Aftermath

27. The Acceptable Side of Scandalous

"She wants us to do what?" Brooks looked at me like I'd lost my mind, and shook his head a few times before returning his attention to under the bonnet of the car. The side-guard was propped up and Brooks had his tools spread out on a cloth next to him. 

"To come to her as she feels utterly unable to lift a finger to help herself." I waved the one-page letter I'd just received from Elizabeth Boyd-Scathby in the air. 

The smell of hay and leather was still strong in the old car shed, even though it has been years since horses were stabled there. The doors were wide open and a light breeze blew in, but that did nothing to cool my temper.

"And too cheap for a train ticket, is she that, as well?" snipped Brooks, continuing to shake his head.

I'd had the same thought. After having sent an answer to Elizabeth's cry for help by saying I would take on three of the ex-soldiers overrunning her estate, as that was all I had room for, I was expecting a relieved and cooperative response from her. Not this tirade of accusations. 

Only halfway through reading her damnable message and my hands had already been shaking. 

I am gravely disappointed in you, Olivia. If only your father were still alive, I would certainly have some words for him!  You have cruelly laughed in my face and make mockery of my distress! 

Three of these vagrants you'll take? Three? Have you any idea how many are knocking at all hours of the day and night at my kitchen door demanding to be fed? Three? And that I should speak to any crippled ones about your programme first? Do you honestly think I stand at the door welcoming these filthy men? I only thank God in heaven that none of my property has been stolen or destroyed!  Do you honestly expect me to council to them? How should I know if they qualify to join your obviously highly selective programme? I'm not your representative! I asked you for your help and you will only relieve me of three?

"She clearly believes we have unlimited resources and are simply being difficult," I said.  "I don't believe for an instant that the problem is nearly as dire as she's making it out to be. Still, if she refuses to speak to the men on her estate and tell them about us, as well as refusing to pay the ticket. . ."

"What does she think will happen? That we'll agree to take them and they'll just, what then, magically disappear? Sounds to me as if she thinks she's ordered the rat catcher. We'll show up with ferrets and traps and, bob's your uncle, she'll be got rid of her troubles. No ex-Tommies darkening her doorstep forever more." Brooks snorted.

That was exactly what it sounded like to me, as well. Calling the rat catcher. 

New additions to Cloud Hill normally found their way to us, or were invited and met by their former regimental mates in London. I'd never been asked to collect men wholesale from off someone's doorstep before, as if they were vermin. 

"Why don't you simply ignore her and let her solve her own problem," Brooks said, reaching for a spanner. 

I was sorely tempted to do just that.  If it wasn't for Elizabeth's uncle, Sir Mortimer, and her brother, Stanley. 

Both were members of Parliament, Stanley having been one of Father's circle before the war. If I left her to stew in her own juices, she'd certainly complain directly into their waiting ears. 

There might come a day when I needed to ask for support from this or that government office for the Rabbit Hutch, and I would need as much credit to my name as possible. The last thing I could use were MPs with poor opinions of me, and I was sure Elizabeth would make sure that's what they had.