The Educated Ape & other Wonders of the Worlds (55 page)

The present
Prime Minister was having words with Mr Churchill. Snow was falling heavily
down upon Old London Town. The two men stood together in the atrium of the
Grand Exposition, watching as the white flakes slid from the arched roof high
above to settle upon the ranks of soldiers standing stiffly to attention far
below.

‘I
require your assurance, Mr Churchill,’ said the Prime Minister, accepting an
offered cigar, ‘that everything will go precisely as planned and that Her
Majesty is in no danger from these fearful anarchists.’

Winston
Churchill lit the Prime Minister’s cigar. ‘My Lord,’ said he, ‘you have my
word. It would take Lucifer himself to puncture my ring of steel.’

The
Prime Minister sucked hard upon Mr Churchill’s cigar.

‘As long
as your ring goes unpunctured,’ he said, ‘we will all sleep well in our beds.’

Lord Brentford
had his own bedroom at Claridge’s and he had booked a table for three in the
restaurant.

At
this table sat his lordship, with Leah to the left of him and Darwin to the
right.

‘My
boy,’ said Lord Brentford to his monkey butler as a waiter danced champagne
into glasses, ‘Leah and I have something to tell you.

Leah
smiled rather coyly. Darwin scratched at his head.

‘We
are to be married,’ said Lord Brentford.

Darwin
raised a mighty smile. ‘I am so happy for you,’ said his lordship’s ape.

‘And
there is something that we would like to ask you.

Darwin
tucked a napkin into his wing-collared shirt and prepared to make an assault
upon a crusty roll.

‘We
would like you to be our best man,’ said Lord Brentford. ‘Or in your case, best
monkey-man.’

Darwin’s
eyes grew wonderfully wide. ‘Ai, ai, ai. Oh, what an honour,’ he said.

‘Might
have to be something of a private affair,’ said Lord Brentford, passing out the
champagne. ‘Leah’s family not too keen on the idea. Might have to slip away
somewhere. We thought perhaps Jupiter. They have a gambling city there where
you can get married by a chap dressed up as Enrico Caruso. They even throw in
something called a stretch-landau to take you to the ceremony.

‘All
sounds rather fun,’ said Darwin. ‘Do pardon me while I behave badly with this
roll.’

‘You’ve
been behaving badly all afternoon,’ observed Lord Brentford. ‘Will you be doing
the right and proper thing with that monkey maid?’

‘Alas,
no,’ said Darwin, crunching messily and noisily upon his crusty roll. ‘We were
but ships that passed in the night, never destined to share moorings in the
harbour of love.’

Lord
Brentford raised an eyebrow.

‘I
could have put it differently,’ said Darwin, ‘but there
is
a lady
present.’

Lord
Brentford raised his champagne glass in toast. ‘To you, Leah, my love,’ said
he. ‘And to Darwin, loyal servant and friend. No man is there more blessed than
I to share such company.

Champagne
glasses touched one to another and, within that candlelit room, Darwin felt
both warm and happy. Perhaps, indeed, more happy than he had ever felt before.
Because, after all, he
had
saved the Great Exposition, he
had
made
love to a most attractive ape this afternoon, he
was
to be Lord
Brentford’s best monkey-man, he
was
enjoying a champagne dinner at
Claridge’s and
would soon be
going on to delight in the most lavish
performance of Beethoven’s Ninth ever staged.

Things
had not worked out too badly at all for Darwin. The monkey butler grinned and
drank champagne.

A champagne
reception awaited the favoured few thousand who would attend the concert and
official opening of the Grand Exposition, and by eight o’clock the Mall began
to fill with their conveyances.

There was a busyness of broughams and buckboards and
britzkas,

A gathering of gharries and growlers and gigs,

A cavalcade of carriages and curricles and carioles,

Horse cabs and hansom cabs,

Landaus and landaulettes,

Four-in-hands and phaetons

And two enormous pigs.
[24]

As
the Poetry Columnist of
The Times
so pleasantly put it. Before hurrying
off to the warmth of an alehouse as he had not been granted a concert ticket.

And so they
came, these well-tailored men with their well-tended wives. These princes and
potentates. These captains of industry. These builders of Empire. Lord Babbage
and Lord Tesla were to be seen, and Ernest Rutherford, too, smiling hugely in
the company of a veiled lady all in black. Flash pans flared with phosphorous
as photographers of the nation’s press sought to capture this moment of moments
for posterity.

A
string quartet played within and the fountain gushed champagne. Jovian
savouries were freighted around upon silver trays. Polite conversation
fluttered as ladies peeped modestly from behind their winter fans. A monkey
butler shared a joke with another of his kind. Neon lights illuminated a
palace of wonders.

Lord
Brentford greeted each and every guest.

The
snow drifted down without.

And
within, all appeared just as it should be with the noble British Empire.

53

rincess
Pamela dined upon haunch of cabin boy and Mister Mate was elevated to the rank
of henchman. There were many henchmen aboard the Lady Beast’s pink palace. Many
troops, as it were, prepared to fight and die if necessary to protect their
royal ruler. They were generally liveried in uniforms of pink, but upon this
special occasion they had been informed that the dress code was
pirate.

For,
as the princess knew, as indeed do all women, every man yearns to dress
sometimes as a pirate.

Planet
Earth filled more and more of the Heavens. The palace with its pirate crew
sailed on.

Time marched on
in the palace of glass. Folk dilly-dallied and sauntered about, viewing the
wonders, pointing and cooing, ladies svelte with fluttering fans and gentlemen
with cigars.

Ernest
Rutherford was conducting tours around his time-ship. The Jovian ambassador,
his wife and large extended family waddled from exhibit to exhibit, chuckling
merrily at all they beheld. Aloof effete Venusians talked amongst themselves
and feigned uninterest in everything. Leah enjoined in their conversation,
which dwelt upon lofty matters, but she was aware that a tension existed as the
planets drew into their fateful alignment and the time of the prophesied
tribulation drew ever closer.

At ten o’clock
an announcement echoed from the brass bells of numerous electric speakers, to
the effect that tonight’s performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, conducted
by Arturo Toscanini, would shortly begin, so would the honoured guests kindly
take their seats in the concert hall.

Lord
Brentford had undoubtedly had a lot on his plate, with so very much to
organise. The numbering of seats in the concert hall and the scrupulous
allocation of tickets was something that had simply slipped his mind. This
oversight on his part had not, however, gone unnoticed by the three thousand
honoured guests who, at the clarion call to the concert hall, pressed forward
in a most unruly mob, each determined to grab the finest seats.

There
was some unpleasantness.

Order
was finally restored when Lord Brentford summonsed the assistance of armed and
snow-covered soldiers, who fixed bayonets and prepared to stick them into
anyone who exhibited anything less than decorum.

When
all were seated peaceably, a new announcement came through the brass—bell
speakers that Her Majesty Queen Victoria, Empress of both India and Mars, was
about to take her seat in the royal box.

So,
would they all stand up again?

Her Majesty
tonight wore the very latest in blacks, the very chicest frock of black stuff
and that jaunty crown. The crown, however, rested somewhat heavily upon the
royal brow as it had most recently received the extra adornment of a diamond,
from Africa, that was easily the size of a music hall performer’s head.

Her
Majesty was accompanied by her monkey maid Emily, her augmented kiwi bird
Caruthers, the designer of the royal frocks — Lady Elsie Grover — and a
big-game-hunting friend of the royal household — Major Thadeus Tinker.

Respectful
applause rippled up from the auditorium. Lord Brentford proposed three cheers
for the regal lady and these in turn echoed about within the great concert
hall.

Queen
Victoria waved to the assembly, sat herself down, ordered champagne and petted
her kiwi bird. All others present took their seats and whispered words of
greatest expectation.

Upon
the stage before them, the virtuoso musicians of the London Philharmonic
Orchestra, in formal dress of white tie and tails, filed to their places and bowed
their heads to the rapturous applause they received.

Then
came the choir, two hundred strong, ladies in angelic white, gentlemen in
black. The soloists took their special bows, then the heads of all upon the
stage swung to the left to acknowledge the world-famous conductor Arturo Toscanini
as he made his entrance. In truth, he looked a little tired, as if he had
perhaps been overexerting himself during the afternoon. But he smiled warmly as
the audience clapped their hands and rattled their jewellery and he did look
very smart indeed.

He
bowed to the audience, turned and bowed to the orchestra and choir, then raised
his baton high and the Ninth began.

The music,
swelling from the great glass-covered hall beneath, reached faintly to the
ears of Winston Churchill. He stood upon the foredeck of the airship that swung
in great arcs to and fro above the Grand Exposition, a cigar aglow between his
teeth, an army greatcoat muffling his slender body from the cold winter’s
night. Snow fluttered freely around and about and Mr Churchill’s mittened hands
brought his field glasses once more to his eyes.

His
youthful adjutant Pooley brought Mr Churchill a nice hot cup of cocoa.

‘This
will keep the cold out, sir,’ said he. ‘Nothing like a nice hot cuppa to blow
away the chills.’

‘You
are a buffoon,’ said Mr Churchill, but he accepted the cuppa nonetheless.

‘Do
you really think we’ll be in for trouble tonight, sir?’ Pooley asked. ‘I’d
rather be in the pub, if truth be told.’

‘If
there be anarchists,’ said Mr Churchill, sipping cocoa, ‘we will fight them in
the pubs, and in the carriage parks, and in the tea rooms and on the Clapham
omnibus. We shall never, ever give in.’

‘May
I quote you on that, sir?’ asked the adjutant.

‘I am
still working on it,’ said Mr Churchill. And then he flicked something from his
mitten. ‘What is that?’ he asked.

The
adjutant stared in what light there was. ‘Looks like a spot of blood,’ said he.

‘Do
you have a nosebleed?’ asked Mr Winston Churchill.

‘Certainly
not, sir. Not allowed on duty.’

‘Well,
it certainly looks like— Damn me, there’s another one.

Another
one there was indeed and then another and another.

‘It
is the snow,’ the adjutant cried. ‘The snow is turning red.’

A cardinal
dressed all in red sat to the rear of the concert hall beneath the royal box.
He tapped his slippered feet in time to the music and occasionally patted his
catamite upon the knee. Cardinal Cox, for it was he, was dressed tonight in his
very finest vestments, hand-tailored by his personal Piccadilly fitter and
sewn with many extra adornments. High at the collar, broad at the shoulder,
pinched in tightly at the waist, he cut the most dapper of dashes. The cardinal
drew out his pocket watch. Its face displayed a portrait of the Pope. The
watch’s hands had been imaginatively fashioned to resemble the arms and hands
of the pontiff At twelve o’clock he raised both hands in benediction, although
at half-past six, he appeared to be engaged in something rather rude.