Page 9 of The Gathering Storm

‘What are you going after?’ she asked, eyeing the gun under his arm. ‘Deer?’

‘Not with Helmy,’ he said. ‘I thought I might try for some pigeons. Could you fancy pigeon pie?’

‘You get ’em, I’ll eat ’em. You seem very jolly. Has something happened?’

‘It has. I had a telephone call from Charlie. Typical of him: “Where are you, James? Why aren’t you here, James?” As if I should have known by instinct that he wanted me back.’

‘Where’s “here”?’

‘London, but he’s going back to Paris soon. He says he’s got a big adventure planned for the spring, but he won’t tell me what it is yet.’

‘How exciting.’

‘Well, I expect it will be, knowing Charlie. Oh, and he’s having a series of dinners in London at the moment and wants me to help him with them. So I shall be heading off tomorrow.’

‘So soon? Oh dear, I shall miss you.’

‘I’ll miss you too.’

‘Well, we’ve got tonight. I’ll have them bring up a good bottle of wine.’

He grinned. ‘Already thought of that.’ Zephyr, fidgeting, butted him in the chest. ‘Better get this nag in out of the cold. I’ll see you later.’ He passed on, but immediately stopped and turned back to say, ‘Oh, and you had a cable while you were out.’

‘From Lennie?’ she said eagerly.

‘I don’t know, I didn’t read it,’ he said, and was gone.

In the great hall, Barlow, the butler, Fand, her dog, and Alec all found her at the same moment. Fand tried to knock her over, Barlow gave her the cable, and Alec wound himself round her waist and begged her to come and see what he’d been doing. She patted the dog, promised Alec she would come, and tore open the cable. It would be details of Lennie’s sailing, she supposed. She began to hatch a plan to drive down and meet him at Southampton. It would be fun to surprise—

VERY MUCH REGRET WILL HAVE TO POSTPONE VISIT + FAMILY PROBLEMS WILL KEEP ME HERE SOME MONTHS + HEARTFELT APOLOGIES + LETTER FOLLOWS + LOVE LENNIE ++

It was, Polly thought, enough to make you cry.