“Really? I can’t imagine you’ll understand much of it,” said Roger. “Stay close to me and I’ll try to explain some of the technical terms to you if you like.”
“That’s exactly what I told Lord Dagenham and his American colleague when they asked me if you should be invited,” said the Major. He was slightly ashamed that his good intentions had been so quickly abandoned, but he told himself that the fleeting glance of dismay on his son’s face was for Roger’s own good. “Shall we join the others?”
The table in the middle of the old stone dairy wore a lumpy nylon cover, concealing something large and horizontal. There was barely room for the remaining guests to squeeze along the edges where, noticed the Major, one’s backside immediately radiated with numbing cold from the stone walls. A smelly heater of indeterminate age burned fiercely in one corner but failed to do more than take off the chill.
“Sorry about the accommodations, gentlemen, but this is more private than the house,” said Lord Dagenham. “With Mr. Ferguson’s approval—or should I say with the approval of Lord Ferguson, Laird of Loch Brae”—here Ferguson winked, and waved away the honor with a modesty that did not conceal his delight—“I will reveal to you at once the greatest advance in appropriate English countryside development since his Royal Highness’s fully planned village at Pound-bury.” He and Ferguson gripped the fabric cover and drew it gently off the table. “I give you the Twenty-first Century Enclave at Edgecombe.”
What was revealed was a model of the village. The Major could see at once the folds and creases of the familiar landscape. On one side, the model ended in an upsweep of downland, on the other it spread out into flat farm country. He could see the village green and the pub, which seemed to have been painted pale green and to have developed some carbuncular buildings on one side. He could see the lane leading up to Rose Lodge and even pick out his own garden, edged with fuzzy miniature hedges and furnished with a single architect’s model tree. The village, however, seemed to have sprouted a few too many versions of Dagenham Manor. They produced a strange mirror effect, with almost identical manor houses, each sporting a long carriage drive, squares of formal gardens, stable blocks set round with miniature cars, and even a round pond, complete with silver paint surface and three mallards each. There was one such manor in the field behind his own house and another where the bus stop should have been. The bus stop and the main road seemed to have disappeared, removed to the edge of the model, where they disappeared into the farmland. The Major peered closer at the village green, looking for the shop. The plate glass window was gone and the shop, faintly recognizable behind a new bowed window and shutters of teal blue said, “Harris Jones and Sons, Purveyors of Fine Comestibles and Patisserie.” A wicker basket of apples and an old iron dog cart containing pots of flowers stood at the new bubbled-glass door. A tea shop, a milliner’s, and a tack and gun shop had been added. The Major felt frozen to the spot.
“In looking to the future of the Dagenham estate,” said Ferguson, “my good friend Lord Dagenham asked me how he could possibly develop the site, in order to shore up the financial foundation of the estate, while also preserving the best of the English countryside.”
“I told him no shopping centers!” said Dagenham. The small cadre of bankers laughed.
“I could not answer that question until I had the chance to purchase Loch Brae Castle and experience for myself what it means to be a steward of the countryside.” Here Ferguson stopped to place a hand over his heart as if pledging allegiance. “To be responsible for the lives of all those crofters and the land itself calling out for our protection.” Now the bankers seem puzzled, as if he had started speaking another language. “So together we came up with a vision of the highest-end luxury development, unparalleled in the U.K. Taking advantage of the availability of planning permission for new, architecturally significant country estates, my company, St. James Homes, will build an entire village of prestigious manor homes and redevelop the village to service those estates.” As he paused to draw breath, the bankers bobbed and squatted to view the tabletop village from closer angles. This was not the easiest of gymnastic exercises after so large a meal, and there was much huffing and panting between questions. “Where’s the retail corridor?”
“Is there a motorway connection?”
“How’s the cost per square foot compared to Tunbridge Wells?”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen—my colleague Mr. Sterling and I will be glad to take all your questions.” He was smiling, as if the deal were already completed. “I have info packets for all back in the house. May I suggest you finish looking at the model and we’ll gather back in the house to talk numbers where it’s warm?”
The Major lingered around the model after the last of the bankers had left. Alone with his village, he kept his hands inside his jacket pockets in order to resist the temptation to pluck off all the little manor houses and cover the empty spots by moving around some of the wire brush trees.
“Cigar?” He turned to find Dagenham at his side.
“Thank you,” he said, accepting a cigar and a light.
“You are, of course, appalled by all this,” said Dagenham squinting at the model like an architect’s apprentice. He was so matter-of-fact that the Major was unable to say otherwise.
“I would say I did not expect it,” said the Major in a careful tone. “It is quite—unexpected.”
“I saw your letter to the planning chappie,” said Dagenham. “I told Ferguson, the Major will be appalled. If we can’t convince him of what we’re doing, we might as well give up.” The Major flushed, confused at being confronted with this evidence of his disloyalty.
“Fact is, I’m appalled myself,” said Dagenham. He bent down and touched a fingertip to a manor house, moving it slightly deeper into a stand of trees. He squinted again and stood back up, looking at the Major with a wry smile. “Trouble is, even if I were prepared to bury myself here all year round I couldn’t save the old place, not long term.” He walked to a window and opened it slightly, blowing smoke into the stable yard.
“I’m sorry,” said the Major.
“Estates like mine are in crisis all over the country,” said Dagenham. His sigh seemed to contain genuine defeat and the Major, watching his profile, saw his jaw tighten and his face grow sad. “Can’t keep up the places on the agricultural subsidies, can’t even cut down one’s own timber without permission, hunting is banned, and shooting is under attack from all sides as you just saw. We’re forced to open tea shops or theme parks, to offer weekend tours to day-trippers or host rock festivals on the lawn. It’s all sticky ice cream wrappers and car parking in the lower fields.”
“What about the National Trust?” asked the Major.
“Oh, yes, they used to be there, didn’t they? Always hovering, waiting to take one’s house away and leave one’s heirs with a staff flat in the attic,” said Dagenham, with malice in his voice. “Only now they want a cash endowment, too.” He paused and then added, “I tell you, Major, we’re in the final decades now of this war of attrition by the tax man. One day very soon the great country families will be wiped out—extinct as the dodo.”
“Britain will be the poorer for it,” said the Major.
“You are a man of great understanding, Major.” Dagenham clapped a hand on the Major’s shoulder and looked more animated. “You can’t imagine how few people I can actually talk to about this.” He moved his hands to the edge of the model, where he set them wide apart and squinted down, like Churchill over a war map of Europe. “You may be the only one who can help me explain this to the village.”
“I understand the difficulties, but I’m not sure I can explain how all this luxury development saves what you and I love,” said the Major. He looked over the model again and could not keep disdain from giving a curl to his lip. “Won’t people be tempted to insist that this is similar to the kind of new-money brashness that is killing England?” He wondered if he had managed to express himself politely enough.
“Ah, that’s the beauty of my plan,” said Dagenham. “This village will be available only to old money. I’m building a refuge for all the country families who are being forced out of their estates by the tax man and the politicians and the EU bureaucrats.”
“They’re all coming to Edgecombe St. Mary?” asked the Major.
“Why?”
“Because they have nowhere else left to go, don’t you see?” said Dagenham. “They are being driven off their own estates, and here I am offering them a place to call their own. A house and land where they will have other families to contribute to the upkeep, and a group of neighbors with shared values.” He pointed at a large new barn on the edge of one of the village farms. “We’ll have enough people to maintain a proper hunt kennel and a shared stables here,” he said. “And over here, behind the existing school, we’re going to found a small technical college where we’ll teach the locals all the useful skills like masonry and plasterwork, stable management, hedging,
