To the Manor Born

by Peter Rimmer

  “Barnaby?”

  “St Clair. The missing man who should be sitting in the empty chair. And Tina went to so much trouble to get everything right. So soon after Beth… You ready for the first flight, Iggy?”

  “Of course. Forget St Clair. People who behave like that are not worth worrying about.”

  “You don’t know him then? He gets around.”

  “I’ll make a point of keeping away… I had confirmation today of all fuel stops on the route. We’ll land north of the Victoria Falls on the Zambezi River exactly five days after flying out of the Southampton Solent. You are sure, Harry, there’s enough clear water on the Zambezi? The Nile, Lake Victoria and Lake Nyasa are easy.”

  “The test flights landed on the river a dozen times. I’ve flown over it low in the Handley Page another dozen times. We just have to watch any unusual floodwater coming down from upriver in Angola. I have it monitored. There’s more calm water on the river for you than at Southampton. Just hope it is not blowing a gale in the Solent. What a splendid first commercial flight. England to the Victoria Falls. Makes my heart flutter. Opens up southern Africa to the world for the first time.”

  “You won’t come with us?”

  “Love to but Tina put her little foot down with the new baby.”

  “I like the new house.”

  “Not a bit too gaudy, Iggy?”

  “Not at all. Just right. Your wife has perfect taste.”

  “I’ll fly again with you one day.”

  “I know you will. Thank you again for the job. Life for me has not been so easy after the war.”

  Ignatius was a diplomat. Harry Brigandshaw had been his CO in France during the war when they flew with 33 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps. Ostentatious would have been a nice word to describe the crystal chandelier that hovered over his head at the long dinner table. Whoever painted the garish paintings that hung around the room menacing the guests, should have been taken out and shot. The paintings of Pablo Picasso, Ignatius Bowes-Lyon could just understand when he pinched his sensibilities. The legion of imitators that painted big, oval eyes in the cube-shaped faces had, so far as he could see, made a mockery of art. They certainly made fools of those who paid good money and hung them on their walls.

  Ignatius looked up at the one face that had been following him all evening and shuddered, picking up his napkin to dab his mouth to cover up the tremor going through his body. Somewhere someone in an expensive London art gallery was pulling his leg.

  “They are bloody horrible,” whispered Harry in his ear. “Just don’t tell my wife. That one that made you shiver winks at me of a morning when I’m trying to eat my breakfast.”

  Ignatius gave his old CO a queer look of sympathy. When he looked around, Mrs Brigandshaw was watching him. He was quite sure she knew what they had talked about. Sometimes money produced more problems than it solved. Attracted the wrong people. He gave Mrs Brigandshaw a broad appreciative smile. She was a good-looking woman. What people did with their money was none of his business. He was a pilot and once more flying aeroplanes. Nothing else mattered in his life. Harry Brigandshaw got up and walked away… The girl sitting next to him on the other side was smiling at him. When she had come to sit down at the table, he had seen the long legs that went up to heaven.

  “You don’t remember my name?” she said smiling.

  “Of course I do, Miss Scott.”

  They had first had drinks in the lounge before going in to supper. Someone had introduced them. He, as the chief pilot of African Airways and she as a leading member of the cast of the musical Happy Times. Iggy guessed she had been in a chorus line with such long legs.

  “Call me Millie,” she said.

  “Maybe we can go out to a club for a drink later.”

  “I would like that Mr Bowes-Lyon… Are you related to the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne?” asked Millie Scott repeating what she had been told by her friend Jane who was sitting opposite her at the table next to the South African who was stage directing their show with the first name that sounded more like a girl’s. Millie had once had a friend called Gertrude that called herself Gert.

  Ignatius was not sure what to say to Millie Scott. He liked chorus girls. They were usually uncomplicated.

  “I’m the current earl’s third cousin once removed.”

  “Can you explain how cousins get removed?”

  “Not really.” They were laughing together. He was right. She was uncomplicated.

  * * *

  Millie Scott was thinking how lucky she had been meeting Merlin St Clair during the war. She looked again at Merlin across the table and smiled. To pull her leg, as she knew his trick from old, he made a point of putting the clear glass monocle in the eye with the coal-black iris and looked across at her. Millie raised an eyebrow in the direction of the one empty chair on the other side of Ignatius Bowes-Lyon. Merlin turned the dark eye on the chair, his good humour vanishing.

  * * *

  Christopher Marlowe caught the interplay between Merlin St Clair and Millie Scott, putting away the exchange in his memory bank. Those two knew each other better than they said. No wonder Millie had been given a part in the show. The girl with the long legs looked better than her singing. Idly looking at Millie chatting to the pilot who was going to fly down Africa the next week, Christopher wondered if the girl could play comedy. There was one thing still missing in Happy Times. Not enough laughs. A pretty girl with long legs that could make the audience laugh was what he wanted… An idea began to take shape in his mind. Another scene between the songs… Too much of anything in a musical made an audience grow restless. He had to keep their attention. Always.

  Brett Kentrich had been sat in the chair at the top of the table next to Harry Brigandshaw who was sitting in between Brett and his wife. Brett was sure Tina had put Harry in the middle deliberately. On her right was Oscar Fleming, the impresario that was staging Happy Times with Harry Brigandshaw’s money at the Aldwych. The Golden Moth was to carry on at Drury Lane with a new leading lady, a common practice in the London theatres according to Oscar Fleming to stop a smash hit from growing stale. Brett was sure Tina Brigandshaw knew she had had a brief affair with the elderly impresario soon after Harry Brigandshaw left her to go back to Africa. With Harry out of his chair and down the dining room where she had watched him with the chief pilot of African Airways, she was face-to-face with her adversary.

  “So nice of you, darling, to put me in between Harry and Oscar.”

  “Quite the rose between the thorns,” said Tina equally sweetly.

  “I love the paintings around the room. Are they painted by a friend of yours?”

  “I don’t know any painters the way you do, Brett. I try not to mix with bohemians.”

  “You should, Tina. My word you should… Is this chandelier the largest in a London private house…? Of course not. I saw a larger one when I was presented to the Prince of Wales at Fort Belvedere. He is such a patron of the theatre… have you been presented at court?” asked Brett knowing perfectly well she had not. Her own invitation to Fort Belvedere had been after meeting Edward when he came backstage at Drury Lane. The Prince of Wales had an eye for every pretty girl. Their picture together had appeared in Tatler. “Did you see our picture together in Tatler? It was so nice getting there without your help, Tina. How was Barry Jones? This time I’m afraid he was not the photographer.”

  “I will ask Harry to have me presented to the King.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “It will be for Harry. You would be amazed at how much money can accomplish.”

  “That much I can see.”

  “Then you like our house…? How strange life is. If things had gone a little differently, you might be me… How is the flat in Regent Mews? Once I rather had an idea of a flat over a stable. Gives such a rural feeling in the heart of London. Of course, all the stables are being turned into garages for all the nasty smelly cars. Rather negates the point. I much preferred the smell of h
orse manure.”

  “I don’t remember ever smelling it… Come and sit down again, Harry. I’ve been having such a nice talk with your wife. The butler is hovering. Is he Austrian? So difficult to find an English butler these days. He wants to serve the next course and is waiting for you to sit down next to me again. I was saying to Tina how nice it was for her to put me between you and Oscar. Tina’s going to be a great society hostess.”

  On the other side of Brett Kentrich, Oscar Fleming theatrically stroked his pointed grey beard. He was quite sure before the end of the evening the two girls would scratch out each other’s eyes. He was looking forward to it. Catfights for Oscar Fleming were fun… Then he turned his thoughts to the recurring problem that kept coming back into his mind. How to get the voluptuous Mrs Brigandshaw into his bed for a few nights without upsetting Mr Brigandshaw, the money man. Usually, he never contemplated fouling his own backyard. But for Tina Brigandshaw there just had to be an exception in his life. She had more sex appeal than the rest of the girls in the room put together… Such a shame, he thought, giving Brett Kentrich another look. Brett was so pretty and still so young but once he had had them, they were no longer of sexual interest to him. Part of man’s quest to plant his seed as far afield as possible, he told himself without guilt. Nature’s way of cooling off desire so the male would hunt again somewhere else. Nature was marvellous he thought smiling broadly to himself tucking into his food. Oscar Fleming looked around the room with the eye of a connoisseur.

  There were exactly five women in the room, including Tina Brigandshaw, that he had not taken to bed… “What did women see in middle-aged men?” he asked himself smugly. Well, middle-aged men at the very end of their middle-age. At fifty-nine, Oscar Fleming never told anyone his true age… He was as bad as the women, an idea that pleased him immensely.

  A new course was put in front of him. He began this time to eat politely. Brett was looking at him disapprovingly. The damn girl could read his mind.

  “You’re going to be a sensation in the new show,” he said to her putting down his knife and fork. The frown left the brow of his leading lady. Flattery never failed. People were so easy to manipulate. He had known all his life that all you had to do was to tell people how wonderful they were.

  * * *

  Seated between two of the prettiest showgirls he had ever seen, Keppel Howland was enjoying himself. He had not sat next to a girl since leaving England to go to Africa if he discounted Mrs Brigandshaw who spent too much time springing into his thoughts which Keppel knew was a sin. She was married. He should not have looked at her sexually on Elephant Walk. He should stop letting her catch his eye down the dinner table that made him flush much to her amusement. He just hoped she was unaware of the arousal taking place under the table. Which he doubted, especially when she licked her lips the second time around which everyone at the table must have seen.

  Keppel had watched poor old Ralph all evening trying to unsuccessfully catch the eye of Miss Brett Kentrich. Whenever Keppel looked from Ralph to Brett, Brett was looking at Harry Brigandshaw. No one had told him but something was going on there so far as Miss Kentrich was concerned.

  The two girls on either side of Keppel were both trying to engage him in conversation, which would have been better for Keppel if they had – anything to stop the acute arousal under the table. He supposed the girls were interested in him because of him being invited to the sumptuous dinner party, something he had never seen the like of in his life before. Just as he was getting control over himself, the girl on his right with the classic name of Poppy, put her half-gloved hand on his knee and sent his hormones screaming. Having not been with a woman since leaving England, Keppel knew he had better do something about it before he had a problem in public. The touch of the half glove on his knee, that covered the girl’s palm, was far more erotic than if she had stood in front of him naked. As he looked up from his plate for some kind of deliverance, he caught Mrs Brigandshaw looking straight at him.

  Mrs Brigandshaw then looked daggers at Poppy. Was there nothing the woman couldn’t see in his face that did not make him feel stark naked.

  In a desperate attempt to regain control, Keppel thought of that morning when Christopher had taken the three of them to the barber and then to Moss Brothers in Regent Street to hire Gert, Ralph and himself evening clothes. Slowly, he forced away the feel of the glove. His newly shaven fresh face returned to its normal colour and the starched shirt started hurting him again around the stiff collar.

  “Did you scrub your face or something?” Poppy asked perplexed.

  “Can you believe it? Coal dust, Poppy. It ingrains itself into the skin. Right deep down in the skin after three weeks of constant contact.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” The girl affected an educated accent, which mattered nothing to Keppel with his Manx accent, a blend of Irish and Lowland Scot.

  “Shovelling coal into a hungry boiler all the way from Africa to England.”

  “Tell me.” The hand had been removed from his knee. She was looking at him like a schoolteacher just told a lie by a difficult but favourite pupil. She was sucking her tongue, pursing her lips and her eyes were smiling at him all at the same time. She was not bad-looking after all.

  Keppel Howland started to concentrate. He wanted that silk half glove on his knee again when he was not wearing his trousers. Smiling at her he thought to himself a man could always hope.

  * * *

  From the box room next to the attic off Shaftesbury Avenue to the dining room in Berkeley Square, made Gert van Heerden want to laugh. From a diet of reheated vegetable soup from leftover pickings on the Portobello Road of a late Saturday afternoon to a seven-course supper waited on by white men was absurd. He knew his father in the luxury of the Stellenbosch estate would be drinking wine far superior to the French wine that had gurgled from the bottles into fine glasses down the length of the table. He would have enjoyed the irony. Gert even thought his father and mother would enjoy a first-night performance of Happy Times even if their son had not been the stage director. Sitting at the splendid dinner table next to the beautiful Jane under the sparkling crystal chandelier, Gert made a mental note to himself to invite his parents to the premiere, scheduled for the end of March. Gert was sure his new real boss, who was not Oscar Fleming, would arrange a suite on the SS Corfe Castle from Cape Town to London where the ship docked not far from the Aldwych Theatre. The idea of his mother flying up Africa in a ten-seater seaplane never crossed his mind: his father was going to have enough trouble getting her on a ship. His mother spoke barely a word of English. In a musical, such as Happy Times, that did not matter. She would appreciate the songs and his sets. Well, he told himself sipping the white wine that had been served with the duck course, he would give it a try. Throughout his life, getting his mother off the farm had been a constant problem.

  “My flowers and garden are not in Cape Town,” she would complain in Afrikaans. “The view of the mountains is better from the farm. If I leave for a day, everything will fall to pieces. You all go and enjoy yourselves whatever you want to do and I’ll stay here… Now, run along. I have things to do, Gert.”

  Smiling at the old conversation with his mother in her old gardening clothes, he had not heard what Jane had said to him. She was sitting between himself and Christopher Marlowe who had used some of the fifty pounds from his Uncle Wallace that morning to smarten them up. Refusing to let them cut off his long hair, having seen what the barber had done to Keppel Howland and Christopher’s brother Ralph, he now wore it in a luxurious ponytail down his back. He was in the theatre. He could get away with a ponytail. In the same way as Oscar Fleming, who when Keppel looked across the table at him looked like some French count out of a bad French farce. Despite been given his job by Fleming at the instruction of Harry Brigandshaw, he found it difficult to like the man. He had watched the impresario coveting Harry Brigandshaw’s wife. To Gert that was not nice. Chorus girls, Brett Kentrich, maybe. Not a
man’s wife. In different circumstances, he would have taken the man to task. Made a fuss and forced a duel to protect her honour. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Punched the old boy on the nose like a typical overbred Englishman… His job being more important than anything else in his life, he refrained from giving the man even a glare.

  “Do you speak another language?” Jane asked him again.

  “Only English in England and Cape Town away from the farm. On the farm, only Afrikaans, where my Uncle Johan would have me shot for a traitor if he heard me speak English. He had fought in the Anglo-Boer War. When drunk my uncle brings out his gun with the notches of dead Englishmen cut into the stock.”

  “How dreadful!”

  “You English shot a lot of his friends. Put his wife and children in a concentration camp where they died of diphtheria.”

  “How absolutely awful. I’m sorry. You tend to forget the suffering of the other side when you have just been through a war. Now, as Christopher was just asking, do you think Millie Scott could play comedy? She can’t sing.”

  “Why not? I mean the comedy. Give it a try. Yes, I rather think she could. I suppose Christopher will write another scene and want another set made. He’s right on one thing. The show needs some laughs. Sentimental love songs, however good, can be too much of a good thing if there is nothing in between.”

  “Thank you, Gert,” said Christopher leaning forward so he could talk across Jane Tamplin at Gert, “I’ll remember that.”

  “It’s my pleasure.”

  “How do you feel in a starched shirt and white tie?” asked Christopher.

  “I want to get inside and scratch.”

  “Maybe I could help later on,” said Jane innocently.

  The idea of trying to get tall Jane into the box room with him and the dog made him want to laugh aloud. The dog had been introduced halfway through the winter to keep him warm. Better than any hot-water bottle.