An Unlikely Agent Read online

  Oh! Lilly, sweet Lilly,

  Dear Lilly Dale,

  Now the wild rose blossoms

  O’er her little green grave

  ‘Neath the trees in the flow’ry vale.

  The clock struck the half hour and I stood up, guiltily aware that I had sat dreaming at my desk for at least twenty minutes. I was loath to disturb Mr Plimpson, lest in his excited state he should begin a second, more agitated discussion about the matter of my staying on, so I resumed the ongoing task of devising a new filing system for the firm’s correspondence, a conundrum with which I had been wrestling ever since I had started the job. To begin with I had been sufficiently innocent to believe that I would be able to invent a method of organising my employer’s affairs within a day or two, yet I soon found that his business dealings were so confused and obscure (sometimes, I allowed myself to suspect, deliberately so) and of such a mixed character that it was well-nigh impossible to resolve them into any kind of order. Nevertheless, I had persisted in trying to do so, and I still drew a perverse satisfaction from the performance of this Sisyphean labour. I removed several deed boxes from the cupboard and began to sort through their contents, and was soon thoroughly bogged down in a mental quagmire of conjecture and classification. The minutes plodded by, but despite my best efforts I made little progress.

  At twelve o’clock the office door opened and Mr Plimpson emerged, stumbling on an uneven floorboard. I observed that he had made some effort to smarten himself up; his jacket was buttoned snugly over the bulge of his stomach and he had plastered his fringe of greying hair over his scalp with scented oil.

  As soon as he saw the open window he dropped down onto his knees. “Miss Trant! Pull down the blinds!” he hissed.

  I did as he asked and, puffing and blowing, he heaved himself back into a standing position. He walked unsteadily up to my desk and leant across it, regarding me sternly through bloodshot eyes. At such close quarters the reek of alcohol and cheap scent was almost more than I could bear and my fingers itched to whisk my handkerchief out of my pocket so that I could cover my nose.

  “Miss Trant, I am sorry to say that I was not quite straight with you before – about the headaches, I mean. I didn’t want to frighten you, but I have been wrestling with my conscience and for your own safety I feel obliged to tell you that most unfortunately Plimpson and Co. has become embroiled in some dealings with what I have lately discovered to be a highly disreputable and unscrupulous . . . er, firm. I truly believe that the individuals concerned will stoop to nothing to get what they want. Ergo, it would not be sensible for us to draw attention to our presence here; ergo, we must keep the blinds closed and the door locked at all times. And whatever cunning pleas or unpleasant threats may be addressed to you, you must admit nobody onto these premises!” He thumped on the desk for emphasis. “Nobody, under any foreseeable or conceivable circumstances whatsoever, is to come into this office. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied, considerably taken aback by this tirade.

  Apparently satisfied that he had impressed on me the necessity for caution, Mr Plimpson tottered towards the door, remarking rather thickly and with forced brightness, “Such lovely weather we’re having, Miss Trant. I’m off to meet a client now – a little light luncheon – always does the trick. Be sure to lock the door behind me. I shall be gone for the rest of the day and therefore entrust the running of this great enterprise to your capable little hands. Remember, my dear, we must tread with caution, but with our heads held high.”

  As he went out onto the landing he tripped and narrowly avoided plunging down the stairs. I sat listening to his precarious descent until he was safely on the ground floor, then got up and locked the door.

  I was not sure how seriously to take Mr Plimpson’s fears; after all, he had been drinking, and even when completely sober he was the sort of man who tended to exaggerate in order to instil in his auditors a sense of his own importance. Moreover, I was aware from bitter experience that he was capable of working himself up into a dreadful state if things were not going his way. Feeling thoroughly oppressed by the dinginess of the room, I crossed to the window and opened the blinds again, reflecting that it was surely more conspicuous to leave them closed and that, furthermore, it was unlikely that anyone would go to the trouble of spying on us, situated as we were on the third floor of the building.

  I passed a dispiriting afternoon straining my eyes over a collection of yellowing import receipts from Germany, which had mysteriously appeared in a box of correspondence from a factory manager in Birmingham. My thoughts were awhirl with visions of the approaching conversation with my mother, and several times I was obliged to stage a painstaking reconstruction of a train of thought in order to retrieve a sheaf of letters or receipts that I had wrongly categorised. At twenty minutes to five, still surrounded by drifts of paper, I suddenly lost patience, bundled the unsorted documents back into the deed boxes and put them away in the cupboard. Dejectedly shrugging off the conviction that my efforts had only served to worsen the chaotic state of Mr Plimpson’s affairs, I pulled down the blinds, locked up the office and caught the tram back to St John’s Wood.

  Two

  I disembarked at an earlier stop than usual and walked slowly along the tree-lined streets, nodding every now and then to a person of my acquaintance, but moving on before I could be engaged in conversation. I racked my brains for the words with which to persuade my mother that we must move to Deptford, yet every sentence I rehearsed seemed weak and unconvincing. By the time I arrived at the door of our lodgings I still had not found a satisfactory way of breaking the news.

  As I entered the hallway, I was engulfed by the familiar mingled scents of furniture polish and boiled greens. It always took my eyes several moments to adjust to the murky gloom, for the walls were papered dark brown, the same shade as the scuffed floor tiles, the doors to the adjoining rooms were kept closed, and there was no window save for a pane of coloured glass in the front door. I hung up my coat and glanced at the hall table to see whether there were any letters. There was nothing for either Mother or me, only a picture postcard with a view of Weymouth for Mr Smith, who lodged in the garret. I am curious by nature and I am ashamed to say that I turned the card over and furtively examined the message on the other side. As I had suspected, I could make nothing of it: Smith, a taciturn fellow who kept himself to himself, had received three other postcards from coastal resorts since he had moved into the house nearly three months before and each of them, like this one, had been written in a foreign alphabet. Naturally, my interest was aroused by the mysterious nature of these communications; I had rather a passion for detective stories at that time and imagined that I had stumbled upon a mystery like those in the magazines.

  I took care to replace the card in the same position as I had found it and then, aware that I could put off the evil hour no longer, I ran up the two flights of stairs to our rooms.

  Whenever I try to remember my mother’s appearance in detail, the image of her face as it was on the last occasion I saw her, stricken and distorted, steals unbidden into my thoughts and blots out any other recollection. Therefore, I keep as an aide memoire a portrait painted some weeks after the day with which we are presently concerned, in circumstances that were to prove instrumental to the course of this narrative. The painting shows a shrunken, sharp-featured woman with a sallow complexion, high cheekbones and startling blue eyes, like stones of pale turquoise. Her hair, formerly dark brown, is liberally touched with grey and there is disappointment etched in the lines of her mouth, which turns down discontentedly at the corners. She looks towards the artist with a seductive tilt of the chin, which hints at the consciousness of former beauty, long since shrivelled and faded through prolonged illness and ardent grief.

  Mother was lying on the sofa by the sitting room window, with curl papers in her hair and wearing a bedjacket. I perceived at a glance that she was in one of her difficult humours and my heart sank. I helped her to sit up
and plumped up several cushions to support her back before saying, “Shall I open a window? It’s very close in here and it’s such a lovely evening outside.”

  She frowned in irritation. “Don’t be foolish, Margaret; you know my constitution can’t tolerate the evening air. Go and fetch my blue shirtwaist. Quick-sharp now, or we’ll keep everyone waiting.”

  “Mrs Hodgkins wouldn’t wait for us in any case,” I muttered, adding with a twinge of compunction, “Perhaps you ought to stay upstairs, if you’re not feeling well. I could bring your dinner up on a tray . . .”

  “Just do as I ask; I have no strength to argue,” she sighed, turning her face away.

  My mother was very hard to dress. She was physically capable of putting on her clothes herself, but lacked the will to do so. Her spine was stiff and unyielding, and her limbs seemed so brittle that I touched her somewhat apprehensively and with painstaking care, earning many rebukes for my slowness. Today my fingers were trembling with nervousness, which made matters worse, and I fumbled terribly with the buttons and fasteners until at last, as I was stooping to do up her boots, she snapped, “Good gracious, whatever is the matter with you? You’ve been behaving like a moonstruck ninny ever since you got home!”

  I straightened my back and laid the buttonhook on the table. “Mother, I have some news.” I stopped, suddenly overcome by a breathless, fluttering sensation in my chest.

  “Well, what is it?” she demanded. “I knew there was something you were keeping from me.”

  I flailed desperately for the right words with which to continue, but they refused to come. She raised her eyes to the ceiling, as if seeking heavenly solace.

  “I see. Well, if you won’t tell me now it must wait until after dinner – no doubt whatever it is will keep for a little while longer.”

  I eased her legs over the edge of the sofa, smoothed her skirts and took her arm to help her up; she never used a stick unless through absolute necessity, though she was incapable of walking unaided. I was fleetingly conscious of the bird-like fragility of her bones as she leant against me and felt a surge of disquiet just as I found myself saying in a matter-of-fact tone, “Mr Plimpson has told me that he intends to move the office to Deptford. Of course, it means that you and I will have to find new lodgings nearby. I don’t believe that Father would have wanted us to stay here and starve.”

  She stopped stock-still in the middle of the floor. My heart was pounding and for a moment I was too fearful even to breathe; then I forced myself to glance at her and saw that she was weeping noiselessly, as if her heart would break. I led her back to the sofa and went over to stand at the window, at a loss as to what to do next.

  Since my father’s death, it had become a habit with us never to refer to him. To begin with Mother had been so overcome by grief and shock that she had found it unbearable to hear him mentioned, and gradually our silence had grown to be the great unspoken taboo on which our lives together were founded. I dug my nails into my palms with frustration, desperately wishing that I had never allowed his name to pass my lips.

  At length Mother spoke, in a voice quavering with distress. “I should have thought you would have more consideration, Margaret. I only hope you haven’t allowed yourself to turn into one of those dreadful New Women, thinking only of your own career . . .” Her face crumpled and she burst into tears. She started to cough wretchedly and I hastened across to pour her some water. Her hands were shaking so hard that she was unable to hold the glass and I was obliged to lift it to her lips.

  Suddenly, she grabbed me by the wrist. “Put me to bed. My appetite is gone.”

  “Mother, you really ought not to miss dinner. The doctor said . . .”

  “I am perfectly aware of what he said! But if I were to attempt to eat now, the food would choke me. Besides, it might be preferable, given the circumstances, if my strength did fail and I was no longer here to trouble you.”

  She was as pale as a ghost and her red-rimmed eyes seemed to have sunk deep into their sockets. Somewhat alarmed, I helped her into her bedroom and onto the bed. It was a terrible struggle to remove her clothes and put on her nightdress, for she made herself as rigid as a post, staring unblinkingly ahead as if I didn’t exist. I did not attempt to speak to her, for I knew that to do so would only provoke further tears, and so we continued in silence until I left the room.

  I had missed dinner, which was something of a relief, for I could never have brought myself to sit and make conversation with our landlady, Mrs Hodgkins, and the other lodgers. I heated some water on the gas burner to make tea and cut two slices of bread, for I had been too overwrought to eat luncheon and I had begun to feel weak and unsteady after the excitements of the day. Having forced down this scanty supper, I decided I would attempt to blot out my troubles for a time by reading one of the detective magazines that I kept hidden beneath a loose floorboard in my room. I had inherited my taste for detective stories from my father, who had possessed a great fondness for puzzles of all kinds. Mother knew nothing about the magazines but would undoubtedly have regarded them as a selfish extravagance, and despite all my scrimping and saving, despite the fact that without my salary we would be destitute, I always found myself unable to suppress a pang of guilt when I thought of them.

  I prised up the floorboard with the butter knife, selected an edition that contained several of my favourite stories and lay down on the sofa to read it. The prospect of two hours’ undisturbed leisure was rare for me, for Mother seldom went to sleep early, yet I now found myself distracted from the heroine’s adventures by my own nagging anxieties. At last I lost patience, closed the magazine and returned it to its hiding place, picked up my shoes, and crept out of the apartment.

  I tiptoed down the stairs in my stockinged feet and sat on the hallstand to put on my shoes. Just as I was about to get up, the front door opened to admit Mr Smith. He did not seem to see me, but snatched up the postcard from the hall table and began to pore over it eagerly. I studied him with some interest, for he looked very much like the villain in the story I had just been reading. His hair was cut very close to his scalp and he had a large, hooked nose and hooded eyes that creased downwards at the corners in symmetry with his sullen mouth. I moved towards the front door, poised to greet him in case he should look up and acknowledge me. The strange message on the postcard appeared to absorb the whole of his attention, however, for though I passed right in front of him he seemed unaware of my presence.

  I slipped out, closing the door softly behind me. The air was balmy, though the pale glimmer of the street lamps already shone out through the gathering dusk. As I strolled along, half listening to the snatches of domestics’ conversations drifting up through the area railings, my thoughts turned once again to Mr Plimpson’s shocking tidings. I tried to picture the lives Mother and I might lead if we were to uproot ourselves from these familiar streets; I knew little about Deptford, but I possessed a shadowy notion that it was rather a grim and gloomy place, inhabited by sailors, dock-workers and other rough people. However, I was under the impression that the neighbouring district of Greenwich was comparatively respectable, and after all it ought to be perfectly possible for us to find a decent place to lodge there . . . I brought myself up short and heaved a deep sigh. It was no use; all this speculation was a foolish waste of time. Mother’s nerves were so delicate and her attachment to St John’s Wood so strong that it was absurd to suppose that she could ever be reconciled to leaving it.

  I drifted on, lost in vague dreams, until I realised with a shock that it was almost dark and, moreover, I had strayed further from home than I had intended. I turned round at once and started walking quickly back. What if Mother had awoken in a panic and called out for me, only to find that I was gone? I strode along faster and faster, picturing her livid, tear-stained face, and in a sudden flash of understanding I knew that though I wanted very much to stay on at Plimpson’s there was no point in deceiving myself any longer. Mother’s fussy ways could be very trying – indeed, when
she was at her most cantankerous I felt sometimes almost as if I hated her – but my conscience would not allow me to pursue a course of action that would make her utterly wretched.

  I crossed the Finchley Road and passed onto one of the quiet streets adjacent to our lodgings. I found that I was crying and breathed deeply into my handkerchief. How would I ever get another job that paid as well as my current position? My experience was very narrow; I had been with the same firm for effectively the whole of my working life and Mr Plimpson and I had grown accustomed to one another’s peculiarities. Worse still, I was twenty-five years old; undoubtedly most employers would prefer to take on a secretary who was younger and more malleable. But I had no choice; I must start looking for a new post at once, for our savings would support us for no more than a month or two once I stopped working.

  From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a man walking a little way behind me on the other side of the street. I turned into another road and looking round saw that he was still there, moving stealthily through the pools of gaslight. I began to feel somewhat ill at ease, for there was no one else in sight, and I quickened my pace. With a thudding heart, I saw that the shadowy figure at my back had also started to walk faster and, hoping to shake him off, I made an abrupt turn into a side street and hastened across the road, glancing over my shoulder as I did so.