Waiting for Orders (22 page)

‘The piano tuner?’

‘Who doubled as an insurance agent? The Huntington’s carrier? Poor Blag must have hoped that it was someone else. Especially after the death of his sister.’

‘He could have asked his mother. I mean, she’d have to tell him the truth, wouldn’t she?’

My mother gave me an extra long look. ‘Tell you what, Charlie,’ she said; ‘if you’re ever invited to Elm Park Farm and you meet old Mrs Cole, you can ask her that question yourself.’

My young brother James got to the Farm first. Nineteen twenty-six was a bad year for our family. Granny Blagden, whose house we had always lived in, had to go into a nursing home for a minor operation. It went wrong and she died there. Mother was in one show and rehearsing for another. Things had to be done like paying the nursing home in order to get the death certificate. Blag came to the rescue. He dealt with the nursing home then took me to the undertakers who had the body in their mortuary. With them he was equally firm. Just the motor hearse and one car for mourners. A plain oak coffin is what your grandmother would have wanted, eh Charles? and
not those fancy bronze handles, please, the ordinary brass ones. He gave the name of his own solicitor in Covent Garden as the one who would be probating the Will. He did not mention that she had drawn it up herself on a form bought at the local stationers.

We buried Granny in the morning three days later. When we got back to the house we were joined by Blag’s lawyer who said that Granny had read the Will form instructions carefully and followed them. The house was the major part of her estate and she had left it to Mother. For her there were two immediate problems. The first was that of finding a live-in cook-housekeeper to replace Granny. The second, to my surprise, was that of my matric. I was due to sit for it in two weeks’ time. If I didn’t sit for it, my mother declared, and if I didn’t pass with honours, I couldn’t go to college. She had promised my father that I would do both. She knew of an out-of-work dresser who could be trusted to keep house for a week or two if one strictly rationed the gin. Blag said that, if I were to be kept busy preparing for an exam and keeping an eye on the gin, my brother might like to spend some time at the Farm. As it was getting near the end of term he was sure the school would agree. All James wanted to know was whether there was a piano at the Farm. On being told sharply by my mother that Mrs Cole had two pianos and that if he behaved himself she might let him try the Broadwood grand James gave Blag a beatific smile. At thirteen my brother was already a practised charmer.

Of course, we all knew by then that he had a musical talent. He wasn’t a prodigy but he was clearly exceptional. Mother knew people at the Guildhall School and the professor who had heard James play had assured her that there would be a scholarship for him a bit later on. Obviously, a few weeks in the country playing on a good piano before an audience as experienced and sympathetic as Mrs Cole (herself a Blagden) would be weeks well spent.

According to James it was time wasted and a setback to his career as a musician. The stables, studios and gardens were all right, spiffing indeed, but Mrs Cole, Auntie Alice and their house were all
ghastly.
‘Don’t misunderstand me, Charlie, it’s a very
pretty
place. There’s a small river that runs through it with
willow trees along the bank and a path to the village. The real farm, the old eighty-one-acre one, is on the other side of the river. It belongs to a real farmer now. The real old house was commandeered in the war as a convalescent home for the shell-shock cases. Jack Hunter says that it was the shell-shock cases who set fire to it on Armistice night.’

‘Who is Jack Hunter?’

‘He was one of the shell-shock patients. He and his wife Annette run the whole place for Blag. Annette does the cooking. She’s Belgian.’

‘What’s the cooking like?’

‘Oh, I was at Mrs Cole’s house. Auntie Alice does the cooking there. They have a girl in from the village to do the cleaning and the beds. The Lancashire hotpot was all right.’

‘But not the piano?’

‘The piano was all right. It was her. The moment I got there she said she was going to give me lessons. And she’d even bought me a party piece to learn.’

‘Chopin. Something flashy.’

‘She gave me a choice. One of Mendelssohn’s
Songs without Words
– she called it “The Bees’ Wedding” – or else “Kitten on the Keys” by Zez Confrey. Auntie Alice had a gramophone record of that. She called it ragtime.’

‘Which did you choose?’

‘ “Kitten”. It’s not really difficult but it does need what Professor Brant calls dexterity. Besides, Mrs C. wanted me to choose the other one. She’s weird. She gives a concert recital every evening at six. She always has the lid of the piano right up and all the windows open. It’s always when Blag’s walking along the river path to the village pub for a drink. She plays Chaminade’s “Autumn” at him full blast. She says it’s to remind him of Cécile. Who’s Cécile? He never takes any notice unless he has someone with him, like Jennifer or Rowe. Then he just waves. Jack Hunter shoots the rabbits because they’re pests. If I were Blag I’d ask him to shoot her. You know, she even marked the fingering for me on the music.’

I asked mother who Rowe and Jennifer were. My brother had banished Elm Park Farm to an outer limbo. My mother made sense.

‘Didn’t I tell you? One side of the old stables has been
converted into two biggish studios with living quarters attached. Tom McGowan has one. He’s an engraver and an old friend of Blag’s. Jennifer, his daughter, keeps house for him and does a little book illustrating. Nice girl. Lost the boy she was going to marry on the Somme. Ruskin Rowe has the other studio. He’s a commercial photographer. Things not people. Very clever I’m told. It’s a bit like a Mayfair mews down there. Without Blag it could get artsy crafty.’

‘Where is his studio then?’

‘Behind the garden wall. As far away from his mother and his Aunt Alice as he can reasonably be. You’ll see. He’s bound to ask you down. He said he’d like to draw you. He sees your father in you. So do I, come to that. You’ve got to go to college.’

There was no help for it; I had to work harder. Just over a year later I jumped through the necessary hoops, passed the right exams and acted my way past an interview board. In September, when I was eighteen, I could go to college and read law at the taxpayers’ expense. My mother was very pleased. Since she was in the new Noel Coward revue she was also disposed to be generous. She bought me some new shirts and underwear and decided that I had grown enough to wear one of my father’s Savile Row suits. She also said that when my last term at school ended I should have a holiday. The invitation from Blag came two days later. It was in the form of a job offer; that of temporary assistant gardener. The pay offered was two pounds a week plus bed, full board and beer money.

‘But two pounds is a lot,’ I protested. ‘I’m no gardener.’

‘He knows that, silly. It’s just a way of giving pocket money. Besides, think of the food. Annette runs her kitchen like a French bistro. All you’ll have to do for yourself is make your bed.’

I didn’t know what a bistro was, but I soon found that I was going to have a better time at Elm Park Farm than my brother. I had one of the guest-rooms built over the old coach house with a view of the river, and its own bathroom next door. It was entered from a balcony that ran the length of the stable yard from the walled garden to ‘The Lodge’, the small house with the clock tower in which the Hunters lived. The balcony was reached by an iron spiral staircase. Blag himself showed me the way.

‘This place is run like a boarding-house,’ he explained, ‘with Annette as the landlady. The studios, mine included, all have their own kitchens but artists and craftsmen don’t always feel like cooking. Some of us aren’t very good cooks anyway. Sometimes we prefer to eat in dear Annette’s kitchen which is conveniently next door to the Lodge where you met Jack just now. Lunch is at one o’clock, dinner at eight. Annette doesn’t do breakfasts though, just tea and toast. What do you drink now, Charlie? Wine? Beer?’

‘I had a glass of sherry last Christmas.’

‘I ask because I’m in the habit of walking along to the village pub for a drink before dinner. I dare say your brother told you. I’m always glad of company. You’re allowed to drink in pubs, aren’t you? You’re eighteen.’

‘Almost.’

‘It’s five now. By the time you’ve unpacked and found a book to read it’ll be sixish. I’ll give you a shout.’

The path along the river bank was cool and pleasant in the shade of the willows, but as we came abreast of the monkey puzzle on Mrs Cole’s lawn the shade thinned and we had the evening sun directly in our eyes. At the same moment the sound of the piano, of which I had been dimly aware, suddenly became louder. It was the Chaminade all right. I knew because James had picked out the melody on our piano at home the night before. He hadn’t wanted me to be caught out if challenged.

Blag wasn’t challenging anyone just then, not even his mother. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him raise his arm in acknowledgement of the music as we walked on.

‘I dare say your brother told you what to expect,’ he said.

‘Yes, but I thought the music might have changed. That’s not the only piece that Chaminade wrote.’

‘Oh, the music changes from time to time. We had Mendelssohn last week. But it’s the same old tune really, if you see what I mean, Charlie. By the way she rechristened your brother Zez. After the composer of “Kitten on the Keys”. Did he tell you?’

‘No. He’s rather touchy about his music. He’s going steady with Schumann at the moment.’

At the end of the river path there was an iron footbridge
across to the farm side of the river. There we joined the cart track that the farmer used to get his milk churns down to the road. Two hundred yards or so further on another footbridge took us back across the river into the rose garden behind The Angler’s Rest. There were people sitting at tables on the lawn by the river.

‘The flies get in your drink out here,’ Blag said and led the way inside.

It wasn’t a pub but a gentrified village inn with a courtyard in front and cars with chauffeurs waiting. The owners of the cars were standing in the saloon bar drinking pink gin and whisky on their way home from the day’s work. Blag nodded to one or two of them as he led the way through to a room labelled ‘
BAR PARLOUR
’. Here there were tables and chairs and, on the walls, hunting prints and stuffed fish in glass cases. A pretty woman with a nice smile came in to serve us. Her name was Dolly and I was introduced as a kind of nephew.

Dolly beamed. ‘Are you Kitty Blagden’s boy? There was a lovely picture of her in
Play Pictorial
last month. What’ll you drink?’

‘How about the draught cider?’ said Blag.

‘The stuff we’ve got will give him collywobbles. He’d be safer with a nice long Pimm’s. We’ve got fresh borage. Oh, I was forgetting.’ She pulled a letter out of her apron pocket. ‘This came for you today by post care of us. Dad said you’d asked him if he minded.’ She handed him the letter. ‘Gin and tonic for you?’

‘Thanks, Dolly.’ He looked at the letter. ‘Sorry, Charlie. I’d better see what this is.’

I watched him open it. The address on the envelope was typed. I was puzzled. In those days typewritten letters were not as common as they are now. Even business letters were sometimes written by hand. Love letters always were. But why would the master of Elm Park Farm want to use The Angler’s Rest as an accommodation address?

When Dolly brought the drinks Blag had his pocket diary open beside the letter. ‘I’ve got a man from Manchester coming down to see me weekend after next,’ he said. ‘I can’t do with him at the Farm. Could you put him up here for a couple of nights? Mr D.J. Bristow. He’s a lawyer, quite respectable.’

As we walked back we met Jack Hunter with a shot-gun under his arm. He had been a troop sergeant in the field artillery and in the breeches and leggings which were his weekday work clothes he was still a soldierly figure. He said he was going to shoot rabbits in the farmer’s lower field.

‘Does he know?’ asked Blag.

‘He won’t argue. If that cowhand of his can’t be bothered to keep the rabbits down he’ll be getting no more fresh vegetables from us. It’s our cold frames those little bunnies like to get into. Talking of which, Mr Blag, your Auntie Alice has been practising her mashie shots again. Broke two panes in the tomato house this evening.’

‘I thought you put up some netting for her.’

‘She says that’s for tee shots, not short approaches. Better watch out as you go by.’ He nodded to me and went on his way.

I had no trouble identifying Auntie Alice. She was a white-haired, stubby little woman wearing a pleated tweed skirt, a canary yellow jumper and low-heeled brown brogue shoes. She was now practising chip shots from the edge of the lawn. Sitting at a rustic table by the monkey puzzle tree, and unmistakably mistress of all she surveyed, was Mrs Cole. Her right hand rested on the tasselled handle of a pink parasol which, as we approached, she raised above her head and brandished slightly as if she were hailing a taxi. It would have been difficult for us to have ignored her.

‘Better get it over with,’ Blag said.

‘So this is Zez’s big brother Charles,’ she said as we approached her. ‘Welcome to Elm Park Farm, Charles Blagden.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Cole.’

‘I never met your father but your mother says you’re like him, just as handsome. Are you musical like your brother?’

‘Not in the least, Mrs Cole.’

‘Modest as well as handsome. You must come to supper with me, young man.’

‘That’s enough, Em,’ said her sister firmly, ‘you’re making him blush.’

Lancashire still came through clearly in the way Aunt Alice spoke. Mrs Cole had sounded like a drama school elocutionist. I was relieved when Blag took charge again and moved us on.
Mrs Cole’s affectations on top of the Pimm’s and an otherwise empty stomach had given me an uncontrollable desire to belch. Luckily we were out of earshot before I had to give way. Blag was sympathetic. ‘You must be hungry,’ he said. ‘Annette will soon take care of that.’