A View of the Empire at Sunset

by Caryl Phillips

  25

  Sunday Lunch

  As she lingers on the train station platform, she follows Lancey’s car as it continues to labour its way back up the hill, where it will soon crest and thereafter plunge out of sight. She can see that, as usual, Lancey is driving too slowly, but she hopes that before he returns to the depressing Victorian brick house that stands half-hidden behind a line of overgrown trees he will not have entirely emptied his mind of “Little Miss British Crown Colony.” She had arrived at the rural train station only a few hours earlier, and while Lancey had initially greeted her with enthusiasm, as they began to motor the short distance between the train station and Cousin Julian’s house, their conversation began to fade. She turned her attention to the dense thicket of hawthorn and bramble that lined the narrow country lanes, whose banks were dotted with bright flowers, the names of which she had yet to learn. She could sense an unease emanating from her gentleman, and once they arrived at Cousin Julian’s house, lunch rapidly became an ordeal. The assembled pale young men and women, all of whom took pride in exuding an effortless sense of belonging, were clearly both fascinated and appalled by Lancey’s choice of female consort. Sadly, having chosen to exhibit her in this fashion, Lancey proved himself to be singularly incapable of disguising his own embarrassment. Cousin Julian wore the confident demeanour of a bully, and spiteful jibes about “uncategorisable women” went unrebuffed by Lancey. From the moment she arrived, the arrogant young man’s general disdain for her presence in his house was palpable. It was Lancey who eventually suggested that she might wish to catch an earlier train, and she promptly excused herself and retreated to the bathroom, for she didn’t relish the thought of appearing visibly distressed in front of Cousin Julian and his kind.

  She looks up at the road and stares hard at the point where Lancey’s car is about to drop over the hill. She imagines that all must now be well in his world, for with his cashmere travelling rug protecting his shoulders, he is journeying back to the ugly brick house, where he will spend the weekend in the amusing company of his chums. She could already picture Cousin Julian with Champagne flute in hand, pushing back his flap of blond hair from his eyes and wondering aloud if dear Lancey’s savage is not perhaps half-potty. She, on the other hand, will return to the rooms that Lancey pays for and sit alone on the divan bed and mark off the hours according to the pealing of the church bells. She will sit patiently by herself and simply wait for Lancey to once again propose a tryst, such is the nature of their arrangement. Having, at his urging, more or less given up the life of a chorus girl travelling from dingy town to dingy town with a small suitcase in one hand, enduring dimly lit stages and badly rehearsed orchestras, this waiting around is now her life.

  Suddenly she is aware of an elegant bespectacled man on the platform who is staring at her with a practiced eye. He is slight of build but smartly dressed in a broad-shouldered navy blue suit, which makes him appear far more substantial than he actually is. She glances at the svelte fellow and is appalled to see him walking in her direction with a warm smile decorating his thin lips. When he reaches her, the man begins to laugh somewhat self-consciously.

  “Well, my, what a coincidence.” She watches the stranger scrutinizing her puzzled face until it finally dawns on him that he ought to introduce himself. “I’m Robert Carrington, Lucy’s father.” He pauses and ungloves a hand, extending it towards her in a gesture of sincerity. “We met in Lucy’s dressing room.”

  “Why, of course.” Even as she speaks, she wonders why this man assumes that she might remember either him or his daughter. Doesn’t this Mr. Carrington understand that chorus girls are packed into dressing rooms like matches in a box and they seldom have the time or the inclination to exchange names?

  The man hardly pauses for breath as he mentions two other West End shows that he has recently had the pleasure of attending, although neither of them featured his daughter. Eventually the ear-splitting whistle which signals the imminent arrival of a train rescues them both from the artifice of the encounter, but not before Mr. Carrington shares with her the news that she is indeed a very prepossessing young woman. “Might I ask, do you have a friend?” Sure that this man will be travelling in the first-class carriage, she smiles sweetly and prepares to take her leave.

  “It was very nice to see you again, Mr. Carrington. Please do give Lucy my best wishes.”

  Robert Carrington unconsciously brings his heels together in a manner which betrays a military background.

  “Would you, by any chance, be free for dinner one evening?”

  Pretending that the roaring hiss of the steam train has obscured his words, she turns and quickly makes her way towards the second-class carriages.

  26

  His Father’s Friends

  She noticed Lancey playing nervously with the corner of his linen place mat. They were sitting together in Simpson’s restaurant awaiting the arrival of his unpleasant cousin, Julian, who Lancey insisted was a good sort who regretted getting off on the wrong foot with her. She remained unconvinced, but felt she had little choice but to submit to this attempt to broker peace between them. In the meantime, she listened to Lancey as he tried to share with her what he referred to as “some fundamental family history.” “You see,” he continued, “Father died two years ago, which has left Mother quite distraught. He was in his mid-seventies, so it was a fairly good innings, but I don’t wish to appear callous.” He paused and steadied himself. “However, there’s no getting around the fact that I fear I was a bit of a disappointment to him. After all, he was once the Governor of the Bank of England, and I think he expected me to achieve a more elevated position in society than that of a mere stockbroker.” Again he lowered his eyes. “On the morning of the funeral, Mother asked me to meet with her at the end of the day, just before dinner, in Father’s study. The actual service took place shortly before noon, and the guests returned to the house for a light lunch, which was swiftly concluded when my mother insisted that quite soon she would have to lie down and rest. Of course, everybody understood what she meant, and so they trooped out, leaving Mother and her children alone. It was then, for the first time, that I noticed there was an emptiness in the house that seemed to me truly disturbing. Shortly after the departure of the guests, Mother stood and excused herself, and we all watched respectfully as she opened the door and closed it behind her. Later that afternoon, as the light in the drawing room started to fade, it occurred to me that I should leave behind my brothers and sisters and take myself off to my father’s study. Once there I discovered that Mother had changed into a black crepe dress. She was seated behind Father’s desk, as though she were now in charge of his affairs, although we both knew this to be a preposterous charade. She came straight to the point. ‘Your father has bequeathed me a small allowance, but the bulk of his estate has been left for you to administer. Your father intended that you should formulate some sort of distribution for your siblings.’ I could read disappointment on her face, and I’m sure that if the light were better I would have seen bitterness, but I said nothing and simply averted my eyes and looked all around at the beautifully grained curves of the decorative wooden fixtures that adorned my father’s study. ‘I do hope,’ she said, rising from her chair, ‘that you will find it in your heart to be kind to your mother.’ With this said, Mother smiled sweetly before sweeping past me and out of Father’s study.”

  She continued to stare at Lancey, and having assumed that this was the climax of the story, she leaned forward ready to offer her condolences, but he held up his hand to let her know that there was more. “The following morning I trudged a half-mile down a damp and muddy country lane where the mulch of leaves considerably fattened the ground. It was my intention to call upon Wilfred Stevens, a retired doctor with whom my father played a weekly round of golf and who, sadly, had been too frail to be present at the funeral. My father used to pass each weekend tramping the fairways with old Stevens, before both men settled into the huge leather armchairs in th
e local clubhouse and proceeded to lose themselves in clouds of cigar smoke and tumblers of the finest peaty malt. On the increasingly rare occasions that I visited our Roehampton home, I tended to restrict my socializing to the confines of the family house, sure that Mother and Father’s circle of friends disapproved of me and regarded my life in the city as little more than a gay circus of social frivolity. On the other hand, I regarded the world of my parents as frozen in a Victorian fantasy of an earlier England, where to show interest in the world beyond Dover was somehow indicative of a lack of loyalty to monarch and country. I knew Dr. Stevens to be in possession of a more worldly vision, however, and as he adjusted his position in his wheelchair and allowed the nurse to rearrange the blanket about his knees, he asked eagerly about traffic in Piccadilly Circus. ‘I hear that it’s impossible these days to cross the street without taking one’s life in one’s hands. And I believe things are worse in Paris, where the French passion for anything fashionable has them craving to be the first to acquire the latest piece of useless gadgetry, be it a bicycle or an automobile. Really, they constitute a quite stupefyingly vain nation.’

  “I watched as Dr. Stevens slowly, and deliberately, peeled an orange, using a dull knife, and then I told him about the difficulty of the situation with regard to my mother and my late father’s will. However, I realized that the man was thoroughly preoccupied with the challenge of removing the peel as one long strip, and having done so, he began to split the fruit into its various segments and arrange them on a small white plate that he balanced in his lap. ‘Your father meant for you to feel the inconvenient mess of responsibility.’ He offered me a segment of orange pinched precariously between trembling finger and thumb, but I politely refused, at which point he popped the fruit into his own mouth. ‘You see, your father was a man who made every decision with calculation. He left little to chance. It’s partly what made him such an excellent golfer. Unlike the rest of us, who are content to practice as we play, as it were, your father spent two or three mornings each week by himself refining his grip and stance. Nobody bested old Hugh, and so he will have anticipated your discomfort.’ I said nothing as Stevens pushed another segment of orange into his mouth. ‘If he thought your mother capable, or even worthy, of assuming authority over his affairs, things would now be different.’ He paused and studied me intently. ‘For you both. ’”

  At this point she saw Lancey consult his watch and glance again towards the door of the restaurant. There was still no sign of Cousin Julian, and so he turned back in her direction. “You must understand that my mother is a difficult woman and things between us have never been easy. She would, I imagine, like to see me married and settled. I suppose all mothers feel this way about their children.”

  “About their sons, perhaps.”

  He placed one hand on hers and looked briefly into her eyes. Then he looked down at their intertwined fingers.

  “Yes indeed, about their sons.” Again he paused.

  “Young lady, I have feelings for you.” As though surprised by his own words, he coughed quietly and gathered his composure. “That said, if we are to continue to spend time with one another, it is only fair that you have some awareness of my family, even though you seem altogether reluctant to share any information regarding your own.”

  She looked at her gentleman, knowing full well that he had little real interest in her family, assuming them to be simply colonials of some description, but she felt it sweet of him to pretend.

  “I’m sorry, Lancey, but I’m not hiding anything from you.”

  He offered her a tight, laconic smile, and then glancing once more at the door, he continued.

  “Two months after my visit, old Wilfred Stevens passed away after a stroke had snatched the gift of speech from his lips. I went to see him the week before he died, but by then it was impossible to understand anything the poor chap was saying. After a few minutes of mumbled noises he simply turned his eyes towards his nurse, who swiveled his chair and rolled him from the room, leaving me all alone in front of a roaring fire. I now realize that in all likelihood I was his final audience. At dinner that evening, I tried to raise the sad topic with my mother, but she refused to be drawn on the matter. A week or so later, I came up from London for Dr. Stevens’s funeral service, a dreary event attended by two representatives of the golf club, his helpers and domestic servants, and a distant cousin from Lincolnshire. After the proceedings I returned to the family home and asked my mother if she knew why Dr. Stevens had chosen to live such a solitary existence. I wondered, had there been distress in his life? Perhaps a betrothal gone wrong or a broken promise that had cleaved his heart? For the first and, as far as I can remember, the only time, I saw Mother’s face curdle into open contempt. ‘I think you’ll find that your father’s bachelor friend struggled to control his illicit passions throughout the course of his life. I suppose we should be grateful that at least that conflict has now reached a merciful denouement.’

  “The morning after Dr. Stevens’s funeral, I tramped my way through the morning mist to the home of Norman Lascelles, who was not only my godfather but one of my father’s former business partners. For many years Mr. Lascelles’s firm had taken care of my father’s legal obligations and spared him the necessity of ever soiling his hands with such matters. Land transactions, estate planning, the complexities of corporation law, nothing was beyond the scope of Mr. Lascelles, and while my father was universally considered to be a steely-eyed, cold administrator, the squat, avuncular figure of Norman Lascelles appealed to those who preferred business matters to be conducted as though two school friends were sitting down for a light luncheon and the opportunity to catch up on old news.

  “It was less than a mile’s walk to Norman Lascelles’s newly constructed villa, with its undeniably ostentatious long and winding driveway of crushed gravel and its high boundary wall of damp stone. To the side of the oversized front door was a wedge of hardwood flaunting a newly chiseled sign which duplicated the one at the gate; both signs announced one’s arrival at Swallow Haven. His housemaid directed me to the morning room at the back of the villa, where I found my father’s erstwhile solicitor wrapped tightly in his dressing gown and seated at a table on top of which were piled scrupulously organized pieces of paper that I assumed to be bills, which were receiving his full consideration. During the last phase of his life, my father had reassessed his opinion of Norman Lascelles. ‘The man is a swindler’ had been my father’s new position. ‘He’ll have to get up early to hoodwink me, but what about the defenceless man in the street?’ My father was an individual who found it difficult to accommodate imperfection, so he would perhaps have been disappointed that I made it my business to walk clear across the village and sit with Mr. Lascelles for the better part of an hour, during which time Lascelles had absolutely nothing to say about my recently deceased father beyond vague generalities relating to my father’s sense of duty and his propriety of dress. ‘You’d never catch Hugh receiving guests without a collar and tie and a smart jacket of some description.’ When Lascelles laughed, he did so like a scout troop master trying to impress upon his boys the fact that he was one of them. However, as he continued to chuckle, I could almost feel the man’s hand sliding into my pocket and beginning to rummage about for my wallet. How could my otherwise hardheaded and perceptive father have made such a mistake? Indeed, how could I have made the mistake of visiting this man?

  “The carefully executed dissolution of my father’s business dealings with Lascelles actually unsettled my mother far more than it did my father. Henrietta Lascelles, whom I always knew as Aunt Hen, had, until this parting of the ways, been the only friend with whom my mother might be described as being intimate. They met most mornings of the week for tea and cordial gossip, and never ventured forth to any social function without the other. Then, without anything being said, it was plainly understood that their friendship must come to an end and all ties were broken. As I sat with Mr. Norman Lascelles, I looked in vain for any si
gn of Aunt Hen; a photograph, or a familiar item of clothing draped casually over a chair. I’m not sure what exactly I was hoping for, but curiously enough, Aunt Hen appeared to be absent from Swallow Haven. I suppose I can now see that in some ways the termination of my father’s friendship with Norman Lascelles, and the subsequent banishment of Aunt Hen from my mother’s life, marked the end of my parents’ marriage, and certainly the closure of my mother’s relationship with any form of contentment.

  “When Lascelles finally stopped laughing, I was startled to hear him launch into an ungenerous, and entirely inappropriate, assessment of my father’s supposed avarice. ‘The balance sheet, that’s where your father’s heart stopped beating, and your mother knew it all too well. Which, of course, is why she began to look elsewhere.’ I listened to the man, expecting him to offer up some kind of clarification of his absurd and squalid insinuation, but he simply stared out the window, seemingly enchanted with the birds who were flitting about the naked tree limbs in search of any scrap they might peck at. ‘A new gown, or a fresh coat of paint in the house, or perhaps a new set of furniture, we’re all of us obliged to offer up these trifles to keep the ladies content, but not your father.’ Naturally, I knew my father to be prudent when it came to balancing the books, but it was the implication concerning my mother’s character that I wished Lascelles to revisit, for I found his tone offensive. ‘In her youth your mother was a beauty and could have chosen any man she desired, but one should never forget that security and safety are in their own way quite attractive. But really, what a terrible nightmare for the poor woman.’