Chapter Twelve
Axe sat on the edge of his bed in his under-drawers, staring at his bare legs and feet. The window was open on the still July morning; the warm air brought in only the sleepy, questioning call of a wood pigeon in the yard.
He was an active man and did not usually dawdle over getting up; but this was an unusual day. A clittering sound of hard nails on bare floorboards heralded Dolly, bustling in to see what he was about.
‘You’re wanting your breakfast,’ he said, and her stumpy tail twitched madly. ‘I’m not sure I’ve the stomach for mine. You know what today is, don’t you?’
She sat down in front of him, her stout figure pooling in a patch of sunlight.
‘That’s right, it’s my special day,’ he said. ‘Going up to London to see the King. The King, Dol! He’s going to shake my hand and give me a medal. What do we think about that, eh? Axe Brandom shaking hands with the King of England.’
She hitched herself closer to put her ears within reach, in case he should feel inclined to scratch the special spot behind them.
‘I suppose you might think it’s a great honour. But you’re not the one as has to go up there and get looked at and spoke to. And then there’s all the to-do down in the village when we get back.’
Dolly yawned, her mouth stretching so wide her ears almost touched, and the yawn made her sneeze.
He smiled. ‘Aye, you’re not wrong. It is a lot of nonsense. But, see, Dol, I’ve not been given the choice. They want to make a fuss, and that’s that. They think they’re being kind, but don’t you get the feeling they’re watching ’emselves being kind, and liking it?’
Dolly decided breakfast wasn’t going to happen just yet, and lay down on the floor, folding one front paw over the other.
‘And I’ve had to have a new suit for it.
A posh one, a gentleman’s suit.’ There it was, over there, hanging on a nail, like a falsehood.
‘Mind you, his lordship paid for it. But I had to have my hair cut. Proper cut at Eden’s in the village, not Ruthie doing it in her kitchen like usual.
It’s not me, all this. I’m a plain man, Dolly, as you know. A plain man as doesn’t like fuss.’
Dolly cocked her ears at the sound of her name.
‘I know what you’re wondering,’ he said.
‘Will she be there? I think she will, because his lordship’s making a big thing of it, so he’ll likely say they all have to go.
’ He was silent a moment, staring into his thoughts, and Dolly lowered her head to her paws with a faint sigh.
‘She doesn’t come any more,’ he said. ‘We miss her, don’t we?
And when I see her outside church, she has that look, as if all’s not well with her.
As if…’ A pause. ‘Studying art in London, they say. It’s what she wanted.
And she’s good. She could make a go of it.
But there’s that look…’ A longer pause. ‘I think she’s lonely.
You and me, we’ve got each other. And she had me.
Is it too prideful to say that? But it felt that way.
Only now she can’t come. She’s too grown-up. People’d talk.’
In the following pause, Dolly looked up under her eyebrows, without lifting her head. She sensed a change in mood, but wasn’t sure if it meant a move towards breakfast.
He looked down at her. ‘We miss her, don’t we?’ he said softly. Then, like an earthquake, he rose briskly to his feet, and Dolly heaved herself up and skittered backwards, out of his way. ‘Time’s getting on. Got to get going.’
He fed the animals, turned Della out, let the ducks out, had breakfast and tidied the kitchen, banked the range, and made his bed, like his mother had taught him.
(Climbing into an unmade bed at night wasn’t respectable.) He harnessed Cobnut to the little trap he had made with his own hands using a pair of second-hand wheels the blacksmith had given him, and tied him to the ring in the wall with an armful of hay to keep him happy.
He washed and shaved extra carefully, put on the suit, tied the tie, gave the shoes a last rub, then combed and parted his hair and subdued it with oil.
He looked at his reflection in the scrap of shaving-mirror, and thought he looked like a man heading for the scaffold.
‘Cheer up,’ he told that man. ‘They’re not going to kill you. ’
Last, he bent to caress Dolly and tell her she was in charge. ‘Willie Cox is going to come and shut the ducks in, but you mind ’em until then. I’ll feed you when I get back. I don’t know what time, but there’s always rats if you get peckish.’
Then he unhitched Cobnut, climbed into the cart and drove off, shaking away the foolish feeling that he was never coming back.
The last normal thing was reaching the Castle stableyard, where they were to look after Cobnut and the trap for the day.
Then things got strange. Mr Giddins, the head man, was waiting to receive him, along with Mr Archer, his lordship’s groom, and they shook his hand and said kind things, the rest of the grooms behind them smiling and nodding, as if he’d done something good for all of them.
Except his brother Josh, who stayed well back and scowled, but Josh was a sour individual who didn’t like anyone or anything.
A sad way to live a life, Axe always thought.
He walked round to the front of the house and the carriage was already waiting (two horses, the bays).
His lordship came out right away, punctual to a fault, with Axe’s eldest brother Seth, chosen by the family to accompany him.
Ruthie hadn’t got her way on that. Seth looked as if he wished she had, miserable in his best Sunday suit, his face scraped raw with shaving and his hair plastered down.
He nodded to Axe but did not speak, as though it might be forbidden.
His lordship greeted Axe cheerfully. ‘Ready for the fray?’
‘Yes, my lord,’ Axe said, which was a lie.
It seemed a long journey. Carriage to the station.
Train to Marylebone. Hackney cab from the station through the teeming streets of London.
His lordship was kind enough to realise Axe and his brother needed to stare at the sights, and didn’t speak to them during the ride.
And then through the gates of Buckingham Palace itself, with the policeman on duty saluting as they passed!
Axe knew he was out of his place. The size of the rooms, the height of the ceilings, the huge oil paintings, the gilding, the rich carpets underfoot, the uniformed soldiers, the liveried flunkeys, the quiet, authoritative gentleman in a black tailcoat and striped trousers who was in charge and was more frightening than the rest put together.
Worst of all were the eyes, always scanning and judging him, the knowing there was some act he had to perform.
He was afraid of doing the wrong thing, of offending some rule they knew and he didn’t.
It was an unmanning fear. In his own world he was strong, capable; here he was a helpless fool.
And now he was actually standing before the King – the very King himself, Edward VII, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain and Ireland, Emperor of India, Defender of the Faith.
It didn’t seem real. He noted, for future conversations when he would be asked, that the King’s hand was very soft and clean, his eyes were small and very blue, and his smile was kind.
And when the King (the King!) spoke about what he had done and asked him a question, he found himself answering, and heard that his voice was not shaking at all.
Then His Majesty hung the medal on the little clip they had installed on him beforehand, he remembered to bow as he had been instructed, and walked away to the side so the next man could come on.
And now it was over he wished, perversely, that he had taken it all in a bit more, had lived the moment, which would never come again.
The rest of the day passed in a dream, an exhausting dream, but not frightening, not after being face-to-face with the King of England.
When they got back to Canons Ashmore station, there was a band waiting, which played ‘See the Conquering Hero Comes’ as he walked down the platform.
There was bunting strung, and tubs of flowers, and to greet him a double rank of local bigwigs headed by the deputy lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, Sir Robert Grenville Harvey (the lord lieutenant was Lord Rothschild and you couldn’t expect him to have time for a village affair).
In the rank behind him Axe could see his family members, all in their best, Ruth craning and fidgeting and trying to catch his eye, not yet satisfied with the degree of her importance, though the deputy lieutenant’s elegant shoulders were right in front of her.
He made a speech and handed Axe a rolled parchment bound with a red ribbon, which he said was the Freedom of Canons Ashmore, whatever that might be.
The opposite platform was thronged with onlookers, who cheered the speech, and then they trooped out all-of-a-piece, as though they were stuck together, and there were open carriages waiting.
They drove along the bunting-decked street between cheering crowds – his lordship nudged him gently and told him to wave – to the Red House at the end of the village, where another deputation received them, headed by Lord Bexley, the local magistrate, and the Hon.
Frederick Verney, the MP for the area. Mr Verney looked particularly pleased as he shook Axe’s hand.
‘Very well done!’ he said, beaming. ‘Your act of heroism, an example to all! Spoken of in the House, you know. The prime minister sends his particular congratulations. Awfully good for the constituency, and the Party. Well done indeed.’
Axe thought he meant the party they were about to have inside the Red House, which had a huge baronial hall into which a great number could be fitted.