When Lyddie woke, Liam was already up. She could hear him in the bathroom, whistling beneath his breath, as he ran hot water for his shave. Stretching out across the bed, pulling the pillows about her, she lay contentedly – half waking, half dreaming – until a gush of water in the wastepipe and a closing door announced Liam’s presence.
‘Not still asleep?’ He sighed, shaking his head as he dragged on jeans and a sweatshirt. ‘And me thinking that you’d be downstairs getting the coffee on. That poor dog will be crossing his legs, I should imagine.’
‘You’ve let him out already. And had some coffee.’ She was unmoved, too comfortable to feel guilty. ‘What’s the time?’
‘Ten to eight. Of course, it’s all very well for those of us who work at home . . .’
‘Oh, shut up,’ she said lazily. ‘You’d hate to work at home. You can’t go half an hour without needing to speak to someone.’
‘Just as well in my job,’ he answered cheerfully. He bent to peer at himself in the glass on the small pine chest, whistling again beneath his breath as he dragged a comb through his thick, dark hair.
‘Who’s opening up today?’ she asked, hands behind her head, watching him appreciatively. ‘Isn’t it Joe’s turn?’
‘It is, indeed. A nice slow start for us, although I need to go to the bank.’ He turned to look at her, catching her glance and smiling to himself. ‘You look very beautiful, lying there.’ He bent over her, kissing her lightly, and she put her arms about him, pulling him down, so that he was half kneeling, half lying. ‘And to think,’ he murmured in her ear, ‘if it hadn’t been for that damn dog of yours, I wouldn’t be up at all. And you feeling sexy this morning. Isn’t it just my luck?’
She chuckled, releasing him. ‘You don’t do too badly. A doting wife and all that adulation from your female customers.’ She was learning that a light touch earned approval. ‘Most men would kill for the amount of attention you get.’
‘Ah, there’s safety in numbers,’ he told her, kneeling back on his heels. ‘And what about you and Joe, if it comes to that, canoodling together in the snug while I’m working like a dog? What do you talk about, the two of you?’
‘Joe’s nice.’ There was a sweetness in the knowledge that he’d noticed. ‘He’s great company. He talks about things that you find boring, like books and films. We discuss the plots and relationships, how they work and why, and he gets right into the characters so that it’s like talking about real people. He’s compassionate too: he doesn’t mock at their weaknesses like you do.’
‘Ah, that’s just his way of chatting you up, cunning fellow that he is. You’ll need to watch yourself, I can see that. But he doesn’t make you laugh the way I can.’
‘No,’ she admitted, almost reluctantly, a tiny frown appearing, ‘no, he doesn’t, but then he doesn’t flirt like you do, either . . .’
He kissed the rest of the sentence away – until she forgot Joe entirely and the frown was smoothed into delight – and then carefully, gently, detached himself. She clung briefly, though instinct warned her against any show of possessiveness, and sighing regretfully, she pushed back the duvet, running her hands through her black hair.
‘Make me some coffee while I have a shower, would you, Liam? Tell the Bosun I’m on my way.’
‘I’ll do that.’ He hesitated, watching her thoughtfully. ‘If you were quick we could drive out to Malpas and give him a walk along the river. It’s a fantastic morning. Would you like that?’
‘Oh, I’d love it.’ Her face was bright with anticipation. ‘And so would he. Are you sure?’
He shrugged. ‘Sure I’m sure. Joe can manage without me for an hour or so. It doesn’t get really busy until around midday and we’ll be back long before then.’
‘I’ll be five minutes,’ she promised. ‘Well, ten.’
She fled along the passage to the bathroom and Liam went downstairs, frowning a little, to tell the Bosun about the treat in store for him.
‘It’s a glorious morning.’ Mina opened the kitchen door to let the dogs out into the freedom of the garden. ‘How about a little trip in the camper?’ She stood watching Nogood Boyo quartering the ground below the bird-table whilst Polly Garter sat down on a mossy flagstone to scratch vigorously at an ear. The little yard was full of morning sunshine, glinting on tiny ferns and the round-leaved pennywort growing in the cracks of the cliff, which rose sheer as a wall behind the house.
Nest, eating a Victoria plum from the orchard, turned her chair from the breakfast table and looked out.
‘We could go to the Fuchsia Valley,’ suggested Mina, ‘and have some coffee. Or the Hunter’s Inn. Or over the moor to Simonsbath.’
‘Simonsbath,’ said Nest, dropping the plum stone into her cereal bowl and licking her fingers appreciatively. ‘It’s just the morning for a drive across the moor.’
‘We could take the whole day off,’ offered Mina. ‘Coffee at Simonsbath, on to Dunster and back over Countisbury. We might as well make the most of it.’
She didn’t add ‘before Georgie arrives’ but it was implicit in the glance the sisters exchanged.
‘Did you manage to get through to Helena just now?’ Nest asked, trying to sound casual, almost indifferent.
‘Yes.’ Mina was now peering out of the door. ‘Yes, I did. She was very relieved. And grateful. They’re bringing Georgie down on Saturday.’
‘On Saturday?’ Nest exclaimed. ‘Good grief! They’re not wasting any time.’
Mina turned to face her: she looked uncomfortable. ‘It seems they have the opportunity to sell her flat, d’you see? They didn’t want to miss the opportunity.’
‘I don’t believe it. My goodness, they don’t hang about, do they?’ Nest began to laugh. ‘I hope Georgie has agreed. They’ve got it all worked out, by the sound of it.’
‘They need the money from the flat, so Helena says, to fund the nursing home.’ Mina, as usual, was trying to be fair. ‘They want her to have the best.’
‘Sure they do!’ said Nest drily. ‘And what if we couldn’t have had her here?’
Mina shrugged. ‘They’d have thought of something else, I expect.’ She still looked unhappy. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t have been quite so available but, after all—’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Nest quickly. ‘I’m sure we’re doing the right thing. It just irks me that whenever Helena and Rupert dish the dirt they always come up smelling of roses. But that’s because I’m a cow. There’s nowhere else for her to go, poor old Georgie.’
Mina was silent for a moment. She knew that Helena had also contacted her cousin Jack, their brother Timmie’s son, asking if he and his wife, Hannah, could take Georgie in, if necessary. Mina knew that Nest would disapprove of this but she suspected that the truth would out before too long – Jack was very fond of his two aunts and in constant contact – and she decided that Nest might as well know at once.
‘Actually, I had an e-mail from Jack last night saying that Helena had been in touch,’ she admitted. ‘If we’d refused she was going to ask him if he and Hannah could cope.’
‘You must be joking?’ Nest was incredulous. ‘I should have thought that those two have quite enough on their plates already. They’ve just started a new term with a houseful of boys to organize, as well as two children of their own. I can just see Georgie in the middle of a boys’ preparatory school. The mind boggles.’
‘Jack would have done it,’ said Mina, smiling a little.
‘Jack would do anything for anyone. He’s Timmie’s son. And Hannah, bless her, would go along with it.’
‘He was anxious about us managing. Goodness, I don’t know what we’d do without that boy. Or without Hannah, for that matter. And then there’s Lyddie, always in touch and worrying about us. How blessed we are.’
‘It’s odd, isn’t it,’ began Nest slowly, ‘that we don’t have that same sense of . . .’ she hesitated, feeling for the right word, ‘satisfaction about Lyddie and Liam that we have about Jack and Hannah.’
‘Liam’s great fun,’ said Mina quickly, ‘and terribly attractive . . .’
‘But?’ prompted Nest. ‘There has to be a “but” after that.’
‘But it’s as if Lyddie feels that she needs to live up to him. Of course, she was knocked sideways when James left her and I sense that she’s vulnerable with Liam, as if she’s afraid that it might happen again if she’s not careful. I feel a kind of wariness on Lyddie’s side. There’s no. . .’ this time it was Mina searching for a word, ‘no serenity. Not like there is between Jack and Hannah. I hope she doesn’t do something silly.’
‘What sort of thing?’ Nest looked anxious.
‘Oh, I’m being an old fool.’ Mina tried to shrug away her imaginings. ‘I was just remembering when we went to Truro and had lunch with them at The Place. I thought that she and Joe were very friendly together. She seems quite at ease with him, there’s no tension and she can be herself, but I had the feeling that Liam didn’t care for it.’
‘Joe and Liam have been friends since school,’ said Nest, trying to reassure herself as well as Mina. ‘I can’t believe that Joe—’
‘No, of course not. I told you, I’m being foolish. We’re both on edge at the prospect of coping with Georgie.’
‘I’ve had a thought.’ Nest was smiling. ‘Why don’t we invite Jack down whilst Georgie’s here? He’ll sort us all out.’
Mina began to chuckle. ‘That’s quite an idea. It’s term-time, of course . . .’
‘I know it is, but he and Hannah and the children could probably manage an exeat weekend or a visit during half-term.’
‘Dear Jack. So like his father. Oh, poor old Timmie.’ She gave a great sigh. ‘How I still miss him!’
‘I never wanted him to be a soldier,’ Nest said almost angrily. ‘I remember pleading with Mama about it. She said, “He would be unhappy doing anything else,” but then she never imagined what would happen in Northern Ireland.’ Her face was bleak. ‘I often imagine—’ She broke off in distress. ‘At least he can’t have known anything about it.’
‘He was such a tower of strength,’ said Mina gently, ‘although in a very quiet way. It can’t have been easy being the only boy amongst five girls.’
‘Papa must have been delighted,’ said Nest, ‘when Timmie turned up. And Mama too, of course. I must have been a bit of a disappointment coming after him. Another girl . . .’ A tiny silence. ‘Anyway, I’ll go and get myself ready. Can you manage with the breakfast things?’
‘Of course I can,’ said Mina. ‘This won’t take a moment. Away you go. And of course you weren’t a disappointment. Of course you weren’t.’
She watched Nest wheel across the hall, thinking of the secrets kept for so many years – and Georgie’s singsong chant: ‘I know a secret. Can you guess? We’ve got a little brother. Do you think Papa will love us any more?’
Piling the plates beside the sink in the scullery, calling to the dogs, Mina found herself thinking of that year before Timmie was born, the year that Timothy Lestrange first arrived at Ottercombe House.
During that year of 1932, Lydia and the children spend only the school term-time in London. When Ambrose arrives early in August for the summer break he has a tall, fair-haired stranger with him.
‘This is Timothy Lestrange, darling. One of my oldest friends. He was halfway up some unpronounceable mountain when we got married and he’s been abroad for most of the time since.’
Lydia, smiling at Timothy, taking his hand, senses at once that he is an ally. The apprehension she always feels when Ambrose is due at Ottercombe is dissipated by an inexplicable relief.
‘Ambrose insisted that I would be welcome,’ he says, holding her hand in his own warm brown one. ‘I apologize for arriving unannounced.’
‘He turned up last night,’ says Ambrose, ‘due for a long leave. We haven’t seen each other for years. I couldn’t just give him a drink and say goodbye, could I?’
‘Of course you couldn’t,’ agrees Lydia.
‘I explained that there’s no telephone here so we weren’t able to warn you.’ Ambrose airs an old grievance. ‘In fact there’s not much here at all.’
‘Not much?’ Timothy’s eyebrows are raised. ‘Only glorious countryside, a lovely old house and your wife and children. Oh, no, not much.’
‘Oh, well, if you put it like that . . . Where are the bandar-log, Lydia?’
Ambrose is a great Kipling fan and Lydia and Timothy exchange another smile.
‘The children are down at the sea. They’ll be home for tea quite soon. Would you like to bring your luggage in while I make the guest-room ready?’
She watches them go out into the sunshine, standing for a moment to relish this new strange joyfulness, and then hurries away upstairs.
The children immediately respond to Timothy’s warmth; their father is less abrasive in his company, less critical, and instinctively they know that it is to Timothy that they owe this respite. He smooths away irritation and draws the sting from the genial brutality of Ambrose’s remarks. It is Timothy who renames the children and so earns Lydia’s gratitude.
‘Here they are,’ says Ambrose, as the children straggle up from the beach, ‘here are the bandar-log. This is the eldest, George. Then Will and Henry. And this is the youngest, Jo.’
Timothy shakes hands gravely with each child. ‘But why such names?’ he asks, puzzled. ‘Such pretty children and so like their mother. Why boys’ names?’
‘Next best thing to having sons,’ says Ambrose bluffly – and Lydia turns her head away, biting her lip, shepherding the children into tea.
Timothy sees how she is hurt and gradually, as he talks to the children and plays with them, he softens George into Georgie, renames Will as Mina, Jo becomes Josie – but Henry . . . ‘is Henrietta’, says Lydia, ‘because nothing else quite works’.
‘I like my proper name,’ says five-year-old Henrietta firmly. ‘It’s a nice name.’
The others, meanwhile, are enchanted with their new names and, made bold by Timothy’s championship, refuse to answer their father if he doesn’t use them. Even Georgie, who craves her father’s love and approval, is affected by Timothy’s quiet charm.
‘Mutiny,’ says Ambrose, slapping Timothy on the back. ‘Mutiny in my own home,’ but he too accepts the change although he doesn’t always remember without prompting.
‘Timothy is nice, isn’t he, Mama?’ says Mina. ‘He’s like a very kind magician. Like Merlin.’ Lydia is reading T. H. White’s The Once and Future King to them after tea during the children’s hour. ‘He’s put a spell on all of us, hasn’t he?’
And Lydia, dreamy-eyed, answers, ‘Yes, my love, I think he has.’
‘Don’t ask him what he does,’ instructs Ambrose, as they change for dinner that first evening. ‘It’s all a bit hush-hush. He does all this exploring and so on but, in fact, he’s attached to the army. He’ll tell you a few yarns, I expect. Hell of a chap. Crazy, though. Won everything going at school but took it all in his stride.’
‘He doesn’t seem that kind of man,’ says Lydia, putting in her ear-rings, staring at herself critically in the glass. Her black hair, piled high, emphasizes the pale oval of her face and long creamy neck. Her eyes glow with a new, disturbing happiness. ‘He’s not at all the overgrown schoolboy, adventurer type.’
‘Timothy was always a law unto himself,’ answers Ambrose proudly – as if he has invented Timothy and is personally responsible for his unusual qualities. ‘He was terrifically popular.’
‘Yes,’ says Lydia, smiling secretly at her reflection. ‘Yes, I can believe that.’
As the weeks pass, Timothy becomes part of the family; yarning with Ambrose in his study; walking with Lydia in the woods; playing with the children on the beach. Lydia blossoms into radiant health, Ambrose loses his city pallor, growing bronzed and fit, and the children are happy and at ease.
‘He should be called Kim,’ says Mina – they have moved on to Kipling by now – ‘not Tim. Kim, the Little Friend of all the World. Only he’s a big friend.’
By the time the holidays are over, and Ambrose and Timothy return to London, Lydia is pregnant again.