by Peter Rimmer
"Which one?"
"Tiddles."
"She's dead."
After a long time, and with the ruins of Corfe Castle now coming into view, Robert said quietly, "I loved that cat."
"She was very old. Mother said she must have been twenty. Do cats live to twenty?"
"I don't know… What's Frederick's wife's name?"
"Penelope. Not Pen. Not Penny. Penelope. Very fluffy."
"You don't like her?"
"I never said that. You can't dislike a person you don't know."
They drove on for a while.
"What are you going to do with your life, Barnaby?"
"I'm going into the army. All youngest sons go into the army. I take the Sandhurst exams next year."
Inwardly, Penelope St Clair was shaking like a leaf as the train drew in at Corfe Castle station. Old man Pringle shuffled forward with a trolley and Frederick helped him load the two small cases.
"How's Mrs Pringle?" he asked.
"Arthritis. Same as me. Cottage too close to river. Damp. You've got surprise. Mister Robert's in trap with Master Barnaby. Merry Christmas."
"And merry Christmas to you and yours, Pringle."
"I'll tell Albert."
"Albert! I thought he went off to Africa."
"Our Albert's rich. Owns shares in a gold mine. And mining supply company. Dynamite. Says 'e's going to be millionaire."
"Where's he staying?"
"In cottage. Same as usual. Says he can't beat his mother's cookin' no matter how much money he got. Our Tina thinks he's wonderful."
"Dynamite, you say? Fuses. All that sort of thing. How very interesting."
It was as if she did not exist. People talked around her. Over her. Never included her in their conversations. And now she had to meet another St Clair. They all frightened her to death and Lady St Clair left her quite tongue-tied. The only one who had given her even a smile was Granny Forrester. The family and people around them were all so close. She even knew they were poor. Father had found that out, but he said they were honest. Which is probably why they were poor, he'd said. Why being honest made a family poor she didn't understand.
Three years before, her father had endowed her with exactly half a million pounds. Put in three per cent Consols it had grown, as she spent very little, and in the six months that they had been married, Frederick had not asked her for a penny. She had told him about the money and he had just smiled… The strangest thing in all of it was he loved her. She didn't love him yet. Maybe she never would. Her father had done everything for her as usual. He knew about Richard and the fact he would never marry.
"Have a son or two, luv. That way my grandson will be Lord St Clair. When you got my kind of money you got to think up things to spend it on. Owning mines in India and halfway round the world is one thing. Owning the Nineteenth Baron St Clair is something else."
"I don't love him."
"What the 'ell has that got to do with the price of cheese?"
They went through the rigmarole of being introduced. Robert seemed far away as if he had not yet fully returned from Africa. Barnaby, the youngest son was more interested in talking to the man called Pringle about a girl called Tina. No one had introduced her to Pringle, but then he was a servant, and not even a St Clair retainer. Robert was talking to Pringle about thick sandwiches and pickles. It was all over her head. Then they squeezed everyone into the trap for the seven-mile ride to Purbeck Manor on a road that had probably been laid during the last Crusade. Even the soft layer of snow failed to stop the road jangling her bones. Her teeth snapped shut frequently. She bit her tongue once and tasted blood. Going away to London for a week had been worth it but this time coming back to Purbeck Manor she knew what to expect. Maybe when she had the baby she would become part of the family. If she survived the road. The doctor in London had confirmed her pregnancy when she had gone to him on an excuse. She thought it would be better to tell Frederick when they left Purbeck Manor after Christmas. They were going back to India which was good. Anywhere was good where she was not excluded. The boy and the two men chatted all the way back to the manor house, without once bringing her into the conversation. And she felt sick. She had heard of morning sickness during pregnancy but not feeling sick half of the day. She missed her mother. Without them even noticing her she began to silently cry.
Frederick wondered why his wife was crying but was too embarrassed to bring up the subject in front of his brothers. He went on talking as if nothing had happened. He thought of holding her hand but he had never done that before. Apart from his mother, Aunt Nut and Granny Forrester, he had never known a woman in his life. Sisters were different. They were sisters. He had lived in bachelor quarters in India for more than ten years. This being married to a woman he knew nothing about was difficult. What did women think? What did they want to do? The only time you ever touched each other was under the sheets when the lights were out and black night had fallen. Then a world opened he did not admit to in the morning. What he did in the night could have nothing to do with the demure young woman who greeted him politely at breakfast as if nothing had happened. After the first time, he tried to look into her eyes the next morning but she wouldn't look back at him. He rather thought she was ashamed. He knew he was.
Annabel had been thirteen when he left home to join the Indian civil service. She had been a giggly schoolgirl as far away from what he did at night with Penelope as the moon. Until his marriage and joining the Anglo-Indian mining company he had never had enough money to go home to England on leave. He sold his leave passage and sent the money to his mother every three years, went up into the hills of Kashmir and told his bachelor friends what a good time he had had in England. None of them questioned him and he rather thought the others did the same thing. If their families were rich they would not be in the Indian civil service in the first place.
When he resigned to join his father-in-law's company, that many referred to as an empire within an empire, he was thirty years old, tall, thin, with dark brown hair and wore a military moustache, perfectly cut and tinged with grey. He was a junior magistrate, having taken his law degree at night by correspondence. He could only practice in India, and some would have called it a second-class degree of limited use, which it was. Everything in India needed someone up the ladder to die so everyone could shift up a rung. Progress was made by someone stepping into a dead man's shoes. The trappings of colonial life made the monotony and low salaries worthwhile. In India every Englishman was a sahib, a gentleman, and when in India they lived as gentlemen would live, with servants and housing that fitted their rank. Part of the system was to make sure the Europeans appeared above the Indians. They lived in married quarters or exclusive men's clubs found on the same principles as an officer's mess of a top West End club that carefully selected its members. Never, ever, were the British allowed to fraternise socially with the natives except on specific, laid down occasions when everyone was very polite to each other. Apart from the Indian mutiny, it had worked surprisingly well for two hundred years; something like twenty thousand Britons running the entire subcontinent, with Indians to serve below the British in the civil service. Backed by regiments of the British Army and regiments of the Indian army officered by Britons, the rule of law prevailed, and everyone got on with the daily business without, for the most, trying to kill each other. Frederick thought it was probably the only way to stop the multitude of states, factions, castes, and religious squabbling with each other. The only way to trade profitably was under the rule of law. The British maintained the peace, provided an unbreakable legal system, and made a fortune at the same time, and Frederick rather thought he had paid his dues. After years of doing the hard work, it was his turn to make a fortune. He was going to be worth his father-in-law's while. Penelope's money belonged to her. Maybe their children. He himself would never touch a penny. By the time they reached Purbeck Manor, the girl he had married and only knew in the dark of the night had sto
pped crying. It was snowing hard.
Barnaby, thinking of his girlfriend Tina Pringle, helped Penelope from the trap. Either snow was melting on her face or the girl had been crying. Halfway to the big front door with its side door entrance, the girl clutching his arm stopped and was sick into the snow. Embarrassed, he waited for his brother Frederick to do something. All of them instead made it look as though nothing was happening.
Through into the sitting room with a Christmas tree, Penelope found a chair near the log fire and sat herself down. Someone gave her a cup of tea which she drank gratefully. Never in her life had she wanted her mother more. The rest of the family were talking nineteen to the dozen, and Lord St Clair was repeating a story about Daisy, his prize sow. Every mouth she looked at was open and talking. No one was listening to a word. They were all having a thoroughly good time.
Lucinda was wondering what it was going to be like for the rest of her life, an old maid with nothing to look forward to but the second-hand happiness of other people. She had seen her new sister-in-law was feeling out of it but was not in the mood to be friendly. If anything, she was jealous of the girl, though what the poor thing would find worthwhile in being the wife of ramrod stiff Frederick she had no idea. She thought her second eldest brother was as cold as a fish. He looked ten years older than she knew him to be. She had never known him. As a child she remembered this man that went away to some place called India… She tried to join in the happy family conversation but her mind was still at Elephant Walk with all its possibilities that had turned to nothing. And now they said there was going to be a full-scale war and all the joining men would be killed. She was firmly on the shelf, where she would stay. At Purbeck Manor her father allowed her one small glass of sherry the whole evening. She missed the three stiff gins before supper and most nights feeling slightly tiddly. She missed the dogs. She missed the damn geese, she told herself. A good lion roar from right next to the window would send her into ecstasy. Above all, she would like to be warm right through to the marrow of her bones. She was sick of standing in front of roaring fires, toasting her front to perfection while her bottom froze from the draught coming in under the doors and sending freezing winds whistling round every room in the old house. Even in bed her feet had not been warm since she came home. And as for poor Robert with that damn prep school of his, she did not wish to think. Inside the masters' common rooms she had heard they only put three lumps of coal on the fire in the depth of winter. The poor brass monkeys wouldn't stand a damn chance. And that was something else, she told herself. Now she was home she must stop swearing, even to herself. Or God would punish her. It was all her fault why God punished her anyway. She was a bad girl from all that drinking and mental swearing in Africa. And then she had a clear picture of Harry's face in her mind and she wanted to cry. Well, she wasn't going to cry. She was going to grin and bear it. Seeing Robert standing back from her father's story about his pigs she walked across to him. They had Africa in common. They would always be close.
"Have you found out what happened to Annabel?" she asked. No one seemed to want to talk about her eldest sister and she wanted to know why. Richard had been left in his room with the young male nurse their father had employed to look after him. The fire in the room was guarded by a strong wire fence and the young man had a cord to pull that rang a bell in the servants quarters if Richard threw another fit. What they would do if the young man was called off to war she had no idea. Not having heard Robert's answer she repeated the question.
"You don't listen, sis. She's run off with somebody."
"Oh, for goodness' sake don't be silly. Annabel would never run off. Where has she run off to?"
"That's the bit I can't find out. Have you met Penelope?"
"No one has thought of introducing me. What's wrong with her?"
"Granny Forrester think she's pregnant."
"How does Granny Forrester know all these things? I know absolutely nothing about being pregnant."
"I know, sis. That's your problem. You should have seduced Harry and have done with it. A few good rolls in the hay and he'd been head over heels in love with you."
"How can you say such things? I hope your next school will be horrible."
"It will be. Come on. She looks out of it. Do your family duty. How would you like to be dumped into a strange family? Forget about her being pregnant."
"You don't know for certain."
"Ask Granny Forrester."
Granny Forrester had decided years ago she would stop interfering in other people's lives. She was pleased when her granddaughter went across to talk to the poor thing that was sitting ignored by the fire and trying not to cry. She had watched them arrive through a parted curtain in the sitting room and though it was snowing hard she had watched the girl being sick. She saw the girl was probably not more than nineteen, had not told Frederick she was pregnant. She had watched her grandson turn away so as not to notice his wife being sick. Men were impossible! She knew Frederick better than Frederick knew himself. Under all the stiff upper lip nonsense he was as soft as butter. No, she was not going to interfere. They could all fight their own battles. Maybe her daughter would do the right thing and go to the girl. Then she caught Lady St Clair's eye which told her in a nice way to mind her own business. Mother and daughter smiled at each other. For years they had been able to communicate without using words. At least she knew. That was good news. Smiling to herself this time she thought her grandson would be the last to find out his wife was pregnant.
The supper that night was a stew rich in herbs and garlic. The herbs from the kitchen garden were dried each year and hung around the kitchen for Cook to take as she needed. Robert ate three full plates and even said to Merlin who was sitting next to him at the old long dining table, that the last plate was sheer piggery. Which it was. As Merlin pointed out, the base of the stew was pork. They had then gone into a long conversation about their father loving his pigs but eating them just the same.
Merlin was twenty-eight years old and had a job in the City, where he lived most of the time and was reported to live with his mistress, a one-time barmaid who no one in the family had ever met. The job in the City had something to do with Lloyd's of London. He told everyone he was a marine broker, whatever that was. Few people asked further questions. Some of his friends from school with influence in their fathers' businesses had passed him some business and his salary had gone up as a reward. Merlin had rather hoped Harry Brigandshaw would become his brother-in-law but by the way Robert and Lucinda had stopped talking about him, there was no chance of getting his claws on the Colonial Shipping account, the company he all too well knew was owned by the Brigandshaw family. There was a sister out there he thought was called Madge that Robert had talked about but nothing had come of that either. If he had landed the Colonial Shipping account they would have made him a senior broker with a seat on the board before he was forty. And with all the rumours of war with Germany the war premiums were rising every day along with his firm's brokerage. There was always a chance, as Harry had once stayed with them at Purbeck Manor, and was said to be Robert's best friend. Insurance broking was all about connections.
There had been a flap about Richard during the pudding course but when his mother came back she said he was all right and had merely fallen against the fireguard and banged his head… Poor Richard.
Merlin looked down the long dining-room table, that went back so far in the family no one had been able to put a date to it. The spit had been moved to the side of the walk-in fireplace. On its own legs in the front of the fire stood the ten-gallon iron pot that had also been passed down the generations. It was pitch black. The men helped themselves to the stew, but also served the ladies in the family. Even before the servants had become scarce at Purbeck Manor the tradition of self-help had prevailed. Probably, Merlin thought, from the days of marching armies and campfires during a long campaign. The second fire at the other end of the long, vaulted dining hall was just bur
ning wood and had nothing to do with the cooking. Surprisingly, the hall, which was in the centre of the house with no outside walls, was warm, though Lucinda was still complaining of the cold. When he had a moment alone he would talk to her about Harry Brigandshaw and find out if he had any real influence over the family shipping company. He liked being a man of business. There was so much money to be made by a broker who took twenty per cent of the premiums and none of the risk. When he had built up a sizeable account at Cornell, Brooke and Bradley he would demand a high salary, a share in the firm, and then go out and look for a wife. Poor Esther would be upset but even she understood there was no chance of them ever being married. They just did not come from the same class. He would have to think of something to do with Esther when he got married. Maybe he could find her a husband in her own class and buy them a small house in the East End where she came from. She could say she had won the money on the horses or something like that. Wasn't there a saying you should never look a gift horse in the mouth… Poor Esther. They had had a lot of fun. He would probably miss her but there was a price you had to pay for everything. He would find a wife whose father controlled a large insurance account. Someone in trade. The aristocracy, the landed gentry were on their way out. The future was making money in business. And it was fun making lots of money.
With luck they would think him too old to go into the army if war broke out. And it would be soon if the way the war premiums were going up was any indication. To hedge against the downside of war, he had bought himself a nice block of Vickers-Armstrong shares. They made machine guns and the newfangled warplanes that were somehow flying platforms for Vickers machine guns… What next would man think up as a way to better kill his fellow man, for goodness' sake? And the kind of war they were talking about would need a lot of machine guns. He had borrowed some money from his bank manager, so he hoped the Germans would not let him down.