by Anne Hampson
‘I do think you should take it before it’s too late,’ Mrs. Paterson added. ‘Dil’s right, you know, Muriel, you can’t go on like this indefinitely.’
‘Her trouble is that she’s too particular,’ Dil snapped. ‘The job’s not good enough for her.’
‘It isn’t that; you know I would be willing to take any sort of job—’
‘Then why don’t you?—oh, she makes me sick! Mother, you should force her to take it!’
‘What is it, Muriel?’ Fred’s voice was quieter than his wife’s, but just as impatient. ‘You must have realized by this time that you can’t afford to be too particular.’
‘And we can’t afford to keep her any longer,’ Dil added.
‘Dil’s right; the shop money won’t last more than another few weeks,’ her mother warned, and Muriel’s eyes strayed to the new dress flung carelessly over the back of a chair. Her mother had gone out, she recollected, to buy Derek a school blazer and cap.
‘Why can’t you leave Muriel alone?’ Derek, his ‘Approach to Latin’ beside his plate, looked up and winked at her. ‘You stick it out, old girl; let them nag their bally heads off—but don’t be pushed into a scruffy job like that.’
‘Be quiet!’ Dil glared at him. ‘And get on with your tea—or your homework, whichever you’re supposed to be doing.’
‘Oh, you!’ he retorted rudely. ‘You’d make anyone sick with your temper. I wish to goodness this pesky baby would come, then perhaps we’d get some peace—though I suppose it’ll scrike like the very dickens,’ he added, half under his breath.
‘Derek!’ His mother rapped him smartly over the knuckles with her knife. ‘You forget yourself!—and how many times have I told you to keep the slang you learn from comics out of your conversation? When you’ve finished your tea you can go to bed.’
‘Don’t I always go to my room when I’ve had my tea?’ he flashed back. ‘Couldn’t do my homework down here if I wanted to, with all this nagging going on. Muriel, will you come up later and tell me if my algebra’s right?’
‘Yes, I’ll come.’ What a life for Derek, she thought miserably, having to go to his room in order to get away from the continual bickering.
‘What a happy family we are,’ she sighed, almost to herself. ‘Why is it we’re so different from other people?’
‘We’d be happier if you were bringing in some money,’ Dil sneered.
‘Please be quiet,’ Fred ordered impatiently. ‘Muriel, what have you against this job? I admit it’s not quite what you would have liked, but you can at least give it a trial. You can’t keep on like this, even having to borrow your bus fares into Barston. Do be sensible, for heaven’s sake!’
Muriel sat there picking at her food. It was quite natural for them to think she was being too particular, but how could she make them understand without telling them about Andrew? And that was unthinkable; their anger she could bear, but not their laughter and contempt.
Fred was talking again, and Dil, and her mother; they went on and on until Muriel could have fled from them all, not just up to her room, but miles and miles away, out of their lives for ever. But the idea was gone almost immediately; she would very soon come back, she thought. It was strange how you went on loving people no matter what they did to you. Her family loved her too, she felt sure of it. But they were angry with her, and who could blame them? Wasn’t she being infuriatingly obstinate?
At last she looked up.
‘In a large factory like that, do the—bosses ever see the ordinary workers? I mean, do they ever go into the departments? Mr.—Mr.—Groves, for instance?’ No wonder they were all looking at her with unbounded astonishment, she thought, her cheeks colouring.
‘What on earth has that to do with it?’ Dil gasped.
‘Nothing, really.’
‘The “Groves” part of it doesn’t exist now.’ Fred eyed his sister-in-law with a very curious expression. ‘Do you happen to know any of the bosses, Muriel?’
‘How could she?’ Mrs. Paterson interposed. ‘Muriel never goes out.’
‘Do you, Muriel?’ Dil said evenly, ignoring her mother’s remark. ‘Do you know any of the bosses at Burke’s?’
‘No...’ Her voice was scarcely audible. How could I?’
‘In that case,’ she said quietly, ‘you’d better explain.’
‘Explain?’ Muriel’s colour rose still higher; she shrugged her shoulders helplessly. ‘I don’t know what made me say it.’ She looked at Fred. ‘Peter did say he’d start me without experience, didn’t he?—you told him that I’ve only helped Daddy in the shop?’
‘Yes; he knows that. All the girls have to learn, it seems, and Peter will help you at first. Are you going to give it a trial?’
‘You haven’t explained, Muriel—don’t change the subject.’ For the moment Dil was no longer interested in the job; there was some mystery here, and she wanted to get to the bottom of it. But she had reckoned without her husband. Fred liked to mind his own business; if people wanted to be secretive about their affairs then it had nothing to do with anyone but themselves.
‘You can let that drop now, Dil,’ he said quietly. ‘We’re talking about something else.’
‘But—’
‘I said you can let it drop! Muriel, are you going to try this job?’
For another moment she hesitated, then she said in a flat little voice,
‘Very well, Fred, I’ll try it.’
And so, the following Monday morning, she started out at seven-thirty and was one of the thousands of men and women who trooped through the factory gates an hour later.
Her job was assembling parts for electric motors; Peter, who was the chargehand of the department, willingly assisted her and she very soon learnt the work. But she was far from happy; the vulgar jokes and conversation of the other girls sickened her, and although she worked conscientiously she lived for the sound of the buzzer. It soon became apparent to her workmates that she wasn’t interested in their jokes, or their newest boy-friends, and after a few weeks she was left severely alone except for an odd occasion when she would hear some sarcastic remark about people who were ‘stuck-up’.
She had been at the factory five weeks when Peter ordered the place to be ‘cleaned up a bit’. Mr. Burke was on one of his routine inspections of the factory.
Muriel saw him enter, stop and speak to the foreman for a few minutes, nod to Peter, and then move on to where the girls were working. Every now and then he would stop to inquire about something; Muriel, her breath almost choking her, kept her head averted and prayed he would pass on without seeing her.
He was speaking to the girl next to her. The deep, familiar voice came to her quite clearly; Milly’s respectful ‘no, sir’, and ‘yes, sir’, reached her as though from a long distance.
And then he was standing right in front of her; she knew instinctively that he had been about to pass on and then halted abruptly. He had recognized her, and at last she looked up, the hot colour flooding her cheeks as she became aware of the amused glances of the girls nearest to her. She was miserably aware, too, of her soiled overall, and of the difference Andrew must see in her.
His face was impassive, not a trace of recognition was betrayed in his coldly impersonal gaze.
‘You’re new, aren’t you?’ he asked, in the same curt tones he had used to the others. ‘How long have you been here?’
‘Five weeks,’ she replied, almost in a whisper.
‘Have you done this sort of work before?’
‘No.’ The situation seemed unreal, fantastic. She had often visualized a meeting between them, even while praying it would never take place, but she had never pictured anything like this. Not a trace of surprise, not a sign of recognition. She felt he must actually hate her.
‘Are you—happy here?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ Surely, she thought, her eyes widening as she noticed the haughty lift of his brows, he didn’t expect her to follow the other girls’ example and call him sir!
‘I’m not quick enough to go on piecework,’ she told him quietly, and for a brief moment they stared at each other in silence. It seemed strange that, with her heart beating to suffocation, her memory could take her back to the peace, the tranquillity, the perfect bliss of those days and nights on the ship. Then suddenly the only thing she recalled was her own impulsive confession of love, and Andrew’s ruthless reaction to it; a shadow of pain crossed her face and, unconsciously, a look of reproach entered her eyes. But Andrew regarded her change of expression with indifference and after making a few remarks to the foreman, who was standing beside him, he turned and left the room. And then his calm deserted him; he strode across the yard towards the offices, his hands clenched, his face pale with anger. To see her again, just when he had begun to forget! For three months she had continually intruded into his thoughts, and now, when he was finding it less and less difficult to dismiss her image from his mind, he had to meet her once more. Why had she come? An absurd question. In the fury of the moment he was beyond clear reasoning. He didn’t even ask himself how she had managed to get into the factory; the firm was always advertising for labour, and that was explanation enough. He didn’t stop to wonder if any woman could be so completely lacking in pride. He saw her again as a designing little hussy who had somehow guessed at his feelings, and had seized the first opportunity of renewing their acquaintance, confident that this time he would be totally unable to resist her. How had he come to give himself away? he wondered scowlingly. He hadn’t known himself until he was on the train. His anger increased as he at last admitted the truth. He’d known it, of course, known on the train how very near he had come, that last evening, to making a fool of himself, but the knowledge had been deliberately pushed into some obscure recess of his mind and he had stubbornly refused to admit it was there at all.
What was the use of pretence now when, even in her soiled overall and with her hair falling untidily about her face, she could stir his heart and set his pulses racing? What sort of a man was he to be attracted to a woman like that?
When had she guessed? he asked himself again. How could he have been such a fool as to reveal what he felt? He remembered again that last evening. She must have known how near he had come to weakening, even though he had been totally unaware of it himself. Surely she guessed that he despised her type, that even if he married her he would still despise her. A sneer curved his lips. She didn’t care; it troubled her not at all that she appealed only to his baser instincts—But did she appeal only to his baser instincts? After dwelling on the question for some time he then shirked the answer and speculated instead on what Muriel was thinking at this very moment. Was she waiting expectantly for his summons, or had their meeting damped her confidence? He congratulated himself on that; he remained aloof, impersonal, even while intensely alive to the fact that she was far more attractive now than at any time on the cruise.
Five weeks ... Why hadn’t she made some move to contact him? But no ... too clever for that; it would have been too clumsy and brazen a method of approach. He made a practice of visiting each department every six weeks or so; she had waited patiently for him to see her.
And in all probability she now waited for a summons, waited with some pathetic story designed to soften him and make him as putty in her hands. His lips curved again in a sneer. He would send for her, listen to whatever story she had to relate—and then he would send her back to her job with the humiliating knowledge that she’d made the greatest miscalculation of her life.
On entering the office he found Bill Raines seated in a chair by the desk, a cigarette in his mouth, a cup of tea at his elbow. Andrew frowned darkly, he had no wish for company. His one urgent desire was to interview Muriel and go home this afternoon with the sure conviction that she would not return to the factory in the morning. He glanced at his watch; nearly half-past four.
‘Hello, Andrew.’ Bill grinned cheerfully at him. ‘Want some tea? Old sour face brought a full pot, so there’s plenty left. Don’t know how you put up with that woman around all day—I always choose bright young things for secretaries myself; may as well, when I’ve to keep looking at ’em. Always having new ones, of course, because they will go off and get married just when you have them nicely trained. All the same, wouldn’t have a hag like that about. Shall I ask her for another cup and saucer?’
‘I don’t want tea, thank you.’ Andrew went behind the desk and sat down. ‘Don’t you ever work?’ he said testily, and Bill cast him a sharp and puzzled glance.
‘Kath’s been over for a few days and I’ve just taken her to the station. What’s eating you? Trouble in the works?’
Andrew hesitated; for some inexplicable reason he felt disinclined to talk about Muriel to Bill. Yet, when he did speak his voice was edged with contempt.
‘I’ve just discovered that Muriel Paterson is working here—in the factory.’
‘Muriel?’ Bill stared in blank amazement. ‘She’s actually come here ... good lord!’ The inference was plain, and Andrew, forgetful of his own conclusions of a few moments ago, glared at Bill and informed him stiffly that he was of the decided opinion that Muriel’s presence here was entirely due to necessity.
A quick grin flashed across Bill’s good-humoured face.
‘When you came in here you were of the decided opinion that Muriel was still—er—chasing.’
Andrew continued to glare at him, but said nothing. Bill pursed his lips thoughtfully, thinking of the silent train journey after they had left the ship at Southampton.
‘She must know that you fell for her, then,’ he ventured when Andrew still remained silent. ‘How long has she been here?’
‘She must know what?’
‘Oh, come,’ said Bill, unabashed by his friend’s scowling countenance, ‘admit it. That affair was vastly different from the other imitation love affairs you’ve amused yourself with from time to time.’
Lord! Had he let the whole cursed ship know?
‘Are you suggesting I’m in love with the girl?’ His tone was rasping, but his anger had gone with a suddenness that startled him. He realized, with a little sense of shock, that his thoughts were a very long way off and he was pinning a spray of mountain flowers on to Muriel’s dress. He saw, not the worldly woman whose falseness and affection had so often jarred on him, but a child; a child with a strange, wistful tenderness in her eyes and a blush of sweet confusion on her cheeks. All part of the act, he had more than once told Bill, and Andrew never for a moment doubted it. Nevertheless, it had been those enchanting touches of innocence, of simplicity, and sometimes almost painful shyness, that had been so profoundly irresistible. She had so often ‘ been refreshingly young in her ways, so completely without guile, and she could produce, apparently without the slightest effort, the most captivating blush at a compliment or a teasing remark. How old was she? he began to wonder. She had told him her age was nineteen; she looked thirty; he had judged her to be about twenty-five. But a few moments ago, with her hair loose and her complete lack of ornamentation, she didn’t look a day over nineteen, and he was sure now that she had told him the truth. He ought to have known she would not lie about her age, for she fully expected to become his wife.
‘I’m saying that you didn’t escape as heart-whole as you believed you would,’ Bill replied, and Andrew frowned sombrely, wondering what good it would do to deny it.
‘You appear to have made some very interesting observations,’ he said, and Bill laughed.
‘Kath went further; she bet me five bob there’d be wedding bells. It wasn’t fair to take the bet—on account of what I knew—but she insisted.’
A faint curl of his lip portrayed what Andrew thought of Kathleen’s presumption. All the same, it proved that she, too, believed he had fallen in love with Muriel. He gave a shrug of disgust. No wonder Muriel had come here; no wonder she was so confident of success. He must have acted on that ship like an overgrown schoolboy with his he
art on his sleeve and an infatuated look in his eye. Incredible!
He glanced sharply at Bill expecting to see the familiar grin on his face. Instead, he found him frowning in perplexity.
‘It scarcely makes sense,’ he commented slowly and thoughtfully. ‘Even she must have some pride.’
The ‘even she’ caused Andrew to stiffen. It was a curious thing that although he could condemn her himself, that although he knew her to be a woman with adventurous designs and shameless instincts, the mere suggestion that Bill thought the same aroused in him a swift desire to defend the girl. Never before the desire to champion a woman; never had he been interested enough in any female to discuss her as he now discussed Muriel with Bill.
She had certainly done something to him ... and the sooner he could be rid of her the better.
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me, Bill,’ he apologized, trying to hide his impatience. ‘I have some urgent business to attend to.’
‘But you’ve told me nothing yet,’ protested Bill. ‘How long has she been here? Have you spoken to her?’ ‘I can’t spare the time just now, Bill. I must deal with this matter at once.’ He glanced at the clock. Ten minutes to five. Muriel would be going at five.
Bill rose, eyeing him with a mixture of perception and amusement.
‘Very well; I shall see you Wednesday night—you do have the tickets for the show?’
Andrew nodded.
‘Sorry to be pushing you off like this, but—’
‘I understand—perfectly,’ said his friend in affable tones. ‘I hope the—urgent business doesn’t keep you too late at the office.’ With that he was gone, leaving Andrew scowling heavily at the closed door.
Muriel entered hesitantly; she felt hot and embarrassed, not merely from her recent encounter with Andrew, but also from the taunts and jeers of the girls with whom she worked. Those taunts still rang in her ears as Andrew’s austere secretary announced her and withdrew.
‘Handsome, isn’t he? Did you fall for him? All the new girls do.’
