Patricia Wentworth: The Case of William Smith

Not very easy to get anything out of it except a plain downright ‘No.’ He went on trying. It was a mood. Women had moods. They were changeable. She had withdrawn before, and then been kind again. Kind… His own word might have warned him, but he was resolute to find what he wanted. She was kind, she was fond of him – what more did she want? She couldn’t just go on refusing one man after another. She had known him all her life. As far as he could tell there wasn’t anyone she liked better. It would be a most suitable marriage. It wasn’t as if she was a girl of twenty. She must be a good eight years older than that. She had had her fling, and he had had his. You had to settle down some time, and if he could bring his mind to it, so could she. He really did find it impossible to believe that her refusal could be final.

He read the letter again.

Katharine Eversley got off the bus at the corner and walked along Ellery Street until she came to Tattlecombe’s Toy Bazaar, which was about halfway down on the right. It had on one side of it a small draper’s, and on the other a rather depressed-looking cleaner’s establishment with an ironically fly-blown legend in the window, ‘We can make your old things new.’

The Bazaar had two windows, one on either side of the entrance. On the left there were paintboxes, chalks, a hoop, and miscellaneous toys, but the right-hand window was entirely given up to William Smith’s wooden animals, the fame of which was beginning to spread to places quite far removed from Ellery Street and its North London suburb. There were Wurzel Dogs, Marks I, II, III and IV – the gay, the jaunty, the pathetic, the rollicking, all with movable heads and tails. They were black, brown, grey, white, and spotted.They were retrievers, bulldogs, hounds, terriers, poodles, and dachshunds. They were of a heart-smiting oddity. Amongst them paraded the Boomalong Bird, with striding feet and swivel eye, gawky, indomitable, booming along – white, grey, brown, black, parrot-green, flamingo-red, orange, and blue, with black and yellow claws and long erratic beaks. Katharine stood looking in at them, as nearly every stranger did stand there and look in. The people who frequented Ellery Street had got used to the creatures, but strangers always stopped to look at them, and very often went in to buy.

Katharine stood there and thought about being tough. Some people were born tough, some people achieved toughness, and others had it thrust upon them. It was being thrust on her at this moment, and she didn’t know what to do with it. She had a sick kind of feeling that she might just let go and be the world’s completest flop. And yet all she had to do was to walk into the shop and say she had been told that they were looking for an assistant, and did they think she would do. Anyone who had been through the war as an A.T. ought to be able to manage that. And of course it would have been the easiest thing in the world if only it didn’t really matter whether she got the job or not. It mattered so much that her feet were cold and her heart was knocking against her side.

She looked at one of the rollicking Wurzel Dogs, and he looked back at her with his jovial rolling eye. ‘Get along on with it and don’t be a fool!’ was undoubtedly what he would have said if William could have endowed him with actual speech.

Katharine bit her lip very hard indeed and walked into the shop, where she encountered Miss Cole. William Smith, coming through from the workshop, saw them standing together. Miss Cole, pale, plump, efficient, spectacled, in her tight black dress, her ginger-coloured cardigan, and the tufts of cotton wool which she wore in her ears to keep out the cold. He saw her as he saw her every day and continually. And then he saw Katharine, and heard her say, ‘Good-morning. I hear you are needing someone to help in the shop.’ He heard the words, but just for the moment they didn’t make any sense, because her voice went through him like music. Thought stopped and feeling took its place. It didn’t really matter what she had said. All that mattered was that she should speak again. He heard Miss Cole say, ‘Well, I don’t know, I’m sure,’ and with that, thought took over again, and the sense of what Katharine had said came to him like a delayed echo – ‘I hear you are needing someone to help in the shop.’

He came marching in and added himself to the conference. Introduced by Miss Cole with a ‘This is Mr. Smith,’ he said, ‘Good-morning,’ and stood looking at Katharine. Her voice had done things to him. Everything about her was doing things. She was music, poetry, and the enchantment which lies just over the edge of thought. She was applying for the post of assistant at Tattlecombe’s Toy Bazaar. He was far too much disturbed himself to be aware that she was dreadfully pale, but it did not escape Miss Cole, who immediately gave her three bad marks. ‘Delicate. I’m sure we don’t want people here who are going to faint. That colour on her cheeks wasn’t ever her own. I was sure of it as soon as ever she came in. And lipstick too! Whatever would Mr. Tattlecombe say?’

As Mr. Tattlecombe was laid up in hospital after being knocked down by a car and was not allowed to see anyone except his sister, there was really no answer to this, and much as Miss Cole might deplore the fact, William Smith was in charge. At this very moment he was offering the young woman a chair and saying,

‘Were you asking Miss Cole whether we wanted an assistant?’

Katharine was very glad of the chair. Suppose he was going to say that they didn’t want anyone, or that she wouldn’t do. If it depended on Miss Cole, that was what would be said. That upholstered bust had tightened against her, and the dark beady eyes behind those formidable lenses were the last word in disapproval. She didn’t sort any of this out, but it was there. She said,

‘Yes. Do you think I would do?’

Miss Cole was quite sure that she would not, but she restrained herself. She looked Katharine up and down, from the small plain hat to the neat plain shoes, took in the fact that her tweed suit was by no means new, and summed up the result as ‘Come down in the world.’ Lots of people about like that nowadays – born with silver spoons in their mouths and had everything their own way, and then some kind of a slide or some kind of a crash, and out they have to go and get a job – sorry for themselves because they’ve got to do what other girls have always known they’d have to do. Miss Cole had gone out at fourteen and worked to get her experience, but these ladies – she gave the word a bitter emphasis – they expected to walk in and get jobs without any experience at all. She said sharply,

‘What experience have you had?’

Katharine was frank.

‘None for this sort of thing, I’m afraid, but I could learn. I was in the A.T.S. during the war.’

‘And since?’

‘I wasn’t demobilised for quite a long time, and then – I took a holiday. Now I want a job – rather badly.’

‘Money run out,’ thought Miss Cole. ‘That’s the way with her sort – lipstick and rouge, and not a penny put away.’

William let her talk to Miss Cole, because all he really wanted was to look at her. She was tall and graceful. She moved like clouds, like water, like anything lovely and effortless and free. She had brown hair under a little brown hat. She had brown eyes. Bright water, dark water – that was what they made you think about. They changed, and changed again, but they were always beautiful. He watched the colour flow back under the skin until you couldn’t see the pink stain which had been there. It just deepened the natural colour, that was all. He liked the soft colour of her lipstick – not splashed on, but following the lines of her most lovely mouth. He liked the rather shabby tweed suit and the little green scarf at her throat. She gave him the feeling of completeness, of everything being just right. He heard Miss Cole say, ‘I really don’t know, I’m sure,’ and said in his most direct and simple manner,