Miss Smale walked along, humming to herself, taking no notice of Georgie. As she reached the fallen bonnet, she stooped, picked it up, and tossed it carelessly back on top of the pile.
Whether she did this from intuition or by chance, she was just in time. A cart drew up outside with a clatter and an angry cry of “Whoa”, and a woman of gipsy aspect came into the shop. At the sight of her, the first customer since his arrival, Georgie leaned forward instinctively and felt a smile enliven his stiff lips.
The woman stopped short, gave an aggressive twitch to her shawl, and made for the pile of bonnets. Without setting down her basket, she picked them up one by one in her free hand, fingering each as if its texture were a matter of importance. Most of them she tossed back on the pile, but, every now and then, she put one aside, until she had made a small separate pile of her own.
Then, still without relinquishing her basket, she collected the bonnets by their strings, and bore them away, like so many dangling scalps, to a mirror in an alcove. Setting them down on a chair, she picked up one, held it in front of her face, bent down, and butted her head into it.
The action was so forcible, and the movements of her hand as she adjusted the bonnet were so vigorous, that Georgie trembled for the fabric. Her black hair looked so greasy, too, that the bonnet must be the worse for even so brief a wear.
He glanced from the woman to Miss Smale. Miss Smale was watching too, but making no attempt to help or advise. She had not even come forward to greet the woman. She just stood in the background, looking on.
Then, with an abrupt movement, this unpredictable customer ducked her head once more, jerked the bonnet off by its ribbon, picked up the rest of the clutch untried, and advanced to the counter. Miss Smale walked forward and took her place behind it.
“These ‘ere,” the woman said, in a gruff voice like a man’s. Miss Smale made some reply, in so low a tone that Georgie could not hear. With a short, harsh sound, like a contemptuous cough, the woman turned away. Still without raising her voice, Miss Smale spoke again. The woman checked, lifting her head like a horse. Then, abruptly, she fetched out a leather purse from some recess in the neighbourhood of her bosom, and counted the coins out, on the counter, still with one hand. She did not look at Miss Smale, only at the coins. As soon as they were out, she closed the purse with her thumb, shoved it back beneath her shawl, and departed, the bonnets trailing in a cluster from her strong brown hand.
Miss Smale perfunctorily straightened the bonnets that were left, before coming over to Georgie with the money.
“Here you are. Three and six.”
“But—she took six bonnets.” Georgie’s astonishment sounded in his voice. “Isn’t that—I mean, aren’t they very cheap?”
Miss Smale shrugged.
“Proper antiques. Look at ‘em. Been in the place three years. And they was old-fashioned when they come.”
She tittupped off, her shoes clicking on the hard floor, leaving Georgie to enter the purchase in his neat copperplate. Despite his perplexity, he felt better. Even this meagre transaction seemed to have livened the shop up. Miss Smale was moved to pay a visit to the mirror and adjust her hair. When she walked back to the counter, she was carrying herself straighter: she looked less apathetic.
Seven more customers came in before noon, and, though they made small purchases only, Georgie’s ledger began to look as if there might one day be some faint reason for his presence in the shop. The entries recorded a grand total of eleven and sevenpence halfpenny, and tallied exactly, as he could declare on oath, with the contents of the till. Yet the position could not be called satisfactory, even in Georgie’s inexperienced view. A child could have done the work. All that had been required was to receive silver and coppers and enter each sum in a ledger.
Not till just before the shop closed for lunch, at the end of the slowest morning Georgie could remember, did anything happen to make his job seem real. A young man with a very new soft fair moustache came into the shop, smiled weakly at Miss Smale, then blew out his cheeks in a grimace of dismay.
Miss Smale thrust out her lower lip at him.
“Well?” she enquired. “You’ve never brought ‘em back?”
“Oh, I got rid of ‘em. But-” He wiped the back of his neck with his handkerchief, and blew out his cheeks again. “Not very grand, I’m afraid.”
Miss Smale seemed about to say something sharp. Then she glanced at Georgie, who was looking on with a lively interest, and jerked her head towards him sideways: whether to warn the newcomer not to say more, or to direct him to Georgie, was not clear. The latter, probably: for the young man raised his eyebrows and looked round, and nodded. He stood for a couple of seconds, taking stock of Georgie, then walked over to the cage.
“’Morning. My name’s Jenkins.”
“How do you do. I’m Bagshawe.”
The newcomer, Georgie saw, could not be much older than he was. His moustache was less pronounced than Miss Smale’s. Hers was dark, though: Georgie decided they were about equal. Jenkins smiled, and pulled out a wash-leather bag on a string from inside his waistcoat.
“Here you are. Forty-five ready-made suits. Thirty quid.”
Georgie’s expression must have registered surprise, for the young man went on, in an aggrieved tone, as if he were being criticized, “Lucky to get that much. At one time I reckoned I’d have to bring the whole lot back.”
He spoke with a Devon accent which warmed Georgie’s heart to him.
“I’m sure,” he said respectfully: and stared as Jenkins untied the string and tipped out a shining heap of gold. With awestruck fingers Georgie counted the coins—twenty-eight sovereigns and four half sovereigns. He had never seen so many in his life.
Looking up at the young man who had unconcernedly carried this hoard about him, Georgie asked if he wished for a receipt. Jenkins stared.
“Receipt? No call for that. We’ve counted it. It’s your responsibility now. Ta.”
He gave Georgie a friendly nod, and hurried away and up the stairs, whistling out of tune. Almost at once Miss Smale followed him, meditatively picking something from between her teeth. Georgie was alone in the shop, with thirty pounds in gold on the sill in front of him.
The next question that arose in his mind was so elementary, and convicted him of such deep ignorance and inadequacy, that he could not look it in the face. In a foolish effort to postpone thinking about it he began to play with the coins, starting to arrange the sovereigns in piles of five, then, realizing that the division sum would not work, in piles of four. Seven piles of four sovereigns, one pile of four half sovereigns. This ought to be exactly half as high as one of the piles of sovereigns. It seemed a little more. Funny.
He looked at them, his heart pounding, a cold sickness spreading in his stomach. Then, brutally, the question leaped up at him loud as the letters on a hoarding: what was he to do now?
The obvious answer was to put the money in the till, go upstairs, and ask Jenkins or one of the ladies. But, heavens above, this was his responsibility, not theirs. What had Jenkins said? “It’s your responsibility now.” The money was in his keeping: it was his duty to guard it. Here he had been complaining all the morning that there was nothing for him to do. Now that there was, now that his job had really started, he began to jib and quaver and run for help. For shame, Georgie Bagshawe! What would Uncle Eddie say? And Aunt Butters?
The till had no lock. Suppose he put the money in it, and ran upstairs to make himself look a fool by asking people who weren’t responsible what to do. The money would be left unguarded, a thief might slip in—having watched for Jenkins’ return, and knowing that the shop was empty at lunch time—and steal the money. And he, Georgie, would be to blame: would perhaps be arrested, and brought up in court.
“Do you mean to tell us that, knowing the money was entrusted to your charge and that you were employed to take care of it, you actually left it unguarded, in a till without a lock?”
A whole courtroom full o
f shocked incredulous faces looked reproachfully at the coward who had betrayed his trust, disgraced the Orphanage, and brought sorrow on his one relation and his dearest friend.
No, the till was not the place. Where, then …?
Georgie gave a deep sigh, a sigh of blessed relief, for he suddenly saw his way clear before him. What did people always do who kept shops? What did Aunt Butters do? Put the money in the bank. Of course. What else could they do? Why hadn’t he thought of it immediately? What on earth had he been getting in such a state about? I must be mazed, he thought, proper mazed. Why, he had several times banked the day’s takings for his Aunt, and signed the pay slip in her name.
Reassurance, cool and steady, flowed in his veins. He felt years older, steadfast, a man. He even smiled, remembering how the fear of money in the till had become a mania with Aunt Butters, till she became reluctant to keep enough even for small change, to the great inconvenience of her customers. It was understandable, though. A thief had got in once, when she was at the back of the house, and made off with the entire contents of the till. Luckily it was on a slack day, and the amount, fourteen and seven, was not terrible, but the event had confirmed Aunt Butters in her suspicions that the world was becoming a bad and dangerous jungle, that the police were untrustworthy, and that the only safe place for any sum above half a crown was the bank.
With a hand that was not yet steady, Georgie entered the thirty pounds in his ledger, pencilled the morning’s total in the margin, put the entire sum in a piece of brown paper, folded it over, and placed it in his left trouser pocket. There was a bank only half a dozen doors down; he had noted it on his walk the evening before. It was the only one in the main street, and so near at hand that it must be the right one.
He let himself out by the side door he had used last night when the shop was shut, and made his way to the bank, one hand clutching the small but heavy package in his trouser pocket. Short though the distance was, he looked apprehensively at the three or four other people in the street, feeling that if they realized what wealth he was carrying they would combine to rush upon him and seize it. They seemed peaceful enough, and wholly unconcerned, but he was glad when the bank door swung behind him and he was safe inside.
How lucky that he knew the right procedure! With the aplomb of a practised business man to whom such transactions were a commonplace, Georgie filled in the pay slip, signed his name, and took it to the counter.
If the clerk was surprised by the sight of so much money, he did not show it. He checked the coins with a speed which commanded Georgie’s admiration, then looked up.
“What account is this for?”
Georgie stared. No such question had arisen at Aunt Butters’ bank, where Mr Exworthy knew him.
“Have you an account here?”
“N-no. I’m—that is, the money is from Burngullow’s.”
“Oh.” The clerk looked at him, rubbing his chin.
“Don’t they bank here?” Georgie asked. The clerk shook his head.
For a couple of seconds Georgie stood, nonplussed. “I’m in charge of it,” he said blankly. “There’s no safe place in the shop.”
The clerk leaned forward.
“You could pay it in in your own name. Open an account. It’ll be all right then.”
“How do I do that?”
“Easy. I’ll show you. Just fill this up.” He pushed a form at Georgie, who gazed down at it helplessly. “Here. I’ll do it for you.”
Quickly he ascertained from Georgie the necessary details, and wrote them down.
“Now. Just sign here. Once more. There you are. Will you be making withdrawals?”
Georgie shook his head.
“Well, if you want to, all you’ve got to do is come in and ask for a cheque book.”
“I’ll be wanting to come in twice a day, and pay in whatever I’ve got.”
“That’s all right. Always welcome.”
The clerk smiled, and Georgie felt a rush of liking for him. He smiled back, nodded goodbye, and went out. How easily life ran, when goodwill oiled the wheels! As he walked back to the shop, he felt as if he had been a business man for years, a man of great decisions, to whom the banking of thirty pounds eleven shillings and sevenpence halfpenny was an everyday affair.
The feeling persisted as he sat down to lunch. The others were half way through, but the snuffling girl brought him his portion without resentment. It had gone back to be kept hot: a rare consideration, he was told by Miss Smale, who added that he must have made a conquest. Georgie blushed, but not so deeply as he might have done the night before. He was pleased at any sign of recognition from either of the assistants, after their indifference to him downstairs. And, already, he was less vulnerable. He seemed to have come a long way since then.
Something seemed to be missing from the table. By the time he reached his pudding, Georgie remembered what it was.
“What’s happened to Mr Manchester?”
“Lord knows. He went off early, selling.”
“Fat lot of good, sending him,” said Miss Treglown with a sniff. She ate leaning forward, as if she was afraid that the food might drop out, and chewed with a sort of sulky vigour.
“Frank didn’t give him nothing good, only boys’ stuff. And cloth caps. There’s places where they know him.”
“I reckon there must be. Bodmin, and such.”
Miss Treglown snorted appreciatively into her food. Seeing Georgie’s blank look, Miss Smale explained, “’Tis where they put the loonies.”
“Oh.”
Georgie felt it was disloyal to laugh at Mr Manchester, at any rate to this extent. He was not yet used to the idea of laughing at his elders. It seemed wrong, almost irreligious. Besides, the poor man seemed so lost; so unhappy. It wasn’t fair.
The meal finished in silence, apart from a lustreless remark or two exchanged by the women over the advertisements in a magazine they were looking at. As soon as he could, Georgie returned to his post in the shop. There was nothing to do: the doors weren’t open yet. He ruled a double line across his ledger, to separate the morning from the rest of the day, and wondered what new glorious entries would fill the blank space before they closed. If Jenkins brought back thirty pounds, what might not be expected of the accomplished Mr Caunter? And Mr Manchester; even he might be good for four or five pounds, perhaps. But cloth caps! if bonnets only fetched a few pence each, cloth caps would be even cheaper. Would they, though? What were the relative values of cloth and straw? There was a lot to be learned about the business. He must study hard. And how many caps had Mr Manchester taken?
These meditations were broken by sounds of a violent assault on the shop door. As the door was covered by a yellowish blind, Georgie couldn’t see who was outside. Then the adenoidal boy appeared, at a bent-kneed trot, showing as much agitation as his face permitted, and undid the bolt.
The irate voice of Mr Caunter greeted him.
“Why the hell don’t you open the door? It’s past two.”
He pushed his way in, half a dozen suits over one arm, forcing the boy back against the counter. The boy gobbled until speech came.
“I wath jutht a-comin’, Mither Caunter, jutht a-comin’!”
“You’ll be jutht a-goin’ if you don’t wake up. Goin’ out on your aath.”
A sudden grin boiled up from inside the dejected face, and burst like a bubble on the open mouth. The effect was appalling.
“Yeth, Mr Caunter.”
Caunter, his good humour restored, flung the suits down, and winked at Georgie. He slapped his pockets, pulled out a linen envelope, and came to the cage.
“Got rid of all but five. Damn poor price, though. Those sods’d skin their mother.” He tipped open the envelope, and swore as a five shilling piece fell off and rolled across the shop.
“I’ll get it,” Georgie said, and ran to the rescue. He couldn’t have borne to leave it on the floor, even for a few seconds. To him it was the most satisfying of all the coins: big, solid money, wi
th the lovely St George and the Dragon on the back.
“Five pounds eighteen,” Caunter said, as Georgie climbed back into the cage. “It’s all there, but you’d better check it.”
Georgie hadn’t the miraculous quickness of the young man in the bank, but be didn’t take long.
“That’s right,” he said, looking up.
Caunter nodded. “Good. Anything doing here?”
“Not a great deal.”
“You surprise me.” He glanced round the shop. “Jenkins back yet?”
“Yes. He came in about one.”
“How much’d he get?”
“Thirty pounds.”
Caunter made a face. “Should have been more: but—oh well, I’ll take it.” He looked at Georgie. “Hand it over.”
“It’s not here. I put it in the bank.”
Mr Caunter went dead still. The centre of his eyes shrank very small.
“You what?”
“I put it in the bank.”
Mr Caunter looked at Georgie as if he were some unbelievable animal in a zoo.
“Oh my God,” he said quietly. “Oh my dear God. What in heaven’s name made you do that?”
“I thought it was the right thing to do. There’s no lock on the till—look. I couldn’t carry all that money about with me.
Mr Caunter opened his mouth twice before he found the words.
“But man alive—don’t you understand? Don’t you see how things are with us?”
Dumb, Georgie shook his head.
“Where were you brought up? No. Sorry. Cancel that. I didn’t mean it. But——” He rubbed his forehead, pushing his hat to the back of his head. “Which bank? The one next door?”
“Just down the street. Yes.”
“In what name? Burngullow’s?”
“No. In my own. They—the young man said——”
“Whe-ee-ew.” Mr Caunter let out such a great whistling sigh of relief that it fanned Georgie’s face. “That’s better. Coo, young Bagshawe—you didn’t half give me a turn. Well—we’ll have to get it out again, that’s all. Right away.”
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