clever at taking dictation--eighty words a minute, a hundred words a
minute--but you can’t depend upon them to transcribe correctly.”
Mrs. Palmer looked offended. “I’m sure Elsie will tell you that she
wasn’t doing herself justice, Mr. Williams. I’m sure she’s as accurate
as anybody, when she’s not nervous. But if you think she won’t do the
work well enough, of course....”
Mrs. Palmer’s lips were drawn together, and her intonation had become
acidulated.
“Not at all,” said Mr. Williams quietly, “not at all. You misunderstand
my meaning altogether. I have no doubt that Miss Elsie will suit me
very well indeed, when she has fallen into my little routine. What
about next week?”
“Very well,” Mrs. Palmer answered swiftly. “I’ll let her come to you
on Monday morning, Mr. Williams, and I’m very much obliged to you for
thinking of us. It’ll be a relief to me to know Elsie is in a good
post. You see, I’m in the position of both father and mother to my
girlies, and this one’s my baby, as I always say----”
As Mr. Williams opened the door for them he said: “I hope that little
affair about the trunk was satisfactorily concluded? It was perhaps
a shade awkward, having the letter written from this office, in view
of the fact that we were personally acquainted with the parties--but
my head clerk, Mr. Cleaver, could hardly be expected to appreciate
that.... A very worthy man indeed, and an able one, but the finer
shades are rather beyond him. Good morning, Mrs. Palmer--good morning,
Miss Elsie. Nine o’clock on Monday morning, then.”
Mrs. Palmer went away in high spirits, and commented to Elsie and to
Geraldine so enthusiastically upon Elsie’s good fortune, that she began
to believe in it herself.
“Are there any other girls there?” Geraldine asked.
And Elsie said quickly, “Oh dear, no! Both the other clerks are men.”
She began to think that perhaps after all the hours spent in the office
might not be without amusement.
Besides, all sorts of people came to see a solicitor.
Elsie spent the week-end in cutting out and making for herself a blue
crêpe blouse, which she intended to wear on Monday morning. She also
made a pair of black alpaca sleeves, with elastic at the wrist and at
the elbow, to be drawn on over the blouse while she was working.
She put the sleeves, her shorthand pad and pencil, a powder-puff,
mirror, pocket-comb, and a paper-covered novel in a small attaché case
on Monday morning, pulled on the rakish black velvet tam-o’-shanter,
and went off to Mr. Williams’ office.
Her first day there was marked by two discoveries: that Mr. Williams
expected to be called “sir” in office hours, and that the name of the
youth who shared with her a small outer room where clients waited, or
left messages, was Fred Leary.
A high partition of match-boarding separated the waiting-room from
an inner office where Mr. Cleaver sat. And if Elsie and Fred Leary
spoke more than a very few words to one another, Mr. Cleaver would tap
imperatively against the wood with a ruler. He was also apt to walk
noiselessly round the partition and stand there, silently watching
Elsie, if the sound of her typewriter ceased for any undue length of
time.
She learnt from Fred Leary that there had never been a female typist in
the office before, and that Mr. Cleaver had been greatly opposed to the
introduction of one.
“The Old Man always gets his way in the end, though,” said Fred Leary,
alluding to Mr. Williams.
“I knew him before,” Elsie asserted, to give herself importance. “Him
and his wife were in our house for a bit. I knew Mrs. Williams too.”
“They said he led her a life,” remarked Leary.
“What sort of way?”
“Oh, I couldn’t tell a kid like you.”
“What rubbish! As though I didn’t know as much as you, any day.”
He laughed loudly. “Girls always think they know everything, but they
don’t--not unless some fellow has----”
The sharp tap of Mr. Cleaver’s pencil sounded against the matchboard,
and silenced them.
The fact that their conversations had to be more or less clandestine
added zest to them, and although Elsie was not in any way attracted
by young Leary, who was spotty and unwholesome-looking, she several
times went to a cinema with him on Saturday afternoons, and once
to a football match. After the latter entertainment, however, they
quarrelled.
Elsie had disliked the mud, the cold, the noise, the standing about and
the crowds. She had been bored by Leary’s enthusiasm, which was utterly
incomprehensible to her, and secretly annoyed because, of the multitude
of men surrounding her, not one had paid any attention to her, or to
anything but the game and the players.
“I wasn’t struck on that outing of yours,” she remarked critically to
her escort the following Monday morning. “Another time we’ll give the
football matches a miss, thank you.”
Leary’s admiration for Elsie, however, was less strong than his desire
to see a league match, and he offended her by going by himself to the
entertainment that she despised.
Elsie resented his defection less for his own sake than for that of
the excitement that she could only experience through flirtation, and
without which she found her life unbearably tedious.
She had been in the office nearly three months when Mr. Williams asked
her suddenly if she liked the work there.
“I don’t mind it,” said Elsie.
She was in reality perfectly indifferent to it, and merely went through
the day’s routine without active dislike, as without intelligence.
“Now that you are used to our ways,” said Mr. Williams deliberately,
“I think you had better remove your table into my room. The sound of
your machine will not disturb me in the least, and if clients desire a
private interview, you can retire.”
Elsie looked up, astonished, and met her employer’s eyes.
His face was impassive as ever, but there was a faint, covetous gleam
in his fish-like eyes.
Elsie, at once repelled and fascinated, gazed back at him, and felt
her heart beginning to beat faster with a nervous and yet pleasurable
anticipation.