Blott On The Landscape (4 page)

“The price of justice is eternal publicity,” she said with an originality that startled her hearers, but which in fact she had found in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. “It is not enough to protest, we must make our protest known. If the Gorge is to be saved it will not be by words alone but by action.” On the platform beside her Sir Giles nodded his apparent approval, but inwardly he was alarmed. Publicity was all very well, and justice was fine when it applied to other people but he didn’t want public attention focused too closely on his role in the affair. He had expected the motorway to upset Lady Maud; he had not foreseen that she would turn into a human tornado. He certainly hadn’t supposed that his seat would be jeopardized by the uproar she seemed bent on provoking.

“If you don’t see that the Hall is saved,” Lady Maud told him, “I’ll see to it that you don’t sit for South Worfordshire at the next election.” Sir Giles took the threat seriously and consulted Hoskins at the Planning Authority in Worford.

“I thought you wanted the thing to go through the Gorge,” Hoskins told him as they sat in the bar of the Handyman Arms.

Sir Giles nodded unhappily. “I do,” he admitted, “but Maud has gone berserk. She’s threatening … well, never mind.”

Hoskins was reassuring. “She’ll get over it. They always do. Got to give them time to get used to the idea.”

“It’s all very well for you to talk,” said Sir Giles, “but I have to live with the beastly woman. She’s up half the night thundering about the bloody house and I’m having to cook for myself. Besides, I don’t like the way she keeps cleaning her father’s shotgun in the kitchen.”

“You know she took a potshot at one of the surveyors last week,” Hoskins said.

“Can’t you have her charged?” Sir Giles asked eagerly. “That would take the heat off for a bit. Haul her up before the local beaks.”

“She is a local magistrate,” Hoskins pointed out, “and anyway there’s no proof. She would just claim she was shooting rabbits.”

“And that’s another thing. She’s got the house full of bloody great Alsatians. Hired them from some damned security firm. I tell you I can’t go down the passage for a pee in the night without running the risk of being bitten.” He ordered another two whiskies and considered the problem. “There’ll have to be an Enquiry,” he said finally. “Promise them an Enquiry and they’ll calm down a bit. Secondly, offer the Enquiry a totally unacceptable alternative. Like we did with the block of flats in Shrewton.”

“You mean give planning permission for a sewage farm?”

“That’s what we did there. Worked like a charm,” Sir Giles said. “Now if we could come up with an alternative route which nobody in his right mind would accept …”

“There’s always Ottertown,” said Hoskins.

“What about Ottertown?”

“It’s ten miles out of the way and you’d have to go through a council estate.”

Sir Giles smiled. “Right through the middle?”

“Right through the middle.”

“It sounds promising,” Sir Giles agreed. “I think I shall be the first to advocate the Ottertown route. You’re quite sure it’s unacceptable?”

“Quite sure,” said Hoskins. “And, by the way, I’ll take my fee in advance.”

Sir Giles looked round the bar. “My advice is to buy …” he began.

“Cash this time,” said Hoskins, “I lost on United Oils.”

Sir Giles returned to Handyman Hall in a fairly good humour. He disliked parting with money but Hoskins was worth it and the Ottertown idea was the sort of strategy he liked. It would take Maud’s mind off eternal publicity. Tempers would cool and the Enquiry would decide in favour of the Gorge. By then it would be too late to inflame public opinion once again. Enquiries were splendid soporifics. He ran the gauntlet of the guard dogs and spent the evening in his study writing a letter to the Minister of the Environment demanding the setting up of an Enquiry. No one could say that the Member of Parliament for South Worfordshire had not got the interests of his constituents at heart.

While Sir Giles connived and Lady Maud committeed, Blott in the kitchen garden had his work cut out trying to do his conflicting duties. He would settle down to weed the lettuces only to be interrupted by the bell in the greenhouse. Blott spent hours listening to long conversations between Sir Giles and officials at the Ministry, between Sir Giles and members of his constituency or his stockbroker or his business partners, but never between Sir Giles and Mrs Forthby. Sir Giles had been forewarned. Mrs Forthby’s remark that she had received a call from someone called Blott who had ordered a ton of pig manure had alarmed Sir Giles. There was obviously some mistake though how Blott could have got hold of the number in the first place he couldn’t imagine. It wasn’t in the telephone index on his desk. He kept it in his private diary and the diary was in his pocket. Sir Giles memorized the number and then erased it from the diary. There would be no more calls to Mrs Forthby from Handyman Hall.

When Sir Giles wasn’t on the telephone, Lady Maud was, issuing orders, drumming up support or hurling defiance at the authorities with a self-assurance that amazed and delighted Blott. You knew where you were with her and Blott, who prized certainty above all else, emerged from the greenhouse after listening to her with the feeling that all was well with the world and would remain so. Handyman Hall, the Park, the Lodge, a great triumphal arch at the bottom of the drive where Blott lived, the kitchen garden, all those things to which he had grafted his own anonymity in a hostile world, would remain safe and secure if Lady Maud had anything to do with it. Sir Giles’ calls left a different impression. His protests were muted, too polite and too equivocal to satisfy Blott, so that he came away with the feeling that something was wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but whenever he took the earphones off after listening to Sir Giles he felt uneasy. There was too much talk about money for Blott’s liking, and in particular about ample compensation for the Hall. The sum most frequently mentioned was a quarter of a million pounds. As he went down the rows of lettuces with his hoe, Blott shook his head. “Money talks,” Sir Giles had told his caller but it had said nothing to Blott. There were more important words in his vocabulary. On the other hand his hours of listening to Sir Giles had done wonders for his accent. With the headphones on Blott had sat practising Sir Giles’ pronunciation. In his study Sir Giles said, “Of course, my dear fellow, I absolutely agree with you …” In the greenhouse Blott repeated the words. By the end of a week his imitation was so exact that Lady Maud, coming into the kitchen garden to collect some radishes and spring onions for lunch one day, had been astonished to hear Sir Giles’ voice issuing from among the geraniums. “I look upon the whole thing as an infringement of the rules of conservation,” he was saying. “My dear General, I shall do my damnedest to see that the matter is raised in the House.” Lady Maud stood and gazed into the greenhouse and was just considering the possibility that Blott had rigged up a loudspeaker there when he emerged, beaming triumphantly.

“You like it, my pronunciation?” he asked.

“Good heavens, was that you? You gave me quite a start.” Lady Maud said.

Blott smirked proudly. “I have been practising correct Eng lish,” he said.

“But you speak English perfectly.”

“I don’t. Not like an Englishman.”

“Well I’d be glad if you didn’t go round speaking like my husband,” said Lady Maud. “It’s bad enough having one of him about the place.”

Blott smiled happily. These were his sentiments exactly.

“Which reminds me,” she continued, “I must see that the TV people cover the Enquiry. We must get the maximum publicity.”

Blott collected his hoe and went back to his lettuces while Lady Maud, having collected her radishes, returned to the kitchen. He was rather pleased with himself. It wasn’t often he got a chance to demonstrate his ability to mimic people. It was a skill that had developed from his earliest days at the orphanage. Not knowing who he was, Blott had tried out other people’s personalities. It had come in handy poaching, too. More than one gamekeeper had been startled to hear his employer’s voice issuing from the darkness to tell him to stop making an ass of himself while Blott made good his escape. Now as he worked away at the weeds he tried out Sir Giles again. “I demand that there be an Enquiry into this whole business,” he said. Blott smiled to himself. It sounded quite authentic. And there was going to be an Enquiry too. Lady Maud had said so.

The Enquiry was held in the Old Courthouse in Worford. Everyone was there – everyone, that is, whose property stood on the proposed route through the Cleene Gorge. General Burnett, Mr and Mrs Bullett-Finch, Colonel and Mrs Chapman, Miss Percival, Mrs Thomas, the Dickinsons, all seven of them, and the Fullbrooks who rented a farm from the General. There were also a few other influential families who were quite unaffected by the motorway but who came to support Lady Maud. She sat in front with Sir Giles and Mr Turnbull and behind them the seats were all filled. Blott stood at the back. On the other side of the aisle the seats were empty except for a solicitor representing the Ottertown Town Council. It was quite clear that nobody seriously supposed that Lord Leakham would decide in favour of Ottertown. The thing was a foregone conclusion – or would have been but for the intervention of Lady Maud and the intransigence of Lord Leakham, whose previous career as a judge had been confined to criminal cases in the High Court. The choice of venue was unfortunate, too. The Old Courthouse resembled too closely the courtrooms of Lord Leakham’s youth for the old man to deal at all moderately with Lady Maud’s frequent interruption of the evidence.

“Madam, you are trying the court’s patience,” he told her when she rose to her feet for the tenth time to protest that the scheme as outlined by Mr Hoskins for the Planning Board was an invasion of individual liberty and the rights of property. Lady Maud bristled in tweeds.

“My family has held land in the Cleene Gorge since 1472,” she shouted. “It was entrusted to us by Edward the Fourth who designated the Handyman family custodians of the Gorge -“

“Whatever His Majesty Edward the Fourth may have done,” said Lord Leakham, “in 1472 has no relevance to the evidence being presented by Mr Hoskins. Be so good as to sit down.”

Lady Maud sat down. “Why don’t you two men do something?” she demanded loudly. Sir Giles and Mr Turnbull shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

“You may continue, Mr Hoskins,” said the judge.

Mr Hoskins turned to a large relief model of the county which stood on a table. “As you can see from this model South Worfordshire is a particularly beautiful county,” he began.

“Any fool with eyes in his head can see that,” Lady Maud commented loudly. “It doesn’t require a damnfool model.”

“Continue, Mr Hoskins, continue,” Lord Leakham said with a restraint that suggested he had in mind giving Lady Maud rope to hang herself with.

“Bearing this in mind the Ministry has attempted to preserve the natural amenities of the area to the greatest possible extent -“

“My foot,” said Lady Maud.

“We have here,” Mr Hoskins went on, pointing to a ridge of hills that ran north and south of the Gorge, “the Cleene Forest, an area of designated natural beauty noted for its wildlife …”

“Why is it,” Lady Maud enquired of Mr Turnbull, “that the only species that doesn’t seem to be protected is the human?”

By the time the Enquiry adjourned for lunch Mr Hoskins had presented the case for the Ministry. As they went downstairs Mr Turnbull had to admit that he was not optimistic.

“The snag as I see it lies in those seventy-five council houses in Ottertown. If it weren’t for them I think we would stand a good chance, but quite frankly I can’t see the Enquiry deciding in favour of demolishing them. The cost would be enormous and in any case there is the additional ten miles to be taken into account. Frankly, I am not hopeful.”

It was market day in Worford and the town was full. Outside the courtroom two TV cameras had been set up.

“I have no intention of being evicted from my home,” Lady Maud told the interviewer from the
BBC
. “My family have lived in the Cleene Gorge for five hundred years and …”

Mr Turnbull turned away sadly. It was no good. Lady Maud might say what she liked, it would make no difference. The motorway would still come through the Gorge. In any case Lady Maud had made a bad impression on Lord Leakham. He waited for her to finish and then they made their way through the market stalls to the Handyman Arms.

“I wonder where Giles has got to,” she said as they entered the hotel.

“I think he’s gone over to the Four Feathers with Lord Leakham,” Mr Turnbull told her. “He said something about putting him in a more mellow mood.”

Lady Maud looked at him furiously. “Did he indeed? Well, I’ll see about that,” she snapped and leaving Mr Turnbull in the foyer she went into the manager’s office and phoned the Four Feathers. When she came out there was a new glint of malice in her eye.

They went into the dining-room and sat down.

At the Four Feathers Sir Giles ordered two large whiskies in the lounge before sending for the menu.

Lord Leakham took his whisky doubtfully.

“I really shouldn’t at this time of the day,” he said. “Peptic ulcer you know. Still, it’s been a tiring morning. Who was that ghastly woman in the front row who kept interrupting?”

“I think I’ll have prawns to start with,” said Sir Giles hurriedly.

“Reminded me of the assizes in Newbury in ‘28,” Lord Leakham continued. “Had a lot of trouble with a woman there. Kept getting up in the dock and shouting. Now what was her name?” He scratched his head with a mottled hand.

“Lady Maud is rather outspoken,” Sir Giles agreed. “She has something of a reputation in this part of the world.”

“I can well believe it,” said the Judge.

“She’s a Handyman, you know.”

“Really?” said Lord Leakham indifferently. “I should have thought she could have afforded to employ one.”

“The Handyman family have always been very influential,” Sir Giles explained. “They own the brewery and a number of licensed premises. This is a Handyman House, as a matter of fact.”