A Quiver Full of Arrows (16 page)

As he picked up his briefcase it knocked the
armrest in front of him and the lid sprang open. Everyone in the carriage
stared at its contents.

For there, on top of his Prudential
documents, was a neatly folded copy of the EKning Standard and an unopened
packet of ten Benson & Hedges cigarettes.

W
hen the Grand Pasha’s first son was born in
1900 (he had sired twelve daughters by six wives) he named the boy Henry after
his favourite king of England. Henry entered this world with more money than
even the most blase tax collector could imagine and therefore seemed destined
to live a life of idle ease.

The Grand Pasha who ruled over ten thousand
families, was of the opinion that in time there would be only five kings left
in the world – the kings of spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs, and England. With
this conviction in mind, he decided that Henry should be educated by the
British. The boy was therefore despatched from his native Cairo at the age of
eight to embark upon a formal education, young enough to retain only vague
recollections of the noise, the heat, and the dirt of his birthplace. Henry
started his new life at the Dragon School, which the Grand Pasha’s advisers
assured him was the finest preparatory school in the land. The boy left this
establishment four years later, having developed a passionate love for the polo
field and a thorough distaste for the classroom.

He proceeded, with the minimum academic
qualifications, to Eton, which the Pasha’s advisers assured him was the best
school in Europe. He was gratified to learn the school had been founded by his
favourite king. Henry spent five years at Eton, where he added squash, golf and
tennis to his loves, and applied mathematics, jazz and cross-country running to
his dislikes.

On leaving school, he once again failed to
make more than a passing impression on the examiners.

Nevertheless. he was found a place at
Balliol College, Oxford, which the Pasha’s advisers assured him was the greatest
University in the world. Three years at Balliol added two more loves to his
life horses and women, and three more ineradicable aversions: politics,
philosophy and economics.

At the end of his time in state pupillari,
he totally failed to impress the examiners and went down without a degree. His
father, who considered young Henry’s two goals against Cambridge in the Varsity
polo match a wholly satisfactory result of his University career, despatched
the boy on a journey round the world to complete his education. Henry enjoyed
the experience, learning more on the race course at Longchamps and in the back
streets of Benghazi than he ever had acquired from his formal upbringing in
England.

The Grand Pasha would have been proud of the
tall, sophisticated and handsome young man who returned to England a year later
showing only the slightest trace of a foreign accent, if he hadn’t died before
his beloved son reached Southampton. Henry, although broken-hearted, was
certainly not broke, as his father had left him some twenty million in known
assets, including a racing stud at Suffolk, a 100-foot yacht in Nice, and a
palace in Cairo. But by far the most important of his father’s bequests was the
finest manservant in London, one God Erey Barker. Barker could arrange or
rearrange anything, at a moment’s notice.

Henry, for the lack of something better to
do, settled himself into his father’s old suite at the Ritz, not troubling to
read the situations vacant column in the London Tinzes. Rather he embarked on a
life of single-minded dedication to the pursuit of pleasure, the only career
for which Eton, Oxford and inherited wealth had adequately equipped him. To do
Henry justice, he had, despite a more than generous helping of charm and good
looks, enough common sense to choose carefully those permitted to spend the
unforgiving minute with him. He selected only old friends from school and
University who, although they were without exception not as well breached as
he, weren’t the sort of fellows who came begging for the loan of a liver to
cover a gambling debt. Whenever Henry was asked what was the first love of his
life, he was always hard pressed to choose between horses and women, and as he
found it possible to spend the day with the one and the night with the other
without causing any jealousy or recrimination, he never overtaxed himself with
resolving the problem. Most of his horses were fine stallions, fast, sleek,
velvet-skinned, with dark eyes and firm limbs; this would have adequately
described most of his women, except that they were fillies. Henry fell in and
out of love with every girl in the chorus line of the London Palladium, and
when the affairs had come to an end, Barker saw to it that they always received
some suitable memento to ensure no scandal ensued. Henry also won every classic
race on the English turf before he was thirty-five and Barker always seemed to
know the right year to back his master.

Henry’s life quickly fell into a routine,
never dull. One month was spent in Cairo going through the motions of attending
to his business, three months in the south of France with the occasional
excursion to Biarritz, and for the remaining eight months he resided at the
Ritz. For the four months he was out of London his magnificent suite
overlooking St. James’s Park remained unoccupied. History does not record
whether Henry left the rooms empty because he disliked the thought of unknown
persons splashing in the sunken marble bath or because he simply couldn’t be
bothered with the fuss of signing in and out of the hotel twice a year. The
Ritz management never commented on the matter to his father; why should they
with the son? This programme fully accounted for Henry’s year except for the
odd trip to Paris when some home counties girl came a little too close to the altar.
Although almost every girl who met Henry wanted to marry him, a good many would
have done so even if he had been penniless.

However, Henry saw absolutely no reason to
be faithful to one woman. “I have a hundred horses and a hundred male friends,”
he would explain when asked.

“Why, should I confine myself to one female?”
There seemed no immediate answer to Henry’s logic.

The story of Henry would have ended there
had he continued life as destiny seemed content to allow, but even the Henrys
of this world have the occasional hiccup.

As the years passed Henry grew into the
habit of never planning ahead as experience – and his able manservant, Barker –
had always led him to believe that with vast wealth you could acquire anything
you desired at the last minute, and cover any contingencies that arose later.

However, even Barker couldn’t formulate a
contingency plan in response to Mr. Chamberlain’s statement of 3 September,
1939, that the British people were at war with Germany. Henry felt it
inconsiderate of Chamberlain to have declared war so soon after Wimbledon and
the Oaks, and even more inconsiderate of the Home Office to advise him a few
months later that Barker must stop serving the Grand Pasha and, until further
notice, serve His Majesty the King instead.

What could poor Henry do? Now in his
fortieth year he was not used to living anywhere other than the Ritz, and the
Germans who had caused Wimbledon to be cancelled were also occupying the George
V in Paris and the Negresco in Nice. As the weeks passed and daily an invasion
seemed more certain Henry came to the distasteful conclusion that he would have
to return to a neutral Cairo until the British had won the war. It never
crossed Henry’s mind, even for one moment, that the British might lose. After
all, they had won the First World War and therefore they must win the Second.
“History repeats itself” was about the only piece of wisdom he recalled clearly
from three years of tutorials at Oxford.

Henry summoned the manager of the Ritz and
told him that his suite was to be left unoccupied until he returned. He paid
one year in advance, which he felt was more than enough time to take care of
upstarts like Herr Hitler, and set off for Cairo.

The manager was heard to remark later that the
Grand Pasha’s departure for Egypt was most ironic; he was, after all, more
British than the British.

Henry spent a year at his palace in Cairo
and then found he could bear his fellow countrymen no longer, so he removed
himself to New York only just before it would have been possible for him to
come face to face with Rommel.

Once in New York, Henry bivouacked in the
Pierre Hotel on Fifth Avenue, selected an American manservant called Eugene,
and waited for Mr. Churchill to finish the war. As if to prove his continuing
support for the British, on the first of January every year he forwarded a
cheque to the Ritz to cover the cost of his rooms for the next twelve months.

Henry celebrated V-J Day in Times Square
with a million Americans and immediately made plans for his return to Britain.
He was surprised and disappointed when the British Embassy in Washington
informed him that it might be some time before he was allowed to return to the
land he loved, and despite continual pressure and all the influence he could
bring to bear, he was unable to board a ship for Southampton until July 1946.
From the first-class deck he waved goodbye to America and Eugene, and looked
forward to England and Barker.

Once he had stepped off the ship on to
English soil he headed straight for the Ritz to find his rooms exactly as he
had left them. As far as Henry could see, nothing had changed except that his manservant
(now the barman to a general) could not be released from the armed forces for
at least another six months.

Henry was determined to play his part in the
war effort by surviving without him for the ensuing period, and remembering
Barker’s words: “Everyone knows who you are. Nothing will change,” he felt
confi. dent all would be well. Indeed on the Bonheur-du-jour in his room at the
Ritz was an invitation to dine with Lord and Lady Lympsham in their Chelsea Square
home the follow. ing night. It looked as if Barker’s prediction was turning out
to be right: everything would be just the same. Henry penned an affirmative
reply to the invitation, happy with the thought that he was going to pick up his
life in England exactly where he had left off.

The following evening Henry arrived on the
Chelsea Square doorstep a few minutes after eight o’clock. The Lympshams, an
elderly couple who had not qualified for the war m any way, gave every
appearance of not even realising that it had taken place or that Henry had been
absent from the London social scene. Their table, despite rationing, was as
fine as Henry remembered and, more important one of the guests present was
quite unlike anyone he could ever remember.

Her name, Henry learned from his host, was
Victoria Campbell, and she turned out to be the daughter of another guest,
General Sir Ralph Colquhoun.

Lady Lympsham confided to Henry over the
quails’ eggs that the sad young thing had lost her husband when the allies
advanced on Berlin, only a few days before the Germans had surrendered. For the
first time Henry felt guilty about not having played some part in the war.

All through dinner, he could not take his
eyes from young Victoria whose classical beauty was only equalled by her
well-informed and lively conversation. He feared he might be staring too
obviously at the slim, dark-haired girl with the high cheek bones; it was like
admiring a beautiful sculpture and wanting to touch it. Her bewitching smile elicited
an answering smile from all who received it. Henry did everything in his power
to be the receiver and was rewarded on several occasions, aware that, for the
first time in his life, he was becoming totally infatuated – and was delighted
to be.

The ensuing courtship was an unusual one for
Henry, in that he made no attempt to persuade Victoria to compliance. He was
sympathetic and attentive, and when she had come out of mourning he approached
her father and asked if he might request his daughter’s hand in marriage. Henry
was overjoyed when first the General agreed and later Victoria accepted.

After an announcement in TO Times they
celebrated the engagement with a small dinner party at the Ritz, attended by
one hundred and twenty close friends who might have been forgiven for coming to
a conclusion that Attlee was exaggerating about his austerity programme. After
the last guest had left, Henry walked Victoria back to her brother’s home in
Belgrave Mews, while discussing the wedding arrangements and his plans for the
honeymoon.

“Everything must be perfect for you, my
angel,” he said, as once again he admired the way her long, dark hair curled at
the shoulders. “We shall be married in St. Margaret’s, Westminster, and after a
reception at the Ritz we will be driven to Victoria Station where you will be
met by Fred, the senior porter. Fred will allow no one else to carry my bags to
the last carriage of the Golden Arrow. One should always have the last
carriage, my darling,” explained Henry, “so that one cannot be disturbed by
other travellers.”

Victoria was impressed by Henry’s mastery of
the arrangements, especially remembering the absence of his manservant, Barker.

Henry warmed to his theme. “Once we have boarded
the Golden Arrow, you will be served with China tea and some wafer-thin smoked
salmon sandwiches which we can enjoy while relaxing on our journey to Dover.
When we arrive at the Channel port, you will be met by Albert whom Fred will
have alerted. Albert will remove the bags from our carriage, but not before
everyone else has left the train. He will then escort us to the ship, where we
will take sherry with the captain while our bags are being placed in cabin
number three. Like my father, I always have cabin number three; it is not only
the largest and most comfortable stateroom on board, but the cabin is situated
in the centre of the ship, which makes it possible to enjoy a comfortable
crossing even should one have the misfortune to encounter bad weather. And when
we have docked in Calais you will find Pierre waiting for us. He will have
organised everything for the front carriage of the Fleche d’Or.”