Old Filth - Jane Gardam [17]
“We carried labels on our backs.”
“Did this happen to you?”
“To all of us, it d-did. Babs had UGLY. I had MONKEY.”
“And the pink girl?”
“Oh, she never got c-caught. Well, they l-liked her.”
“Nothing can be further from my Outfit,” said Sir, closing his eyes for a moment. “What do you think of my mirror?”
“M-m-m?”
“On the car. It is very much the fashionable touch, invented I am surprised to say by a lady. The first driving mirrors were adapted from the powder-case in a lady’s handbag. They were hand-held. So that you could see if anything was coming along behind. One day, they’ll be compulsory for both sexes I dare say. I see you are unaware of powder-cases? Perhaps you know no ladies? Have you a mother?”
“She died when I was b-b-b—”
“Several boys in my Outfit have suffered similarly. We are almost all of the Raj. I try not to see any of the mothers.”
The car was re-cranked and off they went again. In the dickie it grew very cold about the ears. Eddie crouched down a bit but was afraid to take himself out of range of the mysterious powder-case mirror. Sir stopped in a wooded valley and passed Eddie a bottle of lemonade, taking a swig himself from a flask with a silver top and wrapped in basket work. Eddie smelled something powerful and sweet. It reminded him of the silver box which his father had given him and which he had given to Ada.
“Not long, now,” said Sir. “We are on the borders of what is known as the English Lake District. It is the Old Kingdom of Cumbria and where I chose to set up my Outfit. I dare say you have not heard of our purple mountains and silver rivers?”
“I c-can’t remember. Sir.”
“Never fell to the Romans. Home of the poet Wordsworth who had a happy education.”
“Y-yes, Sir.”
“You know all this, I dare say?”
“I did—didn’t—”
“Can you read, Feathers?” Sir asked casually.
“N-n-not yet m-much.”
“Never mind. Won’t take two ticks. Great times ahead. Now, here we are.”
A high and very ugly brown stone castle towered out of a mountain forest beside a black lake, and as they turned and began to climb up a drive edged with blue hydrangeas a bell rang ahead of them and various boys began to emerge from the undergrowth looking eager and wild. Sir gave a salvo on the bulb and the boys began to jog up the drive, beside the car, some of them cheering.
“Supper time,” said Sir. “Sausages, with any luck. We’ve a good cook. You like sausages, I dare say?”
An elfin child burst out of the front door and flung himself in front of the car, arms spread.
“One day I’ll turn you into a single dimension. A pancake. A pulp for a pie,” said Sir.
“Can I put the car in the garage for you, Sir?” said the alert-looking boy.
“Of course, of course. Rub it down, will you, and give it a drink?”
The boy took the driver’s seat and, though his head was not far above the instruments panel, steered slowly and carefully into the garage where it fitted like a toy in a box.
“Very accurate boy,” said Sir. “Name of Ingoldby. He’s in charge of you for your first half-term. Very well done, Ingoldby. A garage to contend with.”
“It’s not so much a garage,” said Ingoldby, “as a kennel for a medium-sized dog. Hullo.”
“Ingoldby—Feathers,” introduced Sir, shaping the future.
THE DONHEADS
Seventy years on in Dorset, an extraordinarily warm November, Teddy Feathers, Sir Edward, Old Filth was fussing about which tie to wear for a trip to London. He and Betty were going to the solicitors to make their Wills.
Downstairs in the hall Betty, perfectly ready, sat waiting on a sort of throne of gilded wood and faded, shredding silk which had been scarlet when they bought it in Bangladesh. She had found it in a cavernous incense-smelling shop in the backstreets of Dacca’s Old Town. Stroking the pale rose satin now with her fingertips, she tried to remember what it was that had made her buy this chair. A bit of showing off, she thought. Well, some people brought back stuffed animals. She had asked if she might try sitting in it. It had been right at the back of the shop and she had looked out from it down the blackness to the dazzle