The Black Cabinet

by Patricia Wentworth

  Chloe met the look with a smile.

  “Oh, Mrs. Rowse, you’re going to take me in, aren’t you? I came to you because Nurse used to talk about you such a lot, and I knew I’d be safe here. And—and you will take me in, won’t you?”

  “There isn’t nobody in London that can say that I’m not respectable. I’m a respectable woman and my house is a respectable house, and no one can say different—you’re right enough there.”

  Chloe smiled again; it was the coaxing smile of child.

  “Yes, I know. That’s why I came. You’ll take me, won’t you?”

  Mrs. Rowse folded her arms and stood like a rock. “If you can pay,” she said—“cash down, and a eek in advance.”

  “How much will it be?”

  Mrs. Rowse considered. Chloe’s shoes were old, her hat shabby, her tweed coat by no means new. She pressed her lips together for a moment, then licked them and said, “Fifteen shillings, Miss Dane.”

  From Danesborough to Hatchelbury Road was a long, strange step. On the whole, Chloe preferred Hatchelbury Road. If the physical atmosphere was a trifle heavy with cabbage and gas, the mental atmosphere was a good deal less oppressive.

  Mrs. Rowse disclosed herself as “not a bad old sort.” She was grasping, but she was strictly honest, and she worked very hard. Mr. Rowse as a porter at Victoria. A son of nineteen, the joy and pride of Mrs. Rowse’s heart, was also a porter. The other occupants of the house were the little girl, Maudie Marsh, and her mother, a wispy widow who went out charing and was in some inexplicable manner related to Mr. Rowse’s step-mother, a lady often referred to but never seen.

  Chloe had a little room, and a bed so hard that it would have been a trial to one of the Seven Sleepers. The bed had greyish twill sheets and two very thin, frayed blankets. Chloe slept in it with a sense of safety which Danesborough had not given her. She was ready enough to sleep when night came, for her days were spent walking about all over London looking for work. She went from agency to agency, applied for innumerable situations, and at the end of a week had spent time, money, and energy, all to no purpose. The time and energy did not matter so much, for she had plenty of both; but the money began to matter most dreadfully. Fifteen shillings paid in advance for the first week, and a second fifteen shillings for the week to come;—that was thirty shillings gone from her two pound ten, without reckoning food and fares. The fifteen shillings included breakfast, but there were other meals. Naturally she walked as much as she could; but walking made you so desperately hungry, and she had only one pair of shoes. The question of how much shoe leather a penny bus fare might be expected to save occupied her a good deal. Then there was the question of the suit-cases which she had left in the cloak-room at Victoria. Those horrible letters—what was she to do about them? Useless to bring them to Hatchelbury Road, where she had no means of destroying them. Chloe blanched at what Mrs. Rowse would say if she asked permission to burn several hundred letters in the kitchen fire. On the other hand, were they safe at Victoria?

  She sought counsel of Mr. Rowse, a burly, kindly soul, and enquired anxiously whether a box would, in any circumstances, be given up to anyone who could not produce the receipt for it. Mr. Rowse was comfortably definite on the subject; his considered opinion was, “Not much, it wouldn’t; but you’ll have a deal to pay if you leave it there long.”

  Chloe decided to leave the cases where they were. She also decided to stop thinking about them.

  A thick curtain seemed to have come down between her and all the world that she had known before. She tried not to look behind the curtain, because Martin Fossetter was there, and the day that she had driven with him from Danesborough. She could not always help looking back. All that day Martin had made love to her, not in words, but with every look and every inflection of his voice. All day Chloe had trembled on the edge of response. When she reached this point in her thoughts, there came up from the very bottom of her heart a most fervent “Thank God I didn’t care.” She had so nearly cared, so very nearly; and he had lied to her.

  Emily Wroughton’s words came back. “Oh, Miss Dane, can’t you understand that they’re all in it together?” Was that the explanation? Wroughton, Jennings, Hudson, and Martin, all in it together. No good thinking of it. Drop the curtain and look on to the fifth of February when she would be twenty-one—the fifth of February more than two months off. And her money would last a week with care!

  Chloe tackled Mrs. Rowse.

  “Mrs. Rowse, there must be jobs to be got. I’ve got to have a job, you know. Don’t you know of anything I could do?”

  They were in the kitchen; Mrs. Rowse was mending socks with astonishing rapidity; Chloe was sitting on the edge of the kitchen table swinging her feet.

  “Gracious, how awful my shoes are getting!” she thought, and repeated, “Mrs. Rowse dear, I simply must have a job.”

  “Not many jobs going for a young lady like’ you,” said Mrs. Rowse. “My heart alive! Albert do come heavy on his heels!”

  The sock into which she had rammed her enormous fist certainly showed more fist than heel.

  “Mrs. Rowse dear, I’m not a young lady. It’s a most frightful handicap to be a young lady. I’m just a girl, a poor, plain, ordinary, honest, respectable girl.”—Mrs. Rowse made the sort of snorting sound which is usually written “Umph.”—“Do just glue tight on to that, and tell me what an ordinary, respectable girl can do to earn an honest living.”

  “Gels,” said Mrs. Rowse, “used to go into service—it’s gone out of fashion, but they used to. The point is, what about a character?—excusing me for naming it, Miss Dane.”

  “I know,” said Chloe. “I’ve got a lovely character. But I told you I don’t—I don’t exactly want anyone to know where I am just now; so I can’t very well produce the character, can I?” Mrs. Rowse’s needle went in and out, in and out.

  “Then service isn’t any good. Those that’ll take a gel without a character hasn’t got too much character themselves. A gel’s got to be careful where she goes—especially a pretty one.” She looked severely at Chloe for a moment, and added, “If you was plain, it’ud be a lot easier.”

  “I should hate to be plain,” said Chloe with a beaming smile. “Dear Mrs. Rowse, do think of something. You see if I don’t get a job, I can’t pay you after this week—and I know you’re much too kind-hearted to turn me out into the street.” Mrs. Rowse snorted again.

  “You ought to go back to your friends, you ought,” she said. “I don’t hold with young gels running away and hiding. And what’s the use of your saying you’re not a young lady, when anyone can see the length of Hatchelbury Road in the dark that you are? If you was really a plain, ordinary gel, why I suppose there’s a job you could have to-morrow. But you’re not, and you couldn’t do it.” Chloe slipped off the table.

  “Mrs. Rowse, how frightfully exciting! What is it? Tell me at once! It’s no use saying I couldn’t do it, because I’d do anything.”

  Mrs. Rowse looked up. The heavy creases around her mouth conveyed an impression of amusement touched with scorn; there was class-consciousness in the air.

  “You wouldn’t go out charing,” she said in her heavy, decided voice.

  Chloe stamped.

  “Wouldn’t I just? I should char beautifully.”

  “What?—scrub?” said Mrs. Rowse. “Boiling water and soda in a bucket, and you on your hands and knees with a scrubbing brush?” She gave the short, hoarse laugh which reminded Chloe vaguely of a motor omnibus starting up.

  Chloe gurgled.

  “But I should love it—I really should. What does one get paid for doing it?”

  “Tenpence an hour. You couldn’t do it, I tell you.”

  “You don’t know what I can do. Tell—tell me more at once! Tenpence an hour sounds lovely.”

  Mrs. Rowse hesitated, caught Chloe’s eye, and was lost.

  “Mrs. Ma
rsh is took bad, and can’t go to the lady that she obliges regular three times a week. To-morrow’s one of her days.”

  “Joy!” said Chloe. “I don’t mean about poor Mrs. Marsh. Of course I’m frightfully sorry if she’s ill; but I do so want a job.” She clapped her hands and laughed.

  Mrs. Rowse looked at her with disapproval; her eyes fairly bulged with it.

  “I could lend you a napron,” she said.

  Chloe kissed her.

  Chapter XXVI

  At nine o’clock next morning Chloe rang the bell of Miss Marcia Hayman’s flat, and had it opened to her by the kind of cook who is nearly extinct.

  “Good morning,” said Chloe; and instantly a high, worried voice called from somewhere inside the flat:

  “Mrs. Western, is that Mrs. Marsh? Tell her to be sure not to tilt my mirror like she did last time.”

  Mrs. Western nodded the head with the neatly parted grey hair.

  “We was expecting the charwoman,” she explained.

  Chloe dived at the opening.

  “Yes, I know. But she’s ill—she can’t come. I’ve come instead. I’ve got a note from her.”

  Mrs. Western’s round, rosy face took on a subtle change of expression.

  “Step inside,” she said. Then, taking the note, she left Chloe standing in the hall and disappeared through a half open door on the right.

  Chloe heard voices; Mrs. Western’s and the high, worried one; snatches of words, “In the hall—I’d better see her—hope she won’t break things—so careless”; and on the last word Miss Hayman came out from what was evidently the dining-room. A table-napkin hung down over one arm, and she had the pinched features and the worried look which went with the worried voice.

  “Oh, good-morning,” she said, and blinked at Chloe out of pale blue eyes that had pink rims and sandy lashes. Her bobbed hair, a couple of inches too long, was grey, with sandy streaks in it. “Er good-morning. Are you—er, experienced, and er, very careful? I hope—I mean, things do get broken so dreadfully, and—er, the paint is all quite new.” She paused with a bewildered look, rubbed her pale, thin nose with her forefinger, and without waiting for an answer to any of her questions, half turned and began to call, “Mrs. Western! Mrs. Western!”

  Chloe said firmly, “I’m very careful.”

  But Miss Hayman only rubbed her nose again, and, murmuring “Mrs. Western will show you what to do,” drifted back into the dining-room, dropping the table-napkin as she went.

  Chloe plunged into the mysteries of charing.

  It is a fact that some women really like house work. Chloe discovered herself to be one of them. So nice to see things coming clean; so nice to find confusion, and leave order in its place; so really amusing to polish beautiful furniture until it shone like dark water. It was hard work of course; but Chloe’s youth and strength, which had fretted in idleness, rejoiced at the very hardness.

  There was a half-way break when she and Mrs. Western drank tea and ate bread and cheese in the spotless kitchen. Mrs. Western ate the cheese from the point of a knife; Chloe took it in her fingers. Each had a secret thought on the subject. Chloe’s, “How dangerous. I’ve never seen anyone do it before”; and Mrs. Western’s, “A likely girl; but, lor, what a bringing up, to eat cheese with her fingers!”

  Chloe was very grateful for the cheese, and polished with new zest and efficiency. At one o’clock Mrs. Western paid her half-a-crown, and she put on her coat and hat.

  When she emerged into the hall, she was aware of Miss Hayman at the telephone. As it had been fitted into the angle of the wall between the hall door and the dining-room, it was impossible for Chloe to leave the flat without disturbing a lady who looked as if she would be rather easily disturbed. She drew back into the kitchen therefore, and waited whilst Miss Hayman’s high-pitched voice made every word of her conversation audible.

  “No! Not really?” she was saying with most tearful intensity. “How could she? Oh, my dear Leila, that’s rather strong language. But, of course—yes, yes, my dear, I know—to have your secretary go off at a moment’s notice just because her fiancé—oh, Leila, don’t! Yes, yes, to be sure, all those lists to be checked. Are you sure you can’t put your hand on anyone? No, I’m afraid I don’t—that is—no, no, I don’t know anyone who would take it on at a minute’s notice.”

  Chloe came into the hall with a rush.

  At the other end of the line Mrs. Mostyn Llewellyn was aware of a confused exclamation, after which the line went dead and she said “Damn!” several times with a good deal of emphasis.

  Miss Hayman left the receiver dangling, and blinked aghast at Chloe. A young person, a charwoman, rushing out on one, interrupting! What was the world coming to? Bolshevism—sheer Bolshevism! She blinked at it and rubbed her nose.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Chloe, breathless and ingratiating, “but I couldn’t help hearing what you said. But do you, does anyone want a secretary?”—Miss Hayman gasped—“I couldn’t help hearing—I couldn’t; you, you’ve got such a splendid telephone voice. And I do want a secretary’s job frightfully badly.”

  A secretary’s job—a charwoman! It was really very confusing. Miss Hayman caught Chloe’s smile, and really saw her for the first time.

  “It’s not for myself,” she said. “It’s my friend, Mrs. Mostyn Llewellyn. She’s getting up the big ball for the N.Y.S.Z.K.U.—you must have heard of it—the ball, I mean—the papers full of it—Royalty going and all. And to-day, at the eleventh hour, her secretary—I mean Mrs. Mostyn Llewellyn’s secretary—she’s the Honourable Mrs. Mostyn Llewellyn, you know, and—dear me, where had I got to?”

  “You’d got to the secretary,” said Chloe firmly. “What did she do?”

  “Failed her—failed us at the eleventh hour! I’m so interested in the N.Y.S.Z.K.U., you know. Yes, she’s failed us. And there are all the lists to check. And, as Leila says, with the ball to-morrow, how can she fill her place?”

  “She’s quite forgotten who she’s speaking to,” thought Chloe. “I must have that job—I must.”

  “I think I could do it—I do really,” she said aloud. “If you’ll call up Mrs. Mostyn Llewellyn and tell her I’m coming, I’ll go and see her at once. Just ring up and tell her that I’m here, and that I’m sure I could help her out.”

  Miss Hayman turned meekly to the telephone, her impressions of a Bolshevist charwoman had given place to an insistent actuality. Chloe, smiling, sparkling, with the manner and voice of her own world, impressed her as being competent, as being, perhaps, just what Leila wanted.

  “I don’t—I don’t think I know your name,” was her only protest.

  Chloe picked out her second Christian name and altered one letter of her surname.

  “Mary Dene,” she said.

  Mrs. Mostyn Llewellyn had a much larger and more opulent flat than her friend Miss Hayman. She was also a much larger and more opulent person. She came into the room where Chloe was beguiling a five minutes’ wait by gazing at some very up-to-date furniture, a long way after Heppelwhite. The chairs and table combined grey, unpolished walnut with scarlet paint. One might have said, “Heppelwhite in a nightmare.”

  Mrs. Mostyn Llewellyn was quite as up-to-date as her furniture. She wore a black marocain garment that ended just below the knee and resembled a chemise that was a good deal plainer than chemises are wont to be. Beneath it one divined the sternest control of a figure naturally too generous for the fashion. Her dark-red shingled hair had the appearance of having been kept under a glass case until just the moment before; the most bridled imagination could not have pictured any disturbance of its perfect wave. Nevertheless, Mrs. Llewellyn was plainly in a state of distraction. She carried a sheaf of papers in one hand, and held a fountain pen in the other.

  “Miss Green?” she said.

  “Dene,” said Chloe.

  “What does it matter? Are you
from Miss Hayman? Are you the secretary she told me of? Are you the secretary she told me about?”

  “I am,” said Chloe, and nerved herself for a glorious game of bluff.

  She might have spared herself the trouble. Mrs. Mostyn Llewellyn thrust the papers and the fountain pen upon her, took her by the arm, and said in a deep contralto voice:

  “Thank heaven! Come along and get to work on these lists at once. No, not in here—they’ll be laying lunch. My devil of a secretary failed me because her fiancé had had a motor smash—and the ball’s to-morrow! I’ll give you lunch, but you can put in half an hour first.”

  Talking all the time, she ushered Chloe into a room that contained a littered writing-table. When she had explained very rapidly what Chloe was to do, she departed, stopping at the door to say:

  “For goodness sake get the names right, Miss Green.”

  “Dene,” said Chloe politely but firmly.

  Chloe got back to Hatchelbury Road at half past ten. She was exhausted but joyful. She met Mrs. Rowse’s gloomy disapproval with a flood of light-hearted chatter:

  “I’ve simply written my fingers off—after scrubbing too, you know. And I’ve mugged up the proper way to address everybody out of Debrett—thrilling! Aren’t titles lovely, Mrs. Rowse dear?—written out full on envelopes, you know. The Viscountess Kafoozlum; The Marquis of Carabas; The Lady Capadocia Mount Ararat. It’s like a lovely, muddled dream of history, geography, and the best fairy tales. But I wish I’d got a spare hand.”

  “There’s lots that don’t hold with titles nowadays,” said Mrs. Rowse heavily. “Albert don’t for one. And I’ve kept you a cup of tea—but it’s stewed.”

  “Angel!” said Chloe. “Why doesn’t Albert hold with titles?”

  “Me and Mr. Rowse don’t trouble ourselves—there’s only a drain of milk, but you can take two lumps of sugar. Albert’s young, and what I’ve noticed is, young people always want to set the world to rights—gels are as bad as boys. Now I’ll lay you’ve run away because you think you know better than some that’s lived twice as long as you have.”