by Ashly Graham
‘Opposite the ill-favoured Terebinthia and me was a battleaxe, her aunt Lady Corsett, neé Tuffold-Bird and now a widow. Whether Lady Corsett looked like Binty in forty years’ time, or Binty was the spitting image of her aunt when she was forty years less old, I didn’t have time to debate with myself. In addition to an ear-trumpet La Corsett wielded a lorgnette, with which, when she was peering at a person through it, she would have made even the Prince of Wales feel like a speck of fly shit.
‘In fact, those were the very words that His Royal Highness used to describe the experience to his brother, and Best Man, when he himself ended up about to be wedded to Terebinthia Bentnose-Farquarson the following year; and he and the Duke of York were waiting the hour and a half it took Binty to get her arse and train across the county line and up the nave at Westminster Abbey.
‘Seeing the relict Corsett giving him her ocular worst from the front row, for in her opinion not even the heir to the throne was good enough for her niece, HRH confessed to his brother that the thought of having the old woman as a relation made him feel like doing a runner in full view of fifty million people on television. Had the sun illuminated Lady Corsett’s eye-glass at that moment, he said, he was sure to have burst into flame.
‘The Duke, knowing how ill at ease his brother was, and who was himself longing to betake himself upstairs at the Palace during the reception, with one of the bridesmaids who at that moment was giving him a very different, saucy, eye from the west end of the Abbey, replied that he knew how hard it was, but he must bear up, bear up old boy, and think of England. To which Wales countered that the prospect of having to do his royal duty by bivouacking that night upon Mount Binty was enough to make him think of the Central African Republic, where a single room in a Pygmy B&B would seem to him more of a des. res. than any palace.
‘Returning to our dining room in Gloucestershire chez the B-Fs, this same grande dame, Lady Corsett, who was responsible for the Bentnose-Farquarson plan vis-à-vis Bulstrode père et fils, in fact Lady C was in charge of all things Bentnose-Farquarson, could tell instanter that I had no intention of asking for Binty’s sweaty ham of a hand in marriage. This did not increase her disposition to be polite; especially since before the dinner gong sounded she had Googled my father on her laptop, and discovered that he was the descendant of an Irish bog squire who’d moved to the West Riding a century before in haste, after shooting his wife, and the two labourers he’d found in bed with her, simultaneously with a triple-barrelled shotgun.
‘If it had not been for Lady Corsett having come that very afternoon into possession of a butler’s pictures of the Prince of Wales being immoral at Balmoral with one of the junior maids, and being inspired to become his matchmaker, confident that the snaps would be enough to convince the future King to rendez-vous with her niece at the altar, Lady C would probably have come down to dinner in an even worse mood than she did.
‘La Corsett didn’t waste time with small talk. She fixed me with that famous codfish stare, over the Mornayed version of the same that was being served with an acceptably sincere Sancerre, from across the table as I was raising the wrong fork and hand to my mouth. It was the sort of faux pas that members of the upper classes habitually pass loud comment upon in the presence of the perpetrator of the offence.
‘“Tell me, young man,” she said; and the braying and neighing around the table ceased. Nobody dared speak during one of Lady Corsett’s annunciations: it was no ordinary woman who could convince a Commander from Scotland Yard that her husband killed himself in bed by strangling himself while she was asleep beside him. “Do you like horses? I hear on the grapevine that you are more interested in the bow-wows,”—Lady C had done her research well, into what at the time was still an incidental amusement of mine involving smallish wagers—“specifically the ones that have prices on their heads. Most of the gentlemen at this table confine their gambling activities to the card table, or a flutter on a thoroughbred. Do enlighten us as to your feelings on the subject.”
‘And Lady Corsett trained the Hubble telescope of her lorgnette on me with one hand, and her ear-trumpet with the other, the better to register the effect of her enquiry and my response to it.
‘Now, indifferent as I was to Lady C or anyone else’s opinion of my character, I was not one to buckle under such treatment; unlike the chambermaid, who’d promised to come again, and again, if I rang as soon as I could get out of the smoking room after dinner, pleading tomorrow’s long day in the saddle—omitting to mention the practice session that awaited me aboard the charming young filly from downstairs, when I mounted the stairs and her.
‘I finished my mouthful of cod, picked a bone out of my teeth, laid it on the side of my plate, and dabbed my lips with an over-starched napkin.
‘“You must like dogs yourself, ma’am,” I said, “since I observed quite a number of them arind and abite the hice.”
‘“Those are working dogs, sir,” said Lady Corsett; “gun dogs and pointers which have been trained to retrieve the duck, pheasant, partridge, ’cock, and snipe that we shoot on our estates. And to sniff out any poachers who may not have found the mantraps. We also keep a pack of foxhounds. The farmers have their sheepdogs. No, the animals that I understand you to be so fascinated by are greyhounds, a fragile if fleet breed useful only for coursing hares.
‘“But I asked you about horses, sir, not dogs; so tell me: how, in your opinion, are well-bred persons supposed to occupy themselves in the country, unless it be on horseback? What would a weekend be without a hunt or a shoot? Or are you suggesting that we spend our time chasing rabbits?”
‘Lady C compressed the edges of her mouth in helpless laughter during the faint murmur of hilarity around the table that this sally caused.
‘“Madam,” I said, when the silent echoes had died down; “I have never been fond of horses. The shape of them alone is enough to put one off. They fart constantly, they are incapable of friendship, and intelligence-wise they’re as dim as a Toc H lamp. Their priapism is enviable, but otherwise the beasts are a perfect match for the people who devote their feckless lives to feeding, shoeing, and polishing them, and urging them to run in circles and jump over artificial obstacles.
‘“Because they have flattish backs, I will concede that horses were once of use as a means of getting from A to B, pending evolution of the human skull into its current shape as housing for a brain capable of inventing the internal combustion engine. But the malodorous steaming piles of dung that horse-riders leave in the middle of the road are offensive. Riders disdain to clean up after themselves, and they leave it to the villagers to scoop the mess up and put it on their flower-beds, thereby depriving my father of considerable income from the delivery and sale of loads and bags of his fertilizer.
‘“It’s not the horses’ fault, of course, for they have no manners. A lady like yourself, Mrs Corsett, would I’m sure at least use a ditch or go behind a bush if you were caught short in public with a full load.”
‘Laying down the ear-trumpet, La Corsett leaned to her right in order that her nephew, Rufus, a robust individual with pearl buttons on his shirt that were on the verge of popping off, might confirm the gist of my answer.
‘Rufus obliged and her ladyship looked pleased. “Well!” she said, looking around the table to premature nods of assent; “now we know, don’t we? He don’t like hawsses.”
‘“That’s right, Mrs C,” I said; “horses are stubborn and temperamental beasts, which display an unwarrantedly superior manner, and don’t deserve the expensive cosseting they receive. As a species they are surplus to requirement. We no longer have a cavalry, and there are no Indians left to kill, at least in this part of the country so far as I’m aware: I saw no wigwams on my way up the drive. Your cattle are contained by fences, and have no need of cowboys to round them up.
‘“Admittedly, until tractors came along, the heaviest equine species: the Shires, Suffolk Punches, and Clydesdales, did sterling draught work pulling ploughs. Drays delive
red barrels of beer to the public houses…as you will know, Corsie, if you were ever a barmaid. Otherwise, though horses make middling good lawnmowers, one gets a much closer cut from sheep, which have additional advantages as suppliers of wool, lamb, and mutton.
‘“Horses are considered inedible by all but the French…which reminds me that I think I detected a foreign accent earlier in one of your housemaids. I may have been mistaken about her not being from these shores, since she emitted few articulate noises during our brief but highly satisfactory intercourse. I will attend to them more carefully during the detention lesson that she has promised to give me later; for she insists that there remain a few things, other than frenching, that she can teach even such an accomplished linguist as myself.”
‘“Your point, sir?”
‘“My point, Mrs C,”—here I took a moment to aim a fork over the part of my thigh that Terebinthia Bentnose-Farquarson, who was seated next to me, was rubbing with the assiduity of a Kobe farmer massaging the buttocks of his wagyu cattle—“ regarding your housemaid’s country of origin is that, if her mother happens to be the cook, you may wish to question the provenance of the beef when it is brought in.
‘“In summation, ma’am”—the hand was reluctantly withdrawn, via my genitals—“I consider horses to serve no useful purpose, unlike the pet dogs and cats which share other people’s lives and keep them company. Except, as I said, as a backup source of manure. My father over there,”—Dad had slumped so low in his chair as to be barely visible above his self-emptying wine glass—“is an expert in manurial, if not manorial as of yet, matters. Horse dung, Pop taught me at an early age, is fibrous and rots down quickly. It contains high levels of organic micronutrients, and is a long-term source of nitrogen. Roses adore it, and the mushrooms you had for breakfast were probably grown in it.”
‘Lady Corsett took a sip of water and held her napkin to her mouth. Then, deciding to dispense with her deafness, she said, “Very well; but what say you of hunting, sir? Venery is a noble tradition, you must allow, suitable for the upper classes as a means of entertainment and exercise; and essential as a means of maintaining the quality of country life. Surely you’re not suggesting that we hunt on foot, except optionally when otter-hunting, or hawking? The most I will concede, for though it is a lesser sport I will not censure it, is that beagling is conducted à pied.”
‘“Ma’am, I’m suggesting you don’t hunt at all. The crassness and futility of chasing foxes has already been memorably pointed out by Oscar Wilde. Consider what the pursuit of these so-called sports says about how ill-adapted your kind is to them: you rely upon dogs to lead you to your prey, and you need horses to enable you to keep up with the dogs and be in at the kill. Contrary to what your interbred ilk maintain, ma’am, fox-hunting is not only destructive to the countryside, but for barbarity it compares to bear- and badger-baiting and cock-fighting.
‘“So, while I’ll grant you that attending point-to-points and show-jumping events is a harmless distraction for those who are unable to read any of the books in the library, may I suggest, Corsie, that if you insist on having your hounds run after something with the objective of tearing it apart, why not sick them on a human being? Humans do a lot more harm to the environment than foxes, and they are a deal more plentiful. Judging from the mugs around this table, I’ll venture that there are a few of your entourage whom you wouldn’t miss at dinner tomorrow night, eh, Mrs C?”
‘Lady Corsett, who I’m sure had never read a book in her life, unless it were Burke’s Peerage, or Debrett’s, appeared to be mulling the proposal. As she panned the table with her eyepiece, which was probably as unnecessary an aid to her vision as nephew Rufus was to her hearing, there was some nervous clearing of throats.
‘“Unwelcome guests, certainly”, she said; “and there’s a superfluity of the peasant class, they do breed so...but without them who would work our land? We take our conservation seriously here and do not cull upon a whim.”
‘“You would, ma’am.”
‘“You-who?”
‘“You yourself, Mrs C. You would do the work.”
‘“Myself!” Speaking of Oscar Wilde, Edith Evans could have taken lessons from Lady Corsett in how to deliver “A handbag?” in The Importance of Being Earnest.
‘“Yes. You’d do everything for yourselves, you and the rest of your teeming family, from ploughing the fields to emptying the chamber pots.”
‘“Stap me!”
‘The wine turned sour in the glasses, the flowers on the table drooped, and young master Daniel’s milk curdled in his glass. One of nephew Rufus’s pearl shirt buttons pinged off a decanter, and another lodged in Lady Corsett’s ear above the diamond.
‘My father’s seat was empty.’
Chapter Nine
Speaker Snipcock, or Bernard Bulstrode, paused in his narration and sighed. ‘You shall understand, I’m sure,’ he said to the ward, which upon the commencement of the narration had put on hold its concern at the impropriety of its leader’s revelation of his identity; ‘that whatever hopes my father might have entertained of ingratiating myself to the Bentnose-Farquarsons, marrying Binty, and being comped a ticket to Society, were dashed. As the ladies withdrew and the men settled down to their port and cigars, my father scribbled a note, which he gave to the butler, advising that he had come down with influenza.
‘Fifteen minutes later we were packed and bowling through the main gates in our vehicles, never to return. My only regret was that I didn’t have a chance to bid a fond farewell to my chambermaid before we left, to conclude the ups and downs of my day.
‘That moment was without question the nadir of my father’s career, and he never recovered the buoyancy of spirit that had served him so well in the building of his business. Instead of enjoying an active retirement amongst the upper class, he became absent-minded and lethargic; and I have no doubt that the accident that caused his death, when he fell into one of his slurry pits, resulted from the disappointment of that day. Although at the inquest the possibility of suicide was mooted, I testified before the coroner as to my conviction that in extremis my father would never have contaminated his own product.
‘It was shortly thereafter that the joyful announcement was made that the Prince of Wales was to take as his wife the Hon. Terebinthia Bentnose-Farquarson. However, the many pictures of HRH that were published, in which he exhibited a grief as naked as he was in the What the Butler Saw photos that had come into Lady Corsett’s possession, seemed to indicate rather that a date had been set for his funeral.
‘Before I proceed to relate how I fared after this incident, I must take you back to the period of my childhood, which is the part of our lives reckoned to be most appreciated only after it’s over. In so doing I need to introduce you to my grandfather on my mother’s side, Cecil Bulstrode, the man who inspired me most when it came to putting my later unfortunate years behind me, and starting along the road to success as an entrepreneur.
‘At the commencement of the previous anecdotes, I mentioned my grandfather’s collection of stamps, which I inherited upon the death of my own father. It never crossed my mind to sell the many albums, even when my gambling debts were at their highest and my creditors at their most importunate; and despite the extraordinary discovery that it was the most valuable collection in the world. For included in it were two unique stamps in mint condition, known to philatelists as the British Guiana one-cent Black on Magenta; and the Sweden three-Skilling Banco, Yellow Colour Error. There were also one of only two U.S. Franklin Z-Grills, an unused two pence “Post Office” Mauritius, and a “Hawaiian Missionaries”.
‘Grandpa Cecil, or Pappy as we used to call him because of his uncanny likeness to Ernest Hemingway, was of a peregrinaceous disposition. He spent most of his life travelling to those colonial countries that, prior to being granted their independence, had the most exotic-sounding names...for no other reason than that they intrigued him.
‘Although Pappy was a down-to-earth and
practical man not by nature given to reflection or poetic abstraction, or susceptible to the allure of mysticism, my grandfather was fascinated by these places to the point of being inspired by a potent desire to visit each of them in turn. Unlike most ordinary men whose lives shrink around them, rather than expand to limitless horizons of possibility, Pappy committed himself to realizing his ambition; and thanks to a substantial legacy from his own father, who had dug vast and illicit wealth out of South African diamond mines under the noses of the local rulers, he had the resources to do what he wanted with his life, and to go where he pleased.
‘Indeed, so completely did Pappy indulge himself that he spent the last penny of his inheritance on the day he died. He was a tidy man.
‘Having settled upon a globetrotting career, my grandfather abandoned his young family, where they were living in a disused railway carriage—Cecil Bulstrode was uninterested in allocating his resources to the acquisition of property—in a Skegness train siding, and departed, never to return. When a year or so later his spouse decided that she had developed a passion for a widower seed-merchant who lived at Number Three, Railway Cuttings, Grandpa Cecil, if indeed he ever received the papers poste restante to wherever he might have been headed, did not contest the divorce, which was filed on the grounds of neglect; nor did he make any claim for custody of his five children, of whom my mother, Molly, was the youngest.
‘It was in keeping with the strong vein of obstinacy that is present in all male Bulstrodes, plus the aforementioned habitual orderliness, that Pappy was determined to visit the lands of his dreams in alphabetical order, irrespective of whether they were adjacent to or coterminous with each other, and get to know them as no one ever had, with the possible exceptions of the explorer Sir Richard Burton, and Marco Polo; though the latter’s familiarity with the Silk Road Grandpa swore was not as great as Signor Polo would have had people believe—like the hole in the Polo mint, my grandfather said that there were gaps in the famous explorer’s geographical knowledge.
