Living Alone | Page 3

very carefully. "Frightfully
explosive," she said.
"I believe you're drunk," said Miss Ford, as she took the receipt. It
really was a War Loan receipt, and the name and address on it were:
"Miss Hazeline Snow, The Bindles, Pymley, Gloucestershire."
Lady Arabel smiled in a relieved way. She had not long been a social
worker, and had not yet acquired a taste for making fools of the

undeserving. "So this is your name and address," she said.
"No," said the Stranger simply.
"This is your name and address," said Lady Arabel more loudly.
"No," said the Stranger. "I made it up. Don't you think 'The Bindles,
Pymley,' is too darling?"
"Quite drunk," repeated Miss Ford. She had attended eight committee
meetings that week.
"S--s--s--sh, Meta," hissed Lady Arabel. She leaned forward, not
smiling, but pleasantly showing her teeth. "You gave a false name and
address. My dear, I wonder if I can guess why."
"I dare say you can," admitted the Stranger. "It's such fun, don't you
think, to get no thanks? Don't you sometimes amuse yourself by
sending postal orders to people whose addresses look pathetic in the
telephone book, or by forgetting to take away the parcels you have
bought in poor little shops? Or by standing and looking with
ostentatious respect at boy scouts on the march, always bearing in mind
that these, in their own eyes, are not little boys trotting behind a
disguised curate, but British Troops on the Move? Just two pleased
eyes in a crowd, just a hundred pounds dropped from heaven into poor
Mr. Bonar Law's wistful hand...."
Miss Ford began to laugh, a ladylike yet nasty laugh. "You amuse me,"
she said, but not in the kind of way that would make anybody wish to
amuse her often.
Miss Ford was the ideal member of committee, and a committee, of
course, exists for the purpose of damping enthusiasms.
The Stranger's manners were somehow hectic. Directly she heard that
laughter the tears came into her eyes. "Didn't you like what I was
saying?" she asked. Tears climbed down her cheekbones.

"Oh!" said Miss Ford. "You seem to be--if not drunk--suffering from
some form of hysteria."
"Do you think youth is a form of hysteria?" asked the Stranger. "Or
hunger? Or magic? Or--"
"Oh, don't recite any more lists, for the Dear Sake!" implored Miss
Ford, who had caught this rather pretty expression where she caught
her laugh and most of her thoughts--from contemporary fiction. She
had a lot of friends in the writing trade. She knew artists too, and an
actress, and a lot of people who talked. She very nearly did something
clever herself. She continued: "I wish you could see yourself, trying to
be uplifting between the munches of a stolen bun. You'd laugh too. But
perhaps you never laugh," she added, straightening her lips.
"How d'you mean--laugh?" asked the Stranger. "I didn't know that
noise was called laughing. I thought you were just saying 'Ha--ha.'"
At this moment the Mayor came in. As I told you, he was a grocer, and
the Chairman of the committee. He was a bad Chairman, but a good
grocer. Grocers generally wear white in the execution of their duty, and
this fancy, I think, reflects their pureness of heart. They spend their
days among soft substances most beautiful to touch; and sometimes
they sell honest-smelling soaps; and sometimes they chop cheeses, and
thus reach the glory of the butcher's calling, without its painfulness.
Also they handle shining tins, marvellously illustrated.
Mayors and grocers were of course nothing to Miss Ford, but Chairmen
were very important. She nodded curtly to the Mayor and grocer, but
she pushed the seventh chair towards the Chairman.
"May I just finish with this applicant?" she asked in her thin inclusive
committee voice, and then added in the direction of the Stranger: "It's
no use talking nonsense. We all see through you, you cannot deceive a
committee. But to a certain extent we believe your story, and are
willing, if the case proves satisfactory, to give you a helping hand. I
will take down a few particulars. First your name?"

"M--m," mused the Stranger. "Let me see, you didn't like Hazeline
Snow much, did you? What d'you think of Thelma ... Thelma Bennett
Watkins?... You know, the Rutlandshire Watkinses, the younger
branch----"
Miss Ford balanced her pen helplessly. "But that isn't your real name."
"How d'you mean--real name?" asked the Stranger anxiously. "Won't
that do? What about Iris ... Hyde?... You see, the truth is, I was never
actually christened ... I was born a conscientious objector, and also----"
"Oh, for the Dear Sake, be silent!" said Miss Ford, writing down
"Thelma Bennett Watkins," in self-defence. "This, I take it, is the name
you gave at the time of the National Registration."