The Hardie Inheritance (18 page)

‘How would Greystones survive without you if you were away all term?' asked Grace, obviously thinking that even boarding school was a safer subject than war. ‘We need our slave. At grape-picking time, for example.'

‘Let's go and see how the grapes are coming on.' Ellis seized the excuse to leave the breakfast table. They had had the room to themselves, for since her seventieth birthday Mrs Hardie breakfasted in bed; and Philip, who still rose at five every morning, was already at work.

Today he was hoeing in the vineyard, which was gradually growing in size. Mrs Hardie had tried to persuade him to buy a large number of vines with the money from her legacy; but he had preferred to tackle the new venture more cautiously. Investing first in outside labour to prepare the hillside for planting, and a generous stock of stakes and wire and tools, he had ordered only a hundred vines of each of five varieties to test which best suited the soil and climate. The Brandt and the Riesling Sylvaner had both done well, so he used the eyes of the prunings to propagate new plants. This year more than a thousand vines were expected to bear fruit, and the number would quickly treble as the younger plants matured.

So far he had managed with only home-made equipment and simple routines, but very soon now it would be necessary to acquire bigger and better machinery. Andy, who inspected progress each year while visiting his mother, assured them all that the traditional method of treading the grapes with bare feet, which did not crush the pips, was far better than the use of any new-fangled machines; Trish and Grace and Jean-Paul joined happily in this ritual, not caring that their legs remained stained a dirty brown for several weeks. But a wooden press was needed to extract the juice from the must after the first fermentation, and the small one which had been adequate at first would soon have to be replaced. More and more barrels and bottles and corks were needed every year; and more and more time for stirring, testing, topping up, filtering, bottling and labelling.

All this was far too much for Philip and Jean-Paul alone – especially as they were kept busy at the same time with the pruning, tying in and hoeing, and must not allow the normal fruit and vegetable gardens to be neglected. Already it had proved necessary to engage seasonal help, and more would soon be needed. Then there was the problem of selling in quantity. None of the family had any taste for business, and Philip was becoming anxious because his experiment was succeeding too well.

Trish knew too that he was worried by more than merely the new vineyard, for Grace had confided in her. For more than a year now the nightmares which had plagued him for years after his experiences in the Great War had returned. The Munich agreement had afforded only a temporary relief. He was sure even then, as everyone in the country was now, that war was inevitable; and war, to Philip, meant mud and gas and pain and agony of mind. Trish did not completely understand why he should be so upset, since it seemed unlikely that anything violent would happen at Greystones, but she did her best to cheer up the atmosphere by the brightness of her voice whenever she spoke to him.

‘How's it going?' she called as, in company with Ellis and Grace, she approached the long straight rows of vines. They had all been stopped four feet from the ground. The leaves were dark and glossy. The fruit was swollen with the rain of late spring, and beginning to ripen in a summer generous with sunshine.

Philip straightened himself, leaned on his hoe and nodded his head to signify that all was well. His companion, in the next row, was more forthcoming.

‘I think we have a bumper crop. And of best quality. I tell Philip, this may be a vintage year.'

Andy's second son was twenty years old and after seven years in England could pride himself on an idiomatic vocabulary. He returned home each year to celebrate Christmas and New Year with his family, but had made it clear after the death of his grandmother a few months earlier that he wished to stay on in the lodge cottage. He was cheerful and hard-working and did a good deal to prevent Philip from succumbing too often to his black moods. But for the first time now it occurred to Trish that if – no, when – war came he might feel his place to be in France. No wonder Philip was anxious.

The sound of an approaching motor car made them all lift their heads in surprise.

‘It must be Rupert,' said Trish, and it was not long before
her guess was proved right. Seeing the little group on the hillside, he stopped in the middle of the drive and walked across to join them.

‘Good morning, everybody. Good morning, Patricia.'

‘Aren't I part of everybody?' asked Trish.

‘Certainly not,' said Rupert. ‘You're special. I know this is an ungodly hour for a call, but I've come to bear you all off to Castlemere for lunch.'

Philip and Jean-Paul shook their heads politely, as he must have expected, but the others recognized a sense of urgency beneath his usual light tone of voice.

‘Something wrong?' asked Grace as they walked together up towards the house.

‘The state of the world's wrong.' Rupert sighed. ‘I've volunteered, of course. All those years in the OTC about to bear fruit at last. The second son doing his traditional duty. For King and Country. Well, I'm not complaining about that. Not the life I'd chosen for myself, but it's got to be done. But this morning –'

He stood still. Trish could see that he was distressed.

‘A letter arrived this morning. The agent brought it in to discuss the details. In the event of hostilities – and I imagine that we can take that for granted – a girls' school is to be evacuated from the south coast to Castlemere. There was a sort of portfolio attached to the letter. Somebody trying to be helpful, actually, but the effect is chilling. Fifteen trestle tables will be delivered tomorrow for erection in the banqueting hall. A hundred and fifty iron bedsteads, a hundred and fifty horsehair mattresses, fifteen rubber mattress protectors for bedwetters. That sort of thing, on and on. Iron bedsteads in the state bedrooms! They'll pin timetables into the panelling and carve their initials on the library reading tables and light fires to cook sausages in their dormitories. Odd, isn't it? The prospect of being killed as a soldier hasn't got through to me at all, but the thought of Castlemere being invaded …'

‘Better children than soldiers,' said Ellis consolingly. ‘They'll
have teachers and rules to keep them in order. If it became an army billet you'd find cigarette burns and beer stains all over the place.'

‘Yes, well, that's obviously what my father thinks. He's been arranging this behind my back. Knew how much it would upset me, so kept quiet till it was settled. None of my business, strictly speaking, I suppose. He reckons it's better to have a negotiated arrangement, with provision for compensation, than to wait and see what some billeting officer comes up with. But in my opinion there's nothing more wickedly destructive than a child. Am I right, Patricia? Anyway, I'm not in the mood for being comforted. Castlemere was not created to be a boarding school.'

‘I want to go to boarding school,' said Trish.

Rupert turned to grin at her, throwing off in a second the gloom which it was so unusual for him to reveal.

‘That's the solution, then!' he exclaimed. ‘We'll put Patricia in as the family spy. With instructions to prevent or report all unseemly behaviour. The other girls would lynch her eventually, of course, but the message might get through first. Except that, come to think of it, she's a defiler of walls herself.'

He was referring to the flower-arranging scullery; one of many small rooms in the kitchen wing. Mrs Hardie had given her a paint box three years earlier and taught her how to use it, discovering with delight that Trish had a natural talent for the use of colour, although too little patience to practise drawing.

She was not, however, interested in watercolour, which was Mrs Hardie's favourite medium, but preferred the bright pots of poster paint which were available at school. So for her next Christmas present she was supplied with a set of these to use at home, and offered a set of white painted walls to decorate to her own taste. As in the case of the clay models which she invariably destroyed when they were finished, her pleasure was only in the act of painting rather than in admiring the finished result; so she continually washed the wall or put on a new coat
of white paint so that she could attempt another mural.

She was tempted now to grumble that nobody took her seriously, but was sensitive enough to recognize that Rupert was genuinely upset, and so held her peace.

‘Two reasons why I've rushed over today,' he said. ‘One, so that you can all have a last look, a last civilized meal, before the barbarians arrive. The other's more specific – a favour. I know you're on holiday, Ellis, but I wondered: I really would like to have a record of how the house looks now. The family's been living in it for hundreds of years and there are paintings of the outside, of course, but hardly anything of the interior. I suppose we all thought that nothing would ever change.'

‘You want me to photograph the interior?'

‘As much as there's time for. The sort of thing you did in your book on your father's buildings. I realize it's too big a job to do with any completeness, but just anything you could manage. The clutter will start to arrive tomorrow, but we can insist that it's stored in the coach house. The girls themselves won't turn up until war is actually declared. There could always be a miracle, I suppose, but –'

‘I'll do what I can,' Ellis promised. ‘I've got all my old equipment here. It was too slow and clumsy for a war assignment, but it's just what this kind of job would need. If Trish is willing to act as assistant …'

‘We shall all assist,' Rupert promised. ‘I shall lug tripods around and the maids will open and close curtains and ply you with drinks and Grace will clap her hands and say Well Done. We'll put you up, naturally, for as long as you're prepared to stay.'

‘You and the others had better go on ahead, then. I'll need to load my van and then stop on the way to stock up with film and plates.'

‘The bills to be sent to us, of course.' Rupert's moment of emotion had passed and he spoke in a businesslike manner. ‘And we shall pay your usual fee for your time and a set of the prints. If you come anywhere near to making a complete record,
we could discuss the possibility of a book. I've been doing a bit of work myself on the history of the family and the house. But I suspect that from now on we're all going to have to live a day at a time.'

The truth of that remark was proved as they returned to the house. Mrs Hardie, flustered and unhappy, came hurrying out to meet them.

‘Grace, there's a woman here to see you. I don't know what she wants. She keeps trying to make me agree to something, but I said she'd have to talk to you.'

‘Yes, all right, Mother. I'll see to her in a minute. Trish, you go and pack some things so that you can stay on at Castlemere and help your father. Rupert, will you explain to Mother what you've just told us, and ask whether she wants to come this time.' Until now Mrs Hardie had steadfastly refused every invitation to return to the house which she remembered with such love from her childhood, but the prospect of change in the near future might make her grasp at a last opportunity. ‘And Rupert, if this visitor ties me up for too long, you and Trish could go without me. You could start making a list of the photographs you'd like, in an order of priority. I'll come in the van.'

She hurried into the morning room. A tall, thin woman whose mouth turned down sourly at both corners stood up to greet her.

‘Mrs Faraday? My name is Miss Hoare. I'm the billeting officer.'

‘I
know
it's a big house.' After half an hour Grace was still arguing with the billeting officer. ‘But not all of it is habitable.' Although the roof had been repaired recently after years of neglect, most of the attic rooms remained damp and musty.

‘You said there were seven bedrooms on the first floor.'

‘And five people living in the house. Besides that, I have a widowed aunt in her seventies who visits frequently and will come to live here permanently if things get more difficult. She knows that there's a room reserved for her.'

‘Of the five people, you and your husband presumably share one of the bedrooms.'

Grace was tempted to say what she thought of such an impertinent question, but managed to control herself.

‘No, we don't,' she replied shortly.

‘Even so, we've established that you have one free bedroom, extra to your aunt's.' Miss Hoare spoke in a businesslike tone. Presumably she had a conversation very much like this one in every house she visited. ‘It will be large enough, I imagine, to take two children.' She paused and looked Grace straight in the eye. ‘We're not using compulsory powers yet, Mrs Faraday. Obviously these arrangements will work best when they're accepted willingly. But I hope you'll consider very seriously where your patriotic duty lies. You could offer two children safety and fresh air and care. Could you live with your conscience if they stayed in their slum homes and were killed in an air raid?'

Grace was tempted to remark that she would never know. But the first shock of the unexpected visit had been succeeded
by a different kind of gloom. Over the past few days she had come to recognize the inevitability of war, but it seemed that she had not yet come to terms with its pettier consequences. No one would require her to die heroically in battle. But she could hardly expect her way of life to continue unchanged. They would all have to accept inconveniences. The arrival of two unwelcome young strangers would be only the beginning.

The ringing of the telephone gave her an opportunity to postpone any decision for a few moments.

‘Excuse me,' she said, and picked up the receiver.