Blood on the Wood by Gillian Linscott

revolutionary the English think they can cope with.’
    â€˜You think that underrates him?’
    â€˜Yes. Under all the rhetoric and capering there’s a much more intelligent man than people think – and a much colder one too. He’s ambitious and he knows exactly the effect he has on people. If he makes what looks like an impulsive move you can be pretty certain he’s worked it out carefully in advance.’
    I remembered Harry Hawthorne and Daniel sitting heads together by the bonfire, just before the bombshell, and saw where Max was driving.
    â€˜Like the engagement?’
    â€˜Exactly.’
    â€˜But he didn’t have time. Daniel and Daisy had only arrived a few hours before.’
    â€˜You don’t need much rime if your mind moves quickly,’ Max said. ‘And his does. You must have noticed that he was encouraging Daniel, practically pitched him into it.’
    â€˜Daniel didn’t need much encouragement. He was already deep into playing the rescuer.’
    â€˜All right, he couldn’t have known that Daniel would arrive with Daisy in tow, but once it had happened he knew exactly how to use it for his own ends.’
    â€˜What advantage could it possibly be to him – apart from simple mischief making?’
    â€˜In this case, complicated mischief making. It was all part of the great plan to embarrass Oliver and Adam Venn.’
    â€˜Like that visit to Carol Venn’s workshop?’
    â€˜Yes. He never misses a chance.’
    â€˜But they’re being quite generous to him and the Scipians, letting them camp on their land.’
    â€˜Through gritted teeth.’
    â€˜Quite elegantly gritted.’
    â€˜Oh, I dare say they managed polite smiles once the thing was a fait accompli. But it wasn’t Oliver or Adam who invited them, it was young Daniel. And once the invitation was given they had to go along with it or face the embarrassment of being socialists throwing other socialists off their land. That’s their weak point, fearing embarrassment. Hawthorne saw that.’
    â€˜Still, he’s got what he wanted. He’s here with the summer school. Why not leave it at that?’
    â€˜Because the camp was only stage two in the campaign. Stage one, he meets Daniel at some folk-dancing event, mentions in the middle of the hey wassailing, or whatever it is these people do, that the Scipians need a place for their camp and Daniel puts the ancestral acres at his disposal. Stage two, the camp. Stage three, the unexpected opportunity to get Daniel engaged to a girl from the agricultural working class.’
    â€˜But why this great campaign against the Venns? It’s a nice house they’ve got here, but it’s not exactly Versailles.’
    â€˜Because Hawthorne thinks Oliver and Adam owe him money.’
    â€˜What!’
    â€˜Not him personally, but the whole socialist movement. It all goes back to Philomena Venn’s will.’
    â€˜Philomena’s?’ I jumped, sending an undercooked carrot rocketing off my fork. Luckily Max was too busy explaining to notice.
    â€˜Yes. She was wealthy in her own right. She left five thousand pounds to the Fabians, with the proviso that it was to be used for the education in socialist principles of working people below the age of twenty-one. Hawthorne maintains that’s the job the Scipians are doing, so the money should come to them. Only Oliver’s an ex-treasurer of the Fabians and Adam’s a lawyer and they don’t see it that way. It’s the sort of dispute that could go on for years.’
    *   *   *
    We finished as much as we could of the stew. As I helped with the communal washing-up I thought over what Max had told me and the irony that Philomena’s good socialist bequests seemed to be causing trouble all round. The common factor was that the Venns seemed very reluctant to part with money or valuables. They deserved a little breaking and