Bell Timson

by Marguerite Steen

  Nobody did, so the arrangement fell out that Mrs. Wakeford, Archie Culmer, Mrs. Thesiger, Lord Solness, Mr. Somervell, and I had the box — which was a large one — while the other four went in the stalls. I always like a box; it makes a party of the evening. Solness had his car, and so had Mr. do Araguayo; Mr. Somervell had kept his taxi, so he and I went off alone.

  As long as I live I think Mr. Somervell will remain my ideal of a gentleman. Before the evening was over I was more than halt in love with him — an uncomfortable state of affairs, but when a woman reaches my present age she appreciates friendship more than amorous relations, and that night laid the foundations of an attachment which has been one of the most valuable things in my life and which has continued uninterrupted, except for the one rather painful misunderstanding, up to the present day.

  In a way he was like George; he had the same honesty and, in a way, the same simplicity of outlook; but of course the circumstances of his upbringing had produced something very different from poor old George. He had the sophistication which was lacking in George, and his manners did not seem as if he put them on with his collar and tie in the morning. I never had the privilege of meeting Mr. Somervell in his pajamas, but I feel sure if I had done he would have taken the situation perfectly for granted, while George would have blushed himself into a bonfire. Mr. Somervell did more than anyone to steady me in my new environment; instead of being shocked he laughed at what he called my “Villainies,” and instead of disapproving he made me wonder whether, in the long run, they would pay. He had a natural disposition toward goodness, without any sort of self-righteous objection to its opposite. He always said one must know the whole of a person’s circumstances before judging them, and as it was very rarely possible to do that, it was really wiser not to judge at all.

  “I am very glad to meet you at last, Mrs. Timson,” he told me as the taxi dodged out of Charles Street into Piccadilly, “although you scare me a little — as, according to Lois’ — that was Mrs. Thesiger — “you’re a kind of magician.”

  I said rather stiffly that I was glad Mrs. Thesiger had given me a good character. In those days I used to find it rather difficult to reconcile my professional with my social relationships, as I very rarely met anybody, like Mr. Somervell, with whom, from the beginning, it was easy and natural to be myself.

  “You’re not a bit what I expected.” I could tell from his voice he was laughing. “I thought a masseuse — is that what you call yourself? — must be a strapping female with bulging biceps, who treated one like a poor weakling, wilting from the hothouse!”

  “It would take something to make you a weakling.” I reckoned he must be over six feet, and I was not deceived by the looseness of his setup and the slight stoop which was just natural indolence. I knew the type that never wastes an ounce of energy; it is all there, ready to be produced when the moment comes. “Why are you laughing?” I asked, for I could feel him still chuckling in the dark. “You will probably be offended if I tell you.”

  “Well, there’s no way of finding out, is there, unless you do?” He said, after a little pause, “It isn’t often, you know, that one meets somebody who makes one think of sailing over the bullfinch, with a good mare under one, on a misty morning.”

  “Am I as countrified as all that?” I was taken by surprise, for I thought I had lost all my healthy air of a country girl since my long time in London.

  “Countrified in the right way,” he pointed out. “It does one good to look at you. Don’t you ever wear any make-up?”

  “I look a sight in it,” I found myself confiding in him. “I’ve got the wrong sort of skin, you know, and it makes me look like a tart. It’s an infernal nuisance, especially at night, because one always starts to look haggish round about midnight.”

  This fairly broke the ice, and we were chatting like old friends. I liked him because he did not fall over himself, as most of the men in those days were doing, to explain why he was not in the Army. It was a long time before I heard from him, quite casually, that he had been turned down, because of an injury to his knee when he was a schoolboy at Harrow; he was now just over enlistment age, although to look at him one would not have believed it, and he accepted with equanimity the white feathers with which he was presented by the busybody females who were one of the scourges of the last war. I heard, also, that he was in the Intelligence, but this he never mentioned to me.

  By the time we reached the theater I was telling him all about Kathleen and Jo, and he was asking me questions about them as though he had known them from babyhood.

  “Don’t forget I’m to meet them when they come home. A pantomime and tea at Gunter’s is a necessary part of any child’s education,” he assured me.

  When we went into the foyer Mrs. Wakeford was standing with her hand on Archie Culmer’s arm. She gave me rather a sharp look, and I wondered if she woe interested in Mr. Somervell. She cracked some joke with him, which he answered rather stiffly, and I was pleased to realize he did not like her. Mrs. Thesiger and Solness joined us and we went down to the box; she looked really lovely, in a gown of verdigris green, with orchids on her shoulder, and Solness, who was a foxy little man, like a shriveled almond in his uniform, seemed to be infatuated. Archie Culmer had had a good deal to drink, and I saw Mrs. Wakeford give his elbow a little shake as she passed before him into the box. Her dress was a dark prune color, of taffeta, without any trimming, and I never saw such a diamond as she wore in the front of her corsage. It was her only ornament; her arms and neck were quite bare and the flesh very white — that whiteness of pinkish moonlight that you see in some of the Italian paintings. My turnout was matronly in comparison, although I should think she was two or three years older than I. I was just going to follow her when Mr. Somervell caught me back. His voice was lowered, although the other four were chattering so much, it is unlikely they would have heard us.

  “Do you know Mrs. Wakeford?”

  “No.” I was rather surprised. “I never met her before tonight.” “Good. Then I’d forget about meeting her if I were you.” Astonished as I was, there was no opportunity of asking what he meant — which, knowing Mr. Somervell, I doubt if he would have told me — for the overture had begun, and we were all settling into our places, the three women in front and the men behind.

  I remember very little of the show, except that I was so tired I found it hard not to keep on yawning; and once or twice it crossed my mind that I should have enjoyed it more if Mr. Somervell and I had been by ourselves. What was I, a busy, hard-working woman, doing to spend the hours when I ought to have been resting with a party of hard-boiled society people, none of whom were friends of mine and most of whom I did not even like? I did not care for Mrs. Thesiger, as I have said already; I disliked Mrs. Wakeford more and more as the night went on, although she seemed to go out of her way to be agreeable to me. “Marjorie” seemed to be all right, and I never got a word out of Mrs. Anstey the whole evening. Mr. do Araguayo (whom Mr. Somervell referred to as “Marjorie’s dago”) had something to do with one of the legations, but I don’t care for Latins; they always seem to be undressing you, and, although I could probably stand up to the test as well as any of the other women in the party, his toffee-apple eyes and the shiny look of his lips irritated me. The brigadier general was a fearful old bore, only interested in fox hunting; Lord Solness, of course, took no notice of anybody but Mrs. Thesiger, and Archie Culmer got more and more tipsy as the night went on.

  In the interval they all went out to the bar. Mr. Somervell stood up and put his hand on the back of my chair.

  “You go with the others,” I said. “Don’t mind me.”

  “Can I fetch you anything? A whisky and soda?”

  “No, thanks. I’ve got a hard day’s work before me; I don’t want to drink any more.”

  “Neither do I, for the present.” He sat down again and offered me a cigarette. “I expect we shall have to do our share at supper.”

  “What did you mean by what you said
just now, about Mrs. Wakeford?” I asked him.

  “Oh — nothing. Just a suggestion.” His teeth flashed in a very pleasant smile.

  “Who is she? I don’t know anything about her.”

  “You might ask Mrs. Thesiger sometime.” He turned his head and gave me so curious a look that I lifted my eyebrows.

  “Well?”

  “You’re a very innocent person for your age, aren’t you?”

  The way he said it made me innocent for a moment. I almost felt as I sat there, wondering what to answer, as if I really was one of those nice, protected women of Mr. Somervell’s world. For I knew instinctively that he did not belong in Mrs. Thesiger’s gang, although he appeared to have strayed among them for the night. I answered slowly:

  “I don’t know what you mean by ‘innocent.’ I’ve had a divorce and I earn my own living; one doesn’t do that, in these days, by ‘innocence.’“

  His smile brushed the subject aside.

  “I wish you’d do something for me.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  “I wish you would let me take you to see a cousin of mine — Lady

  Emily Hope. Poor dear, she suffers the torments of the damned from what they tell her are neuralgic headaches. From what I hear, I believe you could help her.”

  “I’d like to if I can.”

  Something told me that this might be the beginning of a very different connection from the Carpenter-Thesiger one, and it came over me suddenly how bored and tired I was with these playtime women, who used me only as a form of self-indulgence, to enable them to carry on the racket which, in the end, would get them down.

  “I’ll have to speak to her first, and then — can I ring you anywhere?” he asked.

  I was vexed to think I was not yet in Plymouth Street, with a telephone number of my own. Urgent messages were sometimes sent in from next door, but the woman who took them was a silly noodle and often got them wrong.

  “I think Mrs. Thesiger’s servants would take a message; I’m there on Tuesdays and Fridays, between five and six.”

  “All right, I’ll do that,” he promised as the door of the box opened and the others began to string in.

  For some reason or other Mrs. Thesiger insisted on driving away from the theater with Mr. Somervell; I don’t know why, unless she felt I was getting on too well with one of her beaux. Solness packed the brigadier, Archie Culmer, Mrs. Wakeford, and myself into his big Rolls and left the others to follow in Mr. do Araguayo’s car. The brigadier was puffing with relief; he had found Mrs. Anstey heavy going. The night club where we were having supper was somewhere off Grosvenor Street, and we had just swung north out of Piccadilly when Archie, who was fairly pickled, cried out: “Come on, let’s have a bottle at Flora’s before we join the crowd!” Mrs. Wakeford said, although she was laughing, “Don’t be a fool. Archie! I refuse to hold you up while we are dancing.”

  “Don’ need any holdin’ up, ol’ girl,” Archie protested. “What say, Solness? Tell your chap to go round by Park Lane. Haven’t seen Flora for months; jus’ in the mood to see Flora.”

  “Perhaps Mrs. Timson isn’t in the mood to see Flora?” Mrs. Wakeford gave me a sly look.

  “I don’t know who Flora is,” I said, “but won’t the others be waiting for us?” I wanted to get back to the party and Mr. Somervell again; he was really the only one there was any pleasure in being with.

  They all laughed and seemed to take it as a great joke that I did not know Flora.

  “Perhaps Mrs. Timson knows of the Hotel Debrett?” It was the brigadier general, in a leery kind of voice. He had been stroking my leg for the last ten minutes, and I had been wondering if I could bring my high heel down on the right foot, if I tried, in the tangle on the floor of the Rolls.

  I knew the Debrett — by name. Flora, who managed it (it now belonged to a company, of whom I knew Solness was one), had been on town in her youth but, striking lucky, was set up as manageress of the Debrett, a post she had held for more than half a century.

  Archie Culmer was insistent, and, since the other men were obviously willing, Mrs. Wakeford turned to me with a little grimace, said, “Well, I suppose we’ve got to pander to these low males,” and got out under the porch of the Debrett. Our companions, who were evidently very much at home there, went straight across the hall, opened a door marked “Private,” and led the way into a room filled with smoke and men and women drinking champagne, and I was introduced to Flora.

  Everybody knows Flora — or did, thirty years ago, when she was a classic figure of the West End, when one met her up Bond Street, peering into Asprey’s or Finnegan’s window, or saw her old-fashioned brougham with the shifty-eyed coachman and the rakish bay waiting outside her tailor’s in Savile Row. She must have been a fine girl in her youth; she was still — at the time of which I am speaking — as straight as a grenadier and almost as tall. Her proportions were beautiful — they probably made her look taller than she was: small head on good shoulders, flat back and narrow hips, all well shown off by her severe style in dressing. Her suits, which she wore at every hour of the day or night, were almost mannish in cut, and always finished off with a stock of white or chrome-yellow silk. On the top of this smart effect was a frowzy old head of peroxided hair, knotted anyhow, and a face you remembered for its port-wine complexion and a pair of wild china-blue eyes. There was a portrait by Sargent of Flora in her private sitting room (the one we were now in) that showed her as a girl of twenty-two or three, with a peaches-and-cream complexion and eyes like an angel. One does not know, of course, how much was fact and how much the effect she had on Sargent.

  “Knowing Flora” — I caught an experienced sort of murmur from Mrs. Wakeford — “I should say she’s at her third or fourth bottle.”

  She greeted Solness as “Claude” and the brigadier as “Bill” (neither of which happened to be their names), called Archie something quite unprintable, and kissed Mrs. Wakeford. Me she stared at hard, said, “Pleased to meet you, dear,” and asked if I knew Lords Thingummy and Flookempush (who stood up and bowed), Mr. Umpleby and dear little Princess Swizzles tick — all of which names, as you may imagine, were generated from Floras imagination. She never got names right — a trick experience may have taught her to cultivate. Solness was introduced as Lord Strawberry Nose, the brigadier and Archie as something equally improbable, and Mrs. Wakeford — “whom you all know” — as “dear little Tootsy-Wootsy.” I was dear little Something Else by the end of the session, which was only concluded by Mrs. Wakeford’s dragging the men away and saying she did not mean to miss a free supper. Flora, who had taken a fancy to me, kissed me at parting and conquered her fifth bottle sufficiently to say, “If you’re ever looking for somewhere to go in the West End, dear, don’t forget the old Debrett” — an invitation which I was, somewhat surprisingly, to remember.

  The others, of course, wanted to know where we had been, and I fancied Mr. Somervell’s eyes flickered just a trifle when we said, “The Debrett,” but he smiled at me as kindly as ever, and we danced while they were fetching our order. He danced wonderfully. Believe it or not, I had never set foot on a dancing floor since we left Crowle, but I was quick at picking up steps, and it would have been a poor performer who could not dance with Mr. Somervell. He asked me if I liked the Debrett, and I went demure and said it seemed to be very amusing, to which he answered gravely that it was supposed to be one of the most amusing places in town, and that ended the matter, so far as we were concerned.

  It must have been about three in the morning when Mrs. Wakeford and I found ourselves alone in the ladies’ toilet. I was wondering how I was going to find a taxi at that hour, and rather hoped Mr. Somervell would give me a lift, although I did not much want him to see the shabby little place where I lodged. However, darkness might improve that. My head was splitting and I had resolved never, while I was working, to take a night out like this again. Mrs. Wakeford was doing her mouth up at the glass.

  “Lois tells me you’re a m
arvel,” she observed.

  A marvel and a magician; Mrs. Thesiger was certainly doing her best for me. The impudence of Mrs. Wakeford’s next remark took the breath out of me for a moment.

  “How does it pay you?” she asked coolly.

  I told her, “Very well.” She gave me a cunning look.

  “Rubbish. I know what your line is, and you can’t put your charges up much higher than they are already. When you feel like making real money, come to me, and I’ll put you on a much more profitable line of country. You know, I’m in the business myself,” she drawled.

  Suddenly it came to me. I knew why Mrs. Wakeford was so well known at Flora’s, and I understood some not very delicate jokes the brigadier had made — and I wasn’t supposed to overhear — during the course of supper. And I remembered Alice and her promise to teach me all she knew, if I used it in her way. I was not prudish, but something in me — something which was still there, although my eagerness to make money had nearly stifled it — took umbrage (that was a favorite expression of Mr. Somervell’s) at being put in Mrs. Wakeford’s category. I looked her straight in the eye as I answered:

  “Thank you. I won’t be likely to trouble you, as I don’t think we are in the same line of business.”

  She did not seem to be offended; she only shrugged her shoulders.

  “It makes no difference to me. I thought you might like to make some money — that’s all.”

  When I saw Mrs. Thesiger the following week she asked, “Did Aimee say anything to you in the cloakroom?”

  1 admitted she did. Mrs. Thesiger shot a look at me out of the corner of her eye.

  “She said she was going to. What did you say?”

  “I wouldn’t have anything to do with it.”

  It was some time before Mrs. Thesiger answered.

  dare say you’re right. If Aimee doesn’t look out shell have the police down on that place of hers in Mount Street.”