' 'Pon my soul, Colonel Sidebotham was saying to the Vicar, 'I don't like the look of that nigger. I saw enough of Fuzzy-Wuzzy in the Soudan ‑ devilish good enemy and devilish bad friend. I'm going across to talk to Mrs Clutterbuck. Between ourselves, I think Lady C. went a bit far. I didn't see the race myself, but there are limits….
'Rain ain't doin' the turnip crop any good, Lady Circumference was saying.
'No, indeed, said Mrs Beste‑Chetwynde. 'Are you in England for long?
'Why, I live in England, of course, said Lady Circumference.
'My dear, how divine! But don't you find it just too expensive?
This was one of Lady Circumference's favourite topics, but somehow she did not feel disposed to enlarge on it to Mrs Beste‑Chetwynde with the same gusto as when she was talking to Mrs Sidebotham and the Vicar's wife. She never felt quite at ease with people richer than herself.
'Well, we all feel the wind a bit since the war, she said briefly. 'How's Bobby Pastmaster?
'Dotty, said Mrs Beste‑Chetwynde, 'terribly dotty, and he and Chokey don't get on. You'll like Chokey. He's just crazy about England, too. We've been around all the cathedrals, and now we're going to start on the country houses. We were thinking of running over to see you at Castle Tangent one afternoon.
'That would be delightful, but I'm afraid we are in London at present. Which did you like best of the cathedrals, Mr Chokey?
'Chokey's not really his name, you know. The angel's called "Mr Sebastian Cholmondley."
'Well, said Mr Cholmondley, 'they were all fine, just fine. When I saw the cathedrals my heart just rose up and sang within me. I sure am crazy about culture. You folk think because we're coloured we don't care about nothing but jazz. Why, I'd give all the jazz in the world for just one little stone from one of your cathedrals.
'It's quite true. He would.
'Well, that's most interesting, Mr Cholmondley. I used to live just outside Salisbury when I was a girl, but, little as I like jazz, I never felt quite as strongly as that about it.
'Salisbury is full of historical interest, Lady Circumference, but in my opinion York Minster is the more refined.
'Oh, you angel! said Mrs Beste‑Chetwynde. 'I could eat you up every bit.
'And is this your first visit to an English school? asked the Doctor.
'I should say not. Will you tell the Doctor the schools I've seen?
'He's been to them all, even the quite new ones. In fact, he liked the new ones best.
'They were more spacious. Have you ever seen Oxford?
'Yes; in fact, I was educated there.
'Were you, now? I've seen Oxford and Cambridge and Eton and Harrow. That's me all over. That's what I like, see? I appreciate art. There's plenty coloured people come over here and don't see nothing but a few night clubs. I read Shakespeare, said Chokey, 'Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear. Ever read them?
'Yes, said the Doctor; 'as a matter of fact, I have.
'My race, said Chokey, 'is essentially an artistic race, We have the child's love of song and colour and the child's natural good taste. All you white folks despise the poor coloured man….
'No, no, said the Doctor.
'Let him say his piece, the darling, said Mrs Beste Chetwynde. 'Isn't he divine!
'You folks all think the coloured man hasn't got a soul. Anything's good enough for the poor coloured man. Beat him; put him in chains; load him with burdens…. Here Paul observed a responsive glitter in Lady Circumference's eye. 'But all the time that poor coloured man has a soul same as you have. Don't he breathe the same as you? Don't he eat and drink? Don't he love Shakespeare and cathedrals and the paintings of the old masters same as you? Isn't he just asking for your love and help to raise him from the servitude into which your forefathers plunged him? Oh, say, white folks, why don't you stretch out a helping hand to the poor coloured man, that's as good as you are, if you'll only let him be?
'My sweet, said Mrs Beste‑Chetwynde, 'you mustn't get discouraged. They're all friends here.
'Is that so? said Chokey. 'Should I sing them a song?
'No, don't do that, darling. Have some tea.
'I had a friend in Paris, said the Clutterbuck governess, 'whose sister knew a girl who married one of the black soldiers during the war, and you wouldn't believe what he did to her. Joan and Peter, run and see if Daddy wants some more tea. He tied her up with a razor strop and left her on the stone floor for the night without food or covering. And then it was over a year before she could get a divorce.
'Used to cut off the tent ropes, Colonel Sidebotham was saying, 'and then knife the poor beggars through the canvas.
'You can see 'em in Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road any night of the week, Sam Clutterbuck was saying. 'The women just hanging on to 'em.
'The mistake was ever giving them their freedom, said the Vicar. 'They were far happier and better looked after before.
'It's queer, said Flossie, 'that a woman with as much money as Mrs Beste‑Chetwynde should wear such dull clothes.
'That ring didn't cost less than five hundred, said Philbrick.
'Let's go and talk to the Vicar about God, said Mrs Beste‑Chetwynde. 'Chokey thinks religion is just divine.
'My race is a very spiritual one, said Chokey.
'The band has been playing Men of Harlech for over half an hour, said the Doctor. 'Diana, do go and tell them to try something else.
'I sometimes think I'm getting rather bored with coloured people, Mrs Beste‑Chetwynde said to Lady Circumference. 'Are you?
'I have never had the opportunity.
'I daresay you'd be good with them. They take a lot of living up to; they are so earnest. Who's that dear, dim, drunk little man?
'That is the person who shot my son.
'My dear, how too shattering for you. Not dead, I hope? Chokey shot a man at a party the other night. He gets gay at times, you know. It's only when he's on his best behaviour that he's so class‑conscious. I must go and rescue the Vicar.
The stationmaster came into the tent, crab‑like and obsequious.
'Well, my good man? said the Doctor.
'The young lady I have been telling that no other tunes can we play whatever with the lady smoking at her cigarette look you.
'God bless my soul. Why not?
'The other tunes are all holy tunes look you. Blasphemy it would be to play the songs of Sion while the lady at a cigarette smokes whatever. Men of Harlech is good music look you.
'This is most unfortunate. I can hardly ask Mrs Beste-Chetwynde to stop smoking. Frankly I regard this as impertinence.
'But no man can you ask against his Maker to blaspheme whatever unless him to pay more you were. Three pounds for the music is good and one for blasphemy look you.
Dr Fagan gave him another pound. The stationmaster retired, and in a few minutes the silver band began a singularly emotional rendering of In Thy courts no more are needed Sun by day and Moon by night.
CHAPTER X Post Mortem
As the last car drove away the Doctor and his daughters and Paul and Grimes walked up the drive together towards the Castle.
'Frankly the day has been rather a disappointment to me, said the Doctor. 'Nothing seemed to go quite right in spite of all our preparations.
'And expense, said Dingy.
'I am sorry, too, that Mr Prendergast should have had that unfortunate disagreement with Mrs Beste‑Chetwynde's coloured friend. In all the ten years during which we have worked together I have never known Mr Prendergast so self‑assertive. It was not becoming of him. Nor was it Philbrick's place to join in. I was seriously alarmed. They seemed so angry, and all about some minor point of ecclesiastical architecture.