Mrs Carey-Lewis smiled. ‘Have you never been on this road before?’
‘No. Never. Not as far as this.’
‘It's not very far from Penmarron. Nowhere in Cornwall is very far from anywhere else.’
‘It is, if you haven't got a car.’
‘Didn't your mother have a car?’
‘Yes. An Austin Seven. But she wasn't very fond of driving it, so we mostly went to Porthkerris by train.’
‘Oh, that's a shame. Didn't she like driving?’
‘No. She was very nervous. She said it was because in Colombo she always had a driver. But that was silly, really, because she could drive perfectly well. She just thought she couldn't.’
‘What is the point of having a car,’ Loveday asked, ‘if you never drive?’
Judith felt that perhaps she had been rather disloyal, and should now stick up for her absent mother.
‘Well, it's better than being like my aunt Louise, who drives her Rover at about a hundred miles an hour, and usually on the wrong side of the road. Mummy used to dread going anywhere with her.’
‘I think I should too,’ said Mrs Carey-Lewis. ‘Who's Aunt Louise?’
‘She's my father's sister. I'm going to spend holidays with her while Mummy's away. She lives in Penmarron.’
‘I hope she isn't going to drive you at a hundred miles an hour.’
‘No, she's going to buy me a bicycle.’
‘Sensible lady. But it's a shame that your mother wasn't fond of driving, because there are so many divine coves and beaches all around this part of Cornwall, and there's no way of finding them unless you have a car. But never mind, we'll be able to show them to you, and it'll be all the more fun for us because you've never seen them before.’
She fell silent for a moment, and then, ‘What do you call your mother?’ she asked.
Which was, thought Judith, a fairly odd question.
‘Mummy.’
‘And what are you going to call me?’
‘Mrs Carey-Lewis.’
‘Very right and proper, too. My husband would approve. But shall I tell you something? I simply hate being called Mrs Carey-Lewis. I always think people are talking to my mother-in-law, who was old as God and twice as frightening. She's dead now, thank goodness, so at least you don't have to worry about her.’ Judith could think of absolutely nothing to say to this, but it didn't matter, because Mrs Carey-Lewis just went on talking. ‘I really only like being called either Diana, or Darling or Mummy. And as I'm not your mother, and Darling sounds a bit affected, I think you'd better call me Diana.’ She turned her head to smile at Judith, who saw that the brilliant blue of her patterned headscarf exactly matched her eyes, and wondered if Mrs Carey-Lewis knew this, and knowing, had chosen it from some drawer to knot it around her head.
‘But wouldn't you mind?’
‘No. I'd like it. And it's easier to start right away. Because once you begin by calling me Mrs Carey-Lewis, then you'll find it impossible to change to Diana, and I don't think I could bear that.’
‘I've never called a grown-up by their Christian name before.’
‘It's so ridiculous. We're all given lovely Christian names, and so we should use them. Mary Millyway, whom you're going to meet, is Loveday's nanny — or at least she was Loveday's nanny when Loveday was a baby. But we never called her Nanny, because Mary is such a pretty name. And anyway, I can't bear that word, nanny. It conjures up images of the most tiresome mothers.’ She put on a false, but deadly accurate, upper-class voice. ‘“Nenny's so crawss because I kept Lucinda up after her bedtime.” Sickening. So let's start as we mean to go on. Say my name now, aloud.’
‘Diana.’
‘Shout it to the world.’
‘Diana!’
‘Much better. Now, let's make as much noise as we can. One, two, three, all together…’
‘DIANA!’
Their voices were blown away, up into the sky, by the wind. The road, a grey ribbon, wound ahead of them, and they were all laughing.
After another ten miles or so, the scenery, abruptly, changed again, and they were in a district of running streams and deep wooded valleys. Rosemullion lay at the foot of one of these, a cluster of white-washed cottages, a farmyard, a pub, and an ancient church with a square tower, surrounded by leaning gravestones, yellow with lichen. A curved bridge led over a sweet-flowing stream, and then the road, steeply, climbed again, and at the crest of the hill it levelled off, the impressive gateway came into view, curved walls enclosing tall wrought-iron gates, which stood open and framed a prospect of a long wooded driveway, winding out of sight and into the distance. Diana changed down, and the Bentley swung in through the entrance.
‘Is this it?’ Judith asked.
‘Yes. This is it. Nancherrow.’
As the road wound on, twisting and turning and never seeming to reach anywhere, Judith fell silent. Everything was suddenly a bit scary, remote and overpowering. She had never known such a long approach to any establishment, and began to suspect that Nancherrow was not a house at all, but a castle, perhaps with a moat and a drawbridge and even a headless ghost, all of its own. She found herself filled with the anxious apprehension of the unknown.
‘Are you feeling nervous?’ Diana asked. ‘We always used to call it avenue fever. That sinking feeling when you're coming somewhere new.’
Judith wondered if she was a thought-reader as well as everything else.
‘It's such a long drive.’
‘What do you imagine it's all going to look like?’ She laughed. ‘Don't worry, it's not a bit frightening. No spooks. They were all incinerated when the old house burnt down in 1910. My father-in-law simply shrugged his shoulders and built another, a great deal larger and much more convenient. Such a relief,’ she said, smiling, ‘because we have the best of both worlds and not a ghost or a secret passage in the place. Just the most wonderful home that we all adore.’
And when they came at last to Nancherrow, Judith saw exactly what she meant. It was a sudden and abrupt encounter. The surrounding trees thinned and fell behind them, the wintry sun glittered down once more, the road turned a final corner, and the house stood revealed. It was of local granite, and slate-roofed, like any traditional farmhouse, with long windows on the two floors, and a line of dormer windows above these. It stood back, beyond a carriage sweep of pale sea-pebbles, and its eastern wall was smothered with clematis and climbing roses. The front door was set in the round tower, castellated at its top like some Norman keep, and all about stretched green lawns, spreading to vistas of shrub and woodland, ornamental flower-beds, and yellow and purple carpets of daffodils and crocus. To the south, which was the front of the house, these lawns took the form of terraces, bisected by flights of stone steps. In the distance could be glimpsed the blue horizon, and the sea.
And yet, for all its splendour, it wasn't overwhelming or frightening in any sort of way. From that very first moment, Judith fell in love with Nancherrow, and immediately felt that she understood Loveday much better. Because now she knew exactly why Loveday had run away from her school in Hampshire, found her way back to this magical place, and made her mother promise never, ever, to send her far away again.
The Bentley drew to a dignified halt outside the front door, and Diana switched off the engine.
‘Well, there we are, my ducks, safe and sound.’
They piled out, gathering up possessions, and filed indoors, Pekoe importantly leading the way, and Judith, loaded with her cedarwood box, bringing up the rear. Up a flight of stone steps they went, through a circular, flagged porch, and then inner glassed doors, to the central hallway which lay beyond. It all seemed enormously large and spacious, but despite the size of everything and the generous proportions, the ceilings were not overly high, so that the immediate impression was of a country house, a family house, friendly and unpretentious, and Judith at once felt much easier, and at home.
The walls of the hallway were panelled in natural wood, and polished floors wer
e scattered with worn and faded Persian rugs. The wide staircase, thickly carpeted, rose in three straight flights to the upper landing, and sunlight streamed down through the wide stair window, curtained in folds of heavy yellow silk brocade. In the middle of the hall was a round pedestal table, on which stood a lustre tureen crammed with a moon-burst of white narcissi. As well, a worn leather Visitor's Book, a dog lead or two, somebody's gloves, a stack of mail. Opposite the staircase was the fireplace, the mantelpiece much carved and ornamented. In its hearth lay a bed of dead ashes, but Judith guessed a dry log or two and a puff with the bellows would soon bring the fire back to flaming life.
As she stared about her, taking it all in, Diana paused at the table, to unknot her silk scarf and stuff it into the pocket of her coat. ‘Off you go then, Loveday, and take care of Judith. I think Mary's in the nursery. The boys are coming in for lunch at one, so don't be late. Be in the drawing-room by a quarter to.’ And with that, she picked up her letters and was on her way, walking away from them, down the long wide hallway furnished with lovingly polished pieces of antique furniture, mammoth porcelain vases, and ornate mirrors. Pekoe followed, close on her elegant, high-heeled heels. A languid wave of her hand was their dismissal. ‘Don't forget to wash your hands…’
They watched her going, as Judith had observed her leaving the shop, that day when she had first seen her, obscurely fascinated, rooted to the ground, somehow unwilling to turn away. They stayed until she reached the closed door at the far end of the passage, opened it to a blast of sunshine, and was gone.
Her exit, and its abruptness, presented an interesting insight into the Carey-Lewis mother-and-daughter relationship. Loveday was allowed close intimacy, and to speak to her mother as though she were a sister, but the privilege demanded its own price. If she was treated like a contemporary, then she was expected to behave like an adult, and take social responsibility for her own guest. This, it seemed, was the norm, and Loveday took it in her stride.
‘She's gone to read her letters,’ she explained unnecessarily. ‘Come on, let's find Mary.’
With that, she headed up the stairs, lugging their overnight bags. Judith followed at a slightly slower pace, burdened by the weight of the box, which was beginning to feel extremely heavy. At the top of the stairs was another long passage, replica of the one down which they had watched Diana make her airy exit. Loveday broke into a run, the bags thumping against her skinny legs. ‘Mary!’
‘Here I am, pet!’
Judith had little experience of either English nannies or English nurseries. Nannies she had seen on the beach at Porthkerris, stout fierce ladies in sturdy cotton dresses, hatted and stockinged in the hottest of weather, knitting, and constantly adjuring their charges either to go into the sea, come out of it, put on a sun-hat, eat a ginger biscuit, or to come away from that nasty child who might have something catching. But she had never, thankfully enough, had to have anything very much to do with any of them.
As for nurseries, the word conjured up nothing more exciting than Matron's sick-room at St Ursula's, with its brown linoleum floor, uncurtained windows, and a strange smell compounded of Germolene and cinnamon.
Consequently, she entered the Nancherrow nursery with a certain amount of trepidation, which was instantly dispelled as she realised that all her pre-conceived ideas had been totally off the mark. For this was not a nursery at all, but a large, sun-filled sitting-room, with a great bay window, and a window-seat which took up much of the southern wall and afforded a view out over the garden, and that distant, seductive vista of the sparkling horizon.
It had an open fireplace, and bookcases crammed with books, proper sofas and chairs with flowery slip-covers, a thick Turkey carpet, and a round table covered with a heavy blue cloth patterned with birds and leaves. Other delights stood all about. Cheerful pictures, a radio on the table by the fireside, a portable gramophone and a stack of records, a basket of knitting, and a pile of magazines. The only concessions to nursery life were the tall fire-guard with its polished brass rail, a battered rocking-horse without a tail, and an ironing board.
This was set up, and at it Mary Millyway had been hard at work. A wicker basket of washing stood on the floor, a pile of immaculately ironed linen was stacked on the table, and a blue shirt lay, half-done, upon the board. And there was that good, reassuring smell of fresh warm cotton, reminding Judith of the kitchen at Riverview House, and, so, of Phyllis. And she smiled, because it felt, a bit, like coming home.
‘Well, here you are…’ Mary had set down her iron, abandoned the shirt, and opened her arms to Loveday, who, dropping the bags onto the carpet, had flung herself into them for a huge hug. She was lifted from the floor as though she weighed no more than a feather, and swung to and fro, like the pendulum of a clock. ‘There's my wicked baby.’ A kiss was pressed onto the top of Loveday's curly dark head, and then she was set down with a thump, as Judith came through the door.
‘So this is your friend! Laden down like a donkey. What's this you've brought with you?’
‘It's my cedarwood box.’
‘It looks as though it weighs a ton; put it on the table, for goodness' sake.’ Which Judith, gratefully, did. ‘Why did you bring that with you?’
Loveday explained. ‘We wanted to show it to Mummy. It's new. Judith got it for her Christmas. This is Judith, Mary.’
‘I guessed as much. Hello, Judith.’
‘Hello.’
Mary Millyway. Neither stout nor old nor fierce, but a tall and raw-boned Cornishwoman no more than thirty-five. She had coarse fair hair and a freckled face, and strong features that were pleasing, not because they were beautiful in any way, but because they all matched each other, and somehow looked exactly right. Nor was she wearing any sort of uniform, but a grey tweed skirt and a white cotton blouse with a brooch at the collar, and a smoky-blue Shetland cardigan.
They observed each other. Mary spoke.
‘You look older than I thought you'd be.’
‘I'm fourteen.’
‘She's in a form above me,’ Loveday explained, ‘but we're in the same dormitory. And Mary, you've got to help because she hasn't got any home clothes, and all mine are going to be too small for her. Is there something of Athena's she can borrow?’
‘You'll get into trouble, borrowing Athena's things.’
‘I don't mean Athena's proper clothes, something that she doesn't want any more. Oh, you know what I mean…’
‘I certainly do. Never known such a girl for wearing things once, and then throwing them away…’
‘Well, find something. Find something now, so that we can get out of our horrible uniforms.’
‘I'll tell you what’ — Mary calmly and firmly picked up her iron again — ‘you take Judith and show her where she's sleeping…’
‘Which room is that?’
‘The pink one at the end of the passage…’
‘Oh, goody, Judith, that's the prettiest…’
‘…and then when I've finished my ironing I'll have a look in my special drawer and see what I can find.’
‘Have you got heaps of ironing to do?’
‘Won't take me more than five minutes. Off you go, and by the time you come back I'll be ready.’
‘All right.’ Loveday grinned at Judith. ‘Come on.’
She was already off, out of the room and away, and Judith, pausing only to grab up her bag, had to run to keep up with her. Down the long passage, with doors closed on either side, but glass fanlights above them, so all was light and airy. At the far end the passage took a turn to the right, and another rambling wing was revealed, and for the first time Judith realised the extent of the house. Here, long windows allowed views of the lawns at the back, spreading to tall hedges of escallonia, and beyond these, the pasture fields of farmland, stone-walled, and grazed by herds of Guernsey cows.
‘Come on.’ Loveday had paused for an instant, waiting for her to catch up, so there was no time to stand and gaze and take it all in.
‘It's all so big,’ Judith said in wonder.
‘I know, it's huge, isn't it, but it has to be because there are so many of us, and there are always people coming to stay. This is the guest wing.’ Now, as she went ahead, Loveday opened and closed doors, allowing a sight of the rooms which lay beyond. ‘This is the yellow room. And a bathroom. And this is the blue room…Tommy Mortimer's usually in here. Yes, he is, I recognise his hairbrushes. And his smell.’
‘What does he smell of?’
‘Heavenly. The stuff he puts on his hair. And then this is the big double room. Don't you adore the four-poster bed? It's frightfully old. I expect Queen Elizabeth slept in it. And another bathroom. And then this is the dressing-room, and it's got a bed too, in case they've got a baby or something awful like that. Mary puts a cot up if it's a real baby. And another bathroom. And then it's you.’
They had reached the last door, and Loveday, with certain pride, led the way into it. Like every other room in this delectable house, it was panelled in wood, but it had two windows, and these were hung in a chintz of toile de Jouy. The carpet was pink as well, and the high brass-ended bed had a cover of white linen, crisp as new snow, hem-stitched and embroidered with daisies. A luggage rack stood at the end of the bed, and Judith set down her bag, and it sat there looking humble and small and somehow vulnerable.
‘Do you like it?’
‘It's simply lovely.’
She saw the kidney-shaped dressing-table, skirted in the same toile as the curtains, and on this stood a triple mirror, and a china tray patterned in roses, and a little porcelain mug filled with velvety polyanthus. There were a huge Victorian wardrobe and a proper armchair with pink cushions, and beside the bed a little table with a lamp and a carafe of water with a tumbler fitted over its neck, and a cretonne-covered tin, which Judith knew would be filled with rich tea biscuits. Just in case she might be hungry in the middle of the night.
‘And this is your bathroom.’
Quite overwhelming. She went to inspect it and saw the black-and-white-chequered floor, the huge bath, the wide-mouthed gold taps, immense white towels, bottles of bath-oil and glass bowls of scented talcum powder.