Arnold Bennett - Imperial Palace

“Colour-blind, eh?” Evelyn walked straight into the small office, laughing. “I happened to hear. Door open. Didn’t want to break in. So I waited.”

“Yes, Mr. Orcham. Please excuse me. I hadn’t the slightest idea you were at the door. Yes, colour-blind.”

Evelyn put his hat on the small table and sat down. Miss Powler shut the door.

“As a funny coincidence I really think that ought to have the first prize.” Evelyn laughed again, and Miss Powler smiled. “I suppose she’s the one woman in the place who ought to be able to be relied on to tell green from red, and she’s colour-blind! No, not first prize. No. It deserves a gold medal.” His stick joined in the laughter by tapping on the floor. “Sort of thing you can’t possibly foresee, therefore can’t guard against, eh? Unless Mr. Purkin decides to institute eye-tests for the staff. But of course those delightful coincidences never happen twice. How’s the Dramatic Society getting along?”

Miss Powler sat down at her desk.

It was her way of smiling, her way—at once dignified and modest—of sitting down, and her way of answering his question about the Laundry A.D.S., that suggested to him a wild, absurd, fantastical scheme for killing two birds with one stone.

Miss Powler wore a plain, straight, blue frock, quite short. (The hotel rule prescribing black for heads of departments did not obtain in the Laundry.) As she sat down her knees had been visible for an instant. Her brown hair was laid flat, but glossy. Without being pretty, her features were agreeable, and her habitual expression was very agreeable. Her eyes, dark brown, were sedate, with some humour somewhere behind them, waiting a chance to get out. No powder, no paint. An appearance which mingled attractiveness with austerity.

Evelyn had in his office a private card-index of all the Company’s principal employees. He rarely forgot anything once learnt, and now he had no difficulty in recalling that Miss Powler lived in Battersea, the daughter of a town-traveller in tinned comestibles—certainly a humble town-traveller. But there are women who when they leave the home lose their origin, just as a woman’s hat loses its price when it leaves the shop. Only an expert could say with assurance of a hat on a woman’s head in the street whether it cost five guineas or two. Miss Powler might have been the daughter of a humble town-traveller, or of a successful dentist, or even of a solicitor.

“Well,” Evelyn began, “you’re the staff-manageress, according to the label on your door, and I must tell you that I think you managed the Lilian member of the staff very nicely. Very nicely.” Miss Powler smiled. “But all cases aren’t so simple, are they?”

“They aren’t, sir.”

“I’ve been asking Mr. Purkin about the Rose member. Mrs. O’Riordan, our head-housekeeper at the Palace, was particularly anxious for me to enquire into Rose’s case. In fact, between ourselves, that was one of the reasons why I came down here to-day.” Two fibs and a semi-fib! He had not asked Mr. Purkin. Mr. Purkin had started the subject and volunteered all information. Mrs. O’Riordan had shown no anxiety whatever for him to investigate the affair. And the affair was not strictly one of the reasons for his visit, seeing that he had not heard of it until after the visit had been definitely arranged. But the two and a half fibs did not irk Evelyn’s conscience. They were diplomatically righteous fibs, good and convincing fibs, designed to prevent possible friction. On a busy day he might tell as many as fifty such fibs: and he had never been found out. Miss Powler gave no sign of constraint or self-consciousness. To all appearance she had no nerves.

“I was sorry to lose Rose,” said Miss Powler. “She was a first-rate fancy ironer. But of course if she hadn’t gone of her own accord she’d have had to go all the same. Because she’d never have let the dentist attend to her. She’s too fond of her mother for that. She adores her. The mother’s rather pretty and really very young. When she was Rose’s age she was a chorus-girl in a touring company for six months. She ought to have kept on being a chorus-girl. She certainly wasn’t fit to be a mother. Her head’s full of the silliest ideas, poor thing! One of her ideas is that dentists pull teeth out for the sake of doing it. Makes them feel proud, she thinks. No use arguing with that sort of a woman. They really believe whatever they want to believe.”

“I know what you mean.”

“She made Rose promise not to see the dentist, said it was slave-driving for an employer to force a girl to see a dentist. And all that. She’ll go on the stage, Rose will, and her father won’t be able to stop her. I’m very sorry for the girl. Naturally, if Mr. Purkin makes a rule and gives an order, there’s nothing more to be said. I quite see his point of view. Yes. I agree with him—I mean about discipline. But I do think you can’t improve silly people when they get obstinate. If they can’t understand, they can’t, and you can’t make them. It couldn’t be helped, but I always sympathise with the girl in Rose’s position. I wish you could have heard her talk about her mother. She never mentioned her father. Always her mother. She worshipped her mother. And yet she gave you the idea too that she was mother to her mother, not her mother’s daughter.”

Evelyn had several times before had casual chats with Miss Powler, on Laundry affairs. But now he felt as if he were meeting her for the first time. The interview had all the freshness of a completely new revelation: like the rising of a curtain on a scene whose nature had been almost completely unsuspected. She had said not a word against the disciplinary Mr. Purkin. She had on the contrary supported his authority without reserve. Withal she had somehow left Mr. Purkin stripped of every shred of his moral prestige. She had been responding to the humanity of the Rose problem, while for Mr. Purkin the humanity had had no existence. She had faced the fact of the silliness of Rose’s mother, and yet had warmed to the passion of Rose for the foolish creature.

Further, Evelyn now had knowledge, in two cases, of her attitude towards women under her control and direction, and there was in it no least evidence of that harsh, almost resentful inflexibility which nearly always characterised such a relation. And her attitude towards himself was either distinguished by a tact approaching the miraculous, or was the natural, unstudied results of a disposition both wise and kindly in an exceptional degree; perhaps she had no need for the use of tact, did not know, practically, what tact was. Evelyn began to think that he had been under-estimating the physical qualities of her face and form. Five minutes earlier he would have described her as comely. But now he was ready to say that she was beautiful—because she must be beautiful, because, being what she was, she could not be other than beautiful. He had to enlarge his definition of feminine beauty in order to make room for her in it. Then her foot. Perhaps large or largeish. But a girl like her ought surely to have something to stand on! And were not small feet absurd, a witness of decadence? Then her ankles. Not slim. Sturdy. Suddenly he remembered the museum at Naples. An excursion which had not revisited his memory for a dozen years. He saw the classical sculptures. Not one of the ideal female figures in those sculptures had been given slim ankles. Every ankle was robust, sturdy; the fashionable darlings of to-day would call them thick. Yes, Miss Powler had classical ankles.

But he would not argue about her ankles, or her feet, or her figure, or her face. In his reckoning of her he could afford to neglect their values. What principally counted was her expression, her demeanour, her tone, the gentle play of her features, and the aura of tranquil benevolence and commonsense which radiated from her individuality. Mr. Purkin was a clumsy simpleton. He had not known how to make her love him. She did not love him. He did not deserve that she should love him. Why in God’s name should such a girl love a Mr. Purkin?