But all she said on the subject, in a wistful tone of voice, was: ‘It’s a lovely house. The sort of place I used to dream of living in with Stanley and you. You’ve done so well for yourself, Johnny. Though sometimes I wonder where all this money can possibly be coming from...’
He gave her the usual story about his business booming, favourable exchange rates, a small property deal with a friend. It was true in a way. Arthur and he did specialise in property – other people’s.
Catherine had left boarding school by now and persuaded her parents to pay for a year’s estate management course. In return her mother made her promise that she would attend a top Swiss finishing school for a year afterwards: ‘To polish up your social graces, darling. God knows there’s room for improvement.’
According to May, the girl was loving the course and barely came home, but from time to time on John’s visits to pick up his mother he’d bump into Archie, pruning the roses or meandering round ineffectually on an old petrol mower, leaving the grass flattened rather than cut into the neat two‑tone stripes favoured by old Betterton, the gardener when John had lived here.
‘Didn’t know His Lordship was so keen on gardening,’ he commented to his mother as they drove off together on their days in Salisbury.
‘Well, he isn’t really, dear,’ she replied. ‘But Betterton’s retired and His Lordship said he needed the exercise so might as well do the work himself. Save him from getting fat.’ She frowned. ‘Not that he’s ever shown the slightest tendency to do that.’
Visualising Archie’s wiry horseman’s physique and the hollow‑cheeked look shared by a certain section of the British aristocracy, John had to agree with her. He remembered Higginson’s lackadaisical handling of his clients’ money and began to wonder. Maybe exercise was the last thing on Archie Carven’s mind when he struggled to keep the garden under control? Maybe he simply couldn’t afford to replace old Betterton? Now there was a thought with which to conjure.
John’s suspicions were confirmed a few months later. He arrived at Cerne House one fresh Sunday morning in May. After parking his red MG GT round the back of the house in the stable yard, he glanced at his watch. He was quarter of an hour early and knew that May would not yet have finished dancing attendance on Her Ladyship, who liked to keep her hanging on till the last minute before her day off. He decided to kill the time by looking at the horses in the yard. The Carvens had always had an eye for a good horse and in his childhood years the yard echoed to the ringing of steel shoes against the cobbles, the guttural coughing sounds emitted by highly strung stallions and the lively cursing of the grooms.
Now, as he paced the silent yard, he realised that another great change had come over Cerne. Where once a dozen or more stalls would have housed hunters, hacks or Catherine’s eventing horses, this morning only two seemed to be occupied. He recognised the narrow intelligent head and jaundiced eyes of Archie’s favourite bay hunter Hannibal, retired long since, poking out over the half door of one stall. From the adjacent one he could hear softly spoken words of encouragement and the occasional whicker of protest. There was obviously grooming underway.
John walked over and peered into the stall to find Catherine, flushed and dishevelled, struggling to calm a nervy little chestnut mare which he did not recognise. He could almost have said the same of the girl herself, he realised with a shock. Instead of the plump shy teenager he was used to encountering, he saw a fresh‑faced young woman, with waist‑length hair of the same glossy conker colour as the horse she was struggling to restrain.
He stepped silently forward and tugged on the horse’s bridle. ‘I’ll hold her,’ he said. ‘You carry on. I’ve got a few minutes.’
‘Oh, thanks, John.’
Catherine flashed him a grateful glance over her shoulder then ducked under the horse’s head and busied herself with an offside hoof.
‘This is very kind of you, but I don’t want to hold you up. I know it’s May’s day off.’
‘A few minutes won’t hurt. Anyway, it’s good to see you again, Catherine. How are you? And how’s the course going?’
She sighed heavily and straightened up. He studied her over the gentle dip in the horse’s back and thought she seemed troubled.
‘It’s terrific!’ she enthused. But he’d heard that tone of voice before. She never had been able to hide her true feeling, from him.
‘Something’s wrong,’ he reproved. ‘Come on, what’s up?’
Her already high colour mounted and her periwinkle blue eyes could no longer hold his.
‘It’s nothing, John, really,’ she murmured, and started nimbly plaiting the coarse hair of the hose’s mane without looking at him.
‘Can’t keep up with the work – going to fail your exams or something?’ he pressed.
That did the trick. Catherine’s temper flared and she glowered at him fiercely, looking surprisingly like her mother for a moment.
‘Of course I can damn’ well keep up! I was set to do really well in my examens before Daddy told me...’ she began, then bit her lip and stared at him, widening her eyes in an effort to stem the tears.
‘John, if I tell you, will you promise – on your honour – not to pass it on? Not even to May?’
He smiled inwardly at the schoolgirlish choice of words. There was a certain piquancy in giving his promise, the word of a thief, not to divulge what she was about to tell him. Though he thought he’d already guessed what that was.
‘I promise,’ he said gently. ‘Go on.’
‘It’s really, really awful, John,’ she faltered. ‘The worst thing possible. Daddy told me last night – he’s lost an awful lot of money and can’t afford to keep Cerne going any longer. He says the farms don’t pay, the house simply eats money, and the village tenants are demanding all sorts of expensive improvements...’
Like slates on their roofs instead of tarpaulin and new plaster that isn’t crawling with bugs, thought John harshly, familiar from childhood with conditions in the rundown village properties rented by the estate workers. But this was none of Catherine’s doing and he wouldn’t reproach her with it.
‘Daddy just can’t keep his head above water,’ she continued. ‘So to safeguard the future for me and Mummy, he thinks the best thing to do is to sell up and move somewhere smaller. But I don’t want to go, John. I love this place. It’s my home. The only one I ever want. I’ve told Daddy I don’t mind how poor we are. I’ll gladly give up my horses, my studies, my clothes... so long as we don’t have to move. But he says economising just isn’t enough. He’s lost a lot of money – something about investments not paying off.’
Now why wasn’t that a surprise? John wondered cynically, remembering Higginson’s fat self‑satisfied face as he sat smoking endless cigars and having three hour lunches, instead of watching over the failing fortunes of his clients.
John patted the mare’s quivering neck. The animal had picked up on her mistress’s distress and was ready to bolt at the first opportunity. He studied the girl opposite him, taking in the innocent frankness of her gaze and the ripe curves of her body beneath the jodhpurs and white short‑sleeved shirt, hinting at voluptuousness to come.
Catherine’s face lacked the spark of arrogance or individuality that would have made it beautiful, but it was open and honest and the contrast of those deep blue eyes with her chestnut hair was suddenly very pleasing to him.
He had never thought of her in this way, preferring casual encounters with girls he met in South London clubs and pubs. Tough streetwise girls who knew their worth down to the last gin and orange, followed by a steak house dinner, before he drove them to his lodgings or back to Salisbury for a Friday night – Saturday morning event. If they proved to be a worthwhile investment, he would drive them home in style the next day. If not, he gave them their fare and let them make their own way home.
But Lady Catherine Carven was a different sort of girl entirely. Gentle, unworldly, accustomed all her life to the gracious surroundings of Cerne H
ouse and its estate. Now she was bravely holding back the tears, too old to cry in front of him as she had when he’d rescued her from the ordeal of the piano lesson, but there was something about the way she looked at him, something tender and trusting, that he suddenly wanted to preserve at all costs.
And, in doing so, satisfy his own lifetime’s ambition.
‘Cathy, I know this sounds crazy but I don’t want you to worry anymore,’ he told her. ‘You probably haven’t heard but I’ve done well with my business. Very well, in fact. I’m confident that I can help your father sort things out. We’ll keep it between ourselves, a private arrangement. I’ll do my utmost to save the house and estate, and I also guarantee there’ll be enough money available for you to finish your course as well.’
Catherine looked momentarily reassured, then frowned. ‘ Does that mean I’ll have to go to finishing school as well?’ she asked sounding annoyed.
John did some rapid calculations.
She was four years younger than him – nineteen or so. A term to finish her agriculture studies – which he would ensure were put to good use later – then another year abroad, learning how to dress and plan dinner parties and give the servants hell or whatever it was they taught them in finishing school. Yes, it all fitted very well. She’d be coming up to twenty‑one then and able to do as she pleased should Archie and Gwen drag their feet.
But, remembering the potholed drive and the lead peeling away from the crumbling chimney stacks, he doubted that very much.
‘Finishing school won’t be so bad,’ he reassured her. ‘You’ll get to travel, see new places, meet eligible young men.’
‘But it’s such a waste of time,’ she protested. ‘I like it here at Cerne. And why should I want to meet anyone else when I already...’ She stopped talking and blushed.
It was all the confirmation he needed. Cerne House and Estate were up for grabs and Lady Catherine was ripe for the picking, any time he cared to stretch out his hand.
John promised himself that she would never lose out, he would be good to her and assure her lifestyle.
But reading all her love and trust in him in her flushed face and shining eyes, he felt a moment’s shame.
He knew, even if Catherine did not, that this was hardly the beginning of a heartfelt romance. It was simply one more in the long chain of deals, marking the irresistible rise of John Forbes.
* * *
John took his mother out for the day as they had planned. On their return he surprised her by asking if he could step inside Cerne House and talk to Archie for a moment.
Well, I’ll just have to see if His Lordship’s at home...’ faltered May.
‘Come off it, Ma. Where else is he going to be at seven o’clock on a Sunday? Don’t fuss. I can show myself in.’
He tracked Archie down to his study, walls and ceiling nicotine‑stained from the Park Drive he chain smoked. The only evidence of any activity was the racing papers spread out on his desk and strewn on the floor around his comfortable club armchair. Archie himself was as ramrod straight and smartly turned out as ever, but John could see the lines of strain etched around his protuberant blue eyes and when he hospitably invited his guests to join him in a Scotch, it was obvious from the whisky on his breath and the tremor in his hands that this was not Archie’s first of the evening.
‘So, young Forbes, how’s the toy business?’ he enquired jovially. ‘May tells us you’re doing all right for yourself. A lot of money in teddies and tin whistles apparently. Good show.’
John smiled deprecatingly. ‘I can’t complain. But if you’ll forgive my bluntness, I hear you’re selling the house and the estate?’
Archie winced at his directness and seemed momentarily angry, before his shoulders sagged and he admitted, ‘Afraid so. Can’t keep up with the costs. Overdraft’s spinning out of control and the bank’s getting rather tight‑lipped about it. Seems best to bale out while we can still salvage something from the wreckage. Of course we’ll do our best to find your mother another position and she’ll have the best references... Heard anything from your father?’
John waved one hand dismissively. ‘My mother knows very well that I will look after her. Please don’t concern yourself about her. No, there has been ano contact with my father for many years.’
John looked at Archie. In a way he liked him and at this moment felt rather sorry for him.
‘Now, if I may be so bold, how much are you hoping to raise from the sale?’
‘Hoping for half a mill, but whether I’ll get it’s another thing. The place is falling to pieces as you’ve probably noticed.’
‘I’d like to buy it.’
The words hung in the air for a long time. John’s brain was performing rapid calculations though he kept his face calm, serious and at ease.
‘Eh? What did you say?’ Archie looked as though the ground had given way beneath his feet. ‘I’d no idea you had that sort of money.’ He looked shocked, his conception of the natural order of things quite overturned by this proposal – from the son of his housekeeper of all people.
Unperturbed John continued, ‘I can pay a substantial part of the purchase price from my assets and will seek a mortgage for the rest. In the short term I do not propose to occupy the property and would ask that you and Lady Carven continue to regard it as your home. I would also prefer it not to be known that I have bought it.’
Archie was beginning to look at him suspiciously. ‘But... I don’t understand. Why are you being so generous to us?’
‘Because,’ John went on smoothly, ‘I hope you and Lady Carven will give me your blessing when I marry your daughter. I consider Catherine a little too young at present, but in a year or two I intend to propose.’
Archie shook his head in bewilderment. ‘You’re full of surprises today, young Forbes. Marry Catherine...whatever next?’
John had not expected this conversation to go well. Archie’s genial exterior hid a class consciousness as least as acute as his wife’s. In their view, the daughter of an Earl should marry among her own kind or not at all.
Archie saw now that he had been right to question John’s seeming benevolence, but there was no point in being openly insulting.
‘But, see here, this isn’t the Victorian era, you know. No matter how grateful I or her mother may be to you’ – an unlikely scenario in Gwen’s case as they both tacitly acknowledged – ‘I couldn’t force Catherine to accept you, d’you see?’
John did and that Archie, reluctant to pass up the chance of saving Cerne, was pinning all his hopes on a very proper refusal by his daughter of this rich interloper.
‘And if she were to refuse, would that effect your kind offer to allow us to stay on at Cerne?’ he probed with elephantine tact.
John kept a straight face. He could afford to sound generous, so sure of Catherine was he.
‘Not at all,’ he declared. ‘Your future here is assured as long as you want.’
John did not have a moment’s doubt of Catherine’s love for him. But he still had a considerable amount of money to raise. Archie reluctantly agreed to a short delay in advertising the sale of Cerne, giving him one month in which to raise the remaining two hundred thousand pounds.
The bank turned him down.
He already had a modest mortgage on his Salisbury house – for form’s sake – and the bank manager advised him weightily that a young man, just starting out in business, should not take on such a huge commitment as a crumbling historic house and large estate
John expected most banks and building societies would look at it the same way. He would have to finance the missing part of the purchase from an outside source.
He phoned Arthur and arranged a meeting in the bar of Fleming’s Hotel in Half Moon Street. When they met, John got straight down to business.
‘I need to raise two hundred thousand within four weeks. Any ideas?’
‘It’s a lot of money. But...’ Arthur seemed unperturbed, ‘let me have a think about it a
nd we’ll meet again in a couple of days. I’ll suss out what the most sought after pieces are. I’ve got some associates in the interior design line, as you know. Their clients will pay literally anything they recommend – so long as we remember to cut my pals in on the action. Together with a loan – or should we call it an advance, it might just be possible.’
‘Really? Even that amount’s no problem?’.
‘It’s not my money.’
‘I know that.’ John took a sip of his gin. ‘May I ask what you get out of it?’
‘Ten per cent of everything you make, as usual,’ Arthur answered readily. ‘Thanks to you I’ve acquired many beautiful objects and financed my degree. You, on the other hand, are paid around twenty‑five per cent of the real value of the objects you acquire.’
‘So who’s been doing the paying?’ John asked. He had wanted to know this since their earliest days, but had never found the right time to ask.
‘The insurance companies or the fences’ customers,’ said Arthur. ‘The insurers are prepared to pay my associates well to regain anything they have insured. Obviously that’s cheaper for them than having to pay out the full amount insured.’
‘Insurance companies!’ John leaned back in his chair and laughed. He had believed he worked for a group of rich private collectors. He would never have guessed that was where the funds really came from.
When he and Arthur next met, his friend gave him an address in France and a glossy black‑covered magazine called FMR. It was printed in Italy, with English text.
‘Look at page 88. That’s what some interior designers want for one Arab client.’
‘I’ll study it and tell you if it’s on.’
‘There’s another matter you ought to consider,’ Arthur said seriously. ‘If something goes wrong and you’re caught, your close contact with Lord and Lady Carven would be an embarrassment to them and could create a lot of bad publicity for you. And you’d be facing a seven‑year stretch at least.’