Coming Home (20 page)

She raised an arm as they appeared. ‘There you are, darlings. I thought you were never coming. You're five minutes late.’

‘We went to get Judith's box. Mummy, this is Judith.’

‘Hello, Judith, lovely to see you. Heavens, that looks heavy. Put it all on the back seat, and then, Loveday, you sit in the back, and take Pekoe with you, and Judith can sit by me. What a gorgeous morning. I couldn't resist putting the hood down, everything is smelling so delicious. Pekoe, don't make a fuss. You know you love sitting in the back. Hang on to him tight, Loveday, otherwise he'll see a sheep or a cow or something and want to chase it. Now, everybody settled…’

With no more ado, she switched on the ignition, the powerful engine purred, and they were off. Judith settled back in the padded leather seat and heaved a great, secret sigh of pleasure, because for the past few days she had lived in the certain apprehension that something…anything…was going to happen to put a stop to their plans. But it hadn't, and it was all right. They swept out through the gates and down the road, and St Ursula's disappeared, into the past, behind them.

Loveday chattered. ‘We decided at the last moment to bring the box, and Matron was livid, wasn't she, Judith? I don't know why she's so bad-tempered all the time, I don't know why she can't be like Mary. I don't think she likes Judith and me very much, do you, Judith? Mummy, who's home this weekend? Anybody exciting?’

‘Not really. Only Tommy Mortimer, down from London.’

‘Oh,
ho
!’ Loveday's tone was arch. She thumped her mother on the shoulder. ‘Tommy
Mortimer.
He's Mummy's boy-friend,’ she explained to Judith. ‘He brings her gorgeous chocs from Harrods.’

‘Oh, Loveday, you are ridiculous.’ But her mother didn't sound annoyed in the least, simply amused. ‘You mustn't believe a single word this child says, Judith, but you've probably found that out for yourself already.’

‘It's perfectly true and you know it is. Athena says he's been swooning over you for years and that's why he's never married.’

‘Athena talks even more rubbish than you do.’

‘Have you had a letter from Athena?’

‘Oh, darling, what a silly question. You know she's hopeless at letters. But we did have a scrawl from Edward to tell us that he's in the Second Pair for Rackets. And Jeremy Wells turned up this morning. Pops asked him over, and he and Pops and Tommy have disappeared into the woods to shoot pigeons.’

‘Jeremy. Oh good, I haven't seen him for ages.’ Kindly she explained him to Judith. ‘He's nice. He used to be Edward's tutor when Edward was trying to get into Harrow. And sort of an old boy-friend of Athena's. He used to take her to parties when she was about sixteen. His father is our doctor. And Pops simply loves Jeremy, because he's frightfully good at Rugby and cricket, and he's Captain of the County Team.’

‘Oh, darling, he doesn't love him just for those reasons.’

‘Well, he always goes to Twickenham when Cornwall are playing, and to Lord's in the summer. And he's forever on about what a wonderful
shot
Jeremy is, and how many pheasants he's bagged.’

Diana Carey-Lewis laughed ruefully. ‘That's true enough,’ she admitted, ‘but I still think there's more to their friendship than just blasting away at anything that flies…’

Judith stopped listening. She was beginning to be a bit nervous, because so many names were being bandied about. So many people and so much going on, and all so casual, so worldly, so infinitely alien to anything she had ever experienced before. She hoped that, during the next two days, she would be able to cope with all the social activity, and would not commit some gauche and unknowing blunder and so embarrass everybody, especially herself. And as for Loveday, she had never heard any child speak to her mother in such a way, gossiping away as though they were contemporaries, and teasing her about her boy-friend. Tommy Mortimer. He, more than anybody who had been mentioned, was a source of wonder. The mothers Judith had known simply did not have boy-friends, or if they did, kept the fact thoroughly secret. But it seemed that Mrs Carey-Lewis was quite shameless about — and even rather proud of — her gentleman admirer. She did not care if all her family…which, presumably, included her husband…knew, and was happy to let them all discuss her little affair, and treat it as a great joke.

It was, Judith decided, all going to be extremely interesting.

By now they had left the town behind them, driven through a small fishing village, and climbed the steep hill onto the empty country which lay beyond. The narrow road wound and twisted, following the reasonless contours of meandering drystone walls, the boundaries of random farms, the buildings of which could be glimpsed, low-roofed and ancient, huddled down against the wind. Gentle hills, crowned with cairns of granite rock, swept down to the coast and the cliffs, and the dazzling, sun-speckled sea. Far out to sea, tiny fishing boats butted out into swell, and overhead sea-gulls, spying a man ploughing behind a horse, swooped and screamed and hovered, waiting to pounce on the freshly turned earth.

It was a very different country from the other side of Cornwall. Judith said, ‘It's so beautiful.’

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 were 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.