‘Bob?’
‘Yes?’
‘You’re on.’
‘Oh, dear.’
‘Courage, Bob!’
Noblet screwed the top on his pen and stood up. ‘I’m ready, Henners. My upper lip is, I can confirm, stiff. Lead the way.’
Chapter 18
As he descended the great sweeping staircase, what seemed like several thousand faces turned, as one, towards him. Rows of chairs had been set out in the large entrance hall; chairs which now held eager and excited applicants.
‘Good God!’ croaked Noblet out of the corner of his mouth. ‘How many are there?’
‘Fifty-four. Forty-nine women and five men.’
‘Is that all? Looks like ten times as many.’
‘Don’t panic. Stay calm and take your time.’
‘Easy for you to say.’
‘Just a couple of welcoming words. Keep it brief,’ Henry murmured as they reached the bottom of the stairs.
There was silence as Noblet made his way to the top of the room.
‘Ahem!’ he began, looking flushed and uncomfortable. He wrung his hands together, registered that they were clammy and wiped his palms on the front of his trousers. ‘Ahem. Yes.’ In an effort to sound confident, he roared, ‘Welcome!’ One or two in the front row flinched. ‘Welcome,’ he repeated in a stage whisper.
Looking round the room in some desperation he saw, above the heads of the interviewees, his mother’s sardonic face as she watched from a doorway. There was an awkward silence. One or two people coughed and someone dropped a handbag with a clatter. He’d had a week to think about what to say, why hadn’t he planned something? He began to say ‘ahem’ again, realised he’d already said that twice and changed it halfway through.
‘A… ha! Yes, a-ha! There you all are!’
He beamed at them. He’d carried that off rather neatly, he felt.
He’d try it again. ‘A-ha-ha-ha!’
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Henry drawing a finger across his throat.
‘And that about wraps things up, I think. My brother, Henry!’ He finished with a flourish, before beating a hasty retreat.
Henry stepped forward and smiled at the audience.
‘Good morning and thank you all for coming. First up, we’re going to divide you into groups of five or six for the first activity, which is a balloon debate. We’ll reassemble here at eleven o’clock for the next exercise.’ He signalled to his team of helpers who stepped forward and organised the interviewees, leading them off to different parts of the Hall.
When the room had cleared, Lady Caroline’s voice rang out across the hall.
‘Congratulations, Nobby. Henry’s been looking for ways to whittle down the number of your potential wives. Portraying yourself as a tongue-tied halfwit ought to do it.’
‘Thank you for your loyal support, as ever, Mother.’
‘And of course, if we discover any really promising girls who would benefit from elocution lessons, we know we can rely on you, with your innovative system of “ahems” and “a-has”.’
Before Noblet could retaliate, Henry stepped in. ‘I need you to make your way round to the different groups and observe, Bob. Take notes. I’ll be doing the same. Mother…’
‘I,’ she cut in, ‘will be in my old sitting room upstairs if anyone wants me. I said I would help, Henry. I did not say I would traipse around with a clipboard noting down the inane bleatings of a flock of sex-starved women.’
‘Sex-starved?’ Noblet looked horrified. ‘What a thing to say, Mother.’
Lady Caroline crossed the hall to the staircase. ‘I know a sex-starved woman – and man – when I see one. And I’ve never seen so many in one place before.’
When she was out of earshot Noblet turned to Henry. ‘I told you. Didn’t I tell you, Henners? Going loopy.’
‘You’re forgetting. She’s always been like that. Come on – I need to get back in there, why don’t you start with the group in the summer house?’
***
The group of applicants in the summer house included Sinead, who had spent hours researching balloon debates and was praying to be Mother Teresa.
‘…and so,’ the young woman facilitating was saying as Noblet inched his way through the door, ‘you will need to present a compelling argument why you shouldn’t be thrown out of the hot air balloon.’
Turning and seeing a startled look on Noblet’s face, the woman smiled. ‘Your Lordship – I was explaining the rules of a balloon debate. It’s a hypothetical situation where the group imagines they are in a hot air balloon which is rapidly losing height. Someone has to be thrown out in order to save the rest. Each person takes on the role of a different historical character and tries to persuade the others why they shouldn’t be the one to go. So – for example, if one of the characters were Charles Darwin, he could argue that the world would remain in ignorance about evolutionary theory should he die.’
‘Oh yes, yes,’ mumbled Noblet. ‘I do remember my brother mentioning something about that. Carry on. I’ll sit back here with a cup of tea.’
The facilitator invited the group to pick names out of a hat. Sinead opened hers and almost had to stop herself from punching the air: ‘Mother Teresa’. She sat back, feeling smug. There was no way she’d be thrown out of the balloon. Once everyone had picked a slip of paper and had a few moments to think about their arguments, the facilitator invited them to begin. A thirty-something, well-groomed woman in a chic suit went first. She had been given Shakespeare and spoke eloquently of the eradication of the most sublime beauties of the English tongue should she be the loser. The next applicant had drawn a short straw with Diego Maradona, but she did her best, waxing lyrical about sporting genius and the social impact of football. Next up was Sinead. Noblet had finished his cup of tea and was about to slip out and move on to another group when he found his gaze arrested by the gimlet eye of the Irish woman who knew so much about Collins. She smiled and proceeded to direct her speech exclusively at him.
‘Mother Teresa. Can’t throw her off. Almost as good as Jesus. Or God. Gave her money away. Don’t remember Shakespeare doing that. Got to think logically too. Old woman, small, light – should throw off someone heavy like Maradona.’ She concluded, crossed her legs with an air of triumph, remembered that she was in public and swiftly uncrossed them, staring deep into Noblet’s eyes all the while.
Noblet swallowed and managed to tear his eyes away. After an uncomfortable pause, the debate continued and he made his escape.
In other parts of the house, debates of varying levels of eloquence were raging. Noblet wandered from one to another, occasionally making a note such as ‘Ginny – too much make-up’ or ‘Sarah – annoying laugh’. After half an hour he was hungry and ambled into the kitchen to see what he could find. A team of catering staff were preparing lunch with Martyr at the helm. As soon as she saw Noblet she barked, ‘Hands off! This is for lunch.’
Noblet looked hurt. ‘But I’m half-starved, Martyr. I couldn’t eat any breakfast; I was too nervous.’
She shooed him towards the pantry. ‘There’s a pie and some cold meats in the small fridge and bread in the bin. Just don’t touch anything in here. I’ve enough to do as it is!’ Bustling off to berate a sous-chef for some misshapen julienne vegetables, she left Noblet to fend for himself in the pantry. Taking a napkin from the drawer, he loaded it up with a large slice of chicken pie and a couple of ham sandwiches. As he turned to leave, he heard the sound of the key in the lock and found himself face to face with an intruder.
‘Who the devil…?’ And then he remembered. He had met this particular crazy-eyed lunatic before.
‘Yes, Your Majesty, and so I thought it would be nice to have a chat in here. Cosy. Seeing as they forgot the invitation.’
‘Forgot…? Invitation…?’
‘They must have meant to invite me. I’m a relation of George the Third. Bloodlines – they wouldn’t have let me slip through their net. Your people, yo
u know. Who organised it. So I thought I’d pop in and we could do it on our own somewhere.’
The blood drained from Noblet’s face.
‘Mind if I sit down?’ he asked, and without waiting for an answer, slid to the floor.
‘Keep your strength up,’ Lorraine admonished, nodding her head at the napkin of food still clutched in his hand.
Noblet looked unseeingly at the pie for a moment and then inserted it into his mouth and chewed. He had to do something. Call for help. Or faint. But right now, all he could manage was to eat his pie.
‘Right, Your Honour,’ Lorraine trilled as she settled herself on the floor opposite him, her yellow-legging-clad legs stretched out in front of her, ‘what would you like to know?’
‘Know?’ Noblet echoed through a mouthful of pie.
Lorraine laughed and reached forward to pinch his cheek. ‘Silly-billy! You need to know something about me before the wedding. Can’t wait till afterwards.’
Gulping down the remnants of the pie, Noblet moved on to the ham sandwich.
‘Like a nice sandwich, do you?’ she asked. ‘I like sandwiches.’
‘Ever found yourself short of a few at a picnic?’ Noblet enquired between bites. He was starting to get reckless. Here he was, locked in a pantry with a madwoman. She would probably leap up and smack him round the head with a leg of lamb at any moment; he had nothing to lose.
‘Picnic in your lovely garden – we could do that one day. How about tomorrow? I’m free tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow! Yes, why not?’ agreed Noblet. ‘I’ll bring the port and cocktail sausages; you bring a sherry trifle. We’ll invite the Queen and the Dalai Lama.’
Reaching over and taking one of his sandwiches, Lorraine thrust it into her mouth and chewed at him before responding. ‘The Dalarama? He’s a foreigner. Don’t want any outsiders at our picnic, Your Graceship. You leave the invites to me. We’ll have the Queen, if she’s free, and the Prince of Charles. And his wife though she’s a no-knickered hussy if ever I saw one. What else?’
‘What else?’
‘What else do you want to know?’
Could he perhaps spring up and smash his way out through the window? He could scream for help but she wouldn’t like that and who knew what kind of a bloodied mess they’d find when they got the door open. He had to play for time.
‘Questions, questions… Right. What, erm, what star sign are you?’
‘Jupiter.’
‘Excellent – most compatible with Aquarius. That’s mine, I believe.’
‘Aquariums.’
‘Aquarius.’
‘No,’ Lorraine insisted, ‘the plural of aquarium is aquariums. I know because I had one myself in 1983 to keep my mussel collection in. You like them too, eh? You must be Pisces, that’s the sign of the fish.’
‘Exactly so.’
‘Next?’
He noticed she’d absent-mindedly put the key down on the floor beside her.
‘Who is your favourite author?’
‘I love reading. Read all the time. Speed read. Yesterday I read seventeen books. I speed write too. I’ll show you if you like. Need some paper…’
‘Right!’ Shooting up like a jack-in-the-box, Noblet grabbed the key and was over to the door in a flash and unlocking it. ‘Let’s go and find some paper!’
Darting out he ran straight into Henry.
‘There you are!’ Henry expostulated. ‘I’ve had people searching all over for you.’
‘Well,’ Noblet retorted, making extraordinary grimaces as he motioned towards Lorraine who had emerged from the pantry, ‘I’ve been otherwise occupied. In the pantry. With the door locked.’
‘Mrs… Watford, isn’t it?’ said Henry, surprised.
She curtseyed. ‘Yes’m.’
Henry said ‘Kitchen’ into his walkie-talkie and then smiled at Lorraine. ‘I hope you found everything you needed?’
‘Most accommodating, thank you.’
‘Excellent. This is Derek,’ as Derek barrelled into the kitchen, his face darkening when he recognised Lorraine, ‘and he will escort you on a private tour of the grounds terminating at the gate. I hope you enjoy it.’
‘So gentle. Such nice teeth,’ Lorraine enthused before curtseying once more and allowing herself to be led away.
Noblet was enraged. ‘Is this what we pay all these so-called security guards for? To hand dangerous criminals our pantry keys and tell them to get on with it? Abducting and imprisoning willy-nilly?’
Henry looked grim. ‘Believe me, Bob, once today is over I’ll be reviewing our security arrangements. After Saskia’s deliveries, this is the icing on the cake. Sit down here and I’ll get you a cup of tea. Once you’ve had that come and join us – we’ll be in the blue drawing room,’ he called as he headed out of the kitchen.
***
Henry should have stuck to the day job. He found the whole event more stressful than he’d expected, what with attention-seeking applicants, the security lapse and his mother’s lack of cooperation. At least he hadn’t had to deal with any more Saskia-related oddness. When he entered the blue drawing room, he was pleased to find his mother ensconced in a chair at the top of the room, as requested via Sally a few minutes previously. He stood beside her and called for attention. The room fell silent as the rows of applicants stopped chattering and turned to face him.
‘I hope you all enjoyed the balloon debate and have had chance to take a quick break. I’d like to explain the next – and final – exercise of the day.’
A puzzled murmur rippled round the room. Only one more exercise?
‘I have asked my mother, Lady Caroline, to join my brother and me in judging the next activity. We would like each of you to reflect on a skill you have, which perhaps sets you apart from others, and which would be useful as the wife of Lord de Beeble. We would then like you to either give a short presentation or demonstrate your skill, if practical.’
More murmuring – much of it panic-stricken.
‘The time is now,’ he checked his watch, ‘eleven fifteen. The hour before lunch will be spent preparing your presentation and discussing with the team the necessary requirements for any practical elements. We will take an hour for lunch and you will then be called back one by one to this room where we will hear your presentations.’ Henry signalled that they were free to go. Uproar. Babbling voices, white faces, people clamouring round the facilitators – the pure horror in the air was palpable. Lady Caroline watched in silence for a moment.
‘No composure, these modern girls – or most modern men, for that matter.’ She lit a cigarette and blew smoke towards the herd of people stampeding out of the doors behind the team leaders. ‘Apart from that girl,’ she qualified, eyes narrowing as she leant forward in her chair to examine the person in question more closely. ‘Who is she?’
Henry looked over.
‘Mia Wild. Interviewed extremely well in the first round. Noblet was very keen.’
‘Ha!’ snorted Lady Caroline. ‘I’m sure he was.’
Mia, seemingly deaf to the uproar around her, was trying to coax Martyr’s cat inside from where she sat on the sill outside the open window. The cat rubbed her head against Mia’s hand and then, startled by a shrill voice nearby disappeared out of sight. Mia strolled out of the room.
‘No doubt utterly wrong for Noblet,’ Lady Caroline remarked, ‘but very charming to look at.’
***
Alice sat quietly in the corner and tried to conjure up a special skill that would set her apart from the others. She mustn’t panic. After all, everyone else was in the same boat. And she did public-speaking for a living. She would make-believe that Lady Caroline, Noblet and Henry were five-year-olds and it would be fine. Someone tapped on the window behind her; Mia. Slipping out of the room and into the garden she resisted the urge to throw herself into Mia’s arms, such was the relief of seeing her.
‘How are you getting on?’ Mia asked.
‘I’m trying not to panic. But I haven�
�t thought of a skill yet.’
‘Oh, you’ve got hundreds. Thousands.’
‘Name one.’
‘I’ll name three. You can teach, cook and speak German. Probably all at the same time.’
‘I can only speak German to GCSE level. And I’m not sure how teaching would make me a good wife to Noblet. Unless he wanted to learn German to GCSE level.’
‘Cooking then.’
Alice thought about it.
‘I do love cooking and it’s something I’d feel confident doing, but they’ve already got a cook.’
‘So? She must have days off. A good cook is like gold dust – you should go for it.’
‘You’re right – I will. Thanks, Mia, you’re a lifesaver. I’d better think of a recipe and see if they can rustle up the ingredients. What’s your skill going to be?’
‘No idea. I can’t think on an empty stomach.’
Chapter 19
Lunch was over. It was crunch time. Those applicants who weren’t preparing a practical demonstration sat in nervous rows in the hall, waiting to be called. Sinead, with the benefit of her insider information, had spent days agonising over what, from all her multitude of skills, her special skill should be. In the end, she’d decided to show off her prowess in shorthand. What better skill for the wife of a budding author and academic? Many would be the cosy evenings they would spend together; he pacing the living-room floor – drawing-room floor, Sinead, she corrected herself – in his smoking jacket, puffing on a pipe and dictating while she sat by the fire in very large, very expensive pearls, committing his brilliance to paper. Her name was called.
The regulation five minutes passed without incident. Sinead demonstrated her ability in shorthand, Noblet looked vacant and Lady Caroline wondered aloud whether she should hire Sinead to type up her memoirs. She left the room and the next applicant appeared. Henry looked at the name badge: ‘Destiny’.
‘I’m sorry – Destiny – I can’t find your name here…’
‘No,’ admitted the woman. ‘You wouldn’t.’
She looked like a throwback to the 1950s in her headscarf, huge dark glasses and bright lipstick. Henry’s heart sank. Could his woeful security guards have let another intruder sneak into the Hall?
Lord Seeks Wife: A hilariously funny romantic comedy Page 17