Half awake and half asleep she dreamily considered the pleasures yet to come and those already taken from her box of albums. The trip she had taken to Longlands persisted in her mind, as did the delights and surprises of her stay in The Lakes. Underneath it though, was the gnawing angst of the journal, its secret story still undeciphered. Glad that she had kept the journal and its contents from Dorothy, she was still a little uncertain of its meaning herself, not really daring to trust her ideas, still hoping that in some obscure way it might be a fiction. Had Dorothy seen it or known the detail, Lydia was not sure how she would have responded. Perhaps she would have thought it best to leave well alone, let the past remain undisturbed, as was her attitude to her father. When Lydia started her day she would write at once to Dorothy to thank her, knowing well it would bring her pleasure to receive such a letter. That done, she would track down Fanny’s marriage to a Joslin and fit those pieces into the jigsaw.
