Aunt May was the untidiest person she had ever seen, Hayley thought, sliding nervously into the chair Aunt May had said was hers. Aunt May’s clothes were flapping, fraying, overlapping layers of homespun wool, decorated in front by at least three necklaces and a lot of gravy stains. Her feet were in worn out fur slippers, and as for her hair…! Remembering that Cousin Mercer had told her Aunt May was Grandma’s eldest daughter, Hayley wondered how on earth Grandma had managed with Aunt May as a child. Grandma always said Hayley was untidy and spent hours trying to make the curly tendrils of Hayley’s hair lie flat and neat. “I despair of you, Hayley,” Grandma always said. “I really do!” With Aunt May, Grandma must have despaired even more. Still, Hayley thought, looking from neat Aunt Geta to beautiful Aunt Alice, the younger daughters must have pleased Grandma quite a lot.
But Aunt May was kind. She sat next to Hayley and, while Hayley struggled with a plate full of more food than she could possibly eat, Aunt May explained that the Castle had once belonged to Uncle Jolyon, but now it was a guesthouse, except for this one week of the year. “I give the staff a holiday,” she said, “and have all the family to stay. Even your Aunt Ellie comes over some years. And of course we have heaps of rooms. I’ve given you the little room on the half-landing, my dear. I thought you’d feel a little strange if I put you in with the other girls, not being used to it. Just tell me if you’re not happy, won’t you?”
As Aunt May chatted on in this way, Hayley looked round the table and noticed that Cousin Mercer, sitting behind the remains of the turkey, was the only grown-up man there. All the family? she thought. Shouldn’t there be some uncles? But she was afraid it might be rude to ask.
The turkey was followed by treacle pudding that Hayley was far too full to eat. While everyone else was devouring it down to the last few sticky golden crumbs, the rain got worse. Hayley could hear it battering on the windows and racing through pipes outside the walls. The Laxton cousins were very put out by it. It seemed that there was some game that they always played when they were at the Castle and they had wanted to start playing it that very evening.
“We couldn’t have played tonight anyway,” Troy said in his calm way. “It’s too dark to see, even if it wasn’t raining.”
Then the Tigh cousins wanted to know if they could play the game indoors instead. The Laxtons thought this was a splendid notion and said so at the tops of their voices. “We could use the big drawing room for it, couldn’t we?” they demanded of Harmony, who seemed to be in charge of the game.
“No way,” Harmony said. “It has to be done out of doors. We’ll do it tomorrow, when the grass in the paddock has dried.”
This raised such a shout of disappointment that Harmony said, “We can do hide-and-seek indoors, if you like.”
There were cheers. Aunt Geta murmured, “Bless you, Harmony. Keep them organised till bedtime if you can and we’ll let you off clearing the dishes.”
So while the aunts cleared away the stacks of plates, everyone except Hayley rushed away into other parts of the house. Aunt May picked up Hayley’s suitcase and showed her up a flight of stairs into a small white bedroom with a fluffy bedspread which Hayley much admired. There Aunt May drew the curtains – which flapped and billowed in the gusts of rainy wind outside – and then helped Hayley unpack the suitcase.
“Are these all the clothes you’ve got, my dear?” Aunt May asked, shaking out the other two floral dresses. “These are not very practical – or very warm.”
Hayley felt hugely ashamed. “Grandma said Aunt Ellie was going to buy me clothes in Scotland,” she said. “To go to school in.”
“Hm,” said Aunt May. “I’ll have a look and see if I can dig you out something to wear while you’re here.” She carefully spread Hayley’s pink and white pyjamas out over the white bed. “Hm,” she said again. “Hayley, if you don’t mind my asking, just what did you do to make your grandmother so angry?”
Hayley knew she would never be able to explain, when she hardly knew what had happened herself. Aunt May would surely not understand about Flute and Fiddle. Besides, Grandma had never seen either of them. She had only seen the boy with the dogs, but why that had made her so very angry Hayley had no idea. All she could manage to say was, “Grandma said I was romancing at first. Then she said I was bringing the strands here and destroying all Grandpa’s work. She said Uncle Jolyon wouldn’t forgive me for it.”
“So she dumps the problem on us,” Aunt May said in a harsh, dry voice. “How typical of my mother! As if we could stand up to Jolyon any more than she can! Didn’t your grandfather object at all?”
“Yes, but he was upset too,” Hayley said. “He said I might grow out of it, but Grandma said I wasn’t going to get the chance. She phoned for Cousin Mercer to come and fetch me. She said you’d know what to do.”
“Blowed if I do!” Aunt May replied. “I’d better ask Geta how she manages, I suppose – or Ellie would be more help. Harmony must have been the same kind of handful when she was younger. Anyway, you run off downstairs and play with the others, and don’t bother about it any more.”
Hayley would have liked to stay in the small room. It felt safe, even with its creepily billowing curtains. But she had been brought up by Grandma to do as she was told. So she went obediently downstairs and found the big drawing room in the centre of the house. There were at least five doors to this room. Hayley arrived to find cousins rushing in and out, shrieking, while Troy stood in the middle of it with his hands over his eyes, counting to a hundred, and Harmony shouting, “Don’t forget! Kitchen’s out of bounds and so is the office!”
After that everyone thundered away. Shortly Troy bellowed, “One hundred! Coming, ready or not!” and raced away too.
Hayley stood where she was, bewildered again. She had never played this kind of game with lots of people in it and she had no idea what the rules were. She stayed standing there, until Tollie rolled out from under a sofa and looked at her jeeringly.
“You’re a wimp,” he said, “even for an outcast. And a wuss. And you’re not to tell anyone you saw me.” And, before Hayley could think of anything to say in reply, Tollie climbed to his feet and hurried out of the nearest door.
Hayley went to sit on a different sofa, beside a very realistic stuffed cat, where she stayed, sadly trying to decide if the stuffed cat was a cushion or a toy, or just an ornament. Being brought up by Grandma and Grandpa simply did not prepare a person for life, she thought.
From time to time, cousins tiptoed through the room, giggling, but none of them took the slightest notice of Hayley. They all know I’m a wimp and an outcast, she thought.
Hayley was an orphan. All she knew of her parents was the wedding photograph in a silver frame that Grandma propped in the middle of Hayley’s bedroom mantelpiece and warned Hayley not to touch. Hayley naturally spent long hours standing on a chair carefully studying the photo. The two people in it looked so happy. Her mother had the same kind of fair good looks as Aunt Alice, except that she seemed more human than Aunt Alice, less perfect. She laughed, with her head thrown back and her veil flying, a lopsided, almost guilty laugh at Hayley’s father. He laughed proudly back, proud of Hayley’s mother, proud in himself. There was pride in the set of his curly black head, in his gleaming dark eyes and in the way his big brown hand clasped Hayley’s mother’s white one. He was the one Hayley had her obstinately curly hair and brown complexion from. But, since Hayley’s mother was so fair, Hayley’s hair had come out a sort of whitish brown and her eyes big and grey. She thought of herself as an exact mixture of both of them and wished with all her