The eighth Lord Kennington was slaughtered during the Charge of the Light Brigade, the ninth in the Boer War, and the tenth at Ypres. The eleventh, a playboy, led a more peaceful life, but eventually found it necessary, for pecuniary reasons — Kennington Hall required a new roof — to open his home to the public. They turned up every weekend in countless numbers, and for a small sum were allowed to stroll around the Hall; when they ventured into the Long Gallery they came across the Chinese masterpiece on its stand, surrounded by a red rope.
With mounting debts, which the publics entrance fees could not offset, the eleventh Lord Kennington was forced to sell off several of the family heirlooms, including the Kennington Set.
Christie’s placed an estimate of £100,000 on the masterpiece, but the auctioneer’s hammer finally fell at £230,000.
‘When you next visit Washington,’ added Max between puffs, ‘you can view the original Kennington Set, as it’s now part of the Mellon Collection. This would have been the end of my tale,’ continued Max, ‘if the eleventh Lord Kennington hadn’t married an American striptease artiste, who gave birth to a son. This child displayed a quality that the Kennington lineage had not troubled themselves with for several generations — brains.
‘The Hon. Harry Kennington became, much to the disapproval of his father, a hedge-fund manager, and thus the natural heir to the first Lord Kennington. He was a man who took as easily to the currency market as his pirate ancestor had to the high seas. By the age of twenty-seven, Harry had plundered his first million as an asset stripper, much to his mother’s amusement, who suggested that stripping was clearly a hereditary trait. By the time Harry inherited the title he was chairman of Kennington’s Bank. The first thing he did with his new-found wealth was to set about restoring Kennington Hall to its former glory. He certainly did not allow members of the public to pay five pounds to park their cars on his front lawn.
‘The twelfth Lord Kennington, like his father, also married a remarkable woman. Elsie Trumpshaw was the offspring of a Yorkshire cotton mill proprietor, and the product of a Cheltenham Ladies’ College education. Like any self-respecting Yorkshire lass, Elsie considered the saying, If you take care of the pennies, the pounds will take care of themselves to be a creed, not a cliché.
‘While her husband was away making money, Elsie was unquestionably the mistress of Kennington Hall. Having spent her formative years wearing her elder sister’s hand-me-downs, carrying her thumbed books to school and later borrowing her lipstick, whatever the colour, Elsie was well qualified to be the guardian of a hereditary pile. With consummate skill, diligence and good housekeeping, she set about the maintenance and upkeep of the newly restored Hall. Although she had no interest in the game of chess, she was irritated by the empty display cabinet in the Long Gallery. She finally solved the problem while strolling around a local car-boot sale,’ said Max, ‘and at the same time changed the fortunes of so many people, myself included.’ Max stubbed out his second cigarette and I was relieved that he didn’t immediately roll another, as our little cell was fast coming to resemble Paddington Station in the era of the steam engine.
Elsie was trudging around a car-boot sale in Pudsey on a rainy Sunday morning — she only ever attended such events when it was raining, as that ensured fewer customers and it was therefore easier for her to strike a bargain. She was rummaging through some clothes when she came across the chessboard. The red and white squares brought back memories of a photograph she had seen in the old Christie’s catalogue, dating from when the original set had been sold. Elsie bargained for some time with the man standing at the back of an ancient Jaguar, and ended up having to part with £23 for the ivory chessboard.
When Elsie returned to the Hall, she placed the newly acquired board in the empty display cabinet and was delighted to discover that it was a perfect fit. She thought nothing more of the coincidence, until her uncle Bertie advised her to have it valued — for insurance purposes, he explained.
Unconvinced, but unwilling to slight her uncle, Elsie took the board up to London on one of her monthly trips to visit her aunt Gertrude. Lady Kennington — she was always Lady Kennington in London — dropped into Sotheby’s on her way to Fortnum & Mason. A young assistant in the Chinese department asked if her ladyship would be kind enough to come back later that afternoon, by which time their expert would have placed a value on the board.
Elsie returned to Sotheby’s after a leisurely lunch with Aunt Gertrude. She was greeted by a Mr Sencill, the head of the Chinese department, who offered the opinion that the piece was unquestionably Ming Dynasty.
‘And are you able to place a value on it—’ she paused — ‘for insurance purposes?’
‘Two thousand, two thousand five hundred, m’lady,’ said Mr Sencill. ‘Ming chessboards are fairly common,’ he explained. It is the individual pieces that are rare, and a complete set...’ He raised the palms of his hands and placed them together, as if praying to the unseen God of auctioneers. ‘Are you perhaps considering selling the board?’ he enquired.
‘No,’ replied Elsie firmly. ‘On the contrary, I’m thinking of adding to it.’
The expert smiled. After all, Sotheby’s is nothing more than a glorified pawn shop, with each generation of the aristocracy either buying or selling.
On arriving back at Kennington Hall, Elsie returned the board to its position of honour in the drawing room.
Aunt Gertrude set the ball rolling. On Christmas Day she presented her niece with a white pawn. Elsie placed the single piece on the empty board. It looked lonely.
‘And now, my dear, you must see if you can complete the set in your lifetime,’ the old lady challenged, unaware of the chain of events she was about to set in motion. What had begun as a whim, while attending a car-boot sale in Pudsey, turned into an obsession, as Elsie began to search the globe for the missing pieces. The first Lord Kennington would have been proud of her.
When Lady Kennington gave birth to their first son, Edward, a grateful husband presented his wife with a white queen. A magnificently sculptured ivory lady adorned in a long, intricately carved royal gown. Her Majesty stared down with disdain on the single pawn.
The next acquisition was another white pawn, acquired by Uncle Bertie from a dealer in New York. This allowed the white queen to reign over two of her subjects.
The birth of a second son, James, was rewarded with a red bishop, resplendent in a flowing surplice and carrying a shepherd’s crook. The queen and her two subjects were now able to celebrate Holy Communion, even if they had to travel to the other side of the board to do so. Soon the whole family began to join in the search for the missing pieces. A red pawn was the next acquisition, when it came under the auctioneer’s hammer at Bonham’s. He took up his place on the far side of the board, waiting to be taken. By now, everyone in the trade was only too aware of Lady Kennington’s lifetime mission.
Next to find its place on the board was a white castle, which Aunt Gertrude left Elsie in her will.
In 1991 the twelfth Lord Kennington passed away, by which time the white set was lacking only two pawns and a knight, while the red set was short of four pawns, one rook and a king.
On 11 May 1992, a dealer in possession of three red pawns and a white knight knocked on the door of Kennington Hall. He had recently returned from a journey through the outer regions of China. A long and arduous trek, he told her ladyship. But, he assured her, he had not returned empty-handed.
Although her ladyship was in her declining years, she still held out for several days, before the dealer finally settled his bill at the Kennington Arms and left clutching a cheque for £26,000.