by Peter Rimmer
Ernest Gilchrist was going on as usual. He was such a bore.
Jack always thought he must look more stupid than he really was. Having inherited Great-Grandfather Merryweather’s money, he had also inherited the old man’s sense of its value. Left to his own devices, Jack was sure he could have made himself a good living. He rather thought he would have enjoyed making himself a good living. An educated Englishman had the whole empire waiting at his feet. Though he had never bothered taking himself to university (like so many other things in Jack’s life, with so much money it seemed rather pointless – you had to do something with a degree if you had one), he had read consistently and well. Reading was one of his passions.
Ernest Gilchrist had never once before asked him to go for a drink in the Berkeley. They had dined together and in company many times but never gone for a drink. They were what people called friends.
“Are your families related?” he said sweetly to Ernest Gilchrist as he sipped his second dry martini.
“Yes. Well. Matter of fact. Yes, I rather think we are.”
The girl gave Jack a withering look, and the mother looked uncomfortable. Then he had it. His memory, bad at the social functions, never forgot what he had read in a newspaper.
“I was so sorry to read about Mr Barker,” Jack said to the mother.
The mother went white but the girl, to his surprise, smiled. She had a very pretty smile. Ernest Gilchrist crossed and uncrossed his legs and Jack felt sorry for them.
“Why don’t we all have supper together?” he said on the spur of the moment into the silence. “There’s a place in Soho that serves the best Greek food in London. Do you eat Greek food, Mrs Barker?”
“Yes, I do, Mr Merryweather.”
“And Miss Barker?”
“I am partial to the way Greeks cook lamb,” said the girl almost laughing.
“Good. Because we don’t have to change for dinner. I hate going to change for dinner when I’m having a good time. Ernest, I hope you will not mind if I insist the supper is on me.”
“Not at all, dear chap. Very good of you.”
The only thing he did not understand was the coincidence of the park. He was about to ask when he saw the girl very slightly shake her head. He was going to enjoy his evening after all.
Jack turned the story of Jim Barker over in his head. Poor sod, he drowned himself in the Thames when he knew he had run out of money. Jack thought having to start all over again would be a lot of fun, but he didn’t have a wife and daughter to support.
While they were driving in the cab to the Greek restaurant, Jack racked his brains to remember who in his club had told him Barker was bankrupt. The newspaper had called it a drowning accident. So what, all that mattered was he and the girl knew where they stood with each other. They could have a good evening without all the nonsense. Why were people always after his money? And he wasn’t a fool. Only fools were easily parted from their money, he told himself.
The next afternoon, just before her stint in Green Park, Mrs Barker explained to Sallie the exact details of their predicament. The only salvage from the bankruptcy of Mr Barker was five hundred and ten pounds plus a few shillings her husband had left next to the potting shed at the end of the garden. The gardener and gardener’s boy had no idea what was underneath the compost heap.
“If I have to run away, look under the compost heap. There’s always brass where there’s muck.” The last sentence was spoken in the accent of Mr Barker’s parents who had made money. At the time, Mrs Barker had cringed at the broad Yorkshire accent. He was drunk on a bottle of port after their guests had left. She had no idea what he was talking about. She hoped her daughter, who had gone upstairs to bed, had not been reminded of Mr Barker’s ancestry. She had, of course, married him for his money, ignoring the fifteen year age gap. At that moment of compost heaps and common parents, not even the eleven servants in the house and garden had made her marriage worth its while. She hated her life for always having to be dependent on men.
The servants left altogether a month after the drowning when she was unable to draw money to pay their wages. They had never liked her so that side did not matter. From very rich to digging under the compost heap with a shovel in one month. The cuttings from the autumn’s cut-back were quite hot in the centre and the smell was sweet. Determined and desperate, she carried on digging and found a black painted cash box without a lock. Inside was the money but no note. She rather thought her husband didn’t like her either.
The money belonged to the bank like all his assets. She pulled up her long skirt and stuffed the notes up inside her knickers. The coins she kept in her hand. She threw the empty black box into the fish pond and watched it sink out of sight. The lilies were thick where she had thrown the box. For weeks she schemed her way out of trouble, even joining the movement for women’s rights. All they wanted was money to pursue their campaign so that hadn’t been any good to her.
“I’m forty-one, Sallie. Forty-one years old. I was never pretty like you, which is why I married your father. I was well bred if nothing else. It was not meant to end like this. I rather think before the tradesmen make a fuss we had best leave this country. Your father left a box next to the potting shed so we still have some money. A little money. A very little money. I had thought of India, as even quite plain girls have found husbands in India. There are very few white women of breeding who go to India. It is far too hot. Last night that young man gave me our last hope. We will sail to South Africa on the SS King Emperor. I have made enquiries. We will take a small cabin together, the smallest in the first class. If needs be, another ship will take us on to India.”
“He’s not going to marry me, Mother. Please. We’d end up destitute far from our home. Mr Merryweather knows your plan perfectly well.”
“He probably does, but he likes you. I was watching you while I ate that delicious roast lamb. In Cape Town, Ernest has a cousin he has never met. They are also cousins of ours. He has written them a letter for me to take to Cape Town. They can’t throw a blood relation on the streets. Not in the colonies. There will be no prospects for a penniless widow of forty-one, so I shall take a job as a governess, and no one here will know my shame. You are beautiful. Our cousins will welcome you with open arms. Pretty, well-bred girls are always welcome in the colonies. Now, run along into the park. Mrs Chilcott insists we contribute something to the cause. The rent on this flat is due the day the SS King Emperor sails from Southampton. Ernest will escort us to the boat. Such a pity he has no money. He likes you, my dear. I rather think it’s why he’s been the only one willing to help. Mr Merryweather will have a great surprise when the ship sails… You’d better go now before it begins to rain. There’s that woman.”
“Come in, Mrs Chilcott,” Mrs Barker sweetly said to Mrs Chilcott who still had money. “How many girls do we have today for the park?”
“There’s Sallie, I’m afraid. Just Sallie.”
“You can always rely on Sallie.”
The placard for Sallie to carry was in the hansom cab waiting at the kerb outside the rented flat. As she got in to be driven to the park, a sharp April shower drummed down on the roof. She was a little frightened at the prospect of leaving England. Familiarity was comfort in itself. Then there was the adventure, and she was only nineteen years old. By the end of supper in the Greek restaurant, the wet dishcloth she had thought of as Mr Merryweather’s personality, had not been so wet at all.
When they reached Green Park the rain had stopped drumming on the roof of Mrs Chilcott’s hansom cab. Mrs Chilcott, of course, would stay out of the rain and trouble. She was a firm believer in telling other people to do the work. Mrs Chilcott wished to be the first woman member of the House of Commons. She would go down in history. She would be remembered.
Sallie looked around for Mr Merryweather, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Albert Pringle stood outside the tradesman’s entrance and pulled the chain for the third time. Inside the kitchen, the bell rang a
s the long chain jerked it up and down. He was full of one of his mother’s plum pies. There was no doubt in his mind. For as long as he might stay in London as a gentleman’s gentleman his mother would always be the best cook in the world. The thick pastry covered in nutmeg, held up in the middle of the pie by the upturned old cup with the broken-off handle, was delicious. For a boy to grow up in a house with a mother that could cook was the greatest blessing a boy could ever want. That, and a happy family where everybody laughed. Well, they laughed more in Dorset than all the rich he had seen in London. Most of them did.
The old house was unusually quiet. No one came to the door. Turning back, he looked over the low stone wall into the herb garden that had been laid out in the time of Robert St Clair’s great-great-grandfather. The garden was a blessing for the cook and the rest of the village for that matter. When the gardener carefully cut back the plants at the end of the growing season the cuttings were tied with raffia string and hung in the shed next to the kitchen garden to dry. Anyone who did any business with the Manor was allowed to take away bunches of the dried herbs. They only had to ask the head gardener first. The Pringle cottage by the stream had always smelled mysterious for as long as Albert could remember. Big bunches of herbs hung away from the stove in the kitchen, just low enough for Mrs Pringle to reach up. He had eaten stews without herbs away from home. They never had the same taste.
The telegraph boy from the village walked into view. Albert could just see his head over the hedge. The yew hedge around the kitchen garden on the side near the back road to the Manor was not very high. The boy had been walking the most part of the morning. His shoes were very old, having passed down three brothers before they reached him. The boy had not seen Albert though they knew each other. Everyone knew everyone else in Corfe Castle. Albert knew the boy would be hungry and looking forward to a good lunch in the maid’s kitchen. All telegraph boys were given a lunch. It was one of the rules at Purbeck Manor. There were two telegraph boys at the village post office, and they fought for the chance of walking to the Manor and Cook’s lunch. Not all the mothers were as good cooks as Mrs Pringle or Cook. Many of the houses didn’t have enough food to cook because the fathers were lazy. Albert had always been grateful his own father wasn’t lazy. He rather thought his mother wouldn’t have allowed it, anyway.
The telegraph boy had still not seen Albert standing behind a clump of shrubbery, and almost jumped out of his skin when Albert called his name. Albert liked to play small jokes on people.
“There’s nobody in. No lunch for you, young Fred.”
The boy was twelve years old and looked crestfallen. The shine of expectation in his eyes had gone out like a light. The small leather pouch hung over his small body by a strap and was buttoned down tight.
“There must be someone. The house is so big.” The boy piped the words in the Dorset brogue that was soft on the ears.
“Three times I rang the bell,” said Albert.
“Then ring it again. I’m very hungry. There wasn’t any breakfast.”
Albert rang the bell an extra good ring and felt sorry for the boy. The kitchen door opened in an instant.
“What you want, Albert Pringle? You most in London they say. All posh.”
“I’ve got a telegram,” piped the boy.
“Who’s it for?”
“Can’t read.”
“Give it to me… Who’s Mr Brigandshaw? Must be that friend of Mister Robert’s. Come in, boy. Albert Pringle! Stay where you are. Not a foot over my step.”
“I’ve come to see Mister Robert.”
“That might be so but does Mister Robert want to see you?”
Albert smiled to himself. Villagers who left the village were never popular when they came home. Unless they came home from a war. Then they were popular.
With the kitchen door shut in his face, Albert went off to look for himself. The rule was to show yourself to Cook first. Then you could do what you liked. Almost everyone in the village knew their way around the Manor.
Harry Brigandshaw took the cable from the small boy and gave him a shilling. The boy’s face was plastered with food and grubby marks showed where he had wiped his face with the back of his dirty hand. Robert was talking to a man in a town suit who was speaking with a false accent; from Harry’s experience, once a man reached eighteen there was no point in trying to change. At Oxford, they had called him the Colonial as much for his nasal accent as where he lived. He was proud of who he was, proud of his upbringing on Elephant Walk and his schooling in Cape Town at Bishops.
Robert was trying to explain to the man from London how to load and fire a Stephen Grant shotgun. There were two barrels and the firing mechanism was free of pull-back hammers. Harry had missed most of the early part of the conversation while he was mucking out the stables. He had been more interested in the long, one-sided conversation Lord St Clair was having with Daisy while the sow ate out of His Lordship’s hand.
“Tried it once with Hector,” Lord St Clair had said to him happily from the pigsty outside the stable door. “Damn boar wanted my hand as well as the apple. He won’t even let me tickle him behind the ear. You don’t mind mucking out the stables, young man?”
“Worst thing in life is having nothing to do. No. I love horses.”
The telegram had reached him having first gone to Oxford. The rule was always to leave a forwarding address even though he wasn’t going back to university. The cable was from his maternal grandfather and had been sent from the Salisbury post office in Southern Rhodesia. The name of the sender ‘Sir Henry Manderville Bart’ was clearly marked on the top of the telegram. That and where it had been sent from.
Just as Harry read the message, Albert Pringle fired the twelve-bore shotgun, accidentally firing both barrels at the same time.
Lucinda, who was swinging on one half of the stable door trying to show Harry her ankle again, giggled. There was always something impulsively funny about someone else hurting themselves. And with the gun up to his shoulder, hoisting his trouser legs up by the braces, Albert Pringle was wearing red socks for goodness sake. She rather thought her giggle at the red socks had broken his concentration. At least someone was paying her attention. She gave an elaborate back kick to rid herself of the stable door and fell in the dry hay clutching her ankle in what she hoped was a pretty disarray. She waited for Harry to run to her and pick her up off the floor. The seconds ticked and nothing happened. Slyly she turned to him, hooding her eyes. He was standing stock still staring at Fred the telegraph boy from the village. All thought of flirtation left her face, replaced by puzzled concern.
“What is it, Harry?”
“My father’s been killed by an elephant. My father! My father could never be killed by an elephant.” Then he was crying like a child and Lucinda ran and put her arms around his waist.
Lord St Clair found them clinging together while Fred picked up the fallen telegram, which he gave to Lord St Clair.
“Oh, my God,” said Lord St Clair. “Fred, go up to the house and tell my wife to come down here immediately.”
Leaving his youngest daughter hugging Harry, he walked out into the spring sun. Life had its habits of moving very fast. Bess would know what to do for the boy. She was good at those things. She was the kind of person who was always a comfort.
3
Late April 1907
Fifteen days later, Harry Brigandshaw stood on the first-class deck of SS King Emperor looking down at a tug pulling the liner away from the pier. The powerful boat towed the long steel cable in unison with a second tug pulling the stern. A brass band was playing patriotic music as the ship broke free from the shore. The ship was owned by Colonial Shipping, the company founded by his grandfather, who had first sailed Sir Willoughby Potts to the Pacific. Harry had not paid for his cabin, Uncle James had seen to that; his uncle had taken control of the shipping line after leaving the army at the end of the Boer War after Harry’s grandfather died of a heart attack.
Harry had f
irst gone up to London to visit his grandmother in her South Kensington flat. She lived with a companion and a Pekinese dog. He went to his grandmother out of courtesy more than love. They were strangers, a product of his grandfather’s vindictiveness. The rumour went that Harry’s father had run away to Africa with Harry’s mother who, at the time, was married to Harry’s uncle. One day soon he would make his mother tell him the whole story. He rather thought his birth had had something to do with it all.
“You’re a good friend, Robert,” he said to Robert St Clair standing next to him, both leaning on the wide wooden rail. “There are some times in life when a man just doesn’t want to be alone.”
“Your uncle was generous giving me passage.”
“They are all suffering from guilt. Grandfather again. The family skeletons in the cupboard. We’ll have to sit at the captain’s table. Part of the family rules. Let’s hope the Bay of Biscay is not rough. You’ve never sailed before?”
“My poor sisters. All three of them are in love with you.” Down below the three girls were waving madly, faces turned up to the high deck of the big ship. The whole St Clair family had come to see them off at Southampton.