The Song of Hartgrove Hall by Natasha Solomons

meet her family, I think. He hasn’t yet and he wants to.
    â€˜I’m not telling you how old my mother is, because it shows you how old I am,’ she says archly, plucking a dandelion and flinging it at him.
    He loves her, I decide, but he doesn’t really know her at all. I thought loving someone entailed knowing every little detail about them – but then perhaps that’s not love, merely familiarity. I’d like to be more familiar with Edie, I think, and then, embarrassed, I feel heat rise into my cheeks. That bloody hock. I check my watch – it’s nearly five, we’ve been here for ages.
    â€˜I have to go soon,’ I tell the others.
    â€˜Whatever for?’ asks Jack.
    â€˜There’s an old bloke nearby who knows a good many songs, apparently. I’ve been invited to tea.’
    Edie leans forward, hugging her knees. ‘Found anything good lately?’
    â€˜A few. Mostly around Cambridge but I want to hear theold Dorset songs again. Those are my favourites. Nothing sounds half so pleasant as the songs of home.’
    She studies me for a moment and then asks, ‘Can I come with you?’
    â€˜I don’t see why not. Can’t think why the old chap would mind. We should get going, though.’
    As Edie starts to put her stockings back on, Jack sits up and grabs her ankle. ‘Don’t leave me. I shall be bereft without you.’
    She shakes him off. ‘Stop it, Jack, you’re being a pest.’
    He flops back in the grass, unconcerned. ‘Come for a swim first.’
    â€˜Absolutely not,’ I say. ‘We simply don’t have time.’
    â€”
    Dripping wet from our swim, we hurry across the fields in bare feet. I wonder how it is that Jack invariably gets his own way. It’s a rare and unacknowledged gift. In the pub after several pints we sometimes debate what special power we’d like best and I always thought it would be super to fly, but really I think it would be better to always get my own way.
    â€˜Slow down, Fox,’ says Edie. ‘You’re going awfully fast.’
    â€˜Sorry.’
    I wait for her to catch up. Her wet hair hangs loose in a plait. I’ve never seen her with her hair down and she appears younger, girlish. Her movements are precise and balletic and she possesses a careful self-constraint as if everything she utters is weighed and measured first. As I’ve got to know her better, I’ve found to my surprise that she’s not quite the absolute stunner I’d imagined. Of course she’s attractive, and in photographs she’s made up to be beautiful. I’ve noticed too that on meeting strangers she always behaves as though she is a lovely woman to whom they ought to be paying court and, somehow, without fail they do.
    This afternoon any make-up has been washed clean away by the swim and she seems less contained and for once unselfconscious as she strides through the grass. She plucks the petals from a daisy, scattering them on the verge. There is a tiny streak of mud on her cheek and I don’t tell her, knowing that, as soon as I do, she’ll seize her pocket handkerchief and scrub it off, self-conscious again. I prefer her like this.
    We’re to walk to Christopher Lodder’s cottage and afterwards back to the Hall. It’s a longish walk – nearly seven miles all told – but Edie assures me she can manage it. Also I don’t want Jack appearing at the cottage after an hour or whenever he’s bored, to collect us in the car. He never can keep time. Things happen precisely when he wishes them to. I make an effort to slow my pace again – I have the itch of excitement I always get when I’m off song collecting.
    â€˜When we were boys George pressed leaves, orchids and butterflies between the pages of his schoolbooks so he could take little bits of Hartgrove with him. With me it was songs so I could listen to home.