about to ask him why he wanted to come and yet realised she did not want to know. Not yet.
“I will take the train from Portsmouth and be with you in two hours.” And then, just before she replaced the earpiece back on its cradle, she heard his half whisper, “I love you.”
May sat at her small desk in the corner of Sir Philip’s study uncertain what to do next. She examined her hands. As usual, her fingers were covered in the inky film that rubbed off from the carbon paper. She had to use a scrubbing brush to get them properly clean. Today the sight of the smudgy ink stains did not trouble her. They felt like part of a normal working day. But still she sat, unable to get on with her work. The telephone call to the editor and the letter to Mosley would have to wait. The pile of correspondence that she had been about to reply to on Sir Philip’s behalf was in front of her, skewered through the middle on the dangerous-looking letter spike on the desk. The letters were a humdrum collection, typical of the Cuckmere post during the Easter parliamentary recess: early requests to attend two summer fetes in nearby villages, the weekly cigar bill. But there were also two envelopes marked “Strictly Private,” which she should put on Sir Philip’s desk but she could not bring herself to move.
At least two weeks had elapsed since May had received the letter from her mother in which she expressed her contentment at the news that May and Sam had both settled into their new life.
“I have always felt sure that Nat would look after you with the loving care that my sister would have given you both,” Edith had written, sounding reassured about the welfare of her children.
May began thinking about the last time she had looked closely at her mother’s face. She had been surprised to see a network of tiny lines running around her mouth and chin, which, when Edith concentrated or smiled, puckered into a crisscross pattern like a honeycomb. How could May not have noticed that her mother was growing older? Another existence away on the day of her departure from Barbados, as the Caribbean sun shone down on the Bridgetown quayside, May and her mother had tried to ignore the distant shouts.
“Anyone sailing better hurry now.”
But Sam had come dashing and panting over the gangplank and onto the jetty beside them.
“We really must get on board,” he said, looking pleadingly at May. He was wearing the uniform of the cargo ship’s management, even though the Thomas sugar consignment formed only a small percentage of the total number of crates packed into the vessel. Business was tough and the plantation managers had taken to sharing cargo ships between them.
It was time to leave. May’s hands were enclosed within those of her mother.
“All I want is for you to know true, enveloping happiness,” she said.
Edith’s tears were on the brink of falling. Her huge grey eyes had a recently washed but not quite dried haze about them, suggesting the weeping she might have done recently and alone.
“Stay safe,” her mother whispered, pressing a tiny black velvet pouch into May’s hand. “Whenever I think of you wearing this, I will know that you are thinking of me. Stay safe, my darling girl. And look after Sam. You and Sam are more precious to me than anything.”
In the study the Anglepoise lamp flickered for a moment before returning to its full strength. May stroked the silver flowers of her forget-me-not bracelet. She willed Sam to arrive. Twice she thought the moment had come. Girlish shrieks could be heard a long time before Bettina actually burst into the study. She was, she said, “looking over tout la terre for her father. May told her he had bicycled over to Beddingham to see his friend Eric Ravilious. The artist had wanted to show Sir Philip his designs for souvenir mugs, commissioned for next year’s coronation.
Bettina left May alone. No wonder her voice drove Julian mad. He was always confiding things to May that they both knew he shouldn’t. The second time the door opened it was Mrs. Cage. Without actually entering the room, Mrs. Cage peered round from the cover of the door and wanted to know if there was anything she could fetch May. The unusual gentleness of her tone increased May’s sense of apprehension. Did Mrs. Cage know something? Had she spoken