“I don’t think we’ve forgotten anything,” Ruby said pensively to her aide-de-camp, Florence, at half-past eight on the night that was to witness the appraisement of the girl who was a candidate for entry into the exclusive ranks of the Cheldons. “I don’t suppose anyone will arrive for another hour.” She had been ready herself since a quarter to eight when Bobbie had gone off to offer himself as escort to Nancy Curzon.
“Don’t forget, ma’am,” said Florence, who could enjoy a party no matter how complicated her amatory troubles might be, “that Mr. Davidson mustn’t use the sofa. It won’t bear his eighteen stone.”
“I’ll head him off,” Ruby promised with a smile. “What’s that?” The front door bell rang twice with an impatience to which only a genuine Cheldon was entitled.
Ruby moved to the front of the fire where for a few moments she watched the reflection of the infrequent flames in her soft dark blue silk dress. She was feeling excessively nervous, certain in her mind that it was Bobbie who had rung the bell and that soon she would be facing the ordeal of an interview with a common, aggressive young woman with Bobbie looking on and, perhaps, discovering the real reason for the party and hating his mother for it ever afterwards.
The door opened and Florence, who had been carefully coached in the respectful formality due to the Galahad Mansions branch of the Cheldon family, announced the caller with the stateliness of a veteran butler.
“Miss Hyacinth Curzon.”
Ruby advanced with a dignity of which she was unnecessarily conscious, and the instant she saw her son’s fascinator her heart sank. For there was nothing common or flamboyant in her visitor’s appearance. Here was a convincing imitation of the real thing, and, above all, here was an unusual and magnetic beauty.
Forty-eight involuntarily stared at nineteen and in one full scrutiny took in her five feet six inches of perfect and healthy womanhood, her head of brown hair, pale cheeks slightly touched with colour, broad, clever-looking forehead, bright, challenging dark eyes, firm and yet dainty chin, expressive lips vibrant with an earnest appreciation of life. She was certainly very pretty, this dancer of the night, and Ruby, vaguely summoning the ghosts of Lady Emily Cheldon and other aristocratic wives of dead and gone Cheldons, felt hopeless as she contemplated the possibility of convincing Bobbie that mere beauty did not guarantee the standard of bluish blood which she had a right to expect in the girl he intended to elevate to the position of her daughter-in-law.
“Miss Curzon?” she began nervously, when she found her visitor’s eyes wandering round the room.
“Yes, that’s me,” came the response set to the discordant music of a superfluous giggle. “Isn’t Bobbie here?”
“I thought that he’d gone to meet you. Won’t you sit down?”
Nancy smiled her thanks and lapsed into a momentary reserve which made her feel ill at ease.
“I expect he’ll be back at any moment now, Miss Curzon,” said Ruby, as she became aware of several wave-lengths of a scent of penetrating virility. There was another pause.
“Nice room you’ve got here,” said Nancy in a toneless voice.
“It might be better.” The words were used merely to pass the time. The battle had already begun but only in skirmishes, neither being yet prepared to launch heavy artillery.
“I like the quiet colour scheme.” She giggled again, forgetting in her nervousness that she had resolved to show Bobbie’s mother what a perfect lady could be or ought to be. “You’ll excuse my curiosity, won’t you?” The lower part of her face grinned.
“Curiosity is often a form of politeness.” Ruby Cheldon was feeling on top now and completely unafraid. The girl was common and her beauty and obvious cleverness merely underlined that fact.
Suspecting that she was losing ground Nancy regained her self-possession by initiating a discussion about herself.
“Of course, Bobbie’s told you all about me, Mrs. Cheldon? He’s such a dear boy. Quite unspoilt and a perfect lamb.”
“Bobbie did mention that you were a dancer.” Ruby’s voice and manner would have earned the approval of Lady Emily Cheldon and her sister, who had married a colonial bishop. It was concentrated dislike touched with a veneer of contemptuous interest.
“I’m professionally known as Hyacinth—Nancy to my pals—Curzon of Curzon and Bright, speciality dancers. We do all the tip-top night clubs and our act is a regular riot.”
“That means it is a big success?” It was the grand lady of the manor evincing an interest in the under-gardener’s daughter.
“I should think so.” She leaned forward in order to assume a more confidential attitude. “The managers will be fighting to get us soon, and don’t you make no—I mean, don’t you forget it.”
“I’m afraid I hadn’t intended to remember it,” said Ruby, impulsively, and instantly regretted her rudeness. Fortunately, Nancy, accustomed to the curious humour of her underworld, chose to treat the remark as exquisitely funny.
“That’s a good come-back, Mrs. Cheldon,” she said wiping her eyes.
“She can act,” thought Ruby, and for some unknown reason shivered.
“I’m very fond of Bobbie.” Bobbie’s mother thought the tone oddly impersonal, even detached. “He’s a gentleman—you can tell that at first sight. A perfect gentleman, I don’t hesitate to say. None of your common crowd like the Belbills and Marjorie Grimes’ pal who runs a cigar shop in the Edgware Road. No, Bobbie’s a perfect gentleman, just as you’re a perfect lady.”
“Only a lady—I don’t claim perfection,” said Ruby ironically.
Nancy ignored the emendation.
“When Bobbie and I met in Bohemia—”
“Bohemia—is that a night club?”
The dancer wriggled in her mirth.
“Excuse me, but you are a one.” She laughed for several seconds. “Bohemia is where bohemians meet.”
“Oh, I see. And what are bohemians exactly?”
“Now you’ve got me, Mrs. Cheldon.” She laughed. “I suppose bohemians are people who live the sort of lives other people don’t live—do unconventional things and—er—have their own views about everything. Oh, dear, I never thought before or tried to think what it does mean exactly. Perhaps Bobbie could tell you better than me.”
“If bohemians are persons who do unconventional things then I’m afraid you’re mistaken about my son. He’s the most conventional young man in London.”
Nancy laughed the laugh of superior knowledge.
“Do you really know Bobbie, Mrs. Cheldon? Oh, yes, of course, you’ve known him all his life and I met him for the first time three months ago, but I’ll bet I know something more about him than you do. Why, he’s said things to me he wouldn’t say to you.”
“I expect he has.”
The dryness of her tone was a challenge, and Nancy Curzon decided that it was time she brought into action the superiority with which her conquest of Bobbie Cheldon endowed her.
“I can do anything I like with Bobbie—he’s crazy about me.” She rose and opened her handbag. Ruby leaned forward and took a silver cigarette box from the table near her.
“Try one of Bobbie’s,” she said quietly.
“Thank you.” The girl gracefully posed for her own satisfaction as she went through the preliminaries necessary to smoking.
“Look here, Miss Curzon,” Ruby resumed, “I’m expecting a few friends soon and so time is precious. I want to talk to you about Bobbie and his future. As his mother I’m naturally anxious. Please don’t think I’m your enemy or your friend. There, I’m very candid. But Bobbie is all I have, and we’ve got so little.” There was a chance for a compliment here, but Nancy, too busy thinking of herself, missed it. “Bobbie has proposed to you, I suppose?”
That faintly cockney giggle pervaded the room again.
“You won’t believe me, Mrs. Cheldon, but he actually we
nt down on his knees. Delightfully old-fashioned, but so perfectly sweet. That was two days after we met in the ‘Squealing Pig’, and I’ve taught him a lot since. He wanted teaching.”
“What he wants most of all is an opportunity to earn his living so that if he marries he’ll be able to keep his wife in decent comfort.”
“Do you mean a job? Bobbie working! Oh, my hat!” She uttered a piercing scream.
“You know the world, Miss Curzon, and it must be obvious to you that we are poor. At present Bobbie can’t afford to marry.”
“That’s what they all say.” She wheeled round to face her. “Isn’t Bobbie heir to a title and estate bringing in ten thousand a year?”
“There’s no title—only a property.”
“Oh, I thought all estates had titles stuck on to them. Still it doesn’t matter. Ten thousand a year will do to be going on with. After all, it’s nearly as much as Happy Blibbs makes, but he’s a top-liner.”
“No doubt Bobbie has told you exactly how he stands.” Her tone was one of suppressed irritation. “The Cheldon property is at present in the possession of his uncle, who is only fifty-three—”
“Fifty-three! Ye gods! Isn’t the old man saving up to buy a wreath for his own funeral?” She stopped in her laughter, conscious that the atmosphere had become icy. “Sorry. Just a joke. But fifty-three! It’s terribly old, isn’t it?”
“Mr. Massy Cheldon may live for another twenty or thirty years. The Cheldons live long. But there is another possibility to be considered. He may marry and have a son, and in that event Bobbie would never get a penny or an acre.”
“I’ll lay the odds against the old man marrying and having a kid, but the twenty years frightens me. I’d be thirty-nine then, and living in a bath-chair. That’s not the game for me, Mrs. Cheldon, and you can tell Bobbie so. He only talked of coming into ten thousand a year, and I believed him. It wasn’t fair—” She walked over to the fireplace and stood staring into the grate, and in spite of her feelings Ruby Cheldon envied the lovely young life which had so much that was unlovely and common about it.
“A young man in love is always optimistic, Miss Curzon,” she said, almost apologetically.
“Bobbie’s talked as if he was a millionaire.” The voice was sulky. “I was very nearly chucking Billy Bright my partner, and retiring from the profession altogether. I thought Bobbie had pots of the ready. Why, it was on account of Bobbie that I refused last night an offer for a continental tour with Billy Bright.”
“From your point of view there must be better fish in the sea than my son,” Ruby began.
The girl turned on her angrily.
“You don’t mean that—no mother could mean it.” The termagant peeped through the glistening eyes. “It ain’t—it’s not fair, Mrs. Cheldon. After all, I didn’t propose to Bobbie, did I?”
The older woman went to her side and laid a hand on her arm.
“Why should we quarrel, Miss Curzon? We’re both fond of Bobbie and want to do the best for him. We’re two women of the world—you’re nineteen and I’m forty-eight.”
“Forty-eight!” she exclaimed. “Aren’t you afraid of death?” Nancy was back in the Whitechapel of her childhood with its coffins, fish and chips, beer and policemen.
“It’s only life we’re afraid of as we grow older. When I married, nearly thirty years ago now…” She paused to sigh reflectively, and the girl seized the opportunity to take the stage.
“Thirty years ago! I’ve seen pictures of what people looked like then. Wearing long skirts and going about in hansom cabs.”
“We weren’t always wearing long skirts or going about in hansom cabs, Miss Curzon.” Ruby’s smile was genuine for the first time. “Life was pretty much the same then as it is now. We had much the same affairs and adventures as the young people of today have. Foolish and rich young men got entangled with common women. There were elopements, quarrels about money, divorces, even night clubs.”
“Night clubs thirty years ago?”
“Yes, night clubs. I’m told they were even worse than they are today. I wonder is that possible? My cousin says they were. So you see, Miss Curzon, we’re going round in a circle. In my young days there were fast women and fast hansoms. Today there are fast women and fast motorcars.”
“I suppose that means me?” The glare was so intense that Ruby could detect physical danger to herself in it.
“I’m trying not to be personal, Miss Curzon. I’m not saying anything against you—only against the notion of my son marrying. He’s penniless, and you don’t want a penniless husband.”
“Not on your life.” The snarl was unmistakable.
“I want Bobbie to work and work hard before he even thinks of marriage. I want him to regard the Cheldon estate as out of his reach. The Cheldons have always been workers. Bobbie’s father did his bit and a bit over, and I want Bobbie to follow in his footsteps. He’s in love with you, and I’m not surprised. You live in a world of which he knows nothing. You’re all light and brightness and adventure—he’s compelled to live in a dull flat with a dull mother.”
“Bobbie’s no snob,” she muttered.
“We’re all snobs, Miss Curzon. By the way, would it be an impertinence to ask which branch of the Curzon family you belong to?”
The unexpectedness of the question discomfited Nancy and made her forget her grievances and her anger.
“Well, you see, in a manner of speaking, I belong to them all—if you go back far enough. Curzon’s a sort of family name.”
“But perhaps it isn’t your family name?”
“I’m as good as anybody else.” The sulky hostility betokened retreat.
“For your own sake, Miss Curzon, I hope you’re better than a great many people I know. But I think this is Bobbie.”
Two doors made a rushing noise and Bobbie, flushed and excited, stood over Nancy with an arm around her shoulders.
“Sorry to have missed you, darling, but I’m glad you and mother have had the room to yourselves. You’ve told her everything? Mother, isn’t she wonderful?”
“She is very clever.”
Nancy, interpreting the last word as only another woman could, stiffened.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Bobbie, that you hadn’t a bean?” she said, releasing herself from his embrace.
“But I never said I had money, darling!” he protested. “I told you all about the Cheldon estate and that I was hoping my uncle would help me to get a job and—”
“A job? I don’t want to marry a man with a job. I want to marry one who can afford to do without one. I work like a damned nigger and where am I? When the agent’s paid and the landlady and the bill at the clubs where I’ve got to spend or they won’t have me, there’s nothing left.”
“Marriage founded on love—” he attempted, but he had two women against him now and speech was almost illegal.
“Miss Curzon is talking sense, Bobbie, and marriage founded on commonsense is the sort that succeeds.”
“Love is the first and only essential, mother,” he retorted, “and—”
“Let’s leave love out of it,” Nancy exclaimed petulantly. “I’ve been listening to insults and putting up with them because I thought you’d got the cash, Bobbie. If I’d known the truth I’d have let your mother know exactly where she got off.”
“But, darling—”
“Need we prolong the discussion, Bobbie?” his mother asked.
“But, mother. As Bernard Shaw once said—”
“Only once?”
“Oh, never mind about Bernard Shaw. He gives me a pain in the neck. You two talk like a couple of gramophones. I won’t—” Nancy spluttered.
The voice of Florence announcing Miss Sylvia Brand relegated to well below the surface all contentious subjects.
“Hello, Mrs. Cheldon, and there’s Bobbie.” The introduction
was affected in the usual slipshod and hurried manner.
“Good evening, Miss Curzon.”
Sylvia gave her a smiling glance while the dancer looked her up and down with something between a sniff and suspicion. But she need not have done more than ask herself if here was a possible rival. That Sylvia Brand liked Bobbie was obvious, but nothing more. She was pretty enough, but her efforts to aid nature with a touch of paint here and there had the effect of detracting from her good looks. Nancy, who used none outside her working hours, seemed fresh and natural now, while her possible rival was a shade too artificial in appearance to have a chance in the silent beauty contest now in progress. Actually there was no comparison between them, for Sylvia imitated badly and inexpertly a type not worth imitating and in her efforts to appear smart and be smart deprived herself of all the advantages derived from superior education and social position. But then Sylvia Brand, having been over-educated, really knew very little. She had gone through the conventional educational mill and had emerged a slangy, filmised, genteel paraphrase of an unconventional modern girl. Could she have afforded to be natural she would have confessed that she wanted to marry Bobbie and have a family somewhere in a western suburb. As it was, South Kensington veneered by Wardour Street had her in its grip and she was compelled to move with a small crowd which considered life a failure unless “doing something” every day and every night.
Physically she was half an inch taller than Nancy and had a figure nearly as good. She dressed with credit at the expense of a doting father and studied the art of self-possession under every conceivable circumstance. At this moment she was thrilled and alarmed by the presence of Bobbie’s “latest” in the fastness of Galahad Mansions, but she affected a nonchalance which she never abandoned.
Murder in Piccadilly Page 4