by John Pearson
They were both rather wary of each other. When Hazel first arrived at 165, James had made the inevitable pass at her. She had seemed flattered at the time, admired his looks and enjoyed going out with him—but that was all. And that had emphatically not been enough in those days for young James Bellamy. When she had made it plain to him, for whatever stupid reasons of her own, that she was not becoming James’s mistress, he had made it just as plain that that was that. During the months that followed, while she was working regularly at 165 on Richard’s book, James never seemed to let slip any opportunity to mock her.
“Found any skeletons in the Southwold cupboards lately, Hazel?” he would ask her, and she would answer icily that that was not the purpose of the book.
“Oh, but it should be,” he would mutter. “Sex and the Southwolds. Ghastly revelations. Father could make it a best-seller if you’d only let him.”
But as they drove to London all of this seemed forgotten, and James was surprised to see a new and unsuspected Hazel, eyes sparkling, red hair flying in the wind as he drove his little tourer at an exciting sixty miles an hour up the main road to Reading. It was a bright spring day. There were lambs in the fields and everywhere the trees were bursting into leaf. After the gloom of Southwold, life was suddenly emerging from the winter shadows. He had intended driving straight to London but suddenly found himself suggesting that they have lunch together. Hazel accepted. Both were ravenously hungry, and they had beer and cutlets in an old coaching inn near Reading. James had never thought of Hazel as the sort of girl who’d drink a pint of bitter.
Richard was unreasonably upset when he discovered that his secretary had returned to London with his son. James’s behaviour, slipping off like that without a word, had been disgusting too, especially as it left him no alternative to offering Geoffrey Dillon a lift back to London in the Rolls.
Richard was even more upset during the days that followed when he discovered just how much attention James was paying to Hazel. He tried to tell himself that he was simply worried for Miss Forrest’s own well-being, although he must have realised that this was not by any means his only motive. It is a curious and most uncomfortable sensation for a grown man to discover that he is jealous of his son, doubly so in Richard’s case, since he had always taken his rapport with Hazel so much for granted, and Richard had never been very honest with himself where his emotions were concerned.
The signs, however, were quite unmistakeable. Hazel suddenly looked happier than he had ever seen her—bright-eyed and even with a touch of colour in those cool pale cheeks—but she was so preoccupied that all their former understanding seemed to have vanished. When he attempted to discuss with her his plans for leaving Eaton Place, she seemed impatient with the whole idea.
“Sir Geoffrey Dillon seems to think that the sooner I make my plans and go, the better. Things may not be so bad as I had feared at first, and I was hoping that you’d still be able to work for me once I find an office,” he had said, only to get a very cool reply.
“Isn’t it,” she said,” a little premature to think so far ahead?’
James too had changed dramatically. Gone were the accusing looks, the gloomy lifelessness which Richard had so recently endured from his son. Instead Richard would come in to breakfast to be greeted by a cheery “Morning, Father! Lovely day” and the sight of James behind the morning’s Times having already eaten porridge, kidneys, bacon, eggs, and toast and marmalade. It had been years since Richard had last seen him do this, but he was not as pleased as some fond fathers might have been. James’s appetite made him feel his age. Besides, he liked to read the Times in peace before anybody else dismembered it.
Hazel had been quick to notice the apparent transformation in James Bellamy. He was no longer the brash, impatient, would-be seducer of the previous summer. He seemed much kinder and more serious. Even his voice had softened—or so it seemed to her—and when he asked her out to dinner she accepted, though with a little hesitation.
“Please, Hazel,” he said imploringly. “Please!” And when she finally said yes, she had the feeling she was granting him some special favour. Previously he had always taken her to smart restaurants like Romano’s or the Café Royal, places where she had felt acutely conscious of her lack of chic and of James’s smart friends who seemed always there. But tonight he chose a different sort of restaurant, a small place in Soho run by an ancient Belgian with an enormous belly and a great moustache. It had grimy walls and faded prints of old Napoleonic battles, gas jets lit the room, and there were red-checked tablecloths and glass partitions dividing off each table from the next.
The food was quite delicious—moules cooked with garlic and a thick cream sauce, a cassoulet with chunks of pork and lamb and goose and sausage, fresh green beans cooked in butter. They had a bottle of good burgundy, and as they ate, a wonderful contentment seemed to unite them.
“Better than Mrs. Bridges,” James remarked, laughing.
“Different,” said Hazel tactfully. “I didn’t know that restaurants like this existed, but then there’s an awful lot that I don’t know.”
“Perhaps you’d let me show you,” he said wistfully.
“Perhaps,” she said.
He smiled at her. His face had relaxed and he looked very young and rather vulnerable. She felt his charm and was on her guard at once.
“Dearest Hazel,” he said gently, “why have you always been so unattainable?”
“Have I?” she said, drawing back and watching him through those cool grey eyes. “I suppose it all depends upon what you want to attain.”
He shrugged but his smile deepened. “What are you afraid of?” he persisted.
“Do you really want to know?”
He nodded.
“Of being used. As a mere lady secretary from a very ordinary suburban home, I’m not quite like the smart, rich lady friends you’re used to.”
“You’re far more beautiful.”
“That’s not the point. When you flirt with one of them you flirt as equals. I’m not so fortunate. I’ve got much more to lose.”
“What, for instance?”
She smiled as she realised how pompous she was sounding, but this didn’t stop her from continuing.
“My self-respect—and frankly, my respectability.”
He began laughing now, and this made her angry.
“Oh, I know that all of you treat the idea of respectability as something very middle-class and boring. I agree. It is boring, horribly boring, but if your livelihood depends on it, as mine does, you just can’t ignore it.”
“Not even if I told you I was in love with you?”
“Not even then, Mr. Bellamy, sir.”
Hazel Forrest’s firmness in no way deterred James Bellamy. Rather the reverse. He had been half serious when he spoke of being in love with her. He had often been in love. He was theoretically in love with the vacuous and glamorous Lady Diana Russell at that very moment (just as the vacuous Diana was theoretically unofficially engaged to James’s best friend, “Bunny,” the young Marquis of Newbury). But since his evening out with Hazel, James had realised that love in her terms meant something different from the captivating pastime that he and his friends and mistresses considered it.
This gave Hazel a distinct air of difference from all the other young women he knew. Her very ordinariness became a source of mystery. She roused his curiosity. With her, the whole idea of love was elevated into something James had never known before—a serious, all-absorbing malady which automatically suggested such ideas as constancy, fidelity, and even marriage.
Normally such thoughts would probably have been enough to cure James at once, but his mother’s death had affected him even more deeply than he realised. He was missing her. He was in a serious and somewhat soulful state himself, and the nun-like image of his father’s secretary began to obsess him.
That weekend he had been invited to a party with young Lord Randolph, “Randy” Bloodenough, at Staines. He had not been out to
a party since his mother died, and he went now only with the idea of forgetting Hazel. Predictably, it did not work. Lord Randolph seemed a drunken boor; Diana irritated him; and to complete a disastrous weekend, he lost sixty pounds which he could ill afford at chemin-defer. By Sunday afternoon the whole smart world of fun and games which he had previously enjoyed appeared a hollow sham. He had no place in it, and there was suddenly only one person who could put his world to rights. Then and there he decided he must see her.
The Forrests lived in Wimbledon Park, not far from the railway station, and despite the evening fog that blanketed the bottom of the hill, James had no difficulty finding their house. It was in the middle of a terrace and had a large bow-window and a green front door. When he saw it James remembered what Hazel had said about respectability. The privet hedge was neatly cut, the brass door knocker gleamed. Warily he rang the bell. A small man with a large bald head answered the door, and when James, with a certain air of cool authority, asked if Miss Forrest was at home, the small man answered worriedly that no, she was not. She and her mother, Mrs. Forrest, that is to say, had just gone to church for evensong.
“So you are Mr. Forrest,” James said amiably.
“That is so,” said Mr. Forrest, peering up at James, “and who, sir, are you?”
James introduced himself and added that he would be grateful for a brief discussion. With deference—and considerable suspicion—Mr. Forrest asked him in.
When James got back to Eaton Place it was to find that they had a visitor. A tall, somewhat spotty schoolgirl with plaits and a stammer was sitting with his father on the sofa. Richard, who had been valiantly trying to make her feel at home since lunchtime, was patently relieved that James had finally arrived.
“James,” he said solemnly, “this is Georgina.”
James looked puzzled but shook hands.
“Georgina Worsley,” added Richard. “Your late Aunt Marion’s daughter.”
“Good heavens!” James exclaimed. “That Georgina! The last time I saw you, you were a child. Now you are practically, well, a fully grown young lady.”
“N-not quite, Uncle J-James. I only w-wish I was.”
“Nonsense. Ladies grow old far too quickly, don’t they, Father? There’s not a lady in London who wouldn’t swap ages with you if she had a chance. And by the way, no more of this Uncle James, if you please. We’re cousins if we’re anything, so you’ll call me James and I’ll call you Georgina. Any more Uncle James and I’ll call you Aunt Georgina in return.”
The girl laughed and nodded awkwardly.
“Sit down,” said James,” and tell me what you’ve been up to since you got out of that pram of yours.”
“Well, I’ve been staying with Sir Ge-Geoffrey Dillon and his wife since the a-a-accident.”
“Poor you,” said James.
“Sir Geoffrey came today for luncheon,” Richard said tactfully. “At my suggestion he brought Georgina, since she is really one of the family, and I thought that she would probably enjoy a few days here before she goes back to school. Hazel can look after her during the day, and it would do us good to have a young face in the house again, wouldn’t it, James.”
“I should just say so,” James replied.
James was very good with people younger than himself, and already Georgina’s shyness—and her stammer—had begun to disappear. Dinner, which Richard had been dreading, turned out to be the happiest meal that anyone had had at 165 since Marjorie died. James told Georgina stories about Southwold in the old days. Richard joined in. And finally Georgina too began to talk about the past—about living with Marion, Hugo and Martin out in Canada, about her boarding school, which she detested, and also about Hugo and her mother. She talked quite freely, just as if all of them were still alive, and it was obvious how much she had loved them.
As she went off to bed, she thanked James and Richard very earnestly and politely. Her stammer had suddenly returned.
“H-Hugo was right,” she said. “He always used to tell me how wonderful the Bellamy family was—and how fond he was of James. G-Goodnight.”
“Well, Father!” James exclaimed when Rose had conducted the girl safely out of earshot, “Poor, lonely, ugly little thing!”
“But not stupid,” said Richard sagely. “Takes after her mother in one thing. She quite clearly knows how to flatter young men when she wants to. You must look out.”
“Oh, come, Father. Don’t be cynical. It doesn’t suit you. She’s so pathetic. How would you like to be orphaned at that age and then have to spend all your time with the Dillons?”
“Very kind of Geoffrey. I never knew he had it in him.”
“But it’s just not right. We’re the girl’s only relatives. We should be doing something for her.”
“Such as what?”
“Such as giving her a home, at least during her holidays from school. Good Lord, Father, there’s this great mausoleum of a house and only the two of us to share it. It needs living in. Just think, she could have Elizabeth’s bedroom and Rose could easily look after her.”
Normally his son’s enthusiasm would have delighted Richard, but tonight he was pensive. He shrugged his shoulders and stared at the fire.
“Well,” he said finally, “it’s your decision. If that’s what you want, I suppose there’ll be no problem.”
“My decision?” James replied. “What do you mean?”
“Just this,” said Richard. “Geoffrey Dillon didn’t come here today simply to bring Georgina, extremely amiable though that was of him. He really came here hoping to see you.”
“What on earth for?”
“James, it seems that he has all but finished sorting out the details of your mother’s will—along with the business of your Uncle Hugo’s debts.”
“And so?”
“And so I must congratulate you on being, if not rich, at any rate quite wealthy.”
“But, Father, how?”
“Well, as you know, there were certain sums of capital bequeathed in trust by your grandfather. Your mother and I received the interest on the money but that naturally ceases at her death. Under the terms of your grandfather’s will, and your mother’s, the capital is now divided equally between you and Elizabeth.”
From the puzzled look on James’s face, it was clear that he was not sure how much he should rejoice.
“So how much is there?”
“Far more than any of us expected. That is one thing at least that you must thank Sir Geoffrey for. He very wisely put the money into foreign stock, Canadian Railways and South African gold mines. There’s something to the tune of a quarter of a million to be shared between you and Elizabeth. You also get what remains on the lease of this house.”
“Good God!” said James. For a while the two of them sat silently looking at each other. James still slightly dazed and Richard’s face set in a mask of gloom.
“And what about you, then, Father?” James asked at last.
“Oh, I’ll be all right,” said Richard, shaking his head in manly fashion as if to show that his future barely mattered. “I’ll move into chambers somewhere and I’ll have to start earning myself a living. It’s about time.”
“You’ll what?” James shouted. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. There’s this house and then there’s more than enough money for the two of us. This is your home, Father. I wouldn’t dream of letting you do any such thing.”
“James, my dear boy,” said Richard gently, “believe me, I’ve given this whole subject a great deal of thought, and you won’t make me change my mind. You and I—as we’ve seen just recently—are very different people. We’re very fond of one another—at any rate I hope we are—but if we go on living in each other’s pockets, particularly now that you’re the master of the house, it just won’t work. There will be more rows, much more bitterness. Believe me, James, it simply wouldn’t work.”
James would have argued further, but something in his father’s manner told him it would do no good.
/> James had his work cut out persuading Hazel to dine with him again. She had been busy helping Richard pack and also looking after young Georgina. (The girl had taken to her almost too enthusiastically and seemed to follow her around.) Hazel had also been having quite a time trying to console and reassure the staff, now that the rumours of Richard’s leaving had been more or less confirmed. Some, like Hudson, still refused to believe that he would go.
“The master would tell me if that was his intention,” he said calmly. “As he hasn’t seen fit to do so, I refuse to give credence to a lot of tittle-tattle.” But others, in particular Mrs. Bridges, were in a state of near-panic at the thought that the Bellamys would now inevitably leave. Despite everything that Hazel could do or say, the standard of the cooking fell, and everyone’s morale and temper slumped in sympathy.
Because of all this, it was a somewhat preoccupied Hazel who sat down with James one evening in the little Soho restaurant and told the fat old Belgian proprietor that she was sorry, but her appetite had gone, and she would like something just a little lighter than his delicious cassoulet.
The great moustache looked disappointed. “Some onion soup, oeufs mayonnaise, some delicious asparagus?” Finally she settled for asparagus and omelette fines herbes. James, however, who was in an expansive mood, chose the soup and a mammoth plateful of boiled salt beef and fresh spring vegetables.
For a while they chatted about Georgina, Hazel explaining just how much she liked the girl. But as they talked there seemed none of the closeness they had had on the previous occasion. James did his best—and when he set out to be high-spirited it took a lot to resist him—but Hazel managed it. Finally he asked her what the matter was.
