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onwards before I could register any more than that Derek was a morose-looking man whose ears stuck out like old-fashioned car indicators, Bob was the one wearing a battered felt hat with a pink plastic daisy in the band, and Hal’s large front teeth had a gap between them you could drive a bus through.
Aunt Hebe made a tut-tutting noise. ‘ No sign of Seth. I expect he forgot all about it.’
‘Who’s Seth?’ I said, irrationally feeling faintly aggrieved that one unknown man was missing from my royal reception committee.
‘Seth Greenwood, the…well, I suppose he’s the head gardener. But he’s a bit of a law unto himself.’
‘Oh, right!’ I said, comprehending, because head gardeners could be tricky. They often seemed to think they owned the garden and did it their way regardless of what the owners wanted. Though according to Mr Hobbs, in this case he and my grandfather had been two minds with but one single thought.
‘My sister, Ottilie, married the last head gardener,’ Hebe started, in a tone that made it clear that she had committed a major faux pas , ‘and so Seth—’ She broke off and added curtly, ‘Here is Ottie.’
A tall figure in jeans and a chambray shirt over a polo-necked jumper strode round the corner of the house, smoking a long, thin cheroot. This she flicked into a bedof late-flowering pansies and then embraced me vigorously, thumping me on the back. ‘Glad to have you back, Sophy: you should have come sooner.’
‘Thank you, Aunt Ottie,’ I said, coughing slightly. Even now, in her eighties, Ottie seemed to be twice as alive as her twin; she crackled with energy.
‘Just call me Ottie, everyone does. Clear off, you lot,’ she said to the staff. ‘You’ve only come out of curiosity and you’ve all got jobs to get to.’
‘That’s a fine way to talk,’ Mrs Lark said good-humouredly, ‘but I do need to see to my split pea and ham soup for tonight’s dinner. There’ll be lunch in the breakfast room in fifteen minutes.’
‘I’ll see you later,’ Ottie said, ‘settle in. Tell that vacant sister of mine to show you your room. You don’t want to be hanging about out here in the cold.’
‘Perhaps you would like to follow me?’ Hebe said without looking at her, and it became obvious that my aunts were not speaking to each other. ‘I expect my sister wants to get back to making mud pies in the coach house.’
‘I’m just finishing the last figure in a major sculptural commission,’ Ottie said pointedly. ‘You must come and see it before it goes to be cast, Sophy.’
Then her eyes caught sight of something behind me and opened wide in surprise. ‘Look, it’s Charlie !’
Turning, I found the final resident of Winter’s End on the top step, staring at me with slightly bulging eyes set in a pansy-shaped face—one of those tiny, black and white spaniels that you see so often in old paintings.
‘Oh, of course, Grandfather always had several King Charles spaniels, didn’t he? Though this can’t be one of the ones I remember.’
‘No, this is the last one my brother had. He’s only five, and— Good heavens!’ Aunt Hebe exclaimed, as Charliedescended the steps slightly shakily and bustled up to me in the manner of all small spaniels, tail rotating like a propeller.
He skirmished around me, whining, until I sank down and stroked him. Then he attempted to climb into my lap and I fell over backwards onto the gravel, laughing, while he tried to lick my face. Finally I got up with him in my arms.
‘Well!’ Hebe said, sounding surprisingly disapproving. ‘He’s been pining after William for weeks , but he certainly seems to have taken to you!’
‘Poor old Charlie,’ I said, holding him close. He felt like little more than skin and bone, and smelled like a dirty old carpet. I didn’t think anyone could have brushed him since my grandfather died and, like the house, he was in serious need of some TLC.
‘My sister is a sentimentalist and would probably have preferred him