The Wilding by Maria McCann

father knows her better than I.’ My mother smiled as if, though sorry for Aunt Harriet’s loss of her husband, she had often felt the need of patience when dealng with that disagreeable lady.
    I said, ‘I think noble blood must be half vinegar.’
    Mother laughed and squeezed my arm. ‘You went there of your own free will! Go and find your father while I tell Alice you’re here for supper.’
    *

    Father was turned away from me, bent over a heap of apples. I thought he looked stooped and burdened, but when he turned, saw me and straightened up, he at once cast off the years and flung out his arms in welcome, his face aglow with the kindly cheerfulness I remembered from childhood. I ran to him and he enfolded me, patting my back as if I were still a little one, though I was now as tall as he – perhaps taller.
    ‘I’m delighted to see you looking well, Father.’
    He said nothing; I think he was unable. But his embrace left me in no doubt of my welcome.
    ‘It’s a fair crop,’ I said, pulling free at last. ‘Shall I start at once?’
    ‘That’s a right helpful, dutiful offer,’ Father said, beaming on me. Though I smiled back, I was not so very happy at this speech, which told me he had lately been considering me neither helpful nor dutiful. He then went on in a more practical vein. ‘If between us we pick ’em – you, me, your mother – and then allow time for digestion, you can do a four-day run, come back and help us mill, eh?’
    I said of course I could, and showed willing by going with him round the orchard, noting which early trees had a bright ring of cast-off fruit encircling the roots, and which still had apples clinging to their boughs and would need to be finished off by hand.
    Smooth going, so far. The awkward part began at supper, which we sat down to an hour later.
    There was a little bustle at the start, since my mother had changed plans for the meal in honour of my return. They had cut into a ham and had the very best cider glasses, engraved with apple boughs, put on the table. These glasses, a wedding gift to my parents from Aunt Harriet herself, were grander than anything we usually drank from and were hardly ever brought out, for fear of breaking them. Though hungry, and eager to begin, I could have wished for something simpler. To my troubled conscience, the mingled perfume of food and drink carried a whiff of the fatted calf.
    Father said grace and then proposed a toast in cider: ‘Here’s to this year’s. May it be equal in brilliance and beauty.’
    My mother laughed as we clinked glasses. ‘Are you sure it’s the cider you’re toasting, and not some fine lady?’
    Since he was a devoted husband, as she well knew, we all joined in the laughter, and set to with a will. The ham, cut into little pieces, had been stewed with onions and cream and I know not what besides. It was exceedingly rich, even after the food at my aunt’s house; I think my mother meant to show me that home, too, had its comforts.
    ‘Talking of fine ladies –’ said Father.

    Now I was for it. They were eager for news of Aunt Harriet, of End House and also (since I seemed to have unshackled myself from her) of the mysterious whore who had been sent packing.
    ‘You’ve pressed a great many apples for your aunt,’ my father began. I took my cue and described the varieties I had milled and pressed, the combinations thereof, her mill (which was of a different make from ours) and the loss of good fruit when I was called home and my instructions neglected.
    ‘And with all those servants!’ my mother exclaimed, baffled by such profligacy.
    I said it was a pity, but my aunt had been taken up with the discovery of the thief and retrieving Uncle Robin’s ring, and had forgotten to give the necessary orders.

    Father nodded his head. ‘Harriet won’t be what she was, not now she’s widowed,’ he said.
    I said I had never known her as well as I might but, widow or not, she was an altogether formidable lady.