The Decision (56 page)

‘Mr Fullerton-Clark, Mrs Shaw, how delightful to see you here. Do follow me to the boardroom. May I offer you some refreshment? Tea, perhaps?’

‘Tea would be nice. Is our mother here?’

‘No, not yet. She has been delayed.’

‘What! Oh, really. This is too bad. How much delayed?’

‘Only about fifteen minutes. My assistant, Mr Fleming, has prepared some notes for the meeting. I will ask him to bring them in so that we can go through them before your mother joins us.’

They were shown into the boardroom, dark, book-lined, heavily furnished, with green-shaded brass lamps hanging over the table. In front of each place was a folder, with a picture of Summercourt on the front – ‘this is going to be worse than I imagined,’ Eliza thought – and ‘Family Trust, entailing Summercourt, Wellesley, Wiltshire’ written underneath it.

She started to flip through it. The first page outlined its history, its planning, construction, its lands and properties (and the sale of most of them) down to the rather stark details of the present day.

‘Summercourt is presently occupied by the Hon. Mrs Sarah Fullerton-Clark, Mr Adrian Fullerton-Clark having died a few months previously. It is entailed to a discretionary trust, set up by Mrs Fullerton-Clark’s father, Sir Charles Cunninghame.’

‘I have the deeds here, if you would like to see them,’ said Digby Ward, and ‘Yes please,’ said Eliza and Charles in unison. And the lovely things were produced, great pages of waxy parchment, with exquisite cursive writing in thick black ink, covered in great red seals, the complex language made further inexplicable by the script, but still certain words and phrases were familiar … ‘Summercourt, situate in the parish of Wellesley in the county of Wiltshire … large house … freehold … two hundred acres … with pasture … stables … orangery … woodland … two tenant cottages …’

There was the trust document too, the Instrument, astonishingly still laboriously written out by hand in 1936, detailing the strictures of the trust, putting it into the ownership of the trustees, while forbidding them ‘to raise security on the house by way of mortgage,’ and Sarah’s absolute Power of Appointment, ‘lasting in accordance with the royal lives clause’.

‘What does that mean?’ said Charles.

‘Ah,’ said Digby Ward, ‘it means that the period of the trust would end on the death of the last living descendant of the monarch of the time the trust was settled, plus a period of twenty-one years after that. King George V was on the throne when your grandfather entailed the property; as our dear Queen is still so young, you will appreciate there are many years for the trust still to hold.’

‘Well – yes,’ said Eliza. She was looking at the signatures on the document, ‘Charles Cunninghame Bt’, ‘Sarah Fullerton-Clark’, sundry witnesses from the bank, ‘signed sealed and delivered’. It all seemed so archaic, so disconnected with the reality of today and its problems; and she thought of the passion that had engendered it, her grandfather’s patent mistrust of her father, and wondered about the occasion of the signing, whether her mother had been willing or wretched, agreeable or anxious as she scrawled her rather schoolgirlish new signature, and whether she could have imagined for a moment what difficulties it could lead them all into.

‘So, you haven’t found a way we can actually sell the house?’ said Charles. ‘No way of going against these terms?’

‘Sadly not. I thought you realised that.’

‘I did. But I also thought we had come here to find a solution. To keep Summercourt from becoming derelict and ultimately a ruin. Which it undoubtedly will unless something can be done.’

Eliza winced; it was like hearing a beloved person diagnosed with a terminal illness.

‘Of course. And it is extremely difficult to see what can be done. The house is too small to be opened to the public in order to raise money, in too much disrepair to let – and even that would be against the terms of the trust, of course, were the tenants not to be known to and approved of by your mother.’

‘Well, all right,’ said Charles, ‘is there really no way we can at least raise a mortgage so that my mother can do some work on the house?’

‘Sadly not. I confess to feeling a certain responsibility in that it is this firm who drew up the terms of the trust. Had I been a partner at the time, I would have pointed out the shortcomings.’

‘There’s nothing to be gained by going down that road,’ said Charles, shortly. ‘And – what you’re saying really is that this is stalemate. We have nowhere to turn.’

‘That would certainly have appeared to be the case,’ said Digby Ward.

Eliza looked at him sharply. ‘Would have?’

‘Indeed.’

‘So you have found a solution? Is that what you’re telling us?’

‘It’s possible. As of today, as a matter of fact.’

‘Well – what is it?’ Her voice sounded suddenly silly and squeaky, even to herself.

‘A – person has come forward. With the necessary funding available—’

‘What sort of person?’ said Charles. ‘Acceptable within the terms of the trust?’

‘The person could be made so. It’s rather complicated.’

‘I don’t understand. Did my mother know about this, and if so why—’

‘Not until today. Ah, Mrs Barton – is Mrs Fullerton-Clark here? Yes, excuse me, please, just for a moment. I must go and greet your mother.’

He went out, closing the door behind him.

‘What on earth is going on?’ said Eliza staring at Charles. ‘Oh, God. I’m scared. Mummy could have warned us, she must have known something was up.’

The door opened again, and Digby Ward came in.

‘Your mother won’t be long,’ he said. ‘Now there is something that I must warn you about, before we go any further. I am asked to tell you that this solution could – I only say could – result in some things being done to the house that you might not find acceptable.’

‘What sort of things?’ Eliza spoke slowly; something was stirring in the very back of her mind, something unsuspected, something quite unthinkable.

‘Well – there is talk of – er, modern windows being installed. And possibly even a – let me see.’ He consulted his notes. A very discerning observer would have noticed his lips coming close to twitching. ‘Sky-blue pink paint on the front door—’

‘I suppose we don’t have any right to—’ began Charles.

‘Oh. My. God,’ said Eliza, and she was smiling now. ‘The bastard! The bastard! Charles, you know who it is, don’t you? It’s Matt!’

Matt it was indeed; and he came in with Sarah, grinning, looking even slightly sheepish; and Sarah was flushed, half-laughing, while at the same time clearly embarrassed to be confronting her children with something so totally unexpected.

‘The thing is, darlings, I knew nothing of this until yesterday afternoon. Matt called me and asked me if I could meet him here early today—’

‘You bastard!’ said Eliza. ‘Straight after telling me to look at horrible mansions in Surrey.’

‘If this hadn’t worked,’ said Matt, ‘that would have been an alternative.’

‘Not to me it wouldn’t! It was mean and hateful and – and cruel and—’

‘Eliza!’ said Sarah. ‘Matt has been the opposite of mean, I do assure you.’

And he had.

Sarah had agreed to appoint the house out to Eliza, thus terminating the trust. What had made this financially viable as a solution was that Matt had paid Sarah ‘something called an inducement, it sounds a bit dodgy doesn’t it, but it’s a legal loophole, anyway, it’s very, very generous’ of twenty thousand pounds – Summercourt’s market value given its appalling condition.

‘This would enable your mother to buy herself a smaller, more suitable property,’ said Digby Ward, ‘and then Mr Shaw has also agreed to provide the wherewithal to do the house up, make the necessary repairs—’

‘And install modern windows,’ said Matt with a grin.

‘That will of course be impossible, Summercourt being Grade 1 listed,’ said Digby Ward. ‘I do hope you will forgive that little joke, Mrs Shaw.’

‘I forgive you,’ said Eliza, ‘not my husband.’

‘My lawyers are drawing up a deed of gift of a half share right this minute,’ said Matt. ‘Now, something else I’d like to say: bit hard on you, Charles, all this, and I’m sorry. But – you’ve said often enough, you didn’t want it, couldn’t cope with the expense, and at least it’ll be in the family.’

‘No, no, that’s true,’ said Charles, ‘and oddly, I don’t see it as hard. I see it as a marvellous solution. If it was going to someone outside the family, I would mind very much, but as it is – well, I think it’s fine. I really mean that,’ he said, smiling gently at his mother. ‘I’m not just being noble. I really do feel that.’

‘Yes, but Charles dear, if – when you get married again, you might have a son,’ said Sarah anxiously. ‘You might feel rather differently.’

‘Well, if I do, that will be my problem,’ said Charles, ‘and I shall try to deal with it graciously.’

‘Charles, as far as I’m concerned,’ said Eliza, ‘Summercourt will still be home to you as well as me. And I’m sure Matt would say the same.’

‘I would. Of course. And – Sarah – you don’t have to move out. You can stay there, long as you like. We’re hardly going to be living there full time. I’m sure I speak for Eliza as well, don’t I, Eliza?’

Eliza nodded; she felt very emotional suddenly. She got up, went round the table and, careless of any embarrassment she might cause, put her arms round Matt and kissed him.

‘I love you,’ she said, ‘and thank you. And you’re not that mean and hateful. Not really.’

And so it was that on one particularly lovely August evening that year, the new owner of Summercourt – for that was how he regarded himself – drove down to view it, with his wife and daughter, there to meet his mother-in-law who had arranged a picnic supper in the orangery, always his favourite part of the house.

A bottle of champagne sat in an ice-bucket on the picnic table; Sarah asked Matt to open it and then went very pink.

‘I have something to say Matt,’ she said, raising her glass to him, ‘and that is that I feel extremely fortunate at the turn of events, of course, but I also feel extremely ashamed of myself over my behaviour when Eliza first brought you to meet Adrian and me. You’re the best son-in-law I could have wished for and I’m only sorry I couldn’t see it then.’

She had obviously been rehearsing this little speech and when it was over she started to cry; Matt told her not to be so silly and that he wouldn’t have thought much of himself as a prospect for his daughter. ‘If I’d come asking to marry Emmie, I wouldn’t have given myself the time of day.’

‘Well,’ Sarah said, ‘if there’s anything I can do, to show my gratitude …’

Matt told her not to worry about it, but after supper when Emmie sat sleepily sucking her thumb demanding stories, he said yes, now here was a thing, if Sarah really wanted to show her gratitude, she could put Emmie to bed so that he and Eliza could be alone together for a while.

Sarah led Emmie off towards the house, and Matt turned to Eliza in the dusk of the conservatory evening and said, ‘I love you Eliza,’ adding that he couldn’t recall them having had a row, whereupon Eliza said she couldn’t either, and she loved him too, and maybe they could reverse the usual order of things …

‘You mean – you want to – do it now?’

‘I do. I want it more than more than.’

‘What – here?’

‘Here.’

‘And then, since we’re doing everything the wrong way round, do we have to have a row?’

‘We can if you like,’ said Eliza, ‘but it’s not compulsory.’

‘Oh, God,’ he said, and he reached out and took her hand, and kissed it and then pulled her towards him, the intense expression on his face that he only wore on such occasions, ‘Oh, God,’ and then, ‘the floor’s a bit hard. Won’t you mind?’

‘I might,’ she said, ‘but it’ll be worth it. Don’t you think?’

‘I can’t think,’ he said, ‘I can’t think about anything. Get your knickers off, Eliza. Quick.’

It was not the most romantic of phrases, but then romantic phrases had always irritated her.

In the house, sitting by the open window of her bedroom, Sarah heard some wild, strange cries coming from the direction of the conservatory and hoped they hadn’t shut some poor creature inside it, and resolved to send them back to check when they came in. But they were a long time, wandering the grounds, she supposed; and by the time she did hear them on the stairs she was too sleepy to care.

There is no such thing as overnight success. Success takes years, sometimes decades, of planning, foresight and investment. It demands huge courage, a steady nerve, a hard head and massive reserves of determination. It allows no room whatsoever for self-doubt and it is also based to a degree on luck.

There is, however, once or perhaps twice in a lifetime a congruence of opportunity, good fortune, experience and skill that provides a sudden and increased impetus, thrusting players into a new and higher gear, and a kind of Midas touch moves into play.

This happened to Matt Shaw with the take-up of the first two office parks and the development of a third; he was making a great deal of money – although no one knew quite how much, not even Eliza. But he was dealing in large developments rather than single buildings, he was revered and admired, written about and photographed, his methods studied and analysed, his personal history trawled for clues. And he was the perfect subject, still a year shy of his thirtieth birthday, working-class and good-looking; even quite famously now, the owner of a beautiful country house. Journalists couldn’t get enough of him.