They got back to Squire’s Acre at three, in time to witness an unrehearsed but popular item. An involuntary contributor to the display of dressage by Colonel Batty-Faudrey, his lady and his nephew, was a small boy on a donkey, with the donkey literally making all the running. As an example of dignity and impudence, the spectacle had a quite delightful side, but the Colonel was not particularly pleased to have his group’s activities, including the donkey, photographed by the local press and recorded by some privately-owned cameras as well, this amid cheering and laugher.
Where the donkey had come from, nobody seemed to know, but there could be no doubt of its popularity with the people of Brayne. Mrs Batty-Faudrey was even more incensed than her husband, and commanded her nephew to “get that ridiculous animal out of the way.” Giles Faudrey dismounted and attempted to haul the donkey out of the roped enclosure in which the gymkhana had been held, but the donkey, true to the tradition of its race, dug in its dainty forefeet and refused to budge. Giles gave up the contest and remounted, amid renewed cheering, and, led by Mrs Batty-Faudrey, the dressage abruptly dismissed itself and cantered out of the ring.
“That kid on the donkey is the one who takes the part of Falstaff’s page in The Merry Wives,” Laura remarked to Kitty, as they separated to go their different ways for tea.
CHAPTER FIVE
Doings at Squire’s Acre and the Town Hall
“…with all its tenements, meadows, pasture land, woods, rents, and service.”
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Colonel Batty-Faudrey (retired) was not a very happy man. To begin with, the house and estate had been purchased with his wife’s money, and, to go on with, one of her stipulations had been that her nephew was to live with them. Colonel Batty (he had added his wife’s name to that of his own at her instigation when they married) did not like his wife’s nephew, and men, in his opinion, are better judges of other men than are women. In this, he was, no doubt, correct, for, in Kitty’s terms, young Mr Faudrey was a mess, and, in her nephew’s idiom, a pullulating little wen.
However, on the afternoon of the pageant, young Mr Faudrey did not betray these characteristics. He was, in fact, the life and soul of the party. He supervised the setting up of the maypoles, helped to get the schoolboys’ portable apparatus into place, tested the trampoline by performing a most creditable couple of somersaults—“look, boys, no hands!”—on it, and finished up by putting his horse over some four-foot railings—all this, it seemed, to impress a young lady, one of the lesser lights of the drama club, but a nubile wench for all that, albeit she had not been given a part in The Merry Wives. The afternoon remained fine. There were moments of tension, it was true, as when some of the maypole dancers went wrong in reverse, but their teachers, wading waist-deep into the holocaust, soon pushed and prodded the thing to rights, and the primary schools trotted off, amid applause, to be regaled with lemonade and buns in a large marquee which had been set up in the paddock. The bigger boys and girls performed adequately and were similarly rewarded, the town band gave of its best, the Boy Scouts put on an unexpected sing-song, and Colonel Batty-Faudrey went up to his room, when the display of dressage was over, with the purpose of changing out of his Charles II costume. While he was doing so, he happened to look out of the window. Hurriedly he donned white trousers, a black alpaca jacket, his regimental tie and his cricketing boots, and hastened downstairs to his wife who, fancying herself more than a little in Joan of Arc’s cardboard armour and long surcoat, had elected not to change until after tea.
She was seated on the open-air dais from which the notables—including the Mayor, the Mayoress, the Borough Councillors and Kitty—had watched most of the proceedings, so, under cover of a spirited rendering by the Boy Scouts of What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor, the Colonel addressed his wife thus:
“What do you know about Giles?”
“Giles?” repeated Mrs Batty-Faudrey. “What should I know about him? Does it matter, anyway?”
“He’s just gone into the woods.”
“Well, no harm in that. He’s probably feeling the heat. It absolutely poured down on the paddock. I gave that little idiot on the donkey a piece of my mind.”
“He has a girl with him.”
“Who has?”
“Giles.”
“Girl? What girl?”
“I don’t know what girl, but she’s wearing very tight trousers and an Ascot hat.”
“Well, you’d better go and disentangle them. It can’t be anybody we’ve invited here. They wouldn’t dress like that.”
“I thought perhaps…”
The Boy Scouts, having hit upon several things to do with the Drunken Sailor, relaxed, and the Batty-Faudrey conversation lapsed until his lady poked the Colonel sharply in the ribs and waved a hand towards the woods. Colonel Batty-Faudrey shook his head, got up, announced firmly to the occupants of the dais that tea was now to be served in the long gallery, and the Boy Scouts struck up The Drummer and the Cook. The dais moved off with a leisurely dignity which disguised its relief at the prospect of a cup of tea and (with any luck) sandwiches, sausage rolls and small, rich cakes, and soon disappeared into the cool interior of the house.
“You miserable coward!” muttered Mrs Batty-Faudrey to her husband. “Just wait and see what I’ll say to Giles when he comes back! We don’t want another—well—incident. But you—you poltroon!”
She was obliged to break off in order to usher her guests upstairs to where, in the long gallery, small tables had been established and maids were in attendance. Half-way through the orgies young Mr Faudrey turned up with the trousered girl in tow, steered her to the vacant seats at the table where sat the Mayor and Mayoress and his uncle and aunt, and introduced her.
“This is Caroline Fisher, Mr Mayor, Madam Mayoress, Aunt and Uncle. Catherine Howard in this morning’s procession, don’t you know.”
“How amusing!” said the Mayoress, nervously. “Your head tucked underneath your arm, and everything!” (To Mr Perse’s fury, Councillor Topson had carried the day with regard to Anne Boleyn’s well-known eccentricity.)
“That wasn’t me. That was Angela Pettit. She didn’t really want to do it,” said Miss Fisher. “I mean, a girl wants a head on her shoulders, not underneath her arm, when she makes a public appearance, doesn’t she?” She giggled, aware of a hostile atmosphere.
“Jolly sporting of her, anyway,” said Mr Faudrey, pulling out a chair and pushing her on to the seat of it. “Don’t you think so, Aunt Elsie?” He met the hard challenge in his aunt’s steely eyes with an impudent smile. Mrs Batty-Faudrey did not reply. She invited the Mayoress to accept another cup of tea.
Laura had neither expected nor desired a seat on the dais, and Twigg, who, as Kitty’s husband, had been invited to join the V.I.P. contingent, had again elected to escort Laura instead. When the non-V.I.P. section of the spectators streamed off to the paddock for tea, directed thereto by a loudspeaker, he and Laura slunk away to the local park and recreation ground, where they threw at coconuts, played hoop-la, rode on the roundabout, went up in a swing-boat, ate candy-floss and ice-cream and Twigg came away hugging a large, repellent vase, while Laura held two coconuts and a small jar of boiled sweets. They parked the vase among some convenient bushes, gave the coconuts to some small boys, ate the boiled sweets and put the empty jar into a litter bin and then went off in search of tea.
They prowled along Brayne high street, found a lorry-drivers’ cafe, went in and had ham and eggs, very strong tea and some thick, new bread-and-butter.