It took a while to reach Great-Aunt Oona and Great-Uncle Dooley’s house. I was squashed between Paddy and Darcy into the middle of the front seat of Paddy’s rickety van while Paddy completed his errands, then we bumped and lurched along the road out of the village until I began to feel quite sick. I realized then that I had spent the night being tossed around on the high seas and had hardly slept at all. And here I was, being tossed about in another vehicle. Darcy and Paddy chatted across me about old times, pranks they had played, gossip about fellow villagers.

“Well, it was quite obvious she was in the family way,” Paddy said and Darcy laughed.

“And did he do the right thing?” Darcy asked his old friend.

I sneaked a glance at him. This was a side of Darcy I hadn’t seen before. Not the sophisticated member of high society, but the local boy, coming home to his roots. They seemed to have forgotten I was in the car with them and I stared ahead as the last of the houses gave way to rolling countryside. The lane had high banks on either side, topped with hedgerows, and we dropped down a steep hill to a bridge over a stream. With all this rain the water was frothing and tumbling over rocks. I was more than glad when we turned into a long straight driveway, just wide enough for the vehicle with ditches on either side.

“Not the sort of place you’d want to drive back to after a night at the pub,” Paddy commented.

“I think Dooley had to be towed out often enough in his younger days,” Darcy said.

Ahead of us a large ramshackle stone building came into view. It looked as if it had been added to over the centuries in various periods and various styles—a gabled roof here, an octagonal turret there.

“There it is: Mountjoy,” Darcy said.

To me it seemed oddly named, neither on a mountain nor particularly joyful. In fact the land around it was flat and on this day the house itself presented a gloomy picture with its narrow windows and rain-slicked roof tiles. Chickens scattered as we drove onto the forecourt. A pack of dogs rushed out barking and started jumping up around the van. Then an enormous woman appeared in the doorway, staring at us, hands on hips.

“Get down, get away, you dreadful curs,” she shouted in a booming voice to match her bulk. “Come over here, do you hear?”

The dogs were still jumping up, barking, but I noticed the tails were wagging.

“You’re all hopeless, hopeless,” she went on, clapping her hands now. “One word from me and they do exactly as they please. No discipline at all.”

Paddy opened the driver’s side door and the dogs surrounded him as he stepped down.