‘We’re going to the beach, if you lot want to come,’ Ed called. ‘Mother’s put back tea and we’re lending Rafe some togs.’
‘Do you mind, you girls?’ Rafe asked Beatrice and Angie, shading his eyes against the sun. His gaze fell on the little mound and for a moment his expression hardened. Then he looked at Beatrice and smiled. She smiled back, feeling a little happier.
‘I don’t think I’ll swim, Rafe, but I’ll come down with you all,’ she said.
Whilst the others raced upstairs to change she stayed to watch Mrs Wincanton arrange roses in the drawing room, collecting up the leaves for her on a sheet of newspaper. Finally they lifted the vase onto the great carved mantelpiece, where the flowers’ reflection in the mirror doubled their magnificence. Mrs Wincanton lit a cigarette and stood back to admire her work.
‘It’s so clever of you to have found Rafe,’ Mrs Wincanton said. ‘He’s a very suitable young man. Ed needs someone of his own age here. I’m afraid he’s getting a little bored with coming every holiday.’ She balanced her cigarette on the mantelpiece in order to adjust an errant bloom. ‘So sad,’ she said. ‘You’re all growing up so fast.’
‘They do seem to get on well,’ Beatrice said, a little wistfully. She remembered, too, how beguilingly Angie had looked at Rafe, and how Rafe had responded.
Mrs Wincanton started gathering up the newspaper with the discarded leaves inside. ‘Look after the little girls going down the steps,’ she called as everyone assembled on the terrace. ‘Oh, thank you, Bea.’ She took her cigarette from Beatrice.
‘It was singeing the mantelpiece,’ Beatrice said, and went to join them.
On the beach, Rafe was the perfect guest, solicitous with everyone in turn. He swam with the boys, helped bury the little girls in sand, moulding them mermaid tails and maidenly bumps for breasts, which made them giggle so the sand fell off. He hunted in rockpools with Beatrice. Only with Angie did he act unnaturally. Angie didn’t seem to mind his stammering attempts at conversation, but looked at him with luminous eyes. She laughed at the sandy mermaids then sat in the shade to sketch them.
Rafe and Beatrice walked back to St Florian together in the cool of early evening. He spoke eagerly of the visit.
‘Ed’s planning to go up to Oxford, too,’ he said. ‘Saint John’s, though. I expect I’ll look him out. Balliol’s only round the corner. A good chap, Ed – the brother’s not bad. And the little girls are pretty sporting.’
‘I’m glad you like them all,’ she said. ‘I think they liked you.’
‘And Angie’s . . . well.’ He whistled and her spirits fell. Worse was to come. When they reached the gate of The Rowans, he said, ‘I can’t see you tomorrow, Beatrice. I’m afraid my aunt’s taking me back to school early. We’re to stay with some cousins on the way.’
‘Oh.’ She’d already daydreamed about their last day together, of all they might say to one another, and now it was spoiled.
He gently fumbled for her hand. ‘Beatrice,’ he said, ‘if I write to you, will you write back? I don’t get many letters, you see.’
‘Of course I will.’ Happiness radiated through her.
‘This summer, it’s been awful – with poor Sturton, I mean – but in other ways it’s been the best I remember. You can’t believe how dreary it was with my grandfather. Not his fault, poor old man, he did his best, but I don’t think I could face another game of chess ever again.’
She nodded, unable to speak for emotion. He was going away. But he’d come back to her, she was sure of that.
‘I’ll see you at Christmas, I expect.’ He squeezed her hand once more. ‘Goodbye, Bea,’ he said. He gave her a sudden clumsy hug and was gone.
The autumn of 1937 was measured out by the postman’s visits. Beatrice kept a look-out for him from her window, and when she saw him wheeling his bicycle up the steep lane she would make the most ridiculous bargains with fate – if he reached the gate in the next ten seconds then there’d be a letter. But did it count if he hadn’t touched the gate before the time was up, but stopped outside to rummage in his bag? She’d ponder this fine point as she rushed downstairs.
‘You’re very interested in the mail these days,’ Hugh Marlow would say. ‘Oh, there does seem to be something here for you . . . postmark Winchester.’ He’d tease her by holding the letter high, trying to get her to jump for it. She’d turn away scowling. ‘Here, catch,’ he’d say, and throw it in the air.