One Silver Summer Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  One: ALEXANDER

  Two: SASKIA

  Three: TRIST

  Four: THE HORSE IN THE MEADOW

  Five: THE PAINTING

  Six: THE BOY ON THE BEACH

  Seven: THE COUNTESS OF TREMAYNE

  Eight: PANCAKES AND SYRUP

  Nine: TRUTH OR DARE

  Ten: THE VISITOR

  Eleven: CRESSIDA SLATER

  Twelve: PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

  Thirteen: WILD STRAWBERRIES

  Fourteen: WHITE LIES

  Fifteen: PLUM

  Sixteen: RETAIL THERAPY

  Seventeen: ANY GIRL’S DREAM

  Eighteen: FORGET IT

  Nineteen: A GIRL LIKE HER

  Twenty: STATUES ON THE LAWN

  Twenty-One: A TRICKLE OF SAND

  Twenty-Two: THE WEDDING PARTY

  Twenty-Three: CHANCE

  Twenty-Four: A BEACON OF LIGHT

  Twenty-Five: FAMILY TIES

  Twenty-Six: THE SKETCH

  Twenty-Seven: THE TOWER

  Twenty-Eight: BETRAYED

  Twenty-Nine: SOME SAD GIRL

  Thirty: THE DECISION

  Thirty-One: A CRAB BENEATH A ROCK

  Thirty-Two: NACHOS UNHAPPINESS

  Thirty-Three: AN INVITATION

  Thirty-Four: TEA WITH A COUNTESS

  Thirty-Five: ALL THE DAYS

  Thirty-Six: ALL AT SEA

  Thirty-Seven: WRECKERS

  Thirty-Eight: THE FLOOD

  Thirty-Nine: A LAND SLIDING TOWARD THE SEA

  Forty: SAYING GOOD-BYE

  Forty-One: A BRUISED ANGEL

  Forty-Two: GOING HOME

  Forty-Three: SILVER LININGS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Copyright

  Why is summer mist romantic and autumn mist just sad?

  —Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

  You understand now … how simple life becomes when things like mirrors are forgotten.

  —Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman’s Creek

  Alex squared his shoulders in the hand-me-down, black tailcoat that tugged across his back because he was broader than his father. He loosened his white tie and too-tight collar and ran a hand through his crumpled hair, still damp from the shower. He was dreading the party below him.

  Music poured in from the main hall, and a shriek of laughter carried up the great staircase: hairspray meeting the whiff of old sports gear.

  So this was it, the Summer Ball. The one night a year when the girls from across the river were allowed inside these ancient boys-school walls. At the foot of the stairs, Alex could see Plum waiting, pretending that she wasn’t, ruffling her hair and laughing too obviously with her friends. Plum Benoist. Ben wah. Her name sounded like the air kiss that would soon skim past his ear. He knew why the best-looking girl at the ball was standing there, and it had nothing to do with him. Not the real him.

  Alex wished he could clear his head, but a jumble of thoughts kept going around and around. What he’d learned from the reporter with the hard red smile who’d stalked him from the riverbank that day: “Alexander, is your mother heartbroken at the split with your father?” He’d stopped rowing, the boat rocking a little as a jolt of pain passed through him. The anger came later, when his father called him. Too late. Alex should’ve been told first, before it got out. Was it really so hard for his parents to remember they had a son?

  So there he was now, hands in his pockets, scuffing his way down, expected to carry on and pretend that nothing was wrong. So bloody British. With every step, he could feel the eyes of the crowd below. The girls fluttered like moths as Plum stepped into the light to meet him. Her hair smelled of perfume and her grip was small and viselike.

  “At last.” She blinked up at him, her lashes sweeping the room behind his shoulder. “Come on, let’s dance before we get surrounded.”

  “I don’t feel like …”

  Almond eyes took him in, narrowing slightly. They glinted like a cat’s, as if to say he should be pleased that she’d waited. And he was, he supposed. His mate Gully winked at him from behind Plum’s back. No help there. Alex glanced at Plum again, took a deep breath, and kept it together. She looked amazing. And she was rescuing him from himself, which was a good thing. Brooding never got him anywhere.

  “Okay, why not? I like this song.” At school, music was his escape, along with rowing. Only riding a horse was better than the reach and dip of oars, and the run of a boat over water.

  “Oh?” Plum wasn’t listening. “What’s playing? I hadn’t noticed.” She swished her hair.

  Alex looked down at her. Her skin was flawless, unless it was her makeup. Blonde hair fell about her shoulders and a slight smile flitted on her lips as everyone parted to let them through. Alex could almost hear the murmurs as he shunted her clumsily toward the darker edges of the dance floor and pulled her closer than he intended. From the corner of his eye, a master stepped forward, saw it was Alex, and stepped back.

  “Feeling better now?” Plum asked, her mouth so close to his ear that the music briefly stuttered.

  “Yeah. Sorry I was late.” He made a bigger effort to speak. “Parent stuff, you know?”

  Plum had been there when that reporter screeched across the water. The first girl to ever steer the first VIII boat since their own cox got suspended.

  “Divorce,” she said with a knowing smile. “You get used to it, and there is an upside, you know?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You can ask them for almost anything, and”—she looked up and locked eyes—“you can confide in me.”

  Arms around his neck, she wriggled closer. Did she expect him to kiss her in front of everyone? He took a clumsy step back, hitting a wall. It would be so easy to give in, body over brain. He could feel the heat of her skin … and yet it didn’t feel right. He swallowed. It was too public. And just … wrong.

  As the clock struck midnight, the girls piled back on their coach. Plum was the last, and Alex still hadn’t made a move, so she leaned up and kissed him on the mouth to a chorus of wolf whistles. Surprised, he didn’t close his eyes, and all he remembered later were the blinding flashes from the cameras camped at the school gates.

  It was as if he’d mistakenly stumbled on a stage and the audience had clapped. Back in his study bedroom, he didn’t bother to change, but slumped on his bed with his whole world spinning. How could he face them all tomorrow? He couldn’t stand another minute in this place. The ball had been the final straw. People might dream of sending their sons here, but for him it was all wrong. The pressure to be someone he wasn’t. Pressure to impress. Pressure to stand out. Pressure to be smarter, row faster, pass the ball, hit a six …

  He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Why didn’t he just go? Get up and walk out before term ended? Find his own way home. He could already hear the sea in his ears.

  Breathe, Sass. Breathe, Saskia reminded herself. She lifted her eyes to the horizon, where the sea and sky collided in a flat line of shadow, her heart already in pieces. The distance didn’t help. Even three thousand miles away, she could still hear the skid of tires and a horn that went on forever.

  Ducking through a fence on the other side of the cliff path, she began to run away from the unfamiliar house full of sympathetic stares. She didn’t care about the thistles and thorns that caught the backs of her legs. She barely even noticed the smudge of blood and sweat trickling down her calf. She thought that if she stopped, she’d fall and slide all the way down the steep Cornish hillside into the cold blue sea, so she raced away, desperate to feel like herself again. A girl who not three months
ago had trained for the swim team and dived from the uppermost board. Not the girl she was now, shivering on the side.

  Sass came to a standstill at a battered gate hanging off a dry-stone wall, blood pumping and breath ragged. She looked around, swiping at a cloud of bugs near her head. Beyond the gate, a shaded tunnel of trees showed her a track through the fields ahead.

  She was about to set off again when a sudden scuffle behind her made her jump and a panting scruff of black hurtled up. She groaned inwardly, realizing she hadn’t closed the back gate. “Harry! What are you doing here?”

  He was her uncle David’s dog, a terrier rescued from the pound not so long ago. He seemed super pleased to see her and was so black-eyed cute that she couldn’t help smiling. She’d liked him from the first moment he’d jumped up at her, all four legs off the ground, tail wagging like a crazy speedometer.

  “Hey, Harry, come here, boy.” She squatted down and held out a stale potato chip from her pocket. The dog lay down flat on his belly, legs out behind him, tongue lolling. He cocked his head as if to say “Don’t you speak Dog?” but reaching forward, he sniffed her hand, flecks of gray around his muzzle. Ever so gently, he took the chip, and Sass caught him by the collar. “Got you,” she whispered, stroking his ears.

  And in that moment, Sass felt the pain ease. Harry didn’t keep asking if she was okay; his thumping tail said, “Get on with it, there’s no other choice,” and she liked that.

  But he didn’t do sitting. Or sadness. Not when he had rabbits and cow splats and fox stink to sniff out. He wriggled from her grip and under the gate, his wet nose glued to the ground. Sass glanced down at the tarnished sign as she climbed over it: TRIST HOUSE ESTATE. KEEP OUT. NO TRESPASSING. So British. Ever since she’d set foot in England, she’d been in someone’s way. She couldn’t leave the dog, even if he was a runaway express train in a tunnel.

  Harry slowed down again at last, zigzagging from tree trunk to burrow. Sass did the same, but stayed out of the mud and the nettles. She was about as far from the city as you could get, stranded at the farthest tip of England. All around her was silent except for the hum of bees.

  Through the bowed trees ahead, the track channeled up to something that she couldn’t make out. She squinted harder. The way ahead was blocked by a pair of huge arched doors set in a high brick wall. Were they carriage gates, as in a horse and carriage? Who, she wondered, had clattered through here in the past? She liked it when history peeked through shabby paint cracks. If you looked closely, nothing ever disappeared, even at home in New York. The hidden cool behind even the shabbiest buildings. Like wearing vintage clothes instead of new. Whoever had worn them before had lived between those stitches, their dreams and secrets held together by colored threads. Sass pushed up the sleeves of her mom’s old sweater. The smell of her had gone now and the bottom edge had begun to unravel.

  Beside the arched gates was a small side door covered in ivy. Sass rattled the old latch but it was locked. She rattled it again. There was no getting through. Disappointed, she made a grab for Harry, who was sniffing a plant that smelled a lot like garlic. She picked him up and turned to head back, and it was then, framed by a tangle of wild roses, that she saw the silver horse.

  Sass peered through the thorns. Hugging Harry closer, she shuffled up on her knees. In the twilight, the quiet meadow beyond was lush and green. A field of flowers turned to gold by a last burst of sun, the air heavy with the earthy scent of a forgotten wildness.

  As a city girl, Sass didn’t know much about horses, but she’d always felt sure that if she’d had the chance, she’d have liked them. When she was a kid, she’d stuck a poster of a rearing black stallion on her wall, all flying mane and glossy tail, at the head of a herd of wild horses. This one was all on her own and she was a girl, Sass was sure of it. Shabby, covered in burrs and mud patches, shaking her head from flies. Made more beautiful for being real, standing there resting her back foot as she grazed in the fading light.

  The silver horse raised her head, her ears pricked. She gazed at Sass, her shining black eyes hopeful, before nodding her nose and going back to the grass, her soft lips searching out the best dandelions and thistles. It was a moment of perfect stillness, like a kiss on the forehead, or the soft squeeze of a hand. Watching her, Sass felt like she’d met a friend.

  An owl broke the silence, followed by Harry scrabbling to get down. Sass hung on, refusing to let go. In her stubbornness, she stumbled sideways, falling heavily on her elbow. The horse flung up her head, wheeled around, and cantered away.

  “Look what you did,” she muttered in the dog’s ear, rubbing her arm. “That hurt!”

  A fat, wet droplet landed on her skin, followed by another. It was going to pour. Sass looked up at the ever-darkening sky. What was it about this place? One minute a glimpse of magic, and then came the rain.

  She got up, her arms covered in goose bumps, her back soon soaked by her hair. Tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow, she promised herself. She’d come back and find the horse again, because however wet she was now, something warm and bright sheltered on the other side of that hedgerow.

  Alex got off the bus at the top of the hill and pulled his hood low. The air brakes of the number 37 hissed loudly as it rolled off down toward the village and disappeared between the tall hedgerows bordering the lane. It was the first and last time he’d ever take a bus. It took ages: No wonder people moaned. Glancing around, he crossed the road and ducked down an overgrown shortcut.

  Walking out had been unexpectedly easy. He wondered why he hadn’t done it before. They’d catch up with him, no question, but perhaps he’d get a few more hours by himself. Alex looked at his watch: an old Rolex. The police were slow off the mark; his father would be less than impressed.

  He kicked up a stone and it arced across his first view of the sea in months. His sea. Black and blue, under a scrum of cloud. So endless that Alex felt invisible. He grinned at last and let his shoulders relax. Head up, he breathed it in: tasted the salt on his tongue and in the air that clung to him like a second skin. A skin he felt good in.

  Alex strode on as weeks of weariness drained from his legs. He tugged at the sweatshirt that he’d worn all day, the only anonymous piece of sports gear in his wardrobe, and pulled out his shirt, which had stuck to his back. His school tie was already stuffed in a pocket. It was unlikely that he’d be spotted now; he was almost home. The sky was stirring with possibility, and somewhere under the cover of the trees ahead, an owl hooted.

  Where the path forked between the beach and the old cart track up to the house, it began to rain, lightly at first, before pelting down. Alex enjoyed the cool on his face, and for a moment thought about going for a swim, stripping off and diving into the cold sea and letting it wash over him, but it would only cause a bigger fuss. He was better off safe behind the walls of Trist, where he could forget about phone flashes and the photos that would be circulating like wildfire.

  Half running now, he couldn’t get to the back gates fast enough. As he rounded the next bend, he wasn’t looking where he was going, and almost smacked straight into someone. A girl. He stopped dead and flattened himself in the shadow of a tree.

  She hadn’t noticed. Too busy peering through the hedge into the meadow. Who was she? What was she doing here? He scowled. Trespassing, that was for sure, in the one place that was supposed to be his.

  The girl crouched in a short, flimsy skirt with a baggy jumper that made it look like she wasn’t wearing very much except mucky red Converse on her feet. Her black tights had a snag in them that ran the length of one of her legs and her hair dripped like seaweed between her narrow shoulders. She was in his way, and worse, the terrier in her arms had spotted him. Dogs were never as stupid as their owners.

  It yapped and wrestled to get down, but the girl wasn’t having it. She hung on determinedly, falling on her arm with a swallowed cry. Alex almost stepped forward to help, but then stopped himself in time. She picked herself up and started back down the path mu
ttering at the dog. An American. He’d heard it in the accent. Probably some gawpy tourist with a camera.

  He had other things to worry about. They’d have worked out where he’d gone; they knew there was nowhere else he’d rather be. Alex felt the key to the side gate crushed against his palm. The door was right there. He could smell the garlic that grew near it. He looked around him one last time and put the long key in the lock. A creak of the door and he was through. With a sigh, he closed it behind him and leaned against it. Alone at last.

  Sliding down on his heels, Alex took in the line of oaks in the distance, standing sentry to the most beautiful house for miles around. Trist. Haunting in her granite-faced sadness. This was where he belonged, where he could be himself, without worrying that he was falling short of what people wanted him to be. Who they needed him to be.

  Here, he was free.

  Sass woke early and burrowed under her quilt, safe from the screeching gulls outside. Pale sunlight filled the whitewashed studio above the boat shed where her uncle David painted during the day and at night she slept. She was getting used to the smell of paint and turpentine, and didn’t mind being on her own because lying in the dark, it was easier to imagine she was back home in her room with her things. Not that the lights ever went out in New York: you could see the city from space. She lay there and listed everything she used to listen to before she opened her eyes at home:

  The rattle of the shutter on the deli across the street.

  The honk of delivery trucks.

  The neighbors upstairs stomping overhead.

  The buzz of her phone beneath her pillow.

  Mom telling her she was late.

  A weight on her feet stirred. Harry. Sass felt him jump down and begin sniffing at stuff. She’d have to get up and take him out because that was the deal for having him with her. Way to go, the easy life of a dog: eat, sleep, bark. With an envious sigh, she threw off her bedding, pulled on her only pair of jeans, and the comfort of Mom’s sweater, and went out.

  The rain had stirred things up. Harry tugged her down the stone steps, past her uncle’s cottage next to the studio, and down to the shore to the dripping fishnets and Harry’s favorite, stinky crab pots, where he lifted his leg on a patch of seaweed. After that, he snapped at the tide coming in until a wave broke over his head. He shook himself dry in a shower of shiny drops.