Wild Grapes

by Elizabeth Aston

  “So Georgie said.”

  “That makes it very easy. Harry is the son of Victor Cordovan, and there are lines and lines about him and family. Listen.”

  “But so many of them,” Gina had said, dismayed, as she listened to the names. “Dozens. They can’t all live at the house, can they?”

  “A lot of them seem to,” said Zoe, consulting her tome again. “You’ll soon get the hang of who everybody is, once you meet them.”

  “Are you always called Georgiana?” Guy asked politely. “I believe I’ve heard them call you Georgie.”

  “Yes, Georgiana is rather a mouthful, isn’t it?” said Gina. “I used to be called Georgie when I was younger, but now I prefer Gina.”

  “Oh, much prettier,” said Guy approvingly. “Georgie’s a bit Famous Five, isn’t it? Not that I didn’t adore the Famous Five, but when you’re grown up ...”

  Gina hoped that her refusal to be a Georgie wasn’t going to raise suspicions, but, really, she was not going to take on that creature’s nickname on top of everything else. And people would notice if they said “Georgie,” and she didn’t respond.

  Any room arranged for a visitor by Hester was perfect, and the Yellow Room was no exception. Gina felt more of a cheat than ever as Hester swept open drawers - all lined with yellow striped paper - opened wardrobe doors, and took Gina into the opulent bathroom. Then she left her. “You’ll want to change after that journey,” she said.

  I must look awful, and sweaty, too, thought Gina. But no one could suspect Hester of hints or cattiness; all she had was an instinctive feeling for other people’s comfort.

  “I hope you’ll be happy in here, my dear,” she said, with a last look round. “Make yourself at home; we all hope you’re going to make this a good long stay, after so many years.”

  The door shut quietly behind her, and Gina went at once to the window, drawn by the view, down over lawns and woody places with streams to a distant river. And then, away on the horizon, a thin silvery line of sea. She could hear the unearthly cry of a peacock, subdued voices, the chug of a tractor. Leaning out of the window she watched Guy, apron on, walking neatly along the gravel with bunches of herbs laid out in exquisite order in a shallow basket which he held on his arm.

  This, Gina said to herself, is another world. Get a grip on yourself, she went on; have a shower, get changed, and then you’ll feel more in control. She opened her bag and looked doubtfully at the few summer clothes she had brought with her. Something told her that she might need much more than this; perhaps, she thought wildly, they even change for dinner.

  Gina hesitated outside the heavy oak door into the Great Hall, a watching stranger. She could see a blonde woman, not young, but possessed of flawless bones which gave her a memorable beauty. She sat near a window, balancing a delicate china cup and saucer in one hand while she flipped the pages of the gardening magazine with the other. Classy, yes, but hardly dressy, thought Gina, blinking at the faded T-shirt, filthy khaki trousers and strange thick-soled plimsolls which the woman was wearing. Not my type of person at all, Gina said to herself. Hester, presiding over the tea-cups and cucumber sandwiches, seemed a friendly and more approachable figure, although even she had an air of confidence and certainty which made Gina feel uncomfortable.

  At that moment Hester looked over to the door and saw Gina. “Come in, have some tea. Prim, this is Gina.”

  The blonde woman gave Gina a piercing look. “You don’t take after your mother,” she said. “Hester, put some of those sandwiches aside and I’ll take them with me. I can’t be long over my tea, not with the weather like this.”

  “Haymaking,” explained Hester, handing Gina a cup of tea.

  Gina had just managed to control her hands enough to stop the teacup rattling audibly in its saucer when the door at the other end of the hall flew open. A tall, bearded man came in; Gina would afterwards swear that all the curtains swayed and the teacups rattled, just for the sheer energy of him.

  Radiating authority, he bore down on Gina with a pleased look on his face. “Little Georgiana,” he said, sweeping her into a powerful hug. “How delightful.”

  Gina felt quite dizzy, not just from having the breath half crushed out of her, but because of the enormous masculinity of him, which was almost tangible.

  “Hello,” she said weakly.

  “Georgiana prefers to be called Gina,” said Hester. “Have a cup of tea, Victor, and there are cucumber sandwiches. Gina, this is your cousin Victor.”

  “The head of the household at Heartsease seems to be this Victor Cordovan,” Zoe had informed her. “Now, I’ve heard of him. Magic touch with failing businesses. Takes them over, stirs them up, sells them on. He was originally in fireworks, then he sold out to a defence firm, well, one loud gunpowdery noise is much like another in that world, I suppose. Made quite a pile, could have sat at home and minded the family acres, but he got bored; which is why he started on these other companies.”

  He doesn’t look in the least bit like a businessman, thought Gina. Far too big and magnificent for one thing, and far too amiable for another. His deep voice and ready, rich laugh filled the hall as he questioned Gina about her family and the family business. Fortunately, he answered all the questions himself. Gina rather wished that Zoe had been able to give her more than the bare bones about the Hartwell empire; still, from what she’d seen of Georgie, she hadn’t looked as though she would be at all interested about how her Hartwell Ham money was actually made.

  Prim saw Gina’s expression and laughed. “Don’t mind Victor,” she said. “He always booms at people.” She rose and perched herself on the arm of the large sofa where Gina was sitting. “Go away, Victor,” she said commandingly. “I want to reassure Gina that we aren’t all like you.”

  Victor, not at all offended, went back to the table to demolish a few more cucumber sandwiches. Prim turned to Gina, her mind on growing things. “Are you interested in the land; farming, horticulture, gardening?” she asked.

  “Um,” said Gina. “I don’t know very much about it.”

  Prim was surprised. “You have such excellent conditions on Uish. I’d always understood that the gardens there were exceptional, that you can grow remarkable plants because of the Gulf Stream. Tropical plants.”

  Hell, thought Gina, thoroughly rattled. Gulf Stream? What was that? And tropical plants in Scotland? Her experience of Scotland made her think of warm underwear, not palm trees and frangipani. “I never took much interest in the gardens,” she said.

  Prim was shocked. “I must visit Uish one day. But while you’re here, we’ll see if we can’t get you keen on it; after all, you’ll inherit it one day, and then you’ll need to know all about it.”

  No, I won’t, thank goodness, thought Gina. And I bet Georgie sells it as soon as she gets her clutches on it, can’t see her residing on a Scottish island, however tropical the vegetation.

  Prim was, Gina realized, a woman with a one-track mind. “You must meet Don, do you remember him at all?”

  Don? Gina couldn’t remember a Don from Zoe’s briefing. It sounded as though he must be family, but who?

  Prim didn’t wait for an answer; just as well, thought Gina.

  “He’s building up the vineyard here, people are always interested in vines, it would be a good place to start.”

  “I’d like that,” said Gina, her interest caught. “I didn’t know there were vineyards in this part of the world.”

  Boobed again. Prim looked at her with eyebrows arched in surprise. “You must do! Heartset is famous for its wine, there were vineyards here in Roman times, and over the last twenty or thirty years a lot of wineries have started up.”

  Gina could hardly answer, yes, but we Americans, especially ones who’ve lived in California in the Napa Valley, don’t think of anywhere in England in terms of vineyards.

  “Of course, I had forgotten,” she said.

  At this rate they were all going to write her down as several cents short of a dollar. She bi
t nervously into a tiny egg and cress sandwich, wishing that she had found out more about this family; wishing that she had never come, wishing that she was sitting peacefully among her books and papers in Oxford.

  What with one thing and another, Gina was feeling very ill-disposed towards Harry when she retreated to her room after tea. Okay, she hadn’t been stranded at the station, but that was all the help she’d had. Harry must have known she’d have to run the gauntlet of several members of his family without having a clue who they were; after all, he couldn’t guess that Zoe had looked the wretched family up. And that had only given her the bare bones.

  No, this wasn’t going to work, Gina thought as she lay on her extremely comfortable bed with her hands folded behind her head. It was only a matter of time before a serious slip showed her up for what she was: a fake, an impostor, a fraud.

  CHAPTER 5

  The calm peace of a serene evening was broken by an ear-splitting roar. Gina flew to the window, just in time to catch sight of a black figure on a motorbike hurtling round the side of the house.

  Immediately a door on the ground floor opened, and Victor’s powerful voice roared out.

  “How many times do I have to tell you NOT to ride that damn bike of yours over the gravel?”

  His voice faded into an indistinct growl as he went in pursuit of the motorcyclist. Gina returned to her thoughts.

  Not for long. Two minutes later, the black-clad motorcyclist flung himself into her room. Without knocking.

  “Hi,” he said, taking off his helmet. “You must be Gina. I’m Harry.” He shut the door. “Pa won’t think of looking in here for me, at least not for a while. He’s rampaging over the other side of the house at the moment.”

  What incredible eyes was Gina’s first, startled reaction. Almost black, and with a wicked gleam to them. Taken with the slanting eyebrows, and tremendous coiled-up energy, Harry wasn’t her idea of a pushover. Curse Georgie, how could this man be described as a real sweetie? She stood up and held out her hand. “Hello, Harry,” she said in a deliberately neutral voice.

  “You sound pissed off with me,” said Harry cheerfully. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to meet you, but it was crisis-time at the London end, so I had to nip up and sort everyone out. Good journey back, a hundred and seven minutes, near my best time.”

  He kicked off his heavy black boots which had, Gina noticed, silver and red wings painted on them. Then he divested himself of his leather jacket and trousers.

  “You don’t mind, do you?” he asked, peeling down to a skin-tight pair of jeans and a black T-shirt. “Incredibly hot in this lot, but of course, you have to wear them on the road. Have you got a glass in your bathroom? Silly question, with Hester in charge. I’m dead thirsty, gasping.”

  “Feel free,” murmured Gina, but of course he was already there, gulping the water down without taking a breath.

  “That’s better,” he said. “I hope you managed okay, no faux-pas, no monocles shooting off in the drawing-room? Good, excellent. I’ll risk the lion’s rage and nip up to my room for a quick shower and change. Then we’ll whiz out to a pub for a few moments’ chat before dinner. Fill you in on things, it can get a bit complicated here. Wait for me in the stableyard, ten minutes, okay?”

  He was gone, taking his gear with him. Gina wanted to shout, “No, not okay,” down the passage after him, but he wouldn’t hear, and if he did, he would probably take no notice. In any case, unless she was going to own up and depart at once, she’d have to get through dinner, and it would be a lot easier if she could pump Harry first.

  “No eavesdroppers here,” said Harry, putting their glasses down with a flourish. Gina, suspecting she would need a clear head, was having a tonic water. Harry was sampling something that looked as though it was made of bat’s blood.

  “Eavesdroppers?”

  “Yes, family, people who work on the estate, friends, the landlord... you know. Our local’s the Bunch of Grapes in Heartsbane, excellent inn, I’ll take you there for dinner one evening. But of course, every word you say gets reported straight back.”

  “Straight back?” said Gina, bewildered. “Who to?”

  Harry pursed his lips. “Could be Pa. More likely Julia.”

  “Julia. Victor’s wife. Well, was.”

  Gina tried to remember. Victor, married one, Julia Cordovan; two, Hermione Mendicant; three, Rosalind Filigree. Obviously goes in for wives, Zoe had observed.

  “Not your mother, then?”

  “No. Let me explain.” Harry settled himself more comfortably on his bench. He was, in his own way, just as graceful as Guy, but his looks were far more masculine. Presumably he got his energy from Victor, although he was of a lighter build. Plenty of muscles, though, as Gina had already noticed. She didn’t like wispy little men, nor pudgy large ones. Not that it mattered, she reminded herself. These Cordovan men were strictly look-but-don’t-touch as far as she was concerned.

  Harry pressed his fingertips together in an echo of a bygone lawyer. “Pa married Julia about a million years ago, when they were both young and presumably knew no better. Then Julia got a lot of fancy ideas of her own, and went off to read medicine. Naturally, Pa wasn’t putting up with that, so he divorced her. Nasty affair, so one hears, although of course it all happened before I was born. She’s his cousin, so there was quite a family row about it all, one is told. Then Pa got hitched to the divine Hermione, who’d had the hots for him for years. Oh, Pa and Julia did have two sons along the way; fairly bad news, both of them, but, fortunately, rarely at Heartsease.”

  “Hermione wasn’t your mother?”

  “No, no. Herm popped twins, a girl and a boy, and then followed it up with Don. He’s really Dennis, can you beat it? Shows you what Hermione was like. Anyway, Victor got fed up with her and set up house with Rosalind. She’s my ma. Presently in Africa as far as one knows, she does get about a lot. She had me, and then Aimee.”

  “I haven’t met Aimee yet.”

  “No, you’d still be reeling if you had. Fairly memorable, Aimee.”

  “That’s it, is it?” said Gina, feeling dazed by the size and complexity of her newly-acquired family.

  “Except for Olivia. Brilliant woman, philosopher, lives in Cambridge. Another half-sister of mine; nobody’s too sure who her mother is. An encyclopaedia, probably. She’s one of Pa’s little efforts on the side, you see, but definitely one of the family. I get on okay with Olivia, actually.”

  “So your father’s married to Rosalind, but she’s away?”

  “No, no. They parted quite a while ago. Then Julia, by this time a high-powered gynaecologist, floated back into Pa’s orbit, and he decided he rather liked the look of her after all. She is fairly stunning, I have to admit, but oh boy, is she one jealous lady! She moved back in with Pa because, in her book, marriage is for good, and mere details like the law of the land and two subsequent wives don’t worry her a jot. You’ll meet her tonight, you won’t have seen her at tea because it’s clinic day.”

  “Clinic?”

  “Yeah, pregnant ladies. Well, girls, mostly, and hardly a husband between them. Julia lectures them all, and they eat out of her hand, strange things hormones do to you, I wouldn’t put up with it for a moment.”

  Gina drank her tonic water in silence.

  Harry was thinking, his dark eyes narrowing with concentration. “Who else is there that you might come across?”

  “I met Prim,” said Gina.

  “Yes, she’s Pa’s sister. So’s Hester. He has brothers as well, don’t worry about them.”

  “What happens if someone mentions them; shouldn’t I know who they are?”

  “Just smile, no danger of a difficult silence in this family, everyone’s always got plenty to say. Keep your mouth shut and then you won’t put your foot in it, and no one will rumble that you aren’t Georgie Hartwell of hammy fame.”

  “I’ve said I prefer to be called Gina.”

  Harry sucked in his breath with a dramatic whistling sound. �
�Unwise, definitely unwise.”

  “Now look here, Harry,” began Gina.

  Time to go,” said Harry, rising swiftly from his bench. “Dinner at half past, don’t want a black mark on your first evening, do you?”

  “I was just trying to say,” went on Gina as Harry’s very fast car throbbed into life.

  “I never listen to conversations that start with ‘Now, look here’,” said Harry. “Matter of principle. Settle down, enjoy the ride, enjoy the dinner tonight, enjoy Hester’s overpowering hospitality, just relax. I’ll bring you out for another ride tomorrow, and we can talk some more, in a pleasant way, I do trust. We’re safe on this side, this is out of Cordovan territory. The villages of Heartsease and to the west are family strongholds.”

  “Where was the pub we’ve just been to?”

  “Griddle,” said Harry. “We’re just going through Haggle, then we hit Snitch, then we’re back in Victor and Julia’s domain. So mouths buttoned, thoughts controlled and mind your Ps and Qs. Julia’s a stickler for good form.”

  In the kitchen, Guy was delicately frying little squares of bread for the gazpacho. Victor was very fond of spicy and piquant food, and Maria, who had cooked for the family for the last twenty years, considered that it was hot enough for an iced soup this evening, even by her southern European standards.

  “Just a little bit more crisp, these croutons,” she said to Guy, inspecting the pan as she went past.

  “Ready in two minutes,” said Guy. He pulled out a length of greaseproof paper and tore it off with a quick flick of his wrist. “They can drain while I chop the cucumber, and then it’s ready.”

  “Where’s that girl?” said Maria. “Never around when you want her.”