The House of Hardie (5 page)

Midge hesitated for a second or two, and then made up her mind. Had she arrived on the stroke of the hour, she could not have known that she was in danger of interrupting a tutorial. If Mr Yates was still there, he would – to judge from his usual look of relief as he emerged – be grateful to see his tutor reminded of the time; and Dr Mackenzie might perhaps effect an introduction.

No, Midge told herself severely. That was too much to expect. But nevertheless she stepped out on to the stairs. ‘We don't want to be late,' she said to Mrs Lindsay, and led the way up.

Dr Mackenzie was alone and waiting for her. Was Mr Yates perhaps ill, Midge wondered. But she could not ask
this aloud, since her tutor showed no sign that there was anything unusual about his morning's arrangements. Midge sat down, unfolded the sheets of paper on which she had written her weekly essay, and began to read it aloud.

When she first began her studies at the university, she had been alarmed to discover that instead of handing in written work she would be expected to read it out and defend her theories or assertions of fact against the arguments of her tutors. But by now she was accustomed to the system and enjoyed it. On this occasion she had been asked to discuss the causes of the French Revolution and was just approaching her conclusions as to their relative importance when the door burst open.

It was Mr Yates. His face was flushed and his eyes were bloodshot: it was immediately clear that he was suffering from a hangover. Midge, startled by his appearance, checked herself in mid-sentence; whilst Mrs Lindsay, equally surprised – and flustered into the bargain – dropped her ball of white knitting cotton. Dr Mackenzie rose to his feet and bent to pick it up for her.

‘I'm sorry,' began Mr Yates, revealing by his breath-lessness the haste with which he must have taken the stairs. Dr Mackenzie silenced him with a look and gestured towards a chair in the corner of the room.

‘Wait there, if you please,' he said; and then, to Midge, ‘Kindly continue.'

Embarrassed and nervous, Midge read on to the end of her essay. Even after she had reached her conclusion, she continued to look down at the papers on her knee.

‘I must congratulate you on the excellence of your French accent,' commented Dr Mackenzie.

Midge flushed at the compliment. While she was scattering her essay with liberal quotations from French
philosophers and historians she had felt no doubts about her ability to pronounce them, for – like her brother before her – at the age of seventeen she had spent six months in France, at the château of one of her father's suppliers.

‘Excuse me just a moment,' said her tutor, and turned his head enquiringly towards the abashed intruder.

‘I'm extremely sorry to be so late, Dr Mackenzie. The college won the rugger cuppers on Saturday, and last night –'

The tutor interrupted him. ‘I'm aware that Magdalen has had a small sporting triumph,' he said. ‘And no one in the college can possibly be ignorant of the fact that the matter was celebrated last night as well as on Saturday. You are not, if I may say so, the only person who went short of sleep. The question of damage to college property is a matter for the Dean. All
I
have to say is that you are not
late
for your tutorial: you have
missed
it. When you throw away an hour of your life, that hour is lost for ever. My time now belongs to someone else, and your behaviour in interrupting us is inexcusable. Good
morning
, Mr Yates.'

Had Midge ever been addressed in such terms, she would have sunk through the floor in shame. But Mr Yates appeared unperturbed as he rose to his feet, bowed politely to his tutor and departed.

Dr Mackenzie's expression of extreme disapproval relaxed into one of amusement. Seeing the surprise in Midge's eyes, he laughed aloud and explained.

‘I understand that Mr Yates has some considerable reputation as a sportsman. As well as playing rugger, he rides to hounds and rows, and no doubt will prove himself to be a cricketer next term into the bargain. In the field of scholarship I have few expectations of him, and he
himself has even fewer. He will continue to drink too much during his time in residence because for young men of his kind, unfortunately, it is the thing to do. The most I can hope to teach is an occasional fact and a little elementary philosophy – for example, that actions have consequences and, in this case, that time lost can never be regained. He had no right, of course, to rob you of
your
time. Shall we proceed? I would like to discuss first the argument you drew from Rousseau's theory of the general will.'

Midge returned her attention to the matter in hand. When the hour was over, she folded away her essay, but kept in her hand the new sheet on which were listed all the books which she must read during the vacation. There were a great many titles. Because she was studying them as she walked thoughtfully down the staircase, she was startled when a young man who had been sitting on the low wall of the cloister first of all stood up and then prostrated himself at her feet.

‘Mr Yates, please! Really, what
are
you doing?' Flustered, she found that her chaperone was too close behind to allow her to step back.

‘I'm grovelling at your feet. Surely this isn't the first time that you've been grovelled at.'

Midge bit her lip in an effort to control her smile. He looked too absurd for words. ‘Do please get up. Somebody might come.'

‘I shan't get up until you forgive me. Naturally I shall have to write an abject apology to my tutor, and my only hope of
his
forgiveness is if I can tell him that I already have yours. It's remarkably dusty down here. It must be three or four centuries since it was last swept. So I hope you won't take too long. I really am most sincerely sorry for my intrusion this morning. It shows what an arrogant
beast I am, to think that I must be the Makker's only pupil.'

Midge laughed aloud, and was surprised by the effect of her laughter.

‘But I
know
you,' said the undergraduate, scrambling to his feet. ‘You all looked so dashed disapproving when I burst in up there that I didn't recognize you beneath the severe expression. But that smile … You're Miss Hardie, of course.'

‘I really think –' said Mrs Lindsay, preparing to protest against this breach of etiquette; but she was temporarily silenced by the offender's sunny politeness.

‘I'm a friend of Miss Hardie's father,' he said, ignoring Midge's disbelieving look. ‘My grandfather, the Marquess of Ross, has naturally known him for far longer, but I've had the pleasure of his acquaintance since my arrival in Oxford. Together, naturally, with other members of his family. Are you returning straight home now, Miss Hardie? Perhaps you'll allow me to escort you both there, and to pay my respects to your mother.'

‘I'm going to a lecture at Balliol,' Midge said. ‘In Mrs Lindsay's company, naturally.'

‘Then we could all go together. I'm attending the same course.'

Midge burst out laughing again, with such merriment that the undergraduate looked puzzled whilst Mrs Lindsay showed signs of alarm.

‘If you're going to be at the lecture, no doubt we shall see each other there,' Midge said. ‘Until then, I'll wish you good morning. You will be leaving your college by the front gate, while we are required to slip out at the side. Shall we go, Mrs Lindsay? Good day, Mr Yates.'

‘He should not have behaved in such a manner,' said
Mrs Lindsay, hurrying to keep up with Midge's rapid pace.

‘There was no offence in it.'

‘Why did you laugh? When he mentioned the lecture.'

‘If Mr Yates does attend the lecture today,' said Midge, ‘he will enter the Balliol hall through the main door and sit on a bench at one of the dining tables. But you and I, Mrs Lindsay – how shall
we
be expected to approach?'

‘Up the winding stair from the Senior Common Room, to sit behind the lecturer at High Table.' Mrs Lindsay had been acting as an official chaperone for women students for five years already, and was well acquainted with all the rules and restrictions imposed by different colleges; she was puzzled only by the purpose of the question.

‘Exactly so. And from our seats at High Table we look down into the hall. I know the face of every undergraduate who attends these lectures, and Mr Yates has never been one of them. He doesn't even know where a woman student is expected to sit, or he would have realized at once that I wouldn't believe him. I very strongly suspect that Mr Yates has not attended a single lecture since he came up to Oxford.'

Too late, she realized that her pleasure in the encounter must be increasing her chaperone's doubts about the situation. But it was impossible to conceal her elation. As they approached Balliol, she stroked her hair into tidiness and tugged at her jacket to smooth its line.

Mr Yates, she noticed as soon as she took her seat, had chosen a place at the furthest end of the hall – presumably so that anyone who entered would be found to sit in front of him, and in his view. When he caught sight of her he looked momentarily surprised, and then deliberately stood up and made his way to a place so near to the dais
that Midge was bound to see him every time she looked towards the lecturer.

An hour later, as the hall emptied, Midge looked down at the notebook in which, as a rule, she made a précis of what the lecturer said. The page was empty.

On the last day of Archie's Easter vacation, Lucy rose early in order to ride with her brother. Reaching the brow of the hill at the end of their gallop, they reined in their horses and sat for a moment without speaking, looking down at their grandfather's house. Castlemere had been built in the style of a French château. At this early hour of an April morning, the mist which often lay in the valley was especially thick above the moat, so that the four turrets of the great house, with their elegant pointed roofs of grey slate, seemed to be floating above a cloud, like part of a fairy-tale palace. Within the house, Lucy knew, an army of servants would at this moment be busily polishing and scrubbing and blackleading and carrying coals and hot water, but no sound rose to the ears of the two watchers. Only the occasional stamp of their horses' hooves disturbed the silence.

Lucy gave a sigh of contentment. ‘Just look at Castlemere,' she said. ‘Like a dream, it's so beautiful. Such a
romantic
house.' She looked indignantly at her brother when his only comment was a laugh. ‘Don't you agree?'

‘I wouldn't call it romantic. Romantic's a girl's word. Of course I agree that it's beautiful. But it won't do for me to think about it too much.'

Lucy nodded, understanding what he meant. Archie had been brought to Castlemere when he was only three years old. It was his home: it was unlikely that he could remember any other, for the house in which he was born had been sold soon after their mother's death. Their
father now kept only a set of rooms in London to use on his infrequent leaves, coming to Castlemere as a visitor, a stranger to his son and daughter.

The three sons of the marquess all possessed properties of their own, so Archie had been brought up in his grandfather's house almost as though he were a son and heir. But he was not. It was sensible of him to bear in mind all the time that when the Marquess of Ross died, Castlemere would pass to his eldest son, the present viscount. It was to be hoped that the marquess would make generous provision in his will for the children of the daughter he had loved so dearly and mourned so bitterly, but neither of them would have any right to remain at Castlemere.

Lucy herself, of course, could expect to move to another home on the occasion of her marriage. It might not be as grand or as beautiful as Castlemere, but it would probably be as comfortable. Her brother's future was less predictable. What would he do, she wondered, after he had taken his degree? Or rather, when he had finished his terms at Oxford – because the comments of his tutors, and of the dean of his college, which Archie had recounted with great amusement, did not suggest to Lucy that he was likely to pass any examinations. When he returned to the university later in the day there would be no need for him to pack the books he had brought home for vacation reading, for they had never been unpacked.

It was not the function of a younger sister to badger him back to the grindstone of study. ‘How are you going to spend the summer term?' she asked.

‘Trinity Term.' Archie made the correction kindly. ‘Well, I shall play cricket, of course. And keep up the rowing. Grandfather has promised to bring you up for Eights Week.'

Lucy's face lit up with the excitement of an expedition away from home. ‘What is Eights Week?'

‘A kind of regatta. All the college boats race against each other. You and Grandfather can sit on the college barge and cheer us on. Anyone who has a pretty sister is expected to produce her for Eights Week, and you'll be the prettiest of the lot. There's much more to it than rowing, of course. All sorts of things go on. Magdalen will have a ball. Bring your most stunning dress.'

‘Shall I be your partner?'

‘Well, you've heard me talk of Digby, who rows stroke. His sister will be coming as well. So she'll be my partner and you'll be Digby's. But there'll be a whole crowd of us. You won't be stuck with any chap you don't like.'

‘Will all the girls be somebody's sister?' Lucy laughed at the idea.

‘Well, of course. I mean to say, dash it all: everyone is.'

‘But it seems an odd way of finding a partner. Digby has never met me, and I don't suppose you've set eyes on Digby's sister. Don't you meet any girls at Oxford – girls you can get to
know
?'

There was an odd kind of silence. Lucy had been chatting frivolously, not greatly concerned about the answers to her questions. But now it seemed to her that this was a question that Archie would like to answer, if only he could think what he wanted to say. She waited.