The Hardie Inheritance (21 page)

‘Terry! Terry! Where's Dan, Trish? Dan, Terry's here, Terry's here!'

Dropping his handful of cardboard letters, he dashed towards the kitchen door. Trish followed more slowly and found him being tossed up into the air by the unexpected visitor.

‘Go and tell Dan I'm here,' said the soldier, putting him down at last and watching him run off. He turned towards Trish. ‘Didn't startle you, I hope. I'm Terry Travis. Dan and Brian's brother.'

‘Brian? Oh yes, of course. I call him Boxer. Just as a joke, but he seems to like it.' She stared at him in a considering way. ‘You don't look like their brother.'

He was a tall, thin young man – as Dan might perhaps be one day. But Dan's thinness, even after three months of good food, was of the skinny sort, whilst the soldier seemed to conceal a muscular strength inside his greatcoat. The real difference, though, was in his eyes.

Neither Dan nor Boxer was clever. They were not even curious about what things were or how things worked. Their first reaction when offered something new was always to say No. Trish herself was not clever in the sense of coming top in examinations at school, but she was always ready to be interested in a new subject or skill. She asked questions and listened to the answers; and she liked talking to people with lively ideas. She looked for this quality in their eyes – and Terry Travis's grey eyes were as alert as her own. As they shook hands she took an immediate liking to him. She had made friends with Dan and Boxer because she was sorry for them. Their brother was different.

Even his voice was different. Boxer and Dan dropped their aitches and swallowed the middle of words in a way which at first she had found hard to follow. Even now, it made it difficult to teach Boxer how to read words like hat and butter when he always pronounced them ‘at and ‘bu-er'. But this young man had at some point made an effort to practise a more precise way of speaking. He answered her point in a straightforward way.

‘Should have said half-brother. Same mother, different fathers. Me dad died when I was six. It knocked me mum to pieces in all sorts of ways. Money was one way, and wanting to have a man around was another. I didn't like it when I was a kid, but I can understand it now.'

Trish, who had had a woman-to-woman chat on the subject with Mrs Hardie soon after the arrival of the evacuees, nodded in a grown-up manner. ‘Do come in, Mr Travis.'

‘Terry,' he reminded her, stepping inside.

‘Terry, yes. I'm Trish Faraday. I'm afraid there's no one around but me at the moment. My uncle's ill and my grandmother's gone to visit him at the infirmary and my mother's not to be disturbed while she's working. But there'll be plenty to eat for lunch, so I hope you'll stay.'

‘Thanks. And look, before the nippers come back. When Mum came to see them a couple of months ago, Dan told her how it was you who brought them here when no one else would have them. It made her cry, hearing how they'd been treated. But you – well, thanks, anyway.'

‘That's all right. We like having them.'

‘All the same, I expect you'll be glad I'm going to take them back.'

‘Is that why you've come?'

‘Yes. Mum's been miserable without the boys. She wanted them to be safe, but all that bombing they were expecting hasn't happened. And so many of the kids have drifted back already that they're going to open part of the school again in January. I've got Christmas leave. So she asked me to come and get them. We can all be together again.'

‘They'll like that. But –' Trish's face clouded with disappointment.

‘What's up?'

‘We'd got a Christmas present ready for them.'

‘Nice of you. Could I take it back with me, and give it them from you on Christmas Day?'

‘I don't think it'll be any use in London. I'll show you.'

She led the way to the cellar door. It was closed by a bolt too high for the boys to reach – and in any case they had been told that they must never try to open the door because the steps down were steep and dangerous. Opening it now, she showed him a two-seater sledge.

‘Our hill is marvellous for sledging and we always have snow in January,' she said. ‘But –'

‘You're right, I'm afraid. Not many hills in Bethnal Green.' He glanced at her in surprise. ‘You made this here, yourselves?'

She nodded. ‘Grace did all the wood part and the metal runners underneath. And I painted it.' She had painted it bright red, with the names Boxer and Dan in black, one on each side.

‘You ought to show it them. So that they know all the trouble you've taken.'

‘I could say we'd invite them back for a holiday some time when there's plenty of snow.' Even as she spoke, closing the door for safety's sake, Trish guessed that the cost of the journey would be too high; Mrs Travis had visited her sons just once, to satisfy herself that they were happy, but had made it clear that she could not afford to come often.

As Dan came dashing back with Boxer to greet his brother, Trish left the three alone while she went to tell Mrs Barrett that there would be an extra place needed at what she called lunch and the boys called dinner.

Fortunately for the comfort of the household, the housekeeper was too well settled into the life of Greystones to be lured away by the money on offer for factory work or the glamour of a uniform. It was ironic, as Grace often commented
to Trish, that when – after so many years – the family income was once again sufficient to support an adequate staff, it had become impossible to attract girls into service. But women from the village were willing to come and clean by the hour. Mrs Barrett herself realized, as everyone in the family did, that Mrs Hardie was no longer strong enough to carry all the responsibilities which she had shouldered for the past twenty-five years, and was determined that the old lady should end her days in orderly comfort.

The midday meal was already in progress when Mrs Hardie returned from her visit to the Infirmary. Trish was interested to notice how fast and politely Terry sprang to his feet when she appeared, and was about to introduce him. But Mrs Hardie turned back towards the door as soon as she saw that Grace – who preferred to work through the daylight hours without interruption – was not seated at the table.

There was something different about her bearing. Until today, age had made no difference to the way in which she carried herself. As a young girl she had been forced by use of a back board to hold herself straight, and the effect of the lesson still showed itself in her seventies. But for the first time Trish noticed a stooping of the shoulders that was caused not so much by tiredness as by despair. Alarmed, she too rose to her feet.

‘Grandmother! How's Philip?'

Mrs Hardie's lips trembled and for a moment it seemed that she could not speak. Then her distress was conquered by anger.

‘Germans!' she said. ‘Murderers! First Frank. Now Philip. Killed by the Germans as surely as though they'd held a gun to his head. Couldn't quite finish it off last time, so had to come back again for a second chance.'

The words were mumbled so that they could hardly be heard, but Trish understood their meaning well enough. She was about to run into her grandmother's arms, but Mrs Hardie shook her head.

‘Not now, thank you, darling.' Still mumbling to herself,
she went out of the room. She had not even noticed that there was a visitor.

Terry, resuming his seat, looked questioningly at Trish.

‘It must mean that Philip has died. Her son.' This was the first death in Trish's life and she had to struggle to control her tears. ‘He's been ill ever since 1917. He was gassed. It made breathing terribly hard work for him. When the war started – this war – he almost seemed to decide that it wasn't worth trying any more.' It was the putting on of the new gas mask which had caused him to collapse, but there had seemed no reason for his continuing illness except his own simple decision not to fight it.

She could not expect a stranger to be interested in the death of a man he had never met. The news served only to hasten the departure of the three Travises. Terry helped Trish to pack up the boys' possessions. At the last minute she bundled all the letters and pictures into a bag so that Boxer could continue his reading lessons in his own home. When they were ready to leave, Terry held out his hand.

‘Thanks a lot for all you've done,' he said. ‘And you'll thank your mother and grandmother as well, won't you. I ought really –'

‘I think it's better not to disturb them, considering. I'll tell them that you wanted to and I wouldn't let you.'

‘Right, well then, thanks again.'

The house seemed very empty after the boys had left. In the weeks since their arrival Trish had regarded it as her duty to keep them amused outside school hours, since it was because of her that they had come to Greystones in the first place. With that occupation gone, she could not think what to do. Grace and Mrs Hardie would not want to be disturbed. Miserable, and unexpectedly lonely, she went in search of Jean-Paul.

He was in the walled garden, digging the area in which next year's vegetables would be grown. Trish watched without speaking as he worked his way in a straight line, thrusting in
the spade with a regular movement and turning it as it emerged so that the earth fell in a series of humps.

‘Shall I rake it smooth for you?' she asked.

He straightened himself, leaning on the spade, and shook his head.

‘I leave it so for the frost to break up. You can make a bonfire if you like.'

He tossed a box of matches across to her and automatically she put out a hand to catch it. Burning whatever rubbish could not be composted was an occupation which she enjoyed, but she did not move immediately. Instead she stared at him as he returned to his steady digging.

How different young men were from each other! No one could be as handsome as Rupert, especially in his new officer's uniform; but Jean-Paul was good-looking as well in a healthy, outdoor way. Naturally he wore old clothes all the time he was working, but inside them he would be clean and strong. Rupert was serious at heart, although he tried to disguise this by perpetual joking and teasing. Jean-Paul was just the opposite: genuinely light-hearted, but able to put on an act of being older and more responsible than he really was.

Today's visitor had been different again: a responsible young man with lively eyes. Not well educated, but sharp-witted. Before his call-up, he had told her, he had run a market stall. The unusual thing about him was that, unlike the other two, he did not quite seem to have settled inside his own skin. Rupert and Jean-Paul each knew who they were and knew when they were putting on an act. But Terry Travis – though this could only be a guess – was in the middle of changing himself. He must once have looked as skinny and undernourished as Dan and spoken as badly as Boxer. Army food might have built up his strength, but it must have been his own decision to change his voice. Not just the sounds of vowels and consonants, but a whole manner of speaking. And the change was still in progress. He had not decided yet what he wanted to be.

Ambition. That was the difference. Trish herself had no ambitions, but there was plenty of time for that yet. Rupert would never want to change his place in society because he was already at the top; his only possible wish – to have been born an elder instead of a second son – could never come true. As for Jean-Paul, he was happy where he was. But Terry Travis wanted to be someone else. Not because he was ashamed of being a market trader, but because he thought he could do better for himself. It would be interesting to meet him again in five or six years to see whether he had managed it. But that was not likely to happen.

Why was she comparing people like this when they had nothing in common except that she happened to know them? She interrupted her own train of thought and Jean-Paul's work with an abrupt statement.

‘Philip's dead.'

This time Jean-Paul drove the spade hard into the ground before straightening himself to look at her.

‘It was so serious? I didn't realize.'

‘It's rotten luck, isn't it? I mean, he was only your sort of age when he went off to fight. Healthy and clever, with a good life to look forward to. All spoilt in a single moment. It must have been almost worse than dying, knowing every day of your life how different things might have been.'

‘You're upset for him.' Jean-Paul pulled off his muddy gloves and gripped her hands tightly with his own.

Trish nodded, trying unsuccessfully to sniff her tears under control.

‘He never talked much, of course,' she said, groping for a handkerchief and failing to find one. ‘But I liked the way he sort of took me for granted. Grandmother always made a fuss of me, and that was nice; and Grace did deliberate things like adopting me, and that was nice as well. But Philip just behaved as though it was the most natural thing in the world that I should be around. And now he's not going to be around any more, and I, I …'

Unable to restrain the tears, she pulled the sleeve of her coat across her eyes. Jean-Paul's hug was comforting. After a little while she managed to speak normally again.

‘We must keep the vineyard going for him. As a sort of memorial.'

‘That will hardly be possible, Trish. The war –'

‘Can't you manage it on your own?'

‘Even if I were here, no, I could not. But I shall not be here. I have had my first papers already for the army. I wait only to be told when I must go, and where.'

‘I didn't realize. What are we going to do?'

‘If I have time to finish this digging, the earth will be ready. For one year at least it will be easy to grow as many vegetables as before. Mrs Faraday knows what must be done, from the time before I came here. And you are strong enough to help her now. I will ask to see if there is a boy in the village to come when I have to leave. We're all told that we must grow our own food if we can. But grapes – no one will have time to spare for grapes.'