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there.’
    ‘Yes.’
    The woman disappeared into the dimness and a door bumped softly shut. He waited. All he knewwas that Aunt Kestrel was related to the dead mother he did not remember and that he was stay with her at Iyot for some weeks of this summer. He supposed that was enough.
    In her dressing room, Kestrel adjusted her necklace, wondered if she should change it for another, put up her hands to the clasp and froze. The boy was here, and she was anxious. She had seen him once, as a baby of a month old, she did not know what he would be like and she was unused to children, but she was not innately hostile to them like Mrs Mullen. She wanted to make the boy comfortable, for him to talk to her, find entertainment, not be homesick or bored and now that he was here, her nerve failed her. But at least he would not be lonely.
    The house was silent. Mrs Mullen had announced Edward’s arrival and then disappeared. Aunt Kestrel, as she must now think of herself, replaced the necklace and went downstairs.
    They had lunch in the dining room, he and the aunt, and he sat quiet, pale and watchful, eating everything he was offered quite slowly, made nervous by the room itself, with its heavy red curtains held back by brass rods, and large portraits of men withhorses and dogs and women with hats and distant children.
    ‘Are you enjoying your lunch? Is there anything else you would like?’ He sensed with surprise that his aunt was as nervous as he was, and far more anxious to please. His own wish was more negative – not to annoy anyone, not to provoke irritation, not to be chastised, not to break anything. He had been warned so many times about the breaking of objects, of china and ornaments and even windows, that he was in a state of suspended terror, passing by the dresser with its huge dishes, small tables with glass paperweights and gilded figurines.
    ‘Is your drink too strong?’
    ‘It’s very nice, thank you.’
    It was lemon squash diluted so much that the water was barely tinted.
    ‘Do you like lamb chop?’
    ‘Yes, thank you.’
    ‘And how was your train journey? Were you properly looked after?’
    ‘Yes, thank you. I travelled in the guard’s van with the guard.’
    ‘Quite right. But was that uncomfortable?’
    It had been. He had been forced to sit on someone’s leather trunk, next to cardboard boxes of livechicks which chirped and rustled about and then went still, until they were put out onto a station platform somewhere. But the guard had shared a chocolate bar with him and told him stories about famous railway murders and ghosts in tunnels.
    ‘It was very nice, thank you.’
    He looked up from his plate at Aunt Kestrel just as she looked straight at him. They took one another in. She looked old to him, with a tweedy skirt and a buttoned blouse, and several rings on her left hand, but her face was soft and not at all unkind.
    To her, the boy was alarmingly like his mother in profile, with the same long straight nose and small mouth, but his full face was like no one she recognised. He was nervous, polite and private, his true thoughts and feelings all his own and kept hidden. His manner deterred any questions other than those about the food and drink and his journey.
    ‘Your cousin Leonora will come tomorrow. Have you met her before?’
    He shook his head, his mouth full of pears and custard.
    ‘I thought not. She is your Aunt Violet’s only child – Violet and your mother were sisters and … well, and I was sister to them both, of course. But older. Much older.’
    He said nothing.
    ‘So you are quite close in age. I hope you’ll get on.’
    He did not know what to say, having no sense at all of what it might be like to spend a whole summer with a girl cousin he had never seen.
    ‘What would you like to do now? Do you have a rest after lunch? I’m afraid I’m not used to – to what children … boys … do. Have you brought any books to read or do you play with … Or you could go into the