The Thirteen Travellers. Hugh Walpole
to know. Here we are at their mercy—can step over any time they like and just take us."
Nothing made Fanny so angry as this. It was all she could do to control herself; nevertheless, control herself she did.
"What about our Army?" she would say. "And the submarines? What about Kitchener?" and later, "What about Haig?"
"Haig!" sniffed Aggie. "Haig!" The air-raids finished Aggie. A bomb was dropped quite close to their upper-part in Bloomsbury. Aggie was ill for weeks—she recovered, but rose from her bed a soured, injured, vindictive woman. It was exactly as though the whole of the war, and especially the bomb-dropping part of it, had been arranged simply for the annoyance of Aggie Close. She always said that she hated the Germans, but to hear her talk you'd think that she hated the English a great deal more. Our incompetence, our cowardice, our selfishness, our wickedness in high places—such were her eternal topics. Fanny, sitting in her hutch at Hortons, saw the evening waiting for her—the horrible evening with their little stuffy, food-smelling, overcrowded room, with the glazed and grinning sideboard, the pink-and-white wool mats, the heavy lace curtains over the window, the hideous oleographs, the large, staring photographs. Unlike most of her kind she knew that all this was ugly, and in the midst of the ugliness was Aggie, Aggie with her square, short, thick-set figure, her huge flat feet, her heavy, freckled hands. She would have escaped to a place of entertainment had there been anybody to take her—just now there was nobody. She could not walk about the streets alone.
At first she had tried to interest Aggie in the exciting events of her day, in poor Mr. Jay, and magnificent Mr. Robsart, and funny, fussing Mrs. Demaris, and the Hon. Clive. But Aggie had a marvellous way of turning everything, however cheerful and bright it might seem, into sin and sorrow and decay. If Fanny was happy, it was: "How can you laugh when the world's in the state it's in?" If Fanny sighed, it was: "I should have thought it was one's duty to be as cheerful as possible just now. But some people think only of themselves."
If Fanny argued against some too outrageous piece of pessimism, it was: "Really, Fanny, it's such as you is losing us the war."
"Oh! I hate Aggie!—I hate Aggie!" Fanny would sometimes cry to herself in the heart of her hutch, but she could not summon to herself sufficient resolution to go off and live by herself; she had a terror of solitary evenings, all the terror of one who did not care for books, who was soaked in superstition and loved lights and noise.
During the first two years of the war she did not consider the end of the war. She never doubted for a single moment but that the Allies would win, and for the rest she had too much work to do to waste time in idle speculations. But in the third year that little phrase "after the war" began to drive itself in upon her. Everyone said it. She perceived that people were bearing their trials and misfortunes and losses because "after the war" everything would be all right again—there would be plenty of food and money and rest "after the war."
Her heart began to ache for all the troubles that she saw around her. Mr. Nix lost his boy in France and was a changed man. For a month or two it seemed as though he would lose all interest in Hortons. He was listless and indifferent and suffered slackness to go unpunished. Then he pulled himself together. Hortons was its old self again—and how Fanny admired him for that!
Then came the Armistice, and the world changed for Fanny. It changed because, in a sudden devastating horrible flash of revelation, she realised that the women would all have to go! The men would come back. … And she?
That night when she perceived this gave her one of her worst hours. She had allowed herself—and she saw now how foolish she had been to do so—to look upon the work at Hortons as the permanent occupation of her life. How could she have done otherwise? It suited her so exactly; she loved it, and everybody encouraged her to believe that she did it well. Had not Mr. Nix himself told her that he could not have believed that he could miss the magnificent James so little, and that no man could have filled the blank as she had done? Moreover, in the third year of the war James had been killed, and it would take a new man a long time to learn all the ins-and-outs of the business as she had learnt them. So she had encouraged herself to dream, and the dream and the business had become one—she could not tear them apart. Well, now she must tear them apart. Mr. Nix was dismissing all the women.
With teeth set she faced her future. No use to think of getting another job—everywhere the men were returning. For such work as she could do there would be a hundred men waiting for every vacancy. No, she would have to live always with Aggie. They would have enough to live on—just enough. Their brother allowed them something, and an aunt had left them a little legacy. Just enough with a perpetual sparing and scraping—no more of the little luxuries that Fanny's pay from Hortons had allowed them. Certainly not enough for either of them to live alone. Tied for ever together, that's what they would be—chained! and Aggie growing ever more and more bitter.
Nevertheless she faced it. She went back to Hortons with a smile and a laugh. Her gentlemen and ladies did not know that she was looking upon them with eyes of farewell. Miss Lois Drake, for instance, that daring and adventurous type of the modern girl about whose future Fanny was always speculating with trembling excitement, she did not notice anything at all. But then she thought of very little save herself. "However she can do the things she does!" was Fanny's awed comment—and now, alas, she would never see the climax to her daring—never, never, never!
She said nothing to Aggie of her troubles, and Aggie said nothing to her. The days passed. Then just before Christmas came the marvellous news.
By this time all the girl valets had been dismissed and men had taken their places. They would congregate in the hall of a morning, coming on approval, and Fanny would speculate about them. Mr. Nix even asked her advice. "I like that one," she would say; "I wouldn't trust that man a yard," she would decide. Then one day Albert Edward came. There was no doubt about him at all. He was almost as good as the late lamented James. Handsome, although short—but Fanny liked the "stocky" kind, and with such a laugh! Fanny delighted in his jet-black hair cut tight about his head, his smiling black eyes, his round, rosy cheeks. She admired him quite in the abstract. He was far too grand for any personal feeling. … At once, when he had been in the place two days, she allotted him to Mrs. Mellish's maid, Annette, such a handsome girl, so bold and clever! They were made for one another.
Albert Edward was valet on the second floor; he shared that floor with Bacon. Fanny did not like Bacon, the one mistake she thought that Mr. Nix had made.
Well, just before Christmas the wonderful hour arrived.
"Fanny," said Mr. Nix one evening. "Do you realise that you're the only woman left in a man's job?"
"Yes," said Fanny, her heart beating horribly.
"Well," said Mr. Nix, "you're going to continue to be the only woman unless you've any objection."
"Oh, Mr. Nix," said Fanny, "I'm sure I've always tried——"
"Yes, I know," said Mr. Nix, "that's why I want you to stay—for ever if you like—or at any rate so long as I'm here."
"Oh, Mr. Nix," said Fanny again. Tears were in her eyes; the familiar green staircase, the palm and the grandfather's clock swam before her eyes.
It was Aggie, of course, who killed her happiness almost as soon as it was born.
"And what about the demobilised men?" Aggie had asked with her cold, acid smile. "I should have thought that if there were any jobs going a patriotic girl like you would have been the first to stand aside."
Fanny's heart seemed to leap into the air and then fall—stone dead at her feet. Men! Demobilised men! She had not thought of that. But for the moment the only thing she could see was Aggie's spite—her old, eternal spite. … She felt the tears rising. In a moment they would break out.
"You would like to spoil it if you could!" she cried. "Yes, you would. It's what you've always done—spoilt everything. Yes, you have—since we were children. Any little bit of happiness. … "
"Happiness!" interrupted Aggie; "that's what you call it? Selfishness! cruel selfishness, that's what some would name it."
"You