Lord Seeks Wife: A hilariously funny romantic comedy

by Heather Barnett

  ‘It most certainly is our bleeding business,’ retorted Noblet. ‘It’s our land you’re trespassing on.’

  There was a pause, then the tree said: ‘Whatever,’ before lapsing into moody silence.

  Noblet tried a more direct approach.

  ‘Who sent you here, chummy?’ ‘Chummy’ was uttered in a faltering tone; that of a man aiming for the common touch but with nothing but nineteenth-century literature to draw upon. It had been a toss-up between ‘chummy’, and ‘boy’ – this last being rejected at the final moment as being too reminiscent of the language of the beadle in Oliver Twist.

  ‘Screw you.’

  ‘What did you want to photograph? Perhaps if you told us, we’d let you photograph it. Have you thought about that?’

  Sounds of derision could be heard through the leaves.

  Henry took his brother’s arm. ‘We’re wasting our time here, Bob. Let’s leave our new friend alone for a while. I think a night in the open air might improve his temper.’

  The sounds of derision could be heard again, with less confidence.

  ‘Come on, I’m looking forward to some tea.’

  Noblet looked perplexed but allowed his brother to lead him away.

  ‘Oi! You can’t leave me here!’

  ‘Sleep well. See you in the morning.’

  ‘Arseholes! At least get me some fags, I’m out.’

  ‘Excellent opportunity to kick the habit. Goodbye!’

  Henry sauntered away across the lawn, humming a little tune and smiling at the summery scene before him: blue skies, the golden stone of the Hall glowing in the afternoon light and a table spread with silver tea things on the terrace.

  ‘You’re not going to leave him there all night, Henry?’ Noblet asked, concern on his ruddy face.

  ‘No, no. No, we’ll get him down later. After tea.’

  ***

  In London, a porcine man sitting in an expensive chair, behind an expensive desk, picked up his expensive phone. It was ringing and the name on the screen was ‘Squeak’.

  The man touched the screen with a sausage-like finger and raised the phone to his ear.

  He grunted.

  ‘S’me,’ said the voice on the other end of the line.

  ‘I know it’s fuckin’ you, that’s what the fuckin’ screen’s for. Have you got them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Audible squirming. ‘I’m… stuck up a tree.’

  The man opened his arms wide in a gesture of exasperation, eyes rolling towards the heavens. Returning the phone to his ear, he growled:

  ‘You fuckin’ moron. I knew I should have sent Damo.’

  ‘No! S’alright. I’ll get ’em. But I need someone to come and get me out of this tree.’

  The pig-man took a long breath in.

  ‘If you wanted the fire brigade you should have rung nine-nine-fuckin’-nine. This is a picture agency. I pay people to take pictures, not rescue damsels in fuckin’ distress.’

  With that, he hung up, muttered ‘fuckin’ prick’ to himself and dialled another number.

  ***

  Two hours on a narrow branch without nicotine had done a lot to soften Squeak. At the sound of approaching footsteps, he didn’t wait to be coaxed but called out, ‘Alright, I give in, I’ll tell you what you want to know. Get me out of this bleedin’ tree. I hate the bleedin’ countryside.’

  ‘How disappointing,’ drawled Henry. ‘I didn’t even get to say “we haf vays of making you tok”, let alone threatening to attach jump leads to your nipples.’

  ‘Eh?’ gasped Squeak.

  ‘It’s alright, chummy, he’s pulling your leg, old man,’ Noblet hastened to explain. ‘We’re going to get you down now.’

  Henry held out a hand. ‘Hold on a second, Bob. He might not be so talkative once he’s on solid ground.’ Looking up into the tree he asked, ‘Who sent you here?’

  ‘Snappy Shots.’

  ‘Snappy whats?’ asked Noblet.

  ‘Snappy Shots. ’S a picture agency.’

  Noblet still looked perplexed.

  ‘Paparazzi,’ Henry explained.

  ‘Oh. But they take pictures of famous people, don’t they?’ Noblet’s face brightened. ‘I say, is someone exciting coming here?’

  ‘Nah,’ replied Squeak. ‘No one exciting. One o’ you two, I reckon. Is one o’ you Lord Dreeble?’

  ‘Neither of us is Lord Dreeble. You should do your homework before you start out,’ said Henry.

  ‘I expect you mean Lord de Beeble, don’t you?’ asked Noblet.

  ‘Whatever. He’s the one I’ve got to get a picture of.’

  ‘Him?’ Noblet said, shocked. ‘Why on earth would you want a picture of him?’

  ‘Cos ’e’s gonna be big news.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He is,’ insisted Squeak. ‘My boss says so and ’e’s never wrong.’

  ‘What did he say to you about Lord de Beeble?’ asked Henry.

  ‘’E said ’e’s lookin’ for a wife and he’s a big toff wiv loads of money and the papers are gonna love it. They’ll want pictures of ’im looking all posh and lonely outside ’is big ’ouse.’

  ‘Well, I…’ Noblet was lost for words. Henry led him out of Squeak’s earshot.

  ‘I was worried this might happen when I saw that piece in the Telegraph. The press love this kind of story, the place will be swarming with reporters soon. This is just the vanguard.’

  Grasping the sides of his hair with both hands and tugging hard, Noblet moaned, ‘But what am I going to do, old man? I can’t work with reporters climbing in through the windows and getting stuck up trees every five minutes. Oh, this is hell!’

  ‘Calm down, Bob. We need to think.’ He pressed his palms together ruminatively for a moment and then strode back to the tree.

  ‘If you don’t get the pictures, will he send another photographer?’

  ‘Yep. Reckon ’e’s already done it. Now, are you gonna get me out of this tree before I wet meself?’

  ‘Yes. On two conditions. One – you take some pictures of my brother and let your boss know he can cancel the other photographer. Two – you let us know whatever you hear about Lord de Beeble: when photographers are being sent here, which papers are running a story on him – anything at all that you hear. And for that, we’ll put you on a retainer.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘A hundred a month.’

  ‘Pfffff! Make it a week and you’re gettin’ closer.’

  ‘Two hundred a month – final offer. Unless you’d like another hour on that branch?’

  Squeak grumbled something incoherent, then muttered, ‘Deal. Two hundred.’

  Henry brought the ladder over and leant it against the tree. There was some scuffling and then a small elf in a grey hooded top, black tracksuit bottoms and dirty trainers emerged, carrying a rucksack. He hopped behind a nearby bush, calling out, ‘Back in a sec!’

  The two brothers struck up a loud conversation to cover the noise of gushing water, which eventually dried up and the hooded creature scurried back out from behind the bush. Planting himself in front of Henry and Noblet, he looked them up and down.

  ‘Which one’s the Lord?’

  Noblet raised a paw. ‘Guilty as charged.’

  Obvious disappointment spread across Squeak’s face. Ignoring this, Henry asked, ‘Where do you want him?’

  Noblet started to splutter.

  ‘Now, Henry, you know I hate being photographed. I…’

  ‘Would you rather we do it now, or would you rather the other photographer comes with a telephoto lens and takes pictures of you through the library window?’

  ‘I… Well… Oh, damn it. The first, I suppose.’

  ‘Good, now, our friend here… What’s your name?’

  ‘Squeak.’

  ‘No, what’s your real name?’

  ‘My real name’s Gareth, but everyone calls me Squeak.’

  ‘Our friend Gareth will show you w
here he wants you.’

  Squeak sprang into action, beetling through the trees to recce the house and grounds while pulling a camera out of his rucksack.

  ‘We’ll ’ave a few in front of the ’ouse first. Got a swimming pool?’

  Noblet shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Rolls Royce?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘’Ot tub?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘One of them giant outdoor chess sets?’

  ‘Not so much as an oversized bishop, I’m sorry to say.’

  He seemed to be running out of ideas but then his face lit up with hope.

  ‘Con-serv-a-tory?’ He pronounced each syllable as if it were a separate word.

  ‘Conservatory?’ repeated Noblet.

  ‘Yeah. That’s what the proper rich people always have: a con-serv-a-tory. Wiv animal skin rugs on the floor.’

  ‘Erm, no. Sorry. There’s a summer house?’

  He shrugged. ‘That’ll ’ave to do.’

  He was about to beetle away again but Henry stopped him.

  ‘As soon as you have these pictures, you’ll call your boss and let him know?’

  ‘Defo. Do it now if you like.’

  ‘Good. And then you’ll keep us informed of anything you hear about Lord de Beeble?’

  ‘As long as you keep sending the readies, I’ll keep you informed.’ He headed off across the lawn, Noblet trailing behind.

  ‘But will we know what to do with that information, that’s the question,’ mused Henry as he followed in their wake.

  Chapter 3

  A few days after the fête, a new advert appeared in the Market Mornington Gazette and was reproduced in the columns of many of the national papers:

  Announcement Regarding Applications for the Role of Wife of Lord de Beeble

  Due to the volume of applications already received for the above role, an open day will be held to interview applicants on Saturday 6th June, beginning at 9am, in the village hall, Gently Rising, Mereshire. Applicants will be registered and interviewed on a first come, first served basis. Please bring an up-to-date photograph and curriculum vitae. Successful applicants will be invited to the second interview stage.

  Written applications will no longer be considered.

  A story appeared in one of the tabloids under the headline ‘Lonely Lord Longs for Love’. The story described how Lord de Beeble, after a series of failed relationships with unsuitable girls (‘busty Bethan’, ‘lusty Lauren’ and ‘juicy Lucy’ – all pictured languishing in small scraps of lingerie) had declared enough was enough. He wanted to inject some meaning into his solitary, jewel-encrusted life. The story was accompanied by a full-page picture of Noblet in his old green pullover, leaning awkwardly against the door of a summer house. Websites sprang up devoted to Lord de Beeble, offering expert advice and insider knowledge on how to become his wife (downloadable upon payment of a very reasonable fee). Local radio shows held phone-ins: women called in to say they’d applied, or that it was outrageous, or that they’d once met him at a party, or that they’d never met him at a party, or that they’d been abducted by an alien who looked like him. It was mentioned with a wry smile in the ‘and finally’ section of the local news. Then the national news. And still, the applications flooded in.

  Stumbling over another sack of them as she popped in for a nightcap on her way home from bridge one night, Lady Caroline swore under her breath. To Sally, who was closing the front door behind her, she said, ‘Would you bring Nobby here, please.’

  Sally returned, trailing an apprehensive-looking Noblet.

  ‘Hallo, Mother, how was bridge?’

  ‘I’m not interested in talking about bridge,’ she replied icily. ‘I thought you said you were going to get rid of all these letters.’

  ‘I did. I got rid of them and Henry put out the new advertisement telling people not to write, but more and more of the damn things keep arriving. I don’t know what to do, Mother. People don’t listen.’

  Lady Caroline glared at her son for a moment longer and then seemed to relent.

  ‘Have you opened any?’

  ‘One or two.’

  ‘It is just possible, you know, that if you opened some more you might find a suitable young woman. Then you could call off this whole ridiculous circus and we could all get back to normal.’ She picked a letter out of the sack at random and called to Sally for a paperknife.

  ‘Not that I’m condoning this ridiculous technique of yours for finding a wife. You know my views on it…’

  ‘I do, Mother, yes,’ said Noblet, firmly, hoping this would avoid the need for her to set them out again. It didn’t.

  ‘I offered to take you with me to stay with the Purvos in Norfolk, I offered to invite the Cholmondeley-Lumleys for a weekend with their three sweet daughters, I suggested you come with my little party of pals to Glyndebourne. In short, I offered to introduce you to some of the best girls in the county – what am I saying? The best girls in the country. But you’d rather put a grubby little advertisement in a grubby little newspaper and invite the world in to gawp at our private lives. Strange way of going about things, Nobby, but then you were never quite normal, were you?’

  ‘I wonder where I get that from,’ he muttered.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I wonder where that came from, Mother? That letter.’

  ‘The answer to that can be ascertained quite simply by reading the address.’ She looked down at the piece of paper which she was holding by the very tips of the corners.

  ‘It has come from 15 Downton Close, Birkenhead. It says “Dear Mr Lord, Even though I’m fifteen”. Oh dear, no. I don’t think so.’

  She dropped the letter on the floor beside the overflowing sack.

  ‘Bring a handful, Nobby, and we’ll go through them somewhere more comfortable.’

  There was only one lamp lit in the drawing room – the evenings were getting darker later and later, and even tonight, at nearly nine o’clock, the terrace still gleamed silver in the dusk. Lady Caroline went to the drinks table and poured herself a generous measure of whisky from the decanter before sitting down in a severe-looking armchair. Noblet came in with a stack of envelopes.

  ‘Turn that lamp on so I can read. It’s too dark in here.’

  Lady Caroline was supposed to wear reading glasses but preferred to blame her poor eyesight on not enough light, other people’s handwriting, bad paper – anything other than her own eyes. She picked up a pink envelope from the pile Noblet had dumped on the small mahogany table beside her. It smelt of roses and for a second, she was propelled back in time, to her youth, when she had been courted by Noblet’s father, Nibs. Nibs had arrived at each meeting (they could hardly be called dates, with most of the extended family also in attendance) with an armful of pink roses. That was, until she had told him they made her feel about eighty-five and he had moved on to other, less elderly, blooms. The eldest son of each generation of the de Beeble family was always christened Noblet and then given a different nickname to distinguish them from each other. Noblet was Nobby, his father had been Nibs, and Nibs’ father, inexplicably, had been Tutu. Nibs had been picked out for Caroline, and she for him, by their parents. There had been nothing melodramatic or tragic about this to Caroline’s nineteen-year-old mind. Marriage was a way of getting what you wanted in life. If you were married you would have your own servants, your own garden, your own house, your own friends. Yes, there would also be a husband that these things must be shared with, but he would have his own interests. Caroline didn’t expect love from marriage. Marriage was the base from which you went on to do all the things you wanted to do in life. She knew Henry, for one, didn’t agree with her on this. Things had changed, or so he liked to tell her. Henry was a romantic. He thought one’s spouse should embody in one person many different roles that, Caroline believed, could as easily be played by several separate people. Caroline had had a husband for security and, sometimes, companionship. She had children for love, friends for
friendship and lovers for sex. To expect to find all of these things in one person appeared to her infantile in most people; but in Henry it was charming. Noblet, on the other hand, was more malleable. He was the kind of man who, in her day, would have been married off very young, bumped into his wife from time to time at breakfast, then disappeared for the rest of the day to shoot or fish. He would have been very supportive of his wife’s desire to travel abroad or to spend weeks without him at their London house; and if he had found out about the lovers, he would have shrugged his shoulders and said ‘good for you, dear.’ He was so like his father, she reflected as she read through the rose-scented job application.

  Noblet had hurled himself onto the opposite sofa and was watching her glumly. ‘Any good?’

  ‘Not the kind of person we’re looking for, I’m afraid. Too many references to her physical attributes and too few to her mental ones. If there are any mental ones.’

  That one got crumpled up and thrown at the empty fireplace. Lady Caroline picked up another, slashed at it with the paperknife and glanced at the contents. Another one for the fire. The slashing, reading and throwing continued in silence for some minutes until Noblet reached down and smoothed out one of the crumpled letters.

  ‘What’s wrong with this one, Mother?’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘From a lady called Terri in Hull. She says…’

  ‘Noblet,’ Lady Caroline interrupted, ‘she is called Terri and she is from Hull. Beyond that, we need know no more. Put her in the fire.’

  Noblet rolled the letter up into a ball again and dropped it onto the hearth.

  ‘If you were organising this wife-business on your own,’ she continued, ‘I’d have serious concerns. Thank God Henry’s helping you.’

  ‘I don’t know why you say that. Henry’s not a snob. He wouldn’t dismiss a girl because she was called Terri and came from Hull.’

  ‘Henry’s got an instinct where women are concerned. Take Saskia, for instance.’ Her face softened. ‘She is the right kind of girl, Noblet. I approve of Saskia. Find yourself a Saskia and we will all be happy.’

  ‘All except me,’ groaned Noblet into the sofa cushions.

  Lady Caroline reached the end of the stack of envelopes, finished her whisky and stood up.