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Sir John Middleton liked to describe himself as a dinosaur. In fact, he said, he was a double dinosaur.
‘These days,’ he’d say, to anyone who would listen, ‘it’s out of the Ark to inherit a house, never mind a bloody great pile like Barton. And as for being a baronet – I ask you! The definition of antediluvian, or what? There isn’t even a procedure for renouncing your title if you’re a baronet, would you believe? I am stuck with it. Stuck. Sir John M., Bart., to my dying day. Hah!’
His father, another Sir John, had been born in the house, which he left, without a penny to run it, to his son. It was a handsome William and Mary house in Devon, set in dramatic wooded country above the River Exe, to the north of Exeter, and the household, in young Sir John’s childhood, had grown used to the corridors being scattered with buckets placed strategically under leaks in various ceilings, and to draughts and damp and extremely intermittent hot water, provided by an ancient boiler in the basement which devoured industrial quantities of coal to very little consistent effect.
Sir John’s father had minded none of these things. He had been a boy at the outbreak of the Second World War, and was absolutely indifferent to bad weather, bad food and chilblains. He inherited just enough money to continue living at Barton Park in increasing discomfort, but still able to indulge to the full his passion for field sports. He shot and fished anything that moved or swam, preferred his gun room and game larder to any other parts of his house and, after his wife unsurprisingly left him for a property developer in Bristol, spent any available cash on trips to slaughter snipe in Spain or sharks in the Caribbean. When he died – as he would devoutly have wished to do – big-game hunting on a private estate in Kenya, he left his son the run-down wreck of Barton Park, the title and a locked cabinet of beautifully kept, perfectly matched pairs of Purdey shotguns.
Sir John the younger was entranced to inherit the Purdeys. He had also inherited his father’s passion for field sports – indeed all his local friends were distinguished by having subscriptions to the Shooting Times and freezers full of braces of pheasant that their wives were sick of cooking – but he had also profited from the childhood and adolescent years spent living with his property-developer stepfather, in Bristol.
It had been made plain to Sir John, from a young age, that the luxury of making choices in life simply did not exist without money. Money was not an evil, Charlie Croft said to his stepson, it was the oil that greased the practical wheels of life. It was foolish to the point of silliness to think you could do without it, and it was asinine to fear it. Money was there to be harnessed, to work for you.
‘And if you want to keep that old barrack going that your dad left you – and I’, Charlie Croft said, ‘would pull it down in a heartbeat and build some practical, properly insulated executive houses there, if I had my way, because it’s a cracker of a site – then you’ll have to make it earn its keep.’ He’d eyed his stepson. ‘Furthermore,’ he went on, ‘I’ll be very interested to see how you do it.’
For most of his twenties, Sir John had had little success in making Barton Park work for itself. After a short commission in the Army, in his father’s footsteps, he camped in a set of three rooms situated just above the antediluvian boiler, and commuted to a day job in Exeter, as managing director of a small company on an industrial estate making specialist pumps for desalination plants. The company had only hired him, he was well aware, because his title was useful in attracting the attention of overseas customers, who might initially be impressed by it. He actually performed quite competently, spent the winter weekends blasting the Purdeys into the skies, and hosted parties for which he became locally famous, to which everyone came dressed for the Arctic and played uproarious, childish, upper-class games that involved stampeding through the echoing rooms of Barton Park and lighting fires all over the house as randomly and recklessly as squatters.
Then, when even he, with his sociable and sanguine temperament, was beginning to despair of moving Project Barton Park even a millimetre forward, he had a stroke of luck. Panting down a passage at one of his own parties in the course of an eccentric treasure hunt, he came across a figure huddled, shivering and sniffing, on one of Barton Park’s deep windowsills. The figure turned out to be a girl, a very pretty girl called Mary Jennings, who had come to the party because of a man who had invited her and then abandoned her for someone altogether heartier, and who was cold and miserable and had no idea where she was, or how to find her way back to Exeter and a train to London.
He had helped her off the windowsill, discovered that under the old blanket she had wrapped herself in – ‘Good God, you can’t have that thing anywhere near you, you really can’t, it’s what my dogs sleep on!’ – she was wearing an enchanting but wholly inappropriate little chiffon dress embroidered with spangles, and borne her off to the least disordered of the rooms above the boiler, where he had given her a glass of brandy and also the most reputable of his ancient but quality cashmere jerseys.
Mary Jennings turned out to be, in old-fashioned parlance, an heiress. She was heiress to a company founded by her father, a country-clothing company which had had immense success in the 1960s and 70s with members of organisations like the Country Landowners’ Association, so that when Mr Jennings died, he was able to leave his widow not just a penthouse flat in London, but also a considerable capital sum to be shared between her and his two daughters. Mary Jennings had come down to Exeter because of the man who had abandoned her, and she stayed because of the man who rescued her. Mary Jennings of Portman Square became Lady Middleton of Barton Park, and West Country Clothing relocated from its factory in Honiton – originally chosen by Mr Jennings for the relative cheapness of its labour costs – to the stable blocks and outbuildings that Sir John had almost despaired of finding a use for.
Sir John himself turned out to be an admirable entrepreneur. His mother-in-law, who shared his joviality and enjoyment of company, was delighted to allow him to modernise the company. He hired a new designer, researched modern methods of weatherproof and thornproof fabrics, and produced catalogues full of colour and energy, using his friends and their dogs and children as models. The turnover of the company doubled in three years, and tripled in five. Barton Park acquired a new roof and a central heating system that was a model of modern technology. Sir John and Lady Middleton themselves produced four babies in the same five years, and embarked upon a lifestyle that Sir John said he would make no apologies for. ‘My friends,’ he told an interviewer from the Exeter Express & Echo, ‘call me the Robber Baron. Because of our pricing. But I call our pricing aspirational, and it works. Ask the Germans. They love us. So do the Japanese. Just take a look at our order books.’
He had been in his office that morning, his office converted out of an old carriage house and ablaze with ingenious and theatrical modern lighting, when his mother-in-law came to find him. He was fond of his mother-in-law to a point when he almost prided himself on that affection, and genuinely welcomed the amount of time she cheerfully spent at Barton Park. She liked the same things in life that he liked, she had given him a free hand with the company, and had provided him with a good-looking wife who never interfered in the business or objected to his boisterous pleasures as long as her children’s welfare was paramount and nobody questioned the amount of money she spent on them, the house, or on her own wardrobe.
‘Frightful,’ Abigail Jennings said, blowing into the office in a plump whirl of capes and scarves. ‘Frightful wind this morning. Awful portent of autumn, even for me with all my very own insulation.’ She regarded her son-in-law. ‘You look very jolly, Jonno.’
Sir John looked down at his terracotta cords and emerald sweater. He said, gesturing at himself, ‘Bit bright? Bit brash?’
‘Not a bit of it. You look splendid. All this creeping about in black and grey that girls do in London. Ghastly. Funereal. Jonno dear. Have you got a moment?’
Sir John glanced at his computer screen. ‘I’ve got a conference call with Hamburg and Osaka in fifteen minutes.’
‘I’ll be ten.’
He beamed at her. ‘Sit yourself down.’
Abigail wedged herself into one of the contemporary Danish armchairs that Mary had chosen for the office and unravelled a scarf or two. She said emphatically, ‘Something extraordinary …’
‘What?’
‘I was in Exeter yesterday, Jonno. Giving lunch to that goddaughter of Mary’s father’s. And her sister. Sweet pair. So grateful. Lucy and Nancy Steele; their mother was—’
‘Abigail, I only have ten minutes.’
‘Sorry, dear, sorry. The trouble about my age is that one thing constantly reminds me of another and then that thing of a further thing—’
‘Abi,’ Sir John said warningly.
Abigail leaned forward a little over her bosoms and stomachs. ‘Jonno. Do you have relations in Sussex?’
Sir John looked startled. ‘No. Yes. Yes, I think I do. Cousins of Dad’s. Well, mine too, I suppose. Near Lewes. Another idiotic great monster like Barton or something.’
Abigail held up a plump hand winking with diamonds. ‘Dashwood, dear. They’re called Dashwood. Lucy and Nancy had heard about them from a boyfriend of theirs or something – I couldn’t quite work out who, you know what these girls are like. But it’s a terrible story, truly awful!’
‘Could you possibly tell it quickly?’
‘Of course.’ Abigail laid her hand on the edge of Sir John’s immense, sustainably sourced modern oak desk. ‘There are four of them, the mother and three girls, two grown up, one at school. And because of various deaths, including the girls’ father, and some antediluvian inheritance laws, this poor family finds itself out on its ear with very little money and nowhere to go. Nowhere.’
Sir John drew a rough circle on the pad on the desk in front of him and added a moustache and a smile. He said, doubtfully, sensing another appeal to his good nature coming up, ‘Perhaps they could rent?’
‘Don’t behave like everyone else, Jonno,’ Abigail said firmly. ‘These are four members of your family, shocked by the death of their father and husband and being thrown out of a way of life which is the only one they know. And you are not exactly short of property, dear, now are you?’
There was a small silence, and then Sir John said, ‘D’you know, I think I remember Henry Dashwood. Nice fellow. A bit head in the clouds but decent. Hopeless shot. He came for a hens-only day, one January, forever ago. It’s his widow and daughters, you mean?’
‘It is.’
Sir John added ears to his circle. He said with sudden resolution, ‘Abigail, you were quite right to come to me. Quite right.’ He beamed at her again. ‘I have an idea. I’ll set about it the moment I’ve dealt with the distributors. I do have an idea! I do!’
It was Elinor who saw his car arrive. She had been looking out for it because she didn’t want Fanny snaffling him and dragging him into her lair in order to subtly dissuade him from making whatever kind of offer he’d driven all the way from Devon to make. Even if he was quite a forceful man – and he’d sounded pretty forceful in a cheerful kind of way, on the telephone – you never could quite count on anyone to be proof against Fanny if she wanted to bend you to her will.
So when Sir John’s green Range Rover slid to a halt in the drive, Elinor raced from the kitchen to the front door to greet him and to thank him most earnestly for insisting on coming to see them, but also to indicate to him, somehow, that the startling renovations instituted by the new mistress of Norland Park – whose costly designer mood boards were propped prominently around the entrance hall – was not to be perceived in any way as indicative of any of the rest of the Dashwood family’s own tastes, wishes or manners. It was Elinor’s aim, flinging open both the leaves of the great front door, to get Sir John through the hall and along to their own unreconstructed sitting room as fast as she could. Only when he was safely ensconced by the fire that Belle had lit especially, alongside the jug of Michaelmas daisies that had been cut from the borders on a day when Fanny was in London, would she quite relax. Sir John looked, Elinor thought, like one of the good-hearted characters from a Dickens novel: broad and healthy, with a ready smile and clothes in optimistic colours. He kissed her warmly, and fraternally, collected a laptop and a bottle of champagne from the boot of the car, and followed her into the house, talking all the way.
‘Of course I remember your dad. Lovely man. Useless with a gun. I say, this is elegant. Look at this floor! We aren’t quite as formal as this at Barton, though Mary would love us to be, but of course, the house is earlier. You’ll love our library. I am very proud of our library. God in heaven, will you look at that staircase! I suppose you lot slid down the bannisters when you were little. Lethal, when you think about it, with a marble floor waiting at the bottom. Mary’s put seagrass over foam rubber in our hall so the ankle-biters don’t smash their skulls. I say they should take their chance, but she won’t have it. As I’m a relation, dear girl, I’m free to tell you that you’re really attractive. I mean that. And I hear that your sisters—’
‘Are much prettier,’ Elinor said quickly.
‘Can’t be. Simply can’t be. I never saw your mother but your dad implied that she was a corker.’
‘She still is,’ Elinor said. She opened the door to the sitting room and stood back for him to enter. ‘See for yourself.’
Belle and Marianne and Margaret all rose from the chairs where they had been waiting, and smiled at him.
‘Golly,’ Sir John said. ‘Golly. Have all my Christmases come at once? Or what? Aren’t you all gorgeous?’
‘Look,’ Sir John said later, expansive with tea and three of the scones that Belle had made that morning, ‘look, I said to Mary, family’s family, and we’ve been bloody lucky.’
He was settled deep in the armchair that Henry used to use, his tea mug in one hand. ‘Bloody lucky,’ he repeated. ‘We are able to live in a great place, employ local people, educate the nippers, have good holidays and a very respectable standard of life. And, I said to Mary, what’s Belle got? No home, no money, Henry dead and those girls. Listen, I said to Mary, blood’s thicker than water. I’d never forgive myself for watching my old pa’s cousins struggling while I book a chalet for Christmas in Méribel. No thank you, I said to Mary. Not my way.’
He took a final swallow from his tea mug and reached to park it on the nearest side table. ‘And here we come to the crunch. I can’t neglect you and your situation while Barton Cottage stands empty. I just can’t. And we can use you girls in the business, I’m sure we can.’ He winked at Marianne. ‘You’d be fantastic in the catalogue.’
‘I hate being photographed,’ Marianne said distantly, ‘I believe those people who think that the camera steals your soul.’
Elinor gave a little gasp. ‘Oh, M, really—’
‘Listen to her!’ Sir John said, roaring with laughter. ‘Just listen. Don’t you love it?’
He beckoned to Margaret. ‘Pass me my laptop, there’s a good girl.’
She came slowly across the room and handed the laptop to him. And then she stood beside him and waited while he fussed over the keys. She said, wearily, ‘Shall I help you?’
He grinned at the screen. ‘Cheeky monkey.’
‘It’d be quicker.’
‘There it is!’ Sir John shouted suddenly. ‘There they are! Pictures!’
Margaret bent.
‘How’s that!’ Sir John exclaimed. ‘A slide show! A slide show of your new home! Barton Cottage. It’s a charmer. You’ll love it.’
Slowly, the four of them formed a semicircle behind the armchair. Sir John made a tremendous show of clicking and flicking until a photograph of an uncompromisingly small modern house on a slope, backed by trees, filled the screen.
‘But,’ Marianne cried in disappointment, ‘it’s new!’
‘I’ve just built it,’ Sir John said with satisfaction. ‘Planning was a complete nightmare but I battled through. I was going to use it as a holiday let.’
‘It’s – lovely,’ Belle said faintly.
‘Perfect spot,’ Sir John said, ‘amazing views, new bathroom, kitchen, utility, the works.’ He glanced at Marianne. ‘You wanted roses round the door?’
‘And maybe thatch …’
‘Marianne, honestly! So ungrateful.’
‘No, she isn’t,’ Sir John said. ‘Just honest. And it’s a comedown after this place. I can see that.’ He looked back at the screen. It now showed an astonishing view down a wooded valley, dramatic and startlingly green.
‘Well?’
Belle deliberately avoided looking at her daughters. She said, in a rush, ‘We’d love it.’
‘Ma—’
‘No,’ she said. She wouldn’t look at them. She looked instead at the next picture, of a steep hill rushing up towards a cloud-dappled sky. ‘We’d love it. It looks charming. Such a – setting.’
Elinor cleared her throat. She said to Sir John, ‘Where is Barton exactly?’
He beamed at her. ‘Near Exeter.’
‘Exeter …’
‘What’s Exeter?’ Margaret said.
‘It’s a place, darling. A lovely historic place in Devon.’
‘Between Dartmoor and Exmoor,’ Sir John said proudly.
Marianne said tragically, ‘I don’t really know where Devon is.’
‘It’s gorgeous,’ Belle said emphatically. ‘Gorgeous. Next to Cornwall.’
All three girls gazed at her. ‘Cornwall!’
‘Not as far …’ Elinor said, trying not to sound pleading, ‘I have just one more year to go at—’
‘And my music!’ Marianne cried. ‘What about my music?’
Margaret had her fingers in her ears and her eyes shut. ‘Don’t anyone dare say I have to change schools.’
Belle smiled at Sir John.
‘Elinor’s studying architecture. She draws beautifully.’
He smiled back at her. ‘I remember Henry saying you did, too. You’ll be in your element at Barton, drawing and painting away.’
‘I did figures, mostly, but I’m sure I could—’
‘And Elinor’, Marianne said loudly, ‘draws buildings. Where can she study buildings in Devon?’
‘Darling. Don’t, darling. Don’t be rude.’
John Middleton beamed again at Marianne. ‘She’s not rude. She’s refreshing. I like refreshing. My kids will adore her; they love anyone out of the ordinary. Four of them. Enough energy to power your average city, between them.’ He closed his laptop and looked up at Belle. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Well. Can I take it that you and the girls will come and live at Barton Cottage for what I promise you will be a very modest rent?’
Margaret took her fingers out of her ears and opened her eyes. She flung her arms wide in a gesture of despair. ‘What about all my friends?’ she said.
‘I wonder’, Belle said from the doorway, ‘if I could trouble you for a moment?’
Both Fanny and John Dashwood, who were watching the evening news on television with glasses in their hands, gave a little jump in their chairs.
‘Belle!’ John Dashwood said, with surprise rather than pleasure.
He leaned forward and reduced the volume on the television, although he didn’t turn it off altogether. Fanny remained where she was, holding her wine glass. John stood up slowly. ‘Have a drink,’ he said automatically, gesturing vaguely towards the bottle plainly visible on a silver tray on the coffee table in front of them.
‘I’m sure’, Fanny said, ‘that she won’t be staying that long.’
Belle smiled at her. She advanced into the room far enough to give herself authority, but not so far that she couldn’t make a quick escape. ‘Quite right, Fanny. I will be two minutes. We had a visitor this afternoon.’
Fanny continued to regard her wine glass. She said to it, ‘I wondered when you would see fit to mention that to me.’
Belle smiled broadly at John. ‘Would it be an awful nuisance to turn the television off?’
John glanced at Fanny. She made an impatient little gesture of dismissal. He picked up the remote again and aimed it at the screen.
‘Thank you,’ Belle said. She was determined to keep smiling. She folded her hands lightly in front of her. ‘The thing is, that we won’t be troubling you here at Norland much longer. We’ve been offered a house. By a relation of mine.’
John looked truly startled. ‘Good heavens.’
Fanny said smoothly, ‘But not too far from here, I hope?’
