Louis de Bernières - The Dust That Falls From Dreams

‘I do hope that His Majesty is fully recovered,’ she said to her husband, somewhat insincerely.

‘What was it again?’ he asked.

‘Peritiphylitis.’

‘Sounds dreadful. What on earth is it?’

‘Darling, I’ve told you so many times. It’s an infection of something that the appendix hangs from. Anyway, they say he’s recovered, but won’t be carrying the Sword of State to the altar. I do hope he doesn’t collapse.’

‘Kings of Scotland dinna collapse,’ replied Mr McCosh. ‘They die heroically in battle or get stabbed in their sleep.’

‘My dear, I hope you are not suggesting that our dear present Queen Alexandra may be something of a Lady Macbeth? She is Danish after all.’

‘Danish monarchs kill their brothers and nephews, if we are to believe the Bard. And women are strange, unscrupulous creatures. And queens are women. And the Danish Queen married her husband’s brother, who killed him. A sorry lot, Danish queens.’

‘You must stop being provocative, my dear. It’s fortunate that I’m so used to your humour. If that is what one should call it. Hamlet is undoubtedly fiction, as you well know. I do wish one could have been there … at the coronation, I mean. I should have loved to see Lord Kitchener all done up in plumes, and Sir Alfred Gaselee. And the new Prime Minister, of course.’

‘Well, my dear, we are exceedingly lucky with the weather. We couldn’t have asked for a nicer day. And we have the Eltham aristocracy to entertain. Talking of which, have we set up the table for the tradesmen and artisans?’

‘Of course. They’ll be down there at the orchard end.’

‘Ah, far below the salt.’

Affecting not to understand his humour, which is how the British love to spoil a joke, Mrs McCosh replied, ‘Every table will have its own salt cellar and pepper pot. I’m just going to see that Nurse has got the children ready.’

‘Ah, here is Mme Pitt and her little boys,’ said Mr McCosh. ‘I shall go and greet them, and you can chivvy up the girls, my dear.’

For a reason long forgotten, there was a blue door in the wall that divided the garden of The Grampians from that of its neighbour on the left. The door was old and a little rotten at top and bottom. Its hinges were creaky and rusty, but it still worked, and it was kept unseized because of its frequent use by the children of the two families.

On the other side of the blue door dwelt the Pendennis family, recently arrived from Baltimore, complete with three young sons, Sidney, Albert and Ashbridge, all born a year apart, and each of the younger exactly six inches shorter than his immediate elder, so that they reminded some people of a set of library steps. Every morning these boys shook their father’s hand when they came down to breakfast, and addressed him as ‘sir’.

The McCosh family had four daughters, blue-eyed Rosie, with her long rich chestnut hair, and fair skin peppered with freckles; then Christabel, an English rose in the making, tall and athletic. Then there was Ottilie, who was clearly going to be of the traditional English pear shape, with a pale round face and lovely dark round eyes set beneath a sweet dark fringe. Lastly there was Sophie, little, thin and ungainly, with uncontrollable frizzy hair, whose humour and manner of speech were already becoming quirky. Her father liked to say that she had a lopsided view of the world, and that it would stand her in good stead. Whilst it would be true to say that these girls deeply loved their difficult mother, it would also be true to say that they adored their easy-going father.

On the opposing garden wall there was no blue door, so the two boys who played in the garden beyond it would arrive simply by climbing over and leaping down. They had worn a hard, flat patch in the rose bed. The wall was seven foot high, and it was already clear that Archie Pitt and his younger brother Daniel were going to grow up into a pair of daredevils and adventurers.

On this day, just as everybody was settling down on their rugs and chairs with their plates of tongue and their cup, Archie, aged fourteen, appeared on the top of the wall in his best clothes, and stood on it, arms akimbo, with all the confidence of a Himalayan goat.

‘Archie, what on earth are you doing up there?’ demanded Mrs McCosh.

‘We have created a spectacle,’ announced the boy, ‘in honour of the King.’

‘In honour of the King?’ repeated Mrs McCosh, somewhat placated. ‘Well, that’s very fine of you, I’m sure.’

‘Can we put some of the cushions just down there, the other side of the path?’ asked Archie. He had a tone of command unusual in an adolescent, and those immediately below him vacated their rugs and arranged cushions as directed, their indulgent assumption being that Archie wanted a soft spot on which to land.

‘Really, one shouldn’t tolerate such things in a child,’ said Mrs McCosh.

‘Aren’t you intrigued?’ replied her husband. ‘I must say, I do admire such confidence in a boy, don’t you? And anyway, I know what’s going to happen, and I’ve already given the boys permission. We are going to start off with a feat.’

Archie’s parents were as sanguine. They stood below, arm in arm, grinning proudly. Archie’s mother, resolutely French, but Protestant nonetheless, like a sort of belated Huguenot, was always known as Mme Pitt, on her own insistence, and was twirling a parasol with her free hand. Captain Pitt, formerly of the Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert, was dressed in naval uniform for the great day, the gold braid glittering in the sunlight against the dark blue. Mme Pitt said, ‘ Chou-chou , I hope this is not going to end in tears.’

‘ Maman , we’ve been practising like billy-o. Daniel’s done it heaps of times. And it was your idea.’

‘The worst that can happen is a broken neck,’ said the Captain.

‘ Oh, chéri, tais-toi . You shouldn’t say such things. It tempts the Devil.’

‘Let’s hope to settle for a sprained ankle, then.’

‘ Chéri! Arrêtes! ’

‘Is everybody ready?’ called Archie. ‘Come on, everybody, look!’

Gradually, a hush fell, and even the servants ceased bustling. Mr McCosh stepped forward.

‘My friends and, indeed, one or two mortal enemies, welcome to The Grampians. We are here to celebrate the beginning of a new age, perhaps. His Majesty is … how shall I put it? … somewhat older than his dear mother was when she came to the throne … but by God’s grace he may yet have a long life and remain our monarch for many a good year to come. We have lived well, progressively more well with each passing year under the late Queen, who has given her name to what seems in retrospect an entire age; but now a new term has been coined, and we are already describing ourselves as Edwardians, are we not? When was the nation previously so happy? I would suggest it was at the Restoration. We had in King Charles the Second a merry monarch, and now we have another monarch at least as merry as he was. May he long remain so! And may we be merry too. Our hope, the hope of any race, is in its youth, is it not? We are to begin our celebrations today with a wonderful piece of audacity by our two young neighbours, Archie and Daniel Pitt. They have been practising for days! Pray silence and attention for Archie and Daniel Pitt!’

There was a small burst of applause, Archie atop the wall took a low bow, and his mother grasped the Captain’s arm more tightly in her own. ‘It’ll be wonderful,’ he reassured her proudly. ‘The boys are completely fearless.’

A silence ensued, and Archie bent his knees in readiness. He raised his left hand, and let it drop, and a few seconds later a small flying boy appeared beside and above him, clutching the top of a vaulting pole. The boy released the pole as he soared above the wall, and at the same moment Archie ducked down and leapt up, circling his shins with his forearms. He somersaulted neatly down to the cushions, landing on his feet as his even more aerial brother landed beside him. Archie put his arm around his little brother’s neck and they bowed together, grinning broadly.