Bolt

TWO

I went.
I certainly didn’t want to intrude uninvited into any private troubles in the princess’s life, and it was that feeling that remained with me to ground level. I had been too long accustomed to our arm’s length relationship to think her affairs any of my business, except to the extent that she was Danielle’s uncle’s wife.
By the time I was walking out to my car, I wished I hadn’t left as precipitously without at least asking if I could help. There had been an urgent warning quality in the stranger’s peremptory voice which had seemed to me at first to be merely protective of the princess, but in retrospect I wasn’t so sure.
Nothing would be lost, I thought, if I waited for her to come down to return home, which she must surely do in the end, and made sure she was all right. If the stranger was still with her, if he was as dismissive as before, if she was looking to him for support, then at least I would let her know I would have assisted if she’d needed it.
I went through the paddock gate to the car park where her chauffeur, Thomas, was routinely waiting for her in her Rolls Royce.
Thomas and I said hello to each other most days in car parks, he, a phlegmatic Londoner, placidly reading books and paying no attention to the sport going on around him. Large and dependable, he had been driving the princess for years, and knew her life and movements as well as anyone in her family.
He saw me coming and gave me a small wave. Normally, after I’d left her box, she would follow fairly soon, my appearance acting as a signal to Thomas to start the engine and warm the car.
I walked across to him, and he lowered a window to talk.
‘Is she ready?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘There’s a man with her …’ I paused. ‘Do you know a fairly young man, dark haired, thin, prominent nose and chin?’
He pondered and said no one sprang to mind, and why was it worrying me.
‘She didn’t watch one of her horses race.’
Thomas sat up straighter. ‘She’d never not watch’
‘No. Well, she didn’t.’
‘That’s bad.’
‘Yes, I’d think so.’
I told Thomas I would go back to make sure she was OK and left him looking as concerned as I felt myself.
The last race was over, the crowds leaving fast. I stood near the gate where I couldn’t miss the princess when she came, and scanned faces. Many I knew, many knew me. I said goodnight fifty times and watched in vain for the fur hat.
The crowd died to a trickle and the trickle to twos and threes. I began to wander slowly back towards the stands, thinking in indecision that perhaps I would go up again to her box.
I’d almost reached the doorway to the private stand when she came out. Even from twenty feet I could see the glaze in her eyes, and she was walking as if she couldn’t feel the ground, her feet rising too high and going down hard at each step.
She was alone, and in no state to be.
‘Princess,’ I said, going fast to her side. ‘Let me help.’
She looked at me unseeingly, swaying. I put an arm firmly round her waist, which I would never have done in ordinary circumstances, and felt her stiffen, as if to deny her need for support.
‘I’m perfectly all right,’ she said, shakily.
‘Yes … well, hold my arm.’ I let go of her waist and offered my arm for her to hold on to, which, after a flicker of hesitation, she accepted.
Her face was pale under the fur hat and there were trembles in her body. I walked with her slowly towards the gate, and through it, and across to where Thomas waited. He was out of the car, looking anxious, opening a rear door at our approach.
‘Thank you,’ the princess said faintly, climbing in. ‘Thank you, Kit.’
She sank into the rear seat, dislodging her hat on the way and apathetically watching it roll to the floor.
She peeled off her gloves and put one hand to her head, covering her eyes. ‘I think I …’ She swallowed, pausing. ‘Do we have any water, Thomas?’
‘Yes, madam,’ he said with alacrity, and went round to the boot to fetch the small refreshment box he habitually took along. Sloe, gin, champagne, and sparkling mineral water, the princess’s favourites, were always to hand.
I stood by the car’s open door, unsure how much help she would consider receiving. I knew all about her pride, her self-control, and her self-expectations. She wouldn’t want anyone to think her weak.
Thomas gave her some mineral water in a cut-glass tumbler with ice tinkling, no mean feat. She took two or three small sips and sat staring vaguely into space.
‘Princess,’ I said diffidently, ‘would it perhaps be of any use if I travelled with you to London?’
She turned her eyes my way and a sort of shudder shook her, rattling the ice.
‘Yes,’ she said with clear relief. ‘I need someone to …’ She stopped, not finding the words.
Someone to prevent her breaking down, I guessed. Not a shoulder to cry on but a reason for not crying.
Thomas, approving the arrangement, said to me prosaically, ‘What about your car?’
‘It’s in the jockeys’ car park. I’ll put it back by the racecourse stables. It’ll be all right there.’
He nodded, and we made a brief stop on our way out of the racecourse for me to move the Mercedes to a safe spot and tell the stable manager I’d be back for it later. The princess seemed not to notice any of these arrangements but continued staring vaguely at thoughts I couldn’t imagine, and it wasn’t until we were well on the way to London in the early dusk that she finally stirred and absent-mindedly handed me the glass with the remains of bubbles and melted ice as a kind of preliminary to talking.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, ‘to have given you trouble.’
‘But you haven’t.’
‘I have had,’ she went on carefully, ‘a bad shock. And I cannot explain …’ She stopped and shook her head, making hopeless gestures with her hands. It seemed to me all the same that she had come to a point where assistance of some sort might be welcomed.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ I said neutrally.
‘I’m not sure how much I can ask.’
‘A great deal,’ I said bluntly.
The first signs of a smile crept back into her eyes, but faded again rapidly. ‘I’ve been thinking …’ she said. ‘When we reach London, will you come into the house and wait while I talk to my husband?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘You can spare the time? Perhaps … a few hours?’
‘Any amount,’ I assured her wryly. Danielle had gone to Leonardo and time was a drag without her. I stifled in myself the acute lurch of unhappiness and wondered just what sort of shock the princess had suffered. Nothing, it seemed now, to do with Monsieur de Brescou’s health. Something perhaps worse.
While it grew totally dark outside, we travelled another long way in silence, with the princess staring again into space and sighing, and me wondering what to do about the tumbler.
As if reading my thoughts, Thomas suddenly said, ‘There’s a glass-holder, Mr Fielding, located in the door below the ashtray,’ and I realised he’d noticed my dilemma via the rear-view mirror.
‘Thank you, Thomas,’ I said to the mirror, and met his amused eyes. ‘Very thoughtful.’
I hooked out what proved to be a chrome ring like a toothmug holder, and let it embrace the glass. The princess, oblivious, went on staring at uncomfortable visions.
‘Thomas,’ she said at length, ‘please will you see if Mrs Jenkins is still in the house? If she is, would you ask her to see if Mr Gerald Greening would be free to come round this evening?’
‘Yes, madam,’ Thomas said, and pressed buttons on the car’s telephone, glancing down in fractions while he drove.
Mrs Jenkins worked for the princess and M. de Brescou as secretary and all-round personal assistant and was young, newly married and palely waiflike. She worked only weekdays and left promptly at five o’clock, which a glance at my watch put at only a few minutes ahead. Thomas caught her apparently on the doorstep and passed on the message, to the princess’s satisfaction. She didn’t say who Gerald Greening was, but went quietly back to her grim thoughts.
By the time we reached Eaton Square, she had physically recovered completely, and mentally to a great extent. She still looked pale and strained, though, and took Thomas’s strong hand to help her from the ear. I followed her onto the pavement, and she stood for a moment looking at Thomas and myself, as we stood there lit by the street-lamps.
‘Well,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘thank you both.’
Thomas looked as always as if he would willingly die for her besides driving her carefully to and from the races, but more mundanely at that moment walked across the pavement and with his bunch of keys opened the princess’s front door.
She and I went in, leaving Thomas to drive away, and together walked up the wide staircase to the first floor. The ground floor of the big old house consisted of offices, a guest suite, a library and a breakfast room. It was upstairs that the princess and her husband chiefly lived, with drawing room, sitting room and dining room on the first floor and bedrooms on three floors above. Staff lived in the semi-basement, and there was an efficient lift from top to bottom, installed in modern times to accommodate M. de Brescou’s wheelchair.
‘Will you wait in the sitting room?’ she said. ‘Help yourself to a drink. If you’d like tea, ring down to Dawson …’ The social phrases came out automatically, but her eyes were vague, and she was looking very tired.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I said.
‘I’m afraid I may be a long time.’
‘I’ll be here.’
She nodded and went up the next broad flight of stairs to the floor above, where she and her husband each had a private suite of rooms, and where Roland de Brescou spent most of his time. I had never been up there, but Danielle had described his rooms as a mini-hospital, with besides his bedroom and sitting room, a physiotherapy room and a room for a male nurse.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ I’d asked.
‘Some frightful virus. I don’t know exactly what, but not polio. His legs just stopped working, years ago. They don’t say much about it, and you know what they’re like, it feels intrusive to ask.’
I went into the sitting room, which had become familiar territory, and phoned down to Dawson, the rather august butler, asking for tea.
‘Certainly, sir,’ he said austerely. ‘Is Princess Casilia with you?’
‘She’s upstairs with Monsieur de Brescou.’
He said, ‘Ah,’ and the line clicked off. He appeared in a short time, bearing a small silver tray with tea and lemon but no milk, no sugar and no biscuits.
‘Did we have a successful afternoon, sir?’ he asked, setting down his burden.
‘A win and a third.’
He gave me a small smile, a man nearing sixty, unextended and happy in his work. ‘Very gratifying, sir.’
‘Yes.’
He nodded and went away, and I poured out and drank the tea and tried not to think of buttered toast. During the February freeze, I had somehow gained three pounds and was in consequence having a worse than usual battle against weight.
The sitting room was comfortable with flowered fabrics, rugs and pools of warm lamplight, altogether friendlier than the satins and gilt of the very French drawing room next door. I switched on the television to watch the news, and switched it off after, and wandered around looking for something to read. I also wondered fleetingly why the princess had wanted me to wait, and exactly what help it was that she might find too much to ask.
Reading materials seemed to be a straight choice between a glossy magazine about architecture in French and a worldwide airline timetable, and I was opting for the second when on a side table I came across a folded leaflet which announced ‘Master Classes in a Distinguished Setting’, and found myself face to face with Danielle’s weekend.
I sat in an armchair and read the booklet from front to back. The hotel, with illustrating photographs, was described as a country house refurbished in the grand manner, with soul-shaking views over fells and lakes and blazing log fires to warm the heart indoors.
The entertainments would begin with a reception on the Friday evening at six o’clock (which meant it was in progress as I read), followed by dinner, followed by Chopin sonatas performed in the gold drawing room.
On Saturday would come the lectures on ‘The Masters of the Italian Renaissance’, given by the illustrious Keeper of Italian paintings in the Louvre. In the morning, ‘Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael: Masterworks in the Louvre’, and in the afternoon, ‘Giorgione’s Concert Champêtre and Titian’s Laura Dianti: The Cinquecento in Venice’, all to be accompanied by slides illuminating points of brushwork and technique. These lectures, the leaflet said, represented a rare privilege seldom granted outside France by probably the world’s greatest expert in Italian Renaissance art.
On Saturday evening there would be a grand Florentine banquet especially created by a master chef from Rome, and on Sunday visits would be arranged to the Lakeland houses of Wordsworth, Ruskin and (if desired) Beatrix Potter. Finally, afternoon tea would be served round the fire in the Great Hall, and everyone would disperse.
I seldom felt unsure either of myself or of my chosen way of life, but I put down the leaflet feeling helplessly inadequate.
I knew practically nothing of the Italian Renaissance and I couldn’t reliably have dated da Vinci within a hundred years. I knew he painted the Mona Lisa and drew helicopters and submarines, and that was about all. Of Botticelli, Giorgione and Raphael I knew just as little. If Danielle’s interests deeply lay with the Arts, would she ever come back to a man whose work was physical, philistine and insecure? To a man who’d liked biology and chemistry in his teens and not wanted to go to college. To someone who would positively have avoided going where she had gone with excitement.
I shivered. I couldn’t bear to lose her, not to long-dead painters, nor to a live prince.
Time passed. I read the world-wide air timetables and found there were many places I’d never heard of, with people busily flying in and out of them every day. There were far too many things I didn’t know.
Eventually, shortly after eight, the unruffled Dawson reappeared and invited me upstairs, and I followed him to the unfamiliar door of M. de Brescou’s private sitting room.
‘Mr Fielding, sir,’ Dawson said, announcing me, and I walked in to a room with gold swagged curtains, dark green walls and dark red leather armchairs.
Roland de Brescou sat as usual in his wheelchair, and it was clear at once that he was suffering from the same severe shock that had affected the princess. Always weak-looking, he seemed more than ever to be on the point of expiring, his pale yellow-grey skin stretched over his cheekbones and the eyes gaunt and staring. He had been, I supposed, a good looking man long ago, and he still retained a noble head of white hair and a naturally aristocratic manner. He wore, as ever, a dark suit and tie, making no concessions to illness. Old and frail he might be, but still his own master, unimpaired in his brain. Since my engagement to Danielle, I had met him a few times, but although unfailingly courteous he was reclusive always, and as reticent as the princess herself.
‘Come in,’ he said to me, his voice, always surprisingly strong, sounding newly hoarse. ‘Good evening, Kit.’ The French echo in his English was as elusive as the princess’s own.
‘Good evening, monsieur,’ I said, making a small bow to him also, as he disliked shaking hands: his own were so thin that the squeezing of strangers hurt him.
The princess, sitting in one of the armchairs, raised tired fingers in a small greeting, and with Dawson withdrawing and closing the door behind me, she said apologetically, ‘We’ve kept you waiting so long …’
‘You did warn me.’
She nodded. ‘We want you to meet Mr Greening.’
Mr Greening, I presumed, was the person standing to one side of the room, leaning against a green wall, hands in pockets, rocking on his heels. Mr Greening, in dinner jacket and black tie, was bald, round-bellied and somewhere on the far side of fifty. He was regarding me with bright knowing eyes, assessing my age (thirty-one), height (five foot ten), clothes (grey suit, unremarkable) and possibly my income. He had the look of one used to making quick judgments and not believing what he was told.
‘The jockey,’ he said in a voice that had been to Eton. ‘Strong and brave.’
He was ironic, which I didn’t mind. I smiled faintly, went through the obvious categories and came up with a possibility.
‘The lawyer?’ I suggested. ‘Astute?’
He laughed and peeled himself off the paintwork. ‘Gerald Greening,’ he said, nodding. ‘Solicitor. Would you be kind enough to witness some signatures to documents?’
I agreed, of course, reflecting that I wouldn’t have expected the princess to ask me to wait so long just for that, but not protesting. Gerald Greening picked up a clipboard which had been lying on a coffee table, peeled a sheet of papers back over the clip and offered a pen to Roland de Brescou for him to sign the second page.
With a shaky flourish, the old man wrote his name beside a round red seal.
‘Now you, Mr Fielding.’ The pen and the clipboard came my way, and I signed where he asked, resting the board on my left forearm for support.
The whole two-page document, I noticed, was not typed, but handwritten in neat black script. Roland de Brescou’s name and mine were both in the same black ink. Gerald Greening’s address and occupation, when he added them at the bottom after his own signature, matched the handwriting of the text.
A rush job, I thought. Tomorrow could be too late.
‘There isn’t any necessity for you to know what’s in the document you signed,’ Greening said to me easily, ‘but Princess Casilia insists that I tell you.’
‘Sit down, Kit,’ the princess said, ‘it’ll take time.’
I sat in one of the leather armchairs and glanced at Roland de Brescou who was looking dubious, as if he thought telling me would be unproductive. He was no doubt right, I thought, but I was undeniably curious.
‘Put simply,’ Greening said, still on his feet, ‘the document states that notwithstanding any former arrangements to the contrary, Monsieur de Brescou may not make any business decisions without the knowledge, assent, and properly witnessed signatures of Princess Casilia, Prince Litsi’ – he gave him at least half his full name– ‘and Miss Danielle de Brescou.’
I listened in puzzlement. If there was nothing wrong with Roland de Brescou’s competence, why the haste for him to sign away his authority?
‘This is an interim measure,’ Gerald Greening went on. ‘A sandbag affair, one might say, to keep back the waters while we build the sea-wall.’ He looked pleased with the simile, and I had an impression he’d used it before.
‘And, er,’ I said, ‘does the tidal wave consist of anything in particular?’ But it had to, of course, to have upset the princess so much.
Gerald Greening took a turn around the room, hands, complete with clipboard, clasped behind his back. A restless mind in a restless body, I thought, and listened to details about the de Brescous that neither the princess nor her husband would ever have told me themselves.
‘You must understand,’ Greening said, impressing it upon me, ‘that Monsieur de Brescou is of the ancient regime, from before the revolution. His is a patrician family, even though he himself bears no title. It’s essential to understand that for him personal and family honour is of supreme importance.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I understand that.’
‘Kit’s own family,’ the princess said mildly, ‘stretches back through centuries of tradition.’
Gerald Greening looked slightly startled, and I thought in amusement that the Fielding tradition of pride and hate wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. He adjusted my status in his eyes to include ancestors, however, and went on with the story.
‘In the mid-nineteenth century,’ he said, ‘Monsieur de Brescou’s great grandfather was offered an opportunity to contribute to the building of bridges and canals and, in consequence, without quite meaning to, he founded one of France’s great construction companies. He never worked in it himself – he was a landowner – but the business prospered hugely and with unusual resilience changed to fit the times. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Monsieur de Brescou’s grandfather agreed to merge the family business with another construction company whose chief interest was roads, not canals. The great canal building era was ending, and cars, just appearing, needed better roads. Monsieur de Brescou’s grandfather retained fifty per cent of the new company, an arrangement which gave neither partner outright control.’
Gerald Greening’s eyes gleamed with disapproval as he paced slowly round behind the chairs.
‘Monsieur de Brescou’s father was killed in the Second World War without inheriting the business. Monsieur de Brescou himself inherited it when his grandfather died, aged ninety, after the Second World War. Are you with me so far?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Good.’ He went on pacing, setting out his story lucidly, almost as if laying facts before a fairly dim jury. ‘The firm which had merged with that of Monsieur de Brescou’s grandfather was headed by a man called Henri Nanterre, who was also of aristocratic descent and high morals. The two men liked and trusted each other and agreed that their joint business should adhere to the highest principles. They installed managers of good reputation and sat back and … er … increased their fortunes.’
‘Mm,’ I said.
‘Before and during the Second World War, the firm went into recession, shrinking to a quarter of its former size, but it was still healthy enough to revive well in the nineteen fifties, despite the deaths of the original managing friends. Monsieur de Brescou remained on good terms with the inheriting Nanterre – Louis – and the tradition of employing top managers went on. And that brings us to three years ago, when Louis Nanterre died and left his fifty per cent share to his only son, Henri. Henri Nanterre is thirty-seven, an able entrepreneur, full of vigour, good at business. The profits of the company are annually increasing.’
Both the princess and her husband listened gloomily to this long recital, which seemed to me to have been a success story of major proportions.
‘Henri Nanterre,’ Greening explained carefully, ‘is of the modern world. That is to say, the old values mean little to him.’
‘He has no honour,’ Roland de Brescou said with distaste. ‘He disgraces his name.’
I said slowly, to the princess, ‘What does he look like?’
‘You saw him,’ she said simply. ‘In my box.’