41

Master John Warnefeld-Davies was twelve, wore a blazer striped in the school colours of beige and blue, and was the only son and heir of a London businessman who had made a fortune from leg makeup. He was a handsome boy, with a beautifully shaped head and dark golden hair that fell on his brow. He was fastidious, and his Polish mother indulged him. His perceptions were acute, and his judgments reflected hers: they were sardonic and sophisticated. John’s mother’s name was Rene.

Their enforced exile from Britain was not unwelcome, if only to get away from Mr. Davies’ lechery. The mother had rented a small limestone house near the Belmont Manor Hotel. She had wanted to move to Miami, but the curbs on the flow of money had become so strict that she was forced to remain in Bermuda. She had a friend, Nora, who also had a boy at the school, but few other acquaintances. Nora was a tiresome chatterbox, emotional and childish, but she had a good heart. Rene reclined in a deckchair that enveloped her tiny frame, reading The New Yorker and puffing on a cigarette, which she inhaled deeply. Her long hair was jet-black, and she wore brilliantly coloured scarves and evening clothes.

“Our new schoolmaster arrived today, mummy,” said her son, kissing her cheek and dumping his blazer on the grass. “He looks smashing. He was shot in the army and still wears a sling. We’re going to start a cadet corps.”

His mother’s laugh was throaty. “You are going to be mummy’s little soldier, eh? That will be nice—now you’ll have to polish your shoes.”

“He’s going to teach some history to the young ones too, and maybe he will have an art class.”

Rene looked at her son over the cover of the magazine. “I haven’t seen you so enthusiastic for ages,” she said, tilting her half-frame reading glasses.

“That place has been more boring than Switzerland.” John unbuttoned his monogrammed silk shirt and threw it on the grass, beside his jacket. He sat, and his mother traced the arched line of his spine with the tips of her fingers. “Except for Miss Stead, and she’s kind of silly. That Reverend Mr. Pearkes gives me the creeps.”

“Isn’t he directing your play?” asked his mother.

“He’s a big ham,” replied John. “He is trying to tell me how to be a merchant! He should have cast daddy in the part!”

The boy was always approaching these dangerous waters, and his mother gently deflected his course. “Daddy provides you with those nice shirts,” she said. “We shouldn’t be too hard on him.”

“Captain MacQueen said that he is designing a uniform and his mother is giving a dance to pay for them. He wants us to be ushers—isn’t that great?”

“Well!” said John’s mother softly. She always respected her son’s viewpoint and she was pleased that he had found a new enthusiasm. “I must meet this gentleman someday.”

Rene Warnefeld-Davies had never been presented at court, and she pretended that the Establishment was a bore. She had arrived in exciting London as a modestly well-off refugee from the Free Corps invasion of Silesia, where her grandfather had been a large native landowner. Stemming from minor Slavic nobility, she married an energetic entrepreneur twice her age and who was involved in the field of cosmetics just before the market crash of 1929. When silk supplies vanished, and before nylon was invented, he made a large fortune from cream makeup for ladies’ legs.

In the meantime, Rene’s grandfather’s estates had become a battleground and were confiscated. This property had been in her family since the defeat of the Teutonic Order in 1411, awarded by the Emperor Sigismund; they had fought against the Golden Horde itself. In 1929, the last traces of this barbaric grandeur vanished down the sinkhole of Wall Street.

In France, when the Germans broke through in 1940, Rene had been at Monaco, ignoring her husband’s infidelities. Her son, John, had just joined her for the summer. The two of them trekked together to Spain and then sailed, via the Azores, to Bermuda. The air raids in London, and her husband’s increasing carnality, were no encouragement to return.

Angella agreed to put her bicycle on the train and ride the few miles to Somerset with Patrick. Earlier that day she had shown him around the grounds, and then they went to the common room for tea. There was a small girls’ establishment nearby under the nominal control of Mrs. Stalker, but actually run by an ardent Englishwoman who somewhat resembled comedienne and singer Gracie Fields. She was a Nordic blonde known as Mrs. Beach, and this horsey female was in direct contrast to Miss Stead’s more delicate and winsome nature. Her voice boomed, and she was always spilling tea while attempting to control her not-altogether-spontaneous bursts of laughter.

Mrs. Beach had developed a consuming lust for the Orthodox Reverend Mr. Pearkes. This worthy gentleman claimed to have served with distinction in the first war, and he had a shortened arm to prove it. It was attached to a tiny hand that looked as though it belonged to someone else. He had a saturnine face, not unlike the French actor Charles Boyer, and a vast appetite for the good things in life that were beyond his reach. His voice was a deep Oxford, and he certainly knew his way around the social scene, but his past was mostly mysterious. He taught Latin and English literature, coached drama, and could even bat a cricket ball with one hand. Mrs. Stalker found his presence disturbing, and he found the presence of the headmaster unbearable. The trio were barely civil to one another, but were tied together like the Mariner and the albatross. There seemed to be a sinister secret somewhere, yet the Reverend Pearkes was planning to forsake Orthodoxy and join the Church of England. He hoped to become the bishop’s secretary, and then—who knows—perhaps wear the very mitre itself?

The reverend’s charm was reserved for Lady Lemonton, who was rumoured to be vastly rich and a member of the Cliveden set, and who had a daughter at the girl’s school. Lady Lemonton barely knew that the Reverend Mr. Pearkes existed—and she certainly cared less. Sadly, both ladies Lemonton and Bernstog were very close with a sixpence.

MacQueen didn’t learn much from Angella Stead on the railway train. She cost him one shilling and sixpence, and all that he could remember were those bewitching brown legs tucked into little oxblood loafers, each of which sported a little brass bell. Her eyes may have been close together, but her teeth were perfect, and the promise beginning to swell under that blouse made him dizzy. After their return trip they shyly put their foreheads together under the lamp light by the constabulary station, and then she mounted her bicycle and drove off into the darkness. MacQueen staggered home through the banana trees suffering agonies of frustration—as did all northerners on that fecund island.