There had been no welcome from Nellie in person but there had been a fruit basket on the table and a very pretty vase of dianthus. Pinks, Gwendolen thought—very fitting as the entire place was pink when she had been expecting the usual uninspiring greens and browns. A card had been propped up against the flower vase. It was a postcard, one of the ubiquitous “Sights of London,” in fact, which didn’t seem like Nellie’s style at all somehow. Gwendolen turned over the picture of Tower Bridge. Welcome to your new home. Regards, Nellie Coker. “Await further instructions” was the order of the day, apparently.
The sight of the postcard had prompted her into being dutiful about her own correspondence. She dashed off the Houses of Parliament for Cissy and the Tower of London to the Misses Tate, Rogerson and Shaw. London is very interesting. I think I shall stay a little longer to take in more of the sights. Mr. Jenkinson, her solicitor in York, received a picture of St. Paul’s and was informed of her change of address. I am staying on a little longer, please send all correspondence to this address. Can you recommend a London bank?
* * *
—
“Above the shop” at the Crystal Cup had turned out to be a surprisingly well-appointed apartment. It was entered through a nondescript door in a small street behind the nightclub. If you didn’t know, you would not have discerned that the flat and the club were in the same building.
Beyond the door there rose a steep, gas-lit stair which took you to the flat itself. Gwendolen had harboured no great expectations of the place when she agreed to live there sight unseen. “Grace and favour,” Nellie coaxed, “it will save you a considerable amount of money, London rents being what they are.” Gwendolen, in the useful camouflage of a lowly librarian who had been glamoured by the bright lights of the capital, expressed gratitude to Nellie for this thriftiness.
Given the unremarkable exterior, the interior was a surprise—a shock, even. No large muddy boot seemed to have ever besmirched the pink carpet. No clumsy male hand to have drawn the thick pink velvet of the curtains. There were deep sofas, muted pink-shaded lamps, bevelled Venetian mirrors. There were chrome fittings in the new bathroom and also in the spotless little kitchenette—clearly never used. The bedroom had pleated pink chiffon shades on the bedside lamps and the bed was already made up, the sheets and blankets topped with a puffy, quilted satin eiderdown. Pink, of course.
There was a cocktail cabinet, too—a burr-walnut affair in the corner that was masquerading as a wireless, something Gwendolen only discovered when she went looking for the Savoy Orpheans’ evening concert and on opening it discovered instead the glass-and-mirrored insides, fully stocked with gleaming decanters and bottles. What would Frobisher make of all this?, she wondered. （And why did she seem to spend so much time speculating about his opinions?） She wondered if there was a wireless pretending to be cocktail cabinet somewhere. If there was, she couldn’t find it.
The flat didn’t feel as if it had ever been lived in. Had the recently departed manager occupied it?
“That traitor?” Nellie said, who turned up unexpectedly in the evening to see if Gwendolen had settled in. “No, Miss Kelling, no one has ever lived here. I like to come up here and just sit.”
“Sit?”
“Yes, sit. It’s unspoilt. Unsullied. Nothing ever happens in here. I find that a great relief.”
“Won’t I sully it, Mrs. Coker?”
“I don’t think you will, Miss Kelling.” This said with the air of someone bestowing an unusual compliment.
And then she was all business. “My younger son, Ramsay, will pick you up tomorrow evening, Miss Kelling, and give you a tour of all the clubs—our little kingdom. And the Crystal Cup, of course—Ramsay will explain everything.”
Surely it would take more than an evening’s tuition?
“Oh, there’s nothing to it really,” Nellie said. （Very offhand!） “Well, I must get going, Miss Kelling. Have a pleasant evening.” She left as swiftly and unexpectedly as she had arrived.
And so, Gwendolen thought, it begins.
An unexpected visit from Nellie had an alarming quality to it, and after she left, Gwendolen opened up the masquerading cocktail cabinet and poured herself a small medicinal brandy to revive her courage before settling on the pink velvet sofa. As a comforting antidote to her surroundings, she took out an old copy of Cranford that she had brought with her. She hadn’t read it since she was at school and Mrs. Gaskell seemed very out of place in the modernist flat. Michael Arlen’s Iris Storm might have been more at home than poor old Miss Mattie.