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object all the more desirable – she was an earnest person, Felix knew by now, who always seemed to feel it necessary to go that bit further, travel the extra mile … in everything.
    Was that why he was hesitating at this last moment? What an irony, when there were no longer difficulties and objections to their being together.
    â€˜Buck up, Slowcoach!’
    Absorbed in his thoughts, he had not realized just how far back he had fallen and that Vinnie, demonstrating her ability to outwalk any man, even Felix with his long legs, was fifty yards ahead of him. ‘There’s no race to get to the top,’ he called back, not increasing his pace.
    Vinnie laughed over her shoulder and strode on, thrusting forward like a ship’s figurehead, her hair blown back by the light wind. She was the sort of girl he had always admired – strong, independent, unflappable in a crisis – but for once he didn’t dwell on her attractions. He walked on, hands in pockets, unseeing of the lovely day all around him: the grass springy and tussocky beneath his feet, the red sandstone outcroppings growing more frequent towards the bare, rounded top of the hill, the freshening breeze, the smell of the earth and the sound of a lark ascending, the sun finding clumps of gorse glinting like prospector’s gold.
    He’d been pulled awake that morning with a tremendous jerk, hot and sweaty, still in the toils of one of those recurrent dreams about his father. Specifically, last night, the memory of that last quarrel when he had told Osbert he was intending to ask Vinnie to marry him, all mixed up with that other appalling, unbelievable happening not two weeks later – the sight of his body in the bath. It was a double nightmare that came back with sickening regularity to haunt his waking thoughts and night-time dreams …
    He had hardly expected his father to jump for joy at the prospect of him wanting to marry Vinnie, but neither had he anticipated the long, cold silence after his announcement, eventually broken by an equally cold, ‘And how do you propose to support a wife?’
    â€˜I know I don’t have much in the way of prospects, not just at present, but I’m determined—’
    â€˜Have I not heard this somewhere before?’
    Felix was taken aback by the unaccustomed sarcasm. He had not anticipated that, either. Osbert was not given to intimidation, verbal or otherwise. He had never been easy to approach, not a father to show his affection openly, but he had always been just.
    â€˜I will not permit such a thing, Felix. Are you out of your mind? Someone like that!’
    Felix had felt a red mist coming over his eyes. ‘
Permit?
Well, I suppose I might have known! She’s not good enough, of course. She doesn’t have any money, or position.’
    In his heart he had known the accusation wasn’t justified. Osbert had never been overly concerned with materialistic matters, but at the same time it had always been his contention that his children should marry what he called ‘decently’, and Vinnie’s family, on her own admission, possessed neither wealth nor position, but even so … He should not have said those things.
    Felix’s nails bit into his palms as he tried to control himself. ‘I think that’s my business and, well, I’m sorry, but I’m of age, so there’s not a thing you can do to stop it, Father. But I would have appreciated your blessing,’ he finished bitterly.
    â€˜That’s something I am not prepared to give.’ Osbert’s face was rigid.
    â€˜I suppose I should have picked someone like Margaret has chosen, someone with—’
    â€˜That will do. Margaret has nothing to do with this.’ They faced each other, neither willing to give in until, after a moment, the rigidity left Osbert’s face and he said in a tone more like that of the father Felix had respected and looked up to in his