Page 3 of The Gathering Storm
‘Well, no, but that’s nothing to do with it. You should see my chilblains.’
‘So, tell me what’s ruffled your feathers,’ Jessie invited, as they stripped off coats and gloves.
‘John Burton’s been lobbing bombshells at me. First he tells me his wife’s expecting a baby—’
‘Why is that a bombshell?’
Polly caught herself up. ‘Oh, you know how demanding a first baby can be. He’ll have his mind on anything but his work for the next year at least.’
‘I’m sure he won’t let it affect him. He’s tremendously diligent.’
Polly hurried on. ‘And then he tells me that the York city authorities want to buy some of my land for council houses. And tells me that they can force me to sell. It’s outrageous!’
Jessie said, ‘This calls for Bertie’s wisdom. I think he’s in his study. Shall we go and see?’
Sir Percival Parke, who was a cousin to both Jessie and Polly, had always hated his given name and had never been known as anything but Bertie. He had served with distinction in the war, one of the few to fight all the way from 1914 to 1918, winning the DSO and the VC, ending as a brigadier and working afterwards in the War Office. Now he was happy to spend his days quietly at home, farming his estate and enjoying the company of his adored wife and three children.
He was very fond of Polly, and admired the way she had thrown herself into running the Morland Estate. She had bought it from her brother James when death duties had threatened its dissolution. Her late husband, Ren, had left her a large fortune, and James, though a countryman to his fingertips, had no head for business. Polly’s head, Bertie reckoned, was as hard as any man’s: she had run her own fashion house in New York before her marriage, and that was no mean task.
He was studying milk records when his wife ushered Polly in, saying, ‘Can we disturb you, dearest?’
‘I can’t think of anything nicer. What’s happening?’
‘Polly needs advice,’ said Jessie.
As well as the radiator there was a fire in his room, for cheerfulness. Bertie moved chairs and got them all settled around it before inviting Polly to ‘tell’.
Polly told. ‘I thought an Englishman’s home was his castle,’ she concluded. ‘Magna Carta and all that sort of thing. Is John right? And who dreamed up such a terrible law?’
‘Well, I suppose you could say it was an extension, in a way, of the old Enclosure Acts,’ Bertie began.
‘She doesn’t want a history lesson, darling,’ Jessie intervened.
‘Oh, it was a rhetorical question, was it?’ Bertie said, with an indulgent smile.
‘They can’t really force me, can they?’ Polly asked hopefully.
‘I’m afraid they can. And before you howl again, think about things like the railways, and new roads. And airfields during the war. On a tiny island like this they could never get them built if landowners could refuse to sell.’ Polly was still looking mulish. ‘You wouldn’t want to be without the railway, now, would you? Quite a bit of Morland land had to be given up for that, if I remember rightly.’
‘But this isn’t for a railway,’ Polly said.
‘Compulsory purchase is allowed for projects that are considered to be in the public interest.’
‘Why do you object so much?’ Jessie asked.
‘Because Papa spent his life building up the estate. He worked and slaved to buy back all the land Uncle George sold, so that he could pass the estate on intact. He’d have a fit at the thought of selling it again. I would never part with any of my land – it would be a betrayal of everything Papa stood for.’
‘I wonder,’ Bertie said. ‘After Morland Place and his family, the one thing Uncle Teddy really loved was York.’
‘And the railways,’ Jessie added.
‘He loved the railways because they brought prosperity to York,’ Bertie said. ‘He supported anything that benefited the city. Don’t you remember how he started the York Commercials during the war?’
Jessie smiled. ‘Oh, yes – because Leeds had its Pals unit, so York had to have one too.’
Polly looked from one to the other. ‘So you’re saying he’d approve of the slum clearances?’
‘He helped with some of the early ones,’ Bertie said.
