The Iron Stallions (15 page)

Lady Goff looked at her son. ‘Why, Robert? So you can throw out all the Ackroyds who live there?’

‘Mother–’ Robert gestured irritably ‘–those cottages have a tremendous value these days. People are worried about the likelihood of bombing, and want to get into the country. I’m prepared to give you a good price.’

‘Which, doubtless, you expect to treble or quadruple.’

‘Mother, you need the money!’ Robert’s voice grew harsh. ‘Times are difficult!’

‘Not half so difficult for you as for people like Josh and Chloe. They’re rather more concerned with what’s happening in France.’

‘Claude’s joined the Guards.’

‘I hope he lives up to their standards.

‘Aubrey’s joined the Regiment.’

‘Thank God for Aubrey. You don’t deserve that boy, Robert, any more than you deserved Elvira for a wife.’

‘Mother, for God’s sake!’

‘Don’t “For God’s sake” me, Robert!’ the old woman snapped. ‘I’m old and I’m tired and I won’t be bullied by you!’

‘Mother, I’m trying to help!’

The old lady eyed her son, unable to imagine where he’d come from, and he went on urgently.

‘Mother, this house is far too big for you. At your age, you ought to be in a smaller one.’

It was something the old lady had considered many times. Help was growing more difficult and the draughts in the old building were enough to suck a cat up the chimney. Nevertheless, she was quite prepared to endure the discomfort to thwart her son.

‘This is my home,’ she said stubbornly. ‘And I intend to go on living here.’

‘I’d take if off your hands, Mother,’ Robert persisted.

She glanced at the solicitor by the window. ‘Is that why you’ve brought him along?’ she asked. She gave him a wicked little smile. ‘In any case, it isn’t mine to sell. Your father willed it to me and on my death to Dabney–’

‘Mother, Father’s been dead for over twenty years now.’

‘–and on Dabney’s death,’ she went on doggedly, determined to have her say, ‘to Josh.
With all its contents
. He didn’t trust you with his treasures, Robert, and you’ve already got Cosgro Hall.’

‘Lady Goff–’ Sleete attempted to join in, but the old woman turned on him angrily.

‘You be quiet, young man! This is nothing at all to do with you! My solicitors are Wightman and Howard, as my son well knows.’

‘Lady Goff, if you’ll let me explain–’

‘I have no intention of allowing you to explain! In fact, I think you’d be wiser to get out of my house! You’re not a member of my family and I didn’t invite you in!’

Robert gestured with his head, and the solicitor shrugged and left the room.

‘Mother–’ Robert tried again.

‘You’re wasting your time, Robert,’ Lady Goff snapped.

‘Dabney’s also been dead over twenty years, Mother, and wills can be overturned if the parties involved consent.’

‘I don’t consent!’

‘Who will it go to on
your
death? I’m sorry to be so brutally frank but we have to face it.’

‘I shall live to be a hundred and ten, just to spite you. And, anyway, you forget Josh.’

‘Josh’s missing. More than likely dead. The Germans, in fact, look very much as though they’re going to win this war.’

‘And if they do, you’ll doubtless be one of the first of the Quislings.’

‘Mother, how dare you!’

‘I know you, Robert! You’d do anything to increase your wretched possessions!’

Robert struggled to keep his dignity. ‘I came here to be of help.’

‘Please don’t add lies to all your other faults, Robert. You came because you want those cottages for your friends and this house for yourself. Josh will come back. You see.’

‘Mother, he’s dead. He must be. The troops have been home a fortnight now and nothing’s been heard.’

‘Until I know he’s dead,’ Lady Goff retorted, ‘I shall continue to expect this house to be his. And when and if I find out he is dead, it will be up to his wife to decide what she wishes to do with it. I shall recommend she doesn’t sell it to you.’

When Robert had gone, the old lady sat stiffly in her chair, her eyes blinking back the tears. Then, getting hold of herself, she rang her solicitors and checked her will.

‘You’re quite sure there’s no possible way my son can get hold of my property?’

‘No way at all, Lady Goff,’ she was reassured. ‘The Field Marshal’s will was drawn up with great care. The property can only go to your grandson or his dependants. It’s quite clear and can’t be overturned.’

She put down the telephone slowly, a new terror gripping her. Could Robert possibly somehow have bought out her solicitors? Could he possibly influence them?’

She was just debating whether she ought to employ a second firm of solicitors to watch the first when she heard a car coming up the drive. It was rattling over the bumps and potholes where it needed repair, and she huddled back in her chair, feeling too old to face another crisis. Then she saw the car was Fleur’s and her heart felt as if it were clutched by an icy hand. Please God, not Josh, she prayed quietly. Not after Dabney.

Fleur was hatless and her face was flushed. ‘Mother,’ she was calling even as she entered the room. ‘Oh, Mother, it’s Josh! He’s safe! Ailsa phoned. She’s found him in a hospital in Bath. He’s been wounded and there was some mix-up. But he’s not in danger, and she says he’s been given the Military Cross.’

The old woman could barely speak. She drew a long slow breath. ‘I want to see him,’ she said.

Fleur’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Mother, Bath’s a long way.’

‘You could drive me.’

‘They’re rationing petrol.’

‘You can find some for this. I’ve heard they’re not being difficult where wounded are concerned.’

‘Mother, we’d have to stop overnight.’

‘The Field Marshal and I used to stay at the Royal York.’

Fleur stared at the old lady, faintly irritated. To have to look after a ninety-year-old woman when all she wanted was to see her son was asking a little too much. But it was clear her mother-in-law had something on her mind and she gave way.

‘I know someone who runs a small hotel,’ she said finally. I’m sure they’ll do what they can.’

Two days later, Fleur and Lady Goff joined Ailsa at Josh’s bedside. He looked pale and exhausted under the bandages that swathed his head, but he was cheerful enough.

‘I got shot in the backside,’ he said. ‘Everybody will say I was running away.’

‘Goffs don’t run away,’ the old lady said, sitting rigidly in her chair, her back as straight as it ever was. ‘They tell me you’ve got the Military Cross. That seems very proper. Are you much hurt?’

‘Plenty worse. Clipped a bit of bone from my skull but they’ve sorted that out. Also a large piece out of my backside. I shall sit lopsided for a bit. When they got us to Dunkirk, somebody decided they’d have to leave the wounded behind because there wasn’t time to lift them aboard, and they said I couldn’t go unless I could walk to the beach a hundred yards away. I decided I was too tired and was going to die, anyway, then I remembered what Grandfather said after the charge at Balaclava. Old Tyas told me when I was a kid. He thought
he
was dying and Grandpa told him not to talk such bloody rubbish. “What’s all this nonsense about dying?’ he said. “It’s an offence to die after you’ve been rescued. Get better at once!”’

The old lady chuckled. ‘It sounds a bit like your grandfather,’ she said.

‘Tyas told me it got him on his feet, so I got a medical orderly to get
me
on my feet, and I made it. God knows how but I did.’

The old lady nodded proudly. ‘Your grandfather would have expected it,’ she said. ‘So would your father.’ She straightened her hat and looked at her daughter and granddaughter-in-law. ‘And now, dears, I’d like to be alone with my grandson for a few minutes. I might not get many more chances and I’d like to ask this one favour.’

Ailsa looked at Fleur and shrugged.

‘What’s all this about, Granny?’ Josh asked as they left the ward.

‘I’ve come to see you on a matter of business.’

Josh looked puzzled and she described Robert’s visit.

‘He wants my house,’ she said. ‘But your grandfather always said that both the house and its contents should go to your father and, failing him, to you. He made it very clear. It’s been very difficult over the years since your father was killed, and sometimes I’ve felt it would even be easier to let Robert have his way. Now, however, I’m pleased I never did. You must have the house.’

Josh laid his hand on her withered fingers with their knotted blue veins and the broad gold band his grandfather had put there. He wasn’t sure what Ailsa would say because she didn’t feel quite the same way about the house and the collection of family treasures as he did but he supposed he’d get round it somehow. ‘I want the house, of course,’ he said. ‘But only when you’re gone and I hope that won’t be for many years yet.’

‘I told Robert I intended to live to be a hundred and ten,’ the old woman said. ‘I don’t think I will.’

‘You’re as tough as old boots, Granny.’

‘Not any more, Josh.’

He said nothing because he knew she was right. There were feverish spots of pink on her cheeks as though the Journey had taken a lot out of her and she was struggling against fading strength.

She held out her left hand. On the third finger was an enormous emerald she’d worn ever since she’d become engaged to his grandfather nearly seventy years before.

‘Your grandfather gave it to me,’ she said slowly and clearly. ‘He brought it from India after the Mutiny. When I’m gone and the estate’s settled I want Ailsa to have it. It goes with the house, you see.’

Josh didn’t know what to say and the old lady straightened in her chair.

‘Now, she said briskly, ‘please get somebody to get hold of your mother. I’m feeling tired and I think I ought to lie down.’

She walked out of the ward on the arm of Fleur, a shrivelled little figure in a dark blue coat, on her white hair a toque such as Queen Mary liked to wear. In the doorway she turned and lifted her stick to wave to Josh.

Exactly a week later, at Braxby Manor, she died in her sleep.

Ailsa’s attitude to the house was wary.

‘It’s cold in Yorkshire, she said. ‘And it’s really a dreadful old house.’

‘Ailsa–’ Josh’s voice was firm ‘–it’s been in the family ever since Waterloo. I’m not going to let it go.’

‘Your Uncle Robert’s offering a good price.’

‘I wouldn’t touch his money with a barge pole. Anyway how do
you
know?’

‘He telephoned me.’

Josh frowned. ‘He bloody well would,’ he growled.

As soon as he’d been let out of hospital, they’d travelled north, and Ailsa stood in the hall looking round her. The old house seemed to be listening and watching.

‘It feels full of ghosts,’ she said.

‘Of course it’s full of ghosts, Josh admitted. ‘My father’s. My grandfather’s.
His
father’s. The Duke of Wellington visited this house. So did Kitchener and Roberts and Wood and Wolseley.’

‘Who in God’s name are Roberts and Wood and Wolseley?’ Despite her brothers, Ailsa was entirely non-military.

‘Winston Churchill visited my grandfather here,’ Josh went on. ‘So did Lloyd George. We
can’t
sell this house, Ailsa.’

She remained only half convinced. ‘Josh, they’re calling up everybody who can breathe and stand on their hind legs. Men
and
women. It’ll be me before long, I expect. Who do we get to do it up? Who do we get to look after it?
You
won’t be able to, because you’ll be going back to the Regiment, and I’m damned if I’m going to live here alone.’ She gestured round the library. ‘And all this junk! Who’s going to look after that?’

‘God damn it,’ Josh snapped, suddenly angry. ‘It isn’t junk! Those fire irons are made from French swords picked up at Waterloo. That’s the sword my father carried at Omdurman. He was with Winston Churchill in the charge there. Those assegais were picked up by my grandfather in the Zulu War.’

Ailsa gestured angrily. ‘For God’s sake, Josh, this obsession with the past – it’s nothing but necrophilia!’

‘It might be necrophilia to you,’ Josh said, aware there was an element of truth in what she said. ‘To me it’s history.’

They were barely speaking by the end of the day, but when they went to bed in Josh’s old room, Ailsa began to calm down.

‘I’ll think about it, Josh,’ she promised. ‘After all, it could be a good place to bring up children.’

‘I thought you didn’t want children.’

‘Don’t laugh, Josh. Things are different these days. I do want children now. Your children. I want you to give me a child.’

Josh grinned. ‘I’ll work at it,’ he said.

The matter of Braxby Manor was dropped, but Josh didn’t forget. His background lay in the old house, and Aubrey, newly in uniform, agreed.

‘God knows why Father wants it,’ he said. ‘He’s got enough money to buy Buckingham Palace if it came up for sale. As far as I’m concerned, you can keep it.’

It was pleasant to know Aubrey was on his side but as it happened there were far more things to occupy the mind than the occupation of an old house. With the Luftwaffe attempting to destroy the RAF to seal the success of an invasion, everybody was watching the skies of Southern England rather than the problems of property and money. If the Nazis arrived, property and money might have very different values.

On convalescent leave, Josh moved with Ailsa back to their house in Kent and every day, as the battle developed, it was possible to watch the manoeuvring of the aircraft. Detached from the war, Josh kept in touch with the Regiment which, having left their armoured cars on the beach at Dunkirk, were now refitting with ancient A10 tanks dragged out of army workshops and no better than the Matildas that had been so useless in France.

Reeves brought the news. New armoured regiments were being formed overnight by the simple process of taking over infantry battalions and putting them willy-nilly into tanks. Morby-Smith had left the Regiment to command a newly formed one and there was talk of Leduc going up to brigadier because the older, slower men were being pushed out in an attempt to make the army more aggressive.