In Sunshine Or In Shadow Page 12

  Upstairs, all the doors which had been forever closed to her during her childhood now stood open, revealing a succession of empty rooms. Ahead of Artemis, as she progressed slowly through the deserted chambers, ran Doodle and Scrap, her two terriers, barking excitedly and running round in circles, as if they also knew they were invading territory which had previously been forbidden to them. The excitement finally proved too much for Scrap, who chose to relieve himself against a pile of stained and moth-eaten cushions.

  ‘I think that’s fair comment, don’t you, Porter?’ Artemis said. ‘After all, what Lady Deverill has left is really only fit for dogs, wouldn’t you say? And how in heaven’s name did they get the Charles I bed out of here?’

  They had entered the State bedroom, where Queen Mary had stayed only a short time before.

  ‘It was built for the bedroom, Porter,’ Artemis continued, ‘as you probably know. It couldn’t have been removed through either doorway.’

  ‘No, milady,’ Porter replied. ‘The estate carpenter was requested to dismantle what he could of it.’

  ‘What he could of it, Porter?’ Artemis asked, in astonishment.

  ‘Yes, milady,’ Porter said. ‘I have to say there were portions which had to be sawn. Mr Dibbs did not take kindly to so doing. Even though Lady Deverill assured him those particular portions could be reassembled with adhesive.’

  ‘Adhesive,’ Artemis sighed, taking her weight on her stick in order to rest her bad leg. Such had been her stepmother’s grim determination to remove everything that she had been quite prepared to cannibalize and thus ruin things which were really nothing if not irreplaceable.

  Every piece of furniture was gone, and every painting.

  Artemis stared at the walls of the State bedroom, at the rectangles and squares of brighter red where the pictures had hung and where as a result the original colour had been preserved over the centuries.

  ‘Aren’t the original colours bright, Porter?’ she said. ‘Look.’ She pointed with her stick. ‘One would never dream of painting walls that colour nowadays.’

  ‘No, milady,’ Porter agreed, ‘I don’t suppose one would.’

  In another room, Artemis opened a door almost concealed in a wall and peered in to what had been a dressing room.

  ‘They certainly made a first class job of it, Porter,’ she said as she re-emerged. ‘They even took the coat hangers.’

  ‘Apparently their instructions were to remove everything, milady,’ the butler replied. ‘Even the lavender bags on the linen cupboard shelves.’

  ‘Imagine,’ said Artemis, reclosing the door in the wall.

  ‘There’s nothing left anywhere, milady,’ Porter said sadly, unable to contain his emotions any longer. ‘Everything was stripped. It was like locusts, milady. Like one would imagine a plague of locusts. One minute this place was as it always was –’ He looked round him as they stood at the top of the main staircase and fell silent. Then he drew a deep breath and continued. ‘One minute it was like as it always had been, milady, and the next minute all the years, the centuries, had all gone. We all took it hard, as you can imagine. But none so hard as poor Jenkins.’

  ‘What about Jenkins?’ Artemis asked almost harshly, for in all the time she had spent wandering forlornly through the great house, she had never once given a thought to the stables, because she had assumed they fell outside her stepmother’s province.

  ‘You didn’t know, milady?’ Porter asked, in obvious surprise. ‘You mean they didn’t tell you?’

  Artemis didn’t even bother to enquire as to what they had failed to tell her. She just knew the news had to be bad, worse than anything which had happened so far. She couldn’t run, but she could hurry, which she did, and as best as she could. Porter followed on behind, watching her as she hobbled across the marbled floors, stabbing her stick down impatiently with every step in an effort to gain more speed. He wished he could pick her up and carry her, so touching was her haste, but he knew that even if he could there would be little point because the damage was irreparable.

  ‘Stay here, Porter,’ Artemis ordered as they reached the front doors. ‘Thank you for your help, but there’s no point in you coming over to the yard.’

  ‘No, milady,’ the butler said, closing the great doors behind her. No, there was no point at all. Because there was nothing he could do. There was nothing anyone could do.

  ‘Jenkins!’ Artemis called, as she hobbled with great difficulty across the cobble stones. ‘Jenkins! It’s me! Lady Artemis! Jenkins!’

  He appeared behind her, from one of the many open and empty stables Artemis had passed, and when she turned and saw him, at first she couldn’t believe it was him. Jenkins had always been so upright, and square shouldered, clean shaven and ruddy cheeked. Now before her stood an old man, a man with a stoop, with stubble on his chin, and when Artemis got near him, the smell of drink on his breath.

  ‘Jenkins?’ she said quietly.

  ‘Milady.’ Jenkins took off his cap, and ran a dirty hand through his thin grey hair. ‘I’m sorry, milady,’ he muttered. ‘But no-one ‘as told me you was comin’.’

  Even had Jenkins looked her in the eye, which he did not, Artemis would have known something was dreadfully wrong, simply by the fact that he had been wearing his old cap back to front. Jenkins only ever did that when there was trouble, in times of crisis, like when a mare was late foaling and he suspected twins, or if a horse was badly lame the morning after a hard day’s hunting, or worst of all, when he was waiting for the veterinary to come and put one of his old friends out of their misery.

  ‘They’ve all gone, Lady Artemis,’ he told her, before she even had to ask what was amiss. ‘Every blessed animal.’

  ‘What do you mean, Jenkins!’ Artemis said, now hurrying from stable to stable in search of her beloved horses. ‘Gone? What in God’s name do you mean?’

  ‘They took ’em all, milady,’ Jenkins explained, catching Artemis up as she entered the stable building which housed all the loose boxes. ‘They took all our ’orses. Ragtime, The Poacher, Ladyjane, Joxer, Clem, Sutton Lad, Principal Boy, the yearlings, even old Jenny, who’s no use to anyone with those feet of her’n. Took ’em all so they did, every blessed one. An’ I’ll not vouch they’ll be keepin’ ’em all neither, milady. Not Lady Deverill. She don’t ’ave no time for some of ’em. Most of all Ragtime. She can’t stand that ‘orse at no costs, she can’t, ’cos ’e’s smarter ’an ’er. But ’e’s never given ’er a bad day out, not the once.’

  Artemis was listening to every word he said, although she didn’t look at him once. Her eyes were too busy searching, in case he was mistaken, in case they had missed some. But all the loose boxes were empty, and when Artemis hurried through to the tack room, she found every peg was bare. There wasn’t a saddle or a bridle to be seen anywhere.

  There were some they might have missed, Artemis suddenly thought, in fact some they almost certainly would have missed, she assured herself, as she turned and hurried from the immaculate wood panelled tack room and out into the paddocks behind.

  ‘Get your motorbike, Jenkins!’ Artemis called to Jenkins as he followed on slowly behind her. ‘I want you to take me over to Drover’s!’

  ‘There’s no point, milady,’ Jenkins answered.

  ‘Of course there is, Jenkins!’ Artemis replied. ‘I want to see the ponies!’

  Jenkins didn’t answer. Instead an ominous silence settled on the late afternoon air.

  ‘Jenkins?’ Artemis turned, and saw that Jenkins was still standing by the door of the tack room, staring down at the ground. ‘Jenkins?’

  ‘They’re gone as well, milady,’ he replied. ‘Both of ’em.’

  ‘Gone?’ Artemis said. ‘Gone – but gone where, Jenkins? They can’t have gone! Buttons and Paintbox? They’re both old! I mean nobody’d want them!’

  ‘No, milady,’ Jenkins answered quite miserably, twisting his cap in his hands and still staring at the ground.

  ‘No, Jenkins,’ A
rtemis finally said. ‘It’s not true.’

  ‘I’m afraid it is, milady,’ Jenkins answered. ‘Her ladyship sent ’em both to George.’

  ‘No, Jenkins, no,’ Artemis found herself repeating. ‘No, no, not George. I don’t believe it’s true.’

  George was the local meat man. Often, when Artemis had been out hacking in the park as a little girl, and long before she had heard his van approach, the pony she was riding, be it Buttons, or Paintbox, would suddenly snatch up its bit, or shy and run away from the estate wall, or simply bolt in the opposite direction to the oncoming vehicle. Because they could smell the fear of other animals long before Artemis could even hear the sound of an engine, and they would run as fast as their legs would carry them away from the butcher. Other times Artemis might be lying out in the long grass by the paddocks when George’s van passed by, and she would see the young animals stop grazing and prick their ears to listen to the plaintive whinnies from the animals captive in the back of George’s van. The horses in the paddocks would call back, as more desperate cries would be heard from the back of the van, before it disappeared finally out of earshot. It would be a long while before the horses in the paddock returned to their grazing, particularly the older ones, who would stand staring into the distance rather than resume their eating.

  And now her beloved Buttons and Paintbox had been sold off for meat, taken off in the hated van to be butchered.

  Artemis walked back into the tack room, and in the cupboard in the corner where any tack which was either no longer required, or that needed mending was put, looked for and found a pony size bridle. It was clean, and the beautifully hand sewn name on the browband, a present one Christmas to Artemis from her absent godmother, was still there for all to see. ‘Buttons’, it said.

  ‘How much did she get for them, Jenkins?’ Artemis asked.

  ‘No more ’n five pounds for both I imagine, your ladyship,’ the groom replied.

  Five pounds. For Buttons and Paintbox.

  She had taken everything. The gold, the silver, the paintings, the glassware, the china, the books, the furniture, the rugs and the horses. She was welcome to everything, if only she would give back the horses.

  Artemis limped back alone to the house, clasping in her free hand the tiny bridle, back across the park with its lake, and woods, ornamental gardens and rolling pastures, up the great flight of stone steps and into the dark and empty house.

  ‘For as long as you can afford its upkeep, Lady Artemis,’ Mr Henry Grafton said as tactfully as he could, ‘Brougham is yours.’

  ‘Its upkeep,’ Artemis repeated, more as a statement than as a question.

  ‘Estates such as Brougham need astute management,’ Mr Arthur Grafton added. ‘Otherwise they perish, the victims of profligacy.’

  ‘Fortunately your grandfather –’ Mr George Grafton began.

  ‘Your grandfather fortunately had been somewhat less profligate than others we might mention,’ Mr Henry Grafton continued, ‘and so when your mother died –’

  ‘When your mother died, precisely so,’ Mr Arthur Grafton interrupted, ‘the death duties were able to be met without an undue strain being placed on the family resources.’

  ‘It did, however, mean selling North Park Square,’ Mr Henry Grafton reminded his brother.

  ‘Indeed it did,’ Mr George Grafton agreed. ‘It also involved selling –’

  ‘It also involved selling Cumberland Avenue, precisely so,’ Mr Arthur Grafton concluded. ‘But alas North Park Square and Cumberland Avenue were the last of the family’s London holdings.’

  ‘Do we have any other “holdings”?’ Artemis enquired.

  ‘There are some shops somewhere in the north of England,’ Mr Henry Grafton admitted.

  ‘There are some shops in the north of England somewhere,’ his brother Arthur agreed.

  ‘A little bit of fishing in Aberdeen,’ Mr Henry Grafton added with a small sigh.

  ‘And there’s a shoot somewhere,’ Mr George Grafton volunteered.

  ‘There is a shoot in Yorkshire,’ Mr Arthur Grafton concurred. ‘But very little else.’

  ‘How much will it require to run Brougham?’ Artemis asked.

  The three brothers all looked at each other, and to a man all cleared their throats. The senior brother, Mr Arthur Grafton, then picked up a buff folder and turning it the right way around for her, placed it on the desk in front of Artemis. Artemis examined it in silence, and for a long time.

  ‘It’s no good, I’m afraid,’ she said finally. ‘I don’t understand one word of this.’

  Mr Arthur Grafton picked up a wooden ruler and still from his side of the desk ran it down a column. ‘These are rents,’ he explained. ‘And these, and these, and these. These – that is what the various farms yield, when they do yield, and these are what they lose, when they lose.’

  ‘Which at the moment is usually the case,’ Mr Henry Grafton added with a grim smile.

  ‘Which indeed is usually the case,’ Mr George Grafton agreed. ‘Indeed.’

  ‘These figures here –’ Mr Arthur Grafton continued, ‘these are wages, these are wages, and these and these and these –’

  ‘Please,’ said Artemis. ‘In nursery language. If I am to live at Brougham –’

  ‘Were you to live at Brougham,’ Mr Henry Grafton began.

  ‘Were you to live at Brougham,’ Mr Arthur Grafton interrupted, ‘you would need to generate an income of at least this amount.’ He tapped a figure on the last page of the accounts with his ruler, and then sat back.

  Artemis stared at the amount, which was so unreal to her it seemed magical. ‘And where am I expected to find such monies?’ she enquired.

  The question was initially met with silence, and then another series of looks exchanged between the three brothers.

  ‘George?’ Mr Arthur Grafton said. Poor George, Artemis thought, looking at the youngest of the brothers, poor soul, he would get the dirty work.

  ‘Under happier circumstances, Lady Artemis,’ he said, having first mopped his brow with a handkerchief, ‘let us say the sale of a few treasures . . .’

  Artemis just stared at him, astounded by such a suggestion.

  ‘Perfectly proper procedure, Lady Artemis,’ Mr Arthur Grafton explained, reading his client’s expression correctly. ‘Happens all the time.’

  ‘But of course under these more unfortunate circumstances,’ poor Mr George Grafton was continuing.

  ‘Under the circumstances my brother George is of course quite right, Lady Artemis,’ Mr Henry Grafton chipped in. ‘There are no treasures remaining.’

  ‘There are the farms,’ Artemis suddenly remembered. ‘What about all the farms? They must be worth something.’

  ‘The bank has a charge on all the farmland, Lady Artemis,’ Mr Arthur Grafton explained.

  ‘So how am I expected to raise these monies?’ Artemis demanded to know, as if she had been directly insulted.

  ‘You have a lot of trees,’ Mr Arthur Grafton suggested. ‘You could expect a fair sum if you sold all the timber on the estate.’

  ‘During the war, Lady Artemis,’ Mr George Grafton informed her, ‘your father was offered £120,000 by the government for all the timber on Brougham. Had he accepted the offer –’ George continued, oblivious to the stares of his brothers, ‘that would have balanced the books nicely. But he refused. “I should say not,” he said apparently. “Sell the woodland? I should say not. What’s a man fighting for?”’

  ‘Of course,’ Artemis agreed, similarly unable to imagine a deforested Brougham, ‘and quite right too.’ She looked at the astronomical sum at the bottom of the relevant page once more, before looking back up at her lawyers. ‘If I did manage to raise these monies,’ she asked, ‘how much would I have to live on?’

  Mr Arthur Grafton looked at the upside figures and then removed his spectacles in order to wipe them. ‘That is a minimum requirement, Lady Artemis,’ he explained. ‘Given that you are able to generate this income, you yourself
could not expect to take more than say one thousand two hundred pounds per annum from the estate.’

  ‘Really?’ Artemis asked, curiously, turning back through the folder to another page which she began to scan thoroughly. ‘One thousand two hundred, you say. And yet –’ she stopped, her finger by some figures, ‘I see I am expected to pay my land agent two thousand nine hundred per annum, and my lawyers, your firm, Mr Grafton, I have to pay the three of you seven and a half thousand pounds. Per annum.’ Artemis closed the folder with a finality that suggested she wanted to have nothing more to do with it. Then she looked across the desk challengingly at the three lawyers, as if to await their suggestion.

  ‘George?’ Mr Arthur Grafton sighed once more, but this time with deep resignation.

  ‘If you cannot generate this income, Lady Artemis,’ he said quietly, and apologetically, ‘I am very much afraid you only have one course left open to you. And that is to sell.’

  It was what she had been dreading to hear, but knew full well that she must. She had known it the day when she found all the horses and her beloved ponies gone, and had walked back into the vast and empty, and already dusty house. She had known there was no way she could support such a place, refurnish it, heat it, staff it and maintain it, unless there was also a large bequest to go along with the inheritance of the great house.

  ‘I have no alternative?’ she asked.

  ‘You have an alternative,’ Mr Henry Grafton admitted, looking round to his elder brother.

  ‘You could sue your father and stepmother,’ Mr Arthur Grafton announced.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Artemis replied. ‘But that is quite out of the question.’

  ‘In that case, Lady Artemis,’ Mr Arthur Grafton continued, ‘you may well have to sell.’

  ‘In which case, Mr Grafton,’ Artemis replied, ‘you have my instructions to do so.’

  ‘You are aware, Lady Artemis,’ Mr Henry Grafton enquired, ‘that these large country houses are no longer – shall we say – inviolable?’

  ‘Meaning?’ Artemis asked in return.