Elsingham's Son

A Family Drama in Sixteen Scenes

by Airn Hethaway

email: s_psoli@yahoo.co.uk

Scene II

It was about noon and Poppy was hanging about, bored to distraction. She had been waiting for Hamlyn for nearly an hour. Typical, she thought. He’s forgotten he asked me over. Gone off somewhere with that wanker, ‘Hip-hip’ Horatio. She checked her mobile once again. No message, no missed call. It really was typical of the man, to forget he had asked her to come over for ‘a chat’ he had said. She wondered if her Dad had spoken to Hamlyn. He was very keen that she and Hamlyn should get married, in fact, it had been expected. All that was wanting was that Hamlyn should pop the question. She guessed that was why he had asked her to visit him. In fact, the way things had turned out, it would seem as if the marriage would be unavoidable. A pain in the fucking arse, but wasn’t that just typical? Poppy tried to ignore the rising panic within her and began to get angry again with Hamlyn. So why wasn’t the bugger here then? He couldn’t expect her to wait all bloody day for him to turn up, could he? No, he bloody couldn’t! Male chauvinist pig! She’d go now. Right this minute and sod him – and her own father’s ambitions on her behalf. She threw the magazine she had been skimming through for the past hour on to one of the Louis-quatorze side-tables and made for the door. As she approached, the door opened and she barged rather inelegantly into the figure of her father, Paul.

     Recovering himself, he looked around over his gold-rimmed half-moon spectacles, surprised. “All alone, Poppy?”

     “Too fucking right!. He’s left me looking light a right twat,” replied the chic young lady in a manner which made her punctilious father wince.

     “I do wish you wouldn’t speak like a fishwife, Poppy dear,” he remonstrated mildly. He himself was a bookish man and liked to think of himself as cultivated. It always upset him to hear how his daughter spoke, despite a very exclusive (and expensive) education. He sighed. Young people today!

     “Well, I’m obviously not important enough to him for him to remember he asked me over,” said the willowy girl, “and here was me thinking he was going to go on bended knee and all that. Bloody wanker.” This last was added under her breath, just enough for her father not to hear.

     “Eh? What was that, dear?” Paul looked questioningly over at his daughter. Poppy was simply, though expensively dressed; she had learnt all about designer clothes at the expensive schools her father had sent her to. Her well cut hair had originally been blonde, but this month it was jet black, with red highlights. She had taken to wearing very white foundation and very, very scarlet lipstick, something her father found somewhat unsettling. Although he would never, could never even, voice the thought, the word ‘trollop’ came unbidden to the periphery of his consciousness.

     Paul was a widower, a man of the ‘old school’, all very correct, all very boringly normal. Safe. He had been a perfect foil for Hamlyn senior in their business ventures together. It had been he who saw whether or not his friend’s hare-brained schemes would actually work or not.

     He looked despairingly at the figure of lovliness before him. He, too, had hopes that she and Prince would tie the knot. Poppy needed to settle down.

     “Well, hang on for ten more minutes,” her father advised. “I saw Horatio’s car outside, so they must be around somewhere. Be a poppet and wait a bit longer.”

     The girl sighed theatrically, shrugged her shoulders, but complied with her father’s wish.

     “Bloody hell, Dad! Alright, but only ten more minutes. Then I’m off and the bugger can whistle as far as I’m concerned. I’ve had it with him.” She flounced over to an elegant chintz sofa and flung herself down, whereupon she produced a cigarette and lighting it, exhaled with an air of lazy indifference.

     “When he does come, you will let me know what he says, won’t you?” he asked, the worried look a permanent expression on his face. “You will come straight to me and let me know?”

     “Yes, Daddy. I will,” Poppy answered impatiently waving the elder man away as she picked up the copy of “The Tatler” she had recently got so bored with.

     A few minutes later, as Poppy was again nurturing thoughts of exacting a bloody and painful revenge on him, Hamlyn himself came into the room. Looking up, she saw that he wore an expression of – what was it? Fear? Anger? Both? He didn’t notice her straight away and she heard him muttering under his breath. She gave a small cough, which caused Prince’s head to whip round as if he had been slapped.

     “About bloody time! Do you know how fucking long you’ve kept me waiting, Mister High-and-Mighty?”

     “Wha--at” Prince started. He looked as though he didn’t remember who she was or why she was here.

     “You texted me this morning, idiot! You said come here to meet you at eleven. Hamlyn, it’s quarter past twelve. You rude bastard!”

     “Poppy. Sorry. I er…” He faded into silence.

     “Daddy says Horatio’s here somewhere. What have you two been up to, eh? Snorting a few lines as usual?”

     “No, Poppy. Nothing like that. Horatio wanted to see me, that’s all. He had something to tell me…”

     “Something more important than what you were going to tell me, I suppose?” Poppy interrupted, her voice rising and a faint colour showing beneath her makeup. “Couldn’t it have waited, Hamlyn? What did that man have to say that made you forget our appointment – or did you forget it? Maybe you preferred to be with him.”

     Poppy had never got on with Horatio. This was because once, many years ago now, she had admitted she had a crush on him at a rather drunken party they were both at and he had more or less said he wasn’t interested. Poppy was not the kind of girl to take rejection lying down and she had borne a grudge against Hamlyn’s best friend ever since. She had always tried to denigrate the man in Hamlyn’s presence, but he and Horatio had remained best friends. Poppy was not amused. Who the fuck did Horatio think he was? Was he too good for her? Him, an estate worker’s son? Low-life scum. Poppy had categorised Horatio and placed him on the same shelf as any working-class nobody and could not understand the hold he had over Hamlyn … unless it was drugs; yes it had to be drugs. He was pushing drugs. He’d been arrested a couple of times for possession and now he’d got Hamlyn hooked. That had to be it. Prince had been acting strangely for a while now. Maybe he was on to the hard stuff. There was nothing wrong with a joint or two, or getting smashed on vintage champagne or tequilas, I mean everyone did that, but what if he was providing Hamlyn with coke, or heroin?

     Despite her somewhat rebellious nature, Poppy was not into drugs. Not the hard stuff anyway. She had lost two girlfriends to heroin and had seen what it had done to them and did not want to end up the same way. Poppy wanted to be around to enjoy her father’s fortune when he finally croaked. So she stayed reasonably sober, spending her time and a great deal of her father’s money on clothes, cars which she routinely pranged, skiing holidays and cruises with her trendy friends and obscure but pricey artwork for her two apartments.

     “So, what did the little sod have to say, that was so important that you let me hang around here waiting for you, then?” Poppy rose from the sofa, throwing the magazine on to the sofa, but it missed and landed with a dull thud on the persian rug, pages spread like some wounded bird.

     Suddenly it seemed as if Prince came to full consciousness. He rounded on Poppy, his eyes blazing, the colour rising to his cheeks. It was only with immense strength of will that he refrained from hitting her. He looked at her white face with the thin lips a cruel scarlet. They were each as angry as the other.

     “You bitch!” spat Hamlyn. “You’ve always hated Horatio, haven’t you? Always put him down, tried to put a wedge between him and me. Why, eh? Did he have the guts to tell you he didn’t fancy you, spoilt little rich Daddy’s girl! Oh yes, I know all about the time you tried to rape him at that party. Couldn’t keep your hands off him, could you, you drunken slut! And when he turned you down – after being very polite and trying to spare your feelings, you went beserk didn’t you, Poppy? And you’ve never forgiven him. Well, get over it. It’s in the past. Vengeful Harpy!”

     Poppy gazed dumbfounded at the blond young man as he fulminated. She hadn’t realised that he even knew about her and Horatio’s ‘incident’ let alone that he felt so strongly about it, even now, after all these years. What had that prick, Horatio been telling him? Feeding him all sorts of lies, she supposed.

     “And you can damn well forget about us ever getting married, Poppy. I don’t want it, and I know even you think it’s ‘convenient’ to be married to me. Well, I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last woman in the world. Why don’t you just bugger off and bully someone else? Better still become a nun – Hah! That would be a fucking joke, Sister Poppy! Ha bloody ha. Just what you fucking deserve, you frigid cold, calculating bitch. Now piss off and leave me alone, okay?”

     There was a long silence as Poppy gazed steadily at the trembling man before her.

     “You’ve gone stark raving, fucking mad!” said Poppy, too shocked to be angry, her voice hardly above a whisper. Still looking long and hard at Hamlyn she came to a decision and without warning slapped him hard across the face, her bright red nails scratching his cheek as she did so.

     She then very calmly left the room closing the door behind her without another word.

     Prince stood alone in the middle of the room, tears welling up in his unfocused eyes and coursing down his cheeks. Sinking to his knees, he bowed his head.

     On the other side of the door, Poppy also wept, but hers were tears of anger, not sorrow. She’d get her own back on Hamlyn and his fucking sidekick Horatio. Giving herself a moment to pull herself together, she then dabbed her eyes, straightened her dress, then crossed the hall and opened the door to the study, where she knew her father was waiting for her.