by Nevil Shute
She got up to go. “I know, sir,” she said. “It was stupid of me to say that. I know you can’t help him in that way.” She hesitated. “I told him that I’d go and see his daughter, Elspeth, while I was down here,” she said. “There’s only a charwoman looking after her. He lives in Copse Road, Farnham. What’s the best way for me to get there, sir? Is there a bus?”
I blinked; another lovely woman to see Elspeth Honey. “She’s not there now,” I said. “As a matter of fact, you’ll find her in my flat. She had a bit of an accident.” And I told her shortly what had happened.
Miss Corder was upset. “The poor kid!” she said. “I am glad Mr. Honey doesn’t know about this — he’d be terribly worried. I mean, on top of all the other trouble.” She asked a few more questions, and then said,
“It’s awfully kind of Mrs. Scott to have done so much, sir. I was wondering if I could help at all? I went into the office at the airport this morning, and they’ve given me a few days’ leave. I’m a nurse, you know. I trained at the London Hospital.” She paused. “If I can help, I really would like to. Mr. Honey was so kind to me, and I’m quite free.”
I thought quickly. There was some substance in this offer; Miss Teasdale, charming and good-hearted as she was, was not a trained nurse. But here was a trained nurse who felt herself to be under some obligation to Honey, and who was free for some days, and anxious to assist. In fairness to Shirley I could not pass this over.
“It’s very nice of you to say that,” I replied. “As a matter of fact, Miss Monica Teasdale came down and helped a bit yesterday, and I think she’s coming again today. But she’s just an amateur; I know my wife would be awfully glad of your help.”
I told her how to get to my flat and that I would ring up Shirley; then I showed her out, because I had a lot to do that day. At the door she turned to me.
“You won’t let him resign, will you, Dr. Scott?” She looked up at me appealingly; she was a very lovely girl. “He’s not the sort for changes and adventures. He’d be much happier going on quietly here.”
I nodded. “I don’t want to lose him,” I said. “I’ll do what I can.”
She went, and I read Honey’s letter of resignation again. Then I asked Miss Learoyd to find out if the Director was free; he was, and I went down to see him, forgetting all about my call to Shirley.
I said, “Good morning, sir. I’ve got a letter from Mr. Honey here, resigning his position with us. With your permission I’m going to tear it up and forget I ever had it.”
He smiled, and stretched out his hand. “Let me see.”
He read it carefully, and then said, “Why, particularly, do you want to destroy it?”
“We’ve got this conference tomorrow, sir,” I said. “I still think he’s probably right about this Reindeer tail, and as a member of my staff I’m going to back him up. But if we accept this letter, then he’s not a member of my staff any longer, and I don’t know where we are. We’ll all look pretty good fools, and the right decisions probably won’t be made.”
He said thoughtfully, “You are quite sure about him still?”
I was silent for a moment, thinking. “I don’t want to be stupid about this,” I said at last. “I don’t want to back him automatically, just because he is a member of my staff. I’ve got a strong feeling that he’s probably right about the Reindeer tail, but that’s not evidence. I’m basing my opinions more on the quality of his other work, the stuff I found in his private files. He’s a fine mathematician, he’s very well informed on physical chemistry, and he’s got a very clear analytical mind. Apart altogether from the Reindeer tail, I think it would be a great loss if he left us, sir.”
He handed me back the letter. “All right, tear it up.” He paused, and then said, “How did that get here?”
I grinned. “The stewardess from the Reindeer flew over last night and brought it down to me by hand. Miss Corder. She’s a very beautiful young woman.”
He smiled. “Stewardesses usually are. What have you done with her?”
“Sent her off to see Elspeth. It’s just a procession of girl friends from Honey — two in two days.” I turned to him. “Old Honey with his face like a frog. What’s he got that we haven’t, sir?”
He laughed. “I can’t tell you that — but I’m not a bit surprised. Mrs. Honey, who got killed, you know, she was a very beautiful girl.” He paused, reflectively. “She used to work in the Airworthiness Department, when we had that here. Really lovely, she was.”
I stood in thought for a moment; every little thing I could find out about Honey was important to me at that time. I was staking my career on my opinion that his work was valuable, that he was a credible person. “When Mrs. Honey was alive,” I said slowly, “was he just the same as he is now? Or was he any different?”
The Director did not understand. “He was younger,” he replied.
“I know. But was he different in himself? Was he always as touchy and difficult in the office?”
“Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, he was very different. He was much tidier in his dress, and he had a better colour. Now you mention it, I don’t think he was so difficult in the office. He used to make little jokes. He probably got better food at home, and more exercise.”
The heavy boots came into my mind, and the indigestion. “I should think that’s right,” I said thoughtfully.
“Mary Honey did a great deal for him,” said the Director. “It was a tragedy when she got killed. She was such a lovely girl.”
All this drove the thought of telephoning Shirley clean out of my mind; when I got back to my office I pulled my IN basket towards me and started on it, my mind still running upon what I had learned of Honey’s past life. In consequence, when Shirley opened the door of my flat, she opened it on a completely strange young woman, who said, “Good morning, Mrs. Scott. I’m Miss Corder — Marjorie Corder.”
Shirley stared at her blankly; she had Miss Teasdale in the bedroom sitting with Elspeth, and she herself was just about to go round for a day of cleaning in Honey’s house.
The stewardess said, “Didn’t Dr. Scott ring you?”
“No. Ought he to have done?”
She explained. “I’ve just come from him. I brought a note to him from Mr. Honey in Newfoundland — I flew across last night, I told Mr. Honey I could come and see his little girl, and Dr. Scott told me to come here.”
Shirley’s brain reeled; another beautiful stranger had flown the Atlantic with a message from Mr. Honey and was diving deep into his private life. She said weakly, “Do you know Miss Monica Teasdale? She’s here.”
“I thought she might be. I was with her at Gander — I’m the stewardess, you see. Dr. Scott told me that she might be here.”
Shirley nodded. “She came yesterday. She’s in the bedroom reading to Elspeth, now. Do come in.” She took Miss Corder into the sitting-room and explained to her.
The stewardess laughed, flushing a little. “You won’t want the two of us fussing round, Mrs. Scott,” she said. “I’d just like to look in and see Elspeth for a moment, and then I’ll go away. Unless there’s anything I can do to help you?”
Shirley said, “Oh — no, not really. I was just going round to clean up Mr. Honey’s house a bit, but I’ve got nothing else to do.”
“What’s the matter with it? Is it dirty?”
“Perfectly filthy. The kitchen floor simply makes you sick.”
The stewardess laughed. “Well, I can do that, Mrs. Scott. I’m used to scrubbing.”
If there is one job Shirley loathes, it is scrubbing a floor. “Would you really like to come and help?” she asked. “I was going to take some lunch round there, and make a day of it.”
“I’d love to.”
They made their plans together; then Shirley took Marjorie down the corridor to our bedroom, where Monica Teasdale was reading Just So Stories to Elspeth Honey, lying in bed. She looked up in surprise at the stewardess.
“Good morning, Miss Teasdale,” Marjorie said.
“I came over last night, and brought another note from Mr. Honey to Dr. Scott. He asked me to come on and see Elspeth when I was down here.”
Elspeth from her bed said, “Is Daddy coming home soon?”
“My name’s Marjorie,” the stewardess said. “I saw your daddy last night. Yes, he’s coming back soon. In two or three days, perhaps.”
“Why can’t he come sooner?”
“He’s got to wait for an aeroplane to bring him. It’s a long way, across the Atlantic.”
“Didn’t an aeroplane bring you?”
“Yes, but he has to wait for a special one, in two or three days’ time.”
“Couldn’t he have come on the same one that you came on?”
She shook her head. “He’s got to wait for a particular one, that has to do with his work.”
That satisfied Elspeth. “My Daddy works on things to do with aeroplanes,” she said. “He works at Farnborough. He’s terribly clever.”
“I know,” said the stewardess. “I know that.”
Miss Teasdale asked, “They’ve fixed that difficulty there was about his passage home?”
The stewardess said, “He’s coming on an R.A.F. aircraft of the School of Navigation. It’s coming across some time this week.”
Shirley said, “I’m just taking Marjorie down with me to your house, Elspeth, so that we can do some cleaning before your father gets back. Is there anything you want from there? We could bring it when we come.”
She shook her head. “May I sleep at home tonight, Mrs. Scott?”
“I don’t think tonight, dear. Better stay here till you feel quite well.”
The child said in distress, “If nobody’s there, there’ll be a burglar.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Shirley said. “Dennis — Dr. Scott — slept there last night, and I expect he’ll be there again tonight. One or other of us will be there. We won’t leave the house empty.”
Elspeth said, “I do want to go back.”
“You shall, the very minute you’re well.”
Miss Teasdale said, “You’ll just have to hurry up and get well, honey.”
Elspeth snuggled down in bed. “I like the way you always call me honey.”
Shirley collected scrubbers and soap and Vim and a dust-pan and brush, and put them in a basket with the lunch, and started out with Marjorie Corder to Copse Road. As they walked through the suburban streets, the stewardess said, “She’s very anxious to get back into her own house, isn’t she?”
“I know,” said Shirley. “It’s a sort of fixed idea. She feels responsible for all her father’s papers, and she’s terribly afraid a burglar will get in and steal them. As if anybody would want to steal that sort of stuff! But that’s what she thinks. That’s how she came to fall downstairs — she thought she heard a burglar.”
They came to the little house in Copse Road and opened it, and went through it with curious disdain. The products of Honey’s creative research in the many files in the front room meant nothing to them, except that they were papers to collect a lot of dust. There was little in the house that they approved of. “My dear, that kitchen!” Shirley said. “The whole place wants doing out from top to bottom, really.”
Marjorie nodded. “I’ll start off on the kitchen floor, and after that I think I’ll wash the walls,” she said. “It wouldn’t be a bad room if it was cleaned up. It’s got quite a nice outlook.”
Shirley said, “If you make a start on that I’ll slip round to the builder and tell him to come and put some glass in this window, where I kicked it out. After that, I think I’d better start off in the bedrooms and turn those out, and work down.” She paused. “I’ll get some Harpic for that ghastly lavatory ...”
They worked together till the middle of the afternoon; then Shirley left to do her own housekeeping. Marjorie stayed on in the house, partly because she was not yet tired and partly because the glazier was working on the window. She roamed through the house for a little, smoking a cigarette, touching and feeling things, rather as I had done two nights before. She stared in wonder at the many files and books and drawing instruments, relating them to the man she had known at Gander. This was what the home of a genius looked like. A genius who had no woman to look after him.
There was one small rug on the bare boards of the front room, that mixture of drawing office and study. She took this rug up and fetched a bucket of hot water from the kitchen, and got down on her knees again to scrub the floor. Better to make a job of the whole house, while she was at it. And this was where he did his work, and so the most important room of all.
There was a step on the path outside, and the front door opened. She raised her head and knelt back on her heels, thinking to see Shirley again. But it was Miss Teasdale, delicately gowned and perfectly made up, who stood in the doorway looking down at Marjorie as she knelt on the scrubbing mat.
“Say,” she said, “Mrs. Scott just told me all that you’ve been doing. She’s back in the apartment now for a while, so I just stepped around to see.”
Marjorie flushed a little. “I was just going to start scrubbing this floor.”
“So I see.” The actress stared around her curiously. “Is this some kind of a laboratory?”
“It’s his study, where he does his work.”
Standing in the door, Miss Teasdale glanced out into the kitchen and the stairs leading to the rooms above. “Which is the sitting-room, then?”
“This is it. It’s the only sitting-room there is.”
She stared around her, at the drawing-board, the deal cupboards and shelves loaded with books and files, the bare floor. “The little girl,” she said at last. “Where does she go?”
The stewardess said, “They’ve got a couple of armchairs in the kitchen — basket ones. I think they sit in there a good deal.” She stared around her. “It doesn’t have to be like this,” she said. “I’m sure it doesn’t. He could be much more comfortable.”
The actress glanced at the pail of steaming water. “I see you’re doing all you can to make it so.”
“Me? All I’m doing is to get rid of some of the dirt. But he could have curtains in this room, and a carpet on the floor and some decent lampshades, as a start.”
The actress smiled. “Kind of wants a woman round about the place?”
Their eyes met. Marjorie said evenly, “I think he does.”
“Okay,” said Miss Teasdale. “Just so as we know.” She turned and wandered into the kitchen. It was scrubbed and clean and smelling of antiseptic soap. The window was open and the sun streaming in; on the wooden table there was a small vase of flowers. A little pang struck at her heart again, as many pangs had in the last two days. Kitchens had been like that back in her youth in Indiana, before they got to look hygienic, like a hospital. She called over her shoulder, “You’ve done a swell job in here.”
Marjorie got up from her knees in the sitting-room and came and stood behind the actress. “It’s clean now, anyway,” she said. “But it’s all so old-fashioned. It must seem terrible to you.”
“Maybe.” The actress stood for a moment in thought. “I kind of like a scrubbed table,” she said at last. “I haven’t seen one in years. But they were all that way when I was young, and it carries you back.”
“All right if you haven’t got to scrub them yourself,” the stewardess said. “But the metal ones are so much easier.”
Miss Teasdale glanced at her. “Kind of interested in housework, aren’t you?”
Unaccountably, beside this sophisticated woman Marjorie Corder felt like a child. “Everybody’s interested in that,” she said defensively. “Besides, I was a nurse once, before I went to the Air Transport Organisation. I know a lot about scrubbing.”
“Going to stay with the airline? Or leave, and marry the boy friend?” She glanced at the stewardess’s hand. “Or isn’t there a boy friend?”
The girl shook her head. “Not now.”
“No? I’d have thought there’d have been plenty.”
“In the war?”
She nodded.
“That was quite a while ago,” the actress said. And then she said, “I see.”
Miss Corder flushed, in spite of herself. “I don’t know what it is you see,” she said. “I’ve got this other floor to do.” And she went back to the sitting-room, and went down on her knees beside the pail.
“Okay,” the older woman said. “You don’t have to get worked up about it. Guess I’ll go along now and get Mrs. Scott to telephone the office for my car.”
Marjorie raised her head. “All right,” she said. “Tell her I’ll be round in about half an hour for my coat.”
Miss Teasdale walked back slowly to our little flat, deep in thought; it did not now seem very important to her whether she was recognised or not. One or two women, and three men, glanced at her curiously in the street, but no one spoke. She reached the garden gate just as I drove up from the factory; I had left early that night, resolved to get in a couple of hours more upon my lecture that evening, somehow and in some place. I had to give it the following night; indeed the next day with our full-dress meeting upon Reindeer fatigue in the morning and my lecture in the evening, and flying to Montreal that night, was likely to be quite a heavy one.
I took her into the flat and telephoned for her car; it would take an hour or so to come from London. I poured her out a glass of sherry.
“Tired?” I said. She looked rather limp.
“Just a bit.” She roused herself. “I walked around to see where Mr. Honey lives. Miss Corder, she’s still there scrubbing the floor. Says she’ll be another half an hour. She’s got energy, that kid has.”
“Well,” I said, “she’s young.” I could have bitten my tongue out an instant later for having said that.
The actress nodded briefly. Presently she said, “Say, Dr. Scott — this research on airplanes you and Mr. Honey do. Can that be done any place? I mean, suppose a man had money, enough money to set up a swell laboratory, say, at some place like Palm Beach, and maybe another one in Vermont for the summer months. Could the work be done that way?”