The Brigandshaw Chronicles Box Set

by Peter Rimmer

  “Is that Hastings Court?” she asked in disgust. “Why’s it got a sign hanging outside? It’s small, Harry.”

  “It’s a public house. Merlin wants to pay the place a visit.”

  “We can go and have a drink in the bar,” said Merlin.

  “That’s the only good idea today… I want a large one. My nerves.”

  “Were you frightened?” asked Harry. He was holding her hand as they crossed the few yards of gravel to a small, low door that led into the building.

  “Yes, I was.”

  “Then you don’t wish to go up in an aeroplane?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Harry thought she was looking particularly pretty. Her hair was ruffled. Her big summer hat was in her free hand with her shoes. Brett very often took off her shoes. Harry wondered why the gravel did not hurt her feet, though as he watched her she picked her spots carefully.

  The door led straight into the bar. There was nobody inside. The whole place was silent. A man came in and greeted Merlin. Harry thought they seemed to know each other. A girl, probably the barmaid, had followed the man into the bar that smelled deliciously of ancient beer spilt into the woodwork of the counter over the centuries. Harry wondered how many of his ancestors and relations had taken drinks here. They were four miles from Hastings Court. He liked the feel of the place. It was friendly. Like home.

  Outside a small girl was crossing the gravel. She stopped and looked at the car. Then she ran towards the open door into the bar and burst into the room.

  “Genevieve, this is your father,” said the barmaid.

  “Is he really my daddy?” the girl asked looking up at Merlin with big eyes.

  “Yes I am,” said Merlin. “Did you get my presents?”

  “Why don’t you come visit?” The girl pronounced her words in a broad vernacular.

  “I’m here now,” Merlin answered.

  Harry looked from the girl to the barmaid and understood.

  “You must be Esther,” said Harry, putting out his hand to her, all the pieces falling together. “I’m Harry Brigandshaw. I was over here during the war. Merlin talked about you more than once. You have a very pretty daughter.”

  “Am I pretty?” said the small girl.

  “Very pretty.” Harry had got down on his haunches to look into the girl’s eyes. They were familiar from long ago when he had first met Lucinda when she was only fifteen. “I am your Uncle Harry. I was married to your Aunt Lucinda.”

  “Are you Aunt Lucinda?” the girl asked Brett.

  “No. She lives a long way away. Your Uncle Harry is just visiting. My name is Brett. What’s yours?” Brett was being diplomatic. She had not wished to tell the small girl her aunt was dead. Harry smiled, liking Brett even more.

  “Genevieve. My mummy calls me Genevieve. I like Gen.”

  The man had gone, leaving them alone in the bar. They all had one drink and went on their way.

  The buyer was due at Hastings Court at four o’clock. Brett had the small girl in the back of the car, seated on her knee. She still had her shoes off and wriggled her toes in her stockings. The idea of taking the girl had been Brett’s. Esther had to work. They were to have her back after tea. When the pieces fell together Harry had remembered Merlin’s mistress before the war had been the barmaid at the Running Horses at Mickleham. He had even remembered her name. Esther. It was an uncommon name.

  Hastings Court had undergone great change since Harry’s Grandfather Manderville had left the home for Italy and Africa. The roof had been sealed. The crumbling stone was repaired and the red clay pots replaced on top of the clusters of Queen Anne chimneys that dominated the skyline of the old house.

  There were no longer weeds in the front driveway. The hedges were cut. The lawns were cut. The trees trim. The acres lost by the Mandervilles had been bought again and added to the estate. The flower beds from which Harry’s father had placed a ladder to his mother’s bedroom window were full of daffodils and tulips, the weeds long gone. All over the twenty acres of garden, gardeners toiled.

  The fields beyond were full of cows and sheep. From the woods came the loud call of the mating pheasants. Peacock strutted paths between the rows of flower beds. Lily ponds were full of fat coloured carp.

  From the outside, everything looked perfect. Even Crosswell was standing at the top of the steps that led through the double front doors, the oak doors studded with small iron crosses dating back to the eleventh century. Above, the old battlements had been replaced with ornamental battlements that would no longer withstand a siege.

  Harry looked up at his ancestral home for a long moment before getting out of the car he had parked in the driveway below the wide steps that led up to the house. Servants were coming out behind Crosswell, ready to add their obedient greetings to that of the butler’s. The Lord of the Manor was home. Harry shook his head in disbelief. It was all too medieval.

  “It’s marvellous,” burst out Brett. “You can’t sell this. Never. Just look at it. Just look at all that history. I can’t wait to go inside.”

  One of the peacocks let out a terrible sound. Harry had suggested getting rid of the peacocks. They even screamed at night from where they roosted up in the trees. For Harry, the peacock had the only bird sound that jarred. That and the hadeda ibis when the birds slowly flew in flocks to roost.

  “Welcome home, Sir Harry,” said Crosswell, coming down the steps and walking to the car where he opened the door for Brett. Harry had given up explaining to his newly inherited butler he was not a knight of the realm.

  “A man called, Sir Harry. The American will not be coming at four o’clock.”

  “Will he be coming later?” said Harry in alarm.

  “The man did not say, Sir Harry.”

  Harry shook his head again. He was stuck with the place. An ancestral conspiracy.

  The small girl had run down to the first pond to look at the fish. She looked more at home than Harry. The girl looked back to see if her new-found father was watching her.

  “Welcome to Hastings Court,” said Harry wearily to his guests.

  The butler was already directing two young men in uniform to take the bags from the back of the Bentley. Crosswell had taken the keys from Harry. The butler even knew how to open the boot of the car. There had obviously been more guests at Hastings Court when Harry’s uncle was alive.

  There was a rich smell of perfume coming from somewhere. Harry was not sure of the scents of the English flowers. He looked around but could not pinpoint the source of the lovely smell.

  There were no dogs to greet him. Only the servants. Not even a pair of tame Egyptian geese. Not even a cat sleeping on a windowsill. The thing that worried him most was the pure waste of money he was forced to spend maintaining the place. It was pure ostentation. A rude show of wealth.

  Silently, as he walked across to his home, he cursed the American for not taking the white elephant off his hands. Why people wanted to show off their wealth, Harry would never understand.

  “It’s older than Purbeck Manor,” said Merlin, looking up at the house.

  “Parts are about the same time as your Corfe Castle. The keep to the right was built first and rebuilt. That’s where they started. Soon after the family came over with William the Conqueror from France.”

  Merlin was shaking his head, “I agree with Brett. You can’t sell this place, Harry. You have a duty to all those people who came before.”

  “You sound like my grandfather.”

  Genevieve came racing back from the fish pond. Nearer to Merlin she was not so sure of herself.

  The small girl ate a crumpet dripping in butter and strawberry jam in front of a big log fire in the one small room Harry found he could enjoy. The rest of the rooms were too big. The ceilings too high. He had long concluded his ancestors were a hardy lot. Even in May, the old house was as cold as charity.

  Each of them had been allocated a room. Harry was given the master bedroom. The right cases were left in each ro
om. Brett was furious. Her room was half a corridor from the master’s bedroom, almost fifty yards of a cold night.

  A fire had been lit in each bedroom as soon as they had arrived. The place had a smell about it Harry had found no place else in his life. Then he had the answer while sitting around the fire in the small, inner room.

  “Age. The place smells of old age. Old people smell of old age. This house smells of old age. It seeps out at you.” Harry was twitching his nose.

  “It would have been different had you grown up in the house,” said Merlin complacently. “We all like what we find when we come into this world. It’s what we find later we don’t like. It’s better with lots of family in these big houses. In the old days, everyone had a dozen children. The grandparents stayed where they were. Maiden aunts never left the family house. Poor cousins came to live. The only way to entertain was to have people to stay. In those days you couldn’t drive down from London for a night as we’ve done. The servants were family too. The old bird dusting the grand piano was probably the woman who gave you your first bath. It’s quite different once they’ve seen you naked in the bath. You remember Aunt Nut and Granny Forrester, Harry? And old Potts? They made Purbeck Manor what it is. A family home. You need to find a wife and breed lots of children, Harry. Bring your mother home. Your grandfather. Your sister is on her own. Then the place will feel like a home.”

  “They won’t come. I see your point. Elephant Walk is our home. Why I want to go back so badly.”

  “What about poor Brett?” She was pouting again, both hands firmly on a large glass of gin that she drank with very little tonic water.

  “You’d love Africa,” said Harry, wistfully thinking of Africa.

  “Are you taking me to Africa? Oh, I couldn’t do that Harry. What about my brilliant career in the theatre? Even if I have been resting rather a long time. I like this place. Though I wouldn’t want loads of children, oh no. What’s wrong with Hastings Court?”

  After tea, they took Genevieve back to her mother at the Running Horses. Brett had stayed at Hastings Court next to the bottle of gin.

  “What are you going to do with her?” asked Harry, referring to Merlin’s daughter. They were driving back with Harry at the wheel of the Bentley. He was driving slowly through the English lanes, freshly green with spring.

  “I have no idea. I’ll be damned if I do and damned if I don’t. Her mother and I come from different worlds. Which one should Genevieve belong to? What did they do in the old days?”

  “They did not recognise their illegitimate children. Paid for their other family and kept quiet.”

  “I can’t just leave her. Anyway, she is the only child I’ve got. And I can forget about Tina Pringle. You see, Tina now speaks properly. Knows how to behave. Did she ever tell you about Miss Pinforth? She did all that away from her own parents as she was living with her brother in Johannesburg. That makes a difference. What is it about Tina Pringle that makes me want her so much? The others I could take or leave. Like Esther. I was jealous of the corporal but now when I look at her there is nothing.”

  “Tina’s dangerous, Merlin. She’s using you to get at Barnaby.”

  “It’s the way she looks at me.”

  “I know. She does it to me. Not many women have that power in a look. History is dotted with a few of them. Bonaparte’s Josephine. Helen of Troy. Some of the new film stars. It’s something about being unobtainable. Stay away, Merlin. She’s trouble. A very nice girl and I like her very much. But dangerous. Whichever man she gets she will destroy. She probably doesn’t even know she’s doing it. Girls like Brett are much easier.

  “You’d better drive, Merlin. If we stay away too long Brett will finish that bottle of gin and then she won’t be to walk around the estate… I want a walk tonight. I miss my dogs. I need to stretch my legs. London is so confined.”

  Harry stopped the car so they could change drivers.

  In the end, Harry walked on his own leaving Merlin with Brett talking around the fire. The spring evening was cold. Fresh air filled his lungs, bringing him alive.

  Harry walked fast around the ornamental lake that unbeknown to him had once been his Grandmother Brigandshaw’s haven from the world. Then he walked into his fields among the cows and sheep, having a good look at them. There were no wet brown blotches from blowfly on the sheep. No sign of ticks on the cows.

  “They probably have different problems in England.”

  The small rabbits looking at him from a hill to his left said not a word in reply. Harry waved, and the rabbits disappeared. Harry knew he was at a crossroads in his life. He knew which fork to take. Which fork he wanted. He was not so sure if it was the right fork for the other people who depended upon him. Even now, after so few months as a businessman, he was sure he was well capable of running a shipping line… Africa was wild and dangerous. The black people would not accept the English complacently forever. Unless the English gave them a far better life. The idea of a school on Elephant Walk passed through his mind. If the black people were to compete in the modern world, they had to be educated in modern ways. The idea to Harry was good and bad. Often at home, he thought the black people would have been better off without the English. The trappings of wealth looked attractive. Alluring to some. For Harry, a thatched hut next to an African river was far more alluring.

  “There must be something wrong with me,” he said again out loud. “Or is there?”

  He stopped to pick wildflowers for Brett and ask her the names. Merlin would know. They were pretty. Some even similar to the ones he found in the African bush after the rain. Flowers came and went in Africa according to the patterns of the rain. Harry liked that.

  12

  Manipulations, May 1922

  “You can come in but you can’t stay. Why are you here, Barnaby?”

  It was six o’clock in the evening at Tina Pringle’s front door in St John’s Wood. The May evening was still full of sunlight.

  “Max and CE Porter think I’m a fool. They are trying to tell me to sell Harry Brigandshaw’s company short.”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about,” said Tina. “Did you know Merlin had a daughter?”

  “He’s a bachelor and will remain one for the rest of his life… They are trying to tell me they have overvalued the shares. That when the shares are listed on Monday, they will sink well below the asking price. It’s rubbish. I know the offer is oversubscribed. That bank manager of mine couldn’t get me more than one thousand shares. I’ll have to go and see Harry and buy the shares openly in my own name. He’s my brother-in-law. He can allocate the new shares, or at least tell CE Porter I’m to have some. Word I heard is, it’s oversubscribed five times. It’ll go up terrifically.”

  “You’re being boring, Barnaby… Her name is Genevieve, and she’s seven years old.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Merlin’s daughter. You remember Esther?”

  “She married a corporal. Made a perfect fool of Merlin. He was paying for her flat. Everything. What comes of sleeping with low-class sluts. What else can you expect?”

  “Esther has a daughter.” Tina Pringle was enjoying herself. It was not often she knew about something before Barnaby. Something with so much juice in it.

  “Then the child is the corporal’s.”

  “She was born six months after they married.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. Makes it worse. While Merlin was away fighting the war, his mistress was having an affair. Worse than her getting married behind Merlin’s back. Merlin would never have married her of course. She was so common. A barmaid. Merlin had no sense of decorum. Picked her up at a country pub and brought her up to London. It was a nice flat. I remember Esther.”

  “Were you also her lover, Barnaby?”

  “She was Merlin’s mistress! Merlin is my brother.”

  “That wouldn’t stop you if you wanted her.”

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  “Why did you g
o around?”

  “I was with Merlin.”

  “You’re a liar. Merlin would never have introduced you to a mistress. You St Clairs are far too snobby.”

  “I was with Merlin. Before he went to war. He was going to Purbeck Manor. It was my last hols from school. We had to go and see Esther for some reason. Before we took the train to Corfe Castle. The flat was on the way.”

  “You are digging a hole. Really. Sixteen and giving one to your brother’s mistress. You never fail to amaze me, Barnaby. Just how low you can go to get what you want.”

  “Can I have a drink? It’s six o’clock. We can go to a show. Why don’t you answer your phone?”

  “I knew it was you and I didn’t want to talk to you. You can have one whisky and then you can go.”

  “What is it you want, Tina? We don’t have sex. You don’t answer your telephone. When I do come round to your flat we fight. Share dealing for me is important. How I get rich. Though not as rich as I want to be.”

  Tina stared at him silently for a long time.

  “I’m not going to get married if that’s what you want,” said Barnaby defiantly. “If I did want to, I’d marry a rich girl.”

  “And keep me as your mistress.”

  “That would be nice. I can afford the allowance your brother pays. I just need Harry to let me have a good block of Colonial Shipping shares. We’d have the best of both worlds.”

  “No. You’d have the best of both worlds.”

  Tina stared at him again. She felt like hitting him hard across the face. Or better still, she thought, with something hard over the head.

  “The girl has different-coloured eyes. Like Merlin’s. They must have recognised each other. Brett says Merlin has no idea what to do.”

  “You hate Brett.”

  “I hate you more.”

  “Give me a whisky and shut up.”

  “Don’t you want to make love, Barnaby?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Come on then. Just a quick one. Then you must go.”