CHAPTER VITHE HAM-BONE CLUB
A fewdays 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 famousmaître d’hôtelknew 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 theMontmartrein 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 arule 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 typewho 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 introduceyou 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 truearc-de-cupidonso 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 aboutsomewhere 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 anglesfor 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 youwerethere—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.