I narrowed my eyes, but did as I was asked.
There on the doorstep was a veritable gang of workmen. One by one they announced themselves and explained their intentions for the day. The builders had arrived to resume work on the garage for the motorcar, two men from the telephone company announced that they would be putting up poles in the lane and connecting the house to the telephone system, and one man in a bowler hat and a shabby serge suit proclaimed himself the telephone engineer and asked if he might come inside to install the “instrument” itself.
I set them all to work and went to the kitchen to make the first of many, many pots of tea.
THREE
The Trophy Case Case
To escape the army of craftsmen and other horny-handed sons of toil who were infesting our home, Lady Hardcastle accepted just about every invitation that came her way, and out of kindness and consideration, she always took me along with her. Sometimes this proved to be a soul-crushingly tedious chore (the afternoon we spent with the Guild of Littleton Cotterell Military Button Collectors springs immediately to mind) but some of the other events, like today’s, were the most thrilling fun.
It was Saturday and the rugby season was almost over with only one important match to go. Against all expectations, plucky little Littleton Cotterell had beaten Clifton in the semifinal of the Wessex Challenge Cup (whose name I was now very easily able to remember) and today was the day of the final. After the other semifinal had resulted in another surprise upset, our village team was playing against North Nibley in the final which was being hosted, rather conveniently, by Chipping Bevington RFC.
We had arrived at the club in plenty of time and had been greeted by our host, Sir Hector Farley-Stroud, who had once been the president of Littleton Cotterell RFC and had recently been appointed Grand Eternal Poobah, a purely ceremonial title which nevertheless granted him certain hospitality privileges at local rugby clubs and entitled him to wear a splendidly outrageous blazer in the club colours of blue and gold.
‘Good afternoon, Emily old sport,’ he said, shaking Lady Hardcastle warmly by the hand. ‘And the redoubtable Miss Armstrong, too; welcome to you, my dear.’
I smiled, and nodded my thanks.
‘It really is most kind of you to invite us,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Roddy used to play in our youth and I do enjoy watching a game of rugger.’
‘Not at all, m’dear, not at all,’ he said, genially. ‘The memsahib usually likes to come, but she’s visiting her sister in Hertfordshire and she suggested you might enjoy the match.’
‘Well thank you very much,’ she said. ‘We’ve been really rather looking forward to it, haven’t we, Flo?’
‘We have, my lady,’ I said. ‘Very much.’
‘You like rugger, then, Miss Armstrong?’ he asked.
‘It’s our national game, sir,’ I said. ‘My brothers all played, and they even let me and my twin join in their practice sometimes.’
‘Did they, by jingo!’ he exclaimed with a chuckle. ‘Where did y’play?’
‘On the wing,’ I said. ‘Small and fast, see? Some of the lads wanted us to cut our hair and pretend to be boys so we could play in matches, but it never happened.’
Sir Hector was highly amused by the idea. He called one of his pals over and told him, and within a few minutes we were at the centre of a good-naturedly boisterous group of ageing rugby players who introduced themselves as The Old Codgers and adopted us as their honoured guests for the rest of the afternoon.
There was a balcony on the first floor of the white-painted clubhouse which afforded a splendid view of the pitch and where chairs had been set out for club officials and their guests. Sir Hector bagged three of the best seats and we settled in to watch the match in the company of some extremely entertaining old men.
The match itself was a corker. It was a hard-fought contest between two village teams who would ordinarily have had no business to be playing in such a prestigious final and we all became quite caught up in the excitement of it all. At one point the referee blew his whistle and awarded a penalty against Littleton which caused Lady Hardcastle to leap to her feet and begin yelling her protests in the most indelicate language and suggesting that the beleaguered official was favouring Nibley. I tugged on her sleeve, urging her to sit down.
‘It was a fair call, my lady,’ I said. ‘The curly-headed chap was in front of the ball when it was kicked so he wasn’t allowed to run forwards and take it like that.’
There were murmurs of agreement from the Old Codgers.
‘Yes, well,’ she said, huffily. ‘I still don’t like him. He has shifty eyes.’
This elicited guffaws from our new friends who, as they became increasingly drunk during the course of the rest of the match, took to calling the referee “Shifty”.
The match ended with Littleton Cotterell having scored twelve points to North Nibley’s nine, and the celebrations began. Our elderly hosts were well on the way to inebriation by the end of the match, but Littleton’s victory saw them tucking in to the ale with renewed vigour. Class barriers were broken down by the sporting event and they supped with men from the villages and neighbouring farms as equals as the celebrations got properly underway.
There were women there, too, but mostly wives and sweethearts of the players and supporters, and all of us left as soon as the ribald singing began. Rugby songs tend towards the smutty and although both Lady Hardcastle and I found them terrifically amusing, we thought we might save the gentlemen some embarrassment by leaving them to their fun, not to mention salvaging something of our own reputations – it wouldn’t do to be seen to be enjoying Rabelaisian revelries when the other women had decorously fled.
We said our goodbyes to Sir Hector.
‘Cheerio, m’dears,’ he said, slightly slurred. ‘I say, you must come to the club dinner next Friday. The Memsahib still won’t be back and you can be my guests.’
‘Both of us, sir?’ I said, slightly dubious that I should be welcome at a rugby club dinner.
‘You especially, m’dear,’ he said. ‘The Old Codgers were very taken with you – thought you knew a lot more about the game than a lot of the chaps. They insisted you be invited.’
‘Then we shall be delighted,’ said Lady Hardcastle, kissing his cheek. ‘Thank you so much for the hospitality, Hector darling, we’ve had simply the most wonderful afternoon. Do give my love to Gertie, won’t you. Cheerio.’
‘Shall do, m’dear, shall do. Toddlepip,’ he said with a cheery wave, and tottered off to join his chums.
With the roof down and the sun on our faces, we drove home for supper, followed by brandy and our own renditions of some of the more vulgar songs from the rugby club repertoire.