Chapter 110
"You can start at once. I'll give you six s.h.i.+llings a week and your keep.
Everything found, you know; the six s.h.i.+llings 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 s.h.i.+llings and the p.a.w.n-ticket on a suit he was able to get from a p.a.w.nbroker a frock coat which fitted him fairly well. He redeemed the rest of his clothes. He sent his box to Harrington Street by Carter Patterson 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 francais? 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 gla.s.s bottles of water at intervals, and down the centre salt cellars and bottles of vinegar. The a.s.sistants 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 was.h.i.+ng 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 gesture 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 quant.i.ties 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 a.s.sistants, 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 b.u.t.ter; 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 bed-room; 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
Harris showed Philip the lavatory, which was a fairly large room with eight basins in a row, and here all the inmates did their was.h.i.+ng. 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.
When Harris and Philip went back to their bed-room they found a tall man changing his clothes and a boy of sixteen whistling as loud as he could while he brushed his hair. In a minute or two without saying a word to anybody the tall man went out. Harris winked at the boy, and the boy, whistling still, winked back. Harris told Philip that the man was called Prior; he had been in the army and now served in the silks; he kept pretty much to himself, and he went off every night, just like that, without so much as a good-evening, to see his girl. Harris went out too, and only the boy remained to watch Philip curiously while he unpacked his things. His name was Bell and he was serving his time for nothing in the haberdashery.
He was much interested in Philip's evening clothes. He told him about the other men in the room and asked him every sort of question about himself.
He was a cheerful youth, and in the intervals of conversation sang in a half-broken voice s.n.a.t.c.hes of music-hall songs. When Philip had finished he went out to walk about the streets and look at the crowd; occasionally he stopped outside the doors of restaurants and watched the people going in; he felt hungry, so he bought a bath bun and ate it while he strolled along. He had been given a latch-key by the prefect, the man who turned out the gas at a quarter past eleven, but afraid of being locked out he returned in good time; he had learned already the system of fines: you had to pay a s.h.i.+lling if you came in after eleven, and half a crown after a quarter past, and you were reported besides: if it happened three times you were dismissed.
All but the soldier were in when Philip arrived and two were already in bed. Philip was greeted with cries.
"Oh, Clarence! Naughty boy!"
He discovered that Bell had dressed up the bolster in his evening clothes.
The boy was delighted with his joke.
"You must wear them at the social evening, Clarence."
"He'll catch the belle of Lynn's, if he's not careful."
Philip had already heard of the social evenings, for the money stopped from the wages to pay for them was one of the grievances of the staff. It was only two s.h.i.+llings a month, and it covered medical attendance and the use of a library of worn novels; but as four s.h.i.+llings a month besides was stopped for was.h.i.+ng, Philip discovered that a quarter of his six s.h.i.+llings a week would never be paid to him.
Most of the men were eating thick slices of fat bacon between a roll of bread cut in two. These sandwiches, the a.s.sistants' usual supper, were supplied by a small shop a few doors off at twopence each. The soldier rolled in; silently, rapidly, took off his clothes and threw himself into bed. At ten minutes past eleven the gas gave a big jump and five minutes later went out. The soldier went to sleep, but the others crowded round the big window in their pyjamas and night-s.h.i.+rts and, throwing remains of their sandwiches at the women who pa.s.sed in the street below, shouted to them facetious remarks. The house opposite, six storeys high, was a workshop for Jewish tailors who left off work at eleven; the rooms were brightly lit and there were no blinds to the windows. The sweater's daughter--the family consisted of father, mother, two small boys, and a girl of twenty--went round the house to put out the lights when work was over, and sometimes she allowed herself to be made love to by one of the tailors. The shop a.s.sistants in Philip's room got a lot of amus.e.m.e.nt out of watching the manoeuvres of one man or another to stay behind, and they made small bets on which would succeed. At midnight the people were turned out of the Harrington Arms at the end of the street, and soon after they all went to bed: Bell, who slept nearest the door, made his way across the room by jumping from bed to bed, and even when he got to his own would not stop talking. At last everything was silent but for the steady snoring of the soldier, and Philip went to sleep.
He was awaked at seven by the loud ringing of a bell, and by a quarter to eight they were all dressed and hurrying downstairs in their stockinged feet to pick out their boots. They laced them as they ran along to the shop in Oxford Street for breakfast. If they were a minute later than eight they got none, nor, once in, were they allowed out to get themselves anything to eat. Sometimes, if they knew they could not get into the building in time, they stopped at the little shop near their quarters and bought a couple of buns; but this cost money, and most went without food till dinner. Philip ate some bread and b.u.t.ter, drank a cup of tea, and at half past eight began his day's work again.
"First to the right. Second on the left, madam."
Soon he began to answer the questions quite mechanically. The work was monotonous and very tiring. After a few days his feet hurt him so that he could hardly stand: the thick soft carpets made them burn, and at night his socks were painful to remove. It was a common complaint, and his fellow 'floormen' told him that socks and boots just rotted away from the continual sweating. All the men in his room suffered in the same fas.h.i.+on, and they relieved the pain by sleeping with their feet outside the bed-clothes. At first Philip could not walk at all and was obliged to spend a good many of his evenings in the sitting-room at Harrington Street with his feet in a pail of cold water. His companion on these occasions was Bell, the lad in the haberdashery, who stayed in often to arrange the stamps he collected. As he fastened them with little pieces of stamp-paper he whistled monotonously.
CIV
The social evenings took place on alternate Mondays. There was one at the beginning of Philip's second week at Lynn's. He arranged to go with one of the women in his department.
"Meet 'em 'alf-way," she said, "same as I do."
This was Mrs. Hodges, a little woman of five-and-forty, with badly dyed hair; she had a yellow face with a network of small red veins all over it, and yellow whites to her pale blue eyes. She took a fancy to Philip and called him by his Christian name before he had been in the shop a week.
"We've both known what it is to come down," she said.
She told Philip that her real name was not Hodges, but she always referred to "me 'usband Misterodges;" he was a barrister and he treated her simply shocking, so she left him as she preferred to be independent like; but she had known what it was to drive in her own carriage, dear--she called everyone dear--and they always had late dinner at home. She used to pick her teeth with the pin of an enormous silver brooch. It was in the form of a whip and a hunting-crop crossed, with two spurs in the middle. Philip was ill at ease in his new surroundings, and the girls in the shop called him 'sidey.' One addressed him as Phil, and he did not answer because he had not the least idea that she was speaking to him; so she tossed her head, saying he was a 'stuck-up thing,' and next time with ironical emphasis called him Mister Carey. She was a Miss Jewell, and she was going to marry a doctor. The other girls had never seen him, but they said he must be a gentleman as he gave her such lovely presents.
"Never you mind what they say, dear," said Mrs. Hodges. "I've 'ad to go through it same as you 'ave. They don't know any better, poor things. You take my word for it, they'll like you all right if you 'old your own same as I 'ave."
The social evening was held in the restaurant in the bas.e.m.e.nt. The tables were put on one side so that there might be room for dancing, and smaller ones were set out for progressive whist.
"The 'eads 'ave to get there early," said Mrs. Hodges.
She introduced him to Miss Bennett, who was the belle of Lynn's. She was the buyer in the 'Petticoats,' and when Philip entered was engaged in conversation with the buyer in the 'Gentlemen's Hosiery;' Miss Bennett was a woman of ma.s.sive proportions, with a very large red face heavily powdered and a bust of imposing dimensions; her flaxen hair was arranged with elaboration. She was overdressed, but not badly dressed, in black with a high collar, and she wore black glace gloves, in which she played cards; she had several heavy gold chains round her neck, bangles on her wrists, and circular photograph pendants, one being of Queen Alexandra; she carried a black satin bag and chewed Sen-sens.
"Please to meet you, Mr. Carey," she said. "This is your first visit to our social evenings, ain't it? I expect you feel a bit shy, but there's no cause to, I promise you that."
She did her best to make people feel at home. She slapped them on the shoulders and laughed a great deal.