by M C Beaton
“I don’t like you,” said the imp opposite Sally with an ingratiating leer.
“Now, Freddie,” said its mother with an indulgent smile, “don’t be so forward.”
Sally simply closed her eyes and pretended to go to sleep. The children, after trying shouting in her ear pulling her hair, and kicking her shins eventually gave up and left her in peace so that at last, overcome by the stuffy heat, she actually did fall asleep, not awakening until the train was running in over the houses of London. Over the river it roared with a long, wailing whistle and plunged headlong into the sooty depths of Victoria Station, like a great iron animal returning to its burrow.
Sally felt quite shaky and groggy. The noise and bustle of the great station made her feel very small. Surely it would be better to go back, back to Emily, back to Sussex. Already distance was lending her sister’s home enchantment. But her companions of the journey surged past her, whining and moaning and kicking and reminding her vividly of what she had left behind, so Sally stiffened her small spine, picked up her suitcase, and marched to the cab rank.
“The Daily Bugle,” she said, climbing into one and settling herself with a sigh of relief in the musty interior of the hansom.
Fleet Street was, and is, the home of British newspapers. A narrow, crowded street crammed with newspaper and magazine offices, it runs from the Law Courts at the Temple down to Ludgate Circus. Of course, some newspapers may have their headquarters outside this magic canyon, but for a budding newspaperwoman there is nothing like the Street itself.
On this hot day as Sally paid off the hansom and picked up her suitcase, it seemed to be full of people bustling to and fro importantly.
There was an exotic smell of hot paper, and the pavement beneath her feet trembled slightly to the thud of the great printing presses. Sally looked up at the great gilt clock over the ornate offices of the Daily Bugle. One o’clock. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her it was lunchtime. The editor would surely be out for lunch. Drat! And Sally wanted only the editor. No one else would do.
She took herself off across the road to a cafeteria and sat for two miserable hours in its hot, flyblown interior over two cups of tea and a currant bun. George once said that business executives always took two hours for lunch.
At precisely three o’clock Sally pushed her damp hair out of her eyes, pressed her now crumpled sailor hat firmly on her head, and made her way through the press of horse traffic to the offices of the Daily Bugle.
But the uniformed man in the front hall quickly disabused her of any idea of marching up the marble stairs and into the lift and on to the editor’s office. “You ’as to ’ave an appointment, miss,” he said, sneering, and then returned to his crossword, obviously dismissing her from his mind.
Sally gazed at the oiled top of his bent head in a baffled way. And then she said quietly, “He will be disappointed if he does not see me… Uncle will. I mean.”
“Uncle!” The man’s head jerked up. “You mean ter say as how Mr. Wingles is yer uncle?”
“Yes,” said Sally firmly. “I have just arrived from India. When he last wrote to me, he told me to come straight to the office.”
“Oh, well, harrumph. In that case, miss, you’d better go right up. ’Ere, Joey!” he said to a small, pert office boy. “This ’ere is Mr. Wingles’s niece. Take ’er up.”
Still clutching her suitcase, her heart beating swiftly, Sally followed Joey into the small lift. Joey slammed the gates shut with a clang. She had crossed the Rubicon. No going back now.
In the editor’s outer office a grim female was typing furiously. She unbent on hearing that Sally was the editor’s niece and said she would inform Mr. Wingles of Sally’s arrival. She did not ask Sally’s name. The fact that the girl was the editor’s niece was enough.
In no time at all Sally found herself in the man’s presence.
Mr. Wingles was a tall, muscular Scot with ferocious eyebrows.
He took one look at the trembling Sally, with her crumpled sailor hat, her battered suitcase, and her girlish hair flowing down the back of her tailored suit.
“Another of ’em,” he snorted with disgust. “No jobs for you, lassie. Get back to your ma.”
He rang the bell, and the grim secretary leapt in with the alacrity of a jack-in-the-box. “Miss Fleming,” said the editor awfully. “Take this wee lassie away and send her packing. It’s a new trick. This is not my niece.”
“Wait!” cried Sally desperately. “I can write. I have had work published!”
“Indeed! And where may I ask have you had your writing published?”
Sally took a deep breath. “In the Annual Magazine of the Misses Lelong Seminary for the Daughters of Officers and Gentlemen… in Bombay. I was the editor.”
Mr. Wingles leaned back in his chair. “In the—” He began to laugh and laugh. “In the—in the—”
Miss Fleming ushered Sally out grimly, leaving the editor gasping for words.
“Now, look here, young woman,” said Miss Fleming. “Tricks like the one you just played could cost me my job. How dare you!”
Sally’s courage fled. She felt young and silly and alone and frightened. Large unchecked tears began to roll down her cheeks.
“Oh, goodness!” said Miss Fleming impatiently. “Here, have a handkerchief and sit down.” She waited while Sally gulped and sobbed herself into silence.
“Now,” said Miss Fleming, adjusting her cardboard wrist protectors, “you’d better tell me about it. You are too young to be running about London on your own.”
And so Sally told her all about it. About Emily and the children and about seeing the name of the Lobby Correspondent on the front page.
“Mrs. Service, our Lobby Correspondent,” said Miss Fleming in a dry voice, “is by way of being a relative of the newspaper owner, Lord Picken—if you take my meaning. Now be a good girl and go back home. For all you may think, it’s a man’s world. Where would a young thing like you stay on her own? Do you have relatives in London?”
Sally shook her head miserably.
“Then just go home, there’s a good child,” said Miss Fleming in a softer voice.
Sally nodded dumbly and picked up her suitcase. She turned toward the door wearily. But the little imp who looks after budding journalists was not going to let her escape so easily. And somewhere at the bottom of Sally’s misery he planted a small seed of hope.
Standing with her head drooping and her hand on the handle, Sally said in a low voice, “Well, one day I’ll make it. Miss Fleming, do you have relatives in London? If you will excuse the personal question.”
Miss Fleming sighed and took off her hornrimmed glasses and patted her iron-gray hair. “No, child. I am one of the many businesswomen who fend for themselves. I live in a lodging house in Twenty-two Bryant’s Court, off Leicester Square. One small room and a gas ring. I would gladly throw it up for a home and a garden—even if that home was full of someone else’s children.
“Good-bye,” said Sally meekly. “I will take your kind advice.”
Miss Fleming looked at the small, elflike, tear-stained face, at the heavy battered suitcase, at the dusty boots. “Come back and see me when you’re in London again,” she said with a sudden smile, which lit up her harsh features. “I’ll treat you to an ice at Gunter’s.”
“Thank you,” said Sally, smiling back. “I won’t forget.”
Miss Fleming shook her head and went back to her typing. Sally trailed down by way of the stairs, not having the courage to operate the lift herself.
She stood on the burning pavement outside, irresolute. Newsboys were already crying the evening papers’ headlines.
That little spark of hope was growing into a flame. No, Sally would not give up so easily. She went up to a newsagent’s kiosk and bought a map of London and, standing on the hot pavement, looked up Bryant’s Court. She turned to look for a hansom, for although Leicester Square and its environs was within walking distance, her case felt heavier by the minute.
She looked up at the name of the court—Haggen’s Court—and then walked forward, shadowing the plaque with her body so that she could read the name.
HOME CHATS read the curly legend. THE FAMILY MAGAZINE.
She took a deep breath and pushed open the door. A steep flight of wooden steps led upward, and Sally toiled up it, bumping her suitcase against the walls. At the top she almost collided with an ink-stained young man. He took one look at her tear-stained face and schoolgirlish dress.
“Agony,” he said obscurely. “Mrs. Hepplewhite. Through there. Don’t tell her I sent you.”
There was a frosted glass door with a legend in black lettering: AUNT MABEL. LETTERS EDITOR.
Sally shrugged wearily. It was a beginning. She pushed open the door.
A little elderly gray-haired lady started in alarm and quickly thrust a bottle and a glass into the top drawer of her desk.
“Yeees?” she said in a soft, genteel voice.
“My name is Miss Blane,” said Sally, “and I want a job.”
“Did you write to me?” asked Mrs. Hepplewhite, alias Aunt Mabel, peering myopically at Sally.
“No,” said Sally flatly.
There was a long silence. Aunt Mabel sighed. “I have no time to speak to you,” she said at last. “I have so many, many letters to deal with. So many sinners. Take this one.” She held out a piece of cheap notepaper covered with tear-blotched, illiterate scrawl. “This is from some housemaid who has become… er… tut-tut… pregnant. She wants my advice.
“I shall tell her she must read two chapters of her Bible every day for the rest of her life and to report immediately to the Society for Fallen Mothers.”
Sally thought privately that this was the most heartless piece of advice she had ever heard but nonetheless sat down, first because she had given up hope and saw Emily and the children looming closer, and second because she was tired.
“Yes, yes,” dithered Aunt Mabel, looking slyly at Sally and producing both the glass and the bottle out of the top drawer again. “Medicine,” she explained, although Sally thought Aunt Mabel’s medicine smelled remarkably like gin.
“Now, here’s another… yes… yes…” went on Aunt Mabel after fortifying herself from the bottle without resorting to the glass. “Young lady is being forced to marry rich neighbor’s son. Does not want to. Ungrateful girl! Shall tell her marriages are not made in Heaven but by sensible parents. Honor thy father and thy mother—hic!”
Aunt Mabel began to search feverishly among the letters on her desk. “My spectacles. Now, where did I put them?” she demanded.
Sally looked around helpfully. The room was cluttered with filing cabinets piled high with yellowing copies of Home Chats.
Sally remembered the magazine now, for Emily’s cook took it for the recipes. It had a strong religious flavor and a very small circulation.
There was a small gas fire and oak bookshelves on one wall, and various religious pictures decorated the other three, which were of the highly colored variety, in which a blond-and-blue-eyed Jesus divided loaves and fishes, walked on the water, and suffered the little children to come unto Him.
Then Sally saw the spectacles on the dusty mantelshelf. “There they are,” she said, rising to her feet. “I’ll get them for you.”
“No! No!” cried Aunt Mabel, springing to her feet with surprising agility. “I never let anyone touch my spectacles.” She took one tottering step toward the fireplace and then clutched her heart. She cast a look of watery eyed surprise on Sally, and then fell headlong, her head striking the black iron fender around the gas fire with a sickening crack.
“Help!” called Sally desperately. “Help!”
The frosted glass door was pushed open and a bluff, middle-aged man smelling strongly of beer came striding into the room.
He brushed past Sally and bent over the fallen body of Aunt Mabel.
“Dead as a doornail,” he grunted, “and she didn’t even write her column, and it’s got to go to press tonight. Well, got to get the doctor.”
Sally sat in a daze as first a policeman arrived to take her statement, then a doctor, then a clutch of weeping relatives. Finally the body was removed, and the bluff man who introduced himself as the Editor, Mr. Barton, and Sally were left alone.
“Poor old thing,” he said, shaking his head. “The gin did her in. Now, what am I to do? There’ll be no Aunt Mabel column this time.”
“I’ll do it,” said Sally, feeling dizzy and strange after the shock of seeing the sudden death of Aunt Mabel.
“You! You’re a schoolgirl,” said Mr. Barton.
“I’m eighteen,” said Sally briskly, going round and sitting behind the desk and picking up the first letter. “And you haven’t got anyone else.”
“That’s true,” he said wearily. “Oh, very well. Short answers. Tell ’em to read their Bible. Be back at seven o’clock for it, and if you can’t do it… well, we wouldn’t have an Aunt Mabel column anyway until I found someone else.”
Sally worked on in a frenzy after he had gone. She answered all the letters in the manner in which she would like an answer to her own problems, delving into her vast knowledge culled in the Bombay kitchens of marriage and death and childbirth.
She wrote rapidly in neat script, and when Mr. Barton returned at seven, she proudly handed him the completed manuscript.
Fortunately for Sally, he read her first reply, which was fairly orthodox, and grunted his approval. “Pretty touch,” he said gruffly. “Pity you can’t have the job. Too young.”
“I’ll call tomorrow for my money,” said Sally.
“What money?”
“The money you owe me for being Aunt Mabel,” said Sally patiently.
“Oh… that. Oh, all right. G’night.”
Sally picked up her suitcase wearily and walked down the stairs, out into the court, and out into Fleet Street.
She flagged a passing four-wheeler.
“Bryant’s Court,” she said.
Miss Fleming leaned out of her window at the end of the cul-de-sac that was Bryant’s Court, trying to find a breath of air.
She heard a harsh altercation directly below and looked down. A small figure in a crumpled sailor hat was arguing with the landlady, Mrs. Goody.
“It’s all right, Mrs. Goody,” called Miss Fleming. “I’ll vouch for her. She’s a working girl.”
“Oh, very well, mum,” sniffed Mrs. Goody. “If you say it’s all right, but you ’as to be careful, some o’ ’em not bein’ what they should be an’…”
Her voice trailed away as she led Sally into the lodging. Miss Fleming met Sally on the stairs and held out her hand.
“Well, well,” she said. “Welcome to the club.”
Sally grinned and then burst into tears.
It was such fun being a working woman!
CHAPTER TWO
Mr. George Bessamy shook out his napkin, picked up his knife and fork, and then put them down again.
The children had been taken off to their rooms by one of the two housemaids. One of them was wailing out into the still evening air—but then, one of them always did.
“My dear,” he said to his wife, who was pushing food into her mouth with single-minded absorption, “I was so carried away with the news of my illustrious client that I quite forgot to tell you about Miss Blane.”
“Sally?” mumbled Emily vaguely. “What about Sally?”
“Your sister walked into my office this morning, carrying a suitcase and asking me to sign a letter to some charity.”
“Did she, dear?”
“What charity?”
“I couldn’t really say,” said Emily placidly.
“She was not concerned about chariti
es this morning. She said something about wanting that two hundred pounds so that she could go to London and become a newspaperwoman. Quite touching, really. At her age, I wanted to become a nun.”
Mr. Bessamy glared at his uncaring wife and rose abruptly from the table and headed for the study. In a few moments he was back.
“Mrs. Bessamy,” he said awfully. “Miss Blane’s bankbook is gone. I think she tricked me into signing a letter to the bank manager. I think the thankless girl has gone to London!”
“Don’t be silly,” said the wife of his bosom with unimpaired calm. “Sally would never behave like that.”
Gladys came into the room, looking flushed and agitated. “There’s a telegraph boy at the door, mum. Says he has a wire for you.”
“Very well, Gladys. Mr. Bessamy, give Gladys sixpence for the boy, and, Gladys, bring the wire to me.”
The maid went out, and Emily began to hum tunelessly between her teeth while her husband rapped his fingers nervously on the table.
When Gladys came back with the wire Mr. Bessamy held out his hand for it. It was inconceivable that a mere woman should be allowed to read something as important as a wire, even if it were addressed to her.
“Heavens!” he exclaimed. “This is monstrous!”
Emily signaled placidly to Gladys to remove the plates and bring in the pudding, blind to the fact that her husband had not even started his dinner.
Mr. Bessamy glared at his wife. “This is from your sister. She says she has found lodgings and a job. Monstrous!”
“Oh, how clever of her!” said Emily.
“She also says she drew out the whole of the two hundred pounds!”
“Well, it is her money.”
“Nonsense! That was for Peter’s school fees.”
“But, my dear, how could you use Sally’s money?”
“I should have asked her for it,” said Mr. Bessamy, breathing heavily. “Miss Blane owed us two hundred pounds for her keep alone!”
“I suppose so,” said Emily. “What shall we do?”
“Never, ever speak to her again!”
“It certainly will be rather hard to speak to her, since she is in London and we are in Sussex,” said Emily, all mad reason. “She was not much help with the children. In fact, I sometimes think dear Sally did not like them, although I know that must be very hard to believe. I shall send on the rest of her clothes and things. I wonder if she wants her teddy, or should I let Marmaduke have it? She is really rather old for a toy, you know, but she was quite sentimental about it… my dear?”
