The Cat Wore Electric Goggles

by Ian Hutson

  For much the same twenty years Sir Sidney busied himself in matters parliamentary, and in enthusiastic huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’. He did this in some feeble effort to expunge the memory of Lady Feltham’s mid-coital, rook disturbing cry of “For Harry, England and Saint George”. Sir Sidney always felt that, had Lady Feltham not let rip with such laudable but ill-timed patriotism, son-and-heir might well have been born in the more secure form of twins or even triplets - heir and a spare. Mind you, some ten seconds earlier with her paralysing entreaty and son-and-heir might not have been born at all, so one must always focus on the bright side of life. From the time his valet had begun loosening Sir Sidney’s collar studs to when a maid lifted the mosquito net on Lady Feltham’s summer-weight pith helmet and offered her the smelling salts, the experience had quite been the most traumatic seven minutes of his life.

  Cecilia, the daughter from indignity number one, spent a lot of her time being taught by a governess how to walk with a book on her head. When not labouring thus under English literature she established for herself a reasonably comfortable and independent routine. Thrown out of the nursery the moment Nanny’s milch-bosoms were no longer required Cecilia found vacant rooms in an unpopular wing of the house, cleaned them out of cobweb and spider and repopulated them with books about horses, later adding some cheery oils by Stubbs that she had found in an attic during her mooching explorations. She knew all of the quiet, lonely routes between the kitchen pantry, library and stables, and found lots of places to sit undisturbed, to read and sob. Once a year, at Christmas, she would be presented in the main hallway to receive a beautifully-wrapped first edition of poetry, or some ribbons for her hair.

  Son and heir Tarquin Fortitude Florence Padua Venice Herculaneum Orient Express Istanbul Sidney Lavinia Feltham’s first brave and independent baby-steps were taken along Savile Row and Jermyn Street, trying to keep pace with his valet. Tarquin was outfitted for his first season with a dozen monogrammed tweed nappies in school colours, and sent directly to toughen himself up at Eton, and thereafter Oxford. Actually, it might have been Harrow and then Cambridge. Rather puzzlingly, the trains on the Feltham branch line always pulled out in the same direction whether one was going to visit poets in Oxford, spies in Cambridge, the Scottish Highlands to shoot or up to London for government, so it was impossible to be quite certain. Whichever it was, the family solicitors kept track of him and very kindly forwarded some of his less disappointing school reports. He was indulged on his birthdays with little gifts such as a box of engraved shotgun cartridges, and at Christmas perhaps with a two-guinea gift certificate redeemable at any respectable farrier.

  Thus the long years passed, and little disturbed the routine of those years until very late one season when a shooting weekend at Nata Imperare Towers went terribly wrong. The ladies and the guns had been seated in the minor folly to the north of the smaller woods when a young footman still in training put the milk in everyone’s cups before the tea. Worse still, he then lifted the pot and cheerily asked in a loud Yorkshire twang “Shall I be mother?”

  Cream was the problem of course; the cream of society had been present, and the cream, naturally, fell awkwardly silent at the monumental gaffe. In the whirlwind nightmare that followed cars had been fetched, maids packed and excuses made. Nata Imperare Towers had fallen in an instant. The chill of the mausoleum fell upon the Feltham diary and they were, understandably, pronounced quite persona non grata; dead to society.

  There was nothin’ else for it of course but for the whole family to immediately go to Far Abroad, to hide their shame by, if not exactly going native, at least taking to some more forgiving, less demanding corner of the Empire. This the whole family and retinue prepared to do, taking with them as many of the comforts of home as might be carried on the Feltham private steam-train. Passing briefly through London, as one always should if possible, the Felthams found themselves welcomed with closed arms and with haughty, hurt-laden expostulations of Mi casa es mi casa from anyone who was anyone, everywhere. Punch ran with a cartoon on the cover depicting Sir Sidney and Lady Feltham setting a cart before a horse. It was rumoured that His Majesty had asked the Prime Minister to take steps to ensure that the practise of milk before tea was nipped in the bud before England’s reputation suffered.

  Southampton greeted the line of Feltham carriages with an escort of mangy seagulls, cold grey drizzle and with the hammer-blows of muscular pre-hominids banging in the last few rivets on the RMS Titanic, ready for her maiden voyage. No sooner had these industrious orc-analogues flattened a dozen errant rivets on one side of the hull than two dozen more popped out in sympathy on the far side. The problem appeared to be solved by surrounding the vessel with chaps all hammering on her hull at the same time, which gave her rather the appearance of trembling at the thought of her first swim.

  The necessary haste of the Feltham family’s departure involved a distasteful amount of sharing of the quayside with the lesser mortals. The family found themselves reminded just how revolting the lower classes could be, with their injuries, wounds and bandages, and their sallow, grey complexions speaking of infection and disease. It was well that there would be steel bulkheads and doors to keep them all at bay, contained in some gloomy underworld of “lower decks”.

  The moment that Sir Feltham was comfortably settled he sent word to the Captain to sail. A couple of hundred second and steerage-class passengers were thus slightly inconvenienced by being left for dead on the quayside. This was small beer though when compared to the disappointment of the screaming dozens that were sucked into the thrashing propellers when the gangways were withdrawn. In his unholy haste to make way as ordered Captain Kharon took along with his vessel three mooring lines, two bollards and a good deal of the stonework of the quayside.

  Sir Sidney and Lady Feltham took a bracing turn on deck, and prepared to settle into the strange rigours of a life on the ocean wave. Cecilia, having little option, settled in immediately by taking a healthy gallop on her favourite horse, Boudicca. Tarquin too hadn’t seemed to have registered that he was no longer on the family estates, and busied himself with shooting pheasant released from the supply they had brought with them. Initially at least a Spaniel or Retriever was launched over the rails at every bird downed, but it soon became abundantly clear that they were simply not up to the job. Titanic left in her wake a long line of dogs, each with a deceased pheasant clutched in their mouths and paddling cheerfully after the ship, but without a hope of ever catching up to deliver. Given the faithful and dutiful nature of gun-dogs one can’t help but wonder how far across the ocean each of them got.

  Later in the day Sir Sidney and Lady Feltham sent word inviting the Captain to dine at their table that evening. For a formal English table Lady Feltham’s iron rules were quite relatively few and simple. Acceptable topics of conversation were the weather, the approach of the grouse or other seasons, and toasts involving The Royal Family. Sentences should, if at all possible, be restricted to twelve simple words or fewer unless directly quoting Shakespeare or Chaucer. Boiled potatoes, if served, were never to be placed side by side for fear of the suggestion of breasts to the male servants, and gravy and custard were of course to be spooned, never poured. Salt was a matter of conscience to be managed by the individual guest, and bread rolls could be removed from table if discreetly placed in an inside jacket pocket or small handbag, without butter.

  The dining room of the Titanic took a little re-arranging before Thumms, the Butler, was satisfied. Thumms had entered service with the Feltham family some many generations earlier, and he was proud to have been given his name by the late, late Dowager Feltham. In the early years whenever he had served at table she had tended to shriek “Thumms!” at him and the name, naturally, had been adopted by one and all in accordance with what seemed to be her wishes. Other staff called “Elbows” and “Don’t Sniff” had long since fallen by the domestic employment wayside.

  Thumms first had the room cleared of the cheap corporate fu
rniture and then had some of the family’s own brought up from the ship’s hold. Not too much, just enough to give a comfortable feel to the place: a dozen sofas; two dozen wingback chairs; the library bookshelves; books; standard lamps; occasional tables; carpets; two of the smaller Adam fireplaces and the malachite dining suite.

  Newspapers and dust sheets were laid down before the gardeners - under strict supervision - were allowed in to decorate the table. Weades Uidiot, the Head Gardener (also named by the late, late Dowager), settled on a time-honoured decoration of several fruit trees linked by a dense jungle foliage and populated with a selection of small monkeys and large parakeets. Lady Feltham favoured this sort of arrangement because it discouraged small-talk at table. Communication between guests necessarily had to be by either jungle drum or G.P.O. telegram.

  The general passengers watched with awe from behind velvet ropes as the table was laid with Spode and Wedgwood and Royal Worcester and Georgian silver. The cutlery for each place setting was crammed somehow into a width of just two yards, thus keeping guests within reasonably dignified reach of their chestnut-peeling forks to the left and plovers’ egg knives to the extreme right. Waterford crystal provided the necessary glasses for the eighteen standard table-wines, ranging from the highly serious, dark, rich red Chateau Les Fesses De Porc En Sueur Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée to the frivolous and effervescent straw-coloured Chateau L'urine De Français Paysanne Vieux B’iatch.

  The final call for dinner was sounded in the customary Feltham Household manner, with a small footman bowling a cricket ball into the gong and shouting “high-zat” in measured estuarial tones. Thumms, with a white sweater tied around his waist, then raised a leisurely forefinger signalling “out” and guests were seated with the duty quartet playing Fanfare for The Common Man on Sousaphone. This was always followed by a rendition of All Things Bright And Beautiful, during which all creatures great and small would be served, each under an appropriate sauce.

  A Consommé Bombay began the meal (three parts Bombay Sapphire to one part Schweppes, lightly iced and with lemon). Then came salmon fresh, and salmon smoked over the bark of the Albino Redwood tree. There were Quenelles with Regency sauce, Ballotines of duck with Cumberland sauce, braised bully-beef with Hussard sauce and the universally popular leg of little baby-waby orphaned lamb with mint sauce. The tempo was varied by asparagus and artichokes arranged as though growing from a full, moist paté de foie gras de hummingbird. Roast pheasant á la snuffed it on the wing flew in a little later, followed by an amuse bouche de oh good gosh of venison roasted on the hoof with a boiled monkey jockey dressed in stable silks in the family colours. Oh how everyone laughed as the arrangement did two laps of the table at speed and then Thumms carved generously! Some had dark meat, some had white meat, and some had a little of each, while the Vicar found himself tackling what was euphemistically referred to in the dead monkey world as “the parson’s little trouser-nose”.

  Puddings, as was customary in the Feltham household, were light, being limited to just spotted dick with custard, treacle sponge with custard, rhubarb crumble with custard, and a reduced-custard sherry trifle for the wimps or those on a weight-loss regimen.

  In due time Lady Feltham belched, passed out and was rolled by her maids into a wickerwork bath chair fitted with oxygen tanks, gluteal defibrillator and stain-resistant seat cushions. The gentlemen, as chaps tend to after a meal, put the sod into off towards the billiards tables and the port decanters. The ladies disappeared to the withdrawing corners to break wind and to busy themselves with toothpicks and conversation about the gamekeeper’s willingness to wear dampened cheesecloth shirts whenever given a shilling. As it had been for centuries past, so it was on the RMS Titanic still.

  The end of the meal came none too soon for Thumms, who had noticed that a territorial squabble among the table-decoration monkeys was beginning to take an especially violent turn. Bonobos pissing quietly in the soup tureens was one thing, but when one of the macaques was clearly visible standing on the Stilton and beating a capuchin into the next world with a wedge of mature Cheddar it was time to blow the whistle. Thumms, issuing sidearms, led the senior Footman in an action to subdue the table.

  Due in no small part to the vessel’s dining room having been commandeered by the Feltham family everyone in the lower travelling classes had been forced to picnic outside on deck. Generally they said it had been quite jolly, although the salt spray had made their paper plates go soggy very quickly and added a certain maritime crunch to their corned beef sandwiches. Cheering tartan flasks of quite warm tea had been provided on a complimentary basis, so really one couldn’t complain said a spokesman for Steerage.

  Only two table gibbons and a marmoset remained at large when Seaman Fourize, the lookout in the crow’s nest, suddenly issued his desperate bellow of “ICEBERG!” and pointed to something that experienced sailors called “dead ahead”. Several things then happened all at once.

  Sir Sidney misunderstood completely and leapt to his feet, quite prepared to defend his wife’s libido to any man who was unchivalrous enough to make such a public accusation, accurate or otherwise. All of the other Englishmen aboard simply looked quite genuinely puzzled, and wondered how a lettuce had come to be adrift in the Atlantic and why their attention was being drawn to it. Were there perhaps to be prawn cocktails later?

  Captain Kharon finished his break at the billiards table and then excused himself, explaining that maritime law required him to be on the bridge. Lady Feltham, recovering under a soda-mint, squinted over her varifocal pince-visage and reminded him that she could not approve of card games of any variety.

  The decks were awash, but only with passengers fainting into the muscular, tattooed arms of the ship’s officers, much as one should if possible during a crisis at sea. Kharon noticed that, as always, the gentlemen were far more elegant in their fainting than were the ladies. Some of the passengers took the trouble to change decks and seek out a particular officer before they completed their fainting manoeuvres. The scene before him bore precious little relation to the lifeboat drills.

  Ye gods and little fishes, or something similar, thought Captain Kharon when he saw that the look-out had been reasonably accurate in his warning shout, his only failure being in not also ascribing the adjectives “chuffing great” and “really quite scary” to the maritime inconvenience that lay before them.

  Kharon then did the only thing that he could as captain of a respectable, Liverpool-registered vessel. He made his way to the bow, cupped his hands and shouted “Get out of the bloody way - this is an English ship! Move aside I say! We have some very important people aboard.”

  The helmsman, for his part, threw the ship’s wheel enthusiastically both to port and to starboard in turn. The First Officer, disencumbering himself of a limp, semi-conscious young gentleman from Eastbourne, rang the engine room, introduced himself and enquired about the health of the Chief Engineer. He then wondered if the engine room might mind awfully going into full reverse with those whatchermacallums, the spinny-spinny things in the water - the props, yes, yes, that was it - the props, as soon as may be convenient please.

  There was just sufficient opportunity for the Felthams to gather on the pooping oneself deck or however it was termed and there, in a choreography not seen since Lady Feltham’s grandmother had shinned up a trailing rope and single-handedly captured a zeppelin during the First World Unpleasantness, the family craned their necks upwards as one and quite forgot to blink.

  This was no mere iceberg, this was a one-to-one scale ice sculpture of the Matterhorn and they were making some ill-advised and giddy twenty nautical knots towards each other. Everyone brought their hands to their hips and awaited the crash and thunder of torn steel and lots of broken ship’s nautical bits, such as the “the water-tightness of the hull” which always seems to be the first thing broken in such collisions. Only Thumms allowed his bottom lip to tremble, and that only because of the geriatric tremor attendant upon his years. />
  It then came as quite another surprise to everyone, not to say quite a shock, when the RMS Titanic simply slipped through the iceberg in the manner of a wisp of cigar smoke passing through brandy fumes. There came no sickening crunch, no rending of deck-plates, no screech of ripped hull, just an almost funereal silence as first Captain Kharon at the bow and then the whole of the rest of the ship disappeared into the chilly leviathan and popped unceremoniously out of the other side quite unscathed. As the ghastly ghostly echoes of the three long blasts of the ship’s horn, the universal signal of distress, died away into the night behind them the iceberg too simply bobbed in their wake like a confusing memory. It seemed that ship and berg had come to some tacit agreement and had simply denied one another.

  Sir Sidney was first to break the silence and he did so with the natural rationalisation of a practical and industrious man. “Damned clever fellows these ship-builders, damned clever. When they said she was unsinkable I had assumed some sort of system of partitions and electric water-tight doors, but never something as splendid as this! God save the Queen! Truly; Rule Britannia! Let’s have three cheers for the clever chaps at Vickers-Armstrong shipyard! Hip hip!”

  “Huzzah!”

  Somewhat unconvinced, the duty quartet came back out from behind their chairs, retrieved their instruments and played a few bars of For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow. Puzzled and furrowed brows began to disbelieve what their memory had been trying to tell them about the past few seconds and Captain Kharon, perceiving no other sensible course of action, berated the First Officer for their still being in reverse and slowing. Egads, did the man not realise that they had a schedule to meet? Full steam ahead and please, everyone, do forget the mass hallucination or whatever it had been, it was just a drill, just a practice and nothing at all to worry about. The Captain’s fingers were crossed behind his back, hidden under the braid of his cuffs.