Chapter 3

It wasn't as if she was sulking or being determined not to enjoy herself in a Lawrie-ish manner. Perhaps mother's insistence that Peter and the twins be left to cope with the farm for the night had been rooted in some kind of guilt, but, unlike Ginty, Rowan seldom worried about what people thought of her. Rowan had come prepared to enjoy herself and prepared to dance. There would be quite enough opportunities for dancing; young men were scarcely in short supply here. Neither were middle aged ones, come to that, and Rowan found herself dancing with a succession of men closer to her father's age than her own. Most of them asked about the farm. They were intelligent, interested questions. Unfortunately they were mostly the same questions. As a recipe for forgetting the farm for a time, the ball was falling rather flat. Rowan wondered again sourly if she was there for her own sake, or to assuage her parents' conscience. It was unlikely that anything would happen in 36 hours that that Nicola could not cope with.

The dance floor was getting quite crowded now, and when the quickstep finished Captain Curtledge looked round as if he was about to escort her over to her mother. It seemed rather old fashioned, but then Captain Curtledge seemed older than her father. Ma was dancing. The captain was leading her courteously to the side of the room while the band made some adjustment in their dispositions. He glanced over her shoulder and nodded at someone behind her.

"Ah, here's young Walker. You'll have a much better time dancing with him than an old fogey like me. May I introduce you to him?"

"With pleasure." It couldn't possibly be him. The older brother just possibly. Assuming his older brother was still in the navy, of course.

But when she turned round, she saw it was him, with the same engaging grin. There was no reason in the world why he should remember her.

"I've had the pleasure of meeting Miss Marlow before. Shall we dance the next one?"

"Yes."

The band started playing the next one more or less as Rowan spoke. This caused some confusion on the dance floor. It didn't seem like a tune for a formal dance. Roger Walker grinned again and swept her off in a wild, fast polka. Rowan grinned back and set herself to showing that she could keep up any pace Roger cared to set. She caught a brief glimpse of apologetic yellow taffeta – Ann and her partner seemed to have collided with another couple - and whisked past a glimpse of peacock blue before the band changed smoothly into "Take the "A" train" and the dancers changed, more or less smoothly, to a foxtrot. The more cautious dancers returned to the floor gradually.

"Just checking we were awake." Roger said, "And which do you prefer to be – Rowan or Miss Marlow?

"Rowan, please."

"And am I to ask you about farming – or very much not ask you about it?"

"Well, everyone else has been asking about it."

"I thought they might," Roger conceded. "So what would you like to talk about?"

"Where you've been." Rowan said promptly. "I'm surrounded by people who have been to all sorts of interesting places and they don't talk about them; they all ask me what I think the future of British Agriculture should be."

"They don't want to admit that one bit of sea is very much like another and that they didn't see much of the world bobbing up and down inside a big tin box." said Roger with cheerful unfairness. "That's the whole problem with the navy."

This last had been clearly overheard by a lieutenant with a pompous expression who looked as if he might say something. Roger flashed an impudent smile at the man and steered them away. Rowan thought the lieutenant's partner looked as though she was having a pretty poor time of it.

"Now there of course is where the RAF have an advantage. We get to see much more – and it's not all sea."

"But from a distance." Rowan suggested.

"Not always," Roger protested, and told her about the time he had spent stationed in Germany, and visiting his brother's family in Malta.

"I suppose you could say that is partly due to the navy," Roger admitted when Rowan pushed him on the point. "Partly – although if I worked in a bank or somewhere they might say I could take only a week at a time. I don't know; I don't work in a bank."

"There are quite a few photographs of Ma and Pa in Malta – before the war, quite a few of them before Giles was born." Rowan said thoughtfully and then asked, "What next? For you I mean?"

"Oxfordshire – RAF Benson to be precise."

"That would be a good place for fishing, wouldn't it?" Rowan asked him.

"Might be. Should be in fact, since Benson itself is on the Thames. It might be all private fishing rights and permits and so on though. Could still be OK , though, if they're reasonable about day or season permits. And what about you, have you taken to fishing?"

Rowan shook her head slightly. "No, although anything I can do sitting down sounds like a good hobby now. Hunting occasionally is enough of an indulgence I suppose."

And that led to horses and to Tessa the Afghan hound, and then to the hounds Roger had seen in Swallowdale and then to the Lake and so to sailing.

"I remember Jon had a boat – Surfrider. Sounded like an accident waiting to happen to me. What happened to her?"

"Gone" said Rowan, and then asked quickly, "and what about your other sister, the one you said lived in Norfolk. Does she sail too?"

"Oh yes." Roger said. "She's probably as good in a dinghy as John. The chap they rent their house from used to do a lot of dinghy racing with his daughters, but one of them died during the war, and the other moved away from the area and he couldn't bear to either sell the boat or leave her entirely unused. Susan and Tom race a little in Flash. Hello, why has the band stopped playing?"

"It would appear," said Rowan, glancing round, "To be suppertime."

"So it is." Roger agreed. "Look, if you meet my family, you won't mention that I didn't notice, will you? I've got a reputation to keep up."

"Of being a hearty trencherman? No, I won't give you away. I've something of a reputation for a hearty appetite myself."

They found a little table with only two chairs, the rest having been commandeered by a larger group at the next table. They worked their way companionably through little vol au vents, slices of savoury sandwich gateau, potato salad, small portions of cold salmon and a couple of stuffed eggs, while Rowan explained why a canter was really not just a slow gallop and Roger explained how they had rigged sails on the sledges, the winter they were off school because of Nancy's mumps.

Both of them were rather aware that they had danced more than the conventional two dances together. Not that people minded so much about that any more, but Rowan wasn't surprised when Captain Walker approached, accompanied by the limp-looking former partner of the pompous lieutenant whom he quickly introduced to both Roger and Rowan as Miss Caroline Bowman. Rowan recognised the dress rather than the girl. Roger took the hint and asked Caroline for the next dance.

"Although, Rowan has been kind enough to give me the dance after that." Roger caught her eye and she nodded readily enough. Ginty appeared with a perspiring sub-lieutenant in tow, introduced him to Rowan, and to Roger as an afterthought, and disappeared quickly, muttering something about the next dance being already promised. Rowan accepted the inevitable invitation from the sub-lieutenant; she felt sorry for the lad. Kid? He might be slightly younger than me, but he's hardly the twins' age.

Rowan felt her limited sympathy evaporating rapidly. However smitten the idiot was with Ginty he could at least make a better pretence of responding enthusiastically to her polite efforts at conversation, instead of trying to keep Gin in his sight the entire time. She thought "Hoop de do" a vile tune anyway. The dance came to an end eventually, and her partner scuttled away to see if he could have another dance with Ginty with almost discourteous haste. Rowan looked round to see Roger escorting Caroline to her mother and pausing for a few words with them both before looking round for her.

"It's the ones that will say how they knew you as a small child and it seems like only yesterday and expecting you to remember the time they patted you on the head," Roger remarked cheerful. "And of course all I remember is various sets of knees coming round for a tea-party in the drawing room – you know the balancing teacups sort of thing, not proper grub - and Mother letting us go up to the school room and play decently early. Only luckily this one turned out to be remembering John instead. Decent of you to come and rescue me."

Roger seemed to require no answer to this. Having got at least part of the dancing portion of the party back on their feet, the band seemed to have decided on slower dances after supper now. Like having pass- the-parcel after a birthday tea, in case we're sick with jumping, Rowan thought. She had always thought it a rather weedy custom followed by other people's mothers, until Lawrie had been sick at the twins' own party. And the next year after that the war had started properly, and there hadn't been the paper to spare or enough food to disagree with Lawrie. And Rowan decided that "my foolish heart" wasn't, after all, such a foolish song and that Roger Walker was pretty much the perfect height – not so tall he was talking to the top of her head, but tall enough that leaning her head on his shoulder was a possibility, if she ever let herself.

Supposing you get the chanc,. Rowan told herself firmly. Roger's given no indication that he wants to see you again. He's just being polite to Jon's cousins. She didn't see why she shouldn't enjoy this evening though. Why should her sisters have all the wishful thinking?

They were talking less now, either of them saying something when it occurred to them, but content enough with the silences in between. Two slow dances, Rowan thought, and then the band would return to something livelier. She didn't want them to.

Tennessee Waltz was coming to an endwhen Roger said, "Do you ever give yourself part of the day off? Would it be OK if I came to see you sometime? This week maybe? Or next if you're frantically busy. I'm on leave, so anytime would suit me."

"I'd….I'd like that very much," Rowan said. "I'm going back home tomorrow and it might take me a day or two to sort out whatever mess Nicola and Peter have made between them. But after that, yes, I'd like to see you again. Only it's quite a long way and…" She stopped abruptly. You want to see him again, don't you? Why on earth point out the obstacles, idiot.

"Let me worry about the "only" and the "quite a long way" bit." Roger said. "But do you object to riding pillion on a motorbike? And would you object to seeing Corfe castle?"

"I'd like that very much." said Rowan.