Gentlemen Formerly Dressed (14 page)

Rowland smiled. “I did. A few times, in fact.”

Ethel clapped her hands. “Well done, Mr. Sinclair. We cannot have Mosley thinking he'll have it all his own way!” She leaned over to top up his glass. “I've just been telling Edna what the wife of the High Commissioner to Ceylon told me.”

“Indeed.”

“Now don't look like that, Mr. Sinclair. Some people may call Bertha a gossip but I have found her information invariably reliable.”

“I see.”

“Just a minute, Ethel.” Kate turned to her son who was sitting quietly with pricked ears. “Ernie darling, would you mind seeing if Nanny has attended to Ewan yet.”

“But… Do I have to?”

“Ernie…”

Rowland whispered to Kate and then beckoned his nephew. “How would you like to come to Madame Tussaud's with us tomorrow, Ernie?”

Ernest looked sharply at Rowland, clearly aware he was being bribed. “Who's Madame Two Swords?”

“Tussaud. She was a sculptor, like Miss Higgins. She made people out of wax.”

Ernest sighed. “Very well, Uncle Rowly, I'm going, though I think you should know that I am very discreet.”

Rowland nodded gravely. “I'll keep that in mind, Ernie.”

And so Ernest left the room with all the dignity it was possible for a six-year-old to muster and Ethel Bruce was able to safely return to the intelligence she had garnered from the High Commissioner's wife. She lowered her voice nonetheless. “It seems that our Bunky married the Honourable Euphemia Thistlewaite that was.”

“I'm afraid I've never—”

“Yes, of course, you wouldn't be acquainted. Euphemia is the youngest child of Lord and Lady Harcourt.”

“Harcourt?” Edna's brow creased. “I thought you said her name was Thistlewaite.”

“It is dear,” Ethel explained. “Harcourt is the title, Thistlewaite the name. Euphemia's father is Henry Thistlewaite, the Baron of Harcourt.”

“Oh. How long had she and Lord Pierrepont been married?”

“When he died? Barely a month.”

Rowland shrugged, unsure why this was scandalous enough to be whispered among the ladies of the Dominions. “Lord Pierrepont was free to marry, and he wouldn't be the first man to fall in love with a beautiful younger woman.” He winked at Kate who was sixteen years Wilfred's junior.

His brother's wife blushed.

“Oh, Euphemia isn't beautiful, Mr. Sinclair. The poor thing has rather too many teeth to be beautiful or even handsome, I'm afraid. And she isn't all that young. She's an odd girl really, quite bookish and peculiar.”

“Even so,” Rowland said. Who knew what a man in a nightie would find desirable?

“But there's more, you see. Some of the other wives have heard—and this is a rumour mind you and not something to which Bertha would attach her reputation, though I do think there may be something to it—that Bunky was carrying on with an American.”

Rowland waited.

“An American,” Ethel repeated.

“Which American?” he asked, trying to respond enthusiastically.

“That's the strange thing, nobody seems to know. Bunky has never been so circumspect in the past. I've known him to introduce his dalliances to each other. It's rather mysterious.”

“But that was before he was married.”

Ethel's face fell. “Oh dear, that is true. The marriage could explain it.” She sighed. “Mr. Isaacs will be less than impressed with my efforts at sleuthing, I'm sure.”

“Not at all, Ethel,” Edna protested. “After all, perhaps the new Lady Pierrepont discovered Lord Pierrepont's inconstancy and killed him!”

“So, we are all agreed that Bunky was murdered?” Ethel smiled triumphantly.

Edna stopped, realising that the fact was not supposed to be common knowledge even in Stanley Melbourne Bruce's own home. She looked to Rowland hesitantly.

“What does Minister Bruce say on the matter?” Rowland asked carefully.

“He said he rather likes my new hat, as he always does when he wants to change the subject and convince me to leave it to the police!” Ethel replied. She glanced at the portrait of her husband over the mantel and rolled her eyes, exhaling fiercely.

Rowland smiled. He did wonder how regularly Mrs. Stanley Melbourne Bruce came upon matters that her husband thought were best left to the police. “Sadly, the police do not have the wives of the Empire's diplomats at their disposal.”

“Indeed, Mr. Sinclair, they do not.”

M
ilton was quite unashamedly envious that Rowland Sinclair had found H.G. Wells at the Geological Museum, and more so that he had managed to exchange fisticuffs with Fascists in the same afternoon. It seemed to the poet that Rowland did not fully appreciate either encounter as he should.

He was almost inconsolable when Rowland informed him of the other literary luminaries who had also been in the public gallery that morning.

“You met them?”

“Not at all. They just waved at Wells and sat down. He told me who they were.”

“Don't you think it's odd to find so many illustrious figures in the one place?”

“Not really. In my experience illustrious people seem to know one another. As far as I can tell, they all seem to be part of a set. It's probably not surprising that they step out together from time to time, though why they'd choose to do so at an economic conference is beyond me entirely!”

While Rowland had been at the conference, Milton and Clyde had set out from Claridge's for Hyde Park, where Clyde had hoped to capture the famous English stroll in pencil and wash. Milton had taken
Paradise Lost.
Their intention had been to pass the day in these tranquil pursuits. As it happened however they'd found themselves in that part of Hyde Park known as Speakers' Corner where public discussion was at least tolerated, if not encouraged.

The forum had its equivalent in Sydney's Domain and perhaps it was a sense of familiarity that drew the Australians towards it. They had seen many impassioned speakers state their particular cause and case on the grassy lawns before the National Art Gallery back home—Milton had often mounted the soapbox himself, moved by either the Party or poetry.

“At first it was just crackpots proclaiming the end of the world,” Clyde explained. “But eventually the Communists turned up, so we hung about for a bit and introduced ourselves to the local faithful.”

“Ended up at a pub listening to speeches about the Fascists,” Milton sighed. He pointed at Rowland. “You should have told us you were going to brawl!”

Rowland laughed. “If only I'd known. I could well have used a hand…” He trailed off as the butler emerged with a tray of drinks. “I say, where's Beresford?” The man bearing the tray was new.

“Mr. Beresford has been assigned to another guest, sir. I'm Menzies. I'll be looking after you for the remainder of your stay at Claridge's.”

Fleetingly Rowland wondered if they had offended Beresford somehow. He was aware that the butler found them wanting in many respects but he hadn't thought their transgressions of protocol that objectionable.

Whatever may have caused Beresford's departure it seemed he had taken the time to instruct Menzies on the subject of Horlicks. Rowland stared at the cup of steaming malted milk which Menzies set before him. “I believe this is your beverage of choice, sir.”

Milton laughed. “For he on honey-dew hath fed, and drunk the milk of paradise,” he said raising his glass of sherry in toast.

“Coleridge,” Rowland replied miserably. He very much doubted the milk of paradise would be flavoured with Horlicks powder.

Ernest Sinclair was waiting eagerly when they called for him at Ennismore Gardens. The six-year-old was obviously looking forward to an outing in the company of his uncle. Wilfred and Stanley Bruce had already left for the day's business. Kate gave her elder son last-minute instructions for manners and behaviour.

“Heavens, Kate, I'm not taking him to church!” Rowland said as she fussed over the sharp slick of Ernest's hair. “You mustn't worry—we'll look after him,” he assured his sister-in-law, who he thought predisposed to be unnecessarily anxious. “Though you're welcome to come, too, if you'd care to.”

Kate shook her head. “Ethel and I are going to the ballet this afternoon when Nanny takes Ewan for a nap. I was planning to take Ernie, but he'd doubtless prefer the waxworks.”

Rowland glanced at Ernest, grimacing. “The ballet! Good Lord, a narrow escape!”

“I'll say, Uncle Rowly,” Ernest agreed.

“Ernest!” Kate scolded her son because she could not admonish his uncle.

“We'll have him back in a few hours then,” Rowland said hastily before she could change her mind and take the poor child to the ballet. “Come on Ernie, run!”

Ernest did so without hesitation leaving Rowland to say farewell for them both. Kate smiled as she watched her son run giggling into Clyde's brawny arms and be thrown into the back of the motor car as if they were fleeing mortal danger.

And so once again, Rowland and his companions wandered through the waxwork exhibition. Edna disappeared through the black door to find Marriott Spencer as arranged. The gentlemen took their time, allowing Ernest to examine each figure in his solemn, thoughtful way.

The boy gasped and pointed occasionally, and reached for Rowland's hand in the Chamber of Horrors. Milton “enhanced” each statue with amateur ventriloquism and potted biographies that were more creative than accurate. Under his tutelage the Prince of Wales became a famous shoe salesman, Lord Nelson a bloodthirsty pirate and Winston Churchill the man who invented the Arrowroot biscuit. Neither Rowland nor Clyde bothered to correct him or disillusion Ernest, who was rapt in attention.

In this manner they spent most of the morning.

As Big Ben struck one o'clock, Clyde hoisted Ernest onto his shoulders and they ventured into the crowded streets of central
London to find an eatery of some sort. The presence of Rowland's nephew made them a little more discerning with respect to the venue, and they bypassed public houses and the bohemian haunts to which they were usually drawn, in search of more respectable establishments.

Ernest gazed at the lines of hungry men outside the Salvation Army soup kitchen as they walked past. Rowland gave him a guinea to drop into the collection box, and Clyde told him stories of the days when he had walked the wallaby track in search of work, when he too had relied on charity to eat.

“Why didn't you get a job, Mr. Watson Jones?”

“There weren't any to be had, Ernie.”

“Couldn't your mother and father have helped you?” the child persisted. Ernest could not yet comprehend a problem that his own father could not solve.

“My mum and dad could barely feed themselves, Ernie.”

Ernest slipped off Clyde's shoulder, silent and clearly troubled. The child was aptly named. Rowland took the boy's hand. The refined, sheltered world in which he and Ernest had been raised was rarely touched by the day-to-day realities of the Depression. Only through his friends had Rowland become aware of the struggles of the unemployed and the families that relied upon them. In Sydney, he did what he could with quiet anonymous donations. But the problem was not confined to any one city or nation. For the first time he began to wonder what Wilfred's economic conference might achieve.