Bell Timson

by Marguerite Steen

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t thought ...” I felt all sorts of a fool at having to admit it.

  “It’s obvious you can’t afford the ordinary fees for Kathleen and Jo,” she said, frowning as if she was thinking hard. “On the other hand — you won’t misunderstand me for saying that I can’t afford to run my school on a philanthropical basis! I’m in teaching, as you’re in massage, to make money. Suppose you tell me what you think you could manage.”

  Of course I ought to have had it all worked out, but I was so excited at the thought of getting the girls into some good, safe place that I had lost my head completely. When I had floundered a little she started to scribble something on her blotting pad.

  “How would this do? Supposing you could pay me half to begin with: let’s say, for a year. The second year, if your circumstances improve, you could probably manage the whole, and the third year —” She stopped and smiled at me. “You see, I’m taking it for granted you won’t want to take the children away! In the third year you might be in a position to pay off a little of the debit on the first year. How does that strike you, as a business woman?”

  The more I saw of Miss Cleveland, the more I liked her. Some people — the sort that expect something for nothing — may think she was driving a hard bargain; but the last thing I wanted was charity in any shape or form, and I was grateful to her for understanding it. To cut a long story short, I burned my boats. Kathleen and Jo were to start at Egham at the beginning of the autumn term — which gave me plenty of time to get their things ready. Miss Cleveland gave me the printed leaflet of the school equipment, and I glanced down it without turning a hair.

  You may think I was mad. Looking back, the best things in my life have come out of moments of madness, and the doubtful look in Miss Cleveland’s eye when I looked up was enough to decide me.

  “All right. I’ll see to all this.”

  I made an appointment for her to see Kathleen, then I drove away inside the van with George. I think I must have frightened the driver, as well as him, for I sang the whole way at the top of my voice! I sang “The Honeysuckle and the Bee” and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” then I tried to remember Cissie’s number, “I Don’t Mean What You Mean,” and before we got back to the shop I was lolling up against George, wailing out “In the Gloaming, Oh, My Darling.” I couldn’t have behaved worse if I’d been drunk.

  I don’t suppose that anyone who reads this knows what real poverty means; the only blessing was, it didn’t break my spirit, and it didn’t make me cautious. If you’re cautious, as well as poor, you may as well give up. Here was I, faced not only with the term’s fees for the girls, which were supposed to be paid in advance — and I intended they should be; I wasn’t going to start the girls off under a cloud — but with about a hundred pounds’ worth of outfit: that, with the bed linen, towels, table napkins, and so forth, was the the lowest I could work it down to. It was not as if I could start them off with a good reserve of underclothes; all they had was either shabby or in ribbons, and it meant new everything from the skin up.

  There was only one thing for it: I’d got to open an account with one of the big West End stores — the one that supplied the school uniform; and this, I knew, meant producing trade references. I could rely on George for one, and luckily my name was still on the books at Berridge’s, where I had dealt, off and on, ever since I was a girl. So now we were off, and one morning I set out with the girls, who of course were like March hares for excitement.

  I had not realized that getting credit in the West End is as easy as kiss-my-hand. I thought I might have to wait for a day or two, while they took up the references, but, bless me, nothing of the sort; I was given to understand it was only a silly little formality and that the whole store was at my disposal.

  Well, there is no need to trail you from department to department, but by the time we had got the shoes, underclothes, frocks, suits, blouses, and blazers my head was going round in circles. I signed bill after bill and gave up looking at the totals. There was another woman, fitting out her little girl of about Kathleen’s age, and nothing would do but the very best of everything, and sometimes two where only one was asked for. I suddenly felt something burst inside my head. Why should not my children have the best as well? There were two qualities of the brown cloth, and I had ordered the cheaper one. I countermanded it and asked for the best.

  I said carelessly, “You had better make an extra skirt to go with that costume; children always wear the skirts out first.” Then I said that one linen frock was no use; suppose it got dirtied in the morning? “I’ll have two of the afternoon frocks, in each of the sizes.” You see, I had gone mad again. I spent nearly twice the sum I had worked out from the list before we left the department. At least my children should be as well turned out as any in the school.

  Wherever I looked there was something I envied for the girls: a little pair of fur mittens for Jo, whose hands were always cold in winter; a scarf of candy-pink wool the color of the hat ribbon, which would lighten up the overcoat for Kathleen, who was inclined to go sallow when she got dark colors near the face. I priced little lace collar-and-cuff sets that would look nice on the brown linens, and while I was considering whether I ought to spend the money the girls started to whimper and say they were hungry. There were dozens of people at the counter, the assistants were busy, and the floor almost as crowded as for a Christmas sale.

  “Go on, go on; hold Jo’s hand, Kathleen, and keep on ahead of me. That’s the way — over there, toward the clock.”

  The children toddled ahead, people making way for them because they were so small; and I was pushed this way and that — now up against one counter, now against another; and I kept seeing little things — and it was almost too easy. Only a question of what my pockets would hold, and then my handbag.

  Supposing I had got caught? Pah! I knew they would never catch me. I happened to have a woven belt in my hand when I caught the assistant’s eye fixed on me just a bit too sharply, I thought. Quick as a flash I smiled at her, and suddenly, as if she couldn’t help it, she smiled back. I had learned that smile from Mother, and it wasn’t the first time it had got me out of some awkward little corner. I held up the belt and leaned across the counter to her. “Isn’t it a pretty thing?” I said, as if the idea had just come into my head. The girl was friendly at once. “Oh yes, madam; but have you seen the others, at the end of the counter? Do go and look at them; they’re really a wonderful selection for this between-the-seasons sort of time of year.” I thanked her, putting down the belt, and sauntered along, not hurrying. Luckily there was another, just the same, on the stand at the end; it was exactly what I wanted for Kathleen’s blue jumper suit. By the time the assistant had finished with the woman she was serving we were out in the street.

  Well, what about it? I was only getting for my girls the sort of things the woman in the dress department would buy for her daughter; and when little Vera, or whatever her name was, turned up with her blue necklace, or her initialed handkerchiefs, Kathleen and Jo would have their own things to show, equally pretty. I should like to say that I never had the least qualm, then or later, about what, as a matter of fact, I got in a habit of doing. I never felt like a thief, and of course I never looked like one. No one in their right minds would have thought of accusing a nice-looking, agreeable, well-mannered woman like me of shoplifting! I didn’t enjoy it, and I hoped the necessity would soon be over; but for the time being I accepted it as one of the unpleasant, necessary things, like borrowing money from Stanley, which belonged to this period of my life, and, although my heart hammered, that first time, like a traction engine, I soon got in the way of whisking up an oddment here or there, and in this way a little of the barrenness went out of our lives. I could not help chuckling about it the other day, when I was in Cartier’s, helping Jo choose a cigarette case for her birthday. She asked me what I was smiling about, but I put her off with some cock-and-bull tale or other; Jo’s sense of humor is like a piece of elast
ic, but I was not sure if it would run to hearing that her mother was once no better than a common sneak thief.

  Well, then we got in a taxi and went to some tearooms in Piccadilly, which I had heard about from Alice, one of whose patients had taken her there one day. It seemed very swell to us, although I believe it was a flashy sort of place that got a bad reputation in the end; but we had chicken sandwiches, chocolate with whipped cream on top, and strawberry ices. I think the girls thought we had started to live in a fairy tale.

  That night I went out with George again — twice in one week! The truth was, I was so excited I knew I could not settle down after the girls had gone to bed, so I rang him up at the shop, and luckily Hetty was free as well.

  “Let’s go in the saloon, George, for a change!” I was in a mood for company and a bit of friendly give-and-take, and he humored me, although I could see he was disappointed. Dear old George; there was nothing gregarious about him, unfortunately, and his one idea was to get me cozily to himself.

  The Haymakers was quite lively that night; it was one of those old-fashioned houses with a steady clientele of regulars, and, seldom as we had been in the saloon, we were recognized and lots of people nodded to us. George, of course, planted me behind an aspidistra and told me in an unnecessarily loud voice that I’d be all right there while he went to the counter for our drinks. I smiled a bit but resolved to act like a lady, for his sake. It really did upset him when I backchatted to strangers, and, after all, there was plenty of fun to be had in just watching people. All the same it was one of those nights when I felt just tingling with life; it was fairly pouring out through the tips of my fingers, and I could feel my eyes snapping and had to stiffen my lips to prevent myself from smiling when people looked at me.

  Just the other side of the aspidistra, at an angle to where we were sitting, there was a very good-looking fellow, tall, broad, fortyish, who seemed to be by himself; I knew he had his eye on me, and I’m afraid I felt it was rather a pity I was not alone, for we could have had some fun together. I don’t mean that in any bad way; as I have already said, I had had enough of sex to last me a lifetime, but I felt that this fellow would be jolly, would crack a good joke, and that, between us, we would have had the whole room laughing — which was a thing that could never happen with old George. I could not help letting a bit of a smile slip at him, and in a second his eyebrows went up and he made a little movement as though to ask if he might bring his glass over to my table; at which, of course, I had to frown and nod toward George, who had just managed to crowd in to the counter and was picking up his tankard and the port I had asked him to get for me.

  But all the time I was keeping up the chatter with George, all about the days shopping and what the girls had said and done, I kept looking at this other man and thinking what a good-looking fellow he was and what fun it would be to be chatting with him. I could feel him listening to me, and once or twice, feeling irritated with George for being such an old stick, I actually looked straight at him and said something that gave him a chance to join in the conversation. But — I suppose because George looked so glum — although he gave a chuckle, he did not rise to the bait.

  “Well, Bell ... George had taken out his watch and held it out that I could look at the time. It just set me alight.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, don’t be such a killjoy, George! I’ll have another port.”

  When he went to fetch it — reluctantly enough: not because he ever grudged me a drink, but because he was quite aware of the interest I was taking in the other fellow — I had made up my mind to speak, aspidistra or no aspidistra; but just as I was opening my mouth the man looked round, and I saw a woman come in, and he got up to meet her.

  Actually I was very pleased; it would be much easier — and quite natural, in our corner — to make a party if we were a foursome. The woman was very good-looking, young, well dressed — the right sort for him, I thought, catching her eye as she sat down. I think she was as well disposed toward me as I was to her, although it struck me she had rather a peevish mouth. But lo and behold, from the moment of her arrival her companion had gone as cagey as George. No foursomes for him! He practically turned his back on me (I could see his reflection in a glass that happened to be opposite) and I could tell from the back of his neck and his shoulders that he did not mean to share her with anybody else.

  I was more amused than piqued; especially when it presently appeared that the woman was no less bored with him than I was with old George, who came back with the port and a face as long as a yardstick. Well, then the fun began: for the woman and I started catching each other’s eyes, in a sort of sympathetic fashion, and we both laughed and talked as loudly as ever we could, for each others benefit partly, and partly to rile our companions. George was purple with mortification, because other people began to listen in and started laughing, for actually this female was very witty, and I’m not exactly slow in the uptake myself when it comes to backchat, and of course part of the fun was that we were not talking to, but at, each other, with George occasionally grunting an obligatory monosyllable and the other man — I could not hear what he said, for his voice had dropped to a mutter. It was as plain as a pikestaff to all the saloon that what is called a “situation” of some sort was blowing up.

  Then Mrs. Hichens, the landlady, came round and asked us to have one with her, and of course I accepted, and the three ports went, I suppose, to my head. I was excited by my audience, and I was killing myself inside to think what George would think if he had known about my goings on in the store in the morning, and I had embarked on a long story which was meant to be funny — when, in the looking glass opposite, I caught sight of the other man’s face. He was looking at the woman ... I set down my glass and walked out.

  It was not until later that I realized we did not speak a word on the way home, and then I did not blame George for being disgusted with me. But I did not think a thing about it at the time. I could think of nothing but the look on that man’s face, and the shock it had given me; for he was dead to the world, there was no question about it.

  I wonder if it was reaction from Harry that gave me a sort of horror of a certain look in a man’s eyes? To this day I can’t bear to see a man looking at a woman in that fashion, as if he was asking her to beat him. I can’t endure to see a man stripped by passion, as that man was, of his personal dignity; losing all the grandeur of the male, becoming ridiculous, because he is in love, cringing and fawning and bellyaching because he wants a woman to let him possess her. It hurts me, in some way I don’t know how to describe: a kind of mixture of pity and contempt and downright loathing; it rouses a cruelty in me which I resent, because in the ordinary way I know it is not there. I don’t believe in Father Christmas and I don’t believe in the Hollywood he-man; I have no use for the type that’s always showing you the hair on his chest. And yet I can’t get away from the old-fashioned idea that man is meant to be the master. It’s a pipe dream, of course; in nine cases out of ten of the marriages I have known, the woman wears the pants. I suppose I did myself; and yet I should have hated Harry to be conscious of it.

  I have seen a woman abandoning herself to love and in some way being ennobled by it; but I have never seen a man go over the edge without making himself absurd, and it is always my instinct to keep him, if I can, from making an exhibition of himself. And I could not get over the fact that I had been admiring that man and comparing him with George, to the latter’s disadvantage, and then he could go and make a fool of himself in that way for all the world to see. I remembered that, although George loved me no less, I am sure, than the other fellow loved his woman, he had never let me see him grovel, or lose his self-control, or get that silly, wet look in his eyes, like a mongrel asking for a bone. And I was ashamed of the way I treated him, and wanted to do something to make up for it, and didn’t know what. For of course the only real reparation I could make was to say, “George, I’ll marry you”; and I knew I could never again face the idea of marriage.
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  Chapter VI

  “YOU ARE a damn fool, Timson; why don’t you qualify?”

  This was Dr. Remington two years later — the same one that Alice had spoken of as having married a rich wife and set up in Harley Street. He remembered both of us from the Cottage Hospital, and he had put a lot of work in Alice’s way. Me, naturally, he did not approve of, but Alice had asked him, as a favor, to look over a case I had taken over for her, and that was the reason of the outburst. I grinned and said I was no good at book work.

  “Too damned lazy, that’s all,” he snorted. We were in Alice’s front parlor, which she had cleared and refitted as a clinic. “I never have time to entertain visitors,” she said, “and if I can get some of the patients to come here it will save me both time and money.” There was the high bed, an armchair, hand basin with H and C, an enamel cabinet or two, and a little corner curtained off, for the patients to use as a dressing room. The new electrical apparatus, with its batteries, stood in another corner; it had cost Alice a great deal of money, and she still said she believed more in the hand massage than in mechanical friction. I was not allowed to touch it of course.

  The patient had gone, Alice was out, and Dr. Remington and I were just having a cup of tea I had made in the kitchen.

  “You know, you are the most incredible ass, Timson,” he went on. “You might make a small fortune. You’ve got the right personality, as well as the right hands for the work. In point of fact, as personality goes, you’re better than Logan.” (He had a habit of calling us both by our surnames, which sometimes annoyed Alice — stiffer than I about etiquette. “Why on earth can’t it be ‘Mrs.’ if it isn’t ‘Nurse’?” she used to say. I rather liked the breeziness; half the patients already called me “Tim” or “Timmy.”) “She’s inclined to intimidate people, but they look on you as a pal.