This time the chuckle was unmistakable. “Zeus. Daft name for a horse if you ask me, but then nobody did.”
Lewis glanced at his companion, relieved that the sharp nose he could see faintly silhouetted under the peaked cap did not seem to indicate a bad temper. “Are you the groom, then?”
“You are a cheeky sort.”
“It’s just that I thought you might be a chauffeur,” Lewis hastened to add, afraid he’d overstepped the bounds with his new friend. “But you’ve not got a car.”
“It seems I’ll be driving whatever Miss Edwina requires,” said John, and Lewis was relieved to hear the undertone of amusement again. “Young Harry Watts, the groom, ran off yesterday to join up. It’s Harry’s room you’ll be getting, lad. Not that he did much anyway, with only two horses to look after, old Zeus here and Miss Edwina’s hunter. She prefers the automobile, but she wasn’t inclined to waste petrol on fetching a London ragamuffin up from the village.”
Lewis considered taking offense at being called a ragamuffin, but decided his pride didn’t warrant drying up his font of information. “What sort of an auto is it?”
“There are two, lad. The MG Roadster Miss Edwina drives herself, and the Bentley I drive for her.”
“Blimey,” Lewis whispered under his breath. The autos were the stuff of legend, beasts not glimpsed among the lorries and tradesmen’s vans of the Island. Just what had he got himself into? “Who is Miss Edwina?” he ventured. “Is she very rich?”
John chuckled. “That’s Mrs. Burne-Jones to you, lad, and I suppose she does well enough for herself. You’ll see for yourself in half a tick. We’re almost there.”
Lewis couldn’t see any change in the dappled, leafy darkness surrounding them, but talking to John had made him feel a bit less frightened of it. After a moment’s silence, he risked one more question. “Is there a Mr. Burne-Jones?”
“Broke his neck in a hunting fall the first year they were married. But if you ask me, she was just as glad to come back here. The house belongs to her family, the Haliburtons, drafty old pile that it is. Now hush, lad, and grab on to the cart.” Twitching the reins, John made a clucking sound to the horse. Zeus turned sharply to the left and the cart lurched into a rut, rocking Lewis half out of his seat.
When he’d righted himself he realized they had emerged from the trees. He could see stars now, flinty specks against a sky as black as deep water. A spicy, green scent filled his nostrils as the cart brushed against a hedge; when he reached out to touch the leaves they felt soft against his fingers.
Then the road curved round a bend and he saw a darker shape rising against the sky, and to him it seemed as massive as one of the great ships. He gave a silent gasp of amazement—nothing he’d heard could possibly have prepared him for the sheer size and grandeur of this house.
As he gaped, he heard John chuckle beside him. “Miss Edwina’s grandfather built it. Knew how to do things proper in those days, not like these modern things they throw up now. It must have been a sight, with a full staff and more gardeners than you could shake a stick at.”
Lewis only half heard, his eyes fixed on the bulk of the house as the drive curved round it and the great peaks of the roof shut out the stars. John coaxed the horse to a stop and jumped down, then lifted Lewis’s battered case from the back. “I’ll turn you over to Cook now. You might just sweet-talk her into giving you a bite of supper.”
“But Miss Edwina … won’t I see her?”
“Don’t hold your breath, lad.” John put a hand on Lewis’s shoulder and marched him up to a door. “She has folks visiting from London, but I daresay she’ll get round to you eventually.”
His mouth suddenly dry with terror, Lewis turned and clutched John by the sleeve. “You’ll come in with me, won’t you?”
For a moment he thought the man would refuse, but then his new friend sighed and said, “I’ll have to answer to my Mary for keeping her supper waiting. But I suppose I can get you settled in the kitchen, then I’ll come back and take you to your room after you’ve had a bite to eat. It must be hard, away from home on your own. Where’s your family, lad?”
“The East End,” answered Lewis, thinking of the comfortable muddle of his neighborhood. “The Isle of Dogs.” Looking up at the dark walls looming in front of him, his question popped out before he’d thought whether or not he should ask it. “It’s so big—the house—why wouldn’t Miss Edwina take the others?”
John Pebbles shook his head. “Because she’s a stubborn woman, and she’s made up her mind there’s not going to be a war. She always wants to think the best, does Miss Edwina, but I’ve no doubt she’ll be sensible enough when the time comes.” He sighed in the darkness. “And come it will, sooner rather than later, I fear.” With that, he opened the door and nudged Lewis into the warmth and light of the kitchen.
HOW LIKE HER EX-HUSBAND, TO WEAR a button- down shirt and trousers on a day when everyone else had exposed their skin to the legal limit, thought Jo as she watched Martin Lowell cross the street and enter the park. She’d phoned and asked him to meet her here, near the outdoor tea garden.
When Harry had been small they’d come here every fine Sunday afternoon. They’d had tea and read the Sunday papers with Harry in his pushchair; then as he grew they’d helped him toddle up the hill towards the Observatory; and later still they’d crossed the road and explored the Maritime Museum.
Her choice of rendezvous had been instinctive, comforting, but obviously it hadn’t inspired any fond memories in Martin. As he reached her, he pushed his tortoiseshell spectacles up on his nose and glowered at her.
“I don’t know what you’re trying on, Jo, but I’m not having it. This is my afternoon with the children and I don’t want to hear some silly excuse—”
All the civil and reasonable words she’d rehearsed as she walked down the hill were washed away on a flood of anger so intense it left her trembling. “Martin, shut up, will you?”
He stared at her, too surprised for a moment to respond, then said, “Don’t take that tone with me, Jo. There’s no—”
