A Charitable Body

by Robert Barnard

  Wes leaned over and switched the recorder off.

  “Oh, I wanted to hear how they were cut down,” protested Felicity.

  “So did I, but I never got anything concrete from him. I concluded that he wasn’t just clamming up, he didn’t really understand what had happened, only that something had happened, not just to the Quarleses, but to all their class.”

  “Couldn’t you find out from these ‘professional people’ that he sneers at?”

  “I got scraps from them—usually from just letting them talk. Press them and they go shtum—still: old instincts reasserting themselves. Things had been getting tough in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest says something about ‘land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure,’ and that was the root of the family’s problems. Then there was the First World War, which killed off the eldest son of the Quarleses. Doubly unfortunate because the second son was a bit of an ass—went in for all sorts of madcap schemes, was fooled by dodgy investments. I don’t know the details, but just before the Second World War the crunch came and they had to sell the house to a member of the junior branch of the family—the Fienneses. I couldn’t pinpoint the problems, but after the house was requisitioned for a mental hospital during the war, the Fienneses took it back under their control in 1947, but they never really made a go of it.”

  “Hence Rupert and his desire to be rid of it.”

  “Exactly. By the way, I rather guess he’s the best of the family, and by far.”

  Felicity smiled. “I confess I liked what I saw, and heard, of him.”

  “And that wasn’t true of Sir Stafford, I’d guess.”

  “Reserve judgment. My first board meeting is still to come, and I can’t readily pass judgment, especially as I’ve heard derogatory opinions of him recently from a member of the board. What exactly was wrong with Rupert’s branch of the family? Why couldn’t they make the house and the family business pay?”

  “Lack of strong business sense I’d guess. Rupert’s father had it, but Rupert didn’t. It happened to a lot of the gentry families in this country,” said Wes. “Even in the times when agriculture was paying—or the European Union was paying—hand over fist and rural farmers had whopping great cars and sent their children to snooty schools, that didn’t last, and if they hadn’t stashed away a good part of their gains, they just dipped down in the social scale and spent their time wondering where the next check was coming from.”

  “I feel rather glad Rupert lacks business instincts,” said Felicity.

  “There’s no way I could argue with that. Though Mary-Elizabeth has a sharp little eye—natural, not trained, and it’s been useful now and then. I’m going to need all my instincts to get the Trust running and make the house a success.”

  “What was Rupert before he took over the running of the house?”

  “An undistinguished but honorable career in the army.”

  “Oh. That surprises me a little.”

  “I think he discovered he was not the type to prosper in that organization. People whisper that he was disillusioned by the Falklands War in the 1980s. Thought it was mishandled from the start. Thinks the Thatcher government sent all the wrong signals to the Argentine government.”

  “Rather a brave man, then.”

  “Criticizing the Thatcher government in this part of the country? Yes, rather. Especially as his family was the sort that would naturally be among her supporters. . . . Ah, the bell!”

  The buzz had come from the kitchen. As she took her place at the table, Felicity caught sight of a mousy-looking woman taking plates out of the oven.

  “I’ll tell cook to keep a plateful hot for your husband,” said Wes, grinning wryly at how country gentry he sounded. He was just pushing his chair back when there came a ring at the front door, which Wes answered, coming back with a Charlie who was clearly frozen, rubbing his hands and pulling from around his ear what looked like a balaclava helmet.

  “Oh, Australian warmth,” he said, looking around appreciatively, “never was it more welcome. I had a lift from Hargreaves in the chilliest police car I’ve ever known. Looks as if I’ve come at the right time too.”

  Wes ushered him to a chair. “I act as waitress at meals, to assuage my conscience about employing paid labor. Sit down, Charlie—nourishment is on its way, and I’ll only be a minute or two. Felicity can bring you up to speed with what we’ve been talking about.”

  Which she did in suitably digest form, finishing up when Wes came in bearing a tray full of plates, which all held mushroom risotto.

  “All right, Charlie? Get the main points?”

  “I think so. I have to keep telling myself that what we’re pondering is not a crime, just a situation. What does the situation consist of? First of all, two attempts, one of them successful, to get rid of the directors. Note, the director is the employee most concerned with and knowledgeable about museums—the running of them, the aspects of conservation, provenance, authenticity, and so on. Successful dismissal in the case of the first director . . . Name?”

  “Annabel Sowerby.”

  “Annabel Sowerby. Edged out, I believe. Reason given, in the utmost confidence, that she wasn’t up to the job. Her going, we may say, saved you, Mr. Gannett—”

  “Wes, if you can bear it. I see some English people flinch at it.”

  “Wes it is. All sorts of questions arise, mostly connected with Sir Stafford, who seems to have taken the lead in trying to give the boot to the two of you, unsuccessful in your case. Questions, as I say, arise: Why does Sir Stafford, the man most knowledgeable and experienced in museum management, want to get rid of the one person who rivals him in those qualities? Why didn’t he think of the inevitable bad publicity if he’d succeeded with you? What baggage is carried by Sir Stafford concerning Walbrook Manor—is there anything more than the rather frail connection of his living in the Dower House as a child with a dying mother? Is Lady Quarles connected in any way with Walbrook, other than by marriage? I could go on.”

  Wes Gannett nodded. “Your questions really provide a sort of summing up of puzzling aspects of the present situation. What about standing back from that, and from Sir Stafford, and pinpointing the larger picture?”

  Charlie shifted in his seat. “Again, the danger is my being a policeman. As such I’d like to know what the last of the Quarleses did with his money. He was so unwise that he was forced to call in a distant relative, Rupert Fiennes’s father, to whom he sold the whole caboodle. Questions abound in my mind, and since this is a factual matter, we ought to be able to come up with some answers.”

  “We mustn’t forget your tape recording of your oldest inhabitant, who took a dim view of both branches of the family, I’d guess,” said Felicity to Wes.

  “Yes. An entertaining fellow, but it would be better to find someone without the bias. A local historian for example.”

  “Maybe,” said Charlie. “Though it seems likely that the transfer of the house was mainly a family matter, and it could have been kept within the family.”

  “There’d be sure to be gossip,” said Felicity.

  “Exactly. And gossip, though often misleading, has been known to be right. What about starting with Mr. Rupert Fiennes, and if he’s uncooperative, try to find either other old residents or people whose parents had strong connections with the manor—the butler’s illicit offspring, for example.”

  “Butler?” said Wes. “Not by the 1930s I’d guess. Eighteen ninety maybe, but by the thirties a butler would be a thing of the past at Walbrook.”

  “Point taken. Another interesting development: Sir Stafford and his lady wife have taken over rooms in the manor to serve as a flat for themselves. One can see the need for that while the status and routine of the house is being established, but do they have wider ambitions—to be accepted in the area as the lord and lady of Walbrook? A fairly innocent piece of vanity, but they are occupying rooms that could better be used for the exhibitions tha
t are going to be part of Walbook’s appeal.”

  “Yes. I can’t at the moment see the relevance of that, but it’s interesting that another member of the Quarles wing of the family is already in residence,” said Charlie, looking around him.

  “The composer,” said Felicity. “Graham Quarles.”

  “Yes,” said Charlie. “And if he is not party to any silly plot or plan on Sir Stafford’s part, and if Rupert Fiennes doesn’t hand out the dirt on his branch of the family, perhaps we could get our missing information from Graham.”

  “He is severely handicapped,” said Felicity. “But that may not have affected his memory.”

  “Before we go on,” said Charlie, “I was talking the other day to the chief constable about trustees and charities and suchlike, and there are questions nowadays about the many eminent or vaguely well-known people, often of the aristocracy, who get put on the many governing bodies of charities. Often they get their names on the society’s letterhead and so on, and then use that for their own purposes. Rent-free accommodation is frequently a perk when in fact the job is merely nominal or ornamental, and no work demanding their presence at the charity’s headquarters is ever done.”

  “Interesting,” said Felicity.

  “He also said that the people who get put on these bodies’ governing councils are often quite innocent of any knowledge of museums, galleries, or whatever the body caters for. He says they not infrequently get inferiority complexes about their lack of knowledge compared to the professional employee and try their damnedest to get rid of them.”

  They thought about this.

  “But innocent hardly applies to Sir Stafford,” said Felicity. “He’s spent most of his life around galleries and museums and is very knowledgeable.”

  “But you weren’t thinking of Sir Stafford, were you?” said Wes, turning to Charlie.

  “No,” said Charlie. “I was thinking of the people he’s chosen to go on the board of the Walbrook Trust. He’ll have looked for people he thinks he can manipulate.”

  “He’s looking for people with a combination of qualities,” said Wes. “Easy to manipulate but also ignorant of stately home museums. In me he’s got the second quality maybe, particularly of English museums. But he hasn’t got the first.”

  “And he’ll get a surprise with Felicity,” said Charlie in heartfelt tones. “But can we turn to a related subject which you could help us with, Wes?” The director was just handing to him a plate of sticky toffee pudding. Charlie licked his lips and tucked in. “The concert I came to, Wes. It had a Schubert piece, then a newly discovered work which was a sort of collaborative effort. Well-known composers and not-so-well-known ones putting together a—what do you call it?—a song cycle, based on poems from the First World War.”

  “And mostly written by men who actually fought in the war,” said Wes.

  “Yes. Now the implication seemed to float in the air that there was a connection between this collaboration—or perhaps between just two or three of the composers—and Walbrook Manor. But in fact no connection was spelled out, and it’s difficult to see that it could be. Do you know?”

  Wes shifted from buttock to buttock. “Well-spotted, Charlie, but I have little to offer. For a start, the festival, where the premiere of the piece will take place, does not come within my remit. It’s entirely under the control of the cultural subcommittee on the board. So there was no reason why I should be told anything, and since that’s the case, I was not told anything. Sir Stafford saw to that.”

  “Didn’t you ask?”

  “Oh, sure, I asked. I was told the new song was found in drawers in the bedroom of their flat.”

  “Sir Stafford and his wife’s? The rooms they have taken over as their place of residence?” asked Felicity.

  “The very place. Weren’t you taken there when you visited? Lady Quarles told me she had given you a tour.”

  “I was not. Lady Quarles said she was no housewife and the place was in a mess.”

  “Personally,” said Wes Gannett as if addressing Parliament, “I regard Lady Quarles as a model of orderliness. I would guess that the flat reflects that—perpetually in order so the queen could pay a visit if she chose.”

  “Take for granted that there is a connection of the song cycle with Walbrook,” said Charlie, “then the connection would most likely be in the thirties, when the prospect of another war led people to look back to the war of ’14–’18 as a dreadful warning. That would rule out any connection with Graham Quarles. He would have been either unborn or too young.”

  “But is there any other connection between Walbrook and music?” asked Felicity. “Nobody has mentioned one to me.”

  “There’s probably none,” said Wes. “There’s no particular connection of the house to the First World War, but it was chosen as the subject of the first exhibition because it will attract a lot of attention in schools. The festival of course is separate from the exhibition. If what the men sang in the concert is a genuine cycle, not one forged to sing to order, I’d say the most likely connection would be to the Second World War, when Walbrook was taken over for use as a mental asylum.”

  “Why? Is there any strong connection between music and madness?” asked Charlie.

  “No more than with art, I suppose,” said Wes. “But mental disturbance was one consequence of serving in the First World War, and specially in the trenches. Ivor Gurney was one of several young musicians who never really recovered.”

  “And was he kept in the asylum that was established here?” asked Felicity.

  “No. For the good reason that he died in 1937.”

  “I could ask about him, and music, at the next board meeting,” said Felicity.

  “Good luck to you. Better luck, in fact, than I ever had.”

  Wes’s remark must have taken root in Charlie’s mind and sprouted a lot of ramifications, because on the drive home in Felicity’s car, and apropos of little, Charlie said, “I wonder why Wes didn’t seem to want either of us to go and talk to that grumpy old yokel he’d taped.”

  “I don’t know that he had any such feeling,” said Felicity.

  “There you are, and you a novelist too.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “You’ve got to learn to listen to the voice behind the voice,” said Charlie.

  CHAPTER 5

  Back to the Thirties

  Felicity, since the publication of her first novel, had advanced in status and self-confidence and had loosened her connection with the English Department at Leeds University. Frail connections there still were, however: she had the small class “Male Portraiture in Female Novelists” and she had a couple of honors students. She valued the links, liked her students, and found the teaching dimension a valuable prop. Once a fortnight she went in, to give the class on male characters and return the odd essay or thesis chapters.

  One of the most valuable links was Joan Wythers, the English Department secretary. If she was not too busy, Felicity could use her to keep up to date with departmental gossip, personal or academic. A week after her dinner with Wes, and only a few days before her first board meeting of the Walbrook Trust, she was surprised to be accosted by Joan as soon as she came through the door.

  “Hello, Felicity! What’s this I hear about you and Walbrook Manor? You’ve been keeping very quiet about it.”

  “I haven’t been keeping quiet. I just haven’t brought it up. Why should I? What’s your interest? I’ve always thought of you as Leeds through and through.”

  “You’re not wrong. But my family’s roots are in Walbrook village. My mother was the first to move away to the Big Town.”

  “Why did she do that?”

  “To get a job that paid more than a starvation wage. But in my childhood we were always going back there, to see the whole roster of relatives and school friends. So I think of myself, somehow, as a Walbrook person.”

  “Did your mother ever work there?”

  “Not really—not
full-time. From time to time when there was a vacancy, she went to fill in if she was asked. She didn’t like the family much, but the money, such as it was, was useful.”

  “Wasn’t your mother an unmarried parent?”

  “She was, and at a time when it was a matter of scandal and tut-tut. She felt she was always being reminded of it, and that it was used to keep her wages at rock bottom.”

  “Who was head of the family then?”

  “Do you know Rupert Fiennes?”

  “Yes, a little.”

  “Well, it was his father. When he died, Rupert took the old house over, but it was very reluctantly.”

  “Really? I thought he left the army to do it.”

  “No,” said Joan, shaking her head firmly. “He left the army and he took over the house but there was no connection. Rupert would probably have preferred a desk job with his regiment, or something at the Imperial War Museum. But he felt he had no choice. He was the best of a bad bunch by far.”

  “What was wrong with the rest of the family?”

  “Skinflints. Money-grubbers.”

  “Didn’t save them enough to save the house.”

  “Incompetent money-grubbers, then.”

  “Which wing of the family?”

  “Both. But the Fienneses were a bit less blatant and a bit less incompetent than the Quarleses.”

  “I see. Sir Stafford is one of that bunch. He’s the chairman of the Trust.”

  “And doesn’t everybody know it! He’s a very junior sprig, and so far as is known, he’s fairly straight, fairly knowledgeable too. Still, I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.”

  “How did the transfer of the house from one branch to the other come about?”

  “Ha! Everybody in the village wishes they knew. It’s something the Fienneses didn’t want to talk about, and the Quarleses were no longer around to talk.”