‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’

‘You didn’t,’ she said. She caught her lower lip in her teeth, and raised her eyes to his, slowly.

‘God . . .’ Guy heard himself saying. ‘You real y are beautiful, Cecily.’

They stared at each other, blankly, for a moment. He held out his hand – she held hers out too. For a split second their fingers touched, and then she stepped away, hastily, and Guy was left standing by the window, watching her as she picked her way towards her mother. Something strange, fundamental, was shifting within him. He cal ed to her, in a low voice, ‘Cecily—’

But she ignored him.

He did not take his eyes off her until they were cal ed in to dinner.

Louisa linked her arm through Frank’s as they walked towards the dining room.

‘I do hope Daddy isn’t too boring,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘He can be rather . . . old-fashioned. He’s furious about the Profumo affair, I don’t quite know why. He tends to expound, once he’s had a glass of wine. It’s rather mortifying.’

‘Oh, I’m used to it.’ Frank yawned, and nodded. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Awful y tired. Don’t mind me, Louisa. Not on very good form tonight.’

Louisa squeezed his arm in jokey exasperation. ‘How can you be tired? You had a nap this afternoon while we were al swimming and picking blackberries, didn’t you?’

‘Perhaps that’s the problem,’ Frank said. ‘Oh, too much sleep, I suppose. It’s – I’m much better now, promise.’

She looked up at him. ‘Are you . . . al right, darling?’

‘I am.’ Frank squeezed her arm back. ‘Been on rather subdued form, I’m sorry. I am very al right.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘Listen, I’ve been rather a brute this holiday, I know. Trying to persuade you to do something you don’t want to. Wil you come for a walk with me, after supper?

Steal away when the grown-ups have gone to bed?’

‘Frank?’

‘There’s something we need to talk about,’ he said. He took her hand and squeezed it tight and Louisa smiled, her eyes fil ing with tears.

There came voices from next door and suddenly her expression changed.

‘Oh, dear,’ Louisa said. ‘I think I was right.’

‘About what?’ Frank sounded alarmed. ‘Right about Daddy.’

‘Absolute rubbish,’ John James was saying, as they sat down. ‘I tel you, the woman is a common prostitute, nothing more. The men she was associating with. Black men, in Notting Hil . That Edgecombe fel ow, turning up and shooting people. Those are the people Mr Powel is talking about and I for one can’t blame him. What are we coming to? It’s al very wel , and yes, people must be al owed to come into the country, but when they set up enclaves like this . . .’ He waved his wine glass in the air. ‘Whole system starts to go to pot.’

‘What system?’ Miranda was sitting opposite him, in between Guy and Cecily. She was examining her dirty fingernails. She barely raised her voice; it was the disdain in her tone that was most surprising of al . ‘The system of white men oppressing everyone else for hundreds of years? Or the system of raping countries and people so you can make money?’

Al of a sudden, the atmosphere in the room was electric. ‘Miranda –’ Frances said, in a warning tone. ‘There’s coronation chicken and salad,’

Mary said in a bright voice. ‘If that’s al —’

The others were al sitting stil . No one got up. John said, ‘Young lady, you are confusing the argument. It’s a question of how our own great country has been pol uted, is being pol uted, with the question of immigration, with this lax – lax behaviour in public life . . .’ He trailed off, cleared his throat, and then said, ‘With al respect, I don’t think you know what you are talking about.’

‘Of course I don’t,’ Miranda said scornful y. ‘I’m just a girl, what would I know? After al , girls are pretty stupid, aren’t they?’

‘Miranda –’ Cecily hissed desperately, next to her. Her uncle was watching her, imperturbable, one eyebrow slightly raised, cold grey eyes in a thin, sculptured face.

‘I don’t think,’ said Pamela, ‘this is appropriate.’ She turned to her daughter. ‘Louisa, have you been keeping up with your tennis? Frank,’ she said, ‘do you know that Louisa’s tennis instructor says she’s—’

‘No,’ Miranda’s voice cut through, biting and clear. ‘Girls aren’t nearly as clever as boys, of course not. They’re born with fewer brain cel s, did you know that? They can’t drive properly or do science or maths, you know? Al they’re real y good for is . . .’

‘Yes?’ John looked disdainful y at his niece. ‘Do enlighten me, Miranda.’

‘Fucking and cooking,’ Miranda said, standing up and throwing her napkin on her heaped plate, which Mary had just set down. Louisa gasped, and Guy screwed his napkin into his fist. ‘That’s al we’re good for, wouldn’t you say?’ She stopped and looked round then, as if realising there was no turning back, she took a deep breath and ploughed recklessly on. ‘Even someone like me, though, that’s the question? Me, and my sister, and my brother, and my dad, do you real y want us, pol uting the country?’

‘ Miranda! ’ her mother hissed furiously. ‘Miranda, apologise to your uncle!’

‘Oh, don’t you dare talk to me,’ Miranda told Frances, her eyes blazing. ‘You of al people, don’t you dare! You’re the biggest hypocrite of them al , tel ing me what’s best for me, how worthless I am!’ Frances looked as though she’d just been slapped. ‘Yes, we’re in such an honest country too, aren’t we?’ Miranda’s voice shook. ‘Not hypocritical at al , oh, no. Definitely worth preserving the old way of life. Essential.’ Her face was pale; her eyes were huge. ‘I wish Archie were here. He’d say it better. Oh, hang it al .’

She took Cecily’s hand in hers and gripped it. Cecily wriggled away, embarrassed. She could not bear to look up at her sister, as if she were a leper on the street.

Into the stunned silence a voice spoke from the end of the table.

‘No, Cecily, take your sister’s hand,’ Arvind said. ‘Wel said, Miranda,’ he told his eldest daughter. ‘Very wel said. You don’t need to swear, but you are absolutely right in everything else you say.’

Miranda looked from him to her mother, who was looking down at her plate, not meeting anyone’s eye, and then back again at her father, smiling very faintly at him, almost in shock.

‘Wel –’ Pamela began. ‘I must say—’

Frances put her hand over her sister’s. ‘No, Pamela,’ she said. ‘You mustn’t.’ She seemed to be wrestling with something inside herself. ‘This is al wrong,’ she said. She tried to catch Miranda’s eye, but Miranda stared straight ahead.

‘Let us eat,’ Arvind said, lifting to his mouth a huge serving spoon that had ended up on his plate. His authority was, as ever, absolute. ‘We wil not discuss the pol uting of this great nation in my house. We wil give thanks for it instead. Enjoy your coronation chicken curry.’ His expression was grave, but his eyes twinkled.

They ate without noise, in the airless room.

Chapter Nineteen

It came to an end for them not long afterwards. The fol owing day, Saturday, was hot and muggy, and over the next few days the winds seemed to drop as the temperature increased.

The atmosphere had changed inside Summercove, too, since Archie was caught peeking, since Miranda’s blow-up with her uncle. The cousins eyed each other with greater suspicion; they fel into their own ranks, only Jeremy on the sidelines. Louisa barely spoke to Miranda or Archie, and was extravagant in her affection for the Bowler Hat, who was himself perfunctory in the repaying of it. Miranda and Archie were together even more. They would barely speak to Cecily, whom they considered to be some kind of pariah. And Cecily – Cecily changed, suddenly, almost overnight. Something had got to her. Whatever it was, she wasn’t the same in the days that fol owed.

On the Tuesday morning, four days after the James’s arrival, the thermometer in the kitchen read 91 degrees, and Mary said it was the hottest she’d known it. At the breakfast table John did what he’d done since he’d arrived, taking first the Express and then The Times and reading them in silence, digesting every last dirty detail of Stephen Ward’s death three days previously and his upcoming funeral, while the others waited, resentful y, for their chance to read, eventual y giving up and going outside to sit in the relative cool of the morning shade.

Arvind had taken to having his breakfast in his study, these last few mornings. Guy had got up early, gone for a long walk, the Bowler Hat said.

No one had seen him. The others drifted outside, one by one, hoping for some relief from the heat.

Pamela passed her napkin delicately over her upper lip. ‘It is extremely close, isn’t it?’ she said to Frances. ‘Too close. I should have thought the breeze from the sea would provide a little relief, but no.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Frances said. She was drumming her fingers anxiously on the table; there were dark circles under her eyes. ‘Perhaps the cloud wil burn off later, you know. It’s stil early.’

‘Hm,’ said Pamela. ‘It’s getting to be unbearable,’ she said, standing up. She nodded at her sister as she left the room.

‘I agree,’ Frances said mirthlessly. She turned to Cecily, who was sitting further down the table by herself. ‘Cec, darling, wil you be ready to start at ten?’

Cecily was picking at her placemat. She looked up. ‘Oh,’ she said, in a smal voice. ‘Of course, Mummy.’

‘You look rather pale, darling. Are you al right?’

‘Ye-yes.’ Cecily stared back down at the bowl. ‘Yes, I’m fine. I didn’t sleep very wel , that’s al . Our room’s awful y hot.’

‘I know, I must do something about it. I’m sorry, darling. The studio wil be baking too, I’m afraid. We could do it in the evening, when it’s cooler.

Why don’t you and Guy go for a swim again?’

‘No. Not Guy.’

‘What’s wrong with Guy?’ Frances stared at her daughter. ‘Cec darling, what on earth’s the matter?’

‘Nothing’s wrong with Guy,’ Cecily said. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it. Let’s just get it over with.’

She looked so wan and sorry for herself that Frances leaned forward and put her hands together. ‘Darling, are you sure you’re al right?’

Cecily looked intently at her mother. ‘Mummy . . .’ she said after a pause. ‘You would love me no matter what I did, wouldn’t you?’

‘Of course I would,’ Frances said. ‘And Miranda, and Archie. You’d stil love us, even if we did something terrible.’ She glanced down, picking strips of raffia off her mat. ‘That’s the way it works, isn’t it? We have to love each other no matter what?’

Frances paused. ‘What’s going on, Cecily?’

Cecily said, ‘Not sure.’ She looked wildly around the room. ‘I’m not sure any more. Everything’s changed.’

Frances turned towards the open door. There was no one there. Out in the garden, Jeremy and Louisa were lying on the grass, The Times spread out like a huge, sand and black coloured towel, in front of them. They were reading intently.

‘What’s going on?’ she said again. ‘Cecily?’

Cecily got up. She took a deep breath. ‘Nothing, Mummy. I’m just being sil y. Look, can I go and brush my teeth and my hair? And write my diary up before that? I’l only be a few minutes.’

‘Of course,’ Frances said. ‘I’l go and set everything up.’ She took something out of the pocket of her embroidered top. It was the ring Arvind had given her, the ring his father had sent over from Lahore after he’d proposed. Cecily loved it. It was her favourite thing, and Frances had even let her take it to school last year. She had her wearing it on a chain around her neck in the painting she was working on. ‘Here, have this.’

Cecily stared at it blankly. ‘What, put it on now, instead of later?’

‘No,’ Frances said. ‘I want you to have it to keep. From me. Because . . . because I want you to.’

‘But it’s yours.’

‘Now it’s yours,’ Frances said. Her eyes fil ed with tears. ‘Why?’ Cecily said. ‘You love it, don’t you? You’ve always said you did.’ Cecily stared at the ring, lying flat on her smal palm. ‘Yes. But why do you want me to have it now?’

‘I just do,’ Frances said. Her voice was thin. ‘I like the idea of you having something of mine, darling, some jewel ery to wear of your own from me. Like a talisman.’ She smiled. ‘Why, you’re practical y a woman these days, it’s time we thought about this kind of thing.’

Cecily didn’t even smile. She just said, ‘Thank you.’ Frances didn’t know what to do next. She came round to her and kissed her daughter’s silky head. ‘I’l see you soon, my darling.’ She added, ‘It’s going to be fine, honestly.’