Not long after this came the surprise. One afternoon Beatrice found Harry sweeping out an empty stall. ‘Wait until tomorrow,’ was all he’d say, winking at her, and the next day there was a third horse standing quietly there, a sturdy skewbald pony with a gentle face. Her name was Nutmeg. ‘She’s so you and Angelina can ride together,’ Mrs Wincanton told Beatrice. ‘And for Hetty to learn, too, when she’s older.’
Beatrice stumbled out her thanks. Nutmeg might not be white with a flowing mane, like the horses of her dreams, but with her black and brown patches she was still adorable.
‘Daddy’s coming today,’ was how Angelina greeted her one Friday morning in November. Her cheeks were even pinker than usual and her eyes sparkled with excitement. ‘Mummy’s driving to meet him at the station herself and he’s staying for a whole three days. I’ve told Mummy we must have no lessons on Monday but she said we should wait and see.’
‘Why doesn’t he live here, with you?’ Beatrice asked. ‘Does he have to work in London all the time?’
‘He’s in the government. He has to be in London because of running the country. It’s very important, Mummy says. You can’t always be going off in case the Prime Minister needs you to do something, like stop another war or pass a law . . .’ She waved her hand in a vague fashion.
Beatrice thought it sad that running the country meant you couldn’t be with your family. ‘Why don’t you all go and live in London then, with him?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, a rare frown creasing her brow. ‘We did before, but not any more. It’s something to do with here being Daddy’s um . . . consistency, and that’s why some of the time he’s here he’ll be going off to meetings with farmers and people. And there’s a dinner tomorrow night here with thirty guests coming and Mummy’s awfully busy and doesn’t want us getting under her feet.’
There was indeed an hysterical air about the household. All morning, as the older girls puzzled over long division and took turns reading from Julius Caesar, carts would arrive with vegetables, vans with meat or fish on ice. Doors slammed, Brown’s high-pitched voice was heard complaining, and Mrs Wincanton called out instructions about moving furniture. With the sound of each new visitor, little Hetty, who was supposed to be practising her handwriting, dropped her pen and ran to the window. Finally, she knocked over the inkwell.
‘Oh, you wretched child!’ cried Miss Simpkins. ‘You’ve got it all over you!’
Beatrice hoped against hope that there would be lessons on Monday, or she’d never meet the Hon. Michael Wincanton. Would he be tall and dark like Rollo Treloar, she wondered, the man who rode with Oenone Wincanton, or sturdy and fair like Edward?
‘Is Major Treloar coming to dinner tomorrow?’ she whispered to Angelina when Miss Simpkins was cleaning up Hetty’s spill. Did she imagine the way Miss Simpkins’s hand stilled for just a moment on the exercise book?
‘Rollo? I really don’t know.’ Angelina stared at William Shakespeare as though actually trying to commit the script to memory. ‘I’m not sure Daddy cares for him much.’ Beatrice wished she’d never asked the question. Angelina was hiding something from her again. Sometimes she couldn’t fathom this family.
‘We really should get on, girls.’ Miss Simpkins’s tone was granite. ‘Hetty, go at once and find Nanny and change your blouse. I’ve never known such a clumsy hoyden, in all my born days.’
There were lessons on Monday, but Beatrice did not see Angelina’s father.
When Beatrice arrived it was to find Angelina almost wild with misery and Miss Simpkins could do nothing with her.
‘He’s gone back to London,’ Angie said at lunchtime in the stableyard, when Beatrice asked.
‘I thought he was going to be here today.’
‘So did I. I don’t want to talk about it.’ But after they’d been petting the horses for a bit she softened. ‘Daddy said something had come up. He came to say goodbye, very early. I was to tell goodbye to Mummy because she was still asleep. But when I gave her the message she looked upset. Then she went out riding.’
‘With Major Treloar?’
‘No, on her own. Rollo did come to the dinner – but I was right about Daddy not liking him. I heard him and Mummy arguing because she’d invited him.’
‘Did you go to the dinner?’
‘No, but Ed and I were allowed to greet the guests. There was one terribly amusing man, awfully flirty, and I’m afraid I lied and told him I was fifteen and Bea, you’ll never guess, but he said he didn’t believe me, that I looked at least seventeen. I laughed like a drain. He was awfully old, twenty-five or something, and then Mummy spoilt it by sending me up to bed.’