VI
FROM the big hotel in the vicinity of the Marble Arch, to the consulting rooms in Shaftesbury Avenue of Mrs. Albert Bromley, it appeared, on inquiry, that the distance might easily be accomplished in less than forty minutes.
Miss Sinquier, nevertheless, decided to allow herself more.
Garmented charmingly in a cornflower-blue frock with a black gauze turban trimmed with a forest of tinted leaves, she lingered uplifted by her appearance before the glass.
The sober turban, no doubt, would suggest to Mrs. Bromley, Macbeth—the forest-scene, and the blue, she murmured, “might be anything.”
It occurred to her as she left her room that Mr. Bromley might quite conceivably be there to assist his wife.
“Odious if he is,” she decided, passing gaily out into the street.
It was just the morning for a walk. A pale silvery light spread over Oxford Street, while above the shop fronts, the sun flashed down upon a sea of brass-tipped masts, from whence trade flags trembled in a vagrant breeze. Rejoicing in her independence, and in the exhilarating brightness of the day, Miss Sinquier sailed along. The ordeal of a first meeting with a distinguished dramatic expert diminished at every step. She could conjecture with assurance, almost, upon their ultimate, mutual understanding. But before expressing any opinion, Mrs. Bromley, no doubt, would require to test her voice; perhaps, also, expect her to dance and declaim.
Miss Sinquier thrust out her lips.
“Not before Albert! Or, at any rate not yet....” she muttered.
She wondered what she knew.
There was the thing fromRizzio.The Mistress of the Robes’ lament upon her vanished youth, on discovering a mirror unexpectedly, one morning, at Holyrood, outside Queen Mary’s door.
Diamond, Lady Drummond, bearing the Queen a cap, raps, smiles, listens ... smiles, raps again, puts out her leg and rustles ...giggles, ventures to drop a ring, effusive facial play and sundry tentative noises, when catching sight of her reflection, she starts back with:
“O! obnoxious old age. O! hideous horror. O! youthful years all gone. O! childhood spent. Decrepitude at hand.... Infirmities drawing near....”
Interrupted by Mary’s hearty laugh.
“Yes,” Miss Sinquier decided, crossing into Regent Street, “should Mrs. Bromley bid me declaim, I’ll do Diamond.”
Her eyes brightened.
How prettily the street swerved.
As a rule, great thoroughfares were free from tricks.
She sauntered.
“A picture-palace.”
And just beyond were the playhouses themselves.
Theatreland!
Shaftesbury Avenue with its slightly foreign aspect stretched before her.
With a springing foot she turned up it.
Oh, those fragile glass façades with the players’ names suspended!
There was the new Merrymount Theatrewith its roguish Amorini supporting torches and smiling down over gay flower-boxes on to the passers-by.
And beyond, where the burgeoning trees began must be Panvale Priory itself.
Miss Sinquier surveyed it.
It looked to be public offices....
On the mat, dressed in a violet riband, with its paw in the air, lay a great sly, black, joyous cat.
“Toms!”
She scratched it.
Could it be Mrs. Bromley’s?
In the threshold, here and there, were small brass plates, that brought to mind somehow memorial tablets to departed virtue at home.
Miss Sinquier studied the inscriptions.
Ah, there showed hers!
“M-m-m!” she murmured, commencing to climb.
Under the skylight a caged bird was singing shrilly.
As much to listen, as to brush something to her cheeks, Miss Sinquier paused.
If a microscopic mirror could be relied upon she had seldom looked so well.
Scrambling up the remaining stairs with alacrity, she knocked.
A maid with her head wreathed in curl-papers answered the door, surveying the visitor first through a muslin blind.
Miss Sinquier pulled out a card.
“Is Mrs. Bromley in?” she asked.
The woman gazed at her feet.
“Mrs. Bromley’s gone!” she replied.
“I suppose she won’t be long?”
“She’s in Elysium.”
“At the——?”
“Poor Mrs. Bromley’s dead.”
“Mrs. Bromleydead...?”
“Poor Mrs. Bromley died last night.”
Miss Sinquier staggered.
“Impossible!”
“Perhaps you’d care to come in and sit down?”
Miss Sinquier hesitated.
“No, no, not if ...is? Oh!” she stammered.
“She was taken quite of a sudden.”
“One can hardly yet believe it!”
“She’ll be a loss to her world, alas, poor Betty Bromley will.”
Miss Sinquier swallowed.
“I should like to attend the funeral,” she said.
“There’s no funeral.”
“No funeral?”
“No invitations, that is.”
Miss Sinquier turned away.
The very ground under her seemed to slide....
Mrs. Bromley dead!
Why, the ink of her friendly note seemed scarcely dry!
On the pavement once more she halted to collect herself.
Who was there left at all?
At Croydon, there was a conservatoire, of course—
She felt a little guilty at the rapidity of the idea.
Woolgathering, she breasted the traffic in St. Martin’s Lane.
She would turn the situation over presently more easily in the Park.
Instinctively, she stopped to examine a portrait of Yvonde Yalta in the open vestibule of the Dream.
She devoured it: Really...? Really? She resembled more some Girton guy than a great coquette.
All down the street indeed, at the theatre doors, were studies of artists, scenes from current plays.
By the time she found herself back in Piccadilly Circus again Miss Sinquier was nearly fainting from inanition.
She peered around.
In Regent Street, she reflected, almost certainly, there must be some nice tea-shop, some cool creamery....
How did this do?
“The Café Royal!”
Miss Sinquier fluttered in.
By the door, the tables all proved to be taken.
Such a noise!
Everyone seemed to be chattering, smoking, lunching, casting dice, or playing dominoes.
She advanced slowly through a veil of opal mist, feeling her way from side to side with her parasol.
It was like penetrating deeper and deeper into a bath.
She put out her hand in a swimming, groping gesture, twirling as she did so, accidentally, an old gentleman’s moustache.
Thank heaven! There, by that pillar, was a vacant place.
She sank down on to the edge of a crowded couch, as in a dream.
The tall mirrors that graced the walls told her she was tired.
“Bring me some China tea,” she murmured to a passing waiter, “and a bun with currants in it.”
She leaned back.
The realization of her absolute loneliness overcame her suddenly.
Poor Mrs. Bromley, poor kindly little soul!
The tears sprang to her eyes.
It would have been a relief to have blotted her face against some neighbouring blouse or waistcoat and to have had a hearty cry.
“Excuse me, may I ask you to be so good——”
Just before her on the table was a stand for matches.
With a mournful glance she slid the apparatus from her in the direction of an adolescent of a sympathetic, somewhat sentimental, appearance, who, despite emphatic whiskers, had the air of a wildly pretty girl.
To have cherished such an one as a brother! Miss Sinquier reflected, as the waiter brought her tea.
While consuming it, she studied the young man’s chiselled profile from the corners of her eyes.
Supporting his chin upon the crook of a cane, he was listening, as if enthralled, to a large florid man, who, the centre of a small, rapt group, was relating in a high-pitched, musical voice, how “Poor dear Chaliapin one day had asked for Kvass and was given Bass. And that reminds me,” the speaker said, giving the table an impressive thump, “of the time when Anna Held—let go.”
Miss Sinquier glowed.
Here were stage folk, artists, singers ... that white, thin girl in the shaggy hat opposite was without doubt a temperament akin.
She felt drawn to speak.
“Can you tell me how I should go to Croydon?” she asked.
The words came slowly, sadly almost....
“To Croydon?”
“You can’t go to Croydon.”
“Why not?”
The young man of the whiskers looked amused.
“When we all go to Spain to visit Velasquez——”
“Goya——!”
“Velasquez!”
“Goya! Goya! Goya!”
“... We’ll set you on your way.”
“Goose!”
“One goes to Croydon best by Underground,” the pale-looking girl remarked.
Miss Sinquier winced.
“Underground!”
Her lip quivered.
“Is there anything the matter?”
“Only——”
Folding her arms upon the table she sank despairingly forward and burst into tears.
“Poor Mrs. Bromley!” she sobbed.
“In the name ofFortune....” The pale young woman wondered.
“What has Serephine said? What has Mrs. Sixsmith done?”
“Monstrous tease!”
The stout man wagged a finger.
“Wicked!” he commented.
The lady addressed kindled.
“I merely advised her to go Underground. By tube.”
“Oh God,” Miss Sinquier shook.
“It’s hysteria. Poor thing, you can see she’s overwrought.”
“Give her afine;un bon petit cognac.”
“Waiter!”
“Garçon.”
“Never mind, Precious,” the fat man crooned. “You shall ride in a comfy taxi-cab with me.”
“No; indeed she shan’t,” Mrs. Sixsmith snapped. “You may rely on me, Ernest, for that!”
Rejecting the proffered spirits with a gesture, Miss Sinquier controlled her grief.
“It’s notoftenI’m so silly,” she said.
“There, there!”
“Excuse this exhibition....”
Mrs. Sixsmith squeezed her hand.
“My poor child,” she said, “I fear you’ve had a shock.”
“It’s over now.”
“I’m so glad.”
“You’ve been very good.”
“Not at all. You interest me.”
“Why?”
“Why? Why?... I’m sure I can’t saywhy! But directly I saw you....”
“It’s simply wonderful.”
“You marched in here for all the world like some great coquette.”
“You mean the Father Christmas at the door?”
“Tell me what had happened.”
In a few words Miss Sinquier recounted her tale.
“My dear,” Mrs. Sixsmith said, “I shouldn’t think of it again. I expect this Mrs. Bromley was nothing but an old procuress.”
“A procuress?”
“A stage procuress.”
“How dreadful it sounds.”
“Have you no artistic connections in townat all?”
“Not really....”
“Then here, close at hand ... sitting with you and me,” she informally presented, “Is Mr. Ernest Stubbs, whose wild wanderings in the Gog-magog hills in sight of Cambridge, orchestrally described, recently thrilled us all. Next to him—tuning his locks and twisting his cane—you’ll notice Mr. Harold Weathercock, an exponent of calf-love parts at the Dream. And, beyond, blackening her nose with a cigarette, sprawls the most resigned of women—Miss Whipsina Peters, adaughter of the famous flagelist—and a coryphée herself.”
Miss Peters nodded listlessly.
“Toodle-doo,” she murmured.
“As a coryphée, I suppose her diamonds are a sight?”
“A sight!” Mrs. Sixsmith closed her eyes. “They’re all laid up in lavender, I fear.”
“In lavender?”
“Pledged.”
“Oh, poor soul.”
“Just now you spoke of a necklace of your own ... a pearl rope, or something, that you wish to sell.”
“Unhappily I’m obliged.”
“I’ve a notion I might be of service in the matter.”
“How?”
“Through an old banker-friend of mine—Sir Oliver Dawtry. Down Hatton Garden way and throughout the City he has enormous interests. And I should sayhecould place your pearls—if anyone could!”
“Do you think he’d be bothered?”
“That I’ll undertake.”
“Does he live in town?”
“In a sense: he has a large house in the Poultry.”
“Of course I should be willing to show him my pearls.”
“Sir Oliver is offering me a little dinner to-night. And I should be happy for you to join us.”
“Oh?... I think I scarcely dare!”
“Rubbish. One must be bolder than that if one means to get on!”
“Tell me where you dine.”
“At Angrezini’s. It’s a little restaurant ... with a nigger band. And you sing between the courses.”
“Will Mr. Sixsmith be there?”
“My dear, Mr. Sixsmith and I don’t live together any more.”
“Forgive me.”
“That’s all right....”
Miss Sinquier’s eyes grew dim.
“Used he to act?” she asked.
“Act!”
“I seem to have heard of him.”
Mrs. Sixsmith looked away.
“Are you coming, Serephine?” her neighbour asked.
“Are you all off?”
The florid man nodded impressively.
“Yes ... we’re going now....” he said.
“What are Whipsina’s plans?”
Miss Peters leaned closely forward over several pairs of knees.
“I shall stay where I am,” she murmured, “and perhaps take a nap. There’s sure to be a tremendous exodus directly.”
Miss Sinquier rose. “I’ve some shopping,” she said, “to do.”
“Until this evening, then.”
“At what o’clock?”
“At 8.”
“On arrival, am I to ask for you?”
“Better ask for Sir Oliver—one never knows.... And I might perhaps happen to be late.”
“But you won’t be? You mustn’t....”
“I will explain whatever’s needful by telephone to Sir Oliver now. And during dinner,” Mrs. Sixsmith bubbled, “while the old gentleman picks a quail, we will see what we can do!”
“How can I express my thanks...?”
“The question of commission,” Mrs. Sixsmith murmured with a slight smile, “we will discuss more fully later on.”