Carola Dunn by My Dearest Valentine Page B

pageant and taking tea with the vicar is not the acme of excitement, yet what else is there to do, buried as we are in the depths of the country?”
    “We should have stayed with your aunt,” said Philo guiltily. “At least there was more society there, even though we were still in full mourning.”
    “Out of the question,” Aquila responded with unwonted vigour. “Papa might not have been the most conscientious of parents, but he would never have allowed you to be insulted as you were in that household.”
    A violent thumping on the door of the chamber the girls shared announced four-year-old Toby’s arrival. “Aunt Philo, I’m ready. Mama putted on my boots and my coat and said be good. Come on, ‘fore the wizard flies away on his broomstick.”
    With a laugh that transformed her rather solemn face, Philo kissed her sister’s cheek and obeyed the summons.
    “We must feed the birds before we leave,” she said to the boy as they went downstairs.
    “We already did, right after breakfast, ‘member?”
    “Not the canaries; the robins and bluetits in the garden. When the weather is so cold, they need feeding as much as the canaries do.”
    A burst of liquid song greeted them as they crossed the drawing room and opened the French door into the small conservatory with its wide, south-facing windows. Only a withered palm and several pots of dormant begonias showed its original use. In a pair of spacious cages on a shelf to one side, the female canaries hopped and fluttered, while Metternich and Talleyrand puffed out their yellow chests as they warbled a serenade.
    Philomena paused on the step to listen. As always, her heart filled with delight at the joyful sound. Daughter of an opera singer and named for the nightingale, she was sadly mortified by her inability to carry a tune. Breeding canaries was some slight consolation.
    Toby was already opening the sack of canary seed that stood in one corner of the room, spilling grain on the slate floor. He had learnt to be gentle and quiet around the birds and could usually be trusted to fill their water dishes without spilling a drop. Today he was impatient.
    “Come on, Aunt Philo. The wizard will fly away.”
    He filled a tin cup with the grain, and they took it outside to replenish the supply on the bird table. Beneath their feet the frosted grass crackled, glittering in the rays of the morning sun.
    “Mrs Barleyman says we can get to Marsh Cottage through the back gate, across the field and down the lane,” Philo said.
    “I know the way,” Toby told her importantly. “I’ll show you.”
    Philomena’s modish grey, fur-collared cloak was more suited to strolling in the Prater in Vienna than to climbing stiles and tramping down a Lincolnshire lane. Fortunately, the overnight freeze had hardened the muddy ruts and even glazed the puddles with a thin layer of ice. Though Marsh Cottage was isolated from the village of Valentine Parva, they were soon close enough to see a trickle of smoke rising from the chimney.
    Between leafless hawthorn hedges, the lane ran down a slope to ford a small stream, with a narrow wooden bridge for foot passengers. On the other side, in a dank, overgrown hollow, stood the wattle and lath cottage.
    “It’s situation does look aguish, as Mrs Barleyman said, but it’s not really tumbledown,” Philo commented as they stopped, by silent mutual consent, to observe their goal. “Just dilapidated.”
    “What’s lapidated mean?” Toby held her hand tightly, his round cheeks pink with cold and anticipation.
    “Badly cared for. It needs a coat of whitewash, and the tiles are covered with moss, though there don’t seem to be any holes in the roof, nor broken windows. But the fence has fallen down, and it looks as if the garden has grown wild for years.”
    “That’s good, ‘cause there’s lots of bushes for us to hide behind when we look through the windows.”
    Philo was struck with the impropriety of their expedition. She had not really