The Attenbury Emeralds (26 page)

Roger got up and went to Harriet and hugged her. Immediately his older brothers did the same. Harriet was encircled. Peter looked on ruefully; he felt as if his tenderest feelings had been put through a cheese-grater, and he was longing to embrace Harriet himself.

‘I say, Father,’ said Bredon in a while. ‘I suppose Paul is still Paul, but am I now Lord Bredon?’

‘Paul is now Lord Paul. You can use the title of viscount – Lord St George as your cousin was.’

‘Christ!’ said Bredon. ‘Do I have to?’

‘No,’ said Peter. ‘True courtesy requires people to call you what you wish to be called.’

‘I’ll just be Mr Wimsey, then,’ Bredon said.

‘You can avoid using a title, if you like, Bredon,’ said Peter. ‘But you cannot in the long run avoid the responsibility that goes with it.’

‘You mean all the stuff that’s hit you now?’ said Bredon. ‘I expect a Labour government will take it all from you before I get in the hot seat.’

And then he favoured his parents with something he had inherited already – the crooked Wimsey grin – and said, ‘At least you two are
interesting
parents. You’ve no idea how boring other chaps’ parents are!’

‘Get along with you!’ said Peter. ‘There’s really no point in your going back to school when we shall need you up here again for the funeral. You’re on furlough. Try not to get in the way.’

‘Thanks, Father,’ said Paul. ‘Does that apply to Peter Bunter too?’

‘You must ask Bunter that question. But I don’t see why not. Saves a train fare.’

‘But aren’t we all immensely rich now?’ Paul asked.

‘I rather think,’ said the new Duke of Denver, ‘we may find we have all been ruined.’

21

The Duke was buried in the family vault in the parish church of Duke’s Denver, on a grey and rainy day. It was a large parish church, having benefited from the generosity of dukes down the centuries, who had added wide aisles, and an extra bay to the nave. The church stood on the perimeter wall of the park, where the dukes could reach it without leaving their own purlieus, and the parishioners could reach it with out setting foot in the park. It was packed; the great families of two counties turned out for Gerald, and many friends from London as well. The indoor and outdoor servants of the Hall stood at the back of the aisles, among the parishioners. The service went strictly by the book:

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope…

Peter read the first lesson, and Bredon read the second. Peter, having fortunately seen the order of service proposed by the vicar, had ruled out ‘The King of Love My Shepherd Is’ – the line
Perverse and foolish oft I strayed
, might seem rather too apt for Gerald – and settled for ‘The Lord Is My Shepherd’, and ‘I Vow to Thee, My Country’. Then everyone returned to the Dower House for the usual refreshments.

Like most funeral parties it started sombre, and cheered up a bit as it went along. Since everyone had passed the stump of the Hall as they walked between the church and the Dower House, there was a lot of talk about what Peter should or could do about that. Nice, neutral talk that didn’t upset anyone more than they were already upset. There were many people button-holing Peter and telling him gruffly that his brother had been a good sort of chap. The old school. Man of honour, and all that. Passing of an era. Don’t envy you taking over, Peter; hard act to follow.

By mid-afternoon they were all driving away, and the rain had stopped. The assembled family found themselves alone together.

‘You read beautifully, dear,’ the Dowager Duchess said to Bredon. ‘Just as well as Peter, which was more than could have been expected of you. I was proud of you. Your Uncle Gerald would have been proud of you too. It’s an odd thing, isn’t it, how at funerals one always thinks that the dead person should have been there; how they would have been pleased to see everybody and hear what was said.’

‘Ridiculous,’ said Helen.

‘Yes, Helen, I am ridiculous,’ said the Dowager Duchess. ‘But I shall be out of your way for a bit now. I think, Peter,’ she said, turning to her son, ‘I would like to go to New York, to visit my dear friend Cornelia.’

‘If you think you can manage it, Mama,’ he said.

‘I have it all worked out,’ she told him. ‘You shall drive me down to London and put me on the train to Southampton, and Franklin has telephoned and found there is a nice cabin available on the
Liberté
. I can manage very well. I shall stay for a month.’

She’s a clever old bird, thought Harriet. By the time she gets back we can have worked out where she will be living.

Helen said suddenly, rather gruffly, ‘Yes, you did read well, Bredon. Thank you.’

Bredon looked astonished, as well he might, thought Harriet. He put his hands in his pockets and took them out again. ‘Er…you told us to keep out of the way…’ he said to Peter.

‘Yes, I did,’ said Peter, ‘and you made a good job of that, too. Haven’t clapped eyes on any of you since you first arrived. What have you been up to?’

‘We’ll show you tomorrow,’ said Paul, ‘when we’ve all got out of best clothes.’

‘Helen is a person who doesn’t know who she is,’ said Harriet to Peter as they prepared for bed.

‘Do any of us know that, at the moment?’ he asked.

‘No, I don’t mean accepting or rejecting new roles – I mean she hasn’t properly decided what sort of person to be; whether to be a pleasant, or a harsh and unkind one. She is the most spectacularly snobbish woman I have ever met, but I realise she thinks it is up to her to maintain standards of a kind. She keeps changing tack and surprising everyone. Did you see Bredon’s face when she praised his reading?’

‘She has as much adapting to do as any of us,’ Peter admitted. ‘But I can’t bear the way she treats you. It makes me so angry I can’t trust myself.’

‘Don’t waste rage on it, Peter. I’m pretty watertight to Helen. How do you think the boys took your sudden revelations?’

‘They’re turning out all right, I think,’ said Peter, offering an indirect answer.

‘They really have made themselves scarce, these last few days,’ said Harriet. She considered telling Peter something, and then thought better of it. Since Roger still liked it, she had gone up to his bedroom to tuck him in and kiss him goodnight, something that both he and she missed when he was at school. Very shortly he would fend her off, she thought, so she took her opportunities.

‘What have you been up to, darling?’ she had asked him three nights ago. ‘Hope you haven’t been bored?’

‘Bored?’ he had said. ‘I should jolly well say not! But it’s secret, Mummy. Can’t tell.’

With so much going on Harriet had not had time to worry about the secret.

‘I expect it had occurred to them that if we noticed they were around we might want to send them back to school,’ said Peter.

You could trust boys to be fascinated by fire, and ineluctably drawn towards soot, that most dramatic form of dirt. The morning after their arrival at Bredon Hall the disappearing sons had set out in a posse to explore. Even the elder two were impressed.

‘What a mess!’ said Paul joyfully.

‘A relief for the old man, I should think,’ said Bredon insouciantly.

‘Why?’ asked Paul.

‘I shouldn’t think anyone will want him to break the bank putting a roof on that,’ said Bredon airily, waving his hands towards the pile of black rubble that was most of his ancestral home.

PB said, ‘I wonder how much they got out?’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Roger.

‘Oh, you know, books and pictures and things.’

‘Oh, that stuff,’ said Bredon. ‘I wouldn’t take it as a gift myself.’

‘It’s all your ancestors, you posh lot,’ said PB.

Bredon put up his fists at PB, and they all laughed.

A lanky young man with a wheelbarrow was working near them shovelling up ashes and debris. ‘The stuff is in the barn,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you if you like.’

The barn had been part of the buildings of the home farm. It stood empty these days, the land having been attached to the next farm, and being worked by the tenant farmer there.

They all trooped inside. It was full of objects: pictures leaning against the walls, small pieces of furniture, books in great tottering piles, tapestry wall-hangings just tossed to hang bundled up over the sides of the stalls, various porcelain jars, silver candlesticks and bric-à-brac simply piled at random on a pile of hay-bales; but it was even more full of a choking and repulsive stink of scorch.

‘Ugh!’ said Paul.

‘Let’s open it up,’ said Bredon.

They unlatched the great cart doors, and trundled them open.

‘Now the trap in the hay-loft,’ said Bredon. Roger scrambled up to do it. Cold, clean air swept through the building. A few cinders spun away on the up-draught.

Bredon said, ‘Could we do anything about all this?’

Paul said, ‘Where the heck would we start?’

‘We could bring everything into this big central space and empty all the stalls,’ said PB. ‘And then use the stalls like filing boxes and put things back in some sort of order. We could do with some trestle tables to put small things on, and for a writing desk to make lists.’

‘I can make lists, PB,’ said Roger. ‘I’ve got good clear handwriting.’

‘We’ll take you up on that,’ said Bredon, ruffling his younger brother’s hair.

‘Would you know where we could find trestle tables, by any chance?’ PB asked the gardener, who was standing by, watching them.

‘There’s some in the tack-room,’ the boy said. ‘They get set up to put the wage packets out on come pay day. I’d help you fetch them…’ he added uncertainly.

‘What’s your name?’ asked Bredon.

‘Jim, sir. I’m Jim Jackson.’

Bredon looked levelly at him for a moment. ‘Do you think we can borrow you, Jim?’ he asked.

‘You couldn’t normally, sir,’ said Jim, ‘without you asked the Head Gardener. But he’s in the hospital with the back of his hands burned quite bad, and almost to his elbow one arm, we’re told. And it’s all at sixes and sevens, sir, so I don’t think anyone would notice what I’m after doing.’

‘Well, Jim, do as you like, then,’ said Bredon. PB was looking at Bredon with a flicker of a smile.

‘I’m game to help out if I can, sir,’ said Jim. ‘I can do what you tell me, but I haven’t a clue what all these indoor things are, mind.’

‘Would you be kind enough to get out a couple of those trestle tables, Jim, please,’ said Bredon sweetly. ‘Paul will help you carry them.’

They all set to work willingly enough. Even Roger could carry small pictures and objects. But they quickly discovered that it was hard work.

‘It uses different muscles from rugger,’ said Bredon ruefully, after an hour’s work. He leaned against a post, stretching his legs and arms.

‘I never knew that soot was greasy,’ said Paul. But so it was proving: everything blackened that they had touched had fingerprints in the grime; everything relatively clean that they had touched had grimy fingerprints, and they themselves were beginning to look like sweeps.

‘Bredon, I think this is too much for us,’ said Paul.

‘Oh, never say die,’ replied Bredon. ‘This is the hardest bit. Tomorrow we will be moving things back into the stalls, and that will be one by one. Cheer up, Paul.’

Jim, who had been quietly helping with the biggest pictures, slipped away at this point.

Bredon thought he had given up on them, but he was back quite soon with two rather larger gardeners, one of whom was a grown man. ‘This here’s Bob,’ said Jim.

Bob walked around a bit. Then he said, ‘Do you boys have permission from the house to be doing this?’

‘No, Bob,’ said Bredon. ‘We are showing initiative. We are always being told at school to do that.’

‘Oh, ah,’ said Bob. ‘Well, the garden men will help you, but only if you give me a formal order that they are to do it. Understood? Anything gets broken, and you takes the blame, not one of us.’

‘Of course, Bob,’ said Bredon, unruffled.

‘Only, young master,’ Bob said, ‘we don’t know how things stand no more. The old Duke ran a tight ship and he had a short temper. He was very fair, mind, but we watched our steps. We don’t know what the new Duke will be like at all. By rights I ought to get all three of us out of here fast, only I can see you could do with a bit of a hand.’

‘I think you’ll find my father is pretty fair,’ said Bredon.

With two more hands to the job they moved everything into the central space by mid-afternoon.

Bredon offered thanks, and said the work would be easier from then on, and he thought could be managed without more help.

‘Those lists we are going to make will be the filthiest lists known to man,’ said Paul, holding out to Bredon his spectacularly blackened hands.

‘We’ll keep Roger clean,’ said Bredon. ‘He can sit at the table and do the actual writing while the rest of us do the scene-shifting.’

As he spoke they realised that Bunter had come into the barn and was standing listening and looking.

PB took the lead. ‘We are hoping to sort things and make lists, Dad,’ he said.

It seemed a long time before Bunter answered. They all knew that if he disapproved the work would stop at once.

‘Good idea,’ he said at last.

‘I thought, Dad, we would need kinds and grades,’ said PB.

Bredon raised an eyebrow.

‘Kind of things listed separately – as in pictures, prints, tables, jars,’ said PB. ‘And grades as in how damaged, like a little, a lot, totally destroyed.’

‘What are you going to make these lists
in
?’ asked Bunter.

‘Haven’t thought yet, Mervyn,’ said Bredon, flashing the Wimsey smile at Bunter.

Bunter left, and they stood around surveying the next day’s work. But he was soon back, carrying an armful of leather-bound folio ledgers, which he put down on the trestle table. ‘Some distant duke bought in enough of these to last the house till doomsday,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ they said in ragged unison.

‘And now to clean you up,’ said Bunter. ‘You will need hot baths, and you may need help scrubbing down to get that soot off. You cannot possibly tramp through the Dower House looking like that. I shall organise baths for you in the servants’ quarter. No arguments.’