Kate Morton - The Distant Hours

‘Don’t worry,’ she said, as Meredith reached her side. ‘Juniper won’t be much longer. It never lasts more than a day or so.’

‘But she’s been up there since dinnertime. The door’s locked, she won’t answer. I don’t understand…’ Meredith squinted in an unflattering way, a habit that Saffy found frightfully endearing. ‘What’s she doing?’

‘Writing,’ said Saffy simply. ‘That’s how it is with Juniper. That’s how it’s always been. It won’t last long and then she’ll be back to normal. Here – ’ she handed Meredith the small stack of cake plates – ‘why don’t you help by laying these out? Shall we sit your mother and father with their backs to the hedge so they can see the garden?’

‘All right,’ said Meredith, cheering up.

Saffy smiled to herself. Meredith Baker was delightfully compliant – an unexpected joy after raising Juniper – and her residency at Milderhurst Castle had been a resounding success. There was nothing like a child for forcing life back into tired, old stones, and the infusion of light and laughter had been just what the doctor ordered. Even Percy had taken a shine to the girl, relieved, no doubt, at having found the curlicues intact.

The greatest surprise, though, had been Juniper’s reaction. The evident affection she felt for the young evacuee was the closest Saffy had ever seen her come to caring for another person. Safty heard them sometimes, talking and giggling in the garden, and was confounded, but pleasantly so, by the genuine geniality in Juniper’s voice. Genial was not a word Saffy had ever thought to use when describing her little sister.

‘Let’s lay a place here for June,’ she said, indicating the table, ‘just in case, and you beside, I think… and Percy over there…’

Meredith had been following, laying down the plates, but she stopped then. ‘What about you?’ she said. ‘Where will you sit?’ And perhaps she read the apology forming in Saffy’s face for she went on quickly, ‘You are coming, aren’t you?’

‘Now, my dear.’ Saffy let the clutch of cake forks fall limp against her skirt, ‘I’d love to, you know I would. But Percy’s very traditional about such matters. She’s the eldest, and in the absence of Daddy that makes her the host. I know it must all sound terribly silly and formal to you, very old-fashioned indeed, but that’s the way things are done here. It’s the way Daddy likes to entertain at Milderhurst.’

‘But I still don’t see why you can’t both come.’

‘Well, one of us has to stay inside should Daddy need help.’

‘But Percy-’

‘Is so looking forward to it. She’s very keen to meet your parents.’

Saffy could see that Meredith was unconvinced; more than that, the poor child looked so bitterly disappointed that Saffy would have done just about anything to cheer her up. She prevaricated, but only briefly and not with any real strength, and when Meredith let out a long, dispirited sigh, Saffy’s remaining resolve collapsed. ‘Oh, Merry,’ she said, sneaking a glance over her shoulder, ‘I shouldn’t say anything, I really shouldn’t, but there is another reason I have to stay indoors.’

She slid to one end of the rickety garden seat and indicated Meredith should join her. Took a deep, cool breath and released it decidedly. Then she told Meredith all about the telephone call she was expecting that afternoon. ‘He’s a very important private collector in London,’ she said. ‘I wrote to him after a small advertisement appeared in the newspaper seeking an assistant to catalogue his collection. And he wrote back recently to tell me that mine was the successful application; that he would telephone me this afternoon so we might work out the details together.’

‘What does he collect?’

Saffy couldn’t help clasping her hands together beneath her chin. ‘Antiquities, art, books, beautiful things – what heaven !’

Excitement brightened the tiny freckles across Meredith’s nose and Saffy thought again what a lovely child she was, and how far she’d come in six short months. When one considered the poor skinny waif she’d been when Juniper first brought her home! Beneath the pale London skin and ragged dress, though, there lurked a quick mind and a delightful hunger for knowledge.

‘Can I visit the collection?’ said Meredith. ‘I’ve always wanted to see a real, live Egyptian artefact.’

Saffy laughed. ‘Of course you shall. I’m certain Mr Wicks would be delighted to show his precious things to a clever young lady like you.’

Meredith really did appear to glow then and the first barb of regret poked holes in Saffy’s pleasure. Was it not just a little unkind to fill the girl’s head with such grand imaginings only then to expect her to keep quiet about them? ‘Now, Merry,’ she said, sobering, ‘it’s very exciting news, but you must remember that it’s a secret. Percy doesn’t know yet, and nor shall she.’

‘Why not?’ Meredith’s eyes widened further. ‘What will she do?’

‘She won’t be happy, that’s for certain. She won’t want me to go. She’s rather resistant to change, you see, and she likes things the way they are, all three of us here together. She’s very protective like that. She always has been.’

Meredith was nodding, absorbing this detail of the family dynamic with so much interest that Saffy half expected her to pull out that little journal of hers and take down notes. Her interest was understandable, though: Saffy had heard sufficient of the child’s own older sister to know that notions of sibling protectiveness would be unfamiliar to her.

‘Percy is my twin and I love her dearly, but sometimes, Merry dear, one has to put one’s own desires first. Happiness in life is not a given, it must be seized.’ She smiled and resisted adding that there had been other opportunities, other chances, all lost. It was one thing to feed a child a confidence, quite another to burden her with adult regrets.

‘But what will happen when it’s time for you to go?’ said Meredith. ‘She’ll find out then.’

‘Oh, but I’ll tell her before that!’ Saffy said with a laugh. ‘Of course I will. I’m not planning to abscond in the black of night, you know! Certainly not. I just need to find the perfect words, a way of ensuring that Percy’s feelings aren’t hurt. Until such time, I think it best that she not hear a thing about it. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ said Meredith, somewhat breathlessly.

Saffy bit down on her bottom lip; she had the uneasy sense that she’d made an unfortunate error of judgement, that it had been unfair to put a child in such an awkward position. She’d only meant to take Meredith’s mind off her own miserable mood.

Meredith misunderstood Saffy’s silence, taking it for a lack of faith in her ability to keep a confidence. ‘I won’t say anything, I promise. Not a word. I’m very good at secrets.’

‘Oh Meredith,’ Saffy smiled ruefully. ‘I don’t doubt it. That’s not it at all – Oh, dear, I’m afraid I must apologize. It was wrong of me, asking you to keep a secret from Percy – will you forgive me?’

Meredith nodded solemnly and Saffy detected a glimmer in the girl’s face; pride at having been treated in such an adult manner, she supposed. Saffy remembered her own childish eagerness to grow up, how she’d waited impatiently on the cliff edge, pleading with adulthood to claim her, and she wondered whether it was possible ever to slow another’s journey. Was it even fair to try? Surely there could be nothing wrong in wanting to save Meredith, just as she’d tried to save Juniper, from reaching adulthood and its disappointments too fast?

‘There now, lovely one,’ she said, taking the last plate from Meredith’s hands, ‘why don’t you leave me to finish here? Go and have some fun while you wait for your parents to arrive. The morning’s far too brilliant to be spent doing chores. Just try not to get your dress too dirty.’