Another world, p.3
Another World, page 3
‘I am always at it, Jones.’
‘Yes, Mrs Gandell.’
‘And I’ve been thinking that in some ways we are lucky.’
‘Indeed.’ Jones leaned against the wall, slowly supped the tea.
‘I am more cautious than you,’ he concluded, ‘I can only say perhaps.’
She flung him the reply. ‘And I say we are, that’s all.’
He came over, put down the cup, leaned close.
‘One should never be too certain about anything, Mrs Gandell. No indeed for there’s a mixture of strange cunning and wisdom in most things. Have you ever noticed how the wise ones answer the questions too soon, and the cunning ones too late. Perhaps you haven’t,’ and he dragged the remainder of his sentence. ‘Perhaps you never will.’
She got up, pushed past him and went to the window.
‘Still raining.’
‘That will be a very real fact, later, as big as a fist. I have to go out in it. The gin’s run out.’
‘And the cigarettes,’ she said. She could only think of gin and cigarettes as lifebelts in this dreary month.
‘The Lion will be closed,’ he said.
‘The Lion has a back door, Jones.’
She came away from the window, put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Try not to overdo it, Jones, since I am not an entirely stupid woman, so that I could sometimes wish that you were not so self-conscious about conveying to me that you are always doing your duty.’
‘Thank you.’
An instantaneous smile lit her face, and it puzzled Jones. ‘Oh yes?’ he said.
‘I was only thinking of your Minister Thomas,’ she said, and gave a tiny little laugh.
It upset Jones. ‘And what are you laughing about, Mrs Gandell? Because he’s Welsh, because he’s chained to the cross, because he’s craggy and fifty, and washes his feet every week. Or because he has the big ache and the ice in his prayers? Well then?’
‘He’s less funny than you, Jones.’
‘Does he pay for calling? Perhaps some crumbs are better than no crumbs.’
‘There,’ she exclaimed, and slapped his face.
He grinned in her face and again said, ‘Thank you, Mrs Gandell.’
‘You’d better get off, hadn’t you, Jones?’
And she followed him to the stairs, and stood there watching him go up. When he reached the top he turned and offered her a smile. ‘What a mixture,’ she thought.
She stood there, waiting for him to appear, which he did, wearing an old raincoat. He carried an umbrella, but no hat.
‘Good.’
They stood close together in the hall. ‘You won’t be long?’
‘I won’t be long,’ he replied, and opened the front door. Rain came in, and he stood back, fingering the umbrella.
‘Not inside the house, Jones, I’m tired of telling you that.’
He stood down on the step, looked up, surveyed the sky.
‘The clouds have very wet faces,’ he said, ‘and right down there the sea is fast asleep. Ah!’ and he waved the opened umbrella. ‘I really don’t like the sea when the wind’s lying flat atop of it, no indeed. And such a queer sort of light seems to come over the place.’
‘Get along, Jones,’ and gave him a push.
He turned to her and said quietly, ‘One of these days you may push Jonesy just too much. Remember that, Mrs Gandell, won’t you.’
‘Get along,’ and she banged the door furiously behind him, and went and sat at one of the dining-room tables. She was aware of the draughts in the room. She would have to do something about it. She went to the office and sat down, then immediately got up again and went upstairs. She sat down on the bed.
‘If I can get through the month,’ she thought, ‘yes, if I can get through the month.’ She went to the black corner cupboard and opened it. The empty gin bottles seemed a direct affront, and she hoped her factotum wouldn’t be too long. The cigarette burned away in her fingers, and she reached for another. The packet was empty. ‘Damn!’
In the nine months she had been proprietress of the Decent Hotel, she had only been into the town on three occasions, from each of which journeys she had returned feeling like something of a ghost in the place. It made her realise how English she was, how Welsh they were. Sometimes she asked herself why she had ever left Yorkshire. She heard a key turn in the lock. ‘It must be Jones,’ and rushed from the room. Half way downstairs the door opened, and there was Miss Vaughan coming into the hall.
‘Why, Miss Vaughan? Is something wrong?’ and she hurried to her. ‘My dear!’ she exclaimed, noting the pallor, ‘Is anything the matter?’
She fussed her all the way to a table and sat down, ‘Are you ill, my dear?’
‘I’d an awful headache, and Mr Blair said I could go home.’
‘I’m sorry, dear,’ and she rushed off to the kitchen, returning quickly with a glass of water and two aspirins. ‘There now! Take those. You’ll be all right. And after that I should rest in your room.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Gandell,’ and she swallowed the tablets and finished off the water. ‘Sorry to be a bother.’
‘You are no bother at all.’
‘I’ll go up now.’
‘Of course,’ and she came closer to her one remaining guest, and added, ‘I do hope you’ll be better by lunch time.’
Miss Vaughan stared, and didn’t seem to know the answer to that. She rose, and Mrs Gandell said abruptly, ‘Of course now that Mr Prothero has gone, I could let you have his room, it is larger than your own.’
It produced the faintest smile from Miss Vaughan. ‘Thank you, but I’m quite all right where I am, Mrs Gandell. I like my room, and do not wish to change it.’
‘I’m glad to know that,’ said Mrs Gandell, and longed for a cigarette.
‘And thanks for the aspirins.’
‘Tut! Tut! Nothing at all, my dear. I thought you would have liked a larger room.’
‘I would not have liked a larger room,’ said Miss Vaughan, and gathered up her things.
‘I …see.’
‘I’m glad of that. There are some people, Mrs Gandell, that simply do not see.’
‘Yes … all right now?’
‘I’m better now, thank you.’
‘I was wondering if you’d like to dine at my table this evening, Miss Vaughan?’
‘I’d rather not.’
‘As you wish.’
Miss Vaughan said thank you again, and stressed it. ‘You do not yourself go into the town very often, Mrs Gandell.’
Mrs Gandell was too surprised to answer.
‘Perhaps you do not like Garthmeilo?’
‘I don’t always want to go, and often I need not.’
‘Of course. Jones is a most helpful man.’
‘Most helpful, Miss Vaughan.’
‘How nice.’
‘Strange, but I feel rather worried today, Miss Vaughan,’ and the moment she said it, she regretted it.
‘People that worry are silly. Mr Prothero did not stay long.’
‘I hope he’ll return soon,’ replied Mrs Gandell.
‘I can see you are sorry he’s gone. People are like that. They just go.’
And Mrs Gandell stuttered back, ‘Yes … of course.’
‘You don’t feel at all lonely here, Miss Vaughan?’
On which Miss Vaughan sat down again, took off her spectacles, and slowly began to clean them. ‘What a question to ask, Mrs Gandell,’ she said, ‘as if it mattered.’
‘I mean … well, you are Welsh, that I know, I suppose you have your people, your father for instance .…’
Miss Vaughan looked up, frowned. ‘My father is not,’ she said.
‘How awful!’
‘He went over a cliff at Tenby, Mrs Gandell.’
‘I am sorry,’ but Miss Vaughan’s sudden laugh quite shocked her.
Miss Vaughan picked up her things, and got up, and as she moved away, said quietly, ‘Do you believe in what you have, Mrs Gandell?’ She moved towards the stairs, a bewildered Mrs Gandell at her side.
‘Believe in what I have?’
‘I never question anything that I have, Mrs Gandell, and I cling to it.’
‘Yes, yes, of course, I do understand,’ and Mrs Gandell again dived into her pocket for the cigarette that wasn’t there.
‘Once, I really thought I wanted certain things myself, Mrs Gandell, but I thought hard about it, and after a while I knew I didn’t want them, and I forgot them at once.’
‘I see,’ not seeing.
‘And now I’m going to my room.’
‘I hope you’ll be yourself by lunchtime, Miss Vaughan,’ but Miss Vaughan made no comment, and went on up. Mrs Gandell remained rooted where she stood, still staring up after the departed guest. ‘How odd,’ she thought, but the practical side of her spoke with a greater resolution. ‘She pays regularly, is little inconvenience here, and interferes with nobody.’
She longed for a cigarette, for a straight gin; if Miss Vaughan was odd, so too, had been the morning, and she went and sat at her table in the dining-room, and patiently waited for the return of Jones.
2
Miss Vaughan often talked to Miss Vaughan, and did so now, as slowly, very slowly, she mounted the stairs to her spartan room. ‘It was kind of Mr Blair to let me come home. Such a nice man, so understanding,’ and in a flash she was back in the office listening to the orders from him, and from his junior partner, Mr Wilkins, and to the occasional giggling amongst the girls in the outer office. It was the world being attended to, no waiting allowed.
‘Bring me those papers at once, Miss Vaughan.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And type this, that, and the other,’ cried Mr Wilkins, glaring at her over his spectacles.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And please remove this.’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘And now run along. I will ring when I want you.’
But Miss Vaughan never ran anywhere, but proceeded slowly to her desk, and waited, and listened to the whispers in the outer office. She waited patiently for the spur of the moment, the call to duty.
‘Are you there, Miss Vaughan?’
A rare occasion when she is not, for she seems to be ceaselessly coming and going, and is always calm, and controlled, and dedicated. She rises and falls upon the turbulent waves of the world, and is unharmed, because one Miss Vaughan hides within the other. On Vaughan ground there were no trespassers, and no road, no bridge, no secret passage and no key to that inner Miss Vaughan that lived so warm and comfortable and sustained by that Miss Vaughan of the office, who was always there, the moment she was wanted.
She reached the top stair, touched the doorknob of her room, and gave a little sigh, for this was her moment, coming home, closing the door behind her, shutting out the world. She removed her hat, coat, gloves, and spectacles, and then sat down on her polar bed. ‘Ah!’ She crossed to the dressing-table, and sat in front of the looking-glass. When she looked in, another Miss Vaughan looked out.
‘People never stop talking.’
She leaned in closer, her fingertips making a slow voyage over the anatomy of her face.
‘I’m glad I’m back.’
She always was. She got up and went and lay on her bed, and switched off the light. Hands behind her head, she stared up at the ceiling. Darkness is kind, and kindest to Miss Vaughan. The silence was so calm, so warm, it hushed her down to a peace. She thought of an October afternoon, an entrance.
She had arrived at Garthmeilo as quietly as a mouse. Only the single porter at the station had witnessed it. She stood motionless on the platform, looking up and down, very aware of his presence, and of the knife-like wind that blew in their faces. And after a while it had seemed to occur to him that somebody had actually arrived. He jumped down on the line, and crossed over.
‘Can I help you, Miss?’ and bent down for her suitcase.
‘This is Garthmeilo?’
‘That’s it. Where were you for?’
‘The Decent Hotel.’
‘That place!’
‘That place.’
‘Then right-ho, and allow me,’ and again he reached for her suitcase.
‘I will not allow you,’ she said, and picked it up, and moved off down the platform.
‘You know where it is then?’ he called after her.
She stopped, turned, and waited till he came up. ‘I shall find it.’
‘As you wish,’ and the wintry platform echoed with the porter’s outright laugh, as he hurried back to the tiny grate in his room to wait for the next train. And Miss Vaughan had stalked out of the station with a firm resolve, the porter’s raucous laugh still echoing in her ears. She battled against the wind through every street and alley, and it was black dark when she finally arrived at the hotel. She had walked into the hall, rung the bell, and waited. Mrs Gandell had come bouncing forward, feeling a great relief at the arrival of a new guest. It seemed so splendid that a miracle like this should happen in the middle of a harsh winter. She had carried an extra chair into the tiny office, on which Miss Vaughan sat down, clasped hands, and studied her landlady. Mrs Gandell had never quite forgotten the interview, and not least its brevity, but Miss Vaughan had long forgotten it.
‘Miss Vaughan?’
‘I am Miss Vaughan.’
‘Just a few particulars,’ Mrs Gandell had begun, ‘you are from …’
‘I do not think that is very important, Mrs Gandell,’ and Miss Vaughan had bent low and peered at the proprietress through her spectacles. ‘It is Mrs Gandell?’
Mrs Gandell had said that was correct, and had smiled sweetly.
‘What will you do in Garthmeilo, Miss Vaughan, if I may ask.’
‘You may not ask. It is my business.’
‘Of course, of course,’ replied Mrs Gandell, and thought quickly, ‘Not too much fuss, no indeed.’
Miss Vaughan delved into her handbag. ‘I have your terms here, Mrs Gandell. I shall pay you one month in advance,’ on which Mrs Gandell positively beamed, and sighed her thanks.
‘Please show me to my room.’
‘Of course, my dear.’
The notes had never felt warmer in Mrs Gandell’s hands, and she fussed Miss Vaughan all the way up to her attic room.
‘There!’
Miss Vaughan looked round, then said quietly. ‘It will do. Thank you.’
Mrs Gandell had rushed away very excitedly to make a nice hot cup of tea.
Miss Vaughan opened her eyes, and closed them again.
‘It is quiet here, and I am myself,’ and she smiled and raised her arms above her head, and stared at her outspread fingers. Sometimes Miss Vaughan thinks of her home, that white cottage far away that seemed always to be lost in the bracken, and sees quite clearly the belt of kingly oaks that stood in the corner of a far field. Sometimes there would come to her ear the distant cold bark of a dog fox, and it made her remember where the blood pulled, and the root held. She remembers the very look and feel and touch and shape of her home, through the windows of which she had often stared with the large, questioning eyes of childhood. She remembers her mother. But now the cottage is leagues away, and life ends up in this small room. Within the area of the kingly oaks life had seemed to rise up, vaunting, but here, in a dark room, it was different. Life crouched. Suddenly she sat up in her bed, and switched on the light. She thought of a coming visit to the dining-room for lunch, and the sight of a tall woman, and a medium-heighted and inexplicable man that answered to the name of Jones.
‘I’ll go out to lunch,’ she thought. ‘I’ll go out to lunch,’ she said.
Her daily journeys from room to office and back again were always voyages. Sometimes she slept like a child, dreamed like a child. But the clock will strike when it must, and another day will break, and she will walk into the world again. Down the same streets, and past the same hurrying and scurrying people that did not seem to matter. The same stride, and the same onward glance, and always the head lifted high, as if it were seeking some new level of air itself. In the hooded darkness that fell the moment she switched off the light, Miss Vaughan again talked to Miss Vaughan.
‘A very strange dream I had last night, and when I woke up whole mountains of leaves were fluttering down.’ If Miss Vaughan got lost, Garthmeilo always knew where to find her, but did not bother, since one and then another had assumed that she was best lost. Sometimes she walked down to the shore and sat, and watched, and listened, and once watched a moon fall to the sea, heard waves break and die on a long, curling sweep of sand. And once she heard quite distantly the cries of running-by and running-after children, all shrill and winter wild as their energy pounded the shore, but not once had she seen them. And there was the long, lone walk back to her room that was not lonely, and that steady climb away from the tight and noisy streets. Sometimes when the town was very silent she could hear the sound of her own footsteps. After which came the darkening and darkened stairs, and the door of her room that was never quite shut and never quite open, within which stood table, chair, and bed, waiting, like friends. She moved suddenly, and the bed creaked.
Negations sometimes claw at her, especially when she remembers the tiniest things. The bell that remains unanswered, and the office press that will not quite close, an unstamped and forgotten letter, and got up and slowly fingered through the few books on her shelf, one of which she picked up and held to her, then opened, and read upon its flyleaf, ‘Gan Tad-Cu, Geraint Vaughan’, and turned its pages one after another, idly, thoughtfully, finally lowering her eyes to read the quotation that followed.
And with a long, slow smile, she closed the book. She thought of a man that had stared at her, long and penetratingly from a chapel pulpit, a stare so vivid that she had immediately closed her eyes against it, and walked out, and none since had ever seen her enter the Penuel chapel. He came even clearer to her now as she stood in front of her mirror and looked in. A man dressed entirely in black whom she now knew as one Mervyn Thomas, a minister in the town. Once he had followed behind her all the way to the office, and another time she found him standing opposite the Decent Hotel when she returned home. And he had smiled, and she had not. She had heard Jones talk of him with Mrs Gandell, and of his sister, ‘Perhaps,’ she thought, ‘Mr Thomas depends on smiles.’
