2
THE ARGYLL ROOMS were the most popular place of entertainment in London, but Hugh had never been there. It would never have occurred to Hugh to visit such a place: although not actually a brothel, it had a low reputation. However, a few days after Florence Stalworthy finally rejected him, Edward casually invited him to join him and Micky for an evening’s debauchery, and he accepted.
Hugh did not spend much time with his cousin. Edward had always been spoiled rotten, a bully and a slacker who got others to do his work. Hugh had long ago been cast in the role of black sheep of the family, following in his father’s footsteps. Edward and he had little in common. But despite that Hugh decided to try the pleasures of dissipation. Low dives and loose women were a way of life for thousands of upper-class Englishmen. Perhaps they knew best: perhaps this, rather than true love, was the way to happiness.
In fact he was not sure whether he had truly been in love with Florence. He was angry that her parents had turned her against him, even more so because the reason was a wicked falsehood about his father. But he found, somewhat shamefully, that he was not heartbroken. He thought about Florence often, but nevertheless he continued to sleep well, eat heartily, and concentrate on his work without difficulty. Did that mean he had never loved her? The girl he liked best in the whole world, apart from his six-year-old sister Dotty, was Rachel Bodwin, and he had toyed with the idea of marrying her Was that love? He did not know. Perhaps he was too young to understand love. Or perhaps it simply had not happened to him yet.
The Argyll Rooms were next door to a church in Great Windmill Street, just off Piccadilly Circus. Edward paid a shilling admission for each of them and they went inside. They wore evening dress: black tailcoats with silk lapels, black trousers with silk braid, low-cut white waistcoats, white shirts and white bow ties. Edward’s suit was new and expensive; Micky’s rather cheaper, but fashionably cut; and Hugh’s had belonged to his father.
The ballroom was an extravagantly gas-lit arena, with huge gilt mirrors intensifying the brilliant light. The dance floor was crowded with couples, and behind an elaborate gold trelliswork screen a half-concealed orchestra was playing a vigorous polka. Some of the men wore evening dress, a sign that they were upper-class people going slumming; but most wore respectable black daytime suits, identifying them as clerks and small businessmen.
Above the ballroom was a shadowed gallery. Edward pointed to it and said to Hugh: “If you make friends with a dollymop, you can pay another shilling and take her up there: plush seats, dim lights, and blind waiters.”
Hugh felt dazzled, not just by the lights but by the possibilities. All around him were girls who had come here for the sole purpose of flirting! Some were with boyfriends but others had come alone, intending to dance with total strangers. And they were all dressed up to the nines, in evening gowns with bustles, many of them cut very low at the neckline, and the most amazing hats. But he noticed that on the dance floor they all modestly wore their cloaks. And Micky and Edward had assured him that they were not prostitutes but ordinary girls, shop assistants and parlormaids and dressmakers.
“How do you meet them?” Hugh asked. “Surely you don’t just accost them like streetwalkers?”
Edward answered him by pointing to a tall, distinguished-looking man in white tie and tails, who wore some kind of badge and appeared to be supervising the dancing. “That’s the master of ceremonies. He’ll effect an introduction, if you tip him.”
The atmosphere was a curious but exciting mixture of respectability and license, Hugh found.
The polka ended and some of the dancers returned to their tables. Edward pointed and cried: “Well, I’m damned, there’s Fatty Greenbourne!”
Hugh followed his finger and saw their old schoolmate, bigger than ever, bulging out of his white waistcoat. On his arm was a stunningly beautiful girl. Fatty and the girl sat down at a table, and Micky said quietly: “Why don’t we join them for a while?”
Hugh was keen for a closer look at the girl, and he assented readily. The three young men threaded their way through the tables. “Good evening, Fatty!” Edward said cheerily.
“Hullo, you lot,” he replied. “People call me Solly nowadays,” he added amiably.
Hugh had seen Solly now and again in the City, London’s financial district. For some years Solly had been working at the head office of his family bank, just around the corner from Pilasters. Unlike Hugh, Edward had only been working in the City for a few weeks, which was why he had not previously run into Solly.
“We thought we’d join you,” Edward said casually, and looked an inquiry at the girl.
Solly turned to his companion. “Miss Robinson, may I present some old school friends: Edward Pilaster, Hugh Pilaster, and Micky Miranda.”
Miss Robinson’s reaction was startling. She went pale beneath her rouge and said: “Pilaster? Not the same family as Tobias Pilaster?”
“My father was Tobias Pilaster,” said Hugh. “How do you know the name?”
She recovered her composure quickly. “My father used to work for Tobias Pilaster and Co. As I child, I used to wonder who Co was.” They laughed, and the moment of tension passed. She added: “Would you lads like to sit down?”
There was a bottle of champagne on the table. Solly poured some for Miss Robinson and called for more glasses. “Well, this is a real reunion of old Windfield chums,” he said. “Guess who else is here: Tonio Silva.”
“Where?” said Micky quickly. He seemed displeased to hear that Tonio was around, and Hugh wondered why. At school Tonio had always been frightened of Micky, he remembered.
“He’s on the dance floor,” Solly said. “He’s with Miss Robinson’s friend, Miss April Tilsley.”
Miss Robinson said: “You could call me Maisie. I’m not a formal girl.” And she threw a lascivious wink at Solly.
A waiter brought a plate of lobster and set it in front of Solly. He tucked a napkin into his shirt collar and started to eat.
“I thought you Jewboys weren’t supposed to eat shellfish,” Micky said with lazy insolence.
Solly was as impervious as ever to such remarks. “I’m only kosher at home,” he said.
Maisie Robinson gave Micky a hostile glare. “We Jewgirls eat what we like,” she said, and took a morsel from Solly’s plate.
Hugh was surprised that she was Jewish: he always thought of Jews as having dark coloring. He studied her. She was quite short, but added about a foot to her height by piling her tawny hair into a high chignon and topping it with a huge hat decorated with artificial leaves and fruit. Underneath the hat was a small, impudent face with a wicked twinkle in the green eyes. The cut of her chestnut-colored gown revealed an astonishing acreage of freckled bosom. Freckles were not generally thought to be attractive, but Hugh could hardly take his eyes off them. After a while Maisie felt his stare and returned it. He turned away with an apologetic smile.
He took his mind off her bosom by looking around the group and noting how his old schoolmates had changed in the last seven years. Solly Greenbourne had matured. Although he was still fat, and had the same easygoing grin, he had acquired an air of authority in his middle twenties. Perhaps it came from being so rich—but Edward was rich and he had no such aura. Solly was already respected in the City; and while it was easy to earn respect when you were the heir to Greenbournes Bank, all the same a foolish young man in that position could rapidly become a laughingstock.
Edward had grown older but unlike Solly he had not matured. For him, as for a child, play was everything. He was not stupid, but he found it difficult to concentrate on his work at the bank because he would rather be elsewhere, dancing and drinking and gambling.
Micky had become a handsome devil, with dark eyes and black eyebrows and curly hair grown a little too long. His evening dress was correct but rather dashing: his jacket had a velvet collar and cuffs, and his shirt was frilled. He had already attracted admiring glances and inviting looks from several girls seated at nearby tables, Hugh had noticed. But Maisie Robinson had taken a dislike to him, and Hugh guessed that was not just because of the remark about Jewboys. There was something sinister about Micky. He was unnervingly quiet, watchful and self-contained. He was not frank, he rarely showed hesitation, uncertainty, or vulnerability, and he never revealed anything of his soul—if he had one. Hugh did not trust him.
The next dance ended and Tonio Silva came to the table with Miss April Tilsley. Hugh had run into Tonio several times since school, but even if he had not seen him for years he would have recognized him instantly by the shock of carrot-colored hair. They had been best friends until that awful day in 1866 when Hugh’s mother had come to tell him that his father was dead and to take him away from the school. They had been the bad boys of the lower fourth, always getting into scrapes, but they had enjoyed life, despite the floggings.
Hugh had often wondered, over the years, what had really happened that day at the swimming hole. He had never believed the newspaper story about Edward’s trying to rescue Peter Middleton: Edward would not have had the courage. But Tonio still would not speak of it, and the only other witness, Albert “Hump” Cammel, had gone to live in the Cape Colony.
Hugh studied Tonio’s face as he shook hands with Micky. Tonio still seemed somewhat in awe of Micky. “How are you, Miranda?” he said in a normal voice, but his expression showed a mixture of fear and admiration. It was the attitude a man might have toward a champion prizefighter famous for his quick temper.
Tonio’s companion, April, was a little older than her friend Maisie, Hugh judged, and there was a pinched, sharp look about her that made her less attractive; but Tonio was having a great time with her, touching her arm and whispering in her ear and making her laugh.
Hugh turned back to Maisie. She was talkative and vivacious, with a lilting voice that had a trace of the accent of northeast England, where Tobias Pilaster’s warehouses had been. Her expression was endlessly fascinating as she smiled, frowned, pouted, wrinkled her turned-up nose and rolled her eyes. She had fair eyelashes, he noticed, and there was a sprinkling of freckles on her nose. She was an unconventional beauty but no one would deny she was the prettiest woman in the room.
Hugh was obsessed by the thought that, since she was here at the Argyll Rooms, she was presumably willing to kiss, cuddle and perhaps even Go All The Way tonight with one of the men around the table. Hugh daydreamed about a sexual encounter with almost every girl he met—he was ashamed of how much and how often he thought about it—but normally it could only happen after courtship, engagement and marriage. Whereas Maisie might do it tonight!
She caught his eye again, and he had that embarrassing feeling that Rachel Bodwin sometimes gave him, that she knew what he was thinking. He searched around desperately for something to say, and finally blurted out: “Have you always lived in London, Miss Robinson?”
“Only for three days,” she said.
It might be mundane, he thought, but at least they were talking. “So recently!” he said. “Where were you before?”
“Traveling,” she said, and turned away to speak to Solly.
“Ah,” Hugh said. That seemed to put an end to the conversation, and he felt disappointed. Maisie acted almost as if she had a grudge against him.
But April took pity on him and explained. “Maisie’s been with a circus for four years.”
“Heavens! Doing what?”
Maisie turned around again. “Bareback horse-riding,” she said. “Standing on the horses, jumping from one to another, all those tricks.”
April added: “In tights, of course.”
The thought of Maisie in tights was unbearably tantalizing. Hugh crossed his legs and said: “How did you get into that line of work?”
She hesitated, then seemed to make up her mind about something. She turned around in her chair to face Hugh directly, and a dangerous glint came into her eyes. “It was like this,” she said. “My father worked for Tobias Pilaster and Co. Your father cheated my father out of a week’s wages. At that time my mother was sick. Without that money, either I would starve or she would die. So I ran away from home. I was eleven years old at the time.”
Hugh felt his face flush. “I don’t believe my father cheated anyone,” he said. “And if you were eleven you can’t possibly have understood what happened.”
“I understood hunger and cold!”
“Perhaps your father was at fault,” Hugh persisted, though he knew it was unwise. “He shouldn’t have had children if he couldn’t afford to feed them.”
“He could feed them!” Maisie blazed. “He worked like a slave—and then you stole his money!”
“My father went bankrupt, but he never stole.”
“It’s the same thing when you’re the loser!”
“It’s not the same, and you’re foolish and insolent to pretend that it is.”
The others obviously felt he had gone too far, and several people began to speak at the same time. Tonio said: “Let’s not quarrel about something that happened so long ago.”
Hugh knew he should stop but he was still angry. “Ever since I was thirteen years old I’ve had to listen to the Pilaster family running my father down but I’m not going to take it from a circus performer.”
Maisie stood up, her eyes flashing like cut emeralds. For a moment Hugh thought she was going to slap him. Then she said: “Dance with me, Solly. Perhaps your rude friend will have gone when the music stops.”