‘I’m staying out of it.’ Claire leant across both of them to pour me a fresh cup of tea. ‘I’ve given up the running of Trelowarth to the two of you, you’ll have to work it out yourselves.’
Susan rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, well, you say you’ve given up Trelowarth, but we all know you could never―’
‘If you’re wanting an opinion,’ Claire said lightly, ‘you might think of asking Eva. That’s her job, you know – promoting things, and dealing with the public.’
Suddenly Susan and Mark were both looking at me, and I shook my head. ‘I think I should stay out of it, too.’
Mark’s amusement was obvious. ‘Sorry, there’s no likes of that, not with Susan about. She’ll be picking your brains the whole time that you’re here.’
Susan said, ‘You will stay for a while, won’t you? Not just the weekend?’
‘We’ll see.’
Claire, who’d been watching me quietly, glanced at my hand. ‘That’s your mother’s ring, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ The gold Claddagh ring that Bill had slipped from Katrina’s still finger and given to me in the hospital room. It had come to my mother from her Irish grandmother who’d moved across into Cornwall and who, by tradition, had passed down this small ring of gold with its crowned heart held lovingly by two gloved hands, a reminder that love was eternal.
Claire smiled, understanding, as though she knew just what had brought me here, why I had come. Reaching over, she covered my hand with her warm one and said, ‘Stay as long as you like.’
CHAPTER THREE
When we came out of the Wild Wood by the coast path and turned up to climb the slope of field towards Trelowarth House, the sun had sunk so low it stretched our shadows long in front of us and glittered in the windows that were watching our approach.
The dogs, having patiently waited while we had our visit with Claire, were all bouncing round Susan now. ‘Feeding time,’ she told us, before taking the dogs round to the back of the house. That was how we’d most often gone in, through the kitchen, but Mark had left my suitcase just inside the main front door, so I went that way with him now and in through the more formal entrance with its short flight of steps and the vine trailing over the lintel.
As I followed Mark through and he switched on the light, I was happy to see that the house hadn’t changed; to inhale the same scents of old polished wood and wool carpets and comforting mustiness, here in the spacious square hall. Once, this whole space had most likely been panelled in the same wine-dark wood as the sitting room door on my left and the staircase that angled up just behind that to the bedrooms upstairs, but some earlier Hallett had covered the panelling over with plaster, no doubt in an effort to make the great space seem more welcoming.
On my left and beyond the great staircase, a narrower corridor carried on back to the games room and the kitchen at the rear of the house, and off to my right lay the doors to the dining room and the big front room.
Beside me Mark waited, my suitcase in hand. ‘We weren’t sure if you’d want your old room, or—’
Their thoughtfulness touched me. ‘Yes, please.’
He let me go first up the stairs. They were old stairs, as old as the house, running up from the hall at a perfect right angle to pause at a half-landing before doubling back on themselves for the final rise up to the first floor. The stair steps themselves were of stone, worn concave at their centres by centuries of climbing feet, and the walls of both stairway and landing were still the original panelling, wood of the same dark mahogany hue as the old doors downstairs, so that while I was climbing I couldn’t help feeling I’d somehow stepped into the past.
The first floor looked rather less ancient, with carpets to cover the old floors and softly striped wallpaper brightening things. There were furnishings here that I didn’t recall, but I knew my way round.
And I knew which door led to the room I had shared with Katrina. Being in the far front corner, closest to the road, it had three windows – two that looked towards the sea and one that overlooked the drive, that last one set beside the fireplace with its screen of flowered needlepoint in front.
The double bed still sat in the same place it always had, its headboard to the west wall so its footboard faced the fireplace. Katrina and I had both slept in that bed when we’d stayed here, the six years’ gap between our ages making me a nuisance to her, keeping her awake by constant chattering, or stealing more than my share of the covers.
I smiled faintly at the memories, even as I felt the stabbing pain of loss. I fought it back and found my voice as Mark came up behind me in the doorway, and I said, ‘You’ve moved the pictures. The old shepherd and his wife.’
‘Oh, right.’ He looked above the bed, where I was looking. ‘They’re in the dining room, I think.’
‘It’s just as well. They had those eyes that always watched you.’
Mark set the suitcase by the bed, and looked around in friendly silence for a moment. Then his gaze came round to me. ‘How are you doing, really?’
I didn’t meet his eyes directly. ‘Fine. I’m fine.’
‘You’re not.’
‘I will be. It takes time, I’m told.’
‘Well, if you need to talk, you know I’m here.’
‘I know.’
He touched my shoulder briefly as he passed. ‘You know the house,’ he said. ‘Just make yourself at home, then.’