The Brigandshaw Chronicles Box Set 2, page 75
part #4 of The Brigandshaw Chronicles Series
“I’m frightened. What’s going on in Germany? The American papers don’t say much about England.”
“I’m going down to Dorset this afternoon. We can go together. Did you finish the film?”
“It’s all over.”
“So will England be if we don’t do something about Hitler. Will your luggage fit in the car?”
“No. I’ll leave most of it at the left luggage office until I decide where I am going to live.”
Half an hour later they were on their way out of the station, in her father’s Bentley 3 Litre.
“Aren’t you going the wrong way if we want to drive down to Dorset?”
“First I want you to see your mother. You’ve been away a long time. She’s lonely, Genevieve.”
“Aren’t we all? Sometimes on the set with people all around me was the worst. Even though everyone in America calls each other by their Christian name, on a film set we were all strangers. People thrown together by the film for a few months, everything disjointed. In the theatre, I could get into a part and stay there for hours, long after the curtain came down. In film you take shots of everything. The editors put it together, give it continuity. I never felt I was inside the part, playing another person. It was just me dressed up. They don’t even take all the shots in sequence.”
“Did you write to her?”
“For a while. Mother doesn’t write letters.”
“She can’t, or not without difficulty. Give her a hug and have a cup of tea.”
“When did you last make a call?”
“With you, before you left for America.”
“Do all love affairs fizzle out? Come to nothing?”
“You must find out for yourself.”
“What does she do all day? It’s one thing to have money but if you don’t have to work, what do you do all day?”
“Are you asking about your mother or about me? I have a routine that includes the club, a walk in the park in good weather, seeing friends, your Uncle Barnaby, who is only down the road. Once a week I sit down at my desk and pay the bills. My money is safe in the Bank of England so I don’t have to think about that since I sold my Vickers shares at the end of the war.”
“Don’t you get bored?”
“I’m long past being bored. Once or twice I’ve found myself missing my days in the trenches. In the trenches with Jerry shooting at you there was no time to think of yourself. In wartime, people are closer to each other. What they talk about is real. Men get bored too easily in peacetime and end up wanting to fight each other. Women have the children to bring up and stop them thinking of themselves. When we get to your mother’s flat I will stay in the car so as not to distract her and make it all uncomfortable.”
“What are we going to do with her?”
“Why don’t you ask your mother? She’ll tell you. She’ll never tell me. Why doesn’t she find herself a man?”
“Don’t be silly, Daddy, and lose your support? My mother may well be bored but she does have money. She likes not having to work. It can’t be worse doing nothing than serving drinks in a bar to drunks all day. She had her time. She had you. A handsome officer fighting for his country. What else could a barmaid want?”
“I just thought there was more to life than temporary happiness.”
Her mother was still in her dressing gown after lunch, her hair in disarray; she was not wearing make-up. When Genevieve kissed her, she could smell the booze on her mother’s breath. Genevieve looked around the small Chelsea flat for the bottle.
“I put it away before I answered the door.”
“Did you expect me?”
“Thought you were in America, luv. How’ve you been?”
“Do you ever go out?”
“Not much. What’s the point? Tarted up I look like an old dragon. I got nothing no one wants except this nice flat and an income. I’m not stupid. Don’t want no bum living off Esther. What would your father say?”
“He’s downstairs in the car. We’re driving down to Dorset. Want me to bring him up?”
“Looking like this! Don’t be daft. He’s a good man. Bet he was the one what made you come and see your old mother.”
“You’re not old.”
“Might as well be… Want a drink? It’s gin. Drink it with a drop of orange cordial. Just a bit at a time. You don’t get your looks from me, more’s the pity. Just look at you, Genevieve… What have you been doing with yourself?”
“Making a film.”
“I asked what you been doing?”
“Making a fool of myself with a man called Gregory. Once they’ve had you they don’t care.”
“Told you. Who’s Gregory?”
“My leading man.”
“Good. He’s not important. It’s the men with the money you got to keep on the hook. How’s Mr Casimir?”
“Still on the hook. He’s now Mr Hollingsworth, no longer a Jew.”
“Good for you. Good for him. No point in sticking your neck out. Mind if I help myself? Where you going to live?”
“The flat’s been sublet in St John’s Wood for another year.”
“No, which country? You can always move back here if you stay in London. Go on, bugger off. You’re fidgeting, Genevieve. You don’t want to drink with your mother?”
“It’s three o’clock in the afternoon.”
“So bloody what?… You do look lovely, but they all tell you that. Enjoy it. One day when you’re old you’ll remember all the attention. Wasn’t that bad a looker in my day. Most of us have a few years when the men come calling. Cheers. Lovely to see my daughter. Now bugger off.”
The road through the countryside was beautiful in July. It had taken her father an hour to drive out of London. Neither of them had spoken a word since Genevieve got back in the car. While waiting, her father had taken down the hood, the big windscreen giving them enough protection in the front seats of the car. Unlike Tinus and Uncle Harry, her father drove sedately through the country lanes, the road sunk deep between the hedgerows and the fields.
“Is she all right? I should have come up.”
“No you shouldn’t. When are you going to buy a new car?”
“Whatever for? I only use the car to drive into the country. In town I catch a taxi. Last week I caught a bus. Why ever should I want to buy another car? The old Bentley is still the best on the road. We’ll arrive at the Manor in time for dinner. You know I inherit the title and the Manor when father dies? I say this to warn you. He’s not been well. Mother doesn’t think he’ll get through next winter.”
“What will your mother do?”
“What we all do. The best we can. She has Robert and young Richard, though Freya wants to go back to America. Dying is part of life.”
“Will you live at the Manor?”
“Of course.”
“If you had married my mother and I had been a boy, I would also inherit the title.”
“Only after I am dead.”
“But I’m a girl.”
“I thank God and Esther for you every day. You are all I have really got from my life. Everything else is material… Genevieve! Why on earth are you crying?”
Somewhere down an English lane Genevieve had fallen asleep. Talking with the wind whipping over the windscreen was difficult. When she woke, she could only remember the shadow of her dream where nothing had been real, the place or the people. The car slowing down had brought her awake.
“Where are we?”
“Corfe Castle. You know we lived up there in the castle before Cromwell knocked it down in retaliation for the St Clairs going out with the King? Cromwell cut off his head. We were lucky and survived to build Purbeck Manor down the road when the monarchy was restored. Deep under the rubble is the St Clairs’ secret cavern. Only the Baron and his immediate heir are meant to know how to get in. I went down with father.”
“There’s nothing up there but old stones. If there were, why hasn’t someone found it? Will you show me?”
“Of course not. You are not my heir. First, there is Robert. After him young Richard. If everyone knew, it would have been found and looted.”
“What’s down there, Daddy?”
“Plaques. Pictures depicting the story of the old St Clairs.”
“Grandfather would have sold them when he was short of money. When Uncle Barnaby fixed the roof of the Manor and you bought grandfather a herd of pedigree cows from your war profiteering.”
“I wasn’t war profiteering. I merely invested in shares.”
“At the start of the war in a company that happened to make machine guns. Or did you fix the roof and Uncle Barnaby buy the cows? There are so many family stories I can’t remember. No, there’s no hidden family treasure. That one is a tall story.”
“Have it your own way. It was the first time I brought you down to the Manor, but we never told anyone what we were doing.”
“Are we in time for dinner?”
“Even time for a glass of my father’s sherry if he’s up and about. Your Uncles Robert and Barnaby were with me when father showed us the priest’s bolthole. In those days we were Catholics in Protestant England.”
“Now it’s a priest’s bolthole. How old is grandfather?”
“Seventy-four.”
“That is old.”
“Not to him. You can go back to sleep for another ten minutes. You were talking in your sleep.”
“What did I say?”
“I couldn’t make it out. Do you know we dream for one tenth of our lives and mostly don’t remember a thing? The one book I read on the subject said we dream everything that happened to our ancestors. Do you dream in colour or black and white?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s my point. Some people say they dream in colour but how can we be sure? No one ever sees into another man’s dreams… My goodness it is a clear day. I can just see the chimney pots of the Manor behind the tops of the trees. We’re almost home. Better stay awake and watch your family home grow bigger and bigger.”
Slowly, Merlin St Clair drove home the last few miles where everything around him was familiar.
“What are all the cars doing in the driveway?” said her father as they came out onto the gravel courtyard in front of the old house.
Two of them, side by side, were Morgan sports cars, one black and one English racing green. Her stomach gave a sharp flip of excitement. There was no one around, only the cars. Her father parked the Bentley next to a motorcycle; the rider had left his goggles hanging from the handlebars. The goggles were big, of the type used by pilots flying in aircraft with open cockpits.
“That’s your Uncle Barnaby’s Rolls next to the motorcycle. Mother didn’t say anything about visitors. Why look, here comes your Uncle Harry. What’s he doing here? Hello, Harry! Has something happened to my father?”
“He’s having a glass of sherry on the lawn. Tina said she’d take the opportunity to visit her parents with the children. The chauffeur brought them down. That’s my motorcycle. Outside of flying, roaring down the English lanes on a powerful bike is the next best thing. My word Genevieve, you look gorgeous. Why didn’t you tell Tinus you were coming?”
“I was on my way to Oxford from the boat. I decided to go to Daddy first.”
“Do you know Andre scored a century for Oxford?” said Harry Brigandshaw. “To celebrate I persuaded your grandmother to invite them down to the country for the weekend. Well, come on in. We can get someone to take up your luggage. How are you, Merlin? I’ve got a job at the Air Ministry, I’ll tell you all about it. So Robin Hood is in the can, as they say in America?”
“How is my father?” asked Merlin St Clair.
“He’s old, Merlin. We all get old. Your mother asked me to come down for the weekend. Tina’s now with her parents who love seeing the children. Well, you know the rest. Never the twain shall meet. One day all that nonsense won’t matter. My grandfather Brigandshaw said we all look the same under a bus. Why do people so often complicate their lives with petty rules that separate them?… Where are you going in a hurry, Genevieve?”
“To find Tinus. It’s over a year. He wrote to me about Andre. At Oxford that time we called ourselves the three musketeers.”
Before Merlin could follow, Harry gave him a look that said the girl should go alone.
“I’ll help you with the luggage, Merlin old boy. Why not? Those servants have enough to do. You two brothers really like your cars. How’s the old car going?”
“What’s going on, Harry?”
“The boys drove down with their girlfriends.”
“What’s that got to do with Genevieve?”
“You don’t know?”
“Nobody tells me anything.”
“Ask her, these things have nothing to do with me.”
“Is he very sick?”
“Your father has cancer. He had a lump on his leg they tried to cut out. Now they want to cut off his leg. They didn’t get all the cancer growth the first time.”
“Will it save him?”
“Probably not. Likely he won’t let them cut it off anyway.”
“How’s mother?”
“Practical as ever… You carry that one. Mrs Mason has put you in your old room with your dressing room next door for Genevieve. How did the filming go in America?”
“I don’t know.”
The last person Tinus expected to see walking across the lawn was Genevieve. So far as he knew she was still in America. The four of them were standing on the lawn in the shade of a tree at the back of the house. Lord St Clair was sitting on a chair in front of them drinking a glass of sherry. Next to him, Barnaby was talking to his father.
“I say, isn’t that Genevieve?” said Lord St Clair brightening up. “This little party is getting better and better.”
Genevieve stopped dead. In between the two boys were two young girls. The girls had their arms linked with the boys’. They were obviously together, more than casual visitors who had come down to the country for a weekend. One of the girls was smiling up at Tinus from the level of his shoulder. Even at the distance across the lawn, Genevieve could see the girl’s eyes were shining. Tinus was looking embarrassed, the tableau frozen. Then Genevieve moved forward easily, smiling her enigmatic smile that was about to sweep the world. When she reached them under the shade of the tree, she bent to kiss her grandfather.
“Hello, Tinus and Andre,” she said as an afterthought as if she had just seen them in the dappled shade of the tree for the first time. “What a lovely surprise.”
“Do you drink sherry, Genevieve?” asked Lord St Clair.
“Only with you, grandfather. What are all the cars in the driveway?”
“They think I’m dying.”
“You look wonderful.”
“I don’t but thank you just the same. May I introduce you to the two young ladies from the Royal College of Music? They have promised to play after supper in the dining hall. A medley from Beethoven’s late quartets arranged by their music teacher for two violins, or so they tell me. Quite frankly I don’t know what a Beethoven quartet looks like, early or late.”
Genevieve gave the girls the same smile she gave everyone when she did not want them to know what she was thinking. The same smile she gave to the newspapers.
“Andre, what a century. Congratulations.”
“Thank you, Genevieve. This is Celia Larson and her friend Fleur Brooks.”
“How nice to meet you.”
“Aren’t you an actress?” said Celia Larson.
“I believe so. I have just finished making a film in America.”
“How jolly exciting. What’s it called?”
“Robin Hood and his Merry Men. I played the part of Maid Marian. The premiere is in November at the Leicester Square cinema. Why don’t you all come? I’m sure Tinus would love to bring you. So Tinus, how are tricks?”
“Did you get my letter?”
“Of course. How would I have known about Andre’s proliferation of runs? Will you excuse me while I go and look for my grandmother?”
“She’s in the dining hall,” said her grandfather. “Arranging the flowers. Your grandmother has always been a stickler for her fresh flowers on the dining table.”
Even as she walked away she wondered what her grandfather thought of his illegitimate granddaughter he had first seen when she was fifteen, taken down to Purbeck Manor by her father. Thinking back to the conversation with her father earlier in the car when they drove past the ruins of Corfe Castle up on its hill, she remembered all the male members of the family leaving her alone with her grandmother while they went off together; it must have been the time her grandfather showed her father the family secrets.
Looking back over her shoulder, she could see Tinus still looking in her direction. She smiled at him. Her real smile, the one they shared together without having to say a word. Happy again, she walked into the house to find her grandmother in the dining hall.
“Hello, Grandmother.”
“Hello, darling. What a lovely surprise. You want to help me arrange these flowers?”
“That’s why I’m here,” said Genevieve smiling.
“Now, tell me everything you’ve been doing this last year.”
“Are you and grandfather coming to the premiere in London?”
“Don’t be silly. We never leave Dorset. That’s your world, Genevieve. This is ours. What’s left of it. We are having a cold supper without any fuss. There are two young girls visiting who are going to play some lovely music… Did you hear that boy scored one hundred runs for Oxford?”
“One hundred and twelve.”
“As a young girl I watched my brothers play cricket with the villagers on the village green. There is nothing more soothing for the nerves than watching a game of cricket. It was on one of those late afternoons that I met your grandfather… Enough of me. I want to hear all about you. You look radiant. Are you in love? Who did you meet in America? Oh dear, does this mean you are going to live in the States? I lost one daughter to the colonies when Lucinda married Harry and went off to Rhodesia. Did you know he’s got a job at the Air Ministry? All very hush-hush. There’s going to be another terrible war. Harry says so and he should know. The Germans have walked into the Rhineland. I suppose it was theirs before they lost the war. You can’t just take someone else’s country and expect to keep it.”
“I’m going down to Dorset this afternoon. We can go together. Did you finish the film?”
“It’s all over.”
“So will England be if we don’t do something about Hitler. Will your luggage fit in the car?”
“No. I’ll leave most of it at the left luggage office until I decide where I am going to live.”
Half an hour later they were on their way out of the station, in her father’s Bentley 3 Litre.
“Aren’t you going the wrong way if we want to drive down to Dorset?”
“First I want you to see your mother. You’ve been away a long time. She’s lonely, Genevieve.”
“Aren’t we all? Sometimes on the set with people all around me was the worst. Even though everyone in America calls each other by their Christian name, on a film set we were all strangers. People thrown together by the film for a few months, everything disjointed. In the theatre, I could get into a part and stay there for hours, long after the curtain came down. In film you take shots of everything. The editors put it together, give it continuity. I never felt I was inside the part, playing another person. It was just me dressed up. They don’t even take all the shots in sequence.”
“Did you write to her?”
“For a while. Mother doesn’t write letters.”
“She can’t, or not without difficulty. Give her a hug and have a cup of tea.”
“When did you last make a call?”
“With you, before you left for America.”
“Do all love affairs fizzle out? Come to nothing?”
“You must find out for yourself.”
“What does she do all day? It’s one thing to have money but if you don’t have to work, what do you do all day?”
“Are you asking about your mother or about me? I have a routine that includes the club, a walk in the park in good weather, seeing friends, your Uncle Barnaby, who is only down the road. Once a week I sit down at my desk and pay the bills. My money is safe in the Bank of England so I don’t have to think about that since I sold my Vickers shares at the end of the war.”
“Don’t you get bored?”
“I’m long past being bored. Once or twice I’ve found myself missing my days in the trenches. In the trenches with Jerry shooting at you there was no time to think of yourself. In wartime, people are closer to each other. What they talk about is real. Men get bored too easily in peacetime and end up wanting to fight each other. Women have the children to bring up and stop them thinking of themselves. When we get to your mother’s flat I will stay in the car so as not to distract her and make it all uncomfortable.”
“What are we going to do with her?”
“Why don’t you ask your mother? She’ll tell you. She’ll never tell me. Why doesn’t she find herself a man?”
“Don’t be silly, Daddy, and lose your support? My mother may well be bored but she does have money. She likes not having to work. It can’t be worse doing nothing than serving drinks in a bar to drunks all day. She had her time. She had you. A handsome officer fighting for his country. What else could a barmaid want?”
“I just thought there was more to life than temporary happiness.”
Her mother was still in her dressing gown after lunch, her hair in disarray; she was not wearing make-up. When Genevieve kissed her, she could smell the booze on her mother’s breath. Genevieve looked around the small Chelsea flat for the bottle.
“I put it away before I answered the door.”
“Did you expect me?”
“Thought you were in America, luv. How’ve you been?”
“Do you ever go out?”
“Not much. What’s the point? Tarted up I look like an old dragon. I got nothing no one wants except this nice flat and an income. I’m not stupid. Don’t want no bum living off Esther. What would your father say?”
“He’s downstairs in the car. We’re driving down to Dorset. Want me to bring him up?”
“Looking like this! Don’t be daft. He’s a good man. Bet he was the one what made you come and see your old mother.”
“You’re not old.”
“Might as well be… Want a drink? It’s gin. Drink it with a drop of orange cordial. Just a bit at a time. You don’t get your looks from me, more’s the pity. Just look at you, Genevieve… What have you been doing with yourself?”
“Making a film.”
“I asked what you been doing?”
“Making a fool of myself with a man called Gregory. Once they’ve had you they don’t care.”
“Told you. Who’s Gregory?”
“My leading man.”
“Good. He’s not important. It’s the men with the money you got to keep on the hook. How’s Mr Casimir?”
“Still on the hook. He’s now Mr Hollingsworth, no longer a Jew.”
“Good for you. Good for him. No point in sticking your neck out. Mind if I help myself? Where you going to live?”
“The flat’s been sublet in St John’s Wood for another year.”
“No, which country? You can always move back here if you stay in London. Go on, bugger off. You’re fidgeting, Genevieve. You don’t want to drink with your mother?”
“It’s three o’clock in the afternoon.”
“So bloody what?… You do look lovely, but they all tell you that. Enjoy it. One day when you’re old you’ll remember all the attention. Wasn’t that bad a looker in my day. Most of us have a few years when the men come calling. Cheers. Lovely to see my daughter. Now bugger off.”
The road through the countryside was beautiful in July. It had taken her father an hour to drive out of London. Neither of them had spoken a word since Genevieve got back in the car. While waiting, her father had taken down the hood, the big windscreen giving them enough protection in the front seats of the car. Unlike Tinus and Uncle Harry, her father drove sedately through the country lanes, the road sunk deep between the hedgerows and the fields.
“Is she all right? I should have come up.”
“No you shouldn’t. When are you going to buy a new car?”
“Whatever for? I only use the car to drive into the country. In town I catch a taxi. Last week I caught a bus. Why ever should I want to buy another car? The old Bentley is still the best on the road. We’ll arrive at the Manor in time for dinner. You know I inherit the title and the Manor when father dies? I say this to warn you. He’s not been well. Mother doesn’t think he’ll get through next winter.”
“What will your mother do?”
“What we all do. The best we can. She has Robert and young Richard, though Freya wants to go back to America. Dying is part of life.”
“Will you live at the Manor?”
“Of course.”
“If you had married my mother and I had been a boy, I would also inherit the title.”
“Only after I am dead.”
“But I’m a girl.”
“I thank God and Esther for you every day. You are all I have really got from my life. Everything else is material… Genevieve! Why on earth are you crying?”
Somewhere down an English lane Genevieve had fallen asleep. Talking with the wind whipping over the windscreen was difficult. When she woke, she could only remember the shadow of her dream where nothing had been real, the place or the people. The car slowing down had brought her awake.
“Where are we?”
“Corfe Castle. You know we lived up there in the castle before Cromwell knocked it down in retaliation for the St Clairs going out with the King? Cromwell cut off his head. We were lucky and survived to build Purbeck Manor down the road when the monarchy was restored. Deep under the rubble is the St Clairs’ secret cavern. Only the Baron and his immediate heir are meant to know how to get in. I went down with father.”
“There’s nothing up there but old stones. If there were, why hasn’t someone found it? Will you show me?”
“Of course not. You are not my heir. First, there is Robert. After him young Richard. If everyone knew, it would have been found and looted.”
“What’s down there, Daddy?”
“Plaques. Pictures depicting the story of the old St Clairs.”
“Grandfather would have sold them when he was short of money. When Uncle Barnaby fixed the roof of the Manor and you bought grandfather a herd of pedigree cows from your war profiteering.”
“I wasn’t war profiteering. I merely invested in shares.”
“At the start of the war in a company that happened to make machine guns. Or did you fix the roof and Uncle Barnaby buy the cows? There are so many family stories I can’t remember. No, there’s no hidden family treasure. That one is a tall story.”
“Have it your own way. It was the first time I brought you down to the Manor, but we never told anyone what we were doing.”
“Are we in time for dinner?”
“Even time for a glass of my father’s sherry if he’s up and about. Your Uncles Robert and Barnaby were with me when father showed us the priest’s bolthole. In those days we were Catholics in Protestant England.”
“Now it’s a priest’s bolthole. How old is grandfather?”
“Seventy-four.”
“That is old.”
“Not to him. You can go back to sleep for another ten minutes. You were talking in your sleep.”
“What did I say?”
“I couldn’t make it out. Do you know we dream for one tenth of our lives and mostly don’t remember a thing? The one book I read on the subject said we dream everything that happened to our ancestors. Do you dream in colour or black and white?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s my point. Some people say they dream in colour but how can we be sure? No one ever sees into another man’s dreams… My goodness it is a clear day. I can just see the chimney pots of the Manor behind the tops of the trees. We’re almost home. Better stay awake and watch your family home grow bigger and bigger.”
Slowly, Merlin St Clair drove home the last few miles where everything around him was familiar.
“What are all the cars doing in the driveway?” said her father as they came out onto the gravel courtyard in front of the old house.
Two of them, side by side, were Morgan sports cars, one black and one English racing green. Her stomach gave a sharp flip of excitement. There was no one around, only the cars. Her father parked the Bentley next to a motorcycle; the rider had left his goggles hanging from the handlebars. The goggles were big, of the type used by pilots flying in aircraft with open cockpits.
“That’s your Uncle Barnaby’s Rolls next to the motorcycle. Mother didn’t say anything about visitors. Why look, here comes your Uncle Harry. What’s he doing here? Hello, Harry! Has something happened to my father?”
“He’s having a glass of sherry on the lawn. Tina said she’d take the opportunity to visit her parents with the children. The chauffeur brought them down. That’s my motorcycle. Outside of flying, roaring down the English lanes on a powerful bike is the next best thing. My word Genevieve, you look gorgeous. Why didn’t you tell Tinus you were coming?”
“I was on my way to Oxford from the boat. I decided to go to Daddy first.”
“Do you know Andre scored a century for Oxford?” said Harry Brigandshaw. “To celebrate I persuaded your grandmother to invite them down to the country for the weekend. Well, come on in. We can get someone to take up your luggage. How are you, Merlin? I’ve got a job at the Air Ministry, I’ll tell you all about it. So Robin Hood is in the can, as they say in America?”
“How is my father?” asked Merlin St Clair.
“He’s old, Merlin. We all get old. Your mother asked me to come down for the weekend. Tina’s now with her parents who love seeing the children. Well, you know the rest. Never the twain shall meet. One day all that nonsense won’t matter. My grandfather Brigandshaw said we all look the same under a bus. Why do people so often complicate their lives with petty rules that separate them?… Where are you going in a hurry, Genevieve?”
“To find Tinus. It’s over a year. He wrote to me about Andre. At Oxford that time we called ourselves the three musketeers.”
Before Merlin could follow, Harry gave him a look that said the girl should go alone.
“I’ll help you with the luggage, Merlin old boy. Why not? Those servants have enough to do. You two brothers really like your cars. How’s the old car going?”
“What’s going on, Harry?”
“The boys drove down with their girlfriends.”
“What’s that got to do with Genevieve?”
“You don’t know?”
“Nobody tells me anything.”
“Ask her, these things have nothing to do with me.”
“Is he very sick?”
“Your father has cancer. He had a lump on his leg they tried to cut out. Now they want to cut off his leg. They didn’t get all the cancer growth the first time.”
“Will it save him?”
“Probably not. Likely he won’t let them cut it off anyway.”
“How’s mother?”
“Practical as ever… You carry that one. Mrs Mason has put you in your old room with your dressing room next door for Genevieve. How did the filming go in America?”
“I don’t know.”
The last person Tinus expected to see walking across the lawn was Genevieve. So far as he knew she was still in America. The four of them were standing on the lawn in the shade of a tree at the back of the house. Lord St Clair was sitting on a chair in front of them drinking a glass of sherry. Next to him, Barnaby was talking to his father.
“I say, isn’t that Genevieve?” said Lord St Clair brightening up. “This little party is getting better and better.”
Genevieve stopped dead. In between the two boys were two young girls. The girls had their arms linked with the boys’. They were obviously together, more than casual visitors who had come down to the country for a weekend. One of the girls was smiling up at Tinus from the level of his shoulder. Even at the distance across the lawn, Genevieve could see the girl’s eyes were shining. Tinus was looking embarrassed, the tableau frozen. Then Genevieve moved forward easily, smiling her enigmatic smile that was about to sweep the world. When she reached them under the shade of the tree, she bent to kiss her grandfather.
“Hello, Tinus and Andre,” she said as an afterthought as if she had just seen them in the dappled shade of the tree for the first time. “What a lovely surprise.”
“Do you drink sherry, Genevieve?” asked Lord St Clair.
“Only with you, grandfather. What are all the cars in the driveway?”
“They think I’m dying.”
“You look wonderful.”
“I don’t but thank you just the same. May I introduce you to the two young ladies from the Royal College of Music? They have promised to play after supper in the dining hall. A medley from Beethoven’s late quartets arranged by their music teacher for two violins, or so they tell me. Quite frankly I don’t know what a Beethoven quartet looks like, early or late.”
Genevieve gave the girls the same smile she gave everyone when she did not want them to know what she was thinking. The same smile she gave to the newspapers.
“Andre, what a century. Congratulations.”
“Thank you, Genevieve. This is Celia Larson and her friend Fleur Brooks.”
“How nice to meet you.”
“Aren’t you an actress?” said Celia Larson.
“I believe so. I have just finished making a film in America.”
“How jolly exciting. What’s it called?”
“Robin Hood and his Merry Men. I played the part of Maid Marian. The premiere is in November at the Leicester Square cinema. Why don’t you all come? I’m sure Tinus would love to bring you. So Tinus, how are tricks?”
“Did you get my letter?”
“Of course. How would I have known about Andre’s proliferation of runs? Will you excuse me while I go and look for my grandmother?”
“She’s in the dining hall,” said her grandfather. “Arranging the flowers. Your grandmother has always been a stickler for her fresh flowers on the dining table.”
Even as she walked away she wondered what her grandfather thought of his illegitimate granddaughter he had first seen when she was fifteen, taken down to Purbeck Manor by her father. Thinking back to the conversation with her father earlier in the car when they drove past the ruins of Corfe Castle up on its hill, she remembered all the male members of the family leaving her alone with her grandmother while they went off together; it must have been the time her grandfather showed her father the family secrets.
Looking back over her shoulder, she could see Tinus still looking in her direction. She smiled at him. Her real smile, the one they shared together without having to say a word. Happy again, she walked into the house to find her grandmother in the dining hall.
“Hello, Grandmother.”
“Hello, darling. What a lovely surprise. You want to help me arrange these flowers?”
“That’s why I’m here,” said Genevieve smiling.
“Now, tell me everything you’ve been doing this last year.”
“Are you and grandfather coming to the premiere in London?”
“Don’t be silly. We never leave Dorset. That’s your world, Genevieve. This is ours. What’s left of it. We are having a cold supper without any fuss. There are two young girls visiting who are going to play some lovely music… Did you hear that boy scored one hundred runs for Oxford?”
“One hundred and twelve.”
“As a young girl I watched my brothers play cricket with the villagers on the village green. There is nothing more soothing for the nerves than watching a game of cricket. It was on one of those late afternoons that I met your grandfather… Enough of me. I want to hear all about you. You look radiant. Are you in love? Who did you meet in America? Oh dear, does this mean you are going to live in the States? I lost one daughter to the colonies when Lucinda married Harry and went off to Rhodesia. Did you know he’s got a job at the Air Ministry? All very hush-hush. There’s going to be another terrible war. Harry says so and he should know. The Germans have walked into the Rhineland. I suppose it was theirs before they lost the war. You can’t just take someone else’s country and expect to keep it.”
