These were their alibis for the time of death: Brandon was buttling and his wife doing. Sir Branwell, Lady Fludd and the Bognors themselves were there to corroborate. They may not have actually been present, but they were at the end of a bell-pull. To have nipped off to church and done the necessary would have involved a completely unacceptable risk. And the Brandons, as was the way Bognor suspected with butlers and doers, were not among the nation’s risk-takers.
It was sometimes assumed that people such as the Brandons no longer existed.
Not true.
Within living memory, well almost within living memory, the Fludds of Mallborne would have employed large numbers of servants, of whom Mr and Mrs Brandon would have been the most important. Before the two socially levelling world wars, the manor would have boasted squads of lower orders, living as a sort of alternative household behind the green baize doors, much in the manner of the household made famous by the TV programme Upstairs, Downstairs in the 1970s. Even quite modest middle-class households would have had a couple of servants who cooked, served, drove and generally performed menial tasks for those upstairs.
People like them were the staples of golden age crime fiction, together with simpering clerics, blustering squires, long-winded lawyers, doctors who did regular ‘rounds’ (sometimes even on horseback) and all the other denizens of a society who knew their place and conformed to type. This world was often thought to have vanished, but it still clung on in places such as Mallborne. It was much diminished, unfashionable, unknown even to the journalists and others who sought to present a picture of contemporary life. But its fall from grace did not mean that this world had vanished. It still clung on.
Perhaps it was a vanishing age, but it was not yet gone, and the Bognors were privy to it. Or, at least, to a part of it. They knew they were lucky and that their friends, Sir Branwell and Camilla, were immensely privileged. It was incorrect, wrong, feudal, but if you were on the right side, definite fun.
The Brandons were on the wrong side of it – below the salt and on the distaff side of the green baize. This too was deceptive, for there was a real sense in which the Brandons ran the show. He was the regimental sergeant major while Sir Branwell was the ensign or second lieutenant. The baronet had breeding but was wet behind the ears; he carried a sword while RSM Brandon had only a pacing stick, silver-headed; the little officer dined in a smart mess; the sergeant-major presided over a rougher, less gilded institution. Yet, without the Brandons of this world, the army would cease to be. If Sir Branwell were abolished, no one would notice.
There was a paradox here, and its dying did not make it any less of a paradox. In a classless society, where Jack was as good as his master, there were few nuances and complexities. The old society was unfair, sometimes criminally so, but it was satisfyingly full of contradictions. One, possibly the most obvious, was that those who seemed to be in charge, were actually little more than figureheads. Jack was better than his master, but the charade was the reverse. The truth was that the true bosses were those who seemed to be bossed, but the truth was not to be acknowledged. The Sir Branwells of this world were perceived to be the monarchs of all they surveyed, and yet the reality was that those such as Brandon and his wife, who bowed and curtsied, tugged at their forelocks and were kept ruthlessly in place, were actually the masters now, and always had been.
‘You can drop the “sir”, Brandon,’ said Bognor, who, by dint of his education, his association with Sir Branwell and, above all, his ‘K’, was ‘officer class’. He smiled, patronizingly. ‘There are no witnesses. And I don’t hold with that sort of thing. So just relax. Call me Simon.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Brandon. Then aware of Bognor’s incredulous reaction, he stammered something more egalitarian, along the lines of ‘Simon… er… Mr Bognor… er… Sir Simon.’
Bognor, not particularly a stickler for modes of address and correct procedure, was embarrassed, and for almost the first time, thought that perhaps his new knighthood had merit if only when it came to ease of address. At least one knew where one was He had never had a problem with the head cheese at Apocrypha being constantly addressed as ‘master’. There was even, he supposed, something to be said for ‘sir’, if only on the grounds that it disguised ‘amnesia’. He had known people who called everyone ‘Sonny’ or ‘Darling’, or even ‘Fred’, when they were unable to remember someone’s real name. In that sense, maybe ‘sir’ was no worse. It carried unfortunate undertones of obsequiousness and deference, but it had its all-purpose uses.
‘Sorry,’ said Brandon, opting out of the problem altogether – as most people, in Bognor’s anecdotal observation, usually did. ‘It’s ingrained, I’m afraid. Also, I have to say that I have a better relationship with the boss than any number of the young, who wouldn’t dream of calling anyone by anything other than their Christian name.’
‘Unless it were “mate”!’ said Mrs Brandon-who-did, and who must have been born with a forename, but seemed to have acquired a status without one, just as governesses and housekeepers were accorded the mythical status of ‘Mrs’, whether married or not.
Bognor was afraid he was becoming sidetracked and bogged down in stuff which had nothing to do with murder. Well, maybe it did. Lese padre. Maybe parishioners had become overfamiliar, or, on the other hand, not familiar enough. And before he could help himself, he found himself asking, ‘Did you call the Reverend Sebastian, “sir”?’
This was obviously not a question either of the servants had been asked before, and it seemed to take them by surprise.
‘The thing about vicars,’ said Brandon eventually, and obviously speaking for both of them, ‘is that he has a title and one therefore usually called him “vicar”. If not, then I suppose, yes, we addressed him as “sir”, but remember he was a Fludd and that made a difference.’
Bognor had forgotten that the reverend was not just a man of God, but also a Fludd, which in the local order of preference counted for rather more. He was reminded of the Cabots and their ilk in Boston, and could perfectly well understand that in the context of Mallborne and its environs, it was better to be a Fludd than a god. Presumably, a butler who worked for the senior living Fludd was superior to a mere vicar who worked for God. But he was not going down that peculiarly English path.
‘Would you say you knew the vicar well?’ he asked, and was rewarded once again by the appearance of original thought. This was gratifying, almost as if he had asked an original question.
‘Difficult to say, sir,’ answered Brandon after a silence. ‘You see he was our vicar.’
‘Quite,’ said Bognor. ‘I mean, absolutely.’
There was a pause. Awkward.
Bognor broke it.
‘Would you say you and Mrs Brandon were churchgoers? C of E? Know what I mean?’
‘The missus and I are Methodists,’ said Brandon, ‘born and bred. But, of course, there’s no Methodist Church in Mallborne, and once we entered service with Sir Branwell’s father, God bless the colonel, we sort of became C of E like everyone else.’
‘I quite understand,’ said Bognor. He did too. The Church of England was that sort of religion. A matter of social convenience, as much as a true church with one foundation. If it had a foundation, it had more to do with what sort of newspaper one read, how one voted, and whether one dressed up to attend, than with true religion. True religion in the C of E was in short supply, and many who adhered to it, believed it was better that way.