The Distant Hours

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.

She hadn’t.

Oh Christ, she hadn’t.

PART FOUR Back to Milderhurst Castle 1992

Herbert lent me his car to drive to Milderhurst, and as soon as I was off the motorway I wound down the window and let the breeze buffet my cheeks. The countryside had changed in the months between my visits. Summer had come and gone, and autumn was now in its final days. Enormous dried leaves lay in golden piles by the side of the road, and as I slipped deeper and deeper into the weald of Kent, great tree branches reached across the road to meet at its centre. Every time the wind blew, a fresh layer was shed; lost skin, an ended season.

There was a note waiting for me when I arrived at the farmhouse.

Welcome, Edie. I had some errands that couldn’t wait and Bird’s laid up with the flu. Please find attached a key and settle yourself into Room 3 (first floor). So sorry to miss you. Will see you at dinner, seven o’clock in the dining room.

Marilyn Bird.

PS I had Bird move a better writing desk into your room. It’s a little cramped, but I thought you might appreciate being able to spread out with your work.

A little cramped was putting it midly, but I’ve always had a thing for small, dark spaces and I set about immediately making an artful arrangement of Adam Gilbert’s interview transcripts, my copy of Raymond Blythe’s Milderhurst and the Mud Man, and assorted notebooks and pens; then I sat down, running the fingers of each hand along the table’s smooth edge. A small sigh of satisfaction escaped as I leaned my chin on my hands. It was that first-day-of-school feeling, but a hundred times better. The four days stretched ahead and I felt infused with enthusiasm and possibility.

I noticed the telephone then, an old-fashioned Bakelite affair, and was possessed by an unfamiliar urge. It was being back at Milderhurst, of course; in the very same location where my mum had found herself.

The phone rang and rang and just as I was about to hang up, she answered, somewhat breathlessly. There was a moment’s pause after I said hello.

‘Oh, Edie, sorry. I was looking for your father. He got it into his head to -. Is everything all right?’ Her tone had sharpened like a pencil.

‘Everything’s fine, Mum. I just wanted to let you know that I’d arrived.’

‘Oh.’ A pause as she caught her breath. I’d surprised her: the safe-arrival phone call was not a part of our usual routine; it hadn’t been for around a decade, since I convinced her that if the government trusted me to vote,