BEL LAMINGTON
D. E. Stevenson
© D. E. Stevenson 1961
D. E. Stevenson has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1961 by Collins, London.
This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.
Table of Contents
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Part Two
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Part Three
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Part One
Chapter One
It was a day in early March and, after a spell of cold wet windy weather, Spring invaded London. Bel Lamington noticed the difference the moment she awoke; the bedroom in her little flat faced east so the rising sun shone into her window. Her flat was high up amongst the roof-tops in an old house in Mellington Street. Long ago these houses had been occupied by well-to-do families, but they had gone down-hill and several of them had been bought up cheaply by a builder and converted into a rabbit-warren of small flats. There was no lift, of course, but merely an ill-lighted stone stair with doors on every landing.
Presumably people lived in these other flats but Bel had lived in her flat for eighteen months—and she knew nobody. Sometimes she met people on the stairs but they passed by as if she were invisible. It was very different from Southmere where she knew everyone and everyone knew her and where, even if you did not know a person, it was correct to say “Good morning” as you passed.
There was something frightening in the anonymity of London, especially to an imaginative person. Sometimes as she lay awake at night Bel wondered what would happen if she were ill. Nobody would know—or care. She might fall down and break her leg and lie there for days! Sometimes she wondered if she had done wisely to leave Southmere . . . but what else could she have done?
Bel had lived at Southmere all her life, or at least as long as she could remember. She had lived with her aunt and they had been very happy together. Then Aunt Beatrice died and the house had been sold. Fortunately there was a little money—just enough to pay for secretarial training—so Bel packed up and said goodbye to all her friends and came to London. She worked hard to make herself employable and took the first job that offered; she went as a typist to a firm in the City, the firm of Copping, Wills and Brownlee.
On this particular day in March the sun had awakened Bel earlier than usual so she had plenty of time to get up and prepare her breakfast, plenty of time to tidy the little flat before setting out for the office. It was a pleasant little flat and she was aware that she had been lucky to get it. She had brought some furniture from Southmere which made it seem more friendly: the carpet in the sitting-room and a couple of comfortable chairs and an oak book-case. The furniture in her bedroom had come from Southmere too.
Outside the window of the sitting-room there was a flat roof with a stone coping all round it. When Bel first came to London she had put a few pot-plants on this roof but this had not satisfied her craving for a garden, so she bought some window boxes and a couple of stone troughs and filled them with seedlings. Gradually, in spite of the soot and the smoke and the depredations of pigeons, the flat roof had become a tiny garden, a piece of the country wedged in amongst the bricks and mortar of the city. Some plants refused to grow, they pined for their proper milieu as Bel herself had pined, but others consented to bloom quite cheerfully. They had to be coaxed, of course, watered and drained and repotted, their leaves sponged and their roots cosseted with bone-meal, but Bel had no other hobby and when she returned from working all day in a stuffy office it was delightful to climb out of her sitting-room window and enjoy the pleasance which she had created. The little garden was wonderfully private, it was not overlooked by the windows of the surrounding houses; she could take a deck-chair and sit there enjoying the colour and fragrance of her flowers. She could see the sky, blue and hazy above the chimneys; often she sat and watched the sky darken and the stars appear.
But the little garden was a summer joy, there was nothing much to be done with it during the winter, so Bel was glad that winter was over and Spring was here.
*
2
Spring was here. There was no doubt about it. The sky was blue, the sunshine was golden and there was a balmy feeling in the air. Bel Lamington felt a queer stirring in her blood as she walked down the street on her way to the office. There might be more bad weather—winds and rain—but winter was definitely past and over. Bel wished she were in the country. She always wished that, of course, but today even more than usual. Spring in the country! Fresh delicious smells and buds swelling on the trees and tiny spikes of crocuses pushing up through the soil!
Spring had invaded the office of Copping, Wills and Brownlee but here its invasion was not so welcome. The office had been bearable during the winter for it was well-warmed and well-lighted (it had been quite pleasant to arrive here and escape from the cold dark streets) but today it felt like a prison, everyone in the place was longing to get out, and this unsettled feeling interfered considerably with the routine. There were stupid mistakes in the typing of letters and tempers were short.
“I don’t know what’s got into everyone this morning,” said Helen Goudge crossly.
“It’s Spring,” said Bel.
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Miss Goudge. She frowned as she spoke and her thick black eyebrows met in a thick black bar across her forehead.
“Spring gets into people and unsettles them,” Bel explained.
“Spring is no excuse for carelessness.”
“I wonder if I could get home early,” said Jane Harlow.
“Why?” enquired Miss Goudge. “Why should you get home early? You’ll have to stay on longer than usual unless you pay more attention to your work.”
“There’s no need to bite my head off,” muttered Jane Harlow angrily. “Everyone makes mistakes sometimes——”
“Some people make mistakes too often——”
The atmosphere was becoming sultry and Bel hated unpleasantness so she was delighted when Mr. Brownlee’s bell rang and she was able to escape. She seized her notebook and made off as quickly as she could.
“There goes the private secretary—so keen!” exclaimed Miss Goudge with a nasty laugh.
Bel had been private secretary to the junior partner of the firm for three months now (previously she had been one of the typists and had shared a room with the other girls); unfortunately her appointment had caused a good deal of ill-feeling. Helen Goudge was furious; she had been with the firm for five years and thought the appointment with its increase of salary should have been hers. Why should Bel Lamington be chosen?
As a matter of fact Bel Lamington knew why she had been chosen but she kept her own counsel. It had happened just before Christmas when all the others had been anxious to get away early to do some Christmas shopping before going home. Bel had no Christmas shopping to do so she had stayed on in the office to finish some letters an
d tidy up. It was warm in the office and quiet and pleasant so she was in no hurry to sally out into the cold street. She had just finished work and was about to put on her coat when Mr. Brownlee came in.
“Hullo!” he said. “I thought everyone had gone. I’ve got an important letter to type. I’ll do it myself.”
“I’ll do it, Mr. Brownlee.”
“Don’t you want to get home?”
“I’m not in any hurry,” Bel told him. She smiled cheerfully and sat down at her typewriter without more ado.
It was a long letter and extremely complicated and it took some time before it was hammered into shape. Then it had to be re-typed before it could be done up and sealed. Mr. Brownlee asked her again if she were not in a hurry to get home.
“I’d rather finish it,” she said frankly. “It’s interesting. I mean it’s worth while getting it right.”
Mr. Brownlee agreed. “Look here,” he said. “Miss Storey is leaving to be married. How would you like her job?”
“Me?” asked Bel in amazement. “You mean—you mean——”
“Private secretary to the junior partner,” said Mr. Brownlee smiling. “D’you think you could bear it, Miss Lamington?”
Miss Lamington thought she could.
The job was no sinecure of course, for Mr. Brownlee was a whale for work; like many junior partners, he did more than his share of the business and expected his secretary to be at hand when he wanted her services. This meant longer hours for Bel—but that did not matter; she never went to parties, there was nobody waiting for her at home. It meant higher pay (which was important) and it gave her an insight into the working of the business which was very interesting indeed. Copping, Wills and Brownlee was a firm of importers and owned large warehouses at the Pool of London. Ships came from all over the world bringing cargoes of fruit and tea and coffee to be unloaded and stored in the warehouses and, later, distributed to various towns. Occasionally Bel’s duties took her down to the wharf and this made a pleasant break in office routine. Another advantage, in her new job, was the fact that she was no longer under the jurisdiction of Miss Goudge and did not have to listen to the bickerings of the other typists. The ill-feeling occasioned by her promotion had been hard to bear, but that could not be helped.
*
3
Mr. Brownlee was particularly busy this morning but even he was suffering from the strange malaise which had affected the office staff. He stopped in the middle of dictating a letter and looked up at the slice of blue sky which was visible in the corner of his window.
“It’s a lovely day, Miss Lamington,” he said.
“It’s Spring,” said his secretary.
She had made the remark before but this time the reaction was different.
“Yes, it’s Spring,” agreed Mr. Brownlee. “There are crocuses coming up in the garden. I noticed them this morning before I left home. I wonder if we could rush things through a bit. It would be nice to get away early.”
“You’ve got that meeting at three-thirty, Mr. Brownlee.”
“Damn, so I have,” agreed Mr. Brownlee with a sigh.
Bel was sorry. She would have liked to give Mr. Brownlee the afternoon off so that he could go home and gloat over his garden—but of course she couldn’t. The idea made her smile.
“What’s the joke, Miss Lamington?” he asked.
Unfortunately Miss Lamington could not tell him.
By this time Miss Lamington knew a good deal about her “boss”. She knew that he was thirty-six (which was “quite old” in her estimation); he lived with his mother at Beckenham and travelled to the office every day—sometimes in his car but more often by train. On one occasion when Mr. Brownlee was laid up with a cold Bel had been summoned to Beckenham to deal with some urgent correspondence and had been charmed by his delightful house and big old-fashioned garden. Mrs. Brownlee was charming too, she had insisted that Miss Lamington should stay to lunch and had talked about her son without stopping. From her Bel learnt that “Ellis” had been a fighter-pilot during the war and had been severely wounded. She was shown photographs of “Ellis” in his uniform, photographs of “Ellis” in his school XI, photographs of “Ellis” digging castles on the sands.
Some people might have been bored but Bel was interested for it gave her a clearer picture of Ellis Brownlee, it showed her the man from a different angle. It made him more human, somehow. As a matter of fact Mr. Brownlee bad scarcely changed at all. The photograph of nine-year-old Ellis digging in the sand was easily recognisable and Bel had no difficulty in picking out Ellis in the picture of the school XI. The same thin face and wide mouth and the same thick brown hair!
Bel was thinking of all this while she waited for Mr. Brownlee to continue his dictation of the letter, but Mr. Brownlee seemed to have forgotten about the letter.
“I wish I had time to go down to the wharf,” he said.
“Oh, so do I,” agreed Bel. “It would be lovely today with the sun shining on the river—and it’s so interesting, isn’t it? I like seeing the ships coming in to unload. Ships from all over the world!”
“Triremes from Nineveh? They brought ivory, apes and peacocks, didn’t they?”
Bel laughed and said, “I wonder who bought their cargoes.”
“That’s a very interesting point,” said Mr. Brownlee smiling.
His face was thin with high cheekbones; it was rather a stern face, but when he smiled his eyes crinkled at the corners and his mouth widened to show beautifully white teeth. His whole appearance changed completely when he smiled, even his thick brown hair seemed to join in the transformation.
“I wish we could both go down to the docks,” he told her. “Perhaps some day when there’s a specially interesting trireme due to arrive we could wangle an excuse . . . and that reminds me to tell you that I’ve got to go to South America sometime soon. There are various business matters to settle—that trouble with our agent at Buenos Aires for instance. Mr. Copping thinks it would be a good plan for me to go there and see what’s what.”
Bel nodded. “It would be rather a nice trip.”
“Not too bad. I don’t want to be away for long of course. There’s too much to do here.”
“I could take my holiday while you’re away.”
“No,” said Mr. Brownlee firmly. “You can have your holiday when I come back. I want you to work for Mr. Wills while I’m away.”
“Oh, Mr. Brownlee!” exclaimed Bel in dismay.
“Why not?”
There were various reasons why not. The chief one was that Bel did not like Mr. Wills—but this reason could not be offered.
“It ought to be Miss Goudge,” said Bel. “She’s been here much longer and—and she knows Mr. Wills much better than I do.”
“Why should that matter?”
“She’s much more efficient than I am,” said Bel desperately. “I mean she’s so accurate. She never makes mistakes.”
“Yes, she’s a very efficient machine but she doesn’t use her brains.”
“My shorthand——” began Bel. “Mr. Brownlee, you know my shorthand is—is——”
He laughed. “It is, rather, isn’t it?” he agreed.
“Oh yes, you can laugh! You don’t mind when I get tangled up and can’t read my own shorthand. I can come to you and ask you about it. Mr. Wills won’t laugh. He’ll be angry.”
“It doesn’t happen very often, and shorthand isn’t everything. You know the work. That’s the important thing. Listen, Miss Lamington,” said Mr. Brownlee earnestly. “Everything will get into a frightful muddle unless there’s someone here who knows the work. I don’t want to come back to chaos—see?”
Bel saw. She said doubtfully, “There will be trouble.”
“But you’ll do your best.”
“Yes, of course,” said Bel.
She was obliged to agree for she was an employee of the firm and if Mr. Brownlee wanted to lend her to Mr. Wills while he was away she had no option in the matter . . . but there
would be trouble not only with Mr. Wills but also with Helen Goudge.
Chapter Two
What with one thing and another it was later than usual when Bel got away from the office but it was such a lovely evening that she decided to walk part of the way home. She had discovered a route which avoided the jostling crowds and the streets full of noisy traffic; it was longer, of course, but much more pleasant. On leaving the office you turned down a narrow lane between tall houses—a paved lane with wooden posts at each end to show that it was intended for foot passengers only—the lane led into a large square where some of the houses had been bombed. In the middle of the square was a garden which at one time had been protected by railings, but these had been removed for scrap and never replaced. All that remained of the garden was a large area of scrubby grass with some bushes and plane trees in the middle. It was not a very attractive spot, but it was quiet and secluded and there was an iron seat beneath the trees. Sometimes in fine weather Bel brought sandwiches and a flask of coffee and had her lunch here. People passed to and fro but nobody bothered her or took the slightest interest in her. She ate her lunch in peace and scattered crumbs for the sparrows.
Bel made up her mind that if the fine weather continued she would have a picnic here one day soon.
She walked on through several quiet squares which had once been fashionable but were now full of boarding-houses and turned through an archway into a mews. This was a delightful part of her walk. It was like a little village and consisted of a narrow cobbled street with garage doors on each side and little flights of stairs which led to flats with small windows and gabled roofs. The odd thing was that, whereas the large houses in the squares had gone down-hill and were shabby and neglected-looking, these little houses had gone up in the world. The woodwork was brightly painted and there were tubs with little bay trees outside each door. One of the garages was open and a large raking sports car could be seen inside. Yes, nowadays it was fashionable to live in a mews. It was the thing.
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