It was frosty on Sunday when Jessie and Clare rode into Armagh, but by the time they’d sat through one more sermon on sin, collected newspapers from the shop in Railway Street and cycled back to the pump opposite Charlie Running’s cottage, only a dusting of white lay among the tangled grasses in the north facing hollows. The sun was high in a clear blue sky, the air completely still. It promised to be a warm autumn afternoon.

‘Where’ll ye go?’ asked Jessie, who’d talked of nothing but Clare’s meeting with Andrew all morning.

‘Oh, just for a ride. He didn’t mention anywhere in particular,’ replied Clare awkwardly.

‘Somewhere quiet,’ suggested Jessie. ‘A fair bit away, or yer sure to bump inta someone ye know.’

Clare looked puzzled, caught her look of long-suffering patience and did her best to look nonchalant.

‘Sure you’ll want a bit of a snog,’ said Jessie, wearily. ‘What’s the point of goin’ out with a fella if ye don’t get a bit friendly? Ye don’t want half the Grange watchin’ over the hedge, now do ye?’

‘No, you’re right there,’ replied Clare hurriedly.

Waking early, the light bright through her window, with no sound of movement from the big kitchen, she’d thought back to the afternoon at Scrabo Tower. Andrew had kissed her so unexpectedly, but she hadn’t minded at all. Now she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. The kiss hadn’t really lasted long enough for her to do much thinking at the time. But a kiss was a kiss. You couldn’t argue it away. It meant something. But what? Yes, some boys would kiss any girl who happened to be within reach. But she was sure Andrew Richardson wasn’t one of them, any more than Ronnie was. Ronnie certainly cared for her and not just because she was his cousin. But she knew that, even if he hadn’t kissed her. Andrew was quite a different matter.

‘Dark and fair,’ she said to herself. ‘Chalk and cheese.’ It seemed extraordinary two young men could be so very different, yet she should like each of them so much. She’d known Ronnie for as long as she could remember. Andrew simply stepped into her life. She’d seen very little of him, yet she’d thought about him more than she’d ever admit to Jessie. There were his postcards in the dressing chest. Each one had delighted her. He made her laugh. And yet she never thought he was trying to be funny. She couldn’t stand people who tried to be funny.

‘Where do you and Harry go?’ she asked quickly, hoping to divert Jessie from more intimate questions.

‘Maghery,’ was the prompt reply. ‘They never fish from there on a Sunday, an’ ye can get the car right down the wee path to where the boats push off. There’s never anyone about. If ye park well over on the right ye can see right across the lake to a wee island. Coney Island it’s called. It’s quite romantic,’ she added, rather less briskly.

‘We’re not going by car, you know, Jessie.’

‘What? Ye said ye were goin’ for a ride,’ replied Jessie, her tone bordering on outrage. ‘Ye mean t’ say he can’t even get the aul man’s car to take ye out?’

‘No. He said he’d an old bicycle everyone uses when he’s not there.’

Jessie raised her eyes heavenward and looked at her new watch, a recent birthday present from Harry.

‘I hafta be goin’ Clare, John’s bringin’ Aunt Sarah out fer her lunch an’ they’ll be expectin’ me. For goodness’ sake mind yerself. I’m not sure ye ought to be let out. A ride on a bicycle,’ she repeated, raising her eyebrows. ‘An’ him a Richardson from Drumsollen, even if they have lost their cash,’ she added, as she wheeled her bicycle back onto the road. ‘I’ll see ye in a fortnight an’ don’t let me down for the Ritz on the Saturday. Just go easy at Drumsollen an’ don’t wear yerself out,’ she advised, as she pressed the pedal and swung herself into the saddle.

Clare smiled as she, too, set off. What would Jessie say if she let on she’d thought Andrew meant a ride on a horse.

 

‘See ye enjoy yerself now,’ said Robert, as he undid his boots and pushed them off after their meal. ‘It’s a great day t’ be out. What time did ye say yer young man was comin’ at?’

‘Half two,’ she replied, looking from the clock on the mantelpiece to the wag on the wall and back. One ran fast and the other ran slow, but it was still only about two.

‘Is he at Drumsollen fer long?’

‘No, I think he’s only here for the funeral. He’s at Cambridge and term has started. I’m sure he’s got to go back right away.’

‘So he’s at the books like yerself?’ he said, nodding to himself. ‘His father was a powerful clever man, so they say. But it niver affected him one bit. He’d talk away t’ ye as if he’d been to the school room wi’ the rest of us. He useta bring the Drumsollen horses over before the war. I suppose there’s none left now,’ he said matter-of-factly, as he leant back in his chair, out of breath from the effort of bending over.

‘I don’t think so,’ she said slowly. ‘There was that chestnut mare last year.’

‘Aye. I mind that well. Sure the day he first came lookin’ after ye I thought I was seein’ things he was that like the father, though when he spoke it was the mother I heerd. Manys a time she’d come with a horse on a leading rein if all the men was away. She’d sit down on that aul bench in her good clothes an’ niver give it a thought. Other times she rode a wee black mare with a flash on its brow, “Star” she called it. That horse woud a done anythin’ fer her. Niver had a bit o’ bother shoeing it. She’d stan’ by the bridle an’ talk to it.’

Clare saw a smile play across his lips as he settled himself more comfortably. It was a sign he was ready to tell a story. She’d learnt to watch for it since the days when she first tried to get him to tell her about the people in the big photograph of the Sunday school outing in The Room. He was such a silent man, it was seldom he talked at any length, but that little smile was always a good omen.

‘“Now then, Star”,’ she’d say,’ he began, speaking very precisely, ‘“lift up your foot for Mr Scott”,’ he said, with a little laugh. ‘An’ ye know that wee mare woud do it. I niver once had to pull her by the fetlocks or say “Hup there”. She woud tell it what to do an’ it did it. I niver seen the like of it.’

He stood up abruptly, the smile gone, a look of such sadness passing over his features Clare was quite taken aback.

‘Sure the luck went out o’ Drumsollen when they took the wee lad to school in England an’ none o’ them came back,’ he said, sadly. ‘June Colvin wept sore over the wee lad. She tole me once she didn’t get over him goin’ away t’ school till she met John an’ they had wee Helen,’ he added, as he stood up.

He tramped halfway across the kitchen and then turned back on his step, the sadness replaced by a slight twinkle in the eyes.

‘Sure maybe we’ll be seein’ more of young Andrew now, horse or no horse,’ he said, as he disappeared into The Room.

 

Although she was five minutes early herself, Clare found Andrew sitting on the low bank at the foot of the lane waiting for her, a decrepit-looking bicycle drawn up on the grass verge by the road.

‘Where shall we go?’ he said, as he jumped up and came to meet her. ‘’Fraid I’ve got to be back by five, John Wiley’s taking me to the boat, so we’re having an early meal.’

‘What about Cannon Hill?’

Clare was amazed at the way the name popped out before she’d even thought about it. The minute she said it, she regretted it. What on earth would she do if William and some of his friends took a notion to go up there or they ran into a collection of aunts and cousins out for a Sunday afternoon walk and she had to introduce them?

‘Sounds good. Where is it? Is there a canon?’ he asked enthusiastically when she told him it had a clear view for miles around.

‘I haven’t been there since I was a little girl,’ she confessed, as they whizzed down the hill towards Scott’s Corner and turned right towards Ballybrannan.

‘I haven’t been on this road for years,’ said Andrew suddenly. ‘Whose is the big farm opposite the school?’

He plied her with questions all the way and was still talking as they reached the five-barred gate at the foot of the steep slope.

‘Oh dear,’ said Clare, looking round as she parked her bicycle ‘That wasn’t here last time I came.’

A notice had been tied to the gate. In crooked letters on a piece of plywood it said: ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted. By order.’

Andrew shook his head and took her hand to help her over.

‘No standing whatever in law,’ he said firmly. ‘You can only prosecute if damage has been caused and as this field is not even being seriously grazed, we’d be hard put to damage anything but an unlucky buttercup. Come on.’

Clare climbed over the gate and waited for him to follow.

‘Down in Fermanagh, they don’t prosecute, they persecute,’ he said, as he dropped lightly on both feet. ‘I’ve never been able to decide whether it’s intentional ferocity or inadequate spelling.’

She laughed, her unease resolved. He’d talked so continuously and asked so many questions as they rode along, she hadn’t known what to think. Now she could see his face and the set of his body it was perfectly clear. Andrew was happy.

Swinging their clasped hands and avoiding the odd patch of thistle, they made their way towards the tall finger of stone at the summit.

‘I know it was Sir Capel Molyneux had it built, but I’ve forgotten why,’ she confessed, as they drew nearer.

‘Oh, Sir Capel, was it? Mad as a hatter was Sir Capel, but nice with it, so I’ve heard. Set up a bird sanctuary in Castledillon. The Molyneux’s are our next-door neighbours in the vault of Grange Church. Very quiet neighbours,’ he said cheerfully. ‘How little were you when you came here last?’

‘Nine, I think. Yes. It was August ’46. I came to stay with Granda Scott for a holiday,’ she explained, ‘but it was really to see if he could cope. I wanted to come back to Armagh, but Auntie Polly thought it might be a bit much for him. She said Granda never was any good with children.’

‘But it worked?’

‘Yes, it did,’ she said, as they reached the top of the hill and flopped down, breathless, among the tall stems of buttercup, bright with green seed heads.

‘Did he bring you here?’

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Poor dear Granda couldn’t take me anywhere because of his bad leg. But my other grandparents live just down the road. The curve of the hill hides their farm, but it’s not far. My Uncle Jack took Granda and I over to tea one Sunday and I came up here with a collection of aunts and uncles. I couldn’t work out who was who that day. There were ten in my father’s family.’

‘And your mother’s?’

‘Six. Aunt Mary doesn’t keep in touch. She’s in Michigan. Florence is in London, Bob’s in Antrim, Johnny’s in Fermanagh and Auntie Polly’s in Toronto now.’

They stood up and began to view the wide expanse of countryside laid out before them.

‘I envy you, Clare,’ he said suddenly, throwing his head back and staring up at the bright white clouds streaming across the blue sky from the west. ‘You have your whole world spread out around you.’

He waved a hand at the western horizon where the tower and spires of Armagh’s two cathedrals rose above the roofs and trees of the city. Then he turned round and gazed over the low hills to the east, their slopes dotted with apple orchards and farms, their small fields a patchwork of ploughed earth, tramped stubble and vivid, green pasture.

‘But Andrew, look at all you’ve done, all you’ve seen,’ she protested. ‘My world is like a teacup compared with yours. You’ve travelled abroad, you’ve lived in France, you’ve been all over England. You’ve been to Scotland. I’ve never been further from home than Belfast. I’ve never been in any counties other than Armagh and Down, while you’ve been to Dublin, stayed in Cavan and goodness knows how many other places in Ireland.’

He smiled sheepishly as they sat down again in a patch of sunshine. They watched in silence as the bright white clouds cast their shadows across the patterned landscape. Clare looked at him cautiously. A hint of a smile still lingered on his lips, but his eyes were travelling hungrily round the small farms at the foot of the hill as if he were searching for something.

‘Don’t you want to go back?’ she asked.

To her great surprise, he turned towards her, leant forward and kissed her. She made no effort to move away.

‘I’d rather stay here with you,’ he admitted. He put his arms round her and kissed her again. And again. As she responded something said to her that whatever this was, it wasn’t snogging.

They sat very close together in the sunshine, their arms around each other. He told her he’d always loved Drumsollen and the countryside around it. All through his time at prep school he longed to go home, but his visits were always cut short. He’d hardly arrived when he’d be sent on to someone else. Some years, there was no visit at all, though his grandfather always wrote to him and was welcoming.

‘I’ve never really been able to understand why my grandmother so dislikes me, but I know she can’t stand the sight of me. If it weren’t for Grandfather I’d never set eyes on the place,’ he said sadly.

For a moment, he fell silent, such a desolate look on his face she almost gasped.

‘Clare, you will you go on writing, won’t you?’ he burst out, a note almost of desperation in his voice.

She pressed herself gently against him and squeezed his hand.

‘Yes, of course I’ll write, Andrew. Of course, I will,’ she said quietly. ‘On one condition, though.’

He looked so crestfallen as she said it she put her hand to his cheek and kissed him gently.

‘Don’t look so alarmed. It’s not so difficult. I only want to know why you don’t like writing letters.’

Clare looked at him as she waited for him to reply. The sunlight dappled his pale skin and pulled out hints of red in his fair hair. He was wearing a white shirt, open at the neck and a pair of grey flannels, just like any of the senior boarders from the Royal School who walked out the Portadown Road on a Sunday afternoon. Yet he seemed older by far than the two years separating him from the few boys she’d met through Debating Society. More poised, more relaxed.

‘Maybe I haven’t a problem anymore,’ he said slowly. ‘I did manage a page last time. And it was blue,’ he said, solemnly.

He looked so bleak she couldn’t bear to ask him why the colour of the paper was so important.

‘I arrived at prep school on a Thursday,’ he continued, with a rush. ‘My parents were killed that night. I spent Friday in the San. With Matron. She was nice, played tiddlywinks with me. But she wasn’t there on Saturday and Sunday, so I had to go back to school routine, sport and prep and that sort of thing,’ he said flatly. ‘On the Sunday we went to the prep hall after lunch and they handed out these sheets of blue paper, so we could write to our parents. I just sat and looked at the paper. I couldn’t speak. I suppose I was afraid I might cry. Not done you know. I nearly got a detention when the master on duty wanted to know why I wasn’t getting on with it. And then some boy said: ‘Sir, Richardson’s mater and pater were killed in an air-raid in London.’

He turned to her and smiled unexpectedly. ‘Isn’t it silly, after all this time?’

‘No, it isn’t. It was a terrible thing to happen. That master should have been sacked. Or someone should. It was unforgivable if he knew, and if he didn’t, it was unforgivable for no one to have told him,’ she said angrily. ‘And you were only seven.’

Suddenly she remembered the school in Belfast. All those rowdy, unknown children, the young man who waved his arms around and scolded them, the echoing yard full of the noise of traffic and her own tears over which she had no control whatever.

‘I was luckier,’ she said quickly. ‘I had Auntie Polly and Uncle Jimmy. But I ended up bottom of my class at school later that year, because I hadn’t my mother to help me learn my spellings.’

He drew her even closer and she laid her head on his shoulder.

‘I hate to tell you, Andrew, but it’s time you were getting back.’

‘Oh Lord, so it is,’ he said, drawing her to her feet.

‘Why don’t you try writing to me on sheets of exercise book?’ she said as they hurried back down the slope, ‘or wrapping paper?’ she added as she climbed over the chained up gate.

‘Or toilet paper?’ he suggested.

‘Bit thin,’ she said. They both laughed.

There was no one about in the narrow lane, so he took her in his arms again. She drew away reluctantly, suddenly aware of time passing. Kissing Andrew was the easiest thing in the world.

‘I’ll get back next summer, somehow or other, Clare. Don’t go marrying anyone in the meantime, will you?’ he said awkwardly, as they pulled in at the foot of her lane.

‘I’ll be far too busy,’ she said, laughing. ‘I’m going to try for a scholarship.’

‘Good,’ he said, looking relieved. ‘You’ll get it. I know you will. We’ll celebrate together when I come,’ he said firmly.

He looked around hastily. There wasn’t a soul anywhere to be seen. He leant over and kissed her.

‘I’ll write to you as soon as I get back,’ he promised, as he pushed off and freewheeled down the hill, one arm raised high in the air, waving to her until he knew he was out of sight.

 

Andrew was as good as his word. He wrote regularly and at length through the months that followed. She’d draw out brightly coloured paper decorated with smiling faces or stick figures, laugh, and think longingly back to that one happy afternoon on Cannon Hill. At other times, she was just so glad to hear from him she hardly noticed the paper or decorations.

To her surprise, the months seemed to move at twice the speed she’d expected. With little to look forward to other than the routine of school work and housework, Saturdays at Drumsollen and occasional visits to the Ritz with Jessie, she could hardly believe Christmas was long past and February’s mock exams already on top of her.

She confessed to Andrew that she was afraid she’d never find time for all the work she felt she had to do. Writing back, he did his best to reassure her she’d probably done far more already than she realised. He even tried to warn her of the danger of overdoing it, but only the mock results made much difference. They left her little doubt that all would be well. Only then did she realise how anxious she’d been.

One March evening Robert and Charlie went over to Loughgall. She managed to finish her homework early and sat down and wrote him a long letter.

She paused, tapping the end of her fountain pen against her cheek, thinking of the enormous difference between their worlds. A few weeks ago he’d used notepaper from a top London hotel she’d often read about. He said he thought it would make a change from lined A4, so he’d asked his cousin to pinch some for him. She’d been there with his aunt looking the place over to see if she’d like it for her ‘coming out’ dance!

Clare stared at the window on the orchard side of the house. It reflected back her own image in the lamplight as she sat imagining Caroline’s debut. Andrew would go, of course, and dance with all the beautifully dressed girls who had just been presented at court and were also ‘coming out’. He would tell her about it, no doubt. He always told her what he was doing, where he’d been and how much he’d like to have her there. And she knew he meant every word of it. It was very strange, very strange indeed.

Only one thing was missing from his letters. In none of them did he say anything about his own work. When she asked him directly he admitted that he found Law studies boring, but he saw no immediate alternative. He’d do what was necessary, however, and get the relevant piece of paper. It would be his passport to a job in Belfast. He hoped his Grandfather would use his contacts to find him a place to do his articles.

What he said made perfectly good sense to Clare. She couldn’t have spent her favourite month of the year shut up in the boys’ room for these last three years without having grasped that, often, you have to do what you don’t want to do, for the sake of the future.

She sat for a long time looking at what she had written, thinking of him, remembering the comfort of his arms and the touch of his lips. Jessie always referred to him as ‘yer man, Andrew’ never as ‘your boyfriend’. That was strange too, given how anxious Jessie was to ‘get her fixed up’. Yet she knew it was no accident. Jessie was shrewd, and ‘boyfriend’ was definitely not the right word. She wasn’t sure she wanted ‘a boyfriend’, but she certainly wanted Andrew. She wanted his warm affection and his openness, his way of encouraging her and keeping her spirits up. ‘Boyfriends’ were passing features of the landscape. Andrew was something quite different.

‘How do I see him?’ she asked herself, in the quiet of the empty room, where only the tick of two clocks and the hiss of the Tilley lamp broke the quiet of the evening.

‘No,’ she said firmly, aware of the ambiguity of her question. ‘I really mustn’t think about seeing him at all. It will be ages yet. He can’t possibly come before the middle of August and that’s on the other side of the examinations. And the results. An eternity away.’

 

The results came out the first week in August and she cycled in to collect them. As she stood staring at the thin strip of paper in the spacious entrance hall of the new school building tears streamed down her face. She’d done even better than she’d dared hope, her average marks far higher than the figure which would give her a County Scholarship.

Hastily, she made her way to the cloakroom, shut herself in one of the lavatories and sat there sobbing till the tears finally stopped.

‘What a way to celebrate,’ she said to herself, as she washed her face in one of the spotless new hand basins and dried it on an immaculate roller towel.

She stepped out into the echoing corridor and walked slowly back to the entrance hall. All was quiet. Light poured down onto the wide, shallow stairs from the tall, staircase window. Through the wired glass doors of the assembly hall she saw the sunshine spill across the polished floor, obliterating the line markings for netball and badminton. Apart from the school secretary in her office upstairs, she hadn’t seen a soul. The handful of other girls who’d done A-level with her were away on holiday. Or had a phone to ring the secretary.

She lingered for a moment longer, so aware that when next she stood in this place, she would be collecting her prizes, one of the very few girls not wearing uniform to walk across the platform. She would be eighteen, a student, her school days over.

Feeling strangely sad and lonely, she collected her bicycle from the back of the building and was just about to ride down the driveway when she saw a tall, blue-clad figure waving to her. It was the school caretaker, the man who had once come looking for Clare Hamilton in her primary school, half her lifetime ago.

‘Hello, Mr Stinson, how are you?’ she asked, stopping beside him as he hurried over from his house to meet her.

‘Gran’. It’s very quiet wi’out all you wee lassies in the holidays.’

‘Less hard work I should think,’ she said, smiling at him.

‘Been up to see Elizabeth?’ he asked cautiously.

‘Good news,’ she said. ‘I’m for Queens.’

‘Ach, good girl yerself. I said to the wife this mornin’ ye’d be in till see how ye did. Ah, she’ll be that pleased when I tell her. Congratulations. Ye’ve done well. Lass time I saw yer Granda in town he was full of it. Is he well?’

‘Yes, he’s in great form. He loves the warm weather.’

‘Aye, we don’t get a lot of it, but it’s been nice so far this summer. Tell him I was askin’ for him. I’ll look out fer ye on Speech Day,’ he said, raising a hand, as she set off down the avenue between the newly-planted rose beds.

‘Did ye get it, Clare. Did ye get it?’

As she got off her bicycle at the foot of the lane, the eldest of the Robinson children bore down on her.

‘Yes, Charlie, I did.’

Without another word, the little boy turned and raced back up the lane.

‘She got it,’ he shouted, without pausing, as he passed the door of the forge and flew round its far gable on the well-tramped grass path to the farm.

The hammering stopped. Before she’d parked her bicycle against the wall, Charlie Running had rushed out and grabbed her hand.

‘Congratulations, Clare, this is just great.’

‘Thanks, Charlie,’ she said, as she looked up and saw Robert, his hammer still in his hand.

‘Diden I tell ye ye’d get it?’ he said, quietly. ‘Yer mother an’ father woud be proud o’ you. An’ so am I,’ he said, nodding vigorously. ‘Come on, Charlie, come up t’ the house. As you woud say, we’ve no champagne so we may make do wi’ a drop o’ tea.’

He turned quickly, letting the hammer drop on the bench by the door, before he limped off. She was sure there were tears in his eyes.

But a moment later, they were all smiling again. As they reached the front door, a small figure shot up the shortcut from the farm, a plate gripped firmly in his two hands.

‘Here y’ar,’ he said, thrusting the plate with its freshly-iced cake into Clare’s hands. ‘Ma says “Well done, ye deserve it.” Coud I have a wee piece o’ cake too?’

 

The weeks that followed Clare’s good news were among the happiest she’d ever spent. The weather stayed dry and warm, Robert was in excellent spirits, and the postman brought nothing but gifts and congratulations. Auntie Polly sent a dress, a skirt and some warm slacks to help Clare get ready for going up to Belfast. Ronnie wrote a long enthusiastic letter, hinting he might manage a visit the following year. As well as his full-time job on a Toronto newspaper he now wrote a regular column in a newspaper for Ulster-Scots exiles. He’d used her accounts of the forge and the events in the community, as the basis of some of his weekly articles. ‘Much better paid than the beauty hints,’ he explained, knowing that otherwise she’d protest at the number of dollars he’d enclosed.

Even Sarah and Sadie wrote in reply to her letters. Sarah said that the Lord had looked kindly upon her and she must not stop going to church now she was a student. Sadie said there was nothing like a good education to help a girl get on in the world.

But the letter that brought greatest joy was from Andrew. As he’d expected, he’d be spending a few days at Drumsollen at the end of August. His good news was that Aunt Helen had invited him to Caledon and she’d said she’d be happy for Clare to come and stay. If that wasn’t possible, she hoped she’d come over every day. She knew Ginny and Edward were looking forward to seeing her, as she was herself.

Clare was touched by the warmth of the invitation and overjoyed at the prospect of spending so much time with Andrew. She didn’t feel she could leave Robert to go and stay at Caledon but Andrew assured her they’d collect her every day and stop in Armagh for any shopping she had to do.

Each morning, he arrived promptly at the forge with Edward, or Virginia, or both of them. Sometimes he drove Aunt Helen’s small car, other times Virginia used the ancient Landrover she’d bought to help with her job at the riding school where she started as a trainer in a few weeks’ time. When all else failed, it was Edward who acted as chauffeur. Then they had to squash into the ancient, blue van he’d borrowed from the handyman who worked full-time on the elegant but crumbling gentleman’s residence that was their home.

Clare loved the Caledon house, a long, low pavilion-style residence with tall windows looking out over the lawns to trees and meadows beyond. It was full of fine furniture, silver and family portraits, but had none of the clutter and neglect she had found at Drumsollen, for it was a much loved home, the rooms full of flowers and plants, books and painting materials.

Aunt Helen had always painted, but had had no heart for it after the totally unexpected, sudden death of her husband. Coaxed by Virginia in the last few months, she’d begun again. She made sketches of the four of them and as the days passed it seemed that having four young people instead of two, did wonders for her spirits.

‘Such good practise,’ she would say, as she took out a pad and scribbled away, producing the head of one of them, a detail of a hand, the outline of the little group as they sat, or lay, resting after some activity.

‘I think I should practise on you, Clare,’ said Virginia, one afternoon as they relaxed after a vigorous three sets in the shade beside the tennis court. ‘Are you game?’

‘Depends what you want to practise, Ginny,’ Clare laughed, as she propped herself up on one elbow and looked across at her. ‘Not first aid, please.’

‘She needs to practise her backhand,’ said Edward wearily. ‘That’s why you and Andrew always beat us.’

Andrew grinned and settled himself more comfortably.

‘I’d say myself that you were just outclassed by superior players.’

Virginia poked him with her toe.

‘You are a silly. I meant I ought to teach Clare to ride. Practise my teaching technique. Besides, poor old Conker isn’t getting nearly enough exercise with all our jaunts and outings.’

‘Conker?’

Clare shaded her eyes from the dazzle of the sun and looked quizzically at Ginny who’d rolled over on her stomach and was now resting on her elbows.

‘My horse,’ she explained. ‘Her posh name is Tara Princess but I can’t exactly call her that when I’m trying to get her over a fence. She’s a chestnut, you see.’

Clare turned out to be an able pupil. She had no fear of either the chestnut mare nor the distance between her saddle and the ground. Ginny insisted on her practising every morning as soon as she arrived. Andrew and Edward observed her critically from the paddock gate. She sat straight-backed yet relaxed, as if she’d been doing it all her life.

‘You’re a natural,’ said Ginny, after ten days, as Clare slid from the saddle and came round to stroke Conker’s nose.

‘And you’re a very good teacher,’ replied Clare, ‘I’m sure you’ll end up with your own riding stables one day.’

To her great surprise, she saw Ginny blush with pleasure and stride off towards the house.

‘Come on, Clare. The boys will be waiting. Edward’s been working on a yet more ghastly form of his obstacle golf. We’ll have to show willing.’

 

The days passed quickly. Each one of the four young people grew increasingly aware that this holiday was a boundary, the end of one part of their life and the beginning of something quite new. Ginny was excited about the new job but apprehensive and needed to be reassured by the others. Edward was going back to school to do his A-levels, but as yet he had no idea what he wanted to do after. Meantime, he refused to think about it. Apart from cooking omelettes, packing picnic baskets and doing his share of the chores, he devoted himself entirely to devising bizarre games of skill which he usually won.

For Andrew, there’d been success and disappointment. He passed his exams creditably and acquired his ‘piece of paper’ but his uncle insisted he join the family firm in Winchester to do his articles. As he’d paid for most of his education, there was little Andrew could do but agree.

‘Couldn’t your grandfather find you something in Belfast,’ asked Ginny, on one of the rare, wet afternoons. They were playing Monopoly on the big scrubbed table in the kitchen.

‘Yes, I expect so,’ Andrew replied sadly, ‘but that’s not the point. Beggars can’t be choosers, as they say.’

‘Hmm,’ said Edward sharply, as he decided to buy property on Old Kent Road. ‘Perhaps I’ll take economics, become a property developer, make a fortune and then decide what I want to do.’

‘What would you do Ginny, if you had a fortune?’ asked Clare, fairly sure she could guess what her new friend would say.

‘Oh, you know, Clare. I’d breed horses and train up showjumpers. But it costs a fortune to do it properly.’

‘I’m sure Edward wouldn’t mind making a fortune for you,’ Clare said laughingly, as she saw Edward hold out his hand to Andrew for yet one more rent.

‘What about you, Andrew?’ she asked, as he handed it over. ‘If you had Edward’s stacks of money?’ She waved at his increasing pile of notes. ‘What would you do?’

‘Buy some cows.’

They all laughed, as Andrew threw a pair of sixes and began to protest.

‘Yes, I would. I’d rent some of your spare acres, Edward. Buy a cottage in the village and start a dairy herd. Once I’d got it going, I’d look for place of my own and see what arable I could have. I don’t believe in monoculture, it’s bad for the land,’ he said calmly, as he moved round the board and once again landed on a piece of Edward’s property.

‘But what about you, Clare?’ asked Ginny, as she lined up a new hotel on Bond Street.

‘Travel, I think. Far away places with strange sounding names. But Europe first, France and Germany, all the places I know so well from my reading but have never actually seen.’

‘But you wouldn’t go and live abroad, would you, Clare?’ asked Ginny, with a sideways look at Andrew.

Clare shook her head firmly.

‘Oh good,’ said Ginny with a sigh. ‘I shall need you for my bridesmaid when I find a nice millionaire. I think that would be quicker than waiting for Edward to get rich,’ she added, smiling with delight, as Edward landed on her most expensive piece of property.

 

Although they talked so much and spent so much time together, Clare and Andrew had very little time to be alone. Only in the evening, when he took her back to the forge, would they stop in some quiet field entrance before they arrived to say a proper goodnight. But one evening at the end of their second week Virginia and Edward went off to a birthday party for a woman who looked after them when they were small, leaving them to their own devices. They’d walked down from the house and turned along the narrow path beside the stream that bounded the estate.

‘Only two more days, Clare. How am I ever going to be able to part with you?’ he said, taking her in his arms as soon as they were out of sight of the house.

‘Perhaps your grandfather will come to our rescue, now he knows how you feel. When you told him about your uncle’s plan, you said he hadn’t realised how much you wanted to come home.’

‘Mmm. He thought I’d be happy to be within reach of London and the bright lights. He said that’s what he wanted at my age.’

They moved slowly along the bank of the stream, the evening sunlight spilling through the leaves, catching the shallow ripples and turning them to gold. Clouds of midges rose and fell in the cool, dark shadows beneath the heavy foliage on the far bank. Somewhere a blackbird sang.

‘I suppose you do want different things at different ages,’ Clare said, wondering if she could ever feel happier than she’d felt in these last weeks.

‘I know what I shall always want,’ he said firmly, stopping on the narrow path and taking both her hands. ‘I want us to be together. However long it takes, that’s what I want.’

 

The next evening, they left Caledon early, so that Clare could bring him to meet Robert properly. Charlie was there when they arrived, but the moment they stepped through the kitchen door, he remembered he’d another call he simply had to make. She’d never seen him disappear so fast in all the time she’d known him.

To her surprise, Robert was not at all put out by Andrew’s presence on the settle by the stove. By the time she’d made tea, he and Robert were talking about horses as if she wasn’t even there.

‘He’s a right fella,’ said Robert, when she came back from seeing him off. ‘Many’s a young fella looks fine on a well-turned mare, but he’s rightly on the ground forby.’

He lit two candles and prepared to put out the lamp before bed.

‘You’ll not go far astray there.’