Chapter XIX: Part 19

“All right then,” she said, turning her perky little head on one side and smiling. Then she looked serious. “Listen, though. If we do go, I must pay for myself. Yes, I must. I believe in that,” she added earnestly, as if she had thought about it for years and had not just invented this rule for herself, knowing only too well that he would be hard up in the near future and that every extra shilling would make a great difference. “I’ll come if you’ll let me pay for myself. There now!”

As they walked down Nathaniel Street, they decided that it must be one of the big West End picture theatres, but could not settle which it should be, and argued pleasantly about it, and she pretended to care more about it than she actually did and he pretended to care less; she was the eager, excited, imploring female, and he was the large, knowing, tolerant, protective male. Out in the smoky blue and gold of the lighted streets, they were more at ease than they had been in the house. Already they may have felt that they were going further together now than the way to the remotest picture theatre could take them. Perhaps this was the best day’s work in one or other of their lives; perhaps the worst. Saturday night: the children of the pavements and chimney-pots came pouring out, seeking adventure, entertainment, profit or forgetfulness in the vast impersonal thunder and glare of the city; and soon these two were lost in the crowd.

_Chapter Eleven_: THEY GO HOME

I

It was coming to a close like any other Friday afternoon. They were short-handed, for though the new boy, Gregory Thorpe from Hatcham, S.E., a lad with a singularly long face and spectacles, far more conscientious than Stanley but not so engaging, had been with them since Monday, Turgis had been absent since Monday too, and his place had not yet been filled. Fortunately, they had not been very busy this last day or two; the rush of a few weeks before appeared to be over now; Mr. Golspie had not been near the office since Tuesday, and had not sent in any new orders; and the next Anglo-Baltic boat was not due in until the following Monday; so that things were easier. Even without Turgis, they were getting through the work at the usual pace. Mr. Smeeth, glancing round over the top of his desk, thought they ought to have finished in another half-hour or three-quarters. He would get away about six, have his tea in comfort, with plenty of time to spare before the concert began. He was going to hear that symphony by Brahms, the same symphony he had heard before, the one that suddenly and gloriously broke into Ta _tum_ ta ta _tum_ tum. Another orchestra was playing it this time. It was lucky that the advertisement of the concert had caught his eye: Brahms’ Symphony No. 1. He had been looking forward all the week to hearing that symphony again, especially to that moment when the great melody would come sweeping out of the strings again. He had tried to remember it for weeks and weeks, and then suddenly it had returned to him--Ta _tum_ ta ta _tum_ tum. Brahms might be as classical and highbrow as they said he was (and Mr. Smeeth had been making a few inquiries), but the fact remained that the thought of his first symphony, that dark but splendid adventure, now warmed the heart of Herbert Norman Smeeth. Ta _tum_ ta ta _tum_ tum--but no, he must get on with his work, finish off and see that the others were finishing off too.

“Miss Matfield, have you anything for Mr. Dersingham to sign? Have you, Miss Sellers? Take them in now if you have.”

Mr. Dersingham was in the private office. He had been there most of the day. This was unusual, and rather queer because Mr. Dersingham did not appear to be very busy. He seemed to be waiting for something or somebody. Several times during the afternoon, when the outer door had opened, Mr. Smeeth had heard Mr. Dersingham come out of the private office, as if he could not bear to wait an extra half minute or so. He seemed to be jumpy, too, about telephone calls. Very unusual, rather queer, not like Mr. Dersingham. Mr. Smeeth came to the conclusion that it must be some private business, and therefore no affair of his.

“Now where’s that letter from Poppett and Sons?” he demanded. “It was on this desk an hour ago, I’ll swear. It’s a letter about their account, and I told one of you this morning we’d have to answer it to-day. It was you, wasn’t it, Miss Sellers? Well, have you taken their letter away, then? Just see if you have. Yes, there you are--that’s it. Bring it here and I’ll answer it now. Poppett and Sons, Poppett and Sons,” Mr. Smeeth repeated idly as he re-read their letter. “Ye-es. Are you ready? No, half a minute, though--my mistake. I’ll have to check that figure. Fi-ifty-fo-our pounds, thi-irte-een shillings--yes, yes, that’s all right. Now then----” and here Mr. Smeeth adjusted his eyeglasses and cleared his throat, giving a faintly pompous little cough. Even now, the thought that he, Herbert Norman Smeeth, was sitting there, a cashier, dictating letters to this firm and that, gave him a thrill. “--er--We are in receipt of your--er--communication--put the date in there, Miss Sellers--respecting our statement of account dated so-and-so--and beg to point out that this account was quite in order. You asked us to send down the goods by special road delivery and agreed that the extra carriage, paid by us, should be added to our account--no, just a minute--extra carriage, which had to be paid by us in the first place, should be charged to you, and this we accordingly did. We refer you to your letter--I have a note of that letter--ah! here it is--to your letter of the 4th of December last----”

Mr. Smeeth rounded off his letter and Miss Sellers hurried it away to her machine. Miss Matfield, who appeared to be in a great hurry, pulled a sheet of paper out of her typewriter with one fine sweep of the hand, and then furiously tidied a little pile of typewritten sheets. The new boy, Gregory, laboriously worked away at his letter copying, with the air of a man engaged in not very hopeful bacterial research. It was wearing away like any other Friday afternoon. There was nothing to suggest that it might blow up any minute, unless the unusual activities of Mr. Dersingham, who appeared to be moving uneasily now in the private office, were considered to be fantastically significant.

“Who was that?” Mr. Smeeth asked, after several doors had banged and Gregory had returned from behind the frosted glass partition.

“I think it was a telegraph boy, sir,” replied Gregory sadly.

“How d’you mean--you _think_ it was?”

“Mr. Dersingham was there, sir. He got there first, and he was holding the door open and taking something, so I couldn’t see who it was properly. I only saw an arm, and it looked like a telegraph boy. You see what I mean about the door, sir? It comes back, inside, when it opens, and Mr. Dersingham was holding it with one hand, and so the door was in the way, you see----”

“Yes, yes, yes, I see. No need to make such a song about it, boy.” There was a sad earnestness about this new boy that had been rather impressive at first, but now it only irritated Mr. Smeeth. He liked a boy to be conscientious with his work, but this one was too dolefully dutiful. You could not even relieve your feelings by telling him sharply to get on with his work, because he never stopped doing something, toiling away like a spectacled young sheep. Mr. Smeeth wished now he had chosen a brighter boy, even if the lad would have larked about a bit.

“Smeeth. Smeeth.”

“Yes, Mr. Dersingham,” Mr. Smeeth called back, frowning a little. He did not like to be summoned in this fashion, by a shout from the door of the private office; it was not dignified. He hurried in, however, for Mr. Dersingham sounded as if he had something important he wanted to say.

“Shut the door, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, who did not look so pink and cheerful as usual. “Oh, look here--have they nearly finished out there?”

“Just clearing up, sir.”

“All right, then,” said Mr. Dersingham wearily. “Have I signed everything? Tell ’em to let me have everything that must go off to-night, will you? I want ’em to clear out, and leave us alone. Do that now. Just get them to finish up as quick as possible.”

Wondering, rather apprehensive now, Mr. Smeeth bustled to and fro with letters to be signed, hurried on Miss Sellers and the boy, and in ten minutes had everything signed, copied, sealed up, and stamped. “Yes, yes,” he told them, “that’ll be all. You can go now. That’s right. Good-night, Miss Matfield. What’s that? Yes, I remember. Mr. Dersingham said you could have to-morrow morning off, didn’t he? Off for the week-end, eh? Lucky to be some people, Miss Matfield. Yes, yes, quite all right. Good-night. Good-night, Miss Sellers. And--what’s your name--Gregory, don’t forget you’ve got three registereds there; bring me the receipts in the morning. No, that’ll do. Good-night, good-night.” He returned to the private office. “All finished now, Mr. Dersingham. Yes, all gone.”

“All right, Smeeth. Bring the order book in, then the other books. Bring the order book in first.”

It looked as if he was going to have a little stock-taking and general survey of the business, a very wise thing to do too, now and again. Mr. Smeeth hoped that he would not be kept long, but otherwise he was quite pleased and proud, for there was nothing he liked better than these confidential talks about the business, and he was glad to see that Mr. Dersingham was taking himself seriously now as the head of a very flourishing little concern.

“Nothing wrong, I hope, Mr. Dersingham?” he said, when he had brought in all the books.

Mr. Dersingham gave a short laugh, and it was a very unpleasant sound. It startled Mr. Smeeth.

“Everything’s wrong, Smeeth, every damned thing, unless you can see a way out. Sit down, man, sit down. We’re going to be hours and hours on this job.”

Mr. Smeeth sat down, staring at him.

“Golspie’s cleared out,” Mr. Dersingham continued, “and he’s done us in, absolutely done us in. Oh, the rotten swine! God, I was a fool to trust that chap a yard! I ought to have known, I ought to have known. And now he’s gone. I rushed up to that flat of his in Maida Vale at lunch time, hoping to catch him in and have it out with him, but he’d gone--at least, the maid said he had, and it was only a furnished place he’d taken, and she’d been taken over with it, so I suppose she wasn’t lying about it. He’s going abroad, if he isn’t already gone. Clearing out properly, the rotten crook! This isn’t the only dirty game he’s been playing here, if you ask me. I always thought he had a few more irons in the fire besides his work here. He never spent more than half his time with our business. But he’s had plenty of time to do us down.” He was out of his chair now, kicking a ball of crumpled paper about the room.

“But what’s happened, Mr. Dersingham? I thought you knew he might leave us. You told me so a week or two ago, and you said you were getting him to sign an agreement, when he drew all that forward commission, so that you would have the agency.”

“Oh, we’ve got the agency all right,” cried Mr. Dersingham, with great bitterness. “No mistake about that. Only it’s not worth having now, that’s all. Mikorsky’s have raised all their prices. They say it’s owing to the increased cost of their new process and to some labour troubles and to some new government tax--oh, they’ve got all kinds of reasons, and they may be true and they may not, but the fact remains they’ve raised all their prices. They’re all up fifty and sixty and even seventy per cent.”

“As much as that? Good Lord, Mr. Dersingham, that’s a ridiculous advance. It makes them as dear as the most expensive of the old firms we were dealing with before, doesn’t it? I see, now.”

“No, you don’t see, you don’t see at all yet,” Mr. Dersingham yelled at him. “It’s a lot worse than that. Look at that telegram. Just look at it.”

“I don’t understand this, sir,” said Mr. Smeeth, after carefully reading the telegram. “Why did they send it?”

“They sent it because I’d wired to them asking if what Golspie had written to me was true. I thought he might have been bluffing, just out of devilish spite. But he wasn’t. They’re all in league together, of course, if you want my opinion, just a lot of rotten foreign swindlers with this chap Golspie the worst of the lot.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Dersingham. I can see it’s a bad business. But I don’t quite get the hang of it yet. They can’t have raised their prices already.”

“My God!--that’s just what they have done, and that filthy telegram confirms it.” Mr. Dersingham banged it so hard with his fist that he hurt his hand. Then he became quieter and sat down again. “I’m getting too excited. Sorry I yelled like that, Smeeth, though it’s enough to make any man shout his head off. I’ll explain. I got a letter from Golspie this morning, saying that he was clearing out. Here, you can read it for yourself.”

Mr. Smeeth read it through twice. It pretended to be an ordinary business letter, but there was a good deal of unpleasant irony in it. One phrase, which practically said that Mr. Dersingham had tried to sneak the agency for himself and had not succeeded, made Mr. Smeeth look up and ask a question. “Did you really write to those people and try to get the agency yourself, sir?” he asked.

Mr. Dersingham nodded.

Mr. Smeeth hesitated a moment. “I don’t think you ought to have done that, sir,” he said finally, respectful but reproachful.

“That’s my business, Smeeth.”

Mr. Smeeth looked down and remained silent. Neither of them spoke for a minute or two, and the room was strangely quiet.

“Oh well,” cried Mr. Dersingham, struggling with his embarrassment, “perhaps I oughtn’t to. As it’s turned out, it was a bad move. But I wasn’t really trying anything underhand, y’know, Smeeth. It wasn’t as if I was trying to take a fellow’s living away from him, working behind his back. I know it might look a bit like that, to anybody who didn’t know the circumstances, but it wasn’t. This chap Golspie was obviously one of these here-to-day-and-gone-to-morrow fellows--didn’t make any secret of it, boasted of it--and I never liked the look of him and I didn’t know what tricks he might be up to. He came here, made use of our connection with the trade and our organisation and everything and drew a heavy commission, as you know, and all the time he walked about the place as if he owned it. As I told you before, I couldn’t stand the chap--a terrible bounder. I tried to be as friendly as possible at first, but it wouldn’t work. And my wife took a strong dislike to him--she only met him once, but you know what women are, and she saw what he was in five minutes--and she was always telling me to have nothing more to do with him, to get rid of him. So I just wrote a confidential letter to Mikorsky’s, saying it would pay them to have the agency properly in the hands of a wholesale firm here like ours, and that the--er--present arrangement wasn’t really satisfactory to them or to us either, and that they ought to consider it. All in confidence, mind. That was just before he went over there, and of course they told him all about it. I didn’t know they were friends of his. I thought they had an ordinary business agreement, and I considered I was entitled to suggest another business agreement, leaving Golspie out.”

“Yes, I see that,” said Mr. Smeeth, still a little doubtful. “And I suppose they told him then, and that’s what put his back up?”

“Oh, they did that, but I think he’d been ready to play any dirty little trick right from the first. He isn’t a gentleman--never looked like one--and he isn’t even an ordinary decent business man. He’s just an adventurer, trying his hand at anything for tuppence. No wonder he never stopped anywhere long--too crooked! But you see what he says there, that he encloses a little document that had--what is it?--escaped his memory. Well, there’s the little document, there--that statement of Mikorsky’s, dated when he was there, raising all the prices. There’s the full list of ’em--up fifty to seventy per cent.”

“But--but,” Mr. Smeeth stammered, as he looked at this list, “we can’t be expected to pay these prices. We’ve already bought heavily on the old prices.”

“Have we? Golspie did the buying, and I can’t find any acknowledgment from them.”

“Well, can’t we cancel the last orders then, Mr. Dersingham? I never heard of such a thing. It’s not reasonable. Here their prices have been up for weeks and weeks, and we’ve been thinking we were buying at the old rates. They can’t force us to take the stuff at these prices, surely.”

“I don’t know. That side of it doesn’t matter, anyhow. The point is, Smeeth--don’t you see?--whether we’ve bought the stuff or not, we’ve _sold it_.”

Mr. Smeeth did see; he saw with fatal clearness; and his dismay must have been written on his face.

“Yes,” Mr. Dersingham continued, “we’ve sold it, stacks and stacks of it, thousands of square feet, big orders, Smeeth, big orders, all those orders we paid Golspie that commission on. You might well look like that. I’ve been feeling like that all day, even though I still hoped there might be a mistake--before that telegram came.”

“But, Mr. Dersingham--it’s--it’s ruination, sheer ruination.”

“And it’s damnably, damnably unfair, Smeeth. We’ve simply been swindled. Listen, d’you think there’s any chance of us getting all those orders cancelled here?”

Mr. Smeeth thought for a minute, then slowly shook his head. “We’ve undertaken to deliver the stuff, Mr. Dersingham, and there’s no getting out of that. I mean to say, if our customers say ‘We want it,’ then they’ll have to have it and they can compel us to let them have it at the price we sold it, or compel us to go out of business. No argument about that at all, sir.”

“What I’m wondering is this, Smeeth. It’s not our fault this has happened. I mean to say, it’s not the ordinary case of selling the stuff before you’ve bought it, hoping for a fall in prices, and then getting nipped because the price goes up when you have to deliver the stuff. It’s nothing like that, you see. We’ve been let down by sheer rotten trickery. Not our fault at all. Now I’m wondering if our customers would agree to cancel the orders if I explained the situation to them, told them straight out that Golspie was a wrong ’un and we’ve been let down. It’s worth trying, isn’t it? Where’s that order book? I want to see who are about the biggest buyers of these last lots that I can get hold of at once. What about Brown and Gorstein? They’re not far away.”

“And they’ve bought as much as anybody,” said Mr. Smeeth. “We’ve a lot to deliver to them. You might get hold of Mr. Gorstein.”

“I’ll ring up and see if he’s there.” And while he waited, receiver in hand, he added: “Jot down what Brown and Gorstein have bought, will you, Smeeth?” By the time Mr. Smeeth had done this, Mr. Dersingham had learned that Gorstein was still there and was willing to see him at once. “I’ll go over at once,” said Mr. Dersingham. “I’ll just tell my wife first not to expect me back in a hurry. I believe we were going out to play bridge with somebody. My hat!--I feel as much like playing bridge to-night as I do like--like--spinning tops.”

When the other had finished his telephoning, Mr. Smeeth had the order book and some paper in front of him. “While you’re there, Mr. Dersingham, I’ll try and work out the whole thing on the new prices.”

“I was going to tell you to do that,” said Mr. Dersingham, as he took down his hat and coat. “Get it all worked out while I’m up at Brown and Gorstein’s. God!--we’re in a mess. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Left to himself, Mr. Smeeth did not think. He refused to think. He applied himself sternly to the task before him, and for the next quarter of an hour never looked up from his books and his calculations. He was not Herbert Norman Smeeth, but simply the master of the neat little figures, and he added and subtracted and multiplied them without letting his mind wander away from their austere but calculable world, in which he had spent so many pleasant hours. He had plenty to do. All the orders of the last few weeks, back to the early part of December, in fact, had to be estimated on the basis of these new prices, and he had to add the usual costs and then the commission already paid to Golspie. He did it with his usual neatness, accuracy, thoroughness, producing a statement that could be understood at a glance. At the end of quarter of an hour, the telephone rang and disturbed him, but it was not a call for them. Mechanically, then, he filled his pipe, and spent a minute or two listening idly to the various sounds that came from the steps outside, from Angel Pavement, from the City beyond, a sort of vague symphony, and the only one, it seemed, that he would hear that night. He put his pipe in his mouth unlit, and bent over his figures again. Time slipped away as the totals mounted up on the statement, and soon half an hour had gone. He turned now to other books, to the general financial side of the matter, estimating what they had in hand and what was due to them.

Mr. Dersingham came bursting in, large and active, but a figure of misery. “It’s no use, Smeeth. We’re absolutely done.”

“What did Mr. Gorstein say?”

“I told them as much as I could, and they laughed at me, they did, honestly they did, they just laughed at me. Pretended not to, pretended to be very sympathetic and all that, but I knew. That fellow Gorstein’s another rotter, if you ask me. Very sorry and all that, hard luck on us, but of course they’d bought what we’d offered them, and they’d undertaken to supply _their_ customers and made contracts on what they’d bought from us, and we’d have to deliver, and no nonsense about it. And they practically told me that everybody else in the trade would say the same thing, but only be a bit more damned insolent about it. No, I see that now, plainly enough. There’s no getting out of it.”

“But, Mr. Dersingham, it’s a terrible position we’re in, it really is.”

“Good God! man, you’ve no need to tell me that. It’s the foulest mess I ever dreamed of, and all because of that dirty crook. Honestly, Smeeth, I don’t pretend to be a bruiser or anything of that sort, but if I saw that chap now, I’d go for him. I’d either knock him down or he’d have to knock me down. Have you been working it all out? What does it look like?”

Mr. Smeeth now considered his totals and the full implication of them for the first time. He handed the papers across the table.

Mr. Dersingham, running a finger across his teeth and allowing his jaw to drop, stared at them for several minutes without saying a word. Then he queried one or two figures, and Mr. Smeeth worked them out again, for his benefit. The order book was referred to several times. But there was no escaping from those totals.

“I’ve just been working out how we stand, too, Mr. Dersingham. I thought you’d want to know now. This is the position, counting everything in.”

They went over that now, spending about half an hour in what was mostly futile discussion, as Mr. Smeeth, sick at heart, knew only too well.

“It’s no good, Smeeth,” the other said finally, “there’s no getting away from it. It was a tight squeeze paying that swine all that commission in advance, and now we’ve got to sell every square foot of stuff at a loss, on all those orders.”

“It’s a terrible loss. The business as it is will never stand it, Mr. Dersingham.”

“I know that. And what’s left of the business, even supposing I could borrow enough to see me through this mess? Where should we be? Only back where we were before we began handling this stuff, before Golspie came, doing just about enough trade to pay expenses, and on top of that I’d be up to the neck in debt. I couldn’t carry on a month. I’ve borrowed as much as I can, and even if I could borrow any more, I wouldn’t--it’s only throwing money away. Honestly, Smeeth, how can I go on?”

Mr. Smeeth looked through the papers again, though there was no real meaning in the glances he gave them. He was trying to think of a way out, but it was impossible to find one.

“What are you going to do, then, Mr. Dersingham?” he asked, miserably.

“Nothing. Finish. What else can I do? I’ll buy what I can of this lot, deliver it, and then finish. And if they bankrupt the firm, they bankrupt it, and there’s the end of it. If they don’t, I close down and clear out, anyhow, and that’s the end of it, too. I don’t suppose it’s the first time a dam’ fool’s been robbed clean out of a business, is it?”

“I don’t know what to say, Mr. Dersingham.” And Mr. Smeeth didn’t. He was staring at the opposite wall in utter dejection.

“What’s the good of saying anything? But what makes me sick is the way that rotter Golspie has cleared out----”

“I thought at the time it was a bit fishy, sir, when he wanted all that commission in advance.”

“Well, if you thought so, why the devil didn’t you say so at the time. No good saying so now.”

“I did say something at the time, Mr. Dersingham, I did really.”

“Well, I must say I don’t remember you saying anything. Anyhow, it’s too late now. You know, Smeeth, that fellow’s robbed me just as much as if he’d broken into my flat--it’s worse, when you think of it. And there isn’t even a charge against him. All he’s done is to collect some commission and keep a letter back. You can’t go to the police about that. The swine! That’s what maddens me. What’s the time? Quarter past eight? Come on, let’s get out of this.” They walked down the stairs and out of the building together.

Across the way, the only sign of life came from the bar of the “White Horse.” “I don’t know about you, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, stopping, “but I want a drink. It’s a long time since I wanted one so badly. You could do with a spot, couldn’t you? Of course you could. Let’s have one, while we can still pay for it.”

The private bar was completely deserted, except for a long, grey cat that stretched itself arrogantly in front of the little fire. The barmaid came round the corner, swept away several glasses, polished a foot or two of counter, said, “Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom,” to the cat, then smiled at the gentlemen in the way a lady ought to smile, and, “Good evening. Nicer now, iserntit?”

“Two double whiskies, please, and two small sodas,” said Mr. Dersingham.

“Two doubles,” murmured the barmaid.

Mr. Smeeth could not help being reminded of the time when Mr. Golspie had brought him in here and had insisted on his having a double whisky. That was the night when Mr. Golspie had told him that he ought to have a rise. Everything was going too wonderful that night.

“Here’s luck, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, raising his glass, “and I’m sorry for your sake it’s turned out like this, though you’re not losing what I’m losing, not by a long chalk. But here’s luck--here’s to your next job, and I hope it’s a better one than Twigg and Dersingham ever gave you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth shyly. “And here’s luck to you too, sir----”

“You’d think that cat, to look at it,” said the barmaid, “was a good mouser if ever a cat was. Wouldn’t you now? Well, it isn’t. No good at all. Won’t touch a mouse. Will you, Tom? No, you won’t, you lazy old rascal. Don’t earn your keep at all, you don’t. Come here, Tom. Tom, Tom, Tom.”

“I’m going to try for a job out East as soon as I’ve straightened things up,” said Mr. Dersingham confidentially. “No more City for me. I never did care for it. Not really my style at all, y’know, Smeeth. I always wanted to go out East. You get a gentleman’s life out there. A man I know--he’s just retired and he’s a neighbour of mine--told me some time ago he could get me a good job out there any time. I shall have a shot at it.”

Mr. Smeeth nodded and looked gloomy. There was no job out East for him, and these remarks of Mr. Dersingham’s suddenly opened out a vast, dreary prospect. At the moment, he preferred not to think about the future.

“Look at him, the silly old thing,” said the barmaid, who had the long cat in her arms now. “Aren’t you a silly old thing, Tom? He’s got nice markings though, hasn’t he? Reg’lar, aren’t they? Go on then, go down then, if you want to, Tom. There! Boo! Boo! Just watch him. He can open the door by himself. Artful as anything, I can tell you.”

Mr. Dersingham gulped down the rest of his whisky and soda. “Rotten luck. The worst possible. Where I made the mistake though, Smeeth, was not trusting to what’s-it--instinct, intuition, you know. About Golspie, I mean. I was trying to be the smart City bounder, with an eye for a tricky bit of business and nothing else--y’know, like that awful fellow, Gorstein, and all the rest of ’em. Not my style at all, really. I didn’t like the chap and I ought to have known he’d do me down. Never mind, he’ll come to a sticky finish before he’s done. And so will that daughter of his. You never met her, did you, Smeeth? Very good looking, in the film and chorus girl style, but a terrible little minx. You ought to hear my wife on Miss Golspie! She came to my place once--but never again, never again. That was a queer business, y’know, Smeeth, about Turgis and that girl, when Golspie came and said Turgis would have to be sacked because he’d been up to some mysterious games with the daughter. I never really understood what it was all about--though I’d like to bet that Golspie’s daughter was up to her tricks there--she looked that sort.”

“I never understood that business,” said Mr. Smeeth mournfully. “I wasn’t properly told about it.”

“Neither was I, for that matter. But I didn’t bother much, because I never thought that chap Turgis was much good, anyhow, and was rather glad to get rid of him. Thinking it over now, though, I feel a bit sorry for the poor devil. Have you heard anything about him, Smeeth?”

“Miss Sellers has seen him once or twice, I believe. I fancy she’s a bit sweet on him. He’s not got another job yet, of course, and it’s not likely he will for some time.” He breathed hard, like a man who wants to sigh but has forgotten how to do it, looked down at the remainder of his drink, and slowly finished it.

“Well, I’d better be getting along,” said Mr. Dersingham. “That drink’s made me feel hungry. I’ll stop at the club and see if I can get a bite. I might see a fellow there who could give me one or two tips about this miserable business. Then I’ll go home, and that’s the part I’m not looking forward to, I can tell you. Are you going home now?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Smeeth slowly, buttoning his overcoat. “I’m going home.”

II

As her bus turned into that hive of buses in front of Victoria station, Miss Matfield shivered a little. She was nervous; she was excited; and her mind was facing two different ways. She spent the next few minutes getting from the bus to the station, which was very crowded and week-endy, and then to the place where she had arranged to meet Mr. Golspie, which was on the departure side, between the bookstall and that large clock with four faces. Mr. Golspie was not to be seen. This did not surprise her, for she was rather early. She was somewhat relieved to find that he was not there. It left her with a welcome breathing space. She was by no means single-minded about this adventure.

It had been planned, if a few hasty and last-minute questions and answers can be called planning, three days before, on Tuesday night, which was the last time she had seen him. He had not been to the office since and she had had no message from him, but that did not worry her. She had a strong suspicion that he was going away very soon, but she did not know when he would be going and she did not believe that he knew. Last Tuesday, just before they parted, he had asked her once again to go away for the week-end with him, anywhere she pleased, and this time, moved obscurely by many different feelings and forces, something genuinely eager and passionate in the man’s voice, a sudden desire to clutch at experience, to throw herself upon life, a contempt for her qualms and misgivings and timidities, she had agreed to go. An hotel on the Sussex coast she had once seen was to be their destination, and the time and meeting place were hastily settled. Several times since, she had been tempted to write to him or ring him up, to say that she had changed her mind. Her pride, however, would not let her do this. She had said she would go, and now she would carry it through. She had wanted adventure, and though she would not have admitted it, there was always a man in this adventure, and now that it offered itself and she had accepted it, she could not run away. Yet there was a creature in her, and not merely a brain phantom, but a creature that had some of her rich blood flowing through it, that very blood which this coarse, middle-aged man could so inspire that it dazzled and inflamed her, a shrinking and fastidious creature that cried to run away, to run away and hide. It protested against the shabbiness and furtiveness of this adventure, and pounced upon the sinister lack of fairness in it. It loathed the cheap imitation wedding ring that was now tucked away in her bag, a ring that was part of the adventure, and that had seemed rather a joke when it first had been mentioned last Tuesday. She had heard about those rings before, and they had always seemed rather a joke, perky, glittering little stage properties in amusing escapades, and it was not difficult for her to force herself to see that ring in her bag in the same theatrical light; but, nevertheless, the protest was not silenced and the loathing remained. If Golspie had asked her to marry him, no matter if he had told her that they would have to settle in the most outlandish place, she would have agreed; but he had not asked her to marry him. Yet he wanted her, not idly either, and, when all was said and done, that was a heartening and exciting fact; and after this, he might want her still more, the last traces of self-sufficiency in him (and he had appeared unusually self-sufficient at first, and that had made him all the more attractive) might vanish, and then--well, everything might be different.

If you delight in movement and change, the appeal of a large railway station is irresistible; you are still in the dark cocoon of the city, but one end is splintering already and you can see the blue beyond; the rumbles and shrieks and snortings are only part of the tuning up; and even the smoky smell has the savour of adventure. There had been moments during the last two days when this week-end, this arrival at Victoria, had loomed in Miss Matfield’s mind like some unusually desperate appointment at the dentist’s, and at the thought of it something coldly writhed inside her. Now that she was here, however, she was less introspective and her spirits gradually rose. It was almost better that something extremely unpleasant should happen than that nothing at all should happen; and it was very unlikely that anything extremely unpleasant _would_ happen. She responded to the lively and adventurous bustle of the station. As she strolled over to the bookstall, carrying her small suitcase, she felt tall, healthy, strong, a fine woman of the world. One or two middle-aged men had smiled in her direction and several young men had looked earnestly at her, all of which meant that she was looking her best. The bookstall offered her an almost unlimited choice of reading matter, light periodicals, heavy periodicals, books that were “amazing successes,” books that were “very outspoken,” books that were simply “great bargains.” She did not accept any of them, but the knowledge that they were there somehow gave her pleasure. It was impossible to resist a holiday feeling. The sight of all the fussy and bewildered people, of whom there were an unusually large number, the people who went rushing up to any man in a railway uniform, who looked in despair at the notice-boards, who mopped their brows and snapped at one another, who blankly surveyed great mounds of luggage, who flitted like uneasy ghosts from one platform entrance to another, only brought her a pleasing sense of her own superiority. They were nothing to do with her; she was not behaving like that; and so she looked on, amused, contemptuous, failing to see in this spectacle of the harassed and inexperienced travellers any symbol of this life of ours.

There were two trains, and they had hoped to catch the earlier one. It was now only a few minutes from the time of starting. She returned to her former place, nearer the clock, and looked about her anxiously. He would get the tickets, of course, before he came on to the main platform, so that there was still plenty of time for them to catch the train if he appeared at all. There seemed to be more and more people about, though round her there was a small clear space. It was just possible that he might have missed her. Only two minutes now. She hurried over to the entrance to No. 17 platform and looked over the barrier down the waiting train. Then she returned, even more hastily, to her place near the clock. From there she heard the train go out.

It was annoying. They would have more than three-quarters of an hour to wait now. It was her turn to keep him waiting. Very deliberately, she made her way to the tearoom, which was not very full though it looked vaguely as if it had just been wrecked by a revolutionary mob, and she spent ten minutes over a cup of tea and a cigarette. She would have liked to have stayed longer, but it is almost impossible to linger successfully with only a sheet of glass between you and a host of trains and passengers. She tried to loiter on her way back to the four-faced clock and the bookstall, but an inner restlessness prevented her, and she arrived there as if her train might start any moment. He was not there. Now she began making little circular tours with the clock as their centre. After quarter of an hour of these, she returned to the meeting place and remained there, her suitcase at her feet, erect, motionless, sullen. She was there, and he must find her. People came and went, bought papers and books, looked at the clock, looked at the departure board, glanced at her; porters wheeled their loaded barrows and trucks at this side of her and that; the trains snorted and puffed and sent red gleams to the glass roof; but now she paid no attention at all. She was tired of Victoria, tired of waiting. This time, when the later train was nearly due to start, she stayed where she was and made no attempt to discover if he was already on the platform. When the train had gone, she stood quite still for a minute or two longer, then walked away.

She had to wait again before she could get a telephone call put through to his flat. The telephone boxes were in brisk demand. She knew his telephone number and knew, too, that the instrument at his flat, which had been out of order the week before, was all right now. But she would not have been surprised to find that there was no reply to her call, for she was sure at least that he would not be there. Something had gone wrong; and even now he was probably trying to get to Victoria. There was a reply, however, and it obviously came from a maid.

“Is Mr. Golspie there, please?”

“No, he’s not. He’s gone. So has Miss Golspie. They’ve both gone,” said the voice.

“Gone? Do you mean--he’s out?”

“No, gone. Gone for good.”

“But--I don’t understand. Are you sure? I had an appointment with him to-night.”

“All I know is--he’s gone, Miss Golspie too. They’ve gone to South Africa or South America or one of them places. In a boat, I _do_ know. I helped ’em to pack, and a job it was too, and a nice mess they’ve left this place in, I can tell you. I’m cleaning it up now, after ’em, ’cos they only took it furnished and I stayed on with the place. There was a gentleman came when I was having my dinner,” the voice continued, as if it was rather pleased to have a little chat with somebody, “and he wanted Mr. Golspie badly, but I couldn’t tell him anything except they’d gone, went this morning, luggage and everything, and you never saw such a pile.”

“Did Mr. Golspie leave any message--for anybody?”

“No, he just went----”

“All right, thank you,” said Miss Matfield, interrupting and then ringing off.

He had gone, left the country, without even telling her he was going, without even telling her he could not keep this appointment at the station. He had simply tossed the week-end away, and her with it, as if it had been a crumpled bit of paper. If he had not forgotten all about it, then he had not cared enough to see her for the last time or even to send a message. And this was the man--oh, the humiliation of it all! She left the station, burning with shame and resentment. An hour earlier she might have felt relieved if Mr. Golspie had come and told her that it would be impossible for them to go away this week-end. But she had waited there, suitcase in hand, that filthy little ring in her bag, had waited there, and all the time he was miles away, not caring if she spent the rest of her life standing in Victoria station. Never before had she felt such bitter contempt for herself. She could have cried and cried, not because he had gone and she would probably never set eyes on him again, but because his sudden indifference, at this time of all times, left her feeling pitiably small and silly. The misery of it was like the onslaught of some unexpected, terrible disease. Her mangled pride bled and ached inside her, so that she felt faint.

That was why she did not return, as a sudden impulse commanded her to do, to the station and take the first train anywhere, to get away for the week-end at any cost from London and the Club. She could not do it; all energy and initiative were drained away; she was too tired. She found a No. 2 bus, climbed on top, and then watched, with smarting eyes that refused to see anything properly, the glitter and blue murk of half London go lumbering past, Hyde Park Corner, Park Lane, Oxford Street, Baker Street, Finchley Road, all a meaningless jumble of light and dark, offering nothing to Lilian Matfield, no more than if it had been some Chinese river flickering past on a cinema screen.

Once in the Club, she hurried upstairs, as if she had stolen the suitcase she carried. Hastily, mechanically, she washed, tidied her hair, changed her dress, powdered her face, and then went down to the dining-room. She did not really want food, but something impelled her to throw herself back into the routine of the Club. But she was careful to find one of those nondescript tables for latecomers, at which there was little talk, and what talk there was merely the occasional impersonal remarks of acquaintances. She ate little, and the sight and smell of the food, the look of everybody there, the high chatter and clatter of the room, made her feel sick. Nevertheless, she stayed on, and had her coffee with the rest. When she got back to her room, she began examining all her clothes and grimly set aside some stockings to be mended. Then she remembered something.

“_Can_ I come in?” said Miss Morrison. “Hello, Matfield, what on earth are you doing? Something desperate, by the look of you.”

“Hello, Morrison. I was only throwing something away,” she replied, closing the window. Somewhere out there was a cheap imitation of a wedding ring.

Miss Morrison, who was wearing bedroom slippers, contrived to shuffle elegantly--for she never quite lost her slim elegance--into the room, and hoisted herself on to the bottom of the bed, resting her back against the wall. “Oh, by the way,” she cried, “you oughtn’t to be here. Weren’t you going away for the week-end?”

“I was,” said Miss Matfield shortly, hanging a dress up, “but I changed my mind.”

“Good!” And that was all Miss Morrison had to say about that. It was one of her virtues, as Miss Matfield had begun to notice, that she did not ask questions when they were obviously unwelcome, made no attempt, except in fun, to nose things out of you. Most girls at the Burpenfield, if you were on room-visiting terms with them, did not allow you to have any private life of your own. “I ought to have gone out to-night,” Miss Morrison continued, in her usual languid manner, “but I can’t bother to. I feel foul. I never remember feeling more completely foul, except when I’ve had ’flu or something like that. I’d go and see a doctor only I can’t afford to, and then again I disapprove of the way we females run after doctors and worship them. Cadnam’s just been raving to me about some doctor she’s just been to. ‘He’s fifty, of course, and heavily married,’ she said, ‘but the most marvellously attractive man, my dear.’ She went raving on and on. I think it’s revolting the way these young females adore their doctors and dentists. I refuse to join in, don’t you? After that it’ll be vicars and curates and dear, dear doggies--vile! But, as I said before, I feel thoroughly ill. It’s partly the idiocy of my respected employer, who really is the silliest woman there ever was--she gets sillier--and then again it’s partly the time of year. Don’t you honestly think this is the very, very foulest time of all the year? It’s such a long way from anything or anywhere interesting, isn’t it? Just fiendishly dull. I don’t blame all those illustrated paper people--Lady Chagworth, Colonel Mush, and Friend--for going away and slacking about on the Riviera or in Madeira, or wherever it is they do go. I say ‘good luck to them!’--don’t you? Though I must say it oughtn’t to be the same people who go every year and the same people who stay at home, like us, and push into buses on wet nights. They ought to change round a bit. Your turn this year. Our turn next year. That sort of thing.”

“I should think so,” said Miss Matfield, somewhat indifferently. She was still busy putting clothes away. “I call it beastly unfair. I think I’ll turn Bolshie.”

“I’ve often thought of turning _something_,” said Miss Morrison meditatively. “Have you got a cigarette, by the way?”

“Some over there somewhere. Can you reach over and get them? I’ll have one, too.”

Having found the cigarettes, Miss Morrison handed one over, accompanying it with a curious glance. “I went to that Chehov play, last night. I didn’t tell you, did I? My dear, don’t go. I wept and wept--yes, honestly I did. It was just like the Burpenfield with the lid off, really it was--awful! When I got back last night, I said to myself, ‘I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it.’”

“I think that’s stupid, Morrison,” said Miss Matfield, sitting in the only chair.

“What’s stupid?”

“All that--about not bearing it and about the Club being the Chehov play. It’s not a bit like it.”

“How do you know, my dear? You haven’t seen the play.”

“I’ve read it.”

“I don’t suppose it’s the same, just reading it. I admit it’s not like this at all on the surface, but honestly it’s got the same what-is-it--atmosphere.”

“It hasn’t a bit, I tell you,” said Miss Matfield earnestly. “And I really think it’s stupid talking like that about this place. It’s ridiculous--all silly exaggeration. When you talk like that, Morrison, you annoy me----”

“Since when, my dear?”

“Well, I’ve made up my mind that it’s simply absurd, besides being terribly depressing, going about talking like that about the life we lead here. It makes it seem fifty times worse than it is. And, anyhow, it’s not bad really. It’s our own fault if it is. Yes it is.”

“My dear, you can’t mean it.”

“Yes, I do mean it.”

Having said this, Miss Matfield put down her cigarette, looked at the floor for a minute, then quite suddenly and unaccountably burst into tears.

“Sorry!” she cried, five minutes later, when it was all over. “I’m not going mad, though I dare say it seemed like it. I think--I’ve been feeling rotten too, all strung up, you know.”

“My dear,” said Miss Morrison, who had been very tactful, “if I hadn’t wept buckets last night at that play, I don’t know what I’d be doing to-night.”

“Listen,” cried Miss Matfield, jumping to her feet and smiling damply. “I’ve made up my mind now. Yes, I have. It’s serious. Listen. I’m going to work properly, and I’m going to get a better job and make more money.”

“You’re not going to leave your present job, are you?”

“The Lord forbid! If I did, the scheme wouldn’t work at all. No, but I’m going to tell them there isn’t anything in the office, or connected with it, I won’t and can’t do, if they’ll only give me a chance. I’m going to be _really_ in business, not just sort of hanging on there. I’ve got a jolly good chance because my firm’s very busy now and we’re short-handed, and the man who really sold all the veneers and inlays has just left us----”

“Not the man you told me about, the fascinating one?”

“Yes,” Miss Matfield continued hurriedly. “He’s gone, and that means there’ll be an awful lot to do and they’ll have to get new people. Well, I’m going down to Angel Pavement in the morning--and I needn’t go if I don’t want, because I got the morning off when I thought I was going away for the week-end----”

“Wait a minute. Do you mean to say that you’ve actually got the morning off and yet you’re going all the same? You do? My dear, it sounds desperate.”