Unholy Writ

by David Williams

  Trapp had cleared a floor area large enough to accommodate a canvas approximately six feet by ten feet wide. The subject and artistic merit of the painting before him would hardly have justified even its removal from the upright position against the cellar Wall where Trapp had discovered it two months before. A charitable critic might have described the rural scene it depicted as ‘after Constable’, meaning that it was a long way behind the work of that English genius in terms of style and execution. If the artist had lacked ability she (for the picture was signed ‘Ella Clare Symington, 1862’) had not been wanting in courage. The canvas was large, and it was filled. It was also true to say that, following an exhaustive examination of everything contained in the cellar, the picture was the only object Trapp had considered worthy of further attention.

  A similar search in the attic of his previous vicarage had brought to light two flower-enamelled chamber pots, later incontestably proved to be early Victorian. Trapp had found a ready market for these at a price of forty pounds, a sum he had forwarded, he thought appropriately, to the Distressed Gentlefolks Aid Association. Nothing so immediately marketable had been revealed in the cellar at Mitchell Stoke, and Trapp was not so ingenuous as to believe that age of itself would invest the unframed painting before him with any value that would not be cancelled by its near hideous appearance. He was aware, however, that artists’ materials were expensive and that a clean canvas of such dimensions might bring a reasonable price. Indeed, he had been assured of this fact by the young lady at the arts and crafts shop in Exeter, where he had gone for advice the day before. Now he was beginning what he assumed would be the comparatively simple job of cleaning off the paint with white spirit and cloth. The half-hour he had in hand before Maggie Edwards’s funeral was time enough to make a start at least on one corner of the canvas to see if the process worked.

  As he began his labour he resolved that the proceeds from the sale of the cleaned canvas should be donated to the Clergy Widows’ Fund. He had earlier established that Ella Clare Symington had been the wife of Harold Clifton Symington, Vicar of St John’s, Mitchell Stoke, from 1861 to 1907. He mused also on the propriety of suggesting to the Secretary of the Clergy Widows’ Fund that art lessons might be included amongst the benefits dispensed.

  Chapter Five

  Lunch at the Dower House was frugal in content and short in duration. Moonlight himself was withdrawn and preoccupied. He was evidently not disposed to discuss reacquiring Mitchell Hall in the presence of his wife, and Treasure, like every good banker, assumed he had been treated to a confidence although he had not been specifically cautioned on the point. True, he found it curious that Elizabeth might not yet be party to a proposition which so largely affected her. He engaged Elizabeth in general conversation for the short period they were all together in the dining-room, but he felt an unaccustomed relief when the meal was over.

  The Moonlight household was one in which both host and hostess left guests to fend for themselves between mealtimes. Treasure found this an admirably civilized habit, and particularly welcome in the circumstances. He intended wasting no time in following up the promise he had made to Moonlight.

  Giving every appearance of being a gentleman engaged on a post-prandial stroll, Treasure directed his steps from the Dower House towards the Hall, crossing the gravelled area that marked the way between the two houses on their southern sides. In view of Timothy Trapp’s experience earlier in the day he was conscious that he risked being treated as a trespasser – forewarned, even though he had abjured the precaution of being forearmed.

  As Treasure drew level with the main building of the Hall the point Moonlight had made about the slope of the ground became clear. The church itself, though appearing to be set on high ground when viewed from the road, was in fact a good deal less elevated than the Hall.

  Although it was only a little after two o’clock, the army of Filipinos was busily employed about its allotted task, evidence that Scarbuck was not given to including lengthy lunch-breaks in his packaged tours. Treasure was relieved to observe that his approach – or perhaps the manner of his coming – had not given rise to the kind of excitement that had punctuated the Vicar’s sudden appearance over the wall. He noted, however, that his progress was being marked by the overalled overseer of the work force. If challenged, Treasure had already made up his mind to express innocent surprise about his lack of right to reach the church by the way he had chosen. He stopped as he drew near the earthworks both to offer earnest of his intention by his demeanour and to gratify a genuine interest. As he expected, this prompted a reaction from the overseer who came towards him, not with indecent haste, but with the purposeful aim of a park keeper about to admonish someone for not keeping off the grass. The man’s gait was unusual in a way that was not entirely accounted for by his cumbersome attire. He seemed to be leaning backwards as he walked, and his arms which he swung from the elbows were not in exact rhythm with his legs – like some raw and unsuitable recruit on an army parade ground.

  ‘Excuse me, but this is private property, you know.’ The voice was heavily affected, and following this opening pronouncement the speaker’s whole body was momentarily contorted by a nervous wiggle, culminating in a toss of the head. The performance so far would have been described by Treasure’s actress wife as distinctly ‘camp’. The speaker looked to be in his late thirties. His complexion was pale, and his features gaunt. His wiry hair was close cropped at the sides, leaving a mane like the bristles of a scrubbing brush in the centre.

  ‘I do beg your pardon,’ said Treasure, ‘I’m afraid I’m here by force of habit. Thoughtless of me to forget there’s a new owner in residence. My name is Mark Treasure, by the way. I’m staying with my cousins the Moonlights.’ He proffered his hand.

  ‘Oh,’ said the other, visibly mellowing as the two shook hands, ‘well, I don’t suppose Mr Scarbuck would mind really, it’s just that I have my orders. I’m Eustace Dankton.’

  ‘Not the Eustace Dankton?’ replied Treasure, registering a surprise he did not in the least feel.

  ‘Well, I suppose so,’ Dankton almost purred. ‘I mean I don’t think there’s another one.’ This he followed with a demure toss of the head.

  ‘Of course, I know you well by reputation,’ lied Treasure, continuing quickly before he could be quizzed on this almost entirely unsupported statement. ‘I suppose Mr Scarbuck has invited you here to keep an eye open for historical revelations while this kind of work is going on.’ He nodded towards the excavation.

  The hapless Dankton looked anything but the noted expert ‘invited’ to maintain a scholarly watchfulness over the proceedings, but he was only too ready to act the role he had just been credited despite appearances. ‘Well that’s exactly why I’m here,’ he said in a tone that was almost confidential, ‘but really I have to behave more like a works foreman with these little foreign busies hacking about at will; you can’t take your eye off them for a minute. I must look an absolute mess in this rig; too degrading really, but Mr Scarbuck insists they –’ waving an arm in the general direction of the ‘foreign busies’ – ‘only recognize authority in uniform.’

  ‘You look very appropriately dressed for a mucky job,’ said Treasure encouragingly, taking a pace backward the better to admire Dankton’s ridiculous appearance. ‘Tell me, have you unearthed anything of interest?’

  ‘Not a bloody thing. We’ve got the foundations of the pavilion that once stood here, of course.’

  ‘I can see that,’ observed Treasure, ‘and it appears to have had a cellar. Wouldn’t that have been unusual? I know the house well, and I don’t recall there being a cellar beneath the eastern pavilion.’

  ‘Oh, you never know with these places. This pavilion, or rather the one that used to be here, was probably a picture gallery. A cellar underneath could have had several uses … apart from keeping out the damp.’

  Treasure moved nearer the workings, and after some slight hesitancy his companion fell in beside him. They stopped
just short of the gaping hole. ‘I see you have this side covered over,’ said Treasure, indicating the huge tarpaulin draped down the left-hand wall of the deep rectangle.

  ‘That’s just to protect the er … the drain they’re cutting for the swimming pool,’ Dankton said uncertainly, ‘in case of rain. Really I know nothing about the technicalities. Heavens above, I’m an antiquarian not a plumber.’ This last protest appeared to be addressed not so much to Treasure as to the world at large, and with some feeling.

  ‘Absolutely right, Eustace,’ said a voice behind them. It was Scarbuck who had come upon them unseen around the vast mound of earth that had covered his arrival from the house, ‘but we’ll make a gaffer of you yet.’ He eyed Treasure keenly. ‘Mr Mark Treasure, if I’m not mistaken?’

  ‘Quite right,’ replied Treasure, bowing slightly, ‘but how …’

  ‘Oh come, Mr Treasure, I read the Financial Times, you know. They print your picture often enough, and I’ve watched you discussing money matters on the television. I thought it was you I saw arriving as I was leaving the Dower House this morning. Nice people, the Moonlights. There’s quality there; blood will out no matter what they say.’

  Treasure accepted this tribute to his kinsmen without demur. ‘Yes, and it’s strange to think of them as no longer the owners of this lovely house.’

  ‘Ah, times and circumstances change, Mr Treasure. But better have me here who’ll look after it than have the place fall down.’

  Before Treasure could follow up a remark volunteered in precisely the direction he wanted the conversation to take, all three men were distracted by the sounds of a powerful, diesel-engined vehicle drawing up at the entrance to Mitchell Hall.

  ‘That’ll be the coach with all the lads,’ cried Scarbuck, straightening his multicoloured headgear and brushing both his shoulders to ensure that no speck of dandruff further besmirched the national standard his jacket already so sadly defaced. ‘All the regional leaders of Forward Britain; many prominent men amongst them, Mr Treasure. You’ll no doubt know some of them – Griffith Speke-Jones MP for one.’ And as though that probably exhausted the list of those members celebrated enough actually to be recognized: ‘Come along with me, Mr Treasure, and say hello.’

  The invitation was pointedly addressed to Treasure and not to Dankton, a fact which the latter accepted resignedly, remaining where he was standing as his employer drew Treasure away towards the side of the Hall. ‘They’re a grand bunch; patriots to a man. They’re here for a day’s relaxation – dinner tonight at the Hall and a round of golf in the morning. Most will be staying at The Bell, but I’ve got rooms ready for the top brass here in the house – no denigration intended of course, just not enough beds at the moment. Happen a few will be happier staying in a hotel in any case.’

  As the two rounded the corner of the Hall the party of patriots was disgorging from the motor-coach. Most of the members bore the slightly dazed look common to those in polyglot parties of tourists thrown together on sightseeing tours of stately homes with nothing more in common than a shared conveyance. There was none of the hearty camaraderie that Treasure had expected. On the contrary, there was little conversation between members of the party arranging rather than assembling itself in the drive. There were some thirty persons in all; some stood alone, others formed small groups evidently in accordance with social standing. Treasure quickly noted this last point. Forward Britain clearly encompassed all classes of people amongst its leaders, but just as obviously failed to integrate them. One small group looked, to a man, the superannuated product of Sandhurst fallen on hard times – the bearing upright, the clothing good but weathered. Another group, much younger but far less at ease, Treasure assessed as middle management over-dressed, for safety, in business suits, and now regretting the caution in the context of the surroundings.

  The largest and most animated group, clothed uniformly in dark blazers and grey trousers, could have been mistaken for half a touring cricket team. Treasure had no difficulty placing these since he recognized one of their number as a particularly arrogant young trade union official whose achievements in terms of personal publicity via the television screen seemed somehow not to be matched by his relative unimportance, or lack of matching progress, in his chosen calling. Then there was Griffith Speke-Jones.

  As Scarbuck had expected, Treasure certainly recognized the one member of the party with a national reputation. The origins of Mr Speke-Jones were obscure and, apart from the studied maintenance of a marked Welsh accent, he had done his best to ensure that they remained so. In fact he had been the second son of a minor bank official in the Rhondda Valley. With the aid of scholarships and grants – plus a good deal of parental sacrifice – he had graduated through a lesser public school and a provincial university to a political career at a fairly early age – achieved and maintained more by guile than through any ideological commitment.

  Speke-Jones had virtually made a profession of being all things to all men. His vulnerable position on the extreme right of the Labour Party was sustained only by a loyalty born of undeserved respect on the part of a sufficient, but latterly diminishing, number of constituents in a south-east London borough. These people, to a man – and woman, indeed especially the women – accepted his vague but colourful references to an upbringing of extreme poverty in the South Wales of the Depression, and many would have sworn he had gone shoeless and threadbare to school, although he had never actually told them so. The voters who remained faithful to Speke-Jones did so from a sense of self-identification. After all, he was one like them, but risen from an underprivileged position and thus qualified to be a worthy representative of the working man. He owned no such respect in Wales, a country he avoided visiting, though privately admitting that it was a good place to be from. He maintained two motor-cars – a large Jaguar for normal use, and a red Morris Mini for trips to his constituency.

  While paying occasional lip-service to the doctrinaire socialist policies of the Party he was supposed to be representing, and always voting in the right lobby on major issues, Speke-Jones had usually to be summoned by pocket radio receiver to evening Divisions in the House, either from the private dining tables of his many wealthy patrons, or from their West End clubs, at least on those few occasions when he had not succeeded in getting himself ‘paired’. He enjoyed a standard of living that was not afforded or reflected by the size of his parliamentary stipend. The real source of his substantial income was as difficult to verify as the stories circulated about the deprivations surrounding his early life – though at least one of Her Majesty’s Tax Inspectors had been conscientiously applying himself to resolving the first conundrum for a number of years.

  Treasure had found himself in the same company as Speke-Jones on several occasions, mostly at public dinners. He would nevertheless have hesitated before owning personal acquaintance with the politician.

  ‘I’ve no doubt you two know each other.’ This was Scarbuck presenting Speke-Jones.

  ‘Oh, very well indeed,’ said Speke-Jones running to form. ‘Lovely to have you with us,’ he continued, introducing a second presumption, and one that Treasure decided to correct.

  ‘How d’you do,’ he said pointedly. ‘I’m hardly with you, I’m afraid. I just happen to be staying with some cousins next door.’

  ‘You mean you’re not one of us – not yet anyway; not one of those chosen to lead Britain forward?’ Speke-Jones spoke half jocularly but loud enough for the statement to be caught by those standing near. ‘Well, never mind; time enough, I’m sure.’

  ‘Excuse me, won’t you?’ put in Scarbuck before Treasure had the opportunity to reply. ‘A word of welcome.’ He hurried to the top of the steps leading to the main door of Mitchell Hall. ‘Friends,’ he cried from this commanding position, arms outstretched to indicate that this salutation included all those within earshot.

  Only the driver of the motor-coach engaged in unloading golf-bags from the boot of his vehicle chose modestly to exclude himself f
rom this amicable verbal embrace. The others drew nearer the speaker in the first demonstration of solidarity since their arrival. Treasure decided to linger for a moment at the rear of the group.

  Chapter Six

  ‘Friends,’ Scarbuck repeated, ‘and if we aren’t that, what are we …’

  Judging from the furtive, sidelong glances produced by this rhetorical question, Treasure wondered whether he was the only one present who, if pressed, might have volunteered a discouraging reply.

  ‘Friends in advertency, comrades in the army of the right, crusaders in the cause …’ Scarbuck consulted some notes … ‘in the cause of freeing this great nation from its shekels …’ he looked closer at the notes … ‘its shekels. Welcome to Mitchell Hall where “King and Country” has been the rallying cry for centuries on end – “Queen and Country” it is now of course, but it’s the sentiment that counts.’

  This last impromptu tribute to women’s rights produced involuntary murmers of ‘hear, hear’ from the Sandhurst set. The rest of the audience was unmoved.

  ‘From now onwards these historic precincts will be the nerve-centre of our great movement,’ Scarbuck continued. ‘Some of you will rest tonight within its hospitable wards … er … walls. The others will be comfortably accommodated in a nearby hostelry, please see the instructions on your invitations.’

  Those in the middle-management group, and to a man, dutifully unzipped the document cases they were carrying and produced pieces of paper which they then studiously examined as though for the first time.

  ‘Today you’re here for well-earned relaxation and recreation. Soon, though, Mitchell Hall will be converted into a place for study and instruction, a national centre for pilgrims ready to become apostles.’ Scarbuck paused, searching his notes for more material, but finding none continued uncertainly. ‘I’m not making a speech to you now, that’ll come after dinner …’