Chapter XX: Part 20

“Yes, I am. And I’m going to Mr. Dersingham, and I shall tell him that I believe I could do anything that any man could do--and I don’t care if it’s going round to the weirdest Jewy East End furniture places selling veneers--and that he ought to give me a chance. I believe he will too, particularly now, when business is so good and he’s so short of people. He could easily get another girl to do my typing, and that sort of thing, and I’d go and do some real work and then ask for more money. Very soon, I might have a real job, with a decent salary and proper responsibility and everything.”

“Quite crazy! Though I believe you could do it, if they’d give you a chance.”

“They’ll have to give me a chance, and I’m sure I could do it.”

She kept returning to the subject for the next hour, and then, when Miss Morrison had gone, she made up her mind all over again, and saw Messrs. Twigg & Dersingham growing more and more prosperous and herself, a real member of the firm, growing more and more prosperous with it. She arrived at Angel Pavement in a neat little car, and stepped out of it a cool, capable business woman, dressed with a certain austerity, but still attractive. Before she finally got to sleep, she had furnished not only her tiny flat in town, but also her little week-end cottage, which was the delighted admiration of her mother and other occasional guests. “Lilian, you _are_ lucky,” they cried; but she told them it was all the result of sheer hard work. This was the last dream of the day, and it was very pleasant. The dreams that followed in the night, the dreams that came without being asked, were curiously different, all dark and troubled, like the dreams of a child who has been hurried away to a strange place.

III

Mrs. Dersingham, Miss Verever and Mr. and Mrs. Pearson were playing bridge upstairs at 34, Barkfield Gardens, in the Pearsons’ drawing-room. Mr. Dersingham should have been there, but he had telephoned to say that urgent business kept him at the office, so Miss Verever, who was usually abroad at this time of the year but had stayed in London because she was quarrelling with her solicitors, had taken his place. She was always ready to take anybody’s place at any dining or bridge tables, though she never gave the least sign that she was enjoying herself. The card table was in the middle of the room, and there was only just space enough for it and its four players, in spite of the fact that this was a large room, larger than any of the Dersinghams’ downstairs. The trouble was that the Pearsons had so many things. They had furnished the room first with good solid late Victorian furniture, and then they had poured into it the glittering East, all the loot of Singapore. If the Federated Malay States had been destroyed by an earthquake and a great tidal wave, their life could have been re-constructed out of that room, which put any missionary exhibition to shame. Everybody looked out of place in it, and nobody more out of place than the Pearsons themselves.

They were now playing their third rubber of auction. Mrs. Dersingham had Mr. Pearson for her partner, and they were not badly paired, for she was rather a bold, slap-dash player, while he was very dull, cautious, obvious, though he always tried to give the impression of immense cunning. Nobody believed in this cunning of his except his wife, who would shake her mysterious dark curls at him and girlishly protest against his sinister subtlety. “Isn’t he dreadful?” she would cry, after Mr. Pearson, with much stroking of his chin and narrowing of his eyes, had succeeded in some commonplace _finesse_. Mrs. Pearson, though she had been sitting at bridge tables for years, was one of those cheerfully bad players who continually ask for and receive advice, but have not the slightest intention of improving their play. Probably she only saw the cards as so many vague pieces of pasteboard, and what was real to her was simply the social scene, the faces round the green cloth and the pleasant chatter between games. If somebody had suggested playing _Snap_ with the cards or telling fortunes with them, she would have been delighted, but as people seemed to prefer bridge, whether in Singapore or in London, she gladly made one at the table. And if all Barkfield Gardens had been combed, it would have been impossible to find a worse partner for Miss Verever, who played a good, keen, close, give-no-quarter game, and loathed all idle chatterers at the table, all idiots who would _not_ get trumps out, all the fools who clung to their wretched aces, all the witless monsters who said, “Have you seen her lately? I haven’t seen her for weeks and weeks. Let me see, _what_ are trumps?” Mrs. Pearson combined smilingly every fault in bridge-playing known to Miss Verever, and Miss Verever’s glances and tone of voice, queer and disturbing at any time, were now more queer and disturbing than ever, so that Mrs. Dersingham felt quite frightened and wished she had never asked her to take Howard’s place. On Mrs. Pearson herself, however, these very peculiar glances, these biting accents seemed to have no effect.

“Well,” said Mr. Pearson, picking up his pencil, “that’s three down, doubled--three hundred to us. Simple honours to you, eighteen. Didn’t do badly that time, eh partner? Must make something while we can. Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

“Isn’t he dreadful?” cried Mrs. Pearson. “And you’re nearly as bad, my dear, you’re encouraging him. You see what it is, playing against my husband, Miss Verever. He’s a dreadful man. Never mind, we’ll do better next time, won’t we?”

“But was it necessary to go Three Spades?” Miss Verever enquired bitterly.

“Well, wasn’t it? Oh, do tell me if it wasn’t. When you’d gone One, you see, and I had some spades, I thought we might win the rubber if we played the spades. If you think I did anything wrong, Miss Verever, don’t be afraid of telling me, because I know you’re ever so much better than I am. Should I have played that king first?”

Miss Verever drew a deep breath, but Mrs. Dersingham was too quick for her. “Oh, don’t let’s have post-mortems,” she cried. “Whose deal is it? Mine, isn’t it?”

“I suppose Mr. Dersingham will come up when he gets back, won’t he?” said Mrs. Pearson, who never failed to snatch at any little opportunity for a chat. “He’s late, isn’t he? It must be so tiring for him, poor man. We know what it is, don’t we?”

“We do,” replied her husband. “At least I do, my dear. Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

“He used to work terribly late sometimes out in Singapore,” Mrs. Pearson explained. “Night after night, sometimes in the hot season, too.”

“Couldn’t grumble though,” said Mr. Pearson. “It meant that business was good.”

“Yes, of course, that’s what I feel,” said Mrs. Dersingham, pausing in her dealing. “I suppose they’ve had a sudden rush or something.”

“That’s splendid, isn’t it?” cried Mrs. Pearson. “I do like to hear of anybody I know doing so well. So many people don’t now, do they?”

“It’s made a great difference to Howard, being so busy,” said Mrs. Dersingham, still with the cards motionless in her hand. “He really likes being in the City now. He was getting very depressed about it some time ago. Now let me see----”

“The next card should be mine,” said Miss Verever coldly.

“Oh, should it? That’s all right, then.” And she continued dealing.

“Well, I didn’t want to say anything at the time, my dear,” Mrs. Pearson began, but she was cut short. Mrs. Dersingham looked up to see Miss Verever, on her right, giving her a terrible glance, and so she hastily declared “Pass.”

“But I thought he seemed rather depressed about it, too,” Mrs. Pearson continued. “About six months ago, wasn’t it?”

“_One Heart_,” said Miss Verever, quietly, but with a fearful intonation. “_One Heart._”

“Oh dear, have you started bidding already? How quick you are with your cards!” Mrs. Pearson began sorting hers in a frantic fashion. “Did you say One Heart? You did, didn’t you? Well, after last time, I shall say--nothing.”

“But it’s not your turn to say anything,” Mr. Pearson pointed out. “In this game, your husband for once gets a chance to speak. And I say--One No Trumps. Yes, this is where your husband’s allowed to speak, my dear. Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

They were a game all in this rubber, so Miss Verever struggled up to Three Hearts, but her opponents went Three No Trumps, got them, won the rubber, and put her down eight hundred points.

“Is there time for another rubber?” said Mrs. Pearson, who was always quite willing to go on playing, perhaps because she never really started.

“I hardly think there is,” said Miss Verever, with one of her peculiar smiles.

“No, let’s stop now,” cried Mrs. Dersingham.

“Somebody owes me four and ninepence,” Mr. Pearson pointed out.

“Listen to him! Isn’t he really a dreadful man when he plays this game? I believe I’ve lost four and nine--or is it five and nine?” Mrs. Pearson shook her curls at the score. “But I refuse to pay _you_ anything, so there!”

“Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

“Well, I suppose I must pay _my_ debts,” said Miss Verever, looking at her score as if it was composed of something filthy, then glancing round without removing all the last expression from her face. “I pay you, I think, my dear. I’m afraid--yes, I’m afraid--I shall have to ask you for change.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Mrs. Dersingham hastily. “I haven’t got any change.”

“Please remind me then, the next time.” Miss Verever said this as if they would soon be meeting in some torture chamber.

Somebody had arrived. It must be--it was--Mr. Dersingham. He came forward, blinking a little. His wife did not like the look of him. He was flushed and rather untidy.

Mrs. Pearson rushed at him. “Come along, you poor, poor man! Sit down here. Make yourself comfortable. You’ve been working all this time while we’ve been enjoying ourselves. Walter, give poor Mr. Dersingham a drink this minute. I’m sure you’d like one, wouldn’t you?”

Mr. Dersingham said that he would, and the next minute he was taking a good swig of a large whisky and soda. When he put the glass down, he caught his wife’s eye, and for a moment he just stared at her. She liked the look of him now less than ever. To begin with, this was by no means the first large whisky he had had that night. She saw that at once. But that was not all. There was something wrong. She glanced round and saw Miss Verever staring at him, and decided immediately that the sooner Miss Verever left them the better. She did not mind much about the Pearsons, who were kind and homely people, but she did not want Maud Verever to see or hear anything. She was about to suggest that they must go, when Mr. Pearson spoke.

“Had a long day, Dersingham, eh?” said Mr. Pearson, his cheeks wobbling sympathetically. “We were just talking about it. I know what it is. I’ve had these rushes, you know, working half the night--in the hot season too, not a breath of air. Takes it out of you, I’ll tell you. Still, it’s good for business, isn’t it? Better than the other way round, eh? Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

“I think I really ought to be going now,” said Miss Verever, with one of her dreadful smiles.

“Enjoyed yourself?” said Mr. Dersingham.

She started back. “Oh--of course,” she replied, keeping her eyes fixed on him.

“Good. I’m glad to hear it. I like to hear of anybody enjoying themselves, and specially you, Miss Verever.”

There was something very extraordinary about this, but Miss Verever did not care to stop and investigate it. She began saying Good-night. Mrs. Dersingham said that they must go too, but Mr. Dersingham refused to stir, so Miss Verever left by herself, though Mrs. Dersingham accompanied her down the stairs.

“Howard doesn’t seem to be very well to-night, does he?” said Miss Verever, when they reached the hall below, in the Dersingham half of the building.

“He’s tired, that’s all. I don’t think he’s very well. He’s been working tremendously hard. It’s terribly tiring working late like this down in the City.”

“I suppose it is.” And it would be impossible to cram a larger amount of dubiety into four words than Miss Verever did into those four.

“Of course it is,” cried Mrs. Dersingham, a trifle impatiently. “You just try it and see.”

“Why, have you tried it, my dear? If you have, it’s news to me. However, I hope Howard’s better soon. He shouldn’t tire himself out like that. It must be very bad for him. Don’t you think so? Well, it was very nice of you to ask me to make the four up and play with Mrs. Pearson. Good-bye, my dear.”

Mrs. Dersingham hurried back to the Pearsons, slightly alarmed and considerably annoyed. It looked as if Howard had not been kept late at the office at all, but had sneaked off to his club, where he had had more drinks than were good for him. There was always just a little, a little, danger of that with Howard. She found him sitting with his legs stretched out straight in front of him, listening to the Pearsons, who were still talking about Singapore.

“Taking it all round, y’know, the good with the bad,” Mr. Pearson concluded, “it’s not such a bad life out there, though it’s not so good as it was. It isn’t anywhere in the East. Still, even so, I believe if I’d my time over again, I’d go out there again, I really believe I would.”

“Good!” said Mr. Dersingham, with a kind of dreary solemnity. “All right then, Pearson, what about that job out there you promised to get me?”

“Any time, any time! Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee. When would you like it? Tee-tee-tee.” Mr. Pearson evidently regarded this as a great joke.

“You can start getting it for me now, old man.”

Mrs. Pearson joined in the joke. “You’d better be getting your clothes ready, my dear,” she told Mrs. Dersingham, who smiled, though not very brightly. She did not see anything very funny in all this, and her husband was behaving very stupidly. It was time she got him away.

“I’m serious, y’know,” he declared now, with the same dreary solemnity. “I’m not joking. You get me that job out there as soon as you can. I’m serious.”

“That’s right. So are we. When would you like it then? Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

Mr. Dersingham drained his glass, then examined what was left in it, the last golden drops, with a thoroughness that suggested he was conducting a chemical experiment.

“We _really_ must go, yes, really we must,” cried Mrs. Dersingham, with a forced brightness; and in less than two minutes she had said all there was to say and had hustled her husband and herself out of the room. There was no fire in the drawing-room below, but there was the whitening ruin of one in the dining-room, and immediately he stumped in there in a heavy sort of way and sat down. She walked in after him, but did not sit down.

“I’m going to bed,” she announced coldly.

“Just a minute,” he said in a muffled voice.

“I prefer to go to bed. I’m tired, even if you’re not.” And she turned away.

“No, don’t go,” he cried, quite sharply now, with hardly anything of that thickness in his voice that had been there before. “You mustn’t, Pongo. I’ve got something to tell you.”

She closed the door and came back. “Pongo” was his old specially silly delightful name for her, and even now, when she was annoyed with him, when he was a large, pink, sagging creature, whose every stupidity she knew by heart, when he was sitting there, flushed and thick with whisky, not at all the sort of man she ever imagined she was marrying, a hundred times less attentive and considerate and clever and courageous, even now, the sound of that “Pongo” gave her a little thrill. She was annoyed with herself for feeling it. If he imagined he was going to be forgiven at once, simply because he had called her by that name, he was sadly mistaken.

She took up a position on the other side of the hearth, and stood looking down on him. “I should think you have something to say! Have you been to the club?”

He nodded and waved an impatient hand. “That was nothing,” he muttered.

“No, but if you _must_ pretend you have to work late and then you go on to the club and fuddle yourself with drinks, you might at least have the sense to keep out of the way, instead of barging in like that and behaving so stupidly. No, Howard, I’m really disgusted. You know I’m not silly about drinking, as some women are. But there’s a limit. I believe you’re drinking a jolly sight too much these days, a lot more than is good for you. Yes, I mean it. Anybody could see what was the matter with you to-night, up there.”

“Oh, could they?” He gave a little laugh.

“Yes, of course they could.”

“Well, believe me, my dear, they _couldn’t_. Not one of ’em. Not you, even. No, not you.”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Howard.”

“I’m not being silly. I wish to God I was. You know when I asked Pearson about that job? I suppose you thought I was being funny then, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t think you were being particularly funny,” she told him, “though you obviously thought you were. If you want to know what I thought, it was that you were just being rather stupid.”

“Well, I wasn’t, Pongo,” he said quietly. “I was quite serious. No, listen. We’re absolutely done--I mean the firm, Twigg and Dersingham--completely finished.”

“Howard, you don’t mean it?”

“Yes, I do. That’s what kept me to-night. I had a drink or two just because I felt played out, and I suppose I did show it--sorry about that--but I’ve had a hell of a day. Golspie’s cleared out and left us----”

“But you told me the other day that even if Golspie did go, it wouldn’t matter and you’d arranged everything so that you could do without him.”

“I know, but the rotten swine did me down----”

“But how? I don’t understand. Howard, you don’t really mean it’s as serious as all that? The firm can go on, can’t it?”

He shook his head, and kept his face turned away. He looked like a great foolish baby. She swept down on him. “Tell me what’s happened. Why didn’t you tell me at once? I’m sorry I was cross with you. I didn’t know it was anything serious--naturally. Now tell me.”

He told her the whole wretched story.

“But do you mean to say that brute has gone and you can’t do anything, anything at all? But it’s ridiculous. Can’t you tell the police? Why, it’s just as bad as burglary or swindling. It _is_ swindling. But I knew, I _knew_ all the time that something would happen because of that man. He hated us after that night he came here and I lost my temper with that vile little minx of a daughter. I felt all the time he did. I told you to get rid of him, didn’t I? Oh, Howard, you have been stupid. Yes, you have. I’ll never believe in you again as a business man. You used to tell me I didn’t understand about these things, but I’m sure I understand about people--and that’s the main thing--better than you. But what’s going to happen now?”

“I don’t know,” he mumbled miserably, and he explained as best he could the position they were in. As she listened, she suddenly saw the four walls enclosing them, the table and chairs and sideboard, everything in sight, no longer as solid objects, fixed, rooted in a secure existence, but as things brittle as glass, unstable and wavering as water. Nor did her imagination stop there. It explored the whole maisonette, the drawing-room, the kitchen below, the nursery and bedrooms, and discovered nothing substantial there, except the two children asleep upstairs and a few personal possessions that had long ceased to be mere things. She realised now, with a shock of dismay, that something absurd and fantastic could happen in Angel Pavement, far away, that could change all this. Their life here in Barkfield Gardens, not their personal life, but everything else, all the cleaning and cooking and shopping and visiting, was a mere candle-flame--one puff of wind, a wind that came from nowhere, and it was gone. She understood how millions of people live. It was a moment of revelation.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“I don’t know yet,” he replied wearily. “Give me time. I haven’t had a chance to think yet. Hang it all, this has all been dropped on me like a ton of bricks. God!--I’m tired.”

He sounded helpless, looked helpless. Her mind began working furiously now, and the effect, after months and months of stagnation, of pretending and dreaming and vague discontent, was curiously exhilarating. “Do you think Mr. Pearson could get you a job out East?”

“No, I don’t.”

“But why? You haven’t asked him properly. He doesn’t know you want one--if you really do want one, and I’m not sure about that.”

“I know he doesn’t, my dear. But I’m sure when he does he’ll change his tune. I felt that when he was talking to-night. It’s all right,” he added bitterly, as if he had suddenly discovered what the world was like and what men were made of, “while it’s still a joke. The minute he finds I’m serious, he’ll pull a long face. I don’t mean he’s not a decent chap and all that. But he thinks he’s talking to a prosperous business man who doesn’t really want a job. That’s the difference.”

“I must have some tea,” she announced. “It’s no good; we must talk it over; if I went to bed I shouldn’t sleep a wink--and if we’re going to stay up, I must have some tea. I’ll go down and make some. No, I can do it by myself. You stay here, and, Howard, do, do try and think of something. Try and find out how much money we’ll have left--and everything.”

When she returned with the tea, he was still sitting in the same huddled fashion. “Listen, I’ve been thinking,” she began, almost gaily. But seeing him there, a large melancholy heap of man, she put down the tray, came across, pushed him back in his chair, and stood looking down at him, her hands still on his shoulders.

“Do you love me?” she asked.

He found this question as difficult as ever, but this time there was none of that masculine impatience or grinning intolerance. “As a matter of fact, I do,” he told her in a shamefaced mumble, “but I don’t feel this is the time to say so.”

“Of course it is. Why not?”

“Well, I’ve let you down. I’ve let you down badly. I’ve been a fool. I’ll admit I have. But I never liked the business, you know that, don’t you? If it hadn’t been for the cursed War, I’d never have gone into it. Not my style at all. I always hated it really--Angel Pavement and all those damned furniture places and sniffling East End Jews, and the whole thing. I’ve tried my best, but it’s always gone against the grain. I’m not excusing myself, mind, though honestly I think anybody might have been let down the same way by that artful devil. Smeeth--and he’s been in business all his life--never had a suspicion. He was more surprised than I was. And a fellow I talked to at the Club said he’d never heard of such a thing, said I couldn’t be blamed at all. But there it is. What bothers me is that there’s some of your money gone, too. I’m sorry, Pongo. I seem to have made a mess of it.”

“I have some money left, though.”

“Not much,” he told her gloomily. “About twelve hundred, perhaps. No, not quite that.”

“Well, that’s something, isn’t it? It’s quite a lot, really. And after all you’ve had very good business experience now. Then--you remember what Uncle Phil said? Just a minute; I’ll pour out the tea. Yes, you must have some.” She did not sound at all depressed.

She was not depressed. In a few weeks, she might be miserable--she knew that too; she seemed to know everything to-night--but now, at this moment, she might have just had good news instead of very bad. Unlike her husband, who appeared to be only half the man he usually was, a listless lump, she felt twice her customary self. The footlights had blazed out, the curtain had shot up, and she had responded at once to the call of the drama. But there was more in it than that. She was no longer playing and pretending in the background. The situation, leaving him crushed, challenged her, and there was something exhilarating in accepting the challenge. Everything was suddenly real and exciting. Plans by the score, some of them born of old idle day-dreams, were stirring in her mind, and now while he listened, sometimes shaking his head, sometimes looking at her hopefully, they came tumbling out. “Of course, we’ll give this place up as soon as we can--we ought to get a decent premium too--look what we’ve spent on the decoration--and then I’m sure mother would take the children for a few months....”

IV

Yes, Mr. Smeeth was going home. It never occurred to him to go and hear what was left of the concert. He had done with Brahms & Co. for a long time, perhaps for ever. As he waited for his tram, he remembered that tune again--Ta _tum_ ta ta _tum_ tum--and now it seemed like something that was going on a long, long way off, like a birthday party in Australia. He said good-bye to that tune. As the tram went lumbering and groaning up the City Road, he said good-bye to many things.

He was feeling rather queer. He had missed his usual evening meal and was empty; that double whisky had had its effect; there was undoubtedly a pain somewhere in his side; and then of course there was the shock of the bad news. He had for years moved gingerly, apprehensively, through a world in which the worst might happen at any moment. The worst had happened. He could have said to himself, with satisfaction, “What did I tell you?” Perhaps there ought not to have been any shock. But it was not so simple as that. He had never expected to be hurled out of his job in this fashion. He had always seen danger coming from many quarters, but nevertheless this blow had arrived from quite an unexpected quarter. The more he thought about it, the angrier he grew. His anger was not directed against Mr. Dersingham, not even against Golspie, but against the whole world, the very nature of things.

You go on for years and years building up a position for yourself until at last you have a place of your own, a little world of your own, in which the figures do what you tell them to do, the books reveal their secrets, the fellows at the bank say “Good morning, Mr. Smeeth,” and everything is snug and sensible. Then a chap turns up from nowhere, looks at a trade directory and happens to choose your firm, wanders in to Angel Pavement, and then, in less than six months’ time, without your having any hand or say in it, he blows you clean out of it all, without even knowing or caring a thing about it. You are quietly finishing off for the day, and then suddenly--bang! What was the good of trams going up and down the City Road and conductors taking fares and nobody smoking inside or spitting on top under penalty of a fine? What was the good of having a City Road at all and lighting it with street lamps and opening shops and sending policemen to walk up and down it; what was the good of paying rates and taxes and shaving yourself and seeing that you had a clean collar and going round to doctors and dentists and reading the newspapers and voting, if this is what could happen any minute? My God!--what was the good of it all?

This blanched middle-aged man, sitting in a corner of the moving tram, an unlighted pipe trembling beneath his grey moustache, the wrinkles on his face deeper than ever, peered through his glasses now at the familiar panorama of the North London roads and saw not a glimmer of it. His gaze was really fixed on the crazy structure of things, and of that he could make neither head nor tail. He was shaking a little, not with fear, but with indignation. For years there had been a great shadow haunting and terrifying him, for he had seen all the little lighted things of his life menaced by it. Now the lights had gone, blown out; he sat in the shadow itself; the tram was crawling through it; the Stoke Newington Road was in it; and all his fear had been used up before by that shadow, when he had been a man who had something precious to lose. Now he had lost it. In a week or two, he would have to start again, and at a time when even the boys were lining up in their hundreds for a chance of a mere beginning at ten shillings a week. It wasn’t good enough. That was the phrase he used, the first that sprang into his mind, and he repeated it over and over again with tremendous emphasis. “Not good enough,” he said as he left the tram. “Not good enough,” as he made his way to Chaucer Road, “not good enough.”

It was only too evident, he told himself grimly, that they were not expecting him back so soon at 17, Chaucer Road. Everything seemed to be in full swing there. You might have thought somebody had just been left a fortune. He heard a great noise coming from the front room, and he saw a light in the dining-room. He chose the dining-room, and found George there, tinkering about with the wireless set.

“Who’s in there?” asked Mr. Smeeth.

“The Mitty crowd,” said George, with a tiny grin. “I came in here out of the way. I’ve had enough of that lot. Mitty owes me a quid, too. He’s no good.” He looked curiously at his father. “Anything up, Dad?”

“You got anything to do yet, George?”

“Not yet. I thought I was on to something to-day, but it was no go. I’m going round to see a chap to-morrow morning, big garage up at Stamford Hill. Why? Anything wrong?”

“Yes. I look like being out of a job within the next fortnight, and you know what that means.”

It was not the tragedy to George that it was to his father, not merely because George was much younger, but also because his whole outlook was different, for he lived in a newer world in which jobs came and went and nobody troubled to spend years consolidating a position. Nevertheless, the youth had sufficient imagination to realise what this meant to his father. “I’m sorry about that, Dad--by gosh, I am! Rotten luck, isn’t it? How’d it happen? They’d never sack you, would they? Has the firm gone broke?”

“That’s it. Try and get something as soon as you can, George. You know how we’ll be fixed.”

“Don’t worry, Dad, I’ll get something soon, something good, too. Edna’s not earning anything now, either, is she? She’d better make another start, too, hadn’t she?”

“I’ll attend to that. We’ll all have to make another start now, if you ask me,” said Mr. Smeeth grimly. They looked at one another, with approval on both sides, in silence for a moment. They could hear sounds of merriment from the other room. “Seem to be enjoying themselves in there,” said Mr. Smeeth, his temper rising.

George came nearer. “Dad, boot ’em out. I would if it was my house. I told mother so, too----”

“Taking something on yourself, boy, aren’t you, these days?”

“Well, I did. I can’t stand that lot. That’s why I came in here.”

Mr. Smeeth nodded. “That’s just what I’m going to do, George. I want some peace and quietness to-night, and I’m going to have it.” He walked out, and his son followed him.

The front room was just as it had been the first time the Mitty family visited them. There were only five people in it, Mitty and his wife and daughter, Mrs. Smeeth and Edna, but it seemed quite crowded and as thick, hot, and smelly, as if people had been eating, drinking and smoking in it for weeks. It made Mr. Smeeth feel very angry and disgusted.

Mrs. Smeeth stared at him, and looked uneasy. “Hello, Dad,” she cried. “I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

“So it seems.”

“Didn’t you go to the concert?”

Fred Mitty, very flushed, was about to help himself from a bottle that stood, with other bottles, glasses, and some cake and biscuits, on a little table in the centre of the room. He was leaning forward, but straightened himself when he saw Mr. Smeeth standing there. “Thought you was having some classical music to-night, Pa,” he roared. “Gave it a miss, eh?”

Mr. Smeeth advanced into the room, breathing hard. He looked at Mitty. “I’ve been working hard,” he said pointedly, “and I want some peace and quietness now. So I’ll say Good-night.”

“What d’you mean, Dad?” cried Mrs. Smeeth.

But the irrepressible Fred could not resist this. “Well, night-night, Pa,” he yelled, “if you’re going to bed. Don’t let me keep you.” He looked round with a grin, asking for applause, and got it from the two girls, who giggled. Then he made a move towards the bottle again.

“I’m not going to bed, just yet,” said Mr. Smeeth, his voice trembling. “But you’re going home. That’s what I meant.”

“Here, half a minute, Dad.” Mrs. Smeeth’s voice rose in indignation. “What a way to talk!”

“I should think so indeed,” cried Mrs. Mitty, sitting up sharply.

“For the more we are too-gether,” Fred sang, as his hand closed round the whisky bottle, “the merrier we will bee-yer.”

The fuse had been burning briskly for some time, and now its travelling spark reached the explosive. Mr. Smeeth blew up. “Get out!” he screamed at Mitty. “Get out of here! Go on! Get out!”

“That’s the stuff,” shouted George from the doorway.

But that scream was not enough for such an explosion of wrath. Two seconds later, Mr. Smeeth had flung down the little table and sent whisky and port and dirty glasses and cake and biscuits and oranges flying about the room. All was roaring chaos, with Fred Mitty shouting, the two wives screaming, Dot Mitty shrieking with laughter, Edna bursting into tears, George charging forward, and Mr. Smeeth standing in the middle, bellowing and stamping among the ruins. All the others jumped up and there was a pushing and jostling and Mr. Smeeth lost his eyeglasses and had no hope of finding them in the scrimmage. Nothing could be plainly heard in the din, and now, for Mr. Smeeth, robbed of his glasses, nothing could be plainly seen. His wife seemed to be shaking his arm and shrieking at him; Mrs. Mitty seemed to have hurled herself at Fred, to prevent further violence; and George appeared to be taking a hand in all the proceedings. But in another minute, he was alone in the room, and all the others seemed to be talking at the top of their voices outside. Feeling shaky, he made a step or two towards a chair, and trod on some glass. His own eyeglasses were still on the floor somewhere, and no doubt somebody had trodden on them. He collapsed into the chair, and in a dazed fashion removed a strange soggy substance from his left bootsole. It was what had once been a very generous slice of sandwich cake. Then a piece of broken glass, a jagged fragment of tumbler, cut his hand. He felt ill. It would not have been very difficult for him to have been sick on the spot. The sound of the voices outside did not abate for several minutes, but he stayed where he was. They could argue it out between them, could say and do what they liked; he didn’t care.

The door had been left open, and he heard the Mitty family go, and then he heard George say something to Mrs. Smeeth and Edna. The three of them went into the dining-room and closed the door behind them, but the sound of their voices, raised in heated discussion, came to him in his armchair. He had groped about a little with the hand that was not cut, but all he had found were two biscuits and these he had eaten in that mechanical fashion in which biscuits are nearly always eaten. The voices were lower now and suggested that their owners were no longer merely shouting at one another, but were really talking. More minutes passed, and then he heard Edna go upstairs to bed. Then, after a short interval, during which he listened intently, shakily, to every sound, his wife came into the room. She did not burst in, as he had expected her to do; she came in quietly and shut the door after her. But this did not necessarily mean that there would not be a storm, and he braced himself to meet it.

There was no storm, however. Mrs. Smeeth’s first fury had passed, though she was still very agitated. “If it hadn’t been for George, I was going to say something to you, Herbert, you wouldn’t forget for a long, long time. But he says you’re very upset about your work.”

“I am,” said Mr. Smeeth in a very low voice.

“He says you’re going to lose your job. Is that right?”

“That’s right, Edie. It’s all up with Twigg and Dersingham. In a week or two I’ll be finding myself without a job.”

“You’re sure this time, Dad? I mean--it’s not one of your false alarms, is it?”

“I wish it was. No, there’s no false alarm about it this time.”

“Mind you,” cried Mrs. Smeeth hastily, shakily, “that’s no reason why you should have gone and behaved like this. My word, if anybody’d told me you’d have gone and done a thing like that--you of all men--my word, I’d have told _them_ something! Smashing the place up, too! Look at this room! Look at yourself! But I suppose if you were upset, you weren’t responsible. Here, Dad, are you sure, really sure, about your job? You’re not--you’re not trying to frighten me again, are you?”

“No, of course I’m not.”

“I can’t believe it. Here, what happened?”

He tried to tell her what had happened, and at least succeeded in convincing her that he was entirely serious. “And if you think I’m going to get another job as good as that, or a job worth having at all, in a hurry, you’re mistaken, Edie. I know what it is, with office jobs; and it’ll have to be an office job because that’s what I’ve always done. I’m nearly fifty, and I look it. I dare say I look older----”

“That you don’t, Dad.”

“Well, that’s your opinion, but you won’t be employing me. I know what it is.” And there came back to him suddenly, poignantly, the memory of that tiny scene outside the office door, several months ago, when he had said to that anxious man, the last in the line of applicants, “Good luck!” and had received the ghost of a smile. “There are four of us here. George is out of work, though he might get something soon. He’s a good lad, really. There’s Edna. She’s earning nothing now.”

“She will be before this time next week,” said Mrs. Smeeth quickly. “I’ll see to that.”

“She might be, and then again, she might not. And in a week or two I’ll be among the unemployed. And we’ve got about forty odd pounds saved up, that’s what we’ve got, all told, unless you count this furniture.”

“I can work,” cried Mrs. Smeeth fiercely. “You needn’t think there’ll be me to keep in idleness. I’ll get something. I’ll go out charring first.”

“But I don’t want you to go out charring,” Mr. Smeeth told her, almost shouting. “I didn’t marry you and I haven’t worked all this time, never missing a minute if I could help it, and we didn’t save and plan to get this home together, so you could go out charring. My God, it’s not good enough. When I think of the way I’ve worked and planned and gone without things to get us a decent position----!” His voice dropped.

“We’ll manage somehow.” And having said this, Mrs. Smeeth, the gay and confident partner, suddenly and astonishingly burst into tears.

“Manage? We’ll have to manage,” Mr. Smeeth had begun, grimly. Then he changed his tone. “Here, Edie. That’s all right, that’s all right. Now then, now then. I’m sorry I lost my temper too----”

“It was my fault,” she sobbed. “Yes, it is. I deserved it. I know I’ve spent too much money. Yes, I have.”

“Oh, never mind. You weren’t to know the firm was going broke like that. I didn’t know myself. Never more surprised in my life. Here, Edie. Now then, now then.” He was standing beside her now.

“Oh dear,” she gasped, a few minutes later, trying to wipe her eyes. She was both laughing and crying now. “Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear!”

He looked at her solemnly.

“Oh dear, dear, you do look a sight, Dad. I don’t know who looks the worst, you or this room. I never saw such a sketch, though I expect I’m bad enough, goodness knows!”

“I’ve dropped my eyeglasses, that’s all that’s wrong with me,” Mr. Smeeth announced, not without dignity.

“I can see that, Dad, I can see that,” she told him, dabbing at her face. “Here, I’ll look for them. You sit down. But, mind you, if they’re broken, don’t blame me. It wasn’t me that started throwing things about to-night, was it? Here they are.”

“Broken?”

“Yes, somebody made no mistake when they trod on them. You’ll have to wear your old ones for a day or two, that’s all. I’ll go and get them for you, and then you can help me to clear this mess up.”

“All right, Edie.” Mr. Smeeth hesitated. “Is there anything to eat in the house? I’m getting hungry now.”

“Didn’t you have anything? Haven’t you had anything at all to-night? You silly man, why didn’t you say so? I’ll go and get you something now. You go and get your glasses, you know where they are--in the drawer upstairs. If you can’t see them, you can feel for them. Yes, in the top drawer. And I’ll get you something to eat while you’re finding them. Oh dear, what a life! Still, it’s the only one we’ve got, I suppose, so we’d better make what we can out of it.”

She bustled out and Mr. Smeeth followed her. He was very shortsighted, almost helpless without his glasses, and after he had stumbled upstairs to their bedroom he spent some time groping about for the old pair. Annoyed by the dim shapelessness of everything, he told himself that he ought to have been wearing his glasses before he started on such a search. Then he saw the irony of it and was quite entertained for a few moments, during which he felt for the first time for a long while a curiously reassuring detachment from things, and when he found the old glasses and put them on, he seemed, for one brief interval, to be staring at another and smaller world, and it was a world that could play all manner of tricks with Herbert Norman Smeeth but could never capture, swallow, and digest the whole of him. The newly-born ironist then returned downstairs, to eat his supper.

_Epilogue_

Mr. Golspie, pottering about in his cabin, would not have known she was moving off if he had not suddenly seen a blue funnel go wandering across the open porthole. He could feel no motion, but then she was not moving under her own steam, but was being taken out of the docks by tugs. Mr. Golspie put his head into the next cabin, where his daughter was still fussing about with her things. “We’re off,” he said, grinning at her. Lena showed no sign of excitement. You might have thought she had been travelling to the River Plate all her life.

“Coming out?” said her father.

“Not yet. Are we really going? There doesn’t seem to be any excitement.”

“There isn’t. If that’s what you want, we ought to have gone on a liner, and then you’d have had palaver enough--kissing and crying and cheering and God knows what. These boats do it quietly.”

“Well, I’m disappointed. But I’ll come out when there’s something to see and I’ve put these things away. I’m rather tired of staring at these silly docks, though. Tell me when anything happens.”

He nodded, grinned again at her, then withdrew, and went out on to the main deck, where several of the other passengers were standing. There were only a dozen passengers all told, for this was primarily a cargo boat. One of these fellow travellers caught Mr. Golspie’s eye, nodded, and then came nearer. They had exchanged a few remarks already, each having recognised in the other an old hand and a kindred spirit. They knew even now that the moment the steward was at liberty to dispense his liquors, they would be having a drink together, the first of many, many drinks. This other man, Sugden, was a tallish fellow with a long bony face and a vast shaven upper lip, a Lancashire man who travelled for some chemical firm. He had one of those hard, flat, Lancashire voices that give every statement they make a lugubrious and disillusioned air.

“Moving,” that voice announced now, to Mr. Golspie.

“Moving,” said Mr. Golspie.

They stood together, two solid middle-aged men, and together they watched the long line of masts and funnels in the Royal Albert Dock go sliding away. They were still in London, and no great distance from the buses and trams, the teashops and the pubs, yet all that London seemed to have disappeared long ago. Here was another city with streets and squares of dark water, a city of wharves and sheds, masts and funnels and cranes, barges, tugs, and lighters. Wherever you looked there appeared to be nothing but these things, though in the far distance a haze of smoke, hanging above the multitudinous chimney-pots of Poplar and Bow, suggested that the other London, the brick and paving-stone London, was still there. It was not a bad morning for the time of year. Now and then the sunlight struggled through and set the water glittering or brought out ghostly rainbow hues on the darker oilier patches.

“This is where they bring all the meat,” said Sugden. “This, and Liverpool. If you blocked this place up for a week or two, a lot o’ people would find themselves without their Sunday dinners. Not me, though. Give me English meat, when I can get it. And when I’m at home, I insist on having it. Get enough o’ the other sort when I’m away.”

“You’ve been on these boats before, haven’t you?”

“I have. I’ve been on this very ship twice before. They know me here. You ask ’em.”

“Food all right?”

“Suits me,” replied Sugden. “Should suit you, too. Good quality and plenty of it. Nothing fancy, y’know--not like these liners, with their chefs and what not--but plenty o’ good solid stuff. That’s what I like.”

Apparently it was what Mr. Golspie liked too. He produced a cigar case, and the two men lit up and through a fragrant dribble of smoke regarded the moving docks with half-closed eyes and a vague air of patronage.

“This port of London’s a bit of an eye-opener to me,” Mr. Golspie remarked.

“Ever been all round it? Tremendous--oh tremendous! There’s the West India Docks further up here, and then the Surrey Commercial on the other side. You never saw such a place. It’s a hard day’s work looking round the Surrey Commercial. Chap tried to show me once, but I gave it up. And then you’ve got the London Docks further up still. And Tilbury, of course. If you go out on one of the regular liners and mail boats, you get on down at Tilbury. I’ve done that once or twice, but this suits me better. When I’m aboard a ship, I like to travel quietly. I don’t like all this floating hotel, song-and-dance, fancy-dress ball business. What d’you say?”

“Haven’t been on one of those big ships for donkeys’ years,” Mr. Golspie confessed. “I’ve never been out to South America before, as a matter of fact. I’ve been to the States, in my time, and I’ve been to Central America, but not to south. But an old pal of mine’s out there--Montevideo’s his headquarters--and he’s put up a good proposition, so I’m going to see what it looks like.”

“Plenty o’ money there, plenty. Only place where there is now, there and the States. I shouldn’t like to live there though. Wouldn’t suit me.”

“And where do you live when you’re at home?”

“St. Helens. That’s where my firm is, and that’s where I live. Been there all my life. D’you know it?”

“Saw it once from the train,” Mr. Golspie replied. “Bit ugly, isn’t it?”

Mr. Sugden was not surprised. Obviously he had heard this before. “Yes, it’s a bit ugly, if you’re not used to it. But I’m a bit ugly myself. And if it comes to that, you’re no beauty.” And he roared with laughter.

Mr. Golspie laughed too, companionably. They strolled round the deck, on which Miss Lena Golspie, in a fur coat and with a scarlet scarf about her neck, soon made an appearance, to the delight of several of the younger male passengers and ship’s officers, who had been waiting for this moment, after hoping, with the despair born of many previous disappointments, that she was not merely a fleeting vision, one of those lovely creatures who come aboard for an hour or two and then depart, leaving the whole ship under a shadow. She joined her father and was introduced to Mr. Sugden (not an impressionable man), and then wandered away, to stare with disdainful interest at the other ships and to gather out of the corners of her brilliant eyes a good deal of exciting preliminary information about her fellow passengers. The scene before her--the ship had stopped now in that unaccountable fashion that ships have--seemed to her very ugly and dull, and it was incredible that this dirty water and drab messiness should be the beginning of a voyage to South America, of which her fancy entertained the liveliest and most exciting pictures, chiefly derived from the films. After that awful night with the boy from the office, she had been only too glad to leave London, which seemed to her, on the whole, a stupid place, but she could hardly believe now that in a fortnight or so she would be staring at South American young men with black side-whiskers and absurd hats. She was annoyed with the ship for stopping like this, as if it had nothing better to do than loiter about these dingy sheds and flat boats full of barrels, and when one of the officers hung about, looking as if he wanted to pour out information, she gave him a haughty glance and walked away.

Her father and his new acquaintance, having finished their cigars, leaned over the rail, and decided that they were ready for lunch. Meanwhile, they talked idly.

“I don’t blame you,” said Mr. Sugden. “I don’t like London myself--never did. I had a year there once. Didn’t like it at all. I couldn’t get on with the Londoners--too much of this haw-haw-haw stuff and the striped trousers and black coat and white spat business. Didn’t suit me, I can tell you. They thought they were smart, too.”

“They’re not--most of ’em,” said Mr. Golspie. “I soon found that out.”

“So did I,” the other continued in his curiously flat mournful voice, “and when I did find it out and told ’em as much, they didn’t like it. No, they didn’t like it.” Mr. Sugden did not go on to explain why they should have liked it. He merely repeated several times more that they didn’t like it. But he was yawning rather than talking.