The Hardie Inheritance (19 page)

‘Is that Miss Grace Hardie?'

‘Yes, speaking.'

‘You won't know my name, Miss Hardie. Lawrence Ley. But –'

‘Oh yes, I do remember it. You bought one of my carvings from the 1936 show.' Ellis had been meticulous in keeping a register of purchasers, so that if he or anyone else decided at a later date to make a photographic record of all Grace's works in their new homes, they could be easily traced.

‘That's right. The Second Pregnant Woman, it was called.'

‘It's my husband who gives the work titles, for the sake of the catalogues. I just carve what I'm feeling without intending to represent anything. I hope you've been happy with it.'

‘Absolutely delighted. And so are all my mothers.' It was a curious phrase, until she remembered that Dr Ley was an obstetrician. ‘It's become a kind of superstition with them. I only found out recently. They stroke the statue when they first arrive at the clinic, and then everything will go smoothly.'

Grace laughed at the thought. She was aware of the billeting officer looking at her watch, but saw no reason to cut a pleasant conversation short for the sake of a less enjoyable one.

‘I'll come straight to the point, Miss Hardie. I'm just about to open another clinic. In the country, so that the mothers can have their babies in complete safety and calm. I was wondering whether to move the statue. And then the thought suddenly occurred to me. If mine is called Second Pregnant
Woman, does that mean that somewhere there's a First Pregnant Woman, and if so, might it be for sale?'

‘Give me a second to think about that question.'

It was a painful thought. Out in the grounds at this moment was a large stone figure which Grace had carved when she herself was pregnant. Although she had intended it to convey only her feeling of being swollen, heavy and lethargic, it had proved, unusually in her work, to be a representation of a human figure; a woman expecting a baby. As she first of all smoothed its curves with her tools and then ran her hands over the surface, she had used it – successfully – to come to terms with her impending but originally unwelcome motherhood.

So baby Tom had been born into love, as he deserved. But after his death she had banished from her sight the carving which would remind her only that the pregnancy had been a period of wasted time, to be forgotten as soon as possible.

Later, as a different kind of therapy, she had used the same shape as a starting point for a carving which produced a completely different effect. While paring down the heaviness of the body, she had also cut out of it a hole in the shape of a foetus. It was possible to look right through the hole when standing at the side of the statue, and the effect was to give this version a positive, tense strength which had been absent from the original. This was the version now owned by Dr Ley. Looking at the two carvings side by side when the exhibition was being planned, she had decided that no one would ever want to buy the first. But it still held unhappy memories for her: she would be glad if it were to go.

‘The answer to both your questions is Yes,' she said. ‘Considered as a work of art, the First Pregnant Woman isn't as good as the Second, in my opinion. But for your particular purpose, it might actually be better. It's not in showroom condition, I ought to say. It's been out in the open for five or six years, so of course it's weathered.'

‘All the better. An instant antique. May I come and look at it?'

‘Yes, of course. I wonder whether you'd be kind enough to telephone me again in a few days' time to make an appointment. I have someone with me at the moment, and I'm just about to go out to help my husband with a commission; altogether things are a little unsettled.'

‘Of course. I'll be in touch, then. Thank you very much.'

For a moment after she had put down the telephone Grace did not move. Suppose she were to sell three large pieces each year, instead of holding them back in preparation for another one-woman show. Would that cover the cost of sending Trish to boarding school? But how would it be possible to get on with her work if there were strange children to be looked after?

It was time to return her attention to Miss Hoare.

‘I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. But you must understand – that call was an example of it – that I have my own occupation. I don't suppose that's true of many of the married women you call on. Seeing a big house like this, you probably think that its owner spends her time picking roses or doing embroidery. Well, that's not true here. I work for at least six hours a day. That means six hours in which I can't be disturbed. And as well as that there are the hens and animals and the vegetable garden and the house to be looked after.'

There was a second interruption as Trish opened the door and waited politely until both heads turned towards her.

‘Rupert and I are ready to leave now,' she said. ‘Grandmother's not coming. Shall we wait for you?'

Although the billeting officer could not have realized it, this second interruption worked to her advantage. Rupert, that most unmilitary young man, was reconciled to becoming a soldier. How selfish it was, Grace told herself now, even to hesitate when her own duty was put before her so clearly. And at least she would be able to continue living in her own home. Rupert would have to endure the thought of Castlemere being desecrated in his absence.

‘No. I'll follow on with Ellis,' she said. For a moment after
Trish had left she remained silent. Then, sighing, she made up her mind.

‘All right, then, Miss Hoare. I'll take two children as long as they're of an age to look after themselves. They must be over eleven. I don't know where they'll go to school but it's bound to be a long walk from here, and no one in the household will be free to take them every day. Besides, I don't know anything about bringing up young children.'

‘Your daughter must have been young once.'

‘She's my stepdaughter. I had nothing to do with her in her infancy. I can only accept older children.'

‘I'm afraid I can't promise that. It's an elementary school that's been allocated to this area. We've found classroom premises for them in Headington Quarry.' The billeting officer considered for a moment. ‘Would you be prepared to take a mother as well, Mrs Faraday? Most people don't fancy the idea of having a stranger in their kitchen, and in a small house that's understandable. But in a place like this, you could probably make arrangements for them to have their own cooking facilities. It would mean a woman with a small child, and probably two other older children as well. But although there'd be more of them, they'd probably keep out of your way better.'

‘I'll think about it.'

‘Let me know then.' The woman stood up. ‘For the moment I'll put you down for two, as old as possible.' For the first time in the interview, she smiled. ‘I know I'm not the most popular visitor in the county at the moment, Mrs Faraday. But just imagine … The London docks are bound to be a target when the war starts, and not every bomb will hit the bull's-eye. Just imagine the effect if one demolishes a school in the East End, or a street in which children play. We have to get them away. And although you may feel it's going to be an upheaval for you, think how it will seem to the children! They won't understand why they're being taken away from their mothers and brought to a strange place. I can only make the
arrangements. We have to rely on people like you to provide a genuine welcome.'

It seemed ironic to Grace, who had decided twenty years earlier that she did not want to have children of her own, that at the age of forty-two she should now be expected to love someone else's. But she had managed it with Trish; and all her doubts were selfish ones. Greystones, she reminded herself, had been designed as a family house, the home of six children. She could not reasonably argue that it was unsuitable. In the next few days there was bound to be a good deal of talk about patriotic duty and this, without doubt, was hers. As they shook hands in parting, she managed to smile back.

‘I'll do my best,' she promised.

‘Grace! Grace, where are you? It's time we went.'

It was half past two on Friday, 1 September 1939, and all hostesses had been requested to collect their evacuees from the village hall before three o'clock. Trish had harnessed Brown Bess to the pony cart in case the family allotted to them had too much luggage to carry. But Grace, who was supposed to join her outside the stable yard, had not appeared.

Perhaps she had gone to her studio, meaning to do only some small job but quickly becoming absorbed and oblivious of the passage of time: that was something which frequently happened. Trish went inside the house and began to search it, calling her stepmother's name as she opened each door. Only after the third summons did Grace come running down the stairs, her face creased with worry.

‘Hush, dear. Don't shout. Philip's not well.'

‘Oh, sorry. I didn't know. What's wrong?'

‘That stupid man who came this morning. Making us all put our gas masks on to show that we knew how to do it! Just the sight of the mask is enough to remind Philip of that awful day … I found it claustrophobic enough myself. And trying to breathe through it with lungs as badly damaged as his … He's collapsed in his bedroom and I can't get him to open his eyes. It frightens me, to see him so upset and struggling for breath. I've sent for the doctor. You'd better go down to the hall, Trish, so that they know we haven't simply forgotten. But explain that it's impossible … An invalid in the house … I can't possibly take responsibility for a family of strangers under these circumstances.'

‘But then they won't have anywhere to go.'

‘There must be someone else who could take them.' Grace sat down on one of the lower stairs and buried her head in her hands for a moment. After a little while she looked up again, sighing, and held out her hand to pull Trish down beside her.

‘I know you think that all of us are being too gloomy about this. And not wanting to pull our weight. It's because it's the second time, you see. Philip is remembering how terrible it was to be fighting, and Mother and I are remembering how terrible it was to wait at home, wondering. The days when the telegrams came … People we loved, dead or wounded.' Trish could see that there were tears in her eyes. ‘But at least, when it was all over, we thought it was finished for ever. The war to end wars, that's what they said. And now …'

‘Ellis believes that it's going to be like Barcelona, but worse.' Trish's reason for mentioning her father's graphic description of the air raid in which so many civilians had died and he himself had been injured was not to increase her stepmother's gloom but to remind her of the reason for the present upheaval in the household. ‘No one's likely to drop a bomb on a hill in the middle of Oxfordshire. But the family we're supposed to be taking will have come from somewhere near the docks. If they have to go back there and a bomb drops tonight, it will be all our fault.'

‘We're not actually at war yet. Nothing will happen tonight.'

‘All the same – to send them back home when they'll have to make the journey all over again to another billet is a bit mean, isn't it? Mrs Barrett and I will settle them in. And then we'll make sure that they keep to their own rooms.'

Mrs Barrett, who had joined the Hardies as a housekeeper, did not see it as part of her duties to wait on a family of evacuees, but she had willingly co-operated in the task of converting a scullery into a separate kitchen for them and the old servants' hall into their sitting room.

‘Well, do what you think best. For a day or two I suppose
we can manage, to give Miss Hoare time to find somewhere else. But tell her today that it can be only temporary.'

Trish hurried away, anxious not to be late. Flicking the reins to start Brown Bess on her way down the hill, she considered with approval that phrase ‘Do what you think best.'

Ever since her thirteenth birthday ten weeks earlier she had been considering how to make it clear that she was an adult member of the family now. The problem was that in a sense she had always been treated as an adult. Her lack of a mother meant that Ellis had never talked over her head in the usual grown-up manner, but even when she was quite small had discussed everything seriously with her and asked her opinion.

As for Grace, she had made it clear from the beginning that she knew nothing about children and found it easier to welcome her stepdaughter into the household on more or less equal terms. True, in the studio their relationship was one of teacher and pupil, but that was a matter of skill rather than age. True again, Grace was willing to play games – either seriously in front of the fire, or dashing about high-spiritedly in the open air; but these were occasions on which she seemed to become a child herself rather than condescending to someone who happened to be nearly thirty years her junior.

So there were no great issues on which to take a stand: no grounds for rebellion. On the day after her birthday Trish had taken a book into the drawing room, determined to share in the after-supper conversation of the adults instead of retreating to the desk in her bedroom to do her homework – only to find herself alone there, with the others having returned to their separate pursuits. Nobody ever told her that she must go to bed at a certain time, or stop reading and turn out the light. There was no question of anyone having to force her to eat up her meals, because they were always delicious. She was expected to do her share of work in the house and garden, but that in itself was a kind of recognition that she was strong enough and sensible enough to be useful.

Even Rupert, who was twelve years older than she was,
treated her almost as though she were a lady. When he called her by her full name or held doors open for her or asked her opinion on some question to do with Castlemere his voice was often teasing, but it was possible to hope that the teasing was itself a tease and that really he was behaving towards her as he thought she deserved.