Love Him or Leave Him

by Mary Burchell

  LOVE HIM OR LEAVE HIM

  Mary Burchell

  She found a real link between love and hate.

  Anne Hemming was not the type to hate anyone, but the morning Mr. Jerome angrily fired her she certainly came close.

  For every bad, however, there is a good, and Anne heard of a small inheritance with which she resolved to take a long luxurious holiday in the Lake District.

  Just as well she didn’t know then how that holiday and David Jerome were to change her life.

  CHAPTER ONE

  That the day of the Great Disaster should also be the day of the Unexpected Blessing was, Anne considered, an indication of the direct intervention of Providence. At least, sufficiently so to make her feel justified in not being too terribly abased and depressed by the Great Disaster.

  Had Anne been one of those very modern young women who expect to change their place of employment as often as they change their hair-styles (and, indeed, oftener, in the case of those who cling faithfully to a particular style popularised by one or other of the more famous film stars), it would have seemed absurd to expend even a modest degree of depression over the Great Disaster. But Anne was not very modern. Just reasonably pretty and up-to-date. And, to her, the Great Disaster was just what the words implied.

  It involved neither more nor less than a quite dreadful ‘scene’ with her employer, and her immediate dismissal for rudeness.

  A dismissal which, she admitted to herself—but strictly to herself—was not entirely without justification.

  That is to say, she could not deny the charge of rudeness. Indeed, she remembered some of the things she had said with a sort of horrified pride for days afterwards. But she also insisted to herself that he had invited rudeness, and that she had been justified in accepting the invitation with enthusiasm.

  For something like two years, Anne had worked devotedly and well in the London office of the old-established firm of Jerome & Pennerley, Woollen Manufacturers and Exporters. She earned a good salary, in keeping with her high speeds in shorthand and typing, and each year she had received a rise, as tangible proof that she gave satisfaction.

  On her side, she gave good value for the money she earned. And it was as much a consideration for her own self-respect as for her employers’ interests that she saw to it that, when she drew her salary at the end of each week, she could feel that she had earned every penny of it.

  Most of the time she worked for young Mr. Pennerley—a cheerful, reasonably efficient, good-tempered young man, who was not a hard task-master. But there were occasions when she had to deputise for Miss Robinson, the superefficient secretary of Mr. Jerome, and then she used to contrast her lot thankfully with that of Miss Robinson and tell herself that she knew why Miss Robinson’s hair was grey. (In this, Anne was slightly unrealistic, since the reason for the greyness of Miss Robinson’s hair was—quite simply and without sinister implication—that she was the wrong side of fifty.)

  Mr. Jerome—at least ten years Mr. Pennerley’s senior—was what is known in the office parlance as ‘a perfect pig,’ ‘a devil’ or ‘the end,’ according to the age of the pronouncer. In other words, he was a man of terrifying and uncompromising efficiency and energy, miraculously provided with a secretary of equal efficiency and industry, who had never suffered from normal standards of efficiency and was therefore shockingly intolerant of lesser breeds in the secretarial line.

  As the junior typist had once put it, with quite astonishing brilliance for a junior typist, ‘Miss Robinson had really stood between him and the outside world, and prevented him from ever learning the facts of life—office life, that is’.

  He regarded Miss Robinson as the norm of official existence, instead of—as she herself could have told him, if she had not had much too much tact and discretion to tell him anything of the sort—a phenomenon, not to be repeated in a generation.

  It will be seen immediately, then, by anyone who has ever worked in an office, that when Miss Robinson went on holiday, the lot of her substitute was not a happy one. Sometimes this was mitigated by Mr. Jerome taking his holiday more or less at the same time as Miss Robinson. But, on the occasion of the Great Disaster, this had not happened, and Anne had been detailed to work for Mr. Jerome.

  She was not so panic-stricken as many might have been. Not because she took these matters lightly, but because she had a certain amount of confidence in the standard of her own work.

  Possibly she had just a little too much confidence. Or possibly she was simply a victim of one of those strokes of bad luck which sometimes fall to the lot of even the most conscientious. In any case, in spite of what she believed to be the exercise of great care and reasonable intelligence, she perpetrated a mistake of the kind she had never, never perpetrated under Mr. Pennerley’s more indulgent sway.

  Two years of excellent work for Mr. Pennerley—from which Mr. Jerome had not personally benefited—naturally counted as nothing in Mr. Jerome’s eyes, besides the five minutes of thoughtless work which profoundly inconvenienced him.

  Anne was summoned to the presence. And, since Mr. Jerome was feeling tired and overworked and had just received a foolish and frustrating communication from one of Her Majesty’s Government Departments, he did not scruple to vent a great deal of his sarcastic displeasure on her offending head. Anne was made to feel like a mentally defective and very idle worm who had presumed to insinuate its unwanted self into an otherwise efficient establishment.

  If Mr. Jerome had contented himself with saying that she had caused a great deal of bother and work by a simple act of uncharacteristic carelessness, no one would have been more remorseful or more anxious to make amends than Anne.

  But the two years of good and conscientious work rose up behind her, in glowing and indignant witness of this injustice (only unfortunately Mr. Jerome could not see them), and she felt her temper—in any case, not a conspicuously slow temper—rise with them.

  One can never say just why one’s good manners and self-control and common sense fail one—as fail us all they do occasionally in our lives—but when they fail simultaneously, that is a very dangerous moment.

  Anne waited until Mr. Jerome had finished what he had to say. Then, with her blue eyes flashing in a way that slightly startled Mr. Jerome (though he took a great deal of startling), she quietly took the floor. Until that moment Mr. Jerome had always believed it to be exclusively his floor, but he saw now that he was wrong.

  ‘I am sorry I made the mistake,’ Anne said. ‘I’m not in the habit of making mistakes, as Mr. Pennerley will tell you, if you care to ask him. But only someone intolerant and bad-tempered and quite ridiculously pampered would speak in the way you have spoken. You have no right to imply that I’m habitually careless, and certainly you have no right to suggest that I’m mentally retarded. You have every right to make a reasonable complaint if someone—’

  ‘Kindly stop lecturing me on my rights, Miss Hemming,’ interrupted Mr. Jerome, who had recovered somewhat from his first surprise, and even remembered the offender’s name, in this emergency. ‘I am perfectly aware of my rights, without your listing them. And, if that is all you have to say, please go.’

  ‘It isn’t all I have to say,’ replied Anne, to the almost equal surprise of herself and her employer. ‘I’d like to say that you would get much better and more willing service from people if you didn’t bully and underestimate them. I’m not speaking of Miss Robinson. She’s taken your measure long ago, and happens to be the sort of genius that can keep one step ahead of you. But everyone else fears and dislikes you, and it’s time someone told you so. You’re unkind and arrogant and unreasonable. And my own view is—’’

  ‘Miss Hemming, I am not interested in your own view,’ Mr. Jerome
stated firmly and dryly. ‘Nor, if this is a specimen of your usual behaviour when reprimanded for gross carelessness, do I wish to employ you in my office. This is Friday. Kindly go and see the cashier in half an hour’s time. I will send him down a chit to pay you your salary and an extra month’s salary in lieu of notice.’

  ‘Very well,’ replied Anne, who was trembling a little by now and in a mood which the French call ‘exalte,’ but which is not in the least translatable by the English word ‘exalted.’ ‘But, whether you’re interested in my view or not, I’m going to tell you, before I go, that only a very stupid man would behave the way you do, because, in the long run, you get less work out of people by being a beast. And I don’t doubt that the one thing in life that interests you is how to get more work out of people.’

  On which telling—if largely uninformed—expression of opinion, Anne turned on her heel and marched out of the room, with a horrid sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach which, curiously enough, seemed to be informing her of the fact that, if Mr. Jerome had been rude and stupid, as she had said, she had been very near the same. And small credit to either of them.

  Perhaps if Mr. Pennerley—a born pourer of oil on troubled waters—had been at the office, the situation might, even now, have been patched up. But, like Miss Robinson, Mr. Pennerley was on holiday—basking in the sun on the Riviera, and blissfully unaware of the fact that his senior partner was sacking his reasonably efficient Miss Hemming for him.

  So Anne, to the accompaniment of horrified but admiring gasps and exclamations from her colleagues, gathered her personal belongings together, interviewed the cashier (who said, ‘This is a bad business, Miss Hemming, please sign here,’ and handed her a cheque), and then marched out into the bright May sunshine, feeling defiant, triumphant and rather miserable, all in one.

  It was about half-past eleven in the morning. And, as every office worker knows, there is no more incongruous feeling than to be at liberty at half-past eleven in the morning, when one is not legitimately on holiday. Twelve-thirty—even twelve o’clock—yes. One can suppose that is an early lunch hour. But eleven-thirty! There is something faintly law-breaking about being abroad at such an hour.

  Going home, on a comparatively empty bus, at this hour also seemed incongruous. But, by pretending to herself that it was Saturday, instead of Friday, Anne surmounted the feeling fairly successfully.

  Anne, who had lost both her parents at a rather early age, lived on her own in a small but well-loved flat. And, since she had been an only child, she had to rely for any family life she wanted on an aunt and uncle and a large family of assorted cousins, who were always willing to include her in the elastic confines of their family scheme of things, as and when she wished.

  The flat was very silent. No more silent, of course, really, than when she usually came home to it at six o’clock. But at this moment the silence seemed oppressive and a trifle censorious.

  However, Anne set about getting herself a meal, humming a little defiantly as she did so.

  Presently she noticed that there was a letter in the letterbox and abstracted it, unaware that she was already holding in her hand a powerful antidote to quite a number of the nasty things Mr. Jerome had said that morning.

  As she ate her lunch, flanked by that ‘nice cup of tea’ which makes all disasters seem less disastrous, Anne opened her letter and proceeded to read it.

  It was headed Palmer,/Palmer & Potts, Solicitors, and began:

  ‘Dear Madam,

  (re Elizabeth Stebbings deceased)’

  The letter was short, but very much to the point. It merely stated that if Anne would call at the above office, in connection with the will of the above deceased, she would hear something to her advantage. And, if the literary purist may consider that there were too many ‘aboves’ in the letter, this did not strike Anne, who was much too concerned—as, indeed, we should all have been in like circumstances—with wondering what she was going to hear to her advantage.

  Not that Anne had any foolish visions of unexpected fortunes. Poor old Miss Stebbings could not have had much to leave. But it is always nice to be remembered kindly by those who have gone. And, to tell the truth, at this moment, Anne was rather humbly glad to be remembered kindly by anyone.

  Old Miss Stebbings, who had lived for some years in the flat underneath Anne’s, had died a few months ago. And though, while alive, she had sometimes been both a responsibility and a care, her death had left a genuine gap in Anne’s life.

  She had discovered, two Christmases ago, that the old lady was alone and unable to manage any real Christmas cheer for herself. And, because she was really a very kind girl—though hot-tempered, as Mr. Jerome would have testified—Anne had taken it upon herself to shop and cook for the old lady, and generally provide her with some semblance of a festive season.

  After that, she had usually done Miss Stebbings’ weekly shopping for her, and often stepped in for half an hour’s talk, on one of those long winter evenings that can be so very long and so lonely when one has outlived most of one’s contemporaries.

  Miss Stebbings had not been actually bedridden during most of the two years Anne had known her. But she was feeble and very tired, and to have a bright young thing looking after the general organization of her life, and sometimes giving her some hours of precious company, had meant more than Anne could know. Or probably ever would know during the next fifty years.

  At no time had Anne had the slightest idea of any return for her kindness and care. She merely looked after old Miss Stebbings because she liked her and was sorry for her.

  However, it was only human in her to be touched and gratified to learn that the old lady had remembered her. And remembered her in a way which necessitated a letter from Messrs. Palmer, Palmer & Potts, Solicitors.

  Anne, being methodical, cleared away and washed up, and then, since Friday afternoon stretched before her, luxuriously but a little frighteningly, she decided to go at once to visit the solicitors who had written to her so invitingly.

  Messrs. Palmer, Palmer & Potts occupied dingy and slightly stuffy premises near Victoria Station. And, on sending in her name, Anne was informed that Mr. Richard Palmer would see her. The delicate inflection on the ‘Richard’ conveyed to her that she would be seeing a rather junior and inferior Palmer, who dealt with minor matters.

  However, even the junior Mr. Palmer seemed to be about fifty, and looked at Anne through his bifocal lenses as though he thought her too young to inherit anything.

  ‘Well, Miss Hemming, I have what I hope will be quite pleasant news for you,’ he began cautiously, because long experience had taught him that small legacies could sometimes be regarded as gross insults by people who had expected large legacies, and that one must not, therefore, presuppose gratitude for any legacy. ‘Our late client has made you her sole legatee. But I must hasten to tell you that the estate does not amount to more than a thousand pounds. One thousand and twenty-three, to be precise,’ he added, referring to a note on his blotting-pad.

  ‘I—I never expected such a thing,’ Anne stammered.

  ‘No?’ said Mr. Palmer, whose experience was that most people expected something. Quite often very much more than they had any right to expect. ‘Well, the unexpected is always welcome. In the case of a legacy, I mean.’

  ‘Yes. It was very—very kind of Miss Stebbings to remember me like that. I don’t really know why she should have,’ Anne said, and she meant that quite honestly.

  ‘No?’ said Mr. Palmer again, because he was fond of monosyllables followed by a query mark, feeling that they imparted a restrained but knowledgeable air to one’s conversation. ‘Well, Miss Stebbings was quite explicit about her reasons for leaving you her money. In a letter of instructions, accompanying her will, she said that you showed her a degree of kindness and thoughtfulness which she would not wish to go unmarked.’

  ‘She really said—that?’ Anne, who was warm-hearted, felt the prick of tears at the back of her eyes, and immediately
wished—as all nice girls would have wished in the circumstances—that she had done more for Miss Stebbings while she could, and felt disproportionately remorseful over the few occasions she could remember when she had found her self-imposed task rather irksome. ‘I didn’t do anything much, really,’ she explained earnestly. ‘Just her shopping, and occasionally a little cooking. And I went and talked to her sometimes when I thought she might feel lonely.’

  Mr. Palmer’s bifocal lenses gleamed a little more indulgently.

  ‘Those, Miss Hemming, are perhaps the only things one can do for the old and the lonely,’ he said, in a really very nice and human tone. ‘I am glad that, in your case, spontaneous warmth of heart did not go unrewarded. Miss Stebbings left her furniture and personal effects to a home for indigent gentlewomen. Her annuity died with her, of course. And her savings she left to you. These, as I have said, amount to one thousand and twenty-three pounds, seventy pence.’ He referred to the blotting-pad again, and added, in a shocked tone, ‘I’m sorry! And three pence—yes, three pence,’ as though he deprecated any appearance of having wished to mislead Anne with regard to the amount of her legacy.

  Resisting a frivolous desire to tell Mr. Palmer to keep the change, Anne expressed her thanks. For though, of course, thanks were not strictly due to Messrs. Palmer, Palmer & Potts, she felt she must thank someone.

  ‘If you will leave us particulars of your bankers,’ said Mr. Palmer, as though Anne were a financier on a large scale, ‘we will see that the money is paid over to your account in the course of the next few days.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Anne said again. ‘I feel a bit—responsible about all this.’