by Peter Rimmer
The once prettiest girl in Chester was so lonely she felt the pain every minute of the day. Even the servants, who were her own class, rebuffed any conversation that did not relate to the running of the house for fear of dismissal. The Captain had made it quite plain, his wife was to be treated as mistress of the house in the same way the Manderville women in the portraits on the walls had been treated by their servants. There were only the dogs and cats to be talked to and they never answered back.
Moving from The Oaks with its half-grown trees had severed the memories of her children when they needed their mother and came to her with their pains, the cuts and bumps of childhood. At first The Oaks had seemed the answer to her dreams, the perfect setting for the prettiest girl in Chester, but she was far from home, far from her mother, brothers, sisters and people who spoke the same way with the accent of the north, the accent of honest folk who worked for a living and made their own beds. She had lost her world and the one she found rejected her. The children at private schools found their way into the homes of the gentry but never their mother. She cried for the days when her husband was a rough-and-ready seaman and cursed his ambition to become a gentleman, something she knew he would never be, however much wealth and power he accumulated. She knew with the certainty of her native stock, ancestors with hands raw from hard work, that a man or woman had to remain in their class to be happy.
A carpenter was comfortable with a carpenter, they had something in common, there was no poison to despise or greed to envy. The Oaks had been the separation from her life and Hastings Court a living death, far worse than the grave, the nightmare of hell her sanctimonious parson son had railed about. But what had she done, she asked herself? A faithful wife even with an unfaithful husband. Children she had tried to love despite the shame they showed their mother, their mother who had once been in service. All ashamed of her except Sebastian, and he had lived his own life more with Emily than his family. And she had tried with Emily, tried ever so hard. If the sin was not so mortal, the terror of eternal fire so vivid in her mind, she would have killed herself.
They had begun so well, Tilda Brennan as she was then, and the young, ordinary seaman, Archibald. She even thought they were both in love and had looked forward to a family like her own. Ordinary, hard-working people who laughed a lot and loved each other. Father loving mother without any fooling or sad surprise, older siblings helping the younger, the boys admiring the pretty girls that were their sisters, the sisters admiring the boys for being liked by everyone and all of them telling each other the truth. Granny Brennan and her stories of Grandpa Brennan who had fought Napoleon. Granny Jones, the one from Wales, who told her stories of hills and vales, and all together in the one same street, all supporting each other. And Archibald, who now made her call him The Captain, with his dreams she also dreamed along.
The first two voyages, one to America and one to India. Waiting for him, knowing he saved every penny of his wages for their life together. Waiting for months on end, never sure if he was safe on the great wide ocean of the world. Then they had married and only after his third voyage, when he came back as coxswain, did she hear them call him ‘big mouth’ and should have known. A few months of happiness and then it was gone. Slowly, imperceptibly, her life grew into pain. And then the American Civil War and Archibald running guns to the Confederacy and bringing shiploads of cotton back to Liverpool and they were rich. All that had been good in her simple life of family fell to dust. By ’66 they had moved south, away from people who knew who he was.
She had miscarried the girls and Sebastian had been born at The Oaks, but there was no family like there had been in Chester. The boys were sent to boarding schools, and Chester was a million miles away and no one visited, neither her family from the north, who were snubbed by Archibald, nor the gentry around Epsom Downs, who called them nouveau riche, people in trade, common. Even the children kept their schoolfriends away from The Oaks for fear of them hearing their mother’s accent, for fear of what she might say, for fear of being ridiculed at school as different from the rest. The whole family was in fear of someone finding out, not even realising that everyone had found out a long time before. Emily had come to The Oaks. Emily had not cared… And Tilda Brigandshaw had tried so hard with Emily and failed.
The splendour and history of Hastings Court were lost on her. The sweeping lawns and tall box hedges cut in a perfect trim, green peacocks growing from the top looking blindly at the ornamental carp swimming round and round the lily ponds, each as useless as the other. The old house roofed and renovated, tall-ceilinged and cold as charity. Servants everywhere. Nowhere for privacy. Eating at a table so long it was ridiculous and mostly alone, the cold clatter of porcelain banged too often by her cutlery bringing a look of disgust from the butler. And when The Captain entertained his clients, she felt a stranger in a house that would never be her own. And she had once been the prettiest girl in Chester.
The bower beside the ornamental lake was her secret spot. The June afternoon was hot and languid, the birds quiet in the heat. Dragonflies were busy over the water, flashing brightly coloured wings. Bees searched for food among the honeysuckle that wrapped the arbour. Somewhere far behind her two of the new gardeners were arguing with each other. Why was it people so often argued, she asked herself? She left their words alone as background to the summer’s day. She would have wished to fling off her clothes and rush into the lake up to her neck and let the cool water calm the aches of mind and body. All alone she giggled at the thought, a scandal to beat all scandals. Once, somewhere back in history, there had been no rules or inhibitions and people had been part of nature, able to run naked through the woods and into the water to swim with the frogs. Tilda sighed at the thought of so much happiness lost.
For a few brief, sweet moments she slept and dreamt of swimming in the lake. She woke to the clatter of horse and carriage and the inevitable intrusion. There was never any peace at Hastings Court. With dread, she heard her husband shout for the servants and wondered how long she could stay by the lake. The noise grew from behind her, from the direction of the house, and a cock pheasant rushed out of the bushes and ran along the shore. Even the bird disliked the noise of man. By the time the pheasant reached a more distant sanctuary, there was a real commotion coming from the house. To Tilda by the lake, it sounded like a second carriage in a hurry. Men were shouting at each other.
Henry Manderville was out of the carriage before it stopped properly. There was a carriage already in the driveway and Henry recognised his quarry.
“I want a word with you,” he shouted to The Captain, who was arguing with a young man red in the face.
“What do you want?” answered The Captain without turning around, the arrogance of ownership making him rude.
“You know damn well what I want. How can you have your own son arrested for a capital offence?”
The Captain slowly turned and recognised the previous owner of Hastings Court. A sweet smile of success turned his annoyance to pleasure. “What did you say?”
“The arrest of Sebastian is bloody outrageous,” said Henry.
“You mean they’ve caught him? Where?”
“In Cape Town. Some man you sent out followed him down from Rhodesia and when he reached the jurisdiction of the Cape Colony, he had Sebastian arrested.”
“Well, I’ll be blowed. Shank was worth his money after all… They are sending my grandson back to England? Good. We’ll have a new nurse ready for him… Arthur, you go into the house and I’ll deal with you later.”
“The boy is with his mother,” said Henry.
“I don’t care who he is with as long as he comes back to Hastings Court. I’ve made him my sole heir if he comes back here with or without his mother. Now, where is Harry, seeing you know so much?”
“In Cape Town with his mother.”
“Then the police will bring him back to his father.”
“You don’t care about Emily do you?”
“Not part
icularly.”
“Or Sebastian?”
“He gainsaid me and the law is the law. We can’t go having people running off kidnapping. Can we, Sir Henry? The law. There always have to be rules and the rules say a son and wife shall live with their father. And that’s how it will be. The law, Sir Henry, is on my side. Now, seeing that we Brigandshaws own this house I suggest you get back whence you came. I bought you, remember? A man who sells his daughter and then interferes with a man protecting his family makes me laugh frankly. Why don’t you get off your high horse?”
Half an hour later, when it was quiet, Tilda left the sanctuary of her bower and walked back to the house, collecting on the way a basket of flowers to arrange in the dining room. They gave her pleasure though none of the men appreciated her work. The June flowers were rich and plentiful in the borders that lined the old garden paths and she picked them with care. At each intersection of the paths, a sundial, old and difficult to read, centred the cross paths. Below the high terrace a groom was removing the evidence of one of the horses and from inside the house, deep inside, came a muffled shout and a banged door and Arthur, her eldest son, rushed into view and told the groom to drive him to Epsom railway station. He ignored his mother standing quietly with a basket of flowers. Sadly she remembered the pain he had given her at birth and wondered when it would stop. Having done her job so long ago she was irrelevant to all of them.
“Where are you going, Arthur?” she called, but he walked on following the groom.
“They found Harry and arrested Sebastian,” her husband’s voice said from the high terrace behind as she watched her son turn the corner to the stables without looking back in her direction. There was great satisfaction in the voice of her husband. She turned and only his head and shoulders were visible to her from the end of the garden path. She hated them. Slowly she turned and walked back down the path.
“Where are you going?” shouted The Captain.
This time it was Tilda’s turn to do all the ignoring.
Quite probably the man had forgotten Gregory Shaw had been drummed out of the Indian Army. He had not been at Chittagong and possibly had never served under Colonel Jones. Whatever the reason, he seemed very pleased to see a fellow officer so far from where they had served together.
“Captain Gregory Shaw. Well, I’ll be damned. What brings you here?”
For no other reason than needing a meal and company, Gregory had left the empty flat he shared with Henry Manderville and gone to the Cafe Royal. Before supper he sat at the bar and ordered a chata-peg, and maybe the name of the drink which the barman had failed to understand had focused the mind of the man seated at the bar to Gregory’s left.
“Johnny White. Good Lord, old boy, what are you doing here?… Make it a pink gin,” he said to the barman with the blank face.
“On leave. You on leave, old chap?”
“In a way, I suppose. The army found out about Sing and told me to give her up or leave the army. So I left. Can I buy you that drink, old boy?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” For a long moment there was silence while the man decided to be polite and leave enquiries to another place and another time. Johnny White was alone in London, Gregory decided, and smiled to himself as he reordered the second drink. For a moment he wondered how she was and put that thought out of his mind: it was the one path he always stopped himself from travelling, the path back to the last time when he had been happy.
“Are you staying at the In and Out?” asked Johnny White, referring to the Naval and Military Club.
“No. With an old friend. Sir Henry Manderville.” White was impressed by the title as he was meant to be. “We’ve just come back from Africa.”
“Shoot any tigers?”
“They don’t have tigers in Africa. Only lions and leopards. Nothing as big as a Bengal tiger, I’m afraid. No, nothing that size. Cheers, old boy. Good to see you.”
“Do you miss the army?”
“Yes, I rather think I do. All parts of it.” He was again thinking of Sing. He had wined and dined a string of young ladies while Henry made his plans against his daughter’s father-in-law, and none of them had sparked his interest. Pale London versions were just not his type. He wondered if Sing was still a virgin or married with children, and he put that out of his mind as it came.
“Pity that company of Rhodes is falling apart,” said White.
“Only the share price. Not the company. The Charter Company is alive and well and I can vouch for that. Taken up a farm myself and intend to go back to Rhodesia.”
“Met a chap two nights ago at the East India Club who had lost all his money. Bought shares, mortgaged them at the top and bought more shares using the bank’s money, poor chap, and now the bank wants the money back and he doesn’t have it. Fearfully in debt. Said he was going down to Epsom to plead with his father to bail him out. Poor chap could go to jail as he told the bank when he borrowed the money that his house was worth more than anyone will pay. Mortgaged his house as well, you see. Now that’s fraud. Nasty business.”
“His name wasn’t Brigandshaw by any luck?” said Gregory, turning his full attention to Johnny White. “Arthur Brigandshaw?”
“How did you know? Bad news does travel fast. I say, old chap, would you care to dine with me?”
“An absolute pleasure.”
By the end of the evening, Johnny White had learnt nothing more about Sing but as the wine and conversation flowed, Gregory Shaw extracted every detail of the man’s meeting in the East India Club and stored the facts carefully where he could bring them out again. The only figure which Gregory was unable to pull from the conversation was the amount Arthur Brigandshaw owed the bank. But he had the name of the bank and the branch.
The bank manager came out of a small office wringing his hands with dutiful subservience. Somewhere in the right hand among the wringing was the visiting card of Sir Henry Manderville. Henry had presented it at the front desk when he asked for an appointment on the following Monday morning expecting to call back later in the week. Henry found the man’s behaviour ridiculous, but it served its purpose.
“Sir Henry, what a pleasure,” said the bank manager, ingratiating himself further while trying to give his staff the impression they had known each other for years, bank manager to the favoured client. Henry wondered once again what it was about a title that made people grovel in the dirt. He put out a calloused hand, calloused from months of cutting trees from Tuli in Bechuanaland to Fort Salisbury, and saw the puzzled expression on the bank manager’s face as he took the pressure in a pudgy hand that had never felt work in its life. The card miraculously had transferred to the man’s left hand.
“How can I help you? Please come into my office. Would you care for a cup of tea, Sir Henry?”
“That would be kind of you. Now, let me explain. My son-in-law is Arthur Brigandshaw.” By the reaction of the man who was still not quite behind his desk, banging his knee on the corner, Henry knew he had the right bank.
“You wish to honour the debt?”
“Of course. Why else would I be here? All I need to know is the amount.”
“It is a great deal of money.”
“Well, we Mandervilles have been around a long time making money. I am sure it will be a mere bagatelle.”
“Is eighty thousand three hundred and twelve pounds seven shillings and sixpence, a mere bagatelle?” said the bank manager, nervously having forgotten all about the tea.
“A mere bagatelle,” said Sir Henry not showing the least sign of a wince. “Write it down on a piece of paper and I’ll have it here for you within a week.”
As the bank manager sat down in his chair and wrote the figure, he was unable to speak. The man who had so rashly lent the money in the first place was his brother-in-law.
Sir Henry reached the open door and turned back waving the piece of paper. “Thank you for the tea.”
Henry’s own solicitor had drawn up the agreement that settled two hundred thousand pou
nds in three per cent Consols with the capital going to Arthur Brigandshaw on Henry’s death, provided Arthur was still married to Emily: the clause had been worded to safeguard Emily and her children should she have any. From The Captain’s point of view, it ensured his money did not leave his family. All he would have paid for Hastings Court, and the even more valuable family connection, was six thousand pounds a year for as long as Sir Henry lived. A small price to pay to make his eldest son Lord of the Manor, a subsidiary title that went with the house. The Captain had thought himself very smart at the time and hoped the Baronet would die as soon as possible: most men with too much time on their hands and too much money, drank themselves to death as there was nothing else to do to pass the time.
“You want to release this eighty-three thousand pounds to your son-in-law to pay his debt?” asked the solicitor.
“Yes. In exchange for Arthur withdrawing all complaints against Sebastian and to acknowledge that Harry is Seb’s son and that he had never consummated his marriage with Emily, allowing the marriage to be dissolved by the Church and the law. Will the police then withdraw the charges against Sebastian?”
“I rather think they will.”
“I should never have let them marry in the first place.”
“I rather think I said that at the time, Sir Henry. Arranged marriages into the lower classes are usually unfortunate, despite their money.”
“I wanted to protect Emily from poverty.”
“Hindsight is an exact science, Sir Henry. Now the question is, will this reprobate Arthur accept your offer?”
“Why ever not?”
“Because he knows you control two hundred thousand pounds.”
“Legally, can I give him part of the money without The Captain’s consent?”
“One of the tasks of a family solicitor is to protect the family’s interest. The sub-clauses in the agreement were brushed over by Captain Brigandshaw as he was only concerned with you walking off with the capital. What I had in mind was Arthur’s premature death and your wish to give Emily’s children part of the capital. The clause in question says you are entitled to give all or part of the money to Arthur or his offspring in the event of his death, or prior to his death at your discretion, otherwise the money could have stayed in limbo. We solicitors have to think of every legal eventuality. Do you wish me to negotiate with Arthur?”
