Death at Rottingdean (11 page)

—The Daily Telegraph,
August 30, 1897

 

 

 

C
harles and Kipling, stepped out of Kate's Panhard in front of the stately stone-fronted residence in King's Gardens, Hove, a little before eight. The liveried footman was occupied in directing a carriage to a spot at the side of the street. He turned, one eyebrow raised, to stare at the car with a disdainful hauteur.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said stiffly, “but I must ask you to drive your machine around to the back. This space is reserved for guests' horses and carriages.”

Kipling, always a little hot-tempered, opened his mouth to retort, but Charles motioned him back into the motorcar. “This happens frequently,” he said with a crooked grin, piloting the noisy vehicle in the direction the footman indicated. “People hardly know what to do with an automobile, so they treat it as if it were a tradesman's vehicle.”

Kipling grinned. “Well, let them,” he said. “But this ride has made a convert of me, I must say. You must show me how all its mechanisms work. I am rather keen on that sort of thing, you know. When it's time to look for another residence, I will see about hiring a motorcar.”

“But I thought you had taken The Elms for three years.” Charles stopped the Panhard and they got out. “You're not settling in Rottingdean, then?”

It was Kipling's turn to be rueful. “The house is not an ideal residence. Rottingdean is too close to Brighton, for one thing, and already the day-trippers have become a nuisance. They ride past in a disreputable old charabanc and gawk at me through the study window. Or they cluster outside the gate and pester our legitimate callers. I'm afraid we'll be obliged to have the gate boarded over.”

“Perhaps that's the price you must pay for fame,” Charles said with a laugh.

“Not I,” Kipling said determinedly. “Anyway, I think it is better to put some distance between Carrie and Aunt Georgie. It is easier just now, when Carrie is occupied with little John. But both are strong-willed women, and one is not entirely comfortable in the midst of them. If we do not locate another residence by spring, I believe I shall take Carrie and the children off to South Africa for a time.”

They had come around the front of the Sassoon house, under the nose of the haughty footman, and were greeted at the door by the butler and ushered into a grand, marble-floored hall, where they surrendered their motoring coats and hats to a black-gowned maid.

“The gathering is in the library, my lord,” the butler said to Charles and led them down the hall to a double door, which he opened with a stately flourish. They stepped into an opulent, oak-paneled room lined with books and fine paintings and filled with small groups of men in black coats and white ties. Several tables lavishly decorated with hothouse flowers were laden with food suitable to a fashionable standing supper: beef and ham sandwiches, fresh whole oysters, lobster patties, sausage rolls, potato rissoles, cheeses, fruit, sweetmeats, sponge cakes, the Prince's favorite Scotch shortcake, and plates of petits fours. Green felt-topped tables for cards had been set up in an adjoining room and a quartet of musicians was playing a Strauss waltz in a corner, hidden behind a cluster of potted palms. The air was already blue with the smoke of cigars, and the conversations were occasionally punctuated by bursts of laughter and the clink of champagne glasses. At the announcement of their names, the Prince, stout and affable, his nautical beard neatly trimmed, turned and came toward them.

Charles was not an intimate of the Marlborough House set, but he had met the Prince of Wales on several other occasions. In fact, he and Kate, prior to their marriage, had helped to resolve an embarrassing and politically dangerous situation at a house party at Easton Lodge, the home of the Countess of Warwick. The Prince, the target of a potentially damaging blackmail plot, had been so impressed with Charles's forensic skills that he had declared himself ready on the spot to lend royal support to a national independent forensic laboratory, headed (of course) by Charles himself. It was a suggestion that Charles firmly resisted, and he was glad that the idea seemed to have slipped the Prince's mind. While he enjoyed the challenge of an occasional criminal investigation, Charles did not intend to make a career of it. He had far too much else to do, now that he had been obliged to take on the daunting responsibilities of Somersworth and the unpleasantness of Parliament.

“Sheridan, good to see you!” the Prince exclaimed, and extended his hand. Charles took it with a bow, greeted their host, Arthur Sassoon, then introduced Kipling.

“Mr. Kipling, sir!” the Prince exclaimed, beaming. “Splendid to meet you at last! I can't tell you how much we all admired the poem that appeared in the Times this summer. Her Majesty was quite pleased.”

“I am delighted to hear it, sir,” Kipling said, with what Charles thought was uncharacteristic modesty. “Glad to have been of service. I fear it was not your customary Jubilee Ode, however.”

The Prince laughed. “There was a ghastly crop of 'em, wasn't there?” A footman held up a silver cigar box, and he took out a cigar and held it to be lit. “Yes,” he said, more soberly, “amidst the pomp and circumstance of the Jubilee,
Recessional
gave one something to think about. Put the whole affair into a different perspective, as it were.” He puffed.

Charles accepted a glass of wine from a silver tray, smiling to himself. If the Empress of India had been pleased with Kipling's
Recessional,
it was probably because she had not fully understood it. The phrase “Lest we forget” cautioned rather than celebrated the accomplishments of imperialist England. He rather thought the Prince had taken Kipling's point, however. In the next moment, he was sure of it.

“Yes, well, I speak for us all when I say the poem was entirely appropriate to the occasion,” the Prince said, lingering on the subject. “We must not allow ourselves to become complacent.”

“Your Royal Highness speaks a solemn truth,” said a tall, pale goateed man at the royal elbow. “Great power must be forever vigilant lest it be overtaken.”

“Captain Pierre Gostarde, of the French Navy,” Sassoon murmured to Charles. “He is in England to participate in maneuvers with Her Majesty's fleet.”

The Prince turned to Kipling. “I understand that you have spent some time with the fleet this summer, sir.”

“Yes, a fortnight,” Kipling said warmly. “Took part in the steam-trials of a prototype destroyer. A devil's darning needle, she was, twenty-foot beam, two hundred ten overall. The little witch jumped from twenty-two knots to thirty like a whipped horse. She'll not be overtaken, I warrant, once she's into production.”

“But that will take some time,” growled the French captain. “Meanwhile, the Germans are building up their navy with an almost frightening speed.” He glanced at the Prince. “You will forgive me, Your Highness, for talking of such things, but I learned just yesterday that a new iron-clad, the Kaiser Wilhelm II, was launched recently at Kiel. Another—an armored cruiser of fourteen thousand horsepower—is to take to the waves shortly. And I am told that the Kaiser has carefully studied Admiral Mahon's book on the influence of sea power, and is determined that Germany shall be supreme on the world's oceans.”

The Prince flicked his cigar. “Quite so, quite so,” he murmured. “Nephew Willie has always wanted to be thought superior. Now that he's been bested in yachts and horses, he's taken to navies. Unfortunately for him, he will have to spend a great deal of money to catch up. Even Italy has more warships.”

This remark elicited chuckles all around, but Charles knew that the Prince was not being entirely truthful. The royal yacht
Britannia,
the joy of the Prince's heart, had won every yacht-racing prize there was—until the Kaiser commissioned her designer to build a yacht his uncle could not defeat. But when the superior German
Meteor II
appeared at Cowes, the Prince simply refused to compete. He sold the
Britannia
and concentrated instead on his racing stables, winning the Grand National, the Two Thousand Guineas, and the Newmarket. Just this year, his horse Persimmon had brought him a second Derby. A thwarted Wilhelm, meanwhile, vented his spleen by building bigger and better warships.

“Perhaps, Mr. Kipling,” said a slim, elegant gentleman with a gold-rimmed monocle, dark hair parted fashionably in the center, “you should send a copy of your poem to the Kaiser. Humility is a virtue to be practiced under all flags.”

“Well said, Your Excellency!” the Prince exclaimed with a shout of laughter, and slapped the man's back. “Very well said! I'll have a copy posted immediately, with my compliments. Willie won't know what to make of it. You know the poor fellow has no sense of humor.”

“None whatsoever, Your Highness,” the gentleman murmured and bowed, clicking his heels together.

The Prince glanced up as a handsome, blond young man, approached. “Ah, Comwallis-West,” he said cordially, “my dear boy, how
are
you? The Princess of Wales was asking if I had seen you, just the other day.”

“Lord Sheridan, Mr. Kipling, may I present Count Ludwig Hauptmann of Germany,” Sassoon said, as the Prince stepped aside to talk with the young man.

“Actually, I prefer to think of myself as a Bavarian,” the monocled count said, and Charles heard the faint accent in the man's English. “It was inevitable that Bavaria be united with Prussia, since we share a common frontier and language. Still, ever since Bismarck forced the alliance upon us, I have felt it an uncomfortable relationship.” A smile flickered in his blue eyes, so pale as to be almost glacial. “I suppose it may come down finally to temperament. We Bavarians are not so rash as our Prussian neighbors. We are more deliberate.”

“Rash is exactly the word,” Kipling said, taking out his pipe and lighting it. “The Kaiser's congratulatory telegram to Kruger after the Jameson Raid—the reckless, Prussian way, wouldn't you say? Didn't give a thought to the effect on other governments.”

“Are you sure?” Charles asked, sipping his wine. “Perhaps the Kaiser gave it a great deal of thought, and achieved exactly the effect he intended.”

“Entirely correct,” the count said. He adjusted his monocle. “And therein lies the difference. We Bavarians would not dream of interfering with British interests in South Africa, or anywhere else.”

Charles took note of the man's narrow patrician face and pinched nose, and wondered whether he was speaking the truth.

The French captain snorted. “Would that your Prussian confederates held the same view,” he said, and puffed out a cloud of cigar smoke. “The Continent is too small for new powers to flex such large muscles.”

“Exactly,” Kipling said, squinting through the tobacco haze. “The big squeeze. The Kaiser's bullying may seem merely childish braggadocio to some, but there's trouble ahead, mark my words.”

“We are being challenged on several fronts,” Charles agreed. “I had the opportunity to visit the Krupp arms works at Essen several years ago. The Germans' technological advances are quite impressive.”

“True, true,” Kipling replied, stabbing the air emphatically. “And they'll use that technology to harass their neighbors.”

“That's not entirely fair,” Sassoon objected. “The Germans have used their technology to produce scientific equipment, advances in chemistry, and fine motorcars—the Benz and the Daimler, for example.”

The French captain raised one eyebrow. “Ah, but the Panhard motorcar Lord Sheridan and Mr. Kipling arrived in is of French manufacture,” he observed with a slight smile. “What do you say to that, Monsieur Sassoon?”

Sassoon laughed. “Actually, my taste runs more to horses than horsepower.” He turned to Kipling. “I keep a pair of hunters at the Hawkham Stable, very near Rottingdean. There is excellent hunting in the downs, and the Brookside Harriers are exceptionally fine.” He frowned. “Unfortunately, the area is in danger of being overhunted, and the Master is faced with the prospect of encouraging the importation of foxes or of riding farther afield than many would like.”

“The importation of foxes!” Kipling exclaimed. “I've never heard of such a thing.”

Sassoon shrugged. “But where there are no vermin, there is no hunt. What is one to do?”

Charles, never having been a fox-hunting man, was tempted to suggest that there might be other worthy forms of sport, but thought better of it.

“Well, sir,” Kipling said, “the stable is within a stone's throw of my house. When you are there, you must join Mrs. Kipling and me for tea.”

Charles turned to the count. “I read recently of the work of one of your fellow Bavarians—Professor Roentgen, at the University of Würzburg. He is a scientist.”

The count raised one shoulder carelessly. “I'm afraid I don't know the man, my lord. I prefer the arts to the sciences. The theater is one of my great loves. Actually, I am in this country as my government's cultural representative. The virtues of Teutonic culture are under-appreciated here. However, I cannot offend British sensibilities by a showing of too much enthusiasm. I work, shall we say, in a subterranean way.” He gave a self-deprecating smile. “Who is this professor?”

“Roentgen discovered the X-ray,” Charles said. “It has made him world-famous. The Kaiser is quite pleased to count his discovery among German technological achievements.”

“One does not always have the time to keep up,” the count said ruefully.

“Sheridan,” Sassoon explained to the count, “is something of a scientist himself. These X-rays—” he remarked to Charles, “they're quite the thing, aren't they? Hold all sorts of promise for medical advancement, I understand. Dr. Barriston was speaking to me about them.”