For a whole week the crisp golden weather held good and excursions became the order of the day: over to Simonsbath for coffee in the little café; lunch at the Hunter’s Inn where the wild peacocks frightened the Bosun; a drive along the coast and through the Valley of the Rocks. Lyddie, tired as she was with lack of sleep and the pain in her heart, was nevertheless glad to be of use, to feel needed and – more than that – she was enjoying herself. Mina and Nest had always been important to her but now, living with them, she discovered the depth of their humour, the breadth of their courage, and her love for them was informed by this knowledge and grew deeper and wider with the discovery.
‘They’re terrific fun,’ she said to Jack, one weekend not long before Christmas, when he drove his family down to see them.
‘An exeat weekend,’ he’d said on the telephone, ‘the little blighters are going home, the Lord be praised, so we could come down on Sunday if you can cope with us?’
Their arrival increased the sense of continuity and Lyddie was beginning to be aware of a slow healing.
‘Well, of course they’re fun!’ he’d answered her, almost indignantly. ‘We all knew that.’
‘Of course we did,’ she said, ‘but I think I shall stay here for a bit, Jack. It’s not just because I feel I can help them by driving them about and doing all the things that Mina probably shouldn’t be doing at her age, but quite selfishly because they’re helping me.’
‘Quite right too,’ said Jack. ‘That’s the tragedy of this present way of life. We no longer consider that older people have all these things to offer. Their courage and wisdom and experience is just brushed to one side. They’re probably doing you much more good than you could do to them.’
‘I agree,’ she answered with humility. ‘I do need them. And you too, of course.’
‘Well, naturally,’ he said, his voice losing its serious note. ‘You couldn’t manage without me, I’m quite aware of it. It’s a gift I have, a burden nobly borne . . .’
‘Oh, shut up,’ she said, laughing. ‘But I just wondered if it’s right to stay. For all sorts of reasons.’
‘I suspect,’ he said shrewdly, ‘that you’re worrying lest they should come to rely on you and then you’ll never have the courage to leave them. Is that it?’
‘Something like that,’ she admitted. ‘Although, at this moment, I can’t quite imagine wanting to go anywhere. I’m just afraid that I’m using Ottercombe as a refuge because I feel so wounded and, when I feel strong, I might want to do something else.’ She watched him anxiously. ‘It’s this horrid feeling that I might be using them.’
‘I think that you should rely on their common sense,’ he answered firmly. ‘Accept now for what it is and let go of fretting. Make the most of it so that all three of you are happy for this time and don’t spoil it by trying to deal with imaginary scenarios which might never arise. OK?’
She grinned at him. ‘Thanks, Uncle Jack,’ she said demurely.
‘So are you going to let me get you on the Internet like I did Aunt Mina so you can e-mail your friends? Come on, Lydd, why not join us in the twentieth century before it’s too late? One more year to go! Take a chance, why not?’
‘I might,’ she said, laughing. ‘I just might at that. Dear old Aunt Mina loves it. She chats to all her friends at night. I see her light on, really late, shining under her door.’
‘Well, there you are, then. Go on! Then we could have speaks every day. Hannah loves it.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ she promised. ‘I really will.’
‘Lunch is ready,’ said Toby, appearing suddenly, ‘and Mummy says it will get cold if you don’t come this minute.’
‘A directive I never disobey, do I, Tobes? Mummy’s word is the Law and the Prophets rolled into one, especially when food is involved.’
‘What’s the law and the prophets?’ asked Toby predictably.
‘Ask your Aunt Lyddie,’ answered Jack promptly – and vanished kitchenwards.
Toby beamed up at her. ‘We’re going down to the beach after lunch,’ he told her. ‘All of us with the dogs. I love the Bosun best of them all. I wish we had a dog. Can he swim? We’re not allowed to today because it’s too cold but Mummy says we can all go down to the beach. Well, all except Aunt Nest. She never goes to the sea, does she?’
Lyddie stared down at him, thinking of Mina’s words. ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘No, she never does. I expect she has a little sleep after lunch.’
Hannah’s clear voice echoed impatiently from the kitchen and Toby grabbed Lyddie’s hand. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Lunch.’
Later, as the beach party assembled, Lyddie said that she would stay with Nest and do the washing-up.
‘Take the Bosun, though,’ she said. ‘Aunt Mina will keep him under control.’
There was a blessed silence, once the door had shut behind them all, and Lyddie smiled at Nest.
‘Would you like to rest?’ she asked. ‘I’m very happy doing this lot on my own, really I am.’
Nest made a little face. ‘To tell the truth, I would,’ she admitted. ‘Love them though I do, I find a few hours of them all quite exhausting. If you’re sure . . .?’
‘Quite sure,’ said Lyddie firmly. ‘Off you go. I’ll bring you a cup of tea later, if you like. Although you’ll probably hear them all coming back.’
‘I expect I shall,’ agreed Nest.
She wheeled away and Lyddie was left in possession of the kitchen. She began to clear up methodically and, after a moment, found herself humming. These small, unexpected manifestations of happiness were still surprising to her and she moved quietly about, grateful that she was granted such a refuge.
By the time the lunch things were washed up and put away, the kitchen tidy and the kettle ready on the Esse, she heard the sounds of the returning party.
‘It was the devil of a job getting them away,’ said Jack, accepting his cup of tea, ‘but we really should be on our way very soon. It’s a long drive and the boys will be back this evening.’
Nest was roused and came to join them for the last ten minutes, before the children were packed into the car after tearful farewells to the dogs, and the grown-ups embraced each other with thanks and promises of future jollies.
‘We’ll get together somehow for Christmas,’ Jack said, hugging Lyddie. ‘We’ll sort something out.’ He bent to kiss Nest, holding her hand tightly for a moment, and then turned to Mina. ‘Lyddie looks well,’ he murmured, under the cover of the others’ farewells.
‘She does, doesn’t she?’ she answered eagerly. ‘And it’s such lovely joy having her here. My dear boy, you are such a blessing to us all.’
He looked down into her sweet, old face and bent to kiss her lips gently. ‘Love you lots, darling,’ he said tenderly. ‘We’ll have speaks later.’
‘God bless you,’ she said. ‘Drive carefully.’
They went away up the drive, Toby’s hand waving furiously at the window, and the three standing motionless on the gravel heard the car pull out and accelerate away across the moorland road.
‘And now,’ said Lyddie, ‘you and the dogs have a little rest, Aunt Mina. I’ve lit the fire in the drawing-room. Pour yourself another cup of tea and go and enjoy it in peace.’
‘It sounds wonderful,’ admitted Mina, ‘but what about you?’
‘Ah.’ Lyddie laid her hands upon the back of Nest’s chair. ‘Well, I think it’s time that Nest and I went down to the sea.’ She smiled at her. ‘What do you think, Nest?’
The silence seemed to engulf them all and Mina realized that she was holding her breath. After a long moment Nest turned to look up into her child’s face.
‘I think that’s a very good idea,’ she said.
It was exactly as she’d remembered it, dreamed about it. The steep-sided cleave clothed with larch and oak and tall, noble beech, their bare, twiggy branches reaching to the tender blue sky; great thickets of rhododendron beneath the rocky shoulder of the moor; bright green ferns at the water’s edge. The stream ran beside her through the narrow valley, flowing over smooth boulders and under willow, whilst ducks dabbled amongst the reeds and the sharp scent of gorse was carried on the breeze. Nest’s hands clutched at the arms of her chair as she turned this way and that, each sight furnishing a hundred memories, until at last the cleave widened into the crescent-shaped beach, protected on each side by the high grey cliffs, and the stream travelled onward to its inexorable meeting with the sea.
The sea. Nest hardly realized that her chair had stopped moving; that she was sitting on a flat rock staring across to the waves that rolled in, crashing against the towering walls of stone and sweeping over the shaly sand. Voices were carried on the wind:
‘We’ll live here together when we grow up.’
‘Have you come to tell me I’m trespassing or are you simply a passing dryad?’
‘We have a new baby brother. Do you think Papa will love us any more?’
‘It was nothing. Nothing at all. I missed you so much and she’d lost her husband . . . It’s over.’
‘Will you share this magic place with me for this afternoon, lady?’
She was quite unaware of the searing tears that streamed down her cold cheeks as she listened to the rhythmic beating of the tide and allowed the salty air to wash away her bitterness and pain. Presently she was aware of Lyddie kneeling beside her. Lyddie took her handkerchief and dried Nest’s cheeks and kissed her before she straightened up.
‘We must go home before it gets dark,’ she said gently. ‘But we’ll come again . . . won’t we?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Nest, struggling to keep her voice steady. ‘We’ll come again. And thank you, Lyddie.’
Lyddie tucked the handkerchief away, paused for one last look out to sea, and turned the chair for the journey home.
Mina watched them go, her warm heart full of gratitude: the miracle had happened, the acceptance made. She’d been watching the love between Nest and Lyddie growing steadily and now any reservations she might have had were finally lifted from her. Calling to the dogs, deciding that she could manage without another cup of tea, she went into the drawing-room, still feeling light-headed with the joy of it all. Unconsciously pressing her fingers to her old, withered lips, holding the kiss Jack had given her, she sat down in the corner of the sofa whilst the dogs flopped gratefully and wearily upon their beds. She stared at the brightly burning fire, thinking back over these past few weeks: jaunts in the camper, quiet contented evenings, walks with the dogs; and further back again, seeing scenes amongst the burning logs and hearing voices in the whispering flames.
‘I’ll tell you a story,’ said the Story Spinner, ‘but you mustn’t rustle too much or cough or blow your nose more than is necessary . . .’
‘I apologize for arriving unannounced.’
‘He should be called Kim, not Tim. Kim, the Little Friend of all the World.’
‘He is dead. Dead.’
‘Is it possible that you might speak to Mr Shaw soon?’
Arousing herself suddenly, as if from a dazed sleep, Mina thought first of Timmie, going away to school and then into the army, and then of Jack and his small family. She murmured a prayer for their safety and wellbeing and, as a stronger wave of dizziness engulfed her, she had time to see quite clearly, and with deep joy, Lyddie smiling down at Nest; to hear her saying, ‘I think it’s time Nest and I went down to the sea,’ and see Nest’s answering look of love and trust. It was her last conscious thought.