“It’s so nice to be back, dear. I have such happy memories of our stay last year.”
“I’ve chosen to put you in the same rooms.”
“Now they are very pretty,” said Grace. “Especially the handpainted wallpaper. I tried looking for something like it for the house at Cape Cod, but nothing came close.”
“How sweet of you to take such trouble,” said Jane, smiling at Marina.
Marina accompanied them upstairs to their rooms. As they climbed the stairs, Grace sidled up to her and hissed under her breath, “Poor Jane’s husband died last autumn. She wasn’t going to come, but we persuaded her it would be good for her to get out. It’s hit her very hard, poor darling.”
“How sad,” said Marina, now understanding why she was even shyer and quieter than before.
“My husband, on the other hand, goes on and on and on. He was old when I married him, but now he’s ancient, and still he hangs in there with steely determination. It’s that pioneer spirit he’s inherited from his ancestors. I haven’t got that spirit. My ancestors were spoiled British aristocrats with no drive at all. I hope the good Lord will bump me off the minute my face starts to show my age.”
Marina opened the door to number 10. “This is Mrs. Leppley’s room,” she said, taking pleasure from their admiration. Veronica swept across the floor with light, happy steps, her gypsy skirt floating around her slender body and delicate ankles as if it had a life of its own. Having been a ballet dancer for most of her youth, she was unable to wear flat shoes, so her small feet were clad in tailor-made wedge espadrilles, which gave her a little more height and a great deal more comfort. “It’s beautiful,” she exclaimed, gesticulating with all the grace of her art at the pictures of birds and butterflies on the walls. “Even more beautiful than I remember. And the bed.” She gasped. “Oh, the bed. So high I have to take a running leap.” She jumped lithely onto the mattress and laughed with girlish delight.
“At least you can leap,” said Grace. “If I leap, I’ll break. My bones are so brittle.”
“It’s a proper bed,” Pat interjected approvingly. “Nothing worse than staying somewhere where they don’t understand about beds.”
“I like high ones,” said Jane meekly. “And these are very high.”
“Let me show you to yours,” said Marina, stepping back out into the narrow hall.
“I like to imagine what this place was like as a private house,” said Grace. “I suspect my ancestors lived in a mansion like this.”
“This was not the duke and duchess’s main home,” Marina reminded her as she walked down the corridor to the next room. “This was their holiday house, where they came to spend the summer.”
“How very grand,” said Grace.
“The sea air was good for the duchess’s asthma,” Marina continued, putting the key in the lock of number 11.
“The sea air is good for everything,” said Pat. “Unless you’re a piece of furniture, of course.”
Jane smiled at the sight of her room and took a deep breath, pleased that she had come. She went over to the French doors that gave onto a small stone balcony. She opened them wide and stepped out into the sunshine, gazing over the navy sea to the misty horizon beyond. Then she looked down to the front lawn, where Rafa was busy painting with the brigadier. She caught the brigadier’s eye as he took his attention off the cedar tree for a moment. He lifted his hat and nodded politely. Jane was a little surprised and waved her fingers shyly, retreating into the safety of her room.
“I see your artist is at work,” she said.
“Yes, he’s teaching the brigadier.”
“Is that who he is. I can’t see with my bad eyesight.”
“You would have met him last year,” said Marina. “He comes up every morning for breakfast. Rafa has managed to persuade him to do a little painting. I think he’s rather enjoying himself.”
Once she was on her own, Jane opened her suitcase and pulled out a picture of her husband in a shiny silver frame. She placed it carefully on her bedside table, then sat on the bed to look at it.
Pat strode into number 12. “Jolly nice,” she said heartily, tossing her sensible brown handbag onto the quilt. Pat would have been happy anywhere, for she was unspoiled and practical, and abhorred people who made a fuss. She tolerated Grace only because they had known each other for so long and because Grace was funny, though her humor ran out pretty quickly if she was uncomfortable.
English boarding schools had trained Pat to accept what she was given and never to complain, however uncomfortable she was. Hardship was character building, after all, and Pat rather relished challenge, and being the only one in the group who rose up like a rhinoceros in the face of adversity. In her youth she had climbed the south face of the Eiger and would have sailed the whole way around the world had her boat not appealed to a great white shark off the coast of Australia, forcing her to radio for help and abandon it altogether.