And all bore the same air of weary stoicism, hope too long deferred and dread fended off by fragile defences.
She felt an inner pang. This wasn’t an adventure for them. It was life or death.
‘I must go now and see to the rescue of my car,’ she said at last.
‘May I speak to you a few moments before you go, Miss Winters?’ Jarvis requested. ‘Perhaps I could join you in the garden?’
Whatever he wanted to say to her, she didn’t want to hear it until she’d had time to think.
‘Would you mind very much if we put it off?’ she said hurriedly. ‘I mustn’t keep Ferdy waiting.’
She hurried away before he could answer, but not before she’d sensed a frisson of surprise in the others. She wondered how long it had been since anyone had told Lord Larne to wait.
As they sped across the water Ferdy said, ‘I saw the deputation on the way out. Have they been giving him a hard time?’
‘They told him they knew he’d manage it one way or another, and they’d leave the details to him,’ Meryl said wryly.
Ferdy shouted with laughter. Yesterday she might have joined in, but now, for some reason the sound made her wince.
The haulage firm had been at work since low tide, in the early hours, and the car was already safe on land, looking somewhat the worse for wear. Meryl retrieved her luggage from the trunk, where it had escaped the worst. A representative of the car hire firm was on hand to take back the vehicle with much wringing of hands.
They had a good lunch at her expense, followed by a trip to the bank. Here matters proceeded satisfactorily. The manager, after an initial scepticism, made some calls to New York, during which his manner grew markedly more deferential. When Meryl departed she was once more ‘Miss Winters’, armed with a special emergency cheque book, and a promise that the official one would be ready next day.
The causeway was clear when they reached the shore, and the first thing they saw was Jarvis’s elderly Jeep making its way cautiously to the end. He stopped when he saw them and Meryl went up to his window.
‘You mad at me?’ she asked.
‘Certainly not,’ he said politely. ‘But we do need that talk.’
‘I agree.’ Before she realised what he meant to do she darted around the front of the vehicle and hopped up into the passenger seat.
‘Drive on,’ she said. ‘Bye, Ferdy.’
Ferdy had been transferring her baggage to the Jeep. He retired, grinning.
Jarvis didn’t move. ‘I don’t think this is the best-’
‘Of course it is. How can we talk in the castle? The walls have ears. Here we can be private and you can tell me exactly what you think of me.’
‘You’re right,’ he said grimly, letting in the clutch.
She said nothing for the first few minutes, until they’d left the built-up area behind and were swinging out onto the moors which stretched as far as the eye can see. Presently the land changed, softened into graceful undulations. Here and there she saw the glint of water as streams meandered through the gentle countryside.
‘Is this where I drove the other night?’ Meryl asked.
‘No, we’ve left the moor road.’
‘Can you stop a moment?’
The old vehicle ground to a halt with an ugly sound. She slipped out, followed by the dogs who’d been on the back seat, and went to stand where she could look down into the valley. Everything seemed mysteriously perfect. The divisions in the land were made by hedges, trees or by stone walls that looked as though they had grown naturally out of their surroundings.
Just below her she could see a flock of sheep, dotted about a field. The ewes chewed and surveyed the world, while the lambs skittered between them.
Jarvis came to stand beside her but he didn’t speak. He was watching her.
‘Is all this yours?’ she asked at last, so quietly that he almost didn’t hear.
‘Some of it,’ he said. ‘I own some farms around here, and rent them out.’
‘I’ve never seen so many wild flowers,’ she mused. ‘In fact, I don’t usually see much wild anything.’
‘No, you’re more of a hothouse flower,’ he said, speaking without rancour.
‘I suppose so. The trouble with being a hothouse flower is that you lose track of the seasons.’
‘Here the seasons are everything. This one’s the best, when spring is just turning into early summer. The lambing’s over and the sowing is ready to start.’
Rusty and Jacko were sniffing about in the grass, the picture of canine content. Their master threw a stick, but they ignored it and came to Meryl to have their ears fondled.
‘I don’t suppose there’s any money in farming, is there?’ she said thoughtfully.
‘Hey, how did you ever work that out?’ Jarvis still spoke amiably, almost teasing her.
‘I didn’t,’ she admitted. ‘It was something my father used to say.’
What Craddock Winters had actually said was, ‘Only fools waste their time trying to get things out of the earth by growing. The way to do it is to bore in and wrench out what you want. That’s how you get rich.’
Meryl had never thought about it enough to question his judgement, but now she realised that her father had never stood in a field in spring, listening to the silence. In fact-it dawned on her like a thunderclap-he’d hated silence almost as much as he hated his own company-and had made sure there was never any around him.
If only he could see her now! She could just hear his scathing tones. But there was a lot he hadn’t known.
‘Why are you smiling?’ Jarvis asked.
‘Talking about my father made me remember things-he thought cities mattered, and outside cities only oil wells counted. To him the rest was unnecessary.’
‘Where did he think the food came from?’
‘From the supermarket, of course, Cellophane-packaged.’
‘Why, of all the-’ he began angrily. Then he saw the demure mischief in her eyes and knew an odd feeling of pleasure. ‘Of course!’ he said. ‘Forgive me, I have no sense of humour.’
‘Nonsense! You must have.’
‘I don’t often see the joke. Except right now I think it might be on me.’
‘But it can’t really be a joke for you, can it?’ she said, serious again.
‘No, it can’t. The reality is always there in the background, making jokes futile. And that’s all I’m going to say. It’s time we were getting on. I have people I need to see.’
‘Will I be in the way?’
‘If I said yes, would that stop you?’
‘Let’s get going.’
CHAPTER FIVE
WHEN they were in the Jeep Jarvis began to turn it back the way they’d come.
‘What about the people you have to see?’ she asked.
‘That can wait for another day.’
‘You mean because I’m here. You don’t want me to see too much, do you?’
‘You’ve already seen too much. I didn’t ask you to come with me but you insisted, the way you’d always insist if I was mad enough to- Never mind.’
They were approaching the village again. This time, instead of driving through, he stopped at an old timbered building whose sign proclaimed it the Running Dog. He bought himself a beer and, at Meryl’s insistence, the same for her. Then sat watching her cynically as she drank it.
‘It’s good,’ she said, meaning it. ‘Don’t look like that. My dad taught me to drink beer.’
‘This isn’t just beer,’ he said, scandalised. ‘It’s best Yorkshire bitter.’
‘I must have some sent back home. It’ll blow their minds.’
‘Back home,’ he echoed. ‘Your home’s thousands of miles away. Go back to it, Meryl. Take the beer. Take every
