A Village in Jeopardy (Turnham Malpas 16)

by Shaw, Rebecca

  But on the Monday morning after Jake had gone back to Cambridge, Johnny rang up the big house and asked to see Mr Fitch. ‘It’s imperative I see him.’

  His secretary, Anne, still hanging on to a job she loved and also out of sympathy for Mr Fitch, whom she’d grown to like, answered him by saying, ‘Hold the line a moment, Sir Johnny, I’ll ask.’

  Mr Fitch’s answer was a begrudging, ‘Very well, then.’ Which Anne translated into ‘He’d be delighted to see you. Are you coming right now?’

  ‘I’ll walk up.’

  ‘Good! I’ll get the coffee on.’

  For some reason Johnny had not heard about the impending sale of the estate to Freedom Blade. Somehow he’d been out of the loop of village gossip, mainly because Alice had not been well – nothing specific, but the pregnancy was taking its toll on her vitality and Johnny was endeavouring to ease her burden of driving here and there to give piano lessons by driving himself and then sitting listening to the radio while she did the teaching in people’s houses. He’d discussed with her several times about taking life easier, but she would not listen. ‘I have rates to pay, food to buy, car insurance due, road fund tax due; I have to have money, Johnny.’

  ‘But I have explained, I can pay those for you.’

  ‘I know you can.’

  ‘In fact, I’d love to pay them because I love you, you see. I don’t want you to have worries.’

  Then she’d burst into tears and the whole argument was put back on the shelf still unresolved. He couldn’t understand about her need for independence. ‘Are you afraid I shan’t go through with the wedding? Is that it? Even if I have to drag you up the aisle by your beautiful hair I will marry you.’

  ‘Why doesn’t Marcus get on with the divorce? Every letter he gets takes him ages to deal with.’

  ‘Alice! Don’t you see? He doesn’t want to lose you. That’s why.’

  ‘I’m sorry Johnny, but if you’d seen the way he treated me when he was here you wouldn’t say that.’

  Johnny had shot to his feet when she said that. ‘You don’t mean he used to hit you? Do you?’

  ‘No, no. Not Marcus. He wasn’t like that. He was neglectful because he thought his writing was so important, much more important than me.’

  Johnny had knelt beside her and put his arms around her. ‘I’d never think that. Ever. You are the first woman in the world I have ever wanted to marry, and I will. Believe me.’

  Alice had put a hand either side of his loving face and kissed his lips. ‘Thank you for saying that, and you’re the only man in all the world I wish to marry. If only fate had brought us together earlier. If only.’

  ‘Well, fate has now, and we will marry. I know we will.’

  ‘You’ve given up on buying the estate, have you?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘I understand someone is interested, but I can’t for the life of me remember his name. Somebody really odd and unexpected.’

  That statement was what had triggered him off into marching up the drive of Turnham House and tackling Mr Fitch. Despite having a perfectly good car, Johnny walked all the way up the drive because of the thrill he got when the house came into view. He liked it to come steadily into view like it must have done for generations before cars were invented. He wondered if Alice had realised where he had gone.

  If it were possible Mr Fitch looked even worse this morning. Johnny offered to shake hands but he refused to make the effort. All he did in greeting was nod towards the chair opposite his own. Anne came in with coffee and placed it close to Johnny as though inviting him to pour.

  ‘Shall I?’ asked Johnny. Anne nodded and left the office, leaving the door very slightly open so she could hear from her own desk what was being said, for Anne knew things were critical today.

  As Johnny passed him his coffee, Mr Fitch asked, ‘You’ve heard then?’

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘About my buyer.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought that was why you were here in such good time. If all goes well I shall have it signed and sealed by five o’clock tonight. That’s the deadline and he’s keen.’

  ‘Well,’ Johnny said, ‘you don’t look too chipper about it. You should be dancing on the rooftops.’

  ‘I am, except I’m doing it from down here.’

  ‘In that case you won’t mind telling me who’s the lucky man.’

  Craddock Fitch glared at him. Twice he opened his mouth to say it and twice changed his mind, and then he came out with it. ‘Freedom Blade.’

  Anne, listening hard from behind her desk, could hear the proverbial pin drop, then Johnny’s chair fall over as he stood up, and then his harsh voice saying, ‘My God, man! It’s sacrilege! How could you?’ Then Johnny burst out into peals of laughter. ‘You’ve caught me out. Now stop pulling my leg, and tell me the truth. Who’s buying it?’

  ‘Freedom Blade! Like I said.’

  Anne heard Johnny pull his chair up from the floor and by the sound of it he’d sat down again. She could only just hear him whisper, ‘So, you’re not joking.’

  She heard Mr Fitch give a kind of cracked laugh and say, ‘No. He’s got the cash; he’s signing it. It’s his once he’s done that. Five o’clock tonight. Thank heavens. I’ve signed, he’s signing, job done and I shall move out. One fewer problem.’

  ‘But you knew I wanted to buy it. You knew. I told you so.’

  Mr Fitch leant across the desk, and thumping his fist so hard on it he made his pen bounce, he said viciously, ‘I’d put a match to it rather than have you living in this house.’

  ‘Why? What have I done? I have the money, clean money too, I might add.’ If Anne could have seen Johnny’s face she would have been horrified by the bitter expression on it. She held her breath while waiting for Mr Fitch to reply.

  ‘Your Uncle Ralph, or should we pronounce it Rafe, eh? Him being who he was.’ Anne could sense the sneer on his face. ‘Always considered himself better than me, blue blood, public school, alma mater and all that jazz, then Oxford, then the diplomatic service, always the gentleman. Me! I pulled myself up out of the mire by my boot laces.’

  ‘I see.’ Johnny couldn’t resist pointing out that things were not so rosy now. ‘And look where it’s got you. You’ve lost everything. Every stick, every stone.’

  Mr Fitch leaped to his feet. ‘Get out! Go on! Get out.’

  Standing at the door ready to leave, Johnny said, ‘As God is my judge, I shall buy this house. It may not be this week or this month or this year even, but one day it will be mine.’ He made a fist of his right hand and held it up for Mr Fitch to see. ‘Mine!’

  Johnny went home to Alice and when she saw him she said, ‘Where’ve you been? You look upset.’

  ‘To see Mr Fitch.’

  ‘Not about buying the big house?’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Oh! Johnny.’

  ‘I’m too late anyway.’

  ‘Well, darling, I’m glad you’re too late. You know I don’t want to live there.’

  ‘Not even for me?’

  ‘No, not even for you. I’ll live in your uncle Ralph’s house but not the big house. Please don’t ask it of me. Well, you can’t now, can you? And I’m sorry I feel like this but I do. That house is just not me.’

  ‘But it’s what I want.’

  ‘We can’t always have what we want. Money doesn’t buy everything.’

  At that Johnny wept inside and sat brooding for most of the day. He always got his own way, because money did that for you. He’d so wanted that house, because that was where he belonged, where his ancestors had lived their lives for generations and it was within his grasp if only . . .

  At five o’clock he looked at his watch and thought, that’s that then. He had some photographs going back to the early twentieth century that the solicitor had given him. He got them out for the thousandth time and looked through them, feeling he’d let them all down by not buying their ancestral home.

&nbs
p; Here was his great-uncle Ralph dressed for cricket; he must have been about twelve years old. The other boys must have been cousins or friends from the village. There was definitely a likeness; it couldn’t be denied. Ralph’s cousins, the nose, the stature, the way they held themselves. Here were some girls who must have been their contemporaries, and a very old photo of a man who looked rakish and unreliable; was that his own grandfather or great-grandfather even? He looked the sort who’d have to take a risk and go out to South America to escape bother at home. Johnny had to smile. Should he go back to Brazil too? Take Alice with him. Did she love him enough to go all that way when she wouldn’t even move as far as the big house to be with him? But he was consumed by love for her and she for him so he’d have to content himself with living in Uncle Ralph’s own house and bringing up what they now knew to be his son in the village of his ancestors.

  Instead of sitting all evening studying his company’s end-of-year accounts to a background of Alice’s pupils coming for piano lessons, Johnny should have gone to the Royal Oak and heard the news that was buzzing at every table.

  ‘Well, come on then, Barry, tell all.’

  ‘Where’s my drink then? I need some lubrication.’

  Maggie agreed she’d get him his drink on the understanding that she sat next to him so she didn’t miss a word of his news. So they all shuffled up and left a space on the settle for her. She came back to the table and squeezed herself in; she really would have to lose weight. She put Barry’s drink in front of him, appropriately placed by chance on a mat with a picture of Turnham House on it from a set Dicky had made for the pub’s five hundredth anniversary celebrations, and waited to hear the events of the afternoon.

  ‘As it happens,’ said Barry, ‘I was in the hall, making a start on the Christmas decorations. Anne gets more ambitious as the years go by. She’d just gone to make me my mid-morning coffee – well, the second of the morning – very good she is at getting my coffee just right; she—’

  Maggie interrupted him. ‘It’s not your coffee we want to hear about, it’s what’s happened about the big house. Has old Fitch sold it? Yes or no.’

  ‘Anyway, I was in the hall by myself working away, when the phone rang. She didn’t come to answer it so eventually I put on my best voice, picked it up and said, Fitch Construction, how may I help?’

  ‘Well, they wanted to speak to Mr Fitch, but I didn’t know how to put the phone through so I asked them to hold, knocked on Mr Fitch’s door opened it and said, “It’s the phone, Mr Fitch. They want to speak to you.” “Who is it?” he asked. “Ah! I don’t know,” I said. He waved me away and pressed buttons on his own phone. So I shut the door and could hear as plain as day what he was saying on the phone, ’cos I still had the receiver in my hand.’ Barry, pausing for maximum effect, sipped his home brew.

  Scandalised by the thought of Barry deliberately listening in, Sylvia said, ‘Shouldn’t you have put the receiver down?’

  Willie, less moral on such matters, asked, ‘Well, what was he saying?’

  ‘I can’t repeat it. He used such foul language. One word I didn’t even know.’

  ‘Be a Cockney swearword I expect,’ Don remarked.

  ‘Anyway, turns out it was the solicitor, letting him know that there was some doubt about that Freedom chap coming through with the cash, and he thought Mr Fitch ought to know, apparently five o’clock today’s the deadline.’

  There was a chorus of ‘No-o-o-o’ from all over the bar, a noisy mixture of relief and disappointment.

  It was a few moments before Barry could continue his report. ‘The phone went dead, then Anne came back, gave me my coffee and rather sharply put the receiver back on. She gave me a filthy look and headed for his nibs’ office. “Anne,” I said, “he’s just had a phone call, sounds like bad news, so watch it.” She paused a minute to collect herself like and then went in and I could hear him exploding with temper. So altogether it’s been a terrible day.’

  ‘But what’s happened?’ they all asked.

  ‘Well, I’d finished everything in the hall by half past one so I left, but I called in before I went home to see if Anne was satisfied I’d done the Christmas things as she wanted, and believe me she’d aged and not half. I asked her straight out what the news was about the sale.’ He irritatingly took another sip of his home brew.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Mr Fitch ’as given him another twenty-four hours and then, if no money’s transferred . . .’ Barry concluded triumphantly with a chopping gesture to his throat and an appropriate gurgling sound.

  ‘It all sounds dodgy, doesn’t it? I mean, we don’t want someone like that Freedom chap here. It’s the fans and the all-night parties we don’t want either . . . but you have to feel a bit sorry for old Fitch, him being in such a fix.’ Willie swallowed the last of his home brew and sat silently gripping his empty glass, lost in thought.

  ‘We’ll have to hope he doesn’t hand the money over. Who’d want to welcome that horrible lot to our beautiful village? We’ve trained Mr Fitch to our way of thinking, haven’t we? Took a while but we did,’ Maggie reflected. ‘Well, more or less.’

  Chapter 18

  Craddock Fitch stormed about his office the following day in desperation. ‘I can’t believe it! He was so enthusiastic, loves the idea, seen the photos, can’t wait to move in and now he’s changed his mind. Kate, I’m really desperate now. Really desperate.’

  ‘Here’s a whisky to calm your nerves.’

  ‘I’m not supposed to.’

  ‘Well, just this once. Sit down, relax and let’s have a good think.’

  ‘You have a whisky too; not much fun on your own. Just wish I’d never said a word to anyone. I must look a right fool. A whisker away from selling and at five minutes to five he won’t sign. I wonder if there’s a law against that – taking someone right to the wire and then refusing.’ He rubbed his face to refresh himself, and groaned. ‘Kate, what the hell am I going to do? Financially I mean.’ He looked up at her, his face so close to hers as she leaned over to kiss him. After she’d kissed his cheek she said, ‘Well, at least you’ve still got me! If that’s any comfort.’

  ‘It is. How I would have managed without you I do not know. What shall we do, darling?’

  ‘Run away? Drown our sorrows? Go into hiding?’

  ‘That’s not us though, is it?’

  Kate laughed. ‘No, it isn’t. I know someone who’d buy it right now. This minute and all this worry would stop. Just like that.’ She clicked her fingers and waited his response.

  ‘That Johnny Templeton, you mean. Over my dead body.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be much use now, would it? And I certainly wouldn’t like it, believe me.’

  ‘I can’t bear the thought of that moneyed so and so living here.’

  ‘So you’re prepared to tear your guts out rather than snap his hand off for the money.’

  ‘Yes, that’s exactly right.’

  ‘It’s not right though, is it? What would be right is to allow a Templeton with clean money to come back into this house. It’s so right, and it’s in your hands to make it happen.’

  ‘Well, it won’t. I’m damned if I’ll allow it. That Ralph never liked me and I hated his ability to get his own way with his accent, and his reasonableness, and his paternalistic Lord of the Manor attitude. That council, who over the years had thousands of pounds from me slipped into their own pockets, were putty in his hands. Putty! And there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing.’

  Kate stood beside him and slipped her hand into his. ‘Which is better, total financial ruin or selling to a Templeton whose money has nothing to do with Sir Ralph, absolutely nothing at all? He’s fabulously wealthy in his own right. If that Freedom Blade did come up with the money imagine what damage he’d do to this village, that, let’s face it, we both love. And remember we’ll be living in it too, at Glebe House.’

  ‘He may not use Ralph’s own money to buy it, but he has Ralph’s blood in his veins
.’ He got up and walked to the window to stare silently out across the land. Glebe House! Huh! How he hated the idea of living there. So modern, so brash, so glitzy. His hand trailed along the window frame, tenderly caressing it. How he loved this place! He brushed away the tears that unexpectedly trickled down his cheeks. Was he really going to have to be grateful to Sir Johnny for his salvation? Damn it. No, he wouldn’t: anyone but him. He’d start up a new advertising campaign, different angle, new photos, different publications, he’d show ’em.

  Kate’s sweet attempt to make Johnny Templeton more acceptable to him had had an effect – not enough to make him change his mind, but enough to make him at least contemplate the possibility of Johnny living here; it would after all be the right thing to do. Better than that maniac Blade whose face was plastered across the tabloids this morning, him having been arrested for something or other . . . what on earth for? Something revolting, no doubt. He gripped Kate’s hand tightly, saying, ‘What a comfort you are to me.’

  ‘Will you think about letting him buy it, then?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  Johnny Templeton had other things on his mind this morning. Alice was not at all well. She kept getting sharp pains, not exactly contractions but almost. ‘But there’s five weeks to go; they can’t be real contractions, can they?’

  Alice shook her head. ‘I’ve no more experience than you about babies. I just don’t know. But if they’re not, what are they?’

  ‘I’m going to get Caroline. She’ll know.’

  ‘She’s never had one of her own and she isn’t an obstetrician.’

  ‘Look, Alice, let’s stay calm about this. OK. It may be the early stages of labour but if it is we’re only . . . what is it? Six miles from the hospital, so it won’t take five minutes to get there in the car. So you make sure you have a bag packed and I’ll get you there in time if things get . . .’ he was going to say ‘worse’ but changed his mind, ‘more advanced?’ Inside he was terrified. Being the eldest of the three brothers didn’t mean he knew anything about babies, because he was only four when his youngest brother was born and though he loved the idea of his son being born and holding him in his arms bathed and fresh-smelling and presentable, the actuality of the whole event was more than he could bear.