The Typewriter Girl

by Atlee, Alison

  “Owen isn’t what you’d be giving up.”

  “Elisabeth.” He was exasperated.

  “Just tell me. How did you feel?”

  “What do you think? I felt glad, I felt . . . relieved, that’s what. . . . It was good, a good decision. It is.”

  He turned his face to the ceiling when she didn’t agree. She couldn’t. She was at a loss, taken unaware by relieved, unsure what she had expected or hoped for in the first place.

  “Do you think this morning was the first time I’d thought of marrying you? The Kursaal was finished, Elisabeth, the end of the season was coming. I was looking for a new position. Bless God, Pearse Leland had all but offered outright. Had I set to it, he would have, whatever Sir Alton was rigging behind my back. But—” He propped up on an elbow. “I was dragging my feet.”

  He waited for her to draw the conclusion. Because of you.

  “Couldn’t think how to do it,” he added.

  Leaving you.

  “Too hard it felt, but this morning . . .”

  Again, he waited.

  She said: “You believed your choice had been taken away, and you felt relieved.”

  Wrong conclusion. A shot of dismay, then a stone wall of challenge. Betsey turned her back on it, removing herself from the bed.

  “That was not my meaning, don’t say it that way.”

  Her clothes were waiting in the neat stack she’d folded last night. She began to dress, her hands trembling. “I know, it isn’t very nice. It isn’t anything you’d find in a poem. But neither of us is much for fine poetry, John.”

  “God damn it, you’re twisting it, you’re making it—” In frustration, he bolted from the bed and came to her, putting his hand over the remaining garments in her stack of clothing. “Why are you making it into this?”

  “Because it’s you! You, John, the one who trusts his instincts, who makes decisions without a backward glance, at least when it’s not to do with me. You were glad to have the decision taken away from you.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I can’t—it doesn’t make sense. Nothing you’re about now makes sense. I don’t understand how you can leave Idensea, and Sarah, just now. Someone else could, not you.”

  “Look at this room, Elisabeth!” His hand dropped off her stack of clothes, and he repeated more calmly, “Look at this room.”

  She did, though she was perfectly familiar with it, for its furnishings matched those of the other guest rooms of the hotel. She took in the shambles of the vacated bed, the photographer’s pasteboard frame surrounding John’s family, one of her own brass buttons sitting enigmatically on the mantelshelf, and her survey was complete.

  “Does any part of it tell you I ever meant to make my home here?”

  “Please only think—”

  “Idensea isn’t mine!” He tore back to the bed to rummage through the bedclothes, searching for something, but so desperately Betsey could only watch in fear. “I wasn’t meant to stay. I had—I have plans, and they aren’t to settle for Tinfell Cottage and use my days to tend business for a man I can’t even trust.”

  Amongst the white linens, a black necktie appeared. John snatched it up. “It will all go to the devil if it’s waiting on my care.”

  Her heart was breaking for him. She didn’t know whether it was right or wrong, but she pushed: “Even Sarah?”

  He shook his head madly and hooked the tie around his neck.

  “She will want you. She will need you to forgive her.”

  “Whatever Sarah needs from me, she has, even if it’s to hate me.”

  He struggled with the tie. After a few moments, Betsey went to help him, though her fingers were hardly steadier. This was not the fine silk thing Mr. Seiler had given him. She wondered if that had gone the way of his coat, whatever way that was, last night. When she had finished the knot and smoothed down the ends, John clutched her arms.

  “Come, you. Just come with me.”

  He released her before she responded. He knew she would refuse. Still, she answered, “I can’t. You are asking me to trust you, and I don’t.”

  The words created a long, dark tunnel between them. It stretched and it stretched, and across the distance, she whispered, “Not as you are now. I don’t believe you know what you are doing.”

  • • •

  For Betsey, watching him in the days that followed was like seeing the pier blaze again—an overwhelming sense of smallness, helplessness. If she believed he’d somehow taken leave of his senses, did she also believe he would come back to them? She saw he did not allow for the opportunity; she saw his bruised-looking eyes, how the circles beneath them never faded. Correspondence and telephone calls flooded the office, meetings were held at all hours, a trembling old man appeared and insisted on confronting whoever was responsible, and John was in the thick of it all; John was the one who steered the old man to his office. And though Sarah refused to see him and most everyone else, Sarah’s daughters relied on him for any number of deeds and words of advice. The day of Charlie’s funeral, he was never more than an arm’s distance away, and in the quiet of the graveside prayer, Betsey recognized the sound of his thumb rubbing alongside his forefinger and felt surprised it was the grating of calluses she heard rather than the wet smack of blood.

  Nights, crippling pangs reduced her to a ball; she shrank into the bedclothes aching for Charlie, for Sarah, for herself. For John, for John, for John, wondering, What will become of him?

  How brightly, how terrifyingly he burned. And so swiftly, too. Little more than a week past the pier fire, Betsey entered an office sinuous with the vines of hearsay and speculation.

  Mr. Jones had submitted his resignation. He was taking a position in London.

  Exact rules cannot be given for every emergency in life.

  —How to Become Expert in Type-writing

  Lillian understood that the unfortunate fire had left John with rather a lot to do, but she could not imagine him committing so abominable an act as standing her up. He was—well, he was not quite a gentleman, but he was decent, and he was neither forgetful nor hateful. He could be counted upon. She was counting on that. To go hunting for him felt indecent on a number of levels, but Lillian saw no other option left her.

  Besides, she was running out of time. She’d promised Aunt Constance: By the time the rest of the family returned from their tide pool walk with the naturalist, she, Lillian, would be engaged.

  Thus, she found herself pretending to an office of dumbstruck clerks that certainly she had known Mr. Jones was traveling today; she had only mistaken the time, and now she was not quite sure what day he’d given her for his return, if someone could be so kind as to refresh her memory . . . ?

  Every fellow in the office had come to his feet upon her appearance in the doorway, but thus far, only a young man had spoken for the group. He shrugged now. “Couldn’t say, miss. That is, he didn’t say, leastways that I know of.”

  “I see.”

  Another, his face as white and round as a clock’s, put up a finger to attract her notice. “Miss Dobson can tell you something of that, I should think. Miss Dobson, when might we expect our Mr. Jones back with us again?”

  A shuffle rippled across the office, and then no one was looking at Lillian anymore. A few gazes dropped to the desktops; most slipped right past Lillian to a spot behind her. Turning, Lillian found at the door a young woman of alarming height, dressed in dun-colored tweed. She did not spare a glance for Lillian nor anyone else as she brushed by to one of the desks, replying, “You are mistaken, Mr. Hamble. I do not know.”

  “Ah,” the clock-face said. “There you have it, then, miss. I was mistaken. Miss Dobson says she knows nothing, and we can only believe her, I suppose.”

  From a place deeper in the office, sniggering. And Lillian understood it. She could not have said how, but she did.

  “Thank you. That will be all,” she said in the same tone she used for the household servants, and made a fir
m step toward Office Girl’s desk.

  But Office Girl met her with a gaze so unnervingly steady that Lillian faltered and glanced about the office, where there seemed to be a sudden rush to return to chairs and desks and tasks. Oh, what did they imagine was about to happen? That she, Lillian Gilbey, was about to tussle with an office girl? Over a man?

  She plucked back her poise and smiled down at Office Girl, sitting at the desk. “Miss . . . Dobson? My father will be arriving from London to spend the coming weekend with my family, as he generally does, but it is his birthday this week, you see, and I’d hoped to arrange a private dinner party for him here at the hotel. Would you be so kind as to help me make the arrangements?”

  “No, Miss Gilbey.”

  “No?” Despite her resolve, Lillian found herself cowed by the direct and unapologetic refusal, not to mention the fact Office Girl knew her name. “I—I don’t see why not.”

  Office Girl smiled. Her cheekbones were worthy of some envy. “If that’s true, then I can only assume you ignorant of certain arrangements here at the hotel. I suppose the one relevant at this moment is that my duties do not regularly include service for hotel guests. I’d direct you to Mr. Seiler, the hotel manager, instead.”

  “I see.” The reply was frail. Office Girl looked back down to her work, apparently finished with the conversation. But she’d forgotten that she’d inked her pen already, and so a great black blob began eating up her paper, and she cursed. Only Lillian could hear it, and only just, but the vehemence with which it was whispered was as shocking as the expression itself. Lillian drew back. She couldn’t speak with a creature such as this.

  “I see,” she repeated, and turned to leave, except—

  She was desperate. She must have something to tell Aunt Constance, or Aunt Constance would—

  She turned back and leaned over the desk in a most unladylike posture. “Please, Miss Dobson,” she said, her plea as low and earnest as Miss Dobson’s curse. “I should like—I need to speak with you, and I cannot do it here with all these fellows looking on. Please, won’t you walk out with me, only for a moment?”

  Well, Miss Dobson was a very hard sort, that was plain, but somehow Lillian had managed to move her. She relented with a soft nod, then led Lillian from the office to the veranda on the side of the hotel, moving out of earshot of the guests sitting with their afternoon papers. When Lillian failed to speak, Miss Dobson asked what she wanted.

  “I must know when John—Mr. Jones—is due to return, and I am persuaded you know something of the matter.”

  “He’s resigned, Miss Gilbey, didn’t you know?”

  Every response at hand would have disclosed the extent of her ignorance. Lillian could only nod, inscrutably, she hoped.

  “He will return to tie off some things, but he’s only just left for London, then Wales, and his business may take a few days, or a few weeks. I’m afraid I don’t have the information you require.”

  This she said as she dabbed at her ink-smudged fingers with one of those horrible homemade handkerchiefs John always carried. It weakened the credibility of her claim, to say the least. Lillian pressed her lips against the rising anxiety she felt and mentally rehearsed her next question. She must strive toward indifference.

  “Miss Dobson, are you in love with Mr. Jones?” Not at all bad. If only Miss Dobson were not so excessively tall, the entire effect might have come off more successfully. Lillian kept up her brows (one brow would have been so much better, if only she could do that) as she awaited a response.

  “That isn’t really what you need to know, now is it?”

  “It—it isn’t?”

  “I should think what must concern you is whether or not John loves me.”

  Lillian gave up her pose, looking away to blink back tears. Ah, God, what should she do if that were so, if John were in love with this girl? For all the improbability of it, Lillian suddenly felt it could be no other way.

  “I don’t know why I am crying,” she lied. Miss Dobson held out John’s inky handkerchief to her, which only made Lillian lose control of an ugly sob as she shook her head and dug into her little handbag. “It is just—just that I need him. I need him!” Unable to find her own pocket handkerchief, she brought the entire handbag up to her face and crushed it against her eyes.

  “You need him? Rather say ’want,’ Miss Gilbey. It will be far more truthful, and you’ll find it easier than pretending to understand need.”

  Lillian pulled her handbag from her eyes. It was Indian silk, embroidered and beaded and suitable to carry with nothing she owned but the afternoon frock she wore now. Miss Dobson, in her drab tweed, holding nothing but an unrefined and borrowed handkerchief, thought Lillian Gilbey could not understand need. Thought Lillian Gilbey would take what she wanted, even if it left the other party empty-handed.

  “I do need him, though,” she whispered. “I need—I need to marry, right away.”

  Miss Dobson yanked her by the elbow so hard and fast that Lillian dropped her parasol. She was steered off the veranda, across the carriage drive, to the fountain with its noisy cascade of water.

  “Whatever else that damn idiot has done, he’s not rutted you and got you pregnant!”

  It wasn’t the rough handling nor the rougher language that made Lillian’s jaw drop. It was the word pregnant. The doctor Aunt Constance had smuggled her to one afternoon hadn’t said it, and even Aunt Constance, much given to bluntness, had euphemized her way toward the topic. She’d narrowed her eyes when Lillian, dispirited since that episode at the rail station, had let it slip she was almost glad the fire had ruined the gala ball, for she was quite ready to go to bed. And after Lillian donned the same walking costume two of three afternoons, her aunt had taken her aside in concern.

  But it required many false starts before Lillian began to understand what her aunt meant, inquiring after her health and whether or not she was just as she always had been. And then to discover why her aunt was curious about her cycles—

  It had amounted to a very confusing and shocking sort of conversation, and Lillian had the feeling it would have gone more smoothly had Miss Dobson been there to mediate. She was somehow grateful for Miss Dobson’s directness, however vulgar.

  “Not John,” she confirmed. “Another.”

  She hadn’t realized how tightly Miss Dobson had been holding her until she let go. The flesh above Lillian’s elbow echoed with pain even though she rubbed it.

  “Why the devil don’t you marry that one, then? And do hush your crying—you will attract attention.”

  She held out the handkerchief again; this time, Lillian took it and folded the inky part inside so she could dry her eyes and nose. “He has given me up,” she said, which prompted another eruption of tears. “I’m in such terrible, terrible trouble. I know I deserve it, but I did not understand—”

  “Stop crying, Miss Gilbey. You must stop.”

  But the office girl’s voice carried something steady in it now, steady and almost warm. And wasn’t Lillian grateful for it, ready to grasp it like a Christmas orphan? Aunt Constance, for all she wanted to help, could not conceal the depth of her disappointment, and Lillian knew it would be much worse if her parents discovered the truth.

  Miss Dobson held no expectations, though, only seemed to know it was possible for a girl to get herself in trouble, and that it was sorrowful when it happened. Such sympathy seemed the most extravagant gift she’d ever received, a string of pearls a mile long.

  Benches surrounding the fountain offered places to rest with a view of the sea. They claimed one, and Lillian worked to control her tears. Looking out at the water helped, as did the distraction of remembering some Tennyson: With blackest moss the flower-plots were thickly crusted, one and all.

  “A six- or seven-month baby—did you think John would believe that?” Miss Dobson asked after a moment.

  “I don’t know. . . . Do men notice that sort of thing?” Thanks to Aunt Constance, Lillian herself had only recently noted the
problematic arithmetic of certain couples in her acquaintance, but Miss Dobson’s incredulous expression now made this seem atypical. “I don’t know what I thought, except that of all the eligible gentlemen I know, John seemed the one—”

  “Most willing to raise another man’s child. To save you. Save the child.”

  “He is good.” And he was here. At least, he had been. “He would not be unhappy with me, I think. I think he meant to ask me, once. Before . . .”

  Miss Dobson gave her a frightening smile. The woman leaned toward her, and Lillian could not help shrinking back.

  “That’s right,” Miss Dobson said. “Before me. Don’t know what to make of that, now, do you?”

  Lillian shook her head, intimidated into agreeing. Lying. On the contrary, she had a very good idea what to make of it. Tears welled afresh; John was lost to her, and with him, any hope. She pressed the handkerchief to her lips, but the awful press of emotion escaped in an embarrassing, snorting sob.

  “Cry, then, I don’t blame you,” Miss Dobson said. “It’s a wretched shame what you’re going through. But hear me well, Miss Gilbey.”

  With that, she touched her fingertips to Lillian’s chin and, with no physical force whatsoever, compelled Lillian to look her in the eye.

  “I didn’t let John go so he’d be handy for the likes of you to use up however it suits.”

  The likes of her? Lillian’s tears were shocked into abeyance. She was not the likes of anything, or at least she never had been before. But now she was fallen, so perhaps . . .

  But Miss Dobson wasn’t finished. “And if you dare take this selfish, desperate request to him—”

  Thoughtfully, she surveyed the milliner’s landscape atop Lillian’s head; leisurely, she withdrew the hat pin and held it pointed end up between them, all while confining Lillian with the lightest touch to her chin.