Kingfisher Morning

'Did you put it under your pillow for the fairies?' asked Ross soberly.

Tracy looked hesitant.

'Yes, she did,' Robin said clearly. 'And the fairies had better leave ten pence, because things are going up all the time.' His voice imitated Tracy's determined accents, leaving them in no doubt as to the origin of the quotation. Tracy went pink and glared at him.

Ross grinned. 'We'll have to wait and see if the fairies can afford a rise! It was threepence when I was your age.'

/> Robin regarded him pityingly. 'Gosh, that must have been ages ago. Were you alive in Queen Victoria's time? Daddy's got a Victorian desk. He lets me sit at it and swing round on his chair.'

Ross gave Emma a sidelong glance, full of wry humour. 'I often feel like a Victorian relic, Robin, but in fact I'm not quite that old.'

In the car the children arranged themselves on the back seat, with some squabbling, while Emma sat in the front beside Ross. He drove fast, but skilfully, taking back roads unhampered by traffic. The lanes were narrow, high-banked, with fields on all sides. Cows grazed peacefully in the green meadows. This was fine pasture land, he told Emma casually. 'The chalk uplands over there afford good grazing for sheep. They even graze them on Maiden Castle.'

'I must see that,' she said eagerly. 'Is it possible to reach it by bus?'

'If I get time I'll run you over there this afternoon,' he offered. 'It will depend on my timetable. I've often spent an afternoon up there, eating a few sandwiches, just lying in the grass and listening to the larks.'

'It's an Iron Age fort, isn't it?'

'Yes, they threw up a succession of earth banks, forming rings, although they're more like ovals than circles. They lived in the middle, and it was hard for an enemy to find his way into the place. They put up gates, of course, in the weak spots, and had men posted on the tops of the banks throwing spears and stones as the enemy tried to storm the bank. Any enemy had to cross the ditch below, and it was an easy matter to chuck a few rocks on to his head. If one bank fell to the enemy, they retreated to the next one, and began again. The centre was the safest place, the sanctuary for the women and children. The banks were like city walls, but there were more of them. It was a good idea.'

'Until the Romans came,' she murmured, shivering a little.

'Yes,' he agreed. 'A superior technology, as always, won the day. The Romans were able to use their ballisters, their catapults, to launch iron-tipped bolts over the ramparts—rather like using modern guns against savages. The Romans didn't need to come within arm length, so the unfortunate British couldn't make much use of their favourite weapon. They couldn't chuck their rocks far enough to reach the Romans until after they'd already been decimated by the Romans barrage. It was like the Germans launching a blitz on London, to soften up enemy resistance, before they planned to invade—and in the case of Maiden Castle, the Romans followed on the heels of their Blitz, and easily took the place.'

'And now it's just a deserted earthworks in the middle of fields,' she said sadly. 'Hardy often mentions it. It made a deep impression on him, I think—seeing that pathetic reminder of the past on the horizon day after day. No wonder he was inclined to be melancholic.'

'Oh, I think he would have been, anyway,' said Ross firmly. 'It all depends how you look at things. The battle of Maiden Castle was centuries ago. Think how much easier life is for the people around here now! I know I'm glad I didn't live two thousand years ago. Hardy should have gone in for positive thinking.'

'Like you,' said Emma drily.

He gave her a shrewd smile. 'I have no time for pessimists. Life is too short.'

They were approaching Dorchester now, negotiating the bridge over the winding river Frome. 'Grey's Bridge,' said Ross quietly. 'It was built by Lora Grey, heiress of a local family. You see that metal plate fixed to the bridge? It's a modern replica of one put up in George the Fourth's time, threatening anyone who defaces the bridge with transportation for life.'

'Heavens!' Emma stared as they whisked over the bridge. 'They were certainly tough on vandals in the nineteenth century!'

'I shouldn't think they had many with punishments like that,' Ross said. 'I often think I'd like to bring back some of those old punishments when I see the cruelties practised by hooligans. I had to put down a dog yesterday. Some boys had thrown stones at it. I felt like giving them a damned good hiding, I can tell you—if I'd known who they were I think I would have done!' He looked grim, his jaw set and his lips unyielding.

'It makes my blood boil when I read about things like that,' Emma agreed hotly. She shot him a little glance. 'I notice you have only one cat? No other pets?'

He shrugged. 'I had a dog—spaniel. He was two when he was knocked down and killed outside the house. A lout driving a sports car—he didn't even stop, just shot off at seventy miles an hour. At least Lucky didn't suffer. He was killed outright. That was my only consolation.'

They parked in a tiny space outside an old stone building with a mossy, tiled roof.

Ross looked round at the excited children. 'Want to come in and see my surgery before you go off shopping?'

From a gate at the side emerged a young woman in black trousers and a blue fisherman's sweater. 'Well, what have we here?' She peered at the children through the car door, grinning at them. 'Come to visit your uncle, have you? Hello, Tracy. Remember me? Good heavens, you've grown like a beanstalk! You'll make Tommy feel envious. He's only grown one inch this year. Remember you measured yourselves in the kennel yard? You must chalk up a new line for yourself while you're here.' Then, without waiting for Tracy to reply, she turned to smile at Emma. 'Hello, you must be the nanny. I'm Mrs Bennett— Chloe. My husband is Ross's partner.'

'Take a breath, Chloe, for God's sake,' said Ross easily. 'Let me introduce you. This is Miss Emma Leigh. She's looking after the kids, but she isn't a nanny, she's an artist on the Thomas Hardy trail.'

'Oh, not old Hardy,' said Chloe irreverently. 'Doesn't anyone come to Dorchester for any other reason? Come in and have coffee, Emma. I expect you need it. Come on, kids, shake a leg. We'll have fizz and cookies in the kitchen. Tommy! Tod! Come out, come out, wherever you are…we have visitors!' Her voice swelled to an organ note, rich and round, almost deafening. Two little boys in identical green denims and sweaters appeared from the yard behind the gate. They looked like miniature versions of their mother, fair and round and friendly.

'Come and have a ride in our wheelbarrow,' they invited at once, and Robin, Donna and Tracy were not slow in accepting the invitation. The five children disappeared from sight, chattering with that easy comradeship which children can attain in a moment, and which adults envy.

'Fizz and cookies on offer!' yelled Chloe after them. There was no reply.

'They'll come when they want it,' she shrugged.