The Secret Journey (28 page)

‘I've found it a damned sight hotter swinging a hammer in the Length,' remarked Desmond, during an awkward pause in the conversation. But it was obvious his sister wasn't at all interested. He could feel her eyes upon him, and he knew the minute examination to which his person was being subjected. Then quite suddenly she ceased to look at him. Her eyes began wandering around the room, looking at nothing in particular, though her extreme sense of tidiness forced her to make a grimace as she espied the grate almost littered with dead matches, pieces of paper, cigarette-ends, broken match-boxes, little balls of blotting-paper, and inside the grate a number of discarded pen-nibs.

‘Yes. It is a mess,' said Desmond laughingly. ‘One wants a woman about the place. But I'm so busy, and you know we're not like most tenants in this building, we can't afford the luxury of a charwoman to clean out.'

Maureen said quickly, ‘Can't
you
clean it out yourself?'

‘Is this the person who has called for help?' he thought. Mr. Desmond Fury was a little disappointed. This was an altogether different Maureen from the one who had implored his help but a few days previously. He was now asking himself why he had bothered to write at all. After all, he had vowed never to have anything more to do with his family. His conduct, like his mother's, had been based on an assumption that the woman he had married was a person—well, no—he hated to think of all they had said about her. And now here she was, this sister, the second time he had seen her since his marriage.

‘I wonder if she'll create a scene in the building to-day?' he was asking himself as he eyed her up and down. She seemed so composed, so self-assured. Not a trace of anxiety upon that face, and how uncommonly well she was looking to-day. All dressed up for the occasion too. Yes. She really looked splendid. Like the rest of the family, she had simply ceased to exist, and now here she was, alive and in the flesh.

It brought back to him memories of his early days in Hatfields. ‘What a long time it is,' he was thinking, ‘since I rose at six to go to that timber works, and she got up at half-past to go to work in that jute factory.' Nothing had changed except that they were getting older. The world hadn't changed. Hatfields was still the same. It had altered neither its shape nor its opinion.

‘She hasn't altered much, though,' he thought, ‘a little stouter perhaps, and her voice has gone quite hard like that of a man, and she has developed such a comic way of looking at people. Women are funny creatures.'

The way she looked at him now, as though he were nothing in particular, part of the furniture so to speak, as though he hadn't any right in the office at all.

‘Well, and how do you like my office?' he asked her.

‘It's awful stuffy,' Maureen remarked.

‘This is the depot for all miseries, and all hopes,' he said. ‘Tell me something about yourself. There's lots of things I want to ask you. I sit here every day, and people come and go. Men out of work, wives whose husbands are ill, or orphans whose fathers have been killed on the job. And the things they say—the tales they tell. But that's just what makes this job so interesting, Maureen. I'm thinking of going in for the Council soon. You know, our industry hasn't a single member on the Gelton Council.'

A flood of questions followed.

How was his mother? Was old Pettigrew still alive, and Father Moynihan still preaching his dope at St. Sebastian's? And how were the Postlethwaites getting on? Well? All of which questions Mrs. Kilkey answered by a slight nod of the head. They seemed to bore her, judging by the change of expression on her features. But when Desmond mentioned his younger brother, she was all attention.

‘I've often wondered how he was getting on?' Desmond said. ‘I haven't seen him since that lamentable strike. How is he getting along?'

‘Didn't you know he'd been to sea?' asked Maureen, the while her instinct told her he was simply groping for an opening. ‘I thought you knew all that.'

‘Well, I didn't. I heard a thing or two. One hears things in the most extraordinary way. In fact, a chap I used to work with even told me that he met him in the street late one night. He was standing waiting for a car, and my wife was with him. Of course I just laughed. Why should I take any notice of what people say? Remember the things they used to say about us when we lived in Vulcan Street?'

‘How is she? We've never met. What does she look like, Desmond?'

Desmond Fury slapped his knee. ‘Oh! She's fine. She looks lovely. Oh aye! We're going great guns now. I've often felt sorry Mother wouldn't see her. Still, this religion, you know,' he laughed. ‘But all this isn't getting down to the point, is it?' he wound up with a great flourish of the hands. ‘We must talk about you.' And after a while he could not help but add, ‘You don't look very worried about the matter, Maureen, whatever it is.' He got out of the chair.

‘Listen! Let's go below. We'll have a little lunch together.' He took her arm, but Maureen was already on her feet.

‘It's so difficult to talk here,' continued Desmond. ‘And you see, I'm a busy man, and this is the only time of the day I can be off.' He put his hand on the gas-tap. ‘Ready?'

‘Yes, I'm ready,' she replied.

They went out together into the draughty corridor. They walked slowly down, Desmond's hand resting on his sister's shoulder.

‘By God! I was wise when I decided to get away from Vulcan Street. I've never looked back since that day, and things are swinging into line quickly, Maureen.' He leaned over her, inhaling the perfume of the cheap scent from her blouse. ‘I won't be satisfied until I get into Parliament. Careful. There's a hole in this stair.' He swung her clear of it, and they reached the second floor.

‘Gloomy hole, isn't it?' he said. ‘But that's only lack of funds. You see, if we had a bigger branch we could have a bigger office, somewhere on the ground floor. Of course, it's cheap where we are, and it suits for the time being, but it's the gas I hate! Never any bloody daylight. The gas has to burn all day. It's the cheapest office in the whole building, and if it hadn't been for me we wouldn't have been here at all. We're climbing, but slowly.'

They were on the ground floor.

‘There's a little café in the basement of the building. We can get a nice business man's lunch for a bob. You ought to see the fellows who come here for shilling lunches. Heads of companies, solicitors' clerks, managers, even office-boys. And when they've had their lunch they play dominoes. Just think of that. Dominoes.' He pushed open the café door, and they went inside.

‘There's not much harm in that,' said Maureen.

They found a table and sat down. It had a brown marble top, and was smeared with splashes of cold tea. Desmond ordered the lunches.

‘Now,' he said. ‘Tell us all about it, Maureen.'

At the very hour when Maureen Kilkey and her brother were closeted in the café beneath Royalty Building, Mr. Corkran, general factotum at Banfield House, was going through his ablutions. Nobody was more shocked at the lateness of the hour than the gentleman himself, for usually he rose about six, to indulge in what he called his walk along the main deck, the main deck being that stretch of road in front of the pickle factory. Reasons other than health sent Mr. Corkran out, for at this hour in the morning the girls who worked at the factory were passing down that very stretch of road.

This departure from custom was due to a rather late night. Mrs. Ragner, for some strange reason known only to herself, had wanted the ledger accounts gone through. And what seemed even more unusual was the fact that Mrs. Ragner had decided upon this at an hour when she was usually in bed. They had begun some minutes after Peter Fury had left the house.

Mrs. Ragner did not allow this departure from custom to interfere with her at all. She rose at the usual time, had breakfast, already cooked by Mr. Corkran, and had left promptly at ten minutes past nine for her town office, comfortably seated in the cab.

Mr. Corkran felt a little annoyed—he had actually appeared with Mrs. Ragner's breakfast looking nothing like the punctilious gentleman of the night before, for his beard was strong and grew very fast.

Already he had cut himself twice, and his quiff kept falling over one eye and hampering execution with the razor. From time to time he dipped the brush in the lather, smothered the lower part of his face with it, and then gave the razor another touch on the stone.

‘I can't understand her at all,' he kept saying to himself. ‘I've never seen a woman change her mind so often in the course of an hour. First she wants me to distrain on the Kilkeys, and then she suddenly says, “No! I'll wait a bit longer.” Then she says, “I think, in fact, it might not be a bad idea to make out a renewal contract and call on Mrs. Fury.”'

This latter was the most worrying. The first suggestion did certainly sound like Mrs. Ragner, but the second—it rather sounded like Father Christmas.

‘No! I've known her too long. And now I know her so well, so thoroughly, I simply can't understand.'

A certain thought did now and again force its way into the general flow, but Mr. Corkran quickly swamped it, for the simple reason that he hated to harbour it even for a single moment.

‘It's rather silly of me even to think of such a thing. Even now she's said nothing definite. I'll have to ring her up. She'll only swear if I don't remind her. Ah! What would she do without me? She wouldn't have her money or her power for five minutes. No. She'll just have to listen to me. I haven't been here all these years for nothing. I haven't slaved for her for nothing. She's getting soft, that's what it is. And you can't do it. You just can't do it. Not in this world, anyhow. The fool! She must be blind if she can't see that her money and I are all she has, and all she ever will have.'

Mr. Corkran, having satisfied himself by a thorough inspection of his face in the glass, put down the razor and went to the kitchen sink to wash. There was a bathroom, but that was sacred ground, and he never thought of washing where Mrs. Ragner had washed. His place was the kitchen, and there he was going to stay.

Having washed, he went upstairs to his room and started to dress. He had one leg in his trousers when he suddenly realized he must phone. Drawing on the other leg, he ran down into the hall and rang up Mrs. Ragner.

‘Mrs. Ragner is out at lunch,' came the reply. ‘Who is speaking?'

‘Corkran speaking from the house. Please tell Mrs. Ragner I rang up at three minutes to twelve.'

He put down the receiver and went back into the kitchen. He made some cocoa, cut some bread and butter, and commenced his meal. Then the bell rang. He went to the front door. A woman wearing a shawl was standing on the step. She had a child by her side. She looked at the half-dressed man and asked, ‘Is Mrs. Ragner in?'

‘No! She isn't in,' snapped Mr. Corkran—quite unused to attending to callers at this hour of the day, and he was swinging the door to, when the woman promptly put her foot in it, and remarked:

‘Well, you'll do, you're the same as her, no doubt. Here's Mrs. O'Hara's cards. They picked her out of the river the other night.'

‘Thank you,' said Mr. Corkran, taking the greasy-looking envelope from the woman's hand. ‘So glad you called. I'll see Mrs. Ragner gets them all right.' And without another word he slammed the door in her face.

An irritability that had existed since half-past five that morning now came to a head with that violent slamming of the door. Nothing but the peculiar ideas of Anna Ragner had caused it. Mr. Corkran was a gentleman at peace with the whole world, and was content to remain so if only Mrs. Ragner decided to be sensible. And she certainly wasn't being that. Indeed, she seemed to have lost hold on things. He hoped this state of affairs would not be of long duration.

At a quarter to one he rang the office again. Mrs. Ragner was still out. He had an engagement at the court, but a phone message from the town office had already cancelled that. Mrs. Ragner had informed him that she would look after that herself. Why shouldn't he feel perturbed? It certainly looked as though she didn't trust him—he who had done all her work these many years. Only the greatest respect for his mistress had prevented him from speaking plainly that very morning.

He was sitting in the kitchen again. He had cleaned down the house, washed his clothes, as well as Mrs. Ragner's, and thoroughly cleaned out the clients' big room.

There was the evening meal to be got, and that seemed about all, until the night callers began to arrive.

He leaned his elbows on the bare wooden table, and rested his head on his hands.

‘I hate even to harbour the thought, but it looks as though she does
really
distrust me. But what have I done?' Mr. Corkran was asking himself, when the telephone bell rang. Immediately he ran out into the hall.

‘Hello! Corkran speaking.'

‘That you, Corkran?' came the voice of Anna Ragner on the phone. ‘You can cancel that visit to Price Street. Mrs. Kilkey has just left here, and we have come to an arrangement.' There was a pause.

‘A woman has just called here,' blurted out Mr. Corkran. ‘She's brought the O'Hara cards in. It seems Mrs. O'Hara has met with an accident, from which she has since died. I——'

‘Oh dear,' came back the voice. ‘Well, you'd better make a note of that and attach the cards to the promissory note. You'll find it in the H's in the safe in the small sitting-room. It's awkward. However, we can't do anything now.'

To Mr. Corkran the voice sounded almost bitter. He was speaking again.

‘Hello! Are you there? Still speaking. I rang you this morning about this Hatfields matter. I spent the best part of an hour copying out that renewal document. Do you still wish me to call at Mrs. Fury's, or do you wish to leave it over as you decided late last night?'