A Strange Likeness (18 page)

Berkeley Hatton had the sandy hair and the brilliant blue eyes which appeared and reappeared in the painted faces of the male Hattons.

‘Here is another thruster, the first Baronet, Beverley. You see, we go in for pompous names. He made us uncommonly rich—he was even more devious than Berkeley, and bought his title from James I. Blacks and molasses, drink and corruption were what he dealt in. We were not always gentlemen.

‘Here, sir, is our Titian, the glory of the collection. Sir Beverley acquired it. They say that when his agent brought it from Venice he stared at it and said, “My God, it's a deal of money for a bit of spoiled canvas, but a gentleman has to have his toys to show the world his worth”.'

Alan laughed. ‘My father would enjoy that.'

Together they admired Titian's
Venus
, naked in a golden sunset, an adoring boy at her feet, cherubs hov
ering overhead, before passing on to a giant canvas, central to the room.

A cold, proud man who shared his face with Sir Hart, Ned and Alan, gazed impersonally at them. His bright blue eyes were inimical. The star flashed on his shoulder and the Garter's blue around his knee rivalled his eyes. He was in white Court dress, one hand on his sword. A storm gathered behind his head. Gainsborough had painted him and, despite the elegance of the feathery brushwork, he had been unable to soften the grim scorn with which Sir Beauchamp surveyed his world.

‘My father, Sir Beauchamp, frightened everyone,' said Sir Hart. ‘He was such a hard man. He was in Government, too. When the French Revolution broke out in '89 he rose in the Commons and said, “I told you nearly fourteen years ago when the Americans revolted that the old order was doomed. You would not listen then and you will not listen now, and the world is ending—even as I said it would.”'

‘They shouted at him, and he walked out and never returned. I did not like, nor love, my father, but he was true to his own harsh principles, which is more than you can say of many.'

The tour ended at the far door. Sir Hart bowed to Alan and left him.

Alan walked thoughtfully away, disturbed by what he had seen, and the old man's showing of it to him in such detail. The repetition of the word devious, which had been earlier applied to himself, and then the showpiece painting of Sir Beauchamp had frightened him. Was Sir Hart trying to tell him something about himself?

The morning had disappeared while he walked with Sir Hart. Ned met him on the stairs.

‘The old man kept you long enough,' he grumbled.
‘And here is a fine to-do. Great-Aunt is already here, with Charles. I am to tell Sir Hart.' He hurried along to the gallery, shouting, ‘Wait for me, Alan.'

Alan stood, irresolute, until Ned reappeared with Sir Hart and they walked down the stairs together.

Charles ran at him when they entered the drawing room, saying excitedly, ‘Oh, splendid, Alan, you are still here. I persuaded Grandmama to come early so that we should not miss you. Have you been doing famous things in Yorkshire? There are no railways here yet, but I should like of all things to visit a mill.'

‘So you shall, Charles. You shall visit my mill,' said Alan.

‘Your mill? Even more famous. Perhaps you could buy a railway and then I could drive one of the trains.'

‘That, I fear, is a little beyond me.'

‘Now, Charles,' said Almeria severely, ‘you must not trouble Mr Dilhorne too much. Besides, you forget your manners. Make your bow to your great-uncle.'

An amused Sir Hart welcomed Charles, who exclaimed, ‘Forgive me, sir, but so few people like railways and machines. You don't, do you?'

‘Not much,' said Sir Hart, ‘but I do not boast of it, like some.' And he looked at Ned as he spoke.

‘Oh, I prefer horses,' said Ned.

‘Horses are all very well, but they don't possess interesting things like pistons,' said Charles, throwing the whole company into laughter.

Eleanor had been standing to one side, and when the Stanton party were led away to their various rooms Alan took the opportunity to speak to her. She was still a little in shock and her eyes were brilliant in her white face.

She answered his unspoken question. ‘Oh, yes, I am quite recovered. Ned tells me that you have spent the
whole morning with Sir Hart. Was it very difficult for you?'

‘Not at all. He quite understood.'

‘You did not tell him…?'

‘I told him nothing. Sir Hart misses little, you know. I was so long because he wished to show me the picture gallery.'

‘It is beautiful, is it not? He showed you his favourites, I'll be bound.'

Alan smiled. ‘Yes, he showed me the Titian. The
Venus
is beautiful, but I prefer the living lady, Eleanor, to the painted one.'

Her face grew rosy instantly, but she was not coy with him, did not simper.

‘I thank you, sir,' she said, and then, ‘What did you think of Sir Beauchamp?'

‘That although I might like to have met him, I am glad that I did not. We are too alike.'

Eleanor was aghast. ‘Oh, no! You are not at all alike. He was hateful, for all his splendid looks. Great-Aunt says that he treated Sir Hart cruelly when he was a boy—right from being born, and then later on. For some imaginary misdemeanour—although it is difficult to imagine Sir Hart committing one—he beat him dreadfully and exiled him to France. You are not like that, Alan.'

‘No, but I share his ruthlessness as well as his face, Eleanor, and you must accept that. I would not hurt people, as he did, but I understand him.'

‘I'm glad that you only share your face with him, and not your ancestry. You are pleased that Charles has come?'

Alan nodded. ‘Very much. With Charles and Stacy to join us we shall have some splendid times.'

Eleanor noted ruefully that Ned's name was missing
from this list. Since reaching Yorkshire the difference between the two, from being a slight one, had developed into a gulf. Other than their face they had nothing in common. Ned was becoming impatient with Alan's seriousness, and Alan privately deplored Ned's frivolity, more open here because he was bored.

The afternoon brought further surprises. Seated at tea in the green drawing room, among the Canalettos and the Guardis and the Louis Quinze furniture, the enlarged company became aware of further bustle outside. The Honourable Henrietta Hatton and Beastly Beverley had arrived.

Beverley entered the room like a mannerless whirlwind. On seeing Alan, he blurted out, before greeting or being greeted by his grandfather, ‘So!
You
are still here! I hoped that you would be gone before we arrived.'

‘Beverley, please,' bleated his mother. ‘Bow to Sir Hart—and you must not say such things.'

‘Why not? Why shouldn't I? I don't like him. I don't like the way he looks at me. When I told my uncle Harry that he had Ned's face, Uncle Harry laughed and said—'

Before Beverley could say the unsayable Sir Hart broke into his tirade. ‘Master Hatton!' he barked.

For once Beverley stopped speaking, his grandfather's voice was so fearsome.

‘Master Hatton, you will go to your room at once and remain there until I give you permission to return. That will be when you have learned the art of civilised intercourse. Remove him at once, Henrietta.'

‘I shan't go,' screamed Beverley, purple in the face. ‘She can't make me.'

‘Yes, Sir Hart, that is true,' said Henrietta pleadingly, nearly in tears. ‘He is too strong for me. Please relent: he does not know what he is saying.'

‘Oh, but I do,' roared Beverley, ‘and I will not go.'

Sir Hart put his hand on the bell-pull. ‘I shall ring for two footmen to remove you, sir, seeing that your mother has lost control over you.'

Beverley struggled between his desire to repeat what his uncle had said of Alan and the possible humiliation of being removed by two strapping footmen who would laugh about him in the servants' hall afterwards.

‘Oh, very well,' he exclaimed ungraciously. He made for the door, plunging by and treading on the toes of a horrified Charles on the way. ‘But I shall tell you what Uncle Harry said of him another day.'

Sir Hart said severely to Henrietta when she flew after him, ‘Once Beverley is settled in his rooms with his tutor, who, judging by this behaviour, is a remarkably incompetent young man, you will return here at once. You are not to remain with him.'

‘But, Sir Hart…' wailed Henrietta.

‘Unless you wish to leave tomorrow, taking your ill-conditioned cub with you, you will do as I ask.'

Later, Stacy, talking to Alan of Charles's passion for machinery, said suddenly, ‘I am bound to tell you, Alan—and do not take this amiss—that others besides Beverley's uncle Harry will comment on your likeness to Ned and the reason for it. I must say that I am surprised by Ned and Eleanor's apparent innocence over the matter.'

Alan smiled. ‘That is because I come from New South Wales, and my father sprang from the gutter in London, and they know that there is no possible connection between us.'

He looked Stacy straight in the face while he told him this thundering lie—or rather half-truth. Try though he
might, deviousness was a fundamental part of him and came without effort.

He had told no one the little he knew of his father's origins, of his grandmother and the possible link there. He had come to Yorkshire partly for that reason, and he was troubled by the portraits and Sir Hart's commentary which had pointedly linked him with the Hatton deviousness—so sadly lacking in Ned and Beverley. He had been even further troubled on hearing of Sir Hart's disgrace as a very young man.

But surely that could have nothing to do with his grandmother? Sir Beauchamp would not have exercised himself over his son's putting a servant in the family way: it was what gentlemen's sons did to peasant girls. They should consider themselves flattered. No, the disgrace must have been for something else.

When Alan was troubled, or disturbed, he did what he always did: he worked to take his mind off what worried him. The next day he rode to Brinkley. He told Sir Hart that he had business there, and would be back in time for dinner. They were all processing into the Great Hall when he returned.

He was filthy. His face and hands were greasy, his linen was soiled, his fine coat was torn and there was a heavy bruise on one cheek. He had obviously been drinking, and although he was not drunk he had taken enough to lose the hard edge of his self-control. He spoke cheerfully to Sir Hart.

‘You pardon, Sir Hart, for my ruined appearance and my lateness for dinner. I have been doing business with hard-headed Yorkshiremen, and I had to follow their ways or be bested. I think that they may be feeling worse than I am. I must ask you to allow me to miss dinner this evening. As you see, I am not fit.'

‘I forgive you, young man, if you have been working, but I shall not let you off dinner. Repair yourself, and come down later. Food will help, not harm your condition.'

He had scarcely finished speaking when Charles said eagerly, ‘Have you bought another mill, Alan?'

‘A little one, old fellow, and some workshops. Now, forgive me, I must obey Sir Hart.'

He took the stairs two at a time. He thrust his spinning head into a bucket of water and Gurney helped him into clean clothes. His hair dark from its ducking, he returned, and ate his dinner under Sir Hart's sardonic gaze.

The old man does not treat me so when
I
overdo it, thought Ned resentfully—something which the other dinner guests had already noticed, Eleanor among them.

 

The house-party grew in numbers. Sir Hart had given up his dream of a marriage between Stacy and Eleanor and had invited Jane Chalmers and her mother to Temple Hatton.

‘Chalmers of Biddenden,' he said approvingly. ‘I think that I knew her grandfather, Anthony, at Oxford. The clergyman father is a younger son, I suppose.'

So Mrs Chalmers—the Dragon Queen, as Stacy had nicknamed her—duly arrived, with Jane in tow. Jane, charming, shy and submissive, was soon on as good terms with Eleanor as Mrs Chalmers was with Eleanor's mother.

The biggest joke of all, though, was that Mrs Chalmers, far from eating Alan, or being eaten, was completely taken by him. Stacy she respected, because he was a tremendous catch for Jane, but Alan Dilhorne!

She positively simpered at him from the first tea-time
when he helped her to cake and turned his brilliant blue eyes on her.

‘They all love you,' said Ned. There was almost a snarl in his voice, for he was jealous of the friend he had to share with others. ‘You don't trouble yourself about me these days.'

‘Now you know that is not true,' replied Alan. ‘You were the first person I asked to go on the Brinkley expedition.'

‘Oh, that!' said Ned. ‘You know I don't care for such things.'

‘Well, then,' said Alan with his usual—to Ned—exasperating common sense.

The Brinkley expedition was to be arranged for those who wished to see the small mill and the workshops which Alan was in process of acquiring. Stacy had discovered that he had won them in a drinking session-cum-trial of strength with their owner, Jack Thorpe, on the day when he had been late for dinner.

Thorpe had barely been making a profit, and when he had heard that Alan had bought Outhwaite's and was in process of turning it round, he had offered Alan a deal dependent on Alan's being able to overcome Yorkshire strength in an arm-wrestling competition with him.

When Alan had won the contest, Thorpe had suddenly gripped him and demanded further payment if, in a real wrestling bout, he could overcome Alan by beating him two falls to nothing. If Alan won Thorpe would accept Alan's original terms—hence his ripped coat and his dirty appearance, since much of the wrestling had been done on the inn floor.

The heavy drinking had been done before the contest—‘Ale before work,' Thorpe had said. Stacy's delight had to be solitary, seeing that Alan kept silent about it—
the devious dog—and it was Ralf who had told him what had happened.