The Hardie Inheritance (35 page)

Trish, aghast, turned her head to look at him and saw that he was near to tears.

‘I thought, when you said he was back in England –' she began.

‘Yes, we all hoped that since he'd managed to survive so far, proper treatment would pull him through. But – those bastards, Patricia! You've read about what went on in the camps on the Burma-Siarn railway.'

Trish nodded. Like everyone else she knew how many prisoners of war had died while in Japanese custody and had seen pictures of the walking skeletons who had been rescued at the end of the war.

‘If it had only been starvation, malnutrition, he might have been pulled through. But – we've had a visit from one of his fellow-officers. In pretty bad shape himself, but coming round. He told us that when the Japs discovered Miles had a title, they went out of their way to humiliate him even more than the others. More beatings, worse duties. At his last camp he had to clean out the latrines. Almost everyone had a bug of some kind. He picked up all of them, on top of the vitamin deficiency that he already had on his own account. His whole system's destroyed. The doctors say that it's his liver that's going to kill him, but if it doesn't, something else will.'

‘Oh, Rupert! Is he still in hospital?'

‘We had him brought home three days ago. He told the doctors that he wanted to die at Castlemere. He knows, of
course. I think he's known all the time. He just kept himself alive by willpower so that he could see his home once more. There was nothing more the hospital could have done for him except keep him comfortable. We've got a team of three nurses. They think he might just make Christmas.'

‘I'm so sorry. Oh, darling, I'm so sorry.'

It was the first time she had used the endearment, and Rupert responded to it by taking her in his arms. She hugged him tightly, kissing his cheek, and felt his body shuddering with the need for comfort.

Only afterwards, as they returned silently to the car, did one consequence of what she had just learned occur to Trish. With his elder brother dead, Rupert would inherit the title and the estate. His wife would be the Marchioness of Ross.

Rupert's social life when Parliament was sitting was at the mercy of the Whips, but during the ten weeks of Trish's college term he had spent several evenings with her. Twice he had taken her to the theatre and once as his partner to a private dance. For her part, Trish had invited him to a dinner cooked by herself and her flatmate for half a dozen of their friends, and had also persuaded him to come to her college's end-of-term dance. On all these occasions they had been in other people's company, of course, and Rupert had seemed amusedly aware that he was assumed to be Trish's boyfriend, going out of his way to act the part. Trish herself, joining light-heartedly in the flirtation, had hoped that it was only the act which was being acted.

He had never spoken of marriage. Nor, indeed, had he ever attempted to engineer a private session in which he could tell her that he loved her. So she had been careful to keep any such thoughts out of her own mind. Only now, realizing that his whole future was about to change, was she tempted to wonder what her own part in it might be and to ask herself whether – if she were to be asked – she would want a title to be a marchioness.

The very idea seemed ridiculous; and yet in practice it might
be far from funny. Would she enjoy living in a house which resembled a museum? A marchioness would be expected to live in a particular style. She would have to behave and perhaps even to dress in a particular manner. To judge by Rupert's mother – who would most certainly disapprove of Trish's lack of pedigree if asked to consider her as a daughter-in-law rather than a remote and only adopted cousin – those particular manners would not be at all to Trish's own taste. And Rupert as a marquess might prove to be a completely different kind of person: serious and backward-looking.

Grace had given her a warning about just this sort of thing. Trish had promised to consider it seriously – and indeed, she was considering it seriously at this moment. Or rather, she was trying to; but in fact she could think of nothing but Rupert's closeness in the car and how much she loved him. If two people loved each other then everything else, surely, would come right. In a surrender of common sense she put a hand on his thigh and was rewarded by the smile with which he acknowledged her sympathy.

Happy again after the moment of doubt, she looked down as they drove across the bridge and exclaimed in surprise, ‘The moat!' The great house was once again surrounded by water.

‘Yes. The work was so urgent that we had to get it done first and wonder how to pay for it afterwards. And Julia's family chipped in. She has a nice old-fashioned father who believes in dowries and wedding settlements and had the generosity to recognize that he who pays quickly pays twice. I'll show you the other thing we've managed.' He parked the car and led the way into the house, taking her straight to the drawing room.

Everything was back in place: carpets, curtains, furniture and pictures. Anyone who looked hard enough could see the shabbiness of scuffed floors, worn paint on the window shutters and frames, a grey tinge to the plastered and painted ceiling. Nevertheless, the first impression was a splendid one, as though the war had never happened.

‘Squalor all round, but it cheers the heart to have made just one gesture,' Rupert told her. ‘Well, two, actually. We rushed to get this ready for Miles to see, and we also prepared one of the state bedrooms. Tester bed, magnificent draperies, all terribly grand. To give old Miles a proper send-off. But what he wanted, it turned out, was the room he had as a boy. Hasn't had a coat of paint for ten years, but he doesn't seem to mind. Matter of fact, I don't think he's seeing too well. Julia's up with him at the moment. She'll join us for our luncheon after he's had his. He sleeps most of the afternoon.'

Trish did her best to conceal her disappointment that she and Rupert would not be spending the day alone. ‘Are we going to go round the house again?'

‘Yes, if you're still interested. We've been writing down a few ideas for getting everything back to rights. Not that we shall be able to start for years. If – no, I must learn to say when – Miles dies, we shall be faced with a second lot of death duties within six years. It doesn't bear thinking about. I've got a lawyer looking into it already. I mean, it seems to me that he's as good as been killed on active service. But I don't know what will happen.'

‘You could charge people to look round the house,' suggested Trish.

‘What!' Rupert made no attempt to disguise his horror.

‘Well, look at this room. It's as good as any picture gallery or museum of furniture – better, in fact, because everything belongs here. If you're going to put back all the rooms as they were before and as they've been for hundreds of years, I'm sure people would love to look round.'

‘Well, I wouldn't love to let them. Just remember that day I came over to Greystones! Hundreds of people milling around! No privacy. And it would be a hundred times worse inside the house. Besides, to charge money –! Our housekeeper was always allowed to show visitors round when we were away and I think she made quite a nice extra income from the tips they gave her; but I hope we haven't sunk that low yet.'

‘The other thing would be to invite some sort of organization to share the building with you. Something more appropriate than a school. I mean, one of the girls in my form at school went off to do something called a Brides' Class. Learning to cook and arrange flowers and appreciate art and make curtains, all in a terribly high-class way. Just think what people would pay if they could do that sort of thing in surroundings like this. And then half the house would be kept warm and –'

‘Steady, steady.' Rupert, laughing, took her arm and led her out of the drawing room. ‘I should have remembered, you're the girl who's always bursting with outrageous new ideas.'

‘Not so outrageous.' It seemed to Trish a very practical suggestion.

‘Well, we'll ask Julia over lunch what she thinks.'

‘Is Julia going to marry Miles before – before –?'

‘No. That's something they've talked out between them. He says he wants to wait till he can walk to his wedding. He knows it won't happen, but he's putting on an act.'

‘It must be an awful time for her.'

‘Yes. She's been marvellous. Not just to Miles, but to Mother as well. You can imagine …'

‘But if –' Trish hesitated, not sure how to phrase her query.

‘If what –?'

‘If she's not going to come and live here after all, I'm surprised that her parents should have put in the money for the moat. And I wouldn't even have thought that she'd want to be involved in restoring rooms that weren't ever going to be hers.'

It was Rupert's turn to hesitate briefly, as though he were not sure how to explain.

‘Well, she's having to act a part in a way. I think I told you, when she first heard that Miles was still alive, she wasn't going to hold him to his engagement if he wanted to be free. But as soon as she saw him, she realized how important it was that
he should be able to rely on her. It wasn't clear straightaway that he wasn't going to make it. She wanted to give him hundred per cent support. I suppose you could call the money a gesture to assure Miles that he was going to pull through and get married.'

Trish frowned slightly to herself. This hardly seemed to square with Miles's acceptance of his approaching death. ‘Even so –' she began, but was interrupted by the arrival of the subject of their conversation.

‘Ah, Julia. You remember Patricia.'

‘Of course. You survived that open day, then.' The frown of strain on Julia's face was smoothed by her smile. Neatly dressed in blouse and skirt, she brought with her an aura of businesslike calm. Trish found it easy to imagine her as the ATS officer she had been for the past five years: giving orders, in control of a situation.

Trish herself felt far from under control. Everything about the conversation throughout luncheon and during the afternoon seemed to leave her as an outsider. When she foolishly mentioned Egypt, the bout of reminiscence which followed was a reminder that Julia and Rupert had met there and – it appeared – had together travelled to visit the antiquities of the Upper Nile during weekend leaves. When politics came into the conversation it became clear that Julia had not only helped Rupert to canvass but was now assisting him to prepare a subject for his maiden speech. They had friends in common. They rode with the same hunt. Trish tried to persuade herself that Rupert was talking in this way merely to give moral support to someone who was living through a difficult time, but with each moment that passed she could feel a kind of panic in her throat rising to choke her.

They walked round the house together. Julia could identify all the family portraits in the long gallery. Julia was as shocked as Rupert had been by the damage and shabbiness resulting from the school's occupation and had clear ideas of how each room should be restored. Why didn't Rupert stop her? Why
didn't he point out that there was no need to keep up the act while Miles was not present to see it? Trish looked at him appealingly and saw that he had eyes only for Julia.

Self-respect told Trish that she must leave as soon as was decently possible, without allowing any hint of her feelings to show, but both her pride and her strength failed her. It came as a last straw when, after Julia had disappeared to see whether Miles was awake, Rupert announced that they were to take tea with his mother. So he was not prepared to be alone with her for even this short time.

‘Tell me first,' said Trish. ‘Are you and Julia –?'

She was unable to finish the question, because even to complete the thought was unbearable. She was asking only in order that she might see Rupert grin in the old, carefree way before taking her into his arms and saying that of course it would never be anything but him and Trish. But instead his mouth moved in an odd way, as though he was trying to control an unsuitable smile.

‘That's not a question to be put or answered in the circumstances,' he said.

‘You're going to marry her. As soon as your brother's dead, you're going to marry her!'

‘Patricia, you mustn't –'

‘I'm not Patricia!' she exclaimed furiously. ‘Patricia is the name you gave to a little girl when you pretended that she was a grown-up lady. But only pretended. Patricia has always been a child in your eyes, hasn't she? Well, I'm Trish. I've always been Trish. And Trish has grown up and is not prepared to be patronized any longer.'

‘I've never patronized you. We've always been good friends, however old you were and – oh, my God!'

He stared at her in dismay as he understood what she had given away, and she felt herself beginning to flush. Not a slight, pretty blush of faint embarrassment, but an angry red flush which burned her cheeks and spread round her neck. Furious with herself for revealing her feelings in the first place
and confirming them by this uncontrollable reaction, she turned away from him.

‘I can't stay for tea,' she said. ‘I have to get back to Greystones. Could someone ring for a taxi?'

The snow which had made Castlemere beautiful brought an appearance of desolation to the Oxfordshire countryside. On the previous occasion when Trish had made this railway journey back to Oxford the sun was shining and she had sung aloud for happiness; but today the unheated train was chilling and there was winter in her heart.

If only she had kept her stupid mouth shut! What was the point of asking Rupert about Julia when she was already sure what the answer would be? All she had needed to do was to keep quiet, and Rupert would never have known how she felt.

Was it really that which was hurting, she asked herself severely – not the fact that she had lost Rupert, but the humiliation of allowing him to discover that she had wanted him? No; it was not as simple as that. The loss and the shame were equally unbearable, and to them must be added anger with herself for so hopelessly misunderstanding his feelings.