The Hardie Inheritance (7 page)

The two huge boulders stood in the silent heart of the wood, near the place where the stream fed a deep pool from which it emerged both invisibly and inaudibly on the further side. Grace knew now that the stones must have been smoothed and rounded by a glacier many thousands of years earlier; but as a little girl she had thought of them as a giant's playthings, for each was indented in one place only, the shape resembling a handhold.

As she grew older she had brought her anxieties and hopes to the boulders, using them as both comforters and confidants. But it was not the emotional crises of her early years that she remembered now. It was here that Andy had kissed her for the first time. It was here, a year later, that they had said goodbye.

‘Do you remember –?' she began; but quickly bit back the words. It was the wrong thing to say – the wrong thing at any
time, but especially now, when Andy was holding her hand so tightly.

‘Of course I remember. I wish–' Andy in his turn left words unspoken, but it was because he was already pulling her into his arms, pressing his lips against hers. Not, as on the occasion of that first kiss, with a boy's shyness and joy, but with all the force of a man's passion. Grace felt her lips bruising against her teeth as her head was forced backwards. Andy's body pushed her own against one of the boulders. One arm was round her waist, holding her close, while the other groped underneath the skirt of her dress. Between kisses, his breath emerged with a noisy shuddering and he muttered something which she could not hear or understand.

Grace, for her part, was faint with excitement and wonder. She was not sure what was happening – what Andy was going to do or what she herself was supposed to do; but with all her heart and all her body she wanted it to happen. She must tell him, though, lest he should think her unwilling when she was merely ignorant.

‘I don't know – I never have –' How difficult it was to say – the words. But it seemed that he understood at once. He drew a little way away, swallowing the lump in his throat as he looked into her eyes and then pulled her by the hands away from the boulders and down on to the mossy ground. Stroking each inch of her skin as he exposed it, he was for a little while gentle again; but before long his body once again began to beat against hers. Grace felt herself being battered, pierced. It should have hurt, but instead only took her breath away.

‘I love you, Andy,' she panted. ‘Love you, love you.' They were moving together and then lay still together.

Afterwards came a sense of anti-climax. As Andy helped Grace to her feet she could not help staring at him. She had often enough noticed Philip stripped to the waist as he worked in the sun, but this was the first time that she had seen a man without his trousers. His vulnerability should have increased her love, but instead she found the sight interesting but
somehow ridiculous. No doubt she looked equally absurd to him, with the skirt of her dress rucked up around her waist. Tugging it down, she saw with dismay that her petticoat was stained with blood and her dress with streaks of green from the moss. Her skin was sticky and she found herself walking awkwardly. Anyone who saw her would guess at once what had happened.

There was an awkwardness, too, in wondering what she should say to Andy. She put out a hand to touch him in a gentle gesture of love and thanks, but almost at once picked up her stockings and knickers and hurried away through the wood – because already, as the excitement faded, she knew that this was something which ought not to have happened.

Philip would be back at work in the walled garden while Mrs Hardie prepared supper in the kitchen. Grace made for the stable yard and wrapped herself in the rarely-washed overall which she wore when making up glazes for her pottery. If her appearance caused raised eyebrows now, it would only be because she normally stripped off such a covering before going into the house.

Nor would it come as any surprise that she should take a bath before the evening meal, for this was her usual habit whenever she had been carving stone. And only a few hours earlier she had indeed been carving stone, with no possible way of guessing that so many visitors were on their way. What an ordinary start it had been to such an extraordinary day!

Grace was dreaming of Castlemere. Rupert Beverley was driving her round and round the house in his Lagonda whilst Ellis Faraday dodged out of the way, doing his best to take a photograph of a blonde six-year-old who was waving from a window. A peacock perched in a tree with its long tail dangling, emitting a raucous shriek every time the car passed.

It was the shriek which aroused her at last, for of course it came from the roof of the henhouse at Greystones, where the cock was announcing the start of a new day. As a rule Grace was quick to rise as soon as the sun touched the east window of her tower bedroom. But it had taken her a long time to get to sleep on the previous evening as questions and doubts and excitements swirled through her mind; and now, in a half-waking state, her uncertainties returned.

She felt little guilt about what had happened. Andy, who was a married man, had behaved reprehensibly, but she herself had not. She had not deliberately excited him: indeed, the events of the evening had taken her by surprise. If she were to be honest with herself she must admit that she had hoped for some expression of regret and love – a word, a look – but her very inexperience had made it impossible for her to foresee what might happen.

Was she glad that she had lost her virginity? Had she enjoyed it? Odd, how difficult it was to answer what should have been simple questions. There was a surprising satisfaction in knowing that she would not after all grow old and die without ever understanding what it was that inspired poems and novels, betrayals and murders. What was to her an extraordinary
experience had made her for a moment ordinary: that must be good. And the gasping happiness with which she had surrendered both body and spirit was a memory to be cherished.

But not necessarily an experience to be repeated. She had decided many years ago to keep control of her own life instead of surrendering it to a husband; and the way in which that control expressed itself was in her domination of inanimate materials: wood, clay, stone. Was she prepared to put at risk her contentment with the routines of her daily life by allowing herself to hope for an occasional invitation to delight?

The peacock – no, the cock – shrieked again impatiently. Although she must decide before too long what she should say and do at her next meeting with Andy, for the moment there were more urgent tasks to be performed. But she felt stiff and heavy, reluctant to leave her bed.

‘Come on, now,' she exhorted herself. ‘Work to be done.' To start with, the hens and pigs must be fed. And then a bedroom must be prepared for Mr Faraday, and its dressing room for his daughter. She had already opened the necessary windows to begin the airing of the room, but the events of yesterday afternoon had allowed no time to sweep the floors or make up the beds.

What should she wear? Yesterday she must have looked like a labourer when the first of her unexpected visitors arrived. Mr Faraday had not seemed disapproving, nor even surprised; but since he was returning by invitation it seemed only polite to disguise herself as a conventional hostess. Even so, he and Trish were unlikely to arrive before nine o'clock. She would have time to change out of her working overalls after breakfast, when the dirty jobs had been done.

So there was nothing unusual about her clothing as she passed through the kitchen to pick up the bucket which was waiting outside for the pigs. Nor was there any way, surely, in which her appearance revealed that she was no longer the same person that she had been twenty-four hours earlier. And yet she was conscious of her mother glancing at her with what
seemed like curiosity, although it could only be concern.

‘Didn't you sleep well, Grace? Your eyes look tired.'

‘All that coming and going yesterday. I'm not used to it. What vegetables would you like me to pick for lunch?'

‘I suppose a child expects her main meal in the middle of the day? I can hardly remember – it's so long.'

‘Don't pretend that you ever cooked for any of us when we were children,' laughed Grace. But she shared both the excitement and the slight nervousness which Mrs Hardie was exhibiting. Since the days when preparing for a visitor required no more exertion than the giving of instructions to the servants, no one outside the family had ever been invited to spend a night. Grace was amazed at herself for having issued the invitation, and realized that she must take responsibility for her guests while they were at Greystones. She was glad to be distracted from thoughts of Andy, and set to work with all her usual vigour.

By the time the two Faradays arrived she had changed into a cotton dress. The day promised to be too hot to make the wearing of stockings tolerable, but she had put on a pair of shop-bought sandals instead of the home-made moccasins in which Ellis had caught her the previous day.

‘What a lot of equipment you need!' she exclaimed, going out to greet them while Ellis was still unloading it all. In addition to the cameras – larger and heavier than she had expected – there were tripods and reflectors and umbrellas and heavy wooden boxes.

‘The old-fashioned stuff is the best,' Ellis told her. ‘And I can rely on a house not to blink or fidget through a long exposure. Unlike débutantes. But you can see why I never feel I can simply arrive on someone's doorstep with all this. What a cracking day I've got for it! I'll get on with the exterior views straightaway.'

‘Is there anything useful I could do to help?'

He shook his head. ‘I've got everything I need, thank you.'

Grace turned to leave, but felt a tug at her hand. Trish was
looking up at her. Her pale, oval face, lightly freckled beneath the eyes, was framed by the blonde hair which fell straight to her shoulders. Beneath its fringe, her blue eyes were appealing.

‘Please may I make something with your clay again?'

‘Certainly you may. Let's go and find it.'

The demure expression with which Trish had asked her question was banished by a grin of delight as she skipped happily into the stable yard.

‘What do you want to make this time?' asked Grace, digging into the old dustbin for a handful of clay.

‘A house.'

‘This house? Or your own house?'

‘We haven't got a house of our own. We live in a flat with no stairs and no garden. I want to do a make-believe house, with trees round it.'

‘I'll give you a board to build on. And –' Grace hesitated before offering any kind of implement. She had made most of her own pottery tools out of wire, but small fingers might be cut by them. She looked instead for the shaped piece of bone which could be used as a knife and offered an old rolling pin as well.

‘You can roll it out like pastry, and cut out walls or bricks. Do you think you might want to keep what you make this time? Because if so, I'll show you what you have to do to the clay before you start.'

‘No, thank you. I don't like keeping things.'

‘There you are, then. You won't touch anything else, will you?'

‘Trush Trist.' They laughed companionably together. Then Grace left the young potter to her work and went to watch the photographer at his.

‘I
could
be useful,' she said to Ellis, realizing that he would need to make at least three journeys in order to move his equipment to each new position.

‘But why should you? You have your own work.'

‘I'm taking a day's holiday. Acting the part of lady of the manor. A hostess.'

As though the word ‘acting' had put a new thought into his mind, Ellis looked up at her questioningly. ‘Hardie,' he said. ‘Jay Hardie, the actor – is he any relation of yours?'

‘My younger brother. Do you know him?'

‘We have some friends in common.' Ellis seemed to be regretting that he had asked the question as he busied himself with the camera. ‘Would you like to have a look?' He held up the heavy black cloth so that she could put her eye to the viewfinder.

‘How extraordinary!' she exclaimed. ‘All the proportions look quite different.'

‘It's because you're not seeing the usual amount of sky. I shall take more than one shot of each façade. One has to choose every time between good detail and a general balance. It's something that I imagine you must be aware of whenever you choose a position for a new piece of sculpture: how much space it ought to have around it.'

‘Sculpture!' Grace laughed at the idea that her shapes could be dignified with such a professional word.

‘That's what it is, you know.' Ellis took a last look through the viewfinder himself before lowering the cloth and starting the exposure. ‘Have you had any art education, Miss Hardie? Or any contact with artists?'

‘Does it look like it?'

‘Yes,' said Ellis, ‘it does. And that's what makes it so extraordinary – that you should be creating work which is so much in tune with what's coming out of the art colleges at the moment if you haven't been in touch with what's going on. I'm not saying that the shows of the modernists are popular. Far from it. The people who write letters to the newspapers protesting about them have a vocabulary range which goes from contemptible to disgusting.'

‘Thank you for the comparison, then.' Not in the least offended, Grace laughed.

‘I'm not quoting my own opinion. Although I confess that I do prefer representational art, I find this new work immensely powerful. Expressing emotion rather than depicting nature.'

‘Yes! That's exactly right.' All Grace's favourite pieces of her own work had been inspired by some overwhelming emotion, whether of grief, fear or love, but she had never expected that anyone else would understand that. Absorbed in the conversation, she picked up as much as she could carry of Ellis's equipment as soon as he indicated that he was satisfied with the views he had taken from the south-east, and followed him to his next position.