Produced by Al Haines
PATRICIA BRENT, SPINSTER
BY
HERBERT JENKINS
HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED
3 YORK STREET, LONDON S.W.1
1918
A HERBERT JENKINS' BOOK
_Fifteenth printing completing 153,658 copies_
MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
PURNELL AND SONS, PAULTON (SOMERSET) AND LONDON
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. PATRICIA'S INDISCRETION II. THE BONSOR-TRIGGS' MENAGE III. THE ADVENTURE AT THE QUADRANT GRILL-ROOM IV. THE MADNESS OF LORD PETER BOWEN V. PATRICIA'S REVENGE VI. THE INTERVENTION OF AUNT ADELAIDE VII. LORD PETER PROMISES A SOLUTION VIII. LORD PETER'S S.O.S. IX. LADY TANAGRA TAKES A HAND X. MISS BRENT'S STRATEGY XI. THE DEFECTION OF MR. TRIGGS XII. A BOMBSHELL XIII. A TACTICAL BLUNDER XIV. GALVIN HOUSE MEETS A LORD XV. MR. TRIGGS TAKES TEA IN KENSINGTON GARDENS XVI. PATRICIA'S INCONSTANCY XVII. LADY PEGGY MAKES A FRIEND XVIII. THE AIR RAID XIX. GALVIN HOUSE AFTER THE RAID XX. A RACE WITH SPINSTERHOOD XXI. THE GREATEST INDISCRETION
WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT
Patricia Brent is a "paying guest" at the Galvin House ResidentialHotel. One day she overhears two of her fellow "guests" pitying herbecause she "never has a nice young man to take her out."
In a thoughtless moment of anger she announced that on the followingnight she is dining at the Quadrant with her fiance. When in duecourse she enters the grill-room, she finds some of Galvin Houseitesthere to watch her. Rendered reckless by the thought of thehumiliation of being found out, she goes up to a young staff-officer,and asks him to help her by "playing up."
This is how she meets Lt.-Col. Lord Peter Bowen, D.S.O. The story is acomedy concerned with the complications that ensue from Patricia'sthoughtless act.
PATRICIA BRENT, SPINSTER
CHAPTER I
PATRICIA'S INDISCRETION
"She never has anyone to take her out, and goes nowhere, and yet shecan't be more than twenty-seven, and really she's not bad-looking."
"It's not looks that attract men," there was a note of finality in thevoice; "it's something else." The speaker snapped off her words in atone that marked extreme disapproval.
"What else?" enquired the other voice.
"Oh, it's--well, it's something not quite nice," replied the othervoice darkly, "the French call it being _tres femme_. However, shehasn't got it."
"Well, I feel very sorry for her and her loneliness. I am sure shewould be much happier if she had a nice young man of her own class totake her about."
Patricia Brent listened with flaming cheeks. She felt as if someonehad struck her. She recognised herself as the object of the speakers'comments. She could not laugh at the words, because they were true.She _was_ lonely, she had no men friends to take her about, and yet,and yet----
"Twenty-seven," she muttered indignantly, "and I was only twenty-fourlast November."
She identified the two speakers as Miss Elizabeth Wangle and Mrs.Mosscrop-Smythe.
Miss Wangle was the great-niece of a bishop, and to have a bishop inheaven is a great social asset on earth. This ecclesiasticaldistinction seemed to give her the right of leadership at the GalvinHouse Residential Hotel. Whenever a new boarder arrived, theunfortunate bishop was disinterred and brandished before his eyes.
One facetious young man in the "commercial line" had dubbed her "thebody-snatcher," and, being inordinately proud of his _jeu d'esprit_, hehad worn it threadbare, and Miss Wangle had got to know of it. Theresult was the sudden departure of the wit. Miss Wangle had intimatedto Mrs. Craske-Morton, the proprietress, that if he remained she wouldgo. Mrs. Craske-Morton considered that Miss Wangle gave tone to GalvinHouse.
Miss Wangle was acid of speech and barren of pity. Scandal and "thedear bishop" were her chief preoccupations. She regularly read _TheMorning Post_, which she bought, and _The Times_, which she borrowed.In her attitude towards royalty she was a Jacobite, and of thearistocracy she knew no wrong.
Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe was Miss Wangle's toady; but she wrapped her venomin Christian charity, thus making herself the more dangerous of the two.
At Galvin House none dare gainsay these two in their pronouncements.They were disliked; but more feared than hated. During the Zeppelinscare Mr. Bolton, who was the humorist of Galvin House, had fixed anotice to the drawing-room door, which read: "Zeppelin commanders arerequested to confine their attentions to rooms 8 and 18." Rooms 8 and18 were those occupied by Miss Wangle and Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe. Therehad been a great fuss about this harmless and rather feeble joke; butfortunately for Mr. Bolton, he had taken care to pin his jest on thedoor when no one was looking, and he took the additional precaution ofbeing foremost in his denunciation of the bad taste shown by the personresponsible for the jest.
Patricia Brent was coming downstairs in response to the dinner-gong,when, through the partly open door of the lounge, she overheard theamiable remarks concerning herself. She passed quietly into thedining-room and took her seat at the table in silence, mechanicallyacknowledging the greetings of her fellow-guests.
At Galvin House the word "guest" was insisted upon. Mrs.Craske-Morton, in announcing the advent of a new arrival, reached thepinnacle of refinement. "We have another guest coming," she would say,"a most interesting man," or "a very cultured woman," as the case mightbe. When the man arrived without his interest, or the woman withouther culture, no one was disappointed; for no one had expected anything.The conventions had been observed and that was all that mattered.
Dinner at Galvin House was rather a dismal affair. The separate tablesheresy, advocated by a progressive-minded guest, had been once and forall discouraged by Miss Wangle, who announced that if separate tableswere introduced she, for one, would not stay.
"I remember the dear bishop once saying to me," she remarked, "'Mydear, if people can't say what they have to say at a large table and inthe hearing of others, then let it for ever remain unsaid.'"
"But if someone's dress is awry, or their hair is not on straight,would you announce the fact to the whole table?" Patricia hadquestioned with an innocence that was a little overdone.
Miss Wangle had glared; for she wore the most obvious auburn wig, whichfailed to convince anyone, and served only to enhance the pallor of hersharp features.
In consequence of the table arrangements, conversation duringmeal-times was general--and dull. Mr. Bolton joked, Miss Wangle pouredvinegar on oily waters, Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe "dripped with the oil offorbearance." Mr. Cordal ate noisily, Miss Sikkum simpered and Mrs.Craske-Morton strove to appear a real hostess entertaining real guestswithout the damning prefix "paying."
The remaining guests, there were usually round about twenty-five,looked as they felt they ought to look, and never failed to show abefitting reverence for Miss Wangle's ecclesiastical relic; for it wasMiss Wangle who issued the social birth certificates at Galvin House.
That evening Patricia was silent. Mr. Bolton endeavoured to draw herout, but failed. As a rule she was the first to laugh at his jokes inorder "to encourage the poor little man," as she expressed it; "for aman who is fat and bald and a bachelor and thinks he's a humorist wantsall the pity that the world can lavish upon him."
Patricia glanced round the table, from Miss Wangle, lean as a winterwolf, to Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe, fair, chubby and faded, and on to Mr.Cordal, lantern-jawed and ravenous. "Were they not all lonely--theleft of God?" Patricia asked herself; and yet two of these solitarysouls had dared to pity her, Patricia Brent. At least she hadsomething they did not possess--youth.
The more she thought of the words that had drifted to her through thehalf-closed door of
the lounge, the more humiliating they appeared.Her day had been particularly trying and she was tired. She was in amood to see a cyclone in a zephyr, and in a ripple a gigantic wave.She looked about her once more. What a fate to be cast among suchpeople!
The table appointments seemed more than usually irritating thatevening. The base metal that peeped slyly through the silver of theforks and spoons, the tapering knives, victims of much cleaning, withtheir yellow handles, the salt-cellars, the mustard, browning withthree days' age (mustard was replenished on Sundays only), the anaemicferns in "artistic" pots, every defect seemed emphasized.
How she hated it; but most of all the many-shaped and multi-colourednapkin-rings, at Galvin House known as "serviette-rings." Variety wasnecessary to ensure each guest's personal interest in one particularnapkin. Did they ever get mixed? Patricia shuddered at the thought.At the end of the week, a "serviette" had become a sort of gastronomicdiary. By Saturday evening (new "serviettes" were served out on Sundayat luncheon) the square of grey-white fabric had many things recordedupon it; but above all, like a monarch dominating his subjects, was theineradicable aroma of Monday's kipper.
On this particular evening Galvin House seemed more than ever grey anddepressing. Patricia found herself wondering if God had really madeall these people in His own image. They seemed so petty, so ungodlike.The way they regarded their food, as it was handed to them, suggestedthat they were for ever engaged in a comparison of what they paid withwhat they received. Did God make people in His own image and thenleave the rest to them? Was that where free will came in?
"----lonely!"
The word seemed to crash in upon her thoughts with explosive force.Someone had used it--whom she did not know, or in what relation. Itbrought her back to earth and Galvin House. "Lonely," that was at theroot of her depression. She was an object of pity among herfellow-boarders. It was intolerable! She understood why girls "didthings" to escape from such surroundings and such fox-pity.
Had she been a domestic servant she could have hired a soldier, that isbefore the war. Had she been a typist or a shop-girl--well, there werethe park and tubes and things where gallant youth approached fairmaiden. No, she was just a girl who could not do these things, and inconsequence became the pitied of the Miss Wangles and the Mrs.Mosscrop-Smythes of Bayswater.
She was quite content to be manless, she did not like men, at least notthe sort she had encountered. There were Boltons and Cordals inplenty. There were the "Haven't-we-met-before?" kind too, the hunterswho seemed cheerfully to get out at the wrong station, or pay twopenceon a bus for a penny fare in order to pursue some face that hadattracted their roving eye.
She sighed involuntarily at the ugliness of it all, this cheapening ofthe things worthy of reverence and respect. She looked across at MissSikkum, whose short skirts and floppy hats had involved her in manyunconventional adventures that one glance at her face had corrected asif by magic. A back view of Miss Sikkum was deceptive.
Suddenly Patricia made a resolve. Had she paused to think she wouldhave seen the danger; but she was by nature impulsive, and theconversation she had overheard had angered and humiliated her.
Her resolve synchronised with the arrival of the sweet stage. Turningto Mrs. Craske-Morton she remarked casually, "I shall not be in todinner to-morrow night, Mrs. Morton."
Mrs. Craske-Morton always liked her guests to tell her when they werenot likely to be in to dinner. "It saves the servants laying an extracover," she would explain. As a matter of fact it saved Mrs.Craske-Morton preparing for an extra mouth.
If Patricia had hurled a bomb into the middle of the dining-table, shecould not have attracted to herself more attention than by her simpleremark that she was not dining at Galvin House on the morrow.
Everybody stopped eating to stare at her. Miss Sikkum missed her aimwith a trifle of apple charlotte, and spent the rest of the evening inendeavouring to remove the stain from a pale blue satin blouse, whichin Brixton is known as "a Paris model." It was Miss Wangle who brokethe silence.
"How interesting," she said. "We shall quite miss you, Miss Brent. Isuppose you are working late."
The whole table waited for Patricia's response with breathlessexpectancy.
"No!" she replied nonchalantly.
"I know," said Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe, in her even tones, and wagging anadmonitory finger at her. "You're going to a revue, or a music-hall."
"Or to sow her wild oats," added Mr. Bolton.
Then some devil took possession of Patricia. She would give themsomething to talk about for the next month. They should have a shock.
"No," she replied indifferently, attracting to herself the attention ofthe whole table by her deliberation. "No, I'm not going to a revue, amusic-hall, or to sow my wild oats. As a matter of fact," she paused.They literally hung upon her words. "As a matter of fact I am diningwith my fiance."
The effect was electrical. Miss Sikkum stopped dabbing the front ofher Brixton "Paris model." Miss Wangle dropped her pince-nez on theedge of her plate and broke the right-hand glass. Mr. Cordal, a heavyman who seldom spoke, but enjoyed his food with noisy gusto, actuallyexclaimed, "What?" Almost without exception the others repeated hisexclamation.
"Your fiance?" stuttered Miss Wangle.
"But, dear Miss Brent," said Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe, "you never told usthat you were engaged."
"Didn't I?" enquired Patricia indifferently.
"And you don't wear a ring," interposed Miss Sikkum eagerly.
"I hate badges of servitude," remarked Patricia with a laugh.
"But an engagement ring," insinuated Miss Sikkum with a self-consciousgiggle.
"One is freer without a ring," replied Patricia.
Miss Wangle's jaw dropped.
"Marriages are----" she began.
"Made in heaven. I know," broke in Patricia, "but you try wearingTurkish slippers in London, Miss Wangle, and you'll soon want to goback to the English boots. It's silly to make things in one place tobe worn in another; they never fit."
Mrs. Craske-Morton coughed portentously.
"Really, Miss Brent," she exclaimed.
Whenever conversation seemed likely to take an undesirable turn, or sheforesaw a storm threatening, Mrs. Craske-Morton's "Really, Mr.So-and-so" invariably guided it back into a safe channel.
"But do they?" persisted Patricia. "Can you, Mrs. Morton, seriouslyregard marriage in this country as a success? It's all becausemarriages are made in heaven without taking into consideration ourclimatic conditions."
Miss Wangle had lost the power of speech. Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe wasstaring at Patricia as if she had been something strange and uncleanupon which her eyes had never hitherto lighted. In the eyes of littleMrs. Hamilton, a delightfully French type of old lady, there was agleam of amusement. Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe was the first to recover thepower of speech.
"Is your fiance in the army?"
"Yes," replied Patricia desperately. She had long since thrown overall caution.
"Oh, tell us his name," giggled Miss Sikkum.
"Brown," said Patricia.
"Is his knapsack number 99?" enquired Mr. Bolton.
"He doesn't wear one," said Patricia, now thoroughly enjoying herself.
"Oh, he's an officer, then," this from Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe.
"Is he a first or a second lieutenant?" enquired Mrs. Craske-Morton.
"Major," responded Patricia laconically.
"What's he in?" was the next question.
"West Loamshires."
"What battalion?" enquired Miss Wangle, who had now regained the powerof speech. "I have a cousin in the Fifth."
"I am sure I can't remember," said Patricia, "I never could remembernumbers."
"Not remember the number of the battalion in which your fiance is?"There was incredulous disapproval in Miss Wangle's voice.
"No! I'm awfully sorry," replied Patricia, "I suppose it's very horridof me; but I'll go upstairs and look it up if you like."
r /> "Oh please don't trouble," said Miss Wangle icily. "I remember thedear bishop once saying----"
"And I suppose after dinner you'll go to a theatre," interrupted Mrs.Mosscrop-Smythe, for the first time in the memory of the oldest guestindifferent to the bishop and what he had said, thought, or done.
"Oh, no, it's war time," said Patricia, "we shall just dine quietly atthe Quadrant Grill-room."
A meaning glance passed between Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe and Miss Wangle.Why she had fixed upon the Quadrant Grill-room Patricia could not havesaid.
"And now," said Patricia, "I must run upstairs and see that my best biband tucker are in proper condition to be worn before my fiance. I'lltell him what you say about the ring. Good night, everybody, if wedon't meet again."
"Patricia Brent," admonished Patricia to her reflection in thelooking-glass, as she brushed her hair that night, "you're a mostunmitigated little liar. You've told those people the wickedest ofwicked lies. You've engaged yourself to an unknown major in theBritish Army. You're going to dine with him to-morrow night, andheaven knows what will be the result of it all. A single lie leads toso many. Oh, Patricia, Patricia!" she nodded her head admonishingly atthe reflection in the glass. "You're really a very wicked youngwoman." Then she burst out laughing. "At least, I have given themsomething to talk about, any old how. By now they've probably come tothe conclusion that I'm a most awful rip."
Patricia never confessed it to herself, but she was extremely lonely.Instinctively shy of strangers, she endeavoured to cover up herself-consciousness by assuming an attitude of nonchalance, and theresult was that people saw only the artificiality. She had beenbrought up in the school of "men are beasts," and she took no troubleto disguise her indifference to them. With women she was more popular.If anyone were ill at Galvin House, it was always Patricia Brent whoministered to them, sat and read to them, and cheered them throughconvalescence back to health.
Her acquaintance with men had been almost entirely limited to those shehad found in the various boarding-houses, glorified in the name ofresidential hotels, at which she had stayed. Five years previously, onthe death of her father, a lawyer in a small country town, she had cometo London and obtained a post as secretary to a blossoming politician.There she had made herself invaluable, and there she had stayed,performing the same tasks day after day, seldom going out, since thewar never at all, and living a life calculated to make an acid spinsterof a Venus or a Juno.
"Oh, bother to-morrow!" said Patricia as she got into bed that night;"it's a long way off and perhaps something will happen before then,"and with that she switched off the light.