Free The Song of Hartgrove Hall by Natasha Solomons Page A

for tunes.’

    It’s splendid to be at home from Cambridge for the long summer vac. Three blissful months at Hartgrove Hall. Most of my pals are staying on in digs for an extra few days to drink and punt but I couldn’t. Today is Mother’s birthday picnic. We hold it every year. Apparently this is what she always chose for her birthday treat – a picnic under the willows by the River Stour. The General would strip off and go for a bracing swim amidst the ducks and the waterweeds, while the rest of us cheered him on from the bank.
    I wonder whether Mother sang to us then and, if so, which songs. I don’t remember any of it, but Jack and George are quite sentimental about the whole thing – as much for the man our father used to be as anything else. Chivers has winkled out an elderly cook from somewhere, and we ask her to make us up a hamper with cheese-and-pickle sandwiches, seedcake – Mother’s favourite, apparently – and a bottle of hock, to which she was also partial. It’s always a jolly afternoon. The General never comes. We invite him with careful politeness and there’s inevitably a dreadful moment when we worry that this will be the one time he accepts but of course he doesn’t.
    George and I check the hamper in the kitchen. It’s stuffed with all the usual goodies and a pound of early cherries, glossy and black. Jack isn’t here. We’re to collect him and Edie from the station at a quarter to one. It’s the first time there’s been anyone other than the three of us. Jack sent us a cable last night: ‘WILL BE ON THE TWELVE FORTY - FIVE STOP BE A SPORT AND PICK ME UP STOP BRINGING EDIE STOP’. He never telephones or writes, he inevitably selects the most expensive form of communication much as he chooses the best wine or cut of beef on the menu. I’m pleased Edie’s coming and don’t mind that he didn’t consult us first. A little too pleased if I’m honest. I can’t tell whether George minds or not.
    George pokes at a pork pie wrapped in wax paper. ‘I’m hungry already.’
    I nudge him away and rewrap the pie.
    I study him surreptitiously. He’s chosen not to find a job and instead has been attempting to fix the most desperate of the damage to the house – it’s a forlorn task, akin to sticking his finger in a dyke, but I’m taken aback by his skill. There’s now a hefty slab of silver oak as a mantelpiece in the great hall, and he’s carved three running foxes into the wood. They’re both crude and beautiful. I found him in the attic, gathering up all the old photographs of the house and estate, scrutinising them for God knows what. He has piles of ancient almanacs and farming magazines in his room – some of them dating from before the First World War. I can’t think what use he can put them to. This morning I watched from my window as he hurried across the lawn, I presumed returning from an early walk, but now I wonder whether instead he’d been out all night. He never talks about pals or girls and I hope he’s happy. I can’t ask. It’s not the sort of thing we do.
    In the distance the church clock chimes the half-hour.
    â€˜Shall we?’
    I nod and together we shoulder the hamper into the boot of the car. It’s already hot and my shirt sticks to my back. The ancient and magnificent magnolia tree on the front driveway is still in bloom, the flowers huge and blowzy, with fleshy pink petals – like fat, tarty girls in ball gowns. I’ve always liked it. The General would prefer it chopped into firewood. I pick fallen and browning petals from the car’s paintwork and, somehow unable to discard them, shove them into my pocket.
    â€˜Bags I drive,’ I say, leaping into the driver’s seat before George can object.
    I drive too fast because it’s a gorgeous day and I’m filled with happiness at the