Lilian

In the evening Mr. Grig appeared. The operation had been a success.

Gertie Jackson was, if anything, a little worse; but the doctor antic.i.p.ated an improvement. Mr. Grig showed not the least interest in his business. Lilian took the night duty alone.

Thenceforward the office settled gradually into its new grooves, and, though there was much less efficiency than under Miss Grig, there was little friction. Everybody except Millicent regarded Lilian as the grand vizier, and Millicent"s demeanour towards Lilian was by turns fantastically polite and fantastically indifferent.

A fortnight pa.s.sed. The two patients were going on well, and it was stated that there was a possibility of them being sent together to Felixstowe for convalescence. Mr. Grig"s attendance grew more regular, but he did little except keep the books and make out the bills; in which matter he displayed a facility that amazed Lilian, who really was not a bit arithmetical.

One day, entering the large room after hours, Lilian saw Millicent typing on a machine not her own. As she pa.s.sed she read the words: "My darling Gertie. I simply can"t tell you how glad I was to get your lovely letter." And it flashed across her that Millicent would relate all the office doings to Gertie, who would relate them to Miss Grig.

She had a spasm of fear, divining that Millicent would misrepresent her.

In what phrases had Millicent told that Lilian had sat in Miss Grig"s chair and interviewed applicants for situations! Was it not strange that Gertie had not written to her, Lilian, nor she even thought of writing to Gertie? Too late now for her to write to Gertie! A few days later Mr. Grig said to Lilian in the small room:"

"You"re very crowded here, aren"t you?"

The two new-comers had been put into the small room, being of a superior sort and not fitted to join the rabble.

"Oh, no!" said Lilian. "We"re quite comfortable, thank you."

"You don"t seem to be very comfortable. It occurs to me it would be better in every way if you brought your machine into my room."

An impulse, and an error of judgment, on Felix"s part! But he was always capricious.

"I should prefer to stay where I am," Lilian answered, not smiling.

What a letter Millicent would have written in order to describe Lilian"s promotion to the princ.i.p.als" room!

Often, having made a mistake, Felix would persist in it from obstinacy.

"Oh! As you like!" he muttered huffily, instead of recognizing by his tone that Lilian was right. But the next moment he repeated, very softly and kindly: "As you like! It"s for you to decide." He had not once shown the least appreciation of, or grat.i.tude for, Lilian"s zeal.

On the contrary, he had been in the main querulous and censorious. But she did not mind. She was richly rewarded by a single benevolent inflection of that stirring voice. She seemed to have forgotten that she was born for pleasure, luxury, empire. Work fully satisfied her, but it was work for him. The mere suggestion that she should sit in his room filled her with deep joy.

V

The Martyr

Miss Grig came back to the office on a Thursday, and somewhat mysteriously. Millicent, no doubt from information received through Gertie Jackson, had been hinting for several days that the return would not be long delayed; but Mr. Grig had said not one word about the matter until the Wednesday evening, when he told Lilian, with apparent casualness, as she was leaving for the night, that his sister might be expected the next morning. As for Miss Jackson, she would resume her duties only on the Monday, having family affairs to transact at Islington. Miss Jackson, it seemed, had developed into the trusted companion and intimate--almost ally, if the term were not presumptuous--of the soul and dynamo of the business. Miss Grig and she had suffered together, they had solaced and strengthened each other; and Gertie, for all her natural humility, was henceforth to play in the office a role superior to that of a senior employee. She had already been endowed with special privileges, and among these was the privilege of putting the interests of Islington before the interests of Clifford Street.

The advent of Miss Grig, of course, considerably agitated the office and in particular the small room, two of whose occupants had never seen the princ.i.p.al of whose capacity for sustained effort they had heard such wonderful and frightening tales.

At nine-thirty that Thursday morning it was reported in both rooms that Miss Grig had re-entered her fortress. n.o.body had seen her, but ears had heard her, and, moreover, it was mystically known by certain signs, as, for example, the reversal of a doormat which had been out of position for a week, that a higher presence was immanent in the place and that the presence could be none other than Miss Grig. Everybody became an exemplar of a.s.siduity, amiability, and entire conscientiousness. Everybody prepared a smile; and there was a universal wish for the day to be over.

Shortly after ten o"clock Miss Grig visited the small room, shook hands with Lilian and Millicent, and permitted the two new typists to be presented to her. Millicent spoke first and was so effusive in the expression of the delight induced in her by the spectacle of Miss Grig and of her sympathy for the past and hope for the future of Miss Grig"s health, that Lilian, who nevertheless did her best to be winning, could not possibly compete with her. Miss Grig had a purified and chastened air, as of one detached by suffering from the grossness and folly of the world, and existing henceforth in the world solely from a cold, pa.s.sionate sense of duty. Her hair was greyer, her mild equable voice more soft, and her burning eyes had a brighter and more unearthly l.u.s.tre. She said that she was perfectly restored, let fall that Mr.

Grig had gone away at her request for a short, much-needed holiday, and then pa.s.sed smoothly on to the large room.

After a while a little flapper of a beginner came to tell Millicent that Miss Grig wanted her. Millicent, who had had charge of the petty cash during the interregnum, was absent for forty minutes. When she returned, flushed but smiling, to her expectant colleagues, she informed Lilian that Miss Grig desired to see her at twelve o"clock.

"I notice there"s an account here under the name of Lord Mackworth,"

Miss Grig began, having allowed Lilian to stand for a few seconds before looking up from the ledger and other books in which she was apparently absorbed. She spoke with the utmost gentleness, and fixed her oppressive deep eyes on Lilian"s.

"Yes, Miss Grig?"

"It hasn"t been paid."

"Oh!" Lilian against an intense volition began to blush.

"Didn"t you know?"

"I didn"t," said Lilian.

"But you"ve been having something to do with the books during my absence."

"I did a little at first," Lilian admitted. "Then Mr. Grig saw to them."

"Miss Merrislate tells me that you had quite a lot to do with them, and I see your handwriting in a number of places here."

"I"ve had nothing to do with them for about three weeks--I should think at least three weeks, and--and of course I expected the bill would be paid by this time."

"But you never asked?"

"No. It never occurred to me."

This statement was inaccurate. Lilian had often wondered whether Lord Mackworth had paid his bill, but, from some obscurely caused self-consciousness, she had not dared to make any inquiry. She felt herself to be somehow "mixed up" with Lord Mackworth, and had absurdly feared that if she mentioned the name there might appear on the face or in the voice of the detestable Milly some sinister innuendo.

"Miss Merrislate tells me that she didn"t trouble about the account as she supposed it was your affair."

"My affair!" exclaimed Lilian impulsively. "It"s no more my affair than anybody else"s." She surmised in the situation some ingenious malevolence of the flat-breasted mischief-maker.

"But you did the work?"

"Yes. It came in while I was on duty that night, and I did it at once.

There was no one else to do it."

"Who brought it in?"

"Lord Mackworth."

"Did you know him?"

"Certainly not. I didn"t know him from Adam."

"Never mind Adam, Miss Share," observed Miss Grig genially. "Has Lord Mackworth been in since?"

"If he has I"ve not seen him," Lilian answered defiantly.

Miss Grig"s geniality exasperated her because it did not deceive her.

"I"m only asking for information," Miss Grig said with a placatory smile. "I see the copies were delivered at six-thirty in the morning.

Who delivered the job?"