The Chadlingtons glanced at each other in a startled kind of way.
General Murgatroyd now appeared and was introduced to Jane. He evidently knew the Chadlingtons very well and offered to show them their rooms, while Sally, relieved to have got rid of them, carried off Jane to have breakfast with herself and Walter, who was still in bed.
‘Let’s fetch old Gates,’ said Walter, ‘and have a party in here.’
Sally turned on the gramophone while he went along the passage, soon to return with Albert, who looked sleepy but cheerful in a pair of orange pyjamas. Jane thought him more attractive even than in London.
Presently trays of delicious breakfast appeared and they all sat on the bed munching happily, except Albert who announced that he was unable to touch food in the morning and asked the slightly astonished housemaid for a glass of maraschino.
Jane asked if he had also travelled up in the Craigdallochs’ car.
‘Indeed, yes,’ he replied. ‘What a journey, too; all through England’s green unpleasant land, as Blake so truly calls it. My one happy moment was at Carlisle, where we spent a night. When I opened what I supposed to be a cupboard door in my room, I was greeted by inky blackness, through which was just visible a pile of sordid clothes and cries of: “Well, I’m damned!” and “What impertinence!” It was a conjugal bedroom!’
Jane laughed.
‘I expect if you knew the truth it was no such thing.’
‘Well, I thought of that myself, but came to the conclusion that people who were indulging in a little enjoyable sin would probably be in better tempers. They actually rang the bell and said very loudly to the maid so that I couldn’t fail to hear: “The person next door keeps coming in. Will you please lock it on this side so that we can have some peace?” Keeps coming in, indeed, as though I wanted to know the details of their squalid ménage. However, I had my revenge. I cleaned my teeth very loudly every half-hour all through the night. It woke them up each time, too! I could hear them grumbling.’
‘Has all the rest of the party arrived?’ asked Jane.
‘All except Lord and Lady Prague. The general, whom you saw downstairs, Admiral Wenceslaus and Mr Buggins were all here last night,’ said Walter. ‘We had about half an hour’s conversation with them before going to bed. Mr Buggins seems rather nice and Sally has quite fallen for the admiral.’
‘As I have for the general,’ remarked Albert; ‘but then I have always had a great penchant for soldiers. It fascinates me to think how brave they must be. Sometimes one sees them marching about in London, all looking so wonderfully brave. I admire that. Sailors, too, must be very courageous, but somehow one doesn’t feel it in quite the same way. Perhaps the fact that they are clean-shaven makes them more akin to oneself. This particular admiral certainly fixed upon me an extremely fierce and penetrating eye; instinctively I thought here is the hero of many an ocean fight, a rare old sea-dog.’
‘His eye,’ said Walter, ‘is glass. At least, one of them is. I don’t want to disillusion you, Albert dear.’
‘How fascinating!’ cried Albert. ‘I knew the moment I saw him that the admiral was not quite as we are. This accounts for it. How d’you think he lost it, Walter? I suppose it hardly could have been plucked out by pirates or the Inquisition? Do you think he is sensitive about it? Will he, for instance, mind if he sees me looking closely at him to discover which eye is which? I must find out how he lost it. I suppose it would be tactless to ask him right out? But the general may know. I don’t despair. Or Mr Buggins. I like Mr Buggins. He appears to be a man of some culture. He saw my picture “Tape Measures” reproduced in the Studio and was kind enough to mention it appreciatively.
‘Now, my dears, I am going to dress, as I can hardly wait to begin exploring this house, which promises, in my opinion, to be very rewarding to the intelligent student of the nineteenth century. What do you intend to put on, Walter? I fear I have no tweeds, so shall be obliged to wear some trousers and a jersey. Will that be suitable, do you think?’
He picked up his black taffeta wrap and left the room.
Meanwhile, General Murgatroyd escorted the Chadlingtons to the dining-room where they made a hearty breakfast of sausages, eggs, ham and strong tea. The general, who some two hours since had eaten enough for three, kept them company with a plate of brawn. They all spoke in monosyllables, their mouths full.
‘Bad luck for poor old Craig.’
‘Oh, rotten.’
‘When did the Monteaths get here?’
‘Last night – late.’
‘Anybody else?’
‘Stanislas is here and Buggins.’
‘Anybody else?’
‘Yes; namby-pamby chap called Gates – artist or something. Came with the Monteaths.’
‘Who’s to come?’
‘Only Floss and Prague. Coming tonight.’
‘Does Monteath shoot?’
‘No, nor Gates. Just as well, from the look of them.’
‘What’s Mrs Monteath like?’
‘Oh, all right. Better than the others, I should say.’
‘Pretty, isn’t she?’
‘Too much dolled up for me, otherwise quite handsome.’
‘Finished your breakfast?’
‘M’m!’
‘Come and look at the river, then.’
‘Wait a moment. We’ll get our rods put up.’
‘Not much use, too bright.’
‘Oh, we might as well have a try, all the same.’
About two hours later, Jane, having bathed and changed out of her travelling clothes, wandered downstairs, where she came upon Albert, exquisitely dressed in bright blue trousers and a black sweater. He was roaming about, notebook in hand.
‘My dear Jane,’ he said, ‘this house is unique. I am in ecstasies. Most of it seems scarcely to have been touched for the last fifty years. Nevertheless, we are only just in time. The hand of the modern decorator is already upon it. The drawing-room, alas! I find utterly ruined. Our absent hostess would appear to have that Heal cum Lenigen complex so prevalent among the British aristocracy. Happily, in this case, it has been muzzled, presumably by lack of funds, but its influence is creeping over the whole house. The oak, for instance, on these stairs and in the entrance hall has been pickled – a modern habit, which one cannot too heartily deplore – and much exquisite furniture has been banished to the servants’ hall, some even to the attics. On the other hand, the boudoir, stone hall, billiard- and dining-rooms appear to be quite unspoilt. Come with me, my dear.’
Albert led the way to the dining-room, where the table was being laid for luncheon. It was a huge room with dark red brocade walls and a pale blue-and-yellow ceiling covered in real gold stars. At one end there arose an enormous Gothic mantelpiece of pitch-pine. Several Raeburns and two Winterhalters adorned the walls.
‘Winterhalter,’ murmured Albert, ‘my favourite artist. I must call your attention to this clock, made of the very cannonball which rolled to the feet of Ernest, 4th Earl of Craigdalloch during the Battle of Inkerman. Shall we go and look at the outside of the castle? We have just time before lunch.’
They went into the garden and walked round the house, which was built in the Victorian feudal style, and rather resembled a large white cake with windows and battlements picked out in chocolate icing. Albert was thrown into raptures by its appearance.
When they returned to the front door they found Walter and the general standing on the steps.
‘Ah! this house! this house!’ cried Albert. ‘I am enchanted by it. Good morning, General.’
‘Good morning, Gates.’
‘Walter, have you ever seen such a house? General, you agree, I hope, that it is truly exquisite?’
‘Yes; I’m attached to the place myself. Been here, man and boy, for the last fifty years or so. Best grouse moor in the country, you know, and as good fishing as you can find between here and the Dee, I swear it is.’
‘It is lovely,’ said Jane doubtfully. ‘I wonder what we s
hall do all day though.’
‘Do? Why, my dear young lady, by the time you’ve been out with the guns, or flogging the river all day, you’ll be too tired to do anything except perhaps to have a set or two of lawn tennis. After dinner we can always listen to Craig’s wireless. I’ve just asked the chauffeur to fix it up.’
‘I personally shall be busy taking photographs,’ said Albert. ‘I am shortly bringing out a small brochure on the minor arts of the nineteenth century, and although I had already collected much material for it, there are in this house some objects so unique that I shall have to make a most careful revision of my little work. I also feel it is my duty to the nation to compile a catalogue of what I find here. You write, General?’
‘I once wrote a series of articles for Country Life on stable bedding.’
‘But how macabre! Then you, I and Walter, all three, belong to the fellowship of the pen; but while you and I are in a way but tyros, I feeling frankly more at home with a paintbrush and you, most probably, with a fox’s brush, Walter here is one of our latter day immortals.’
And he began to recite in a loud voice one of his friend’s poems:
‘Fallow upon the great black waste
And all esurient. But when
Your pale green tears are falling
Falling and
Falling
Upon the Wapentake, there was never
So absolutely never
Such disparity.’
Walter blushed.
‘Please, Albert.’
‘My dear Walter, that is good. It is more than good – it has an enduring quality and I think will live. Do you not agree, general? You and I, Walter, will do a great deal of work here. I have found a room with a large green table in the centre very well lighted. It will be ideal for my purpose. Then I am hoping that Sally will perhaps give me a few sittings. Do you think that she might be persuaded?’
‘My dear, she’d adore to. Sally very much believes in having herself reproduced in all mediums. Come on. There’s the gong for lunch.’
By dinner-time that evening the whole party was assembled, Lord and Lady Prague having arrived in a motor-car soon after seven o’clock.
Sally had spent much time and thought over the arrangement of the table, feeling that it was her duty to try and make the first evening a success, and as she sat down she thought, with some satisfaction, that she had mixed up the party rather well. It soon became apparent, however, that the party was not mixing. Her own task, seated between Lord Prague and Captain Chadlington, might well have daunted a far more experienced conversationalist, the former being stone deaf and moreover thoroughly engrossed in the pleasures of the table, while the latter appeared to possess a vocabulary of exactly three words – ‘I say!’ and ‘No!’ – which he used alternately. She fought a losing battle valiantly, remembering that the really important thing on these occasions is to avoid an oasis of silence. Walter declared afterwards that he distinctly heard her ask Lord Prague if he belonged to the London Group, and that, on receiving no answer, she then proceeded to recite Lycidas to him until the end of dinner.
Jane, whose partners were Admiral Wenceslaus and Mr Buggins, courted disaster by embarking on a funny story Albert had told her about a lunatic woman with a glass eye. She only remembered in the middle that the admiral was one-eyed and that Mrs Buggins languished in a lunatic asylum and had to change it quickly into a drunken man with one leg. The story lost much of its point and nobody laughed except Walter, who choked into his soup.
Albert sat next to Lady Prague, a spinsterish woman of about forty with a fat face, thin body and the remains of a depressingly insular type of good looks. Her fuzzy brown hair was arranged in a dusty bun showing ears which were evidently intended to be hidden, but which insisted on poking their way out. Her skin was yellow with mauve powder; except for this her face was quite free from any trace of maquillage, and the eyebrows grew at will. Her nails were cut short and unvarnished.
Albert was seized with spasms of hatred for her even before she spoke, which she did almost immediately in a loud unpleasing voice, saying:
‘I didn’t quite hear your name when we were introduced.’
Albert looked at her frolicking eyebrows with distaste and said very distinctly:
‘Albert Memorial Gates.’
‘Oh! What?’
‘Albert Memorial Gates.’
‘Yes. Memorial, did you say?’
‘My name,’ said Albert with some asperity, ‘is Albert Memorial Gates. I took Memorial in addition to my baptismal Albert at my confirmation out of admiration for the Albert Memorial, a very great work of art which may be seen in a London suburb called Kensington.’
‘Oh,’ said Lady Prague crossly, ‘you might as well have called yourself Albert Hall.’
‘I entirely disagree with you.’
Lady Prague looked helplessly at her other neighbour, Admiral Wenceslaus, but he was talking across Jane to Mr Buggins and took no notice of her. She made the best of a bad job and turned again to Albert.
‘Did I hear Mr Buggins say that you are an artist?’
‘Artiste – peintre – yes.’
‘Oh, now do tell me, I’m so interested in art, what do you chiefly go in for?’
‘Go in where?’
‘I mean – water-colours or oils?’
‘My principal medium is what you would call oils. Gouache, tempera and prepared dung are mediums I never neglect, while my bead, straw and button pictures have aroused a great deal of criticism not by any means all unfavourable.’
‘It always seems to me a great pity to go in for oils unless you’re really good. Now Prague’s sister has a girl who draws quite nicely and she wanted to go to Paris, but I said to her parents, “Why let her learn oils. There are too many oil paintings in the world already. Let her do water-colours. They take up much less room.” Don’t you agree?’
‘I expect, in the case of your husband’s niece, that you were perfectly right.’
‘Now, do tell me, this is so interesting, what sort of things do you paint?’
‘Chiefly abstract subjects.’
‘Yes, I see, allegories and things like that. Art must be so fascinating, I always think. I have just been painted by Laszlo. By the way, did I see you at his exhibition? No? But I have seen you somewhere before, I know I have. It’s a funny thing but I never forget a face – names, now I can’t remember, but I never forget a face, do you?’
‘So few people have faces,’ said Albert, who was struggling to be polite. ‘Everyone seems to have a name, but only one person in ten has a face. The old man sitting next to Sally, for instance, has no face at all.’
‘That is my husband,’ said Lady Prague, rather tartly.
‘Then the fact must already have obtruded itself on your notice. But, take the general as an example. He hasn’t got one either, in my opinion.’
‘Oh, I see now what you mean,’ she said brightly, ‘that they are not paintable. But you surprise me. I have always been told that older people, especially men, were very paintable with all the wrinkles and lines – so much character. Now, you went, I suppose, to the Dutch exhibition?’
‘I did not. I wasn’t in London last spring, as a matter of fact, but even if I had been I should have avoided Burlington House as sedulously then as I should later in the summer. I regard the Dutch school as one of the many sins against art which have been perpetrated through the ages.’
‘You mean …’ She looked at him incredulously. ‘Don’t you like Dutch pictures?’
‘No, nor Dutch cheese, as a matter of fact!’
‘I can’t understand it. I simply worship them. There was a picture of an old woman by Rembrandt. I stood in front of it for quite a while one day and I could have sworn she breathed!’
Albert shuddered.
‘Yes, eerie, wasn’t it? I turned to my friend and said: “Laura, it’s uncanny. I feel she might step out of the frame any moment.” Laura Pastille (Mrs Pastille, that’s my
friend’s name) has copied nearly all the Dutch pictures in the National Gallery. For some she had to use a magnifying glass. She’s very artistic. But I am amazed that you don’t like them. I suppose you pretend to admire all these ugly things which are the fashion now. I expect you’ll get over it in time. Epstein, for instance, and Augustus John – what d’you think about them?’
Albert contained himself with some difficulty and answered, breathing hard and red in the face, that he regarded Epstein as one of the great men of all time and would prefer not to discuss him. (General Murgatroyd, overhearing this remark, turned to Walter and asked if that ‘fella Gates’ were an aesthete. Walter looked puzzled and said that he hoped so, he hoped they all were. The general snorted and continued telling Captain Chadlington about how he had once played a salmon for two hours.)
Lady Prague then said: ‘Why do you live in Paris? Isn’t England good enough for you?’ She said this rather offensively. It was evident that Albert’s feelings for her were heartily reciprocated.
‘Well,’ he replied, ‘England is hardly a very good place for a serious artist, is it? One is not exactly encouraged to use one’s brain over here, you know. When I arrived from Paris this last time they would not even leave me my own copy of Ulysses. Things have come to a pretty pass when it is impossible to get decent literature to read.’
‘Indecent literature, I suppose you mean.’
Albert felt completely out of his depth, but to his immense relief Admiral Wenceslaus now turned upon Lady Prague the conversational gambit of, ‘And where did you come from today?’ thus making it unnecessary for him to answer.
Mr Buggins and Walter were getting on like a house on fire.
‘Curious,’ observed Mr Buggins, ‘for a house party of this size in Scotland to consist entirely of Sassenachs – seven men and not one kilt among them. I have the right, of course, to wear the Forbes tartan through my maternal grandmother, but I always think it looks bad with an English name, don’t you agree?’
Highland Fling Page 5
