by M. J. Trow
‘Pardon?’
This was going nowhere fast. Maxwell was known the length and breadth of the county and beyond for his crystal diction and the power of his voice. He could stop a recalcitrant Year Nine reprobate in his tracks at three hundred paces. The whole of Year Seven froze en masse. He put his mouth close to the holes and tried again. ‘Two. Pensioners. One. Child. And. One. Ordinary. Ticket.’
‘Can you prove it?’ the woman snapped.
‘Prove what?’ Maxwell was puzzled.
‘That you’re a pensioner.’
It wasn’t often that Maxwell was struck dumb yet here he was, for the second time that day. Yes, all right, he was possibly a little grizzled. He was even prepared to admit that he may be the wrong side of thirty-four. But he was travelling with two old biddies who wouldn’t see eighty-five again in a hurry, so why did she assume he was the pensioner. He gathered his wits. ‘No, no, they are the pensioners,’ he said, pointing to where the two old biddies in question stood, smiling expectantly. ‘There. And that,’ for the avoidance of doubt, ‘is the child. I,’ he pointed to his chest in extravagant dumb show, ‘am the ordinary. So, that’s two pensioners, one child, one ordinary.’
The woman looked long and hard at the other three and then back at Maxwell. She still looked dubious but there was really no question that Mrs Troubridge and Mrs Getty were indeed pensioners, jeggings notwithstanding. She punched some keys and tickets shot out of a slot into a shallow well on Maxwell’s side of the plexiglass.
‘That’s fifty-five pounds,’ she said.
‘I beg your pardon?’ It was Maxwell’s turn to question his hearing.
‘Fifty-five pounds.’ She set her lips like a trap.
‘May I ask,’ Maxwell said, rummaging in his wallet for his bank card, ‘How you come to that outrageous figure?’
‘Pardon?’
He glanced at the three waiting patiently at the turnstile and noticed that Mrs Getty was perhaps a little less patient than her companions, but he couldn’t let it go. He was not mean, but some things just had to be said. ‘How much is each ticket?’ Maths was not his strong point, but he couldn’t work out any simple computation that would bring him to fifty-five pounds.
‘Fifteen pounds and ten for the child.’
‘Ah. I see what you’ve done there, perhaps,’ he said, smiling pleasantly. ‘You didn’t take the two pensioners into account.’
‘We don’t do pensioner discounts,’ the woman said, with a sigh. For God’s sake, would the punters never learn? ‘Can you put your card in now, please, and your PIN and press enter.’ She glanced down at the small monitor on her desk. Yes, look – a queue all down the steps again. You only needed a joker like this one and her whole morning was shot to hell.
Maxwell did as he was told. It seemed the only way forward. Short of testing the plexiglass with his .44 Magnum, that is.
The little party moved on through the turnstiles and into the hall, soaring above them as only Victorian Gothic could soar.
‘Oh, isn’t it wonderful?’ Mrs Troubridge all but clapped her hands together. ‘I remember, as a girl, peering in through these windows and trying to work out who lived here. Of course, that was war time and the place was full of those awfully big Americans.’
Maxwell thought it best to let that one go.
‘Lord, I remember those days.’ Mrs Getty grew wistful. ‘What did we used to ask them, Jessica? “Got any gum, chum?”’
‘I was a little older than you, Geraldine.’ Mrs Troubridge was of an age when that fact was a badge of honour. ‘I wanted to dance with them. What wouldn’t I have given to have jitterbugged with a Yank!’ She sighed.
Nolan looked at his father for guidance and when the great man’s eyes crossed and he said nothing, it was time to smile and move on. Ahead of the four stretched a great staircase, its balustrade gleaming with Liquid Gold.
‘Oh, it’s just like Downton!’ It was Mrs Getty’s turn to applaud metaphorically.
This time, Maxwell couldn’t help but groan. He took the old girl’s point, however. The TV series was actually filmed at Lord Carnarvon’s Highclere and Haledown House was Tudor; but, God, had it been mucked about with! The entrance hall and landing was pure high-Victorian with a little imported belle epoque from over the Channel. To right and left, through the open doors, Maxwell could see the original wings of the house, but the ceilings had been raised to give more light and the cloakroom, deserted in this lovely weather, was early Llewellyn Bowen. What a dog’s breakfast.
‘Who’s that, Dads?’ Nolan had wandered to one side of the great staircase to a massive portrait of a glowering gentleman in scarlet and gold.
‘That, if my Latin serves, is Thomas Hale. See the date there – 1573.’
‘Ae ... a ...’ Nolan was struggling with the unfamiliar words.
‘Aetatis suae,’ Maxwell helped him. ‘His age. The Elizabethans counted it in summers. Aetatis actually means summers. The old boy was fifty-three when somebody painted his portrait.’
Nolan looked at Thomas Hale. Then he looked at his father. ‘He could be your dad, Dads,’ he said.
‘How kind, dear boy.’ Maxwell patted the lad’s shoulder. ‘But I don’t suppose Sir Thomas had the advantages of the National Health Service or your mother’s superlative cooking.’
‘What’s that shield thing, by his head?’
‘That’ll be the Hale family coat of arms. Let’s see ... On a field gules, three cross crosslets or over a lion regardant argent.’
Mrs Troubridge positively grinned and she whispered to her friend, ‘I love it when he talks heraldry.’
‘We could have one of those, you know.’ Maxwell was still talking to his boy. ‘A coat of arms.’
‘Can we Dads? Cool!’ Nolan closed his mouth with a snap and looked up furtively. The C word had crept out but happily, it had appeared to have gone unnoticed.
‘You’ll have to save your pocket money, though. The College of Arms charges around five grand these days.’
Mrs Getty had wandered to her left, into the first of the public rooms. A massive table filled the centre, treacly oak that had been varnished to death and Queen Anne chairs roped off so that snotty little boys like Nolan couldn’t sit on them. More portraits stared down haughtily from the wood-panelled walls, long dead Hales in the expensive fashions of their times. Venetians and perukes, peascod doublets and crinolines, the whole Vivienne Westwood.
‘That’ll be Sir Marmaduke,’ Maxwell pointed to one in a buff coat and breastplate. ‘Fought for his king in the civil war. Bought it at Marston Moor, I’m afraid. Still,’ he smiled at the ladies, ‘I’m sure it’s how he would have wanted to go.’
‘Tell us about this one, Mr Maxwell.’ Mrs Troubridge had edged past the stone carvings of the vast fireplace and was looking up at an elegant lady in eighteenth-century hunting attire.
‘Ah, now, if memory serves ...’ Maxwell squinted at the house that lay in the portrait’s background. ‘Yes, see, they’ve built the new stable block by this time. This is Ariana Hale, the family’s youngest. She was rather notorious on the London circuit.’
‘What’s notorious, Dads?’ Nolan was at the age when any new word might have a smutty connotation and he would need to share this with Plocker later.
‘Elizabeth Bathory,’ Maxwell beamed. ‘Mrs Keppel, Mata Hari, Marilyn Monroe. Next?’
Nolan opened his mouth. He was no further forward. If anything, he was further back. But the great man had swept on. ‘She set her cap at George I,’ he was explaining to the ladies. ‘Well, the old Hanoverian didn’t speak a word of English and couldn’t actually stand England, come to that. Ariana was a comfort, if you catch my drift.’
‘She looks a saucy piece,’ Mrs Getty commented. ‘Did she marry, despite her dalliance with the king?’
‘She did – and that’s where the ffinches came in.’ Maxwell’s eyes swivelled right and left. ‘She was the last of her line and she married money. It was the old story – strapped
gentlewoman with refined tastes and long pedigree seeks rich old git. She, thirty-two, multilingual, likes dogs and long walks in the country. He, loaded. A marriage made in Heaven.’
‘Sugar, wasn’t it?’ Vague memories were stirring in whatever was left of Mrs Troubridge’s brain.
‘Demerara to be precise.’ Maxwell was quietly impressed. ‘Plantations in the West Indies. Like the Gladstones’, but without the Scottish unpleasantness. So the Hales became the Hale-ffinches ... Oh,’ he lapsed into his Will Smith, ‘that’s what I’m talkin’ about.’
Nolan had seen that gleam in his father’s eye before. Whenever he saw anything military. Many was the time when driving through a strange town, Maxwell, in the navigator’s seat, would catch sight of an antique shop window and suddenly scream, ‘Flash of scarlet!’ At which point, Jacquie, in the driving seat (where both her men knew she always was) would slam on the brakes, do a U-turn or wheelies, whatever was required, so that her other half could get out and investigate the militaria item that had caught his eye.
What had caught his eye today was a scarlet uniform on a mannequin, a rather sorry-looking ex-Burton’s shop window head looking odd under an 1847 pattern helmet.
‘Dads ...’ Nolan’s eyes were as wide as his father’s, ‘isn’t that ...?’
‘It is, darling man, it is.’ Maxwell crouched beside the boy. ‘An officer’s full dress uniform of the 4th Dragoon Guards, Crimean period ... the charge of the Heavy Brigade.’
He hugged the boy as he realised that Nolan was joining him for the last part of the sentence. The lad would probably grow up to be a nuclear physicist, but on the way there he would be up to his neck in the beauty and fascination of the only real subject on the curriculum.
‘Nolan.’ Mrs Getty, less enraptured with the Heavies than the men in her party, had wandered to the window. ‘Look. There’s a petting zoo.’ The boy seemed curiously unmoved but Mrs Troubridge had joined her. ‘Oh, yes,’ she trilled. ‘And they have stables, too.’
Nolan’s eyes did swivel at that. ‘Do they?’ He joined the ladies.
Maxwell’s head hadn’t moved, studying the lace of the pouch-belt, the silver monogram on the belt buckle.
‘Dads,’ Maxwell knew that whine. ‘They do riding here.’
The horns of a dilemma reared up behind the cornet of the 4th Dragoon Guards. On the one hand, Maxwell was a cavalryman manqué. In the attic at Thirty Eight Columbine, four hundred and twenty four officers and men of Lord Cardigan’s Light Brigade, fifty-four millimetre, sat waiting patiently for their own charge. Maxwell spent his teacher’s pittance adding to their number every now and then, painting, gluing, arranging. On the other hand, a real horse meant smell, mucking out, flies. It also meant falling off, bruised foreheads, broken arms, months visiting in A&E. And what would the rider’s mummy say to all that? Nolan had never openly asked for a pony – girls did that – but he had expressed an interest in riding lessons and it was a near-run thing.
‘Can we have a look, Dads?’
Maxwell turned to the boy; an angel flanked by two evil demons who were trying to be as beautiful as he was.
‘Well ...’
That was all he needed. All the Maxwells could read each other like books. And the slightest hesitation was the equivalent of a green light. ‘It’s this way,’ Nolan trilled, dragging Mrs Troubridge with him. Maxwell sighed and forced a smile in Mrs Getty’s direction. She snorted a laugh and followed her friend.
‘Er ... excuse me, fella.’
Maxwell turned at the unaccustomed sound. He had spent a year in the States and watched a lot of television, so he knew American when he heard it. He might go further and plump for Wisconsin, but that would be a reach.
‘Yes?’
‘I just gotta tell yer,’ the American went on, ‘I wasn’t exactly looking forward to a day trip to some frowsty old house, but Ellie here,’ he pushed forward a tiny woman with big, ’eighties hair, ‘She just loves Downton and we had to see it for real.’
‘Well, I don’t think ...’
‘But with a guide like you, it’s all come alive. That Ariana, huh?’ He nudged Maxwell in the ribs. ‘Way to go! Hey buddy, and don’t take this the wrong way,’ and he shoved a twenty pound note into Maxwell’s hand.
‘No, I ...’ Maxwell was about to tell the tourist that he hadn’t gone into teaching for the money and he that he didn’t actually work here, but the Wisconsinian and his little woman had already gone. They had to be in Stratford by the afternoon and then to Wor-ces-ter-shire to find Ellie’s great-great-grandpappy’s grave. Which rather left Maxwell holding the note. And he didn’t really have the breath for that; not any more.
He looked around for someone to hand it in to – it didn’t seem right to hang on to it, somehow, fifty-five quid entrance fee notwithstanding. He looked out of the window and saw Nolan charge across the grass towards the stables, Mrs Troubridge and Mrs Getty in room temperature pursuit. Nolan was jumping and pointing and a rather nicely-turned out teenager with jodhpurs and hard hat was smiling and bending down to speak to him. Maxwell narrowed his eyes. One of his Own? He rather thought so – well, that would make it easier. One turn round the paddock, a quick thank you and off to pet calves or whatever else there was on offer. And Mrs Getty probably needed some sugar by now. He pocketed the note and made for the stairs, cunningly concealed in the panelling.
Chapter Three
‘D
ads!’ Nolan was already hard-hatted and ready when Maxwell got to the stable block. ‘Look. Look who it is.’ He bounced and pointed. ‘It’s Jo!’
‘Hello, Mr Maxwell.’ One of his quieter Own was standing there, the reins of a fat and placid pony in her hand. She was on The List of babysitters, a sought-after position only vouchsafed to the reliable. ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she gestured to Nolan’s hat, ‘I got him ready. If you don’t want him to ...’
Maxwell looked at Nolan’s upturned face, framed by the biggest hard hat in the world, or so it looked. The boy had a grin from ear to ear. ‘Don’t worry, Jo,’ Maxwell smiled. ‘He’s wanted to have a go at riding for ages. It’s always been so difficult to find anywhere ... but here you are!’ A vision of mornings catching the 13B for the rest of the holiday suddenly rose up in front of him, but he pushed it aside. ‘How much?’ He put his hand in his pocket and the crinkle of the twenty pricked his conscience.
‘Oh, nothing, Mr Maxwell,’ she said.
‘I don’t want to get you into trouble ...’
‘No, really. It is really free. It’s only when the children come all day we charge something. The rides round the paddock don’t cost anything extra.’
Nolan poked his father’s leg.
‘Ow.’
‘Sorry, Dads.’ Nolan made his eyes as adorable as possible. ‘All day?’ he mouthed, his version of a subtle hint.
Maxwell looked from his boy’s beaming face, to Jo, trying not to look partisan. She didn’t have much to do most days and walking Nolan Maxwell round a paddock would be something to fill the time and also might mean an extra couple of marks on her holiday essay on Appeasement – Neville Chamberlain’s, that is, not Jo’s. She led the pony to the mounting block and explained to the child how to get on, how to grip with the knees, keep his elbows in and the rest. If it wasn’t exactly Saumur, it ticked all the elf ‘n’ safety boxes.
‘You’re a natural, Nolan,’ she said, with a smile.
Maxwell disagreed. ‘“You’ll never get to India riding like that, Mr Churchill”,’ he quoted.
The boy had been raised on epics and took it all in his stride. ‘That’s Young Winston, Dads. And he fell off.’
The older Maxwell was secretly impressed.
Mrs Troubridge was positively glowing with pride. ‘Just look at him, Mr Maxwell,’ she said, nudging him with a pin-sharp elbow. If nothing else, he would be black and blue before today was over. ‘He looks lovely, doesn’t he? How clever of him, to know what to do and everything.’
Mrs Getty was look
ing mutinous. It had been years since she had last stroked a goat and she had been looking forward to it. ‘Come on, Jessie,’ she purred. ‘Let’s go to the zoo. The kid’ll be all right on his own. Won’t he?’ She snapped the last two words at Maxwell who felt it unwise to disagree.
‘We’ll meet you there, Mrs Troubridge,’ he said. ‘Don’t wander off, now.’
‘You are very funny sometimes, Mr Maxwell,’ his neighbour chuckled. ‘We’ll see you at the zoo.’
‘Wonderful.’ He turned to Nolan, waiting like a greyhound in the slips. ‘Jo – how long does he get?’
She looked around and shrugged. ‘There isn’t anyone queuing,’ she said, ‘so as long as he likes, really. Would you like to go off with your ...’ her voice died away. It was so easy to say the wrong thing. ‘I’ll bring him over when he’s done.’
It was clear from Nolan’s rapt expression that getting off that horse’s back was not going to be an easy task, but Maxwell didn’t believe in meeting trouble halfway and he knew that his boy knew how to behave, so he nodded. ‘I have to go back into the house for a minute, Jo. Can you hang on to him until I get back?’
‘No problem, Mr Maxwell,’ she said with a smile. ‘If anyone else wants a ride he can ... clean some tack, or something.’
That didn’t sound much like fun, but Maxwell could see that it had its attractions, for the temporarily pony-obsessed. ‘In that case, Jo, I’ll leave you to it. I won’t be long.’ The twenty pound note crackled again in his pocket and he turned back to the house.
It wasn’t as easy to get back in as it was to get out. The door he had exited by was one way and there didn’t seem to be much choice other than to go back round to the front and go back in again. He felt in his pocket for the tickets; he had no real belief that the harridan in the booth would let him in with no proof of purchase, even though they had last locked horns less than half an hour before. He began to toy with the possibility of simply putting the money in the next charity box he saw, but it still seemed very like taking money under false pretences. He would feel more comfortable actually handing it in. He was lost in thought and so that, as he told himself later, was why what happened next happened.
