“Your trunk’s come, Elsie,” Mrs. Palmer screamed at the door. “Carter Paterson brought it, carriage to pay, of course. You’d better see there’s nothing missing out of it.”
Elsie made a perfunctory examination, noticing nothing but that there was a letter lying just under the newspaper spread over her untidily packed belongings.
“It’s all right.”
Mrs. Palmer had gone back into the kitchen again, and Elsie, who did not care what Geraldine thought of her, pulled out the note and read it. It was from Doctor Woolley, as she had expected.
“My Own Dear Little Girlie,
“What a rotten world it is, kiddie, and what a shame you being turned away like that. Believe me, dear little girlie, if I had been at home it would never have happened. Now, Elsie, you and I have had a very nice friendship, and I know you will understand what I mean if I say that it must come to an end for the present. Burn this letter, dear, won’t you, and don’t answer it on any account. The letters that come for me to this house are not safe from interference, so you see what trouble it might make. With all best wishes for your future, and thanking you for your sweet friendship, which I shall never forget,
“Yours,
“H.”
“The cad!” said Elsie disgustedly.
She had not really expected Doctor Woolley to write to her at all, although there had been in her mind a vague anticipation of seeing him again very soon. But the letter, with its perfunctory endearments and cautionary injunctions, suddenly made it clear to her that the whole episode of their relationship was at an end.
“The swine,” said Elsie, although without violent emotion of any kind.
She felt that life, for the moment, was meaningless, but rather from the familiar and sordid surroundings of her home, and from her own listlessness and fatigue, than from the defection of Doctor Woolley.
It failed to excite her when a letter arrived for Mrs. Palmer, from the office of Mr. Williams and written by himself, saying how much he regretted that Mrs. Woolley, the merest acquaintance of his dear late wife, should have failed to make Miss Elsie happy in her house. If Miss Elsie desired to find an appointment in the clerical line, as he understood, then Mr. Williams would be most happy to make a suggestion. Could Mrs. Palmer, with Miss Elsie, make it convenient to call at the office any afternoon that week?
“He may want to take you into his own office, Elsie, as like as not. He’d feel he ought to do something, I expect, considering they sent you to those people, those Woolleys, as they call themselves, in the first place.”
“I’m not sure I want to go into an office, Mother.”
“Now look here, Elsie, let me and you understand one another,” said Mrs. Palmer with great determination. “I’ve had enough of your wants and don’t wants, my lady. One word more, and you’ll get a smack-bottom just exactly as you got when you were in pinafores, and don’t you forget it. If you think you’re going to live at home, no more use in the house than a sick headache, and wasting your time running round with God-knows-who, then I can tell you you’ve never made a bigger mistake in your life. Off you pop this directly minute, and get on your hat, and come with me to Mr. Williams. If he’s heard of a job for you, we’ll get it settled at once.”
“I suppose,” said Geraldine bitterly, “I’ll have to see to the teas and everything else, while you’re out. It seems to me it’s always Elsie that’s being thought about, and sent here, and taken there, and the rest of it.”
“More shame for her,” said Mrs. Palmer sombrely. “I declare to goodness I don’t know how I’m to face your aunties next time they come here, unless there’s something been settled about Elsie. I’m sick and tired of being told I spoil that girl.”
“Whatever job she gets, she’ll be home in a month,” said Geraldine.
“She’ll get something she won’t relish from me if she is,” Mrs. Palmer retorted. She pinned on her hat and pulled a pair of shiny black kid gloves out of a drawer in the kitchen dresser.
Elsie, rather sulky and unwilling, was obliged to follow her mother once more to the dingy office, but it cheered her to see the pleased, furtive smile on the face of the young clerk who had admitted them before. It was very evident that he had not forgotten her. Elsie thought more about him than about the desiccated, wooden-faced little solicitor, with the crepe band round his arm, who responded to all Mrs. Palmer’s voluble condolence with solemn little bows and monosyllables.
Mrs. Palmer was evidently disappointed at extracting from him no details about his wife’s illness and death, and at last she turned the subject and began to speak of Elsie’s qualifications as a typist.
“You see, Mr. Williams, I always felt it was waste, her going to be a kind of mother’s help to that Mrs. Woolley. ‘ It’s not what you’ve been trained for, my dear,’ I said, ‘ but still, if you want to, you shall try it for a bit.’ I’ve always been a one to let my girlies try their own wings, Mr. Williams. ‘ The old home nest is waiting for you when you’re tired of it,’ is what I always say. You’ve heard mother tell you that many and many a time, haven’t you, Elsie?”
“Yes,” said Elsie, bored..
She had often heard her mother make the like statements, in order to impress strangers, and she had no objection to backing her up, since it was far less trouble to do so than to have a “row “ afterwards.
Mr. Williams bowed again. “I am sorry that Miss Elsie was exposed to unpleasantness of any sort, through an introduction of mine, and I may add that I entirely agree with you, ¿Mrs. Palmer, in thinking that the — the domestic duties embarked upon were quite unworthy of her. Now, I am in want of a confidential clerk in this office.”
Elsie saw her mother’s eyes glistening behind the coarse fibre of her mended veil, and felt that her fate was sealed.
“Yes, Mr. Williams?”
“If I could persuade you to allow Miss Elsie to come to me... Nine to six, and twenty-five shillings a week to begin with. Her duties would be light, simply to take down, type, and file my personal letters.”
“It would be a very good beginning for her,” said Mrs. Palmer, firmly, but with no undue enthusiasm. Elsie knew that her mother’s mind was quite made up, but that she did not want to seem eager in the eyes of Mr. Williams.
“You’d like to give it a trial, Elsie?”
“I don’t mind,” said Elsie. She met the eyes of Mr. Williams and managed to smile at him, and for an instant it seemed to her that an answering pin-point of light appeared behind the pince-nez.
“It would be quite usual,” said Mr. Williams gravely, “for me to give you a short test. Take this pencil and paper, please, and take this down.”
He handed Elsie a shorthand pad and a pencil. She took down in shorthand the brief business letter that he dictated to her, and then, more nervously, read it aloud, stumbling over the pronunciation of one or two words, and once substituting one word for another, of which the shorthand outlines were similar, without any perception of the bearing of either upon the context.
Mr. Williams corrected her. “It’s always the same,” he told Mrs. Palmer in a low, rather melancholy voice. “These young people are wonderfully clever at taking dictation — eighty words a minute, a hundred words a minute — but you can’t depend upon them to transcribe correctly.”
Mrs. Palmer looked offended. “I’m sure Elsie will tell you that she wasn’t doing herself justice, Mr. Williams. I’m sure she’s as accurate as anybody, when she’s not nervous. But if you think she won’t do the work well enough, of course ...”
Mrs. Palmer’s lips were drawn together, and her intonation had become acidulated.
“Not at all,” said Mr. Williams quietly, “not at all. You misunderstand my meaning altogether. I have no doubt that Miss Elsie will suit me very well indeed, when she has fallen into my little routine. What about next week?”
“Very well,” Mrs. Palmer answered swiftly. “I’ll let her come to you on Monday morning, Mr. Williams, and I’m very much obliged
to you for thinking of us. It’ll be a relief to me to know Elsie is in a good post. You see, I’m in the position of both father and mother to my girlies, and this one’s my baby, as I always say—”
As Mr. Williams opened the door for them he said: “I hope that little affair about the trunk was satisfactorily concluded? It was perhaps a shade awkward, having the letter written from this office, in view of the fact that we were personally acquainted with the parties — but my head clerk, Mr. Cleaver, could hardly be expected to appreciate that.... A very worthy man indeed, and an able one, but the finer shades are rather beyond him. Good morning, Mrs. Palmer — good morning, Miss Elsie. Nine o’clock on Monday morning, then.”
Mrs. Palmer went away in high spirits, and commented to Elsie and to Geraldine so enthusiastically upon Elsie’s good fortune, that she began to believe in it herself.
“Are there any other girls there?” Geraldine asked. And Elsie said quickly, “Oh dear, no! Both the other clerks are men.”
She began to think that perhaps after all the hours spent in the office might not be without amusement. Besides, all sorts of people came to see a solicitor.
Elsie spent the week-end in cutting out and making for herself a blue crèpe blouse, which she intended to wear on Monday morning. She also made a pair of black alpaca sleeves, with elastic at the wrist and at the elbow, to be drawn on over the blouse while she was working.
She put the sleeves, her shorthand pad and pencil, a powder-puff, mirror, pocket-comb, and a paper-covered novel in a small attaché case on Monday morning, pulled on the rakish black velvet tam-o’-shanter, and went off to Mr. Williams’ office.
Her first day there was marked by two discoveries: that Mr. Williams expected to be called “sir “ in office hours, and that the name of the youth who shared with her a small outer room where clients waited, or left messages, was Fred Leary.
A high partition of match-boarding separated the waiting- room from an inner office where Mr. Cleaver sat. And if Elsie and Fred Leary spoke more than a very few words to one another, Mr. Cleaver would tap imperatively against the wood with a ruler. He was also apt to walk noiselessly round the partition and stand there, silently watching Elsie, if the sound of her typewriter ceased for any undue length of time.
She learnt from Fred Leary that there had never been a female typist in the office before, and that Mr. Cleaver had been greatly opposed to the introduction of one.
“The Old Man always gets his way in the end, though,” said Fred Leary, alluding to Mr. Williams.
“I knew him before,” Elsie asserted, to give herself importance. “Him and his wife were in our house for a bit. I knew Mrs. Williams too.”
“They said he led her a life,” remarked Leary.
“What sort of way?”
“Oh, I couldn’t tell a kid like you.”
“What rubbish! As though I didn’t know as much as you, any day.”
He laughed loudly. “Girls always think they know everything, but they don’t — not unless some fellow has”
The sharp tap of Mr. Cleaver’s pencil sounded against the matchboard, and silenced them.
The fact that their conversations had to be more or less clandestine added zest to them, and although Elsie was not in any way attracted by young Leary, who was spotty and unwholesome-looking, she several times went to a cinema with him on Saturday afternoons, and once to a football match. After the latter entertainment, however, they quarrelled.
Elsie had disliked the mud, the cold, the noise, the standing about and the crowds. She had been bored by Leary’s enthusiasm, which was utterly incomprehensible to her, and secretly annoyed because, of the multitude of men surrounding her, not one had paid any attention to her, or to anything but the game and the players.
“I wasn’t struck on that outing of yours,” she remarked critically to her escort the following Monday morning. “Another time we’ll give the football matches a miss, thank you.”
Leary’s admiration for Elsie, however, was less strong than his desire to see a league match, and he offended her by going by himself to the entertainment that she despised.
Elsie resented his defection less for his own sake than for that of the excitement that she could only experience through flirtation, and without which she found her life unbearably tedious.
She had been in the office nearly three months when Mr. Williams asked her suddenly if she liked the work there.
“I don’t mind it,” said Elsie.
She was in reality perfectly indifferent to it, and merely went through the day’s routine without active dislike, as without intelligence.
“Now that you are used to our ways,” said Mr. Williams deliberately, “I think you had better remove your table into my room. The sound of your machine will not disturb me in the least, and if clients desire a private interview, you can retire.”
Elsie looked up, astonished, and met her employer’s eyes.
His face was impassive as ever, but there was a faint, covetous gleam in his fish-like eyes.’
Elsie, at once repelled and fascinated, gazed back at him, and felt her heart beginning to beat faster with a nervous and yet pleasurable anticipation.
VII
“When do you want to take your holiday, Elsie?”
“I’m not particular.”
“Your mother will want you to get a breath of sea-air, I suppose.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Elsie. “Mother’s not awfully struck on going away.”
It was late July, and between Elsie and her employer a curious, secret relationship had been established, at present only symbolised by occasional furtive touches of his hand on her neck or her dress, and a continual exchange of glances, steady and compelling on Williams’s side, and responded to by Elsie almost against her own will.
Her typewriting table had been moved into his office, and she sat there nearly all day.
He spoke to her very little, but she was now always intensely conscious of his presence, and of her own effect upon him.
At first she did not understand to what his questions about the holidays were leading.
Next day, he spoke about them again.
“Shouldn’t you like to go to Brighton — some place like that?”
“Rather.”
“I often run down there myself from Saturday to Monday.”
Mr. Williams looked at her more attentively than ever, and Elsie felt the blood creep up into her face. She knew that she blushed easily and deeply, and that men enjoyed seeing her blush.
“That hasn’t got anything to do with me,” she stammered, at once excited and confused.
“Hasn’t it?”
“Mr. Williams!”
He glanced cautiously at the door, and then lowered his voice. “Look here, my dear child, I’m old enough to be your father and — and my dear late wife took quite a fancy to you. Surely you and I understand one another well enough to take a little holiday jaunt together without anyone but our two selves being any the wiser.”
Elsie had not realty expected the suggestion, and she was startled, but also triumphant.
“Whatever do you mean, Mr. Williams?”
He smiled, a small, thin-lipped smile, that held a suggestion of cynical mockery at her transparent pretence.
“Only what I say. I’m a poor, lonely fellow, with a little bit of money and no one to spend it on, and if I go to a nice hotel for the week-end I want someone to keep me company. Think over it, Elsie. You quite understand that I’m not asking anything of you — you’re as safe with me as if I were your father. Just a pretty face opposite me at meals, and a smartly dressed little companion to take out for a walk on the front or to the theatre on Saturday night — that’s all I want.”
“Oh, I daresay,” said Elsie.
His face stiffened, and she felt immediately that she had made a mistake.
“It’s awfully kind of you to think of such a thing, Mr. Williams, but I really couldn’t dream of it. Why, I don’t know what
mother would think—”
“Of course, it’s a very conventional world,” said Mr. Williams gravely. “You and I would know well enough that our little adventure was most innocent, but we don’t want anyone to think or say otherwise. So I propose, Elsie, that we should keep it to ourselves. I presume it would be easy to tell your mother that you were staying with a friend?”
“Well — there’s Ireen Tidmarsh, a young lady I often go with. I could say I was going to her.”
“Just so. After all, you’re of an age to manage your own affairs.”
Elsie swelled with gratified vanity. She loved to be told that she was grown up.
“Well, what about the August Bank Holiday week-end? I could meet you at the booking office at Victoria Station on the Saturday, and we could travel back together on the Tuesday morning. I’d like to show you something of life, Elsie.”
He moistened his lips with his tongue as he spoke the words.
Elsie wished desperately that she could feel attracted by him, as she had been by Doctor Woolley. But Mr. Williams, physically, rather revolted her.
“Oh, I couldn’t!” she repeated faintly.
He was very patient. “No expense, of course. And if you’d like a new hat or an evening frock, Elsie, or a pretty set of those silk things that girls wear underneath, why, I hope you’ll let me have the privilege of providing them. You can choose what you like and bring me the bill — only go to a West End shop. Nothing shoddy.”
Elsie was breathless at his munificence, and she longed wildly for the evening dress, and the silk underwear. Pale pink crêpe ...
Perhaps it would be worth it.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t ask me to do anything that wasn’t perfectly right, Mr. Williams,” she said demurely.
“I am glad you feel that. I’m glad you trust me,” he solemnly replied.
“Of course I do.”
“Then that’s our secret. We need take no one into our confidence, Elsie, you understand. The arrangement is a perfectly innocent and natural little pleasure that you and I are going to share, but people are very often coarse-minded and censorious, and I would not wish to expose either of us to unpleasant comments. You’ll remember that, and keep it to yourself?”
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 262