‘Oh, shut up, Nigel,’ Jasmine said, and took herself off.
Nigel was so pleased to have heard himself say, ‘I’m only the father,’ that he hardly minded his wife’s hostile and erratic behaviour. ‘I suppose she’ll stop running away from me when she actually has the child. Or will the doctor have to chase her round a field? I suppose this is normal?’ he asked his mother.
Lady Mary’s only comment was, ‘Well, I am blessed. Up to a week ago I had no grandchildren. Next year I’ll have acquired three. It’s splendid.’
‘A pity Dad couldn’t have lived,’ said Nigel.
Lady Mary looked towards the dining-room door and wondered, ‘Where’s Mrs Bleasdale? She’s taking her time.’
Nigel, now sitting in the drawing room arguing with his brother, still wondered why Jasmine had broken to him the news that she was pregnant with their first child and, he hoped, heir in such a peculiar way.
Sir Hugh Brown, summoned to Durham House for the discussions, sat near the window next to Charles Head. He looked out across the lawn and down to the lake. The composed landscape glowed in the sunshine. For two hundred years, tree by tree, it had been cared for, planted, pruned, ever since John Flowerdew, future father-in-law of the thrusting Yorkshire shipowner, had decided one day to get the sheep out of the field in front of the house. First he would make a pleasant outlook and then he would bend his efforts to marrying his daughter to a wealthy man, quickly, with no fuss about the man’s antecedents. This he had done. Since then the Fellowses had lived at Durham House. Thank God it’s entailed, thought Sir Hugh, fervently.
Charles Head was in a sweat. Nigel’s man, he’d been making his way nicely until the arrival of those black twins and now, worse, their father, which had really put the cat among the pigeons. Head was having serious thoughts about his own future now, especially as his particular baby, the beautiful Savernake Village, was threatened. The village that was to have been, in some senses, his monument. He’d planned to use it to prove his worth to the world for at least ten years and now, thanks to the arrival of this batty baronet, negligent, a communist, a man who, Head thought bitterly, had done nothing but be born into the right family, it looked as if the village might never happen.
Head glanced across at Claudia, at ease by the huge fireplace, patting the dog. She caught his glance and winked at him mockingly. He said to himself that Lady Mary must be deeply embarrassed at having produced a mad heir and a feminist daughter, not to mention the fact of baby Joseph, the future ninth baronet, being a darkie. But Lady Mary seemed unmoved, so supremely well bred, Head supposed, that no one would ever be able to guess how upset she really was. Lady Margaret’s husband, Jessop, summoned from the Highlands of Scotland where he preferred to be, was consuming his own whisky, made in his own distillery on his own estate and keeping quiet. He knew more about this situation than anyone thought and he suspected a great deal more than that.
Jessop’s aim was simply to use his knowledge and suspicions to limit the damage. There were a lot of skeletons in a lot of cupboards in this room, he thought, and it was now a case of keeping as many of them locked away as possible, or scandal, bad feeling and family break-up were on the cards.
Jasmine lay on a chaise longue opposite the fireplace, her feet naughtily on the upholstery, her intention to pretend to be asleep or nearly asleep. She was cornered now. She’d have to have the baby and hope it was Nigel’s or, if it wasn’t, that no one would find out – especially Nigel. The alternative was to tell him the child might not be his, which would lead to divorce. She sat up a bit and spotted the nurse leading Joseph and Miranda down the lawn. Children were nice, reflected Jasmine. On the other hand, if that particular pair had turned up earlier, there might have been less unspoken pressure on her from Nigel to produce an heir. Now she was stuck on a sofa, her hormones making her feel fed up, while Nigel battled for the unborn child. At least Sim’s arrival had made her husband a little less barmy than he’d been since his father died. She’d told no one about Ruth Pickering’s involvement in Sir Bernard’s death. There was no reason why, even at the trial of Mrs Hedges, it should come out. But it might, because things did. She saw Josie Fellows in shorts dashing down the lawn towards her children and turned her gaze on Nigel who was facing the room now, demanding, ‘What are you planning, Sim? We need answers, and we need them soon.’
Sim leant back in the chair by the fireplace, his long legs stuck out. Reaching into his trouser pocket he produced a cheap notebook, and said, ‘I’ve got my ideas written down, Nigel. Are you listening?’
‘Sit down, Nige,’ Claudia appealed. ‘You’re getting on people’s nerves.’
‘Maybe we should start with you,’ Nigel said aggressively. ‘With all this, don’t you think you could call off the lawyers? If you’re not satisfied with what you’ve got, we can come to an arrangement.’
‘No, Nigel,’ came Claudia’s voice, on a nursery note of protest. ‘No. It’s not fair. In any other family in the world, practically, Dad’s assets would be split between the three of us. It’s only in this kind of family the top boy gets almost everything, second boy the rest, and girls practically nothing. And look what confusion we’ve been in because of it. It won’t do, Nigel. It’s not fair. I’m not having my affairs pushed under the carpet and I’m not going to be paid off like a blackmailer. I’m not a blackmailer. I’m a disinherited person, and I’m going to get my inheritance. When some judge here, whose chief priority, like yours and everybody else’s, is to keep the land together at all costs tells me to get lost, I’m going from here to the European Courts.’
‘I’m on Claudia’s side,’ said Sim.
‘This practice, however old-fashioned, possibly even unjust-seeming it might be has maintained stability in England for hundreds of years.’ Sir Hugh spoke with authority. ‘And however much you want to help Claudia, Simon, you’ll be helping her at the expense of your own son.’
‘Then I have to help my son at the expense of his twin sister,’ suggested Sim. ‘In fact I’m here to disinherit everybody, aren’t I? Claudia, Nigel, Nigel’s coming child – and I can pass this legacy on to my son, so that when he grows up he can disinherit his sister and any other brothers and sisters he might have.’
‘The alternative,’ said Sir Hugh, ‘is that over the generations the land is continually divided and redivided until it turns into so many potato patches, bled away, sold off, used up. Can you really face beginning that process?’
‘That’s being melodramatic, Sir Hugh,’ said Claudia. ‘The entail ensures that Sim’s son and his son’s son will own this house and the hundreds of acres round it. Not to mention the rest—’
Nigel interrupted. ‘We’ve really got to talk about the most active part of the business. The land’s all very well. You don’t need to tell me you’ll be turning Durham House into a hostel for the homeless or something, Sim. I already know that. I think it’s disgusting, but there we are. The fact is that Dad had a majority shareholding in Samco. He willed a third of those shares to you and two thirds to me, my proportion being greater in recognition of the fact that you inevitably inherited the entailed land and property, and a larger proportion of unentailed land—’
‘And I got Badger’s Farm, near Bromley,’ cried Claudia ecstatically. ‘What a lucky little girl!’
‘Give us a break, Claudia,’ Nigel said rudely.
‘I just want you to reflect that whatever you and Sim do, I’m likely to turn up and undo it, when I’ve won my case.’
‘If,’ Nigel told her.
‘I don’t think there’s much if about it, Nigel,’ Sim said.
Nigel glanced at Hugh Brown for reassurance but Sir Hugh failed to meet his eye.
‘Can we stick to the point – the running of an extremely serious business, already spiralling down because of all this uncertainty?’ said Nigel.
‘But it is the point,’ both Sim and Claudia said together. ‘Claudia’s case, as I suppose we’ll all start calling it, will be in five o
r six years’ time,’ added Sim.
Nigel turned to Sir Hugh. ‘There’s a strong possibility that if Claudia takes a case to the European Courts they’ll declare in her favour,’ said the solicitor. ‘But that decision is many years off, as we all know.’
‘Anything mine, not entailed, I’m splitting in three, between you, me and Nigel,’ Sim said to Claudia.
‘Good. I accept,’ Nigel said with vigour.
‘That’s very nice of you, Sim,’ Claudia said. ‘I’d no idea—’
‘I should have mentioned it before,’ said Sim courteously.
Sir Hugh was depressed but not surprised by this news. When Sim revealed he wasn’t giving eighteen per cent of Samco to the Third World he and Charles Head brightened up a little, recognising that Nigel, better off by a third of his brother’s shares, which, added to his own share of Sir Bernard’s holding, gave him forty-four per cent, now had only to get direct control of, or voting rights to, another seven per cent of the shares to achieve a majority shareholding in the company, valued these days at £200,000,000. He glanced expressionlessly at Sir Hugh, who returned the look. So far, so good. Almost safe, at least until Claudia got a judgement.
‘I’m taping all this,’ said Claudia.
Sim laughed. ‘So is Hugh,’ he hazarded. ‘Anyway, that’s the principle – I’ll split what’s mine with Claudia and Nigel. What I do with my own share is, of course, my business. Properly, every penny ought to go to others, but I suppose the Fellowses are genetically disposed to looking after their own families and I suppose I’m one of them.’ It was plain the idea did not please him.
‘Charity begins at home, Sir,’ carolled Nigel.
‘I know what begins at home, Nige,’ his brother said grimly. Jessop, seated on an upright chair by a long mirror near the door, glass in hand, stiffened. Jasmine, lying like a log on the ottoman, heard the note in Sim’s voice through her pregnant haze, and remembered what she was trying to forget.
Sir Hugh stood up. ‘Well, I think we’ve all got a fairly good idea what Sim intends. I’ll be going back to London to begin the work on the details. There’ll be plenty of consulting, Sim, then signatures and so forth. You won’t disappear again too soon, will you?’
Simon Fellows shook his head. ‘I ought to say, here and now, thank you, Nigel. I owe you a big debt for keeping Samco running as you have and especially for handling all the business of Dad’s death—’ The whole room flinched at Sim’s icy, neutral tone. ‘But,’ he went on, ‘before we finish there’s just one relatively minor Samco project I’d like stopped. It’s this Savernake Village project which affects Josie’s mother and her sister. I think it’s quite wrong to buy up people’s homes and take away a public park so that a lot of wealthy people can live there.’
‘It’s too late, Sim. The diggers are in, now,’ claimed Nigel.
‘But half the people are still there,’ remonstrated Sim.
‘Yes, but most are on their way.’
‘What about the ones that aren’t?’
‘We’ll have to see.’
‘Let me get this straight,’ Sim said. ‘You’re commencing to dig up the park, and presumably knock down any property now vacant, while there are still people living there?’
‘Standard practice,’ Nigel said. ‘I’m sorry, but there it is. Everything’s in place. People are depending on the work. Our terms to the tenants on the estate have been more than fair—’
‘Oh, God,’ said Sim. ‘Well, you’ll have to stop it.’
‘Our investment in that site has been enormous,’ Nigel said violently. ‘And it’s half your fault, Sim. If you’d turned up when Dad died and not left things looking so iffy at Samco, a major backer would probably not have withdrawn. And if he’d stayed in, many others wouldn’t have withdrawn as well. And we at Samco wouldn’t have had to make good the withdrawal of their investment, so Samco wouldn’t be up the spout for a straight ten million or more, which, if lost now, will smack the dividends down, kick our quotation on the stock exchange where it hurts – have you got it, Sim? You, running round the bush with an Armalite in one hand and a bowl of rice pudding for the villagers in the other, when you heard on the sodding World Service Dad was dead, about one day after his death – which you did, some people in this room might be surprised to hear – and when you still didn’t bother to get in touch – it’s you who’re responsible for Samco’s heavy investment in the Savernake Village.’ Nigel finished his remarks on a high note of righteous indignation. He was not going to tell his brother that Samco’s caution about investing in the project was so great that he himself had guaranteed six million of the investment – money he’d have difficulty in finding if the scheme collapsed. He banked on Sim’s not checking and was relieved to see his brother’s crestfallen expression. He concluded triumphantly, ‘So, if you’re going to devote your Samco dividends to poulticing the deep wounds left by Samco wherever it goes – a thousand new jobs due to start up in Liverpool next year, for example, where Lacon Pharmaceuticals is just opening up a new works, and other effects of ruthless capitalism—’
‘And political pressures in Peru and Chile,’ muttered Sim, ‘lending money to death squads—’
‘Death squads? What death squads?’ Nigel said impatiently. ‘Don’t talk rubbish, Sim. You know nothing. You’ve taken care not to. I’ve been at a desk with my sleeves rolled up until ten or eleven at night for months at a time while you were hanging around the beach in Barbados, or Rambo-ing through the jungle in the cause of justice and truth, so don’t come and tell me my business—’
Don’t risk the shares, Charles Head breathed silently.
Why must he be so hot-tempered? thought Jasmine weakly from her couch. He damages himself. He’s like a big bad baby breaking all his toys in a temper, then crying when he sees what he’s done.
‘If you want to help, Sim,’ Nigel went on, ‘well then – just donate some of that good old Samco money I’ve worked so hard for to the suffering inner city council tenants of Savernake and let the project go ahead. Give the money to them – it’s what you said you wanted to do—’
If Sim rises to that bait, Head thought, he’ll do us all a favour. Lay enough cash on the scroungers and they’ll soon pack their bags and leave. Nice holiday in the Caribbean and don’t bother to come back, he thought vindictively.
‘OK,’ said Sim, keen to conclude all the business. ‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘No other way,’ said Nigel.
Sir Hugh and Charles Head looked at each other. Nigel had taken a considerable risk in challenging his brother, risking making him angry enough to demand the shut-down of the Savernake Village project, but it seemed to have paid off. Good old Nigel, thought Head. Nigel’s loan was safe and his own career still flourishing.
‘Well, then,’ said Nigel easily. ‘All’s well that ends well.’
* * *
Sim set off to find Josie who was talking to his mother by the lake. They turned towards him as he approached.
‘Lunch is ready,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry – I didn’t say anything.’
‘I’m so glad,’ said Lady Mary.
‘It was very stupid of me not to have assured you earlier I wouldn’t.’
‘I wouldn’t have minded that much,’ said Lady Mary. ‘It’s only for Nigel’s sake. Is everything resolved now?’
‘Yes – a few fireworks, but you can come in now.’
‘Jessop was going to knock you down if you said anything,’ Lady Margaret said.
‘What happened about Savernake?’ asked Josie.
Sim looked puzzled. ‘I don’t think I did very well.’
They walked on up to the house, Josie and Sim ahead of Lady Mary who paused outside the dining-room windows for a moment, looking into the sun-filled room. She watched the well-dressed men and women helping themselves from the buffet, observed the good china and the old family silver lying on a long linen cloth. It was odd to think that very soon, by Christmas at the latest, that room and
all the other rooms in the house would be the territory of homeless families from big cities. She’d bargained harmlessly with Sim to save some of the silver, cutlery, china, furniture, offering her own help in administering the house in exchange. He was quite pleased. She could help and, secretly, try to preserve the house from accident and dilapidation. She herself would live in a small house not far off. But, however hard she tried, the inside of the house would get battered, with so many people in it. Children would play in the garden, help with the herbs and vegetables, and perhaps do more harm than good. Partitions would have to go up in the rooms – there would be scuffs and scrapes. She wasn’t sure if it was right or wrong, but the uncertainty did not worry her. She watched him, smiling, opening a bottle of wine, offering a sniff to his little daughter who sat on Josie’s lap, Josie reproaching him. Sim had been her strangest child, led by conscience from an amazingly early age and even now, she thought, partly expiating his father’s crimes, especially the one against the young girl he’d found in Barbados on his visit almost a year earlier. Though Sim must guess, as she did, Lady Mary thought, that there’d been many other girls and many other crimes. Of course, Sim hadn’t told her of his discovery of a girl of fourteen hidden away in a building among the thick trees of the estate, far from the main house. But she’d found out for herself when she’d asked Sir Hugh to discover any unfulfilled obligations left by her husband in Barbados after his sudden death. The solicitor had tried to spare her the unpleasant information but as she persisted, asking about the house and servants, attempting to find out about anyone who might be owed money, need assistance or require reward for long service, the truth had come out. Sir Hugh had described the girl as a maid of two years’ standing, but she’d unwittingly asked all the wrong questions, such as the girl’s age and duties. The answers had been inept and, finally, embarrassed, pointing in only one direction. And of course she’d known for years, without admitting it to herself, where her husband’s inclinations had been taking him. She had not spoken directly to the solicitor about the girl, but it must have been plain to him from the instructions she gave that she knew what had been happening.
In Search of Love, Money & Revenge Page 37
