"Did she mind?"
"About him taking the credit? No. Everyone knew she was the trainer. It was just a bit of gobbledegook to satisfy the Jockey Club."
"What happened to the stables?"
"The war put paid to them," he said regretfully. "She couldn't train with my father away… and when he came back he had them converted into the garage block."
Nancy replaced the photograph on the bureau. "That must have annoyed her," she said, with a teasing glint in her eyes. "What did she do for revenge?"
Another chuckle. "Joined the Labor party."
"Wow! A bit of a rebel, then!" Nancy was genuinely impressed. "Was she the only member in Dorset?"
"Certainly in the circle my parents moved in. She joined after the forty-five election when they published their plans for a National Health Service. She worked as a nurse during the war and became very unhappy about the lack of medical care for the poor. My father was appalled, because he was a lifelong Conservative. He couldn't believe his wife would want Churchill overthrown in favor of Clement Attlee-very ungrateful, he called it-but it made for some spirited debates."
She laughed. "Whose side were you on?"
"Oh, I always took my father's side," said James. "He could never win an argument against my mother without assistance. She was too powerful a character."
"What about your brother? Did he take her side?" She looked at a photograph of a young man in uniform. "Is this him? Or is this you?"
"No, that's John. He died in the war, sadly, otherwise he would have inherited the estate. He was the older by two years." He touched a gentle hand to Nancy's arm and steered her toward the sofa. "My mother was devastated, of course-they were very close-but she wasn't the type to hide herself away because of it. She was a wonderful influence… taught me that a wife with an independent mind was a prize worth having."
She sat down on the edge of the seat, turning toward James's armchair and placing her feet apart like a man with her elbows on her knees. "Is that why you married Ailsa?" she asked, glancing past him toward Mark, surprised to see satisfaction in the younger man's face as if he were a schoolteacher showing off a prize pupil. Or was the commendation for James? Perhaps it was harder for a grandfather to meet the child he'd helped put up for adoption, than it was for the granddaughter to offer the possibility of a second chance.
James lowered himself into his own chair, bending toward Nancy like an old friend. There was a powerful intimacy in the way they'd arranged themselves, though neither seemed aware of it. It was clear to Mark that Nancy had no idea of the impact she was making. She couldn't know that James rarely laughed-that even an hour ago he wouldn't have been able to lift a photograph without his hands trembling so much she'd have noticed it-or that the sparkle in the faded eyes was for her.
"Goodness me, yes," said James. "Ailsa was even more of a rebel than my mother. When I first met her, she and her friends were trying to disrupt her father's shoot in Scotland by waving placards around. She didn't approve of killing animals for sport-thought it was cruel. It worked, too. The shoot was abandoned when the birds were frightened off. Mind you," he said reflectively, "all the young men were much more impressed by the way the girls' skirts rode up when they lifted their placards above their heads than they were by the cruelty-to-animals argument. It wasn't a fashionable cause in the fifties. The savagery of war seemed far worse." His face became suddenly thoughtful.
Mark, fearing tears, stepped forward to draw attention to himself. "How about a drink, James? Shall I do the honors?"
The old man nodded. "That's a splendid idea. What time is it?"
"After one."
"Good lord! Are you sure? What are we doing about lunch? This poor child must be starving."
Nancy shook her head immediately. "Please don't-"
"How does cold pheasant, pate de foie gras, and French bread sound?" Mark broke in. "It's all in the kitchen… won't take a minute to do." He smiled encouragingly. "Drink's limited to what's in the cellar, I'm afraid, so it has to be red or white wine. Which do you prefer?"
"White?" she suggested. "And not too much. I'm driving."
"James?"
"The same. There's a decent Chablis at the far end. Ailsa's favorite. Open some of that."
"Will do. I'll bring it in, then make the lunch." He caught Nancy's eye and lifted his right thumb at hip level, out of James's sight, as much as to say "well done." She dropped him a wink in return, which he interpreted rightly as "thank you." Had he been a dog, his tail would have wagged. He needed to feel he was more than just an observer.
James waited until the door closed behind him. "He's been a wonderful support," he said. "I was worried about dragging him away from his family at Christmas, but he was determined to come."
"Is he married?"
"No. I believe he had a fiancee once, but it didn't gel for some reason. He comes from a large Anglo-Irish family… seven daughters and one son. They all get together at Christmas-it's an old family tradition, apparently-so it was very generous of him to come here instead." He fell silent for a moment. "I think he thought I'd do something silly if I was left on my own."
Nancy eyed him curiously. "Would you?"
The bluntness of the question reminded him of Ailsa, who had always found tiptoeing around other people's sensibilities an irritating waste of time. "I don't know," he said honestly. "I've never thought of myself as a quitter, but then I've never been into battle without my friends beside me… and which of us knows how brave he is until he stands alone?"
"First define bravery," she commented. "My sergeant would tell you it's a simple chemical reaction that pumps the heart with adrenaline when fear paralyzes it. The poor bloody soldier, terrified out of his wits, experiences a massive rush and behaves like an automaton under the influence of hormonal overdose."
"Does he say that to the men?"
She nodded. "They love it. They practice self-induced adrenaline rushes to keep their glands in trim."
James looked doubtful. "Does it work?"
"More in the mind than the body, I suspect," she said with a laugh, "but it's good psychology whichever way you look at it. If bravery is a chemical then we all have access to it, and fear is easier to deal with if it's a recognizable part of the process. In simple terms, we have to be frightened before we can be brave, otherwise the adrenaline won't flow… and if we can be brave without being frightened first-" she lifted an amused eyebrow-"then we're dead from the neck up. What we imagine is worse than what happens. Hence my sergeant's belief that a defenseless civilian, waiting day after day for the bombs to fall, is braver than a member of an armed unit."
"He sounds quite a character."
"The men like him," she said with a dry edge to the words.
"Ah!"
"Mm!"
James chuckled again. "What's he really like?"
Nancy pulled a wry face. "A self-opinionated bully who doesn't believe there's a place for women in the army… certainly not in the Engineers… certainly not with an Oxford degree… and certainly not in command."