Weekend at Thrackley

by Alan Melville

  “Very well,” said Jim Henderson. “Very well, Mr. Carson, whoever you are, we shall be pleased to accept your kind invitation for Friday next. Now where in the name of heaven is my shaving water?”

  II

  An annual subscription to Graham’s was one of the few luxuries which Jim Henderson permitted himself. It was, he felt, money well spent. Most people know Graham’s. You enter it from the Strand, and its interior makes up for all that the exterior lacks. At Graham’s you may obtain a cocktail which is really much the same as the best cocktail in any of the other London clubs, but which has just an extra something which makes it far superior and leaves the others lagging miserably behind. At Graham’s, too, you can get a very fine omelette aux champignons, so light and airy that you have to be ready to bolt it the very minute it arrives on its heated pewter dish; if you are not, the wretched thing falls flat like a burst balloon and sags despondently all over your plate. At Graham’s—well, in any case, Graham’s is certainly worth its fifteen guineas a year membership fee. No matter how hard it is for you to scrape together the said fifteen.

  When Jim entered the club shortly after eleven that morning he found the usual before-lunch crowd in their usual places in the lounge. Derek Simpson astride an armchair, his long legs swinging over the leather arms, his group of satellites listening to Derek Simpson’s opinions of Derek Simpson’s acting in the new thing at the Alhambra. John Fletcher and old Angus and some of the more elderly members in their corner, drinking Bacardis and bemoaning the new level to which rubber had fallen. Someone whom Jim remembered as having played for Oxford at something (squash, he imagined) relating, with a wealth of detail, his experiences of a recent Channel crossing. A large gentleman in plus fours practising chip shots on the lounge carpet, with the screwed-up front page of The Times as a ball and an empty beer tankard as the hole. And in the cocktail bar through the swing doors the Honourable Freddie Usher was laughing.

  No other person in the world laughed quite like Freddie Usher. Mercifully so. Large and oily film-directors, ever ready to jar their talking-picture audiences with a new and devastating noise, offered the most amazing terms for the inclusion of half-a-minute of Freddie Usher’s laugh in their latest productions. There were no half-hearted methods adopted when Freddie Usher became amused. No discreetness. No lack of abandon. No thought for the ear-drums of those in the next street but two. No… Freddie Usher threw back his chest, opened his mouth to a distressing width, slapped his thighs and all thighs within reach, and announced his amusement to the world.

  Jim pushed open the heavy swing doors which led from the lounge to the bar. He stood at the doors for a moment, realizing that conversation was out of the question until the Honourable Freddie had recovered from his mirth.

  “’Morning, everybody,” he said at last. “’Morning, Freddie.”

  “James!” said Freddie, cutting short the last diminuendoes of the cackle. “Dear old James! What is it?”

  “Gin-and-ginger, please, Freddie.”

  “So be it. Make it two, Edward. Double ones.”

  “What on earth were you making that fiendish din about?”

  The Honourable Freddie looked puzzled.

  “Din?” he asked. “Din? Did I hear you correctly? Was I making a din?”

  “You certainly were.”

  “Really. Well, I forget why. Some little thing someone said about something, I suppose.”

  He handed Jim his drink and pulled two chairs close to each other in a corner of the bar.

  “Just a minute,” said Jim. “I want a word with you, Freddie. Let’s go into the lounge where it’s quieter.”

  “As you say, James.”

  They left the crowd in the bar and entered the comparative peace of the lounge. Jim looked round. In one of the window corners two chairs stood invitingly empty. There was no one within a dozen yards with the exception of Sir Reginald Forrest, M.P. And the prospects of being disturbed by Sir Reginald seemed rather remote, for that eminent financial expert was in a very undignified and almost horizontal position, The Times over the upper quarter of his face, his mouth open and sagging, his arms clasped contentedly over that portion of his being where presumably his breakfast lay.

  “Over there,” said Jim.

  “Righto. But why this air of mystery? Why this come-hither-where-no-alien-ear-may-lurk attitude?”

  “Stop prattling, Freddie. And park yourself in that chair.”

  They sat down, drew their chairs together and took a sip of their drinks.

  “Well?” said the Honourable Freddie.

  “This morning I had a letter.”

  “A letter?”

  “A letter.”

  “Just fancy that. A letter. Well, well, well. Most remarkable. So far as I can remember, I had eleven. Three from charitable institutions, one account rendered for a pair of singularly snappy silk pyjamas which I’ve never quite had the face to wear, one kind offer from a Mr. Andrew Isaacs with absolutely no security, a picture-postcard from my Aunt Florence, who—funnily enough—is in Florence, and—”

  “For heaven’s sake shut up.”

  “My celebrated imitation of a deaf and dumb oyster sent to Coventry,” said the Honourable Freddie, and subsided into his gin-and-ginger.

  “A letter from someone I’ve never seen or heard of before. The question is, can I get into your dress trousers?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Will I fit your evening clothes? You’re lending them to me, you see. For next weekend. I can’t possibly go and stay at a very superior country house in a navy blue serge suit that’s slightly shiny at all the obvious places. They’re bound to dress for dinner and observe all these quaint medieval customs. He’s even threatened fishing.”

  “Sorry, old man. It’s impossible.”

  “But, Freddie…”

  “Impossible. Quite imposs.”

  “Remember we were at school together.”

  “Which merely shows a lack of discretion on the part of my parents, and has nothing whatever to do with the present question.”

  “And I promise to take terribly good care of them, and not to spill the Mulligatawny down your white waistcoat.”

  “I tell you, Jim, I can’t lend you the damned things. I’m using them myself.”

  “You are?”

  “I, too, have received the call to the wide open spaces next weekend. Down to a house-party in Surrey.”

  “Surrey?”

  “Surrey. Don’t dither your lower lip at me like that, Jim. You’ve heard of Surrey before, surely? Percy Fender used to captain it at cricket.”

  “Freddie, are you invited to a place called Thrackley by a bloke called Carson?”

  “How the blazes did you know?”

  “Intuition, my boy. Sheer intuition. That’s the place where I was going to parade in your tails.”

  “You’ve been asked down to Thrackley? Jim, this is splendid. Here have I been looking forward to the most ghastly weekend, with long walks and tapioca pudding and redoubling four spades and going three light, and possibly slipping away on the milk train in the grey dawn of Sunday morning. But if you’re coming down there’s a chance that it may not be quite so mouldy.”

  “Thanks very much. But what about the dress suit? We’d be apt to look odd if you wore trousers and I contented myself with the jacket.”

  “True. Jim, this is a time when personal sacrifices must be made. You shall have Number Two suit. It’s all right—a bit moth-ballish, perhaps, but quite good enough for the wilds of Surrey.”

  “Thanks very much.”

  Jim called to the passing waiter and muttered something concerning the same again, please.

  “The thing I’m trying to get at,” he said, “is who the devil is Edwin Carson? Never heard of the fellow in my life.”

  The Honourable Freddie thoug
ht for several seconds before answering.

  “Edwin Carson,” he said at last, “is a rum bird. A bird, Jim, of extreme rumness. The pater used to know him well, but I’ve only met him once or twice. He’s been abroad for years, I believe. India, someone told me. Probably spending weekends with the ruling princes and picking neat little holes in their crowns.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Edwin Carson is the greatest living authority on precious stones in the world. The only reason why he isn’t acclaimed as such in public and in the Press is that his methods of collecting his jewels—he’s got an amazing collection, I believe—is not supposed to be all that it might be. Comrade Carson is a person with a past. He was out in South Africa years ago—”

  “I wonder if that was where he met my father? Dad died out there, you know, when I was just a kid. He said in his letter that he was an old friend of Father.”

  “Maybe. In any case, he collected a pretty fat fortune for himself out there, and since those days he’s lived half in England and half abroad.”

  “And what’s the idea in asking us down? Ordinary hospitality?”

  “When you meet friend Carson, you’ll realize that he’s not at all the sort of fellow who might be expected to ooze with good old English hospitality. No… the object in asking me down is the Usher diamonds.”

  Jim stopped his second gin-and-ginger half-way on its journey to his mouth, stared at Freddie, and said “Uck?”

  “The Usher diamonds. Carson wants me to bring the damned things down. Wants to compare them with some in his own collection.”

  “You’re not going to?”

  “If I can get them out of pawn and give them a wash and brush up in time. Why not?”

  “Of all the blithering, nit-witted—”

  “Don’t you worry. I can take care of them all right. Besides, old Carson’s a reformed character now. A bit potty, one hears, but otherwise quite harmless.”

  “And why d’you think he wants me to join the party?”

  “I’ve been trying to think that out. You haven’t a collar-stud or anything like that that’s a priceless heirloom?”

  “I wish to heaven I had.”

  “Then he’s probably trying to get his daughter married. Obviously the man hasn’t heard of your murky past.”

  “There’s a daughter, then?”

  “There certainly is. And if my informants are correct, the said daughter is just about the gem of the entire collection.”

  The two men rose and crossed the lounge to the cloak-room to collect their gloves and hats.

  “By the way,” said the Honourable Freddie, “I suppose you still happen to have a revolver lying about the house somewhere?”

  “A revolver?”

  “Yes. I’m packing one beside my razor blades and toothbrush next weekend. Just for fun, of course.”

  “You’re… what?”

  “I’m taking a revolver to Thrackley. You never know with blokes like Carson. A bit potty, but otherwise quite harmless. And I hate these harmless, potty people. They’re always up to something.”

  “Why not take those new pyjamas you were talking about? A much more deadly weapon.”

  “These broad attempts at humour do not come naturally from you, James. And that looks to me remarkably like a taxi. Taxi!”

  They had stopped on the steps of the club, before being lost in the traffic of the Strand.

  “I’ll run you down on Friday, Jim,” said the Honourable Freddie. “Fishing, you said, didn’t you?”

  “Excellent fishing,” said Jim. “And fair shooting.”

  “Only fair? What a pity!”

  And Mr. Usher disappeared head first into his taxi.

  III

  The house called Thrackley stands about three miles south of the village of Adderly. It lies, comfortably but damply, in a dip of the surrounding hills. Tall pine-trees close it in on all sides, and the motorist travelling along the road from Adderly village sees very little of the house itself. A glimpse of two high turrets above the tips of the pines, a pair of heavy iron gates hung on massive stone pillars… and that is just about all. The house itself forms the main source of gossip in the thirty-odd private and the three public houses of Adderly. When the other affairs of the outside world have been settled, when the government has been given what it damned well deserves, when the prospects of the local football team for a week come Saturday have been thoroughly discussed, and the state of the country and the weather and the crops and the beer have all been debated, then the villagers of Adderly hark back to their favourite topic. The goings-on at Thrackley.

  For years Thrackley had stood silent and empty. The former tenant had found his pocket insufficiently large to keep the big house going, and when it was put into the market there was no buyer to be found. People nowadays were buying maisonettes or semi-detached villas with neat little imitation oak trolleys instead of heavy mahogany sideboards and almost transparent wallboards instead of good stone walls. So for years no one lived in Thrackley, and the once immaculate drive became first coated with a thin covering of green, and then turned itself into quite a respectable hay-field, and finally allowed two healthy alder-bushes and a young laburnum to sprout in the middle of a track intended only for Rolls-Royces and Bentleys. And the ivy, which had always been a fairly strong feature of Thrackley’s exterior decoration, spread itself madly in all directions, and even forced an entrance into the house through a lavatory window and festooned itself gaily round the hot-water tap of a bath.

  And then suddenly, without warning, things began to happen at Thrackley. Things like plumbers and masons and joiners; van-loads of furniture, and painters and gardeners and under-gardeners. They whirled through Adderly village and on to Thrackley without even stopping at the Hen and Chickens for a quick one; and the inhabitants of Adderly were very annoyed at all this taking place without any of them knowing exactly what was going on. They sat at their windows, or in the bar-parlour of the Hen and Chickens, and mournfully watched each item of the procession, and said to each other: “Another one of them there furniture lorries. The fifth since a week past Thursday. Beats me, it does.”

  Then there was a short interval when nothing happened at Thrackley. And then the place became inhabited.

  There was no doubt about it. The big iron gates (which had been scraped and polished and their gilt tops regilded) were pushed open, and shiny saloon cars began to purr up the drive (which had also been scraped and polished, and the odd alders and laburnums removed, and had been covered with a thick layer of pebbles which gave out satisfying crunches when a pair of feet walked on them). And smoke made its appearance out of each of the many chimney-pots and curled slowly out over the tops of the pine-trees. And at night lights twinkled in nearly all of Thrackley’s windows. All this was noted by the inhabitants of Adderly: the shiny saloon cars by all of them, the smoke by nearly all, the lights by one adventurous soul whose curiosity carried him to the gates of the house after dark one evening.

  But Adderly (again very much to its annoyance) never saw the new tenant of Thrackley. Never so much as a glimpse of the fellow’s back view. The navy saloon car purred out through the iron gates every now and then, but whoever was sitting on the cushions of the rear seat sat well back and occasionally even drew the pale cream curtains to foil Adderly’s interest in the matter. And the staff at Thrackley (for presumably, as Adderly argued to itself, there must be a staff: butlers and things like that) seemed to share their master’s fondness for the beauties of home life. Did they mingle with the villagers? They did not. Did they patronize the Hen and Chickens, the Brown Bear, or the King George the Fifth Inn? Not on your life. Did they make a single purchase at the village general stores, that marvel of variety where corsets and picture-postcards of the Royal Family rubbed shoulders on the counter? They did no such thing. Over its early-evening pint of ale, Adderly decided tha
t the new occupant of Thrackley was a lunatic. Or an invalid. Or a nervous wreck. Or (a little later in the evening, in a flight of imagination just before closing-time) the head of a powerful gang of counterfeiters. In any case, it was all very perplexing.

  To the few who had yet seen it, the interior of the house was surprising. You drove up the long drive, flanked on each side by the dark green of the pine-trees, and as you rounded the last curve a sense of gloom settled firmly upon you. This, you decided, would be a house of damp walls, cobwebs in corners, obsolete sanitations, rats (or at least mice), and prunes and rice for dessert. Even when you stepped from your car and looked the heavy door square in its ugly face, the sense of gloom showed no sign of disappearing. The house was large, built of a dark grey stone, and mostly hidden beneath a wealth of ivy which seemed badly in need of a few hours with a vacuum cleaner. The pines effectively did their job of keeping away any sunlight which may have expressed a desire to shine upon the house called Thrackley; only one window, and that a microscopic affair at the top of the house, seemed to have a sporting chance of getting any of the sun’s rays. (And that window, as a matter of fact, belonged to a small and very dirty box-room which had not been opened for years.) Otherwise the trees completely blotted out the light from the house, leaving it grey, cheerless, drab. Inside was a very different matter…

  Once you entered the lounge hall of Thrackley you were forced to forget about the unpleasantness which you had left behind. Beautiful furniture everywhere. Thick pile carpets into which your shoes sank luxuriously. The latest in fireplace designs, in curtains and hangings, in wallpaper and friezes. Very few pictures on the walls, but those in excellent taste—a group of etchings in one room, a couple of modern watercolours in another, a trio of unframed woodcuts in a third. The owner of Thrackley and the army of workmen who had so puzzled and annoyed the village of Adderly had certainly done their job well.