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WITH
FRIENDS LIKE THESE, WHO NEEDS ANEMONES? LEEVER-ON-THE-VERANDAH, England -- I was dreaming of playing golf in Casablanca with Ingrid Bergman when a knock at the door jolted me awake. The interruption was most annoying because I had just Bogied the 17th hole. "Come in," I said, grabbing my dressing gown from the foot of my canopied bed. It was Dillard, the best butler this side of Jeeves, who had made it clear when I arrived that his name is pronounced Dil-LARD, with the accent on the second syllable. "Your breakfast, sir," he said. "I decided to bring it myself." "Thank you, Dil-LARD," I said, admiring the impeccable image in swallowtail coat, gray-striped trousers, winged collar and starched dickey. He placed a large tray of apple juice, brown toast, seminola, coffee, marmalade and plum jam on the round table by the casement windows and handed me the London Telegraph. "Enjoy your breakfast, sir," he said, opening the purple draperies to reveal a postcard panorama that was pure Cotswolds. Beyond the green, terraced lawn that dipped toward misty, mirrored ponds, sheep were grazing their breakfast in a far-off meadow. The lambscape was Constable, with verse by Wordsworth and sound effects by MacDonald the Old, here a bleat, there a bleat everywhere a bleat, bleat. In less than two days, Dillard had become my confidant, chauffeur, draughts opponent, gofer and all-around "schlepper." Take my bags, for example, which he did upon my arrival at the manor. He'd carried them himself to my spacious second-floor quarters, prompting me to jot this observation in my always-handy little notebook: "Dil-LARD is my schlepper, I shall not want." "It doesn't get any better than this," I said, as Dillard poured my coffee. "Those two lecherous writers can search for me all they like, they'll never find me here." "I hope not, sir," Dillard said, as if he knew what I was talking about. "Will that be all?" he added, pausing at the door on his way out. "Yes, thank you," I said. "You've been more than kind." "Oh, by the way, sir," he said. "If you will meet me in the sitting room at half-eleven, I'll have your basket of kippers and biscuits ready. And I'll show you a grassy
meadow where you can spread out and enjoy your "That will be excellent," I said. "Thank you." "After that,"
he continued, "I'll take you by the shop where you "I'll do that. You
can count on it," I said, making some hurried notes. Was it because of my profession, or because Dillard needed someone to talk to that made him open up to me the night before in the manor's great parlor? I'd just finished a sumptuous meal that consisted of casserole of Cornish fish and shellfish; saddle of Cotswold new season lamb filled with apricots; fresh vegetables, chocolate desserts, French wines and selection of cheeses with tawny port. After handing me a snifter
of cognac, he told me how he had grown up in the butlering trade,
like his father and his father's father, polishing his skills at
a number of small inns in England and Eventually, he found his way to this 17th-century mansion-hotel known as the Manor of Speaking. Located at Leever-on-the-Verandah in Upper Slaughter near Cot-on-the-Fly, it is an Elizabethan mansion in the tradition of Hutsut-on-the-Rillerah and Ulster-on-the-Half Shell. The manor house, which stands on 12 acres of flowering anemone plants about a mile from where John Milton wrote " Paradise Lost," is presently owned by a boozy remittance man named Osis B. Feeter, who, on the previous New Year's Day in London Town, had been dubbed Sir Osis of the Leever for his efforts as chairman of the board and chief taster for the United Gin cooperative. After finishing my breakfast and the entertainment pages of the Telegraph, I opened the door to retrieve the boots I had set out the night before to be shined. Dillard had not only put a high gloss on the old shoes but had repaired the small hole in the bottom of the right one. Which meant another entry for the notebook: He restores my sole. There was no mistake, this was indeed Dillard's house, if you will, and this was rural England at its finest, the England of unspoiled villages, low stone walls, gentle rolling hills and green meadows. On my third morning at the manor, after asking Dillard about fishing possibilities nearby, I told him about a woman named Guinness -- a travel writer from New Orleans -- and a former wire service correspondent named Murphy, who had long suffered a terminal case of Reuters block. Guinness, who used her first name on her column, "Shilly-shallying with Shirley" (Shirley being her first name), didn't like England because "all those damn rows of hedges and stone walls spoil the landscape." Even though she was from New Orleans, her writing, I thought, was at times picayunish. I had been ducking her and Murphy all over the United Kingdom because of their penchant to tag after me and steal my story ideas. Only four days earlier, I had eluded them by slipping between some half-timbered buildings in the medieval town of Cheshire, where I'd been visiting old friends, the Borogroves, Mimsy and Mome Rath. "If those writing characters show up," I begged Dillard, "please get rid of them and don't let them know I am here. They are bad news." Dillard said he would be happy to dispatch them posthaste and then said, "Now, I would like to ask you a favor." "You name it," I said, "you've got it." "Mame - the missus,
you know - is having one of her stomach complaints, and the only
thing that seems to relieve the pain is a tea brewed from chestnuts.
Mrs. Wright is the only one who harvests chestnuts around here.
I rang her up and she said she'd be happy to give us some from her
trees. If you wouldn't mind fetching them for me, I will show you
the lanes "Got it," I said, making a note in the book: He leads me in the paths of Wright's chestnuts for his Mame's ache." "Now, about fishing," Dillard said. "The River Dess is your best bet. It runs through a valley about five miles from here. I'll have our driver, Mooth, take you there. In the river's shallows you will find the best trout in the kingdom. I'll also send along my assistant, Dalbert Ahrt, to show you where I have stashed my fishing rod and gear. "Dal will help chase
away members of the Weevel gang, a bunch of juvenile ruffians who
hide in the bushes along the river and throw stones at fishermen." Even though I walk through the valley of Dess, I will fear no Weevel. For Dal Ahrt's with me. Your rod and your stash they comfort me. By the evening of my ninth and last day at the manor, I'd still no inkling of the whereabouts of the other two writers, thank heavens. At Dillard's instructions, Dal had set up a dinner table, surrounded by nine anemone plants, on the west terrace overlooking the croquet lawn. The menu consisted of scallops in wine sauce, red cabbage, salmon with tortellini, crisp vegetables, between-courses sorbet, French Beaujolais and Grand Marnier soufflé. And some wonderfully warm and fragrant homemade bread that -- since I didn't use butter -- Dal sprinkled with hot olive oil. We both laughed hilariously when Dal, looking over my shoulder as I wrote in the notebook, spilled a cup of scalding coffee in my lap. Dal preparest a table before me in the presence of nine anemones. Dal anointest my bread with oil; my cup runneth over. Sated beyond all reason, I leaned back in my chair to enjoy an after-dinner brandy. And, with shadows deepening over the incomparable countryside, I jotted down my last entry, feeling confident that, if: Shirley Guinness and Murphy shall follow me all the days of my life, I shall dwell in the house of Dil-LARD forever. IF YOU GO: For information on the Cotswolds, contact Cheltenham Tourist Information Center, 77 Promenade, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL50 1PP, England; phone: 1242 522-878; fax: 1242 515-535. For general information on the UK, web site: www.visitbritain.com. (Dick Alexander, former
travel columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, lives in
the San Francisco Bay Area).
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