Ginny Appleyard

by Elizabeth Jeffrey

Genres: General Fiction; Sagas

Synopsis

When Ginny Appleyard's childhood sweetheart returns home after his racing season aboard the yacht Aurora, her hopes that he is bringing her an engagement ring are shattered, as Nathan disembarks with Isobel Armitage; the daughter of Aurora's owner. Instead of the hoped-for proposal, Nathan tells Ginny that he is leaving their home town and following Isobel to London, to pursue his dreams of becoming an artist. Already distraught at the tragic death of her father, Ginny is devastated to hear that Nathan and Isobel are to be married and her heartache is compounded when she discovers that she is expecting Nathan's child. Forced by her mother to choose between a loveless marriage of convenience to the rough sailor Will Kesgrave, and the more sinister option of being 'put away', Ginny Appleyard's future is far from certain . . .

Release date: August 7, 2014

Publisher: Piatkus

Print pages: 384

Sample

It was a bright, warm Saturday afternoon in late September; the tide was full and the sunlight danced a merry jig on the water. All along the river bank the crowd waited, pushing and shoving, tripping over cables and mooring ropes that stretched from the line of yachts already berthed there as they jostled for position, the lucky ones perched on bollards to get a better view. There was always a crowd to welcome home the big sailing yachts as they returned from their summer’s racing, but today’s crowd was bigger than usual. Because more than half the village had turned out to welcome back Aurora, the biggest and most successful of them all, returning triumphantly at the end of the season to spend the winter in her mud berth on the River Colne. A few of the people waiting were families of the crew, eager to welcome back fathers, sons and brothers after their summer away; but most had come simply to cheer the big yacht home.

Suddenly, the cry went up, ‘Here she comes!’ as the huge yacht hove into view, a magnificent sight as she sailed upriver, her sails spread like a giant butterfly, her prize flags fluttering in the afternoon breeze. For Aurora, owned by Sir Titus Armitage, the steel magnate, was a legend. She was coming back in a blaze of glory, having this year, the year of Our Lord 1934, won every race she had entered. There was not a yacht from the Clyde to Cowes to touch her, both for speed and the expert handling of her Colneside crew.

Ginny Appleyard was among the waiting crowd. She was a tall, slim girl of nineteen, with a pale, faintly freckled complexion, large brown eyes and thick hair the colour of ripe chestnuts that hung nearly to her waist. Ginny hated her long hair, which was caught back at the nape of her neck with a tortoiseshell slide. She wanted to have it shingled in the latest style but her mother forbade it and Ginny knew better than to disobey.

Shading her eyes with her hand and jigging excitedly from one foot to the other, Ginny watched as the yacht progressed majestically upriver, impatient for her to dock because her sweetheart, Nathan Bellamy, was one of the crew. She had managed to persuade Mr Stacey, of Stacey’s Grocery Stores, where she worked behind the counter, to let her leave an hour early so that she could be there to welcome Aurora home and she had put on her best pleated stockinette dress in the shade of green that suited her most and pulled the darker green tam o’ shanter fetchingly over one eye in honour of the occasion. Nathan was the son of the yacht’s captain. Often during races he would have to climb to the top of the mast, tightening or loosening the halyards, furling or unfurling the top sail according to the wind, working in all weathers and conditions. Ginny knew all this because her father was mate aboard the yacht, and he had told her so, remarking that he was never sure whether young Nathan was brave or just plain reckless.

Ginny always looked forward to Aurora’s homecoming but today’s arrival was extra special. Because she was sure, well, almost sure, that Nathan would be coming back with an engagement ring in his pocket, bought with his share of the prize money that was traditionally divided among the crew and which promised to be quite considerable this season. He had hinted as much when he went off in April.

‘If we do well, Ginny, and I get good prize money … Well, you never know, I might bring a surprise home for you …’ And he had winked as he set off jauntily along Aurora’s jetty, his sea bag over his shoulder, a tall, lean man of twenty-one, his cheese-cutter cap set at a rakish angle on his fair curls.

And now he was back – well, almost back and soon she would have a ring on her finger to proclaim that she was to be married to the bravest, most handsome man in Wyford. Her heart was full to bursting with happiness.

There was a huge commotion as the sails were furled, ropes were flung and expertly caught, the crowd backing away and surging forward again as men ran up and down the sea wall, taking the strain, guiding, shouting orders and securing ropes on bollards as the yacht was pulled neatly round into her berth, previously dug out from the mud in readiness and marked with a wand bearing her name, setting up bow waves that wetted the shoes of those not quick enough to get out of the way. Ginny had made sure to position herself well out of reach of the swell. She didn’t want the salt water to spoil her new shoes.

A cheer went up as moorings were made fast bow and stern. Soon decks were cleared and eventually the crew began to appear, rolling down the jetty on sea legs, sea bags on shoulders. They were glad to be home after their successful season’s racing, and were quickly swallowed up in the arms of their families. Impatiently, Ginny scanned the faces for Nathan, although she knew she would recognise him first by his height, but there was no sign of him.

Will Kesgrave, who, like Ginny, lived in Quay Yard stepped on to dry land.

‘Waitin’ for your daddy, Ginny?’ he said, with a mocking grin, hefting his sea bag higher on to his shoulder.

Ginny turned her head briefly towards the dark-haired young man, tanned from long hours in the sun. ‘I might be,’ she said shortly. She didn’t want to talk to Will Kesgrave, a reluctance ingrained in her by her mother from a very early age. The Kesgraves, Will, his mother and young sister, lived at the bottom end of Quay Yard. Annie Kesgrave, Will’s mother, was ‘no better than she should be,’ according to Ginny’s mother, which somewhat ambiguous phrase meant that Annie was free with her favours and hadn’t the slightest idea which of her many lovers had fathered her children. This, in Ruth Appleyard’s view, put the whole family entirely beyond the pale and she forbade Ginny to have anything to do with them, even though Annie had calmed down in recent years, since her looks and figure had gone, and begun to take her comfort from the gin bottle.

Quickly, Ginny turned away from Will to scan the last of the men as they came off the boat. But still she couldn’t see Nathan.

There was a lull and the crowd began to disperse. Then her heart leapt as she caught sight of him. He was with a young woman of about twenty, who was wearing silky, wide-bottomed navy blue trousers and a white blouse with a sailor collar. To complete her pseudo-nautical outfit a round sailor hat was perched at a rakish angle on her dark, Marcel-waved hair. Ginny recognised her immediately as Sir Titus’s daughter, Isobel. They reached the gangplank, where Isobel made a great play of nearly overbalancing into the water and she clutched Nathan’s arm, laughing up at him as he helped her unsteady progress off the yacht.

He never even glanced in Ginny’s direction as they went off together, still laughing.

A swift stab of jealousy shot through Ginny and lay like a lump in her breast. What could have happened during the season’s racing that he should act in such a familiar way with the owner’s daughter? Had she spent the whole summer on the yacht? Common sense told her that this was not very likely. Conditions on a racing yacht were not exactly luxurious, with everything below decks stripped down to the minimum to keep the weight down. She turned away from watching them and managed to smile and wave as she saw her father coming off the yacht, walking behind Captain Bellamy and the yacht’s owner. Sir Titus Armitage was a short, rotund man, full of his own importance, dressed in immaculate yachting gear although in truth he hardly knew one end of a yacht from the other.

A wide grin spread across Bob Appleyard’s face as he saw his daughter and he enveloped her in a bear hug. ‘Thass my girl. Come to meet your owd dad. My word, you look as pretty as a picture.’

She leaned against his shoulder to hide her disappointment over Nathan and smelled the familiar tang of salty sweat. ‘I’m glad you’re home, Dad,’ she said, her voice muffled against his guernsey. ‘It’s always better when you’re home.’

He held her at arm’s length, knowing exactly what she meant. ‘Your mother only wants what’s best, matie,’ he said loyally.

‘I know, Dad.’ She made an effort and smiled up at him. ‘She’s made a steak and kidney pie for tea.’

‘Well, thass worth comin’ home for,’ he said heartily. ‘I’d travel half round the world for one o’ your mother’s steak and kidney pies.’ He hitched his bag on to his shoulder and they turned for home. ‘Did you see anything of Nathan?’ he asked as they walked along the quay.

‘Yes. But he didn’t see me. He was too busy helping the owner’s daughter off the boat.’

‘Ah. Yes. Quite a fashion-plate, that one.’

Ginny waited for her father to say more but when he didn’t she asked, ‘Have they come all the way from Scotland on the yacht, Dad?’

He glanced at her. ‘Who? Sir Titus and his daughter? No, they wouldn’t do that. They came down from London by car and boarded at Brightlingsea so they could do the last little trip upriver on her before she’s laid up for the winter. I ’spect the shuvver’ll drive the car back here ready to take ’em back to London later on.’ He grinned down at her. ‘Thass all right for some, ain’t it, matie!’ ‘Matie’ was his pet term for his daughter.

Ginny digested this as they continued along the quay, past the Rose and Crown to Quay Yard. This was reached through a door set in the wall with a wonky latch and peeling black paint.

Quay Yard consisted of a row of four cottages in a cobbled yard. Two wash houses and two privies stood back to back halfway up the yard, each one serving two cottages. The Kesgraves lived at the bottom end, nearest the quay. Their cottage was squalid, with a rickety old table outside the back door where heaps of rubbish, old boxes and bags of shrimp heads spilled off on to the cobbles. Outside the next cottage was a little but not much better. But numbers three and four, where Granny Crabtree and the Appleyards lived and shared the facilities, was always kept neat and tidy, the cobbles swept, the steps whitened and the curtains hanging crisply starched at the windows. In spite of the warm September day the door to number four was firmly closed. Ginny pushed it open.

‘Mum, we’re home,’ she called, stepping into the kitchen. A table covered in checked oilcloth stood in the middle of the room, with four Essex chairs round it. A dresser displaying matching china on the shelves stood against one wall and an elderly couch draped with a patchwork blanket against the adjacent wall. Two Windsor chairs stood either side of the fire. Two peg rugs, one at the hearth and another just inside the door, were laid on the highly polished linoleum. There was not a speck of dust anywhere.

At Ginny’s words Ruth Appleyard closed the oven door and straightened up. ‘If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times not to use that bottom yard door,’ she said irritably. ‘There’s no telling what you’ll bring in on your feet coming up that yard. Why can’t you come in that way?’ She nodded out of the window to where two stone steps led out on to Anchor Hill. ‘You know I don’t like you carting through all that filth outside number one. That Annie Kesgrave’s a slut.’ She pursed her mouth in distaste. ‘And Marjorie Oliphant’s not much better. But at least she’s got a husband,’ she added grudgingly.

‘It was nearer to come in from the quay,’ Ginny said flatly, her happiness at being reunited with her beloved father slightly soured.

Bob went over to his wife. She presented a cool cheek for him to kiss.

‘Ginny says you’ve made my favourite meat pie,’ he said, obviously used to his wife’s lack of warmth. ‘I shall look forward to that.’

‘It’s not quite cooked,’ Ruth said, flushing, though whether it was with pleasure or from the heat of the stove it was impossible to say. She was a woman of medium height, with hair that had once been the same chestnut colour as her daughter’s but was now liberally streaked with grey. She wore it parted in the middle and looped into a bun just above her collar. Like Ginny, she had good bone structure, with high cheekbones and a small, straight nose, but there the likeness ended because Ruth’s eyes were grey and hooded and her mouth was small and unused to smiling.

Bob sat down in the Windsor chair beside the kitchen range and began to unlace his sea bag.

‘Don’t do that in here. Take it out into the wash house. I don’t want your dirty washing all over the floor in my kitchen,’ Ruth said sharply, carefully placing knives and forks out on the table.

‘I wasn’t going to empty it, dear. I was only going to get these out.’ Bob produced a box from the top of his bag. ‘Presents I’ve brought for you both. Look, I’ve bought you a brooch in the shape of a thistle, Ruthy.’ He held it out to her. ‘I thought you’d like that. It’s got a pretty mauve stone for the flower. You always used to like the colour mauve, didn’t you. They told me in the shop it was amethyst.’

She took it. ‘Yes. It’s pretty.’ She looked at him accusingly. ‘I hope you didn’t spend a lot of money on it, Robert.’

‘That’s for me to know and you to wonder, Ruthy,’ he said ambiguously. He dived in the box again. ‘And this is for you, Ginny. A little pendant on a silver chain. It’s mother-of-pearl. And see, it opens out so you can put a photograph in it. Or a lock of hair. I saw it in a shop in Oban and I thought you’d like it.’

‘Oh, Dad, it’s beautiful.’ Ginny flung her arms round his neck and gave him a smacking kiss on his cheek. ‘Thank you. Will you fasten it for me?’ She held up her thick mane of hair so that he could fasten it round her neck.

‘Well, at least you didn’t want to know how much it cost,’ he murmured under his breath with a glance at his wife, busily straining potatoes outside at the drain, the thistle brooch discarded on the table.

Ginny usually enjoyed her mother’s meat pie but today, with the memory of Isobel Armitage hanging on to Nathan’s arm still fresh in her mind, it tasted like nothing more than soggy paper. But watched by her mother’s eagle eye she knew better than to leave any. She longed to question her father about Isobel Armitage. Had she joined her father in Scotland to be with him on the yacht? If so, how long had she spent there? A few weeks? Most of the summer? But she didn’t want to appear too interested, so she forced down her meal and said nothing.

‘You’re quiet, matie. Still workin’ at Stacey’s?’ Bob asked suddenly.

Ginny opened her mouth to reply but her mother forestalled her.

‘Yes, she’s doing very well there, too,’ Ruth said. ‘It’s a good grocer’s. The best in Wyford. Better than working in that canning factory. She’s too bright for that.’

‘I only asked,’ Bob said mildly. He turned back to Ginny. ‘Do you like serving behind the counter, matie?’

Ginny made a face. ‘It’s all right. Anyway, it’s only ’til …’ she stopped. Her parents didn’t know quite how serious things were between her and Nathan. And she wasn’t sure how they would react when they found out. It was all a bit difficult with Nathan’s father being captain of Aurora because her father, as mate, was only his second in command. Captain Bellamy would be on what was called a retainer throughout the winter, which meant that all he would have to do was to keep an eye on the yacht and supervise anything that needed to be done on it; the rest of the time he could be a gentleman of leisure. But Bob Appleyard needed to earn his living in the winter months and this he did by fishing out in the North Sea, in the smack he had inherited from his own father. And Ginny’s mother worked for Nathan’s mother, which only added to the problem.

Bob was watching her carefully. ‘Only till what?’

She smiled at him. ‘Yes, I quite like working at Stacey’s. I’ve been there five years now.’

‘So you hev.’ Satisfied, Bob held his plate out for more pie. ‘This is real good, Ruthy. We get good grub on board but there’s nothin’ to touch home cookin’. Specially your meat pies, girl.’

Ginny watched as her mother piled his plate again. Ruth showed no emotion, no pleasure when her husband complimented her on her cooking, no sign that she was even pleased to see him home after nearly five months away. But it was always like this. It seemed that the only thing that gave Ruth Appleyard any pleasure was the money in her post office savings account. Money she was saving towards a house at the ‘better’ end of the village so that she could take her family out of Quay Yard, which she considered to be squalid and beneath her.

Ginny knew that it was into this account that any prize money her father handed over would go. Not that there would be much of that. Most of his prize money was earmarked for keeping the Emily May in good order and this year he had promised himself a new main sail for the smack. But Ruth’s bank balance was gradually growing with the money she earned from her work as cook for Captain Bellamy’s wife and with that she had to be content.

Captain Bellamy and his wife lived in the ‘better’ part of the village, in Anglesea Road. It was here that Ginny and Nathan, who was two years her senior, had first come together, longer ago than either of them could remember. As children they had often played together while Ruth worked. Not to do cleaning or rough work, someone else from the village did all that, Ruth was simply there to cook. Once or twice a week she would spend the day making pies and cakes and cooking delicious meals that could be left on the cold slab in the larder to be warmed up as required. What they ate for the rest of the week she didn’t know, because that Mabel Bellamy never lifted a finger, Ruth had often been heard to remark. In fact she had got so far above herself, according to Ruth, putting on airs and graces since marrying Captain Hector Bellamy, that she must have forgotten they had all been at the village school together when they were children.

Ginny enjoyed her mother’s ‘cooking days’ because while Ruth was busy in the kitchen she and Nathan would play together in the sail loft attached to the back of the house; sailing imaginary oceans, boarding pirate ships, surviving on desert islands, their fertile imagination knowing no bounds. Mrs Bellamy didn’t really like them playing together, but she was torn between forbidding Nathan to have anything to do with a child of a servant and being glad to get him from under her feet. Usually, she had been glad to get him from under her feet and so as Ginny and Nathan grew up they became good friends.

More than friends. Ginny didn’t remember when she had first fallen in love with Nathan, probably when she was about fourteen, and although he had never actually told her so she was convinced he felt the same way about her. He even used to get her to sit for him sometimes, oh, not for a portrait, but as a figure in the distance when he was painting a landscape. He quite fancied himself as a painter and Ginny could see that he was quite good. Not to be outdone, Ginny would sit with her pencil and pad whilst he was painting and amuse herself sketching. She didn’t have a paint box so she couldn’t put any colour in her drawings but she managed to get the effect she wanted by careful shading and it was something she really enjoyed doing.

As they grew older and had begun to go about with some of the other young people from the village, somehow Ginny and Nathan usually managed to end up together when they paired off. He seemed more than happy about this and before he left on Aurora in April, he had kissed her, not for the first time, and his last words had been, ‘If we do well, Ginny, and I win lots of prize money, I might bring you back a surprise!’

To Ginny, that could only mean one thing and each night she had gone to sleep picturing the kind of ring he would bring home for her. Sometimes it would have diamonds with a ruby in the middle, sometimes just a single diamond, sometimes sapphires.

But since she had seen the familiar way he was acting with Isobel Armitage a worm of doubt had begun to creep into her mind. Yet there couldn’t be anything between them. Miss Armitage was the owner’s daughter; she wouldn’t want to get too friendly with the likes of Nathan Bellamy. Would she?

Once again the picture of the two of them together left Ginny wracked with jealous misery.

‘I’ve got to go back to the boat to see to a few things. Do you want to come with me, matie?’ Bob asked when the meal was finished and Ginny had helped her mother to clear it away.

‘I don’t know why you want to go back there. You’ve only just come off it,’ Ruth said, sitting down and picking up her mending.

‘I told you, dear, I’ve got a few things to see to,’ Bob said patiently, getting to his feet. ‘Comin’, matie?’

‘Yes, Dad. I’ll come. I’ll just go and change my dress.’ Ginny hurried upstairs and took off the new green dress and put on her old work skirt and a jumper she had knitted herself. Then she pulled on a woollen cap and went downstairs to where her father was waiting.

‘Better go out the top way,’ he said, giving her a conspiratorial wink. ‘Your mother’ll be watching.’

Ginny laughed and led the way up the two steps on to Anchor Hill. ‘Doesn’t really make that much difference, does it?’ she said, tucking her arm into his.

‘It does to your mother, Ginny,’ he replied. ‘Makes a lot of difference to her.’

It was a warm September evening and the sun hung like a big red balloon low in the sky. The tide was leaving Aurora and with the odd creaking of timbers she was settling comfortably into her berth as if glad to be home after a busy summer. While Bob went below Ginny stayed on deck, leaning over the rail and watching the waves lapping lazily round the stern. Thinking about it now she realised she had probably been torturing herself unnecessarily over Nathan. The fact that he had helped that young woman off the boat didn’t mean a thing. After all, she was the owner’s daughter so she was hardly likely to look twice at the son of a humble yacht captain. No doubt when she saw Nathan tomorrow they would have a good laugh together at the antics of Isobel Armitage, stumbling off the boat all dressed up in her sailor outfit. She permitted herself a little smile at the thought.

She heard footsteps coming along the deck. ‘Ready to go, Dad?’ she asked as she turned.

But it wasn’t Bob, it was Nathan coming towards her, an expensive-looking portfolio under his arm. He was smiling excitedly and her heart seemed to do a somersault at the sight of him. He held out his free hand to take hers.

‘Ginny! I didn’t expect to see you here tonight. But I’m glad because I’ve got something important to tell you.’

Ginny waited expectantly. Nathan was still holding her hand. ‘Well,’ she said, smiling eagerly, ‘what is it you want to tell me?’ Although she was sure she could guess, she wanted him to say it. Excitement bubbled inside her.

He looked round. ‘We can’t talk here. Anyway, what are you doing here on the yacht? Is your dad around?’

‘Yes, he’s gone below to tidy up or something.’ She waved her hand impatiently. ‘I stayed here on deck to watch the sunset on the water.’

‘I see. Well, let’s take a walk along the wall. It’s more private.’

Ginny’s heart turned over yet again. ‘I’ll just call down and tell Dad,’ she said.

‘It’s all right, Mr Appleyard, Ginny’s with me,’ Nathan added when they heard Bob’s muffled reply.

They left the boat and Ginny hoped Nathan noticed how confidently she stepped along the gangplank, with no need of a steadying arm. At the same time she hoped he hadn’t noticed she was wearing her old navy serge skirt and a jumper that had seen better days. If she’d known she was going to see him tonight she wouldn’t have changed out of her new smart green dress. She would have liked to look her best when he proposed. She pulled off her woollen hat and smoothed her hair; at least that was something she could do to improve matters, especially as Nathan was looking so smart. He had changed out of his sailing gear and was wearing grey flannel trousers and a check shirt, open at the neck to reveal a smattering of blond hairs on his chest. Her heart swelled with love for him.

They walked along the river wall in silence, stepping carefully over the mooring rings and ropes that littered the path. The only sounds to be heard in the soft evening air were the wheeling gulls and the plopping mud. Suddenly, she felt shy in the presence of this handsome, tanned man, his hair bleached almost white by the sun. He was so tall and broad walking beside her and it was so long since she had seen him that he seemed almost like a stranger.

When he showed no sign of breaking the silence she asked, ‘Was it a good summer in Scotland?’

‘It rained quite a bit. But the racing was good.’

They walked on again in silence. She was puzzled. This was not at all how she had imagined their meeting would be. He had released her hand before they left the boat and so far he had made no attempt to retrieve it, let alone to kiss her and tell her how much he had missed her. And there was as yet no sign of the ring he had bought her.

Maybe he was too shy and needed a bit of encouragement. She stole a glance at him. ‘I’ve missed you, Nathan,’ she said softly.

He didn’t reply.

She tried again. ‘You won a lot of races, didn’t you? I’ll bet that was exciting. Did you get a nice lot of prize money?’

‘Yes, quite a bit.’ He stopped and turned to her. ‘Oh, yes, that reminds me. I brought you a little present, Ginny. I said I would, didn’t I? I didn’t forget, even though I spent nearly all my spare time with my painting.’ He shifted the portfolio he was still carrying under his other arm and fished in his pocket. Looking pleased with himself he brought out a package and gave it to her.

She took and looked at it, frowning a little. It was quite the wrong shape for a ring box.

‘Well, go on. Aren’t you going to open it?’ he said.

‘Yes, yes, of course I am.’ Puzzled, she pulled away the paper to reveal a tartan silk scarf. A very pretty tartan silk scarf but not quite what she had hoped for or expected. Perhaps he was teasing and the ring would come later.

He picked up a pebble and threw it into the mud, where it landed with a dull plop. ‘I got it from Oban. I thought you’d like it,’ he said, his voice casual.

‘Yes, yes, I do. It’s very pretty. Thank you, Nathan.’ She waited, a half smile on her face, ready for him to produce the ring and tell her he was only teasing.

‘I’m glad you like it. Well, go on. Put it round your neck,’ he encouraged. ‘That’s it. It suits you.’ He smiled at her in what was left of the fading light.

There was still no mention of a ring. Ginny shivered, but the cold came from inside her. ‘I think I’d better be getting back,’ she said. ‘It’s getting a bit chilly now the sun’s gone down.’

He caught her arm. ‘No. Don’t go. Wait a bit. I’ve got something I want to tell you. Something exciting. I wanted you to be the first to know.’ He was speaking in jerky sentences. ‘Let’s go down here and sit on Vanessa’s jetty and I’ll tell you.’ Holding the portfolio carefully he held out his other hand to help her down the bank to one of several wooden jetties that stretched across the mud to the moored yachts.

His hand was warm in hers and this time he didn’t let go as they sat side by side, their legs dangling.

‘Well?’ she asked, unsure now whether or not she was interested.

‘I’m going away, Ginny,’ he said, all in a rush. ‘I’m going to London.’

‘London!’ Her jaw dropped. ‘Whatever for?’

‘To paint, of course.’ There was a note of impatience in his tone. ‘Sir Titus – you know, Aurora’s owner …’

‘I know who Sir Titus Armitage is,’ she interrupted, a trifle irritably.

‘Well, Sir Titus saw my paintings when he came up to Scotland with his daughter – as I told you, I did quite a lot up there because the scenery is really grand, the lochs and mountains are really beautiful. I painted boats, landscapes, oh, all sorts of things. Look, I’ll show you.’ He undid his portfolio and Ginny saw some half dozen paintings, mostly sea and sky, it seemed to her as he flicked through them. ‘Isobel reckons I’ve got real talent,’ he confided enthusiastically, ‘so she’s persuaded her father to set me up in a studio in London.’ He fastened the portfolio again and looked for Ginny’s reaction to the momentous news, his eyebrows raised expectantly.

Ginny felt a sliver of ice move into her heart. ‘Isobel?’ she asked carefully.

‘Sir Titus’s daughter. She’s twenty-three. That’s a bit older than me but she says it’s not important.’ He warmed to his theme. ‘She’s beautiful, Ginny. The most beautiful girl you ever saw.’

‘I know how beautiful she is. I’ve seen her,’ Ginny said through dry lips.

‘You have? Where?’ He turned to her, surprised.

‘I saw you come off the boat with her,’ she said flatly.

‘Ah, yes.’ He chuckled. ‘She hadn’t quite got her sea legs, had she.’

Ginny made no answer to that. ‘And she wants you to go to London so you can be with her?’ she asked, giving the icicle that seemed to have lodged itself in her heart a masochistic twist.

‘Yes. Well, no. Well, partly. Mostly because of m