‘It’d be quicker.’

‘There it is!’ Sir John shouted suddenly. ‘There they are! Pictures!’

Margaret bent.

‘How’s that!’ Sir John exclaimed. ‘A slide show! A slide show of your new home! Barton Cottage. It’s a charmer. You’ll love it.’

Slowly, the four of them formed a semicircle behind the armchair. Sir John made a tremendous show of clicking and flicking until a photograph of an uncompromisingly small modern house on a slope, backed by trees, filled the screen.

‘But,’ Marianne cried in disappointment, ‘it’s new!’

‘I’ve just built it,’ Sir John said with satisfaction. ‘Planning was a complete nightmare but I battled through. I was going to use it as a holiday let.’

‘It’s – lovely,’ Belle said faintly.

‘Perfect spot,’ Sir John said, ‘amazing views, new bathroom, kitchen, utility, the works.’ He glanced at Marianne. ‘You wanted roses round the door?’

‘And maybe thatch …’

‘Marianne, honestly! So ungrateful.’

‘No, she isn’t,’ Sir John said. ‘Just honest. And it’s a comedown after this place. I can see that.’ He looked back at the screen. It now showed an astonishing view down a wooded valley, dramatic and startlingly green.

‘Well?’

Belle deliberately avoided looking at her daughters. She said, in a rush, ‘We’d love it.’

‘Ma—’

‘No,’ she said. She wouldn’t look at them. She looked instead at the next picture, of a steep hill rushing up towards a cloud-dappled sky. ‘We’d love it. It looks charming. Such a – setting.’

Elinor cleared her throat. She said to Sir John, ‘Where is Barton exactly?’

He beamed at her. ‘Near Exeter.’

‘Exeter …’

‘What’s Exeter?’ Margaret said.

‘It’s a place, darling. A lovely historic place in Devon.’

‘Between Dartmoor and Exmoor,’ Sir John said proudly.

Marianne said tragically, ‘I don’t really know where Devon is.’

‘It’s gorgeous,’ Belle said emphatically. ‘Gorgeous. Next to Cornwall.’

All three girls gazed at her. ‘Cornwall!’

‘Not as far …’ Elinor said, trying not to sound pleading, ‘I have just one more year to go at—’

‘And my music!’ Marianne cried. ‘What about my music?’

Margaret had her fingers in her ears and her eyes shut. ‘Don’t anyone dare say I have to change schools.’

Belle smiled at Sir John.

‘Elinor’s studying architecture. She draws beautifully.’

He smiled back at her. ‘I remember Henry saying you did, too. You’ll be in your element at Barton, drawing and painting away.’

‘I did figures, mostly, but I’m sure I could—’

‘And Elinor’, Marianne said loudly, ‘draws buildings. Where can she study buildings in Devon?’

‘Darling. Don’t, darling. Don’t be rude.’

John Middleton beamed again at Marianne. ‘She’s not rude. She’s refreshing. I like refreshing. My kids will adore her; they love anyone out of the ordinary. Four of them. Enough energy to power your average city, between them.’ He closed his laptop and looked up at Belle. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Well. Can I take it that you and the girls will come and live at Barton Cottage for what I promise you will be a very modest rent?’

Margaret took her fingers out of her ears and opened her eyes. She flung her arms wide in a gesture of despair. ‘What about all my friends?’ she said.

‘I wonder’, Belle said from the doorway, ‘if I could trouble you for a moment?’

Both Fanny and John Dashwood, who were watching the evening news on television with glasses in their hands, gave a little jump in their chairs.

‘Belle!’ John Dashwood said, with surprise rather than pleasure.

He leaned forward and reduced the volume on the television, although he didn’t turn it off altogether. Fanny remained where she was, holding her wine glass. John stood up slowly. ‘Have a drink,’ he said automatically, gesturing vaguely towards the bottle plainly visible on a silver tray on the coffee table in front of them.

‘I’m sure’, Fanny said, ‘that she won’t be staying that long.’

Belle smiled at her. She advanced into the room far enough to give herself authority, but not so far that she couldn’t make a quick escape. ‘Quite right, Fanny. I will be two minutes. We had a visitor this afternoon.’

Fanny continued to regard her wine glass. She said to it, ‘I wondered when you would see fit to mention that to me.’

Belle smiled broadly at John. ‘Would it be an awful nuisance to turn the television off?’

John glanced at Fanny. She made an impatient little gesture of dismissal. He picked up the remote again and aimed it at the screen.

‘Thank you,’ Belle said. She was determined to keep smiling. She folded her hands lightly in front of her. ‘The thing is, that we won’t be troubling you here at Norland much longer. We’ve been offered a house. By a relation of mine.’

John looked truly startled. ‘Good heavens.’

Fanny said smoothly, ‘But not too far from here, I hope?’

‘Actually …’ Belle said, and stopped, savouring the moment.

‘Actually what?’

‘We are going to Devon,’ Belle said with satisfaction.

‘Devon!’

‘Near Exeter. A house on an estate which is, I gather, just a fraction larger than this one. It belongs to my cousin. My cousin Sir John Middleton.’

John said, almost inaudibly, ‘My cousin, I believe. A Dashwood cousin.’

Belle took no notice. She looked directly, smilingly, at Fanny. ‘So we’ll be out of your hair by the end of the month. As soon as we can sort a school for Margaret and all that.’

‘But I was going to help you find a house!’ John said aggrievedly.

‘So sweet of you, but in the end the house came to us.’

‘So lucky,’ Fanny said.

‘Oh, I agree. So lucky.’

‘It’s too bad,’ John exclaimed.

‘What is?’

‘It’s too bad of you to make all these arrangements without consulting me.’

‘But you didn’t want me to consult you,’ Belle said.

Fanny said clearly, ‘Sweetness, you’ve given them all somewhere to live all summer, rent free, and the run of the kitchen gardens, after all.’

John glanced at her. He said with relief, ‘So I have.’

‘There we are,’ Belle said brightly. ‘All settled. You let us stay on in our own home for a while and now we’ve found another one to go to! Perfect. I’ve taken Barton Cottage for a year and, of course, it would be lovely to see you there whenever you are down that way.’

Fanny looked out of the window. ‘I never go to Devon,’ she said.

Belle paused in the doorway. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I thought not. But maybe you’ll break the habit of a lifetime. It’s odd, really, that you never went to see Edward all the time he was in Plymouth, don’t you think?’

Fanny’s head snapped back round. ‘Edward! Why mention Edward?’

Belle was almost out of the door. ‘Oh, Edward,’ she said airily. ‘Dear Edward. So affectionate. He’s going to come to Barton. I made a special point of asking him to come and see us in the cottage. And he said he’d love to.’

And then she reached for the handle and closed the door behind her with a small but triumphant bang.

4

‘Marianne,’ Elinor said, ‘will you please put that guitar down and come and help us?’

Marianne was in her favourite playing chair by the window in her bedroom, her right foot on a small pile of books – a French dictionary and two volumes of Shakespeare’s history plays came to just the right height – and the guitar resting comfortably across her thigh. She was playing a song of Taylor Swift’s that she had played a good deal since Dad died, even though – or maybe even because – everyone had told her that a player at her level could surely express themselves better with something more serious. It was called ‘Teardrops on My Guitar’, and to Elinor’s mind, it was mawkish.

‘Oh, M, please.’

Marianne played determinedly on to the end of a verse. She said, when she’d finished, ‘I know you hate that song.’

‘I don’t hate it …’

‘It isn’t much of a song. I know that. It isn’t hard to play. But it suits me. It suits how I feel.’

Elinor said, ‘We’re packing books. You can’t imagine how many books there are.’

‘I thought the cottage was furnished?’

‘It is. But not with books and pictures and things. We could get through it so much more quickly if you just came and helped a bit.’

Marianne raised her head to look out of the window. She folded both arms embracingly around her guitar. She said, ‘Can you imagine being away from here?’

Elinor said tiredly, ‘We’ve been through all that.’

‘Look at those trees. Look at them. And the lake. I’ve done all my practice by this window, looking out at that view. I’ve played the guitar in this room for ten years, Ellie, ten years.’ She looked down at the guitar. ‘Dad gave me my guitar in this room.’

‘I remember.’

‘When I got grade five.’

‘Yes.’

‘He did all the research, and everything. I remember him saying it had to have a cedar top and rosewood sides and an ebony fingerboard, a proper, classical, Spanish guitar. He was so excited.’

Elinor came further into the room. She said soothingly, ‘It’s coming with us, M, you’ll have your guitar.’

Marianne said suddenly, ‘Fanny—’ and stopped.

‘Fanny? What about her?’

Marianne looked at her. ‘Yesterday. Fanny asked me what the guitar had cost.’