Kate Morton - The Distant Hours

For they’d been close once, she and Daddy, a long time ago, but the love had spoiled. Juniper was the better writer and Percy the better daughter, which left very little room for Saffy in their father’s affections. There had only been the one brief, glorious moment in which Saffy’s usefulness had outshone that of her sisters. After the Great War when Daddy had returned to them, all bruised and broken, it was she who had been able to bring him back, to give him the very thing he needed most. And it had been seductive, the force of his fondness, the evenings spent in hiding, where no one else could find them…

Suddenly there was bedlam and Saffy’s eyes snapped open. Someone was shouting. She was in the tub but the water was icy, the light had disappeared through the open window leaving dusk in its place. Saffy realized that she’d slipped into a doze. She was fortunate that was all the slipping she’d done. But who was shouting? She sat up, straining to hear. Nothing, and she wondered whether she’d imagined the noise.

Then it came again. And the din of a bell. The old man in the tower, off on one of his rants. Well, let Percy see to him. They deserved each other.

With a shiver, Saffy peeled back the cold flannel and stood, sending the water buckling back and forth. She stepped, dripping, onto the mat. There were voices downstairs now, she could hear them. Meredith, Juniper – and Percy, too; they were all there, all of them in the yellow parlour together. Waiting for their dinner, she supposed, and she would fetch it for them as she always did.

Saffy tugged her dressing gown from the hook on the door, fought with the sleeves and fastened it over her cool, wet skin, then she started down the hallway, her wet footsteps echoing along the flagstones. Nursing her little secret close.

‘You wanted something, Daddy?’ Percy pushed open the heavy door to the tower room. It took her a moment to spot him, tucked in the alcove by the fireplace, beneath the Goya print; and, when she did, he looked frightened to see her and she knew immediately that he’d suffered another of his delusions. Which meant that when she went downstairs she’d more than likely find his daily medicine sitting on the hall table where she’d left it that morning. It was her own fault for having expected too much, and she cursed herself for not having thought to check on him as soon as she’d arrived home from the church.

She softened her voice, spoke to him the way she imagined she might to a child, had she ever had the chance to know one well enough to love them: ‘There now. Everything’s all right. Would you like to sit down? Come along, I’ll help you get settled here by the window. It’s a lovely evening.’

He nodded jerkily, started towards her outstretched arm, and she knew that the delusion had ended. She knew, too, that it hadn’t been a bad one because he’d managed to recover himself sufficiently to say, ‘I thought I told you to wear a hairpiece.’

He had, many times now, and Percy had dutifully purchased one (not an easy thing to do in a time of war), only to leave the wretched thing lying like a severed fox’s tail on her bedside table. There was a crocheted blanket draped over the arm of the chair, a small, brightly coloured thing that Lucy had made for him some years ago, and Percy straightened it over his knees when he sat down, saying, ‘I’m sorry, Daddy. I forgot. I heard the bell and I didn’t want to leave you waiting.’

‘You look like a man. Is that what you want? People to treat you like a man?’

‘No, Daddy.’ Percy’s fingertips went to the nape of her neck, centred on the little velvety coil that dipped lower than the rest of her hairline. He’d meant nothing by it and she wasn’t offended, only a little startled by the suggestion. She sneaked a sideways glance at the glass-fronted bookcase, caught her image rippling in the dimpled surface; a rather severe-looking woman, sharp angles, a very straight spine, but a pair of not ungenerous breasts, a definite curve at the hips, a face that wasn’t primped with lipstick and powder but which she didn’t think was manly. Which she hoped was not.

Daddy, meanwhile, had turned his head to look out across the night-draped fields, blissfully unaware of the line of thinking he had sparked. ‘All of this,’ he said without shifting his gaze. ‘All of this.’

She leaned against the side of the chair, rested an elbow on its top. He didn’t need to say more. She understood as no one else the way he felt as he looked out across the fields of his ancestors.

‘Did you read Juniper’s story, Daddy?’ It was one of the few topics that could be relied upon to brighten his spirits, and Percy deployed it carefully, hoping she might thereby pull him back from the edges of the black mood she knew was still hovering.

He waved his hand in the direction of his pipe kit and Percy handed it to him. Rolled herself a cigarette as he was feeding tobacco into the bowl. ‘She’s a talent. There’s no doubt about it.’

Percy smiled. ‘She gets it from you.’

‘We must be careful with her. The creative mind needs freedom. It must wander at its own pace and in its own patterns. It’s a difficult thing to explain, Persephone, to someone whose mind works along more stolid lines, but it is imperative that she be freed from practicalities, from distractions, from anything that might steal her talent away.’ He grabbed at Percy’s skirt. ‘She hasn’t got a fellow chasing her, has she?’

‘No, Daddy.’

‘A girl like Juniper needs protection,’ he continued, setting his chin. ‘To be kept somewhere safe. Here at Milderhurst, within the castle.’

‘Of course she will stay here.’

‘It’s up to you to make sure. To take care of both your sisters.’ And he launched into his familiar spiel about legacy and responsibility and inheritance.

Percy waited a time, finished smoking her cigarette, and only when he was reaching the end, said, ‘I’ll take you to the lavatory before I go, shall I, Daddy?’

‘Go?’

‘I’ve a meeting this evening, in the village-’

‘Always rushing off.’ Displeasure pulled at his bottom lip and Percy had a very clear picture of what he might have looked like as a boy. A spoiled child accustomed to having things as he wished.

‘Come along now, Daddy.’ She walked the old man to the lavatory and reached for her tobacco tin as she waited in the cooling corridor. Patting her pocket and remembered she’d left it in the tower room. Daddy would be a time, so she hurried back to fetch it.

She found the tin on his desk. And that’s where she also found the parcel. A package from Mr Banks but with no stamp affixed. Meaning it had been delivered personally.

Percy’s heart beat faster. Saffy had not mentioned a visitor. Was it possible Mr Banks had come from Folkestone, sneaked into the castle and made his way up to the tower, without announcing himself to Saffy? Anything was possible, she supposed, but it was surely unlikely. What reason would he have for doing such a thing?

Percy stood for a moment, undecided, fingering the envelope as heat collected along the back of her neck and beneath her arms so that her blouse stuck.

With a glance over her shoulder, even though she knew herself to be alone, she unsealed it and shimmied the folded papers from inside. A will. The date was today’s; she straightened the letter and skimmed it for meaning. Experienced the strange, oppressive gravity of having her worst suspicions confirmed.

She pressed the fingers of one hand against her forehead. That such a thing should have been allowed to happen. Yet here it was; in black and white, and blue where Daddy had slashed his agreement. She read the document again, more closely, checking it for loopholes, for a missing page, for anything that might suggest she’d misunderstood, read too quickly.