A Scandal in Belgravia

by Robert Barnard

“I’m not sure. Belongs to Mr. James Wycliffe, I gather.”

  “That’ll be it. It’s all Mr. James’s now, or it is in effect. . . . Very nice gentleman, is Mr. James.”

  There seemed to be an “as opposed to” implied here, so I crinkled up my forehead as if in thought and said: “I have a feeling my late wife knew his wife.”

  “Ah!” said the landlord, and tapped his nose. “Different kettle of fish entirely, is Mrs. James. More than a touch of the tartar. A fair woman, mind you, but likes her own way. You take my advice: if you buy the cottage, you keep on the right side of her! . . . Haven’t I seen you before somewhere?”

  “Not round here. You could have seen me on the television.”

  “Ah, that’d be it. It’s always on in the back of the bar. I only see it with half an eye.”

  “That’s much the best way to see it.”

  He showed a rare and commendable lack of curiosity about what I did when I appeared on the box. I could have been a glove-puppeteer for all he cared. I took my plate of steak and kidney and chips to a table in a corner, and read a paper while I forked it in. It was about what one would expect in a pub which had no competition in the provision of lunches in its village. I got the landlord to put an extra half-pint in my glass, but he was too busy to talk. Then I was ready to drive back to Maddern Hall.

  I parked outside the cottage and made the ritual tour of inspection. It was conservatively furnished, a little dark, as cottages always are, but well-equipped and—until recently, I guessed—lovingly cared for. The garden, too, had been weeded and tidied not so long before. I wondered idly whether a country cottage might not be a good idea: I could write here, come for weekends, potter around in the garden. I wondered whether Jeremy would come. Probably, but I’d always be thinking he’d prefer to be in London, with friends of his own age. The inspection over, I locked the place up, reversed the car up the road, then turned into the gates of Maddern Hall and drove up the handsome, tree-lined approach to the house. Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came—though the only ghost that might be watching my approach was the ghost of Timothy Wycliffe.

  I paused for a moment as I got out of the car and surveyed the well-kept lawns, the few but meticulously weeded flower beds, and the lush acreage stretching into the distance, dotted with farms, and with barns, hen runs, and piggeries. Then I walked up to the entrance and rang the bell.

  “Yes?”

  It was a daily woman who opened the door—aproned, with a duster in her hand.

  “My name is Proctor, and I was wondering if Mr. or Mrs.—”

  “What is it, Mary?”

  The voice was well-bred, confident, unimaginative. I looked past the daily woman at the figure who now came into the oak-lined entrance hall. Unmistakably this was Mrs. Wycliffe. She was tall, with an indisputable air of command. There was no ostentation about her: she was simply dressed in a jumper and skirt of the kind that Ann often sported, and she wore no jewellery—swine before pearls had presumably been the Wycliffe business motto. She had square shoulders and an erect stance, and she was without question a woman who expected and exacted deference.

  “Mrs. Wycliffe?” I said, smiling deferentially (I had had much practice). “I don’t think we’ve met but I’m—”

  “Proctor. Peter Proctor. Well, this is a surprise. And an honour, of course. Do come in.”

  As I stepped over the threshold I breathed a sigh of relief. Marjorie Knopfmeyer had not passed on my interest in Timothy Wycliffe. Otherwise this woman, I felt sure, would be neither surprised nor welcoming. First hurdle over.

  “I’ve just been looking at your cottage that’s for sale,” I explained. “The girl at Wetherfield and Markham’s told me it was yours, and I thought I should come over and pay my respects. Lord John—as he then was—was a minister when I first entered the Commons.”

  “Well, I’m most pleased you’re interested in the cottage, and so will James be.” The tone was distinctly warm, even genial. “Do come through. Holiday home?”

  “That’s right. Not just that, though: place for getting down to my memoirs.”

  “James. Surprise guest. Peter Proctor.”

  She had ushered me into a long, airy living room, pleasantly furnished with family pieces and rather dull pictures. James Wycliffe got up from the sofa, shook my hand with an expression of surprise, and we went through the ritual of greetings and explanations. He was a heavy, slightly florid man, with the kindly air of a person who knows he is not a great brain. He gave the impression of being someone who had never been his own master, and didn’t much regret it. He had a dog at his feet, and he looked the type who would always have a dog somewhere in the vicinity.

  “We were just going to have coffee,” said Mrs. Wycliffe. “I’m Caroline, by the way. You’ll have some with us, won’t you? Excuse me—I won’t be too long. We don’t have any staff to speak of any longer.”

  “Well!” said James Wycliffe, settling down again into his sofa. “This is a pleasant variation to the day’s routine. Damned pleased you’re interested in the cottage. Even if you’re not, it was civil of you to drop in. Mind you, we don’t have all that much to do with politics these days.”

  “Me neither. I’m a dead letter, like your father. I was telling your wife that he was a minister when I first went into the Commons. I know your sister slightly, by the way—charming woman. And I was great friends with your brother.”

  His face fell at once, in what seemed utterly genuine regret. My first impression was that he was a man innocent of guile.

  “Tim. Poor old Tim. I’ve never stopped grieving for him. Now there was a man with gifts. There was a man who could win people to him. I’m a plain sort of chap, but even I could see that. What a waste! How did you know him?”

  “At the Foreign Office. He and I started more or less together. We were very different types—like you I’m a plain sort of chap. I got where I did get through a thoroughly boring competence. But I couldn’t fail to see his distinction, and be influenced by him.”

  “Didn’t know you’d started in the F.O.”

  “Just for a few years. I got out and went into industry. Couldn’t stand Eden’s way with his staff. Tim was thinking of getting out before he died, wasn’t he?”

  “Oh yes. Not for that reason, I don’t think. He realized he was a fish out of water there. He used to say he’d gone in because he was interested in foreign countries, and he’d found that the F.O. was the last place that anyone with that interest ought to go. Damned witty chap, Tim. My father and I both told him it would be disloyal to get out during Suez, and I’m glad to say we convinced him. But the F.O. was never the place for him: he wasn’t discreet or hypocritical enough for the high-ups there.”

  “I felt that at the time. I was always warning him that he was much too . . . open. He was thinking of going to work for the Hatherley Trust, wasn’t he?”

  “That’s right. He was to be their spokesman. Damned good job he’d have made of it too. Better than the chap who did run it who was always on television at one time, whatever his name was. . . . Of course one can say that now. . . .”

  “Not at the time?”

  “Definitely not at the time! A hot potato if ever I knew one, especially if Father was around. And I’ve got to admit we both tried to step on it firmly at the time. But times have changed, haven’t they? Attitudes have changed.”

  “I think they have, to some extent. But you say you were against his working for them when the matter came up?”

  He shook his head in self-depreciation.

  “Wasn’t a question of what I was against. Tim and I were great friends, but he’d never have come to me for advice. Quite right too. I’m a frightful old stick-in-the-mud, always have been. It was a question of what Father said.”

  “No, I suppose Lord John wouldn’t have been too happy.”

  “Putting it mildly. We were staying with him in the Kensington house at the time. We had a house in Formby then, and acted as unofficial liaison wi
th the constituency people. All the time the crisis was on we were back and forth, back and forth. Father and Caroline were always very close politically—she was secretary, nursemaid and cheerleader to him, all unpaid. She’d have made a damned good MP if things had been different in the party then. Anyway, I remember we were just congratulating ourselves on having persuaded Tim he shouldn’t resign till after it was all over when he dropped into a phone call to me just what he intended to do when he did resign. I’m not too bright, but I felt a bit uneasy about it. When I told Father he hit the roof.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, the trouble was Tim didn’t think Father was the person to give him advice either.”

  “I’m not altogether surprised. He seldom talked about him. They weren’t close, were they?”

  “No. Tim was quite right. He was a free spirit, and he had to make his own decisions. But you couldn’t expect Father to see it like that. There was a blistering telephone conversation the night before he died. The atmosphere in the house was positively crackling. Caroline and I were in the sitting room and I tell you: we shivered! We couldn’t hear what was said, but we could hear Father shouting. He could be tremendous at moments like that . . . Terrifying . . . But of course in the long run it wouldn’t have done any good. Tim would have gone his own way.”

  “Who would have gone his own way?”

  Caroline Wycliffe had come in with a coffee pot and cups on a tray, and began setting out cups before us and pouring.

  “Tim would, dear. We were talking about Tim.”

  There was an immediate frosting in the atmosphere.

  “What an unfortunate topic of conversation when we have the good fortune to have a cabinet minister visit us!”

  “Ex,” I said. “I knew your brother-in-law well, Mrs. Wycliffe.”

  “As far as I’m concerned the least said about Tim the better,” she said, her mouth in a hard, straight line.

  “Dammit, Caroline, I loved Tim!” protested her husband. “I’m not going to have him talked about as if he should be swept away under the carpet!”

  “I was fond of Tim myself,” said Caroline coldly, “at least when he wasn’t being outrageous. I’d be the first to admit that he was wonderfully clever at talking me around. But in view of some of his activities I don’t think he is a suitable topic for social chitchat.”

  “For God’s sake, Caroline! Your father was an admiral! Do you think that sort of thing isn’t a matter of everyday occurrence in the navy?”

  She shook her head, as if in acknowledgement that this was one subject on which she could not bully her husband round to her opinion. She took up a cup and got up from the sofa.

  “I’ll take this in to Father.”

  “Still pretty bright?”

  “Not too bad.”

  “He’s having one of his good days,” said James in explanation. “Generally speaking he’s declining fast into senility.”

  “Really? I saw him not long ago in the House of Lords.”

  “Ah well—senility no bar there, eh?” James laughed heartily, then thought he’d been unfeeling. “But that will be the last time, I’m afraid. Dereham, whose cottage you looked at, used to take him. Father’s old butler, with him for years. Only five years younger, as a matter of fact, but much spryer. They let him look after Father right up to the entrance of the Chamber. I think a lot of people thought he was a peer. He had a stroke three weeks ago. Sad. I don’t think Father’s taken it in yet.”

  I had listened to Mrs. Wycliffe’s footsteps and they had not gone upstairs. I said: “He looked very frail.”

  “That’s right. He has one of the drawing rooms down here as his room—he eats and sleeps there nowadays. It’s a big burden on Caroline, though we get help now and then. Mind you, in some ways it’s a relief.”

  “Oh?”

  “He’s not looking over our shoulders the whole time. When he lost his seat in 1966 it was the end of the world for him: he was absolutely adrift, poor old man. He put all his energies into the running of this place: acquired more farms, spread himself, reformed work practices. Trouble was, he wasn’t really very good at running a large farming business.”

  “Penny-pinching,” said Caroline, coming back and taking up her coffee. “Sorry to say it about the old man, but that’s the size of it. Penny-pinching just doesn’t do in farming, and it puts the local people’s backs up.”

  “But Father never was awfully good with people, was he, Caro? He got his life Peerage in 1973. Lord Edmonton. Nobody thinks of him as that, though, and he often even forgets it himself. Still, it gave him a toehold on political life again. About that time he made over Maddern and all the estate to us, to avoid death duties. Always resented taxes, poor old Father. So we ran the place, but we always had him looking over our shoulders. Meanwhile he stayed on here, practically alone with Dereham, who lived in the cottage and was pretty much the last of the staff. Funny situation: they spent all day here together, quarrelling and getting on each other’s nerves, but somehow needing each other.”

  “Rather like one of these modern plays,” said Caroline surprisingly.

  “We always encouraged him to be active in the Lords—to get him out of our hair. Caroline is a marvellous administrator, and I—well, I suppose I supply the human touch. Amiable old buffer. Anyway eventually we had to move in. Dereham couldn’t look after him on his own any more, let alone the place, which was going to rack and ruin. So we’ve been with him for some years now, but we’ve always felt him looking disapprovingly at practically everything we’ve done. At least until recently.”

  “You have a son to take over?”

  “Grandson. Son was in on computers at an early stage. Has Caro’s brain, luckily. No interest in the place at all. But Ben, fortunately, has loved it from the moment he opened his eyes and started taking notice. He’s here now, learning about the place from the fieldwork upwards. Lovely to have him here.”

  “I’ve never understood,” said Caroline, “how it helps to learn the business of running a large estate to go out into the fields and hoe turnips. A course in accountancy would be more use, but I suppose he’ll do that eventually. Ah well, I’m old-fashioned, thank goodness. If that’s what Ben wants, let him do it. He’s a help with Father, too.”

  “I’d like to pay my respects to Lord John—Lord Edmonton—before I go,” I said.

  “I don’t think so,” said Caroline quickly. Then she flushed at her rudeness. “I’m sorry, but I always feel it’s not kind to old people . . . it makes an exhibition of them . . . I mean when they’re a shadow of their former selves.”

  “Nonsense, Caroline. You know Father is tickled pink by anything connected with politics. He’ll be immensely flattered that he’s still remembered.”

  “No, I don’t think it would be a good idea at all.” Her head swung around. “What on earth is that?”

  Her eye had been caught by something through the window. She got up and James and I rose from our seats with her. Parked just behind my own Volvo was a rather dirty old van with “D. O’CONNOR, MILKMAN” on the side. In the back was a large shape covered with a tarpaulin, and getting out of the driver’s seat was Marjorie Knopfmeyer. I recognised her with a lift of the heart: could she be my way out of a ticklish situation? We were all in the entrance hall when she rang the doorbell and marched straight in.

  “Caroline! James! I’ve got the most marvellous present for you, which you’re going to hate—oh, Good Lord—Peter!”

  She was surprised, but the next moment she shot me a dazzling smile that was instinct with intelligent apprehension of the cause of my being there.

  “Oh, you know Mr. Proctor, Marjorie?” James burbled on. “Oh yes, he said you’d met. He’s just dropped in . . .”

  “Of course I know Peter. Good friends. Now the thing is this: I’m back at the cottage now, as you know, but I find I’ve been left this marvellous piece by Ferdy—The Fall of Icarus. One of his really fine works. He sold it to a very rich lady, o
ne of our Gloucester neighbours, and since she had no near relatives she left it back to me in her will. Wonderful windfall, but I’ve nowhere to put it at the cottage—far too large. So I thought: that’s just the thing for the lawns in front of Maddern. It’s meant for outside, of course. So I got the milkman to lend me his van and here it is. You’ll loathe it, Caroline, but it’s rather valuable and generally considered one of Ferdy’s masterpieces. You’ll have sculpture buffs peering at it through the gates. Come on, come and have a look. Could you get Ben to help me unload it?”

  She took her sister-in-law firmly by the arm. Caroline said: “How interesting. We’ll all go and have a look.” She shot a glance at her husband which I had no difficulty interpreting, but she let herself be led away. In the hall James fussed for a moment and then said:

  “Like to have a little talk to Father? Old chap would be pleased as Punch. Loves anything to do with politics. I’ll make it right with Caroline.”

  I thanked him and he led me to a dark door under an archway in a covered nook at the rear of the hall. When he opened it he took me into a room flooded with light, with windows giving on to lawns and fields, yet somehow I could not rid myself of the notion that I was being led into the dark tower’s darkest inner sanctum.

  18

  DARK CENTRE

  James Wycliffe led me over to a high-backed chair placed near a blazing fire, with the figure in it hidden from me. I could feel the son’s nervousness from his hand on my arm. The room was light and airy, with windows on two sides giving a glorious view of lawns, hedges, and fields beyond. As I approached the chair I seemed to see only rugs, but there in the middle was the shrunken figure I had seen at the House of Lords—a wizened, depleted body, with sunken cheeks and downcast eyes, something once a man, but now, it seemed, diminishing out of life.

  “Father, you have a visitor,” said James, in that hearty tone so many children eventually adopt to their ageing parents. “It’s Peter Proctor who used to be minister of . . . of—”

  “Energy, among other things,” I said. I hope I felt suitably humbled that a life-long Conservative could not remember what I had been or what I had done. I was further chastened by the first words that emerged from the chair.