Business as Usual Page 7
Basil, won’t it be fun when you can get a week-end off? I shall make you take me out and provide an expensive dinner followed by Turkish coffee and old brandy. Then we’ll dance, and afterwards I’ll bring you back to my basement and give you herring-roes personally cooked over a pennyworth of gas. When will you come? Soon, please.
Hilary
23 Burford Street
October 2nd
My Dear,
A good day; we were paid, and your letter was waiting for me when I got home. Such a nice, partisan letter too. You said all the things that I secretly wanted to hear about the absurdity of an educated woman working at menial jobs for a mere pittance and living in a basement on a few shillings a week, about the waste of making people like me write labels that a Board School child would probably do better, anyway. (This not so welcome, perhaps. But true.) Your indignation was most infectious. I was quite furious myself as I read your views on vitiated atmospheres and impossible hours, and things being different for me because I wasn’t used to them.
But on the other hand, Basil, it’s just because I’m not used to them that things like living in a basement, earning two pounds ten a week and budgeting every penny, are amusing. (On Pay Day.) I suppose it’s not a fair test of this sort of life, either. I can always run away. They – the other people with basements and nine-to-six and two pounds ten a week – can’t. You remember the story that Byron shut himself up in one of those dungeons for a while to get the atmosphere for The Prisoner of Chillon? I always thought that was cheating: all he had to do was to yell and he’d have been set free.
So you needn’t worry quite so indignantly about me. I could run away. But I don’t want to. Which, as you’ll tell me if I don’t mention it first, is just sheer, thrawn, wicked pride. No, it isn’t, either. Not entirely. I do want to go on supporting myself, unaided, during this bad year. Then I needn’t panic at the thought of letting you support me for the rest of my life.
Well, we were paid to-day, and I felt better afterwards. This time I brazenly counted the money in my envelope twice, instead of shoving it into my bag as if I couldn’t take time from my labours to make sure of the hire. Then on the way home I called in at one of those sub-restaurants where they feed people; (just food: no frills). I had an enormous bowl of soup; a cut from the joint with two vegs; an apple dumpling; bread and cheese and coffee. Then, over a cigarette, I worked out the week’s budget.
I’ve never kept accounts before, except at school and under compulsion. But I’m proud of my budget. Everything is accounted for: nothing remains. Here it is:

I did that sum this evening over the wreckage of my big meal. Then I took half a crown out of the Emergency Fund to pay for it (it’s to be hoped that nothing dire happens this week, as it now contains sixpence), and came home, feeling good.
But, for all that, the budget isn’t a really reliable joke. I don’t suppose, for instance, that it’ll stand much repetition. And I’ve been rather dreary until to-day – not getting as much fun as usual out of living on £2:10:0 a week. Of course I can comfort myself by writing to you about it, but sometimes I almost forget that it isn’t really a trap that I’ve got to run round for the rest of my life. When I say that I look on you as a bolt-hole it isn’t as rude as it sounds.
I know I shan’t spend my life this way. I won’t. But the others, Miss Hopper and Miss Watts and Mildred Lamb, will. And they know it. It’s the only way they can be safe; sure of a place to sleep in, food, and those tidy, monotonous clothes. But they pay so much more for that safety (in things that aren’t money), than the basic two pounds ten a week.
The worst of earning one’s living, Basil, is that it leaves so little time over to live in. During the winter you’ve got to hand over the eight daylight hours to Everyman’s, and only keep the twilight bits at each end. And most of them go to waste in sleep.
In fact, I’ve been drowning myself in lacrimae rerum43 all week. And it rained too: I hated my stove because nobody cooked meals on it any more: I hated the red carpet because the floor underneath was stone and damp: I minded the rain coming in under the ex-area door because it made a pool, and my one good pair of shoes was standing in it next morning. I couldn’t get to sleep most nights because the sheets were horrid. The darns scratched me. One blanket was too short and the other too narrow and both were dirty. I couldn’t tuck my coat round me because it was damp. Last night my only two pennies flickered out simultaneously in the gas fire and the electric light at five minutes past eight, and I spilt my supper half-pint of milk as I was getting into bed.

This morning Mrs Hemming, who’s the ‘service’ included in my rent, mourned over the mess.
‘Does seem a shyme, don’t it miss? ‘Owever I’ll get this grate clean I do not know, and me with twenty in the ‘ouse to do for. Not that it’s the work I object to, miss. It’s the waste. It may be nothing to you, miss, if you’ll excuse my saying so. No doubt you can go and get a good meal when you like. But if you was goin’ to throw it away, you might ‘ave given it to them as needed it first. Not that I’m thinking of meself. But there’s them girls upstairs. You get a bed to yourself when all’s said and done, but if you lay three in a bed and often ‘aven’t enough milk to make a cup of tea with, let alone kippers and such’ – at this point she picked up the remains of mine by the tail and threw it into the dust-bin as if I’d stolen it – ‘for your supper – well, you look twice before you throw away a ‘ole ‘alfpint, that makes work for others in the clearin’ of it up. No offence, of course, but there’s no good saying one thing and thinking another, as Mr Hemming always says.’
Still, she has cleared it up. And I’ve put threepence in the gas all at once, left the fire on while I spent twopence on a bath, piled all my coats on the bed and sagged into it, warm and well fed, with your letter. You could have chosen, my lamb, between a snippet of a reply posted this evening which would greet you with your breakfast to-morrow, and a long letter which won’t arrive before the last post. I thought I’d choose for you (it’s raining), and I hope you’ll approve. To-night I’m a luxurious animal: I refuse to get my feet wet again. I’m just gloating over the comfort of being warm and loved.
You do love me, Basil, don’t you? Oh, I know; but I’d just like to see it in writing again. You were so voluble over my wrongs that you forgot to mention it.
Bless you, anyway,
Hilary
23 Burford Street
October 8th
Basil, My Lamb,
Something actually happened to-day. Something startling, I mean, not like the things which keep on happening all the time without anyone being the better for them. It was during the lunch hour: Miss Hopper had gone early – she has a queasy stomach, she says, and can’t do with a Long Morning. So she goes to lunch at twelve-fifteen. Very useful. Anyway, there I was, alone at her table, and, by the mercy of heaven, working hard. In other words, carefully ‘inserting’ a card into the index every five minutes. (At that rate I can make the job last for an hour.)
Suddenly there was a pause in the typing; then it went on again like gun fire. The whole atmosphere crackled. Obviously some sort of an Olympian had come in.
I didn’t actually look up, but I felt him come down the narrow gangway between book-cases and tables, and all the books that were half on and half off the tables fell off them at once. I thought, ‘Well, I’m safe, anyway. He can’t know I exist.’ So I put three cards into the index at once and kept up that sort of terrorised efficiency till I thought he must be well away. Then I looked up, and he’d stopped six inches off, staring at me. Very god like. (But clean-shaven.)
He said: ‘Miss Hopper, can you explain this?’ And he floated a letter down on to my index cards. (They were wet, of course, but I daren’t protest. An efficient woman would have had blotting paper.)
I grabbed the letter, and said: ‘Certainly.’
He looked again. ‘Are you Miss Hopper?’

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br /> I said: ‘Certainly not!’
He said: ‘Then you can’t. Most annoying.’ (Very short.) I said: ‘Why not?’ And kept hold of the letter, though he seemed inclined to grab it back. It was the sort I’ve met quite a lot lately, tilted, bad-tempered handwriting that crawled up one page in the third person and down the opposite side in the first. In the middle there were exclamation marks, and the writer demanded her money back.
I didn’t actually understand what it was all about, but mercifully the name and address came first, and were followed by something about unsuitable literature and crass carelessness. Then I remembered the ‘biographies with your butcher meat’ phrase, and guessed that some Rational Reader must have been given kippers and Marie Corelli when they’d ordered Galsworthy and caviare. I stopped being frightened then and consulted the card-index in a dazed but competent way, found Mrs Pillington-Smythe’s card, picked it out without the usual shower of adherent, next-door tickets, and read out all the particulars on it.
The Minor Prophet just looked at me, and said, ‘Well?’ and, ‘How do you explain it?’ So I read the letter through again and took it in this time.
‘Mrs Pillington-Smythe’ (it said) ‘is amazed that any firm of your standing should encourage the sale of books which can only undermine the morals of the country. If certain people choose to demand such literature (save the mark) that is their own affair. But surely, even in these degenerate days, youth is still sacred. As the Headmistress of a school to which many prominent people send their daughters you will appreciate that I am in a position of some trust.
‘I subscribed to your Service on the understanding that you would keep my school supplied with what is best in modern literature. I particularly explained that if fiction be sent at all, it must be only such fiction as leaves the reader the better for having read it, such fiction as she may confidently put into the hands of the daughters of prominent people who attend her school. Mrs Pillington-Smythe gave a list of her preferences, which included Biography, Travel, Memoirs and History, in that order. She understood that she would be supplied with select literature only, and considers that her confidence has been abused. She would be obliged if Messrs. Everyman would refund the amount which she paid them in advance.’
I said: ‘Yes, that must be For One Night Only. I did ask Miss Hopper if it was quite safe for Mrs Pillington-Smythe and her girl’s school, but she said that they always had the Book of the Week, and if a book was the Book of the Week, it was always Quite Nice.’
‘Yes, yes, but what do you propose to do now?’ said the Minor Prophet. I was tempted to say that I’d leave it to Miss Hopper, but with that eye upon me, some sort of action seemed imperative.
‘She ought to have a very careful letter,’ I suggested. ‘We might say that these books are kept solely for a small clientele with advanced – I mean peculiar – views. And while we may deplore their tastes …’ (The Minor Prophet finished the sentence as I’d hoped.) ‘We are nevertheless obliged to satisfy their requirements.’ His voice wobbled a little, but when I looked hopefully up at him his face was grimmer than ever. ‘And then,’ I said, ‘we’d send a much more expensive and extra pure book in exchange – no further charge, of course.’
He said: ‘Possibly. Write the letter.’ As an afterthought, he asked: Did I type? Good. No shorthand? Serious disadvantage. Well, I’d better type out the letter and send it up for his signature. That was all he’d come to say. I could tell Miss Hopper that I was acting on his instructions. Then he walked out. But of course I hadn’t the remotest idea who he was, so I went up to Miss Dowland and asked her. She said: ‘Oh, I thought you didn’t know. That was Mr Grant.’ (The man who made up those rhymes. I wrote about them. No wonder he was furious about a brain and bread-basket blunder.)
I said: ‘Oh, was it. Thank you,’ and wondered what she had on her mind. She went on talking and seemed to have got lost in a sentence about business etiquette, and it all being so strange at first. Eventually, she got round to it, and it appeared that I ought to have called him ‘Sir’ and she did hope that I wouldn’t mind her pointing it out: she couldn’t help hearing that I’d never said it: I’d got such a clear voice: it wasn’t as if she’d listened. I was please not to think anything of the kind and not to worry, anyway, because he’d know I was new to the business and never dream of holding it up against me.
Well, that hadn’t occurred to me as a possibility, and I didn’t let it prey on my mind. I made up a really lovely letter to Mrs Pillington-Smythe, full of apology and flattery and an appeal to her superior insight (not too good English, because that would have annoyed her but with all the best commercial circumlocutions). I wound up with a long sentence of abnegation in which I said that we perfectly understood that, in the circumstances, she would like to have her money back. We were putting the matter through at once, and in the meantime we trusted that she would accept a copy of The Roof Tree of the World at thirty shillings, without, of course, any further charge. It’s been remaindered at five, but who’s to know? Not Mrs P-S. I enjoyed writing that letter. I wasn’t quite sure of the placatory technique, so I asked Miss Dowland about credit notes and special deliveries and she told me. But the typing! I did it five times, incredibly slowly, and each time I made a mistake nearer the end.
Miss Dowland came up when I was finishing the fifth copy and asked me whether I’d like her to type it for me, as it was so difficult, wasn’t it, once one let a thing like that get on one’s nerves. And of course Mr Grant was ever so particular. I said, ‘Thank you. I’ll manage.’ And put an irrelevant question mark into my still unblemished fifth version. Miss Dowland said: ‘And he’s got a wicked eye for erasures.’ Mercifully, after that she went away, and I champed through the blistering letter once again, took five minutes over the envelope, wrote a little note of explanation and put the thing in the messenger girl’s box for Mr Grant.
And that, I hope, will be the last of that. But at least I’ve never known an afternoon at Everyman’s go so quickly as this one; nor have I ever worked so hard. When I’d finished and came back to Miss Hopper and her labels, she said: ‘You’ve just time for half an hour’s work. All that time off! Gets me so behind, you know.’ Time off! Time off! I ask you!
I went home muttering, and pushed my way on to a bus in front of two innocent people who had their arms too full of parcels to push back. ‘These shop girls,’ said one of them, and the other said, ‘Tck-tck, no manners!’ as the bus left them on the pavement.
There was a letter from the family waiting for me. They said, among other things, that you’d been round, interviewing Father about something encyclopædic, and afterwards stayed to dinner. They’d liked that. I wonder if you’d still have been escorted to the door afterwards by Father in the old way if I’d been there, or whether my official standing gives me the right to drag a usurping parent back by the coat tails. Probably.
They said you had a cold again. I’m sorry. Does that Mr. MacQueen look after you in the competent Scots way with whisky toddy and mustard baths and stockings round the throat and hot bottles44 and blackcurrant tea? There’s no fun in a cold unless people treat it like pneumonia.
Please report progress.
Love,
Hilary
Covering Note
To Mr Grant
Memo
Herewith the letter of apology to Mrs Pillington-Smythe. I understand that in an emergency it is permissible to employ a special messenger to deliver goods. I have done this, and hope you consider the action justified.
I know that there need be no delay, strictly speaking, in putting through a credit note. But I thought that it might give Mrs Pillington-Smythe time to do something gracious – even to change her mind about cancelling her library subscription.
Pending this I have marked her folder as follows:
CAUTION – SCHOOL
EXCLUSIVE: NON-FICTION
(No Sex)
From:
Hilary Fane
Book Floor
October 8th, 1931
EVERYMAN’S STORES
For use in inter-departmental correspondence only
From G Grant
To Staff Supervisor
October 9th, 1931
SubjectJunior Clerk, 537 (H Fane), Book Floor, Clerical
Memo
Her record (education and previous posts) seems to indicate that she is fitted for a better position than that of Junior Clerk.
This is confirmed by an incident of yesterday’s date. A most serious complaint in connection with our new Rational Reading Service was brought to my notice. In Miss Hopper’s absence, Miss Fane was able to give a lucid explanation of the occurrence. She also showed herself capable of handling the situation and drafted a suitable letter (2 erasures) for my signature.
I doubt her proficiency as a clerk (she has no shorthand), but consider that she might with advantage be given more responsible work.
I should welcome your views.
MGG
SN/MGG
EVERYMAN’S STORES
For use in inter-departmental correspondence only
From Staff Supervisor
To Mr Grant
October 9th, 1931
SubjectJunior Clerk, 537 (H Fane), Book Floor, Clerical
Memo
Miss Fane is a very good type. Had she training and experience she might be well fitted for promotion, but she is handicapped by lack of both.
She was engaged, on a month’s trial, at short notice to replace Clerk 536, Miss Pim (absent appendicitis). I have had no complaints about her work, though I hear from Sister Smith that she is not well adapted to routine and does not make use of the canteen or other social amenities.
I regret that you should not find her typing good. Unless she is thoroughly proficient, she can hardly be given promotion.