‘Hmm.’ Chris pulled her into a gentle hug, resting his chin on her head as he looked around the hall, taking it all in.

‘This is all very – showy,’ Nell said. ‘Very posh.’

‘But . . .’

‘There’s a weird’ – she hesitated – ‘smell. Don’t you think?’

‘A smell?’ He held her at arm’s length. ‘Seriously?’

‘Well, yes. Haven’t you noticed it?’

‘No.’

‘It’s not so bad here, but in the kitchen it . . .’ She didn’t much like the way he was looking at her, as if he found her amusing, and ever so slightly foolish. ‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘It’s just . . . it’s not very us, is it?’

‘Isn’t it?’

Chris had shown her the posting on the website, and she remembered flicking through images of a fitted kitchen with an electric Aga, cosy sofas and a log burning stove in the living room, exposed beams and leaded windows. She hadn’t really taken it in. Her mind had been on other things.

She tried again. ‘It feels . . .’

‘What?’ That same expression. Amused. Superior.

Wrong. It felt wrong.

‘I like it,’ said Chris. ‘It’s solid. Classy. There’s a bit on the website about its history, former occupants and all that. You should—’

‘Dad! Da-ad!’ Maude’s voice echoed down the stairs.

‘What?’

‘Come and see.’

*

‘No.’

‘You said I could choose.’

‘But not this, obviously.’

‘Why not?’

It was pretty impressive, Nell had to admit. The master bedroom: oak panelled, with an open fireplace, and dominated by a big brass bedstead. The ceiling was a little low perhaps, and its exposed beams seemed to dip slightly, but the room had an air of understated, if impersonal, comfort. There was a pitcher and ewer perched on a table underneath one set of windows, and a chest of drawers beneath the other. There was no wardrobe, but there were cupboards built into the wall either side of the tiled chimney breast, their tiny brass latches fitting flush against the painted wood.

Maude didn’t mean it, of course – Nell could see that, she had no more intention of claiming this room than she did of letting either of them forget she was here on sufferance; the brief truce her interest in the yard had signalled was clearly over.

She fixed Nell with an accusing stare. ‘He said.’

‘You know perfectly well what your father meant.’ Nell walked to one of the windows. Below them, to the left, the door to Spinnaker Cottage opened and a woman came out. She was blonde, wearing jeans and a waterproof jacket. As she walked down the yard, her scarf, a monochrome geometric design, fluttered in the breeze.

‘Any other room,’ Chris said, ‘but not this one.’

‘It’s not fair.’

‘We need the double bed,’ said Chris, certain, surely, of the reaction this would provoke.

‘God,’ said Maude, after a horrified pause. ‘You two are gross.’ She turned and strode out of the room.