The Wilt Inheritance (6 page)

‘Ms Young said Emmy’s setting off the fire alarm was the last straw. She thinks we’re a pack of savages.’

‘I like that! They’re all snobs. Especially the Young bitch. I vote we do something to her car,’ said Emmeline. ‘That’ll teach her.’

‘Like what? Stuff a potato up the exhaust pipe like we did to that beastly old man at home, Mr Floren? He had to have the engine taken to bits before they found it.’

Emmeline shook her head.

‘Something much better. Something that will wreck the motor and stop her driving for a long time.’

‘Sugar in the petrol tank would do that,’ said Penelope, thoughtfully. ‘It takes some time though. Coats the pistons and valves gradually and then the engine seizes up.’

‘Wait, I know,’ interrupted Josephine. ‘I heard the mechanic who services our car telling a man that carborundum powder ruins an engine for good.’

‘And where do we get carborundum powder? Sugar’s easier.’

‘What if she locks the petrol-tank cap?’ asked Samantha.

‘She didn’t when she took Martha and me to the dentist last week,’ Emmeline told them. ‘She needed more petrol and just got out and unscrewed the cap with the keys still in the car.’

‘You mean, she left the engine running?’

‘Of course not. She’s not a complete idiot. She turned off the engine and left the keys in the car, which means it must be the sort which doesn’t lock. Should be easy to pour a bag of sugar down it.’

‘And have it stick to the side of the inlet where she can see it? Don’t be so lame,’ Samantha dismissed this suggestion.

‘Oh, brilliant,’ retorted Emmeline. ‘Have you ever seen anyone peering down into their petrol tank? Even at the garage they’re only looking at the pump to see if it’s working properly and how much they’re putting in.’

‘All the same, we ought to test if sugar dissolves in
alcohol,’ was Penelope’s comment. ‘I’ve got some eau de cologne we could use, and we can buy a bag of sugar from the shop in the village.’

‘We don’t need to. I’ve got some in my locker. I pinched it during Cookery when Mrs Drayton wasn’t looking. We can use that,’ said Emmeline.

An hour later they’d tried dissolving sugar in eau de cologne, which didn’t work, and then in hot water, which did.

‘Great! We’ll just have to dissolve a lot of sugar in hot water and keep it in a bottle. That way Ms Young won’t see any traces of it even if she looks.’

‘She’s going up to Scotland for the summer holidays. If this works, she’ll end up having to go by train, which will serve her right. I know! I know! We ought to put it in right at the very end of term then she might break down on her way up there, miles and miles from a garage with any luck.’

And on this happy note the quads came out from behind the hockey pavilion and split up.

At home Wilt was swotting up his notes on Edward’s A-level history course. He was planning to run through a few points with Braintree over a beer at the Dog and Duck, after having first had his hair cut on Eva’s instructions.

‘We can’t have you looking like some of these footballers you see on telly,’ she had told him, determined to remain optimistic in spite of the recent warning letter from St Barnaby’s. ‘So don’t let whoever cuts it leave it too long. I’ve had your suit dry-cleaned too. You’ve got to look really smart and be very polite.’

‘I’ll look smart enough in my best sports jacket, which does at least fit me. More than I can say for
that ridiculous outfit you bought me. Anyway that’s the sort of thing university lecturers wear. They don’t dress up in pink chalk-stripe suits.’

‘Oh, all right, wear the sports jacket if you insist. I still say the suit looks better.’

‘It may to you, but I know damned well it wouldn’t impress a wealthy landowner,’ Wilt said before returning to his notes. Thank goodness history A-level was a lot more interesting than he’d remembered. And also sufficiently violent to interest even the dimmest – and doubtless most conceited – teenage boy.

‘You’ll just have to get to the hairdresser early and …’ Eva carried on, but Wilt intervened.

‘Barber,’ he said. ‘I know it’s an old-fashioned word, and refers to a more elegant age when men wore proper beards and one could get a shave too, but the correct word is barber, Eva.’

‘I don’t care. All I want is that you don’t look like some long-haired hippy. A nice short back and sides, please.’

‘All right, I heard you the first time,’ said Wilt. ‘Rest assured, I’ve no desire for you to blast the hell out of me when I get home.’

‘Well, I have had a particularly disturbing day,’ said his wife, and handed him the Headmistress’s latest letter before storming into the kitchen.

Wilt read it through and followed her.

‘I sort of expected something like that,’ he said
cheerfully. ‘If you will send our darling daughters to a very select and expensive school, you shouldn’t be surprised when they inevitably create havoc and are threatened with expulsion. They’re lucky not to have been expelled long ago. You should have sent them to a reformatory – it would have saved time and been a lot cheaper.’

‘They’re not being expelled. Mrs Collinson only says their behaviour has to improve or they may be asked to leave.’

‘Where there’s life there’s hope,’ said Wilt. ‘And there’s no hope of that. Well, at least in future years I won’t have to subsidise their awful activities by taking tutoring jobs in my summer holidays.’

And before Eva could find words to express her annoyance, he had retreated to the front room and was watching the news.

The subdued friction that was part and parcel of the Wilts’ marriage, and which occasionally broke out into open warfare, had a full-scale eruption later that day when Wilt came back from having his hair cut.

‘You call that a haircut?’ Eva demanded. ‘It’s far too long.’

‘Well, I only asked for a trim. Did you want me to have my hair shaved off and come back looking like a skinhead?’

‘Of course not. But mark my words, you’re going to have it cut properly. So go back right now and see
the man does a thorough job. It’s got to be a short back and sides. And another thing … your sports jacket has holes in the elbows so I want you to wear that lovely suit I bought for you instead.’

‘If you really think a light grey suit with a pink chalk-stripe is going to impress Sir Bloodhound and Lady Claptrap …’

‘Sir George and Lady Clarissa Gadsley, for goodness’ sake …’

‘Sir George, eh? He probably has his suits tailor-made in Savile Row.’

‘What’s so special about this Civil Row or whatever you said?’

‘Savile Row, Eva, Savile Row. It’s just about the most expensive place to buy a suit in London. Lady Claptrap and Sir Gadsley wouldn’t give me house room if I turned up in a bright chalk pink stripe. I mean, a pink chalk stripe bright.’

‘Have you been drinking, Henry?’ Eva asked suspiciously. ‘I thought that haircut took an awfully long time. Come over here and breathe on me.’

‘Breathe on you? Good God, woman, do you never stop? First you sign me up for some fucking silly job teaching an upper-class cretin things he should have learned years ago, and then you decide how long my fucking hair should be! Well, I’ve had enough. I’ll wear my hair however I like, do you hear me?’

On this note Wilt left the house and cycled back to the men’s hairdresser to give him Eva’s instructions.

‘She says you’ve left it too long and it’s to be shorter at the back and sides.’

‘Your missus?’ asked the barber sympathetically.

Wilt nodded.

‘I wonder she didn’t ask for a crew cut,’ the barber went on.

Wilt shuddered.

‘She said I wasn’t to look like a footballer. And all this because I’ve got to meet Lady something or other. Anyone would think I was going to see the Queen.’

‘Well, you’re certainly not going to be mistaken for Bob Geldof.’

‘That’s a mercy,’ said Wilt.

The barber grinned.

‘I don’t think I’d be in business still if I only had customers like him.’

Using an electric razor, he thinned the hair on the sides of Wilt’s head.

‘Reckon that ought to do or is she going to want more?’

‘Oh, she’s bound to want more off than that, but I most certainly don’t,’ said Wilt, getting out of the chair. The barber shook the loose hair off the sheet and removed it. Wilt studied his head critically.

Just then Eva arrived. Wilt got back into the chair
and the barber draped the sheet around him again before starting to trim the back of his head, studiously avoiding catching the eye of either his customer or his customer’s dragon of a wife.

Not until Wilt bore a close resemblance to a sheep that had been made ready for the spring did his wife relent and proclaim herself satisfied. Wilt sullenly pushed his bike back to the house, trailing a clearly delighted Eva, and went to bed before she could inflict any more damage on him.

The following morning Eva brought him breakfast in bed, in an attempt both to make amends and to put him in a better mood before his interview with Lady Clarissa. Her plan might well have succeeded had she not also hidden all of his clothing save for the offending suit. By the time he came downstairs Wilt was in a foul temper.

‘That’s much better!’

‘It will serve you right if she takes one look at me and runs off screaming, you stupid bloody woman,’ Wilt muttered. ‘So when are we going to meet her ladyship?’

Eva made a tactical decision to ignore his swearing for the moment. Looking at the clock, she said, ‘We may as well go and have a cup of tea first. Lady Clarissa isn’t expecting us until twelve-thirty.’ At Eva’s insistence they took their bikes rather than the car, calling in first at a café near the Black Bear. Half an hour later they walked into the hotel
lobby, Wilt continuing to feel like a prize idiot in his outlandish suit.

‘Lady Clarissa is in the lounge,’ the receptionist told them.

Eva turned to her husband and brushed some imaginary fluff from his lapel.

‘Now if she asks you if you want a drink, you’re to say a sherry.’

But Wilt had had enough.

‘I don’t like bloody sherry. What does she drink?’

‘What she calls dry martinis, whatever they are.’

‘Then that’s what I’ll ask for. A dry martini will make me feel more confident. And God knows I need some confidence, dressed like a spiv and practically bald up top.’

‘All right, have a martini then, but you mustn’t have a second. She drinks very strong ones with a lot of gin in them. The last thing we need is for you to get drunk. And will you stop using that horrible language?’

Wilt grumpily followed her into the lounge where he was surprised to find that Lady Clarissa was not the starchy middle-aged woman he had expected. She was in fact very good-looking and extremely well dressed. Best of all, he would have said she was at least half seas over – as indeed she was, although she held her liquor well.

‘Ah, my dear Mrs Wilt,’ she greeted Eva. ‘And this must be your clever husband Henry. My goodness, what a very lively suit you have on, my dear.’

She smiled invitingly at Wilt who, somewhat to his own astonishment, heard himself say he was honoured to meet her.

‘Mrs Wilt drinks sherry, I know,’ she continued. ‘May I offer you a …?’ Lady Clarissa left the question open.

Wilt barely hesitated. ‘I think I’ll join you. I take that to be a dry martini,’ he said, almost purring as he indicated her glass.

Lady Clarissa signalled to the waiter who came over at a rate of knots. Her Ladyship was evidently a respected drinker here.

‘Mrs Wilt would like a sweet sherry, an oloroso … I think you’d prefer that, my dear … and Henry and I will have dry martinis – and go light on the Noilly Prat.’

Eva wasn’t looking too pleased. She disliked being called Mrs Wilt while her husband was addressed as Henry. She also found the expression on Wilt’s face oddly disturbing. He was looking like a cat that had swallowed half a dozen canaries.

‘Now, Henry, about my son … Edward’s not stupid but he’s simply not academic,’ confided Lady Clarissa. ‘He calls history “old-fashioned”. I’ve told him it’s bound to be because it’s in the past, but he remains unconvinced. And my husband’s attitude doesn’t help. Edward’s not his own son, you see, and George will insist on calling him Eddie …’

Eva interrupted here.

‘When you say he’s not Sir George’s son …’ she began than stopped hurriedly, much to Wilt’s regret. For a moment he’d thought she was going to ask if the boy was illegitimate.

‘My first husband died in a car accident.’

‘How dreadful. I am sorry.’

‘I don’t think I am,’ said Lady Clarissa. ‘I know one ought to be but he was a frightful bore. Still, I haven’t dragged you out here to talk about him.’

‘You were saying that Edward doesn’t like history,’ Wilt reminded her. ‘Is it his only weak subject?’

‘Well, he failed English the year before last. Probably because he said that was old-fashioned too. But, you know, I don’t think that’s the real reason. Failing his A-levels is Edward’s way of getting his own back on my husband. You see, George considers the past to be so much more important than the present. And besides, he’s an elderly man himself – though younger than my Uncle Harold. As bad-tempered as him, though.’

Wilt considered all this and found it to be thoroughly illogical. Lady Clarissa was perhaps further into her cups than he’d first thought. He managed to catch Eva’s eye and she hastily broke in on the conversation.

‘Did you get your uncle into the old people’s home all right?’

‘Oh, yes, after the usual struggle. First of all he claimed it was noisy, which it wasn’t, and then when
he found out there was a black woman in the kitchen he kicked up an awful fuss about Aids in Africa. I had to point out she had been born in Manchester and spoke with a Moss Side accent. It’s all been very difficult and he still says he’s not going to stay.’

Listening to all this, Wilt wondered what sort of people he was going to have to mix with at Sandystones Hall. He decided he’d prefer to break the news that he hadn’t been to Porterhouse now, rather than wait and be caught out by Sir George.

‘By the way, I think I ought to tell you straightaway that I went to Fitzherbert and not Porterhouse.’ Wilt ignored Eva’s furious glare and added, ‘Long before I came up to Cambridge, Fitzherbert was known as the townies’ college, but I expect that was before your husband’s time too.’