‘Ah, so there you are, Miss Millborough!’ she said in a peculiar meaning tone. ‘I had a sort of an idea you wouldn’t be in such a hurry to get out of doors this morning. Well, as you are here, I suppose I may as well pay you your wages.’
‘Thank you,’ said Dorothy.
‘And after that,’ added Mrs Creevy, ‘I’ve got a little something as I want to say to you.’
Dorothy’s heart stirred. Did that ‘little something’ mean the longed-for rise in wages? It was just conceivable. Mrs Creevy produced a worn, bulgy leather purse from a locked drawer in the dresser, opened it and licked her thumb.
‘Twelve weeks and five days,’ she said. ‘Twelve weeks is near enough. No need to be particular to a day. That makes six pounds.’
She counted out five dingy pound notes and two ten-shilling notes; then, examining one of the notes and apparently finding it too clean, she put it back into her purse and fished out another that had been torn in half. She went to the dresser, got a piece of transparent sticky paper and carefully stuck the two halves together. Then she handed it, together with the other six, to Dorothy.
‘There you are, Miss Millborough,’ she said. ‘And now, will you just leave the house at once, please? I shan’t be wanting you any longer.’
‘You won’t be–’
Dorothy’s entrails seemed to have turned to ice. All the blood drained out of her face. But even now, in her terror and despair, she was not absolutely sure of the meaning of what had been said to her. She still half thought that Mrs Creevy merely meant that she was to stay out of the house for the rest of the day.
‘You won’t be wanting me any longer?’ she repeated faintly.
‘No. I’m getting in another teacher at the beginning of next term. And it isn’t to be expected as I’d keep you through the holidays all free for nothing, is it?’
‘But you don’t mean that you want me to leave–you’re dismissing me?’
‘Of course I do. What else did you think I meant?’
‘But you’ve given me no notice!’ said Dorothy.
‘Notice!’ said Mrs Creevy, getting angry immediately. ‘What’s it got to do with you whether I give you notice or not? You haven’t got a written contract, have you?’
‘No…I suppose not.’
‘Well, then! You’d better go upstairs and start packing your box. It’s no good your staying any longer, because I haven’t got anything in for your dinner.’
Dorothy went upstairs and sat down on the side of the bed. She was trembling uncontrollably, and it was some minutes before she could collect her wits and begin packing. She felt dazed. The disaster that had fallen upon her was so sudden, so apparently causeless, that she had difficulty in believing that it had actually happened. But in truth the reason why Mrs Creevy had sacked her was quite simple and adequate.
Not far from Ringwood House there was a poor, moribund little school called The Gables, with only seven pupils. The teacher was an incompetent old hack called Miss Allcock, who had been at thirty-eight different schools in her life and was not fit to have charge of a tame canary. But Miss Allcock had one outstanding talent; she was very good at double-crossing her employers. In these third-rate and fourth-rate private schools a sort of piracy is constantly going on. Parents are ‘got round’ and pupils stolen from one school to another. Very often the treachery of the teacher is at the bottom of it. The teacher secretly approaches the parents one by one (‘Send your child to me and I’ll take her at ten shillings a term cheaper’), and when she has corrupted a sufficient number she suddenly deserts and ‘sets up’ on her own, or carries the children off to another school. Miss Allcock had succeeded in stealing three out of her employer’s seven pupils, and had come to Mrs Creevy with the offer of them. In return, she was to have Dorothy’s place and a fifteen-per-cent commission on the pupils she brought.
There were weeks of furtive chaffering before the bargain was clinched, Miss Allcock being finally beaten down from fifteen per cent to twelve and a half. Mrs Creevy privately resolved to sack old Allcock the instant she was certain that the three children she brought with her would stay. Simultaneously, Miss Allcock was planning to begin stealing old Creevy’s pupils as soon as she had got a footing in the school.
Having decided to sack Dorothy, it was obviously most important to prevent her from finding it out. For, of course, if she knew what was going to happen, she would begin stealing pupils on her own account, or at any rate wouldn’t do a stroke of work for the rest of the term. (Mrs Creevy prided herself on knowing human nature.) Hence the marmalade, the creaky smiles, and the other ruses to allay Dorothy’s suspicions. Anyone who knew the ropes would have begun thinking of another job the very moment when the dish of marmalade was pushed across the table.
Just half an hour after her sentence of dismissal, Dorothy, carrying her handbag, opened the front gate. It was the fourth of April, a bright blowy day, too cold to stand about in, with a sky as blue as a hedgesparrow’s egg, and one of those spiteful spring winds that come tearing along the pavement in sudden gusts and blow dry, stinging dust into your face. Dorothy shut the gate behind her and began to walk very slowly in the direction of the main-line station.
She had told Mrs Creevy that she would give her an address to which her box could be sent, and Mrs Creevy had instantly exacted five shillings for the carriage. So Dorothy had five pounds fifteen in hand, which might keep her for three weeks with careful economy. What she was going to do, except that she must start by going to London and finding a suitable lodging, she had very little idea. But her first panic had worn off, and she realized that the situation was not altogether desperate. No doubt her father would help her, at any rate for a while, and at the worst, though she hated even the thought of doing it, she could ask her cousin’s help a second time. Besides, her chances of finding a job were probably fairly good. She was young, she spoke with a genteel accent, and she was willing to drudge for a servant’s wages–qualities that are much sought after by the proprietors of fourth-rate schools. Very likely all would be well. But that there was an evil time ahead of her, a time of job-hunting, of uncertainty and possibly of hunger–that, at any rate, was certain.
CHAPTER 5
1
However, it turned out quite otherwise. For Dorothy had not gone five yards from the gate when a telegraph boy came riding up the street in the opposite direction, whistling and looking at the names of the houses. He saw the name Ringwood House, wheeled his bicycle round, propped it against the kerb, and accosted Dorothy.
‘Miss Mill–burrow live ’ere?’ he said, jerking his head in the direction of Ringwood House.
‘Yes. I am Miss Millborough.’
‘Gotter wait case there’s a answer,’ said the boy, taking an orange-coloured envelope from his belt.
Dorothy put down her bag. She had once more begun trembling violently. And whether this was from joy or fear she was not certain, for two conflicting thoughts had sprung almost simultaneously into her brain. One, ‘This is some kind of good news!’ The other, ‘Father is seriously ill!’ She managed to tear the envelope open, and found a telegram which occupied two pages, and which she had the greatest difficulty in understanding. It ran:
Rejoice in the lord o ye righteous note of exclamation great news note of exclamation your reputation absolutely reestablished stop mrs semprill fallen into the pit that she hath digged stop action for libel stop no one believes her any longer stop your father wishes you return home immediately stop am coming up to town myself comma will pick you up if you like stop arriving shortly after this stop wait for me stop praise him with the loud cymbals note of exclamation much love stop.
No need to look at the signature. It was from Mr Warburton, of course. Dorothy felt weaker and more tremulous than ever. She was dimly aware the telegraph boy was asking her something.
‘Any answer?’ he said for the third or fourth time.
‘Not today, thank you,’ said Dorothy vaguely.
The boy rem
ounted his bicycle and rode off, whistling with extra loudness to show Dorothy how much he despised her for not tipping him. But Dorothy was unaware of the telegraph’s boy’s scorn. The only phrase of the telegram that she had fully understood was ‘your father wishes you return home immediately’, and the surprise of it had left her in a semi-dazed condition. For some indefinite time she stood on the pavement, until presently a taxi rolled up the street, with Mr Warburton inside it. He saw Dorothy, stopped the taxi, jumped out and came across to meet her, beaming. He seized her both hands.
‘Hullo!’ he cried, and at once threw his arm pseudo-paternally about her and drew her against him, heedless of who might be looking. ‘How are you? But by Jove, how thin you’ve got! I can feel all your ribs. Where is this school of yours?’
Dorothy, who had not yet managed to get free of his arm, turned partly round and cast a glance towards the dark windows of Ringwood House.
‘What! That place? Good God, what a hole! What have you done with your luggage?’
‘It’s inside. I’ve left them the money to send it on. I think it’ll be all right.’
‘Oh, nonsense! Why pay? We’ll take it with us. It can go on top of the taxi.’
‘No, no! Let them send it. I daren’t go back. Mrs Creevy would be horribly angry.’
‘Mrs Creevy? Who’s Mrs Creevy?’
‘The headmistress–at least, she owns the school.’
‘What, a dragon, is she? Leave her to me–I’ll deal with her. Perseus and the Gorgon, what? You are Andromeda. Hi!’ he called to the taxi-driver.
The two of them went up to the front door and Mr Warburton knocked. Somehow, Dorothy never believed that they would succeed in getting her box from Mrs Creevy. In fact, she half expected to see them come out flying for their lives, and Mrs Creevy after them with her broom. However, in a couple of minutes they reappeared, the taxi-driver carrying the box on his shoulder. Mr Warburton handed Dorothy into the taxi and, as they sat down, dropped half a crown into her hand.
‘What a woman! What a woman!’ he said comprehensively as the taxi bore them away. ‘How the devil have you put up with it all this time?’
‘What is this?’ said Dorothy, looking at the coin.
‘Your half-crown that you left to pay for the luggage. Rather a feat getting it out of the old girl, wasn’t it?’
‘But I left five shillings!’ said Dorothy.
‘What! The woman told me you only left half a crown. By God, what impudence! We’ll go back and have the half-crown out of her. Just to spite her!’ He tapped on the glass.
‘No, no!’ said Dorothy, laying her hand on his arm. ‘It doesn’t matter in the least. Let’s get away from here–right away. I couldn’t bear to go back to that place again–ever!’
It was quite true. She felt that she would sacrifice not merely half a crown, but all the money in her possession, sooner than set eyes on Ringwood House again. So they drove on, leaving Mrs Creevy victorious. It would be interesting to know whether this was another of the occasions when Mrs Creevy laughed.
Mr Warburton insisted on taking the taxi the whole way into London, and talked so voluminously in the quieter patches of the traffic that Dorothy could hardly get a word in edgeways. It was not till they had reached the inner suburbs that she got from him an explanation of the sudden change in her fortunes.
‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘what is it that’s happened? I don’t understand. Why is it all right for me to go home all of a sudden? Why don’t people believe Mrs Semprill any longer? Surely she hasn’t confessed?’
‘Confessed? Not she! But her sins have found her out, all the same. It was the kind of thing that you pious people would ascribe to the finger of Providence. Cast thy bread upon the waters, and all that. She got herself into a nasty mess–an action for libel. We’ve talked of nothing else in Knype Hill for the last fortnight. I though you would have seen something about it in the newspapers.’
‘I’ve hardly looked at a paper for ages. Who brought an action for libel? Not my father, surely?’
‘Good gracious, no! Clergymen can’t bring actions for libel. It was the bank manager. Do you remember her favourite story about him–how he was keeping a woman on the bank’s money, and so forth?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘A few months ago she was foolish enough to put some of it in writing. Some kind friend–some female friend, I presume–took the letter round to the bank manager. He brought an action–Mrs Semprill was ordered to pay a hundred and fifty pounds damages. I don’t suppose she paid a halfpenny, but still, that’s the end of her career as a scandalmonger. You can go on blackening people’s reputations for years, and everyone will believe you, more or less, even when it’s perfectly obvious that you’re lying. But once you’ve been proved a liar in open court, you’re disqualified, so to speak. Mrs Semprill’s done for, so far as Knype Hill goes. She left the town between days–practically did a moonlight flit, in fact. I believe she’s inflicting herself on Bury St Edmunds at present.’
‘But what has all that got to do with the things she said about you and me?’
‘Nothing–nothing whatever. But why worry? The point is that you’re reinstated; and all the hags who’ve been smacking their chops over you for months past are saying, “Poor, poor Dorothy, how shockingly that dreadful woman has treated her!’”
‘You mean they think that because Mrs Semprill was telling lies in one case she must have been telling lies in another?’
‘No doubt that’s what they’d say if they were capable of reasoning it out. At any rate, Mrs Semprill’s in disgrace, and so all the people she’s slandered must be martyrs. Even my reputation is practically spotless for the time being.’
‘And do you think that’s really the end of it? Do you think they honestly believe that it was all an accident–that I only lost my memory and didn’t elope with anybody?’
‘Oh, well, I wouldn’t go as far as that. In these country places there’s always a certain amount of suspicion knocking about. Not suspicion of anything in particular, you know; just generalized suspicion. A sort of instinctive rustic dirty-mindedness. I can imagine its being vaguely rumoured in the bar parlour of the Dog and Bottle in ten years’ time that you’ve got some nasty secret in your past, only nobody can remember what. Still, your troubles are over. If I were you I wouldn’t give any explanations till you’re asked for them. The official theory is that you had a bad attack of flu and went away to recuperate. I should stick to that. You’ll find they’ll accept it all right. Officially, there’s nothing against you.’
Presently they got to London, and Mr Warburton took Dorothy to lunch at a restaurant in Coventry Street, where they had a young chicken, roasted, with asparagus and tiny, pearly-white potatoes that had been ripped untimely from their mother earth, and also treacle tart and a nice warm bottle of Burgundy; but what gave Dorothy the most pleasure of all, after Mrs Creevy’s lukewarm water tea, was the black coffee they had afterwards. After lunch they took another taxi to Liverpool Street Station and caught the 2.45. It was a four-hour journey to Knype Hill.
Mr Warburton insisted on travelling first-class, and would not hear of Dorothy paying her own fare; he also, when Dorothy was not looking, tipped the guard to let them have a carriage to themselves. It was one of those bright cold days which are spring or winter according as you are indoors or out. From behind the shut windows of the carriage the too-blue sky looked warm and kind, and all the slummy wilderness through which the train was rattling–the labyrinths of little dingy-coloured houses, the great chaotic factories, the miry canals, and derelict building lots littered with rusty boilers and overgrown by smoke-blackened weeds–all were redeemed and gilded by the sun. Dorothy hardly spoke for the first half-hour of the journey. For the moment she was too happy to talk. She did not even think of anything in particular, but merely sat there luxuriating in the glass-filtered sunlight, in the comfort of the padded seat and the feeling of having escaped from Mrs Creevy’s clutches. But she
was aware that this mood could not last very much longer. Her contentment, like the warmth of the wine that she had drunk at lunch, was ebbing away, and thoughts either painful or difficult to express were taking shape in her mind. Mr Warburton had been watching her face, more observantly than was usual for him, as though trying to gauge the changes that the past eight months had worked in her.
‘You look older,’ he said finally.
‘I am older,’ said Dorothy.
‘Yes; but you look–well, more completely grown up. Tougher. Something has changed in your face. You look–if you’ll forgive the expression–as though the Girl Guide had been exorcized from you for good and all. I hope seven devils haven’t entered into you instead?’ Dorothy did not answer, and he added: ‘I suppose, as a matter of fact, you must have had the very devil of a time?’
‘Oh, beastly! Sometimes too beastly for words. Do you know that sometimes–’
She paused. She had been about to tell him how she had had to beg for her food; how she had slept in the streets; how she had been arrested for begging and spent a night in the police cells; how Mrs Creevy had nagged at her and starved her. But she stopped, because she had suddenly realized that these were not the things that she wanted to talk about. Such things as these, she perceived, are of no real importance; they are mere irrelevant accidents, not essentially different from catching a cold in the head or having to wait two hours at a railway junction. They are disagreeable, but they do not matter. The truism that all real happenings are in the mind struck her more forcibly than ever before, and she said:
The Complete Novels Page 64
