Gentlemen Formerly Dressed (45 page)

Clyde cleared his throat, casting a “what-the-Hell” glance in Rowland's direction.

“Got to hand it to that Atticus,” Milton said, smiling and nodding. “He knew how to tell a joke!”

“What are your plans, Allie?” Edna asked before Allen could work out that Milton hadn't understood a single Latin word.

“Oh, Lord Bishopthorpe is arranging for me to take singing lessons!” she said, beaming. “He's going to settle everything for mother and me, and says we mustn't worry because Uncle Alfred left us quite a lot of money.”

Rowland smiled. Buchan was as good as his word. Pierrepont could not have left Allie and her mother anything at all, but clearly the Earl of Bishopthorpe intended to see them right.

Wilfred glanced at his pocket watch. “We must be going,” he said, standing as he closed the timepiece. “I'm sure you could all do with an early night.”

Edna smiled. “We'll have to wait till Dr. Ambrose finishes setting Rowly's arm again. He's calling tonight when he finishes at the factory.”

Wilfred sighed and regarded his brother in exasperation. “Yes, Dr. Pennyworth mentioned you refused to allow him to attend properly to your arm. I suppose I should be glad that you chose not to tell the poor man it was because you'd prefer to be treated by a doll-maker!”

Rowland laughed. Pennyworth had removed the remnants of the old cast immediately, lest the moisture led to some type of skin infection. Though the bone had clearly knitted, the physician had thought Rowland's refusal to submit to a new cast foolhardy. He expected full well that the still fragile bone would be rebroken in days. “Ambrose knows what he's doing—with bones as well as plaster,” Rowland assured his brother as he saw his guests to the door. “In any case, I find myself unexpectedly short of a suit.”

“Yes, quite,” Wilfred muttered as he stood back for Allie Dawe and Allen to proceed ahead of him. He glanced at the head-shaped lump on the sideboard which Edna had hastily cloaked with her shawl. “I thought I told you to get rid of that thing!” he growled.

“I've been a little preoccupied,” Rowland replied tersely. “I'll take it back to the waxworks first thing tomorrow.”

“See that you do!” Wilfred shook his brother's hand. “Ethel would like you all to come to supper tomorrow.”

“Of course.”

“Allen tells me that you asked him to arrange quite a substantial contribution to the Salvation Army?”

Rowland frowned. The size of the donation had obviously so alarmed the solicitor that he had alerted Wilfred. “Yes, I did.”

Wilfred nodded. “I instructed him to double it.” He patted Rowland's shoulder. “Return that head,” he ordered as he walked into the hall.

R
owland and his companions arrived at Madame Tussaud's early, with Pierrepont in the Gladstone bag. They found Marriott Spencer in a terrible and vocal dither. It appeared his assistant had contracted what he called “some kind of pox” and he'd been left short-handed.

“I'm measuring today,” he lamented. “The subject will be here in a few minutes and this is
not
something I can do alone!”

“Well, can't I help you, Marriott?” Edna volunteered.

“The chart is complicated. The measurements must be taken exactly and written into precisely the right column or it will mean nothing,” Spencer wailed. “He will not be happy… not happy at all.”

“Well, why don't you take all the measurements and I can record them,” Edna suggested calmly. “You can show me how the chart works right now.”

“But I can't take the measurements!” Spencer moaned, holding up his prosthetic and waving it about. “My hook… it scares the subjects.”

“Too bloody right it would!” Milton murmured as he ducked away from the path of the hook.

“Now don't get worked up, Marriott, dear,” Edna said, grabbing his arm before he inadvertently stabbed somebody. “Show me how to use your measuring instruments and I'll measure. You can write the measurements down.”

Spencer glanced at his watch. “Perhaps it might be done… you were always the cleverest of my students. Yes, let us pray that he is late and that there will be time to teach you.”

Edna pushed up her sleeves. “Let's get started then. You don't mind waiting, do you gentlemen?”

“Of course not,” Rowland replied.

They settled themselves in the modest but well-appointed waiting room, while Edna accompanied the sculptor into the adjoining workshop. Milton and Clyde leafed through the out-of-date newspapers in the magazine rack. Rowland extracted from his breast pocket the artist's notebook that had been returned to him through Wilfred.

Ambrose had recast his right arm the previous evening with the same efficiency and economy of plaster. Rowland could therefore grip the notebook easily or, if he chose, use his right hand to draw. He began a sketch of Martha Pratchett. The lines were soft and round as he captured the warmth and generosity of her conviction.

A pair of gentlemen walked into the waiting room. The elder was easily recognisable, even by Australians; and, since he was Spencer's subject, not a surprising presence at Madame Tussaud's. Winston Churchill, whose illustrious political career had floundered since the Conservatives had lost government in 1929, removed his bowler hat to reveal the barren terrain of his rather large head. The second man was younger, scholarly and deferential. Rowland guessed he was Churchill's private secretary.

Churchill checked his pocket watch and realised he was early. Taking the club chair beside Rowland, he tapped his walking stick impatiently.

Rowland looked up from his sketch. “Good morning.”

“Yes, yes, good morning, good morning.” The politician looked at Rowland. “Are we acquainted, sir?”

“I don't believe so.” Rowland introduced himself, and then his companions, to the former Chancellor of the Exchequer. Churchill in his turn introduced his secretary without actually permitting the man to say a word on his own account.

“Am I to understand, by the presence of so many Australians in this room,” Churchill said as he cut and lit a cigar, “that Mr. Spencer is planning some type of Antipodean display?”

“Not at all,” Rowland replied. “We aren't here as subjects.”

Churchill scowled. “I expect I should be grateful that I won't be required to queue for the dubious privilege of being a wax exhibit!” He tapped his stick irritably. “I do hope this won't take long. Another five hundred bricks and my wall will be complete. I could lay two hundred bricks in the time I'm wasting here!”

Rowland's brow rose. He really had nothing to offer on the subject of laying bricks. That the aristocratic Winston Churchill was
building walls was surprising, but he supposed the politician had a lot of time on his hands these days.

“Mr. Spencer is, I understand, a very particular and talented artist, sir.” Rowland attempted instead to mitigate on Marriott Spencer's behalf. “I'm sure the wait will be worthwhile.”

Churchill snorted.

“Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mould me man?” Milton sighed. “Did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?”

“That's Milton, isn't it?” Churchill said gruffly. “From
Paradise Lost
?”

Rowland smiled, relieved. Finally the appropriation of Milton which he and Edna had been expecting for weeks. Now they could all move on.

Milton grinned and winked at Rowland. “Thought I'd put you out of your misery, mate,” he whispered.

Rowland grimaced, realising he could no longer rely on what Milton was reading to help him pinpoint what exactly the poet was stealing.

Churchill was oblivious to this exchange as he peered over at Rowland's notebook. “I see you are a rather accomplished artist yourself, Mr. Sinclair.”

“That's very kind of you to say.”

“Kindness has nothing to do with it, Mr. Sinclair—I have no reason to be unduly kind to you. May I?” He clenched the cigar between his teeth and put his hand out for the sketchbook.

“Certainly.”

Churchill looked thoughtfully at the sketch of Martha Pratchett. “Do you draw from memory or imagination, Mr. Sinclair?”

“Generally only what I see or have seen, Mr. Churchill.”

Churchill turned the pages, commenting occasionally on a particular picture, complimenting Rowland on the audacity of his style. He noted the absence of landscapes among the sketches.
“I am myself quite captivated by the compositional challenge of a landscape,” he said, puffing on the cigar. Churchill expounded for a while on the aesthetic reward of painting the lie of the land, the subjugation of the canvas through a strategic assault with paint, to produce hills and trees with dazzling effect.

Rowland might have deferred in that part of the conversation to Clyde, who did paint landscapes, but it was not really a conversation. More a monologue. Milton returned to his newspaper.

When Churchill turned to the sketches which Rowland had made in Munich he became particularly intrigued. “I assume you were in Germany only recently?”

“Yes, we were.”

“And you saw all this?” Churchill asked, studying various drawings of brown-shirted Stormtroopers, of book burnings and rallies. The artist's pencil had caught the rising nationalistic fervour in the eyes of Hitler's people. The Englishman paused over a sketch of Unity Mitford, the young British aristocrat obsessed with the German Führer, whom Rowland had encountered in Munich.

“This is Unity, isn't it?” Churchill said, surprised.

“Yes, I met Miss Mitford in Germany.”

“She's a cousin of mine, did you know?”

“I didn't.”

“Are you a Fascist, Mr. Sinclair? Fascism seems to have become fashionable among people your age. Unity is quite enamoured of it, I believe.”

“No, I am not a Fascist,” Rowland said coldly.

Perhaps realising he had offended the Australian, Churchill sat back and, after the tense silence that followed, tried to change the subject.

“Clearly, your injury does not inhibit your work, Mr. Sinclair,” he said nodding at the cast. “How did you damage yourself?”

Still smarting under the assumption that he was a Fascist, Rowland responded more bluntly and honestly than he might otherwise have. “Nazi Stormtroopers held me down and broke my arm because they didn't like the way I painted.”

Slowly, Churchill pulled the cigar out of his mouth. “Are you a Communist, Mr. Sinclair?”

“Would the punishment be appropriate if I were?” Rowland replied. “No, I'm not. Nor am I Jewish, Mr. Churchill, in case you also believe that to be reason enough to ignore what's been happening in Germany!” Although aware that he was dealing harshly with Churchill, Rowland was—after weeks of listening to politicians make excuses for the Nazi atrocities, of having his concerns dismissed and ignored—unable to hold back.

Milton placed an old copy of
The Guardian
on the coffee table in front of Churchill, open at an article on the final speech given by Reich Minister Alfred Hugenberg at the London Economic Conference in June. The Nazi delegate had spoken of ending the Depression by allowing Germany to annex Northern Africa and Eastern Europe under the Third Reich.

“You will note, sir,” Churchill said, “that Herr Hitler has since sacked Hugenberg from the ministry.”

“Did Hitler sack him for the content of the speech or for letting the cat out of the bag?” Milton challenged.

“Some would say you sound like a warmonger, Mr. Isaacs,” Churchill pondered, though his tone was non-committal. “Herr Hitler says he wants peace… and my parliamentary colleagues believe that we can appease the Nazis.”

“Appease them? Rowly, show Mr. Churchill what else the SA did to you,” Milton said bitterly.

Rowland hesitated, a little weary of being asked to undress yet again, but he could see that they had Churchill's attention. He loosened his tie, unfastened the first few buttons of his shirt, and exposed the swastika-shaped scar made up of dozens of cigarette burns.

Churchill flinched.

“Rowly's not Jewish, he's not a Communist, he's not even impolite and they did that to him,” Milton said angrily. “After they broke his arm and just before they tried to shoot him. Rowly's an Australian, a British citizen, so perhaps we shouldn't all sit here comforted by the fact that this sort of thing happens to someone else… because I'm telling you, Mr. Churchill, the Nazis intend to burn their bloody cross onto more than just Rowly!”