Children of no Man's Land by G.B. Stern

I

Samson Phillips was first and foremost a man of tenacious disposition. He heard Antonia mention that Deb was to be found that Saturday afternoon with a certain person of the name of llorraine, and that she intended a visit to the same person, on her way home after the picture-show. Therefore, by doggedly attaching himself to Nell and her friend during the picture-show, as he was well able to do after Otto's admonition to conviviality; by dint of an afternoon's complete boredom and stiff discomfort; and by steadfast repetition of "Well-where do we go now? " at every projected flight on the part of Antonia and Nell, when circumstances offered a break in the concerted programme, as outside the Redburys front door, or after the complete and lingering tour of the Leicester Galleries: "No, I don't care much for this kind of picture. " Or after half an hour spent in some neighbouring and drearily respectable tea-rooms; in fact, by simple dint of "hanging on," Samson presently found himself being welcomed by La llorraine, after the manner of a Royal Mistress of the Robes receiving the Royal Master of the Staghounds. She was in one of her "legitimate" moods; wit and not coarseness was the passport for innuendo. They had rented a rambling underground flat off Elgin Avenue, where their furniture had at last a chance to spread itself; the vast drawing-room, lit by candelabra night and day, was thick-carpeted and sparsely furnished by a Louis couch and chair, a piano, and a table that held some delicate simpering miniatures. Manon moved about the dim spaces, a solitary unchildlike little princess with wide skirts and golden hair that was brushed high off her forehead and piled into stiff curls. Obviously, the more disreputable phase of peroxide, clothes-line, and variety entertainment, was for the moment in abeyance.

Samson awkwardly approached Deb and Cliffe Kennedy, who were talking together by the window.

"Good afternoon, Miss Marcus."

"You? How funny! " Deb began to laugh.

Samson _was_ funny, in juxtaposition with La llorraine and Cliffe Kennedy. He was so unplastic.

"Who brought you here? Antonia?"

"I came to see Miss Verity home."

"But she has only just come."

He held to his point. She would some time or other be obliged to make a departure, and then his services as an escort would naturally be required. A girl should not traverse the dark streets unaccompanied. A girl should be aware of perils besetting her, though ignorant of their nature.

Samson enquired how Deb proposed to reach home. "This is the worst end of Elgin Avenue," he hinted darkly, and looked with suspicion at Cliffe Kennedy, who passed his hand across his eyes as though brushing away a hideous memory, and said abruptly: "I've never spoken to you of my little sister-have I?"

Deb knew that he was an only child. But she also knew by now his marvellous talent for fitting every subject that came up with local interest of personal experience. What she did not know was exactly how real was the momentary belief which inflated his account of the lovely and cherished little sister-Beth, her name-whom Cliffe had once been requisitioned to fetch from an evening party. There had been a woman-he had not gone. "Someone else will see the Babe home. ". Beth, tired of delay, having refused all other escort-"I'm waiting for my brother, thanks," with childlike pride-had at last started off by herself.

"It was months before we gave up the search. And it killed my mother-spiritually," Cliffe amended, recollecting that Deb had frequently lunched with Mrs Kennedy. "Her hair went snow-white during those months -- " mournful eyes fixed on Samson's aghast, attentive face. His gaze wandered to Deb's, read there a gentle reminder of the dear old lady's almost unpowdered dark brown coronal; and without the slightest perceptible break in the narrative, sank his voice to the supplementary explanation: "Yes-she dyed it for my sake. I simply couldn't bear it. My fault-damnable ego-ridden slothful beast! -and the perpetual sight of that piled-up silveriness never let me forget for a moment what she had suffered-what we all suffered. she guessed it was driving me to madness-Other women condemned what she did-called it preposterous vanity . at her age. God! one of the divinest impulses of pure love -- "

By now, Cliffe was so swathed about in self-spun illusion of tender maternal sacrifice and a lost little sister, that Samson may have been pardoned for horrified credulity:

"And you never heard anything-no news-no clue -- ?"

"I spend regularly four nights a week in brothels," Cliffe replied with exquisite simplicity-and Samson checked a stern protest at use of a word which, after all, Deb could not possibly understand.

"But I'm making you melancholy with all this. A chance word reminded me-I'll see you home to-night, Deb; but I hope you're not relying on me to pay your bus-fares; you still seem to cling to the outworn tradition that gentlemen, beautiful glossy eligible gentlemen who live in Kensington Palace Gardens, always pay the fare of the young lady they're walking-out with-or rather riding-out with. I've noticed a semi-diffident, semi-expectant look that you always direct towards me when the conductor comes round, and you pull out your modest little purse-and I'm hypnotically compelled to the low rapid pained yet masterful and at the same time unobtrusive utterance: ‘No-please-allow me-I insist. '. And I can't afford it, Deb. I'll see you home to-night, but you must pay your own fares."

Samson favoured the speaker with a look so expressive of the "beautiful glossy eligible gentleman who lived in Kensington Palace Gardens" that Deb's eyes, encountering Kennedy's, were an elves' dance of green and grey merriment.

"I will accompany Miss Marcus home, if she allows me."

"Are you pledged to see Nell home as well? Antonia and Nell and I all live in different directions, you know."