One of the Family

by Monica Dickens

  Well, he was quite nice at first. Asked me the usual questions – why was my appetite so poor, was I not hungry? Was I unhappy? I gave the usual answers. No answers really. I shrugged and pouted a bit, as he would expect of a ‘difficult’ young girl. He asked if I thought he could help me and when I said I didn’t need any help, thank you very much, he said, in that soft sort of sing-song voice he uses sometimes on the grown-ups, and Aunt Gwen says, ‘Oh To-by’ and goes a bit swoony, he said, ‘But I think you are not very happy.’

  What did you say?

  What was there to say? I don’t know anyone of my age – except perhaps my brother Greg in his funny way – who is happy, and if Dr Taylor didn’t know that, I was not going to make it easy for him. He talked about energy and he said he had a lot of it and I didn’t have enough, and that the nerves must be stimulated to make my mind and body healthy and some more rubbish like that. We were sitting at opposite ends of the couch, and I was afraid he was going to move closer, but he didn’t. He sat at the end of the couch and, and – I began to be afraid – looked at me.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said. Isn’t it awful when someone seems to somehow read your mind? ‘You’re trembling,’ he said, in that voice. ‘Don’t be afraid. Listen, Miss Sophie, I’ll tell you a story. Once upon a time,’ he began, as if I was still in the nursery. ‘Once upon a time, there was a man called Friedrich Anton Mesmer, who wanted to make people happy and to heal the sick. He would gather a lot of people together in a hall and this Dr Mesmer would make a dramatic entrance wearing a long lilac gown and carrying a magician’s wand. He would glide about and wave the wand over certain people. If you had been there, he would have fixed you with his great burning eyes.’ You know those eyes of Dr Taylor’s? Like chocolate with little gold flecks in them when his face is up close.

  ‘Then one of his handsome young assistants would come and gently massage your knees and your spine. Women were very strongly affected. They fell unconscious, laughed, cried, went into convulsions with it all. Then, for the special ones like you, Dr Mesmer would tell the young men to stimulate the magnetic flow by exerting a subtle pressure with his fingertips, like this, on your –’

  I jumped up like a scalded cat. He had stood up too, in front of me, and his hands ... I had to shout, ‘Don’t touch me there!’

  And did he?

  He said, ‘Why not?’

  ‘I hate it,’ I said, because I do hate my – my bust, I try to hide it, but he said, ‘It’s beautiful’ and I – I didn’t know whether to cry or scream or faint or what.

  And then?

  He said, ‘You see, you are like those women at the meetings of Dr Friedrich Anton Mesmer. The magnetic energy. Even you can’t resist it, little Sophie.’

  My God!

  I know. I had to escape. I ran to the door. He didn’t follow me downstairs. Our maid was waiting in the hall. She had my hat and I jammed it on and managed to get out to the carriage and get control of myself.

  Did she see you were upset?

  She never notices anything. Nobody knows. You’re the first person I’ve told.

  It’s despicable! Your father will kill him.

  I could never tell Papa.

  You poor, poor girl. What will you do?

  I think I shall become a nun.

  You’re a fool, Tobias. It’s hands off the Morleys. But if the little ninny snivels, I shall explain that she’s hysterical, which she is. I don’t think she’ll say anything, however. She’s too craven. One day, she will thank me and Dr Mesmer for ‘putting the finger’, as it were, on what she needed. She will have to be led very gently to her awakening, but not by me, good friend of the family. I’m not going to risk losing that.

  One evening, after Toby had taken Marie-May Lacoste to her rehearsal for the new operetta at Daly’s, he met a girl he knew in Leicester Square, and she took him slumming to a few of her favourite haunts. In the taproom of a small hotel in Red Lion Street, off Theobald’s Road, Pearl drank with some cronies, while Toby leaned against the small lopsided bar, its edge rubbed concave by years of elbows, and chatted to the landlord.

  ‘This here is a very famous man.’ A drinker in a checkerboard cap prodded Toby in the ribs. ‘Oh, yes, very famous. Been in the papers. At the Old Bailey, ‘e was, and not in the dock, like some of his customers.’

  ‘How so?’ Toby asked, as he was evidently expected to.

  ‘Give evidence, dinnee, few mumfs ago, about that feller what done in ‘is rich old man.’

  ‘Mr Whiteley’s son?’ Toby pricked up his ears.

  ‘Mr Whiteley’s bastard,’ the landlord said. ‘He was at my hotel for a while, a real hard-luck case. Desperate poor, bills up to here.’ He pushed up his stubbled chin with the back of his hand. ‘Wife left him, and cetera.’

  ‘He rented one of your rooms?’

  ‘He occupied one of my rooms,’ the landlord corrected. ‘I had to tell him, “If you don’t cough up next week, you’ll have to go back to the spike.” That’s Rowton House, the down-and-out crib in Hammersmith. “Now then, my good friend” – he liked to put it on a bit – “you know I’m expecting a draft of money. Any day now, my friend. My father is the richest man in London,” he’d boast. Well, we didn’t know who his father was at that time, though we knew he was to do with some big shop, because one of my occasionals let out that he himself worked for him there.’

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Big geezer with a red face. Name of Beale. Bit of a dipso, between you and me. Used to do some of his drinking here, where he wasn’t known.’

  Well, well. Toby had followed keenly the details of the murder trial of Horace Rayner. He remembered now that the hotel in Red Lion Street had been mentioned, and testimony of the defendant’s boasts about his wealthy father.

  Pearl wanted to go for a plate of oysters, and later he got rid of her and went to the stage door of the theatre to fetch Marie-May, furious because the director wanted to drop one of her songs, and hungry for an expensive supper at Romano’s.

  Chapter Seventeen

  At Whiteley’s, the’conflicts and tensions came to a head at the end of May. Pianos and other musical instruments had been a big feature this spring. Advertisements, which depicted a man in tails swooned over by beauties with fans and jewelled snoods, promised: ‘A piano from Whiteley’s entitles you to a course of lessons from an internationally renowned teacher. You too can be the life and soul of the party!’

  Leonard had arranged for a piano recital in the music department. Posters were up throughout the store and in every plate glass window. A variety of new and secondhand pianos were brought from the warehouse and polished by men in baize aprons. On the day of the concert, Whiteley’s piano demonstrator played snatches of easy classic pieces downstairs to attract shoppers up to where a world-famous maestro would perform. Flowers were banked up, a carpet was laid, the catering department had provided claret cup and cake and rows of gilt chairs in a semi-circle.

  Leonard was to be Master of Ceremonies. He had shaved well, and brilliantined his sandy hair to a darker shade. The maestro was late, but Leonard greeted the customers as they arrived. They sat on the gilt chairs, and waited. Mr William sat in the front row with Lady Porchester. The demonstrator obliged with some Chopin. Leonard stood where he could see the gate of the lift. The customers grew restless. The buzz of their talk was increasingly aggrieved.

  Leonard went to his office and put through a telephone call to the agent through whom he had engaged the maestro.

  ‘But Mr Morley, he cancelled a week ago, after he sprained his wrist. I came round to explain. You weren’t there, but I talked to a Mr Beale. He said he would inform you at once.’

  After Leonard had tied himself into apologetic knots trying to mollify the customers and Mr William, who was angry and embarrassed by the fiasco, he went in search of Henry Beale.

  ‘Why did you not tell me the concert pianist had cancelled?’

  ‘I did. I had to be in Birmingham the next day
, so I left a note in your pigeonhole marked “Urgent”.’ ‘You did not.’

  ‘I did. Here’s a copy. “Concert cancelled with regrets, etc., etc.”’

  ‘Am I going mad? I never saw it. It wasn’t there.’

  ‘You must have pulled it out with other papers and mislaid it before you read it.’

  ‘Did you tell Mr Frank or Mr William?’

  ‘They were in Paris at the Trade Fair. It was your responsibility anyway, Morley. I did the right thing. You can’t accuse me of going against store protocol. I told you.’

  ‘I accuse you of deliberately making a fool of me and trying to damage my reputation in the store.’

  ‘Lower your voice, man. You don’t want every ledger clerk to hear you.’

  ‘I don’t care if they do.’ Leonard was furiously angry. He loathed and despised the beefy man who sat leaning back arrogantly in his swivel chair, with a smirk of – yes, of triumph.

  ‘You did this deliberately. I know that.’ ‘Really?’ Beale raised his eyebrows and pursed his thick red lips.

  ‘For months now, ever since the Chief was – ever since the Chief was taken from us, you’ve been scheming and manoeuvring. I know your game.’ Leonard released some of the pent-up grievances he had been too discreet to voice. All the things that were true. ‘And now you – your deliberate deceit, and lying to make me look a fool.’ He was sweating and out of breath. He could hardly splutter out his words. ‘I shall expose this!’

  Henry Beale flicked spittle from his sleeve fastidiously. ‘When all is said and done, Morley, it will be your word against mine.’

  And who would the Whiteley brothers believe? Beale had ingratiated himself with them and praised their grasp of the business, had hampered Leonard whenever he could, had pulled off some showy purchases which might or might not make a profit, but which looked spectacular. Leonard Morley had stuck to his work, doggedly and devotedly supervising the staff and ministering to the customers. It was rumoured that the brothers planned to make changes, after a decent interval, to modernize some of their father’s tried-and-true methods. Leonard had been William Whiteley’s loyal henchman. Would they write him off as old-fashioned?

  The agitated Assistant Manager was called away to attend to a shoplifting incident on the ground floor. Then he was waylaid by several customers who were upset about the cancelled concert, by a mother who had lost her child, and by a cashier upstairs who needed signatures. When he was free to leave at last, he made his way along crowded Westbourne Grove and the peaceful pavement of Chepstow Villas, his tired strides pacing out the beat of Beale’s voice, ‘Your word against mine.’

  Home, thank God. The one stable element. His own square beautiful benign house and private little plot of land. The dappled plane trees were crowned with bright new leaves. A cherry blossomed in the front garden of No. 72. Boxes fastened to the green-painted railings of the drawing room and dining room balconies had been filled with polyanthus by Gwen’s little plantman from the Porto-bello Road market.

  Mrs Salter and Flora and Tatiana had finished the spring cleaning in the hall. The wallpaper seemed lighter and brighter. Dust had fled the picture rails and the tops of ornate frames. Paint on the stairs and banisters was like thick soapy cream. The carpet glowed with its original colours.

  ‘In Leonard’s study, the cover of his wide chair was loose and rumpled, and darker at the arms and headrest. The curtains comfortably remembered winter cigarettes and pipe smoke. This room would be cleaned last, when he was out of it during the July holiday.

  He hung his coat on its own peg and, in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, went into the drawing room to Gwen.

  ‘I’m so glad to get home!’ he said fervently as he came through the door.

  ‘That’s nice.’ Gwen was at her desk. She took off her spectacles and turned round in the chair and held up her graceful bare arms. ‘You always say that.’

  ‘Yes, but today especially.’ He kissed her warmly, then pulled away to look into her dear, untroubled face.

  ‘You’ve just missed Austin,’ she said. ‘He came to fetch Elizabeth and the children. That baby is enormous. Austin says he’ll be playing backyard cricket before you know it. When are you going to start the Sunday games?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Leonard had not the heart for it.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I – oh, Gwen, it’s been such a bad day.’

  ‘But it’s all right now. Look, I’ve got good news for you.’ She turned back to the papers on her desk. ‘The information about the house near Chipping Norton came today. A tennis court, golf nearby for Vera and Charles, fishing, such lovely views. If we care to take the place, we can have it for the two weeks that we want in July.’

  ‘Good.’ Leonard sat down on the arm of the chair near her and hung his hands between his knees. A terrible thing happened at work today, Gwen.’

  ‘What, my darling?’

  ‘Henry Beale played a dastardly trick on me, the worst thing he’s done yet.’

  She listened while he told her the story, her grey eyes soft under the cobweb of drifting hair. ‘There is a chance that William and Frank Whiteley may believe him. They may blame me for the disaster.’

  ‘Oh, surely not. You’re so pessimistic, Leo. You’re taking the glummest view of it. Come, look at this picture of the holiday house I’ve found for you. It will raise your spirits.’

  ‘Gwen, don’t you understand? I’m in danger. I may lose my job!’

  ‘Oh, fiddlesticks! But if that were really so’ – she laughed and crinkled her eyes to the joke – ‘we could take Norton Croft for three weeks.’

  He stood up. ‘Can’t you take anything seriously? Don’t you understand what’s happened?’

  ‘I’m only trying to cheer you up, dearest. You always make such a drama out of everything. Whiteley’s isn’t the centre of the universe. Why can’t you be a lovable little H.G. Wells draper like Kipps?’ She put her head on one side.

  Leonard turned quickly and weaved through the furniture to the door.

  ‘Leo, don’t be angry –’

  He shrugged into his coat and went out, with a slam of the front door and a clang of the garden gate.

  Toby was paying a call on Hugo and Charlotte at Ladbroke Lodge, as he did once in a while because they were part of the family, and they knew some potentially useful people. Charlotte was entertaining a dim couple who had just returned from Europe, where they had met a decrepit Hanoverian count who had told them to visit his distant cousin, Carlotta Miiller, now Frau Morley of Latbrück, a fine Grundbesitz in London.

  Toby wandered to the other end of the drawing room, where Bella was sitting with the couple’s tubby daughter, who had brought photographs. Beyond the back window, Ladbroke Square flaunted its full-dressed trees like a country park. Under the trees, a figure in a dark frock-coat walked away slowly, hands deep in pockets.

  ‘Excuse me, Miss Bella.’ Toby interrupted her boring exchanges with the fat girl. ‘There’s a man I do business with in the square. I’ve been trying to get hold of him. Would you lend me the key to go in?’

  The subtly scornful manservant showed him down the outside steps at the end of the hall, and he went through the small back garden and into the square by the ‘private gate’ of which Hugo was so proud. He caught up with Leonard by the waterlily pool in the middle of the gardens.

  ‘I saw you from the Lodge. What’s the matter, friend?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Leonard looked down at the goldfish, then up at Toby. ‘Everything.’

  ‘Whiteley’s?’

  Leonard nodded. ‘I thought I’d take a turn here to clear my head. My darling Gwen doesn’t understand business problems.’

  ‘Lovely women like that seldom do. May I ask what the problems are?’

  ‘Nothing new. The odious Henry Beale is still trying to cheat his way to the top. Today he outdid even himself in perfidy.’

  ‘Beale ... the second time I’ve heard that name this week. Funny thing.’ T
oby told Leonard about the landlord of the Red Lion Street hotel.

  ‘He may go there,’ Leonard said glumly. ‘He drinks all over town, I believe.’

  ‘Yes, but he was in that hotel at the time when Horace Rayner was staying there. Odd, that. Leonard, don’t you see?’ Toby had only just seen it himself. ‘This Beale has been hinting at collusion, because you kept quiet about those monstrous threatening letters. But do you suppose – is it possible – that he himself was somehow in league with William Whiteley’s son?’

  Toby went back to the hotel in Red Lion Street the next night. He went early, to avoid a crowd in the bar room, and found the landlord alone, leaning on the bar with the Evening Mews spread out under his elbows.

  ‘This – er, this gentleman you talked to me about.’ Toby lifted his face from the froth at the top of a pewter pint mug. ‘The one who said he worked for William Whiteley. He was acquainted with Mr Whiteley’s son then?’

  ‘He met him here. Mr Rayner – God give peace to his bloodstained soul – he boasted to him of money expected, and what he would do if his old man didn’t come through with it. Just dreams, you might say. Like asking my barmaid to marry him and emigrate. His mouth was bigger than his muscle, in my opinion. You could have knocked me down with a bent spoon when he turned assassin. Shows how wrong you can be, don’t it? Fill you up, sir?’

  ‘Thanks, no. I need a clear head.’

  Toby walked part of the way home, getting off the bus at Hyde Park Corner and thinking very hard along Knights-bridge and Brompton Road. The next day, he was waiting for Leonard at No. 72 when he came home from work.

  ‘Will you excuse us, Gwen? Leonard and I have some business to discuss.’

  ‘Oh dear, I thought you came to see me, To-by.’

  ‘No, he came to see me.’ Dicky pushed between them.

  ‘I did both.’ Toby and Dicky were allies, sharing the secret of the policeman with the fierce moustache, and he was very fond of Gwen. If he ever married, which seemed doubtful, since he was getting along so well by himself, it might be someone like this gentle, scattered, light-hearted woman, rather than someone athletic and straightforward, like Madge, or more dazzling, like Marie-May. ‘Talking business to Leonard is just a diversion.’