Hardacre's Luck (The Hardacre Family Saga Book 2)

by CL Skelton

  He was still looking down at her Latin text. He had paused, thinking. When he looked up their eyes met. He said, with infinite care, ‘Mary, please understand. I thought he had … I thought he had hurt you. I misjudged. I never meant to frighten you so.’

  She thought suddenly that he had the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen. It startled her. She had never been that close to him before. She said, ‘He didn’t do anything, really. I,’ she paused, ‘I know about old men like him.’

  Sam blinked, rubbing one hand over the white scar over his left eye. It gave him a permanently quizzical look which was emphasized now by his confusion. ‘Do you?’

  She smiled, a smile of surprising awareness. ‘I’m not a little girl.’

  He nodded. ‘I guess not,’ he said, reconsidering. He smiled to himself, deciding he was getting old when little girls of twelve were more sophisticated than he. He lifted the Latin text and two others and handed them to her.

  As she took them, for the brief moment in which the old books joined their hands, she suddenly said, ‘Sam, I need your help.’

  ‘What, Mary?’ he whispered uncertainly.

  ‘I need you to help me,’ she said, with more conviction. He was silent for a moment and then, releasing his hold on the books, he said clearly, ‘All right, Mary. What can I do for you?’ He got to his feet slowly and sat down at the desk on which she had piled her schoolwork, and motioned that she too should sit, on the chair nearby.

  She didn’t, preferring to stand, free to run if he should suddenly again change. But she wasn’t really afraid now. She said, ‘Do you know the money my grandfather left me? In his will?’

  ‘Of course, Mary,’ he said, still baffled.

  ‘I want it,’ she said. He tilted his head sideways, studying her earnest, but determined face. He decided not to discuss the relative possibilities before he had the reasons. It was the way he would have responded in business.

  ‘Why?’ he said.

  She went cautious. ‘Does it matter why?’

  ‘I should think so.’ That had thrown her. She had her ideas very clearly laid out. But they were laid out in sequence. First was getting the money. Second was letting her intentions be known.

  ‘It’s mine,’ she said, a little defiantly.

  ‘It’s yours when you’re eighteen, dear. That was the stipulation of the will.’

  ‘But you’re the trustee. It’s up to you really, not the will.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, dear. I am the trustee but I am meant to follow your grandfather’s express wishes, which were that the money be properly invested for you until you’re eighteen. I’ve done that.’

  She looked dismayed, ‘Can’t you get it back?’

  ‘Of course. But to what purpose?’

  ‘Because I need it now.’

  ‘Mary, if your grandfather had thought it wise for you to have that amount of money at your age he would have said so in his will.’

  She shook her head, impatient with his slow thoughtfulness, and said, ‘But everything has changed now. Surely grandfather would understand. Everything’s different. Surely if things change, then it’s up to you to decide what he might do now. That’s why he made you trustee.’

  Sam studied her. He was impressed with her thinking. He said, ‘It would be terribly risky for me to attempt to assess what he would have done. What a man puts in his will is his clear last intention. I think it’s all we have to go on, and that I’m morally bound to follow his wishes.’

  She shook her head again, and twisted one foot against the other on the carpet, tugging at her cardigan nervously. He leaned forward, over the desk and said, ‘Mary, what do you want this money for?’

  She looked up from the carpet and met his eyes, and she knew she must tell him. Reluctantly she sat on the chair he had offered her. She said, speaking slowly, ‘Do you know the Mews flat?’

  ‘The ostler’s flat?’ he said. ‘At the far end? Of course. What of it?’

  ‘You see,’ she began again, ‘it’s been empty for years, but it’s in quite good shape, really. I mean, it has to be, the rest of the Mews is. We used to have parties in it, birthday parties when we were little, me and Paul and Olive, and our friends. It was lovely because we could make a great mess and nobody cared.’ She grinned, suddenly a child again. But she was serious at once. ‘I want to buy it,’ she said. ‘I want to buy the whole of the Mews, and the flat. For us to live in when the house is sold.’

  ‘Oh, Mary,’ he said. He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.

  ‘But it’s a good idea,’ she said, insistently. ‘There’s plenty of room. We’d all fit. It would be quite jolly really,’ her voice was tinged with a self-willed enthusiasm that he found pathetic. He was filled with a sudden bemused wave of annoyance for Rodney and Vanessa, a mixture of love and anger for their charm and their fecklessness. The little girl in front of him had more sense and initiative than both of them put together, but it hurt him that she had to have it.

  ‘It is,’ he said. ‘A very good idea. A good, intelligent idea.’

  ‘Will you help me, then?’

  ‘A good idea. But there are some things wrong with it, Mary,’ he said gently. He saw the flicker of hope fade, and wished he did not have to continue. But he did; she was no little child to pat on the head and send away. She had approached him as an adult. The least he could do was respond in kind.

  ‘Mary, it’s unlikely that Noel would be willing to sell the Mews separately or, more to the point, if the Brannigans would agree to it being sold apart. That’s the first thing.’ He looked at her; she was watching him intently. ‘The second thing, Mary,’ he smiled gently, ‘the second thing, I’m afraid, is the money. Even if I could release it to you, and I don’t frankly know if I could … Mary, it’s not enough. The money your grandfather left … there wasn’t that much. Not for that kind of thing, not really.’ He shook his head, feeling a strange disloyalty to Harry, to have to disillusion his granddaughter about his attempts to provide for her. ‘I’m sorry, Mary,’ he said.

  She stood quietly, stunned. He said softly, ‘Sweetheart, you wouldn’t want to live in the Mews with the Brannigans in here. I know you wouldn’t. Your Daddy will find somewhere else, somewhere nice, to live. Quite nearby, no doubt. You’ll be happy there.’ As he spoke he wondered deeply if Rodney would find anything, ever, but it was a doubt he could not show to her. But she only shook her head. Perhaps she knew, already, what he knew; perhaps she shared his doubts. He wished she would cry, and become a child that he might comfort. But she just slowly nodded, absorbing it all, and then straightened her back, and stood up.

  ‘Thank you, Sam,’ she said, and turned as if she would go. He held out one hand to her, but she did not notice. She was looking blankly out at the late afternoon sun on the lawns and gardens. Then she whirled to face him, her face distorted but her eyes quite dry. ‘I don’t want those people to live in my home,’ she cried, and then she began at last to sob, like a woman, holding the back of the chair, one hand over her mouth, her eyes closed, as Janet had done in the depths of the miseries of drink.

  He leapt up from the chair, and her hand flew from her mouth in sudden renewed terror. She started to cry out, but he swept one arm roughly around her, holding her to him for a moment that passed before she could be fully afraid. He kissed her hair and let her go, leaving her stunned behind him.

  ‘Excuse me, sweetheart,’ he said, and strode out of the door.

  He found Noel in the cobbled yard behind the house. He was in overalls, bending over the tractor engine, a spanner in his hand, his wild grey hair spattered with grease. He half-looked round as Sam approached, and grunted.

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’ He glowered briefly at Sam and returned his glare to the tractor. ‘Want a job, salvagemaster?’

  ‘What’s on offer?’

  ‘Take this bluidy piece of rubbish out and dump ’er in the sea.’

  Sam laughed. ‘I think you’ll be able to afford a new one, anyhow,
Noel.’

  Noel grinned, straightening his back, his eyes narrowing with private satisfaction. ‘Aye, I might.’

  ‘You’re taking their offer?’

  ‘They’ve met my price.’

  ‘What can dissuade you?’

  Noel looked around briefly, toying with the spanner. ‘More money, obviously,’ he said.

  ‘How long will you give me?’

  Noel’s eyes opened wide, and he almost dropped the spanner. ‘What?’

  ‘How long will you give me to top their offer?’

  ‘You want to buy it?’ Noel said. ‘You do? You were offered it on a bluidy silver platter six months ago and you turned it down.’ The vagaries of Harry’s will and his intentions were no secret. Madelene, in her anger, had seen to that. Noel was remarkably sanguine about it; nor did he resent Sam’s place in his father’s affections. People’s affections didn’t seem to mean much to him anyhow.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Sam said.

  ‘You are a maniac.’

  ‘How long will you give me?’ Sam said again.

  Noel shrugged, studying the spanner, squinting against the late, low-angled sun. ‘A week,’ he said, yet eyeing Sam cagily over the spanner’s tip.

  ‘All right,’ Sam said slowly. ‘A week. And you’ll accept? If I top their offer?’

  Noel smiled slightly. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘I’ll accept.’

  ‘Okay,’ Sam said, nodding slowly, looking away over the slate roof of the Mews. Then he turned back abruptly to Noel. ‘One thing,’ he said. ‘I want an assurance that you’ll not play me off against them.’

  Noel grinned. It was evident from the whimsical light in his eyes that the thought had crossed his mind. After a good half-minute’s consideration he said, ‘No. I won’t do that.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Want it in writing?’

  Sam smiled slowly and shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re a sod, Noel, but you’re an honourable sod.’ He turned and walked back to the house. As he reached the kitchen door, Noel called after him.

  ‘Sam?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Top it by a pound, and it’s yourn.’

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Sam’s accountant was based in York. He was a man called John Cranswick, and Sam had employed him ever since he first founded Hardacre Salvage to raise the cargo of the Louisa Jane. A man in his fifties, of Yorkshire farming stock, he was precise to the point of fanaticism, which was what Sam wanted from an accountant, but singularly lacking in humour.

  Sam went back to the library after speaking with Noel and, finding Mary Gray fled, he went in and shut the door. He sat down at Harry’s desk and telephoned John Cranswick. The telephone was answered by Cranswick’s wife who, after reluctant hesitation, fetched her husband. John Cranswick had been enjoying a gin and Italian in the garden with friends, and was not pleased to be disturbed.

  ‘John. Sam Hardacre. Something’s up. I need to talk with you.’

  ‘Sam,’ came the slightly aggrieved voice at the other end, ‘it’s five o’clock and it’s Saturday.’ There was momentary silence from both parties and when Sam spoke again his voice was very businesslike.

  ‘John, I’ve employed you for six years and I’ve given you a fair amount of trade. I’ve never called you on a weekend before. You don’t have to say yes, obviously, but if you say no, Hardacre Enterprises will have new accountants on Monday.’ There was a sudden noise on the other end of the phone, as if Cranswick had straightened suddenly and shifted the phone, coming to some sort of attention.

  He said testily, ‘All right Sam. Don’t get sore. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I want you here tomorrow morning with every file you have on both companies.’

  ‘That’ll take a bloody lorry,’ Cranswick wailed.

  ‘I’ll send a lorry.’

  ‘And tomorrow’s Sunday,’ he protested further. Sam was silent. Sundays had a way of following Saturdays.

  He said, very formally, ‘I beg your pardon, John. I didn’t realize you attended church.’

  ‘Well, Sam you know …’

  ‘You do attend church?’

  ‘Well, Ch-ristmas, Easter, you know.’

  Sam was silent again. He looked at the calendar, on Harry’s desk. ‘Maybe you’d like to check your diary, John. But as far as I can see, I don’t think it’s Christmas or Easter tomorrow.’

  ‘All right. All right. I’ll be there. Will nine o’clock do?’ he added with a thin touch of sarcasm.

  ‘Thank you,’ Sam said. Then he paused. ‘Make it ten.’

  ‘Ten?’

  ‘Yes, please, John.’ He paused again. ‘I’ll be at church.’

  Sam stayed the night at Hardacres. He didn’t ask permission. Noel didn’t give a damn who slept there. In the morning, he went to mass in Beverley as he had said he would, and was back in time to greet John Cranswick at the door upon his arrival. He took him into the library and plied him with sherry and coffee until his aggrieved crustiness softened slightly. Then he seated the accountant in a chair before Harry’s desk and sat down himself behind it, folded his hands, and smiled.

  ‘Reeght Sam,’ John Cranswick said, reverting to his country past, as he got down to serious business. ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘I want to buy a house,’ said Sam.

  Cranswick looked up at him from under thick grey brows, his crustiness returning. ‘Wouldn’t that have waited until Monday?’ he said sourly.

  ‘No. It wouldn’t.’

  Cranswick sighed. ‘All right, Sam. What house? Have you got something in mind, at least?’ He leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs with evident overstretched patience.

  ‘Yes, I have,’ said Sam. ‘The house sitting all around you.’

  Cranswick straightened in the chair, putting both feet back flat on the floor. He stared. ‘This?’

  ‘This.’

  ‘Oh, Sam,’ he said, lightly shaking his head with new seriousness. ‘This is not just a house, Sam.’

  Sam laughed. ‘Oh, I know it’s not. It’s the family millstone, but it appears I’m elected to wear it.’ He laughed again, but John Cranswick stayed serious. He leant forward.

  ‘But, Sam, you can’t afford this. Of course, the figure he’s asking is ridiculous and he’ll have to come down, but …’

  ‘He’s got it,’ said Sam.

  ‘You mean there’s an offer? At that price?’ Cranswick shook his head, and waved the whole matter away with both hands. ‘No, Sam. That’s out. We’ll never find that.’

  Sam bowed his head and looked at his hands, lying flat on the desk before him. ‘I’ll find it,’ he said. ‘Come on, John, get the stuff,’ he indicated the boxes of files he’d helped to carry into the library, ‘and let’s get to work.’

  They worked over it all day Sunday. John Cranswick stayed to lunch and to dinner, because the alternative was starving. Sam wasn’t letting him out of there until they’d reached the beginning of a solution, and he knew it. There was certainly money around; Sam was not an extravagant man. He lived almost frugally, because that was how he liked to live. Only during his courtship of Janet had he really spent money lavishly, on dinners and theatres and flowers and all the playthings of romance. And even that was not really a great deal. Almost everything he’d ever made, aside from what went to Harry, he’d simply put back into the company, which was why it was as successful as it was and which, conversely and ironically, was also why money was hard to find. Or rather, cash was hard to find. Everything he had was more or less wrapped up in the fabric of Hardacre Enterprises. He owned property in Bridlington, Hull and London, but all of it was thoroughly in use. He owned virtually a small fleet of seagoing craft; the two deep-sea tugs, the Dainty Girl, several other workboats, a dredger, a floating crane, and all their ensuing tackle. But it was all materiel. It was all the basic structure of his company, and he dared not dismantle it, or leave it too stretched for operating capital. For if he did so, he migh
t well be able to buy Hardacres but, without the solid backing of a sound financial enterprise, he would no more be able to maintain it than Harry had been. Of course he could borrow against it, and of course he would, but how much?

  ‘I’ll see the banker tomorrow,’ he said at nine, while a weary Cranswick was petulantly and unhappily sipping a small brandy. Sam was drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. He needed every ounce of his wits, and he’d only allowed Cranswick the brandy in the last half-hour, because he was about to let him go home. ‘If you’ll call Jan, and let him know the situation,’ he added. He was glowering at the paper before him which listed his property, possessions and investments and suddenly he shook his head with sheer annoyance. ‘Damn it all, John, there’s so damn much of it. Surely I’m worth something?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Cranswick. ‘Walk in front of a bus tomorrow and you’ll be worth a fortune. What you haven’t got is cash.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Sam said, ‘I’ll try another way.’

  He tried a lot of other ways.

  On Monday morning, at nine-thirty, his bank manager arrived. He was a man called Bill Strathers, a round, soft, kindly individual in complete contrast to the accountant, Cranswick. A few years older than Sam, he was balding and middle-aged and had been so for a decade. His head was surrounded by a fringe of dark hair, neatly tonsured like a monk’s. He had intelligent, bright small eyes which reflected his emotions vividly. They lit up as he entered the library with Sam.

  ‘What a lovely old house,’ he said shyly.

  ‘Surely you’ve been here?’ Sam said, but then realized it was unlikely. He rarely did business from Hardacres, and Harry’s own banking had been in Driffield, not York.

  ‘No, but what a pleasure. I certainly can understand your wish to own it,’ he said with innocent kindness.