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only Francis was capable of showing. ‘Count me out. If Imogen wants them over, let her do the entertaining.’
    â€˜Francis, we can’t. They’re going to be our new neighbours, after all. We have to be civil to them; it needn’t amount to anything more than that.’
    â€˜They’ll ask us back. If they’re young, they’ll have parties, there’ll be no end to it.’
    â€˜Francis –’
    â€˜You and Imogen do the necessary. She enjoys that sort of thing. You don’t need me.’
    He swung his chair round, dismissively held up the two Black Madonna prints, holding them side by side. ‘Which do you prefer?’
    â€˜Not that one,’ she said. She privately thought it rather vulgar, the way the beautiful simplicity of the original was obscured, ‘dressed’ as the Mother and Child were in their richly jewelled frames of robes and crowns. Adorned with hundreds of votive offerings in the form of rubies and other precious stones and hundreds of gold wedding rings, said to have been offered by pious couples.
    â€˜Ah, the Robe of Faithfulness,’ Francis murmured. ‘Both, I think, should be included.’
    Hope let the subject of the new neighbours drop for the moment. She’d sowed the seeds, he’d have time to think about it before Imogen approached him, and though his agreement couldn’t be guaranteed, Imogen was unlikely to meet with the outright refusal she’d have encountered if she’d had to mention it to him cold.
    She would, of course, be expecting opposition. Hope knew very well that Imogen was always prepared for that when confronting either of them with suggestions, admittedly not without cause. They rarely thought the same way. Sometimes Hope wondered how the three of them could have sprung from the same stock, so unlike were they. But, although everything the older twins were not, Imogen was unquestionably their sibling. She was their mother incarnate, in looks and in spirit, from the tips of her pretty, impatient feet to the crown of her shining dark hair (nature helped along by art, but Imogen was the last to let Hope’s disapproval bother her). She not only had their mother’s surprisingly practical, common-sense approach to life, but also their father, Roland’s, undeniable charm, gambler and reprobate though he’d been, he who’d gone with the speed of light through the proceeds of the family business.
    The money had originally been made through fireclay, rich deposits of which Great-great-grandfather Kendrick had discovered lay all around Holden Hill, waiting to be dug to make firebricks and furnaces. He’d made his pile by the time he died, leaving behind a legacy of ugly and dangerous clay-pits for future generations to deal with, and a comfortable lifestyle for the Kendrick descendants – who were numerous, since he’d had nine children. Most of them, however, despised the business, sold their shares profitably and became doctors, teachers, lawyers. One became a bishop and one – Roland, the grandson of the only son to carry on the business – a good-for-nothing. When he died, the debts he left were staggering. Their solicitor had told his children bluntly that they had no option but to get rid of Heath Mount. An opportunity to sell it for building development had just arisen and they’d be well advised to grab it with their three pairs of hands. He pointed out the advantages of living in a smaller, more manageable house, and sitting on a comfortable amount of money, having sold at the top of the market, instead of struggling with the upkeep of Heath Mount without the means to do so.
    Sell Heath Mount? Pull it down? It was quite possible the elder Kendricks might never recover from the shock.
    In the end, it had been Imogen who’d pushed them into the move. Left to themselves, the twins would have lived on in Heath Mount until it crumbled around their ears,