The Hardie Inheritance

by Anne Melville

  Grace blinked, unable to visualize the scene. Even if her imagination had been adequate, she would not have been able to believe it. What could men do with each other? But she did not like to reveal her total ignorance by asking. There was another and more important question to put instead.

  ‘When the police came, did they see – well, the same things as David?’

  ‘God, no. Puts you off your stroke a bit, a peeping Tom. Specially when it’s your wife’s brother. Anyway, Alan scarpered straightaway. I’d have been gone myself in another couple of minutes.’

  ‘Alan?’ Grace queried. Alan was the name of the young man who acted as servant of all work in Ellis’s London flat.

  ‘Yes. Don’t bother to tell me we were crazy. I know that now. When we have the opportunity to be private any time we want! It was the party atmosphere, I suppose. Goes to your head. This is rotten for you, Grace, having to listen to all this.’

  ‘You did warn me,’ she said. It was her fault, not his, if she had not completely understood. Had this been an ordinary marriage, with a normal marital relationship, she might well have felt disgusted and betrayed. But because he had been honest she was able to consider the situation as though it had nothing to do with her. It was on his behalf that she was dismayed.

  ‘The police can’t actually prove anything, can they?’ she suggested. ‘Not unless David were to go into the witness box, at least, and I shouldn’t think he’d enjoy doing that.’

  ‘They haven’t precisely got a photograph of indecent behaviour in progress, if that’s what you mean. But everyone at the party, probably, was there for the same sort of reason, so they can take intention and opportunity for granted. That doesn’t leave them with much to prove. Juries don’t approve of people like me. The benefit of the doubt has a strictly oneway meaning. I’ve let you down badly, Grace. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You haven’t let me down at all. You spelled it out quite clearly, when you were offering to do me a favour.’

  ‘But it’s spoiled everything for you. On this night of all nights, which started as such a triumph for you.’ He looked up at her with tears in his eyes. ‘I’ll do everything I can to keep you out of this. Thank God you decided to use your maiden name for the show. There’s no need –’

  But Grace had other ideas. She said nothing for the moment, because it was a matter to be discussed with lawyers. But it seemed clear to her that what Ellis needed more than anything else was a wife.

  Chapter Three

  Jay Hardie’s appearance in the magistrates’ court was the star role of his acting career. The use of the name by which he had been christened could not have protected him had his face been recognized by any of the court reporters who spent their working lives in this sordid theatre. But by a curious chance he had first made a name for himself in a West End revue in which he appeared every few minutes as a bearded eighty-year-old. So successful was this impersonation that he was regularly engaged to play old men’s parts. Often he had complained laughingly to Grace of the waste of his youthful beauty: for in his twenties his thick fair hair, smooth complexion, and the long dark eyelashes which framed his expressive eyes, seemed to have been created for youthful ingénu roles. But any part was better than unemployment. He took what he was offered and devoted his considerable talent to making each of his elderly characters different from the others.

  Today, in the role of a thirty-six-year-old, he was unrecognizable. A currently fashionable oil had darkened his hair at the same time as sleeking it down. He held himself stiffly and had managed to acquire a suit carefully chosen to suggest that it was the Sunday best of someone whose usual dress was shabbier. The same subtlety was applied to the change in his voice. Far from being a caricature of the way in which a lowly clerk might speak, it seemed to reveal the effort required by a man who was speaking well but not naturally.

  The case proceeded briskly and without the need for any untruthfulness on Jay’s part. He agreed that his name was John Hardie. He managed to demote Greystones to the status of a semi-detached villa by giving it as an address Number 1, The Ridings. He claimed, accurately, to be unemployed. He agreed that he had been present on the occasion specified in the charge, but in mitigation pleaded the assumption that the owner of the premises would have applied for the necessary licences for music and an extension of drinking hours. He was one of a batch of twenty who had been spared a charge of indecent behaviour by their swiftness to agree that they would plead guilty to a lesser charge, and they were bustled through the court in no greater time than was necessary for each to be fined.

  Ellis’s case was different, for it was he who had been specifically named in the anonymous tip-off to the police. His case was dealt with as speedily as Jay’s, but for a different reason: he was sent for trial by jury at a higher court.

  Grace knew in advance that this was going to happen. It had already been agreed between the lawyers that the prosecution would present a summary of its case, but without calling witnesses at this stage; the defence, entering a plea of Not Guilty, would reserve its evidence. She had hoped, all the same, that some miracle would cause the case to be dismissed; and so strong was that hope that she had come to believe it. Over a sad, silent lunch with Ellis she was forced to accept the reality.

  ‘Well,’ he said at last, with a deliberate effort of cheerfulness. ‘I have a choice. I can get out of the country, or I can stay and fight the case. We’ll talk about it over the weekend. In the meantime, it will be weeks before anything happens. We mustn’t spend the time moping. Business as usual, as much as we can manage. I’ve no doubt I shall find myself suffering from a mysterious rash of cancelled appointments for sittings. I must think of a new subject for a book of photographs to keep myself occupied.’

  ‘Party Clothes,’ said Grace.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Party Clothes. What people wear to different kinds of parties. You’ve already got some of the most formal examples in your portfolio. A group of débutantes in their white evening dresses for the Queen Charlotte Ball, for example, and in court dress for their presentations. You could contrast that with a street party in the East End. There are bound to be lots of those at Coronation time. And little middle-class girls in velvet dresses clutching a present for the hostess. Fancy Dress at the Chelsea Arts Ball. Christmas parties and Hallowe’en parties and Guy Fawkes Night parties – oh, and Hunt Balls, with everyone in kilts.’

  ‘But – yes, I see what you mean, and there would be some good contrasts; but what makes you think of a subject like that at a time like this?’

  ‘Don’t you see, Ellis, that’s why you were at this particular party. Not your sort of scene really. But you had your camera with you, to get a shot of men dancing together. In their party clothes.’

  The idea had only occurred to her while she was actually in the process of explaining it, but its possibilities excited her. Until this moment neither she nor Ellis nor his lawyer had been able to think of any defence at all. This one might stretch belief, but it was better than nothing.

  ‘If I was only accused of being on the premises, that might run,’ said Ellis slowly. ‘But David will give evidence for the prosecution, and I can hardly claim that I was just setting up a scene for the camera when he opened the door.’

  ‘I shall deal with David.’ Grace stood up, pushing back her chair. ‘It’s too late to wish that that anonymous telephone call had never been made. But when it comes to the giving of detailed evidence, I don’t intend to let my brother send my husband into exile. Leave David to me.’

  ‘I don’t want to be the cause of a family quarrel.’

  ‘Oh, it’s a long time since David and I were friends. I never forgave him for murdering my pet cat when I was six. And there have been other quarrels since then. I don’t propose to appeal to him on grounds of fraternal affection. But I can offer him a trade.’

  She made her way at once to the premises in Pall Mall where The House of Hardie had its headquarters. Several times, when she wa
s a little girl, her father had taken her there and told her about some of the famous men who had passed through its doorway over the years. There was a large artist’s sketchbook beside the reception counter, she remembered, containing designs for personal wine labels. Many of these had been scribbled by the customers themselves, before being redrawn by a draughtsman. The artistic efforts of men whose fame lay in other fields – Victorian prime ministers, Hanoverian generals – must be worth a good deal of money. But David had never considered selling them at the time when he had pressed her so hard to let him use Greystones as security for a loan.

  She was shown straight up to her brother’s office. As David rose to his feet he smiled as though he were delighted to see her and had no idea that her visit could be anything but a friendly one: but his dark eyes were wary.

  ‘I want to know why you’re persecuting Ellis,’ Grace said without preamble, refusing his invitation to sit down.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ But his smile faded. He understood very well what she was saying.

  ‘You made a telephone call to tell the police about that party.’

  ‘I absolutely deny –’

  ‘Oh, shut up, David. Ellis and I both know it was you. You mentioned Ellis by name, to make sure that he wouldn’t get away, whoever else did. And you’re proposing to give evidence, aren’t you, about what was going on.’ The brief synopsis of the prosecution’s case that morning had mentioned a witness. It seemed a reasonable guess that it would be David – perhaps inventing a reason why he had hoped to speak to Ellis – who would describe the scene he had interrupted.

  He hesitated for only a few seconds longer before indirectly admitting her accusation.

  ‘It’s for your sake, Grace. If you’d seen … It was disgusting! To think that my sister should be married to a beast like that! I thought you ought to realize … You have grounds for divorce.’

  ‘Have I ever said that I wanted a divorce? You believed it would make me happy, did you, to see my husband in court on a charge like this? Thank you very much indeed. My marriage is none of your business, David. My husband’s behaviour is none of your business. It’s too late to turn back the clock and persuade the police that they never knew about the party. But you are not going to stand up in court and name him as a – as a pervert.’ She had learned a new vocabulary in recent days, but was not yet at ease in using the words.

  ‘And exactly how do you propose to stop me?’

  ‘You reminded me a few years ago, on the day of Tom’s funeral, that I ought to make a will. I didn’t take your advice then. But I’m telling you now that if my husband goes to prison I shall go straight to a lawyer and make Ellis joint owner of Greystones during my lifetime, and heir to my interest in it when I die. Is that what you want to happen?’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ said David.

  ‘I’m angry.’

  ‘And you think that’s enough to make me withdraw my accusation, knowing that you could still take the same action the day after he’s acquitted?’

  ‘No.’ Grace sat down in the leather chair which her brother had originally offered her, prepared now to discuss the matter more calmly. ‘I don’t suppose you told the police that it was your own brother-in-law you were shopping. The relationship will come out if you go into the witness box at the jury trial, of course, because our lawyers will suggest malice as one of the possible reasons why you were at the party yourself. But presumably until now you’ve been claiming to have recognized him after a glimpse on some public occasion.’

  She paused, but David made no comment. ‘Well, you could tell the prosecution lawyers now that, after seeing Mr Faraday in court, you no longer feel sufficiently sure that he was one of the two men in the private room. ‘I’m not asking you to say that it was someone else. But they can’t force you to give evidence against your will. And in return I’ll make you a promise: that Ellis will never own Greystones. That’s all you want to know, isn’t it? That’s why you want me to divorce him. You don’t care whether it makes me happy or unhappy. You just don’t want him to get his hands on the house.’

  David also sat down, taking his time to consider the proposal. ‘You mean that you will now make a will?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’ll bequeath the property inside the family?’

  ‘I’m telling you what I won’t do, David, which is that I won’t leave it to Ellis. I don’t have to tell you what I will do. I could leave it to the Cats’ Home if I chose!’

  There was a sudden dramatic silence as she spoke the words. She had meant them only as a cliché: the ultimate threat of cantankerous old ladies. But as she – and undoubtedly David also – remembered how their childhood quarrel had begun with David’s bow and arrow shooting of her beloved cat, the threat seemed dangerously appropriate. Since she had not intended it that way, she continued in a mollifying tone.

  ‘Well, I’m not suggesting that as a real possibility. My family feeling is as strong as yours. All I meant in that sense was that I could make a will on one day which would suit you and change it the next day without telling you. I’m not prepared to tie my hands for the rest of my life. But I am prepared, as part of a bargain, to give an absolute promise that Ellis will not inherit Greystones from me.’

  David needed a few minutes longer, tapping his fingers together as he weighed up the proposal.

  ‘Even without my evidence, he may still be convicted,’ he warned her.

  Grace let out the breath she had been holding, realizing that she had won.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘But we shall be able to tell whether you’ve kept your side of the bargain. And if you do, I shall keep mine.’

  She stood up and made her departure with dignity, neither smiling nor thanking him. But once she had left the premises and turned the corner towards St James’s Square she was forced to stop for a moment while she waited for the tension of her mind and body to relax. Her life had not prepared her for such encounters, and she was trembling with the nervous effort.

  Well, that was one obstacle surmounted, and the price she had paid for it was insignificant. Ellis loved Greystones almost as much as she did, because it had been his father’s first major work; but one result of the unusual circumstances of their marriage was that neither of them expected to share the other’s life – or possessions – completely. When she told him what she had done he would be grateful rather than upset.

  The next obstacle, however, loomed larger. There was still the trial to be faced.

  Chapter Four

  Ellis and Jay took Grace shopping before the trial. Ellis paid for her clothes, but Jay chose them. He saw himself as the producer of what would be a brief but vitally important scene set in the witness box. The first requirement was that she should be suitably dressed.

  ‘I mean to say, you can’t turn up wearing those awful overalls.’

  ‘Well, of course not!’ protested Grace. Her mother, out of the windfall from the Beverley estate, had made her a present of an outfit which she thought eminently suitable for London, but Jay rejected it at sight as too matronly.

  ‘You may be nearly forty but there’s no need to look it. You’ve got a marvellous complexion, good legs, a trim figure. What we’ve got to find is something which gives two impressions at the same time. You’re a respectable married woman, living quietly in the country, with the sort of conventional opinions which would make you chuck Ellis out on his ear if you really believed he was guilty of the charge. But at the same time you’re a desirable, sexy kind of woman to whom any man would like to come home in the evenings.’

  ‘Tall order!’ Grace laughed, knowing that she was neither of these things.

  ‘You’re not to run yourself down,’ said her brother severely. ‘I know just the right place.’

  The expedition took a whole morning. There were stockings and shoes to be bought, and gloves and a hat. Grace, who only on the very hottest days was prepared to protect her head with a wide-brimmed straw hat, tried to prot
est at this last item but was overruled. A hat was part of her respectable image, just as a touch of lipstick should be applied to emphasize the other side of her character.

  On the question of lipstick Grace was adamant, knowing that the contrast with her exceptionally pale complexion would make her look like a tart; but in every other respect she obeyed Jay’s instructions. Ellis’s sombre expression as he paid each bill in turn had nothing to do with the cost of the exercise. He would have preferred not to involve Grace at all; but she was determined to help him.

  When he had completed his task as wardrobe master, Jay set to work on her lines, suggesting not only the words but the expressions on her face as she spoke them.

  ‘And there’s one temptation to be resisted at all costs,’ he told her. ‘If you’re asked whether you disapproved of your husband going to a party with no women present, do not reply brightly that if he were to be invited to dine at the Athenaeum there’d be no women present there either but you’d think none the worse of the occasion for that. You’d be surprised how often people on trial think that sort of thing is funny, without stopping to reflect that the judge is bound to be a member of the Athenaeum himself.’

  ‘It would never have occurred to me,’ said Grace. ‘But now you’ve put it into my mind, I shall hardly be able to resist it.’

  ‘You’d better try. Now then, stand up, look attentively at Counsel when he’s asking you a question, but then turn your head and look the jury straight in their collective eye.’

  He was doing his best to prepare her for every possible trap and opportunity, but this coaching did nothing, for her hope that the charge would be withdrawn if its chief witness withdrew his evidence was not fulfilled.

  Without it, however, the prosecution case was greatly weakened, and this was recognized in the decision to try five men at the same time, presumably in the hope that if a charge of indecent behaviour could be made to stick against one of them, the others – merely because they were on the premises at the same time – would be tarred with the same brush. Each of the five had his own team of defence lawyers, so that the courtroom was crowded when Grace at last took the stand. For a moment she was bewildered. But then she saw Ellis, soberly-dressed in a well-cut dark suit, and smiled at him. Jay had instructed her to give just such a smile, but she had forgotten the instructions: it came from the heart.