The Irresistible Inheritance Of Wilberforce (34 page)

Catherine’s parents were rather forbidding, but as they spent most of the year in Bermuda or Antibes, I only met them once that summer. One night we had kitchen supper with Francis, at his flat at the back of Caerlyon, and after supper went down to inspect the undercroft. It seemed fuller of wine and more impressive than I had remembered it. Most of all we lunched, dined or simply sat around and talked, at Hartlepool Hall. Maybe it was on the occasion that Ed first asked me to meet Annabel Gazebee that I had an odd conversation with Eck.

I was seated next to Annabel at dinner. She was a tall, angular girl with long brown hair, a sharp beak of a nose and a brittle manner of speech. She was easy enough to talk to, though. She seemed to find it fascinating that I went to an office every day and worked there.

‘I think that’s so good,’ she told me. ‘Such a good example to people like Eck and Ed, who do absolutely nothing all day long.’

‘I’m very busy,’ said Ed indignantly. ‘I’m going to be a steward at Kelso races next year.’

Annabel herself sat on a committee that raised money for the Red Cross and considered herself to be second to no one in the matter of being busy.

Another person joined us unexpectedly for dinner: a family friend of the Simmondses, the Earl of Shildon, whom I had heard Francis talk about. He had been visiting Ed’s father, who was unwell, and confined to his bedroom.

‘He’s one of my trustees,’ explained Ed, while we waited for Teddy Shildon to join us before dinner. ‘So I’ve got to be civil to him. Anyway, even though he’s only ten years younger than my pa, you’d never guess it to look at him. He’s great fun. You’ll like him, I know you will.’

We went into the library after dinner. Ed, Annabel, Catherine and Teddy Shildon were sitting at a table near the fire. Bridge had been proposed and rejected and instead they had begun to play a noisy game of racing demon. Eck refused to join in, saying that he hated cards, and I didn’t know how. Card games had not been on my foster-father’s list of acceptable entertainments.

‘Mind if I help myself to one of your stogies, Ed?’ asked Eck, reaching for the humidor as he spoke.

‘Help yourself,’ cried Ed; ‘you too, Wilberforce. Oh, Catherine, you cheat!’

Eck trimmed his cigar and lit it. ‘Let’s go outside,’ he suggested. ‘It’s a warm enough night.’

At the far end of the library were double glass doors that led out on to a terrace. We went outside and seated ourselves on a stone balustrade that led the length of the terrace and looked out on to a corner of the lake and the dark woods beyond that girdled Hartlepool Hall. It was a green and pink dusk, and the moon was rising.

‘Perfect evening,’ said Eck, puffing on his cigar. Two bats skittered past, chasing insects in the twilight.

‘Eck,’ I said, ‘why does Francis look so sad all the time?’ We had both been with Francis a few nights before.

‘Does he?’ asked Eck, in surprise. ‘Is that how he strikes you? Well, maybe you are right. We’re all so used to him that I don’t suppose we ever notice anything like that. I suppose he might well look sad. He’s had a disappointing life, in some ways.’

‘In what way?’ I asked.

‘Well, Francis is very intelligent - much brighter than any of us. You know he’s my godfather, don’t you?’

‘You said.’

‘So I know him as well as I know anyone of that generation. He was born with brains and good looks; he inherited a good few acres and a decent-sized house. He’s ended up with next to nothing, and no one to leave it to. That’s why I think he might feel disappointed. Anyone would.’

‘What happened?’ I asked. Francis fascinated me. I wanted to know. I knew Eck loved talking about other people’s lives. I knew he would tell me almost anything.

‘Francis was very wild when he was young. I think it was a reaction to his mother. She was very much the grande dame. My father once said she was the most frightening woman he had ever met. Francis’s own father was a brave soldier when he was in the army, but he used to creep about and keep out of trouble at home. Then Francis had the most horrendous falling-out with his mother.’

Eck paused, and puffed on his cigar until the end glowed an even red in the gloom. I said nothing. I wanted Eck to go on with the story.

‘Francis fell head over heels in love with a girl who lived in one of the cottages and worked as a daily maid in the house. At first everyone thought Francis was just having a fling. But my father told me that it had been the real thing. Francis had absolutely fallen in love with the girl who did the ironing for his mother. Then it got worse. The girl became pregnant and, of course, Francis’s mother found out. She got the whole story out of her maid. She called Francis in, who said he was going to marry the girl. There was a huge shouting match.’

Eck paused to puff on his cigar again. It was very quiet outside. I could hear frogs croaking down by the lake, and a firefly went past.

‘So Francis fell in love?’

‘The one and only real passion of his life, as far as anyone knows,’ agreed Eck. ‘Then he went away to London, and he got in with Johnny . . . well, with a whole lot of people you probably don’t know, who played cards for pretty high stakes at the Clermont and those sorts of places. Francis dropped a serious amount of money. I mean an enormous amount of money. He was playing with people who could afford to sit down and lose a hundred thousand in a night. Unfortunately, he couldn’t. Then his parents paid off his debts, which cost them a fortune, and sent him off travelling, to get him out of the way. When he came back he’d acquired an interest in wine. He’d been staying in Austria with a friend of his parents, Heinrich Carinthia, a sort of Hapsburg relation who’s a prince and owns vineyards all over the place. He still comes once a year to shoot at Blubberwick. Francis caught the wine bug from him. He started collecting wine around then, and he’s been at it ever since. It’s become rather an expensive obsession, in fact. He’s tried being a wine broker, and a wine merchant, and none of it has ever worked. Francis is simply completely uncommercial. He talks a good game. You would think he would be the world’s best wine salesman, to hear him. But if anyone knows more about buying dear and selling cheap than Francis does, I haven’t met them. Apart from the money he lost gambling, he’s lost another fortune speculating in wine. He can’t afford to buy proper wine any more. Now all he can do is buy the odd parcel of bin ends, from time to time. He’s cashed in just about every farm and house he inherited in order to stay in the game, except for Caerlyon, and even that’s on a long lease to Gateshead Council.’

‘But he has a marvellous collection of wine,’ I said with enthusiasm.

‘Well, maybe. There’s quite a lot of it, I know, but it all seems to me to be bits and pieces and odds and ends. It’s become an obsession for Francis. In some ways, it’s tragic. He has no children to leave anything to, and he has nothing to leave - except, of course, his wine. So, you’re absolutely right: Francis has a reason to look sad. But we all look after him, you know. Everybody loves Francis, for some reason.’

Eck stood up and stretched himself.

‘What happened to the girl?’ I asked.

‘What girl? Oh, Francis’s girl. She had the child and had to give it away for adoption. Poor mite.’

The thought of adoption made me uncomfortable, and to change the subject I said, ‘Annabel’s nice, isn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ said Eck. He took a last puff at his cigar and flung it over the balustrade in a trail of sparks. ‘She’s very nice. She and I had a fling, once.’

‘Really?’

‘It was very jolly. The leg-over part of it was very jolly indeed. But then there was so much talking beforehand and afterwards, I found it all rather tiring, and in the end we decided to give it up and just be friends.’ Eck started to stroll back towards the lighted windows through which we had walked earlier. The sound of laughter could be heard from within as the card game reached its climax.

‘Some people think I’m an incurable romantic,’ said Eck. ‘But in all honesty I’ve found this love business is rather an effort, don’t you agree? A quick bonk and a large gin and tonic satisfy most of life’s wants, in my opinion.’

I could not think of an adequate comment.

‘Why don’t you have a crack at Annabel?’ suggested Eck, stopping and turning to face me.

‘Me? I don’t think so,’ I replied.

‘I don’t know, Wilberforce. I think she quite fancied you at dinner. I can tell. I should ask her out if I were you. You might be just her cup of tea: brainy sort of chap that you are.’

‘No, I don’t think I will, Eck.’

He didn’t move, but stared at me. It was full night now, but in the light from the windows, and in the moonlight from above, we could see each other’s face clearly enough.

‘You’re sweet on Catherine, aren’t you,’ said Eck. It was not a question.

‘No,’ I said in a hoarse voice. I was absolutely taken aback by the sudden change in Eck’s tone, and by the question. He was no longer bantering.

‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of, if you are,’ said Eck. ‘I was pretty gone about her at one time. It’s easy enough to understand, with a girl who looks like that. But it’s a lost cause.’

‘I’ve no intention of interfering between her and Ed,’ I said. ‘They’re my friends.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Eck. ‘But friendship has a funny way of going up in smoke in these situations. Ed and Catherine are going to get married. It’s all been arranged. Old Simon Hartlepool and Robin Plender made plans for them both long ago, and Ed and Catherine have been brainwashed into the idea they will be married one day, almost since they could walk. So don’t waste too much time on that idea.’

I did not reply and Eck said, ‘Come on. It’s gone quiet inside. They must have finished playing that dreadful game. I think it’ll be safe to go back in.’

Four

In late August, Ed asked me to go and stay at Blubberwick Lodge. There was to be a shooting party there for a couple of days. Ed and his guests were going up the day before, to shoot on the Friday. They were staying that night at the lodge. Francis and I were asked to go and watch the shooting and then stay for dinner on the Saturday night. It was half understood that Ed would lend me a gun for the last drive, arrange for me to stand with a minder and have a go at shooting a grouse. Francis wanted a chance to work Campbell, and pick up grouse behind the line.

Eck had told me about Blubberwick Lodge. It had been built by the first Marquess of Gateshead in the 1860s, when the moors around Blubberwick were no longer mined for the lead that had founded the fortunes of the Simmonds family in the last two centuries. Now the moors were harvested for grouse, not lead.

It was considered inconvenient to ride twenty miles from Hartlepool Hall to Blubberwick Moor, so a lodge or shooting box had been built closer to hand. ‘It is a very comfortable set-up,’ Eck told me. ‘Enormous soft beds, huge old bathtubs, very comfortable armchairs you can fall asleep in without cricking your neck. The only concession to modern life has been the installation of an ice-making machine to speed up the production of cocktails after shooting.’

I arranged to meet Francis at Caerlyon at eight o’clock in the morning on the Saturday on which we had been invited. Francis, Campbell and I drove to Blubberwick together in Francis’s old Land Rover. I wasn’t allowed to take my Range Rover.

‘Too smart,’ said Francis, shaking his head. ‘White leather seats. Campbell will get mud everywhere.’

So we drove, early one morning in late August, deep into the Pennine uplands at about twenty miles an hour. The air had a sharp feeling to it and was so clear that one had the impression of seeing the wide horizons through a telescope. Everything seemed nearer than it really was. The heather was still in flower: its purple bloom covered every hill.

‘Will I know anyone there?’ I asked Francis, as we drove along the narrow roads across the moorland.

‘Eck will be there, of course. No party ever takes place that Eck isn’t invited to. There’s someone called Heini Carinthia, who comes every year. He’s an old friend of mine. He started my interest in wine. I’d like you to meet him. Ask him about Château Trébuchet: that’s his property, in Pomerol, in Bordeaux. He says it produces the best Pomerol after Pétrus. I myself think it is a moderate wine. Then there’s Philippe de Bargemon, a very charming Frenchman, who spends his life shooting: grouse in the Pennines, doves in Argentina, quail in Texas, pheasants in Hungary. He’s never without a gun in his hand. Nice man. The others are mainly locals. You’ll know some of them, I expect.’

We drove on and then Francis said, ‘You’re very privileged, you know. Getting an invitation to Blubberwick isn’t something that happens every day. It’s one of the best grouse moors in the North of England.’

‘I don’t know how I feel about shooting those poor grouse.’

Francis smiled. ‘Well, of course you have to hit one first. But if they are not shot, they get diseased. Once the number of grouse on the moor gets beyond a certain density, they start passing a parasite to one another. I believe they pick it up from sheep. That kills them off faster than anything. The only way to preserve grouse is to shoot them.’

I did not follow the logic of this, but Francis spoke as if he knew what he was talking about, so I said nothing more.

‘There is no sport like it,’ said Francis. ‘You go and stand on the roof of the world, and the grouse come at you from all directions, faster than you would believe possible. All other forms of shooting come a distant second. Few people ever get the chance to do it. You don’t know how lucky you are.’

We were now driving along a narrow single-track road that wound through the heather. Then I saw my first grouse. A brown bird with a red comb on its head whirred out of a clump of heather close to the side of the road calling, ‘Go back, G’back, g’back.’ We came over the crest of a hill and saw Blubberwick Lodge below us. It was a large rambling building, covered in a fading cream-coloured rendering to protect it from the constant drizzle and wind of the dales. As we drove down the bank towards it, I could see activity: beaters climbing into two big ex-army lorries, guns coming out of the house and straggling towards a line of four-wheel-drive vehicles drawn up on the gravel. We drove through the lodge gates.