Bond Street Story

by Norman Collins

  It may have been that the ring was tighter than she had realized. Or possibly she was a little overtired. Whatever it was, her reserve went completely. The niceties just left her. Instead of merely thrusting the ring into Mr. Bloot’s open palm, she added that he knew what he could do with it.

  In consequence, it had been a day of phone calls. And it had been nearly teatime before he got Hetty to listen to reason. She softened suddenly. “Silly Boy,” she said to him in the old purry-purry voice that he had always found so affecting. “What’s the matter with him?” she asked. “Can’t he even stand a little tiff without getting all worked up about it? Hetty’s going to be cross with her Gussie if he starts behaving like a great big cry baby. Hetty wants her Gussie to be a big strong man ...”

  There had been a great deal more in the same vein. Including some pretty remarkable baby talk. It was a staff line on which he was speaking. And the baby talk was so remarkable that the switchboard operator simply threw up all the other keys, and sat back to listen. All telephone operators have an uncanny ear for voices. This one recognized Mr. Bloot immediately. But, when the call was over, she had begun disbelieving herself.

  It was not, in fact, until nearly five-thirty that she had the final proof. The call was an incoming one. A woman’s voice, the same, deep, unmistakably husky voice, was there. And it was asking for Mr. Bloot. The operator put the call through to Main Foyer, and waited. It was worth waiting for. Because the caller didn’t indulge in any silly baby talk this time. She got down to business straight away.

  “Where’s my ring anyway?” she asked. “I’m catching cold in my finger.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  1

  The Medina Rooms certainly did their dances very well. That was something you had to hand them.

  Admittedly, the entrance hall with the brass rails and the mosaic flooring and the sign-poster’s fingers pointing in the direction of the separate cloakrooms were a little on the formal side. And there was a strange hot stuffiness peculiar to all entrance halls. The queer thing was that once you were actually inside the hall this smell vanished completely and was replaced by quite different ones. The thick, varnishy aroma of beeswax floor polish. Very efficient central heating. And the faintest possible trace of gas escaping somewhere.

  But by the time you were in the hall itself it wasn’t the smells you were thinking about. It was the decorations. And in them was displayed a streak of lavishness that had remained carefully concealed outside the big swing doors. Gold and silver were the two colours. The walls, which were dimpled all over in the very latest neo-cinema style, must have been sprayed from a variety of paint tanks. They started off near the floor with an opulent sunset lushness and finished up at the ceiling, pale and gleaming like winter moonlight. Alternate banners of gold and silver, some thirty or forty of them at least, hung down from the high roof. And the big chandeliers, apparently suspended from nothing, appeared at intervals between the banners like something that had drifted in through the air from old Versailles. The professional lighting—the coloured spots and the snowstorm reflectors—were up in the balcony along with the strings for releasing the balloons. It was gold and silver everywhere like the budget of a mad Chancellor.

  Amid the gold and silver gaiety, the Preeces’ table presented a sad, rather forlorn appearance that even the two bottles of South African hock did nothing to dispel.

  That was because there were too many men. Too many men. And too few women. It was like a dance table in a monastery. But what else could Mrs. Preece have done but invite young men? she kept asking herself. It wasn’t as though there had been only Marcia to be considered. There was her own darling Julia as well. And the young man whom Mrs. Preece had rounded up for Julia was really a very nice young man. A bit on the silent side, perhaps. And slightly under average height. But extremely personable and well turned out. A kind of pocket prospective son-in-law, in fact. And how was she to know that her darling Julia, without saying a word about it, was going to invite someone on her own account?

  What made it so peculiarly maddening was that Julia’s young man might have been the twin brother of the young man whom Mrs. Preece herself had cornered. Same size. Same colour hair. Same silence. When they were not dancing—which was most of the time—they just sat there, quietly sipping their hock, saying nothing.

  Mrs. Preece realized now what a mistake it had been to add their new family doctor to the party. He was young. He was handsome. He was a Scot. Every time he had swept into Two Gables she had been impressed. Even rather excited by him. He was always so vigorous. So quick. So incisive about everything. But it was extraordinary how much he seemed to have changed now that she saw him against the background of the dance hall. Rugged, rather than handsome, was the word that she would now have applied to him. Like a great block of Aberdeenshire granite. If a fine drizzle had sprung up on his side of the table it would not have surprised her in the least. And, compared with the other two young men, he might have taken a vow of silence just as he was leaving the surgery. He was mute.

  Not that Mr. Preece himself was being any help. He was sitting with his back to the company and keeping his neck screwed round so that he could see towards the door. That was because Marcia had most mysteriously failed to arrive. Mr. Preece could not understand it. Simply could not understand it at all. The last thing that he had done before leaving was to ring down to Model Gowns. And he had spoken to Marcia personally. Nine o’clock was when she had said that she would be there. And it was now after ten, getting on for five past in fact.

  But Mr. Preece was never really at his best on this kind of occasion. The heat. The noise. The lights. The people. They were all rather too much for him. Secretly, he wished that he had not come. Then he could have been sitting in his comfortable chair in Carshalton, his beaker of Ovaltine within arm’s reach on the table beside him, and that week’s issue of Popular Gardening open upon his knee.

  As it happened, Mrs. Preece too wished that she were back home. But for quite a different reason. A nervous woman at all times, she was convinced that at the last moment, just as they were ready to leave, she had gone back and turned on the gas fire in the bedroom. Turned it on. But not actually lit it. She could remember everything else. The bending down. The stiffness of the key. The hiss. Even the smell of the gas itself. But nothing, absolutely nothing, about the scraping of the match box on the match. In consequence, she was certain that the whole room, practically the whole house, must by now be full of gas. Simply one vast lethal chamber. With her loved ones, her cherubs, all peacefully asphyxiated in their beds. Or worse. For all she knew, the maid—deficient anyway—might already have struck a match somewhere in the kitchen or the scullery ... As Mrs. Preece sat there, gripping the sides of her small gilt chair, she could almost hear the whoosh, see the blinding sheet of scarlet flame, as Two Gables, Thirsk Avenue, Carshalton, disappeared for ever.

  That was why she kept leaving the table to go out to one of the telephone boxes in the hall. And every time she came back she wondered whether it was merely the charred ends of a telephone cable that kept giving her the engaged tone, or whether the deficient maid was really talking to someone.

  It was when she returned from the fifth attempt that she found that Marcia had arrived. And more than arrived, she had brought another man with her. That meant that there were now four sets of hungry male eyes all fixed on Marcia. And no one was paying even the slightest attention to her darling Julia. Marcia’s friend seemed such a dreadfully coarse, vulgar sort of man, too, Mrs. Preece thought. Compared with Marcia, who was wearing her new, slightly corpse-like make-up this evening and looked too spiritual to be in a dance hall at all, her companion might have spent his whole life at race meetings and the wrong sort of hotels.

  At the offer of a glass of hock, he gave Mrs. Preece a wink and explained that he never drank anything stronger than whisky. What’s more, he was going to do something about it, he said. While Mr. Preece was still trying to attract his own wait
er’s attention, Mr. Bulping managed somehow to get hold of another one. There was the distinctive rustle of a note, and the waiter went off towards the service door while Mr. Preece was still futilely snapping his fingers and beckoning.

  Mr. Bulping did not seem so far even to have noticed Julia. Or the three young men. Or Mr. Preece, for that matter. He leant right across and addressed Mrs. Preece.

  “Nice of you to invite me,” he said. “Marcia said you’d be short of men.”

  In Sir Harry’s suite in the Royal Park Hotel, dinner was just being cleared away. It had been a good meal, and Sir Harry and his companion had a warm, comfortably full, slightly flushed kind of feeling.

  “Eshtrornary woman, m’daughter-in-law,” Sir Harry remarked suddenly. “Really most eshtrornary.” He came up close to Major Cuzzens and tapped his forehead significantly. “Up there,” he added. “Mental.”

  Major Cuzzens pursed up his lips, and took a long slow pull at his cigar before replying.

  “Bad show,” he said. “Very.”

  “Always been that way,” Sir Harry went on. “If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. Like a kitten. Never know what’ll be next. Can’t tell for twenty-four hours. Remember that snake dancer?”

  “Indian fellow, y’mean?”

  Sir Harry nodded.

  “Probably been murdered by now,” he continued. “Got his throat cut or something. Happens to most of ’em in the long run. Wanted me to go over to dinner.”

  Major Cuzzens swung round in his chair.

  “Who did? That snake dancer johnny?”

  “No, m’daughter-in-law.”

  The ash from Major Cuzzens’s cigar had fallen on to his waistcoat and he had to brush himself clean.

  “Asked us, too. Remember now. Judith told me.”

  “What d’you say?”

  “Said I’d got a prior engagement.”

  “Me, too.”

  There was so much natural good fellowship and understanding in the situation that both men instinctively raised their glasses. Then Sir Harry started nervously.

  “Didn’t mention my name, did you?”

  Major Cuzzens considered.

  “Don’t think so,” he replied. “Just said ‘a chap’.”

  Sir Harry looked relieved.

  “Better that way,” he explained. “Might have led to un-pleashantness. No point in dragging the two of us in.” Sir Harry paused. “Mad as a tiger if she could see us now,” he added. “Don’t like it if two men get along together. Makes ’em feel left out of it. Shows we can do without ’em.”

  That remark struck Major Cuzzens as penetrating and profound. He was frequently amazed by the sheer wisdom that Sir Harry kept displaying. That was what made Sir Harry’s company such a tonic.

  But already Sir Harry was speaking again.

  “Shouldn’t have been having a little dinner party at all,” he said. “Not to-night. Firm’s got a dance on. Ought to have been there. Both of ’em. Can’t neglect the business like that. Always used to go when I was a bit younger.”

  “No use taking chances,” Major Cuzzens agreed with him. “Got to look after ourselves.”

  “Never did like those modern dances,” Sir Harry remarked. “Not my line of country. Give me the old-fashioned waltz every time. That’s what I call dancin’.” He leant back and hummed a few bars under his breath while his feet moved idly on the hearthrug. “‘Blue Danube.’ That was a good one,” he said at length. “And The Merry Widow. Better than those blasted foxtrots.”

  “Can’t stand ’em,” Major Cuzzens agreed again. “Not like proper dancin’ at all.”

  Sir Harry glanced at the clock. It showed ten-fifteen.

  “What about lookin’ in for half an hour? Just to cheer ’em up. Can’t offend the Staff Association y’know.”

  “I’m ready,” Major Cuzzens agreed for the last time. “Does y’good to get out for a bit.”

  Sir Harry poured out another drink.

  “Better have this first,” he said. “Nothing much to drink when we get there.”

  Because it was the big night of the year, Mr. Rammell had ordered champagne for everyone at his table. It was so much sheer poison for him. He knew that. But there was nothing that he could do about it. It was just one of those things that were expected of him. Like inviting senior members of the staff over to the table to share a glass. Mr. Bloot’s turn, in fact, was just coming up.

  Only this year, there was a difference. Hetty had asked for champagne at the table, too. And, when he arrived, Mr. Bloot showed an unusual degree of self-assurance.

  Raising his glass, he toasted Mrs. Rammell as though she had been an ambassadress.

  “Maht Ah say, ma’am,” he observed, with a wide, shiny smile, “on beharf of the whole starf what pleashah it gives us all to have Mr. Rammell and his lady here to-naht.”

  Mrs. Rammell smiled back at him without rising. She was still in a thoroughly bad temper about having been made to come at all. And, above all things, she wanted to see what Tony was up to. Was he, or was he not, still fussing around that Privett girl? What made it so particularly maddening was that at the moment she couldn’t see either of them ... Then, hurriedly, she recovered herself. Turning to Mr. Bloot, she assured him that this was an evening that she and Mr. Rammell had been looking forward to all the year. Ever since the same time last year, in fact.

  It was with something of a flourish that Mr. Bloot drained back his glass and returned it to the table. He was, however, just a shade impetuous. The base of his glass caught the edge of an ash-tray that was already standing there, and there was a little tinkle of glass falling on the gilt table top.

  Mr. Bloot drew his breath in sharply.

  “Pud’n me, ma’am,” he said. “Pud’n me.”

  And to show that he wasn’t the kind of man who would allow broken glass to litter up the tables, he took out his handkerchief and began flicking at the chips. But table-flicking is an art. Only waiters can perform it with impunity. On the upward sweep of the handkerchief Mr. Bloot caught one of the red carnations in the tall vase in the centre of the table. At one moment, there was Mrs. Rammell, smiling up politely at a tall florid man whose name she had forgotten and, at the next, she was frantically backing away from a cascade of water and red carnations ...

  Mr. Bloot was still saying “Pud’n me. Pud’n me,” long after Mrs. Rammell had gone across to the Powder Room to dry herself. But he was not really thinking of Mrs. Rammell at all. He was thinking about Hetty. Something told him that she wouldn’t like being left so long. And he was right. Hetty was sitting at a table with the Privetts. At that moment, Mr. Privett was retelling the story of his accident. And Hetty, with her shoes half-kicked off beneath the table, was wondering how in God’s name she was ever going to be able to stick her future husband’s friends.

  But Mr. Bloot himself was behaving magnificently. He had overcome his embarrassment. And, in a mood of arch gallantry, he was now leaning over Mr. Rammell.

  “Maht Ah presume to introdooce mah brahd-to-be?” he asked. “It’s what you maht call her first public appearance.”

  Considering how much he disliked staff dances, young Tony Rammell was diligently doing his stuff. Under his father’s directions he had already danced with a thin, hawk-faced creature who looked like minor European Royalty and really came from Handbags. With a pale, rather frightened-looking Elliot-Fisher clerk out of Invoicing—that was because his father had said that the behind-the-scenes girls never got any proper notice taken of them. With Miss Sulgrave who had fitted up Irene Privett with the new party dress that she wasn’t wearing. And with a big motherly creature who turned out to be Corsets. On his own account he had managed to slip in a couple of dances with the tall, Cleopatra-like Miss Anson from Hairdressing, and two more with a small, pretty, nameless one who worked in Cosmetics.

  So far he hadn’t danced even once with Irene. That was partly because he had been kept working so hard by his father. And partly because the Privetts’ table w
as so far away. Irene herself didn’t seem to be missing him. She had danced the last two dances with the young man from Travel whom she had met that night at the Staff Hostel. And, Mrs. Privett was pleased to notice, she was looking her absolute prettiest.

  Not that there was anything exceptional in that. There were pretty girls practically everywhere you looked. But that is the way it is with all staff dances. The transformation is sudden and complete. Generations of employers have been amazed because of it. It is always hard to believe that even the plainest girls can leave the office at five-thirty, dim and colourless and with hair all anyhow, and re-emerge two hours later looking like sleek professional beauties who would faint clean away at the mere thought of having to earn their own living.

  And Rammell’s, remember, had at least more than averagely presentable ones to start with.

  Hetty’s arrival at the Rammells’ table coincided almost exactly with that of Sir Harry and Major Cuzzens. And altogether it was very nearly too much for Mrs. Rammell.

  In the first place, Sir Harry wasn’t expected at all. Nor, for that matter, was Major Cuzzens. And the big flamboyantly-dressed woman whom Mr. Bloot had brought over was a complete stranger to her. But it was not merely the matter of overcrowding that was worrying her. It was Sir Harry. She had detected a glint in his eye that seriously alarmed her. Apparently, at the mere sight of Mr. Bloot’s lady friend, he had been bowled clean over. He stood there simply gaping at her. And, as soon as she had been introduced, he insisted on having her sit next to him.

  “So you’re a new girl, are you?” he said. “Don’t expect you know a soul. But don’t worry. I’ll look after you.”

  A moment later, when Mrs. Rammell looked across, Hetty and Sir Harry were holding hands.

  Over at the Preeces’ table things were quieter. A great deal quieter. Altogether too quiet, in fact. Even Mr. Bulping’s champagne had done nothing to raise Marcia’s spirits. She sat there pale and spiritualised. Like a despondent lady-angel. Mr. Bulping felt more than a bit despondent himself. He didn’t see what more he could have done for her. It had been all her idea to come to this god-awful dance in the first place. And it had been left to him to make more of an evening of it by buying the champagne.