Lissy sat back on her heels and huffed. “See what I mean? You’re only seeing this as a way to get back to our old house. And you’re putting the horses before me. Your sister. You think if I lived there, you two could too. And Mama. You think everything would go back to being the same as it was when Papa was alive.”
“Well it would, wouldn’t it?” Megs was chewing a piece of hay. “I think it might be quite the perfect solution.”
Mims nodded. “Agreed.”
Ridiculous, and selfish, too. Lissy scowled at them both. “For you two maybe, but not for me. It most definitely wouldn’t be going back to how it used to be for me.”
“Think of the good points about it,” Mims, ever the sensible one, said. “You’d have access to all the money Papa had. You’d live in the manor for ever and ever, even if he died. You could get more horses. You could start the stud you’ve always dreamed of. Breed a horse to run in the Derby even. Think how good that would be.”
Lissy only deepened her scowl. “You’re forgetting a few vitally important points about being married.”
“Like what?” Megs asked, curious.
Lissy hesitated, unsure whether to keep going. Megs was only twelve, after all. However, she had grown up in the country and she knew all about what dogs did, for a start. She’d been in and out of Home Farm all her life so she must know how animals mated.
However… “Things,” she said, a little vaguely. “Things a husband and wife have to do.” Not that she was entirely sure of much about this herself. After all, animals didn’t seem to do it very often. Once a year for a cow, for example. Would that be so bad? Once a year, for the sake of horses, she might be able to manage. Then a vivid image of Buzz and Dash, the two cocker spaniels, locked together for what had seemed like forever before Dash’s puppies could be born nine weeks later. Maybe not…
“She means mating,” Mims said.
Megs’ mouth made a round O of surprise. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I’m jolly glad you hadn’t,” Lissy snapped. “Girls your age shouldn’t know anything about such things.” But her cheeks had fired up with heat. No, she could never do anything so intimate with anyone, still less with Cousin Harry, even though he was very handsome in a rather faded kind of a way. As if he needed some care and attention, like Nero, their pointer had done when they’d found him abandoned on the lane. She huffed again. She had no intention of being the one to give Cousin Harry that kind of care and attention.
Megs slid down the biggest pile of hay a couple of times while hersisters were cogitating their next move. “I’m going to get Arthur to come up and play with me here. He’d love a hay slide.”
“If Betsey catches you doing that she’ll box your ears. Yours and his,” Mims said as she left the gable and sat down on the hay beside Lissy. “Forget playing on the hay. Come and listen. I’ve just had absolutely the best idea ever.”
Lissy raised her brows in expectation. Mims might be younger by nearly two years, but she was always the one who could formulate a good idea. Megs stopped sliding and came and sat at their feet, cross legged on the plank floor.
“Go on,” Lissy said. “I’m all ears.” Anything to prevent the plan Mama had hatched.
“Me too,” Megs added, wiggling her own ears with her fingers in illustration.
Mims leaned forwards and lowered her voice as though worried an eavesdropper might be about, which was silly, as their mother and Betsey were both doing indoor chores. “You don’t want to marry Cousin Harry, do you?”
Lissy scowled. “I thought I’d made that abundantly clear already.”
“Just checking.”
“Get on with it. What’s your idea?”
Mims glanced to left and right and lowered her voice still further. The other two leaned in closer. “You won’t need to. We have someone else who could marry him.”
Megs sat back. “We do? I know I said I would but I am only twelve. Do we need to wait six years?”
Mims shook her head with vehemence. “Not you, silly. Someone much better. Mama.”
A shocked silence fell.
“But Mama’s old,” Megs said, finally breaking the silence. “Isn’t she too old to get married again?”
Mims shook her head. “No she’s not. She was married at Lissy’sage and then she had Lissy, so I worked out she can’t be any more than thirty-seven.”
“But thirty-sevenisold,” Megs said.
Mims scowled at her. “Honestly, you’re such a child. Thirty-seven isn’t old at all. For getting married, I mean.” She heaved a deep sigh. “It’s a good thing one of us is good at reckoning. You said he told you he was thirty-two. So she’s only five years older than he is.”
Lissy nodded slowly, delight creeping over her. Delight and relief. “Of course. You’re absolutely right. It’s Mama who must marry him. That would be a much better outcome altogether. She’s already been married, so she won’t be bothered about the once-a-year mating bit of it. And that way she’d get the house back, which would be for us, too, and we could all live there with our horses and never have to get married. And that awful Sir Julian would have to stop pestering her and we’d never see him again.”
