“She’s gorgeous, Florence darling. Mind you, she’s as dark as a cup of over-stewed tea. And that awful chopped-off hairstyle. She isn’t one of those frightful lesbians is she?”
A gleaming bicycle had appeared on Florence’s tenth birthday, a present from Lady Joan, accompanied by a very serviceable secondhand version for May. After twenty minutes of wobbles with May running behind, her hand on the seat to steady the machine, and Florence’s occasional violent kick of frustration at the spinning spokes as the machine fell to the ground beneath her, Florence had found her natural balance. As May left the study to go and find Florence, the sun falling in pools on the stone floor of the great hall, she knew that if there had ever been a day for bicycling this was the one.
The fields around Cuckmere Park were bisected at many points by the meanders of a small river that led out to the open sea at Cuckmere Haven. One morning May and Florence had biked up onto the small rise above the house to see the winding river from above, finding themselves eyeball-to-eyeball with the thrice life-size figure of a white horse sketched into the chalky hillside. Florence’s new proficiency on wheels had coincided with the transformation of the rolling fields into a giant nursery. On this sunny spring day May and Florence went up onto the Downs to see the new lambs, the wool of their lithe week-old bodies like peaks of whipped egg white. Their drowsy mothers with their grey matted coats, the colour of the chalky flints that dotted the landscape around them, chewed rhythmically as beside them their lambs leapt into the air on all four legs. Florence imitated the young animals, jumping up and down on the spot like an escaped spring from a mattress. Sometimes they would tire of bouncing off the earthy mole-made hillocks and come to nuzzle at the ever ready source of milk, their catkin tails waggling as they drank. Occasionally they would lie down on the warm earth, exhausted by their own energy, kneeling first, before tucking their forelegs neatly beneath their chests. The new mothers would stand shielding the whip of the wind from the young bodies, and every so often would gently touch their mouths to their offspring in a grassy kiss. On the periphery of the fields, at the foot of the newly green hedgerows lurked a kindergarten of young rabbits. Sentimentality was rationed and discouraged up here as May and Florence both knew that these young innocents would eventually end up in the large copper cooking pots of the Cuckmere kitchen. But May found a beauty and a peace in this place that excelled even the memories of the sandy, wave-lapped expanses on which she had walked as a child.
A few days later May was once again working in the study. She had changed her mind entirely about agreeing to drive Julian up north. Even though she had originally gone along with his proposal, she now felt the idea to have been quite mad, partly because of the alarming prospect of spending time alone with someone so clever and so, well, so different. She had a further reservation. She belonged to a different class of society and her experience of life in England had already taught her that different classes, like different nationalities, did not mix. If she was to keep her job, she should also know her place.
May pulled the typewriter nearer. There was an urgent letter to Sir Oswald Mosley to complete, suggesting a second overnight visit. The trust between May and her boss grew daily and confidential papers passed through her typewriter often without explanation.
“I was happy to discover during our enjoyable conversation recently here at Cuckmere that political differences can be laid aside most willingly when matters affecting the constitutional roots of our nation are concerned,” Sir Philip had dictated.
Next there was a pressing call to be made to the editor of The Daily Telegraph, offering him a choice of dates to discuss what Sir Philip referred to as “the American problem.” May lifted the unwieldy mouthpiece, and was about to ask the exchange operator to put her through when the instrument rang.
“Is that May?” a familiar voice asked. “Oh, May. It is you. Can I come down and see you? Straight away? I have been given leave for the afternoon.”
Her brother Sam spoke with practical urgency. A mist of unreality descended as May was