Hell! said the Duchess

by Michael Arlen

  Thus she was much loved by all who knew her. While even the spiteful, who are always with us, could not but acknowledge that the Duchess of Dove would have been a knock-out in any station of life.

  That is why the story of the misfortunes that beset her, unspeakably horrible though they were, must serve to adorn her reputa­tion and exalt her memory.

  John Charles Almeric Wingless St. Cloud Bull, 3rd Duke of Dove and Oldham, 4th Marquess of Rockneil, 9th Earl of Locroy, 4th Viscount Aberlaw, and 22nd Baron Pest of Cheadle, ensign in His Majesty’s Brigade of Guards, was killed in a motor accident eight months after his marriage. The poor lad’s death was made the more tragic by its indirect cause. He was on King’s Guard within the ancient pile of St. James’s Palace, and enjoying one of the excellent dinners provided for officers en­gaged on that august duty, when he was warned by telephone that his wife was enduring the agonies of premature labour pains. It was no doubt from driving alto­gether too fast through the tempting dark­ness of the Great North Road towards Dove Park that he collided with a lorry not far from Kettering and was instantly killed. He need not have hurried so. Or, had he been instructed in the pleasures of reading, he could have taken the train. For the yearly increase in motoring fatalities can be due to nothing so much as a distaste for reading, for which a railway carriage, whether made of wood or of steel, provides ample facili­ties. Indigestion had caused the young Duke’s alarm, and the stricken young widow was delivered of a healthy son at the due time.

  That was eleven years before the Duchess of Dove had the misfortune to meet the man in Jermyn Street who set in train the series of shocking events which came near to ruin­ing the poor lady’s good name. Since it is in the public interest that these events be made known, for they might happen to any one amongst us, this chronicle will relate them faithfully, but of course in a guarded way.

  Mary Dove at the time of these events was thirty-one years of age. We have said that she was the quietest and shyest person imaginable, so that your heart quite went out to her. Now her shyness was Mary’s cross, for conversation with strangers was positively an agony to her, while even with friends she could not divest her habit of mind of a reticence which she condemned in herself as an unnatural thing but which her friends never thought of but as refreshing. And weren’t they right, when you think of the headaches you have had from listening to good talkers?

  Any attempt to describe her classical features must be doomed to failure. Her reticence was as though mingled in the tex­ture of her loveliness, and the flush of modesty seemed to light her complexion with an inner glow. Diffidence, and a pro­found respect for others’ feelings, were in the very poise of the noticeably small head on her tall and slender figure. Nor was there anything about her manner to suggest the high confidence of fashion, though it must be admitted that she dressed remarkably well for a Duchess and that her legs were held in high esteem as being almost as good as an American chorus girl’s. Her teeth were as white as boiled rice, but of course much nicer to look at. It has been said that her head was small. It was tiny. And it was crowned with a cluster of brown curls which she sometimes thought were unbecoming to the responsibilities of a widow of thirty-one, the mother of a schoolboy of ten, and the administratrix of large estates.

  To make clear to the reader the horror of the misfortunes which were shortly to en­compass this modest gentlewoman—for it is to her honour that she was that as well as a patrician—we shall have to touch briefly on the ordinary course of her life when in London. It should be stated at once that she was not “in society” as that term is understood by those who, no doubt for the best of reasons, live on its fringes.

  To explain this anomaly we shall have to assume the burden of defining “society,” and this can perhaps be best done by divid­ing it into three parts. Thus, the first part will be found to be made up of those who would not be seen dead in the illustrated papers, the second of those who week after week are seen dead in the illustrated papers, and the third of those who die before hav­ing managed to attract the notice of the illustrated papers.

  The gentle Duchess of Dove was of the first part. The shady glamour of publicity had never touched her, her profile had not searched a million hearts, no photograph of her had ever been reproduced on a shiny page. For her shyness was as profound a fact of Mary Dove’s being as Miss Garbo’s re­serve is in another sphere, while both would appear to have been more successful in evad­ing the public attention than Sir James Barrie, whose modesty and shyness are known through his photographs and speeches throughout the world. But Mary’s diffi­dence was to serve her a very dirty trick, as we shall see.

  She lived in a large house in Grosvenor Square of so hideous an aspect and so in­convenient an interior that only difficulties of entail had prevented it from being sold or even given away to the first comer. A large part of her mornings was given over to dealing with her correspondence, which she did with the help of a distant female cousin who acted as her companion and secretary.

  The name of this person was Miss Amy Gool, and she was the elder daughter of a baronet in reduced circumstances whose younger daughter had wisely married a hotel-proprietor of Bourne­mouth, with whom he lived in great content. This worthy baronet, who always enjoyed the best of health owing, as he often said, to the facts that “he stuck to whisky” and “took a spoonful of salts every morning,” found that his declining years were clouded by an irritating perplexity. For he never could make up his mind in the mornings whether he would wear an Old Etonian tie or an I Zingari tie, and it so irritated him that he could not wear both at the same time that he was continually popping up to his bedroom to change the one for the other.

  The Duchess’s correspondence was a large one, for she was engaged in many public activities, such as presiding over committees to raise money for hospitals, finding employ­ment for deserving young women, or fur­nishing clubs for the workless. It was seldom that she appeared publicly in these benevo­lent activities, owing to her shyness, and it was Miss Gool’s duty to represent her. Thus the name of Amy Gool gradually became known as that of an intelligent philanthro­pist, much to the surprise of the charitable hotel-proprietor of Bournemouth, while it was sometimes said by the ill-informed that the Duchess of Dove and Oldham was not so active as she should be in furthering good works and thus ensuring the success of the Conservative Party at the next crisis in the affairs of the country.

  Having thus directed Miss Gool in the execution of her duties, she would usually walk out to luncheon at the homes of friends in the neighbourhood or maybe now and then to Claridge’s, a hotel which aims at and succeeds in combining elegance and respectability in such excellent measure that débutantes and dowagers can sit down in peace together. Cocktails are served, of course, if asked for, but a glass of sherry is more becoming both to the liveries of the attendants and the hats of the dowagers, in which feathers and other heirlooms are some­times to be noted.

  As is frequently the case, Mary Dove’s favourite friend was a Mrs. Nautigale, who was as unlike herself as it is possible for one woman to be unlike another and still be part of the human race. This Mrs. Nautigale was a large and handsome woman who looked as though she had been constructed from materials at once more solid and formidable than those commonly used for less busy people. She was the wife of a retired ship­owner who, making no secret of knowing what was good for him, spent most of his time in the country when she was in London and in London when she was in the country.

  Mrs. Nautigale had a pronounced gift for collecting the most intimate friendships possible with men and women who could never quite overcome their surprise at hav­ing been collected. They then found them­selves subjected to the alarming process of being pinned down, exhibited and fed in groups of not fewer than twenty, at which it was taken for granted that a good time was being had by all, though no one knew exactly why.

  She was the soul of kindness, gave money freely to the rich, and had built her success as a hostess on having cleverly obse
rved that there is no one like the distinguished Anglo-Saxon for enjoying a series of free meals provided that nothing, and particularly no conversation, is asked of him or her in return.

  She also showed a tireless enthusiasm in visiting acquaintances who were ill in bed and who therefore, being unable to move freely, shortly found themselves to be amongst her oldest and most intimate friends. In golfing language it was said of this formidable lady that she hit from the inside out with a nice follow-through, while the very unkind among her regular guests said that Mrs. Nautigale reversed the usual procedure, for her friendships began in bed and continued to the dinner table. It should be clearly understood that such comments intended no reflections of any kind on the old girl’s morality, for she was always the most properly conducted person imaginable, and took the view that a great deal of non­sense was talked about the pleasures of sin, since it was absurd to suppose that any woman could be enjoying herself in so untidy a situation.

  No doubt it was due to Mary Dove’s reticence and inability to assert herself that she was drawn towards her opposite. She came to rely greatly on Mrs. Nautigale’s advice on all worldly matters, and if her son had so much as a cough she would at once telephone to her for the name of the best doctor, which Mrs. Nautigale would in due course supply from her collection of doctors. But such was her affection for the gentle Mary that Mrs. Nautigale, who would usually spare no trouble in arranging for her friends to be operated on as quickly as possible, would recommend her to consult only the less ferocious physicians of the day.

  Amongst her friends it was only Mrs. Nautigale who could persuade Mary to go out in the evenings, and then very infre­quently to parties or to balls but quietly to the play or the cinema, where she enjoyed respectively the lighter comedies and the most violent dramas. It should be added that twice every year she was honoured with a command to dine with their Majesties at Buckingham Palace. The unfortunate events to be related could not have come to pass if Mary had not spent nine out of every ten evenings at home, reading quietly or playing six pack bezique with her com­panion Amy Gool.

  CHAPTER TWO

  We come now to the distasteful task of appearing to cast aspersions on the reputa­tion and character, as already described, of the Duchess of Dove and Oldham. That any man or woman could be so base as to assail the chastity of this lady is unthink­able. Yet any number did, and how.

  We can do her friends and acquaintances the honour of stating emphatically that one in every ten disbelieved the first rumours that were set about, while the rest were stupefied at the disgraceful stories that were being whispered about the lady whom they had always esteemed as the most modest of her sex and the most virtuous of her genera­tion. It is distressing to have to state that there were yet a few of the meaner sort who said that they had always wanted to have the low-down about her real character and that, now they had it, they weren’t surprised a bit.

  What were these rumours? What form did these disgraceful stories take? What, in a word, did the dicky-bird say?

  It requires courage to write down such things, even in disbelief, of so modest a creature as Mary Dove. But the whispers were so very detailed and the stories so very exact that even her staunchest friends could not deny them substance.

  To be brief, the lady was charged with deceit, hypocrisy, disloyalty to her class, her sex, the Conservative Party and the dignity of England, and of behaviour decidedly un­becoming to a gentlewoman. But there was worse to come. Incredible as it must seem, she was accused of using foul language, of unsuitable intimacy with men who had not been to public schools, of consorting with loose-livers generally, and of immorality in a big way.

  It was said with every detail of particu­larity that on the many evenings when the Duchess of Dove was supposed to dine quietly at home with the unsuspecting Miss Gool and retire to bed shortly after ten o’clock, she in reality did nothing of the kind. Could deceit go further? Waiting only for her servants and her companion to retire, she slipped out of the house and went on the tiles.

  But even then her behaviour would not have been so reprehensible had she been content to visit only the more reputable hotels and night-clubs and to dance and drink only with those of her acquaintance and station who were weak enough to seek distraction in such crowded places. But so pronounced, it appeared, was this so-called modest lady’s malady that she must visit only the meaner night resorts, where the male guests were of decidedly questionable character, the ladies un-English in their manner of earning a living, and the laws against drinking after hours broken without so much as a thought to the bad example set by such law-breaking to the lower classes.

  The Duchess of Dove had been seen not once but several times at such places. And if it is asked by whom she was recognised, it has to be admitted that she was not entirely alone in setting a bad example to the lower classes, though such of her friends who did this did it in a bunch together and not, like chaste Mary Dove, in company with pimps, panders and Communists.

  But there was even worse to come. She had been seen drunk.

  The evidence on this point was very par­ticular and could not be entirely discounted merely because it came largely from women, as was only natural, since men are very properly reluctant to accuse ladies (of their own nationality) of the vice of drunkenness.

  For instance, the evidence of Mrs. Gosoda was substantial, if spiteful. Now this Mrs. Gosoda was the widow of a theatrical magnate who, for long years a martyr to the chronic form of bankruptcy that pursues the illiterate in what is incor­rectly called the Entertainment Business, had just before his death made a fortune in the gold boom of 1933-34. She had become a very well-known hostess amongst those who could not always rely on being invited to dine elsewhere, such as members of the Liberal Party, fashionable novelists, Ameri­can bankers and foreigners not yet acclima­tised. She was, however, progressing very favourably owing to a discovery she had recently made, that patricians were not averse to receiving tips.

  Thus when she asked anyone over the courtesy rank of Honourable to dinner, a tiepin or bracelet was to be found beneath the napkin, while those who were invited on cruises in her yacht were always sent suffi­cient cash in plain envelopes to spend at ports of call and with which in their turn to tip Mrs. G.’s servants. Later she improved on this by giving each guest on landing at a foreign port money to spend in the currency of the country, as a marquess had complained of the loss sustained in exchanging the English banknotes she had given him.

  Now one night this generous old party had conducted several of her dinner guests to an obscure night-club, just to show them the sights of the town, when to the horror and delight of her friends, who had heard much of the Duchess’s beauty and inaccessibility, and of herself, who had often wondered if the Duchess would spend the week-end with her for less than a rope of pearls, there, on a divan in a corner for all the world to see, was the Duchess of Dove sitting between two young men whom even a provincial lady must have instantly recognised as bounders or Communists of the worst des­cription. We have said that the Duchess was sitting between these types, but that does not convey the half of it, since she had her arm flung round the neck of one type and her hand on the knee of the other.

  Such was Mrs. Gosoda’s horror at this revolting spectacle that, her face wreathed in smiles, she darted across to the Duchess’s table and twittered eagerly:

  “Dear Duchess, how really nice to see you—and slumming too, just like us. Won’t you and your friends join our party? They are all dying to meet you—and especially Crumwitch—the Crumwitch, you know, who flew in an aeroplane upside-down from London to Manchester, or perhaps it was to Liverpool.”

  Mrs. Gosoda’s indignant testimony as to the reply she got to this kind invitation to meet Mr. Crumwitch was borne out by those members of her party who had edged nearer to the table. All agreed that the Duchess, while she looked even lovelier than she was always said to be, was evidently not herself. But what was most marked—in a lady so renowned for her diffidence
—was the dirty look which she directed towards Mrs. Gosoda, who continued helplessly to twitter about this and that. Suddenly, how­ever, the light of recognition appeared to awake in the Duchess’s lovely grey eyes and the frozen look was replaced by one of un­becoming hilarity.

  “Believe it or not,” said the Duchess. “And who is old trout-face?”

  “It’s Mae West,” cried one of the types beside her.

  “No, it isn’t,” cried the other. “Mae West can take it. This one can dish it up, but she can’t take it.”

  “Can’t take what?” said the Duchess.

  “Aren’t I telling you?”

  “But she can dish it up?”

  “Are you telling me?” said the type.

  “But what is it she can’t take?” said the Duchess.

  “You’ve only to look at her. Has she a sense of humour or not?”

  “Oh, I see,” said the Duchess. “But she can dish it up?”

  “Didn’t you hear her line of talk?” said the second type. “But she can’t take it.”

  “Anyhow,” said the Duchess, “I don’t like her at all. Do you?”

  Mrs. Gosoda, at last realising that her in­vitation was not being received in the spirit in which it had been given and that the Duchess had no intention of playing ball with her, was in the act of opening her mouth to express her disapproval when the Duchess deftly threw a green olive into it. The olives served in these low places, with the unsocial aim of stimulating thirst at un­reasonable hours, are of an extreme hardness and should not be thrown at people. The types beside her, intensely amused by this beastly conduct, at once began pelting Mrs. Gosoda’s party with the olives, so that they incontinently fled out of the place followed, to their indignation, by roars of drunken laughter.