The Day of the Storm (16 page)

“We have lost a davenport desk.”

It was becoming ludicrous.

“You've
lost
a davenport desk?”

For her benefit, Grenville went through the whole rigmarole. On being told that it was I who had precipitated this crisis, Mollie looked at me with some reproach, as though she thought this a poor way to return her hospitality and kindness. I was inclined to agree with her.

“But it must be somewhere.” She took her glass from Eliot, drew up a stool and sat, all ready to work the whole thing out. “It must have been put somewhere for safety.”

“Pettifer has looked for it.”

“Perhaps he hasn't seen it. I'm sure he should get his glasses changed. Perhaps it's been put somewhere and he's forgotten.”

Grenville thumped the arm of his chair with a balled fist. “Pettifer does not forget things.”

“In fact—” said Eliot coolly—“he forgets things all the time.”

Grenville glared at him. “And what does that mean?”

“Nothing personal. Just that he's getting older.”

“I suppose you're blaming Pettifer…”

“I'm not blaming anybody…”

“You just said he's too old to know what he's doing. If he's too old what the hell do you think I am?”

“I never said that…”

“You blamed
him
…”

Eliot lost his patience. “If I was going to blame anybody,” he said, raising his voice almost to the pitch of Grenville's, “I'd ask a few questions of young Joss Gardner.” There was a pause after he'd come out with this. And then, in a more controlled, reasonable voice, he went on. “All right, so nobody wants to accuse another man of stealing. But Joss is in and out of this house all the time, in and out of all the rooms. He knows what's in this place better than anybody. And he's an expert, he knows what it's worth.”

“But why should Joss take a desk?” asked Mollie.

“A valuable desk. Don't forget that. It's rare and it's valuable, Grenville just said so. Perhaps he needed the money. To look at him he could do with a bit of extra cash. And he's an expert. He's up and down to London all the time. He'd know where to sell it.”

He stopped, abruptly, as though realizing that already he had said too much. He finished his whisky, and went, without speaking, to pour himself a second glass.

The silence became uncomfortable. To break it, Mollie said, briefly, “I don't think that Joss…”

“Just a lot of poppycock,” Grenville interrupted her savagely.

Eliot set down the whisky bottle with a thump. “How do you know? How do you know anything about Joss Gardner? He turns up, like a hippy, out of nowhere, says he's going to open a shop, and the next thing you've opened up the house to him and given him the job of patching up all the furniture. What do you know about Joss? What do any of us know about him?”

“I know that I can trust him. I was trained to judge a man's character…”

“You could be wrong…”

Grenville raised his voice and rode over Eliot's, “… and it would be no bad thing if you were to take a few lessons in choosing your companions.”

Eliot's eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

“It means that if you want to be made a fool of, try doing business with that little shyster Ernest Padlow.”

If I could have escaped at that moment, I would. But I was caught, jammed into the corner behind Grenville's chair.

“What do you know about Ernest Padlow?”

“I know you've been seen around with him … drinking in bars…”

Eliot shot a glance at me, and then said, under his breath, “That bastard Joss Gardner.”

“It wasn't Joss who told me, it was Hargreaves, at the bank. He came up for a glass of sherry the other day. And Mrs Thomas came in to do my fire this morning, she'd seen you with Padlow, up at that gimcrack nightmare he calls a housing estate.”

“Back-stairs gossip.”

“You hear the truth from truthful people. It doesn't matter in which direction they live. And if you think I'm selling up my land to that jumped-up little beachsweeper, you're wrong…”

“It won't always be your land.”

“And if you're so sure it will be yours, all I can say is, don't count your chickens before they're hatched. Because you, dear boy, are not my only grandchild.”

And at this dramatic moment, like a nicely stage-managed play, the door opened and Andrea appeared to tell us that Pettifer had told her to tell us that dinner was ready.

8

It was hard to sleep that night. I tossed and turned, fetched a glass of water, paced the floor, looked out of the window, climbed back into bed and tried once more to compose myself, but always, when I closed my eyes, the evening came back to me like a film played over and over, voices drummed in my ears, and would not be stilled.

All right, so nobody wants to accuse another man of stealing. What do any of us know about Joss?

If you want to be made a fool of, try doing business with that little shyster Ernest Padlow. And if you think I'm selling my land to that jumped-up little beachsweeper, you're wrong …

It won't always be your land …

… you, dear boy, are not my only grandchild.

Dinner had been a gruesome meal. Eliot and Grenville had scarcely spoken a word from beginning to end. Mollie, to make up for their silence, had kept up a patter of meaningless conversation to which I had tried to respond. And Andrea had watched us all, a gleam of triumph in her round, seeking eyes, while Pettifer trod heavily to and fro, removing dishes, handing round a lemon soufflé rich with whipped cream, which nobody seemed to want.

When at last it was over, they had all dispersed. Grenville to his bedroom, Andrea to the morning room from whence we presently heard the blare of the television set. Eliot, with no explanations, put on a coat, whistled up his dog and banged out of the front door. I guessed he had gone to get drunk and didn't entirely blame him. Mollie and I ended up in the drawing room, one on either side of the fire. She had some tapestry and seemed quite prepared to sit and sew in silence, but this would have been unbearable. I said, plunging straight in with the apology which I felt I owed her, “I am sorry about this evening. I wish I'd never mentioned that desk.”

She did not look at me. “Oh, it can't be helped.”

“It was just that my mother had mentioned it to me, and when Grenville spoke about the jade and the mirror, well, it never occurred to me that I'd start such a storm in a tea-cup.”

“Grenville's a strange old man. He's always been stubborn about people, he'll never see that there can be two sides to every situation.”

“You mean about Joss…”

“I don't know why he's so taken with Joss. It's frightening. It's as though Joss were able to exert some hold over him. Eliot and I never wanted him in and out of the house this way. If Grenville's furniture needed to be repaired, surely he could have come and fetched it in his van and taken it down to his workshop, like any other tradesman would do. We tried to talk Grenville out of it, but he was adamant, and, after all, this is his house. It isn't ours.”

“But it will be Eliot's one day.”

She sent me a cold look.

“After this evening, one wonders.”

“Oh, Mollie, I don't want Boscarva, Grenville would never leave a place like this to me. He just said that to win a point; perhaps it was the first thing that came into his head. He didn't mean it.”

“He hurt Eliot.”

“Eliot will understand. You have to make allowances for old people.”

“I'm tired of making allowances for Grenville,” said Mollie, viciously snapping at a strand of wool with her silver scissors. “My life has been disrupted by Grenville. He and Pettifer could have come and lived at High Cross; that's what we wanted. The house is smaller and more convenient and it would have been better for everybody. And Boscarva should have been made over to Eliot years ago. As it is, death duties are going to be exorbitant. Eliot is never going to be able to afford to keep it going. The whole situation is
so
unrealistic.”

“I suppose it's hard to be realistic when you're eighty and you've lived in a place most of your life.”

She ignored this. “And all that land, and the farm. Eliot is simply trying to make the best of it all, but Grenville won't see that. He's never shown any interest, never encouraged Eliot in any way. Even the garage at High Cross, Eliot got that going entirely on his own. At the beginning, he asked his grandfather to help, but Grenville said he wasn't going to have anything to do with second-hand cars, and there was a row, and finally Eliot borrowed the money from someone else, and he's never asked his grandfather for a shilling since that day. You'd think he'd deserve some credit for that.”

She was pale with anger on Eliot's account—a little tigress, I thought, fighting for her cub, and I remembered my mother's low opinion of the way in which she had possessed and molly-coddled the young Eliot. Perhaps neither of them had ever grown out of the habit.

To change the subject I told her about Eliot's invitation for the next day. “He said he'd take me into High Cross on the way home.”

But Mollie was only momentarily diverted. “You must go in and see the house, Eliot's got the key. I go up most weeks to make sure everything's all right, but really I get so depressed having to leave my darling little house and come back to this gloomy place…” and then she laughed at herself wryly. “It's getting me down, isn't it? I must try to pull myself together. But really I'll be glad when it's all over.”

When it's all over. That meant when Grenville finally died. I didn't want to think about him dying any more than I wanted to think about Joss coupled with the unsavoury Andrea; any more than I wanted to think about Joss helping himself to a davenport desk and a Chippendale chair, heaving them into the back of his little truck, and selling them to the first dealer who made him a good offer.

What do you know about Joss? What do any of us know about him?

For my part I wished I knew nothing. I turned in bed, thumped at the pillows, and waited, without much hope, for sleep.

It rained in the night, but the next morning it was still and clear, the sky a pale, washed blue, everything wet and shining, translucent in the cool spring light. I leaned out of the window and smelt the dampness, mossy and sweet. The sea was flat and blue as a sheet of silk, gulls drifted lazily over the rim of the cliff, a boat moved out from the harbour, heading for distant fishing-grounds, and so still was the air that I could hear the distant chug of its engine.

My spirits rose. Yesterday was over, today would be better. I was glad to be getting out of the house, away from Mollie's reproach and Andrea's unsettling presence. I bathed and dressed and went downstairs and found Eliot in the dining room, eating bacon and eggs, and looking—I was thankful to see—cheerful.

He looked up from the morning paper. “I wondered,” he said, “if I was going to have to come and wake you up. I thought perhaps you'd forgotten.”

“No, I didn't forget.”

“We're the first down. With any luck we'll be out of the house before anyone else appears.” He grinned, ruefully, like a repentant boy. “The last thing I want on a beautiful morning like this is recriminations.”

“It was all my fault, mentioning that stupid desk. I said I was sorry last night to your mother.”

“It'll all blow over,” said Eliot. “These little differences of opinion always do.” I poured myself a cup of coffee. “I'm just sorry that you were involved.”

We left straight after breakfast, and there was a marvellous feeling of relief to be in his car, with Rufus perched on the back seat, and to be escaping. The car roared up the hill away from Boscarva; the wet road was blue with reflected sky, and the air smelt of primroses. As we climbed up and over the moor, the view spread and dipped before us—there were hills topped by ancient cairns and standing stones, and tiny forgotten villages, tucked into the folds of unexpected valleys where little rivers ran, and ancient clumps of oak and elm stood clustered by narrow, hump-backed bridges.

But I knew that we could not enjoy our day together, that we could not be entirely at ease, until I had made my peace with him.

I said, “I know that it'll blow over, and that perhaps it
wasn't
important, but we have to talk about last night.”

He smiled at me, glancing sideways. “What do we have to say?”

“Just that, what Grenville said about having another grandchild. He didn't mean it. I know he didn't mean it.”

“No, perhaps he didn't. Perhaps he was just trying to set us against each other, like a pair of dogs.”

“He'd never leave me Boscarva. Never in a thousand years. He doesn't even know me, I've only just come into his life.”

“Rebecca, don't give it another thought. I'm not going to.”

“And, after all, if it is going to be yours one day, I don't see why you shouldn't start thinking about what you're going to do with it.”

“You mean Ernest Padlow? What a lot of gossips those old people are, carrying tales and making mischief. If it isn't the bank manager it's Mrs Thomas, and if it isn't Mrs Thomas it's Pettifer.”

I made myself sound casual. “Would you sell the land?”

“If I did, I could probably afford to live at Boscarva. It's time I set up on my own.”

“But—” I chose my words tactfully—“but wouldn't it be rather … spoiled … I mean, living there with rows of Mr Padlow's little houses all round you?”

Eliot laughed. “You've got entirely the wrong end of the stick. This wouldn't be a building estate like the one at the top of the hill. This would be high-class stuff, two acre lots, very high specifications as to the style and the price of the houses built on them. No cutting down of trees, no despoiling of the amenities. They'd be expensive houses for expensive people, and there wouldn't be a lot of them. How does that sound to you?”