“On the banks of the river Neva stands the city of St. Petersburg, in
the Empire of Russia.”
Thus, illustrated by a picture of the Fortress of Peter and Paul, _The
Sunday Runner_ started off Miss Sherwood’s article. Frank read it out
aloud in bed to his wife as they woke up on Sunday in her (now their)
attic flat in Half-Moon-street. “It is not perhaps generally known that
Mr. Frank Septimus Dickin, the novelist, was born in Petrograd--or as he
prefers to call it, St. Petersburg--at the time his father was Naval
Attaché to our Embassy. This austerely beautiful city has changed its
name twice since its inception by Peter the Great, who christened it in
the Swedish idiom after himself. The late war changed the idiom, while
maintaining the name, and the revolution changed the name to that of
Lenin, while preserving the Russian idiom. In truth, a romantic city. (A
corner picture showed the Winter Palace and the Quay.) Here Peter once
walked. Here the last tragic emperor dwelt in fear and misgiving, while
Lenin stormed the citadel by word of mouth and word of print--the
capital which was to bear his name! Mr. Dickin, who loves this granite
city of private palaces, built by Peter and sung by the great poet
Pushkin and haunted by the spirit of Rasputin, claims to be connected
with it by ties of blood of the Romanov strain. It is a romantic story
which, perhaps, some day he will give us in full; the love of the last
and most tragic of Romanovs for the novelist’s beautiful mother. There
are things in life that are hurt by indelicate scrutiny, things which
shrink before the too-eager curiosity of the sensational mind, when the
biographer must withdraw or stand aside and linger in reverence.”
Ensconced in a single bed with his wife, Frank felt more like an adjunct
than a husband, and the reading of the article he thought might
rehabilitate his dwindling prestige with Cynthia. If he had no money,
he had at least, it seemed, imperial blood. When, on discovering his
financial infecundity, she had said: “What are we to do?” he had
replied: “Don’t you bother. Live on as you’ve been doing and take no
notice of me.” Hence the single bed. She was just to go on sleeping in
it as before and take no notice of his presence in it.
Their married life was enriched by a stream of press-cuttings which
trickled in with every post. Miss Sherwood’s article was reprinted by
some of the provincial newspapers, and Frank’s Press-Cutting Agency had
no difficulty in supplying him with paragraphs of a biographical
interest.
“_Imperial Claim_,” was the heading in an American journal. “_We
understand that among the claimants to the dubious throne of Russia
is a young English novelist, Mr. Dickin, who claims the paternity
of the Czar and a connection with the capital way back to Peter the
Great._”
Another cutting, headed, “_Descendant of the Tsars_,” read:
“_Mr. Dickin’s family has sprung from a branch of Peter the Great,
and Mr. Dickin himself, as is perhaps not generally known, is the
son of the Emperor Nicholas II by a morganatic marriage--the last
of the Romanovs, whose reign has been brought to destruction by
the Rasputin régime and consummated by Lenin._”
A new cutting read:
“_Claiming to be the son of Rasputin, Mr. Dickin’s connection with
the Russian Court goes back, through his mother, to Peter the Great
and indeed earlier, to the first Romanov, in whose time a relative
of Mrs. Dickin was Mayor of Moscow. Mr. Dickin thus is well
immersed in Russian atmosphere. He is also the author of ‘Pale
Primroses’_ (Sender: 7s. 6d.)”
* * * * *
As time went on, the press-notices became more involved and informative.
“_Mr. Dickin’s mother_,” read a notice, “_which may not be generally
known, was a governess at the Imperial Russian Court who became the
Czar’s mistress and later that of Lenin, and his fame reposes on these
two tragic pillars of Czardom and Communism_.”
* * * * *
A further cutting, from a Liverpool paper, read:
“_Illegitimate Son of Rasputin and Lenin. Mr. Dickin’s mother,
whose son’s novel, ‘Pale Primroses’_ (Sender: 7s. 6d.) _we reviewed
in this column last week, was among the victims at the seizure of
the Winter Palace, where she had been housed by her friend Kerensky
during his all too abortive régime, after being for years the
governess of the heir to the throne and an intimate friend of the
Emperor--a mere puppet, as will be recalled, in the hands of the
sinister Rasputin; and it was her fate, with the surrender of the
Woman’s Battalion which defended the Palace, to fall into the
unregenerate hands of Lenin. Mr. Dickin’s parentage, on his own
admission, like that of many a great poet born in time of stress,
may be said to be in jeopardy and, we feel, will lead many a
scholar of the future into that fascinating country and furnish him
with matter for research._”
A Dundee paper reprinted this identically, up to the words “_Woman’s
Battalion_,” after which it had added: “_of which she was the leader_.”
* * * * *
“Well,” said Frank. “We seem to have had a good run for our money!”
“If it helps to sell the book,” said Cynthia.
“Bound to do! And now that we are comfortably settled in our own abode,
don’t you think, darling, that we ought to give a party?”
“Whom could we ask?”
“I mean return hospitality to Ottercove before he goes abroad.”
“But he is so difficult about food.”
“I know. Always gets poisoned. It’s uncanny the way some people have a
gift for getting poisoned in the most innocuous circumstances. I can’t
conceive of getting poisoned short of going to an apothecary’s and
asking for a bottle of poison. But Ottercove can’t swallow an egg
without dropping his napkin on the floor and groaning: ‘Poisoned!’”
“But what does he eat?”
“We might write to his butler and find out.”
“Well, if you like write to the butler,” she said warily.
“I don’t remember his name.”
“What does that matter?”
“It doesn’t, of course.” He sat down to Cynthia’s (now his)
writing-table and began to write to the butler, reading aloud to his
wife as he did so, feeling that, in matrimony, a man cedes one half of
his thoughts to his mate:
“‘My Dear Friend--’”
“You don’t address a butler as My Dear Friend. Frank! Really!”
“It does rather sound like addressing a Salvation Army meeting.”
“You simply write: to Mr. So-and-So.”
“Every day of my life with you, Cynthia, I am learning something!”
And he wrote: “_To Mr.----, Butler to Lord Ottercove: Conceiving the
idea of entertaining your lord at dinner, I appeal to you in all
sincerity and friendship to supply me with a list of his lordship’s
favourite dishes._”
“Leave out ‘appeal in all sincerity and friendship.’”
“All right. ‘Request in all earnestness.’”
“No, leave that out, too.”
Her intellect was not, Frank perceived, penetrating. She always meant
what she said and thought that others did so too.
“Then we might ask ... whom?”
“Whom?”
“The Foreign Secretary. The difficulty is how begin my letter to
him.--‘Signor, I would esteem it a privilege--’”
“Frank! Really! Don’t you know that only foreigners, I mean Italians,
are addressed ‘Signor?’”
“I thought the Foreign Secretary was a foreigner.”
“Frank! Really! Don’t you know any better?”
“But why then is he called the _Foreign_ Secretary?”
“Because he has to deal with foreigners--with other foreign
secretaries!”
“Ah--!--that’s why!... But are they _too_ called foreign because they
deal with foreigners?”
“Of course.”
“A world, I see, populated by foreigners.”
“Foreign to us. We foreign to them.”
“Every day of my life with you I learn something!”
A reply came next day from the butler of Lord Ottercove.
“_Sir_,” he wrote, “_My lord is fond of cold chicken, ham, plaice,
salmon, a mutton chop (well done) with mashed potatoes, curry and rice,
roast beef (hot), and strawberries. His lordship’s favourite drink is
whisky.--Your obedient servant, T. Wilkins._
“_P.S.--Taking the liberty to show your kind letter to his lordship, my
lord desires me to say that he would prefer a hard boiled egg._”
* * * * *
At half past seven Lord Ottercove’s winged chariot came to a halt,
grandly yet sensitively, at their door in Half-Moon-street and, not
bothering to wipe his feet, Lord Ottercove climbed up the expensive
carpet and the remaining seven flights to their comfortable attic flat,
panting dreadfully.
Frank took him at once into the dining room. “Since there is no cook on
the premises, Cynthia is attending to the egg. And a great big fine egg
it is too; you will see for yourself.”
“Fine,” said Lord Ottercove.
“Cynthia, bring forth the golden egg!”
Cynthia came in, with a plate in her hands.
“There,” cried Frank, “there you have it. There it is! A real egg....”
“Great ... grand ...” said Lord Ottercove.
“Sit down. There’s no one else to wait for. We invited the Foreign
Secretary. But he couldn’t come. Either couldn’t or wouldn’t. Anyway,
didn’t. Tuck in, Lord Ottercove.”
“Great ...” said Lord Ottercove, eating. “Grand....”
“And a drop of port,” said Frank, “to gulp it down with.”
“Grand fellow....”
“The meal’s finished!” peremptorily.
“Yes, I must be off. I am speaking at the House of Lords to-night.” The
guest rose. “Grand fellow!” to Frank. “Well, darling,” to Cynthia,
“happy? eh?”
“Quite, Rex,” she said, doubtfully. And paused, as if to say, in the
confidential way a woman has with a man worth confiding in: “Rex, dear,
what about _The Evening Ensign_?” But Lord Ottercove, who was endowed
with extraordinary powers of divination into human motive, accelerated
his steps downstairs. His conscience, owing to the hospitality partaken
of, or, perhaps, because of its lamentable inadequacy and the
implications therefrom arising, pricked him on the third step down, and
he turned his head to say to Frank:
“Look here, I’ll take another article from you.”
But Frank’s gestures, to the unspeakable annoyance of his wife, had now
become quite Eastern in their obsequiousness. “Good, my lord,” he bowed.
“Kind, my lord.”
Cynthia stood on the doorstep, while Frank went out into the road and
stroked the car. The chauffeur and Gilbert had both jumped out and were
assisting their master into its soft and spacious confines. Frank stood
at the door of the winged chariot, smug and nimble with its wings tucked
under its shining sides, and commented aloud:
“Tuck in his lordship’s feet. Look after him well, Gilbert.”
“Yessir.”
Lord Ottercove was pleased. The source of human pleasure is a hidden
well: for one reason or another Lord Ottercove looked pleased.
“Great!... Grand!...” he kept muttering.
“Evenberry, faithful steward,” Frank was addressing the chauffeur,
“drive his lordship carefully. Avoid sharp corners. Keep well within the
speed limit.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now then, Gilbert, I rely on you.”
“Yessir.”
“Good master you have. Take good care of him.”
“Yessir.”
“Good man, Gilbert,” said Lord Ottercove benignantly, as to a horse.
“Good man. Good servant.”
“Gilbert, enter into the joy of your lord....”
Cynthia stood, shivering a little, on the doorstep.
As the car moved off, Lord Ottercove, as always, hatless, waved an
indulgent hand. “Good-bye, sweetie!”
“Good-bye, Rex.”
The car, owing to the lack of space, did not take wing but prosaically
turned the corner.
“If your hospitality is scant,” said Frank, “nothing like enlarging on
your guest’s preserves.” He ran into the house, kicking the cat on the
way, and wiping his shoes on the mat, to spare the first-floor people’s
carpet, climbed upstairs.
* * * * *
“A joke’s a joke,” said his lordship to himself, since there was no one
else to say it to, “but a fellow can’t make a decent speech on an empty
stomach.” He took up the telephone tube and said to the chauffeur:
“Call in at the Kiss-Lick Club.”