THE HAM-BONE CLUB
A few days later a client of ours named Powell for whom we were
conducting a piece of rather intricate business concerning a mortgage
of some land in Essex, invited me to join himself and his wife at
dinner at the Savoy.
Our table was in a corner near the orchestra and the big restaurant was
crowded. Sovrani, the famous _maître d’hôtel_ knew all three of us well
and we dined excellently under his tactful supervision. After dinner
Mrs. Powell, a pretty young woman, exquisitely gowned, suggested a
dance in the room below. We went there and danced until about half-past
ten when Powell said:
“Let’s go to the Ham-bone.”
“The Ham-bone,” I echoed. “What on earth is that?”
“Oh!” laughed Mrs. Powell, “it is one of London’s merriest Bohemian
dance clubs. The male members are all artists, sculptors or literary
men, and the female members are all girls who earn their own
living--mannequins, secretaries, artists’ models and girl journalists.
It is screamingly amusing. Quite Bohemian and yet high select, isn’t
it, Harry?”
“I’ve never heard of it,” I said.
“Well, one gets a really splendid dinner there for half-a-crown,
though, of course, you get paper serviettes, and for supper after the
hours, you men can have a kipper--a brand that is extra special--and a
drink with it,” she went on.
“Yes, Leila,” laughed her husband. “The place is unique. Half the
people in ‘smart’ society, men as well as women, want to become
members, but the Committee, who are all well-known artists, don’t want
the man-about-town: they only want the real hard-working Bohemians who
go there at night for relaxation. Burlac, the sculptor, put me up.”
The novelty of the idea attracted me, so we went in a taxicab to an
uninviting looking mews off Great Windmill Street, behind the Café
Monico in Piccadilly Circus. Walking up it, we passed through a narrow
swing-door, over which hung a dim feeble light and a big ham-bone!
Up a precipitous flight of narrow stone steps we went until we reached
a little door where a stout ex-sergeant of police smiled recognition
upon my host, placed a book before him to sign and relieved us of our
coats.
In a room above a piano was being played by someone who was evidently
an artist and dancing was in progress.
The place might have been a cabaret in the _Montmartre_ in Paris. I
thought I knew London’s night clubs fairly well--the Embassy, Ciro’s,
the Grafton, the Mayfair, the Royalty, the Twenty, Murray’s, Tate’s,
the Trippers, the Dainty, and others--but when I entered the big
whitewashed dancing room I found myself looking on a scene that was a
complete novelty to me.
The room was long and narrow. The walls were painted in stripes
representing oaken beams and set around them were many small tables.
The floor was filled with merry dancers, among whom I recognized many
people well-known in artistic and social circles. Some of the men wore
dinner jackets and many of the women were in beautiful evening dress,
but smart clothes evidently were regarded as a non-essential, for a
large proportion of the men wore ordinary lounge suits.
As we stood watching the scene a tall, elderly man rose from a table
and cried:
“Hulloa! Leila! What a stranger you are!”
My hostess smiled and waved recognition, whereupon her friend--a
portrait painter whose reputation was world-wide, bowed over her hand
and said:
“Well, only fancy! It is really delightful that you should return to
us! We thought we’d lost you after you married!”
“My dear Charlie,” she laughed--for it was a rule in the Ham-bone that
every member addressed every one else by his or her Christian name, and
“Charlie” was a Royal Academician--“I am an old Hamyardian: I was one
of the first lady members.”
“Of course. You’ll find Marigold here. I’ve just been chatting with
her. She’s round the corner, over yonder. But she’s funny. What’s the
matter with her? Do you know?” he added in a low, serious voice.
“No, I didn’t know there was anything wrong,” replied my hostess.
It was easy to realize that here in this stable converted into a club
was an atmosphere and an environment without its like in London or
elsewhere. The denizens of that little circle of Bohemia cared for
absolutely nothing and nobody outside its own careless world whose
boundaries were Chelsea and the Savoy Club.
Ordinary social distinctions were utterly and completely ignored.
Gayety was supreme and in the merry throng I caught sight within a
few minutes of a well-known London magistrate before whom I had often
pleaded as a Solicitor, a famous scientist, the millionaire owner of
a great daily paper. Several leading members of the Chancery Bar, an
under-secretary of State and quite a sprinkling of young scions of
patrician families.
They were men and women of the intellectual type who cared nothing
for the vicious joys of the ordinary night club. They came in frank
enjoyment of dancing and music and the fried kippers, as custom
decreed, in order to comply with the kill-joy law that ordained that
they must eat if they wanted a drink! Everything, apparently, was free
and easy gaiety. Yet it was at least as difficult to become a member of
the Ham-bone as to gain admission to any of the most exclusive clubs
along Pall Mall. Money was no sort of passport: only personality,
ability or the true inborn spirit of Bohemianism could open the portals
of the Ham-bone.
The “master of ceremonies” was a well-known landscape painter, whom
every one addressed as “George,” a smart figure in the brown velvet
jacket of his profession. He chaffed and joked with every one in
French, revealing a side of his nature certainly unsuspected by the
general public to whom he usually presented a grave and austere front.
But this was the key-note of the Ham-bone: every one seemed to “let
himself go” and the stilted social etiquette of our ordinary world
seemed as far off as if we had been in Limehouse or Poplar.
I was dancing with Mrs. Powell, when, suddenly, she halted before a
small table in a corner where there sat alone a beautiful dark-haired
girl in a smartly cut dance-frock of black charmeuse.
“Mr. Yelverton,” she said, “will you let me introduce you to my
dearest friend, Marigold Day?” And to the girl she said, “Marigold,
this is Mr. Rex Yelverton, the gentleman of whom I recently spoke to
you.”
Somberly dressed, her white neck and bare arms in vivid contrast
with her dead-black frock, she was almost wickedly beautiful. Her
well-dressed hair, across which she wore a bandeau of golden leaves,
was dark; her scarlet mouth was like the curling underleaves of a rose,
her lips with the true _arc-de-cupidon_ so seldom seen, were slightly
apart, and between them showed strong white teeth. Her eyes were large
and deeply violet and they held a fascination such as I had seldom
before seen.
“We’ll be back presently,” said Mrs. Powell, as we slipped again into
the dance. “I want to have a chat with you.”
“Who’s that?” I asked, as soon as we were a few feet away.
“Oh, that’s Marigold. We are fellow-members here. She was in business
with me before I married. Isn’t she very good-looking, don’t you think?”
“Beautiful,” I declared.
“Ah, I see,” laughed my partner. “You are like all the other men. They
all admire her, and want to dance with her. But Marigold is a queer
girl: I can never make her out in these days. Once she was very bright
and merry, and always gadding about somewhere with a man named Audley.
Now there’s a kink somewhere. She accepts no invitations, keeps herself
to herself, and only on rare occasions comes here just to look on. A
great change has come over her. Why, I can’t make out. We were the
closest of friends before I married, so I’ve asked her the reason of it
all, but she will tell me absolutely nothing.”
“Audley,” I gasped. “Where is she at business?”
“At Carille’s, the dressmakers in Dover Street. She’s a mannequin, and
I was a typist there,” she replied. “And now Mr. Yelverton, you know
what was my business before I married,” she added, with a laugh.
“Pretty boring, I should say, showing off dresses to a pack of
unappreciative old cats,” was my remark.
“Boring isn’t the word for it,” Mrs. Powell declared, “I couldn’t
have stood her work. You should see our clients--uneducated, fat,
coarse, war-rich old hags who look Marigold up and down, and fancy they
will appear as smart as she does in one of Monsieur Carille’s latest
creations. How Marigold sticks at it so long I can’t make out. She
ought to be awarded the prize medal for patience. I could never amble
about over that horrid grey carpet and place my neck, my elbows and
hands at absurd angles for the benefit of those ugly old tabbies--no
matter what salary I was paid!”
At that moment we found ourselves before the table where her husband
was seated, smoking and drinking coffee with Sava, the young Serbian
who was perhaps the greatest modern caricaturist.
Belgravia is good; Bohemia is better; the combination of both is surely
Paradise! Sava’s conversation was as perfect as his caricatures: he
had seen life in every capital in Europe and was a born raconteur. For
a time he held us engrossed with his witty comments on the men and
matters of half-a-dozen countries, all of which he knew to perfection.
Never have I seen so truly fraternal a circle as that little backwater
of Bohemianism. Every one was at his ease: there was no such a thing
as being a stranger there. The fact that you _were_ there--that some
member had introduced you and vouched for you--broke down all barriers
and men who had never before met and might never meet again met and
chatted as freely as if they were old friends and with an utter
disregard of all the vexing problems of wealth, rank, profession and
precedence.
Presently my hostess took me back to the mannequin in black whom I new
realized must be wearing a copy of one of the famous man-dressmaker’s
latest creations.
“Mr. Yelverton wants a partner, Marigold,” my companion exclaimed
gayly, whereupon her friend smiled and rising at once, joined me in
a fox-trot with an expression of pleasure upon her face. She was a
splendid dancer.
“Mrs. Powell has told me of your acquaintance with Mr. Audley,” I said,
after a few minutes of the usual ball-room chat. “I wonder if it is the
same man I know. He used to live in Half Moon Street.”
She clearly resented the question. “Why do you ask?” she demanded.
“Because I’ve lost sight of my friend of late,” I replied.
“Well, Mr. Audley did live in Half Moon Street, but he has gone away,”
she replied. And I thought I detected a hint of tragedy upon her face.