Hanging Matter

by David Donachie

  He lifted his head from the horse’s neck for a fraction, to look around. Harry and James were doing the same, taking in the familiar sights. Few were at work in the fields at this time of day, especially in October, though the orchards were still busy. The starlings bustled in the hedgerows, occasionally wheeling aloft in their hundreds, filling the air with whistling. The sky was now a frozen blue, beginning to fade to grey in the east. The smell was winter, with the cold sharp air mingling with a hint of smoke. Every chimney, from the merest hovel to the tall pipes above nearby Betshanger House, had slow black plumes rising. They heard the sound of guns going off, as someone hunted in the woods over towards Eastry Court, once a king’s palace, as the owners were forever reminding them. The land continued to rise and fall as they traversed the shallow valleys, slightly higher each time as the chalk downland rose gently from the shoreline. Soon Harry and James rode on to their own land, and though husbandry was not Harry’s long suit he cast a curious eye over the fields, keen to observe any improvements, to demonstrate to his brother-in-law that he still took an interest.

  The great windmill, larger than the others that dotted the landscape, stood stark against the top of the hill, the first sight of something close to home. They skirted the woods to come on the house from the front, which faced the dying sun, their first sight the six red-brick chimneys of Cheyne Court above the surrounding trees. As the light began to fade they rode up the grassy avenue towards the huge iron gates.

  They’d already been identified. Anne would have had someone keeping a sharp eye out at the top of the house. The grass turned to gravel as they rode through the entrance, skirting the round section of lawn with its familiar statue. The sunset turned the beautifully proportioned red-brick house a blood colour, while the glass in the huge sash windows reflected the sunset behind them. The servants stood all in a line on the steps between the two gleaming brass cannon, ready to welcome their master home. Even Wentworth ceased his relentless jabbering, and had the good grace to drop his horse to the rear, so that the owner of the house could be the first to dismount.

  Harry searched for his sister, but she wasn’t there. He smiled as he remembered. Being a stickler for good manners, Arthur would have restrained her. Anne was a naturally ebullient creature who constantly fell below his high expectations. Harry had heard the argument many times, for Anne, in years gone by, would go to welcome anyone who called, even the lowliest new curate from another parish. Arthur, who’d visited Versailles as a young man, and took his etiquette from the rigidly polite French court, would remind her that ladies did not wait outside to greet anyone, even brothers. That was an honour that might only be granted to the likes of a royal duke. Ladies waited, properly seated, in the drawing-room to receive new arrivals.

  They dismounted, Harry and James reeling off the servants’ names, returning the greetings of those who had been in their service for years, while acknowledging the few unfamiliar faces. There was a diffidence with Harry which was lacking with James, for he’d grown up here while Harry had been away at sea and to most of the servants James was still the mischievous boy who’d driven them to distraction. Most present had scolded him at one time. Not one of them could envisage anyone ever scolding Harry Ludlow. He represented a different kettle of fish altogether, though he was popular for his kindly manner and obvious consideration. Tite, his toothless gums quite obvious, stepped forward.

  “This is Pender,” Harry said. “Please see he’s taken care of.”

  “It’s grand to have you back, sir,” said Tite. “The place isn’t the same without there be a sailor in the house.”

  “Well, there are three sailors now, Tite,” said James. “For Pender is one too.”

  James knew the old man well, even better than Harry. Tite had a strong sense of hierarchy, a hang-over from his navy days, plus a sharp tongue and a bad temper, which sometimes made for difficulties below stairs. Tagging Pender as a fellow sailor was the best way he could choose of easing the new arrival into that society where neither he nor his brother, regardless of how acrimonious a dispute became, dared set foot. Tite looked at Wentworth, still mounted, his face curious.

  James waved an elegant hand, placing his fingers on the chest of his buttoned-up greatcoat. “You seek the third sailor, Tite. Look no further, for Harry has turned me, too, into a proper tar.”

  The old man showed his bare gums again in a broad smile. “That wouldn’t be, even if the good God willed it, Master James.”

  James leant forward and spoke softly, his mouth close to the old man’s hairy ear. “Allow me the delusion, Tite, for I intend to treat my brother-in-law to some salty language.”

  Tite pulled a face. He suspected, quite rightly, that absent any other authority, like the proper master of the house, Lady Drumdryan’s husband was always trying to replace him. That Arthur had good grounds for his desire never occurred to the old man.

  “Well, if you’s stuck for a word, your honour, you come and see me. My memory can still rake up the odd blaspheme.”

  “Tite, please attend to our guest as well: Mr Wentworth,” said Harry, interrupting this intimacy. Right then all knew how much their master cared for this “guest,” for he’d seen to Pender, clearly a servant, well before him.

  Tite fixed him with an unfriendly eye. “Your baggage will be along presently, I take it.”

  “You see me as I stand,” said Wentworth, slightly surprised to be addressed so on the doorstep. “Just like your master, I lost all my possessions at sea.”

  Tite’s old and rheumy eyes swung round on to Harry enquiringly, but he just indicated Pender. “You can have it from this source, Tite. I must wait upon my sister.”

  “You need some hot grog, mate, on a raw night like this.”

  Harry smiled, for in reverting to that way of talking Tite had demonstrated that Pender was in good hands. And no wonder. He thought him another sailor, and one with a tale to relate. James knew better, but said nothing. The old man shooed away most of the servants, then turned to point to the two brass cannon, with their neat piles of black shot, which sat one on either side of the entrance. They were Tite’s pride and joy, a relic from the admiral’s last command. He polished them with loving care, and fired them on the king’s birthday.

  “I wanted to fire the guns, your honour, to welcome you home, like. Her Ladyship was game enough, but he would have none of it.”

  “Save them for royalty, Tite,” said Harry. “I don’t merit a salute.”

  The old man bent down and rubbed the crest on one of the barrels, but his watery eyes stayed on his master. “They don’t get enough use. They need to fire a ball from time to time, else how will we know they’re true?”

  “If you plan to fire a ball, Tite,” said James wickedly, “I should spin them round and aim them into the hallway.”

  Cheyne’s familiar smell filled Harry’s nostrils. Old polished wood gleamed on the walls and floors. The welcoming fire blazed in the great open grate in the hallway. The last of the light was going and by the lanterns illuminating either side of the door he looked up at his father’s dominating portrait. The admiral was in full dress, resplendent in a mass of gold lace and sparkling decorations, with the red sash of the Order of the Bath across his snow-white waistcoat. James had painted it while still quite young. Harry could never look at it without wondering what his father had said when it was unveiled, for James had put a hundred-gun ship, under full sail, with a vice-admiral’s pennant atop the mainmast. That flag, the insignia of his father’s command, and the other flags, streamed backwards from the masts. The admiral would have spotted that error as quickly as Harry, for they should, of course, have been streaming towards the bows. Had he said anything?

  Harry never had. It seemed churlish, for James had caught his father well. His brother was a devotee of Allan Ramsey, who seemed to escape his general condemnation of things Scottish. He agreed with Ramsey that a portrait painter had a duty to see beyond the mere face, a duty to look for an express
ion that would give some clue to the soul of his sitter. Admiral Ludlow, in James’s picture, had a stern eye, with a hint of eager avarice. Yet there was warmth there, plus a feeling of pride easily dented. It was very much the man his eldest son remembered. The flag hurt, for Harry knew that he would never follow in his father’s footsteps, never hoist his own pennant above a king’s ship.

  Tite, with that liberality that only an old retainer can muster, fussed round them, brushing cloth and adjusting coats, until finally, with a sharp and approving nod, he pronounced them fit to be seen in decent company. As he took Pender below stairs, the brothers, tailed by Wentworth, made their way into the drawing-room.

  The scene before them seemed staged, with Arthur, bewigged, his pallid, fine-boned complexion rigidly composed, dressed in an outfit of pale cream silk. He stood, in an elegant pose, by the flickering fire, one hand resting on the mantel. Their sister sat on a chaise-longue, her dress carefully arranged to billow around her feet. But the picture dissolved immediately. Harry barely had time to register that Anne had gained some weight before she was out of her chair in a flash, hugging them both and dancing round in delight, unconcerned by her husband’s stern look of disapproval.

  “Arthur,” said Harry, finally detaching himself.

  Lord Drumdryan took his hand off the mantel, and placing it gently on his chest gave a small bow, leg forward in the prescribed Versailles manner. His linen handkerchief swung elegantly over the front of his coat. For a moment Harry was left staring at the powdered wig on the top of his head. Then he raised himself again, to reveal the very slightest of smiles, which smacked of good manners rather than pleasure. A touch of red peeped through the powder on his face. Harry didn’t doubt he was pleased to see him, for within the bounds of Arthur’s reserve they esteemed each other. But displays of emotion were, in Lord Drumdryan’s French-trained mind, bad manners. Yet, for all that, there was hint in his look of a rigidity that was greater than normal.

  “It is truly good to have you safely home, Harry.”

  The smile disappeared to be replaced by a frown, for James had swung Anne into the air, sending her skirts flying. She caught his eye in her travels and quickly stopped her brother, comporting herself properly with a blush. The frown stayed on his face as he bowed again, and the single word “James” had little warmth.

  “I am glad to see you looking so hearty, Arthur,” said James languidly. “Quite your old self. Or is that colour in your cheeks brought about by proximity to the fire?”

  “Allow me to name Mr Wentworth,” said Harry quickly, not wanting James and Arthur to bait one another quite so quickly. “He was a passenger with us, and suffered the same distress.”

  “Ah,” said Arthur, addressing Wentworth, who rated no more than a polite nod. “My brother-in-law alluded to the circumstances of your ordeal in his note. I will not press for further details, sir, it is too early to do so. But we are much of a size. If I can be of any assistance in the article of clothing, I am at your service.”

  He looked around the room, his green eyes, under pale ginger lashes, taking them all in. Tall bespectacled Wentworth, young and gauche, slightly awed by the surroundings and his courtly, old-world demeanour. Harry, who in his mud-spattered breeches looked more out of place than usual in a drawing-room. James, equally stained, but somehow without effect on his natural grace. Then Anne, plump, happy, and rosy cheeked, her arm clutched round the waist of her brother in the most unsuitable way.

  “I had expected you sooner, Harry,” said Arthur, “thank God your note arrived in time for me to cancel a previous engagement.”

  He turned to pull the bell. “You are late for dinner, of course, but we held it.”

  Harry, who had every right to order dinner in his own house whenever he chose, had to stop himself from apologizing. James, at whom this propriatorial display had been aimed, bit his tongue as Anne’s fingers dug into his waist. The door opened and one of the footmen entered carrying a tray with glasses and two bottles of iced champagne. Harry turned to look at his brother-in-law, for this seemed excessive just to celebrate his homecoming.

  “You will oblige me, James, if you allow my wife’s feet to remain firmly on the floor.”

  “That is not a matter on which I will accept instruction,” replied James coldly.

  Arthur’s green eyes danced slightly. He smiled at him wolfishly, as though James had stumbled into some trap. “Odd, James. For all your skill with the brush, you cannot observe the very obvious fact that Lady Drumdryan is with child. I think that calls for a glass of champagne, don’t you?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE ANNOUNCEMENT had failed to lift the occasion, the euphoria and congratulations that had greeted Arthur’s news evaporating by the time they’d finished their soup, and the feeling made Harry uncomfortable. A lack of true gaiety was not unusual with Arthur at the head of the table; he had the French habit of discussing each culinary course set before him in reverential detail. Yet Harry had the impression that he was overdoing even that on this occasion. Left in sole charge of Cheyne, Arthur had undertaken the task of training the cook in the art of French cuisine and the success of his regime was put before them, course after course. Yet his observations lacked that leavening of wit that generally rendered them entertaining instead of tedious. And it wasn’t the presence of an unexpected guest that made Arthur seem a little sour. If anything, Wentworth at the dinner table was a godsend, for his incessant chatter partially restrained James and Arthur, and Arthur’s rigid manners would not let him show, even by the flick of an eyebrow, that he was bored. He listened, with a bland expression on his face, to all the details of the latest processes for the cheap manufacture of any number of goods; the prospects of startling inventions emanating from the Soho works of Boulton and Watt; plus a lengthy paean to the benefits of turnpike roads and navigation canals, while Harry, Anne, and James exchanged family reminiscences at the other end of the table.

  But Wentworth and his technical peregrinations could not quite keep the combatants apart. Harry had a fleeting feeling of déjà vu as James and Arthur fell to discussing events current and historical. Arthur, the third son of an impecunious Scottish nobleman, saw himself as something of a grand seigneur, and his political beliefs matched this conception. James was a radical, imbued with the notions of the class of people with whom he had habitually moved, a point of view which he termed “the spirit of the age.”

  “I cannot pretend a lack of amazement,” said Arthur, his voice betraying the slight burr of his Scottish origins. “That I should come to agree with Edmund Burke on any matter is startling. But all his predictions about the course of the French turmoil have most regrettably been borne out.”

  “Perhaps one day you’ll even agree with Fox,” said James.

  “Never,” snapped Arthur, who hated the leader of the opposition with a passion. “The man does nothing but lick the Prince of Wales’s boots. Mr Fox has been mighty silent, skulking in St Ann’s House, since those murdering villians chopped off the queen’s head.”

  James paused. Any right-thinking man could not consider that act as anything other than outright barbarism. “I would not disagree that things in France have taken a turn for the worse—”

  Arthur interrupted, his thin ginger eyebrows knotted together. “That is a fine way to put it, James. They murder their princes and you name it a turn for the worse!”

  James allowed himself a smile. “I don’t think that we in England are fit to lecture anyone on the removal of kings. And I believe the Scottish habit is to send them south so that others may sully their hands at the block. That is, if they don’t knife them first. Good will come of the Revolution in time, just as it did when our forebears took the head of the first Charles. You should be well content, Arthur, unless you still hanker after Stuart absolutism. I, for one, welcome a constitutional settlement in which the king is subject to the will of the people.”

  Harry felt as if he’d never been away. It was Tory Arthur versus Whi
ggish James. His sister saw the way things were headed and tried to lighten the atmosphere with an anecdote. “I believe Mr Burke, on receiving the news of the poor queen’s murder, took a knife into the chamber of the House of Commons, and in a dramatic flourish, in the middle of his speech about the Jacobin terror, threw it into the floor by the point.”

  She paused, her face assuming that look which presaged a witticism. “Mr Sheridan quite ruined the effect by enquiring if he’d fetched along a fork.”

  “I dare say he was drunk, as he usually is,” said Arthur, sourly, deliberately spoiling his wife’s efforts.

  James Ludlow cut in quickly, leaning forward to make his point. “I should have a care as regards to such accusations, Arthur. Pitt is no stranger to the bottle. And he is not aided by placing so much faith in a Scottish sot like Dundas.”

  Harry’s attempt to say something to avert a clash was too slow. James knew that Arthur was much attached to his fellow Scot, Henry Dundas. Billy Pitt’s right-hand man had all the reins of government in his hand and was master of a great deal of profitable patronage. Arthur added expediency to his natural desire to support a fellow-countryman. Indeed the two rotten-borough seats the Ludlow estate controlled, managed by Arthur, had been pledged to support Dundas in the House of Commons. The Ludlows’ support of the Ministry meant they expected any request they tendered to receive a positive response. This had borne fruit already. Harry had put to sea eighteen months before, sailing as a privateer in a fast schooner called the Medusa; Dundas had expedited the granting of his letters of marque, as well as providing his crew with exemptions so that they could not be pressed into the navy.