The Balliols Page 5

  For signature there was the one name “ALAN.”

  The letter came as no particular surprise to her. For a long time she had suspected that Alan Cheyne was meditating a proposal. All the same, its arrival on this particular evening was appropriately opportune. It soothed the smart of Mrs. Shirley’s implied taunt. “I should like to be able to show her this.” Just as she would enjoy the surprise that the announcement of her engagement in The Times would cause to all those many friends who had said of her, “Stella Balliol, oh yes, one of the very best, of course. But not a man’s woman, if you follow me.” That alone was an inducement to say “Yes.” It would be a vindication of herself. The word spinster no longer had the sinister implications that it had held for the Victorians. But there was a freemasonry of married women from which she was increasingly conscious of her exclusion, now that her first youth was passed. Her views were disparaged because she was not a member of that lodge. As a married woman she would stand on a far firmer platform. She would be protected from the sneer; “You only feel that way because you can’t get a husband.” She would also, being relieved from the necessity of earning her own living, have infinitely more time and energy to devote to her campaign. Marriage held many advantages for her.

  They were material advantages. The problem was one to be judged by the head rather than the heart. As it was from the head rather than the heart that the proposal came. They had known each other, she and Alan, for seven years. He was a man in the Foreign Office, some eight years older than herself. Their friendship had been built up slowly out of shared tastes and interests. They lent each other books; they went to lectures; they were members of a debating society; they saw eye to eye on a great many points. Since they agreed on ultimate essentials, their arguments on points that they held at issue were stimulating. She rarely read or heard anything that interested her without thinking, “I wonder what Alan will make of that.” They had corresponded at length, even though they were meeting two or three times a week. Their friendship had grown closer, year by year, month by month. He was the most important person in her life; as she was, she presumed, in his. It was not surprising that when in the middle thirties he should feel the need for marriage, for the background of a hostess and a home, he should turn to her as the companion and associate he needed. For a long time now she had known that he was playing with the idea. He had sounded her as to her views on marriage. She had known that sooner or later he would propose. She had known, too, that it was in some such way that he would do it.

  She re-read the letter carefully. Yes, that was how she had known it must be. Whether it had come as a letter, or as a set speech. The neat, precise statement of a case. That was how it was bound to have come, between them. As a climax, as a corollary to their friendship, their mental friendship. It could have come in no other way. And yet.…

  Rising to her feet, she walked over to the window and leant her arms on the high sill. At the back of her was the small bed-sitting-room; with its narrow iron bedstead, its bare wash-hand stand; the chest of drawers from which a leaf for writing could be drawn, that supported her one three-shelved bookcase; the hard chair; the one wicker chair; the linoleumed floor; the one neutral-coloured rug; the Medici reproduction of Rembrandt’s warrior; the framed photograph of her rather; the narrow room and all it symbolized. And in front of her was the vast sea of London’s roofs and chimney-stacks; its spires; its lighted windows; the dull murmur of it; the red flush it cast upwards to the clouds. London and all it symbolized. She stood, staring.

  When at last she turned away there was a film before her eyes, so that the familiar view was blurred. She drew her fore-arm sharply across her eyes. “Now then, don’t behave like a school-girl just because.…”

  She paused. Because what? Because there was nothing in this letter that could truthfully be held to contradict Mrs. Shirley’s taunt? It was a proposal, yes. Her first proposal. But not the kind of proposal that as a young girl she had dreamed of. Alan did not feel about her in that way. No one had ever felt about her in that way. Probably no one ever would. And yet deep in her heart she knew that this was the one feeling she wanted to inspire; the one feeling to which she wanted to respond. All this sharing of interests, exchanging of books, going to debates, comparing views; friendship might come that way, did come that way. But.…

  What was it that she had dreamed of as a girl? For what was it that when she was honest with herself she knew herself to be lonely still, hungry for in her profoundest instincts? That recognition in the presence of another person, unaccountably, irrefutably, of oneness. A knowledge that could make you say “You’re mine. I’m yours. Let the world slip.” The one person to whom you did not need to explain yourself, who understood without explanation, who restored your faith through his belief in you, whom you could rely on and who needed you, who gave a purpose to each thing you did, who completed you. Was she never to know that feeling, was she never to meet that person? Because she was no longer young; because she was not the fluffy doll men seemed to want, because she needed knowing, was not on the surface? Surely somewhere, she thought, there must be that person waiting, who needs me as I need him. No one is born without a mate. Will I never meet that person? Will it be too late? He must be somewhere, waiting for me, as I am for him.

  She laid her head back on her arms. He must be somewhere, she told herself. He must be, somewhere.

  V

  Stella’s department of the Morrison Teach-Yourself-By-Post Institute was devoted to the card-indexing of circulars and pamphlets. The activities of the firm were considerable. It was necessary that particulars of each new enterprise should reach the particular audience to whom it was addressed. Elaborate lists had been compiled of societies, libraries, institutions, specialists. If a journal on stamp collecting, a supplement on blue porcelain, a dictionary of classical references or a magazine for motor-car mechanics was projected, the hundred, thousand, or ten thousand addresses at which this particular information would be of interest were supplied by copious card-indexes. A considerable section of the company’s morning post consisted of the post cards which were inserted in each of the company’s publications, and on which specialists were invited to indicate the nature of their hobbies.

  The preparation and employment of these lists occupied the full time of thirty women. They worked in a single room. Desks flanked with drawers contained the particular card-indexes that lay under their province. Typewriters, on account of their noise and expense, were not allotted them. A high standard of caligraphy was demanded. The system was elaborate, but simple. When Stella, who directed their activities from a small glass-doored office, was told, “We are issuing a special yachting supplement with the Amateur Sportsman, fifteen thousand circulars must be dispatched by the 15th of next month,” she would be able to prepare and supervise the addressing of the necessary envelopes as simply as a mechanic sets a machine in motion, by pressing a button or pulling down a lever. Which was how, in point of fact, the authorities regarded the thirty women who from nine till half-past five for a weekly salary of thirty shillings sat hunched over their envelopes and wrappers.

  Stella took her immediate orders from a small, tubby, white-haired, high-foreheaded little man who concealed beneath an air of Pickwickian benevolence a crafty, malicious nature. His name was Beccles. His cheeks were pink and full. A constant smile punctuated his talk with chuckles. His eyes twinkled. He would lean forward on his elbows, revolving between his short, plump, well-kept hands a pencil that he never appeared to use, so uniform was its length. Your first impression of him was, “What a jolly little man.” He prided himself on this impression. “My face is my fortune,” he would say. “I can’t tell you how useful it is to look something quite different from what you are. People think I am easy-going, tolerant, unsuspecting. Consequently, they relax, slacken off, take things easily. Then, when the time comes, I pounce.”

  Stella disliked him cordially. She hoped that she concealed her dislike beneath a brisk office manne
r. But she had no means of knowing whether she was successful. On the whole she was inclined to believe that Beccles did not really care whether she liked or disliked him; that he respected and prized her capability, and left it there.

  She could never, all the same, be quite certain that he was not awaiting a right moment for his pounce. She never heard without a slight qualm the thin piping voice of his secretary. “Mr. Beccles would be very much obliged, Miss Balliol, if you would come up and see him at your convenience.” The words “at your convenience” were always added. She would have liked to take him at his word and keep him waiting half a day. As it was she had the greatest difficulty in restraining her impulse to jump up from her desk there and then, and scamper down the passage. She usually delayed her visit twenty minutes.

  On the morning following her brother’s dinner-party the scream of the buzzer at her side—telephones were the privilege of masculine departmental heads—informed her that Mr. Beccles had a matter he would like to discuss with her “at her convenience.” Stella looked at her clock: twelve minutes past ten. At half-past, precisely, she left her desk.

  Mr. Beccles did not rise from his chair.

  “Good morning, Miss Balliol, good morning. I hope I have not taken you away from anything too pressing. The better the day, the better the deed, you know.” And he chuckled heartily, as though he had said something rather clever. Stella had always wondered whether his frequent and usually inapposite use of proverbs was a nervous habit or a facet in his façade of open and not over-intelligent geniality.

  “I trust that all the young ladies under your care are behaving.”

  “I trust so, Mr. Beccles.”

  “I trust so, too. I rely on you there; completely. Nobody understands a woman like a woman. I always accept your judgment, implicitly, implicitly.” His smile broadened; the pencil within his short fingers revolved in a series of steady jerks. I wish he’d come to the point, thought Stella.

  “Now, let me see, what was it I was going to ask you? Ah, of course, the prospectus of that Collectors’ Handbook of Roman Pottery. Now, I’m right, aren’t I, in thinking that those prospectuses have gone out?”

  “Yes, they went out last week.”

  “Can you remember the exact day?”

  Stella always brought her schedule book to her interviews with Mr. Beccles. But this was an entry that she had no need to verify. She remembered particularly the rush to get those prospectuses off by the last post on Thursday evening, before the Easter holiday began.

  “Thursday evening?” he said. “As I thought. There is no post on Good Friday. But on the Saturday there is. Those prospectuses, therefore, should have been delivered at their respective destinations by the first post on Saturday.”

  “I imagine so.”

  “I, too, had imagined that. And as I was spending the Easter holiday with a friend whose name is, I know, on our list of amateurs of pottery, I was curious to see what effect that prospectus would have on him. He would not know that I was in part responsible for the book. He would not be familiar with the various subsidiary branches of our company. I should get, that is to say, an impartial view of his attitude towards our circulars. Such a view would be interesting, don’t you feel?”

  He paused, with a benignant beam. She agreed that it would be extremely interesting.

  “Exactly. One needs disinterested criticism. If one might put it so. I can assure you, Miss Balliol, that I came down to breakfast hungrier for the post than for my egg and bacon. How will he treat this prospectus, I asked myself. Will he fling it into the wastepaper-basket unread? Will he glance through it carelessly, then throw it down? Will he study it carefully, knit his brows, say ‘I’d like a good modern book on Roman pottery, but somehow this doesn’t seem quite the book I want’? Or would he, after a few moments, declare that this is the very book he’s been waiting for for months?”

  He paused dramatically. “You see the importance of this, Miss Balliol?”

  “Certainly.”

  “If he flings the circular away, unread, I say to myself, ‘People don’t read circulars. We waste money on them.’ If he flings it away after a casual glance I think ‘Yes, he looks at circulars, but this didn’t hold his attention. We don’t get up our circulars attractively.’ If, after reflection, he puts it away, I think ‘Perhaps it’s the book’s fault. Perhaps our editorial staff’s at fault.’ But if on the other hand he decides to buy the book well then, I know our editorial staff, our copyrighters, our publicity experts are justified. Of each one of them I say Palmam qui meruit ferat.”

  His face shone with the excitement that such a discovery would be expected to waken in a loyal and enthusiastic employee.

  “That is what I looked for; but what, what, Miss Balliol, do you think I found?”

  He paused dramatically.

  “What did I find, Miss Balliol? The very last thing that I had thought to find. There was no prospectus of our book on Roman pottery on my friend’s breakfast table.”

  Another pause. He was preparing for his pounce. But his face could not have borne an expression of more benevolent bewilderment.

  With that expression unchanged, he pounced.

  “Miss Balliol,” he snapped, “I want the name of the girl who was responsible for sending that prospectus to Mr. Guy Porterling, Osse Court, Osshamptom.”

  It did not take Stella three minutes to find out who was responsible for the undelivered prospectus. The alphabetical arrangement of the card-indexes made it a simple matter. She glanced down two parallel columns, checked two entries, then walked between the rows of huddled figures and touched on the shoulder a young, recently joined member of the staff.

  “Miss Webster, may I speak to you in my room a moment?”

  Miss Webster was one of those pale-haired girls who only look pretty when they are well. After the sunshine and open air of the Easter holiday she was vivid, flushed, brightened. Within a week, as likely as not, she would have grown pale and peaked: no glow in her eyes, no colour in her face. She was the kind of girl who ought never to live in cities.

  “You remember that rush we had on Thursday evening to get off those Pottery prospectuses?”

  “Yes.”

  “You did the ‘P’s,’ didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You couldn’t, I know, be expected to remember the hundred envelopes that you addressed. But if you look in your index you will find the name Porterling. He never received a prospectus.”

  As Stella explained how this fact had been discovered, a sulky look came into Miss Webster’s face. For a moment it seemed as though she were going to make some denial, some truculent defence. Then she looked up at Stella. Their eyes met. Her defiance dropped. A look came into her face that seemed to say, “Oh, very well then. I can’t fight with you. You’re not the kind one makes excuses to.” She waited till Stella had finished, then said simply:

  “I was feeling like death on Thursday. You know how it is every now and then. I didn’t know what I was doing. I don’t suppose that was the only mistake I made. Is old Beccles sick?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s he going to do about it?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll try and put it right.”

  “That’s decent of you.”

  Stella found Beccles as bland as she had expected.

  “Well, and have you found the little miscreant?”

  “It was Miss Webster.”

  “Ah!” His forehead puckered in a frown and his eyes closed as he recreated the picture of Miss Webster. “Yes, I remember. A slight, pale girl. She hasn’t been with us long.”

  “Three months.”

  “Has her work otherwise been satisfactory?”

  “Completely.”

  “Um, I see.…” He leant back in his chair, the pencil held before his eyes as though he were focussing some object in the foreground. His smile and manner were urbane, lit by the furtive knowledge that he had it in his power to hurt.

  “It’
s no use my pretending that I don’t take a serious view of this,” he said. “You may say it’s a small thing. But there’s no smoke without fire. If we find a mistake is made on the one point that we can check, we must assume that there are mistakes on the many points we cannot check. We cannot afford mistakes, Miss Balliol.”

  As she had walked down the corridor to Beccles’ office, Stella had prepared the conventionally sympathetic defence. Miss Webster was an extremely good worker. She had had an extremely bad headache on Thursday evening. She should have left the office. She had only remained because of the necessity of getting off the prospectuses for Easter. The mistake was one that in the circumstances should be overlooked.

  That was how she had planned to plead. But Beccles’ malicious smugness antagonized her. She was not going to advance that woman’s plea to a man who would go home with a sneer on his lips and remark how impossible women were in offices, how they made mistakes that a man would be sacked at once for, and expected to be forgiven, when they advanced the woman’s excuse of a sick headache. A man like Beccles would only sneer, would not realize how valid an excuse that was; how there were days when no woman was fit to work; when she went to her office, her head splitting, everything out of mental focus.

  She adopted a different defence.

  “We have proof that the mistake has been made,” she said; “but none that Miss Webster made it. It was the Thursday before Good Friday. The posts were heavy. If we knew that two or three mistakes had been made in envelopes addressed by Miss Webster then we should be fairly sure that the fault was hers. But there is only this one letter. There is no reason to be certain that the mistake was made by her rather than anybody else.”