The Typewriter Girl Read online

  Betsey nodded once. “I see.” She offered a closed-lip smile, a slow blink. She witnessed the shift, when some of the marbles came rolling her way. “Mr. Wofford, you are . . . entirely correct.”

  And her breasts were far from ample, but with the proper posture, she could endow them with a certain significance. She did so now, an efficient way of holding Mr. Wofford’s attention as she moved to the doorway and, with an efficient, concentrated motion, kicked the door to its frame, an efficient and concentrated way of telling a bastard to go to hell, especially when the bastard’s fingers were still curled round the door.

  And then she concentrated on the most efficient exit from Baumston & Smythe, Insurers.

  OBSERVE THE BELL.

  The bell rings to warn the writer that he is approaching the end of the line.

  —How to Become Expert in Type-writing

  She had four shillings in her boot, stashed there the previous payday until she could earn five more to purchase rail fare to Idensea. Above all, there must be the rail fare, Betsey had thought, and so she had done without the meat the shillings would have bought. She’d been comforted by the coins’ hard presence in her shoe the past few days, but now, having fled the City and made the long walk to her sister Caroline’s house in Brixton, they had begun to torture the ball of her foot. Single fares to Idensea cost nine shillings, not four.

  Reaching Caroline’s door, she turned the bell and sank down, unable to wait a moment longer to loosen her laces and make adjustments. She cursed softly upon finding the ill-fitting boot had rubbed a hole in her stocking.

  “Elisabeth! Come in, for pity’s sake! I’d thought you were coming Sunday!”

  Betsey worked her foot back into her boot, not quite ready to look up at her sister. “A change to my plans. I shall leave tomorrow instead of next week, so I’ve come to say good-bye.”

  “But why? I thought your notice . . .”

  Betsey stood, managing a blithe smile. Caroline noticed nothing but Betsey’s hair, however.

  “You’ve got a fringe! And—is your hair cut? Elisabeth!”

  Caroline lifted her hand to test the length of Betsey’s hair between two fingers. Betsey intercepted the gesture, tucking up into her hat the strands of hair that had fallen during the walk from the wigmaker’s to Caroline’s house. The strands promptly slipped down again, and she hooked them behind her ear. Ah, God, she would have to buy more hairpins to have any hope of keeping it up. The back almost grazed her shoulders, but the front was shorter, owing to the way the wigmaker’s apprentice had bound her hair before sawing through it with scissors Betsey suspected were less sharp than they ought be. The fringe across her forehead had been the lad’s conciliatory gesture.

  “Why?” Caroline wanted to know. “All these years letting it grow again, how could you bear it?”

  Her sister regarded her with great compassion, as though Betsey had been forced to sell her child rather than her hair. It had felt like that the first time, back in Manchester when she’d been but seventeen, with nowhere to go, no idea where the next coins would come once those she’d got for her hair were spent.

  This afternoon, however, Betsey had sat on the wigmaker’s stool and wished there were some magic potion to drink, some oil or cream to apply that would make her hair grow faster so she might sell it again. She’d wished for hair the color of corn silk, to fetch more coins. “Dull as mud!” the wigmaker had spat, and when he saw the length wasn’t what it ought be, he’d turned her over in disgust to his apprentice.

  “Needed money,” she told Caroline. “Why else?”

  “But your wages, you said—”

  “Got sacked today.”

  “No! Why? How could they? What about Richard?”

  As if her husband could have, would have helped. Obviously Richard had never told Caroline, as he had Betsey, that helping Betsey get the position was the extent of his participation in her career. She was to make nothing more of their connection, not even to do more than nod if they met each other at the front doors at the end of the workday.

  Richard would be furious when he heard of the spectacle she’d made this afternoon. Thus, she wanted to give her goodbyes to Caroline and the children before he came home. It was late already. She’d lost time at the wigmaker’s and in the walk to Caroline’s house, avoiding the need to turn over any of her few coins to the omnibus company. Richard, she knew, divided his journey from work to home, walking part of the way and then catching the omnibus. No doubt he possessed some formula to calculate the most economical division between the costs of bus fare and shoe leather.

  With some vague reassurance to Caroline, Betsey went inside, calling for her niece and two nephews and finding them at games in the back garden. She had sweets for them, not the sugar mice or toffee she’d wanted to bring, only peppermint sticks, and even the penny she’d handed over for those was more than she should spare.

  Still, lowly peppermint made the children’s eyes grow wide and solemn with wonder. Dick and Emma, the eldest two, cradled theirs in their hands for a moment, then snapped them and held out halves for their mother to store away. Four-year-old Francis watched them, red stripes melting into his fist.

  “No,” Betsey protested. “I mean for you to have it all, right now. A treat, you see. You don’t have to put it away.”

  Dick and Emma regarded their aunt as though she’d told them Jesus was a fiction. They looked at their mother: Would she confirm this heresy?

  Caroline was uneasy with the burden of such a decision, but with a nod, she told them, “I suppose, since Papa isn’t here . . . if you wish . . .”

  But the training ran deep. The halves were relinquished, and as Caroline put them in her apron pocket, Emma wrenched at Francis’s fist, warning, “You’ll be sorry if you don’t. Me and Dick’ll have some when you don’t, and you’ll be sorry then.”

  Francis butted his forehead into his sister’s chin and fell back on his bum as she let him go. They both went to tears, Emma for her stinging chin, Francis for his sweet, broken upon the brick pathway where he had fallen.

  As Betsey brushed off the peppermint and set about trying to convince Francis it would taste just the same, broken or not, Caroline suddenly straightened from Emma’s side. “I hear Richard coming in, I think,” she murmured, and rushed back inside.

  Betsey looked toward the door at the far wall of the garden. Even if she might have seriously considered it as an escape, there was not enough time. Richard’s children were weepy and sticky, and she was in the midst of it.

  “They’re looking for you,” he said to her after he’d directed the children into the house.

  Behind him in the narrow doorway, her head not quite clearing Richard’s shoulder, Caroline asked, “Who? Who is looking for her?”

  “Some of the Baumston and Smythe managers. Has she told you what she’s done?” When Caroline didn’t answer, and Betsey offered no confession, he continued. “She broke a man’s fingers today in her temper.”

  She’d broken Wofford’s fingers? No wonder he’d howled like a lost child.

  “I was not in a temper,” she corrected, because truly, it wouldn’t do to smile just now, Richard’s censuring brow directed at her, Caroline peeping over his shoulder with dismay.

  But dear Caro. What she said was “Elisabeth, what had he done to you? Are you all right?”

  Richard swung round to her so fast she fell back a step. “He caught her at theft and forgery, Caroline! And after she’d assaulted him and run away, it’s me Mr. Hutchens seeks out to find where she lives.” To Betsey, he said, “You might have gotten me dismissed. To be sure, I’ll be a laughingstock at best and suspect at worst, now that everyone knows I’ve the misfortune to be related to you by marriage.”

  “Richard, I am sorry—I would never want to cause you—”

  “What did you tell them?” Caroline interrupted to ask Richard. “When they asked where Elisabeth lived, what did you say?”

  Richard cast unwilling
looks at Betsey and then his wife. “What do I know of where she lives? I told them it was likely some jerry-built hovel somewhere in the East End, where neither I nor my wife were wont to be found.”

  “’Tis not a hovel,” Betsey said softly.

  “Do you think someone will come to see if she’s here?” Caroline asked.

  “Don’t you imagine it’s quite possible?”

  A moment passed. Betsey tried to smile at her sister, to say, I suppose I’m off, then, but the words caught in her throat when she saw Caro’s eyes fill. Caroline pushed past her husband to catch Betsey’s wrist and draw her back inside the house.

  • • •

  Caroline gave Betsey hairpins for her falling hair; she gave her a length of twine because she knew Betsey’s ancient valise had a troublesome latch. She tried to press other things on Betsey as well: a tin of lavender-scented powder, a bottle of ink, a pair of stockings darned but once in one toe. Betsey promised she had no need of any of it, and Caroline led her to the kitchen and took the next day’s loaf from the bread box. She ignored Betsey’s protests and wrapped it into waxed paper.

  “And what will Richard say when you run out of flour too soon?” Betsey asked.

  “I shall remind my beloved we might have had to give you an entire plate, meat and all, had you been able to stay to dinner. He’ll feel fortunate it was only a bit of bread then.”

  Richard did not look as if he felt fortunate, however, and even less so when Caroline informed him he would see his sister-in-law to the omnibus and pay her fare, too. Caro’s voice sounded as soft and sweet as that lavender powder as she told him this, but her tone was this-is-how-it-will-be. Betsey loved that tone, so rarely used, yet employed on her behalf tonight, despite the fact that she wanted neither Richard’s escort nor his money.

  She told him so as they started down the lane, saying she would walk to her flat. He pointed out the failing twilight and the descending fog that would make the journey treacherous for a woman alone. She assured him she would be fine, shook her head at the coins he was counting out: “Consider it a payment toward what I owe you if you must, but I shall not be taking it.”

  He snatched out for her arm, jerking her to a halt. “You’ll take it. You’ll take it, and get yourself away from here safe enough, and keep your sister from that worry at least.” He smashed the pennies into her hand, pressed it closed, and then clamped his fingers so tightly over hers she felt a bit of sympathy for Mr. Wofford. “And as for what you owe, let’s leave off pretending about that.”

  Betsey held still, afraid a struggle would make him angrier. She had never liked him. He had helped her, loaned her money for her courses at the Institute and a new suit of clothes to wear to Baumston & Smythe, but the smallness of his spirit choked the gratitude she wanted to feel. Until now, though, she had never been afraid of him.

  So she held still and whispered, “I shall send portions of my wages from my new position, Richard. Twice a month. You know—”

  He shook the words from her mouth. “Never mind it! Here is how I want you to repay what you owe: Stay away. Go on wherever it is you’re going and don’t come back. Write Caroline now and again to save her from worry, but when you’ve made whatever wreck you’ll make of it, don’t bring it back to my family. I’ve had enough, do you hear?”

  Betsey nodded, but he held her until a carriage turned into the lane. Released, she walked beside him numbly to a street where the omnibus would pass, and they waited for it in silence. When it came, she dashed up the steps for a seat on the upper level, feeling she would need the air, and the perspective.

  The evening was cool, a good explanation for why she trembled the first few minutes of the journey. In the bus’s halting progress, fog-blurred streetlamps drew near and fell behind, drew near and fell behind, belying the noisy exertion of real life occurring below their dreamy haze. Her hand throbbed. Turnabout. She wondered at her mute submission to Richard. It was the fear, of course, and the fear because of the surprise—with some humor, she tried to convince herself the surprise came not from how he’d gripped her but from his forgiveness of her debt. It didn’t work.

  Did he honestly believe he could keep her from Caroline and the children? Why hadn’t she simply told him to go to hell?

  Because he was right?

  She pulled a bit of the waxed paper away from the bread Caroline had given her and stuck her nose near the loaf, a much nicer scent than the ones that grew stronger the closer the omnibus came to her stop. That she had made a—what had Richard said?—a wreck of things was unquestionable. That she would do so in Idensea—

  She had to believe the matter was not so cut-and-dry as Richard assumed.

  She knew Idensea was in Hampshire because Baumston & Smythe insured the Idensea Pier & Seaside Pleasure Building Company’s holdings, but she had never been there. Still, something about living beside the sea resonated within her: She had a remembrance of pinching sand from the damp hem of a faded blue frock, only to discover how it stuck to her little-girl fingers, and of her mother kicking salty water into the sunlight, telling her daughters—and son, for Daniel had still been with them then—to look and to look. And behind her mother, laughing, was a man Betsey had believed to be her father, at least until a few years ago, when she had tried to make Caroline remember Blackpool, and Caroline said no, no, it was impossible their father had been there on that occasion.

  Then who was he?

  I don’t know. Some stranger, just someone who caught your fancy, perhaps.

  Though the memory of her family all together had already been as frail and jumbled as a ball of dust, Betsey regretted this alteration to it.

  She didn’t know how she would get there, but she was going to Idensea, and was glad of it, glad to be leaving behind the filth and disappointment of London. She was to be a manager—that Mr. Jones used that term rather than manageress always made her smile—arranging day excursions for tourist groups, playing hostess to them when they came for their dinner dance at the new hotel, earning commission for every group she booked. Risky seasonal work, to be sure, but Mr. Jones had promised she would have office duties in the winter.

  Why had he offered her such a chance? She didn’t know. She didn’t know why he had followed her from that meeting where she had been summoned to take dictation. He’d asked if she liked being a type-writer, and, suspicious and irate, she had given him some pert response. Worse than pert. Fearful of the resulting assumptions if anyone saw them speaking, she’d intended to put him off entirely with that worse-than-pert response.

  But he kept following after her. He mentioned the wages, and it was then she stopped to truly look at him, and listen. Because the wages were good, and so was his face. A good face, open as a summer window.

  • • •

  No one had come looking for her tonight, her flatmate Grace assured her, nor had Avery shown his damn face about, a rather hostile response to Betsey’s casual question.

  How much effort would Baumston & Smythe put toward finding her? Had they notified the police? Betsey fretted over it, as well as the problems of rail fare and the confiscated letter—Bring a good character letter or two, for Mr. Seiler and Sir Alton, Mr. Jones had instructed—while she fed bites of bread to Grace’s little son, Sammy, and dropped crumbs into the bottom of the birdcage for Thief, her canary. Why didn’t she simply write it by hand herself, Grace wanted to know, or Avery, he was bound to have a right proper hand. But after today’s experience, Betsey had no more stomach for forgery.

  Avery didn’t come. It was not so unusual, even if this afternoon’s events made it seem so, and memories of how he’d simply faded from her life after she’d been expelled and he’d been reprimanded were unhelpful at present. She and Grace, who had already arranged for new lodgings, packed. Sammy made it a game, darting about the room and lugging anything he could carry to either Betsey or his mother. Most of his selections belonged to Avery. She hadn’t realized how many belongings Avery had, even after selling
most of his books and other valuables. Transporting it all to Idensea would be either pricey or awkward.

  Of her own things, however, all but her winter cloak fit into the valise, and a few hours later, neighbors had helped Grace and Sammy to their new flat and Betsey lay shivering in her own bed. Her first job in Manchester after being dismissed as a housemaid had been as a laundress, and she’d spent her nights on the floor in a back room with a dozen other women. How many times since then had she wished for her own private room? Yet tonight, she missed the whirring pulse of Grace’s rented sewing machine, and the flat seemed very quiet. So quiet she could hear the fragile steps at last approaching the door, the careful grind of the door latch.

  His clothes fanned scents into the room as he removed them, tobacco and ale and something else—smoky but more substantial, roasted—and she wondered why she’d not guessed, the theater. Avery had friends who had missed him when he’d dropped from their circle, and who, for the past month, had been happy enough to spot him an admission or a supper. They apparently were not the sort of friends to keep you from losing your best chance for a stable income in a card game, nor to care for you during an illness, but Betsey supposed those were rare enough amongst men.

  His hands smoothed along the empty space in the bed beside her, then patted more firmly, searching for the blanket, which he wouldn’t find because she’d already given it to Grace as a poor substitute for the money she’d wanted to leave. His fingertips brushed the wool of her cloak and paused, but didn’t grasp, didn’t pull.

  He eased into the bed, and after he had lain utterly still for a moment, Betsey rearranged her cloak so both of them had at least some cover. Mostly healed from pneumonia Avery might be, but the night was cool and he wasn’t wearing a stitch.