London - Edward Rutherfurd [559]
He had been relentless after that. They had walked down past Billingsgate to the Tower of London, and all the way Herbert pressed him. “You’re looking very pale, Percy. You must get out. Maisie’s promised to find you a wife. She says she can think of several nice girls. But they’ll want to live up there. Come on, Percy. You’ll make more money, too!” and finally, as they walked over Tower Bridge, he had decided to play the fool.
“Oh, all right then!” Percy said. “I will.”
“He’s decided!” Herbert let out a cry. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he addressed the bystanders, “you are all witnesses. Mr Percy Fleming here has just promised to set up on his own and move to the salubrious environs –” he went into full music-hall style – “the rarefied regions, I say the clean, the clear, the home of the crème de la crème, the very crest of creation, I am speaking, of course of the Crystal Palace . . .”
There was no doubt about it, Herbert was certainly a card.
Percy glanced round and was relieved to see that the onlookers were smiling. But Herbert was not done yet.
“Madam.” He had gone up to the girl Percy had already noticed. “Will you be a witness, that my brother here – he’s very respectable you know, and” – a stage whisper now – “in need of a wife – has agreed to live at Crystal Palace, and that there can be no turning back?”
She smiled. “I suppose so,” she said, and Herbert gave a little shout of triumph.
“Shake my brother’s hand,” he insisted, and as soon as she had hesitantly offered a gloved hand: “There, Percy. That’s it!”
While Herbert turned to talk to another bystander – it was amazing the way he could do that, and people never seemed to mind – Percy found himself left with the girl. “I’m sorry about my brother,” he said. “I hope he didn’t annoy you.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “He’s just having a lark.”
“Yes,” he said. “He does that sometimes.” He wondered what else he could say. She had very nice brown eyes, he thought. Nothing cocky about her though, like some girls: very quiet, kept herself to herself, he would think. She looked as if she might have suffered a bit. “I’m quieter than he is,” he explained.
“Yes,” she said. “I can see that.”
“You don’t live around here, then?” he said.
“No,” she hesitated a fraction. “Up at Hampstead.”
“Oh.”
“That’s a long way from Crystal Palace,” she pointed out.
“Yes.” He looked down. “I often come here on a Saturday like this, walk about, go into the Tower sometimes,” he lied. “Just by myself usually.”
“Oh,” she said. “That’s nice.”
Herbert was ready to move on now, so Percy had to go. He nearly said, “Perhaps I shall see you again,” as they said goodbye, but that would have been a bit forward.
Edward Bull knew the form. A short walk with his grandson around the grounds of Charterhouse, and it all came out. The teasing had been constant: “How’s the Prime Minister, Meredith?” Or more unkindly: “Have they arrested your mother yet? Could she plead insanity?” Once, over his bed, he had found a huge placard saying: “Votes for Women”.
“Pretty bad, eh?” Bull asked.
“I had to fight one fellow,” Henry admitted miserably; and though he did not say so, it was obvious that he did not think the cause was worth fighting for.
Still, when Bull suggested he treat four boys to tea, there was no shortage of takers. Not a boy in Charterhouse would refuse the chance of food. At a tea shop, he did them proud.
Twenty years as squire of Bocton had added a massive and deep-seated authority to Edward’s already powerful presence. To the boys, the solid Kentish landowner was an awesome figure. As for Bull, he had not run a brewery for nothing and he soon got the measure of the boys. There was one in particular they all followed. With his huge acquaintance in the city and elsewhere, there were not many people Edward could not place somewhere,