The Meaning of Night Read Free Page B

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    establishments and alluding proudly to the superiority of its inmates, and of the services
    they offered. It was run along the lines of a highly select club – a Boodle’s or White’s of
    the flesh? – and catered for the amorous needs of the most discerning patrons of means.
    Like its counterparts in St James’s, it had strict rules on admission and behaviour. No
    person was allowed entry to this choice coterie without the unequivocal recommendation
    of an existing member followed by a vote: blackballing was not infrequent, and if a
    recommendation proved wanting in any way, both applicant and proposer faced summary
    ejection, and sometimes worse.

    Mrs Kitty Daley, known to the members as Mrs D., was the entrepreneuse of this
    celebrated and highly profitable Cyprian? resort. She went to great lengths to maintain
    standards of social decency: no swearing, profanity, or drunkenness was tolerated, and
    any disrespect towards, or ill-treatment of, the young ladies themselves was punished
    with the utmost severity. Not only would the perpetrator find himself immediately barred
    and exposed to public scandal; he would also receive a call from Mr Herbert Braithwaite,
    a former pugilist of distinction, who had his own highly effective way of making
    delinquent patrons understand the error of their ways.

    Bella and her companions were thus a race apart from the doxies and dollymops
    who infest the Haymarket and its environs, and with whom I had long been familiar.
    Signor Prospero Gallini, Bella’s father, the impoverished scion of a noble Italian family,
    having fallen on hard times, had fled his native creditors, in the year 1830, and made his
    way to England, where he set himself up as a fencing-master in London. He was now a
    widower, and an exile; but he was determined to give his only daughter every advantage
    that his limited means permitted, with the result that she could converse fluently in
    several European languages, played exceptionally well on the piano-forte, had a
    delightful singing voice, and was, in short, as accomplished as she was beautiful.

    I had lodged briefly with Signor Gallini and his alluring daughter when I first
    came to London. After his death I maintained an occasional, but friendly, correspondence
    with Bella, feeling it was my duty to watch over her, in a brotherly sort of way, in
    gratitude for the kindness her father had shown to me. Signor Gallini had left her little
    enough, and circumstances eventually made it necessary for her to leave the little house
    in Camberwell, to where her father had retired, and take employment as companion to a
    lady in St John’s Wood, whose acquaintance we have already made. She had answered an
    advertisement for this position, which was Mrs D.’s way of recruiting new blood for her
    stable of thoroughbreds. Very few who applied found favour in Mrs D.’s discerning eye;
    but Bella instantly charmed her, and was not in the least shocked when the true nature of
    her employment was revealed to her. Although she began her career as the most junior
    citizen in The Academy’s little state, she quickly rose through the ranks. She was
    exceptionally beautiful, talented, discreet, and as accommodating as any gentleman could
    wish. If there is such a thing as a vocation in this line of work, then Bella Gallini may be
    said to have possessed one.

    Our intermittent correspondence continued for some years after she took up
    residence at Blithe Lodge. I would send a brief note every few months, to see how she
    was, and if she was in need of anything, and she would reply to say that she was going on
    very well, that her employer was kindness itself, and that she wanted for nothing. Then
    one day, in the early months of 1853, I happened to be in the vicinity of St John’s Wood
    and thought I would call on her, to see for myself that all was well, and (I confess) to see
    if she was still as beautiful as I remembered her.

    I was admitted to an elegant