Part 32

“What again! I’m surprised you don’t go and live there. You’ve been once this week, haven’t you? Yes, I thought so. And I suppose you’ll be wanting to go on Saturday. That’ll be three times in one week--three times. Paid ninepence too, I suppose. And who gave you the money to go to-night?”

“Mother did.” And Edna looked slightly confused. Her father, noticing this, jumped at once to the wrong conclusion, namely, that Edna had been told to say nothing about this extra visit to the pictures to him and had suddenly realized what she had done. The truth was, however, that Edna was confused, not because she had spent another ninepence, but because the money was still in her possession, for she had gone to the pictures as the guest of one Harry Gibson, Minnie Watson’s friend’s friend, who, in his turn, was supposed, by his parents in their turn, to have been attending an evening class in accountancy on this particular night.

Mr. Smeeth nodded grimly and tightened his lips. “There’ll have to be something said about this, Edna. When I agreed to let you go and learn this millinery business, I didn’t agree to let you go to the pictures every night in the week, too.”

“I don’t go every night, and you know very well I don’t, Dad. Some weeks I only go once.”

“It’s a funny thing I never seem to notice those weeks,” said Mr. Smeeth with fine irony. It would have been still finer irony if he had stopped to consider that it really was not funny at all but quite natural. “But apart from the waste of money, I don’t like all this picture-going. Doing you no good at all. Doing you harm. I don’t object to a girl having her amusement,” he continued, dropping into that noble, broad-minded tone of voice that all parents, schoolmasters, clergymen, and other public moralists have at their command. “I go to the pictures now and again myself. But going to the pictures now and again’s one thing, and _living_ for pictures is another thing altogether. Teaches you nothing but silliness. Get false ideas into your head. Why don’t you settle down with a book?” He held out his own book. “Do a bit of quiet reading. Amuse yourself and learn something about the world at the same time. Take this book I’m reading, f’r’instance--_My Singing Years_ by Madame Regina Sarisbury--this is a book that tells you something worth knowing, all about the--er--musical career.”

“I read a book last week,” Edna announced.

“Yes, and been to the pictures three times since then,” said her father, who was determined to have his grievance. “Too much going out and amusing yourself altogether, my girl. Why, you’re worse than George was at your age. It’s my belief you girls are worse than the boys nowadays, more set on having amusement, pictures and dances and what not. I walked from the tram to-night with Mr. Gibson, who lives in the corner house at the bottom of the next street, and he was telling me that his son--I forget his name, but he’s about your age, perhaps a year or so older----”

“Do you mean Harry Gibson?” asked Edna.

“Is it Harry? Yes, I think it is. Well, Mr. Gibson was telling me that this boy of his is attending three evening classes a week--accountancy, book-keeping, and something else--three evening classes. That boy means to get on and be somebody in the world. He’s not wasting all his time, he’s using it to some purpose. I’m not saying that you ought to go to evening classes----”

Here he broke off because he noticed that a mysterious smile that had been hovering for the last minute now seemed to have definitely settled on Edna’s face. This smile made him angry, or rather gave him an excuse for exploding the anger that had been waiting inside him. “And for goodness’ sake, Edna, take that silly grin off your face when I’m trying to talk sense to you,” he shouted, making her jump. “You’re not at the pictures now. You’re nothing but a great silly baby.”

“What have I done now?” she began indignantly.

“Any more of that impudence from you,” Mr. Smeeth shouted at her, glaring. But there was no more of that impudence, which suddenly melted to tears. Edna, not a strong character at any time and now completely taken aback by her father’s sudden rage, hastily left the room, whimpering.

Mr. Smeeth spent the next few minutes telling himself all the things that were wrong with his daughter and that justified any man getting angry with her now and then. He worked hard, but he did not succeed in convincing himself. He put away _My Singing Years_ and turned the wireless on again. At half-past ten, George came in, got a grunt or two from his father (who was, in truth, afraid of talking), retired to the kitchen in search of food and then went to bed. At eleven Mrs. Smeeth returned.

“Have you had anything to eat?” she asked. Sometimes he had a little snack just before going to bed.

He shook his head.

“Can I get you something?” she enquired politely.

He knew now that he was in for a serious quarrel. Mrs. Smeeth easily lost her temper and squabbled, but she recovered it with equal swiftness and ease. If she had marched in and called him a few names and looked as if she was about to throw something at him, he would have known that the whole thing could have been settled before they went to sleep. But when Mrs. Smeeth was quietly polite to him, it meant that for once she had really hardened her heart. She would now turn herself into a very efficient housewife. Nothing would be allowed to go wrong; every meal would be on the table at the proper time and every dish done to a turn; he would not be given the slightest chance to grumble. But as a wife, a real wife, she would cease to exist. Not a smile, not a friendly glance, would come his way; and they would be estranged for days, perhaps weeks.

“No, thanks. I don’t want anything. Don’t feel like it.” Which was true enough, but he hoped it would suggest that he was not very well. She remained quite stony, however.

“Both the children in?” she asked.

“Look here, Edie,” he began desperately, “don’t be silly.”

“I’m not silly. I’m going to bed now.” And off she went.

He was in for it now, days of it, perhaps weeks of it; and in order to get out of it, not only would he have to apologize at great length, but he would probably have to buy something as well, in short to spend more money. Yet the root of the whole trouble was that too much money was being spent already. He wished he had never set eyes on Sorley’s miserable bill. He wished he had gone out and paid it without a word. He wished--“Oh, damn and blast!” he cried, and in his sudden spasm of fury he screwed up his face so hard and shook his head so violently that his eyeglasses fell off and he spent several minutes groping about the black wool rug before he could find them. Oh--a miserable evening!

II

Between Thursday evening, when hostilities began, and Saturday morning, Mr. Smeeth had tried unsuccessfully once or twice to make his peace and to replace this strange polite woman by his real wife. On Saturday morning he determined to do no more; she could have her sulk, if she wanted it; he would simply make the best of his position as a sort of super-lodger. He trotted down Chaucer Road, on his way to the tram, hardening his heart. The morning, which already had a companionable Saturday look about it, smiled upon him, if only faintly. For a day in late January, it was beginning well; no fog, snow or rain; but a slight sparkle and nip of frost and the early ghost of a sun somewhere above. Mr. Smeeth was very fond of Saturday; he liked the morning in the office (he always had a pipe at about half-past eleven, unless he was very busy), and he liked the afternoon out of the office. It was difficult for him to forget that his wife had quarrelled with him, but he hardened his heart and did his best to forget. Unfortunately--as he knew only too well, for he had said it often enough--it never rains but it pours. This treacherous Saturday was destined to give him a series of shocks, of varying degrees of severity.

The first, and slightest, of these shocks arrived when he walked over to his desk, rubbing his hands as usual and exchanging a remark or two with everybody. His inkwells had not been filled up, and no fresh blotting-paper had been put on his desk.

“Hello!” he cried, looking round. “Where’s Stanley?”

“Hasn’t turned up,” replied Turgis.

“Well, well, well, well,” said Mr. Smeeth fussily. “Does anybody know what’s happened to him? Is he ill or something?”

Nobody knew. Miss Sellers thought he had probably caught a cold, because she was sure she had heard him sneeze several times while he was copying the letters the night before. Turgis said with gloomy satisfaction that he had probably been knocked down and run over while trying to shadow somebody on his way to the office.

“I don’t suppose for a minute he has,” said Mr. Smeeth sharply. “But you needn’t seem so pleased about it, Turgis. Not a nice way of saying a thing like that at all. I don’t like to hear anybody talking like that in this office. Don’t know what has come over you lately, Turgis.” And it was true. He hadn’t liked the way Turgis had looked and talked for some time now.

The mystery of Stanley was cleared up when Mr. Dersingham, very much the Saturday man in plus fours, arrived to go through the letters, for among these was one from Stanley’s father, apparently a man of few words, who announced that Stanley was needed badly by his uncle, just returned to the ironmongering in Homerton, where the boy would be nearer home and have a better chance of getting on than in Angel Pavement--and sorry no better notice given but half fortnight’s wages due could be kept but please send Insurance Card all filled in--_Yrs truly, Thos. Poole._

“That means getting another boy,” said Mr. Dersingham. “I’m sorry about that one, too. He was a lazy little devil like all of ’em, but he looked rather bright, didn’t he?”

“Wasn’t a bad boy at all, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth, meditatively. “I’m sorry he’s left us, too. We might get a lot worse. He fancied himself as a budding detective, Stanley did--we used to pull his leg about shadowing people and all that.”

“Did he? A detective, eh? And I never knew that. He’d got that from reading about ’em, you know. I’m fond of a good detective yarn myself. But I never wanted to be one when I was a boy. They weren’t quite so much the thing then, were they? I remember I wanted to be an explorer--you know, expeditions across the desert and all that sort of thing. All the exploring I’ve done lately, Smeeth, has been looking for some of those mouldy Jew cabinet-making places in back streets in North London. Ah--well!” And for a moment the large pink face of Mr. Dersingham looked clouded, as if he had suddenly discovered that life was quite different from what he imagined it would be when he was in the Fourth at Worrell.

“We live and learn, sir, don’t we?” said Mr. Smeeth vaguely.

“Do we? I dunno. People always say we do, don’t they? But I dunno. I doubt it sometimes, I do, Smeeth, honestly,” the other replied, first glancing at Mr. Smeeth and then looking out of the window, through which nothing could be seen but a ramshackle roof and a few chimney pots beyond. A queer melancholy, quite unlike the proper spirit of any office on Saturday morning, invaded the room, and for a minute the pair of them were lost in it.

“Well, well,” cried Mr. Dersingham with a sudden briskness, “you’ll have to see about getting another boy. I’m sorry about that, though. That boy might have been a useful chap later on. He’s missed a good opening. If that other fellow, Turgis, had gone, I don’t think I’d have minded very much. How’s he getting on, that fellow? I don’t see much of him, but I must say I don’t like the look of him these days. He slouches about, looking like nothing on earth. What’s the matter with him?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Dersingham. I’ve noticed it, too. There’s been something wrong with him lately. He does his work, but only after a fashion, and it’s not a fashion I like, I must say. Something on his mind, I should say.”

“And a thoroughly nasty mind too, by the look of him! Well, look here, Smeeth, you’d better take him on one side and have a good talk to him. Tell him I’m not satisfied with him and you’re not satisfied with him, and that if he doesn’t buck up pretty soon, he’ll have to clear out. Tell him he’s a fool to himself, too, with the business growing as it is and all sorts of chances coming along for smart fellows. You know the kind of thing to say. Threaten him with the sack, if you like; I don’t mind. I shouldn’t care if I saw the last of the fellow this morning. I never did think much of him. Got a Bolshie look about him. All right, then, Smeeth--see about that, and about getting another boy. And I shall be off in about half an hour or so, and Mr. Golspie won’t be in, this morning. So just--er--carry on, will you.”

Mr. Smeeth was really sorry that Stanley had gone, and not merely because it meant getting another boy and showing him what to do. He realized now that he had liked Stanley and would miss that freckled snub nose of his, that sandy bullet head, and all the ridiculous detective talk. But that was not all. Nobody knew better than Mr. Smeeth that office boys come and go, are here to-day and gone to-morrow, but nevertheless this sudden departure of Stanley troubled him, if only because he disliked change of any kind and found himself visited by a vague mistrust, a flicker or two of apprehension, whenever it occurred. Stanley had become part of the office for him, and now Stanley had gone. It was not important, but still, he did not like it.

“If we finish in good time this morning,” he said to Turgis, after he had told them all about Stanley and had handed over the copying and posting of the letters to little Poppy Sellers, “I want to have a little talk with you, Turgis. You’re not in a great hurry to get away, are you?”

Turgis wasn’t. Indeed, the outside world appeared to have lost as much favour with him as the office had.

It was an easy morning. At twelve, Miss Matfield had nothing more to do, and was allowed to go, looking rather more pleased with herself and the world than she usually did. Turgis lounged up and gave Miss Sellers a hand with the copying, for which he received several grateful glances from the brown eyes beneath the fringe. Mr. Smeeth, sending out a fragrant drift of Benenden’s Own Mixture, fussed about and locked up, then gave the letters to Poppy and packed her off.

“Now then,” he said to Turgis, as soon as they were alone.

“Yes, Mr. Smeeth?” replied Turgis mournfully.

Mr. Smeeth looked at him, and perhaps saw him clearly for the first time for weeks. There were dark rings under his eyes, and the eyes themselves had a queer reddish look, as if their owner was not getting enough sleep. He never had much colour, but now he was very pale, and the bony ridge of his rather large nose shone as it caught the light, as if the skin had been drawn back from it at each side. The lad didn’t look at all well. Mr. Smeeth, who knew that Turgis lived in lodgings and was a lonely sort of chap, felt sorry for him.

“Here, Turgis,” he said, “there’s plenty of time. We’ll go out and talk there. Can you drink a glass of beer?”

Turgis, pleased and flattered by this invitation, said that he could.

“Well, we’ll go across the road and have a glass of beer there. Do us no harm. Everything’s locked up, I think, isn’t it? All right, then. We’ll go.” And so they went down the stairs, Mr. Smeeth kept up a cheerful clatter of talk: “I’ll just pop round the corner to Benenden’s to get some tobacco first. Always get my tobacco there, have done for years. His own mixture, y’know--mixes it himself. Better than this ounce packet stuff. You get it fresh. You don’t smoke a pipe, do you? Cigarettes, eh? You ought to try a pipe. Cheaper and a better smoke and better for your health, too. I’ve tried to get my boy George to start a pipe, but he won’t drop his cigarettes. Gaspers all the time. Too much trouble just to fill and light a pipe, that’s it. I wonder how these _Kwik-Work_ people are going on? Always seem to be busy enough, but I never knew anybody that used their blades. I stick to the old-fashioned razor. I’ve used the same two for twenty years. I call it a silly waste of money buying these safety razor blades. No wonder they give the razors away nowadays. They know once you’ve got the razor you’ll have to keep on buying their blades. That’s the catch, you see. Well, just wait a minute. I’ll call on my old friend, Mr. Benenden.”

But he didn’t, because his old friend Mr. Benenden was not there. Behind the counter was a plump young woman with bright ginger hair, and if Cleopatra herself in full regalia had been standing there, Mr. Smeeth could not have stared at her in greater astonishment.

“Yes?” said the plump young woman.

To explain what he wanted in T. Benenden’s, when year after year he had merely had to put his pouch on the counter, was in itself so novel an action that Mr. Smeeth found himself at a loss to perform it. “But--where’s Mr. Benenden?”

The young woman smiled. “You a regular customer here?” she asked.

“I should think I am,” said Mr. Smeeth. “I’ve been coming in here, week in and week out, for Mr. Benenden’s Own Mixture for years. It made me jump to see anybody else here. What’s happened? He’s not given it up, has he?”

“No, he’s not given it up,” she explained. “He’s in hospital. He got knocked down by a car last night in Cheapside, and they took him to St. Bartholomew’s.”

“Well, you surprise me! I’m sorry to hear that. Is he bad?”

“We don’t know yet. He didn’t seem so bad last night, because he got a message through to my mother and she went to see him and he gave her the key here and asked if I’d look after the shop for him, because he knew I wasn’t doing anything and I’d worked once in a tobacconist’s before--well, tobacconist’s and sweets’, it was, not like this, y’know--so it didn’t sound as if it was bad, with him being able to talk and arrange things like that, but the doctor told my mother it was worse than it looked, for all that, and it might be a nasty long job, and she’s going again to-day. I’m his niece, you see.”

“Poor old chap! I _am_ sorry about this,” said Mr. Smeeth, who was indeed genuinely distressed. “You must let me know how he goes on.” He had to point out to her the tin canister that held T. Benenden’s Own Mixture and had even to tell her the price of it. When he rejoined Turgis outside, he could talk of nothing else for the next five minutes. This one morning, not content with removing Stanley from Angel Pavement for ever, had gone and swept Benenden out of sight, put a plump young woman with ginger hair behind that counter, and turned Benenden into a mysterious suffering figure in a hospital. Benenden and Angel Pavement had been inseparable in his mind for years, and now the thought of Benenden not being there, no longer waiting, tie-less, behind his dusty counter, gave the whole place a queer look. Turgis had been in the shop many a time for cigarettes, but, being one of the “packet o’ gaspers” customers, he could not really claim to be acquainted with Benenden. By the time Mr. Smeeth had finished talking to him about the tobacconist, the pair of them were in the private bar of the _White Horse_ across the road and had two glasses of bitter placed in front of them.

Mr. Smeeth had not been in this bar since that night, two or three months before, when Mr. Golspie took him in, gave him a double whisky and a cigar, and talked about the business. It was still as cosy as ever, but this time it was not so quiet. It was entirely dominated by a large man with an enormous red face, who roared and spluttered and coughed and wheezed very loudly at his two companions, men of ordinary size, who could only make ordinary noises back at him. All conversation in the bar was provided with a thundering accompaniment by this large man. There was no escaping him.

“You see, Turgis,” said Mr. Smeeth, “I thought I’d better have a little talk to you, because, for one thing, I’ve been noticing a few little things myself, and for another thing, Mr. Dersingham’s been saying something to me about you. If you remember, I said something when we had a little talk a month or two ago.”

“I remember that, Mr. Smeeth. When you said they’d been thinking of giving me the push.”

“That’s right. Well, Mr. Dersingham talked to me about you this morning--rather in the same strain, Turgis, and I said I’d have a talk to you.”

“But what have I done wrong?” cried Turgis bitterly. “Why’s he always picking on me? I do my work all right, don’t I? You’ve never said anything about it to me, Mr. Smeeth. Seems to me they want to get rid of me whether I’ve done anything wrong or not----”

“Outch-ch-ch-ch,” went the large man. “Wait a minute, Charlie, wait a minute, let me tell it. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. ’Ere, this is it. Simmy come up to me, that morning, and I’m standing as I might be ’ere, see--and old Simmy---- Just a minute, Charlie, let me tell it----”

“This is the point, Turgis,” said Mr. Smeeth earnestly. “And, mind you, I’m talking in a friendly way. Nobody’s got anything against you at all. Put that out of your head. But as Mr. Dersingham says--you’ve got to buck up. Just lately, you’ve not been taking your work in the right spirit at all. I know you’re not a lazy chap and I know you can do your work all right, but if I hadn’t known it, I don’t mind telling you, I might have come to a wrong conclusion just lately. Now, we all have our troubles. I’ve plenty of my own, I can tell you,” he continued, with the air of a modest hero, “though you mightn’t think it. That’s because I’ve learned not to bring ’em to the office with me. I’m old enough and experienced enough not to let my troubles interfere with my work. You’re not, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. My opinion is, Turgis--you’ve not been feeling up to the mark lately.”

“That is so, Mr. Smeeth,” said Turgis. “You’re right there. I haven’t.”

“Didn’t he, Charlie?” roared the large man, drowning everybody. “He did. It’s as true as I’m standing ’ere. Next time you see Simmy, you say to ’im ‘What price Lady Flatiron at Newbury?’--that’s all. Just say that. Laugh! O Gord! Outch-ch-ch-ch-ch.” The enormous face was purple now.

“It’s no business of mine, Turgis,” said Mr. Smeeth in his ear, “and I’m only asking in a friendly spirit. But it’s my opinion you’ve got yourself into trouble somehow. If it isn’t that, you’d better go round and see a doctor. Perhaps you’re just not feeling well.”

“I’m not feeling so well, Mr. Smeeth, but it isn’t that, really. It’s just--oh, I dunno--well, you see, Mr. Smeeth, it’s a girl. That’s what’s been bothering me just lately.”

“Oh, that’s it, is it? Ought you to be marrying her or something of that sort? No? Nothing like that, eh? Oh, well, had a bit of a quarrel, eh?”

“Yes, in a way,” replied Turgis, guardedly, looking very uncomfortable.

“Oh, well, don’t you let that bother you,” cried Mr. Smeeth, astonished to discover that this was nothing but a lovers’ tiff. “I know what it is, of course. You’re talking to an old married man now, my boy. I’ve got a son nearly as old as you. It doesn’t matter how you’ve quarrelled, you don’t want to take it as hard as that. Bless me!--you’ll be making yourself ill over it.”

“That’s what I think sometimes,” said Turgis bitterly.

“Ridiculous! It’ll soon blow over. And if it doesn’t, why, go and find another girl who isn’t so quarrelsome. I can tell you this, if she’s quarrelsome now, she’ll be past living with, if you’re not careful, later on. You’re too sensitive about it, Turgis--that’s your trouble.”

Turgis produced a smile that was abject misery itself, the tortured ghost of a grin.