‘It’s for charity.’ But Trish’s quick explanation only made him shake his head incredulously.
‘How can Grace stand it? So many people trampling around. Are they in the house as well?’
‘Only the studio.’ Originally designed for Lucy Hardie and her watercolour painting, this had a direct door to the garden; so visitors were able to enter it without going through the rest of the house.
‘It would drive me up the wall to have so many strangers invading my privacy. Well, I won’t stay. I’ve been spending a couple of days with Julia and realized it was within riding distance. Just come and say Hello to her, and then we’ll be off. I can see that this is no moment for a tête-à-tête.’
Trish had not until then realized that Rupert had arrived with a companion; but now, as she turned to accompany him, she saw a slim young woman in her late twenties standing beside the fence to which two horses were tethered.
So that was his brother’s fiancée! Trish put a hand on Rupert’s arm to hold him back. ‘Before I meet her, have you had any news about Miles?’ The war against Japan was over at last.
‘He’s alive, thank God,’ said Rupert. ‘Mother heard yesterday. That’s why I went over to Julia’s place, to tell her. But he’s not fit enough to travel yet. Suffering from malnutrition and two separate tropical diseases. All the same, there’ve been times when we feared the worst – so yes, we’re all very happy.’ They walked on again. ‘Julia, meet Patricia Faraday. Patricia, this is Julia Lloyd-Jones.’
‘Trish,’ said Trish, shaking hands. ‘Rupert’s just told me about Miles. I’m so glad. I know how worried you’ve all been – and for such a long time.’
‘Yes, it’s a great relief. Marvellous news. We’re not going to let ourselves get frightened by the medical report.’
‘We have to let Patricia get back to control her perfectly frightful crowds,’ Rupert said. ‘But before you go, you promised to come and see what’s happened to Castlemere? Would the day after tomorrow be any good?’
‘I’d love to come. Oh, and Rupert, congratulations on your magnificent victory! Have you taken your seat yet?’
‘Yes, I went up on the 20th, with all the other new boys. To sit in impotent opposition while the country goes to the dogs. The Labour lot even sang the Red Flag in the Chamber, would you believe? But we mustn’t have a political argument. No doubt you’re gloating over the result.’
‘Not really. I thought it was rather ungrateful, as a matter of fact, after all that Churchill’s done. Oh, just look at that boy climbing through the hole!’
‘Why else does Grace carve holes if not for them to be climbed through? But I mustn’t distract you from your police duties. See you on Tuesday, then.’
Trish watched as he and Julia swung themselves up into their saddles and rode away. Then it was time to return to crowd control.
It was an exhausted group of people who gathered for a drink of home-made lemonade or wine that evening half an hour after the last of the invaders had left. But Grace, flushed with the success of the venture, was more animated than Trish ever remembered seeing her before.
‘I need to make a short speech,’ she said. ‘To thank you all for your help and hard work. I’ve suddenly become a rich woman!’
‘Don’t let it go to your head,’ Ellis warned her. ‘Remember that it’s six years’ work you’ve been selling. You won’t be able to replace it in five minutes. You need to divide the total by six to work out an income.’
‘But I’ve kept alive during those six years,’ Grace pointed out. ‘I refuse to be sensible and cautious about this. When all the buyers have paid for what they’ve chosen, for the first time in my life I shall have money in the bank that I’ve earned myself and that isn’t earmarked in advance for something dull like repairing the roof. It seems the right opportunity to distribute one or two rewards.’
‘Oh goody!’ exclaimed Jay. ‘It’s certainly been a very arduous afternoon, guarding your property from a deck chair.’
‘Those who live as family are expected to work as family,’ said Grace, laughing. ‘Bad luck, Jay. Nothing for you except a big thank-you. Andy, I’d like to call down at the lodge for a chat later this evening, if I may. Boxer, will you come to the library with me? And Dan afterwards.’
Within only a few minutes the two boys were back, eager to show their brother what they had been given. Dan was waving a ten shilling note, while Boxer clutched a handful of silver coins.
‘You’re to go next,’ they said to Terry before dashing up to their bedroom with their fortunes.
‘A pound for me, d’you think?’ he guessed. ‘Since I’m bigger than them.’ He was smiling as he went out of the room; but when he returned his face was pale with shock.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Trish, fearing that he must have been given bad news of some kind.
‘Nothing’s the matter. I’ll say nothing’s the matter!’
‘Well, tell me what’s happened, then.’ By now the two of them were alone.
‘She’s given me a cheque. For ten per cent of the sales. And there’ll be more to come later, when the bronze editions have been cast. Because it was my idea, she said. But it’s much more than an idea is worth.’
Trish shook her head. ‘There’s nothing more valuable than an idea. That’s what starts everything off.’
‘Well, what she said is that if she’d sold through a London gallery it would have taken forty per cent, so she reckons she’s got all that to give away. Ellis doesn’t want any, except to pay the exhibition bills. Jean-Paul’s going to keep the money from selling the wine, and Mrs Barrett’s having whatever she took for refreshments. And there’ll be something for you; you’re to go in next. But –’ He looked unbelievingly at the cheque in his hand. ‘I haven’t even got a bank account!’
‘You’d better hurry up and open one, then. What will you do with the money?’
‘Get stock. Premises, even. You can make a good living from a market stall but to take a step up you’ve got to have capital. I thought I’d have to wheedle it out of a bank and be saddled with interest payments. But now …! This was what I really needed, to make a start. Grace said she wanted to see me doing well. But it’s crazy. I mean, we owe her; she doesn’t owe us.’
‘She’s not interested in money,’ Trish told him confidently. ‘But she is interested in people being able to do what they specially want to do. And she knows how hard it is, starting.’
‘Maybe she’s going to set you up in business as well then!’
But Grace, smiling as Trish went into the library, was more practical than that.
‘I imagine the Slade will be going back to London now that the war’s over,’ she said. ‘You’ll need a more generous allowance for living there. Ellis will discuss that with you when you’ve got some idea of what your expenses will be. The first problem will be to find somewhere to live. You’ll have to put down a deposit and pay the first month in advance; and you may want to buy things to make the place more homey. So you’d better have a lump sum ready.’ She pushed a cheque across the table.
‘Oh Grace, you are generous. You oughtn’t –’
‘I’ve given more to Terry – because I think he needs it more. But I really do appreciate all the hard work you put into the weekend, Trish. It’s not just the money. In fact, that’s not important at all, except as a practical sign of how people see my work. But it’s been wonderful to have people coming and enjoying what they see. It’s not something I ever expected to happen. And Ellis has just been showing me an article in the Observer. It makes me feel – well, important.’
‘And so you are.’
‘It’s not something that’s easy to imagine, while I’m hammering away here on my own. Yesterday in particular was quite a day. So a few thank-yous seem to be in order.’
‘Terry’s thrilled to bits,’ Trish told her. ‘Are you doing something for Andy as well, or shouldn’t I ask?’
‘It’s something he and I have got to talk
about,’ Grace told her. ‘I don’t even know whether he wants to stay in England, or whether he’d like to go back to France and start again from scratch on the farm there. But if he does stay, he ought to be offered a more formal arrangement. What I have in mind is to offer him a tenancy of the vineyard. So that if it makes any profits, he can keep them. And he could have a few acres extra to that to make a small-holding.’
‘You ought to keep the land at the bottom of the hill in your own hands,’ said Ellis, who had been sitting quietly at the other end of the room with the papers relating to the sculpture sales in front of him.
‘Why?’ asked Grace.
‘If the Morris works want to expand again at the rate they were going before the war, you could get a good price for the fields on the far side of the wood.’
‘I don’t want to see a factory going up in our grounds!’ exclaimed Grace, horrified.
‘Then you need to keep full ownership of the land in order to protect it.’
‘I suppose you’re right. Anyway, Andy wouldn’t want the wood. He may not even be interested in taking over the vineyard. But he seems enthusiastic enough. I haven’t got either the skill or the time to give it proper attention. I want to concentrate on my own work. It’s all very selfish.’
‘It sounds very generous to me,’ Trish said.
‘Well, you know.’ Grace looked serious for a moment. ‘My brother David is always on at me about wills and things, and I suppose there may be a pleasure of a sort in thinking who’s going to enjoy my possessions after I’m dead. But there’s a much greater pleasure, it seems to me, in making presents while I’m still alive and watching people smile and tell me how generous I am! I know that I can’t do that with the house, and – to forestall what Ellis is bursting to say – I also know that the house can’t continue to exist without the land. But I see absolutely no point in hoarding anything else.’
‘That way lies ruin,’ said Ellis; but he was smiling.
‘I shall rely on Trish to keep me in my old age. Right, Trish?’
‘Half my stale crust will always be yours,’ Trish assured her. ‘And talking of stale crusts, d’you think there’s anything for supper?’
‘Let’s all go and see.’ Mrs Barrett was enjoying an evening off, but had probably left a salad prepared.
As Trish led the way towards the kitchen, she smiled to herself in satisfaction. She would be sad to say goodbye to Dan and Boxer, whom she thought of almost as brothers. But on Tuesday she would see Rupert again and before too long would be able to leave home and make a life for herself in London.
London! She was going to become a metropolitan person at last: the very thought made her feel sophisticated. And in the meantime she was part of a happy family, which would still be there whenever she wished to return to her home. It was all too good to be true.
Chapter Five
In the nineteenth century the ninth Marquess of Ross had been at some pains to ensure that that new-fangled invention, the railway, should not be allowed to spoil the view from Castlemere or disturb the pheasants by crossing his estate. So when Trish dismounted from the train for her visit, she found herself being led to a long, low open coach bearing the Beverley coat of arms.
‘How splendid!’ she exclaimed. ‘Is this a governess cart?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Rupert. ‘Don’t you know a phaeton when you see one, ignorant girl?’ He helped her up before flicking the reins to start the chestnut on its way. ‘It was Mother’s idea, when petrol rationing first came in, to see what we’d got in the coach-house. And in the stables – all those “horses eating their heads off and getting fat for lack of exercise” while Miles and I were away. There was a certain amount of protest to start with, I’m told, but they soon got the hang of it. Rather more quickly than I’m learning to cope with petrol rationing. I’m sorry to have inflicted such a journey on you instead of nipping over to pick you up as usual. This time last year, if I wanted to go anywhere I simply hopped into a tank.’
‘Just what we civilians always suspected,’ laughed Trish. ‘The army simply didn’t know there was a war on!’
‘Well, I’m certainly learning fast about the hardships of peace. Just wait till you see Castlemere!’
‘Is it very bad?’
‘Yes.’ He was no longer smiling and was less chatty than usual as they rattled first along the road and then through the huge park which surrounded his home.
From a distance, nothing seemed to have changed. It was still a fairy castle, a French chateau improbably set down in the middle of the English countryside. But as they came close and Rupert slowed the horses to a halt, Trish gasped in dismay. The moat had always been one of the glories of Castlemere, a smooth ring of water on which swans were accustomed to float. Now, however, the house was surrounded by nothing but a wide, muddy ditch.
‘The headmistress had it drained because she was afraid that one of her little darlings might fall in and drown,’ Rupert explained. ‘Simply refilling it would be no problem. It was designed to be fed by a cutting from a stream to which the water returned lower down. That was why it was never stagnant or smelly. It would be easy enough to unblock the dam. But unfortunately it seems that six years of being allowed to dry out for the first time ever have done unexpected things to the foundations. It’s going to cost a small fortune to make them good before we can risk letting the water back.’
‘Isn’t the school liable for that sort of expense?’
‘I’ve been living with the contract for the past month until I could recite it in my sleep. I’m afraid my father wasn’t too well advised. At the time, of course, he may have seen it as a patriotic duty rather than a business negotiation. Or else a way of avoiding army occupation, which might have been worse. There are clear categories of damage which have to be made good. And there are clear exclusions, for fair wear and tear, which are left on our plate. But there’s a terrible fog in between. If the school sent its handyman to set the stream flowing through the moat again – as they were on the point of doing when our agent pointed out the risks – they could claim that they were leaving it as they found it. I suspect that the lawyers are going to have a field day before it’s all sorted out. And that’s only one out of dozens of problems. Come and look inside.’
Trish’s last visit to the great house had been in 1939, when her father took a portfolio of photographs of the interior. She had seen the rooms very much as they must have been when the house was first built, filled with the furniture which had been sent over from France as a bride’s dowry, curtained with elegant silk draperies, and with expensive rugs and carpets on the polished parquet floors. But since then all the best furniture had been put into store. As Rupert led her first into what had once been the marquess’s study, she was not surprised by the bleakness of the empty spaces or the ugliness of the thick blackout curtains. But he gave a sigh as he waved a hand towards the panelled walls.
‘They used this as a sort of reading room for the older girls. Equipped it with their own tables and chairs and brought in a couple of old bookcases which they picked up at a country sale. Now we find that the panelling’s infested with woodworm. The whole lot will have to come off the wall so that it can be treated. They say it must have been there already. I claim that they must be responsible. But the truth of the matter is that a house like this needs loving care, which a temporary tenant isn’t interested in providing. Do you remember the Chinese room?’
Trish nodded. It was a small room which took its name from the beauty of its hand-painted wall covering and the intricate carving of the gilded mirror frames.
‘Well, for a couple of centuries maids have been going into that room every morning to pull down a blind, and returning three hours later to let it up again. They may never have known why they did it. It was just a regular duty. That room was one that the school undertook not to use, because the danger of damage to the wall paintings was so great; so how, they cry, can we possibly hold them responsible for the fact that
a four-foot strip of the paper has completely lost its colour? All they did, in the interests of opening a window one day to air the room, was to draw back the curtains and forget to close them again afterwards. Six years of sunshine, and the room will never be a perfect work of art again. How do you send in a bill for something like that?’
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Trish. ‘You must be terribly upset.’
Rupert looked at her with the serious expression which she was more and more often nowadays catching on his face.
‘Yes, it is upsetting, because I love the house,’ he said. ‘But I’ll tell you what’s almost worse, though I don’t know if it will make sense to you. I’ve always known that Castlemere would never belong to me. To be a son living in my father’s house, that was all right; that’s natural. But to be a brother, living in Miles’s house, that wouldn’t do at all. So after the pater’s death, I told myself that Castlemere was no longer my home. I might come back for the odd visit, but the first thing to do after the war would be to find a home of my own. I could have managed that all right. Clean break. All this, putting things right, ought to be Miles’s job.’
‘But now Miles isn’t here.’
‘That’s it. We heard this morning that he’s been put on a hospital ship. But it doesn’t sound as though he’ll be in any state to get down to business for some time when he gets home. And there’s too much that can’t wait. A socking great bill for estate duty after my father’s death, for a start. Two million pounds.’
‘Two million!’ gasped Trish.
‘They value the property, you see, without taking into account whether or not we have any assets apart from the property itself with which to pay.’
‘I see.’ Trish remembered the occasion on which she had overheard David quarrelling with Grace. He had made exactly the same point about death duties. ‘What will you do?’
‘Mother’s been battling on that front while we were both away. But it’s been a worry to her, and we were supposed to settle within five years. We shall have to sell some land. Even if I don’t actually do anything, I must have some solutions cut and dried, ready for when Miles returns.’
The Hardie Inheritance Page 25