Hasty Death (3 page)

‘He recognized me!’

‘Nah!’ said Daisy. ‘You tipped too much.’

The delighted cabbie had carried their luggage to the front door. Daisy rang the bell. The door opened and Miss Harringey stared at Rose.

‘Don’t expect me to help you up the stairs with that luggage,’ she said. ‘Come into my sanctum and I’ll give you your keys.’

Rose stood nervously while Daisy collected two sets of keys, one each to the front door, one each to the room.

‘Miss Levine knows the way,’ said Miss Harringey.

Rose was too depressed to say anything. Inside her head, a voice was crying, ‘What have I done? Oh, what have I done?’

They decided to carry the suitcases up first and then return for the trunk. Their suitcases were light because they contained nothing but their ‘working clothes’, but the trunk was
heavy because it was not only packed with underwear but piles of books which Rose considered essential and Daisy thought were a waste of time and energy.

Daisy unlocked the door to their room. ‘There you are,’ she said cheerfully. ‘New home.’

Rose bit her lip. She would not cry. But the sight of the room depressed her so much that she felt a lump rising in her throat.

She forced herself to say, ‘I suppose it will do. Let’s get the trunk.’

Miss Harringey, hands folded on her rigid bosom, watched curiously as they struggled back up the stairs, carrying the trunk between them. Rose turned on the first landing and saw her watching
and gave her a haughty, glacial stare. Miss Harringey sniffed and retreated to her parlour.

When they laid the trunk in a corner, Rose straightened up and looked around again.

‘There are no curtains,’ she said.

‘That’s ’cos we’re at the top of the house,’ said Daisy. ‘Nobody can look in.’

‘I want curtains,’ said Rose. ‘Good, lined curtains.’

‘You do that, and then the old bat will become suspicious if she starts snooping around. Look, we’ll buy some cheap ones.’

‘And a vase for flowers. I need fresh flowers.’

‘My lady . . . I mean Rose . . . you’ll need to get used to the new life.’

‘A cheap vase and cheap flowers,’ said Rose stubbornly.

‘There aren’t any cheap flowers in winter.’

‘We’ll get a vase anyway and prepare for spring. But curtains, right now. Run down and get us a hack.’

‘People like us don’t take carriages,’ said Rose patiently. ‘We’ll walk up to Lower Oxford Street, and then, if you’re tired, we’ll take the omnibus,
and not first class either.’

Rose sat down on the bed. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t rush into things. Light that fire, Daisy. This room is abominably cold.’

‘I need a penny for the meter.’

Rose opened her handbag and took out her purse. ‘Here’s a penny. I suppose we’ll need to save a stock of pennies for the fire and the bath. Oh, we can’t even have a cup
of tea.’

‘Yes, we can!’ said Daisy triumphantly. ‘You packed books, I packed essentials.’ She put a penny in the meter and lit the gas. She unlocked the trunk and pulled out a
small kettle, a teapot, a packet of tea and a paper twist of sugar. ‘No milk, but we can have it without. I’ve brought a pot and frying pan as well.’

Rose began to laugh. ‘Anything else?’

‘Six sausages and two rashers of bacon and a loaf of bread.’

‘But how on earth can you cook?’

‘See!’ Daisy pulled out a gas ring from the side of the fire. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

Rose began to feel almost cheerful. Daisy lit the gaslight and made a pot of tea. She wondered if Rose realized that a hostel which boasted gaslight
and
a bathroom was above the common
order.

‘I am such a fool,’ said Rose. ‘When I saw this shabby room, I almost wanted to run back to Eaton Square and hammer on the door and say I had made a dreadful mistake. We will
go out and find somewhere to eat and then we will spend the evening in practising our Pitman shorthand. I wish to surprise Papa by making myself indispensable to the bank. I wonder what the other
women will be like?’

T
he alarm clock rang shrilly at six on Monday morning. Rose felt she had not slept at all. Daisy snored, Daisy cuddled up to her during the night,
making Rose feel suffocated.

‘Wake up!’ said Rose. ‘Time to get ready.’ Shivering, she lit the gas fire and the gaslight in its bracket by the door. ‘I’ll use the bathroom
first.’

They had both had baths the night before, fearing they would not get a chance in the morning, but Rose wanted hot water to wash her face. She reflected as she lit the geyser over the bath, which
exploded into life with a roar, that two pennies in the meter just to wash one’s face was already beginning to feel like wanton extravagance. The bathroom was a dismal place. The bath itself
was a deep coffin of a thing, but fortunately it was now clean, she and Daisy having had to scrub it out the night before. She washed her face and then filled the jug from the bedroom with hot
water and climbed back up the stairs.

‘Brought you some hot water,’ said Rose.

‘What for?’ asked Daisy. ‘We washed last night. Help me with my stays.’

Rose tied Daisy’s stay ribbons and then hurriedly began to dress. ‘The bank’s in Lombard Street, Daisy. How do we get there?’

‘We walk.’

‘But it’s so far!’ wailed Rose.

‘I’ll find out about omnibuses, or maybe we can get an underground train.’

‘I know,’ said Rose. ‘We’ll take a hack and get him to stop just short of the bank. Just this once.’

‘Oh, all right,’ said Daisy. ‘But we have to try to live within our means.’

There were two types of typists in the City – the working girls who were struggling to better themselves, and the middle-class ladies who worked for pin-money.

The senior ‘girl’ was Mrs Danby, a thin, acidulous woman in her forties. She was middle-class and ruled her small staff of four typists with a rod of iron. Mrs Danby was not looking
forward to the arrival of two newcomers, even though it was increasing her empire.

Mr Drevey had told her they were to be put in a separate room and made to type out the entries from the old ledgers. Mrs Danby pointed out that the ledgers were filled with meticulous
copperplate handwriting and therefore did not need to be typed and the usually courteous Mr Drevey had snapped at her to do as she was told.

The doorman informed her of the newcomers’ arrival and she swept out in the hall to meet them; the only thing modifying her temper was the rustle of her new and expensive taffeta
underskirt.

The two newcomers stood before her, irreproachably dressed. ‘I am in charge of you,’ she said, a surprisingly loud voice emanating from her thin figure and thin trap of a mouth.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Daisy, holding out a gloved hand. ‘I am Miss Daisy Levine.’

Mrs Danby ignored the hand. Common-genteel, she thought. Her eyes turned on Rose, who was standing patiently.

‘And you are Miss Summer?’

‘Yes,’ said Rose calmly, fixing Mrs Danby with a blue stare.

‘Come with me.’ Mrs Danby rustled off in front of them. She threw open a mahogany door revealing a small room furnished with a table, two chairs, a desk, and two typewriters and a
pile of ledgers and box files. There was a small gas fire with a broken piece of asbestos which purred and hissed like some infuriated household cat. On the mantelpiece was a black marble clock
with a yellow face. By the long window stood a hat stand.

‘You are to type the entries in these ledgers,’ instructed Mrs Danby, ‘and when you have completed each page, you will put it in one of these box files. You, Miss Summer, will
start with the 1901 ledger and Miss Levine with the 1900 ledger. Take off your coats and hats and begin immediately.’

Rose and Daisy took off their coats, hats and gloves, and sat at their typewriters, facing each other.

‘We need typing paper, if you please,’ said Rose.

Rose had intended to modify her accent but she had taken a dislike to Mrs Danby and so her tones were the glacial, staccato ones of her class.

Mrs Danby opened the door and shouted, ‘Miss Judd!’

A small girl with a head of black curls appeared. ‘Typing paper for these two new workers,’ ordered Mrs Danby.

She turned away. Miss Judd winked at Rose and Daisy and shot off to return in a few minutes with a large packet of typing paper.

‘I will now watch you to assess your skill,’ said Mrs Danby.

Rose and Daisy, like two machines, each put a sheet of paper in their typewriter, found the right ledgers and began to type with great speed and ease.

‘I will leave you now,’ said Mrs Danby majestically.

‘One moment, Mrs Danby,’ said Rose. ‘At what time are we allowed to take our luncheon?’

Mrs Danby longed to tell them that they were to work right through the day but feared that the haughty Miss Summer might report her to Mr Drevey.

‘Luncheon is at one o’ clock until two-thirty,’ she said.

‘Blimey,’ said Daisy when Mrs Danby had left. ‘It’s better than I thought. They do themselves well here. A whole hour and a half for lunch!’

‘This is
make
work,’ said Rose. ‘There is no need for these ledgers to be typed.’

‘May as well get on with it,’ sighed Daisy. ‘If we’re awfully good, they might give us some real work.’

They worked hard and their shoulders were sore by lunchtime.

‘I need to use the you-know-what,’ said Daisy.

‘There will be one at King William Street underground station. I read about it in the newspaper.’ said Rose. ‘I do not want to see more of Mrs Danby than I need to.’

As both were still wearing the undergarments that ladies wore, they spent a considerable time in the toilets.

For the fashionable lady of the day wore an incredible amount of undergarments. To begin with, there was a garment known as combinations: a kind of vest and pants in one piece, made of fine
wool, or a mixture of wool and silk, its legs reaching to the knee. It had a back panel which unbuttoned below the waist. Over this went the corset, usually made of pink coutil, boned and shaped to
provide the fashionable hourglass figure. Then came the camisole, a kind of underblouse that buttoned down the front, was gathered at the waist and trimmed with lace round the neck and the
diminutive puffed sleeves.

The knickers had lace frills at the knee and they were made from very fine material such as lawn, nainsook or nun’s veiling. Silk stockings were clipped to the corset. Then the large round
petticoat was placed in a circle on the floor and stepped into.

The only advantage of all these layers of clothes, thought Daisy, when she and Rose emerged once more into the freezing air, was that they kept you warm. Rose had been pleasingly impressed by
her first visit to a public toilet and thought it well worth the charge of one penny. It was spotlessly clean and all shining white tiles and polished brass and the female attendant had been
courteous.

Daisy stopped at a tobacco kiosk and asked the girl for a packet of cigarettes and directions to somewhere cheap to eat. She told them there was a Lyons a little way along Cheapside.

‘You’re never going to smoke!’ exclaimed Rose.

‘I feel like it,’ said Daisy stubbornly.

In Lyons teashop, Rose exclaimed over the cheapness of the items on the menu. ‘Just look, Daisy, meals are only threepence or fourpence. We could eat out every day! What will you have?
There’s poached egg on macaroni, Welsh rarebit, or sardines on toast.

‘I’ll have poached eggs on macaroni,’ said Daisy. Rose ordered Welsh rarebit.

‘That’s better,’ sighed Daisy when they were finished. ‘We didn’t have time for breakfast.’

‘It wasn’t much to eat,’ said Rose, looking around the restaurant and thinking that at home she would have had a choice of eight courses at least. ‘It’s not as if
it’s expensive. I never saw this one – braised loin of mutton with carrots. Only sixpence, too.’ So they had the mutton with bread and butter, two slices at a penny each. And when
they had finished that, they rounded off their meal with coffee, twopence a cup, and apple dumpling, four pennies each. When they finished and Daisy was complaining that she would need to loosen
her stays when they got back to the office, they left the cosiness of the teashop with its white-and-gold frontage feeling sleepy with all they had eaten.

As they headed back to the office, the day was so dark that the street lamps were being lit, a man with a long brass pole moving from lamp to lamp and leaving a chain of lights behind him.

The air was not only cold but smelt of innumerable coal fires.

Mrs Danby was there promptly at two-thirty to make sure they were at their desks and then retreated.

After an hour, the door opened and a young man came in. He had a thick head of hair, liberally oiled with bear grease, a long nose and large mouth, and wore the City uniform of
black coat and striped trousers.

He affected surprise when he saw them and said, ‘Wrong room. But I’d better introduce myself. I am Gerald King.’

‘I’m Daisy Levine and my friend is Miss Rose Summer.’

Gerald perched on the edge of the desk, his eyes on Rose.

‘You’re new, aren’t you?’

‘Very new,’ said Daisy. ‘First day.’

‘You enjoying it?’

‘Not much.’

‘Doesn’t your friend have a voice, Miss Levine?’

‘I do,’ said Rose, ‘when I am not being kept off my work.’

Gerald retreated. But during the afternoon, several bank clerks found an excuse to drop in.

‘You shouldn’t freeze them all off,’ complained Daisy. ‘One of them might buy us dinner.’

‘You are not in the music hall now,’ said Rose severely.

‘No, I ain’t,’ replied Daisy gloomily.

On Thursday, Mr Drevey went down to the country ‘on business’, which meant he was escaping to attend a house party.

On that same Thursday, one of the directors, Mr Beveridge, sent for Mrs Danby, and told her that his secretary was ill and he needed someone to take dictation.

‘I will bring someone to you directly,’ said Mrs Danby.