The Last Baronet

by Caroline Akrill

  ‘Change my name?’ Outrage flared momentarily. Here was the Hon. Nicola, in his bed, without any clothes on, having almost knocked his head off; possibly causing permanent damage to his brain, making him a proposal which would not only fill his buildings with delinquent equines and give her family access to all of his land, but also, in a crowning act of dispossession, she was suggesting that he should actually become a Rushbroke himself. It was so monstrous, it was laughable.

  ‘Oh my God, David! If you can’t beat them, you may as well join them!’ Laughter suddenly welled up in Rupert like a fountain, bursting out of him as a result of the depth of his relief and the sheer hysterical absurdness of the situation. ‘At least we’ll be family! At least we shall all be on the same side!’

  Nicola and David Williamson, thought Anna in wonder. Plan B. Who would have thought it? But really, wasn’t it the perfect solution?

  ‘Well, David, what do you think?’ Nicola asked.

  ‘I shall need time to think about it,’ he said, but actually, he didn’t need any time at all. He could see at once that if he became a Rushbroke, he would no longer be on the outside looking in, watching them through his binoculars; he would be part of the family. He knew that Nicola would look after him, and the house, and even if his farmyard was filled with delinquent equines, wouldn’t that be a relatively small price to pay? For peace of mind? For being married to this wonderfully desirable, calm, courageous and unshakable girl? A girl who, confronted with a fiend in the darkness, had, instead of taking to her heels as the men had done, had promptly picked up a branch and walloped him with it. He thought of his parents. How delighted they would have been. How proud. But he could not abandon his own family name for their sake. It would have to be incorporated. His name would have to become Williamson Rushbroke. David Williamson Rushbroke. He repeated it aloud a few times whilst Nicola smiled at him with approval. David Williamson Rushbroke. It was unthinkable! It was unbelievable! And actually, the more he said it, the more he grew to like the sound of it. David Williamson Rushbroke. It was marvellous! What a day! Quite suddenly he was overcome by fatigue. He could take no more. It had all been too much. David Williamson Rushbroke slumped back against the pillows and went out like a light.

  RUSHBROKE HALL

  COUNTRY HOUSE HOTEL

  CHRISTMAS HOUSE PARTY

  Programme of Events

  Christmas Eve

  Wednesday 24th December

  16.30hrs

  On arrival, our delicious Afternoon Tea will be

  served in the Library or the Residents’ Lounge.

  19.30hrs

  A pre-dinner drink of your choice with chef’s

  freshly baked nibbles will be served in the Library,

  the Residents’ Lounge or, if you prefer,

  by Room Service

  From 20.00hrs

  Dinner will be served in the Yellow Dining Room.

  There will be musical entertainment

  23.30hrs

  Transport will be provided for those wishing to attend

  Midnight Mass at St. Saviours, Rushbroke St. Mary

  Hot drinks and snacks will be served on your return

  THIRTY

  As the Rolls Royce turned into the narrow lane, the holy golden and white Shih Tzu fell off the rear window-ledge and, tumbling down the cream hide upholstery, bounced off the seat onto the caramel Wilton from whence, as soon as he had regained his composure, he regarded the rest of the family (who had observed his descent with acute interest untouched by any possibility of concern) with eyes positively white-rimmed with accusation.

  ‘I do hope that this is not a bad omen, Harry,’ commented Mrs Maitland-Dell who, having allowed herself the luxury of a comfortable little doze, had been awakened by the startled yelp of alarm which had accompanied the golden and white Shih Tzu’s fall.

  ‘No bad omens in the heart of the countryside,’ replied Harry Featherstone stoutly as the car approached the turning into the Rushbroke drive. ‘No omens, no potentially dangerous beasts, no wandering chickens, Madam. Everything according to instructions.’ Harry was feeling distinctly cheerful and optimistic, having already sampled the congeniality of The Crick in the Neck on the pretext of obtaining directions (there being no satellite navigation devices prior to the millennium). Entering Sam Weller’s Bar, Harry had been vastly encouraged to find a log fire blazing merrily in an inglenook, a welcoming face behind the bar and (possibly even more agreeable) a dartboard. A swift half pint and a packet of polo mints later, he had returned to Madam and the family most enormously cheered to have discovered a bolt-holt that would undoubtedly prove to be exceedingly congenial. Now, all that remained was for Harry to ensure that the holiday was universally enjoyed by making absolutely certain that all of Madam’s little requirements were met. To this end it seemed advisable to draw attention to certain points during their slow and stately progress.

  ‘No main roads, Madam. No discernible traffic in the vicinity and,’ Harry placed a gloved finger upon the button which activated Madam’s wonderfully silent, electronically operated window in order to demonstrate the veracity of his final statement, ‘no disagreeable aromas of an agricultural nature.’

  ‘Thank you, Harry,’ said Mrs Maitland-Dell graciously. ‘The air is indeed quite fresh and pure. Please be good enough to raise the window now as the family are feeling the draught.’ The family, who had been rather invigorated by the breeze and had risen in anticipation at the lowering of the window, straining their short necks towards the plough, sniffing and snuffling the fresh, pure air through their button-hole nostrils, settled down again with a collective air of mild disappointment.

  As they turned into the Rushbroke drive, Mrs Maitland-Dell regarded the family motto above the gates with a small frown. ‘Prudence Before Valour. A not altogether chivalrous motto, Harry, one feels. Not a motto with which to lead one wholeheartedly into battle, one has to say. A somewhat dubious motto, in my opinion.’

  ‘Most definitely so, Madam. Not a chivalrous motto at all; in fact a motto with a smack of cowardice about it, if you were to ask me what I thought, but just take a look at that, Madam,’ said Harry Featherstone in appreciation, ‘because that’s a very rare beauty of a house, that is. That’s a very fine house indeed. That’s a chivalrous house, if ever there was one. My word, Madam, that’s a house and a half by anybody’s standards.’

  ‘The house is indeed lovely, Harry,’ agreed Mrs Maitland-Dell, as their regal progress took them between domes of yew clipped to within an inch of their lives. ‘Although I am less happy to see the moat, it has to be said. The family are so terribly drawn to water, as well you know. They have a penchant for it. A particular fascination for water is a well-documented peccadillo of the breed.’

  ‘I shall make sure the family steer clear of the water, don’t you fear, Madam,’ promised Harry, who had not the faintest idea what a peccadillo was but very much liked the sound of the word and hoped to include it in his own vocabulary once he had mastered the meaning of it. ‘I shan’t let them out of my sight for a minute. You can depend on me.’

  ‘Of course I can, and well I know it,’ said Mrs Maitland-Dell warmly. ‘How well I remember the day you so bravely rescued my darling Freddie when the current was carrying him away towards the weir. How could I ever forget it? And now, Harry, I do believe there is someone ready and willing to assist you with the luggage. How extremely opportune and considerate.’

  ‘How very extremely opportune and considerate,’ repeated Harry, who would have preferred an arrival marked by rather less consideration and opportunism for reasons unknown to his employer. ‘How exceedingly considerate indeed.’ He drew the Rolls Royce onto the carriage sweep with a slight feeling of unease. He had planned to enter the hotel in advance of Madam in order to have a tactful and apologetic word with the management about the size of the family, the problem being that Harry had not been altogether forthcoming and absolutely truthful when he had made the reservation; the problem being th
at had Harry been absolutely truthful and altogether forthcoming when he had made the reservation then no reservation would have been made because it was an indisputable fact confirmed by over fifty telephone calls to hotels the length and breadth of England, that no establishment in the country was prepared to allow eight dogs to share a suite with one of their prospective guests, however impeccable their pedigree. Finally, having been turned down even by The Crown Hotel in Framlingham (who had, however, helpfully informed him of the imminent opening of Rushbroke Hall), Harry had resorted to subterfuge by enquiring in a general manner, if the management had any objection to accommodating small, remarkably well-behaved dogs and, having received an encouraging response, had made the reservation on the somewhat optimistic and unrealistic grounds that if the management had no objection to small dogs in the plural, they would quite possibly have no objection to the accommodation of eight.

  It was therefore not surprising that Harry felt obliged to provide some prior explanation to the handsome, dark-haired young man who walked towards the car as the tyres settled into the gravel and the engine purred away into silence, but Madam was indicating that Harry should assist her to alight and there was nothing for it but to oblige, and before Harry could utter even a word or two to smooth the arrival, Madam was out of the car with the family all around her feet in a melee of floating hair and eyes popping in anticipation, and the young man, after only an initial blench, had recovered his composure like a true professional, and welcomed Madam with a warm greeting and, taking four gilt and leather leads in each hand, conducted the family and Madam (wearing Harry’s favourite coat of pale, silky mink) across the courtyard and up the steps into the hotel, as if eight Shih Tzus arrived in a Rolls Royce every day of the week; as if there was nothing even remotely unusual about it.

  But when the young man returned after a short interval in order to assist Harry with Madam’s substantial pile of luggage, he looked at Harry in a somewhat tight-lipped and quizzical manner. ‘Eight dogs?’ He raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Was the fact that there were eight dogs actually mentioned when you made the reservation?’

  ‘I’m glad you mentioned the reservation.’ Harry picked out two hat boxes, a vanity case and a matching holdall from Madam’s luggage, every piece so lovely and elegant in buttermilk leather and embossed with a C for Clarissa. ‘Because I was intending to mention it to you myself. I was intending to make you an apology because I tried everywhere and nobody would take the dogs and I so wanted to find somewhere congenial for Madam’s little holiday. I was desperate. To tell the truth, I got myself into something of a peccadillo about it…’

  *

  The Pomeroys had not had a happy journey. The new Range Rover had consumed petrol with the voracity of a ravening beast and Tony, having failed to peruse the manufacturer’s handbook and therefore unaware that smooth progress depended upon certain refinements of driving technique, had driven in his habitual competitive manner, swerving from lane to lane, diving to a standstill at traffic lights and accelerating away at speed, racing around bends and roundabouts, with the result that Emily, seated in the back on a well-upholstered but slippery leather seat, had felt extremely queasy for most of the journey, whilst Mary Pomeroy, who would have much preferred to stay at home orchestrating a low key Christmas and was as a consequence positively rigid with nervous tension and reluctance, had felt perilously high and most cruelly exposed upon the passenger seat after the discreetly tinted and relatively low-slung comfort of the Jaguar.

  Tony and Tom had attempted to keep a conversation flowing with dogged tenacity but had flagged at last in the face of a wall of silence from the rest of the party, and communication had gradually petered out on the odd remark until it finally ceased altogether so that by the time the Range Rover turned into the gates of Rushbroke Hall, the silence was so unequivocal, so balefully absolute, that it seemed the Pomeroys might never again utter another word. It was not a promising start.

  During the journey Tony had begun to wonder why he had suggested this holiday; why he had ever thought it was a good idea. It was hard to believe he had thought that his family, this family, would enjoy being cooped up for three whole days in some claustrophobic country house miles from civilization, closeted with complete strangers they would probably loathe on sight, lodged in accommodation practically guaranteed to be not nearly as comfortable as that they had left behind in West Wickham. If I ever believed that this would be a success, Tony thought, I must have been out of my bloody mind. Could the heady prospect of riding to hounds have influenced his judgment? Surely the hunting had been an afterthought. Tony reminded himself that this holiday had been arranged for the benefit of Mary. Its specific purpose had been to remove his sad and emotional wife from the earthly reminders (and the mortal remains) of her mother. Yet had not her physician told him only a few days ago that, in his considered opinion, the only person who could help Mary Pomeroy now, was Mary Pomeroy? Family and friends did what they could for the bereaved, medication might delay the suffering, but in the end the fact of the death was there to be faced, the grief must be endured and the farewell acknowledged before the recovery could begin. ‘When Mary is ready to let go,’ her physician had said to Tony, ‘she will do it. When the time is right, it will happen.’ But when? thought Tony in despair, when?

  Tony had wondered how long he would have to tip-toe around this changed and unstable Mary. He wondered if life would ever return to anything resembling normality. Because now, when even a simple conversational overture was a minefield in which a misplaced word might invoke a flood of unstoppable tears; when a simple request could precipitate a burst of hysterical fury, he didn’t know what to do.

  Looking across at Mary Pomeroy, scrutinizing her, observing the set of her jaw, the unyielding rigidity of her body, the way she stared fixedly ahead, Tony wondered if things would ever be quite the same again between them. He knew that events changed people. Time changed people. People did not, in general, go back to what they had been; they went on to what they would become. As people grew older they became more true to themselves in that they were less inclined to adapt to what others perceived or desired them to be. Life itself changed people. In that moment Tony had realised that he had probably lost the old Mary for good, and the new Mary, the Mary who looked at Tony, and at Tom and Emily, in a way that was an objective reappraisal, would come back to them on her own terms. If she came back at all.

  Emily had not wanted to come to the country. Despite her green principles, her vegetarian diet, her holistic leanings and her fervent desire to save the world from ecological disaster, Emily was a town girl at heart, happiest with pavement under her boots, preferably pavement lined with dubiously lit, bazaar-type shops, pulsating with weird music, selling ethnic jewellery and the sort of ragbag clothing appreciated by Emily and her like-minded friends.

  Ever since the reservation had been confirmed, the family had been subjected to a passionate tirade against the evils of the countryside in which farmers were seen as ecological vandals hell bent on the destruction of the countryside who, when they were not tearing up trees, grubbing out hedges and ploughing over footpaths in headlong pursuit of surpluses that even the EEC could not find a use for, were busily loosing into the atmosphere fungicides, pesticides, weed killers and highly toxic artificial fertilizers which, as well as poisoning the land, seeped into rivers and went on to pollute the oceans of the world. Farmers were, according to Emily, personally responsible for all types of cancer, the increased incidence of asthma, and for every other possible allergy and complaint known to man. Single-handedly, they were changing the traditional landscape of the country, planting alien crops, causing the very soil to be eroded and destroying the habitat of countless flora and fauna, resulting in the near extinction of the brown hare, the dormouse, the stone curlew, the brown fritillary, the large blue butterfly, the lady’s slipper orchid and the common cowslip, whilst seriously threatening the continued existence of the song thrush, the natterjack toad and the
greater horseshoe bat. Farms themselves were nothing less than animal concentration camps where chickens were imprisoned in battery cages and where every cow that didn’t actually have TB or bovine spongiform encephalopathy was forced to permanently produce milk that the EEC poured down the drain, whilst their calves were either butchered at birth or shipped on the hoof to live out their pitifully short lives in veal crates. No, Emily had not wanted to spend Christmas in the country, and only the fact that she was feeling unwell prevented her from letting them all know just how much she was going to loathe every single moment.

  There had been no reaction from Tom. Tom had just smiled his rather wry smile and shrugged his shoulders to signify… what? Why did Tom so rarely offer an opinion on anything? Why did he never have a point of view? Why didn’t he find a job? Tony did not consider Tom’s current occupation a proper job. Driving a florist’s delivery van was not a suitable job for a boy with a decent brain and a university education (or to be perfectly accurate, half a university education). Tony had hopes of Tom taking his place in the family business, but he was not interested. Tony suspected that the trouble with Tom was that he was not interested in anything. Other lads of his age had hobbies. They played soccer, did weight-training, got into mountain biking, photography or cricket. They were into stock cars, they surfed the internet, they went out with girls, they went on pub crawls but what did Tom do? Tom did nothing. But at least, thought Tony in resignation, Tom did not particularly care where his Christmas was spent, and in that he was the least problematical member of the family.

  My God, thought Tony as the Range Rover traversed the drive to Rushbroke Hall, how did I imagine that a few days of festive cheer would transform this severely dysfunctional family unit into a happy and harmonious one? He was within a whisper of turning round and heading back to West Wickham when Rushbroke Hall came into view; a perfect jewel of a house with twin turrets and stepped gables, its rosy brick warmed by a late afternoon sun that turned its windows to flame and the moat which surrounded it to molten lava.