Iain Pears - An Instance of the Fingerpost

“In which case I thank him through you. He must be the kindest and best master a man—or woman—could have. It may be impertinent on my part, but if the opportunity arises when it can be done without embarrassment, please convey my gratitude, and make sure he is aware that, should he require a service, I will perform it willingly.”

“I will be sure to do so. Are you staying in London long?”

“I must leave tomorrow.”

“A pity. I would like to present you to him. Next time, write to me in advance, and I will make certain you are publicly acknowledged by him as a friend.”

“A friend is too much, I think,” I said. “But I would be grateful to be seen as in his interest.”

“It shall be done. And here,” she said as she heard a heavy clumping of boots up the stairs, “is undoubtedly Mr. George Collop.”

He was a man of low extraction; that was clear from the moment he walked through the door and bowed deeply to what he thought was the lady who greeted him. His movements were awkward, his speech coarse and with a heavy Dorset accent. It seemed he was the son of a tenant farmer, and had forced his way into His Grace’s attention by his skill. All well and good, but the price was heavy, for having to listen to that rolling burr must have been tiresome indeed. It said much for his qualities as a comptroller of finance, for he had none other to recommend him.

Many years in the intimate presence of gentility had done little to soften his manners or refine his talk; he was one of the low who glory in their roughness. It is one thing to despise the effeminacy of city and court; quite another to set your face against the basic qualities of breeding. In the way he collapsed in a chair with enough force to make the legs bend, then pulled out a cloth to wipe his face from the walk up the stairs—for he was a heavy, thickset man with a red face and mottled nose—Collop made it clear he cared naught for politeness.

“This gentleman, Mr, ah, Grove,” Kitty began, with a smile toward me, “is fascinated by the fen project,” she said. “And so I asked you to meet him, as there is no one who knows more of it than you, as you oversee His Grace’s works there.”

“That’s right,” he said, and said no more, thinking it sufficient contribution.

“His father has a very boggy piece of land, and was considering whether the engines of Sir Samuel Morland would be of use. He has heard much of them but cannot tell bombast from true report.”

“Well,” he said, then stopped again, lost in consideration of such a weighty matter.

“My father,” I put in, anxious to relieve Kitty of some of the onerous conversational duty, “is concerned that the machines will involve great expense and might prove to be money put out to waste. He is extremely keen to discover the truth of the matter, but finds Sir Samuel himself less straightforward.”

Collop heaved with a brief, private amusement for a moment. “That he is,” he said eventually. “And I cannot help you, as we do not use his machines.”

“I rather gained the impression he was crucial to the project.”

“He is the sort of man to give himself airs of importance he does not deserve. In fact, he is an investor only. Sir Samuel has some three hundred acres at Harland Wyte, which will be worth ten times its purchase when the land is drained. Of course, it is insignificant compared to His Grace’s interest, which is ninety thousand acres.”

I gasped in astonishment, which Collop observed with satisfaction.

“Yes, it is a mighty undertaking. Some three hundred and sixty thousand acres in all. Barren land, which by the ingenuity of man and the grace of God will yield plenty. Already doing so, in fact.”

“Not so barren, surely? What about the inhabitants already there? There are very many of those, I think.”

He shrugged. “Some, who scratch a living. But they are removed when necessary.”

“It must be hugely expensive.”

“That it is. And many men have put money into the venture, although the reward is so certain it presents little risk, except where villagers or landowners delay the work.”

“So it is not certain, then?”

“All problems can be overcome. If squatters object, they are ejected; if landowners refuse to cooperate, then ways are found round their objections. Some straightforward, others”—here his eyes twinkled with amusement—“others less straightforward.”

“But surely no landowner objects?”

“You’d be surprised. For all sorts of mean and ignorant reasons, people have put obstacles in our way for upward of thirty years. But most are seen to now the Prestcott problem has been solved.”

My heart quickened at the words, and I was hard put not to let out some exclamation. Fortunately, Collop was not an observant man and Kitty, seeing my shock, diverted him for full ten minutes with inconsequential court gossip.

“But I interrupted you, dear sir,” she said brightly after a while. “You were telling us about your battles. Who was the man you mentioned, Prestwick? Was that it?”

“Prestcott,” Collop corrected her. “Sir James Prestcott. A thorn in our side for years.”

“He did not see the advantages of being rich, did he?” Strange how some people require some convincing.”

Collop chuckled. “Oh, no. He knew the advantage of wealth. It was his jealousy that was the problem.”

Kitty looked enquiringly, and Collop was more than happy to oblige, little aware of how he was condemning himself and others with every filthy word he uttered.

“He did not benefit as much from the division of land and feared the arrival of greater men than he in an area his family had dominated for generations. So he incited the local inhabitants to damage our works. We built dikes, the rabble came out at night and drove holes in them, flooding the land again. We brought cases against them and he, as a magistrate, found them all not guilty. It went on for years.

“Then came all the troubles, and this Sir James went into exile. But the war also made the money dry up, and in any case, part of his land cut straight across the line of a river we needed to dig, and he would not sell it to us. Without it, an entire river would have to be diverted, or some fifteen thousand acres abandoned.”

“Surely then it would have been wise to offer more?”

“He would not take it,” Collop wagged his finger with a smirk on his face. “But then the goodness of the Lord shows itself,” he said. “For what do we eventually discover when we are on the point of despair? That all the while good Sir James is in fact a traitor. My lord’s cousin, Sir John Russell, had it from Sir Samuel Morland himself, and he provided all the information we needed to make Prestcott flee abroad once more. The trustee of his property was forced to sell up to avoid bankruptcy, and we had our river dug just where we wanted it.”

I could not bear even to look at his gross, smug face any longer, and was seriously afraid that, if I heard much more, I would run him through on the spot. A red haze spread over my eyes and my head spun with dizziness as I walked to the window. I could barely think, so powerful was the pain that gripped my head, and I felt the beads of sweat running down my forehead and onto my clothes as I fought for breath. To be forced to listen as this dirty man of no name encompassed the downfall of my father to gain a profit made my soul revolt. I had no appetite to exult in the fact that I was so much closer to my goal, for to find motives so mean and tawdry made me tremble with sorrow. Now, at least, I knew why Sir John Russell had refused even to cast eyes on me at Tunbridge Wells; he could not have borne the shame and lived.

“Are you not well, sir?’’ I distantly heard Kitty anxiously enquiring, as she must have seen my face pale as I stood by the window trying to control myself. It was as if she spoke from a great distance; she had to repeat the words several times before I could attend to them.