The Distant Hours

Finally he spoke, in a world-weary sort of voice. ‘All right then, Edie Burchill. I forgive you for stealing my job. One condition, though. If you find out anything to do with the Mud Man’s origins you tell me first.’

My dad would not be pleased. ‘Of course.’

‘Right then. What can I do for you?’

I explained that I’d just read through his transcript, I complimented him on the thoroughness of his notes, and then I said, ‘There’s one little thing I’m wondering, though.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The third sister, Juniper. There’s nothing here from her.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘No, there’s not.’

I waited, and when nothing followed I said, ‘You didn’t speak with her?’

‘No.’

Again I waited. Again nothing followed. Apparently this was not going to be easy. At the other end of the line he cleared his throat and said, ‘I proposed to interview Juniper Blythe but she wasn’t available.’

‘Oh?’

‘Well, she was available in a bodily sense – I don’t think she leaves the castle much – but the older sisters wouldn’t permit me to speak with her.’

Comprehension dawned. ‘Oh.’

‘She’s not well, so I expect that’s all it was, but…’

‘But what?’

A break in conversation during which I could almost see him grabbing for the words to explain himself. Finally, a brambly sigh. ‘I got the feeling they were trying to protect her in some way.’

‘Protect her from what? From whom? From you?’

‘No, not from me!’

‘Then what?’

‘I don’t know. It was just a feeling. As if they were worried about what she might say. How it might reflect.’

‘On them? On their father?’

‘Maybe. Or else on her.’

I remembered then the strange feeling I’d got when I was at Milderhurst, the glance that had passed between Saffy and Percy when Juniper shouted at me in the yellow parlour; Saffy’s concern when she discovered that Juniper had wandered off, that she’d been talking to me in the passage. That she might have said something she shouldn’t. ‘But why?’ I said, more to myself than to him, thinking about Mum’s lost letter, the trouble hinted at between its lines. ‘What could Juniper possibly have to hide?’

‘Well,’ said Adam, lowering his voice a little, ‘I must admit to having done a bit of digging. The more adamant they were about keeping her out of it, the more interested I got.’

‘And? What did you find?’ I was glad he couldn’t see me. There was no dignity in the way I was practically swallowing the telephone receiver in my eagerness.

‘An incident in 1935; I guess you could call it a scandal.’ He let the final word hang between us with a sort of mysterious satisfaction, and I could just picture him: leaning back against his bentwood desk chair, smoking jacket drawn taut against his belly, warm pipe clamped between his teeth.

I matched his hushed tone. ‘What sort of scandal?’

‘Some “bad business” is what I was told, involving the son of an employee. One of the gardeners. The details were all rather imprecise and I couldn’t find anything of an official nature to verify it, but the story goes that the two of them were involved in some sort of a scrap and he came out of it beaten black and blue.’

‘By Juniper?’ An image came to mind of the wisp of old woman I’d met at Milderhurst; the slender girl in the old photos. I tried not to laugh. ‘When she was thirteen years old?’

‘That was the implication, though saying it out loud like that makes it seem rather far-fetched.’

‘But that’s what he told people? That Juniper did it?’

‘Well, he didn’t say any such thing. I can’t imagine there are too many young fellows who’d admit freely to being bested by a slim young girl like her. It was his mother who went up to the castle making claims. From what I hear, Raymond Blythe paid them off. Dressed up as a bonus for his father, apparently, who’d worked his whole life on the estate. The rumour didn’t go away, though, not completely; there was still talk in the village.’

I got the feeling Juniper was the sort of girl people liked to talk about: her family were important, she was beautiful and talented – in Mum’s words, enchanting – but still: Juniper the Teenage Man-Beater? It seemed unlikely, to say the very least.

‘Look, it’s probably just groundless old talk.’ Adam’s tone was breezy again as he echoed my thoughts. ‘Nothing at all to do with why her sisters vetoed our interview.’

I nodded slowly.

‘More likely, they just wanted to spare her the stress. She’s not well, she’s certainly not good with strangers, she wasn’t even born when the Mud Man was written.’

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ I said. ‘I’m sure that’s all it was.’

But I wasn’t. I didn’t really imagine that the twins were fretting over a long-forgotten incident with the gardener’s son, but I couldn’t rid myself of the certainty that there was something else behind it. I put down the phone and I was back in that ghostly passage, looking between Juniper and Saffy and Percy, feeling like a child who is old enough to recognize nuance at play, but hopelessly ill-equipped to read it.

The day that I was due to leave for Milderhurst, Mum came early to my bedroom. The sun was still hiding behind the wall of Singer & Sons, but I’d been awake for an hour or so already, as excited as a kid on her first day of school.

‘There’s something I wanted to give you,’ she said. ‘To lend you, at any rate. It’s rather precious to me.’

I waited, wondering what it might be. She reached inside her dressing-gown pocket and took an object out. Her eyes searched mine for a moment, then she handed it over. A little book with a brown leather cover.

‘You said you wanted to know me better.’ She was trying hard to be brave, to keep her voice from shaking. ‘It’s all in there. She’s in there. The person that I used to be.’

I took the journal, as nervy as a novice mother with a brand-new baby. Awed by its preciousness, terrified of doing it damage, amazed and touched and gratified that Mum would trust me with such a treasure. I couldn’t think what to say; that is, I could think of lots of things I wanted to say, but there was a lump in my throat, years in the making, and it wasn’t about to budge. ‘Thank you,’ I managed, before I began to cry.

Mum’s eyes misted in instant response and at the very same moment each of us reached for the other and held on tight.

THREE

Milderhurst, April 20th, 1940

It was typical. After a terribly cold winter, spring had arrived with a great big smile and the day itself was perfect; a fact Percy couldn’t help but take as a direct slight from God. Then and there she became a non-believer, standing in the village church, at the far end of the family pew her grandmother had designed and William Morris had carved, watching as Mr Gordon, the vicar, pronounced Harry Rogers and Lucy Middleton man and wife. The entire experience had the vaguely spongy feeling of a nightmare, though it was possible the quantity of bolstering whisky she’d consumed beforehand was playing its part.

Harry smiled at his new bride and Percy was struck again by how handsome he was. Not in the conventional sense, neither devilish nor suave nor clean-cut, rather he was handsome because he was good. She had always thought so, even when she was a little girl and he a young fellow who came to the house to attend the clocks for Daddy. There was something about the way he carried himself, the unassuming set of his shoulders, that marked him as a man whose self-opinion was not unduly inflated. Moreover he was possessed of a slow, steady nature, which might not have been dynamic, but spoke of care and tenderness. She used to watch him from between the