John Galsworthy - Maid In Waiting

“What about her?”

“She doesn’t look to me too easy to bite.”

“No, but what can she do, poor dear?”

“I wonder,” said Sir Lawrence, raising one eyebrow, “I just wonder. ‘They’re dear little innocent things, they are, they’re angels without any wings, they are. That’s ‘Punch’ before your time, Dinny. And it will continue to be ‘Punch’ after your time, except that wings are growing on you all so fast.”

Dinny, still looking at him innocently, thought: ‘He’s rather uncanny, Uncle Lawrence!’ And soon after she went up to bed.

To go to bed with one’s whole soul in a state of upheaval! And yet how many other upheaved souls lay, cheek to pillow, unsleeping! The room seemed full of the world’s unreasoning misery. If one were talented, one would get up and relieve oneself in a poem about Azrael, or something! Alas! It was not so easy as all that. One lay, and was sore—sore and anxious and angry. She could remember still how she had felt, being thirteen, when Hubert, not quite eighteen, had gone off to the war. That had been horrid, but this was much worse; and she wondered why. Then he might have been killed at any minute; now he was safer than anybody who was not in prison. He would be preserved meticulously even while they sent him across the world and put him up for trial in a country not his own, before some judge of alien blood. He was safe enough for some months yet. Why, then, did this seem so much worse than all the risks through which he had passed since he first went soldiering, even than that long, bad time on the Hallorsen expedition? Why? If not that those old risks and hardships had been endured of his free will; while the present trouble was imposed on him. He was being held down, deprived of the two great boons of human existence, independence and private life, boons to secure which human beings in communities had directed all their efforts for thousands of years, until—until they went Bolshy! Boons to every human being, but especially to people like themselves, brought up under no kind of whip except that of their own consciences. And she lay there as if she were lying in his cell, gazing into his future, longing for Jean, hating the locked-in feeling, cramped and miserable and bitter. For what had he done, what in God’s name had he done that any other man of sensibility and spirit would not do!

The mutter of the traffic from Park Lane formed a sort of ground base to her rebellious misery. She became so restless that she could not lie in bed, and, putting on her dressing gown, stole noiselessly about her room till she was chilled by the late October air coming through the opened window. Perhaps there was something in being married, after all; you had a chest to snuggle against and if need be weep on; you had an ear to pour complaint into; and lips that would make the mooing sounds of sympathy. But worse than being single during this time of trial was being inactive. She envied those who, like her father and Sir Lawrence, were at least taking cabs and going about; greatly she envied Jean and Alan. Whatever they were up to was better than being up to nothing, like herself! She took out the emerald pendant and looked at it. That at least was something to do on the morrow, and she pictured herself with this in her hand forcing large sums of money out of some flinty person with a tendency towards the art of lending.

Placing the pendant beneath her pillow, as though its proximity were an insurance against her sense of helplessness, she fell asleep at last.

Next morning she was down early. It had occurred to her that she could perhaps pawn the pendant, get the money, and take it to Jean before she left. And she decided to consult the butler, Blore. After all, she had known him since she was five; he was an institution and had never divulged any of the iniquities she had confided in him in her childhood.

She went up to him, therefore, when he appeared with her Aunt’s special coffee machine.

“Blore.”

“Yes, Miss Dinny.”

“Will you be frightfully nice and tell me, IN CONFIDENCE, who is supposed to be the best pawnbroker in London?”

Surprised but impassive—for, after all, anybody might have to ‘pop’ anything in these days—the butler placed the coffee machine at the head of the table and stood reflecting.

“Well, Miss Dinny, of course there’s Attenborough’s, but I’m told the best people go to a man called Frewen in South Molton Street. I can get you the number from the telephone book. They say he’s reliable and very fair.”

“Splendid, Blore! It’s just a little matter.”

“Quite so, Miss.”

“Oh! And, Blore, would you—should I give my own name?”

“No, Miss Dinny; if I might suggest: give my wife’s name and this address. Then, if there has to be any communication, I could get it to you by telephone, and no one the wiser.”

“Oh! that’s a great relief. But wouldn’t Mrs. Blore mind?”

“Oh! no, Miss, only too glad to oblige you. I could do the matter for you if you wish.”

“Thank you, Blore, but I’m afraid I must do it myself.”

The butler caressed his chin and regarded her; his eye seemed to Dinny benevolent but faintly quizzical.

“Well, Miss, if I may say so, a little nonchalance goes a long way even with the best of them. There are others if he doesn’t offer value.”

“Thank you frightfully, Blore; I’ll let you know if he doesn’t. Would half past nine be too early?”

“From what I hear, Miss, that is the best hour; you get him fresh and hearty.”

“Dear Blore!”

“I’m told he’s an understanding gent, who can tell a lady when he sees one. He won’t confuse you with some of those Tottie madams.”

Dinny laid her finger to her lips.

“Cross your heart, Blore.”

“Oh! absolutely, Miss. After Mr. Michael you were always my favourite.”

“And so were you, Blore.” She took up ‘The Times’ as her father entered, and Blore withdrew.

“Sleep well, Dad?”

The General nodded.

“And Mother’s head?”

“Better. She’s coming down. We’ve decided that it’s no use to worry, Dinny.”

“No, darling, it isn’t, of course. D’you think we could begin breakfast?”

“Em won’t be down, and Lawrence has his at eight. You make the coffee.”

Dinny, who shared her Aunt’s passion for good coffee went reverentially to work.

“What about Jean?” asked the General, suddenly. “Is she coming to us?”

Dinny did not raise her eyes.

“I don’t think so, Dad; she’ll be too restless; I expect she’ll just make out by herself. I should want to, if I were her.”

“I daresay, poor girl. She’s got pluck, anyway. I’m glad Hubert married a girl of spirit. Those Tasburghs have got their hearts in the right place. I remember an uncle of hers in India—daring chap, a Goorkha regiment, they swore by him. Let me see, where was he killed?”

Dinny bent lower over the coffee.

It was barely half past nine when she went out with the pendant in her vanity bag, and her best hat on. At half past nine precisely she was going up to the first floor above a shop in South Molton Street. Within a large room, at a mahogany table, were two seated gentlemen, who might have seemed to her like high-class bookmakers if she had known what such were like. She looked at them anxiously, seeking for signs of heartiness. They appeared, at least, to be fresh, and one of them came towards her.

Dinny passed an invisible tongue over her lips.

“I’m told that you are so good as to lend money on valuable jewellery?”

“Quite, Madam.” He was grey, and rather bald, and rather red, with light eyes, and he stood regarding her through a pair of pince-nez which he held in his hand. Placing them on his nose, he drew a chair up to the table, made a motion with one hand, and resumed his seat. Dinny sat down.