To the Manor Born

by Peter Rimmer

  “You seduced me, Robert St Clair.”

  “Let’s just say we seduced each other.”

  “I’ll settle for that.”

  “So you won’t marry me?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll just have to get you pregnant. That was how Tina Pringle married Harry Brigandshaw. I was up at Oxford with Harry… The St Clairs and the Pringles have lived in the same patch of England for centuries. There’s a story about my brother Barnaby and Tina I won’t tell you. Those two have loved each other since they were small children… Can you explain the world to me, Freya Taylor?”

  “Yes, I can. Enjoy the moments while you have them. Like this one… I won’t forget you proposed.”

  “I should jolly well think not… Freya, why are you crying?”

  Their appointment with Max Pearl was at three o’clock that afternoon. He said he was going to tell them both what he thought of the book.

  “Are you getting nervous about this afternoon, Robert?” asked Freya, sniffling into her handkerchief.

  “Just don’t let go of my arm.”

  * * *

  Robert had arrived from England on the RMS Olympic in January of the previous year. Having liked the change of London after so many years in the country, he had taken seriously Glen’s suggestion of a small book tour to America. The idea of seeing Freya Taylor after so many years was part of his motivation. A woman who sent her love after so much time must be carrying a candle, he convinced himself before booking the passage on the boat. Sometimes Robert was not sure if the ideas he made for himself were not out of his book. His own life and the teeming lives of his characters often crossed and Robert was not sure what was fact and what was fiction. In his books, a woman who remembers a man after ten years has to be carrying a torch. Definitely, if they ask a third party to send their love.

  They had found Robert a small cottage near a ski slope outside Denver where he could still write, as the book tour Glen put together with Max Pearl, was limited to Colorado. The gestating book on the Crusades had exploded in his mind the day Freya Taylor showed Robert the snowbound cottage among the pine trees an hour’s drive from Denver. By then it was the weekend and the book tour was over, three half-hour radio interviews that went out across America. Miraculously, the first sight of each other after nearly ten years had sparked the same excitement in both of them… Robert believed in sparks.

  With the log fire going well in the grate of the small cabin, as Freya called the cottage, they had made love on the rug in front of the fire. They were older, both aware of the shortness of life. She was soft, warm, intelligent and just as interested in writing as Robert. Over the first weekend, alone in the snow-covered wooden cabin, Freya had written her Juliet column and Robert’s new book had begun to burst from his mind on to paper.

  As it turned out, never before in his life had he finished a book in a year.

  The whole setup was perfect. During the week, he was alone with no one to interrupt his writing. On the weekends, Freya drove out to the cabin where they talked, skied and made love. She brought with her the week’s food. Robert liked cooking. Mrs Mason, the old cook at Purbeck Manor, had taught Robert how to cook his favourite dishes.

  “If you know how to cook them, Mr Robert, they can never take them away.”

  “They are a legacy I will always treasure, Mrs Mason. A gift from you to me that will last a lifetime.”

  “You and your words, Mr Robert! Go away with you.”

  “The way to a person’s heart is always through their stomach, Mrs Mason. Just you go and ask old Warren. Why, he’d spend his entire life in your kitchen if you’d let him.”

  Mrs Mason had been in the house when Robert was born, a pillar of strength throughout his life. He had told Freya all about Mrs Mason when Freya asked him in awe where he had learnt how to cook.

  During that first winter, the locals had taught Robert how to ski despite his wooden foot. It was all in the balance. For the first time since the war, Robert was mobile like anyone else, dashing down the white slopes, in and out of the pine trees, yelling like a maniac, feeling whole and real, in love and writing a better story than anything he had done before in his life. In the spring, they had a canoe to go out on the river, Robert’s arms from the skiing strong as steel on the paddle. “I’ll propose to her when I finish the book,” he had told himself back then in the midst of his happiness.

  Even her refusal did not matter. They were in love. If Max Pearl liked Holy Knight, his cup of life would be full. Always so much of Robert’s life came back to whether people liked his books. Especially the one he had just finished.

  “He’ll have loved it, Robert.”

  “You can read my mind.”

  “Of course I can. We’ll have a nice lunch at 21 and then go on to Max Pearl’s office… Did I tell you I met Hemingway at 21?”

  “Yes, Freya, but tell me again. He’s the best writer in the world. Did I ever tell you that, Freya Taylor?”

  Freya smiled up at him as she gripped his arm, a hollow pit of fear in her stomach caused by the worry that Max did not like the book… If he thought it wonderful as she did, why hadn’t he phoned? He had had the book a week. Publishers and newspapers. Editors were all the same. Torturers the both of them.

  * * *

  The background for Holy Knight had come out of a hole in the inner wall of the banquet hall at Purbeck Manor, where a St Clair ancestor put it after the documents had been saved from Corfe Castle before Oliver Cromwell knocked down the family’s castle during the years of the Commonwealth. Where the records had been during Cromwell’s thirteen years as Lord Protector of England, the family had no record. As soon as Purbeck Manor was built with a safe compartment built into the stone wall of the hall, the records were placed inside and the wall sealed up to make the wall look like the rest of the building.

  Robert’s great-grandfather had stumbled on the inside cavity when he was drunk. His wife had thrown a silver goblet full of wine at him while he was licking spilt soup from the dress of the lady sitting next to him. The goblet had hit the wall with the sound of a strange interior echo. Or so the family story went. Robert’s great-grandfather had denied he was licking soup from the girl’s lap. When he came up for air he said he was picking up from the floor the girl’s dropped napkin and putting it back in her lap, his denial meeting with a gale of laughter from the rest of the guests at the dinner. Family lore said his great-grandfather’s parties were famous across the realm. By the time he died in his wife’s arms at the age of ninety-two, he had gone through the family fortune and been forced to sell most of the land around the Manor to pay off his debts.

  Robert had told Max Pearl the story when Robert handed him the manuscript of Holy Knight the previous week.

  “It was the greatest love affair in our family history,” he told Max.

  “Is the story true? The cavity inside the wall?”

  “I have the old parchments he took out of the hole in the wall. We were only knights in those days. Sir Henri Saint Claire Debussy went with Richard the First to the Holy Land. Where he built our first castle and made a fortune charging merchants from the East passage through his land. His grandson came back to England and built Corfe Castle that now lies in ruins. The documents in the wall are about our family in Palestine before the Mohammedans chased the Christians out again.”

  “Can they possibly be true? Could parchment survive so many centuries?”

  “Why ever not! Read the book, Max. Make up your mind. A few hundred years in English history is nothing. Most families, rich and poor, know who their ancestors were and what they did.”

  “Can I see those documents? Can the public?”

  “Oh, no. They belong to my family. There are bits I wouldn’t want anyone outside the family to see. What’s in the book are the nice bits. War, holy or not, is still war and never romantic. Always ugly. You have my personal word on that, Max. You read the book and tell me how I could possibly have imagined everything
you read… I wasn’t even there but you’ll think I was… Or I hope you will?”

  “Leave it with me for a week. Three p.m. next Tuesday back here in my office, Robert, and I’ll tell you what I think.”

  “You don’t look happy, Max?”

  “I don’t like tall stories.”

  “You’ll see.”

  “I hope so.”

  At that point, Freya had been pressing her nails so hard into the palm of Robert’s hand, he thought she was going to break the skin. She was as passionate about Holy Knight as he was.

  * * *

  By the time they took a cab to 21, they were glad to be out of the cold. Robert thought if he looked in a mirror, he would find his nose had turned blue. Freya was relying on a table from her last time in 21 with Max Pearl. She felt part of the family. A member of the in-crowd who had talked to Ernest Hemingway and drunk wine with Jack Kreindler. When they got inside the speakeasy, clouds of smoke filled with heat and noise enfolded them. Someone at the table just inside the door had told a good joke. A fat man was trying to split his sides laughing. More than three tables through the cigarette and cigar smoke were impossible to see. They stood with their backs to the closed door knowing it was hopeless. The place was full. Robert had rarely seen a room so packed. Not even Clara’s. Certainly not lunchtime. To add to Robert’s surprise a big band started playing swing and it was lunchtime.

  “Is this the only place in New York you can get a drink and food?” Robert asked Freya, annoyed with himself for letting the cab go before he had secured a table.

  A florid man who ate well was beaming at Freya. Freya was beaming at the man with the florid face. The man had a cigar stuck in his mouth. All, it now appeared to Robert, was not lost. Robert, unlike in the clubs of London, felt quite out of place. He was again a country bumpkin up from Dorset for the day, or, as he said to himself, from wherever the bumpkins came from outside of New York.

  The florid man now fixed Robert with his whole attention, ignoring Freya a moment after the first big beam. The man to Robert was obviously used to changing his allegiances at short notice. Robert looked behind to see if anyone was between himself and the door even though he could feel the doorknob in his back. After a year in their country, Robert still found American behaviour quite strange. Only brothers, fellow officers or old friends would greet each other with such familiarity. So far as Robert was aware he had never seen the man in his life.

  “Hello there, Bob. Freya, you clever girl. Right where Max thought you’d bring the famous author for lunch. Welcome to 21, Bob. Max is waiting for you at the table. Follow me. You just stay as long as you like, Bob… You see. There he is… Here they are Max! Captured at the door. Right as you said. Leave you now. Have a nice day, Bob. You can give me a drink later when the drunks have gone home.”

  Robert’s American publisher had got up to move out a chair for Freya. Max Pearl was at the table alone. He was grinning at Robert like a Cheshire cat that had just done a good trick. His right hand was held out to Robert, preceding the grin. Robert thought Max was tight which was true.

  “Been here a while myself. Have a drink! Thought you’d bring him here to lunch, Freya.”

  “Who was that man?” asked Robert.

  “Jack. Owns the joint. Or part of it. I’ve ordered the champagne.”

  “We can’t talk drunk, Max.”

  “We don’t have to. That book’s the best book I’ve ever read. This is a celebration. Couldn’t wait.”

  “Why didn’t you phone me, Max?”

  “And spoil the fun! Spoil the surprise. Sit down, Robert. Just don’t take down your trousers and take off your leg or Misty over there will be killed in the rush the way she’s looking at you. It’s brilliant. We’re going to print a hundred thousand for the first run.”

  The band stopped playing and someone tapped the microphone. The florid man’s voice called for everyone’s attention.

  “Ladies and gentlemen. All the way from England. The famous author of Keeper of the Legend. The Max Pearl we all love whispered me there’s a new book going to the press. Give the author a big hand. Bob St Clair. Right over there in the spotlight with the lovely Freya. Come on now. A big hand.”

  When the spotlight went away from his face and Robert could see again, it wasn’t Misty’s eyes popping at him that caught his eye. At the table next to Misty was a young girl looking at him with surprise written on her face. With her was a not so young man.

  “Did you have to do that, Max?” asked Robert.

  “Publicity, Bob.”

  “Don’t call me Bob. My name is Robert. You’re drunk.”

  “So will you be by the end of the day when I’m finished with you.”

  “Who’s that girl staring at me? I think she’s coming over.”

  “The price of fame, Robert. Have a drink.”

  The girl and the not so young man had both got up. The man was now following the girl. Robert was blushing from embarrassment. It was one thing for him to talk to the public on radio. Another to be singled out for attention in public.

  The rest of the throng had given him a gawp and gone back to what they were doing before Jack Kreindler took to the microphone.

  Both Max and Robert stood up as the girl reached their table, the man hovering just behind the girl’s elbow. Robert saw she was very pretty. A girl in her early twenties. She had the look of a woman who expected men to do what she wanted of them.

  “I’m afraid I don’t think I know…” Robert began. The band was now so loud Robert doubted the girl could hear what he said.

  The girl smiled and said something Robert was unable to catch except for the word Barnaby. The only Barnaby Robert knew was his brother safely on the other side of the pond.

  “Sit down, folks,” shouted Max. “Have a drink. We’re celebrating. My name is Max Pearl. I’m Bob’s publisher. This is Freya. You want a book signed I don’t have right now. But that just doesn’t matter. You must know my friend Jack Kreindler?”

  “My name is Stella Fitzgerald. I’m a friend of your brother Barnaby. Before I met John Lacey, my fiancé. John is the Marquess of Ravenhurst. I’m surprised you two haven’t met.”

  “Have a drink,” shouted Max just as the band stopped playing for some other reason as it was not the end of the song. “Have a drink. We’re having a celebration.”

  “So are we,” said Stella full of her own confidence. “This is John’s first day in America. We are going to Boston for John to meet my father.”

  “Are you Patrick Fitzgerald’s daughter?” asked Max, impressed. “Bob, move out a chair for Stella. How you going, marquess. Marquess? Isn’t that French?”

  “No, we’re English. The French pronounce theirs like a large tent when you hold parties in the garden.”

  “Well, that’s just fine. Just fine. Welcome to America. Have a drink? You two been engaged for long?”

  “Just a week,” said John Lacey. “It was in The Times.”

  “The New York Times!”

  “The Times of London. Just below the Court Circular.”

  “I don’t think Max knows the importance of our Times,” said Robert, trying to help.

  When the happy couple left to go back to their table, Robert was none the wiser.

  “What was all that about?” he asked.

  “Quite a lot,” said Freya wishing she could tell a real story in her Juliet column. With real names.

  * * *

  By the time the three of them left 21 to walk down the cold street arm in arm with Freya holding them up in the middle, Max had made Robert drunk as he had promised. With some difficulty, Freya poured her escorts into a taxi. After being dropped at their hotel, Freya hoped the taxi would take Max straight home and not to an illegal bar.

  Half an hour later was the first time since her childhood Freya had gone to bed at six o’clock in the afternoon. Robert was already fast asleep in their double bed. Brazenly they had booked into the hotel as husband and wife.

  Th
e last thing Freya thought of before she fell asleep was one hundred thousand copies of Holy Knight coming off the press.

  * * *

  Cuddles Morton-Sayner had found John Lacey after researching every titled family in the British Isles. Her eye was first caught by three lines in Debrett’s Peerage. All it gave was John Lacey’s full name and his titles. No regiment. No club. No address. The date of birth was 1888. No marriage. No children. When Cuddles made enquiries no one knew anything about the man, though she did find out he was the third of four brothers. His two older brothers had been killed in the war within a week of each other in 1915. In 1916, the fifteenth Marquess of Ravenhurst went down with his ship while serving in the Royal Navy off the coast of South America. Three months before the war ended the younger brother died of the flu. The mother had been dead for many years. All that was left was John who so far as Cuddles could find out had never done anything with his life that anyone knew about. The man who was the source of Cuddles’s information had been in the army with the youngest Lacey before the boy died of the flu. It was clear to Cuddles if she could find the man he was just what she was looking for. Not a duke, but a rank only one further down the peerage. Patrick Fitzgerald would surely be satisfied with his daughter becoming a marchioness.

  Two months after the May Ball at Nuneham Park, Cuddles tracked him down in an old crumbling house in Lincolnshire. Cuddles had been too busy hunting down her quarry to go back to Riverglade to collect her clothes. C E Porter said the evening suit he had left in a small suitcase in Douglas Hayter’s hall cupboard was too small around the waist for him anyway. Stella never mentioned the ballgown she had left behind.

  Looking at the crumbling house surrounded by an unkempt garden from the lane, it was clear to Cuddles the Lacey family were not flourishing. She parked her small car and walked up what was once a driveway towards the brooding house. There was no sign of life. Cuddles tried to look in the windows, at least through the ones that were unhidden by unkempt shrubs. The windowpanes, all small, looked as if no one had cleaned them for years. Inside she could see the shapes of pieces of furniture.