Mr. American

by George MacDonald Fraser

  'I'm losing weight . . . I think. Here, any more of that champagne left? Oh, good, I need it, I can tell you! Talk about the Wild Bunch - you're a bit wild yourself, aren't you, though? Hey - you're not getting dressed! The idea!'

  In fact, it was after two o'clock in the morning before Pip sighed regretfully that she supposed they had better call it a night, because Renzo would be wanting to get to bed, and a relieved but contented Mr Franklin agreed. He was, to tell the truth, rather shaken, and not a little puzzled by the events of the evening, as appeared when they were preparing to leave the supper-room, and Pip was making final, invisible adjustments to a coiffure which had miraculously remained undisturbed through all the hectic activity in the alcove. Mr Franklin in the background, was contemplating his hat and gloves thoughtfully; Pip observed him in her hand-mirror.

  'Don't reach for your note-case, or I might get offended,' she said and as his head came up she turned, smiling, and shook her head at him. 'You were going to, weren't you?'

  Mr Franklin cleared his throat. 'I wasn't certain.'

  'You don't give money to actresses,' said Pip, gravely, and kissed him on the nose, giggling at his perplexity. 'Don't you understand, darling? - I do it 'cos I like doing it. With the right one. Girls enjoy it, too, you know, spite of what you hear. You didn't stand a chance, from the minute I saw you outside the stage door, you poor silly! No, you're not, either - you're a nice American, and it's been a beautiful evening, and I just wish it could have gone on and on.'

  'So do I,' said Mr Franklin. 'Perhaps another -'

  'Careful,' said Pip. 'It might get to be a habit.' She frowned, and dropped her voice: 'You don't have to, you know,' and they both laughed. Then she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him again, stretching up on tip-toe before subsiding breathlessly. 'That's enough of that - Renzo's got to get to bed sometime.'

  They went down to the street through the restaurant, where the lights had been turned down, and Pip called 'Night, Renzo' to the darkened dining-room. Mr Franklin hailed a growler, and they clopped slowly down to Chelsea, where Pip had a room. 'Next rise I get, it'll be Belgravia, and chance it,' she confided. 'Mind you, many more dinners like tonight, and I'll get so tubby I'll be bloody lucky if I can afford Poplar.'

  Mr Franklin thought for a moment, and asked: 'Aren't there lots of dinners like tonight's?' She turned to look at him in the dimness of the cab, and he heard her chuckle.

  'Lots of dinners,' she said. 'All the time. But not many like tonight. So you needn't be jealous.'

  He handed her out on the corner. 'I don't know how to thank you,' he was beginning. 'I mean, I wish I could express my appreciation. ..'

  'Oh, you know,' she shrugged. 'Diamond bracelet to the stage door - couple of emerald earrings. Any little trinket your lordship happens to have lying around spare.' She giggled again and pecked his cheek. 'Don't be so soft. 'Tell you what - pay your money at the box-office some night and watch my solo. Then you'll have done your bit.' Her gloved hand touched his cheek. "Night, Mr American.'

  Her heels clicked on the pavement, the white figure faded into the gloom, humming happily:

  Boiled beef an' carrots,

  Boiled beef an' carrots!

  That's the stuff for your derby kell ...

  Mr Franklin sighed, climbed into the growler, and was driven back to the Waldorf.

  5

  He left London on the following morning. A four-wheeler was engaged to remove from the hotel the two handsome Eureka trunks containing the clothing purchased the previous day, as well as the battered old case with which Mr Franklin had arrived, and his valise; these were despatched to St Pancras, while the gentleman himself took a cab by way of Bond Street.

  Here, at the exclusive jewellers which he had patronised the previous day, Mr Franklin stated his requirements; the manager, who had seen him coming, smoothly set aside the assistant dealing with him - he personally would see to it that nothing too inexpensive was laid before a customer who paid cash for pearl and platinum watch-chains.

  'A bracelet, perhaps, sir. For the wrist?'

  'I had thought a necklace,' ventured Mr Franklin. 'For the .. . chest. That is - the neck, of course.'

  'Of course, sir. Diamond, emerald ruby perhaps. May I ask, sir, if the recipient is dark or fair?'

  'Oh, fair. Very fair - quite blonde.

  'The sapphires, perhaps. It is a matter of personal taste. Diamonds, of course - ' the manager smiled ' - complexion is immaterial.'

  'How about pearls? You know, a strand - a substantial strand. These collars one sees ...'

  The manager was too well-trained ever to lick his lips, but his smile became a positive beam.

  'The perfect compromise, sir. Pearls - with a diamond cluster and clasp.' He snapped his fingers, and presently Mr Franklin found himself blinking at a triple collar of magnificent pearls, gripped in their centre with a heart-shaped design of twinkling stones; he visualised it round Pip's neck, beneath the beautiful dimpled chin, imagining her squeals of delight when she tried it on.

  'That'll do,' he said without hesitation, 'I'll take it,' and two fashionable ladies examining rings at a nearby counter paused in stricken silence at the sight of the lean, brown-faced man weighing the brilliant trinket before dropping it on its velvet cushion. Speculative whispers were exchanged, a lorgnette was raised, and Mr Franklin was carefully examined, while he produced his cigarette case, selected a cigarette, remembered where he was, and returned it to its place. The manager made amiably deprecating noises, and asked:

  'I trust the case gives satisfaction, sir?'

  'What - oh, yes.' Mr Franklin restored it to his pocket. 'Haven't lost a cigarette yet.'

  In this atmosphere of good will the pearl necklace was bestowed in its velvet case, wrapped, and tied, and the manager inquired if the account should be forwarded to Mr Franklin's address; the attentive ladies, busily examining their rings again, were disappointed when he replied: 'No, I'll pay now.'

  The manager bowed, a slip of paper was presented, and Mr Franklin gripped the counter firmly and coughed, once. He should, he realised, have inquired about prices first - but his hesitation was only momentary. He could not recall an evening in his life that he had enjoyed so much, or any single human being whom he had liked so well; he had only to think of Pip's fresh young face smiling at him across the table to find himself smiling, too, and producing his note-case. It occurred to him, too, that visible signs of affluence probably assisted a stage career - and if that career faltered, well, expensive jewellery was realisable.

  His note-case required reinforcement from his money-belt - a sight which slightly embarrassed even the manager, and brought the lorgnette into play again. 'Ah,' murmured one lady, 'Australian, undoubtedly,' and on being asked by her companion how she knew, replied: 'His accent, of course.' They watched intently while Mr Franklin, having paid, wrote out a plain card; he simply addressed it: 'Miss Priscilla Delys, Folies Satire', without enclosure, and asked the manager to see it delivered to the appropriate theatre - no, he told that astonished gentleman, he didn't know which one it was.

  None of which escaped the ladies, who concluded that Mr Franklin was either an unusually forgetful individual intent on marriage, or a foreign maniac - probably both; as he swung out of the shop their eyes followed him with some wonder and genteel regret.

  He caught the eleven o'clock train to Ely via Cambridge with barely a minute to spare, and spent two and a half hours alternately glancing at the paper and out of the carriage windows at the passing fenland; it was not a cheering prospect, but by the time Ely was reached, and he had changed to the Norwich line, Mr Franklin was in, for him, a positively animated state - from sitting quietly enough, he now leaned forward, hands on knees, to stare out of the window; he shifted position at least three times during the many local halts, and by the time Lakenheath was reached he was actually drumming his fingers on the arm-rest. Beyond Brandon he let down the window; by Thetford he was leaning out the better to see ahead,
and at the next stop, where he alighted, he positively hurried along the platform and in his excitement bestowed a shilling instead of the usual threepence on the porter who unloaded his baggage.

  But if Mr Franklin was now disposed to haste, he soon discovered that Norfolk was not. The station was a tiny one, and it took half an hour to summon an ancient gig, driven by an urchin of perhaps nine years, and drawn by a horse possibly twice as old. Mr Franklin gave the lad his destination, and resigned himself to patience as they creaked off at a slow walk.

  Fortunately it was a glorious autumn afternoon, and their way ran through broad meadows and occasional woodland, the brown and yellow tints mellow in the sunlight. Mr Franklin drank it in with a silent eagerness, as though he would have imprinted every leaf and hedge and thicket on his mind; if he did not display visible impatience, he was certainly breathing rather more quickly than usual, and at each bend in the road he would gaze eagerly ahead. At last, after two hours, they topped a gentle rise, and beyond it a village nestled among woods in the hazy afternoon; a scatter of cottages round a little triangular green; a dusty street winding in front of a small inn; a pond, mud-fringed, a pump and a horse-trough; on the farther side, a lych-gate and the square tower of a Norman church rising among elms and yews.

  'Cassel Lancin',' said the urchin stolidly, and Mr Franklin took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  'Castle Lancing,' he repeated. 'Well, now.' He smiled and shook his head. 'Think of that. All right, Jehu, let's go.'

  They creaked up the main street, past the mean cottages where one or two poorly-dressed women stared at them from the low doorways, and a few children played in the dust of the unpaved street; there seemed to be no one else about, except for a working-man on a bench outside the Apple Tree, who favoured them with a blank stare. Across the green was a small shop with bottle-glass windows and the name 'A. Laker ' above the door; a dog lay drowsing in the threshold.

  They halted outside the inn, and Mr Franklin asked if the man could direct him to Lancing Manor. The man stared in silence for a moment, and then, in a broad drawl which Mr Franklin found surprisingly easy to understand, said:

  "Arf a mile down the road.' His eyes roved over Mr Franklin and the bags in the gig, and he added: 'Ain't nobody 'ome.'

  Mr Franklin thanked him, and they drove on, through the village and along a winding way between high hedges, until they came to a pair of lichened stone gate-posts under the trees, and two large rusty gates chained and padlocked. Mr Franklin got down, took a bunch of keys from his pocket, and after some exertion, unlocked the gates and pushed them open. The narrow drive was high with weeds and rank grass, so he ordered the boy to help him down with his baggage in the gateway; he would not need the gig any longer, he said, and presented the urchin with half a crown.

  The boy considered the coin, and then looked at Mr Franklin, standing beside the trunks and valise, and at the tree-shaded pathway. He addressed his passenger for the second time in two hours.

  'Ain't nobody 'ome,' he said, echoing the labourer, and Mr Franklin smiled.

  'There is now,' he said, and with a nod to the staring boy, walked up the drive. He was aware that his heart was beating as he pushed his feet through the rustling grass, and that he was walking unduly quickly; then he rounded a bend under the trees, and stopped suddenly as a house came into view. For a full minute he stood looking at it. Then: 'I must have been out of my mind,' he said aloud. Then he took off his hat and looked around him. Finally he said: 'No, I wasn't, either,' and walked towards the house.

  Mr Franklin had no romantic notions of what a manor ought to look like, so where another might have expected mullioned windows, crenellations, and half-timbering, he accepted without a second thought the solid, unpretentious Georgian structure which could hardly have been over a hundred and fifty years old. It was, in fact, rather a fine house, built on an Elizabethan site, its shuttered windows precisely spaced on either side of a massive, pillared porch. The broad gravel sweep before it was sadly overgrown, and the lawn to his right was a tangle of rank grass and fox-gloves, but even he could see that the structure was sound and the roof good, and the beeches and chestnuts which surrounded it on three sides were nothing short of magnificent. 'Beautifully matured grounds of nearly two acres', the estate agent had said; sure enough, thought Mr Franklin, -it's mature.

  There was a little fountain in the middle of the gravel sweep, lichened and full of leaves, and two heavy stone seats, one on either side of the porch. Mr Franklin paused with his back to the front door, surveying the tangle of sweep, lawn and drive and the trees which screened him from the road; the air was full of the still hum of the late autumn afternoon, broken only by the occasional murmur of pigeons behind the house. His hand was shaking as he fumbled the key into the big lock.

  Inside it was cool and dim, and slightly chill from a year's emptiness. The hall was surprisingly spacious, with a stairway curving gracefully upwards, and doors opening on either side into the main reception rooms. 'A delightful Georgian residence, charming woodland situation, three reception, four bed, bathroom with patent water-heater, panelled hall and lounge, expensively fitted, every convenience, kitchen garden. . . .' Well, here it was, and the agent had been as good as his word; it was an admirable house and would plainly have been snapped up long ago if it had been more convenient for the outside world. But the agent understood that Mr Franklin was not concerned with that; quite the contrary, in fact.

  The American made his way from room to room, taking his time. It was larger than he had expected, for the agent had made nothing of the servants' quarters, which consisted of two small rooms at the back, off the low, flagged kitchen. There was running water - cut off for the moment - but no electricity, of course, and no gas. Behind the house was the promised kitchen garden, and a small orchard, heavy with the famous Norfolk apples. Mr Franklin picked a couple and ate them as he surveyed the small coach house and stabling for two horses. All was overgrown, but not seriously; the timber stood at a good distance from the house itself, and all was enclosed by a stout ivy-covered wall.

  Mr Franklin returned inside, having hauled his baggage up from the front gate, and stood in the hall, finishing his second apple, glancing round in the satisfaction of possession. It was strange, unreal almost, but it filled him with a quiet content; he took off his hat and was about to hang it on the newel post when he stopped himself, smiling, and laid it instead on the settle which stood to one side of the empty fireplace. When in England, he thought ... and I am in England, in Castle Lancing and the County of Norfolk, and it's been a long, long haul. Three hundred years, give or take a little, and who'd ever have thought it? Long way from Tonopah, but a sight easier to come back from than it must have been to get to.

  Mr Franklin ranged his baggage beside the settle, picked up his hat again, and left the house.

  By that time, of course, every soul in the village of Castle Lancing, pop. 167, knew that there was a new occupant at the manor. The carrier's boy, refreshing himself at the Apple Tree from Mr Franklin's

  half-crown, had spread the word of the arrival, and opined that he was a big-game hunter and definitely not from Norfolk - Lincoln, maybe.

  He was silent, and rich, from the cut of his duds, but by the look of his bags he'd come a powerful long way. This was sensation, and by the time Mr Franklin, in his eccentrically broad-brimmed hat and dark suit, had reached the village green, Castle Lancing was fairly agog. Curious eyes watched from the doorways, children were hushed, the labourers on the bench outside the Apple Tree suspended their pints and observed in silence the rangy figure swinging up the dusty street, and the landlord cuffed the carrier's boy and remarked derisively: - 'He's never from bloody Lincolnshire. He's furrin.'

  Mr Franklin was observed to go into the village shop, and five minutes later the news was winging that he had bought a loaf, two tins of corned beef, butter, coffee, a tin of pears, half a dozen boxes of matches, and a tin of paraffin, which he had asked to have left at th
e manor's back door. The proprietress, Mrs Laker, had been quite overcome, not least by the fact that the newcomer had made his purchases with a sovereign, dismissing the change and politely asking her to credit it to his account. The prospect of trade thus opened up caused her to sit down, panting, and observing to Mrs Wood, from the dairy, that she'd never been so took aback in her life, and if Mrs Wood was wise, she'd see there was a pint of milk at the manor's door, too.

  Meanwhile, the Apple Tree had been stricken to silence by Mr Franklin's arrival and request for a glass of beer. Surprised grunts had greeted his `good evening' as he passed the labourers' bench, and as he stood in the little tap-room, sipping his drink and surveying the collection of horse-brasses behind the bar, the landlord, Mr Herbert, polished glasses with unusual energy, chivvied away those of his offspring who were peering at the prodigy from the back parlour, and maintained a painful silence. Gradually, with heavy nonchalance, the occupants of the bench drifted within and sat down, and after a decent interval began to converse quietly among themselves. Mr Franklin ordered a second glass of beer, and conversation died. He drank it, slowly, but otherwise quite normally, and the muted talk began again, until he turned round, smiled amiably at the small gathering, and asked if anyone would care for a drink.

  At this, one startled drinker dropped his tankard, another sent his pint down the wrong way and had to be slapped on the back, and there was some confusion until an ancient, beady-eyed in a corner, licked his lips and told the ceiling that he didn't mind if he had a pint of bitter. This was provided, the ancient bobbed his head over the foam, grinned a gap-toothed grin, said 'Good 'ealth,' and drank audibly. The others stirred, wondering if they too should accept the stranger's bounty, and then Mr Franklin observed, to the room at large: