unspoken consent, they remained where they were. Another door slammed, then there was a great tumult on the stairs as the sound of disaster came closer and closer to the kitchen.
Mary and Mrs Morison looked at each other, mystified. ‘What did we do?’ Mary asked.
They held hands as the racket reached the stairs to the kitchen. Mary took a deep breath as the door slammed open and Aunt Martha and Dina squeezed through the door at the same time, Aunt Martha with fire in her eyes and Dina more pale than parchment.
If she hadn’t been so mystified, Mary would have chuckled to see that Aunt Martha had a tight handful of Dina’s already thinning hair. She gave her daughter a shake.
When Mary just stared, open-mouthed, Aunt Martha said something that didn’t usually pass her lips and thrust a letter into her niece’s hand.
Holding it out to Mrs Morison as well, Mary read the letter, a stilted bit of prose from Dina’s fiancé, not designed to tickle any woman’s fancy or much else. Her eyes widened and she felt her own face grow pale. As imaginary buzzards seemed to flap about and roost in the kitchen, Mary read it again.
‘“My choice and chosen one, that little bauble I sent you was given to my great-great-great-who-knows-how-many-greats grandfather by Queen Elizabeth herself. It is the dearest wish of my heart—and a Page family tradition—to see it on your finger when we announce our engagement on December the thirty-first.”’
‘Oh, my,’ Mary whispered. She stared at her aunt.
Aunt Martha gave her daughter another shake. ‘Dina just told me quite a tale. I am here for you to dispute and deny it.’
‘I fear we cannot,’ Mary said finally, when no one else seemed prepared to speak.
‘Then we are ruined,’ Aunt Martha said as she sank on to a chair that Mary quickly thrust behind her.
Dina began to wail, until she was shut up sharply by a resounding slap from her mother. ‘You are a foolish, foolish lassie,’ Aunt Martha hissed. ‘What are we to do?’
More silence, until Mrs Morison cleared her throat.
‘Simple. We send Mary to find those four cakes and retrieve the ring. She will start tomorrow.’
Aghast, Mary stared at the cook. Mrs Morison just smiled and patted her hand.
‘My dear, you are overdue for an adventure. Wouldn’t you agree?’
Chapter Three
Trust a little boy to find travel by the Royal Mail adventurous. Captain Rennie knew he would have preferred post chaise, but Mrs Pritchert informed him that Nathan longed to ride the mail coach.
‘When we’re in the Barbican, he always has his ears on the swivel to listen for the coachman’s blast and eyes in the back of his head to watch the horses,’ Mrs Pritchert explained. ‘And the uniforms! He pined for one when he was five.’
As if Ross needed an explanation. He used to do that in Dumfries a century ago, when the world was peaceful and he was a little boy. He could barely remember such a time; thank God he had a son to remind him.
‘Aye, Nathan, we’ll take the Royal Mail,’ he said, which practically made his boy wriggle with delight.
Still, it was hard travel for a man wanting nothing but comfort for the first time in more than a decade. Captain Rennie was starting to feel every single one of his thirty-eight hard-lived years when the mail coach pulled into Carlisle on December the sixth. By contrast, Nathan was as bright-eyed as on the morning they set out from Plymouth, with Mrs Pritchert’s tears and blessings.
‘That’s how women are,’ Ross had assured his son, as the child watched Plymouth recede in the distance. ‘They cry and fuss and let you go finally.’
‘But she’s not really my mother,’ Nathan said, looking around for his handkerchief. ‘I have a cold.’
Ross was wise enough to overlook his little sniffles. With a pang, he knew his son was close to the kind Mrs Pritchert; he knew no other mother. He put his hand on Nathan’s neck and gave him a little shake. ‘Laddie boy, we’ll be back in Plymouth in a month and she’ll be waiting for you, mark my words.’
As the miles passed, he had also realised with another pang that he didn’t like to see the ocean disappear from view. He said as much to Nathan, who gave him a look like the one he had given his son when Mrs Pritchert disappeared from view.
‘We’ll have a good time,’ Nathan assured him in turn and they were content with each other.
The first day with Nathan was always tentative. When his son was still a baby, there had been several days of reacquaintance, with lots of shy glances from both of them and maybe sentences started and stopped or half-finished. Now that he was ten, Nathan required only a few hours to remember his father. By the end of the first day’s travel north, he was laughing and telling Ross a year’s worth of school stories, memorising scriptures under duress and watching the harbour with his telescope. When he grew tired, Nathan leaned against Ross’s arm with a sigh of contentment. Or maybe that was his own sigh.
They had struck a bargain before leaving Plymouth. Nathan might want to travel by the Royal Mail, but, by God, they were going to stop every night in a respectable inn. As much as he loved his sister, Ross wasn’t in so much hurry to get to Dumfries that they needed to travel all night, too. He had taken this route before and knew where the good meals and soft beds were found. But more than that, he had a list this time. Not just a list: the list.
December the sixth found them in Carlisle, the last stop of any consequence before Scotland. He had given Nathan a map of England and Scotland, because ten years was the right age to begin charting a course. He was not surprised at the look his son gave him when he informed him they were stopping at the Guardian.
‘But Da, if we continue tonight, we’ll be in...’
‘Dumfries before midnight,’ he finished. ‘This is true.’ He leaned closer to his boy. ‘This also is true: for years, I have been dreaming about Cumberland sausage—an entire four-foot length—and whig bread served with Cumberland rum butter.’
‘Four feet of sausage?’ Natham repeated, his eyes wide.
‘I will share,’ Ross told him, the soul of generosity. He ruffled his son’s hair. ‘Would you deny a captain such a meal, after weevily ship’s biscuit and thick water?’
‘Never, Da.’
‘And if we can find sticky toffee pudding...’
The Royal Mail stopped at the Borderers, and after making sure when the morning coach to Dumfries was due, he directed Nathan down the High Street to the Guardian, home of the best Cumberland sausage he had even eaten.
If he were to try to explain to Nathan just how badly he wanted this moment, he knew a ten-year-old would never understand. There were times on the tedious blockade, or in the middle of the heaving Pacific, when he had stared into the distance, willing Cumberland sausage to appear. It embarrassed him to think of that weird obsession now, but such it was. He knew he was not alone in longings far removed from war. That was the nature of the beast: to wish yourself
