Debutantes

by Charlotte Bingham

  Gannon said nothing during this outburst. He just sat and smoked his cigar. He did, however, drop his eyes and pretend to brush some non-existent ash off the table-cloth. He said nothing at all until Herbert had reached the door and was about to take his leave. ‘One word of advice, Forrester,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘I don’t need advice from the likes of you, Gannon,’ Herbert replied, his hand on the door knob.

  ‘I think you do as far as this is concerned. Should you be nursing any absurd ideas about breach of promise and the like—’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Herbert cut in. ‘I wouldn’t be bothered. One thing my father taught me is there’s more than one way of skinning a cat.’

  He had the hansom stop at his own club and told the driver not to wait. Inside he took a table in the corner of one of the smaller rooms where a group of men were playing a game of chemin de fer and during the next hour by himself he drank well over half a bottle of cognac. Added to what he had already consumed earlier in the evening, by the time he left the club and called up another cab he was good and drunk.

  He gave the driver his home address and then changed his mind, redirecting the cabbie to take him to a large house in Trafalgar Crescent, a fine row of Georgian houses which had once been smart but now lay just outside the most fashionable area of the city. Even though the curtains were all drawn as the cab pulled up outside the door chinks of light spilled out onto the pavements where still at this late hour handfuls of street urchins waited in the hope of a penny or two that might be thrown their way. But Herbert was too drunk to pay them any attention, even though one or two of them had the impudence to tug at his coat as he knocked twice on the heavy front door and waited for admission.

  A girl opened the door and stared at him. ‘I don’t know you,’ she said. ‘Should I?’

  ‘No reason you should, none at all.’ Herbert handed his hat and stick to the girl, who wore a bright red dress with a band of black velvet at her neck. ‘But since I own this house, you’d best be polite. Now go and fetch me some brandy, unwatered down mind, then go and tell your mistress Bert’s here, right? Tell her Bert is come to see her. And be quick.’

  He sat on the stairs wondering what he was doing in the place, drinking brandy from the bottle and staring at his boots while men and women drifted past him as if in another world, going up and down the stairs, in and out of rooms to the side of him, in and out of the front door. There was music from a room behind him, and laughter, not drawing-room laughter but real laughter, raucous, feral, fired with drink and lust. Someone put their face in his, a woman, thickly powdered and with a painted mouth. She asked him something, he saw the mouth moving in front of his eyes, then he heard her voice in his ear, close to, so close it seemed as if she had put her mouth inside his head, right inside of him to ask him something, the same question another woman had asked him only a short time ago except this time all he knew was that there’d be no offence.

  ‘No offence, love.’ He said it out loud, as he tried to ease the woman away from him.

  ‘None taken I’m sure,’ she said back. ‘You’re probably too drunk any road. So you’d hardly be getting your money’s worth.’

  ‘No offence,’ he repeated.

  ‘None taken dearie, like I said – none taken.’

  When he woke up he was lying on a chaise-longue. At first he thought it was a dream and that the woman beside him was Daisy Lanford. After all, she was wearing a gold and red gown of sorts and she had blond hair. Then he saw the woman was smiling so he thought it was a joke and tried to sit up. ‘Very funny I don’t think,’ he managed to say before he fell back and the woman caught him. ‘Very funny I don’t think,’ he heard himself repeating.

  ‘My but you’re drunk, Herbert Forrester, you are that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this drunk,’ the woman said.

  ‘You never seen me drunk at all, woman,’ Herbert muttered, his mouth as dry as salt, his head the size and texture of an over-inflated balloon. ‘I don’t get drunk,’ he said. ‘And I’m not drunk now.’

  The room wasn’t at all familiar. There was a very large bed opposite where he lay in this woman’s arms, and there was an unlit chandelier in the ceiling. That was all he could make out for the moment, a large bed which had the covers thrown back, and an unlit chandelier. And the colour of the room. He could make the colour of the room out now by the light of the gas lamps on the wall. The room was dark red, altogether. Red walls the colour of blood, dark red carpet, red ceiling same as the walls, and thick heavy red curtains with gold tassels.

  ‘Ruby,’ he said slowly. ‘Ruby Sugden. Thank Christ.’ He buried his head in her breasts, breathing in deep her heavy familiar scent, putting his arms round her uncorseted waist, a much bigger waist than the Lanford woman’s but a better waist, he thought, a real waist belonging to a real woman. Ruby Sugden. Thank heavens.

  ‘Wasn’t it me you come to see then, Bert?’ He heard her laugh softly somewhere above his head, and the fingers of a hand were run through his head of thick hair. ‘Dolly told me it was me you were asking for, and I must say I were that glad.’

  He stayed lying where he was for a moment, unwilling to move. Ruby was so warm, so all-enveloping, he felt he could stay like that for ever, and the longer he did the more the pain eased out of his body.

  ‘Ruby,’ he said. ‘Ruby, you don’t know how much I need you.’

  ‘You always need me, Bert,’ she whispered back, ‘just as I always need you. Even now just the thought of you carries me through. You know, when things get tough. When things get a bit too much. As they do for us all.’

  Something in her voice made him look up. He lifted his head and sat up, but at first he couldn’t see her clearly, so he rubbed his eyes with the flat of both palms and looked at her again.

  ‘You need some coffee or some’at, you look like death.’

  While he lay back with a low groan, Ruby got up and went to the door, calling to someone not far outside it. As she stood talking to someone else outside the door Herbert decided to get to his feet and staggered across to the jug and basin of water on the stand in a distant corner. He threw off his coat, tore off his bow tie, rolled up his sleeves and leaning over the basin poured the whole jug of water over his throbbing head.

  ‘Where were you then?’ Ruby asked. She was back now sitting combing her hair in front of her mirror as Herbert dried himself off and rolled his sleeves back down. ‘Were you at races like whole town, it seems? It looks like everyone got rich on the Gannon horse. Everyone except yours truly.’

  ‘Everyone except yours truly and me,’ Herbert grunted. ‘I was out dining with bugger.’

  ‘You can usually hold your drink, Herbert Forrester.’

  ‘It was after dinner I got drunk, Ruby.’

  ‘Got in with a crowd, did you?’

  ‘I got drunk on my own.’

  A girl, much younger than most, no more than twelve or thirteen years old, brought in some coffee and set it down on a table by the couch where they were sitting. Herbert watched her come and go in silence.

  ‘They getting younger or is it me getting older, Ruby?’

  ‘Rose works for me, domestically. And any road, you’ve no need of asking that. You know I won’t have it, never would. I’ve never run that sort of house, catering for those sorts of tastes and never will. Not as long as I’m alive.’

  ‘Flash houses.’ Herbert shook his head uncertainly. ‘That’s where they come from, weren’t it?’

  ‘That’s where Rose was headed when I rescued her. Rose. Girl what just come in. Got her in nick of time. You know what they do, don’t you.’ It was a statement, not a question, as if Ruby wanted to remind herself of the iniquity. ‘They steal these kids. Take ’em out of people’s gardens even. Kidnap ’em. Other day I heard of this so-called respectable couple in Barnsley who make it a habit to hide out where they know these schools walk the children. Then they pinch the last one or maybe even two kids in crocodile. They’re only nipp
ers most of ’em, Bert. Sometimes as young as eight or nine. Sometimes from respectable families and all. These people are no respecters of persons, believe you me. Then they takes ’em to these flash houses, where they stay till they’re old enough to work on the town proper, by which time they’re alcoholics because they make sure they are, poor little blighters. Not even their own mothers’d know ’em after a couple of years in those places, Herbert. They’re usually dead from drink or the clap before they reach twenty.’

  Ruby suddenly looked weary, passing the back of one hand over her forehead as if she’d just been hard at work. ‘I won’t have it here, you know me. When a girl’s old enough to make up her own mind, that’s different. But not children. Not innocent kids. I hope they roast in hell for what they do, the buggers.’

  For a while they both sat in silence, engrossed in their thoughts. Herbert sipped his cup of strong hot coffee while Ruby just sat back against the couch, her eyes closed, the one hand still up against her brow.

  When he put his cup down, Herbert turned and looked at her. ‘What’s up, Ruby?’ he said after a moment. Ruby was unaware of his gaze. ‘You don’t look yourself, Ruby. You look tired.’

  Ruby opened her eyes and, seeing the concern in her old friend’s eyes, smiled back at him. ‘Aye, I am, Bert. I’m plain tuckered out.’

  ‘Maybe it’s time you packed all this in, love.’

  ‘I’m about to, Bert. That’s exactly what I’m just about to do.’

  Herbert looked at her again, caught by something in Ruby’s tone but not yet sober enough to discern what it was that was worrying her. Ruby seemed to sense his disquiet, for she leaned over and kissed him once on the cheek. ‘Have some more coffee,’ she said, patting his knee. ‘It seems to be doing the trick.’

  Herbert watched as she poured him a second cup, noticing the darkness under her eyes, and then hearing the shortness of her breath. ‘I should have married you, shouldn’t I, Ruby?’ he said, taking the cup from her. ‘I should have married you like I said I would.’

  Ruby laughed. She laughed genuinely, bringing the colour suddenly back to her cheeks and the light into her eyes. ‘Like heck you should, Herbert Forrester. You were only a lad at the time. Any road, even if you hadn’t been—’ Ruby fell to silence. To her there was no point in raking over that particular bit of the past all over again. It was long dead and buried. But the drink and its aftermath had brought it up in Herbert’s mind once more, that and something intangible, something he sensed between them but couldn’t yet identify which made him want to talk about it in case he never got the chance again.

  ‘I’ve often thought I should’ve, you know,’ he said, looking straight ahead of him as if the past was a picture unfolding there in the room. ‘Day I pulled you out of canal, I went home and I said to my mam I said I just met girl I’m going to marry, Mam.’

  ‘You were a nipper, Bert. Your head was full of fancy things.’

  ‘It weren’t a fancy that you were drowning, Ruby.’

  ‘No, love. But that didn’t oblige you, you know.’

  ‘I know it didn’t, dammit. I felt the way I did because I thought you were the most lovely thing I’d ever seen.’

  Ruby laughed again, once more in delight. ‘What – me with me hair like rats’ tails and covered in all that muck from canal? You can’t have seen many girls before, Herbert Forrester, that’s all I can say.’

  ‘You forget I waited till your mam had dried you, remember? And put you in a clean frock. And you came to the door with that blond hair of yours still wet from the bath tub, brushed all flat it were, all flat and shiny and tied back behind your head with a green ribbon. You didn’t say nowt. You just smiled and I couldn’t take my eyes off you, even when your mam was thanking me, even when your dad gave me sixpence. More money than I’d ever held in me hand in the whole of me life. Then I went straight back home and told Mam I’d met girl I was going to marry. By heck.’ He shook his head slowly as the picture in front of him faded, and then he changed the shake to a series of nods. ‘By heck I should have married you. You know I should’ve.’

  Ruby slipped her arm through his and leaned her head on his shoulder. ‘It would never have done, and you know it. We were slum kids. Me dad and mam weren’t ever married. Your family wouldn’t have borne that, Herbert Forrester. Your dad had plans for you. And like it or not, he was right. You wouldn’t be where you are now if you’d married me. Most like you’d have spent most of your life locked up in gaol. Any road, this isn’t time for recriminations. Not that I have any, as I’m sure you haven’t really neither. You married a lovely girl, and you been very happy. Well? Haven’t you?’

  ‘Aye,’ Herbert agreed. ‘I have that. I’m not complaining, Ruby. I just wanted you to know—’

  ‘I know, Herbert Forrester,’ Ruby interrupted. ‘I know. We been friends a long time now. A lifetime as far as I’m concerned.’ Herbert turned to her again, more quickly this time as if he was beginning to catch her drift. But Ruby wouldn’t let him speak. She put her hand on his arm to quiet him and continued herself. ‘Now you just listen to me, before it’s too late. I were going to write to you as it happened, but you saved me the bother which is just as well because I’m not much of a letter writer. Still. That’s how it is, and though I’m not a religious woman, perhaps it was meant.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘You getting drunk and coming to see me tonight. Any road—’

  ‘At least I bought you this house,’ Herbert said, before she could continue.

  ‘At least you did instead of what, Bert?’

  ‘I might not have married you, but at least I made sure you had a roof over your head. And a decent one at that.’

  ‘You’ve been a true friend, Bert,’ Ruby said, holding his arm more tightly now and leaning back so that he couldn’t see the expression of sudden pain on her once handsome face. ‘Most men – well. Most men would have had nothing more to do with the likes of me, not once they’d reached your position. Not you. You’ve always been there if I ever needed a friend, Bert, and there’s no telling what that’s meant to me through my life. Knowing you were a friend. Knowing you didn’t despise me.’

  ‘What’s the matter, woman?’ Herbert turned to her, hearing the sudden catch in her voice, but Ruby turned her head away quickly so that he couldn’t see her face. ‘There’s some’at the matter, and I want you to tell me. Come on, tell me what the matter is.’

  But she wouldn’t turn back to him, despite his putting his hands on her shoulders and trying to ease her round. ‘It’s my age, Bert,’ she laughed. ‘I’m just getting sentimental, I suppose. You’ve heard it, heard what they say. Sentimental old tart, they say. That’s what they say about the likes of me. Sentimental old tart, that’s all I am.’

  But he had her firmly by her shoulders now, and slowly but surely he turned her back to face him. She looked suddenly old, much older than he was, although in fact there was only a year between them. But now as the tears ran down her face, mixing with the paint and the powder she’d so carefully applied when she heard who had called to see her, she looked twenty years older than him, more even, and as he saw the fear in her eyes, and the loneliness, he put his arms round her and hugged her to him, rocking her slowly backwards and forwards.

  ‘What is it?’ he said gently. ‘What ails you, my love?’

  ‘They say it’s my heart, Bert. They say I could go any time.’

  ‘Your heart? There can’t be nothing wrong with your heart, Ruby? You never had a day’s illness in your life.’

  ‘How would you know?’

  ‘You’d have said, that’s why. You told me – I remember you saying so. You were forever telling me you never had a day’s sickness in your life.’

  ‘Maybe, Bert. But I’m sick right enough now.’

  ‘How sick?’

  ‘That sick, Bert. As sick as I’m going to get.’

  ‘You can’t be, Ruby. You can’t be.’

  ‘I am, Bert love. And ther
e’s an end to it.’

  ‘But there must be something they can do. Who said you were dying anyway? You only got their word for it, Ruby! This is cock and bull, I tell you! You said yourself that you never had a day’s illness in your life, dammit!’

  Ruby took his hand and pulled him back down beside her. He had got to his feet with the outrage of it all, but he was still too drunk to make sense of it, so she pulled him slowly but insistently down beside her again where he finally sat with his head sunk deep in his hands.

  ‘Is there nothing they can do, Ruby?’ he asked after some time, without looking up, his head still in his hands. ‘Is there nowt anyone can do?’

  ‘Aye.’ She put her arm round his shoulder and now he looked up at her, seeing her big eyes like two large black smudges and her face like a painted colour wash. ‘That’s why I think you were sent. There is something someone can do. You. That is if you’re willing.’

  ‘You don’t even have to ask, Ruby,’ he said, grasping her other hand in both of his. ‘I’d do anything for you. Anything you want.’

  ‘Wait till you hear what it is first,’ Ruby replied. ‘When I’ve told you, you can give me a yes or no then. And if you refuse, I’ll quite understand, I promise.’

  ‘So what is it? Tell me now and I’ll tell you now.’

  ‘I’ll tell you when you’re sober.’ Ruby leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. ‘When you’re sober I’ll tell you exactly what it is.’

  * * *

  But first he had to deal with Jane. And with Louisa.

  Louisa already knew because Philip Gannon had sent round a letter by hand the same evening that her father was dined by his father. This was how Jane came to know as well. Alerted by the muffled sobs from her daughter’s room when she was going to bed herself she had knocked on the door and on entering had found Louisa lying on her bed still fully dressed and clutching the wretched letter in her hand. After she had learned the contents of the letter she consoled her daughter as best she could before summoning her maid to help undress her and put her into Jane’s own bed where, when she had undressed herself, she lay with her daughter talking the matter through and trying to make some sense out of it all.