Matriarch

Chapter 1-1

1

My brother and I spent our childhood on an isolated and sprawling cattle station in northern Australia. Darain was very much his father’s boy, while the greatest influence on my life was my great-grandmother, who in those years was a dignified and mentally alert old woman. She was the daughter of a white father and an Aboriginal mother and had married a young Englishman in 1909, and with much encouragement from him, had learned to read and write. But as I look back, what was remarkable was her ability to recall most of her life, especially those early years with her young husband. She had lived through the torment of the two World Wars, and wanted me to know the family story so I would tell my own children. My name is Alkina and I was named after her.

“The most famous of the Brancliff line,” she told me, “was honoured for the part he had played in the battle to defeat Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo. We have talked of that, and mind you it was a very long time ago, even if you can imagine, before I was born,” she said with a chuckle. “Your great-grandfather even told me it was before he was born. My dear child, I loved my husband’s stories; they were so full of his Englishness, and I still recall them with a sense of wonder. His own father was a very distinguished soldier, one in an illustrious line, which stretched back to well before Napoleon. His name was Colonel Lord Handsmere Ponsonby Harry Brancliff, and father and son were very close, which was unusual, as in those days it was common practice to pack them off to boarding school at a very early age. Not so for Fritzhugh, who in his formative years had a tutor, and growing up in that family must have been extraordinary.

He told me an annex to the library held the insignia and decorations, dress uniforms, and battle trophies earned and gathered by his forebears, which gives you some idea. His father doted on him, and one of my husband’s memories was of his father getting all the retainers out on the rolling grounds of the estate; there were cooks, butlers, housekeepers, and gardeners. The gardeners and the livery men might be asked to be the Royal Horse Artillery, the house staff to advance up the slope as the Grenadiers, all staged to show one little boy what had happened in a particular battle. It seems eccentric to you and me, but all the participants regarded it as great fun. He had a vivid memory of his father’s manservant, a wonderfully wry Scotsman named Sholty, delivering the ultimate battlefield coup de grace. “Pardon, milord, but I have to report your right wing has just been overrun by the second gamekeeper’s Brigade of Republican Guard.”

We can try to imagine his early life, an idyllic one maybe, which certainly kindled his imagination. Had it not been for the loss of his father, I think he would have followed in his footsteps. Of course in a way he did, for they both had a wonderful way with people. Alkina, I want you to understand that your great-grandfather had no pretence, but in saying that, he was still the quintessential Englishman.”

The old lady was very particular with her stories. She usually told them in the kitchen as she was teaching me to cook, or if it was a hot day, by our favourite waterhole where we could have a swim. “Alkina darling, if you have finished your swim, would you like to sit with me while I tell you some more about your great-grandfather and his side of the family?” And when she thought I was receptive, she would begin.

“He was a wonderful man, and when I met him, he had not long arrived in Australia. His name was Fritzhugh, a strange name to my ears; he told me the Brancliffs had been prominent in Somerset for over five centuries. Most of the males had attended the great public school of Eton, and they were farmers, politicians, explorers, philanthropists, and soldiers. They had been friends and loyal servants of each succeeding monarch for all that time. As he delighted in telling me, he, Fritzhugh Ponsonby Brancliff was brought screaming into the world on the second day of April 1891.

His mother, the Lady Sarah, was considered a great beauty who had married the dashing and very handsome Lord Handsmere Brancliff, Colonel in Chief of The Queen’s Horse Guards and Captain of their polo team. Catching her was not easy, for she had refused several beaus. Now, your great-grandfather, our Fritzhugh, related the family story light-heartedly, so I cannot say that it is not overly exaggerated. However, he told it well, and I think it is more fun if we regard it as being true. He assured me that as a baby, he had the face of an angel; which may have been why his nurses, nannies, maids, and housekeepers, all vied to look after him, which gave them kudos in the eyes of the other family retainers. Perhaps all this attention during those tender and formative years may have nearly led to his undoing, as one day, when he was home from Eton, a neighbour's sulky was seen being driven up the drive. The squire had come to remonstrate with his father about Fritz’s behaviour.

“I am scandalized,” the irate neighbour said. “I deplore the behaviour of your boy Fritzhugh, and the next time I catch him behaving lecherously toward one of my daughters, particularly Emily, who is such a delicate thing, I shall have him horsewhipped. My dear Lord Brancliff, I hope I have made my intentions patently clear?” The booming voice could be heard echoing through the front rooms. Lord Brancliff, according to the front of house staff, was exercising diplomatic restraint. They knew what was coming; he was merely being polite, and giving his neighbour a fair hearing. This was just a lull before the charge; after all, their Lord had fought in the Sudan campaign in an attempt to rescue General Gordon from the mad Mahdi, and he was getting ready to sail to South Africa to help suppress the Boers.

“He is a very likable lad,” the squire continued, “and later on, when he becomes of age, he is welcome to pay court to any of my girls, after first paying the common niceties to their parents. Climbing up into their bedroom windows late at night is not behaviour that I will countenance.” When the squire’s voice had moderated, yet already the household bristled with the news of young Fritzhugh’s transgressions. Indeed, some of the females among them felt distinctly peeved with the squire’s three daughters, particularly with Emily, the youngest and prettiest one, whom they viewed as being a flirt, while it was said the male staff felt a surge of masculine pride. What is more, the household at the squire’s had provided the rather scandalous news, which found its way to the hall, via the village, with the shocking, but nonetheless reliable information that their Fritzhugh had not been the first nocturnal visitor.

Hearing of this, they thought the young master hard done by, and there was much muttering of “poor, unfairly treated Fritzhugh; handsome, manly, hot-blooded Fritzhugh; our own dear Fritzhugh!” So incensed were they that later that very evening, the senior staff gathered in the kitchen, where they charged their glasses with their master’s sherry and drank to the health of the future Lord Brancliff. However, the expected explosive confrontation over his son’s misdemeanour did not take place, the Squire having joined the Lord in a few whiskies, which were offered with generous civility, the host later helping the visitor to board his conveyance. Quite the reverse, the incident acted as a catalyst upon his father, reminding him that the time had come when he must take his son and heir back with him to London, where, in the privacy of his club, he could talk with him about the fairer s*x, tell the boy what was expected of a young gentleman in his position, which he viewed as a very delicate undertaking.

According to Fritz, this took place not long after “Fritzhugh old man, cigar, had a visit from Emily’s father, disruptive business this, said you climbed up into her room, get a fellow into fearful trouble, that sort of thing, out of hand before you know what. Join me in a brandy, thought we should be together before I leave for South Africa? Delicate thing women, understand them do you boy? A chap has to get experience, very important how you handle yourself? Your grandfather fixed it up for me, like to do the same for you, very natural for a young fellow to want to bed a woman.” “Pater, may I speak?” Lord Brancliff, ever conscious of the delicate nature of the subject under discussion, held back as his son explained. “She dared me to climb up, thought it was a great hoot, maid came in unexpectedly, screamed the place down. I scrambled out as quick as I could, most dreadfully sorry to have let you down.”

Hearing this, Lord Brancliff tried his utmost to understand. “Lively girl that, gentle upbringing, bit flighty is she, a chap never can tell?” “Pater, my fault I am sure.” “Deuced difficult this, steward, two more brandies, thing is boy, there are women for dalliances, chaps need that, love your mother; that is not the point; discretion, keeping it under the cush, follow? Happy to arrange it, just like my pater, give you a bit extra, to keep a chap out of trouble, respectable arrangement. Never mix the two, as your grandfather told me, ‘a chap’s private life should never be explained, and one should never try.’ Your responsibility, tell your man, they understand, known about mine for years, works perfectly. There it is said.”

“Sir, if you are not the best pater a chap could have, chums have pooled our resources to try it out, afraid I’m awfully keen.” Lord Brancliff had rarely felt so content as he and Fritzhugh descended the steps of his London club for a leisurely stroll in an atmosphere of perfect accord. That dear old lady was a wonderful storyteller. “Nan, that was a lovely story, and it was so nice they had that time together before his father went to fight the Boers.” She told her stories in easily digested segments in much the same way as she encouraged me to cook, for she well remembered her own shortcomings as a young bride.

“Alkina, you can stop me when you have had enough,” she would say, usually from her favourite seat in her kitchen, while I was making a stew or whatever it was. “You have already done it very nicely and I think it is one of the easiest dishes you can prepare. When you are older, you will be a wonderful cook; just wipe down where you have been working before I begin.”

“I’m finished Nan.”

I have always had a fascination for my mother-in-law, whom you and I call ‘the lovely Lady Sarah’. She must have been a very formidable person and I think it’s sad we never met. Yet, perhaps in a way, we did, through her darling son, who delighted in telling me all about her. How she lived her life in the public gaze, she was like an actor, sparkling, expecting to be noticed, and needing the applause of her audience. I must say she kept Fritz and me alternatively very annoyed or highly amused, she certainly provided us with many lively hours of conversation.

Despite her disloyalty to her son, which I will come to later, and mind you he never saw it that way, for she was his mother whom he respected and loved with all his heart. However, when her husband was away fighting the Boers in South Africa, Lady Sarah’s entertaining was restricted mostly to their immediate circle of friends and family; there were afternoon teas, whist drives, and her favourite pastime, following the hunt. I don’t know that she would have taken all the fences, as women rode side saddle in those days, and she hoped the fox would get away, as often they did. Now the dashing Earl of Fairley was Master of The Hounds and liked to flirt with her, as I believe she did with him. That would have made the hunts all the more exciting, and it was said they kissed whenever the opportunity arose, which in those days would have been difficult to arrange, when circumspection was the rule, and the servants saw and heard much more than they were given credit for. Yet Fritz said they also knew when to turn a blind eye.