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  Everyone oohed and aahed as the maid bore in the Christmas pudding, the brandy aflame with blue light. When they had each eaten a portion and old Mrs Richards had recovered from choking on the hidden sixpence in hers, someone remarked on how early it was growing dark outside.

  ‘It’s snowing again,’ Diane noticed with alarm. ‘What will happen if we get stuck here?’

  ‘You’ll all have to sleep on the floor,’ Ivor said, eyes twinkling. ‘And we’ll have cold goose for days and days and burn the furniture for firewood.’

  ‘Oh really, Ivor,’ Mrs Richards said, seeing Diane’s alarm.

  ‘What nonsense did the boy say?’ the old lady cut in.

  ‘Nothing, Mother.’

  ‘It’s so kind of you, Hector, to have sent your Mr Hartmann to dig us out this morning,’ Mrs Bailey said to get the conversation rolling again.

  ‘We didn’t send him exactly, Belinda. Ivor would have gone, of course, but then Hartmann called by to say he would.’

  ‘Really? Well, it was very thoughtful of everyone. Hartmann’s been very efficient. He’s your gardener, did you say?’

  ‘He’s under-gardener for the estate,’ Major Richards said, cracking open a walnut. ‘He lives with his mother in a little lodge up near the hall.’

  ‘He seems, well, a cut above the usual. And that accent. Is it German?’

  ‘He’s a Hun, yes, or half a one. That’s his father’s side. His mother is English, though you wouldn’t guess it. He was born and raised in Germany, but he and his mother arrived a year ago. Something rather unpleasant happened to Herr Hartmann.’ Here Major Richards drew a finger across his throat. ‘Fell foul of those Gestapo chaps, or so we gather. Anyway, Lady Kelling is some relation of Mrs Hartmann’s and Sir Henry made them welcome, gave the boy work. Hartmann seems pleasant enough, but I’d be careful what you say near him.’

  ‘Be careful?’ Sarah wondered. ‘Of what?’

  ‘If we go to war he’ll be the enemy, won’t he?’

  ‘Oh, surely not. Anyway, do you think we will go to war?’

  ‘Farmers like Bulldock and his ilk would say not. You were still in India, of course, but you could almost touch the sense of relief round here when Chamberlain pulled us back from the brink. I’m the last one to want us to go through war with Germany again, mind you, but this Hitler cove, I don’t trust him an inch.’

  ‘Mr Hitler, did you say? The man has no breeding,’ old Mrs Richards barked. ‘What are things coming to?’

  Everyone was silent, in respect for what Major Richards had endured, Sarah imagined, or perhaps it was fear of what might be to come. Surely, though, it was unthinkable that Europe should go to war again. They had fought the war to end all wars such a short time ago and nobody would seriously contemplate a repeat of it.

  ‘War would be different this time,’ Ivor Richards said, his quiet words distinct enough in the silence even for old Mrs Richards to hear. ‘We’ve seen it in Spain. Cities bombed and set aflame. Women and children killed. And the Germans, those tanks they’ve got, remarkable machines, whole, terrifying divisions of them—’

  ‘Ivor, stop it, dear. It’s Christmas Day. I won’t have talk of it. You’ll frighten the girls.’

  ‘Sorry, Mother, you’re quite right, of course. It’s talk about Hartmann that started all this.’

  He doesn’t like him, Sarah thought, surprised. She sat quietly and sipped her glass of cognac. Hartmann was dangerous, but not in the way Ivor meant. It was the animosity his name roused. But whatever it was Sir Henry Kelling saw in Paul Hartmann, she saw too. His parentage was irrelevant. She liked him for his kindness to them.

  The snowfall did not last long and the woods seen from the drawing room where they’d retired for coffee were bathed in a rosy light. ‘I’d rather like a walk,’ Sarah suggested, but only Ivor offered to join her. They muffled themselves up to the eyes in coats, scarves and gloves and set forth into a dream landscape, following the path up towards the hall, because Sarah said she’d like to see the place.

  ‘It’s so wonderful out here,’ she said, laughing with pleasure as the snow crunched under their boots.

  ‘I’ve always loved snow. It’s like having a holiday. No one has to do anything except survive it.’ Ivor’s voice had a wistful catch that made her glance at him, but he was concentrating on staying upright.

  ‘Who are the Bulldocks?’

  ‘Oh, the Bulldocks.’ His sudden laugh caused birds to fly up in panic, scattering snow from the trees. ‘They’re an old Norfolk farming family. My grandmother fell out with old man Bulldock’s mother years ago and my father thinks Bulldock’s a lily-livered Nazi-lover. Part of the happy band of Hitler-appeasers in Norfolk, of whom there are more than one or two. Mr Mosley’s Blackshirts have been seen round here, you know.’

  ‘They sound appalling. I suppose none of this will stop Diane being able to go dancing?’

  ‘Good lord no. We’d not speak to half our neighbours if we took that attitude. I say, your sister’s a damned pretty girl, but I’ve yet to see her smile.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t swear. Mummy wouldn’t like it.’ For a moment Sarah walked ahead, feeling unaccountably disturbed. Actually she didn’t care sixpence about him swearing, she had said it simply to shut him up.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean . . .’

  She turned. ‘Listen, Diane’s had a worse time than any of us,’ she said sharply. ‘I don’t want to talk behind her back, but please remember that.’

  ‘I said I’m sorry.’ His brow creased with anxiety and she relented.

  ‘No, it’s I who should apologize. I spoke too harshly. Forgive me.’

  ‘Of course.’ He gave her a sorrowful smile. ‘I sometimes say the wrong thing, but I don’t mean to.’ Now she felt a rush of sympathy for him, glimpsing a sensitive nature, and laid her hand briefly on his arm to reassure him.

  They trudged on for a while up the steep hill, breathing heavily with the effort, then the woods came to an end, and suddenly there before them, a few hundred yards away, was Westbury Hall. They stopped to rest and Sarah stared at gracious lines of its old ochre brick walls, the crenellations and turrets crested with drifts of snow, the diamond-paned windows overhung by icicles.

  ‘Lovely pile, isn’t it?’ Ivor remarked.

  ‘Elizabethan?’ she asked as they set off towards it.

  ‘That sort of whatnot. As Mother said, the family are in London much of the time. Money’s tight. Can’t afford to run a full staff, Dad reckons. If there’s another war, well, you can understand why the Kellings, the Bulldocks and their ilk are resisting it so loudly.’

  ‘Sir Henry Kelling, too?’

  ‘He’s not as bad as some of the others,’ Ivor admitted. ‘But another war would put paid to his sort, that’s what Father thinks.’

  ‘Don’t you think the danger is past? That Germany has all it wants now?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Ivor spoke as though weighing his words. ‘Surely they’re not foolish enough, but the stories you hear of the strength of their forces tell otherwise. We can only hope. What do they want, that’s what I’d like to know. And what could we do against them? Sometimes I think the Bulldocks of this world are right and we should stay out of it, but then . . .’

  ‘We have obligations.’

  ‘Yes, we do, and we cannot cut ourselves off from our sworn allies.’

  They were close to the house now so that it towered over them, and their boots met gravel under the snow. Sarah, on tiptoe, clutched a sill to look in through a window, and was put out to find the curtains were drawn. Instead Ivor led her under an arch into a courtyard at the side of the house, then on through a snowbound garden, where they passed the muffled shapes of bushes, statues, a simple fountain. Two sides were lined with poplar trees, but along the far edge ran a high brick wall of the same ochre hues as the house and into one end of this was set a studded wooden door. It was closed and banked up with snow.

  ‘The kitchen garden’s through there,’
Ivor explained, ‘and beyond that the cottage where the Hartmanns live. I say, we should start back, don’t you think?’

  A doleful twilight brooded over the snow, and Ivor turned to go, but Sarah was reluctant. The thought of the walled garden beyond the door was intriguing. She longed to see it, but Ivor was already ahead. As she hurried after him, the thought of a warm fire and Christmas cake rose in her mind. She’d return here and see the gardens properly in the spring, she promised herself. Hopefully with an invitation, for today it felt they were trespassing.

  They arrived back at Westbury Cottage in cheerful spirits only to be puzzled by their reception.

  ‘Goodness, dears, how bright-eyed and bushy-tailed we look,’ was Aunt Margo’s greeting as they entered the stuffy drawing room. And everyone stared at them in amusement, which Sarah found unnerving.

  There had been something unreal about the whole day, she reflected that evening, the alien light on the snow, the sense of desertion at Westbury Hall. She’d longed for the delightful Christmases of her childhood, for although there had been icicles, candles and a leaping fire in the grate today, and rich marzipan fruit cake, it was marred by bereavement and rumours of war. The innocence of those far-off days of her childhood was gone for ever.

  Eleven

  Jennifer Bulldock, who opened the farmhouse door on New Year’s Eve, was a tall girl, but awkwardly coltish rather than gracefully willowy.

  ‘Oh goody, Ivor, you’re just in time for Blind Man’s Buff.’ Her hearty voice competed with the yapping of the small terrier dog which she was trying to collar.

  ‘Maybe once I’ve got a drink inside me,’ Ivor laughed. ‘Jen, this is Miss Sarah Bailey and her sister Diane.’

  ‘Wonderful to meet you both. Do come in. Whoops, don’t mind Chester, he gets overexcited.’ The dog was making angry rushes at the newcomers, but Jennifer was finally able to nab him and bundle him into the arms of a maid who bore him away.

  ‘You’re very kind to have us,’ Sarah said, liking this girl immensely. She possessed an air of good humour and took their hats and coats without any fuss before ushering them into a large cheerful drawing room where a scene of chaos greeted them. The furniture had been pushed to the walls and a dozen young people were crowding around a burly ginger-head in an ill-fitting dark suit. His blindfold, a ladies’ polka-dotted scarf, pushed his fringe up into a spiky halo.

  ‘He’s all yours, Harry!’ somebody shouted.

  Harry, a muscular, smiley young man with dark, healthy good looks, seized the blindfolded boy by the shoulders and turned him till he was dizzy. Everyone drew back as the victim staggered free and the girls squealed as he barged about, trying to catch one of them.

  Sarah enjoyed the game from the sidelines, feeling too old for this buffoonery, but she couldn’t help laughing when Diane was caught and took her turn, though the girl appeared terrified as Harry tied the scarf over her eyes. Then her heart went out to her sister, for she looked so utterly lost as he released her and she stumbled about until the lad himself took pity and allowed himself to be caught.

  ‘She’s rather a sport, your sister,’ Ivor remarked, appearing beside her with two glasses of steaming mulled wine.

  ‘She’s always liked parties.’ It was true. Something about being in a crowd appealed to Diane. Perhaps other people helped take her mind off herself. Sarah remembered with sudden pain how it had been too late to cancel Diane’s party on that awful summer afternoon. The guests arrived only to turn away at the sad news of Colonel Bailey’s illness, but Diane had begged them to stay. Sarah had discovered this about grief, that she kept being reminded of her father at the most unlikely moments.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Ivor said. His sincere brown eyes examined her anxiously and she was touched by how attentive he was being.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

  ‘We’d better not stand here or Harry will get us for sure. Watch out!’

  They ducked Harry’s lurching figure and Sarah followed Ivor out through the hall and into the candlelit dining room where a large bony woman with a look of Jennifer and wearing spectacles on a gold chain was ordering the finishing touches to a supper table groaning with dishes and fussing at the terrified maid about the number of chairs around the wall.

  ‘Ivor, dear, it isn’t ready yet,’ she snapped by way of greeting.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Bulldock. I simply wanted to introduce Sarah Bailey.’

  The woman fixed a glare upon Sarah, who felt a little shiver pass through her as though she was being judged and found acceptable. The lines on Mrs Bulldock’s forehead betrayed her as a worrier. ‘So you’re the elder Bailey girl then? Such bad luck about your father. I gather he didn’t leave your mother much to live on? It’s a lesson to us all.’

  ‘I’m not sure who you’ve heard that from, but Daddy looked after us very well.’ Sarah could hardly manage to be polite, she was so irritated by this stranger who seemed to know so much about them and felt free to comment.

  ‘How are you finding the cottage? Those tenants you had were a poor sort, I’ll say. The boys ran wild.’

  ‘They weren’t too bad,’ Ivor put in, eyeing the sausage rolls hungrily. ‘Their father was the artistic sort, that’s all.’

  ‘With morals to match, I suppose. The wife must have been shy, she always slipped away if one tried to speak to her. Still, Sarah, I hope you’ll be happy here. I’ll pay your mother a visit soon, tell her, I expect she’d be glad of the company. And I need someone sensible on the summer fete committee. Lady Kelling’s our chairman, you know, but she’s in London most of the time so she leaves these things to me. I’m sure your mother will fit the bill. Mary, don’t leave the butter near the candles, you silly child.’

  The thought of her mother agreeing to help on a committee was so unlikely that Sarah had to stifle a laugh. Mrs Bailey had always avoided the duties of an officer’s wife as far as she could, apart from the entertaining, for she enjoyed basking in male attention.

  Finally everyone was called through for supper. Sarah noticed that Diane was flushed and giggling and her eyes were unnaturally bright. Was it, she wondered, the effect of the high jinks or of the contents of the empty wine glass in her hand? Oh, what did it matter, for the moment her sister appeared happy.

  Jennifer, she saw, became anxious in her mother’s presence. Mrs Bulldock criticized the perfectly reasonable-sized portion of Jubilee chicken her daughter was helping herself to, which made Jennifer drop some on the lace cloth as she jerked the spoon back towards the dish.

  Ivor, apparently popular and at ease in this company, introduced Sarah to several of his friends, the sons and daughters of gentleman farmers for the most part, with whom he’d grown up and mixed with during holidays from school. The cheerful, handsome lad, Harry, was one of them. Despite his earlier boisterousness he proved perfectly presentable company, easy to talk to and with a good word for everyone. He popped a sausage roll into his mouth and fixed her with an amiable, round-eyed gaze. ‘I say, what do you plan to do with yourselves now you’re here?’

  ‘We don’t know at the moment,’ she replied, accepting a dish of trifle Ivor brought her and aware of him hovering at her elbow. ‘We’re still settling in.’

  ‘I hope you don’t find it very remote here. Though I suppose coming from India you’re rather used to remoteness.’

  ‘Yes, we were out in the sticks there, but the thing is we were always among people.’ Too many people sometimes, though she didn’t tell Harry this. Though the bungalow in Kashmir had been spacious and set in large gardens, she had rarely had the privilege of feeling alone. Lonely, yes. One could feel lonely in a crowd, but the pleasure of one’s own company and the time to pursue one’s own interests, not only was that rare, but it was looked upon with suspicion. To survive as a member of the colonial force in the country, the thing to do was to stick together, to keep up the appearance of being civilized. There was unease with loners or the eccentric.

  After supper Jennifer set up the
gramophone and there was dancing and much horseplay and laughter. Diane was steered about the floor by Harry, who held her slight frame carefully as they quickstepped, as though she might easily be crushed. Ivor danced with Sarah several times, which she thought gallant of him. There was only a few inches difference in their heights and he was a good dancer, on which she complimented him.

  ‘Is it one of things new officers learn at Sandhurst?’

  He smiled down at her. ‘There is certainly a good social side to be had there.’

  She found he was different here, in company, than during that time on Christmas Day when they’d walked together in the snow. He seemed happier, more relaxed, sure of himself. The other Ivor, the one she saw when they’d been alone, she wasn’t sure she’d liked as much, but there was something that made her sorry for him. His father was hard on him; maybe he didn’t mean to be, but he was. Ivor wore the weight of his father’s expectations, perhaps that was what made him highly strung.

  Some of the guests were staying overnight, but since it hadn’t snowed again Ivor drove Sarah and Diane home slowly through the wintry darkness. In the porch of Flint Cottage the lamp had been left burning, making the house appear golden and welcoming.

  Sarah was lying sleepless in the grey snow light of her room, the laughter and the music still playing in her head when the latch clicked, the door cracked open and Diane’s pale face appeared.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ she whispered, slipping into the room. ‘I can’t sleep, is all. Too cold.’

  Sarah made room for her shivering body. ‘Oh, your feet,’ she breathed through her teeth, ‘they’re like blocks of ice.’