The Hardie Inheritance

by Anne Melville

  The idea was so simple – and so perfect – that Grace’s first reaction was to clap her hands. Then she made a face.

  ‘Nobody would come. There’s a recognized area in the middle of London for buying works of art. It’s hard enough to get them even as far from Bond Street as Chelsea. Oxford would be well out of bounds.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think many people enjoyed shopping or selling in London when the bombs were falling.’ Trish was quick to support Terry’s idea. ‘I mean, habits must have been broken. Just because we’re getting back to ordinary life again now doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be 1939 ordinary life. And something that’s made to stand out of doors will never look right inside.’

  ‘But even so –’

  ‘Charge them to come, that’s the answer,’ said Terry. ‘If you send out invites, they’ll wait to see how they feel on the day and probably decide it’s too much trouble. But get the word around that the Grace Hardie Sculpture Park will be open for only one day, or two, and that admission will be limited, and you’ll have them climbing over themselves to get in.’

  His voice changed as he went into his street market patter. “Urry, ‘urry, ‘urry, ladies and gents. Your last opportunity, your very last opportunity to pick up a bargain. Only ten pieces of sculpture remaining, ladies and gents: ‘urry, ‘urry, ‘urry. It’s not just the price that can’t be repeated. You’ll never see goods of this quality on offer again. And every one different. A u-nique bargain just for you. Yes sir, you on the left there. Only the first fifty ticket-holders can be lucky, ladies and gents, so ‘urry, ‘urry, ‘urry while stocks last. Do it right,’ he said more seriously, ‘and you’ll find you’ve got a waiting list for tickets a mile long.’

  All objections were swept aside as Terry’s enthusiasm gathered way.

  ‘What’s there to lose, anyway? You’re saving yourself transport costs and the risk of damage. You own the land and the studio so there’s no rent to pay. You’ll have to fork out on publicity – but there’s no gallery to take a rake-off so you’re quids in with the first sale.’

  The enthusiasm was infectious. ‘We’ll all help,’ said Trish. ‘I’ll print some posters. I can use the college litho stone. Ellis could do catalogues, with a photograph on the front and a plan on the back.’

  ‘The catalogue could act as the ticket,’ Terry suggested.

  ‘Right.’ By now Trish was bubbling with eagerness.

  ‘What about us?’ asked Boxer.

  ‘One of you could check that everyone who comes has a catalogue and sell him one if he hasn’t. And the other would have to sit in the studio as a sort of guard, to see that nobody nicks the smaller stuff. Max and I could sell glasses of our own wine.’ Too late she realized that Max would probably have left Greystones before any exhibition could be prepared, but thought it tactful not to correct herself.

  ‘Charge a bit more for the catalogues, give a glass of wine free and have the bottles on sale for anyone who likes the taste,’ said Terry. Grace looked surprised by the authority with which he spoke, but Trish accepted the suggestion at once.

  ‘Yes. And we could keep changing places, so that it wouldn’t get boring. Why don’t we all go out now and work out a route to put as a dotted line on the plan, so that everyone would see everything and always get the first glimpse from the best angle?’

  ‘Steady on,’ pleaded Grace, but already the three boys were running to find pencil and paper. Laughing at the speed with which Terry’s spark was catching fire, she went outside to keep them company and form her own opinion, Trish was about to hurry after them when she remembered Terry’s wound.

  ‘Can you manage a walk?’ she asked.

  ‘Get a bit dizzy if I turn my head too quickly. They tell me that’ll go when I get used to being one-eyed. I’ll be OK if we take it slowly.’

  She took his arm as they strolled, ready to support him if he should need it, but trying to make the gesture a natural one. ‘Is it going to be all right, Terry?’

  ‘Depends what you mean by all right. I’ll have to get used to looking like a freak. But then, I never had any ambition to be a film star. Don’t see why it should interfere with my plans for the future.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘I’ve decided to make my fortune,’ said Terry, grinning at the simplicity of his ambition. ‘Dan and Boxer have had a chance here to see what it’s like to be happy and well-fed and safe. I’m not going to put them back into the slums. And if ever I have kids myself, I want to bring them up in the sunshine.’

  ‘And will it happen as easily as that, just because you’ve decided?’

  ‘Will it heck! But people do make fortunes by working hard. And the deciding to do it is half the battle. The only snag is, I want to be honest and I want to be useful. That’s tying both hands behind my back.’

  ‘How are you going to set about it?’

  ‘Not sure. I’ll start from the fact that I know how to buy and sell. Bigger scale, that’s what I need. Sell a pound of potatoes and you count the profit in farthings. I’ve got to think of something big – big price, big profit. Trouble is, you’ve got to have money before you can make money. Getting started, that’s the problem. I’m waiting for a bit of inspiration – a brilliant idea for working on a large scale.’

  ‘You’ll get it,’ said Trish confidently. ‘Just look what you came up with for Grace, without any warning. Genius! I do like people who have good ideas.’

  ‘And I like people who appreciate good ideas.’ They smiled at each other, but almost at once Terry was serious again.

  ‘I’m not ever going to forget what you’ve done for the nippers,’ he said.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with me. Grace had a baby son once, you know. If he hadn’t died, he’d have been pretty much the same age as Boxer. I expect –’

  Terry interrupted her with a shake of the head.

  ‘She doesn’t care about kids,’ he said. ‘I don’t mean that she’s against them specially. She just doesn’t want to be bothered. You chose to have them here, and it was because of you they were allowed back. I wouldn’t want you to think that I don’t realize.’

  ‘No need to be sloppy about it,’ she told him. ‘When do you think would be a good time for the sculpture day?’

  ‘July’s too soon. August, people will be on holiday. October, you’ll be busy with the grapes. September.’

  ‘September,’ agreed Trish. ‘And perhaps you’ll be out of the army by then.’

  Another of her friends managed to secure his release even earlier. Rupert arrived at Greystones only a week after Terry had returned to his convalescent hospital.

  ‘I’d had enough,’ he announced. ‘So I looked down the list of special demobilization schemes to see what I qualified for. The only one which seemed remotely possible was immediate release for all parliamentary candidates in the general election. I persuaded a group of worthy citizens to nominate me, and here I am. I ought to be knocking on constituency doorsteps at this moment, but I wanted to knock on yours first.’

  ‘You mean you’re going to be a Member of Parliament?’ Trish exclaimed. ‘How marvellous!’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I had to sign a statement that I was a candidate. I didn’t have to guarantee to win.’

  ‘But you will. How could anyone possibly vote against you?’ Rupert at thirty was even more handsome than Rupert at eighteen. Although he claimed to be the most unmilitary of men, five and a half years in uniform had stiffened his posture and added authority to his speech. And she knew that ever since his time at Oxford he had had a serious interest in politics as well as history. ‘But – are you allowed to sit in the House of Commons if you’re a lord?’

  ‘Patricia, Patricia! Didn’t they teach you anything in that school of yours? My father sat in the House of Lords. My elder brother will take his seat in the House of Lords as soon as he’s repatriated from the Far East. But mere second sons, whatever handle they may be given as a courtesy, are common as –’
r />   ‘Dirt?’

  ‘I was going to say as common as you.’ He laughed, and Trish put out her tongue at him.

  ‘Have you had any news of Miles?’ she asked. She knew little about Rupert’s elder brother, except that he had been taken prisoner by the Japanese soon after the fall of Singapore.

  ‘One Red Cross postcard in three years. Every morning now when I wake up and thank God the war is over for me, I have to remind myself that it’s still going on for him.’ He was silent for a moment, shaking his head unhappily. ‘We’ve no idea what his state of health is, but at least he was still alive four months ago. Julia seems to be coping quite well, but it’s killing Mother by inches: too little news and too much rumour.’

  ‘Who’s Julia?’

  ‘Miles’s fiancée. They got engaged the night before he sailed. Bad timing, in my opinion. If he’d popped the question a week earlier, they might have managed to get married and apply themselves to producing an heir. As it is, she’s had a miserable time staying faithful to someone who for all she knows might not be coming back. Wondering whether he’s still going to want her if he does. Wondering how much he’ll have been changed by what he’s gone through.’

  ‘Horrid,’ agreed Trish. ‘Have you met her?’

  ‘I met her on leave in Alex. Mother wrote to tell me she was there. In the ATS. No time to mope while the war was on, but this last bit of waiting is harder for her to cope with.’

  Trish searched for a change of subject, realizing how much this one upset him, and realized only as she spoke that she was touching a second tender nerve.

  ‘Have you been back to Castlemere yet?’

  Rupert shook his head. ‘We couldn’t ask the school to move out in the middle of term. And I don’t want to see it swarming with girls in gym slips. I shall wait till the end of July. With Miles out of action and Mother on the edge of a nervous collapse, it looks as though I shall have the job of dealing with everything – so you may get an urgent summons to come and hold my hand. Will you come?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And what about a bit of electioneering before that?’

  This time Trish hesitated. ‘My term hasn’t finished yet, either,’ she said. ‘And besides – which party are you standing for?’

  ‘What a question! The party of enlightened self-interest, of course. Do you realize what the socialists will do to a family like mine if they get power, as I fear they may? Don’t tell me that you’ve turned red in my absence, Patricia.’

  ‘I don’t know what I am,’ Trish admitted honestly. ‘I mean, until a month ago I’d have said that I was against inherited wealth, just like Labour. But now, although I still think people shouldn’t be allowed to inherit great fortunes, I agree that the ones who already own a bit of money or land ought to have a voice in saying where it goes. So you see –’

  ‘I see that you have got your knickers in a twist. It will be interesting to discover how you extricate yourself from that position. In the meantime, I agree that you wouldn’t be wholly reliable as a Conservative canvasser. I shall have to ask Julia instead.’

  Trish was conscious of an odd stab of jealousy at the casual suggestion. If anyone was going to be his daily companion during the campaign, it ought to be herself. Would it really matter so much if she were to spend two or three weeks repeating Rupert’s opinions rather than her own? But she had missed her chance. It was necessary to remind herself firmly that she had no right to be possessive about him – and that the unknown Julia was safely engaged to Miles.

  ‘I do hope you get in, all the same,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you. And there’s something else.’

  ‘Yes?’ she asked as he showed no sign of continuing.

  ‘I was waiting for the sound of a plaintive violin, followed by the strains of a Hollywood heavenly choir. It doesn’t seem to be forthcoming, so I suppose I shall have to speak without accompaniment.’

  ‘The suspense is killing me.’

  ‘I only wanted to comment on the fact that when I went off to war you were a child.’

  ‘You’ve seen me since then,’ Trish pointed out.

  ‘Yes. But still as a schoolgirl. And now – the conquering hero returns and finds that you’ve – well, grown up.’

  It was not the most romantic of declarations, but it was enough to warm Trish’s heart. She lowered her eyes, trying to recall to her face the demure expression that he would have remembered from 1939.

  ‘Decent of you to notice,’ she said.

  Chapter Four

  If Brian was Boxer, there was no doubt that from now on Terry would be the Pirate. During his convalescence he had been assigned to an army demobilization course on book-keeping and business methods, and since then had been busy with mysterious projects in London. But in the last week of August he arrived at Greystones in order to help with the sculpture exhibition – no longer bandaged, but wearing a black eye patch.

  ‘Don’t really need it,’ he told Trish, pulling it away from his face to reveal that his eye, although useless, was normal to look at. ‘But I fancy it. People’ll notice me. Right, now I’ll be guinea pig and see if your plan will take me round the route.’

  They walked together through the grounds.

  ‘Good way of doing the paths, this,’ Terry said approvingly. ‘Whose idea was it?’

  ‘Andy’s.’ The lawns of the terraces and flower gardens were always kept tidy. But instead of struggling to get the larger area which was to be on show into immaculate condition, Andy had mown wide approaches to the sculptures, leaving the wildness of the grass on either side to emphasize the smoothness of the mown area and persuade visitors to approach each piece of sculpture from the angle chosen by Grace to show it at its best.

  ‘It’s going to be open for four days, not just one,’ Trish told Terry. ‘Ellis has been doing marvellously on publicity. On Thursday there’s to be a preview. He’s got someone from the radio coming down to do an interview with Grace and to talk about the exhibits. And art critics from the newspapers as well.’

  ‘So when do the buyers come?’

  ‘Friday and Saturday. We’re using your idea of selling catalogues in advance. And doing what you said about limiting the numbers, though Ellis has been taking the names and addresses of anyone he turns away, so they can always be invited privately afterwards. And he thinks that some of them will just turn up and demand to buy catalogues at the door, so he’s allowed for that. I’ve been making Dan and Boxer practise giving change. They’re terribly quick at it. I’m surprised, because their school reports are never up to much.’

  ‘It’s the result of being descended from generations of market traders,’ said Terry, smiling as though it were a joke and yet speaking seriously. ‘Mum had a stall up to the start of the war. I can do much more complicated sums in my head, and faster, than I can on paper. Talking of moving fast, there’s one thing I’ve got to tell you. Just been having a word with Dan and Boxer about it. I’ve got somewhere for us all to live.’

  Trish was pleased and disappointed at the same time. ‘We’ll miss them,’ she said.

  ‘Nice of you to say so. But we can’t expect you to put them up for ever, and school begins on Tuesday. Besides, you won’t be here yourself so much, will you, if that art school of yours goes back to its old place in London.’

  ‘Tuesday!’ Trish exclaimed. ‘You mean you’re going straight off after the weekend. You won’t just disappear, will you, Terry?’

  ‘Course not. Might need you to put a coat of paint on the flat for us. Where do we go next?’

  He was concentrating on the sculpture route, and again Trish felt a kind of disappointment that he should apparently be able to break the connection with Greystones so easily. But perhaps that attitude was necessary to persuade his brothers that the return to London was natural and inevitable. Although still troubled by the thought of their departure, she tried to follow Terry’s lead and concentrate on discussions of the opening arrangements.

  Fr
om the moment on Thursday when newspaper photographers began to arrive, the success of the adventure was assured and, at least to start with, the system operated smoothly. On Friday and Saturday there were never more than thirty people in the grounds at any time, and the amateur band of helpers had no difficulties in dealing with them. Grace was available to talk about her work, whilst Ellis talked business.

  Sunday, however, was different. A feeling of guilt at turning her own garden into a shop had led Grace to offer an extra afternoon’s opening to a charity. They were all totally unprepared for the response. September 2nd was a warm, sunny day and it seemed that half the population of Oxford had decided to combine a country walk with the chance of exploring an estate which was usually private. Art-lovers who had learned of the show too late to apply for catalogues took the opportunity to see the sculptures after all, so that once again Grace and Ellis were kept busy in the studio.

  The charity provided its own gatekeepers to collect entrance money – and this was just as well, since it freed the other members of the household to patrol the grounds. Charity or no charity, Andy was not prepared to allow anyone to do more than admire the vineyard from a safe distance. Jean-Paul was on duty in the walled garden, whilst Dan and Boxer, Terry and Trish kept on the move, discouraging visitors from touching the sculptures with sticky fingers or from breaking off pieces of plants to take home. Jay had taken a deck chair to the heart of the serpentine garden originally created by Philip, ready to surprise any plant thieves who thought themselves unobserved.

  It was when the crowds were at their largest that Trish caught a glimpse of someone who was certainly not a sightseer, and who even as a potential patron would have chosen a quieter day to call. Rupert, dressed for riding, was looking round with a bemused expression on his face. Deserting her duty, Trish hurried towards him.

  ‘What on earth is going on here?’ he exclaimed. ‘Has the Revolution begun?’