Bell Timson

by Marguerite Steen

  “What are you doing tomorrow?”

  I got out my book, which I luckily had with me, and showed it to him.

  “Knock ’em all out,” he told me.

  “Why? What is it?”

  “You’ll be wanted tomorrow evening at seven.”

  “Well, that’s all right.” I was relieved, because I never liked muddling about with my appointments. “I’m finished at six.”

  “Look here, Timmy,” he said earnestly. “Nothing has possibly to go wrong with this. I want you at the top of your form. You probably won’t get another chance if you can’t bring it off tomorrow —”

  “But that’s impossible to guarantee!” I interrupted him. “Even Dr. Lavigne —”

  “That’s your lookout,” he cut in roughly. “This isn’t an ordinary case, and the money’s” The sum he mentioned made me gape.

  “I needn’t say the conditions are perfect discretion, as you won’t know anything. You’ll be told no names and you won’t even know where you’re taken.”

  “Taken? Isn’t it in town, then?”

  “There’ll be a car waiting about twenty yards above Gloucester Gate at seven o’clock. You’ll get in — that’s all. You’ll do your job, get your money, and — if you’re wise — forget all about it.” He surprised me by holding out his hand; it was years since Remmy and I had gone in for the formality of shaking hands. “Unless you’re snob enough,” he added with a smile, “to enjoy remembering that you’ve got a very important person out of a very tight corner. But if all goes well you’ll get plenty of that sort of thing before you’re through.”

  Well, it all sounded to me a bit too much like a seven-and-six-penny thriller, but it promised excitement, and since Remmy in on it I felt sure it was “on the square.” I had imbibed enough of Dr. Lavigne’s principles, as well as his practice, to be determined not to get myself mixed up with anything shady, and I guessed it was one of Remmy’s own patients, who trusted him and in whom he had confidence. So I agreed to all he said and went home. He told me to send the bill for the car to him, and reminded me to take the day off so that I would be fresh for my job at night.

  It all turned out the way he described, and as nothing quite so extraordinary has come my way since, and it really seemed more like an old-fashioned melodrama than anything I had ever come up against — moreover, as the people it concerns are no longer alive — there is no harm in my setting it down here.

  I have never even tried to guess where I was taken, although I got a sort of idea we were driving round and round the Outer Circle of Regent’s Park; it was a black night and pouring with rain. The chauffeur drove so fast that one could see nothing but the lights scudding past; once we went into a skid, and he corrected it in a way that showed he was a first-class driver, and pushed back the glass partition to beg my pardon. We turned in eventually at what I took for drive gates, but it must have been a terrace; there were the steps and pillared porches of Regency houses, and the one at which we stopped had a very fine old lantern hung under the portico.

  The door was opened by a man whom I saw at once was not a servant; in fact I never saw a servant while I was in the house, except the chauffeur. This person received me formally; he evidently had some authoritative position in the household, and he waited while I slipped out of my overcoat, which had got a little wet between my taxicab and the car at Gloucester Gate. When I had laid it over the arm of a settee — I noticed that everything bore a coronet — he said, “Do you mind stepping this way for a moment, Mrs. Timson?” and led the way through a door at the end of the hall, which opened into something that looked like a small anteroom or secretary’s office; there was an elaborate writing table with a marble top and curved and gilt legs, and I just had time to notice the magnificent lustres that hung from the wall lights on either side of a handsome fireplace.

  The man unlocked the drawer of the desk and handed me a sealed envelope.

  “Perhaps you will verify the contents of that before initialing this receipt,” he said to me.

  I may as well admit that my fingers shook a little as I counted the forty ten-pound notes that were in the envelope, but I managed to keep my voice casual as I said, “Yes, that’s correct,” and took the pen from his hand. This was the first and only time I signed a receipt for my fee, and he must have noticed my doubtful look, for he said:

  “That has only to be shown to a certain person, Mrs. Timson, after which it will be destroyed.”

  So I wrote “B.T,” at the foot of the sheet of paper (which bore no address) and watched while he blotted it, sealed it into another envelope, and put it back in the drawer, which was locked again. I noticed he wore the key on his watch chain and thought there was nothing chancy about this establishment!

  I followed him up the fine staircase and a little way round the gallery at the top of it. I imagine I looked quite cool and collected, but I have never been more nervous in my life. I felt that all I had learned in Orleans was now at stake, and the credit not only of myself but of Remmy and Dr. Lavigne. We stopped outside a closed door.

  “When you are ready to leave there is no need to ring for a servant; I will be waiting in the hall.”

  Then he knocked, and a voice said, “Come in.” He opened the door for me, and I passed round a tall, painted screen, hearing the door close behind me. The room was dimly lighted, and at the far end I saw a very elaborate bed. As I approached it I recognized a face which, from the papers and the illustrated magazines, was nearly as familiar to me as my own.

  . For the first time I felt the future to be secure. Oddly enough the removal of strain, coming so unexpectedly, knocked me right over for a while. I did not exactly have a breakdown, but I had to go very slow. I cut out nearly all of my private work; I felt it would not be fair to Remmy to let him down over the nursing home, so I kept that on, two days a week, and as I am never happy to be doing nothing I spent a good deal of time at Avenue House, helping Alice to fit out the new annex we had been obliged to add to the original establishment.

  We were always packed out. Avenue House was the most fashionable of the West End nursing homes, and although preference was always given to neurological cases people fought and bribed and went on waiting lists to get in. One of the “features” was perfect sound insulation; anyone who has ever been in a nursing home will realize what that means: no tapping of heels or clattering of trolleys to disturb the rest hours; one patient could have the wireless roaring full blast without a sound penetrating to the room next door; and there were telephone and wireless installations to each room. We had coiffeurs, facial experts, and manicurists on the premises; pages to send shopping; and well-supplied book and flower stalls in the entrance hall. Remmy’s latest idea was a solarium built out on the roof — artificial sunlight, of course, except for the third Wednesday in August, or whenever it is we get a bit of real sunlight in England.

  So I had no lack of entertainment when I was not actually working. I attended the committees to make sure we were not running into bankruptcy — there seemed no prospect of that — and kept the house running quietly and simply at Sutton. Looking back, I am not sure that that was not the happiest time in my life. I had not, for once, got more than I could carry; I was getting out of debt; Kathleen’s physique seemed to be building up — I had got her a ma’amselle, and the pair of them jabbering French used to set my teeth on edge, but I managed to curb my feelings; and Jo, of course, was still as jolly as a sandboy at the Towers.

  Remmy had kept his word about finding me a financial adviser, and every now and then I popped a bit of money into some safe investment or even took a flutter on ‘Change; but it was years before I started to play the market, which was eventually to become as much of a hobby with me as gambling on horses is to other people. I began to feel a solid woman; I indulged myself in a little Hillman car, and we went picnics in it at the week ends. I really was within modest distance of the fortune I had boasted about to George ten years ago; and sometimes it felt as if it was no
t ten years, but only a few months, since I was sitting in the Copper Kettle off the Strand, talking big to give myself courage.

  That first strange commission, of course, had been followed by others. I took only the cases which came to me through Dr. Remington, as I felt these were accredited ones and I was still nervous of trusting to my own judgment. Remmy was very decent, too, about his rake-off; I had paid him back the money I borrowed to go to Orleans, and he took only a small percentage of the fees he put in my way.

  That summer I booked a Mediterranean cruise for me and the girls; we had never had a holiday like that before, and I thought it would be a thorough rest and change for all of us. The girls had a grand time, and I didn’t do badly myself. There were plenty of young people, and deck tennis, shuffleboard, and skittles never let up from morning to night, when it was petits chevaux and dancing, with lots of flirting on the boat deck thrown in. I dare say a lot of people thought I was sticky, because I had Kathleen and Jo in their cabin on the stroke of ten, but I may say that by the time we got to Corinth my two were the only ones that did not look the worse for wear. Kathleen had a couple of elderly beaux — it rather worried me that she always seemed to attract the middle-aged men instead of boys of her own age — but I kept her under my eye when we went ashore to see the sights, and I always had a pretty good idea of what she was up to while we were abroad.

  After they had gone to bed I used to go into the bar, where I had picked up a lively crowd who taught me to play poker. I managed to steer clear of them during the day, because I didn’t want the girls to get in with that set and learn things unsuitable for their age.

  The trip ended, as such trips usually do, with a fancy-dress ball, at which Jo carried off the first prize as a Scotchman with a red beard (she would), and we were waiting for the train to start out of Southampton. I was just saying how lucky we were, getting a compartment to ourselves, so we could strew our bags and all the junk the girls had brought back all over the seats; and the guard’s whistle had just gone when the door was dragged open by a porter, a man’s pigskin case was thrown in, its owner clambered after it, and, of all people on earth, it was Mr. Somervell!

  His jaw fairly dropped when he saw us, and I was annoyed to see Kathleen turn purple; it was more than time she had laid dial bogey. Jo, as you can imagine, saved the situation; she flung herself on Mr. Somervell as if she was a baby instead of a great girl getting on for seventeen, and kissed him as if — well, he might have been George. Even I was quite embarrassed. Jo, of course, had never understood why we stopped seeing Mr. Somervell, and she took her revenge, the little devil, for all the times I had fobbed her off with this and that by way of an explanation: for she wanted to know at once why he never came to see us now, and I was quite sorry for Mr. Somervell, trying to do the polite thing by everybody and nearly swamped by that great, galumphing Jo.

  “How are you, Bell? How are you, Kay, my dear?” He shook hands with both of us as well as he could round Jo, who was the size of a house that summer, what with overeating and a bit of gland trouble I meant to have corrected. I made her sit down and behave herself, but it would have taken a gag to make her stop talking.

  “Where’ve you been? What have you been doing? Don’t you know our new address?”

  I must say Mr. Somervell was remarkably patient.

  “Where’ve I been? Germany, Russia, America,” he told her. “Mainly America. It’s a fact! I’ve hardly been in England for the last two years.”

  “Well, now you’re back, you’ll come and see us at Sutton,” said the pert madam, lolling against him as if he belonged to her. “We’ve got a garden, and some cats, and my spaniel Beech — and we’ve just come back from the Mediterranean, and we went to France last year. So you aren’t the only person who’s been traveling!”

  “And how did you like France, Kay?” He obviously said it to draw her into the conversation, for she had not spoken a word since he came into the compartment. I felt vexed with her for giving herself away like that, and a bit ashamed of myself and of the letter I had written to Mr. Somervell; for now he was with us again, I realized how incapable he was of the behavior I had attributed to him. As Kathleen did not answer immediately I spoke to her rather sharply.

  “Don’t you hear, Kathleen? Mr. Somervell’s speaking to you.” “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said in a silly, mincing sort of way — not a bit like her usual voice. “I wasn’t listening.”

  “Did France come up to your expectations?” he repeated kindly. “No — I don’t think it really did. I wasn’t so frightfully thrilled with it,” drawled Kathleen in such a voice that I could have smacked her.

  “I never heard such nonsense! You should have seen the pair of them, Mr. Somervell! Kathleen was as brown as coffee all over, and ran up and down the sands shrieking like a hooligan!” At which, if you please, she twitched her shoulder round and pretended to be staring out of the window.

  “If Kay was like coffee — cafe au lait, I suppose — I bet this specimen was like cocoa; good, dark cocoa, without any milk in it at all.” He took no notice of Kay’s rudeness but gave Jo a pinch which of course started a tussle; fortunately she caught my eye, and it quietened her down. “Well, Bell, you’re looking very well.”

  “I’m feeling very well,” I told him.

  “Not killing yourself with work, as usual?”

  “No, that’s over. I’ll tell you all about it sometime.” About the nursing home, I meant. I gave him a look, and he nodded, and it may sound foolish, but I found I was very glad at the prospect of picking up our friendship and our long talks again. If Kathleen can’t behave herself, I thought, she will just have to keep out of the way. It was just like her to take a thing against him after being crazy about him for so long. Of course she might have been feeling awkward, but she had been told over and over again that we realized it was only part of her illness and there was no need for her to behave in such a silly, conspicuous fashion.

  At Victoria Mr. Somervell and I strolled off toward the customs benches, while the girls went to look for the car, which I had had brought up by a man from the garage. Our baggage — being “S” and “T” — had been placed side by side, and while we were waiting for the inspector to come along I looked straight up at him.

  “I’m very glad to see you again.” It was meant to be my apology for the way I had misjudged him, and I saw he had taken it in, for he gave me a very nice smile as he replied.

  “Thank you, Bell. Kay all right?” he asked presently.

  “You wouldn’t ask if you’d seen her on the trip! She’s better than she ever was in her life,” I glad to reassure him. “That silly breakdown! It was all my fault for letting her overwork herself.”

  “You needn’t blame yourself for that, Bell.” He was looking away, and perhaps I imagined the emphasis on “that” which seemed to suggest I might blame myself for other things; I imagined he was referring to the letter and felt I deserved it. “Well, I’m terribly glad about Kay; it must be a weight off your mind.”

  “She was a bit silly in the railway carriage — but you know how she is: all up or down. I expect the excitement of coming home has got hold of her.”

  The inspector had reached Mr. Somervell’s bag, and he turned to attend to it. I occupied myself with opening ours and trying to hide a filthy pair of Jo’s socks, which of course she had put right on the top.

  “Have you anything to declare?” asked the inspector.

  “No,” I answered absently, for Mr. Somervell had got his case closed again and was holding out his hand to me.

  “Well, good-by, Bell.”

  “Not for so long, I hope, this time,” I said as I took it. “We’re in the book, and I’m not so full up these days as I used to be.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” he answered. “I’ll give you a ring if I may — one of these days. By the way: I ought to tell you — or perhaps you know already? I am going to marry my cousin Emily Hope.”

  I may as well admit it was a knocko
ut — for a moment. I soon pulled myself together and said something about hoping he would be very happy, and Lady Emily as well. I knew of-course that she had been a widow for years, but I had never thought of her as the remarrying kind, or imagined she was the sort of woman to attract a man of Mr. Somervell’s type. It only goes to show you can never tell.

  “Emily and I will be delighted to see you.” I took that as it was meant; for although Lady Emily had always been very nice to me and wonderful over Kathleen I always had a feeling I was not exactly a favorite of hers and that we had very little in common; and I could not help knowing that Mr. Somervell, married, would be very different from the person who had so often sat cozily chatting over a cup of tea in the little parlor at Plymouth Road.

  So I thanked him, and he gave my hand a grip and looked for a moment as if he had something more to say; but he evidently thought better of it, and I stood for a minute watching his tall figure walk away among the crowd.

  ‘What about this?” the inspector was saying.

  Well, “this,” of course, was the four boxes of cigars I had brought for George, and the bottle of brandy, and a lot of hand-embroidered silk underwear I had bought on board — all of which I had forgotten in the excitement of meeting Mr. Somervell again. It took a bit of clearing up, but at last we were in the car, Jo beside the man, and Kathleen and I in the back; I thought she was rather silent. But not Jo of course; she kept bouncing round, asking questions like, “Do you think Beech will remember me?” and “Was it last Monday or next Monday for the kittens to be born, Mummy?” and at last:

  “Wasn’t it lovely to see Mr. Somervell again? Mummy, do ask him to come to lunch on Sunday! I’m sure he would love to.”