“Well, I had a nice long talk with Frances, sitting in the library,” she replied evasively.
“Shall you have to go back to work to-morrow?”
“Of course, Maurice dear. The office will be open again to-morrow morning. I dare say I shan’t have such a tremendous lot to do. I’ve got through some of it here, this week-end.”
“I wish you had proper summer holidays, like us,” he said wistfully.
“Never mind. I like my work, you know.”
She dismissed Maurice, smiling, and felt comforted.
He was such a dear little boy, and so touchingly impressed by his mother’s position as bread-winner for the family.
From her desk she could see Sylvia, alone, walking across the lawn. Perhaps the others were carrying the picnic things to the kitchen entrance.
On an impulse Claudia went out and joined her daughter.
She was shocked by the pallor of Sylvia’s small face. It was drained of all colour.
Almost involuntarily Claudia exclaimed:
“You poor little thing!”
“Mother,” said Sylvia, “you think I ought to give him up, don’t you? He doesn’t really want to marry me, does he?”
“What does he say himself?” Claudia temporized.
“He asked me if I’d marry him. You heard him yourself,” said Sylvia proudly. “And at first I thought perhaps it was all going to come right. But I couldn’t help remembering what you’d said this morning—it seems like days and days ago somehow—about Andrew’s really wanting to follow his own career, and be free, and keep his independence. And I know, in my heart, that it’s true.”
“Yes,” said Claudia in a low voice, “it’s true.”
She told herself, even as she spoke, that whatever agony it might be to herself to hurt Sylvia she owed her the truth, whole and complete.
“He isn’t the kind of man to marry any girl, and make her or himself happy. I expect he’s told you that himself, hasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“If you were much, much older, my darling Sylvia, you might have the right to decide on breaking the rules and going to live with him—though I don’t think, myself, that it would bring real happiness to either of you—but I can’t believe he’d ask you to do that, at the very beginning of your life.”
“No,” said Sylvia. “He knows you’re right about that. He told me so this afternoon. Oh, Mother, I can’t give him up.”
She was in tears again.
Claudia, the tears standing in her own eyes, looked at her child in silence, sharing to the full in her suffering.
She knew, with penetration sharpened by experience, that Sylvia, though perhaps not yet aware of it herself, had capitulated.
Claudia thought: “I’ve saved her.”
XIII
(1)
The week-end was over.
On Monday night Andrew Quarrendon told his hostess that he wished to make an early start, and hoped that nobody would see him off. If somebody could knock on his door at seven o’clock that would do very well, he added. Claudia, with equanimity, agreed that this should be done.
She had given Quarrendon one or two opportunities for speaking to her alone, but he had taken advantage of none of them.
After all, thought Claudia, she had said all that it was necessary to say that morning—and it had produced its effect.
She herself was to motor up to London on Tuesday directly after breakfast, taking Sal Oliver with her and Sylvia.
Mrs Peel, after saying a good deal about the traffic and the strain of driving, had determined to go by train.
Frances was to remain at Arling for a few days before establishing herself in her club while she looked for a flat.
“It feels more like the end of the summer holidays than the beginning,” remarked Maurice, hearing these various departures arranged for.
(2)
Long before seven on Tuesday morning Andrew Quarrendon was quietly going downstairs, carrying his own bag.
Sylvia had promised to be there.
She was already unfastening the chain that held the front door.
They went out together silently into the dewy freshness of the summer morning and Sylvia unlocked the door of the garage.
“Sylvia,” he said desperately, “for the last time, will you marry me? I love and adore you.”
“I know you love me,” said Sylvia on a sob, “and I won’t ever marry you. But I—I—I’ll always love you, Andrew, all my life.”
He took her in his arms and she clung to him.
All that he said in a shaken voice was:
“There’s been nothing but what’s true between us.”
“I know. And I’m glad, and I’ll always be glad. And proud, Andrew, because you thought me worth it.”
He held her for a long time, kissing her hair, her wet eyes, her trembling mouth.
At last, without saying anything more, he went away.
(3)
“I don’t think I’m coming up to London with you,” Sylvia said tonelessly to her mother two hours later. “I don’t want to see about that job after all.”
Claudia agreed quietly.
“Very well, darling. Stay here and look after Frances and the children.”
“But I quite see that I mustn’t just do nothing. Besides,” said Sylvia piteously, “I’d like to help you if I could. Only I don’t think I want to work in London. Will you think of something for me, Mother?”
“Yes,” Claudia said. “I will, my darling.”
As she wrote her letter to Paris later in the same day, Claudia reflected, with wondering thankfulness, on the complete trust reposed in her by Sylvia.
Copper—Frances—Sal—Anna—all of them were unjust, lacking in perception.
Whatever they might say, Claudia could reassure herself completely.
She had not failed to live up to her own ideals, her own high standard of motherhood.
It was they who had failed to understand her.
Part II
October In The Office
(1)
As she sat in the office in Norfolk Street, Claudia Winsloe became a different person.
She was, in her own phraseology, “on the job.” She instinctively discarded everything that impinged upon her conception of herself as a breadwinner.
Over the door of her private office was a fearful red electric-light globe. When this light was switched on from within the room it served as a signal that she was not to be disturbed.
Even Sal Oliver, whose own tiny room was on the top floor of the building unprotected from the assaults of interrupters, seldom disregarded it. Nobody else ever did.
From time to time Claudia forgot to turn off the red light and sat within in solitude whilst Miss Collier—agitated—or Mrs Ingatestone—infuriated—moved up and down the dark stairs, clutching to themselves urgent problems. Miss Frayle, the young, pert Miss Frayle, was neither agitated nor angry. She only muttered obscenities below her breath, and then drifted back to the downstairs office again, indifferent. She and Miss Collier both got through a great deal of work, drank quantities of tea, smoked innumerable cigarettes, and talked, in the intervals of work, about their employer, themselves, one another, how best to reduce (Miss Collier weighed eight stone, and stood five-foot-seven, and Miss Frayle—five-foot-eight—turned the scales at seven-stone-twelve), and about twice a week one of them told the other that she was going to leave, and allowed herself to be persuaded not to.
They were both of them objects of awe and admiration to young Edie, the messenger girl, who was fifteen, fat, and obliging, and whose duty it was to make herself useful to everybody in the office.
Mrs Ingatestone, in a more responsible position than either Miss Collier or Miss Frayle, but held by them to be of inferior social standing in private life, was agreeably condescending to them and to Edie alike, but had terrific outbursts of temper, attributed by herself to nerves, and by the imaginative Miss Frayle alternately to drink, drugs
, and hereditary insanity. She was a widow with one child—a girl of twelve at a school near Dorking. It was in order to educate her daughter that she was obliged to work.
On Monday mornings the atmosphere in the office was always impregnated with the slight strain that is the result of a holiday which has been at once too short and too long.
Miss Frayle and Miss Collier greeted one another with modified enthusiasm.
“Hallo, Collier. Had a good week-end?”
“Lovely. I played badminton all Saturday and must have taken off pounds.”
“And ate sweets all Sunday and put them on again,” said Miss Frayle cynically. “I know, because it’s what I did myself. Except that I danced as well as played badminton.”
She danced almost every Saturday night, nearly always with a different man. Frayle, said the office, knew thousands of men. The question of her virginity was sometimes gloomily discussed between Miss Collier and Mrs Ingatestone.
“Winsome Winnie arrived yet?” asked Miss Frayle, languidly uncovering her typewriter. By this engaging soubriquet she sometimes referred to her employer.
“Yeah. The red light’s on.”
“Oh hell, it can’t be. It’s too early. What frightful affectation!”
“Well, there it is. Oliver hasn’t turned up yet.”
“Dirty slacker.”
Miss Frayle had a terrific crush on Sal Oliver, and of this the whole office was well aware, but she invariably referred to her in terms that were either slighting or abusive.
“Is there much in, this morning?”
“Edie hasn’t brought the letters yet. She’s getting them from Ma Ingatestone now.”
“When she comes, we may as well tell her to get a kettle going. It’ll do for eleven o’clock,” said Miss Frayle, glancing at her wrist-watch. It was just before ten o’clock.
It was not Edie, however, who brought in that selection of the letters known as “routine work,” but Mrs Ingatestone.
“Good morning, good morning,” she chanted, with a hasty breeziness that denoted that she was in a good temper but had no time to waste. “Now look here, I’ve got to go out to Streatham this morning to help that Lady Maitland who’s moving house. Miss Oliver’s dealing with the school for that child—what’s his name—whose parents are divorced. She’ll probably go out there this afternoon. You’re to go to her first, Miss Frayle, and take down her letters, and then to Mrs Winsloe.”
There were no unadorned surnames in the vocabulary of Mrs Ingatestone.
“O.K. But Oliver’s not come yet.”
“Yes she has. She arrived with Mrs Winsloe and they’re in her office together. She’s going to ring when she’s ready for you. Now Miss Collier, here’s the routine stuff.”
“O.K.”
“I shan’t be back in time to sign before the post, so you’ll have to take it to Miss Oliver.”
“O.K.”
“I must say,” observed Mrs Ingatestone, “you girls don’t look much the better for your weekend. As for you, Miss Frayle, you might have been on the tiles the whole of last night, from the look of you.”
“So I was. Didn’t you hear about it? Collier came and bailed me out of Vine Street Police Station at two o’clock this morning.”
“Vine Street nothing. More like Limehouse Street,” said Miss Collier.
A buzzer sounded sharply.
Miss Frayle muttered “How well I know that fairy touch,” and snatched up pad and pencil. As she ran up the stairs, she passed Sal Oliver.
“Good morning, Miss Frayle.”
“Good morning, Miss Oliver.”
“I hope you had a nice week-end.”
“Marvellous, thanks.”
Doris Frayle lifted her eyes for one moment, observed accurately and in detail everything that Sal Oliver was wearing, and went on to the room of her employer.
She knocked at the door but received no answer. That was part of Mrs Winsloe’s impenetrability. At the third knock she was told to come in. A wilderness of papers lay strewn about the table.
“Good morning, Mrs Winsloe.”
“Good morning. Take this down please. To the Manager of the Westminster Bank: Sir …”
“She’s off,” thought Miss Frayle. “And she’s in one hell of a mood, blast her.”
(2)
An hour later Miss Frayle was downstairs again with a sheaf of notes.
She began to type, rapidly and accurately, for she was a good worker. A cup of tea stood on the table beside her. From time to time she picked it up and drank out of it, holding it in one hand whilst she continued to type with the other.
Miss Collier sat at the other table, entering figures into a small ledger.
At twelve o’clock they spoke.
“Do you know, I haven’t touched a potato for over six months?”
“I haven’t touched sweets—well, not to speak of. And I think bread’s pretty fatal too.”
They then said nothing more until it was time to go out for lunch.
“Are you coming, Frayle?”
“I’m meeting my aunt.”
“O.K. Where’s she taking you?”
“I’m taking her, worse luck. I suppose you couldn’t possibly cash me a cheque? I haven’t got time to get to the bank.”
“How much?”
“Well—a pound. I must get some stockings.”
“Oh, I haven’t got a pound,” said Miss Collier in rather shocked accents. “You can have three bob and pay me back on Friday.”
“Is that really O.K.?”
“Yeah. Young Edie may have something.”
“I won’t ask her, poor kid. She gets so frightfully little, and her mother takes most of it off her. I’ll see if my hairdresser’ll lend me fifteen bob, he does sometimes.”
Miss Frayle combed her blonde, waved hair, applied a stick of highly-expensive lip-stick, and tipped a tiny little black hat well forward on her head. Miss Collier did more or less exactly the same things, with less hair, a cheaper lip-stick, and a scarlet hat, and they left the office.
Doris Frayle took her aunt—a bewildered provincial spinster—to a small restaurant in the Strand, listened to her uninteresting chat about relations very nicely and politely, gave her a better lunch than she could afford, and put her carefully into the right bus for Kensington High Street.
Margery Collier ate sardines on toast at a Lyons Corner House and rushed to a lending library in order to change her mother’s book for her, and to a tobacconist for her father’s birthday present, and on her way back to the office spent eightpence on some pallid-looking roses because the woman who was selling them whined piteously and had with her a small child in a push-cart.
(3)
Young Edie sat in the office whilst her seniors were at luncheon. To this arrangement she had no objection whatever. Her mother always gave her cake or sandwiches to take with her, and she sometimes heated things out of little tins in an old saucepan over the gas-ring.
Moreover Edie was writing a novel, and this interval in the day’s work was her best time for getting on with it.
To-day, however, an epidemic of telephone-calls assailed the office. Edie wrote down the various messages and placed them on Miss Frayle’s desk.
Suddenly the buzzer sounded.
Edie, who had supposed herself to be alone in the building, flew upstairs. Either it was Her wanting God knows what but certainly something that Edie wouldn’t be able to do properly, or else it was A Murderer.
Edie’s thoughts frequently dwelt upon murderers, and in any emergency murder was always her first fear.
On this occasion the lesser alternative alone confronted her.
She sat at her desk, smoking a cigarette.
“I haven’t time to go out to lunch to-day. Do you think you could fetch me something?”
She was actually smiling and looking at Edie—almost for the first time in their association—as though she really saw her.
“Yes, Mrs Winsloe. Only—I’m on the telephone. M
iss Collier and Miss Frayle have gone to lunch.”
“You can have the calls put through in here. Get me two or three sandwiches—anything will do—and could you make me a cup of tea?”
“Oh yes, Mrs Winsloe.”
Edie, with incredible speed, put on the kettle, arranged the best cup and saucer on a little tray—hitherto sacred to Mrs Ingatestone’s use—and dashed out into the Strand.
She was upstairs again in less than fifteen minutes.
“Down there, please. Not on the papers.”
Edie obeyed, gasped, and retreated as quickly as she could to the door.
“Thank you very much indeed. I’m so much obliged to you.”
“Don’t mention it, Mrs Winsloe.”
Raising her eyes, Edie again received a look of full recognition and a smile.
Dazzled, she went downstairs. Instead of writing her novel, she sat, eating caramels and thinking about Her.
(4)
Sal Oliver returned to the office at four o’clock. She had personally inspected the school destined for the little boy whose parents were divorced, had found herself satisfied with it, and had had a long conversation by telephone with the little boy’s father. She was to see him at five o’clock. There would just be time to sign her letters and clear up.
“If you please, Miss Oliver, would you go in to Mrs Winsloe?”
Sal nodded at the messenger girl.
She went in to Claudia.
“Look here, a frightful rush job has just come in. That American woman wants us to provide an escort for her child to Paris—get her clothes, see about passport and everything, and get her there by Thursday. Not flying—it seems she’s nervous.”
“Ingatestone must do it. We can manage without her for a couple of days, easily.”
“Ingatestone telephoned half an hour ago to say she’s gone to Dorking and will be away at least two days.”
“Gone to Dorking! Why has she gone to Dorking?”
“Because,” said Claudia in a low, furious voice, “she thinks, or pretends she thinks, that her wretched child is ill. It’s an absolute excuse, of course. And even if it isn’t, the school authorities can look after her, surely. There’s no question of her being in danger, or anything like it.”
Faster! Faster! Page 16
