by Ursula Bloom
Maybe Muriel was right, as Mrs. Thorne had been, years ago. He would not be going to his father’s office for ever, he would not be ground down with the heel of the business man, catching the morning train, returning at night, always in bondage. Chance would bring a ship to him, and one day maybe he himself would be dressed in blue and gold and standing on a bridge, with the spume and spray blown about him. Masts, not tree branches, would be above him, a star to steer by, not only a star to look at. One day …
Three
Hugo came to work off Ludgate Hill that September. It was on a morning still fragrant with summer. He did not drive up with his father in the car, because James Blair refused to make any preference for his son. A season ticket was bought, and Hugo came to King’s Cross and made the rest of the way by underground and bus.
He walked up Ludgate Hill full of doubts. A quick tide of men and women were striding citywards, each carrying a small attaché case, and wearing the harassed expression of sheep being driven to market. The sun was shining brightly on the gold of the cross atop St. Paul’s, as he crossed the street and turned in at the alley.
It was quieter here. He saw the sign ‘Blair and Son’ and realised that when he passed this threshold he would be leaving behind him another milestone in his life. Late already, he dared not delay, and went inside.
The publisher’s office was in its usual state of flux, the char not having finished with the waiting-room, and the publicity man and the printer (who had come up specially from Watford) having a set-to in the passage. They were arguing vociferously, the publicity man with an attempt at restraint, the printer with no attempt whatsoever. Hugo went up the crooked stairs, and saw the window which had not been opened for years, and the once green veil of the creeper now dyed as though drenched in vin rosé, and he turned into the cloakroom to leave his hat. The place was very dirty. He washed in a cracked basin, into which the solitary tap gushed noisily; the bowl was already soap-marked and greasy. The towel hanging on the back of the door bore evidence of much use, and was already moist when he took it into his hands.
He went along the landing and into the main office, only too painfully aware that his body was rigid with apprehension, and that he would give much to be back at Dover. Two women secretaries were already at work, and, hovering over a large important-looking desk, Mr. Minch stood sullenly. Mr. Minch was in a fury. Ever since James Blair’s illness he had occupied the small but private ante-room alongside the holy of holies. Mr. Minch had reigned there in majesty, and had ordered the rulings of the office (or so he imagined) therein. Last week James Blair had sent for him, and had directed that he must make way for Hugo to take his place. Not that James Blair intended to make any exception for his son, but this office must be allotted to him.
‘And Son,’ said James Blair in a tone that brooked no argument.
‘Of course, sir, of course. I’ll see to it at once. A memorable day in the firm’s history, if I may say so, sir, a very memorable day.’
James Blair did not notice him, but waved him away, and Ebenezer Minch came out seething with impotent fury. There was nothing that he could do about it, absolutely nothing at all. The desk was moved and the transit of it was like a surgical operation to Ebenezer; it was a wound cut into his living body, and through that wound some vital intestinal part was amputated and torn out.
Naturally the secretaries were quick to notice it. Miss Piper had married and gone, and Miss Irwin had taken her place, dark-haired, sour, and already dimmed by an old maid’s blight. Miss Helstone was still there, her hair lightly dusted with grey, her figure thickened like an old tree trunk, but she felt young and insisted that ‘a girl was as old as she looked’ and never looked too much at herself to verify the truth of this adage.
When she saw Ebenezer’s desk coming into the main office, she said, ‘Oh, look who’s coming back! How are the mighty fallen, how are the proud cast down!’ Only she pronounced it ‘praued’.
Ebenezer heard her.
‘I choose to come here,’ he said impressively. ‘It’s only right that Mr. Hugo should have a separate office, you can’t expect him to mix with us.’
‘Choose, fiddlesticks!’ said Miss Helstone, ‘and I bet you’re mad about it.’
He said nothing. These were the very dregs of the cup from which he was forced to drink.
Into the ante-room a new desk came, light, and smelling of freshly varnished wood; with it was a light oak chair, and a mat to cover the stained floor. This was an added insult; for Mr. Minch there had been no mat, and he knew that James Blair had not considered him to be worth it.
Ebenezer Minch greeted Hugo. ‘A very memorable day,’ he said, and led the way to the ante-room, opening the door.
Hugo felt too young. He knew quite well that everything he did would increase this feeling of youthfulness and inferiority to the detestable Minch. He went to the desk, with its unspotted blotter, the ink fresh in the well, and the almost too bright newness of the pen nib.
‘What do I do first?’ he asked.
‘Mr. Blair said that these orders were to be attended to. If you would read them, and docket them, sir, and then notify the blenders, Stepney 56061.’
‘Yes.’
He took the sheaf of papers and sat down with them, but they meant very little to him. Although recently his father had discussed the office, Hugo had not been able to muster much interest. Here was a notification that a shipment was at the docks giving figures to be quoted to get it out of bond. Here was a notification from a tea plantation that a certain ‘Velvet Tips’ would be ceasing this autumn, as there had been disease. Hugo read the letters thoroughly. Then his father called him in. The old-fashioned comfort of James Blair’s office was becoming a trifle faded; it had reflected the height of late-Victorian-cum-Edwardian opulence, but now in the last few years of George the Fifth’s reign, it was labelled. The furniture was ostentatiously heavy, the turkey carpet over-thick, and tired. Last spring the walls had been re-done with a good paint, but although James Blair had conformed to progress in that he permitted paint instead of paper or wash, he refused to have it in any clear colour, but it was a dun, reminiscent of prep school passages and cloakrooms. It reminded Hugo of St. Winifred’s, and of tea, made over-milky, the true blend hidden by the cloudiness.
James Blair spoke sharply. ‘You’ve seen those papers?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can’t make head or tail of them, I suppose?’
‘They’re a bit bewildering at first. I’ll learn.’
‘You needn’t tell me that. You’ll have to learn in this office. We may have cheated Dartmouth of one more nit-wit Naval Officer, but here we have no room for nit-wits. You’ll have to learn. What replies were you about to make?’
‘I have the letters here. I’ll take your advice.’
James Blair’s lips curled. ‘You’re getting no wet nursing in this office. Ring for Minch. Make Minch help you.’
‘Very well.’
He went back to his own kennel of a room, and he rang for Ebenezer Minch. Together they went through the letters, and Hugo knew that there was a hint of patronage about the older man, and that hostility which he had always felt and which now had become amplified.
Just before lunch, he made an effort to bridge the gap, saying, ‘I’m sorry to have turned you out of your room. We could have been in it together quite easily.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t have presumed, Mr. Hugo.’
‘But you could have helped me very much in the work.’
‘It is good of you to put it that way, sir, but I would not have thought of disturbing you. It is right that employers and employees should be divided, perfectly right.’
Hugo could not say more.
At ten to one he looked in on his father, who had taken his bowler hat out of the cupboard. James Blair turned. ‘What do you want? I’m going to my club. You get your lunch where you can, Hugo.’
‘Where do I go?’
‘That’s your business. I’v
e told you, no wet nurses here, you’ll have to find your own way about,’ and he went out of the office shutting the door sharply.
Hugo would not ask Ebenezer Minch; he got his hat and crossed the outer room where Miss Helstone was left alone in command, typing a long foolscap page in triplicate. Her cellophane cuffs twinkled. Hugo thought that she did not look too bad, and taking a chance, asked, ‘I suppose you don’t know which is the best place for lunch? Being a new boy makes it a bit difficult.’
‘Yes, of course.’ He was glad that she did not dwell on the fact that his father ought to be helping him in this. ‘There’s the Brown Kettle in Ludgate Alley, it’s really a cafe, and more of a woman’s place; you know, baked beans and poached eggs, and that. There’s a Lyons on the Hill, but it is ever such a crush. And the Fuller’s in the yard gets so full. There’s Hill’s across the way, that’s nice, but you can’t lunch there every day.’
‘I’ll try the Lyons,’ he said.
The Lyons was already full to the brim, and a big tide of humanity was surging in at the swing doors. The waitresses’ faces were steamy as they went from table to table, mopping down, and carrying out orders from customer to kitchen. Hugo managed to squeeze himself into a table for four, just vacated by a little shrimp of a man. The waitress swept away the plate and the cup stained with coffee, an ugly flange of milk skin clinging to its sides.
‘Now what is it to be?’ she asked. She was a nice girl, sadly overworked in the rush hours.
Hugo ordered cold ham and salad, a lime juice, and some cabinet pudding to follow. At the table another man pored over a crossword puzzle, folding it into a pad and wedging it on to the marble between his cup and plate. Another man with a long cadaverous face and wispy moustache, in the uncertain years of weary grey suit, attenuated neck and receding hair, clicked a fierce accompaniment with his false teeth. He masticated like a metronome. The other occupant of the table was a young woman, dark, her eyes lit by the fire of youth, showing her awareness of the life in her. She wore a home-knitted cotton jumper, flamboyantly yellow, and too tight. She had an ornate engagement ring, over-crimped hair and a little smart hat crammed on to it. She eyed Hugo appreciatively, she longed for somebody young to talk to, hating the usual crowd with whom she ate. Hugo did not respond; he was afraid.
The waitress brought his lunch and pushed it before him; he thought desperately that this would be the way that he would be obliged to eat for years ahead, unless what Muriel had said came true, and chance helped him. He wasn’t feeling optimistic. Hugo took his bill and went, sick of the champing of the lean man’s false teeth, and the looks from the woman who was lonely, and the smell of steamy vegetables, and meat, and pudding, and hot coffee.
He went out into the street. He need not be back for another quarter of an hour, and he walked into St. Paul’s churchyard, into the sunshine. The thought of returning to the office was irksome to him, because he knew that to-day it had deliberately set the manacle of its chains upon his legs and wrists, and that he would be tied to it for ever, as a chain-gang prisoner is bound in Alcatraz. He wandered, hands in pockets, watching the pigeons strutting like German infantrymen, and the old woman selling food for them in mingy little bags. He went up the steps and into the cathedral itself and did not know why he did it.
A blue gloom hung about its transepts, and laid distant dim glory upon the high altar. He went slowly up the south transept, hands behind his back like a child in class, and he came face to face with a picture which hung there. It was Holman Hunt’s ‘Light of the World’.
He knew now that the picture showed him the very thing that he was seeking, light! Light, by which to illuminate the past, of which he knew so little. Light, by which to move among the shadows of the future, which at this present moment seemed to be so dark. Light, to tell him of that lovely shadow, the woman who had died at his birth, whose infant curl was still finely gold, and whose eyes watched him from a photograph. Surely it could not be for ever that he was condemned to the stagnant tea office, which, even after the first few hours, nauseated him? Not for ever! ‘I am the Light of the world,’ and he saw the dark intelligent eyes of the Man painted there, His features lit by the lantern which He held on high. Maybe that sometime the light would come to Hugo, but not yet.
Then he saw that it was already late and he scrambled back again.
Mr. Minch had got there first. Miss Helstone had just gone out, it was her late lunch hour to-day, and Miss Irwin was back typing hard, her mouth screwed up so that she had a funny little moustache of wrinkles.
Hugo went into his office, and shut the door, sitting down to attend to the pile of papers. They were so much nonsense. The terms for the different teas were confusing, and he had the feeling that Ebenezer Minch knew this, and had deliberately bewildered him. He ought to be able to fog out suitable replies, but his brain was woolly, and in the end he had to call Mr. Minch in for help.
It was a weary afternoon, and his head ached. Once he tried to open the window, to let in the warm September air, more oppressive than at any other time in the year, but the frame had been painted over, and he knew that it would not open any more. He stared out of it, over the small stone balustrade, where a couple of pigeons did a marionette dance, the sunshine cheating them into the belief that it was still spring. The male bird polka-ed in little circles, stuck out his tail coquettishly as a cockney sets his cap on one side before mashing his ‘donah’, and pattered about. The hen feigned a modest indifference. Then, seeing Hugo, they flew away.
He saw their wings against the sky, piebald, palely brown, slate grey like the roofs, and suddenly, standing there, his imagination painted them with a kindly fancy, and he saw no longer the two pigeons against the thundery blue of a September afternoon, but the startlingly white wings of gulls flying above the crow’s nest of some vessel cutting through the sea on His Majesty’s lawful occasions.
September died down into a sharp October with heavy mists, and a silver rim to the lawn, melting to moisture before the day rose. The man with the chestnut cart appeared in Ludgate Hill, his small glowing stove clearly discernible through the November fogs which came later, and the pleasantly hot smell of his chestnuts following Hugo all the way. Now the days were calendared and set for him, with the morning train, the scramble out to lunch, and the office tea, a loathsome meal of moist biscuits in slopped saucers, and finally the train home at night.
Hugo wrote to Muriel that autumn and waited impatiently for an answer, but none came. He was bewildered, because it had been obvious to him that she had liked him. He himself was fond of writing letters, and could not understand that perhaps Muriel had not been made in the same mould. He was feeling sick at heart. He had worked for a month at the office, and any newness there had ever been had worn off. Even the joy of choosing his independent lunches had slipped into monotony, and his body ached for the exercise that he had had at Dover.
At the time he had chafed against it, because he had never been the ‘games sort’, but now, tied fast to his desk, the youth in his bones seemed to become atrophied with a dull pain. He longed to stretch himself, to run, to swim, to play any game that was going. Something for a change. Yet at night, when he returned to Lynton Lodge, he was mentally exhausted, in a way which seemed to paralyse physical effort.
It was now too late in the year to lie out on the warm grass under the walnut tree, for the leaves had thinned into a fine gold amber, and the darkness of twigs and branches was showing through. He was forced to sit indoors with his father, who complained if he talked, and accused him of sulkiness if he were silent. This discord grew, and against it he could do little but fume, and hate the life which had pushed him into this inescapable rut.
Hugo was aware that James Blair was watching him closely in the office, always prepared to pounce on a mistake, which kept the boy in a sweat of suspense. He distrusted his father, though the loyal side of his nature hated the fact that he could feel like this. James Blair’s own nature was warped, and it was not
really his fault, Hugo argued. He might have been a very charming man, the boy thought, if only he had not had trouble, and had allowed it to wither him and consume him and leave only the grey ash of a mind. James Blair must have been very fond of Marguerite, and that love, disrupted by her tragic death, had embittered him. Probably, thought Hugo, it was only natural that James should nurse a grudge against his son, he could forgive it and understand it.
The office was depressing. He liked Miss Helstone, even though her accent was galling, with her ‘trews’ and ‘blews’ and ‘taouns’ and ‘gaoings’, and the dazzle of those cellophane cuffs twinkling as she typed. He liked Miss Irwin, but he loathed Ebenezer, and could never show much sympathy with Albert the office boy, who had a tangled quiff and wore soiled clothes, and a coat that showed that when it was cast aside it slept prone like a dead man, rather than on a hanger.
Hugo hated the long mornings off Ludgate Hill, the noisy restaurant lunches, elbowed and jostled, feeding crammed round a small table with unpleasant people, hurrying out to the stagnant curriculum of the afternoon. Miss Helstone bringing him a cup of tea at four. They subscribed weekly for this, each taking a different day on which to supply cakes. Miss Irwin always brought cream buns from the A.B.C., and they blocked the saucers and became splashed with tea. Hugo never liked to say no to the cream buns, but loathed them nearly as much as the plain biscuits that Ebenezer brought up from Dulwich, Petit Beurre, in a weary paper bag and thrust inside his attaché case. Surely Ebenezer must be the last man left in England still able to produce Petit Beurre biscuits!
Sometimes Miss Helstone would linger a moment, standing by Hugo’s desk, and remarking on the monotony of the work. He learnt that she lived with an aged mother in Sydenham, that her father had died in an accident which mercifully provided Mother with a small pension, otherwise they would have been ‘daown and aout’. He gathered also that Mother complained.