Gentlemen Formerly Dressed (7 page)

“Incidentally, Rowly,” Wilfred said following Bruce's lead in dissipating the topic of conversation. “I've organised a doctor to call on you at Claridge's this afternoon. The Lord only knows if that French chap managed to set the correct arm!”

“I expect I might know if he hadn't, Wil,” Rowland replied. Clearly neither Bruce nor Wilfred wanted to pursue further discussion of Pierrepont, even here.

Ethel Bruce was, however, not so easily diverted and quite eager to discuss the recently departed peer. From her they learned that Pierrepont was a wonderful dancer, a dab hand at bridge and had once rowed for Cambridge. He'd been a notorious and committed flirt, which Ethel had found charming after a fashion, but which was not always proper.

“Oh dear, you don't suppose he was shot by a jealous husband?” she said, cupping a hand over her mouth as the thought occurred to her.

“He wasn't shot,” Bruce stated wearily, without looking up from his meal.

“Well, how would we know?” Ethel said, her voice quivering with excitement. “The newspapers didn't say. Bunky might have been shot!” She turned to Kate. “You mustn't be frightened, my dear, I'm sure no one would have any cause to shoot Wilfred.”

Rowland smiled.

Wilfred cleared his throat.

“Stanley,” Ethel said, “you simply must see what you can find out.”

“Whatever for?” Bruce sighed.

“I'll need to send our condolences.”

“Which only requires you to know that Pierrepont is dead.”

Ethel Bruce smiled sweetly. “Of course, my dear, I don't know what I was thinking.”

With that retreat, the conversation did indeed move to matters less scandalous. Ethel and Milton found they had a common admiration for the works of Conan Doyle and Christie and were soon immersed in a discussion of little grey cells and intellect. Bruce debated the implications of the Ottawa Agreement with Wilfred and spoke of his hopes for the League of Nations to which he was Australia's representative.

Clyde listened as Kate chatted about the exploits of Ernest and young Ewan, responding with the details of some country balm for teething when she mentioned that the youngest Sinclair had been fractious.

“You're quiet, Rowly,” Edna whispered.

He smiled. “Just contemplating six weeks of soup,” he murmured, glancing enviously at the generous portions of lamb which had been placed before every other person at the table.

Edna laughed, though she rubbed his arm sympathetically. “Poor Rowly… you've had such a miserable time of it. Perhaps this doctor of Wilfred's will be able to help you.”

“To use a knife and fork?” Rowland asked, bemused.

“No… but maybe he can give you something to help you sleep.”

Rowland looked up sharply, startled that she knew he was having trouble sleeping.

“Clyde mentioned that you're still having nightmares,” she said. “He's worried about you.”

“There's no need to be,” Rowland muttered. He'd not slept soundly since the night they'd fled the house on Schellingstrasse where the SA had left him for dead. He'd tried not to allow his friends to know but, on occasion, Clyde had found him trying to read or simply drinking in the early hours of the morning. They'd played cards without mention of why either would choose pre-dawn poker over sleep. “I'm just getting used to sleeping with this cast,” Rowland lied, vaguely embarrassed.

“Of course,” Edna said gently. “Perhaps Wil's doctor will be able to give you something for that.”

And so the meal was passed and, for the gentlemen, finished with cigars and brandy while the ladies retired to the drawing room for coffee. Ethel Bruce waited until the serving maid had left the room before she said, “There's more to Bunky's death than meets the eye I'll warrant.” She crossed her arms indignantly. “Stanley's so considerate of my delicate sensibilities, he won't tell me anything!”

“Perhaps there's nothing to tell, Ethel,” Kate ventured.

“Poppycock! I haven't listened to Stanley drone on endlessly about his men, money and markets to be kept in the dark when something interesting finally happens. Of course, it's very tragic… but it is more interesting than Stanley's blessed tariffs!”

Kate looked distinctly uncomfortable but Edna warmed all the more to Ethel Bruce.

“I'm having tea with the ladies of the Dominions this week,” Ethel continued, nodding determinedly. “I'll discover more then… it's the only reliable source of information in the Empire. Why, the wife of the High Commissioner to Ceylon is always a mine of knowledge.”

Edna really wanted to tell Ethel Bruce what she knew.

“Don't you worry, ladies.” Ethel raised her cup of coffee. “Whatever I don't bully out of Stanley, I will gather from the wives of His Majesty's men. Now…” She changed the subject abruptly. “Edna, you don't mind if I call you Edna do you my dear? You must call me Ethel. What exactly happened to young Mr. Sinclair in Germany?”

Edna was caught unprepared. She hesitated, glancing uncertainly at Kate. “Rowly came to the attention of the Brownshirts when we were in Munich.” She paused, unsure of how to phrase the brutality of it. “They found him… they hurt him.”

Kate gasped, shocked, realising suddenly the reason behind Wilfred's fury. “They broke his arm? Intentionally?”

Edna nodded, placing her cup down and folding her arms tightly across her chest. “They nearly killed him, Kate.”

“No wonder Wil was so…” Kate started, her face stricken with horror. “But why? Why would they?”

“Mostly because of a painting,” Edna replied, thinking wistfully of the delicate blue nude in which Rowland had managed to capture the fragile essence of a young photographic assistant. “It was beautiful…
revolutionary. They broke his arm for it.” She told the two women of the state in which they'd found Rowland, and how they'd all been given shelter by an underground of men considered enemies of Germany, before they eventually escaped to Paris with the help of an Australian journalist.

By the time Edna finished her story, Kate was near tears and Ethel was unusually speechless.

At this point, the gentlemen joined them again.

“You ladies look far too serious,” Clyde said as they walked into silence.

“Perhaps you, too, have been discussing the importance of fixing the pound against the gold standard,” Milton muttered miserably.

“Oh, Stanley!” Ethel gathered herself and addressed her husband. “You haven't been boring our guests again, have you? Honestly, it's a wonder anyone visits us at all!”

Bruce's brow rose, as if the concept that he could bore anyone was unexpected and somewhat silly.

“Not at all, Ethel,” Wilfred said in Bruce's defence. “I'm sure Rowly and his friends appreciate the value of your husband's wisdom on these fiscal matters.”

Milton sighed. “And money, that most pure imagination, gleams only through the dawn of its creation.”

“Why Mr. Isaacs!” Ethel exclaimed. “That's very clever.”

“Byron often was,” Rowland said as Milton, unrepentant, accepted the accolade.

“Perhaps you should sit down, Rowly,” Kate urged anxiously, her eyes still bright with distress. “Would you care for a drink?”

“Yes… Actually I'd best not, but thank you, Kate.” Rowland was unsettled by her sudden need to fuss over him. “We really should be going…”

“But you must wait till the children return,” Kate protested. “They'll be back in a minute and Ernest will be terribly disappointed if you're not here when he returns!”

Again Rowland was surprised by the emotion in Kate's plea. He shrugged. “Of course… we'll stop till the boys get back.”

“Actually, Rowly, I wouldn't mind a word whilst you wait.” Wilfred motioned towards the tiled balcony off the sitting room. “Shall we step outside for a moment?”

Edna glanced at Rowland in alarm. In her experience, Wilfred requested these quiet words so that he could dress down his brother privately. She wondered now if she should have spoken of Germany.

Rowland did not seem to share her concern. Returning her glance with a wink, he followed Wilfred onto the balcony which overlooked the park below.

The rose beds of Ennismore Gardens were in full bloom adding ordered colour to the sweeping paths which wound between the trees. Elegant couples strolled among the shrubberies and smartly dressed children played polite cricket and skipped on the lawns. Rowland waved as he spotted Ernest running ahead of his nanny who was pushing Ewan in a large pram.

Wilfred lit a cigarette.

Rowland waited.

“I couldn't help but overhear your conversation with Miss Higgins, Rowly.”

“What conversation?”

“As highly inappropriate as it is for her to know such a fact, Miss Higgins seems to be of the opinion that you're not sleeping.”

Rowland studied his brother, not sure what he was getting at. Wilfred's disapproval of Edna was long-standing, but he was
bewildered as to why it would warrant particular mention now. He tensed, preparing himself for an old and bitter argument.

“Is it true?” Wilfred demanded.

“Is what true?”

“That you're not sleeping.”

Rowland relaxed. “I'm all right, Wil.”

Wilfred smoked wordlessly for a while. “You know, Rowly, after the war there were a few… several chaps… who stopped sleeping.”

Rowland said nothing, surprised, not by what Wilfred said but by the fact that he'd said it. This was closer than his brother had ever before come to talking to him of the war. Fifteen years after the armistice and Rowland still knew almost nothing about Wilfred's years in France: what he'd done, how he'd felt. It had always been a silence between them.

Wilfred met his eye. “Don't drink.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“If you can't sleep… when you find yourself alone and awake in the middle of the night… read, take up smoking, learn to knit if you have to—just don't drink… not alone.”

Rowland shifted uncomfortably. He dragged his good hand through his hair. He had taken the edge off with gin more than once. It all seemed so ridiculous in the light of day, but he understood what Wilfred was saying. “Very well Wil, I'll knit you some socks.”

T
he day was warm; possibly hot by English standards. For the Australians, it was pleasant. They had set out on foot for the waxworks museum on Marylebone Road. Edna's interest was professional. She often worked in wax when creating a piece for casting in bronze, and the lifelike figures created by the sculptors of Madame Tussaud's both intrigued and impressed her. Clyde and Rowland, being painters, were less interested in the sculptures as examples of technical excellence than as contemporary curiosities. Milton was willing to go anywhere as long as it did not involve another conversation about economics.

Rowland had been to the famous wax museum before, a number
of times in fact, during the eight years he was educated in England. The popular exhibitions had changed, with new celebrities taking the place of the silent film stars of the twenties.

Nevertheless, there was something quite macabre about the museum: the statues were both so lifelike and lifeless that they seemed to be parodies of the originals. It was not hard to believe that the museum's founder had refined her craft making the death masks of decapitated French nobles during the revolution.

Beyond the Chamber of Horrors, populated by monsters and celebrity criminals, stood the royal family.