The Brigandshaw Chronicles Box Set

by Peter Rimmer

  Remembering to knock properly, so Lily would know without asking who was at the door, he banged the hardwood and hurt his knuckles. Lily herself opened the door still fully dressed. At midnight, it was her habit to take a nap before cashing up at three in the morning, after which they would all drive home to their respective houses.

  “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost, Albert Pringle.”

  “I only wish he was a ghost. Lily, downstairs, right now, is my gentleman and your ex-lover, the one what paid our passage to Africa. He’s after us, I tell you. Saw me ’e did. Got a right turn. He didn’t look happy.”

  “What the hell you talking about?”

  “Jack Merryweather. In person. Downstairs. Truth. Cross my heart. Looked right through my black soul, he did, and it wasn’t nice, Lily. What are we going to do?”

  “Buy him a drink, silly. He won’t bite. Attack is the best form of defence. Where’s Sallie?”

  “Somewhere in the club. I don’t know.”

  “We’re all in the same boat, silly. The card he gave her. The cable she sent. His conscience has pricked at last. He’s not come after you or me. It’s poor Sallie. Pull yourself together and remember what we are, now. Not what we were then. You can say you came straight up here to tell me. He doesn’t have to know you ran away like a scared rat. Money levels everything in life. We are rich, remember? You ask ’im how his grandfather made his money and it won’t be no different to how we made ours. A good product and hard work. You mark my words, Albert. Your grandchildren will look just like Jack Merryweather if we carry on as we are. And a lot of thanks to Sallie Barker. Now pull yourself together and we’ll both go downstairs together. I don’t really know what the bloody hell he’s here for so let’s go and find out.”

  Sallie Barker saw the man who ignored her cable for help without being seen herself. He was sitting at the bar by himself looking miserable, not even trying to engage the barman in conversation. Maybe the man had had better things to do than help a nineteen-year-old girl in distress, but then why had he given her his card? There had been something between them she was certain. From the meeting of the eyes in Green Park while she had help up the suffragette banner for her mother, to the dinner he had taken them to, to the days and evenings on the boat out from England. Or had it all been polite flirtation to pass the time for a man who did not have to work for a living, who had too much money and too much time on his hands?

  She had written three unanswered letters to her mother at the Flugelhorne house in Constantia and then given up. She had done her best. She had explained. She had not even blamed her mother for not believing she had been raped. She imagined her mother ensconced in luxury and too busy with her social life to worry about a daughter who had run away to start a whorehouse with friends. Sallie rather thought her mother could have found out that she worked at the Mansion House. The world was small. Everyone liked to tell tales. There were often men in the club with businesses in Cape Town. She had never changed her name like Lily White. If she had made a mistake, it was too late to change anything now. She was what she was. Sallie Barker, financial manager of the Mansion House. They could all take her or leave her, including her mother if that was what they thought of her precious reputation.

  Oh, what the hell, she thought. She had a top salary and a share in the business, same as Albert Pringle. She had a house of her own with servants. She was rich in a comparative sort of way. And she had not stolen one cent. Neither had Albert. Lily White might not have been able to manage her own money, but she knew how to manage people. She knew how their dirty little minds worked, or so she said.

  “Give an employee too much and he’ll think you a fool, which you are. Give him too little and he’ll steal. That’s your job, Sallie. Give me the right balance. And that goes for you and Albert. Strike the right balance and we’ll all strike it rich. The rest goes without saying. I don’t want no one stealing from me, barmen, waiters, or whores.”

  Six years is a long time if you have not seen a woman, especially if you liked what you saw the first time, and kept the picture clearly in the memory, thought Jack Merryweather.

  Jack watched the woman in the mirror behind the rows of bottles, the face just above the Booth’s London Dry Gin; he had his profile to the girl. He looked down the bar at the door beside the service hatch, through which he was sure Albert Pringle had escaped on his hands and knees. He had seen the door obviously open and shut without the visible sign of human hand.

  The lovely black ringlets had gone and the soft brown eyes were now as hard as coal and as dark. There were no smile lines around her eyes or mouth. The hair was cut short for convenience with a sharp fringe along the forehead. The dark tailored suit she wore was well cut but severe. Every ounce of femininity that had been Sallie Barker at nineteen years old had blown away in the six years; Jack Merryweather was glad Mrs Flugelhorne had killed her husband who had chased the life out of the face he was studying above the Booth’s gin bottle. The woman Mrs Flugelhorne should have been a hero, and not hanged for her pains. Once again, Jack wondered if he would ever understand the human condition. He decided he would not like to find out what had gone through the girl’s head in the past six years and looked away.

  With luck, he had changed considerably himself. He looked again in the mirror. What a way to find out about life. Someone, other than Mrs Flugelhorne, was going to pay. The circle of hate would go on round, recreating itself. She had not moved or stopped staring at his profile. He knew that if he turned and looked directly into the dark eyes some of the hatred would be directed at him and he wondered why. As far as he knew, Jack Merryweather had never done anyone a bad turn.

  He was concentrating so hard on the face in the mirror, willing it to stay where it was and not come forward that he did not notice two people sit down beside him at the bar.

  “Hello, Jack. How’ve you been?”

  Between the time it took for Jack to turn around at the bar, Sallie Barker had vanished. He even took a quick look again in the mirror. She was gone.

  “Can I buy you a drink, since I own the place? You remember Albert Pringle? Well, here we are. What do you want, other than a drink and a good old chat with old friends? Used to belong to Barney Barnato, if you ever heard of ’im. Built solid as I like it.”

  Jack turned and looked at her. “Thank you, Lily. I’ll have some of that nice Booth’s gin with some French vermouth. I can’t say you haven’t changed because you have. Nice suit, Albert. For my taste a bit flash. The landlord in Strand Street told me what happened, so we don’t have to go down that road, now or ever.”

  “What brings you here?” asked Lily, feigning indifference. She even tried to look at her fingernails.

  “I met an old friend of mine in London and one thing led to another. He told me a very strange story about his cousin, Mrs Flugelhorne. There was a lot about Sallie Barker. For some reason of impulse, I took the first boat to Africa. I must be sentimental or romantic. I’m not sure which.”

  “You didn’t get a cable?”

  “What cable?”

  “The one she sent to Elephant Walk. Did you shoot an elephant?”

  “No, I didn’t. Neither did I receive a cable and I stayed for two months. Neither did anyone else on Elephant Walk so far as I know. All you owe me is two months’ rent for the Strand Street house. No, on second thoughts, you don’t. Have it as a house-warming gift. Funny enough, there’s nothing better than ex-employees doing well for themselves. I rather feel I had a part in your education.”

  “I was an employee. That how you think of me, Jack?”

  “Lily. Please. How else would you like me to put it?… Thank you, Mister Barman. A very dry martini, with Booth’s gin and Noilly Prat vermouth. Cut a piece of lemon rind, hold it over the full glass, break the lemon peel, and as the juice spurts, burn the juice with a match. And Miss White is paying. I rather think it is the least she could do for an old friend… Now you had better tell me about this Barney Barnato. Who was he?
”

  Jack let the woman who had once been his mistress prattle on while he tried to take stock of the situation. By looking at her he would never guess her age at thirty-six, which, on casting back his mind, he knew to be correct. The large bosom that had been the cause of her becoming his mistress was now all one of a piece with the rest of her body. The hips had risen up to match the stomach, and the stomach had happily merged with the girl’s large bust, which joined with the wobbly flesh that hung from her arms and chin. Her chin had largely given up the ghost and lost itself in the flesh. What had once been a good-looking buxom wench was now a fat, square woman, with legs that matched the size of the legs of the grand piano being played by a young girl rather well, the quartet having gone off for their late supper. Without hearing Lily’s voice he would have sworn under oath in a court that he had never before seen the woman in his life. Sadly, Jack thought, there is always a price to pay for everything.

  Albert Pringle had not said a word, he was so full of guilt. Jack tried unsuccessfully to give him an understanding look while he listened to Lily in full flight. There was one thing he knew about people. Get them talking about themselves and they will love you all night. Having let his mind fall out of the conversation, he jolted it back to say the right thing to appreciate Lily White’s great success by nodding his head with approval. If money was the currency of happiness, the once upon a time Lily Ramsbottom had to be a very happy girl. He finished the dry martini and ordered another one. He had the feeling it was going to be a long night. By the end of his fifth cocktail, he didn’t care. That was the wonderful thing about alcohol, he told himself. It took care of things. Blanked the mind. Made ugly situations comfortable.

  When Sallie Barker sat down next to him he was drunk. He did not even remember taking a taxi back to the Langham Hotel.

  She thought to ring him the next day to remind him of his invitation to lunch.

  Jack had tried every trick he knew to bring down his hangover but nothing had worked. The front of his head had the wish to split open. His hands were visibly shaking. He rather thought that after the dry martinis he had drunk a bottle of red wine. He certainly had a red wine hangover.

  He told the head waiter to find him in the ladies’ cocktail bar when his guest arrived and sat down on a finely made upright wooden chair at the bar, a similar barstool to the one that had started the rot the night before. It was twelve noon and the bar had just opened. Sunlight was streaming through the open window searing his eyes. He had forgotten how bright the light was in Africa. The barman put down a gin and tonic, quinine tonic, ducked from behind the bar under the service hatch and covered the offending window with a heavy lace curtain. The first gin tasted terrible. The second not so bad. The man down the end of the bar looked as miserable as Jack felt. Together with the barman, they had the place to themselves. No one spoke. They drank in complete silence.

  “Probably the best thing to do,” she said from his left elbow.

  “Was I very drunk last night?”

  “Yes, you were. I’d have let you go back to England without seeing me if you did not think it so important. You don’t remember asking me to lunch?”

  “Not really.” Jack stood up. The movement jolted the pain in his head.

  “That bad?”

  “Did I drink red wine?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “You don’t believe the cable never reached me?”

  “Lily doesn’t. Neither does Albert. They said at the time you’d do nothing.”

  “I’d have come… It’s pretty primitive up there in Rhodesia. Probably the telegraph boy was eaten by a lion along with your cable. I’m sorry, do you want a drink?”

  “Can you face lunch?”

  “Not really.”

  “Can you tell me everything you know?”

  “You didn’t read about Mrs Flugelhorne in the papers?”

  “The Mansion House is a whorehouse, not a library. People don’t talk about middle-aged women. All I want is the truth, warts and all.”

  Sallie sat down next to him with a glass of perfectly crushed orange juice. The other man down the bar was set for the day. The third stiff gin had steadied Jack’s hands. He told her everything he had heard from Ernest Gilchrist.

  “Do you know what happened to my mother?”

  “She took a job in the country as a housekeeper.”

  “Poor Mother… Do you have her address?”

  “No I don’t but I’ll find out for you.”

  “Can you watch me eat lunch? I’m starving.”

  “Funnily enough, I feel much better. Hair of the dog. Let’s go and have lunch, and you can tell me all over again what you’ve been doing. After drinking the gin last night I don’t remember very much.”

  “The irony of life. Father goes bust and kills himself. Mother becomes a servant. I get rich.”

  “There always was something to be said for a whorehouse.” Jack was smiling. He was trying to lighten the mood.

  “I was never a whore. They tried. If the rich want you they’ll offer a fortune. I was pretty then.”

  “You are now,” lied Jack, finishing his third drink, which he decided was enough.

  “You do believe I never whored?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do. It was never in your nature. I knew your mother was shopping for a husband for you. When you are a rich bachelor it happens often. We understood each other, you and I, that first dinner with your mother and Ernest Gilchrist. I knew you weren’t a gold-digger. Your mother was digging for the gold. Not you.”

  The roast beef in the Langham’s restaurant was as good as anything Jack had eaten in Europe. They both ate hungrily at a bay window table. Some of the men looked Sallie’s way and pretended not to recognise her.

  “None of them can believe I’m just the accountant. The one with his wife two tables away offered me ten thousand pounds. He even tried the legitimate route before he married that girl. He’s what they call here a rand baron. What in England you would call a rich crook. They say he salted three gold mines with gold from elsewhere. Word got out. Shares went up. Friend over there dumped his shares. Gold seam ran out. What’s better, that or whoring? We look after the girls. I invest their savings and they trust me. Lily would have lost the lot years ago. Any good-looking man with a dream can make her invest her money. I vet everything. She can’t even write the cheques without my signature.”

  “How did you learn all this? Accounting? Finance?”

  “I may not read the scandal sheets, but I do read all the financial papers. And I took a three-year correspondence course. We both did, Albert and I.”

  “Are you two?…”

  “Not like that. Neither of us ever wish to rely on anyone except ourselves. Not my father. Not my mother. Flugelhorne. Lily. You, Jack. We want our own money so we can tell the rest of you to go to hell. Independence. Personal security. Money. To have money. I wanted to have money, real money. I will soon. I found a buyer for the Mansion House. Like my friend over there everyone will have forgotten the foundation of my wealth in five years. No one worries about his salted gold mines. I’ll be able to tell the lie that Daddy left it to me. Society will accept me because I’m rich and educated. The men who know my past will keep quiet. Education, Jack. Run a whorehouse for six years and you will be amazed. The University of Life. It gives you the sixth sense in business. Did Albert tell you he is going up to Oxford?”

  “Don’t be silly. He only went to school for a few years. Can barely write properly.”

  “Well, he can now. Our Albert’s going a long way. Mark my words. He sent his mother money, which is why I want my mother’s address. I don’t want to see her. She could have found me easily enough. You did. I want to send her money. Lots of it. Rather like mud in your eye.”

  “You really think Albert will get into Oxford?”

  “Cecil Rhodes did as an adult scholar.”

  “But he was Cecil Rhodes. The empire. Some say the richest man in an empire he dreamed of ex
tending from Cape to Cairo.”

  “Albert may not get to Oxford for other reasons. Rhodes found it difficult to run a financial empire and go across to university. Albert now has the same standard of education as my own. There’s a lot of spare time running our business. For the non-participants. Until there’s trouble. So we have to be on the premises all the time. On immediate call. We have lots of time to read and study. To talk. Did you know he read many of the books in your library? You thought he was just sitting around when you went to the club or went to see Lily. He was always waiting up for you, wasn’t he? To keep himself from going out of his mind with boredom, he began reading your books. You are right, his handwriting was terrible and his reading not much better when he became your valet. But he went on for nothing better to do. Slowly, he understood what he was reading and after that, his reading became a compulsion. He wanted to know it all.”

  “We never even talked about books.”

  “Most people leave school and never read another book. Their education stops dead when they walk out of the classroom. For Albert Pringle, he only began to use his brain when he found your library of books.”

  “Will Lily want to sell the Mansion House?”

  “She does what I say when it comes to money. She’s going to buy a top hotel. Or build one. She’s good at looking after guests and very good at running a restaurant as you could see. ‘Got to try everything, Sallie,’ is her motto. And she means only the food.”

  “May I ask you something very personal? Please don’t take it as being male. Why did you cut off the ringlets? Fringe your hair? Wear severely cut suits?”

  “But you said I was still pretty, Jack.”

  “I was lying. Sorry. The truth is best left unsaid. You were one of the prettiest girls I ever saw in my life.”

  “Thank you, Jack. That was very sweet of you. And you didn’t mention the glasses. Would you like to have a look through them?”