Chapter Seven: ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS (continued 2)

“No, thank you, Mr. Smeeth. I’d rather have the pound on account, if you don’t mind. It’s something special I have on to-night.” And he added to himself that old Smeethy would be just about dumb with surprise if he knew too.

“Oh, well, in that case, I suppose you’d better have it. But it’s a special case, mind. And don’t forget you’ll have a pound less to-morrow morning.” He carefully made out a slip, Sub. H. Turgis—£1 0s. 0d., placed it in the petty cashbox, and then handed over the pound note.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Smeeth,” said Turgis, quietly, humbly. That was the first thing done. The next was to book the seats at the Sovereign. He could have telephoned and then paid for them in the evening, but this did not occur to him, for he did not belong to the seat-booking classes, and even if it had occurred to him, he would have rejected it as being too precarious. To make certain of getting good seats, he curtailed his lunch to a mere gobble and gulp, then hurried off to the West End and the Sovereign, which was already open. Indeed, for the last hour or so, the Sovereign had been doing excellent business, chiefly with young wives who had come in from distant suburbs to buy three and a half yards of curtain material and, having saved ninepence, felt they were entitled to a glimpse or two of Ronald Mawlborough. Early as it was, there were several people in front of Turgis at the advance booking office, but he was able to get two fairly good seats at four and sixpence each. Nine bob for the pictures! This was easily his record, and it certainly seemed a lot of money, nearly as much as he earned in a whole day. Nevertheless he paid it gladly. With the tickets in his pocket, to say nothing of eleven shillings to meet emergencies, he had nothing to do now but quietly exist until quarter to eight, and then—Lena.

It was not worth while going back to his lodgings after he had finished at the office, so he went to a teashop not very far from the Sovereign and there spun out his meal as long as he decently could. Even then, however, it was only half-past seven when he arrived at the Sovereign; but he did not mind that, for it would be pleasant just standing there, watching the crowd, and knowing that every minute brought Lena nearer to him. There was a queue waiting for the cheaper seats. Turgis had stood in that queue many a time. Now he looked at it with a mingling of pity and scorn. It seemed to belong to some ancient and desiccated past. In the entrance hall, under the russet globes, the footmen and pageboys in chocolate and gold were handing the people on to one another and sending them, in two jerky dark streams, up the two great marble staircases. For the first ten minutes, Turgis merely lounged about, but after that, when he knew that Lena might arrive any moment, he carefully planted himself in the centre, in sight of all the doors in front, so that there was no chance of missing her. Hundreds of girls passed in with their young men, but not one of them as pretty as Lena. A few days ago he would have envied a good many of those fellows, but now he could afford to pity them. They didn’t know what a girl was. “Wait till you see Lena,” he told them, under his breath, as they passed, unconscious, smiling.

At five minutes to eight, he pointed out to himself that Lena had been ten minutes late the night before at the Colladium. Girls always kept a chap waiting. They were famous for it. At eight o’clock he began to be anxious. He wondered if he was waiting in the wrong place, and he hastily searched the whole breadth of the entrance. At quarter past eight, his eyes began to smart. Time, which had passed so slowly at first, was now rushing away. The Ronald Mawlborough picture had started long ago. A lump, compact of sheer misery, rose in his throat and then wobbled up and down there, trying to choke him. Half-a-dozen times he stepped forward eagerly, only to retire again, under the stare of strange girls who thought they were about to be accosted, and to pretend to himself that it was still worth while staying there a little longer. The last half-hour was nothing but a dismal farce, for he knew that she could not be coming now, yet somehow his feet refused to move more than a yard or two away. It was nine o’clock when he finally left the place, with two useless tickets in his pocket. One of them he could have used, but he never thought for a moment of doing so. It was Lena he wanted to see, not Ronald Mawlborough.

He thought of a hundred excuses for her. She might have been taken ill quite suddenly, for girls often were, he believed. Something might have happened at the house. Her father might have come back unexpectedly. What he could not believe was that there was any mistake about the meeting itself, for she had suggested both the time and the place. Still struggling with his disappointment, he hurried along, through the stupid idiotic crowds, and caught the first bus that would take him to Maida Vale. More excited every minute, he turned at last into Carrington Villas, and almost ran to get a sight of 4a. There was no light coming from the sitting-room. She was not there. Nevertheless, he came to the conclusion that somebody was in, for after waiting a few minutes, he thought he saw a light go on in one of the other windows. Once he had made up his mind, he did not hesitate at all, but marched straight up to the door and rang the bell. He remembered then that it was probably out of order. Still, he rang again.

“Yes,” said a voice, as the door opened a few inches, “what is it?”

“Is Miss Golspie in, please?”

The girl, obviously the maid who had been out the two previous nights, now opened the door properly and came forward to have a look at him. “Oo no, she isn’t.”

“Do you know where she’s gone?”

“Oo no, I don’t.”

“Oh—I see,” said Turgis miserably. “I was hoping to see her to-night.”

“Well,” said the girl confidentially, “I think she went out with a friend, because she got all dressed up just after seven and she told me she wouldn’t be back till very late, and then about half-past seven a young gentleman called for her in a motor-car. And that’s all I can tell you. Would you like to leave a message?”

No, no message. He walked slowly down the garden, out of the gate, across the road. He had to stop at the corner, because he was biting his handkerchief, which he had screwed into a ball. Then, when at last he was quiet and had put his handkerchief away, he walked on and on through a blank misery of a night.

Mr. Pelumpton was sitting up alone, just finishing his last pipe and a mouthful of beer, when Turgis burst into the back room.

“Can you lend me some ink, please?” he asked.

“Yersh, I think sho. I got a drop shomewhere. But you’re not going to shtart writing lettersh thish time o’ night, boy, are yer? If I wash like you, clerking all day in a norfish, writing lettersh about thish, that, an’ the other, never shtopping, why, deary me!—you wouldn’t catch me wanting to write lettersh thish time o’ night, my wordsh you wouldn’t⁠——”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Turgis screamed at him, “let me have the ink if you’ve got any and stop yapping.”

“’Ere, ’ere, ’ere, ’ere, ’ere! Thatsh a way to talk now, ishn’t it!” Mr. Pelumpton, offended and on his dignity, produced the ink-bottle and put it down on the table and then promptly turned his back on it. “There’sh shuch a thing,” he continued, still with his back turned, “ash mannersh an’ ashkin’ for a thing in a proper way. And you can’t ’ave everything you want the minute you want it, not in thish world you can’t, and it’sh no good you or any other man⁠——”

But Turgis had banged the door behind him and was on his way upstairs. He sat in his little room, a pen in his hand, a writing pad on his knee, but at the end of half-an-hour there were only a few stiff sentences down on the paper, although a torrent of phrases, angry, reproachful, bitter, appealing, had gone raging through his head. When, in despair, he crumpled the paper and flung down his pen and then wandered wretchedly to the window, the night out there was filled with tall handsome young men with wavy hair and evening clothes, all with Lena in their arms. They were laughing at him. She was laughing at him. He left the window, and told himself that perhaps she wasn’t, though, perhaps she was sorry now. He wished he had waited in Carrington Villas until she had returned, no matter how late that might have been. He smoothed out the writing pad and tried to decide whether he should write something short and forceful or long and appealing. Oh, but what was the use of writing! He would see her, speak to her, tell her what he thought while looking her straight in the eyes. He would show her she wasn’t dealing with a kid now, but with a Man.

He undressed, and, as usual emptied his pockets. Two tickets, four and six each, for the Sovereign Picture Theatre. And it was she who had suggested it, and she had never even bothered letting him know she wasn’t coming, but had just gone out with somebody else, had dressed up, got into a car, and laughed at him or forgotten his existence. He turned out the light, got into bed, and found himself in a hot salty darkness, his eyes filling with tears.