Mousie telephoned Bruno just after Zoë had trailed away upstairs for her afternoon rest.
‘I try to do it most days, darling,’ she’d told him, yawning widely. ‘Keeps me going. I can thoroughly recommend it, although one doesn’t necessarily have to be alone.’
She’d raised an eyebrow suggestively and he’d grinned at the implied invitation: it wouldn’t have been the first time but today he’d felt on edge and had shaken his head.
‘Nice idea,’ he’d said, ‘but I’m not in the mood.’
She’d shrugged philosophically and drifted up the narrow, twisting staircase, disappearing out of sight just as the telephone rang.
‘I’m at Paradise.’ Mousie’s voice was low and guarded. ‘The young American Dan Crosby is here, and he and Emma have been looking at photographs.’
‘Oh my God,’ he said involuntarily.
‘My reaction exactly,’ she said drily. ‘I hope you won’t be angry but I’ve given her the letters to read. It was the only way, Bruno, believe me.’
‘I believe you,’ he said, after a moment. ‘How is she?’
‘I’ve put her in the parlour at Mutt’s desk. It seemed the right place for her to read them, somehow, but I think you should be here. I’ve suggested that she reads them right through but she might suddenly need some support. When you get here I’ll take Dan down to my cottage and tell him the truth about it all. I think that’s only right now, but it’s best he’s not here when Emma comes out.’
‘I quite agree,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ll come straight up.’
He left Nellie sleeping peacefully and walked quickly up to Paradise; his gut was twisted with anxiety but there was relief too. He let himself in quietly and went into the kitchen. The young man got quickly to his feet; he looked deeply distressed, shaken by the drama he had unwittingly set in motion. Bruno held out his hand, smiling at him.
‘I am just so sorry.’ Dan gripped the hand gratefully. ‘You have to believe that I had no idea about all this.’
‘How could you know?’ Bruno glanced at Mousie. ‘Have you managed to tell him the whole story?’
She shook her head. ‘Only the bare bones. I think he should come and have some tea and then I can explain it to him properly. He’s as shocked as we are.’
‘I certainly am. I feel terrible.’ Dan looked it. His face was grey, as if with fatigue, his eyes blank. ‘And at a moment like this too …’
‘The time was right,’ Bruno told him gently. ‘Don’t feel badly. Good will come of this now, I’m sure of it. It means a new start for us. For all of us. Go and have some tea and we’ll meet later on.’
‘You’re very kind.’
He stumbled out after Mousie, the picture of misery, and Bruno stood alone, his mind focusing on Emma. He glanced at the photographs scattered on the table and, with a jolt to his heart, saw his mother and father smiling up at him. Picking up the wedding picture he scanned their faces carefully, trying to remember them like this: young, laughing, happy. Only tiny flashes from the past – his father swinging him high above his head, his mother’s voice singing a nursery rhyme – rewarded his effort. His father’s face was familiar – Bruno had a portrait photograph of him from about this time – but his mother’s he barely recognized. He stared at her pretty face feeling somehow guilty, as if he had connived at the sudden dispatch to oblivion of her and his little sister’s memory. He castigated himself as he recalled how quickly, after that appalling ending in Karachi, he had allowed the layers of his new life to wrap him about, concealing and protecting him from the pain of grief and loss. Those early months of his new life, hedged about with secrecy and full of numbing new experiences, had allowed only brief moments for mourning.
Bruno sat down at the table, folding his arms in front of him, willing up the memory of that hotel room: his father and sister dead and his mother lying in bed, her hair dark with sweat, too weak to comfort him. Her suffering had been like some sick animal chained in that stifling room with them: alive and anguished and uncontrollable. He’d been helpless in his longing to bring her relief, only able to crouch protectively beside her, holding her hand and wiping her face from time to time with the damp, crumpled cotton sheet. How strong and bright Mutt’s sudden presence in contrast; how encouraging the feel of her arm about him as she’d kneeled with him beside his mother’s bed. Her relief at the sight of Mutt had been palpable; tears had trickled down her cheeks and she’d held up her arms for Mutt’s embrace.
‘Do exactly as Mutt tells you,’ she’d told him. ‘Promise me, darling,’ and he’d promised, the tears clotting in his throat, and all the while Mutt had held him steady.
Afterwards, on the voyage home and here at St Meriadoc, he’d learned to weave the memories of India into stories that he enacted as games, making it possible to deal with them but, in doing so, retreating further and further from the unbearable reality.
Bruno rested his chin on his arms, still staring at the photograph, and it was here Emma found him.
She’d finished the last letter with tears streaming down her face, piling the letters together and looking about the familiar room without quite knowing what she was doing. She sat at the desk, the words fresh in her mind, the image of the young and vulnerable woman still clearly before her.
‘Mutt,’ she murmured from time to time. ‘Oh, Mutt,’ and then wept again with despair and love.
She got up and wandered about the parlour, touching an unfinished tapestry, imagining her mother at the desk writing to the sister she would never see again, so that the tears continued to flow. Presently she felt the need to share her experience, to make it real by the confirmation of seeing the truth of it in someone else’s face, and she went almost blindly out into the hall. Through the half-open kitchen door she saw Bruno’s shoulder and bowed head and she went in to him.
‘Oh, Bruno,’ she cried. ‘Poor, darling Mutt. Oh, how I wish I’d known this before she died.’
He got to his feet and put his arms about her, gaining solace from her embrace and allowing the shadows of the past to slip gently away. She looked up into his face and saw his compassion and affection for her.
‘It was how she wanted it,’ he comforted her. ‘Don’t cry, Emma.’
‘What a shock.’ She took his proffered handkerchief and wiped distractedly at her cheeks and eyes. ‘I can hardly take it in. Yet while I was reading the letters she seemed so alive that when I’d finished I couldn’t believe she wouldn’t walk in. I had to start all over again convincing myself that she was dead. I wish I could tell her that I think she was brave and that I love her. All those years of secrecy.’ She took a hold on her emotions and tried to control herself. ‘And you, Bruno. However did you manage it? I know it wasn’t right of her to put such a burden on you when you were so small but, all the same, I can’t help but feel for her.’
‘And so did I.’ He shook her gently by the arms. ‘I regret nothing. She did what was right at the time. It’s no good looking at it with hindsight. She’s showed us exactly how it was, and why she did it, and all of us – Mousie, Joss, you and I – we all accept her reasons.’
Emma sighed shakily and he helped her down on to a chair.
‘Joss knows,’ she said almost wonderingly. ‘And Mousie. She explained to me before I read the letters and said that you were waiting until after the funeral to tell me.’
‘That was how Joss wanted it.’ He sat down opposite. ‘She was afraid for you.’
Emma’s eyes brimmed again. ‘I thought of her just now. Opening them all alone that night. Mousie said she’s been so brave. Poor Joss. What a tremendous shock for her, and then going up to find Mutt had died. Thank God that you were here, Bruno.’
‘I do thank Him,’ answered Bruno most sincerely. He hesitated. ‘Perhaps we should have told you straight away. Mousie wanted to but Joss insisted that Mutt should be buried peacefully and you should have time to grieve.’
Emma managed a watery smile. ‘Poor darling. That was sweet of her.’ She put her hands to her face, massaging her eyes with her fingers. ‘I can still hardly take it in. Is it wrong to say that I feel proud of her? Of Mutt, I mean?’
‘You should be proud of her,’ he agreed. ‘She saved my life. You both did. I often wonder what would have happened if you hadn’t turned up then. Can you imagine a small boy of four, left alone in Karachi during those times? Imagine the loneliness, assuming I’d ever made it home, with all my family dead. You and Mutt gave continuity to my life. We’d all been so close, you see. You were my family.’
She stared at him. ‘We’re not brother and sister,’ she said slowly. ‘I’m just taking that in. It’s crazy but I still can’t quite accept it. You aren’t my brother.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s … not believable, is it? I’m not Emma but Lottie. I asked you about Lottie, do you remember?’
He shrugged helplessly. ‘What could I do? I’d promised Mutt.’
‘Oh, I’m not blaming you,’ she said quickly, ‘but she called my name at the end, Bruno. She said it several times. Do you think she was remembering?’
‘Probably. Who can say? After all, she remembered the letters that had lain hidden all those years.’
A short silence.
‘If Joss hadn’t read them, would you have ever told me?’
Bruno was silent for a moment. ‘I would have kept my promise to Mutt,’ he said at last.
She gave him a little smiling shrug. ‘Well, it’s no longer relevant,’ she said. ‘But if there had been some sort of trouble over the will, say that Ray had tried to force his plan to develop the boatyard, would you still have kept Mutt’s secret?’
He made an odd snorting noise. ‘I simply don’t know. It would have become very difficult should Pamela and Rafe have been in any danger of losing their home. As it happens the problem doesn’t arise. Mutt has left Paradise to you, just as we thought she would, and The Lookout, The Row and the boatyard are left to me. She clearly hadn’t thought about Inheritance Tax.’
‘Ray was worried about Inheritance Tax,’ Emma said. ‘He was hoping to find the will to see how things were left and how it could be paid.’ She frowned, puzzled. ‘I suppose Dan’s arrival reminded her of the letters. Poor fellow. It’s sad, isn’t it, that after all his efforts he didn’t get to see Mutt? So near and yet so far. But why ask Joss to find the letters? Why not you? Surely that was the obvious thing to do?’
‘I have a theory about that,’ answered Bruno. ‘I put it to Joss that Mutt knew the time had come for the truth to be told but couldn’t bring herself to face it. I think that, when she told Joss about the letters, subconsciously she was hoping they’d be read.’ He laughed drily, remembering. ‘God, I was angry when Joss told me. All these years of secrecy and all the time the letters had been lying there for anyone to find.’ He paused. ‘Joss has coped remarkably well, I must say.’
‘George has helped,’ murmured Emma with a rather wistful smile. ‘I always hoped that Joss would have Paradise. Well, things have changed, haven’t they?’
‘I have great hopes that she and George will live at Paradise,’ he told her gently. ‘The way I see it, Emma, you still have rights, because of all that you and Mutt have done for us, and I hope to honour that. Put it this way: if our positions were reversed – if you were Hubert’s child and I were Mutt’s son – would you turn me out of The Lookout now? Would you feel differently about me or expect me, having read the letters, to assume that our shared past counted for nothing? No, I can see you wouldn’t. But, if we’re talking legally, then yes, things have changed.’
‘Ray will have a fit.’ She managed a little laugh. ‘Never mind. He’ll probably understand Mutt’s motives. He might well have done the same in her position. So what will happen now?’
He explained to her how his grandfather’s will could be re-proved so as to prevent paying Inheritance Tax twice and she listened intently whilst he explained his idea of giving Rafe and Mousie their cottages, to save future tax, and his wish to leave the rest of the estate to Joss and George.
‘I look upon them as my children,’ he told her. ‘Anyway, I promised Mutt I’d look after Joss and I intend to do it if she’ll let me.’
Emma looked at him with gratitude. ‘I don’t mind for myself,’ she told him. ‘I never wanted Paradise except for Joss. Bless you, Bruno. She’ll be prickly about it, though, and what about Olivia and Joe? Won’t they think it smacks of favouritism if George takes over Paradise, even with Joss?’ She straightened in her chair, the whole reality of her new situation dawning upon her. ‘They’ll all have to know, I suppose?’
‘I think so, Em.’ He watched her compassionately. ‘If only for Joss’s sake, I think that the family must know. Pamela and Rafe will be her parents-in-law and you know how she hates subterfuge and lying.’
‘Yes, I know.’ She was remembering her daughter’s face when she’d returned from her walk with George and the donkeys: that expression of joyous freedom after the strain of hiding the secret of her love for him for so long. ‘Yes, you’re quite right. Won’t that make it even more difficult with the other children? After all, Joss has no legal rights at all, now.’
Bruno shook his head. ‘I don’t think it will,’ he said. ‘I’ve had an idea about it. Supposing George buys Paradise with whatever sum he raises on his house in Meavy? Nobody need know the figure, need they? It will between me and George, and any shortfall will be my wedding present to them. After all, it’s not as if Joe or Olivia would ever want Paradise; at least, not to live in themselves. What do you think?’
Her eyes were full of tears. ‘Bless you, Bruno,’ she said. ‘What can I say?’
Before he could answer they heard someone open the front door and shut it with a slam, as if it had slipped from nervous fingers; a short silence followed and then quick footsteps crossed the hall.