Ravenscliffe by Jane Sanderson Page A

progressed these days from simply mimicking others to volunteering her own contributions to conversation: her vocabulary was small still, but was growing by the day. She had no idea what a king was, of course, or which, of all the fine people she had seen, he might have been; but the crowds and the atmosphere and the thrill of the run home in the rain had all contributed to her sense of occasion.
    ‘You saw the king?’ Eve said to her youngest child. Ellen nodded gravely, eyes wide with the wonder of it.
    ‘Could hardly miss him, with that belly,’ said Silas and he shared a grown-up wink with Seth, paying him the compliment of this irreverent aside. Seth’s frostiness towards Silas had melted over the past few days under the onslaught of his uncle’s warm attention: his stories of world travel and derring-do were hard to resist. Seth had shifted from a position of chilly suspicion to cautious interest and finally to unbridled admiration in a few easy anecdotes. Also, Silas was the talk of the town – not least because his crate of bananas had been donated by Eve to the school and every child had run home with a share of the booty – and Seth had quickly realised that the cachet of owning such an uncle was immense. Time must not be wasted sulking while this glamorous stranger was among them. They sniggered together now, best of friends, and Seth said: ‘I ’ope you’ve made plenty o’ batter, mam. I reckon ’e looked ’ungry,’ and everyone laughed.
    ‘Less o’ your cheek,’ said Eve, and then, to Silas: ‘Enough from you an’ all,’ but she was smiling, so the party atmosphere among the excited children lingered on and the girls squealed and giggled at each other as they peeled off their wet stockings then ran barefoot upstairs to change, leaving wet prints on the linoleum. Seth hung about, reluctant to leave the company of his uncle, but Eve said: ‘Get on wi’ you, you’ll take a chill standin’ in those wet things,’ and the boy, temporarily compliant, did as he was bid.
    ‘You’re a good influence on ’im,’ Eve said.
    ‘Thank you,’ Silas said, and bowed.
    ‘Bad influence on Eliza, mind. She’s a right giddy kipper when you’re ’ere.’
    ‘Oh well, can’t have everything.’ He stretched out an arm to pick up a piece of parkin from a plate behind his sister andbegan to munch on it unselfconsciously. By every word and deed, he radiated ease and familiarity: extraordinary, considering how recently arrived he was. Eve, happy to have him, was nevertheless occasionally thrown by his casual manner. She had to draw back now from the impulse to slap the back of his hand, as if he was an impudent child. He wasn’t staying at Beaumont Lane – there was nowhere for him but the parlour floor, and anyway Silas preferred the privacy afforded by the rooms above the Hare and Hounds – but he let himself in and out of the house as if it was his. Eve encouraged this but Anna didn’t like it: he kept making her jump, walking in uninvited. Why couldn’t he at least knock? There was something to be said for standing on ceremony, in Anna’s book.
    ‘How come you’re back, anyway?’ Silas said now. ‘Don’t you have kingly puddings to make?’
    ‘I made t’batter already. It ’as to stand for a while.’
    Silas pulled a sceptical face. ‘And how can you be sure the wicked fat cook won’t sabotage it in your absence?’ Eve had sketched a verbal picture for him of Mrs Adams’s build and temperament; she found herself wanting to make him laugh, so had exaggerated the cook’s less attractive traits and now he imagined her a villain. ‘What if she adds a few drops of arsenic and you’re hauled off to the Tower?’
    Eve laughed. ‘She’s not that bad. Anyroad, she looked too busy to be messin’ about with my batter.’ She had too: tomato-red in the face and the wrong side of frantic. In the sultry heat the kitchens were like Turkish hammams and the usual pleasant hum of conversation had