Читать книгу The Faraway Drums - Jon Cleary, Jon Cleary - Страница 9

Extract from the memoirs of Miss Bridie O’Brady:

I have been to several memorable dinner parties in the course of a long and, forgive my smugness, very rewarding life. Once, when he and his wife had had a falling-out, Richard Harding Davis, that most handsome and dashing of foreign correspondents, took me to dinner at the White House; President Taft himself had to rescue me from the attentions and intentions of the French Ambassador, who had had a falling-out with his wife. On another occasion Mayor John Fitzgerald of Boston, known to everyone as Honey Fitz, called me up, knowing I was in New York for the night, and asked me to dinner with him at Rector’s with some friends from Tammany Hall. There amidst the cigar smoke, the bubbles of champagne and the giggles of the girls from the Music Hall chorus, I learned more about how a democracy is run than in several months of covering City Hall for the Boston Globe. I sometimes feel that one’s education can be improved more over the right dinner table than anywhere else, with the possible exception of under the counterpane. I speak, of course, as a lady of mature years whose education in both spheres was completed some time ago.

The most fateful dinner party, in personal terms, that I ever attended was at Viceregal Lodge in Simla in India in December 1911. The guests were as varied as one can only find in outposts of Empire; or could find, since empires, if they still exist, are no longer admitted. The acting host was a dull little man named Savanna, but everyone else at the long table in the huge panelled dining-room seemed to me to be an original, even the Nawab of Kalanpur, who did his best to be an imitation Englishman. But the most striking one there in my eyes, even though he may not have been strikingly original, was Major Clive Farnol.

He sat next to me as my partner and through most of dinner I saw little more of him than his profile. He told me later he had only that evening shaved off his beard; that accounted for the paler skin of his lower cheeks and jaw against the mahogany of the rest of his face. He had a good nose, deep-set blue eyes; but his face was too bony to be strictly handsome. He also had a nice touch of arrogance, an air I have always admired in the male sex. Humble men usually finish up carrying banners for women’s organizations.

‘You are writing the story of Lola Montez, Miss O’Brady?’ The Ranee of Serog was dressed as if for a State dinner or a trade exhibition of jewels. Of the upper part of her body only her elbows and armpits seemed undecorated with sparklers; she looked like Tiffany and Co. gone vulgar. She was a walking fortune, several million dollars on the hoof, as they say in the Chicago stockyards. She was dressed in a rich blue silk sari and once one became accustomed to the glare of her one could see that she was a beautiful woman. She was about forty which, from the youth of my then twenty-five years, seemed rather close to the grave. Now I am rather close to it myself I smile at the myopia of youth.

‘My grandfather knew her when she was Mrs James, a very young bride here in Simla,’ the Ranee said.

‘My father always boasted he was one of her first lovers.’ Lady Westbrook was an elderly woman of that rather dowdy elegance that the English achieve absent-mindedly, as if fashion was something that occurred to them only periodically like childbirth or an imperial decoration. But, I learned later, she drank her wine and port with the best of the men and smoked a cheroot in an ivory holder. ‘But that was only after he learned she finished up as the mistress of King Ludwig of Bavaria. I suppose all men would like to think they shared a woman with a king.’

‘Not with King George,’ said the Nawab of Kalanpur and spilled his wine as he laughed. ‘I understand the Queen sends a company of Coldstream Guards with him every time he goes out alone. She’s rather a battle-axe when it comes to morality.’

‘I say, Bertie, that’s going too far.’ Major Savanna was a stuffed shirt such as I had only hitherto seen on Beacon Hill in Boston; I suppose one finds them all over the world, a breed hidebound by what they think is correct behaviour. ‘I hope you won’t put any of this conversation into your newspaper articles, Miss O’Brady?’

I had come to India to cover the Great Durbar in Delhi, one of the few women correspondents granted such permission. Females were still considered lesser beings in those days, even in the so-called enlightened offices of newspapers; some of the most bigoted male chauvinists I have met in a lifetime of such encounters have been newspaper editors. But I had been taken on as a cub reporter by the editor of the Boston Globe who owed a favour to someone who owed a favour to Mayor Honey Fitz, for whom my father worked as a ward boss. I had managed not to blot my notebook and gradually had been given assignments that had, after several years and with great reluctance on the part of the paper’s male management, resulted in my being granted a by-line. I had covered stories spread over a great deal of the United States and had attained a certain fame; or in certain circles where anyone who worked for a newspaper, regardless of their sex, was looked upon as a whore, a certain notoriety. Disgusted at the growing cost of Presidential inaugurations, the editor had decided to send me to India to see how the British Empire spent money on crowning an Emperor. It was I who had suggested that I should also do a story on Lola Montez, the Irish-born courtesan who had begun her career in Simla as a 15-year-old bride of a British officer. The editor, thinking of syndication, had readily agreed. There were probably fifty million housewives throughout the United States who were dreaming of being courtesans.

‘Quote every word, Miss O’Brady.’ Major Farnol up till then had offered only a few words, the crumbs of politeness that gentlemen offer to ladies in whom they are not particularly interested. But now he looked at me full face and I saw his gaze run quickly up from my bosom, over my shoulders and throat and up to my face and hair. I learned later that he was famous for swift appraisals of the landscape and was known amongst the Pathan tribesmen of Afghanistan as Old Hawkeye. ‘We must keep on with the good work done by the late King Edward, making our royalty appear human. We have suffered too long from Victorian stuffiness.’

‘Oh, I say!’ said the stuffed shirt at the top of the table.

‘Ach, no.’ The one-armed German Consul-General, Baron Kurt von Albern, leaned to one side while a servant took away his plate. He leaned stiffly and with his head seemingly cocked to balance the weight of his one arm; he looked rigid and very Prussian, though he was riot a Prussian. He had close-cropped grey hair, a thick grey moustache, wore gold-rimmed spectacles with a silk cord running down to his lapel and looked like Teddy Roosevelt without the bombast. ‘Kings should never appear human. They should always suggest a little mystery.’

‘Is there any mystery about the Kaiser?’ said Major Farnol. ‘Other than whether or not he wants to go to war with us?’

The Baron shook his great head sadly. ‘Always talk of war. The English and the Germans will never fight. Your own King is almost more German than he is English.’

‘More’s the pity,’ said Lady Westbrook. ‘Can’t understand why we ever let the Tudors go.’

‘Our King is beloved just as he is.’ Major Savanna seemed to have had a little too much to drink. He glared down the table in my direction and for a moment I wondered what America had done recently to bring on this aggression. Then I realized he was looking at Major Farnol. ‘That correct, Major?’

‘Perhaps in England. Here in India no one knows him.’

The King, as Prince of Wales, had visited India in 1905, but he had seen, and been seen by, very few more than the British civil and military brass and the Indian princes. Though England had ruled India for almost two centuries, no reigning monarch had ever set foot in the country. The monarch’s surrogates had been the real rulers, the Governors-General and the Viceroys who had had all the trappings of a king and almost as much power, possibly even more. The armorial bearings of all those surrogates hung from the walls above our heads, from the first of them, Warren Hastings, to the present one, Hardinge. Pictures of the monarch might hang in offices and railway stations and jungle bungalows, but everyone knew who was the actual British Raj of the moment.

‘I met him once at Lord’s,’ said the Nawab. ‘Came to see the Second Test against the Australians, looked bored stiff. Bally undiplomatic of him, I thought. That’s the German in him, I suppose.’

‘Being undiplomatic or being bored by cricket?’ said the Baron.

The Nawab laughed, a high giggle that didn’t go at all well with his appearance. He was rather saturnine, a look that went against the mould of the imitation Englishman he tried to be; when his face was in repose he looked slightly sinister, an image the English have washed from their countenances if not from their hearts.

‘Touché, Baron. It’s a pity you didn’t go to Harrow, as I did. With your physique they’d have made a jolly good fast bowler of you.’

‘It sounds a dreadful fate,’ said the Baron.

‘I don’t think the King should have come out here.’ The Ranee dismissed His Majesty with a wave of her hand, an explosion of diamond lights. ‘Anything could happen to him. He could be trodden on by an elephant, killed by a tiger. Accidents happen in this country.’

‘Planned accidents?’ said Major Farnol.

Perhaps I was too quick for an outsider; but what should a newspaperwoman be if not quick? ‘You mean an assassination?’

I saw Farnol and Savanna exchange glances. The Ranee also saw it: ‘What’s going on, gentlemen? Have you heard something?’

There was silence for a moment and it was obvious that the two majors were each waiting for the other to reply. Then Major Farnol said, ‘No, nothing.’

‘Of course not!’ But Savanna’s voice was not so loud from drink alone; he was far too emphatic. ‘Ridiculous! Their Majesties will be as safe here in India as in Buckingham Palace. Correct, Farnol?’

I saw Farnol’s jaw stiffen, but he nodded. ‘Of course.’

Then dinner was finished and the ladies rose to be banished as we always were. The port and the cigars were already being produced, but as we went out the door Lady Westbrook turned to one of the servants. ‘I’ll have a large port in the drawing-room. Better bring a small decanter.’

I sat with Lady Westbrook and the Ranee for half an hour, then I excused myself and went up to bed. I had been riding that afternoon and was genuinely tired. As I reached the gallery that led to the bedrooms I pulled up startled. Major Farnol sat in the shadows, in a large chair against the wall of the corridor.

‘Oh! I thought you were still downstairs with the other gentlemen.’

‘I just wanted to say goodnight, Miss O’Brady.’ He stood up, towering over me. He wore a tail-coat, the dinner jacket had not become universal with gentlemen, but the suit looked as if he had had it a long time; it was shiny and tight and he looked, well, caged in it. ‘Will you be going down with us on the Durbar Train? May I have the pleasure of escorting you?’

‘Only if you will tell me if you think King George is in danger of being assassinated.’ I’m afraid I was rather a direct person in those days. Perhaps I still am.

‘I thought you were interested only in Lola Montez?’

‘I have all the material I need on her. I’m a newspaper-woman, Major Farnol. A plot to assassinate a king is a story I’d give my right arm for.’

‘Both arms?’

We did not use the word corny in those days. ‘Major Farnol, I expected better than that of you. I’m not some high school girl panting to be taken.’

He smiled, then abruptly sobered. ‘All right, no flirting. No, Miss O’Brady, I know nothing about any assassination plot.’

‘I think you are a liar, Major.’ I gave him what I hoped was a sweet smile.

‘All the time.’

‘Goodnight, Major.’

I left him then, but I knew we were going to be talking to each other a lot over the next few days, whether he was a liar or not. In the course of her life a woman will meet a man, or several men if she is fortunate, with whom she feels an instant current of attraction. I had felt that way about Richard Harding Davis, but he was already married; I had also been strongly attracted to a well-known matinée idol, but he was in love with himself at the time and no woman can compete with that. I didn’t think Major Farnol would ever be in love with himself but he did strike me as being very self-contained, with few doubts about himself or anyone else, which can be just as frustrating for a woman. My trouble was that, being Boston Irish, I had such little mystery about me that might raise a doubt or two in his or any other man’s mind. A woman who loves love as much as I did, and still do, can be too honest for her own good.

But I was not thinking about love that night. I undressed in the big bedroom I’d been given and was brushing my hair when I heard voices in the corridor outside. Moments earlier I had heard voices down at the front of the house; that would have been the Ranee, Lady Westbrook and the Nawab and the Baron going home. Then the big house had been suddenly silent till I heard the raised voices out in the corridor.

I opened my door an inch and peered out. It was not a lady-like thing to do, but a newspaperwoman was not expected to be a lady; it was an implied contradiction in terms. Major Savanna, looking very much the worse for drink, was standing arguing with Major Farnol, whom I could not see.

‘You will not mention this ridiculous theory of yours again till we get down to Delhi! There you can do what you damn well please!’

‘Keep your voice down, Savanna. This isn’t a polo field.’

‘Don’t tell me – ! You’re absolutely insufferable, Farnol, insufferable! You keep your voice down – not another word about these rumours, you understand! That’s an order!’

He took a sudden step backwards and I realized that Farnol had abruptly shut the door of his room in his face. Savanna raised a fist as if he were about to batter down the door, then suddenly he went marching down the hall towards his own bedroom. Marching: it struck me that for a man who a moment ago had sounded drunk he was remarkably steady on his feet.

I closed the door, finished my toilette and got into bed. But I couldn’t sleep; I could smell a story like a magnetic perfume, ink brewed by M. Coty. I tossed and turned for an hour, then I made my decision. I got out of bed and put on my red velvet peignoir. It had been bought for Miss Toodles Ryan, the girl friend of Mayor Honey Fitz, but Toodles was annoyed with Hizzoner for some reason and she had given me the gown. Each time I put it on I felt the delicious thrill of being a kept woman, if only by proxy: the safest and least demanding way. Only a year before he was assassinated I mentioned Toodles Ryan to President Kennedy and he, Boston Irish and a ladies’ man, winked and smiled. Honey Fitz’s hormones were still alive and well in 1962.

I looked at my hair in the mirror, saw that my tossing and turning had made it into a fright wig. I hastily pushed it up, looked around for something to hold it in place, saw the derby, the bowler hat I had worn that day while riding and shoved it on my head. I remembered one of the few pieces of advice my mother had given me when I told her I was determined to go out into the sinful Protestant world and make my own way: ‘Always wear a hat, sweetheart. That way you’ll always be thought of as a lady, if only from the neck up.’

Clasping my notebook and pencil I opened my door, crossed the corridor and tapped gently on Major Farnol’s door. Then I opened it and stepped inside. And felt the pistol pressing against the back of my neck.

The electric light was switched on. Major Farnol was dressed in pale blue silk pyjamas and looked absolutely gorgeous.

‘They’re not mine – I found them in a drawer. I think they belong to one of the A.D.C.s. Heaven knows what sort of chap wears things like these.’

‘You’re wearing them.’

‘Just as well, if a half-naked woman calls on me in the middle of the night. Do you usually wear a bowler when you go prowling bedrooms?’

I crossed to a chair beside the bed. ‘You may get back into bed, Major. You’re perfectly safe. This is a professional call.’

‘Do you charge for your services?’

I don’t know where Major Farnol learned his badinage with Women. I discovered later that he had had considerable success with them, but it could not have been because of his conversational approach. ‘Put your gun away, Major, and get into bed. I’ve taken you at your word that you’re a liar and I don’t believe you when you say there is no plot to assassinate the King.’

He put the pistol on a bedside table and got beneath the covers. Thinking back, it was one of the strangest interviews I ever conducted. Both of us were aware of the atmosphere around us: he in his glamorous pyjamas, I in my peignoir (even if the bowler did dampen the effect), and the wide bed itself. But I was there on business and I was determined to keep it that way.

‘Tell me what you really think is going on, Major.’

He shook his head. ‘Miss O’Brady, I am what is called a political agent.’

‘Is that something like a ward boss? My father is one in Boston.’ I explained what my father did in the interests of democracy and the Democratic Party, which are not necessarily the same thing.

‘No, I don’t think there’s too much similarity. I suppose one could say I’m a cross between your Secret Service and one of your Indian agents from the Wild West.’

‘But that’s exactly what a ward boss is.’

‘Well, I’m sure your father doesn’t give away secrets to the chaps from the newspapers. Or even to you, I’ll wager.’

‘Not unless he’s looking for favours.’ I saw the gleam in his eye and got in first: ‘Please, Major. No more flirting. So you won’t tell me what you suspect?’

‘No.’ There was no badinage there: his voice was flat and emphatic.

‘I could write my story without your corroboration.’

‘If you did that and I should ever meet you again, I’d tan your bottom.’

‘An officer and a gentleman?’

‘I make no claim to the latter title. Goodnight, Miss O’Brady. Please turn off the light as you go out.’

I was used to being dismissed, that was part of the game in my profession; but somehow the dismissal by him hurt me. I knew I had brought it on myself, but there are certain occasions when a woman wishes she could retire with dignity. I tried for that as I walked towards the door, but even then I knew that in my peignoir and derby I could not look regal or even viceregal.

I stopped at the door and turned. ‘You and I are not finished with each other, Major. I do not give up easily.’

‘Nor I, Miss O’Brady. Goodnight.’

I switched off the electric light and opened the door. The club thumped down on my bowler hat and I slumped to the floor.

End of extract from memoirs.