I would like to say to Ellen, “The things that bind us together are stronger than the things that divide us”—especially, between her and me, all our childhood memories. But here in the town we are bound together in a million ways we never think about in normal times. A forest fire is needed to make us see it—to make us know again how we depend on each other, all of us. In the hurricane of ’38 there were no rich or poor. We suffered together and helped each other survive, as a family. Ellen thinks of family as a small, tight entity—really it has become herself and Nick alone—just as I have felt lately that it is Cornelius and me. There’s the center. There’s what cannot be touched by anyone, for good or ill. By Eben? Fifty years ago perhaps. Now he would get lost in the labyrinth of all my days and nights with Cornelius long before he came anywhere near the central being. Yet, it was fun to see him, to feel that sparring edge again, to be teased and admired. We need now and then to redefine ourselves in the eyes of a beholder with Eben’s verve, and I must presume that I did something of the same sort for him. He has always been vain, and in that respect he is rather feminine.

Cornelius is calling, “Where are you?” and I had better go down and make him a cup of tea.

Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

It had been rather a hard morning for Jane by the time John turned up. Hannah was in one of her jealous and put-upon moods, banging away in the kitchen. She had pretended that the pale pink blouse Jane wanted to wear needed washing, really, Jane suspected, because she knew how becoming it was, with a black velvet bow at the throat. Then, in a fit of remorse, she had insisted on washing it there and then, so it had been quite damp when it was finally ready to put on.

“You spoil me, Hannah.”

“I’m not fit for human consumption,” was Hannah’s answer, a formula she had devised when she was especially low in her mind.

“Well, I should really prefer a lamb chop, if it comes to that,” Jane said. She had discovered that the only way to tame Hannah in these black moods was to tease her. Hannah smiled her crooked smile, and at last there was peace.