by A. J. Cronin
She did try Margotson’s which was, indeed, the second firm which she had in mind. Then she tried the third firm. Finally, she tramped back to the office, her head in the air, a spot of colour still upon her cheeks, feeling somehow disquieted, an unusual despondency within her. A faint thread of doubt ran through her confidence.
Hadn’t she been fortunate in arriving so easily in her present position? She perceived now that circumstances which she had then failed to appreciate had, perhaps, enabled her to fall somewhat easily into this work. But she made an effort, and pulled herself together. It was ridiculous – she was a woman who had proved her worth. Later, at the station, she bought two papers, the News and the Citizen; and, sitting back in her compartment, she went through the advertisement columns carefully, marking with her stylo every vacant situation for which she judged she might reasonably apply. Reasonably! Yes, she made that term elastic, but the situations were, alas, unreasonably few. She saw with a sudden insight that she was not adapted for office work. She could not type; she knew no shorthand. Why, she asked herself almost fiercely, had she never set herself to learn? Nor was she in the strictest sense young: ‘Young lady required.’ No, she was not that. She perceived that, with good fortune, she might serve behind a counter for seven and six a week, or cook the dinners of some undistinguished family for the princely sum of twenty pounds a year – both courses equally unthinkable.
And then there was Miss Hocking. Now she could not keep that thought completely from her mind. She admitted that she was acutely anxious; but she had the whole week-end before her. Surely she could do something, make some effort to withdraw the other from that frightful strangeness which had taken her!
She got out at Ardfillan, and began the ascent of the hill, slowly, because she felt tired. The day unexpectedly had turned warm. A gentle day it was, filled by the subtle languor of an Indian summer, filled by the quiet rustle of the fallen leaves, each leave protesting softly – a melancholy sound, distant somehow, receding like a fading memory.
Half-way up Garsden Street a boy was selling the local weekly paper, and partly because he vaguely reminded her of Peter – absurd idea, but it was her mood – partly because the thought of obtaining that post lay continually before her, she purchased an Advertiser, and as she went on she glanced idly at the sheet. Suddenly she paused – an involuntary pause – her eye taken by a small paragraph, a short paragraph which announced the official engagement of the Reverend Malcolm Adam. So it was authentic, after all – this normal, supremely normal, incident of life which had pricked the glittering bubble of Miss Hocking’s illusion. She folded her papers together, and went into the flat.
‘Well?’ she enquired immediately of Mrs Dickens.
‘She would get up,’ said Mrs Dickens in a tone of self-defence, ‘in spite of what you said. But she’s been sat in the drawing-room all the time with her books.’
‘I see,’ said Lucy. Her curt manner had a repressive effect upon the other, who displayed an obvious desire to discuss the matter intimately.
Having removed her things, Lucy went into the drawing-room. At her entry Miss Hocking looked up impatiently. She was seated at the bureau, which was littered with books; upon the floor around her were strewn more books.
‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’ she exclaimed immediately; she had a studious air, abstracted yet fervent, and as she spoke she ruffled her hair impatiently.
Lucy glanced at the books – mercifully not the Hebrew she had feared, but some works on botany taken from those upper shelves so rarely touched.
‘Why do you disturb me?’ said Pinkie again. ‘Can’t you see I’m trying to find out about myself?’
‘I thought you promised to stay in bed,’ said Lucy mildly, and she came a little farther into the room.
‘Don’t come near me!’ cried Pinkie instantly. ‘A lady always keeps a certain distance. And I don’t know what I am yet. There may be a reason for all that’s been going on. I’m looking for it here.’
Lucy hesitated, her eyes fixed upon that smooth and feverishly absent face before her.
‘Don’t you want any lunch?’ she demanded slowly.
‘No, I don’t,’ declared the other, with unusual conviction. ‘I’ve more important things to think of. If I don’t find out in time for church tomorrow, I shall have to compromise. Non-committally! A kilt I’d have to wear. Yes, I’m determined. At least, that comes in between the two.’
‘I see,’ said Lucy.
She turned, and went slowly out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind her. At last the fact struck in on her with a crushing certainty. She knew she was dealing with a woman utterly insane. She was profoundly disturbed. What was she to do? As she took her lunch, not tasting the food, she considered broodingly what step she must take. It was painful, both unbelievable and painful, to think that Pinkie, who had for years cherished her silly delusion, like a child its plaything, should now, in losing it, lose also all that had been reasonable in her life.
Paradoxically, that delusion had kept her on the borderland of sanity; but, now that the delusion was assailed, she supported it with other delusions which removed her utterly beyond the pale of reason. Now indeed she was blundering about the labyrinth of sex like a huge, lost animal.
When she had finished, Lucy pushed back her chair and rose abruptly from the table. The more she thought of it the more the thought galled her. She gazed out of the window. Again her mood swung round, and she thought, almost passionately: ‘She must – oh! she must come out of it. It’s a phase, a passing instability. I’ll get her out of it in time.’ And she reassured herself by her own desire. Moreover, to invoke outside assistance seemed an exposure of her companion’s weakness amounting almost to betrayal. With a sudden resolution she decided again to wait. Yes, she would wait for at least today; this afternoon she would leave Pinkie alone; solitude and quietude might resolve the enigma to its original simplicity.
When the table was cleared, she took her papers and her stylo, and composed herself to answer the advertisements which she had marked when returning in the train. Always slow in her composition, she was today slower, weighing her words carefully, choosing those phrases which most adequately expressed her fitness for each position. Into each letter she put a laboured intensity, yet between times her concentration dissolved, and, with head raised and pen suspended, she listened for some signs of activity within the drawing-room. Once she heard the door open and shut; but beyond that there was nothing.
Her letters finished, sealed, and stamped, she straightened her bent back and regarded them. Neatly stacked, they made an imposing little pile, out of which she drew some comfort: by Tuesday at the latest, she told herself, she would have the replies.
‘You’ll post these when you go, Mrs Dickens?’ she remarked, as the daily woman entered the room.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Mrs Dickens; she had all the afternoon been in and out of the sitting-room, hovering about the table, darting surreptitious glances at Lucy’s bowed figure; now, seizing her opportunity, she definitely demanded: ‘And if it’s not asking too much, what are you going to do – about Miss Hocking?’
Lucy looked up at her. ‘We’ll wait for a bit,’ she replied, with an assumption of confidence. ‘I expect this – this little attack will pass off.’
‘Do you not think her friends should be let know?’ persisted the other. ‘She’s got a brother somewhere – cleaning up I’ve seen the letters he writes, off and on – laying on the bureau odd times –’ She excused herself – ‘ You couldn’t help notice them.’
Lucy’s expression became rather colder; clearly Dick had exceeded, and was now again exceeding, the responsibilities of her position.
‘I think you must leave it to me,’ she affirmed, with an air of closing the matter. ‘ I shall do what’s best.’
‘But don’t you think –’ insisted Mrs Dickens. She broke off self-consciously; paused, and added lamely: ‘I’d be frightened to stop on all night alone with her –
like and all as she is. It would make me grue. Truth to tell, I wouldn’t do it for a ransom.’
‘I’m not frightened, Mrs Dickens,’ said Lucy briskly. ‘Rest assured of that.’
She picked up the letters, said suggestively: ‘You can post these on your way home.’.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ murmured Dick, and, wiping her large red hand upon her apron, an action of courtesy rather than of necessity, she accepted the letters deferentially. ‘Good night, then, ma’am.’ She paused. ‘The tea’s set on the tray.’
‘Good night.’
Mrs Dickens went out, and in a few moments the outer door closed behind her. At the sound Lucy got up. She was pleased, almost reassured by the ease of her moral victory over the daily woman. In her heart she had never actively approved of Mrs Dickens.
And now, going briskly into the kitchen, she infused the tea. It seemed to her that actually she had not tried sufficiently to remove Miss Hocking from her present wretched state, and in a sense she reproached herself for that indifference. ‘I’ll get her out of it,’ she said to herself – not for the first time – ‘yes, if I’ve to shake her for it.’
In this mood she carried the tea-tray to the drawing-room. After all, Pinkie had been kind to her!
‘Time for tea,’ she remarked determinedly from the doorway, ‘and you’re going to have some, whether you like it or not.’
‘But I do like it. Who said I didn’t like tea?’ exclaimed Miss Hocking at once. ‘Tea from spicy breezes blow!’ She had abandoned her books, and was now sprawling in an easy chair, opening and shutting her umbrella, which she had fetched from the hall, with an air of impulsive playfulness.
‘Come along, then,’ said Lucy, putting down the tray and beginning to pour out; she ignored the umbrella as long as she could, but at last, holding out the cup, she was constrained to say: ‘ Put that down for a moment, won’t you?’
‘I like doing it,’ returned the other immediately. ‘That’s why I’ve left the books. I can’t make it out yet. This is better. It eases me!’
She went on with her opening and shutting, but at length, catching sight of the cup, which Lucy still steadily proffered, she suddenly flung the expanded umbrella from her and as impulsively took the steaming tea and gulped it.
‘This is fine!’ she exclaimed, after a moment. ‘But I want to secure love, that’s what I want.’
‘Some cake, now?’ said Lucy firmly.
‘Cake! I can’t be sure about cake. It may be too sweet. It comes under the category.’
‘This is really quite nice,’ went on Lucy determinedly. ‘ It came in fresh today from Allen’s.’ Allen’s! Suddenly she was confronted by the memory of her first luncheon with Miss Hocking, so distant now in time, so different from this present travesty of a meal. Her eye glistened, and she exclaimed affectionately, spontaneously: ‘Come, now, try a piece.’ She held out the plate. The slice of cake became suddenly a symbol – its acceptance victory; its refusal defeat. ‘Come!’ she coaxed, as to a child. ‘Take a piece to please me, Pinkie. You know how fond of you I am.’
But Miss Hocking waved the plate away.
‘Do I attract women as well as men, then?’ she exclaimed, crossing her powerful legs. ‘That seems to be the question!’
Lucy put the plate down sharply, indignantly.
‘Let me have your nightdress to sleep in,’ remarked the other largely. ‘Then I shall know for certain.’
‘For the last time,’ said Lucy, ‘I ask you to stop talking like that.’
But Miss Hocking met her imploring eye with an empty stare.
‘I know it is dubious, but if God performs a miracle I shall be all right. There is one question which I must know. So tell me truly. If I went upon the streets, how much would I be paid?’
Lucy gave a short, despairing exclamation that was half a sob. It was utterly hopeless. She must have assistance.
‘Don’t laugh!’ cried Miss Hocking, with an instant change of manner. ‘Don’t laugh, I tell you!’ Her tone was sullen; suddenly leaning forward, she struck Lucy a light blow upon the cheek.
For a moment the two women stared at each other; then Miss Hocking broke into a high, derisive laugh.
‘You little fool!’ she exclaimed contemptuously. ‘Don’t you know I’m your superior in everything?’
The colour in Lucy’s’ face deepened; she got up without a word and, taking up the tea-tray, went out of the room. Indignation rather than defeat throbbed within her. Stiffly she stood in the kitchen, seeing nothing; that this woman – this senseless creature for whom she had been doing her utmost – should have struck her! That was the final straw. Now, indeed, she must do something. For another moment she stood with a colour still heightened, thinking; then, taking her decision, she went into her bedroom and rapidly put on her hat and coat.
‘Where are you?’ shouted Miss Hocking from the other room. ‘What are you doing?’
Lucy made no reply.
‘Come here!’ bawled the other once more. She seemed excited, restless, lunging powerfully about the room. ‘ I want you here immediately.’
In answer, Lucy tightened her lips; she went quickly into the hall, and reached the front door.
‘I want you! I want you!’ came that excited voice again, and in a moment Miss Hocking herself appeared at the other end of the hall, filling the doorway of the dining-room with her bulk. ‘ How dare you refuse to come when I call you!’
‘I’m going out,’ said Lucy shortly. ‘I’ll be back soon.’ And, before the other could reply, she slipped the key from the lock, opened the door, and went out of the house. She shut the door behind her with a nervous violence; stood for an instant considering; then walked off swiftly.
Outside, the darkness was already falling, and a high wind swayed the opposite trees into fantastic shapes. With head bent down against the breeze, Lucy hastened along the road, heedless of the moaning trees, the wind’s resistance merely sharpening her purpose.
In five minutes she had reached the gate of Dr Hudson’s house: he was the nearest to the Crescent. As she hastened up the short gravelled drive and pulled at the bell, she had a sudden distressing thought of what Miss Hocking might be doing in her absence: a sudden premonition of disaster.
Suddenly she had become impatient; the thought of her original delay angered her; and from the maid who opened the door she demanded immediately to see the doctor. He was in, though engaged upon a consultation, yet, at her request, conveyed urgently by the maid, he interrupted this, and came at once into the waiting-room.
She knew Hudson – upon one occasion she had called him in to Peter – a slight, middle-aged man, his manner restrained, polished to a high degree. And in his person he was polished too: his small pointed iron-grey beard pomaded, his neat feet encased in varnished boots, his hair worn rather long, groomed to a glossy curl, his linen glistening, immaculate. About him was an evasive delicacy, and, gliding in, he advanced towards her. She wasted no words: looking at him directly, she said: ‘Miss Hocking – the lady I live with – I want you to come and see her at once. She seems strange.’
‘Strange!’ he repeated, and looked at her queerly. ‘ I know her – has she not always been strange? You ought to know. Haven’t you lived some years together?’
Her wind-stung cheeks flushed easily; she saw in that one glance a questioning, an odd suspicion, cast upon her for her association with Miss Hocking – cast indirectly and unjustly upon these last five years of her life.
‘There was nothing but a little peculiarity,’ she declared, accepting his challenge. ‘But now – it’s different.’
‘How different?’
She told him, giving the salient points of the last few days. Whilst she spoke, his eyes roamed the room. She did not fully comprehend the reason of his manner, but she saw clearly that it was inimical to her.
‘You never know where you are with these people,’ he said at length, ‘ and from what you tell me it looks as though this so-called peculiarity has
become something remarkably like –’ He paused significantly.
‘What?’ she exclaimed, watching him intently.
‘Mania,’ he replied coolly, as though he uttered a term of reproach against her; ‘acute mania.’
Although in effect she had been aware of what the condition must be, she was shocked by his words and the coldness of his manner. For years she had been living with a woman on the brink of insanity. And it was as though he suspected her of something, she knew not what.
‘You’ll come, then?’ she demanded, anxiously.
‘I’ll come,’ he said briefly. ‘Wait here till I’ve finished next door – then we’ll go up together.’
‘Oh, no, no!’ she exclaimed, pressing her hands together. ‘ I’m afraid for her. I couldn’t leave her alone any longer.’
‘I advise you to wait,’ he returned guardedly. ‘You never can tell.’
But already she had the vision of some disaster occurring in her absence – some disaster for which she would hold herself responsible. She shook her head, moved to the door, anxious, ill at ease.
‘I’ll go up now,’ she declared hurriedly. ‘Come as soon as you can.’
His expression did not change. ‘As you wish,’ he remarked evenly.
She went out of the house and into the cold, windy dusk with a little rush, and at the same pace she hastily took her way down the hill. If she had entertained a doubt before, the encounter with Hudson had completely dispelled it. As if she could have dreamed of waiting, now that she fully understood the gravity of the situation! All the kindness which she had received from the other woman rose up before her, and she was swept by a gush of feeling which wiped out instantly the rankling memory of that recent blow, and filled her with a quick compassion.