The Property of a Gentleman: One House. Many secrets.

by Catherine Gaskin

  ‘Why volunteers?’ Askew asked. ‘Why do you need them?’

  For the first time Nat Birkett’s face fully relaxed; he put down the glass of champagne as if he didn’t want any more. ‘Because we’ve got a pair of golden eagles nesting up there on a crag of Brantwick – this is only the second pair to nest in the Lake District for more than two hundred years. And if it kills me I’ll see no one gets near that nest, either for the eggs or just out of curiosity. Shepherds don’t like eagles of any sort – they claim they take the lambs, which isn’t true. But they try by any means they can to scare them off the nest so that the eggs will get cold and the young won’t hatch.’

  ‘But you’re a farmer – a sheep farmer, Nat.’

  ‘I’m that, but I like to think there are a few more things that interest me. The eagles really don’t bother the lambs. If the lambs die they feed off the carcasses, that’s all. In any case I’d give a few lambs for the sake of having golden eagles back again.’

  His voice grew louder as if a pent-up frustration had to break through. ‘I’m so bloody sick of what’s happened to this country – overrun with people, with their cars taking bigger and bigger chunks of the land, and their infernal plastic picnic litter making it look like a rubbish dump. And they’re so bloody ignorant. They come out of the cities and treat the countryside like one big car park. They’re actually eroding the soil in some so-called beauty spots by the sheer numbers of them. Places where heather and ling used to grow there’s nothing but impacted subsoil now. No, by God, if I have to use a gun at least I’ll keep them away from that nest until the young can fly. I’ve phoned the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and they’re rounding up a list of people in the district who’ll take turns to watch.’ His light-coloured eyes were almost vengefully alive. The strain and worry that I had first noted in his stark, rather bony features, was transformed by a kind of messianic light, and I wondered what there was in the life of this young man which made him both attractive and yet too blunt, angry almost.

  ‘If I never do anything else in my life but make sure the golden eagles will continue to return to this valley to breed, then I’ll have done enough.’

  Then he stopped and was aware of the silence about him. ‘Well, I’m assuming too much. It isn’t my valley, of course. But with your permission, Lord Askew. And now I think I’d better go – ’

  ‘Wait a while, Nat,’ Askew said. ‘Have another drink. And I’d rather like to have a talk with you ...’

  But Nat Birkett had already begun to nod his farewell to the Condesa, Gerald, and myself. ‘There can’t be so much to talk about,’ he said to Askew. ‘Just so long as I know it’s all right to organise watches.’

  Askew shrugged. ‘There is rather a lot I’d like to talk to you about, Nat – certain legal matters. But as to the rest – of course you must do as you wish. The Tolsons, I imagine, will cooperate.’

  ‘I can’t do it without the Tolsons. They’re already strengthening the fences along each end of the valley, and the young ones are being paired off to go and watch after school. In a sense, the birds made a good choice of nesting place – a valley that has no through motor traffic, where anyone who comes in without permission is trespassing. Oh, and I’ll be paying for my part of the posts and fencing. Damned expensive these days, but neighbours usually share things like that. We intend to fence off the whole area around the crag so that no fool starts to climb it. I was hoping you’d agree to pay half of it, because it’s on your land. Tolson says it can be managed. All right with you?’

  Askew made a gesture of helplessness. ‘Anything for golden eagles, Nat. And of course anything Tolson agrees to ... well, who am I to say him nay?’ Then I watched as Askew’s air of faint amusement changed suddenly, his features twisted with a kind of distress. ‘Yes – I wish you would do it! There isn’t much left in England to protect from the developers, and I’m for doing what can be done. You know ... I’ve been to a few odd spots in my life, like the Galapágos Islands and seen the land turtles and the flightless cormorant, which exist nowhere else on earth. And places like the Coto Doñana in Spain which is the last refuge of the Spanish lynx and the imperial eagle. And I’ve been in the Seychelles while it was still a paradise, and it sickens me to think of what sort of tourist-trap mess they’re going to make there. Yes, bring the golden eagles back, if you can, Nat. Do anything you can for this valley. I don’t seem to have done much ...’

  Nat Birkett was already at the door, evidently not wanting to share any part of Askew’s regret for what had been left undone in his time. ‘I’ll fix it with Tolson, then. Goodbye.’

  We listened to the sound of his footsteps in the hall, and the impatient slam of the front door; then the motor of the Land Rover parked in the gravel circle was started. Where I stood I could see that as the vehicle began to move, Jessica came running from the side of the house waving her arm. The Land Rover stopped, and she leaned her arms along the open window, talking rapidly. I could see Nat Birkett nodding, and his face settled into a look of determined patience, as if he knew he must let Jess say whatever it was she meant to say. She held him there perhaps three minutes, and then stepped back from the vehicle; at once it roared into life and Nat Birkett drove it away at a speed that sent the gravel flying from under the wheels. But there was a smile on Jessica’s face as she turned back towards the house. The great front door of Thirlbeck opened and closed so quietly that I couldn’t hear it, nor the footsteps of that tiny creature cross the hall. I had the uneasy thought once more that we were interlopers, and that she might have been listening to our movements also.

  And we were silent until the Condesa spoke. ‘That is a rather handsome young man, Roberto. What a pity he is so ... so ...’ She struggled for the English of the word she wanted. ‘So gauche – is that right?’

  ‘Gauche? I wouldn’t really call him that. In his own world he functions very efficiently. He’s a hard-working farmer, and it must seem unbelievably frivolous to him that a group of people sit here and drink champagne at this time of day. Like a lot of well-heeled layabouts. He has no particular reason to like me since I’m saddling him with an unwelcome inheritance – ’

  ‘He doesn’t want to be Lord Askew?’ She smiled at the simplicity of a person who didn’t want a useful social title.

  ‘Why should he? There’s no money with it. He has to have the title, but none of the perks that used to go with it. I imagine that when I die he will insist on being addressed as Mr Birkett – or just Nat. He will need to go on farming his farm, and plain Nat Birkett goes down better at markets and fairs than Lord Askew. He can strike a bargain for stock on market days over a beer – not a glass of champagne, Carlota – rather more easily if he’s the same man he’s always been to the other farmers. Of course if he’s got anything for the show ring, it mightn’t look too bad to be Lord Askew in the programme.’

  ‘It’s worth a little more than that, Robert,’ Gerald demurred.

  ‘Is it? What am I going to saddle him with? Just this house, out of which, by then, I’ll probably have sold anything of value, this valley, a lot of which is wilderness, a few stands of trees, which most likely he would hate to cut. There’s the home farm here in the valley, and the farms the Tolsons rent. There might be a few acres here and there left of what was my grandfather’s inheritance, but not much. The mines and quarries are worked out. There was some selling at the time my father died, for death duties, and then there came the time, after the war, when the income from the land wouldn’t support my idle, roving life, so I instructed Tolson to sell what he had to. I didn’t want to know any of the details – I just wanted the money. For that, I don’t doubt Nat despises me. He comes of quite a different breed. His forebears were what they call Statesmen here in Cumberland. He lives in a house, carefully preserved, which has been handed down, father to son, for several hundred years. Not a grand house, but I’d bet anything it’s a damn sight pleasanter to live in than this pile. He’s in debt a bit – what farmer is
n’t? But he owns far more than his indebtedness. And the last time he borrowed money was on his father’s death about six years ago and it was to buy – just imagine – it was to buy from Tolson a fair-sized parcel of land that runs right up against the wall of the estate which he needed to make his own farm more viable.’

  Carlota gestured in surprise. ‘Then he is simple-minded! He really is a very dull farmer with a handsome face. Why buy what you will inherit?’

  ‘Not so simple-minded. It wasn’t until after his own father died that he learned that he was next in line to me. That was when he began to worry about death duties, and what he was going to have to pay in taxes and so on, on this house. I think it was his effort to have something – a really prosperous farm – which he knew would be no part of the estate on my death. He went to enormous trouble to have it correctly valued at the current market price, so there would be no chance later for the Revenue Commissioners to say that he had it at a give-away price – or for nothing. Tolson wrote me all about it at the time. I was almost tempted then to come back, to see him and try to get something worked out. But I didn’t. In the end, I didn’t.

  ‘So Carlota, when he sees us sitting here drinking champagne, one wonders if he isn’t remembering that it might be paid for with the money he had to borrow. Just imagine if he looked around here and translated everything he sees into so many sheep and cattle, so many tractors, so many bales of hay. Could you blame him?’

  ‘And the estate is entailed ...’ Gerald ventured.

  ‘The original estate is entailed. What was added after the creation of the earldom is not. It’s complicated, Gerald. I don’t pretend to understand it. All I know is that I can’t sell these farms – the farms all the Tolsons rent, what’s in this valley and some land lying towards Kesmere. So Tolson tells me – or at least his brother did while he was handling the estate. The rest Tolson has been selling piecemeal over the years, as I’ve asked for more money and the rents haven’t reached the figure I needed. In most cases, I suppose, the tenants were just too glad to be given the opportunity to buy. Most landlords won’t sell. So what Nat Birkett will inherit is not only an unwanted title, but a very shrunken estate. Land is readily saleable, but who in his right mind would want this house?’

  Without thinking I spoke. ‘I would want it.’ I recognised the statement as the exact opposite of what I had just said to Gerald.

  Askew smiled at me, disregarding Gerald’s frown. ‘You’re young still, and have the energy, and courage, I suppose. When one is sixty-odd you think only of the burden, not the romance.’ He went to refill his glass, and gestured with the bottle towards the rest of us. ‘We weren’t meant to be here – my grandfather, my father, and myself. I think my grandfather was a great man, huge in body, and I think – in spirit. He was a farmer and a merchant landed suddenly with a title he never expected. He was a reformer in his day – all kinds of new ideas about land drainage and reclamation. Before his time in all that. He went and took his seat in the House of Lords, and really thought it was going to be a platform for his ideas. New agriculture bills to be brought in, a better deal for the ordinary farmer and farm hand – rather than the landowner. He was howled down in the House. He never finished his maiden speech. My own father told me that when his father walked along the corridors of the House after that, some wit or other would set up the cry of “Baa ... aa ...” after him. Not a noble lord at all. Just a farmer. So his son never went near the House – never even took his seat. Neither have I. It’s funny how the sound of sheep bleating can echo down the years. Of course, if Nat Birkett ever chooses to go there, there’ll be more respect for him. We’ve become very egalitarian since those days, and the man who really knows what farming is about is listened to. Well, I missed my chance. I didn’t know anything. I haven’t known how to do a damn thing since I left school, except fire a gun. It may win medals, but not much else.’ He moved towards us. ‘Well, let’s fill up the glasses again ... and since the sun has come out, we might even walk down to the lake before lunch.’

  Gerald persisted. ‘What will Nat Birkett do with this place?’

  Askew shrugged. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea. I haven’t done anything with it myself, so he’ll hardly come to me for advice. Quite a few years ago Tolson started to worry about who would inherit, and so his brother got people working on it to find who was next in line. It turned out to be Nat Birkett’s father, rather to everyone’s surprise. He’s about a fourth cousin – removed, at that. At that time, they didn’t worry too much – there was always the chance that I might marry and produce an heir. I suppose it really came home to Nat Birkett when his own father died that the whole thing was more than a remote possibility. It became quite likely he would inherit, and he doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want the title, the taxes – or – ’ Abruptly he put down his glass. ‘And I assume he doesn’t want any of the rest of it. The Earls of Askew don’t have a happy history. Who could blame him for wanting to stay clear of it all?’

  Even Gerald had nothing to say after that. Askew went around and refilled our glasses. It was surprising how flat champagne could taste. The first break in the silence came as the Condesa delicately and accurately tossed a cigarette end into the heart of the fire.

  ‘And Nat Birkett has a wife?’ she said. ‘The future Countess of Askew? He has children?’

  ‘He has two thriving, beautiful sons, Tolson tells me – whom I’ve never met. He had a sweet, charming wife – a girl from somewhere over by Ambleside. The ideal wife for a good farmer who was going to become an earl. Only she died. And do you know where she died? Right here in this house. She had a heart condition – serious, but not so serious they thought, as to cause her death except in rather extraordinary circumstances. But she died in one of the upstairs rooms here. No one even knew she was in the house. And this bloody place being what it is, they didn’t find her until she’d been dead for almost a day, they think.’

  Now I heard his voice as it had sounded when he had looked over the wind-rippled tarn and talked of the Spanish Woman. ‘Poor little bitch,’ he said.

  III

  Lunch was an awkward meal during which Gerald uneasily skirted the subject of the Rembrandt; but it seemed that no one else wanted to talk about it either. I thought that Askew was so sure it was a Rembrandt that he felt no need for discussion. Only when Gerald mentioned leaving the next afternoon did Askew take any real notice.

  ‘So soon, Gerald? Why not stay on a few days ... you’re looking far too much like a City gent.’

  Gerald set down his coffee cup. ‘I’d better ask it now, Robert. Do you want to sell the contents of this house? Do you want us to arrange an auction?’

  Again, when pressed, Askew vacillated. ‘Well, I thought just the picture ...’

  ‘There is some very valuable furniture here, Robert,’ Gerald said. He hoped, I thought, to turn Askew’s mind away from the painting, to show him that there were other things of value so that the disappointment, if it came, would be tempered. ‘I wonder do you mean to keep it as it’s being kept now, or do you want to realise its worth?’

  ‘I’d sell it tomorrow if I hadn’t some qualms about it – about stripping the place before Nat Birkett takes over. It can’t be worth all that much, surely ...?’

  ‘It’s worth more than you can afford to pay in insurance on it,’ Gerald said bluntly. Then, as complete silence answered him, he looked around, shaking his head a little. ‘It seems so ... so wasted, somehow. Almost lonely.’ This was so totally unlike Gerald, who loved beautiful things, but was not sentimental about them, that I turned to stare at him.

  Askew rattled his spoon nervously in the saucer. It was a long time before he responded. ‘Lonely ... it’s always been lonely.’ He wasn’t talking about the furniture. ‘I’ve never been able to believe in this place. I’ve spent time here, but I’ve never lived here. When I used to come back on school holidays it always felt like some enormous hotel with no guests. If I could sell it – house and all – I’d
gladly do it. As it is, yes, I suppose I’d better say I’ll sell what I can. You tell me.’

  Gerald’s face coloured slightly. ‘Well, I won’t pretend that we wouldn’t love to sell many things I see here. I thought that that was what you probably had in mind – to liquidate what you can while you’re still able to enjoy the proceeds for yourself. After all, it will lessen the death duties on Nat Birkett. No one can tax him on what’s been spent. You will pay your own capital gains tax, and that will be that.’

  ‘So what I’ll be leaving Nat is the title, and the tax to find on La Española and the house, and what’s left of the estate. They’ll probably find ways to allow him to break the entail so that they can have their pound of flesh. What I worry about is placing the Tolson family in a bad situation. If the farms could be sold, would they be in a position to raise the money to buy them? I expect they might. Most banks will lend money on land ... Perhaps I could even arrange in my will to help them – that is, if there’s any money left that’s actually my own when I die. I wouldn’t like to see the Tolsons in difficulty. Nor would Nat Birkett. Well ... it can be worked somehow, I’m sure. As for the house, Nat cares nothing for it, and I care less. I’ve no intention of living as a pauper for the rest of my life so that something like this can be preserved for a few more years. It’s come to that. So what will you do, Gerald?’ He said it almost defiantly, as if he dared anyone to say he might do differently. He was grateful to Gerald for seeming to thrust the decision on him. For this, perhaps more than any other reason, he had asked Gerald to come to Thirlbeck.

  ‘Jo and I will leave tomorrow after lunch. I’d like to look at the other paintings before I go. And then I’ll arrange for some of our people to come up here – they will have to take an inventory of every item, and you, Robert, must stay to tell us exactly what it is you want us to handle. You must stay here for at least that long.’ He glanced apologetically at the Condesa. ‘It won’t be such a hardship. People come from all over England to spend a few weeks in the Lake District during the spring and summer. You see, it wouldn’t do to enter into any disputes with Tolson over what could be sold and what couldn’t. We must have your absolute authority for each article.’