by Simon Raven
‘– Acquaintance –’
‘– And my husband Canteloupe.’
‘Oh. Your husband Canteloupe? Mine not to reason why, I suppose…not when I’m getting two monkeys a week.’
‘Reason as much as you like,’ said Theodosia, ‘but don’t ask questions, there’s a darling. Await my instructions about Marius’ arrival, and do as I ask about visitors. Good, bad or diabolical – let ’em all in, but keep an eye cocked and report on all, especially the diabolical. You’ll know them on sight.’
‘One question I am entitled to ask, dear. Is Marius looking forward to coming?’
‘He doesn’t know he’s coming yet,’ said Theodosia, ‘but I can promise you he’ll look forward to it when he does.’
Back in Wiltshire, Theodosia rang up Colonel Ivan Blessington, her friend and business representative, in London. Colonel Blessington rang up his daughter, Jakki, at her School. Jakki sought out Marius Stern as he was leaving the Under Sixteen cricket nets. Marius looked at Jakki with pleasure, as he always did. She usually favoured boys’ trousers, long at the heel and with turn-ups; but today, since she had been to extra tuition, she was wearing the Gordon kilt with the Gordon stockings and a dagger in the top of one.
‘Want to be kind?’ Jakki said.
‘To you – yes.’
‘To me – incidentally. Also to others.’
‘To whom?’
‘Palairet for one.’
‘Palairet is dead.’
Dead on the Field, he thought; true knight.
‘Yes,’ said Jakki. ‘He had an aunt whom he loved. The aunt wants to meet – Palairet’s friend.’
‘How do you know?’
‘My old Dad used to go racing with her. In the old days. She’s a very sporty old lady, Marius. She loved Palairet. She wants to meet his friend – says my old Dad.’
‘Then I shall go.’
‘Lovely Marius.’
‘When? Where? How long?’
‘End of the Quarter. Burnham-on-Sea. There’s a good golf course.’
‘I’m rotten at golf.’
‘There’ll be cricket to watch at Taunton. And racing: Newton Abbot, Devon and Exeter, Bath, Taunton, Wincanton and Chepstow,’ Jakki recited.
‘Do I just go? Don’t I write or anything first?’
Jakki produced a sheet of paper from under her kilt.
‘Last day of Quarter,’ she said. ‘Take the one-fifteen from Paddington. Get out at Burnham and take a taxi: “Sandy Lodge,” you say to the man, “Sandy Lodge at the end of Sandy Lane.” Take a lot of kit in case you want to stay a while. You’ll be welcome as long as you like. No need to write or ring up: just go. After all, Marius, now that poor Jeremy’s in such a fix, you’ve nowhere else to go, my love, now have you?’
Footnote
* See The Roses of Picardie, by Simon Raven (House of Stratus; 2001).
PART THREE
The Speciality of Rule
In quo corriget?
Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way: even by ruling himself after thy word.
Psalm 119, v.9
‘Exactly what I’d hoped for,’ said Raisley Conyngham to Milo Hedley, as they sat on a bench on the boundary of the cricket field listening (intermittently) to the School Brass Band which was giving the End of Quarter Concert on the Terrace. ‘That old woman in Burnham-on-Sea; quite perfect.’
‘Isn’t she also…quite tough?’
‘But vulnerable with it. Rackety, sporty, thirsty, gamy, always short of money.’
(Although Marius had, of course, told Raisley where he was going, he had not told him, because he did not know, that Palairet’s Auntie Flo was to receive one grand a week for his entertainment.)
‘Even if she does wish to make difficulties,’ said Raisley, ‘and there is no particular reason to suppose so, it will be very easy to get round her, to get at Marius, to get messages through to him.’
‘She may send out reports.’
‘What if she does?’
‘She may summon…Marius’ good angels.’
‘Marius is pledged to serve and obey me. Upon pain of my casting him out.’
‘What makes you think he’d mind that?’ sneered Milo.
‘Because he is my man, Milo, and yours. I reminded him of this at Holkham, where he confirmed his love and allegiance.’
‘Vows of love, Raisley, whatever kind of love, are spoken into empty air.’
‘I have told you. You will address me as “sir” until you leave this School for good tomorrow morning. You must not get premature ideas of equality or independence, Milo. Just concentrate on your mission to the Provost of Lancaster. Let me take this opportunity of reminding you: your job is to prevent his interfering or enquiring or in any way getting up trouble during the enaction of what now concerns us – in short, to make him forget the very existence of his grandson, Sarum of Old Sarum. You understand that?’
There was a long silence during which Milo discovered that there were some words carved on the crossbar of the back of the seat behind him. Leaning forward and twisting his neck, he read:
JEREMY MORRISON
Placed here by his father, Luffham of Whereham
Thinking on this inscription and on the fate of Jeremy in Australia, Milo let the silence between him and Raisley continue, while the band played right through Rory Gilpin, and then at last, ‘I think I understand very well, sir,’ Milo said, ‘now. So all this,’ he went on, making a gesture which comprised the Terrace, the Green and the distant Memorial Chapel, ‘all this will be over for me tomorrow. How I have enjoyed it. And you more than all the rest of it…sir.’
‘Sorry to be leaving?’
‘Yes,’ said Milo; ‘but consoled by the fact that I shall not be leaving you. I apologise for my half-baked and “premature assumptions of equality and independence”. And to prove how sincere is my apology, I shall continue to call you “sir” for many moons to come. Anything else, from me to you, would clearly be quite ridiculous. You are my liege and I am your man, as is Marius. All I ask is a small share in him.’
‘Ah. Why this sudden retraction, Milo? I could have sworn, for some time since, that you were getting ready to commence Master Artificer in your own right, no longer content to be a mere, albeit confidential, apprentice.’
‘I was getting ready, sir. But the fate of poor Jeremy Morrison has taught me humility. “Time and chance happeneth to them all”, sir; and the only person I know whose advice might just protect a fellow against both is you.’
‘Such flattery, Milo,’ Raisley Conyngham said.
‘My fee for remaining under instruction as your confidential apprentice and continuing to receive your invaluable advice. For if you do not object, sir, I shall so remain, at least until this affair of Marius and Sarum is concluded.’
‘The conclusion of this affair of Marius and Sarum will not mark the conclusion of the affair of Marius as a whole. Shall you not stay for that too?’
‘If invited, sir.’
‘You are invited, Milo.’
‘Daddy says,’ said Jakki to Tessa on the train from Farncombe to Waterloo, ‘that if…if your plans for the hols should fall through, there’s room in our car for another. It’ll be a squeeze but there’ll be room, if you don’t bring too much luggage.’
Tessa turned her head and kissed Jakki on the temple.
‘My plans will not fall through,’ Tessa said.
‘I wish they would.’
‘Don’t be like that, Jakki. This is my best thing ever.’
‘With Lady C? I wish you joy of it, I really do. But I wish, even more, that you could be with us. I dare say,’ said Jakki, ‘that we could have got up some net practice.’ She giggled. ‘We could make Mummy and Daddy bowl at us. And Caro.’
‘You can do that without me.’
‘Somehow, I don’t think we will,’ said Jakki, ‘not on our own. You would have been – what do they call it? – the catalyst. The extra element that changes everything.’
‘There’s been enough of cricket lately.’
‘It’s all very well for you. You got your Under Sixteen Colours. Like Marius.’
‘Girls’ Under Sixteen Colours,’ corrected Tessa. ‘One must discriminate, I think. You’ll get yours next year. Next spring’s the time to practise, not now in the autumn, when the season’s dying.’
‘It isn’t even August yet,’ said Jakki. ‘There’s a lovely lawn in the garden of the house we’re taking in France, which would have been ideal for net practice. But I dare say you’re right,’ she said. ‘Whatever the month, the autumn will not be far off where we are going, and the French would have thought we were potty, and where would we have got the poles and nets? No room for them in our car. Besides, I must work for “O” levels. Only a year left now. What happened about yours? And Marius’? Weren’t they meant to be last-Quarter?’
‘They’ve been put off till December.’
‘Aren’t you glad?’
‘No. I should like to have got them out of the way.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Jakki, wondering whether Lady Canteloupe would allow her friend any time for revision. ‘Do you know quite why they’ve been postponed?’
They passed through Vauxhall, where once the Gardens were.
‘The examiners say,’ said Tessa, ‘that they won’t produce the question papers until they get a guarantee from the Board that all “disadvantaged” examinees will get an automatic bonus of fifty per cent on all markings.’
‘I didn’t think that “disadvantaged” people did “O” levels.’
‘That’s the point. The examiners want them to do “O” levels – and be guaranteed a bonus of fifty per cent to make sure they pass. That will make them equal, you see, to everybody else. So far the Board has refused to give a guarantee.’
‘Then your “O” levels – and mine – may be postponed for ever?’
‘That is what the examiners – some of them – want,’ said Tessa. ‘To ruin our education, everyone’s education.’
‘Except for that of the “disadvantaged”?’
‘They won’t have an education. Just a fifty per cent bonus in marks.’
Waterloo. Jakki’s sister Caroline was waiting for them outside the gate of the platform.
‘The man wouldn’t let me in,’ she explained. ‘I found a machine for platform tickets. It took my money and didn’t produce a ticket. I explained to the man, and offered him the same money again, but he still wouldn’t let me on the platform. I don’t think,’ said Caroline, ‘that he likes girls like us.’
They all looked at ‘the man’ at the end of the platform, and he looked back. He had a hyena’s face with a pimply snout and a beard to hide a weasel chin. He was busy locking the gate and stopping two old ladies from going through to catch the next train out. It wasn’t due to leave for twenty-five minutes, the man said. Yes, said one old lady, but they preferred to wait actually on the platform.
‘Well you can’t,’ said the man. He slammed the gate and slouched away. Luckily another man, who was black, smiled at the ladies and invited them through his gate (the adjacent one) and on to their platform that way.
‘I think,’ said Tessa to Jakki, ‘that both those men are “disadvantaged”.’
‘Most people in British Rail are,’ said Jakki. ‘Let’s get moving.’
‘There used to be a News Cinema on this station,’ said Tessa, as they went towards the taxi rank, ‘with reels and reels of news. Auntie Maisie told me. I wonder where it’s gone.’
‘I expect they closed it,’ said Caroline, ‘because all the news these days is so horrible or so silly that no one would have gone to it.’
‘They had Donald Duck and things as well,’ said Tessa. ‘How’s Rosie?’
‘She would have come,’ said Caroline, ‘but she’s had to catch her aeroplane to Montpellier.’
‘Off already?’ Tessa said. ‘I’m sorry to miss her, but I’m glad her mother bought her a ticket. She was worried about that.’
‘The house we are hiring in France,’ said Caroline, ‘is near where Rosie’s going to be with her mother. Her mother lives in the chancel of a disused church. Very pretty. Romanesque. Since we are to be so close, I hope we shall see a lot of Rosie.’
‘Why shouldn’t you?’ said Tessa.
‘When we were motoring through there in the spring,’ said Jakki, ‘we didn’t call on them because we were afraid that our mother wouldn’t approve of Rosie’s mother living with another lady. Which is what she does. The lady’s husband is there too, and the lady’s little girl. But the lady cleaves, as it says in the Bible, not to her husband but to Rosie’s mummy. Which we thought might upset ours.’
Jakki and Caroline smiled at Tessa. Each took one of her arms and Caroline took on her rather heavy suitcase of old-fashioned leather. For a moment Tessa could hardly bear the idea of not going with them to France; then she thought of Theodosia by the pool in the birch grove and found that she could bear it quite easily.
‘But Caroline and Daddy have been explaining to Mummy,’ said Jakki, ‘about how what Rosie’s mother does is quite normal these days and has really always been going on everywhere, only people were too polite to mention it. At first Mummy wouldn’t believe this, but then Caro and Daddy showed her a bit out of Thomas Hardy’s first novel, Desperate Remedies, a bit about a lady and a younger cousin who’s come to live with her – and Mummy got the point.’
‘Thomas Hardy has always been Mummy’s favourite author, you see,’ said Caroline. ‘She reads Tess and The Trumpet-Major every year. So when she knew it happened in Hardy, even though it was in his first novel which she’s never read, she seemed quite happy about it…though she did have rather a funny look on her face. Where’s Marius? Why didn’t he come up from Farncombe with you?’
‘Marius has gone to the West Country,’ said Jakki, ‘to stay with Palairet’s Auntie Flo. Lady C arranged it,’ she said to Tessa. ‘I know because I had a message from her through Daddy, and had to pass it on to Marius. Didn’t Daddy mention it?’ she asked her sister.
‘No. Daddy doesn’t like to talk about Marius.’
‘But he got me to give Marius that message,’ said Jakki.
‘That must have been because Lady Canteloupe wanted him to,’ said Caroline. ‘Daddy would do anything for Lady Canteloupe.’
‘So would I,’ said Tessa.
‘We know that,’ said Caroline and Jakki. ‘Shall you come to supper with us this evening?’
‘I think I must be with Auntie Maisie this evening,’ said Tessa. ‘I am going to Wiltshire tomorrow, so she will very soon be alone at Buttock’s. Rosie is gone to France already, you say, and Marius is gone to the West Country. She will be lonely when I too am gone (yet go I shall), and this evening I must be with her.’
‘Of course,’ said Jakki and Caroline. ‘We understand.’
The taxi pulled up where Jakki and Caroline lived, and the pair of them made ready to disembark with Jakki’s luggage. All three girls were quietly crying because this was a serious time of parting, and they would not meet again until the autumn, when Jakki and Caroline would return from Languedoc and Tessa from the Enchanted Castle.
Tessa had been wrong in supposing that her Aunt Maisie was alone. Fielding Gray had just come to Buttock’s, knowing that sooner or later he must face Maisie and give account of Jeremy, and reckoning on Tessa’s being now returned from School to soften Maisie’s humour and make up a bit of a party.
They all three had dinner together in Maisie’s private sitting room, the hotel dining room being full of people who looked like Esquimaux or Amerindians but were really Orientals (or vice versa).
‘Tourists, my dears,’ said Maisie to Tessa and Fielding. ‘The old place is heaving.’ She surveyed a menu which had been especially typed for her own table and included a lot of Tessa’s and Fielding’s favourite things. ‘Very nice to have an excuse to be all cosy and on our own. Besides, those Americans, or whatever they are, would have m
ade a dreadful fuss if they’d seen us having this caviar down in the dining room. They wouldn’t have known what it was, mind you, but they would have known that they weren’t having it, and the whole lot would have wet themselves with paranoia.’ (‘Paranoia’ was Maisie’s new word, which she had acquired from Rosie just before Rosie flew away, so that there had not been time enough for Maisie to be accurately rehearsed in its use.) ‘And those Japanese, or whatever they are, would have been showing their enormous yellow teeth and chattering like woodpeckers. It has happened before, you know, when I’ve had something special in the dining room all to myself. Well, so long as the travel agents keep pouring the money in…I make them pay in advance, you know, even for white people. I see,’ she said to Fielding, rippling with pleasure, ‘that the Aussies have given Master Jeremy Morrison six months in the slammer. It was in this morning’s Telegraph.’
‘I saw it,’ said Fielding, who had anticipated this remark and had his tactic ready, ‘and if you ask me, he has only himself to thank.’
Maisie looked at him and nodded.
‘All right,’ she said, conceding that this must close the topic, ‘so there’s an end of that until the next time. Six months won’t last for ever. Now,’ she said, indicating Tessa and rippling once more, this time with pride, ‘little Miss Madam here is off to Lady Canteloupe again, for almost the whole of the holidays. I don’t say I shan’t miss her, but I’ll not spoil it for her. Though I sometimes wonder what her ladyship sees in Teresa.’
Funny, thought Fielding, how naïve this shrewd and corrupt woman could be. Or was she being disingenuous? Aloud he said, ‘Theodosia Canteloupe is in need of a friend just now. She likes Teresa (so Canteloupe tells me) because she is quiet and gentle, well read for her age, good at games, and clever.’ And for two or three more reasons, he thought, as he smiled across the table, with his twisted mouth, at Tessa: those beautiful round white knees with the ginger down just below them, that angel-corona of auburn hair.
‘Well,’ said Maisie, ‘just as well I’ve got all those tourists to keep me busy, or I might turn sorry for myself, you know. Rosie went off to her mum this morning and Tessa’s going tomorrow, so those nice rude Blessington girls won’t be coming to visit, and what with one thing and another –’