Part 34

On Tuesday morning, Mr. Golspie and Mr. Dersingham spent more than an hour talking together in the private office, and Mr. Smeeth, whose chief duty during that time was to examine a number of replies to Twigg & Dersingham’s advertisement for an office boy, found it difficult to concentrate his attention upon these rather monotonous letters, all in round handwriting that began well, but always wobbled towards the end. He was curious to know what was happening in the private office. Now and again he had heard voices raised, and once the door had opened, so that Mr. Golspie’s booming tones had come flying out into the general office, but the next minute the door had been closed again. Just after half-past eleven, the bell in the private office rang dramatically. Miss Sellers, now the junior, answered it, and came back to say: “Mr. Smeeth, Mr. Dersingham wants to see you.”

The private office was filled with cigar and cigarette smoke, and Mr. Golspie, who stood in front of the fire, his legs wide apart, clearly dominating the scene. Mr. Dersingham, sitting at his table, was rather rumpled and flushed and obviously not at ease.

“A-ha!” Mr. Golspie cried, “here’s Smeeth. He’s the man. He’ll tidy us up a bit. You know, Smeeth, if I’d been as tidy as you, as good at putting down little figures every day, never forgetting ’em, adding ’em up, I’d have been a rich man now.”

“Well, I’m not a rich man, Mr. Golspie,” said Mr. Smeeth, smiling nervously.

“No, but I didn’t say--if I could do that and nothing else, d’you follow me? What I meant was, if I could do what you do, _plus_ what I can already do. I’d be a very rich man now, and you wouldn’t find me in a dustbin, eh? Now if you want to make money, Dersingham, _really_ make money, pile up a big fortune, you’ve only to be like me and like Smeeth here both together, two in one. Quite simple.”

Mr. Dersingham nodded vaguely. He was not interested in this talk and did not like the sound of it, for Mr. Golspie’s voice had dropped into a jeering tone. He caught Mr. Smeeth’s eye, and then began: “Look here, Smeeth, Mr. Golspie and I have come to a new arrangement. I’ll just explain it----”

“Oh, I’ll explain it,” Mr. Golspie broke in roughly. “It’s simple enough. Up to now, I’ve been drawing commission on all this Baltic stuff as soon as it’s delivered to your customers, haven’t I? That’s right. Well, that’s too slow for me. I don’t want to have to wait for my money like that. Some of these new orders are spread over months.”

“Yes, and don’t forget how long we’ll have to wait for our money, Golspie,” said Mr. Dersingham, “or rather, I’ll have to wait for mine.”

“Quite so, sir,” said Mr. Smeeth, who knew how long it took to get accounts settled better than they did.

“That’s up to you,” Mr. Golspie replied, in his hearty brutal way. “I don’t want to point out again that if it hadn’t been for me there’d have been no orders and no money to come in, whether it comes in this year or next.”

“Yes, yes, that’s all right, Golspie. I agree. You needn’t harp on it, needn’t rub it in.”

“Rub it in!” Golspie laughed. “You’re talking now as if you were sore somewhere. There’s nothing to rub in but a lot of good new business. Anyhow, Smeeth, this is the point. I can’t wait now for all this big lot of orders to be delivered. I want my commission on the orders as they stand. They’ve gone through; the stuff’s on the other side all right, as you know; and your people are here all right; so I want my cut now. I’m not as good as you at figures, but that’s what I make it, right up to date.” He handed over a slip of paper. “That’s a rough total, of course.”

It may have been a rough total, but what leaped to Mr. Smeeth’s eye was the fact that it was a surprisingly large total.

“Pretty big, eh? Bigger than you thought, eh? That shows you the business that’s come into this office just lately.”

“It does, Mr. Golspie,” said Smeeth, glancing down at the figure again.

“Yes, that’s true.” Mr. Dersingham’s face cleared at the thought. “Jolly good. Of course, it’s--what-is-it?--phenomenal--a sudden rush, y’know, because they’ve been booking this stuff of yours ahead as fast as they can.”

“Don’t blame ’em,” said Mr. Golspie, looking at his cigar.

“You want me to check this, I suppose?” said Mr. Smeeth, glancing from one to the other.

Mr. Golspie yawned. “That’s it. When can you have it done, with the figures right bang up to date, Smeeth? By to-morrow morning, eh? All right. And you’ll see how you can arrange the payment, Dersingham, eh? Yes, yes, I know how it is--you told me--but if you can split it into three, say, and let me have the first cheque this week and the other two as soon as you can, that’ll do me. I’ll leave you to work it out. I’ll be looking in this afternoon.”

They said nothing until they heard the outer door close behind him and his footsteps die away on the landing. They seemed to be in a much larger room now. Mr. Dersingham himself was much larger. “Get a chair, Smeeth,” he said, and lit another cigarette. They looked at one another through the sudden spurt of smoke from it.

Mr. Dersingham gave a short laugh. “Friend Golspie’s putting the screw on this morning. My God! Smeeth--I’ll tell you candidly--and this is very much between ourselves, you understand--that chap’s getting on my nerves. He’s such a damned outsider, he really is. He’s brought all this business here, it’s true, but--my God!--he doesn’t let you forget it either. If we hadn’t been in such a rotten bad way before he came, well--I don’t know--I think I’d have told him to take his stuff somewhere else. Don’t repeat a word of this, Smeeth, for the love of Mike! But that’s just how I feel, and I must let steam off for a minute. He gets worse. Talk about rough riding or whatever they call it! He’s the complete bouncing bounder. Business may be business, but give me a gentleman to deal with in it, every time. Friend of mine, Major Trape--we were at Worrell together--met the chap at my house, just after he came and I asked him to dinner, the first _and_ the last time, and Trape summed him up after half an hour, and several times since he’s said to me that he wouldn’t have a chap like that working with him, sharing the same office, not if he brought a quarter of a million pounds’ worth of business in his pocket. He’s getting worse, too. Ouf!”

“Well, Mr. Dersingham, you’ve got to meet all kinds in business, haven’t you?” said Mr. Smeeth, astonished at this outburst.

“Looks like it,” replied Mr. Dersingham bitterly. He remained silent for a minute, and his face gradually cleared. “Still, there’s no doubt we’re doing the business. Golspie’s total--and I don’t suppose it’s far out, even though it is rough--surprised me, and of course he’s drawn a fair amount of commission, on the actual deliveries here, already, hasn’t he?”

“I suppose this new arrangement’s all right,” said Mr. Smeeth dubiously.

“If you mean it’s a damned nuisance, I agree with you, Smeeth. It’s that all right. Look what we’ve got to pay him, and he wants it all these next two or three weeks--says he’s a lot of old debts to meet, though God knows where they are. That’s what I want to talk to you about. We’ll have to go into this pretty carefully. I don’t know how much you expect to get in these next two weeks, but I imagine we’ll have to ask the bank to help us out. That’ll be all right, of course, because I can explain to Townley there how we stand.”

Mr. Smeeth nodded. “Well, I suppose it’s all right, sir,” he said once more, still dubiously.

“What do you mean, Smeeth?” Mr. Dersingham was impatient.

“Well,” he hesitated, “I don’t quite know. I’m just wondering if it’s all right.”

“Oh, don’t keep saying that,” cried Dersingham angrily. “Of course it’s all right. I’m not a fool. It’s a nuisance, and I wouldn’t do it if I could help it, but it’s all right. Plenty of fellows who work on commission have this arrangement and get their money as soon as the order goes through.”

“I suppose they do, Mr. Dersingham. But you’re thinking of ordinary travellers, aren’t you, sir, chaps who just get a very small commission, not like this?”

“No, I’m not. I’m thinking of other fellows who--er--work in a big way,” said Mr. Dersingham rather vaguely.

“Suppose Mr. Golspie leaves us? I can’t help thinking about that, you know, sir.”

“Why should he? My hat!--he’s doing well, isn’t he? He’s making more out of this firm than I am, just now. No, I know what you’re thinking, Smeeth, and I know what you’re going to say. You mean, there’s nothing to prevent him walking over to some other firm in our business, if they made it worth his while. Or another thing. He might sell out the whole agency--he’s got a tight grip on that, y’know, Smeeth; I know that for a fact--for this Baltic stuff to somebody else, and then clear out.”

“That’s right, sir. I thought of both those things.”

“And so did I, Smeeth. Don’t you worry about that. I don’t blame you for being cautious--does you credit, and I know you’re a good safe chap--but you mustn’t think I was born yesterday, you know. I don’t pretend to be one of these born City men, the real old cunning sharks--that’s not my style at all, Smeeth, and if I could afford it, I’d be out of business to-morrow and be in some snug little country place--but I’ve had some experience and I’m no fool, y’know. Oh no!” he cried confidently to Mr. Smeeth and perhaps to the listening gods. “I’ve thought about that for some time, and this morning, when he brought up this commission idea and wanted to clear our account at one swoop, for that’s what it amounts to--though he’s earned it fairly, y’know, we must admit that--I tackled him on those points.”

“Oh, I’m glad about that, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth, greatly relieved.

“Yes, and he agreed to meet me half-way. I agree to pay this commission over to him as soon as possible, and he’ll sign an agreement, promising not to take the agency elsewhere and to see that we keep the agency on here if he decides to clear out. That’s fair enough, isn’t it? You can’t get away from that. In fact, we stand to gain by this new arrangement, don’t we? We’re only paying out, a little in advance, what’s due to him, and on the other hand, we make the business safe for ourselves. If Golspie goes after he’s signed this agreement--and I’m going over to my solicitors this afternoon to have it drafted out; we’ll do it properly--then he leaves us with the new business in our hands, and all I can say is, the sooner he goes the better. And I’ll tell you another thing, Smeeth. When he’s signed this agreement, he’s going to drop some of his little blighterish tricks, that nasty jeering tone of his, because I’m not going to put up with it any longer. I shan’t need to, after this. By George!” and Mr. Dersingham’s voice had a triumphant ring now and he tried to look like a very crafty man of affairs. “I’d never thought of that, not properly. It didn’t occur to me that, after this, if he doesn’t like it, he can lump it, if you see what I mean. He’ll have to change his tune, thank God!”

“Yes, I see, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth slowly. “It’s funny he didn’t think of that, too, isn’t it?”

“Oh, he wants his money in his pocket. That’s what he’s thinking about. And then he probably imagines I like that nice cheerful manner of his, and like to be told every day or so that if it hadn’t been for him the firm wouldn’t be paying its way. I tell you, these loud bounders never think what’s going on in other people’s minds.”

“I shouldn’t think Mr. Golspie cared very much, certainly,” said Mr. Smeeth thoughtfully. “But I don’t know that I quite see him in that light, though you know him better than I do, I’ll admit that, Mr. Dersingham. But--I don’t know----”

“If you don’t mind my saying so, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, grinning at him, “there are times when you’re just a bit of an old washerwoman, and I’m not sure this isn’t one of them. No, no, don’t mind that--I know you’re a good chap, and I can honestly say I wouldn’t like to run this show without you. Now, look here, will you work out that total properly, as soon as you can, and let me know what we’re likely to get in these next two weeks, what we’ve got in hand, and so on, and then we’ll settle the whole thing. Right you are.”

The latter part of this speech was all so friendly that Mr. Smeeth could not take offence at the “bit of an old washerwoman.” He left the room feeling that he ought to be convinced, and almost ashamed of himself because he could not share Mr. Dersingham’s sudden burst of confidence. The fact remained, though, that he still felt dubious. There was something in Mr. Dersingham’s tone of voice that made him wince. He did not like this easy dismissal of Mr. Golspie; there was a catch in it somewhere; and he felt that Mr. Dersingham was taking the wrong line with Mr. Golspie. What was it that Turgis had said, reporting the daughter? He wondered if he ought to have mentioned that, but then quickly dismissed the possibility. Mr. Dersingham knew what he was doing. He talked as if he did. Indeed, he talked too much as if he did. Mr. Smeeth, with his apprehensive mind, always felt a slight alarm when anybody was triumphantly confident. You had to be careful.

He settled down at his desk, with the various books in front of him, to work out the exact figures. For the next hour he was lost in them, quite happy, at home in this familiar little world of unchanging numerals and balancing columns, this world in which you had only to have patience enough and everything worked out beautifully, perfectly.

V

“And how’s Mr. Benenden?” Mr. Smeeth asked. He had called in the shop as he returned from lunch on Wednesday, and had found the plump niece still behind the counter there.

She remembered him, and at once smiled at the prospect of a little chat and then looked sad because the subject would be her stricken uncle. After that, she compromised neatly between the two. “He’s not as well as he might be, thank you,” she replied. “Now they’ve got him in there and had a good look at him, they’ve found a lot of things wrong with him. He never would go to a doctor himself, didn’t believe in them, he said--you know--silly. No, it isn’t just with him being knocked down like that, though that was bad enough, but they examined him, you see, and now they say he’s not in a good way at all. They may have to operate.”

“That’s bad, isn’t it? What’s wrong exactly?”

“Now I couldn’t tell you. You know what they are in these hospitals. If they know themselves, they don’t let on. I went to see him on Sunday, and I told him about the shop and who’d been in and all that. You’re not Mr. Bromfield, are you?”

“No. My name’s Smeeth.”

“Mr. Smeeth. Yes, that’s right. He mentioned you as well.”

“Did he now?” Mr. Smeeth felt all the gratification of a person who has been singled out, no matter by whom. “Asked if I’d been in, I suppose, eh? Well, I wish you’d tell him how sorry I am to hear he’s laid up. Tell him I say that Angel Pavement doesn’t seem the same place without him. And I hope he’s stirring again soon.”

“Yes, I will.” The plump young woman hesitated a moment. “I’ll tell you what, Mr. Smeeth, if you just happened to have a spare half-hour this afternoon, perhaps you might like to go and see him. It’s visiting day up there to-day, you know. Three to four. My mother’s going about half-past three, but if you could have a look at him, just to give him a word or two and pass the time of day, sometime before then, just after three, he’d be ever so pleased. But perhaps you’re busy.”

“I don’t know.” Mr. Smeeth thought it over, then looked at his watch. “I think I will, you know. It wouldn’t take me long to slip round to Bart’s. Where shall I find him?”

She gave him elaborate directions. He remembered then that he had wanted to have a word with Brown & Gorstein, whose place was just off Old Street. He could go round to Bart’s first, and then up to Brown & Gorstein’s. It did not look like being a very busy afternoon, and he had still three-quarters of an hour in which to clear up a few odds and ends of jobs in the office before he went.

At three o’clock he came out into Little Britain, beneath the innumerable blue-curtained windows of Bart’s new building. As he crossed the road, something huge in the sky, to the left, caught his eye and made him stop and look that way when he reached the other pavement. It was the dome of St. Paul’s, and never before had he seen it look so massive and majestic; it was almost frightening. He had never seen the dome from that distance and that particular angle before, and it was as if he was seeing it for the first time. He might have been in a strange city. For once his sense of wonder was quickened, and after that, throughout the afternoon, until he returned to the office, it never slept. The wide space between the main entrance to the hospital and Smithfield Market was filled with carts coming from the market, a very decided smell of meat, and a narrowing stream of people, mostly women carrying paper bags and little bunches of flowers, who were pouring into the hospital entrance. It was all very strange to him, for he had not been near a hospital for years and had never visited one of this size before. It was like walking into a fantastic little town, a strange city within the city. He went through an archway and found himself in a great courtyard or quadrangle with a fountain in it. Here there was all the bustle of a market-place, but not of any market-place he had ever seen before. Doctors in white coats and bare-headed students ran in and out of the many doorways; nurses fluttered snowily across the quadrangle; and now and then he caught a glimpse of a patient, strapped and rigid on a stretcher, being wheeled away to God knows where. One passed him close, and he saw a face cut out of yellow bone and staring unfathomable eyes. It was terrifying. The whole place, this little town of white uniforms and mysterious silent traffic within the roaring city, terrified him. He could have sworn that the little pain somewhere inside began tick-ticking again; and for a moment or two it seemed to him astonishing that he should still be one of the uneasy invaders swarming in here, one of the workers, eaters, drinkers, smokers, pleasure lovers, movers about, from outside. Any day now, he felt, he would be on one of those stretchers.

Somehow it had never occurred to him that he would see Benenden actually in bed. He had vaguely imagined a hospital and had imagined Benenden in it, but he had really thought of him as being still behind a counter, the familiar half-length figure, beginning about the second button of the waistcoat and then going on to the old-fashioned high collar and stiff front (with no tie), the straggling sandy-grey beard and the thick glasses. In all the time he had known him, Mr. Smeeth had never once seen Benenden away from his counter; and for all he knew to the contrary, Benenden might have had no legs at all. Now, as he approached the white-enamelled iron bed, he saw less of Benenden than ever, but what he did see gave him a shock. It was not that Benenden looked very ill (for that matter, he had never looked very well), but simply that he looked quite different. Mr. Smeeth wanted to laugh. That head of Benenden’s above the sheet looked idiotic. It was as if Benenden had taken to wild joking.

“Hello, Mr. Benenden. Your niece in the shop suggested I might call and see you. How are you feeling now?”

The enormous eyes behind the glasses had slowly swivelled round, and now there was a slow faint creasing of the face that did duty for a smile. “Very pleased to see you, Mr. Smeeth. Very good of you to call.” This came in tiny high explosions of sound, as if Benenden’s ordinary tones had been raised an octave or two and only allowed to emerge in separate little puffs.

Mr. Smeeth could see that he really was ill. Every movement of the face and his speech were so slow, as if they had to be thought out first. And though he had been away from his shop such a little time, he gave the impression that he had been away for years and years, had gone round and round the world, had even changed his nationality. He did not belong any more to the workers and bustlers and movers about. He was now a citizen of this inner city.

“Not a bit,” said Mr. Smeeth, wanting to be cheerful and hearty, but not outrageously so, “not a bit. I’m only too glad. I’ve missed you at the shop. Quite a shock to hear what had happened to you. How are you feeling then?”

“Not good, Mr. Smeeth. No, not good. Baddish.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Benenden. I suppose that accident of yours was a shock to the system, eh?”

“That was nothing, that wasn’t,” replied Benenden, speaking in a slow, oracular fashion. “They say there’s all sorts o’ things wrong with me. Heart bad. Kidneys bad. Inside all wrong. They don’t tell me much. When they do, they think they’re teaching me something.” The eyes behind the thick glasses seemed to gleam with pride. “They’re not teaching me anything. I could have told ’em that, Mr. Smeeth. I could have told ’em that--yes, and a bit more--a long time since. I’ve known all about it for years, years and years.”

“You don’t say so!” Mr. Smeeth looked concerned.

“Yes, I’ve known it for years. They can’t tell me anything about that heart of mine. It’s rotten. There’s many and many a man--and I’ve known some of ’em--who’s dropped in the street with a heart not so bad as mine. Been missing the beat for years, missing it all over the place. Same with the kidneys. They’re rotten, too. But, mind you, Mr. Smeeth, it’s not all the kidneys. There’s the liver to be taken into consideration. They’re overlooking that, so far they are, but I’m just waiting for ’em to come round to my opinion. I’m not saying anything. I’m just letting ’em find out a few things for themselves. One of these days, that young doctor’s going to notice my liver and then he’s going to have another surprise. And that isn’t all, either.” Here the astonishing image, after a little effort, produced something like a chuckle. T. Benenden was exiled from his shop and his financial columns and his chats with customers, but now he had discovered in his ailments and dubious organs a new and absorbing interest, and, stretched out there, he saw himself as a romantic and exciting figure. Within sight of death, he was beginning life all over again.

Mr. Smeeth caught a fleeting glimpse of this fact, but he was in no mood to appreciate it. The spectacle of Benenden, suddenly transformed from a familiar Angel Pavement character, and comic at that, to this infirm shadow of himself, filled him with dismay and foreboding. Try as he might, he could not help believing that he would never see T. Benenden behind that counter again. As he listened--for Benenden did most of the talking, slowly boasting of the severity and complication of his ailments--Mr. Smeeth told himself that never again would the tobacconist bring out the canister of Benenden’s Own Mixture for him.

Yet there was no real evidence for this. “How is he?” he asked the nurse who had first shown him the bed.

“Who? Seventy-five? Oh, getting along all right,” she replied briskly. “We’re operating at the end of this week or early next week. He’ll be all right.”