The House of Hardie Read Free Page A

Tibet – forbidden territory at the beginning of the century. Well, it still is, come to that. He wasn’t a botanist, unfortunately. Ten thousand feet up in the mountains he came across a valley filled with lilies. The queen of lilies, he said – the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen. He wrote a letter of description home, with adrawing. Dug up a few of the bulbs to send as well. Presumably he did it while the lilies were still in flower, so it’s not surprising that they didn’t survive. What with the change from almost freezing conditions to the heat of the plains, and then a six-month journey back to Europe, they were shrivelled and rotten by the time they arrived. Merlot himself was caught by the Tibetans. They chopped off the heads of the villagers who’d shown him the way into the country, as a hint to anyone else who tried to give a foreigner a helping hand. The missionary himself was simply never heard of again.’
    â€˜Did he say in his letter where he saw the lilies?’
    â€˜No. You’ve put your finger on it. Something that could be the most beautiful flower in the world, and no one knows where to find it. So there you are. Go to China and bring back the Merlot lily. Except that then it would be the Hardie lily.’
    He laughed as he spoke, but he was not joking. For his own part, Gordon was unable even to attempt a smile. His heart swelled to bursting point. It was as though he had suddenly and for the first time realized why he had been born. Falling in love, he thought, must be something like this. Perhaps one day he would meet a girl, whom he did not yet know to exist, and realize that he had been waiting for her all his life. She would give him no choice. There would be a compulsion to love her – just as the lily was now placing him under a compulsion to search for it.
    â€˜My God!’ exclaimed Sir Desmond. ‘What have I done?’
    Gordon blinked and looked at the older man, puzzled as to his meaning.
    â€˜Irresponsible!’ growled the botanist. ‘I remember, on the voyage out, telling you that if you wanted to be an explorer you needed a goal, and that was true enough.Something else I should have emphasized. You need money as well.’
    â€˜You mentioned once that the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew sponsors expeditions of this sort from time to time.’
    â€˜I should have kept my mouth shut,’ growled Sir Desmond. ‘I shall be lucky if the next case of cognac I order from The House of Hardie isn’t laced with poison. I can’t be blamed for your running away, but I don’t intend to be responsible for your failure to return to the bosom of your family.’
    â€˜My father may have disowned me by now.’
    â€˜That’s as may be. There’s only one way to find out. And if your mother’s still alive, chances are that she’ll persuade him to own you again.’
    An unexpected surge of emotion flooded Gordon’s body; he swallowed the lump in his throat, alarmed by what he saw as a failure of imagination. Very often in the past two and a half years he had remembered with shame how he had waved a farewell to his mother with the casual gesture of a boy going off to school as usual. He had understood, and regretted, the alarm she must have felt when he failed to return at the end of the day, and the grief and anxiety which would persist even after she received his letter. But as time passed, and he knew himself to be healthy, he had forgotten that she would still be worried. And the thought had never occurred to him that she herself might become ill, or even die.
    â€˜Any brothers?’ asked Sir Desmond.
    Gordon shook his head. ‘A younger sister, that’s all.’
    â€˜So you should be all right. Not a woman’s business, wine. Your father won’t want to break a family tradition if he can help it. A word of advice, then. You’ve got a natural talent. To be a plant-hunter,