The wood was alive with birdsong. Squirrels raced up and down the trunks of beech trees, at their most active now as autumn approached and they finished laying in their store of foods. Wood pigeons cooed far away. A jay gave a harsh call and flitted past them, making the children cry out with pleasure in his vivid flashing colours, the electric blue and chestnut brown. Emma followed sympathetically in their wake as they ran ahead, kicking up beech mast and oak leaves, collecting shiny chestnuts from the wet grass, gazing at delight at the millions of cobwebs of all shapes and sizes which decorated the gorse bushes, glittering in the sunlight as it filtered through the leaves.
They came down through the wood, emerging on a sandy lane, and wandered along beside the hedge. Robin gazed into the tangled, twiggy depths, pausing to gloat over the ripening black-berries. 'Can I eat them?' he asked.
Emma nodded. 'Yes, you may eat those, but always ask and show me before you eat any other berries. I'm sure Mummy told you that.'
Donna nodded primly. 'Yes, she did.'
Tracy broke into a run as they reached a long garden which ran up to the little whitewashed inn. A woman came out, a large yellow plastic clothes basket under one plump arm, a capacious white apron enveloping her waist, her greying hair tied up behind her in a neat bun, her rosy face twinkling with smiles. 'Mrs Pat!' called Tracy.
'Well, now! If it isn't Tracy…my word, you've grown! Leggy as a young colt, you be.' She put down her basket, with its snowy white contents, and bent to scoop up Donna, giving her a large warm kiss. 'You're a proper little lovie, aren't you? And that's Robin, is it? My word, you've grown too…last time I set eyes on you, you were a baby, and now you're a young man.'
'I'm four,' Robin informed her, his smile kind but pitying.
Mrs Pat laughed, winking at Emma. 'Aye, so you are! You remind me of your uncle Ross when he was your age.'
Emma looked at Robin, open-eyed. Yes, she thought to herself, that explained a great deal. So that was how the chicken came out of the egg!
'Come along in and take tea with me,' Mrs Pat invited, smiling. 'I've got the kettle on.' She winked. 'I always have it on!'
The enormous, cosy kitchen faced three sides, airy and bright, with the wood through one window, the open fields on view through another and the garden through a third. A small black kitten slept on the rag rug in front of the stove. A kettle hummed busily on the hob. The children were soon seated round the long deal table, eating with the appetite of youth from a plate piled high with hot, fluffy scones. The butter was pale and cold, the jam home-made.
Mrs Pat gave them cold milk, at their request, but made tea for herself and Emma, in a fat teapot the colour of the shy chestnuts they had found in the wood.
Emma told her how she came to be in charge of the children, and Mrs Pat laughed. 'Ross won't like that.'
'He doesn't,' agreed Emma. 'He wants to find someone to sleep in the house at night…to chaperone us!'
'I'm sure he does,' nodded Mrs Pat.
'It seems a bit old-fashioned,' Emma said, 'with three children there.'
'Ah, well, sometimes one has to be very careful,' said Mrs Pat. She studied Emma closely. 'Tell me about yourself, m'dear…come from London, do you? You're a long way from home.'
Emma found herself talking. Mrs Pat skilfully, tactfully, almost unnoticeably, drew from her every detail of her life and background, listening intently. Emma even found herself confessing to her abortive love affair, to her pain over Guy, her decision to run away and leave him to Fanny.
'In a way, I'm grateful all this happened,' she admitted with a grimace. 'So much has happened in the last twenty-four hours that I've almost forgotten Guy.' Certainly the sharp sting of the pain was less. She could think of him with less grief.
A squawk from the garden attracted the children's notice, and Emma glanced out. A large, white-haired woman stood by a far hedge, scattering food for a flock of small, brown bantam hens which excitedly fought for it, wings flapping, leaping at each other with loud cries.
'My sister Edie,' said Mrs Pat, with a sigh. 'She never married, Edie didn't. A loving, gentle creature, works like a demon, but she was never what you might call bright…slow thinking, see. I don't see why Edie shouldn't come down and give you a hand while you and the children are at the cottage. She's scared of men, though, so while Ross is around she'll shrink into herself. That's why he never asked her to come. He knows how she is…But she does love children so! It would please her to be with them.'
Emma watched as the three children raced out to talk to Edie, to help her feed the hens. They saw her look round at the house, alarmed, trembling a little.
'She's afraid Ross is here,' said Mrs Pat, sighing.
Then Tracy talked, and Edie visibly relaxed, bending to let Donna take a handful of hen food to scatter. The grains fell haphazardly, and the hens fought and squawked. Donna laughed ou
t loud. Edie laughed, too. Despite the gap in their age, they looked oddly alike at that instant. Emma was touched.
Edie came shyly into the kitchen later, pink and nervous as she glanced at Emma. Her skin was weathered and innocent of make-up, her blue eyes gentle and wistful. From time to time she looked at Donna, eagerly, with uncertain but touching delight. Once she offered Donna a biscuit, her wrinkled brown hand briefly touching the child's smooth cheek in an infinitely touching gesture.
'They're needing help up at Rook Cottage,' Mrs Pat said quietly. 'I said you might be willing.'
Edie looked uneasily around her, alarmed at the idea.
'Please come and help,' Emma asked softly. She gave Donna a little push. 'The children would like it, wouldn't you, Donna?'
Donna willingly went forward and leant against the old woman's lap, her bright gaze lifted. 'Yeth,' she nodded.