Billy Weaver had travelled down from London on the
slow afternoon train, with a change at Swindon on the
way, and by the time he got to Bath it was about nine
o’clock in the evening and the moon was coming up out
of a clear starry sky over the houses opposite the station
entrance. But the air was deadly cold and the wind was
like a flat blade of ice on his cheeks.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but is there a fairly cheap hotel
not too far away from here?’
‘Try The Bell and Dragon,’ the porter answered, pointing down the road. ‘They might
take you in. It’s about a
quarter of a mile along on the other side.’
Billy thanked him and picked up his suitcase and set out
to walk the quarter-mile to The Bell and Dragon. He had
never been to Bath before. He didn’t know anyone who
lived there. But Mr Greenslade at the Head Office in London had told him it was a splendid
city. ‘Find your own
lodgings,’ he had said, ‘and then go along and report to the
Branch Manager as soon as you’ve got yourself settled.’
Billy was seventeen years old. He was wearing a new
navy-blue overcoat, a new brown trilby hat, and a new
brown suit, and he was feeling fine. He walked briskly
down the street. He was trying to do everything briskly
these days. Briskness, he had decided, was the one common
characteristic of all successful businessmen. The big shots
up at Head Office were absolutely fantastically brisk all
the time. They were amazing.
There were no shops on this wide street that he was
walking along, only a line of tall houses on each side, all
of them identical. They had porches and pillars and four
or five steps going up to their front doors, and it was obvious that once upon a time they
had been very swanky
residences. But now, even in the darkness, he could see
that the paint was peeling from the woodwork on their
doors and windows, and that the handsome white façades
were cracked and blotchy from neglect.
Suddenly, in a downstairs window that was brilliantly
illuminated by a street-lamp not six yards away, Billy
caught sight of a printed notice propped up against the
glass in one of the upper panes. It said bed and breakfast. There was a vase of pussy-
willows, tall and beautiful,
standing just underneath the notice.
He stopped walking. He moved a bit closer. Green curtains (some sort of velvety
material) were hanging down
on either side of the window. The pussy-willows looked
wonderful beside them. He went right up and peered
through the glass into the room, and the first thing he saw
was a bright fire burning in the hearth. On the carpet in
front of the fire, a pretty little dachshund was curled up
asleep with its nose tucked into its belly. The room itself,
so far as he could see in the half-darkness, was filled with
pleasant furniture. There was a baby-grand piano and a
big sofa and several plump armchairs; and in one corner
he spotted a large parrot in a cage. Animals were usually a
good sign in a place like this, Billy told himself; and all in
all, it looked to him as though it would be a pretty decent
house to stay in. Certainly it would be more comfortable
than The Bell and Dragon.
On the other hand, a pub would be more congenial
than a boarding-house. There would be beer and darts in
the evenings, and lots of people to talk to, and it would
probably be a good bit cheaper, too. He had stayed a couple of nights in a pub once before
and he had liked it. He
had never stayed in any boarding-houses, and, to be perfectly honest, he was a tiny bit
frightened of them. The
name itself conjured up images of watery cabbage, rapacious landladies, and a powerful
smell of kippers in the
living-room.
After dithering about like this in the cold for two or
three minutes, Billy decided that he would walk on and
take a look at The Bell and Dragon before making up his
mind. He turned to go.
And now a queer thing happened to him. He was in the
act of stepping back and turning away from the window
when all at once his eye was caught and held in the most
peculiar manner by the small notice that was there. bed
and breakfast, it said. bed and breakfast, bed and
breakfast, bed and breakfast. Each word was like a
large black eye staring at him through the glass, holding
him, compelling him, forcing him to stay where he was
and not to walk away from that house, and the next thing
he knew, he was actually moving across from the window
to the front door of the house, climbing the steps that led
up to it, and reaching for the bell.
He pressed the bell. Far away in a back room he heard
it ringing, and then at once – it must have been at once
because he hadn’t even had time to take his finger from
the bell-button – the door swung open and a woman was
standing there.
Normally you ring the bell and you have at least a half-
minute’s wait before the door opens. But this dame was
like a jack-in-the-box. He pressed the bell – and out she
popped! It made him jump.
She was about forty-five or fifty years old, and the
moment she saw him, she gave him a warm welcoming
smile.
‘Please come in,’ she said pleasantly. She stepped aside,
holding the door wide open, and Billy found himself
automatically starting forward into the house. The compulsion or, more accurately, the
desire to follow after her
into that house was extraordinarily strong.
‘I saw the notice in the window,’ he said, holding himself back.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘I was wondering about a room.’
‘It’s all ready for you, my dear,’ she said. She had a round
pink face and very gentle blue eyes.
‘I was on my way to The Bell and Dragon,’ Billy told
her. ‘But the notice in your window just happened to catch
my eye.’
‘My dear boy,’ she said, ‘why don’t you come in out of
the cold?’
‘How much do you charge?’
‘Five and sixpence a night, including breakfast.’
It was fantastically cheap. It was less than half of what
he had been willing to pay.
‘If that is too much,’ she added, ‘then perhaps I can
reduce it just a tiny bit. Do you desire an egg for breakfast? Eggs are expensive at the
moment. It would be
sixpence less without the egg.’
‘Five and sixpence is fine,’ he answered. ‘I should like
very much to stay here.’