again.
âItâsâfriendlyââ Some houses werenât friendly, especially empty houses. They made you feel as if you were pushing in upon their private affairs. Holme Fallow was friendly.
âYes,â said Lucilla. Her hand dropped from Sarahâs arm. âSome day I shall live here.â And with that she went on across the hall and opened the door which had been open when Sarah came that way before.
The room beyond was quite dark now, but Lucilla crossed it without having to grope her way. The next moment a long streak of light broke the dark and widened there. The middle shutter went back with a creaking sound and the daylight came in. There was bright, warm sun outside. Lucilla opened all the other shutters, and dusted her hands on her skirt.
âSnaggeâs a lazy hound,â she said. âHe ought to have all the windows open on a day like this.â Then she turned back to the room and waved a grimy hand. âFamily portraitsââ They hung round three sides of the room in heavy tarnished frames.
A tall fair youth in the riding-clothes of the eighteen-fifties, and opposite to him something very fair and fragile in ringlets and a crinoline.
âGreat-grandfather and great-grandmother at the time of their marriage.â Lucillaâs voice was quiet and serious. âShe didnât live very long. He only died the year I was born.⦠Thatâs my grandfather. He was their only child, and he was killed out hunting before he was thirty. That was done when he was twenty-one.â
Sarah looked and saw another fair young man with a scarlet coat, and breeches which looked as if they must have been too tight to ride in.
âThatâs my father and his brothers, when they were all children.â
This picture was the last on the wall facing the windows. It showed John Hildredâs three children. Lucilla named them in order of age.
âThatâs Uncle Henry. He was about five. And thatâs my father next to him. He was three and a half. And the baby is Uncle Maurice.â
Henry Hildred had his hand on his little brotherâs shoulder. He stared haughtily out of the pictureâa very fair, handsome child with an air of having bought the earth. Jack, in a linen smock, had an apple at which he seemed to look longingly, whilst the baby Maurice, in an embroidered muslin dress, sat placidly on the grass at their feet. They were all fair and rosy, with the same grey-blue eyes. Jack and Maurice were round and chubby of face.
Sarah was looking at the baby.
âI didnât know you had an Uncle Maurice. Your aunt didnât mention him. She talked about Henry and Jack.â
âJackâs my father,â said Lucilla. âShe doesnât talk about Maurice much, because it makes her cry, and she wouldnât want to cry when she was interviewing you. She was most awfully fond of him.â
âIs he dead?â
âThey donât think so, but of course he must be.â
âWhoâs they , and why donât they know?â
âWell, he was missing in 1918, but Aunt Marina always swore he wasnât dead.â
âBut why?â
âOh, because she just couldnât bear it, I suppose. She thinks heâs alive, and whatâs more Uncle Geoffrey thinks so too.â
âBut why? I mean why doesnât he come home if heâs alive?â
Lucilla frowned.
âThey think heâs wandering about in the States, or Canada, or somewhere like that. You know, Uncle Henry kept wandering and wouldnât come back, so that makes it seem more likely. And then a client of Uncle Geoffreyâs told him heâd met someone who was most awfully like the Hildreds, and he and Aunt Marina made up their minds it was Maurice. But Iâm sure heâs dead.â
Dead .⦠The word echoed in Sarahâs mind as she looked at the picture. What a damnable thing war was. There was Henry, who had been a