The Education Of Epitome Quirkstandard

by A. F. Harrold

  ‘Indeed, sir.’

  ‘Well, I shall go read one of these pamphlets to him and see how he likes it.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  *

  Later that afternoon Quirkstandard and Nigel Spiggot went to Victoria Station in order to buy their train tickets to Arundel in advance. This was after Spiggot had listened, yawning lengthily, to Quirkstandard read from Cardinal Compass Points & Other Directions Of Ecumenical Interest. Spiggot had been unimpressed and had spent most of the lecture thinking about the bottom of a girl he’d met the day before in Hyde Park. It had been an impressive bottom, full of fascinating and informative scents, redolent with individuality and personality and his little tail wagged as he remembered it.

  Naturally Quirkstandard had felt disappointed by his best friend’s reluctance to share in his enthusiasm for the new learning, but the thing was they were pals despite their differences and not even something as important as this could dent that friendship. He’d known that Spiggot wasn’t really the academic sort ever since they’d first met on the playing fields of Eton – when Spiggot was running with the ball between his teeth there was no one who could bring him down (not that he scored any tries, but, at least, the games master said, he showed some interest). Nowadays Spiggot didn’t run so much. Unlike Quirkstandard he hadn’t held onto his youth quite so well and one of his legs was a bit gammy and his eyes were a bit misty. His nose, however, was still sharp and his hearing, when the dinner bell at Mauve’s went or when a stranger approached the front door, was better than ever.

  Following the disappointment with the pamphlet Quirkstandard had walked with Spiggot round to the Spiggots’ house and rang the bell. The butler had answered and had gone and found Mrs Spiggot.

  ‘Ah, Lord Quirkstandard,’ she said. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Oh yes, Mrs Spiggot,’ he answered brightly, ‘I’ve had a postcard from Auntie Penelope inviting me down to her place in Sussex for the weekend, and I wondered if Nigel might be allowed to come too?’

  ‘Does your Aunt say he’s welcome?’

  ‘Yes. She used a special code word just for Nigel.’

  ‘Very well, I should think that would be all right.’ She leant down and stroked Spiggot behind the ear. ‘Would you like a weekend in the country, darling?’

  Nigel answered with a woof, a snuffle and a wag.

  ‘I’d best just ask Mr Spiggot, just to make sure, but I don’t think there’s anything Nigel needs to do here.’

  She went away into the house leaving the two gentlemen stood on the doorstep.

  ‘See, I knew she’d say you could come … I bet your governor says the same thing. We’re off to the fresh air and the country, Spiggot old pal.’

  Nigel Spiggot looked up at his friend Epitome Quirkstandard and gazed with the big eyes of a dog who actually seems to understand what a human being is saying to him. He wagged his tail a little.

  In a minute Mrs Spiggot returned to the door.

  ‘Of course it’s all right,’ she said.

  ‘Lovely, we’ll be off tomorrow morning, and probably come back in time for lunch on Monday, if that’s all right? And can Nigel stay the night at my house, Mrs Spiggot please, so that we’re all ready for the off in the morning?’

  ‘That sounds super, Lord Quirkstandard dear. Are you going to get your tickets in advance, just in case you’re running late in the morning?’ (She was familiar with the habits of young men.)

  ‘Oh, that’s a super idea, Mrs Spiggot. Thanks a lot. Come on Nigel, let’s get to the station.’

  ‘Victoria, isn’t it?’ (Mrs Spiggot thought it wouldn’t hurt to remind the boys.)

  ‘Yes, that’s it.’

  And so, forty minutes later the two chaps strolled in a jaunty men-about-town manner through the station right up to the little ticket window. The jauntiness of their walk was indicated mainly by the length of the pendulous swing of Quirkstandard’s stick and by the way he looked loftily about in every direction except that in which he was moving. Spiggot held his head high, swayed his hips wide and nodded at all the ladies he passed. They looked like a couple of dandy swells off on a train trip somewhere rather pleasant, which was, if only the observers had known it, surprisingly near the mark.

  It would have been much nearer the mark, however, if they hadn’t been told at the ticket window that, due to engineering works just south of Clapham Junction, there were no trains running toward the south coast this weekend at all.

  ‘Oh,’ Quirkstandard said.

  He looked down at Spiggot and Spiggot looked up at him and Quirkstandard raised his shoulders in a shrug.

  Spiggot panted a little and wagged his tail, before sitting down and licking himself.

  A minute later the two gentlemen walked out of Victoria Station with a lot less swagger and swell than they’d taken in with them. Spiggot trotted over to a little tea shop-cum-butcher’s he knew across the way and they pondered their next moves over a cup of Earl Grey and a slightly grisly bone.

  Chapter 22

  Simon Crepuscular & The Big Plan

  ‘Of course I will,’ said Simon Crepuscular. ‘A weekend in the country is just what I need, and maybe dad will want to come along too. He’s not been out of the city for ages, I can’t think when the last time was. Some fresh air, a clean river to walk beside. Oh, it’ll do us all the world of good.’

  Quirkstandard and Spiggot looked at each other and nodded happily. They were sat in the kitchen at Crepuscular & Sons and were enjoying a cup of tea and a biscuit respectively.

  ‘That’s smashing. You see the trains are an awful nuisance …’

  ‘Yes, you said. Rodney, are you going to come?’

  ‘No. I’ve got to paint the bloody hall this weekend. Rose’s mother’s coming to stay next week and she always expects the hall to be a different colour. Thinks a husband’s not doing his duty if it’s the same shade of peach from one visit to the next.’

  ‘Oh well.’

  ‘Yeah, ‘Oh well’ indeed. You go and enjoy the sunshine and the lazing about watching ducks and newts and things. You’ll probably see some fancy toads while you’re there.’

  ‘Oh, there’s all sorts of things like that where Auntie Penelope lives. Frogs and dragonflies and rabbits and all sorts.’

  ‘Yeah, well I don’t care much for the frogs, but if you see any toads, Simon, do a quick sketch for me would you?’

  ‘I’ll try my best, oh brother of mine.’

  Rodney picked up his paper and put down his empty teacup and made excuses to leave.

  ‘I’ve got the paint on order, I’d best pick it up before old Jones sells it by mistake. You know what he’s like, anything for a quick profit.’

  ‘Cheerio.’

  ‘Yeah, ’bye.’

  As Rodney shut the front door with a jingle behind him, footsteps shifted about overhead and creaked their way down the stairs.

  ‘Oh, Mr Q., I thought I heard your voice,’ said Simone as he emerged into the kitchen. ‘How did your lecture go this morning? Many chaps buck up and listen to you?’

  Nigel Spiggot yawned in his chair.

  ‘Well, to be honest, Mr Crepuscular, it was a bit of a no show. Only Spiggot here showed up and he doesn’t really pay much attention to education. He prefers sticks. But I’m going to try again on some of the other chaps next week I think. I’m sure someone’s going to catch the bug.’

  ‘Well, that’s encouraging. You’re not a quitter Mr Q., I’ll give you that much. So, this is Mr Spiggot who you’ve talked so much about.’

  Simone Crepuscular looked down at the little schnauzer who sat at his kitchen table munching on another of Dawn’s biscuits.

  ‘Shake hands Spiggot,’ said Quirkstandard by way of encouragement.

  Nigel Spiggot looked up at Crepuscular’s outstretched hand and raised his right front paw up and plonked it down in the open palm.

  They shook.

  ‘It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr Spiggot,’ s
aid Crepuscular.

  Nigel Spiggot barked once in a friendly manner.

  ‘We’re going to visit Mr Quirkstandard’s Aunt in the country and I’m going to drive a Rolls-Royce,’ said Simon.

  ‘I think it’s a Silvery Ghost.’

  ‘Mr Q.?’

  ‘Um, it’s a sort of Rolls-Royce.’

  ‘Yes, I know the Silver Ghost, Mr Q., there’s a rather a good illustration of one in a pamphlet I wrote a few years ago on the influence of the supernatural in the motoring industry. More what I meant was … What does Simon mean when he says we’re going to visit your Aunt? And then, subordinate to that first question is, of course, a clarificatory addendum pertaining to the motorcar, it’s origin, ownership and his capabilities as a driver.’

  ‘Oh, you see Auntie Penelope has invited Spiggot and I to head down for some japes and dinner this weekend and the trains were all of a dither, well, I mean to say, there weren’t any, and so I came back here not knowing where else to go on a Friday afternoon to ponder the problem, you see I’ve already sent her a telegram from Mauve’s to say we’re coming, and then I asked Mr Crepuscular – oh … I mean this Mr Crepuscular – if he had any ideas and he asked if I had a car, and I realised that I do, although I don’t have a chauffeur since he’s gone off to give the Germans what for, and he said (Mr Crepuscular that is, not the chauffer) that he could drive it for me. And so I said, well why doesn’t he come and stay for the weekend too. I’m sure Auntie Penelope will be happy to have another guest.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Oh, she’s only got a little cottage, Mr Crepuscular, but she puts a tent up in the garden for me and Spiggot to sleep in and I’m sure she can find another one for you two if you wanted to come? She’s got oodles of tents around the place. That’s sort of part of what she does, you see. Camping and all that.’

  ‘Well, if Simon thinks he can drive this contraption …’

  ‘It’s a Rolls-Royce dad, I think it’s probably more than a contraption.’

  ‘Well, if you think you can drive it, then I’m sure a few days in the fresh air won’t be a bad idea at all.’

  *

  ‘Well, after my mother and father died, Auntie Penelope looked after me. I was only a boy, you see,’ Quirkstandard explained later to the Crepusculars, ‘and I don’t think anyone thought I’d be able to look after myself and so they sent her a telegram and whoosh! She came and saved me. She bought me iced cream, I remember that, and then we went home and then I got sent back to school. She had to go back to work, being an explorer and whathaveyou, because that’s what she does, she travels round the world a bit like you did in those pamphlets, do you remember? Except she takes girls with her, little groups of girls that she teaches things. I never really understood what it was they learnt, but then I never had much of a penchant for education, at that time anyway. I mean I rather flunked at school, which is why I’m so grateful for your help now. I think once a gentleman has had a chance and some time to mature, then he’s much more suited to knuckling down with the schoolbooks and wrestling with the big questions. Education’s probably wasted on children. I mean it was wasted on me when I was a child. But she’d take these girls off with her to Africa or Austria or Australia, I always get those three muddled, and they’d trek in the jungle and all live in tents and all that. And while I was at school she always used to send me these long letters, filled with stories and adventures and a whole lot of stuff I skipped about politics and history and the sort. I only wanted to read the bits about her fighting the crocodiles and the pygmies. And she’d scribble little pictures in the margins of the animals and butterflies that she’d seen or the shape of the moon or a mountain or something and sometimes she’d sketch some of the girls she was sharing the tent with. And those letters, especially those ones, actually made me some friends at Eton, I mean besides Spiggot here who was a chum from the first day we met each other and who never much cared for pictures of any sort. All he’s ever wanted is a stick and a walk and a scratch behind the ears, eh, old chum? But she used to come back when school was out and she’d take me to the seaside and to the zoo and things like that. Oh, we had such fun. And sometimes she’d come down to Eton during term and arrive on a Saturday afternoon and normally the porters were very strict about visitors and boys weren’t actually allowed any, not on a Saturday because that was against the rules, but I’d watch her walking up the street from the window and see her meet one of the porters and talk to him and they’d always let her in, they liked her that much. And she’d take me out to one of those little teashops in Windsor and we’d have cake and tea and buns and I’d feel really sad when she went away again, but then a week later a postcard would arrive or a letter and that’d make me feel better again. She was brilliant, Mr Crepuscular, she was super. I saw her loads more than I ever saw my mother, I mean before she was dead. Not that I’m saying mother was bad, but Auntie Penelope really cared. And then I left school and did that university thing and finally I turned twenty-one and came into my inheritance, as they say, and she gave me the keys to the safe where the family fortune was kept and moved her things out of Devonshire Terrace and bought this little cottage of her own down in Sussex, on the Downs. A place called Arundel. It’s very nice, there’s a river and trees and all sorts there. Spiggot likes it because there’s a whole lot of sticks lying around and ducks and things to chase. It’s smashing isn’t it? She still writes, you know, and I still don’t understand half of what she talks about, but I like the pictures and I like the adventures. She’s not like a normal Aunt at all. You hear some dreadful dull stories at Mauve’s about other Aunts. She never expects me to do anything much and has never asked me to marry anyone. I think you’ll like her, Mr Crepuscular, you remind me of her, I mean your pamphlets do. Not that she has a beard or anything …’

  Chapter 23

  Nancy Walker & Miss Penultimate’s Kitchen

  Like so many children in the late Victorian age Nancy Walker had been found as a baby and handed in to an orphanage where she spent some time growing up. She was not the most cooperative of orphans, not only asking for seconds but also punching other girls, refusing to do her schoolwork, refusing to do her homework, bawling when being made to have a bath, spitting at Matron when she combed her hair, punching the Governor when he tried to reason with her and whispering after lights out.

  By the time she was ten years old the orphanage authorities had had quite enough of her obstreperous and disobedient ways and sent her into service at the most harshly disciplined, tightly controlled and unlikely of domestic situations – in the house of the Duke of Norfolk, that is to say Arundel Castle.

  Nancy wasn’t the most obliging of employees either. But her position as Fourth Scullery Maid meant she was never seen by the masters and rarely by the daylight. So her foul language, temper tantrums and tears went uncommented on outside the kitchen and, as such, little harm was done. Naturally she tried to ensure that little work was done either, but both the Butler and the Housekeeper took a fancy to her backside, the former with a slipper and the latter with a spatula. After she’d learnt that all the doors and windows were kept locked at night, Nancy eventually made a grudging show of knuckling down and got on with grudgingly getting on with her work.

  It was never particularly good work. The cutlery rarely sparkled after she had polished it and the potatoes were rarely entirely naked once she’d peeled them, but she did just enough to keep her out of real trouble. She even managed to almost make some friends amongst the other Scullery and Parlour Maids, but for the most part they lacked the vital sparkle that Nancy had, and were content to giggle about amusingly shaped vegetables and whether the Stable Boy’s trousers were tight enough. Nancy found this tedious and stupid and longed through the long days to get up to her tiny shared attic room and indulge her secret vice: reading books.

  She liked Robert Louis Stevenson and imagined sharing Jim Hawkins’ adventures on the Hispaniola and on the desert island. She swore she would’ve shown Long Jo
hn Silver and his mutineers a thing or two, and often lay awake in bed dreaming of what she might do with her share of the treasure.

  ‘I’d get out of this business, for one thing, Betty,’ she’d say to the Third Scullery Maid as they scrubbed carrots in the dark little room off the kitchen.

  ‘What?’ Betty would say, tugged out of a daydream about Ted the Stable Boy’s tight trousers.

  ‘If I had an hundred pounds, I’d quit. I’d tell Mr Waters where to stuff it.’

  She would wave a carrot threateningly and demonstratively as she spoke.

  ‘Oh, he wouldn’t like that,’ Betty would answer, wondering if, on the other hand, Ted might. After all the carrot was nicely tapered and of a good healthy size.

  ‘Well, I don’t care do I? Do I look like I care? You give me an hundred pounds right now, right, and I’d go out there into the kitchen right now and I’d say to Mrs Fatty, “Stuff this in your ugly gob, I’m off,” then I’d go up to Mr Waters an’ I’d wave my hundred pounds in his face and tell him to bog off right an’ proper an’ then I’d just keep walking up the stairs and out them big front doors.’

  ‘You’d never.’

  ‘I would an’ all.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘What d’you mean, “Why? ”’

  ‘Why would you leave here, Nancy? I mean a job’s a job, ain’t it? And in a couple of years you could be a Chamber Maid, with a frilly apron and a lovely dress and touching all them pearls and things and you know how everyone loves a Chamber Maid?’

  ‘Well, maybe I will do that, an’ all. But I’m just saying, right, give me a pile of cash and I’ll set meself up, somewhere else, like. I’d be a lady of leisure and I’d give you a job, one where you could see the sunshine more ’an just on a Sunday afternoon.’ (This was always one of Nancy’s bones of contention. The scullery had no windows and her working day started in the dark before dawn and ended in the dark after dusk.)