Ring of Terror Read Free Page B

necessary.’
    Gaining confidence from the comparative friendliness with which this was said, Luke added, ‘I was fearing you might be planning to visit my sins on Father.’
    ‘Meaning?’
    ‘Meaning that you might dismiss him.’
    ‘You can put that idea right out of your head. What? Get rid of the best head keeper I’ve ever had and at the beginning of the shooting season? That would, indeed, be cutting off my nose to spite my face.’
    Sir George paused for a moment, then added, ‘In fact you may well be wondering why I should be bothering my head about a boys’ quarrel. But there’s more behind it than you think.’ He got up and walked across to the window. ‘There’s a dangerous spirit abroad in the land. An evil spirit. It comes creeping up like one of our fen fogs. One moment the sky’s clear. The next you can hardly see your nose on your own face.’
    As he spoke he was looking out across the expanse of lawn to the line of wind-stripped beech trees which guarded the far end. Luke realised that he was really talking to himself.
    ‘God alone knows what propagates this evil, or why people encourage it. Radical politicians, do you think, trying to make a name for themselves in the House? Agitators stirring up trouble, so that they might find pickings in the chaos they create? You can see the symptoms of it everywhere. Workers starting to combine against their employers. Tenants against their landlords. Everyone who fancies that he has too little of this world’s goods trying to snatch something from those who have more than he has. And one sign of it is very clear. The growing and open disrespect of the lower classes for the class above them. Every time an example of it occurs, whether in big things or in small things, the upper class must stamp on it. If they fail to do so, they are acting as traitors to their caste.’ Sir George swung back on Luke. ‘So now you know why I was upset.’ He gave a short grunting laugh. ‘Really, you’re apologising to the wrong person. It’s Oliver you should be addressing yourself to. I don’t mean for stopping him from using illegal snares. Maybe you were within your rights there, though it might have been done more respectfully. What was unfair was taking him unawares when he wasn’t expecting it and tripping him up.’
    Luke said, ‘If that’s what he told you, he was lying.’
    There was a long silence. The boy would have given anything he possessed to take the words back. If he had been only a few years older he would have realised that up to that point he was winning. He had only to keep his mouth shut to consolidate his gains. Now he had thrown everything into the discard.
    He waited for the storm to break, but there was no storm.
    What happened was almost worse. Addressing him coldly and impersonally, as though he was delivering a judgement from the Bench, Sir George said, ‘One thing is clear to me. You are totally unfitted to be a clergyman of the established Church, in any shape or form or any place. Should you try to pursue your intention of so doing I should regard it as my duty to use all means in my power to prevent you from getting further.’
    Having said this he sat down to continue with his writing and Luke went out of the room, closing the door quietly. He was leaving behind him something that had been part of his life for the last three years.
    As he shut the study door, the door next to it opened and a young man came out. Luke knew him by sight, though he had rarely met him. It was Sir George’s elder son, Julian. Unlike Oliver he did not accompany his father on his sporting forays and never seemed to put in an appearance at church. Also he was much away from home. Until recently at Eton and now at Cambridge.
    When the village discussed him they called him either ‘odd’ or ‘modern’. The terms, which were not really intended as insults, were almost synonymous and arose partly from Julian’s appearance, but more from his occasional