6. Chapter Six
CHAPTER SIX
“Thanks so much for coming, everyone.” Colin bestowed his best smile on his assembled relatives. None of them looked particularly pleased to be there, and no one smiled back.
He’d invited them to afternoon tea and promised them chocolate cake.
He’d also asked the staff to join them. There was Mrs. Reynolds the cook, her husband Ron, who was the part-time butler and full-time handyman, and Dot and Betty who did the cleaning.
The Reynolds lived in the house, but Dot and Betty came in from the village.
It was a far cry from the good old days when there had been forty indoor staff, ten gardeners, a fully functioning stable, and a couple of gamekeepers.
Freddy gave an obvious yawn. “Get on with it, Viz. We haven’t got all day and we want our cake.”
Colin glanced over at Mabel, who gave him an encouraging thumbs up. She’d set up her laptop to project onto the white wall of the drawing room so he could share the various spreadsheets she’d helped him compile.
“Hello everyone!” Colin risked a cheery wave which went down as well as he’d expected. “As some of you might already know, my father has decided to hand over the reins of running Marcham Hall to me.”
A few of his relatives exchanged speculative glances.
He continued. “It is both a great honor and a great responsibility and I am determined to do my best to drag— I mean, bring the estate and the home farm into the twenty-first century.”
Freddy raised an eyebrow. “You mean you’re not going to sell it?”
“Didn’t I just say the opposite?” Colin stared at his brother. “Have you gone deaf or something?”
“I’m just… surprised. It’s not as if you’ve bothered to hang around in the last few years.”
Colin noticed several nodding heads and murmurs of agreement.
“I’ve been working a full-time job for the past five years. It’s not always easy to get time off, but I have kept in contact with Father and our family solicitor about how things have been going.”
“Bully for you,” Freddy muttered and folded his arms.
Colin decided to ignore his brother and press on.
“As you might also be aware, caring for an estate and house of this size is prohibitively expensive. I think it would be fair to say that, despite the family’s best efforts, there are some severe financial issues with both the current funding and overdue maintenance of the place. ”
“It’s falling apart,” his sister Felicity spoke up. “We all know that.”
“I certainly don’t,” Colin’s grandmother spoke up. “This house is a testament to the longevity and greatness of our great family and none of us should ever forget that.”
Seeing as his grandmother had married into the family, Colin thought she was exaggerating slightly, but he was far too polite to mention it.
“My aim, Grandmother, is to both restore and maintain the estate.” He paused. “But I don’t think it takes a genius to know that times have changed and that the old ways of making and keeping money are no longer available to us.”
“Yup,” said Freddy. “It’s such a shame we can’t go out there and pillage other countries’ wealth in the name of the Empire, or enslave people to cultivate our sugar, or—”
“Freddy. Will you please just shut up and listen for once?” Colin, on the verge of losing it, interrupted his brother. “You really are not helping.”
“I’m not trying to, Viz. I just came here for the cake.”
Colin glared at him until he finally shrugged and sat back. “Fine. I’ll be quiet.”
Colin determinedly turned his attention back to the rest of the room. “From what I can see, we need to drastically curtail our expenses.”
Mr. Reynolds cleared his throat. “We ain’t been spending any money for years. In fact, me and the missus haven’t even been getting paid.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Colin said. “And I have come up with some possible solutions that will hopefully solve our current predicament.”
His grandmother snorted. “I do hope you aren’t going to mention that abomination known as the National Trust?”
“Actually, I did look into that, but they won’t take us unless we can give them a truckload of cash to help them along.”
“Which is stupid,” Felicity pointed out. “Because if we had a load of cash, we wouldn’t be needing their help in the first place.”
“Exactly.” Colin nodded. “But there are other organizations that do offer financial help to estates such as ours.” He turned to Mabel, and she tapped on her keyboard to project the first image on the wall. “I have a list of organizations here that I intend to contact to ask for assistance.”
“It’s a start.” Felicity bit her lip. “I’m still not sure if I like the idea of going begging to strangers.”
“The alternative is shutting down the majority of the house and living in the more modern west wing.” Colin looked at his assembled relatives. “If you’re all happy to move in together, from all the different parts of the house and estate that would be marvelous.”
Seeing as he already knew there were several warring factions spread out over the estate who hardly ever spoke to each other, let alone wanted to live cheek by jowl, he was fairly certain no one wanted to congregate in the west wing.
Mabel changed the image to a spreadsheet, and Colin gestured at it. “Here are our yearly electricity, gas, oil, and water bills. As you can see, they currently exceed the budgets of some small countries.”
“Wow.” Even Freddy was aghast. “That’s… bloody awful.”
From the sudden silence in the room Colin began to hope that he was actually getting through to them.
“Exactly. We also need to replace the roof, sort out the plumbing and the sewers, and attend to the crumbling exterior.”
“That sounds expensive,” his grandmother commented and several people nodded. “But it’s not as if any of us have the necessary skills to assist you.”
“If anyone does, I’d be delighted to hear from them but there are other things you can do.
Consider whether any of you can get an actual job to help out for a while.
” Colin nodded to Mabel to bring up the next slide.
“There are several employment opportunities listed here that are in the next village over, and if you’re prepared to get a bus into town—”
“You can’t expect us to bag groceries at Tesco Colin! It’s so lowbrow,” his grandmother interrupted him. “I mean what about Marks & Spencer’s or Waitrose or Harrods?”
“I wasn’t aware that Harrods had a branch in Little Wolkingham, Grandmother, but if they do, please be my guest and apply, although my comments weren’t aimed at our pensioners.
” Colin bowed, aware of the sea of discontented faces, and that his determination not to be sarcastic was already doomed to failure.
“Some of you, however, aren’t at retirement age and have never worked a day in your life.
If you still wish to live on the Marcham estate, I’d appreciate it if you started to pay some rent. ”
There was a definite gasp and Colin braced himself for mutiny. An elderly gentleman with a decidedly military air stood up. “I have never been so insulted in my life, young Colin! Madge and I will be talking to your father!”
“I’d rather you didn’t, Cousin Roger. He really isn’t well.” Colin held his indignant relative’s gaze. “And surely there is no reason why you aren’t willing to help out the family that’s been there for you all your life?”
Roger sat down and began whispering loudly to his wife.
Freddy raised his hand. “What do you want me to do, Viz? Get a job at the butchers?”
“If you like. Or maybe you could come up with a plan to make the home farm profitable instead?”
“You’d trust me to do that?”
“I can’t see why not.” Colin shrugged. “You’re the one with the agricultural degree. It’s about bloody time you got to use it.”
For the first time, Freddy looked thoughtful. “I’ll pull something together. Do you want me to include plans for the gardens and grounds as well as the home farm?”
“That would be awesome,” Colin said, earning him a roll of the eyes from his brother.
“There’s no need for American levels of enthusiasm here, Viz. Let’s keep it down.”
“Fine, whatever, just do something helpful, okay?” Colin pointed at the door. “Why don’t you toddle off and start right now?”
“What about my cake?” Freddy complained.
“Help yourself.” Everyone stood and made an indiscreet run for the table at the back of the room. Colin raised his voice above the sudden chatter of voices. “I think we’ve made a good start here. Any questions, feel free to come and speak to me later.”
Freddy smirked. “The only trouble is you don’t seem to have any answers.”
Colin turned away before he picked up one of the cakes and planted it in his brother’s face. He stalked over to where Mabel was still sitting with her laptop. “Not sure I convinced them of anything useful,” he told her.
“You did great.” Mabel stood and patted his cheek. “I was watching their reactions. They’ll be taking things way more seriously now.”
“About time, too.”
“I can’t believe some of them have never held an actual job.”
“That’s on my father. He should’ve insisted.” Colin eyed the rapidly diminishing cake. “They sure know how to eat, though.”
“Tours,” someone said from behind them.
Colin and Mabel both turned to see Mrs. Reynolds regarding them with an inquiring gaze.
“Of what?” Colin inquired.
“This place, of course.” The housekeeper made a wide gesture. “We used to do them back in the day, but your father stopped them when young Eric died.”
“I think that’s a great idea, Mrs. Reynolds,” Mabel spoke up. “And maybe you could do some kind of afternoon tea?”
Colin and Mrs. Reynolds looked at her and she blushed.
“Isn’t that what everyone does in England? Have afternoon tea? It’s not as if you don’t have plenty of rooms to have it in.”
“If I got the local W.I. ladies involved, we could probably do that. We could give it a try and see if it might earn some kind of profit.”
“W.I.?” Mabel looked at Colin, but it was Mrs. Reynolds who answered her.
“Women’s Institute. We have weekly meeting down in the village. You should come to one.”