by Simon Brett
Even in times of stress Blotto slept like an unusually comatose baby, but that night his slumbers were interrupted by the sound of a bedroom door closing along the landing. This was followed by the tramp of heavy footsteps and a growling, grunting noise that sounded not dissimilar to the breathing of Luther P. Chapstick III. But, Blotto reflected before slipping straight back to sleep, their American guest would have no cause to go that way along the landing. If he required the plumbing facilities they were in the other direction. The only destination beyond Blotto’s own doorway was the last bedroom on the landing, which had been allocated to the Dowager Duchess of Framlington. And there was no reason why Luther P. Chapstick III would want to go in there.
Nor did Blotto notice at breakfast the next morning that the tic in the eyebrow of Grimshaw the butler was now moving with the frequency of a hummingbird’s wings.
His preoccupation then was to entrust Twinks with the task of guarding Mary Chapstick from attempted assassination before abandoning himself to the pleasures of a day’s cricket.
Of course it wasn’t a proper game. One of the things Mary Chapstick had found hardest to understand from Blotto’s explanation of the previous evening was that ideally the process took five days. The idea of a contest restricted to, say, three hours for each side’s innings – which was how the Sunday’s match would be organized – was obviously a pale shadow of the real thing. But to Blotto’s mind it was better than nothing.
April was early in the season for cricket, but the day was a beautiful one and as the game developed he felt his cares almost physically lifting off his shoulders. Even the prospect of being married to Mary Chapstick became a little less daunting. Once he was actually in the United States, he persuaded himself, introducing cricket couldn’t really be that tricky, could it? And, as soon as they’d been shown the beauty of the sport, surely even Americans would very quickly make it their national game . . . ? They wouldn’t be able to resist, would they?
The natural setting of Blotto’s emotional barometer pointed to ‘Sunny’. It took a lot to change that. And when he was out hunting on Mephistopheles or playing cricket, nothing could affect his cheerful outlook on life. So his mood improved with the day.
The Semi-Colons may have been a scratch team of writers and poets, but they were no rabbits. Their ranks included three or four county players and one who’d even had a trial for England. Quality in the Tawcester Towers eleven was more variable. On the cricket pitch the Duke, Loofah, justified his second nickname. People who thought he was called ‘Rupert the Unreliable’ only because of his failure to impregnate his wife with a male heir hadn’t observed his cricketing prowess. When batting he swung wildly at any ball that came his way. On the rare occasions when he made contact he was as likely to hit a boundary as to send the ball straight into a fielder’s hands. Any ball he faced might just as easily be sent flying for six or return him to the pavilion.
But he was more skilled – and even more reliable – than most of the below stairs players. Though the Tawcester Towers chauffeur Corky Froggett knew the rudiments of the game, was a solid enough wicket keeper and played all right round the tail end of the batting order, the rest of the line-up was flimsy. Normally Blotto would bolster his team with some of his peers (who did actually happen to be peers), but again the Dowager Duchess hadn’t wanted any people of their own status to meet the Chapsticks.
So really, given the quality in the rest of his team, the match was Blotto alone against the Semi-Colons.
Back on the veranda of the pavilion Twinks did her best to explain to Mary Chapstick the intricacies and subtleties of the game. It was an uphill struggle.
The American did understand the basic principle of tossing a coin to see which side batted first, but that was the extent of her comprehension. Once the game started, she got very lost indeed. Blotto, as captain of the Tawcester Towers team, had put the visitors in to bat and himself opened the bowling.
‘What’s he trying to do?’ asked Mary Chapstick.
‘He’s trying to knock the two little horizontal bits of wood, which are called the “bails”, off the three upright sticks, which are called the “stumps”. And the whole thing’s called the “wicket”.’
‘Well, that’s easy if all he needs is to knock the bails off. He just has to give them a kick. They’re right beside him.’
‘No, he’s aiming at the wicket the other end of the pitch.’
‘Then why doesn’t he get closer to it? That’d give him a better chance.’
‘Because,’ Twinks replied patiently, ‘the laws of cricket state that the ball must be bowled from one end of the twenty-two-yard pitch to the other.’
‘Why?’ asked Mary Chapstick.
‘Because that’s what the laws of cricket say!’
‘Gee, that’s not very logical.’
Further discussion was interrupted by a ragged cry from the field of ‘Howzat?’ Blotto had taken the first wicket in his first over, neatly removing the opener’s centre stump. Desultory applause accompanied the change of batsmen.
‘What’re they clapping for?’ asked Mary Chapstick.
‘Because Blotto’s taken a wicket.’
‘No, he hasn’t.’
‘Yes, he has.’
‘Twinks, both the wickets are still there. He hasn’t taken either of them.’
‘The expression “taking a wicket” means . . .’ But Blotto was once again taking his run-up. ‘Let’s just point the peepers at the game, shall we?’
‘But it’s difficult to watch it when I don’t know what’s going on,’ said Mary Chapstick plaintively.
Twinks didn’t respond. Blotto bowled the remaining two balls of the over straight and true, but both were cautiously blocked by the new batsman (actually the one who’d had a trial for England). As the fielders changed sides there was another patter of applause from the pavilion.
‘What’re they clapping for this time?’
‘Blotto’s just bowled a maiden over.’
‘That is certainly true,’ said Mary Chapstick, blushing deeply.
‘No, a maiden over is one in which no runs are scored. And in fact in this case it’s even better, because Blotto bowled a wicket maiden.’
‘I’m not wicked.’
‘I didn’t say you were. It’s a wicket maiden because no runs were scored off the six balls and with one of those balls a wicket was taken.’
‘Gee, it’s a complicated game, isn’t it? So Blotto’s like the pitcher?’
‘The bowler, we call it.’
‘Like the hat?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, why has he stopped being the hat?’ Mary Chapstick pointed to the pitch, where a pimply underfoot-man was measuring out his run-up.
‘Because you have to have someone different bowling from each end.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you just do!’ Twinks foresaw that it was going to be a long afternoon.
The pattern for the game was now set. When Blotto was bowling, very few runs were allowed. When other members of the Tawcester Towers side took the ball, the Semi-Colons scored lavishly. At the end of the innings Blotto finished with the very respectable figures of ten wickets for the loss of only seven runs, but when facing the other Tawcester Towers bowlers, the opposition had notched up a score of 174.
He wasn’t worried. As an opening batsman he knew what he had to do. Protect his less competent colleagues by ensuring that he faced as much of the Semi-Colons’ bowling as possible. Though he managed his task very well, hitting sixes and fours and only running twos – or singles on the last ball of the over – he couldn’t manage to keep the strike all the time. Slowly his team-mates’ wickets fell to the usual mix of clean-bowled, caught and run out.
But Blotto remained quietly confident. There was only one wicket left to fall, but his partner was Corky Froggett who, though not an inspired cricketer, could be relied on not to make silly mistakes. The rest of the team, together with the usual no-balls and
byes, had added seventeen runs, and Blotto was cruising along on 155. Three more runs to win. Three singles, except that would raise the potential risk of Corky facing the bowling. Better – and indeed classier and more stylish – for Blotto to win the game with a boundary.
But he didn’t want to do anything rash. The Semi-Colon’s bowler he was facing was the one who’d had the England trial and was no rabbit. Blotto blocked two balls that were targeted right on his middle stump, and waited for a looser delivery with which to achieve his boundary.
The next ball was a bit too loose. Far enough from Blotto’s leg stump as almost to be a wide. He didn’t even play a stroke at it; no sense in risking the game through impetuosity.
But as the ball whirred past him, Blotto heard sounds that were rare in his cricketing experience. It was the clatter of the bails flying off the stumps behind him, followed by a ragged unison shout of ‘Howzat?’
He turned in amazement to see the ruin of his wicket. Though by no logic that he knew could the ball have hit the stumps, Blotto still did the decent thing. It wasn’t in his nature to argue with umpires. He shook Corky Froggett by the hand and walked back to the pavilion in a state of some bewilderment.
The Semi-Colons had won the match by two runs.
‘What happened there?’ Mary Chapstick asked Twinks.
‘I’ve no idea. It’s a bit of a rum baba. The ball didn’t go anywhere near his stumps.’
‘Then why’s he coming back to the pavilion?’
‘Because that’s what Blotto’s like, Mary. He’s not the kind of stencher who’d argue with an umpire. He knows he wasn’t really out, but he’d never admit that under threat of the thumbscrews. That’s Blotto for you, I’m afraid.’
Mary Chapstick clasped her hands to her generous bosom. ‘He is so wonderful,’ she cooed. ‘Who could fail to love a man who behaves like that?’
It was back in the pavilion that Corky brought him some kind of explanation for what had happened. The chauffeur had drawn the stumps and collected the bails at the end of the game. He held out one of the rounded wooden uprights to his master. ‘Reckon that’s what broke your wicket, milord.’
Blotto looked where Corky Froggett’s stubby finger pointed. Embedded deep into the wood was a rifle bullet.
He took the evidence straight to his sister. Checking the bullet against the other in her reticule, the one that had killed Briscoe Daubeney-Vere, Twinks announced that both had been fired from the same rifle.
‘Bit of an iffy Stilton, isn’t it?’ said Blotto. ‘What kind of pot-brained pineapple would use that method to win a cricket match?’
‘I don’t think the cricket match had anything to do with it,’ said Twinks. ‘I think this bullet was meant for you, Blotters.’
‘Toad-in-the-hole! But why? What could the stencher have against me?’
‘I see a potential link of logic, Blotto me old frying-pan. I think I got things wrong. Mary Chapstick wasn’t the target of the first bullet. The gunman shot the precise person he wanted to shoot.’
‘Sorry? Not on the same page, Twinks me old ink-blotter.’
‘I think Briscoe Daubeney-Vere was shot because he was perceived to be getting too chummy with Mary Chapstick, going out alone with her on to the terrace . . .’ She looked ominously at her brother. ‘So you understand the implications of that, don’t you?’
‘No,’ replied Blotto.
‘You hardly spent a minute apart from Mary yesterday, did you? I think that made some lump of toadspawn jealous. He must have seen you together. He’s already killed Briscoe Daubeney-Vere. And now he’s out to kill you too.’
‘Oh, broken biscuits,’ said Blotto. This was a real gluepot, of a depth and viscosity unrivalled in previous gluepots. The mater was insistent that he should spend as much time as possible around Mary Chapstick. And yet if he did that he was liable to be shot . . . even more than liable . . . possibly even likely. Of course, there was no way he would have considered going against the mater’s instructions. If the family honour required him to be shot, then shot he would be. It did seem a bit of a waste of a life, though.
9
The Ship of Sorrow
Blotto had never really seen the point of ‘abroad’. Everything he required in life was available to him at Tawcester Towers. And though he’d met a few foreign boddos in his time, he couldn’t really say that any of them had become close friends. He had a great respect for them, mind. They were generally speaking very good at hiding the inevitable disappointment that must have come with the realization that they hadn’t been born British. Blotto knew that if he’d suffered that ghastly fate, he’d have spent all his time moaning on about it like a slapped puppy.
And if, on pain of death, he’d been forced to choose one bit of ‘abroad’ to go to, it certainly wouldn’t have been America. Someone of Blotto’s breeding had an instinctive suspicion of Republicanism. Having the toffs at the top was, in his view, the natural order of things. The feudal system had worked so well, Blotto often wondered why it had ever been abolished. In fact, the only thing he liked about America was some of the moving pictures it produced, and thanks to the invention of the cinematograph you didn’t actually have to go to the place to enjoy those.
But he knew better than to imagine that he could cross the wishes of his mother. The Dowager Duchess had decreed that he was to travel to the United States to marry Mary Chapstick, and so that was what he had to do. He had once again turned optimistically to Twinks in the hopes that she might see some way out of his predicament, but unusually, having shot her bolt with the Duke of Godalming diversion, so far as other ideas were concerned she was an empty revolver.
During that summer, Blotto watched with appalled fascination as more and more details of his fate were settled. The weekend visit of Luther P. Chapstick III and his daughter to Tawcester Towers had been deemed, on both sides, a success. In the week that followed it, the Dowager Duchess’s man of business had met up with the cattle baron and his attorney. After much wrangling, the basic terms for the financial aspect of Blotto and Mary’s marriage had been agreed. The Dowager Duchess might be losing a son, but at least she had ensured the future of Tawcester Towers’ plumbing.
Before he returned to the demands of meat-packing in the States, Luther P. Chapstick III had one final meeting with the Dowager Duchess at an hotel she favoured on her rare trips to London. There an end-of-November date was set for the wedding in Chicago. And a lot of time was devoted to discussion of the guest list. Magnanimously the Dowager Duchess agreed that the King and Queen of England, along with virtually every member of the House of Lords, would be enchanted to be invited and, for such a prestigious event, would undoubtedly clear their diaries to make the trip across the Pond. She suggested that, because of her patrician connections, the invitations, when printed, should be sent for distribution to her at Tawcester Towers (where of course, when they arrived, she would have them consigned to the nearest refuse receptacle). In spite of her assertions to the contrary, the Dowager Duchess had no intention of attending the wedding, nor of letting any of her aristocratic cronies even know that it was taking place.
So the Chapsticks took a luxury liner home. It was agreed that Blotto would follow the same route in November, arriving in Chicago a fortnight before the wedding. In the meantime, the affianced couple could write each other letters if they wished to. Mary Chapstick very definitely did wish to, and over the ensuing months many breathless avowals of love with transatlantic stamps on pink envelopes arrived at Tawcester Towers. Blotto, who had always been something of a slow reader, got halfway through the first one. And being an even slower writer, he didn’t reply to any of them.
At their London meeting the Dowager Duchess had assured Luther P. Chapstick III that the engagement notice would be inserted in the Court Circular of The Times. With the printing set she had played with in the nursery Twinks created a reasonably good counterfeit version, which was duly sent off to Chicago. The Dowager Duchess still couldn’t bring he
rself to risk any of her genuine aristocratic friends discovering that her son was committing the social gaffe of marrying an American.
Twinks had helped her mother out on that printing deception, but unwillingly. She was still desperately seeking an escape route for Blotto, but didn’t want to alert the Dowager Duchess to this by any apparent lack of cooperation in the wedding plans.
Twinks did, however, insist that she should accompany Blotto on his wedding trip. There was a strong hereditary similarity between the two women and daughter could at times be as strong as mother. This was one of those occasions, and the Dowager Duchess, recognizing her equal, didn’t argue but let Twinks have her way. Brother and sister would travel to Chicago together.
The summer passed for Blotto in a blur. Though he spent most of it playing his beloved cricket, he hardly noticed what he was doing. While centuries and wickets racked up with even greater frequency than usual, the only thought on his mind was that all of it was happening for the last time. The following summer he’d be incarcerated in America – watching rounders, for the love of strawberries!
Before the fated November day when he was due to board the SS His Majesty, Blotto did just manage to start the hunting season. But that experience too was soured for him. As he and the splendid Mephistopheles soared over hedge and gate and thicket, as foxes started thinking about wills and funeral arrangements, Blotto did not feel his customary surge of excitement. All he could think was, ‘Never again, never again.’
Even Twinks could not pull off her usual trick of comforting him. When she bounced into a room, smiling her perfect smile, with a hearty cry of ‘Larksissimo, Blotters me old bicycle pump!’, the only reward from her brother was a wince of suffering.
She strained her magnificent brainbox in search of a solution to their dilemma, but atypically, nothing came.
For the passage from Southampton to New York brother and sister had adjoining staterooms on the SS His Majesty. It was a fine new liner on which every luxury taste was catered for. The cuisine was exceptional, the cellar magnificent. There was an extensive range of sporting activities laid on, and of course every pretty girl on board fell head over heels for Blotto. But none of this removed the furrow from his impossibly handsome brow. He traversed the decks with the expression of a man whose life imprisonment sentence has just been commuted to death.
