and red hollyhocks had beaten all their previous records in height, their delicate pink flowers scaling the top wire of the tennis court. At the other end of the lawn, Vera put the ball of string and pruning sheers into her pocket and sat down on a bench beneath the fig tree. It was too early for the tree to produce any fruit but the large leaves provided the dappling shade that was welcome on such a hot day.
Whenever May had some time to herself she would sit by the door of the ancient dovecot and listen to the velvety crooning that came from inside. The inner walls of the squat stone building were slatted with hundreds of deep square shelves, a stone-built library filled not with books but with doves, each one snug in the individual slots in which they and their antecedents had nested for several centuries. May looked around this lovely place, absorbing the beauty of it. In April, the thick yew hedges had been clipped back to the cleanest and smoothest of profiles but the new growth was already beginning to blur the crisp lines. Petals borne on the occasional breath of a breeze drifted across the lawn from the rose garden and floated into May’s lap. The air was so still that she could only tell the direction of the wind by training her gaze on a landmark, a chimney, or a tree and watching a cloud make its snail-slow progress across the sky towards that fixed point. That day the sun was so bright that May found it impossible to read her book even when she scrunched up her eyes to see the words on the page. She went inside the house.
As usual Lady Joan was on her own, apart from the nurse who sat saying nothing in a corner of the room. Miss Nettlefold had admitted to May that the sight of her godmother, so indisposed and helpless, had upset her dreadfully and, concerned she might make a scene at the bedside, Evangeline thought it wiser to stay away.
The two Blunt children rarely came upstairs to their mother’s once-pretty bedroom that was now filled with medical equipment. In fact, Rupert and Bettina rarely came at all to Cuckmere during those summer months. Bettina explained to her father that she was in the middle of her busy London season and Rupert, having recently finished his exams, was giving himself an extended and well-earned period of celebration with his friends. Despite the intense demands of his work in London, Sir Philip tried to be near his wife as often as possible and May found herself driving him up and down to the city four or five times a week.
On the day Lady Joan had returned home in the ambulance, May offered to take her turn sitting beside her. Sir Philip had agreed at once.
“My wife is very fond of you, my dear,” Sir Philip said, “and when she wakes I know she will be grateful to find you nearby.”
Taking up her position at the head of the bed, May would try to ignore the smells of stale decay, medicinal chemicals, and the uneven sounds that came from beneath the oxygen mask. There was no knowing if Lady Joan would ever wake. There had been talk of her having an operation involving an electric current being passed through her brain but Sir Philip could not bring himself to subject his wife to such a frightful invasion. The only confirmation of life came from the intermittent misting up of Lady Joan’s oxygen mask and the flickering butterfly hover that stirred beneath Lady Joan’s cream nightdress. May had once leant over to interrupt the path of a ladybird that was in danger of becoming trapped under the mask as it tracked its way across the invalid’s pale cheek. Feeling her gaze becoming intrusive May had stood up. Such contemplation should be reserved exclusively for the absorption either of a daughter, or a lover.
May had heard nothing from Julian since they had parted at the underground station nearly a month ago. She missed their conversations. Julian was so easy to talk to. He made her think and he made her laugh. What’s more, he listened to her, one of the most important points on her mother’s list of qualities to look for in a man. Above all, she could not stop thinking about the taste of his kiss. And those thoughts had led to others that had never before