‘I wonder how long Susannah intends to stay out tonight? I hate the door not to be locked when I’m in bed.’
‘ “And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted”,’ said Fiona sardonically. ‘Don’t worry. It won’t happen to the likes of us. Lock the door, though, if you feel nervous. I’ll let her in when she comes back. I’m going to relax but I’m not sleepy.’
‘Oh, I don’t really mind about the door, so long as I’m not alone in the caravan. You are a tower of strength.’
‘I feel like one when I’m heaving stone blocks and shovelling rubble. I think we shall all need a break very soon. I intend to take one anyway, whether the Saltergates like it or not.’
‘It does seem as though the best thing to do, after all, is to find out whether the others or you have priority,’ said Lilian Saltergate that night.
‘Malpas is against such a course. He thinks it would solve nothing.’
‘The other thing would be to take a vote.’
‘Susannah is attached to our party, but she would vote with Nicholas and for Malpas.’
‘The two boys would vote with us, surely?’
‘Most unlikely, if Susannah voted with the other side. They admire her very much. Besides, Veryan feeds them and you know what is said about the way to a man’s heart.’
‘What are the chances of Malpas picking up a germ of some kind and having to retire from the scene? You could manage Nicholas if Malpas were not there.’ Lilian laughed as she said this.
‘It is so unreasonable of Malpas,’ said Edward, ‘If he knew – if he were certain – I might feel better about it, but he has no proof whatever that anybody is buried under one of my fortifications. He is prepared to sacrifice my definite, actual reconstruction for some purely experimental fiddle-faddle of his own. I’ve got to do something to stop him. The question is – what can I do?’
‘We could always throw all our stones and dust into his precious trench, I suppose.’
‘You take the matter lightly.’
‘No, indeed I do not. I wonder whether we could make a bargain with him?’
‘Of what kind?’
‘That we will raise no objection to any damage he does, provided that he and Nicholas and their workmen will promise to make it good afterwards.’
‘Well, he should be willing to give an undertaking of that sort, but I am not willing to ask for it. I have as much right here as he has.’
‘Sometimes it is unwise to insist too strongly on one’s rights. That attitude can provoke a war.’
‘A war can have a righteous cause. Anyhow, before I try anything else, I am going up to the house. I shall say nothing about priorities or rights. I shall simply tell the owner or his representative what Veryan proposes to do, and I shall ask whether they are prepared to allow him to undermine and damage a historic monument. That ought to be enough for an injunction, I think.’
‘I wish Malpas would tumble into his beastly trench and do himself an injury,’ said Mrs Saltergate. ‘I hate him for upsetting you like this.’
Meanwhile Bonamy and Tom had become acquainted with two girls who were staying at the pub in Stint Magna.
‘Now that we’ve found corn in Egypt,’ said Tom, ‘I am a good deal less keen than I was on sweating away on that job at Holdy Castle. The story about the treasure is probably a myth, anyway – something for the local yokels to speculate upon when the telly goes wrong on some dark winter evening. Let’s pack the job in and disport ourselves with Virginia and Sarah. What a real bit of goose that they should be staying at a pub where the beer is excellent and our welcome assured by such a pleasant landlord as Sam.’
‘It’s going to be a bit sticky telling Saltergate we’re packing the job in. He’s got nobody else except his wife and the wenches to help him,’ said Bonamy.
‘I thought he was co-opting Veryan’s two workmen.’
‘There’s a fuss-up going on between the parties. I fancy all good feeling has died the death. Anyhow, we can’t opt out straightaway. Give it another week or so. We only work in the mornings, anyway, and Virginia and Sarah need that time for their holiday reading. They’re going to be third years and say they’ve got a lot of leeway to make up. Everybody slacks off in their second year and those two have had to listen to some more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger remarks from their tutor. We’ve got every afternoon and evening free to sport with Amaryllis. Be content with that. We’d have to buy them a proper lunch each day if we had them all day long, and think of the price of petrol! As it is, we buy them a drink and a packet of crisps and lie out on Sam’s back lawn resting from our labours all afternoon and then take them out to tea.’
‘Where they shovel away enough jam and cream to—’
‘Never mind to what. Chivalry deplores these excessive comparisons. We stick to Saltergate, then, with an occasional switch to Veryan when he needs a hand, but only for the next fortnight. After that, we’ll see what the options are. Right? Agreed?’
‘Just as you say. Lord, though! How I do ache!’
5
Attempts to Get Arbitration
« ^ »
Do I go with you?’ asked Lilian, at the end of lunch at the Horse and Cart next day.
‘I think,’ replied Edward, pushing back his empty cup and saucer and wondering, as usual, why he ever drank what the hotel called coffee, ‘that perhaps one voice may be more effective than two, so I will go alone.’
‘I wonder whether Malpas also has the intention of visiting the manor house?’
‘Oh, now it has come to words between us, I have no doubt that Nicholas will persuade him to do so. That is why I am anxious to get my say in first.’
He and his wife went up to their room and he changed his clothes before going downstairs to the reception desk to ask for the best route by car to Holdy manor house.
The route was short, not more than seven miles, but pleasant. Hill folded into hill, one green, one wooded, another covered in bracken and heather, and the narrow road wound among them through the valleys until it reached wide-open iron gates whose stone gateposts were surmounted by flower-sculptured urns. There was a lodge just inside the gateway and Edward pulled up, but nobody came out, so he concluded that the lodge was untenanted and drove on.
A long lane, bordered by rhododendrons past their time of flowering, later passed beside deciduous woods, heavy, dark and still, for there was no wind and, but for the shade of the trees, the heat would have been that of a desert. Edward encountered the full glare of the sun again when, having come out on to a broad expanse of open parkland, he drove up to the mansion, pulled up and got out of the car.
A very large man wearing a green baize apron answered the door. Before Edward could speak he said, ‘Family ain’t at home. Servants be on board wages. There’s only me and the bailiff.’
‘It is the bailiff I wish to see. I have business with him. Will you take him my card?’
He was admitted to a handsome Georgian entrance hall from which a straight staircase with wrought-iron banisters led up to a broad landing supported on classical columns in the Corinthian style. The floor of the hall was of black and white large tiles, and the general impression was of spacious elegance.
The manservant disappeared along a corridor which opened off the right-hand side of the hall and Edward spent the ten minutes he was kept waiting in looking, without much pleasure or interest, at what appeared to be ancestral portraits on the walls.
The servant did not reappear, but from the corridor came a florid man with a petulant mouth and hooded eyes. Differently dressed, he might have sat for one of the portraits at which Edward had been looking. The likeness was explained, perhaps, when he spoke.
‘Mr Saltergate? I am Mr Mathew’s cousin. I am sorry to have kept you waiting, but I spent a moment of time in looking up your letters.’