Chapter XIII: Part 13

Fortunately, both for him and for Twigg & Dersingham, he was not very busy that afternoon. Otherwise, he might have muddled every consignment of veneers and inlays, and so confused the whole trade that it might not have recovered for a fortnight. The disadvantage of pinning your whole afternoon on a possible telephone call in an office is that the telephone is ringing every few minutes and you are for ever on the jump. Up to three-thirty, Turgis was comparatively calm; from three-thirty to four, he was on the tiptoe of expectation; from four to four-fifteen he was desperate; from four-fifteen to four-thirty he was swaying on the brink of a vast abyss of misery, only to be plucked back by every ring of the bell and then hurled forward again by each unwelcome voice (“And if you ask me,” said the girl at Brown & Gorstein’s, after making one of these calls, “I think it’s time Twigg and Dersinghams just veneered a few manners on. The way they snap your head off!”); and, at four-thirty-five he was sitting staring at a desk in hell, all hope gone, and at four-forty-five he was breathing heavily down a telephone receiver in heaven. Yes, she had got the tickets and would he meet her just inside the entrance to the Colladium at twenty-five past six.

Even now, there was no peace for him. The instant he had put down the receiver he had realized that it would not be easy for him to be at the Colladium at twenty-five past six. Sometimes they did not finish until nearly that time, and indeed, on really busy nights, it was often considerably later. He had to get from Angel Pavement to the Colladium, and if possible he had to have some tea.

“What time do you think we’ll be finishing to-night, Mr. Smeeth?” he enquired respectfully.

Mr. Smeeth looked up from his neat little wonderland of figures. “Oh, I dunno, Turgis. Just after six, I suppose. Why, have you got something special on?”

“I’ve got to be up in the West End at twenty-five past six,” said Turgis. (“And if you knew who I’m going to meet, Smeethy, old man, you’d have a fit.”) Then he thought for a moment. “Would you mind if I sent Stanley out for some tea for me, Mr. Smeeth?”

“Well, as long as you do it now, before he’s busy copying the letters, it’ll be all right.”

So Stanley was dispatched to the Pavement Dining Rooms for one pot of tea, one buttered teacake, and a bun--total eightpence. “And do I keep the change?” asked Stanley, who had been given a shilling.

“I should think you don’t, my lad!” cried Turgis, whose finances were now in a desperate state. The pictures last night had left him with three and threepence; the bus going home had cost him twopence; lunch had been ninepence (it cost him nothing travelling to the office because he had a pass on the Underground); and now, after paying out this eightpence, he would be left with one and eight. On that one and eight, he would have to travel to the Colladium and get home afterwards, and then exist all the next day, Friday. And he had only two cigarettes left. If Lena wanted anything in the Colladium--and he could imagine her asking for chocolates and cigarettes and ices--he was in a hole.

He got away at five minutes past six, after having a very thorough wash-and-brush-up in the little office lavatory, hurled himself into the flood of west-bound travellers, and arrived, breathless and triumphant, under the red glare of the Colladium entrance exactly on time. He had ten minutes in which to cool off before Miss Golspie appeared, wearing a handsome coat with a huge fur collar and cuffs and looking so rich and beautiful that he was almost too shy to talk to her. Their seats were down at the front--Turgis had never sat in such seats before--and it would all have been perfect if it had not been for two little incidents. The first occurred when Lena, during the second turn, a silent juggling affair, announced that she would like some chocolates. “Can you get hold of that girl there,” she said. “She always has some nice boxes.”

Nice boxes! “How much are they?” he asked her, miserably.

“Well, you are a mean pig! How much are they? I like that, and after I’ve paid for the seats, too!”

“I’m sorry,” he stammered, “but--you see--I’ve only got one and sixpence.” He had paid tuppence on the bus, getting there.

“One and six!” Lena laughed. It was not an unfriendly laugh, but it was not a very sympathetic one either. “That’s worse than I was, before you brought that money, yesterday. It doesn’t matter, though. I don’t know that I do want any chocolates. But would you spend your wonderful one and six if I asked you to?”

“Yes, I would. Of course I would. If I’d,” he added, as the curtains swept down on the smiling jugglers, “if I’d hundreds and hundreds of pounds, I’d spend them all if you asked me to. I would, honestly.”

“Oh, it’s easy to say that,” said Lena, not displeased, however, at his fervent tone. She gave him a brilliant glance, and no doubt remarked that his face was flushed and his eyes were at once hot and moist, as if he stared through a steam of embarrassed adoration.

Unfortunately, not all her brilliant glances were reserved for him, and that fact formed the basis of the second disturbing incident. There was a young man, a rather tall handsome chap with wavy hair, who was sitting with a girl in the row in front of them and a little to their right. Turgis had noticed that this fellow was turning round a good deal whenever the lights went up and that every time he did so his glance always came to rest finally on Lena. After this had happened several times he noticed that she was returning this glance. At last, during the interval, he caught her smiling, yes, actually smiling, at the chap. Instantly, he felt miserable, then angry, then miserable again.

He could stand it no longer. “Do you know that chap there?” he asked, trying to appear light and easy.

“Which one? What are you talking about?”

“Well, you keep smiling at him--I mean, that one there, the chap who’s just had a permanent wave, by the look of him.”

“Oh, the one who keeps looking round. He seems to think he knows me, doesn’t he? He’s rather attractive, as a matter of fact.”

“Well, I suppose as long as you think so, it’s all right, isn’t it?” said Turgis bitterly. He could feel a pain, a real pain, as bad as toothache, somewhere inside him. “He doesn’t attract me,” he mumbled. “If you ask me, he looks a rotten twister--bit of a crook or something.” But in his heart he knew that the chap was taller and stronger and better-looking and better-dressed and altogether more important than he was, and he could have killed him for it.

“He doesn’t at all,” said Lena. Then she laughed and made a face at him. “You’re jealous, that’s all. And you oughtn’t to be jealous, it isn’t nice. I’ll smile at him again now. I think he’s lovely.”

When she said that and looked so determinedly in that fellow’s direction, Turgis was filled with a desire to take hold of her there and then, dig his nails into her soft flesh, and hurt her until she screamed. He was suddenly shaken with the force of this desire, which was like nothing he had known before. But at that moment this little game of glancing and smiling came to an end, and the person who put a stop to it was the girl with the other man. She turned round too--and good luck to her, thought Turgis--then frowned and said something to her companion, and after that there was no more turning round and Lena divided her attention between the stage and Turgis, who was left in a queer state of mind and body.

“You can come and have some supper again, if you like,” said Lena, when it was all over. “The maid wanted to go out again, so I said she could, and if you’d like to come and help me again, you can.”

“I should think I would like to,” he cried enthusiastically. “And I’m sorry if I was silly--y’know, in there.”

“Jealous boy,” she said, smiling. “That’s what you are, aren’t you? Oh, it’s cold out here, isn’t it. Let’s get a taxi. Oh, never mind about your precious one and six--I’ll pay. I want to get home quick, out of the cold. Come on. Stop that one, there.”

Turgis had only been in a taxi once before in all his life. As he sat close to Lena in the dark leathery interior and saw the familiar crowded streets go reeling past the window, this effortless journeying seemed magical. They were in Maida Vale in no time. It made life seem at once wonderfully rich and simple. When they entered the house, they heard a tremendous babble of talk coming from the lower flat. It sounded as if that fantastic old foreign woman had summoned all her relations and friends and all their friends and relations to discuss her “troble.” In the room above, there appeared to be even more cushions, gramophone records, boxes and bottles than there were the day before. Once more, Lena mixed some cocktails, and Turgis encountered the queer flavour, sweet at first, then slightly bitter, and ending with a sudden glow. Once more, he had a second and bigger one, and found everything enlarged, including himself. Once more, they sat down to supper at the little table in front of the fire, though this time there was more luxurious food and it all seemed to come out of little cardboard containers. They were very friendly over the cocktails and the food, and Lena, dressed in bright green, a colour that seemed to throw her red-gold hair and light brown eyes, her scarlet mouth and white neck, into brilliant relief, was lovelier than ever. It was wonderful.

“Do you know Mrs. Dersingham?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “She came to the office once, and I just saw her, that’s all.”

“She’s not as pretty as I am, is she? Or do you think she is?”

“Pretty as you!” Turgis gave a gasp, and meant it. “Why, there’s no comparison. She’s just ordinary--and you’re lovely. Yes, you are, really.”

“You don’t mean it. You’re just teasing me.”

“I’m not,” he said, solemnly. Teasing her indeed! A fat chance he would ever have of teasing _her_. “I’ve never known any girl as pretty as you--never seen one--in all my life before--and I never shall, never, never.”

She rewarded him with a smile. Then she frowned. “I don’t like Mrs. Dersingham. I met her once. I loathe her. She’s a snob and a rotten cat.”

“Is she?” Turgis didn’t care what Mrs. Dersingham was.

“Yes, she is. I hate her. My father doesn’t like her either. He doesn’t like Mr. Dersingham much either. He thinks he’s a fool.”

“I don’t think he’s a bad chap though,” said Turgis thoughtfully. “I’ve never really had much to do with him. But I don’t believe he’s much good at business. I know the business was in a rotten state just before your father came. Good job for us he did come. I don’t pretend to know much about it, but I do know that. Mr. Golspie’s clever, isn’t he?”

She nodded. “He’s always making a lot of money, but he usually spends it all or loses it in some mad scheme. He hates staying in one place long, and if it wasn’t for that, he could have made a lot more money and been really rich. But he doesn’t care about that. When he wrote to tell me he was coming to London, he said I’d have to come, too, because he was going to stay a long time and make a proper home for us, but now he’s here, he says he doesn’t like London, and he’s going away again soon.”

“Is he?” Turgis stared at her. “What--how do you mean ‘soon’?”

“Oh, quite soon,” she replied carelessly. Then she remembered something. “Look here, I may be wrong, though. And you mustn’t say anything to anybody, will you? Promise you won’t.”

“All right, I won’t. But if he went,” Turgis continued, regarding her earnestly, “would you go too?”

“Oh, that’s it, is it?”

“Yes, it is. You wouldn’t be going, would you?”

“I might--pass me a cigarette, will you?--and then again, I might not. It all depends. But, look here, if my father knew I’d been saying anything, he’d be furious, and though he usually lets me have my own way, when he’s really furious, he’s hellish, I can tell you.”

“I’ll bet he is,” said Turgis, who had never had any doubts about that. “I wouldn’t like to see him in a temper.”

“What a dreary depressing conversation!” she cried, getting up. “Let’s have another drink. Have you ever been tight? I expect you have. I got tight once or twice in Paris, with some Americans. We were drinking champagne and liqueurs all night. I fell on the floor once and rolled under a table and went to sleep for hours and hours. Shove the gramophone on, with something decent on. Then come and have this drink and I’ll see if you can dance yet.”

They did not dance long, however, for Lena announced that she was too tired and that he was too clumsy. She turned off one of the two shaded lights and went and stood by the fire. He joined her there, standing quite close, trembling a little. He put his arm round her tentatively and when she did not move away, he tightened it. She half turned so that she was lightly pressing against him, and then she lifted her glamorous face, looked at him with huge mysterious eyes, raised her lips to within an inch or two of his, and whispered, “Wouldn’t you like to kiss me?”

“Yes,” and he made a quick movement.

But she was quicker still, and in a second had broken away from him and was laughing. “Well, you can’t then--unless you say you adore me and are madly in love with me and that I’m the most wonderful person you’ve ever met and that you’ll do anything in the world I ask. Now then.”

“But you are. Oh, you are,” he stammered, all his heart trying to break through. “I’ve thought that ever since I saw you that day in the office. I’ve never thought about anything else. I used to come and stand outside this house, hoping to see you again, just to look at you.”

“You didn’t.” There was a faint suggestion of giggling in her voice. “You didn’t.”

“Yes, I did. Lots of nights. I did, really. Oh, Lena----”

“Oh, funny boy!” she cried, mocking him. “Well, you can kiss me--if you can catch me.”

And she dodged behind enormous armchairs and round the various tables and he went almost blindly after her, until at last she darted across to the big deep sofa thing, and there sank down among the cushions. “No, no,” she cried, laughing and breathless, as he came up, “you didn’t catch me.”

But now he bent over her, clasped her fiercely in his arms, and kissed her hard. When he drew back, she began laughing and protesting again, but in another minute her arms were about his neck and her body was crushed against his and they were kissing again. After a few minutes of this, she pushed him away and sat up, but she gave him her hand and he knelt there, holding it, with great roaring tides sounding in his ears.

“And now you’ve got to behave yourself,” she said, strangely calm.

“Yes,” he said humbly, looking up at her. If she had spoken kindly to him then he would have cried.

She smiled at him, and then, leaning forward, rubbed his cheek gently with her other hand. She brought her face nearer his, so that her mouth flamed again in his misty sight, but as he raised his head, she retreated, until at last he sprang up and clasped her to him as fiercely as before, and they were kissing again. For an hour she kept him swaying and lunging and beating about in this wild dark tide, and sometimes he was only gripping her hand and pressing it to his cheek and at other times she was completely in his arms for a few moments, answering his drive of passion with sudden bright flares of her own. And then, strangely calm again, she told him he must go.

Dazed and aching, he leaned against the back of a chair and stared at her with hot pricking eyes.

She looked at herself in the mirror above the fireplace, humming a little dance tune. Then she turned round, met his stare with a slight frown, and pointed out again that he really must go.

He wanted to say all manner of wonderful things to her, but could not find words for them. He tried to put them into the look he gave her. “Can I see you to-morrow?” he said at last.

“Mmmm?” She pretended to look very thoughtful. “Well, perhaps. What do you want to do?”

“I don’t mind what it is so long as I’m with you,” he assured her, trying to smile, but finding his face all stiff, so stiff that a smile would crack it. “What would you like to do? Can’t I take you somewhere?”

“Yes. I’ll tell you what. I’d like to see that Ronald Mawlborough talkie, that new one, you know--where is it? at the Sovereign. Isn’t that it--the Sovereign? I believe it’s terribly crowded, so you’d have to book seats.”

“I’ll do that if you’ll only come,” said Turgis stoutly.

“All right. We’ll go there, then. And you get the seats, don’t forget.”

“I shan’t forget. What time?”

“Let me see. Oh, I’ll meet you just outside at quarter to eight. I believe that’s just before the Ronald Mawlborough picture starts, because I looked it up in the paper, this morning.”

“Quarter to eight. All right then. And--I say--Lena----”

But she pointed to his hat and coat, and when he had got them on she took his arm and led him to the door. “You can tell me all that to-morrow. But just tell me this. Am I nice?”

“Oh, Lena--you’re the most marvellous girl--oh, I don’t know what to say----”

“Don’t you, dar-ling?” she replied, laughing at him. She came very close, held up her mouth, drew it back suddenly, laughed again, but finally allowed herself to be kissed.

Turgis was still dazed, still aching, still hot and pricking about the eyes, as he went out into the street and turned to have a last look at the enchanted window above; and desire burned and raged in him as it had never done when he had vainly searched the long lighted streets for an answering smile, had stared at red mouths, soft chins, rounded arms and legs in tube trains and buses and teashops, had felt those exciting little pressures in the darkness of the picture theatres, had returned to his little room, tired in body but with a heated imagination, as he had done so many times, to see its dim corners conjure themselves tantalisingly into the shapes of lovely beckoning girls. The flame of this desire was fed from the heart. He was now in love, terribly in love. The miracle had happened; the one girl had arrived; and with this single magical stroke, life was completed. He merely existed no longer; but now he lived, and, a lover at last, was at last himself. Love had only to be kind to him, and there was nothing he would not do in return; he was ready to lie, to beg, to steal, to slave day and night, to rise to astounding heights of courage; all these trifles, so long as he could still love and be loved.

The conductor of the 31 bus, noticing the young man with the rather large nose, the open mouth and irregular teeth, the drooping chin, whose full brown eyes shone as they stared into vacancy, whose face had a queer glowing pallor, might easily have concluded that there was a chap who was sickening for something. But Turgis was alight with love. He sat there in a dream ecstasy of devotion, in which remembered kisses glittered like stars.

V

“Please, Mr. Smeeth,” he said, next morning, “could you let me have a pound to-day?”

Mr. Smeeth rubbed his chin irritably. “Well, you know, Turgis, I don’t like doing this,” he said, fussily. “It’s not so much the thing itself----”

“It’s only till to-morrow morning,” Turgis pointed out, for the next day, Saturday, was the fortnightly pay day.

“Yes, I know that, and it’s a small thing in itself, but it’s a bad system. Once you start doing that sort of thing, you don’t know where you’re going to end. When I was with the Imperial Trading Company, before the war, they’d a very easy-going cashier there, an old chap called Hornsea, and we used to be paid every month. The result was, some of the fellows, particularly one or two of the lively sparks, were subbing all the time and old Hornsea would let them have it out of the petty cash. What happened in the long run? He got let down, badly let down. Now I don’t mean to say you’re going to let me down----”

“You know I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Smeeth.”

“Well, you couldn’t, not even if you tried,” said Mr. Smeeth with great emphasis. “It wouldn’t work here at all. I’m not old Hornsea. But, believe me, my boy, it’s a bad system. Can’t you last out until to-morrow morning? I could lend you a bob or two myself, for that matter.”

“No, thank you, Mr. Smeeth. I’d rather have the pound on account, if you don’t mind. It’s something special I have on to-night.” And he added to himself that old Smeethy would be just about dumb with surprise if he knew too.

“Oh, well, in that case, I suppose you’d better have it. But it’s a special case, mind. And don’t forget you’ll have a pound less to-morrow morning.” He carefully made out a slip, _Sub. H. Turgis_--£1 0s. 0d., placed it in the petty cashbox, and then handed over the pound note.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Smeeth,” said Turgis, quietly, humbly. That was the first thing done. The next was to book the seats at the Sovereign. He could have telephoned and then paid for them in the evening, but this did not occur to him, for he did not belong to the seat-booking classes, and even if it had occurred to him, he would have rejected it as being too precarious. To make certain of getting good seats, he curtailed his lunch to a mere gobble and gulp, then hurried off to the West End and the Sovereign, which was already open. Indeed, for the last hour or so, the Sovereign had been doing excellent business, chiefly with young wives who had come in from distant suburbs to buy three and a half yards of curtain material and, having saved ninepence, felt they were entitled to a glimpse or two of Ronald Mawlborough. Early as it was, there were several people in front of Turgis at the advance booking office, but he was able to get two fairly good seats at four and sixpence each. Nine bob for the pictures! This was easily his record, and it certainly seemed a lot of money, nearly as much as he earned in a whole day. Nevertheless he paid it gladly. With the tickets in his pocket, to say nothing of eleven shillings to meet emergencies, he had nothing to do now but quietly exist until quarter to eight, and then--Lena.

It was not worth while going back to his lodgings after he had finished at the office, so he went to a teashop not very far from the Sovereign and there spun out his meal as long as he decently could. Even then, however, it was only half-past seven when he arrived at the Sovereign; but he did not mind that, for it would be pleasant just standing there, watching the crowd, and knowing that every minute brought Lena nearer to him. There was a queue waiting for the cheaper seats. Turgis had stood in that queue many a time. Now he looked at it with a mingling of pity and scorn. It seemed to belong to some ancient and desiccated past. In the entrance hall, under the russet globes, the footmen and pageboys in chocolate and gold were handing the people on to one another and sending them, in two jerky dark streams, up the two great marble staircases. For the first ten minutes, Turgis merely lounged about, but after that, when he knew that Lena might arrive any moment, he carefully planted himself in the centre, in sight of all the doors in front, so that there was no chance of missing her. Hundreds of girls passed in with their young men, but not one of them as pretty as Lena. A few days ago he would have envied a good many of those fellows, but now he could afford to pity them. They didn’t know what a girl was. “Wait till you see Lena,” he told them, under his breath, as they passed, unconscious, smiling.

At five minutes to eight, he pointed out to himself that Lena had been ten minutes late the night before at the Colladium. Girls always kept a chap waiting. They were famous for it. At eight o’clock he began to be anxious. He wondered if he was waiting in the wrong place, and he hastily searched the whole breadth of the entrance. At quarter past eight, his eyes began to smart. Time, which had passed so slowly at first, was now rushing away. The Ronald Mawlborough picture had started long ago. A lump, compact of sheer misery, rose in his throat and then wobbled up and down there, trying to choke him. Half-a-dozen times he stepped forward eagerly, only to retire again, under the stare of strange girls who thought they were about to be accosted, and to pretend to himself that it was still worth while staying there a little longer. The last half-hour was nothing but a dismal farce, for he knew that she could not be coming now, yet somehow his feet refused to move more than a yard or two away. It was nine o’clock when he finally left the place, with two useless tickets in his pocket. One of them he could have used, but he never thought for a moment of doing so. It was Lena he wanted to see, not Ronald Mawlborough.

He thought of a hundred excuses for her. She might have been taken ill quite suddenly, for girls often were, he believed. Something might have happened at the house. Her father might have come back unexpectedly. What he could not believe was that there was any mistake about the meeting itself, for she had suggested both the time and the place. Still struggling with his disappointment, he hurried along, through the stupid idiotic crowds, and caught the first bus that would take him to Maida Vale. More excited every minute, he turned at last into Carrington Villas, and almost ran to get a sight of 4a. There was no light coming from the sitting-room. She was not there. Nevertheless, he came to the conclusion that somebody was in, for after waiting a few minutes, he thought he saw a light go on in one of the other windows. Once he had made up his mind, he did not hesitate at all, but marched straight up to the door and rang the bell. He remembered then that it was probably out of order. Still, he rang again.

“Yes,” said a voice, as the door opened a few inches, “what is it?”

“Is Miss Golspie in, please?”

The girl, obviously the maid who had been out the two previous nights, now opened the door properly and came forward to have a look at him. “Oo no, she isn’t.”

“Do you know where she’s gone?”

“Oo no, I don’t.”

“Oh--I see,” said Turgis miserably. “I was hoping to see her to-night.”

“Well,” said the girl confidentially, “I think she went out with a friend, because she got all dressed up just after seven and she told me she wouldn’t be back till very late, and then about half-past seven a young gentleman called for her in a motor-car. And that’s all I can tell you. Would you like to leave a message?”

No, no message. He walked slowly down the garden, out of the gate, across the road. He had to stop at the corner, because he was biting his handkerchief, which he had screwed into a ball. Then, when at last he was quiet and had put his handkerchief away, he walked on and on through a blank misery of a night.

Mr. Pelumpton was sitting up alone, just finishing his last pipe and a mouthful of beer, when Turgis burst into the back room.

“Can you lend me some ink, please?” he asked.

“Yersh, I think sho. I got a drop shomewhere. But you’re not going to shtart writing lettersh thish time o’ night, boy, are yer? If I wash like you, clerking all day in a norfish, writing lettersh about thish, that, an’ the other, never shtopping, why, deary me!--you wouldn’t catch me wanting to write lettersh thish time o’ night, my wordsh you wouldn’t----”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Turgis screamed at him, “let me have the ink if you’ve got any and stop yapping.”

“’Ere, ’ere, ’ere, ’ere, ’ere! Thatsh a way to talk now, ishn’t it!” Mr. Pelumpton, offended and on his dignity, produced the ink-bottle and put it down on the table and then promptly turned his back on it. “There’sh shuch a thing,” he continued, still with his back turned, “ash mannersh an’ ashkin’ for a thing in a proper way. And you can’t ’ave everything you want the minute you want it, not in thish world you can’t, and it’sh no good you or any other man----”

But Turgis had banged the door behind him and was on his way upstairs. He sat in his little room, a pen in his hand, a writing pad on his knee, but at the end of half-an-hour there were only a few stiff sentences down on the paper, although a torrent of phrases, angry, reproachful, bitter, appealing, had gone raging through his head. When, in despair, he crumpled the paper and flung down his pen and then wandered wretchedly to the window, the night out there was filled with tall handsome young men with wavy hair and evening clothes, all with Lena in their arms. They were laughing at him. She was laughing at him. He left the window, and told himself that perhaps she wasn’t, though, perhaps she was sorry now. He wished he had waited in Carrington Villas until she had returned, no matter how late that might have been. He smoothed out the writing pad and tried to decide whether he should write something short and forceful or long and appealing. Oh, but what was the use of writing! He would see her, speak to her, tell her what he thought while looking her straight in the eyes. He would show her she wasn’t dealing with a kid now, but with a Man.

He undressed, and, as usual emptied his pockets. Two tickets, four and six each, for the Sovereign Picture Theatre. And it was she who had suggested it, and she had never even bothered letting him know she wasn’t coming, but had just gone out with somebody else, had dressed up, got into a car, and laughed at him or forgotten his existence. He turned out the light, got into bed, and found himself in a hot salty darkness, his eyes filling with tears.

_Chapter Eight_: MISS MATFIELD’S NEW YEAR

I

A day or two before Mr. Golspie returned, Miss Matfield, sitting with cold feet and a novel she disliked in the 13 bus, realised with a shock that it was nearly Christmas. The shops she passed every day in the bus along Regent Street and Oxford Street had been celebrating Christmas for some time; and it was weeks since they had first broken out into their annual crimson rash of holly berries, robins, and Father Christmasses. The shops, followed by the illustrated papers, began it so early, with their full chorus of advertising managers and window dressers, shouting “Christmas Is Here,” at a time when it obviously wasn’t, that when it did actually come creeping up, you had forgotten about it. Miss Matfield told herself this, and then remembered that every year her mother used to cry, “What, nearly Christmas already! I never thought it was so near. It’s taken me completely by surprise, this year.” Yes, every year she used to say that, and year after year, Miss Matfield would tease her about it. And now, Miss Matfield told herself, she had begun to say it, just as if she was on the point of becoming forgetful and absurd and middle-aged. Oh--foul! She stared out of the window. Those two miles of _Xmas Gifts_ and lavish electric lighting and artificial holly leaves and cotton wool snow were still rolling past. The festive season--help! It was all an elaborate stunt to persuade everybody to spend money buying useless things for everybody else. She tried her novel again: _The months passed, and still Jeffrey made no sign. He had not forgiven her. In despair, Jenifer accepted an invitation to join the Mainwarings in Madeira, returned to a gay but feverish fortnight in Chelsea (where John Anderson sought her out everywhere and never left her side), and then appeared, still smiling, still audacious, but with a vaguely haunted look, at Cap d’Antibes. It was there she heard that Jeffrey had been seen at Miami--“And with Gloria Judge, my dear.”_ And that was quite enough of that. Who cared what happened to Jenifer and Jeffrey, the pair of ninnies? And why were all these novels always filled with people who spent all their time travelling about to mere resorts and spas, and deciding whom to live with next? Nobody ever did any work in them.

She returned to the subject of Christmas. It was, on the whole, she decided, revolting. You gave people a lot of silly things, diaries and calendars and rot, or useful things that were not right, gloves of the wrong size and stockings of the wrong shade (and she would have to be thinking out her presents now, and she was terribly hard up); and they in their turn gave you silly things and the useful things that were not right. You ate masses of food you didn’t want (and even Dr. Matfield, who had ideas about diet, said it didn’t matter at Christmas), and then you sat about, pretending to be jolly, but really stodged, sleepy, headachy, and in urgent need of bicarbonate of soda. If you stayed at home, you yawned, tried to convince your mother that you hadn’t a rich secret life you were hiding from her, and drearily sampled the family supply of literature. If you went out, you had to pretend you were having a marvellous time because you were wearing hats from crackers and playing pencil and paper games (“Let me see, a river beginning with ‘V’?”). And what was so terribly depressing and revolting about it all was that it was possible to imagine a really good Christmas, the adult equivalent of the enchanting Christmasses of childhood, the sort of Christmas that people always thought they were going to have and never did have. As the bus stopped by the dark desolation of Lord’s cricket-ground, swallowed two women who were all parcels, comic hats, and fuss (a sure sign this that Christmas was near, for you never saw these parcels-and-comic-hat women any other time), and then rolled on, Miss Matfield took out from its secret recess that dream of a Christmas. She was in an old house in the country somewhere, with firelight and candlelight reflected in the polished wood surfaces; by her side, adoring her, was a vague figure, a husband, tall, strong, not handsome perhaps but distinguished; two or three children, vague too, nothing but laughter and a gleam of curls; friends arriving, delightful people--“Hello,” they cried. “What a marvellous place you’ve got here! I _say_, Lilian!”; some smiling servants; logs on the fires, snow falling outside, old silver shining on the mahogany dining table, and “Darling, you look wonderful in that thing,” said the masculine shadow in his deep thrilling voice. “Oh, you _fool_, stop it,” Miss Matfield cried to herself. She had only brought out that nonsensical stuff to annoy herself. She liked reminding herself how silly she could be. It braced her.

She would go home, as usual, for Christmas, and on the way there she would look forward to it and imagine that _this_ time it was going to be rather nice, and once she was there she would wonder how she could have thought it would be anything but depressing. All as usual. Still, it would be a change, a break in what had lately been the very dull round of the office and the Burpenfield. Never had the round been duller. The Burpenfield was getting worse; Evelyn Ansdell--lucky child!--had gone off with her absurd father; and nobody amusing had arrived. She had not met a single interesting new person for ages. Then, life in Angel Pavement had merely been so much typewriter-pounding since the one amusing person there, Mr. Golspie, had been away. Mr. Golspie, she admitted to herself, with unusual candour, _was_ amusing, easily the most amusing person on the horizon--bless him!--and she would be glad when he came back. It would be fun, if only one had the cheek and courage to do it, to bring Mr. Golspie into the Club, to introduce him to Tatters, to say “Miss Tattersby, this is the _only_ amusing man I know just now.” But--O Lord!--she must keep off Tatters. In the Club, they talked about Tatters day and night.

She had further proof of this, if she had wanted it, when she reached the Club, for on the landing outside her room she met the depressing Miss Kersey. “Is that you, Matfield?” Kersey wailed, all damp and droopy as usual. “Don’t, _don’t_, go near Tatters to-night, whatever you do. I went in to ask her about sub-letting my room and she simply snapped my head off, didn’t give me an earthly chance to tell her when I wanted to sub-let or anything. She just _flew_ at me, Matfield, as if I’d been caught stealing or something. Isn’t Tatters really _awful_? And yet the last time I went in, she was as nice as anything and even asked me about my sister, the one who’s gone to Burma. I won’t go near her now for months,” she added, really enjoying the fact that Miss Tattersby could be so ferocious, so unpredictable in manner. “I’ll send her notes as some of the others always do. Don’t you go near her to-night.”

Miss Matfield said she had no intention of doing so, and then hurried into her room, where she came to the conclusion, as she tidied herself for dinner, that it was really Tatters who made the Burpenfield endurable for people like Kersey, for she gave their lives a colouring of danger and drama, poor old things. At dinner, she had to share a table with Isabel Cadnam, the languid Morrison, and a recent arrival who had taken Evelyn Ansdell’s old room, and annoyed Miss Matfield just because she was not Evelyn Ansdell. But, apart from that, this new girl was an irritating creature. Her name was Snaresbrook; she had untidy dark hair, huge staring eyes (heavily made up), and white, flabby, sagging cheeks; and she was soulful, gushing and psychic. So far she had been a great success because she went round talking to people about themselves very sympathetically, offering to tell their fortunes, and going in tremendously for this heart-to-heart business. Miss Matfield, a tougher subject than most, refused to be taken in. When she sat down the other three were already there, and were talking about work.

“I’ll bet you’ll agree, Mattie,” said Miss Cadnam.

“What’s that?” inquired Miss Matfield.

“I was just saying that it’s part of the cussedness of everything that nearly every girl here has the wrong job, I mean, if you like _one_ kind of thing, then it’s ten to one you have to work in a place where it’s all another kind of thing. I’ve just discovered that Snaresbrook here works for a film renting show, and she loathes it----”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Miss Snaresbrook put in softly in her soulful contralto, “because I don’t loathe anybody. I don’t think one ought to----”

“I do,” said Miss Morrison. “I loathe nearly everybody. I think the world’s full of people who are absolutely foul.”

“No, I don’t loathe these film people. But I do feel they’re not my own kind. I don’t feel really sympathetic towards them, and I feel there is work of a better kind waiting for me.” And Miss Snaresbrook turned her huge staring eyes, like the headlights of a car, round the table.

“That’s just what I’m saying,” cried the excitable Caddie. “Now I’d adore to work at a film place; just my style. And here I am, assistant secretary to the League of the Divine Lotus, and I’m sure you’d adore that, wouldn’t you, Snaresbrook? Whereas, if you don’t mind my saying so, I think these Divine Lotus people are all too sloppy to live, and the minute they begin to talk now, they get on my nerves. If I stay there much longer I’ll go potty too and break out into robes and mystic stars and Wisdom from the East. If anybody mentions the East now, I want to scream. A lot of fat film men smoking cigars would be a marvellous change. And to go to trade shows if you want to--marvellous!”

“You two ought to swop jobs,” said Miss Matfield. “Then you’d both be satisfied. What about that, Caddie?”

“That’s just where the cussedness comes in. They’d never have the right ones. It’s the same with nearly everybody here. If you’re heavily West End, you’re landed with a job at a wholesale cheap milliner’s somewhere in the City----”

“Revolting!” murmured Miss Morrison.

“And if you’re a wild Socialist or something, like that Colenberg girl, you find yourself secretary to Lady Thomson-Greggs in Berkeley Square and grumble like anything because the place is stiff with footmen. I told Ivor about that, the other night, and he said I ought to write an article about it for the papers.”

“Why don’t you?” said Miss Snaresbrook. “I’m sure you could write. You have the gift of expression. I don’t think I’ve looked at your hand yet, have I? I’m sure it’s written in your hand.”

Miss Matfield looked across the table in time to catch a disgusted glance from Morrison, whose grey eyes had also the gift of expression and announced quite clearly that Snaresbrook was revolting. “Well, I don’t think much of my job,” said Miss Matfield, “but I don’t know that I particularly want anybody else’s here. The fact is, they’re all pretty rotten, and that’s the real trouble. We don’t any of us get a chance to do anything really important. They’re all silly little mechanical jobs. If we were men, we’d be doing something decent now. What chance has a girl? The rot they talk about women working! The men jolly well see where all the decent jobs go to. And you know it.”

“True, Miss Matfield,” said Miss Snaresbrook, turning on all the sympathetic stops. “I feel it’s particularly unjust in your case. A girl with a strong character like you is entitled to an important, responsible post. We have a long way to go yet. Men are still trying to hold women back, to keep them in inferior places. And their attitude! The things some of those film men have said to me!” She sighed, then switched on the headlights.

“Yes, I’ll bet they’re a tough crowd,” said Caddie cheerfully, “but that ought to make it amusing. Men are easy enough to handle. It’s women who are so awful. There are some frightful old cats among those Lotus creatures. They come swarming and drooping all over you, and all the time they’re poking their long noses into your affairs and making up the most fiendish lies. Give me men. I wish there were some in this club.”

“Miss Cadnam, you don’t really,” said Miss Snaresbrook reproachfully.

“Yes, she does, and so do I,” said Miss Morrison, roused for once from her languid disgust, “and so will you when you’ve been here as long as we have. I’m not so terribly keen on men--most of them are pretty foul, so far as I can see--but a few here would be a pleasant change. The ones we do get as visitors are usually fairly hopeless, but even then I like to see them down here, trying to pretend they don’t mind the foul food. There are too many girls here. Ugh! Too much feminine slush and slop. Too much powder and lipstick and cold cream. Too many stockings and silk jumpers. Too many hot-water bottles and bedroom slippers. Too much messiness and brightness and depressingness and sympathy. Every time I hear some man clumping about here, and see him sit down, all solid and thick, I’m delighted--I don’t care how terrible he is. Too many women about. Revolting!”

“Whoops!” cried Caddie. “Go on, my dear. Don’t stop now.”

“Talk about girls living their own independent lives!” Miss Morrison continued, pink and defiant. “It’s a marvel to me that after living here a year or two and being faced with the prospect of living here for donkey’s years like some of the poor old things----”

“Oh, don’t!” Miss Matfield groaned.

“I say that it’s a marvel to me we don’t just marry anybody, anybody at all, or, failing that, run away with somebody. A place like this simply encourages wild matrimony and risky adventures. And if there isn’t more of it, I’ll tell you why. It’s not just because we’re all such ni-ice, ni-ice girls, so ni-icely brought up, but because there aren’t many chances going about.”

“Oh, aren’t there, Morrison?” said Caddie. “Speak for yourself.”

“I’m not speaking for myself or for anybody in particular----”

“You’re certainly not speaking for _me_, Miss Morrison,” said Miss Snaresbrook, with large, sweet, forgiving smile. “I like the society of men, but I like the society of other girls too. Whoever they are, I find they interest me, and we have something to say to one another, very often some little secret to share, some confession to make. Of course, I admit those little clairvoyant gifts of mine have helped me a great deal, and have brought me friends, dear friends, among girls who probably imagined at first that they and I hadn’t much in common. And I’m sure I intend to enjoy _my-self_ at the Burpenfield.” And, smiling sympathetically at them all, she rose and left the table.

“And I hope it keeps fine for you,” muttered Miss Morrison to her retreating back. “You know, of the many ghastly specimens who have turned up here this year, I think that one the worst.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Miss Cadnam. “She’s not so bad, really----”

“That’s because she’s going to read Caddie’s palm to find her gift of expression,” Miss Matfield explained.

“Of course it is,” said Miss Morrison. “You’re feeble, Caddie. I saw you swallowing the bait, as if you’d just been born. Vile!”

“Have you people realised that it’s nearly Christmas?” said Miss Matfield as they moved upstairs, where they could smoke.

“My dear Mattie,” cried Miss Cadnam, “you don’t mean to say you’ve only just found that out! I’ve bought all my presents and sent half of them off. If I don’t send some of my people very early presents, they never remember to send me anything.”

“Christmas, yes,” said Miss Morrison, with languid distaste. “Isn’t it foul? I haven’t bought a thing yet, haven’t even made out a list. Anyhow, I haven’t any money. I loathe Christmas, even though one does have a holiday. What good is it? Are you going home, Matfield?”

“Yes. I always do.”

“So am I. It’s pretty ghastly. It wasn’t so bad before my brother went out to the Sudan. We used to have rather an amusing time.”

“But you’ve another brother, haven’t you, Morrison? I thought I saw him here once.”

“Yes, Anthony. He’s at Cambridge, researching. By the way,” Miss Morrison continued, “he wants to come along early next week and bring his researching friend Jiggs or Hoggs or something and take me and any lady friend o’ mine out for what passes for a gay evening up in the Cambridge research labs. If either of you is dying to come, you can, but I don’t advise it. I’m trying to get out of it.”

“I thought you were bursting to go round with a few men, Morrison.”

“No, it’s not as bad as all that. I’ve tried this before. Anthony, my brother, is pretty glum and dumb--quite different from Tom, the Sudan one--and his researching friend, Higgs or Joggs, is the limit. He’s frightfully tall and awkward, with very short hair, a very long nose, and spectacles, and when you try to make conversation with him, he thinks you’re asking scientific questions. If he doesn’t know exactly, he just says ‘I don’t know’; but if he does know, he explains all about it, gives you a short lecture, and then completely shuts up. It’s like being back at school, only worse. He’s a horror. Anthony, of course, adores him, and thinks he’s conferring an immense favour on you by bringing this monster. He said to me, ‘One day you’ll be proud to think you’ve talked to Jiggs’--or Hoggs. And so I told him I wasn’t ambitious and I’d risk having missed the great Higgs. No, on second thoughts, you can’t come. I’m definitely going to put him off. Talking about Joggs has brought it all back too clearly.”

“Hello!” cried Miss Cadnam, looking at her watch. “I must fly.”

“Ivor?”

“Ivor--thank God! We’re supposed to be in the middle of another row, but I know he’ll be there.”

“What a ridiculous pair!” said Miss Matfield, smiling, as she watched Caddie leave the lounge.

“Who? Caddie and her Ivor? Oh, quite mad, of course, from what I’ve heard about them. Still,” said Miss Morrison carefully, “it does pass the time for her, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, it does a lot more than that. Caddie lives a wonderfully dramatic life. She probably would, anyhow, if there wasn’t Ivor to quarrel with and then make it up with. She and Evelyn Ansdell were the only two people here I’ve ever envied, because they both contrived to have an exciting life all the time, even if they _were_ absurd. I think I shall have to find a nice little Ivor.” And Miss Matfield gave a short laugh.

“You don’t lead a double life or anything of that kind, do you, Matfield?” Miss Morrison inquired, almost wistfully.

“Heavens, no! What do you mean?”

“Let’s have another cigarette, shall we? Make a night of it. I only meant--well, it’s a compliment, really----”

“It doesn’t sound like one.”

“Well, I meant that you looked as if you had a more interesting sort of life going on _somewhere_. You go down to your office in the City--it is in the City, isn’t it?--yes, I remember your telling me it was--and you come back here and don’t seem to do anything much, but at the same time you look quite alive, as if something’s happening somewhere.”

“It isn’t.” Miss Matfield laughed, then lit her cigarette. “I wish it was. All perfectly dull, respectable, ordinary. A typical Burpenfield existence.”

“Oh, foul! Well, I’m disappointed in you, I really am, Matfield. I’ve been suspecting some time that you were a dark horse. Tell me, what sort of men are there in that office of yours. Did I ever tell you I was in the City once? I nearly died. I don’t believe it was a typical City place at all, though I was only there a week. There were four men there, two young ones with adenoids and whiny voices, who always called me ‘Miss,’ and two older ones with red faces and waxed moustaches who either shouted at me at the top of their voices or came over slimy and breathed down my neck and put their hot hands on my shoulder. Revolting! Don’t tell me they’re all like that. What are your lot like?”