ELIZABETH ELGIN
The Linden Walk

DEDICATION

For Ian Sommerville, friend and editor

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Dear Reader

Map

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

About the Author

By the Same Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Dear Reader,

You don’t need to have read the previous four ‘Sutton books’ to enjoy this book. The Linden Walk is a novel in its own right, though you might be forgiven for calling it an indulgence on my part because I too wanted to know what finally happened to the Clan, those six younglings who grew to maturity during the long years of the Second World War: Tatiana and Andrew, the Kentucky cousins Sebastian and Kathryn – we knew them as Tatty, Drew, Bas and Kitty – and Daisy and Keth, of course.

There were things to be explained, too, loose ends to be tied. Would Drew love again after losing Kitty? Would Keth return to France to find the grave of the young girl shot whilst helping him to reach safety in England? Would Tatty ever meet the half-brother – or sister – she knew to exist?

I have untangled these mysteries and, in doing so, have had the joy of creating a new Clan who will know the delights of growing up at Rowangarth as their parents did, and running free as my first Clan, whilst the sombre and empty Pendenys Place moulders away, unwanted and unloved.

I hope you will enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it for you.

Love,

Elizabeth.

MAP

ONE

September, 1948

‘Well, that’s the christening over and everyone gone but me.’ Lyndis Carmichael got to her feet. ‘Care to walk me home, Drew?’

‘I seem to remember,’ he said softly, ‘you asking me that once before.’

‘Yes. Before …’

‘Before Kitty,’ Drew Sutton supplied, gravely.

‘Mm. I asked this sailor to see me back to Wrens’ Quarters. We’d never dated before – not him and me alone, exactly. Usually his sister was there, too.’

‘But that night?’ he prompted.

‘That night, Wren Carmichael made a complete fool of herself. She asked that sailor if he would kiss her goodnight – as in properly, and not the usual brotherly peck on the cheek. And when he did, that stupid Wren offered her virginity on a plate; told the sailor she was in love with him. Best forgotten, wouldn’t you say?’

‘But I just remembered it!’

‘Well, so now I’m remembering you once told me about this Linden Walk and the seat on it and the scent of linden blossom. I asked if I would ever get to smell the blossom and you said if I was a good little Wren, I might. But good little Wrens didn’t have a lot of fun, did they? Still, I’ve got to see your Linden Walk at last, though I can’t smell anything.’

‘You’re too late. The trees flower in summer.’

‘Ha! The story of my life! Not only do I miss the blossom, but when I eventually get to sit with you beneath your trees, all I get for my pains is a frozen behind. That seat is hard and cold!’

‘I’m sorry. So which way shall we go – the long way round or the short cut through the wood?’

‘Whichever,’ Lyn shrugged, hugging herself tightly because not only was she cold but she was shaking inside. And that was because if something didn’t happen tonight to clear the air, she was packing up and going to Kenya. Too damn right she was!

‘What is it, Lyn?’ He took her arm, guiding her towards the stile at the near end of Brattocks Wood. ‘I watched you in church today. You looked so sad. Want to tell me about it?’

She remained silent for all that, because they were passing Keeper’s Cottage. She had stayed there often with Daisy, her friend, fellow-Wren, and Drew’s half-sister, but in another life, it seemed.

‘What’s wrong? We’re old friends – we get on fine, you and I.’

‘Oh sure, Drew. And every time I come to stay with Daisy and Keth, you and I meet and chat like old friends and you kiss me goodnight as friends do – a brotherly peck, like always. Friends! That’s all you and I will ever be!’

She walked ahead, shoulders stiff, and because the moss at the side of the path was damp with dew, she slipped and would have lost her footing had not Drew grasped her elbow, and steadied her.

‘Careful.’ He was still holding her. ‘I’m sorry the way you feel about you and me. Can’t you tell me?’

‘About why I looked sad in church? Hadn’t thought it showed but yes, I was sad – or maybe it was self-pity. That baby is so beautiful I wanted one of my own. I envied Daisy and Keth; wanted to conceive a child, you see, with a man I loved. I wanted all the morning sickness and the pain of heaving and shoving that baby into the world! And every time Daisy puts Mary to her breast I go cold, I’m so jealous! That’s what I’ve become. An untouched, unloved woman who aches for a child!’

Unspeaking, he let go of her arm and there was such a silence between them that she could hear the thudding of her heart and the harshness of her breathing. Above them, a cloud shut out the last of the sun and a flock of birds wheeled overhead, cawing loudly as they settled to roost.

‘Rooks!’ she murmured. ‘Daisy tells them things, doesn’t she, and her mother, too. Rooks keep secrets, I believe, so how if I tell them one? Want to hear it, Drew Sutton?’

She walked towards the elm trees, heels slamming, not caring about the slippery path. Then she stood feet apart, hands on hips, looking up into the green darkness.

‘Hey, you lot! You listen to things, don’t you? Then get an earful of this and hear it good, because I’ll not be passing this way again! I’m leaving. Off to Kenya to Auntie Blod because I can’t take any more!’ She sucked in a deep breath, holding it, letting it go noisily, but it did nothing to calm her.

‘There’s this man I fell for – a real hook, line, and sinker job – first time we met. I thought he might have had feelings for me, as well, so what d’you know, rooks? I offered it with no strings attached – except that perhaps he might have said he loved me, too. But he didn’t say it because he knew I wasn’t his grand passion. He met her not long after, his cousin from Kentucky and you can’t blame him for the way he fell for her. He’d loved her all his life, only he hadn’t realized it!’

She stopped, shaking with anger and despair, and her words swirled around her and spiralled up to where the rooks roosted. And she covered her face with her hands and leaned against the trunk of the tallest tree, because all at once she felt weary and drained. The tears came then; straight from the deeps of her heart and they caught in her throat and turned into sobs that shook her body.

‘Don’t cry, Lyn. Please don’t cry.’

He reached for her and because she did not turn from his touch he took her in his arms, cupping her head with his hand so her cheek rested on his chest. ‘Ssh. It’s all right. Let it come …’

‘Drew, I’m s-sorry. That was bloody awful of me.’

‘It wasn’t. But if it was, I deserved it.’

‘No you didn’t. Can I borrow your hankie please,’ she whispered.

‘Be my guest.’ He pushed her a little way from him, dabbing her eyes, then giving her the handkerchief, telling her to blow her nose.

‘Good job it’s getting dark,’ she said sniffily. ‘I must look a mess.’

‘Yes, you must. Your mascara, I shouldn’t wonder, is all over your cheeks – and my shirt front, too – as well as your lipstick.’

‘It isn’t funny, Drew. I meant it. I did love you. It’s why I’m going away.’

‘But you can’t go away. What about Daisy? What about your house?’

‘I’d pack in my job for a couple of months – see if I liked it. Then if I did I’d come back and sell up.’

‘But you didn’t like Kenya, you said so; never wanted to go back, you once told me.’ He said it softly, coaxingly, as if reasoning with a child.

‘I didn’t – don’t. I’d stay here if just once you’d say you love me, even though you didn’t mean it. And if sometimes you would kiss me properly like that night outside Wrens’ Quarters, when Daisy wasn’t there …’

They began to walk, then, climbing the boundary fence to stand at the crossroads beside the signpost. Away from the trees, it was lighter.

‘You look just fine – your mascara, I mean,’ Drew said.

‘That’s okay, then. Daisy won’t be asking questions, will she, when I get back to Foxgloves.’

They walked slowly, reluctantly, as if both knew there were things to say before they got to Daisy’s house, though neither knew where those words would lead.

‘I’m sorry, Lyn, that you were hurt so much. Those brotherly pecks we’ve been having lately – I thought it was what you wanted. I didn’t realize that – well, that after Kitty you’d gone on carrying a torch for me, sort of. And that morning I rang Daisy to tell her I’d got engaged, you spoke to me, too, and sounded glad for me. You said you hoped we’d both be happy.’

‘Yes, and then I sat on the bottom stair and cried my eyes out. The entire Wrennery must have heard me. You thought I was a good-time girl, Drew? It was the impression I liked to give, till I met you.’

‘It would still have been Kitty,’ he said gently. ‘She knocked me sideways.’

‘I know. And I wasn’t glad about what happened to her. When she died, all I could think was that it could have been Daisy or me, in the Liverpool Blitz. It was damn awful luck. I tried not to think about you and how terrible it would be when you got to know.

‘But I was sad about Kitty. I had to bottle everything up because Daisy was in such a state, kept weeping and wanting Keth, but there was only my shoulder for her to cry on.’

‘There’s a seat a bit further down – I think we’ve got to talk, Lyn.’ He took her hand and they walked to the new wooden memorial bench. ‘When I came back from Australia and got my demob, I didn’t go straight home to Rowangarth.’

‘I know you didn’t. We ran into each other, in Liverpool. Remember? It was blowing, and raining icicles. You seemed lost, as if you were looking for something.’

‘I was. Or maybe I was convincing myself that Kitty really wasn’t there and never would be again. So I stayed the night, then caught the first train out next morning. But she wasn’t at Rowangarth either, nor in the conservatory nor the wild garden. All I could find of her was a wooden grave-marker with her name on it. It was like a last goodbye.’

‘It must have torn you apart, Drew. Are you ever going to forget her?’

‘No. She happened and I can’t begin to pretend she didn’t. But at least I’ve accepted the way it is. Mother told me she wasted too many years raging against the world after her husband Andrew died. She begged me to try not to do the same.

‘When finally she went to France to his grave, she had to accept he was dead, she told me. So I was luckier than she was. At least I was spared the bitterness. All I have to contend with now is the loneliness.’

‘And I’ve just made a right mess of it, haven’t I?’ Lyn whispered. ‘My performance in the wood must have shocked you. Sorry if I embarrassed you.’

‘You shocked me, yes, because I’d never really realized how you felt. Even after the war was over and you started visiting Daisy and Keth and we met up again and –’

‘And walked, and talked!’

‘And walked,’ he laughed, ‘and talked like old friends.’

‘All very nice and chummy, till I put the cat among the pigeons.’

‘Among the rooks! But are you really thinking of going to Kenya?’

‘Thinking, yes, but I won’t go. And Drew – before the soul-searching stops, this is your chance to cut and run; give me a wide berth next time I come to Foxgloves. Because I won’t change.’

‘You must have loved me a lot,’ he said softly.

‘I did. I do. I always will. And if you can still bear to have me around after tonight – well, you don’t have to marry me. If sometimes we could be closer, sort of. It’s just that I’m sick to the back teeth of being a virgin, still.’

‘Lyndis Carmichael.’ He laid an arm across her shoulders and pulled her closer. ‘What on earth am I to do with you?’

‘Like I said, you don’t have to marry me …’

‘Oh, but I do! You can love twice, Mother said, but differently. So shall we give it a try, you and me? Knowing that Kitty will always be there and that sometimes people will talk about her just because she was Kitty and a part of how it used to be, at Rowangarth?

‘Knowing that every time you and I walk through the churchyard or down Holdenby main street, we shall see her there? And can you accept that every June, Catchpole will take white orchids to her grave and that she was my first love? Knowing all that, will you be my last love, Lyn?’

For a moment she said nothing, because all at once there were tears again, ready to spill over, and she wouldn’t weep; she wouldn’t!

‘That really was the most peculiar proposal I ever had.’ She blew her nose, noisily. ‘Come to think of it, it’s the only proposal I ever had! It – er – was a proposal?’

‘It was, but I think I’d better start again. I want you with me always, Lyn. Will you marry me?’

He still hadn’t said he loved her, she thought wonderingly, as a star began to shine low in the sky, and bright. But he would say it. She could wait, because now tomorrows were fashionable, and people could say the word without crossing their fingers.

Their lips touched; gently at first and then more urgently, and as she pulled away to catch her breath she looked over his shoulder at the star; first star – wishing star. So she closed her eyes, searching with her lips for his, wishing with all her heart for a child with clinging fingers that was little and warm and smelled of baby soap. Two children. Maybe three.

‘I think,’ she said shakily, ‘that if you were to kiss me again as in properly and passionately, I’d say, “Thanks, Drew. I will.”’

It seemed right, somehow, and very comforting that as they kissed again, a pale crescent moon should slip from behind a cloud to hang over Rowangarth’s old, enduring roof as new moons always had, and that from the top of the tallest oak in Brattocks Wood, a blackbird began to sing Sunset.

As it always would.

TWO

At the house called Foxgloves where Keth and Daisy lived off the Creesby road, all was quiet. Bemused, Lyndis gazed into the fire. It had really happened, Drew asking her to marry him and she saying yes. A very calm yes, considering she had been dry-mouthed and shaking all over. She still couldn’t quite believe it. The wayward little pulse behind her nose still did a pitty-pat whenever she thought about it and to bring herself down to earth, she would close her eyes and cross her fingers and pray with all her heart that nothing would happen to prevent it. Because it had happened before, though lightning didn’t strike twice in the same place – well, did it? Fate couldn’t do it again to Drew. Not when Kitty had been killed by a lousy flying bomb when everyone thought the war – in Europe at least – was all but over.

Kitty had been one of the Clan. Special, that Clan. Still was. Before, when they’d met up twice a year, it was as if they had never been apart. Bas and Kitty, the cousins from Kentucky, were Pendenys Suttons, really, though drawn always to Rowangarth and Drew and Daisy and Keth. And Tatty, of course. Half Pendenys Sutton, half Russian, she had been the awkward one, the defiant one. Kitty, the naughty one, had been beautiful and headstrong and a show-off. No wonder Drew had been completely besotted by her. Poor Drew. Thousands of miles away with the Pacific Fleet when it happened, and not even able to say one last goodbye at her graveside.

But that war was over, now. Six damn-awful years it had lasted and she and Drew two of the lucky ones. Kitty had not been, though she would never be dead. Not completely.

‘Right!’ The door flew open. ‘That’s the baby fed and in bed so give, Carmichael. Tell all!’

‘Daisy – surely not at this hour? You’ve had a big day. You must be asleep on your feet.’

‘Blow the hour! Mary is asleep, Keth is marking homework in his cubbyhole upstairs so he’ll hear if she cries. No excuses. This is Wren Purvis-from-the-bottom-bunk. Remember our heart-to-hearts, Lyn?’

She dropped to her knees to stir the fire and lay another log on it.

‘Mm. Good ones and bad ones …’

‘Yes, and I put up with all your bad ones which makes me entitled to hear the best bit of all, so let’s be having it. From the beginning.’

‘But you know about it. Drew and I are going to be married. You were right. “Do something,” you said. “Go in at the deep end and if it comes to nothing, then at least you tried.” And the deep end it was – feet first. I can hardly bear to think of it. Hands on hips in Brattocks Wood, yelling my head off at those rooks!’

‘Lyn – will you never learn? You don’t yell at the rooks. You don’t even talk to them. You put your hands on the tree trunk – connect yourself to it, sort of – then you send them your thoughts.’

‘Thoughts? It was for Drew’s benefit, don’t forget. He isn’t a mind-reader. Poor love. I yelled like a fishwife.’

‘He needed a shove. My brother has always been a tad too placid.’

‘Well, he got the message in the end.’ She clucked impatiently then went to sit at Daisy’s side on the sofa opposite because it would help, she all at once realized, if she didn’t have to look her in the eye when she told all.

And tell all she did; was glad to. Told every word, gesture and sniff. What she had said; what Drew had said.

‘And Drew so serious and kind about it. Yes, kind, actually. Me offering it on a plate – again! Telling him I was sick of being a virgin, still; that he didn’t have to marry me. I must’ve sounded desperate. But it worked. I got what I wanted, what I’ve always wanted since the day I met him.’

‘What we all wanted, love. I wanted it, Mam wanted it and Aunt Julia wanted it, too. She most of all. So what did she and Nathan say when you arrived at Rowangarth with the news?’

‘Drew’s mother let out one yell then hugged me and hugged Drew, and Nathan beamed all over and raised his eyes to the ceiling and said, “Thank God for that!” And Drew’s mother said she would go to the bank first thing in the morning and get the jewels out so I could choose a ring, but I had to tell her I was going back to Llangollen in the morning.

‘And Drew said, “She’ll be back on Friday. Get them out for then. And no, Mother! No champagne! We’ve got to go and tell Lady and Tom – and Keth and Daisy. Save the champagne till I’ve got the ring on her finger!”’

‘You’d think there was still a war on. I mean, you can’t get anything half decent at the jeweller’s. Best you have a family ring, Lyn.’

‘Your mother said that, Daisy. “You’ll be having one of Grandmother Whitecliffe’s rings I shouldn’t wonder. She left all her jewellery to Julia, you know.” Your folks were pleased, when we told them.’

‘Well, of course they would be. Mam especially. She’s been wanting Drew down the aisle for years.’

‘I still can’t help thinking I did it a bit sneakily, Daisy. I practically put the words into his mouth. And for all that, he never said he loved me. Just that he wanted me with him always. He’ll probably have changed his mind in the morning.’

‘Not Drew. And the I-love-you bit will come. It did happen rather quickly, after all. Maybe he thought he said it. Who cares? You’re engaged. So when is it going to be?’

‘Haven’t a clue. We didn’t talk dates. Like I said, it all –’

‘I know. Happened so quickly. It’ll be here at Rowangarth, of course. You’ll be having a white wedding? What are you going to do about a dress?’

‘Lord knows. Clothes are still rationed. I haven’t seen wedding dresses in the shops, yet. Mind, I haven’t been seriously looking.’

‘Then you’d better start, Carmichael. Of course,’ she said obliquely, ‘you could use mine. Mam would be tickled pink if you did. And she’d alter it around a bit.’

‘No! I mean, no I wouldn’t want it altered, but yes I’d love to wear it. It’s the most beautiful wedding dress I’ve ever seen. D’you remember when your mum had got it almost finished? You and I were on a crafty weekend after a week of nights and you stood on the kitchen table so she could see to the hem. So cosy. I sat on the brass stool beside the fire and watched, and envied you like mad. Long time ago, that was. Before, I mean, when I was head over heels in love with Drew, and …’

‘You’re talking about Kitty coming over to join ENSA? Before he realized she was the one. Is that what you’re trying to say?’

‘Suppose I am. I was going to be your bridesmaid, then I chickened out.’

‘Because by the time Keth and I finally got ourselves down the aisle, Drew and Kitty were engaged and you couldn’t bear, you said, to see them together.’

‘A bit childish of me, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, but understandable, in the circumstances. Anna Sutton – Pryce – gave Mam two ball gowns; a rose one and a pale blue one. Mam made them look a bit more bridesmaidy and saved no end of clothing coupons.’

‘I should have worn the blue one, but Kitty stood in for me. They looked lovely on your wedding photos, she and Tatty.’

‘Well, there are still two bridesmaids’ dresses in store at Rowangarth. Mam went to a lot of bother over them. She’d love to see them on show again. A June wedding, might it be …?’

‘I don’t know, Daisy – I honestly don’t. I still can’t believe any of it has happened. Suppose I’ll feel a bit more engaged when I get a ring on my finger.’

‘Ooh, Lyndis Carmichael!’ Daisy jumped to her feet. ‘For someone who has just said yes to the man she’s been in love with for years, you are being very nonchalant about it, if I may say so! Anyway, I’m going to make a milky drink – want one?’

‘Please. And Daisy – nonchalant isn’t the word. I’m stunned. I can’t seem to take it in. Keep thinking I’ll wake up soon, and find I’ve dreamed it.’

‘Well you haven’t, old love. There’s going to be another Sutton wedding and Mam and Aunt Julia are going to have the time of their lives. You will be married from Rowangarth, Lyn? It’s such a lovely place for a wedding.’

‘I’d like nothing better, and will you be my matron of honour, Daisy, wear one of the dresses?’

‘You know I’d love to – and could you nip upstairs and ask Keth if he wants a drink, too?’

When Lyn had tiptoed downstairs, she knew that her, ‘Yes, please, and a biscuit if there’s one going,’ wasn’t necessary. Already the milk pan was on the stove and three mugs and a plate of scones set on a tray.

‘See, Lyn. Cherry scones from this afternoon. Tilda always makes cherry scones for special occasions. She gave me some leftovers. You’ll have to get used to Rowangarth’s little habits and cherry scone days, and suchlike. You’ll have to get used to being lady of the house. You and Drew will have it all to yourselves, once the Reverend and Aunt Julia have moved into the Bothy. She hopes to be in there by Christmas. It’s going to be just wonderful, isn’t it? So much to look forward to. Tatty and Bill having a Christmas wedding. And then there’ll be yours and Drew’s and by then Gracie will have had sprog number two and she said she wants it christened at All Souls, by Nathan. I shouldn’t wonder if Bas and Gracie don’t come over in the summer, once you’ve set a date, Lyn. The Kentucky Suttons used to come over twice a year, regular as clockwork at Christmas and for a month in the summer. That’s when the Clan were all together and oh, no!’ She ran to the stove as the milk began to froth and boil, removing the pan. ‘Now look what you almost made me do! All this wedding talk!’

They laughed, and Daisy spooned Ovaltine into the pan and whisked it, pouring it frothily into the mugs.

‘Take ours through will you, Lyn, and I’ll take Keth’s up to him and have a peep at the baby. And by the way,’ she said when they were settled once more beside the sitting-room fire. ‘I’m not going to be your matron of honour. If Bas and Gracie are over at the time of the wedding, I think Gracie should be asked. After all, she is family and she’ll be decorating the church for you. She’s smashing with flowers. Served her time as a gardener-cum-land girl at Rowangarth. In Catchpole’s time, that was. Have a scone. They’re delicious.’

‘Okay. So I ask Gracie, but who’ll wear the other dress?’

‘You should ask Tatty. She’d love to do it. Mind, she might be pregnant, by then. Told me they’re going to be very careless about things ’cos they want a family right away. Still, if push comes to shove, I wouldn’t see the other frock go to waste. And had you thought, Lyn? You and me almost next door to each other. Just like it was when we were Wrens. Doesn’t seem like five minutes since I arrived at Hellas House running a temperature, and you looking after me. We’ve come a long way, since then. We’ll be sisters-in-law.’

‘Half-sisters-in-law, if you want to be nit-picky. And Daisy – would you mind if I took my drink upstairs? I’ve got to be up early tomorrow – get the first train out. I’m doing afternoons at the hotel and if I miss that train I’m going to be late for work. Sorry, old love …’

‘And would that be so very awful, considering you’ll be giving notice anyway? Why don’t you pack in working and stay with me till the wedding?’

‘Nothing I’d like more, Daisy, but right now I’m high as a kite. This isn’t the time for decision making. I’ll think about it, though. It’ll all depend on Drew. Can’t wait to see him in the morning – ask him if he really, really wants to marry me.’

‘Idiot,’ Daisy grinned. ‘A Sutton doesn’t go back on his word. Now get yourself off. I’ll follow you when I’ve seen to everything down here. Getting a bit tired myself. But hasn’t it been one heck of a day, Leading-Wren Carmichael?’

‘One absolute corker of a day, Wren Purvis-from-the-bottom-bunk. And I’m glad we’re going to be sisters. I truly am.’

Lyn lay in bed, looking through the uncurtained window at the moon, high in the sky and shining gold now; the same paler moon that was witness to what happened tonight. Because it had happened. Drew had asked her to marry him and she had said yes. Disbelievingly almost, she said, ‘Thanks, Drew, I will.’ Said it nonchalantly, as if she had proposals of marriage every day of the week, and had got rather blasé about them.

She was always doing that; hiding her feelings for fear of being hurt. Because she had been hurt. If worlds could end, then hers would have ended the morning Drew phoned Daisy to tell her he and Kitty were engaged; had met up on a Liverpool dockside and wham! The two of them had spent the night at Kitty’s theatrical digs and the next morning Lyndis Carmichael smiled brilliantly into the phone, wished them both all the very best, then wept as if her heart would never be whole again – nor had it been, until tonight.

So why was she wide awake and tossing and turning? Why could she not believe that what she had longed for since the first time she and Drew met had happened? Why had she said – albeit jokingly – that she couldn’t wait to see him in the morning, ask him if he really wanted to marry her?

‘You’re a fool, Lyn,’ she whispered to the moon. Of course he wanted to marry her. A Sutton didn’t go back on his word, Daisy said. Yet she was afraid, still, and she knew it was because she would always be second best; second choice. Drew would never forget Kitty. He’d said so. Kitty would always be there because she had been one of the Clan – that bloody precious Clan she’d always envied because she could never be a part of it.

Mind, Gracie had never been part of the Clan and it had worried her not one jot. Pretty, happily married Grace Sutton who expected her second child at Christmas. Lyn liked Sebastian Sutton’s wife, just as she liked Tatty. Born to a Russian countess, Tatiana Sutton was as English as London Bridge. No one would know she was half-Russian, spoke correct Russian fluently, and conversed with the sombre Karl in his native Georgian, too. Tatty had taught Kitty to swear in Russian and in return Kitty taught Tatty to spit like a stable lad. Maybe Gracie’s baby would be born on Tatty and Bill’s wedding day. A cosy, family wedding in the little Lady Chapel it was to be and no white dress nor virginal veil Tatty stressed because she and Tim – her first passionate love – had been lovers from the start. Like Drew and Kitty, she supposed, because air-gunner Tim had been killed, too.

So why wasn’t Tatiana making a big production of her wedding to Bill and why did Bill Benson seem to happily accept the way things were – that the woman he would marry at Christmas had loved before; just as Drew had loved before – Drew’s mother, too.

‘Oh, dammit!’ She flicked on the bedside light, padded across the room to draw the curtains, checked that the alarm at her bedside was set for five in the morning, then whispered, ‘Goodnight, Drew. And it will be all right, my darling, I promise it will.’

She loved him – enough for both of them – and one day he would tell her he loved her too.

She closed her eyes and began to count each solemn second as it ticked away on the clock beside her, but it did nothing to help her fall asleep.

They waited on the platform at Holdenby Halt. Drew looked at his watch then said, ‘Any time now you’ll hear the train. The driver always gives a hoot just before the bend – a little past Brattocks. Then soon it’ll arrive, and you know what, Lyn? This station hasn’t changed one iota since ever I can remember.’

‘You don’t have to come to York with me. I’m quite capable of getting myself onto the Manchester train.’

‘Of course you are, but mightn’t it just occur to you that maybe I want to. For one thing, it’ll give us an extra hour together and for another, I want us to talk – plans, dates and all that. There’s always an empty compartment on this early train, so we can natter all the way to York. Have you had any thoughts on the matter, Lyn?’

‘Nope. All I could think about last night was had it really happened and when the heck I was going to get to sleep!’

‘You, too? Mind, it did happen quite suddenly. Takes a bit of getting used to. No second thoughts?’

‘No, Drew.’ Oh, liar Lyndis Carmichael! ‘Had you?’

‘Plenty, but no doubts. Wondered why we hadn’t got around to it before, as a matter of fact, and then I thought you might have decided that you didn’t want to be Lady Sutton, after all.’

‘Oh, my Lor’, Drew, Lady Sutton. I hadn’t thought …’

‘Comes with the job, I’m afraid. You’ll get used to it.’

‘Y-yes …’ The little train – the Holdenby Flyer, may God bless it, Lyn thought fervently – saved her the embarrassment of a reply. ‘It’s coming,’ she said. ‘Right on time.’

‘Usually is,’ Drew smiled, picking up her case, scanning the carriages as they slipped slowly past, pleased at the number of empty compartments. ‘The front of the train.’ He took her hand. ‘Plenty of room there.’

He helped her aboard then slammed the door firmly shut, pulling up the window.

‘There now, let me check. All present and correct. One case, one grip and one fiancée.’ Satisfied, he sat beside her, pulling her arm through his, smiling down at her.

‘That was nice, Drew.’ Lyn’s cheeks pinked. ‘You calling me your fiancée, I mean.’

‘Well, you are, aren’t you?’ he grinned. ‘Unless of course you’ve changed your mind.’

‘I am, and I haven’t. So let’s talk plans,’ she smiled tremulously as the whistle blew and the train jerked to a start. ‘Whatever you want is fine with me.’

‘Right! We’ll have the banns read starting next Sunday, then we’ll get married about the middle of October – that suit you?’

‘Just fine. But it wouldn’t suit Daisy nor her mother and it certainly wouldn’t suit your mother! White weddings take a lot of planning, don’t forget. Besides, I’ll have to give my parents in Kenya fair warning and plenty of time to get themselves organized and over here. And Daisy is insisting on a summer wedding. Bas and Gracie should be over by then and wanting their new baby christened. Your sister has got it all worked out. We had quite a long session last night.’

‘And?’ Drew quirked an eyebrow.

‘Well, I’m to ask Gracie to be one of the bridesmaids and if Tatty isn’t pregnant, she says, I ought to ask her – to wear the other dress, I mean. And I shall wear Daisy’s wedding dress. She offered and I couldn’t say no – it’s so beautiful. That was as far as we got, I’m afraid.’

‘Might Tatty be pregnant?’

‘No, of course not. But they do want a family so there’d be no point in waiting I was given to understand.’

‘And what else did Daiz come up with? Did she – er – mention how many children you and I will have?’

‘She didn’t get around to it, actually. Nor did I.’

‘But you want children, Lyn? I mean – everything seemed to happen so suddenly. You said you did after the christening but …’

‘Don’t worry, Drew Sutton. I want children, too. As many as the Good Lord thinks fit to send us. You and I were only-children. I’d like it if we had a couple, at least. Three would be nice.’

‘Be happy to oblige,’ he laughed, then all at once serious he cupped her face in his hands, saying softly, ‘You are sure, Lyn?’

‘I’m sure, Drew, but had you realized that not since you called for me at Foxgloves have I had so much as a kiss. Almost half an hour ago, that was!’

‘Again – happy to oblige.’

He tilted her chin and kissed her. Not with passion but with tenderness, Lyn thought; a reassuring, comforting, it’ll-be-all-right kiss and for the time being the niggling doubts left her.

‘I’ll call at Denniston when I get back – tell them about us. Bas and Gracie are leaving for Rochdale tomorrow to stay with Gracie’s folks for a week before they go back. They’re sailing, by the way. Better than flying, I suppose, all things considered. Mind, Mother will have been on the phone, spreading the news – nothing so certain. First she’ll be on to Daisy’s mother at Keeper’s and by the time she has finished ringing around, the entire Riding will know. There’ll be no need to put it in the Yorkshire Post.’

‘The announcement – it won’t go in just yet, will it?’

‘No. Not until you and I have talked about it and what we want putting in; we haven’t got a date yet, have we? But it’s like Nathan said last night. He doesn’t know what gets into normally well-balanced women when the words wedding or new baby are mentioned. He said it’ll be murder, the to-ing and fro-ing between Rowangarth and Keeper’s Cottage. Is it going to be a surprise to your folks, too? And before we can really announce it, I suppose I should ask your father’s permission, Lyn?’

‘Drew! Don’t be so stuffy.’ She gave his arm a little punch. ‘This is the middle of the twentieth century. Our generation has just fought a war, earned a bit of independence. It’ll be fine by them. Dad will be relieved that I’m off the shelf at last and Blod – Mother – will say, “Ooh, our Lyndis. There’s lovely …” I can just hear her. I’ll write to them, airmail, tonight.’

‘And you’ll tell them you’re very happy?’

‘I’ll tell them.’ Because she was. Crazily, ecstatically, unbelievably happy. So happy, in fact, that if the Fates got wind of it they’d be jealous, and that would never do. ‘And here’s York and we haven’t settled anything.’

‘We have, sweetheart. We’ve talked wedding dresses and bridesmaids and decided – almost – on a summer wedding. And three children.’

‘And that we’re both happy about us?’

‘Happy. A bit bewildered still, but happy, Lyn. Very happy. Don’t ever forget it, will you?’

THREE

‘Who on earth have you been talking to, all this time? I’ve tried to ring you three times, and you’re always engaged!’ The back door of Keeper’s Cottage was opened without ceremony by a breathless Julia Sutton.

‘Sorry,’ Alice smiled, ‘but it isn’t every day our son gets engaged.’ Their son. She, who had reluctantly borne and birthed him, Julia who reared him as her own. Dwerryhouse. At two years old, Drew hadn’t been able to pronounce her name. Mrs Lady he had said instead and she had been Lady ever since. And, thank God, she had come to love him deeply. ‘Isn’t it going to be grand? Lyn wants to wear Daisy’s wedding dress. She’ll have to try it on, next time she’s over – see if it fits.’

‘It will, near as dammit. Who else have you phoned, Alice?’

‘We-e-ll, Daisy, of course. And I mentioned it to Winnie at the Exchange and I rang Home Farm to tell Ellen and I’ll be nipping out to tell Polly. Not that she won’t have heard, of course. I’m so thrilled. Can’t seem to settle to anything, this morning.’

‘Nor me. In the end, Nathan asked me if I’d mind getting off the line; that he’s got parishioners who might want to get through. “Why don’t you pop along to Keeper’s,” he said. “Have a good old natter with Alice.” All of a sudden, he’s taken on a hounded look, poor love; something to do with women and weddings, he said.’

‘Tom’s exactly the same. Men can be very peculiar. But let’s have a sit-down, and talk about things.’ Alice set the kettle to boil. ‘By the way, did you phone Denniston House?’

‘I did. Told them Drew would be calling when he’s back from York. He’ll be wanting to say goodbye to Bas and Gracie. They’re going to Gracie’s folks for a week, then off back to Kentucky.’

‘And a Christmas baby for them. So much to look forward to. Tatty’s wedding, as well. We’ve been lucky there, haven’t we?’

‘Drew and Tatty, and them not getting together, you mean?’

‘Exactly. It could have happened, Julia. I mean, Drew losing Kitty and Tatty losing her Tim. Drawn together, they could have been. What would we have done? How would we have told them?’

‘I don’t know, and that’s the honest truth. But it isn’t going to happen now, Alice. Remember when we told Drew that you were his real mother?’

‘I do. Our Daisy acted up like a right little madam. Flounced off in one of her tantrums. Couldn’t accept there’d been another man in my life.’

‘Two men, did she but know it. Elliot Sutton who raped you and my lovely brother, who married you and claimed the child for Rowangarth. We were more than lucky, considering the lies we told and –’

‘White lies, Julia. Heaven must have approved of what we did. Drew was born fair as all the other Rowangarth Suttons; not dark like him. No need for Drew ever to know about his getting. There’s few living, now, who know.’

‘Just you and Tom. And Nathan and me. No worries that it’s ever going to get out, now.’

‘And Giles. He knew. So badly wounded. Never have a son for Rowangarth he said to me one night, when I was nursing him. He was in pain, and couldn’t sleep and we were talking. And I told him that that was ironic, because I had a child inside me I didn’t want. A rape child. Natural, him being the gentleman he was, to offer to marry me. I was grateful to accept, and why not, when Tom was dead, or so they said. That was a terrible war. I’m glad Giles lived long enough to know I’d had a boy.’

‘Poor dear Giles. Survived his war wounds to die of that awful ’flu. That ’flu took more people than were killed in the war. But what has got into us, getting all nostalgic and raking up the past! Let’s be having that cuppa, and get down to the present and Drew’s wedding. June, wouldn’t you say?’

‘It’ll be up to the pair of them, but I reckon next June would be as good a time as any. And the white orchids will be flowering, don’t forget, for another Rowangarth bride.’

‘Mm. Mother carried them to her wedding, and I did. And Kitty should have.’

‘Kitty. We aren’t going to be able to forget her, are we, Julia?’

‘No. And we don’t want to. Kitty is still a part of what was. Natural we should keep her with us.’

‘Yes. Let’s hope that Lyndis will accept it, and understand …’

‘She will, Alice. Given time, I’m sure she will, so don’t let’s spoil this lovely day? Let’s be glad that everything has worked out so wonderfully well. And I’m not interfering, truly I’m not, but wouldn’t a June wedding be great? Plenty of flowers – roses, as well as the white orchids. And a marquee on the lawn. When I told Tilda and Mary the first thing they said was that thank goodness we could have a wedding that was almost normal. Food-wise, they meant. Tilda has been wanting something like this to happen. She remembers the dinner parties at Rowangarth, before the war.

‘“Such goings-on, and all of us running round like mad things. But it was right grand,” she said. “Mind, that was in Mrs Shaw’s day, and I was only kitchen maid, then.” I think she’s going to look forward to the challenge, now she’s our cook. And I know food rationing isn’t over yet, but we needn’t feel quite so guilty about getting a bit on the black market – just the once. It isn’t as if merchant seamen are risking their lives, now, getting food to us across the Atlantic’

‘Mm. Just this once. It’s a pity, hadn’t you thought, that Lyn’s mother is going to miss all the fun – the planning, I mean. Sad she’s so far away.’

‘There’s nothing to stop her coming over and joining in. She’d be very welcome. Drew has met her – just the once – and he says she’s a lovely lady. There’d be loads of room for her. Bedrooms and to spare. I think Lyn should suggest it to her, when she writes.’

‘Oh? But you won’t be living at Rowangarth for very much longer, will you? Be in the Bothy by Christmas, you said.’

‘Okay. So she can stay at the Bothy with Nathan and me. Lyn’s father, too. Who cares? But even with me not there, Drew will be able to manage on his own for a few months. There’ll be Mary and Tilda to look after him – and anyone else who might want to stay there.’

‘Mary and Tilda are both married and live out, don’t forget. They wouldn’t be on call twenty-four hours a day.’

‘Alice! You’re looking for trouble. Drew isn’t helpless. He had six years in the Navy, don’t forget. It’ll all work out, in the end. I suppose that all I can think of right now is that we’re going to have a Christmas wedding in the family and a Christmas baby, given luck. And another wedding in June. Makes you giddy, just to think about it.’

‘It does. And coming back to Lyn – I’ll bet you anything you like that as soon as she gets back to Llangollen, she’ll send a cable to her folks, Drew and I engaged. Letter follows. Hope she manages to get back all right. She’s got to change trains at Manchester and Chester, don’t forget. Hope she hasn’t got her head in the clouds and ends up in Liverpool, instead. And y’know, Julia – Drew and Kitty wasn’t to be, but he and Lyn will make a go of it, I know they will.’

‘They will, Alice. As long as we all remember – without being in any way disloyal to Kitty’s memory – that it’s Drew and Lyn, now.’

‘Drew and Lyn,’ Alice held high her teacup. ‘Bless them both. And may they be very happy together.’

She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye, then smiled brilliantly at Julia.

Her dear friend, Julia. Her almost-sister who knew all about first loves and last loves. She would, Alice decided, make a very good mother-in-law.

‘Well, look who’s here!’ Tatiana Sutton had seen her cousin’s approach and run to the door to greet him. ‘If it isn’t the blushing bridegroom himself. Come on in, do!’

‘Hey up, Tatty. I’ve hardly been engaged a day, yet. Give a man a chance!’ He took her in his arms, hugging her tightly. ‘I’m still a bit bemused. Never thought she’d have me.’

‘Have you? She’s been crazy about you for years! You’ll both be very happy, I know it. Hang on, and I’ll call Bill. He’s in his garret, painting. Won’t be a tick.’

‘No, Tatty. Give it a couple of minutes, if you don’t mind. You see, I feel really good about Lyn and me. Is that wrong of me? You’ll understand – Tim, I mean. How do you feel about marrying Bill, or is it too personal a question?’

‘Coming from you, Drew, no it isn’t. And I’m very happy about Bill and me. He knows that Tim and I were lovers. Bill and I haven’t been. He would rather wait, he said, till we were married. But it isn’t a problem, not even when I talk about Tim, once in a while. Tim is a part of my past and you can’t wipe out what has been – just accept you’ve got to live with it, be it good or bad.’

‘Thanks, Tatty. I hoped you’d say that. I won’t ever forget Kitty, Lyn understands that.’

‘I like Lyn, Drew. You’ll be great together, like Bill and me.’

‘And Mother and Uncle Nathan, too. A different kind of loving, Mother told me, but good.’

‘Exactly. So let’s sit in the conservatory and talk weddings. Yours and mine.’

‘Y’know something, Tatiana Sutton? You were such a brat when you were little, but you’ve grown into a lovely person – and beautiful, like your mother.’

‘Why thanks, cousin dear. And there’s another happy second-time-around. My mother and Ewart Pryce. She’s stupidly happy with him but she wasn’t, with my father.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I just do, that’s all. No one would talk to me about my father. Elliot Sutton. For all I knew about him, he was just a name on a gravestone. I even asked your mother to tell me, and she’s a most reasonable lady and broad-minded too, but not one word would she ever say. She just went all vinegar-faced then said, rather apologetically, that she didn’t remember a lot about him because he was always gadding about, somewhere or other. And then she said, “Mind, if you were to ask me about Nathan …” Why does she so obviously love my father’s brother, yet hates my father?’

‘Don’t know, Tatty. All I know is she goes all pofaced about him. Lady, too. I’ve learned to keep off the subject.’

‘Well, I’ve found out, Drew, but keep it to yourself, mind. Uncle Igor told me, swore me to secrecy, though. I got quite close to him. Used to visit at Cheyne Walk when he was there alone living in the basement, and the Petrovska here at Denniston because of the bombing on London. And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned bombs on London.’

‘Tatty, bombs did drop on London. Nothing’s going to change that. But are you sure you want to tell me?’

‘I’m sure. Quite simply, my father was a womanizer. He didn’t love my mother but she had a title. Countess, actually, which meant very little in Russia and still less when you are a penniless White Russian refugee. But he married her to please his mother because she was a bloody snob and wanted a title in the family, and was desperate for a grandson. Grandmother Clementina thought her money could buy anything. I think had my little brother not been stillborn, my father could have gone his own sweet way with his mother’s blessing and his pockets lined with cash.

‘But my father overstepped the mark. Whilst Mother was pregnant he seduced a housemaid, here at Denniston. She was very beautiful, I believe. Spoke no English. Natasha Yurovska. She came with them to England when the Communists took over in Russia.’

‘So what happened to her?’ Drew felt bound to ask.

‘When my brother was stillborn I was told that the Petrovska and Uncle Igor took my mother and the housemaid back to London; both of them away from my father. I don’t know what became of the girl. It was all hushed up, the Petrovska saw to that. Had to be. Natasha Yurovska was pregnant.’

‘And does my mother know this, Tatty?’

‘About Natasha? I don’t know, but I don’t think that’s why she hates him. I reckon Uncle Nathan knows, though. Mother was once deeply religious – used him as her confessor I believe, but priests never say anything.’

‘And are you thinking what I am thinking …?’

‘That I have a brother or a sister – well, half so. It was one of the good things about finding out about my father, but I shan’t try to find him – or her. Needles in haystacks, and that sort of thing. But somewhere out there, someone belongs to me. I’ve asked my mother but she told me she didn’t know when or where Natasha Yurovska’s baby was born. Nobody would tell her. I sometimes think that even Uncle Igor wasn’t told. The Petrovska refused to say. But this is neither the time nor the place to lay souls bare. I’m sorry, Drew. I shouldn’t have gone on about it, especially when you are so happy – and me, too. We should forget about my father. He’s gone, and we shall talk about weddings and about being happy – and that it’s all right if sometimes we mention Tim and Kitty because people can love twice, but differently. Uncle Nathan and Aunt Julia are living proof of that.’

‘Well, it’s your turn first, Tatty. Are you excited?’

‘N-no. Not starry-eyed, breathlessly excited. More a warm sort of contentment and having someone at long last I can trust and who will always be there for me. And of course, it’ll be good going to bed with him,’ she said without so much as the blinking of an eyelid. ‘With Tim it was a kind of snatched, there’s-no-tomorrow loving. Things are different, now the war is over. We can plan ahead; have kids. And kids I said. Not an only child, fussed over by its mother and not wanted by its father. How many will you and Lyn have, Drew?’

‘Haven’t a clue.’ He laughed, disarmed by her frankness. ‘Lyn wants children, though. She told me so.’

‘Good. That’s settled, then. And you are both to come to my wedding. It’ll be the week before Christmas. No formal invitations, or anything. That okay?’

‘Accepted soon as asked. There’s Bill, crossing the yard.’

‘Mm. He’s an old love. Doesn’t want to sleep with me before we are married on account of someone getting his mother pregnant then shoving off and leaving her. Very puritanical, in some ways. So I told him that that being the case, he could stay in his studio over the stables till the wedding. He’ll be wanting a hot drink. Let’s go to the kitchen. Karl will have the kettle on the boil. And forgive me for blethering on, Drew, but I’m very happy this morning. Suddenly, it’s all happening for the Suttons.’

‘The young Suttons. For the Clan.’

And they smiled into each other’s eyes, because they understood each other and the way things were for them. And that it was going to be fine.

Lyn Carmichael sighed and laid down her pen. Already she had sent a cable to Kenya then bemused, still, had taken her place behind the hotel reception desk without a word to a soul. But it would all seem right when she had written to her parents, she told herself; had written it word for word so she could read it out loud and know it really had happened.

She sighed again, wriggled herself comfortable in Auntie Blod’s sagging old chair that stood beside Auntie Blod’s fireplace in the cottage she had left two years ago. And now that thick-walled little house was Lyn Carmichael’s, or would be in eleven years’ time, when she had paid off the mortgage. Four hundred pounds she had paid for it and nothing in it had changed, except that with the war over it had been wired for electricity. So she had stored away her oil lamps and promptly put her name on waiting lists for everything and anything that would plug in. A vacuum cleaner, a cooker, a toaster, a fridge and – there was posh! – a washing machine. And this far, she had been able to buy nothing to plug in, though she was climbing the lists nicely, she was assured, when every once in a while she checked.

Yet soon she would have no need of such things. Soon, by summer probably, she would live at Rowangarth; have no need for the little four-roomed cottage. And that would be a pity, because she loved the safe, warm little house.

How many rooms at Rowangarth? She had no idea. Fourteen bedrooms, she thought, if you counted the attics. And loads of bathrooms. More than three hundred years of Sutton history, too. Being a Sutton was going to take a bit of living up to. Kitty would have taken it in her stride, because she had been born a Sutton; been used to living in a big house and having money. Loads of it and even more when Clementina Sutton, who once lived at Pendenys Place, died. Apart from Denniston, half her fortune had gone to Kitty’s father, Albert; the other half to Nathan, parish priest of All Souls and married to Julia. Happily married.

Lyn longed to hear from Drew. Pity there was no phone, here. Auntie Blod had never bothered, so that was something else Lyn was on a waiting list for. Not that it mattered much now, and Drew might ring her at work tomorrow if he could remember which duty she was on. She hoped he would. Just to hear him say, ‘Hi, Lyn,’ might rid her of the peculiar feeling of being suspended between delight and disbelief, because being engaged to Drew Sutton took a bit of getting used to. She had been sure enough about things this morning when they had kissed goodbye at York station. She had closed her eyes and clung to him and not cared at all who saw them. His lips had been warm, his kiss firm and lingering. It had been all right this morning, yet now she was alone, and desperately longing for bed.

Yet first she must finish her letter – the most important one, she supposed, she had ever written – and seal it in the pale blue airmail envelope ready to take to the post office to be stamped and sent flying on its way.

So having picked yourselves up from the floor, isn’t it the most marvellous news? Drew asked me to marry him and of course I said yes. Everyone was wonderful about it, Daisy most of all. I am to wear her beautiful wedding dress and be married at All Souls by Drew’s Uncle Nathan. Sometime in the summer, I think it will be, with you to give me away, Dad. I can’t wait for you both to see Rowangarth and as soon as we have fixed a date, you must put a big red ring around it on your calendar.

She laid down her pen again. This was not a letter from a young woman crazy with joy, because there was no joyousness in her words. Relief, more like, and gratitude, yet overshadowed by the niggling remembering he had said those words before to Kitty, and that he said, ‘Marry me, Lyn’ without saying he loved her.

‘Bed!’ she said out loud. She was weary for sleep. Today had started early with the five o’clock jangling of the alarm and she had travelled home by train then hurried to the hotel to take her smiling place behind the reception desk. It was past eleven, now; had been dark these past two hours. Her eyes pricked with tiredness. Very soon, her cablegram would arrive in Kenya. The letter could wait until tomorrow. One day more would make little difference.

She got to her feet, placed the guard over the fire, checked the front and back doors, then walked slowly upstairs to the little room with the sloping ceiling and the fat feather mattress that called her.

She slipped out of her clothes, leaving them to lie where they fell and wriggled into her nightdress. Then, without washing her face, even, she pulled back the cover to slip into bed.

And next morning when she awoke, she could not remember switching off the bedside lamp. Nor whispering goodnight to Drew.

‘Of course, Tilda,’ Mary Stubbs remarked, ‘Mr Catchpole is sure to do the florals – for the wedding, I mean.’

‘Well, of course,’ Mrs Sidney Willis, nee Tilda Tewk, conceded. ‘I grant you there’s no one in the Riding to touch Jack Catchpole when it comes to bouquets and sprays and buttonholes.’ She almost included floral tributes, but decided against wreaths when weddings were the topic under discussion. ‘My Sidney would be the first to acknowledge it, him being Parks and Gardens before he took over at Rowangarth. But he is an expert on orchids and will see to it that all’s well in the orchid house in time for the wedding.’

Rowangarth’s famed collection of orchids was back to its pre-war glory now it was no longer considered unpatriotic to heat the orchid house, which they had done with unrationed logs and a sneaky shovel or two of craftily acquired coke, when no one was looking.

‘There’ll be Tatiana’s wedding to consider, an’ all,’ Mary reminded. ‘Quiet wedding or not, the lass will want her bouquet and the guests,’ such as there would be, she thought not a little ungraciously, ‘are going to want sprays and buttonholes.’

‘Sidney has the matter in hand. He says there’ll be chrysanths in plenty, but little else for Mr Catchpole to work with. Mind, the church’ll be decorated for Christmas.’

What would be lacking in florals, Tilda considered, would be more than compensated for with holly and ivy.

‘But Tatiana isn’t having the church. She wants the Lady Chapel,’ Mary felt bound to point out.

‘My husband is well aware of the fact. He’ll be decorating the chapel for Christmas, an’ all. I shouldn’t wonder if he doesn’t pot up a little spruce – for Tatiana, I mean. Would be nice for her to have a tiny tree, he said. Tastefully decorated, mind.’

‘I wonder why the lass wants such a quiet do. It isn’t as if she has to get wed,’ Mary frowned.

‘As long as her Uncle Nathan says the words over them, Tatty won’t care what she’s wearing or that the chapel will be as cold as charity and there’ll be few presents.’

‘I’m bound to agree with you there,’ Mary conceded, she rarely agreeing with Tilda on debatable points if only to remind that she was Rowangarth’s parlour maid when Tilda had been but a kitchen maid. ‘But the lass has money enough in her own right, so her won’t worry overmuch about wedding presents. Her grandfather saw to it she wasn’t left short. And that grandmother of hers left Denniston House to her don’t forget, and the contents, though what made the old cat do such a thing I’ll never know.’

The late Clementina Sutton of Pendenys was never noted for her generosity; rarely made a kindly gesture.

‘Probably did it when she was half sozzled. She hit the bottle hard after her precious Elliot died. Folk reckoned he’d had a drink or two an’ all when he crashed his car and went up in smoke. Was seen in the Coach and Horses in Creesby with a woman who wasn’t his wife, though talk had it he left alone, later, an’ him so fuddled with drink that he couldn’t crank up his car.’

‘Well, he’s gone now, so don’t speak ill of the dead in my kitchen, dear.’ Tilda felt it necessary to remind Mary from time to time that she was now Rowangarth’s cook, and happily – thankfully – married to Rowangarth’s head gardener.

‘Wasn’t speaking nothing but fact.’ Undaunted, Mary set the kettle to boil. All Creesby and his wife knew what a wrong ’un Elliot Sutton had been. Indulged by his mother until he thought he could do no wrong. And when his wrongdoings sometimes surfaced, the foolish Clementina straightened things out, because most folk – even those badly done to – had their price. ‘They won’t be wanting tea upstairs. The Reverend has gone to see the Bishop and Miss Julia is at Keeper’s – talking weddings, no doubt. Her went to the bank, yesterday, and we all know what about. Drew’s girl will be choosing a ring, I should think. I’ve often wondered, Tilda, what became of Kitty’s ring. Opals and pearls, she chose, and may I never move from this spot again if I didn’t think at the time that opals were bad luck and pearls brought tears.’

‘I reckon it went with her to her grave. Miss Julia wouldn’t want it back – not if every time she opened that box and saw it, it reminded her of Kitty. She loved that lass.’

‘A right little minx, but no one could help loving her. And so beautiful. Her and Drew would have had lovely bairns.’

‘Lyndis is beautiful, an’ all. Kitty’s opposite, in fact. Maybe as well,’ Tilda sighed. ‘And there’s cherry scones left over from the christening in the small tin. They’ll be past their best if we don’t eat them soon.’

Tilda sat in the kitchen rocker and closed her eyes and thought about how it had once been in Lady Helen’s time when that lovely lady, God rest her, came out of mourning for her husband and gave her first dinner party in three years. A simple meal, yet Mrs Shaw – once Rowangarth’s cook and God rest her, too – had been days and days preparing and cooking and garnishing so that everything might go well at her ladyship’s first timid footsteps back into society.

Well, now there would be Drew’s wedding, and with food not nearly so hard to come by Tilda Willis would be able to show the folk hereabouts how well Mrs Shaw had trained her up to the status of cook. Mrs Shaw’s standards, Tilda thought smugly, would be maintained as that dear lady would have expected.

‘Butter on your scone, or jam?’ Mary interrupted the reverie.

‘I think it might run to butter – though only a scraping, mind.’ Butter was still rationed. ‘And I’ll have the first pouring, please.’ Rowangarth’s cook did not like her tea strong. ‘And don’t forget Miss Clitherow. Jam and butter on hers.’

‘Very well.’ Miss Clitherow had come to Rowangarth as housekeeper when Helen Stormont married Sir John. Old, now, she spent her days in a ground-floor room, dozing and remembering – and being grateful to Miss Julia and young Sir Andrew for letting her live out her time with the family she had served through good times and bad. And through two terrible wars, an’ all. ‘Jam and butter it is, poor old lass.’

Yet she still had her wits about her, Mary was forced to concede, in spite of being nearer ninety than eighty and a little unsteady on her feet.

‘And there’s Drew, an’ all,’ Tilda reminded.

‘Sir Andrew,’ Mary corrected primly, ‘is at Foxgloves, with Daisy. Be talking about the wedding, I shouldn’t wonder. I suppose there’ll be nothing, now, but wedding talk. Wonder when it’ll be?’

‘Your guess, love, is as good as mine, though I hope they’ll wait for summer.’

Summer, Tilda thought. A June wedding and Rowangarth garden in all its glory. Flowers everywhere, warm sunny days, a marquee on the lawn and the special white orchids flowering. And herself rushed off her feet and loving every minute of it.

Tilda Willis was a very happy and contented woman. She’d had a long and anxious wait, mind, but Mr Right had turned up in the form of an Army Sergeant who was guarding whatever went on at Pendenys during the war, though no one would rightly ever know, she sighed. But yes. A very happy woman.

‘I phoned Lyn, last night. Managed to catch her before she went home from work.’

‘And does she still love you, bruv?’ Daisy smiled. ‘It’s still on, then?’

‘Love me? I – I suppose she does. Actually, Daiz, I didn’t ask.’

‘Didn’t ask, you great daft lummox; didn’t tell her you loved her?’

‘Actually – no. But she knows I do.’

‘Maybe so, but a girl likes to be told. Often!’

‘Sorry. Just that it’s going to take a bit of time getting used to it. It happened so suddenly. One minute I was escorting the lady home and the next, there I was, engaged.’

‘Hm.’ That hadn’t been Lyn’s version, Daisy considered, but what the heck? ‘She’ll have written to you?’ Letters could say more than words.

‘She has. In the post. I should get it tomorrow. And she’s written to Kenya, too. Sent a cable first, of course.’

‘I wish she was on the phone. I’ve got to wait for her to ring me. There’s so much we have to talk about.’

‘Then it’s going to have to keep till Friday, Daiz. That’s when she’s coming. Lyn was owed a shift by one of the other receptionists, so she’s called it in. I’ll be meeting her at York in the afternoon. Mother is going to the bank to get the rings out, on Thursday. Reckon we’ll both feel a bit more engaged when Lyn has got a ring on her finger.’

‘So you don’t feel very engaged at the moment, Drew?’

‘Of course I do. Only it’s like I said, everything happened so suddenly. I still can’t believe it – that I was so long in asking her, I mean. But we can talk about things at the weekend. It’ll work itself out.’

‘Yes. When you’ve had time to get used to it! But Lyn’s had all the time in the world to get used to it, as you say. The girl has been in love with you since the year dot! What’s the matter with you, Drew Sutton? Why aren’t you throwing your cap in the air? You aren’t having second thoughts, because if you are –’ her narrowed eyes met his across the kitchen table ‘– then all I can say is …’

‘Daisy, I am not having second thoughts! I’m going to marry Lyn, only it’s a bit up in the air at the moment. But we’ll talk about the wedding and by the time Lyn goes back to Llangollen, she’ll have a ring on her finger and we’ll have fixed a date.’

‘Oh – well – that’s all right, then,’ Daisy conceded. ‘A summer wedding would be lovely. Keth and I planned a summer wedding. The day after my twenty-first birthday it would have been, but for the dratted Army sending him back to Washington without so much as a by-your-leave or a quick forty-eight hours’ leave pass for us to get married. You and Lyn shouldn’t hang about.’

‘Daisy, love, there isn’t a war on, now. There’s all the time in the world for us to make plans. As a matter of fact, I do think a June wedding would be fine. Mother thinks so, too. But it’ll be what Lyn wants. She might want it to be soon – have a quiet wedding like Tatty and Bill are having. Mind, I hope she won’t. Pity no one is allowed to go abroad, yet. A honeymoon in Paris would have been great.’

‘Hard luck, bruv! When Keth and I were married Paris was occupied by Hitler’s lot. We made do with Winchester. But I don’t think where is important. Being together – married – is all that matters.’

‘Agreed. So are you going to put the kettle on? Tilda told me there were cherry scones left over from the christening. You wouldn’t have one left?’

‘I am, and I would. And you can have a couple. You used to adore cherry scones when you were little. I remember Mrs Shaw making them, and you nibbling the scone away till there was just the cherry left in the middle.’

‘You used to nibble too, Daiz. We all did, except Bas. He used to eat his cherry first so Kitty wouldn’t pinch it – and, oh dear …’

‘Yes. Kitty. You said her name, then looked all embarrassed and it’s got to stop. No one should be afraid to say her name, Drew. Kitty happened and she’s still with us because she was one of the Clan. She was a part of our growing up, and nothing can change it.’

‘Granted. And it was fine talking about her, until now. Lyn, I mean.’

‘You think she’ll be jealous? But why should she be? Tatty talks about Tim, still, and Bill accepts it as perfectly normal. Why should Lyn be any different?’

‘Sorry. You’re right, Daiz. Lyn isn’t the jealous sort, is she?’

‘Are you asking me, or telling me? Actually, she could be quite jealous of the Clan. She called it “Your precious Clan”. And once I caught her looking at the photo of us all – the one Aunt Julia took the Christmas before war started. She had quite a funny look in her eyes as if she wanted to be a part of it, yet was glad she wasn’t. Maybe she envied our closeness. Or maybe it was our growing up together. We did have a charmed life, you’ve got to admit it, Drew.’

‘I know. Wonderful days. But surely Lyn can be a part of it, now? Married to me, she’d qualify.’

‘No, she can’t. No one can. Kitty’s leaving it doesn’t mean there’s a vacancy. The Clan was our youth. No one is ever lost to it, and no one can ever join it. Not now. It was something – well, unique …’

‘And precious. When I was overseas and sometimes at sea for weeks on end and the heat unbearable, I’d think about the Clan, and where we used to meet.’

‘Mm. In the wild garden. And in summer we’d lie in the grass under the trees and talk and talk. I used to think about the Clan, too. I remember when Liverpool was blitzed, night after night. Lyn and I were two of the lucky ones. We were three floors underground, and protected by reinforced concrete. The safest place around. But when we saw the devastation it was horrifying, and we all had to shut our minds to it. Thinking of the Clan helped a lot.’

‘So am I allowed to nibble my scone – just one last time?’

‘You are,’ Daisy laughed, glad that they were back on an even keel again. ‘And I won’t pinch your cherry.’

‘Good old Daiz.’ Drew laughed with her, then said, ‘That’s the baby crying. Go to her – she sounds upset.’

‘It’s all right. Probably only just wind. I’ll bring her in and you can put her over your shoulder and pat her back. It’s quite rewarding when you get a burp out of her and you’ve got to learn how it’s done, Drew Sutton.’ She hurried out to return with a red-faced baby who had all at once stopped crying. ‘Ooh, the little madam. She only wanted attention. Here you are. Give her a cuddle.’

And Drew took his goddaughter who felt incredibly small and fragile in his arms and thought about the children Lyn so desperately wanted, and how good it would be, making them together. Tenderly he patted the little back and Mary Natasha nuzzled his neck then obliged with a burp which made him feel immensely proud and think that maybe after all, Lyn could be quite right. Having a baby – babies – might not be half bad.

‘I’ll keep her for a few minutes, get her to sleep for you whilst you have your tea and scone, Daiz.’

And Daisy wrinkled her nose at him and said, ‘Thanks, bruv,’ and thought how very much she loved him – and wanted him to be happy.

As happy as she and Keth.

FOUR

‘Want to know something, Bill Benson?’ Tatiana Sutton kicked off her shoes with a cluck of contentment, tucking her feet beneath her, snuggling closer.

‘So tell me,’ he smiled.

‘If you kiss me, I will.’

He kissed the tip of her nose. These days, he was always careful not to indulge in petting sessions because he knew exactly where they could lead. More than once he had admitted – to himself, of course – that keeping lovemaking until their wedding night had been a decision he should never have made. His own fault, always having been a bit holier-than-thou about taking liberties with the opposite sex, because someone had taken liberties with his mother, which had landed the resulting bairn – himself – in an orphanage when only one month old. Too much of a burden, he had been told later, for a bit of a lassie hardly into her sixteenth year to shoulder alone.

So he had accepted, very early in life, that that kind of behaviour wasn’t on and that no bairn of his would be born out of wedlock because no matter how kindly an orphanage he’d been brought up in he had always envied the kids in school who had two parents living under one roof, even if legitimate fathers were known to leather small boys’ behinds or sometimes come home the worse for drink on pay days.

‘You got your kiss – now tell me,’ he demanded.

‘Oh, just that I’m happy. It was lovely having Bas’s lot to stay, but it’s nice having the place to ourselves again with no one to interrupt us.’

‘There’s Karl …’

‘Karl doesn’t count. Grandmother Petrovska insisted he stayed on here when mother married Ewart Pryce and I was left alone in “that beeg place without a chaperon and heffen only knows what might happen to an innocent girl alone” Tatiana mimicked. ‘And don’t let him fool you. Karl understands English even though he won’t speak it – well, only to me.’

‘I often wonder about him – his background, I mean. I sometimes miss Scotland, but at least I know I can go there whenever I want. Karl can’t go back to Russia.’

‘True. Him once being a Cossack and loyal to the Tzar, it wouldn’t be wise. But he never speaks about his past. He attached himself to our family when they were trying to get out of Russia, and Mother told me they wouldn’t have made it without him. That’s why he’s still with us. We owe him.’

‘He’s very protective of you,’ Bill frowned.

‘I know he is, but you needn’t worry. When we are married I shall ask him if he wants to go back to London to Grandmother Petrovska and Uncle Igor.’

‘And if he doesn’t?’

‘Then he stays here, at Denniston. He’s no trouble, and he does all the gardening, remember.’

‘I’m no’ complaining.’ Bill Benson’s philosophy was to live and let live.

‘Good. So tell me, who rang you this morning?’

‘London. The agent I got in touch with wants me to go down there with my portfolio, and if he thinks I’m any good he’ll take me on. Mind, he’ll take ten per cent of all I make but he’ll earn every penny of it – do the selling and see to contracts and that sort of thing. He’ll haggle about price, too, something I’m not much use at.’

‘Of course he’ll take you on. You’re good. When shall you go?’

‘Soon …’

‘Then if you intend staying overnight, ask Aunt Julia if you can stay at Montpelier Mews. No point paying hotel bills when there’s a bed for the asking, for free.’

‘I thought it was we Scots who were meant to be mean! You Russians are every bit as canny.’

‘I’m not Russian – well, only half so. And born and bred in England. Do you mind, darling, that grandmother is a countess and that, as the daughter of a countess, mother is entitled to the courtesy, too. At least, that’s the way it used to be, in Russia. Mind, I shall be happy to be Mrs Benson. Are you looking forward to our wedding?’

‘Of course I am. It’ll be winter, soon, and gui’ cold in that studio of mine. Can’t wait to move in here.’

‘It was your own choice to stay put, so don’t moan. Let’s face it, here we are almost alone, and you still go on about waiting till our wedding night. It’s not a lot of fun when things get passionate and you start counting to ten. You’re always the one to put a stop to it and it ought to be the girl who says no.’

‘You’re joking, Miss Sutton.’

‘I’m joking, darling. But I’ll be glad when we’re married. December is a good time for a wedding. Short days, long cold nights. If this coal rationing lark goes on for very much longer, bed will be the only warm place.’

‘Tatiana!’ He let out a laugh. ‘Have you no shame? The granddaughter of a countess, reared by a nanny, taught by a French governess, with Karl always hovering to make sure the wind didn’t blow on you! Whatever happened to that ladylike lassie?’

‘The war happened, Bill,’ she said softly, eyes sad. ‘Oh, I know wars are immoral, but that one gave a whole generation of women their freedom. This ladylike lassie was away like a shot to London, translating.’

‘And you met a lot of wounded airmen …?’

‘Yes. And I met you, Bill.’

‘But what made you do it, darling? Escorting airmen with their faces burned away – didn’t it embarrass you, showing them around London, with people looking away and –’

‘No, it didn’t. I did it for Tim. And your face wasn’t as badly burned as some.’

‘No. I was blind,’ he offered without rancour.

‘Yes, but you aren’t now. Tell me, Bill –’ She changed the subject quickly, so she needn’t think about Tim. ‘– are you always going to paint flowers and florals?’

‘Why not? It’s what I do best and it brings in the shekels. I’m not going to live off my wife!’

‘No one wants you to, so don’t get all Scottish prickly about it! Just because I’m not short of a pound or two doesn’t mean you’re a kept man.’

‘Not short! The way I see it you’re filthy rich!’

‘I’ve been lucky. Mother didn’t have to marry money, exactly, but it seemed fortunate at the time that she fell in love where money grew on trees. And because of it, a lot of it came my way, through my father. Us Petrovskas hadn’t a bean. Left it all behind in St Petersburg – sorry, Leningrad.’

‘Aye, and when your granny died she left you this house, an’ all.’

‘True. But Grandmother Clementina, as I have often said, probably did it when she was tanked up on brandy. She hit the bottle in a big way, when my father was killed. And she didn’t leave it to me, exactly. Denniston House was her wedding present to my parents and she left things the way they were. If you want to split hairs, it was Grandfather Sutton who willed the money to me. He was a darling; didn’t deserve to be married to Clementina.’

An absolute old love, who had understood about Tim. The only grown-up, it had seemed, she could trust with her secret.

‘But Tatty – why should the old lady have taken on so? She had two other sons.’

‘Yes, but they weren’t her precious Elliot!’

‘That’s a gui’ peculiar way to speak of your dead father.’

‘Why is it? He didn’t like me. I was a girl. Why should I like him?’

‘Dislike a man you don’t even remember,’ Bill said softly, heeding the narrowed eyes, the disapproving mouth.

‘I do remember him. At least, I remember memories. Always unhappiness, and my mother sobbing …’

‘Then one thing I promise. I’ll not make you cry, sweetheart. And I’m in danger of getting sentimental and sloppy so I’d best be away to my celibate garret,’ he grinned. ‘Besides, I need to be up early – get the morning light. I aim to have the watercolour finished tomorrow – want something half-decent to show to the agent.’

‘Must you go, just yet?’ Tatiana teased her fingertips over his face. ‘It’ll be cold in the loft and you haven’t any paraffin left for your stove …’

‘Aye! We won a war and three years on we’re still rationed! Four-page newspapers, ninety miles of petrol a month for cars, a shortage of coal and the RAF airlifting food to Berlin instead of bombing it!’

‘Never mind. At the end of this month we’ll be allowed to use gas and electric fires again, so on October first you’ll be able to plug in and warm up.’

‘So I will. But why is this country in such a mess? It’s like we’re still at war. They’ve even rationed bread, now, and bread was never rationed, as I remember it, even though most of our wheat was brought here in convoys!’

‘Darling! I love it when you get on your soapbox – especially when you have a dig at Mr Attlee, and you a red-hot socialist! The war cost a lot of money – I suppose it’s got to be paid for, now. And you’ve got your National Health Service at long last. Free false teeth, free spectacles, pills and potions and operations for nothing. And no doctors’ bills coming in every month! So kiss me goodnight and go to bed. Would you like a hot-water bottle?’ she asked, eyes impish.

‘So what do you take me for – a jessie, or something?’

They were laughing now, and kissing, with Tatiana murmuring, ‘I love you, Sergeant Benson. Can’t wait for December.’

‘And you, hennie darling, will get your bottom spanked if you don’t stop your teasing! So one more kiss, then throw me out, eh?’

At the door he turned.

‘Oh and by the way, Miss Sutton, I love you, too. Even though you’re a filthy capitalist, I love you a lot!’

‘There now. The Whitecliffe jewels.’ Julia Sutton arranged lockets, necklaces and rings on the coffee table beside the fire. ‘I’ll leave the pair of you to it. Take what you want, Lyndis.’

‘They’re so beautiful.’ Lyn took a heavy gold locket containing a lock of pale yellow baby hair. ‘Who did this curl belong to?’

‘Haven’t a clue, though I’d like to think it was my mother’s hair,’ Julia smiled. ‘Mother was very fair. Glad you like them. Didn’t think you young ones would go for old-fashioned stuff like this.’

‘Old-fashioned, Mrs Sutton? But they’re family history. Much more special than going to a jeweller’s and asking to try on the third one down on the left of tray twenty-six.’

‘If there were decent rings in the shops to choose from, don’t you mean, Lyn? Why is this war lasting so long – the shortages, I mean. Do without. Export or die, the government tells us. Tighten your belts. Though I suppose it’s better, now, than it was after my war,’ Julia frowned. ‘At least war heroes aren’t being thrown on the scrapheap this time around, and forced to beg or sell bootlaces on street corners. It was an obscene war.’

‘Don’t, dearest.’ Drew took his mother’s hand and squeezed it tightly. ‘Your war and my war – they’re both over, now. It’s just that it’s taking longer than we thought to clear up after this one, and – I’ll get it,’ he said, as the phone began to ring.

He hurried into the hall and it gave Lyn the chance to say, ‘Look – I’m not being awful, or anything, but is – well – is Kitty’s ring amongst these? I wouldn’t want to choose hers and upset Drew.’

‘No, Lyndis. Kitty’s ring was opals and pearls and she – we-e-ll – it went with her.’

‘Good. I’m glad. I mean, I’m glad she was – was –’

‘Wearing it at the end,’ Julia said, matter-of-factly. ‘And you might as well know the whole of it. She wore her wedding dress, too. Amelia – her mother – sent one over from America for her. It was hanging here at Rowangarth with a sheet draped over it, waiting till they could be married.’

‘Then I’m glad she wore it, but so sad …’ Lyn whispered.

‘Sad. I told Drew when I wrote to him after the funeral. He agreed with what I had done. He was in the Pacific …’

‘I remember.’

‘Of course you do! You and Daisy were Wrens together. Sorry, Lyndis. Shouldn’t have said what I did.’

‘But I began it, asking about Kitty’s ring. Just because Drew and I are going to be married doesn’t wipe out all memory of her. They were deeply in love, and I accept it.’

‘So were Andrew and I. Passionately. But love can come again – remember that if you have doubts. Tell yourself that love can happen twice, though differently. It did for Nathan and me. Kitty was, is, and always will be. It’s going to be up to you, Lyndis, how you handle it, but never forget that I do understand and if ever you want to talk to me about anything –’

‘Talk about what?’ Drew stood in the doorway. ‘Secrets between you already?’

‘Idiot! Of course not. With her mother in Kenya, I offered to stand in if Lyndis wanted to talk about – well, you know – woman’s things. Anyway, who was that on the phone?’

‘Daisy. She insists we go over so she can admire the ring – she wants to have a wish on it, she says.’

‘It took you a long time to say that,’ Julia smiled, relieved the awkward moment had passed.

‘Not really. I had a word with Keth, too. About cars.’

‘So now you can have a word with your intended – about rings. And make sure you’ve got your key with you when you go out. I’m going to meet Polly at the Bothy at eight – okay? And like I said, Lyndis – feel free …’

And with that she was off, banging the door behind her, taking the stairs two at a time, as she always did.

‘Have you chosen?’ Drew asked softly.

‘N-no. I haven’t even looked, properly. I feel embarrassed, sort of; don’t want to pick out the biggest and best.’

‘Why ever not? It wouldn’t worry Mother. She’s never been one for jewellery; keeps giving pieces of this lot away. She gave Lady pearl eardrops for her twenty-first and Daisy got a sapphire and diamond brooch as a christening present. There are a couple I like, though.’ He laid two rings on his hand; one a sapphire, one an emerald. ‘Mother would want you to have something decent. Feel free, like she said.’

‘I like them, too. They’re both beautiful,’ Lyndis whispered, wishing her cheeks didn’t burn so. ‘I think you should choose, for all that.’

‘Then the emerald it is. It matches your eyes, Lyn. Try it on.’

‘Tell you what – the ring that fits best must be the one.’

‘Then it looks like it’s the emerald,’ Drew smiled when the square-cut stone set with diamonds slipped on easily, whilst the sapphire refused to budge past her knuckle.

‘The emerald it is. And anyway, Daisy has a sapphire ring. Wouldn’t want her to think I was copying hers. Will you put it on for me, Drew, and kiss me? And then we’ll put everything back in the box and give it to your mother, before she goes out. She’ll want to know which one I’ve chosen. And will you tell me why I feel so light-headed and floaty? I can’t seem to take all this in.’

‘We-e-ll, I ought to say it’s because of the wonder of the moment, but it’s probably because you arrived late and didn’t want any supper. Now give me your hand, Lyn Carmichael, and bless you for saying you’ll have me. I promise we’ll be happy, cariad.’

‘Drew! Who told you the Welsh for darling?’

‘Who do you think? The adorable Blod, of course, that time we stayed with her. Have you heard from her, yet?’

‘About us? No. She won’t have got my letter, though I think she’ll cable me back when she’s had time to get over the shock.’

‘You’re happy about us, Lyn?’ He tilted her chin, kissing her gently.

‘I’m happy. I’m very happy, Drew.’

‘Fine. So let’s return the sparklers, then go and see Daiz …’

It was as they walked hand in hand to Foxgloves that Drew said, ‘By the way, if we decide on a summer wedding, how about June the eighteenth? Entirely up to you, mind – will it be okay for you date-wise? The curse, I’m talking about.’

‘I – I – yes. Fine,’ she gasped, cheeks blazing, taken aback by the nonchalant reference to her periods. Drew had always been so quiet; never had a sister of his own. Not a live-in sister to talk to about such things. He’d been in the Navy, of course. There would have been talk on the mess decks, she supposed.

Yet the explanation was simple. Drew and Kitty had been lovers, would have discussed such things. They’d have had to, though Lyn was as sure as she could be that Kitty wouldn’t have cared if she got pregnant, wouldn’t have –

‘Penny for them?’ Drew smiled.

‘I – oh, nothing of importance, really. Dates, I suppose. I ring them round as soon as I start a new diary, so I’m sure the eighteenth is fine.’

The ease with which she spoke amazed her; the laugh, too.

‘That’s settled, then. Daiz will be glad about that. She’s been going on about it all week. And might I ask what you find so funny?’

‘You and me, Drew, that’s what. Sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh about something so important, but think – a week ago we were friends, yet now we’re all at once – well, personal. So can we,’ she said breathlessly, ‘whilst we’re on the subject of things personal, talk about children, too?’

‘Fine by me. You want some, don’t you? I know I do.’

‘I want children, Drew, and I’d like to have them before I’m thirty, or at least have made a start. So if you don’t mind, I’d like us not to worry about – well …’

‘Being careful? A honeymoon baby?’

‘Exactly,’ she whispered, taken aback once more by his directness, knowing that almost certainly he had talked this way before.

‘Okay. Point taken. Where are we going for our honeymoon, by the way? Abroad is out, thanks to the government’s stupid restrictions. Paris would have been great. And there’s Daisy, waiting for us.’ Quickly, he kissed her cheek. ‘Impatient as ever.’

And though it was almost dark, Lyn could hear the smile in his voice and was grateful for it. And love for him washed over her and made her glad. Happy, she supposed, or as near as made no matter. If Kitty wasn’t so often there to remind her, that was.

‘Hi there, Purvis,’ she called and ran into Daisy’s welcoming arms.

‘Let’s be seeing it then,’ Daisy laughed, holding up her cheek for Drew’s kiss, shoo-ing them into the sitting room. ‘Oh, my goodness, Carmichael. What a beauty!’ She held out her hand for the ring, slipping it on, closing her eyes as she turned it three times on her finger. ‘And don’t ask me what I wished for ’cause I’m not telling.’

‘Just a minute, ladies, before you start oh-ing and ah-ing over rings and weddings and things,’ Keth laughed. ‘Would you mind telling me why the pair of you still use each other’s surname? You aren’t in the Forces, now.’

‘True, Keth. But we both did a fair stint in the war, and using surnames was the order of the day. We’re bound to revert, sometimes, to the old ways. Daisy will always be Wren Purvis-from-the-bottom-bunk to me.’

‘And I was so glad to be Purvis – remember, Lyn? Dwerryhouse was such a drag of a name. The times people said, “Dwerry-what? How do you spell it?” So now you know, darling, and why don’t you two pop upstairs to the cubbyhole whilst we talk about rings and weddings and things. You said you had something you wanted to talk to Drew about. And don’t wake the baby,’ she warned as they disappeared, fugitives from wedding talk. ‘And I shouldn’t tell you what I wished for, but do you want two or three …?’

‘Three, please,’ Lyn laughed, ‘though four would be marvellous. That house is big enough for ten children. And oh, Daisy, you’re such a love. Did I ever tell you so?’

‘Often. But only because it’s completely true.’

So they laughed again and it was as if they were Leading-Wren Carmichael and Purvis-from-the-bottom-bunk again and lived in a billet called Hellas House in bomb-shattered Liverpool, and worked underground in a hot, airless Communications Office. Because they knew they would never completely forget their war, nor would they want to. Good times and bad.

‘Well now. This is a lovely surprise. Do sit down, Miss Lyndis.’

‘Thanks. But could you call me just Lyndis or Lyn, Miss Clitherow? Drew said you wanted to see my ring.’

‘Well, not really. I have seen your emerald before. What I really wanted was the chance to wish you much happiness. It makes an old lady very glad to see it all coming right for Sir Andrew, you know. And could I presume to ask you to open the window a little? Can’t abide a stuffy room. Most kind …’

So this was how it was to be, Lyn thought as she unscrewed the window catch. Sir Andrew and Miss Lyndis. A far cry from the sailor on a minesweeper and she and Daisy meeting him when his boat docked.

‘How’s that? Feel a draught?’

‘That is fine, thank you. I wouldn’t have asked, but it’s my hands. A little arthritic. Fiddling catches …’

‘Miss Clitherow! If I can’t open a window without –’ She bit back her words, knowing at once it was the wrong thing to have said. Agnes Clitherow was a servant of the old order and did not ask the woman who was to be lady of the house to open windows. ‘And I’m pleased we can have this chat,’ she rushed on, ‘because you have been here so long, know so much about the Rowangarth Suttons. I’d be so glad if you would sometimes talk to me about them. My ring, for instance. You said you had seen it before. When, exactly?’

‘When Sir Gilbert Sutton gave it to his wife, Lady Mary – Sir Andrew’s great-grandmother – on their tenth wedding anniversary. I was housemaid to the Suttons, then.’

‘And you came to Rowangarth …?’

‘I came here with Lady Helen as a bride. By the time she was married I had been trained up to parlour maid. It seemed natural for me to accept when she asked me to come here to Rowangarth with her – as housekeeper, mind. Such a promotion, and me only four years older than Miss Helen. But I put my hair into a bun and tried to look severe, so no one quite knew how old – or young – I really was.’

‘But, Miss Clitherow – that means you were born in 1856 and that you are –’

‘In my ninety-second year, Miss Lyndis, and you are one of the few who knows it.’

‘Then I won’t tell. Promise.’

Come to think of it, there was a lot she would not tell, Lyn brooded, like the future Lady Sutton being illegitimate. Strange that for so long she had never known who her real mother was. Such a shock – a wonderful shock – to discover it was really the woman she had always believed to be her aunt. Blodwen, who had given her all the love she had ever known, and taken over her upbringing when as a young girl she was put in charge of the ship’s nurse at Mombasa, en route for school in England. And never, had she but known it, to return to Kenya. Myfanwy and Blodwen. Twin sisters. Chalk and cheese. Myfanwy, her name changed to Margot, looking forward at her wedding to Jack Carmichael to a lady’s life in Kenya; Blodwen, two months pregnant with Jack’s child, loving him so much, yet saying not one word about it until it was too late. And Lyndis, their indiscretion, being grudgingly taken to Kenya by Jack’s wife.

‘Did you know I’m to wear Daisy’s wedding dress, Miss Clitherow?’ Forget the past, Lyndis! Her father and her real mother happy at last, even though they are miles away, in Kenya! ‘It’s so beautiful. I think it’s better, even, than Princess Elizabeth’s.’

‘Ah, yes. A fairytale wedding. Such a glorious gown. It was right and proper the princess should be given an extra coupon allowance for it.’

‘Hm. I wonder, at two clothing coupons for one yard of material, just how many that wedding dress gobbled up. And I still think Daisy’s dress is the nicest I’ve ever seen. So soft and full and floaty. She offered it to Tatiana, you know, but Tatty wants a quiet wedding.’

‘Miss Tatiana has grown into a lovely person. It’s sad her father didn’t live to walk her down the aisle. And sad she never had a brother. Things would have been very different at Pendenys Place if that little boy had lived.

‘But you wanted to know about the Rowangarth Suttons, about how it was. Lady Helen and Sir John. Miss Helen she was then. Helen Stormont and hardly out of the schoolroom when they met.’

‘Tell me,’ Lyndis smiled, ‘was it romantic?’

‘Oh my word, yes! Her coming-out ball. I was in service, then, with the Stormonts as parlour maid and they had rented a house in London for the social season. I was one of the lucky ones they took to London with them. I remember seeing Miss Helen before she went off to that ball. Dressed in baby blue silk, trimmed with white lace, and white rosebuds in her hair. It was that night she met Sir John and fell head over heels in love. Sir John was smitten, too; but then, the Rowangarth Suttons have always been lucky in love.

‘Miss Julia was twice lucky. Doctor Andrew, her first husband, was a fine gentleman. Lady Helen adored him. And the Reverend has made Miss Julia happy, too,’ the old woman smiled, eyes misty with remembering. ‘And now Sir Andrew is to be married. I pray I’ll be spared to see that day.’

‘Miss Clitherow – of course you will. June the eighteenth, next year. Not long to wait.’

‘I suppose not. The poor young man has waited long enough. But for that dreadful bomb, he and Miss Kitty would have – Oh, I am so sorry. Shouldn’t have said that. Whatever was I thinking about? Getting old, you see. Sometimes I don’t think.’ Her voice trembled, tears filled her eyes. ‘Forgive me?’

‘Miss Clitherow, don’t be upset. Please, please don’t cry.’ Gently Lyndis wiped away the tear that ran down the wrinkled cheek, then took the agitated hands in her own. ‘I know how much everyone loved Kitty. I held Daisy in my arms and we both cried for her when she was killed, and for Drew, too.

‘Kitty will always be remembered because she was such a special person. I know that and I won’t ever try to take her place in the Clan. But I know how much you care for Drew and I promise always to love and care for him. There now – does that make you happy?’

‘It does, Miss Lyndis. And bless you for not taking offence where none was meant. I think you will do very nicely for Sir Andrew. Just then, when you dried my tears and spoke so kindly and gently to me, you reminded me of Lady Helen. Oh, yes, Sir Andrew will be twice happy, just as Miss Julia has been.’

‘Thank you. And I think you are tired. Shall I go, now, and let you have a little sleep?’

‘Most kind. Yes, I generally have a little nap about this time.’

‘Then close your eyes. I’ll tuck your rug around you.’

But Agnes Clitherow did not hear. Already she was asleep, breathing softly, a small smile on her lips.

‘I’ll make Drew happy, I promise.’ Gently, Lyn kissed her cheek then quietly closed the door behind her. ‘But oh, Kitty Sutton from Kentucky, you are going to be such a hard act to follow …’

For just a moment, doubt took her and she wondered how she would cope, and if she had been wise to say yes to Drew. Because the man she had loved since first she laid eyes on him already had two other loves to lay claim to him – Kitty and Rowangarth, and if Lyndis Carmichael was to have any chance of happiness she, too, must learn to love them both. They were a part of Drew and nothing could, or would change it.

Her eyes, as she walked slowly up the stairs, met those in the portrait of a long-ago Sutton – the one, was it, who fought at Balaclava? He wore a splendid red jacket, braided with gold, and was not one bit like the sailor whose cap she retrieved when Daisy, in her excitement, had thrown herself into his arms and sent that cap rolling along the pavement in wartime Liverpool.

She stood for a while, head high, eyes accepting the challenge.

‘I will make him happy, I damn well will!’

A light shone from the kitchen window at the Bothy and Julia opened the front door and called, ‘You there, Polly?’

‘I am, Mrs Sutton,’ Keth’s mother, Polly Purvis, smiled, from the top of the stairs. ‘I’ve been having a good look round. Upstairs is ready for the carpets and curtains, now.’

‘Y’know, Polly, I never thought I’d say this, but thank heaven for Pendenys Place and all those carpets and curtains going to spare.’

‘And thank heaven the dratted moths didn’t get at them. Six years in storage is a long time.’

‘There isn’t the moth flying,’ Julia grinned, ‘that would dare eat Aunt Clemmy’s carpets.’

Only the very best for Clementina Sutton’s father who had built Pendenys Place for his only child as a wedding dowry, then furnished it with ostentatious bad taste.

‘Curtains came back from the cleaners yesterday. I hung them on the line outside to sweeten. Will Stubbs said he’d make a start on getting the curtain poles put back if someone will tell him what height they’re to go. I’ll see to it, if you like.’

‘You’re a treasure, Polly. I’m glad you are coming to work for Nathan and me and you’ll know that as a Sutton employee you won’t have to pay rent on your almshouse any longer. Starting October first, I think it should be.’

‘Why, thank you I’m sure.’ She flushed with pleasure to think of five shillings a week saved.

‘And see Tom if you want the odd rabbit or two, don’t forget. Rowangarth perks, Polly.’

‘Then I’ve got to be honest and admit that he slips me a rabbit every week.’

‘Well, he would,’ Julia laughed, ‘your son being married to his daughter. But it’s official, now. And a load of logs at Christmas.’

‘I’m obliged, Mrs Sutton.’

Life, Polly Purvis thought, seemed only to get better with each year that passed. Rowangarth had been good to her after what had happened in Hampshire and a far cry away from the night she accepted she was a widow, with a child to rear and only ten shillings a week to manage on. Rowangarth – and the Suttons – had given her more than she ever dare hope for. Now, she was contented with a son who had married his childhood sweetheart, Daisy – aye, and given her a granddaughter, too. If only she could go back, just the once, to the little house called Willow End they once lived in, and on to the village and the churchyard, where Dickon lay.

But Hampshire was a long way away, and sentimental journeys cost money, so she had contented herself with the photograph of the grave that Keth and Daisy took when they honeymooned in Winchester. Dickon was resting sweetly and out of his pain and shame, Polly brooded, and if there was a heaven then he would know how often she thought about him and missed him, still.

‘I’m going to miss Rowangarth.’ Julia’s voice called Polly back from her rememberings. ‘Was born there, lived all my life there, too. But Nathan and I will be very snug here, and it’s only right and proper that Drew takes over Rowangarth. After all, it belongs to him. Come to think of it, it’s been his since he was two hours old.’

‘Then if the Fates allow, his children will be born there, too. And here’s Polly Purvis coming to work for you and the Reverend when you move into this Bothy. It’ll be like coming home to me. All those years I was cook here in the war, and looking after those land girls who lived in it. Happy days. You and me, Mrs Sutton, are two very lucky ladies, all things considered.’

And Julia Sutton smiled and agreed that they were. Very lucky ladies.

FIVE

A new car, Keth Purvis was bound to admit as he drove to school, was something most men wanted; the more so since manufacturers were at last being allowed to make them again. No more military vehicles. Cars for private use was now a tantalizing pipe dream, the new models being flaunted to the skies, then immediately exported to help the economy drive. Even if the garage in Creesby did manage to get a few to sell to the public, Keth frowned, there would be a waiting list for them a mile long. And what was he bothering about, anyway? He couldn’t afford one – simple as that.

Yet his wife could. Daisy had money, a fact few people were aware of. Not even Lyn knew. All those years she and Daisy had been together as Wrens and knowing the way women chattered, it still amazed him that his wife had been so tight-lipped about her fortune.

They had talked about new cars that morning – or rather, Daisy had. Sitting on the edge of the bath as he shaved, actually.

‘We’ve got to talk, Keth. Seriously,’ she had said. ‘About cars. You know there’s going to be a motor show in London?’

‘Yes. The first since 1939,’ he had said, casually as he could, staring into the mirror. ‘Was talking to Drew about it. I think he’d like to go. Said there’d be some new models on show.’

It had been a mistake, mentioning new cars.

‘So why don’t you go with him, and get one?’

‘Darling girl. New cars are for export. There won’t be any released for the home market.’

‘It said in the paper there’ll be some, and I’m sick of you driving that old boneshaker. It isn’t safe. It needs new tyres, for a start.’

‘But no one can get new tyres. They’re like gold dust.’

‘So get a new car, then. I want you to have one.’

‘Daisy Purvis.’ He kissed the tip of her nose which was tilted dangerously high to match the set of her mouth, and such signs were best not ignored. ‘Look – can we talk about it tonight? Don’t want to be late for school.’

‘I want you to have a car,’ she had repeated, tight-lipped. ‘A new one. And okay, we’ll talk about it tonight, but if you say one word about the money there’ll be ructions.’

The money. Daisy’s money. A small fortune.

‘Tonight,’ he had said. ‘Promise …’

His foot touched the brake. The road ahead was full of children. Watch out for the little blighters, Keth. They could dart in front of you with never a glance to the left or right. Children of all ages who called him Sir and to whom he taught mathematics.

He slowed almost to a crawl, thinking about his own child. A month old and already a dark-eyed, dark-haired beauty who smiled often, now. Mary, more precious than any new motor.

Carefully he parked in his allotted space. The old car had a few more miles left in it yet – but how to convince Daisy? Deliberately he pushed the problem from his mind and thought instead how lucky – how damned lucky – he had been to survive the war, and all at once cars didn’t seem important.

Not until tonight when he got home that was, when it would all start again.

‘I’ll be making bramble jelly today.’ Alice Dwerry-house poured her husband’s ten o’clock drinkings into the large cup that had once been Reuben’s.

‘Came by some crafty sugar, did you?’

‘Indeed I did not!’ Even now, she was apprehensive about black market dealings. ‘It’s the sugar the government allowed for jam-making in the summer.’

Allowed, she thought peevishly. Sugar should have been taken off the ration by now, and butter and lard and bacon. And good red meat!

‘Very nice.’ Tom was partial to bramble jelly. ‘You’ll be over to Foxgloves with a jar for Daisy this afternoon?’

‘No. I’m going to Creesby to look at material. I’ve got eight clothing coupons put by, and I want to make myself something nice for Drew’s wedding.’

‘But lass, it’s months away! Next summer!’

‘I know it, but I don’t want to be all last-minute rush. I might have to look around quite a bit before I find something that goes with my best hat.’

The Best Hat. A magnificent creation and very expensive. The one she had worn to Daisy’s wedding and would be brought out many more times if Alice was to get her value out of it.

‘Aye. The hat.’ Alice had looked a treat in it. ‘I suppose Polly will be wearing her wedding hat, an’ all – if she’s asked.’

‘Of course she’ll be asked. Oh, Tom, I’m so looking forward to it. Can’t wait to see my lad married.’

Her lad, Tom brooded. Born when Alice was wed to Giles Sutton, then left at Rowangarth for Julia and Lady Helen to rear, Drew being of substance and title before he’d hardly drawn breath. But Alice had come to love her son in the end; had forgiven his getting.

‘Your tea is going cold. You were miles away.’

‘Mm. Thinking about the birds in the far cover,’ he said offhandedly. ‘They’re thick on the ground, this year. Won’t be long to the first.’

The first day of October when pheasant shooting would start. No need to remind a gamekeeper’s wife. Mind, it wasn’t the same as in the old days, Alice thought longingly, when there had been weekend shooting parties for Sir John’s friends. Giles, who took over the running of Rowangarth estate when his father died, hadn’t been one for pheasant shoots; didn’t hold with killing. Never had. Yet he’d enlisted in the Great War for all that, but as a stretcher-bearer because stretcher-bearers and ambulance drivers and medical orderlies weren’t called on to fire guns, take life. Life had been sacred to Giles Sutton. All life. Pheasants included.

‘I said I was thinking about game birds in the far cover, and you didn’t hear a word of it.’

‘Sorry, Tom. I was miles away. In France, if you must know.’

‘Lass, that war is over. We’ve had another since. They’re even calling them World War One and World War Two now.’

‘So they are.’ But that first war, hers and Tom’s, would always be the Great War to those who had fought in it. Great only because it was obscene and bloody and uncaring. Patriotic slaughter. Alice Dwerryhouse knew, because she and Julia had been there. ‘I was a young nurse at the Front and now I’m a grandmother. Things change.’

‘Aye, they do.’ Tenderly he touched Alice’s cheek. ‘They do, thank God. And you’re still my lass.’

‘And I love you Tom Dwerryhouse, but I’ve got things to do, so drink up that tea and be out of my kitchen from under my feet!’

Alice, Tom thought contentedly as he made for the far end of Brattocks Wood, dogs at his heels, who regularly ordered him out of her kitchen with a sharp word, but who loved him with her eyes every time she looked at him. Dear, precious Alice, his first and only love. How much better could life get?

Lyn Carmichael smiled at the ring on her left hand, then at the letter that lay on the table in front of her. It had been the first thing she saw when she opened her front door, last night. An envelope bearing an airmail sticker and a Kenyan stamp. From darling Blod; Blodwen Carmichael, who for years had been her aunt and was now her mother. Her real mother; birth mother. The news of it had shocked, amazed and delighted Lyn. When she had given it time to sink in, that was; when her father had written to tell her that her mother – the woman she thought was her mother – had been killed in a car accident. It was only then Lyndis learned the truth; that she really belonged to the dear person she called Aunt Blodwen and had been given to her twin sister to rear in Kenya, half a world away. Given to Myfanwy, who spoke with an English accent and had never, Lyn supposed, completely forgiven her husband and sister.

Lyndis looked at the generous, rounded writing and was glad that everything had come right for Auntie Blod and her father; glad they had married the minute the war was over and sailings to Kenya available to civilians once more.

… Can’t wait to see you again, and talk things over with my girl, Auntie Blod had written. In fact, your dad and me got a sudden yearning to spend Christmas in Wales. You could put us up if we decided to come, couldn’t you? I said to your dad that I couldn’t wait to see that little cottage again and he said that was all right by him and anyway, we’d both have to meet Drew’s family and talk about the wedding because your dad is determined to pay for the lot, he said, and you are to let him, because he isn’t short of a pound or two as well you know. Lovely girl, I’m so happy for you. I know I have said it twice already in this letter, but I shall go on saying it, because your happiness is all that matters in this world to me – apart from your dad’s, that is.

Christmas in the little house near Llangollen and the three of them together as a real family for the first time in her life, Lyn realized with delight. So long since she had seen her father. She had been a schoolgirl of twelve when they said goodbye the day she sailed alone for England, and boarding school. Stay with your Aunt Blodwen for your holidays, they said, with no mention made about when she would go back again. And anyway, the war had prevented her return to the country she was brought up in.

Maybe they would all be asked to Rowangarth for Christmas. A good idea, that, because sooner or later the parents would have to meet and there was room enough for twenty Christmas guests in the house she was soon to share with Drew.

Lyn Sutton. Lady Lyndis. Mistress of Rowangarth, and she not knowing the first thing about belonging to the aristocracy and living in a big old house where money was no problem and everything she could see when she looked out of any upstairs window, belonged to the Rowangarth Suttons.

All at once Lyn wanted to see her parents at Christmas; no, dammit, needed them with her because there was so much to tell them, so much she was unsure about. Now, it was important she talk to Auntie Blod – to her mother – and tell her of the doubts she sometimes had about marrying Drew. Not that she didn’t love him. She did; loved him with all her heart and mind and wanted no other. But she and Drew were chalk and cheese and the life Drew had been born into and accepted as normal would take Lyn Carmichael a lot of getting used to, even with Daisy nearby to open her heart to.

Drew and Kitty, now, had been another matter. Kitty was a Pendenys Sutton whose parents were richer, even, than the Suttons of Rowangarth. Kitty would have fitted in well; would have slipped into her role as lady of the manor with no trouble at all because a manor – or its Kentucky equivalent – was what she was used to. And though a flying bomb had snuffed out that young eager life, Kitty would always be at Rowangarth, sleeping away time beside Drew’s grandmother, beneath a white marble gravestone.

Kathryn Norma Clementina Sutton

KITTY

1:11:1920–18:6:1944

Lyn jumped to her feet, pulling in her breath, holding it, then letting it out in little calming huffs, closing her eyes, whispering, ‘I’m sorry, truly sorry …’

But sorry for what? That Kitty would never carry white orchids at her wedding, the flowers every Rowangarth bride carried; those same special orchids Jack Catchpole laid at the white gravestone every June, on the anniversary of that tragic death.

And there was something else. She recognized it, truth known, the moment Drew suggested the eighteenth of June for their wedding. Yet she had stubbornly pushed it to the back of her mind, even though she knew it was the anniversary to the day, almost, when he and Kitty should have been married; and a year later, on that same June day, when a bomb took Kathryn Sutton’s life.

‘Damn!’ Lyn reached for her coat, not caring that it was late and that they might be in bed, not even caring that the ringing of the phone might awaken Mary. She had to speak to Daisy now because if she did not, it would be Drew she would ring and heaven only knew what might be the outcome then.

She slammed the door shut behind her, then wheeled her cycle from the shed, determined to pedal to the crossroads and the telephone box that stood there.

All right, so it was a long-distance call and she couldn’t be sure, even now, that she would get through straight away, but she had at least to try. For the sake of her peace of mind she must face the doubt that had nagged her since the night Drew asked her to marry him and Daisy, dear Purvis-from-the-bottom-bunk, was the only one who could help, give the comfort Lyn was so in need of.

How could Drew not have remembered, she fretted. And even if he had and was determined to put it behind him, did he expect Lyn Carmichael, much as she loved him, to walk down the church path to her wedding and ignore the white gravestone beside it, which bore the name Kitty?

Surely July would have been a better month, or May, even? Did it have to be June because the white orchids would be flowering and because Rowangarth’s gardens would be at their beautiful best, and days long, and warm? Did it have to be the anniversary month?

She was glad, when she reached the crossroads, that there was a light inside the phone box; relieved, too, she had put her door key and purse in her pocket, though she had no recollection of having done so.

She leaned her cycle against the phone box, heaved open the creaking door, then whispered, ‘Please don’t be asleep, Daisy?’

‘Well, now, look who’s here so early in the morning,’ Alice smiled. ‘Nothing wrong, is there?’ There was, of course. She hadn’t been Daisy’s mother all these years, and not know. ‘Bring Mary in, and let me have a cuddle?’

‘You can get her wind up, an’ all,’ Daisy shrugged. ‘I came here in such a rush that I didn’t bother, after her feed. It’s Lyn, Mam,’ she said when they were settled in the safe familiarity of Keeper’s Cottage kitchen. ‘She phoned last night in a right old state.’

‘Problems? Surely not about the wedding?’

‘Sort of. Said she was sorry for ringing so late, but she had to speak to someone. To put it in a nutshell, she thought a June wedding wasn’t right.’

‘But I thought it was all agreed?’

‘Seems not. Lyn isn’t having doubts, exactly, but I know her only too well. When Drew asked her to marry him and even when she’d got the ring, there weren’t a lot of stars in her eyes. Not like there should have been. Something was bothering her, I knew it.’

‘So why isn’t June right? A lovely month, but surely it can be changed?’

‘Of course it could be. Lyn knows it – we all know it. It isn’t just the date Drew suggested, though now that I think of it I can understand why Lyn has got herself so upset. June is the anniversary month, she said. Even over the phone, I knew she was near to tears, and you can understand it. She said she accepted that Kitty was and always would be a part of the order of things, but I know that a June wedding apart, Lyn has always had doubts about following Kitty. I don’t think she’s ever going to be sure that Drew will forget her entirely.’

‘Well of course he won’t! He wouldn’t be the Drew Sutton I know, if he does. But there are all kinds of love, surely Lyn’s got the sense to know that? She isn’t the lass I thought she was if she’s going to start putting obstacles in the way. She’s always been mad about him. Why the doubts, now?’

‘We-e-ll, knowing Carmichael, I’m pretty sure it’s because she hasn’t ever – I mean, to put it bluntly, Mam, that for all her supposed sophistication, Lyn is still a virgin and she’s always known that Drew and Kitty were close. Very close. Lyn, it seems to me, is worried about not measuring up – and not knowing what to do, either – making a mess of her wedding night.’

‘And why should that worry her? A woman isn’t supposed to know anything about – well – things like that. It’s taken for granted that the man –’

‘Mam! There’s been a war on, had you forgotten? Things change.’

‘All right. I’ll grant you that, our Daisy, and that couples might have taken liberties, from time to time. But does she have to be so nervous about it? I’d have thought that anyone who was in the Armed Forces as long as Lyn was would have been a bit more relaxed about such things, even if she hadn’t exactly –’

‘Dabbled a toe in the water,’ Daisy supplied. ‘Done it. And to save you mentioning it, like Keth and I did!’

‘I’m sure no such thought entered my mind, Miss!’ Alice flinched at her daughter’s directness. ‘But is there some reason for Lyn feeling the way she does? Was she brought up strictly? Prudish, even?’

‘Lyn went to boarding school, don’t forget. She said you learn a lot in a dormitory of curious girls. And Auntie Blod wasn’t the least bit prudish. I don’t know why Lyn should have doubts about marrying Drew. It was all she ever wanted, from the minute she laid eyes on him, yet now, when he’s asked her, she’s got a fit of the inferiorities! It’s as if she’s waiting for something to go wrong – and it won’t! I told her there’s no reason for her doubts. Kitty and Lyn are totally different. Drew won’t always be comparing one with the other. He wouldn’t do such a thing.’

‘Of course he wouldn’t and I hope you managed to convince Lyn. Are you going to have a word with Drew about it? Did Lyn ask you to? Because if she didn’t, I think you should be very careful what you say, Daisy.’

‘She didn’t ask me. I think she was unburdening, sort of. But I think I should tell Aunt Julia about it. Lyn seemed pretty desperate and it was me she rang, don’t forget, not Drew. I’m hoping Aunt Julia will be able to sort something out – tactfully, I mean.’

‘Oh, Daisy Purvis! Your Aunt Julia tactful? More like you should have a word with Nathan, if you’re determined to interfere.’

‘Mother! I can’t talk to the Reverend like I can talk to you, old love though he is. I can’t tell Drew about it, either. Don’t want him to think me and Lyn have been talking about him, now do we?’

‘You’re right. And I think I’ll put the little one in her pram, then you and I can decide what’s to be done. Mind,’ Alice said from the doorway, ‘it might be best if it were me had a word with your Aunt Julia, work it out between us what’s to be done. If anything needs to be done, that is, and you’re not making a big drama out of it.’

‘No drama, Mam. All I know is that Lyn phoned late last night and she was worried. And she shouldn’t be. This should be one of the happiest times of her life and it isn’t. I know it.’

So what was wrong? Alice thought as she tucked in her sleeping granddaughter. Surely nothing that couldn’t be sorted, one way or another? Trouble was, that it was no one else’s business but Lyn’s and Drew’s. And Lyn had chosen not to tell Drew.

Ah, well. Tom would be home soon for his morning drinkings. Best set the kettle to boil and warn Daisy not to say one word about Lyn’s call in front of her dad. The less people who knew the better, in Alice’s opinion, because she did so want to see Drew married. She wanted it so much it worried her that Lyn might be having second thoughts.

Trouble was that Lyn couldn’t make it to Rowangarth next week. Her duties at the hotel, she had said, prevented it. And Drew and Keth were talking about going to the Motor Show in London the weekend after, so the poor girl was going to be alone in North Wales with her doubts for the best part of three weeks, and that would never do. Oh, my word, no!

SIX

‘Alice! Am I glad to see you!’ Julia called, striding across the grass to the wild garden and the stile Alice was climbing. ‘The place is so quiet. Nathan’s having forty winks – Miss Clitherow, too. And Mary and Tilda have gone to Creesby …’

‘Aye. And Drew off to London, with Keth.’

‘Bill Benson is with them, too. Going on business. They’re all staying at Montpelier Mews, by the way. I asked them to light a fire and open windows – air the place a bit.’

‘Montpelier. Dear Aunt Sutton’s little white house. Do you ever remember, Julia? I mean, do you ever allow yourself to remember?’

‘The time you and I stayed there? The time we went to a Suffragette meeting?’

‘Aye, and got into a fight. And me supposed to be there to chaperon you, yet I turned a blind eye when you slipped out to meet Andrew.’

Should they be talking about Andrew? Alice brooded. Didn’t he belong to the past and wasn’t Julia happy with Nathan, now? She must watch what she said, even though it was years and years ago.

‘Doctor Andrew MacMalcolm. Oh, Alice. Think of Andrew and we are both young again. You were only seventeen and being so bossy about me meeting him. And don’t look so embarrassed. I can think about Andrew, talk about him too, and it doesn’t hurt any more; just makes me glad that I met him and married him, even though the war only let us have ten nights together.’

‘That war was – was obscene, Julia. Try to forget it.’

‘Forget. And I’ve got Nathan, now, bless the lovely man. Newly ordained yet he assisted at our wedding. Blessed Andrew and me, even though he was in love with me himself. Hadn’t realized, he once let slip, that until I told him I had met a young doctor, that he’d been in love with me all his life, practically, and hadn’t known it until it was too late. It’s the same for Drew, now. He can talk about Kitty and accept that she has gone. Not that he’ll ever forget her, of course.’

‘None of us will, Julia. She was the naughtiest of all the Clan. Poor Bas was terrified of his Grandmother Clementina, yet Kitty didn’t care one bit about offending her – said the most awful things.’ She took Julia’s arm. ‘But let’s go in the back way? There’ll be no one in your kitchen and it’s always so snug, there. And we won’t be disturbed. I want to talk to you. Been trying to for a couple of weeks, now.’

‘Sounds interesting. Gossip?’

‘Far from it.’ The warmth of Rowangarth kitchen met them as they opened the door. ‘Wasn’t sure I should mention it, then talking about Kitty did it, I suppose. Shall I put the kettle on?’

‘Please. And what about Kitty?’ Julia settled herself at the table, chin on hands.

‘It’s more about Lyndis. The poor lass is getting herself into a state.’

‘Wedding nerves? But it’s months away.’

‘In a state about Kitty, it seems.’ Alice busied herself setting a tea tray as she had done so often in this kitchen in the past – in another life, it seemed. ‘It was Daisy told me. I’ve been wondering if I should tell you, especially as it should be something between the two of them. Drew and Lyn, I mean. To put not too fine a point on it, Julia. Lyn opened her heart to Daisy and to my way of thinking, it should have been to Drew.’

‘Oh, Lord. She’s not having second thoughts?’

‘Not about loving Drew. As far as I can see, she’s got a thing about Kitty – thinks she’ll never be able to take her place. And you’ve got to admit, Julia, that Kitty is a hard act to follow. She and Drew were besotted.’

‘That war has a lot to answer for, Alice.’

‘Like our war. But you and I managed. Things came right, in the end. And don’t think I haven’t thought long and hard about telling you, because I have. Drew and Lyn’s business, really, but Lyn confided in Daisy. That’s why I think you should know. But we’ll wait till I’ve seen to the tea.’

‘Fine by me.’ Julia dipped into her coat pocket, bringing out cigarettes and lighter. ‘And don’t go on about me smoking. I know I promised Nathan faithfully I would give them up when the war ended …’

‘Then why don’t you? You’ll end up with bronchitis and it’ll be too late, then.’

‘Oh, all right. I’ll give up smoking when Drew is married – will that suit you? And pour us a cuppa, old love, then tell me what’s bothering you.’

Alice repeated the conversation she had had with Daisy, word for word, then said, ‘You can see Lyn’s point of view, can’t you? And I haven’t liked telling you, but it’s far better you and I try to help things along, rather than our Daisy blurting the whole thing out to Drew. I told her to leave it to you and me. It’s a rum do, isn’t it?’

‘Not really. I always thought Drew and Kitty were lovers, and good luck to them, I said. I mean – think of the times I wanted Andrew and me to jump the gun. I was desperate to get married, if only to sleep in his bed! Drew and Kitty only did what I wanted to do.’

‘Couldn’t agree more. But Lyn thinks she’s going to mess up their wedding night; thinks of herself as second best, it seems to me.’

‘So are you going to tell Daisy you’ve told me, Alice?’

‘I think I should. And I’ll tell her that me and you both sympathize with Lyn and we’re on her side. And I’ll tell her to let the matter rest; not to say anything about it unless Lyn brings it up.’

‘Of course. Shall I mention it to Nathan?’

‘Best not. I’m glad I’ve told you, for all that. Lyn’s such a grand lass and very much in love with Drew. And he’s in love with her, an’ all – but maybe differently. Happen she’ll come to see that, in the end.’

‘Yes, but what I’m mystified about, Alice, is Drew setting a date for June of all times. Either he’s forgotten about Kitty – and I know he hasn’t – or he’s decided to meet things head-on and –’

‘And go with the flow, you mean, because haven’t we all said that June is such a lovely month for a Rowangarth wedding? Said it often, and it is. Even the white orchids will be flowering and June is the time for marquees on the lawn and, oh, everything. Trouble is, we none of us thought.’

‘You’re right, of course. It’s the one thing I can’t stand about you, Alice Dwerryhouse. You usually are! And I suppose May would be just as nice a month as June – if Willis can bring the white orchids forward in time. I suppose, with Jack Catchpole to help him, he should be able to produce enough for a bouquet.’

‘A bouquet? But there’s a bouquet of orchids goes on Kitty’s grave every eighteenth of June – and will do, an’ all, as long as Jack Catchpole draws breath. Happen now might be the time to break with tradition. Maybe Lyn would like to carry roses. There’ll be enough of them about, in May.’

‘I see what you mean, but it would be so wonderful if the tradition could be kept up, though I suppose it wouldn’t do to make a fuss and bother about it. Not really. I’m just thankful the two of them are getting married. Wouldn’t care if they had a quiet wedding like Tatty and Bill. I just want Drew to be happy again, that’s all. Lyn is such a capable girl, really. Apart from Kitty, I can’t think of anyone better to look after Rowangarth when Nathan and I leave. And I’ve done it again, haven’t I? “Next to Kitty,” I as good as said. Y’know, we must be extra nice to Lyndis next weekend when she comes to visit. Wish she were on the phone. There’s nothing I’d like more, right now, than to give her a ring and have a good old chat. Pity there’s a waiting list for phones, too. You’d have thought, after all this time, that things would have got back to normal!’

‘Well, at least the war is over, Julia love. At least we can look forward to things getting better. We’ve got a lovely twelve months ahead. Tatty’s wedding and Bas and Gracie’s baby. And them coming over to have Nathan christen it. And then the wedding …’

‘Yes. Whenever it is, and whatever date they fix, Drew’s wedding is something I’ve lived a long time to see, Alice. And they’ll surely have children. Lyn did say that she didn’t care how soon.’

And hope and pray, Julia thought soberly, that nothing goes wrong; that Lyn accepts what is past and looks to the future. In time, she was sure Lyn would. Maybe when she held her first baby in her arms it would happen. Maybe when she gave a son to Rowangarth, or a lovely little fair-haired daughter. Or one with chestnut hair!

‘And share the joke, will you?’ Alice demanded. ‘You were grinning like the Cheshire cat.’

‘Was I? Then if you must know, I was thinking about a granddaughter with hair the colour of Lyn’s. Now wouldn’t that be just something?’

And Alice agreed that it would. Really, really something!

‘I love my daughter to bits, but it’s so nice to have a mother and mother-in-law close at hand to baby-sit.’

Daisy sat on the hearthrug, her arms on Keth’s spread-eagled knees, toes curling from the heat of the fire.

‘And it’s nice to be home from London,’ Bill Benson grinned. ‘Last time I saw it, I was blind – if you get what I mean.’

‘Y’know, I’d never thought of that, sweetheart – that when you were in London you couldn’t see anything, I mean. Did it live up to your expectations, now you’ve had a look at it?’ Tatiana wanted to know.

‘I’d prefer Glasgow. Folk’ll give you a smile, there, and the time of day. But I liked the wee house fine.’

‘Aunt Sutton’s house in Montpelier Mews? It’s a snug, tucked-away little place. When I was tiny, there was a lovely lady called Sparrow used to caretake it for Mother.’ Drew had been fond of Sparrow.

‘She looked after me and Kitty,’ Tatiana smiled, ‘when we lived there during the war. She wasn’t half bossy, but we adored her. I remember –’

She stopped, looking down at her hands. What she remembered should not be talked about in front of Lyn – or Drew, for that matter – but she and Kitty had been very happy being bossed about by Sparrow. Until the flying bomb, that was.

‘Go on, Tatty – what do you remember?’ Keth unthinking urged.

‘Oh – we-e-ll – I – I suppose it was when the siren used to go,’ Tatiana said, disliking herself for not being more careful. ‘That house had once been a stable, belonging to one of the big houses in the Square. Then, when cars became all the rage, stables were made into garages.

‘Aunt Sutton’s house still had the inspection pit. No one had bothered to fill it in when the garage was made into a house. Sparrow made a shelter out of it. A bit of a squash, but we survived. There was a searchlight and an ack-ack gun in the park nearby, and when the searchlight lit up we all got into the pit. Mind, we were very near Hyde Park. The bombing wasn’t so bad, there. Not like they got it in the East End and oh, damn, damn, damn!’

She covered her face with her hands. What had she said! They had been in Hyde Park the day the flying bomb dropped. Kitty had crossed the road to post a letter to Drew.

‘Look – I’m sorry. It was just that – Oh, dammit, I didn’t think. Me and my big mouth. Sorry, Drew. Sorry, Lyn.’

‘That’s all right,’ Lyn said so softly that her words came in a whisper. ‘It was a terrible thing to have happened. Daisy and I were lucky, in Liverpool. It could have been either of us. And I’ve just had the most marvellous idea,’ she rushed on without stopping to draw breath. ‘We can’t go abroad for our honeymoon, so why don’t we stay at Montpelier Mews? Would your mother let us, Drew? Tucked away, you said …’

‘Darling. What a good idea.’ Drew reached for Lyn’s hand, holding it tightly, sensing her distress. ‘Why didn’t I think of it?’

‘Lyn, you’ll love it! But let’s not get on the subject of honeymoons!’ Knowing what she did, Daisy was eager to talk about something else. ‘Now that we’re all together, I wouldn’t mind hearing about the Motor Show. All I could get out of Keth was that the three of you had a good time out on the loose in London!’

‘Well, I had a great time,’ Bill enthused. ‘Not only did an agent take me on his list, but the show was fine, an’ all. New models, all sleek and shiny. There was a little job; a Morris Minor. Jeez, I’d have killed for one of those. Trouble is, I can’t drive.’

Which made them all laugh and the tension in the room to ease, and Tatty, desperate to make amends, said, ‘Why don’t we have a cup of tea and a piece of cake? I stood in a queue for ages in Creesby, this morning, but I got a cream cake. Cream, would you believe!’

So everyone said cream cake would be just marvellous, because they all knew things had got a bit dicey for a while, and each of them thought, as Tatty hurried to the kitchen, that Lyn had taken it pretty well, all things considered.

And they wondered, too, if ever the time would come when they could think about Kitty and speak about Kitty, and not feel disloyal to Drew. And to Lyn, as well, for that matter …

Daisy and Keth had left Denniston House early, because of Mary’s ten o’clock feed, and as Drew and Lyn walked back to Foxgloves alone, Drew said, ‘You’re quiet, darling. Tired? Sure all this coming and going between here and Wales isn’t getting a bit much for you?’

‘N-no. Of course it isn’t. I’m fine. Just fine.’

‘Then is it about Montpelier Mews? Have you changed your mind about us going there, in June? Something is wrong, Lyn, I know it.’

‘Look, Drew – Montpelier is fine. If you must know, it’s June that isn’t. I’m sorry, but June seems to be an anniversary month, sort of. The month you and Kitty should have been married. The month she was killed. And white orchids on her grave, always, in June. I – I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can cope with it. Not then. Some other time. July, perhaps …?’

Her voice trailed off in a trembling whisper.

‘Sweetheart.’ He gathered her into his arms. ‘Why didn’t you say something? How long have you been bottling it up?’

‘Don’t know. Since the night I tricked you into marrying me, I suppose.’

‘Tricked, Lyn? What are you talking about? I asked you to marry me.’

‘All right. So you did. But only after I made a fuss, yelled like a hoyden at those damned rooks, put the words into your mouth, practically.’

‘Lyndis Carmichael – what am I to do with you?’ He tilted her chin, kissing her gently. ‘Didn’t I tell you that I thought you were a career girl, had bought your own home and was happy with your life the way it was? I hadn’t the gumption to realize, I suppose, that you might still care for me like once you did. I thought, you see, that you hadn’t minded at all when Kitty and I got engaged. Not till you told me not so long ago that you’d sat on the stairs in the Wrennery, and cried your heart out. I want us to be married, Lyn. I want you and me to live in Rowangarth and bring up our kids there. Hand on heart, I do.’

‘And I want to marry you, Drew, but please not in June? It’s the best month for weddings I know, but the war is over now, and we can pick and choose when we marry.’

‘So when would you like it to be, darling? Do you want a quiet wedding, like Tatty and Bill are having? Shall it be at Christmas, too, in the Lady Chapel? I don’t care at all where or when. I just want us to be married.’

‘Christmas?’ She gave a shaky laugh and he felt the tenseness in her lessen a little. ‘Not Christmas, cariad. I haven’t got around to telling you, but Auntie Blod and my father would like to come to Wales for Christmas.’

‘Auntie Blod? When are you going to call her Mother, Lyn?’

‘Never, I suppose. And it doesn’t matter what I call her as long as I know she’s my real mother. But what do you think about them coming for Christmas? I think Auntie Blod is getting homesick for Wales. Wants to see the little cottage again, she says. I really think, though, that she wants to meet your folks, and see Rowangarth and talk about the wedding. I don’t think I’d like it, either, if my daughter was getting married and I was stuck miles and miles away. And I miss her, Drew. I want her to be with me, when we get married.’

‘Of course you do. Seems to me that neither of us has got used to the idea of being married. It did happen a bit – sort of quickly.’

‘I can’t argue with you on that point.’

‘So let’s take a deep breath, and think things out?’

‘Come down off our pink cloud, you mean?’

‘Not if you don’t want to. Pink clouds are fine by me. But let’s suggest your folks spend Christmas at Rowangarth? Mother would be in high old delight with all the wedding talk. And let’s you and me settle now – right now, here on this spot – when you’d like us to be married.’

‘All right. I’d like us to be married in April, like Daisy was. That suit you, Drew?’

‘If it can’t be soon, like Christmas in the Lady Chapel, then April sounds a good month to me. Agreed, then?’

‘Agreed. And we’ll fix a date when I’ve had a peek in my diary.’

‘The date. Of course. Very important. Now, shall we kiss on it and shall I take you back to Foxgloves? With a bit of luck Keth and Daisy might still be up and we can tell them the news.’

‘They’d better be up. I haven’t got a key!’

So laughing, and hand in hand, they ran as quickly as they could in the darkness to Foxgloves with the news.

November, and the government, in its magnanimity, lifted control on the manufacture of cutlery, fountain pens and jewellery. A small step towards normality, some said, but wouldn’t it have been better by far if food rationing had been done away with, or at least the present miserable rations doubled.

In that month, too, a son was born to Princess Elizabeth, and if you wanted to put not too fine a point on it, another infant to help swell the baby boom, because that was what the amazingly large number of babies being born in the United Kingdom was called.

But by far the most startling event, and the most startled teacher of mathematics ever, was the arrival home of Keth Purvis on the last Friday in November – he would never forget the day – to find the path at the side of his house blocked by a car, which gleamed in his headlights and was shiny black and very new.

‘Well, I’ll be damned!’

He got out of his own much less shiny motor and walked around the intruder, squinting inside to see gleaming upholstery – it couldn’t be leather, surely? And the thing, as far as he could see, had key ignition, indicator lights that flashed left and right and heaven only knew what else.

The back door opened and Daisy stepped out with Mary, swaddled in a shawl, in her arms.

‘Happy birthday, darling.’ She took his hand, wrapping his fingers around a small key.

‘My birthday is in July,’ Keth said, dry-mouthed. ‘You know it is.’

‘Well then – Happy Christmas! You do like it? It’s a Morris Minor, the new model.’

‘Like it? Daisy Purvis, I don’t know what to say. I mean, where did you get it? How did you get it? I don’t believe it!’

‘Then you better had, because it’s yours. And I got it from Creesby Motors by writing out a cheque.’

‘But wife darling, what was the magic word, for heaven’s sake!’

‘The magic word was Purvis. I went to see them just before you and Drew went to London, and the man said there was no chance at all. Three new cars was all he’d ever had and they were gone straight away. So I asked him if he would put your name on his waiting list. And when I said Purvis, Mr Keth Purvis, he asked me if you were the schoolie who taught his boy maths at Creesby Grammar. And I said you were.

‘“Then in that case, Mrs Purvis, your husband has a fair old chance of getting one of the next new motors I get in,” he said. You see, darling, it seems his son is a bright enough lad, but had a mental blockage when it came to maths. Was making the boy’s life a misery. Then you started teaching there and his son came on in leaps and bounds, and all because of you. “Good at sums he is now,” I was told.’

‘It gets queerer by the minute,’ Keth laughed. ‘The boy isn’t called Colin Chambers, is he?’

‘Our Colin? Sounds like him.’

‘But Daisy love, schoolteachers – schoolies – don’t have the kind of money to buy new cars. At least, this one doesn’t.’

‘So are we going to get onto The Money subject?’

‘No, darling. No, of course not. But –’

‘No buts. Either you like it as much as I do, or it can go back to Creesby Motors. Keth – just think? When the better weather comes, you’ll be able to take your mother to Hampshire. She’s never seen your dad’s grave since we left there; only the photograph we took of it when we were on our honeymoon.’

‘But petrol is rationed. How am I to get to Hampshire and back?’

Keth was laughing, now. With disbelief Daisy supposed, but laughing, for all that.

‘The nice man threw in a full tank of off-the-ration petrol. In gratitude it must have been.’

‘Daisy Purvis!’ He kissed her soundly. ‘You are a witch! Mary Natasha Purvis, your mother is a witch!’

‘Mm. Mummy’s got a magic name,’ Daisy laughed. ‘And Mary is getting hungry. Go on, then. Open it! Get inside!’

‘I love you,’ Keth whispered, but already the kitchen door had banged behind her.

He ran his hand over the shiny, slippery bodywork, then said again, ‘I’ll be damned.’

His hand shook as he pushed the key in the lock, then he sat in the unfamiliar seat, sniffing the newness smell, wondering how any one man could be so lucky. And not just car-lucky. Lucky to survive the war, to get out of France. Lucky to have Daisy and Mary Natasha. And of course he would take his mother to West Welby to see his father’s grave. Hampshire was a long way away, but somehow he would get petrol; on the black market, if he had to. But he would take her there, stay overnight, make a real outing of it – if you could call a visit to a grave an outing.

He ran his hands round the steering wheel, then wiggled the gear lever. Tomorrow, he would take it on the road. He wondered what the boys at school would say on Monday when Sir arrived in a brand-new car; wondered what Drew and Bill would say. Drew would know whose money had paid for it; Bill would not. The Money. Daisy’s secret.

And there was another grave he would visit. He had thought to do it for a long time; now it had become a must. He must go to France, to Clissy-sur-Mer and find the grave of a sixteen-year-old girl – if she’d been given a decent burial, that was. But at least he would go to Tante Clara’s house, perhaps see the lilies in the back garden, ask at the bread shop for news of Madame Piccard and a girl called Hannah Kominski who had become Elise Josef on a forged passport. Codename Natasha. He had called his daughter for her and for the people in Clissy-sur-Mer who had died so he could get a package back to the stone house, in deepest Argyll. He drew in his breath, tapping his forefingers on the wheel, remembering Castle McLeish and a submarine – the Selene. And a tipsy-winged plane called a Lysander that flew him and the package to safety, the night Natasha died. Daisy knew little about France. He had not been able to tell her. Signing the Official Secrets Act made sure he did not.

‘Why Natasha?’ she asked when he had chosen it as Mary’s second name, and all he had been able to tell her was that it belonged to a sixteen-year-old girl who had died.

Well, he was going to France just as soon as the government lifted the ban on travel abroad, and if it meant telling Daisy every single word of what happened there, then he would and damn the trouble he might get himself into. Daisy would understand, once she knew. Knowing her as he did, she would insist that he make the sentimental journey that would help ease his conscience. When a man was as lucky as Keth Purvis, it was the only way he could tip his cap to Fate, and ask that he might be allowed to keep what was so precious to him. Nothing to do with the car. The car had only brought things to a head. Too much luck. He had to make amends.

He got out of the car, locked it, then opened the kitchen door. Daisy was sitting there, Mary at her breast. It was a sight he never tired of because it made Daisy even more beautiful. She looked up, and smiled.

‘All right, now? Got over the shock?’

‘I think so. Thank you, darling.’

He bent down to kiss her. Later, when Mary was asleep and they had eaten supper, would be the best time to talk.

‘Sweetheart,’ he whispered. ‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you. I’m not supposed to, but I don’t care.’

‘About the war, Keth – your war?’

‘Yes. But you half knew, didn’t you, that I didn’t spend all the war code breaking.’

‘Sort of. France came into it, and someone called Natasha. That much you admitted to, and then you clammed up.’

‘I had to. I’m still bound by the Official Secrets Act. For thirty years, I was told. But let’s see Mary off to bed and have our supper. Then I’ll tell you.’

‘You don’t have to, Keth, though I would like to know; clear things up, kind of. And Mary’s finished, now. Can you get her wind up for me, then I’ll make a start on the meal.’

Keth held out his arms for his daughter, loving the milky, baby-soap smell of her, loving her so much it made him afraid.

‘The new car, darling.’ He kissed the nape of Daisy’s neck as she bent over the cooker. ‘I still can’t believe it. How do I begin to say thank you?’

‘By winding Mary and getting her to sleep for me.’ She turned, kissing him provocatively. ‘And that’s just for starters.’

‘I love you,’ he said softly. ‘But I don’t have to tell you that, do I?’

‘Yes, you do. Every day. There’ll be trouble if you ever stop. Now get from under my feet, Keth Purvis. I’m busy!’

‘You sound just like your mother,’ he laughed, then laid his daughter over his shoulder so she could snuggle her little soft face into his neck. Then he began a heel and toe rocking movement. It always got her to sleep. He laid a hand protectively over the back of her head, wondering how any woman could find the strength to give away her child.

‘I’m adopted. I don’t know anything about my mother, except that she wasn’t married and couldn’t keep me. I only know that I was born in Paris and that she was called Natasha. That’s why I took it as my codename,’ Hannah-Elise had told him.

Give his little girl to another woman then turn, and leave her? Give Mary away, never knowing that before she reached womanhood she would die, be killed?

‘I think she’s asleep,’ Keth whispered chokily.

‘Then take her up, will you? The cot’s ready. Careful, now.’

Daisy switched on the hall and landing lights, watching her husband carry their child to bed, thinking how lucky she was; always had been. And how grateful she was to be so loved.

SEVEN

‘That’s it, then.’ Tom Dwerryhouse unfastened his brown leather leggings, then eased off his boots. ‘No more shoots till the New Year. Can’t say I’m sorry. It’s hard work, organizing those syndicates. Most of the guns haven’t got a dog with them, and wouldn’t dream of using a loader. Not like shoots used to be, Alice. And before you say it,’ he hastened, ‘I know that leasing out the shooting keeps me in a job, but some of that lot need an eye keeping on them. Think they’re still in the war, and taking pot shots at anything that moves.’ He held his hands to the fire, then gazed at the table top and the paraphernalia of dressmaking spread there, instead of a white cloth and cutlery. ‘Supper a bit late, is it?’

‘Unless you’ve lost your sense of smell, only by ten minutes. It’s all in the oven, ready to dish up. Pheasant casserole. By the time you’ve washed your hands I’ll have cleared this lot away. Told you, if you think back, that I didn’t want to be last-minute with my dress for the wedding, and I was right. Wedding brought forward, now, to April.’

‘Aye, lass, but that’s still near on five months away.’

‘I know that. And I’m glad I didn’t buy anything flimsy, with June in mind. Must have known to buy something a bit more substantial. April can be cold, sometimes. Can’t go far wrong with a nice bit of fine wool, though heaven knows why I chose this colour – apart from it going nicely with my hat, of course.’

‘I like it. You’ll look bonny in it. What colour would you call it, Alice?’

‘Apricot, and it’ll never be out of the dry-cleaners, if you want my opinion.’ Carefully she gathered swathes of material and the pieces of paper pattern pinned to them. ‘But never mind. April is the best month for weddings. Our Daisy’s was perfect. So get out of your best suit and put something comfortable on. Five minutes, and supper’ll be on the table.’

Pheasant, with carrots and baby onions and jacket-baked potatoes. Casseroling was all she could do with the old bird Tom had brought home yesterday but welcome for all that, when meat was as hard to come by as it had been in the war.

But the war was over, and Daisy and Keth and Drew safely back from it; Lyndis, an’ all, thanks be. She heard Tom walking overhead and the creaking of the wardrobe door. Nasty old month, November, but Keeper’s Cottage was snug and warm, and there was a good play on the wireless tonight. And with a little new Sutton due and Tatty getting wed next month, and Christmas to follow, it wasn’t a bad old world, Alice was bound to admit. Better by far than the day Daisy had left for Dunfermline to be a Wren, and the war looking like it would go on forever.

Yet it had been over these three years gone and herself a gran, and Daisy living hardly a cock-stride away. Aye, and Keth with a new car and half of Holdenby green with envy.

‘Aaaah.’ She billowed out the tablecloth then let it fall to a sigh of contentment, smiling at her husband more comfortable now in corduroy trousers that had seen better days, and the sweater she knitted for his last birthday. His fifty-seventh and him as good to look at, still, as the day she’d first met him in Brattocks Wood.

‘So what have you been doing with yourself this afternoon?’ Tom sat in the fireside rocker, filling his pipe then laying it aside in the hearth to be smoked when supper was cleared away and Alice sitting opposite him, knitting.

‘Doing? Well, apart from laying out the pattern, I’ve been to the Bothy. Polly was there, and asked me in for a look round. You’d hardly know the place, Tom. That little room you slept in has a carpet on the floor that stretches from wall to wall, and very posh curtains. All from Pendenys, of course. I reckon Julia will be doing a forage in Rowangarth attics before so very much longer. Nothing ever thrown away, there. Lady Helen used to say, “Keep a thing for seven years, and you’ll find a use for it.” Shouldn’t wonder if Julia doesn’t find most of what she needs up there to furnish the Bothy. Remember when you slept there, Tom, with the garden apprentices and the stable lads?’

‘Aye, and ruled with a rod of iron by Jinny Dobb …’

‘Who did Rowangarth’s washing, an’ all, and told fortunes. Then the Great War came, and there was no one there to be looked after; all gone to fight. Then we left Hampshire, came home again to Rowangarth. Left Dickon behind in the churchyard, and Beth and Morgan in Beck Lane with a stone over them so people would know, and not disturb them …’

‘And Polly and Keth came with us, too, and Polly took over at the Bothy, grateful for a job and a roof.’ Tom stared into the fire. ‘And her glad when the government commandeered it and put land girls in there for her to cook for, when another war came. Memories, Alice. Good ones and bad ones. But it worked itself out in the end, and if you don’t mind, love, I’m ready for my supper.’

‘Was there ever a time, Tom Dwerryhouse, when you weren’t? And shift your feet so I can get at the oven!’

So he smiled and got out of her way, and if she hadn’t had a very hot dish in her hands, he’d have pinched her bottom as she bent over. A very nice bottom, come to think of it, for a grandmother who would not see fifty again!

Lyn had been sure all day that a letter from Kenya would be there when she got home from work. And it was.

She put a match to the fire, changed her wet shoes for slippers, then carefully slit open the envelope.

Hullo, lovely girl!

This is a quick one to tell you that your dad has got us a passage home, and we should dock in England a week before Christmas. We have a cabin on a cargo ship from Mombasa to Cape Town where we embark on the Stirling Castle – newly refitted after being a troopship in the war.

I’m a bit nervous about flying, so your dad said it was no problem. By sea was much nicer, even though it’s going to take a lot longer.

Will give you all details – sailing times, cabin numbers, etc, as soon as we have them confirmed. Now that I know we are almost on our way, I can’t wait to see my girl again. And I’ll remember to pack warm clothes. I haven’t been so long gone that I have forgotten how cold it can be in Wales, in winter.

Will write again, soon.

With love,

Mam X X (and Dad)

Home! Her mother – her darling Auntie Blod – was coming home for Christmas! Only then did Lyn realize how much she had missed her, needed her. Eighteen months since she had seen her; eighteen years, near as dammit, since she saw her father.

Christmas, and them together in the little cottage in Wales – or would they be asked to Rowangarth? And how long would they be staying, once they knew that the wedding had been put forward to April? She wouldn’t care if they never went back. They would, of course, but just for a while she would be part of a family, with her father walking her down the aisle.

Her father, Jack Carmichael, was little changed it would seem, from when she last saw him. Still straight-backed and slim; still the thick, dark hair with hardly a streak of grey in it. Handsome, even yet. No wonder Auntie Blod had fallen in love with him and stayed in love with him.

All at once Lyn felt a strange contentment, because she wasn’t alone; stupid of her ever to have thought she was. Soon, she would have her mother to confide in, to tell of the uncertainties she still sometimes felt. And her mother would understand because she knew, didn’t she, what it was like to love a man, to lose him and then, in the end, to marry him.

‘There’s stupid, our Lyndis. Worrying about your wedding night, are you? Then get yourself into bed with him, girl. Try before you buy, why don’t you? I did!’ Lyn could almost hear the words.

‘Yes, and look where it got you. It got you pregnant with me,’ Lyn smiled to the face in the mirror over the mantelpiece.

All at once she was hungry. Nothing like good news to give you an appetite. She would boil the brown egg Daisy’s mother had given her and slice into the loaf Daisy’s mother had baked, then spread it thickly with bramble jelly. Sheer bliss. Eating home-made bread and jam was almost as good as being in love, especially when you were getting married in April. The second Saturday in April. It had a firm ring to it. Daisy had been married in April.

‘I always associate my wedding with windflowers,’ she once said. ‘The little white, wild anemones. They were flowering in Brattocks Wood.’

And she had added, pink-cheeked, that she associated their honeymoon with bluebells because they had gone back to the place she and Keth grew up in, made a sentimental journey to Beck Lane in Hampshire, where the woods were thick with bluebells. And they had been lovers there. Lucky Daisy and Keth who had wanted no other. They were still at school when they realized they were in love. No complications for those two; no doubts.

The fire had begun to blaze and crackle. Outside, the night was dark, but this snug, thick-walled little house with curtains pulled across the windows and lamps burning softly, was a good place to be. If she couldn’t be in the winter parlour at Rowangarth with Drew, that was. And the two of them making plans in the fireglow or even – crazy thought – making love?

But no, not now. She had lived these many years a reluctant virgin and would stay so until her wedding night. And instead of thinking about wedding nights she thought about a boiled fresh egg, and bread and jam and Drew, who loved her, even though he had never said so. Never actually said the words.

‘I love you, Drew Sutton,’ she whispered to the brown egg she lowered carefully into the pan. ‘I always will …’

‘So it’s to be an April wedding?’ Mary Stubbs sniffed. ‘Why the change of plan? I’d have liked June much better.’

‘Aye, but it’s not for you to say, is it, since it’s not you going to wed Sir Andrew.’

‘Don’t talk so daft! I’m well suited with the man I’ve got, thanks all the same.’

Well suited with Will Stubbs, once stable lad at Rowangarth, then promoted to groom and, since motors had replaced horses, now as apt a motor mechanic as any in these parts. Because Will had been astute; had learned about motors and their innards in the Great War, because horses, he had decided, would be on their way out once that war was over with. And he was right! He was very often right, Mary Stubbs was bound to admit; was what people might call a self-educated man though Tilda, in a fit of rage, had once called him a right know-all; she at the time being on the shelf with little hope of ever getting off it, and prickly about those who had.

Then the government had commandeered Pendenys Place and the Place Suttons thrown out of it and Sergeant Sidney Willis, together with a battalion of Green Howards, came to guard it. Very lucky Tilda had been, meeting her Sidney.

‘We’ll be invited to the wedding,’ said Tilda, seeing the need to change the subject. ‘And no problem with what to wear. You and me both have wedding outfits and decent hats.’

‘So we have, but I’m going to have to ask Alice Dwerryhouse to let mine out – just a little …’

‘Middle-age spread, Mary?’

‘No, Tilda dear. Just contentment and the love of a good man. And I’ll be off to look in on Miss Clitherow, make up her fire, then see if there’s anything Miss Julia or the Reverend wants when I’m in Creesby, this afternoon.’

‘You could call in on that grocer of ours, ask him if he’s got anything under the counter. That man is too smug for his own liking, ladies always flattering him for handouts. That one needs to be reminded that food won’t always be rationed and that in the old days, Rowangarth was one of his best customers!’ Tilda longed for the day when, telephone to her ear, she gave her order to the grocer and the butcher and what was more, had them delivered! ‘But everything comes to she who waits,’ she nodded with a narrowing of her eyes and a rounding of her mouth. ‘Oh my word, yes!’

‘Then I think you’ll be in for a long wait, Tilda. What with that lot in London rationing bread and everyone on waiting lists, still, for the necessities of life!’ (Mary Stubbs longed for a refrigerator.) ‘And with the Royal Air Force dropping food that by rights should be ours for those Germans in Berlin, I don’t know what the world is coming to. Our lot did win the war, Tilda? Correct me if I’m wrong!’

‘We won it.’ Tilda smiled. ‘I think it’s just peace that we can’t get used to.’ Wars weren’t all that bad; not when they had landed a battalion of Green Howards on her doorstep. ‘And will you tell Miss Julia that I got a jar of coffee powder the other day, and would she and the Reverend like to try it for elevenses?’

‘Powdered coffee,’ Mary gasped. Whatever was the world coming to!

Olga, Countess Petrovska sat beside the fire in the small, ground-floor room at the back of the house in Cheyne Walk. She did not like sitting in what had once – in another fairytale life it sometimes seemed – been the housekeeper’s room. But now they had no housekeeper, no servants and anyway the small room was more easily heated. She closed her eyes and drifted back to the house beside the River Neva where fires warmed all the rooms, and servants enough to keep them constantly burning.

It would be bitterly cold, now, in St Petersburg. The river beside which she once lived would have started to freeze, but she would have been making plans for Christmas, which lasted well into January, with parties and balls and friends calling each afternoon to gossip about who was with whom at the ballet, last night, and who would get himself talked about if he were foolish enough to have more than two dances with the Sudzhenska girl. Talked about, or compromised into an engagement if he wasn’t careful and thought less about her father’s wealth and more about her sullen, spotty face!

‘Mama. You were daydreaming again!’ Igor’s clicking fingers demanded attention.

‘Yes. I was in my salon with my friends, drinking tea from china cups.’

‘And putting St Petersburg society to rights!’

‘Tittle-tattle. Gossiping about anything and nothing, my only worry to find wives for my sons and thinking about whom my daughter might marry in two, three years’ time …’

‘When you ought to be thinking about your granddaughter’s wedding!’

‘Tatiana has a mother to worry about her; a mother who right from the start was determined to do exactly as she pleased. First she insisted upon marrying Elliot Sutton, then she went to work – a Petrovska, working! And now she has chosen to marry a doctor and become one of the middle classes!’

‘Mama! My sister was young and foolish and you did nothing to stop her marrying Sutton.’

‘He was wealthy …’

‘He was a brute! He wanted only to breed from her!’

‘Igor! Watch your tongue when you speak to your mother! I will not have such coarseness in my home! But you are right, I suppose,’ she shrugged. ‘He wanted a son. His mother demanded a son. Such a loud woman, that Mrs Clementina, but breeding will out!’

‘Shall we talk about Tatiana?’ he said softly, coaxingly.

‘Who is to marry a man with no background.’

‘A man who cares deeply for her, Mama. And don’t forget you said you quite liked him, when you met.’

‘I – I suppose I did, though he wasn’t an officer. But he did look me in the eye when he spoke to me. My granddaughter will be happy enough. She has a house, and money. She has forgotten she is Russian.’

‘Half-Russian, and as English as they come. I am fond of Tatiana, was touched when she asked me to give her away. You’ll be coming with me to the wedding?’

‘I think not, Igor. I dislike English trains and it is even colder in the north than it is here. And I have nothing to wear.’

‘You have your sable, Mama. December is a month for furs, and yours will be the finest in the North Riding! Now – where will you stay? At Denniston with Tatiana, or at Rowangarth? Julia Sutton would be glad to have us. Or shall you, perhaps, stay with Anna and Ewart?’

‘Why did I sell the tiara?’ Olga Petrovska demanded petulantly.

‘Why, Mama? We needed the money. You sold it after Anna had worn it at her wedding to Elliot Sutton. You got a good price for it.’

‘Yes. The money helped. If only we had been able to get more out of Russia, we wouldn’t be beggars, now.’

‘My father and Vassily were killed, trying to get more out of Russia. Be content, Mama, that you got out with your life. And the tiara did not bring happiness to Anna. I think it is best that Tatiana cannot wear it.’

‘Of course she couldn’t wear it, even had I not been forced to part with it! Tatiana will not be wearing white. She is determined to be married in ordinary clothes. I doubt she will carry flowers, even. But it will matter not much, I think. She is marrying out of her faith.’

‘Tatiana will be married by her uncle, an Anglican priest. He is a good man and will speak the words with love. So will I ring my niece? Will I tell her that her grandmother looks forward to her wedding? It would seem ungracious if you were not there. She will want your blessing.’

‘Since you seem determined to put an old woman to such trouble – yes, ring Tatiana. Tell her her grandmother will stay at Denniston House, and will remain there, over Christmas. It will make a change, I suppose, from cold, bombed London.’

‘London is a better place to be in than Leningrad – than St Petersburg, Mama. Think of the desolation there. Remember that you said you were proud of the way the Communists fought the Nazi armies for Mother Russia.’

‘I remember. What is left of my St Petersburg, the people there deserve.’

And why did she always think of her house beside the River Neva when things, here in exile, got bad; when there was no coal to burn in the grate, when rations ran out? In her heart she knew she was being foolish, that almost certainly her beloved house had been blasted into ruins in the long, bitter siege or, at the very best, was now in a sad and run-down state with a family living in each room, using Olga Petrovska’s most modern water closets or doing their washing in her baths, with the shining taps turned green with neglect. Best she forget about the days when Peter, her husband, and elder son Vassily had been alive; when her children were young and they spent their summers at the farm at Peterhof, not many miles away from the Tzar, God rest him, who spent summers there, too.

They had run through the fields, her children, like barefoot peasants; had fished in the stream and helped in the hay meadows. Life had been good then, had she the sense to know it. But happiness is always ahead, or behind you. She had never once thought, ‘Today, I am the most fortunate, the most contented woman in all the Russias,’ and more was the pity. She pulled her shawl more closely around her shoulders then closed her eyes, to shut out the present.

And her son sensed her withdrawal, and said nothing, because these days, the only time she smiled was when she thought about the time before the revolution when life had been tranquil. So he, too, closed his eyes, pushed his feet closer to the small fire in the small grate, and thought not of the house by the River Neva, but of his niece and her wedding and how pleasant it would be to see her happiness. Had he had a daughter of his own, Igor pondered, she would have been exactly like Tatiana; would, if that daughter were very lucky, be blessed with his niece’s beauty, and with not a little of her independence and courage.

But he had not married, for who would want a penniless White Russian even though he was, if everyone claimed his own, Count Igor Petrovsky. And which woman, with one iota of sense, would have taken him when he came burdened with an autocratic mother who was only happy when she could escape to her beloved house beside the River Neva?

He sighed, and thought instead of his niece, the amazingly well-balanced outcome of a disastrous marriage who was to marry, soon, in the little hundreds-of-years-old chapel.

And there was a smile on his lips, too.

‘You can’t mean it, Keth Purvis. Take me all the way to West Welby in that car of yours?’

‘Of course I mean it. I always said I would take you back there one day, to see Dad’s grave.’

‘But how will you manage it, boy, when petrol is rationed and, anyway, when are you to get time off school?’

‘At Christmas – when driving all the way to Hampshire wouldn’t be a lot of fun, and at Easter, when I had thought to go. And don’t look so dumbfounded. You know you’d like it.’

‘And does Daisy agree with all this, then?’

‘She does. You and I were to go, she insisted, and you know what Daisy is like when she sets her mind on anything. And as for petrol – well, Creesby Motors threw in a full tank of it when we bought the car and don’t ask me how they were able to do it, because I don’t know. All I do know is that there was five months’ petrol rations in that tank, so I’m hanging on to my coupons –’

‘Your legitimate, above-board coupons, Keth?’

‘Whatever. So I’m well in hand, petrol-wise, and should be able to get you there and back when the better weather comes.’

‘And I appreciate it, son, but will you tell me one thing? Will you tell me how much that motor cost? And this is your mother, asking.’

‘If you must know, it cost two hundred and seventy pounds.’

His cheeks flushed red, because he knew who had paid for it, and his mother, mistaking his shame for anger, said she was sorry, that it wasn’t any of her business; that she had only asked because she didn’t want to think of him getting into debt to pay for it.

‘It’s all right, Mam. It swallowed up my Army gratuity and all of my savings, but I managed it.’

He was ashamed of the blatant lies that came too easily, but his mother had never been told about Daisy’s money. The fewer who knew, the better, Daisy had always insisted. Even Lyn thought the fortune her cabin mate had inherited on that twenty-first birthday was a mere thousand pounds, and only told because it had been necessary to find an explanation for Daisy’s visit to the solicitor at Winchester. What that inheritance had grown into over the years until Daisy came of age was obscene, almost. His fiancée had become richer than Drew, truth known. Amazing, really, how someone so flouncy and quick-tempered as Daisy could have kept all that money so secret.

‘Hullo, son,’ Polly Purvis smiled. ‘You’ve come back to earth, then? Where were you?’

‘As a matter of fact, I was thinking about West Welby.’ His cheeks flushed red again because he was not a good liar. ‘Was thinking, as a matter of fact, that you might be a bit disappointed when we go to see Beck Lane. Daisy and I found it a bit run-down and neglected. No one living in either Keeper’s or Willow End.’

‘It wouldn’t matter, Keth. I couldn’t go all that way and not walk down Beck Lane, now could I? And I’d want to take a look at Morgan and Beth.’

‘Of course you would.’ Keth took his mother’s face in his hands and gently kissed her forehead. ‘And maybe, if we are lucky, the bluebells will be out in the beechwood and if the piggy-bank runs to it, I’d like us to stay the night somewhere; make a real outing of it. And at least there are films for cameras in the shops again. We can take lots of snaps. But I want you to promise me you won’t get too upset, Mam.’

‘Just a little sad for my Dickon, allow me that. But I’ll count my blessings. I’ve always known that you take what life throws at you and that nothing lasts, neither good times, nor bad. And I shall look forward to going to Hampshire and staying overnight. Sure you can afford it, son?’

‘Sure – or I wouldn’t be asking you.’ He smiled, loving her very much, knowing he had lied again, that it was Daisy who insisted on paying for the trip. ‘We’ll have a look at the calendar – make sure it doesn’t clash with the wedding.’

‘Aah. The wedding.’ Polly smiled then closed her eyes and thought about the dress she had worn to Keth’s wedding and the fine hat Daisy had bought her in the swankiest shop in Harrogate. Polly Purvis had plenty of good times for the counting. Oh, my word, yes!

‘So tell me, Keth?’ Daisy slipped her arm into his, snuggling close, knowing she must tread carefully. ‘About France, I mean – if you haven’t changed your mind, that is?’

‘You’ve got to know, darling, then maybe when you do, you’ll understand why I’ve got to go back to Clissy.’

‘To France?’

‘Yes. To Clissy-sur-Mer when I became Gaston Martin and had a codename Hibou.’

‘So I was right all along,’ she whispered. ‘It was cloak-and-dagger stuff! You were in terrible danger, and I never knew.’

‘Not dangerous for me. I wasn’t the one who took risks, not real risks. I was taken there by submarine, rowed ashore then met and handed over to someone who told me her name was Natasha. I remember thinking at the time that it had come to something when a child was the best they could manage. I didn’t think that being out after curfew was a stupid – and dangerous – thing to do. She took me to Madame Piccard’s house. That house was all I saw of Clissy. Never went beyond the back gate; never saw the village.’

‘In what they called a safe house, were you?’

‘That’s it. I took the identity of a French soldier Gaston Martin, officially posted missing at Dunkirk; unofficially taken off the beaches with our lot and was then living in Ireland. He was deaf – caused by explosions. Lucky for me, that, as long as I remembered when a stranger came along, that I couldn’t hear a word they said.’

‘And did they? Come along, I mean.’

‘Once. One of the occupying German soldiers and the local gendarme with him. Routine check. Looking back, knowing what I know now, I think the gendarme was in on it – or at least sympathetic to anyone he suspected to be in the Resistance. I had supposedly gone to Clara Piccard’s house to dig her garden. I had a forged work permit with me and she made no bones about her hired help. Luckily, I knew how to dig.’

‘But Natasha – where did she come into it?’

‘Natasha – her real name Hannah Kominski – was adopted. Her parents were Russian refugees who lived in Paris, next door to Madame Piccard, who worked as a nurse there, before she retired to Clissysur-Mer. The Kominskis – they were Jewish – realized it was only a matter of time before they were arrested, so they made sure Hannah was safe. Madame Piccard had retired to Clissy by then. Her husband was killed in the Great War, so she’d gone back to nursing. They sent Hannah, with forged papers, to her for safe keeping. There were a lot of good forgers around in our war, Daisy. Hannah became Elise Josef and worked as a courier, sometimes, for the Resistance. She took the codename Natasha, because it was all she knew about her birth mother.’

‘And the Kominskis?’ Daisy whispered, all at once sad.

‘There were a few letters from Paris, then nothing. Tante Clara – that was what Natasha called her – said they must have been deported and we all know now that meant to a concentration camp.’

‘But how did Hannah survive? Why wasn’t she picked up, too?’

‘Because she was dark, but not Jewish; didn’t have the Jewish nose. Do you know, darling, that the Nazis had an instrument for measuring noses? Natasha’s real mother had given her a tip-tilted nose. It saved her life, I suppose.’

‘So can you tell me why you went to France? Did you even once consider the risk you were taking?’

‘I did. It was the only way for me to get back home from Washington. I was stuck there and I nagged them until they said okay, that I could go back to the UK as soon as a passage could be found for me. But there were conditions attached, they said.’

‘Conditions like you owed them one, sort of?’

‘That’s it. Because I was a mathematician, I worked in the cipher department at the British Embassy in Washington. They knew I had knowledge about – well – a certain machine. Very secret, really.’

‘Mm. Talk had it where Lyn and I worked in the war, there was a secret machine there, too. So secret, in fact, they had an armed Marine sentry always outside the door. I didn’t see it. Wasn’t even allowed near the door …’

‘Sounds as if it could have been like the one I’d been sent to collect. They called it Enigma, and because I’d worked on a similar one in Washington, they thought I was the best bloke to collect the special one from France. Special, because our lot could only break German Army messages and their Luftwaffe messages. We needed to be able to break their naval code. It was urgent. We were losing too many merchant ships in the Atlantic’

‘I know, Keth. I spent my war in Liverpool, don’t forget, and I know that the underground bunker I worked in looked after ships in the Western Approaches and the Atlantic. Looked after! Half of every convoy was sunk!’

‘So you’ll realize the importance of the naval Enigma I was sent to collect. And don’t ask me how it was come by. All I know is that when I got it back, I was told they’d only recently acquired another. I hit the roof. Asked the fellow there if he wanted a matching pair for his mantelpiece, or something, and did he know that a kid of sixteen had been shot, getting me and his precious bloody machine onto a Lysander to fly it back to England?

‘But he only said that things like that happened when there was a war on and that sailors had been killed, too, getting the other one. A right swine, he was. Hard as nails. I thought I’d blotted my copybook good and proper and that he’d send me back to Washington, out of spite. But he didn’t. I was debriefed, warned to keep my mouth shut, or else’ – he pulled a finger across his throat – ‘then sent back to Bletchley Park.’

‘So you were in England for a time and I never knew it, Keth?’

‘That’s right. I couldn’t even phone you. I was told to write letters as if I were still in Washington and they doctored them to look as if they’d been posted there. That’s why I shouldn’t be telling you this. It’s why our little girl is called Mary Natasha and why you must never speak of it to anyone but me.’

‘And it’s why you need to go back to Clissy-sur-Mer?’

‘Yes. To try to find Natasha’s grave – if they gave her a decent burial, that is. And I need to know – or at least my conscience needs to know – what happened to Tante Clara and Denys and Bernadette, too. Bernadette was a wireless operator for the Resistance. I never knew what Denys did, only that he and Natasha took me to a field at the back of the chateau and put down landing lights for the Lysander pilot to see. Two minutes was all that pilot was allowed to land, get me on board, then take off. I try not to think of it …’

‘But you do, Keth, all the time, and it’s why you must go back to France just as soon as restrictions are lifted. You and I have so much, darling, and I want you to go, if only to say a thank you, and a thank you for me, too, to those people who hid you and got you safely back. I owe Natasha, as well. I wish there were some way of letting her know. And I won’t say a word. You know I can keep secrets.’

‘Like your money? I know you won’t talk about it, ever, though one other person knows. Y’see, when it was all over and done with and before I went back to Bletchley Park, I was given leave.’

‘Yes. I got leave, too. We wangled a night together. But who did you tell, Keth? You were taking a risk, weren’t you?’

‘Not really. It was Nathan Sutton I told. I felt so bad about it and that I was safe back in England when a whole lot of people at Clissy were almost certainly arrested and interrogated. Maybe even shot. I couldn’t square it with my conscience until I’d told someone. Nathan was a priest. We went for a walk to the top of the Pike and he got the lot. I felt better for telling him and I knew he would treat it like a confession – sacrosanct. Knowing Nathan, he wouldn’t even tell your Aunt Julia.’

‘No. Not him. But can we talk about it again, when it won’t be quite so bad for either of us? There’s so much I want to know, but my mind’s in a spin. It’s a shock, knowing we might never have married, or had Mary; that you might never have got back.’

‘Sobering thought, isn’t it? And worse than that, even, was Natasha getting the bullet that was meant for me. A bit of a lass, and far braver than I was.’

‘So that’s why you’ll go back, darling. And I want you to. Just you and your conscience and your thoughts. It’ll help. I know it will.’ She lifted his hand, kissing his palm then closing his fingers around the kiss. ‘And do you know how much I love you, Keth Purvis?’

‘As much as I love you, Daisy love. And thanks for understanding, and that it’s best I go alone – maybe after the wedding, in the Whit school holidays.’

‘Whenever, darling. But right now, will you kiss me, then hold me tightly and tell me you love me and that you’ll never do anything so stupid again.’

‘I won’t. I promise.’ He kissed her gently, then again, passionately, and she kissed him back. ‘Have we got time, darling? Before Mary wakes for her ten o’clock feed?’ she said softly, lips against his ear. Then she kissed his eyes, the tip of his nose, his mouth. ‘Have we?’ she whispered huskily.

EIGHT

‘That wouldn’t be coffee?’ Ewart Pryce raised an eyebrow to the percolator that slurped lazily on the stove.

‘It would. Real grounds. Got a quarter of a pound, yesterday. Things are looking up. Time for a cup?’ Anna lifted her cheek for her husband’s kiss.

‘Please. Not many in the surgery this morning, and only three visits. So what’s news?’

‘Not so good. Two bad bits in the paper. National Service increased from a year to eighteen months and the King and Queen aren’t going to Australia. Seems the King isn’t very well. Any idea what the matter is?’

‘Haven’t a clue, darling. Buckingham Palace haven’t consulted me.’ His eyes lit on the envelope and the large, old-fashioned writing in black ink. Always black ink. ‘Your mother …?’

‘Mama has decided to come to the wedding, but must decline my offer of a bed. She will be staying at Denniston House, she says, and has written to tell Tatiana. Ewart, why can’t she stay with us? Tatty is going to be busy enough without two house guests – even if they are family. Igor won’t be any trouble, but Mama will complain. She always does.’

‘She’s an old lady, darling, and she misses Russia.’

‘So do I. So does Igor, but we don’t go on and on about it. To me, Russia is a long way away and a long time away. My daughter is as English as they come, and as for myself – well, I’m happy being the wife of a country doctor, even if Mama thinks I’ve lowered myself into the middle classes.’

‘The old get bewildered, Anna. She lost her husband and a son in the uprising.’

‘Yes, thirty years ago, but she’s still in mourning. She likes being unhappy, but I’m glad she’ll be there to see her granddaughter married. Karl will look after them when Bill and Tatty leave for their honeymoon, and I’ll keep an eye on things – tactfully, of course. And I’ve got to fly, or I’ll miss the bus. Going to Creesby for a final fitting and to pick up my wedding hat.’

‘You’re looking forward to it, aren’t you, darling?’

‘I am. And if Tatty’s half as happy as I am with my middle-class marriage, she can consider herself lucky. Heavens! Is that the time! See you, Doctor dear!’

With a banging of doors she was gone, and Ewart smiled fondly, whispering, ‘And I love you too, Anastasia Aleksandrina Pryce,’ then poured himself another cup of coffee.

‘Letter from Lyn?’ Julia asked. ‘Everything all right at her end?’

‘Complications, actually,’ Drew frowned. ‘Her folks are arriving on the fifteenth of December.’

‘So what’s complicated about that?’

‘Nothing at all. She’s looking forward to seeing her mother – and her father. Be interesting, that, since she hasn’t seen him since she was a schoolgirl. Trouble is though, what with one thing and another I won’t be seeing Lyn till Tatty’s wedding. Seems she’s swapping her shifts around so she can get time off for that. Not a lot of good, this long-distance courting.’

‘So why must it always be Lyn who comes here? Hasn’t it ever occurred to you to shift yourself and go to her place? And if it’s going to use up too many petrol coupons, get yourself on the train, for heaven’s sake, like Lyn does.’

‘I’d thought about that a couple of times but decided against it. After all, Lyn lives in a little village. There’d be sure to be talk.’

‘Andrew Sutton, I don’t believe it! Girls don’t need chaperoning, now! And why are you suddenly so holier-than-thou? I’m sure Lyn wouldn’t mind losing her reputation – even if nothing happened.’

‘Now it’s my turn not to believe it! Are you suggesting a dirty weekend or something, and you a priest’s wife!’

‘Drew! I’m beginning to lose patience with you. Dirty weekend, indeed! You make it sound sordid, and it shouldn’t be. Not between you and Lyn. And did I suggest you sleep together? I merely said that you should go and see her once in a while. Why should Lyn do all the running about?’

‘I think she comes here because that’s the way she wants it.’

‘You’re sure? Has she said so?’

‘N-no. Not in so many words, but wouldn’t she ask me if she wanted me there?’

‘She’s your fiancée, Drew. Does she have to ask you?’

‘I suppose not, but – oh, hell, Mother, I don’t know. Sometimes, I just don’t know!’

He got to his feet, walking to the window, hands in pockets and Julia knew, from the set stiffness of his shoulders, that now was the time to ask.

‘Don’t know what? That everything isn’t as it should be, that you made a mistake? Is that what you’re trying to say, Drew?’

‘Of course I haven’t made a mistake. I want to marry Lyn. But does she think the same way? And I ask that because I know something isn’t quite right. She’s gone on the defensive, kind of. It’s as if she’s all at once shy with me. It was better between us when I used to take her out, in Liverpool. When Daisy was on leave, I mean, and the two of us got on just fine.

‘Lyn was fun, then. She laughed a lot and we did mad things; ate fish and chips out of newspaper and went to Charlie’s, on the Pierhead, for a mug of tea and a cheese sandwich. Wads, we called them.’

‘Yes, Drew, but that was before Kitty. If what I heard is to be believed, Lyn was in love with you even then; had hopes that someday, things between you might develop, sort of.’

‘I’ve asked her to marry me. Surely that’s development enough? But I don’t think she’s as sure of her feelings, now. Oh, outwardly things are fine between us, but there’s a wariness in her eyes. I can see it.’

‘Look, Drew – I’ve got letters to post. Walk with me, to the village?’

Out of the house, Julia thought, it might be better. Outside, neither of them would be able to show anger, annoyance.

‘Okay. Could do with a breath of fresh air.’

‘Then shall we go through Brattocks and down the lane, the long way round? Might be as well, if we did. Get things into the open, sort of. And I know you need to talk to me – talk to someone, Drew – though heaven only knows why it can’t be to Lyn. You were always easy in her company. What’s gone wrong?’

‘I wish I knew.’

‘Mind if I make a suggestion? Could it be that suddenly Lyn is worried that she can’t follow Kitty? Have you and Lyn been lovers?’

‘No, we haven’t.’ He closed the door behind them with an unnecessary bang. ‘Once, we might have been but not now, it seems.’

Not since the night, outside Wrens’ quarters, that Lyn had told him she loved him, wanted him. Offered it, actually, though nothing happened because he hadn’t been quite sure. Of himself, that was. It was as if he’d known, even then, that he was waiting for Kitty. But he couldn’t say that. Not to his mother. Not to anyone. There were things you just didn’t talk about, and that was one of them.

‘Once? Before that night you met up with Kitty? You were very sure, about her.’

‘Very sure. She knocked me for six. I’d loved her all my life, and I hadn’t known it. We spent the night together and it was so easy, so right. Are you shocked?’

‘Shocked? And what makes you think that only you and Kitty knew about love? I loved like that, once. When Andrew and I were apart, all I could think of was soft, sinful double beds. And I would have, even before we were married, but Andrew counted to ten for both of us! I know what it’s like to love desperately in wartime, so don’t think I’m uptight about you and Kitty. I was young, too, don’t forget.’

‘Then you married Nathan, Mother?’

‘Yes. I married him because I loved him. Differently, I’ll grant you, and the only mistake I made was not doing it sooner. I can talk about Andrew now with affection, and Nathan accepts that. Does Kitty have to come between you and Lyn, Drew, because it seems she is!’

‘Not as far as I’m concerned, she isn’t. But there was a war on when Kitty and I were together. No tomorrows, remember …’

‘I remember. God Himself knows I remember, but if you can’t convince Lyn that it’s her you are marrying, then things aren’t going to get any better. You’ve got to be sure – both of you.’

‘I’m sure, Mother, but I know Lyn isn’t. Not entirely. She wanted the wedding changed from June to April. I don’t think she wants to carry white orchids, either. She said that June seemed to her to be a remembering month; that it was in June Kitty and I should have been married and another June when Kitty was killed. And it’s every June that Jack Catchpole puts a bouquet on her grave. Can you blame Lyn for getting the jitters?’

‘No, I can’t,’ Julia said softly. ‘But I blame you, Drew, for letting her have doubts. Don’t you think it’s about time you sorted things between you?’

‘So what do you suggest I do?’

‘Do? You get yourself over to Wales this next weekend, show willing for once. Lyn can’t come to you, so you must go to her! And I don’t mean you should both leap into bed. Far from it. It seems Lyn is unsure enough, without you making it worse. Just be with her, Drew. Talk to her, because she sure as anything wants to talk to you! Be nice to her and if you’ve got to, eat fish and chips out of newspaper!’

‘You’re right. You usually are, dearest. But in what way do you think Lyn is unsure? Might help a bit, if I knew.’

‘I’d bet anything you like that she’s unsure about herself; unsure because she’s a virgin, still, and she’s afraid you’ll compare her to Kitty.’

‘Oh, no. I can’t accept that! Lyn was always very blasé; completely sure of herself.’

‘Well, for what my opinion is worth, she isn’t so sure about things now. Lyn is a woman in love and she’s afraid of losing you. I think she fell in love with you the first time you met and nothing has changed, I’m pretty sure of it.’

She dropped the letters in the pillar box, then turned for home.

‘My, but it’s cold. One good thing about late November is that there are very few people about. No one stops you for a chat! Let’s go to the kitchen, and sweetheart a pot of tea out of Tilda?’

And Drew smiled and said, ‘Y’know, for someone who isn’t a mother, you’ve made a pretty good job of being mine. And I’ll go to Llangollen this weekend – surprise her.’

‘Yes, and get something sorted out, eh? Clear the air, why don’t you?’

‘Clear the air,’ Drew nodded, though how, exactly, he wasn’t sure. Play things by ear, should he? Alone together in that little house, things just might be different. He would have to go carefully, for all that, because he didn’t want to lose Lyn; would never forgive himself if he said the wrong thing and got his ring thrown back at him for his pains.

Dear Lyn, who had always loved him.

Drew stowed away his bag, then laid the flowers carefully on top of it, thankful he was on the last leg of his journey. Change at Manchester, change at Chester for Wrexham; bus from there to Lyn’s place. And she had done it every weekend she could get away, bless the girl.

But he was bearing gifts. Tom had given him a young pheasant, plucked and ready for roasting. Alice had sent a new-baked loaf and Tilda had scraped enough rations together to make a baking of cherry scones and wrapped four in greaseproof paper, with her love. And Willis had sent chrysanthemum blooms because he feared frost, soon, and those he couldn’t dig up and plant again in the shelter of the greenhouse, he had cut for folk deserving of them.

‘There’s ten tawnies for your intended, Sir Andrew. Match that hair of hers,’ Sidney Willis had chuckled. ‘Sent with compliments. And mind you don’t knock their heads off between here and there. Very top-heavy those big blooms are.’

Tawny, to match her hair. Lyn was very beautiful; had the green eyes and porcelain skin of a true redhead. And in summer her face freckled – on her cheekbones and across her nose.

He had thought often, lately, about her body and how it would be. Her naked body, that was. He had never seen her anything but well covered. At first in thick black stockings and shirt and collar and tie; latterly in civilian clothes, true, but only in his imaginings had he seen her naked, in bed, in his arms.

The conductor of the green bus interrupted his thoughts, asking where to, and a return or a single, was it? And Drew handed him the correct money and was told that in five minutes he would be at Croesy-Dwfr, which he knew to be the crossroads near the hamlet in which Lyn lived. Only a few more minutes and she would open the door and say, ‘Hullo, sailor!’ like she used to and he would wonder how he could ever have thought things weren’t right between them.

But she didn’t say it. She just stood there, eyes wide, and whispered, ‘Drew? What is it? Why have you come?’ then stood aside to let him in.

‘Come, idiot? To see my girl!’ He laid bag and flowers on the floor. ‘Don’t I get a kiss?’

‘Of course you do!’ Laughing, she was in his arms, eyes closed, lips parted. ‘It was just that I didn’t expect you – didn’t think I’d see you for ages.’ Her cheeks pinked, her eyes shone. ‘Oh, Drew cariad, there’s lovely to see you!’ she laughed breathlessly when they had kissed and kissed again. ‘And how did you know I’d just put the kettle on?’

And Drew was all at once certain that given a little time together sitting close in the firelight and kissing sometimes, and laughing too, things would be as they had once been when he kissed her a passionate goodnight on the stone steps of Hellas House – and she had told him she loved him.

‘Flowers,’ he said, giving her the chrysanthemums. ‘From Willis.’

And Lyn thanked him and told him to take off his jacket and get himself to the fire, for a warm. Then went in search of a vase.

They shared a tin of tomato soup and a tin of baked beans for supper, eked out with thick slices of the Keeper’s Cottage loaf.

‘There’s no one bakes bread like Daisy’s Mum,’ Lyn said.

‘You are speaking, if I may say so, to the converted. We used to smell baking day from the other end of Brattocks, then swoop on Keeper’s for bread and honey. Like a swarm of locusts, we must have been.’

‘We? The Clan?’

‘Yes, but I’m not here to talk about when we were kids, darling. I came because I wanted to see you and to talk about you and me.’

‘Like …?’

‘Like – we-e-ll, the wedding, for one thing.’ Dammit, she was icing up again. ‘And for another, I want to know what happened to the girl I asked to marry me. There now, Lyn, I’ve said it. I’m looking, I suppose, for the Wren who was good at passionate goodnights.’

‘That Wren was demobbed ages ago. The war’s over, Drew, and I’m going to wash the supper things.’

She got to her feet but he caught her wrist and held it tightly.

‘No! The washing up can wait. Sit down – please?’

‘Very well.’ She positioned herself awkwardly on the edge of the sofa, so he was obliged to lay an arm around her and pull her closer. ‘But it seems to me, Drew, you’re making a drama out of nothing.’

‘I don’t think I am.’ He could feel the tenseness in her shoulders, see the defiant tilt of her chin. ‘Something’s upsetting you, something isn’t quite right between us and I want to know what it is. I’ve a right to know.’

‘So what do you want to hear?’

‘That you haven’t changed your mind, that you still want to marry me.’

‘You know I do! Oh, hell, Drew …’

She let go a sigh and closed her eyes and he knew she was fighting tears.

‘Don’t get upset, Lyn? Please don’t cry? Just tell me what it is and I’ll understand.’

‘You want to know? You really want to know, Drew Sutton?’ She pushed him away from her, then faced him defiantly, cheeks flushed. ‘I’m jealous of Kitty, I suppose. And I know I’m being stupid, but that’s what it really boils down to. I’ve never been with a man before and I’m going to mess up our wedding night because I don’t know how to do it!’

‘Most brides don’t know, either,’ he said gently.

‘Oh? Daisy knew, didn’t she? And Kitty knew.’

‘Yes, and I thought Lyn Carmichael was pretty curious, too. What happened to the passionate redhead? You were eager enough, then.’

‘I know. We were pretty good together, once. I thought you felt as I felt and I wanted you Drew, and to hell with what might happen. I didn’t care if I got pregnant, that’s how much I wanted you. But you patted my behind and steered me towards the Wrennery door. After I’d said I loved you like some silly little bitch, you didn’t want me.’

‘I’m truly sorry I hurt you, Lyn, but why have you changed?’

‘Because that night, it would have been all right between us. Neither of us would have known what we were doing. I knew you were a virgin, too, and that the first time might have been a bit of a fumble, but we’d have understood. It’s different, now. For me, it is.’

‘I’m sorry you feel like that. Don’t you think it’s about time we put all this behind us and started out afresh – like we both felt the night you said you’d marry me? And does it matter when our wedding night is? Do you want us to be lovers before April? I don’t care, Lyn, about all that virginity lark. There’s been a war on and people are more broadminded about things like that. I thought you were a very modern woman; that you’d understand.’

‘Oh, yes? Lyn Carmichael should know all about sex before marriage, is that it? Auntie Blod stood by whilst the father of her unborn child married her twin sister! Carrying on should be bred in me, should it?’

‘Oh, God, Lyn!’ He threw up his hands despairingly, then brought them down with a slap on his knees. ‘You told me just as soon as you found out that Auntie Blod was your real mother and it didn’t make one blind bit of difference then, and it doesn’t now. I liked your mother – your Auntie Blod – the minute I met her and I still like her. I’m looking forward to seeing her – and meeting your father, of course.’

‘Me, too. Years since I saw him, but he seems to have aged very gracefully, if snaps are to be believed.’ She grasped the get-out. Talk about anything, Lyn, but the fact that Kitty and Drew were good together, once. ‘I had a letter this morning; written the day before they left. They should be well on their way, now. It’s going to be a wonderful Christmas for me. My parents married at last, and staying with me. One of their cases, I believe, is packed full of unrationed food.’

‘So will they go back to Kenya? Well, the wedding is in April – will it be worth two journeys?’

‘I don’t know what is happening, Drew. I only know that in less than three weeks, they’ll be here.’

‘Would you all like to come to Rowangarth for Christmas? The mothers are going to have a lot to talk about.’

‘Sorry, Drew. New Year, maybe? It’s just that I think that Mam would like Christmas here – with her husband. She’s so happy, now. I should be mad at my father for getting her pregnant then marrying her sister, but I can’t be. And anyway, it wasn’t entirely his fault. Auntie Blod didn’t tell him till it was too late. But I really am going to wash the supper dishes, and tidy the kitchen. It’s a routine I’ve got into, so you’d best give me a hand.’

‘Okay. But only if you kiss me.’

He held out his hands, drawing her to her feet, gathering her to him, holding her close. Then he kissed her long and hard and felt her body relax against his.

‘Don’t, Drew,’ she said huskily, pulling her head away.

‘Why not? I like kissing you. You’re very good at it, when you put your mind to it.’ He kissed her again, all at once wanting her. ‘Leave the dishes, Lyn? Let’s go upstairs?’

‘No, Drew. Remember the night we got engaged – it was me put the words into your mouth, wasn’t it? And now you think I want to sleep with you because I reminded you I’m still a virgin and not sure how it would be between us, on our first night? Well, you’re wrong, and if you came all the way here just for that, then you’d better pack your bags and take your flowers and your bloody pheasant with you, and shove off. Sorry, sailor, but that’s the way it is, so stop patronizing me if you know what’s good for you!’

She ran across the room and he heard the urgent pounding of her feet on the stairs and the angry closing of the upstairs door. And worse than that, he heard the unmistakable slamming home of a door bolt.

‘So what do you do now, Drew?’ he asked of the empty room that for all that seemed full of her anger. Coming here hadn’t been such a good idea after all. Or had it, and was it he who had loused things up? Didn’t Lyn have every right to say no to him? After all, he’d done just that to her, once. Maybe it would be all right in the morning – honours even, sort of? Maybe tomorrow they could kiss and make up and things would start to come right between them? He hoped so, because if it didn’t …

But best leave it. Tomorrow was another day, wasn’t it? Yet surely tomorrow never came? They had said that, in the war. Tomorrow was a word they tried not to use.

But the war was over; over, but not forgotten it would seem, so best put the whole stupid mess behind him and get himself off to bed. He knew where the little spare room was, had slept there in the war, when once he and Lyn had hitched from the Pierhead to the crossroads that led to Auntie Blod’s place. No problem, there. Pity he couldn’t turn the clock back to that long ago weekend.

But time couldn’t be turned back, and anyway did he really want to? Did he want to wipe out the months spent with Kitty and their urgent and unashamed loving?

Of course he didn’t. Kitty had happened and he would never forget her. It would be wrong of him to try. And the hurt he felt when the letter came, telling him, was behind him now. Kitty was sleeping away time in the churchyard at All Souls; sleeping beside Gran. Kitty was gone, except for the small, secret corner of his heart that would always belong to her. And he was going to marry Lyn. In April.

He put the guard over the fire, then walked to the stair bottom, turning out the lamp, making his way carefully to the little back room. There was no light beneath Lyn’s door. She had shut him out completely; no use knocking.

He lay, hands behind head, for a long time, fighting sleep, willing her to come to him, wanting to lie close to her, soothe her doubts, kiss her fears away, take her gently and with love. But when the downstairs clock chimed once, he knew that tomorrow had come and there would be no opening of the door, no one whispering, ‘Drew? Are you awake …?’

‘So, Drew – how did it go? Got things sorted?’ Julia asked. ‘We can talk, now. Nathan won’t be back from Evensong till eight, at least. No one will interrupt us. And if you don’t want to tell me,’ she added hastily, ‘I shall understand, of course.’

‘There’s nothing to tell, Mother. Lyn was pleased to see me when I got there and I tried to get her to tell me what was bothering her; because I knew something was, I told her. And it all came out, eventually. What it boils down to is that she’s jealous of Kitty – of Kitty’s memory, I mean. And that she and I were lovers. That’s what I think hurts Lyn most. I tried to sort things; tried to get her to talk, but –’

‘But you made a mess of it?’

‘I’ll never earn a living in the Diplomatic Corps, that’s for sure. I asked her to go to bed with me and that was it! Door slammed in my face. I waited a bit; didn’t know what to do. Was hoping she would come to me, but no such luck. Anyway, things were better in the morning. I thought she had got over whatever it was, even though she didn’t seem to want to look me in the eye.

‘So I said, “Doesn’t a man get a decent good-morning from his girl, then?” and she smiled, and kissed me and said she was sorry. What for, mind, I had the sense not to ask. It was a decent day. I walked with her to the hotel, then went back to the cottage. She had left the pheasant doing slowly in the oven and instructions about basting it and to take it out if I thought it was overcooking. She was back at four. I’d peeled the potatoes and sprouts and put apples in to bake.’

‘Good for you. Didn’t know you had it in you,’ Julia grinned.

‘Mother! I did six years in the Navy, below decks. We all had to muck in, especially on the Maggie where everyone had to help out. But we had a good meal and I washed up and Lyn dried, then we listened to the wireless. There was dance music on, but we didn’t dance.’

‘Why not?’ Julia demanded sharply.

‘No room.’

‘Drew! You don’t need a ballroom! Dancing, when people are in love, is holding each other, even if you’ve only got a hearthrug to dance on. Better, that way. Andrew and I often danced without music, without moving, even. Very romantic …’

‘Mother! You don’t have to tell me how to romance a girl! Of course I wanted to hold her; we danced a lot together, once. But I was scared she’d slam down the blinds again, so I behaved myself. I kissed her goodnight, and this morning she was working ten till four, same as yesterday, so I left her at the hotel and got the first bus out. Not what you’d call a successful weekend, but at least I know now what’s bothering her.’

‘And you know how best to deal with it? Given it some thought, have you then?’

‘I have, but it isn’t going to be a lot of good, is it, when we aren’t going to see each other till Tatty’s wedding. She’s looking forward to it. Says her folks will have arrived by then and she won’t mind leaving them on their own for a couple of days. They’ll probably enjoy it, she said.’

‘So, until the wedding, you’re going to have to write to her a lot, tell her how much you love her. Pity she isn’t on the phone. She should be, you know, alone in an isolated cottage. Can’t you try doing something about it?’

‘She’s on the waiting list, Mother. Unless something happened like she was pregnant and there alone, she’s got to wait, like other people.’

‘When are we going to meet her parents?’ Julia changed tack abruptly because she knew she might explode if they didn’t talk about something else. ‘And what does Lyn call her mother – is it Auntie Blod, still?’

‘Most times it is. But I think when she sees them together and finally realizes they are married, churched, Lyn called it, she’ll call her Mum, eventually. Churched, eh? Lyn’s got a wicked sense of humour, you know. She’s fun to be with, apart from being very – well, very attractive.’

‘She’s a lovely young woman and you’re not half-bad, yourself. You’ll have beautiful children, Drew.’

‘Ha! Children, you said. The way we’re going on, they’ll be immaculately conceived!’

‘That wasn’t funny. You’re going to have to learn to be patient with Lyn. I like her; have always liked her, and I won’t be best pleased if you lose her through being stupid.’

‘I won’t lose her, Mother. I love her too much.’

‘Then keep on telling her. Write lines and lines of it in every letter. And I’m sorry, son, for going on.’ She ruffled his hair like she did when he was a boy. ‘You see, I care for you both so much and I know you’ll be happy together. I’m even having lovely little daydreams about a granddaughter with hair the colour of Lyn’s. Stupid old woman, aren’t I?’

‘Stupid? Not you, dearest. And old – never! And I’ll be patient with Lyn, don’t worry.’

He would be, he thought later when he was in bed and thinking about the weekend, and Lyn. And about not seeing her until Tatty’s wedding. And about telling her he loved her, because he did. He loved her a lot, even though he hadn’t told her so.

And that wasn’t on. Not asking a girl to go to bed with you and you not ever having said ‘I love you’. It wasn’t an accident, either. He wanted to say it, but every time he tried, the words wouldn’t come. It should be easy to say, just as he was thinking it, now.

I love you, Lyn Carmichael. I love you, love you, love you …

Then why hadn’t he told her so?

NINE

Drew sat in the winter parlour, Lyn’s letter on his knee. She must have written it immediately he left on Sunday; at work almost certainly, since it was on hotel headed notepaper and folded into an envelope bearing the name Riverstones Hotel, Llangollen on the flap. It was as well, he thought, that he had written to her that same Sunday evening; that their letters had almost certainly crossed in the post.

My darling Lyn, he had written.

I am back at Rowangarth and wondering what happened this weekend, and why things were still up in the air when I left you.

I wish you would open your heart to me completely; we are going to be married, Lyn, and there must be no secrets between us, no doubts.

For my own part, I can’t wait for our wedding day. If thoughts of a big wedding upset you, we can have a quiet one – just you and me and families, it truly doesn’t matter one iota.

If, by asking you to sleep with me on Friday night, I offended you, then I am sorry. Fact is, that I wanted you very much; wanted to hold you close and, if nothing else, to awake in the morning with you beside me.

I know you are apprehensive about things and we must talk about it next time we meet which should be on Dec 17th for Tatty’s wedding. How long will you be able to stay?

This is a muddle of a letter. What I am really trying to tell you is that I want you, only you, and that I love you very much.

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