Dubious Deeds

by Philip Ardagh

  Eddie was standing by the pony and trap just outside when the great painter emerged, handing his pasteboard ticket to a smartly dressed ticket collector, brass buttons glinting in the sun.

  Following Pryden was a railway porter, wheeling Pryden’s luggage (including a large artist’s easel) on a trolley similar to the one that Eddie’s father, Mr Dickens, had once been lashed to when he needed to get around with his bad back.

  ‘Mr Pryden?’ asked Eddie politely.

  ‘Yes,’ said A. C. Pryden with a curt nod. Much has been written about Pryden’s paintings (and you’ll find reproductions of his pictures in most books on nineteenth-century portraiture), but almost as much has been written about his voice.

  The general consensus is that he spoke like a penguin would speak if penguins could speak. Apparently, it had an extraordinary quality to it. You could hear the penguin waddle in it. You could imagine his words being spoken by a beak rather than a mouth. Here he was, a man and a very successful one at that, sounding as if he was rather hoping that he could go diving off ice-floes.

  ‘I’m Eddie Dickens. Edmund. Major Jack Dickens is my great-uncle, and I’m to take you to Awful End.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Pryden.

  The railway porter heaved the painter’s luggage up into the back of the trap. Pryden fumbled in his pocket and produced a tartan purse with a large clasp. He undid the clasp and took out a silver thrupenny bit which he handed to the man.

  ‘Thank you kindly, sir,’ said the porter, putting his finger to the peak of his cap in the manner of a form of salute. He whistled as he wheeled the empty trolley back towards the station entrance.

  Pryden climbed up onto the slatted board seat on one side, then Eddie climbed up the other side and sat next to him, taking the reins in his hand.

  The journey was uneventful. A local greengrocer shouted abuse on recognising the horse, having been in dispute with MUJ for many years over the matter of his squeezing the fruit but never buying any; the ironmonger ran alongside the trap at one stage, long enough to thrust a parcel of dried fish (addressed to Eddie’s father) into his hand – fish with which MUJ had paid for various items in the recent past, for which Mr Dickens would substitute real money by return of post – and a few members of the local hunt (some still in bandages) raised a fist as Eddie and his passenger passed The Pickled Trout (a local ale house). A. C. Pryden looked more puzzled than put out, and was too polite to say anything.

  The ride up the gravel drive was a long one and, every once in a while, through gaps in the foliage, or across the lawn, Pryden would catch a glimpse of children beating each other with what appeared to be cucumbers.

  ‘They’re actors,’ Eddie explained hurriedly. ‘They’re rehearsing the role of orphans escaping from a truly horrible orphanage.’

  ‘I see,’ said Pryden. What Eddie didn’t add was that – as both you know and I know – most of the actors playing the escaping orphans really were escaped orphans. He wasn’t sure what the law’s opinion on the matter would be, or what Mr Pryden’s opinion of the law was. ‘And what play, pray, is that?’

  ‘It doesn’t have a title as yet,’ Eddie explained. ‘My father wrote it.’

  ‘Most interesting,’ said the painter, in just the way that a penguin would, no doubt, have said ‘most interesting’ if penguins could say ‘most interesting’.

  For those of you who find such details add flavour, I should say that the ‘cucumbers’ were, in reality, another fine example of Fabian’s recently discovered prop-making skills. They were made from painted rolled-up newspaper. As for why the children were hitting each other when, during their actual escape they were hitting – or intending to hit – their captors, this was down to youthful exuberance and the fact that Mr and Mrs Pumblesnook were off somewhere doing whatever it was she did with the blotches she peeled from her visage (aka her face). Whilst their backs were turned, the young actors and actresses were letting off steam.

  Mrs Dickens was standing at the entrance to the house, there to greet the well-known painter on his arrival. ‘Welcome to Awful End,’ she said. What A. C. Pryden heard was ‘Weowm oo Awwel En’ because Eddie’s mother had stuffed her mouth with gravel from the drive, pieces of which were now falling from her lips. At that moment, Dawkins, Mr Dickens’s gentleman’s gentleman, arrived with a silver salver, in the middle of which rested a schooner of sherry.

  ‘Some refreshment after your long journey, sir?’ he asked, proffering Pryden the drink.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Even Madder Aunt Maud, snatching the glass as she appeared around the corner. She downed the sherry in one, then tossed the empty glass over her shoulder. Eddie could have sworn he’d heard a muffled ‘Ouch’.

  A. C. Pryden may well have wished that he could have clambered back onto the trap and caught the next train out of there, but the commission was an important one. If the War Office wanted him to paint a war hero, then a war hero he would paint … at least he thought he would. He had no idea of Mad Uncle Jack’s appalling military record.

  Two of MUJ’s ex-privates helped unload Pryden’s luggage, carrying most of it to the room which had been set aside as his studio. The rest was taken to his bedroom (except for one small case which never made it to either, and was found years later with the single addition of a mummified mouse which, in its pre-mummified state, had somehow found its way inside it but, sadly, not its way out again). Eddie’s mother hurried off to the kitchen to prepare lunch.

  ‘I should like to see my subject as soon as possible,’ Mr Pryden told Eddie, ‘even if only to watch him from afar … to get the measure of the man.’

  ‘Subject?’ snorted Even Madder Aunt Maud, who was now leading Annabelle on her silver chain up the porch steps. The baby crocodile had short legs so more slithered forward on her belly than climbed each individual step. ‘You’re not a king are you?’

  ‘Mr Pryden means the subject of his painting, Mad Aunt Maud,’ Eddie quickly explained. ‘Not a royal subject.’

  ‘Aha! My beloved Jack, you mean?’ she asked, stopping in the open doorway.

  ‘If you are the wife of Major Jack Dickens, madam, then yes,’ said the painter. Then, after a pause, he added. ‘Is that a – er – crocodile?’

  Even Madder Aunt Maud looked at Malcolm, tucked neatly under one arm. ‘Don’t be so utterly ridiculous!’ she exclaimed. ‘He’s a stoat. A stuffed stoat! Call yourself a painter, and you can’t even tell a mammal from a reptile.’

  ‘He was referring to Annabelle, EMAM!’ said Eddie, who was still at an age when he felt he had to compensate for his relatives if not actually apologise for them. Annabelle was busy pulling on her silver lead. She wanted to get inside the house.

  ‘Oh her,’ said his great-aunt. ‘Yes, Mr Pringle, she is most definitely a crocodile. How observant.’

  ‘Pryden.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Pryden.’

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘You said Pringle.’

  ‘I said pardon,’ frowned Even Madder Aunt Maud.

  ‘Prior to pardon you said Pringle.’

  ‘What of it, Mr Pringle?’

  ‘My name is Pryden.’

  ‘Mine is Maud. Maud Dickens, Mr Pryden Pringle.’

  Anyone who knew Even Madder Aunt Maud would have given up at this stage. Sadly, A. C. Pryden did not (know her, nor give up).

  ‘Mrs Dickens, it is plain Pryden!’ he said, as emphatically as someone who sounded like a penguin could be emphatic.

  ‘Plain Pryden Pringle? Is there a hyphen in there, somewhere, sir? And why do you want to measure my husband? If his height’s so important, can’t you simply draw around him?’

  At that precise moment, Dawkins reappeared wearing a striped apron and brandishing a dustpan and brush. He began sweeping up the tiny shards of broken sherry glass in the hall.

  Eddie seized the opportunity to grab the grateful Mr Pryden by the hand and through the front door into the house.

  ‘Let me show
you to your room, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Th-thank you,’ said the great portrait painter, still recovering from the shock of his first encounter with Even Madder Aunt Maud.

  Most (normal) people who met EMAM went through a variety of different overlapping stages. Stage One was Confusion. Believing themselves to be speaking to someone quite sane, they would try to understand what was being said and wondered whether it was they, not she, who wasn’t making sense. Stage Two was Realisation. This was the stage when people began to realise that Even Madder Aunt Maud didn’t have all her marbles/was more than one sandwich short of a picnic/that the lights may be on but that there was no one at home/that she was battier than a belfry … and so on and so on. Stage Three was Exasperation. This was the period when people thought, somewhat foolishly in my opinion, that if only they spoke firmly enough and clearly enough, they might somehow ‘get through’ to Even Madder Aunt Maud and make her see sense. (I feel that this might be better known as the ‘Pull The Other One’ Stage or even the ‘You’ve Got To Be Kidding’ Stage.) Stage Four was Denial: this can’t really be happening to me. Surely no one’s really as crazy as this old bat seems to be?!?

  Of course, not everyone went through all these different stages when dealing with EMAM, nor necessarily in the same order, but that was certainly the common pattern and, nine times out of ten, the final stage – Stage Five, in this instance – was Attempted Flight. In other words, trying to put as much distance between themselves and Even Madder Aunt Maud as possible.

  I’ve no doubt that, despite his excellent upbringing, A. C. Pryden would have found a way of separating himself from EMAM sooner or later, but the fact that Master Eddie Dickens had rescued him, gave him a respect and liking for the boy; a respect which was to grow as he found out just how bonkers the rest of the Dickens family were, even the very subject of his painting, Major Jack Dickens.

  A. C. Pryden and MUJ met for the first time that evening. Somewhat unusually, Mad Uncle Jack was brandishing a home-made spear, or harpoon, made from a two-tined (pronged) carving fork bound to the end of a broom handle. He wore no clothes except for a loin cloth made from old copies of The Times newspaper, and had smeared his face, arms and torso with lines of soot.

  ‘Good evening, Major,’ said Pryden, leaping up from his chair and extending his hand in greeting. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you.’ He hoped that he hadn’t looked too startled when he’d first caught sight of Jack Dickens walking through the door. ‘Are you fresh from rehearsals?’

  ‘Rehearsals?’

  ‘The play. Your great-nephew Edmund informed me that his father had written a play and –’

  ‘What on Earth gave you the idea that I might be a party to such theatricals?’ Mad Uncle Jack demanded.

  Silent alarm bells rang in Pryden’s mind. It had suddenly dawned on him that Major Dickens was probably as barmy as his good lady wife but, despite this, he thought he should explain. ‘Your costume, sir. Your –’

  ‘Costume? What costume?’ asked a genuinely confused MUJ.

  Oh, Lord! thought the painter. What if he dresses like this all the time? He cleared his throat, making a sound not at all dissimilar to how a penguin might sound clearing his throat. ‘I was referring to the – er – body painting and the – er – home-made spear, Major,’ he explained. ‘It’s not often one sees someone dressed in such a manner. A once in a lifetime experience, I should say.’ He smiled weakly (which doesn’t mean once every seven days, but in a weak fashion).

  At that precise moment, as if on cue, a very small man entered the room. He was brandishing a home-made spear, or harpoon, made from a twotined (pronged) carving fork bound to the end of a broom handle. He wore no clothes except for a loin cloth made from old copies of The Times newspaper, and had smeared his face, arms and torso with lines of soot. It was Gherkin. Polite or not, A. C. Pryden, RA,* sat back down again, gripping the arms of his chair.

  ‘Aha!’ said Mad Uncle Jack. ‘See what you mean. Should explain. This fine chap here –’ He slapped the dwarf on the back ‘– is Gherkin. Want him in the picture with me.’

  ‘Is he a Pygmy?’ asked Pryden politely, having read about tribes of small people. ‘Is this his – er – traditional dress?’

  ‘No, Mr Pryden,’ Gherkin replied, perfectly able to speak for himself. ‘I am, first and foremost, an Englishman.’

  ‘And a dwarf,’ MUJ added.

  ‘Apologies,’ said Pryden. ‘And you want him in the – er – painting with you, you say, Major?’

  ‘I thought it might liven things up a little. I imagine that the walls of the War Office are lined with row after row of portraits of chaps in uniform, so why not wear something different?’

  ‘And what exactly are you dressed as, if you don’t mind my asking?’

  ‘An abory-jine,’ said MUJ. ‘Saw a picture of one in a book sent over from Australia. They’re the native people. Apparently the place is crawling with them –’

  ‘Ah. An aborigine!’ nodded Pryden, trying to find the words to tell Major Dickens what he’d have to tell him next.

  ‘That’s the fellow. I should add that, believe it or not, these aren’t actually authentic aborigine clothing or weapons.’ He pointed to his newspaper loin cloth and broom-handle-and-carving-fork spear. ‘But close approximations, made by our own fair hands.’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Gherkin. ‘We don’t for one minute believe a genuine aborigine would wear The Times.’

  ‘Probably can’t get it over there,’ nodded MUJ. ‘Must use the Australian equivalent.’

  A. C. Pryden wanted to cry.

  * RA means Royal Academician (a member of the Royal Academy), though some painters unlucky enough not to achieve such an honour have claimed that it actually stands for Rotten Artist.

  Intermission

  There now follows a brief intermission*

  Hello, again. How embarrassing. I was about to make myself a cup of tea in this strange kitchen, when it suddenly occurred to me that some of you may have been wondering whatever happened to Harry and Thunk.

  There they were right at the start of things, so early on in the book, in fact, that the page they’re on isn’t even numbered – it was the piece entitled ‘Prologue’, if you skipped it – and we haven’t had so much as a peep out of them since.

  Well, I can soon put that right. (I’m the author, which in Eddie’s world is a bit like being a god, only the hours are shorter and you still have to worry about a pension for your old age.)

  Before I do that, and before anyone decides to write and ask me about it, I should explain what I mean by ‘strange kitchen’. Firstly, it is simply strange as in unfamiliar because this isn’t my house and I don’t know where everything is. Preparing every beverage, snack, or meal is a learning curve. Secondly, it’s strange as in peculiar because if you lift one of the work surfaces it reveals a bath. The bath. And I just can’t get my head around the idea of bathing in the kitchen, whether my wife is standing next to me peeling sprouts or not.

  And so to Messrs Harry and Thunk.

  HARRY: You’re late.

  THUNK: Sorry, ’arry. I ran into a spot of bother at the ’orse and ’ounds. Nuffink I couldn’t ’andle.

  HARRY: I’ve ’eard from our informant.

  THUNK: Our whats, ’arry?

  HARRY: Our eyes and ears what was inside the Dickens ’ousehold.

  THUNK: Your man inside Awful End?

  HARRY: Sssh! Keep your voice down. Yes. That’s who I mean. He says that them Dickenses are a bunch of lunatics sittin’ on some very valuable items indeed … and he’s told me the best time to strike.

  THUNK: An’ will that be soon, ’arry?

  HARRY: Real soon, Thunk.

  THUNK: So we can stop standing in this ditch?

  HARRY: That we can, Thunk.

  Now, back to the main action. Enjoy.

  * PLEASE NOTE: This picture of the author dressed as a chicken bears no relation to the text. Because this is an unauthorised intermission
– neither sanctioned by the publishers, nor appearing in the index – no money has been allocated for an accompanying illustration. It was half-inched† by the author from Horrendous Habits, when somebody’s back was turned.

  † Half-inched = pinched = stolen

  Episode 10

  State of Play

  In which the portrait is completed and preparations for the play are well under way

  The news which A. C. Pryden hadn’t been looking forward to imparting to Mad Uncle Jack was twofold: firstly, that the War Office had insisted he be painted wearing his full dress (posh occasion) uniform and, secondly, that he – and he alone – would appear in the painting. There was no room for anyone else: even someone as small as Gherkin.

  When the artist finally got around to telling MUJ, Eddie’s great-uncle seemed decidedly unbothered. His mind had moved on to other things. He was puzzled, for example, by his almost uncontrollable urge to throw Mr Pryden one of his dried fish, even expecting him to swallow it whole. ‘It was the damnedest thing,’ he later commented to Eddie’s mother.

  Much to everyone’s amazement, the actual sittings – when MUJ sat and Pryden sketched or painted – went surprisingly well. Mad Uncle Jack didn’t need to be in front of the portrait all the time whilst the artist was painting. Pryden would carry on working on it between sittings, making any tiny alterations and corrections with the stroke of a brush or the scrape of a palette knife at the following sitting. He even grew to rather like the old fellow, but he wouldn’t let him see the oil painting before it was completed. No one could. (It rested on his easel, hidden by a curtain.) No one except Eddie, that is.

  You will recall that A. C. Pryden believed that he’d found an ally in Eddie – a lifeboat of sanity in a sea of madness – and didn’t want to lose him. Eddie’s Aunt Hetty seemed pleasant enough, but she had a sick husband to tend to, and seemed racked with guilt about something. As for the rest of them – the mad major and his even madder wife aside – they seemed to be wrapped up in putting on this play of theirs, apart from Eddie’s mother who was forever filling her mouth with whatever was to hand, which, on her one and only visit to Pryden’s makeshift studio, included little tubes of oil paint. Fortunately, he always carried spares.