by Weldon, Fay
‘Hello, Auntie,’ said Serena.
‘Hello, Auntie,’ said Piers.
‘Allo Wanty,’ said Nell.
‘She doesn’t speak very well,’ said Joan Lumb. ‘Is she all right?’
‘That’s how three-year-olds speak,’ said Shirley, firmly.
Joan Lumb raised her eyebrows.
‘We didn’t mean to bring them,’ said Shirley, ‘but we had to because the girl gave notice.’
‘It’s always hopeless employing Europeans,’ said Joan Lumb. ‘They imagine they’re as good as you are, and are hopelessly overpaid, which unsettles them. But you would have found some other reason for bringing them, Shirley. I know you would.’
‘They’re only little for such a short time,’ said Shirley, helplessly. She was right. The world whirls on, season gives way to season, and before you know it, the child is the grown man, the grown woman.
‘For quite long enough,’ said Joan Lumb. She had never wanted children. Procreation, it seemed to her, was altogether too chancy a business. There was no controlling a child’s genes, and there were, in her experience, a number of traits which no amount of early training seemed able to eradicate. She had herself been fortunate enough to escape weak-mindedness. Victor, on the other hand, had inherited a sentimental streak, which had made it impossible for him to join the army. He could wield the power of life and death but only from a distance, by means of shuffling pieces of paper about. He did not have the guts, as Joan had once remarked to the Colonel, to deal with the Ace of Spades.
Joan Lumb clapped her hands. Hilda appeared, her curved and sensuous mouth gently smiling.
‘Hilda,’ said Joan Lumb, ‘take the children to Genghis Khan. Bath them, feed them, put them to bed.’
‘Yes, madam,’ lisped Hilda, and the children followed where she led, up the stairs and down corridors, such was the authority in Joan Lumb’s voice, the enticement in Hilda’s walk, without so much as looking back. Or perhaps it was that the portraits frightened them? You know what portraits are – how the eyes seem to follow the guilty. And who guiltier than small children, who know well enough the trouble and torment to which they put the adult world? No wonder they’re frightened of the dark. No wonder they have nightmares. It is their own selves terrify them.
Serena went first, mousey and round-faced and prim; then Piers, sombre and brooding; then Nell, blonde, wide-eyed and giggly. Charming! And Hilda glided in front of them, demure, her look liquid, her limbs graceful: these being the rewards of gratified desire, and Acorn much given and very able so to gratify her. Hilda had made one of the broom cupboards beneath the servants’ stairs into a place where he and she could love in privacy and grace: she had hung it with rich fabrics from the linen cupboard, and floored and lined it with feather quilts and cushions and hung amulets here and there: such a place, such a shrine to sensual needs, was invaluable to both of them, since below stairs the male and female staff slept in segregated dormitories. Acorn had recently commandeered an entire dormitory to himself, the better to hold staff meetings. Those thus displaced in the community interest doubled up elsewhere and did well enough, or simply slept on the floor, if that was what they were accustomed to. But Acorn preferred to meet Hilda under the stairs, in the broom cupboard, and no doubt had his reasons. And it was, as we have seen, Hilda’s part to accept, not question. The broom cupboard, incidentally, was adjacent to the Alexander Room, and it was the unexplained noises which so often arose from the cupboard which had given rise to the rumour that the room was haunted.
Shirley’s eyes followed the children, as they went with Hilda. She was anxious. They were going with a stranger, and so quietly! But how could she demur? Joan’s manner denied it. So, when it came to it, did her husband’s. Victor believed in mother-love, of course; and, as do all civilised people, that the child is happiest in the mother’s company – though the mother not always in the child’s. But at the moment Victor believed in delegation even more than mother-love. Self-interest defeated paternal concern. The children would be safe enough: he wanted peace, and relaxation, and his wife’s company while he changed for dinner. And she wanted, for herself, the same thing of him. Of course. These are the rewards of married life, and why should we not have them?
Honestly, friends, we have to take shifts at virtue. We can’t keep it up all the time, relentlessly, not even mother-love, least of all sexual loyalty. Look how a decade’s fidelity can flash within the drunken, silvery hour into infidelity – does that devalue all that went before?
Yes, is the answer. Yes, yes, yes. Where shall we find the saint amongst us?
Oddly, Joan Lumb thinks she has found the saint, the Hero, in Henry Shrapnel. In her mind he is second only to Murray. She would have him sanctified if she could. She plans to make a speech about Henry Shrapnel and his contribution to military history – which is all history in her view – when she replies to the toast ‘The Shrapnel Academy’ at the Eve-of-Waterloo dinner.
Be all that as it may, off went the children to Genghis Khan. The suite had a rather unfortunate view over the waste-disposal area. Not, of course, that this mattered for the moment, since it was dark, and beginning to snow quite hard besides, and the snow would soon obliterate ugliness and make everything, even dustbins, pure and beautiful. The room was kept especially for children: it contained four small beds, two cots, an adjacent cubicle for a resident babysitter, and a small kitchenette where food could be prepared, and children, presumably, kept self-contained.
Genghis Khan, the Whirlwind from Mongolia, working and striving around and about the year 1200, was another who did a wonderful job, unifying his people and turning them into an all but invincible military organisation. Genghis Khan’s horse troops swarmed all over Asia, plundering, killing, devastating, learning as they went new tricks of defence and attack; and the arts of siegecraft – how to use siege engines, mangonels, giant catapults: how to dig tunnels under the fortifications of besieged cities, and enter by stealth – how best to shower flames upon those within, and enter under cover of smokescreen, how to herd captives before them so defenders were forced to kill their own kind. Genghis Khan went south, north and east, slaughtering, laying waste, burning, wonderfully successful – and why? Because he had one of the best-organised and most thoroughly disciplined armies ever created. It was quality, not quantity, that counted: those Mongol hordes were scarcely hordes; rather they were crack teams. All were on horseback. Forty per cent were heavy cavalry, for shock action: each man completely armoured and carrying a lance, with a scimitar in his belt. And behind would come the 60 per cent of light cavalry, without armour, but with bows and scimitars, whose function was reconnaissance, screening, the provision of firepower support to the 40 per cent and general mopping-up operations. Each man wore a vest of raw, tightly woven silk so that if he got hit by an enemy arrow surgeons could extract the arrowhead by pulling out the silk. And the horses! They were wonderful. They could live off the land, go for days without food, and in general sustain themselves. And because they were mostly mares, the men could live off their milk, and did, and occasionally carve a slice of meat off a living rump. Brilliant! Genghis Khan’s intelligence network was superb – it spread throughout Europe and Asia, spies travelling in the disguise of merchants or traders. The Mongols used every trick and ruse they could: they had no notion of chivalry: of armies waiting for a signal to advance. All they wanted was to kill and not be killed: they were not interested in honour or renown; they were in love with their own cunning. They would move fastest in the hard winter when the marshes were frozen and rivers ice and everyone else stayed home. (They would find out just how safe the ice was by driving local populations out upon it. Whoops! Sorry! Oh, the joke of it!) They loved to burn crops and prairies and towns simply to hide their movements. They loved to declare peace and then slaughter the vanquished when they least expected it. It was fun, fun, fun! And then the Mongols turned west and Europe shivered but somehow they had outgrown their strength. They slipped off a
way home, for no reason anyone can quite grasp. That’s the way things go. Empires rise and fall. Perhaps death’s appetite is cyclical. Perhaps she gets indigestion. Perhaps even her gorge rises with so much blood.
13
Joan Lumb proudly showed her brother around the Shrapnel Academy. It was warm inside, almost uncomfortably so; it was possible to ignore completely the north wind rising on the other side of the thick stone walls. Corridors were well carpeted, walls well insulated; lights illuminated dark corners, and spotlights shone from strips upon paintings by artists of note, even in the remoter parts of the building. She showed him the library, second in pride only to that of London’s Imperial War Museum, where every battle, every campaign, every victory, every defeat of recorded history was described and depicted with that mixture of awe and horror and excitement which moves even the most sober of military historians.
‘A favourite room with our students,’ she said. ‘The more sensible of them realise that wide background reading is the key to good exam results. We have Sergei Wootton – you know Sergei, the art historian? He had his own arts programme on the television not so long ago. I didn’t watch it myself but those who did said it was excellent.’
Victor said he hadn’t heard of Sergei Wootton but looked forward to meeting him. Shirley said she’d seen the programme but Joan Lumb took no notice, only looked as if she wondered why Shirley was tagging along.
She took Victor to the Games Room which, besides the pool table, the dartboard, and so on, had its own little shooting gallery, where cardboard cutouts of the Russian Premier travelled along at the back of the range, and must be hit in the head if points were to be scored.
‘Such fun!’ said Joan Lumb and Shirley shuddered rather pointedly, and loudly. Victor frowned at her slightly.
‘Sorry!’ she whispered. ‘Couldn’t help it!’
‘She is my sister!’ he reproached her, as Joan went to retrieve two stray ping-pong balls, un-swept up by a careless staff.
‘The servants are terrible,’ Joan announced. ‘They are absolutely incapable of using their own initiative. And one simply can’t think of everything oneself.’
So her mother had spoken: so no doubt her daughter would, did she have one. Perhaps it was fortunate she did not. She took Victor to the lecture rooms, and the dining halls, and the press office, and he pretended to be interested, out of kindness. She wanted him to be proud of her. She said that the heating bills were phenomenal and the electricity bills astronomical: power lines had to travel over hill and dale to reach the Academy, and were vulnerable to weather, so she had an emergency back-up system installed. It was fortunate the Academy was so well funded. At least she did not have to scrub around for money, as she understood so many other institutions did.
‘People realise the importance of defence,’ she said. ‘And the importance of ideas in the war against communism. The army, the government, and insurers are all generous. We are particularly fortunate in bequests.’
‘I see you love the job,’ said Victor.
‘Sometimes,’ said his sister, ‘I’m almost glad the Colonel died. I would never have thought of taking up this post if I had not been a widow. A wife’s first duty must always be to her husband. He must have first call on her time and attention.’
‘What about the children?’ asked Shirley. ‘Shouldn’t they come first?’
‘Shirley,’ said Joan Lumb, ‘if you want to go to your room, Muffin will show you the way.’
But when she went looking for Muffin, Joan Lumb found that she was not available. Baf had arrived and Muffin was showing him to his room.
‘That can’t take forever,’ said Joan Lumb crossly, but the look on Acorn’s face suggested that it might take some considerable time. Joan Lumb sighed, but could not give the matter her proper attention because Acorn told her that Murray Fairchild had arrived and was waiting in the blue living-room. Joan went at once. She was wearing a new silk dress in reds and oranges which she knew suited her; they were Murray’s favourite colours. He had once told her so. When he was a child, he said, his blanket was in red and orange, and he had often hidden beneath it to avoid trouble. Now he associated the colours with safety, warmth, sleep.
Joan Lumb had allocated the Gustavus Adolphus Suite to Murray Fairchild. These were her favourite rooms. The furniture was heavy oak and very old; the walls were panelled. The bed was big and soft; in the bathroom a heavy white bath stood proudly on little Victorian feet, and water gushed from a wide faucet. The television set was cunningly hidden in a mahogany commode. The words ‘Gustavus Adolphus’ were embossed in gold above the door.
Reader, you now fear you are going to hear all about Gustavus Adolphus. How right you are! Gustavus Adolphus assumed the Swedish throne in 1611. Adolphus was one of the Military Greats: tactician, strategist, administrator, leader of men, educated in the military arts from an early age, knowing everything the human race had so far worked out about gunnery, horsemanship, siegecraft, employment of fortifications, drill and logistics. What he didn’t have was an army, or a war. Gustavus introduced national conscription, hired mercenaries, and one way and another invented the modern army. He formed artillery regiments, cavalry squadrons, and got rid of cumbersome, heavy guns. He invented the sturdy 3-pounder, the regimental gun, with packaged cartridge and simplified loading, which gave such a good rate of fire. By 1631 he had a state army, 30,000 strong: an army strict and democratic, no longer confined to the nobility and the peasants, but now drawing in the middle classes too. The wars came thick and fast. (If you own a new nut-cracker, you pretty soon have nuts to crack.) His influence on European warfare was profound. The casualty rate remained high, at 30 per cent for those he defeated and 20 per cent of his own victorious troops blown up, slashed, or trampled by the hooves or artillery of both sides, but it was with Gustavus Adolphus that the Age of Gunpowder really got under way. He was one of the Men of History whom Joan Lumb most admired, and she knew that Murray would be happy in the room.
If we are to get the better of Joan Lumb, we must know more than she does: that is why we have had these boring lectures on Tiglath-Pileser, Adolphus, Augustus, and so forth. We must also know more about ourselves, which is on the whole more entertaining, and that is why Bella Morthampton, Leo Makeshift, Ivor the chauffeur, Victor and Shirley Blade and the little Blades, Baf Winchester, Murray Fairchild, Panza Jordan, Sergei Wootton, Muffin Aldred and Joan Lumb are all gathered together under the sound and well-funded roof of the Shrapnel Academy. For what is the point of fiction except self-discovery?
14
Snow fell, spreading from the western regions, at first gently, heavy flake by heavy flake; then, as the wind rose, in smaller, tougher, flying gobbets. Downstairs the servants debated, severally in their many languages, then jointly, in English the master tongue, whether or not to fight the stuff from the door with spades, shovels and brooms. The night might well bring a thaw; and even if it did not and the snow continued, all effort must in the end be wasted. Snow was like that, as those who had spent more than a winter in this foreign climate could attest. Time disposed of it more effectively than man. Snow fell, and froze, and hampered normal activity to one degree or another, but then at least it disappeared, leaving everything much as it had been before. It was preferable, any day, to earthquake, volcano, tidal flood or cyclone, all of which had the power to alter the landscape itself.
Upstairs, Joan Lumb was listening too intently to Murray’s words, waiting too hopefully for Murray’s smile, to pay much attention to the blizzard outside. Rendered soft and impractical by desire, she quite forgot to organise. Snow whistled through the air and grew thicker and yet thicker on the ground, and Joan Lumb did nothing. She complained a little about the lateness of the journalist from The Times, and decided to delay dinner on her account for half an hour, no more, and deplored her rudeness in not at least telephoning to explain herself.
(Sisters, this is no criticism of the female state, that love should thus make a strong woman imp
ractical. Men are no different. They lose whole empires in a loved one’s eyes, lose God himself, and think nothing of it. Pity Caesar’s Antony, pity Sampson, pity poor Joan Lumb.)
‘It may be the weather,’ said Murray. He had once spent a winter on the Falkland Islands, trapping a saboteur who was falsifying reports on mineral deposits to the south. He’d been tricked and tripped and lamed and almost frozen to death. He knew cold lands as well as hot.
‘Oh, poof, Murray!’ said Joan. ‘A little snow! People make far too much fuss!’ She had snowballed and sledged as a child, and blown warm breath on chilly hands, and loved every minute of it. Snow had never stopped Joan Lumb doing anything she wanted.
Murray had declined whisky, saying it gave him indigestion, and coffee, on the grounds that it made his heart race. He asked for Perrier water. Joan Lumb rang for Acorn. This precious hour, alone with Murray! Her heart was light. She was happy enough that dinner was delayed. The other guests had so far kept tactfully to their rooms, waiting for the dinner gong.
The Friday afternoon, below stairs, had not been tranquil. As well as the preparation of cucumber sandwiches and gâteau-au-rhum, it had seen a death, and a tragic one, and witnessed a sudden and unexpected power struggle between Acorn and Inverness, the groundsman, his second-in-command. Inverness, a small, quiet, grey, bespectacled ear surgeon from Pakistan, who enjoyed the trust and confidence of the downstairs community, had challenged Acorn’s authority.
This is what happened.
Miriam, a young woman from Sri Lanka, of whom both Acorn and Inverness were fond, was in labour in one of the back pantries, a small but warm and well-lit room frequently used as a hospital. She was attended by Inverness. Inverness had witnessed Bhutto’s death in prison: now he hid from Colonel Zia, and no nation would officially have him. So he swept leaves and saved roses from black-spot at the Shrapnel Academy. Those of you who have skills and professions, and can practise them in peace, be grateful. It is not given to everyone so to do.
