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“Pouf, it’s hot!” Nancy exclaimed, as she wriggled out of the straps of her knapsack and dropped it gratefully on the ground. “What possessed us to go hiking in this?”
“Would you rather be having drawing-room tea with your Aunt Maria?” John asked, eyes twinkling, as he set his own knapsack down rather more carefully and sat down.
Nancy grimaced, dropping down next to him. “Shiver my timbers, no! Why did she have to pick tomorrow of all days to pay Mother a visit? At least it wasn’t today, I couldn’t bear to waste the first day of our holiday making polite conversation and trying to ignore her being disapproving. Anyway, let’s not waste today talking about her either! What do you think, shall we wait for the milk, or push on and come back for it later?”
John looked around. They were at Watersmeet, heading for the gorge where he had once slept on the mountainside with his siblings on the way to Kanchenjunga, that long-ago summer when they had been shipwrecked and the Amazons were held captive by the great-aunt.
“Let’s wait,” he said. “It’s quite a scramble from here to the gorge, from what I remember, and it’s much too hot to do it twice. They should be milking soon, anyway.”
Nancy agreed, and they sat by the stream for a bit, gratefully cooling their hot feet in a small pool and sharing a bottle of ginger-beer between them. Before long, though, Nancy had leapt back up, and was away through the trees with the milk-can before John even had his shoes on again.
“Come on, let’s find a good spot!” she said as soon as she returned, taking her knapsack from him and handing him the milk-can in exchange, and was off.
John chuckled to himself and followed her. Her work as a journalist, her other mysterious work which had started in wartime and which John knew better than to ask questions about, several years of happy marriage, and now motherhood of their young Bobby, seemed to have changed Nancy very little at times. Right now, scrambling on the fellside in her old shorts and shirt, all she needed was a red cap to look just like the Captain Nancy of old.
Just as they had years ago, they scorned the path that led up through the woods, following the course of the beck instead. At last, they came to the ravine above the pines and fir trees, as heathery and lonely as they remembered it. It didn’t take them long to find a good camping-spot, with bare rock for a fireplace, plenty of heather to sleep on, and a fine view of the moors below and the hills beyond Rio. John set to gathering firewood in the wood, while Nancy cut bracken for their beds. Their fireplace was not, perhaps, quite up to Susan’s standards, but it served well enough to boil a kettle while they set out their tea, after which they gladly let their fire die down; the heat was still oppressive, and the fire only added to it. Cook, still at Beckfoot, was just as easily wheedled by Nancy as ever, and had provided them with a couple of meat pies, a seedcake, and plenty of apples. They made a good meal, reminiscing about all their childhood adventures, watching as the hills opposite them turned red in the light of the setting sun, then gradually faded to grey. The first stars began to twinkle, but the heat barely diminished.
“I hope Bobby is behaving for Mother,” Nancy said suddenly.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” John replied, giving her a reassuring smile. They had considered bringing their son along on the hike, but he couldn’t walk far yet, and Mrs Blackett had firmly pointed out he would be too heavy to carry - right before offering to watch him for the night with such enthusiasm that John wouldn’t have had the heart to refuse her.
“Oh, I’m sure he’s having the time of his life!” Nancy said, with her ringing laugh. “I just hope he isn’t wearing Mother out too much. Well, he should be in bed by now - and so should we, if we want to be up early tomorrow!”
John agreed, and they rolled out their sleeping bags. They hadn’t bothered with a tent; with the weather so warm, it seemed silly to carry all that extra weight. Before long, they were lying side by side, gazing up at the stars. Now, John felt as if he himself were the boy he had been once again, the boy who once slept on this same mountainside and watched these same stars.
“Funny, isn’t it?” Nancy replied, when he voiced that thought aloud. “I was thinking something similar, how the mountains and the stars have always been here, and always will be… I love travelling, seeing new stars, but when I close my eyes and picture the night sky, this is the one I see.”
“So do I,” John said. “I know I didn’t grow up here, like you did, but… in a way, I did grow up here. I hope Bobby will, too.”
Nancy chuckled. “Just you wait! Before long he’ll be toddling after Susan’s girls and wanting a tent so he can go on adventures.”
“And they can worry us all as much as we worried our parents.” Not that Mother had shown it often, but looking back on his childhood with a father’s eyes, John could now see how many times she must have hidden her fears.
“What was it your father said? Better drowned than duffers? We’ll just have to make sure he isn’t a duffer,” Nancy said with a yawn.
John nodded sleepily, and peace fell on the quiet hillside.