towards the house. ‘You’ve missed my young folk, the twins and Perdita have gone to Manchester. The wheels of the car were slipping when they drove off, that’s why I came out to have a look. Of course, I think of them as your contemporaries and they aren’t, they were no more than children last time you saw them, and you’ll never have seen young Perdy at all.’
‘I was extremely sorry to hear about your tragedy,’ Hal said.
‘You wrote a very kind letter, that was good of you.’
‘I liked Neville and Helena, and to lose both of them in one year … Isabel, too. It was hard.’
Hard? Was that little thump of a word all he could find to say about such a loss? Sir Henry’s great loss had been Neville, his son, not Helena of course. Helena had never made her father-in-law’s heart sing at the sight of her, had never turned a grey day into a glorious one, had never sent him on his way on winged feet merely by a look, a smile, a turn of the head.
‘It was, it was hard,’ Sir Henry was saying. ‘But it’s in the past now, it all happened a good while ago and I don’t think about them much. I wish Neville could have been spared, but it wasn’t to be, and no good comes of repining, he was careless, and you can’t be careless on a precipice.’
Hal had to search for words to talk about Sir Henry’s eldest son. Why was it so difficult? He’d liked Neville, dammit. Admired him. ‘He was a skilful mountaineer. It’s a dangerous activity, but I should have thought he was the last person to take a risk.’
‘Mountains are unforgiving, and I dare say if he had to go, he was happy to die among his beloved mountains. He was lucky to survive the war, but his luck ran out when he went off to the Andes. He’d always wanted to climb there. Well, we all have to live our own lives.’ He was silent as he led Hal around to a side door. ‘We’ll go to my study, you’ll want to see Caroline and Trudie, but they can wait until you’ve warmed yourself and told me what you’ve been up to. Friendly welcome at the Hall, huh?’ he said with a shrewd look. ‘Lot of changes there, you’ll find. Your brother’s a fool to have married that woman, but I dare say you’ve already worked that out for yourself.’
Hal laughed, glad that they weren’t going into the drawing room. He wanted time to adjust to being in a Wyncrag without Helena. He cursed himself for a fool, he must concentrate on the here and now, not let memories from all those years ago sneak back into his life. Lord, he’d been so young. That was what accounted for the intensity of feeling that had struck him as he once again came to Wyncrag. A pale reflection of the feelings he had revelled in at the age of twenty, lost in the throes of first love, the not untypical love of a very young man for an older and very attractive woman.
He walked around the panelled walls looking at the familiar architectural prints hanging there. ‘I’ve hardly exchanged more than a few civil nothings with Eve, but no doubt she means well.’
Sir Henry gave him a sceptical look, but said no more as Rokeby came in with the coffee, and greeted Hal with stately courtesy. Hal was delighted to see him again, and impressed by how the years had turned him into the very model of a perfect butler.
‘Sit down, take one of the chairs by the fire,’ Sir Henry said, gesturing to one of a pair of shabby leather armchairs set in front of the burning fire. ‘Stir that fire up a bit, Rokeby,’ he went on. ‘Put another log on, must keep Hal warm, he’ll not be used to our northern chill any more.’
‘I’m not such a poor creature as you think,’ Hal protested. ‘New York can be bitter in the winter, and I go to Vermont for the snow sports most years. It’s cold enough there to remind anyone of Westmoreland in December.’
‘There’s nowhere quite like the lake, though, is there? You feel that, or you wouldn’t be here. Don’t tell me Peter’s invitation was so warm as to make you come back otherwise. He wants you here over a matter of business, I know, but that wouldn’t have brought you on its own, would it now?’
‘No,’ Hal agreed, very glad of the hot coffee into which, without being asked, Rokeby had added a tot of whisky. ‘To keep out the cold, Mr Hal.’
‘This freeze is bringing them all back,’ Sir Henry went on. ‘Alix hasn’t been home for three years, well, she and her grandmother don’t always see eye to eye, but she couldn’t resist the frozen lake. She lives and works in London, you know.’
Hal pulled out his memories of the twins, here at Wyncrag. Alix had been a solemn girl with a sudden smile and eyes too old for her years; Caroline had been very harsh with her, he recalled, strict as though she had been a wilful or wayward child. She hadn’t looked anything like Helena in those days; had she grown up to resemble her mother? He found the thought somehow alarming. ‘Does she take after Helena?’ he found himself asking.
‘No, she favours my side of the family, she’s very like my sister was at that age. Edwin is the one who takes after his mother.’
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