The White Rajah (1961)

by Monsarrat, Nicholas

  ‘I have had wounds already today,’ answered Richard hardly. ‘One more will not be the death of me.’

  Wickham sat down, and lowered his head into his bony hands, as if he had to collect his courage before he could speak. From outside, the clock in the stable tower chimed a half-hour, and was echoed by other chimes, far away, across meadow and parish, as if all men’s time were the same, and none had more pain than any other. Fatal, terrible illusion … Presently, not looking at Richard, Sebastian Wickham asked in a low voice: ‘How much older do you suppose your brother is?’

  Richard Marriott stared. ‘Older than I? A year, I suppose. A year at most.’

  ‘Richard, he is scarcely three months older than you.’

  ‘Three months?’ repeated Richard, uncomprehending. ‘How can that be? We are brothers. Our mother–’

  He broke off, as if struck across the face; the appalling truth reached him in a single instant. A hundred questions and puzzlements of the past were suddenly resolved; stray words overheard, side glances that had seemed strange, silences, long forgotten, which now sounded louder than the loudest voice. So this was the truth, the truth of all things … He turned away, his composure utterly shattered, and walked blindly to the window. From there he spoke in a questioning, self-torturing tone which was as hurtful to hear as to utter.

  ‘Who knew of this?’

  ‘Miles. Some servants who were dismissed. The vicar of the parish where you were baptized.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Your father had sometimes hinted of it, when – he was in a careless mood. And then I came upon his journal in the library.’ Wickham’s voice was suddenly pleading. ‘I meant no harm, Richard. I believe he intended me to read it.’

  ‘It is no matter … Then there was another woman, at the same time as – as his wife?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who was she?’

  ‘She was – in the household.’

  ‘Who was she?’

  ‘A kitchen maid.’

  Richard laughed harshly, violently; an ugly sound to mark the ugliest moment of his life. A bastard – a bastard, by a kitchen maid. No wonder brother Miles gave himself all the airs of nobility … A kitchen maid, seduced and brought to bed almost in the same season as the lawful wife, the mother who was not his mother. There could be no speedier nor more certain way to have two sons … And this was his own father, who had disinherited him because of his ‘wildness’ … The thought made him turn round suddenly.

  ‘But he loved me,’ he declared loudly. ‘He always loved me. Why should he disown me now?’

  Sebastian Wickham, the bearer of the terrible news, looked at him with shame and compassion. ‘He did love you, Richard. That was certain, and you must never think otherwise, even now. He would not disown you. But he had a sense of the fitness of things, also.’

  ‘Somewhat tardily,’ said Richard, on a savage note of sarcasm.

  ‘Do not speak like that,’ said Wickham. ‘Of course he sinned – he sinned greatly. Perhaps this was his way of making some amends.’

  ‘Amends?’

  Wickham nodded slowly. ‘He must have felt guilty because he had wronged his wife, Miles’s mother.’

  ‘He wronged my mother, far more!’

  Wickham nodded again. ‘That is so. And it was a hard choice. But with your father’s sense of family–’

  ‘Sense of family!’ Richard burst out. Anger was returning now, in full flood; he felt as if he could scarcely breathe; the formal clothes – the clothes of mourning for his father – felt like a cage from which he must escape, or else suffocate. ‘Where is the sense of family, in a man who gets himself a bastard and then leaves him a pair of pistols to live on? No wonder Miles is ready to show me the door. He can hardly endure to breathe the same air. A post-Captain with a bastard brother! It might cost him the Queen’s commission!’

  He turned away, unable to say more, unable to remain in the room where he had heard the news. His face was drawn, and his heart pounding enough to shake the broad shoulders.

  ‘Forgive me,’ said Sebastian Wickham, humbly. ‘It has been a hard secret to bear.’

  ‘Well, it is a secret no longer.’ His anger boiled over at last, uncontrollably. ‘A kitchen maid, you say? Such refinement! Such rare taste for a baronet … I must take my leave Sebastian,’ he said, with cruel formality. ‘I must go to dress for dinner. Indeed, perhaps I should be cooking it.’

  3

  John Keston stood sentinel by the high-backed zinc hip bath, a brass pitcher of cold water in his hand, waiting forhis master to give the word. It was a service he hadperformed a thousand times before, just as he had performed countless other services for Richard Marriott, during the four years he had been his servant. He was asmall, compact young man, ruddy and strong as a countryman should be; he was habitually silent, almost taciturn, and when he spoke his West Country burr came slowly, as if each word were measured out.

  On the Grand Tour he had been invaluable, doing battle stubbornly for railway seats and ships’ cabins and clean bed linen and log fires, looking after baggage, warding off beggars, treating the strange and glittering life of Europe as if it were some quaint morality play in which he must act the part of Common Sense. Back home at Marriott, he served Richard alone, keeping his clothes, shining his boots, holding his horses, cleaning his guns; and, as now, waiting to douse him with cold water after his bath was complete – the bath for which he had already carried eight successive buckets of hot water up three flights of stairs.

  A faithful servant with a still tongue and a strong right arm, John Keston would never have questioned his place in life. He only questioned anyone, or anything, which seemed likely to disadvantage the man he served.

  Now he watched, as Richard completed the soaping and sponging of his muscular body. Keston was aware that the man in the bath was angry and preoccupied, and he knew, from servants’ gossip below stairs, why this was so. If there should come a moment when he could help, he would be ready.

  Richard rinsed away the soap, paused, and then growled over his shoulder: ‘Now!’

  He gasped and spluttered as the stream of ice cold water cascaded over his head and back. Then he shook himself, like a dog surprised by a sudden wave pounding up the seashore, and rose quickly to his feet. John Keston, dropping the pitcher, advanced with a huge rough-grained towel which had been warming by the bedroom fire, and wrapped it round him.

  Richard Marriott nodded his thanks, and stepped out on to the lead flooring which lined one half of the dressing-room. Rubbing his head with his free hand, he was aware that the head was not entirely clear; five full glasses of Madeira had gone some way towards dulling his wits. In the vile circumstances of the present moment, there was only one thing to be done about that.

  ‘Go and open the champagne,’ he commanded.

  John Keston, without a word, walked from the dressing-room to the bedroom, where the champagne stood in its moulded silver cooler by the fireside; while Richard, towelling himself to restore his blood after the cold shower, returned to his thoughts. If there were one night on which to get drunk, this was the night … He had been supremely angry when he had left Sebastian Wickham’s room – angry with the whole world, angry even with Wickham, who had been the bearer of fearful news. He could well understand why the tyrants of ancient times always put to death any messenger who brought evil tidings. Now his savage spirit was easier, but the anger remained, mixed with sorrow, mixed with shame. The stigma of bastardy, undreamed of, unimaginable, had touched him fatally; it was like some black bird of ill omen, sitting on his shoulders, announcing to all the world that the man below was impure.

  He was not so made as to feel that he would never hold up his head again; but certainly he could scarcely bear the thought of facing the polite world with this hideous secret ready to be betrayed by a chance word.

  The sharp pop! of a champagne cork sounded clearly from his bedroom, a messenger with tidings of another sort. That was the
answer, for tonight, and perhaps for many nights … He walked through, his slippered feet slurring on the thick carpet, to find John Keston stationed by the wine cooler, bottle in one hand, crystal stem glass in the other. Admirable man, faithful servant … He took the filled glass, and drank it off at a draught. Then he held it out.

  ‘Again,’ he said.

  Let brother Miles count the glasses, if he would. He himself, tonight, would count by the bottle.

  John Keston, holding out the freshly filled glass, said: ‘Sir, it is past seven o’clock.’

  Richard, sipping his champagne, nodded abstractedly; then he set the glass down on the dressing-table, and began to put on his clean linen. At Marriott, by custom, they dined late, at half past seven; in his present mood, he would have loitered, and made his appearance later still, if it had not meant keeping Lucinda Drysdale waiting. She was too dear to him, tonight and any other night, for such boorish ill-manners … He drew on his starched white shirt, while the firelight flickered on the ceiling, and drew golden spears of light from the bubbles within his glass. It was acomfortable room, much loved, much enjoyed as a repository for his private treasures; it had been his own since he was five years old, when the canopied four-poster had seemed bigger than the tallest ship, and the fire shadows round the walls had first frightened him and then lulled him to delicious sleep.

  Now it was lived-in, crowded, masculine. There was a long rack of guns, their polished stocks gleaming; fly rods standing in one corner; silver-backed brushes on the dressing-table; rows of boots, all with their ebony boot-trees; racing cups and goblets, dumb-bells and Indian clubs; sporting prints of grouse moor and steeplechase; and a great wardrobe of veneered walnut to hold his coats, and a Dutch press for his linen. Its view was to the south, across a rose garden, and down to one of the home farms; but the brocade curtains were already drawn against the autumn twilight, making of the room a warm enclosed haven. It was this that he had to leave.

  He said, suddenly: ‘I will wear the burgundy jacket.’

  John Keston, surprised, turned from the wardrobe. ‘Sir?’

  ‘The burgundy jacket.’

  Keston, thinking that he had become forgetful with the wine, ventured: ‘Sir, there are ladies dining.’

  ‘I know it.’ He took a fresh gulp of his champagne, and savoured its sharpness. It was his father’s funeral day, and there were ladies dining, and he would wear his red velvet smoking jacket, just to see Miles raise his prim eyebrows as soon as he noticed it. ‘I will wear it, none the less.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Keston put away the black tail coat, and drew out the dark red jacket in its place.

  Richard, standing before the mirror, knotted a white four-in-hand tie round his high stiff collar. Then, without turning round, he said: ‘I shall likely be going on my travels again, Keston.’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ said John Keston, unsurprised.

  ‘I shall want you with me, if you have a mind for it. But we shall be long away.’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ said Keaton again.

  ‘You do not want to stay at Marriott?’

  After a moment of silence, John Keston, struggling to find the right words for what was in his mind, said: ‘No, sir. We’ll do no good here, I reckon.’

  Now it was Richard who was surprised. ‘Why do you say that? What do you mean?’

  Keston came forward, holding the velvet coat, the sleeves spread. ‘It’s the talk downstairs, sir.’

  Richard looked closely at him, alert for the thing he feared. ‘What talk is that?’

  Keston’s broad smooth face was expressionless. ‘Just that there’s changes on the way.’

  ‘Changes?’

  ‘Aye, sir.’ He summed it up in a rough country proverb. ‘New dunghill, new cockerel to crow.’

  ‘What other talk is there?’

  ‘None that I know, sir.’

  There was no guile in his expression; he seemed to be speaking the truth. Richard drew on his coat, and Keston, standing behind him, smoothed and brushed it across the shoulders. Then there was a sound of wheels in the carriage sweep below, and horses’ hooves slowing to a halt.

  ‘That’s the ladies now, sir,’ said John Keston.

  ‘Pour me another glass.’

  Once more he finished it at a gulp; then he set the glass down, steadily enough, and shot his cuffs. The light gleamed on the heavy gold cuff links, which had been his father’s last birthday gift. He might be selling them to the Jews before the week was out … John Keston opened thedoor, and Richard walked out on to the landing, into the brighter light from the great chandelier which hung down two full flights into the hall. There were voices from below, and a girl’s gentle laugh which he recognized, and loved.

  He began to go down slowly, carefully, holding on to the curved mahogany banisters. There must be troubles ahead of him, great changes to be made and to be endured. But at least there was Lucinda.

  4

  Dinner, starting under perceptible constraint, had never improved; as course succeeded course, the conversation grew more stilted and the silences more pronounced, until even Mrs Merriman, the deaf aunt who was Lucinda Drysdale’s companion and chaperone, grew uneasy and ceased her durable smile. Miles Marriott had reacted to the burgundy jacket with foreseeable distaste, and was in a mood of icy politeness; he had not wanted to entertain tonight, in any case, and he felt that he had been doubly put upon. Lucinda herself seemed out of humour: she had frowned at Richard when he made his entrance, knowing him well enough to be sure that he had been drinking; and his conduct as the evening progressed did nothing to retrieve the unfortunate impression. Mrs Merriman, a hesitant woman entombed in her deafness, was not of such quality as to enliven the gathering.

  They sat round the long, mirror-polished Chippendale dining table; the candlelight glittered on the magnificent silver, the table ornaments, the delicately branched epergne which was the centrepiece, and then spread outwards to put its warm glow on their sombre faces. Behind them, in the darkness of the heavily-curtained room, Jeffreys, the butler, and the two footmen, in pale blue Marriott livery with mourning bands, moved silently to and fro, serving a dinner of uniform excellence. But it was clear that it would take more than beef broth, grilled trout, lamb cutlets, breast of pheasant, and crème caramel (as a compliment to the ladies) to make an enjoyable evening; more, even, than golden Chablis, red Bordeaux, and chilled champagne to lift their spirits above a dull formality. Tonight, the Marriott table, famous over three counties, the solace and delight (in its time) of kings, seemed to have met its match.

  Miles sat at the head, stiff and unbending in his blue mess dress with the bright crested buttons; he gave great attention to his food, and made the minimum of conversation with his guests. He ignored, completely, Richard, who sat, almost lounging, opposite him – eating negligently, drinking deep, and motioning from time to time, with crude insistence, to have his wineglass refilled. By now, his head was buzzing with more than anger, and he scarcely essayed to speak unless he were addressed. When he laughed, which was seldom, it had a savage sound, as if the butt of the joke were himself.

  Between them sat Mrs Merriman, thin and dried up, severely coiffed and corseted, pecking like a bird – but with a bird’s persistence and skill; and Lucinda Drysdale, who would have graced any gathering, however elegant or sparkling, and who positively illumined this one.

  She was a distant Marriott cousin, a glowing beauty, and a toast as famous in far-off London as she was here in the West Country; but when one had said that (thought Richard, looking at her through a pleasurable haze of wine), one must pause, and begin the catalogue again … Tonight she seemed to him entirely ravishing; under the auburn hair her full face was lovely, and her bosom, candidly revealed in the fashion of the day, rose in creamy opulence from the severe black gown which marked her mourning.

  She and Richard had been play-fellows from his boyhood days, then open-hearted companions; latterly there had been something stronger, a promise of love, well und
erstood between them, which he had hoped to bring to flower. She seemed to admire him, even when she admonished him for what she called his ‘masculine pursuits’; and he was very ready to love her … Both her parents were dead and she had little money; but it was a good match none the less, and he would not doubt his luck if she consented to marry him. The wildness, with which she sometimes taxed him, would disappear if he had such a wife … And they could continue to make fun of Miles – a shared joke which had persisted from the earliest nursery years.

  Part of his stray thought returned to him, casting a fringe of shadow on this happy prospect, and he frowned as he emptied his wineglass and motioned to a footman to refill it. She had little money … But now he himself had none at all. What would happen to his hopes, when she came to know this? What would happen, when she came to know the other news which had so shocked him today? Would she have to know it? Could it be hidden? He frowned again, and noticed suddenly that Lucinda was staring at him, her large brown eyes fixed intently on his face.

  Miles was speaking of local matters to Mrs Merriman, and his voice, perforce, was raised. Under cover of it, Lucinda remarked softly: ‘You are dull tonight, Richard.’

  He stirred himself, and sat up, and took a mouthful of the pheasant. It tasted dry on his tongue, and he washed it down with half a glass of wine.

  ‘Yes, I am dull,’ he agreed. ‘But you are very beautiful, Lucinda. And very accomplished. You can be entertaining enough for both of us.’

  Now it was her turn to frown. She had never liked a public display of their affection, even within the family circle, and this was certainly not the moment nor the mode which she would have chosen.

  ‘The wine speaks for you,’ she said briefly. ‘I see you have forgotten your promises of last week.’

  ‘No promise could survive a day like today,’ he countered. ‘I have had a glass or two, I admit. In the circumstances, it was necessary.’

  ‘It is always necessary.’ But she could never be angry with him for long, and swiftly her glance melted to its accustomed softness. ‘I know how sad a day this has been for you, Richard. I did not mean to read you a lecture.’