“Yes, sir?”
The young man, whoever he was, seemed scared, as though anticipating a rebuke connected with his banjo-playing, or possibly on account of his appearance. His grubby shirt was open at the neck and his soiled cuffs were attached to shortened sleeves by threads of elastic.
“I’m looking for a young lady who works here, a Miss Mostyn. I wondered if you could show me her room?”
The young man now looked quite terrified. “Her room? You… you mean to visit her? To go up to the girls’ dormitory? You couldn’t possibly do that, sir. She’d be sacked on the spot and so would I for not reporting you to Mrs. Pedlar.”
“Who's Mrs. Pedlar?”
“The housekeeper, sir. Young ladies’ followers aren’t even allowed in the shop, much less inside the crib.”
“Where could I find this Mrs. Pedlar?”
“You can’t, she's out.”
“Well, then, since she's out I’ll give you half-a-crown to tell me how I can get a word with Miss Mostyn. You can come along with me if you’re not prepared to take me on trust.”
The youth washed his hands. Giles had seen this gesture performed by male assistants in shops of every kind and it had always struck him as rather comic. It did not seem comic now but abject and pitiful. He said, taking a coin from his pocket, “You don’t have to tell me anything. Just nod, or shake your head. Is it one floor above here?”
The youth shook his head.
“Two?”
The youth nodded.
“Left or right at the stairhead?”
The youth lifted his left shoulder an inch, and then, pocketing the coin, whipped back into his room and slammed the door.
Giles went up two flights of iron stairs to a long corridor that ran left and right from an uncurtained window. Through the dust-coated glass he could see the gasometer, silhouetted against an orange sky. The place seemed empty and silent. Only one door, also ajar, broke the long expanse of the facing wall to the left and he approached it, pausing on the threshold and peering through the crack into an austere high-ceilinged dormitory, containing about a dozen beds, each fitted with a deal locker. Despite the brilliant sunset outside, the light was bad up here and already the big room was in half-shadow. There were two sash windows, each half-obscured by cheap, dun-coloured curtains. A strip of coconut matting ran between the iron cots but the floor spaces were bare boards. On top of each locker was a case or grip of one kind or another, and at the far end was a fixed plank, supporting a row of washbasins and ewers.
He did not see her at once. She was sitting by the furthermost window, looking out over a wide expanse of roofs that lay between the butt end of the building and the great, grey gasometer that brooded over this part of the town. There was a book open on her lap but she was not reading. Instead there was a kind of listless repose about the way she held herself, as though the preceding hours had drained the dregs of her energy and expectations. He had a conviction that if the landscape below had erupted like Pompeii she would have continued to sit there, watching and waiting, with no wish to do more than witness the catastrophe. Her demeanour indicated nothing beyond mute acceptance, as though she had come to terms with every probability, including the Apocalypse.
It cost him a great effort to intrude upon her thoughts, whatever they were. More than a minute passed before he could nerve himself to advance into the room when the sound of his footfall on the boards caused her to turn her head. He saw her stiffen, saw her blink half a dozen times, then raise one hand and pass it slowly across her brow, as though she found it impossible to believe what her senses recorded.
He said, hoarsely, “It's all right, Romayne… it's me… Giles. I’ve come for you. Come on home, dearest,” but she continued to hold herself rigid and stare fixedly at him, just as though he had been a ghost.
He crossed to her then and took her hand, finding it cold and unresponsive. He said, “It isn’t a miracle, and I didn’t hunt you down. It was pure coincidence. I was up here on business and saw Prune and then you. I watched you go into Mrs. Rawson's. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but whatever it is it's over. I won’t have you living like this, in this awful place…”
But then, at last, she spoke, speaking his name in a low voice and with a note of query.
“Giles?”
He was sorry he had been so impulsive. It would have been wiser, perhaps, to have written and asked her to meet him somewhere. Or demand some explanation from her employers as to what she was doing here and what, if anything, she had told them about her identity. The shock of stealing up on her in that way seemed to have stunned her. She let the book fall and he stooped to pick it up, noting that it was a paper-backed edition of Tennyson's Idylls of the King. It told him something, not much, but enough to see her presence here as a kind of penance, lifting the corner of a curtain on one of the root causes of their incompatibility, for he had often nagged her to read verses that he himself loved. He saw, however, that she was in no kind of state for an involved discussion of any kind and said, authoritatively, “Get your things together. You’re getting out of here. Tonight. Now.”
She stood uncertainly. “That isn’t possible… Mr. Birley…”
“Damn Birley. You don’t owe Birley a wave of the hand. I’ve heard all about him and his kind and I’m not leaving you here. Get your things.”
“There's Mrs. Pedlar, the housekeeper… If I’m missing they’ll notify the police… One of the girls ran off and there was a great commotion…”
“I’ll pay Mrs. Pedlar the compliment of telling her where you’ve gone and why. Is this your locker and bag?”
She nodded and he swung the grip down and opened the locker. There was very little inside. A shop dress, a pair of shoes worn through the soles, a pair of black woollen stockings, some clean underclothes, and a workbox with its hinges broken. As he stuffed the box into the bag its lid fell off and he caught a glimpse of a bundle of his own letters, together with some sixpenny editions of anthologies.
She seemed incapable of making the smallest decision but stood by, neither helping nor hindering him. But when he snapped the bag shut she said, looking along the row of empty beds, “I would have liked to have said goodbye. They were wonderful people, Giles.” Somehow the remark told him more about her pilgrimage than anything he had learned so far. He kissed her, saying, “You can write to them. As soon as we’re married.”
He had the impression then that she wanted to re-open the inquest on their relationship, perhaps harking back to all they had said to one another during that final confrontation in Eaton Place, but he gave her no chance, sensing that the only way to prise her loose from this dismal place was by giving her no choice in the matter. He took the bag in one hand, her hand in the other, and led the way out on to the landing.
From the stairwell the hesitant melody of “Allan Water” could be heard, as though the youth with the grubby cuffs was playing to keep his courage up. He said, “Wait one minute,” and setting down the bag took out one of his cards and a pocket diary containing a pencil. Using the banister rail as a rest he tore a page loose and wrote, “Mrs. Pedlar. Please accept this as Miss Mostyn's notice and inform Mr. Birley that she left in my charge. Any further communication between us can be conducted through my firm. Faithfully, Giles Swann.” After a moment's reflection he added, “I think you should know Miss Mostyn's father is Sir Clive Rycroft-Mostyn, the well-known industrialist, also that she is my fiancée and her father is aware of this.”
He found a paper clip attached to some correspondence in his wallet and clipped card and note together. At the foot of the stairs he knocked on the same door and again the music stopped abruptly but this time there was no movement inside the room. He went in, finding a smaller dormitory, almost identically furnished, if furnished was the word. The youth, now wearing a collar and jacket, was sitting on his bed beside an open window. He said, “Give this to Mrs. Pedlar the moment she comes in. Say that you tried to stop me and if they ask questions
I’ll back you up.”
“It don’t matter what I say I’d get the push,” and he locked his hands behind his back, as though to touch the note would involve him in irretrievable ruin.
“Listen, you must have heard of Swann-on-Wheels, the carriers?”
“Yes, but…”
“If you’re sacked come to me at this address. I’ll find you a job and it’ll be a damned sight better job than you’ve lost. I’m Swann's son, Giles Swann. Now take the note.”
He took it, handling it as though it would bite and laying it down very carefully on the top of his locker. Giles thought he had never seen a human being look more desperate as he said, “That's a promise, Mr. Swann?” and when Giles said it was, “Then I’ll do it. She never really belonged here, not with people like us. We all knew that.” He called, through the open door, “Good luck, Miss Mostyn. Run for it!”
He piloted her into the stifling alleyway, then down to the tram terminus and through the side streets to Talavera Road. With his free hand he held her arm above the elbow. She said nothing, walking like someone in a trance.
Mrs. Rawson had made ready for her. Cold supper was laid on the parlour table and from some attic or cupboard she had excavated a battered truckle bed, pushing the chairs back to clear a space on the hearth-rug. Prune was there, lying with his head between extended paws, and when Romayne came in he wagged his tail but did not rise. She sat down and patted him absently as Mrs. Rawson said, “I saved you some supper. Make her eat it, Mr. Swann. She needs fattening up. I’ll bring cocoa later, when the others are back. Where are you booked in, Mr. Swann?”
“Nowhere,” he said, “I was only passing through. I’ll get a room at one of the hotels.”
“You won’t. There isn’t a bed in the town. I could let that old truckle ten times over.”
“Then I’ll stay here, with Miss Rycroft, if you’ll permit it.”
She hesitated, common sense and compassion doing battle with her notions of propriety. Finally she said, “All right then. You’re a gentleman, I can see that,” and went out.
Very slowly, like a wax figure in a peepshow coming to life, the extreme rigidity of her posture relaxed. A trace of colour came back to her cheeks and finally, after making what seemed to Giles a tremendous effort, she smiled. He said, “Mrs. Rawson's right. Try and eat something,” and was encouraged when she got up, crossed over, and sat at the table, picking up knife and fork and nibbling at the edge of a slice of steak pie. Prune, true to form, rose at the rattle of cutlery, stretched himself, and moved over beside her, lowering his head on her lap and turning his mournful eyes upward. She said, without looking at the dog, “He kept me sane. It was a kind of link. Can you understand that?”
“Yes,” he said, “that's easy to understand.”
She went on eating, slowly but determinedly, and when Mrs. Rawson came in with two cups of cocoa she took the drink and sat musing, her hands clasped round the mug as though the temperature in the room had been below zero instead of in the seventies. A muted uproar reached them from unseen areas of the house, feet stumping on floors, children crying, men calling out in strong Lancashire accents, a high-pitched laugh that ended in a spluttering cough. Still they sat in silence over the ruins of the meal, the dog waiting for the occasional piece of crust that Romayne popped into its mouth. She fed Prune without looking at him. Her thoughts seemed to be concentrated on something outside the range of their present circumstance. He said nothing to prompt her. Instinct told him that a resolution, of one kind or another, would have to originate from her.
At last she said, in a quiet, level voice, “I couldn’t begin again, Giles. Not without telling you, not without your knowing. That would be an unforgivable thing to do.”
“There's no need to go into it now. You’re shocked and tired. We’ve got the rest of our lives to talk.”
“No! That was how it was last time. I won’t go through that again.”
“You love me?”
“More than ever.”
“Well, then, there's nothing more to be said. I’ll never let you go again.”
“I think you might. Most men would, if they knew.”
“Knew what?”
“What I’m really like. Or was when we were to be married. I’m not talking about running away but—other things, things that happened before I met you.”
He began, dimly, to understand. The crazy segments of their erratic association began to make some kind of pattern. He said, “Whatever it is, now isn’t the time. Later…”
“No, Giles!”
She was suddenly very emphatic. Her vagueness, that he had half-mistaken for a kind of drowsiness due to shock and despair, left her. A little more colour came back to her cheeks and there was something of the girl he remembered in the way she jerked herself up and thumped the table so that the crockery rattled.
“Well, then, tell me if you have to.”
She faced him. Prune, sensing he was unlikely to get more scraps, lumbered away and flopped down on the hearthrug, head between paws, eyes still watchful.
“It's about the kind of person I am—was. If you’d known you wouldn’t have wanted me. No man would, except as a woman he could… use!”
He could see the tremendous effort it was costing her to say this, but all it did was to increase his compassion to a point where he wanted to hold her close, stifling anything she felt impelled to say.
“I know about all that. Your father told me.”
The disciplines of the drapery trade had left their imprint on her. She was able to absorb this without a great deal of difficulty. He saw her throat muscles contract as she swallowed. Her glance, that had been level with his, dropped.
“Father told you? About Gilpin, the groom who thrashed me? About Mr. Bellocq, and that manservant, Dodge?”
“All of them. It was then I decided I could never work for him.”
“Well?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Three lovers before I was eighteen and you say it doesn’t matter? It must matter. I was only fifteen when…”
“It doesn’t. I love you more than anyone in the world. We can get married at once. I’ll take you to my sister-in-law and my grandfather in Manchester. We can be there by noon tomorrow and I’ll make all the arrangements.”
She began to cry, very quietly and without altering the level posture of her head so that the tears ran a straight course down her cheeks, dropping from her long jawline and splashing on to the backs of hands folded on her lap. She let them fall unchecked. After a minute or so he took his handkerchief and passed it to her. It was soiled with sweat he had wiped from his forehead earlier in the afternoon, when he had pursued her and Prune across the esplanade. She pulled herself together as he knew she would, sniffing a little and dabbing her eyes. “That's the first time since the night I tried to buy the hat. There were plenty of times when it would have helped, but you can’t cry to order. That's another thing I found out.”
Her defencelessness, so manifest and so childlike, was terrible to watch. And yet, in a way, it drew them closer with every passing second.
He said, “Why the drapery trade? You must have known it was the worst of all. Why not one of those posts for a governess or a companion that people advertise for in the Home Journals?”
“It wouldn’t have been the same.”
“The same as what?”
“That Welsh girl, the one who refused to serve me and then fainted.”
“You’re saying you deliberately inflicted this kind of life upon yourself because of her? Because of what I said that time?”
“Not entirely… that was what prompted me, but there was much more than that. It was the only way to find out. To really find out.”
“About people like her, about those other girls in Birley's dormitory and that poor devil with the banjo?”
“In a way. But even that isn’t all the answer.”
“Tell me then.”
She got up and went over t
o the armchair, seating herself on the arm and beginning, in some indefinable way, to recapture a little of the vivid personality he remembered.
“ To find out why people like you cared. Why you were interested enough to care. Without understanding that, there was no real hope of belonging to you as I wanted to belong, ever since the first minute I talked to you that morning at Aberglaslyn. Does that sound silly? Something I’ve made myself believe?”
“No.”
Neither did it. Somewhere—it might take him years to define—but somewhere behind this extravagant, exculpatory gesture was logic of a kind he had never hoped to find in her, or in anyone like her. It made up for so many things. For her wildness, perverseness, selfishness, and promiscuity; for all the wearisome dances she had led him over the past four years; for inhuman calculating machines like her father and Birley the draper; for all the injustice and ignorance and stupidity he had encountered since that day he had stood on the grass verge outside a labourer's cottage at Twyforde Green and watched an aged, ailing couple evicted and despatched to separate workhouses like old slaves being sold down the river. It gave him not merely hope but also an access of strength and courage, for it surely followed that if she could set herself to learn, then anybody could. Even her father. Even Mr. Birley, who housed his staff like convicts, fed them on slops, and sacked them for not using their one rest day to worship in his tin tabernacle.
He said, “You must have learned a very great deal. Far more than I. More than anyone like me could learn. Books can’t teach you that kind of thing, and what you’ve learned I’ll learn from you. Go to sleep now. I’ll pull up another chair and make do with a shakedown. I should take your dress off. You’ll be too hot to sleep if you don’t.”
He moved into the window bay and drew the calico blinds and when one of them flew up again he heard a sharp brittle sound that made him swing round. She was laughing and said, through her laughter, “It's a kind of honeymoon, Giles. Unhook me, there's a dear.”
He unhooked her, stooping to kiss the back of her neck. She reached up and seized his hands, pulling them down and pressing them hard against her breasts. Her hands, he noticed, were warm again.
Theirs Was The Kingdom Page 87
