The House of Hardie (14 page)

‘Certainly there's a lot to be said for bringing him here.' Mr Hardie was thinking aloud. ‘We gave him a rise in wages to celebrate his twenty-first birthday – the end of his apprenticeship, you might say – but we couldn't promote him any further.' The staff of The House of
Hardie were loyal for life, and only death or extreme old age freed a place for any newer arrival. ‘Yes, we'll move him here in June.'

‘You'll like him, Mother.' Gordon did his best to be reassuring. ‘And so will Midge. He's got a sense of humour. Where is Midge?'

‘Working. Always working at those books of hers. She's making herself ill. It can't be right.'

Should he go and look for her, and persuade her to come for a walk? No, she would not want to be disturbed. So at least Gordon persuaded himself – but he had a stronger reason for choosing instead to retire to his own room. Now that his father had accepted the situation, he could start to gather the sponsorship needed to finance his expedition. He began to draw up three lists of possible patrons: commercial plant nurseries, scholarly institutions, and private gentlemen. At the head of the third list he wrote the name of the Marquess of Ross.

Lucy was reading a book of sermons when the message came. No one had forbidden her to paint or to play the piano or to read a novel, but these activities – simply because she enjoyed them – were surely unsuitable for someone in mourning for a dead father. The sermons, though, were ponderously dull, so she accepted the interruption with pleasure. The marquess's request, brought by a footman, was that she should meet the head gardener in the orangery, to discuss a proposal being made by Mr Gordon Hardie.

Mr Hardie! Lucy's eyes sparkled with a pleasure which she concealed behind a decorous nod of the head. How many times had she sighed over the rules of etiquette which made it impossible for her to arrange another meeting! The chance encounter during the Eights Week festivities – and Archie's unexpected alacrity in inviting Mr Hardie and his sister on to the Magdalen barge – had been a delightful surprise. But during the month since then, Lucy had known she had no hope of seeing Mr Hardie again unless he chose to come to Castlemere.

And now he had come! Lucy sent for her maid to bring her cloak and bonnet, and they went together to the meeting place. Mr Hardie's eyes, as he greeted her, showed that he had not been prepared to see her in black; but perhaps he thought it would be impertinent to enquire the reason.

‘My grandfather tells me you have a proposal to make in respect of the garden,' she said.

‘Yes, I have. He's been gracious enough to approve it in principle. But he tells me that you are the member of the family who has inherited your grandmother's love of plants. The work is only to go ahead if you agree.'

There was little chance that Lucy would not, but she waited calmly to hear what he had in mind.

‘The suggestion is that Castlemere should have a rock garden.'

‘A rockery, do you mean?'

‘No. More than that. A miniature Alpine landscape, with peaks and valleys, all in proportion.'

‘I've never seen such a thing.'

‘I'm not surprised. I know of only one, and although the rocks are dramatically arranged, it lacks appropriate planting.'

‘I'm afraid my support will be of little use,' said Lucy. ‘I'm not familiar with any plants which would be suitable.'

‘Ah, but that's the point!' exclaimed Gordon earnestly. ‘If your garden staff will undertake the task of construction while I'm away in China, I'll bring back with me a collection of alpines. Of alpine primulas in particular – there are known to be so many in the mountains between China and Tibet that I can hope to provide a selection of plants which have never been seen in England before.'

‘You're going to China?'

‘As soon as I've found enough patrons,' Gordon told her. ‘I've been commissioned to look for new varieties of rhododendron by a nursery which intends to propagate and sell them. I shall supply material to the herbarium in the Oxford Botanic Garden; to others as well, I trust. But my expenses will be high. I need to interest private gentlemen in the venture, promising them something unique in return.'

‘I'm surprised by my grandfather's interest.'

‘I reminded him that the medieval herb garden here is of historic importance. I'm sure botanists come from all over the country to see it. It serves as a memorial to your ancestors who created it.'

‘So you've invited him to create his own memorial!' Lucy laughed aloud at the unexpectedness of the thought.

‘No. The name attached to it is to be yours. If you authorize it.'

Lucy clapped her hands with pleasure. ‘Of course I agree.' She turned to the head gardener who had been listening with a resigned lack of enthusiasm. ‘Can you procure rock, Curtis? What colour should it be, Mr Hardie? And what aspect is most suitable? Have you found a place already, or shall we explore?' She set off even as she spoke, at such a brisk pace that the maid and gardener were soon left behind.

‘When I broached the subject to his lordship, he said that it might serve to cheer you up. I didn't know what he meant but I see that you're in mourning. I hope …'

‘My father has died,' Lucy told him. ‘Of cholera, while he was serving on the North-West Frontier.'

‘You must be very upset.'

‘I hardly knew him,' Lucy admitted. ‘On three occasions in my life he spent a few weeks at Castlemere as a visitor. I'd hoped that perhaps when I was eighteen I might be allowed to travel out to India. To get to know him and – and to see a little of the world at the same time. Now the opportunity – of his acquaintance, I mean – has been lost for ever. There's a sadness, yes.'

‘So now you're alone in the world?'

Pausing so that the maid and gardener might catch up with them, Lucy shook her head. ‘My grandfather will continue to care for me. And Archie, now that he's twenty-one, has become my official guardian. Not that I
shall allow him to bully me, of course.' She laughed again, this time with a trace of shame. ‘One hardly likes to confess these things. The news of my father's death reached us here only two days before Archie was to celebrate his coming-of-age with a great fair for the tenants and a dinner and ball for all his friends. All the invitations had been sent out and answered, all the food and wine ordered, and musicians engaged. Even the flowers, many of them, had been picked. We had to send a message to every guest who was expected. Yet of course my father had been dead for some time already when the news reached us at last. It was tempting to wish that the message could have taken three days longer to arrive. So that there would have been fewer disappointments.'

She hoped he might reassure her that such a thought was natural, and not an indication of heartlessness on her part. But Gordon was staring at her in a curious way – so intently that she felt herself flush. What she had first liked about him was the sparkle in his dark eyes even when he was at his most earnest. But she was startled now by a flash of grimness in them. Did he despise her for allowing a small social problem to intrude into her mourning?

‘The celebrations will only have been postponed, I imagine,' he said, walking on again.

‘Oh yes. They're to be held as soon as possible after Archie's term ends – before his friends have had time to scatter too widely for the Long Vacation. It's hard on the tenants, because it will all come too near to the fair which is planned to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee, but…' She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Would this be a suitable place, Mr Hardie?'

‘For what?'

Had he forgotten the purpose of his visit? If so, he was quick to collect himself and study the area to which she
had brought him – a small gorge cut out in the past by a stream later diverted to flow through the moat. Stepping aside, she watched as he took a note pad from his pocket and began to draw quick sketches. With vigorous movements of his hands he indicated to the gardener the height of a ‘mountain' or the zigzag of a path. ‘I'll send you a plan,' he said. ‘And order the rock, if his lordship approves.' Still scribbling, he paced out the area in rough measurement, before rejoining Lucy with an expression of apology on his face.

‘I'm taking too much on myself,' he said. ‘What do I know of landscape design? You, with your artist's eye, will be able to create a picture in stone. Will you support my application to your grandfather, Miss Yates?'

‘You ask more than you realize,' Lucy answered, laughing. ‘The consequence of my support will be that I can't hope to see you again for at least three years. Kindness to you is cruelty to myself.'

She spoke with the tone of voice that she learned at her grandfather's dinner table. The form of badinage in which she had been taught to pay or to parry compliments was not coquetry but a superficial conversational skill, useful in society. Even as she spoke the words though, it came to her that she was telling the truth, and for a moment she could not continue. Only with a determined effort did she maintain the sparkle in her eyes.

‘I shall tell him that he must be the most generous of all your patrons,' she said. ‘So that he may have the best of your discoveries. But I shall say this only on one condition – that before you go you will take tea with me in the library, and show me on the globe where you are going. How you will travel there, how long it will take. I demand to hear it all – and you can't refuse me, while I hold my grandfather's purse in my hand.'

‘Can you believe that I would refuse you in any case, Miss Yates? Even empty-handed, your beauty would command me.' He bowed low over her hand, entering into the flirtatious extravagance of what he doubtless took to be only a game in words. Lucy was not sophisticated enough to make him understand that she wanted him to mean what he said. She had to be content with the fact that his visit to Castlemere extended itself by more than an hour as he pointed out his route, telling her what he hoped to find and what dangers he must expect to meet.

‘Oh!' exclaimed Lucy when at last he rose to go. ‘How I envy you! If only I could make such a journey with you!'

The air between them was charged with silence. Gordon could have laughed the remark off as foolish; he could have detailed the objections which made such a wish impossible in practical terms; he could have murmured some polite formality which, meaning nothing itself, would have reduced her own remark to nothingness. He did none of these things. Instead, he backed towards the door without speaking, his dark eyes meeting her gaze steadily. Lucy felt the blood drain from her face. He was reading her mind, and understanding that what she said was quite literally what she meant. It was true that more than almost anything else in the world she longed for the adventure of travel in strange places. But without any qualification at all, what her heart and mind and body yearned for was the company and love of Gordon Hardie.

Did Midge know? As Gordon made his way back to Oxford, the question repeated itself in his mind. He should have been exulting in the marquess's generosity. Alternatively, he might have examined his own emotions, and those of Lucy Yates. There were questions to be asked in that area as well, but he pushed them to the back of his mind while he considered this other: had Midge known that Archie Yates had invited all his friends to a coming-of-age ball in the Easter vacation? Had she received an invitation herself?

By the time he arrived home, his sister had already retired to bed. Or so their mother told him – but when Gordon himself went upstairs an hour later he could see under her door the candle glow which meant that she was still reading. He decided not to disturb her. It would be unkind to throw his information at her like a challenge. It must be dropped casually into a conversation, so that she could ignore it or enquire further as she chose.

Gordon lay awake for a long time that night, but it was not any longer of Midge that he thought, but Lucy Yates. Over and over again he passed through his memory the last few moments of his conversation with her. Could he possibly have misinterpreted her feelings?

No, he could not. She was in love with him. To admit that was not to be guilty of immodesty. Lucy was young and had not yet been introduced into society – her excitement during the previous year's Eights Week celebrations had been that of a girl glimpsing for the first time
the pleasures of the life that might lie ahead. She was ready to fall in love; ready to be attracted to the first man who came along, just because he represented the wider world outside Castlemere.

If she had chosen Gordon rather than one of her brother's friends it might be only because he was twenty-seven rather than twenty. Or, more probably, she had fallen in love with the freedom which he seemed to represent. Herself yearning for wider horizons, she would see no possibility of attaining them. How natural it was that she should be stirred by the company of someone who could not only tell her about countries on the other side of the world, but who proposed to visit them. She had fallen in love with a plan, a way of life.

So Gordon tried to persuade himself, and all the time he knew that it was only part of the truth. He could recognize that Lucy Yates was in love with him because he had already fallen in love with her.

It had been easy to conceal that, even from himself, as long as she was hardly aware of his existence. But she had revealed her feelings, and so the emotion which each of them had tried to hide had stretched out through their silence to spark a flame into life. The flame, like that of a candle, could be starved of oxygen until it guttered or died, or it could be snuffed out at once, but it would be hypocritical to pretend that there had never been a moment in which it burned.

What of it, Gordon asked himself. Nothing must be allowed to change his plans. If he abandoned his expedition in order to court Lucy Yates, he would hold the loss against her for the rest of his life. And it would all be for nothing. Even her own wishes, if she were brave enough to express them, would not succeed in securing his admission to Castlemere as a suitor. The greatest kindness he
could do her would be never to see her again – and that would also be a kindness to himself. For a little while longer Gordon tossed restlessly in his bed. But he was a young man with a strong will as well as a blazing ambition. Before he fell asleep that night he had made his decision to block all thought of Lucy out of his mind.