by Peter Rimmer
“Have you found out what happened to Annabel?” she asked. No one seemed to want to talk about her eldest sister and she wanted to know why. Richard had been left in his room with the young male nurse their father had employed to look after him. The fire in the room was guarded by a strong wire fence and the young man had a cord to pull that rang a bell in the servants’ quarters if Richard threw another fit. What they would do if the young man was called off to war she had no idea. Not having heard Robert’s answer she repeated the question.
“You don’t listen, sis. She’s run off with somebody.”
“Oh, for goodness sake don’t be silly. Annabel would never run off. Where has she run off to?”
“That’s the bit I can’t find out. Have you met Penelope?”
“No one has thought of introducing me. What’s wrong with her?”
“Granny Forrester think she’s pregnant.”
“How does Granny Forrester know all these things? I know absolutely nothing about being pregnant.”
“I know, sis. That’s your problem. You should have seduced Harry and have done with it. A few good rolls in the hay and he’d have been head over heels in love with you.”
“How can you say such things? I hope your next school will be horrible.”
“It will be. Come on. She looks out of it. Do your family duty. How would you like to be dumped into a strange family? Forget about her being pregnant.”
“You don’t know for certain.”
“Ask Granny Forrester.”
Granny Forrester had decided years ago she would stop interfering in other people’s lives. She was pleased when her granddaughter went across to talk to the poor thing that was sitting ignored by the fire and trying not to cry. She had watched them arrive through a parted curtain in the sitting room and though it was snowing hard she had watched the girl being sick. She saw the girl was probably not more than nineteen, had not told Frederick she was pregnant. She had watched her grandson turn away so as not to notice his wife being sick. Men were impossible! She knew Frederick better than Frederick knew himself. Under all the stiff upper lip nonsense he was as soft as butter. No, she was not going to interfere. They could all fight their own battles. Maybe her daughter would do the right thing and go to the girl. Then she caught Lady St Clair’s eye, which told her in a nice way to mind her own business. Mother and daughter smiled at each other. For years they had been able to communicate without using words. At least she knew. That was good news. Smiling to herself this time she thought her grandson would be the last to find out his wife was pregnant.
The supper that night was a stew rich in herbs and garlic. The herbs from the kitchen garden were dried each year and hung around the kitchen for Cook to take as she needed. Robert ate three full plates and even said to Merlin, who was sitting next to him at the old long dining table, that the last plate was sheer piggery. Which it was. As Merlin pointed out, the base of the stew was pork. They had then gone into a long conversation about their father loving his pigs but eating them just the same.
Merlin was twenty-eight years old and had a job in the City, where he lived most of the time and was reported to live with his mistress, a one-time barmaid who no one in the family had ever met. The job in the City had something to do with Lloyd’s of London. He told everyone he was a marine broker, whatever that was. Few people asked further questions. Some of his friends from school with influence in their fathers’ businesses had passed him some business and his salary had gone up as a reward. Merlin had rather hoped Harry Brigandshaw would become his brother-in-law but by the way Robert and Lucinda had stopped talking about him, there was no chance of getting his claws on the Colonial Shipping account, the company he all too well knew was owned by the Brigandshaw family. There was a sister out there he thought was called Madge that Robert had talked about but nothing had come of that either. If he had landed the Colonial Shipping account they would have made him a senior broker with a seat on the board before he was forty. And with all the rumours of war with Germany, the war premiums were rising every day along with his firm’s brokerage. There was always a chance, as Harry had once stayed with them at Purbeck Manor, and was said to be Robert’s best friend. Insurance broking was all about connections.
There had been a flap about Richard during the pudding course but when his mother came back she said he was all right and had merely fallen against the fireguard and banged his head… Poor Richard.
Merlin looked down the long dining-room table that went back so far in the family no one had been able to put a date to it. The spit had been moved to the side of the walk-in fireplace. On its own legs in the front of the fire stood the ten-gallon iron pot that had also been passed down the generations. It was pitch black. The men helped themselves to the stew, but also served the ladies in the family. Even before the servants had become scarce at Purbeck Manor the tradition of self-help had prevailed. Probably, Merlin thought, from the days of marching armies and campfires during a long campaign. The second fire at the other end of the long, vaulted dining hall was just burning wood and had nothing to do with the cooking. Surprisingly, the hall, which was in the centre of the house with no outside walls, was warm, though Lucinda was still complaining of the cold. When he had a moment alone he would talk to her about Harry Brigandshaw and find out if he had any real influence over the family shipping company. He liked being a man of business. There was so much money to be made by a broker who took twenty per cent of the premiums and none of the risk. When he had built up a sizeable account at Cornell, Brooke and Bradley he would demand a high salary, a share in the firm, and then go out and look for a wife. Poor Esther would be upset but even she understood there was no chance of them ever being married. They just did not come from the same class. He would have to think of something to do with Esther when he got married. Maybe he could find her a husband in her own class and buy them a small house in the East End where she came from. She could say she had won the money on the horses or something like that. Wasn’t there a saying you should never look a gift horse in the mouth?… Poor Esther. They had had a lot of fun. He would probably miss her but there was a price you had to pay for everything. He would find a wife whose father controlled a large insurance account. Someone in trade. The aristocracy, the landed gentry were on their way out. The future was making money in business. And it was fun making lots of money.
With luck, they would think him too old to go into the army if war broke out. And it would be soon if the way the war premiums were going up was any indication. To hedge against the downside of war, he had bought himself a nice block of Vickers-Armstrong shares. They made machine guns and the new-fangled warplanes that were somehow flying platforms for Vickers machine guns… What next would man think up as a way to better kill his fellow man, for goodness sake? And the kind of war they were talking about would need a lot of machine guns. He had borrowed some money from his bank manager, so he hoped the Germans would not let him down.
Annabel was the one who amused him. She had run off with a man who was penniless. No job. Not a penny. Said she was in love with him and would go to the ends of the earth. They had both come to his small flat in the Barbican, which was all he could afford. Not a fashionable address but close enough to walk to the office when the sun was shining. His umbrella had saved him from a dousing more than once: a bright, clear sky one minute, and then it was raining.
The man she had run off with came from the right stable but when he left home they had bolted the door behind him. The reason he had put them up for a week and told no one was, Merlin told himself, you just never knew in life. The black sheep of the family sometimes turned white, and the man’s family owned one of the big pottery companies in the north, even supplying the royal family with their dinner plates, which had impressed Merlin. They sent their dinnerware all over the world and everything had to be insured. At the end of the week he had given them ten pounds he could not afford, and they had gone off to Brighton, where they said they were going to ge
t married. That had been at the end of the summer. He hoped one day his ten pounds investment would pay off. And she was his sister. Geoffrey Winckle said he was going to be a great painter one day. Merlin wished him luck. Most painters he had heard of were very dead before they were very famous. And none of them made any money when they were alive unless they painted flattering portraits of rich men’s wives. Geoffrey Winckle said he was an impressionist, whatever that was. Merlin had not asked to see his paintings. There was no point in getting involved in a subject he knew nothing about.
He had toyed with telling his mother ever since he had come home for Christmas. He was probably only the second person in the family to know what had happened to Annabel. It went without saying that she had told Granny Forrester before running away. Where she got the train fare from more likely… It was going to be a boring Christmas but every son had to do his family duty once in a while. Poor Esther. She would spend Christmas all on her own. When he had put up the runaways, he had sent Esther home to her mother for the week. Poor Esther. In a strange way, he missed her. She was comfortable. Never demanded much. She thought he was wonderful. Poor Esther. If only she knew.
When he woke in the night there was more clattering from Richard’s room but he rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. There was no point in having a look… He wondered if it was still snowing outside now it was Christmas Eve.
During the night there was a choking scream and then silence.
The doctor certified Richard dead in the morning. Everybody in the family cried as everyone cried when there was a death close to them. Close death was a nudge at their own mortality. Some even cried with relief. It had never been much of a life for Richard St Clair despite how beautiful he looked. They left him in his room covered with a white sheet. The parish church was all ready for Christmas, with a big cut-out story of the nativity in the entrance that had taken the children of the village a long time to build. Richard would have to take his turn. This was Christmas. With the windows left wide open to the fields covered in snow, there was no chance of him going off. The male nurse had cleaned him up nicely, taken a month’s pay, and gone off to join his family for Christmas. He did not seem sad to lose his job. Barnaby drove him to the railway station at Corfe Castle in the trap and said the man had caught his train to Swanage. Jug Ears appeared to enjoy the trot as standing still in the stables with the roof covered in cold snow was not pleasant. No one spoke of Richard. Penelope thought it was not the time to tell the family she was pregnant, even if the child inside of her would inherit the title if it was a boy. She had a quiet word with the family doctor after he had seen to Richard.
“God moves in strange and beautiful ways,” said Doctor Reichwald. “He takes and he gives. Yes, Mrs St Clair. You are indeed pregnant. Five months I should think.”
“Please don’t tell the family.”
“You haven’t told anyone?”
“Not yet.”
Doctor Reichwald smiled. The girl was probably not more than nineteen.
Then he forgot the family and went home to his wife and children. He had his own worries. With a German name and a German war looming, he and his family were in trouble. It was too late to change their name now. Even if they did, people would still know them for who they were. German immigrants. Their name change should have been done by his grandfather when he became a naturalised Englishman. But in those days the royal family were more German than English so it did not seem to matter… Wasn’t Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany Queen Victoria’s grandson? He was very cold when he got home to a warm hearth and a hot cup of tea. Goodness, he was more English than the English. At least the poor boy was out of agony, which he would have been in, could he understand. Doctor Reichwald knew very little about mental illness. He had delivered the boy. Lady St Clair had been so happy. They had rung the bells in the parish church of Corfe Castle as they had done for centuries when an heir was born to the barony. Now they would do it again. Despite all the terrible things, life went on. When the reverend had time from celebrating Christmas, he would be there to give the family comfort. The Reverend Reichwald was the doctor’s brother. After the second cup of tea, he would go over to the vicarage and suggest to his brother they change their name. They could do it by deed poll. Three of their boys were old enough to go into the army so they had best hurry up about things. There was no time to waste. It was never too late to solve a problem, even if the words in his head had a hollow ring.
They had bought the small gold mine the week before Albert Pringle set sail for England. Sallie Barker had conducted the negotiations, even going down the mineshaft to look at the thin seam of gold she hoped went on far back from the exposed surface. Gold seams had a way of their own. The selling consortium wanted to get out while they were ahead. Sallie had mortgaged the explosives factory to buy the gold mine, and though Albert told everyone at home he was rich, he was not so sure. Sallie had said that if they had lost everything it didn’t matter as they had had nothing in the first place.
“Dear Albert. We either get rich and have some fun or go back to England with our tails between our legs. Where’s your sense of adventure? Old Bradshaw has lost his nerve. It’s why he wants to sell. That seam is going to get wider and wider, richer and richer, and go on for a mile.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Woman’s intuition.”
“Oh, my God.”
The news of Richard St Clair’s death had reached the small cottage that had once belonged to the railway company sometime after lunch on Christmas Eve. Barnaby had ridden over to wish Tina, Albert’s younger sister, a happy Christmas and bring her a small present. Tina was fifteen. Edward the fisherman was back from Swanage for Christmas and the rest of the Pringle family was scattered to all corners of the empire.
At Sallie’s insistence, Albert had travelled first class even though it had made him feel uncomfortable. She had taken him to an Indian tailor who ran him up some evening clothes in a day.
“You have to look rich even if you’re not. People don’t know we borrowed from the bank to buy Serendipity Mine. Funny how Bradshaw had tried to sink a borehole for water and drilled straight into a gold seam. You go first class, Bert. Tell them who you are. How rich a seam of gold we found. I want to sell some of our shares on the stock exchange and buy another mine.”
“Please, Sallie, you frighten the shit out of me.”
“And don’t use that kind of language in first class.”
The food on board had been opulent but none of it tasted as good as his mother’s cooking. With all the fancy clothes packed away in a trunk and left with the shipping company in Southampton, he was plain Bert, home with his family. All the money in the world would never make him feel happier than being home in the family cottage, eating rabbit pie and sipping his mother’s home-made parsley wine.
Tina and Barnaby went off somewhere. They held hands when they thought they were out of sight. It was easier to see out through the curtains than in.
“That’s not good,” said Albert’s father. “Try to stop ’em. Better someone tells Lady St Clair. Mixing class makes bad ’appiness. Barnaby can’t live like us and Tina can’t live up at the Manor.” He let the corner of the curtain drop back into place. “When you go back, Bert? Back to Africa?”
“Six days.”
“Take our Tina with you. She was sixteen last month. Before we ’ave trouble. Never been trouble between us Pringles and St Clairs. Don’t want none. Can’t mix classes. You got to marry somethin’ similar. Don’t forget. This Sallie Barker sounds way over your head.”
“Oh, she is, Dad. Believe me. Right over my head.”
“Do you love ’er?”
“Oh, yes. But she doesn’t love me. Don’t think she’ll ever love anyone now.”
“Why not?”
“A long story. She got raped by a fat old German fart.”
“I don’t want Tina gettin’ it off with Barnaby. Once they done that we’ll never break ’em apart. Then
she’ll be miserable trying to be what she isn’t. You can give ’er some of this education you talk about. That never hurt… By the way, son, I’m proud of you. Never say that again, most probable. But I am. I’m proud of all my kids. Take ’er with you to Africa. Swap that first-class ticket for two in the third… Now, who the hell’s this? Long thin piece of wind with a moustache. You expecting someone?”
