Tuesday, 24 June 1930
The funeral is at a church, with cremation following; it’s raining hard and occasionally thundering. People at the funeral are split into groups; a pair of policemen whom nobody wants to talk to, a pair of reporters ditto, a group from the bank (who seem to have organised this, judging by the undertaker’s attention to them), some obvious reporters, and another group of four people in their thirties and forties, including one woman, who aren’t obvious family. One of the men is quietly but very expensively dressed; and there’s an oddity around him, in that he’s not shiny in himself, but random bits of shine seem to swirl round him before moving on. The woman clearly knows how to use a limited amount of money to look very presentable; she’s not wearing a ring.
There’s a certain amount of conversation in the church porch after the service. Bessie talks with various people, asking how they knew Wigson; her excuse is that Wigson filmed some of her card tricks. She moves on from the bank group to the expensively-dressed man, who’s somewhat vague (“mutual interests”). He had seen Wigson’s street scenes (“frankly dull”) and hadn’t known Wigson had gone on to setting up filming opportunities. He denies being involved with the film industry, and doesn’t seem terribly concerned about the loss of Wigson’s collection (he’s heard that there’s a sister in Canada, but there’s unlikely to be anything of sentimental value). He introduces himself to Milly as St John Aubrey, which doesn’t ring any immediate bells; she turns on the charm, and he certainly seems interested. Bessie speaks with the woman (Felicity Lanson), and is introduced to Matthew Kidlington and Graham Talbot; all three of them are middle-class, whereas Aubrey is clearly a bit further up the scale; Milly manages to arrange sharing a taxi (and hears Aubrey’s address off Pall Mall), then asks him to drop her off at a dressmaker’s; he seems mildly confused, as this may not be a way women normally behave round him.
Lin Tan has two return letters; one is giving her a polite brush-off (to which she replies trying to force her way in), the other invites her to a showing of Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelungen on Friday evening.
Bessie checks Who’s Who for The Hon. Charles St John Aubrey, younger brother of the Viscount of Cardwell. He’s about forty years old and was on the Western Front in the war – in the Royal Horse Guards, which saw its share of action. His hobbies are listed as sailing. Several clubs are listed. The other three of the film circle aren’t mentioned in the book. Bessie reflects that there was rather more even conversation, and less deference, than one might have expected among such a group.
She and Audrey look through the society pages for Aubrey; he’s not hard to track down. He’s been seen with a succession of well-brought-up ladies with faces like horses’; he might be something of a catch but he’s presumably not under huge pressure to marry. One of Milly’s objectives is to arrange to run into him by accident; this seems as though it shouldn’t be too hard.
Gertrude plans to take a look at his town house for signs of magical oddness.