Chapter IX: Part 9

It was time to be gone. The Latin suddenly decided to notice their existence again, brought the bill, accepted money, proffered change, swept away the tip, and then apparently threw them both into the street, where the air seemed at once remarkably pure and unusually cold. They arrived at the Colladium just at the right moment, a few minutes after the doors had been opened for the second house. The place was, as usual, besieged by a mob of pleasure seekers who all looked like demons in the red glare of the lights at the entrance. Norman led the way, a little uncertainly, and they went swarming down thick-carpeted corridors.

“Didn’t that man say ‘Round to the left and up the stairs’?” Miss Matfield asked. She had a slight headache now. Those peculiar red lights outside the Colladium look exactly like a headache, and perhaps they had inspired the burgundy. “I’m sure he did, you know.”

“I didn’t hear him,” replied Norman, not too amiably. He was somewhat fussed. “Talking to somebody else, p’raps.”

Feeling a little dubious, she followed him down the gangway on the ground floor of the auditorium, which looked as if it were recovering from a fire, there was so much smoke about. There were programme girls showing people to their seats, but you had to wait your turn and Norman, anxious to secure his two beautiful seats, would not wait his turn. He marched on, glancing at his tickets and the lettered rows of stalls, then finally found the row he wanted, and they pushed past a few people, sought and found the right numbers, and sank into their seats.

“This is all right, isn’t it?” said Norman, after breathing a sigh of relief. “Jolly good seats, eh?” He looked round triumphantly. More lights were being turned on; the orchestra was beginning to tune up again; and the place was filling rapidly. Miss Matfield’s headache retreated, dwindled to an occasional twinge.

“What about a programme?” said Norman, and began to make vague, fussy, ineffectual signs.

Then two large determined men, coarse-looking fellows with heavy jowls and cigars stuck in the corners of their insensitive mouths, came pushing down the row. They stopped when they came to Mr. Birtley and Miss Matfield. “Here, I say,” the first one called back to the programme girl, after looking at his ticket, “is this the right row?” Apparently it was, for now he turned his attention to Norman.

“I think you’re sitting in the wrong seats, my friend,” he said, not unpleasantly.

“I don’t think so,” replied Norman, rather sharply. He brought out his own tickets and gave them a reassuring glance.

“Well, I do,” said the other. He had a loud voice, the kind of voice that attracts attention. “Row F, fourteen and fifteen. Isn’t that right? Well, those are my seats, bought and paid for. Ask the girl. She sent us here.”

“I don’t see that,” said Norman stiffly. “Mine are Row F, fourteen and fifteen. And we were here first. They must have made a mistake at the box office.”

Miss Matfield had risen from her seat. People were looking round at them. If there was anything she hated, it was this stupid sort of scene.

The second large determined man, who had nothing like the amount of room to stand in his bulk demanded and deserved, now made a number of impatient noises. These noises goaded his friend into more direct action.

“Here, come on,” he said roughly, “let’s have a look at your tickets. Here are mine. Now let’s have a look at yours.” He almost snatched them out of Norman’s hand. The instant he saw them, he cried triumphantly: “There y’are. Balcony Stalls, _Bal-cony_ Stalls. These aren’t Balcony Stalls. Cor!--you’re in the wrong part of the theatre, boy, in the wrong part of the theatre.”

“Wouldjer believe it!” cried the second man contemptuously.

“Cor! Up there you want to be, right up there, boy.”

“Sorry. I didn’t know.” Poor Norman was very flustered now. Miss Matfield might have been sorry for him, but she wasn’t. She was furious. Even after they had left the seats and were pushing their way back to the gangway, the two brutes were still talking about it and laughing and making contemptuous noises. Then as she arrived, scarlet, in the gangway, she ran into a little party of three that was waiting to be shown to its place. The first was a tall man with a bristling moustache, obviously a foreigner; the second was a youngish girl, very smart and pretty; and the third, who was still interviewing the girl with the chocolates was--yes, no other--Mr. Golspie, rather flushed, very jovial. There was some congestion in this part of the gangway; they had to stop; and he looked up and saw her.

“Evening, Miss Matfield,” he said, grinning at her in his usual fashion. “So this is where we come, is it?”

She stammered something.

“Had a good day at the office? You’ll see me there to-morrow. Half a minute, Lena. Well, Miss Matfield, see you enjoy yourself. Here, take one of these.”

She found one of the boxes of chocolates in her hand. Before she could do anything or even say anything, he had given her another of his vast grins and had turned away. As she followed Norman up the gangway, most of the lights were lowered and the overture blared out. Their seats were in the first tier and by the time they found them, the curtain had risen and the stage was occupied by three very grave young men who were busy throwing one another about.

“That was a bit of a mix-up, wasn’t it?” said Norman, when they had settled themselves. “But it wasn’t really my fault. They should give their seats proper names. I’ve never heard of stalls being up here.”

“Well, you might have asked. I told you what that man said.”

“By George, so you did. Sorry! But, I say, who was that rum looking chap you were talking to down there?”

“He’s a man who’s just joined the firm I’m working with. I do his letters.”

“Didn’t he give you that box of chocolates?”

“Yes, he did. As a matter of fact, he just shoved it into my hand.”

“Funny thing to do,” Norman continued, half resentfully. “What did he want to do that for?”

“I don’t know. You’d better ask him.” She stared at the three young men, who were now climbing on to piles of chairs and tables in order to throw one another a greater distance.

“I must say I didn’t like the look of him very much.”

“That’s sad, isn’t it, Norman?” replied Miss Matfield. “Hadn’t you better call at the office to-morrow morning and tell him so? What had I better do? Get another job?”

“You don’t mean to tell me you like that chap?”

“I don’t know whether I do or not,” she told him, with perfect truth. But her voice betrayed irritation. “It doesn’t matter, anyhow. I’ll admit, though,” she added, more amiably, “that he does look a bit weird. But he’s rather amusing. Have one of his chocolates, seeing that they’re here, and don’t talk so much.”

The subject was dropped and when they talked again, as they did at odd moments throughout the performance, Mr. Golspie was not mentioned. The show itself was neither better nor worse than the others she had seen there. She liked the white-faced clown with the squeaky voice who nearly fell into the orchestra pit, and the two men who got involved in the most passionate argument all about nothing, and the Spanish dancers, and the wildly ridiculous schoolmaster. On the other hand, she did not like the American cross-talking and dancing pair, or the two girls who sang at the piano or the various acrobats and trick cyclists. Norman, who soon recovered from the ticket scene and settled down to enjoy himself, to like as much as he could of the show and to patronise the rest, was rather more human than he had been during the misery of dinner. Old Warwick was banished at last, and the dull shade of Chestervern never fell on the talk.

When they came out of the Colladium into the astonishing sanity of the night, and Norman not only suggested a taxi but actually found one, she felt she was beginning to feel friendly towards him again. And if he had said, “You know, Lilian, I _am_ rather feeble and a bit of an ass, and I know you’re marvellous and far above my style, but I’ve been in love with you a jolly long time and still am, honestly I am, worse than ever in fact, so will you marry me? I’m not doing anything very wonderful, I know, and you might easily find it dull at first down at Chestervern, but we’d have some fun and things would get better all the time”; if he had said something like that, in the proper tone of voice--rather wistful--and with a dumbly devoted look in his eyes, she felt there was no telling what she might reply. She could just see herself marrying him.

But he made no such speech, and was clearly not in that dumbly devoted mood at all. All the way home, he was vaguely sentimental--what fun they’d had in the old tennis club days and what good pals they’d been!--and was timidly amorous, like some faint-hearted Don Juan taking one home after a dance. Unluckily, Miss Matfield was not sentimental, at least not on conventional or Christmas card lines, and she heartily despised and disliked the timidly amorous male, who could not let one alone but had not passion enough, or courage, to make him risk a sound snubbing. He would slip an arm round her waist and she would tell him to take it away because it was uncomfortable, as indeed it was. And then he would say, “Ah, Lilian, you’re not very kind to me,” in a ridiculous mooing voice, like a farm hand trying to ape the artful philanderer. It was all terribly irritating. When at last, as the taxi began grinding up the last hilly half mile, she was so tired of this that she actually asked him questions about his prospects at Chestervern, dropping into the part of the cool interested woman friend with a sound business head, he turned rather sulky and answered her in a poor half-hearted fashion.

“I suppose I can get a bus back?” he said as they stood at the entrance to the Burpenfield and the taxi departed.

“Oh, yes, of course. Just at the bottom there, on the Finchley Road. They run until after twelve, and they’re much quicker at this time of night, too. You’re going back to-morrow, aren’t you?”

“Yes, on the 10.20. I suppose I’d better be getting along now. Rather cold standing here, isn’t it?”

“Well, Norman,” she said, trying to look bright and friendly and not ungrateful, “it’s been nice seeing you again. And thanks awfully for the dinner and everything. I adored that clown with the chairs, didn’t you? Good-bye.”

He shook hands. “Good-bye. I’m glad you liked it,” he muttered. “Good-bye.”

She stood in the entrance a minute or two after he had gone, fumbling for her key, and suddenly from that great ocean of deep depression which she always felt was not far away, rose in the dark a great breaker and swept her away. She could have cried. It was not Norman Birtley--he was a feeble fool who was rapidly getting worse--but the endless cheating of life itself that frightened her and stifled her. She was Lilian Matfield, Lilian Matfield, the same that had gone playing and laughing and singing and looking forward to everything only a few years ago, no different now except a little older and more sensible, and yet she felt, obscurely, darkly, that somehow she was being conjured into somebody miserably different, somebody stiff and faded and dull.

Another girl came up. Miss Matfield steadied herself, found her key, and walked in. Isabel Cadnam was just coming out of the lounge, and they met.

“Hello, Matfield. Been on the razzle? Look here, I hope you didn’t want that shawl I borrowed. I didn’t get in last night until the crack of dawn, and then I was in such a hurry this morning, I forgot about it.”

“No, it didn’t matter, thanks, Caddie. I’m going up. I’m tired.”

“So am I. Had a good night. That show that Ivor took me to last night was rather a wash-out, I must say. The most ghastly people, and millions of them. And Ivor wanted to join in with some of the ghastliest, and I didn’t, of course, and that started it all over again. Another row, my dear. Isn’t it foul?”

Miss Matfield said dispiritedly that it was.

“What did you do to-night, Matfield? Anything thrilling?”

“Not very. Rather dull, in fact. I’ve got a headache. I think I’ve eaten too many chocolates. I’ll try some aspirin.”

“Nothing like it,” said Miss Cadnam. “Look here, I’ll fetch your shawl and bring it round, and then, if you have any to spare, I’ll borrow a couple of aspirins. If I don’t take _something_, I’ll never get a wink of sleep all night. It’s always the same after I’ve had a row with Ivor. I begin _arguing_ with him the minute I get to bed, and then I go on and on all night until I think my head’s going to burst. Isn’t it foul?”

“Completely,” said Miss Matfield, opening her door. “All right, then. Hurry up with the shawl and I’ll get you the aspirin.” She closed the door behind her.

IV

It was rather queer seeing Mr. Golspie again, in the grey light of Angel Pavement, after that strange meeting at the Colladium. It was rather like seeing someone you had just met in a vivid dream. She did some letters for him the next morning, and when he had finished them, he dropped his impersonal stare and tone of voice, grinned at her, and said: “Enjoy the show last night?”

“Not very much,” she told him. “Did you?”

“No, I didn’t,” he boomed. “Dead as mutton. Not a patch on the old halls. They call it Variety now, but that’s about all the variety you get. All the same, isn’t it? I keep trying it, but it’s poor stuff. That girl of mine likes to go. She enjoys it all right. Did you see her last night? She was there with me.”

“I wondered if it was your daughter. She’s awfully pretty, isn’t she?”

“Think so?” He was pleased at this. “Well, she’s pretty enough, and knows it, the little monkey. Was that the young man, the one I saw you with?”

He really had some ghastly expressions. The young man! “Good Lord, no!” she cried. “He was just an old friend who comes from my part of the world. Shall I bring these letters in to sign as soon as I’ve done them?”

“I’d like them as soon as possible, Miss Matfield. I want to be off before lunch. I’ve got several members of the Chosen Race to see this afternoon.”

That was all. The awful “young man” question was, of course, in his favourite vein, but apart from that, he was much quieter and pleasanter than usual in this little talk. For once he had dropped the jeering and leering style that made her feel so uncomfortable. He was friendlier. And she had never thanked him for the chocolates. She would have to do that when she went back with the letters.

“Oh, Mr. Golspie,” she cried, when he had finished signing the letters, “I forgot to thank you for the lovely box of chocolates. I don’t know why you gave them to me--so suddenly, like that----”

“Just to celebrate the little meeting, that’s all,” he replied, waving a hand. “‘Here’s our Miss Matfield,’ I thought, ‘looking a bit uncomfortable because her young man’s landed in the wrong seats.’”

“Oh, did you notice that? It was a stupid business.”

“Bit of a box-up, certainly,” he said, grinning at her. “Yes, I saw you all right. You looked very annoyed, too. Anyhow, I thought something ought to be done about it.”

“Well, it was very nice of you,” she said, though she was not altogether pleased at the turn the conversation had taken.

“Ah, but I’m a very nice man,” he assured her, looking very solemn for a moment. Then he produced a short disconcerting guffaw, and waved his hand again. She turned away. “And another thing,” he called out. She stopped. “You never catch me getting into the wrong seats, you try me sometime, Miss Matfield, you just try me. You’d be surprised.” He chuckled a little as she went out. This time she felt hot and uncomfortable again, and felt ready to dislike him just as much as she had done when he first came. It was odd how uncomfortable he could make her feel. After all, she had worked for unpleasant men before to-day. But this was rather different.

Messrs. Twigg & Dersingham were now busy making what Mr. Dersingham, who was beginning to wear a look of great self-importance, called a “big drive.” He and Mr. Golspie and the two travellers were visiting as many firms as they could, showing the new stuff that Mr. Golspie had introduced and piling up the orders. Apparently, it was important that as many orders as possible should be obtained during this little period, for some reason that was not made plain to the office staff, and perhaps was not plain to anybody but Mr. Golspie. It meant a great deal of work for everybody. Miss Matfield was kept at her machine nearly all day making out lists, invoices, and advices. It was not difficult work but it was rather close work and very dreary, and it left her fagged and feeling quite unfit to plan some amusement for herself. There were plenty of mildly amusing things that could be done with a little planning, but she was too tired to bother, like so many of the girls at the Club. Going anywhere, even if it was only attending a concert or doing a theatre, always meant so much fuss and arranging that she let it all slide, not excepting the week-end. If somebody had come along with a cut and dried plan for doing something entertaining, that would have been quite different, indeed heavenly; but nobody did. She spent a good deal of her time at the Club listening to Evelyn Ansdell, who was in the thick of her preparations for the Empire tour with the Major and talked at great length about every single thing she had to buy. Evelyn was quite amusing about it, of course, but it was distinctly depressing to think that very soon she would be gone, probably for ever. On the Sunday they both went round to have tea with Major Ansdell who was quite absurd and provided them with an enormous sticky tea--bless him!--but it was really all rather sad. And on Monday and Tuesday there was quite a frantic bustle at the office. Mr. Smeeth turned himself into a faintly apologetic slave-driver, and Mr. Dersingham ran in and out like a large pink fox terrier.

The next morning they learned the reason for all this fuss. Mr. Smeeth, after visiting the private office, came back looking rather important, and said, “Mr. Golspie’s leaving us to-day.”

Every one of them looked surprised, and three of them, Miss Matfield, Turgis, and Stanley, looked either startled or disappointed.

“He’s not going for good, is he, Mr. Smeeth?” asked Turgis, before anyone else could speak.

He had spoken for Miss Matfield, who felt, she did not know why, the most acute anxiety. For some strange reason, which had certainly nothing to do with business, for at heart she did not care a rap whether Twigg & Dersingham sold all the veneers and inlays in England or drifted into bankruptcy, she hated the thought of Mr. Golspie leaving them. At one stroke it flattened the whole life of Angel Pavement.

“He’s not going for good, I’m glad to say,” Mr. Smeeth replied, enjoying their suspense. “He’s only going back for a short visit, on our business, to the place he came from, up there in the Baltic. I don’t know how long he’ll be away. He doesn’t know exactly himself yet. But he’s sailing this afternoon, going the whole way by boat on the Anglo-Baltic. And,” here Mr. Smeeth glanced out of the window at the raw damp morning, “I don’t envy him. It’ll be a cold job crossing the North Sea, this weather. I remember I once had a sail on a boat at Yarmouth one Easter, not very far out, y’know, but--my word!--it was perishing. I was glad to get back. Well, what’s it going to be like right in the middle, this time of year. I wouldn’t be paid, wouldn’t be paid, to do it.”

“I’ll bet he doesn’t care,” said Stanley boastfully. Mr. Golspie was still one of Stanley’s heroes--though nobody could discover why, except that he looked rather like a detective--and Stanley had no half measures in the heroic. “I’ll bet he likes it. I would. I wish he’d take me with him. I wouldn’t go. Oh no, oh no! Wouldn’t I just!”

“You get on with your work, Stanley,” said Mr. Smeeth mechanically. “We all know what you’d do and what you wouldn’t do. Well, he’s sailing this afternoon, all the way to the Baltic Sea, and, as I say, I don’t envy him.” And Mr. Smeeth returned, well content, to his cosy desk and his neat little rows of figures.

Half an hour afterwards, Mr. Golspie, wearing an enormous ulster, looked in on them. “You won’t see me for a week or two,” he announced cheerfully. “Keep it going. Shoulders to the wheel! Full steam ahead, as people say--though why they say it, God only knows, because nobody in a ship ever said it--doesn’t mean anything. Make ’em all pay up, Smeeth. Keep your eye on that cut rate with the Anglo-Baltic, Turgis. Just remember me in your prayers, you girls, if you do pray. Do you pray, Miss Matfield? Never mind, tell me another time. And, Stanley----”

“Yes, sir,” said Stanley, springing to attention.

“Run down and get me a taxi, sharp as you can. Good-bye, everybody.”

When they had all said good-bye, too, and he had gone and they had heard the outer door slam behind him, in the sudden quiet that followed, the whole office had appeared to shrink and darken a little. Miss Matfield, aware of this, resented it, and, compressing her lips, threw herself into what work she had on hand with a sort of grey determination, never looking up and only speaking when compelled to answer a question. By lunch time she felt so discontented that, instead of spending the usual ninepence or so at the little teashop not far away, she went further afield, to a superior place just off Cannon Street, and had cutlet and peas, apple tart and cream, and a cup of coffee, paying her half-crown manfully. After that she was more cheerful and more honest. She had been depressed because though all kinds of things seemed to be happening to other people, nothing was happening to her. It was hard luck losing Evelyn Ansdell. It was hard luck losing Mr. Golspie, if only for a week or two. She could not say yet whether she really liked the man, but at least he made Angel Pavement more amusing. It would be terribly flat now without him. Everything, it seemed, was sinking into dullness. Well, she must make an effort and think of something amusing to do. When she returned to the office, quarter of an hour late, as usual, she was cheerful and comparatively friendly with everybody.

Perhaps the little gods who look after these minor affairs decided that she must be encouraged, for at once they found something amusing for her to do. Shortly after three, Mr. Smeeth took a telephone message and then called Miss Matfield to him.

“That was Mr. Golspie, Miss Matfield,” he began, in his pleasantly fussy and important way. “He says they’re sailing later than he thought, about five or so, and he wants you to go down to the ship and take down a few important letters he’s just remembered about. And you’ve also got to take that sample book--it’s in the private office--he forgot it. I haven’t got Mr. Dersingham’s permission for you to go, and I can’t get it, because he’s out, but of course it’s all right. I accept all responsibility. You don’t mind going, do you?”

“I’d love it,” cried Miss Matfield. “But where exactly do I go?” Mr. Smeeth adjusted his eyeglasses and then examined the slip of paper he had been carrying. “You go to Hay’s Wharf, that’s on the south side of the river between London Bridge and the Tower Bridge, you go over London Bridge and turn straight to the left to get there. And the ship’s the _L-e-m-m-a-l-a, Lemmala_. Can you remember that, Miss Matfield? And he says, ‘Take a taxi,’ so I’d better give you half a crown out of the petty cash for that--I’ll have to put it down as travelling expenses. Now you get your notebook and pencil and your things on, and I’ll get that sample book out of the private office for you. It’ll be a little jaunt for you, something out of the common, won’t it? Stanley’d give his ears to go, wouldn’t you, Stanley? Oh, he’s not there. Where is that lad?”

Yes, it was a little jaunt for her. It was great fun. First, Moorgate Street, the Bank, then King William Street, went rattling past the taxi window; then came London Bridge, with leaden gleams of the river far below on either side; then a slow progress along a narrow street on the other side, a turn to the left up a street still narrower, a mere passage, at the end of which the taxi had to stop altogether. She dodged up another dark lane, asked a pleasant large policeman if she was going the right way, and finally found herself at the water’s edge, where men were busy loading and running about with papers and shouting to one another. There, about fifty yards further down, was the _Lemmala_, a steamship with one tall thin funnel, not very large and rather dingy but nevertheless a fine romantic sight. A flag she had never seen before drooped from its little mast. As she drew nearer, she heard some of the men shouting down from the deck, and they were speaking in a language she had never heard before, a tremendously foreign language. Up to that moment, business had been for her an affair of clerks and desks and telephones and stupid letters that always began and ended in the same dull way, but now, in a flash, she suddenly realised that it was all very romantic. It was as if Mr. Dersingham had stalked into the office in Elizabethan costume. The wood they sold in Angel Pavement came in boats like this, indeed in this very ship, and at the other end, where the veneers began, there was quite a different sort of life going on, huge forests, thick snow and frosts all winter, wolves on the prowl, bearded men wearing high boots, women in strange bright shawls, scenes out of the Russian Ballet. Miss Matfield, like most members of the English middle classes, was incurably romantic at heart, and now she was genuinely thrilled, and could hardly have been more astonished and delighted if a few nightingales had suddenly burst into song in one of the dark archways. London was really marvellous, and the wonder of it rushed up in her mind and burst there like a rocket, scattering a multi-coloured host of vague but rich associations, a glittering jumble of history and nonsense and poetry, Dick Whittington and galleons, Muscovy and Cathay, East Indiamen, the doldrums far away, and the Pool of London, lapping here only a stone’s throw from the shops and offices and buses.

She had arrived now at the foot of a gangway that came down steeply from the rusty side of the _Lemmala_. She looked up, hesitating. Somebody was calling. It was Mr. Golspie above, and he was waving her up. When she reached the head of the gangway he was there, waiting for her.

“We’ve a couple of hours at least before she moves,” he explained, piloting her along the deck, then up a short flight of stairs to the deck above, “but I shan’t keep you so long, y’know. Awkward if she moved off and you were still aboard, eh? Have to take a trip then, eh?”

“I don’t know that I’d mind very much,” she told him, looking about her on the upper deck. “It would be rather amusing.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t have a bad time at all, so long as you weren’t seasick. These fellows here would make a great fuss of you, I can tell you.”

“Well, that would be rather a nice change.”

“Would it now?” He grinned. “Well, we won’t kidnap you this time. We’ll go in here.” And he led the way into a little saloon, quite neat and cheerful. On the table, which was covered with a hideously bright cloth, were some cigars, a mysterious tall bottle of a shape she had never seen before, and several small glasses. Some newspapers and illustrated papers, printed in fantastic characters, were scattered about, and these helped more than anything else, unless it was the tall bottle, to make it all seem very foreign. Yet through the windows at each side she could see the roofs and spires, the familiar smoky mass, of London.

“Ah, I’d better look after that sample book,” said Mr. Golspie. “Now then, you sit down there, Miss Matfield, with your notebook.”

She sat down and tried to pull the chair nearer to the table, but of course it would not move, or at least would only swing round. She was forgetting that she was on board a ship. It was all very odd and delightful.

The letters were not difficult and were all more or less alike, and in half an hour they had done. Once or twice, while they were at work, various faces, foreign faces, had peeped in at them, had nodded, smiled, and then disappeared. The only other interruptions were occasional shouts and hootings outside.

“I think that’s all,” said Mr. Golspie, lighting a cigar and pouring himself out a drink from the tall bottle. “But just you read through what you’ve done while I try to think if there’s anything else. There’s plenty of time. D’you smoke? That’s right. Well, have a cigarette. Here, have one of these.” And he threw over a very fancy cardboard box, from which she took a long cigarette that was half stiff paper, like a Russian. It was a fine romantic cigarette and she enjoyed it.

“Can’t think of anything else,” said Mr. Golspie, puffing out a cloud of smoke. “Just run through that lot quickly, will you?” She did, and there was only one change to be made. “I’ll sign some sheets now for you,” he continued, “and then you can take ’em back with you to the office. I brought plenty of the firm’s stationery with me. Always do, wherever I am. That’s the worst of being on your own. Have to buy your own stationery. It’s a thing I hate doing. Funny, isn’t it? I’d spend money like water on all sorts of silly rubbish and never turn a hair, but I hate spending money on paper. Expect you’re the same, aren’t you, about something?”

“Pencils,” replied Miss Matfield promptly. “I loathe and detest having to buy pencils. If I can’t borrow or steal one, and actually have to go to a shop and pay money for one of the wretched things, I simply hate it.”

“Ah, we’re all a queer lot, even the best-looking of us,” Mr. Golspie ruminated while he signed the blank sheets. “We’re all both crooks and old washerwomen rolled into one, though I expect you’ll tell me that _you_ aren’t, eh?”

“No, I shan’t. I know exactly what you mean.”

If they were on the very edge of a pleasant sympathetic talk, as it appeared at that moment, then Mr. Golspie only yanked them miles away at one swoop with his next remark. “Well, if you do,” he said, “you know more than I do. And that’s a nuisance.” He looked up, having finished with the sheets. “Here, you’re shivering.”

“Am I? I didn’t know I was. But I am rather cold now,” she admitted. She was still wearing her thick coat, but the little saloon was not warmed and there was a nipping air along the river.

“You’ve finished here now,” said Mr. Golspie, looking at her, “but if you’ll take my tip you won’t go like that, you’ll have a drink of something to warm you up first. Might get a cold before you could say ‘knife.’”

This was Mr. Golspie in a new and unsuspected vein. She could have laughed in his face.

“If the steward’s about,” he continued, “I could get some tea for you. These people aren’t great on tea but they can make it all right. Or coffee, if you’d rather have that. It just depends if he’s handy.” He got up, passing the signed sheets to her.

“Oh, don’t bother, Mr. Golspie. They’re probably all frightfully busy now, and I’d rather not, thanks. I can get some tea on my way back to the office.”

“Well, you must have something. You can’t leave the ship shivering like that. Have some of this stuff,” and he pointed to the tall bottle. “It’ll warm you up. I’m going to have some. You join me.” He poured out two small glasses of the colourless liquor.

“Shall I? What is it?”

“Vodka. It’s the favourite tipple in these ships.”

Vodka! She picked up the glass and put her nose to it. She had never tasted vodka before, never remembered ever having seen it before, but of course it was richly associated with her memories of romantic fiction of various kinds, and was tremendously thrilling, the final completing thrill of the afternoon’s adventure. At once she could hear herself bringing the vodka into her account of the adventure at the Club. “And then, my dear,” it would run, “I was given some vodka. There I was, in the cabin, swilling vodka like mad. Marvellous!”

“Come along, Miss Matfield,” said Mr. Golspie, looking at her over his raised glass. “Down it goes. Happy days!” And he emptied his glass with one turn of the wrist.

“All right,” she cried, raising hers. “What do I say? Cheerio?” Boldly she drained her glass, too, in one gulp. For a second or so nothing happened but a curious aniseedy taste as the liquor slipped over her palate, but then, suddenly, it was as if an incendiary bomb had burst in her throat and sent white fire racing down every channel of her body. She gasped, laughed, coughed, all at once.

“That’s the way, Miss Matfield. You put it down in great style. Try another. I’m going to have one. Just another for good luck.” He filled the glasses again.

She floated easily now on a warm tide. It was very pleasant. She took the glass, hesitated, then looked up at him. “I’m not going to be tight, am I? If you make me drunk I shan’t be able to type your letters, you know.”

“Don’t you worry about that,” he told her, grinning amiably and then patting her shoulder. “You couldn’t be soused on two glasses of this stuff, and you’ll be as sober as a judge by the time you get back to Angel Pavement. It’ll just make you feel warm and comfortable, and keep the cold out. Now then. Here she goes.”

“Happy days!” cried Miss Matfield, smiling at him, and once more there came the aniseedy taste, the incendiary bomb, the racing white fire, and the final warm tide.

“Now I like you, Miss Matfield,” he told her, with a full stare of approval. “That was done in real style, like a good sport. You’ve got some character, not like most of these pink little ninnies of girls you see here. I noticed that right at the start. I said to myself, ‘That girl’s not only got looks, but she’s got character, too.’ I wish you were coming with us.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, it’s a real compliment. Though I don’t know that you’d like it. It’ll be perishingly cold, and by to-morrow she’ll be rolling like the devil all the way across the North Sea, and she’ll start rolling again when we get into the Baltic. I know her of old. How d’you feel now?”

“Marvellous!” And she did. She rose and gathered her things together. “Not too sober, though.”

When they went out on to the upper deck, she stopped and looked down the river. Daylight had dwindled to a faint silver above and an occasional cold gleam on the water, and at any other time she would probably have been depressed or half frightened by the leaden swell of the river itself, the uncertain lights beyond, and the melancholy hooting, but now it all seemed wonderfully mysterious and romantic. For a minute or so, she lost herself in it. She was quite happy and yet she felt close to tears. It was probably the vodka.

“Sort of hypnotises you, doesn’t it?” said Mr. Golspie gruffly, at her elbow.

“It does, doesn’t it?” she said softly. At that moment, she decided that she liked Mr. Golspie and that he was an unusual and fascinating man. She also felt that she herself was fascinating, really rather wonderful. Then she gave a quick shiver.

“Hello, you’re not starting again?” he said, humorous but concerned too, and he took hold of her arm and drew her closer to his side. They stayed like that for a few moments. She did not mind being there. All that she felt was a sudden sense of warmth and safety.

She stepped aside, and announced that she must go. He made no effort to detain her, said nothing, but simply led the way back to the lower deck and the gangway. There he stopped and held out his hand.

“Very pleased to have met you, Miss Matfield,” he said, taking her hand and, for once, smiling rather than grinning.

“I hope you have a good trip, Mr. Golspie,” she told him hurriedly, “and it isn’t too cold and the crossing isn’t too bad.” Then, without knowing why, she added: “And don’t forget to come back.”

He gave a sudden deep laugh. “Not I. You’ll be seeing me again soon. I’ll be back in Angel Pavement before you can turn round.” And he gave her hand a huge squeeze, then released it.

She turned round once and waved, though it was almost impossible to see if he was still there, then hurried down the narrow lane, which brought her gradually back into the ordinary world. By the time she crossed London Bridge again and looked through the bus window, there was hardly anything to be seen of that other world, only a glimmer of lights. By the time she was back at her table, holding her notebook up to the nearest shaded electric light, that other world was infinitely remote and might never have existed outside a daydream in the November dusk. Yet there, on the very paper she slipped behind the typewriter roller, was the sign that it was there, the sprawling _J. Golspie_ of the signature. And it was queer now to think that he would be coming back, returning from his tall bottle and rolling ship and the snow and forests of the Baltic place, to walk through that swing door there, not a yard from Smeeth’s elbow. It was queer and it was also rather exciting, which was more than could be said of the 13 bus and the lounge at the Burpenfield and her room there and the aspirin and the hot water. She sent the typewriter carriage flying along. It gave a sharp _ping_.

_Chapter Six_: MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE

I

Mr. Smeeth was happier than he had been for some time. The shadow of dismissal, unemployment, degradation, ruin, had gone, except in occasional dreams, when, after a bit of fried liver or toasted cheese had refused to be digested, he had found himself out of a job for ever and walking down vague dark streets with nothing on but his vest and pants. It had vanished from his waking hours. The firm had not only staved off bankruptcy, but it was doing a brisk trade--you might almost call it a roaring trade--in these new Baltic veneers and inlays. This meant that Mr. Smeeth had more and more columns of neat little figures to enter and then add up, and that no matter how hard he worked during the day he had to put in an extra half hour or so with the ledger and day books in the evening. He did not mind that, though sometimes when it was nearer seven than six and the electric light above his desk had been burning half the day and any real air there might have been in Angel Pavement during the morning had been used over and over again, well, he did find himself with a bit of a headache. Once or twice too he had that nasty little ticking sensation somewhere in his inside, but it never went on long, so he never said anything about it to anybody. If he had mentioned it to his wife, she would have dosed him with half a dozen different patent medicines and would have rushed out for half a dozen more. She did not care for doctors, but she loved patent medicines and would try one after another, not as an attempt to cure some definite ailment, for she could not claim to have one, but simply in the hope that there would be some mysterious magic in the bottle. Mrs. Smeeth called at the chemist’s in the same spirit in which she called on her fortune-telling friends. Mr. Smeeth was sceptical about both, though not so sceptical as he imagined himself to be.

Occasional little pains, however, were nothing compared with the relief of seeing the firm busy again. There had been times when he had almost hated going to the bank, for he felt that even the cashiers were telling one another that Twigg & Dersingham were looking pretty rocky, but now it was a pleasure again. “Just going round to the bank, Turgis,” he would say, trying not to sound too important. (Not that it mattered with Turgis, who really thought Mr. Smeeth _was_ important. But once or twice, when he had said something like this, he had caught a certain look, a kind of gleam, in Miss Matfield’s eye. With that young madam you never knew.) Then he would button up his old brown overcoat, which had lasted very well but would have to be replaced as soon as he got a rise, put on his hat, fill his pipe as he went down the steps, stop and light it outside the _Kwik-Work Razor Blade_ place, and then march cosily with it down the chilled and smoky length of Angel Pavement. Everywhere there would be a bustle and a jostling, with the roadway a bedlam of hooting and clanging and grinding gears, but he had his place in it all, his work to do, his position to occupy, and so he did not mind but turned on it a friendly eye and indulgent ear. The bank, secure in its marble and mahogany, would shut out the raw day and the raw sounds, and he would quietly, comfortably wait his turn, sending an occasional jet of fragrant _T. Benenden_ towards the ornamental grill. “Morning, Mr. Smeeth,” they would say. “A bit nippy, this morning. How are things with you?” And then, if there was time for it, one of them might have a little story to tell, about one of those queer things that happen in the City. Then back again in the office, at his desk, and very cosy it was after the streets. The very sight of the blue ink, the red ink, the pencils and pens, the rubber, the paper fasteners, the pad and rubber stamps, all the paraphernalia of his desk, all there in their places, at his service, gave him a feeling of deep satisfaction. He felt dimly too that this was a satisfaction that none of the others there, Turgis, the girls, young Stanley, would ever know, simply because they never came to work in the right spirit. His own two children were just the same. They were all alike now. Earn a bit, grab it, rush out and spend it, that was their lives.

“And it beats me, Mr. Dersingham,” he said to that gentleman, one morning, “who is going to be responsible in this lot, when the time comes. And the time must come, mustn’t it? I mean, they can’t be young and careless all their lives.”

“Don’t you worry, Smeeth. They’ll all settle down,” replied Mr. Dersingham, who felt that he stood between these two different generations, and also felt that anyhow he knew a lot more about everything than Smeeth. “I can remember the time, and not so long ago, when I felt just the same,” he continued, evidently under the impression that he was now a tremendously responsible person. “When the time comes, we take the responsibility all right. That’s the English way, you know, Smeeth.”

“I hope that is so, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth doubtfully, “but this new lot does seem different, I must say. I know from my own two. Anything for tuppence, that’s their style, and let next week look after itself. It frightens me to hear them talk, though I say their mother’s always been a bit like that and they may have got it from her.”

Both George and Edna, however, unsatisfactory as their general outlook might be, seemed to be going on all right just then, and this too was a great source of pleasure to Mr. Smeeth, who saw them--and had seen them ever since they were babies--surrounded by snares and pitfalls without number. He had to worry for two, for their mother never seemed to worry about them or anything else, for all her fortune tellings and bottles from the chemist’s, and to listen to her, you might think life was a fairy tale. To Mr. Smeeth--though he did not say so--life was a journey, unarmed and without guide or compass, through a jungle where poisonous snakes were lurking and man-eating tigers might spring out of every thicket. Only when he saw a little clear space in front of him could he be easy in mind. His was a naturally apprehensive nature, and in a religious age he would never have overlooked the least comforting observance. But he did not live in a religious age, and he had no faith of his own. In his universe, the gods had been banished but not the devils. He saw clearly enough all the signs and marks of evil in the world, having a mind that could foreshadow every stroke of malice out of the dark, and so was surrounded by demons that he was powerless either to placate or to vanquish. If, desiring as he did to be honest, decent, kind, good and happy, his courage failed, he could call upon nobody, nothing--but the police. Thus he lived, this man who went so cosily from his little house to his little office, more apprehensively, more dangerously, than one of Edward the Third’s bowmen. He touched wood, and desperately hoped for the best. Just now, it seemed to be arriving. He was happier than he had been for some time.

II

The morning after Mr. Golspie’s departure, two things happened to Mr. Smeeth. The first seemed of little importance at the time, though afterwards he remembered it only too well. George rang up from his garage, with a message from his mother. “She’s here now, only she doesn’t fancy herself at the phone,” said George. “So I’ve got to give you the message. This is it. Do you remember hearing her talk about her cousin, Fred Mitty? Well, he’s here in London with his wife. She’s just had a letter from them, and they want her to go round and see them to-night, somewhere Islington way. She didn’t think you’d want to go.”

“No, I don’t want to go,” Mr. Smeeth told him. “But that’s all right.”

“Yes, I know it is,” said George, “but the point is this. She’s going there to tea, and she’ll be gone some time before you get home. What she wants to know is this, has she to leave something for you, she says, or will you have your tea out somewhere and amuse yourself for once----”

“Now then, George,” his father cried down the telephone sharply, “that’s enough of that.”

“I’m only telling you what she says,” George’s voice explained. “Keep cool, Dad. Nothing to do with me. You can either have your tea out and amuse yourself----”

“I don’t want to amuse myself. As I’ve told some of you before,” he added rather grimly, “I like a quiet life.”

“All right then, she can leave something for you. You’ll only have to warm it up yourself. I shan’t be in and Edna won’t be either.”

“Here, all right,” said Mr. Smeeth, who was not fond of warming things up for himself. “I’ll stop out for once. Tell your mother that’s all right. And tell her I hope she enjoys herself with Mr. Mitty.”

He had heard his wife talk about her cousin, Fred Mitty--she was rather given to talking about her relations--but he had never met him. Mitty had been living in one of the big provincial towns, Birmingham or Manchester, for the last few years. He could have stopped there, for all Mr. Smeeth cared. However, his wife would enjoy herself. She liked nothing better than going out for the evening and having a good old gas with somebody fairly lively, and Mr. Smeeth remembered now that Fred Mitty--what a name!--was supposed to be very lively, one of the dashing members of his wife’s family, the chief comedian at all the weddings, and all the funerals, too, for that matter. So long as Mrs. Smeeth’s lot could all get together and eat and drink and gas and kiss one another, they didn’t much care whether they were marrying them or burying them. The Smeeths, what was left of them, were different. When they met, it meant business. Four of them had not spoken to one another for ten years, all because of two cottage houses in Highbury. His wife’s lot would have sold the pair and eaten and drunk away the proceeds in less than a week.

“But it wouldn’t do for us all to be alike, would it, young lady?” he cried, almost gaily, to Miss Poppy Sellers, who came up to him at that moment with some invoices she had just typed.

“That’s what my dad’s always saying, Mr. Smeeth,” she replied in her own queer fashion, half perky half shy. “And my mother always says, ‘Well, you might try a bit anyway.’”

“And what does she mean by that?” asked Mr. Smeeth, amused.

Miss Sellers shook her dark little head. “I might be able to give a guess, and then again I mightn’t. I’ve done all these, Mr. Smeeth. Are they all right?”

“Well, now, let’s have a look,” he said, adjusting his eyeglasses. “I might be able to tell you--and then again I mightn’t.”

She laughed. She was a nice little thing, even though Turgis had kept on grumbling about her. But he had not grumbled so much lately. He had not done anything much lately, except get on with his work--he had done that all right--and then sit mooning. The only time he looked lively and brisk and up-to-the-minute was when Mr. Golspie came in and asked him to do something. A queer lad, Turgis. But he was beginning to smarten himself up a bit, that was something; he had taken to brushing his hair and his clothes and changing his collars a little more often; and about time too. Mr. Smeeth shot a glance at him over his glasses, then read through the invoices.

“Please, Mr. Smeeth,” said Stanley, returning from the private office, “Mr. Dersingham wants to see you.”

And this was the second thing that happened that morning, this little interview with Mr. Dersingham.

“What I feel, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, after a few preliminaries, “is that you’ve been doing your bit for the firm, and the firm now ought to do its bit for you. You’ve had a good deal of extra work lately, haven’t you, just as we all have?”

“I have, Mr. Dersingham. It’s been a very busy time for me--and I’m glad to say so, sir.”