"Don't try to talk," the doctor said.
"And cart-horses, at that," Sybil whispered, defiantly trying to make a joke.
Two days later George told Louise that she would have to go. He needed her room for his sister, who was coming to help him while Sybil was in the hospital.
The hotel was a miserable place now, with nobody caring to smile or raise his voice, nor daring to ask George how Sybil was when he returned, dour-faced, from his visits to the hospital. Louise, however, had to say: "I don't think I can go just yet, George. It's not very convenient. Couldn't I move up to the little room I had before?"
"I'm shutting all the rooms on the third floor. No sense giving the staff extra work."
"But surely there's a room somewhere "
"There are rooms for those who can pay our terms," George said tersely.
"I can't. You know I can't!" Louise left him before he could humiliate her further. She went in despair to Miss Garnham's room, ignoring the rebuffing sound of die typewriter.
When she learned what George had done, Miss Garnham stood up at once, her eyes full of pity. "That devil/' she said.
"He can't do that to you the minute Sybil's back is turned. Tm going to talk to him/' She kicked off her slippers and put on a pair of shoes.
"No, please/' Louise said, "don't do that. You'll only make him worse/' Miss Garnham was already out of the door. Louise followed her along the passage and down the stairs, vainly pleading for her to come back.
Miss Garnham, looking very unlike her usual mild self, marched into George's office, and said direcdy: "Look here, you can't turn Mrs. Bickford out. It isn't fair/'
"What's that to you?" George went on adding up figures in his ledger, his heavy shoulders rounded, and the back of his neck as thick as a tree trunk.
"I like her, and I won't sit by and see her treated like this. How can you be so beastly, with your wife ill and everyone upset?" Miss Garnham had hardly spoken a word to George since she came to the hotel, but she was not afraid of him.
George swiveled round in his chair and looked coldly at Miss Garnham standing foursquare, with her fists clenched, and Louise hovering apprehensively in the doorway.
"This is my hotel," he said, "and I'm running it. Sybil must do as she likes when she's here, but she's not here now, and I'm not going to have the place cluttered up with people who can't pay their way."
Louise had never told Ruth Garnham that Sybil allowed her to 'stay for very little. She was painfully mortified. "Please, George," she begged. "Don't let's say any more about it. I'll go, if you really want me to. Til go as soon as I can make other arrangements. It will only take a few days. I don't want to be a nuisance/'
"You are a nuisance." George turned round to the desk, and gave them the back of his head again. "I didn't say go in a few days. My sister's coming today. You'll have to hurry with your packing if you're going to catch the afternoon boat/*
"Now look here, Mr. Vernon." Miss Garnham strode closer on her small feet. "That's too much. You can't turn her out all
in a moment like that. Why, it will be evening before she gets to London. Where do you think she's going to go?"
"That's her affair/' George grunted. "Now please go away, both of you. IVe got a lot of work to do/'
"Come on, Ruth/' Louise took Miss Garnham by the arm. "Come away. Please don't say any more. I'll go and pack. I don't mind. I'll be all right. As a matter of fact/' she raised her voice for George s benefit, "I shall be thankful to get away. I don't think I could stand this place without Sybil/'
George's solid back gave no sign that he had heard.
Goldie waved Louise mournfully away from the doorstep, as if she were seeing off a funeral. The gardener drove her to Ryde in the station wagon. He was by nature an uncommunicative man, but his silence during the drive made Louise think that he knew she had been turned out in disgrace* She felt like a maid caught thieving, turned out into the snow without notice.
Miss Garnham had sworn that she would leave, too, but she had gone back to her typewriter when Louise went to pack, and Louise thought she would forget about going. In a few days' time everyone would have forgotten about Louise and ceased to wonder what had happened to her.
What was going to happen to her? She did not know yet. There had been no time to telephone any of her daughters from the hotel. When she reached Waterloo, Louise was tired and hungry from the turmoil of her parting, and the wretched journey in the slow train. She wanted to sit down somewhere with a cup of coffee, but she must know where she was going first, and get over the awkwardness of having to ask one of her daughters to take her in. She had never had to ask them before. They had always invited her, or at least it had been tacitly arranged among them who was going to have her next. What would they say when they heard of her plight? They would surely understand that it was not her fault. How silly, she thought in the telephone booth, to be nervous of talking to
Miriam. Her hands were shaking a little as she dialed the operator.
The telephone rang a long time before anyone answered it. 'Who is that?" Louise asked, not recognizing the voice. "Oh, Mrs. Match. Hullo, it's Mrs. Bickford. I didn't expect to hear your voice. Is there a dinner party or something?"
"No, madam. Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick are away for the week end. Didn't you know"? I've come to clean round a bit. You wouldn't have caught me now, only I thought I'd work late and get the kitchen finished."
"Oh. I see. What about the children?"
"They're staying with Mrs. Matthew, at the Priory. Quite excited about it, they were. I should have thought they'd have told you."
"No," Louise said bleakly. "They didn't. Well, thank you, Mrs. Match. I'm sorry to have bothered you. No, it's all right No message. It was nothing."
Louise hung up the receiver, found some pennies, and dialed Eva's number. There was no answer. She tried again, in case she had a wrong connection. There was still no answer. Eva was probably out to dinner, unless she was at the B.B.C. There was no knowing what time she would get home. If she were out with David, she might not be back until one or two o'clock, if, Louise thought unwillingly, she came home at all.
She went to the bookstall to get some change, and came back to the booth to telephone Anne. After some discussion between operators in London and Bedford, it was revealed that Anne's number was out of order.
It was now nearly nine o'clock and Louise was alone in London without any money. She stood in the booth, looking at her distraught face in the little mirror, trying to arrange her thoughts calmly, while a man who was waiting to use the telephone pressed his nose against the glass outside, trying to provoke her into hurrying.
Louise came out and stood by her luggage on the platform,
looking into her handbag. Miss Gamham had lent her money for the train fare, but after making the telephone calls, she now had only six shillings in her purse. Her small monthly draft from the bank had been held up by the holiday.
Where could she go? Who would help her? She began to panic a little. Her legs felt weak, and she sat down on her largest suitcase, abandoned and miserable, like a child who has got lost on a church outing.
She thought of her few friends in London. She did not know any of them well enough to arrive on their doorstep in extremis. Then she thought of Gordon Disher. Could she run to him and ask foi help? He had been so queer when she left the last time, but perhaps he had not been feeling well. He was her only hope. He would understand. He always did. She would have to tell him the whole story of her shame and distress, and he would know what she ought to do. But whatever would he think of her turning up at this hour? No, I can t, Louise thought, and went back into the telephone booth, as the impatient man came out.
There was still no answer to Eva's telephone. Louise called Broadcasting House. No, said the cultured voice at the reception desk, Miss Eva Bickford was not there tonight. Louise put her luggage in the cloakroom, since she could not spare the money to take it with her in a taxi, and went down into the Unde
rground to get a train for Fulham.
The front door of the ugly, narrow house was not latched. Louise pushed it open and toiled up the four flights of stairs. She stood outside his door for a moment, rehearsing what she was going to say.
She knocked timidly. There was no answer. Could he be asleep already? He might have gone to bed early, since he was not strong. She knocked again a little louder, wondering what he would look like, shuffling to the door in his dressing gown and slippers, and whether he would be embarrassed for her to find him thus.
There was still no answer. He was not there. Once before,
when she went to him in her distress about Eva, he had not been available. Now he had unknowingly let her down again. That did not seem right. Louise had always thought of him as so dependable, the kind of person who was always there when you needed him.
She went slowly down the stairs, feeling hopeless and unwanted. The hotel she had left only this afternoon seemed hundreds of miles away, a remote, unobtainable world. She thought of Miriam's house, with the fire lit in the drawing room, and the children chattering over their supper in the kitchen. She thought of Eva's flat, and Eva in strange, gay clothes, humming about the kitchen while she threw a casual sandwich together. She thought of Anne's kitchen, with the dogs stretched out on the red tiles, so that you had to step over them to get to the cupboards or the door. Funny, Louise thought, pausing on the ground floor with her hand on the banister, how you invariably thought of kitchens when you pictured comfort and security.
A door along the passage behind the stairs opened, and a head in a hair-net looked out.
"Looking for someone, dear?" asked the owner of the head, a tiny, neat woman, with a face like a mouse. Louise remembered Mrs. Dill on the ground floor back, who was so kind about the sugar biscuits. "God bless her. She always obliges/' Mr. Disher had said. Mrs. Dill was friendly with him, and might know where he was.
"Come Inside, my dear/' Mrs. Dill said, when Louise asked her. "You're the lady that comes to take tea with Mr. Disher sometimes, aren't you? Don't you know what's happened?"
"No—what?" Louise asked apprehensively, standing in Mrs, Dill's tiny, cluttered sitting-room, where Mr. Dill, in his socks, nodded heedlessly in a leather chair among the photographs and potted plants.
"Taken to the hospital," said Mrs. Dill, sucking in her lips. "Poor soul What do they call it? A coma, that's it. Mrs. Fagg found him so Christmas Eve, when she went up to get his rent.
No one but Mrs. Fagg would collect rents Christmas Eve, but there it was, and it was a good thing she did, as it turned out."
"Christmas Eve?" Louise said. "But I was here to tea that day. He seemed all right."
"Ah, no doubt he was— at the time" Mrs. Dill said meaningly. "But later, I dare say he got to thinking about it being the festive season and him having no one to share it with. I had asked him down to share our Christmas dinner, but he said he wouldn't impose. Always the gentleman, Mr. Disher was/'
"Was?" Louise cried. "You don't mean—he's not—dead, or anything?"
Mrs. Dill shook her head. "Deserves to be, Mrs. Fagg says, knowing as he did that he should never touch a drop in his condition."
"But I don't understand. He never drinks anything."
"Well, he did that night, that's all I know. They found the bottle. And it affected him, you see, being the sugar, and that. Out like a light, Mrs. Fagg said he was."
"Have you a telephone?" Louise asked. "I'd like to ring the hospital and find out how he is."
"We don't," Mrs. Dill said, "but there's a box on the comer. Worried about him, aren't you, dear? You look quite upset. Well, I'm not surprised. He was a lovely gentleman."
At the hospital, all they would say was that Mr. Disher was 'fairly comfortable/ No, he was not allowed visitors yet.
Louise tried to puzzle it out. Had he taken a drink that night because of whatever it was she had said that had offended him? Whatever it was, it could not have upset him all that much. He was too sensible, and had lived too long with his complaint, to take a foolish chance like that, unless he was half crazy with unhappiness. It must have been, as Mrs. Dill said, because it was Christmas, and he was so lonely.
Oh, poor Mr. Disher! Her heart bled for him lying there in the hospital, with probably no one to visit him, even if they were allowed to. The people in the shop would not care. They made jokes about him. He had told her that the first day
they met. She would send him some flowers, as soon as she got some money. She would write to him. She would help him, if she could. She was sure that he would have helped her tonight if he had been there.
But he was not there, and she still had nowhere to go. She rang Eva's flat again, but there was no answer. Through the window of the telephone box, she saw a policeman move into the light of a street lamp, and out into the shadows again. In desperation, Louise opened the door and ran after him.
"Excuse me," she said, and he stopped, and turned slowly round to look at her. He was a young policeman, with red hair and a square jaw. "I need help/' Louise blurted out. "I have nowhere to go and no money, and I don't know what to do/' She kept her eyes on the ground, because she was ashamed.
The policeman was not as surprised as she had expected him to be. "You'd better let me take you along to the station," he said calmly.
"Oh, no!" Louise looked up in fright. Did they lock up elderly ladies who were found wandering in the streets with nowhere to spend the night? "I just wanted you to advise me. I thought perhaps there were hostels, or something like that, where one could get a bed for a few shillings."
"There are," the policeman said, "but not for people like you. Better come along with me," he put his hand under her elbow, "and we'll see if we can't find someone of your family to come and fetch you."
Louise pulled away from him. "You think I'm drunk, or insane, 01 something, don't you? Well, I'm not. I'm just in a fix." She told him of her unsuccessful attempts to contact her daughters. "I won't go to the police station," she concluded. "I wish Td never spoken to you."
The policeman was not offended. His square young face was serious in thought. "This daughter of yours that has the flat in Kensington," he said. "If it's a block of flats, there's a night porter there, surely. Wouldn't he have a master key and let you in to your daughter's place, if he knows you?"
"He knows me all right, unless it's a new porter. How clever you are. That's the obvious thing to do. I can't think why I didn't think of it straight away, but I was so flustered. I'll be quite all right now. I can't thank you enough."
"Ill come along to the flats with you," the policeman said.
"You needn't. I'm not an impostor/'
"I didn't think you were." The policeman smiled. "I just thought you needed company."
"That's kind of you, but please don't. I wouldn't like the porter to see me arriving in custody."
"Ah, I dare say. Well, I'll say good night then/' The policeman nodded at her and moved off steadily along the deserted street.
It was a blissful relief to go into Eva's warm flat and to take her things off in the familiar safety of her own little back room. How foolish I've been, Louise thought. I could have saved myself all that worry. Wait till I tell Eva that I almost got as far as spending the night in a doss-house. She'll laugh, but we'll have to keep it from Miriam. She went into the kitchen to make herself some coffee and see if she could find something to eat.
It had been raining heavily for the last hour. When Eva came in at midnight, she was very wet. "Oh, darling!" Louise cried, running into the hall to greet her. "How silly of you to go out without a coat and liat You're drenched." Then she saw Eva's face under the soaked wisps of her short hair. "Why, whatever's the matter?"
"Nothing." Eva shrugged her off, and went into the sitting room to get a cigarette. "What are you doing here, Mother?"
Louise told her, trying to make a good story of it, to cover up the unpleasant memory of what had happened at the hotel, and the absurdity of her panic when she
arrived in London. She did not tell her about going to see Mr. Disher.
Eva appeared to be only half listening. She did not even smile when Louise told her about the policeman and the doss-house. 'Wasn't I a goose?" Louise said, "not to think of getting
the porter to let me in? I kept ringing your fiat, but there was no answer. Where have you been?"
'Walking/' Eva humped her shoulders and stared at the floor.
"In this weather? You must be crazy. Who were you with?"
"Nobody. I went out by myself. I wanted air!*
"Darling." Louise came to sit beside her. "Something is thje matter, and you must tell me. Please don't put on that shut-in face. I won't say anything silly. I won't say a wordy if you don't want me to, but if you'll only just tell me, FE try and understand."
Eva looked at her. Her eyes, fringed with wet lashes^ were enormous. Her face was beautiful in its sadness. "Well—I lost the part," she said heavily.
"You mean, the play is not coming off?" Louise forgot that she had promised not to speak. "I wouldn't worry about that. They've postponed it so often before. They'll "
"No, no, it isn't that," Eva said patiently. "The play's going to open all right, but I'm not. They've chucked me out, don't you understand? Given the part to that cow Myrna Laurie. They said it was because I was too young for it, but I know it isn't that at all. I was exactly right. But Myrna sleeps with the right people. I don't."
"Well, my darling, you mustn't mind too much." Louise tried to ignore the last remark. "I know you'd set your heart on this play, and I think it's a dirty trick to put you out of it, but there'll be other chances for you, plenty of them. You're so clever and attractive, you'll get something much better."
"I'm going away," Eva said. "I'm joining a small rep company up in the north. It's a dud one, but I must get away."
Louise was going to protest, when Eva's face suddenly seemed to crumple, its still melancholy breaking down into unashamed despair. "Mother!" she cried out, like a child fighting a nightmare, "Mother, I have to tell you. It isn't only the play. I don't even care much about that now, now that—now
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