Read Online Darkest England by Christopher Hope - Free Book Online
Authors: Christopher Hope
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were simple souls, very easily led. And one would not like to encourage similar behaviour, now, would one? Respecting this request was rather difficult, since my fellow guests, when they met me walking in the garden, would contrive to find ways of referring to my friendâs disappearance, and when I replied, as I had been urged, that he had returned unexpectedly to Bongo-Bongo-Land, I am afraid they expressed their scepticism very crudely, by a variety of devices, such as raising their eyes to Heaven or drawing their fingers across their throats. When our hosts, who accompanied us up the garden paths, forbade further questions, the other guests took childish revenge by conferring on innocent flowers in the garden new and terrible aliases, calling the scarlet rose climbing the high walls âprisonerâs bloodâ, or asking our attendants whether the creamyclematis was cultivated for wreaths to adorn our unmarked graves.
I brooded often on my late friends tragic end. How unfortunate an impression he had made. Yet I missed him. Although my attendants were never far away, I lacked company. Humpty-Bloody-Dumpty came, like me, from a short people. Now I found myself alone in a world where meals were too large, beds too wide, chairs too high and men too tall. When Minehost inquired kindly into the state of affairs among the starving whom he took to be very many âdown my wayâ, it was never clear whether he was referring to my country or my height, as if the air ten inches below his nose held worlds he would never visit, though from time to time he caught glimpses of them from on high.
Time passed, and my name changed. For my attendants found Booi too difficult for their tongues, too round and rude, and so, much as the farmers do in my part of the world, they gave me a new name, and I became, amid much chaffing, the Boy David.
Mr Geoff, he of the honeyed hair, the bush of keys and the distinctive dung signature, a mingling of cheese, ashes and whisky, watched me fondly, and promised a Royal Summons âat any momentâ. Its timing depended on a decision âon my caseâ. When I replied that this sounded horribly legal â at home we were always awaiting decisions on our cases by the police into whose hands we had been abandoned â Mr Geoff reminded me that this was England, and Palace procedures proceeded at their own pace, and he could guarantee that some day soon I was in for a Right Royal Surprise, believe you me.
And I did believe him. Because he gave many signs of his regal connections, telling me that the paperwork for my transport was âin trainâ, and that punctuality was thepoliteness of kings and uneasy lay the head that wore the crown and many other moving testimonies of his closeness to the Royal Household.
Besides, I realized, if Her Majesty had not intended to receive me, she would hardly have gone to the trouble of detaining me at her Pleasure.
Perhaps my friendâs disappearance would have caused less suspicion among other guests awaiting Her Majestyâs Pleasure had our hosts not continued to insist that he had been called away to live in that mythical land, somewhere at the worldâs edge, where dwell all Children of the Sun.
Among the English, I discovered to my surprise, there is an almost complete ignorance of the fact that they dwelt for many lifetimes in such places. Minehost denied all knowledge of this. He knew nothing of Africa. I must be mistaken. He knew nothing of the great explorers, nothing of Livingstone. And when I told him that his people had been in Africa, in large numbers, for many years, that they had fought and died and dug for gold and diamonds, shot lions and ruled over the tribes, from the Cape to Cairo, he looked at me as a child does at a storyteller, or as if I had drawn for him in the air a land as fabulous as Monomatapa, peopled by giants. All this might have occurred, long ago and far away, he conceded, but that had nothing
I brooded often on my late friends tragic end. How unfortunate an impression he had made. Yet I missed him. Although my attendants were never far away, I lacked company. Humpty-Bloody-Dumpty came, like me, from a short people. Now I found myself alone in a world where meals were too large, beds too wide, chairs too high and men too tall. When Minehost inquired kindly into the state of affairs among the starving whom he took to be very many âdown my wayâ, it was never clear whether he was referring to my country or my height, as if the air ten inches below his nose held worlds he would never visit, though from time to time he caught glimpses of them from on high.
Time passed, and my name changed. For my attendants found Booi too difficult for their tongues, too round and rude, and so, much as the farmers do in my part of the world, they gave me a new name, and I became, amid much chaffing, the Boy David.
Mr Geoff, he of the honeyed hair, the bush of keys and the distinctive dung signature, a mingling of cheese, ashes and whisky, watched me fondly, and promised a Royal Summons âat any momentâ. Its timing depended on a decision âon my caseâ. When I replied that this sounded horribly legal â at home we were always awaiting decisions on our cases by the police into whose hands we had been abandoned â Mr Geoff reminded me that this was England, and Palace procedures proceeded at their own pace, and he could guarantee that some day soon I was in for a Right Royal Surprise, believe you me.
And I did believe him. Because he gave many signs of his regal connections, telling me that the paperwork for my transport was âin trainâ, and that punctuality was thepoliteness of kings and uneasy lay the head that wore the crown and many other moving testimonies of his closeness to the Royal Household.
Besides, I realized, if Her Majesty had not intended to receive me, she would hardly have gone to the trouble of detaining me at her Pleasure.
Perhaps my friendâs disappearance would have caused less suspicion among other guests awaiting Her Majestyâs Pleasure had our hosts not continued to insist that he had been called away to live in that mythical land, somewhere at the worldâs edge, where dwell all Children of the Sun.
Among the English, I discovered to my surprise, there is an almost complete ignorance of the fact that they dwelt for many lifetimes in such places. Minehost denied all knowledge of this. He knew nothing of Africa. I must be mistaken. He knew nothing of the great explorers, nothing of Livingstone. And when I told him that his people had been in Africa, in large numbers, for many years, that they had fought and died and dug for gold and diamonds, shot lions and ruled over the tribes, from the Cape to Cairo, he looked at me as a child does at a storyteller, or as if I had drawn for him in the air a land as fabulous as Monomatapa, peopled by giants. All this might have occurred, long ago and far away, he conceded, but that had nothing
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