Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand (31 page)

“Until these gentlemen put away their guns, I can’t hardly be calling the constable,” said Morris. He turned to the field and gave a piercing whistle that caused the farm workers to lift their heads from the dirt. “Come away, boys, leave them children alone now.”

“May I suggest a prompt retreat to the house,” said Ferguson, coming up to Lord Dagenham. “Cool tempers and so on.”

“I’ll be damned if I’ll be forced to retreat from my own land,” said Dagenham. “What the hell is Morris doing?” he added as the gamekeeper headed off to meet his men. The protesters sent up a feeble cheer and began to pick themselves up from the ground. The bankers gathered in a huddle, guns broken over their arms. There was a low murmur of discussion.

“If I may agree with Mr. Ferguson, returning to the house would not be a question of retreat,” said the Major. “Completely the moral high ground – keeping the peace and ensuring the safety of women and children and so on.”

“They killed our duckies,” came a wail from a child holding up a bloody carcass. The protesters abandoned their signs and set about trying to gather the children into a loose group. From the woods, the figure of their matron hurried into view, followed by a man who was quite possibly a bus driver.

“I really think your guests would be happier back at the house,” said the Major.

“He’s right,” said Ferguson.

“Oh, very well,” said Lord Dagenham. “Everybody down to the house, please. Breakfast is served.” The bankers trotted away, looking grateful for the excuse. The Major saw Roger was at the front of the departing crowd.

“Major Pettigrew, are you there?” came the distinct cry of Alice Pierce, who was resolutely advancing on the hedge waving a large and rather grubby white handkerchief. As she came closer the Major could see she was shivering.

“I’m here, Alice, and so is Lord Dagenham,” said the Major. “You’re quite safe.” Lord Dagenham gave a snort but did not contradict him.

“Oh, Major, the poor children,” she said. “The matron says they escaped from the bus and she had no idea they were going to come here.”

“Oh, please,” said Lord Dagenham. “I’ll have you all brought up on negligence charges for letting innocent children join in such a riot.”

“Negligence?” said Alice. “You shot at them.”

“We did not shoot at them,” said Dagenham. “For God’s sake, woman, they ran into the guns. Besides, you’re all trespassing.”

“The children are not trespassing; they live here,” said Alice. Matron hurried up to say that they needed to get the children home right away and perhaps have the doctor in.

“We only stopped a moment for the picket line,” she said. “Then Thomas started being sick and he threw up on the bus driver, so we got out for a minute and before we knew it, they just all ran from the bus and scattered and we didn’t know where to find them.” She paused to breathe, holding a bony hand against her narrow chest. “They always get attached to the ducks, what with feeding them every day and keeping the ducklings in the classroom under heat lamps, but we’ve never had a problem like this before.” Alice looked carefully neutral. The Major had no doubt as to who had used her art lessons to impart a few lessons in truth to the children.

“Someone put the little beggars up to it,” said the bus driver. “Who’s going to pay for my dry cleaning?”

“I’ll help you get them back in the school,” said Alice to the matron.

“Can’t have them back in the house. I’m hosting a breakfast for my guests,” said Dagenham, stepping between the matron and the path to the house. “Put them back on the bus.”

The Major cleared his throat and caught Dagenham’s eye. “Might I suggest, Lord Dagenham, that you allow the children, under the good care of their matron, to take some food in their rooms and have a rest?”

“Oh, very well,” said Lord Dagenham. “But for goodness’ sake, Matron, take them in the back door and keep them quiet.”

“Let’s go,” said Alice, and she and the matron went off to escort the children away down the lane to the house.

Dagenham was surveying the field, where the protesters had reorganised themselves into lines. They now began to advance on the hedge, chanting “Down with Dagenham” and “Don’t pillage our village.” The Major found the latter rather interesting and wondered who had come up with it.

“Where are the damn police?” said Dagenham. “I want these people arrested.”

“If it’s all the same to you, Double D, better to keep the cops out of it,” said Ferguson. “We don’t need that kind of attention. Not that we’re in the wrong, mind you, but the publicity isn’t what the project needs right now.” He clapped Dagenham on the back. “You gave us a dash of excitement. Now come and give us a good breakfast.”

“What do I do about them?” said Dagenham, nodding to where the protesters were slowly advancing on the hedge.

“Oh, let ‘em protest and get it out of their system,” said Ferguson. “My guys’ll keep ‘em away from the house and take plenty of pictures. Generally I find it best to let people think they’re making a difference.”

“You sound as if you’ve had plenty of experience,” said the Major.

“Can’t build a billion square feet these days without riling up the local hornets’ nest,” said Ferguson, quite oblivious to the slight distaste in the Major’s voice. “I have a whole system of control, containment, and just-plain-make-it-go-away.”

“Major, you’re a good man to have around,” said Dagenham. “I think, Ferguson, that we should invite the Major to the private briefing after breakfast. You’ll stay behind, won’t you, Major?”

“I’d be more than happy to,” said the Major, puzzled as to what might be worthy of a briefing but enjoying a small expansion of pride in his chest at being invited.

“I’m with you on that,” said Ferguson. “And maybe the Major’d like to have that bright son of his sit in, too?”

As they walked back to the house for breakfast, the cries of the protesters growing dim behind them, the Major’s pleasure was diminished only by a small nagging worry that Alice Pierce would not approve. He did not usually seek Alice’s approval for anything, so the feeling was new and entirely unexpected. They passed two security guards dressed in black and sitting in a large black four-by-four. Ferguson nodded and the idling car pulled across to block the path behind them. Containment of the locals had obviously begun.

∗

The breakfast, eaten in an elegant parlor overlooking the terrace, was hearty and fuelled by large quantities of Bloody Marys and hot punch. On the long buffet table in the hall, the bacon rolls had been replaced with steaming globes containing bacon, sausage, and scrambled eggs, along with an entire side of smoked salmon and a marble board of cold meats and pungent cheeses. A giant baron of beef, surrounded by roast potatoes and individual Yorkshire puddings, sat in unapologetic dinner-menu magnificence under a heat lamp, being sliced in thick bloody pieces by a white-gloved server. A tower of cut fruit and an iced bowl of yogurt were going all but untouched.

Gertrude did not sit down to breakfast but stomped in and out checking on the service from the temporary waiters and shaking hands here and there; she whispered an apology to the Major for the beef being a bit pink. Only Lord Dagenham, however, complained, sending his underdone slice to the kitchen to be microwaved to a deep muddy brown. The bankers were so loud, outstripping each other in the length and ribaldry of their anecdotes, that there was no disturbance to the party at all from the presence of children overhead.

“Don’t know why I bothered all these years, sending them off to the seaside at my expense,” said Dagenham over the trifle and chocolate eclairs that followed the breakfast buffet. “Never knew I could just as well lock ‘em in with a ham sandwich and a few crayons.” He laughed. “Not that one minds being generous, of course. Only one’s funds get so eroded by the government’s constant demands these days.” Gertrude came in again and said, “The villagers in the lane said thank you very much for the ham sandwiches and hot toddies, Uncle.”

“What the devil do you mean sending them food?” asked Dagenham.

“It was Roger Pettigrew, actually, who mentioned that it might be a nice gesture given the earlier confrontation,” she said, smiling down the table toward Roger. Roger raised a glass in her direction.

“Very shrewd operators those Pettigrews,” said Ferguson, winking at the Major.

“The constable thought it was a sign of great consideration,” added Gertrude. “He’s down there having a sandwich, and whoever called him is too polite to make any complaints while eating.”

“I told you Gertrude was a smart girl, Ferguson,” said Dagenham. “Her mother, my sister, was a wonderful woman. No one loved her like I did.” He dabbed the corner of his eye with his napkin. The Major found this claim unexpected: it was well known in the village that May Dagenham had run off with a singer at a young age and had been largely disowned by the family. Gertrude displayed no obvious response to her uncle’s remark, but her lips pressed together more firmly and the Major saw some flicker of expression in her eyes that might, he thought, be anger. In that expression, he saw again the gawky young girl who had hung around the lane, in her shapeless smock and leggings, waiting to bump into Roger. He looked down the table at his own son, who was regaling his colleagues with some exaggerated tale of how Swithers had pushed an insolent golf caddy into a water hazard. The Major found for once that he was more understanding of his son. He might be obnoxious, but his ambition demonstrated some spark of life; some refusal to bow before adversity. He thought it was preferable to Gertrude’s quiet pain.

“Family is everything to you Brits,” said Ferguson. “I’m still hoping to pick one up one of these days.” This occasioned more laughter around the table, and the breakfast party moved on to coffee and cigars.

After breakfast, which went so long as to bleed imperceptibly into lunch, most of the bankers left. Roger was saying goodbye to Gertrude when Swithers tapped him on the shoulder and indicated with a certain gruffness that he was to stay. Roger looked delighted and came over directly to the Major.

“I’m to stay for some hush-hush business with Ferguson,” he said. “Just us senior bankers. I think he’s going to unveil his next project.” His chest seemed to puff up and the Major thought he might pop with delight. “Do you have a lift home?” added Roger.

“I’m invited to stay myself, thank you,” said the Major, careful to keep a neutral tone and not to claim credit for Roger’s invitation in case it spoiled his son’s obvious pleasure.

“Really? I can’t imagine you’ll understand much of it,” said Roger. “Stay close to me and I’ll try to explain some of the technical terms to you if you like.”

“That’s exactly what I told Lord Dagenham and his American colleague when they asked me if you should be invited,” said the Major. He was slightly ashamed that his good intentions had been so quickly abandoned, but he told himself that the fleeting glance of dismay on his son’s face was for Roger’s own good. “Shall we join the others?”

∗

The table in the middle of the old stone dairy wore a lumpy nylon cover, concealing something large and horizontal. There was barely room for the remaining guests to squeeze along the edges where, noticed the Major, one’s backside immediately radiated with numbing cold from the stone walls. A smelly heater of indeterminate age burned fiercely in one corner but failed to do more than take off the chill.

“Sorry about the accommodations, gentlemen, but this is more private than the house,”, said Lord Dagenham. “With Mr. Ferguson’s approval – or should I say with the approval of Lord Ferguson, Laird of Loch Brae” – here Ferguson winked, and waved away the honour with a modesty that did not conceal his delight – “I will reveal to you at once the greatest advance in appropriate English countryside development since his Royal Highness’s fully planned village at Poundbury.” He and Ferguson gripped the fabric cover and drew it gently off the table. “I give you the Twenty-first Century Enclave at Edgecombe.”

What was revealed was a model of the village. The Major could see at once the folds and creases of the familiar landscape. On one side, the model ended in an upsweep of downland, on the other it spread out into flat farm country. He could see the village green and the pub, which seemed to have been painted pale green and to have developed some carbuncular buildings on one side. He could see the lane leading up to Rose Lodge and even pick out his own garden, edged with fuzzy miniature hedges and furnished with a single architect’s model tree. The village, however, seemed to have sprouted a few too many versions of Dagenham Manor. They produced a strange mirror effect, with almost identical manor houses, each sporting a long carriage drive, squares of formal gardens, stable blocks set round with miniature cars, and even a round pond, complete with silver paint surface and three mallards each. There was one such manor in the field behind his own house and another where the bus stop should have been. The bus stop and the main road seemed to have disappeared, removed to the edge of the model, where they disappeared into the farmland. The Major peered closer at the village green, looking for the shop. The plate glass window was gone and the shop, faintly recognisable behind a new bowed window and shutters of teal blue said, ‘Harris Jones and Sons, Purveyors of Fine Comestibles and Patisserie’. A wicker basket of apples and an old iron dog cart containing pots of flowers stood at the new bubbled-glass door. A tea shop, a milliner’s, and a tack and gun shop had been added. The Major felt frozen to the spot.

“In looking to the future of the Dagenham estate,” said Ferguson, “my good friend Lord Dagenham asked me how he could possibly develop the site, in order to shore up the financial foundation of the estate, while also preserving the best of the English countryside.”

“I told him no shopping centres!” said Dagenham. The small cadre of bankers laughed.

“I could not answer that question until I had the chance to purchase Loch Brae Castle and experience for myself what it means to be a steward of the countryside.” Here Ferguson stopped to place a hand over his heart as if pledging allegiance. “To be responsible for the lives of all those crofters and the land itself calling out for our protection.” Now the bankers seem puzzled, as if he had started speaking another language. “So together we came up with a vision of the highest-end luxury development, unparalleled in the UK. Taking advantage of the availability of planning permission for new, architecturally significant country estates, my company, St. James Homes, will build an entire village of prestigious manor homes and redevelop the village to service those estates.” As he paused to draw breath, the bankers bobbed and squatted to view the tabletop village from closer angles. This was not the easiest of gymnastic exercises after so large a meal, and there was much huffing and panting between questions. “Where’s the retail corridor?’ ‘Is there a motorway connection?’ ‘How’s the cost per square foot compared to Tunbridge Wells?”