Emma closed the front door behind Mousie and stood for a moment, giving herself time in which to think. She was still confused by what Raymond had tried to explain to her earlier about the Inheritance Tax, anxious now that with darling Mutt gone, things here at St Meriadoc would change. Misery seized her: how odd Paradise would feel without Mutt. Her heart was squeezed and wrung with grief and she gave a tiny sob, quickly putting her fingers to her lips as if to stifle the noise as Joss came out of the kitchen. Emma braced herself, forcing herself to smile, unwilling to allow her own unhappiness to weaken Joss, who was missing Mutt just as much and managing to be brave about it.
‘I thought I’d catch up on some notes ready for tomorrow,’ Joss said. ‘Lunch is nearly ready but there’s just something particularly important I’d like to deal with, if that’s OK?’
There was something odd about her, Emma thought, something almost secretive but tinged with a kind of low-key excitement. Immediately she dismissed the thought. The poor child was simply overwhelmed by events and Raymond wasn’t actually helping by droning on about how the estate would be divided. If only he could have learned to be tactful with his daughter, been less proud of being the sort of man who called a spade a spade. When once – oh, years and years ago – she’d tried to defend Ray by saying that he always spoke his mind, Bruno had said, ‘Yes, but what makes him think anyone wants to hear it?’
Emma saw that Joss had hesitated at the foot of the stairs, watching her, and she pulled herself together.
‘Of course it is,’ she answered. ‘I can manage lunch. Work must come first, even at times like these. I’ll give you a shout.’
On an impulse Joss crossed the hall and gave Emma a quick hug.
‘It’ll be OK, Mum,’ she said seriously, rather as if she were making a promise, and Emma smiled back at her; grateful for that warm, unexpected gesture, filled with tremendous love for her pretty, clever daughter who was so like dear old Mutt.
‘Of course it will,’ she agreed bravely.
She watched Joss leap the stairs, two at a time and, taking a deep breath, went back into the kitchen. Raymond was standing at the dresser, moving and folding a pile of newspapers, his face set into frowning, angry lines.
‘The damned thing’s gone,’ he said abruptly as soon as he saw her. ‘It’s simply disappeared. Did George take it, after all?’
She shook her head, looking puzzled, but her heart jumped anxiously. ‘Do you mean the parcel? No, George didn’t take it. He offered but I didn’t think you’d be particularly pleased about it.’
‘He suspected something.’
She could see that he was mentally reviewing the little scene with George, his broad pale lips compressed, his eyes speculative.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’ She decided to allow herself a hint of censure. ‘You were a bit odd about it, after all, weren’t you?’
‘Odd?’ He looked at her narrowly. ‘Do you think he could have guessed what it might be?’
She shrugged, collecting knives and forks together, beginning to set the table for lunch.
‘Why should he guess? None of us knows what’s in it. Why are you looking on the dresser? I thought you had it on the table.’
He looked slightly uncomfortable.
‘When Mousie and Joss came in I thought it was best to put it out of sight. I turned round and put it on the dresser. Just here. Now it’s gone.’
‘Perhaps Mousie saw it and decided to deliver it.’ She raised her eyebrows at his instinctive gesture of irritation at the suggestion. ‘Well, why not? It was clearly addressed. And, anyway, what did you intend to do with it? You could have hardly opened it yourself.’
The silence went on for far too long. She stared at him, pretending disbelief, and he coloured a little.
‘I’ve already explained how sensitive this could be.’ He almost sounded defensive. ‘I was merely going to check that the will hadn’t been put in with other things, that’s all. Don’t forget you have just as much right to see Mutt’s will as Bruno has. A quick glance would have forewarned us and nobody would have been the wiser.’ He could sense her resistance. ‘The sooner we decide how the tax is to be paid the better. At least, I imagine you don’t relish the idea of selling Paradise to meet it, do you?’
Emma hid her twinge of fear, raising her chin as if in defiance at his threat.
‘I’ve been thinking about that and I still don’t quite see what could be done about it, even if we knew the contents of her will. It’s horrid, talking like this when we should be mourning Mutt.’
Before he could answer her Joss came in and Emma braced herself again; an automatic reaction to the joint presence of Raymond and Joss. Instinctively her voice lightened, her lips smiled and smiled, as if this air of determined cheerfulness might act as a restraint to their natural antagonism.
‘Lunch,’ she announced brightly, as a further distraction – but already Raymond was questioning Joss about the parcel.
‘Did you see a package,’ he was asking, ‘wrapped up in brown paper and string? It was here on the dresser.’
‘A package?’ Joss shook her head indifferently. ‘No. Was it going to the post?’
‘No.’ Raymond sat down again at the table. ‘Your mother came across it when she was looking for something else. It contained something your grandmother had wrapped up long ago by the look of it. It was addressed to Bruno.’
Emma set the fish pie on a mat in the centre of the table and began to divide it up.
‘To Bruno?’
Joss’s voice was sharp and Emma hid a sigh. Now it would all come out and there would be an argument.
‘Perhaps Mousie took it down to him,’ she suggested quickly. ‘Never mind about it now. Is that enough for you, Joss?’
‘It was … oh,’ Raymond was measuring the size of the parcel, squaring the air with his hands, ‘about so big. You didn’t see it, then? It’s rather important that we know what’s inside it.’
Joss shook her head. She looked shocked, almost frightened, and Emma snorted with silent indignation, in sympathy with her daughter. No doubt she’d already guessed that her father had intended to open it.
‘But where did you find it?’ Joss didn’t seem interested in her lunch. ‘What were you looking for?’
‘Your mother was looking for Mutt’s will,’ answered Raymond smoothly. ‘It has to be found, you know. Well, she came across this parcel and we wondered if the will might be inside it.’ He was getting on well with his pie; nothing deflected Raymond from his food. ‘Now it’s disappeared.’
‘But where was it?’ Joss asked again.
‘It was in Mutt’s desk.’ Emma answered the question. ‘She kept our old school reports in one of the drawers and it was in a folder that had Bruno’s stuff in it.’
She saw that Joss was staring at her in some kind of horror and she was obliged to remind herself that she had every right to sort out Mutt’s things. Nevertheless, she felt a kind of creeping guilt in the face of Joss’s reaction.
‘We do have to find the will, darling,’ she said gently. ‘Apart from which, Bruno ought to have his parcel, whatever it is.’
‘But where is it?’
Joss now seemed almost as anxious about its whereabouts as Ray was, and Emma breathed deeply, trying to contain a rising irritation.
‘Shall we finish lunch?’ she asked lightly. ‘Then we can all have a look for it. Mousie might well have taken it away with her, thinking she was doing us a favour.’
‘Yes, that’s possible.’
Joss seemed to slump a little, relaxing in her chair, and Emma sighed with relief and cast about for a harmless topic of conversation. From experience she knew that – between her husband and daughter – there was no such thing. It was extraordinary how the least controversial topic could develop into a battle royal raging between them.
‘It was so kind of George,’ she began at random, ‘to come up and help this morning. But what a shock about Penny taking Tasha and just going off like that. Mind you, I always had reservations about Penny.’
She saw, with relief, that Ray was not the least interested in George’s domestic problems but was wrapped up in his own thoughts: no doubt parcelling out the estate to his satisfaction. Joss had picked up her fork and was eating her fish pie with a kind of studied concentration.
‘I always thought,’ continued Emma, ‘that she was hiding something. Well, that sounds a bit dramatic but you know what I mean? There was a lack of real openness about her so that it was difficult to get close to her. Oh, she was very sweet, I grant you that, but it was all on the surface. I know she missed her family and her country – well, that’s only to be expected and nobody would blame her for it – but I have a feeling that there’s more to it than that.’
Although she was quite used to conducting these monologues at family mealtimes, in an attempt to keep the sparks from flying, she was surprised at Joss’s complete lack of response. Ray might go off into his own world on these occasions but Joss usually made an heroic effort to keep the ball rolling between the two of them, partly because she always felt remorseful at allowing herself to be riled by her father.
Emma piled some more pie onto Raymond’s plate and glanced invitingly at Joss, who shook her head with a little smile, and settled back in her place.
‘I think we shall hear that there’s someone in New Zealand. It wouldn’t surprise me at all,’ Emma prophesied, finishing her own lunch and debating whether she should have another small helping. It was a rather good pie, even if she thought so herself.
Joss shifted suddenly, as if she might speak, glanced anxiously at her father and instead took another forkful of pie. Emma frowned to herself. Clearly Joss didn’t wish to have a discussion about George and Penny in front of Ray and she felt a little stab of curiosity. Of course, George and Joss had always been very close, so fond of one another … Emma put down her fork. She looked again at her daughter who had bent her head over her plate and was eating quickly and neatly, as if nothing mattered but to finish up her lunch. Emma saw that her cheeks were stained with colour and, as she watched the flush deepen, several things clicked smartly into place.
‘Delicious, dear.’ Ray had finished his second helping. ‘Anything left? What was that you were saying about George?’
Emma scooped the last of the pie onto his plate and stood up.
‘I was saying that he is a dear, good fellow and that he and Joss are taking the donkeys out for a walk this afternoon.’ She nodded sharply at Joss, who was now staring at her in surprise, and began to fill the empty dish with hot water. ‘Didn’t I hear you fix a time with him, darling? It’s nearly two o’clock and I don’t suppose you’ll want any pudding. Only fruit salad, I’m afraid, Ray, but there’s cheese if you want it.’
Joss stood up, hovering indecisively by her chair, and Emma assumed her ‘this is not a subject for negotiation’ expression that she’d found useful when Joss had been a little girl.
‘Off you go, then,’ she said briskly. ‘George will be waiting.’
They exchanged a look, encouraging on Emma’s side, confused but grateful on Joss’s, and she went out. Emma sighed with contentment, her spirits rising.
‘I can’t manage anything else at the moment, dear,’ Raymond patted her arm. ‘There’s nothing to beat that local fish. Delicious.’
‘Thank you, darling.’ Emma beamed upon him. ‘Now, why don’t you go and relax in the sitting-room and I’ll bring the coffee in to you? It will be nice to have a moment to ourselves. Here, take the newspaper …’
To her great relief he disappeared obediently; piling the plates on the draining-board, listening for noises from the drawing-room, Emma crossed swiftly to the dresser. She opened a drawer, checked that the parcel was well hidden and, taking a pile of dishcloths from another drawer, covered it more securely. She was determined that there should be no arguments, no fighting or bitter words, until after Mutt had been laid peacefully to rest; whatever the parcel might contain could wait a few more days. Satisfied that it was out of harm’s way until after the funeral, she closed the drawer gently and went to make some coffee.