“Where do we put the Mayor and Mayoress? They’ll have to be part of the procession.”
“If we have the Scouts and the Guides, we ought to have the Church Lads’ Brigade and the Girls’ Life Brigade, else there won’t half be a shine.”
“There’s the Salvation Army. They’ve got a decent sort of band. We could stick them somewhere in the middle of the procession. They can always be relied on for a bit of liveliness.”
“They’d sing, and that might steal the show.”
“What about amusements?”
“Amusements?” said the chairman, plunging in.
“Yes,
“Put two gondolas on the lake and let ’em breed,” quoted Councillor Perse sardonically. “I’ll tell you what,” he said aloud. “If we’re really going ahead with this thing, we shall need a pageant-master, otherwise everything will be chaos.”
“And who do you propose?” demanded the chairman. “And how much lolly will they want? We got to think of the rate-payers, you know.”
“I suggest we ask Mrs Kitty Trevelyan-Twigg. She’ll probably do it for next to nothing—possibly for nothing at all—if we give her a bit of publicity.”
“Mrs Kitty Trevelyan-Twigg? But she writes in
“She happens to be my aunt,” said young Mr Perse modestly.
CHAPTER TWO
So Does an Inner Circle
“Home Tooke was of an eccentric turn of mind.”
« ^ »
The friendly silence of the breakfast table was broken suddenly by Laura.
“Old Kitty has bought it,” she observed, with a chuckle. “Some nephew or other has been and gone and let her in for becoming responsible for overseeing an historical pageant at some place I’ve never heard of, but which has just been made into a borough. Either the local council or the nephew must be mad. Historical pageant my foot! Why, I remember, at College, old Kitty thinking Robert the Bruce was a professional boxer. Said she thought they must have said Robert the Bruise. Anyway, she wants me to go along and support her. The revels take place next week.”
She handed to her employer the letter she had just finished reading. Dame Beatrice put aside her own correspondence and bent an appreciative eye on Kitty’s masterpiece, which she proceeded to read aloud.
“Dear Dog,” ran the letter, “this is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. Now that the Spring fashions are over—and heaven send we can all please ourselves and don’t have to wear them unless we really want to, in which case you can include me out—and no more debs and their hair-do’s-my life is but the dust beneath the chariot wheels until the autumn. So a silly young nephew of mine has let me in for vetting and generally overseeing a sort of historical pageant and jamboree at a place he lives in called Brayne, although certain in my own mind that neither he nor it has one, or they wouldn’t have chosen me to be the pageant-master.”
“She dishes up today’s Higher Thought there,” observed Laura.
“Anyway,” continued Dame Beatrice, “we kick off on May seventh in honour of the town being made into a borough—although why I don’t know, it being quite a dim sort of rather small, depressing, riverside place really— and also the Feast of St Lawrence, who seems to have been a local clergyman at some time or other—anyway, the parish church is named after him.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Laura. “You’d never think old Kitty had been baptised and confirmed in the Church of England!”
“By their works ye shall know them,” said Dame Beatrice, “and our dear Mrs Trevelyan-Twigg’s works are invariably selfless and inspired.”
“Inspired is about right,” agreed Laura, grinning. “Remember at College when she burgled somebody’s hat-box? Well, I don’t know how you feel about it, but I’m inclined to go along and see this great sight—viz., why the bush, meaning Kitty, is not burned. Old Kitty will get away with it all right; heaven alone knows how, but she will. If ever there was one of God’s creatures who knew how to land on her feet…”
“Where is this town, now, apparently, elevated to the status of borough?” asked Dame Beatrice.
“I haven’t the foggiest, as I say, but I’ll look it up as soon as we’ve finished breakfast.”
She did this, and was able to announce that Brayne was on the Thames, not many miles from London, and on the right bank as you looked upstream; that it had a population of twenty thousand two hundred and one; had been a market town since the early Middle Ages and had since branched out to include a gasworks, a waterworks, a bypass road and a good many factories.
“It certainly does not sound the most attractive place in the world,” commented Dame Beatrice, “but go and support Mrs Trevelyan-Twigg, by all means. I shall remove myself for a week to Carey’s pig-farm, so you had better take a week’s vacation, too.”
“Many thanks. I’ll let old Kitty know that I’m at her disposal, then, and see whether I can cadge a week’s board and lodging at her expense at her London flat. I see she writes from there, so presumably she isn’t tied to this Brayne place morning, noon and night.”
Kitty, as Laura had anticipated, made her more than welcome and showed her over the seven-roomed flat, a recent extravagance as the family also had a house in Sussex. Laura admired the new domicile.
