Moll, who is plumping cushions on the sofa, pretending she isn’t listening, says, “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Wilde?”
“There are Gores at Cornton Hall again. Had you heard anything?”
Moll looks uncomfortable, lowers her eyes. “There were rumors at the village hall coffee morning, Mrs. Wilde.”
“Rumors?” Sybil says sharply, waiting for Moll to elaborate.
“Old Ma Peat said she’d had to send her Brian over the other day. The bathroom was awash, the molding on the ceiling below a right mess.” She raises one eyebrow. “High jinks. The Gore boys had been at the wine cellar, apparently.”
“The Gore boys?” His voice booms, orbits the room. Perry fills the doorway, nostrils flaring like a mare’s. Moppet sidles up to Dot’s legs. “What about the damn Gores?”
We cautiously explain, unable to read the contradictory emotions flitting over our uncle’s face. After a while, he puts a hand over his mouth, some horrible truth is dawning on him. “Why are we always, always the last to know what goes on in the village, Sybil? Nothing damn well changes, does it? We stay locked away in this house like people who have something to hide.”
I watch him carefully, wondering if this might be a clever double bluff.
Sybil starts to wring her hands, making a pistol with her fingers. The exchange has the feeling of an old argument. “It was that swim this afternoon. What possessed you? You haven’t swum in years, Peregrine. It’ll do a mischief to your back. And it’s put you in a tizz, I can see that.”
“We act guilty, Sybil,” Perry continues, his face starting to pulse red. “Holed away here.”
At the word guilty, Flora raises an eyebrow at me.
“I . . . I will visit the village again soon,” Sybil stutters. “Yes, I must make an effort to get into the swing of things again. Committees and things. It’s been far too long.” She looks out of the window at distant hills with a peculiar mix of fear and raw yearning.
“I will invite Lady Anne over for drinks,” she continues, her words piling up against one another, like they do when you don’t believe them. “I’m sure she’ll return to the house this summer, if Harry is there. Yes, I must.”
“Invite them and they will be oh so busy, just like all the others.” Perry stands at the window, hands threaded behind his back, lost in thought. And he suddenly seems to be a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders, crunching his spine. “Let us turn this to our advantage.”
“I beg your pardon?” says Sybil tightly.
Perry swings around, eyes shining. “Why do you think Bunny really sent us the girls, Sybil? It wasn’t just to help her out, or fill Applecote with girls’ laughter again, I can assure you, whatever she might have said.”
I hear Ma’s shameless singsong voice, calling across the parched expanse of Sybil’s maternal emptiness. It makes my cheeks burn.
“They’re not here to fatten on Moll’s jam. Or would you prefer them to marry Billy the gardener? He’s a rather dashing fellow.”
Sybil puts her hand to her throat. “Good God.”
“Actually, Uncle, I am going to be a nurse,” says Pam indignantly.
“Nurse?” A huge, unexpected laugh bolts out of Perry’s mouth like a pheasant from grass. “Ah, very good, very good. Well, you might have some work to do on your bedside manner first, my little vixen.” He turns to Flora. “But you, Flora . . . I hope you’re not entertaining any excitable ideas about working for a living.”
“Peregrine,” Sybil warns, a grave expression on her face, as if she knows what’s about to come.
He glances at her impatiently. “Well, it would shut the gossips up, wouldn’t it? One of our nieces marrying into the glorious Gores. Damn them.”
“Peregrine, this is ridiculous. You’re being ridiculous,” snaps Sybil.
He strides closer to Flora, hands on his hips, a spine of sweat on the back of his shirt. “If you’ve got half of your mother’s wits, I advise you to aim yourself, like a bloody Hun’s missile, in the direction of Harry Gore. Do you understand, Flora? Don’t be distracted by Tom.” He dismisses him with a flick of his hand. “Pretty enough, but not worth a penny. Harry is the lad you want. He’s on the rise, that boy, mark my words; quite brilliant apparently, tipped for the top, and heir to a sugar fortune. Understood?”
Flora nods, her face inscrutable. “Understood, Uncle.”
“Well, good,” he says hesitantly, not quite sure if she’s being sincere or if we’re all in on a joke. “That’s settled. Your mother will thank you. And so will I. The Wilde family’s fortunes are in need of a top-up. We haven’t made a decent match in this family for a generation. Good luck.” He turns to the rest of us dismissively. “And you three fight over Tom, eh? Chop him up and split him three ways to avoid arguments. And stop flirting with our handsome young gardener or I’ll sack him immediately.”
A small sob breaks in Sybil’s throat then, a cracking sound, like a hazelnut underfoot. She pulls a handkerchief out of her sleeve, dabs her eyes. We stare at the floor, pretend we haven’t heard.
“The pollen again, is it, Sybil?” says Perry, a catch in his voice. But the awful sound of my aunt crying is unmistakable. Moll slips out of the door.
“Forgive me, girls,” Sybil sniffs.
“Not now, Sybil,” Perry says wearily.
As she’s clearly about to say something that Perry doesn’t want her to say, I encourage her. “What is it, Aunt?” I ask, ignoring Pam, who is shaking her head at me, warning me away from the awkward Audrey conversation we can all sense coming, like the pressure drop before heavy rain.
“Just . . . just thinking of little Harry all grown up, about to go to Oxford.” Her voice breaks and her raw grief is there in the room with us, clawing at her legs like a small child. “And . . . Audrey . . .”
“Sybil, darling,” Perry says more kindly. His hand hovers above her arm, ready to comfort her, then drops back to his side, as if he doesn’t quite know how.
“Audrey will be delighted to find Harry close by again when she comes home,” Sybil says, rallying a smile. “That is something.”
Silence swells under the hot glass, like a high-pitched noise about to shatter it. And it is suddenly obvious to all of us that Sybil’s belief that her daughter will one day return is her life force, her reason for living. And that Perry sees things very differently.
“For heaven’s sake, woman . . .” Perry’s voice quivers on the edge of something terrible. “Audrey is not coming back.”
As he barrels out of the glass doors, leaving his words hanging in the still, jasmine-scented air, I wonder how my uncle can possibly know this for sure.