‘You could join us for supper later,’ Joss interrupted. ‘Mum has made enough for an army as usual.’
‘Thank you but no.’ Janet drained her glass and stood up. ‘I only came to bring you the dolly. The last thing you all want is a visitor on your first evening. Later, though, I’d love to come. And in the mean time if you need anything at all we are very close. Please, please don’t hesitate to ask.’ She smiled round at them, then pulling her scarf back over her head, she was gone.
‘Nice woman, Janet Goodyear,’ Luke said to Joss when they were alone in the great hall later. They had made no attempt to introduce any of their furniture there. The room was too big, too stately, and, they both agreed needed no more than was there already.
The meal had been eaten and the beds made up and Luke’s first job, a rusty, shabby 1929 Bentley, had been ushered into the yard on the back of a low loader. It hadn’t even required an advertisement in the paper. A card in the shop, and a few words in the pub and the phone had rung three days later. Colonel Maxim, from the next village had owned the car for twelve years and had never got round to working on it himself. Luke could start on it as soon as possible, and when that was done, there was a 1930 Alvis belonging to a friend.
Tom, exhausted by the excitement of the day had gone to bed in his own room without a murmur. The old nurseries led off the main bedroom which was to be Joss and Luke’s, and, with the doors open into the short passage which separated the two rooms they would easily be able to hear him if he cried. The nursery complex consisted of three rooms, one of which had been converted into a bathroom. It was a cold, north facing room, and even the string bag full of Tom’s colourful bath toys did nothing to cheer it up. ‘Curtains, bright rug, wall heater and lots of vivid, warm towels,’ Joss dictated as she took the little boy on her knee after his bath and cuddled him dry. Lyn was making a shopping list, sitting on the closed lid of the loo. ‘Tom’s bathroom and bedroom are a priority.’ She shivered in spite of the heat from the gas cylinder heater Luke had put into the room. ‘I want him to love this place.’
‘At least your four poster will keep the draught out,’ Lyn commented. The bedroom she had been allocated off the main staircase, although facing south across the garden, was bitterly cold. In the past it was obvious a fire had been lit in the grate in there. There was a rudimentary central heating system, working off the range, but the heat didn’t seem to reach the bedrooms, and they had already decided that they would just have to stay cold. A thousand blankets, hot-water bottles and thermal pyjamas were going to be the order of the day from now on.
‘How long do you think Joe and Alice will stay?’ Joss pulled the fleece-lined pyjama top over Tom’s curls.
‘As long as you like.’ Lyn was adding soap, loo paper and cleaning materials to her list. ‘Mum doesn’t want to get in the way, but she’d really love to stay right up to Christmas. She’d help you get the place straight.’
‘I know she would, bless her. And I’d like her to. In fact I’d love you all to stay, if you’d like to.’
*
‘So, what do you think of it all?’ Luke put his arm round Joss’s shoulders. They had lit a small fire and were standing looking down at it as the dry logs cracked and spat. Lyn and Alice and Joe had all gone to bed, exhausted by their day.
‘I suppose it’s like a dream come true.’ Joss leaned her elbow against the heavy oak bressummer beam that spanned the huge fireplace, looking down into the flames. ‘I think we should have the tree in here. A huge one, covered in fairy lights.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘Tom will be thrilled. He was too young to know what was going on last year.’ Joss smiled to herself. ‘Did you hear him talking to Dad: “Tom put paper there”. He was getting really cross, taking it out of the bag as fast as Dad put it in.’
‘Luckily your father loved it.’ Luke frowned. ‘It must be very strange for them, knowing this house belonged to your real parents.’
‘Strange for them!’ Joss shook her head hard, as if trying to clear her brain. ‘Think what it’s like for me. I don’t even like to call Dad, Dad. It’s as if I feel my other father might be listening.’
Luke nodded. ‘I rang my parents while you were upstairs. Just to say we’re here.’
Joss smiled fondly. ‘How are they? How is life in Chicago?’ She knew how much Luke was missing them, especially his father. Geoffrey Grant’s sabbatical year in the States seemed to have dragged on for a long, long time.
‘They’re great. And they’re coming home early next summer.’ He paused. He and Joss had been planning a trip out to see them. That was not going to happen now, of course. ‘They can’t wait to see the house, Joss. It’s hard to know how to explain all this over the phone.’ He gave a snort of laughter.
Joss smiled. ‘I suppose it is!’ She lapsed into thoughtful silence.
‘Have you had another look for the key to the desk in the study yet?’ Luke nudged the logs with the toe of his trainer and watched with satisfaction as a curtain of sparks spread out over the sooty bricks at the back of the hearth.
‘I haven’t been in the study since we arrived this morning.’ She stood up straight. ‘I’m going to have a tot of Janet Goodyear’s present and then I think I might go and have a poke around while you have your bath.’
*