Evensong

Evensong is the second novel in the Village Tales series.

Synopsis
Teddy Gates is now the local councillor: a woolly Lib Dem elected by a thoroughly Tory ward simply because they like him and the Duke is avuncularly fond of him. Being a political naïf, Teddy has let himself be tricked, by three fellow councillors (one Tory, one Labour, and one Lib Dem) into sponsoring council housing in the Woolfonts.

As the Duke acidly points out, this will be a trifle difficult in an AONB in which every square inch of ground is under one or another preservation order or scheduled at least Grade II.

As His Grace tries to find a way to save Teddy’s bacon, a man is found dying in the Woolfont Magna parish church. Lord Crispin has come home: although he expected to have a bit longer time in which to die at home.

Lady Crispin is icily unmoved by the return – and death – of her errant and long-absent husband. Her children, however, are distressed; as is the Duke, who is torn between throttling his younger brother and reconciling with him. There’s not time for that; there is just time for Fr Paddick to reconcile Crispin to God and the Church.

Crispin’s funeral brings half the peerage down to the Woolfonts, out of respect for the Duke and for Crispin’s children (and a sulky Lady Crispin). This, coming atop the death of his brother and the local political skulduggery, leads to a ducal heart attack, and treble bypass surgery; at the same time, illness fells Fr Paddick. Not that any of this slows the Duke down, stubborn as he is.

As he recovers, his (and Lady Crispin’s) distant cousin, the elderly Hugo, Lord Mallerstang, visits him in the ducal medical exile at Tidnock Hall in Cheshire. Lord Mallerstang, who has never been one to ask aid of anyone, is facing up to the fact that Rupert, Crispin’s eldest son and the Duke’s nephew, is not only now the Duke’s heir, but is also Lord Mallerstang’s, with no likely abeyance. And for Rupert’s sake, Lord Mallerstang is willing to ask if the Duke can aid in clawing Hellgill Hall, the ancient Mallerstang seat, back from the National Trust, who were given it by the Treasury decades before, when a previous Lord Mallerstang could not afford the death duties.

Meanwhile, flooding affects the Woolfonts; Edmond has mortally offended Sher; Snook the sexton has succumbed to senile dementia; James is preparing to go up to Oriel as a fresher; Fr Paddick’s gran has come down to hover over the good Rector, as have Steve and Mary Paddick his parents; and local solicitor Tony Macey has delivered to the Duke certain sealed papers of the late Lord Crispin’s: his explosive and unexpurgated memoirs.

The Duke, armed with these, makes certain dispositions; and, accepting help for once in his life (largely so that he may help Teddy on the one hand and Hugo Mallerstang on the other), he also trains his Int-Corps-honed cunning upon the council housing and Hellgill problems.

In the end, the Woolfonts acquire a new build, in perfect Georgian reproduction, of social housing … for retired Gurkhas; the conniving local councillors are contemplating the ruins of their careers and ambitions; Hellgill is back in Lord Mallerstang’s hands, and being restored; Edmond and Sher are blood-brothers once more; the Environmental Agency has been told to dredge the bloody river; Sher has been named the next heir but one, after his father, to the Nawabate; and the elder Mirzas and Paddicks, and the Stamfords, the family of Fr Paddick’s late wife, have been lured to the Woolfonts.

The Duke, naturally, is abominably self-satisfied in his own cleverness. Although he cannot quite manage to take credit for The Breener’s and the Hon. Gwen’s new twins.

Main characters introduced
The Revd Paul Campion, Fr Paddick’s new curate, in person; the Maguire Twins; the Stamfords, Jack and Betty; Will and Meg Stamford, Fr Paddick’s brother- and sister-in-law, and Wee Molly the Rector’s niece; Steve and Mary Paddick; Olive Timmins, Fr Paddick’s grandmother; Bob Timmins, the Rector’s cousin, a great gardener and the new, unofficial sexton; Sher’s childhood friends, the twins Dougie and Davie Darroch; Dr Margaret Lee, Dr Witchard’s new junior partner; Sir Gilbert Blanchard FRCS, cousin to the rural dean and local cardiac specialist; Tony Macey the Beechbourne solicitor; the rather more sly and metropolitan solicitor Simon Hales-Owen; the exceedingly cunning barrister Sir Pemberton Molyneaux QC; Admiral Sir Jacky Collingbourne, the constituency association chairman; Lew Salmon OBE, City merchant and nephew and successor to his late uncle Sir Bennett; the philanthropic Melanie (Mrs Lew) Salmon; Professor Millicent The Baroness Lacy; Professor Dennis Farnaby; Dr Barbara Winton, that distinguished scholar; Dr Jettou, the Trowbridge imam, and his wife Dr Jettou the academic lawyer; Lady Agatha Prothero-Fane; Rory, Marquess of Badenoch; The McCammond; the Treskillings and their son and heir, Mark, Lord Grampound; Flora, Dowager Countess of Freuchie; Brigadier David Hesketh, the new Maths master; Fr Bohun; Fr Gascelyn Levett; Captain Rai; Ameena Mirza, Sher’s eldest sister; her intended, Tariq Ali Khan Alvi Baig, that budding architect; Hari Singh Dhillon, the Duke’s managing director at the Chickmarsh quarries; Ravinder Singh Bedi, art historian and curator in training; London businessman Paul Atherton Wells; George Ford, the Duke’s agent at Wolfdown; the Staffs at Tidnock, at Merlverley, and at Clentwood; ‘Bells’ Grenville-Arundell-Courtenay, the future Mrs Rupert, surely; ‘Cats’ Carew-Fettiplace-Bourchier-Poyntz, Maynooth’s niece and, whether he knows it or not, Jamie’s future wife; Nick Kellow, Mr Kellow’s son and pub trainee; Jack Burridge, cousin to the Kellows and landlord of the Old Bridge public house; Dr Molly Hillier, Environmental Officer; Fred Beckett (and Toby, his dog), river bailiff.

Setting(s)
The Woolfonts, Wilts ; the Downlands, Wilts ; Salisbury; London; Tidnock Hall, Cheshire; Melverley Court, Salop; Clentwood House, Worcs.