“Do—do you mind coming with me? It’ll look so funny, else. It’s barely an hour since I put it in.”
“Certainly I’ll come with you. Cer-tain-ly. I’ll make it all right with the bank. We’ll leave a bit in. Then you can carry on the account for yourself.”
“But I—it’s——”
“Your wages, Bagshawe, my boy. Got to get your wages, haven’t you?”
“Yes, but—I mean, I’ve only just come. Aren’t they paid at the end of the week?”
Caunter looked at him hard, then grinned, and took his arm.
“You’ve a lot to learn, I see. Come along first to the bank. I’ll explain to them. Leave it all to me.”
The clerk stared as the two came in, and Georgie held back, ashamed to meet his eye. But Caunter took charge, explaining with a smile that his friend, who was new to the business, had made a natural mistake and banked the petty cash.
“I’ll leave a nominal deposit, to keep the account open: say four pounds. So sorry to give you this trouble.”
“Not at all.”
The clerk, his face betraying no feeling of any kind, pushed over the paper for Georgie’s signature.
“Mr Bagshawe will probably be making further payments on his own.”
“Very good.”
“Thank you very much. Good afternoon.”
The breeze felt positively cold on Georgie’s face as they regained the open air.
“Well,” Caunter told him, “that’ll see you all right for a bit, anyhow.”
“But, Mr Caunter, I don’t understand. I’m only to get twelve shillings a week. And——”
“Look.” Caunter stopped, and waited till a passer-by was out of earshot. “There’s no question of anything a week, for any of us. Most of us are owed our wages for months past. Yes. The place has gone bust. Now do you see?”
“Gone bust?”
“The only way for any of us to get our money is to sell off the stock for what it’ll fetch, before—well—while we can.”
Georgie stood squarely, looking at him. He had to swallow twice before words would come.
“But—aren’t there other branches? Isn’t this only one of Mr Burngullow’s shops?”
“Yes.”
“Are they all—gone bust?”
“No.” Caunter started walking again. “Each one is run separately, with a separate manager, but they’re all under the same ownership. It’s too complicated to explain now: and, in some ways, the less you know about it the better. I can’t think why on earth Hooper let you come.”
“He didn’t answer for quite a time. Mr Entiknapp wrote to Mr Burngullow. Then——”
“Entiknapp?”
“The Warden of the Orphanage. Then, after Mr Entiknapp had written a second time, there was a reply from Mr Hooper.”
“I see. He didn’t want to let on that anything was wrong. The boss—Mr Burngullow—he’s ill. Been ill for months.” Caunter once more took Georgie’s arm, and gave it a friendly shake. “Don’t let it worry you, old boy. Just carry on, check all that comes in, and hand it over to me at the end of every day. I’ll take full responsibility.”
They were outside the door. Georgie stopped.
“Mr Caunter. Just one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“What happens when all the stock is sold?”
“The dear God knows. There’s quite a lot still. We don’t keep it all in the shop, you know. There’s a lot in the warehouse.” He motioned Georgie in, but Georgie waited politely for his senior. Caunter shrugged and went ahead.
“Not a word of this inside, mind,” he said over his shoulder. Georgie nodded, and went back to his desk more bewildered than ever. What sort of a world was this at all? What security, what hope was there in it, when it ran contrary to everything he had been taught? What sort of a job had Mr Entiknapp put him to?
Seven or eight customers in the next hour helped to keep these worries in the background, but Georgie was deeply disturbed. Caunter, who passed two or three times through the shop and served two good-looking young women customers himself, may well have noticed his signs of confusion, or else wanted to give him a treat: for just after three o’clock he came across to the cage.
“Can you drive a trap?”
“I? I——Yes, I think so.”
Some of the Orphanage washing was done by a small half-private laundry, and Georgie, with other senior boys, used often to be allowed to drive the ancient dog-cart that transported it.
“This one’s no trouble, if you can get the brute to go at all. It’s to Liskeard. He knows the way. There’s six dozen shirts here. Take ‘em to Underwoods, the outfitters, and get the best price you can. Ask to see old Ma Underwood. She may take a fancy to you. She’s sick of the sight of the rest of us.” He paused. “Care to have a go?”
Georgie’s mind made itself up for him.
“Yes. I must just run upstairs a minute.”
“Good. I’ll look after this till you come back.”
Suddenly possessed by a clear intention, Georgie ran up the stairs and along the landing to his bedroom. His bag was under the bed. He dragged it out, and from a mass of paper took out three fat sugar sticks, part of the extra large gift pressed into his hands by Aunt Butters in celebration of his departure to his job. These he shoved deep in his trouser pocket, put on his hat, and ran downstairs again to Caunter.
“This way.”
Caunter led him out to the back, where a dejected and recalcitrant looking horse of uncertain age stood harnessed to a queer, wide, two-wheeled vehicle like two-thirds of a large barrel. Two iron steps at the back gave access to it; there was no door, and a curved seat with a cushion ran round either side.
At their approach, the horse put his ears back. His sparse tail twitched: he kicked sullenly at the ground.
“I’ll get Harry to bring out the shirts.”
Georgie watched till Caunter was out of sight, then pulled out a sugar stick, broke off a piece, and shoved it in front of the horse’s nose. The astounded animal, whose ears had gone flat to his head, looked at it for a moment, then pushed out his wrinkled rubbery hairy lips and began to crunch.
“Good boy. Good boy.”
Georgie firmly patted his neck, then stood back, as the adenoidal boy came staggering out, half hidden under a load of shirts. It took him three journeys to fetch them all. Then Georgie climbed up into his barrel, which tilted dottily under his weight, then drunkenly regained its balance, the shafts coming down with a soft thud on the harness. Harry took the reins, and led the horse out of the yard into the street.
“Down that way. About of five mile. ‘Tith thignpothted up. You won’t mith it.”
Georgie thanked him, nodded, and shook the reins.
“Good boy,” he said encouragingly. Nothing happened. He shook them again. Uttering a queer honking noise of exhortation, Harry fetched the horse a smack on its bony rump. It started forward with a jerk, almost overbalancing Georgie, who regained control to find himself wobbling briskly down the village street.
For a hundred yards or so the trot continued. Then the aggrieved animal slowed to a sullen walk. Georgie got him clear of the village, then pulled up, and gave him another bite of sugar stick, adding caresses and endearments. The horse received these suspiciously, but, when a further morsel was produced, decided to tolerate them.
A third dose a mile further on, and a fourth after another mile and a half, brought about a visible change in the horse’s behaviour. His ears hardly went back at all when Georgie touched his neck, and in the intervals he shambled reasonably well. No one could call his manner warm, but it was no longer inimical. He was ceasing to resent the expedition.
With each mile, Georgie’s spirits rose. Here at last something was going as he wished. Here was an animal which reacted in the right way. Clovis, the Orphanage pony, was a gentle, amiable beast, at odds with nobody; but he had a special love for Georgie, who was able to reward him with titbits the other boys could not command. T
his Burngullow animal looked as if he hated the whole race of man, yet he was unable to resist the right approach; and he, Georgie Bagshawe, had won the creature over. With a sudden swelling of the heart, Georgie uplifted his voice and sang, causing the horse to start in protest.
He was almost sorry when a cluster of houses announced Liskeard, and his heart sank for a moment as he remembered his mission. How on earth would he get a proper price for the shirts? He’d no experience; he didn’t know the first thing about them. But, to his amazement, the buoyant mood returned. Why not? What did it matter? The others had been getting poor prices for their goods. He could only do his best.
Underwood’s was easy to find. Georgie pulled up outside the long old-fashioned heavy front, and hitched the reins round a stone post. The horse turned his head expectantly.
“Good boy. You shall have one then. Good boy.”
That was a good sign: the horse asked for his reward. That was a good omen. Georgie broke off another piece and gave it to him. There was only one whole stick left now for the return journey, but, if this creature was anything like Clovis, he would need little inducement on the way home.
Giving the horse a pat, and repeating his catchword, “Good boy,” Georgie went to the back of the vehicle and reached for a packet of shirts. They seemed to be of two qualities: he decided to take a sample of each. As he approached the door, his eye was caught by a display of shirts low down on the right hand side. Noting the price, and making a quick calculation, he went in.
The shop was long and dark: smaller, he decided, than Burngullow’s, and even more old-fashioned. It had overhead wires for carrying bills and money to the cash desk. Two girls were lurking behind a counter. Georgie went up to them, and asked in his most confident voice if he might see Mrs Underwood.
The girls looked dubiously at each other, but Georgie, smiling at them, followed up his request with the name Burngullow. One said she would go and find out. The other, keeping well behind a wide brass-edged counter, stared at Georgie with the frank, unselfconscious curiosity of a small child. He tried his best smile, but it had no effect. Then, with eyes accustomed to the gloom, he saw the girl’s face. She had a broad nose, so strongly pointed upward that even from a distance one could see inside both her nostrils: the most unreticent nose Georgie had ever seen. He began to stare back, not at her, but at her nose, almost losing sight of her as a person in the horrified attraction of his eyes to those asymmetrical caverns: so that it was a real shock when the face around them changed its shape, and foolishly, stickily, the wide mouth smiled.
Georgie had forgotten his own original smile, forgotten even that this was a person with whom he had tried to make contact, so that her smile did not seem to be a reply to his own, but something new and unforeseen, which he had to meet and deal with as best he could. How he would have done so, and what he would have said, was never disclosed: for at this moment the first girl came back and said, “This way, please.”
Master of himself again, Georgie gave the nose a friendly smile, and was ushered into a small narrow office, little more than a cubby-hole. The light from a window directly opposite shone straight into his eyes, dazzling him after the gloom of the shop, so that for the first second he saw hardly anything at all.
“Well, boy?”
The fat wheezy voice made him jump. Peering below the window, he had the sudden impression that the cubby-hole was full of fat woman. A pale, suety face, its skin sagging in folds, floated like an oblong moon above a positive landslide of black silk, which seemed to collapse in terraces down to Georgie’s feet. On top of the head incongruously sat a small lace cap, its edges weighted with beads; and, from the neck to the lowest point of the shapeless bodice, which came well down over the vast slope of the belly, a row of huge black silk-covered buttons stood out, grimly fulfilling their task of keeping the huge frame within some sort of boundary.
It took Georgie three or four seconds to focus his eyes and take in this much. Then he forced himself to smile engagingly at the long, cheese-white face.
“Mrs Underwood?”
The apparition clicked its tongue. “O’ course. Who else d’ee reckon to see, boy?”
She pronounced it “bye”, in the Devon fashion, and Georgie’s courage rose. He decided the question did not need an answer.
“I’m from Burngullow’s. Mr Caunter told me to call.”
“Knew better than call hisself, the know-naught. What be you doin’ in that place?”
The tone of her voice implied that it ranked somewhere below a cess-pit. Georgie kept up his smile.
“I’m the new book-keeper.”
“Book-keeper? Rubbidge, boy, You’m hardly five minutes out o’ school.”
“Not very much longer, ma’am. I left the day before yesterday.”
“What sort o’ school learned ‘ee book-keepin?”
“An Orphanage.”
The smile left Georgie’s face. He looked at her soberly. Her eyes were small, half hidden under pitted lids that looked as if she had had smallpox. He had been wondering at the back of his mind what was so extraordinary about her huge pendent face, and now he saw that the nose was sharp and thin. It stuck out from among the loose pale folds of flesh as unexpectedly as a splinter of wood from putty. Only a small blob at its end made any concession to the rest of the face, or pretence of belonging to it.
There was a pause after Georgie’s answer. Then Mrs Underwood shifted her bulk in the chair, and spoke in a voice which to Georgie’s ears sounded a little kinder, even though the words were still contemptuous.
“Well, boy. What ole rubbidge have ‘ee got there?”
“Shirts, Mrs. Underwood.”
“Drat the boy, I bain’t blind. I didn’t reckon ‘twas petticoats. What sort o’ shirts?”
“I think you’d better see for yourself, Mrs Underwood.” Georgie handed them over.
“I was goin’ to, never fear.”
She took the first shirt, and fingered it disparagingly.
Georgie cleared his throat. “They’re in two qualities,” he murmured, and was at once mortified by an unexpected squeak in his voice.
“Come ‘ere to learn me me business, have ‘ee, boy?”
Georgie was horrified. “I’m very sorry, Mrs Underwood. Here’s the other kind.”
To his astonishment, the old woman gave a sudden chuckle.
“’Ow many, boy?”
“Four dozen of the first, and two dozen of the second.”
“Huh.” She handed both back. “Thrippence each the lot.”
Georgie’s hands were shaking, but he managed a smile.
“I’m afraid that’s out of the question, Mrs Underwood.”
“Out o’ the question, out o’ the question? Did they learn ‘ee to talk like that at the Orphanage? You talks like a parish magazine.”
Georgie still kept his smile.
“I mean, it isn’t enough.”
“Why don’t ‘ee say so, then.” She sat for a couple of seconds, her eyes hidden between the slitted lids. Then she shot out “Threepence-ap’nny.”
Letting his smile fade, Georgie sadly shook his head, and began to slip the shirts back into their wrapping. Appalled at its daring, he heard his voice squeak and growl.
“I know I’ve only just left school, Mrs Underwood, but I wouldn’t have accepted that price even when I went there first.”
The great head jerked and went still. For all her bulk, the old woman had something birdlike in the way she looked and listened.
“You’m a saucy young toad,” she observed, but Georgie somehow felt that she was not angry.
“I’m very sorry, Mrs Underwood,” he said. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful. But we are talking business.”
There was a quick flash from under the pendulous eyelids.
“Wat on earth d’ee expect me to pay, boy? D’ee know what the menfolk are like hereabouts? None of ‘em won’t pay no more’n a shillin’ for a shirt.”
Georgie’s heart g
ave a little leap. Once again his voice began amazingly on a squeak, but the meaning of the sentence came out firm.
“That must be very disappointing for you, Mrs Underwood. Especially when you’ve got that line in the window at one and sixpence.”
The flash of the eyes sharpened to a glare. Then they closed, and the whole bulk began to heave and shake. Georgie started in consternation, until he realized that she was laughing. The silent heavy shaking lasted so long that she had to grope for a handkerchief and dab her eyes.
“You’ll do, boy. You’ll do. They ought to have had ‘ee there a year agone. Well. Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give ‘ee eightpence for the two dozen, and fourpence for t’other. Eh?”
“Wouldn’t it be simpler to say sixpence each the lot? You’ll easily get a shilling.”
“Tell ‘ee what it is, boy. You’m a rascal. You don’t have no pity for a poor old widda woman. Don’t ‘ee know what the Good Book says?”
“Yes, Mrs Underwood. It says something about orphans too.”
“Saucy toad.” Mrs Underwood shook again, well pleased. “Go on—bring yer old rubbidge in, before I comes to me senses again and has ‘ee put out.”
His heart singing, Georgie went through the shop. One of the assistants was serving a customer. He gave the girl with the nose a beaming smile, and, reaching the trap, at once found it necessary to pacify the horse, who concluded it was now time to go home, and started scrabbling his hoofs and pulling at the reins. A lump of sugar stick occupied him for the moment, and Georgie, his arms full, steered his way back, craning his head round the pile.
“Don’t bring ‘em in yere, boy. Where’s your sense?”
“I thought you’d want to check how many there were, Mrs. Underwood.
The fat chuckle sounded again. “I’ll ‘ave to take yer word. Shove ‘em on the counter, there. Gladys!”
The sudden screech made Georgie jump. The girl with the nose came at a speed which showed the awe in which the old woman was regarded.
“Yes’m?”
“Take these ‘ere and put ‘em by. Us’ll put ‘em in the window Monday.”
“Verygood’m.”
“Now, boy. Come in yere.”
“They’re not all out yet, Mrs Underwood. I’ll just fetch the rest.”
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