5
When she reached the hall Mr. Orly’s door was standing wide. Going into the surgery she found the head parlourmaid rapidly wiping instruments with a soiled serviette. “Is it all right, James?” she said vaguely, glancing round the room.
“Yes miss,” answered James briskly emptying the half-filled tumbler and going on to dry and polish it with the soiled serviette ... the housemaid spirit ... the dry corner of a used serviette probably appeared to James much too good to wipe anything with. Telling her would not be any good. She would think it waste of time.... Besides, Mr. Orly himself would not really mind; and the things were “mechanikly clean” ... that was a good phrase of Mr. Leyton’s ... with his own things always soaking even his mallets, until there was no polish left on the handles; and his nailbrush in a bath of alcohol.... Mr. Orly came in, large and spruce. He looked at his hands and began combing his beard, standing before the overmantel. “Hancock busy?”
“Frightfully busy.”
Miriam looked judicially round the room. James hovered. The north wind howled. The little strip of sky above the outside wall that obscured the heavily stained glass of the window seemed hardly to light the room and the little light there was was absorbed by the heavy dull oak furniture and the dark heavy Turkey carpet and dado of dull red and tarnished gold.
“It is dark for April” murmured Miriam. “I’ll take away your gold and tin box if I may.”
“Thank ye” said Mr. Orly nervously, wheeling about with a harsh sigh to scan the chair and bracket-table; straightening his waistcoat and settling his tie. “I got through without it—used some of that new patent silicate stuff of Leyton’s. All right—show in the Countess.”
James disappeared. Miriam secured the little box and made off. On her table was a fresh pile of letters, annotated in Mr. Orly’s clear stiff upright rounded characters. She went hurriedly through them. Extricating her blotter she sat down and examined the inkstand. Of course one of her pens had been used and flung down still wet with its nib resting against the handle of the other pens.... Mr. Leyton ... his gold filling; she ought to go in and see if she could help ... perhaps he had finished by now. She wiped away the ink from the nib and the pen-handles.
Tapping at Mr. Leyton’s door she entered. He quickly turned a flushed face his feet scrabbling noisily against the bevelled base of the chair with the movement of his head. “Sawl right Miss Henderson. I’ve finished. ’V’you got any emery strips—mine are all worn out.”
6
Back once more in her room she heard two voices talking both at once excitedly in the den. Mrs. Orly had a morning visitor. She would probably stay to lunch. She peered into the little folding mirror hanging by the side of the small mantelpiece and saw a face flushed and animated so far. Her hair was as unsatisfactory as usual. As she looked she became conscious of its uncomfortable weight pinned to the back of her head and the unpleasant warm feeling of her thick fringe. By lunch-time her face would be strained and yellow with sitting at work in the cold room with her feet on the oil-cloth under the window. She glanced at the oil lamp standing in the little fireplace, its single flame glaring nakedly against the red-painted radiator. The telephone bell rang. Through the uproar of mechanical sounds that came to her ear from the receiver she heard a far off faint angry voice in incoherent reiteration. “Hullo, hullo” she answered encouragingly. The voice faded but the sounds went on punctuated by a sharp angry popping. Mr. Orly’s door opened and his swift heavy tread came through the hall. Miriam looked up apprehensively, saying “Hullo” at intervals into the angry din of the telephone. He came swiftly on humming in a soft light baritone, his broad forehead, bald rounded crown and bright fair beard shining in the gloom of the hall. A crumpled serviette swung with his right hand. Perhaps he was going to the workshop. The door of the den opened. Mrs. Orly appeared and made an inarticulate remark abstractedly and disappeared. “Hullo, hullo” repeated Miriam busily into the telephone. There was a loud report and the thin angry voice came clear from a surrounding silence. Mr. Orly came in on tiptoe, sighed impatiently and stood near her drumming noiselessly on the table at her side. “Wrong number” said Miriam, “will you please ring off?”
“What a lot of trouble they givya” said Mr. Orly. “I say, what’s the name of the American chap Hancock was talking about at lunch yesterday?”
“Can y’remember? About sea-power.”
“Oh” said Miriam relieved. “Mahan.”
“Eh?”
“Mahan. May-ann.”
“That’s it. You’ve got it. Wonderful. Don’t forget to send off Major Moke’s case sharp will ye?”
Miriam’s eyes scanned the table and caught sight of a half hidden tin-box.
“No. I’ll get it off.”
“Right. It’s in a filthy state, but there’s no time to clean it.”
He strode back through the hall murmuring Mahan. Miriam drew the tin from its place of concealment. It contained a mass of dirty cotton-wool upon which lay a double denture coated with tartar and joined by tarnished gold springs. “Eleven thirty sharp” ran the instruction on an accompanying scrap of paper. No address. The name of the patient was unfamiliar. Mrs. Orly put her head through the door of the den.
“What did Ro want?”
Miriam turned towards the small sallow eager face and met the kind sweet intent blue glint of the eyes. She explained and Mrs. Orly’s anxious little face broke into a smile that dispelled the lines on the broad strip of low forehead leaving it smooth and sallow under the smoothly brushed brown hair.
“How funny” said Mrs. Orly hurriedly. “I was just comin’ out to ask you the name of that singer. You know. Mark something. Marksy....”
“Mar-kaysie” said Miriam.
“That’s it. I can’t think how you remember.” Mrs. Orly disappeared and the two voices broke out again in eager chorus. Miriam returned to her tin. Mastering her disgust she removed the plate from the box, shook the cotton-wool out into the paper-basket collected fresh wool, packing paper, sealing wax, candle and matches and set to work to make up the parcel. She would have to attack the workshop again and get them to take it out. Perhaps they would know the address. When the case was half packed she looked up the patient’s name in the ledger. Five entries in about as many years—either repairs or springs—how simple dentistry became when people had lost all their teeth. There were two addresses, a town and a country one written in a long time ago in ink; above them were two in pencil, one crossed out. The newest of the address books showed these two addresses, one in ink, neither crossed out. What had become of the card and letter that came with the case? In the den with Mrs. Orly and her guest....
Footsteps were coming neatly and heavily up the basement stairs. Winthrop. He came in smiling, still holding his long apron gathered up to free his knees. “Ph—Ph—Major Moke’s case ready?” he whispered cheerfully.
“Almost—but I don’t know the address.”
“It’s the ph—ph—Buckinam Palace Otel. It’s to go by hand.”
“Oh, thank goodness” laughed Miriam sweeping the scissors round the uneven edge of the wrapping paper.
“My word” said Winthrop, “What an eye you’ve got I couldn’t do that to ph-save melife and I’m supposed to be a ph-mechanic.”
“Have I,” said Miriam surprised, “I shan’t be two minutes; it’ll be ready by the time anybody’s ready to go. But the letters aren’t.”
“All right. I’ll send up for them when we go out to lunch,” said Winthrop consolingly, disappearing.
Miriam found a piece of fine glazed green twine in her string box and tied up the neat packet—sealing the ends of the string with a neat blob on the upper side of the packet and the folded paper at each end. She admired the two firmly flattened ends of string close together. Their free ends united by the firm red blob were a decorative substitute for a stamp on the white surface of the paper. She wrote in the address in an upright rounded hand with firm rotund little embellishments. Poring over the result she examined it at various distances. It was delightful. She wanted to show it to someone. It would be lost on Major Moke. He would tear open the paper to get at his dreadful teeth. Putting the stamps on the label, she regretfully resigned the packet and took up Mr. Orly’s day-book. It was in arrears—three, four days not entered in the ledger. Major Moke repair—one guinea, she wrote. Mr. Hancock’s showing out bell rang. She took up her packet and surveyed it upside down. The address looked like Chinese. It was really beautiful ... but handwriting was doomed ... short-hand and typewriting ... she ought to know them if she were ever to make more than a pound a week as a secretary ... awful. What a good thing Mr. Hancock thought them unprofessional ... yet there were already men in Wimpole Street who had their correspondence typed. What did he mean by saying that the art of conversation was doomed? He did not like conversation. Jimmy came in for the parcel and scuttled downstairs with it. Mr. Hancock’s patient was going out through the hall. He had not rung for her to go up. Perhaps there was very little to clear and he was doing it himself.