Spearfield's Daughter (6 page)

She said prayers that night, the first for a long time, and wished she had gone to Midnight Mass
last
night. It would have pleased her mother, if Brigid was in a place to know of such things. Still, she went to bed feeling virtuous, even if it was only the cold that had kept her pants on.

II

Pat Hamer had gone back to Leeds for Christmas. She returned the day after New Year's Day, went back to her house-cleaning chores and a week later knocked on Cleo's door.

“Cleo, I think I've heard a story that might interest you. You know you're always hearing about the poor being evicted? Do you think there'd be a story about the rich being kicked out of their home? My Red dad would say serves them bluddy well right, but you may think different.”

Cleo wasn't immediately excited by the prospects of the story. “What's it all about?”

“I didn't get all of it. I was out in the hall dusting when I heard Mrs. Dysen, that's the woman I work for Tuesdays, talking about it on the phone. She lives in Curzon Street and it seems that just down the street from her there are two old ladies who have lived in this house all their lives, born and bred there in fact. Now they're to be kicked out because Bolingbroke's, the gambling club next door to them, wants the house.”

Cleo did not want to look ungrateful, but she had to act very hard to look enthusiastic. Pat, the actress, was taken in by it. “It sounds a marvellous idea! What's the address? I'll get around there right away!”

But first she phoned the features editor of the
Daily Examiner.
“Mr. Brearly, the
Examiner
always likes stories about how the other half, the richer half, lives. Would you be interested in how the rich react to eviction?”

“Are they titled rich?” The
Examiner,
owned as it was by a lord, loved titles in its columns. The peerage and appendages who could not make
The Times
or the
Daily Telegraph
could always rely on a line or two in the
Examiner.
“We could take a para. for Gideon's Diary.”

“Not the Diary, Mr. Brearly.” Gideon's Diary was a social gossip column, a waste basket of trivia. This story might turn out to be no more than trivial, but she did not want it reduced to a short paragraph before she had written it. “I'll do it as a feature or nothing.”

“You have cheek, Miss Spearfield. Okay, go ahead, but I promise you nothing. If it's any good,
it'
ll need pictures.”

“If it's any good, you'll be rushing round there to take pictures.”

“Where?”

“Ah, that would be telling, Mr. Brearly.”

He chuckled. “You Aussies never trust us Poms, do you? When can I have it?”

She rugged herself up against the January cold. She wore her fake fur coat and her fake fur hat, all that she could afford, but she had enough style to make fake look like an endangered species. She did her best to look elegant; or at least not too unrefined to be knocking on the door of the rich, albeit about-to-be-evicted rich. The house in Curzon Street was itself elegant, a town house built in the days of gracious living and leisurely pursuits when society was not divided into halves, the rich and the poor, but into two per cent and
them.
The two per cent had lived hereabouts, standing on their doorsteps and turning west to breathe the then country air of Hyde Park, turning east to get a nose-wrinkling sniff of
them.
Cleo was surprised to find that the small brass knocker on the front door was shaped like a woman's breast. She put that down to the whim of some eighteenth-century blade who had, at least, had the taste not to ornament his door with a pair of knockers.

A maid opened the door and Cleo told her she was from the
Daily Examiner.
“I should like to see Miss St. Martin—either of them.”

“Miss St. Martin, both of them, never have visitors without an appointment.” She shut the door in Cleo's face.

Cleo stood there unperturbed. She had had doors shut in her face before; if journalists were not so nimble, they would be recognizable by their broken noses. Then, as she went down the few ice-covered steps to the frozen pavement, a taxi drew up at the kerb. An elderly woman in a mink coat and hat got out and immediately skidded across the pavement towards Cleo, who stepped out and threw her arms round her. Both of them thumped up against the iron railings that stopped people, on days like this, from plunging headlong into the basement area. They stood there in their furs, clutching each other like a couple of lesbian bears. Then Cleo burst out laughing.

“We must look a great pair. Just as well we didn't finish up on our bottoms.”

The old lady straightened her hat, which had fallen down over one eye, and clung gingerly to the
railings.
“Thank you, my dear. I wonder if you would give this money to the driver, please? I dare not trust myself on that ice again.”

Cleo paid the taxi driver, who had remained in his seat watching the performance: he was one of
them.
Then she went back and helped the elderly woman up the steps to the front door. “Would you be Miss St. Martin? I'd like to talk to you, if you could spare me a few minutes. I'm Cleo Spearfield, from the
Daily Examiner.
”

Miss St. Martin suddenly lost her warm smile, as if the ice had run up her thin legs and frozen any hospitality she might have been about to offer. “I'm grateful to you for saving me from a nasty fall, Miss Spearfield. But I never talk to newspaper people.”

“Miss St. Martin, I understand you're about to lose the lease on this house, where you've lived all your life. I think that's scandalous and so does my editor.” She was becoming proprietary towards the
Examiner;
there was no one in sight to deny her. “Perhaps we could help you in your fight against your landlord's callousness.”

Something like a gleam of humour suddenly appeared in Miss St. Martin's eye. She put her key in the door, opened it and stepped into the hallway. She stood there for a moment with her back to Cleo, then looked over her shoulder, her hat slipping forward over one eye again. “Why not? Your employer, Lord Cruze, used to be a—a friend of ours. Come in, my dear. We'll have tea.”

Cleo stepped into luxurious elegance such as she had not expected. She had read that the English upper classes now lived in rather shabby refinement, as if tatty surroundings were now the proper mark of good breeding. There was nothing tatty about the St. Martin household. While Miss St. Martin slipped off her boots and put on some shoes from the closet, Cleo looked about her. The hall was hung with ornately framed mirrors, the walls papered with green silk. A wide doorway, its folding doors swept back, led into a double drawing-room where the walls were papered with yellow silk. Regency-striped, green and yellow silk drapes hung at the windows; all the chairs and couches were covered in silk. Highly polished antique tables were placed strategically about the room and in one corner stood a grand piano. There were more mirrors, all ornately framed, on the walls; but only a single painting, that of a voluptuous nude lying on what looked to be a replica of one of the room's couches. As she sat down Cleo looked back through the doorway and saw that another wide doorway opened into a similar room on the other side of the hall. It was a moment
before
she realized that the Misses St. Martin must live in
two
houses. It was not going to be easy to write so sympathetically about two rich old ladies being thrown out of two houses.

“I am Dorothy St. Martin,” said that lady. “Take off your coat, my dear. My, you do have a fine figure. And you're only a reporter?”

“On newspapers you don't get promoted on your figure,” said Cleo. “Well, perhaps you do, but I've never tried it that way.”

Miss St. Martin rang for the maid, ordered tea, then arranged herself on a chair. “Now what can we do for you? Or what can you do for us?”

“Well—” Cleo looked around her. “Do you also own the house next door?”

“Through there? Oh yes. But not the one on this side—that belongs to Bolingbroke's. My sister and I bought that one there right after the war.
Our
war,” she said, and Cleo marked the sign of the times: the generations now had their own wars. “World War One. Or rather our dear father bought it for us. But we are to lose that, too. The lease on it runs out at the same time as the lease on this one.”

“There are just you and your sister? It's a lot of accommodation for just the two of you.” She looked around again, at the tables and the grand piano. “Do you run some sort of club? A bridge club or a musical society?”

“Good heavens, no. This is a bordello,” said Miss St. Martin and smiled towards the doorway. “This is my sister Miss Rose.”

Cleo thought for a moment that she had double vision. The Misses St. Martin were identical twins, even to the way they dressed: cream blouses buttoned to the throat, cashmere cardigans, severely cut skirts, sensible shoes, a single strand of pearls. Cleo tried not to stare as she was introduced to Miss Rose, and then sat back on her chair. She remembered what she had just heard.

“A bordello? A brothel?”

“We never use that word, Miss Spearfield.” Miss Rose's voice was identical to that of her sister, soft and cultured. “We like to think that the difference between a bordello such as ours and a brothel is the difference between the Rolls-Royce showrooms in Berkeley Square and the second-hand car showrooms on the Euston Road.”

Cleo had had no experience of London car showrooms; nor, for that matter, of bordellos or
brothels.
“I had no idea—”

“Are you sure you are from the
Daily Examiner
?” said Miss Dorothy; then explained to her sister: “She works for John Cruze.”

“We never see him nowadays.”

Cleo didn't know Lord Cruze and wasn't to be sidetracked by talk of him. “I'm new to London—”

“I thought I recognized the accent,” said Miss Rose. “One hears it on television when tennis players and cricketers are interviewed.”

“You've never had any Australian—clients here?”

“Not clients, my dear. Guests. Tea? Milk and sugar?” said Miss Dorothy as the maid wheeled in a small serving-cart. “No, we have never had any Australians. We are very selective.”

“Perhaps you should apologize for that, Dorothy. Miss Spearfield looks offended.”

Cleo took her cup and saucer and chose a French pastry from the silver tray. “No, I always defend women's right to be selective.”

“Are you in favour of women's liberation?” said Miss Dorothy. “We're not. Two of our girls specialize in bondage.”

Cleo felt giddy; the cup rattled in its saucer. Pat Hamer must have set her up for this; it was some great practical joke. The Misses St. Martin were probably some retired music hall act and had sneaked into this great house to perpetrate the deception. But then commonsense returned: it was all too elaborate to be a joke played on an out-of-work journalist. Cleo tried hard to retain her commonsense, but it was like trying to keep one's foothold on a tightrope.

“Why don't you allow Australians in?”

“Oh, it's not just Australians. This is an
English
establishment and we keep it exclusively English. We did have a Scottish duke once and we have had a French ambassador—a little
entente cordiale
—”

“There was also that gentleman from Boston,” said Miss Rose. “He came from one of the best families. We understand his forbears had fought on
our
side in the American Revolution.”

Cleo put down her cup and saucer, planted her feet firmly on the thick carpet and tried to sound patient and rational. “Miss St. Martin, both of you, how can you expect me to write a story about such an
establishment
and get public sympathy on your side so that you won't be evicted?”

“Miss Spearfield—” Miss Dorothy wiped her lips delicately with a lace napkin, “we don't expect anything. We didn't invite you here.”

Cleo saw her mistake. “I'm sorry. But—well, to tell you the truth, I didn't expect anything like this.”

“Your editor would have known about us. All the newspapers do. But they never mention us because they know our guests are foundation members of what I believe is now called The Establishment. Not all of them were that, I suppose—your employer, for instance. Are you sure you are from the
Daily Examiner?
I hope you haven't lied to us, Miss Spearfield. My sister and I are great respecters of the truth.”

Cleo was waiting to be shown the door; but the Misses St. Martin continued to sip their tea and nibble at the French pastries. They were giving her another chance. So she told the truth. “If I can write a good story on you, a sympathetic one, the
Examiner
will run it. And, I hope, they may offer me a job. I need one.”

“We could offer you a position,” said Miss Rose, running what Cleo now recognized as an expert eye over her. “But we are intending to retire.”

“You're going to sell the—the bordello? Is that why you want the lease renewed?”

“Not at all. Our family has lived in this house,
this
one, for one hundred and ninety-eight years. We have had two ninety nine-year leases on it. We are now seventy years old—though we'd rather you didn't mention our age—and we should like to die in the house, as our parents and their parents and
their
parents did. We should then like to bequeath the house to a nephew, so that the St. Martin line may continue in it. The estate that owns the freehold knows what sort of place we have been running—indeed, some of the scions of the family that own the estate have been our guests. But now they want to evict us and sell the new lease to that gambling club next door. The new lease will be considerably more expensive than the old one, but we can afford it. We feel it is nothing but rank discrimination. They are objecting—after all these years, mind you—that we may continue to run our bordello. We have no such intention, but what if we did? What is the difference between catering for a gentleman's physical needs and his gambling needs? Moreover, from what we have observed, not all the clients of Bolingbroke's are gentlemen.”