The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh - Evelyn Waugh [92]
His wife’s head emerged from an upper window. “Very pretty, dear,” she said.
Encouraged, he set to work again. Boggett passed.
“Useful little tool this, Boggett.”
“Ur.”
“Think we ought to sow some seed in the bare patches?”
“Noa.”
“You think the grass will grow over them?”
“Noa. Plantains’ll come up again.”
“You don’t think I’ve killed the roots?”
“Noa. Makes the roots powerful strong topping ’em off same as you’ve done.”
“Well, what ought I to do?”
“Bain’t nothing you can do with plantains. They do always come up again.”
Boggett passed. Mr. Metcalfe looked at his gadget with sudden distaste, propped it petulantly against the sundial, and with his hands in his pockets stared out across the valley. Even at this distance Lady Peabury’s aubretias struck a discordant note. His eyes dropped and he noticed, casually at first, then with growing curiosity, two unfamiliar figures among Westmacott’s cows. They were young men in dark, urban clothes, and they were very busy about something. They had papers in their hands which they constantly consulted; they paced up and down the field as though measuring it; they squatted on their haunches as though roughly taking a level; they pointed into the air, to the ground, and to the horizon.
“Boggett,” said Mr. Metcalfe sharply, “come here a minute.”
“Urr.”
“Do you see two men in Mr. Westmacott’s field?”
“Noa.”
“You don’t?”
“’Er bain’t Mr. Westmacott’s field. ’E’ve a sold of ’er.”
“Sold it! Good heavens! Who to?”
“Couldn’t rightly say who ’e’ve a sold ’er to. Gentleman from London staying at the Brakehurst. Paid a tidy price for ’er too I’ve a heard said.”
“What on earth for?”
“Couldn’t rightly say, but I reckon it be to build hisself a house.”
Build. It was a word so hideous that no one in Much Malcock dared use it above a whisper. “Housing scheme,” “Development,” “Clearance,” “Council houses,” “Planning”—these obscene words had been expunged from the polite vocabulary of the district, only to be used now and then, with the licence allowed to anthropologists, of the fierce tribes beyond the parish boundary. And now the horror was in their midst, the mark of Plague in the court of the Decameron.
After the first moment of shock, Mr. Metcalfe rallied for action, hesitated for a moment whether or not to plunge down the hill and challenge the enemy on his own ground, and decided against it; this was the moment to act with circumspection. He must consult Lady Peabury.
It was three-quarters of a mile to the house; the lane ran past the gate which gave access to Westmacott’s field; a crazily-hung elm gate and deep cow-trodden mud, soon in Mr. Metcalfe’s imagination, to give place to golden privet and red gravel. Mr. Metcalfe could see the heads of the intruders bobbing beyond the hedge; they bore urban, purposeful black hats. He drove on, miserably.
Lady Peabury was in the morning room reading a novel; early training gave a guilty spice to this recreation, for she had been brought up to believe that to read a novel before luncheon was one of the gravest sins it was possible for a gentlewoman to commit. She slipped the book under a cushion and rose to greet Mr. Metcalfe.
“I was just getting ready to go out,” she explained.
Mr. Metcalfe had no time for politenesses.
“Lady Peabury,” he began at once, “I have very terrible news.”
“Oh dear! Is poor Mr. Cruttwell having trouble with the Wolf Cub account again?”
“No; at least, he is; there’s another fourpence gone astray; on the credit side this time, which makes it more worrying. But that isn’t what I came about. It is something that threatens our whole lives. They are going to build in Westmacott’s field.” Briefly, but with emotion, he told Lady Peabury what he had seen.
She listened gravely. When he had finished there was silence in the morning room; six little clocks ticked among the chintzes and the potted azaleas. At last Lady Peabury spoke:
“Westmacott has behaved very badly,” she said.
“I suppose you can’t blame him.”
“I do blame him, Mr. Metcalfe, very severely. I can’t