Chapter VII: Part 7

The light pointed along a row, and he followed it, pushing past a dozen indignant knees. The last pair was very stubborn, and he negotiated them without enthusiasm. He had no luck. Here, on one side of him was the owner of the knees, an enormous woman, bulging over her seat, and on the other was a man with a beard and a noisy pipe. And it was too late to change his place now. Once again the miracle had not happened. Gloomily he turned his attention to the news film, and not one single inch or roar of it entertained him. It was followed by a comedy, all about a lot of silly kids, and he sat there, steadily hating it. He also hated the enormous woman, who laughed so much that great lumps of her hit him on the shoulder. He decided, miserably, that he ought not to have come to the Sovereign. Next time he would give the Sovereign a miss. Stiff with fat women and men with stinking pipes, that’s what it was--oh, cripes!--awful hole! And another Saturday night going, gone!

Then came the film of the evening, the star feature, and Turgis soon began to take an interest in it and found himself lifted out of his gloom. It was a talkie called “The Glad-Rag Way,” and it was all about a beautiful girl (and she was beautiful, for she was Lulu Castellar, one of his favourites) who went to New York to dance in cabarets and for a time forgot all about her sweetheart, a poor young inventor who lived in the most dismal lodgings, like Turgis, but, unlike Turgis, also contrived to have his hair exquisitely waved at regular intervals. This beautiful girl behaved in the most foolish way. She accepted presents from rich men with ugly leering mouths; she went out to supper with them and got tipsy, as well she might, for the whole atmosphere consisted sometimes of champagne bubbles; she attended parties, very late at night, in their flats, and though the rooms in these flats were three hundred feet long and two hundred feet broad, the parties themselves were undoubtedly intimate affairs, at which a girl was able to express herself by dancing on the table and throwing off some of her clothes. Everything this girl wore, every movement she made, only called the attention of these leering fellows to some part of her ravishing figure; and even when she herself had stopped making eyes and smiling at them and undulating round them, with a champagne glass in her hand, her charming legs still insisted on claiming their notice. It was obvious that at any moment these rich cads would make their old mistake, they would assume that she was not a virtuous girl and would act accordingly, to her astonishment and indignation and shame at being so misunderstood, so treated. Meanwhile, the young inventor had received a letter (and you heard him tear it open) asking him to come to New York to meet three heavy men who had just been barking at one another about him in the previous scene. It was, as he himself admitted, his “beeg chaince.”

His train was still roaring across the screen when Turgis, whose interest had been thoroughly roused, heard a voice say “’Scuse me” and saw a dim feminine shape that was obviously trying to get past.

“’S’quite all right,” he said affably, withdrawing his knees to let her pass.

She dropped into the seat on his left, taking the place of the man with the foul pipe, who must have crept out, towards the other gangway, without Turgis noticing him. This girl who had just arrived was still only a dim shape, but he felt sure she was young and pretty.

“’Scuse me,” she whispered again, “but is this the big picture?”

“Yes, it is,” he replied eagerly.

“Has it been on long?”

“No, not so long. It isn’t half through yet, I’m sure,” he told her, trying to talk as if he were a confidential old friend. “I’ll bet the best’s coming on.”

“Well, I hope you’re right,” she said, settling herself in the rather narrow seat and then giving her attention to the screen.

A faint sweet whiff of scent had come his way. His senses did not wait for any more evidence; they reported at once to his imagination, which immediately dowered the vague dark figure beside him with all sweetness and prettiness, not unlike that of Lulu Castellar, who was at the moment absent from the screen, the young inventor, having arrived in New York, being barked at by the three heavy men. Turgis took in all that the film had to offer him, but now he was no longer lost in it; he was living intensely in the tiny darkened space between him and the girl. Instinctively, he edged a little her way. Their elbows touched on the arm of the seat, and even that trifling contact sent a thrill through him. A little later, his left leg encountered something at once firm and soft, another leg, a beautifully rounded feminine leg, and the two remained in contact. This, like the other, may have been casual, but to Turgis the effect was electric. And then it chanced that his hand, hanging loose by his side, touched another hand, which was not withdrawn when it was touched again, this time deliberately. The two hands now met fairly; they grasped one another, squeezed; their fingers were intertwined; they sent and received messages in the dark. Turgis could now regard the graceful antics of Lulu Castellar with a benevolent detachment. The dream life of the screen was nothing compared with the pulsating real life of those contacts in the warm gloom, those little pressures and squeezes that were signals from that other enchanted world. He did not try to talk to her again. That would come later. He said nothing, hardly looked her way, afraid lest he should break the spell.

When the film ended and a kind of soft russet dawn broke as the screen disappeared behind the curtains, they moved away from one another, and he did not even catch a glimpse of her face. A great many people went out, and a great many others came in, but they were not disturbed. Then the curtains moved again; a soft russet twilight came, only to fade into darkness; and the programme artfully continued. But would this other and far more exciting programme continue? His heart bounded in the new darkness. He leaned towards her again; she did not evade him; and hand clasped hand again, stickily perhaps now but still exquisitely, thrillingly. Turgis had not been so happy for months.

It was not until the young inventor’s train to New York was again roaring across the screen, after the programme had gone round its full circle, that the girl loosened her hand and began to put on her gloves. Turgis had been waiting for this moment for some time. When she rose, he rose too; and she followed him past the indignant knees and up the stairs. It was when they reached the exit steps, descending into the real world, that he turned and spoke to her. And he knew instinctively that they were not now the two people who had been holding hands for so long in the darkness inside; those two intimates were ghosts now; these two on the steps, in the light, were strangers and would have to begin over again. When he spoke he acted upon this instinctive or intuitive knowledge.

“How did you like the picture then?” he asked, casually.

“I didn’t think it was so very good,” she replied, just as casually. “I don’t like that Lulu Castellar. Pulls herself about a bit too much, she does, if you ask me. Might as well have Saint Vitus’ dance and have done with it. Do you like her?”

“Oh--I dunno--she’s all right,” he muttered. He was recovering from a horrible shock. This girl was not pretty at all, not even reasonably good-looking. She was years older than he was, and she was hideous. He had just caught sight of her face properly for the first time. Her nose was all twisted and she had a bit of a squint. She was thirty if she was a day. Oh, hell--what a wash-out! She was still talking, but he could not bother listening to what she was saying. Sheer vexation made his eyes smart. He kept pace with her down the steps, mumbling an occasional “Yes” and “No,” but somewhere inside him was a hot little angry man who screamed and cursed at everything.

“Well,” she said, when they reached the bottom door, “I’ve got my sister to meet, so I’ll say good-night to you.”

“Good-night,” said Turgis miserably.

Saturday night was roaring away outside, but for him the heart had gone out of it. He walked on mechanically, so sorry for himself, so angry with everything, that he could have cried. His head ached from being in that rotten balcony so long. There were queer aches in his body too. Where could he go now? Nowhere worth going to. If you had plenty of money, evening dress and all that, you could go to restaurants and night clubs and dance with beautiful girls with fine bare arms. But he wasn’t in that seam. He’d no evening dress; no money; and anyhow he couldn’t dance. He couldn’t do anything. No, perhaps he couldn’t, but he was as good as most of those fat rotten blighters who had the money, who just went chucking it away while he had to count every penny. Look at that lot in the big car, with their fur coats and diamonds and white shirt fronts, probably going somewhere to dance and get boozed up and God knows what before they’d finished! Swine! He was as good as them any day. And better--he did do some work. What did they do? It was enough to make any chap turn Bolshie. He didn’t like the other chap who lodged at Mrs. Pelumpton’s very much; Park was a dreary, unfriendly sort of devil, and a Sheeny at that; but he didn’t blame Park for turning Bolshie. For two pins, he’d turn Bolshie, too. Yes, but what was the good of that?

All this time he had been walking on and on, through a Saturday night with the bottom dropped out of it, and now had left the spangled West End behind him. He stopped at a coffee stall, where several fools were arguing about nothing as usual, and had two buns and a cup of coffee--poor stuff it was too, too sweet and nearly cold. As he turned his back to the counter, he saw a girl, a really nice kid with a red hat and big dark eyes, smiling in his direction, and he smiled back at her hopefully, but then he saw her eyes move slightly and the smile instantly vanish. She had not been looking at him before, when she smiled; she had been looking at the chap standing next to him, who was ordering two coffees. And what a chap to be out with, to be smiling at! If that’s what she wanted, she could have him. One vast sneer, Turgis moved away, and boarded the first bus he found that would take him to Camden Town, back to Nathaniel Street with the ruins of his evening.

“’Ad a good time, boy?” said Mr. Pelumpton, now mellow with beer, as Turgis looked into the back room. “That’sh the way. Yersh. Enjoy yershelf while you’re young, I shay, and while you _can_ enjoy yershelf. I did when I wash your age an’ don’t ferget it, boy.” Here Mr. Pelumpton chuckled and then coughed. “I ’ad a good time and nobody could shtop me ’aving one.”

“What’s this about you and your good times?” said his wife, popping out from nowhere.

“I’m jusht telling our friend ’ere that I don’t blame him for enjoying himshelf while he’sh young, ’cosh I did the shame thing when I wash young.”

“Ar, you was a wicked devil you was,” said Mrs. Pelumpton, with reluctant admiration.

“Oh dear, oh dear!” Mr. Pelumpton chuckled. “Lishen to that. Ar well, boy, I don’t blame yer. Good old Shaturday night. I’ve ’ad ’em. I know.”

“I’ll bet you never had, you silly old fathead,” Turgis muttered under his breath.

“Only jusht remember thish, boy. Don’d overdo it, that’sh all. Don’d overdo it. You’re only young wunsh. Enjoy yershelf, if yer like, but don’d overdo it.”

Turgis looked at him in disgust. “Good-night all,” he said, mournfully, and climbed the chilling stairs to his room.

So much for Saturday.

IV

Sunday was fine, that is, there was no rain, sleet, or snow falling. There was also very little sunlight falling, and the streets of Camden Town and Kentish Town were like echoing slatey tunnels. Turgis saw them when he went out to buy a paper and a packet of cigarettes, and as usual he disliked the look of them. They were not very cheerful on a weekday, but they were a pantomime and a bean feast then compared with what they were on Sunday. It was on Sunday that Turgis felt his loneliness most keenly.

It must be admitted, though, that on this particular Sunday morning he had received and refused two invitations. The first was from Mr. Pelumpton, who had decided that he must pay a visit to Petticoat Lane--“jusht to shee ’ow the shtuff’s goin’,” he said, with an impressive professional air. He had suggested, with some condescension, that Turgis might like to go with him. Turgis had promptly declined. He had been to Petticoat Lane before, and he saw quite enough of old Pelumpton in Nathaniel Street and had no desire to go to Whitechapel with him, merely to provide him with a listener and some free beer.

The other invitation came from his fellow lodger, Park, the Bolshie. Park, a neat dark Jewy sort of chap, quiet and civil enough but with something machine-like and vaguely menacing about him, just as if he was not quite human, worked in the printing trade and apparently had to go at all hours, so that Turgis hardly ever saw him. Moreover, he was a tremendous communist worker, for ever attending meetings and conferences and addressing envelopes to distant comrades and circulating what seemed to Turgis, who had inspected it, some terribly dreary literature. The two young men did not like each other very much, but Park always saw in Turgis, who had the depressed look of a faintly class-conscious proletarian, a possible convert. Hence the invitation, which this time was for some communist affair, a meeting or two and coffee and cake for the comrades, somewhere out at Stratford or West Ham. Turgis turned it down, though not ungraciously, for though he did not care much for Park, he had a vague kind of respect for him. But he did not see himself with the comrades. Perhaps the real reason was that he could not imagine any girls, real nice girls, not glaring female comrades, in the picture. He did not tell Park so, did not even admit it to himself; and when Park, with the drab innocence of his kind, accused him of being a timid slave of the bourgeois classes, a would-be bourgeois himself, he had no defence but a grin and a jeering noise.

The paper kept him amused until dinner time. After dinner he went for a walk, which chiefly consisted of penny bus rides. They finally landed him, as they had landed a few thousand other people, at the Marble Arch corner of Hyde Park, where the Sunday orators congregate. Turgis often visited this forum and listened to the orators. He had no intellectual curiosity and never really attended to the arguments, such as they were, but he had a sort of genial contempt for the speakers that was a warming, comforting feeling. He felt that they were a great deal sillier than he was, and that was pleasant. Moreover, any leisurely crowd always had an attraction for him, because there was always a chance that there might be, somewhere in the middle of it, bored and lonely, a wonderful girl who would suddenly smile back at him.

He drifted from speaker to speaker with the crowd, which was largely composed of youths like himself, all feeling pleasantly superior, with a sprinkling of aggressive dialecticians and religious and political fanatics. There was a fantastic old man in a greenish frock coat who banged a large chart and talked in a high sing-song that left five words out of six quite unintelligible. His subject--of all things--was shorthand. Turgis stared at him for a minute or two, concluded that he was mad, and moved on. The next meeting, a large one, was political, and the only words Turgis caught--“What about Russia, where your socialism, my friends, has been put into practice?”--drove him away at once. Then there was a tiny group of people round a harmonium, played by a young man with bulging eyes and a straggling beard. They were drearily singing a hymn, and nobody was taking any notice of them. Next to them, one of those involved discussions, typical of the place, was in heated progress, and the audience, in its own ironical fashion, was enjoying it. All that Turgis, at the back, could hear was the speaker himself, a young man with spectacles and long yellow hair who had something to do with the Catholic Church, who kept crying: “One mewment, my friend, just one mewment! Kindly allow me to speak. Yes, yes, but one mewment! You have asked me if I would considah such a person insane. Now, one mewment!” Turgis lingered for some time at this meeting. There were one or two nice girls in the crowd, but not one of them was by herself. It was no good. He would have to find a pal.

The speaker on the right was being heckled by a woman who looked rather like Mrs. Pelumpton. He was an elderly man, dressed in an old-fashioned black suit, and he was shaking a Bible almost in her face. “Well, what do Ah do?” he cried, his eyes gleaming. “Ah turn once mo-ore to the graa-aate Boo-ook. Yes, Ah’ve a Bahble text for tha-at.” Turgis did not learn what the text was, for there came a tremendous bellow from this man’s neighbour, a dirty little fellow with a broad flat nose and an india rubber mouth, who looked like a nasty compromise between Hoxton and Manchuria. “What is thee yighest idee-al of thee yole universe, my friends?” he was screaming, in a lather of oratory. “I’ll tell you. Thee yighest idee-al of thee yole universe is Man--Man.” And he thumped himself on the chest. Turgis did not like the look of him at all. He also did not like the look of the Salvation Army lasses who were conducting the service on the other side. They were all so pimply. They looked as if they were always eating things that disagreed with them.

Next to the Army was a bony, shabby chap, a Bolshie, possibly one of Park’s pals. Turgis had heard him before, and only stayed long enough to make sure that he was on the same tack. He was. “Noo where did communism firrst appearr, ma frien’s?” he was asking. “Noat in Russia--oh no! Noat in England--oh no! Noat in Frrance--oh no! Bu’ in Grreece, ma frien’s, in ancient Grreece, where a mon called Playto wrote a buik called _The Repuiblic_. Yes, Ah know that this mon should rightly be called Plarto, but if Ah said Plarto, Ah know everybody would be staring at it an’ wondering who this Plarto was, so Ah call him Playto. An’ he was the firrst communist.” It was like listening to a Scots comedian who had gone sour. Turgis moved on, passing with the merest glance a very tiny group that everybody had ignored. There were three of them, two bearded and bare-headed men and a faded woman, and they were standing close together, apparently praying. Nobody was taking any notice of them, except a battered and boosy old actor (he recited a sort of story that introduced the names of all the successful plays running at the time, and Turgis knew him of old) who was waiting to claim the pitch. Why did these people come here? Who were they? What did they do at home? Once more, Turgis concluded they were all mad, but this time the thought did not give him any pleasant feeling of superiority. It depressed him. Suppose he was suddenly taken that way!

But there were roars of laughter coming from the crowd on the right, and above it Turgis recognised another familiar figure, an atheist chap, and quite a turn too. He was a fat young man, with a glittering squint and a nose so resolutely turned up that it could be described as a snout; and he had a very self-confident perky manner and a shrill voice. Turgis edged himself into the audience. “Now, where was Oi? Losing me plice, wasn’t Oi?” he cried humorously. “Ow, Oi know. Fish on Froiday, thet was it. Whoi dew the Catholics eat fish on Froiday? They down’t know. They down’t--strite! Yew arsk ’em an’ see. They down’t know. But Oi know.” Here the crowd roared its approval. “It’s in nonner of the old goddess, Froiyer, goddess of plenty. Froiyer--Froiday--see? Thet’s whoi they eat fish on Froiday. It is--strite.” The crowd roared again. “Then there’s the Trinity. What’s thet? Yew arsk ’em. They down’t know. They’re not allowed to talk about it. Whoi? Tew sycred. Thet’s what they’ll tell you--tew sycred. Secret and sycred--come from the sime root--mean the sime thing. They do--strite!” His audience did not care very much if secret and sacred did come from the same root, but it thoroughly approved of the piggy young man. And Turgis shared the general delight.

By the time he had returned down the line of speakers to the place where the old shorthand enthusiast had been (his pitch had been taken by a Christadelphian evangelist, a burly red-faced fellow who looked like a bookie), it was nearly dark and he found himself thinking about tea. He left the park, and walked along Oxford Street. Every teashop he came to was crammed. People were eating and drinking almost in one another’s laps. And already there were queues for the pictures. “If they’ve got homes to go to,” Turgis told himself, “why don’t they go to ’em.” He was sick of them. They were no good to him, these jumbles of faces. Finally, in somewhat low spirits, he found a place just off Oxford Street, one of those humble teashops with tall urns or geysers on the counter, a slatternly girl in attendance, a taxi-driver or two sitting at the first table and three Italians sitting at the back. He had a poor tea and it cost him fourpence-halfpenny more than he thought it would. When he went out again, it was drizzling, and miserably cold and damp. The queues for the pictures were enormous. All the cheaper seats were probably filled for the night.

He crossed Oxford Street and, without thinking where he was going, cut into the streets to the north of it. In one of these, a number of people, mostly women, were hurrying up some lighted steps. A notice informed him that the Higher Thought Alliance, London Circle, was meeting in that hall, to hear a lecture by Mr. Frank Dadds of Los Angeles, and that admission was free and that all would be heartily welcome. He lingered on the steps, where he was sheltered from the thickening drizzle, and wondered whether to go in or not. Now and again, on Sundays, he looked in at various services and meetings (though he had never tried the Higher Thought Alliance before, and had never heard of it), partly for want of something better to do, and partly because he always hoped he might strike up an acquaintance with a girl there, perhaps share the same hymn-book or programme. As he was hesitating, a large middle-aged woman in a fur coat, who had been fussing about in the entrance, noticed him and said: “Do come inside. Everybody is welcome.” So he shook the raindrops from his overcoat, clutched at his hat, and, shyly, awkwardly, with his mouth wide open, he entered the hall. There, of course, before he had time to look round and see if there were any vacant seats near any nice-looking girls, an officious little man insisted on showing him to a seat. There were only about four men in the hall, but about two or three hundred women, mostly middle-aged and very dull. His own uncomfortable cane chair was between two of the dullest. On the platform, two women with short grey hair and a strained, gulping sort of expression, played the violin and the piano, and went on playing for the next ten minutes. Turgis began to feel sorry he had come, even though the place was warm and dry and the affair would not cost him anything.

Then the middle-aged woman in the fur coat, who had spoken to him outside, mounted the platform, and announced that they would begin with a hymn. It was not an ordinary sort of hymn--even Turgis could see that--and unfortunately nobody seemed to know the tune. Even the violinist had some difficulty in arriving at it. When the hymn finally trailed away into silence, they all remained standing, and then the woman in the fur coat said: “We affirm health, which is man’s divine inheritance. Man’s body is his holy temple,” and everybody else, except Turgis, looked down at slips of paper and repeated it after her: “We affirm health, which is man’s divine inheritance. Man’s body is his holy temple.” Several of the people near Turgis had some trouble in affirming this, because they were interrupted by fits of coughing, but they did their best. After that, they affirmed all sorts of things, divine love and power and truth and a general sort of oneness in the universe. Then they sat down, and nothing happened for a minute or two, during which time the universe had an opportunity of taking stock of their attitude towards it. Turgis was bewildered and not too happy, for the chair was very uncomfortable and his feet were cold.

He did not listen to what the woman in the fur coat said when she began talking again. She seemed to be reading a poem by a friend of hers, and then leaving a thought with them all. Turgis heard this remark because she repeated it several times and looked straight at him, the last time she said it. “And I’ll just leave that great thought with you,” she cried, and stared hard at Turgis, who felt embarrassed. The next moment, the two women with short grey hair were playing the violin and piano like mad, and the fussy little man and two others were rushing round with collection boxes. Two hundred and fifty women dived into handbags and then sat bolt upright, trying to look as if they did not know that their right hands were all clutching sixpences. Turgis left his pocket alone, and when the collection box came his way, he gave it a mysterious shake and then passed it on very quickly.

“A few minutes’ silent meditation,” the woman in the fur coat announced, composing her face meditatively. All the other women composed their faces meditatively too, and then looked down at their shoes. Turgis looked down at his, and noticed that one of them was splitting at the side. He wanted to waggle his toes to warm his feet, but if he began waggling, the shoe might split still more. They were rotten shoes. Everything he ever bought always turned out to be rotten. He was always being taken in. What he ought to buy was a pair of good thick Army boots; there were still some about in those ex-government stores shops; and they were cheap and they would last. But there again, what was a girl going to think of him if she found him clumping about in boots like a navvy’s? What girl, though? “Where d’you get your girls from?” he asked himself, with a sneer. There was a rustle and a shuffle: the silent meditation was over.

“And I’m sure Mr. Frank Dadds needs no introduction from me,” the woman in the fur coat was saying. “We are delighted to have him here with us again. We remember the inspiring talks he gave us last time, and we realise that we have a treat in store.” And there was an appreciative murmur.

Mr. Frank Dadds of Los Angeles suddenly shot up as the woman in the fur coat sat down. He was a tallish, fattish, fairish American in a light brown suit and a pink tie. He clasped his hands, then rubbed them together. He smiled at them all. He was obviously at home in the universe, and filled with divine love and power and truth and a general sort of oneness. Even Turgis was impressed by him, and all the women sat up and gazed at him with adoration. Then Mr. Frank Dadds burst into speech.

“My friends,” he began, without any hesitation, “the title of my lecture this evening is Understanding and Yew. Let me commence by talking about Yew, jast Yew. Perhaps yew don’t think much of yourselves. Life doesn’t seem to yew to offer very much. There are people--and there may be some of them here with us to-night--who jast haven’t got livingness. They think that life is always jast the same old thing. They can even talk of killing time. Killing time!--when every noo moment of time is diamonded with the greatest passibilities of lahv and trewth and bewdy. Once we have got livingness--once we have got understainding--once we are in toon with the in-fy-nyte--then there is a power within us, yes, within every one of us, that can cree-ate the world anoo. Our external selves can easily be fladdered. It is easy to make too much of what we’ve done. But it is com-pletely im-passible for any words--no matter if the greatest poets utter those words--to fladder what we have within us, our po-tentialities in baddy, mind, and spirrut. We’ve got to get rid of what some people like to call our in-feriority camplexes. We’ve got to realise that power within us. That doesn’t mean--as some people seem to think--that we should develap sooperiority camplexes. And why? Bee-cause, as Noo Thought shows us, there is a Oneness in the Universe and we are all united in that Oneness. It isn’t jast the potes who sing lahv songs. The whole Universe sings a lahv song. The whole Universe _is_ a lahv song. If it isn’t, the very atoms of which we are composed would disintegrate. I tell you, my friends, there is radiant health, there is power, there is wanderful bewdy, there is lahv, all without stint, without measure, eternal, awaiting all of us, and if we only open our eyes, find the way, develap understainding, get in toon, get livingness, there is not only a heaven above but a heaven here upon earth ...”

For some twenty-five minutes more, the voice went sounding on, offering them radiant health, power, truth, beauty, and love, without ever once faltering. Turgis could not understand it all, but he listened in a happy dream, forgetting that his chair was uncomfortable and his feet were cold. He realised that he had only to do something or other, get this livingness and oneness and understanding, just turn a corner, and everything would be different, everything would be marvellous. Vaguely he saw himself trim and sleek, with evening clothes, a huge overcoat, white trousers for summer, money in his pocket, money in the bank, an office of his own perhaps, a flat with shaded lights and big chairs and a gramophone and a wireless set, even a car, and by his side, worshipping him, the loveliest and kindest of girls. It was wonderful.

“Come again, young man,” said the fussy little man, at the door. “Always glad to see you here.”

“Thank you very much,” said Turgis earnestly, still glowing.

And then, somehow, outside in the wet streets, among the black figures hurrying home, it all went. Angrily he tried to recapture the glow and the dream, but they would not return. Inside the steaming bus, swaying with the strap he held, he found there was nothing left. He did not know how to get understanding or livingness or oneness or any of those things, could not even imagine what they were. Neither radiant health nor power, truth nor beauty, was coming his way. As for love, well, he had better chuck thinking about it. There was a girl standing next to him, not a bad sort of girl, but every time the bus went swaying round a corner, he bumped into her, not hurting her but just gently bumping into her. He wasn’t doing it on purpose, but the third time it happened, she drew back and looked daggers at him--silly little idiot! Oh, yes, the universe was a love song all right!

Park was having a cup of tea and a bite of bread-and-butter with Mrs. Pelumpton in the back room when he got back, and he joined them, telling them where he had been and what he had heard.

“Dope, my friend, that’s all you’ve had,” said Park contemptuously, “nothing but dope! Comes from America, doesn’t it? Yes, and why? Because the masses there have got to be doped, that’s why. You come with me next time and you’ll hear something that’ll open your eyes a bit; no dope, but the real thing. What’s the matter with you, Turgis, is that you don’t see how your leg’s being pulled, you’re not properly class-conscious yet.”

Turgis disliked this contemptuous tone. “Are you what-is-it--class-conscious, Park?” he asked.

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, you can have it,” Turgis retorted, in a voice that told Park pretty plainly that he was a dreary devil.

“All right then, my friend, all right. I will have it. And you keep on with the dope.”

“I don’t want any dope. Don’t believe in it.”

“Well, what do you want, then?” demanded Park, who thought he saw in this a chance of a fine long argument.

“I dunno,” said Turgis, finishing his tea. “Yes, I do, though. I want to go to bed.”

“That’s right,” said Mrs. Pelumpton approvingly. “Bed. You couldn’t go to a better place. I’m sure I’m ready for mine. We’re all in now, except Edgar, and I’m not waiting for him.”

And then all that was left of Sunday was a walk upstairs.

V

Then, the very next day, on Monday of all days, it happened. It happened in the afternoon. Somebody came in, and, as Stanley was out, Turgis dashed to the other side of the frosted glass partition to see who it was. There, like a being from another world, stood a girl all in bright green, a girl with large brown eyes, the most impudent little nose, and a smiling scarlet mouth, the prettiest girl he had ever seen.

“Good afternoon. Is my father here, please?” She had a queer, fascinating voice.

“Your father?”

“Yes. Mr. Golspie. This is the place, isn’t it? He told me to call for him here.”

“Oh, yes, he is, Miss--Miss Golspie,” cried Turgis eagerly, his eyes devouring her all the time. “He’s in that room there. But I think there’s somebody with him. Shall I tell him you’re here?”

“You needn’t yet if he’s busy with somebody,” said the glorious creature, smiling at him. “I can wait.”

“I can tell him now, if you like.” He was trembling with eagerness to help, to serve.

“No, it doesn’t matter. I know he hates being interrupted. I’ll wait for him. I don’t suppose he’ll be long, will he?”

“I’m sure he won’t,” he told her fervently. “Will you wait here or in the office? It’s warmer in the office.”

“This will do,” and she made a movement towards the chair.

“Excuse me, Miss Golspie.” He brought it stumbling out somehow, and at the same time he dusted the seat of the chair with his handkerchief. “It--it--might be dirty, y’know.”

She looked him full in the eyes, deliciously, drowning him in sweetness, and then smiled. “Thank you. I’d hate to spoil my new coat. Everything looks a bit grimy here, doesn’t it? It’s such a frightfully dark place, too, isn’t it?”

He supposed it was, and tried to imagine her walking up Angel Pavement outside. He still lingered. “Is there anything else,” he began vaguely, hovering, adoring her.

“Quite happy, thanks.”

There was no excuse possible to stay a moment longer. Reluctantly he returned to his desk, with his heart swelling with excitement. The others looked at him inquiringly, but he pretended to be busy with something. He did not even want to explain about a girl like that. He wanted to keep the very thought of her being there to himself. Meanwhile, he was determined to listen hard. The moment that he heard Mr. Golspie’s visitor going, he would rush out, tell Mr. Golspie she was there, and thus see her again.

But he was not able to manage it. Mr. Golspie must have shown his visitor out, for immediately after the door was opened, Turgis heard Mr. Golspie’s voice booming behind the partition. “Hello, Lena girl!” he heard him say. “Forgotten about you coming. Won’t keep you a minute.”

Mr. Golspie then came into the office. “I’ve got to go out,” he told Mr. Smeeth, “and I shan’t be coming back to-day. Be in about eleven in the morning though, if anybody wants me. Mr. Dersingham’ll be back to-morrow afternoon, if anybody wants him. And I say, what’s your name--Turgis----”

“Yes, sir,” replied Turgis smartly.

“Get hold of the Anglo-Baltic--Mr. Borstein, nobody else, mind, Mr. Borstein--and tell him from me that if we’ve any more delays like that with the stuff, there’s going to be heap big trouble. They said they wouldn’t let us down, and they’re letting us down like hell. And you can tell him that from me.”

“Yes, sir, I will. Did you say Mr. Borstein?” And Turgis stared at Miss Lena Golspie’s father, at his massive bald front, at his great moustache, at his big square shoulders. Mr. Golspie had never seemed an ordinary man, but now he had for Turgis the power and fascination of a demi-god. Already his very name spelt sweetness and wonder.

“That’s the chap,” Mr. Golspie grunted. “Afternoon, everybody.” And he departed.

“That was Mr. Golspie’s daughter then who came to the door, was it?” said Mr. Smeeth.

“His daughter, eh?” Miss Matfield raised her eyebrows, then looked at Turgis, and said casually: “What was she like? Pretty?”

“Yes,” Turgis mumbled, “she was.” And he would say no more. He was not going to talk about her. He preferred to think about her. Lena Golspie.

Then, with something like amorous urgency, he went to the telephone, rang up the Anglo-Baltic, and sternly demanded Mr. Borstein. He would tell Mr. Borstein something! He would show him whether he could let them down like hell! Lena Golspie. Lena Golspie. Lena, Lena, Lena. “Hello, is that Mr. Borstein? This is Twigg and Dersingham. Yes, Twigg and Dersingham. Mr. Golspie asked me to ring you up--Mr. Gols-pie, Mr. Gol-spie ...” Lena’s father. Lena, Lena, Lena.

_Chapter Five_: MISS MATFIELD WONDERS

I

Mr. Golspie took the typewritten sheets from Miss Matfield and then spread them out on her table. “All six letters alike, eh? That’s the style, Miss Matfield. Hello, is this exactly what I said?”

“As a matter of fact, it isn’t.” And Miss Matfield raised her eyes and gave him a steady level glance.

“As a matter of fact, it isn’t, eh? Then what is it, as a matter of fact? Just a little improvement, eh?”

Miss Matfield coloured slightly. “Well, if you want to know, Mr. Golspie, all I’ve done is to change _was_ into _were_ twice, simply for the sake of making it more grammatical. That’s all.”

“Half a minute, half a minute,” Mr. Golspie boomed at her. “Not more grammatical. Just grammatical. You made it grammatical when before it wasn’t grammatical. Either it’s grammatical or it isn’t, d’you see? And now I’m being more grammatical, eh?” He guffawed, suddenly, dreadfully.

“I don’t pretend to be particularly marvellous about grammar,” she replied, trying to be severe, “but I do happen to know when to use _was_ and when to use _were_. It’s one of the few things they taught me. And so I thought you wouldn’t object if I changed them.”

“Much obliged.” He regarded her amiably. “By the way, what is it you do pretend to be particularly marvellous at?”

“Does that matter?” This in her best haughty manner. Everybody in the office knew it and respected it.

But Mr. Golspie only gave her a friendly leer. “Of course it matters,” he declared heartily. “Now I like to know these things. Take me. I used to play a good game at billiards, and I can still play poker with the best, bridge, too. Oh, and I can crack walnuts between my finger and thumb--fact!” He held up a very large thick hairy finger and thumb that matched it. “And that’s not all either. Still--we are a bit busy, aren’t we?”

“I am.” Miss Matfield looked at her typewriter.

“And so,” he continued cheerfully, “for the time being, we’ll say it doesn’t matter. I’ll take these nice grammatical letters away with me. You’ve addressed the envelopes, have you? Right.” He turned his broad back on her, gave Mr. Smeeth a wink, whistled softly, and departed for the private office.

Miss Matfield drew her full lower lip between her teeth and frowned at her typewriter. As usual, she was left with a vague sense of defeat. It was, of course, the man’s insensitiveness--and she saw again that large thick hairy finger--that made him so difficult to snub. Nobody else in the office had dared to talk to her as he did, not after she had spent her first hour in the building. It was a nuisance, not being able to put him in his place, as Mr. Dersingham, Mr. Smeeth, and the others had been put in _their_ places. It was annoying to think that the very next time he spoke to her he would probably talk in the same strain, not altogether an unfriendly strain, but disrespectful, jeering, humiliating in a fashion. She could not really stand up to it, but found herself wanting to lower her eyes, turn her head away, and almost retreat in maidenly blushes--oh, gosh! Lilian Matfield feeling like that! How her friends would howl if they knew! Yet she didn’t really dislike him, not now.

A little later, when they were clearing up for the night, she was presented with this problem of Mr. Golspie again by some artless questions from the little Sellers girl, who still treated Miss Matfield with great deference and thus was still in favour.

“He’s funny, isn’t he?” said Miss Sellers, referring to Mr. Golspie.

“A bit weird.”

“I wish you’d tell me, Miss Matfield,” Miss Sellers continued, earnestly and deferentially, “d’you reelly _like_ him?”

Miss Matfield raised her thick black brows and produced a long _mmm_ sound that went up and then down again. Having gone through this little performance, she said, “Do you?”

“Well,” said Miss Sellers, wrinkling her little nose in an agony of mental effort, “I do an’ I don’t--if you see what I mean.”

Miss Matfield knew exactly what she meant, but did not say so. She merely gave the other girl an encouraging glance.

“Sometimes I think he’s nice,” Miss Sellers went on, staring at nothing, “an’ sometimes I don’t like him a bit. Not that he ever says anything or does anything, y’know--course I don’t see as much of him as you do, Miss Matfield--but sometimes I catch a crool look----”

“A what?”

Miss Sellers’ voice had dropped to a whisper. “A crool look,” she repeated, her eyes enormous. “An’ a reel nasty tone of voice he’s got too, sometimes. And then I think ‘Well, I don’t like you, and I wouldn’t like to cross your path, that I wouldn’t.’ And then the next time, he’s as nice as anything. But I don’t like him as much as I like Mr. Dersingham. Do you, Miss Matfield? Mr. Dersingham’s a reel gentleman, isn’t he? I like him best.”

“I don’t.” This came in a hoarse whisper. It was from Stanley, who, free from his letter-copying for a minute, had quietly joined them.

“Now who asked you your opinion?” Miss Sellers demanded. “You go away.”

“I like Mr. Golspie best,” said Stanley, contriving to introduce an enthusiastic note into his hoarse whisper. “An’ I’ll tell you why. He’s what they call a man’s man. I’ll bet he’s had advenshers.”

“You an’ your advenshers!” Miss Sellers was very contemptuous. “What d’you know about it?”

“I’ve heard things, I have,” said Stanley, very slowly and impressively.

“What have you heard?”

“Shan’t tell you.”

“No, because you’ve got nothing to tell. You run away and get your work done, little boy.”

“I’m as big as you are.”

“Cheeky! Here, you want to go an’ shadder a few manners the next time you go shaddering,” Miss Sellers jeered, singling out, with feminine swiftness and accuracy, the weak joint in the other’s armour.

“Huh! Shan’t learn ’em from you.”

“Oh, be quiet, the pair of you,” cried Miss Matfield, and began tidying her table. Nothing more was said about Mr. Golspie, but on her way home Miss Matfield could not help thinking about him. She always had a book with her for the journey on the 13 bus to and from the office, but the jogging and the crowding and the changing lights did not make reading easy, especially on the return journey to West Hampstead, and frequently she spent more time with her own thoughts than she did with those of her author. On this particular evening Mr. Golspie claimed her attention, almost to the exclusion of anybody or anything else. She could not make up her mind about him, had no label or pigeonhole ready for him, and this annoyed her, for she liked to know exactly what she felt and thought about people; to be able to dismiss them in a phrase. The fact that Mr. Golspie spoke to her every day, if only for a few minutes, gave her work to do, was sufficient to make her anxious to determine her attitude towards him. Men, with their thick skins and yawning indifference, might be able to work with people for years and not know or care anything about them as persons, but this drab stuff about “governors” and “colleagues” could find no place to stay in Miss Matfield’s mind. In the talk among the girls at the Club, all the men who dictated letters to them became immense characters, comic, grotesquely villainous, or heroic and adorable. Their femininity, frozen for a few hours every day at the keyboard of their machines, thawed and gushed out in these perfervid personalities. Behind their lowered eyes, their demure expressions, as they sat with their notebooks on hard little office chairs, these comic and romantic legends buzzed and sang, to be released later in the dining-room, the lounge, the tiny bedrooms, of the Club. Thus, something had to be done about Mr. Golspie, who would have appeared to most of the girls, as Miss Matfield knew only too well, a gigantic find, a mine of glittering material. So far he had merely passed as “weird,” but that would not do. It had not sufficed in Miss Matfield’s private thoughts since the first two days.

She knew exactly what she thought about the others at the office. Mr. Dersingham she neither liked nor disliked; she merely tolerated him, with a sort of easy contempt; he was “sloppy and a bit feeble,” and a familiar type, with nothing at all weird about _him_. Smeeth seemed to her a vaguely pathetic creature who lived a grey life in some grey suburb; the pleasure he got from what seemed to her his drudgery sometimes irritated her, but at other times it roused something like pity; and when she was not despising him, she liked him. Turgis she despised and occasionally resented. She resented his shabbiness and dinginess, his unhealthy skin and open mouth, his whole forlorn air, simply because these things, which were always there in the office, beside her, hurt her own pride by indicating the indignity of her situation. Occasionally, perhaps after a week-end in the country, when the thought of going back to Angel Pavement almost--as she said--made her feel sick, there flashed through her mind an image of Turgis. There had been moments when she had felt sorry for him, but they were very rare. Stanley and the funny little Cockney girl she tolerated and even liked, so long as they behaved themselves, and they might have been a couple of amusing little animals, a pair of spaniels perhaps, inferior and somewhat neglected. All these people were securely in their places. But not Mr. Golspie, the mysterious, large, jocular, brutal man, who always contrived--and for the life of her she could not discover how he did it--to get the best of her in any talk between them, who irritated one half of her, the sensible half, by making the other half feel fluttered and foolish, all girlish--ugh! How she had loathed him at first! Well, she still loathed him, or at least she disliked him, despised him, because he was nothing but a middle-aged bullying lout. He had a ridiculous moustache. He reeked of cigars and whisky, bar parlours. He was at once comic and awful.

As the bus rattled and roared up the long straight slope of Finchley Road on its way to Swiss Cottage, she told herself several times that Golspie was comic and awful and found something comforting in this conclusion. It was not, however, much of a conclusion; it only remained one for a few minutes, for Mr. Golspie, even in memory, even as an image, a faintly illuminated leer in the dark of her mind (like the Cheshire Cat in _Alice_), refused to stay in his place and wear his label. He escaped, and mocked her. It was all too stupid, and when she got up to leave the bus she determined to leave Mr. Golspie behind her, too. She found another girl from the Club waiting for the bus to stop, and when it did stop, they smiled at one another and walked up from the Finchley Road together. Mr. Golspie faded away.

“Do you come all the way from the City in that bus, Matfield?” the other girl inquired languidly. She was a very languid girl, rather affected, and her name was Morrison.

“The whole way.”

“How revolting!”

“It is. Absolutely foul! Where do you get it, Morrison? You don’t work in the City, do you?”

“No, Bayswater,” Miss Morrison sighed. “I get it just in Orchard Street. I have to take another bus first along Bayswater Road. Unless I walk, and I loathe walking, specially on these beastly dark nights. Even then, it seems an awfully long way.”

“Nothing to the way I have to come,” said Miss Matfield, sternly. When there was any grumbling about, and there usually was some about, she liked to have her share. “Sometimes it takes hours and hours.”

“I know. I took a job in the City once and I only stuck it a week.” Miss Morrison groaned in the darkness at the thought of it. “I nearly died. Honestly, Matfield, if I’d to go to the City every day and come back here, I’d die, I’d absolutely pass out, I would really. I don’t know how you stick it. But then you’re so energetic, aren’t you?”

Miss Matfield at once denied this terrible charge, and told herself that the Morrison girl was pretty awful. “I’m worn out now,” she continued. “Only I’d rather have the City because I can’t bear those private secretary jobs. Yours is one of them, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” with another sigh. “And pretty ghastly. The woman I’m working for now means well, but she’s an idiot, she really is, Matfield, a full-sized idiot. No man in any office could ever be such an idiot. She’s just dotty.”

“Well, here we are at our beautiful home,” said Miss Matfield, looking up at the Club entrance.

“I know. Isn’t it revolting?”

“Absolutely vile,” she replied mechanically, as they walked in. “I don’t suppose there are any letters for me. No, of course not. There wouldn’t be.”

“Mine’s a bill,” Miss Morrison groaned. “Are you always getting bills? I never seem to get anything else. Just millions of foul bills.”

“Foul! Cheerio.”

“Oh--er--cheerio.”

II