The Last Baronet

by Caroline Akrill

  ‘Hold on a bit; we’ve only just met.’

  ‘I proposed to your mother in the first week.’

  ‘Weren’t you always the impulsive one! Come on then Tom, you may as well tell them,’ Emily urged.

  ‘It’s just that I’ve been offered a job.’

  ‘How? Where?’ Mary and Tony looked at him in surprise.

  ‘Here. I’ve been helping out a bit. I helped Len and Barry; he’s mute mum, you might try a bit of therapy on him; anyway, I helped them get the logs in this morning, then I arranged the flowers for the hall table because Mavis got into a muddle, then I was helping Yvonne, she’s the waitress, and Rupert, that’s Mr Truscott, to lay up the tables, or rather he was showing me how it should be done because there’s more to it than you might think, and he said “You’re quite a useful chap, do you want a job?” I thought he was joking but he was serious. Apparently he’s looking for an assistant manager to start at Easter. There won’t be any accommodation available until then.’

  ‘Assistant Manager, you? But you don’t know the first thing about hotel work,’ Tony could hardly believe it.

  ‘I can learn on the job. I have to be prepared to help out everywhere but I don’t mind that. And I have to do day release at a local catering college. I like the idea of hotel management. Imagine managing a place like this. It would be ace. I’d really like it.’

  Mary and Tony looked at Tom in astonishment. Here was their son, not interested in anything, waxing lyrical about hotel management. It was a miracle.

  It’s this place, thought Mary. The magic is spreading to all of my family. Thank you, Mother.

  ‘So you definitely won’t be coming into the family business,’ said Tony in resignation. ‘I can count you out.’

  ‘But I will,’ said Emily. ‘You can count me in.’

  ‘You?’ Tony frowned. ‘A precision engineer?’

  ‘Maybe not exactly that, but I’m doing business studies at Uni, and accountancy, and I could probably look into engineering, perhaps even law. Law is always useful,’ said Emily.

  ‘My God.’

  ‘I know you haven’t considered me, it’s been Tom you wanted, but perhaps you should look at me as a prospective employee? Perhaps I could help out in the office in the holidays? Get a feel for it? Unless it’s a gender issue.’ Emily looked at her father in a combative manner.

  ‘There’s no gender issue,’ Tony said hastily. ‘I just thought… well, to be honest, I’d never even thought of you in the context of the business.’

  ‘Well, think about me now. Because I’m interested. It’s the family firm; it’s Gramps’ firm. And I don’t want to spend three years at Uni without a job at the end of it. Not when you need me.’ Emily grinned. ‘You needn’t worry. I can be pinstriped.’

  ‘At least my stripes will be from Dad’s tailor,’ said Tom. ‘Emily’s will probably be tattooed on.’

  ‘We are not mentioning tattoos,’ snapped Emily.

  ‘Or piercings,’ added Tom pointedly.

  ‘You may wish to know,’ said Mary Pomeroy, ‘that I scattered Mother on the rose garden today,’ and was rewarded by the abrupt cessation of all vocal and culinary activity around the table.

  *

  When the desserts had been cleared away, Norman got out his violin and went over to join Lavinia at the piano. They played the old tunes, the Sidney Fenton songs and it sounded wonderful. Everyone in the dining room was entranced.

  As Vivian watched, his eyes grew damp. As Lavinia played the years seemed to drop away and she became again the woman he had married; beautiful; enchanting. He looked at Norman. God, he could play that violin! He could make the instrument speak. He saw the way they looked at one another as they played; the glances they exchanged. They played as if they had always played together; as if they had never been apart. They played with ease and empathy and, he thought, with love. It was magical. It was bewitching. Vivian remembered that there had been talk, at the time, of a violinist. Was he? Could he be? Suddenly, like the combination of the safe Rupert had installed in the office, the tumblers all fell into place. Vivian got up from the table. He stumbled across the hall where the Yule log burned and a continuous line of insects were evacuating across the carpet from the hearth. He tottered down the brick passage and pushed through the swing doors into the kitchen where the coffee and petit fours were being laid out on trays ready for service.

  He said to Anna, ‘Better go and look at this violinist chap. Might be your father.’

  THIRTY THREE

  The bell was tolling, calling the guests to the Carol Service. There had been sunshine during the day but along the overhung, woody path to the chapel it was crisp underfoot and the bare branches were white with rime. Guests were surprised to be welcomed at the chapel door by a splendid figure, his purple and golden garments crusted with a great deal of ecclesiastical embroidery, wearing a bishop’s mitre and holding a staff.

  The Bishop, smiling and nodding but in all other respects mute, threw open the heavy door revealing a scene so amazingly theatrical, so bizarre, that people imagined they might have been unexpectedly thrust onto the stage in the middle of some absurdly fantastic, extravagantly designed, wildly over the top musical in the West End.

  The chapel, which was very small, was lit by a great many candles, spluttering and leaping against the draught, giving off a shifting, golden light. Great swathes of greenery sprayed with gold paint and artificial snow filled the window sills, niches and corners. A smiling angel with flowing pre-Raphaelite curls, having the most beautiful folded white feathered wings and a long robe of red and gold handed out printed sheets as a second, more energetic angel, took up a shovel in order to hurl pine cones at a roaring, crackling fire. Positioned in an alcove, Lady Lavinia, wearing a cloak of biblical blue with a cowl hood, was playing Corelli’s Christmas Concerto on an electronic keyboard with a pipe-organ facility, accompanied by Norman Simkins on his violin. The mesmeric quality of the music, the fluctuating movement of the light, the ancient walls of the chapel with their memorial plaques and shadowy tombs looking like a carefully painted backdrop gave the guests such a sense of unreality, of surrealism, that many staggered a little as they took their seats (which they found rather small, as they had been borrowed from the Rushbroke St. Mary primary school especially for the occasion).

  The family were wearing their Christmas reindeer antlers. They were accustomed to these as they wore them every year for at least a part of the festivities. They sat on a chair each and were unaware of the grotesque shadows their antlers cast on the chapel walls. Despite the efforts of the pre-Raphaelite angel, continually stoking two cavernous fireplaces, an icy chill emanated from the stone-flagged floor, the striking intensity of which caused Clarissa to hope that there would be no obligation to kneel for prayers as there was not a hassock in sight.

  In such an atmosphere, nobody appeared to be unduly disturbed when a fur-covered fiend with fangs and bloodshot eyes bounded up the aisle, setting the Shih Tzu members of the congregation erect with outrage on their seats. Having reached the front row, the monster patted the black Labrador with a hairy paw and sat down next to Nicola. Then, as Lady Lavinia, prompted by Norman Simkins, went into In Dulci Jubilo, the mute Bishop threw open the door and in walked Father Christmas.

  ‘Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavily laden and I will give you rest,’ thundered Father Christmas as he made his ponderous progress up the aisle. ‘The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered every kind. My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land. He only is my rock and salvation; he is my defence; I shall not be moved.’

  They stood and sang It Came Upon a Midnight Clear and the most vocal member of the Shih Tzu family lifted its head and joined in, being rewarded by the close attention of the rest of the family, some of whom were obliged to turn round on their seats in order to view the vocalist through the back frame of their chairs. Tears of emotion ran down Fat
her Christmas’s cheeks at the sound of a congregation in the Rushbroke chapel after almost a lifetime of neglect and decay, and Nicola was similarly hard-pressed to read the first lesson without losing control over her voice.

  Other lessons, carols, and inexplicable exhortations followed, during which red wine infused with spices and fortified with brandy spluttered and spat as red hot pokers were thrust into earthenware jugs, and steaming beakers were handed round by the baroque angels in a welcome attempt to prevent the rising chill from paralyzing the congregation’s most vital parts. The Bishop handed round a platter of warmed mince pies.

  ‘Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?’ demanded Father Christmas as the angel at his side nibbled a mince pie. ‘I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race was not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding. A living dog is better than a dead lion.’

  The Bishop moved from chair to chair, shaking the human congregation by the hand, smiling and nodding, stroking the canine members and patting their heads, provoking a show of indignation from the most elderly Shih Tzu, and a prolonged fit of sneezing in another. A catastrophe was narrowly averted when a baroque angel, standing perilously close to a candle flame, caught alight and a sheet of flame shooting up through the pre-Raphaelite hair had to be smothered with the altar cloth. The smell of burnt synthetics wafted around the chapel like incense. As the finale, Norman’s unaccompanied recital of Massinet’s Meditation rendered everyone near to tears and the little congregation left the left the chapel wrung with emotion, each and every one to be clasped in an unexpectedly warm parting embrace by the Bishop whose affectionate nature had expanded with every warming beaker he had imbibed.

  None thought to question if God had been present because His presence had never been in doubt. As to what He made of it all, only God himself knew the answer to that.

  RUSHBROKE HALL

  COUNTRY HOUSE HOTEL

  CHRISTMAS HOUSE PARTY

  Programme of Events

  Boxing Day

  Thursday 26th December

  From 8 am

  Breakfast will be served

  in the Yellow Dining Room

  10.30am

  You are invited to attend the traditional Boxing Day

  Meet of the Easton Harriers at The Cricket in the

  Hearth, Rushall St. Mary. A traditional stirrup cup

  will be provided in the Sam Weller Bar.

  From 13.30hrs

  A Buffet Lunch will be available

  in the Yellow Dining Room all afternoon

  Afternoon Tea, as and when required,

  will be served in the Residents’ Lounge

  From 20.00hrs

  Dinner will be served

  in the Yellow Dining Room

  There will be musical entertainment

  Friday 27th December

  Brunch will be served in the Yellow Dining Room

  from 8am to 11 am prior to your departure

  THIRTY FOUR

  ‘Baroque angels? Mince pies?’

  Falling into conversation with a thin-faced individual wearing a quilted anorak and a clerical collar in the Sam Weller Bar, Mary Pomeroy, left on her own, (Tom preferring the company of Yvonne, Emily saying she would follow with Tony, who was sleeping off a hangover, or so he had said) had, in all innocence, described the most delightful and unusual service she had attended the previous evening to the Reverend Nicholas Beresford-Barnes.

  Faced with his righteous wrath out in the car park, Vivian regarded a passing hound with as much attention as a judge at Peterborough. ‘I am still officially a church warden,’ he said with dignity, ‘and have the right to take the service if the incumbent is indisposed.’

  ‘The incumbent was not asked!’

  ‘Since the incumbent would have refused point blank, the point is hardly worth making, I should say.’ Vivian squinted down the hill to where two riders were approaching his field of vision, one of them his daughter. The Pomeroy fellow, with his loose reins and flapping legs, did not appear to be much of a rider.

  ‘Father Christmas?’ The Reverend Nicholas Beresford-Barnes’ lanky frame quivered with scandalised indignation. ‘Alcoholic refreshment on God’s premises!’

  ‘No worse than communion wine, I’d have thought. Nor would God have wanted his congregation to freeze to death,’ Vivian said with restraint, his eyes on the approaching riders.

  ‘God would not have been present, I assure you!’

  This, to Vivian, was a step too far. ‘Rubbish! Rubbish, I tell you!’ He turned on the cleric. His face had flushed a dull red. His voice shook. ‘My chapel is still a viable place of worship in His eyes, even if it has failed to gain your own personal seal of approval! Where two or three people are gathered together in my name there I am in the midst of them!’ Vivian poked the Reverend Nicholas Beresford-Barnes in the chest with a bony finger that trembled with anger. ‘His words, not mine! Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Vicar!’

  The Reverend was not about to take this lying down. ‘Believe me, Sir Vivian, this is not the end of the matter. This is not the last you will hear if it. You have overstepped the mark this time; this time there will be retribution! You will live to regret this,’ he promised in a voice cold with repressed fury. ‘There will be retribution!’

  ‘Retribution over my dead body,’ shouted Vivian. ‘Retribution over my sodding arse!’

  He staggered off towards the oncoming horses.

  At the other end of the Sam Weller Bar, the rest of the Rushbroke party was warming up nicely. Madam (Harry was finding it difficult to think of her as Clarissa) having been persuaded to leave the family in the car for reasons of safety, (the current generation of Easton hounds having something of a reputation for gobbling up curs in the absence of legitimate prey) had, once the complimentary stirrup cup had been consumed, insisted on paying for several more rounds in celebration of the engagement and the party, which included Mary, Tom and Yvonne, Norman, Len, Mavis, Barry, the Lambs and Harry Featherstone, were (Barry excepted) engaged in noisy conversation.

  Tom and Yvonne moved to the window and stood looking out at the meet through fake leaded lights studded with bottle end glass. Bar staff, dodging hooves and swishing tails, proffered salvers of sausage rolls and goblets of port to hunt servants in their green livery and mounted followers. Horses and ponies snorted and fidgeted and scraped at the tarmac in their impatience to be off. Foot followers conversed in groups, their breath turning to steam in the frosty air. Hounds wandered away from the pack whenever the opportunity arose, happy to be petted and fed sausage rolls until rated and returned to the pack by a whipper-in.

  ‘Oh, goody, here comes Nicola at last,’ Yvonne pointed out two horses just about to enter the car park. ‘And, look, there’s Sir Viv going to meet her. Don’t know who’s riding the grey horse though. Never seen him before.’

  ‘No, neither have I.’ But then Tom, after a more searching appraisal, found that he had seen the rider of the grey horse before and, in fact, knew him very well. ‘Oh my God! I don’t believe it! I just don’t believe it! Hey, Ma! Come over here! Just come and get a look at this!’

  *

  Tony did not feel at all safe on the grey gelding. His confidently held theory that a good quality thoroughbred horse would give him a smoother, easier ride had not held up in practice. Legged up into the saddle by Nicola (who had understandably assumed more competency on his part than was actually the case) Tony had felt very high off the ground indeed. This taller, altogether narrower, racier animal, however beautiful, however friendly, did nothing for his sense of security, or his painfully acquired balance. Instead of the short, shaved, and blessedly solid neck of the little piebald to whom he had become accustomed, the grey gelding possessed a neck of alarming length and slenderness ending in two exceedingly sharp and mobile ears which flipped backwards and forwards, both together and independently, with every movement Tony made.

 
Nicola had led the way at a walk along the length of the drive, giving Tony time to accustom himself to the swinging movement of the grey gelding. He noticed that there was not a neckstrap, but there was a mane, which might be useful to hold onto in an emergency. It was not a long mane, more of a fringe really, but it was something.

  Out in the lane the horses went into trot. Tony bumped up and down trying to master the rhythm of the grey gelding’s raking stride, so different to Piper’s short, choppy one. Nicola regarded his progress with consternation, fearing not only for his safety, but also for that of the grey gelding, despite his uncertain future. As a car approached she sandwiched the grey between the chestnut livery and the hedge, but thankfully the grey appeared not to notice it, seemingly far more concerned with the fumblings and lurching of his rider.

  ‘We don’t actually have to follow hounds, if you don’t feel comfortable about it,’ Nicola offered. ‘We can just turn up for the meet, if you prefer, then cut away home. The going will be like iron today, anyway.’

  Tony was grateful to have in reserve this tactfully phrased way to save face, especially as when they rode into the forecourt of the Cricket in the Hearth and the grey gelding spotted hounds, he began to prance and sidle. Prancing and sidling had not been a feature of The Pied Piper’s repertoire, nor had it featured in Learn to Ride in a Weekend, and as Tony’s hands, made clumsy by the felted woollen gloves and the silver mounted whip, took a tighter grip on the reins, the grey horse began to swish his tail and perform a piaffé.

  ‘Let go of his head,’ Nicola advised. ‘Let him settle.’

  Sir Vivian wandered up to them, stirrup cup in hand. ‘You going to be all right, old chap?’ he enquired. ‘Might get a bit hairy, you know, once this lot get the wind under their tails.’ In an aside to Nicola, he muttered, ‘I’d get him back home first opportunity. Fellow will break his neck otherwise. Not fit to ride a bicycle, in my opinion.’