A Dream Came True

‘There’s a young lady,’ she began, and encouraged by his grunt: ‘Her name is Gloria…’

‘Tell her to go away—I shan’t be ready for hours yet. How’s that typing going?’

He looked up and his eyes narrowed as he caught sight of the papers.

‘Well,’ said Jemima, reasonably, ‘not very well, I’m afraid. You see, I can’t type…’

‘Then why the hell are you here?’ He flung a hand on to the desk so violently that most of the papers there flew on to the floor. ‘Now look what you’ve done!’ he declared furiously.

‘Not me—you,’ Jemima corrected him calmly. ‘If you wouldn’t get so cross I could explain.’

‘I am not cross. Well?’

She explained with commendable brevity while he sat glowering at her. ‘So,’ she concluded matter-of-factly, ‘if you would tell me where I ought to be…it does give this address, you know.’

He frowned at her. ‘Sit down, wait here,’ he told her, and went out. She could hear his voice rumbling on about something or other and Gloria’s rather shrill tones interrupting. Presently a door banged and he came back.

‘You appear to be the only applicant for the post,’ he said without preamble, ‘but I don’t imagine you will get it. The lady in question is difficult to please; I don’t think you are suitable.’ His cold eyes studied her leisurely and she said tartly:

‘Don’t stare, it’s rude, and what has it got to do with you, anyway?’

Just for a moment the grey eyes warmed with amusement. ‘Er—nothing. I merely suggest that you might not be able to cope—a companion’s life isn’t all roses.’

‘I didn’t expect it to be. And now perhaps you will be good enough to tell me where I should go?’

‘Perhaps I am mistaken—appearances are so deceptive. Take a taxi to this address’—he was scribbling on a pad as he spoke. ‘It’s close to Harrods—you will of course be reimbursed for any expenses.’

Jemima stood up, took the paper he was offering her, wished him good afternoon, and went to the door. He hadn’t answered her, hadn’t looked up even. She said as she opened the door, ‘You’ll have to do your own typing, won’t you?’

Sitting in the taxi she was filled with remorse and shame; to have been so rude, and such a waste too—a complete stranger she would never see again, but it was no good brooding about it, she still had to get the job. ‘Not suitable, indeed!’ she muttered, and when the taxi stopped in a quiet street in Knightsbridge, she had got out, paid her fare, added a tip and mounted the steps to the front door of the tall narrow house, thumped the door with the heavy brass knocker, and when it was opened, trod firmly through it.

The man she had given her name to was short and stout and puffed a good deal. He said civilly: ‘If you would come this way, miss,’ and led her across a high-ceilinged hall to a small room, where he begged her to sit down and then shut the door firmly upon her. It was a pleasant place, nicely warm and well furnished, and she sat back comfortably and thought longingly of her tea—perhaps she would be offered a cup? If not she could stop on her way to the station. Her musings were interrupted by the stout man, who appeared silently and asked her to follow him, this time up the curved staircase and on to a broad landing with a number of doors.

He opened one of these and ushered her inside. ‘Miss Mason, my lady,’ he intoned, and shut the door behind her.

‘Well, come in, come in,’ said an impatient voice from the other end of a large lofty room, and Jemima advanced across the beeswaxed floor, over a beautiful Indian carpet, avoiding chairs, little tables and enormous sofas, until she reached the wing chair by the window where an old lady was sitting.

‘Stand there,’ she commanded, ‘where I can see you—I can’t say you’re much to look at.’

To which Jemima made no answer; she could have agreed, of course, but she saw no reason to do so. The old lady went on: ‘I am Lady Manderly. I suppose you are applying for the post of companion?’

‘Yes, I am.’ Jemima wasn’t sure whether she should say my lady or Lady Manderly, so she chose Lady Manderly, then stood quietly, taking a good look at her companion. Lady Manderly was an imposing figure, even though an outsize one, with a formidable bosom encased in a beautifully tailored grey wool dress in the style made fashionable by Queen Mary. Her iron-grey hair was dressed in a fashion which Jemima decided was vaguely Edwardian, and she wore a magnificent choker of jet beads and gold, supporting a series of quivering chins. From somewhere about her person she produced a lorgnette and studied Jemima at length and in silence.

Jemima bore the scrutiny with calm for a minute or so and then said kindly: ‘You would be much more comfortable with glasses, Lady Manderly.’

The lorgnette was lowered and two hard grey eyes glared at her. They reminded her forcibly of the man who had interviewed her earlier with such abruptness.

Somewhere under that Gorgon front, thought Jemima, there must be a nice old lady lurking. Apparently not. ‘I will not tolerate impertinence,’ declared Lady Manderly.

‘I wasn’t being impertinent, Lady Manderly. An aunt of mine always used a lorgnette until she was persuaded to change to ordinary glasses; she found them a great deal better than forever fidgeting with a lorgnette.’

‘I do not fidget,’ observed Lady Manderly awfully. ‘What experience have you had?’

‘Well, actually none at all, but I can read aloud, and play most card games and answer the telephone sensibly, and write letters. I’m very strong too.’ Jemima frowned a little. ‘Oh, and I can drive a car and run a house economically. My mother became ill after my father died, so I saw to everything…’

‘I have a housekeeper, a butler and a number of servants, Miss—er—Mason. I am, I consider, a considerate and generous employer. You are not quite the type I would have wished for, but since no one else has applied, I will offer you the post on a month’s approval. You will live out; I can’t have the servants running round after you morning and evening—and I will give you forty pounds a week wages.’

Jemima said gently: ‘I should have been glad to accept, Lady Manderly, but if I have to live out I can’t possibly live on that amount. Clothes and shoes and things,’ she added matter-of-factly. ‘I won’t take up any more of your time. Good afternoon, Lady Manderly.’

She started for the door, indeed she had a hand on the door handle when Lady Manderly spoke. ‘I will give you fifty pounds a week, Miss Mason—that is a generous offer. You will come here each morning from nine o’clock and remain until six o’clock in the evening. You will, of course, have your lunch here and your tea. I shall not require you on Sundays.’

‘I should need a half day each week—shopping for food and seeing my friends.’

Lady Manderly sighed so deeply that Jemima expected to see the seams of her dress give way. ‘You are like all modern young women, selfish and indifferent to the comfort of others. You may have a half day each week. Be good enough to start your duties on Monday next. You have references?’

Jemima handed over the names and addresses of some elderly friends of her parents.

‘If they are not satisfactory I will let you know. Be good enough to give your address to my butler as you go out.’ Lady Manderly nodded regally and Jemima, not in the least intimidated, whisked herself out of the room and down the stairs to encounter the butler in the hall.

He wrote down her address impassively and then puffed his way to the front door and held it open for her. ‘I trust we shall see you in due course, miss,’ he observed, and allowed his features to relax into the beginnings of a small smile.

‘Me too,’ said Jemima.

So far so good, she thought as she walked briskly towards the end of the square. Now to find somewhere to live; close by and cheap. The main road was bustling with people and traffic, another world to the peace and dignity which she had just left. There were shops here, mostly good class boutiques, high class grocers and the kind of greengrocer who sold out-of-season fruit and vegetables, but tucked in between them, her searching eye saw a stationers and post office. A likely place to enquire for rooms, she considered. She crossed the street and made her way there and since the shop was almost empty, she went inside.

A redhaired young woman behind the post office counter listened to her silently. ‘Well, I might know of something,’ she observed in a cheerful cockney voice, ‘and then again I might not.’ She eyed Jemima’s sober appearance. ‘What do you do?’

‘Well, I’ve just got a job as a daily companion. I’d only want a room and bed and breakfast.’

The girl chewed on a pencil. ‘There’s a room ’ere,’ she said at length. ‘Me mum lives over the shop and she likes a lodger.’ She opened the counter flap. ‘You’d better come up and see ’er.’

Mum was small and wiry and sharp-tongued, but her eyes were kind. ‘It ain’t much of a room,’ she said, but with no hint of apology, ‘but it’s clean and it’s got a gas fire and a ring for yer kettle, there’s a wash basin too, but yer’ll ’ave ter use the loo at the end of the passage.’

It was a dim little room with a view of chimney pots and a strip of sky, but the furniture wasn’t too bad; there was a small table under the window and a rather battered armchair, a wardrobe and bookshelves and a bed against one wall. With her own small possessions and an eiderdown and a few flowers, Jemima decided, it would do. And the rent was no more than she could afford to pay. Panic caught her by the throat when she remembered that she would be here for two years perhaps, but she made herself forget that. She said steadily: ‘It’s very nice, I should like to take it. You’d like some rent in advance, wouldn’t you—and references?’

‘I’ll have a week’s money, dear, but I know a lady when I see one—I don’t need no references.’ The girl added sharply: ‘Name’s Adams—Mrs Adams. Come into me sitting room and ’ave a cup of tea.’

Jemima drank dark sweet tea thankfully, it was just what she needed. She listened to Mrs Adams telling her about hot water for baths, what kind of breakfast she would get and how the gas fire was on its own meter and she’d have to pay for it separately. ‘And if you want ter cook yerself a snack I’ve no objection. Yer’ll get yer breakfast later on a Sunday, me and Shirley like a nice lie-in. Yer’ll eat in ’ere. If yer want the milkman or the baker, I’ll take in yer stuff. There’s a launderette down Smith Street, that’s first right when you go out of the shop.’ She gave Jemima a quick look. ‘Yer can do yer smalls in the bathroom, but don’t ’ang em there.’

Jemima promised that she wouldn’t, finished her tea, parted with a week’s rent and said goodbye. ‘If I could move in on Sunday evening?’ she asked. ‘I have to work from nine to six o’clock and I’d like to get settled in first.’

Mrs Adams nodded. ‘OK. Ring the shop door bell twice so that we know who it is.’

Jemima had to wait for a train; she sat on the station, impervious to the crowds of homegoing people milling around her, doing careful arithmetic on the back of an envelope. She would be able to manage nicely if she were careful; she had clothes enough, not very new, but they had been good when she had bought them, she would have to allow for tights and soap and writing paper and stamps and all the small things one overlooked normally, but she would have no fares and, with luck, a good lunch every day, she might even save a little money. She went on with her sums when she was in the train and by the time she reached the flat at Oxford, she was her usual calm cheerful self. After all, she had the job, she had somewhere to live and in two years’ time Dick would be back in England and they could set up house together and if, as he was bound to do, Dick married, she would learn typing and shorthand and become some powerful executive’s right hand secretary. It would be nice to marry, of course, but she didn’t dwell on that; she was after all turned twenty-six and no beauty.

Dick was home, deep in his books, which he had spread out all over the table. Jemima took off her jacket, piled them tidily and laid the table for their supper. She had been busy about this for a minute or two before he looked up to ask: ‘Well, did you get the job?’

‘Yes, and I think I’ll quite enjoy it too. I have to live out, but I’ve found a very nice bedsitter close by—it’s just behind Harrod’s—her name is Lady Manderly.’