IVThe VizierLate in the afternoon of the following day Mr. Grig put his head inside the small room."Just come here, Miss Share," he began, and then, seeing that Millicent was not at her desk, he appeared to decide that he might as well speak with Lilian where she was.He had been away from the office most of the day, and even during his presences had seemingly taken no part in its conduct. Much work had been received, some of it urgent, and Lilian, typing at her best speed, had the air of stopping with reluctance to listen to whatever the useless and wandering man might have to say. He merely said:"We shall close to-night, like last night.""Oh, but, Mr. Grig," Lilian protested--and there was no sign of a tear this time--"we can't possibly keep on closing. We had one complaint this morning about being closed last night. I didn't tell you because I didn't want to worry you.""Now listen to me," Mr. Grig protested in his turn, petulantly. "Nothing worries me more than the idea that people are keeping things from me in order that I shan't be worried. My sister was always doing that; she was incurable, but I'm not going to have it from anyone else. If you hide things, why are you silly enough to let out afterwards that you were hiding them and why you were hiding them? That's what I can't understand.""Sorry, Mr. Grig," Lilian apologized briefly and with sham humility, humouring the male in such a manner that he must know he was being humoured.His petulancy charmed her. It gave him youth, and gave her age and wisdom. He had good excuse for it--Miss Grig had been moved into a nursing home preparatory to an operation, and Gertie was stated to be very ill in his house--and she enjoyed excusing him. It was implicit in every tone of his voice that they were now definitely not on terms of employer and employee."That's all right! That's all right!" he said, mollified by her discreet smile. "But close at six. I'm off.""I really don't think we ought to close," she insisted, with firmness in her voice followed by persuasion in her features, and she brushed back her hair with a gesture of girlishness that could not be ineffective. He hesitated, frowning. She went on: "If it gets about that we're closing night after night, we're bound to lose a lot of customers. I can perfectly well stay here.""Yes! And be no use at all to-morrow!""I should be here to-morrow just the same. If other girls can do it, why can't I?" (A touch of harshness in the question.) "Oh, Milly!" she exclaimed, neglecting to call Milly Miss Merrislate, according to the custom by which in talking to the principals everybody referred to everybody else as "Miss." "Oh, Milly!"--Millicent appeared behind Mr. Grig at the door and he nervously made way for her--"here's Mr. Grig wants to close again to-night! I'm sure we really oughtn't to. I've told Mr. Grig I'll stay--and be here to-morrow too. Don't you agree we mustn't close?"Millicent was flattered by the frank appeal as an equal from one whom she was already with annoyance beginning to regard as a superior. From timidity in Mr. Grig's presence she looked down her too straight nose, but she nodded affirmatively her narrow head, and as soon as she had recovered from the disturbing novelty of deliberately opposing the policy of an employer she said to Lilian:"I'll stay with you if you like. There's plenty to do, goodness knows!""You are a dear!" Lilian exclaimed, just as if they had been alone together in the room."Oh, well, have it as you like!" Mr. Grig rasped, and left, defeated."Is he vexed?" Milly demanded after he had gone."Of course not! He's very pleased, really. But he has to save his face."Milly gave Lilian a scarcely conscious glance of admiration, as a woman better versed than herself in the mysteries of men, and also as a woman of unsuspected courage. And she behaved like an angel through the whole industrious night--so much so that Lilian was nearly ready to admit to an uncharitable premature misjudgment of the girl."And now what are you going to do about keeping open?" inquired Mr. Grig, with bland, grim triumph the next afternoon to the exhausted Lilian and the exhausted Millicent. "I thought I'd let you have your own way last night. But you can't see any further than your noses, either of you. You're both dead.""I can easily stay up another night," said Lilian desperately, but Millicent said nothing."No doubt!" Mr. Grig sneered. "You look as if you could! And supposing you do, what about to-morrow night? The whole office is upset, and, of course, people must go and choose just this time to choke us with work!""Well, anyhow, we can't close," Lilian stoutly insisted."No!" Mr. Grig unexpectedly agreed. "Miss Merrislate, you know most about the large room. You'd better pick two of 'em out of there, and tell 'em they must stay and do the best they can by themselves. But that won't carry us through.Icertainly shan't sit up, and I won't have you two sitting up every second night in turn. There's only one thing to do. I must engage two new typists at once--that's clear. We may as well face the situation. Where do we get 'em from?"But neither Lilian nor Milly knew just how Miss Grig was in the habit of finding recruits to the staff. Each of them had been taken on through private connexions. Gertie Jackson would probably have known how to proceed, but Gertie was down with influenza."I'll tell you what I shall do," said Mr. Grig at last. "I'll get an advertisement into to-morrow'sDaily Chronicle. That ought to do the trick. This affair's got to be handled quickly. When the applicants come you'd better deal with 'em, Miss Share--in my room. I shan't be here to-morrow."He spoke scornfully, and would not listen to offers of help in the matter of the advertisement. He would see to it himself, and wanted no assistance, indeed objected to assistance as being merely troublesome. The next day was the day of Miss Grig's operation, and the apprehension of it maddened this affectionate and cantankerous brother. Millicent left the small room to bestow upon two chosen members of the rabble in the large room the inexpressible glory of missing a night's sleep.On the following morning, when Lilian, refreshed, arrived zealously at the office half an hour earlier than usual, she found three aspirants waiting to apply for the vacant posts. The advertisement had been drawn up and printed; the newspaper had been distributed and read, and the applicants, pitifully eager, had already begun to arrive from the ends of London. Sitting in Miss Grig's chair, Lilian nervously interviewed and examined them. One of the three gave her age as thirty-nine, and produced yellowed testimonials. By ten o'clock twenty-three suitors had come, and Lilian, frightened by her responsibilities, had impulsively engaged a couple, who took off hats and jackets and began to work at once. She had asked Millicent to approve of the final choice, but Millicent, intensely jealous and no longer comparable to even the lowest rank of angel, curtly declined."You're in charge," Millicent said acidly. "Don't you try to push it on to me, Miss Lilian Share."Aspirants continued to arrive. Lilian had the clever idea of sticking a notice on the outer door: "All situations filled. No typists required." But aspirants continued to enter, and all of them averred positively that they had not seen the notice on the door. Lilian told a junior to paste four sheets of typing paper together, and she inscribed the notice on the big sheet in enormous characters. But aspirants continued to enter, and all of them averred positively that they had not seen the notice on the door. It was dreadful, it was appalling, because Lilian was saying to herself: "I may be like them one day." Millicent, on the other hand, disdained the entire procession, and seized the agreeable rôle of dismissing applicants as fast as they came.In the evening Mr. Grig appeared. The operation had been a success. Gertie Jackson was, if anything, a little worse; but the doctor anticipated an improvement. Mr. Grig showed not the least interest in his business. Lilian took the night duty alone.Thenceforward the office settled gradually into its new grooves, and, though there was much less efficiency than under Miss Grig, there was little friction. Everybody except Millicent regarded Lilian as the grand vizier, and Millicent's demeanour towards Lilian was by turns fantastically polite and fantastically indifferent.A fortnight passed. The two patients were going on well, and it was stated that there was a possibility of them being sent together to Felixstowe for convalescence. Mr. Grig's attendance grew more regular, but he did little except keep the books and make out the bills; in which matter he displayed a facility that amazed Lilian, who really was not a bit arithmetical.One day, entering the large room after hours, Lilian saw Millicent typing on a machine not her own. As she passed she read the words: "My darling Gertie. I simply can't tell you how glad I was to get your lovely letter." And it flashed across her that Millicent would relate all the office doings to Gertie, who would relate them to Miss Grig. She had a spasm of fear, divining that Millicent would misrepresent her. In what phrases had Millicent told that Lilian had sat in Miss Grig's chair and interviewed applicants for situations! Was it not strange that Gertie had not written to her, Lilian, nor she even thought of writing to Gertie? Too late now for her to write to Gertie! A few days later Mr. Grig said to Lilian in the small room:'"You're very crowded here, aren't you?"The two new-comers had been put into the small room, being of a superior sort and not fitted to join the rabble."Oh, no!" said Lilian. "We're quite comfortable, thank you.""You don't seem to be very comfortable. It occurs to me it would be better in every way if you brought your machine into my room."An impulse, and an error of judgment, on Felix's part! But he was always capricious."I should prefer to stay where I am," Lilian answered, not smiling. What a letter Millicent would have written in order to describe Lilian's promotion to the principals' room!Often, having made a mistake, Felix would persist in it from obstinacy."Oh! As you like!" he muttered huffily, instead of recognizing by his tone that Lilian was right. But the next moment he repeated, very softly and kindly: "As you like! It's for you to decide." He had not once shown the least appreciation of, or gratitude for, Lilian's zeal. On the contrary, he had been in the main querulous and censorious. But she did not mind. She was richly rewarded by a single benevolent inflection of that stirring voice. She seemed to have forgotten that she was born for pleasure, luxury, empire. Work fully satisfied her, but it was work for him. The mere suggestion that she should sit in his room filled her with deep joy.VThe MartyrMiss Grig came back to the office on a Thursday, and somewhat mysteriously. Millicent, no doubt from information received through Gertie Jackson, had been hinting for several days that the return would not be long delayed; but Mr. Grig had said not one word about the matter until the Wednesday evening, when he told Lilian, with apparent casualness, as she was leaving for the night, that his sister might be expected the next morning. As for Miss Jackson, she would resume her duties only on the Monday, having family affairs to transact at Islington. Miss Jackson, it seemed, had developed into the trusted companion and intimate--almost ally, if the term were not presumptuous--of the soul and dynamo of the business. Miss Grig and she had suffered together, they had solaced and strengthened each other; and Gertie, for all her natural humility, was henceforth to play in the office a rôle superior to that of a senior employee. She had already been endowed with special privileges, and among these was the privilege of putting the interests of Islington before the interests of Clifford Street.The advent of Miss Grig, of course, considerably agitated the office and in particular the small room, two of whose occupants had never seen the principal of whose capacity for sustained effort they had heard such wonderful and frightening tales.At nine-thirty that Thursday morning it was reported in both rooms that Miss Grig had re-entered her fortress. Nobody had seen her, but ears had heard her, and, moreover, it was mystically known by certain signs, as, for example, the reversal of a doormat which had been out of position for a week, that a higher presence was immanent in the place and that the presence could be none other than Miss Grig. Everybody became an exemplar of assiduity, amiability, and entire conscientiousness. Everybody prepared a smile; and there was a universal wish for the day to be over.Shortly after ten o'clock Miss Grig visited the small room, shook hands with Lilian and Millicent, and permitted the two new typists to be presented to her. Millicent spoke first and was so effusive in the expression of the delight induced in her by the spectacle of Miss Grig and of her sympathy for the past and hope for the future of Miss Grig's health, that Lilian, who nevertheless did her best to be winning, could not possibly compete with her. Miss Grig had a purified and chastened air, as of one detached by suffering from the grossness and folly of the world, and existing henceforth in the world solely from a cold, passionate sense of duty. Her hair was greyer, her mild equable voice more soft, and her burning eyes had a brighter and more unearthly lustre. She said that she was perfectly restored, let fall that Mr. Grig had gone away at her request for a short, much-needed holiday, and then passed smoothly on to the large room.After a while a little flapper of a beginner came to tell Millicent that Miss Grig wanted her. Millicent, who had had charge of the petty cash during the interregnum, was absent for forty minutes. When she returned, flushed but smiling, to her expectant colleagues, she informed Lilian that Miss Grig desired to see her at twelve o'clock."I notice there's an account here under the name of Lord Mackworth," Miss Grig began, having allowed Lilian to stand for a few seconds before looking up from the ledger and other books in which she was apparently absorbed. She spoke with the utmost gentleness, and fixed her oppressive deep eyes on Lilian's."Yes, Miss Grig?""It hasn't been paid.""Oh!" Lilian against an intense volition began to blush."Didn't you know?""I didn't," said Lilian."But you've been having something to do with the books during my absence.""I did a little at first," Lilian admitted. "Then Mr. Grig saw to them.""Miss Merrislate tells me that you had quite a lot to do with them, and I see your handwriting in a number of places here.""I've had nothing to do with them for about three weeks--I should think at least three weeks, and--and of course I expected the bill would be paid by this time.""But you never asked?""No. It never occurred to me."This statement was inaccurate. Lilian had often wondered whether Lord Mackworth had paid his bill, but, from some obscurely caused self-consciousness, she had not dared to make any inquiry. She felt herself to be somehow "mixed up" with Lord Mackworth, and had absurdly feared that if she mentioned the name there might appear on the face or in the voice of the detestable Milly some sinister innuendo."Miss Merrislate tells me that she didn't trouble about the account as she supposed it was your affair.""My affair!" exclaimed Lilian impulsively. "It's no more my affair than anybody else's." She surmised in the situation some ingenious malevolence of the flat-breasted mischief-maker."But you did the work?""Yes. It came in while I was on duty that night, and I did it at once. There was no one else to do it.""Who brought it in?""Lord Mackworth.""Did you know him?""Certainly not. I didn't know him from Adam.""Never mind Adam, Miss Share," observed Miss Grig genially. "Has Lord Mackworth been in since?""If he has I've not seen him," Lilian answered defiantly.Miss Grig's geniality exasperated her because it did not deceive her."I'm only asking for information," Miss Grig said with a placatory smile. "I see the copies were delivered at six-thirty in the morning. Who delivered the job?""I did.""Where?""At his address. I dropped it into the letter-box on my way home after my night's work. I stayed here because somebody had to stay, and I did the best I could.""I'm quite sure of that," Miss Grig agreed. "And, of course, you've been paid for all overtime--and there's been quite a good deal. We all do the best we can. At least, I hope so.... And you've never seen Lord Mackworth since?""No.""And you simply dropped the envelope into the letter-box?""Yes.""Didn't see Lord Mackworth that morning?""Certainly not."By this time Lilian was convinced that Miss Grig's intention was to provoke her to open resentment. She guessed also that Milly must have deliberately kept silence to her, Lilian, about the Mackworth account in the hope of trouble on Miss Grig's return, and that Milly had done everything she could that morning to ensure trouble. The pot had been simmering in secret for weeks; now it was boiling over. She felt helpless and furious."You know," Miss Grig proceeded, "there's a rule in this office that night-work must only be delivered by hand by the day-staff the next day. If it's wanted urgently before the day-staff arrives the customer must fetch it.""Excuse me, Miss Grig, I never heard of that rule."Miss Grig smiled again: "Well, at any rate, it was your business to have heard of it, my dear. Everybody else knows about it.""I told Mr. Grig I was going to deliver it myself, and he didn't say anything.""Please don't attempt to lay the blame on my brother. He is far too good-natured." Miss Grig's gaze burned into Lilian's face as, with an enigmatic intonation, she uttered these words. "You did wrong. And I suppose you've never heard either of the rule that new customers must always pay on or before delivery?""Yes, I have. But I couldn't ask for the money at half-past six in the morning, could I? And I couldn't tell him how much it would be before I'd typed it.""Yes, you could, my dear, and you ought to have done. You could have estimated it and left a margin for errors. That was the proper course. And if you know anything about Lord Mackworth you must know that his debts are notorious. I believe he's one of the fastest young men about town, and it's more than possible that that account's a bad debt.""But can't we send in the account again?" Lilian weakly suggested; she was overthrown by the charge of fast-living against Lord Mackworth, yet she had always in her heart assumed that he was a fast liver."I've just telephoned to 6a St. James's Street, and I needn't say that Lord Mackworth is no longer there, and they don't know where he is. You see what comes of disobeying rules."Lilian lifted her head: "Well, Miss Grig, the bill isn't so very big, and if you'll please deduct it from my wages on Saturday I hope that will be the end of that."It was plain that the bewildered creature had but an excessively imperfect notion of how to be an employee. She had taken to the vocation too late in life.Miss Grig put her hand to the support of her forehead, and paused."I can tolerate many things," said she, with great benignity, "but not insolence.""I didn't mean to be insolent.""You did. And I think you had better accept a week's notice from Saturday. No. On second thoughts, I'll pay your wages up to Saturday week now and you can go at once." She smiled kindly. "That will give you time to turn round.""Oh! Very well, if it's like that!"Miss Grig unlocked a drawer; and while she was counting the money Lilian thought despairingly that if Mr. Grig, or even if the nice Gertie, had been in the office, the disaster could not have occurred.Miss Grig shook hands with her and wished her well."Where are you going to? It's not one o'clock yet," asked Millicent in the small room as Lilian silently unhooked her hat and jacket from the clothes-cupboard."Out.""What for?""For Miss G., if you want to know."And she left. Except her clothes, not a thing in the office belonged to her. She had no lien, no attachment. The departure was as simple and complete as leaving a Tube train. No word! No good-bye! Merely a disappearance.VIThe InvitationShe walked a mile eastwards along Oxford Street before entering a teashop, in order to avoid meeting any of the girls, all of whom, except the very youngest and the very stingiest, distributed themselves among the neighbouring establishments for the absurdly insufficient snack called lunch. Every place was full just after one o'clock, and crammed at one-fifteen. She asked for a whole meat pie instead of a half, for she felt quite unusually hungry. A plot! That was what it was! A plot against her, matured by Miss G. in a few minutes out of Milly's innuendoes written to Gertie and spoken to Miss G. herself. And the reason of the plot was Miss G.'s spinsterish, passionate fear of a friendship between Felix Grig and Lilian! Lilian was ready to believe that Miss G. had engineered the absence of both her brother and Gertie so as to be free to work her will without the possibility of complications. If Miss G. hated her, she hated Miss G. with at least an equal fierceness--the fierceness of an unarmed victim. The injustice of the world staggered her. She thought that something ought to be done about it. Even Lord Mackworth was gravely to blame, for not having paid his bill. Still, that detail had not much importance, because Miss G., deprived of one pretext, would soon have found another. After all that she, Lilian, had done for the office, to be turned off at a moment's notice, and without a character--for Miss G. would never give a reference, and Lilian would never ask for a reference! Never! Nor would she nor could she approach Felix Grig; nor Gertie either. Perhaps Felix Grig might communicate with her. He certainly ought to do so. But then, he was very casual, forgetful and unconsciously cruel.All the men and girls in the packed tea-shop had work behind them and work in front of them. They knew where they were; they had a function on the earth. She, Lilian, had nothing, save a couple of weeks' wages and perhaps a hundred pounds in the Post Office Savings Bank. Resentment against her father flickered up anew from its ashes in her heart.How could she occupy herself after lunch? Unthinkable for her to go to her lodging until the customary hour, unless she could pretend to be ill; and if she feigned illness the well-disposed slavey would be after her and would see through the trick at once, and it would be all over the house that something had happened to Miss Share. The afternoon was an enormous trackless expanse which had to be somehow traversed by a weary and terribly discouraged wayfarer. Her father had been in the habit of conducting his family on ceremonial visits to the public art galleries. She went to the Wallace Collection, and saw how millionaires lived in the 'seventies, and how the unchaste and lovely ladies were dressed for whom entire populations were sacrificed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Thence to a cinema near the Marble Arch, and saw how virtue infallibly wins after all.When, after travelling countless leagues of time and ennui, she reached home she received a note from Mr. Pladda inviting her to the Hammersmith Palais de Danse for the following night. Mr. Pladda was the star lodger in the house--a man of forty-five, legally separated from his wife but of impeccable respectability and decorum. His illusion was that he could dance rather well. Mr. Pladda was evidently coming on.The next morning, which was very fine, Lilian spent in Hyde Park, marshalling her resources. Beyond her trifling capital she had none. Especially she had no real friends. She had unwisely cut loose from her parents' acquaintances, and she could not run after them now that she was in misfortune. Her former colleagues? Out of the question! Gertie might prove a friend, but Gertie must begin; Lilian could not begin. Lord Mackworth? Silly idea! She still thought of Lord Mackworth romantically. He was an unattainable hero at about the same level as before in her mind, for while his debts had lowered him his advertised dissoluteness had mysteriously raised him. (Yet in these hours and days Mr. Pladda himself was not more absolutely respectable and decorous, in mind and demeanour, than Lilian.) She went to two cinemas in the afternoon, and, safe in the darkness of the second one, cried silently.But with Mr. Pladda at the Palais de Danse she was admirably cheerful, and Mr. Pladda was exceedingly proud of his companion, who added refined manners to startling beauty. She delicately praised his dancing, whereupon he ordered lemon squashes and tomato sandwiches. At the little table she told him calmly that she was leaving her present situation and taking another.Back in her room she laughed with horrid derision. And as soon as she was in bed the clockwork mice started to run round and round in her head. A plot! A plot! What a burning shame! What a burning shame! ... A few weeks earlier she had actually been bestowing situations on pitiful applicants. Now she herself had no situation and no prospect of any. She had never had to apply for a situation. She had not been educated to applying for situations. She could not imagine herself ever applying for a situation. She had not the least idea how to begin to try to get a situation. She passed the greater part of Sunday in bed, and in the evening went to church and felt serious and good.On Monday morning she visited the Post Office and filled up a withdrawal form for forty pounds. She had had a notion of becoming a companion to a rich lady, or private secretary to a member of Parliament. She would advertise. Good clothes, worn as she could wear them, would help her. (She could not face another situation in an office. No, she couldn't.) The notion of a simpleton, of course! But she was still a simpleton. The notion, however, was in reality only a pretext for obtaining some good clothes. All her life she had desired more than anything a smart dress. There was never a moment in her life when she was less entitled to indulge herself; but she felt desperate. She was taking to clothes as some take to brandy. On the Wednesday she received the money: a colossal, a marvellous sum. She ran off with it and nervously entered a big shop in Wigmore Street; the shop was a wise choice on her part, for it combined smartness with a discreet and characteristic Englishness. Impossible to have the dangerous air of an adventuress in a frock bought at that shop!The next few days were spent in exactly fitting and adapting the purchases to her body. She had expended the forty pounds and drawn out eight more. Through the medium of the slavey she borrowed a mirror, and fixed it at an angle with her own so that she could see her back. She was so interested and absorbed that she now and then neglected to feel unhappy and persecuted. She neglected also to draw up an advertisement, postponing that difficult matter until the clothes should be finished. But the house gathered that Miss Share had got her new situation. One afternoon, early, returning home after a search for white elastic in Hammersmith, she saw Mr. Grig coming away from the house. She stood still, transfixed; she flushed hotly, and descried a beneficent and just God reigning in heaven. She knew she was saved; and the revulsion in her was nearly overwhelming. A miracle! And yet--not a miracle at all; for Mr. Grig was bound by every consideration of honour and decency to get into communication with her sooner or later. Her doubts of his integrity had been inexcusable."I've just left a note for you," he said, affecting carelessness. "I brought it down myself because I couldn't remember whether your number was 56 or 65, and I had to inquire. Moreover, it's urgent. I want to talk to you. Will you dine with me to-night at the Devonshire Restaurant, Jermyn Street? Eight o'clock. I shan't be able to dress, so you could wear a hat. Yes or no?..." He was gone again in a moment.Lilian literally ran upstairs to her room in order to be alone with her ecstatic happiness. She hugged it, kissed it, smothered it; then read the wonderful note three times, and reviewed all her new clothes.VIIThe AvowalAs Lilian armed herself for the field she discovered that, after all her care, she had omitted to provide several small details, the absence of each of which seemed for a few moments in turn to be a disaster. But on the whole she was well satisfied with the total effectiveness. The slattern, who had been furtively summoned, and who was made to wash her hands before touching a hook-and-eye, expressed, in whispers, an admiring amazement which enheartened Lilian in spite of its uninformed quality. The girl, as if bewitched, followed the vision down to the front door."If it rains you're ruined, miss," said the girl anxiously, glancing up into the heavy darkness where not a star was to be seen. "You ought for to have an umbrella."Lilian shook her head."It won't rain," she answered cheerfully.But as soon as she was fairly away from the house she felt, or thought she felt, a drop of rain, and, seeing a taxi, she impulsively hailed it, wishing to heaven the next instant that she had not been so audacious. For although twice with her father and mother she had ridden in taxis on very great occasions, she had never in her life actually taken one by herself. Her voice failed and broke as she said to the driver: "Devonshire Restaurant, Jermyn Street"; but the driver was proficient in comprehension, and the Devonshire Restaurant in Jermyn Street seemed to be as familiar to him as Charing Cross Station.In the taxi she collected herself. She thought she was all right except for her lips. She knew that her lips ought to have been slightly coloured, but she thought she also knew what was the best lip-stick and she had not been able to get it in Hammersmith. As for her nails, she was glad that it had been impossible for her to tint them. She must remember that she was a typist, and though typists, and even discharged typists, generally help their lips to be crimson on state-nights, they do not usually tint their nails--unless they have abandoned discretion.Lilian was glad when justifying rain began to fall. While she paid the driver at her destination, a commissionaire held a vast umbrella over her fragile splendour.Her legs literally shook as she entered the restaurant, exactly as once they had shaken in an air-raid. Within was a rich, tiny little waiting-room with a view of the dining-room beyond. She hesitated awkwardly, for owing to the taxi she was nearly a quarter of an hour too early. A respectful attendant said:"Are you expecting anyone, madam?""Yes.""What name, madam?""Mr. Grig.""Oh yes, madam. His table is booked."She had sat down. She could now inspect herself in half a dozen large mirrors, and she almost ceased to fear for her appearance. It was her deportment and demeanour that now troubled her. In this matter she was disturbingly aware that she had both to unlearn and to learn. She looked through the glass partition into the restaurant. It was small but sumptuous; and empty of diners save for a couple of women who were smoking and eating simultaneously. People, chiefly in couples, kept arriving and passing through the antechamber. She picked up a copy ofWhat's On, pretending to study it but studying the arrivals. Then she felt a man come in and glimpsed the attendant pointing to herself. Mr. Grig could not entirely conceal his astonishment at the smartness of her appearance. He had in fact not immediately recognized her. His surprised pleasure and appreciation gave her both pleasure and confidence."I'm not late," he said, resuming rapidly his rather quizzical matter-of-factness."No. I was too early."The attendant took Mr. Grig's overcoat like a sacred treasure; he was shown to be in a dark blue suit; and they passed to the restaurant.Lilian thought:"Anyway, he can't think I've bought these clothes specially for this affair, because he only asked me this afternoon."The table reserved was in a corner. Lilian had a full view of the whole restaurant, while Mr. Grig had a full view of nothing but Lilian. For a girl in Lilian's situation he was an ideal host, for the reason that he talked just as naturally--and in particular curtly--as if they had been at the office together. When a waiter shackled in silver approached with the wine list, he asked:"What wine do you prefer?""Whatever you prefer," she replied, with a prompt and delicious smile."Oh, no!" he protested. "That won't do at all. If a woman's given the choice she ought to choose. She must submit ideas, at any rate. Otherwise we shall go wandering all through the wine list and finally settle on something neither of us wants."Lilian had learnt a little about wines (she had sipped often from the paternal glass), and also about good plain cooking."Burgundy," she said.Without another word Mr. Grig turned to the Burgundy page, and while he was selecting Lilian took off her gloves and gazed timidly around. It was the silver table-lamps, each glowing under a canopy of orange, that impressed her more than anything else. She saw shoulders, bosoms, pearls, white shirt-fronts, black backs--the room was still filling--all repeated in gilt mirrors. The manner of the numerous waiters corresponded to her notion of court chamberlains. This was the first high-class restaurant she had ever seen, and despite her nervousness she felt more at home in it, more exultingly happy in it, than anywhere before in all her existence. She passionately loved it, and her beauty seemed to increase in radiance. She liked to think that it was extremely costly. Compare it to the Palais de Danse, Mr. Pladda, and the tomato sandwiches! Ah! It was the genuine article at last! She took surreptitious glances also at Mr. Grig's bent face; and the face was so strange to her, though just the same as of old, that she might have been seeing it for the first time. The greatness, the enormity of the occasion, frightened her. What were they doing there together? And what in the future would they do together? Was he really and seriously attracted by her? Was she in love with him? Or was it all a curious and dangerous deception? She had always understood that when one was in love one knew definitely that one was in love. Whereas she was sure of nothing whatever. Nevertheless she was uplifted into a beatific, irrational and reckless joy. Never had she felt as she felt while Mr. Grig was selecting the Burgundy."Now we'd better be getting to business," said he, when the horsd'oeuvrehad been removed and the soup served. "I had a letter from my sister this morning. She wrote--wait a minute!" He pulled a letter from his pocket and read out: "'I'm sorry to say I've been compelled to get rid of poor Lilian Share. She's a nice enough girl in her way, but when you're not here I'm in charge of this office, and as she couldn't treat me with the respect due to me, I had to decide at once what to do, and I did decide. I treated her generously, and I hope she'll soon get another place. She will, of course, because she can be so very attractivewhen she likes'--underlined--'but I fear she isn't likely to keep it unless she changes her style of behaviour.'" He smacked the letter together and returned it to his pocket. "There, you see! I'm being remarkably frank with you. I came up from Brighton on purpose to tell you, and I'm going, back by the last train to-night. My sister is quite unaware of this escapade. In fact, at the moment I'm leading a double life. Now! I've given you one version of this mighty incident. Give me your version."Lilian, troubled, looked at her mother's engagement ring on her finger--the sole jewel she carried--and smiled with acute restraint at her plate."Haveyou got another situation? I suppose not," Mr. Grig went on."No--not yet.""Have you tried for one?""No.""Then what are you about?""Oh! My father left me a little money--very little, but I'm not starving.""So I should judge.... Well, tell me all about it.""I didn't mean to be rude to her--really I didn't. It was about a small bill of Lord Mackworth's."She related the episode in detail, repeating the conversation with marvellous exactitude, but with too many "she saids, she saids" and "I saids, I saids." Mr. Grig laughed when she came to the offer to pay the bill herself, and after a moment she gave a slight responsive smile. She was very careful not to make or even to imply the least charge against Miss Grig, and she accomplished the duplicity with much skill."I can promise you one thing," said Mr. Grig. "The moment I get back I'll see that Milly is sacked. I cannot stick that bag of bones.""Pleasedon't!""You don't want me to?"Lilian shook her head slowly."All right, then. I won't. Now I'll tell you the whole business in a nutshell. My sister's a great woman. She's perfectly mad, but she's a great woman. Only where I'm concerned she's always most monstrously unscrupulous. I'm her religion--always was, but more than ever since I bought that amusing business. She was dying of boredom. It saved her. When I got myself divorced she was absolutely delighted. She had me to herself again. Her jealousy where I'm concerned is ferocious. She can't help it, but it's ferocious. Tigresses aren't in it with her. She was jealous of you, and she'd determined to clear you out. I've perceived that for a long time.""But why should she be jealous of me? I'm sure I've never----""Well, she's damned clever, Isabel is, and she's seen that I'm in love with you. Gone--far gone!"He spoke with strange detachment, as of another person.The thud-thud of Lilian's heart appalled her. She blushed down to her neck. Her hand shook. The restaurant and all its inhabitants vanished in a cloud and then slowly reappeared. Her confusion of mind was terrible. She was shocked, outraged, by the negligently brutal candour of the avowal; and at the same time she was thinking: "I'd no idea that any man was as marvellous as this man is, and I don't think there can possibly be another man quite as marvellous anywhere. And his being in love with me is the most ravishing, lovely, tender--tender--tender thing that ever happened to any girl. And, of course, he is in love with me. He's not pretending.Hewould never pretend...."She wanted to be unconscious for a little while. She did not know it, but her beautiful face was transfigured by the interplay of shyness, modesty, soft resentment, gratitude, ecstasy and determination. Her head was bowed and she could not raise it. Neither could she utter a single word. She looked divine, and thought she looked either silly or sulky. Mr. Grig glanced aside. A glimpse of paradise had dazzled the eternal youth in him. The waiter bore away the soup-plates."Perhaps that's enough about business for the present," said Mr. Grig at length. "Let's talk about something else. But before we start I must just tell you you're the most stylish creature in this restaurant. I was staggered when I came in and saw you. Staggered!"She did raise her head."Why?" she asked with exquisite gentleness.Mr. Grig, overwhelmed, offered no response.As for her determination, it amounted to this: "I will be as marvellous as he is. I will be more marvellous. I will be queen, slave, everything. He doesn't guess what is in store for him." She did not think about the difference in their ages, nor about marriage; nor did she even consider whether or not she was in love with him. Chiefly, she was grateful. And what she saw in front of her was a sublime vocation. Her mood was ever so faintly tinged with regret because they were not both in evening dress.
IV
The Vizier
Late in the afternoon of the following day Mr. Grig put his head inside the small room.
"Just come here, Miss Share," he began, and then, seeing that Millicent was not at her desk, he appeared to decide that he might as well speak with Lilian where she was.
He had been away from the office most of the day, and even during his presences had seemingly taken no part in its conduct. Much work had been received, some of it urgent, and Lilian, typing at her best speed, had the air of stopping with reluctance to listen to whatever the useless and wandering man might have to say. He merely said:
"We shall close to-night, like last night."
"Oh, but, Mr. Grig," Lilian protested--and there was no sign of a tear this time--"we can't possibly keep on closing. We had one complaint this morning about being closed last night. I didn't tell you because I didn't want to worry you."
"Now listen to me," Mr. Grig protested in his turn, petulantly. "Nothing worries me more than the idea that people are keeping things from me in order that I shan't be worried. My sister was always doing that; she was incurable, but I'm not going to have it from anyone else. If you hide things, why are you silly enough to let out afterwards that you were hiding them and why you were hiding them? That's what I can't understand."
"Sorry, Mr. Grig," Lilian apologized briefly and with sham humility, humouring the male in such a manner that he must know he was being humoured.
His petulancy charmed her. It gave him youth, and gave her age and wisdom. He had good excuse for it--Miss Grig had been moved into a nursing home preparatory to an operation, and Gertie was stated to be very ill in his house--and she enjoyed excusing him. It was implicit in every tone of his voice that they were now definitely not on terms of employer and employee.
"That's all right! That's all right!" he said, mollified by her discreet smile. "But close at six. I'm off."
"I really don't think we ought to close," she insisted, with firmness in her voice followed by persuasion in her features, and she brushed back her hair with a gesture of girlishness that could not be ineffective. He hesitated, frowning. She went on: "If it gets about that we're closing night after night, we're bound to lose a lot of customers. I can perfectly well stay here."
"Yes! And be no use at all to-morrow!"
"I should be here to-morrow just the same. If other girls can do it, why can't I?" (A touch of harshness in the question.) "Oh, Milly!" she exclaimed, neglecting to call Milly Miss Merrislate, according to the custom by which in talking to the principals everybody referred to everybody else as "Miss." "Oh, Milly!"--Millicent appeared behind Mr. Grig at the door and he nervously made way for her--"here's Mr. Grig wants to close again to-night! I'm sure we really oughtn't to. I've told Mr. Grig I'll stay--and be here to-morrow too. Don't you agree we mustn't close?"
Millicent was flattered by the frank appeal as an equal from one whom she was already with annoyance beginning to regard as a superior. From timidity in Mr. Grig's presence she looked down her too straight nose, but she nodded affirmatively her narrow head, and as soon as she had recovered from the disturbing novelty of deliberately opposing the policy of an employer she said to Lilian:
"I'll stay with you if you like. There's plenty to do, goodness knows!"
"You are a dear!" Lilian exclaimed, just as if they had been alone together in the room.
"Oh, well, have it as you like!" Mr. Grig rasped, and left, defeated.
"Is he vexed?" Milly demanded after he had gone.
"Of course not! He's very pleased, really. But he has to save his face."
Milly gave Lilian a scarcely conscious glance of admiration, as a woman better versed than herself in the mysteries of men, and also as a woman of unsuspected courage. And she behaved like an angel through the whole industrious night--so much so that Lilian was nearly ready to admit to an uncharitable premature misjudgment of the girl.
"And now what are you going to do about keeping open?" inquired Mr. Grig, with bland, grim triumph the next afternoon to the exhausted Lilian and the exhausted Millicent. "I thought I'd let you have your own way last night. But you can't see any further than your noses, either of you. You're both dead."
"I can easily stay up another night," said Lilian desperately, but Millicent said nothing.
"No doubt!" Mr. Grig sneered. "You look as if you could! And supposing you do, what about to-morrow night? The whole office is upset, and, of course, people must go and choose just this time to choke us with work!"
"Well, anyhow, we can't close," Lilian stoutly insisted.
"No!" Mr. Grig unexpectedly agreed. "Miss Merrislate, you know most about the large room. You'd better pick two of 'em out of there, and tell 'em they must stay and do the best they can by themselves. But that won't carry us through.Icertainly shan't sit up, and I won't have you two sitting up every second night in turn. There's only one thing to do. I must engage two new typists at once--that's clear. We may as well face the situation. Where do we get 'em from?"
But neither Lilian nor Milly knew just how Miss Grig was in the habit of finding recruits to the staff. Each of them had been taken on through private connexions. Gertie Jackson would probably have known how to proceed, but Gertie was down with influenza.
"I'll tell you what I shall do," said Mr. Grig at last. "I'll get an advertisement into to-morrow'sDaily Chronicle. That ought to do the trick. This affair's got to be handled quickly. When the applicants come you'd better deal with 'em, Miss Share--in my room. I shan't be here to-morrow."
He spoke scornfully, and would not listen to offers of help in the matter of the advertisement. He would see to it himself, and wanted no assistance, indeed objected to assistance as being merely troublesome. The next day was the day of Miss Grig's operation, and the apprehension of it maddened this affectionate and cantankerous brother. Millicent left the small room to bestow upon two chosen members of the rabble in the large room the inexpressible glory of missing a night's sleep.
On the following morning, when Lilian, refreshed, arrived zealously at the office half an hour earlier than usual, she found three aspirants waiting to apply for the vacant posts. The advertisement had been drawn up and printed; the newspaper had been distributed and read, and the applicants, pitifully eager, had already begun to arrive from the ends of London. Sitting in Miss Grig's chair, Lilian nervously interviewed and examined them. One of the three gave her age as thirty-nine, and produced yellowed testimonials. By ten o'clock twenty-three suitors had come, and Lilian, frightened by her responsibilities, had impulsively engaged a couple, who took off hats and jackets and began to work at once. She had asked Millicent to approve of the final choice, but Millicent, intensely jealous and no longer comparable to even the lowest rank of angel, curtly declined.
"You're in charge," Millicent said acidly. "Don't you try to push it on to me, Miss Lilian Share."
Aspirants continued to arrive. Lilian had the clever idea of sticking a notice on the outer door: "All situations filled. No typists required." But aspirants continued to enter, and all of them averred positively that they had not seen the notice on the door. Lilian told a junior to paste four sheets of typing paper together, and she inscribed the notice on the big sheet in enormous characters. But aspirants continued to enter, and all of them averred positively that they had not seen the notice on the door. It was dreadful, it was appalling, because Lilian was saying to herself: "I may be like them one day." Millicent, on the other hand, disdained the entire procession, and seized the agreeable rôle of dismissing applicants as fast as they came.
In the evening Mr. Grig appeared. The operation had been a success. Gertie Jackson was, if anything, a little worse; but the doctor anticipated an improvement. Mr. Grig showed not the least interest in his business. Lilian took the night duty alone.
Thenceforward the office settled gradually into its new grooves, and, though there was much less efficiency than under Miss Grig, there was little friction. Everybody except Millicent regarded Lilian as the grand vizier, and Millicent's demeanour towards Lilian was by turns fantastically polite and fantastically indifferent.
A fortnight passed. The two patients were going on well, and it was stated that there was a possibility of them being sent together to Felixstowe for convalescence. Mr. Grig's attendance grew more regular, but he did little except keep the books and make out the bills; in which matter he displayed a facility that amazed Lilian, who really was not a bit arithmetical.
One day, entering the large room after hours, Lilian saw Millicent typing on a machine not her own. As she passed she read the words: "My darling Gertie. I simply can't tell you how glad I was to get your lovely letter." And it flashed across her that Millicent would relate all the office doings to Gertie, who would relate them to Miss Grig. She had a spasm of fear, divining that Millicent would misrepresent her. In what phrases had Millicent told that Lilian had sat in Miss Grig's chair and interviewed applicants for situations! Was it not strange that Gertie had not written to her, Lilian, nor she even thought of writing to Gertie? Too late now for her to write to Gertie! A few days later Mr. Grig said to Lilian in the small room:'
"You're very crowded here, aren't you?"
The two new-comers had been put into the small room, being of a superior sort and not fitted to join the rabble.
"Oh, no!" said Lilian. "We're quite comfortable, thank you."
"You don't seem to be very comfortable. It occurs to me it would be better in every way if you brought your machine into my room."
An impulse, and an error of judgment, on Felix's part! But he was always capricious.
"I should prefer to stay where I am," Lilian answered, not smiling. What a letter Millicent would have written in order to describe Lilian's promotion to the principals' room!
Often, having made a mistake, Felix would persist in it from obstinacy.
"Oh! As you like!" he muttered huffily, instead of recognizing by his tone that Lilian was right. But the next moment he repeated, very softly and kindly: "As you like! It's for you to decide." He had not once shown the least appreciation of, or gratitude for, Lilian's zeal. On the contrary, he had been in the main querulous and censorious. But she did not mind. She was richly rewarded by a single benevolent inflection of that stirring voice. She seemed to have forgotten that she was born for pleasure, luxury, empire. Work fully satisfied her, but it was work for him. The mere suggestion that she should sit in his room filled her with deep joy.
V
The Martyr
Miss Grig came back to the office on a Thursday, and somewhat mysteriously. Millicent, no doubt from information received through Gertie Jackson, had been hinting for several days that the return would not be long delayed; but Mr. Grig had said not one word about the matter until the Wednesday evening, when he told Lilian, with apparent casualness, as she was leaving for the night, that his sister might be expected the next morning. As for Miss Jackson, she would resume her duties only on the Monday, having family affairs to transact at Islington. Miss Jackson, it seemed, had developed into the trusted companion and intimate--almost ally, if the term were not presumptuous--of the soul and dynamo of the business. Miss Grig and she had suffered together, they had solaced and strengthened each other; and Gertie, for all her natural humility, was henceforth to play in the office a rôle superior to that of a senior employee. She had already been endowed with special privileges, and among these was the privilege of putting the interests of Islington before the interests of Clifford Street.
The advent of Miss Grig, of course, considerably agitated the office and in particular the small room, two of whose occupants had never seen the principal of whose capacity for sustained effort they had heard such wonderful and frightening tales.
At nine-thirty that Thursday morning it was reported in both rooms that Miss Grig had re-entered her fortress. Nobody had seen her, but ears had heard her, and, moreover, it was mystically known by certain signs, as, for example, the reversal of a doormat which had been out of position for a week, that a higher presence was immanent in the place and that the presence could be none other than Miss Grig. Everybody became an exemplar of assiduity, amiability, and entire conscientiousness. Everybody prepared a smile; and there was a universal wish for the day to be over.
Shortly after ten o'clock Miss Grig visited the small room, shook hands with Lilian and Millicent, and permitted the two new typists to be presented to her. Millicent spoke first and was so effusive in the expression of the delight induced in her by the spectacle of Miss Grig and of her sympathy for the past and hope for the future of Miss Grig's health, that Lilian, who nevertheless did her best to be winning, could not possibly compete with her. Miss Grig had a purified and chastened air, as of one detached by suffering from the grossness and folly of the world, and existing henceforth in the world solely from a cold, passionate sense of duty. Her hair was greyer, her mild equable voice more soft, and her burning eyes had a brighter and more unearthly lustre. She said that she was perfectly restored, let fall that Mr. Grig had gone away at her request for a short, much-needed holiday, and then passed smoothly on to the large room.
After a while a little flapper of a beginner came to tell Millicent that Miss Grig wanted her. Millicent, who had had charge of the petty cash during the interregnum, was absent for forty minutes. When she returned, flushed but smiling, to her expectant colleagues, she informed Lilian that Miss Grig desired to see her at twelve o'clock.
"I notice there's an account here under the name of Lord Mackworth," Miss Grig began, having allowed Lilian to stand for a few seconds before looking up from the ledger and other books in which she was apparently absorbed. She spoke with the utmost gentleness, and fixed her oppressive deep eyes on Lilian's.
"Yes, Miss Grig?"
"It hasn't been paid."
"Oh!" Lilian against an intense volition began to blush.
"Didn't you know?"
"I didn't," said Lilian.
"But you've been having something to do with the books during my absence."
"I did a little at first," Lilian admitted. "Then Mr. Grig saw to them."
"Miss Merrislate tells me that you had quite a lot to do with them, and I see your handwriting in a number of places here."
"I've had nothing to do with them for about three weeks--I should think at least three weeks, and--and of course I expected the bill would be paid by this time."
"But you never asked?"
"No. It never occurred to me."
This statement was inaccurate. Lilian had often wondered whether Lord Mackworth had paid his bill, but, from some obscurely caused self-consciousness, she had not dared to make any inquiry. She felt herself to be somehow "mixed up" with Lord Mackworth, and had absurdly feared that if she mentioned the name there might appear on the face or in the voice of the detestable Milly some sinister innuendo.
"Miss Merrislate tells me that she didn't trouble about the account as she supposed it was your affair."
"My affair!" exclaimed Lilian impulsively. "It's no more my affair than anybody else's." She surmised in the situation some ingenious malevolence of the flat-breasted mischief-maker.
"But you did the work?"
"Yes. It came in while I was on duty that night, and I did it at once. There was no one else to do it."
"Who brought it in?"
"Lord Mackworth."
"Did you know him?"
"Certainly not. I didn't know him from Adam."
"Never mind Adam, Miss Share," observed Miss Grig genially. "Has Lord Mackworth been in since?"
"If he has I've not seen him," Lilian answered defiantly.
Miss Grig's geniality exasperated her because it did not deceive her.
"I'm only asking for information," Miss Grig said with a placatory smile. "I see the copies were delivered at six-thirty in the morning. Who delivered the job?"
"I did."
"Where?"
"At his address. I dropped it into the letter-box on my way home after my night's work. I stayed here because somebody had to stay, and I did the best I could."
"I'm quite sure of that," Miss Grig agreed. "And, of course, you've been paid for all overtime--and there's been quite a good deal. We all do the best we can. At least, I hope so.... And you've never seen Lord Mackworth since?"
"No."
"And you simply dropped the envelope into the letter-box?"
"Yes."
"Didn't see Lord Mackworth that morning?"
"Certainly not."
By this time Lilian was convinced that Miss Grig's intention was to provoke her to open resentment. She guessed also that Milly must have deliberately kept silence to her, Lilian, about the Mackworth account in the hope of trouble on Miss Grig's return, and that Milly had done everything she could that morning to ensure trouble. The pot had been simmering in secret for weeks; now it was boiling over. She felt helpless and furious.
"You know," Miss Grig proceeded, "there's a rule in this office that night-work must only be delivered by hand by the day-staff the next day. If it's wanted urgently before the day-staff arrives the customer must fetch it."
"Excuse me, Miss Grig, I never heard of that rule."
Miss Grig smiled again: "Well, at any rate, it was your business to have heard of it, my dear. Everybody else knows about it."
"I told Mr. Grig I was going to deliver it myself, and he didn't say anything."
"Please don't attempt to lay the blame on my brother. He is far too good-natured." Miss Grig's gaze burned into Lilian's face as, with an enigmatic intonation, she uttered these words. "You did wrong. And I suppose you've never heard either of the rule that new customers must always pay on or before delivery?"
"Yes, I have. But I couldn't ask for the money at half-past six in the morning, could I? And I couldn't tell him how much it would be before I'd typed it."
"Yes, you could, my dear, and you ought to have done. You could have estimated it and left a margin for errors. That was the proper course. And if you know anything about Lord Mackworth you must know that his debts are notorious. I believe he's one of the fastest young men about town, and it's more than possible that that account's a bad debt."
"But can't we send in the account again?" Lilian weakly suggested; she was overthrown by the charge of fast-living against Lord Mackworth, yet she had always in her heart assumed that he was a fast liver.
"I've just telephoned to 6a St. James's Street, and I needn't say that Lord Mackworth is no longer there, and they don't know where he is. You see what comes of disobeying rules."
Lilian lifted her head: "Well, Miss Grig, the bill isn't so very big, and if you'll please deduct it from my wages on Saturday I hope that will be the end of that."
It was plain that the bewildered creature had but an excessively imperfect notion of how to be an employee. She had taken to the vocation too late in life.
Miss Grig put her hand to the support of her forehead, and paused.
"I can tolerate many things," said she, with great benignity, "but not insolence."
"I didn't mean to be insolent."
"You did. And I think you had better accept a week's notice from Saturday. No. On second thoughts, I'll pay your wages up to Saturday week now and you can go at once." She smiled kindly. "That will give you time to turn round."
"Oh! Very well, if it's like that!"
Miss Grig unlocked a drawer; and while she was counting the money Lilian thought despairingly that if Mr. Grig, or even if the nice Gertie, had been in the office, the disaster could not have occurred.
Miss Grig shook hands with her and wished her well.
"Where are you going to? It's not one o'clock yet," asked Millicent in the small room as Lilian silently unhooked her hat and jacket from the clothes-cupboard.
"Out."
"What for?"
"For Miss G., if you want to know."
And she left. Except her clothes, not a thing in the office belonged to her. She had no lien, no attachment. The departure was as simple and complete as leaving a Tube train. No word! No good-bye! Merely a disappearance.
VI
The Invitation
She walked a mile eastwards along Oxford Street before entering a teashop, in order to avoid meeting any of the girls, all of whom, except the very youngest and the very stingiest, distributed themselves among the neighbouring establishments for the absurdly insufficient snack called lunch. Every place was full just after one o'clock, and crammed at one-fifteen. She asked for a whole meat pie instead of a half, for she felt quite unusually hungry. A plot! That was what it was! A plot against her, matured by Miss G. in a few minutes out of Milly's innuendoes written to Gertie and spoken to Miss G. herself. And the reason of the plot was Miss G.'s spinsterish, passionate fear of a friendship between Felix Grig and Lilian! Lilian was ready to believe that Miss G. had engineered the absence of both her brother and Gertie so as to be free to work her will without the possibility of complications. If Miss G. hated her, she hated Miss G. with at least an equal fierceness--the fierceness of an unarmed victim. The injustice of the world staggered her. She thought that something ought to be done about it. Even Lord Mackworth was gravely to blame, for not having paid his bill. Still, that detail had not much importance, because Miss G., deprived of one pretext, would soon have found another. After all that she, Lilian, had done for the office, to be turned off at a moment's notice, and without a character--for Miss G. would never give a reference, and Lilian would never ask for a reference! Never! Nor would she nor could she approach Felix Grig; nor Gertie either. Perhaps Felix Grig might communicate with her. He certainly ought to do so. But then, he was very casual, forgetful and unconsciously cruel.
All the men and girls in the packed tea-shop had work behind them and work in front of them. They knew where they were; they had a function on the earth. She, Lilian, had nothing, save a couple of weeks' wages and perhaps a hundred pounds in the Post Office Savings Bank. Resentment against her father flickered up anew from its ashes in her heart.
How could she occupy herself after lunch? Unthinkable for her to go to her lodging until the customary hour, unless she could pretend to be ill; and if she feigned illness the well-disposed slavey would be after her and would see through the trick at once, and it would be all over the house that something had happened to Miss Share. The afternoon was an enormous trackless expanse which had to be somehow traversed by a weary and terribly discouraged wayfarer. Her father had been in the habit of conducting his family on ceremonial visits to the public art galleries. She went to the Wallace Collection, and saw how millionaires lived in the 'seventies, and how the unchaste and lovely ladies were dressed for whom entire populations were sacrificed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Thence to a cinema near the Marble Arch, and saw how virtue infallibly wins after all.
When, after travelling countless leagues of time and ennui, she reached home she received a note from Mr. Pladda inviting her to the Hammersmith Palais de Danse for the following night. Mr. Pladda was the star lodger in the house--a man of forty-five, legally separated from his wife but of impeccable respectability and decorum. His illusion was that he could dance rather well. Mr. Pladda was evidently coming on.
The next morning, which was very fine, Lilian spent in Hyde Park, marshalling her resources. Beyond her trifling capital she had none. Especially she had no real friends. She had unwisely cut loose from her parents' acquaintances, and she could not run after them now that she was in misfortune. Her former colleagues? Out of the question! Gertie might prove a friend, but Gertie must begin; Lilian could not begin. Lord Mackworth? Silly idea! She still thought of Lord Mackworth romantically. He was an unattainable hero at about the same level as before in her mind, for while his debts had lowered him his advertised dissoluteness had mysteriously raised him. (Yet in these hours and days Mr. Pladda himself was not more absolutely respectable and decorous, in mind and demeanour, than Lilian.) She went to two cinemas in the afternoon, and, safe in the darkness of the second one, cried silently.
But with Mr. Pladda at the Palais de Danse she was admirably cheerful, and Mr. Pladda was exceedingly proud of his companion, who added refined manners to startling beauty. She delicately praised his dancing, whereupon he ordered lemon squashes and tomato sandwiches. At the little table she told him calmly that she was leaving her present situation and taking another.
Back in her room she laughed with horrid derision. And as soon as she was in bed the clockwork mice started to run round and round in her head. A plot! A plot! What a burning shame! What a burning shame! ... A few weeks earlier she had actually been bestowing situations on pitiful applicants. Now she herself had no situation and no prospect of any. She had never had to apply for a situation. She had not been educated to applying for situations. She could not imagine herself ever applying for a situation. She had not the least idea how to begin to try to get a situation. She passed the greater part of Sunday in bed, and in the evening went to church and felt serious and good.
On Monday morning she visited the Post Office and filled up a withdrawal form for forty pounds. She had had a notion of becoming a companion to a rich lady, or private secretary to a member of Parliament. She would advertise. Good clothes, worn as she could wear them, would help her. (She could not face another situation in an office. No, she couldn't.) The notion of a simpleton, of course! But she was still a simpleton. The notion, however, was in reality only a pretext for obtaining some good clothes. All her life she had desired more than anything a smart dress. There was never a moment in her life when she was less entitled to indulge herself; but she felt desperate. She was taking to clothes as some take to brandy. On the Wednesday she received the money: a colossal, a marvellous sum. She ran off with it and nervously entered a big shop in Wigmore Street; the shop was a wise choice on her part, for it combined smartness with a discreet and characteristic Englishness. Impossible to have the dangerous air of an adventuress in a frock bought at that shop!
The next few days were spent in exactly fitting and adapting the purchases to her body. She had expended the forty pounds and drawn out eight more. Through the medium of the slavey she borrowed a mirror, and fixed it at an angle with her own so that she could see her back. She was so interested and absorbed that she now and then neglected to feel unhappy and persecuted. She neglected also to draw up an advertisement, postponing that difficult matter until the clothes should be finished. But the house gathered that Miss Share had got her new situation. One afternoon, early, returning home after a search for white elastic in Hammersmith, she saw Mr. Grig coming away from the house. She stood still, transfixed; she flushed hotly, and descried a beneficent and just God reigning in heaven. She knew she was saved; and the revulsion in her was nearly overwhelming. A miracle! And yet--not a miracle at all; for Mr. Grig was bound by every consideration of honour and decency to get into communication with her sooner or later. Her doubts of his integrity had been inexcusable.
"I've just left a note for you," he said, affecting carelessness. "I brought it down myself because I couldn't remember whether your number was 56 or 65, and I had to inquire. Moreover, it's urgent. I want to talk to you. Will you dine with me to-night at the Devonshire Restaurant, Jermyn Street? Eight o'clock. I shan't be able to dress, so you could wear a hat. Yes or no?..." He was gone again in a moment.
Lilian literally ran upstairs to her room in order to be alone with her ecstatic happiness. She hugged it, kissed it, smothered it; then read the wonderful note three times, and reviewed all her new clothes.
VII
The Avowal
As Lilian armed herself for the field she discovered that, after all her care, she had omitted to provide several small details, the absence of each of which seemed for a few moments in turn to be a disaster. But on the whole she was well satisfied with the total effectiveness. The slattern, who had been furtively summoned, and who was made to wash her hands before touching a hook-and-eye, expressed, in whispers, an admiring amazement which enheartened Lilian in spite of its uninformed quality. The girl, as if bewitched, followed the vision down to the front door.
"If it rains you're ruined, miss," said the girl anxiously, glancing up into the heavy darkness where not a star was to be seen. "You ought for to have an umbrella."
Lilian shook her head.
"It won't rain," she answered cheerfully.
But as soon as she was fairly away from the house she felt, or thought she felt, a drop of rain, and, seeing a taxi, she impulsively hailed it, wishing to heaven the next instant that she had not been so audacious. For although twice with her father and mother she had ridden in taxis on very great occasions, she had never in her life actually taken one by herself. Her voice failed and broke as she said to the driver: "Devonshire Restaurant, Jermyn Street"; but the driver was proficient in comprehension, and the Devonshire Restaurant in Jermyn Street seemed to be as familiar to him as Charing Cross Station.
In the taxi she collected herself. She thought she was all right except for her lips. She knew that her lips ought to have been slightly coloured, but she thought she also knew what was the best lip-stick and she had not been able to get it in Hammersmith. As for her nails, she was glad that it had been impossible for her to tint them. She must remember that she was a typist, and though typists, and even discharged typists, generally help their lips to be crimson on state-nights, they do not usually tint their nails--unless they have abandoned discretion.
Lilian was glad when justifying rain began to fall. While she paid the driver at her destination, a commissionaire held a vast umbrella over her fragile splendour.
Her legs literally shook as she entered the restaurant, exactly as once they had shaken in an air-raid. Within was a rich, tiny little waiting-room with a view of the dining-room beyond. She hesitated awkwardly, for owing to the taxi she was nearly a quarter of an hour too early. A respectful attendant said:
"Are you expecting anyone, madam?"
"Yes."
"What name, madam?"
"Mr. Grig."
"Oh yes, madam. His table is booked."
She had sat down. She could now inspect herself in half a dozen large mirrors, and she almost ceased to fear for her appearance. It was her deportment and demeanour that now troubled her. In this matter she was disturbingly aware that she had both to unlearn and to learn. She looked through the glass partition into the restaurant. It was small but sumptuous; and empty of diners save for a couple of women who were smoking and eating simultaneously. People, chiefly in couples, kept arriving and passing through the antechamber. She picked up a copy ofWhat's On, pretending to study it but studying the arrivals. Then she felt a man come in and glimpsed the attendant pointing to herself. Mr. Grig could not entirely conceal his astonishment at the smartness of her appearance. He had in fact not immediately recognized her. His surprised pleasure and appreciation gave her both pleasure and confidence.
"I'm not late," he said, resuming rapidly his rather quizzical matter-of-factness.
"No. I was too early."
The attendant took Mr. Grig's overcoat like a sacred treasure; he was shown to be in a dark blue suit; and they passed to the restaurant.
Lilian thought:
"Anyway, he can't think I've bought these clothes specially for this affair, because he only asked me this afternoon."
The table reserved was in a corner. Lilian had a full view of the whole restaurant, while Mr. Grig had a full view of nothing but Lilian. For a girl in Lilian's situation he was an ideal host, for the reason that he talked just as naturally--and in particular curtly--as if they had been at the office together. When a waiter shackled in silver approached with the wine list, he asked:
"What wine do you prefer?"
"Whatever you prefer," she replied, with a prompt and delicious smile.
"Oh, no!" he protested. "That won't do at all. If a woman's given the choice she ought to choose. She must submit ideas, at any rate. Otherwise we shall go wandering all through the wine list and finally settle on something neither of us wants."
Lilian had learnt a little about wines (she had sipped often from the paternal glass), and also about good plain cooking.
"Burgundy," she said.
Without another word Mr. Grig turned to the Burgundy page, and while he was selecting Lilian took off her gloves and gazed timidly around. It was the silver table-lamps, each glowing under a canopy of orange, that impressed her more than anything else. She saw shoulders, bosoms, pearls, white shirt-fronts, black backs--the room was still filling--all repeated in gilt mirrors. The manner of the numerous waiters corresponded to her notion of court chamberlains. This was the first high-class restaurant she had ever seen, and despite her nervousness she felt more at home in it, more exultingly happy in it, than anywhere before in all her existence. She passionately loved it, and her beauty seemed to increase in radiance. She liked to think that it was extremely costly. Compare it to the Palais de Danse, Mr. Pladda, and the tomato sandwiches! Ah! It was the genuine article at last! She took surreptitious glances also at Mr. Grig's bent face; and the face was so strange to her, though just the same as of old, that she might have been seeing it for the first time. The greatness, the enormity of the occasion, frightened her. What were they doing there together? And what in the future would they do together? Was he really and seriously attracted by her? Was she in love with him? Or was it all a curious and dangerous deception? She had always understood that when one was in love one knew definitely that one was in love. Whereas she was sure of nothing whatever. Nevertheless she was uplifted into a beatific, irrational and reckless joy. Never had she felt as she felt while Mr. Grig was selecting the Burgundy.
"Now we'd better be getting to business," said he, when the horsd'oeuvrehad been removed and the soup served. "I had a letter from my sister this morning. She wrote--wait a minute!" He pulled a letter from his pocket and read out: "'I'm sorry to say I've been compelled to get rid of poor Lilian Share. She's a nice enough girl in her way, but when you're not here I'm in charge of this office, and as she couldn't treat me with the respect due to me, I had to decide at once what to do, and I did decide. I treated her generously, and I hope she'll soon get another place. She will, of course, because she can be so very attractivewhen she likes'--underlined--'but I fear she isn't likely to keep it unless she changes her style of behaviour.'" He smacked the letter together and returned it to his pocket. "There, you see! I'm being remarkably frank with you. I came up from Brighton on purpose to tell you, and I'm going, back by the last train to-night. My sister is quite unaware of this escapade. In fact, at the moment I'm leading a double life. Now! I've given you one version of this mighty incident. Give me your version."
Lilian, troubled, looked at her mother's engagement ring on her finger--the sole jewel she carried--and smiled with acute restraint at her plate.
"Haveyou got another situation? I suppose not," Mr. Grig went on.
"No--not yet."
"Have you tried for one?"
"No."
"Then what are you about?"
"Oh! My father left me a little money--very little, but I'm not starving."
"So I should judge.... Well, tell me all about it."
"I didn't mean to be rude to her--really I didn't. It was about a small bill of Lord Mackworth's."
She related the episode in detail, repeating the conversation with marvellous exactitude, but with too many "she saids, she saids" and "I saids, I saids." Mr. Grig laughed when she came to the offer to pay the bill herself, and after a moment she gave a slight responsive smile. She was very careful not to make or even to imply the least charge against Miss Grig, and she accomplished the duplicity with much skill.
"I can promise you one thing," said Mr. Grig. "The moment I get back I'll see that Milly is sacked. I cannot stick that bag of bones."
"Pleasedon't!"
"You don't want me to?"
Lilian shook her head slowly.
"All right, then. I won't. Now I'll tell you the whole business in a nutshell. My sister's a great woman. She's perfectly mad, but she's a great woman. Only where I'm concerned she's always most monstrously unscrupulous. I'm her religion--always was, but more than ever since I bought that amusing business. She was dying of boredom. It saved her. When I got myself divorced she was absolutely delighted. She had me to herself again. Her jealousy where I'm concerned is ferocious. She can't help it, but it's ferocious. Tigresses aren't in it with her. She was jealous of you, and she'd determined to clear you out. I've perceived that for a long time."
"But why should she be jealous of me? I'm sure I've never----"
"Well, she's damned clever, Isabel is, and she's seen that I'm in love with you. Gone--far gone!"
He spoke with strange detachment, as of another person.
The thud-thud of Lilian's heart appalled her. She blushed down to her neck. Her hand shook. The restaurant and all its inhabitants vanished in a cloud and then slowly reappeared. Her confusion of mind was terrible. She was shocked, outraged, by the negligently brutal candour of the avowal; and at the same time she was thinking: "I'd no idea that any man was as marvellous as this man is, and I don't think there can possibly be another man quite as marvellous anywhere. And his being in love with me is the most ravishing, lovely, tender--tender--tender thing that ever happened to any girl. And, of course, he is in love with me. He's not pretending.Hewould never pretend...."
She wanted to be unconscious for a little while. She did not know it, but her beautiful face was transfigured by the interplay of shyness, modesty, soft resentment, gratitude, ecstasy and determination. Her head was bowed and she could not raise it. Neither could she utter a single word. She looked divine, and thought she looked either silly or sulky. Mr. Grig glanced aside. A glimpse of paradise had dazzled the eternal youth in him. The waiter bore away the soup-plates.
"Perhaps that's enough about business for the present," said Mr. Grig at length. "Let's talk about something else. But before we start I must just tell you you're the most stylish creature in this restaurant. I was staggered when I came in and saw you. Staggered!"
She did raise her head.
"Why?" she asked with exquisite gentleness.
Mr. Grig, overwhelmed, offered no response.
As for her determination, it amounted to this: "I will be as marvellous as he is. I will be more marvellous. I will be queen, slave, everything. He doesn't guess what is in store for him." She did not think about the difference in their ages, nor about marriage; nor did she even consider whether or not she was in love with him. Chiefly, she was grateful. And what she saw in front of her was a sublime vocation. Her mood was ever so faintly tinged with regret because they were not both in evening dress.