by Dodie Smith
‘I suppose so,’ said Drew, more soberly. ‘Though she just might be peeved at being rescued. No, I don’t really believe that. The poor darling simply doesn’t understand. Well, what do we do now?’ They had made their way out of the station. ‘It’s not nearly six yet.’
‘Let’s get there early. It might be a good thing to meet her as she comes in.’
‘Ah, in case he’s waiting to pounce. Richard, why was Miss What’s-her-name so sure he hasn’t pounced already?’
‘I told you. He doesn’t stay at the hotel at night.’
‘And is the daytime close season for pouncing? Anyway, it’ll soon be dark. We’d better hurry.’
They got to the hotel at half-past five.
‘What grandeur!’ said Drew. ‘Perhaps they’ll chuck us out.’
‘They might me. You do the inquiring.’
‘Need I? Can’t we just sit down and wait?’
‘She might have come back earlier than was expected.’
They went to the desk. Drew’s inquiry was received with great courtesy but Miss Carrington was thought not to be in. Then a very small page, standing by, said: ‘Yes, she is. Came back ten minutes ago.’
Richard said firmly: ‘We’re her brothers. And she’s expecting us. What number is her room?’
But they had to wait while Clare was informed by telephone. Suppose she refused to see them? He’d telephone her from a call-box … But she did not refuse and the small page was soon escorting them into a lift. As they went up, he informed the lift man that these were Miss Carrington’s brothers. ‘Well, isn’t that nice?’ said the lift man. ‘It’s been sad for her, the old gentleman dying so soon after she came.’ Richard relaxed. The smiling page, the kindly lift man, the dignified luxury of the hotel, all tended to reassure him. He had panicked, been fooled by the gossip of a silly old woman – and he must be careful to hide this from Clare. He only hoped Drew would follow his lead.
The page, conducting them along a thickly carpeted corridor, said: ‘Miss Carrington’s my very favourite lady. I brought her up the first day she came here and wished her luck. There she is.’
She had opened a door at the far end of the corridor and now stood awaiting them, wearing a long white garment which Richard presumed was a negligé. As they drew nearer, she turned, took a coin from a bowl on a table behind her and had it ready for the page. He beamed on her, she beamed on him, then on Richard and Drew.
‘How lovely to see you both! Come in.’
‘Clare, you look wonderful,’ said Drew.
‘Do I? This is only a dressing-gown.’
‘I wasn’t referring to it,’ said Drew.
She steered them into a large cream and gold sitting-room. Richard thought its luxury over-ornate but guessed it would very much appeal to Clare. A fire burned brightly and the warm air was scented by a vast bunch of particularly beautiful roses.
‘Sorry the place is so untidy,’ said Clare, glancing around at the litter of tissue paper, cardboard boxes and a great many expensive things which had been taken out of them. ‘I’ve just come back from shopping.’
‘For whom?’ said Richard.
‘Me, of course.’ She looked at him very directly. ‘Did you come for any special reason, Richard?’
He asked why she hadn’t answered their letters.
‘I’ve kept meaning to. Is that the only reason you came?’
He’d better tell her the truth. ‘No, Clare. I heard … some distressing rumours.’
‘Who from? Oh, Miss Gifford, perhaps. She must think it’s peculiar that I don’t want another job. You couldn’t have heard from Nurse Brown because we’ve kept everything from her. I’ve never even let myself go out shopping until today; she’s gone now. You see, she’d have been upset. And so would my friends on the staff here, especially my floor waiter who’s been quite a father to me. That’s why we’ve been so careful to keep things respectable.’
‘Well, thank God you have,’ said Richard. ‘Now listen, before it’s too late …’
Drew interrupted him. ‘You’ve misunderstood her, Richard. It is … what you mean by too late. Isn’t it, Clare, darling?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said, smilingly. ‘Are you shocked?’
‘I’m not,’ said Drew.
Richard, avoiding her questioning gaze, said: ‘I’m partly to blame. I ought to have got in touch with you last week, when Miss Gifford first rang Jane.’
‘What day was that?’ Clare inquired.
‘Let’s see … Wednesday. Yes, Wednesday evening.’
‘Then you’d still have been too late, Richard.’ She smiled reminiscently. ‘Wednesday was the first day I went to my house.’
‘The great thing is that you’re happy,’ said Drew. ‘That’s easy to see.’
‘I’m a bit better looking, don’t you think? Yes, I’m blissful. They say no one’s ever a hundred per cent happy but I would be, if only Charles would be. He worries so. You see, he doesn’t think it should have happened.’
‘Then why did he let it?’ said Richard.
‘Well, he’d be much less happy if it hadn’t. And anyway, it wasn’t his fault. There were all sorts of complicated reasons – including the fact that I was positively dying of love. All
right, Richard, I won’t tell you any more. I can see you’re embarrassed.’
‘Not embarrassed, exactly.’
‘Just plain horrified?’
Drew said suddenly: ‘Clare, is that an original Renoir?’
She turned to him eagerly. ‘Yes, Charles brought it from his flat – which I’m not allowed to visit; I fancy he thinks his disreputable past lingers on in it and might contaminate me. He was quite cross because I said he must have another mistress there. He thought I might like the Renoir for my house and so I would.’
‘Tell me about your house,’ said Drew.
‘It’s in St John’s Wood. Old Mr Rowley kept his mistresses there – over sixty years ago, imagine! Oh, Drew, you should have seen the furniture – and now it’s too late; everything went to be stored this morning. I actually cried when I said goodbye to it, yesterday afternoon. I’ve got so fond of it this last week, though at first I thought it was horrible, really frightening. Anyway, now the house is going to be done up and filled with really lovely things. We shall probably go away soon until it’s ready. I can’t live an un-respectable life at this hotel. My friends here wouldn’t like it.’
‘It’s a good thing we’ve caught you before you leave,’ said Drew.
‘Well, I’d have written – I think; you know I’m not good at letters like you and Merry are. Oh, is there any news of her?’
Between them, they supplied her with a brief history of Merry’s adventures and arrival at Whitesea.
‘Goodness, she has had a time,’ said Clare. ‘And how lovely that she can be with you, Drew. What’s happening at home, Richard?’
‘Nothing,’ said Richard.
‘Must be dull for you. Would you like a job? I’m sure Charles could get you one. He seems able to manage almost everything and he’s very anxious to help our family.’
‘No, thank you,’ said Richard.
‘Ah, darling, don’t be stuffy. You’ll feel differently when you’ve met him. No one could help liking him.’
‘I don’t think I want to meet him,’ said Richard.
‘Well, you’ll have to – because I hear him, now.’ She opened the door and called: ‘Charles, my brothers are here.’
A voice from the entrance hall said: ‘Oh, my God! Have they brought guns or will they settle for knocking me down?’ Then Charles Rowley came into the room.
Drew said smilingly: ‘Perhaps if you’d kneel – and we could both hit you together …’
Richard, who was only just under six foot, resented this remark. Still, he doubted if he could have knocked Charles Rowley down single-handed. And he had no desire to; his disapproval was cold, not violent. Clare said appealingly, ‘Richard, please!’
‘Give him
time, my dear. For the moment, he’s fully occupied in thinking me the ugliest man he’s ever met and wondering what you see in me.’
Richard thought the sardonic, heavily featured face too well-proportioned for real ugliness, and he was instantly sure that Charles Rowley was likable. But he had no intention of selling out to the likability. Still unsmiling, he said: ‘I’m sorry, but … well, I do find this whole thing shocking – for Clare.’
‘I should hope you did. Does it help at all that I’m moving heaven and earth to get a divorce?’
‘A great waste of energy,’ said Clare. ‘Because even if you get it, I shan’t marry you.’
‘Then I shall turn you out.’
‘You won’t be able to. My house is to be legally mine. Did you go to the bank?’
‘Yes. We’ll talk about that later.’
‘No, now,’ said Clare, very decidedly. ‘I want to show them. Are they in your overcoat pocket?’
He nodded, smiling as if at an importunate child. Then, as she hurried out into the hall, he said to Richard: ‘Sorry about this.’
She came back with a leather case, saying blithely, ‘Crown jewels. Did you know Charles was really a king?’
‘I am not a king. My father wasn’t a king. And my grandfather was only a king for a very few years and was delighted to stop being one. The whole silly business has been lived down.’
She had taken a double row of pearls from the leather case. ‘Oh, Charles, they’re lovely. And not large enough to be vulgar.’
‘I have some vulgar ones.’
‘You’d better let me see them. They may not be as vulgar as you think. Fasten these for me, please.’
He did so, remarking, ‘My dear, this scene is in the worst possible taste.’
‘I find it charming,’ said Drew, benignly. ‘And it’s only with the greatest regret that I tear myself away. Unfortunately I have a train to catch.’
Richard looked at him in surprise. He had understood Drew’s train did not leave until mid-evening. But he was glad enough to go. And he noticed that Clare made no effort to detain them.
Drew, taking a last look around the room, said: ‘This is my ideal hotel.’
‘I shall love it as long as I live,’ said Clare. ‘You will both come and see me at my house? And can Merry come? Or won’t that be allowed? Charles is dubious about it. He’s terribly square in spite of the life he’s led.’
‘I’m sure she’ll insist on coming,’ said Richard.
‘Charles would like to help her finish her education, and then with her training for the stage.’
Richard, about to refuse, checked himself. He had no right to expect Merry to be governed by his own sense of fitness. ‘That must be for her to decide.’
They had reached the door of the suite.
‘Clare, darling, you will write?’ said Drew.
‘I promise. It’ll be easier now. Give my love to Merry.’ She turned to Richard. ‘And to Jane and Cook and Edith. And even to Aunt Winifred, if you like. I couldn’t hate anyone now.’
Charles Rowley looked at him earnestly. ‘She is happy and I’ll try to keep her happy. Incidentally, if I died tomorrow she’d be extremely rich.’
‘Not for long,’ said Clare. ‘Because I should die, too.’
‘I shall miss my train,’ said Drew, urging Richard out.
At last they were on their way along the corridor. As they approached the corner Drew looked back and then said:
‘Manage a smile, Richard.’
Richard turned. Clare and her king were still standing at the door of the suite. She had slipped her arm through his and was leaning her head against his shoulder. Richard managed the smile, but only just.
They turned the corner and heard the door of the suite close. ‘Why were you suddenly anxious to get away?’ said Richard, as they waited for the lift.
‘Because I couldn’t bear to go on keeping them out of each other’s arms,’ said Drew.
Going down in the lift, Richard wondered if Clare was right in thinking she had fooled her friends on the hotel staff. Probably they all knew, including the pleasant lift man, and thought it delightful that a pretty girl should be set up as the mistress of a rich man. In the hall the little page, scurrying on some errand, flashed a quick smile. Probably even he was in on it.
It was dark when they came out of the hotel; a chilly, faintly misty evening.
‘Let’s walk a while,’ said Drew. ‘Through the back streets – one can talk better.’
‘All right, if you know your way. I’m apt to get lost even in the main streets.’
‘I’ve made rather a study of London back streets. Well? You talk first.’
‘You can say what you like, Drew, but it isn’t pretty.’
‘No, pretty’s too small a word. Richard, can you really disapprove of such intense happiness?’
‘I suppose I’m a prig,’ said Richard.
‘Just a puritan – which no doubt you should be, as a serious creative artist. I’m essentially frivolous – that’s why anything so unfrivolous as what those two feel for each other strikes me as positively holy.’
Richard had never thought Drew frivolous. He said so, adding: ‘But I think that, for once, you’re being sentimental.’
‘If so, it’s highly unsuitable for the occasion. I doubt if there’s much sentimentality in Clare’s formidable friend. And she’s always been romantic, not sentimental; there’s a world of difference. Your true romantic will accept things sentimentalists would run a mile from – including a certain amount of horror.’
Richard looked at his brother curiously. ‘Then you admit the situation has its horror? I thought you found it holy.’
‘So I do. But I feel in my bones there’s some horror lurking in the background. That house of assignations – she spoke of it as frightening. It’s fascinating to remember that St John’s Wood once enjoyed a bad reputation because so many men kept their mistresses there. It was jocularly referred to as Jack’s Forest.’
‘The things you know! Clare seemed to take a particular pleasure in using the word “mistress”.’
‘True. No sentimentalist would. Impressive to see the dithery girl so sure of herself. I wish we knew how the affair started. She told us nothing. And I pine to have seen her house as it was, and know all about its past.’
‘I know more than I care about its future,’ said Richard. ‘Where are we?’
‘Back streets of St James’s and Piccadilly. Surprising, aren’t they? So small and at night so deserted.’
‘Yet they don’t look like business premises.’ Empty milk bottles stood outside many of the doors. Aspidistras graced several downstairs windows. A drowsy cat on a window-sill awaited admission.
‘No, I think people live here,’ said Drew. ‘Club servants, perhaps; cleaners and the like. Strange that such streets should survive in a district where land’s so fabulously valuable. Well, they won’t survive much longer. Look!’
They had turned a corner. Not far ahead was a half demolished row of houses and, beyond it, a tall new block of offices.
‘I wonder if Rowley had a hand in that,’ said Richard. ‘You know, I think I’d mind less if he wasn’t so rich.’
‘Really? Personally, I’m delighted the wages of sin are high.’
‘So’s Clare. She’s so obviously proud of his wealth.’
‘Well, it’s inbred in women to be proud of capturing a rich man. Dear me, I hope Clare’s tiny ego can assimilate so much food – adoration from rich ex-royalty. And you must admit he’s charming.’
‘Also dissipated,’ said Richard grimly.
‘I wouldn’t put it past her to be proud of that, too.’
Richard chuckled. ‘How worldly wise you are, Drew!’
‘Well, it’s wonderful what one can learn from literature, life being something one’s rather remote from.’
Richard thought his brother’s tone a trifle bleak. ‘Are you tolerably happy at Whitesea?’ he asked, seriously.
<
br /> Drew was silent for several seconds: then he spoke with his usual cheerfulness. ‘Oh, rather more than tolerably. There’s quite a satisfaction in the job. But I’ve written to you about it pretty fully. Let’s talk about you. Not a copious letter writer, are you?’
‘Nothing to write about … well, nothing much.’ He hadn’t so far written or spoken about Violet’s arrival. Should he mention it now? But if he did, he would do more than mention it. And he did not fancy launching out about Violet so soon after his disapproval of Clare. If the Clare story wasn’t pretty, neither was the Violet story … But he did want to tell it to Drew. They walked on in silence until Drew said: ‘Well, let me know if you decide to tell me whatever it is you haven’t yet decided to.’
Richard laughed. ‘The famous Drew intuition! This is the Haymarket, isn’t it? Did we come through Piccadilly Circus?’
‘No, we skirted it. Even you, Richard, would surely have noticed Piccadilly Circus? Now let me see, between Haymarket and Leicester Square there used to be one or two nice little mean streets – but one always fears they’ll be gone.’
Eventually he found one but was dissatisfied with it. ‘Not very attractive now, so messy; though there is still the faintest suggestion of a street in a country town – such small, dim shops.’
Richard, only mildly interested, said: ‘I suppose there’d have been prostitutes here, before the streets were cleared of them. And now the poor dears have to sit at windows. There’s one up there.’
‘I think not, Richard. Look again – and you needn’t mind staring.’
‘What …? Good God!’
Leaning out of a brightly lit third floor window was a large collie dog. Its front paws flopped over the sill, its silky hair stirred gently, and it appeared to be regarding them most benignly down its long, pointed nose.
‘The things one sees in London!’ said Drew, happily. ‘I shall never forget that. Now let’s walk very fast across Leicester Square because I hate it. Well, not really. It can’t help being like it is; still, let’s hurry.’
‘Where to?’ said Richard, who had begun to feel hungry.
‘Back of the Strand. The quiet streets there are very different … sombre, dignified, some of them.’