Corpse in a Gilded Cage (6 page)

‘To the big Spenders,' he said.

The open prison where Philip, Lord Portsea, was spending the last few months of his four-year sentence for robbery was a collection of wooden huts clustered around a modest, early nineteenth-century manor house a few miles outside the village of Daintree, in Gloucestershire. In the Manor the Governor had his flat, the rest of the house being given over to recreation rooms and workshops that taught trades in anticipation of the inmates' release—weaving, basket-work and making paper hats for Christmas crackers, according to Lord Portsea in his one letter home since being transferred there. It was a moot point whether the Manor was colder than the huts, or the huts than the Manor, but in every other respect Daintree Open Prison was a relaxed and civilized place. So that, though it was not as open as its name implied, being surrounded by a wall, nevertheless the inmates, for whom the wall was child's play, never bothered to attempt a permanent escape. Why escape to the harsh economic realities of Thatcher's England, after all? Even the food at Daintree was good, being prepared by an Italian chef who had committed an act of violence on his wife's lover with a meat axe. So that, all in all, Phil was, as he said with a grin to Chokey during his recent visit, lucky to get in there.

But then, of course, everybody liked him, as the Earl had so confidently asserted that they must. Back in Maidstone, where he had served the first years of his sentence, he had regularly played dominoes with the Chief Warder, and the Governor had used his case as exemplary in a very civilized and forward-looking letter to the
Guardian.
The Governor thought that Phil should never have been in gaol in the first place, and the Governor of Daintree agreed with him.

The Countess's view, as we have seen, was that Phil had been unlucky. And of course it is unlucky if, when you are engaged in nicking a lorry-load of television sets, you happen to get caught red-handed by the police. Particularly as Phil had had three previous convictions for similar offences, when the judges, entranced by Phil's cheery openness and charm, had given exceptionally light sentences. The fourth judge was very old, and quite impervious to charm.

The Governor of Daintree had been most interested by his telephone conversation with Mr Lillywaite. Rumours of Phil's new state had gone round the prison, especially since the somewhat spectacular incursion of Dixie and Chokey on Thursday. What had been lacking had been details. The Governor indicated that Mr Lillywaite would be at liberty to interview Lord Portsea at any time he cared to appoint; and he added that he, the Governor, would be most pleased to talk to Mr Lillywaite after he had finished his business. Mr Lillywaite fixed the next day, the Saturday, and clicked his thanks into the phone. Then he sat back in the swivel chair of his dull little office in Chetton Lacey and thought deep thoughts.

The next day, after lunch, Mr Lillywaite drove himself to Daintree.

The Governor had considered making available for the interview a room in his own flat, but had decided that this might make him look ridiculous in the eyes of inmates and warders alike. He compromised by ordering that tea and cakes be served in the usual bare hut where the prisoners met their relatives, loved ones and associates. Mario the cook took this as permission to prepare a magnificent Neapolitan speciality of meringue-like consistency, one mouthful of which was enough to sate a normal stomach. Mario's tea, however, was English, and Mr Lillywaite and Phil enjoyed it as they conducted the preliminaries to the interview, and sized each other up.

Mr Lillywaite, like Phil's most recent judge, was impervious to charm, but he was not imperceptive of it. He registered it in Phil—ill-bred ragamuffin street charm, he called it in his own mind, but he admitted that it was there, and he allowed it to flow over him, so that, by degrees, he began to feel very much more at home with Lord Portsea than he did with his noble father. Phil was burly, with the beginnings of a paunch; his hands were large—workman's hands, but not very recently used—and his smile was utterly guileless. He would have made an expert salesman of vacuum cleaners, thought Mr Lillywaite: no housewife would have been able to resist him. He was also, if appearances were not deceptive, exceptionally easy-going. A man who went along with the crowd, a man whom it was all too easy to lead into dubious enterprises, since he'd do anything to help a pal. But Mr Lillywaite did not allow this impression to gain too firm a foothold in his mind: he had not been in the law for thirty-five years without learning that appearances, particularly the appearances of criminals, are indeed all too frequently deceptive.

He had brought to the interview a magnificent coffee-table book about Chetton Hall and its park—its history, its inhabitants and its treasures—and
as they talked and drank tea Lord Portsea leafed through it, casting intelligent and appreciative glances at the volume's lavish colour spreads.

‘Blimey,' he said, as he surveyed a picture of the Long Gallery, ‘the guv'nor's really landed in the soft seat, hasn't he?'

‘Ye-es,' said Mr Lillywaite ingratiatingly. ‘And that's really what I wanted to talk to you about.'

‘Oh yes?' said Phil, somewhat perfunctorily. He had lighted on a double-page spread of the park, and he pursed his lips into a whistle. ‘Just look at that! Hampstead Heath isn't in it!'

‘It is indeed a splendid prospect,' agreed Mr Lillywaite, his voice becoming warmer. ‘That was taken from the Green Drawing-Room. Snowdon, you know.'

Phil furrowed his brow as if looking for a mountain, and then said: ‘Oh, Princess Margaret's ex.'

‘That's right. One of the finest views in England, that, in my opinion. Though of course I may be prejudiced: you do understand my interest in this matter, Lord Portsea?'

Phil chuckled at the title and went on leafing through the pages of the book.

‘You're the guv'nor's man of law,' he hazarded. ‘Business manager, accountant, and all that malarkey.'

‘Well, perhaps I do partake a little of all those functions,' said Mr Lillywaite, allowing himself a lawyerly little smile. ‘But I like to think of myself as the servant of all the family, of the family as a whole. As indeed I have been for many years. Now, in the normal course of events, what I should be advising your father, the new Lord Ellesmere, to do at this moment would be to begin the process of transferring the bulk of the estate—land, house, contents and so on—to you, as a gift. And to begin it as soon as possible.'

‘Oh yes?' said Phil, his attention at last distracted from the book.

‘Yes. The purpose being, as I'm sure you will understand, to minimize death duties. Your father may have many years of active life ahead of him. Let us hope so. But still, he is a man of—'

‘Sixty,' said Phil. ‘Sixty today. The family will all be down at the house. They're going to have a bit of a knees-up tonight.'

‘Ah yes, so I believe. Sixty. So he is far from being a young man. And the longer the time that elapses between the deed of gift and his death, the less you would pay.'

‘I get you,' said Lord Portsea. And clearly he did. The book was forgotten
and he was looking at the lawyer, his brow creased in thought. ‘Seems a bit hard on the old 'uns, though, don't it? I mean, they no sooner come into a bloody great fortune than they have to hand it over again. I don't know what they want to do with it—holidays in the South o' France, new Mercedes, blow-up oyster and Guinness supper for the whole street—but I wouldn't blame them if they didn't want to give it all up, now they've just got their hands on it.'

‘I assure you, Lord Portsea, that the Earl and Countess would be left with ample funds—ample to encompass not merely their needs, but anything they could possibly desire along the lines you suggest. But perhaps I should explain why I would give the Earl that advice. The landed families, in this century, have seen it as their duty to maintain the family heritage—in particular to ensure the future of it in the hands of the eldest son.'

‘They see things rather differently in our neck of the woods,' said Phil.

‘Inevitably—and quite rightly,' said Mr Lillywaite. ‘When there is not the same question of maintaining a heritage intact.'

‘What about Trevor and Joanie?'

‘No doubt some more modest provision could be made for the younger children,' said the lawyer. ‘Indeed, the first thing I did for the Earl when he succeeded was to draw up an emergency will along those lines, pending some more permanent arrangement.'

‘I don't think I can quite see our Joan and her Digby being satisfied with a modest provision,' said Phil. ‘She'll be getting ready to rake in her share, with Digby standing by, pocket calculator at the ready.'

‘That may well be a danger,' said Mr Lillywaite, smiling once more his thin, ingratiating smile, as if he were entering a conspiracy with Phil. ‘It frequently is with younger children. The problem here is that your father in his heart sympathizes. And if your father disperses the property by sale, there will be no argument against apportioning the family fortune in whatever manner he pleases.'

‘So that's what Dad's out to do, is it?'

‘Your father has decided to—I quote him—“sell out and get out”. In which case, as I say, considerations of maintaining the family heritage in the hands of the eldest hardly apply any longer. Now, you can see, I'm sure, Lord Portsea, that in this matter I am the servant of your father (unless I decline to serve him in such a desecration of all I have striven to maintain, which may indeed be the case). But I am also, as I tried to convey to him, the servant of the family as a whole. I feel it my duty to warn you, therefore, that your own interests and those of your children
could be very gravely damaged if the Earl were to continue in his present determination.'

Phil's face wore a look of unusual seriousness, and he got up and walked around the bare little room, finally landing up by the window. He looked out over the lawns of what once had been Daintree Manor, towards the other huts and the trees down by the stream. At last he turned round and looked once more at Mr Lillywaite.

‘Meaning, in plain language,' he said, ‘that in the normal course of events I might have expected the bulk of the loot to come straight to me.'

‘Quite.'

‘And after me, to Gareth.'

‘Indeed, yes.'

‘And that what Dad wants is to realize the cash, then split it into three or something, and—'

‘I suspect that would be his instinct. He strikes me as a very fair man. And after all, if it is basically a question of mere money, why not? But the survival of our great families,
as
families, in the homes of their ancestors, has not been achieved by fairness. Quite the contrary.'

Phil sat down again and took up the book.

‘And what you'd like to see is me and Dixie settling down—at Chetton, I mean—when I get out, which is only three weeks or so away, and setting ourselves up as Lord and Lady of the Manor?'

‘Exactly. But my meaning is basically, Lord Portsea, that you would in fact run the family business, if I may so express it. I believe that even Her Majesty the Queen refers to her duties in those terms.'

‘No kidding?'

‘And the Spender family, I must remind you, has immense family interests. Even after the death duties that the present Earl must inevitably pay, a very great deal will remain. It might, I think, be necessary to open the house to the public . . .'

‘I might enjoy that,' said Phil, with a chuckle.

‘It would be a full-time occupation, for you and for your wife. But an immensely rewarding one. And you would be bringing your son up in the house that would one day be his.'

Phil sat forward in his hard wooden chair, his shoulders hunched in thought.

‘The Press'd have a field day,' he said at last. ‘Out of jug and into the stately pile.'

‘The Press, as yet, have not got on to the story,' said Mr Lillywaite. ‘And the Press can be dealt with by saying nothing whatever to them.'

‘We must read different papers,' said Phil, still hunched forward in thought. ‘Not that I'd mind the publicity. Bit of a giggle, really. What I don't like is this business of going against the guv'nor. I mean, if he wants to sell, that's his business, isn't it?'

‘I have the impression,' said Mr Lillywaite, also in his turn leaning forward with an air of urgent sincerity—the more urgent because he was subtly adapting the truth, ‘that what the Earl and Countess really want is to get away from Chetton and to go back home to . . . er . . . Clapham. Quite understandable, too. Laudable. They don't feel easy. They conceive that this would be the speediest means of accomplishing that end. But it might be achieved quite as readily by what I am proposing. They would go back home with a tidy income to keep them comfortable, but not so great a one as to embarrass them, or to subject them to harrassment. The important thing is, how best to approach them. I feel that if the matter were put to them—by you, for example—in the right manner . . .'

‘If I put the pressure on, you mean?'

Mr Lillywaite pursed his lips with distaste.

‘I have the impression that both your parents are very fond of you. We need only talk about pressure—emotional pressure, if you will—as a last resort.'

‘There's one thing you've forgotten,' said Phil, finally straightening up. ‘Dixie. Really it all depends on Dixie.'

Lord Portsea fumbled in his pocket and brought out a large coloured photograph.

‘Our wedding photograph. Look at it. I can't see Dixie fitting into the Stately Home bit, can you? Not that I would either, mind—not naturally. But I'm easy and people accept me, and I sort of fade into the wallpaper. Dixie's not like that. Dixie doesn't tone in. She sort of stands out. And she's got a mind of her own. You wouldn't have met her yet, but you can see it in this snap. I don't mind who knows it: Dixie's always worn the trousers in our household.'