I continued to stir the pumpkin soup, not daring to look if Mouse was giving in to Rory’s heavy persuasion.
‘How are you, Orlando?’ asked Mouse as he headed into the pantry. There was no reply, so he returned with a bottle of beer and some wine and offered me a glass. I looked up at him and suppressed a chuckle at the ears Rory had placed haphazardly on his head, and reached to straighten one that had been bent.
‘Suits you,’ I said with a smile.
‘Thanks,’ he muttered as he turned back to the table.
Despite the tension between the brothers, Rory’s excitement was infectious. We ate the soup, then I produced ‘ghost burgers’ and ‘spider potatoes’ which I’d fashioned from mash and then deep-fried. After pudding, I went to the drawer and pulled out a DVD of the Harry Potter film I’d bought in town.
‘Shall we go and watch it?’ I asked the three of them.
‘Not Superman?’ Rory signed.
‘No, but I think you will like this,’ I encouraged. ‘Would you go and switch it on, Dumbledore?’
‘Of course. I’ve been trying to persuade Rory to let me read the book to him for the past year.’ Orlando stood up, twirling his wand. ‘Come, Harry, let me lead you to Hogwarts and all its glories.’
‘I must go.’ Mouse took off his ears and laid them on the table. ‘Thanks for tonight, Star. Rory loved it.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘You’re so good with him, you really are.’
Then he walked over to me and, after a pause, gave me a sudden tight hug. I looked up at him and saw the expression in his eyes as his head descended towards mine. And then, as if he’d changed his mind, he planted a deep kiss on my forehead. ‘Goodnight.’
‘Night,’ I said as he released me, went to the kitchen door and left.
Even though the first Harry Potter film was one of my all-time favourites, I hardly saw it, my mind spinning back time and again to the moment Mouse had reached for my lips.
‘Come on, young man, it’s way past your bedtime.’ I heaved my reluctant Harry Potter off the sofa as the credits rolled on the screen.
‘No story tonight, old chap, it’s late,’ said Orlando. ‘Sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite.’
After I’d kissed Rory goodnight, I wandered back downstairs, intending to clear up the kitchen.
‘Where are you going now?’ Orlando brandished his wand at me as I picked up the used mugs of hot chocolate from the drawing room. ‘You never stop, do you? Please, Miss Star, sit down. I feel we’ve hardly talked in days.’
‘Okay.’ I sat down in the armchair by the fire, mirroring our usual seating at the bookshop. ‘What would you like to talk about?’
‘You.’
‘Oh,’ I said, having braced myself for another outpouring of misery over the sale of the bookshop.
‘Yes, Miss Star, you,’ he repeated. ‘It strikes me that you’ve done rather a lot for this family, and especially for me and Rory. Therefore I feel I should give you something in return.’
‘Really, Orlando, that’s not necessary. I—’
‘It’s certainly not financial recompense, but in my view, it’s something far more important.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Really. You see, Miss Star, I haven’t forgotten why you sought out Arthur Morston Books in the first place: you were sent by your father on a quest to find out about your true heritage.’
‘Yes.’
‘I was wary at the start, of course – as anyone would be when a stranger announces a connection to one’s family. Especially a family with such a complex history as ours. You asked me who Flora MacNichol was, and I told you that she was the sister of our great-grandmother – in other words, our great-great-aunt, which is indeed true. But not the whole truth.’
‘I see.’
‘I very much doubt that you do. And nor does anyone else, apart from me. Because, Miss Star, during those dreadful years of sickness as a child, all I could do was read to escape.’
‘Mouse told me.’
‘I’m sure he did, yes. But even he could not know that on my voracious voyage through the bookshelves of Home Farm, I read everything there was. Including Flora MacNichol’s journals.’ Orlando paused dramatically. ‘All of them.’
‘Right.’ I decided to play along with Orlando’s little game. ‘And you know that some are missing? Mouse has been looking for them to help him research the family history. Do you know where they are?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Then why haven’t you told him?’
‘In truth, I didn’t feel he was doing the research out of best intentions. Miss Star, you must understand that my brother has been a very bitter and troubled man since his wife – and our father – died. I felt that putting the information the journals hold at his disposal would have provided even more fodder for his internal fire. I can assure you that it has been difficult to get a civil word out of him, so mired in his own sorrow has he been. He has not been in his right mind.’
‘And why would the journals have made it worse?’
‘I’m sure that Mouse has already informed you that he was given certain . . . information by our father before he died. Mouse became obsessed with discovering the truth about his past. Simply because he had no future to cling on to. Do you understand?’
‘I do. But what has this got to do with me?’
‘Well now . . .’ Orlando reached down for a canvas bag tucked by the side of his chair. He delved inside it and pulled out a pile of familiar silk-covered notebooks. ‘Do you know what these are?’
‘Flora MacNichol’s journals.’
‘Indeed, indeed.’ Orlando nodded. ‘I had, of course, retrieved them from Home Farm a while back and hidden them amongst the thousands of books in the shop. As you know, it would take a month of Sundays to find them there,’ he added gleefully.
I decided to give him his moment and refrain from telling him I’d already found them.
‘So, Miss Star, here they are. Flora MacNichol’s life between the years 1910 and 1944. They contain written proof of the deception that took place in our family, the ramifications of which have resonated down through the years. And, one could also say, contributed heavily to where all three of us find ourselves today.’
I sat silently, presuming he meant Mouse, Marguerite and himself.
‘So, given that you have been so very noble in your actions towards the blighted Forbeses, I feel that it is only fair that I continue to steer you in the right direction, from where my brother left off.’
‘Okay, thank you.’
‘Now, where exactly have you got to with Mouse?’