This was the first of my odd experiences, which came hand in hand, as you see, with one of the best in my life — I mean, meeting Mr. Somervell. I did not know, then, how much he was going to count for or what a valuable friend he was going to prove. He spoke to his cousin, and in due course I went with him to call on Lady Emily Hope. What a contrast that was to Mrs. Thesiger’s!
The house was in Hill Street, and we were shown into a small sitting room as perfect in its way as a room in a museum; yet it was full of personality, and it had that kind of welcoming atmosphere which is never there in a place designed merely for show. You saw at a glance it was the room of someone with simple and very choice taste, and I knew that, even if I became rich and could afford a house like Mrs. Carpenter’s, I could never create a room like Lady Emily’s; I would not have known how to begin. There were none of those great, feather-stuffed divans and chairs like strawberry-pink elephants with dropsy that crowded the Hertford Street drawing room; the furniture was almost severe, although comfortable enough, and the lines of Lady Emily’s chairs and cabinets were so lovely they made you want to stroke them, with each piece set, apparently casually, but in just the place that brought out its finest points. The walls were covered with what Mr. Somervell told me was called toile de Jouy; it was the first time I had met it, and I could not help exclaiming at its beauty and freshness, as well as at the attractive background it made for Lady Emily’s walnut and dark rosewood. The recesses on either side the chimney breast were filled with bookshelves, and over the mantelpiece itself, which I recognized as a very fine piece of Adam carving, was a Venetian scene by Canaletto, the blues and greens and the rosy sun effect on the stonework being just what the room wanted to “pick it up” and make it alive. Rooms give people away faster than anything, and I felt I already knew Lady Emily when she came in and said quietly she was sorry to have kept us waiting.
She was rather like Mr. Somervell; you saw the relationship in their nice straight noses, a little long for their faces, which gave them their gentle, well-bred air. But Lady Emily looked the elder of the two, although I believe this was a false impression; her hair was quite white over the temples, and her transparent, grayish skin was very faintly wrinkled round the eyes. She looked a very delicate woman.
She spoke to me without any of the affected familiarity of Mrs. Carpenters set: pleasantly but formally. I thought, There’s no doubt you are a lady. I noticed she was wearing V.A.D. uniform.
Mr. Somervell said, “If you can persuade my cousin to give up some of her hospital work you’ll be doing as much good as I hope you will do with your massage.”
“Now, Dick! You know that’s a forbidden subject.” She was smiling, but the hint was not lost on me. Lady Emily was not the kind who encouraged personal discussions in front of strangers. “Shall we go straight to my room, Mrs. Timson? I am sure your time is as valuable as my own.”
Her bedroom was as simple as a nursery, and I had, for once, no complaint to make of the bed, which was almost as high and narrow as the one in Alice’s clinic, with a hard, flat mattress. It had a little tester and curtains of spotted muslin, which Lady Emily ordered to be tied back out of my way. Her maid was not a French fly-by-night, like Mrs. Thesiger’s, but a very respectable, elderly woman who had caught something of her mistress’s manner of reserve and formality.
I worked on Lady Emily until her face, which was drawn with the “neuralgic” pain she said she suffered almost constantly, relaxed and she passed off to sleep. Even the old maid was pleased; she told me, “It’s the first time her ladyship has slept for a month, without taking her pills.” I resolved to find out what the “pills” were and see if we could not dispense with them permanently. I was very tired, for I had put all I had into my work that afternoon; there is a good deal of hypnotism in massage, you know, and I may say I had willed the pain out of Lady Emily, almost as much as I had worked it out with my hands. But I felt happy; I felt as if the afternoon’s work had given me back my self-respect, which sometimes seemed to get mislaid when I was pandering to the self-indulgence of women like Mrs. Carpenter; I knew I had done a real job, of which Alice — and even Dr. Remington — would approve.
I had been treating Lady Emily for about a fortnight, generally managing to fit in my visits with her hours at the hospital: which meant that some days I went in the morning and some in the afternoon. On tins particular night, her maid having sent a message that “her ladyship was really very poorly,” I went in about a quarter to nine, and it was well after ten before I got her to sleep.
Of course it had to be one of the raid nights, and directly the maroons went they chased us down the tubes, as usual. We sat or lay or walked about the platforms and passages, hearing faintly the bombs bursting on the East End. It seemed as if the All Clear would never go, and when they let us out at last the rain was pelting down and I had missed the last train from Victoria. Not a taxi to be seen, and all the hotels full; the policeman I spoke to said there was not a hope at the Regent’s Palace or the Piccadilly. What about the Strand?
“Strand Palace? Full up, ma’am; likewise the Savoy and the Cecil. You might get into the Ritz.”
I thanked him for nothing. The nearest I would get to the Ritz would be under the arcades, for I had no intention of paying Ritz prices. The rain was coming down in sheets and the battery of my torch was giving out. I suddenly thought of the Debrett. Why not? Flora might remember me and let me sleep on a couch, if she had not a bedroom to offer me.
Well, I plunged up through Shepherd Market and got myself lost somewhere between North Audley Street and Park Lane, which was not very familiar ground to me; but at last I seemed to be on the right track and recognized the porch where we had been put down on the night of Mrs. Thesiger’s party.
I found the door open, as I expected, but the night porter did not seem anxious to let me in. In my dripping clothes I don’t suppose I measured up to the standard of the Debrett customers. I heard a lot of talking and laughing going on in the private room, but when I asked if I could speak to Flora I was told she was not available. I guessed the man was acting on instructions, but I slipped half a crown into his hand (I knew later that half a crown did not count for much at the Debrett!) and asked him to tell Flora it was the lady who came in a few weeks ago with Lord Solness’s party. I suppose the name worked it. He looked doubtful, but he took the message. Presently he came back and asked me to sign the register, and I was shown upstairs by an elderly, bad-tempered chambermaid, who was not at all pleased at being given my wet clothes to dry, and told I should want them at seven o’clock in the morning. Evidently early rising was not among the virtues of the Debrett visitors.
Actually I woke myself (I was in the habit of waking soon after six) and had to ring twice before I got my early tea. While I was sitting up, drinking it, the door opened and Flora walked in without knocking and sat down on the end of my bed. I heard later that that was the way she ran the Debrett — more on the lines of a private house than a hotel; she liked toddling in on her guests for a gossip, and if you did not want Flora your only hope was to turn the key — when you would probably be bawled out by her, hammering and wanting to come in!
She sat there, blinking and looking as if she had not been to bed since the last time I saw her — which, as it turned out, was very nearly the truth.
“Oh, it’s you. I remember you. Came in with Claude Solness’ crowd about three weeks ago, didn’t you?” This was a great triumph of memory for Flora. “Sorry I didn’t see you last night, dear. Came in about midnight, wasn’t it? To tell the truth I’m generally a bit tiddly round about midnight. It clears up later, and I’m as sound as a bell.”
I thought the poor old bell looked a bit cracked myself, but I said something sympathetic.
“Had a good night, dear?”
“Very, thanks. I hope you did too.”
“Did what?” said Flora vaguely.
“What you said — had a good night.”
“Me? I haven’t be
en to bed yet, if that’s what you mean. I’ve just seen old Tommy Tiddlypush off to his room; we’ve been down in the parlor, talking about old times.”
“Well, that’s one way of getting through the nights.”
“I hate the nights,” said Flora. “Bloody waste of time, I call ‘em, when you get to my age. Different thing when I was yours!” She gave that disgraceful chuckle of hers, which somehow was not offensive because it was so honest. “What’s your business, dear?”
“How do you know I’ve got one?” I guessed that not many business women — in my sense of the word, not Flora’s! — patronized the Debrett.
Her old eyes narrowed shrewdly.
“You can’t take me in, dear. What is it? The rag trade? I’ve got one or two smart girls that come in here — friends of the customers — that have pulled themselves properly into the top class since the war. You ought to meet them; they’ll let me have anything I want at cost price.”
“Bless your heart, I haven’t time to think about clothes — I’ve hardly got time to wear them!”
“M’m. Never neglect your appearance; those words ought to be written on every woman’s heart,” said Flora, whose stock was round under her left ear, and a lock of her yellow hair, with a big black hairpin stuck through it, was coiling down on the shoulder of her shepherd’s plaid. “Well, there’s business and business. We get Lady This and the Duchess of That — and it’s a damned shame, I say, to the honest girls down the street. Still, human nature’s what it is, and the title makes no difference to the way you are. They’re not all that way either. There’s poor little Toni Blandish, came in for a night with her husband before he went back from his leave. Dying to have a baby — both of ‘em. I often tell ‘em, zeal defeats its own object ... What did you say your business was, dear? Throw us one of your pillows. I get such an ache in my spine I could shove my head in the gas oven, if the whole place hadn’t gone ‘lectric.”
“You’d better have me to look after you.” I was only half joking. I liked old Flora, and I respected her, as I respect any woman who has had a hard fight and made good in the end. “My job’s massage, and I’m supposed to be very good at it. I’ll give you a rub now, if you like.”
“Who? Me?” She gave her outrageous wink. “I can put you on to one or two of that sort, if you want ‘em, but me — no! Old as I am, I don’t hold with anything that doesn’t come in the way of nature, and when I want it, dear, I know where to go for it.”
She sat there, wagging her head and chuckling and looking so disgraceful I couldn’t help laughing.
“I’ll tell you what, though. I tell you who’s staying here now Lord —” She got the name right that time, so, for obvious reasons, I cannot use it here. “Would you like me to send up to Kim? He’s good for a pony any time.”
“Listen, Flora,” I leaned over and gave her a pat on the knee. “You’ve got it wrong. I don’t take male cases, and my massage is the real thing; I don’t go in for providing fun for dirty old men.”
Flora’s bright china-blue eyes went foggy, as if she was trying to take this in.
“Why don’t you, dear?” A child could not have spoken more innocently. “There’s a pot of money in it.”
I knew I had no argument that would hold water with Flora, so I left it at that.
“Well, now I’ve got to get up. Any time you get over your objection to massage I’ll be very pleased to come and treat you — as a friend. Perhaps I could help that spine of yours after all.”
“That’s all right, dear,” said Flora amiably. She had not a notion what I was talking about. Presently she wandered across the room and rang the bell. I lit a cigarette and offered her one, which she refused. “Never touch the muck, dear. A good cigar now and again; I’m partial to a Henry Clay. But I never smoke in the morning.”
The door opened — again without a knock — and the waiter came in, and there was I in my vest, which was all I had to sleep in; but this was evidently a commonplace at the Debrett, for neither Flora nor the man batted an eyelash. He was a surly old crock-like the rest of the Debrett staff; nobody but Flora would have kept him for ten minutes. He stood glowering at her.
“Well, what’s it now?”
“A bottle of Pol Roger, you lazy old sod.”
“ ’Oo’s it to go down to?” He evidently did not think — and quite rightly — that I was the kind to order champagne before breakfast.
“What the hell’s that got to do with you? Put it down to
Lord!” Flora yelled after him. He let out a kind of a growl as he slammed the door. She blinked round at me.
“It’s his bunions, poor old bastard. Only one lift, and the staffs not supposed to use that, I swear at ‘em when I catch ‘em, but they know I don’t mean it. It’s the hell — if you’ve got bunions.”
I got on my clothes as fast as I could and was decent by the time the man came back with the bottle. It is the first and only time I drank champagne before breakfast, which I had been told was not served before half past eight; too late for me as I had to get home and change. Flora came down to the hall with me and headed me off the desk, where I was going to ask for my bill.
“Don’t be silly, dear. You’re a friend of Solness’, aren’t you?” “If all Lord Solness’ friends come here on the nod I’m surprised you make it pay!”
She nudged me and winked.
“Don’t you make a mistake. It’ll be all charged up to somebody. The people who come here don’t ask for details — they wouldn’t be taken again if they did!” she snorted. “Good-by, dear. Give my love to your boy friends. And remember — if you ever feel like making a bit on the side we can fix you up here. I believe,” said Flora as she took her walking stick from the smutty-faced page boy and accompanied me down the steps, “in giving people what they want. That’s the way to keep the dividends up, dear; bear that in mind.” It was a wonderful morning, after the pelting night; the sky was real duck-egg blue, and all fluffed with little bits of pink cloud that reminded me of a bed jacket I had seen in one of the Bond Street shops and meant to get for Kathleen. I watched Flora go rocking across Park Lane and through the Stanley Gate, and while I stood, hoping for a taxi, I saw her plunge off across the grass which must have been sodden with the night’s rain. So that was how she kept it up: the soaking every night, and all the funny business at the Debrett, and the brawls with the staff — she washed them off every morning in the rain or the dew, stumbling along under the cool, empty, and innocent sky (I was startled to find myself remembering Mr. Somervell’s word, that he had applied to me), under the green trees that shed their early-morning kindness upon the raddled old woman wandering under their branches in search of something of which she had forgotten the name.
Perhaps I was more “innocent” than I supposed. People like Mrs. Wakeford and old Flora made me feel that way. Especially Mrs. Wakeford, who prided herself on her viciousness and, I felt sure, would take pleasure in debauching any simple thing that came her way. While Flora simply went on the straightforward principle that human beings belong to themselves and it was only a matter of business to meet the demand with supply. Indifferent and — I think the word is amoral; there was as much distance between her amorality and the immorality of Mrs. Wakeford as there is between life and death.
It was certainly tempting, to make money in Flora’s buccaneering fashion, or in the quantity that was suggested by the diamond on the bosom of Mrs. Wakeford’s prune-colored gown; but I had fully realized that, apart from the personal risk one ran, one couldn’t be the mother of two girls and go in for the game like that. If our future depended on my slipping into the Debrett or joining Aimee’s flash establishment in Mount Street, then it looked as if we would have to stop in Plymouth Street for good. I felt discouraged, for already, before I got into it, I was looking on Plymouth Street as only a steppingstone to something better for the girls and me.
If I could only think up some racket of my own, that would be as profitable as the ones which, I knew, w
ere being worked every day of the year all over London, we too could be in “the real money.” I had no sort of objection to breaking the law, for I thought — and still think — that many of the English laws are out of date, bear no relation to conditions of modem living, and are responsible — some of them — for a great deal of unhappiness that ought to be avoided. But I knew I could not afford to get caught, and I had no intention of embarking on some silly little course of law breaking; for it is always the small-timers who pay the price, while the big operators get away, as the saying is, with murder.
Chapter IX
I MOVED into Plymouth Street in the late autumn of 1917, and I had so little time to myself that it took me months to get straight. The only time I had was in the evenings, after my work was done, and I was at it, often, into the small hours, dragging furniture from room to room, settling where this and that was to go, then changing my mind and putting it all somewhere else. But at last I got it, as I thought, presentable.
When I lay in my new bed at night (I had taken the smaller of the two bedrooms on the first floor, leaving the large one for the girls) I used to count over the things I had gathered around me, and sometimes I would even get up and go into another room, switching on the light to look at a mirror or a cabinet that had just come from the shop. I often wondered whether people who had their houses packed with precious objects, like Lady Emily, got as much pleasure out of their treasures as I got from my few bits and pieces, and I always visualized the house as it would be by the time I had finished with it and it had acquired that warm, personal feeling of a lived-in place. All the time before I went to sleep I would spend hugging myself in rapture, thinking how all of it was my very own, and once, when I was very tired, it flashed into my mind how angry I would be if I had to die and leave all these things for which I had struggled so hard to be scattered and sold to people who would only look on them as “secondhand furniture”! When a thing becomes your own, through your own effort and sacrifice, it ceases to be “furniture”; it is part of yourself. Don’t be a fool, Bell Timson, I had to remind myself. You won’t have time to die, my girl, for the next thirty years!
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