Peter was late. Not actually late because they’d agreed on four o’clock and it was still five minutes away, but in Frank’s mind, as he sat festering in the upstairs study, he was late. Frank looked across the great expanse of the lawn that ran alongside the gravelled drive. Beyond the grass, the land dropped a tier, a ledge cut out of a hillside, and here the family crypt was the boundary marker on that side of their property. Pyramid shaped, the crypt had been a curiosity for him and his brother, and now peering down to the cluster of trees that obscured it, he could just make out the tip of it. As boys they would play games that took them to it, always a focus, even then. Hide and seek, races where Frank would be given a one-minute head start due to his crippled foot. Looking now at the sheep that grazed the edges of the great lawn, he wondered how he’d managed. There and back, racing against his brother, who was taller, faster, always sure of himself.
A quick glance to the opening in the trees that marked the drive. No sign of him. Audrey would be here soon, but he could not see her approach as her route was from the back of the house. He wanted to see Peter arrive, wanted to watch his uncle’s convertible motor car roar through the trees, to see if he was as anxious as Frank to be here. He looked for signs, a trail of dust, a disturbance of swallows, the rustling of leaves that would announce Peter’s arrival. But nothing.
He was nervous, he knew. More than he should be. Frank had not seen him for three weeks as Peter had gone to Scotland with his uncle on family business. But it was just tea. Why did it feel like so much more? He fingered his lapel, wool on one side, silk on the other. The rubbing a habit since boyhood, a gesture that calmed him.
He stepped away, and in that moment he heard something, a deep rumble that drove him back to the window in three long strides.
Peter.
He was not roaring down the drive as Frank had envisioned, but drove as though he had no set appointment, his gaze drifting around the estate, peering back at the summerhouse that sat near the orchard, then ahead to the house. Frank wondered what Peter’s impressions were of this house, the only one Frank had known. Ivy spreading up to the second level, rose bushes lining the foundation. It was an early eighteenth-century manor with haphazard additions, the place where his father had retreated with his young family, the country house a return to nature, a symbol of continuity after the sting of the Great War. The long and silent walks around the garden the only intimation that the battlefield still lingered. That and the lavender bushes that he’d had removed because they reminded him too much of the smell of France. He needed to be away from London, he’d told Frank in a rare moment of intimacy. He needed the quiet, the trees, the sound of owls in the copse. That his father had all but given up on Wentworth House these days remained a bemusement to Frank. It was as though he’d needed the intensity of nature as a cure back then, and, once achieved, he’d tossed it aside for a life in London, one that crowded out any memories that might creep in.
Frank watched as Peter backed the car against the lawn as if ready for a quick departure. His blond hair firm against his head even though he’d removed his hat and thrown it into the back seat. Frank stood back against the curtain, watched as Peter jumped from his car, watched him turn in response to a voice that Frank could not hear through the closed window.
Audrey.
He saw her walk to Peter, her face open and generous. Frank knew he should go down to greet them, knew it was ridiculous to stand up here as though he were spying, but he wanted this moment to stretch, to see the two of them in full view, the sun shining on both, the promise of a glorious afternoon ahead. He adored his aunt, never so fully than in times like this when her acceptance was a constant gift.
What was it his father had said to him once? I’ve a mind to send you to sea to cure you of your addiction to reading. Oh, to be so easily lured from temptation. What had been on his father’s mind all those years ago? What had he been so afraid of?
Frank ran downstairs and swung the door open. “Come in,” he said. “Come in.”