fairly rich with her wages (four pounds ten, for nine weeks) and
her father's two pounds, she took to buying sandwiches at the ham
and beef shop in the town and eating her dinner out of doors. Mrs
Creevy acquiesced, half sulkily because she liked to have Dorothy
in the house to nag at her, and half pleased at the chance of
skimping a few more meals.
Dorothy went for long solitary walks, exploring Southbridge and its
yet more desolate neighbours, Dorley, Wembridge, and West Holton.
Winter had descended, dank and windless, and more gloomy in those
colourless labyrinthine suburbs than in the bleakest wilderness.
On two or three occasions, though such extravagance would probably
mean hungry days later on, Dorothy took a cheap return ticket to
Iver Heath or Burnham Beeches. The woods were sodden and wintry,
with great beds of drifted beech leaves that glowed like copper in
the still, wet air, and the days were so mild that you could sit
out of doors and read if you kept your gloves on. On Christmas Eve
Mrs Creevy produced some sprigs of holly that she had saved from
last year, dusted them, and nailed them up; but she did not, she
said, intend to have a Christmas dinner. She didn't hold with all
this Christmas nonsense, she said--it was just a lot of humbug got
up by the shopkeepers, and such an unnecessary expense; and she
hated turkey and Christmas pudding anyway. Dorothy was relieved; a
Christmas dinner in that joyless 'morning-room' (she had an awful
momentary vision of Mrs Creevy in a paper hat out of a cracker) was
something that didn't bear thinking about. She ate her Christmas
dinner--a hard-boiled egg, two cheese sandwiches, and a bottle of
lemonade--in the woods near Burnham, against a great gnarled beech
tree, over a copy of George Gissing's The Odd Women.
On days when it was too wet to go for walks she spent most of her
time in the public library--becoming, indeed, one of the regular
habituees of the library, along with the out-of-work men who sat
drearily musing over illustrated papers which they did not read,
and the elderly discoloured bachelor who lived in 'rooms' on two
pounds a week and came to the library to study books on yachting by
the hour together. It had been a great relief to her when the term
ended, but this feeling soon wore off; indeed, with never a soul to
talk to, the days dragged even more heavily than before. There is
perhaps no quarter of the inhabited world where one can be quite so
completely alone as in the London suburbs. In a big town the
throng and bustle give one at least the illusion of companionship,
and in the country everyone is interested in everyone else--too
much so, indeed. But in places like Southbridge, if you have no
family and no home to call your own, you could spend half a
lifetime without managing to make a friend. There are women in
such places, and especially derelict gentlewomen in ill-paid jobs,
who go for years upon end in almost utter solitude. It was not
long before Dorothy found herself in a perpetually low-spirited,
jaded state in which, try as she would, nothing seemed able to
interest her. And it was in the hateful ennui of this time--the
corrupting ennui that lies in wait for every modern soul--that she
first came to a full understanding of what it meant to have lost
her faith.
She tried drugging herself with books, and it succeeded for a week
or so. But after a while very nearly all books seemed wearisome
and unintelligible; for the mind will not work to any purpose when
it is quite alone. In the end she found that she could not cope
with anything more difficult than a detective story. She took
walks of ten and fifteen miles, trying to tire herself into a
better mood; but the mean suburban roads, and the damp, miry paths
through the woods, the naked trees, the sodden moss and great
spongy fungi, afflicted her with a deadly melancholy. It was human
companionship that she needed, and there seemed no way of getting
it. At nights' when she walked back to the school and looked at
the warm-lit windows of the houses, and heard voices laughing and
gramophones playing within, her heart swelled with envy. Ah, to be
like those people in there--to have at least a home, a family, a
few friends who were interested in you! There were days when she
pined for the courage to speak to strangers in the street. Days,
too, when she contemplated shamming piety in order to scrape
acquaintance with the Vicar of St George's and his family, and
perhaps get the chance of occupying herself with a little parish
work; days, even, when she was so desperate that she thought of
joining the Y.W.C.A.
But almost at the end of the holidays, through a chance encounter
at the library, she made friends with a little woman named Miss
Beaver, who was geography mistress at Toot's Commercial College,
another of the private schools in Southbridge. Toot's Commerical
College was a much larger and more pretentious school than Ringwood
House--it had about a hundred and fifty day-pupils of both sexes
and even rose to the dignity of having a dozen boarders--and its
curriculum was a somewhat less blatant swindle. It was one of
those schools that are aimed at the type of parent who blathers
about 'up-to-date business training', and its watch-word was
Efficiency; meaning a tremendous parade of hustling, and the
banishment of all humane studies. One of its features was a kind
of catechism called the Efficiency Ritual, which all the children
were required to learn by heart as soon as they joined the school.
It had questions and answers such as:
Q. What is the secret of success?
A. The secret of success is efficiency.
Q. What is the test of efficiency?
A. The test of efficiency is success.
And so on and so on. It was said that the spectacle of the whole
school, boys and girls together, reciting the Efficiency Ritual
under the leadership of the Headmaster--they had this ceremony two
mornings a week instead of prayers--was most impressive.
Miss Beaver was a prim little woman with a round body, a thin face,
a reddish nose, and the gait of a guinea-hen. After twenty years
of slave-driving she had attained to an income of four pounds a
week and the privilege of 'living out' instead of having to put the
boarders to bed at nights. She lived in 'rooms'--that is, in a
bed-sitting room--to which she was sometimes able to invite Dorothy
when both of them had a free evening. How Dorothy looked forward
to those visits! They were only possible at rare intervals,
because Miss Beaver's landlady 'didn't approve of visitors', and
even when you got there there was nothing much to do except to help
solve the crossword puzzle out of the Daily Telegraph and look at
the photographs Miss Beaver had taken on her trip (this trip had
been the summit and glory of her life) to the Austrian Tyrol in
1913. But still, how much it meant to sit talking to somebody in a
frien
dly way and to drink a cup of tea less wishy-washy than Mrs
Creevy's! Miss Beaver had a spirit lamp in a japanned travelling
case (it had been with her to the Tyrol in 1913) on which she
brewed herself pots of tea as black as coal-tar, swallowing about a
bucketful of this stuff during the day. She confided to Dorothy
that she always took a Thermos flask to school and had a nice hot
cup of tea during the break and another after dinner. Dorothy
perceived that by one of two well-beaten roads every third-rate
schoolmistress must travel: Miss Strong's road, via whisky to the
workhouse; or Miss Beaver's road, via strong tea to a decent death
in the Home for Decayed Gentlewomen.
Miss Beaver was in truth a dull little woman. She was a memento
mori, or rather memento senescere, to Dorothy. Her soul seemed to
have withered until it was as forlorn as a dried-up cake of soap in
a forgotten soap dish. She had come to a point where life in a
bed-sitting room under a tyrannous landlady and the 'efficient'
thrusting of Commercial Geography down children's retching throats,
were almost the only destiny she could imagine. Yet Dorothy grew
to be very fond of Miss Beaver, and those occasional hours that
they spent together in the bed-sitting room, doing the Daily
Telegraph crossword over a nice hot cup of tea, were like oases in
her life.
She was glad when the Easter term began, for even the daily round
of slave-driving was better than the empty solitude of the
holidays. Moreover, the girls were much better in hand this term;
she never again found it necessary to smack their heads. For she
had grasped now that it is easy enough to keep children in order if
you are ruthless with them from the start. Last term the girls had
behaved badly, because she had started by treating them as human
beings, and later on, when the lessons that interested them were
discontinued, they had rebelled like human beings. But if you are
obliged to teach children rubbish, you mustn't treat them as human
beings. You must treat them like animals--driving, not persuading.
Before all else, you must teach them that it is more painful to
rebel than to obey. Possibly this kind of treatment is not very
good for children, but there is no doubt they understand it and
respond to it.
She learned the dismal arts of the school-teacher. She learned to
her nervous energy, to be merciless and ever-vigilant, to take a
kind of pride and pleasure in seeing a futile rigmarole well done.
She had grown, quite suddenly it seemed, much tougher and maturer.
Her eyes had lost the half-childish look that they had once had,
and her face had grown thinner, making her nose seem longer. At
times it was quite definitely a schoolmarm's face; you could
imagine pince-nez upon it. But she had not become cynical as yet.
She still knew that these children were the victims of a dreary
swindle, still longed, if it had been possible, to do something
better for them. If she harried them and stuffed their heads with
rubbish, it was for one reason alone: because whatever happened she
had got to keep her job.
There was very little noise in the schoolroom this term. Mrs
Creevy, anxious as she always was for a chance of finding fault,
seldom had reason to rap on the wall with her broom-handle. One
morning at breakfast she looked rather hard at Dorothy, as though
weighing a decision, and then pushed the dish of marmalade across
the table.
'Have some marmalade if you like, Miss Millborough,' she said,
quite graciously for her.
It was the first time that marmalade had crossed Dorothy's lips
since she had come to Ringwood House. She flushed slightly. 'So
the woman realizes that I have done my best for her,' she could not
help thinking.
Thereafter she had marmalade for breakfast every morning. And in
other ways Mrs Creevy's manner became--not indeed, genial, for it
could never be that, but less brutally offensive. There were even
times when she produced a grimace that was intended for a smile;
her face, it seemed to Dorothy, CREASED with the effort. About
this time her conversation became peppered with references to 'next
term'. It was always 'Next term we'll do this', and 'Next term I
shall want you to do that', until Dorothy began to feel that she
had won Mrs Creevy's confidence and was being treated more like a
colleague than a slave. At that a small, unreasonable but very
exciting hope took root in her heart. Perhaps Mrs Creevy was going
to raise her wages! It was profoundly unlikely, and she tried to
break herself of hoping for it, but could not quite succeed. If
her wages were raised even half a crown a week, what a difference
it would make!
The last day came. With any luck Mrs Creevy might pay her wages
tomorrow, Dorothy thought. She wanted the money very badly indeed;
she had been penniless for weeks past, and was not only unbearably
hungry, but also in need of some new stockings, for she had not a
pair that were not darned almost out of existence. The following
morning she did the household jobs allotted to her, and then,
instead of going out, waited in the 'morning-room' while Mrs Creevy
banged about with her broom and pan upstairs. Presently Mrs Creevy
came down.
'Ah, so THERE you are, Miss Millborough!' she said in a peculiar
meaning tone. 'I had a sort of an idea you wouldn't be in such a
hurry to get out of doors this morning. Well, as you ARE here, I
suppose I may as well pay you your wages.'
'Thank you,' said Dorothy.
'And after that,' added Mrs Creevy, 'I've got a little something as
I want to say to you.'
Dorothy's heart stirred. Did that 'little something' mean the
longed-for rise in wages? It was just conceivable. Mrs Creevy
produced a worn, bulgy leather purse from a locked drawer in the
dresser, opened it and licked her thumb.
'Twelve weeks and five days,' she said. 'Twelve weeks is near
enough. No need to be particular to a day. That makes six
pounds.'
She counted out five dingy pound notes and two ten-shilling notes;
then, examining one of the notes and apparently finding it too
clean, she put it back into her purse and fished out another that
had been torn in half. She went to the dresser, got a piece of
transparent sticky paper and carefully stuck the two halves
together. Then she handed it, together with the other six, to
Dorothy.
'There you are, Miss Millborough,' she said. 'And now, will you
just leave the house AT once, please? I shan't be wanting you any
longer.'
'You won't be--'
drained out of her face. But even now, in her terror and despair,
she was not absolutely sure of the meaning of what had been said to
her. She still half thought that Mrs Creevy merely meant that she
was to stay out of the house for the rest of the day.
'You won't be wanting me any longer?' she repeated faintly.
'No. I'm getting in another teacher at the beginning of next term.
And it isn't to be expected as I'd keep you through the holidays
all free for nothing, is it?'
'But you don't mean that you want me to LEAVE--that you're
dismissing me?'
'Of course I do. What else did you think I meant?'
'But you've given me no notice!' said Dorothy.
'Notice!' said Mrs Creevy, getting angry immediately. 'What's it
got to do with YOU whether I give you notice or not? You haven't
got a written contract, have you?'
'No . . . I suppose not.'
'Well, then! You'd better go upstairs and start packing your box.
It's no good your staying any longer, because I haven't got
anything in for your dinner.'
Dorothy went upstairs and sat down on the side of the bed. She was
trembling uncontrollably, and it was some minutes before she could
collect her wits and begin packing. She felt dazed. The disaster
that had fallen upon her was so sudden, so apparently causeless,
that she had difficulty in believing that it had actually happened.
But in truth the reason why Mrs Creevy had sacked her was quite
simple and adequate.
Not far from Ringwood House there was a poor, moribund little
school called The Gables, with only seven pupils. The teacher was
an incompetent old hack called Miss Allcock, who had been at
thirty-eight different schools in her life and was not fit to have
charge of a tame canary. But Miss Allcock had one outstanding
talent; she was very good at double-crossing her employers. In
these third-rate and fourth-rate private schools a sort of piracy
is constantly going on. Parents are 'got round' and pupils stolen
from one school to another. Very often the treachery of the
teacher is at the bottom of it. The teacher secretly approaches
the parents one by one ('Send your child to me and I'll take her
at ten shillings a term cheaper'), and when she has corrupted a
sufficient number she suddenly deserts and 'sets up' on her own,
or carries the children off to another school. Miss Allcock had
succeeded in stealing three out of her employer's seven pupils, and
had come to Mrs Creevy with the offer of them. In return, she was
to have Dorothy's place and a fifteen-per-cent commission on the
pupils she brought.
There were weeks of furtive chaffering before the bargain was
clinched, Miss Allcock being finally beaten down from fifteen per
cent to twelve and a half. Mrs Creevy privately resolved to sack
old Allcock the instant she was certain that the three children she
brought with her would stay. Simultaneously, Miss Allcock was
planning to begin stealing old Creevy's pupils as soon as she had
got a footing in the school.
Having decided to sack Dorothy, it was obviously most important to
prevent her from finding it out. For, of course, if she knew what
was going to happen, she would begin stealing pupils on her own
account, or at any rate wouldn't do a stroke of work for the rest
of the term. (Mrs Creevy prided herself on knowing human nature.)
Hence the marmalade, the creaky smiles, and the other ruses to
allay Dorothy's suspicions. Anyone who knew the ropes would have
begun thinking of another job the very moment when the dish of
marmalade was pushed across the table.
Just half an hour after her sentence of dismissal, Dorothy,
carrying her handbag, opened the front gate. It was the fourth of
April, a bright blowy day, too cold to stand about in, with a sky
as blue as a hedgesparrow's egg, and one of those spiteful spring
winds that come tearing along the pavement in sudden gusts and blow
dry, stinging dust into your face. Dorothy shut the gate behind
her and began to walk very slowly in the direction of the main-line
station.
She had told Mrs Creevy that she would give her an address to which
her box could be sent, and Mrs Creevy had instantly exacted five