Part 25

“She hasn’t got a bank account,” Mr. Smeeth continued, “and apparently the girl’s got through all the money her father left her--these girls, my word, they think we’re made of money!--wait till you’re a father, Turgis, and then you’ll know--and he’s arranged with us to let her have some from his account here. She wants it at once, to-day, and we’ve just telephoned to see if she’ll be in, and she will--trust her!--they’ll always be in if they get something for it--so somebody had better take it up to her, Mr. Dersingham says. I’d make the young madam wait if I’d anything to do with it,” he went on, maddeningly, “because this is only encouraging extravagance, upon my word it is--but Mr. Dersingham says she’d better have it now.”

“Well, I’ll take it, Mr. Smeeth.” Oh, wouldn’t he just!

“All right, then. You’d better clear off that work you’ve got on hand, Turgis, and then when you go, you needn’t come back. If you leave here about five, you’ll get there about half-past five, and that’ll leave her ample time to put in a full evening spending it. I’ve got the address here all ready.”

Got the address! If old Smeethy only knew! Turgis could have banged his desk and sent all his advice notes and bills of lading and railway and shipping accounts flying about the office. He did contrive to clear up a few odd jobs, but he did not do as much work as he pretended to do, for it was impossible to keep his mind crawling there, among the papers, and to prevent it from taking a wild leap now and then. At a few minutes to five, he cleared his desk ruthlessly, so that it looked as if the last crumb of work had been gobbled up. “I’m ready now, Mr. Smeeth,” he announced.

“Right you are,” said Mr. Smeeth. “I’m putting twelve pounds, twelve pound notes, into this envelope, and it has the name and address on, you see--Miss Golspie, 4a Carrington Villas, Maida Vale. I’ll seal that. Now here’s a form of receipt I’ve made out, and you must get her to sign that, so that there’s no possible mistake. You understand that?”

Turgis assured him fervently that he did. He was delighted at the receipt idea. Once or twice he had thought what a dismal ending it would be if he merely handed over the money at the door--“Is that the money? Thank you. Good afternoon.” But signing a receipt was a different matter; it could not be done properly at the door; you should read a receipt carefully before you sign it; you might want to have it explained; you must ask the messenger in, and then of course he might have a chance to talk. The receipt made it a piece of real business. Good old Smeethy! It was just like him to insist on a proper receipt.

“And you needn’t come back, of course,” said Mr. Smeeth. “Just pop off home. I’ll just tell Mr. Dersingham I’ve fixed it all up.”

“What’s all this about?” Miss Matfield asked, as he was taking his overcoat from its peg.

He explained shortly.

“Where do they live?”

“In Maida Vale. 4a, Carrington Villas,” he told her.

“I say, listen,” cried Miss Sellers, sweeping away her grievance. “If you get a chance of going in, go in, and then tell us what it’s like to-morrow. I’d like to know what sort of place Mr. Golspie lives in. Wouldn’t you, Miss Matfield?”

Miss Matfield, to Turgis’s surprise, for he expected her to be disdainful of such idle curiosity, admitted at once that she would. “I’m rather sorry I didn’t ask for the job,” she added. “It would be amusing to see what the daughter’s like. I have just seen her, but that’s all. And I can’t imagine what sort of place Mr. Golspie lives in, though it’s probably some furnished maisonette they’re camping in. Maida Vale’s stiff with them.”

“Well, I can’t fancy that Mr. Golspie having a ’ome at all,” Miss Sellers put in. “Seems a ’omeless sort of man to me.”

“I’ll say ‘Good afternoon,’” cried Turgis loudly and cheerfully, and off he went, the money and the receipt form snugly tucked away in the inside pocket of his coat, the best coat he had and all brushed and as natty as you like. Now for Maida Vale, and no hanging about this time, but straight as a shot from a gun through the front gate of 4, Carrington Villas. He hurried out, running down the stairs, in fear of Mr. Dersingham or Mr. Smeeth or Miss Golspie or the gods suffering a change of mind at the last minute and dragging him back to his desk.

III

There was just light enough, and time enough, for him to notice that the broken statue, really a plaster thing, was that of a little boy playing with two large fishes, and that the two pillars were peeling badly. There were two bells, one for 4, the other for 4a. He was careful to press the 4a one. He pressed it several times and altogether waited nearly five minutes, but nobody came. It looked as if she was out, after all. In despair, he tried the bell for 4. Instantly a light was switched on in the hall, and the door--there was only one door for both flats--flung open.

“Is it you here again, young man,” cried an enormous woman in an apron, standing there. “Because if it is, I’ve to give you the mistress’s word that she’s paying out no more money for the machine because the girl that could work it has left and it’s no use to us at all the way we are now, and not another penny will she pay out for it, so take it itself and leave us in peace.”

“I don’t know anything about your machine,” Turgis told her.

“Aren’t you the same young man? Well, you’re the very image of him.”

“I want to see Miss Golspie.”

“The young lady above, isn’t it? Then ring the other bell, with the _a_ on it, and she’ll hear it soon enough.”

“But I’ve been ringing it,” he explained. “I’ve rung it about six times.”

“For the love of God!” cried the enormous woman, coming out and looking at the bell-push, as if that might explain something. “Haven’t they got that bell of theirs ringing yet? Every time it’s us, it’s really them. Come inside, young man, come inside, or if we stand here talking another minute the mistress’ll be raising Cain the way she’ll say she’s destroyed with the draught. Does she know you’re coming at all?”

“Yes, she does,” replied Turgis, following her into the hall. “I’ve been sent to see her on business. It’s very important. I hope she’s in.”

“Ah, she’s in, too, because I heard the mistress say she was going to see her. At the top of the stairs you’ll see a bit of a door--it may be open and it may be shut--and if you knock on it, you’ll make her hear. The servant they have is out to-day because I met her here myself this afternoon, all dressed up and telling me she’s to meet her young man, a sailor in the Royal Navy. Up the stairs then, it is, and a hard knock on the door.”

Just beyond the head of the stairs, there _was_ a door, and it was open a little, so that he could plainly hear the sound of a gramophone playing jazz. He knocked hard. The gramophone stopped abruptly.

It was Miss Lena herself who came to the door. She was dressed in a shimmering greenish-blue, and she was prettier than ever. At the sight of her standing there, solid and real again at last, his heart bumped and his mouth went suddenly dry.

“I’ve come from Twigg and Dersingham’s, Miss Golspie,” he announced, stammering a little.

Her face lit up at once. “Oh, have you brought that money?” she cried, in that same queer fascinating voice he remembered so well. “How much is it? Come in, though. This way.”

The room was very exciting. It was a big room, but in spite of its size it was full of things. Turgis had never seen, except on the pictures, so many cushions; there seemed to be dozens of them, huge bright cushions, piled up on a big deep sofa sort of thing, stuffed into armchairs, and even scattered about the floor. And then there were gramophone records and books and magazines all over the place, and bottles and tins of biscuits and fancy boxes heaped together on little tables, and then enough glasses and fruit and cigarettes and ash-trays for a whist drive or a social; and all in this one rich bewildering room. It was lit with two big, crimson and yellow, shaded lamps, and it was very cosy and warm; almost too warm, even though it was a cold afternoon, for an excited young man who had hurried there from the bus.

“It’s twelve pounds,” he explained, “and I have a receipt here that you have to sign.”

“Good! I could do with it, I don’t mind telling you. I adore having money. Don’t you? It’s beastly when you suddenly find you haven’t got any, and can’t go anywhere or buy anything. Oh, I remember you. You’re the one I spoke to that day when I called at the office, aren’t you? Do you remember me?”

Turgis assured her fervently that he did. He was still standing, awkwardly, with his hat in his hand and his overcoat hanging loose from his shoulders, and he felt rather hot and uncomfortable.

“You seem jolly sure about it,” she said lightly. “How did you remember so well?”

“You won’t be annoyed with me if I tell you, will you, Miss Golspie?” he said humbly.

She stared at him. “Why, what is it?”

“Well, I remembered you,” he replied, gasping a little, “because I thought you were the prettiest girl I’d ever spoken to in all my life.”

“You didn’t, did you? Are you serious?” She shrieked with laughter. “What a marvellous thing to say! Is that why _you_ brought the money?”

“Yes, it is,” he said earnestly.

“It isn’t. You were just sent here. I believe you’re pulling my leg.”

“No, I’m not, Miss Golspie. The minute I knew some one had to come here,” he continued with sudden recklessness, “I specially asked to be sent--just to see you again.” The hand that was still in his overcoat pocket tried to make a sweeping gesture, with the result that his overcoat brushed the top of one of the little tables and emptied a box of cigarettes on to the floor.

“Look what you’ve done now,” cried Miss Golspie, greatly entertained.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” muttered Turgis, confused and sweating now with sheer awkwardness and shyness. “I’ll pick them up.”

“Wait a minute. Take your overcoat off and put your hat down, and then you’ll feel much better. That’s right. Dump them down there--anywhere. Now you can pick the cigarettes up and you can also give me one of them. Take one yourself.” Unsteadily he lit her cigarette, picked up the others, and then lit his own. “Now what about the money?” she continued. “What do I have to do to get it?”

“Only sign this receipt,” he explained. “You ought to count it first to see if it’s all right.”

When they had concluded this little transaction, she said suddenly, “Have you had any tea?”

“No, I haven’t,” said Turgis promptly.

“Well, I haven’t, either. I was too lazy to make it. The maid’s out to-day. Let’s have some. Shall we? Most of it’s ready on a tray, but I just couldn’t bother boiling some water and making the tea. You come and help and then you shall have some.” He followed her into the little kitchen, where he filled a kettle and watched it come to the boil while she chattered in a drifting haze of cigarette smoke and languidly produced another cup and saucer and some things to eat. Then, when everything was ready, he carried the tray into the other room and set it down on a low table in front of the fire. Lena reclined, like a lovely lazy animal, on a pile of cushions, while Turgis, at the other side of the low table, sat in a low, fat armchair. It was a wonderful tea. The tea itself was good, for there were little sandwiches and all kinds of rich creamy chocolate cakes and biscuits, all piled up anyhow, like everything in this careless and sumptuous place. And then, far more important than sandwiches and cake, there was Lena herself, so real, so close, so magically illuminated there in the firelight and shaded lamplight. She asked him all manner of questions, beginning with “What’s your name?”

“Turgis,” he told her shyly.

“What’s your first name?”

“Harold,” he mumbled. It was years since anybody (anybody, that is, who didn’t merely want him to fill up a form) had asked him what his Christian name was. He brought it out with desperate embarrassment, but when it came out, he felt better.

“I don’t like Harold much. Do you? Mine’s Lena.”

“Yes, I know it is.”

“It seems to me you know everything about me,” she cried, laughing. “You’ll be telling me next how old I am and where I was born and all the rest of it. Who do you think you are--a detective?”

This was a good opportunity to be bright and entertaining, so he told her all about Stanley at the office and how Stanley wanted to be a detective and went about “shaddering” people. After which, Lena, who seemed to enjoy Stanley, asked him about the other people at the office.

“You don’t like it there, do you?” she said, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “I’d die if I had to work every day in a place like that. So dark and dismal, isn’t it? And they call that street Angel Pavement! What a name for it! I nearly passed straight out when my father told me. If ever I have to work for my living, I’d rather work in a shop than in an office like that. I wouldn’t mind being a mannequin. Or go on the stage. That would be best of all. I want to go on the stage. I nearly went on when I was in Paris. And a man wanted me to go in for film work--he said he’d get me a part right away. Do you think I’d be any good for the films?”

“Yes, I’m sure you would,” said Turgis earnestly, all solemn adoration. “You’d be wonderful on the pictures--like Lulu Castellar or one of those stars--only better. I’d go anywhere to see you.”

If he had thought about it for days, he could not have produced a speech more calculated to please her than this, because it chimed with her own innermost aspirations and beliefs. And his solemn adoration, a change from the usual obvious gallantry, was very pleasant. She smiled at him, slowly, with a kind of sweet deliberation, and he sat looking at her, silent, intoxicated.

The silence was broken by a sharp _rat-tat-tat_. “Oh, damn!” cried Lena. “Who’s that?” and went out to see. She returned, raising her eyebrows comically at Turgis, followed by a very strange figure. It was an old woman who looked like a dressed up and painted witch. She had an enormous nose, hollow cheeks, deeply sunken eyes, but, nevertheless, her face had the pink and white colouring of youth. This was because it was thickly painted, and when it caught the light, it shone, just as if it was enamelled and varnished. She was wearing, above a purple dress, a gigantic yellow shawl with a pattern of scarlet flowers on it, and she glittered with brooches, necklaces and rings. Never in his life before had Turgis been in the same room with anybody as fantastic as this old woman, and suddenly he felt frightened. For a second or so, he even forgot about Lena, and simply wished he was not there, wished he was somewhere familiar, sensible and safe. It was a queer moment, and he remembered it long afterwards.

Lena introduced him, in an off-hand, slap-dash fashion, so that he never caught the name of this extraordinary visitor. All he knew was that it was something foreign; and he guessed that she was the woman who lived downstairs, the mistress mentioned by the fat Irish cook, or whatever she was who had admitted him into the house.

“No, no, no, my dee-air,” cried the old woman in a cracked foreign voice, “I’ll not stay at oll, onlee one seengle minute. I haf asked my nephew and hees vife and hees friend from de Legation to com’ to me to-night because I am again in vairy great troble. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes--in vairy, vairy great troble again. Dere ees no end of eet.” At this point she sat down, shot out a claw-like hand and took a cake, and promptly gobbled it up. Turgis stared at her, fascinated.

“What’s the matter?” asked Lena, trying to sound concerned, but obviously ready to giggle at any moment.

“Aw!” cried the old woman, repeating this “Aw” a great many times and wagging her head as she did so. “My daughtair again, _of_ course--need you ask? Always de same--onlee a deef’rent troble.” She swooped down upon a cigarette, and popped it in her mouth and lit it with uncommon dexterity. After blowing a cloud of smoke in Lena’s direction, she resumed: “I haf com’, my dee-air, for two t’ings. First, here are de plomss I said to you I would geef you. No, no, no, no. Dey are noding, noding, noding at oll. Steel, dey are vairy, vairy nice plomss.” Apparently these plums were in the little box she now handed to Lena. “Next, I ask your fadair, Meestair Colspie--does he say ven he com’ back ’ere?”

“He didn’t say exactly,” said Lena. “I don’t think he quite knows yet. But it ought to be some time next week. Perhaps you know, do you?” And she looked at Turgis.

“That’s all I’ve heard, Miss Golspie,” replied Turgis, very conscious of the fact that the old woman was staring at him. “We expect him back some time next week.”

“No, no, no, no. I should like to ask your fadair about dees troble for my daughtair--dat ees oll--and eenoff! Aw yes!--eenoff. My nephew’s friend from de Legation, he may do somet’ing. Eef not, I ask your fadair next veek.” She threw her cigarette into the fireplace, and got up from her chair surprisingly quickly. “Aw, my dee-air, dat ees a nice, a vairy nice dress you ’ave on now. Aw yes, eet ees.” She ran a be-ringed claw over some of it. Then she looked at Turgis, who immediately wished she wouldn’t. “Eesn’t eet a nice dress, eh? You t’eenk so?”

The embarrassed Turgis said it was.

“She ees vairy preety, Mees Colspie? Aw, yes--loffly, you t’eenk, eh?”

“Yes, I think she is,” replied Turgis, after clearing his throat.

“You are in loff wit’ her, eh?”

These foreigners! What a question to put to a chap? What had it got to do with her, the nosy old hag? He made some sort of noise in his throat, and it was enough to stop her staring at him and to set her moving towards the door, chuckling just as if she was a witch. “The young man ees afraid of me. He ees in loff. Geef ’im a plom, dee-air.”

When Lena came back, after closing the outer door behind the old woman, a new feeling, of friendly ease and lightness, immediately descended upon them both. They were young together. They laughed at the old woman, whom Lena imitated with some skill.

“She’s our landlady,” she explained. “Not a bad old thing, really--she’s always giving me things--but quite cracked, of course. And the daughter she talks about, the one who’s in ‘troble’--she’s some sort of a countess--seems to be completely dippy. Everybody who ever comes downstairs is a bit mad, and they’re the only people I’ve spoken to these last few days, so you can tell the sort of time I’ve had. It’s just my damnable luck!--when my father’s away and I could do what I liked--three friends, all three, take it into _their_ heads to go away, too, this week. I could have screamed, I’ve been so bored.” She lounged over to the window and looked out. “Looks very thick now. Another fog coming, I suppose. That’s the worst of London, all these foul fogs. What shall we do now? You haven’t to go home or anything, have you?”

Turgis, looking his devotion, said at once that he hadn’t to go home or anywhere.

“Let’s go to the movies. We can go to the place near here. It’s not bad. Just wait; I shan’t be long. Or, look here, you could take these tea things back into the kitchen.”

He had taken them all in and had seriously begun to think of washing them long before Miss Golspie appeared again. What he did, when she did appear, was to wash himself in a bathroom that had more towels and bottles and jars and tins in it than all the other half-dozen bathrooms he had ever seen put together. And now they were ready for the pictures.

It was not far, but they had to grope their way through a mist that was rapidly turning into a thick fog, and once or twice Lena put her hand on his arm, and they were cosy together in the blank woolly night, and it was all rather wonderful. It was better still when they were sitting, close, cosier than ever, in the scented and deep rose-shaded dimness of the balcony in the picture theatre. (Turgis had paid for these best seats, and was left with exactly three-and-threepence to take him through the rest of the week.) They were both enthusiastic and knowing patrons of the films, so that they had a good deal to talk about, and frequently as they whispered, her head came close to his and her hair even brushed his cheek. It was tremendously exciting. The chief picture, a talkie--it was _Her Dearest Enemy_, with Mary Meriden and Hunter York--was good stuff, but it was nothing compared to merely sitting in that balcony with Lena Golspie, who, incidentally, was much prettier than Mary Meriden. She herself thought she was just as pretty, but Turgis was sure that she was much prettier, and told her so several times. On this occasion he abandoned his usual tactics. He did not even try to hold her hand. He was content to sit there, to whisper, to be so near to this fragrant dim loveliness, with his hunger, which he had taken into so many picture theatres, momentarily appeased. A dream had come true. He reminded himself of this, time after time, if only because the dream, which had been haunting him so long, was still more real than this sudden actuality. He longed to make everything stand still, knowing only too well that it was all flowing away from him. Every photograph that leaped on to the screen and then leaped away again was nibbling at the evening. Very soon the programme would be completing its circle, and she would be wanting to go, and it would be all over. Turgis felt all this, even if he did not find phrases to express it, so that he was not completely and perfectly happy. He was, as we have seen, a born lover, and a romantic, and what he wanted at heart was not ordinary human happiness, but a golden immortality, a balcony seat high above Time and Change.

“You can come back and have some supper, if you like,” said Miss Golspie casually, when they descended into the gloom of Maida Vale again. “You can help me to make it. I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”

He _was_ hungry, and if she didn’t mind, he would like to help her with supper. He could have shouted for joy at the thought that he had not to leave her yet, that the evening was being thus magically extended. All the way back, they talked about pictures and film actors and actresses they liked and disliked, and as there was not really much difference in their points of view, for they both went to the films in search of an amorous dream life and the mere difference of sex only added spice to the discussion, they got on very well indeed. After the fog, the room at 4a seemed richer and cosier than ever, and as Turgis helped to put odds and ends of food, mostly out of tins, on the little table in front of the fire, he felt as if he had wandered into a glorious film.

“Can you mix a cocktail?” asked Lena.

“No,” he replied. Cocktails were not a part of real life at all to him, and in a sudden burst of candour he added: “Matter of fact, I’ve never tasted one in my life.”

“Don’t be silly,” she screamed at him. “You’re trying to be funny. You _must_ have had.”

“I haven’t really,” he assured her. “I’ve had beer and whisky and port wine and sherry and all that, but I’ve never had a cocktail.”

“All right, my good little boy,” said Lena gaily, “you’re going to have one now--one of the special Golspie Smashers.”

He watched her take bottle after bottle from the sideboard and then shake a tall silver flask, just as he had seen people do on the stage and in films. “Now just you taste that, Mr. Angel Pavement,” she commanded, giving him a little glass. It had a queer flavour, rather sweet at first, then slightly bitter, and ending with a sort of golden glow, which seemed to travel all over him.

“Like it?” and she put her own glass down.

“It’s fine.”