RULES and ORDERS, to be OBSERV’D in this HALL, without EXCEPTION
1. Whoever is last at Breakfast, to clear the Table, and put the Copper, horns Salt, Pepper, &c. in their proper places ….. or forfeit d.
3
2. That the Postilion, and Groom, shall have the Servants hall cloth laid for Dinner by one o’clock, and not omit laying Salt, Pepper, spoons, &c…. 3
3. That the knives for Dinner, and the housekeeper’s room, to be clean’d ev’ry day, by the Postilion, and Groom, and in case one is out the other do his business in his absence, be it which it may … 3
4. That if any Person be heard to swear, or use any indecent language at any time when the Cloth is on the Table 3
5. Whoever leaves any powder, or pomatum, or anything belonging to their dress, or any wearing apparel, out of their proper places ….. 3
6. That no one be suffered to play cards in this hall, between six in the Morning and six in the Evening. 3
7. Whoever leaves any pieces of Bread, at breakfast, Dinner, or Supper ….. 1
He read on, imagining that the strict life behind the green baize doors would have pleased his father. The hall was to be decently swept, the dirt taken away; water to be pumped every Wednesday; no Provision to be put in any Cupboard or Drawer; Table cloth to be folded after all meals & put in the Drawer for that purpose; anyone detected ‘wiping’ knives on the Table cloth; anyone taking plates to the table, to be ‘seen to set them for dogs to eat off’; ‘no wearing apparel or hat box be suffered to hang in the hall, but shall be put in the closets for that purpose’—fined 3d a time; and it ended with WHOEVER DEFACES THESE RULES, IN ANY MANNER 5s.
*
When he was back in the ward an aged footman, whose face was vaguely familiar, came and said, with a bow, “His Grace presents His Grace’s compliments, sir, and His Grace requests the honour of your presence in His Grace’s Lignum Room at eleven o’clock this morning.”
“Oh, thank you. My compliments to His Grace, and I’ll attend upon his Grace at eleven. But how does one get to His Grace’s Lignum Room?”
“I’ll come and take you there, sir, five minutes before eleven.’’
“I’ve met you before, somewhere, I think?”
“I was Colonel Mogger’anger‘s batman, sir, at the White City. I come home with ’im, sir.”
“Of course, I remember now. Dear old Moggers! Well, I’ll see you here at five to eleven. Don’t be late, you crab wallah, or it’ll be three dee up your shirt!”
*
The crab-wallah returned to the minute, and led him down several passages to a green baize door, through which he passed to a corridor lined with sporting prints on either wall almost to the ceiling. Down another corridor lined with butterflies in cases. Here an elderly butler took over from the footman, leading him on to a red-baize door, behind which stood the chamberlain, an equivalent, he thought, of the Senior Regimental Sergeant-major. With great dignity this individual, resplendent in crimson and gold, led him to a tall door made with what seemed to be teak-wood, or possibly lignum vitae, since it resembled the round boxes in which string was pulled in ironmongers’ shops to tie up parcels. Before the massive door the chamberlain paused to rap loudly on the door, afterwards opening it by turning a handle of what looked like gold. Stepping back, he announced in quiet tones, “Lieutenant-Colonel Maddison of the Mediators, Your Grace”; whereupon he bowed slightly to the guest, and with a sweep of the door closing backwards, left him in a tall room with an advancing figure of medium height, wearing spectacles above a heavy moustache rather like a sturdier Rudyard Kipling.
The Duke held out a hand. “Good morning, Colonel Maddison. Pray sit yourself down.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
The Duke was wearing the blue patrol uniform of a full colonel of the regiment. He re-seated himself behind his desk. Phillip waited, entirely calm. His mind was made up: he would tell the truth.
The Duke said nothing. From afar, Phillip heard the out-of-tune cuckoo singing in the remote world. The Duke stared at his desk. He seemed to be considering what to say, consulting chin with hand; plucking at loosening skin with finger and thumb, until he reached a decision; only to reject it while regulating the two ends of his moustaches in an upward direction. Phillip continued to feel calm. This man was more nervous than himself. He wanted to help him; but remained silent, sitting back in his chair, and with detachment removed his smoked glasses, to pass his hand across his eyes. That would suggest something to the Duke.
“Are you gettin’ on well?”
“Yes, thank you, sir. It’s wonderful to be back in England, as Browning said, now that April’s here—or, rather, May!”
“Who?”
“Browning, sir, the poet.”
“Oh yes, of course.”
There was another fairly long interval. Putting on his glasses Phillip said, “Harold West and I used to discuss poetry in France, sir.”
“Really.”
Phillip became aware of several clocks ticking away in the panelled room. He must wait for the Duke to speak.
“You knew Colonel West, of course?”
“Yes, sir. I met him at Loos.”
“Where?”
“At Loos. The battle in September, ’fifteen.”
“Oh yes, of course. Loos, yes. Mowbray was wounded, I remember.”
He heard himself saying, “It was from Harold West that I first heard of the traditions of the regiment, sir, or rather the spirit of the county.” Oh, what a fool he must seem, talking so stiltedly.
“Really.”
More prolonged racing ticks of half a dozen clocks.
“You are gettin’ better? No after effects?”
“None, sir.”
The Duke’s forefinger and thumb seemed to spend much time with the Duke’s post-Crimea guardee moustache. Suddenly Phillip remembered having read in The Field, when at school, of the South African cuckoo, which sang more slowly than the ordinary cuckoo, and the first note was lower, nearer in pitch to the second.
“I wonder if you can tell me if a South African cuckoo has ever been recorded in Gaultshire, sir?”
“What?” Ducal head was raised off shoulders, fingers forgot moustache, ornithological eyes grew larger behind spectacles. “What makes you say that?”
Phillip told him. “It’s only an idea, sir. But the slower singing, and the notes close together——”
“Remarkable. You did not mark its exact whereabouts, I suppose? Only by ear? Most interesting. Have you read Frank Buckland’s writings?”
“Yes, sir, but not since I was a boy.”
“A wonderful man, indeed. Yes, one’s hearing is improved, of course, when the sight is in abeyance, the auditory nerve is quickened. Cuculus gularis, indeed. We have a record of glandarius, the so-called Great Spotted Cuckoo, which inhabits, as you know, south-western Europe and the Mediterranean countries, extending through Syria and Asia Minor to Persia, and migrating in the fall into Africa, as far as Cape Colony. Let me show you.”
He sprang up, and pulled out a volume, one of several on a shelf, while humming words to himself. “Here we are, Lydekker’s Royal Natural History, volume four. H’m, ha. At the beginnin’.”
A stubby forefinger pointed at an engraving—“Crested cuckoos. H’m. Hawk-cuckoos. Ha. True cuckoos … the tail-feathers lack the transverse bars of the hawk-cuckoos. That’s our fellow, gularis. Where is it calling, you say? West of the house. Probably down by the Satchville brook, the moor, as we call it. Well, I am most grateful to you, Colonel—ah—Maddison. Thank you, indeed.”
The Duke held out a hand, while pulling a crimson bell-pull with the other. “We must foregather again. Do you shoot?”
“Yes, sir.”
The door opened, the chamberlain stood there, bowing.
“Good morning,” said the Duke.
All the way back, past the butterflies and sporting prints; and at the green baize door stood the butler, with a three-tiered trolley whereon stood bottles; wh
ile beside the butler was the aged footman with a mahogany tray of cigars, cigarettes, and packets of tobacco.
“I’d like a glass of beer, please.”
“I must regret, sir, that I have no beer to offer you. Beer at the Abbey, sir, is brewed only for polishing his Grace’s floors.”
“I’ll have a peg of whiskey, I think.”
He drank his whiskey and seltzer, selected a cigar, which the butler cut and pierced with a gold cutter; and, accepting the light of a taper from the footman, he thanked them and went through the door into the familiar echoes of the stone-flagged passage leading to the Royal Tennis Court of pre-1914.
*
Now the ward lights shone with friendly gleams, the little flames moving in the night airs which brought the songs of nightingales; but they were nightingales in the Croiselles valley before the Hindenburg Line in May 1917 that he was listening to, straining his mind to re-enter the past, to bring it back, even for one moment of life. Croiselles was again in German hands, so was Mory Copse, St. Leger, and Ervillers where his picket lines had stood, and Black Prince had whinnied to see him coming. He felt again the urge in his innermost being to be back, but there was little hope now, with part of his left lung drawn together like a scab.
Life was pleasant; he felt that he belonged there. The night-dreads were for the moment gone; a diet which included a bowl of chopped cabbage, seasoned with butter, salt, and a little pepper, had cured his constipation. He looked forward to the late evening, and the nightingales: almost the best period of the twenty-four hours, when the night sister had taken over and gone out for her supper, leaving the ward like a deep pool, with twenty tallow candles standing in water within their glass bulbs, each the shape of a tulip, shining down the length of the refectory tables which, joined together, made forty-five feet in length. Before the war the tables had stood in the servants’ hall, or one of the many rooms of their quarters, for there had been very nearly a hundred of them in the Abbey then—coalmen, watermen, footmen, chauffeurs, grooms, stablemen, as well as all the kitchen staff, the butchers and poultrymen, the maid-servants and other women employed about the place, including the laundry, and the men in the brew-house. The Duke had been a model employer, insisting that his steward pay good wages to his estate workers; and if any man in any of the villages was out of work through no fault of his own, a job had been found for him. His generosity, said ‘Hen’ Sudley, was in the Whig tradition; the Duke had sold much of his off-lying land to the tenants, believing in progress. How little Uncle Jim Pickering at Beau Brickhill, an avowed Liberal, had failed to understand the Duke! Lloyd George again, ‘Mr. “George”’, as ‘Spectre’ had always spoken of him, who had broken Gough, and damned the Fifth Army.
It was said that before the war two men were continually employed boiling down deer fat to make the tallow tapers which lit the corridors behind the green baize doors—nearly half a mile of passages which connected the servants’ quarters, kitchens, stables, etc. One man’s full-time job had been to clean and polish the globes with methylated spirit.
After midnight many of the tapers were smoking. Each glass tulip was clear half-way up, then smoke tinged it; so they had burned behind the green baize doors for centuries. With the herds of deer and bison which roamed the Wilderness within the demesne walls were emus, gold and silver pheasants, peacocks, jungle fowl, and other foreign birds, all of them living wild within the sanctuary of six square miles of the Park.
And yet, underlying all, was a tragedy. The only child of the Duke, his son, was alienated from his father. The Marquess of Husborne was a conscientious objector. The two never met; it was forbidden to mention the name of the heir at the Abbey. He was a Socialist, and thought that the money system of the country was all wrong, and responsible for the war. What an extraordinary thing to think. The other great interest in his life, ‘Hen’ Sudley had said, was wild animals and birds … as with his parents, the Duke and Duchess. What was the reason for it: could it be that, underneath everything, it was as in his own home? Surely not, for such rich people lived entirely different lives. Perhaps if ‘Spectre’ had not died, he would have known what was the matter, for ‘Spectre’ had hated the war, too, and saw only ruin in it. Aunt Dora had the same ideas, so had cousin Willie—it was all part of the tragedy of the world.
He had finished Victory, and the first story, Youth, of another volume lent by dear old ‘Hen’. Joseph Conrad was a noble writer, who knew the underlying truth of things. He was now half-way through Lord Jim: had ‘Hen’ specially urged him to read it, because he suspected his secret? How much did he know? Did the Duke know, as well? Was that why the Duke had not spoken about ‘Spectre’? Because he had not liked to broach the subject? Was it being kept for the Regimental conference?
The lights, which had burned clearly down the ward, were beginning to thicken and glare. He hid his face under the sheet, but sleep would not come.
Chapter 13
HIGH SUMMER
As the month of May advanced, thoughts of the Regimental conference gave Phillip dyspepsia, and brought a return of cold sweats, embarrassingly under the arm-pits. He believed that the conference was being called solely to deal with the matter of finding out why ‘Spectre’ had been drowned unnecessarily; the fact was that a certain number of senior officers of the Regiment were either on leave from the front, or doing duty at home, and the Duke had invited old friends and acquaintances to spend a weekend at the Abbey, to enjoy what amenities were remaining from the war. The private golf course was ploughed up, put down to beet-sugar—a crop introduced before the war by the Duke, as an experiment, together with new strains of Irish rye-grass, white French wheats, and (a failure) the sweet potato from Virginia (which he believed was the original tuber brought into England by Walter Raleigh) and other seeds; but there was still the fishing in the several lakes which were stocked by rainbow trout reared beside one of his rivers in Scotland. Tennis, the original game played with lop-sided racquets and leather balls stuffed with feathers, was out of the question; the covered court was a hospital ward. It was not the season for deer-drives, fox-hunting, or shooting; but there was still cricket to be played, and watched, in the area of the Command depot; and towards the end of the month the Mayfly would be up.
*
He needed a new tunic, and went to London to get one made by a tailor recommended by Denis Sisley. All he possessed was the tommy’s tunic, brought over from the depôt, and his original knickerbockers and puttees bought early in 1915 at the Civil Service Stores; and a service cap, the inner band stuffed with newspaper, lent by ‘Hen’.
From St. Pancras station he took a taxi to Piccadilly Circus, and there decided to walk down to the Embankment and see the sights by Charing Cross and Trafalgar Square. After a cup of coffee in the Corner House he walked on down Whitehall, seeing that the Stars and Stripes was flying over No. 10 Downing Street, beside the Union Jack. Hawkers on the kerb were selling little flags for the button-hole. “Old Glory—a penny each—only a penny! Buy Old Glory, sir!” He bought one and stuck it behind his lapel; and walking towards Westminster, saw that the same two flags were flying from a tower above the Houses of Parliament. Had there been an advance in France, of the two Allies? Everyone seemed to be fairly jubilant. Then he heard that an American regiment was to be reviewed by the King at Buckingham Palace before going to France.
It was so fine a morning that he walked on to Mr. Kerr’s shop in Cundit Street, which Sisley had told him was a little way down from where it joined Regent Street. He walked through the Park, seeing the wildfowl on the lake, and thought that London could be beautiful—the water, the trees, the wide grasslands with their flower-beds and old elm-trees. He had to ask his way to Piccadilly Circus, then knew the way up the curve of Regent Street, with its Regency stucco buildings and pillars painted yellow, rather faded, and quite a different place by day than by night.
Entering the tailor’s shop, he was greeted by a pleasant-faced man with a quiet, “Good morning, sir.”
“I’d like a tunic, and a pair of riding breeches, please.”
This request produced in the middle-aged man a mild suggestion of enthusiasm subdued by deference as he held up a finger. At once a figure detached itself from among shadowy bolts of cloth and came forward with an impersonal smile.
“May I have your burberry, sir? Thank you.” It was deftly removed, and given to the secondary figure. Mr. Kerr, with a glance at the shoulder-strap badges, turned slightly, and said, “The barathea, Mr. Brown.”
At these words the figure hauled a bolt off the pile, using apparently all its strength, then held it upright a moment before lifting it as though about to toss the caber; then, changing his stance, he let the roll descend in a half spin which caused two folds to fall upon the carpet, thus revealing a pride of new cloth, which caused Phillip to say without hesitation, “I’d like that one.”
“If I may say so, an admirable choice, sir. Barathea is, as you know, a tenacious cross-weave, and worn by members of the Foot Guards.”
Mr. Kerr inquired if his visitor had recently returned from ‘out there’.
“About a month ago. I’m in the same hospital as Captain Sisley, who gave me your name.”
“Ah, the Mediators, sir?”
“Yes.”
“We had Captain Sisley in here with us a few days ago. Now if you will allow me, I’ll take your measurements.”
The tape went round his chest. “Thirty-six, Mr. Brown.”
“A nice man, Captain Sisley, sir. Neck, fourteen. Now your waist. Twenty eight.” Mr. Kerr paused. “Are you up to your usual weight, sir?”
“I’m normally eleven stone four pounds, I think.”
“If you’ll come with me——”
The scales balanced at nine stone, nine pounds. “I’ll allow a couple of inches on chest and waist, sir, to be on the safe side. Wounded, sir?”
“Mustard gas.”
“Wretched stuff, isn’t it? Now for the breeches, sir. Mr. Brown, the cavalry twill!”
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