REVELRY BY NIGHT
BUT why am I writing all this, in view of the really serious and
terrible thing that has happened after all?
Yes. The most terrible thing has happened. Miss Million has disappeared.
Gone! And no trace of her!
And I don't know where to look for her.... But to go back to the
beginning of it all--to that fatal evening when Mr. Reginald Brace stood
there in her sitting-room, looking at me with that horrified face
because I told him she'd gone to supper at the Thousand and One Club.
Five minutes after that young man's appalled-sounding "What? You let her
go there?" I was sitting in a taxi, with him, whirling towards Regent
Street.
"Yes; that's where she's gone," I told him, with a queer mix-up of
feelings. There was defiance among them. What right had he to come and
bully me because I couldn't keep Miss Million and her dollars and her
new friends all under my thumb? There was anxiety.... Supposing this
Thousand and One Club were such an appallingly awful place that no young
girl ought to set foot in it? There was a queer excitement.... Well,
anyhow, I might see and judge for myself. Then I should be in a position
to lecture Miss Million about it, if necessary, afterwards!
So I said: "Not only that, but I'm going there, too. To-night. Now!"
"Impossible," said Mr. Brace. "Madness. Quite impossible. You go? To a
night club? You? Alone?"
"No," I said on another impulse. "You'll come with me. I've got to have
a man with me, I suppose. You'll take me, please."
"I shall do nothing of the sort, Miss Lovelace," said the young bank
manager, standing there in my mistress's sitting-room as if nothing
would ever dislodge him from the spot. "Take you to that place--it's not
a place that I should ever let any sister of mine know by sight!"
By this time I'd heard so much of this (non-existent) sister of his that
I almost felt as if I knew her well (poor girl). I felt as if I were
she. Yes. Mr. Brace seemed to behave so exactly like the typical "nice"
big brother; the man who shows his respect for women by refusing to let
his own sisters see or do anything except, say, the darning of his own
socks. However, in some way or other I managed to drive it home (this
was when we were already in the taxi) that he need not look upon this as
an evening's entertainment to which he was escorting either his own or
anybody else's sister.
This was part of the business of looking after Miss Million.
We were at Piccadilly Circus when the young man at my side protested:
"But we can't get in, you know! I'm not a member of this thing. I can't
take you in, Miss Lovelace----"
"I'm Smith, the lady's-maid of one of the ladies who's in the club, and
I've come to wait for my mistress," I told him. "That's perfectly
simple. And I daresay it'll allow me to see something of what's going
on!"
Here we drew up at a side street. It was half full of cars and taxis,
half full with a rebuilding of scaffolding that made a tunnel over the
basement.
The door of the club was beyond the scaffolding and a tall
commissionaire, with a breast glittering with medals, opened and closed
it with the movements of a punkah-wallah. Inside was red carpet and a
blaze of lights and an inner glass door.
In this vestibule there was a little knot of men in chauffeurs'
liveries, with wet gleaming on the shoulders of their coats, for an
unexpected shower had just come on. I was glad of it. This gave me, too,
my excuse for waiting there, when one of the attendants slipped up to me
and looked inquiringly down at me in my correct, outdoor black things.
"I am to wait," I said, "for my mistress."
"Very good, Miss. Would you like a chair in the ladies' cloak-room?"
"No. I don't think she will be very long, thank you," I said. And I
heard Mr. Brace, behind me, saying in his embarrassed, stiff, young
voice: "I am waiting with this lady."
(The commissionaires and people must have thought that the little,
chestnut-haired lady's-maid in black had got hold of a most superior
sort of young man!)
I stepped farther up the vestibule towards a long door with a bevelled,
oval, glass-panelled top. Evidently the door of the supper-room. From
beyond it came the muffled crash and lilt of dance music that set my own
foot tapping in time on the smooth floor. I looked through the glass
panel that framed, as it were, the gayest of coloured moving pictures.
The big room was a sort of papier-maché Alhambra; all zigzaggy arches
and gilded columns and decorations, towering above a spread of
supper-tables. Silver and white napery were blushing to pink under the
glow of rosy-shaded electric candles innumerable. Some chairs were
turned up, waiting for parties. But there were plenty of people there
already; a flower-bed of frocks, made more bright by the black-and-white
border of the men's evening kit.
The ladies were all sitting on the wall seats; their cavaliers sat with
chairs slewed round, watching three or four couples one-stepping among
the tables to the music of that string band, in cream-and-gold uniforms,
who were packed away in a Moorish niche at the top of the room.
I got a burst of louder, madder music as a waiter with a tray pushed
through the swung door; a waft of warmer air, made up of the smells of
coffee, of cigarettes, of hot food, and of those perfumes of which you
catch a whiff if you pass down the Burlington Arcade--oppoponax, lilac,
Russian violet, Phul-nana--all blended together into one tepid,
overpowering whole, and, most penetrating, most unmistakable of all the
scents; the trèfle incarnat.... It reminded me that Million would buy a
great spray-bottle of mixed bouquet, and had drenched herself with it,
heedless of my theory that a properly groomed woman needs very little
added perfume.
But where was Miss Million, in the middle of the noise and feasting? Ah!
There! I caught, in a cluster of other colours--green, white, rose, and
gold--the unmistakable metaphorical shriek of the frock I'd begged her
not to wear. "Me cerise evening one." There it was; and there were
Million's sturdily built, rather square little shoulders, and her glossy
black hair that I've learnt to do rather well. She was gazing about her
with jewel-bright eyes and a flush on her cheeks that almost echoed the
cherry-colour of her odious frock, and listening to the chatter of the
golden-haired, sulphur-crested cockatoo, Vi Vassity; there she was; and
there was the Jew they called Leo, and Lady Golightly-Long in a
fantastic Oriental robe of sorts, and a cluster of others. There, too,
towering above them all as he came steering his way across the room, and
looking more like a magazine illustration than ever in evening-dress,
was the Honourable James Burke.
I saw Million's mouth open widely to some lively greeting as he came up;
they were all laughing and chattering together. But I didn't hear a
word, of course. All was blent into an indistinguishable hubbub against
the music. The loudest part of all seemed to be at a table next to Miss
Million and her new friends. This other table was entertained by a
vacuous young man with an eyeglass, who looked as if he'd already had
quite as much Bubbley as was good for him. He laughed incessantly;
wrangling with the waiter, calling to friends across the room.
As the Honourable Jim passed, this eyeglassed young man signalled wildly
to him, and took up a paper "dart" into which he'd twisted his
menu-card. He flung it--and missed.
It stuck in the hair of one of the girls who was dancing. And then there
was a little gale of laughter and protests and calls, and the eyeglassed
young man put two fingers in his mouth and whistled piercingly to Mr.
Burke, who strode over to him, laughing, and cuffed him on the side of
the head. Then they began a sort of mock fight, and a waiter came up and
whispered and was pushed out of the way, and there was more laughter.
The attention of the room was caught by the two skirmishing, ragging
young men. They were for the moment the centre of the whirl and swirl of
colour and noise and rowdy laughter.
"There you are, Miss Lovelace. You see the kind of thing it is," said an
austere voice behind me. I turned from the gay picture to a gloomy
one--the face of Mr. Reginald Brace, more than ever that of a young
Puritan soldier--a Roundhead, in fact--left over from the Reformation,
and looking on at some feasting of the courtiers of Charles II. So far,
I hadn't see anything very terrible in the giddy scene before us; it was
loud, it was rowdy, rather silly, perhaps, but quite amusing (I thought)
to watch!
Mr. Brace evidently took it quite differently.
He said: "Will this convince you? By Jove! how disgusting." Mr. Burke
had now got the other young man down on the carpet. His glossily shod
feet waved wildly in the air. People from the tables farthest away stood
up to see what was happening. A slim American flapper of sixteen, with
the black hair-ribbons bobbing behind her, skipped up on her chair to
look. The Honourable Jim Burke stepped back, showing his white teeth in
his cheeriest grin, and one of the other youths at the table helped the
eyeglassed one to struggle to his feet.
"Who is that? Do you know?" I asked Mr. Brace.
He answered morosely: "Yes, I'm afraid I do. It was with his
introduction that that fellow Burke came to me. That's Lord
Fourcastles."
The noble lord seemed to have quite a fancy for throwing things
about--for first he made his table-napkin into a rabbit and slung it at
the waiter's head; and then he picked up a "Serpentine" of gay tinsel,
and with a falsetto shout of "Play!" flung it across the supper-room.
Somebody there seemed to have a stock of the things. Lord Fourcastles
was pelted back with them. Presently the brilliant strings of colour
were looped right across food, and flowers, and diners in a gaudy, giant
web. I saw the Honourable Jim's merry face break through it as he caught
at a scarlet streamer and pretended to use it as a lariat.
Then I saw him turn and take Lord Fourcastles by the arm and draw him
towards his own table. Evidently he was going to introduce this young
peer to Miss Million.
I caught a glimpse of Million's excited little face, all aglow, turned
towards the door through which I was peeping. If I'd gone a step nearer
she might have seen me. I could have beckoned to her, made her come out
to see what the matter was. Then I could have insisted that it was time
for her to come home, or something ... something!
I believe I might have made her come!
Oh, why didn't I try to do this?
Why, why didn't I do it before it was too late?
As the two neighbouring supper parties amalgamated into one the fun
seemed to get even more fast and furious.
It was deafeningly noisy now. And still the noise was rising as more
guests came in. People flung themselves about in their chairs; the
dancing became, if anything, more of a romp than before.
I had a glimpse of the eyeglassed, young Lord Fourcastles stretching
over the table to grab some pink flowers out of a silver bowl. He began
sticking them in Miss Million's hair; I saw her toss her little dark
head back, giggling wildly; I could imagine the shrill "Ows" and "Give
overs" that were coming out of her pink "O" of a mouth.
Then I saw Mr. Burke spring up from his chair again, and put his arm
round Miss Vi Vassity's waist, dragging "London's Love" round the tables
in a mad prance that I suppose was intended for a one-step, she laughing
so much that she could neither dance nor stand still, and giving a
generous display of high-heeled, gilt cothurne and of old-gold silk
stocking as she was steered and whirled along.
"Stand away from the door, there, Miss. Stand away, please," said one of
the hurrying waiters. And I stood away, followed by my grave-faced
escort, Mr. Brace. We retired further down the vestibule, among the
little knot of attendants and of waiting chauffeurs.
"Have you seen enough of it, Miss Lovelace?" asked Mr. Brace.
"I think so," I said. I was feeling suddenly rather tired, bored by the
noise, dazzled by the blaze of pink lights and the whirl of colour. "I
don't think I'll wait for Miss Million after all. I'll go home." I meant
to think over the talking-to that I should give Million when she
returned.
"I'll get you a taxi," began Mr. Brace. But I stopped him.
"I don't want a taxi, thanks----"
"Please. I want to see you home."
"Oh! But I don't want you to," I said hastily. "I'll get the 'bus. It's
such a short way. Good-night."
But he wouldn't say "Good-night." He insisted on boarding the 'bus with
me, and plumping himself down on the front seat beside me, under the
fine drizzle that was still coming down.
Certainly it was only a short 'bus ride to the Strand, but a good deal
happened in it. In fact, that happened which is supposed to mark an
unforgettable epoch in a girl's life--her first proposal of marriage.