‘Now don’t be beastly to me, Hugo,’ Katharine retorted. ‘You know I’m better at getting things done than putting them into words. If you’ll only listen, I’ll tell you all that was decided this morning!’
‘Not at all a bad idea,’ Lady Boyd-Calthrop adjudicated briskly. ‘If Heritage can get the library useable in time, of course,’ she added, looking severely at Francis Peck.
‘Just one small point,’ Hugo Rossiter said. He stretched out his legs, clasped his hands behind his head and contemplated Katharine. ‘Where are the exhibits to come from?’
‘Well, Hugo dear,’ she replied, catching a few eyes and slightly raising an eyebrow, ‘to begin with, Francis and I thought that being President of the Wellchester Art Club, you could easily get them to exhibit, especially if we let members make sales.’
Malcolm Gilmore, circulating with a bottle in each hand, hooted loudly. ‘The trap’s closing, old man! You’ll be running the show yourself before you know what’s hit you.’
‘Art for art’s sake,’ Hugo retorted. ‘You wouldn’t understand... All right, Katharine, you scheming woman. I’ll handle WAC. But let me tell you all, there’ll be a selection committee of one — me, and not a single twee peep of Old Wellchester will get by.’
There were protests.
‘All I can say is that if you don’t appreciate Old Wellchester, a lot of people do,’ Lady Boyd-Calthrop told him. ‘And if you’re simply going to hang up a lot of washy watercolours by local people, Katharine, I call “Pictures for Pleasure” a thoroughly misleading name for this exhibition.’
Under cover of the laughter sparked off by this remark, Hugo winked at Katharine.
‘Dear Lady B-C,’ he said. ‘How marvellous you are at hitting the nail whang on the head. The same idea has just occurred to me. So what, Katharine, love?’
I’ve landed him, she thought with relief... ‘It’s really quite simple,’ she said. ‘We’re just going to ask people round here to lend us the pictures from their own homes that they enjoy looking at. Only for the summer, of course.’
There was a moment’s surprised silence.
‘Well, I’ll be blowed!’ Lydia Gilmore exclaimed with admiration. ‘To look at you, nobody would think you had such nerve, Katharine! It’s a marvellous idea, making people pay to look at their own property. Of course, we’ll lend you anything you like from here, won’t we, Malcolm?’
‘I vote we make a start with Jacob’s coat of many colours in glorious technicolour then,’ Hugo Rossiter said promptly, indicating a large abstract in arresting colours which hung over the mantelpiece. ‘It’ll fill up a whole chunk of wall.’
‘I daresay it isn’t to your highly cultivated artistic taste,’ Lydia replied. ‘I know I know nothing about art, but — yes, I’m going to say it — I do know what I like. You arty types are such snobs. Those colours are super. They give me ideas when I’m buying for Tops.’
He gave a groan and buried his face in his hands.
‘I think it’s super, too,’ Alix said. ‘Do have it, Gran. Smashing colours. It’s somehow exciting.’
‘I’m all for the beer can boys over there,’ Kit Peck said, pointing to an angular painting of a bar scene in which the drinkers’ bodies were composed of empty beer cans. ‘It’s got something.’
Katharine looked at his serious face in astonishment.
‘You’re absolutely right, young Peck,’ Hugo Rossiter said with approval. ‘It’s called “Thirst”. An ex-miner did it, who was entirely self-taught. The empty cans symbolise the psychological reaction of a chap walking into a pub, of course.’
The Prestons looked completely lost. Lady Boyd-Calthrop, who had been inspecting other pictures in the room, sniffed audibly.
‘As most of the visitors will be in what are now called the older age groups, you had better have a few exhibits that they can recognise as pictures. I suggest this charming flower painting of yours my dear,’ she went on, turning to Hilary Peck. ‘And, of course, that religious picture over there that your great-uncle painted, Malcolm. It’ll give tone. They’ll all think it’s an Old Master.’
‘We simply can’t! It’s an awful daub,’ Malcolm protested. ‘People will say we don’t know a picture from a tradesman’s calendar.’
‘Oh, but I’d like to have it,’ Katharine cried. ‘I think it’s rather fun, especially the donkey. We need variety, don’t we Hugo?’
‘Anyway, it’s small,’ Francis Peck said, screwing up his eyes as he visualised the library. ‘Even with the canvas display stands which we’re counting on Hugo to borrow from the WAC, there won’t be all that amount of hanging space.’
Hugo Rossiter sank back with a groan and closed his eyes.
‘“The Young Heir’s” jolly big,’ Alix remarked.
‘Are you really lending a family treasure like that, Katharine?’ Eileen Preston asked.
The conversation turned to fire and burglary risks and insurance cover, and moved on to more light-hearted topics, stimulated by the Gilmore hospitality. People moved around and small animated groups formed. After making a hideous grimace at Katharine and a number of exaggerated protests, Hugo Rossiter settled down between her and Francis Peck and the three began to discuss a plan of campaign. Lady Boyd-Calthrop, after a brisk passage with James Preston over Series Three, discussed Fairlynch and its problems with shy and quiet Hilary Peck, for whom she had genuine affection. Kit Peck and Alix Parr inevitably gravitated together, a fact which Katharine observed. Later in the evening, while talking to the Prestons, she learnt with satisfaction that Kit Peck was not coming home for Christmas. He would be working with a team of volunteers to give down-and-outs Christmas cheer in a disused warehouse in the East End. While sympathising with the Prestons on the absence of an extra bellringer, her mind busily planned festivities for Alix. The child needed fun with contemporaries of her own sort to get her out of this morbid preoccupation with social problems. As Francis Peck drove the Fairlynch contingent home, she exerted herself to be particularly pleasant to Kit.
During the weeks between the Gilmores’ party and Christmas, ‘Pictures for Pleasure’ began to take shape. With characteristic quiet purposefulness Francis revised the building and redecorating schedule at Fairlynch in consultation with the architect, and contacted the Wardens of other Heritage of Britain properties to get advice on the staging and running of exhibitions. Hugo Rossiter reported that the Committee of the Wellchester Art Club were eating out of his hand, delighted at the offer of hanging space and sales facilities for their members, and very willing to make a free loan of their canvas display screens. He also helped Katharine Ridley to draw up a list of possible lenders of pictures, and they were both encouraged at the response to some tentative requests. In short, everything seemed to be going so well by mid-December that it was agreed to let up on the project until after all the Christmas and New Year festivities.
Unforeseen difficulties, however, were just below the horizon of the New Year. Over Christmas itself the weather was brilliantly sunny with an exhilarating hard frost. Early in January a period of rain set in which was to break meteorological records for the time of year. A pall of low cloud settled down over the countryside, so low that wisps wreathed ceaselessly and eerily among the trees of the Fairlynch woods. The long drought of the previous summer had already created problems for the gardens, and these were now added to by waterlogged soil and paths which became water-courses. Growth seemed to be at a virtual standstill. Katharine felt guiltily conscious of having neglected the gardens owing to preoccupation with ‘Pictures for Pleasure’, and realised that she was in the bad books of Tom Basing, for many years the head gardener. He lost no opportunity of escorting both Francis Peck and herself to inspect particularly depressing scenes.
‘Opening Day April the second?’ he enquired with heavy sarcasm. ‘Better make it April the first this year, I reckon. Unless folks are daft they’ll stay away this season. Unless they come to see pictures,’ he added, a wealth of meaning in his tone. ‘J
ust take a look at this here.’
They were standing by the great bed of polyanthus on the upper terrace, normally one of the chief spring attractions. After being decimated by the previous summer’s drought it had been largely replanted in the autumn, and was now a muddy expanse spotted by pathetically small clusters of leaves.
‘Now cheer up, Tom,’ Katharine urged. ‘It won’t rain forever, you know. We’ve had bad winters before, we’ve often been amazed at the way things have put on growth and caught up.’
Her attempts at optimism were sceptically received, however, and the collapse of part of a retaining wall undermined by the non-stop rain did not improve the morale of the garden staff.
There were also unexpected crises in the Manor itself. The library walls had been replastered and were slow to dry in the damp air. To speed things up Francis Peck stepped up the central heating, and the boiler promptly broke down. It was an old-fashioned type running on solid fuel, and scheduled for replacement before the next winter by a modern oil-burning model. Frantic telephoning established that it was impossible to supply the new boiler under two months, and there was a delay of several weeks over getting a necessary spare part for the repair of the old one. Electric heaters were hastily borrowed and hired, and the prospect of the next heating bill reduced the normally equable Francis Peck to an unusual state of gloom.
The hold-up in the library was infuriating for Katharine Ridley and Hugo Rossiter. They found themselves inundated with offers of more pictures than could possibly be accepted, but until the library was clear of workmen and their clobber, it was impossible to get an accurate idea of the available hanging space, and to make a final selection. Hugo began to show signs of frustration and restiveness, and Katharine had moments of near panic in which she saw herself left to shoulder full responsibility for the exhibition. She felt edgy, and was in a far from ideal state of mind to handle tactfully an unexpected clash with Alix. It was unexpected because the Christmas holidays had gone reassuringly well. Alix had really seemed to enjoy the numerous parties and outdoor fixtures, and the short visit to London arranged as a special treat. She had only contracted out on one occasion in order to help with an entertainment for the children at St Crispin’s, and Kit Peck’s visit to his parents had been so brief that she could hardly have seen him. When the spring term started, Katharine noted, she showed a healthy reluctance to get down to her school work again.
Over tea one day, a few weeks later, Alix announced that she had had to decide on the university she wanted to go to.
‘You have to give three in order of preference,’ she said.
‘Good gracious,’ Katharine exclaimed, ‘decide already? Why, you won’t be going up until the autumn of ’79. It seems so far ahead.’
Alix sat playing with the knife on her plate. ‘I’ve decided that I’d rather go up this year,’ she said abruptly, ‘as soon as I’ve got my A levels.’
Katharine stared at her incredulously.
‘But Alix, you can’t possibly! We shall be in Canada. You know that Uncle Jim and Aunt Louise are expecting us as soon as the gardens close at the end of September. We shall be in time for the autumn colours, and then there’ll be Christmas with them and winter sports for you. It’s been a promise ever since your grandfather died.’
‘I don’t want to waste a whole year messing about. I want to qualify as a social worker as soon as I possibly can, and the first thing’s to get a degree.’
‘Aren’t you being rather selfish?’ Katharine controlled her dismay with difficulty. ‘Jim is my only brother — my only near relative now besides you, and I see so little of him.’
Alix looked up eagerly. ‘But of course you can go, Gran.’
‘I see that you have it all arranged,’ Katharine replied in cold anger. ‘I suppose everything has already been discussed with the Pecks.’
‘I haven’t said a single word to anyone,’ Alix protested desperately. ‘I haven’t even got the forms from school yet... Gran, you’re being unfair to me. It’s not that I’m not terrifically grateful to you for all you’ve done for me, but — but I’ve simply got to have a life of my own. I just can’t go on living here and having absolutely everything while millions of people are having awful lives and needing help, even here in England.’
There was a lengthy silence. In a vivid flashback Katharine was in the drawing room at the Manor, confronted by a rebellious Helen making the identical demand for a life of her own. Well, she had had one — for three short years, and what a travesty of a life, poor darling... Somehow or other Alix had got to be stopped from this preposterous contracting out of the life she had been born into, and even before she had begun to live as an adult... Anyway, I must cool this argument, she thought. It’s only making things worse.
‘Why is there any doubt about your university?’ she asked suddenly. ‘Ridleys have always been to Cambridge.’
Alix relaxed, as if relieved, by the change of subject.
‘Why, I’d never make Oxbridge. I’m just not in that class. I’ll have to swot to get decent A levels if I’m to fetch up at my redbrick first choice.’
‘Not make Oxbridge?’ Katharine echoed in genuine astonishment. ‘What about that girl from your school who won an Oxford scholarship last year? It said in the local paper that her father was a bus driver. I mean, she didn’t even come from an educated home, presumably.’
‘That doesn’t matter these days if you’ve got real brains. She had: the sort that can do maths.’
‘I see,’ Katharine said untruthfully. Groping for her next move she had a sudden inspiration. ‘I do understand that you want to get on with your career, Alix,’ she said, ‘but surely you could turn going to Canada for six months to good account? I mean, go to a Canadian university, and perhaps get a diploma of some sort. Wouldn’t seeing how things are done over there be useful experience?’
Alix, obviously taken aback, considered this suggestion with the critically appraising expression of her forebear looking out from his portrait over the mantelpiece. Slowly her face brightened.
‘I never even thought of that, Gran. It’s a super scheme. But would I get taken on anywhere, though?’
‘I shouldn’t think there’d be any difficulty if your A level results are all right,’ Katharine said, feeling startled by what she had impulsively put in train. ‘We can ask Jim to make enquiries, anyway.’
‘But I’d have to spend a year at a university to do any worthwhile course, wouldn’t I?’
‘There wouldn’t be any problem there. Of course I should want to get back for the summer, but you could be based with Jim and Louise. They’d simply love it. Shall I write to them?’
‘Oh, Gran, do! I feel quite excited! It would be terrifically worthwhile — help! It’s nearly six, and I promised Miss Benson to lend a hand with Brownies, and I’ll be late. Back about a quarter past seven.’
She dropped a kiss on the top of Katharine’s head and fled. A few minutes later the front door banged. Terry returned to the hearthrug, his hopes of a walk disappointed. Katharine put down a hand and absently fondled his ears. What had she done? Suppose the plan improvised on the spur of the moment actually came off? Suppose Alix met someone in Canada and married him? Well, suppose she did? She would be of age and in control of the money John had left her. Unless it were somebody utterly unsuitable, wouldn’t it be better for her than marrying Kit Peck or another of his type, and spending her life in a sort of grey twilight of social misfits? There was room to move in Canada, and scope for getting on... Being successful ... wasn’t considered ... a crime ... as ... it ... was ... becoming ... here...
The insistent clamour of the telephone woke her. She frowned a little as she went across the room and lifted the receiver. She gave her number. A rather breathy voice asked for Alix.
‘This is Mrs Ridley speaking. My granddaughter is out. Who is it, please?’
There was a pause. ‘It’s a friend of hers. Charles Hindsmith.’
For a moment the name mea
nt nothing to Katharine as she quickly reviewed Alix’s circle. Then she suddenly remembered the conversation in the garden on the day when “Pictures for Pleasure” had first been mooted. Obviously this persistent and unsuitable young man must be choked off.
‘Mr Hindsmith?’ she echoed interrogatively. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever ... oh, yes, of course. You’re the cashier who comes out to our local branch of the Southern Counties Bank, aren’t you? How very late they keep you at work, don’t they? Is something wrong with one of her cheques?’
‘It’s nothing to do with the Bank.’ The voice was defensive and sulky. ‘I’ve rung to ask Alix to come out with me tomorrow night. I’ve got transport.’
‘To ask my granddaughter to go out with you tomorrow night, Mr Hindsmith? I’m afraid she’s already engaged: we are dining out. Goodbye.’
She replaced the receiver with satisfaction. Really, enough was enough... Before she could return to her chair the telephone rang again.
‘Francis Peck,’ came a familiar voice. ‘Just to let you know that the foreman says they’ll be through with the library in a couple more days, so it’ll be the all-clear for you and Hugo at last.’
‘Thank heaven!’ she exclaimed. ‘Marvellous news. Have you rung Hugo?’
‘No, I haven’t. Will you pass it on?’
‘Will I not? I can’t wait. Thanks most awfully for letting me know, Francis.’
A few moments later she was dialling Hugo Rossiter’s number, Charles Hindsmith and his presumption forgotten.
Chapter 3
After the frustrating delay, Katharine Ridley enjoyed the hard work of the following weeks. Every picture offered on loan had already been inspected, and either accepted or tactfully declined on one of a number of convincing grounds. The next step was the accurate measurement of the available hanging space and the making of a final selection. The owners of the pictures chosen had to be contacted, and arrangements made for collection or delivery. All this took time. Finally came the actual hanging, an exhausting and lengthy operation owing to Hugo Rossiter’s exacting standards, useful help being given by local members of Heritage of Britain and of the Wellchester Art Club. By means of united efforts the work was completed by midday on Friday, April the second, with twenty-four hours in hand.
Change For The Worse Page 3