The Typewriter Girl

by Atlee, Alison

  “Repairs,” John suggested as a topic. Sir Alton’s footman, either drowsy or distracted, let the umbrella list and clip John on the head, sending a stream of water down his back. He edged back. “The carriage isn’t gripping the cable on the second hill. Tonight, tomorrow morning at worst, I’d reckon for when we’ll be running again.”

  Brues grunted, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Haven’t the least idea, though, really, have you?”

  John couldn’t help grinning. “I’ve been seeing to the passengers,” he admitted, “but I’ll be speaking with the mechanic next.”

  His mood lifted a little more as Brues offered to go along and lend his expertise. Brues clapped Sir Alton on the back and invited him to join them.

  Sir Alton appeared, fleetingly, as if he’d like to rub his temples, but then recovered his smile enough to decline politely. Brues went ahead to the railway.

  “How is my son?” Sir Alton said. “I understand you saw him at the carpet maker’s last evening?”

  “I did.” The “carpet maker” was Mr. Gilbey, who’d manufactured and sold many times Sir Alton’s worth in carpets, including the ones in the hotel right now. “Noel turned in a fine performance, a piece he’d composed himself, I believe.” Plus that duet with Lillian, but John, of course, had not stayed for that portion of the program. No, John had watched that girl with the confidence of a queen twist a finger into her pearls and fret over being good enough to sing with Noel Dunning, and that feeling he’d been brushing away, that word done, was suddenly crawling all over him.

  “Delightful,” said Sir Alton. “I feared your presence there might distract him, you see, remind him of his responsibilities here, but I’m cheered to know he managed to rise above it. He didn’t, I hope, give you any notion he planned to spoil his fun any time in the near future?”

  “He didn’t tell me when he planned to come home, if that’s what you ask.”

  Sir Alton’s voice lost its cheery rhythm. “You could have persuaded him. He listens to you.”

  “It is not my place, between the two of you.”

  After a moment, Sir Alton regained his smile. “Very true. It is unmannerly of me to keep forcing you there, isn’t it? Especially when Noel knows precisely what’s expected of him. Quite recently, I reminded him that it will be you, not him, I shall look to if he continues to misunderstand his priorities. And I do believe I meant it.”

  It was the most direct Sir Alton had ever been regarding John’s prospects with the company. As the property owner, Sir Alton had been in the position to demand the position of managing director when the company was formed, but he craved control of the aesthetics of the development, not the daily operations of it. John had earned some respectable raises, taking on duties beyond his role as contractor, allowing Sir Alton to distance himself from the grime of business.

  Managing director. Overseeing what was built already, administer of another man’s vision—John felt no more tempted than Noel Dunning would have been. He glanced up to the tracks of the pleasure railway, his one original mark on this place, and he knew what he wanted hadn’t changed. His time in Idensea was drawing to a close.

  The thing was broken, though, wasn’t it? Abruptly, he turned from Sir Alton and called to Rolly Brues, his desire to fix it as ardent as first love.

  To-day study the ribbon movement, and learn how to reverse it.

  —How to Become Expert in Type-writing

  Darkness had fallen when John and the other men finally left the railway. Weary, discouraged, he cycled to the Kursaal to judge the progress made in his absence, then headed toward the hotel, unable to decide what he wanted most: food, bath, or bed.

  All those wants subsided when his ears caught music, spirited and inviting, as he stored his bicycle in the shelter on the hotel grounds. It came from the pavilion, where a coach maker’s employees were dancing away the last hours of their excursion day. Where Betsey Dobson likely managed the entire affair with complete efficiency. Still, given last Saturday’s events, he thought it prudent to go by—just to stroll by, that was all—to ensure all was well.

  At the pavilion, he leaned against a tree where the electric lights didn’t quite reach, pleased to observe that Betsey had seen to posting more staffers about, even though he’d failed to remind her to do so. With less pleasure, he noted Sir Alton’s secretary on the fringes of the crowd, no doubt taking detailed mental notes to pass on to Sir Alton in the morning. He wondered if Betsey had noticed. She was amongst the dancers and in great demand, apparently, because there were more men than women tonight. Or because of the way she looked in that uniform. Or just because.

  He’d missed tea, he’d missed supper, and every muscle in his body demanded rest, but he remained shrugged up against the tree trunk, watching Betsey Dobson pass from partner to partner.

  It shocked him, really. Not the dancing partners, but the others, the men she’d listed to him last night. A great many, it had seemed. Still did. And no intention to marry any of them?

  No, one: Thomas Dellaforde she’d thought to marry. Who was he, besides the eldest son? Why him, and none of the others?

  And why all those others, and not him, John Jones?

  He sank down on his heels beside the tree. She’d answered that question. He told himself he understood, and in a way no one else in her life did. He understood how you sifted, how you let some things run between your fingers while for others you made a cradle of your palms.

  Absently, he ripped up tendrils of grass, threw them away. Betsey thought last night a puzzle easily solved, a choice of this-not-that, kiss me because she hurt you, but here was his secret: The reason he’d noticed that ring at all was because the pawnbroker had slipped it on a ribbon and hung it inside an empty birdcage. The birdcage, made of scrolling brass that would never need to be repaired with newspaper and string, had arrested his attention in the dingy London window. The ring, he could admit now, had been a guilty, impulsive afterthought.

  He would not, however, admit to seeking Betsey out for . . . for that. He hadn’t even expected to see her. But as he disembarked the train from London, his spirit had felt as hungry and bruised as did his body tonight, and wind and speed and exertion seemed the remedy. Sarah’s house was incidental, not a destination.

  It didn’t matter, though. Betsey believed he had done so. And he would have taken her. Right there in the passenger car, Betsey saying please instead of no, he would have taken her.

  No pretty thing to know about himself, that. No pretty thing to look at a woman and think, No consequences.

  Yet it was in him still, and in a mighty sulk over the missed opportunity. Just watching Betsey move about the pavilion, the feel of her still fresh on his fingertips and mouth, that ugly, sulking thing he’d thought he’d mastered long ago was roused and hungry, and it brought him to his feet.

  The pavilion was open-air, set up on a base of a half dozen low steps. Betsey, watchful of everything even as she danced, saw him the moment he ascended the first step. She broke from her partner, a frown of confusion gathering on her face as she neared him. Abruptly, John remembered how he must look, coming from his work on the railway. He knew his hands and clothes were streaked with oil and dirt. His collar and necktie were crammed into his pockets. He passed a hasty hand over his hair in an attempt to smooth it down.

  “You needn’t have come,” she informed him as she drew near. “Your spy is a most attentive fellow.”

  Of course she had noticed. “Sir Alton’s spy, not mine, Betsey.”

  “Who is he, then?”

  “Walbrook. Sir Alton’s secretary.”

  She cursed softly. “What will he say? It’s all gone well tonight, not a peep of trouble.”

  “Then that is what he will say, I would guess. I don’t know him for the malicious sort.”

  “No? Then you ought to warn him about me, I suppose.”

  “Girl,” he chided at this self-slander, but she continued to glare in Walbrook’s direction, her arms
crossed, her fingers twiddling the topmost button of her waistcoat. It should have been the second button, but the one above it was missing. No, not missing. Still on the mantelshelf in his bedchamber it was, by accident kept and on purpose not returned.

  Caught fidgeting, she dropped her hand from the button. “I didn’t want a new gown.”

  John, having no idea what she meant, thought it wise to say nothing.

  “Scold me if you must, but I haven’t the money for it, and in any case, I didn’t like how you said it. I don’t need a gown to snare a husband.”

  Ah. That.

  “So, if it is all one to you, I shall just wear my uniform. Unless you meant it as an order.”

  Uncertainty marked her last words. Seeing some stocky, red-bearded fellow heading in their direction, John touched her arm to persuade her off the pavilion, just a step or two down, enough to put her out of consideration.

  “You do as you like with your clothing. Wear your uniform every day if you like,” he told her. “Rule the world and any man in it, you could, wearing that frock.”

  For this, a concession to what she wanted, and what he believed a rather dashing compliment besides, he got her no-such-thing-as-magic-beans stare, followed by an abrupt, “Good night, then.”

  “I’ll come back,” he hurried to say before she could turn away to the pavilion. “Wash up, and come back to see you home.”

  “Charlie’s coming. You arranged it. Good night.”

  “You heard of the breakdown?”

  “Yes.” She was about to say good night again, he believed, but then he sensed a sort of general softening about her, which turned up in her voice. “It is too bad. I know you’re disappointed. But it can be repaired?”

  He nodded. “In a day or two. With luck, there will be some still willing to risk a ride upon it.”

  “Of course there will be. We’d all go again this minute.” She gestured toward her excursionists. She did not try to say good night. She watched the dancers, and he watched her, and he saw before she made a sound that she was going to laugh.

  Her laughter was for an idea: “You ought to have Sir Alton and Lady Dunning ride it when the repairs are done, to show their confidence in it. And when the Duke comes for the Kursaal opening, put him in it, too, and have his photograph taken. That would make it famous.”

  The suggestion blossomed immediately into a vision: the Duke, his Duchess, and whatever number of children they had, all the hangers-on those types invariably trailed with them—an entire railway car, perhaps two, crammed full of aristos having a grand time, documented in London’s society pages.

  “There is brilliant you are, Betsey,” he said, grinning, and she pinked with pleasure, though her mouth remained set. “There’s brilliant, girl. You’ll do it?”

  This compliment pinched her cheeks, but she decided he was in jest. “Yes, if Ethan Noonan’s not too drunk that day, we’ll meet the Duke when he arrives and drive him right over.”

  “I expect His Grace will have his own carriage for the tour, but Walbrook over there will have details of his itinerary.” As she glanced at Sir Alton’s secretary, he added, “And the ability to contact the Duke’s secretary, supposing any of those details needed adjustment.”

  She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth.

  “That’s your specialty, Dobs. Everyone in the proper place at the proper time, feeling merry and not noticing any of the work that’s gone into it. My hands are full with the Kursaal, but the Sultan’s Road needs this.”

  “I’ll try,” she said, her doubt evident. “You should introduce me to Mr. Walbrook, I suppose.”

  He stayed her with a touch. “I will, but—”

  She waited.

  “I was curious,” he began, but he’d spoken in too much haste this time and did not know how to finish his sentence.

  “Curious? As to . . . ?”

  As to all your other fellows, Betsey Dobson. Why you chose them.

  She would tease, Why should you wish to know that?

  And he would have to answer, Because I want—

  The unspoken thoughts stuck, just as they would if he tried to say them. She stood waiting for him to finish, and the dawning realization that he had no confidence in how he might proceed, how to express what he wanted, was as alien as anything he’d ever experienced in his life. He thought of himself at twelve, alone and lost in Swansea, which had seemed such a great city to him then, unable to find work, hungry and homesick, out of plans and hope and prospects. That was something akin to how he felt now, discovering that when it came to Elisabeth Dobson, he had no instincts.

  Bless God, that was a lie. He did indeed have instincts, or rather a single instinct driving him like a whip snapping smart and fierce on some dumb beast’s back.

  He was the dumb beast. The whip struck, and he strained, wanting to move forward but too stupid to know how to extricate his load from the muck that held it. Before he knew it, he was blurting, “What—what if we dance, Miss Dobson?”

  Which proved the desertion of his finer instincts. His dancing, as Lillian had once informed him, put him to no advantage. But the bandmaster was calling for a country dance, and though it had been years, he expected he could playact his way through it well enough, rather as he’d practiced pretending to read the sheet music for Lillian’s party.

  Betsey’s gaze swept over him, and he remembered, again, his appearance, that he wasn’t fit to be seen in public, that his dirty clothes and rudimentary dancing could serve only to embarrass her. He undoubtedly stank, too, of sweat and oil, earth and rain. But that sweeping, knowing gaze of hers spoke nothing of distaste or embarrassment. It was, in fact, very much like the one she’d given him on the tram last week, when he’d been wearing his very best evening dress. It restored a portion of his confidence, that sweep of Betsey’s brown eyes.

  “What if we dance?” she repeated. “If we dance, Mr. Jones, then a dance is all. Nothing else.”

  “Of course, Miss Dobson,” he said, and he offered his arm to her.

  He was filthy. Filthier than his clothes were his thoughts, filled up with the blistering desire to have this girl, and a sudden, cool determination to reckon out what he must do to be one of the fellows she chose.

  They took their places amongst the dancers. John kept an eye to the other men dancing, watching for cues, and believed himself to be making a fair act of competence. Betsey avoided his eyes, so perhaps she didn’t notice when he was a half step or more behind. Each time they clasped hands, the sensation of soiling her with his dirt-roughed hand pained him. They moved through the figures, and he was at a loss, trying to match steps and find what to say.

  It had been more straightforward with Lillian and the other girls like her. The flirtation, the courtship—they had marriage as their object. With Betsey—

  It was different. To say to himself exactly how was not presently convenient.

  “You came downstairs last night,” he said into her ear as they turned in a chaste embrace, because it seemed she had forgotten this fact, and it was a fact worth keeping in mind, not least because the memory of the front door opening still made him happy. Seeing her climb inside the window, he had thought she meant to stay inside.

  “You bade me to,” she answered, which rather spoiled the memory.

  “Didn’t,” he managed to retort before the turn was completed. He released her and promptly smashed into a couple who had strayed into his path.

  “What is the matter with you?” Betsey hissed, yanking him from what was, apparently, not his path.

  “I’d forgot that step, I suppose.”

  He fumbled his way back into the dance, watching, counting. When he felt reasonably secure, he said, “You came down, whatever.”

  “What is the difference? Nothing.”

  “Not nothing.”

  They parted. John turned in a circle with someone else. It might have been another man, for all the notice he paid.

  Together again: “Here it is. Before y
ou refused, you came.”

  She stepped on his toes. They were in the wrong place.

  “And—you think me rather wonderful.”

  Another turn with another partner. Betsey smashed into him and it was his fault.

  “No more,” she said, and she stepped back and left him holding out hands to empty air. By the time he removed himself from the dancers, she was extending her hand to Sir Alton’s secretary, an introduction from John evidently unnecessary.

  • • •

  He thought about the word ruined. How, in one bad season, a man’s crops could be ruined; in a succession of them, his wealth. A fever, a fall, an excess of drink or rich food, and he met the ruin of his health. A secret uncovered, an arrival delayed, a lamp knocked down, and there might be the ruin of reputation, opportunity, property. In the wrong passion lay the potential for ruin, both instantaneous and so gradual that a man mightn’t realize until he found himself revolving over the flame that all along he’d been impaling himself on the devil’s spit.

  Back at the hotel, he cut through the kitchen that served the staff dining hall, where all the sounds came from empty pots, the whisk of brooms and scrubbing brushes, and the scullery girls being loud and easy with one another. The one who saw him first was surely a new hire for the season; John didn’t know her name, and her laugh froze on her lips when she spotted him.

  “That’s Mr. Jones, Iva. Give ’im whatever he wants, time a’ day don’t matter,” called Meggie Wright with a wink for John, and Iva filled a dish for him to take to his rooms. Are you ruined, little Iva? he thought as he took it. You, Meggie Wright?

  For it had struck him as a curious fact: In all the ways a man could meet ruin, there was one way in which he could not, one especial way reserved only for women.

  When Betsey said, You cannot ruin me, Mr. Jones, it was in that sense reserved for women. But in the other way, the way men spoke of ruin, not something they were but something they met, she certainly thought it was possible.