Wigs on the Green (15 page)

Poppy and Jasper bowled across the sixteen odd miles of rural England which lay between Chalford and Peersmont in an ancient maroon-coloured Rolls-Royce, the one concession made by Lord and Lady Chalford to the age of progress. Instead of being carried along in an almost recumbent position, seeing nothing except gleaming paint-work, as in modern cars, they sat bolt upright and enjoyed a full view of the summer landscape. The inside of the car smelt rather musty and the upholstery was hidden under holland covers.

The countryside looked extremely beautiful, covered as it was with alternate acres of golden corn, dark-green woods and lemon-coloured stubble dotted with stooks of corn. The heat was intense. Poppy said how sad it made her feel when she thought that in a very few years time these lovely lonely stretches would probably be covered with mean little jerry-built houses.

‘Think of Sussex,’ she said with a shiver, ‘how agreeable it would be if England could become much poorer, smaller, inconspicuous among nations and civilized once more.’

‘Becoming poorer won’t necessarily make her more civilized,’ said Jasper. ‘Civilization is dependent on one economic factor and that is extreme inequalities of wealth. The inevitable advent of Socialism, whether national or international, will be the fatal blow to what is left of our civilization.’

‘If that is your view I am surprised that you should have joined Eugenia’s party, which is obviously a form of national Socialism, isn’t it?’

‘I prefer national Socialism to the other sort, it is so much more romantic. Besides, I am inclined to think that the Western civilization we know needs putting out of its agony as soon as possible.
It is old and tired, the dark ages are practically upon us anyhow, and I should prefer that they march in with trumpet and flag than that they should creep upon us to the tap of the typewriter. I am at heart, I suppose, a Nihilist.’

‘I don’t know what that is,’ said Poppy.

‘No! But then you are a girl with a very limited outlook, aren’t you?’

‘I’m not.’

‘Oh! yes, you are. Like most women you only care about personalities, things don’t interest you.’

‘That’s simply not true. I’m fearfully interested in things – I absolutely long for a sable coat.’

‘Don’t be flippant, it irritates me.’

‘Well, it’s a fact,’ said Poppy, defiantly, ‘and I should be quite happy for ever if I had one.’

‘Really! women are extraordinary.’

‘All the same darling, you do love me, don’t you?’

‘I’m bound to say I do. But I should love you a great deal more if you were my intellectual equal.’

‘As I’m always telling you – you ought to marry Marge. She speaks four languages.’

‘As I’m always telling you, there’s nothing would suit me better, but you’re so idle, you never take any kind of steps to arrange it for me.’

‘Too late now, she’s nuts about Mr Wilkins – simply nuts. You can’t imagine how she dotes on that man.’

‘More than you dote on me?’

‘Much more. He’s literally the only chap she has ever been keen on you see, so she thinks him perfect. She has nothing else to compare him with.’

‘I’m bound to say it has made a great difference to her. She is quite civil to me now instead of biting my head off whenever I speak as she did at first. Love is an exceedingly remarkable thing, in some ways. So what is she going to do about it?’

‘Well, I believe she has written to Osborne to tell him definitely
that their engagement is off – she was keeping him on a string before, like Nellie Bly and the fly you know. I say, look at that little white house. I wouldn’t mind living there, would you?’

‘And what are her intentions towards Mr Wilkins?’

‘Strictly honourable. She’s decided to wait a fortnight, and then propose to him if he hasn’t done anything about it by then. I’m sure he won’t have, he’s obviously a man of no imagination or initiative.’

‘Of course she’s an exceedingly horizontal girl,’ said Jasper in a contemplative voice. ‘All the same, I should say that Mr Wilkins is a lucky chap.’

‘Oh! he is indeed.’

‘What’s she worth?’

‘She’s fabulously rich. Her father left something like three millions, I believe.’

‘Makes me sick,’ said Jasper, ‘you see that definitely shows I must be a Nihilist, otherwise why should I be engaged to the only poor girl in the parish.’

‘You’re not engaged. And there’s still Eugenia,’ said Poppy.

‘Eugenia’s a fine girl, but it’s you I’m in love with, darling Miss Smith.’

‘Good,’ said Poppy, bouncing over to his side of the car and putting her arm round his waist. ‘Hullo! there’s something hard and bulging in your pocket – what is it?’

‘I had an idea that, as we are unlikely to get anything out of my old man, it might be a good plan to translate this visit into terms of hard cash at the earliest opportunity. There’s a chap on the
Evening Banner
who will give me £50 for a photograph of grandfather – you see they’ve only got one of him taken seventy years ago in his Fauntleroys and as he’s bound to die soon they’ll be needing a more recent one for the obituary. So I brought this “Kodak” along (they are very strictly forbidden in Peersmont). I found it in Mrs Lace’s house the first time I went there and thought it might come in handy.’

When they arrived at Peersmont village they stopped at a
public-house and had what Poppy described afterwards as a fairly delicious but really rather disgusting lunch, over which they sat for such an immoderate length of time that it was already past four o’clock when they set forth, again in the Rolls-Royce, for the asylum. They drove through a grim Victorian medieval gateway flanked on either side by huge black walls, on the top of which were a double row of revolving spikes. Inside, the grounds were dank with conifers, in the midst of which there suddenly appeared the towers and spires of the Houses of Parliament, looking strangely uncomfortable in their rustic setting. The chauffeur drew up without any hesitation at the Peers’ entrance, when the door of the car was immediately flung open by a policeman, who asked their business.

‘The Duke of Driburgh?’ said Jasper casually.

‘I believe His Grace is in the House at present,’ replied the policeman, ‘would you kindly step this way and I will tell the curator that you are here. What name, please?’

He led them across the courtyard towards what should have been the House of Commons but which was, it appeared, the residential part of the asylum. The curator sat in a little Gothic room tremendously decorated with wood carvings, and received them warmly. He was a charming young man.

‘The Duke of Driburgh?’ he said, when Jasper had explained who he was. ‘Splendid! The duke will be most awfully pleased to see you, I know. But look here, the House is sitting at the moment, can you wait until it rises? It won’t be more than another half-hour at the outside, there is very little business today. In fact I would send for him at once except that he happens to be deputizing for our Lord Chancellor, Lord Rousham, who is on the sick-list again – no, nothing at all serious I am glad to say. He has just nipped up to the top of a big elm tree and is building himself a nest there. We don’t stop him nowadays, one is never supposed to stop them doing harmless things of that sort. He won’t catch a chill in this warm weather and the others like to watch how the nest is getting along. Rather fun for them really.’

‘How interesting,’ said Jasper. ‘And has my grandfather any little hobbies of that sort?’

‘Nothing in the least spectacular. He is fond of building and reads a great deal of Rider Haggard. A few bricks and a bucket of white paint keep him happy for hours, he thinks the paint is mortar you see. But he has never had an outburst since he came here, he is very easy from my point of view.’

‘What was he shut up for?’ said Jasper, ‘I have often wondered, but it happened years before I was born, and has been kept very dark in the family ever since.’

‘I’m not absolutely certain myself – I could look it up in the records for you though. Let me see’ – he opened a drawer and took out of it a card-index – ‘A.B.C.D. Driburgh. Here we are. Oh, yes, of course, I remember now. He was shooting over his estate and something annoyed him – the birds were going in the wrong direction or something like that. Anyway the result was that he deliberately shot a gamekeeper and three beaters straight off, two left and rights. Curious little nerve storm, he always seems quite sane here. A very leading figure in the political line, you know.’

‘And what are his political opinions?’ asked Poppy with a slight giggle, which was hastily checked as the curator gave her a severe look. She gathered that jokes about the inmates and their eccentricities were not much encouraged.

‘The duke is an out-and-out Tory and anti-White Paper man.’

‘But I imagine they are all that?’ said Jasper.

‘My dear sir, you are very much mistaken. We have comparatively few reactionary peers, the majority here are moderate Baldwinites; among the Liberals there are some extremely advanced thinkers, and besides that we can boast no fewer than four Communists and two Scottish Nationalists.’

An electric bell now rang twice on the curator’s table.

‘House up,’ he said, ‘even sooner than I had expected. Come along with me will you and I’ll find the duke for you. By the way, that object in your pocket – it’s not a camera, is it?’

‘No indeed,’ said Jasper, ‘I am more than a little deaf and it is an instrument to assist my hearing.’

The curator blushed. ‘I am so sorry,’ he said. ‘I was obliged to ask you, as cameras are most strictly forbidden here.’

‘Naturally,’ said Jasper.

The curator now led them out on to the terrace which, like its prototype at Westminster, overhung a sheet of water and was covered with dainty tea-tables. Trooping on to it from another entrance was a throng of funereal-looking and for the most part ancient gentlemen. As they emerged some of them formed little groups animated with earnest conversation, while others made straight for the tea-tables, loudly ordering vanilla ices, crumpets, raspberry jam or sausages and mash.

‘Ah! Duke,’ said the curator. Breaking into one of the groups he buttonholed a tall, rather paunchy but handsome old man and conducted him towards the place where Jasper and Poppy stood waiting. ‘Here are two visitors to see you, your grandson Mr Aspect, and Mrs St Julien.’

‘My boy,’ said the duke, in tones of exaggerated emotion. His watery eyes brimmed over and a large tear splashed the pavement. He took hold of Jasper’s arm in two places and shook it up and down with vigour. ‘My boy. Very good of you to come and see your old grandfather. Not many of my descendants can be bothered to these days.’

The curator slipped away.

The duke then greeted Poppy with a courtly bow and conducted them both to an adjacent table. When they were seated Jasper said, ‘My
fiancée,’
indicating Poppy.

‘Yes, yes, I suppose so,’ said the duke. ‘Charming little lady. I always used to think, in my younger days, that it takes a lot to beat a pretty widow, and you are a very pretty widow my dear, if I may be permitted to say so.’ He pressed his foot gently on Poppy’s underneath the table. She gave him an inviting smile, whereupon he proceeded to hold her hand as well. ‘And when are you going to be married may I ask – lucky fella,’ he said,
turning towards Jasper, but firmly retaining Poppy’s hand.

‘That’s just what we wanted to discuss with you sir,’ said Jasper, ‘because we would do nothing without your approval naturally. As soon as Mrs St Julien consented to become my wife I said we must come over and ask for your blessing. We are staying at Chalford you see.’

‘Upon my soul, that was very polite and considerate of you, young man,’ cried the duke heartily. ‘Not one of my own children ever bothered about a thing like that, I’m most extremely touched. Charming little lady too, charming. So what are you up to these days, Jasper my boy – soldier, sailor, candle-stick maker, or what, eh?’

‘Well, at the moment I’m out of work,’ said Jasper. ‘A gentleman of leisure you might say.’ He was not very sure how this news would be received. Other elderly persons of his acquaintance were always trying to chivvy him into jobs of extraordinary uncongeniality. He need have had no qualms, the duke was delighted.

‘That’s damned good news, by Jove,’ he said, ‘damned good. Why I do believe you’re the only one of my grandsons who is not in trade. I hate trade, it’s not suitable for a gentleman. Gentlemen, my grandsons, should have leisure and plenty of it, I hate all this hurrying about, getting up early in the morning to sell motor cars and such nonsense. Bradenham’s sons all do it, most inconsiderate of them, in my opinion. It lets down the traditions of of a fine old family. Gentlemen should go into politics, that’s their duty – to govern the country, it’s the only thing they’re fit for anyway.

‘What are your politics, my boy?’

‘I’m an out-and-out anti-White Paper Tory,’ said Jasper advisedly.

‘Splendid. I can see that we shall get on famously. And you don’t stand for Parliament?’

‘I can’t afford to,’ said Jasper, who was longing to bring the conversation round to the subject of money.

‘Quite right. Nobody can afford to get mixed up with that rabble in the Commons, it’s the greatest mistake, believe me. If you wait
long enough they’re bound to give you a peerage, always do in the end, and then you’ll be able to come here. This is the only legislative assembly that’s worth two pins these days, I assure you.’

There was a silence, while Jasper racked his brains to think of the most pleasing terms in which a request for money could be couched. The duke, however, relieved him of the necessity by saying, ‘Only wish I could do something for you, my boy, pay off your debts or make you an allowance, but there it is – I hope you understand the situation. I expect I am poorer than you are, if anything.’

Jasper looked at Poppy and raised his eyes to heaven.

‘We landowners,’ continued the duke, ‘are very hard hit in these days. Ever since finance bills have been taken out of our hands, in the Lords, the country has gone from bad to worse. We have had one Socialist government after another, I don’t know which are more Socialistic, the Labour people or these milk-and-water White-Paper, lily-livered, black-hearted, so-called Conservatives. It’s a scandal. They take half your income away before you have a chance of getting at it, and the other half shortly afterwards. Hard times for millionaires these are, I can tell you. Then you know my expenses here’ (he lowered his voice) ‘are very heavy – very. Why, a pot of tea costs sixpence and I must say I do like to have a crumpet with it sometimes – fourpence! Rank profiteering of course. However, tell you what I’ll do, my boy. I’ll send up to my bank and find out if I haven’t got some little trinket there that this charming lady would accept as a wedding present.’