Jasmine was decorating the Christmas tree. Mouse knelt by a box of ornaments and passed them to her to hang. Jasmine loved a tree.
“I shall hate it,” she said, “when the children are too old to have one. Of course they nearly are already; when you think of it Meriel’s fifteen and Lucia’s twelve.”
“Avis is still a baby.”
“Yes, ten’s a nice Christmas-treeish age, but they grow up so quickly. I seemed to be a child for hundreds of years and they seem to be children for about five minutes.”
“No one would ever think Meriel was fifteen.”
“No, she’s not a bit a grown-up miss, thank goodness. All the same, in no time now we shall be doing courts and dances and the paper will say: ‘I saw Lady Menton, one of our sourest hostesses, yawning her head off while she waited for her debutante daughter.’ And when you think I’ve three daughters and will be doing it for years, it’s frightful.”
“Don’t pretend to me, my sweet.” Mouse passed her a gold apple. “You’ve got a throbbing mother-heart, you’ll adore it.”
She spoke lightly, but there was an undercurrent in her tone which made Jasmine look at her. She sat back on her haunches.
“This being the season of goodwill,” she stammered over the last word, “I think it might be nice to say a little something. Do you realise it’s not been dog-in-the-mangerish all these years?”
Mouse handed her a blue glass swan with a green feather tail.
“Here’s a handsome creature. Of course I’ve always understood and thought you perfectly right, homes are homes.”
“It’s not homes, it’s the children.” She stood up and hung the swan so that it looked as though it were swimming on fir leaves. “That’s rather sweet there, isn’t it? Jim’s an awfully nice father and they don’t see anything wrong. Anyway, you’ve got everything that matters.”
Mouse with great care selected a silver ball with red stripes running across it. She swung it to and fro on her finger.
“I haven’t, of course. You’ve got everything that matters. It’s such idiotic things that do matter. It’s always been a puzzle to me the purely physical business holding the place it does in law, and in the minds of the average person.”
“I didn’t mean that entirely, it’s the understanding of each other that comes from it. You’d think with three children Jim and I would have got to it.” She flushed and took the silver ball off Mouse’s finger. “I hated the business, it was my fault things were a failure, and that’s why I sometimes think I’m being mean.”
Mouse was still sitting with one finger stretched out, she had never noticed Jasmine had removed the ornament from it.
“How silly it is, what one envies. Just the way you throw letters across the table to each other to read, and plan surprises for the children, and have long silly arguments about whether you must invite so-and-so to dinner, and sit on the edge of each other’s baths discussing life. For me it’s always hectic, there’s very little of that sort of companionship.”
Jasmine smiled.
“It may be that I’ve kept the glamour going for you both, keeping you apart. A lot of bath conversations are on constipation. Give me a piece of tinsel.” Mouse passed it to her and she climbed up the step ladder and hung it. She looked down through a branch. “I hope I’ve not muddled my motives, it’s so difficult to be sure.”
Mouse stood up and stretched.
“I’m sure you haven’t. It’s just the way life goes.”
Jasmine climbed down the ladder.
“Let’s have a rest and a cigarette before we put on the candle clips.” She looked up at the tree. “It does look nice and it’s a good thing. A bloodsome Christmas this will be.”
Mouse lit both their cigarettes.
“Well, if you will invite the Virgin Queen. What came over you? You said you’d never have her inside the house. When she said you’d rung up to invite her, I thought it was a dream fulfilment; after all, she’s been angling for an invitation ever since she’s lived with me.”
“It’s bait she’s invited as. You know about Derwent, Jim’s nephew and incidentally, since I couldn’t make a boy, his heir?”
“I knew there was a Derwent.”
“He’s a thorn in the family flesh. Very gay he is, lives like a millionaire on about seven hundred a year. His father, Jim’s younger brother, was killed in the war, so everybody sort of feels responsible. It was obvious he’d get into debt in the Army, so they made him a member of the Stock Exchange so he could make lots of money. But he hated it, so his week-ends covered every day but Wednesdays, and on Wednesdays he played shove-halfpenny with the other members; he got very good at it. He never made any money; hardly could, considering. Of course as Jim’s heir his credit was good, and people were willing to wait to be paid, but early this year things came to a pretty pass and he missed the bankruptcy court by a hair.”
“Jim’s hair?”
“Of course. He paid everything up on condition he got a job at a weekly wage.”
“And did he?”
“No, but that’s not his fault. You see he can’t do anything except shoot and fish and play cricket, golf, and shove-halfpenny. So Jim says to me: ‘What’ll we do with nephew Derwent?’ And I had a brainwave. ‘Let’s get Ossie Bone to make him a reporter,’ I said, so Jim says, ‘How do we get Ossie Bone to do that?’ And I said, ‘Let’s ask him here and we’ll get Derwent to meet him.’ ‘Will Ossie Bone come?’ says Jim; ‘he doesn’t like me, and he hardly knows you, so why should be?’ And that’s when I had my brainwave.”
“Virginia?”
Jasmine sighed and took a pull at her cigarette.
“Now you’ve spoilt my story, I hate people who say the end for me. But that’s quite right. So I rang the girl up at the theatre—I took a risk there because if she had said ‘yes’ and then Ossie Bone said ‘no’ I was landed with the little wretch for nothing. So I wrote to him and said who was coming, just ourselves, and you and Myra Lynd, nephew Derwent, and Virginia. I almost underlined her name. It worked a treat.”
Mouse flicked some ash at the tree.
“He’d hardly got your letter before he was on the telephone to the Virgin Queen asking if he could bring her down.”
“Myra nearly wrecked everything by suggesting that she might cadge a lift off him, but I nipped that in the bud; we don’t want him arriving soured. Jim’s bringing Myra, did he tell you?”
Mouse nodded.
“Who’s bringing nephew Derwent? Awful if he didn’t turn up.”
“He will, he wants his car back, he’s being made to live within his income, and he couldn’t have his little flat and his man to look after him and a car, so the car went. He’s coming by train. Do you know the ins and outs of l’affaire Ossie? Ought they to have adjoining rooms?”
“Mercy! The Virgin Queen? She’s terribly respectable, she’d have a fit. Do you know it’s over two years now he’s known her, and he’s never allowed inside the flat unless I’m in.”
“Yet folks do say he’s spent a pretty penny on her. How’s she do it?”
“How does she ever do it if it comes to that? Look at the other men who’ve spent money on her. She’s got the most incredible amount of jewellery, and all come by honest—if you call it honest. Look at the unlucky Bobby Kite: he spent every penny he earned on her and then, getting nothing, he took to drowning his sorrows, and of course his voice went off and now he’s out of work. But believe me, the moment he’s working once more, he’ll start all over again. She won’t see him at present, she believes in the simple plan of never knowing a poor man.”
“Don’t any of her young men ever get on to her?”
“She doesn’t as a rule know them very young, for the young haven’t control of their incomes. Of course, she met her match in L.L,; he spent God knows what on her for a month or two, and then he rumbled the lady, and I believe told her a few home truths, because she said to me in the wistful way she does when she’s angling for sympathy, that it was awful the way managers thought they could do anything they liked, and were angry if a girl said they couldn’t.”
“But she must be earning quite a lot, she doesn’t need the support of all these men.”
“Twenty pounds a week; she started the third year of her contract in September. She pays me three pounds a week, but as far as I know that’s all she spends.”
“She dresses marvellously, that must cost a bit.”
“Don’t you believe it, she has a deep conviction that beauty like hers ought to be supported on public funds, and she sees to it that they are. I don’t suppose she ever pays her own dressmaker’s bills.”
“Whatever makes you put up with her? Why don’t you turn her out, and make her get a place of her own?”
“Poverty. The three pounds is useful. Besides, she makes me laugh. Nobody has ever handed me the laughs that girl has.”
“But she’s such a little beast, I’d hate people to think she was my friend.”
“The people who know me know what I think about her, and the people who don’t know me don’t matter. As a matter of fact, with a little imagination I can guess what they say, and of course that’s not pleasant, but three pounds is three pounds. You know, Jasmine, I admire her in a sort of way, she’s the stuff of which greatness is made.”
“My God!”
“It’s true, all the really great have singleness of purpose, and that’s what she’s got.”
“What’s her purpose?”
“To see that Flossie Elk, now called Virginia, is treated as befits her perfection. If you or I were half as sure of anything as she is, that her beauty and brilliance give her divine right to the best of everything, we’d be much happier. And believe me, she doesn’t pretend, that’s how she really feels, and she’s quite incapable of believing that other people don’t feel the same way about her.”
Jasmine stubbed out her cigarette and picked up a handful of candle clips and began to fix them to the lower branches of the tree.
“If you’d been like her you’d have taken Jim, you could have. He’d do anything if you insisted.”
“If I were her I wouldn’t be in my position. She could never love anyone but herself. But if I were her and wanted somebody, of course I’d take him.”
“I wonder why you haven’t.”
Mouse put out her cigarette and picked up a box of candles, she poked them into the clips Jasmine had fixed, throwing her an amused smile.
“It’s odd, but I suppose the truth is I’m too fond of you.”
Jasmine nodded.
“Comic, we should be fond of each other.”
Derwent lay on his back in bed, his eyes shut, waiting for the recently swallowed Horse’s Neck to kill or cure. Saunders, his man, went about the room quietly packing, but pausing now and again to glance in an experienced way at his master’s colour. The effect of the Horse’s Neck was good, he noted; that nasty greenish tint was wearing off, which was a comfort; with all there was to do, he had no time to be a ministering angel.
At last Derwent opened one eye.
“Don’t forget to pack some presents for the kids.”
“I haven’t, sir. I bought them yesterday, three boxes of chocolates, nut centres for Miss Meriel, and cream for Miss——” he stopped, hearing a groan from the bed.
“For God’s sake don’t describe ’em.”
“I didn’t get nothing for his Lordship or her Ladyship, sir, not havin’ no orders. And nothin’ for the other guests.”
“Uncle and Aunt wouldn’t appreciate a present, it hurts them to see me spend money. I don’t care a damn about the other guests. Did you think I was going to take something pretty for Mr. Ossie Bone?”
“No, sir, but I thought perhaps a little something for the ladies.”
“Miss Shane won’t want anything. Are there any other ladies?”
“Well, I was speaking to Mr. Sims on the telephone last night to say what time to send the car to meet you, and he says Miss Myra Lynd is expected, and Virginia the actress.”
Derwent sat up.
“Saunders, you’re pulling my leg, and that’s a dirty trick in my poor state of health.”
“No, I’m not, sir. Sims said they were most excited about it in ‘The Hall,’ most eager to see ’er they are. I hear she’s a great beauty.”
“I’ll say she is. What can Uncle and Aunt be doing with Virginia?”
“I couldn’t say, I’m sure, sir.”
Derwent lay down again, and closed his eyes, not because of nausea this time, but in meditation. There was a long silence. Then he asked:
“Nearly through, Saunders?”
“Just on, sir.”
“Then throw me my notecase.” He took it and pulled out a five-pound note.
“Almost my last, Saunders, but take it and go round to the Princess’s Theatre and bribe the doorkeeper to go up to Virginia’s dressing-room and find out what scent she uses, there’s sure to be some of it about. Then go and buy the best bottle you can get.”
“You’ll miss the two-thirty.”
“To hell with it, ring up Sims and tell him I’ll come on the later one. I don’t go till I’ve got that scent.”
Myra, her fur coat over a crimson frock, and emerald green hat pulled rakishly over one eye, a gold scarf round her neck, and ear-rings jangling against her shoulders, sat beside Jim, singing carols as they tore down the Great West Road.
“‘God rest you merry Gentlemen,’—oh, I do think there’s something very gay about going away for Christmas—‘Let nothing you dismay.’” She stopped suddenly. “I wonder you aren’t dismayed at the thought of Derwent meeting Virginia.”
“What harm can she do him? I hear she is exceptionally intacta.”
“But his money won’t be.”
“He hasn’t a bean.”
“Oh. ‘Hark the Herald angels sing——’ she’ll cut him dead then—‘Peace on earth and mercy mild——’ Jim,” she looked up at him slyly, “as we’re quite alone, and I’m renowned for my discretion; in spite of Mouse, don’t you get a kick at being under the same roof as that girl?”
He thought a moment and then laughed.
“Seeing it’s Christmas, yes, I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t.”
Flossie, a sable coat over perfectly cut tweeds, and a little brown hat set sideways on her almost white curls, lay in the back of Ossie’s Rolls-Royce. She was very comfortable and she should have been, both Ossie and the chauffeur having worked quite a while before they placed the cushions, rugs, and foot-warmer to her satisfaction. She had shut Ossie up when he tried to talk, saying she was tired after the show; the truth was she wanted to think. To-day was a triumph. She had intended to stay with the Mentons ever since she had known who Mouse’s friends were. She supposed the reason she had not been asked before was Mouse’s jealousy, she would be afraid of comparisons. But the Mentons wouldn’t stand for that for ever, they’d be keen to have her to stay, of course, so here she was at last. Mouse had seemed very surprised she was going, she hadn’t shown what she was feeling, but of course she was annoyed, and a bit worried. She had never wanted her to meet Lady Menton; seeing all she knew, she was scared she might talk. She had in the back of her mind that perhaps she would give just a little hint, it was all wrong the way people like Mouse got off scot-free, being as immoral as they liked; disgusting, that’s what it was. Nice face Lord Menton had, she wouldn’t mind having supper with him one night. Must be rich, didn’t seem to spend much on Mouse, still you could hardly expect it at her age, probably he’d given her quite a lot once. It was nice to be going to spend Christmas with a Lord, she was glad she’d let Mrs. Jones know, so that all the theatre would hear about it. Not but what Mrs. Jones was in such a nasty mood that she might keep it to herself just out of spite. A handkerchief and half a crown was a very decent Christmas present. Of course others gave pounds, but then some were silly enough to tip their dressers ten shillings every week; she wasn’t starting anything like that, might as well give away all your salary and be done with it. If some people knew what she’d got invested they’d be surprised. What with one man and another, funny if she couldn’t get her money well invested. She was glad Myra was coming, she thought the papers were not noticing her as much as they had, she’d get her to spread it round she’d spent Christmas with the Mentons, it would do the other Lords she knew good to hear about it. Of course they weren’t people like Jim Menton, only silly boys in the Guards with only one idea in their heads, and that not at all nice. They never asked you to their homes, they were even scared if they met their mothers when they were out with you, it was as if they were ashamed of knowing you. Ashamed! That was funny. If all she’d heard of the goings-on of these society girls was true, it ought to please the mothers that their sons knew a nice girl like her. Nobody could say she didn’t know how to behave. Of course, now and then she’d let somebody take a little liberty, but you couldn’t always help that with some of them so difficult. She was glad Ossie was coming too, though he wasn’t quite the sort you’d expect to meet in a house like that, though of course he went everywhere, being so rich. What was he going to give her for Christmas? A cheque would be best, but she wouldn’t mind a nice bit of jewellery. He knew she wanted an emerald ring, maybe he’d got her that. She’d snapped at him rather when he’d tried to talk. Poor Ossie, mustn’t hurt his feelings. She snuggled against him and looked up at him with a baby expression.
“Little Virginia’s tired, wants big st’ong man to west against.”
Ossie had not resented being silenced. ‘Poor little soul,’ he thought, ‘she’s tired.’ He looked contentedly at her, and the comforts of his car, and his chauffeur’s smartly uniformed back, and his own good clothes, and gave an inward chuckle. It would be a joke if some of the boys he’d been to school with could see him now, driving with the loveliest girl in London to spend Christmas with Lord and Lady Menton.
He had started life over a fried fish shop in a back street in Liverpool. His father had been a drunkard and a wife-beater, and his mother a scared, broken-spirited drudge. Somehow in spite of these things Ossie, alone of all his family, had climbed out of the slime of his beginnings. At the age of twelve he had persuaded the owner of a freighter, London-bound, to carry him in exchange for his services. Sea-sick almost to unconsciousness he had stuck to his bargain and worked his way. The owner had been pleased at his pluck and before parting with him gave him half a crown. That half-crown represented the boy’s sole capital. Sleeping out he managed to exist on it for eight days until he got himself a job in Fleet Street as a printer’s devil. He never forgot the half-crown, and the result of it was a secret that got him a name for meanness. From the first year that he had touched success, he had given a tenth of all he earned to seamen’s charities. He did it anonymously, no one ever knew. His rise in the world had been comparatively slow, and his methods mainly doubtful, but the end was that he controlled one of the largest syndicates of newspapers in the country. His papers were made up of glaring headlines, mainly perversions of the truth, sheets for the women about Beauty Queens and what society wore at its last party, and one or two saccharine articles full of heart-throb, airing some supposed injustice. Ossie realised that many of his countrymen considered him a purveyor of filth, but why should he care when a far larger proportion counted him a god, and what he caused to be printed, pronouncements from Olympus? He was devoted to his newspapers and was at his happiest in his office where he was a big man and nobody ever forgot it. In the outer world he felt smaller. It was the fault of his beginnings, he could never get over them. Though he said the right things, and wore the right clothes, and was in the right places at the right times doing the right things, he never felt that people were being open with him, he suspected them of nudges behind his back: ‘Look at Ossie Bone, he thinks himself the hell of a fine fellow, but he can’t get away with it.’ He covered this uncertainty of soul with a dominating manner. He was a success with women, they liked being dominated, and he had the power to give any of them who could use publicity, a place in the sun. His inferiority complex had little chance to grow with them, he hardly ever made a serious overture unless he was more or less sure of success; he was a fortunate lover. Flossie was one of his few failures. He had met her after the first night of ‘Looby’ and convinced that she was a purchasable fruit, he had allowed himself to fall for her. The following Sunday he had made his usual overtures, he was a mite disheartened at his lack of success, but there was nothing in her excuses to make him think her refusal more than temporary. In spite of extreme generosity, and endless publicity, he had failed ever since, and had long ago given up hope of anything beyond the merest skirmishes on the outskirts of love. He took his defeat philosophically. The truth was, on two counts he found her sufficiently a pleasure to forgive her for the one withheld. Firstly he adored being seen about with her. It might be that she would eat with anyone who could fill her bag with notes, but it was certain that every young man in the restaurant envied him. So many men were struggling to meet her, and so many more had known her for just a short time and then, unable to keep up with her expectations, had faded away, that to be known as her one steady gave him a cachet. Besides, those who knew nothing supposed her to share with him more than his board. Very flattering he found that. His other pleasure was in her origin. It had taken him no time to realise that here was no princess masquerading as an actress, here was a girl from his own world of pease puddings, and fried fish in scraps of newspaper, and runs on Saturdays to the pawnbrokers and back with the things on Mondays. Never once did he tell her he knew her secret, but it made conversation between them very easy, he hated a woman he had to talk grand with, he liked them to understand a nudge, a squeeze and a wink. Flossie understood all those. Insensibly she relaxed when with Ossie, she knew they got on well together, but she never knew it was because they were both able to give up pretending. But not only because she was easy to be with did Ossie like her origin, she gave him confidence for his own life. Often he would look at her, sailing serenely through London, dining in restaurants full of nobs, carrying off the boloney about her royal parents, and never a sign she was scared. If a chit like that could get away with it so could he, Ossie Bone; they weren’t laughing at her, that he could see, maybe they weren’t laughing at him.
He liked to hear her talk baby stuff, and liked to feel her snuggle against him. He fumbled for her knee under the rug. She pushed his hand away.
“Naughty Ossie, dat’s not yours, dat’s ’ittle Virginia’s.”
“Oh come on, I only wanted a warm.”
She gave him a nudge with her elbow,
“I know what you mean.”
He put his arm round her waist.
“Who wants a Christmas present?”
She put her finger in her mouth.
“Is it a nice pwesent?”
“Wait till you open your stocking.”
She rubbed her face against his sleeve.
“Dear, kind, lubly Ossie.”