Scoop-Evelyn-Waugh [3]
chapter 2
"Change and decay in all around I see," sang Uncle Theodore, gazing out of the morning-room window. Thus, with startling loudness, he was accustomed to relieve his infrequent fits of depression; but decay, rather than change, was characteristic of the immediate prospect. The immense trees which encircled Boot Magna Hall, shaded its drives and rides, and stood (tastefully disposed at the whim of some forgotten, provincial predecessor of Repton) singly and in groups about the park, had suffered, some from ivy, some from lightning, some from the various malignant disorders that vegetation is heir to, but all, principally, from old age. Some were supported with trusses and crutches of iron, some were filled with cement; some, even now, in June, could show only a handful of green leaves at their extremities. Sap ran thin and slow; a gusty night always brought down a litter of dead timber. The lake was moved by strange tides. Sometimes, as at the present moment, it sank to a single, opaque pool in a wilderness of mud and rushes; sometimes it rose and inundated five acres of pasture. There had once been an old man in one of the lodges who understood the workings of the water system; there were sluice-gates hidden among the reeds, and manholes, dotted about in places known only to him, furnished with taps and cocks; that man had been able to control an ornamental cascade and draw a lofty jet of water from the mouth of the dolphin on the south terrace. But he had been in his grave fifteen years and the secret had died with him. The house was large but by no means too large for the Boot family, which at this time numbered eight. There were in the direct line: William who owned the house and estate, William's sister Priscilla who claimed to own the horses, William's widowed mother who owned the contents of the house and exercised ill-defined rights over the flower garden, and William's widowed grandmother who was said to own "the money." No one knew how much she possessed; she had been bedridden as long as William's memory went back. It was from her that such large cheques issued as were from time to time necessary for balancing the estate accounts and paying for Uncle Theodore's occasional, disastrous visits to London. Uncle Theodore, the oldest of the male collaterals, was by far the gayest. Uncle Roderick was in many ways the least eccentric. He had managed the estates and household throughout William's minority and continued to do so with a small but regular deficit which was made up annually by one of grandmama's cheques. The widowed Lady Trilby was William's great Aunt Anne, his father's elder sister; she owned the motor car, a vehicle adapted to her own requirements; it had a horn which could be worked from the back seat; her weekly journey to church resounded through the village like the Coming of the Lord. Uncle Bernard devoted himself to a life of scholarship but had received little general recognition, for his researches, though profound, were narrow, being connected solely with his own pedigree. He had traced William's descent through three different lines from Ethelred the Unready, and only lack of funds fortunately prevented him from prosecuting a claim to the abeyant barony of de Butte. All the Boots, in one way or another, had about a hundred a year each as pocket money. It was therefore convenient for them to live together at Boot Magna where wages and household expenses were counted in with Uncle Roderick's annual deficit. The richest member of the household, in ready cash, was Nannie Bloggs, who had been bedridden for the last thirty years; she kept her savings in a red flannel bag under the bolster. Uncle Theodore made attempts on them from time to time, but she was a sharp old girl and since she combined a long standing aversion to Uncle Theodore with a preternatural aptitude for bringing off showy doubles during the flat racing season, her hoard continued to grow. The Bible and the Turf Guide were her only reading. She got great delight from telling each member of the family, severally and secretly, that he or she was her heir. In other rooms about the house reposed: Nannie Price, ten years the junior of Nannie Bloggs, and bedridden from about the same age (she gave her wages to Chinese Missions and had little influence in the house); Sister Watts, old Mrs. Boot's first nurse, and Sister Sampson, her second; Miss Scope, Aunt Anne's governess, veteran invalid, of some years seniority in bed to old Mrs. Boot herself, and Bentinck the butler; James, the first footman, had been confined to his room for some time, but he was able on warm days to sit in an armchair at the window. Nurse Granger was still on her feet, but as her duties included the charge of all eight sickrooms, it was thought she would not long survive. Ten servants waited upon the household and upon one another, but in a desultory fashion, for they could spare very little time from the five meat meals which tradition daily allowed them. In the circumstances the Boots did not entertain and were indulgently spoken of in the district as being "poor as church mice." The fashionable John Courteney Boot was a remote cousin, or, as Uncle Bernard preferred, the member of a cadet branch. William had never met him; he had met very few people indeed. It was not true to say, as the Managing Editor of the Beast had said, that he had never been to London, but his visits had been infrequent enough for each to be distinct and perennially horrifying in his memory. "Change and decay in all around I see," sang Uncle Theodore. It was his habit to sing the same line over and over again. He was waiting for the morning papers. So were William and Uncle Roderick. They were brought by the butcher, often blotched with red, any time between eleven and midday, and then, if not intercepted, disappeared among the sickrooms to return at teatime hopelessly mutilated, for both Bentinck and old Mrs. Boot kept scrapbooks, and Sister Sampson had the habit of cutting out coupons and losing them in the bedclothes. This morning they were late. It was a matter of great anxiety to William. He had never been to the Megalopolitan offices or met anyone connected with the Beast. His job as author of Lush Places had been passed on to him by the widow on the death of its previous holder, the Rector of Boot Magna. He had carefully modelled his style on the late Rector's, at first painfully, now almost without effort. The work was of the utmost importance to him; he was paid a guinea a time and it gave him the best possible excuse for remaining uninterruptedly in the country. And now it was in danger. On the previous Thursday a very dreadful thing had happened. Drawing on the observations of a lifetime, and after due cross-examination of the head keeper and half an hour with the encyclopedia, William had composed a lyrical but wholly accurate account of the habits of the badger; one of his more finished essays. Priscilla in a playful mood had found the manuscript and altered it, substituting for "badger" throughout "the great crested grebe." It was not until Saturday morning when, in this form, it appeared in the Beast that William was aware of the outrage. His mail had been prodigious; some correspondents were sceptical, others derisive; one lady wrote to ask whether she read him aright in thinking he condoned the practice of baiting these rare and beautiful birds with terriers and deliberately destroying their earthy homes; how could this be tolerated in the so-called twentieth century? A major in Wales challenged him categorically to produce a single authenticated case of a great crested grebe attacking young rabbits. It had been exceedingly painful. All through the week-end William had awaited his dismissal but Monday and Tuesday passed without a word from the Beast. He composed and despatched a light dissertation on water voles and expected the worst. Perhaps the powers at the Beast were too much enraged even to send back his manuscript; when Wednesday's paper came he would find another tenant of Lush Places. It came. He hunted frantically for his half-column. It was there, a green oasis between Waffle Scramble and the bedtime pets. "Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole ..." It was all right. By some miracle Saturday's shame had been covered. His uncles peevishly claimed the paper; he surrendered it readily. He stood at the French window blinking at the summer landscape; the horses at grass beyond the ha-ha skipped and frolicked. "Confound the thing," said Uncle Roderick behind him. "Can't find the cricket anywhere. Whole page seems to be given up to some damn-fool cycling championship at Cricklewood Stadium." William did not care. In the fulness of his gratitude he resolved to give rodents a miss that Saturday (though he was particularly attached to them) and write instead of wild flowers and birdsong. He might even risk something out of the poets.