Tom Sharpe - Blott on the Landscape

“Who said anything about knocking houses down?” said Dundridge indignantly. “I certainly didn’t. What I have in mind is something entirely different. Now then what we’ll do is this.”

For the next half hour he outlined his grand strategy while Hoskins listened. When he had finished Hoskins was impressed in spite of himself. He had been quite wrong to call Dundridge a nincompoop. In his own peculiar way the man had flair.

“All the same I just hope it doesn’t have to come to that,” he said finally.

“You’ll see,” said Dundridge. “That bitch isn’t going to sit back and let us put a motorway through her wretched house without putting up a struggle. She’s going to fight to the bitter end.”

Hoskins went back to his office thoughtfully. There was nothing illegal about Dundridge’s plan in spite of the military jargon. In a way it was extremely shrewd.

The Committee for the Preservation of the Cleene Gorge met under the Presidency of General Burnett at Handyman Hall. Lady Maud was the first speaker.

“I intend to fight this project to the bitter end,” she said, fulfilling Dundridge’s prediction. “I have no intention of being driven from my own home simply because a lot of bureaucratic dunderheads in London take it into their thick skulls to ignore the recommendations of a properly constituted Enquiry. It’s outrageous.”

“It’s so unfair,” said Mrs Bullett-Finch, “particularly after what Lord Leakham said about preserving the wildlife of the area. What I can’t understand is why they changed their minds so suddenly.”

“As I see it,” said General Burnett, “the change is a direct consequence of Puckerington’s resignation. I have it on the highest authority that the Government felt that the new candidate was bound to lose the bye-election if they went ahead with the route through Ottertown.”

“Why did Puckerington resign?” asked Miss Percival.

“Ill-health,” said Colonel Chapman. “He’s got a dicky heart.”

Lady Maud said nothing. What she had just heard explained a great many things and suggested more. She knew now why Sir Giles had smiled so secretively at her and why he had had that air of expectation. Everything suddenly fell into place in her mind. She understood why he had been so alarmed about the possibility of a tunnel, why he had insisted on Ottertown, why he had been so pleased at Lord Leakham’s decision. Above all, she realized for the first time the full enormity of his betrayal. Colonel Chapman put her thoughts into numbers.

“I suppose there is this to be said for it. I’ve heard a rumour that we are going to get increased compensation,” he said. “The figure mentioned was twenty per cent. That makes your sum, Lady Maud, something in the region of three hundred thousand pounds.”

Lady Maud sat rigid in her chair. Three hundred thousand pounds. It was not her share. Sir Giles owned the Hall. Owned it and had put it up for sale in the only way legally available to him. Faced with such treachery there was nothing left for her to say. She shook her head wearily and while the discussion continued round her she stared out of the window to where Blott was mowing the lawn.

The meeting broke up without any decision being taken on the next move.

“Poor old Maud seems quite broken up about this dreadful business,” General Burnett said to Mrs Bullett-Finch as they walked across the drive to their cars. “It’s knocked all the spirit out of her. Bad business.”

“One does feel so terribly sorry for her,” Mrs Bullett-Finch agreed.

Lady Maud watched them leave and then went back into the house to think. Committees would achieve nothing now. They would talk and pass resolutions but when the time for taking action came they would still be talking. Colonel Chapman had given the game away by talking about money. They would settle.

She went down the passage to the study and stood there looking round the room. It was here that Giles had thought the whole thing out, in this sanctum, at this desk where her father and grandfather had sat, and it was here that she would sit and think until she had planned some way of stopping the motorway and of destroying him. In her mind the two things were inextricably linked. Giles had conceived the idea of the motorway, he would be broken by it. There was no compunction left in her. She had been outwitted and betrayed by a man she had always despised. She had sold herself to him to preserve the house and the family and the knowledge of her own guilt added force to her determination. If need be she would sell herself to the devil to stop him now. Lady Maud sat down behind the desk and stared at the filigree of her grandfather’s silver inkstand for inspiration. It was shaped like a lion’s head. An hour later she had found the solution she was looking for. She reached for the phone and was about to pick it up when it rang. It was Sir Giles calling from London.

“I just thought I had better let you know I shan’t be back this weekend,” he said. “I know it is a damned inconvenient time for me to be away with all this motorway business going on, but I really can’t get away.”

“That’s all right,” said Lady Maud, feigning her usual degree of indifference, “I daresay I’ll be able to cope without you.”

“How are things going?”

“We’ve just had a committee meeting to discuss the next move. We are thinking of organizing protest meetings round the county.”

“That’s the sort of thing we need,” said Sir Giles. “I’m doing my damnedest down here to get the Ministry to reconsider. Keep up the good work at your end.” He rang off. Lady Maud smiled grimly. She would keep up the good work all right. And he could go on doing his damnedest. She picked up the phone and dialled. In the next two hours she spoke to her bank manager, the Head Keeper at Whipsnade Zoo, the Game Warden at Woburn Wildlife Park, the managers of five small private zoos and a firm of fencing experts in Birmingham. Finally she went outside to look for Blott.

Ever since the night of Dundridge’s visit she had been worried by Blott’s attitude. It hadn’t been like him to behave like that and she had been alarmed by the sound of the shotgun going off outside. She rather regretted what she had said about his drinking too. It certainly hadn’t had any good effect. If anything he had taken to going off to the Royal George more often and late one night she had heard him singing in the pinetum. “Typically Italian,” she thought, confusing “Wir Fahren Gegen England” with La Traviata . “Probably pining for Naples.” But Blott stumbling through the park was merely drunk and if he was pining for anything it was for her innocence which Dundridge’s visit had destroyed.

She found him, as she had expected, in the kitchen garden. “Blott,” she said, “I want you to do something for me.”

Blott grunted morosely. “What?”

“You know the wall safe in the study?” Blott nodded. “I want you to open it for me.”

Blott shook his head and went on weeding the onion bed. “Not possible without the combination,” he said.

“If I had the combination I wouldn’t have to ask you to open it,” Lady Maud said tartly. Blott shrugged. “If I don’t know the combination,” he said, “how do I open it?”

“You blow it open,” said Lady Maud. Blott straightened up and looked at her.

“Blow it open?”

“With explosive. Use a… what are those things with flames… oxy…”

“Acetylene torch,” said Blott. “It wouldn’t work.”

“I don’t mind how you do it. You can pull it out of the wall and drop it from the roof for all I care but I want that safe opened. I’ve got to know what is inside it.”

Blott pushed back his hat and scratched his head. This was a new Lady Maud speaking. “Why don’t you ask him for the combination?” he said.