“Arthur!” Gilda jumped up and waved at two men pushing bicycles along the tree-lined path towards the Cathedral entrance. Both had their right trouser legs tucked into their socks to keep them from getting caught in the chains. One was the man with the white hair and moustache Violet had seen at the Cathedral during the broderers’ service. At the sound of Gilda’s voice he stopped, then wheeled his bicycle over to them, followed by a younger, shorter man. Violet scrambled to her feet.
“Hello, Gilda.” The man raised his hat at Gilda, then nodded at Violet. His eyes were bright chips of blue, his gaze warm and direct. She felt herself flush red, though she was not sure why: he was much older than she, and – she automatically glanced – he wore a wedding ring.
“Are we going to hear you soon?” Gilda demanded.
“Not this afternoon. We’re just meeting with the verger to go over the summer schedule. Beyond the normal, there are a few weddings, and the royal birthdays, of course. This is Keith Bain, often our tenor. I’m not sure if you’ve met – he’s lived in Winchester for two years.”
The younger man, small and wiry, with ginger hair and a carpet of freckles, nodded at them.
“This is Violet Speedwell. She’s just joined the Cathedral Broderers, haven’t you, Vi?”
Violet flinched. No one had called her Vi since Laurence died; her family had instinctively understood that his nickname for her was now off-limits. She tried to cover her discomfort by holding out her hand, but as Arthur shook it she suspected he was filing away in his mind: Don’t call her Vi.
He smiled at her. “Your name – that was very clever of your parents.”
“Clever how?” Gilda wanted to know.
“Speedwell is the common name for veronica, a kind of purple flower. And they named her Violet.”
“It was my father’s idea,” Violet explained. “My brothers have – had – have more traditional names.” She did not name them – she did not want to say George’s name aloud.
“Good thing they didn’t name you Veronica!” Gilda laughed. “Veronica Veronica.”
“I see you’ve chosen Thetcher to sit by.” Arthur nodded at the gravestone.
“I’d never seen it before,” Violet admitted.
“Ah, then you must not be from Winchester.”
“No. Southampton. I moved here seven months ago.”
“I thought not. I would have known you otherwise.” His tone was neutral but somehow the words were not. Violet’s cheeks grew warm again.
“Arthur and I went to the same church for a long time,” Gilda explained. “I played with his daughter at Sunday school. She’s in Australia now, and Arthur’s moved to the country. To Nether Wallop, the most beautiful village in England, and with the funniest name.”
Even as Arthur was correcting her – “Technically our cottage is in Middle Wallop” – Violet was remembering a visit to Nether Wallop with her father and brothers when she was a girl. “I have been there,” she said. “The Douce pyramid.”
Keith Bain and Gilda looked puzzled, but Arthur nodded. “Indeed.” He turned to the others. “In the churchyard at Nether Wallop there is a pyramid on the grave of Francis Douce. Apparently the family liked pyramids, as other relatives had them built as well, such as at Farley Mount.” He smiled again at Violet, and she silently thanked her father for plotting the route of their short walking holiday so that they passed through Nether Wallop. She would have been eleven, Tom seven, and George thirteen. Mrs Speedwell had not come with them, which made the holiday more relaxed and put them all in good moods as they’d taken the train to Salisbury and a cart up to Stonehenge, then began walking through woods and skirting newly planted fields of wheat. At Nether Wallop they stayed at the Five Bells, and went to look at the church, where George had got a leg-up from their father so he could grab the stone flame that topped the pyramid tombstone, and declared himself the King of Egypt. If any of them had been told that day that eleven years later he and hundreds of thousands of other British men would be dead, they would not have believed it.
To her mortification, sudden tears pricked Violet’s eyes, spilling over before she could hide them. She rarely cried over the loss of George and Laurence. Mrs Speedwell had always been the town crier of the family loss, leaving little room for Violet or Tom or their father to voice their own feelings. When Laurence died a year after George, Mrs Speedwell not once expressed sorrow or tried to comfort Violet, but managed to make it into a competition, reminding anyone who would listen that a mother’s loss of her son was the worst loss there was, the implication being that this trumped a girl losing her fiancé. Violet did not want to play that game, and stifled any tears.
Arthur was holding out a handkerchief with quiet understanding. Even almost fourteen years after the War’s end, no one was surprised by sudden tears.
“Thank you.” Violet wiped her eyes. “I’m terribly sorry.” Arthur and Keith nodded, and Gilda patted her arm just the right amount. Then they carried on, because that was what you did.
“I haven’t been to Farley Mount in years,” Gilda remarked. “We used to go all the time on a Sunday afternoon.”
“What’s Farley Mount, then?” Keith Bain spoke for the first time. To Violet’s surprise, he had a Scottish accent.
Gilda and Arthur chuckled. “Beware Chalk Pit!” Gilda cried.
“Unlikely as it sounds, Beware Chalk Pit is a horse’s name,” Arthur explained. “A relative of the Douces built a pyramid on top of a hill a few miles from Winchester, in honour of his horse who had won a race. Before the race the horse had fallen into a chalk pit, hence the name.”
“Maybe I’ll walk out to it,” Keith Bain said. “I’ve only been up St Catherine’s Hill. Want to see more of the countryside. Where is it?”
“About five miles west of here. If you fancy a longer walk, you can go straight across the fields to Salisbury. That’s twenty-six miles. I call it the Cathedral Walk. You can stay the night at mine in the Wallops en route if you like.”
“I may well do that.”
“We’d best get on to see the verger.” Arthur turned to Violet. “Very good to meet you, Miss Speedwell.”
“And you.” Violet watched him wheel his bicycle towards the side of the Cathedral. His brief attention had steadied her, like a hand reaching out to still a rocking chair that has been knocked.
Only after he’d gone did she realise she was still clutching his handkerchief. The initials AK had been embroidered in an uneven blue chain stitch in one corner. She could run after him, or give it to Gilda to give to him. Instead she waited until her new friend wasn’t looking, then tucked it in her handbag.
“Are they in a choir of some sort?” she asked when the handkerchief was out of sight.
“Not at all,” Gilda replied, folding the waxed paper from the sandwiches. “What made you think that?”
“He mentioned being a tenor.”
“No, no, they’re bellringers! For the Cathedral. Now, shall we have a coffee? Then I’m going to find a telephone and tell your office you’ve taken ill – fainted on the Outer Close!”
On their return, Violet found that her privileged position as Miss Pesel’s new pupil had been usurped. Several other broderers were crowded around her; indeed, two who saw Violet enter pushed closer, as if to defend their positions and their teacher.
“Which stitches was she going to teach you?” Gilda asked, frowning at the scrum.
Violet picked up the model. “This one … Rice, I think. And eyelets.”
“I