DIRK BOGARDE - Closing Ranks

London England, Viking, 1997. First Edition, Binding: Cloth, Fine/Near Fine. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall 0670874191 Hadrback Hardback. First Edition. There have been Grayles at Hartleap since Canute. They know this and are pround of the fact. Now they stand in a semi-circle round the bed of the very last of their nannies, who is quietly slipping away. Ada Stephens - known as Nanny grayle, and well into her nineties - is saying farewell. There they stand, the old, the young, all of them at one time or another 'her' children. In the strange clarity which comes with the last remission, she looks at the saddened faces about her and surprises them all. She say that the most adored of her charges, Rufus, is 'tainted' and that his father, the revered war her 'Beau' Grayle, was 'wicked'. None of them is goging to get anything in her will. She has left everything to her nephew, Robert. Thus begins the final demolition of a once-proud house. 282 pp.