Heirs And Descendants Collection

4. Hibiscus From Malaysia

She was there as she had threatened to be, waiting at the gates for the East Coast Line and beckoning me enthusiastically.

“Over here, Harry Paterson!” I heard her call, above the commotion of King"s Cross station.

The rose and the newspaper were missing, but that was not what had caught my attention. It was her hair; I had been wrong as to its colouring. It was a patinated copper, the colour of the flames of a fierce bonfire, a beautiful combination of red, brown and orange, and extraordinarily striking.

The first thing that caught my eye was that hair, as it flowed in time with her waved greetings and brushed against her impractical pink linen coat. Then her skinny legs, which ended in the cream leather high-heeled shoes. She would have been better suited in boots, and warm ones at that. The late March weather in London had been touching the lower 70s on the Fahrenheit scale, whereas in Harrogate it had barely risen above freezing, and I had no intentions of telling her! The absence of a suitcase caused me to wonder if the outfit she wore was her only clothing, and I remarked on it.

“Have you got a spare pair of everything you need in that document case?” I asked, when I was beside her.

“Oh now, don"t you worry about my welfare, H. I"m more than capable of looking after myself in that regard. Censeo et Conslio family motto, or Resolve and Purpose Harry, if you"re a bit short on your Latin. Have no fears about me.”

Censeo et ConslioResolve and PurposeShe was jumping around like a demented child who had never been on a train adventure before. I did have a singular fear of being arrested for the transportation of a live skeleton on British Rail, for which I"m sure, there must be some law against in the lost journals of the Empire.

The fact that my father held the position he did had meant that a Government enquiry had been inevitable. However, my position within the SIS had complicated matters, and had led to the appointment of Judith Meadows as my personal inquisitor, the would-be discoverer of the truth as to who may have committed the crime. I had called Peter Trimble that morning and was told all I apparently needed to know about her, which was not a lot!

“She is good at what she does, Harry, very thorough.” That, along with her surname, is all the information I got.

As I had approached my would-be interrogator, my annoyance was slightly tempered by the realisation that not all was lost. I had been right about her face.

She was indeed very attractive, with large hazelnut shaped green eyes, my favourite colour. I decided on the age of 32, short without the heels, which somehow accentuated her slightness. She reminded me of a pink mannequin displayed in the windows of fashion shops, one of those minus zero size females who are advised to eat air for sustainability.

Since my university days and my indiscriminate fascination in women, I had graduated in selection and had settled on a preference for voluptuous, sensuous types. The sultrier the better, and the more full-figured the more magnetic. Judith had none of these desirabilities, and her vivaciousness only underlined my distaste and my hostility.

“Did you stay for more to drink last night, or did my departure spoil your evening?” She asked, as she linked her arm through mine and pulled herself close to me.

“I"d rather we didn"t play happy families, Judith. Or should I address you as Miss Meadows, or Ma"am, as you"re the senior officer here?” I detached her arm and quickened my walk so that I was a few steps ahead.

“Don"t be petulant, Harry. There"s no seniority here, only friends. Actually, I"m a Mrs, even though I don"t wear a ring. Please, slow down, I can"t walk that fast in these heels!”

“Why aren"t you at home caring for him, instead of frequenting bars and accompanying chauvinists layabouts to their country lair? By claiming to be married are you trying to avoid any virginal duties you may have with the new Earl on his estate? I thought you knew all about them, but I"ll be glad to fill in the missing details.”

She stopped, tugging at my sleeve as she did so. “My husband died, Harry; five weeks after we married. He was a Major in the Ordinance Disposal Regiment, on active service in Afghanistan. He was blown up into little pieces. I would be obliged if you weren"t to mention him again.”

There was a deep determination in those green eyes perhaps tinged with sadness, I"m not sure, but certainly spirit and a great deal of tenacity. She was, as I was beginning to understand, a stubborn, intransigent woman; self-contained and belligerent at times.

“You brought him up, not me,” I answered, in my defence.

“No, you used the word "Miss" in a disparaging way. I"m acutely aware of your enmity towards me and the resentment you must feel over others examining your father"s death. I"m here to help you, not trick you,” she replied, truculently causing a brighter colour than her hair to wash over her face, blemishing an otherwise pure complexion.

"Miss""Help" not "trick" me…strange words to use, I thought. Could she know what I was already hiding, or was this the subtle way of the practised interrogator?

"Help" not "trick" me…strange words to use,"Tell us what we know you"re concealing, and we"ll give you a candy bar."

Tell us what we know you"re concealing, and we"ll give you a candy bar."Suddenly I viewed Mrs Meadows in a different light. Perhaps her zero size did not match the zero evaluation I had given her. I made no reply to either her offer or threat.

“I"ve sent two of our sitters up to your place by road. I"ve phoned ahead and forewarned them of their coming and their requirements. They won"t need accommodation, we found them berths in a local hotel. I thought about using your stables for them when I found out that you don"t keep those racehorses of yours anymore, but decided they deserved better, the poor souls. They have all their equipment in a van, but I sent my car up with them. Can"t bear to be parted from it for too long and, who knows? We might want a drive up to the moors, you and I.” Judith had regained the composure I had displaced, returning to her bullish best as we took our seats. I contemplated her words whilst exchanging tiresome banalities for the remains of our journey.

After Alice"s death, my father had taken permanent residence in London, having no need or want of Harrogate. He had sold the estate"s racing stock at Newmarket and the polo ponies had also gone long before this; his age, other pursuits, and the lack of interest in the sport shown by my brothers and I being a contribution in his decision. These changes had led to the letting go of our stable manager and most of the hands, now we had only the six horses in the stables for riding out or the occasional point-to-point race. I hadn"t hunted in years, nor had I thought of it much since the changing of the laws, but her comment made me think of the chase of the fox, as long as the scent wasn"t wrong and it was not me that was being chased. There was to be the full response to such a situation, recording machines both audio and visual and the electronic data readings of pitch in speech. It was not quite a polygraph; more refined, it showed the slightest agitation, because most in my trade could lie with conviction. That is, if they knew what was a lie, or the truth, if it stared them in the face. Why, then, the need of a drive and away from the recording of Lord Harry Paterson, Earl of Harrogate, I wondered? Was that where the trickery made its entrance?

That evening, after dinner, we began the first episode of what was to be a challenging time for both of us. I was changing that first opinion of mine; albeit slowly. Her car, a Porsche Panamera, one of those four-door saloon types that are shaped like a coupé, had been loaded with matching luggage, and her obvious wealth could not have come from Civil Service pay alone.

She had dressed for dinner, something I had not expected nor done since dining with my mother. I was waiting without a tie but luckily I had a jacket, otherwise her rebuke may have been more severe.

“Harry, we have to have rules. Rules are what I live by, and I love a good routine. After breakfast, through lunch and one hour before dinner, we work. We go back in time and recollect all that we are trying to forget; or hide. We play by the SIS house rules that we both understand. At dinner we adopt the rules of the upper classes, of which you are most notable, and as are my own family. I am Lord Davenport"s daughter, he is the Queen"s private secretary, amongst many other things. Heard of him?”

I had…by accident one could say. His father, Judith"s grandfather, was one of those I was investigating in the mysterious photos I had found, now cut short by that gunshot of Sunday last.

“No,” I lied, but we were not in the library where the machines now lived, we were in the lounge beside the huge log-burning fire. She had discarded the pink travelling coat and now looked considerably warmer. Her hair was pinned to her head and woven into a circle at the back. The long crimson dress covered every inch of flesh except for her neck wrists and ankles, and although I have already spoken of her slight figure, I could not deny her femininity.

Joseph, my father"s butler had stayed at the Hall when he had left, and had been in the room through all her detailing of the code to be adopted throughout her stay. He had just finished pouring our drinks, so no doubt the rest of the household would soon know of my guest"s high principles, I thought.

My sisters had, like Elliot, long departed, and now I was the only Paterson left here in the hereditary home, but I was not alone. With Joseph I had inherited two footmen, my own valet, two cooks and three kitchen maids. There was a housekeeper with four maids to care for the thirty bedrooms and all the grand rooms that were constantly in use, a chauffeur who had met us from the train, and three gardeners. Oh yes, and three stable-boys, and one stable-girl. All, apart from the gardeners and the stable-hands, were housed on the estate which covered some 220,000 hectares and contained four tenanted farms, as well as our own. A colossal undertaking which I took over from my father on retiring from the Army and, then, my partial retirement from the SIS. I say partial because they never really let you go! They don"t know how to trust anybody on the outside.

“I"m going to bend those rules of mine at little tonight H. After all, that"s what rules are for, don"t you think…to be broken a bit?” Her head was tilted to one side as if to accentuate her question.

She waited for an answer, but all I could think of was making love with a skeleton. My imagination tried hard to stretch that far but I was unfortunately, ahead of myself again.

“Well, I do anyway. Let"s get some background filled in. Start with your childhood, and your relationship to your late father.” Her requests were more demands than mere inquires; they carried a note of compliance rather than the choice of disregard.

I painted that failed closeness in flowing, complimentary terms of harmony and kinship; it was easy for me to do. It was how I had dreamt it should have been since I was sent away to boarding school, something I had emotionally built on every day of my life that I spent there in nigh solitude, bereft of love and affinity from anyone. I was a good liar. I"d had plenty of time to conjure up an idyllic adolescence, and I told my imaginary story well.

I had been fifteen years of age when great-grandfather Maudlin had died and thirty-one when his son Phillip had passed away. Both had been instrumental in my life, even more so than my own father. They had filled my head with tales of the adventures of their siblings or their forbears, and my head had swollen in pride. Grandfather Phillip"s eldest brother had seen action in the Korean War and the Malaysian Conflict in the middle sixties, and I heard of his exploits first hand. Phillip and Gerard would sit in this very spot with me, on one or the other"s knee, listening to those deeds in avid attention. Then Phillip, not to be outdone by his elder, would praise his own efforts in "Annie"s" involvement in the protection of British interest in the Far East. Both would refer to Maudlin in an almost religious manner, never in my memory addressing him as "father" or simply "Dad." Only the words "he" or "him" and, less occasionally, The Old Man were used whenever reference was needed to my great-grandfather.

The Old Man“They even named a military operation after "him", you know. Operation Claret they called it, an intelligence lead incursion against the Indonesian forces. I was with the misinformation section, SIS by any other name, but that was what they called us then. We were spreading falsified rumours amongst the Chinese, stirring them up against the President principally. Anyway, it worked, and an opportunity arose to assassinate him; his name was Sukarno if I remember correctly. I led that operation, Harry. I saved the day, and saved Malaya becoming a communist extension of Indonesia,” Gerard told me.

"him"Operation Claret“It was "he" who provided the funds from "Annie"s", then covered over the Government"s connection and any trail leading back to the Foreign Office. It allowed BP to continue out there, and protected our rights to the rubber,” Phillip informed me.

"he"So the bank became pivotal to me and my interest deepened, leading to my knowledge about Saint George, and broadened my interest into lies and as Gerard had put it; misinformation.

misinformation“You"re fortunate, Harry, that you don"t have the responsibility of the intricate nature of the bank. It"s an elaborate affair, and only "he" knows the full complexity,” one of them had added, but I forget exactly who.

"he"We were together, "he" and I, on the first of August; three days after my ninth birthday and six and a bit years before his death. I recall the day well, because I was to make my debut in the Halls cricket match against the estate tenants. The house was fully staffed in those days and, with the stable hands, there were more than enough adults to fill the eleven needed. However, the day had coincided with the unexpected arrival of my grandmother"s sister and her entourage, compelling most of the staff"s withdrawal. I was to go in last and had received batting advice from Maudlin. Fortunately, my uncles Charles and Robert were making a good show of things, and with my grandfather standing as one of the umpires, I considered my position in the proceedings as being well protected. He used his shooting stick in my coaching as a bat and displayed the forward defensive stroke as practised by Jack Hobbs, a contemporary of his and an England and Surrey batsman.

"he"He“Play a straight bat to everything young Harry, and play yourself in. Always give yourself time in any position in life before striking out. Cricket mirrors our lives in many ways, and that metaphor will stand you in good stead in both. I always found it best to keep something in reserve…to lure the bowlers in to believing you"ve nothing in your armoury then spring the trap, and dispatch them all over the place!” He swivelled his stick around imitating imaginary cricket strokes with agility and aplomb. “That"s how I have survived for so long in this complicated world. Never let anyone know all there is to know about yourself my boy. And I"ll tell you another thing, if you have a secret; bury it deep so even you don"t know where to find it!”

His conversations always captivated and meant a great deal to me as he usually spoke with such clarity and logic. With this one, in particular, I can recall his words clearly; they contained neither. I never understood what he meant by not being able to find your own secret, until now. Needless to say, none of these accurate recollections were related to Judith. The story that I told contained snippets of truth, mixed frugally with lashings of fiction. The exaggeration of dreamt happiness was not fabrication to me; it had become my reality. My lies had become my truth.

I never, for example, mentioned the fact that her own grandfather had been a pallbearer at Maudlin"s funeral. I hid the knowledge that I had discovered from the photograph, hoping she would bring that up, and not me.