The Devotee

From the diary of Edith Fawcett:

Sat 2 September 1905

I awoke this morning at almost exactly a quarter to seven, and my first thoughts were of the appalling spectacle I had made of myself to Mr Squire, the previous night.

My second thought was an urgent desire to flee the scene.

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering when was the next train to St Pancras, and how I might explain my sudden return to my family.

I hadliterallyoffered my body to my employer, for the explicit purpose of anal fornication, under the delusion that it might help him to learn the pleasures of physical love, based on what I had wrongly thought was his frustrated sexual desire for a friend of his, some forty-five years earlier. The prospect of explaining all that to mamma and papa filled me with abject horror.

And then Mr Squire's words came back to me: how I must resist my own embarrassment, and re-assume my position as his amanuensis.

I had no way of knowing if that had been simply the port speaking, and/or the lateness of the hour, and/or his avuncular fondness for me, and/or his human sympathy for what a colossal ass I had made of myself. And/or something else.

Nonetheless, I prised myself out of bed; bathed in cold water, as penance for my lasciviousness; dressed, and went down to the breakfast room, to face my future.

The moment I entered the room, Mr Squire looked up from theTimes, and saw me, and his naturally sombre face relaxed into a smile.

'Dear girl,' he said. 'Tea or coffee?'

'Coffee, sir, thank you,' I said gratefully, and slid into my seat.

He reached for the coffee pot and poured some into my cup, and pushed the toast rack in my direction.

We are not quite as we were. And we probably never can be again.

But I silently blessed his almost superhuman good manners.

*

From the diary of Ida Plank:

Sat 2 September 1905

Well so far I dont think much of this volunteerin lark.

I thowt they took me on cos I cud do sums. But they dont even care. Not Dorothy, she is all right but the others.

We went there at two o clock. Dorothy took me to a table with these women at it, an sez, Ida you are to help our clerrickle assistance, this is Miss Whitworth, I ave been calld away but I will come back when it is time to go ome.

All right I sez an Dorothy goes off. I stand there an its like Im in vizzibul. They dont even look at me. Just go on doin sums.

Finally Miss Whitworth looks up an sez in this posh voice, What are you doing. She is young and qwite pretty in a sort of bad temperd way.

I sez, I ave been told to assist you. If theres anything I can do I am appy to elp.

She looks me for a mow ment an sez, Fetch us some tea.

Where wud I get tea from, I sez.

The kitchen of corse, she sez, and goes back to work.

So I lookd round for a kitchen and there werent no sign so I went outside into the hall and walkd up and down but no joy. So I asks some one an they tell me its down stairs.

So I go down stairs and find a kitchen but theres ardly any one in it cos its near three o clock and lunch is over.

I stand there thinkin and this cook sez, What you want.

I sez, Miss Whitworth askd me to fetch some tea.

Out of tea, the cook sez.

Wot am I sposed to do then, I sez.

Go back an tell her were out of tea.

So I went back up stairs.

Miss Whitworth look up.

Where is the tea I told you to fetch.

Kitchens out, I sez.

She just shook her head and snorted. Useless, she sez, alf to erself but loud enuff sos I cud ear.

So I stood there waitin to be asked to do somethin but they just kept sittin at their table doin sums.

After abowt two hours they all stop and gather up the papers there workin on and put em in these cardboard foldin things and give em to Miss Whitworth an she ties em up with string and goes off.

Im still standin there about as much use as a choclat fireplace.

Then Dorothy comes back all chearful and sez, Ow did you get on.

I sez, Not very well, they didn't give me nothin to do.

Oh, she sez. Well never mind, maybe there will be more to do on Monday.

We went ome to er place.

I dont like this. Livin on Dorothys charity and nothin to do. If it werent for Dorothy bein so nice this wud be as bad as workin for the Fs.

I feel useless. I am rite brownd off.

I shall write to EF.

Ida Plank to Edith Fawcett

Sat 2 September 1905

Dear Miss Fawcett,

I have left off working for the Freeholds and am now trying to be useful. I have a friend who got me some work as a volunteer at the London School of Economics but it is very boring.

Any way if you want to know where I am and I dont suppose you do want to know it but any way now you do know.

Yours,

Ida Plank

*

From the diary of Edith Fawcett:

Tuesday 5 September 1905

A very brief and glum letter from Ida, who sounds as though she is more sorry for herself than angry with me.

However, it got to me just in time, as we are this afternoon going to London!

Mr Squire has some business with his publisher, and a dinner to attend. I, for my part, am going to attempt to patch things up with Ida, although I have small hope of doing so.

In my current mood of abject humility, I am prepared to accept whatever reproaches she cares to throw my way. She can call me any name she wants, if it will make her feel better.

Wednesday 6 September 1905

Mr Squire's rooms in Vesey Gardens are terribly nice, and I have a charming little back bedroom to myself which is very cosy.

He is in excellent form, and my idiotic behaviour on Friday night is apparently forgiven and forgotten. I told him that I planned to try to determine, for once and for all time, whether or not Ida sold the book. He approved of this plan, as I think he would like to think well of her.

Accordingly, he went to lunch with his publisher. I went to the L.S.E., where Ida is now apparently volunteering. It is a splendid building, and I felt quite bucked up to be in this new and forward-thinking institution.

I was only slightly thrown by the fact that it is of considerable size, and so, I had no idea how to find her.

I puzzled in the hallway for some moments, and then a flat and oddly familiar voice behind me said, 'Can I 'elp you, miss.'

I turned, and beheld a formidable, black-haired, I want to say 'strapping' young woman, tightly packed into a cheap jacket and skirt, with a deep frown on her face, wearing thick glasses, and staring through them at me with piercing intensity.

The instant she saw my face, she started, and added, 'Oh, bloody 'ell.' And then coloured slightly and added, in an undertone, 'Sorry.'

'Ida,' I said in amazement.

For it was her.

I have not seen her since July, and she isquitetransformed.

'Miss Fawcett,' she said, with the same flat tone. ''Ow may I 'elp you.'

'Um, Miss Plank,' I said, deciding to take my tone from her. 'It's very nice to see you. How you have changed.'

She no longer hunches forward, but stands up very straight, and her new clothes reveal that she is considerably taller and broader of shoulder than I had initially realised; and her anxious squint has been replaced by the suspicious glare of someone who has finally seen the world's true countenance, and not been terribly impressed by it.

She has indeed unfolded, but not exactly into a flower; more some kind of young evergreen tree. It is as if Michelangelo's Erythrean Sibyl had been obliged to take secretarial work, and was not best pleased about it.

She gave the minutest shrug.

'You too,' she said. 'You cut your 'air.'

'Yes.'

'It looks awful.'

'I know.'

'I mean, it's dreadful.'

'I know! I don't know why I did it, but I did it.'

'Well, anyway, I volunteer 'ere,' she said.

'I know. I received your letter this morning. What do you do, exactly?'

She sighed.

'They asked me if I could do sums, and I showed 'em I could, and then they put me to work with the clerical assistants, but they didn't give me nuffin' to do, so now they've told me to stand out 'ere and ask people if I can 'elp 'em.'

I was startled. If there is one person I can think of who is least qualified to be the receptionist at such an august institution, it is Ida Plank.

Not only because, having been there for only a few days, she can have very little knowledge of where or who anyone and anything is in that place, but also because, having lost her earlier, rather appealing diffidence, she has now all the winsome girlish charm of a senior officer in the Prussian General Staff.

'Have you been able to help anyone?' I said.

'No,' she said gloomily. 'I think they only asked me to do it 'cos they wanted to laugh at me.'

'Are you good at sums?' I said. 'I had no idea.'

'I'm not terrible. They asked me what fourteen times twelve was and I told 'em.'

'A hundred and sixty eight,' I said. 'Although it's just twelve twelves, plus twenty-four.'

'That's what I said. But now I 'ave Miss Whitworf over me and she don't take me seriously.'

'Well, it is not as if you were asked to add up all the numbers between one and a hundred,' I joked. 'Anyway, I came to see you.'

Ida was staring off into space, her lips moving silently. Then, after a moment, as if my words had intruded on her consciousness, she looked at me sharply.

'Wot?'

'I came to see you,' I said. 'The business with the book. I believe you. A friend of Mr Squire's found the book in a bookshop.'

'Oh,' she said.

'He asked them who sold it to them, and they said it was a young woman, who gave her name as Ida Plank.'

Ida looked at me steadily and gave no reaction.

'So,' I said, feeling rather desperate to keep the conversation going, 'if you like the idea, I thought you and I might go to the shop ourselves, and ask them if they remember you.'

She continued to look at me with the same hostile stare she had had when she first identified me.

'And if I say no, that means I did it,' she said.

'I told you, Miss Plank,' I said, 'I believe you. But I want it from their mouths that you did not sell the book.'

'And then what,' she said. 'I get the book back?'

'Well, at least your name is cleared.'

'I don't want it anyway,' she said. 'I've gone off Tennyson.'

'Oh?'

She nodded, and I detected the faintest hint of a crack in her manner, as if she would have liked to give a small smile, but was bound by the honour code of her duelling fraternity to not do so.

'I've finally browned,' she said, and she took from her jacket pocket a clearly quite new but already dog-eared edition of Browning'sMen and Women.

I smiled.

'Do you like it?'

'It's all right.'

'Do you want to come to the shop with me, then, to clear your name?'

'All right then.'

'When will you be free?'

'I reckon I could walk out of 'ere an' they wouldn't notice I'm gone,' she said, looking up at the high walls and ceiling. 'But, come back at one. That's lunchtime. Is it far to the shop.'

'No.'

'Good. All right then.'

'All right, Miss Plank. I shall return in twenty minutes.'

She nodded. We stood there for a moment in silence, I hesitant, she patiently looking at me.

'Oh,' she said abruptly, as if remembering something she had forgotten to say. 'Five thousand an' fifty.'

'... What?' I said, baffled.

'It's what you get when you add up all the numbers between one and a 'undred.'

I stopped being baffled, and became stunned.

'How did you know that?'

'I worked it out,' she said with a kind of puzzled annoyance.

'How?'

She stared at me and shrugged silently.

'See you later,' she said, and walked away.

Dear diary, I spent the next twenty minutes in a ferment of confusion.

I walked around the streets surrounding the L.S.E., trying to make sense of my recent conversation. I retained sufficient presence of mind to buy us each a pastie and a bottle of lemonade, to consume on our journey.

When I returned, Ida was standing outside, with the same dour and hostile expression, except that she was wearing a small hat.

''Lo,' she said. 'Shall we go, then.'

'Yes,' I said. We set off towards Charing Cross Road.

I was about to ask her what was uppermost in my mind, when she spoke first.

'So,' she said, 'you been off fornicatin', like you was before.'

I looked at her. She was not looking at me, but walking steadily, her back straight and her chin held up.

'Would you even want to know, if I had been,' I said.

'No,' she said. 'Not really.'

'Then perhaps that part of my life should be my business,' I said.

'P'raps if you'd let it be your business all along,' she said, 'we wouldn't 'ave 'ad no painfulness like we 'ave 'ad.'

'I know I caused you great pain,' I said. 'And I can only say that I am deeply sorry, and that I wish that I had not.'

She was silent for a moment.

'I don't mind what you do,' she said, staring ahead as she strode along. 'I can't 'ardly moan about what you get up to wiv people. Your life. Not like I aven't mucked about a bit.'

I said nothing.

'It was 'ow you told me about it,' she said, almost looking at me, and with the first hint of feeling. 'Like I was just a 'ole in the wall. Like you didn't even care what I would think.'

'I know,' I said miserably. 'I am sorry.'

'I'm sure you are,' she said. 'It's just, when I first saw you...'

She finally looked at me, briefly, then looked forward again, as if looking at me for too long might weaken her will.

'I 'ad never felt about anyone, 'ow I felt about you, that day,' she said, controlling herself with a visible effort. 'It's not your fault. We was in the 'all of Mister Squire's 'ouse, and you said somethin', and you turned an' looked at 'im, and you smiled, and I felt like I saw the 'ole world in you, and I fell in, and I will never get out. Because you meant the world to me.'

I listened, my chest tight, my heart full.

Meant. The past tense.

'But then,' she said, 'the more you talked to me, the more I realised I'm like your pet. Little Ida, 'oo you can be nice to when it suits you. 'Cos that's 'ow it is. You're a lady an' I'm a maid. Or, I was one.'

We walked on in silence for a while, through the London crowd. I realised that we were not going to have a companionable lunch, after all.

'An' it was stupid, anyway,' she said with bitterness, still not looking at me but staring ahead. 'You see someone you don't know an' you fink you're in love with 'em. That's not love. That's just bein' an idiot. You can only love someone when you know 'em, and I 'ardly know you.'

'And yet,' I said, 'I cannot get you out of my mind.'

'Why not,' she said, still staring forward. 'Guilt?'

'No,' I said, 'not guilt.'

'What, then?'

She turned and gave me a long, searching look. Once again, I felt as if I were five years younger than her. I felt helpless.

'I simply cannot,' I said. 'You are there. You will not leave me alone.'

'That why you did all that fornicatin',' she said. 'To "get over" me.'

'One thing I have learned, this summer,' I said, 'is that I have no notion why I do some of the stupid things I do.'

We walked a little further in silence.

'I don't know how to make you feel like I deserve you,' I said.

'If I was you,' she said coldly, 'I wouldn't try tomakeme do anythin', Miss Fawcett. I don't like it when people try to make me do things.'

'Miss Plank,' I said, feeling nettled, 'did you or did you not sell the book that Mr Squire gave to you.'

'I did not,' she said.

'On your word of honour.'

'On my word of honour, Miss Fawcett,' she said, tight-lipped, 'I did not steal it, an' I think it very strange that you should press me on this, after what we 'ave been talkin' about.'

She gave me a look. It said,Do not make me angry.

We continued in silence. At last, we reached the shop.

'This is it,' I said.

Ida looked at it.

'Wait,' I said. 'When did you get your glasses?'

'Last week,' she said. 'Why?'

'Because Mr Scope bought the book in early July,' I said. 'Take them off.'

She considered this, then nodded, took the glasses off, extracted a small case from her pocket and stowed them away. We went in.

I indicated to Ida that she should follow closely behind me, and I adopted the mask of imperious authority that had served me exceptionally well as captain of the C.L.C. hockey team.

I went straight to the cashier.

'Hello,' I said.

'Miss,' he replied, barely registering my presence. He was a rather pallid exhibit, with a crown of white hair that looked as if it were evaporating from his head.

'My name is Edith Fawcett,' I said. 'I am the secretary to Mr Lionel Squire.'

That got his attention. I proffered Mr Squire's business card.

'A copy of Tennyson'sIdyllswas sold to this shop in late June or early July,' I said. 'It was inscribed to Mr Squire by the author. It was subsequently found and bought by Mr Gilbert Scope. Do you have any record of this?'

'Yes,' he said. 'I took the purchase myself.'

'Do you recall anything about the person who sold it?'

'Little.'

'Did he or she give a name, or an occupation?'

'She said she was a housemaid, and gave her name as Ida Plank,' he said. 'I remembered the name, because it amused me. I did not feel it my business to enquire further. We gave her a good price for it.'

'This is not about the price, sir,' I said, and I turned to Ida, who rather reluctantly came forward.

'Was this her?' I asked.

He looked at her for a moment.

'I'm afraid that all housemaids look the same to me, young lady,' he said.

'This is Ida Plank, sir,' I said. 'Can you be sure that she sold you the book?'

'If you say she is,' he said, 'I am sure that she is.'

I glanced at Ida, who was now glaring at me.

'So you would be willing to say that she is the one who sold that book?'

'It seems to me as likely as any other scenario,' he said, and went back to inspecting his receipts.

I could tell, without looking at her, that Ida was by now fuming. I could not blame her. The man's obtuseness was as dense as my mother's fruitcake.

And then I had an idea.

'Sir,' I said, 'could you show me the date in your ledger, when you bought the book?'

'Why, yes,' he said, and picked up a different ledger and leafed backwards through it.

'There you are,' he said, and handed it to me. '30 June. Two pounds. Ida Plank.'

I turned to Ida.

'Ida,' I said, 'can you confirm that that is what it says here?'

She started to open her mouth to object, and I minutely shook my head no, and handed her the book.

She held it close to her face and peered at it.

'Wait,' said the cashier, frowning. 'The girl that sold the book had no difficulty reading the receipt I gave her to sign.'

'Are you sure, sir?'

'Yes,' he said. He reached down and picked a pair of glasses off his desk, and put them on, and stared hard at Ida.

'And in fact,' he said, 'she had smaller hands, and was shorter, and altogether comelier, in every respect.'

'So,' I said, 'you would confirm that the girl before you isnot, in fact, the girl that sold you Mr Squire's copy of theIdylls?'

'Oh, certainly, she is not,' he said firmly. 'No, this girl is far less prepossessing. I'm afraid you are quite mistaken.'

I decided it was not worth trying to explain what I was doing. His affirmation that Ida had not been the seller was quite sufficient.

'Thank you, sir,' I said, taking the ledger from Ida and handing it back. 'You have been most helpful.'

I steered Ida out of the shop and turned to her.

'Well,' I said, 'we have confirmation.'

'Mmm,' she said, and round she threw her baleful eye. She took out her glasses and put them on again.