It was an admission that pained him, because it meant that his father had been right: he lacked the necessary drive and ambition to seize hold of life’s myriad opportunities and thereby make something of himself. He wasn’t like his sister, or Allegra, who had both known from a young age what they wanted to do. Hope had been adamant that she wanted to go to art school in London, while Allegra had been born with the gift of a great singing voice and had been determined to pursue a career that would, in Kit’s view, satisfy her craving for attention and the adulation only an adoring audience could provide.
As for Arthur, his talent had always been for domination and ensuring that he was the one in charge. It really wouldn’t surprise Kit if in due course his brother made the transition from the Civil Service to politician, and God help them all if that ever came to pass!
Meanwhile, Kit had meandered along in his hapless way, hoping that in the fullness of time he would stumble across a signpost leading him to his own future. He’d toyed with the idea of painting, but one artist in the family was quite enough, and anyway, objectively he wasn’t that good. Writing was a possibility – not poetry, he didn’t have the tortured soul for that, but the thought of crafting a novel tempted him. He’d made a couple of stabs at it, but each time he’d abandoned the idea after only a few pages, disgusted at the pathetic immaturity of his efforts.
Now even that particular avenue had been purloined by somebody else in the family. How could he dare to put pen to paper when his stepmother was such an acclaimed author? Although strictly speaking, did marriage for only a few weeks to his father really qualify her as family?
She was certainly a cut above most of the women with whom the old man had got himself involved. Kit had to admit he rather liked her. There were worse stepmothers with whom he could have been landed. One in particular came to mind. She had been an actress, or so she claimed, and while Kit would never lay claim to being the slightest bit clever, she had been embarrassingly dim, with only one topic of conversation at her disposal: that of herself and the trouble she was experiencing in finding the perfect hat for Ascot that year. Kit had almost felt sorry for her; until, that was, she had singled out Hope for some tips on how to make more of her appearance.
They had been in the drawing room, drinking cocktails, waiting for Jack and Roddy to finish discussing some contract or other in the study, when their guest had slipped her arm through Hope’s in what she probably thought was a gesture of friendly intimacy, but which Kit knew Hope would dislike intensely. ‘There’s no excuse for any woman these days not to make herself more attractive,’ she had declared, adding, ‘Take it from me, Hope, if you were to dye your hair blonde like mine, and use some lipstick, you’d look a lot less dowdy.’ The frozen expression on his sister’s face had been enough to make Kit join in with Arthur, who had been systemically firing off derisive salvos at the dreadful woman. They’d kept it up right through dinner, until their father exploded and all hell broke loose. He’d refused to accept that their rudeness was justified, and maybe he was right, but he’d also refused to accept that the simpering actress had insulted Hope. ‘You always have to find fault with anything I do,’ he’d shouted at them. ‘You’ve never once approved of anyone I’ve introduced you to!’
With the memory of his father’s angry voice ringing in his ears, Kit slowed his step as he heard another, much sweeter sound – the jangly song of a corn bunting. He looked around him for the bird and spotted it perched on a fence post a few yards ahead of him. His knowledge of birds, as well as flora and fauna, was down to his sister.
As a child, Hope had forever been dragging him off with her on nature trails, traversing meadows and riverbanks, armed with sketch pads, butterfly nets, and jam jars to fill with tadpoles to take back to the pond at Island House. Even at so young an age, Hope had had a tendency to be a bit of a schoolmarm and would insist on teaching him the names of whatever they saw and heard. Some days, when all he’d wanted to do was lie on his back and stare up at the clouds in the sky, imagining they could transport him to anywhere in the world, he would get annoyed with her and sulk.
At the bottom of the lane, he paused at the T-junction for a couple of cars and a bus to rumble past before crossing over onto the main street of the village. It occurred to him as he waited that he was still as big a dreamer as he’d been when staring up at the clouds as a child. It was a trait his father had doubtless viewed as a weakness; after all, men like Jack Devereux knew exactly what they wanted in life. Their vision was perfectly clear, whereas Kit’s had always been a bit blurred.
He was just entering the market square when he spotted a familiar face amongst the shoppers, a face he hadn’t seen in a long time. It was Evelyn Flowerday. Dressed in a pretty polka-dot dress, she was walking alongside two elderly women whom Kit also recognised – Miss Gant and Miss Treadmill. The former was decked out in lace and frills and a straw hat decorated with flowers, shiny red cherries and all manner of ribbons, while the latter wore sturdy corduroy breeches and a plaid shirt. Waddling behind the two women were their pet geese, each sporting a neckerchief. It was so long since Kit had seen the old ladies and their devoted birds – assuming they were the same ones and not younger replacements – he’d forgotten how perfectly normal the sight of them was in Melstead St Mary.
The last time he’d seen Evelyn had been three years ago at the village fete, when they had both been briefly home during the summer vacation. Back then Evelyn had been up at Oxford, reading mathematics at Lady Margaret Hall while he had been at Brasenose, but despite knowing one another since childhood, their paths had seldom crossed during term time, mostly because Evelyn had been such a studious undergraduate, rarely leaving her college or the library.
But their paths had crossed that particular August Bank Holiday weekend, when Kit had made a rare visit to Island House. Within hours of him being home, he and Jack had argued over something wholly irrational – probably Kit’s poor academic results that term – and he had escaped to Clover Field to enjoy a glass of ale in the warm sunshine at the annual fete. He’d come across Evelyn inside the refreshment tent, where she had been tending to her mother, a sour and monstrous hypochondriac who treated her daughter as nothing more than an unpaid slave. Emboldened by alcohol, Kit had asked Evelyn if she would accompany him to the village dance that evening. He’d always liked her, having often played with her and her brother Edmund, during the school holidays, although as the years went by, he had begun to suspect that she found him rather lightweight in the intellectual department. To his surprise, she’d agreed, much to her mother’s displeasure.
The evening had gone wrong from the start. They’d been dancing for no more than a few minutes when Kit, thinking he was demonstrating sympathy for the position in which she found herself, made the mistake of criticising her mother and suggesting Evelyn shouldn’t indulge the annoying woman. To his horror, she had taken it as a personal slight, as though he were disparaging her.
‘Don’t think for one moment you have the right to judge me,’ she’d thrown back at him. ‘Not when you can’t stand up to your brother or father!’
He’d been stung by her comment. ‘If you think so poorly of me, why did you accept my invitation for this evening?’ he’d replied.
‘Because I’d hoped you might have changed; that Oxford had taught you to grow up.’
Her condemnation could not have been greater, and had caused him to behave far from well. He’d abandoned her at the dance and stomped home to Island House in a thoroughly bad mood. When he returned to Oxford, he left a note of apology in her college pigeonhole, but he never heard back from her.
Now here she was. The coward in him wondered if he could pretend he hadn’t seen her – why put himself in the firing line of yet more of her disapproval? But before he could take evasive action, Miss Gant spotted him and raised her gloved hand. Miss Treadmill and Evelyn then duly turned to look. With nothing else for it, he went over to say hello. What could be the worst that could happen?
‘We were so sorry to hear about your father,’ said Miss Gant in her breathy voice. ‘So sad to have lost him when he was still so full of life.’
Miss Treadmill nodded and joined in with her deeper staccato voice. ‘Forgive us for not showing our faces at the funeral yesterday. Couldn’t be helped. We had unexpected visitors. Tiresome really. But there you go.’
‘It was good of you to consider attending,’ Kit said, before risking a glance at Evelyn. Finding a friendly enough face looking at him, he said, ‘It’s good to see you again, Evelyn. How are you?’
She smiled. ‘I’m well, thank you.’
‘And Edmund?’
‘He’s very well too. He’s a doctor in London now.’
‘Evelyn’s such a dear girl,’ Miss Gant cooed. ‘Since her return to the fold, she’s been helping me with the children in the Sunday school. Oh, they absolutely love her!’
‘You’ve moved back, then?’ said Kit. The last he’d heard of her, she’d left the village.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘My mother needed me.’
Was it his imagination, or did she raise her chin in a gesture of defiance? ‘Please give her my regards,’ he said politely as one of the geese began to peck at his trousers, nipping his calf muscles with its sharp beak.
‘I will,’ Evelyn said.
‘Cecil, stop that at once!’ ordered Miss Treadmill, taking her boot to the goose and nudging it away from Kit’s leg. ‘Better get on. Lots to do. We’ll leave you young folk to catch up. Toodle-pip!’
