Only a few minutes later they were admitted to a large sunny living room looking out onto the back garden of the hall, and when Briony shook hands with Mrs Clare she recognized her at once as the stooped old lady with the pug she’d seen walking past her window. The dog had risen with effort from its basket under the window, waddled over and was now issuing croaky yaps at the visitors from the shelter of its mistress’ skirts.
‘You would like to see the plan of the garden, I gather? It’s all right, Lulu, they’re friends, friends, I tell you. Go back to your bed.’ She spoke gently as though the pug were a toddler, and back in its basket it sat glaring and snorting at these foreign invaders.
‘Are you sure it’s convenient?’ Briony asked politely. ‘We didn’t expect to be able to see you so quickly.’
‘It’s really no trouble.’ Mrs Clare must be at least ninety, Briony realized. Probably once tall, she was now frail and shrunken. Her sparse silvery-grey hair was arranged into flattering curls around her face. Her eyes, the palest of watery blues, were sunk into hollows in an oval face as wrinkled and careworn as her dog’s, and yet those eyes were guileless, dreamy, and there was something about her of the girl she must once have been. It was there in the delicacy of her bone structure, the lightness of her movements.
Mrs Clare drew her visitors across to a framed chart hanging in a shadowed part of the room and fumbled at the cord of a light set above it. ‘It’s pen-and-ink and watercolour, you know, and one must be careful of sun damage,’ she explained.
‘And this is the walled garden?’ Luke asked, leaning in to examine the picture.
‘As it was in 1910, we think. Before the Great War, certainly.’
‘This is amazing,’ Briony whispered as she and Aruna gathered close to Luke to look.
It was a hand-drawn plan of the garden whose overall shape Briony recognized, delineated by its wall. The growing area was divided into four main sections, labelled variously as flowers, vegetables and fruit bushes in tiny, but readable calligraphy. There was a greenhouse against the south-facing wall, where Briony remembered seeing the metal struts, and an octagonal herb garden lined with low box hedging in the centre of the garden. A key drawn in the left-hand corner of the page referenced some of the different crops.
‘Gooseberries,’ Aruna said, ‘I’ve never eaten them.’
‘Really?’ Briony wasn’t sure whether to be surprised. ‘My granny grew them. They’re sharp, need loads of sugar. Look, damsons. Granny had plum trees, too.’
‘There used to be a splendid grapevine in the greenhouse,’ Mrs Clare said beside them, ‘and the grapes were delicious. I’ve no idea what type, but they really had a wonderful purple glow.’
‘You must have lived here a long time then. Well, of course you did, with your husband . . .’ Briony coloured at her clumsiness.
Mrs Clare didn’t seem offended. ‘Longer even than that. I was born here. Unwin was my father’s second cousin, though we didn’t meet until we were both grown up.’
‘Oh, and your father was . . .’ When were they talking about? Briony was even more confused.
‘Sir Henry Kelling, of course. I was born Robyn Kelling and I was the last of the direct line, but because I was a girl I couldn’t inherit Westbury Hall and so it passed to Unwin. Sir Henry’s father and Unwin’s father were first cousins, you see.’
Briony was amazed. This lady was a Kelling! She couldn’t stop herself wondering whether the marriage was one of love or convenience, but of course she couldn’t ask. She felt Robyn Clare’s clear-eyed gaze upon her, as though she could read her thoughts. Something else occurred to her, too, which was that Unwin Clare’s surname would surely have been Kelling, too, if one followed the male line, but that seemed nosey to ask on first acquaintance, as well. ‘It must have been a relief that you didn’t lose your home,’ she settled for finally.
‘It was. I grew up here between the wars,’ Mrs Clare continued. ‘Did the girl on the desk not explain anything at all? I was born in 1921. I’m ninety-five this year, you know.’
What age did a woman have to reach before she began to be proud of it? Briony wondered, as she and Luke made noises of congratulation. Aruna, however, had lost interest in the conversation and instead crossed the room to where a display of photographs were set out on a console table.
‘Are these your family, Mrs Clare?’ she asked brightly.
‘The one on the right is my son Lewis,’ Mrs Clare said, with new warmth in her voice. ‘He and his wife live in London. I find it strange to have a child who’s an old-age pensioner!’
They moved over to inspect the photographs. ‘This one’s my dear Unwin with Digby, taken some years ago, but it’s a favourite of mine.’ A mild-looking country squire in his seventies, wearing a Barbour jacket, held a scruffy terrier that peered out through a curtain of rough hair.
‘And this one?’ Aruna reached toward a large old black and white print in a dilapidated frame, propped against the wall.
‘Careful with that. Here, let me.’
Mrs Clare lifted the frame with both hands and Briony craned to study the group of figures lined up in sombre rows before what was clearly the frontage of Westbury Hall. The women sat on chairs, the men standing behind, all except for a distinguished-looking gentleman with a handsome moustache, who occupied the chair at the centre next to a lady with a disdainful expression, wearing a neat, elegant hat at a fashionable angle.
‘My ma and pa, Sir Henry and Lady Kelling,’ Mrs Clare said, quietly.
‘And that’s you?’ A much younger version of Lady Kelling sat next to her mother in the picture, her expression startled as a fawn’s.
‘You are clever. Yes, that’s me. I always hated being photographed.’
‘Who were all these other people?’ Briony continued. ‘I mean, I know they must be staff.’
‘That’s Mrs Thurston, the cook,’ Mrs Clare murmured, ‘and Jarey, the butler, he was a sweetie. I don’t remember everyone’s name.’ There was a housekeeper, several maids, a terrified waif of a kitchen girl, seven or eight men and boys, two with smart jackets and short hair trained into side partings identifiable as house servants, and four more muscular outdoor types of varying ages including a callow lad Mrs Clare said was Sam, the apprentice gardener.
Sitting next to the young Robyn was a slight, middle-aged woman with a pinched expression, simply dressed in a close-fitting dark dress. Who was she? Briony asked, since the old lady didn’t mention her.
‘She was a relative of my mother’s who came over from Germany in the late thirties, after her husband died. I can’t say I often saw her because we were away in London so much. Cousin Barbara, that’s it. Her family name was, goodness, it was something German-sounding.’
Briony looked up in amazement. ‘Was it Hartmann?’
‘That’s right. How did you know that?’
‘I saw her grave in the churchyard. And did she have a son, Paul?’
‘Yes! He had a kind smile, I remember that. Did you say you were staying in the Lodge? That’s where they both lived—’
‘May I see? Is she this one?’ Aruna interrupted and leaned in to gaze at Barbara Hartmann’s face.
Briony stared, too, and was struck by how sad the woman appeared to be. ‘Which one is Paul, then?’ She began to examine the faces of the men again.
‘I don’t think he’s there, is he? No. I wonder in fact if it wasn’t he who took the picture.’
‘Oh.’ Briony felt a rush of disappointment.
‘It was a sudden whim of my father’s to have the photograph taken, one morning shortly before war was declared. I think he had some presentiment that things would change, and he desperately wanted them to stay the same. It was a horrible summer, I do remember that. The waiting, the certainty that something awful was about to befall us. After the war they said horrid things about my father, that he’d been a Hitler lover, but he wasn’t, he simply desperately wanted English life to continue as he thought it always had been. He hated the idea of the old order with its old values being lost. He knew it might mean the end of Westbury Hall.’
‘But the Hall is still here,’ Luke said gently. ‘What would he have thought of it now?’
‘He’d have hated it,’ Mrs Clare said.
A silence fell over the room.
The old lady turned to gaze out of the window, gripping the sill with one frail hand. Outside it was raining and the scent of wet foliage reached them.
Briony wondered at how strange it must be to see your childhood home bought by developers and so utterly transformed. How could Robyn Clare bear to live here still?
Again, as though she was in tune with Briony’s thoughts, the old lady spoke. ‘I never wanted to live anywhere else. If I’d married anyone but Unwin I’d have had to leave Westbury Hall, so I’ve always been very thankful at the way things turned out. This apartment used to be our drawing room and when I saw how nicely they’d converted it I had to have it. My son thinks I’m ridiculous, he wanted me to go and live with them, but I could never have borne a Barbican flat. All that concrete. No, I belong here. I plan to end my days quietly with Lulu. If I go first, then Lewis promises to adopt Lulu, so I’m not worried on that score.’
‘I can understand your feelings,’ Luke said gently. ‘I felt dismal when my parents sold my childhood house in South London and moved to Norfolk. Sometimes I have to drive past the old place and I hate the things the new people have done to it. Shutters instead of curtains, ugly dormer windows, that sort of thing. It doesn’t look as though it wants me any more.’
‘You should never go back, I keep telling you, Luke,’ Aruna said waspishly. ‘Oops, Mrs Clare, that sounds rude, but I’m quite different from you and Luke. I couldn’t wait to leave the house where I was brought up.’
‘Why was that, may I ask?’
‘I felt trapped there, and my town was a place you’d want to get away from if you had any ambition. I go back to see Mum and Dad of course, but everyone’s exactly the same. My sister even married her boyfriend who lived down the road. Her two kids will go to the same school as we all did, I expect.’
‘I understand your point of view. What about you, dear?’ Mrs Clare asked Briony. ‘Do you revisit your childhood home?’
‘My father still lives there with my stepmother,’ Briony said hesitantly. ‘Maybe if I hadn’t lost my mum when I was fourteen I’d want to go back more often.’ She felt a lump in her throat, could never get used to the way grief could strike you afresh even after years and years. She added hastily, ‘We probably ought to leave you in peace, Mrs Clare.’
‘Yes, thank you for showing us the picture.’ Luke gave Mrs Clare one of his best smiles.
‘Not at all. We like to see young people, don’t we, Lulu?’ The dog licked its chops and began to pant, gazing adoringly at its mistress. It wasn’t a very lovable-looking animal, but still, Briony hoped that dog and mistress would not ever have to live long without one another.
‘Do come and see me again if you have a spare moment while you’re here,’ the old lady said to Briony. ‘Though I’m afraid I talk about the past a great deal.’
‘That’s exactly what interests me,’ Briony replied. ‘I’d love to.’
‘Penny for ’em,’ Luke observed as they made their way back to the cottage.
‘What?’
‘I saw your face when Mrs Clare mentioned the name Hartmann.’
‘It’s astonishing, isn’t it, to think that she knew Paul, even slightly. I should have asked her more about him.’
‘So you’ll go back to see her?’ Aruna asked, sounding disbelieving.
‘Of course.’ She bit her lip. ‘And I didn’t ask if she knew my grandfather.’
‘You should definitely go back,’ Luke said.
Aruna said little for the rest of the visit and Briony wondered what was wrong. Perhaps she was simply tired. Never mind, she’d loved having them both today. The three of them got on so well, with Luke always the mollifier, so easy to have around to offset Aruna’s spikiness. Yes, the couple were a good balance for one another. She was happy for Aruna to have found someone special.
Later, when they left, she walked up to the van to wave them off.
‘We’re in Norfolk for a couple more days,’ Luke told her, after giving her a hug. ‘Mum said to ask you over to a meal. Would tomorrow evening suit?’
‘That’s so nice of her. I’d love to, thanks.’
‘Great! I’m texting you the address now. It’s fairly easy to find. There!’
As Briony watched the van disappear through the great arched gate, a nameless melancholy washed over her. Usually she felt perfectly reconciled to her own company, but as she walked back to the cottage alone, wrapping her fleece tightly against the cool of the evening, she knew it to be loneliness. Perhaps it came from thinking about her mum.
Once upon a time her family had been a close little unit, loving, supportive. Both sets of grandparents lived nearby and she remembered seeing a lot of them when she was small, though Grandad Wood, her father’s father, had died when Briony was five or six.
Grandpa Andrews, her mother’s father, she remembered because he’d been so busy and active in his retirement, either up and repairing something in the house or garden, or out and about with the Rotary Club or the Ramblers. He was a sociable soul, but when he came home he liked Granny to be there, calm, reassuring, the heart of the house, sewing, or entertaining friends to tea. If she was out he’d be like an abandoned dog, ears pricked, listening for her to come home.
The Woods were a family who were always arguing about small things, but rarely discussed the large ones. Neither Briony nor her brother rebelled, so far as she could remember. Each of them had their own passions. Birchmere wasn’t far from Gatwick airport and her brother, two years her junior, had always been fascinated by the planes whose noise infuriated everyone else. He would always rush out to spot Concorde on its evening flight and badgered their father constantly to take him to air shows. He and Briony had little in common with one another apart from family ties, and just as it was natural for him to have become an engineer with British Airways, so it was for her to follow her obsession with the past. She loved to lose herself in a world when flight had been no more than a fantasy for humans. And with their father constantly working long shifts at the paper it was their mother who had held them all together, encouraging their separate interests. During the months of her illness they all felt helpless, unable to communicate with one another. When she died, a silence fell between them all. Was this why she was alone now, Briony had asked Grace, her counsellor; because aloneness felt natural to her? Or was the seed of it from somewhere even further back? Grace hadn’t been able to tell her.