The Hardie Inheritance (17 page)

‘Because as well as our London flat we have a large house in the country. I very much prefer country life, and he is glad to be able to join me there for three days a week or more. Besides, I feel that the country is a much healthier place in which to bring up a child.'

‘A child?'

‘My stepdaughter, Patricia. My husband has been married before and she is the daughter of his first marriage – but I love
her as though she were my own. We have an extremely happy family life.'

‘You have, however, no children of your own, I believe, Mrs Faraday.'

This was the moment which Jay had taught her to milk for its greatest effect. But just as she was not acting when she first smiled across the courtroom at Ellis, so also now the tears which came to her eyes were genuine and she had to bite her lip to prevent it from trembling before she spoke.

‘We have no living child, no, but –'

‘Would you raise your head, Mrs Faraday. I don't think the jury can hear you.'

Grace swallowed the lump in her throat and looked straight at the foreman of the jury.

‘We did have a child, the year after we were married. Little Tom. But he died.'

It was ridiculous. She was crying. These were real tears which trickled down her cheeks as she groped hastily in the new handbag for a handkerchief. And yet she had never wanted to be a mother. It seemed that she had acquired the talent which Jay had enjoyed since babyhood – to cross not only the line at which lies or pretences became acting, but a second line, where an acted emotion became real. Pulling herself together, she looked from face to face in the jury box.

‘As you can see, I'm not young any more. It wouldn't be wise … So my husband is all I have, and we love each other very much. He can't possibly be guilty of –'

‘That's all, Mrs Faraday, thank you very much.'

She stepped down from the witness box. Now there was nothing to do but wait.

The waiting seemed interminable. In addition to the prosecuting counsel's final speech, each of the five defending counsel had his say. Then the judge gave his summing up. It was unbearably long, repeating everything which had been argued. But one remark was enough to bring the light of hope back into Grace's eyes.

‘In the case of the defendant Ellis Faraday, who appears to enjoy a happy and settled family life and to be well-regarded in his profession, you may consider, members of the jury, that the reason put forward for his presence on the premises is lacking in good taste, but that does not necessarily mean that you should disbelieve it.'

She could not resist a glance at their own barrister at that point, and was rewarded by an almost imperceptible nod. It was going to be all right. Surely.

‘Not guilty!'

The jury's verdict made Grace feel faint – almost sick – with relief. Outside the courtroom she paced impatiently up and down as she waited for Ellis to thank his lawyers. When he appeared in the corridor at last, she was so happy that she rushed into his arms.

It was a curious moment. Husband and wife they might be, but it was very rare for them even to touch, and even rarer to embrace. As he held her tightly, Grace was amused to think that she had almost talked herself into the gesture by the emotional force with which she had given her less than truthful evidence. It was a happy coincidence that at that very moment one of the jurors in the case emerged from the courtroom. He looked at the couple, hesitated as though about to speak to them, but then smiled and passed on.

Ellis laughed at the incident and then, drawing away, began to thank Grace.

‘You were marvellous. I can't begin to say …'

‘Ssh! Someone might hear. Come on. Let's go home.'

Home was Greystones: but the return was not an easy one, for both relief and excitement had to be as tightly concealed as had been the earlier anxiety. No mention of Ellis's arrest and trial had been made to the other members of the family. So he and Grace waited until they were alone, late in the evening, before discussing the case further. Once again Ellis expressed his gratitude.

‘All the same,' he began; and then stopped, shaking his head.

‘All the same what?'

‘No. It's no good. How can I ask another favour of you, a huge favour, when I'm so much in your debt already?'

‘No harm in asking.' Grace poured another glass of Philip's home-made apple and raisin wine, which they had chosen for their celebration.

‘I can't stay in England.'

This was not what she had expected. ‘Why not?'

‘Too many people know the truth. The police, to start with. They failed to prove their case this time, but that will make them all the keener to pin something on me in the future. They'll be watching – and I'm not likely to be given the benefit of the doubt twice. There'll be no shortage of people willing to inform on me. The whispering's begun already. Someone in the gallery who knows that Grace Hardie is Grace Faraday has started to spread gossip. No one will dare print it so soon after the case, because my acquittal means I could sue them for libel. But –'

‘I'm not ashamed –' said Grace heatedly.

‘But I am. I'm not having you involved. That really is only part of it, though. I can't face the thought of being continually under observation, and I can't change my way of life either. That means that I've got to live abroad. And you see –'

There was a long silence while he forced himself to continue.

‘I don't like to say it. I know how much it must hurt you. But I still love Alan. I don't blame him for running. It made it easier for me, in fact. But the thought that I might never see him again …'

‘Where did he go?'

‘To Spain. He's gone to fight for the Republic. A lot of our friends are in the International Brigade already.'

‘Ellis, you're not going to fight!'

‘No. I haven't any military skills to offer. I've been invited to go out as a war photographer. It's an offer which might have tempted me in any case. I've come to realize how undemanding it is to photograph débutantes all day. Or Oxford graduates.
All the time now, as I move around, I can see pictures to be created on film. It must be the same with you, getting ideas for carvings.'

‘That doesn't send me off to the middle of a civil war, though. So you're expecting to meet Alan again in the middle of a battle, are you?'

‘I can't count on that, but I can find out which front he's on and try to get there. Besides, I'm going to need the money. The judge didn't allow me costs, so I've got all the lawyers' fees to pay. The paper has offered part of my salary in advance. And my life will be insured. If anything happens, Trish will be all right.'

‘I was wondering when you were going to mention Trish.'

‘Well, that's the thing, isn't it? The favour that I hardly dare to ask. She's so happy here, Grace. She loves you all, and the house, and her school. I know you've got no obligation towards her. But if you would let her stay … Well, you'd have come to my rescue twice. I'd never be able to thank you enough.'

It was Grace's turn to be silent, and she made a face as she stood up. This was not how she had expected the day to end.

‘I'll sleep on it,' she said. ‘If anything did happen to you, Ellis, the insurance might pay bills, but it would mean that she would be here, without you, until she grows up. I need to think whether that would be right for her as well as for us.'

‘It would happen anyway, if you took her on. You can't think of it as a contingency which would arise only on my death. I can't see myself ever returning to live in England. Not unless the law is changed, and that doesn't seem likely.'

‘But if you made a settled home abroad …'

‘Until now she's been only a child. Not realizing. But I couldn't let her spend her adolescence in a household consisting of two men. One way or another I shall have to make an arrangement for her. This would be the perfect one, because you're her stepmother and she already thinks of Greystones as her home. There would be a reason – a good professional
reason – for me to go away, and an equally good reason for her to stay here. I'd come back to see her, of course, as often as possible. She'd never need to doubt that I loved her. Whereas if she has to start again somewhere she's bound to wonder.'

‘So really you're asking me to adopt her? At the same moment that you desert the two of us.'

‘Oh God!' said Ellis. ‘I'm sorry, Grace. What am I thinking of? Forget I mentioned it. It's too much, I see that now.'

‘It may not be too much at all. I only want to get it absolutely clear. There'd be no point in my agreeing to a fifty per cent solution and only realizing later that you wanted a hundred per cent. I'll tell you in the morning.'

At the moment of making that remark she feared that she might be condemning herself to a sleepless night, but the decision proved to be a quick and easy one. If Tom had lived, Ellis would have been at her side during these past three years, helping her to come to terms with the baby's limitations. Now he was offering her, as a gift, a different kind of motherhood. Trish, lively and intelligent, was everything that Tom could never have been.

More pertinent still was the fact that they were mother and daughter already. It was in large part due to Mrs Hardie that the little girl had so quickly found her place in the family, but Grace too took her for granted there. If she were to leave, there would be a gap. Had Grace been asked a day earlier what her relationship was with Trish, she would have said that they were good friends. But in court that day she had claimed to love her stepdaughter, and now realized that the claim was true. Ellis was only asking her to recognize a situation which already existed. And Greystones needed a new generation growing up in it if it was to remain a living home.

That was settled, then. But there was still another matter to be considered.

David had kept his part of their bargain. It was time for her to make a will. The temptation was very strong to bequeath Greystones to Trish. How furious that would make her brother!

Well, that would not be fair. Yet she was certainly not going to appoint David himself, or one of his children, as her heir. He had claimed to be worried about the position of their mother and Philip if his sister were to die early. She could deal with that by leaving Greystones to them. Accidents apart, they were not likely to outlive her, but they would be safe if they did. And then she could make another will later on.

With a sigh of satisfaction she fell asleep. Over breakfast she told Ellis that she would be happy to bring up his daughter, and to adopt her legally if he thought that necessary. And in the afternoon she went down the hill to Oxford and instructed a lawyer to draw up a will.

‘I wish, I wish, I wish, and what I wish three times comes true.'

Trish looked challengingly across the breakfast table. Her father, home on holiday, responded as she expected. ‘What do you wish?'

‘I wish I could go to boarding school.'

‘What makes you think you'd enjoy that, for heaven's sake?'

‘The
Magnet
!' explained Grace, laughing. ‘What she really wants is to go to Greyfriars with Bob Cherry and Harry Wharton and Billy Bunter.'

‘Well, I know it would be girls, but –'

‘A school is still a school,' said her father. ‘Latin and French and arithmetic.'

‘That would be only part of the day. They play games half the time, and there are midnight feasts and pillow fights and all that sort of thing.'

‘What a lot literature has to answer for!'

Grace shook her head in pretended distress. ‘She just wants to get away from me, that's all. She'll be telling you next what a terrible life she has with her harsh stepmother.'

‘Grace, you know it's not like that at all.' Trish had been invited from the start to call Grace and Philip by their Christian names, but had only recently begun to do so. Aged thirteen, she was battling to be recognized as an adult. ‘Think how much more I'd appreciate living at Greystones with you if I only came home for the holidays.'

‘Have you any idea how much it would cost to send you to boarding school?' asked Ellis. ‘Not just the fees, but the uniform and all the special kit you'd need for those games you were
talking about. If only that bomb in Barcelona had fallen a little bit closer to me you'd have come into all the insurance money and could be doing anything you wanted. I'd better go out and find another war.'

It was the wrong thing to say when war was so near – and would affect them all so much more directly. Trish knew that he had just signed a new contract with the newspaper which had sent him out to Spain. Already he had set to work photographing air raid precaution drills, the digging of trenches in Hyde Park and the sandbagging of government buildings. It was not likely to be long before British soldiers were in France; and Ellis with them. Both the adults fell silent and Trish flung herself into her father's arms.

‘You know I wouldn't want … You're not to go away again.'

‘I must, I'm afraid. But at least we'll have had our holiday.'

Since the ending of the war in Spain Ellis had been making a living as a roving press photographer based in France. His war photographs – especially those of the air raid in which he had been wounded – had caused such a stir that the paper had kept him on its foreign staff, paying a generous retainer with bonuses for whatever material he sent back to London. Between assignments he returned to Greystones for at least a week in the Christmas and Easter school holidays. In the summer holiday he spent longer in England, taking his daughter away for a fortnight, just the two of them. They had returned the previous day from a camping expedition in Wales.