Pictures of Perfection (17 page)

‘You are now collecting your People delightfully, getting them into such a spot as is the delight of my life; – 3 or 4 Families in a Country Village is the very thing to work on.’

So dusk stole down on Enscombe.

Crag End Farm, tucked under the western wall of the valley, felt its shadow first. George Creed washed his wellingtons under the yard pump and laughed as he saw the mud slide off their rubbery blackness. Life was good apart from that silly quarrel with his sister, but that would soon be put to rights. Would have been put to rights already if her daft scripture quoting hadn’t driven him to a matching obduracy. Tomorrow would see things sorted, one way or another. He sat on the bench under the kitchen window and lit a pipe. Time for a smoke before he went into the village for the Save Our School meeting. His old dog, sensing his master’s contented mood, settled with his head on the damp rubber boot, and together they watched the shadows which had already embraced them reach out to cover Scarletts and the winding river.

At Scarletts too the inmates acknowledged the approach of night in their different ways. Mrs Bayle set
about checking her defences. Fop sniffed the air with hopeful anticipation. And Justin Halavant poured himself a glass of Bâtard-Montrachet which some Frog had claimed was the best wine in the world for getting philosophical on.

So far the test was inconclusive.

He took a careful sip and once more examined the situation.

Looked at positively, he was no worse off.

Looked at legally, he had lost nothing that he could really complain about losing.

Looked at morally, a problem had been solved, a wrong righted, a dying wish fulfilled.

But none of these considerations, nor yet the wine, prevented him from feeling robbed, cheated, and humiliated.

Ultimately it was all down to that ungrateful child, Caddy. True, his approach had been less than subtle; in fact, memory of his gaucherie was almost as painful as memory of its consequence; but there had been no need for that sister of hers, the Ice Queen, to share his humiliation with the whole village. And any guilt he had felt about Caddy herself had been washed away by his detection of her part in this latest outrage. Presumably the whole village knew about that too. Therefore it was meet that his revenge should be taken against the village as a whole. And what better wine than the Bâtard to appetize revenge? But not tonight. Tomorrow was the Day of Reckoning. Quite soon enough to draw on himself the hatred of all his
neighbours. He rose and went to the door and shouted. ‘Mrs Bayle!’

‘Yes?’

‘If Mr Philip Wallop calls, tell him I’m out. Ask him to call again tomorrow.’

‘Oh yes? Going to the School meeting, are you?’

The meeting? Yes, why not? That’s how it had all started. So why not!

On the edge of the village as the shadows stretched to consume the wilderness he had created out of Intake Cottage’s once lovely garden, Jason Toke too was thinking of Caddy. He had nothing so positive as hope; what he did have was a certainty that without that ghost of a dream of a possibility which was his mainstay, something cataclysmic would happen in his life, sending him shooting off irresistibly in some new and unforecastable direction. To Jason, the best thing that had happened in recent times was the story of Halavant’s rejection. Justin had wealth, power, influence, yet Caddy had rejected him. So what did she want?

And that ghost of a dream of a possibility came again to haunt the boy’s mind as his supple, intelligent fingers dismantled and oiled his guns.

Higher up the valley where the sun lingers longer to gild the lead of the church roof and flood the vicarage windows with fire, thoughts of Caddy filled Larry Lillingstone’s mind also as he sat at his desk over his neglected papers. He had known
it was a mistake from the start. As soon as he felt those longings, he should have gone straight round to the Bishop and told him he couldn’t stay in Enscombe. What matter if he looked foolish? Anything was better than this mess he had got himself into. Yet was it such a mess? Was it not an occupational hazard of his calling since time began for a poor priest to find himself teetering astride the perilous gap between the state’s laws and his flock’s needs? His famous predecessor Stanley Harding hadn’t hesitated to defy convention or the law in his efforts to save Enscombe School.

But Harding’s motives had been pure! Whereas he had thrown up his hands in firm refusal till he had learned of Caddy’s involvement … Oh Caddy, Caddy, Caddy. Would she be at the meeting tonight? Did he want her to be or not? Perhaps the best thing would be to stay away himself? After all, nothing would be certain till tomorrow. Perhaps it would turn out to be an empty dream after all and things could be put back to what they were?

There was a tapping at the window. He rose and peered out into the dusk. Standing on the lawn looking as insubstantial as the light vapours rising from the damp grass was the figure of a woman. For a long moment he regarded the pale oval of her face without speaking or moving. Then with a deep sigh he began to open the french window.

Only one building stands higher in Enscombe than the church and that is Old Hall. Nor is this an
entirely fortuitous symbolism. The Hall was built on the site of, and out of the stones of (and, some whispered, with the wealth of), the old priory of St Margaret. When Thomas Cromwell’s team of dissolvers reached this remote part of Yorkshire, all they found was a smoking ruin. The Lady Prioress, so they were assured by the local Justice of Peace and Lord of the Manor, one Solomon Guillemard, having received advance warning of the King’s just wrath, had fled to the Popish Netherlands, taking with her all her followers and, what was worse, all their valuables. On word of this the loyal peasantry of Enscombe had risen up in righteous indignation and not stood down again till the priory was reduced to the present worthless ruin, which none the less, out of patriotic love and feudal duty, Solomon Guillemard was willing to take off the State’s hands for a very small consideration. The men from London, having learnt the hard way that it rarely paid to argue with a Yorkshireman, accepted the offer and hurried on to their next port of call, hoping to find better pickings at Jervaulx or Rievaulx.

All this Squire Selwyn had put into his ballad, but as he sat at his writing desk that evening, his thoughts, like Lillingstone’s, were not on the papers before him but on a woman.

Girlie had said she had something she wanted to talk over with him and from her manner he knew it was no light matter. He feared the worst. Had she turned out to be one of those feckless, fluttering
kinds of girl he recalled from his youth, there’d have been no problem. She’d probably have gone off long since and got herself married. Instead, she had taken on the Hall and all it involved, including looking after young Fran and himself, no easy task that! And what was more she’d made a first-rate job of it, dragging the estate back from the brink of ruin and now planning for its future survival with the help of this damn Health Park. If anyone deserved to inherit, it was Girlie.

But she couldn’t. Not a matter of law. Male inheritance was no longer the hard and fast thing it had once been. But that in his view made it all the more important. His study of the family history had taught him this if nothing else, that tradition had to come before personal whim. How many Squires of the past must have wished they could redirect the inheritance? His own father had never concealed his preference for his younger son, Guy. But
Fucata non Perfecta
. You didn’t fiddle with the natural state of things, and he’d inherited. Now it was only proper, pain though he was, that the present Guy should inherit in his turn.

He had told Girlie this, said he would leave her what was his personally to leave (which wasn’t much), and added (which was less) that he would urge upon Guy his family duty to see that Girlie and Fran kept a roof over their heads. His own recommendation was that Girlie should not rely on her cousin’s kindness, but while she was still young, divert her undoubted talents for making
money for the estate to making money for herself.

She had listened politely, said thank you, and gone about her business.

And now he was filled with a foreboding that she was coming to tell him she had taken his advice and was leaving.

He couldn’t blame her. But, oh God, how he would miss her.

That was her now, tapping on the door. He straightened himself up and prepared for bad news.

It was both better and worse than he expected.

When she had finished a silence fell between them, stretching out as if to fill the space left by the receding light.

She hadn’t asked for a decision but he knew one was expected of him.

‘Tomorrow,’ he said finally. ‘Leave it with me till the Reckoning. I’ll make up my mind by then.’

‘I was as civil to them as their bad breath would allow me.’

Dusk descended too on Enscombe’s newest inhabitant, but brought with it nothing heavier than the realization that he hadn’t eaten for ten hours and was bloody hungry!

Wield went into the kitchen at Corpse Cottage, opened the fridge and stepped back with a shudder. He’d seen more inviting scenes-of-crime. Kids today were a primitive tribe, eating stuff which would put most western tourists on their back for a fortnight.

Nothing for it but the Morris. Both his superiors had recommended it, so it was almost a dereliction of duty not to sample its wares.

He stepped out of the front door. It was a surprisingly remote situation despite its village setting. Up against the churchyard wall with the High Street just out of sight downhill and the vicarage just visible uphill, Corpse Cottage was well placed to be haunted. Yet he felt nothing but an almost proprietorial pleasure as he stood on the step.

Whistling ‘When the night wind howls in the chimney cowls’ he set off to the pub.

Two things surprised him as he pushed open the bar-room door. The first was how full the place was so early in the evening. The second was that his arrival didn’t provoke that moment of speculative silence any newcomer might expect in a country pub. In fact he got a few welcoming nods from one or two of the faces he recognized.

At the bar a man he presumed was the landlord said, ‘Pint of the best, Sergeant?’, already drawing the ale as he spoke.

‘Thanks,’ said Wield, reaching into his pocket.

‘First’s on the house. I’ll make my profit out of you later,’ said Wapshare. ‘Any news of the happy wanderer?’

‘Not yet,’ admitted Wield.

‘Not to worry. Happen he’ll turn up. And you’re spending the night at Corpse Cottage to welcome him? That’s friendly!’

The man knows everything, Pascoe had warned. But was he telling everything he knew? Wield tasted the beer and, like Pascoe before him, decided that allowances could be made.

‘You do a good trade for early on a midweek night,’ he commented.

‘Nay, it’s not always like this,’ said Wapshare. ‘They’re just getting primed for the meeting.’

He nodded at the
Save Our School
pyramid of coins against which rested a notice advertising a progress report meeting in the village hall at eight p.m.

‘I hope there’s good news,’ said Wield. ‘Any chance of a bite to eat?’

‘Aye. Slice of game pie do you for starters? Sit yourself down and I’ll bring it over.’

He took his pint to a small table by the window. Wapshare soon followed with a tray laden with pickles, chutney, tomatoes, bread, and a hunk of pie like a lumberjack’s wedge.

‘Give us a shout when you’re done and I’ll fry you up a slice or two of my black pudding,’ said the landlord. ‘Oh Lord, here comes the cabaret.’

The door had opened on a wave of noise to admit Guy Guillemard and his friends. They made for the bar where the Heir sat on a stool and viewed the other customers with a droit-de-seigneurish air. Most got on with their drinking. Only Dudley Wylmot from the Post Office, sitting with the remains of several large gin and tonics before him, showed any eagerness to catch the seignorial eye. His sycophancy was counterbalanced by the look of glacial indifference his wife gave the new arrivals before concentrating on her spritzer.

Guy nodded condescendingly at Wylmot, then his eye fell on Wield and a smile like a toothpaste ad spread across his face. He came across to his table and sat down.

‘’Evening, Sergeant. Left you to guard us overnight, have they?’

‘Something like that, sir,’ said Wield.

‘That chap on the drive with you, the one who seemed to think I was trying to zap him. He’s your
superior, right? Yet he looks rather younger than you. Now why is that, I ask myself.’

‘Mebbe because he were born a few years after me,’ said Wield.

‘What? Ah, a joke. Which confirms what I suspect. You’re one of the good old breed of British bobby – conscientious, clever even, but not wanting the hassle of promotion, content to stay a sergeant so you can devote more time to your wife and family – three kids, little house in a leafy suburb, couple of cats and a cross-breed terrier – likes a jar with the lads, goes to the match on Saturday, but is always glad to get home to the little woman and the animals. Am I right or am I right?’

Wield nodded, not in agreement but at a connection he had never made before between prat and prattle. If this was the best that an expensive education could do for a lad, then why did folk like Ellie Pascoe get agitated if rich fools demanded the right to subject their progeny to it?

‘I knew it,’ said Guillemard with a patronizing smugness which made Wield long for the Dalzielesque chutzpah to say, ‘Nay, lad, I’m as queer as a clockwork orange, so why don’t you shut your big fat mouth and give your tight little arse a chance?’

‘You’re the one who knows what’s what, not that jumped-up squirt pretending to be a gentleman, and certainly not that grotesque who showed
up later. So, tell me, Sergeant, you who know your place and have so determinedly kept it, wouldn’t this be advice you’d give to all young bobbies?’

He leaned across the table to give Wield the full benefit of his wisdom and smile. Early though the hour was, he’d already wined and dined well on something garlicky washed down with cognac, if the pungent waft from his mouth was a true messenger. His friends too sounded a lot livelier than could be put down to a single draught of even Mr Wapshare’s good ale. How indiscreet might the drink make him? wondered Wield.

He shifted slightly to avoid the reek and said, ‘You wouldn’t have anyone in particular in mind, sir?’

‘For instance?’ said Guy, helping himself to a pickled onion.

‘Constable Bendish, for instance,’ said Wield, for whom a little obliquery went a long, long way. ‘He was seen having a dust-up with someone fitting your description.’

‘Really,’ said Guy, unbothered by this exaggeration. ‘Put it in a report, did he?’

‘No, sir. Still a serious matter, but.’

‘Not what I call serious, Sergeant. I’ve met more resistance in a Bangkok brothel.’

‘So you admit to assaulting a police officer?’ said Wield.

‘No, I bloody don’t. I admit to the justifiable chastisement of an erk who’d stepped out of line.
He knew he had it coming, otherwise he’d have fitted me up on an attempted murder charge, wouldn’t he?’

‘Why are you telling me this?’ asked Wield.

‘To save public expense and police effort. I told the erk next time I came to Enscombe, I’d finish the job properly. I came back yesterday. So my advice to you is work out how far a frightened rabbit can run in twenty-four hours, and start looking there! What the hell’s Wapshare getting his knickers in a twist about?’

There had been a huge crash from the bar followed by an explosion of laughter and voices, loud among them the landlord’s crying, ‘Right, that’s it. Out, you lot. You’re barred!’

Guillemard made for the bar, his arms spread in what he probably thought was a placatory gesture. Wield could see that the initial crash had been caused by the toppling of the
Save Our School
ziggurat.

‘Wappy, what’s the problem?’ said Guy in his best talking to the toddlers voice.

‘No problem, and the name’s Wapshare, Mr Guillemard,’ said the landlord. ‘I’m just exercising my legal right to refuse service and order this lot off my premises.’

‘Of course you are, and it’s understandable, but let’s not over-react, shall we? It’s just an excess of high spirits for which they’re truly sorry, isn’t that right, boys and girls? You’re truly sorry.’

‘Yes, Guy, we’re truly sorry,’ they echoed in mock contrition.

‘There you are. Any damage, we’ll pay. And they’ll build your pyramid again, only a lot higher this time. Won’t you, children?’

‘Yes, Guy, a lot higher this time,’ chorused his friends, enjoying this new game.

‘So what do you say, Mr Wapshare? Forgive and forget?’

Wapshare spoke very slowly.

‘I say, I don’t want their money and I don’t want their company. I want them out of here, and I don’t want to see them back.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Guillemard. ‘If they go, then I’ll have to go, you do understand that?’

‘Understand it? I bloody insist on it!’ roared Wapshare.

Wield felt like cheering.

Guy the Heir looked round the room, his face still smiling but the smile now thinly stretched over fury.

‘If that’s the way you feel, Wappy. Your loss, not ours. I mean, it’s not what you’d call lively, is it? My ancestors needn’t have bothered about trying to close you down, the place died naturally a long time back and it’s just that no one’s bothered to bury it. Come on, boys. Let’s leave this mausoleum before the dust chokes us.’

He made for the door. The others trooped after him.

Wapshare’s face relaxed to its customary benevolence.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Who’s good at picking up money?’

There was a general laugh, almost immediately echoed and drowned by a cheer from outside and a crash as though something had been hurled against the pub wall.

Wield half rose, looking inquiringly at Wapshare who shook his head.

‘Don’t interrupt your meal, Sergeant. They’ll just be taking it out on the sign. Guillemards have been doing that for a hundred years, and we’re none the worse for it yet!’

Outside an engine roared into life and Wield looked out of the window to see the GUNG-HO! Land Rover heading up the High Street, presumably to continue the merrymaking at the Hall. Most of the customers were bending to pick up the fallen coins. Wylmot, eager to demonstrate how much he belonged, was foremost among them, but the gins had taken their toll and when he stooped he would have gone right over if his wife hadn’t grabbed his arm.

‘Come on, Dud,’ said Wapshare, emerging from behind the bar and taking the other arm. ‘We’ll find you a nice comfortable seat at the back. Sergeant, I’ll be closing for a while till the meeting’s over, but don’t rush your grub. Help yourself to owt you need, and if you leave afore I’m back, just pull the door shut behind you.’

Five minutes later Wield found himself completely alone. Dalziel’s dream of heaven, he thought, just as Pascoe’s was probably to be left alone in the Tell-Tale Bookshop for a couple of hours.

And his own dream of heaven? He tried to fantasize but found he couldn’t. So, a man without a dream. He ought to be unhappy, but, rather to his surprise, he found he wasn’t.

He finished his food, went behind the bar and drew himself another half of bitter, as much for the pleasure of doing it as need of a drink. The place looked different from this side of the counter. He knew a lot of cops who’d taken their pensions and gone in for a pub. He didn’t fancy it himself. What did he fancy? A packet of pork scratchings! He helped himself, checked the price list for food and drink, was pleasantly surprised, left his money neatly on top of the till, dropped another couple of pound coins on the reconstituted
Save Our School
pile, now more Pyrenees than pyramid, and went out into the night.

It would have been pitch black if the uncurtained window of the village hall hadn’t laid a causeway of light across the road. He walked along it till he was close enough to hear as well as see the meeting within.

The Vicar was on his feet. He had a good pulpit voice but he didn’t seem to be bringing tidings of great joy.

‘The Appeal has done well,’ he was saying. ‘But as we always knew, there is little chance of getting
close to the very large sum we need to guarantee the school’s future …’

‘Then we have to sell the Green,’ yelled someone. ‘Isn’t Phil Wallop interested? We could do with some new houses for the young ones …’

‘Don’t kid yourself our young ’uns ’ud be able to afford owt that Wallop built,’ interjected someone else. ‘And don’t imagine he’d hire local workmen either, if that’s what you’re thinking …’

‘Please!’ cried the Vicar above the resultant hubbub. ‘Look, what I suggest is we postpone any decision … yes, I know I said it had to be tonight, but … look, I don’t want to raise hopes but there’s a faint chance that a sum of money, a reasonably large sum might … I can’t say more. I’ll be able to tell you definitely tomorrow … at the Reckoning …’

A man offering a ray of hope ought to try to look happy, thought Wield. But the Vicar’s expression was more like what you don’t want to see on your doctor’s face as he examines the X-rays.

Wield turned away. This was a private meeting, a family affair, and he wasn’t a member of the family. It was a rather melancholy thought. Perhaps he should have stayed a bit longer in the Morris and got merry or really miserable. He looked across the road to the pub. In the light from the window behind him he could see the sign above the front door. Pascoe had told him its history. But maybe history was the wrong word.

People don’t change, thought Wield. They just do the same things differently.

From the burnt, battered and blasted bosom of William Morris there now protruded a short, dully gleaming rod of steel.