by Hugh Walpole
Upon this foundation the bargain had been struck, and Millicent, looking back at it, was compelled to admit that it was all rather slender. She had intended to talk to Mary Cass about it at breakfast, to drive her into reassuring her, but discovered, as so many of us have discovered before now, that our nearest and dearest have, and especially at breakfast, their own lives to lead and their own problems to encounter. Mary’s brain was intent upon the dissection of a frog, and although her heart belonged to Millie, medical science had for the moment closed it. Millie therefore left the house in a mood of despondency, very rare indeed with her. She travelled on the top of a succession of omnibuses to Cromwell Road. She had time to spare and it was a lovely spring morning; she liked beyond all things to look down over the side of the omnibus and see all the scattered fragmentary life that went on beneath her. This morning every one was clothed in sun, the buildings shone and all the people seemed to be dressed in bright colours. London could look on such a morning so easy and comfortable and happy-go-lucky, like a little provincial town, in the way that butchers stout and rubicund stood in front of their shops, and the furniture shops flung sofas and chairs, coal-scuttles and bookcases right out into the pavement with a casual, homely air, and flower-shops seemed to invite you to smell their flowers without paying for it, and women walked shopping with their hand-bags carefully clutched, and boys dashed about on bicycles with a free, unrestrained ecstasy, as though they were doing it simply for their amusement. Other cities had surely acquired by now a more official air, but London would be casual, untidy and good-natured to the last trump, thank God!
Millie soon recovered her very best spirits, and was not in the least offended when a seedy young man stared at her from an opposite seat and wetted his lips with his tongue as though he were tasting something very good indeed.
She had, however, to summon all her spirits to her aid when Cromwell Road encompassed her. Rows and rows of houses all the same, wearing the air, with their white steps, their polished door-handles and the ferns in the window, of a middle-aged business man dressed for church on a Sunday morning. They were smug and without personality. They were thinking about nothing but themselves. No. 85 was as smug as the others.
She rang the bell, and soon a small boy dressed in a blue uniform and brass buttons stared at her and appeared to be incapable of understanding a word that she said.
He stared at her with such astonishment that she was able to push past him into the hall before he could prevent her.
“You can’t see Miss ‘Toria,” he was heard at last to say in a hoarse voice. “She don’t see any one before she’s up.”
“I think she’ll see me,” said Millie quietly. “She’s expecting me.”
He continued to stare, and she suggested that he should go and inquire of somebody else. He was away for so long a time that she was able to observe how full the hall was of furniture, and how strangely confused that furniture was. Near the hall-door was a large Jacobean oak chest carved with initials and an old date 1678, and next to this a rickety bamboo table; there were Chippendale chairs and a large brass gong, and beyond these a glass case with stuffed birds. Millie, whose fingers were always itching to arrange things in her own way, could see at once that this might be made into a very jolly house. From the window at the stair-corner came floods of sunlight, she could hear cheerful voices from the kitchen; the house was alive even though it were in a mess. . . .
A tall dark woman in very stiff cap and apron appeared; she “overlooked” Millie scornfully, and then said in a voice aloof and distant that Miss Platt would see Miss Trenchard upstairs.
Millie followed the woman and, receiving the same impression of light and confusion as she went up, reached the third floor and was led into a room on the right of the stairs.
Here the sun was pouring in, and for a moment it was difficult to see, then through the sunlight certain things declared themselves: item an enormous, four-poster bed hung with bright curtains, item a whole row of long becking and bowing looking-glasses, item many open drawers sprayed with garments of every kind, item Miss Victoria Platt rising, like Venus from the sea, out of the billowy foam of scattered underclothing, resplendent in a Japanese kimono and pins falling out of her hair. The tall woman said sharply, “Miss Trenchard, miss,” and withdrew. Miss Platt, red-faced and smiling, her naked arms like crimson rolling-pins, turned towards her.
“Oh, my dear, isn’t it too sweet of you to come so punctually? Never did I need anybody more. I always say I’ll be down by nine-thirty sharp. Mrs. Brockett, I say, you can come into the morning-room at nine-thirty precisely. I shall be there. But I never am, you know. Never. Well, my dear, I am glad to see you. Come and give me a kiss.”
Millie stepped carefully over the underclothing, found herself warmly encircled, two very wet and emphatic kisses implanted on her cheek and then a voice hissing in her ear —
“I do want us to be friends, I do indeed. We shall be, I know.”
There was a little pause because Millie did not know quite what to say. Then Miss Platt made some masculine strides towards a rather faded rocking-chair, swept from it a coat and skirt and pointing to it said:
“There, sit down! I’m sure you must be wanting a rest after your journey.”
“Journey!” said Millie laughing, “I haven’t had a journey! I’ve only come from Baker Street.”
“Why, of course,” said Miss Platt, “it was another girl altogether who was coming from Wiltshire. I didn’t like her, I remember, because she had a slight moustache, which father always told us implied temper.” She stood back and regarded Millie.
“Why, my dear, how pretty you are! Aren’t you the loveliest thing ever? And that little hat! How well you dress!” She sighed, struggling with her corsets. (The kimono was now a dejected heap upon the floor.) “Dress is so easy for some people. It seems to come quite naturally to them. Perhaps my figure’s difficult. I don’t know. It’s certainly simpler for slim people.”
“Oh, do let me help you,” cried Millie, jumping up. She came over to her and in a moment the deed was done.
“Thank you a thousand times,” said Miss Platt. “How kind you are. I have a maid, you know, but she’s going at the end of the week. I simply couldn’t bear her superior manner, and when she went off one Saturday afternoon from my very door in a handsome motor-car that was too much for me. And she wanted to practise on my piano. Servants! You’ll have to help there, my dear. Change them as often as you like, but they must be willing and have some kind of friendly feeling for one. I can’t bear to have people in the house who look as though they’d poison your soup on the first opportunity. Why can’t we all like one another? I’m sure I’m ready enough.”
Millie said: “I suppose it doesn’t do to spoil them too much.”
“You’re right, dear, it doesn’t. But as soon as I speak severely to them they give notice, and I am so tired of registry offices. I just go in and out of them all day. I do hope you’re good with servants.”
“I’ll do my best,” said Millie, smiling bravely, although her heart was already sinking at the sense of her inexperience and ignorance.
“I’m sure you will,” said Miss Platt, who was now arrayed in bright blue. “Method is what this house wants. You look methodical. The very way you put your clothes on shows me that. My sister Ellen has method, but household affairs don’t interest her. She lives in a world of her own. Clarice, my younger sister, has no method at all. She’s the most artistic of us. She paints and sings too delightfully. Are you artistic?”
“No, I’m not,” said Millie. “Not a little bit.”
Miss Platt seemed for a moment disappointed. “I’m sorry for that. I do love the Arts, although I don’t do anything myself. But I do encourage them wherever I can.” Then she brightened again. “It’s much better you shouldn’t be artistic. You’re more likely to have method.”
“I have a brother who writes,” said Millie.
“Now, isn’t that wonderful!”
Miss Platt was delighted. “You must bring him along. I do think I’d rather be able to write than anything. What kind of thing does he write?”
“Well, he’s rather young and of course the war kept him back, but he’s in the middle of a novel and he reviews books for the papers.”
“Why, how splendid!” Miss Platt was ready now to depart. “How clever he must be to write a novel! All those conversations they put in! I’m sure I don’t know where they get it all from. What a gift! Mind you bring him to see me, dear, as soon as ever you can.”
“I will,” said Millie.
“I do love to have literary and artistic people round me. We do have quite delightful musical parties here sometimes. And dances too. Do you dance?”
“I love it,” said Millie.
“That’s splendid. Now come along. We’ll go downstairs and start the morning’s work.”
The drawing-room was just such a place as Millie had expected, a perfect menagerie of odds and ends of furniture and the walls covered with pictures ranging from the most sentimental of Victorian to the most symbolic and puzzling of Cubists. But what a nice room this could be did it contain less! Wide, high windows welcomed the sun and a small room off the larger one could have the most charming privacy and cosiness. But the smaller room was at the moment blocked with a huge roller-top desk and a great white statue of a naked woman holding an apple and peering at it as though she were expecting it to turn into something strange like a baby or a wild fowl at the earliest possible moment. This statue curved in such a way that it seemed to hang above the roller-top desk in an inquiring attitude. It was the chilliest-looking statue Millie had ever seen.
“Yes,” said Miss Platt, seeing that Millicent’s eyes were directed towards this, “that is the work of a very rising young sculptor, an American, Ephraim Block. You’ll see him soon; he often comes to luncheon here. I do love to encourage the newer art, and Mr. Block is one of the very newest.”
“What is the subject?” asked Millie.
“Eve and the Apple,” said Miss Platt. “It was originally intended that there should be a Tree and a Serpent as well, but Mr. Block very wisely saw that very few Art Galleries would be large enough for a tree such as he had designed, so they are to come later when he has some open-air commissions. He is a very agreeable young man; you’ll like him I’m sure. Some of my friends think the statue a little bold, but after all in the service of art we must forget our small pruderies, must we not? Others see a resemblance in Eve to myself, and Mr. Block confessed that he had me a little in mind when he made his design. Poor man, he has a wife and children, and life is a great struggle for him, I’m afraid. These Americans will marry so young. Now this,” she went on, turning to the roller-top desk, “is where I keep my papers, and one of the very first things I want you to do is to get them into something like order.
“They are in a perfect mess at present and I never can find anything when I want it. I thought you might begin on that at once. I have to go out for an hour or two to see a friend off to America. What she’s going to America for I can’t imagine. She’s such a nice woman with two dear little boys, but she had a sudden passion to see Chicago and nothing could keep her. I shall be back by twelve, and if there’s anything you want just ring the bell by the fireplace there and Beppo will attend to you.”
“Beppo?” asked Millie.
“Yes, he’s the page-boy. After dear father died I had a butler, but he got on so badly with Mrs. Brockett that I thought it wiser to have a boy. My sister, Clarice, suggested that he should be called Beppo. He was a little astonished at first because he’s really called Henry, but he’s quite used to it now. Well, good-bye, dear, for the moment. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to me to have you here. It simply makes the whole difference.”
Millie was left alone in her glory.
At first she wandered about the room, looking at the pictures, glancing out of the windows at the bright and flashing colour that flamed on the roofs and turned the chimney-pots into brown and gold and purple, gazed at a huge picture over the marble mantelpiece of three girls, obviously the Miss Platts twenty years ago, modest and giggling under a large green tree, then unrolled the desk. She gave a little gasp of despair at what she saw. The papers were piled mountain-high, and the breeze that come from the rolling back of the desk stirred them like live things and blew many of them on to the floor. How was she ever to do anything with these? Where was she to begin? She gathered them up from the floor, and looking at the first fist-full discovered bills, letters, invitation cards, theatre programmes, advertisements, some of them months old, many of them torn in half, and many more of them, as she quickly discovered, requests for money, food and shelter. She felt an instant’s complete despair, then her innate love of order and tidiness came to her rescue. She felt a real sense of pity and affection for Miss Platt. Of reassurance too, because here obviously was a place where she was needed, where she could be of real assistance and value. She piled them all on to the floor and then started to divide them into sections, invitations in one heap, begging letters into another, advertisements into another.
Strange enough, too, this sudden plunging into the intimacies of a woman whom until an hour ago she had not known at all! Many of the letters were signed with Christian names, but through all there ran an implicit and even touching belief that certainly “Victoria,” “dearest Viccy,” “my darling little Vic,” “dear Miss Platt” would find it possible to “grant this humble request,” “to loan the money for only a few weeks when it should faithfully be repaid,” “to stump up a pound or two — this really the last time of asking.”
Half-an-hour’s investigation among these papers told Millie a great deal about Miss Platt. Soon she was deep in her task. The heavy marble clock in the big room muttered on like an irritable old man who hopes to get what he wants by asking for it over and over again.
She was soon caught into so complete an absorption in her work that she was unaware of her surroundings, only conscious that above her head Venus leered down upon her and that all the strange, even pathetic furniture of the room was accompanying her on her voyage of discovery, as though it wanted her to share in their own kindly, protective sense of their mistress. The clock ticked, the fire crackled, the sun fell in broad sheets of yellow across the hideous carpet of blue and crimson, quenching the fire’s bright flames.
Ghosts rose about her — the ghosts of Victoria Platt’s confused, greedy, self-seeking world. Millie soon began to long to catch some of these pirates by their throats and wring their avaricious necks. How they dared! How they could ask as they did, again and again and again! Ask! nay, demand! She who was of too proud a spirit to ask charity of any human being alive — unless possibly it were Henry, who, poor lamb, was singularly ill-fitted to be a benefactor — seemed, as she read on, to be receiving a revelation of a new world undreamt of before in her young philosophy. Her indignation grew, and at last to relieve her feelings she had to spring up from the desk and pace the room.
Suddenly, as she faced the windows to receive for a moment the warmth and friendliness of the sunlight, the door opened behind her and, turning, she saw a woman enter.
This was some one apparently between thirty and forty years of age, dressed in rather shabby black, plain, with a pale face, black hair brushed severely from a high forehead, cross, discontented eyes and an air of scornful severity.
The two women made a strange, contrast as they faced one another, Millicent with her youth, beauty and happiness, the other scowling, partly at the sudden sunlight, partly at the surprise of finding a stranger there.
“I beg your pardon,” said Millie smiling. “Do you want any one?”
“Do I want any one?” said the other, in a voice half-snarl, half-irony; “that’s good! In one’s own house too!”
“Oh, I beg your pardon!” cried Millie again blushing. “I didn’t know. I’ve only been here an hour. I’m Miss Platt’s new secretary.”
“Oh, you are, are y
ou? Well, I’m Miss Platt’s old sister, and when I said it was my house I made of course the greatest possible mistake, because it isn’t my house and never will be. You can call me a guest or a companion or even a prisoner if you like. Anything that it pleases you.”
This was said with such extreme bitterness that Millie thought that the sooner she returned to her work at the roll-top desk the better.
“You’re Miss Ellen Platt?” she asked.
“I am. And what’s your name?”
“Millicent Trenchard.”
“What on earth have you taken up this kind of work for?”
“Why shouldn’t I?” asked Millie with spirit.
“Well, you’re pretty and you’re young and your clothes don’t look exactly as though you’re hard up. However if you want to be imprisoned before your time there’s no reason why I should prevent you!”
“I want to work!” said Millie, then, laughing, she added: “And there seems to be plenty for me to do here!”
Ellen Platt seemed to be suddenly arrested by her laugh. She stared even more closely than she had done before. “Yes, there’s plenty of work,” she said. “If Victoria will let you do it. If you last out a month here you’ll do well.”
“Why, what’s the matter with it?” asked Millie.
“You can’t be very observant if it isn’t enough for you to cast a glance around this room and tell yourself what’s the matter. But I’ll leave you to make your own discoveries. Six years ago we hadn’t a penny to bless ourselves with and thought ourselves ill-used. Now we have more money than we know what to do with — or at least Victoria has — and we’re worse off than we were before.”
She said those words “Or at least Victoria has” with such concentrated anger and bitterness that Millie turned her head away.