times. He is an oaf, a boor and a man of few spiritual leanings, yet he has undoubtedly been of assistance to the girls. They almost always leave his workplace for more elevated positions, sometimes for a dress shop in the provinces, sometimes for a career in catering. I have little opportunity to ask them about this gratifying advancement. Usually, I am brought the news of their departure by a third party. I am convinced that Vincent gives them a little ‘pep talk’ about their future prospects, and directs them towards more congenial employment.
‘That Erica,’ he said, as we smoked cigars after the veal-pie crumbs had been cleared away, ‘the young one from Swansea, she was a lively piece of work. A demon at pressing she were, pressing and folding, pressing and folding, like she was born to it. Lovely young thing. Had a bit of sass to her as well, talked back to the lads on the pressing machines, gave as good as she got. I got to hand it to you, Rector, you can pick ’em. Sad she had to go.’ He took another elaborate pinch of snuff, shedding much of it on his serge trousers. ‘She wasn’t open to all the opportunities on offer.’
‘And where exactly did she go?’ I enquired.
‘Oh, Beckenham way, I believe.’ He seemed suddenly vague. ‘Got an aunt there, runs a flower shop or some such. Lovely girl, though. If you got any more like that, I hope you’ll send ’em over. There’s always room for more of your lively young folk, ’Arold. Always raises the morale in the factory, a bit of new blood.’
Heartened by this endorsement, I told him about Elsie Teenan and her efforts to find work. ‘A naive girl,’ I confided, ‘but strong and healthy, charmingly grateful to all who try to help her.’
‘That so?’ said Vincent. ‘Sounds ideal. Send her over for a little chat with me, soon as you like.’ What a good, solicitous fellow he is!
Evening. It is years since I celebrated my birthday with a dinner party, or any communal meal, unless in Stiffkey on the day itself, consuming mutton chops with Mimi. Settled instead on a visit to Maddox Street, to see Emily Murray and Nellie Churchill in their charming ‘bed-sitting room’. Nobody could accuse me of having favourites, but the presence of Miss Murray is always a delight.
‘Oh, Harold, how lovely,’ she breathed as she opened the door. ‘I’ve been longing for you to come by, so I could show you my new friends.’
She led me by the hand into a room in which the fume of cheap scent battled for the upper hand with the odour of fish and stale nicotine.
‘Close your eyes!’ she cried. ‘I must make them presentable to such a noble guest.’ I complied, and was led across an unappealingly sticky carpet to her bed. ‘You mustn’t look, Harold, or it will be too naughty of you. Dickens and Jones are all tumbled and listless, and I must smarten them up. Sit up, you bad boys. All right, Harold, you may open your eyes.’
I did, and saw upon the coverlet the familiar profusion of soft toys, lolling drunkenly over half its area. There must have been close on forty wool bears and rag dolls. In pride of place were her new acquisitions, a flop-eared rabbit and a cross-eyed giraffe, humorously arrayed so that one of the giraffe’s soft legs encircled the rabbit in fond camaraderie.
‘You see what friends they are!’ cried Emily. ‘I found them in Bermondsey Market, and adopted them and took them in, and now they have such larks together, I can scarcely bear to leave them to go to beastly work. Don’t you love them too, Harold?’
‘Delightful, Emily,’ I said. ‘Quite the nicest-looking fauna I have encountered outside Chessington Zoo.’
It was the wrong thing to say. ‘Oh, Harold, how can you? I couldn’t bear to think of my darling Dickens and Jones in a horrid zoo. The keepers might be cruel to them, they might be hungry and cold in the night.’ She made a show of pulling the counterpane over the wool creatures, as if to warm them. ‘No harm is going to come to them here, not if I must stay home and starve.’
‘Is Nellie not home this evening?’ I asked, keen to change the subject.
‘No, my dear, Nellie is off with one of her gentlemen friends,’ said Emily with a sweet smile. ‘One of the newer kind, which means she will be home later, rather than staying out all night. I fear she is grumpy with me, Harold. We never have a conversation when she returns home, as we used to.’
How delicately she spoke of her previous life of rampant prostitution. She behaves as a child but is twenty-three. When I met her, just four months ago – in Soho, outside a pub in Rupert Street – I remarked then on the sweet passivity of her nature, her simple acquiescence towards one whom she felt she could trust.
‘Hello, sir – Do you want me?’ were her opening words. They could have been the assistant in a hat shop saying, ‘Can I help you?’
I have learned that you must attend to what Emily says, however foolish, because her utterances come studded with information in code. So I asked, ‘Nellie is grumpy with you? In what way grumpy?’
‘She says she is too tired to speak, or to heed what I am saying, or kiss me goodnight. She sleeps until 3 p.m. on a Sunday, and scratches her arms until they are quite bleeding and welcomes gentlemen who come to the door with little messages contained in tiny envelopes.’
I glanced across the room to the other bed, in the dark corner. It was brutally utilitarian. Beside it, the wall was covered with notes and scraps of paper, addresses, times of appointments. Nothing gave a hint of character, or smacked of comfort or adornment.
‘I hoped you might be free tonight, Emily,’ I said. ‘I have two tickets to see Mister Cinders at the Adelphi. It is light as a soufflé, but full of appealing tunes that will lift your spirits.’
She impetuously kissed my cheek. ‘Harold! You know how I adore the theatre. Give me five minutes to get ready in my going-out frock and I – oh but wait. Perhaps I shouldn’t.’
For a moment, I feared that I might have to reassure her that Dickens and Jones would not object to being left alone. But no.
‘Tomorrow I start work, thanks to you, my dear friend, at the Café Royal. Perhaps it would be better if I had an early night. I should not wish to disappoint my new employers by arriving late.’
It is very satisfying to me that she should respond so willingly to my placing her in a job at the kitchens of the distinguished Regent Street restaurant, away from her life of sin. I was moved to find how seriously she was taking it.
‘Your worries do you credit, Emily, but I was not planning on a late night. Decide what to wear tomorrow and put the clothes upon a chair. Set your alarm clock for 7 a.m. We shall go to the play, eat a light supper at Brown’s, I shall see you home and you will be tucked up in bed with, ah, Marshall and Snelgrove –’
‘Dickens and Jones, Harold. How can you tease me like this?’
‘– with your charming menagerie by eleven o’clock, and will awake refreshed to start your new employment and your new life.’
‘Oh, Harold –’ she clutched my arm – ‘I’ll get changed.’ I made a gesture towards the door. ‘There’s no need to go out into the horrid cold wind. You might look away, though, while a lady is dressing.’
I sat on Nellie’s unyielding bed, talking inconsequentially and listening to the noises behind me of rustle and snap, the tiny ladylike grunt that accompanied the fastening of hooks and eyes, the sigh of a lady’s arm sliding into a silken sleeve, all the sonic
