by Myers, Amy
And it was to this solemn, sacred festival that this year, on Plum’s fiftieth anniversary, it had been proposed and, even more shockingly, agreed that ladies should be admitted.
It was a fine spring morning in St James’s Square. The sun beat down on the mellow red brick of Plum’s, tulips bloomed cheerfully in the gardens; an errand boy from Messrs Jackson’s glanced up at the equestrian William III and whistled disrespectfully. But inside Plum’s morning room, which faced north into the small rear garden and high brick wall at the foot of it, the occupants were oblivious that somewhere the sun might be shining.
For here consternation reigned. Where normally all was peaceful silence, disturbed only by the faint rustle of a newspaper, or the heaping of coals by a steward on to a glowing fire, voices were raised not merely in animation but in fury. Down below in the basement kitchens even Auguste could hear them as he busied himself with the luncheon. He was not surprised. Agnes, bright-eyed with excitement, had brought him the news of the notice pinned on the board an hour since and he awaited the members’ reactions with interest.
‘And oh, Mr Auguste,’ Agnes had added for good measure, ‘what do you think? Mr Peeps said there was another of those nasty letters left at his desk. And it was for him. Isn’t that dreadful?’
To Auguste’s mind this was far more serious than the matter occupying the emotions of the morning room. This was an insidious poison that boded worse for Plum’s than The News. He had busied himself in the intervening two days with gathering together information on all the incidents at Plum’s that were apparently so little regarded by its members. There had been that rat left on a dining table, the torn books and newspapers, the letter sent to Mr Erskine, one to Mr Preston, and now this. It began to look as if Emma was right to insist he investigated. For upset the porter and you threaten the very foundations of club life. And obscene letters addressed to Mr Alfred Peeps were a splendid way of accomplishing this objective. Excitement again took hold of him. More than excitement, a curiosity, a wish to find out more, to put two and two together, to detect –
‘Alors, mon enfant,’ he said firmly, ‘I shall attend to the coffee personally.’
From the noise that came from above, the members apparently neither saw nor cared for the threat to their continued existence, caught up as they were in the matter of the moment. For, fifteen minutes before, Colonel Worthington had been standing gloomily in front of the fire, carefully avoiding any eye that might momentarily stray from its newspaper in his direction. It could only be a matter of time now before someone casually glanced at the notice board in the corridor and then he would be for it. As if it were his fault! The unfairness of life swept over him once again.
Just because his fellow committee members were all married to exceptionally strong-minded women, all of whom, he strongly suspected, had an implacable determination to see the inside of Plum’s and had eagerly grasped the opportunity to do so, he, Mortimer Worthington, was going to get the blame. For, apart from Nollins, who took care to hide himself away in his office, he was the only one who ever set foot in the place before evening. Oh yes, Messrs Fortescue, Partridge, Wilmot, Mannering, Tiptree, Ross and Beeton would make quite sure they didn’t have to face the wrath of the membership!
‘What the deuce—?’ A stentorian roar was audible even through the closed door of the morning room.
Worthington blenched. It would have to be Bulstrode. His lordship erupted into the morning room like the bull after Europa.
‘Women?’ Bulstrode was purple in the face, clutching the offending piece of paper in one hand, ripped where he had torn it off the board in his fury. ‘Some kind of joke, it it? Women to be let into Plum’s! April the first, is it, Worthington?’
Startled faces appeared from behind newspapers, more at the disturbance to routine than at the purport of the words, the enormity of which could not fully be comprehended at first. Slowly, however, the newspapers were lowered . . .
‘Ladies to be admitted?’ General Fredericks queried after the committee’s notice had been read, or rather bellowed out by Bulstrode. ‘I must say I—’ But his quiet voice was for once drowned by the general uproar.
‘Dash it,’ howled Charlie Briton, and it says much for the occasion that such a youthful member was not frowned upon for speaking at all. ‘My Gertie—’ This time he was frowned upon. Ladies were never mentioned by name – at least, not members’ wives.
‘Has the committee taken leave of its senses?’ bristled Peregrine Salt. He often bristled.
‘Not far to go,’ snorted Bulstrode, stamping round the room.
Worthington turned pink. ‘I must say, Bulstrode, that is—’
‘You’re on the committee, Worthington. What the devil’s the meaning of it? What were you thinking of?’ interrupted Erskine. Then he reconsidered. Were these words too strong? As a new member he could not afford to speak vehemently on any subject without much prior thought.
A politician to the last, Samuel Preston alone sat quiet. He would note others’ reactions first, before airing his views.
‘Women? In Plum’s?’ bleated Jeremiah ‘Jorrocks’ Atkins, ever eager to grasp an opportunity of open warfare against that damned fellow Worthington. Rotund, and belligerent, like his own bull-terrier, Jeremiah Atkins was the Colonel’s avowed enemy. ‘Never thought you’d go that far, Worthington.’
‘Gentlemen,’ began Worthington with dignity, ‘I may have the honour to be on the committee. I am, however, but one member of it.’ He glanced at the stony faces, and looked round beseechingly. ‘Gentlemen, I am as opposed to this decision as you are. In my view, the ruin of the club and all it stands for are at stake. This is a black day, gentlemen. I make no secret of the fact that I was outvoted in this matter, and in my opinion it is scandalous. Scandalous.’
Fortunately for Worthington he had little difficulty in making himself believed, as his dislike of women was well known.
Auguste, entering to serve the coffee, looked round the assembled company and wondered anew at the English. He tried to imagine the scene in his native France, and almost laughed openly.
‘They must have made a mistake,’ said Charles Briton hopefully.
‘No,’ said Worthington gloomily, completely forgetting he was speaking to a mere captain. ‘That’s just it, they thought about it carefully. One day they were all opposed to it, just as you are, gentlemen. Then suddenly the next day – most of them were in favour. Extraordinary thing.’ Or perhaps not so extraordinary if his suspicions were correct.
‘But why?’ said Peregrine Salt querulously. ‘Why, if they have to come in, why for Plum’s Passing? Why not some other day, for coffee perhaps? Afternoon tea? One of my magic-lantern shows perhaps?’ His audience cringed. Not again! ‘But for the Passing – it’s – it’s unthinkable.’
‘My view entirely,’ trumpeted Worthington. ‘Gentlemen, I propose that we – er – you do not take this lying down. After all, there’ll be delicate matters to consider.’
‘What matters?’ enquired Charlie.
‘Delicate matters,’ snorted Atkins. ‘Lavatories, man, say lavatories. I’m a plain-speaking man—’
‘You are indeed, sir,’ said Worthington coldly. An inimical glance passed between them. It was common club knowledge that a feud existed between Worthington and Jeremiah Atkins, apparently born of some misunderstanding at their adjoining country estates. Some held that it sprang from rival territorial claims by Atkins’ bull-terrier and Worthington’s tabby cat Melissa; others that it arose through a fox-hunting dispute of which ‘Jorrocks’ Atkins considered himself the local potentate.
‘Lavatories?’ growled Bulstrode. ‘Dammit, you mean they’ll have to use our lavatories?’
‘But – they can’t do that,’ spluttered Charles, appalled at the prospect and trying to imagine Gertrude’s face when she saw the cold, draughty tiled corridor and cubicles, and the line of urinals with the jolly prints of ladies in bathing dresses above them.
‘No, they
can’t,’ said Salt indignantly, following his drift and thinking of Juanita’s ample curves.
‘But the parade will in any case have to pass through the club lavatories,’ pointed out Preston. ‘It’s the tradition, whether they stop to use them or hot,’ he added, laughing.
His levity was not well received.
‘We’ll protest,’ said Worthington. ‘With you to back me up, gentlemen, we’ll have a deputation to Nollins tomorrow. All of us. I’m an old soldier. I’ll spearhead an advance when I have to. Why, once at Chillianwallah—’
Cries of approval for one hundred per cent support hastily supported the plan.
‘May I ask,’ put in the soft voice of General Fredericks, ‘who made the suggestion in the first place that ladies should be admitted?’
‘It was in the Suggestions Book,’ growled Worthington bitterly. ‘Came up as a routine matter at the committee meeting.’
‘Whose suggestion?’
‘No name given. Don’t have to, you know.’
‘But we could send the rotter to Coventry,’ said Charlie Briton, inspired. He led a charge as spirited as any in his army career out into the lobby where the Suggestions Book was kept. Auguste was one of the vanguard. Peeps looked on gloomily. There hadn’t been this excitement over the letter he’d received. A disgusting letter too. Not that Mr Nollins had seemed worried by it. It was a fine thing if a man couldn’t come to work without being accused of being a – He tried to shut it out of his mind, and thought he’d succeeded. But he hadn’t.
The Suggestions Book should have been more properly defined as a Complaints Book since it inclined to the negative. ‘Are pigs’ feet never to disappear from the menu?’ ‘Is it impossible for the smoking room to possess more than one ashtray?’ ‘Could other members kindly refrain from taking other members’ hats from the cloakroom . . .’
‘The page has been torn out,’ said Worthington unbelievingly. ‘Look at this. Torn out.’
‘Torn out?’ An exclamation from somewhere, someone. Auguste looked round quickly, and caught Samuel Preston’s eye.
Preston flushed angrily. ‘You’re the cook, aren’t you? What—’
He was stopped by General Fredericks’ quiet voice. ‘Gentlemen, another act of savagery. I do not like it.’
Here everyone was in agreement. They had been deprived of their prey.
Gravely Fredericks continued, as the party returned to the sanctity of the morning room. ‘This is one more in the series of unfortunate incidents which are afflicting Plum’s. Mutilated books, death threats to Mr Erskine and Mr Preston, and now obscene messages to Peeps, dead rats . . .’ He paused, as a silence fell and blank faces turned to him. Blank – and obstinate – faces.
‘Nonsense. Just a servant with a grievance,’ said Samuel Preston dismissively.
Auguste, serving the tray of pre-luncheon savouries, stiffened indignantly.
‘Seems to be someone with a grudge against Erskine,’ pointed out ‘Jorrocks’ Atkins brightly. It was not often he could pride himself on his intellectual powers.
There was an uneasy pause as the members tried to avoid gazing at Charlie Briton. For all their tacit rules about discussion of the ladies within the club precincts, it was remarkable how speedily the news of members’ liaisons, formal and informal, travelled. News of Gaylord Erskine’s affair with Gertrude Briton had travelled faster than most.
General Fredericks came to his aid. ‘Then how do you explain the threats to Peeps, Mr Atkins? And to Mr Preston?’ he asked reasonably.
Atkins’ face fell. ‘A red herring?’ he ventured hopefully. This was disregarded.
‘These irritations are mere trifles,’ Salt pontificated. ‘Not like this matter of the ladies. The whole future of the club is at stake. That’s more important than a few dead rats or rude letters.’
Auguste frowned. They were overlooking the molehills to get to the mountain. But the mountain would remain, it was the molehills that might work their insidious way, running underneath Plum’s, undermining its whole structure. Far more important than the question so exercising their minds at present. For himself, he could see no objection to the presence of ladies on the premises. Far from it. These English were very strange.
‘Gentlemen, I agree,’ Worthington ponderously intoned. ‘When I was in the Twenty-fourth Foot the ladies, God bless ’em, knew their place. Why, even if the General’s wife, God bless her, neatest little woman ever sat a horse – no, even if the Queen herself, God bless Her Majesty, were to present herself at Plum’s door and demand entry, I would close the door in her face, gentlemen.’ He looked round his assembled company, who were in principle in agreement with him but who were making their own varying estimates as to how long old Worthington would be rambling on this time.
For there is one major problem about club membership. Once elected, a member stays elected. However boring, however quickly the membership realise a severe mistake has been made, nothing can be done. In severe circumstances the offending member could be sent to Coventry, but old Worthington was just a damned bore. After so many years in far-flung posts of Empire it was hardly surprising, the more charitable pointed out. But even they were forced to agree that there was no one who could be quite so boring as Worthington even upon an interesting subject, such as Auguste Didier’s poularde à la Carème. Was it, or was it not, the genuine article or should it more rightly be called poularde Didier or à la mode de Carème?
Only General Fredericks could get Worthington to stop talking and it was therefore with some surprise that the members noticed his intervention was not today required.
‘And so, gentlemen,’ Worthington perorated, ‘I can count on your support. Till after luncheon, then.’
The eagerly shouted ‘ayes’ left Auguste, hovering interestedly, in no doubt of the feelings of the meeting, however misplaced in Auguste’s judgment. If the fate of nations was decided in the gentlemen’s clubs of London, in his view the world was in for a time of sad mismanagement.
‘These letters, Peeps, they come by messenger or by post?’
Peeps’ large back stiffened and he slowly turned round to face his questioner. He didn’t hold with Frenchies. They were all right in the kitchen but not in his front hall, thank you.
‘What letters would they be, Mr Didier?’ he asked carefully.
‘Those letters for Mr Erskine and Mr Preston – and your good self.’
‘My good self, Mr Didier, prefers to keep its letters to itself if you don’t mind. Privacy. That’s what we respect here, privacy. In this country.’
‘Ah, Mr Peeps, forgive me.’ Auguste, conscious of his error, set out to charm. ‘But you and I, we have the good of Plum’s at heart, do we not? And it is necessary to find out who perpetrates these abominations.’
For a moment, Peeps appeared mollified, even on the point of confiding something, then the humour of the situation struck him. Slowly, ponderously, a belly laugh made its way, erupted, and shook his sides.
‘And you’re going to find out who did it, then, Mr Didier?’ he spluttered. ‘Sherlock the Chef, eh?’ And still roaring, he disappeared into his office leaving Auguste fuming outside.
Oliver Nollins’ room was tucked away on the first floor; it had once been the linen room. In times past the secretary’s room had been a grand imposing one on the ground floor with windows overlooking the square, but a pusillanimous secretary in the 1860s had sycophantically ceded it for a drawing room. Or perhaps he hadn’t been pusillanimous, thought Oliver Nollins in his more despondent moments, merely tired of being badgered on all sides, by members, by committee members, by every Tom, Dick and Harry. Perhaps, he thought, gazing round his small domain, his predecessor had even welcomed the linen room, tucked away at the end of a corridor where the happy thought would not strike the casual passer-by that they could pop in and have a ‘quick’ word about the drains, the lavatory paper, the lack of caviar, and by the way how dared he ask them for their subscription? This was a club for gentlemen, wasn’t
it, sir, dammit? One gentleman never dunned another for a few paltry pounds, like some vulgar tradesman.
But for once the payment of subscriptions, or rather their non-payment, was far from the top of priorities. So far as Nollins could make out, this bowler-hatted, thin-faced man in front of him was trying to suggest that Jack the Ripper was once more loose amidst them.
‘Now let me understand you aright, Inspector,’ Nollins said, adopting his ‘patient’ voice, his round genial face blank with incomprehension. ‘You are telling me that just because there are a few unfortunate incidents taking place, you consider that lives are at risk. In Plum’s?’ He might have known this would happen.
Rose sighed to himself. Privately he sympathised with Nollins. Here in Plum’s it was obvious that even the word death seemed incongruous. Members did not die. They simply failed to put in an appearance one day. And as for murder . . . With the smell of the leather armchairs in his nostrils, the faint aroma of beeswax polish coming from the table, and a general air of mustiness and loving care combined that spoke of decades of tradition . . . it seemed sacrilege even to mention such a word.
To Nollins, Inspector Egbert Rose’s presence seemed equally incongruous. He was wondering what kind of adverse comment he might receive from his membership in having allowed a policeman in a bowler hat on to the premises at all. True he was an inspector, and from Scotland Yard, yet it still smacked uncommonly of trade. He wished he’d never yielded to Erskine’s suggestion. He wished Erskine had never been elected. He wished – but what was the use of wishing? He sighed, hoping Lord Bulstrode wouldn’t take it upon himself to sling Rose bodily out of the tradesmen’s entrance. There was something about Rose that made Nollins uncomfortably aware he would not take kindly to this treatment.