Part 40

“Well, I must say I don’t remember you saying anything. Anyhow, it’s too late now. You know, Smeeth, that fellow’s robbed me just as much as if he’d broken into my flat--it’s worse, when you think of it. And there isn’t even a charge against him. All he’s done is to collect some commission and keep a letter back. You can’t go to the police about that. The swine! That’s what maddens me. What’s the time? Quarter past eight? Come on, let’s get out of this.” They walked down the stairs and out of the building together.

Across the way, the only sign of life came from the bar of the “White Horse.” “I don’t know about you, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, stopping, “but I want a drink. It’s a long time since I wanted one so badly. You could do with a spot, couldn’t you? Of course you could. Let’s have one, while we can still pay for it.”

The private bar was completely deserted, except for a long, grey cat that stretched itself arrogantly in front of the little fire. The barmaid came round the corner, swept away several glasses, polished a foot or two of counter, said, “Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom,” to the cat, then smiled at the gentlemen in the way a lady ought to smile, and, “Good evening. Nicer now, iserntit?”

“Two double whiskies, please, and two small sodas,” said Mr. Dersingham.

“Two doubles,” murmured the barmaid.

Mr. Smeeth could not help being reminded of the time when Mr. Golspie had brought him in here and had insisted on his having a double whisky. That was the night when Mr. Golspie had told him that he ought to have a rise. Everything was going too wonderful that night.

“Here’s luck, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, raising his glass, “and I’m sorry for your sake it’s turned out like this, though you’re not losing what I’m losing, not by a long chalk. But here’s luck--here’s to your next job, and I hope it’s a better one than Twigg and Dersingham ever gave you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth shyly. “And here’s luck to you too, sir----”

“You’d think that cat, to look at it,” said the barmaid, “was a good mouser if ever a cat was. Wouldn’t you now? Well, it isn’t. No good at all. Won’t touch a mouse. Will you, Tom? No, you won’t, you lazy old rascal. Don’t earn your keep at all, you don’t. Come here, Tom. Tom, Tom, Tom.”

“I’m going to try for a job out East as soon as I’ve straightened things up,” said Mr. Dersingham confidentially. “No more City for me. I never did care for it. Not really my style at all, y’know, Smeeth. I always wanted to go out East. You get a gentleman’s life out there. A man I know--he’s just retired and he’s a neighbour of mine--told me some time ago he could get me a good job out there any time. I shall have a shot at it.”

Mr. Smeeth nodded and looked gloomy. There was no job out East for him, and these remarks of Mr. Dersingham’s suddenly opened out a vast, dreary prospect. At the moment, he preferred not to think about the future.

“Look at him, the silly old thing,” said the barmaid, who had the long cat in her arms now. “Aren’t you a silly old thing, Tom? He’s got nice markings though, hasn’t he? Reg’lar, aren’t they? Go on then, go down then, if you want to, Tom. There! Boo! Boo! Just watch him. He can open the door by himself. Artful as anything, I can tell you.”

Mr. Dersingham gulped down the rest of his whisky and soda. “Rotten luck. The worst possible. Where I made the mistake though, Smeeth, was not trusting to what’s-it--instinct, intuition, you know. About Golspie, I mean. I was trying to be the smart City bounder, with an eye for a tricky bit of business and nothing else--y’know, like that awful fellow, Gorstein, and all the rest of ’em. Not my style at all, really. I didn’t like the chap and I ought to have known he’d do me down. Never mind, he’ll come to a sticky finish before he’s done. And so will that daughter of his. You never met her, did you, Smeeth? Very good looking, in the film and chorus girl style, but a terrible little minx. You ought to hear my wife on Miss Golspie! She came to my place once--but never again, never again. That was a queer business, y’know, Smeeth, about Turgis and that girl, when Golspie came and said Turgis would have to be sacked because he’d been up to some mysterious games with the daughter. I never really understood what it was all about--though I’d like to bet that Golspie’s daughter was up to her tricks there--she looked that sort.”

“I never understood that business,” said Mr. Smeeth mournfully. “I wasn’t properly told about it.”

“Neither was I, for that matter. But I didn’t bother much, because I never thought that chap Turgis was much good, anyhow, and was rather glad to get rid of him. Thinking it over now, though, I feel a bit sorry for the poor devil. Have you heard anything about him, Smeeth?”

“Miss Sellers has seen him once or twice, I believe. I fancy she’s a bit sweet on him. He’s not got another job yet, of course, and it’s not likely he will for some time.” He breathed hard, like a man who wants to sigh but has forgotten how to do it, looked down at the remainder of his drink, and slowly finished it.

“Well, I’d better be getting along,” said Mr. Dersingham. “That drink’s made me feel hungry. I’ll stop at the club and see if I can get a bite. I might see a fellow there who could give me one or two tips about this miserable business. Then I’ll go home, and that’s the part I’m not looking forward to, I can tell you. Are you going home now?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Smeeth slowly, buttoning his overcoat. “I’m going home.”

II

As her bus turned into that hive of buses in front of Victoria station, Miss Matfield shivered a little. She was nervous; she was excited; and her mind was facing two different ways. She spent the next few minutes getting from the bus to the station, which was very crowded and week-endy, and then to the place where she had arranged to meet Mr. Golspie, which was on the departure side, between the bookstall and that large clock with four faces. Mr. Golspie was not to be seen. This did not surprise her, for she was rather early. She was somewhat relieved to find that he was not there. It left her with a welcome breathing space. She was by no means single-minded about this adventure.

It had been planned, if a few hasty and last-minute questions and answers can be called planning, three days before, on Tuesday night, which was the last time she had seen him. He had not been to the office since and she had had no message from him, but that did not worry her. She had a strong suspicion that he was going away very soon, but she did not know when he would be going and she did not believe that he knew. Last Tuesday, just before they parted, he had asked her once again to go away for the week-end with him, anywhere she pleased, and this time, moved obscurely by many different feelings and forces, something genuinely eager and passionate in the man’s voice, a sudden desire to clutch at experience, to throw herself upon life, a contempt for her qualms and misgivings and timidities, she had agreed to go. An hotel on the Sussex coast she had once seen was to be their destination, and the time and meeting place were hastily settled. Several times since, she had been tempted to write to him or ring him up, to say that she had changed her mind. Her pride, however, would not let her do this. She had said she would go, and now she would carry it through. She had wanted adventure, and though she would not have admitted it, there was always a man in this adventure, and now that it offered itself and she had accepted it, she could not run away. Yet there was a creature in her, and not merely a brain phantom, but a creature that had some of her rich blood flowing through it, that very blood which this coarse, middle-aged man could so inspire that it dazzled and inflamed her, a shrinking and fastidious creature that cried to run away, to run away and hide. It protested against the shabbiness and furtiveness of this adventure, and pounced upon the sinister lack of fairness in it. It loathed the cheap imitation wedding ring that was now tucked away in her bag, a ring that was part of the adventure, and that had seemed rather a joke when it first had been mentioned last Tuesday. She had heard about those rings before, and they had always seemed rather a joke, perky, glittering little stage properties in amusing escapades, and it was not difficult for her to force herself to see that ring in her bag in the same theatrical light; but, nevertheless, the protest was not silenced and the loathing remained. If Golspie had asked her to marry him, no matter if he had told her that they would have to settle in the most outlandish place, she would have agreed; but he had not asked her to marry him. Yet he wanted her, not idly either, and, when all was said and done, that was a heartening and exciting fact; and after this, he might want her still more, the last traces of self-sufficiency in him (and he had appeared unusually self-sufficient at first, and that had made him all the more attractive) might vanish, and then--well, everything might be different.

If you delight in movement and change, the appeal of a large railway station is irresistible; you are still in the dark cocoon of the city, but one end is splintering already and you can see the blue beyond; the rumbles and shrieks and snortings are only part of the tuning up; and even the smoky smell has the savour of adventure. There had been moments during the last two days when this week-end, this arrival at Victoria, had loomed in Miss Matfield’s mind like some unusually desperate appointment at the dentist’s, and at the thought of it something coldly writhed inside her. Now that she was here, however, she was less introspective and her spirits gradually rose. It was almost better that something extremely unpleasant should happen than that nothing at all should happen; and it was very unlikely that anything extremely unpleasant _would_ happen. She responded to the lively and adventurous bustle of the station. As she strolled over to the bookstall, carrying her small suitcase, she felt tall, healthy, strong, a fine woman of the world. One or two middle-aged men had smiled in her direction and several young men had looked earnestly at her, all of which meant that she was looking her best. The bookstall offered her an almost unlimited choice of reading matter, light periodicals, heavy periodicals, books that were “amazing successes,” books that were “very outspoken,” books that were simply “great bargains.” She did not accept any of them, but the knowledge that they were there somehow gave her pleasure. It was impossible to resist a holiday feeling. The sight of all the fussy and bewildered people, of whom there were an unusually large number, the people who went rushing up to any man in a railway uniform, who looked in despair at the notice-boards, who mopped their brows and snapped at one another, who blankly surveyed great mounds of luggage, who flitted like uneasy ghosts from one platform entrance to another, only brought her a pleasing sense of her own superiority. They were nothing to do with her; she was not behaving like that; and so she looked on, amused, contemptuous, failing to see in this spectacle of the harassed and inexperienced travellers any symbol of this life of ours.

There were two trains, and they had hoped to catch the earlier one. It was now only a few minutes from the time of starting. She returned to her former place, nearer the clock, and looked about her anxiously. He would get the tickets, of course, before he came on to the main platform, so that there was still plenty of time for them to catch the train if he appeared at all. There seemed to be more and more people about, though round her there was a small clear space. It was just possible that he might have missed her. Only two minutes now. She hurried over to the entrance to No. 17 platform and looked over the barrier down the waiting train. Then she returned, even more hastily, to her place near the clock. From there she heard the train go out.

It was annoying. They would have more than three-quarters of an hour to wait now. It was her turn to keep him waiting. Very deliberately, she made her way to the tearoom, which was not very full though it looked vaguely as if it had just been wrecked by a revolutionary mob, and she spent ten minutes over a cup of tea and a cigarette. She would have liked to have stayed longer, but it is almost impossible to linger successfully with only a sheet of glass between you and a host of trains and passengers. She tried to loiter on her way back to the four-faced clock and the bookstall, but an inner restlessness prevented her, and she arrived there as if her train might start any moment. He was not there. Now she began making little circular tours with the clock as their centre. After quarter of an hour of these, she returned to the meeting place and remained there, her suitcase at her feet, erect, motionless, sullen. She was there, and he must find her. People came and went, bought papers and books, looked at the clock, looked at the departure board, glanced at her; porters wheeled their loaded barrows and trucks at this side of her and that; the trains snorted and puffed and sent red gleams to the glass roof; but now she paid no attention at all. She was tired of Victoria, tired of waiting. This time, when the later train was nearly due to start, she stayed where she was and made no attempt to discover if he was already on the platform. When the train had gone, she stood quite still for a minute or two longer, then walked away.

She had to wait again before she could get a telephone call put through to his flat. The telephone boxes were in brisk demand. She knew his telephone number and knew, too, that the instrument at his flat, which had been out of order the week before, was all right now. But she would not have been surprised to find that there was no reply to her call, for she was sure at least that he would not be there. Something had gone wrong; and even now he was probably trying to get to Victoria. There was a reply, however, and it obviously came from a maid.

“Is Mr. Golspie there, please?”

“No, he’s not. He’s gone. So has Miss Golspie. They’ve both gone,” said the voice.

“Gone? Do you mean--he’s out?”

“No, gone. Gone for good.”

“But--I don’t understand. Are you sure? I had an appointment with him to-night.”

“All I know is--he’s gone, Miss Golspie too. They’ve gone to South Africa or South America or one of them places. In a boat, I _do_ know. I helped ’em to pack, and a job it was too, and a nice mess they’ve left this place in, I can tell you. I’m cleaning it up now, after ’em, ’cos they only took it furnished and I stayed on with the place. There was a gentleman came when I was having my dinner,” the voice continued, as if it was rather pleased to have a little chat with somebody, “and he wanted Mr. Golspie badly, but I couldn’t tell him anything except they’d gone, went this morning, luggage and everything, and you never saw such a pile.”

“Did Mr. Golspie leave any message--for anybody?”

“No, he just went----”

“All right, thank you,” said Miss Matfield, interrupting and then ringing off.

He had gone, left the country, without even telling her he was going, without even telling her he could not keep this appointment at the station. He had simply tossed the week-end away, and her with it, as if it had been a crumpled bit of paper. If he had not forgotten all about it, then he had not cared enough to see her for the last time or even to send a message. And this was the man--oh, the humiliation of it all! She left the station, burning with shame and resentment. An hour earlier she might have felt relieved if Mr. Golspie had come and told her that it would be impossible for them to go away this week-end. But she had waited there, suitcase in hand, that filthy little ring in her bag, had waited there, and all the time he was miles away, not caring if she spent the rest of her life standing in Victoria station. Never before had she felt such bitter contempt for herself. She could have cried and cried, not because he had gone and she would probably never set eyes on him again, but because his sudden indifference, at this time of all times, left her feeling pitiably small and silly. The misery of it was like the onslaught of some unexpected, terrible disease. Her mangled pride bled and ached inside her, so that she felt faint.

That was why she did not return, as a sudden impulse commanded her to do, to the station and take the first train anywhere, to get away for the week-end at any cost from London and the Club. She could not do it; all energy and initiative were drained away; she was too tired. She found a No. 2 bus, climbed on top, and then watched, with smarting eyes that refused to see anything properly, the glitter and blue murk of half London go lumbering past, Hyde Park Corner, Park Lane, Oxford Street, Baker Street, Finchley Road, all a meaningless jumble of light and dark, offering nothing to Lilian Matfield, no more than if it had been some Chinese river flickering past on a cinema screen.

Once in the Club, she hurried upstairs, as if she had stolen the suitcase she carried. Hastily, mechanically, she washed, tidied her hair, changed her dress, powdered her face, and then went down to the dining-room. She did not really want food, but something impelled her to throw herself back into the routine of the Club. But she was careful to find one of those nondescript tables for latecomers, at which there was little talk, and what talk there was merely the occasional impersonal remarks of acquaintances. She ate little, and the sight and smell of the food, the look of everybody there, the high chatter and clatter of the room, made her feel sick. Nevertheless, she stayed on, and had her coffee with the rest. When she got back to her room, she began examining all her clothes and grimly set aside some stockings to be mended. Then she remembered something.

“_Can_ I come in?” said Miss Morrison. “Hello, Matfield, what on earth are you doing? Something desperate, by the look of you.”

“Hello, Morrison. I was only throwing something away,” she replied, closing the window. Somewhere out there was a cheap imitation of a wedding ring.

Miss Morrison, who was wearing bedroom slippers, contrived to shuffle elegantly--for she never quite lost her slim elegance--into the room, and hoisted herself on to the bottom of the bed, resting her back against the wall. “Oh, by the way,” she cried, “you oughtn’t to be here. Weren’t you going away for the week-end?”

“I was,” said Miss Matfield shortly, hanging a dress up, “but I changed my mind.”

“Good!” And that was all Miss Morrison had to say about that. It was one of her virtues, as Miss Matfield had begun to notice, that she did not ask questions when they were obviously unwelcome, made no attempt, except in fun, to nose things out of you. Most girls at the Burpenfield, if you were on room-visiting terms with them, did not allow you to have any private life of your own. “I ought to have gone out to-night,” Miss Morrison continued, in her usual languid manner, “but I can’t bother to. I feel foul. I never remember feeling more completely foul, except when I’ve had ’flu or something like that. I’d go and see a doctor only I can’t afford to, and then again I disapprove of the way we females run after doctors and worship them. Cadnam’s just been raving to me about some doctor she’s just been to. ‘He’s fifty, of course, and heavily married,’ she said, ‘but the most marvellously attractive man, my dear.’ She went raving on and on. I think it’s revolting the way these young females adore their doctors and dentists. I refuse to join in, don’t you? After that it’ll be vicars and curates and dear, dear doggies--vile! But, as I said before, I feel thoroughly ill. It’s partly the idiocy of my respected employer, who really is the silliest woman there ever was--she gets sillier--and then again it’s partly the time of year. Don’t you honestly think this is the very, very foulest time of all the year? It’s such a long way from anything or anywhere interesting, isn’t it? Just fiendishly dull. I don’t blame all those illustrated paper people--Lady Chagworth, Colonel Mush, and Friend--for going away and slacking about on the Riviera or in Madeira, or wherever it is they do go. I say ‘good luck to them!’--don’t you? Though I must say it oughtn’t to be the same people who go every year and the same people who stay at home, like us, and push into buses on wet nights. They ought to change round a bit. Your turn this year. Our turn next year. That sort of thing.”

“I should think so,” said Miss Matfield, somewhat indifferently. She was still busy putting clothes away. “I call it beastly unfair. I think I’ll turn Bolshie.”

“I’ve often thought of turning _something_,” said Miss Morrison meditatively. “Have you got a cigarette, by the way?”

“Some over there somewhere. Can you reach over and get them? I’ll have one, too.”

Having found the cigarettes, Miss Morrison handed one over, accompanying it with a curious glance. “I went to that Chehov play, last night. I didn’t tell you, did I? My dear, don’t go. I wept and wept--yes, honestly I did. It was just like the Burpenfield with the lid off, really it was--awful! When I got back last night, I said to myself, ‘I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it.’”

“I think that’s stupid, Morrison,” said Miss Matfield, sitting in the only chair.

“What’s stupid?”

“All that--about not bearing it and about the Club being the Chehov play. It’s not a bit like it.”

“How do you know, my dear? You haven’t seen the play.”

“I’ve read it.”

“I don’t suppose it’s the same, just reading it. I admit it’s not like this at all on the surface, but honestly it’s got the same what-is-it--atmosphere.”

“It hasn’t a bit, I tell you,” said Miss Matfield earnestly. “And I really think it’s stupid talking like that about this place. It’s ridiculous--all silly exaggeration. When you talk like that, Morrison, you annoy me----”

“Since when, my dear?”

“Well, I’ve made up my mind that it’s simply absurd, besides being terribly depressing, going about talking like that about the life we lead here. It makes it seem fifty times worse than it is. And, anyhow, it’s not bad really. It’s our own fault if it is. Yes it is.”

“My dear, you can’t mean it.”

“Yes, I do mean it.”

Having said this, Miss Matfield put down her cigarette, looked at the floor for a minute, then quite suddenly and unaccountably burst into tears.

“Sorry!” she cried, five minutes later, when it was all over. “I’m not going mad, though I dare say it seemed like it. I think--I’ve been feeling rotten too, all strung up, you know.”

“My dear,” said Miss Morrison, who had been very tactful, “if I hadn’t wept buckets last night at that play, I don’t know what I’d be doing to-night.”

“Listen,” cried Miss Matfield, jumping to her feet and smiling damply. “I’ve made up my mind now. Yes, I have. It’s serious. Listen. I’m going to work properly, and I’m going to get a better job and make more money.”

“You’re not going to leave your present job, are you?”

“The Lord forbid! If I did, the scheme wouldn’t work at all. No, but I’m going to tell them there isn’t anything in the office, or connected with it, I won’t and can’t do, if they’ll only give me a chance. I’m going to be _really_ in business, not just sort of hanging on there. I’ve got a jolly good chance because my firm’s very busy now and we’re short-handed, and the man who really sold all the veneers and inlays has just left us----”

“Not the man you told me about, the fascinating one?”