Eve Hardy’s twenty-first birthday celebration went perfectly. There was an abundance of everything, including guests with county names and accents. There was even a Sir – an unimportant one, but most of the locals couldn’t tell one from the other, believing all rank had some sort of blue blood connection, and any kind of Sir added a touch of the exotic in much the same way as the pink bitters in the toasting champagne had.
Eve was a credit to her father – or was it her mother? Eve had inherited the Hardys’ looks, which were immutable. Her inclination was to be gentle so that, as her care and training had been left to Connie and a sleep-in local woman known as Nanny Bryce, Eve had retained her gentle nature. Had she been a boy, and thus Freddy’s to mould, there might not have been so much gentleness left by the time of coming of age.
Central to the evening were the speech, the cake and the revelation of her parents’ presents. These proceedings were to take place on the lawns behind the house, with Freddy, Connie and Eve on the raised terrace where everyone would have a view of them.
Connie was aware that most of the people there had come to tuck in, drink up and see what opulent thing Freddy Hardy would do to keep Markham gossiping for a month, so she had pruned his speech. The Clarion reporter had already noted the servants dressed like flunkeys in pantomime, the iced puddings called bombes, the whole salmon which were decorated like cakes, and hoped that it wouldn’t all be spoiled by a long-winded speech. Probably not, Freddy Hardy wasn’t often long-winded.
After thanking the guests for making this such a grand occasion, and then thanking Eve for the twenty-one years of joy she had brought him and her mother, Freddy proposed a toast and presented his pretty daughter with the diamond Es.
Eve immediately clipped them to her neckline and kissed him.
‘Thank you, Pa. Thank you, Mother,’ and to the guests, ‘Thank you all for making this such a nice party.’
Connie noticed a look of disappointment flit across the reporter’s face – he had expected something more spectacular than diamond clips. Connie smiled to herself. He wouldn’t be disappointed.
‘The little bit of diamond nonsense is just a token of love from a fond father. Our – mine and Connie’s – present to our daughter is a token of our wish for her to have some fun and some freedom whilst she is still young enough to enjoy it.’ He nodded to someone at the back of the crowd who must have passed on the signal.
Suddenly there came a roar from round the bend of the drive which was out of sight of the guests. They all turned at the same moment to see the night cut by twin searchlights, then a white MG tourer, bound round with ribbon tied in an enormous bow and with a huge key fixed to the radiator grille, was driven up the drive, across the lawn, through the assembled guests and to a halt below the terrace. The jazz-band played a hot ‘Happy Birthday to You’.
Eve Hardy blushed – as well she might. Never mind that Pa went a bit far when he did things, this was exactly the freedom she would have asked for had she been the kind of girl to ask for anything much. Eve Hardy was really a very nice girl, and she was head over heels in love with Dave Greenaway who came from the wrong end of town.
Connie Hardy blushed at an idea well, if vulgarly, brought off. He was convinced that the car had been his idea. A single woman with money and four wheels could have more freedom than any woman would have dreamed possible twenty years ago. Connie was determined to do what she could to see to it that her daughter had some life before she suddenly found herself thrust into the small band of a wedding-ring.
Connie looked again at the Clarion reporter as he watched Eve take the white car with its satin and silver trimmings on a circuit of the grounds. The Clarion reporter had been a man of little faith: he should have known that Freddy Hardy would not let him down.