Kate Morton - The Distant Hours

‘To be married. Juniper’s engaged to be married.’

‘But that’s ridiculous. Of course she’s not.’ Saffy was genuinely stunned. ‘Juniper?’ She laughed a little, a tinny sound. ‘Married? Wherever did you hear such a thing?’

A stream of smoky exhalation.

‘Well? Who’s been talking such nonsense?’

Percy was busy rescuing a piece of stray tobacco from her bottom lip and for a moment said nothing. She frowned instead at the speck on her fingertip. Finally, she flicked her hand on its way to the ashtray. ‘It was probably nothing. I was just in the post office and-’

‘Ha!’ said Saffy, with rather more triumph than was perhaps warranted. Relief, too, that Percy’s gossip was just that: village talk with no grounding in truth. ‘I might have known. That Potts woman! Really, she’s an utter menace. We must all be thankful that she hasn’t turned her loose talk yet to matters of state.’

‘You don’t believe it then?’ Percy’s voice was woody, no modulation at all.

‘Of course I don’t believe it.’

‘Juniper hasn’t said anything to you?’

‘Not a word.’ Saffy came to where Percy was sitting, reached out and touched her sister’s arm. ‘Really, Percy dear. Can you imagine Juniper as a bride? Dressed all in white lace; agreeing to love and obey somebody else as long as they both shall live?’

The cigarette lay withered and lifeless in the ashtray now, and Percy steepled her fingers beneath her chin. Then she smiled slightly, lifting her shoulders, settling them again, shaking the notion away. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘Silly gossip, nothing more. I only wondered…’ But what precisely she wondered, Percy let taper to its own conclusion.

Although there was no music playing, the gramophone needle was still tracing dutifully around the record’s centre and Saffy put it out of its misery, lifting it back to the cradle. She was about to excuse herself to check on the rabbit pie, when Percy said, ‘Juniper would have told us. If it were true; she would’ve told us.’

Saffy’s cheeks warmed, remembering the journal on the floor upstairs, the shock of its most recent entry, the hurt at having been kept in the dark.

‘Saffy?’

‘Certainly,’ she said quickly. ‘People do, don’t they? They tell each other things like that.’

‘Yes.’

‘Especially their sisters.’

‘Yes.’

And it was true. Keeping a love affair secret was one thing, an engagement quite another. Even Juniper, Saffy felt sure, would not be so blind to the feelings of others, the ramifications that such a decision would have.

‘Still,’ said Percy, ‘we should speak with her. Remind her that Daddy-’

‘Isn’t here,’ Saffy finished gently. ‘He isn’t here, Percy. We’re all of us free now to do exactly as we please.’ To leave Milderhurst behind, to set sail for the glamour and excitement of New York City and never look back.

‘No.’ Percy said it so sharply that Saffy worried for a moment that she’d spoken her intentions out loud. ‘Not free, not completely. We each of us have duties towards the others. Juniper understands that; she knows that marriage-’

‘Perce-’

‘Those were Daddy’s wishes. His conditions .’

Percy’s eyes were searching her own and Saffy realized it was the first time in months that she’d had the opportunity to study her twin’s face so closely; she saw that her sister wore new lines. She was smoking a lot and worrying, and no doubt the war itself was taking its toll, but whatever the cause the woman sitting before her was no longer young. Neither was she old, and Saffy understood suddenly – though surely she had known it before? – that there was something, some place, in between. And that they were both in it. Maidens no more, but a way yet from being crones.

‘Daddy knew what he was doing.’

‘Of course, darling,’ Saffy said tenderly. Why hadn’t she noticed them before – all those women in the great in-between? They were not invisible surely, they were merely going about their business quietly, doing what women did when they were no longer young but not yet old. Keeping neat houses, wiping tears from their children’s cheeks, darning the holes in their husband’s socks. And suddenly Saffy understood why Percy was behaving this way, almost as if she were jealous of the possibility that Juniper, who was only eighteen, might some day marry. That she still had her entire adult life ahead of her. She understood, too, why tonight of all nights Percy should lose herself in such sentimental thoughts. Though driven by concern for Juniper, motivated by gossip in the village, it was the encounter with Lucy that had her behaving this way. Saffy was drenched then by a wave of crashing affection for her stoic twin, a wave so strong it threatened to leave her breathless. ‘We were unlucky, weren’t we, Perce?’

Percy looked up from the cigarette she was rolling. ‘What’s that?’

‘The two of us. We were unfortunate when it came to matters of the heart.’

Percy considered her. ‘I shouldn’t think that luck had much to do with it. A basic matter of mathematics, wasn’t it?’

Saffy smiled; it was just as the governess who replaced Nanny had told them, right before she went away, returning to Norway to marry her widower cousin. She’d taken them for a lesson by the lake, her habit when she wasn’t in the mood for teaching but wanted to escape Mr Broad’s scrutiny; she’d looked up from where she was sunning herself to say, in that lazy, accented manner of hers, eyes glinting with malicious pleasure, that they’d do well to put all thought of marriage aside; that the same Great War that had wounded their father had also killed their chances. The thirteen-year-old twins had merely stared blankly, an expression they’d perfected, knowing it drove adults to agitation. What did they care? Marriage and suitors were the last things on their minds back then.

Saffy said softly, ‘Well, that’s a sorry luck of sorts, isn’t it? To have all one’s future husbands die on the French battlefields?’

‘How many were you planning on having?’

‘What’s that?’

‘Husbands. You said, “To have all one’s future”…’ Percy lit her cigarette and waved her hand. ‘Never mind,’ she said.

‘Only one.’ Saffy felt suddenly light-headed. ‘There was only one I wanted.’

The silence that followed was agonizing and Percy, at least, had the dignity to look uncomfortable. She didn’t say anything though, offered no words of comfort or understanding, no kind gestures, merely pinched the tip of her cigarette, sending it to sleep, and made for the door.

‘Where are you going?’

‘A headache. It’s come on quickly.’

‘Sit down then; I’ll fetch you a couple of aspirin.’

‘No – ’ Percy refused to meet Saffy’s gaze – ‘no, I’ll fetch them myself from the medicine box. The walk will do me good.’

Percy hurried along the hallway, wondering how she could have been so bloody stupid. She’d meant to burn the pieces of Emily’s letter immediately, and instead she’d allowed the encounter with Lucy to flummox her so that she’d left them in her pocket. Worse yet, she’d delivered them directly to Saffy, the very person from whom the correspondence must be kept concealed. Percy drummed down the stairs, through the door and into the steam-filled kitchen. When, she wondered, might she have remembered the letter herself, if not for Saffy’s allusion to Emily’s husband, Matthew, just now? Was it too premature to lament the loss of her reliable mind; to wonder at the sorts of demonic deals she’d have to make to get it back?

Percy stopped abruptly before the table. Her trousers were no longer where she’d left them. Her heart lurched, a hammer against her ribs; she forced it back inside its cage where it belonged. Panic would not help; besides, this wasn’t of itself a terrible thing. Percy was quite sure Saffy hadn’t yet read the letter: her manner upstairs had been far too measured, too calm, for it to be otherwise. For, dear God, if Saffy knew that Percy was still in touch with their cousin, there’d be no masking that tantrum. Which meant all was not yet lost. Find the trousers, remove the evidence, and everything would be all right.