The People on Privilege Hill

Jane Gardam

THE PEOPLE ON PRIVILEGE HILL

AND OTHER STORIES

For Kitty

 

D
renching, soaking, relentless rain. Black cold rain for black cold winter Dorsetshire. Edward Feathers loved rain but warm rain, falling through oriental air, steam rising from sweating earth, dripping, glistening drops that rolled across banana leaves, rain that wetted the pelts of monkeys. Bloody Dorset, his retirement home. He was cold and old. He was cold and old and going out to lunch with a woman called Dulcie he'd never much liked. His wife Betty had been dead some years.

“I am rich,” announced Feathers—Sir Edward Feathers QC—to his affluent surroundings. On the walls of the vestibule of his house hung watercolours of Bengal and Malaya painted a hundred years ago by English memsahibs under parasols, sitting at their easels out of doors in long petticoats and cotton skirts with tulle and ribbons and painting aprons made of something called “crash.”

Very good, too, those paintings, he thought. Worth a lot of money now.

Under his button-booted feet was a rug from Tashkent. Nearby stood a throne of rose-coloured silk, very tattered. Betty had fallen in love with it once, in Dacca. Nearby was a brass and ironwood umbrella stand with many spikes sticking out of it. Feathers turned to the umbrella stand, chose an umbrella, shook it loose: a fine black silk with a malacca handle and initialled gold band. He did not open it in the house on account of the bad luck this would unleash. A fresh wave of rain lashed at the windows. “I could order a cab,” he said aloud. He had been a famous barrister and the sound of his voice had been part of his fortune. The old “Oxford accent,” now very rare, comforted him sometimes. “I am rich. It's only a few minutes away. The fare is not the issue. It is a matter of legs. If I lose the use of my legs,” he said, for he was far into his eighties, “I'm finished. I shall walk.”

Rain beat against the fanlight above the front door. There was a long ring on the bell and a battering at the knocker. His neighbour stood there in a dreadful anorak and without an umbrella.

“Oh yes, Veneering,” said Feathers, unenthusiastic. “You'd better come in. But I'm just going out.”

“May I share your car?” asked Veneering. “To Dulcie's?”

“I'm not taking the car.” (Veneering was the meanest man ever to make a fortune at the Bar except for old what's-his-name, Fiscal-Smith, in the north.) “By the time I've got it out of the garage and turned it round I could be there. I didn't know you were going to Dulcie's.”

“Oh yes. Big do,” said Veneering. “Party for some cousin. We'll walk together, then. Are you ready?”

Feathers was wearing a magnificent twenty-year-old double-breasted three-piece suit. All his working life he had been called Filth not only because of the old joke (Failed In London Try Hong Kong) but because nobody had ever seen him other than immaculate: scrubbed, polished, barbered, manicured, brushed, combed, perfect. At any moment of his life Feathers could have been presented to the Queen.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“I'll take the anorak off,” said Veneering, his scruffy old rival who now lived next door, “when we get there. Don't you need a coat?”

“I have my umbrella,” said Feathers.

“Oh yes, I could borrow one of your umbrellas. Thanks.” And Veneering stepped in from the downpour, bringing some of it with him. He squelched over to the Benares pillar and started poking about, coming up with a delicate pink parasol with a black tassel.

Both men regarded it.

“No,” said Feathers. “That's a lady's parasol. Betty's.”

Veneering ran his arthritic fingers down the silk. Outside the rain had hushed. “Just for down the road,” he said. “I'd enjoy carrying it. I remember it.”

“It's not on offer,” said Feathers. “Sorry.”

But Veneering, like some evil gnome, was over the doorstep again, introducing the parasol to the outer air. It flew up at once, giving a glow to his face as he looked up into its lacquered struts. He twirled it about. “Aha,” he said.

Down came the rain again and Feathers, with a leonine roar of disgust, turned back to the umbrella-stand. Somewhere in the bottom of it were stubby common umbrellas that snapped open when you pressed a button. Right for Veneering.

“We'll be late,” said Veneering from the drive, considering Feathers's old man's backside bent over the umbrella-stand, floppy down the backs of his thighs. (Losing his flanks. Bad sign. Senile.) Veneering still had the bright blue eyes of a young man. Cunning eyes. And strong flanks. “In fact we're late already. It's after one.” He knew that to be late was for Feathers a mortal sin.

So Feathers abandoned the search, checked his pockets for house keys, slammed the front door behind him and sprang off down the drive on his emu legs under an impeccable black dome, overtaking Veneering's short but sturdy legs, that thirty years ago had bestridden the colony of Hong Kong and the international legal world—and quite a few of its women.

Veneering trotted, under the apricot satin, way behind.

 

One behind the other they advanced up the village hill beneath overhanging trees, turned to the right by the church, splashed on. It was rather further to walk than Feathers had remembered. On they went in silence except for the now only murmuring rain, towards Privilege Road.

Dulcie's address was Privilege House, seat at one time, she said, of the famous house of the Privé-Lièges who had arrived with the Conqueror. Those who had lived in the village all their lives—few enough now—were doubtful about the Privé-Lièges and thought that as children they had been told of some village privies once constructed up there. Dulcie's husband, now dead, had said, “Well, as long as nobody tells Dulcie. Unless of course the privies were Roman.” He had been a lawyer too and had retired early to the south-west to read Thomas Hardy. He'd had private means, and needed them with Dulcie.

There had been some Hardy-esque dwellings around Privilege House with thatch and rats, but now these were glorified as second homes with gloss paint and lined curtains and polished door knockers. The owners came thundering down now and then on Friday nights in cars like Iraqi tanks stuffed with food from suburban farmers' markets. They thundered back to London on the Monday morning. Gravel and laurel had appeared around the cottages and in front of Dulcie's Norman demesne. A metal post said “Privilege Road.” The post had distressed her. But she was an unbeatable woman.

Feathers paused at the top of the hill outside a cot (four bed, two bath) and called over his shoulder, “Who the hell is this?” For a squat sort of fellow was approaching from a lateral direction, on their port bow. He presented himself into the rain as a pair of feet and an umbrella spread over the body at waist level. Head down, most of him was invisible. The umbrella had spikes sticking out here and there, and the cloth was tattered and rusty. A weapon that had known campaigns.

When it came up close, the feet stopped and the umbrella was raised to reveal a face as hard as wood.

“Good God!” said Veneering. “It's Fiscal-Smith,” and the rain began to bucket down again upon the three of them.

“Oh, good morning,” said Fiscal-Smith. “Haven't seen you, Feathers, since just after Betty died. Haven't seen you, Veneering, since that embarrassing little matter in the New Territories. Nice little case. Nice little milch cow for me. Pity the way they went after you in the Law Reports. Are you going to Dulcie's?”

“I suppose you're the cousin,” said Veneering.

“What cousin? I was a friend of poor old Bill till he dropped me for Thomas Hardy. Come on, let's keep going. I'm getting wet.”

 

In single file the three old judges pressed ahead: black silk, apricot toile and bundle of prongs.

Fiscal-Smith made uncouth noises that in another man might have indicated mirth, and they reached Dulcie's tall main gate, firmly closed. Through the wrought iron there was very much on view a lawn and terrace of simulated stone and along the side of the house a conservatory that was filled with coloured moons. They were umbrellas all open and all wet.

“Whoever can be coming?” said Feathers, who originally had thought he was the only guest. “Must be dozens.”

“Yes, there was some point to the cousin,” said Veneering, “but I can't remember what. She talks too fast.”

“It's a monk,” said Fiscal-Smith. “Not a cousin but a monk. Though of course a monk could be a cousin. Look at John the Baptist.”

“A monk? At Dulcie's?”

“Yes. A Jesuit. He's off to the islands to prepare for his final vows. This is his last blow-out. She's taking him to the airport afterwards, as soon as we've left.”

Feathers winced at “blow-out.” He was not a Catholic, or anything, really, except when reading the Book of Common Prayer or during the Sunday C of E service if it was 1666, but he didn't like to hear of a “blow-out” before vows.

“What airport?” asked Veneering. “Our airport? The airport at the end of the universe?” for he sometimes read modern books.

Feathers, who did not, suspected nastiness.

“Dulcie's a kind woman,” he said, suppressing the slight thrill of excitement at the thought of her puffy raspberry lips. “Very kind. And the wine will be good. But she's obviously asked a horde,” he added with a breath of regret. “There are dozens of umbrellas.”

In the conservatory trench six or so of them seemed to stir, rubbing shoulders like impounded cattle.

 

Feathers, the one who saw Dulcie most often, knew that the wrought-iron gate was never unlocked and was only a viewing station, so he led the way round the house and they were about to left-wheel into a gravel patch when a car—ample but not urban—pounced up behind them, swerved in front of them, swung round at the side door and blocked their path. Doors were flung open and a lean girl with a cigarette in her mouth jumped out. She ground the cigarette stub under her heel, like the serpent in Eden, and began to decant two disabled elderly women. They were supplied with umbrellas and directed, limping, to the door. One of them had a fruity cough. The three widowed judges might have been spectres.

“God!” said Fiscal-Smith. “Who are they?”

“It's the heavenly twins,” said Feathers with one of his roaring cries. “Sing in the church choir. Splendidly.” He found himself again defensive about the unloved territory of his old age and surprised himself. When had Fiscal-Smith last been near a church? Or bloody Veneering? Never.

“Who's the third?” asked Fiscal-Smith. “Is she local?”

“She'll be the carer,” said Feathers. “Probably from Lithuania.”

“This is going to be a rave,” said Veneering, and Feathers felt displeased again and almost said, “We're all going to get old one day,” but remembered that he'd soon be ninety.

A blaze of yellow light washed suddenly across the rainy sky, ripping the clouds and silhouetting the tree clumps on Privilege Hill. He thought: I should have brought something for Dulcie, some flowers. Betty would have brought flowers. Or jam or something. And was mortified to see some sort of offering emerging from Veneering's disgusting anorak and—great heaven!—something appearing in Fiscal-Smith's mean paw. Feathers belonged to an age when you didn't take presents or write thank-you letters for luncheon but he wasn't sure, all at once, that Dulcie did. He glared at Fiscal-Smith's rather old-looking package.

“It's a box of tea,” said Fiscal-Smith. “Christmas-pudding flavour from Fortnum and Mason. I've had it for years. I'm not sure if you can get it now. Given it by a client before I took Silk. In the sixties.”

“I wonder what the monk will bring,” said Veneering. He seemed to be cheering up, having seen the carer's legs.

And here was Dulcie coming to welcome them, shrieking prettily in grey mohair and pearls; leading them to the pool of drying umbrellas. “Just drop them down. In the conservatory trough. It's near the hot pipes. It's where I dry my dahlias. They love it. Don't they look pretty? Sometimes I think they'll all rise into the air.”

(She's insane, thought Feathers.)

“And I must run to my soufflé,” she called. “Do go in. Get a drink. Awful rain. So good of you to come out. Introduce yourselves.”

In the sitting room there was no sign of the guest of honour. The carer was pouring herself an enormous drink. The cleaning lady of the village, Kate, was handing round titbits. She knew the guests intimately. “I told you not to wear that shirt until I'd turned the collar,” she hissed at Veneering.

They all drank and the rain rattled down on the glass roof of the umbrella house. The clocks ticked.

“What's that over there?” asked Veneering.

A boy was regarding them from a doorway.

“A boy, I think,” said Feathers, a childless man.

“Maybe this is the cousin. Hello there! Who're you? Are you Dulcie's young cousin?”

The boy said nothing but padded after them as they carried their drinks into another room, where he continued to stare. “Hand the nuts round,” said Kate the cleaner. “Be polite,” but the boy took no notice. He approached Veneering and inspected him further.

“Why ever should I be Granny's cousin?”

Veneering, unused for many years to being cross-
questioned, said, “We understood we were to meet a cousin.”

“No. It's a monk. Do you play music?”

“Me?” said Veneering. “Why?”

“I just wondered. I play cello and drums.”

“Oh. Good!”

“In America. I'm an American citizen. I don't come over often.”

“That explains everything.” (God, I'm hungry!)

“What do you mean?”

“Don't you say ‘sir' in America? I thought all American children were polite now.”

“Actually, not all. Sir. I know one who goes straight over to the fridge in people's houses and looks in to see what they've got.”