The Lammas Feast

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‘If I hear those four words again,’ my wife said, the severity of her tone belied by the smile in her eyes, ‘I shall very probably scream, and that will be bad for the baby.’

As she spoke, she glanced down at the dark head nestling against her breast, and at the little rosebud mouth sucking at the nipple as though his life depended upon it. At three weeks old, our son, Adam, showed every sign of being as big a guzzler and as keen a trencherman as his father; a fact that Adela was not slow to point out to me.

‘He’s going to be greedy, like you, Roger,’ she would tease affectionately, ruffling my hair, which she knew I liked.

‘Well, at least we shall have something in common,’ was my invariable answer.

There was no doubt that in looks, Adam — small-boned with dark hair and eyes — most nearly resembled his half-brother, Nicholas, Adela’s son by her first husband, and was nothing like myself or his half-sister Elizabeth, my daughter by my first wife. We two were both big, fair-haired and blue-eyed.

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