I knew that, of course, but I had decided to have a try at writing short articles for the papers. Ever since I had left home and gone to school in Edinburgh I had been too busy to think of writing but now it would be different. I could not afford to spend money on entertainments so in the evenings I would settle down and write. Somehow I felt I could; there was an urge in me to express my ideas on paper.
Mother agreed that this was an excellent plan. “ You can write,” she declared. “ I know you can.”
“ On the strength of a few childish stories,” I said teasingly.
“ But they were good,” she declared. “ They were not just childish drivel. There was laughter and tears in your stories … and your letters were so interesting.”
“ Well, we’ll see.”
“ I hope you’ll be comfortable,” continued Mother with a sigh. “ We don’t know anything about that boarding-house.”
“ Mrs. Hall seems pleasant, judging from her letter.”
“ Yes, it was a welcoming sort of letter. She said she would look after you and do all she could to make you feel at home. She couldn’t say more, I suppose.”
“ I’ll be all right,” I said confidently. “ If I can’t manage to make ends meet I can fall back on the money in my Post Office Savings—and Uncle Matt gave me twenty-five pounds.”
“ Don’t spend that,” said Mother earnestly. “ Don’t fritter it away. Keep it until you need it for something important. If you can’t make ends meet we could help you a bit.”
“ I’ll manage,” I said. I was determined to manage. I knew very well that my parents could not afford to help me.
The Third Window
“ My window looked out on to a blank wall. The wall towered up some thirty feet from my window: it was of dingy brick and there was no break in it except for an iron ventilator. Once upon a time the wall had been painted white—presumably to lighten my room—but the paint had nearly all flaked off and what was left was streaky and discoloured with London soot. Even on the sunniest day my room was dim: even on the breeziest day my room was airless.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Mrs. Hall’s boarding-house was tucked away in a back street. It was tall and dingy—and Mrs. Hall was tall and dingy too. Her skin had the curious grey look of a person who does not go out very much and is not fond of soap and water; her eyes were narrow and her lips thin and bloodless. But, although her appearance was unprepossessing and somewhat grim, she welcomed me effusively, asking if I had had a good journey and inquiring after my parents’ health.
“ Such a nice lady your mother is,” declared Mrs. Hall. “ I could tell that by her letter—and so fond of you, too! It’s a wonderful thing to have a good mother, Mr. Kirke. I expect you’re hungry after your long journey so we’ll just leave your things in the ’all until you’ve ’ad your supper. We’re just having supper now and it’ll be a good opportunity for you to meet the other guests. They’re all looking forward to meeting you.”
Mrs. Hall spoke quickly in a monotonous voice, and she was very careful to sound her aitches except when she forgot about them.
I would rather have washed before having supper, for I felt dirty and untidy, but she gave me no chance. She opened the door of the dining-room.
“ Here’s Mr. Kirke! ” she exclaimed.
There were six people sitting round the table and they all looked up when I came in. Afterwards I got to know them quite well, but in that first moment they were six strange faces beneath a hard bright light. There was Mr. Owen, a thin dark Welshman with a shock of wiry black hair; Miss Bulwer who was thin and pale with fair hair, turning grey; Mr. Kensey who was fat and pale and bald; Ned Mottram, pale and heavy-eyed, with smooth brown hair and a small moustache; and Madame Futrelle, a short stout Frenchwoman, whose bright red hair and heavily made-up face contrasted strangely with the pallid countenances of her fellows. Last but not least there was Beryl Collingham … and to be honest Miss Collingham’s was the only face I saw distinctly in that first uncomfortable moment. It was a heart-shaped face, framed in fair curls, and her brown eyes met mine across the room in a welcoming smile.
My place was laid between Mrs. Hall and Miss Collingham; I slipped into it as quickly as I could and did my best to answer all the questions which were put to me. Quite obviously my fellow guests were anxious to be friendly and although it seemed to me that their friendliness was a little overdone I could hardly blame them for that.
“ You’re Scotch, of course,” said Mr. Kensey. “ I have a cousin who lives in Glasgow, perhaps you’ve met her. Mrs. Fraser is her name.”
“ No,” I said. “ No, I’m afraid I don’t know anybody in Glasgow.”
“ Where do you live? ” asked Miss Bulwer.
“ At a little village called Haines. My father is the minister——”
“ That’s a Scotch clergyman, isn’t it? ” Mr. Kensey said.
“ A non-conformist,” nodded Miss Bulwer. “ I know all about it because my aunt was Chapel, you see.”
I could not help wondering what Father would have said to this and how he would have explained. I was about to try to explain the matter myself but a plate of soup had been placed before me and as everyone else had passed on to the next course I decided I had better leave explanations to a more convenient moment. The soup did not help matters, it was a hell’s broth of liquid mustard.
“ Mulligatawny,” said Mrs. Hall, nodding at me encouragingly. “ I hope you like mulligatawny, Mr. Kirke. I always say a nice plate of ’ot soup is the best thing after a long journey.”
“ Yes,” I said. I could say no more for my eyes were full of tears after the first hasty mouthful.
“ You are veree young,” said Madame Futrelle, gazing at me intently. “ Is it permitted to ask what you will do in London? ’Ave you got a job? ”
“ Yes,” I said. “ Yes, I’m starting to-morrow in a lawyer’s office, Messrs. Heatley and Frensham.”
“ You are a lawyer, then? ”
“ No, just a clerk.”
“ I am modiste. I ’ave a leetle place in Knightsbridge—verree chic. It is a verree good business; I sell gowns and ’ats to the verree best people. Some day when I ’ave made enough money I go back to Paree. I do not like London—no. Do you like London, Mistaire Kirke? ”
“ I don’t know. I’ve only just come.”
“ It’s the only place to live,” declared Ned Mottram. “ There’s so much going on in London. I was in Cardiff for a bit, but I jumped at it when I got the chance of coming here. I sell cars on commission. I should hate to sit in an office all day. Beryl is on the stage,” he added, smiling across the table at Miss Collingham.
I said I had never met an actress before.
“ You ’ave not met one now,” declared Madame Futrelle. “ You ’ave only met a girl who would like to be an actress if someone would give her the chance. But nobody is likely to do that.”
“ Beryl is resting! ” exclaimed Ned Mottram.
“ She needs so much rest,” said Madame Futrelle, laughing maliciously. “ Per’aps if she did a leetle real work she would not feel so tired.”
Miss Collingham said nothing.
“ I expect it’s difficult to get started,” I said, turning to her.
“ Very difficult,” she replied in a low voice. “ People don’t understand. The stage isn’t like other jobs that go on all the time, and it isn’t any use having talent unless you have influence. You’ve no idea what a lot of wire-pulling goes on. For instance I know a girl who has got a part in a new musical comedy—she’s a friend of the producer, that’s why. It’s terribly unfair.”
“ Some people can’t afford to sit back and wait for work,” declared Miss Bulwer. “ Some people have to work for their bread and butter.”
“ Bread and marge, you mean,” put in Mr. Owen.
Miss Bulwer paid no attention to the interruption. “ I learnt shorthand and typewriting,” she continued. “ I work all day in a typewriting office. I can’
t afford to rest. Sometimes I would give a great deal to be able to take a day off. I have a very delicate stomach.”
“ We all know about that,” declared Mr. Kensey.
“ Mr. Kirke doesn’t know——” began Miss Bulwer.
“ He knows now,” said Mr. Kensey. “ He’ll hear enough about your stomach in the next few days to last him a lifetime.”
“ You will all tell poor Mistaire Kirke about your troubles,” said Madame Futrelle. “ So many troubles you ’ave! It is verree sad.”
“ We aren’t all as lucky as you,” said Mrs. Hall.
“ Lucky! ” cried Madame Futrelle. “ I work ’ard and I use the brain the good God ’as given to me. That is not lucky.”
“ I’d change places with you any day,” declared Mrs. Hall. “ The worry I have running this ’ouse! The price of food! Only yesterday I was asked sixpence for an ounce of carraway seeds done up in a fancy packet! Sixpence! Well of course I said, ‘ No thanks, you can keep it.’ ”
“ That’s good news,” declared Mr. Kensey. “ If it means we don’t have any more seed-cake it’s the best news I’ve heard for a long time.”
“ I never eat seed-cake——” began Miss Bulwer.
“ Why don’t we have fruit-cake? ” asked Mr. Owen in his sing-song voice. “ In my home there was always a big juicy fruit-cake. My mother used to make one every week.”
“ Fruit-cake! ” exclaimed Mrs. Hall with withering scorn. “ I could make a ‘ big juicy fruit-cake ’ if I ’ad the fruit to do it with. Where’s the fruit, Mr. Owen? There isn’t none in the shops nor ’asn’t been for months.”
“ I always say there’s nothing nicer than a plain sponge,” declared Miss Bulwer.
“ Plain sponges are useful for the bath,” said Madame Futrelle. “ To eat, they are not so good … when they are made by Mrs. ’All. One must beat the eggs and beat and beat, that is the secret. I ’ave not tasted a good cake in this countree. In Paree it is so different; the cakes light as a feather and prettee to look at with coloured sugar on the top and cream inside.”
“ Eggs, sugar, cream! ” cried Mrs. Hall. “ What about the rations—that’s all I ask! What about the rations? If you ’ad to stand in a queue to get a bit of meat for dinner perhaps you wouldn’t be so particular.”
“ They always talk about food,” said Miss Collingham with a little sigh. “ Even if they begin to talk about other things they always come round to food. It’s so greedy, Mr. Kirke. Don’t you think so? I never notice what I eat—I’m funny like that—I just like simple things. Sometimes Ned and I go to a little restaurant and have supper together and then go to a picture. Perhaps you’d like to come with us one evening.”
“ Yes, I should like to,” I said.
After supper I went up to my room and began to unpack. I felt homesick and miserable—I felt like a lost dog. My room did little to cheer me; it was a dreary apartment with shabby furniture, and the carpet on the floor was so dirty and threadbare that all vestige of pattern had disappeared. The wallpaper was striped yellow and brown; the curtains had once been yellow but were now a dingy fawn; the mirror over the dressing-table was spotted with damp. The bed itself looked uninviting and when I examined it I discovered that not only was it hard and lumpy with a deep hollow in the middle but it had a curious musty smell. The only pleasant thing in the room was a fixed basin with hot and cold water laid on; it looked quite new and I remembered that Mrs. Hall had mentioned it in her letter and was charging me extra for it—and I remembered Father’s joke. Somehow the joke did not seem so funny to-night; I was in no mood for jokes.
My experiences in the army had accustomed me to rough living but not to dirt, and as I looked round my new quarters I decided that I would willingly change them for a barrack-room with a scrubbed wooden floor—and my fellow-boarders seemed a good deal less agreeable than my comrades-in-arms.
Presently there was a knock on the door and Ned Mottram looked in.
“ How are you getting on? ” he asked. “ This is a ghastly hole, isn’t it? ”
“ Yes,” I said. “ It seems—rather grim.”
He sat down on the bed and looked round. “ Pretty ghastly,” he said. “ This room has been empty for months—Old Hall was lucky to let it—I don’t suppose you’d have taken it if you’d seen it.”
“ I thought somebody had just left.”
“ Oh, she’d tell you that of course. Old Hall is a prize liar … but you’ve got a fixed basin which is something. I wish I had. There’s only one bathroom and everyone wants it at the same moment. Old Kensey usually gets in first and takes half an hour to shave, or if he doesn’t make it in time the Bulwer bags it—and then you’re properly sunk. Futrelle doesn’t wash, of course.” He sighed and added, “ The food is the worst.”
“ I thought the supper was quite good, except for the soup.”
He laughed. “ That’s because you’re new. There’s always a decent supper laid on when a new victim arrives. To-morrow we’ll go back to greasy sausages and sludgy cabbage.”
Ned lighted a cigarette. He stuck it in the corner of his mouth and it dangled from his lip as he talked. Somehow this appendage completed the picture of misery and wretchedness presented by my new acquaintance.
“ Why do you stay if it’s so uncomfortable? ” I asked.
“ Oh well—it’s difficult to find a decent room—and this place is cheap—and there’s Beryl, of course. Beryl can’t leave because she owes about four week’s board to Old Hall, and I can’t leave because of Beryl. She’s a peach, isn’t she? ”
“ Yes, she’s very pretty.”
“ She’s a peach. It’s a shame she can’t get a break, isn’t it? If only she could! It’s jealousy, that’s all. You’ve no idea what a lot of jealousy there is on the stage. They do all they can to keep girls like Beryl from getting a chance because they’re afraid of them.”
“ You mean other actresses? ”
“ Yes, of course. You see Beryl’s got talent; she’d make a tremendous hit if she got the chance, so they take damn’ good care to keep her out. Sickening, isn’t it? ”
“ Yes.”
“ What do you think of the inmates? ”
“ The inmates? ”
“ Bulwer and Kensey and co. They’re frightful, aren’t they? Beryl and I call them the inmates. Futrelle is the worst, she’s poisonous, but the others aren’t much better. Take old Kensey, for instance, he makes me sick. He’s got plenty of money but he never spends a penny except on himself; he wouldn’t lend his best friend half a crown—that’s Kensey for you! Bulwer is a dried up old maid, always grousing and grumbling about something … just wait till you’ve been here a week! ”
“ Yes,” I said.
“ Of course I’m out all day. I’m only here for breakfast and supper, otherwise I couldn’t stick it. I have a snack at a place in the city near the showrooms. I suppose you’ll do that too.”
“ Yes.”
“ I told you I sold cars, didn’t I? ”
“ Yes, it sounds interesting.”
“ It’s all right if you can sell them,” said Ned lugubriously. “ Business has been bad lately—flat as a pancake—and as a matter of fact I’ve had the most rotten luck. People are so extraordinary; they say they want a Rolls and you show them the car and take them for runs and waste hours dancing attendance on them and then they sheer off and you never see them again. There was one old dame—you’ll never believe this—who kept me on the hop for days swithering between a Jaguar and a Bentley and then went to another showroom and bought a second-hand Morris …”
Ned had a monotonous voice and he went on talking. He talked and talked and he made everything sound hopeless and depressing. I had felt miserable enough before, but when at last I managed to get rid of him I felt absolutely wretched. I finished my unpacking and then pulled back the heavy curtains. I expected to see the lights of London, pinpoints of light from lamp-posts which lined the streets and chinks of lights from the windows of neigh
bouring houses, but there was nothing to see at all. I might have been looking into a cupboard. The mystery puzzled me but was resolved in the morning. My window looked out on to a blank wall. The wall towered up some thirty feet from my window; it was of dingy brick and there was no break in it except for an iron ventilator. Once upon a time the wall had been painted white, presumably to lighten my room, but the paint had nearly all flaked off and what remained was streaky and discoloured with London soot. Even on the sunniest day my room was dim; even on the breeziest day my room was airless.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The work at Mr. Heatley’s office was easier than I had expected and I soon discovered that the qualms I had felt were needless.
Mr. Heatley was small and dark with bright shrewd eyes and a brusque manner. He was not a patient man but he made allowances for my inexperience. “ Mr. Penman will show you the ropes,” he said, looking at me as if he could see right through to my back-bone. “ If you please Mr. Penman you’ll please me. You’ll make mistakes at first of course, but I hope you’ll make as few as possible. That’s all, Kirke.”
“ Yes, sir,” I said meekly.
Mr. Penman was the head clerk, he had been in the office for thirty years and knew his business inside out. He knew my business too, and showed me exactly what was wanted. I found him helpful and kind. The other two clerks were not much older than myself: Wrigson belonged to a motor-cycling club and Ullenwood was a football enthusiast. I had hoped to make friends with them but it was obvious from the very beginning that they had no use for me and resented my intrusion. A third desk had been put into the room where they worked and they found this inconvenient. My advent was inconvenient to them in other ways as well. When Mr. Penman was there they applied themselves industriously but when he was absent they relaxed and chatted about girls and racing and football pools and other things that interested them. It was impossible for me to join in the conversation—even if I had wanted to—because it took me all my time to cope with the work; but what they did or left undone was no business of mine so I shut my eyes and ears and carried on to the best of my ability. Naturally they were annoyed with me. It had been much more pleasant before I came. Before I came they had had the room to themselves.
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