Poppy laughed and served herself some cheese. “Sophia is sequestered at school in Sussex, and Rupes couldn’t make trouble if you gave him a recipe. Speaking of, Uncle Andrew, is that your shepherd’s pie?”
Andrew opened the Aga. “It is and nearly ready, I think.” He slid a bright blue and yellow casserole dish out of the oven and onto the counter. He slipped a table knife into the center of the dish and then touched the knife to his lips. “Not quite,” he said and put it back in the oven.
Nettie did the very same thing when she cooked lasagna, checking her nourishment with the tenderest part of herself. A wave of homesickness rose, and Sorrel took a too-big sip of her wine.
“Sorrel, you are going to love London,” Poppy said.
“And Kirkwood Hall,” Graham said.
“Yes, but London to start,” Poppy said and pulled an overstuffed notebook out of her bag. “I’ve made some suggestions for you,” she said, opening the notebook and pressing it as flat as possible. Lists and stickies and bits of paper spilled onto the table.
“First, a little tourism,” she said. “I’ll give you tomorrow to have a wander and then on Wednesday you’ll hit the Physic Garden and the Globe with Andrew, yeah?”
“Other way round, I think,” Andrew said. “Globe, then garden.”
“And me stuck behind a table listening to another lecture,” Poppy said.
“Poor Poppet,” Graham said. “She’s back at uni and none too happy, I can tell you.”
“Dad, I am happy. Happy that it’s my last year,” Poppy said.
Poppy Kirkwood hardly seemed like the college students Sorrel saw around town back home. She was confident and charming in a thoroughly engaging way, for one, and she seemed completely at home chatting away as if her best friends surrounded her.
“Where do you go?” Sorrel asked.
“University College London,” Poppy said. “Close enough to come home for Uncle Andrew’s dinners, not quite far enough that Mum can’t show up at the dorm every now and then unannounced.”
“Listen, you,” Graham said, “if Mum didn’t check in here and there, you might disappear again.” He looked at Sorrel. “Our Poppy took quite a hegira before she settled down with art history,” he said. “She spent far too long traveling before we managed to bring her home, and only then because her mother stopped writing checks.”
“I had an extended gap year—two years,” Poppy said. “‘Hegira’ implies I was fleeing from danger, Dad.” Poppy laughed.
“Well, perhaps you were, my lamb. You know we never did like that boy. What was his name? Harcourt, Hugo, Horace?”
“Nice try. It was Hector, and he broke my heart.”
“You recovered,” Andrew harrumphed as Poppy patted his shoulder.
“Who looks at a baby and names it Hector, I ask you?” Graham hooted.
“The same sort who looks at an infant daughter and names her Philippa,” Poppy said.
“Ah, but your name honors your grandfather, the marvelous man who reared the wondrous Stella Warburton Kirkwood, your mum.”
Sorrel began to feel at home in this kitchen with the chat and laughter, the teasing and poking. Andrew seemed softer somehow in the warmth. She looked at the window over the sink and saw them all reflected there: a little company of friends and family. This kind of ease was not what she had expected when she left her sisters behind. Sorrel took a bite of the shepherd’s pie and actually moaned as the buttery mashed potatoes and savory lamb melted on her tongue. Her three hosts turned as one to look at her.
“I’m so sorry,” Sorrel said with her hand over her mouth. “It’s just that I’ve never tasted anything like this. My sister Nettie does most of the cooking at home. She’s extremely accomplished but”—she paused and licked her lips—“the richness!”
Andrew bowed his head in thanks. “I’ve been instructed to feed you up before you fly away.” He looked at Sorrel in a way that made her wonder if Andrew Warburton hadn’t flown away himself once upon a time.
When the dishes were cleared and the wine finished, Poppy took Sorrel out for a walk. Not a word had been said about Sorrel’s brief; no further garden talk, no tapestry thoughts. She wondered when she’d learn the full extent of her work. In the moment she didn’t particularly care; as unfamiliar as England might be, Sorrel felt a pleasing sense of calm. The night was studded with clouds against the dark, and Sorrel was surprised to find that there were stars to be seen in the London sky. Great chestnut trees swept over the embankment and were just now budding out, some a deep pink, others white.
Before them the Albert Bridge rose up over the Thames like a great pastel roller coaster dotted with bright round lights. As they climbed onto the pedestrian path, Sorrel stopped to read the warning posted on one of the girders. ALL TROOPS MUST BREAK STEP WHEN MARCHING OVER THIS BRIDGE. She looked at Poppy.
“It’s like Joshua and Jericho,” she said. “The vibrations from so many feet marching as one could loosen the bolts and bring the bridge down.”
“Seriously?” Sorrel asked, taking a step back.
“Oh, who knows?” Poppy laughed. “That’s what my father always told me.”
Houseboats bobbed along the Embankment, and seagulls wheeled overhead, miles from the ocean. Sorrel followed their flight with longing, their cries a pale echo of the ones she heard every day back home.
“Would you like company tomorrow or do you want the time on your own?” Poppy asked.
“Don’t you have class?” Sorrel asked.
“I do. Not that I wouldn’t skive off at your request.”
Sorrel shook her head.
“Right, on your own it is. You’ve no plan, which is just how one should discover a new city. I suggest you get on the number 11, 19, or 52 bus and see what you see.”
Sorrel had already forgotten the bus numbers as she nodded somewhat witlessly at Poppy’s rapid-fire instructions.
Halfway across the bridge they stopped to look out over the river. The lights strung like Christmas bulbs sent bobbing glowworms onto the ripples. The Thames tide is so extreme that at certain times boats and moorings sit stranded in the mud, and tendrils of moss and duckweed flow down the Embankment walls like ivy. But tonight the water slapped at the boats, setting their brightwork jingling.
“Uncle Andrew is one of Dad’s closest friends, despite the age gap,” Poppy said. “He’s been with us in Wiltshire for a bit, you know, finding his way.”
Sorrel chuckled and thought that Andrew Warburton seemed quite sure of his way, even if he drove there with little regard for the Highway Code.
Poppy tapped Sorrel’s arm.
“He’s pretty great, you know, Uncle Andrew, just a bit on the dour side of late. We think he needs the kind of care that London can’t give him right now. You’ll see when you get to the country. The house has a way of clarifying things just when one needs direction.”