I stayed with Lewis for over a year. It was in a way pleasant, money was plentiful, and I was always the mistress of a charming little salon- but Lewis began to be trying with the women he forced on me.
I did not mind his smart London girls who were always dapper and frequently delightful, with their expensive frocks and their elegant lingerie, but when it came to his wandering Northwards for his inamoratas, well!
He had embarked in business with a Mr. Rudder, a wholesale merchant, in dancing girls and chorus girls. This man lived in Manchester in a mean street with a considerable gymnasium at the back of his premises, and hired out his harlots all over the world. He had no vice but one, Flappers, well not exactly flappers, but the class of ex-servant girl whom he generally found suitable for his companies and companions. They were about 20 or so in age, and they seldom washed. Some of them were clever and I did not mind their loose table manners, but there was one whom I could not stick to.
She was Scotch-a Glasgow girl-whom Mr. Rudder had picked up in Cowcadden Street, and she was certainly good-looking, when she was washed, which was very seldom. But she was ill tempered, feckless, vulgar, and her heart was as false as her teeth.
Lewis told me she was one of the best fucks he had ever had-she had been seduced it appeared by a fat proprietor of a Musical Comedy show, and I put up with her vulgarity for a bit. Common to the core, though she was, she had a certain female sympathy, and I used to lend her under clothes-I always burned the drawers when she returned them, which was not often.
Lewis brought her home many times-and I shuddered when she scratched her head, but when-after I knew she had been with him on the drawing room sofa, while I had been seeing to lunch-she scratched another portion of her body, I would have no more of it. I would not eat and I telephoned for friends.
Walker Bird was the first I got connected with-on the telephone-and he phoned me to come to the office.
I said goodbye to the Scotch lady, who excused her irritation on the score that her bladder was affected, and went to the Dial offices where Walker Bird was temporarily striving to keep the broker's men from the door. I met him outside, nervously pacing up and down.
"My dear child," he said, 'Tm glad to see you. I can't go into that office; there are rude persons there, but I want to see my publisher and I want some one to go with me. I must have companionship. You ought to come with me, he's worth seeing, quite a curie. He comes from one of those appalling North Country towns, where everyone has money and no aspirates, or aspirations for that matter. His language may alarm you but he doesn't mean it really; it's only the drink bubbling.
"He used to be good looking and thinks he is still, and boasts a great deal about his successes with women. As a matter of fact he has been practically impotent for years but when he got just the right amount of liquor into him, he's amusing. When he hasn't, he's dull and when he's had too much, he's a hog. He's taking up religious stuff, it interests him in contrast to the more profitable part of his business, which consists in selling dirty books and pictures. He thinks he'll do me over the publications, but he won't; I know exactly the right mood to catch him when a contract needs signing."
We got there at last, it was an Old World place in the riot of London life. A tattered man, smelling strongly of drink, let us in.
"That's a broker's man," said Walker. "Blythe has money really, but he always has them with him 'like the poor.' They are company with him, he gets on better with them than he does with the authors he has to meet and all the dear, dirty-minded poets he used to maintain are dead. As he truly says, broker's men are better than modern novelists; both only do it as a pose, because it's Bohemian-but I hear Mr. Blythe."
Mr. Blythe was wrangling with his confidential typewriter about the correct translation of a passage from the French. At the final word 'bitch' the door swung open and an agitated woman came out.
"Mr. Blythe will see you directly," she said apprehensively; "if you will sit here."
We sat in a little anteroom-dull cursing was heard from within. "He will probably want me to come out and have a drink," said Walker, "and you might humour him. He is apt to be very rude to women when they refuse him and it is necessary for him to have a whiskey very often. He is a queer creature, all the elements of a cultured brain, escaped from scholastic torture of some appalling North Country school; a sort of place with dust all over it, and an asphalt playground and horizontal bars-but here he comes."
Mr. Blythe opened the door cautiously and poked his head out, he was obviously very short sighted and peered at us.
"Come in," he said, speaking a broad South Yorkshire, as he recognized Mr. Bird.
"Miss Hunt," said Walker.
"Oh yes, I've heard of you; shall we go out and 'ave a drink?"
"Just a minute," said Walker, "what about my book?"
"Ere's a check."
Walker pocketed it. "And about that other little book, the one printed 'sub-rosa'-oh, it's all right, Miss Hunt understands."
"I'll take you to the place and show you, but just one drink first."
We drank in a smelly Pub, and then drove with frequent stoppages for "one more" to Chelsea, where the place was. Mr. Blythe improved on acquaintance. He had a very ready humour, if not always a decent one, but he had the knack of cracking his jokes quickly with no unnecessary verbiage.
He quarrelled with the cabman about his fare, and we entered into his place. It was an odd place, in an off street, near a busy thoroughfare, but quiet itself. Middle-aged women of forbidding aspect stood at the doors of their houses and glowered. I'm afraid little Nemmy's rather up-to-date clothing annoyed them. I heard the word "whore" distinctly as I left the cab.
We were let in by an extraordinary individual who chuckled continuously and was remarkably dirty and unshaved.
The Guvnor, he explained, would be down in a minnit, and we went in to what I presume would be called the parlour. Mr. Blythe left us and tripping over a bicycle on the way, he wobbled down the passage, cursing dully. The scent of bacon cooking permeated the place.
Presently the Guvnor arrived. He was a fat and portentous person of an age difficult to guess; it might have been twenty-five or forty, and he spoke as he moved, ponderously, humming some cryptic air all the time. He shook hands elaborately and fired a voluptuous glance at me.
He was a man of contrasts, he looked like a dock hand and drank like one (for whiskey brought by the old man servant was immediately presented), but he spoke like a gentleman and I immediately found out that when excited over any subject his intelligence bubbled out, and he talked clearly and well. I rather took to him, to my peril, for in Walker's absence to look at proofs, he made a dash for me and after upsetting an armchair and utterly ruining two whiskies, and soda, in the chase, he was only brought up by the entrance of a tall, stooping man with peroxide hair, who might also have been any age, and was called Percy, and was obviously the worse for drink.
He was introduced and gurgled something, placing his handkerchief to his mouth and removing an upper false set of teeth, which he placed along with his handkerchief in his inside pocket. He sat in an armchair, lit a cigarette, muttered about "flappers" and at once went to sleep.
Mr. Umps, the Guvnor told me after I had got the table securely between us, was a young man of a certain amount of intelligence, who had a good deal of money well wasted on his education, and who now lived in a continual atmosphere of thinking brilliant things which never had a dog's chance of coming off, wrote indifferent musical comedies for which he seldom got paid and had three separate ideas of heaven: (1) to be always riding in ransom cabs, (2) Flappers, and (3) to be always drunk. At this point the man called Percy woke up, hastily swallowed the Guvnor's drink, changed his side, murmured something and again relapsed into stertorous sleep, flapping his legs vaguely.
Walker Bird appeared at last. He had arranged his little business, he said, and proposed to take me out to dine. We dined well!
After liqueurs a very good looking man crossed the room. He was obviously impressed with me, and Walker presented him and the tiny touch of his hand make me shiver throughout.
The Duke of Oldcaster, Walker had said. And that is the end of Nemesis Hunt for the present. I had never really believed in love at first sight- but that man; his handsome face, his title and his reputed wealth upset me.
I was carried away. Lewis could go to hell. Walker saw it; too. I made an excuse to get rid of him, and was left alone with the young Duke.
The Commissaire had called my cab at the door of the restaurant. I was going, when the Duke suggested his brougham. I gave in; threw everything over the mill and went.
He banged me back on the seat of the brougham, kissed me roughly, and before I knew where I was, he had his hand-well-WELL above my knee.
This is the present finish of Nemesis Hunt, and her Confessions. Some day I may write of my relations with the Duke of Oldcaster and some others.
Gladys places the cover over the typewriter, clicks the lock, and we are finished, but I warn you, look out for more trouble.