The Morning Gift

Do forgive me for being so blunt, but Verena is, understandably, so very dear to me and I cannot help wanting the best for her. And what could be better than to meet again the friend of my childhood, and protector?

With all good wishes,

Daphne Plackett

Miss Somerville read the letter through twice and sat for a while, pondering. Then she rang for Turton.

‘Tell Harris I shall want the motor,’ she said. ‘I’m going to go over to Rothley.’

She was about to step into the old Buick, which she resolutely refused to let Quin replace, when a series of high-pitched yelps made her turn round and a shoe-sized puppy hurled itself at her legs, gathered itself up to leap onto the running board, missed, rolled over on to its back . . . and all the while its rat-like tail rotated in a frenzy and its unequal eyes gleamed with life affirmation and the prospect of togetherness.

‘Take it away,’ said Miss Somerville grimly. ‘And tell whoever let it out that if they don’t keep the door shut, I’ll have it drowned.’

The chauffeur repressed a grin, for the passion of the mongrel puppy for Bowmont’s mistress was a standing joke among the servants, but Miss Somerville, sitting stiffly in the back of the motor, could find no amusement in what had happened to her prize Labrador. The last of Comely’s thoroughbred puppies had been weaned and sold to excellent homes when, sooner than expected, she had come on heat again and spent a night away. The result of this escapade was a litter the like of which Miss Somerville, in thirty years of breeding dogs, could not have imagined in her most fevered dreams. By bullying various underlings on the estate, she had managed to find homes for the older puppies – but to get anyone to take the runt of the litter, with its arbitrary collection of whiskers, piebald stomach and vestigial legs, she would have had to put the villagers into stocks. And somehow this canine disaster seemed to go with all the other threats to her ordered world: with cowmen who sang opera and strangers with notebooks tramping over Somerville land.

The road to Rothley led past Bamburgh, once Bowmont’s rival to the north, and the causeway to Holy Island, before turning inland towards the Hall – a long, red sandstone building apparently kept aloft by fierce strands of ivy. The yapping of half a dozen Jack Russell terriers greeted her and presently she was in Lady Rothley’s small drawing room while her friend perused the letter.

‘One cannot really like the tone,’ she said presently, ‘but quite honestly, Frances, I do not see what you have to lose. At worst, Verena is a tiresome girl and you have her for a fortnight and at best . . .’

‘Yes, that’s what I thought. And she really does seem to be clever. She might interest him where sillier girls have failed.’

‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ said Lady Rothley ‘If she’s got Croft-Ellis blood in her, she’ll soon scotch any nonsense about giving Bowmont to the National Trust! If Quin marries Verena Plackett, they won’t get their hands on a square inch of midden. It’s not for nothing that their motto is What I have let no man covet! If there’s a meaner family in England, I’ve yet to hear of it.’ And seeing her friend’s face, ‘No, I’m joking, it’s not as bad as that – they’re good landlords and go back to the Conqueror. If the girl manages to get Quin, she’ll know how to behave.’

‘You think I should invite her then?’

‘Yes, I do. And more than that. I think we should put our shoulders to the wheel. I think we should rally round and really welcome the girl. If it’s her birthday during the time she’s here why don’t you give a party for her, or a small dance? I know you don’t care for all that, but we’ll help you. Rollo’s coming up next week with a friend from Sandhurst and Helen’s girls are home. Nothing formal, of course, but it’s years since Quin’s seen his home en fête – and with the students here he can’t run away like he sometimes does!’

Frances, quailing at the thought of so much sociability, now had another unpleasant thought. ‘You don’t think he’ll expect the students to come? The ones down at the boathouse, I mean?’

‘I shouldn’t think so. Quin may be democratic, but he knows how things are done.’ And coming over to lay her arm round Miss Somerville’s shoulder in a rare gesture of affection: ‘This may be what we’ve been waiting for, Frances. Let’s give the girl a chance.’

Miss Somerville returned to Bowmont as a woman with a mission. The letter she wrote to Lady Plackett was cordial in the extreme, and the instructions she gave to Turton were explicit.