Jack Moth had not wished to visit his inheritance, Mere Manor, but Esther had persuaded him that, whether he liked it or not, he had certain duties and responsibilities. And, having persuaded him that he must at least visit the place and talk to the estate manager and staff, and as Bindon had been ordered away on a seven-day firearms course, she volunteered to accompany her brother.
‘Have you thought about the staff, Jack? It is not their fault that Sir Norbert left the place in your care.’
‘Nor is it my fault that Sir Norbert was irresponsible enough not to consult the person he nominated to run the damn place. He should have found out at least that I am not only not a fit person, but am not in the slightest interested in country estates and farms.’
‘I doubt if it would occur to any benefactor that his heir would be upset at having a country estate wished upon him.’
‘Then it should have occurred to him. It is a Clermont way of trying to claim me. Whatever I become in life, I want to have become it by my own efforts. I will not have my life interfered with by the Clermonts. They have to learn that they cannot buy everybody.’
‘I should have thought they learned that when Mother and Father married in spite of them.’
In the end Esther had persuaded him, and the outcome was that they were now dining on an express train as it steamed through the West Country towards Lyme Regis.
‘Oh Jack, come on, cheer up.’ His sister poked him in the ribs as she used to when he was in a mood with his mathematics and flung his books across the room. ‘Are you sure that your objection is not to do with the fact that Sir Norbert turned out to be not the kind of person a man can be proud to inherit from? Not a little afraid of what people might think?’
‘Ess!’ Jack almost blushed at what his sister was suggesting. Married woman or not, he was taken aback both that she knew of Sir Norbert’s secret life and that she referred to it openly.
‘Being a married woman has gone to your head. You have come out with some very shocking things recently.’
‘Oh, how stuffy you are growing. You are in grave danger of becoming a lawyer. Mentioning perversion to my own brother is hardly shocking, there is no one to overhear us. It would be quite understandable if you were perturbed that people might wonder whether you had inherited Mere for some special reason to do with him.’
‘Oh Ess, do give over. How much do you think that people know? I mean, the whole matter was hushed up and nobody mentioned anything at the funeral or the reading of the will. Lord, Esther, how comes it that you know? I mean, dammit, it is not the kind of thing young women usually know about.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Don’t you mean that it is not the kind of thing that young men like to believe that young women know about? I think that I knew about him before I was old enough to know that he was perverted. You remember how he used to take us all down to the lake and how he would always be ready with a towel for the older cousins – not the girls. Girls get to sense such things when they are still quite little; so that when a man like Sir Norbert takes no interest in them, they see at once that he is not the same as other men around them. He never made much fuss of any of us girl cousins, or bought us any of the expensive surprises he did you boys.’
To Jack, Bindon was stodgy and a stuffed shirt with no imagination, yet somehow he had been the catalyst for change in his sister. A cliché it is true, but she had blossomed. Yet to Jack he was the same unimaginative army officer who had courted her faithfully for three years. ‘Marriage suits you, Ess. I shouldn’t have believed it.’
‘You have just said that it has gone to my head.’ Unexpectedly, she blushed. ‘I think that I am very lucky to have found someone like Bindon. I only wish that he was not a soldier. I am afraid for him going off to fight.’
Jack put his large hand over her tiny one. ‘Bindon will be all right, Ess. I ask you, what general is going to send the drums and trumpets into battle?’
Appreciating his attempt to comfort her by joking, she smiled. ‘He says that he is a soldier first and a musician second.’
‘Perhaps they will keep him in a safe place and only bring him out to sound the bugles when there is a victory.’
‘Oh Jack, aren’t wars the most terrible things? I never thought about it before. Until recently wars and battles took place in history lessons and Shakespeare plays. When I was young, I never thought of there being actual people involved, but simply Roundheads and Cavaliers, Picts and Scots. Suddenly, wars are fought by men called Bindon, and Alexander and Philip and Robert and Jack.’
He was about to say something about that when she said, ‘I have to tell someone. I am going to… I am expecting a child.’ She was visibly delighted.
‘Ess! So soon?’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
‘Dearest Ess, it means nothing except that I am surprised and delighted. I had not expected to become an uncle so soon. You will be the best of mothers.’
She pressed his hand and smiled affectionately. ‘“Uncle Jack”. How does that sound? I have written to tell Bindon.’
‘Well, he will be pleased.’
‘I know. We had planned to take a house in Southsea and suggest to father that we take Kitt with us. But I suppose that he will not return to Southsea until the war is over.’
‘Father must take responsibility for Kitt now. He has relied upon you for too long. I think that you and Bindon should still consider taking a place on your own. If you stay on at Windsor Villa, it is inevitable that you will still be responsible for Kitt.’
‘But I want to be close to Bindon when he returns.’
‘Do you know where his regiment will be based when it returns?’
‘No. Though he has heard unofficially that it is to be moved to Salisbury.’
‘That would be about two hours’ train journey to London, and another half-hour to get to Hampstead.’
‘Yes, not really much difference from the time it takes him to get from Southsea to London.’
He smiled and clasped her two hands between his own. ‘And scarcely different from the journey we’re on now. Salisbury to Exeter and five minutes in the trap to Mere.’
‘Jack!’
‘Why not?’
‘Leave London?’
‘Yes, have your child at Mere, Ess. Take the place as your home, put the mark of normality on the place, the mark of the Moths.’