Epilogue

Mr. Golspie, pottering about in his cabin, would not have known she was moving off if he had not suddenly seen a blue funnel go wandering across the open porthole. He could feel no motion, but then she was not moving under her own steam, but was being taken out of the docks by tugs. Mr. Golspie put his head into the next cabin, where his daughter was still fussing about with her things. “We’re off,” he said, grinning at her. Lena showed no sign of excitement. You might have thought she had been travelling to the River Plate all her life.

“Coming out?” said her father.

“Not yet. Are we really going? There doesn’t seem to be any excitement.”

“There isn’t. If that’s what you want, we ought to have gone on a liner, and then you’d have had palaver enough—kissing and crying and cheering and God knows what. These boats do it quietly.”

“Well, I’m disappointed. But I’ll come out when there’s something to see and I’ve put these things away. I’m rather tired of staring at these silly docks, though. Tell me when anything happens.”

He nodded, grinned again at her, then withdrew, and went out on to the main deck, where several of the other passengers were standing. There were only a dozen passengers all told, for this was primarily a cargo boat. One of these fellow travellers caught Mr. Golspie’s eye, nodded, and then came nearer. They had exchanged a few remarks already, each having recognised in the other an old hand and a kindred spirit. They knew even now that the moment the steward was at liberty to dispense his liquors, they would be having a drink together, the first of many, many drinks. This other man, Sugden, was a tallish fellow with a long bony face and a vast shaven upper lip, a Lancashire man who travelled for some chemical firm. He had one of those hard, flat, Lancashire voices that give every statement they make a lugubrious and disillusioned air.

“Moving,” that voice announced now, to Mr. Golspie.

“Moving,” said Mr. Golspie.

They stood together, two solid middle-aged men, and together they watched the long line of masts and funnels in the Royal Albert Dock go sliding away. They were still in London, and no great distance from the buses and trams, the teashops and the pubs, yet all that London seemed to have disappeared long ago. Here was another city with streets and squares of dark water, a city of wharves and sheds, masts and funnels and cranes, barges, tugs, and lighters. Wherever you looked there appeared to be nothing but these things, though in the far distance a haze of smoke, hanging above the multitudinous chimney-pots of Poplar and Bow, suggested that the other London, the brick and paving-stone London, was still there. It was not a bad morning for the time of year. Now and then the sunlight struggled through and set the water glittering or brought out ghostly rainbow hues on the darker oilier patches.

“This is where they bring all the meat,” said Sugden. “This, and Liverpool. If you blocked this place up for a week or two, a lot o’ people would find themselves without their Sunday dinners. Not me, though. Give me English meat, when I can get it. And when I’m at home, I insist on having it. Get enough o’ the other sort when I’m away.”

“You’ve been on these boats before, haven’t you?”

“I have. I’ve been on this very ship twice before. They know me here. You ask ’em.”

“Food all right?”

“Suits me,” replied Sugden. “Should suit you, too. Good quality and plenty of it. Nothing fancy, y’know—not like these liners, with their chefs and what not—but plenty o’ good solid stuff. That’s what I like.”

Apparently it was what Mr. Golspie liked too. He produced a cigar case, and the two men lit up and through a fragrant dribble of smoke regarded the moving docks with half-closed eyes and a vague air of patronage.

“This port of London’s a bit of an eye-opener to me,” Mr. Golspie remarked.

“Ever been all round it? Tremendous—oh tremendous! There’s the West India Docks further up here, and then the Surrey Commercial on the other side. You never saw such a place. It’s a hard day’s work looking round the Surrey Commercial. Chap tried to show me once, but I gave it up. And then you’ve got the London Docks further up still. And Tilbury, of course. If you go out on one of the regular liners and mail boats, you get on down at Tilbury. I’ve done that once or twice, but this suits me better. When I’m aboard a ship, I like to travel quietly. I don’t like all this floating hotel, song-and-dance, fancy-dress ball business. What d’you say?”

“Haven’t been on one of those big ships for donkeys’ years,” Mr. Golspie confessed. “I’ve never been out to South America before, as a matter of fact. I’ve been to the States, in my time, and I’ve been to Central America, but not to south. But an old pal of mine’s out there—Montevideo’s his headquarters—and he’s put up a good proposition, so I’m going to see what it looks like.”

“Plenty o’ money there, plenty. Only place where there is now, there and the States. I shouldn’t like to live there though. Wouldn’t suit me.”

“And where do you live when you’re at home?”

“St. Helens. That’s where my firm is, and that’s where I live. Been there all my life. D’you know it?”

“Saw it once from the train,” Mr. Golspie replied. “Bit ugly, isn’t it?”

Mr. Sugden was not surprised. Obviously he had heard this before. “Yes, it’s a bit ugly, if you’re not used to it. But I’m a bit ugly myself. And if it comes to that, you’re no beauty.” And he roared with laughter.

Mr. Golspie laughed too, companionably. They strolled round the deck, on which Miss Lena Golspie, in a fur coat and with a scarlet scarf about her neck, soon made an appearance, to the delight of several of the younger male passengers and ship’s officers, who had been waiting for this moment, after hoping, with the despair born of many previous disappointments, that she was not merely a fleeting vision, one of those lovely creatures who come aboard for an hour or two and then depart, leaving the whole ship under a shadow. She joined her father and was introduced to Mr. Sugden (not an impressionable man), and then wandered away, to stare with disdainful interest at the other ships and to gather out of the corners of her brilliant eyes a good deal of exciting preliminary information about her fellow passengers. The scene before her—the ship had stopped now in that unaccountable fashion that ships have—seemed to her very ugly and dull, and it was incredible that this dirty water and drab messiness should be the beginning of a voyage to South America, of which her fancy entertained the liveliest and most exciting pictures, chiefly derived from the films. After that awful night with the boy from the office, she had been only too glad to leave London, which seemed to her, on the whole, a stupid place, but she could hardly believe now that in a fortnight or so she would be staring at South American young men with black side-whiskers and absurd hats. She was annoyed with the ship for stopping like this, as if it had nothing better to do than loiter about these dingy sheds and flat boats full of barrels, and when one of the officers hung about, looking as if he wanted to pour out information, she gave him a haughty glance and walked away.

Her father and his new acquaintance, having finished their cigars, leaned over the rail, and decided that they were ready for lunch. Meanwhile, they talked idly.

“I don’t blame you,” said Mr. Sugden. “I don’t like London myself—never did. I had a year there once. Didn’t like it at all. I couldn’t get on with the Londoners—too much of this haw-haw-haw stuff and the striped trousers and black coat and white spat business. Didn’t suit me, I can tell you. They thought they were smart, too.”

“They’re not—most of ’em,” said Mr. Golspie. “I soon found that out.”

“So did I,” the other continued in his curiously flat mournful voice, “and when I did find it out and told ’em as much, they didn’t like it. No, they didn’t like it.” Mr. Sugden did not go on to explain why they should have liked it. He merely repeated several times more that they didn’t like it. But he was yawning rather than talking.

“Well, I’ve just had about four or five months of it,” said Mr. Golspie, indifferently, “and that was quite enough for me. They’re half dead, most of ’em—half dead. No dash. No guts. I want a place where everybody’s alive, where there’s something doing.”

“Where were you in London?”

“What—working? Well, my headquarters were in a funny little street—I don’t suppose you’ve heard of it—down in the City it is.”

“I know the City fairly well.”

“I wonder if you know this place. I’d never heard of it before. Angel Pavement.”

“Angel Pavement? No, I never heard of that. You win. Well, I must say I’m ready for my lunch. I think I’ll slip down and wash my hands. Well, well, well, we-ell.” He sang these, at the same time stifling a yawn. “Meet any angels there?”

“What, in Angel Pavement? I can’t say I did.”

“Not on view, eh?”

“Not while I was there. I met somebody who nearly turned into one, but not quite. No, they were all just human, and they hadn’t got too dam’ much of that. I was sorry for the poor devils—some of ’em.”

“All I’m sorry for just now is my inside,” said Mr. Sugden, with great deliberation. “It’s crying out for a piece of steak nicely done and a few chips. Hello, there go the Customs chaps. We ought to be moving again soon. And—my word!—it’s time they thought about a bit o’ lunch. Look at the time. Let’s go down.”

“Listen. That’s it,” said Mr. Golspie. “Come on. Oh, I’ll get hold of that daughter of mine.”

When they returned after lunch, they found that they had left the docks behind and were now in the river. There was a new chill freshness in the air and a vague hint of the sea. On one side, the last of Woolwich was straggling past, with a misty Shooters Hill behind; and on the other side there were some old piers and a gas works.

“Better take a last look at London,” said Mr. Golspie to his daughter, as they walked round the deck. “There it is, see?”

“There’s nothing to see,” said Lena, looking back at the glistening streaky water and the haze and shadows beyond. “Not worth looking at.”

“All gone in smoke, eh? I mean the proper London. As a matter of fact, we’re not out of London yet. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Not quite out of it yet,” replied Mr. Sugden, “but you’ve seen all there is to see. I think I’ll go down and have my little afternoon snooze.”

A string of barges passed them, moving slowly on to the very heart of the city. A gull dropped, wheeled, flashed, was gone, and with it went what little sun there was. The gleam faded from the face of the river; a chill wind stirred; the distant banks, a higgledy-piggledy of little buildings and green patches, retreated; and even the smoky haze of London city slipped away from them, thinning out into grey sky. “Well, the sun’s gone in,” said Mr. Golspie, “so I’ll go in, too.” Somewhere a steamer hooted twice out of the ghostliness. He gave a last look, then turned away. “And that’s that.”

THE END