‘He may have put that story about,’ Philip replied, frowning, ‘unless of course it was a different wife, not your mother!’
‘There’s been a few owners since Scott,’ the next confectioner revealed. The shop smelt of spun sugar and chocolate. Large glass bottles filled with coloured sweets lined the walls and trays of toffees and bonbons were laid out on the counter in front of them. ‘His first wife owned this shop before he married her. I’m going back a long time of course. There was some kind of scandal, I believe, or so my mother told me, I was only a lad at the time.’
‘A scandal!’ Ralph murmured as they came out. ‘Maybe that was the start of the trouble.’
His mind raced. If his mother was Scott’s first wife and she had been married before, then the scandal could have been about the break-up of a marriage, but why would his mother attempt to kill her new husband? He voiced his musings to Philip Linton.
‘No use surmising,’ Philip replied. ‘We are working in the dark here. Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ve done enough for today. Let’s go home.’
‘I’m beginning to wish I’d never started this,’ Ralph confided to Jack later that evening. ‘I’ve a feeling I’m going to uncover something nasty.’
‘I told you that your mother has gone to her
ancestors. You should not disturb her. Let her rest.’
‘I can’t,’ Ralph muttered. ‘I have to know.’
At supper, Aunt Emily asked how he had fared. Had he found out anything more?
‘Not really,’ he answered. ‘Except that Edward Scott kept a confectioner’s shop, two in fact, and that his wife had died and he remarried.’ He chewed on his lip. ‘But whether it was my mother, I don’t know.’
‘Take some time off to think about it, Ralph,’ Aunt Emily advised. ‘Your friends, Mrs Boyle and her daughter, will be here tomorrow.’
Ralph and Philip Linton drove into Hull to meet Mrs Boyle and Phoebe at the railway station. Ralph had carefully dressed in a dark brown tweed sack jacket, yellow waistcoat and brown and yellow checked trousers and a string tie, and Jack caustically commented on his attire. ‘You’re not trying to impress anyone, by any chance?’ he asked. ‘Do you think that Miss Boyle will be swayed by your fashionable clothes?’
‘She might be.’ Ralph fastened the top button of his jacket. ‘She’ll see me in a different light anyway, away from home.’
‘That’s true,’ Jack nodded. ‘And she too, how will she be, away from her native country?’
‘I have a feeling her mother won’t want to go back home,’ Ralph glanced in the mirror and flicked away a stray hair from his collar, then stroked his side whiskers. ‘So will Phoebe go
back without her? Will I be able to persuade her?’
Jack was silent, then said quietly, ‘Go softly, friend. Tread carefully for fear of pitfalls.’
Ralph laughed and turned towards him. He picked up his round billycock felt hat which he had newly purchased in York and twirled it around his finger. ‘What nonsense, Jack! Look at me! How can she possibly resist?’
Phoebe put on all her charm on being introduced to Captain Linton, but to Ralph she appeared tired and irritable as they followed her mother and Philip into the Station Hotel for refreshments before continuing their journey to Holderness.
‘So kind of you to meet us, Captain Linton.’ Mrs Boyle gratefully accepted a cup of tea. She seemed noticeably more lively than her daughter.
‘An interminable journey,’ Phoebe grumbled. ‘I declare it seemed longer than from coming from Australia.’
‘But so worthwhile.’ Mrs Boyle shot a warning glance at her for her unintentional rudeness.
‘Oh, indeed.’ Phoebe perked up. ‘We are so looking forward to meeting everyone: Mrs Linton and Amelia and – ’
‘Roger, May, Lily and the twins, Joseph and Hannah,’ Ralph finished for her.
‘And how is Jack?’ Phoebe asked nonchalantly. ‘How is he coping with the different climate? I must say I felt very cold whilst in Hampshire.’
‘My brother’s home is large and draughty, I’m afraid,’ Mrs Boyle remarked. ‘It always was, but I had forgotten.’
‘Jack is well, he’s looking forward to seeing you again, as we both were,’ Ralph added meaningfully, but Phoebe merely sipped at her tea.
‘Is it good to be back in England, Mrs Boyle?’ Philip Linton asked. ‘Are you renewing old acquaintanceships?’
‘Oh, yes. It is so wonderful to be back with old friends and familiar faces.’ She sighed. ‘I have never felt completely at home in Sydney, I regret to say, Captain Linton.’
He nodded. ‘You are like my wife, Mrs Boyle; although there were great opportunities in Australia, she couldn’t wait to come home to England.’
Mrs Boyle seemed slightly embarrassed. ‘Has it been difficult for her to adjust?’
‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘Perhaps more difficult for some others, people who don’t understand the circumstances, and of course rumours did circulate about us at first. But not any more, we are accepted for what we are.’ He paused and then asked courteously, ‘And how was Captain Boyle when you left Sydney? Keeping well, I trust.’
‘Yes, thank you.’ Mrs Boyle gave a brief resume of her husband’s activities and his state of health and the voyages he embarked upon, and then Philip said that if they had finished
their tea it was time they were leaving. They had an hour’s journey ahead of them.
‘What are they like, Ralph? The Lintons?’ Phoebe whispered as they went out. ‘Are they pompous and strait-laced like my uncle’s family are? I shan’t abide it if they are.’
PHOEBE DISCOVERED THE
Lintons were not stuffy or strait-laced, neither was the house cold and draughty, but warm and welcoming. Their beds had hot bricks in them and a maid ran the warming-pan over the sheets before Phoebe climbed in to have her best night’s sleep since arriving in England.
She slept late the next morning and breakfast was brought up to her. The maid opened the curtains and the sun streamed in through the window. ‘It’s a lovely morning, Miss Boyle,’ she said. ‘It smells of summer and all the daffys are nodding their heads.’ Phoebe looked at her in some surprise. At her uncle’s house the servants had been subservient and uncommunicative.
‘Is my mother up?’ She stretched and surveyed the tray on the bedside table. It had boiled eggs, toast and marmalade and piping hot coffee and a small posy of primroses on it.
‘Yes, miss. She had breakfast with Mrs Linton
and now she’s walking in the garden with Miss Amelia and Mr Hawkins.’
She breakfasted, then washed and dressed and looked out of the window. The trees were in full leaf and there was a cherry tree on the lawn which had shed blossom into a pink carpet below it. A honey bee buzzed around a flowering clematis which clung to the walls beneath her window.
She heard voices in the drawing room as she went down the stairs, and through the open doorway she saw Jack in conversation with Roger. Roger was a shy young man and had had little to say to her during last night’s supper, but now he was talking animatedly to Jack.
‘Miss Boyle!’ Jack greeted her. ‘How are you this morning?’
‘I’m well, thank you. I slept very well.’
‘We’re just talking about the flora in Australia. Master Roger knows as much about it as I do.’
‘Not really,’ Roger protested. ‘But I have always been interested in nature and wildlife, both in this country and abroad.’
‘Then you would love Australia,’ Phoebe declared, ‘it is so colourful and vibrant, the skies are full of chattering budgerigars and cockatoos, and there are lizards and snakes, wombats and kangaroos!’
He looked rather crestfallen. ‘I’d like to see them, but I doubt that I ever will. I’m needed here on the estate.’ Then he excused himself and Jack proposed to Phoebe that they join the
others outside. ‘It’s been suggested that we visit Spurn Point. It’s a strip of land which divides the river and the sea, perhaps we could go tomorrow after you and your mother are rested.’
She sighed and said that she hoped that the Lintons didn’t feel obliged to entertain them.
‘I don’t think so,’ Jack replied. ‘They are very hospitable, but also very busy people, they will go about their own business once you are settled in.’
‘I’m such a crosspatch, aren’t I, Jack?’ She looked up at him. ‘Always finding fault. Never happy.’
He nodded and gazed back at her. ‘What will make you content, Miss Boyle? What will settle your impatient heart?’
She blinked and swallowed. ‘For the moment, for you not to keep calling me Miss Boyle, or do you feel you have to whilst we’re in company?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I do. Whilst we are in England we must follow English convention. It is only right. We are guests here.’
She sighed again. ‘Yes, I suppose so. Come along then, let’s go out and make polite conversation.’
‘Miss Boyle is so pretty, isn’t she?’ May said to Amelia later when they were alone. ‘She looks more English than you do, Amelia.’
‘That’s only because she’s fair-haired with blue eyes. She takes after her mother. I’m dark because I’m like our father. A Linton.’
May tossed her own fair curls. She was glad
that her colouring was like their mother’s and that she hadn’t thick unruly dark hair like Amelia’s. Not that Amelia wasn’t handsome. She was. She had good bone structure and a fine figure, but she wasn’t dainty and pretty like Miss Boyle.
‘Is she going to marry Cousin Ralph, do you think, Amelia? They would make a striking pair, he’s very handsome.’
‘All you think about is how people look, May, and who they are going to marry!’ Amelia said irritably. ‘Can you not look more closely than that? It is what they do and think that is important!’
‘So what are you thinking about that is so important?’ May asked pertinently.
‘I’m thinking that you are the most tiresome girl ever, with your sillly questioning!’ Amelia cast a withering look at her sister and marched off to her room.
Miss Boyle’s appearance had in fact surprised her. She hadn’t expected her to be small and fair or dainty, but somehow to be hardier, as befitting a resident of a comparatively new country and all she had heard of it. Ralph Hawkins was broad-shouldered and bronzed, and casual in his manner, but then, she mused, the Hawkins live in the country whereas the Boyles live in Sydney, which Mama and Papa say is a very modern town.
The next day Amelia, Phoebe, May and Lily and one of the maids all piled into the carriage
with hampers and blankets. Mrs Boyle elected to stay behind on this occasion. Ralph and Jack each rode a mare, and they all set off for Kilnsea, where they would leave the carriage and walk to Spurn Point. The day was bright but breezy and Amelia passed Phoebe an extra shawl, which she had brought knowing that someone would complain of the cold.
‘What is special about this place, Miss Linton?’ Phoebe asked.
‘It’s unique,’ Amelia replied. ‘It’s a narrow bank of land, sand and shingle, which the sea has carried down from the coast and tipped into the Humber mouth. But it is constantly altering shape, its point moves southwards and westwards and sometimes if the tides are high, it is breached.’
Phoebe stifled a yawn. ‘Really?’
‘Also,’ Amelia glanced at her and continued, ‘it’s a place where migratory birds fly in in their thousands; but the magic is standing right on the edge of the Point between the river and the sea and watching the waters converge. You have to see it to understand the atmosphere,’ she added, guessing that her companion was bored. ‘It’s impossible to explain the sense of isolation – the mystery of Spurn.’
‘And you can run up to the top of the sand dunes,’ said Lily who had been listening, ‘and pretend that you can see the roofs of the houses of Ravenser-Odd which drowned hundreds of years ago.’
Phoebe raised her eyebrows at this and said, ‘I long to see it.’
When they arrived at Kilnsea, Amelia explained that it was a long walk to the tip of Spurn. ‘Perhaps you would prefer to ride, Miss Boyle?’ she said. ‘I’m sure that one of the gentlemen would walk instead.’
‘Come up behind me, Phoebe,’ Ralph suggested. ‘There’s no-one to see us.’
‘Oh, can I too?’ May asked. ‘Mr Mungo? Could I come up behind you? Could I, Amelia?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ Amelia said, thinking that as May was not yet quite grown-up, it would not be considered unseemly. But as for Miss Boyle, well, the decision was up to her.
Phoebe hesitated, then said, ‘I think it would be preferable if you rode and carried a hamper and the blankets, Ralph, they are quite heavy. I will walk.’
Ralph looked crestfallen but agreed and the men set off, Ralph with blankets and a hamper, and Jack with a smug May behind him on his mare, her arms around his waist and a blanket over her shoulder.
‘Miss Boyle,’ Amelia began. ‘I notice that you address Cousin Ralph and Mr Mungo informally by their first names. If we are to be friends, may I suggest that we do the same? Here in the country, we do not stand on ceremony. We behave formally only when the occasion arises, when we are with strangers or those who we know would expect conventional behaviour!’
Phoebe tucked her arm through Amelia’s. ‘Thank goodness for that, Amelia,’ she said. ‘My friends and I all use our first names, though we are careful when our parents are around, they expect us to behave with gentility and follow protocol! But the young generation of Australians are much freer, we don’t adhere to the old ways. Not with each other anyway.’
She laughed. ‘Even my mother, who is so very English in her manner, actually called Ralph and Jack by their first names when we were on board ship. She seemed to shrug off her shackles once we were away from my father.’ She stopped abruptly. ‘I shouldn’t have said that, I suppose,’ she muttered, ‘although it’s true.’
Amelia made no comment. She would not have dreamed of discussing her father in such a manner, though, she mused, I gather that Captain Boyle is not a gentleman.
‘How does Captain Boyle view Jack Mungo?’ she asked tentatively. ‘I find Ralph’s attitude strange and rather patronizing towards him, even though he is a friend and not a servant.’
Phoebe stared at her. ‘A servant! Never that, though they had to pretend that he was to get him a passage. No,’ she said emphatically. ‘I have known them both since we were children. They are like brothers. One black. One white.’