Lydia smiled. “Well, I did notice she’d changed when her father brought them all back from France. I put it down to Nature. Growing up.”
Joe snorted. “Growing up? The child had found her long-lost mother and the French family she didn’t know she had. She’d fallen in love with an entirely worthy scion of a noble Champagne family. Affection reciprocated to all appearances. And been closely involved with two murder cases. All in the space of a summer. Bound to have an effect.”
“But no reason there for dropping you like a soiled glove.”
“She made use of me, Lydia. I’ve realised she always did. The ‘crush’ you mention would have been more acceptable. Flattering even! And I could have handled it.” His swift smile faded. “No, it was the hard man that she saw and was intrigued by. Dorcas had no time for gallantry. She had a heap of troubles on her plate seven years ago. The day I first clapped eyes on her, she watched me deliver a shot amidships to her appalling grandmother who was making her life hell and she decided there and then to recruit me to sort out her remaining problems. That’s her father’s theory, and it’s mine too. She’s quite unscrupulous, you know. She cracked her whip, and I performed my circus tricks. Did what she asked. Took her where she wanted to go. And then, when she was entirely satisfied: ‘Thank you so much, Joe, that’ll be all’ is what I heard. And, having found her wings, away she flew.”
“Well, she didn’t fly far. She still spends as much time with us as she does with her scoundrelly father. And we’re delighted to have her. The house comes alive when she’s here. And the food improves no end! Did you know the girl can cook, Joe? I mean really cook?”
“It runs in the family. Her mother’s the best I’ve ever encountered. I expect she’s been learning at her apron strings.”
“It’s a talent but it can be inconvenient. It doesn’t go down well with the staff. Dorcas gets very bossy in the kitchen. I’ve had two cooks hang up their pinnies, put their hat on, and stomp off in high dudgeon when her suggestions got a bit—er—fanciful.”
“You’re about to give me some sisterly advice, Lyd?”
“No. An ultimatum. Brother, I insist that you come to some socially acceptable arrangement for as long as you stay under the same roof. I won’t put up with bickering. It might not be easy. Dorcas has never asked for your news and you have never tried to catch up on her. You might as well be strangers. Oh, and let me tell you … she’s certainly not a child any more. She’s twenty-one—that’s practically an old maid these days—and she graduates this year. In psychology, in case you’d forgotten. And that’s psychology, not psychiatry. She gets angry if you confuse them. So. I want you to treat her with some respect, Joe.”
“I always did, Lydia.”
IT WAS ALREADY growing dark as they passed through a quiet village and turned off the High Street between the two stone pillars that marked out Dunsford House. Sensing the change in speed and the crunch of gravel under the tires, Jackie began to stir and yawn.
“Well, here we are, old man!” Joe announced and, parking the car by the front door, spent a moment gently reminding the disoriented boy of who he could expect to see greeting him in the next few minutes. “Your Uncle Marcus. Your two girl cousins—remember their names? That’s right. Big girls now … they’ll take good care of you. Oh, and a friend of the family, Dorcas Joliffe. She’s a grown-up. A student at the university.”
He gave a toot on the horn, and the door was flung open to reveal the cast list. A manservant struggled through the flurry of welcoming laughter and kisses to take Joe’s hat and see to the luggage. Lydia put up a hand for calm and reached into the back seat to draw Jackie forwards.
“Girls! This is your cousin from India. Jack Drummond. I say ‘cousin’ because he’s the son of two of your Uncle Joe’s dearest friends: Andrew and Nancy Drummond. Andrew is something big in Bengal. He fought in the same regiment as Joe in the war and was wounded at Mons,” Lydia said airily. “Jackie, this is Vanessa and this is Juliet.” Her two fair-haired daughters came forwards to shake his hand and then give him a hug, murmuring a welcome.
“And here’s your Uncle Marcus.”
“Drummond! Delighted you could come!” said Marcus, responding to the child’s formal stance and outstretched hand. “Now, what about a spot of tea?”
Joe’s eyes were seeking out the dark girl standing a little behind the family group. “I can see you, Dorcas! Come and meet Jackie. Jackie, this is Dorcas, the daughter of Orlando Joliffe, a friend and neighbour.”
Joe watched anxiously as they shook hands and eyed each other warily. As a girl, Dorcas had always had a way with younger children, showing an interest and an instinctive understanding. Could this skill have survived maturity and still be there under the layers of sophistication she had no doubt built up over the years? Joe wondered.
In appearance, she’d hardly changed. The inches she’d put on since his first sighting seven years ago had brought her up to average height for a woman, but she still had the slender, whippet-like figure, the same glossy, dark bobbed hair. Long gone and unregretted were the hand-me-down clothes and worn sandals Joe remembered. The thick red sweater she was wearing suited her but Joe wasn’t so certain about the black cord trousers of mannish cut. Jackie, of course, with his Indian background, would be completely at ease with the sight of women in trousers, from whipcord jodhpurs to silken harem pants.
“Tea? Oh, I think we can do better than that, Uncle Marcus. I saved you some lunch, Jackie,” she told the boy. “Just in case you didn’t find time to stop anywhere on the way down. Did you?” Her voice was lower than he remembered with no trace of the country accent she’d had seven years before.
“I don’t know if we stopped. I’ve been asleep. But I know I’m hungry.”
“Good. Then what do you say to some fish pie? And then cherry trifle—bottled cherries, but delicious—with cream from the home farm. It’s as yellow as a buttercup.”
“Oooh, ahh.…” Jackie turned to Joe for help.
“Well, I don’t know about Jackie, but I’m growing faint at the very thought. Shall I speak for both of us? Lead us to it!”
She smiled and, tucking the child’s arm under hers, led him into the hallway, leaning towards him and talking confidentially. Hurrying to follow behind, Joe thought he caught “… regiment … wounds … hero .…” and an amused look thrown back at him over her shoulder. He was touched by Jackie’s emphatic response to her comments: “No, Dorcas. Uncle Joe was a Northumberland Fusilier.… he told me so.… Daddy was an officer in the Indian Army. And he was wounded at Ypres. Auntie Lydia got that wrong.” Dorcas accepted the correction without demur and took down the tension with a joking remark. Jackie was emboldened to pour more military details into the ready ear.
For the second time, Joe noted that the boy was a stickler for detail. Well brought up, he apparently was uneasy with anything less than the truth. Wherever else, he didn’t get that from his mother! Joe crushed the unworthy thought. This was a quality that could prove awkward over the next few days. But, again, it could be an asset—if carefully managed.
“UGLY LITTLE BRUTES!” Marcus’s voice was gruff. “What a collection!”
He poked at the photographs Lydia had spread at random on the table in the drawing room after supper, not comfortable until he had them in a straight line and equidistant from each other. Sensing his companions’ disapproval, he tried to explain himself. “I mean—look at them! Seven … eight … nine of ’em and all dashed unattractive … Spotty … Skinny … Goofy … Tubby and Big Ears. I know who they are—saw them playing Snow White’s little helpers in the panto at the Lyceum the other day. And will someone tell me why boys of this age always have such big teeth? Looking at this line-up I’m happy I’ve been blessed with girls. Bonny from the day they were born!”