‘We missed you last Sunday,' he said.
Philip could never tell lies without embarrassment, and he was scarlet when he finished his explanation for not coming. Then Mrs Athelny entered and shook hands with him.
‘I hope you're better, Mr Carey,' she said.
He did not know why she imagined that anything had been the matter with him, for the kitchen door was closed when he came up with the children, and they had not left him.
‘Dinner won't be ready for another ten minutes,' she said, in her slow drawl. ‘Won't you have an egg beaten up in a glass of milk while you're waiting?'
There was a look of concern on her face which made Philip uncomfortable. He forced a laugh and answered that he was not at all hungry. Sally came in to lay the table, and Philip began to chaff her. It was the family joke that she would be as fat as an aunt of Mrs Athelny, called Aunt Elizabeth, whom the children had never seen but regarded as the type of obscene corpulence.
‘I say, what has happened since I saw you last, Sally?' Philip began.
‘Nothing that I know of.'
‘I believe you've been putting on weight.'
‘I'm sure you haven't,' she retorted. ‘You're a perfect skeleton.'
Philip reddened.
‘That's a tu quoque, Sally,' cried her father. ‘You will be fined one golden hair of your head. Jane, fetch the shears.'
‘Well, he is thin, father,' remonstrated Sally. ‘He's just skin and bone.'
‘That's not the question, child. He is at perfect liberty to be thin, but your obesity is contrary to decorum.'
As he spoke he put his arm proudly round her waist and looked at her with admiring eyes.
‘Let me get on with the table, father. If I am comfortable there are some who don't seem to mind it.'
‘The hussy!' cried Athelny, with a dramatic wave of the hand. ‘She taunts me with the notorious fact that Joseph, a son of Levi who sells jewels in Holborn, has made her an offer in marriage.'
‘Have you accepted him, Sally?' asked Philip.
‘Don't you know father better than that by this time? There's not a word of truth in it.'
‘Well, if he hasn't made you an offer of marriage,' cried Athelny, ‘by Saint George and Merry England, I will seize him by the nose and demand of him immediately what are his intentions.'
‘Sit down, father, dinner's ready. Now then, you children, get along with you and wash your hands all of you, and don't shirk it, because I mean to look at them before you have a scrap of dinner, so there.'
Philip thought he was ravenous till he began to eat, but then discovered that his stomach turned against food, and he could eat hardly at all. His brain was weary; and he did not notice that Athelny, contrary to his habit, spoke very little. Philip was relieved to be sitting in a comfortable house, but every now and then he could not prevent himself from glancing out of the window. The day was tempestuous. The fine weather had broken; and it was cold, and there was a bitter wind; now and again gusts of rain drove against the window. Philip wondered what he should do that night. The Athelnys went to bed early, and he could not stay where he was after ten o'clock. His heart sank at the thought of going out into the bleak darkness. It seemed more terrible now that he was with his friends than when he was outside and alone. He kept on saying to himself that there were plenty more who would be spending the night out of doors. He strove to distract his mind by talking, but in the middle of his words a spatter of rain against the window would make him start.
‘It's like March weather,' said Athelny. ‘Not the sort of day one would like to be crossing the Channel.'
Presently they finished, and Sally came in and cleared away.
‘Would you like a twopenny stinker?' said Athelny, handing him a cigar.
Philip took it and inhaled the smoke with delight. It soothed him extraordinarily. When Sally had finished Athelny told her to shut the door after her.
‘Now we shan't be disturbed,' he said, turning to Philip. ‘I've arranged with Betty not to let the children come in till I call them.'
Philip gave him a startled look, but before he could take in the meaning of his words, Athelny, fixing his glasses on his nose with the gesture habitual to him, went on.
‘I wrote to you last Sunday to ask if anything was the matter with you, and as you didn't answer I went to your rooms on Wednesday.'
Philip turned his head away and did not answer. His heart began to beat violently. Athelny did not speak, and presently the silence seemed intolerable to Philip. He could not think of a single word to say.
‘Your landlady told me you hadn't been in since Saturday night, and she said you owed her for the last month. Where have you been sleeping all this week?'
It made Philip sick to answer. He stared out of the window.
‘Nowhere.'
‘I tried to find you.'
‘Why?' asked Philip.
‘Betty and I have been just as broke in our day, only we had babies to look after. Why didn't you come here?'
‘I couldn't.'
Philip was afraid he was going to cry. He felt very weak. He shut his eyes and frowned, trying to control himself. He felt a sudden flash of anger with Athelny because he would not leave him alone; but he was broken; and presently, his eyes still closed, slowly in order to keep his voice steady, he told him the story of his adventures during the last few weeks. As he spoke it seemed to him that he had behaved inanely, and it made it still harder to tell. He felt that Athelny would think him an utter fool.
‘Now you're coming to live with us till you find something to do,' said Athelny, when he had finished.
Philip flushed, he knew not why.
‘Oh, it's awfully kind of you, but I don't think I'll do that.'
‘Why not?'
Philip did not answer. He had refused instinctively from fear that he would be a bother, and he had a natural bashfulness of accepting favours. He knew besides that the Athelnys lived from hand to mouth, and with their large family had neither space nor money to entertain a stranger.
‘Of course you must come here,' said Athelny. ‘Thorpe will tuck in with one of his brothers and you can sleep in his bed. You don't suppose your food's going to make any difference to us.'
Philip was afraid to speak, and Athelny, going to the door, called to his wife.
‘Betty,' he said, when she came in. ‘Mr Carey's coming to live with us.'
‘Oh, that is nice,' she said. ‘I'll go and get the bed ready.'
She spoke in such a hearty, friendly tone, taking everything for granted, that Philip was deeply touched. He never expected people to be kind to him, and when they were it surprised and moved him. Now he could not prevent two large tears from rolling down his cheeks. The Athelnys discussed the arrangements and pretended not to notice to what a state his weakness had brought him. When Mrs Athelny left them Philip leaned back in his chair, and looking out of the window laughed a little.
‘It's not a very nice night to be out, is it?'
CII
ATHELNY TOLD Philip that he could easily get him something to do in the large firm of linen-drapers in which he himself worked. Several of the assistants had gone to the war, and Lynn and Sedley with patriotic zeal had promised to keep their places open for them. They put the work of the heroes on those who remained, and since they did not increase the wages of these were able at once to exhibit public spirit and effect an economy; but the war continued and trade was less depressed; the holidays were coming, when numbers of the staff went away for a fortnight at a time: they were bound to engage more assistants. Philip's experience had made him doubtful whether even then they would engage him; but Athelny, representing himself as a person of consequence in the firm, insisted that the manager could refuse him nothing. Philip, with his training in Paris, would be very useful; it was only a matter of waiting a little and he was bound to get a well-paid job to design costumes and draw posters. Philip made a poster for the summer sale and Athelny took it away. Two days later he br
ought it back, saying that the manager admired it very much and regretted with all his heart that there was no vacancy just then in that department. Philip asked whether there was nothing else he could do.
‘I'm afraid not.'
‘Are you quite sure?'
‘Well, the fact is they're advertising for a shop-walker tomorrow,' said Athelny, looking at him doubtfully through his glasses.
‘D'you think I stand any chance of getting it?'
Athelny was a little confused; he had led Philip to expect something much more splendid; on the other hand he was too poor to go on providing him indefinitely with board and lodging.
‘You might take it while you wait for something better. You always stand a better chance if you're engaged by the firm already.'
‘I'm not proud, you know,' smiled Philip.
‘If you decide on that you must be there at a quarter to nine tomorrow morning.'
Notwithstanding the war there was evidently much difficulty in finding work, for when Philip went to the shop many men were waiting already. He recognized some whom he had seen in his own searching, and there was one whom he had noticed lying about the Park in the afternoon. To Philip now that suggested that he was as homeless as himself and passed the night out of doors. The men were of all sorts, old and young, tall and short; but every one had tried to make himself smart for the interview with the manager: they had carefully brushed hair and scrupulously clean hands. They waited in a passage which Philip learnt afterwards led up to the dining-hall and the work rooms; it was broken every few yards by five or six steps. Though there was electric light in the shop here was only gas, with wire cages over it for protection, and it flared noisily. Philip arrived punctually, but it was nearly ten o'clock when he was admitted into the office. It was three-cornered, like a cut of cheese lying on its side: on the walls were pictures of women in corsets, and two poster-proofs, one of a man in pyjamas, green and white in large stripes, and the other of a ship in full sail ploughing an azure sea: on the sail was printed in large letters ‘great white sale'. The widest side of the office was the back of one of the shop-windows, which was being dressed at the time, and an assistant went to and fro during the interview. The manager was reading a letter. He was a florid man, with sandy hair and a large sandy moustache; from the middle of his watch-chain hung a bunch of football medals. He sat in his shirt-sleeves at a large desk with a telephone by his side; before him were the day's advertisements, Athelny's work, and cuttings from newspapers pasted on a card. He gave Philip a glance but did not speak to him: he dictated a letter to the typist, a girl who sat at a small table in one corner; then he asked Philip his name, age, and what experience he had had. He spoke with a cockney twang in a high, metallic voice which he seemed not able always to control; Philip noticed that his upper teeth were large and protruding; they gave you the impression that they were loose and would come out if you gave them a sharp tug.
‘I think Mr Athelny has spoken to you about me,' said Philip.
‘Oh, you are the young feller who did that poster?'
‘Yes, sir.'
‘No good to us, you know, not a bit of good.'
He looked Philip up and down. He seemed to notice that Philip was in some way different from the men who had preceded him.
‘You'd 'ave to get a frock coat, you know. I suppose you 'aven't got one. You seem a respectable young feller. I suppose you found art didn't pay.'
Philip could not tell whether he meant to engage him or not. He threw remarks at him in a hostile way.
‘Where's your home?'
‘My father and mother died when I was a child.'
‘I like to give young fellers a chance. Many's the one I've given their chance to and they're managers of departments now. And they're grateful to me, I'll say that for them. They know what I done for them. Start at the bottom of the ladder, that's the only way to learn the business, and then if you stick to it there's no knowing what it can lead to. If you suit, one of these days you may find yourself in a position like what mine is. Bear that in mind, young feller.'
‘I'm very anxious to do my best, sir,' said Philip.
He knew that he must put in the ‘sir' whenever he could, but it sounded odd to him, and he was afraid of overdoing it. The manager liked talking. It gave him a happy consciousness of his own importance, and he did not give Philip his decision till he had used a great many words.
‘Well, I daresay you'll do,' he said at last, in a pompous way. ‘Anyhow, I don't mind giving you a trial.'
‘Thank you very much, sir.'
‘You can start at once. I'll give you six shillings a week and your keep. Everything found, you know; the six shillings is only pocket money, to do what you like with, paid monthly. Start on Monday. I suppose you've got no cause of complaint with that?'
‘No, sir.'
‘Harrington Street—d'you know where that is?—Shaftesbury Avenue. That's where you sleep. Number ten, it is. You can sleep there on Sunday night, if you like; that's just as you please, or you can send your box there on Monday.' The manager nodded: ‘Good morning.'
CIII
MRS ATHELNY lent Philip money to pay his landlady enough of her bill to let him take his things away. For five shillings and the pawn-ticket on a suit he was able to get from a pawnbroker a frock-coat which fitted him fairly well. He redeemed the rest of his clothes. He sent his box to Harrington Street by Carter Paterson and on Monday morning went with Athelny to the shop. Athelny introduced him to the buyer of the costumes and left him. The buyer was a pleasant, fussy little man of thirty, named Sampson; he shook hands with Philip, and, in order to show his own accomplishment of which he was very proud, asked him if he spoke French. He was surprised when Philip told him he did.
‘Any other language?'
‘I speak German.'
‘Oh! I go over to Paris myself occasionally. Parlez-vous français? Ever been to Maxim's?'
Philip was stationed at the top of the stairs in the ‘costumes'. His work consisted in directing people to the various departments. There seemed a great many of them as Mr Sampson tripped them off his tongue. Suddenly he noticed that Philip limped.
‘What's the matter with your leg?' he asked.
‘I've got a club-foot,' said Philip. ‘But it doesn't prevent my walking or anything like that.'
The buyer looked at it for a moment doubtfully, and Philip surmised that he was wondering why the manager had engaged him. Philip knew that he had not noticed there was anything the matter with him.
‘I don't expect you to get them all correct the first day. If you're in any doubt all you've got to do is to ask one of the young ladies.'
Mr Sampson turned away; and Philip, trying to remember where this or the other department was, watched anxiously for the customer in search of information. At one o'clock he went up to dinner. The dining-room, on the top floor of the vast building, was large, long, and well lit; but all the windows were shut to keep out the dust, and there was a horrid smell of cooking. There were long tables covered with cloths, with big glass bottles of water at intervals, and down the centre salt-cellars and bottles of vinegar. The assistants crowded in noisily, and sat down on forms still warm from those who had dined at twelve-thirty.
‘No pickles,' remarked the man next to Philip.
He was a tall thin young man, with a hooked nose and a pasty face; he had a long head, unevenly shaped as though the skull had been pushed in here and there oddly, and on his forehead and neck were large acne spots red and inflamed. His name was Harris. Philip discovered that on some days there were large soup-plates down the table full of mixed pickles. They were very popular. There were no knives and forks, but in a minute a large fat boy in a white coat came in with a couple of handfuls of them and threw them loudly on the middle of the table. Each man took what he wanted; they were warm and greasy from recent washing in dirty water. Plates of meat swimming in gravy were handed round by boys in white jackets, and as they flung each plate down with the quick ges
ture of a prestidigitator the gravy slopped over on to the table-cloth. Then they brought large dishes of cabbages and potatoes; the sight of them turned Philip's stomach; he noticed that everyone poured quantities of vinegar over them. The noise was awful. They talked and laughed and shouted, and there was the clatter of knives and forks, and strange sounds of eating. Philip was glad to get back into the department. He was beginning to remember where each one was, and had less often to ask one of the assistants, when somebody wanted to know the way.
‘First to the right. Second on the left, madam.'
One or two of the girls spoke to him, just a word when things were slack, and he felt they were taking his measure. At five he was sent up again to the dining-room for tea. He was glad to sit down. There were large slices of bread heavily spread with butter; and many had pots of jam, which were kept in the ‘store' and had their names written on.
Philip was exhausted when work stopped at half past six. Harris, the man he had sat next to at dinner, offered to take him over to Harrington Street to show him where he was to sleep. He told Philip there was a spare bed in his room, and, as the other rooms were full, he expected Philip would be put there. The house in Harrington Street had been a bootmaker's; and the shop was used as a bedroom; but it was very dark, since the window had been boarded three parts up, and as this did not open the only ventilation came from a small skylight at the far end. There was a musty smell, and Philip was thankful that he would not have to sleep there. Harris took him up to the sitting-room, which was on the first floor; it had an old piano in it with a keyboard that looked like a row of decayed teeth; and on the table in a cigar-box without a lid was a set of dominoes; old numbers of The Strand Magazine and of The Graphic were lying about. The other rooms were used as bedrooms. That in which Philip was to sleep was at the top of the house. There were six beds in it, and a trunk or a box stood by the side of each. The only furniture was a chest of drawers: it had four large drawers and two small ones, and Philip as the newcomer had one of these; there were keys to them, but as they were all alike they were not of much use, and Harris advised him to keep his valuables in his trunk. There was a looking-glass on the chimney-piece. Harris showed Philip the lavatory, which was a fairly large room with eight basins in a row, and here all the inmates did their washing. It led into another room in which were two baths, discoloured, the woodwork stained with soap; and in them were dark rings at various intervals which indicated the water marks of different baths.