The Hardie Inheritance (24 page)

‘You want him to come here,' said Mrs Hardie. ‘Well, of course –' But she checked herself and looked at Grace, as Sheila was already looking.

‘You had evacuees here before, didn't you?' Sheila reminded her. ‘And if the bombing really does start, I suppose they'll ask you to have someone again. I thought you might actually prefer to have your own nephew rather than some strange child. And of course I wouldn't ask you until it actually became necessary. But for our peace of mind, just to know …'

Grace stood up and walked over to one of the drawing room windows. Outside, Trish and Max were playing a complicated game of tag which seemed to involve Max in climbing through the hole in the large stone sculpture which stood in front of the house. The boy moved like a gymnast – and indeed, as that thought entered her mind, he ran towards the sculpture, jumped as high in the air as if he had a springboard and turned a handstand over the stone. She blinked in surprise at his agility and smiled to see the gleeful expression on his face as he dared Trish to attempt the same feat.

There was nothing about his slight but athletic body or expressive pointed face which bore the slightest resemblance to his father's dark solidity or his mother's stout respectability. It was as though he were a changeling. To accept him into the household might expose her to a surfeit of visits from the brother she still disliked, but between those times there would be no need to be constantly aware of Max as being David's son. He would be himself. Dan and Boxer had proved that it was possible to have children in the house and survive. She smiled, making her acceptance a gracious one.

‘Of course. We'd be delighted to look after him whenever
you feel it's necessary. I'll get a room ready for him so that you can phone up at short notice and send him here.'

‘He should come before he needs to,' said Mrs Hardie, speaking with a more definite tone than had been usual in recent years. ‘For a little holiday, with no sense of emergency. So that he'll know in advance which is his room and what sort of life he'll be leading.'

‘That would be very kind.' Once again Sheila looked to Grace for agreement. Then she blushed slightly. ‘I'm afraid – I'll provide a mackintosh sheet, of course – I'm afraid he does sometimes wet his bed still.'

‘We're used to that. We had the same trouble with Boxer. He'd never been away from home before.'

‘It happens even at home, I'm afraid. To tell you the truth, he and his father … I suppose it was because we thought we'd finished with having children. It was quite a shock, having to start again with a baby in the house. And when he became a toddler, that was even worse. He never seemed to sleep. Always on the go. I got tired, and David got irritated. And he, Max I mean, gets frightened when he's shouted at. David was always a good father to the other three, but he doesn't seem to
like
Max.'

Grace was hardly acquainted with her youngest nephew, who on previous visits had spent all his time with his grandmother. But as she listened to Sheila's comments she felt more and more interested in getting to know him.

‘You have a chat with Mother,' she suggested. ‘I'll go out and play with him for a little while, so that he feels he knows who it is who's inviting him for a holiday.'

There was a surprising element of satisfaction to be found in accepting the situation. Sometimes – although not often – Grace worried that her obsession with her own work and preference for her own company revealed an unnatural lack of family feeling. On such occasions she found it necessary to itemize her relationships with her brothers, for it was reassuring to remember that she had adored Frank, who was dead, had
felt sympathy with Kenneth, who had run away for reasons quite unconnected with her, and had loved and cared for Philip until he too had died. As for Jay, her feelings towards him were almost maternal. It was only David to whom she felt cold, and to show affection to one of his sons would in an odd way help to prove that it was not as a brother that she disliked him but simply as a man whom she would never have needed to meet had they not been born to the same parents.

Odd, she thought to herself as she took Max's hand and led him off to be introduced to the hens and the sow, odd that she should think of herself as a free woman, untrammelled by family relationships, when in fact she was a daughter, sister, wife, stepmother and aunt.

She had made no effort to adapt her long, fast stride to the age of her companion. Max was neither running nor skipping in his effort to keep up. Instead, his feet moved rapidly in what was clearly a pattern which he had invented, occasionally crossing over and back again and incorporating little hops and jumps. He watched his own toes moving, concentrating on the effort to repeat the pattern correctly.

If there was one thing more than any other that Grace liked in a child, it was the ability to concentrate. Trish had it to a marked degree, although her periods of concentration usually ended in an orgy of destruction. Dan and Boxer had been quite different, needing continual stimulus and encouragement to keep them at a single task. It seemed to Grace that Max would prove to be more like Trish and herself. There would be no need for him to struggle against his aunt as he had to struggle against his father. It might take a little time to find what exactly it was that he was so anxious to encourage in himself, but she would succeed in the end through sympathy.

‘Would you like to come and spend a little holiday here with me, Max?' she asked. ‘We'd love to have you.'

The blitzkrieg which had been so confidently expected and feared began on the night of 7 September 1940. Two days later Max Hardie arrived at Greystones for what had been described to him as a second holiday.

On the last Sunday in September, nine months after he had taken his two half-brothers away from Greystones, Terry Travis brought them back again.

Trish was enjoying an hour of freedom when she heard the bell ring. It was part of her weekend duty to keep Max amused. But Sheila had been anxious that his Bible education should not be neglected, and since no one in the Greystones household was a churchgoer or prepared to undertake the long walk to take him to Sunday School at the Quarry church, Mrs Hardie had undertaken to spend an hour each Sunday morning reading and explaining Bible stories to him.

At the sound of the bell Trish came downstairs, just in time to see Mrs Barrett going in search of Grace while the three visitors stood in the hall as if uncertain of their welcome.

When she first glimpsed Dan and Boxer a year earlier, they had been frightened and unhappy, and they were frightened and unhappy now. But on that first occasion it had been clear that, although poor, they were well cared for. The boys themselves and their clothes had both been clean and neat. The same could not be said today.

As though realizing that he was under observation, Terry looked up and smiled.

‘Look, there's Trish,' he said to the boys.

She ran down to hug them, but they shrank nervously away and Boxer put his thumb in his mouth and began to suck it.

‘You can't do that,' said Trish. ‘You're a big boy now. You haven't forgotten me, surely.' She was hurt by their reaction, and by the fact that Terry's attention switched towards Grace as soon as the door from the studio opened.

‘I'm very sorry to disturb you, Mrs Faraday, but I wonder if I could have a word. Without Dan and Brian listening.'

‘Of course. Trish will look after them.'

But Trish, put out by the lack of warmth in their greeting, wanted to be part of the conversation.

‘They can go and explore,' she said. ‘See if all the pigs and hens and things are still there. Off you go. You know where to look.'

Reluctantly they let go of Terry's hands, but within only a few seconds could be heard shouting excitedly outside.

‘Come and sit down,' said Grace. ‘Is this more than just a social visit?'

Terry nodded unhappily.

‘You'll have read in the newspapers about the bombing.'

‘Of course, yes. It sounds terrible.'

‘Yes. I've been in barracks, out of it all. It doesn't seem right that soldiers should be safe when civilians are getting killed. Well, our mum's one of the casualties. She was hit the night before last. Killed outright.' He swallowed the lump in his throat.

‘Oh, I'm so sorry. Very sorry indeed. The boys weren't hurt?'

‘They were in a shelter when the bomb fell. There's been a raid every night this week. According to one of the neighbours, Mum had settled them down for the night at eight o'clock, so that she wouldn't need to wake them up when the sirens went. She went back to the house for something, since nothing seemed to be happening. I don't know why she was still there when the raid started. But it got a direct hit.'

‘How awful!' said Trish. ‘No wonder they look so miserable. Who's looking after them?'

‘They spent yesterday in a school hall with all the other families who had lost their homes. I was given compassionate leave to decide what to do. There's no choice, really. They'll have to be evacuated again. They understand that, and they know they haven't got a home any more.'

‘But they're frightened at the thought of being sent away to strangers?'

‘Yes. And upset about Mum, of course.'

Trish could see what was coming, and so no doubt could Grace.

‘I realize that it's an awful lot to ask, Mrs Faraday, but would you be willing to take them back again? It would be all official, if you would. You'd get the billeting allowance, just as if they'd been here all the time.' He made a face, criticizing himself. ‘I shouldn't ever have taken them back to London. I can see that now, but it seemed safe.'

‘What will happen if they don't come here?' asked Grace.

‘They'll be sent off to Wales in a party leaving tomorrow. A lot of the kids drifted back to London when nothing seemed to be happening, but they all understand that they can't stay any longer. It's terrible, what's going on there. And we've no family outside the area. It would mean a lot to me, Mrs Faraday, to know that they were here where they've been happy, where I could be sure that they were being kindly treated. But of course I do realize …'

His voice began to fade away into uncertainty. Until that moment he had spoken in the positive manner of someone putting forward the only possible solution to a problem. It was perhaps only now that he did indeed realize what he was asking.

‘I can guess what Trish will want,' said Grace, smiling at her. ‘But I have a young nephew here already and I must have a word with Mrs Barrett before I give you an answer. It would be easy for me to say Yes, but I wouldn't be the one to tackle the extra work. Why don't you and Trish take the boys for a walk? You must all stay for lunch anyway.'

‘That's very kind of you.' But he looked dejected as he followed Trish outside. ‘She's going to say No, isn't she?'

‘What makes you think that?'

‘That business about asking Mrs Barrett. People like you don't
ask
their servants: they tell them. That's only an excuse.'

‘I don't know what you mean by “people like us”.'

‘Rich people who live in big houses, that's what I mean.'

‘People like me who live in houses like this are treated as slaves!' said Trish. ‘If you knew what I had to do before I go to school every day!'

‘Sorry. I didn't realize you were one of the oppressed masses.' For the first time since his arrival at Greystones he laughed without any trace of anxiety on his face and the natural liveliness of his eyes returned. Boxer and Dan came running to join them, already feeling at home again – proprietorial, even, as they introduced their brother to the animals and hens.

‘Dan and Boxer will be junior slaves if they come back here. I hope you realize that,' Trish said to their brother. ‘We had them harvesting onions almost as soon as they arrived here last time – and there's a new crop ready now.' A thought struck her, and she turned towards the younger boy. ‘But perhaps you're not Boxer any longer. Have you gone back to being Brian again?'

‘Boxer,' he said. ‘I like being Boxer.' He put his fists up to show that he had not forgotten how he and Trish used to spar. Terry, confirmed in his belief that his brothers would be happier here than anywhere else, was becoming more light-hearted with every moment that passed, but his anxious expression returned as he saw Grace coming towards them.

She was quick to put his mind at rest.

‘Mrs Barrett will be delighted to have your brothers back,' she said. ‘I've just telephoned the billeting officer to make sure that there would be school places for them; there's no problem there either. And apparently the WVS issue welfare bundles to people who've been bombed out, so we can apply for some clothes and even toys immediately. There's a form which you
should get filled in in London and stamped to certify that the house has been destroyed. That will help the boys to get new ration books and more clothing coupons. And you'll need to register the loss of furniture even if you don't propose to replace it straightaway.'

She was interrupted by the sound of a Red Indian war cry as Max was released from his grandmother's boudoir. His period of imprisonment had left him full of energy and as soon as he reached the grass he did three cartwheels in succession before noticing the visitors.

‘This is Max,' said Trish. ‘He's an evacuee as well, but Grace is his aunt. Boxer and Dan are going to be living here too, Max, and this is their brother Terry, who's brought them.'

Max's expressive eyes indicated alarm and even resentment that other boys should have come to share his holiday, and there was a grudging note in his voice as he said ‘Hello.'

‘It'll be nice for you to have someone to play with,' said Trish, reassuringly. ‘I wonder if Boxer can do cartwheels as well as you. Have a go, Boxer.'