Part 18

“You ought to come and see us at the College next time you’re home, Lilian,” he said. “You’d like it. We’ve got one or two amusing fellows on the staff, and the students aren’t a bad crowd. We have little dances sometimes, and tennis in the summer. It’s growing too. In a year or two, if I can scrape up some money, I may get a partnership. Not bad, eh? The fact is,” and he lowered his voice, as if to keep these confidences away from the waitress, who had just deposited some microscopic pieces of fish in front of them and was still standing near, as if to see if they would have the audacity to eat them, “the fact is, I can get on better with old Warwick than any of the other fellows. He’s taken rather a fancy to me, thinks I’ve got more drive than the others. And as a matter of fact,” he added, looking earnestly at her, “I have. And I wish you’d come and look me up down there.”

She said she would, if she could manage it, and then explained, while the ancient foreigner poured out the wine, how difficult it was to do all one wanted to do, what with one thing and another, and then, fortified by the burgundy and determined to drive old Warwick out of the conversation for a time, she went on to tell him more about the office and the Club. He listened attentively, though with just the faintest suggestion of patronage. Obviously he thought a good deal more of himself these days, now that he had made such a hit with his old Warwick of the Chestervern Agricultural. But then all men were alike in that: they all thought they were marvellous. However, she could tell from the way he looked at her that he still thought she was marvellous too, which was very pleasant. She could feel herself getting steadily better looking and more attractive.

This could not be said about the dinner. The chicken was not marvellous, was not even pleasant. Like many other places in Soho, this restaurant evidently had a contract that compelled it to accept only those parts of a chicken that could not be called breast, wing, or leg. It specialised in chicken skin. The salad could be eaten, but its green stuff seemed to have been grown in some London back garden behind a sooty privet hedge. The sweet was composed of a very small ice, the paper in which it had been delivered from the van at the back door, and some coloured water that might have been part of the ice two hours before. That was the dinner, a miserable affair. Even Norman seemed to have a suspicion that it had not been very good, but he did not apologise for it, perhaps out of loyalty to old Warwick. Miss Matfield, in despair, had had two full glasses of the burgundy, a raw and potent concoction, which had produced at once a rather muzzy effect in her mind so that everything seemed a little larger and noisier than usual. Once, just before the coffee, she had found herself wanting to giggle at the thought of Norman taking his sandy moustache back to Chestervern and old Warwick. The coffee, black and bitter, stopped all that nonsense. They smoked a cigarette together over it, and Norman, with tiny beads of perspiration on his ruddy forehead and his glasses slightly misty, talked about old times and smiled sentimentally across the cruet at her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She stammered something.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Miss Matfield said dispiritedly that it was.

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

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

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

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

IV

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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