Polly Read online

  Polly opened her bag and produced a large note-book and sat down primly behind the desk, while Mr. Baines prowled up and down. He cleared his throat. He said, “To Messrs. Thistlewood and Jamieson, 22 Victoria Street, Singapore. Dear Sirs…”

  The working day had begun.

  Mr. Baines dictated letter after letter, while Polly made a mental note to study her school atlas when she got home that evening. All the addresses seemed to be in the farthest-flung parts of the British Empire.

  Mr. Baines droned on, the gas fire hissed and popped, and Polly began to think that lunchtime would never come. She had an overwhelming desire to go to the lavatory and did not know if she could last another minute.

  She firmly crossed her legs under the desk and tried to concentrate as her face got redder and redder. There was nothing for it. Social conventions must be thrown to the wind. Mr. Baines had finished one letter and was about to start another when Polly spoke up. Her voice sounded to her ears as if it was coming from very far away.

  “I beg to be excused, Mr. Baines.”

  “Why?”

  “I would like to leave the room, sir,” said Polly, feeling as if she were back at school.

  Mr. Baines looked at her with dawning comprehension. Now it was his turn to blush. “Well, really Miss… ah… I’m afraid that is something that has been overlooked. Can you not contain yourself until lunchtime? There is a… er… place for ladies opposite the Bank.”

  Polly shook her head firmly.

  “Oh, dear, dear. Follow me,” he said, leading her back along the winding corridors and down a flight of twisty wooden steps to the basement. Mr. Baines lit a candle with maddening slowness. “No gas laid on here I’m afraid. There is the… er… yes, behind that door.”

  Polly was in too much agony to be embarrassed. She dived into the lavatory, which was fortunately lit by a small barred window, since Mr. Baines had kept the candle.

  She emerged a few minutes later to find a much-shaken Mr. Baines standing guard outside.

  “I shall leave you to type those letters, Miss… ah… and in future, you will need to make your own arrangements. It would be very distressing if any of the gentlemen should find you here. You really must consider their feelings, Miss… ah…”

  He extinguished the candle and fled up the stairs, leaving Polly to find her own way back to her room. She stared around in bewilderment and then slowly moved along the corridor. Was this it? Six men with bristling mustaches, looking for all the world like a meeting of walruses, were seated around a large mahogany table. They all stared at her with outraged expressions on their faces as she hurriedly closed the door. She turned around and nearly bumped into the cheeky clerk who had winked at her. But she needed help. “I’m lost,” she said. “Can you show me to my office?”

  “Certainly,” said the young man. “I will even slay dragons for you. My name is Bob Friend, as in friendly. I am your servant. I fall at your feet.”

  “Simply show me to my office, Mr. Friend, I have work to do,” replied Polly in chilly accents.

  “Of course,” he answered with a grin. “This way, my lady. Will my lady be partaking of lunch? I would be glad to offer my humble escort.”

  Polly opened her mouth to refuse. But the thought of venturing out into the masculine City on her own was frightening. She would never find out anything about the mysterious duke and his sons, locked away in her cubicle, either. And Mr. Friend was quite pleasant-looking, with a plump, cherubic face and an unruly mop of brown curls.

  She forced herself to smile at him. “I should be glad of someone to show me to a place to eat.”

  “Good!” said Mr. Friend. “I’ll call at your palace in half an hour.” He pushed open the door to Polly’s office, gave her a cheery wave, and bustled off down the corridor. Polly mentally resolved to draw a map or make chalk marks on the wall on the way out so that she should not lose her way again. Why, those terrifying men with the walrus mustaches could be complaining about her to Mr. Baines right at this minute!

  She had typed half of the letters, neatly and rapidly, by the time Mr. Friend popped his curly head around the door.

  Mr. Friend had decided to brave Spielmann’s, the chophouse where Mr. Baines usually ate. It was more than he could afford and he felt sure Mr. Baines would be furious to see him there, but one lunch with this gorgeous girl was surely worth eating saveloys from the street vendor for the rest of the week.

  Mr. Baines was just savoring his triumph over Mr. Bloggs when Bob and Polly pushed their way through the crowd at the bar to find a table in the small room beyond. The crowd of men fell silent and all heads turned. To see a woman in Spielmann’s was rare enough, but to see such a beauty!

  Crimson with pride, Bob found a corner table and drew Polly’s chair out for her.

  “Well, bless my soul!” cried Mr. Baines. “That’s my secretary with one of my clerks!”

  Mr. Bloggs wiped the foam from his mustache and stared at Mr. Baines in open admiration. “Why, Baines,” he said slowly, “you old dog.”

  Mr. Baines drank his beer in a rosy glow. Never had anyone looked at him in admiration before. He stood primly and quietly as usual, but inside, his ink-stained soul swaggered with all the bravado of the veriest masher.

  “Now, what would you like Miss… ah…” Bob Friend was saying.

  “Oh, I’m tired of being called Miss Ah,” said Polly, picking up her soup-stained menu. “My name is Miss Marsh.” She looked at the menu. There was a businessman’s lunch special for one shilling and sixpence but it still seemed like an awful lot of money, especially as Mr. Friend would have to pay for her lunch.

  Polly was vain, but she had a great deal of her mother’s maternal good nature in her character. “I suggest, Mister Friend,” she said in her clear, light voice, “that if I pay for my own, we could possibly afford another lunch together. I certainly cannot afford these prices every day and neither, I suppose, can you.”

  “Don’t spoil my big moment,” pleaded Bob. “All the fellows in the room are envying me like mad.”

  “It’s all right, really,” said Polly. “I’ll slip you the money at the end of the meal and nobody will be any the wiser.” She looked at him with her large blue eyes and Mr. Friend felt as if he were deliciously drowning in a tropical sea.

  “Furthermore,” Polly went on, “if you don’t let me pay, I shall not have lunch with you again.”

  “Oh, in that case,” said the much dazzled Bob, “I will—I mean, you can pay.”

  The businessman’s special turned out to be very good value. They had Scotch broth followed by mutton chops, and rounded it off with large slabs of treacle tart and custard.

  Demolishing it all with a healthy appetite, Polly still managed to find time to pick Mr. Friend’s brain. “How many staff has Westerman’s?”

  “Hard to say,” said Bob. “I have only been working several months in the labyrinth. But there are the company directors with their various offices and secretaries—men, of course—then all the people who deal with the goods that pour in and out of the warehouses down on the Thames, as well as Mr. Baines, the clerks, such as myself, the office boys, the messengers, the accountants, the bookkeepers, and… oh… one other female.”

  Polly stiffened. She was just beginning to enjoy being alone in this man’s world. The female was a Miss Amy Feathers who operated the small switchboard, but one hardly ever saw her.

  “What is she like?” said Polly.

  “Well, small and… well, all right,” said Bob Friend, callously forgetting that until this glorious morning, he had found Miss Feathers quite attractive.

  With all the aplomb of a true businessman Polly waited until the last crumb of treacle tart was gone before she presented her all-important question.

  Resting her small chin on her hands, she leaned forward and inquired as casually as she could, “The Duke of Westerman, now. Is it quite a thrill when he comes to the office?”

  “Oh, he doesn’t,” said Bob Friend chee
rfully, unaware that he was plunging a dagger of disappointment right through the new serge dress and into Polly’s heart. “Westerman’s was started by some younger son… oh, about fifty years ago. Great scandal it was… one of them sort going into trade. He traveled all over the Orient, setting up deals and buying up merchandise—made millions by the time he was thirty, so they say. Meanwhile, that Duke of Westerman and his family were going broke. So this younger son takes to smoking opium, but by that time Westerman’s had its board of directors and was running very well.

  “Well, now comes the big scandal. This here duke, he inherits the title back in the 1880s and it looks as if the family estate is going to have to go up for sale. But the younger son, he dies in a den in Limehouse and the Westermans all turn up their long noses and say ‘that’s what comes of going into trade.’ ’Course, they soon sing a different song when they find he’s left them the firm and all the millions. So they live in luxury and don’t trouble their heads about the firm. The directors know their jobs and Baines is a good manager. Why should they?”

  “Why should they, indeed,” echoed Polly in a hollow voice. “And the duke’s sons?”

  “Them neither,” said Bob. “The young ’un’s at Oxford and a bit of a rip, by all accounts, and the elder, the marquis, he runs the estates. Mad keen on aggericultoor and hunting and fishing and all that. Them’s not going to come near the office.”

  The crowded chophouse had seemed a warm, romantic place, with its shining oak and brass rails and warm smells of food and beer, only a moment before. Now, to Polly, it seemed nothing more than a dingy, greasy tavern.

  She had entered like a princess. Now, she left, very much like Miss Polly Marsh, stenographer—wages, ten shillings a week.

  The March wind whipped along the City streets, carrying on its wings a faint balmy suggestion of daffodils on lawns and crocuses in hedgerows, and pale-yellow sunlight gilded the dome of St. Paul’s and glistened on the bobbing sea of tall hats as the City returned to its afternoon’s work. Polly plunged into the gloom of the office, feeling as if she had left the whole of the world behind.

  She finished the rest of the letters quickly and took them in to Mr. Baines to sign. The fact that he seemed startled at her speed and accuracy and that he actually smiled at her did nothing to lift the gloom from Polly’s heart. How on earth was she ever going to find her rightful niche in society now?

  Mr. Baines gave her an enormous pile of invoicing as if to prove that no matter how quick she was, work at Westerman’s was never done. As she turned around to leave, he called her back into his large, musty office, which was off the clerks’ room.

  “Oh, Miss… ah… I have already informed some of the staff of the honor that has been conferred on us. His Grace, the Duke of Westerman, has suggested that the annual staff picnic—that is usually held on the first of June—take place on the grounds of his ancestral home, Bevington Chase. Us gentlemen of the staff are allowed to bring our wives. The bachelors, like Mister Friend, can bring a lady of their choice. No mention, however, has been made of any lady in the firm bringing a gentleman…”

  “Oh, that’s all right, Mister Baines,” said Polly, her eyes shining like stars.

  “Very well, Miss… ah… you may go.”

  Polly’s feet barely seemed to touch the floor on her way back to her cubicle.

  It was nearly the end of March—two whole months to go. She found she had neatly typed, “To one consignment of Dukes,” and tore up the invoice and concentrated on her work. It would never do to lose her job before the picnic.

  Back in Stone Lane that evening Polly’s great news was received with infuriating calm. “I’m trying to finish this story,” said Joyce, clutching a tattered edition of Young England. “This ’ere cavaleer is trying for to get away from them roun’eads. Leave me alone, Pol.”

  “Sit yourself down, luv,” said Mrs. Marsh. “I’ve got some nice pigs’ trotters saved for you. I’ll ’ear all about your dukes when you’ve eaten.”

  Polly sighed. Would her family never appreciate the aristocrat in their midst? But Mrs. Marsh was waiting with her plump red arms folded until Polly finished the last of her meal. “The bread queues are getting wurst,” she said, shaking her frizzled hair. “If some of them poor souls could see you, Pol, a-picking at your food. Well, I dunno wot they would say.”

  “Yerse. Eat up,” admonished her father, “or I’ll tear yer ’ead off.”

  “Now,” said Mrs. Marsh, sitting down beside Polly. “Wot’s it all about?”

  Trembling with excitement, Polly told her about the picnic, the stately home, the invitation, and the date. “Oh, Ma! Could I… could I have a tea gown to wear?”

  Mrs. Marsh narrowed her small eyes thoughtfully. They had once been as large and as blue as Polly’s but rosy pads of fat had diminished their size and hours of needlework had faded their color.

  Perhaps in a more genteel working-class environment Polly’s suggestion would have been greeted with horror. After all, she had two good dresses for winter and two for summer, not to mention the latest in long corsets. What girl could ask for more?

  But among the traders of Stone Lane Market there was a good bit of the theater. When they emerged from their dark, cluttered shops on Sunday to sell their wares at the stalls outside, they competed for customers as hard as any circus barker. Everyone in Stone Lane knew that it was always possible to find what you wanted if you gave it a bit of time.

  “Let me see,” said Mrs. Marsh. “I’ve got it! Lil’s stepsister, Edie, ’er wot ’as arthuritis, used to be a theater dresser. Went with the road production of Lady Something-or-Other’s Fanny.”

  “Lady Windermere’s Fan,” corrected Polly faintly.

  “Anyway,” pursued Mrs. Marsh, “Edie kept some of them there costumes for sentimental reasons, like, yer see. I’ll ask ’er termorrer if ’er still ’as that lacy thing from Act Two, she said it were.”

  “But a stage costume!” protested Polly.

  “Oh, it’ll be same as the real thing. It waren’t the Hippodrome yer know. Edie did luvly work afore her arthuritis got ’er.”

  Gran surfaced from her cup of tea to say hoarsely, “Don’t you go dressin’ above your station, Pol. They’ll think you’re a tart, that’s wot.”

  “No they won’t,” snapped Polly. “No one knows I come from…” Her voice faltered.

  “No one knows yer comes from a dump like this,” her mother finished for her, with unimpaired good humor. “But ’ave a care, my girl. Gran’s right. Go careful.”

  “Of course,” said Polly, practicing a haughty stare.

  “What’s ’appened to your face?” asked Joyce, looking over the top of Young England.

  “It’s them pigs’ trotters,” said Alf Marsh. “I’ve bin belchin’ and fartin’ like a locomotive.”

  Polly rose from the table defeated. She would practice her haughty stare on young Mr. Friend in the morning.

  CHAPTER THREE

  No matter how much Polly fretted, the months of April and May seemed to crawl along as they had never done before. The days grew longer and longer and the asthmatic old clock on the wall of Westerman’s office hiccuped and coughed and wheezed, reluctantly surrendering each minute up as if to belie the TEMPUS FUGIT written on its yellow face.

  At last the glorious day of the first of June arrived. It was a Saturday, of course, since frivolities such as staff outings were not allowed to take place during business hours.

  Bevington Chase lay ten miles outside Chelmsford in Essex. The office party was to take a special train to Chelmsford and then proceed by charabanc to the duke’s home. Polly had other travel plans. She meant to make a grand entrance. She had lied to Mr. Baines, telling him that she would be spending the night with an aunt in Chelmsford and that she would make her own way to the party.

  Polly had then traveled to Chelmsford on the Saturday before the picnic to arrange the hire of a smart brougham and pair to drive her in style to Bevington Chase. It had taken a
ll her savings but she felt it was well and truly worth it.

  In her mind’s eye Lord Peter would rush forward to assist her from the carriage, his eyes gleaming with admiration.

  Saturday morning dawned sparkling and sunny. Polly carefully dressed herself in Lady Windermere’s tea gown (Act Two). It was a beautiful thing made of cobweb-fine blond lace over a rose silk underdress and—miracle of miracles—Lil’s stepsister, Edie, had produced a long pair of elbow-length pink kid gloves to go with it. Polly dressed her blond curls low on her brow in the current fashion and then placed an enormous hat of swathes of pink tulle on top. Her family had presented her with a pink lace parasol with an ivory handle, bought for surprisingly little money from Alf’s second cousin, who was in the rag-and-bone business, and who had collected it from a dustbin up in the West End. It had obviously been thrown away because it wouldn’t open, but a few delicate touches from old Solly, the clock repairer on the corner of Stone Lane, had made it as good as new.

  Her pink kid reticule had been lent for the day by Mrs. Battersby in the tenement next door, who worked fourteen hours a day to make leather goods for the West End stores. And Bernie’s fat, cheerful wife, Liz, who worked day and night behind the frier in the fish-and-chip shop, had lent a string of cultured pearls.

  Feeling very strange and quite unlike herself, Polly descended the narrow stairs to the kitchen, where her family were assembled to see her on her way. “Pwitty,” screamed little Alf, trying to grab her dress with jammy fingers and being seized in time by Joyce. Gran and Mrs. Marsh stared at her, their eyes filling with sentimental tears and even Alf Marsh cleared his throat. He was sweating in all the misery of his black Sunday suit and hard bowler hat, for he was to take Polly in a hansom to the railroad station.

  “Come along, girl,” said Mr. Marsh, holding out his arm. “Cor, it feels like I was father of the bride!”

  They made their way downstairs and out into Stone Lane, where all the friends and neighbors had gathered. They sent up a resounding cheer as Polly appeared on the arm of her father. And Polly, who had meant to be very grande dame indeed, felt her eyes filling with grateful tears, and smiled and thanked them all instead.