14. Prelude to a Fuss

What Ho Proles!

With the low sun cutting obliquely through a copse of alder, beach, and oak, dappled with the first green flush of spring buds, driving into C---- N---- felt like arriving at one of those places you tend to run across in a corner of France where you hope to stay forever after you’ve been there for only two bobs of a housemaid’s tail.

My Man and I drove through the village in time for the early evening rush hour, comprising a single horse-drawn wagon tootling along at the pace of a one legged farmer who dragged the poor creature by its flea ravaged snout. I didn’t care much for the look in the creature’s eye, hinting, as it did, to a shiftiness and willingness to plot, and I had half a mind to warn the poor fellow before he found himself hoofed into some hedgerow.

I don’t know what brought on this sudden consideration for others, nor indeed, what made me feel so happy to be home, but something about the golden sunlight, the tranquil lanes, and the slightly inbred locals made it feel like some great hand had turned back the celestial clock to a time when a man might walk from one end of the land to the other, never stepping out from under the canopy of English oak, nor going a minute without getting cracked on the head by an acorn.

A Bentley is the perfect automobile for such terrain. Being able to get arrive at your destination safe yet slightly sloshed is my notion of heaven and provides another reminder that it is the small things in life which encourage a chap to become a Tory in the first place; that and the chance to wield almost unlimited power.

We arrived at the Hall in time for a late dinner or early supper, depending on how you like to take it, but I found the place a bit of a ruin and quite unprepared for my arrival. My housekeeper, the ever loyal Mrs. Priggs, came out to greet me on the doorstep but any welcome went by like the whistle on an express and she was soon complaining about a weekend gone to mush.

‘I’m so glad your home,’ she began, ‘I’ve had a terrible time with the council. There’s been a man here all weekend complaining about the festival.’

The festival, you should know, is nothing more than the burning of a thirty foot wicker man that takes place every year at the end of April. I allow the locals to use a corner of the estate where there happens to be an ancient Bronze Age barrow and a few standing stones. They light it in honour of the new spring and as part of the ancient traditions that still exist in these rural parts. They are very rustic folk, you understand, and one does well to placate them, though it does bring in a bit of tourism, even if it is usually the type of people who make their own soap and jewellery and who the police have a heck of a time trying to move on once the fire’s died down.

‘Didn’t you explain to him about the equinox?’ I asked, handing Mrs. Priggs my coat.

‘That’s just it, sir,’ she said, following me to my study as dutifully as the horse following the uniped farmer. ‘The gentleman said it isn’t allowed on account of it being a religious festival.’ She fixed me with a squint. ‘I hope you’re not going to listen to him, Mr. Murgatroid,’ she said. ‘He’s got no right getting in the way of the harvest festival. That’s the local’s crops he’s playing with. The fertility of the district. Without the ceremony, girls will surely go barren. The crops will fail.’

‘Don’t worry yourself, Mr. Priggs,’ I said slowly so as to reassure her. ‘I’m certain there’s an explanation.’

‘I don’t know, sir,’ she replied, obviously set to let her protests run the full five furlongs. ‘He said even if he could allow it on religious grounds, he couldn’t allow it became a fire that big will cause environment damage. Then he said there’s the animals’ welfare to consider.’

‘Oh for goodness sake!’ I cried, arriving at my desk. ‘Whatever next? Is he really going to stop the locals sacrificing a few scrawny chickens and some particularly sniffy goat?’

‘That seems to be his point.’

‘And I suppose he’d have a problem with the policeman they usually lure from the mainland...’ I muttered, though I doubted if any of this made any sense. Too many people have seen The Wicker Man and think it all linked to satanic ritual. I’m Church of England myself, but even I don’t see any harm in the old religion keeping a toe in the country.

The next day, my ire was still roused when I got up and found a calling card left in my study informing me that I’d have a visitor at eleven. I’d planned to start my day by building upon the success of the weekend by ringing around my campaign team to organise a meeting, but now I was troubled by thoughts of disgruntled natives torching the local council building. There were too many dark omens that the business would affect the general election. I could already hear the news reporters explaining how the seat would won or lost on ‘local issues’, which in my case, would make me the only Tory running on a manifesto arguing over the finer points of druidic lore relating to animal sacrifices and the fecundity of the local brigade of damsels, virgins, maidens, and passing nymphets.

While I was pondering this point, there was a tap on my study door.

‘Yes?’ I said, not wishing to be disturbed.

Mrs Priggs’s head appeared around the oak panelling. ‘There’s a gentleman to see you, sir,’ she said in a tone she keeps especially polished for implications.

‘Show him in, Mrs. Priggs,’ I said and quickly discarded my dressing gown and replaced it with a sombre jacket devoid of cavorting dragons and water lilies. On reflection, I should have the dressing gown on. Cavorting dragons and water lilies seemed only appropriate given that things were about to get as confusing as a bucket full of Chinese ideograms.