so long now that I forgot that you wouldn’t realise. Luke Gallagher was married to your cousin Louise.’
Her cousin? Of course, Luke was the widowed husband of the cousin Cressy had told her about.
‘He has very many business interests, both here and in Australia, which keep him very busy,’ her grandmother sighed. ‘Too busy, I sometimes think.’
It was becoming increasingly plain to Sara that her grandmother held this Luke in the greatest affection, and she was equally sure, from that one hard, encompassing look he had given her, that Luke was not going to be inclined to favour her arrival.
What her grandmother chose to do was no concern of Luke’s, Sara told herself staunchly, and yet she was left with the lowering feeling that, if Luke chose to do so, he could make her life acutely uncomfortable for her. But why should he? He probably only visited her grandmother at irregular intervals, when he was in the country.
Sara didn’t care for all this talk about Luke. It was making her feel acutely edgy. She didn’t know why the very thought of the man had such an unwarranted effect on her; she was normally the calmest of creatures. Men had never figured very largely in her life. At twenty-three, her experience of them was limited to the odd date, mainly with sons of friends of her father’s, young men she had always felt uncomfortably sure had been dragooned into taking her out, and for that reason she had usually ended up tongue-tied and awkward in their company, knowing that given the choice they must surely have preferred to take out someone like her stepsister.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like the opposite sex, it was simply that there had never been much time for her to get to know any of them on her own terms.
‘Well, my dear, if you really do want to leave this evening, we mustn’t delay you.’
She realised that her grandmother was inviting Cressy to leave. She and Tom went out to the car with her. Even though she and Cressy did not always see eye-to-eye, she was reluctant to see her go.
Harrison, her grandmother’s chauffeur-cum-handyman, had already removed their luggage from the car.
‘Well, with a bit of luck I’ll see you both next weekend.’
Sara stepped forward to hug her, but Cressy moved back, grimacing faintly.
Unlike her, she had always been sparing with her gestures of affection, especially to Tom and herself, Sara acknowledged a little unhappily.
‘I thought you were going to be busy getting ready for your trip to America,’ she reminded Cressy, a tiny frown puckering her forehead as she remembered her stepsister’s glib explanation for the unseemly haste with which she had insisted they all come up here.
Tom had moved away from them and they were virtually standing alone. Sara felt her skin burn as Cressy taunted unkindly, ‘What’s wrong? Would you prefer to have Luke all to yourself, is that it?’ She had driven off before Sara could make any response. She didn’t usually let Cressy’s bitterness upset her so much, but for some reason her final comment had made her eyes sting with hot tears.
‘Come inside. It’s getting quite cool. I think we’ll get Harrison to light the sitting-room fire.’
There was a firm dependability about her grandmother, Sara recognised, and a gentleness that made her aware of all that she had missed in not knowing her while she was growing up. It would have meant so much to her to have this woman, this house, as a bolt-hole during the often turbulent and uncomfortable days of her teens; days when she had felt so at odds with her father and his values; days when she had felt so alone and unloved.
She knew instinctively that here she would not have experienced those feelings, and that she and her grandmother would have been attuned to one another.
‘Sara, you are so different from what I’d imagined,’ her grandmother commented as she led her upstairs. ‘When you never replied to any of our letters—’
Sara stopped and stared at her.
‘There were no letters,’ she told her, shocked into unguarded speech.
‘But, my dear, there were… Every birthday, every Christmas, at holiday time… Up until the day you were eighteen. They were sent to your father, of course.’ She paused diplomatically, while Sara clung to the polished wood of the banister, trying to take in what she had just heard.
‘You wrote? But…’
‘But your father never told you!’ Alice Fitton guessed intuitively. ‘Well, perhaps he had his reasons. I must confess that there was a good deal of bitterness between him and my husband, especially when he refused to allow your mother to come home to have you… We knew how fragile she was, you see, but he insisted on taking her to Italy with him.’
‘He was in the middle of his first book,’ Sara whispered, her eyes dark with shock.
She had heard the story so often. How her father had been working on his first book, how he had needed to do research in Italy, and how she had been born there. She had never once heard him say that her mother had been invited to stay with her parents. Quite the contrary. Without saying so in as many words, he had nevertheless implied that his in-laws had cruelly refused to have anything to do with their daughter, even when they knew she was carrying their grandchild.
She looked into her grandmother’s eyes, and knew that she was telling her the truth.
‘But why?’ she asked painfully. ‘Why not tell me?’
‘Perhaps partially to punish your grandfather and I, my dear. You see, I don’t think your father ever really forgave us for not considering him the right husband for our daughter.’ There was sorrow and pain in her voice, and Sara couldn’t help thinking her father’s resentment must surely have been fuelled by the knowledge that they were probably right. No one liked to admit that their judgement was surpassed by some other’s, especially not a man like her father. But even understanding what had motivated him did not make it entirely easy for her to forgive him. It would have meant so little to him, and so much to her. She thought of all the holidays she had spent, either alone, or farmed out with friends, because her father had better things to do than to entertain a small child.
It was those memories of pain that made her so protective of Tom, she acknowledged, glancing at her half-brother now.
‘Yes, he looks tired,’ her grandmother agreed.
‘It was for his sake that I allowed Cressy to persuade me to come here,’ Sara told her. ‘He suffers from an asthmatic condition that makes a quiet country life-style imperative.’
‘Don’t worry, Sara. This house is more than big enough to accommodate one extra child. I’m sure we shall hardly notice that Tom is here. My dear, did you really think for a moment that you would be turned away? Oh, Sara! How guilty you make me feel that we didn’t try harder to make contact with you.’
Tom chose a small room with a dormer window and a sloping roof. The window looked out on to a patchwork of fields, stretching away into the purple distance of the hills.
Already he seemed happier, more relaxed, more the way a boy his age should look, thought Sara, watching him covertly.
She elected to have the room next to Tom’s.
‘This is mine,’ her grandmother
