The Villa on the Riviera. Elizabeth Edmondson

platoon. ‘Just a case of something I ate last night, Sarge, I’ll be right as rain in a day or two.’

      The sergeant didn’t know the meaning of the word sympathy. ‘A case of bleeding cold feet, more like it. Don’t think you can get out of it that way, short of being dead, you’re going on that boat, and if you was dead, you’d go just the same so’s we could toss you overboard and save ourselves the bother of troubling the padre. Now, get a bleeding move on.’

      And Cynthia, tears gracing her cheeks, had stood beside a bollard, a wan and wretched creature, wondering how Ronnie could look so cheerful as he went up the gangway. He ran his fingers through his short hair, a habit from pre-army days, and then he saw her. His face broke into a broad smile, and he waved and gave her the thumbs up before he was lost in the tide of khaki.

      Cynthia stayed on the dock to watch the ship until it was no more than a speck on the horizon. Then she drove slowly back to London, only stopping on the way to find a bush she could be sick behind.

      She had been pregnant, of course, pregnant with Harriet, and feeling sick from the word go.

      ‘Gastric flu,’ Helen had pronounced, in her know-it-all fashion, and packed Cynthia down to Winsley, where Nurse would look after her.

      Nurse had known what was wrong with her five minutes after she arrived, and Cynthia wept desperately on her comforting bosom, while the elderly woman stroked her hair and murmured soothing, meaningless words.

      Before Cynthia slipped back into a deeper sleep, she thought of Harriet. Term would be over by the time she got back. She had been worried about what to do with Harriet. Helen said she would have her, she would enjoy being with her cousins; Cynthia knew that Harriet would rather stay on at school, alone, than have to spend time with her cousins.

      Her brother Max, the brother closest to her in age and the one she felt the closest to, had come to her rescue.

      ‘I’ll pick Harriet up,’ he’d said in his casual way. ‘Tell me where and when, and I’ll drive down and collect her. That is, if you haven’t sent her to school in the Highlands of Scotland or anything like that.’

      ‘Dorset,’ said Cynthia. ‘Would you really do that?’ Urbane Max and a girl’s boarding school didn’t seem to go together.

      ‘She’s my goddaughter, didn’t I say in church when she was christened that I would pick her and doubtless several trunks and a hockey stick up from whichever educational establishment she was at?’

      Cynthia laughed. ‘One trunk and an overnight case. I’m not sure about the hockey stick, I think it’s a lacrosse school.’

      ‘Nonsense,’ cried Helen, breaking into their conversation. ‘Harriet must catch the train. What, pray, would you do with her if you did collect her, Max? I know you’ve got nothing better to do than drive around the country, with the idle life you lead, but Harriet can’t expect to be collected. She must come on the school train like everyone else, and I’ll send Thrush to pick her up at the station — Waterloo, I suppose.’

      ‘I’ll drive her up to London and take her out for a good meal,’ said Max, ignoring his elder sister’s instructions and addressing Cynthia. ‘She’ll be all right at your house for a couple of days, surely. Won’t that maid of yours be there, if she’s not going with you? Surely Harriet will be better off in her own home.’

      ‘A girl of that age, in London, on her own? I never heard of such a thing,’ cried Helen. ‘She’ll be up to all kinds of mischief.’

      ‘She won’t be on her own if there’s a house full of servants,’ said Max.

      ‘Quite unsuitable, nonetheless. I certainly wouldn’t allow any of my girls to stay alone like that. In London!’

      ‘If you can’t trust your daughters, that’s your problem,’ Max said. ‘I’ll take her out to a show. Several shows if need be. What does she like, Cynthia?’

      ‘Take her to the opera, and she’ll be your friend for life.’

      ‘Opera?’

      ‘Quite unsuitable,’ Helen said again.

      ‘Wagner, for preference, I’m afraid,’ said Cynthia.

      ‘Good heavens,’ said her brother. ‘I’m more of a Mozart man myself, but I’ll see what I can do.’

      Max, thought Cynthia through a haze of sleep, was reliable, whatever Helen said about his frippery ways. And was he as frivolous as he seemed? Cynthia had long suspected there was a lot more to Max than met the eye, but he was a cagey man, slippery as an eel when it came to any questions about himself. Harriet would be all right with him, he’d take good care of her. And Cynthia realized, with a pang, that she was looking forward to seeing her daughter again. Almost more than I am to seeing Walter, she muttered to herself. Any problems with Harriet were practical, and time would resolve them. Whereas Walter …