This comment was hardly appropriate coming from the confessed employer and assumed protector of those same little heathen, but to Trapp it seemed exactly characteristic of the speaker he had been assessing with increasing horror for the half-hour or so that had elapsed since he had been set upon by six apparently crazed Filipinos.
‘It’s unlikely they’re actually heathen, you know, Scarbuck,’ commented Major-General Sir Arthur Moonlight, Bart, DSO. ‘The Roman Catholic Church got at most of the Filipinos years ago. Of course, your lot could be part of the Islamic minority.’ He implied from his tone that there might in any case be little to choose between followers of the Pope of Rome and those owing their allegiance to Mohammed. The Moonlights had long since found it politic to join the Established Church.
‘Judging by the respect they show for the cloth I’d guess they’re Mohammedans,’ put in Trapp, looking ruefully at a long width of cassock hem that hung irregularly around his ankles. ‘Catholic Filipinos might not have laid into a priest with quite so much enthusiasm.’
‘They’ll not lay into anyone, most of them, for a while,’ said Scarbuck. ‘I’ll bet you’ve been an exhibitionist in your time, Vicar.’ Trapp trusted he caught the speaker’s meaning. ‘The two you tackled might just be fit for work this afternoon. Let’s hope so, anyway; I’ve got to pack the lot of them north tonight and home next Friday.’
The three men were seated in the study of the Dower House. The Vicar seemed wholly composed after his adventure which had culminated in the laying out of one further assailant and the retreat of four others, just as the curious figure of George Scarbuck had hurried on to the scene from the direction of Mitchell Hall. Scarbuck had introduced himself as the new owner of the Hall, a claim Trapp had found even more astonishing than the reception he had received after tumbling off the wall. The two had stood for a while to talk before walking across the garden front of the Hall to the Dower House – Trapp’s original destination.
Scarbuck, a paunchy sixty, looked wholly unconvincing in the role of new lord and master of an Oxfordshire country estate (albeit a severely contracted one), and this in sharp contrast to the tall, text-book military appearance of the previous owner.
Sir Arthur Moonlight had succeeded to the title at the age of twenty-four. Already embarked on a successful career in the regular army, he had no taste for farming, and had found over the years that his progress as a military engineer was in no way complemented by the often necessarily remote control management of a fifteen-hundred-acre estate. He had in consequence sold all his farm land twenty years since to his not altogether grateful tenants who had found the price of fifty pounds an acre steep if not actually outrageous. Most of them had later discovered that milking the rich burghers of Reading and London was an infinitely more profitable pursuit than doing the same to Jersey cows, and had made impressive fortunes by dividing pasture land into large and desirable building plots. Indeed, the farmers having acquired a distinctly non-agrarian zeal for self if not local improvement, it was only the intervention of a prescient Government – and the predictable and outraged objections of the burghers by then in situ – that had prevented the later conversion of Mitchell Stoke into a minor metropolis. The farmers had subsequently returned to expensively equipped, mechanized husbandry, the burghers had arranged the construction of a golf-course, and Sir Arthur Moonlight had come to regret his initial benevolence.
Six years ago, Moonlight had retired from the army. A distinguished soldier, he was also a respected authority on the history of military architecture. The subject being one that had proved to be of less than consuming interest to contemporary historians, it could be said that Moonlight had cornered the market – such as it was – for commentaries on any aspect of his speciality that editors considered worthy of an airing. Even so, calls for enlightenment on the placement of Welsh castles or the distribution of Martello Towers were not matters of daily occurrence. Indeed, the General had seriously over-estimated the extra monies he had expected to enjoy in fees and royalties from his occasional lectures and writing. These proved to be hardly a significant supplement to the income from his capital and a service pension traditionally geared to the winter rates of south coast three-star hotels.
The ravages of inflation had so sadly decreased the value of his income from all sources that after three years Moonlight had decided to improve his lot by throwing open Mitchell Hall to what he had confidently assumed would be an eager public. This action proved as costly as it was disastrous.
After two seasons, Sir Arthur was obliged to cut the heavy losses in capital expenditure involved in completely redecorating and largely refurbishing the house. The seventy-eight persons who had up to that time seen fit to visit the premises at 5op a head had done little to compensate for the cost either of the interior improvements or the exterior additions. These had included an extensive car-park and other necessary amenities, although the Moonlights had stopped short of a fun-fair, a zoo, or any other kind of addition aimed at making a cultural expedition more digestible for common people. This was probably a mistake. In any event, Mitchell Hall had been put up for sale, and Arthur Moonlight and his wife Elizabeth had moved into the Dower House next door.
Sadly, the availability of one of Britain’s least known country houses had not produced a charge of willing buyers. Twelve bedrooms and eight acres of Green Belt garden might have had their attractions in another age. But even the proximity of the M4 motorway and the existence of a spanking new, well-equipped ladies’ and gentlemen’s convenience behind the forecourt shrubbery had failed to enthuse either the property speculator or the rich industrialist searching for evidence of an impressive provenance.
The fact was that Mitchell Hall was too good to pull down, but not good enough to be worth maintaining. It was too large as a home, and too small for institutional use. And it had stuck.
In normal circumstances General Sir Arthur Moonlight would not have entertained the notion of suffering George Scarbuck as a neighbour, let alone as the purchaser of the ancestral home of the Moonlights. But circumstances were not normal. Mitchell Hall had been on the market for eighteen months without an offer from any source when Scarbuck appeared one morning in late March. After the most cursory tour of the premises, and without so much as a glance at the garden, he had offered Moonlight a cheque for £200,000 in return for immediate possession. Since this sum was £50,000 beyond Moonlight’s wildest expectations he had accepted with alacrity, conscious that if he was obliged to repent at leisure, he could now afford to do so in some comfort.
The transaction had taken place only three weeks ago, but Scarbuck had clearly wasted no time in pursuing his intentions for Mitchell Hall.
‘Anny and me are going to make this our real home,’ he had explained to Timothy Trapp earlier, and immediately following the one-man rout of Scarbuck’s private army. ‘Anny’s the wife; you’ll meet her soon – not here yet though; place’s not fit for a pig at the moment’ – a comment presumably not intended to reflect adversely on Mrs Scarbuck, and one that in any case seemed curiously wide of the truth.
Trapp debated whether he could take all this as intimation that the new owner of Mitchell Hall intended to lop off the top floor or simply to convert the basement into a giant cocktail bar. His companion gave every appearance of being capable of either or worse excess. Scarbuck was draped in a red, white and blue blazer which erratically followed the design of the Union Jack. It had clearly taxed the ingenuity of some conscientious but singularly insensitive tailor to produce this outrageous article of clothing, which gave its wearer the appearance, in naval parlance, of being dressed over-all. In addition he wore a bow tie of similar design, and a cap of the type favoured by American golfers, also apparently fashioned from the National flag with the title FORWARD BRITAIN emblazened in large gold letters above the peak.
‘Mitchell Hall will soon become the centre for the Movement,’ continued Scarbuck, and as though the meaning of this statement was self-evident went on,
‘That’s a dog and a half you’ve got there.’
A few minutes earlier Scarbuck had unlocked and opened the gate into the churchyard through which Bach had emerged in credible emulation of a racing greyhound in hot pursuit of a very fast-moving electric hare. He was now poised aggressively atop a massive mound of earth piled just below the place where the orangery had stood, barking fiercely at things in general because the scene offered too much choice for him to single out anything in particular. But if the sights and actions before him prompted loud remark from the Vicar’s dog, they were even more remarkable to the Vicar himself.
The orangery had been replaced by a hole, the proportions of which made Horace Worple’s current excavation in the graveyard look very small beer indeed. Forty feet long and twenty feet wide – or so Trapp judged – the hole matched the surface proportions of the eastern pavilion that occupied the balancing site on the far side of the Hall from where he and Scarbuck were standing. More Filipinos than had been involved in the fracas were engaged in digging, shovelling and transporting earth; some were fixing a lining of wooden props around the inside of the deepening excavation, the floor of which sloped downwards at the southern end. The side nearest the churchyard wall was draped to its full depth by a giant piece of tarpaulin.
Overseeing the whole antlike operation was a gaunt, sallow-faced European dressed in blue overalls that would have been several sizes too large for him had he not evidently been wearing an overcoat as well as normal clothing underneath. As it was, the overalls produced a distinctly bell-tentish effect around the man’s upper thighs. He looked unused to artisan’s clothing, uncomfortable, and judging from his expression, uneasy – all at the same time. He had emerged from the Hall behind Scarbuck earlier, but had not spoken to Trapp while supervising the removal of the two dazed labourers and motioning the others back to work. Now he was eyeing Bach from the north end of the hole with undisguised distaste, as were all the diminutive labourers. As the man turned to give an order in what appeared to be sign language to one of the workers, Trapp noticed that the words SCARBUCK CONSTRUCTION were stencilled on the back of his overalls.
‘Heel, Bach!’ cried the Vicar, more in the hope than the belief that the animal would pay the least attention. ‘Biscuit!’ he added, this being the only summons guaranteed to produce a response. The dog immediately abandoned an interest which was in any case beginning to pall and bounded back to his master. Timothy Trapp was often given to wishing that the cry ‘boiled beef and carrots’ issued from the church porch would bring parishioners to worship with equal alacrity.
‘It’s a swimming pool,’ volunteered Scarbuck, which, at least served to banish the thought from Trapp’s mind that open-cast mining had been started mot ten yards from the church’s boundary. ‘Ten feet at the deep end, ceramic lining, it’ll be a tidy job when it’s done … Anny likes a dip, so do I, come to that. You get more buoyancy with depth.’
‘The workers,’ Trapp enquired, ‘they’re not – er – local?’
‘No, they’re not, they’re Filipinos,’ Scarbuck answered. ‘I bring ’em over by charter plane, two hundred at a time on a month’s holiday as you might say.’ This statement was accompanied by a conspiratorial wink. ‘Then off they go home at the end of four weeks with fifty quid in their pockets; fortune to them, that is. Grand little workers too; not skilled, you understand, and don’t speak a word of English, except for the foreman that is, the one who jumped you, and he only speaks “pidgin”. These twelve are from a gang I’ve got on a big site up north … It’s a fiddle really,’ he ended, in a tone that implied he thought it was nothing of the sort.
‘You mean they’re not supposed to work in this country. The Government or somebody might object?’
‘Well, that’s it in theory,’ replied Scarbuck, ‘but who’s to know they’re not tourists? Anyway, you can’t get British labourers for the mucky, low-paid jobs any more, and “spades” take for ever.’ He paused, then continued meaningfully, ‘They’ll stay here for ever too if we go on paying ’em the earth.’
It took a moment for Trapp to work out from these last remarks that Scarbuck considered coloured immigrants were slow workers, and in his opinion undesirable residents. The nature of the FORWARD BRITAIN movement began to take shape in the mind of the honorary chaplain to the Oxfordshire branch of the Race Relations Committee.
‘Careful little chaps too,’ continued Scarbuck, unaware of the seeds of hostility he was sowing in the mind of his clerical companion. ‘On a job like this you may need delicate handling now and again. Valuable bits and pieces come out of historical ’oles; it’s not work for bull-dozers. We’ve got nowt of value here so far but you never can tell. That’s why I’ve got Eustace Dankton on the job.’ He nodded towards the sorrowful figure in overalls. ‘Doesn’t know a pick from a shovel, that one,’ Scarbuck continued, ‘but he’s the right man to have around this site. Very distinguished antiquararian and bible-ographer.’ Scarbuck had brought off a double. ‘Ever heard of him?’
Trapp shook his head.
‘No, well, perhaps he’s not as famous as he makes out. The fuss he kicks up having to stand about while this is going on, you’d think he was Sir Mortimer Whatsit. He just came in to complain before you landed off the wall. Anyroad, he’ll have to stay there the rest of the morning while Johnnie – he’s the foreman – gets over that tumble you gave him.’
‘I’m sorry about that, but …’ Trapp began.
‘It’s not for you to be sorry, Vicar. In fact I take it very kindly you’re not prosecuting for assault with a deadly weapon.’ Scarbuck paused. ‘You’re not, are you?’
‘Of course not,’ replied the Vicar, who had returned the night before from three weeks field training with a unit of Royal Marine Commandos – an uncommon form of ‘retreat’ for a country parson, and one that in this case fortunately revived skills not normally required for safe progress on the broadwalks of English country houses.
‘Good,’ said Scarbuck, evidently much relieved. ‘Fact is, there are a lot of queer customers about this village at the moment and Johnnie’s been told to warn off strangers – not with a knife, you understand. He exceeded orders there; wouldn’t have happened if Dankton had been at his post. Silly sod. Oh, sorry, Vicar,’ he added hurriedly, glaring with deepened disapproval at his cultural adviser, who Trapp imagined must be drawing very handsome compensation indeed for the insults as well as the inconvenience he appeared to be suffering.
‘By the way, that’s the reason I’ve had a new lock put on that gate – the trespassers, I mean,’ continued Scarbuck. Trapp waited for the promise he knew must follow. ‘I’ll let you have a key,’ said Scarbuck and then, unexpectedly, ‘in a day or two.’ So sentence was delayed.
‘Please don’t trouble,’ pleaded the Vicar with more sincerity than Scarbuck was likely to credit. ‘It’s really just as easy for me to get to the Dower House by the road.’
This statement had been patently untrue. The church, Mitchell Hall, and the Dower House lay in a straight line running east, in that order, set back from the main street of the village. The church occupied a corner site. Below it the road turned left to run parallel with the river, though some two hundred yards from its bank. The vicarage lay next to the church around the bend in the road. In calling on the Moonlights the Vicar had invariably used a roughly diagonal route through the churchyard. With the Hall unoccupied, the walk from his garden, through the churchyard, and across the garden front of the Hall had been as agreeable as it had been convenient. As he continued this way with the embarrassingly conspicuous Scarbuck at his side, he resolved to go by the road in future.
As they had entered the Dower House, Trapp had been curious to observe what kind of reception Moonlight would offer the new owner of Mitchell Hall. It proved to be warmer than he expected, though Moonlight who was usually relaxed and self-possessed showed a mild apprehension in his manner. Trapp had thought this probably a normal enough reaction in persons confronted by the curiously adorned S
carbuck. Even so, it appeared that Scarbuck had been expected, though he had not mentioned the fact on the way. Thus it was that Trapp felt he might be intruding. Bach showed no misgivings about the extent of the welcome due to him. After a short re-familiarization tour of the study, he settled at Moonlight’s feet – a considered act of flattery which he invariably employed in houses where the floor coverings were softer than those at the Vicarage.
Following the exchange on the subject of Trapp’s earlier adventure with the Filipinos, neither Moonlight nor Scarbuck made reference to the reason for their meeting. Trapp was thus prompted to get his own small business over and to depart. ‘The funeral service for Maggie Edwards will be at two-thirty,’ he said, addressing Moonlight. ‘I wondered whether you might like …’
‘Of course we’ll be there, Timothy,’ put in Moonlight. ‘Most unfortunate. I suppose she’ll be sadly missed in the village. Heart attack. Very sudden.’ He looked down at the pipe he was grooving.
‘Yes,’ said Trapp carefully. ‘I suppose that’s what it was – brought on by over-exertion. She was tidying up the grass around the Acropolis; probably overdid it for a woman of her age, collapsed and died. But I was forgetting, it was Lady Elizabeth who found her, wasn’t it? – or so Mrs Banquet told me.’
The lady last named was invariably the principal and first messenger of gloomy tidings in the life of Timothy Trapp. Mrs Banquet was his non-resident housekeeper who arrived at the vicarage each day shortly after breakfast for three hours, returning for a shorter session after lunch. This was a mutually convenient arrangement. Mr Banquet, a man of few words – most of them unprintable – was gardener at several houses in the vicinity. His loquacious wife had been delighted to ‘oblige the Vicar, poor soul’, as she put it, since with two sons grown up and departed the family home, she had time on her hands. From experience in two former parishes, Trapp preferred not to have a housekeeper live in, and since engaging Mrs Banquet his resolve in this connection had strengthened.
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