Ten Lords A-Leaping Read online

  ‘Mmm,’ said Amiss. ‘I’m probably with you on the last two, but you’re going to have to do a seriously proselytizing job to get me to agree on hare-coursing.’

  ‘Later. Anyway, the whole attention has been focused on fox-hunting, which is what’s stirred everyone’s imagination. Before we knew it, a huge campaign had started and every MP was getting a couple of thousand postcards saying, “Stop this cruelty now.” Now, we’re no good at mobilizing those sort of numbers and on top of that, we usually put up people on radio or television with plummy accents who get everyone’s backs up.

  ‘So with that big Labour majority in the Commons, insufficient time and our lot on the defensive, we didn’t stand a chance. Hunting’s a nice, easy issue unless you’re in a rural constituency—all the electoral advantage is in doing down the so-called gentry.’

  Deptford interrupted. ‘Do you know that A.P. Herbert poem?

  While the Commons must bray like an ass every day

  To appease their electoral hordes

  We don’t say a thing till we’ve something to say:

  There’s a lot to be said for the Lords.

  Amiss grinned. ‘Nice one.’

  ‘So,’ continued Stormerod. ‘It passed its second reading by three hundred and eighty to one hundred and ten and the government—seeing a popular source of votes—came onside and said it would provide time for a third reading. In the blink of an eye it was through Committee and up to here and this time—because they’re determined to get it through—it’s a government bill.’

  ‘Aren’t you more organized now?’

  Stormerod raised an eyebrow at Deptford. ‘Better, but not good.’

  ‘But you’ve got numbers on your side, surely?’

  ‘Not as many as you’d think. It’s not like a century ago when most peers would hunt. Nowadays, even among the hereditary ones, you’ve got a hell of a cross-section of society—probably as many vegetarians as you’ve got hunters. And we don’t really know how half of them would jump. If you try pulling them in to vote, it might go the wrong way.

  ‘No, we’re concentrating on the working peers, maybe three or four hundred, who are probably evenly balanced. But Labour have a three-line whip on, while the Conservatives don’t, because they’re split too. So it’s tight enough and damn difficult to read.’

  Deptford broke in. ‘That’s one of the reasons Bertie was so anxious to get Jack in ’ere fast. He thought—and I agreed—she’d put a bit of energy into standing up for us. We’re goin’ to need her when they try to reform us in all the wrong ways.’

  ‘So who is there who’s effective besides you two and Jack?’

  Stormerod sighed again. ‘No one much. You see, we’re stuck with the enthusiasts, many of whom are frankly counterproductive. I mean, can you imagine the sort of speeches Poulteney makes? Listen to him for long enough and we’d have mass defections.’

  At that very moment Poulteney entered the bar accompanied by a tall, weedy old man in pince-nez. ‘Ah, Bertie, Sid, and…oh, yes, Robert. Mind if we join you?’

  Stormerod rose and began pushing extra seats into place. Poulteney’s companion rushed to help, caught his right hand between the backs of two chairs, yelped, grabbed another gamely and pushed it so that it hit the table and spilled some of Stormerod’s drink. Deptford interrupted his distracted apologies. ‘Meet Robert Amiss, Tommy. Robert, this is Tommy Beesley.’ Drinks were ordered.

  ‘I ran into Tommy in the library,’ said Poulteney, ‘and he’s worried.’

  ‘Very worried.’ His voice was high-pitched, reedy, and redolent with angst. ‘I was saying to Reggie that I wish I knew what was going on. I feel quite in despair. This terrible thing must be stopped, I tell you. It must be stopped.’

  ‘Calm down, Tommy. We’re doing the best we can.’

  ‘Your best is clearly not good enough, not good enough, I say. Look at what happened to my deer-hunting. We’ve got to take firm action, this time. Just not stand for it.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Poulteney, ‘we’ve got to get them on the run, chase them into cover, and if they go to earth we dig ’em out.’

  ‘When I speak in the debate’—emotion drove Beesley’s voice so high it periodically went into a squeak—‘I shall tell them I shan’t stand for it. This is our birthright. We shall stand and fight. And this time we will not give way, whatever happens.’

  ‘This is a democracy.’ Stormerod sounded weary. ‘We have to win the argument and the vote and you don’t do that by threats but by persuasion. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have a lunch engagement.’

  ‘See what we’re up against,’ he groaned to Amiss as the three of them walked down the corridor.

  ‘Are they typical?’

  ‘Yes and no. Most people like Tommy Beesley never come here. And indeed Reggie rarely comes. But we’re not overendowed with lucid exponents of the virtues of the chase, I can tell you that. And unfortunately, Reggie and Tommy will insist on speaking.’

  They entered an L-shaped dining room decorated with the usual seas of mahogany panelling, this time along with sickly yellowy wallpaper and a patterned carpet dominated by sea-green squares on which sat uncomfortably the red gold-monogrammed upholstery.

  ‘Ah, Agnes. And how are we today?’

  The waitress was unresponsive. ‘Table for three, my lord?’

  ‘Four. We’re hoping a lady will join us.’

  Amiss looked at him enquiringly.

  ‘Your friend the baroness.’

  ‘That’s no lady; that’s Jack Troutbeck,’ offered Amiss as a whirlwind arrived, clapped him on the back, pulled a chair out noisily, plonked herself down and stuck her legs out in front of her. The legs of her directoire knickers came into view during mid-stretch. Amiss observed the waitress looking at them sidelong in disapproval. An elderly peer who tottered past at the crucial moment stopped momentarily, shook his head and staggered off towards a faraway table.

  ‘Busy morning?’ asked Deptford solicitously.

  ‘Not really. Up and down to Cambridge, council meeting for an hour, mopping up various bits of business, telling everyone what to do, then back here.’

  ‘Drink?’

  ‘I’ll have a Scotch while I think what I’ll have to eat. Now, how’ve you lot been getting on?’

  ‘I fear’—Stormerod looked over his shoulder—‘that our young friend can hardly be encouraged by having been exposed to Tommy Beesley as well as another dose of Reggie Poulteney, who seem set fair through their advocacy of fox-hunting in next week’s debate to bring about its demise.’

  ‘And you can’t stop them speaking?’

  ‘No.’

  The baroness took a thoughtful swig of her drink. ‘This could go wrong, you know. Hunting could actually be abolished in a fit of national absent-mindedness. How’s the strategic planning going, Robert?’

  He shot her a withering look. ‘I don’t even know yet if any lobbying’s been done.’

  ‘The Defend our Field Sports crowd have done what they can,’ said Stormerod, ‘but it’s not like lobbying MPs. People here don’t worry about votes. Really, all we can do is ensure the best people speak and speak well and then keep fighting to the end.’

  ‘So what’s the talent?’

  ‘Sid and me. Next most anxious to speak, God help us, are Tommy and Reggie and—possibly even worse—Admiral Lord Gordon.’

  ‘What’s the opposition like?’ asked Amiss.

  ‘Apart from the benighted Beatrice, who is in the lead, I don’t know yet.’

  The baroness scratched her head. ‘It’s clear Robert and I had better have a recce. There’s an antihunting public meeting being held in Islington tonight. I know the wretched Parsons will be there, as well as someone called Lord Purseglove? Any idea who he is?’

  ‘He inherited the title a couple of years ago, but isn’t seen here much. He’s some sort of monk.’

  ‘OK. Robert will report back to you tomorrow. Now, let’s have some lunch. I’m starving.’ />
  ***

  ‘OK, we seem pretty clear about everything. Got all that, Robert. Robert! Concentrate.’

  ‘Yes, yes. Sorry. I’m a bit tired. I was falling asleep.’

  The waitress came over with a face like thunder.

  ‘Did you want something, your ladyship? I thought I heard you call.’

  Stormerod grinned. ‘Now, Agnes, I know Lady Troutbeck has a rather loud voice, but there’s no need to look so disapproving.’

  Agnes sniffed. ‘I like things to be seemly.’

  ‘Seemly and I don’t mix,’ said the baroness cheerfully. ‘If I were you I’d get used to it.’ She stuck out her wine glass in Agnes’ direction. ‘But now that you’re here, you can give me some more wine.’

  The waitress looked mutinous.

  ‘Come, come. We girls must stick together.’

  With a bad grace, the waitress filled the baroness’ glass and withdrew tight-lipped.

  Deptford shook his head. ‘Watch out, Jack. It’s one thing upsettin’ the peers. They don’t matter. But for cryin’ out loud, don’t upset the staff.’

  ‘They’ll get used to me,’ she said carelessly. ‘Everyone does.’ She pulled out her pipe and tobacco.

  ‘Sorry, you can’t smoke yet. It’s not ’alf past one.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Can’t smoke in the dining room till then.’

  ‘There are more rules in this place than in Alcatraz. That’s the trouble with men. They want to tie up all of life in a straitjacket.’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to be the chap who tries to do that to you.’ Stormerod laughed. ‘Now hold your soul in patience for a while and enjoy your lunch. The pipe will have to wait. You can’t flout all our conventions in the first twenty-four hours.’

  Chapter Six

  Outside the town hall demonstrators were surging, milling around, and chanting slogans. Most of them had banners bearing graphic pictures. As Amiss averted his eyes, the baroness suddenly appeared at his side, having ploughed a path through the demonstrators with no apparent difficulty. ‘I would prefer it,’ remarked Amiss, ‘if my duties did not extend to having to look at pictures of eviscerated animals. It doesn’t exactly encourage me in this particular crusade.’

  ‘Oh, stop being so feeble, Robert. I could equally well show you pictures of gassed and shot foxes. This is propaganda; it has nothing to do with the truth. Now, come on in and let’s get a ringside seat.’

  The hall filled up quickly. From the front row, Amiss looked round covertly a few times.

  ‘I doubt there are many on our side,’ he whispered.

  The baroness, who had been searching her bag for her pipe, turned and stared around openly.

  ‘There certainly seems to be an absence of jodhpurs. Fear not. You’ve got me.’ She clamped down the tobacco and sucked on her pipe. A woman behind tapped her on the shoulder. ‘No smoking.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You’re just about to.’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘You’ve got a pipe in your mouth.’

  ‘I’ve shoes on my feet but I’m not walking.’ She put her pipe on her lap and took from her pocket an enormous handkerchief into which she blew her nose noisily. The complainant sat well back in her seat, evincing a mixture of shock and disgust.

  ‘Ha! That’s better.’ The baroness returned the handkerchief to her pocket and put her pipe back in her mouth.

  ‘You’re just trying to tease them.’

  ‘Of course I am. It puts them in the wrong, this old unlit pipe trick. Anyway, it’s quite soothing—gives me something to grit my teeth on. How else would I get through a speech of Beatrice Parsons’?’

  By 8.00 the hall was completely full. The audience ranged from octogenarians in woolly hats with Home Counties accents through to steely-eyed fanatics brandishing banners threateningly—which seemed odd, Amiss thought, since virtually the entire audience could be assumed to be on their side. Perhaps it had simply become a habit.

  At this moment, a chap in an Aran sweater, crumpled tweed trousers, and sandals emerged from behind the scenes leading three speakers onto the platform. Screams and shouts of approval broke out at the back of the audience. As his team sat down, he stood at the microphone and called the meeting to order.

  ‘My friends.’ Silence fell. ‘As president of the Friends of Oppressed Animals, I am delighted to be here this evening. We are all friends in this great undertaking—united here in a great cause. A cause in which people who, in other circumstances might be politically at odds, can join hands in defence of the defenceless. Victory is within our grasp, but it is important that our champions be shown how much we respect and admire them and how—as they continue to hunt down cruelty and oppression—we will be riding closely behind them. We will not be wearing scarlet jackets, for we are not fine lords and ladies, but we will triumph in the chase nonetheless.’

  This was apparently regarded as wit by a large section of the audience; they guffawed and roared with laughter.

  ‘Now, if I may make so bold, I would like to introduce someone who is indeed a fine lady, but not in the sense of one of those battening on the oppressed, be they human or animal. As plain Beatrice Parsons, she has long been a fighter for the poor and underprivileged, and that fight she will of course continue, but it is as Lady Parsons, the proposer in the House of Lords of the bill to outlaw these foul practices, that she comes to us today. So now, without further ado…’ He bowed low in Parsons’ direction.

  Baroness Troutbeck gripped tightly on her pipe and out of the corner of her mouth muttered, ‘Sycophantic git.’

  ‘Sssh.’ Amiss didn’t like the look in the eye of an old lady who had overheard this challenging comment.

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘We’re in a rather vulnerable spot,’ he hissed. ‘I don’t want to be beaten to death by those who want to abolish cruelty.’

  The baroness threw her head back in a gesture which was presumably meant to imply distress at Amiss’ pusillanimity, but, to his relief, she said nothing more.

  Lady Parsons was by now on her feet. She was a contained-looking woman, crisply turned out in the uniform now de rigueur among ambitious women of the left, conventional wisdom being that the more radical you were, the more you had to dress like something out of a glossy magazine. Her close-fitted and stylish yellow jacket sported epaulettes and brass buttons; her cream shirt was silk; her hair was simple but had obviously benefited from the attentions of a very upmarket practitioner. Lady Parsons’ vowels were clearly enunciated in a Home Counties/public school/Oxbridge accent that, at times, she must have wished to be without while she battled her way up the ladder of North London local politics.

  ‘Chair, friends, along with all of you, I am honoured to serve the cause of outlawing the cruelty that so disfigures our countryside. I am gratified to be able to play a part in bringing to Britain civilized standards of the kind the Establishment has always fought against.

  ‘I don’t need to tell you, my friends, the provisions of this bill.’ She then proceeded to do exactly that at considerable length and in the style of Counsel for the Prosecution making the final damning summing-up speech to the jury. Lady Parsons was clearly someone whose austerity allowed for no such luxury as emotion. Hers was a forensic mind, Amiss thought with distaste, as he listened to the bloodless analysis.

  As she grimly went through the bill clause by clause, Amiss began to feel much more sympathy for Jack Troutbeck’s point of view, for Lady Parsons’ perspective clearly had no room for light, shade or tolerance. She saw no distinction between people kicking hedgehogs to death or setting fire to squirrels just for the hell of it and a sport that had involved whole communities throughout the countryside for centuries. Indeed, if anything, it was clear that hunting was the real butt of her loathing and disdain. At every opportunity she offered a humourless sneer at ‘bastions of privilege’ and ‘luxuriators in inherited wealth’ who sought to flaunt their riches and heartlessnes
s in such an obscene manner. She even produced without apology, and as if it were newly minted, Oscar Wilde’s epigram about hunting being ‘the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable’.

  Amiss hated her. She oozed moral superiority from every well-tended pore, and her intellect was competent, efficient and clinical—the intellectual equivalent of a Swiss laboratory. Without warmth, humour, or any kind of doubt, it was clear that on all moral issues, where many people saw pros and cons, Beatrice Parsons would be on the side of tidiness. Aborting the unfit, providing a national euthanasia service on demand, and purifying the genetic mix to eradicate inherited defects of physique or character would be right up her street.

  ‘So now, colleagues, the issues are clear. The government has led the way, the voice of the people of the United Kingdom, ninety-four per cent of whom are against fox-hunting, has been already exercised through their elected representatives. It is my duty to ensure that the people’s will triumphs in that redundant anachronism, the House of Lords, over the selfish interests of the landed gentry.’

  ‘What a pill,’ observed Jack Troutbeck in a whisper that carried several rows back. Amiss kicked her on the shin, eliciting a bellow of pain that would have been heard in the back row by the hard of hearing. If it disconcerted Amiss, it markedly unsettled the speaker. She shot a castigatory look at the author of the disturbance, who beamed back at her and moved her pipe to the other corner of her mouth. Parsons looked down at her notes, failed to find her place and ended lamely, ‘Well, that’s it, Chair. I’m grateful for your support. Victory is within our grasp.’

  ‘That rattled her.’ Jack Troutbeck beamed. She swung her right leg over her left knee with gay abandon, causing her skirt to ride up.

  ‘You’re showing your knickers,’ hissed Amiss, under cover of the thunderous applause in which he, unlike the baroness, was cravenly, though perfunctorily, joining. She looked down at the eau-de-nil satin that peeked from under the houndstooth tweed and said, ‘Good. That should upset the monk.’

  The chairman rose and quelled the applause with a gesture.