Thrones, Dominations Read online

  ‘Not in the least. Political offenders don’t count. They have only a courtesy title to crime.’

  ‘I always knew you were an intellectual snob. Well, we must do our bourgeois best. But I’m glad you looked in.’

  He watched Peter drift through the doorway, and a feeling of depression came over him as he turned to his lists again.

  Mr Paul Delagardie, warming his elderly bones on the French Riviera, found himself called upon to receive the dignified and exceedingly well-expressed condolences of Monsieur Théophile Daumier.

  ‘To you, my dear friend, therefore,’ concluded Monsieur Daumier, who had arrayed himself formally for the occasion, ‘as to a representative of the great nation with which France is so closely linked in bonds of alliance and mutual amity, permit me to offer the expression of that cordial sympathy by which the heart of every member of our republic must feel itself today profoundly moved.’

  ‘Merci, mon cher, merci,’ replied Mr Delagardie. ‘Believe me that I am sincerely touched by your friendly visit, and by the condolences which you so amiably offer to my nation and to myself on your own behalf and that of your compatriots.’

  Here the two gentlemen bowed, shook hands, and (the hour of déjeuner approaching) sat down to partake of an apéritif.

  ‘Strictly speaking, however,’ observed Mr Delagardie, ‘I am in no way representative of my nation. Indeed, I congratulate myself that I am not at this moment in London, where the feelings of the average Englishman are doubtless expressing themselves in that singular mixture of sentiment and snobbery which characterises the public utterances of our remarkable race.’

  Monsieur Daumier raised deprecating eyebrows.

  ‘Some, no doubt,’ pursued Mr Delagardie, ‘will be genuinely distressed. My sister, with whom I have a great deal in common, will experience that natural melancholy which attends the closing of a chapter in history. And my nephew Peter, who has occasionally displayed an awareness of the importance of public affairs . . .’ He paused, and then went on uncertainly, ‘King George was a safe man and the country had grown used to him. The English do not care for change, and any new idea is repugnant to them. I say again, to be absent from England now is a matter for congratulation.’

  After his friend’s departure, Mr Delagardie sat for a long time gazing from his window across the palms to the blue Mediterranean waters. Once his hand went out to the newspaper lying at his elbow; but he checked the movement and returned to his meditation. Presently, with a small impatient sigh, he took up a paper-covered novel and read for some fifteen minutes with determined concentration. At the end of this period, he put the volume down, carefully inserting a marker to keep the place, and rang the bell.

  ‘Victor,’ he said to the servant who answered, ‘telephone for sleepers and pack my bag. We are leaving tonight for London.’

  ‘I say,’ repeated Harwell for the twentieth time at least, ‘it would be madness to open on Thursday. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll put out an announcement, simply saying that in view of the national calamity, and so forth, the production of Mr Clandon’s new play is postponed. Then find a new title, rewrite that scene in act two, and call a rehearsal to keep the company from going broody. If you do that, I’ll stand by the show, and I think we shall make good.’

  He looked round the room with the challenging confidence of the man who, with money to lose, is prepared to figure as the strength and stay of upholding a chicken-hearted creation.

  ‘Do you really expect me,’ demanded Claude Amery, ‘to mark with black the day on which you asked me to lunch?’

  He delivered this admirable line sincerely enough, but a little theatrically, as though, having written a play, he had become touched by a sort of anticipatory stage-infection.

  ‘That,’ replied Mrs Harwell, extricating her latchkey, ‘is pretty but foolish. Now we’re here, you’d better come in and have a cup of tea.’

  As Mr Amery, protesting delighted acceptance, stumbled vaguely after her into the sitting-room, they were greeted by a small elderly man, who rose up from an armchair by the fire, rather hastily setting down a tumbler as he did so.

  ‘Rosamund! My dear child . . .’

  ‘Oh, here you are, Father,’ said Rosamund, receiving his embrace with graceful detachment. ‘I’m sorry I’m late. I hope they looked after you. I think you know Mr Amery.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ replied Mr Warren. ‘How do you do? My dear, this is all terribly sad. I hope I shall not be in your way, but I felt that we must be together. At times like this one feels the call of London. My place, after all, is here. I couldn’t stay at Beachington; a very nice little town, of course, but out of touch with the pulse of the country. Whatever misfortunes one may have experienced—’

  ‘Of course, Father,’ said Rosamund, ringing the bell rather hastily, ‘I’m delighted to see you, and so is Laurence. Claude, come and sit down.’

  ‘No doubt,’ pursued Mr Warren, with a kind of shaky dignity, ‘you are aware, Mr Amery, that I was, not so long ago, the – shall we say – the guest of His Majesty’s government, under somewhat distressing circumstances. I committed the fatal error of placing too much trust in my fellow-men. I have paid for that error, Mr Amery, and though I no longer move in my accustomed circles, my friends have been very kind to me. My daughter and my generous son-in-law are always ready to welcome a – let us call it a prodigal father, and now that a great bereavement has overwhelmed us all—’

  ‘I don’t know when Laurence will be in, Father. He’s very busy down at the theatre. Would you ring down and ask them to send up tea for three, please. No, Claude, how absurd! Of course you’re not in the way.’

  Peter Wimsey found his wife having tea in company with a book and a large tabby cat. He sat down with a brief apology, and a soft grunt of satisfaction.

  ‘Tired?’

  ‘Low-spirited. Why has that excellent phrase gone out of fashion? Thinking of the old’un. I haven’t done much. Lunched with Gerald, who was in an exceedingly damping frame of mind. Went up north and wrestled in prayer for nearly an hour with the local authorities about the collection of dustbins.’

  ‘Can’t the tenants deal with that for themselves?’

  ‘They seemed to think my personal influence might have some weight with the borough council. I had to go up, anyway, to see about getting rid of a frightful row of speculative villas in Lilac Gardens, a beastly relic of the post-war period when I was neglecting my duties as a landlord. Be sure your sins will find you out. And the Peculiar People want to build a quite blasphemously ugly chapel just opposite my beautiful new pub in Billington Road. And one thing and another. One set of tenants making a devil of a fuss about noisy neighbours, and another couple wanting to be moved because the block they are in is eerily quiet.’

  ‘Couldn’t you just swap them around?’

  ‘As it happens, yes, this time. If only they always presented themselves in opposing pairs; you’d be surprised how bothersome people are about noise. At four o’clock I felt exactly like a lost dog. I was just preparing to approach the nearest bobby and whine to be taken to Battersea, when I suddenly remembered that I had a home to go to.’

  He let his glance wander for a moment over the serene Georgian proportions of the room, before bringing it to rest on his wife.

  ‘It all sounds very trying.’

  ‘It is, Domina, it is. An endemic low-level crisis, not important enough to screw one’s courage to the sticking point, but requiring fortitude, none the less.’

  ‘Couldn’t you keep them sorted out? Noise-haters, I mean?’

  ‘Build a special block of flats for them? With soundproof walls and floors, situated between a convent and a retired solicitor’s residence.’

  ‘And special rules to enforce quiet.’

  ‘The keeping of children, dogs and tomcats is strictly forbidden; the hours of music and entertainment are rigidly regulated, and any complaint about noise, if made by three tenants in writing, renders the disturber of t
he peace liable to instant ejection,’ Peter intoned. ‘Perhaps I should. On the other hand, people who like noise suffer as much by being deprived of it as nervous people do from noise.’

  ‘You’ll need another block of complementary flats for them,’ suggested Harriet. ‘Something sturdily built with moderate rentals . . .’

  ‘Where children, animals and musical instruments are heartily encouraged, the inner court is laid out as a playground, and complaints about noise receive only the stern reply, “Agree with your neighbours or go.” Harriet, I do believe we are on to something.’

  ‘Of course, there might be neighbours across the road from your noise-lovers’ block, or on either side of it.’

  ‘I shall have it built on a site with a school on the one side, and a brickmaker’s yard on the other, to ensure a proper distance from nervous residents. I had been wondering what would best occupy that space.’

  ‘Are we joking, Peter?’

  ‘Certainly not. I lay my troubles at your feet, and you proffer solutions. Balm to my weary heart. I shall make the experiment. What shall we call these mansions of diverse contentment? Scylla and Charybdis Court?’

  ‘I do rather wonder what it would be like to be ill in the noise-lovers’ block. With a splitting headache, for instance.’

  ‘The charitable landlord will add a small soundproof sanatorium for the isolation of the sick,’ said Peter. ‘All will be provided for, and people will fight savagely to get on to the waiting lists.’

  ‘You may or may not be joking, Peter, but you do look rather jaded. Will tea cope with it? Or is it a fever of the spirit that calls for homeopathic treatment?’

  ‘Tea and sympathy will meet the case.’ He came over to take the cup from the tray, pausing by Harriet’s chair for information and action.

  ‘It’s a very handsome pie-frill. Discouraging, perhaps, to the well-meant expression of a husband’s feelings. But becoming. The head of the family sent you his blessing, by the way. I believe Gerald is almost persuaded that you are capable of taking the family madman in hand . . . Hi! That’s my chair, you miserable striped ruffian. Up you come! Is a man never to be master in his own house?’

  5

  For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground

  And tell sad stories of the death of kings

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  As the tiny procession came down Whitehall a curious illusion moved with it. At its passing, hats were lifted from bald heads, faces were tilted upwards to peer over obstructing shoulders. Long before you could distinguish the outline of the gun-carriage in the distance, you knew where it was, seeing the dark crowd turn pink, as though a pale sun were following it westwards. It was a small procession – not as many as fifty – some mounted, some walking. The new King walked behind the coffin, deathly pale, seeming bowed by the weight of his long dark overcoat. There were no parading soldiers, and no music. The intense quiet of the crowded streets allowed the footfalls of the passing men and horses to be clearly heard. And in the whole scene, muted in the misty January light, the only splash of colour was the royal ensign draped across the coffin, and the crown borne along on top of it, looking strangely like a theatrical prop.

  Harriet’s throat felt tight. The woman on her left was bringing out a pocket-handkerchief; on her right, she was insistently aware of a frozen rigidity that was Peter. She lowered her eyes to the parapet; his hand lay there quietly, but she could see white semicircles where pressure had forced back the blood from the nail-tips. Cautiously, as though even so small a movement might break the tension, she slid her own hand along till their little fingers touched.

  It passed; and the crowd, closing in its wake like blown leaves, began to drift away. It was unlike all other crowds in this, that it was voiceless. It only moved, with a sound like waves breaking on a shingly beach.

  ‘You are a very remarkable nation,’ said a deep voice behind them. ‘You permit a casual crowd to arrange itself with the assistance of a few unarmed policemen. Then you take your new King and all the male heirs to the throne, throw in the crown of England for good measure, collect them into a bunch that you could cover with a handkerchief, and walk them slowly for two miles through the open streets of the capital. Who was to say that I had not a bolshevist fury in my heart, and a Mills bomb in my pocket?’

  ‘This is just a village funeral,’ said Peter. ‘Nobody would dream of making a disturbance. It is not done. When it comes to a public ceremony, precautions will be taken. But not when we are private.’

  ‘It is fantastic,’ said Gaston Chapparelle. ‘You think of yourselves as a practical people, yet your empire is held together by nothing but a name and a dream. You laugh at your own traditions, and are confident that the whole world will respect them. And it does. That is the astonishing thing about it.’

  ‘It may not last,’ said Peter Wimsey.

  ‘It will last so long as you do not take it into your heads to become theoretical. You are like the centipede, which walked perfectly until it tried to explain which leg went after which. Let us ask what questions we like, but take care you never try to answer them. Once you have secured to yourself the sort of government that nobody dares to criticise, the way is open for the bullet-proof car, the bodyguard armed to the teeth, and the iron hell of a discipline tightened to hysteria. I am impressed. With every disposition to be cynical, I am nevertheless impressed.’

  They descended slowly through the building, pausing on their way to thank the government official who had welcomed them to a place on the roof. On the lower landing they exchanged surprised recognition with the Harwells, who had old Mr Warren in tow. A few commonplaces led to the suggestion that they should all proceed to Audley Square for drinks. Rosamund’s momentary hesitation gave Chapparelle his chance.

  ‘Admirable!’ said he, with such firmness as to make refusal seem impossible. ‘It amuses me to see two of my sitters together. For me they create new aspects of one another.’

  ‘I am afraid,’ said Rosamund, ‘it will tire my father.’

  ‘Not at all, my dear, not at all,’ said Mr Warren, ‘why should it? So Monsieur Chapparelle is painting you too, Lady Peter?’

  Harriet began to explain that Peter and she had just been paying a visit to the studio, when Chapparelle broke in: ‘This man is cautious. He comes to find out whether I can paint before he will commission a portrait. I show him my work. I do not need to ask the result. I shall paint his wife. Hein? You will not pretend, I hope, that I am a bad painter.’

  ‘You are a hellishly good painter,’ said Wimsey, with an emphasis on the adverb.

  ‘You have nothing to fear,’ replied Chapparelle, with a scarcely perceptible emphasis on the pronoun.

  Harriet caught a flicker in Harwell’s glance, as though, despite their context, the words had reminded him that Chapparelle enjoyed a certain reputation, not only as a painter, but as a man.

  Peter said quietly, ‘I am quite aware of that, Chapparelle.’

  It was Rosamund’s turn to notice a faint embarrassment in Harriet’s face. The ambiguous phrases evidently held a clear enough meaning for her.

  ‘Then,’ retorted the painter triumphantly, ‘we will begin our sitting tomorrow.’

  ‘You must arrange that with my wife. When it comes to two industrious artists fighting over a timetable!’ Wimsey’s gesture disclaimed responsibility. ‘Between the devil and the deep sea!’ He opened the door of the car.

  Rosamund Harwell, her fingers perilously clenched about the thin stem of a Waterford wine-glass, was suffering the torture of the damned. Through a cheerful barrage of conversation put up by the three men beside her, she could hear fragments of what her father was saying to Harriet. With a childlike absence of self-consciousness, he was talking about his prison experience. Harriet, her dark head sympathetically inclined, was listening with an appearance of grave interest. It was bound to happen, of course. It happened every time. If only Father would stay quietly at the seaside! No doubt he talked there, too, but
so long as one did not hear it. So long as one need not sit pretending to hear nothing! It would be a relief if Laurence would lose patience, and forbid him the house. One could scarcely ask him to do so, of course, and one was very grateful.

  ‘Don’t you think so, Mrs Harwell?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I agree absolutely.’ Chapparelle’s eye was like a sharp pin skewering one like a moth to the setting-board. Mr Warren had glanced across at her, shaken his head, and begun to fumble for his handkerchief. He had reached the intolerable point where he lamented his folly and praised his daughter’s courage in finding herself a job.

  ‘I assure you, Lady Peter, she has never uttered a single word of reproach . . .’

  ‘Perfectly damnable,’ said Peter, gently taking the glass from her hand and refilling it. ‘Of course, every management is hit to some extent.’

  ‘That’s the worst of it,’ agreed Harwell. ‘It means bad business all round. And once people get out of the theatre habit, it takes a long time to get them going again. I shan’t put money into anything this year, you bet, unless it’s a sure-fire certainty – in which case one isn’t likely to need outside backing.’

  Mr Warren was now blowing his nose.

  ‘Are there any sure-fire certainties?’ demanded Chapparelle.

  ‘There are two or three authors,’ said Harwell, ‘whose plays get a following more or less automatically.’

  ‘And two or three actors, I suppose?’ suggested Peter.

  Harwell paused consideringly. Mr Warren’s voice filtered through. ‘I say to myself, I must not become bitter or resentful. I must not brood and bottle things up. One must open the windows of the spirit and let in fresh air, fresh air . . .’

  ‘Not so many as there used to be. Authors are more important at the moment. A sound play on an established author’s established lines means a pretty safe return for one’s money. Though it’s all a speculation, of course. Still . . .’