5. THE FANCY LIMOUSINE

A second young man to interest Ursula

“Where have you come from, mummy?” almost squawked Charles. “I thought you were in Londers with daddy!”

“Oh, that philanderer! That pourer of gemstones into call-girls brassieres? No, I thought I’d come back home and see that my precious little son is well and breathing the good country air like he should be. But Charles, dearest, introduce me to your little peasant friend?”

Peasant? That was enough for Ursula, but she had some sense and didn’t respond to the insult.

Instead, “My Lord Charles thought I might require a glass of lemonade before he strips me and does an etching of me, but it seems he’s neglected the washing-up this past few weeks and we don’t have a clean glass … so I’ll be leaving you and return to my counter at Harrods!” she said in one breath.

“Where’s your scullery maid?” asked Lady Patience Snootnose, turning to her son. Is this young lady her? Is it she who has neglected to care for your kitchen appliances to the standard you’ve been brought up to expect?”

Then Charles screwed himself up to almost breaking point and decided to be honest.

“No, mummy, what the young lady says is perfectly true, except for the reference to Harrods. She is employed in a far superior store! But I did promise her lemonade, and if she felt so inclined I did offer to create an etching, in the nude if she preferred...”

He said nothing about preferred, thought Ursula, but remained quiet.

“...But what was that you were saying about daddy?” he asked as an afterthought.

“The beast! I only caught him in flagrente with a tart!” she replied, “he was down to his particularly swollen underwear and she was all smiles and suspenders!”

“Mummy! Are you sure ...but daddy … surely there’s an innocent explanation!” Charles sounded genuinely shocked by his father’s alleged antics.

“If there is you’d better tell him, because he hasn’t come out with it yet!” snapped Lady Snootnose. “I mean, darling, it’s all right for you to dally with this shop girl, but daddy, after all, is a married man! And to make matters worse it’s me he’s married to, and if he needs to play games what’s wrong with him playing them with me? No, I’ve left him in Londers, I’ve come back home and I’ll have this place spick and span when I get my hands on a few peasant maids! You have let it go a weeny bit, haven’t you?”

“Daddy said he couldn’t afford for me to have any servants...” began Charles glumly.

“But your allowance!” replied his mother, somewhat sharply, “I know how much that is, and you could easily buy the service of half a dozen young wenches with that much, and have enough left over to pamper yourself!”

Ursula had heard enough. In a way she felt sorry for the almost penitent Charles but it crossed her mind that if he’d stood up to this woman when he’d been a boy and not waited until he was in his twenties then he might be a stronger person now.

“I see I’m not getting any lemonade, so I’ll bid you goodbye,” she said sharply. ”I’ll see you next time you call in at the village shop for your tin of beans and loaf of bread, sir.” The emphasis she put on that last syllable was sarcasm in sound.

She turned to leave, not looking forward to the thirsty walk home under a baking sun, but the atmosphere after the arrival of Charles’s mother had become unbearable. It was as if she had the skill to turn off lights of happiness wherever they may be and replace them with high class gloom.

“You ungrateful child!” spat Lady Snootnose at her as she reached the door.

As she half-walked, half-ran though the turgid air of the passage that led to the entrance door of the south wing she could hear the shrill yet cultured sound of Lady Patience Snootnose.

“How have you let things get to this state?” she squawked, “I mean, darling, there’s actual filth everywhere...”

And the muffled reply involving the use of the two words sorry and mummy and not much else.

The twerp, she thought, and to think I had dreams about him…

She marched out of the house and was tempted to slam the door behind her, but thought better of it. I’ll show them who’s got manners because it’s clear they haven’t a clue, she raged to herself as she pulled the door to gently until it was almost shut.

Lady Snootnose had a car waiting outside. There could be no doubt that it was a Snootnose car because, emblazoned in gold leaf on the doors was the Snootnose coat of arms, which consisted of a swan’s head peering over the rim of a tankard, and the ornate script CS. Charles, it seemed, was a family name.

“’Scuse me, miss,” came a voice from inside the car. She paused, startled, and looked to see who might be lurking within earshot, and there was a young man in the uniform of a chauffeur sitting in the Snootnose family limousine.

“You want me?” she asked.

“Are you in service, miss?” he asked, taking his peaked hat off and scratching behind one ear.

“Me? No, not likely,” she replied, “I was offered a cool drink because of all the heat, and then the lady came in and took over and I left before she could think of any more lowly names to call me.”

He looked around him, making sure he wasn’t being overheard, and he beckoned her to move closer to where he was sitting.

“That’s her all round,” he said quietly, “taking over like that. She does it all the time. How far are you going?”

“Back to Swanspottle,” she replied, wiping her own brow.

“Then you wait there, miss, and I’ll slip inside and tell her highness that we need petrol and I’d better go now or the garage will be shut, it being Sunday and all that. I’ll take you back to your place, you see if I don’t.”

He pushed the car door open and stepped out. “Won’t be a tick,” he grinned, and walked into the house. The door opened at a touch, and he vanished inside.

Moments later he reappeared, grinning. “That’s arranged,” he chortled, holding a pound note in the air. “This’ll fill her, and the change will buy us a cold drink each. Come on, step inside before her highness changes her mind and joins us.”

It was the heat that won the argument, if argument there was, and Ursula rushed round the other side and climbed into the passenger seat.

“You’d best tell me where you live,” grinned the chauffeur, “I’m Tony, by the way, and you’re pretty as a picture!”

“I’m Ursula. Mr Charles wanted to make a picture of me,” she smiled.

“He still does those etchings of his? They’d be nice if he was any good, but he ain’t.”

“He wanted me to take my clothes off,” sighed Ursula, “and I’m not that sort of girl.”

“But would you have? If he were a great artist and wanted a beautiful model? You are beautiful, you know. ‘Specially dressed like that, for the sun.”

“Thank you kind sir,” she replied.

“I’d offer to paint a picture of you in the altogether if I could, but tell the truth, miss, I don’t know one end of a paint brush from the other so I won’t!” he grinned, “Look, down this here road is the garage and when I’ve filled her up we’ll get you home.”

The small garage with its single fuel pump was off a narrow lane that would one day become part of a major road, but not for decades. As it was, the place was basic to say the least, but it was open briefly on Sunday afternoons and chauffeur Tony was able to fill up.

“Just the job,” he grinned, smelling faintly of petrol, “now let’s take the pretty lass home, shall we?”

“That would be most kind, good sir,” she said.

“That’s me … kind all over! Might I see a bit of you if you don’t think I’m being too forward? That’s if Madam Snootnose decides to stay on until her old man is forgiven!”

“That would be nice, and, no, it’s not too forward,” laughed Ursula as they pulled up outside the modest house she called home and climbed out of the passenger seat of the most expensive car that had ventured down her road in living memory.

© Peter Rogerson 07.07.18