Marriages are Made in Bond Street

by Penrose Halson

  +, ++, or –

  All categories could be modified with plus or minus signs which enabled the client to be introduced to the next category (up or down). For example, Ladyish ++ could meet Near Gent –. Similarly Gent For Here could be matched with Near Lady +.

  Just

  Another modification: a Near Gent, just could be introduced to a Near Lady, though probably not to a Near Lady ++.

  A client in the Gent For Here category would almost invariably specify, ‘She must be a lady.’ The interviewer knew exactly what he meant, and immediately searched for a woman who had been to private or public school, spoke without any local accent, and moved in social circles similar to his. Similarly, a Much Better Than Some woman would ask for ‘a plain ordinary working-class man’, and be matched with a man categorized as Much Better Than Some or Working Class.

  The interviewers recorded each client’s name, religion, age, profession, income and place of residence in a volume called the Black Book. Each client’s town was also entered alphabetically, since geography was a critical factor, especially with the difficulty of travelling in wartime. Index boxes contained a card for each client, recording his or her registration number, details about the client and about the type of person he or she wanted to marry. On the back of each card, the interviewer wrote the registration number of all that client’s introductions, thereby avoiding the risk of sending the same introduction twice. There were so many clients that most letters of the alphabet needed two separate index boxes, one for men and one for women. Some smaller groups, of country or religion, such as clients living in India, or Jews, needed only one box for both men and women.

  It was a very complicated set of records, ‘but,’ recalled Mary, ‘finding the right husband or wife, in the right place, at the right time, was a complicated business. And the system worked!’

  Doing some mating in the increasingly chilly mansion one autumnal day, the two match-makers assessed the situation. Heather was huddled in her fur coat, Mary shivering despite wearing layers of underwear, vainly attempting to warm herself with cigarette after cigarette. Mrs Plum had just disclosed that in winter the fires burned a ton of coal a week, and the central heating about the same of coke. The diplomat had installed the new-fangled system years ago when it was a daring innovation. According to the housekeeper, the diplomat’s entourage and hangers-on had been greatly impressed, but even though the boiler was perpetually ravenous, the radiators remained tepid. As for the price of such a quantity of fuel, even in peacetime it was punitive, but wartime prices were rising daily to ever more astronomical heights.

  As the match-makers glumly examined the newly delivered coal bill, a mangy cat stole into the room. Before she had even seen it Heather, who had a violent allergy to cats, sneezed uncontrollably, her eyes swelling up pink and puffily, tears ruining her make-up. As she struggled to stem the flow while aiming a kick at the offending creature, Mary answered the telephone.

  ‘I must speak to Miss Jenner,’ wailed the secretary left behind in Bond Street, so loudly that Heather heard too. ‘I cannot cope any longer. There are far too many letters to answer, and I cannot manage them and answer the telephone too, and there are some nasty clients to deal with. I shall have to hand in my notice.’

  ‘That’s the very last straw!’ exclaimed Heather. ‘Come on, Mary, let’s get packed. I’ll tell Mrs Plum. We shall pay the rent as we are obliged to, but we are leaving today.’

  Two heavily laden car trips later, back in Bond Street, Heather, Mary and the two secretaries swiftly and joyfully restored all the papers, listened to the incumbent secretary’s tales of woe, and set about sorting the mountain of post. Mary stopped short at a long airletter, sent from Australia by a young man, Fred Adams.

  Fred’s story wrenched Mary’s tender heart. He had been born in Suffolk, on a farm which he dimly remembered. By the age of three he was an orphan: his mother died in the ravaging Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, just after she’d heard that her husband had not survived the combination of gangrene contracted in the trenches and the consequent amputation of both his legs.

  Fred was bundled off to a spinster aunt living on the next-door farm, who brought him up because it was her duty. Auntie Ellen did not love him: he was nothing but a nuisance to her, and she resented having to feed and clothe him. She was an old maid because her soldier fiancé had been shot as a deserter, and she was bitter to her bones about everything and everybody (not surprisingly, thought Mary). Fred wrote that Auntie Ellen had never had much love in her, but what little there was had been knocked right out of her. The fiancé was not in fact a deserter: he’d simply gone so mad after being gassed that he’d run away. The search party found him crouching in a ditch sobbing his heart out; though he didn’t cry when they stood him up and shot him.

  Mary paused to dry her eyes so that she could read on.

  Fred decided life could only be better somewhere else. At fourteen he left school – which he had scarcely attended, since Auntie Ellen had always found jobs for him on the farm – and went out, steerage, to Australia. Auntie Ellen was glad to be rid of him, so she gave him a bit of money and a ticket on the ship. In Australia he did odd jobs and lived hand-to-mouth until he was fifteen, when he joined the Royal Australian Navy (lying about his age). He was now twenty-four. In September, when Australia joined the war, he had heard rumours that his ship would shortly be sent to England. He didn’t know exactly when, but he did know that he wanted to marry an English girl because, though he liked Australia, he rated Australian girls flighty, hard-boiled and harsh-voiced. He had had a childhood sweetheart in Suffolk, Elsie, when he was a little boy of ten, whom he remembered as the dearest little thing.

  ‘Oh, Heather, it’s a most touching story, we must help!’

  ‘It certainly is,’ agreed Heather. ‘But how did he know about the Bureau?’

  ‘The article in that Queensland newspaper The Morning Bulletin in July, remember? The one that said the Bureau gets 300 letters a day, many from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. It had the story of me chaperoning that glamorous Arabella Pickering to Paris to meet that wealthy businessman. And it said that half our female clients are mannequins, and we introduce them to eligible bachelors from the Dominions who want decorative wives. It quoted us as saying, “We call ourselves Empire Builders!”’

  ‘As indeed we are! Yes, I remember now. You are very good with journalists, dear Mary. I doubt that half or even a quarter of our girls are mannequins, but no matter.’

  Fred’s letter told Mary so much about himself that she quickly formed a mental picture of the future Mrs Adams, and was overjoyed that it echoed Fred’s description of his childhood sweetheart, who remained vivid in his mind: ‘I want you to interduce me to a nice quiet affekshunate girl with dark flashy eyes,’ wrote Fred.

  I remember elsies eyes they were big and dark brown they were allmost black and her hair the same colour and shiny and long all down her back. I want a girl who nos her way about and will help me to settle after ten years in australia I will feel out of things in England. elsie was a very kind harted little girl she used to slip biskits from her tea into her apron pokitt and give them to me the next day at scool because she new my arnt didnt give me much to eat. elsies parents were kind to but they were poor with not enuff money to feed themselves and 4 children. I am 5' 6" tall and please find me a girl shorter than that a dainty girl and a chased girl. I dont mind what religun she is or if shes forrin but not german or australian. Please send me some girls but please do not put marriage bureau on the letter or your name please put arnt mary I dont want navy officers to see.

  Mary was completely won over. ‘Poor lamb, his spelling’s even worse than mine, but his heart’s in the right place. I can think of three or four girls who might suit.’

  On a plain airletter, including some misleading information about imaginary friends, and signed Aunt Mary, Mary sent Fred details about Nancy Patch, a shy, stuttering young woman who had rushed along to register with
the Marriage Bureau in her half-hour break from working as a nippy at Lyons Corner House next to Charing Cross.

  ‘It’s ever so busy,’ Nancy had panted, ‘us waitresses have to be really n-n-nippy! There’s lots of young m-m-men come in for a cup of tea and a bun, and they’re lonely and want to chat, but we can’t talk to them, only t-t-take their order and their money. I live in digs with my sister, she’s shy like me so we don’t nev-nev-never go out and we don’t meet no young m-m-men. I’m twenty-three and my mum says I’m on the shelf, cos she was m-m-married at seventeen.’

  Mary had assessed Nancy as WC+, and from his letter thought Fred was probably the same. She was a pretty, dark-eyed girl, her long hair coiled on top of her head ‘so it don’t fall in the customers’ soup’. Mary imagined Fred feeling protective of this sweet young soul, who stood only five feet one inches tall. So she was dismayed when a few weeks later Nancy flew into the office, flushed from running, blushing apologetically as she broke her news.

  ‘Oh, Miss O-O-Oliver, I’m ever so sorry, I’m in a pickle, you see I got a nice letter from Mr Adams but I’ve said I’ll marry Trevor Potts that you sent me in J-J-June. He’s ever so keen and he wants us to marry n-n-next month before he gets called up. But Mr Adams sounds ever such a nice gen-gen-gentleman and he sounds just right for my little sister Elsie. She’s a ni-ni-nippy like me, she’s like me in mostly everything, but she’s only just started work, and she hasn’t got enough m-m-money to join the Ma-Ma-Marriage Bureau. What ever shall I do?’

  Mary’s mind was in a whirl. Elsie. Could it – might it – no, it wasn’t possible – but it might – yes – no – yes . . .

  ‘Are you and Elsie from London?’ she asked a startled Nancy.

  ‘No, we come here to work because there weren’t no jo-jo-jobs at home, we wasn’t big and strong enough for farm work.’

  ‘So where is home?’ enquired Mary, her thoughts racing.

  ‘We was born on a f-f-farm. It’s not near anywhere, there’s only f-f-farms.’

  ‘Do you know which county?’

  ‘Oh, yes, c-c-course I do, it’s Suffolk.’

  Mary was gripped by a wild hope. ‘Well, I think we could change the rules a little. Your sister could pay us 2s 6d and I’ll tell Mr Adams about her. If she marries him she’ll have to pay the After Marriage Fee, though. Would that suit?’

  ‘Oh, oh, oh, thank you ever so much, Miss O-O-Oliver. I’ve got a f-f-feeling about Elsie and Mr Adams. One of them feelings, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I do know,’ agreed Mary with fervour, adding to herself, ‘and I hope and pray this one is right!’

  9

  Mary’s Bones and Babies

  ‘They’re just children, babes,’ sighed Mary after interviewing a succession of bashful but eager young men. ‘They’re still wet behind the ears, little puppy dogs fresh from being licked clean by their mother. I can almost sniff that soggy-doggy scent. They shouldn’t be going off to fight, and nor should they be getting married.’

  It was 1940 and, since the Nazis did not invade, many evacuees had returned to the cities, where they learned to pick their way with caution through pea-souper fogs along the blacked-out streets. People grew more casual about taking their gas masks everywhere; but everyone knew that savagery and anarchy were inevitable. The first to be called up for military service were fit and able men of twenty and twenty-one, the single before the married. Many rushed to the recruiting office, while more timorous young men hurried to the Marriage Bureau in hopes of putting off the evil hour.

  ‘So what are you going to do about your puppy dogs?’ demanded Heather.

  ‘You know as well as I do: I’ll look for some equally young and scared girls. The Black Book is full of them. I had such a nice child this morning – Ada Burn, a shy little elf with a voice so gentle I could hardly hear her. She’s only eighteen, but she’s been working as a milliner’s assistant since she was fourteen, and she’s living with her mother and a new stepfather who frightens her. He goes down the boozer, she says, and comes home drunk and bashes her mother. She’s tried to help, but the woman insists that he hits her because he loves her, and she loves him. Daft. So poor Ada’s longing to get away and marry some quiet, home-loving young man who’s kind to people, that’s her main consideration. “Someone not too gay or too energetic,” she put on her registration form. “Any decent type will do.”’

  Heather considered, and suggested Fred Adams, who would be over from Australia very soon. Mary agreed that he sounded the right sort, but that he would probably return to Australia after the war, while Ada wanted to stay in England – she’d never been further than Clacton in her life. In any case, Mary was anxious to see what happened with Fred and Elsie before trying anyone else for him. Elsie’s protective sister Nancy had told Mary that Elsie and Fred were corresponding.

  ‘I have a feeling about that pair,’ mused Mary. ‘My bones go a bit soft, as if I’ve had too many gin and limes.’

  ‘Soft in the head, more like! You have the most speaking bones I’ve ever known! Ask them to tell you the name of some nice man for your Ada.’

  Mary scoured the Black Book and the record cards, soon lighting on a young man who spoke to her bones: John Parker.

  John was a cabinet maker of twenty-one, working with his father in Bethnal Green. His mother had died giving birth to him, and his stepmother regarded him as an unwelcome intruder in her life. She had once whacked the enquiring toddler across the mouth for reaching up to her favourite vase and bringing it crashing to the floor. Little John had bled so profusely that for once his father had rounded on his wife and hit her. Since then she had hardly ever touched John, and spoke to him only when she couldn’t avoid it.

  But his grandmother and he had doted on one another. He had always loved old Mrs Zambrovsky’s graphic stories of his lost mother – her favourite, forever-mourned daughter. Instead of playing outside with the children of the street, John had stayed in his nan’s stuffy parlour listening enraptured as she told him rambling tales of his mother’s talents and charm, and described her own childhood in Russia, and her arrival in bewildering London. She had stood in the street for hours to catch a glimpse of Queen Victoria – who had graciously waved directly at Mrs Zambrovsky! Picked her out in the seething mass and waved at her and her alone! The old woman’s wrinkle-scored face always glowed at the memory, whose glory illuminated John too as he hugged his beloved nan.

  In his grandmother’s final harrowing illness, John had spent days and nights at her bedside holding her hand, listening, laughing, stroking, soothing, looking after her with an instinctive loving-kindness that baffled his father.

  ‘It ain’t natural, the way that boy carries on. It’s woman’s work wot ’e’s doing.’

  But John’s stepmother wanted nothing to do with either her stepson or the drooling old Jewish woman. ‘Shut yer mouth and let ’im get on wiv it, wontcher?’ she screeched at her husband. ‘Thank yer lucky stars you and me don’t have to look after the old witch. I can’t never understand wot she’s saying, in that forrin voice of ’ers. She’ll be gorn soon and good riddance I say!’

  So John had quietly taken charge. To the chagrin of the family, his nan bequeathed him her tiny terraced house, so with deep relief he had moved round the corner and gradually mended the furniture and cleaned the rooms and washed the curtains until he had a very pleasant, comfortable, cosy bachelor home. He was horrified at the prospect of being called up to fight, for he was a gentle, domesticated soul who, since the death of the one person with whom he had known what it was to love and be loved, was happy only when absorbed in making a piece of furniture, or restoring a beautiful antique. He had heard of Conscientious Objectors, who were exempted from killing by doing war work such as driving ambulances. But he knew with what scorn and even violence his father and friends would treat him if he became a despised ‘Conchie’; so the only tactic he could think of which would at least delay his call-up, was to marry.

  ‘I think you and your bones m
ay be right, dear Mary,’ said Heather. ‘Ada and John are well worth trying. I remember him: I interviewed him. Didn’t he say he wanted to meet a quiet, homely girl, perhaps one who has helped old or sick people?’

  ‘Yes, he did. And you liked him: you wrote on his card, “Nice boy, working class, split lip, lovely hands, v. blue eyes, own house and furniture.” It’s very unusual for such a young man to have his own home; it’ll be an attraction.’

  ‘It should be, though last month I wanted to introduce him to a girl who said she wouldn’t even go near the East End, not for all the furniture in the world, not if you paid her, it’s full of cockneys and Jews.’

  ‘What a nasty little madam. John’s well shot of her.’

  Mary wrote about John to Ada, who replied that she would like to meet him, and sent him a letter giving the address of the milliner’s shop where she worked rather than her home address, for fear that her stepfather might get wind of what she was doing and mete out the same viciousness to her as to her mother. Mary waited; but no news came.

  ‘What in heaven’s name is the matter?’ cried Heather two weeks later, as she observed Mary clutching a flimsy airletter while laughing and crying simultaneously.

  Miraculously, Mary’s bones had been right: Nancy Patch’s little sister Elsie was the very girl Fred Adams in Australia had known all those years ago. They were going to meet as soon as he came to England; they were both overjoyed. So too was Mary, though the emotions overcoming her were mixed: ‘Fred and Elsie are jumping up and down like jack-in-a-boxes and almost planning the great day and shall he bring some sultanas for the wedding cake and it’s wonderful but I can’t bear it because it’s too fairy tale and I’m sure they’ll take one look at each other and think “Oh, NO!” and their golden dreams will go up in grey smoke and it’ll be all my fault and—’