Belchester Box Set

by Andrea Frazer

  Lady Amanda bit her knuckles with distress at this news, and Hugo’s face was so long, he was almost trailing it up the stone staircase, as he plodded in Waule’s wake. They exchanged a look that said all too obviously: what the hell have we let ourselves in for?

  Their rooms proved to be next to each other and had an adjoining door, through which Hugo wandered after only a few minutes on the other side of it. ‘I say, Manda! You might have explained exactly what you were getting me into,’ he complained.

  ‘Me getting you into? It was you who pleaded like a petulant child to be allowed to come here. I told you I’d much rather have stayed at home. If that man Waule and the chauffeur are anything to go by, the members of staff are going to drive me mad with their accent. That’s the Scots all over, though. If they’re not rolling their ‘r’s at you, they’re rolling their eyes. It’s not easy being a Sassenach up here.

  ‘And it’s a dry house. That’s not to say that some of the walls aren’t running with moisture, but don’t expect any cocktails, or wine with dinner. You’ll get a thimbleful of scotch on your haggis tomorrow, but apart from that, the only other drink they ever indulge in is a wee tot of whisky at Hogmanay, and then only the one.’

  ‘What?’ Hugo was horrified. ‘How shall we survive?’

  ‘Don’t worry, help is at hand,’ announced Lady A, producing a silver hip flask from her capacious handbag along with two small silver beakers. I have brought us enough for two Scotch Mists apiece, and when Beauchamp arrives he has with him a hamper with the necessary ingredients to provide us with cocktails as usual, and a few bottles of wine with which to while away the time between dinner and a decent bedtime.’

  ‘You genius woman,’ exclaimed Hugo, eagerly accepting his beaker. ‘And we shan’t need any ice because this place is absolutely freezing. I shall be surprised if I sleep a wink in this temperature. Hang on a minute, though. If we have no ice and no lemon, that means that the only ingredient left for a Scotch Mist is the whisky. You can hardly call that anything but a straight scotch.’

  ‘Oh, use your imagination, Hugo, and be grateful that I brought anything at all. It’ll be the essence of a Scotch Mist, and we shall just have to pretend. Never fear about the night-time temperature, though. I have four hot water bottles in my case; two each. You can have one at your feet, and cuddle the other. With a little nightcap, you should go off splendidly.’

  ‘You have been here before, haven’t you?’

  ‘In spades, Hugo. And, like an elephant, I never forget, especially if my home comforts are threatened. What do you think of your room?’

  ‘More of a dungeon, if you ask me. Tiny windows like slits, so it’s probably in permanent twilight even in full daylight. Everything’s stone, except for the furniture. The bed’s old enough to have had Bonnie Prince Charlie sleep in it, and the draughts – they seem to come from all directions at once. I’m really grateful that you thought to bring hot water bottles.’

  Lady Amanda looked towards her bed, a tiny half-tester that must once have been the property of either a midget or a child. ‘If I don’t lie still in that thing, I’m going to roll off and get a concussion on this stone floor.’

  ‘My bed’s so big you could get lost in it. I’ll never get the whole bed warmed up in a million years. Just as well you brought your hip flask.’

  ‘I’ve got another in my luggage with cognac in it, so that we can warm our insides before turning in for the night. There’s also a pack of cards and a set of dominoes, so that we don’t die of boredom.’

  ‘You might have said it was going to be this grim,’ Hugo grumbled.

  ‘I did!’ barked Lady A, in self-justification. ‘You just saw the romantic side of staying in a Scottish castle for Burns’ Night, and never examined the impracticalities. I did say: be it on your own head, but did you listen? No, you bally well didn’t!’

  ‘I suppose we’d better go down,’ he sighed, using his sticks to turn towards the door.

  ‘Yes,’ sighed his companion. ‘Don’t want to miss the non-alcoholic cocktails, now do we?’

  ‘Dear Lord!’ was Hugo’s reply. ‘What a beastly thought!’

  Pre-dinner drinks turned out to be a variety of very unpleasant vegetable juices, all originating from produce grown on the estate. ‘I think mine’s sprout,’ hissed Hugo, grimacing as he tried the contents of his glass.

  ‘Shhh! Here come our host and hostess. Don’t let them hear you maligning their hospitality. Here, she broke off and turned to her right. ‘Good evening, Cardew. Lovely to see you again, Siobhan. This is a friend of mine, Hugo Cholmondley-Crichton-Crump. Hugo, please allow me to introduce you to Sir Cardew and Lady Siobhan McKinley-Mackintosh.’

  ‘Room all right?’ asked Sir Cardew, shaking hands vigorously with Hugo.

  ‘Comfortable enough?’ queried his wife, offering him a hand as limp as a wet fish.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ Hugo replied, being careful not to utter the out-and-out lie, ‘yes’.

  The dining room proved to be a cavernous hall lit by huge flickering chandeliers, a fire burning at each end, but totally failing to project the heat as far as the ends of the long table, some of its length having been removed for the relatively modest house party of just ten guests, no doubt more than just two of them in torment, due to the Spartan state of their accommodation.

  ‘Who are all these people?’ Hugo whispered sibilantly into Lady A’s ear.

  Keeping her voice down, she murmured, ‘The names here are going to give Enid forty fits.’

  ‘Go on, then,’ ordered Hugo, sounding a bit more enthusiastic than he had since their arrival.

  ‘Well, you’ve already been introduced to Sir Cardew,’ she reiterated, nodding her head to one end of the table where their elderly host sat, his bald head gleaming in the light from the chandeliers, a moustache of immense proportions helping itself, along with its owner, to the Cullen skink they were currently consuming, ‘and his wife Siobhan.’ She nodded at the other end of the table where their hostess sat, her hair ruthlessly tinted and back-combed into a style reminiscent of the sixties, her face a thick mask of make-up totally inappropriate to one of her years.

  ‘On Sir Cardew’s left is St John Bagehot,’ she informed him, impelling him to take a quick peek at a terribly refined-looking man who brayed like a donkey when he spoke. ‘And he’s next to Ralf Colcolough. He’s a rather ‘naice’ young man who’s come in place of his parents this year, because the poor old things are both in bed with flu, but he’d no doubt have tagged along anyway.

  ‘Then there’re Elspeth and Iain Smellie.’ Iain was a small man with a fiercely thick black beard and a mop of similarly-coloured hair. His wife – goodness gracious, Hugo! – was a delicious half-caste, he thought, and whom he would later learn had a Bahamian father. Her wiry hair was caught at the back of her head and held there with a hair clip that looked suspiciously as if it had been made out of knitting needles.

  ‘Next, you’ll find Wallace Menzies, making up that side of the table. Siobhan thinks he’s hot, so she arranges to have him sitting next to her whenever possible.’ Menzies had the almost-black hair and piercing blue eyes of that particular sort of Celt, and was, indeed, capable of being described as almost beautiful. He also wore full Scottish regalia, which the ladies thought enhanced his appearance immeasurably.

  ‘On this side, starting on Sir Cardew’s right, is Quinton Wriothesley, known, behind his back, as Grizzly Rizzly – one look should explain that one. On his right, next to you, is Moira Ruthven, and on mine is her husband, Drew, and that’s the lot.’

  Moira was a small grey-haired woman who knew exactly how to apply make-up suitable for her age group, and her husband was a tall man with what hair he had buzz-cut to a brutal number one, thus giving the impression of almost complete baldness. He, too, wore full dress tartan, and his sporran gave Hugo a start, as, at first glance, he thought the man had a cat on his lap.

  ‘I shall introduce you to Moira, then I’m going to have
a good old catch up with Drew,’ she told him, thinking that it was time Hugo let go of Nanny’s hand and acted with a little more independence.

  ‘Manda, can I just ask you a quick question? Why do all the guests, with the exception of that charming coffee-coloured lady across the table, speak with upper-class accents? Are they all English?’

  ‘Indeed they are not, Hugo, my dear little innocent. They were all sent to good English public schools exactly so that they would talk like that, and not with the accent of their birth country. Think about it. If you wanted little sonny boy to, one day, have a career in the Foreign Office or the Diplomatic Service, would you choose for him to adopt a Scottish accent, or would an upper-class English one seem preferable?’

  ‘I see what you mean. So what about the little lovely over there?’ he asked. ‘She sounds decidedly Scottish, although she certainly doesn’t look it,’ he concluded, indicating Elspeth Smellie with a barely discernible nod of his head.

  ‘That’s because she was brought up in Edinburgh, although she did go to a good school, and Iain met her and fell in love with her. Nothing his parents could say or do could sway his opinion, so in the end, they had to give in and give their blessing for the marriage. I rather think her colouring and the accent make a delightfully enigmatic mix.

  ‘Now, may I introduce you to Drew Ruthven, who is the son of a bishop, but still retains an incorrigible sense of humour? Drew, may I introduce a very old friend of mine, Hugo Cholmondley-Crichton-Crump?’

  ‘Crikey, Manda, that’s a bit of a mouthful,’ he replied, and then turned to Mr-C-C, ‘Do you mind if I just call you Hugo? We often use surnames for male guests, but if there was a fire and I had to call you – Fire, Cholmondley-Crichton-Crump! – you’d be burnt to a crisp before I got to the end of your name.’

  ‘See what you mean,’ replied Hugo with a smile. ‘That’s perfectly all right, provided I’m allowed to call you Drew, otherwise I’ll sound like I was your fag at school.’

  ‘Heaven forfend. Hugo and Drew it is, then,’ agreed his new acquaintance, and they fell into easy conversation about what they could expect from their visit.

  Lady A, meanwhile, was gossiping eagerly with Moira, leaning right across Hugo in a most unmannered way, to catch up on news of old friends, and friends who had gone to that great yearbook in the sky. It was as well to know who one could cross off one’s Christmas card list, as it was such a waste of a card and stamp, if the recipient were deceased.

  As it was announced that coffee would be served in the library – there was no need for the ladies to depart while the gentlemen partook of port, as it was a ‘dry’ house – Lady Amanda grabbed Hugo by the arm and whispered, her lips not moving, giving a good impression of a ventriloquist, with Hugo as her dummy, ‘We’ll try the coffee once, but it used to be dreadful. If it hasn’t improved, I’ve got something a little more palatable upstairs and, by tomorrow night, Beauchamp will have arrived with full supplies for us.’

  The library was as depressingly stony as the dining hall, with little in the way of comfortable furniture to lighten its atmosphere: what furniture there was being of the hard, lumpy variety that never encouraged one to linger for longer than a few minutes.

  Coffee was duly served in plain white, chunky cups and saucers that looked as if they had been lifted, wholesale, from a ‘greasy spoon’, and the coffee itself dribbled feebly from an urn that had been pushed in on a trolley by one of the castle’s staff.

  Hugo sipped tentatively at the turgid liquid at the bottom of his cup, thinking that generosity with any sort of fluid wasn’t the norm in this household, then his face crumpled with disgust as the liquid hit his taste buds. With a tremendous effort of will, he managed not to spit it back into the cup, but instead, removed a handkerchief from his pocket and delicately coughed into it, thus expelling the dribble of foul stuff from his mouth without losing face.

  It had tasted strongly of chicory, with only the barest hint of coffee, and the texture was disconcertingly muddy, reminding him of the old joke that the coffee must be fresh, because it was ‘ground’ only half an hour ago.

  Halfway through coffee, Sir Cardew disappeared and Siobhan explained to the gathered guests that he always went outside after dinner for a little quiet contemplation. It was a habit that he had acquired shortly after they took over the castle following her mother’s death, and she was glad of it, in that it gave her time to take in the fact that she was an orphan, and had climbed another rung higher up the mortality ladder.

  She also took time to look back at the strange custom of her family, in that inheritance went down the female line, with the husband of the first daughter of the family always having to change his name to Rum Drummond, instead of the wife taking her husband’s name. The entail of the estate had insisted upon this practice until she had challenged it when she married Cardew, and had won the battle to have this name-change clause revoked, leaving her husband free to retain his birth surname.

  Taking a further sip of the execrable coffee, to ascertain whether it was as ghastly as he had first thought, Hugo took a quick glance in Lady Amanda’s direction, as he heard her delicately clear her throat, and noticed that she, similarly, had a handkerchief pressed to her mouth, a frowning forehead showing above its material. Meeting his eyes, as if she could feel him looking at her, she removed the handkerchief and announced that they would be off to bed, now, if nobody objected, as they always retired early at Belchester Towers.

  The others could think what they liked about the two of them retiring at the same time. After that explosion of filth in her mouth, she didn’t give a damn, and needed something to wash the gritty aftertaste away, as soon as possible.

  Hugo trotted along behind her, his sticks almost a blur in his haste to retreat to the tiny corner of Castle Rumdrummond that had become their temporary haven, away from both their hosts, and the rest of the guests staying there. He felt that he might have missed his way in the time/space continuum, and found himself in the middle of a Vincent Price film, where he had no business to be at his age.

  Outside, at the base of the west tower, stood Sir Cardew, contentedly puffing his cigar. This was one of the pleasures of his day, and he liked this quiet place. The west tower was the highest of the castle’s look-outs, and it had the best view over the most vulnerable flank of the stronghold.

  From there, even at ground level, he had a view across rough pasture to the beginnings of the pine forest to the west. To the north he could see the steep climb of the hills, ascending towards the heather of a high moor and, to the south, the land sloped gently down to a river valley studded with little clusters of stone dwellings, their lums reeking tonight in straight spires rising to the heavens, undisturbed by any breath of wind.

  The weather was in a state of uneasy calm but, when he was full and contented after his evening meal, this surveying of his land lifted his spirits, and he firmly believed that this aided his digestion and relaxed him before retiring for the night.

  Back in Lady Amanda’s room, she took the hot water bottles into the bathroom and filled them from the tap, knowing that the hot water could inflict serious burns in the evening, but chill to the marrow in the morning.

  A fire had been lit in both rooms, and they moved the one hard chair that each bedroom contained over to the fire in Lady A’s room. The clock on the mantelpiece showed that it was only eight o’clock, and Hugo sighed, as he read the story its hands told. ‘A few days here is going to seem like a lifetime,’ he commented glumly.

  ‘But you’ll be able to dine out on the stories for years to come,’ Lady A soothed him, ‘And tomorrow night, Beauchamp and Enid will be here, and maybe we can make a four at bridge. That’ll help to pass the time, although, tomorrow being The Night, there’ll be piping and dancing, so perhaps we won’t be confined to our chambers so early.’

  Before Hugo could unburden himself of a cheery comment at this prospect, the wind suddenly made itself felt by belching smoke from the fire into the ro
om, and he collapsed back in his chair in a fit of coughing. ‘Listen to that wind,’ Lady A said in surprise, suddenly becoming aware that the noise that had been niggling at her thoughts as they chatted was actually the narrow windows shaking in their frames. ‘It’s getting wild out there. I’ll just take a look out,’ she said, putting her head the other side of the curtains.

  A few dim lights shone out from the mean castle windows but, apart from that, it was pitch dark, with no starlight and no sign of the moon. ‘Thick cloud cover, by the looks of it,’ she pronounced, withdrawing from her draughty position next to the glass. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if there’s snow on the way.’

  ‘Oh, great! There’s no way I could face being holed up here for weeks on end,’ Hugo grumbled.

  ‘And the castle is said to be haunted,’ the bad-news-bringer added. ‘Did I tell you about the ghosts?’

  ‘No you blasted well didn’t, but I suppose you’re going to, as now’s the perfect moment, with us marooned here at night, and snow on the way. Go on, do your worst!’ he challenged her.

  ‘This place is at least seven hundred years old, and has known a lot of history. Over the centuries, several spectral figures have been reported within its confines. There is a lady dressed all in grey who is purported to walk through the dining hall, but at a slightly higher level than the present floor, and leave the vast room through a door that isn’t there any more.

  ‘The bedrooms in this wing …’ but Hugo interrupted her with a little yelp.

  ‘Surely you don’t mean these bedrooms?’

  ‘They’re exactly the bedrooms to which I am referring. Anyway, to continue: apparently the corridor outside the rooms used to be a good deal wider. It was narrowed in works carried out in the eighteenth century, which was probably the last time anyone really worked on this place, with the exception of the sanitary facilities.