“She knows about you,” he carelessly announced. She cannot have liked this for she said,
“Let’s have less about me and more regard to the old people. Why, I’d have no respect for myself if I didn’t go down. The work here’s nothing. I could look in on them every afternoon.”
“Well that’s grand,” he said, letting it go at last. “I’m sure they’d be very grateful. I see you’re using my cup.”
“There wasn’t anything else for it,” she replied, tart. “I only had the two when you broke yours. They’re a terrific price these days.”
“I can’t imagine what you can have thought.”
“I know right enough,” she said, laughing gaily.
“What did you?” he asked, very shy.
“You want to learn too much too soon,” she replied. “Anyway, it took a bit of forgetting, but I’ve forgotten now all right.”
“All’s well that ends well, then.”
“Least said, soonest mended,” she agreed.
“She wants to keep up the allowance he made,” Charley told her, greatly daring, for he did not know how she would take this.
“Why, that’s generous. But you seem to be pretty well acquainted with my personal affairs now, don’t you?”
He looked at her. It was all right. She was keeping quite pleasant.
“Excuse us will you, please? None of my business, naturally.”
“O.K.” she said. “Only it was queer the way we met, and now here you are knowing so much I’ve no idea what you haven’t learned.”
“It’s luck,” he explained. “Chance, that’s all.”
“Have another cup,” she offered. “Look,” she said, “when you were down at Redham, did you ask about those spare coupons like I advised?”
“How could I?”
“Well, there’s something in that. I’ll tell you what. I will, when I go. It’ll come easier from me.”
He thanked her confusedly. He was amazed that she should be so kind.
“Have you heard anything about Art lately?” she asked.
“Art?”
“Arthur Middlewitch?”
“No, why?”
“There’s a change come over him. He’s not the same man at all.”
“I couldn’t say,” he announced.
“Oh I’m not sending you after him as I did after my old dad,” she laughed. “Don’t you fret. No I only asked. I thought you might have come across him in the ordinary run of business.”
“Not me,” Charley said. “He’s out of my street altogether in the C.E.G.S. Got a big job there, Arthur has.”
“I wonder.”
“How’s that?”
“I fancy Art’s in some sort of trouble. There’s no other way of explaining his manner these past few weeks. And I don’t know about his position with them. I shouldn’t be surprised if you don’t hold down just as important a position at Meads.”
“Me? I’m only the office boy.”
“Then why, when I rang you up, did the telephone lady call you their production manager?”
“Oh, that was just Miss Whindle.”
“What are you, then?”
“That is my job as a matter of fact,” he said.
“There you are. You’ve got to get wise to yourself. Why, if Art came to your firm he’d be glad to take a place under you.”
“If he didn’t sit in my own chair at my own desk.”
“No, you’re not being fair to the man, or to yourself,” she said. Soon after this, he thought it would never do to outstay his welcome. So he made his departure. She noticed he didn’t say a word about when they might meet again. Of course, it was not for her to suggest.
In the next three weeks he called thrice at Miss Whitmore’s, but had no answer when he manhandled the dolphin on her door. She could only have been out. Finally he realized she must be going to Redham each afternoon. The following Sunday he went down there.
When he rang the bell, she answered as though it was her own house.
“Hullo dear,” she said. He was touched at this.
“Come in. There’s not much change in dad,” she went on. Back in the hall, she dropped her voice. “Art’s here,” she told him.
“Oh,” Mr Summers said, suspicious.
“He’s come out with it,” she continued, almost in a whisper, “he’s lost his job, or rather his firm have written to the M.O.L. to say they want him withdrawn. Poor old Art, it is a shame. And he’s dropped in to find if dad could put a word for him. He hadn’t heard, you see. Mother’s with him this minute.”
“You’ve got your mother back from Huddersfield?”
“No, Mrs Grant, of course,” she answered.
“I see.”
“Oh, I’m glad I came,” she said. “It was too much for her, by far. And he’s so good lying in his bed, with never a murmur of any kind.”
“Can he speak a bit, then?” he asked.
“Of course not. You can tell by his expression,” she explained in a loud voice. “I wondered when I’d see you again,” she added, more quietly.
“Called round on you twice as a matter of fact, and you were out,” he told her.
“That’s nice,” she said. “Now you’d like a word with dad, I expect,” and led him upstairs.
He found Mr Grant lying shuteyed, but otherwise in the same position as previously, motionless, speechless, hopeless as he must have been. After Charley had muttered a greeting, Miss Whitmore rattled on to the sick man exactly as though he was a child. Even if he had so wished, Charley could not have got a word in edgeways. He looked at the lowered lids. He wondered what they covered. Then he saw Nance nod to him. He stammered a phrase, and got out of the room.
“You are mean,” she said, the other side of the door. “I meant for you to talk to him a few moments.”
“I couldn’t,” he explained, as he came down the stairs.
“I know. It is awkward at first,” she agreed. “But you soon get so you don’t notice.”
“Will this go on for long?”
“The doctor says he may be carried off any day. Mother’s being wonderful, simply wonderful”
At this moment Middlewitch and Mrs Grant came out into the small hall, in that order. The four of them hardly had room to move. His manner with Summers was very different.
“Why, hullo, Charley my dear old man,” he cried, at his most effusive. “Well, this is a bit of a surprise, running across you here,” he said, as though he owned the place. “We must have a chat one of these days,” he was continuing, while Charley leant across to shake Mrs Grant by the hand.
“Why, Charley Barley,” she greeted him, quite composed. “It’s good of you to travel all this way to visit us old folks.”
“How is he?” Charley asked.
“You’ve just come from him, haven’t you? I heard you mount the stairs. You noticed the change there is, didn’t you? He’s ever so much easier.”
“That’s fine,” Charley said.
“But the doctor says it might happen any moment,” she went on calmly. Summers turned for the first time to Arthur Middlewitch. But this man’s mind was plainly miles away. He was preoccupied.
“Oh, don’t speak like that,” Charley protested to Mrs Grant.
“It’s got to come to one and all of us, Charley,” she told him, quite composed. “He doesn’t suffer, I know. I know,” she repeated, insistent. There was a pause.
“That’s right,” Charley said.
“Well I must be getting along now,” Mr Middlewitch broke in. “I’ll give you a tinkle one of these days,” he added to Charley. “And it certainly has been grand of you, Mrs Grant, to listen as you’ve just done. I’m sure when I dropped in I never …” and he stopped. Then he hurriedly made his goodbyes, and left.
“I don’t much cotton onto that young gentleman,” Mrs Grant mentioned.
“Now there’s no harm in Art, mother,” Nance said. “He’s worried, that’s all.”
“I must get back to my grand old man,” Mrs Grant announced waving them into the living room. “And I know you two young people must have a deal to say to one another,” she added, arch. Charley looked at her unseeing. He was shy. He could find nothing to come out with. But when Mrs Grant was gone, and Nance was settled down opposite, it was she did all the talking.