There were three houses here, their walls half shingled in tile, patterns of diamonds, pretty gardens in the front, the spring flowers just past their past.
The first house was Alfred’s…she passed it, eyes down, hardly breathing, refusing to think… She couldn’t…not yet…there wastoo much to feel, too much weight pressing…old stones and ancient trees, and maybe even the sea breeze wouldn’t be able to clear it, maybe the sea breeze only fed it, kept it pressing on, onwards and onwards and—
There were footsteps on the path. A stone skipped away from someone’s foot. Her head jerked up and she stopped dead, seeing ghosts.
No. No, it couldn’t be…
A dark-haired boy walked towards her, kicking stones. He looked about fourteen. He was…
“Alfred?”
The boy stopped, looked up. Her vision swam. It was him. And it wasn’t him. A girl ran up behind him, her hair lighter, about the same age as the boy. “Nicholas—” But she stopped, seeing Madelaine, seeing the strange way she stared.
He wasn’t Alfred. His eyes were grey. His face was different. But for a moment…oh, for a moment… Her legs trembled. She put out a hand to the wall at her hip, the sharp edges of the knapped flint scratching against her palm. She gripped it harder, grateful for the bite of pain.
“Ma’am,” the boy said politely. His face was pale, very serious for a boy his age.
“I’m…I’m sorry. For a moment I thought you were someone else.”
“Alfred?” The boy glanced at the girl. They must be brother and sister. Their faces were so alike. “We don’t know an Alfred, do we?”
“Only our cousin.”
“Yes, but…” He gave Madelaine an apologetic glance. “We had a cousin called Alfred is what my sister means. He died a long time ago.”
“I see.”
She ought to say more. She was staring. They were strangers to her. And it wasn’t often she saw a face she didn’t know here. It was a very small town, no more than a village, really. For the first time, she realised both the boy and girl were dressed in black mourning.
“I…I don’t suppose his name was Ardingly. Alfred Ardingly?”
The boy nodded gravely. The girl, smiling, piped up, “That’s right!”
When Madelaine didn’t reply, the girl, bright and friendly, continued, “We’re new here. Well…we arrived a week ago. I’m Grace Shilstone, and this is my brother, Nicholas.” She grinned. “We’re twins!”
Yes. She could see that now. Their faces were so similar. Their ages, their heights. Though their colouring was different, and their manner.
The boy, Nicholas, frowned at his sister’s forwardness, but politely mumbled, “Pleased to meet you, ma'am.” He made as though to doff his hat, then realised he wasn’t wearing one. His sister, heedless, continued, “Are you new too? We haven’t seen you yet, and our aunt has been very good, introducing us to everyone.”
“Mrs Ardingly,” Madelaine said numbly, meaning Alfred’s mother.
“Yes. We’ve come to live with her and my uncle. Now that…now that…” The girl’s sunny smile disappeared as quickly as it had come, replaced by pain. Sudden tears sprang to her eyes.
“Our parents died,” her brother continued for her, his serious voice level and unflinching. “Our aunt and uncle have been so good as to take us in. Our younger brother too. William.”
“He’s nine,” said Grace, giving a fierce sniff, her eyes shining with determination now. “But he has a cold, so he’s staying indoors today.”
“Well, then,” said Madelaine, trying to match the girl’s bravery and give her best attempt at a smile. “We are neighbours. I live just down the lane there, at the parsonage.” She skipped past the platitudes, theI’m sorry for your losses.They did no good. “Mr and Mrs Ardingly are the best of people. Have you met my brothers? Daniel and Joseph are around your age.”
They nodded, the boy’s grave eyes on her as he reached the realisation before his sister. “Then you are…youare Mrs Ardingly too?”
“That’s right.” Her smile was almost convincing. “I suppose I’m your cousin too.”
The parlour was so cosy. She always thought that. It struck her anew every evening of her life, as though there was always a part of her seeing it for the first time: the ancient rug that had once been red but was now all shades of autumn brown, the dark green paper above the wainscotting, the brasses and dried flowers hanging from the black beams. It was too small for her family. It was the heart of her home.
They all assembled there after dinner, her mother and father, her brothers, the fire lit though it was spring. A cold wind was coming in off the sea. They were still burning wood from the oak that had been brought down in January’s storms, but she could smell apple wood in the smoke, gnarled branches from the orchard’s vigorous pruning a few months ago. Her brother Daniel sat in the window seat, the drapes drawn against the breeze, the heavy sun-faded russet like a knight’s mantle around his broadening shoulders. He was almost sixteen. He’d blushed when Grace Shilstone was mentioned at dinner. Now he sat whittling a knotted lump of the pruned apple wood. It was hard, difficult wood to work, no longer green, the fibres dense andsnarled—he’d complained about it often enough for her to know—but he persevered, frowning in concentration, attempting to make a dragon’s face, or a lion, or whatever beast lived in the active mind his quiet exterior hid.
Her brother Joseph lay on his belly on the rug, flicking through a tattered copy ofThe Sporting Magazine. The squire up at the big house sent down a tied bundle of them once or twice a year for the boys to pore over. Joseph was thirteen. When their new neighbours had been discussed at dinner, he’d only wondered, plaintive as always, whether the boy, Nicholas, might be any good at cricket. “We need to field a much better team this summer. Wecannotbe beaten by Ryeagain.”
