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  But Eve, being Eve, had thoughts only for Silvia.

  ‘… an ambulance? A nurse? Oh, dear heaven, Alec, what are they going to do to her?’

  ‘I think they’ll take her to hospital. She needs caring for, Eve.’

  ‘But I must go and see her … I must.’

  ‘My darling,’ Gerald laid a hand on her arm. ‘Let it be. For the moment, let it be. There’s nothing you can do.’

  ‘But we can’t abandon her. Whatever she’s done, she has nobody but us to turn to. We can’t abandon her.’

  She turned to Alec, appealing to him. He said, ‘She’s sick, Eve.’ Still she did not understand. ‘She’s had a nervous breakdown.’

  ‘But…’

  Gerald abandoned euphemisms. ‘My darling, she has gone off her head.’

  ‘But that’s ghastly … tragic…’

  ‘You must accept it. It’s better for you to accept it. If you don’t, then you have only one alternative, and that is infinitely worse. We suspected both Drusilla and May; two totally innocent women might have been blamed for something they knew nothing about. And that is what Silvia wanted. To destroy not only Alec and Laura’s marriage but May as well…’

  ‘Oh, Gerald—’ Her hand went over her mouth, shutting off the rest of the sentence. Her blue eyes filled with tears. ‘May … my darling May…’

  She dropped her basket of fruit and turned away from them, running down the path in the direction of the house. Her going was so sudden that Alec, instinctively, started after her, but Gerald put out a hand to stop him.

  ‘Leave her. She’ll be all right.’

  * * *

  May was sitting at her table, pasting pictures into her scrapbook. Lovely, it had been, hearing Drusilla play that nice tune. Funny girl she was. Got a new admirer by the looks of things, though May had never been much of a one for beards. She’d found some nice photos in the Sunday papers. One of the Queen Mother in a blue chiffon hat. She’d always had a pretty smile. And a comic one of a kitten in a jug with a bow round its neck. Pity about Mrs Alec’s little dog. Nice little creature, even if it had been sick on her rug.

  Because she was so deaf, she did not hear Eve coming down the passage, and the first thing she knew was her door bursting open and Eve there in the room. Such a start it gave her that she was quite annoyed and looked up crossly over her spectacles, but before she had time to say a word, Eve was across the room and on her knees at May’s side.

  ‘Oh, May…’

  She was in floods of tears. Her arms were around May’s waist, her face buried in May’s meagre bosom.

  ‘Oh, darling May…’

  ‘Well, whatever’s all this about?’ asked May in the rallying tones she had used when Eve was a very small child and had cut her knee or broken her doll. ‘My word, what’s upset you? All those tears. And all about nothing, I shouldn’t wonder. There now.’ Her gnarled arthritic hand stroked the back of Eve’s head. Such a pretty blond she’d been, and now she was quite white. ‘There now.’ Oh well, thought May, we’re none of us getting any younger. ‘There. Nothing to cry about. May’s here.’

  She had no idea what all the fuss was about. She was never to know. She never asked, and she was never told.

  9

  HOMES

  LAURA WAS ALONE in her bedroom, doing the last of the packing: emptying drawers, checking on the contents of the wardrobe, trying to remember where she had put a red leather belt or whether it was already in her suitcase. She had left Alec and Gabriel at the breakfast table, eating the last of the toast and drinking a second cup of coffee. As soon as they had finished, and Alec had assembled their various bits of luggage, they would be leaving. The car waited at the front door. Tremenheere was almost over.

  She was in the bathroom collecting her sponge and toothbrush and Alec’s shaving things, when there came a knock on the bedroom door.

  ‘Hello?’

  She heard the door open. ‘Laura.’ It was Gabriel. Carrying all the various bits and pieces, Laura emerged from the bathroom.

  ‘Oh, darling, I won’t be a moment. Is Alec making impatient noises? I’ve just got to get these things sorted, and then I’ll be ready. Is your suitcase in the car? And I’ve got a bottle of Elizabeth Arden somewhere … or have I put it in?’

  ‘Laura.’

  Laura looked at her.

  Gabriel smiled. ‘Listen to me.’

  ‘Darling, I’m listening.’ She put the things down on the bed. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s just that … would you mind most frightfully if I didn’t come back with you? If I stayed here…?’

  Laura was taken aback, but did her best not to show it. ‘But of course. I mean, there’s no rush. If you want to stay on for a bit, why shouldn’t you? It’s a good idea. I should have thought of it myself. You can join us later.’

  ‘It’s not like that, Laura. What I’m trying to say is that … I don’t think I’ll be coming to London at all. After all,’ she added unnecessarily.

  ‘You won’t…?’ Thoughts flew, undisciplined, in all directions. ‘… but what about the baby?’

  ‘I’ll probably have the baby here.’

  ‘You mean, you’re going to stay here with Eve?’

  ‘No.’ Gabriel laughed ruefully. ‘Laura, you’re being dreadfully thick. You’re not making it the least bit easy for me. I’m going to stay with Ivan.’

  ‘With I—’ Laura felt, quite suddenly, all weak at the knees and found it necessary to sit down on the edge of the bed. She saw to her surprise that Gabriel, rather endearingly, was blushing.

  ‘Gabriel!’

  ‘Does that horrify you?’

  ‘No, of course it doesn’t horrify me. But it is a little surprising.… You’ve only just met him. You scarcely know him.’

  ‘That’s why I’m going to stay with him. So that we really can get to know each other.’

  ‘Are you sure this is what you want to do?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sure. And he’s sure too.’ When Laura did not reply, Gabriel came to curl up on the bed beside her. ‘We’ve fallen in love, Laura. At least, I think that’s what happened to us. I don’t know for certain, because it’s never happened to me before. I never really believed in it. And as for falling in love at first sight, I always told myself that was just a lot of sentimental twaddle.’

  ‘It isn’t,’ Laura told her. ‘I know, because I fell in love with your father at first sight. Before I even knew who he was.’

  ‘Then you understand. You don’t think I’m behaving like an idiot. You don’t think it’s all a wild figment of my imagination, or something to do with hormones or being pregnant.’

  ‘No. I don’t think that.’

  ‘I’m so happy, Laura.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll marry him?’

  ‘I expect so. One day. We’ll probably walk down to the church in the village, just the two of us, and come back man and wife. You wouldn’t mind if we did that, would you? You wouldn’t mind losing out on all the hassles of a family wedding?’

  ‘I don’t think you should ask me that. I think you should ask Alec.’

  ‘Ivan’s downstairs now, telling him what I’m telling you. We thought it would be easier that way. For everybody.’

  ‘Does he know about the baby?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And he doesn’t mind?’

  ‘No. He says, in a funny way, it just makes him more certain that this is what he wants.’

  ‘Oh, Gabriel.’ She put her arms around her stepdaughter, and for the first time they embraced, hugging enormously, kissing with a true and tender affection. ‘He’s such a special person. Almost as special as you are. You both deserve all the happiness in the world.’

  Gabriel drew away. ‘When the baby comes, will you come back to Tremenheere? I’d like you to be around when it’s born.’

  ‘Wild horses wouldn’t keep me away.’

  ‘And you’re not upset about me not coming back to London with you after all?’

/>   ‘It’s your life. You must live it your way. Just know that your father’s always there if you need him. You didn’t realize it before, but that’s the way it’s always been.’

  Gabriel grinned. ‘I guess so,’ she said.

  * * *

  She was still there, still endeavouring, in a bemused fashion, to finish the packing, when Alec came to find her. As he opened the door, she straightened from her suitcase, a hairbrush in one hand and the elusive bottle of Elizabeth Arden in the other. For a long moment they looked at each other across the room, in silence, not because they had nothing to say, but because words were unnecessary. He shut the door, with some force, behind him. His expression was serious, his features set grimly, the corners of his mouth turned down, but his eyes, bright with amusement, gave him away. And Laura knew that he was laughing, not at Ivan and Gabriel, but at themselves.

  It was he who broke the silence. ‘We look,’ he told Laura, ‘the very picture of two long-suffering parents, trying to come to terms with the dotty inconsistencies of the younger generation.’

  She dissolved into laughter. ‘Darling, however hard you try, you’ll never sound like a Victorian father.’

  ‘I wanted you to believe I was enraged.’

  ‘You haven’t succeeded. You don’t mind?’

  ‘Mind? That’s the understatement of the year. I’m punch-drunk with body blows, most of them beneath the belt. Ivan and Gabriel.’ He cocked an eyebrow. ‘What do you think about it?’

  ‘I think,’ said Laura, stowing the bottle and the hairbrush, and shutting the suitcase. ‘I think they need each other.’ She fastened the locks. ‘I think they’re in love, but I think they like each other too.’

  ‘They don’t know each other.’

  ‘Oh, yes, they do. They made friends right away, and they’ve been together constantly over the last two days. He’s a very kind man, and Gabriel, for all that veneer of toughness, needs kindness. Especially now, with the baby on the way.’

  ‘That’s the other extraordinary thing. He doesn’t give a damn about a baby being on the way. Just makes him more sure than ever that he wants to spend the rest of his life with her.’

  ‘Alec, he loves her.’

  At that, he had to smile, shaking his head. ‘Laura, my darling, you’re a romantic.’

  ‘I think Gabriel’s probably a romantic too, although she doesn’t want to admit it.’

  He thought this over. ‘There’s one good thing about all this. If she stays here, I won’t need to go hunting for a bigger house.’

  ‘Don’t count on it.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I’m coming back to Tremenheere when Gabriel has the baby. That’s eight months’ time. I may be pregnant myself by then. You never know.’

  Alec smiled again, his eyes filled with love. ‘That’s right,’ he said, ‘you never know.’ He kissed her. ‘Now, are you ready? Because they’re all hanging around downstairs in the hall, waiting to see us off. My father always used to say, if you’re going, go. Let’s not keep them waiting.’

  She shut the last of the cases, and he picked them up and made for the door, but Laura lingered for a last look around. Lucy’s basket was gone, for Gerald had burned it. And Lucy was buried here, at Tremenheere, in the garden. Gerald had offered to have a little headstone carved, but somehow that did not seem quite right, so instead Eve had promised to plant a rose over the spot where Lucy lay. An old-fashioned rose. Perpétué et Félicité, perhaps. Darling little pale pink flowers. Just right for Lucy.

  Perpétué et Félicité. She thought of Lucy, running across the grass towards her, eyes shining, ears streaming, tail whisking with delight. It was a good way to remember her, and Félicité meant happiness. Her eyes had misted with tears—it was still impossible to think of Lucy without tears—but she brushed them swiftly away and turned and followed her husband through the door.

  Behind them, the deserted room lay empty and still, but for a curtain stirring, caught by the summer morning breeze.

  Read all of Rosamunde Pilcher’s wonderful novels

  The Shell Seekers

  The Carousel

  Voices in Summer

  The Blue Bedroom and Other Stories

  September

  Flowers in the Rain and Other Stories

  Coming Home

  Wild Mountain Thyme

  Under Gemini

  Sleeping Tiger

  The Empty House

  The End of Summer

  Snow in April

  The Day of the Storm

  Another View

  Winter Solstice

  AN OUTPOURING OF PRAISE FOR THE FICTION THAT HAS TOUCHED THE WORLD

  Voices in Summer

  “I don’t know where Rosamunde Pilcher has been all my life—but now that I’ve found her, I’m not going to let her go.”

  —The New York Times

  “Intriguing characters … lovely settings … romantic fiction with substance … PILCHER DISPLAYS A PERFECT TOUCH!”

  —Booklist

  “Pilcher evokes the sense of contentment that flows from affection.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  The Blue Bedroom and Other Stories

  “BREATHTAKING … A book you will want to keep, to read and re-read!”

  —Grand Rapids Press

  “WARM AND UNUSUALLY CHARMING. I think there should be room in everyone’s bookcase for Mrs. Pilcher’s view of life.”

  —Danbury News Times

  “Her characters are as real as you and I and the joy of living.”

  —Columbia—The Midwest Review of Books

  VOICES IN SUMMER

  Copyright © 1984 by Rosamunde Pilcher.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  ISBN: 0-312-92527-1

  EAN: 80312-92527-7

  St. Martin’s Press hardcover edition published 1984

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / August 1986

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  eISBN 9781466824942

  First eBook edition: February 2013