Slowly, carefully, Julia got down, then stood, not moving nor speaking, as if she didn’t believe any of it. Then as one they ran, arms wide, clasping each other tightly, saying not a word, standing close, cheek upon cheek.
‘Oh, my word!’ Alice was the first to find her voice. ‘Let me look at you. My dear, dear Julia – I’ve missed you!’
‘And I you.’ Julia’s eyes pricked with tears and she blinked rapidly, smiling through them. ‘Sixteen months! It’s been so long. And do let me see her!’
‘Asleep, as usual,’ Alice sniffed, pulling back the pram cover. ‘Don’t know what I did to deserve such a placid babe.’
Daisy Dwerryhouse lay on her pretty pink pillow, face flushed from sleep, half-moons of incredibly long eyelashes resting on her cheeks.
‘But she is beautiful! She is incredible!’
‘If you don’t mind, I’ll leave the pair of you to it.’ Tom deposited suitcases on the doorstep. ‘Best take the pony back. Supper at half-past six, will it be?’ He didn’t even try to conceal his pride.
‘There or thereabouts,’ Alice nodded. ‘Let’s go inside, Julia? You must be fair gasping for a cup of tea. The kettle’s on the hob and the tray set and oh, my dear, it’s so good to be together again!’
‘It is,’ Julia whispered throatily. ‘So very good …’
When Tom had excused himself after supper and Daisy had been fed and settled in Julia’s arms in the fireside rocker, Alice set about restoring order in the kitchen.
‘You must be tired, love,’ she murmured.
‘Not if you aren’t.’ Julia cupped the little head protectively in her hand, smiling softly. ‘She smells of breast milk and baby soap. She has a mouth like a little rosebud. You should have called her Rose …’
‘No. Her mother is a buttercup girl and daisies go best with buttercups. Now – tell me about Aunt Sutton? How was she, when you called?’
‘She insists she came back to London to see her bank manager, but she let it slip that she also visited her doctor – then went to great pains to hide it. Said she might as well let him have a look at her, whilst she was over, but she was altogether too casual about it. It’s my belief she came especially to see him and when I said as much she told me it was all stuff and nonsense and that she had no intention of taking the pills he’d given her. A fussy old woman, she called him.
‘She’ll be back in the Camargue, now, and I’ve got a peculiar feeling about it all. I wonder if I should try phoning her doctor – get to the bottom of it.’
‘He wouldn’t tell you – you know he wouldn’t.’
‘No, and nor would Aunt Sutton. All she said was, “Fiddle-de-dee!” If only Andrew was here …’
Alice remained silent, then, drying her hands, she walked to where Julia sat, standing behind her chair, hands on her shoulders. For a moment she stood there, then said softly, ‘Is she asleep? Why don’t you take her upstairs to her cot? I don’t have to tell you how to do it, now do I?’
Julia was quite composed by the time she came downstairs and Alice was setting out cups and saucers.
‘Kettle’s just on the boil,’ she smiled, removing her apron. ‘Now we can have that chat. Tom won’t be back, yet.’
‘Does he always work this late?’
‘Bless you no – leastways, not these days. Windrush was very run down when Mr Hillier bought it. The Army were in it right through the war – the place had gone to rack and ruin. Game covers overgrown and hardly a pheasant in them. Tom’s had to start from scratch. There was no shooting last back end, though he’s hopeful there’ll be good sport come October. He’ll need another keeper, by then. Mr Hillier is keen to have his business friends from London for a few shoots, so Tom wants it all to be in good order.
‘Said he was going to make up the hour he took off, this afternoon, but really it’s only to let you and me have a good gossip.’
‘And you’re happy, Alice? No regrets – about leaving Rowangarth, I mean, and starting afresh here?’
‘No regrets –’cept that I miss you and Reuben and her ladyship. We’re so out of the way, here, and I only see people on shopping day – apart from the district nurse. She calls once a week but we shan’t be seeing so much of her, once Daisy gets to be six weeks old. I write to Reuben, though it isn’t often he writes back …’
‘I see him often. He’s fine, Alice, and tells me what you have written, though often you’ve already given me the same news. But I’m sure he’d like to see Daisy.’
‘I’d like him to. If he decided to visit us, either Tom or me would go to London and meet him. Wish I could persuade him to come.’
‘Or you and Daisy could come to Holdenby to see him?’
‘Oh, my goodness!’ Alice set down the tea tray with such force that the cups and saucers rattled. ‘You know I couldn’t! When I left Rowangarth the excuse was that I’d had a bad time getting over Drew’s birth and I was going to Aunt Sutton for a change and a rest. But that was ages ago! What are they going to say if I turn up with a baby in my arms?’
‘Well, you won’t shock Reuben nor mother, because they knew you were really going to Tom and they know about Daisy, so who else is there? Everyone else at Rowangarth is your friend. Oh, I tell them from time to time that you are fine and they know that you and I write to each other – but I’m sure they often thought about you and wondered when you’d be back. So why don’t you let me tell them that you have married again? You had every right to.’
‘But married to Tom?’
‘A deserter, you mean? But who knows about that? Mother, Reuben, and me – and we aren’t going to tell. And the Army thinks he was killed, so where’s the bother? You know the way we feel about it – we’re on Tom’s side.’
‘Yes, an’ I’m grateful. But what do I say – that I’m Alice Dwerryhouse, now, and that Tom was never killed? Are folks going to accept that?’
‘Of course – if you tell them he was a prisoner and the authorities were never told about it by the Germans. It happened often, in the war – men turning up like that. Everyone who knew you both would be glad.’
‘Aye,’ Alice frowned. ‘I think they’d believe it–especially as Jinny Dobb knows about Tom, already.’
‘Old Jin knows! How on earth …?’
‘She saw him the day he came back to Reuben’s cottage, when he came looking for me. Reuben had to tell him I’d wed Giles, and had a bairn …’
‘I know. I’m not likely to forget that day. But you’re sure Jin saw him?’
‘Certain. She told me she had and wanted to know why I wasn’t going with him.’
‘Yet she never said a word about it to anyone – not to my knowledge, at least.’
‘She promised she wouldn’t. But when I left Rowangarth, Jin must have suspected I wasn’t going away for the good of my health.’
‘Well – there you are, then,’ Julia smiled. ‘It would be a five-minute wonder. They’d all be so busy ooh-ing and aah-ing over Daisy that they’d pay no heed to what you and Tom had been doing.’
‘I don’t know …’ Alice frowned, biting her lip, cupping her blazing cheeks in her hands. ‘I’d have to talk to Tom about it. I mustn’t do anything to risk him being caught and happen he’d not be so keen to have me visit – well, you know what I mean?’
‘Elliot Sutton? Well, you’d just have to promise to keep out of Brattocks Wood. And anyway, you’d have no need to go there.