Daniel shared a drink with his workers in the courtyard to receive their condolences. Isabella, watching from her window, saw Ben Welland and his family among them. Tom’s fair head stood a head taller than the others.
When everyone had gone, Isabella sat on the window seat looking out. A mist hung over the lake and a Cornish mizzle, light but drenching, blew in fine curtains across the drive.
What will happen to me now? I never imagined a life without Mama. I never thought about growing up without her. It feels as if I have lost both parents at once. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.
Two days after the funeral her father called her to him and told her he had decided to send her to cousins over on the Helford River. They had agreed to educate and finish her with their own three girls and then … Daniel obviously had no idea what would happen after that.
‘Papa, are you punishing me? I hardly know my cousins or my aunt. Why are you sending me away from my home? Am I to lose everything?’ Her voice broke.
Her father looked at her for the first time since Helena died.
‘Isabella, of course I am not punishing you. Without your mother you will be lonely. Lisette is the only female you talk to. I am going to travel and possibly visit your mother’s relations in Italy. I do not want to leave you alone in this house.’
‘I could come with you. I could look after you, Papa. Please, please let me come with you. I could see my Italian cousins, my aunts, please … please, Papa.’
She watched her father’s face close.
‘Do not make me go away. I would rather stay with Lisette here than go to strangers.’
‘I am sorry, child,’ he said, closing the subject. ‘I am doing the best thing for you, believe me. You will see this later.’
‘I only see that you cannot bear to have me near you,’ Isabella cried and turned and ran from the room.
This was true, but not for the reason Isabella believed. She was so like her mother in looks and character that Daniel did not want to be reminded daily of something precious he had lost. A beautiful and clever woman he loved, but took for granted. The knowledge of her value, witnessed by the grief at her funeral, bit and gnawed at his innards. He had to escape this.
However, he decided Lisette must go with Isabella to keep her company. He took his daughter’s cold little hand in the hall.
‘Isabella, I will write. You will be well looked after …’ He hesitated. ‘I was not myself … after the accident. Of course it was not your fault. Forget my words, I did not mean them. In no way are you to blame. Will you forget them?’
‘Yes, Papa,’ Isabella said dully.
He took her hands in his. ‘Now, come, smile at your papa before you leave so that I can remember a happier face on my travels.’
Isabella could not smile. But she reached up to kiss her father then turned with dignity to Lisette waiting by the carriage.
Daniel walked to the door, knowing he was sacrificing his only child. He groaned at his own selfishness and weakness, but he could not stay in this vast, empty, inherited mausoleum alone.
His last image of his daughter was of a small, frightened white face peering out of the window at him, before the carriage turned down the drive and out of sight.
The taxi dropped them off near the bridge so that they could walk along the river path to the house. Mark pointed; ‘It’s three-quarters of the way along the path. Can you see, the house with the creeper growing up the front?’
His voice held a proprietorial excitement that made Gabby smile. It was late afternoon and people were beginning to leave offices and shops and go home. Even the river seemed busy with small tugs and cruisers. The path was wet from a high tide and they negotiated the puddles.
‘The river floods on a regular basis at certain times of the year,’ Mark said. ‘All the houses have flood barriers at their front doors to stop the water entering the houses. Sort of quaint, isn’t it? People dash out to put them up as the river rises.’
‘Do the barriers work?’ Gabby wondered. ‘How awful to come back to a flooded house. You could be out when the river rises.’
‘According to my aunt, if in doubt, put them up anyway.’
Gabby peered into windows. ‘What lovely houses. Why did your aunt leave?’
‘She’s nearly eighty. Most of her friends in London have died. I think she was lonely and the house got too big. She’s gone off to live near Exeter with a friend, but she doesn’t want to sell her house until she knows whether living with someone else is going to work. So this arrangement is ideal for both of us.’
‘She’s very wise. How come she is living over here? Did she marry an Englishman?’
‘She did, but he died some time ago. They never had children, which was sad. She’s a great person. I’m her godson and she has always been very good to me.’
‘I expect you’ve been good to her, too.’
Mark smiled and they stopped for a minute and watched the river. Beyond the houses on the far side the sky was a flushed pink and gold as the sun sank below the buildings.
Mark got the front-door key out of his pocket and they walked up three steep steps to the entrance of a small three-storey house with creeper growing up its walls. The front door was dark green with a brass knocker. As he opened the door, Mark turned to Gabby and said, ‘I’m like a kid. I can’t believe I’m going to live here for a year. There’s no place I’d rather be. Come in and look, Gabriella.’
There was a long hall that led into a sitting room on the right, which had a view across the river and was now full of buttery yellow light. It was partially furnished, but it was obvious that furniture and ornaments had been removed. A fine layer of dust lay on the mantelpiece.
The left room was empty, but had once been a dining room.
‘I don’t think my aunt ever used it after her husband died,’ Mark said. ‘There is a kitchen at the back, facing the garden, which is much warmer.’
The stairs went straight up from the hall and a narrow passage continued to the back of the house and into a surprisingly large kitchen, which had a small Rayburn and pine dining-table and chairs. Gabby could tell immediately that this was where Mark’s aunt had spent most of her time. It was an L-shape, and Mark went in and opened up old pine shutters which led back into the sitting room. Immediately the room was flooded with light from the dying sun.
‘I don’t think she ever closed these when she lived here.’
Gabby was silent, drinking in the light and the sound of the river. Listening to the boats hooting as they went under the bridge, to the distant growl of traffic and a blackbird somewhere, calling on one note. If it is possible, she thought, to fall in love with a house at first sight, I have just done so.
Mark, seeing her face, said, ‘I see you understand now why I am so childishly excited.’
‘Yes,’ Gabby said. ‘Oh yes.’
‘Come upstairs and then I’ll open a bottle of wine and show you the garden.’
They climbed the steep stairs to two bedrooms at the front and one at the back. Both front bedrooms were empty of furniture. The windows, stretching from floor to ceiling, looked down on the fast flowing river and the sounds of people calling to each other at the end of a day.
Mark had obviously been sleeping in the bedroom at the back of the house. There was a clock and books on the bedside table. A shirt hung on the door. A pair of trousers were neatly folded