Chapter Six

The Havering Factor


A civilised distance from the Bog, beyond the Eastern Boundary Wall, existed The Domain of The Haverings, Their Highships. It was a realm unto itself, and to reach it from The Bog (provided one wished to), one climbed the stile and traversed the chicken coops and the duck pond and the barns and the kennels and the stables, and finally the coach house and greenhouses. Then and only then did one negotiate a series of gardens great and not-so-great, laid out in the olde style by gardeners also great and not so great. There were ha-has and pergolas and follies and mazes, and ornamental lakes with swans a-swimming and croquet lawns and real tennis courts and coded Elizabethan trellises and cricket pitches and polo pitches, and herbaceous borders and ornamental water features such as haven’t been seen since William Kent and Capability Brown declared them ‘common, cluttered and possibly French’. And everywhere there were roses and roses. Roses of all shapes and sizes and varieties. Roses with scent and roses without. Roses that climbed and roses that grew low to the ground. And beyond the tallest of tallest rose arbours, on the other side of a mighty wall and leading to the kitchen and other offices, dwelled the formal and regimented kitchen garden, designed by Miss Havering’s Grandfather and planted on his behalf by a Platoon of Gherkins. Grandpapa, A Paragon of Colonial Majesty, had been a General in the Subliminal Infantile Dragoons, and upon his forced retirement and ennoblement, had beat his (personal) retreat to the Seat of His Ancestors. Once there, he immediately took umbrage at his late mother’s beloved kitchen garden and at the rare and exotic plantings growing exuberantly and with much abandon. Declaring that they reminded him of the heathen savages he’d lately slaughtered to a man, he commanded his vegetables to be English To The Core, and to fall into rank at all hours of the day and night. Thereafter, never at ease, they stood at attention according to regimental protocol, in order of size and shape and colour and disposition and general importance. Anything smacking of the exotic was expunged forthwith and thrown upon the mighty pyre (much like the victims of his beloved colonial butcheries).

At the far end of the kitchen garden, and towering over it like a medieval fungus, lurked the impregnable stone and slate fortress known informally (by the Denizens of The Bog) as ‘Where They’re From’. The proper name of the dwelling was, of course, somewhat less ominous, being ‘Havering Hall’ (though the name did set a far-off continent to quaking). However, since few Denizens could read Proper English as was set down in Human Books or on the Corroded Brass Plaque set into the front gate, and given that none of them devoted themselves to remembering the inconsequential, the Simple Bog Dwellers were quite happy to give it names upon which everyone could agree. Hence, ‘Where They’re From’. Or, ‘Don’t Look in That Direction. There’s Got The Evil Smell’, or even a dismissive ‘That Place’ or Herself’s’, or (in the dark of night) ‘Evil Tidings’ or ‘It’s Wicked, It Is, and It Shouldn’t Be Allowed’.

There was very little about the house that could have been considered aesthetically pleasing, unless, of course, the critic was blind or was standing upon his or her head. And here, The Chronicler deigns to point out that the upside down view of Havering Hall was reminiscent of The Palace of the Winds at Jaipur, only twice the size and with Victorian gothic overtones, leaded windows, ivy-enshrouded brickwork and an ominous disposition. It was, of course, as befitting the name, excruciatingly excruciating in every aspect and monstrously ugly, but seeing as how it was designed by The General’s Favourite Architect, namely himself, that was only to be expected. Built of local slate, granite and bricks fired in what the General referred to affectionately as ‘My Brickery’, the house rambled on for days in various directions, many of them upward, all at the same time. On a more personal note, the General’s wife, known variously as The Memsahib’, ‘Poor Dear’, and ‘Doesn’t She Look A Fright’, but whose Christian name had actually been Penelope, had a very bad sense of direction and during her residence rarely, if ever, found her way down for dinner. Her husband’s greatest concern (other than her tendency to embarrass him in front of His Servants) was that, the house having three full plethora of wings, The Memsahib might eventually disappear altogether and take with her, her inheritance.

The General’s understanding of architecture was that, in celebration of Britannia, all great houses should conform in shape and style to the classical intertwining of the Elizabethan ‘E’ and the Victorian ‘V’. “Their Britannic Majesties Elizabeth and Victoria are The Perfect Symbols of Empire,” The General liked to say, “God Bless Them Both,” adding quietly, “though why they dressed openly as women, I shall never understand.” To his mind, women were but weak and feeble creatures (much like his own beloved Penelope). How could they rule the Kingdom when they could not even find their way to the second-best dining room, even when it was adjacent to their own private music room? This proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that both ER and VR were MEN. They ruled like men, they waged war like men, they conquered the world like men, and they both grew glossy, curling beards (or at least in the ‘lost’ official portraits which The General had secreted in his dressing room). “I put it down to liberal education and the wearing of soft collars,” wrote General Havering in an ominous letter to The Archbishop, adding, “They both spoke French in unguarded moments and suffered from too little neglect from their tutors.” However, in spite of Queens Elizabeth and Victoria having paraded about in women’s clothing, their reigns were still, to The General’s mind, the only suitable inspiration for Stately Homes, with their conjoined ciphers serving as the perfect architectural model for public frontages. So it was at Havering Hall. The state façade and porch was designed to resemble an “ERV” at its most elaborate and rampant extreme. On every other side, the rooms were fashioned around most every other letter of the alphabet, all higgledy-piggledy plum plum, but always with an ‘ERV’ at their core. The General’s private rooms - which included a study, the library, the smoking room, the billiard room, a dressing room and bedroom, as well as sundry other rooms useful for sundry and unmentionable purposes, as well as for losing infamous and embarrassing guests down for the weekend – were arranged in an aggressively manly fashion on the ground floor of the east wing (his rabid dislike of stairs sprung from the infamous incident in the Punjab about which nothing was ever spoken). The Memsahib spent her days on the first floor of the west wing, in a sweetly floral apartment comprised of morning room, afternoon room, late afternoon room, sun room, rain room, gale room, evening room, drawing room, embroidery room, dressing room, bedroom, and pet abattoir, all hung with hand-painted Japanese silk and portraits of small dogs. Such public and state reception rooms as were considered de rigour, occupied a considerable amount of space on the ground floor, with the leftovers shunted about in obscure though tasteful configurations in the centre wing of the first, directly above The Hall. What went on in other parts of the house (especially in the notorious HenryVIII wing) was never referred to in polite society, and many of the rooms had never been visited in the general’s life, after which they were boarded up and forgotten about.

But that was so very long ago. And it could be said in all honesty that Miss Havering herself had not explored the more remote realms of the house for a very long time, perhaps not since attaining her dotage. Gradually, over the years and decades, she had withdrawn more and more from the social niceties and responsibilities incumbent upon the chatelaine of such an architectural wonder, until she finally restricted her movements to the family dining room (which had the advantage of possessing the only working fireplace), and the adjoining butler’s pantry, into which she had placed a bed. She might have liked to venture below stairs and into the kitchen from time to time for a fresh cup of tea, but had given up all hope of so doing the day Miss Beasley, the cook, sealed the baize door in a fit a pique. “Quality,” The Cook had snorted, as she drove in the final spike, “has no business interfering in the rights of man. A kitchen is not for the likes of betters, who ought to know their place under the laws as God writ them down, and should better spend their time in ordering the likes of us about and in starving our children.” From that moment on, all meals were transported in the fourth best silver service, always polished diligently and aggressively, though not always rinsed properly (T’reasa, the skivvy, having long-since broken her spectacles) to the family dining room in a rackety, widgety lift, and from the lift to the table by Mortimer (christened Emily), the ancient and wittery former tweeny, who had assumed duties above herself upon the demise of the better class of servants in the Great Freeze of 1842.

Denied, as she was, access to the lower hall and, therefore, to the mudroom, Miss Havering, who was a great outdoorswoman, had no choice but to build a mudroom of her own. She considered herself a daughter of her grandfather (her own father, the Weebling Harold, was in no way made of sterner stuff; consequently, his daughter ignored him from the moment of her birth, pledging her daughterly loyalty instead to his sire).

The instant Miss Havering emerged triumphant from her mater’s loins, The General knew from her military bearing and fine set of lungs that he had a proper heir, though one lacking certain testimonials down below and possessing suspiciously long eyelashes. The Senior Wet-nurse, Sister Agnes Blymm from the village, seeing his puzzlement, proclaimed, “Your Lordship, it’s a Girl!” Whereupon he retorted a virulent, “Poppycock!” and condemned her to twenty years in The Workhouse stocks.

The early sprouting of Miss Havering’s magnificent bosoms (so suitable for medals and heraldic devices) confirmed to The General that he had an heir of redoubtable metal, and that Havering Hall and its domain would be in safe and secure hands after his demise. So without further ado, and since he was nothing if not a Pukha Sahib (spelled as it was embroidered on his smoking jacket), he transported his eldest, The Weebling Harold, to darkest Africa, where he was promptly eaten by several missionaries of undeniable tendencies. Meanwhile, Miss Havering, who by that time was no longer being referred to as Miss Millicent Caroline by anyone at all, had as a consequence quite forgotten her own name. “I rejoice in my position as ‘Miss Havering Ma’am’,” she announced at her Christening. “It is, mind you, quite a suitable way to be addressed, and it does run off the tongues of the servants so very easily. Like the best butter,” she continued, adding quickly, “not that the best butter has ever been touched the lips of my inferiors. And if I should discover that they have dared sample its goodness or if detect its scent upon their breaths, I shall flog them within an inch of their lives, and perhaps beyond. Servants should know nothing of best butter, beyond that it is a trial that Quality must endure with a stiff upper lip.” Miss Havering Ma’am, you see, was born with strong feelings concerning the maintenance of her position. As such, she required a mudroom in which to divest herself from outward vestiges of gardening (and, of course, farming, an occupation of which she firmly and resolutely approved), and a mudroom she would have. Over the course of two days and a half, she clambered out and in the window of the second best family dining room no fewer than fifty-seven times, each time dragging neglected pieces of brown furniture and panelling from various disused rooms. From these, she built a reasonably attractive cabinet (jutting out from the bay window) in styles ranging from Elizabethan to early Edwardian, with an emphasis on Napoleonic spoils of war.

‘The Hall’ (as she called it, being regrettably unaware of the sobriquet ‘Evil Tidings’), was nothing if not extremely damp and prone to mouldy drippings. Possibly to ward off the worst of its muddy tendencies, Miss Havering maintained an exceedingly large turf fire in the dining room hearth, a fire that had been first laid in 1902 and had never, in the interim, been allowed to either wane or lose interest. Being an exaggeratedly large room, the heat never actually succeeded in penetrating as far as the other end, even after all those decades of service, but at least in the inglenook it was aggressively comfortable.

The fact that The Hall, at least that portion of it not actually in the inglenook, was fraught by cold and damp had certain advantages. Chief among these concerned a certain aristocratic ambiance hovering over Miss Havering and her, shall we say, most private person. ‘The Havering Factor’, it was called by those members of the county set privileged enough to have been secluded with her in a confined space. By others, the subject rarely arose. The Trades were denied access to her splendour and dealt in the main with Mrs. Beasley (who was a fierce negotiator), and in any case valued The Havering Patronage too highly to speak rudely about The Great Lady’s Mighty Aromatic Tendency. And as for those living and toiling as servants or labourers on The Home Farms, they knew better that to refer to their patroness in other than hushed tones of reverence. Had it even occurred to them than The Great Lady might be more than slightly objectionable? Possibly, but no more than a family cow might think her master to be a man whose face was spotty and whose hair was receding. In short, any criticism was moot and silence was golden. Of course, Mrs. Beasley and T’reasa and Mortimer (et al) might have been more forthcoming in voicing their objections, had they not taken up the practice of displaying about their noses certain appliances very much like large mahogany clothes pins, and had they not inserted tiny nickel-plated vinaigrettes into their septa. Never let it be said that factota were not practical in their everyday affairs.

‘The Havering Factor’ had it’s roots in the General’s Abyssinian campaigns, when shortage of water decreed that no member of the regiment should use more than a teaspoon of water per day, said teaspoon being reserved for the proper boiling of Brussels sprouts and in the distillation of Auld Ram’s Fundament for the mess. It is a well-known but commonly disregarded footnote in the history of the Empire that, in 1857, the Magyar Harpies, led by Avril the Ugly, had destroyed the annual supply of sixty-year-old Single Malt in its entirety, leaving the best London clubs with empty cellars and killing off most of the retired gentlemen not already dead. The situation in the colonies was even more acute. Not only had the armies to contend with the incessant demands of obnoxious, smelly and more or less unnecessary natives, but there were riots in the mess, where officers of a more auspicious aspect were asked to consume large quantities of common milk stout, just as if they had been born dropping their haitches. It was simply intolerable, and had it not been for The General, the world as we know it might have ended then and there.

Fortunately for all concerned, The General, not usually known for his tactical genius, being more disposed to examining the cut of his jib, for once grasped the severity of the situation and hauled civilisation (as we know) it back from the edge of the precipice. “My batman,” he recalled at length several years later, “had come from a long line of mountainy men in County Kerry, and had been raised on a diet of potatoes, pig’s feet and potheen. It appeared he had a gift for the latter. Having no peat at hand in the wilds of Abyssinia, he experimented with, variously, dried camel dung (which added a frequent piquancy if not the requisite sweetness), laundry stolen from the officers’ private ‘recreational’ apparel (which conveyed the correct fruitiness, but lacked a strong finish), and singed correspondence from the general staff (an absolute failure, having no backbone whatsoever), before settling on facial hair from the captured enemy and their elder wives.” Needless to say, Auld Ram’s Fundament (as it was Christened) was a rousing success during the campaign, inspiring the men to greatness. And after the war, this amber liquid made The General a very rich man indeed. “Yes,” he liked to say in his declining years, “my batman was a genius. Such a pity about what happened to him later. A great pity. Rose above himself, you know.”

More’s the pity for the listener of the tale, for General Havering never did finish the story. As a consequence, no one, not even the batman’s family (who, since the batman was never mentioned by name, either in the dispatches or in informal conversation, never knew who they were) were any the wiser.

Returning once again to ‘The Havering Factor’, The General was nothing if not a frugal man, or at least a gentleman not to be swayed from his priorities. Auld Ram’s Fundament had won the war for him, for which he was knighted by a grateful Queen and country and later elevated to the peerage (as Lord Havering of Abyssinia). As it has been stated, it went on to provide him with great wealth and an even greater marriage (Lady Penelope may have been vague, but she was also the younger daughter of an Earl). Water (and, of course, the facial hair of several hundred thousand Abyssinians) had been essential to his wealth. Back home, water, plus the facial hair of the entire male and [aged] female population from seven counties, as well as the more primitive parts of Ireland and (most fortuitously), miners (not Welch) and Mill Workers (English and from an Expendable Class) ensured its survival into the twentieth century and beyond. Output dwindled slightly with the closing of the mines and mills, but surged once more thanks to the discovery of Romanian and African orphans and the mothers of Polish construction workers. It was Water, however, which was, to The General and his heirs, the most prized commodity on earth, and it was not under any circumstance, to be wasted. Therefore, Lord Havering had decreed that all bathing was wicked, that the washing of clothing was permissible, but only in yesterday’s soup, and that there was nothing wrong with a good, healthy smell.

With the passage of time, The General suffered the fate of all great men and booked his soul on a one-way passage aboard the RMS Queen Of The Styx, bound for that dark and undetermined destination. His liver and favourite monocle, unwashed and carefully wrapped in a stained linen shroud embossed with his personal device, was laid to rest in the nave of his private chapel, alongside the remains of Lady Penelope (or perhaps someone else; no one knew for sure what she looked like, having not seen her for some time), his two ancient Russian Wolfhounds, his second-favourite stallion (or a passable facsimile), four Ethiopian servants and two Concubines (one for every persuasion). The funeral oration was passionate if somewhat incomprehensible (the priest having come down with humanist/liberationist/Marxist tendencies the day before). As per his final wishes, The General (minus his liver and monocle) was entombed in a vat of Auld Ram’s Fundament Jubilee Vintage, which was then consigned to a neo-classical obelisk on the roof of the central tower overlooking Lady Penelope’s beloved rose garden. His chief mourners were Miss Havering Ma’am and an obscure Swedish Baron who happened to be fishing in the loch.

In spite of The General’s views on the subject, Miss Havering had been born somewhat partial to essential personal hygiene. “Call me frivolous,” she would say to her governess whenever an explanation was demanded, “but I am drawn to a spotless crinoline. The odour of a body slept in overnight does no favours to its possessor. I shall now and shall forever continued to splash water about my person each morning until the day I die, and if grandpapa casts me out for it, so be it.”

Fortunately for her, The General (who was nothing if not old-fashioned) preferred to hear nothing of his daughter’s personal habits, with the result that she was not disinherited and continued to use no less than a full cup of water in her ablutions whenever she remembered.

In later life, no doubt as a result of too much exposure to the poets of the Scottish enlightenment, and possibly Voltaire, Miss Havering was to acquire a certain thriftiness of nature, which was to find its scapegoat for all fiduciary evil in the irrational usage of soap. Upon receiving her inheritance, she henceforth banned this commodity absolutely – while retaining her insistence on sound personal hygiene, - with the result that ‘The Havering Factor’ was guaranteed a permanent, if somewhat schizophrenic, place in the annals of Evil Tidings.

The interdict on soap did not mean that Miss Havering discouraged the wearing of clean clothes, for she continued to insist upon what she called my obsession with ‘le linge charmant’. Every morning upon awakening, every evening before retiring, and at regular intervals in between, The Great Lady would withdraw behind her inlaid papier mâche screen and emerge with garments which she regarded as “fresh as a daisy.”

One of Mortimer’s more onerous tasks had to do with Miss Havering’s personal laundry. “I must be enveloped in clean, clean, clean crinolines,” her mistress would instruct. “They must be whiter than snow and fresher than springtime. If not, you will be back to pulling grass from the cobbles and sleeping in the pig shed.”

Mortimer, who had slaved in the laundry as a child, during the years when The General forbad the use of water except in the distillation of Auld Ram’s Fundament, had developed the annoying habit of shrugging her shoulders and mumbling to herself. Indeed, had she been a good sixty years younger, one might have detected a muttered whatEVER issuing from her gullet, together with the appropriate mannerisms. However, she was not sixty years younger, nor did she have access to youthful eccentricities. She was merely mumbling about her bunions and her aches and pains and shin splints, and how the damp rising up from the drains was causing the one existing sketch of her mother (a former pastry cook of vast girth, redoubtable ways and puritan sensibilities) to go all mottled and horrible. Nonetheless, Mortimer was a good servant and a brilliant sausage in her own right. She simply got on with the job at hand, adapted to the vagaries of her betters as best she could (taking nothing personally), and comforted herself along the way with numerous cups of tea, the crumbly bits from the flaky biscuits she had learned to make at her mother’s knee and which she baked every morning out of habit, and driblets of such ‘medicinal preparations’ as ‘cured what ailed her’.

Over the years the old servant had become increasingly forgetful. Each morning would start promisingly enough, but by the time she had collected Miss Havering’s crinolines and other dainties and had settled herself in the laundry with a nice cup of medicinal tea, her mind was no longer on her tasks. Consequently, while her hands were busily picking the dried mud and grass and bits of plants and spiders’ webs from her mistress’ skirts and shawls and gloves, she was dreaming of past years, old friends, and how she might arrange Miss Havering’s dinner tray so as to make it less appalling. It must be said that the maid was also in constant need of a few minutes’ nap, and was, therefore, prone to drift off for the odd instant or two, no matter what she was doing.

Old Mortimer was, of course, ever mindful of her mistress’ instructions concerning soap. She also feared The General’s wrath (dead and in his memorial bucket of Auld Ram’s Fundament though he may have been) should she dare waste water on “the frivolities of the person” (The General’s words). Daily she was filled with anxiety from the moment she entered the laundry. What to do? How was she to perform her duties when the means were denied her? “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” she would witter endlessly and hopelessly, before settling herself down to a lovely cup of tea (improved with a great deal of sugar, the best milk from Miss Havering’s favourite cow and seventeen dribbles of Auld Ram’s Fundament), after which she would ‘rest her eyes’ until she felt ‘right’ again. Quite naturally, Mortimer would awaken completely refreshed, free of anxiety, and ready to face the day. In her mind, the washing had already been completed in an exemplary fashion (why else was she in the laundry?); it was now pristine and was ready to be put away. After wetting her whistle with an additional cup of tea (just a small one), she would fold Miss Havering’s unwashed crinolines and delicates and tweedy skirts with an over abundance of exactitude, after which she would wrap each garment in tissue paper (as though preparing to go on a long sea voyage), and place them in the large wicker basket for the journey back to her mistress’ room (or in later years, to the former butler’s pantry). As this routine had repeated itself on a daily basis for a good many decades (with great savings in both soap and water), The Havering Factor became as ripely mature and melancholy as the infamous memorial goat’s cheese, set to cure on the day of the general’s funeral, locked first in the silver vault and thereafter in The Mighty Sarcophagus on the roof. Never to be eaten by the mouth of man, never to be removed, criticised or slung into the bog under the pain of the unspeakable.

The combination of The Memorial Goat’s Cheese and The Havering Factor was a double-edged curse placed upon the household, and it was only resolved through time and evolution. To whit, after two years, none living within Evil Tidings had noses with tiny holes. None was ever inflicted with colds, which was to the good; and none understood what the fuss was about when villagers went about their daily tasks with vinaigrettes strapped to their noses. For, unfortunately, the villagers still did have regular noses and, as a consequence, suffered mightily.

It was only a little thing, a very minor matter. But The Havering Factor was there, you see, for all to know about and ponder, and it had been on the minds of ordinary folk, village dogs (who possessed a high opinion of it) and, even, the Denizens of the Bog (who, being bugs and little animals, didn’t know quite what to think) for a good many years. Even now, in the depths of a tiny library quite as far away from Havering Hall as was humanly possible, the problem was being discussed by three mighty warriors, who wondered if it might not have some bearing on Owld Misther Bucket’s Holy Bottom.