“He's in the book but I don't suppose he'll be at home now. You might be able to get him at Brat's at about one. He's almost always there.”
“Jock Grant-Menzies, Brat's Club. Thank you so very much. It is kind of you. I hope you will come and see me some time: Goodbye.”
After that the telephone was silent. At one o'clock Beaver despaired. He put on his overcoat, his gloves, his bowler hat and with neatly rolled umbrella set off to his club, taking a penny bus as far as the corner of Bond Street.
The air of antiquity pervading Brat's, derived from its elegant Georgian façade and finely panelled rooms, was entirely spurious, for it was a club of recent origin, founded in the burst of bonhommie immediately after the war. It was intended for young men, to be a place where they could straddle across the fire and be jolly in the card room without incurring scowls from older members. But now these founders were themselves passing into middle age; they were heavier, balder and redder in the face than when they had been demobilized, but their joviality persisted and it was their turn now to embarrass their successors, deploring their lack of manly and gentlemanly qualities.
Six broad backs shut Beaver from the bar. He settled in one of the armchairs in the outer room and turned over the pages of the New Yorker, waiting until someone he knew should turn up.
Jock Grant-Menzies came upstairs. The men at the bar greeted him saying, “Hullo, Jock old boy, what are you drinking?” or simply “Well, old boy?” He was too young to have fought in the war but these men thought he was all right; they liked him far more than they did Beaver, who, they thought, ought never to have got into the club at all. But Jock stopped to talk to Beaver. “Well, old boy,” he said. “What are you drinking?”
“Nothing so far.” Beaver looked at his watch. “But I think it's time I had one. Brandy and ginger ale.”
Jock called the barman and then said:
“Who was the old girl you wished on me at that party last night?”
“She's called Lady Tipping.”
“I thought she might be. That explains it. They gave me a message downstairs that someone with a name like that wanted me to lunch with her.”
“Are you going?”
“No, I'm no good at lunch parties. Besides I decided when I got up that I'd have oysters here.”
The barman came with the drinks.
“Mr. Beaver, sir, there's ten shillings against you in my books for last month.”
“Ah, thank you, Macdougal, remind me some time, will you?”
“Very good, sir.”
Beaver said, “I'm going to Hetton tomorrow.”
“Are you now? Give Tony and Brenda my love.”
“What's the form?”
“Very quiet and enjoyable.”
“No paper games?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that. A certain amount of bridge and backgammon and low poker with the neighbours.”
“Comfortable?”
“Not bad. Plenty to drink. Rather a shortage of bathrooms. You can stay in bed all the morning.”
“I've never met Brenda.”
“You'll like her, she's a grand girl. I often think Tony Last's one of the happiest men I know. He's got just enough money, loves the place, one son he's crazy about, devoted wife, not a worry in the world.”
“Most enviable. You don't know anyone else who's going, do you? I was wondering if I could get a lift down there.”
I don't I'm afraid. It's quite easy by train.”
“Yes, but it's more pleasant by road.”
“And cheaper.”
“Yes, and cheaper I suppose … well, I'm going down to lunch. You won't have another?”
Beaver rose to go.
“Yes, I think I will.”
“Oh, all right. Macdougal. Two more please.”
Macdougal said, “Shall I book them to you, sir?”
“Yes, if you will.”
Later, at the bar, Jock said, “I made Beaver pay for a drink.”
“He can't have liked that.”
“He nearly died of it. Know anything about pigs?”
“No. Why?”
“Only that they keep writing to me about them from my constituency.”
Beaver went downstairs but before going into the dining room he told the porter to ring up his home and see if there was any message for him.
“Lady Tipping rang up a few minutes ago and asked whether you could come to luncheon with her today.”
“Will you ring her up and say that I shall be delighted to but that I may be a few minutes late.”
It was just after half past one when he left Brat's and walked at a good pace towards Hill Street.
CHAPTER TWO
English Gothic — I
One
BETWEEN the villages of Hetton and Compton Last lies the extensive park of Hetton Abbey. This, formerly one of the notable houses of the county, was entirely rebuilt in 1864 in the Gothic style and is now devoid of interest. The grounds are open to the public daily until sunset and the house may be viewed on application by writing. It contains some good portraits and furniture. The terrace commands a fine view.
This passage from the county Guide Book did not cause Tony Last any serious annoyance. Unkinder things had been said. His aunt Frances, embittered by an upbringing of unremitting severity, remarked that the plans of the house must have been adapted by Mr. Pecksniff from one of his pupils' designs for an orphanage. But there was not a glazed brick or encaustic tile that was not dear to Tony's heart. In some ways, he knew, it was not convenient to run; but what big house was? It was not altogether amenable to modern ideas of comfort; he had many small improvements in mind, which would be put into effect as soon as the death duties were paid off. But the general aspect and atmosphere of the place; the line of its battlements against the sky; the central clock tower where quarterly chimes disturbed all but the heaviest sleepers; the ecclesiastical gloom of the great hall, its ceiling groined and painted in diapers of red and gold, supported on shafts of polished granite with carved capitals, half-lit by day through lancet windows of armorial stained glass, at night by a vast gasolier of brass and wrought iron, wired now and fitted with twenty electric bulbs; the blasts of hot air that rose suddenly at one's feet, through grills of cast-iron trefoils from the antiquated heating apparatus below, the cavernous chill of the more remote corridors where, economizing in coke, he had had the pipes shut off; the dining hall with its hammer-beam roof and pitch-pine minstrels gallery; the bedrooms with their brass bedsteads, each with a frieze of Gothic text, each named from Malory, Yseult, Elaine, Mordred and Merlin, Gawaine and Bedivere, Lancelot, Perceval, Tristram, Galahad, his own dressing room, Morgan le Fay, and Brenda's Guinevere, where the bed stood on a dais; its walls hung with tapestry, its fire-place like a tomb of the thirteenth century, from whose bay window one could count the spires of six churches — all these things with which he had grown up were a source of constant delight and exultation to Tony; things of tender memory and proud possession.
They were not in the fashion, he fully realized. Twenty years ago people had liked half timber and old pewter; now it was urns and colonnades; but the time would come, perhaps in John Andrew's day, when opinion would reinstate Hetton in its proper place. Already it was referred to as “amusing” and a very civil young man had asked permission to photograph it for an architectural review.
The ceiling of Morgan le Fay was not in perfect repair. In order to make an appearance of coffered wood, moulded slats had been nailed in a chequer across the plaster. They were painted in chevrons of blue and gold. The squares between were decorated alternately with Tudor roses and fleur-de-lis. But damp had penetrated into one corner, leaving a large patch where the gilt had tarnished and the colour flaked away; in another place the wooden laths had become warped and separated from the plaster. Lying in bed, in the grave ten minutes between waking and ringing, Tony studied these defects and resolved anew to have them put right. He wondered whether it would be easy, nowadays, to find craftsmen capable of such delicate work.