by Tom Sharpe
Needing to escape, Wilt went to the front door. He crossed the drawbridge and strolled around to the walled kitchen garden and the cottage in which they were going to stay. Once outside it, he decided the cottage looked perfectly acceptable if to his mind rather small. He began to wonder whether he could persuade the Gadsleys that he ought to remain living at the Hall and not in the cottage with Eva and the quads. After all, he would be engaged upon important work – always provided he found the elusive Eddie – and ought not to be pestered and distracted by four raucous girls. In fact, five raucous women since Eva was every bit as noisy and demanding as the fast-maturing quads. No, he couldn’t possibly be expected to tutor the boy if he had to endure their horrendous music and violent quarrels all day and all night: he would put this to Lady Clarissa when he saw her and felt sure she would agree.
Having settled that in his own mind, Wilt decided not to bother with the bike but instead went for a walk deep into the woods. It was there that he discovered a caravan, well hidden near the wall which screened the Hall from the road and set behind some shrubs and young fir saplings. He could hear someone moving about inside it and presently an extraordinarily fat and short woman came out with some clothes, which she hung on a makeshift washing line. When she went inside again, Wilt crept back the way he had come. Something about that van and the way it was partly camouflaged had made him feel uncomfortable. He decided not to go near it again. Instead he crossed the lawn to the lake and sat down on a bank to gaze across at the architectural fright show that was the Hall.
After half an hour spent basking in the sun, he went back into the house and through to the kitchen to talk to Mrs Bale. He found her supervising two surprisingly plump young women who were cleaning the staircase and corridors. The three women together were so large there was actually no possibility of his getting round them to his room so Wilt reached a sudden decision.
“Good morning, Mrs Bale. I wonder if you could tell me if Lady Clarissa is up yet?”
“I’m afraid not, Mr Wilt. Her ladyship has suffered a bereavement…although it isn’t my place to talk to you about it as I don’t believe in gossip. Anyway I don’t think we will see her for a good while yet, Mr Wilt. She was very, very upset when she got back late last night, and by the state of the drinks cabinet I’d say that she had to have a drink or two…to console herself. Not that I’m one to gossip, you understand.”
“Of course not,” he said hastily, thinking that at this rate he’d be stuck in the corridor for ever. “Bereaved, you say? How terrible – I do hope it wasn’t her uncle.” He continued quickly before Mrs Bale could confirm or deny the matter, “Well, then, may I ask whether Sir George is back yet, and if so whether he’d mind my having a quick word with him?”
“He is, and provided it’s not about his step-son, I’m sure he’d be pleased to see you.” Mrs Bale turned around with some difficulty to pry apart the two cleaners who had become wedged together in the doorway. Wilt went the long way round to the study and knocked on the door.
“Come in,” Sir George called out, and glanced somewhat critically at Wilt as he entered. “If it’s about my step-son…” he began, but Wilt shook his head.
“No. I thought you should know that there’s some sort of caravan, parked in the woods. It seems to be partly camouflaged by saplings and shrubs.”
“Caravan?” asked Sir George, turning rather crimson. “Don’t know anything about a caravan. Whereabouts is it?”
“Deep in the wood, opposite the kitchen garden and cottage.”
“Dashed if I can spot it…” said Sir George, peering out of the window through a pair of binoculars.
“It’s some way into the woods,” Wilt told him, pointing in the right direction.
“And, as I said, it looked camouflaged.”
“Well, I’ll go down and have those damned trespassers off the premises in no time at all. You stay and see the cleaners don’t come in here. I keep telling Mrs Bale not to let them in but she’s as bad as they are. Always tidying my things up so I can’t find anything I need. Not that I don’t like to see them down on their hands and knees, you know…” He paused and looked enquiringly at Wilt, who in turn shook his head. He didn’t know what on earth Sir George was getting at.
“You know…cleaning things?”
Sir George sighed at his reaction and went over to a metal cabinet standing near his desk. He unlocked it and took out a twelve-bore shotgun. “Always best to be on the safe side when dealing with trespassers,” he explained as he went out of the room.
When he had gone Wilt looked in the cabinet and was horrified by the number of guns he saw inside it. There must have been at least thirty of various shapes and sizes, and all looking absolutely lethal. He felt extremely worried that he’d told Sir George about the trespassers.
From the window Wilt watched his host make his way through the grounds. Once Sir George was out of sight, though, he left the study. Wilt was afraid of guns and certainly didn’t want to be left alone in a room with an open metal cabinet filled with weapons. In fact, he felt sure that leaving a gun cabinet unlocked was illegal. He’d go up to his room, he decided, and look at his notes on Austrian⁄Serbian relations, for the umpteenth time.
But just as he was about to open the door to his bedroom, he noticed another staircase leading off the landing and ending before a closed door. This turned out to open on to a corridor identical to the one he’d just left below, complete with yet another staircase towards the front of the house.
“May as well see where that one goes to,” Wilt said to himself, wondering how on earth he had thought the Hall somewhat small when he first saw it. Presently he found himself in a turret that overlooked the great lawn, the lake, and away to the right the walled kitchen garden. As he gazed out of a window trying to establish exactly where the caravan was, he suddenly saw a youth walking across the lawn. This must be the teenager he’d been hired to get into Cambridge. He looked younger than Wilt had expected. As he turned towards the house Wilt was surprised to see that Edward, if this youth was he, looked so ordinary after all he had been told about him. It was hard to tell from this distance but he looked to be nothing worse than a typical spotty teenager.
Wilt leant on the window ledge and wondered about Sir George’s remark that his step-son was a ‘Gawd Help Us’. From this angle he didn’t look particularly bad nor, it had to be said, very interesting. Still, if Lady Clarissa was prepared to pay him fifteen hundred quid a week to educate the blighter, Wilt was prepared to do his best. Determined to call down to the boy and arrange to meet up in the library, Wilt stepped out of the low window and on to the flat roof outside. For the first time he saw that this was only the front turret and that around the circumference of the roof there were more dotted here and there, with no apparent regard for any architectural or even structural rules. Even more extraordinary were the ancient cannon that pointed out over the grounds from every side of the building, set out of sight from the ground behind a low parapet wall. The taxi driver had been right when he’d said the bloke who’d designed the place must have been either off his head or on opium.
Wilt turned back to the window he’d come out of and made the mistake of looking directly down over the wall. Finding himself far higher up than he’d supposed, and suffering from a phobia about heights, Wilt dropped to his knees and crawled back over the window ledge in a panic. He would go straight down and find the boy, he decided. And he was damn’ certain that never again would he climb up on that fearful roof.
He had just reached the ground floor when he encountered Mrs Bale again.
“Lady Clarissa says she will see you in the dining room in an hour’s time. She’s feeling very much better although still grieving, poor thing. She’s very sorry not to have been here to meet you and to show you around, but of course with her poor uncle dying like that…”
“Oh, it was her uncle who died? I’m sorry to hear that and I’m sure my wife will be too. Does this mean that they’ll all
be off to Ipford for the funeral? I can call Eva and tell her not to come, if necessary.”
“Oh, no, apparently the body is coming here.”
“Coming here? How very odd.”
Mrs Bale was about to reply when there was a furious shout from the study.
“Where’s that tutor bloke? I left him in here to mind the gun cabinet. And the idiot’s disappeared, leaving it unlocked! What’s more, the keys have gone too…”
“I think you’d better make yourself scarce. I’ll try to cool him down,” Mrs Bale whispered.
Wilt hurried back down the corridor as she called out to Sir George that she was coming.
∗
Lady Clarissa lay in bed nursing a very bad hangover and waiting to feel well enough even to attempt getting up. She had driven back late the previous evening, feeling surprisingly light-hearted. She was looking forward to seeing Wilt again, and besides, now that she came to think about it, Uncle Harold’s death was something of a relief. Even the thought of spending every weekend with Sir George from now on didn’t bother her unduly. She was sure there would be other opportunities to meet up with the man from the garage, always supposing he recovered from his cold or Swine ‘Flu or whatever it was.
The previous evening she had arrived at the iron gates at the back of the Hall, opened them with the electronic gadget Sir George had installed to prevent any car thief stealing his Bentley, or worse still the ancient Rolls-Royce, and then driven the Jaguar into the garage. When she had entered the house she had found the kitchen empty so went down to the front hall to Sir George’s study.
“You’re back late,” he said, polishing a rifle. The ‘pull-through’ was lying on the floor.
“I rang your secretary. She should have informed you.”
“Mrs Bale never informs me of anything pleasant. She gave me supper, though, such as it was.”
“And what about Mr Wilt? Did she give him supper too?”
“I daresay. In the kitchen. I don’t dine with servants.”
“And how did Edward and Mr Wilt get on?”
“I’ve no idea. Haven’t even seen the boy and I don’t believe Wilt has either. You need to give dear Eddie a talking to.”
“Don’t call him Eddie. His name is Edward. I expect he was just settling back into being home.”
“God help us,” muttered Sir George.
Lady Clarissa ignored the remark.
“What have you been doing with that gun?” she asked.
“Just polishing it, my dear. Never know when one’s going to need a gun at the ready. Even on the way to court this morning some young hooligans attacked my car at the traffic lights. Stuck a wet sponge all over the window and then had the bloody cheek to ask for money. Reminded me of highwaymen or something. Wished I’d had my gun with me then, I can tell you.”
“May one ask why you didn’t have them arrested?”
“I just happened to be in a good mood. I’m always in a good mood when you go down to Ipford to see your damned uncle.”
Lady Clarissa sighed.
“I phoned the Bale woman and told her he’d died. I suppose she didn’t let you know that either.”
“I’ve told you, she’s my secretary. She does not meddle in your relative’s affairs. She knows I’m not interested.”
“Well, he has died, and I expect you’ll be pleased not to have the expense of paying for him any more. Although I did have to write a large cheque to the undertaker to get him up here.”
“Get him up here? What on earth are you talking about, you stupid woman?”
“They’re bringing him up here to be buried on the Estate, of course. He is family after all.”
Sir George was obviously in an ugly mood. “He was not a Gadsley, and I’m not going to conduct a ceremony here for someone who isn’t even related to my family! I don’t care what you say, I’m not having that old fool buried here. You can have him cremated as you said you were going to.”
“But that was before I discussed the matter with Uncle. He wanted to be buried in Kenya where he was born. Well, that was out of the question, of course. I told him it would be far too expensive and no one would visit him out there…”
“…and I’ll tell you something else. No one’s going to visit his grave here either. Just do what any sensible person would and arrange something with the Vicar in the village. I believe they’ve a graveyard there. Either that or have the old bugger cremated, as you always said you were going to do.”
“I know I did but I’ve changed my mind.”
“You haven’t a mind to change,” her husband snarled. “Get this into your head: I am not having the cemetery defiled by someone outside the family being buried in it. And that’s my final word on the matter.” With that he had stormed off to bed, leaving Clarissa to drown her sorrows with the help of the well-stocked drinks cabinet.
17
Thoughts of drowning were still on Clarissa’s mind once she was finally up and dressed, the next morning although it was a toss up whether she would rather drown her beastly husband after his horrible behaviour last night or – given her terrible headache – herself. Not that the moat was really deep enough. Edward had once tried to demonstrate how long one could hold one’s breath underwater, using some poor unfortunate from the village. On that occasion they were fortunate enough to be able to survive a mere three inches of water for really quite a long time.
When Wilt did not appear at the appointed hour she went in search of him and found him coming out of the walled garden. He’d been chatting there with the old man who looked after it and who reminded him of Coverdale on his allotment.
“Ah, there you are,” said Lady Clarissa as he crossed the wooden drawbridge to join her. “I wondered where you’d got to.”
“I’ve been looking for Edward – I saw him earlier but he seems to have disappeared again.”
“He’ll turn up soon enough.”
“I’m most terribly sorry to hear your sad news, Lady Clarissa. You have my condolences.”
“Thank you, Henry. I appreciate your sympathy, more than you know. Not everyone has been as kind. Now, shall we walk around the moat? I want you to tell me something.”
“That sounds like a good idea. What do you want to know?”
“Mrs Bale tells me you saw a caravan in the woods. Was it a gypsy one?”
“Difficult to say. It was largely hidden by the undergrowth and trees.”
“Was any occupant visible?”
Wilt thought for a moment.
“As a matter of fact, I did see a small fat woman hanging up some washing on a line nearby. I went straight back to the Hall and told Sir George, who said they must be trespassers and went out with a gun. I don’t like guns so I left the study and went up to the roof which is when I spotted Edward from a turret.”
“A small fat woman?”
“Yes. There are actually quite a few fat women round here, if you don’t mind my mentioning it. With the exception of you, of course, Lady Clarissa. I suppose it’s what they call living the good life? Anyway I particularly noticed as it seemed extraordinary that even the trespassers were, well, let’s say overweight.”
Lady Clarissa smiled to herself. She had a very shrewd idea who had been in that caravan and doubted very much that the so-called trespasser had been in any danger at all from Sir George’s gun. They walked on around the moat in silence. Finally they sat down on the bank and stared at the green water. Wilt tried to think of something to say but Lady Clarissa was obviously preoccupied with her own thoughts and he didn’t want to interrupt them. Above them loomed the hideous Hall, casting its shadow over the lawn. Lady Clarissa finally broke the silence.
“I think I’ll go up to my room and have another nap. I had such a trying time yesterday. Why don’t you join me?”
Wilt was taken aback. Surely she didn’t mean that the way it sounded. She must mean, why didn’t he do the same thing? He shook his head.
“I don’t usually sleep in the afte
rnoon,” he said. “And in any case, I really feel I ought track Edward down and make a start. Need to earn my keep. And I rather get the feeling that Sir George is a bit cross with me at the moment, for leaving his gun cabinet unattended.”
“Sir George leaves rather a lot unattended himself,” muttered Lady Clarissa darkly as she got to her feet. “I have just the books you need for reference in my room. So why don’t you come up with me and I’ll give them to you?”
Wilt wondered why she had them in her room when there was a library at her disposal. But he couldn’t say no when she was was the one paying him to tutor her son. He followed her meekly up the long staircase and into her room.
Lady Clarissa waved him over to an impossibly red chaise-longue in the corner and said she’d go and get the books.
Wilt felt himself becoming hot and bothered. The flaming red of the upholstery was getting to him just as Eva’s panties had and he knew he had to escape imminently without offending Lady Clarissa. But the next minute she came out of the adjoining room dressed only in her bra and panties. These were of a deep red colour, too, and edged with black lace, leaving nothing to the imagination given that she wasn’t exactly waiflike. She posed against the door, one hand draped against the frame and one leg crossed over the other.
“How tall are you, big boy? Five foot nine inches? Let’s talk about the nine inches!”
He knew enough to recognise that Lady Clarissa was quoting Mae West. When she saw Wilt gaping at her open-mouthed, she tried again: “When I’m good, I’m very bad. But when I’m bad, I’m very good.”
“Well?” she added, slightly crossly, when Wilt stood gazing at her with a shocked expression on his face. “Shall we do some research together?”
“Er…I suddenly remembered…I have to call Eva to let her know the best way of getting here.” And with that, he scarpered off back to his own room and locked the door.
18