Marriages are Made in Bond Street

by Penrose Halson

  Mary and Heather decided to erase the Sheikh from the books. So they were appalled when he appeared, without warning, in the Bureau. He looked as immaculate as on his previous appearance, sat down without a by-your-leave, frowned ferociously and lit a cigarette. Then, the veins in his neck bulging, the lilt in his voice submerged in an aggressive growl, he let off a furious volley: ‘She is a fearful, ghastly female. She is unfashionably dressed – by D. H. Evans of your so frightful Oxford Street, a common department store, I am sure, or perhaps Marshall & Snelgrove which is a little superior but not good enough. Before I even met her she bored me to death with letters recounting innumerable dull anecdotes of life on a ranch in Uruguay and servant problems and bulls and her dogs and her dead husband. And she insisted that she loves all God’s creatures, as she kept calling them. So I decided to invite her to my raptor’s luncheon, and if she truly adored him, I would then take her to luncheon at my house, which is very beautiful, and not where I keep my birds. But I took an instant, vehement dislike to her, and she to my bird. And what is worse’ – his voice rose to a higher note, his upper lip curling insolently as he blew a scornful cloud of smoke – ‘she has only one breast!’

  The Sheikh leaned back and, oblivious of Mary’s coughing and choking, exhaled clouds of cigarette smoke as if blowing Mrs Pratt-Evans to the four winds. He raised his eyebrows, a look of contempt in his blackcurrant eyes. Imperiously, Heather returned his gaze. Without uttering a word she contrived to imply that she knew all about Mrs Pratt-Evans’s breasts, both of them, but deemed them none of the Sheikh’s business, and considered it odiously ill-bred of him to raise the subject. Mary was so incensed by his daring to come near the Bureau again that she remained mute with fury.

  For a few seconds a silence of almost audible antagonism reigned. Then Heather stood up, towering over the Sheikh, and hissed with all the considerable venom she could muster, ‘We are unable to assist you in your search for a wife. Kindly desist from any further contact with the Bureau. We shall refund your registration fee. That is all. Goodbye.’

  The Sheikh knew he had gone too far. With an insubordinate sniff he stubbed his cigarette out on the desk, leered wolfishly at Mary, who was clutching a large sheaf of papers in front of her chest, sneered at Heather, and vanished down the stairs.

  ‘I thought I’d better protect my breasts!’ said Mary, putting her papers down on her desk. ‘I didn’t want him expanding his knowledge on me!’

  7

  Mary Transforms Myrtle

  When Mary caught sight of Myrtle Glossop edging her way into the office, her hand flew to her heart and, as she screwed her eyes tight shut in fleeting horror, the words flashed through her mind, ‘There but for the grace of God went I!’

  After the long-dreaded announcement of war, with children and pregnant women hastily evacuated from cities, millions of gas masks issued, sandbags piled up outside buildings, and couples rushing to marry before the men were conscripted, nothing seriously warlike happened, and the panic soon lapsed into bemusement. Life became punctuated by inconveniences and restrictions, but not by violence, terror or death. Indeed, on 6 October 1939 Hitler offered peace. In this preternatural Phoney War calm, business in the Marriage Bureau continued apace. Myrtle Glossop was one of hundreds of anxious yet hopeful new clients.

  It was to divine grace that Mary attributed the rebellious spirit which had enabled her to escape her destined role in life: childhood as a farmer’s daughter on a windswept East Anglian farm, to be followed by womanhood as a farmer’s wife on a similar farm. But poor Myrtle, scuttling through the Marriage Bureau’s doorway like a little brown crab, had resignation written all over her. Though she was only twenty-six, her shoulders sagged, she drooped like an old lady and was dressed like one, in an all-enveloping greyish-brownish-greenish tweed coat. Her hat, pulled down over straggly brown hair, was in a thick matted beige felt, an amalgam of flower-pot, pudding basin and policeman’s helmet. Her small face was devoid of make-up, the mouth turned down at the corners as if she was struggling to withhold tears. Her gloves and shabby handbag were of a matching muddy brown, her thick woollen stockings visibly darned, her feet encased in clumpy, old-fashioned lace-up shoes which gave the impression of being too big.

  ‘Quelle horreur!’ whispered fashion-loving Heather to Mary. But Mary’s kind heart melted at the sight of the prematurely elderly girl, whom she took by the woolly arm and guided into the interview room.

  Prompted by Mary, in a light, timorous voice Myrtle embarked on her tale of woe. She was the only child of elderly parents, long dead, whom she had hardly known. Her father, Horace Glossop, had been a civil engineer constructing dams and irrigation systems in India, so passionately consumed by his work that, though craving an heir, he was forty-five before he met and married the only female available, a thirty-eight-year-old Scottish missionary, who renounced the unequal task of converting the natives for her last chance of marriage and children.

  After a protracted and agonizing labour, at forty-two Mrs Glossop gave birth to a daughter, only to hear the doctor’s stern warning that another pregnancy would kill her. She blanched at the news, and at Horace’s grim-faced reaction. He largely ignored his poor substitute for a son, but Mrs Glossop was overwhelmed with adoration of little Myrtle.

  However, the wretched mother scarcely ever saw her beloved daughter. Mr Glossop insisted that Myrtle be cared for by native ayahs while her mother behaved like a lady of leisure, calling on local European bigwigs and holding polite tea parties and picnics. When Myrtle was nine, despite her mother’s tearful entreaties, the child was dis patched to a prep school in Sussex, to be as properly educated as would have been Mr Glossop’s son and heir.

  In the unheated school Myrtle turned so blue with unaccustomed cold that she could scarcely speak, and when she did open her mouth, she was mercilessly mocked for her singsong tones, copied from her ayahs. She learned little either at school or in the holidays, spent with three devout, impoverished maiden aunts in their comfortless house on the Isle of Wight. They were kindly disposed to their little niece, and welcomed the pitiful sums of money sent from India for her keep; but Myrtle’s life revolved round formal tea parties, wind-buffeted seaside walks, dutiful letter-writing to her unknown parents, stitching samplers, and lengthy church services, with no companions of her own age. Thousands of miles away her mother wept as she penned letter after tear-stained letter to her daughter.

  After leaving India for Sussex, Myrtle had not seen her parents again until they came to Europe on leave, when she was fourteen. The family admired museums, opera houses, quaint ceremonies and ancient buildings, which they discussed in exhaustive detail over meals. Strangers, none of them knew how to talk personally to the others.

  Seven years later Mr Glossop retired. He and his faithful weary wife, yearning to see the daughter she scarcely knew, were days away from sailing back to the Old Country when they succumbed to cholera and were swiftly cremated. The government pension, for which they had sacrificed all hopes of seeing their daughter, immediately expired.

  The aunts had imperceptibly languished and died, one by one, so, aged twenty-one, with only a legacy of £300 a year, no job and no qualifications, Myrtle had had no choice but to accept the charitable offer of a home with Godmother Augusta. When she ventured up to London and the Marriage Bureau, Myrtle had been ensconced in Cornwall with this benign but parsimonious ninety-year-old for five tedious years.

  ‘How do you spend your time?’ enquired Mary, who could herself have given Myrtle’s answer.

  ‘Most days I walk my godmother’s dog in the village, taking some soup to anyone who’s sick. If it’s raining I stay in and help the maid with the laundry – it’s much easier folding the sheets with two people. Or I do some sewing – there are always clothes to be mended or altered. Or I read to my godmother – her eyesight’s not very good. On Saturdays I pick flowers and take them to the church, and put them on the altar and on the grave of my godmother’s husband. If the Rect
or’s there he talks to me, which is lovely – he’s very nice and not as old as everyone else. On Sundays I go to church with Godmother Augusta, and I help with the children at the Sunday School – they can be quite naughty, so I tell them to be quiet. The Rector helps too, which is very nice.’

  Mary’s assessment was that, lacking money, education, family and friends, poor Myrtle was imprisoned by poverty on all fronts. Immediately after the outbreak of war, excitement had briefly enlivened her humdrum life when a pregnant mother and her three-year-old identical boy twins were evacuated from the dangerous East End to the safety of Cornwall. An administrative cock-up had billeted this forlorn trio on Godmother Augusta, whose rambling house had enough empty rooms for a small army.

  The cock-up led to disaster. Neither Godmother Augusta nor Myrtle had ever encountered any but clean, well-dressed, well-spoken, polite, lice-free, house-trained people. Godmother Augusta’s cook, Mrs Castle, took one look at the dirty, unkempt, incomprehensibly cockney, blue-languaged, lice-ridden evacuees, and wasn’t having any of that sort in her domain thank you very much, madam. The final revolting insult was that, in the absence of an outdoor privy, which they understood, the twins used their bedroom wall as their own private lavatory, competing over who could spray the wall the highest.

  Mrs Castle waged a relentless war of attrition to rid the household of the despised and detested cockneys. She deferred not even to her employer, who was troubled by the tension. Mrs Castle forbade the family to enter her kitchen, fed them on the congealing leftovers from Godmother Augusta’s meals, made sure that the boiler ran out of hot water just when the family were due to wash, and daily concocted new obstacles and humiliations.

  After only a month Mrs Castle emerged triumphant. The mother came to view the East End, even with the prospect of Hitler’s bombs, as a haven of delights compared to Godmother Augusta’s hostile house and Mrs Castle’s persecution. The cook flailed the air with her great rolling pin and hissed ‘Good riddance!’ as the heavily pregnant mother fled, cursing, dragging her distraught toddlers in her wake. Myrtle looked on in despair, for she had delighted in the rampageous little boys, running races with them in the orchard, binding up their wounds when they fell out of trees, teaching them to stand up straight and sing ‘God Save the King’, laughing at their incomprehensible jokes, feigning despair at not being able to tell them apart. She had never played with anyone before.

  Mary listened with rapt attention. Myrtle had stumbled across the first person who had ever taken a real interest in her, asked her personal questions and examined the answers. Her soft voice grew more robust, her little heart-shaped face brightened. Myrtle reminded Mary of a baby mouse awakening from sleep, its whiskers twitching and its tail uncurling and frantically waving, as she grew ever more garrulous and animated.

  ‘I came here six months ago,’ confided Myrtle. ‘Godmother Augusta comes to London once a year to make sure her solicitor and her stockbroker are doing the right thing. She’s not very rich, you see, so she’s careful about money. I came to help her, and she told me to collect a fur muff from the furrier downstairs here. I saw your Marriage Bureau sign, and when I came out of the furrier’s the nice girl who had wrapped up the muff for me came out too, and she said, “That’s for people looking for a husband or a wife. Are you looking for one?” Well, I didn’t know what to say, so I just walked down the stairs and back to the hotel, and the next day we went back to Cornwall. When we got home I thought and thought about the Marriage Bureau, and about the smart people wearing nice clothes in London. And I thought I’d like to get married, but I wouldn’t find a husband in the village in a thousand years, especially not looking like this in these clothes.’

  Myrtle glanced disconsolately down at the faded navy dress under her hideous coat. Mary judged it to be an ancient gymslip – the crease where it had been let down from schoolgirl length still showed. She was right: all Myrtle’s adult life almost all her clothes had been either lengthened school uniforms or an aunt or godmother’s cast-offs, taken in at the seams, shortened and clumsily restitched.

  In London, Myrtle had felt a tidal wave of repulsion for her looks, and had resolved that when Godmother Augusta had accumulated some more city errands, she would offer to go to London for her. She would take £25 of her carefully hoarded savings, and buy herself some delicious new garments. Godmother Augusta’s eyesight was now so dim that with luck she would never notice any difference. ‘Only there are so many shops here I don’t know where to start,’ admitted Myrtle.

  Mary beamed at the mournful young woman, leaned across the desk, patted her hand and, on the spur of the moment, enquired, ‘Would you like me to come with you? I am not busy for the next hour or two, so we could have a little excursion!’

  Cinders Myrtle’s fairy godmother had tapped her on the shoulder with her magic wand and wafted her to heaven. Nobody had ever made such a suggestion. ‘Oh yes!’ she whispered. ‘Yes, please! Now?’

  So Mary steered Myrtle into Swan & Edgar, the large department store at Piccadilly Circus. In the changing room, she helped Myrtle to shed her matronly disguise, starting with the gymslip and a drab grey blouse, then a voluminous petticoat of coarse cotton, secured round Myrtle’s dainty waist with heavy tape. An over-sized camisole – a Godmother Augusta castoff, decided Mary – swamped the girl’s chest, flattening her bosom, for she had never even heard of a bust bodice. Myrtle’s slender body was laced into stout, peach-coloured stays reinforced with whalebone, beneath navy knickers made of thick wool, matted and scratchy from years of being washed in carbolic soap.

  Soon, flushed and giggling with excitement, Myrtle pirouetted in front of the long mirror. It reflected a sweetly pretty girl wearing a becoming dress in a delicate blue, under a soft, light cardigan fastened with pink pearl buttons. Not visible, but known and felt and gloated over by Myrtle, was a set of silk underwear, including a lacy bust bodice adorned with a pink rose and blue satin bow, which she could hardly bear to conceal.

  An hour later, complete with a blue coat, light-hearted hat, smart shoes and silk stockings, Myrtle emerged from her caterpillar carapace into Regent Street: an entrancing butterfly poised to spread her decorative wings and fly into a man’s heart.

  Back in the office Mary asked Myrtle for details: what kind of man would suit? What age, height, religion? Living in the country or in town? Or abroad? What about children? Divorce? Money?

  Myrtle listened, but suddenly dropped her head to her chest, her hand clutching her neck as a rosy flush crept over her face. She was filled with a mixture of intoxicating anticipation and pure panic. Was she embarking on something terrible, even immoral? What would Godmother Augusta say? And the dear Rector – would he cast her out of his flock as a shameless hussy?

  Mary perceived that transforming Myrtle’s attitude would be much more difficult than changing her appearance. Luckily the girl was by now happy to place her trust in her fairy godmother, who through gentle coaxing managed to persuade her that she was doing something wholly natural and normal.

  Myrtle had to return to Cornwall straight away. She travelled in a daze, abruptly curtailed as she was greeted at the front door by Mrs Castle announcing that Godmother Augusta had tripped over her ancient dog and was in hospital, in a parlous state. Pausing only to hang her new clothes in her wardrobe, Myrtle seized her bicycle and pedalled to the rectory, from where the dear Rector drove her to the hospital.

  For a month Myrtle shuttled to and from the hospital and London, from where she returned with Godmother Augusta’s solicitor, summoned to the bedside. She read to the quailing, shrunken old lady, sang melodies in her small but tuneful voice, brought her little pots of Mrs Castle’s blancmange, stroked her cold, wrinkled hands, entertained her with stories of village people and the evacuees.

  But nothing could prevent Godmother Augusta from dying. Myrtle found herself in charge of organizing the funeral and, to her amazement, enjoyed the responsibility. She was even more flabbergasted when the solicitor announc
ed that Godmother Augusta had bequeathed her house to the church, but a small fortune in stocks and shares to Myrtle.

  Thunderstruck, Myrtle protested, ‘But that is not possible! Godmother Augusta was poor!’

  The solicitor gave a knowing little cough. ‘Indeed, Miss Glossop, your godmother believed herself to be in financial straits, and ordered her life accordingly. She laboured under a misapprehension of her situation, of which I frequently attempted to disabuse her, but in vain. I assure you that a substantial amount is yours, and that I await your instructions.’

  Completely bewildered, Myrtle’s first thought was of her fairy godmother. She rushed up to 124 New Bond Street and poured out her miraculous tale to her astonished but delighted ally.

  Myrtle and Mary worked out a plan. Myrtle would spend a few weeks in London, making necessary visits to the solicitor while staying in a quiet, eminently respectable hotel. From there she could meet some agreeable men, none of whom would have any idea she was an heiress. Mary would ensure that all of them had a more than adequate income of their own, and were not angling to marry for money.

  Myrtle took to town life like a duck to water, revelling in her transformed looks, her freedom to spend money on clothes, make-up and scent, visits to the hairdresser and beauty parlour, singing and dancing lessons, and anything which took her newly released fancy. Cornwall faded into the misty past, along with Sussex and the Isle of Wight. She was joyfully preoccupied, oblivious to what was going on in the world – she was even amused by having to take her gas mask to the cinema in order to be allowed to buy a ticket. Despite the blackout she blundered excitedly around the West End, and steeled herself to go down the moving staircase to the underground train. Thrilled by her own courage, she promptly took the up staircase and descended again. She haunted the department stores, buying herself the first pretty blouse she had ever owned, dotted with rosebuds and daisies. She wore it with a delectable pink skirt when she met the first of ‘Mary’s Men’, a kind, reliable civil servant who would, Mary felt, give her confidence in the male sex.