Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand (32 page)

“Gentlemen, gentlemen – my colleague Mr. Sterling and I will be glad to take all your questions.” He was smiling, as if the deal were already completed. “I have info packets for all back in the house. May I suggest you finish looking at the model and we’ll gather back in the house to talk numbers where it’s warm?”

∗

The Major lingered around the model after the last of the bankers had left. Alone with his village, he kept his hands inside his jacket pockets in order to resist the temptation to pluck off all the little manor houses and cover the empty spots by moving around some of the wire brush trees.

“Cigar?” He turned to find Dagenham at his side.

“Thank you,” he said, accepting a cigar and a light.

“You are, of course, appalled by all this,” said Dagenham squinting at the model like an architect’s apprentice. He was so matter-of-fact that the Major was unable to say otherwise.

“I would say I did not expect it,” said the Major in a careful tone. “It is quite – unexpected.”

“I saw your letter to the planning chappie,” said Dagenham. “I told Ferguson, the Major will be appalled. If we can’t convince him of what we’re doing, we might as well give up.” The Major flushed, confused at being confronted with this evidence of his disloyalty.

“Fact is, I’m appalled myself,” said Dagenham. He bent down and touched a fingertip to a manor house, moving it slightly deeper into a stand of trees. He squinted again and stood back up, looking at the Major with a wry smile. “Trouble is, even if I were prepared to bury myself here all year round I couldn’t save the old place, not long term.” He walked to a window and opened it slightly, blowing smoke into the stable yard.

“I’m sorry,” said the Major.

“Estates like mine are in crisis all over the country,” said Dagenham. His sigh seemed to contain genuine defeat and the Major, watching his profile, saw his jaw tighten and his face grow sad. “Can’t keep up the places on the agricultural subsidies, can’t even cut down one’s own timber without permission, hunting is banned, and shooting is under attack from all sides as you just saw. We’re forced to open tea shops or theme parks, to offer weekend tours to day-trippers or host rock festivals on the lawn. It’s all sticky ice cream wrappers and car parking in the lower fields.”

“What about the National Trust?” asked the Major.

“Oh, yes, they used to be there, didn’t they? Always hovering, waiting to take one’s house away and leave one’s heirs with a staff flat in the attic,” said Dagenham, with malice in his voice. “Only now they want a cash endowment, too.” He paused and then added, “I tell you, Major, we’re in the final decades now of this war of attrition by the tax man. One day very soon the great country families will be wiped out – extinct as the dodo.”

“Britain will be the poorer for it,” said the Major.

“You are a man of great understanding, Major.” Dagenham clapped a hand on the Major’s shoulder and looked more animated. “You can’t imagine how few people I can actually talk to about this.” He moved his hands to the edge of the model, where he set them wide apart and squinted down, like Churchill over a war map of Europe. “You may be the only one who can help me explain this to the village.”

“I understand the difficulties, but I’m not sure I can explain how all this luxury development saves what you and I love,” said the Major. He looked over the model again and could not keep disdain from giving a curl to his lip. “Won’t people be tempted to insist that this is similar to the kind of new-money brashness that is killing England?” He wondered if he had managed to express himself politely enough.

“Ah, that’s the beauty of my plan,” said Dagenham. “This village will be available only to old money. I’m building a refuge for all the country families who are being forced out of their estates by the tax man and the politicians and the EU bureaucrats.”

“They’re all coming to Edgecombe St. Mary?” asked the Major. “Why?”

“Because they have nowhere else left to go, don’t you see?” said Dagenham. “They are being driven off their own estates, and here I am offering them a place to call their own. A house and land where they will have other families to contribute to the upkeep, and a group of neighbours with shared values.” He pointed at a large new barn on the edge of one of the village farms. “We’ll have enough people to maintain a proper hunt kennel and a shared stables here,” he said. “And over here, behind the existing school, we’re going to found a small technical college where we’ll teach the locals all the useful skills like masonry and plasterwork, stable management, hedging, butlering, and estate work. We’ll train them for service jobs around the estates and have a ready pool of labour. Can you see it?” He straightened a tree by the village green. “We’ll get the kind of shops we really want in the village, and we’ll set up an architectural committee to oversee all the exteriors. Get rid of that dreadful mini-mart-style shop frontage and add a proper chef at the pub – maybe get a Michelin star eventually.”

“What about the people who already live in the village?” asked the Major.

“We’ll keep them all, of course,” said Dagenham. “We want the authenticity.”

“What about Mrs. Ali at the shop?” asked the Major. His face felt hot as he asked; he looked very hard at the model to disguise his feelings. Dagenham gave him a considering stare. The Major struggled to remain neutral but feared his eyes were crossed with the effort.

“You see, this is just where you might advise me, Major. You are closer to the people than I am and you could help me work out such nuances,” said Dagenham. “We were looking for the right multicultural element, anyway, and I’m sure we could be flexible wherever you have – shall we say – an interest?” The Major recognised, with a lurch of disappointment, the universal suggestion of a quid pro quo. It was more subtle than some bribes he had refused in a career of overseas postings to places where such things were considered normal business, but there it lay nonetheless, like a pale viper. He wondered how much influence he might barter for his support and he could not help looking long and hard at the house squatting in the field behind Rose Lodge. “I assure you none of this is set in stone yet,” continued Dagenham. He laughed and flipped one of the model houses onto its roof with a fingertip. “Though when it is, it’ll be the best white limestone from Lincolnshire.”

A clatter outside drew their attention to the doorway. A figure in green was just disappearing around the corner of the house. “Who the devil was that, I wonder?” said Dagenham.

“Maybe one of Morris’s farm lads cleaning up,” suggested the Major, who was fairly sure it had been Alice Pierce, minus the loud poncho. He had to control a chuckle at the thought that Alice’s louder than usual get-up had been a deliberate distraction and that underneath it she had worn drab green clothes suitable for slinking about like a commando in a foreign jungle.

“Damn hard trying to keep this huge model to ourselves.” Dagenham picked up the cover from the floor. “Ferguson doesn’t want to reveal anything before we have to.” The Major helped him and was grateful to watch the ruined village being swallowed in the tide of gray fabric.

“Is there really no other way?” asked the Major. Dagenham sighed.

“Maybe if Gertrude weren’t so stubbornly plain, we might have tempted our American friend to the more old-fashioned solution.”

“You mean marriage?” asked the Major.

“Her mother was such a great beauty, you know,” he said. “But she’s happiest in the stables shovelling manure. In my day that would have sufficed, but these days, men expect their wives to be as dazzling as their mistresses.”

“That’s shocking,” said the Major. “How on earth will they tell them apart?”

“My point exactly,” said Dagenham, missing the Major’s hint of irony. “Shall we march on over to the house and see if Ferguson has nailed down any offers of financing?”

“They’re probably securing houses for themselves,” said the Major as they left. He felt gloomy at the prospect.

“Oh, good God, no banker is going to be approved to live here,” said Dagenham. “Though I’m afraid we will have to swallow Ferguson.” He laughed and put an arm around the Major’s shoulder. “If you support me in this, Major, I’ll make sure Ferguson doesn’t end up in the house behind yours!”

As they crossed the courtyard toward the house, Roger came out looking for Dagenham. The bankers were apparently impatient to talk to him. After shaking hands, Dagenham hurried in and the Major was left alone with his son.

“This project is going to make my career, Dad,” said Roger. He clutched a navy blue cardboard folder emblazoned with a Dagenham crest and the words ‘Edgecombe St. Mary, England’s Enclave’. “Ferguson’s being so attentive to me, my boss is going to have to put me in charge of our team on this.”

“This project is going to destroy your home,” said the Major.

“Oh, come on, we’ll be able to sell Rose Lodge for a fortune once it’s built,” said Roger. “Think of all that money.”

“There is nothing more corrosive to character than money,” said the Major, incensed. “And remember, Ferguson is only being nice because he wants to buy my guns.”

“That’s quite true,” said Roger. From the frown over his eyebrows, he seemed to be thinking hard. “Look, he mentioned inviting us both to Scotland in January to shoot pheasant. You must absolutely promise me not to sell your guns to him before then.”

“I thought you were anxious to sell,” said the Major.

“Oh, I am,” said Roger, already turning on his heel to go. “But as soon as you sell them, Ferguson will drop us like a hot potato. We must hold him off as long as we can.”

“And what about Marjorie and Jemima?” asked the Major as his son trotted away from him toward the house.

“If necessary, we’ll file a complaint in probate court just to hold things up,” called Roger, waving a hand. “After all, Father, everyone knows Uncle Bertie’s gun was supposed to be yours.” With this extraordinary remark, Roger disappeared and the Major, feeling quite dizzy with surprise, thought it best to collect his guns and retreat to home.

H
e had planned to bring Mrs. Ali a dozen long-stemmed roses, swathed in tissue and a satin bow and carried casually in the crook of his arm. But now that he was to pick her up with Grace, at Grace’s cottage, the roses seemed inappropriate. He settled for bringing each of them a single rose of an apricot colour on a long spidery brown stem.

He had dashed for his car in order to avoid being seen by Alice Pierce, whose protest at the shoot had been followed by a door-to-door petition drive against St. James Homes, and rallies of protest at every public appearance by either Lord Dagenham or Ferguson. The effort was not going well. The Vicar, who had been seen suddenly consulting an architect on the long overdue restoration of the steeple, had declined to speak from the pulpit, citing the church’s need to provide love and spiritual comfort to all sides in the dispute. Many people, including the Major, had been glad to accept posters that urged ‘Save Our Village’, but only about half thought it polite to display them. The Major put his in the side window, where it screamed its message at the garage and not at the street. Alice continued to rush about the village with her band of followers, mostly strangers who seemed to favour hand-crocheted coats. She seemed unaware that even where she was supported locally, she was also studiously avoided by anyone who was planning on attending the Golf Club dance.

Straightening his bow tie and giving a final tug to his dinner jacket, the Major knocked on the insubstantial plywood of Grace’s mock Georgian front door. It was Mrs. Ali who opened it, the light spilling out onto the step around her and her face in partial shadow. She smiled and he thought he detected the shine of lipstick.

“Major, won’t you come in,” she said and turned away in a breathless, hurried manner. Her back, receding toward the front room, was partly revealed against the deep swoop of an evening dress. Under a loosely tied chiffon wrap, her shoulder blades were sharply delineated and her bronze skin glowed between the dark stuff of the dress and the low bun at the nape of her neck. In the front room, she half pirouetted on the hearth rug and the folds of the dress billowed around her ankles and came to rest on the tips of her shoes. It was a dark blue dress of silk velvet. The deeply cut decolletage was partially hidden by the sweep of the chiffon wrap, but Mrs. Ali’s collarbones were exquisitely visible several inches above the neckline. The material fell over a swell of bosom to a loosely gathered midriff where an antique diamond brooch sparkled.

“Is Grace still getting ready, then?” he asked, unable to trust himself to comment on her dress and yet unwilling to look away.

“No, Grace had to go early and help with the set-up. Mrs. Green picked her up a short while ago. I’m afraid it’s just me.” Mrs. Ali almost stammered and a blush crept into her cheekbones. The Major thought she looked like a young girl. He wished he were still a boy, with a boy’s impetuous nature. A boy could be forgiven a clumsy attempt to launch a kiss but not, he feared, a man of thinning hair and faded vigour.

“I could not be happier,” said the Major. Being also stuck on the problem of how to handle the two drooping roses in his hand, he held them out.

“Is one of those for Grace? I could put it in a vase for her.” He opened his mouth to say that she looked extremely beautiful and deserved armfuls of roses, but the words were lost in committee somewhere, shuffled aside by the parts of his head that worked full-time on avoiding ridicule.

“Wilted a bit, I’m afraid,” he said. “Colour’s all wrong for the dress anyway.”

“Do you like it?” she said, turning her eyes down to the fabric. “I lent Grace an outfit and she insisted that I borrow something of hers in fair trade.”

“Very beautiful,” he said.

“It belonged to Grace’s great-aunt, who was considered quite fast and who lived alone in Baden Baden, she says, with two blind terriers and a succession of lovers.” She looked up again, her eyes anxious. “I hope the shawl is enough.”

“You look perfect.”

“I feel quite naked. But Grace told me you always wear a dinner jacket, so I just wanted to wear something to – to go with what you’re wearing.” She smiled, and the Major felt more years melt away from him. The boy’s desire to kiss her welled up again. “Besides,” she added, “a shalwar kameez isn’t exactly a costume for me.”