The Distant Hours

by Kate Morton

  ‘Oh lovely! How heavenly,’ said Juniper, lunging for the jar. ‘Think of the sugar! Shall we have some now with toast?’

  Tom pulled his arm back, holding the jam out of reach. ‘Is it possible,’ he said incredulously, ‘that the young lady is still hungry?’

  ‘Well no. Not exactly. But it isn’t a matter of hunger.’

  ‘It isn’t?’

  ‘It’s a matter of a new option presenting itself after the fact. A sweet and glorious new option.’

  Tom turned the jar round in his fingers, paying close attention to the delicious red-black spoils inside. ‘No,’ he said at length, ‘I think we should save it for a special occasion.’

  ‘More special than your birthday?’

  ‘My birthday’s been special enough. This we should keep for the next celebration.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said Juniper, nestling in against his shoulder so his arm contained her, ‘but only because it’s your birthday, and because I’m far too full to get up.’

  Tom smiled around his cigarette as he lit it.

  ‘How was your family?’ said Juniper. ‘Is Joey over his cold?’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘And Maggie? Did she make you listen as she read the horoscopes?’

  ‘Very kind of her it was, too. How else am I supposed to know how to behave this week?’

  ‘How else indeed?’ Juniper took his cigarette and drew slowly. ‘Was there anything interesting, pray tell?’

  ‘Marginally,’ said Tom, sneaking his fingers beneath the sheet. ‘Apparently I’m going to propose marriage to a beautiful girl.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ She squirmed when he tickled her side and a smoky exhalation became a laugh. ‘That is interesting.’

  ‘I thought so.’

  ‘Though of course the real question is what the young lady is forecast to say by way of reply. I don’t suppose Maggie had any insight into that?’

  Tom pulled his arm back, rolling onto his side to face her. ‘Unfortunately, Maggie couldn’t help me there. She said I had to ask the girl myself and see what happened.’

  ‘Well, if that’s what Maggie says . . . ’

  ‘So?’ said Tom.

  ‘So?’

  He propped himself up on an elbow and adopted a posh voice. ‘Will you do me the honour, Juniper Blythe, of becoming my wife?’

  ‘Well, kind sir,’ said Juniper, in her best impersonation of the Queen, ‘that depends on whether one might also be permitted three fat babies.’

  Tom took the cigarette back and smoked it casually. ‘Why not four?’

  His manner was light still, but he’d dropped the accent. It made Juniper uneasy and somehow self-conscious and she couldn’t think of anything to say.

  ‘Come on, Juniper,’ he pressed. ‘Let’s get married. You and I.’ And there was no doubting now that he was serious.

  ‘I’m not expected to get married.’

  He frowned. ‘What does that mean?’

  A silence fell between them, remaining unbroken until the kettle whistled in the flat downstairs. ‘It’s complicated,’ said Juniper.

  ‘Is it? Do you love me?’

  ‘You know I do.’

  ‘Then it isn’t complicated. Marry me. Say yes, June. Whatever it is, whatever you’re worried about, we can fix it.’

  Juniper knew there was nothing she could say that would please him, nothing except yes, and she wasn’t able to do that. ‘Let me think about it,’ she said finally. ‘Let me have some time.’

  He sat abruptly, with his feet on the floor and his back to her. His head was bowed; he was leaning forwards. He was upset. She wanted to touch him, to run her fingers down the centre of his back, to go back in time so that he’d never asked her. As she was wondering how such a thing might be done, he reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. It was folded in half, but she could see there was a letter inside. ‘Here’s your time,’ he said, handing it to her. ‘I’ve been recalled to my unit. I report in a week.’

  Juniper made a noise, almost a gasp, and scrambled to sit beside him. ‘But how long . . . ? When will you be back?’

  ‘I don’t know. When the war is over, I suppose.’

  When the war is over. He was leaving London and suddenly Juniper understood that without Tom this place, this city, would cease to matter. She might as well be back at the castle. She felt her heart speeding up at the thought, not with excitement like an ordinary person’s, but with the reckless intensity she’d been taught to watch for all her life. She closed her eyes, hoping that it might improve matters.

  Her father had told her she was a creature of the castle, that she belonged there and it was safest not to leave, but he’d been wrong. She knew that now. The opposite was true: away from the castle, away from the world of Raymond Blythe, the terrible things he’d told her, his seeping guilt and sadness, she was free. In London, there’d been none of her visitors, there’d been no lost time. And although her great fear – that she was capable of harming others – had followed her, it was different here.

  Juniper felt a pressure on her knees and blinked open. Tom was kneeling on the floor before her, concern flooding his eyes. ‘Hey, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘It’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right.’

  She’d had no need to tell Tom any of it and for that she’d been glad. She hadn’t wanted his love to change, for him to become protective and concerned like her sisters. She hadn’t wanted to be watched, her moods and silences measured. She hadn’t wanted to be loved carefully, only well.

  ‘Juniper,’ Tom was saying. ‘I’m sorry. Please, don’t look like that. I can’t bear to see you look like that.’

  What was she thinking, turning him away, giving him up? Why on earth would she do such a thing? To follow the wishes of her father?

  Tom stood, began to walk away, but Juniper grabbed his wrist. ‘Tom – ’

  ‘I’m getting you a glass of water.’

  ‘No,’ she shook her head quickly, ‘I don’t want water. I just want you.’

  He smiled and a stubbled dimple appeared in his left cheek. ‘Well, you already have me.’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I mean yes.’

  He cocked his head.

  ‘I mean I want us to get married.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘And we’ll tell my sisters together.’

  ‘Of course we will,’ he said. ‘Whatever you want.’

  And then she laughed, and her throat ached but she laughed despite it and felt lighter in some way. ‘Thomas Cavill and I are getting married.’

  Juniper lay awake, her cheek on Tom’s chest, listening to his steady heartbeat, his steady breaths, trying to match her own to his. But she couldn’t sleep. She was trying to word a letter in her mind. For she’d have to write to her sisters, to let them know that she and Tom were coming, and she had to explain it in a way that would please them. They mustn’t suspect a thing.

  There was something else she’d thought of, too. Juniper had never been interested in clothing, but she suspected that a woman getting married ought to have a dress. She didn’t care about such things, but Tom might and his mother certainly would, and there was nothing Juniper wouldn’t do for Tom.

  She remembered a dress that had belonged once to her own mother: pale silk, a full skirt. Juniper had seen her wear it, a long time ago. If it were somewhere in the castle still, Saffy would be able to find it and she would know just what was needed to resurrect it.

  FOUR

  London, October 19th, 1941

  Meredith hadn’t seen Mr Cavill – Tom, as he’d insisted that she call him – in weeks, so it was a tremendous surprise when she opened the front door to find him standing on the other side.

  ‘Mr Cavill,’ she said, trying not to sound excited. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Couldn’t be better, Meredith. And it’s Tom, please.’ He smiled. ‘I’m not your teacher any more.’

  Meredith blushed, she was sure she did.

  ‘Mind if I co
me inside for a moment?’

  She shot a glance over her shoulder, through the other doorway and into the kitchen where Rita was scowling at something on the table. Her sister had recently fallen out with the young butcher’s assistant and been terribly sour since. As far as Meredith could tell, it was Rita’s plan to ameliorate her own disappointment by making her little sister’s life every bit as miserable.

  Tom must have sensed her reservation for he added, ‘We could go for a walk, if you prefer?’

  Meredith nodded gratefully, closed the door quietly behind her as she made her getaway.

  They went together down the road and she kept a small distance, arms crossed, head bowed, trying to seem as if she were listening to his good-natured talk of school and writing, the past and the future, when really her brain was scurrying ahead, trying to guess at the purpose of his visit. Trying very hard not to think about the schoolgirl crush she’d once nursed.

  They came to a stop at the same park where Juniper and Meredith had conducted their fruitless search for deckchairs back in June when the weather had been hot. The contrast between that warm memory and the grey skies now made Meredith shiver.

  ‘You’re cold. I should have thought to remind you about a coat.’ He shrugged his arms from the sleeves of his own, handed it to Meredith.

  ‘Oh no, I—’

  ‘Nonsense. I was getting hot anyway.’

  He pointed at a spot on the grass and Meredith followed readily, sitting cross-legged beside him. He spoke some more, asked her about her writing and listened closely to her reply. He told Meredith that he remembered giving her the journal, that he was delighted to think that she was using it still; all the while he plucked strands from the grass, rolling them into small spirals. Meredith listened and nodded and she watched his hands. They were lovely, strong but fine. A man’s hands, but not thick or hairy. She wondered what they would feel like to touch.

  A pulse in her temple began to throb and she felt dizzy thinking about how easily such a thing might be done. All she had to do was reach out a little further with her own hand. Would his be warm, she wondered, would they be smooth or rough? Would his fingers startle then tighten around her own?

  ‘I have something for you,’ he said. ‘It was mine, but I’ve been recalled to my unit so I need to find it a good home.’

  A gift before he went back to the war? Meredith’s breath caught and all thought of hands dissolved. Wasn’t this the very sort of thing that sweethearts did? Exchanged gifts before the hero marched away?

  She jumped as Tom’s hand brushed her back. He retracted it immediately, held his palm before her and smiled, embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that the gift, it’s in my coat pocket.’

  Meredith smiled too, relieved but also somehow disappointed. She returned his coat to him and he withdrew a book from its pocket.

  The Last Days of Paris, a Journalist’s Diary, she read, turning it over. ‘Thank you . . . Tom.’

  His name on her lips made Meredith shudder. She was fifteen now, and although perhaps only passably pretty, she was no longer a flat-chested child. It was possible, wasn’t it, that a man might fall in love with her?

  She was aware of his breath close to her neck as he reached over to touch the book’s cover.

  ‘Alexander Werth kept this diary while Paris was falling. I’m giving it to you because it shows how important it is for people to write what they see. Particularly in days like ours. Otherwise people don’t know what’s really happening, do you see that, Meredith?’

  ‘Yes.’ She glanced sideways and found him looking at her with such intensity that she was overcome. It happened in a matter of seconds, but for Meredith, stuck in the moment’s middle, everything moved like a film reel on slow motion. It was like watching a stranger as she leaned closer, drew breath, closed her eyes and pressed her lips to his in an instant of sublime perfection . . .

  Tom was very gentle. He spoke kindly to her, even as he removed her hands from his shoulders, even as he gave them a squeeze, unmistakably of the friendly sort, and told her not to be embarrassed.

  But Meredith was embarrassed; she wished only to melt into the ground. To dissolve into the air. Anything but to be still sitting beside him in the stark glare of her horrible mistake. She was so mortified that when Tom began to ask questions about Juniper’s sisters – what they were like, the sorts of things they enjoyed, whether there were any particular flower they favoured – she answered as if by rote. And she certainly didn’t think to ask him why he cared.

  On the day Juniper left London, she met Meredith at Charing Cross Station. She was glad of the company, not only because she was going to miss Merry, but because it kept her mind from Tom. He’d gone the day before to rejoin his regiment – for training first, before being sent back to the front – and the flat, the street, the city of London itself, was unbearable without him. Which is why Juniper had decided to take an early train east. She wasn’t going back to the castle though, not yet: the dinner wasn’t until Wednesday, she still had money in her suitcase, and she had an idea that she might spend the next three days exploring some of those swirling paintings she’d spied from the window of the train that had brought her to London.

  A familiar figure appeared at the top of the concourse, breaking into a grin when she spotted Juniper’s eager wave. Meredith scuttled through the crowd to where Juniper was standing, directly beneath the clock as they’d arranged.

  ‘Well, now,’ said Juniper, after they’d embraced, ‘Where is it then?’

  Meredith held her thumb and forefinger very close together and winced. ‘Just a few last-minute corrections.’

  ‘You mean I won’t have it for the train ride?’

  ‘A few more days, honest.’

  Juniper stepped aside for a porter pushing an enormous pile of suitcases. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘A few more days. No more, mind!’ She shook a finger with mock sternness. ‘I’ll be expecting it in the post by the end of the week. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed.’

  They smiled at one another as the train let out a mighty whistle. Juniper glanced over and saw that most of the passengers had boarded. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I suppose I should be – ’

  The rest of her sentence was smothered by Meredith’s embrace. ‘I’m going to miss you, Juniper. Promise you’ll come back.’

  ‘Of course I’ll come back.’

  ‘No more than a month?’

  Juniper smoothed a fallen eyelash from her young friend’s cheek. ‘Any longer and you’re to presume the worst and mount a rescue mission!’

  Merry grinned. ‘And you’ll let me know as soon as you’ve read my story?’

  ‘By return of post, the very same day,’ Juniper said with a salute. ‘Take care of yourself, little chicken.’

  ‘You take care, too.’

  ‘As always.’ Juniper’s smile straightened and she hesitated, flicking a stray hair from her eyes. She was deliberating. The news ballooned inside her, pressing for release, but a little voice urged restraint.

  The guard blew his whistle, blocking out the voice, and Juniper was decided. Meredith was her best friend, she could be trusted. ‘I have a secret, Merry,’ she said. ‘I haven’t told anyone, we said we wouldn’t until later, but you’re not just anyone.’

  Meredith nodded keenly and Juniper leaned in towards her friend’s ear, wondering if the words would feel as strange and wonderful as they had the first time: ‘Thomas Cavill and I are getting married.’

  Mrs Bird’s Suspicions

  1992

  Darkness had fallen by the time I reached the farmhouse, and with it a fine drizzle was settling, net-like, across the landscape. There was still a couple of hours until dinner would be served and I was glad. After an unexpected afternoon in the company of the sisters, I was in need of a hot bath and time alone to shake off the cloying atmosphere which had trailed me home. I wasn’t sure what it was exactly, only that there seemed to be so much unfulfilled longing within those castle wa
lls, frustrated desires that had soaked inside the stones only to seep back out with time so that the air was stale, almost stagnant.

  And yet the castle and its three gossamer inhabitants held an inexplicable fascination for me. No matter the moments of discomfort I experienced when I was there, as soon as I was away from them, from their castle, I felt compelled to return, and found myself counting the hours until I could go back. It makes little sense; perhaps madness never does. For I was mad about the Sisters Blythe, I see that now.

  As soft rain began to fall on the farmhouse eaves, I lay curled up on my bedspread, a blanket draped across my feet, reading and dozing and thinking, and by dinnertime I felt much restored. It was natural that Percy should wish to spare Juniper pain, that she should leap to stop me when I threatened to open old wounds; it had been insensitive of me to mention Thomas Cavill, particularly with Juniper sleeping nearby. And yet the fire of Percy’s reaction had piqued my interest . . . Perhaps if I was lucky enough to find myself alone with Saffy, I might probe a little further. She had seemed agreeable, eager even, to help me with my research.

  Research that now included rare and special access to Raymond Blythe’s notebooks. Even saying the words beneath my breath was enough to send a shiver of delight rippling down my spine. I rolled onto my back, thrilled to the tips of my toes, and gazed up at the joist-crossed ceiling, envisaging the very moment when I would glimpse inside the writer’s mind: see precisely the things he’d thought and the way he’d thought them.

  I ate dinner at a table by myself in the cosy dining room of Mrs Bird’s farmhouse. The whole place smelled warmly of the vegetable stew that had been served, and a fire crackled in the grate. Outside, the wind continued to build, buffeting the glass panes, gently for the most part, but with occasional sharper bursts and I thought – not for the first time – what a true and simple pleasure it was, to be inside and sated when the cold and the starless dark spread out across the world.

  I’d brought my notes to begin work on the Raymond Blythe article, but my thoughts would not behave themselves, drifting back, time and again, to his daughters. It was the sibling thing, I suppose. I was fascinated by the intricate tangle of love and duty and resentment that tied them together. The glances they exchanged; the complicated balance of power established over decades; the games I would never play with rules I would never fully understand. And perhaps that was key: they were such a natural group that they made me feel remarkably singular by comparison. To watch them together was to know strongly, painfully, all that I’d been missing.