THE FLY IN THE AMBER
The sleet had driven honestly into snow by the time John had finished his lunch and, there being but two old original members in the Martyrs' Club, who were congratulating each other upon having put on their fur coats, stayed in town and not gone to the country, he left as soon as his meal was over.
The hall-porter stood reluctantly to his feet as he passed out,--so reluctantly that John felt as though he should apologise for the etiquette of the club. In the street, he turned up the collar of his coat and set off with determination, intended to show the hall-porter that he had a definite destination and but little time in which to reach it.
Round the corner and out of sight, he began counting to himself the people he might go and see. Each name, as he reviewed it in his mind, presented some difficulty either of approval or of place. At last, he found himself wandering in the direction of Holborn. In a side street of that neighbourhood lived his little typewriter, who had promised to finish two short stories over Easter. She would be as glad of company as he. She would willingly cease from pounding the symphony of the one monotonous note on those lifeless keys. They would talk together of wonderful works yet to be typed. He would strum on her hired piano. The minutes would slip by and she would get tea, would boil the kettle on that miniature gas-stove, situated in her bedroom, where he had often imagined her saying her prayers in the morning while a piece of bacon was frying in the pan by her side--prayers, the Amen of which would be hastened and emphasised by the boiling over of the milk. Those are the prayers that reach Heaven. They are so human. And a burnt sacrifice of burnt milk accompanying them, they are consistent with all the ritual of the Old Testament.
To the little typewriter's, then, he decided to go. It did not matter so very much if his stories were not finished over Easter. They could wait.
He rang the bell, wondering if her heart was leaping as his had done but an hour or so before. His ears were alert for the scurrying of feet on her uncarpeted, wooden stairs. He bent his head sideways to the door. There was no sound. He rang again. Then he heard the creaking of the stairs. She was coming--oh, but so slowly! Annoyed, perhaps, by the disturbance, just as she was getting into work.
The door was opened. His heart dropped. He saw an old woman with red-rimmed eyes which peered at him suspiciously from the half-opened space.
"Is Miss Gerrard in?" he asked.
"Gone to the country--won't be back till Tuesday," was the reply.
Gone to the country! And his work would never be finished over Easter! Oh, it was not quite fair!