Grace Hardie (2 page)

The marquess studied her flushed face in silence. He didn't believe her claim to be happy, but he approved of the courage with which she made it. She had chosen her own life, and it was right that she should hold her head high in defending her choice. He held out a hand and at once she was in his arms.

They were interrupted by the arrival of her four sons in the drawing room. Their sleekly brushed hair, scrubbed and polished cheeks and identically neat sailor suits made it clear that the past half hour had been a busy one on the nursery floor. Like a monarch inspecting his troops the marquess passed along the line, acknowledging introductions.

‘This is Frank.' The eldest boy, seven years old, was the only one of the four to have inherited the thick golden hair with which most Beverley children were born. He was a sturdy, pleasant-faced lad, who put out his hand to be shaken with an almost military precision.

‘Philip.' Philip was dreamier, staring at his great-grandfather with a slightly anxious intensity, as though trying to calculate what the importance of this unexpected visit might be. Perhaps he had not known of the marquess's existence until that evening.

‘Kenneth and David.' The four-year-old twins were not identical. Kenneth, brown-haired and freckled, fidgeted restlessly, looking down at the carpet, whilst David stared steadily at the visitor with dark, intelligent eyes. His hair was very dark as well: almost black. Hardie hair, Hardie eyes.

The marquess grunted his acknowledgement of the
introductions, asking each of the four no more than a polite ration of questions. He had no great interest in small boys and nothing he wished to say to them. It was a relief when their mother told them that they could go.

‘There's another one,' he said when he and Lucy were alone together once more. ‘A girl.'

‘Grace. Yes. She's in bed. Not very well. Would you like to see her?'

‘Might as well, while I'm here.' He followed his granddaughter up two flights of stairs, pausing at the first landing window to catch his breath while pretending to study the view. The grounds of the house, he saw, sloped down to the river – it must be the River Cherwell here, rather than the Thames. No wonder the place smelt damp and musty. But Lucy had paused to wait for him. He hauled himself up the narrower stairs which led to the children's floor.

A fire was burning in the nursery. The nurse who had been sitting beside it rose with a rustle of skirts as Lucy opened the door and led the way across the room.

The marquess looked down at his sixteen-month-old great-granddaughter. A pair of round black eyes looked back at him. They were bright, lively eyes – their darkness emphasized by the pallor of her face.

Even if he had not been able to see her ill-health, he could hear it, for she was fighting for each breath, gasping to gulp in the air before wheezing it out again. Seeing a stranger, she tried to sit up in her cot, but was imprisoned by the tightly-tucked blankets. The effort made her cough and her little hands pushed at the bedclothes as she tried to free herself. But she was smiling at him even through her struggles.

‘Lie still, there's a good little girl,' said the nurse; but the marquess shook his head, disapproving of the instruction.

‘She'd be more comfortable sitting up. Pillows behind her, that's what she needs.' He loosened the blankets
himself, and reached out with the intention only of raising the child into a sitting position. But Grace, seeing his hands stretched towards her, held out her own arms, smiling. Much to his own surprise, the marquess picked the little girl up and held her.

Now, so close, he could hear the bubbling and wheezing with which each breath fought its way through her chest. He lifted her higher, to lie over his shoulder, so that her head hung down and her arms dangled towards the ground. With one hand he held her legs, while the other stroked her back, pressing it gently but firmly.

For a moment or two her coughing increased and she panted even faster for breath. But within moments she was calm again. The marquess was conscious of her small body relaxing into confidence and contentment. Yet even in the rigidity of her struggle for breath, he realized, she had not been frightened. She was a fighter; too young to understand that there were moments when it was better not to struggle but to lie back and wait for easier times.

The nurse, although disapproving, had piled up pillows in accordance with his instructions. Stiffness made it hard for him to bend easily, but the marquess did his best to be gentle as he set the little girl back in her cot and covered her warmly but loosely with the blankets.

Lucy, he noticed, had tactfully turned her back and was holding the nurse in conversation, as though guessing that he might not wish to be discovered in a gesture of sentimentality. Leaning over, he kissed his great-granddaughter on the forehead. Then, with a nod to the nurse, he made his way down to the drawing room again.

‘Didn't like the sound of that chest,' he said to Lucy. ‘Had the doctor, I suppose?'

‘Yes. He doesn't seem able to do anything. We should try mountain air, he said last time he came. When Gordon gets home again –'

‘He should be home now. What does he think he's doing, leaving you with all the responsibility of a sick child?'

‘He doesn't know.' Lucy's chin tilted upwards with the firmness which he remembered from her youth as she turned to look straight at him. ‘He left England seven months before Grace was born.'

‘Didn't you tell him of your condition?'

‘I was hardly sure myself. And this expedition meant so much to him. It would all have been spoilt if he'd had to ask himself whether he should still go, or how long he should stay. He needs to remain in his collecting area for several seasons, so that he can find plants when they're in flower and return later to collect the seeds. The journey itself is so long and difficult. Reaching Shanghai is only the beginning. The western areas of China, near the border with Tibet, are almost inaccessible, but that's where he has to travel. And then he must establish a base and organize his various expeditions – to go for anything less than two years would be useless. It's best, really, for him to be away for almost three. I understood that from the moment we first discussed it.'

‘But when your circumstances changed … By now, surely, he must know that he has another child.'

Lucy's eyes remained steady, refusing to accept any criticism either of her own behaviour or of her husband's. ‘By now he may perhaps know,' she agreed. ‘But I didn't make any mention of the baby until Grace was six months old. Even then I could only write to the agent in Shanghai and hope that he has a forwarding address. I made it clear in my letters that I wanted Gordon to finish his programme. To make the important seed collections this autumn. I told him that everything was going well here.'

‘That was hardly the truth.'

‘What good would it do to worry him, at such a distance?'
cried Lucy. ‘And even if he were at home … We can't just pack up and go off to Switzerland, not all of us; and Grace is too young to send anywhere on her own.'

‘There must be something in between. This house is damp. I can feel it in my bones. The whole city is damp. A few hundred feet could make all the difference. Higher air, a different aspect. Seems to me, Lucy, if you stay here, you're going to lose her.'

Lucy knew that already. He could see her eyes mist with tears that she would not allow herself to shed in front of him. Turning away, pretending not to notice, he called back into his memory that first glimpse of the child in her cot. It was possible, he supposed, that the brightness of her dark eyes was an indication of fever rather than of a lively intelligence, but there had been an outgoing cheerfulness in her look which impressed him.

She was not, admittedly, a beautiful child. Her black hair had framed a pale complexion, bearing no resemblance to the blonde, rosy beauty of her mother and grandmother in their infancies. But the feel of her small warm body on his shoulder, rigid at first before relaxing into confidence and sleepiness – even the smell of her reminded him of the two little girls he had loved earlier in his life. In appearance she might be a Hardie, but a few drops of Beverley blood must flow in her veins. And it would be enough if he could banish the anxiety from her mother's eyes.

He laughed without explanation as he turned to face Lucy again. Years ago his father had said to him, ‘In every generation there's one Beverley who goes off the rails.' Lucy, without doubt, had been the member of her generation to show a lack of good sense. The marquess had never expected that he himself would act irrationally, but the thought growing in his mind was not one of which any other member of the family would approve.

He had promised never to make any present to Lucy.
He regretted the promise, but did not intend to break it. Still, there would be no breach of honour if he were to help one of her children. The boys, as far as he could tell, were intelligent and healthy; they could look after themselves. Little Grace Hardie, small and vulnerable, was the one at risk.

What would become of her, if she lived? It had seemed easy enough to foretell a future for his daughter and granddaughter when they were in their cradles. They were destined to marry men of good breeding and then, as the wives of aristocrats, to become the mothers of aristocrats. On such sure foundations did the stability of society rest.

Yet both his certainties had crumbled into misfortune. Rachel had died young and Lucy had eloped. Her daughter was a tradesman's daughter, without expectations. If she was to make anything of her life, she would have to do it for herself, and it was hard to imagine how she would set about it in the future. But one thing was certain. If she were to be brought up in Oxford's mists and miasmas, she was unlikely to have any future at all.

‘Get her out of here,' he said abruptly. ‘Out of this swamp of a city. Find yourself a piece of land on a hill. Fast. While she and I are still alive. No need to worry about money. You'll be hearing from my lawyers. Build her a house.'

Four months after the death of the Marquess of Ross, two weeks after Gordon Hardie's return to England and less than an hour after the end of term, Midge Hardie hurried to catch the Oxford train at Paddington. Her pupils would have been startled to see the athletic speed with which she moved, for within the school which she ruled as headmistress, Miss Hardie was regarded with awe.

Whether taking morning assembly, presiding over a staff meeting or pressing her views upon the board of governors, Miss Hardie's appearance when on the school premises was severe. Her petite figure and lack of inches – for she was only just over five feet tall – in no way detracted from her dignity. The dark hair strained off her face was plaited into neat coils; her tightly-fitted jackets and long skirts were invariably black in the winter and grey in the summer, worn with a high-necked white blouse. The girls could not imagine her dressed in any other style; nor could they believe that she had ever been young.

Yet in 1899, six years after being appointed to her present post, Miss Hardie was only thirty-four years old. Each evening, when her day's work was over, the gown into which she changed was likely to be as bright in colour as it was fashionable in style: greens and reds were her favourites, and she never wore black out of school. She accepted invitations to dances as readily as to dinners. When invited to stay with friends, she took her skates or tennis racquet with her, according to the season; and when, in each school holiday, she returned to her old home in Oxford to spend a week with her brother's family, it was
not as a disciplinarian but as the laughing Aunt Midge who was determined to spoil her niece and nephews and to beg for their company on bicycle rides.

Her welcome in the summer of 1899 was as boisterous as ever. All five children were waiting to greet her, for little Grace was as lively as her brothers now, and beginning to chatter. A good deal of hugging and kissing and the distribution of small presents took place before at last Midge turned half apologetically to her sister-in-law.

‘Would Gordon mind, do you think – would
you
mind – if I were to call at the shop? It's been such a long time. Three years. To wait another four hours to see him seems unbearable.'

‘He'll be delighted,' Lucy assured her. ‘Would you like to take the pony cart?'

‘Gracious, no. I'll go by bicycle and be back for tea. It's just to say hello. I shan't expect him to tell me the complete story of his adventures.'

She set off at once on the machine that was stored at Oxford for her and oiled in readiness for each visit. The streets of the university city always made her feel young again. As a twenty-year-old student she had walked this way, along Longwall Street, every Monday morning in term – prepared for a history coaching but dreaming of the young man whom she might, if she were lucky, meet again outside her tutor's door. Archie Yates was Lucy's brother, and often when Midge remembered with shame what had happened in his rooms in Magdalen, she found herself glad that he had refused to speak to his sister since her elopement with Gordon Hardie. The stone walls of the college might remind Midge of those salad days, but she would never have to endure the embarrassment of facing Archie again.

A different encounter awaited her, however, before she could greet her brother. As she turned into the High
Street, kicked a pedal down to steady her bicycle against the kerb and opened the door of The House of Hardie, Will Witney rose to greet her, a grin of pleasure on his freckled face. Will had been in love with her for thirteen years.

‘How well you look!' Midge exclaimed as she shook hands. During Gordon's long absence it was Will, as manager, who had taken charge of the Hardies' family business, and the hard work and responsibility had given him an anxious appearance. But it seemed that his employer's return had restored his cheerful spirits. Beneath a shock of bristly red hair, his face was flushed with good health. He had the strong body of an athlete: only when he moved did his limp betray a leg crushed in boyhood.