The Heart of the Dales (36 page)

‘Well, Lord Manston,' said Mrs Savage finally, ‘I thinkwe have dealt with everything most satisfactorily, and may I say it has been a very great pleasure and indeed a privilege to have met you and to have been made so very welcome.'

‘The pleasure was entirely mine, Mrs Savage,' he replied, patting her hand that was lying on the chesterfield next to him, ‘and do please call me Tadge. Everyone does.'

‘Tadge,' she said with a small smile. ‘And I do hope you will call me Brenda.'

I was beginning to feel like a gooseberry so to put an end to their little
conversazione
– as Sidney would have said – I coughed. ‘Was it your son, Tadge, that I met when I visited Manston School?' I enquired. That observation should pour cold water on their intimate little chinwag, I thought.

‘Sorry, what did you say?' his lordship asked, just about managing to take his eyes off Mrs Savage.

‘Your son,' I said. ‘I believe I met him when I visited the school on your estate.'

‘Young Tommy?' he said.

‘He was a bright boy as I remember,' I told him.

‘Yes, he's got quite a bit about him,' Tadge said. ‘At prep school now, at Cransworth, and doing very well by all accounts. He's had a rough time of it over the last couple of years.'

‘Oh dear,' said Mrs Savage, with a rare show of sympathy. It was clear she was determined not to be excluded from the conversation.

Tadge turned to Mrs Savage. ‘His mother died when he was six,' he said, nodding sadly and looking up at the portrait above the fireplace.

‘I am so sorry,' said Mrs Savage, following his gaze to the portrait. ‘Was that your wife?'

‘It was. She had a riding accident, fell from her horse at a jump, broke her neck.'

‘How tragic,' said Mrs Savage.

‘“Who never ate his bread in sorrow,' said Lord Manston, ‘“who never spent the midnight hours, weeping and wailing for the morrow, he knows ye not, ye heavenly powers.”'

‘I beg your pardon?' said Mrs Savage.

‘Goethe,' he replied.

‘Of yes, of course,' she said. There was a sigh. She looked wistfully through the window. ‘I too lost a spouse and know full well how it feels to be left alone in the world.'

‘Really?' Tadge said, leaning forward.

Before Mrs Savage could regale us with the tragic details of her dear departed husband, and much to my relief, the door
burst open and Lord Marrick made his ebullient entrance. Valentine Courtnay-Cunninghame, the 9th Earl Marrick, MC, DL was a rotund, ruddy-cheeked individual with a great walrus moustache and hair shooting up from a square head. I had met Lord Marrick on a number of previous occasions – at interviews for teaching posts, Education Committee meetings, governors' conferences and various school events, and always found him an extremely warm, good-humoured and plain-spoken man with a deep sense of reverence for the land his family had owned for many generations.

‘My apologies for not being here to greet you,' he growled, slamming the door shut behind him. ‘Bit of business with the gamekeeper. Good to see you, Mrs Savage, Mr Phinn. I hope my son has been taking care of you both?'

‘Yes, indeed,' replied Mrs Savage.

‘Good show,' replied Lord Marrick, at which point there was a crashing noise from the other side of the library door, and the earl moved to open it. Two bulldogs catapulted into the room and rushed across to jump up at Tadge's chair.

‘Get down, you brutes,' he said good-naturedly. ‘You're wet! Go and lie down.'

The two barrel-bodied animals, drooling from their pink jowls, ambled across the floor and collapsed in front of the fireplace. I had met them on previous visits to Manston Hall, but I noticed Mrs Savage was eyeing them with grave suspicion.

‘Sorry about that,' said Lord Marrick. ‘Anyway, everything's sorted out for this conference, is it?'

‘It is,' I replied.

Lord Marrickturned to his son. ‘Still trying to catch the blighters,' he said. ‘Jameson's set a couple more traps near the forty-acre. Just a matter of time before we get 'em.'

‘Is it poachers?' enquired Mrs Savage.

‘Squirrels, Mrs Savage,' replied the peer. ‘Squirrels!' Then he turned to me. ‘Do you know anything about squirrels, Mr Phinn?' he asked.

‘Squirrels?' I murmured, with a sinking feeling but attempting to lookas insouciant as possible.

‘Squirrels,' he repeated.

I could feel myself colouring up. The gamekeeper had told him about my releasing the squirrels on his land, I was sure of it. Now he was setting mantraps. ‘I can't say I know a great deal about squirrels,' I said.

‘We have rather an odd problem with squirrels on the estate at the moment. The first we knew about it was when the local rag printed a report of a new breed of squirrels having been seen up in the woods near the forty-acre. Seen by a party of wretched ramblers who were walking there, and one of them sent a report in to the newspaper. They claimed to have seen a cross between a red and a grey squirrel – had grey coats, white bellies and bright red tails. Would you believe it, tails as red as a pillar box!' Lord Marrick brushed a hand across his large moustache. ‘Stuff and nonsense, of course, reds and greys don't interbreed. Any damn fool knows that.'

I gulped. ‘Really? Squirrels with red tails. How unusual.'

‘I've no idea what they are. Had the fellows from CAPOW sniffing around – that's the Countryside Association for the Protection of Wildlife,' he expanded. ‘If I have my way, it won't be a case of ‘protection', I can tell you, when we catch up with the varmints. Wreckmy trees, they do. Anyhow, Jameson and I have been putting out traps this afternoon.'

‘Amazing,' simpered Mrs Savage. ‘Grey squirrels with red tails.'

‘Once we catch them,' said Lord Marrick, ‘the wildlife people can do what they like with them – so long as it is a long way away from my woods.'

‘You think you'll catch them, then?' I asked in the most innocent of voices.

‘Oh, we'll catch them all right,' growled the peer, ‘and then we'll get to the bottom of this daft bloody business. Pardon my French, Mrs Savage. Grey squirrels with red tails, I ask you!'

‘Might some children have painted their tails red for a prank?' suggested Mrs Savage. ‘It is just the sort of thing some repellent boy would do.' I could have strangled her.

‘Now there's a thought,' mused Lord Marrick. ‘You might just have something there, Mrs Savage, and if it is mischievous young hooligans, I won't tell you what Jameson will do to them if he get his hands on them. The trouble they've caused him.'

‘Perhaps we should be making tracks, Mrs Savage,' I said, keen to put an end to the conversation and see the back of Manston Hall.

‘You're a saint,' trilled Sister Brendan, the headteacher at St Bartholomew's Roman Catholic Infant School, as I lugged the last of the donations into her office. The nun, a diminutive woman with small, sparkling black eyes and a little beak of a nose, was like a twittering blackbird. ‘It is so very good of you to collect all these items for my auction. I am sure we will raise a veritable fortune for those poor unfortunate children. People have been so generous.'

‘I've been called a number of things in my life, Sister,' I told her, panting under the weight of the huge hamper, ‘but never a saint.'

‘We all have the makings of a saint within us, Mr Phinn,' she told me. ‘Just put the hamper down there near my desk, will you? My goodness, you look quite out of breath. Would you like to sit down for a moment?'

‘No, no, Sister,' I said, breathing heavily and wiping my brow. ‘I'm fine. It was just rather heavier than I imagined, and it's quite a walk from the car park.'

The school caretaker, an emaciated individual in a spotless brown overall and with a face the colour of putty, had observed me without a word as I had struggled with my burden but never suggested giving a helping hand. ‘I would have asked the caretaker to help,' said the nun, peering into the hamper, ‘but since his heart murmur, he can't exert himself or get excited. And, of course, he gets vertigo so can't climb ladders, and then there's his asthma… Poor man, he can't carry or climb or dust. He's a martyr, is Mr Sharrock, a true martyr.'

He sounded like a walking pathological museum and not a great deal of use as a caretaker, I thought, but I didn't comment.
‘Well, Sister,' I said, ‘that's the lot. Good luck with your auction. I must be making tracks.'

‘You can't leave without having a little tour of the school!' cried the nun.

‘Actually, I'm in rather a hurry, Sister,' I told her. ‘I have an appointment with the headteacher of Crompton Primary School, and Mrs Gardiner is a bit of a stickler when it comes to punctuality.' I glanced at my watch. ‘In fact, she will be expecting me about now.'

‘Come on! It's not half past eight yet,' said Sister Brendan, ‘and Crompton Primary is just round the corner. You can't leave before having a little look round the school and Mrs Webb, my wonderful assistant, will be devastated if you leave before saying hello.'

She was somewhat fond of the hyperbole was Sister Brendan.

‘No, I really must go, Sister,' I said. ‘Perhaps another time.'

‘Just a few minutes,' pleaded the nun. ‘Please.'

I surrendered. ‘Very well, just a few minutes.'

The headteacher took me on a tour of the school, gliding down the corridor before me as if she were on castors, stopping occasionally to admire a child's painting or to tell me how well the pupils were progressing. St Bartholomew's was indeed a rich and colourful place and she was justifiably proud.

I finally escaped – or thought I had. Sister Brendan came out into the playground with me, to see me off to the car park.

‘Ah, here's Mrs Webb,' said Sister, ‘manning the yard as usual. Look who I've brought to see you,' she told the teacher.

‘Oh, Sister,' simpered Mrs Webb.

‘You remember Mrs Webb, don't you, Mr Phinn?' said the nun.

‘I do, yes,' I replied. ‘Good morning, Mrs Webb.'

How could I forget Mrs Webb! Today, she looked as if she were about to embarkon an Arctic expedition. The small, red-faced teacher with dyed black hair and bright red lips was wearing a shapeless grey duffel coat, thick scarf, fat woolly gloves and substantial leather boots.

‘You gave her such a lovely report when you observed her lessons,' said the nun before the teacher could respond. ‘You were very impressed with her drama work, as I recall. You've not quite got over it, have you, Mrs Webb?'

‘No, Sister,' replied the teacher, nodding her head like a puppet. ‘Good morning, Mr Phinn.'

‘And when I was away ill,' continued Sister Brendan, ‘she held the fort magnificently.'

‘I didn't know you'd been ill, Sister,' I said.

‘Heart attack,' said Mrs Webb, nodding. ‘You would not believe the suffering and discomfort she endured, Mr Phinn. Never thinks of herself, always of others.'

‘I had no idea,' I said.

‘Collapsed in assembly, didn't you, Sister?'

‘You make it sound very dramatic, Mrs Webb,' said the nun. ‘It was just a small turn.'

‘You see what I mean,' said her colleague. ‘Never complains.'

‘I'm so sorry to hear you've not been well, Sister,' I said. ‘Well, it's good to see you looking your old self. And now, if you will excuse me –'

As I turned to leave, the nun touched my arm. ‘That's why we teach, Mr Phinn,' she said.

‘I beg your pardon, Sister?' I asked.

‘Look at that little child by the wall.' She gestured across the playground. Standing there alone was a small boy, hugging himself against the sharp wind. ‘We have such an awesome job, those of us who teach, watering these little seeds, watching them grow and flourish and bloom.' She sighed. ‘In all the seeds of today are all the flowers of tomorrow.'

‘Indeed,' I said, desperate to get away, ‘and time waits for no man so, if you will excuse me, I really must –'

‘Some are planted in very fertile soil,' continued Sister Brendan, ‘but, sadly, others fall on hard and stony ground.'

‘He's such a sorrowful child is Jasper, isn't he, Sister?' observed Mrs Webb.

‘Indeed he is, Mrs Webb,' agreed the headteacher, nodding.
‘A sorrowful child. He looks as if he has the troubles of the entire world on his little shoulders.'

‘He only just started with us this last week,' Mrs Webb explained to me, ‘and we do so worry about him. I think he's finding it a bit difficult at home at the moment.' She lowered her voice. ‘His parents have recently divorced and I expect he's trying to adjust to a new life with just his mother, and in rented accommodation. I'm sure he must miss his daddy, poor little mite. He never smiles, never plays with the other children, and rarely says anything. He just keeps himself to himself.'

‘I'm sure he'll soon settle in, Mrs Webb,' I reassured her. ‘Children are very resilient and he couldn't be in a better school environment.'

‘Bless his heart,' sighed Sister Brendan. ‘You know, Mr Phinn, if an angel were to descend to earth he would have the countenance of Jasper. He reminds me of one of those little cherubs with golden wings that you see on Christmas cards.'

‘Raphael,' said Mrs Webb.

‘I'm sorry?' I said.

‘When Sister and I went to Rome on the parish pilgrimage with Monsignor Leonard, we saw these paintings by Raphael,' Mrs Webb told me.

‘Really?' I said, looking at my watch.

‘He painted these cherubims,' explained Mrs Webb, ‘little chubby pink children with wings. Jasper's just like them.'

The child did indeed look angelic, with his mass of golden curls, great wide eyes and round red cheeks. ‘You're so right, Mrs Webb. Come along, Mr Phinn, let's go and have a little word with him.'