September

1

Tuesday the Seventh

Isobel balmerino, at the wheel of her minibus, drove the ten miles to Corriehill. It was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon and the beginning of June, but although the trees were heavy with leaf and the fields green with growing crops, there had, so far, been no summer at all. It was not exactly cold, but it was dank and drizzling, and all the way from Croy her windscreen wipers had been working. Clouds hung low over the hills and all was drowned in greyness. She felt sorry for the foreign visitors, come so far to see the glories of Scotland, qnly to find them shrouded in murk and almost invisible.

Not that this troubled her. She had made the complicated journey, cross-country and by back roads, so many times before that she sometimes thought that if she were to dispatch the minibus on its own it would manage very nicely, getting itself to Corriehill and back with no human assistance, reliable as a faithful horse.

Now she had come to the familiar junction and was nearly there. She changed down and swung the minibus into a single-track lane hedged with hawthorn. This lane led up and onto the hill, and as she climbed, the mist grew thicker; prudently she switched on the headlights. To her right appeared the tall stone wall, the march boundary of the Corriehill estate. Another quarter of a mile, and she had reached the great entrance gates, the two lodges. She turned between these and bumped her way up the rutted drive lined with historic beeches and deep verges of rough grass which, in spring, were gold with daffodils. The daffodils had long since died back, and their withered heads and dying leaves were all that remained of their former glory. Some time, some day, Verena's handyman would cut the verges with his garden tractor, and that would be the end of the daffodils. Until next spring.

It occurred to her, sadly, and not for the first time, that as you grew older you became busier, and time went faster and faster, the months pushing each other rudely out of the way, and the years slipping off the calendar and into the past. Once, there had been time. Time to stand, or sit, and just look at daffodils. Or to abandon housekeeping, on the spur of the moment, walk out of the back door and up the hill, into the lark-song emptiness of a summer morning. Or to take off for a self-indulgent day in Relkirk, shopping for frivolities, meeting a girl-friend for lunch, the wine bar warm with humanity and conversation, smelling of coffee and the sort of food that one never cooked for oneself.

All treats that for a number of reasons didn't seem to happen any longer.

The driveway levelled off. Beneath the wheels of the minibus, gravel scrunched. The house loomed up at her through the mist. There were no other cars, which meant that probably all the other hostesses had been, collected their guests, and gone. So Verena would be waiting for her. Isobel hoped that she would not have become impatient.

She drew up, switched off her engine, and got out into the soft, drizzly air. The main door stood open, giving onto a large paved porch, with an inner glass door beyond. This porch was stacked with an enormous amount of expensive luggage. Isobel quailed, because it seemed to be even more lavish than usual. Suitcases (hugely big), garment bags, small grips, golf bags, boxes and parcels and carriers, emblazoned with the familiar names of large stores. (They'd obviously been shopping.) All of these were tagged with distinctive yellow labels: scottish country tours.

Diverted, she paused to read the names on the labels. Mr. Joe Hardwicke. Mr. Arnold Franco. Mrs. Myra Hardwicke. Mrs. Susan Franco. The suitcases were heavily monogrammed, and the golf bags had prestigious club labels hanging from their handles.

She sighed. Here we go again. She opened the inner door.

"Verena!"

The hallway at Corriehill was immense, with a carved oak stairway rising to the upper floors, and much panelling. The floor was scattered with rugs, some quite ordinary and others probably priceless, and in the middle of the floor stood a table bearing a varied collection of objects: a potted geranium, a dog's lead, a brass tray for letters, and a massive leather-bound visitors' book.

"Verena?"

A door, distantly, shut. Footsteps came up the passage from the direction of the kitchen. Verena Steynton presently appeared, looking, as always, tall, slender, unfussed, and perfectly turned out. She was one of those women who, maddeningly, always appear coordinated, as though she spent much time each day selecting and matching her various garments. This skirt, this shirt; that cashmere cardigan, these shoes. Even the damp and muggy weather, which ruined the hair-dos of most right-minded women, didn't stand a chance with Verena's coiffure, which never wilted under the most adverse of circumstances, and always appeared as neat and glamorous as if she had just come out from under the dryer. Isobel had no illusions about her own appearance. Stocky and sturdy as a highland pony, her complexion rosy and shining, her hands roughened by work, she had long stopped bothering about the way she looked. But, seeing Verena, she all at once wished that she had taken the time to change out of her corduroy trousers and the quilted sludge-coloured waistcoat that was her oldest friend.

"Isobel."

"I hope I'm not late."

"No. You're the last but you're not late. Your guests are ready and waiting for you in the drawing-room. Mr. and Mrs. Hardwicke, and Mr. and Mrs. Franco. From the look of them slightly more robust than our usual run of clients." Isobel knew some relief. Perhaps the men would be able to hump their own golf bags. "Where's Archie? Are you on your own?"

"He had to go to a church meeting at Balnaid."

"Will you manage?"

"Of course."

"Well, look, before you whisk them away, there's been a slight change of plan. I'll explain. We'd better go into the library."

Obediently, Isobel followed her, prepared to take orders. The library at Corriehill was a pleasant room, smaller than most of the other apartments, and smelled comfortably masculine-of pipe smoke and wood-smoke, of old books and old dogs. The old-dog smell emanated from an elderly Labrador snoozing on its cushion by the ashy remains of a fire. It raised its head, saw the two ladies, blinked in a superior fashion and went back to sleep.

"The thing is…" Verena started, and at once the telephone on the desk began to ring. She said, "Damn. Sorry, I won't be a moment," and went to answer it. "Hello, Verena Steynton… Yes." Her voice changed. "Mr. Abberley. Thank you for calling back." She pulled the chair from the desk and sat down, reaching for her ballpoint pen and a pad of paper. She looked as though she was settling in for a long session and Isobel's heart sank, because she wanted to get home.

"Yes. Oh, splendid. Now, we shall need your largest marquee, and I think the pale-yellow-and-white lining. And a dance floor." Isobel pricked up her ears, stopped feeling impatient and eavesdropped shamelessly. "The date? We thought the sixteenth of September. That's a Friday. Yes, I think you'd better come and see me, and we'll talk it over. Next week would be fine. Wednesday morning. Right. I'll see you then. Goodbye, Mr. Abberley." She rang off and leaned back in her chair, wearing the satisfied expression of one with a job well done. "Well, that's the first thing settled."

"What on earth are you planning now?"

"Well, Angus and I have been talking about it for ages, and we've finally decided to take the plunge. Katy's twenty-one this year, and we're going to have a dance for her."

"Heavens above, you must be feeling rich."

"No, not particularly, but it is something of an event, and we owe about a million people hospitality, so we'll get them all off in one smashing do."

"But September's ages away, and it's only the beginning of June."

"I know, but one can't start too early. You know what September's like." Isobel did know. The Scottish season, with a mass exodus from the south to the north for the grouse shooting. Every large house filled with house parties, dances, cricket matches, Highland games, and every sort of social activity, all finally culminating in an exhausting week of hunt balls.

"We have to have a marquee because there's really not space for dancing indoors, but Katy insists we must fix up some corner as a night-club so that all her yuppie friends from London can have their little smooch. Then I'll have to find a really good country dance band, and a competent caterer. But at least I've got the tent. You'll all get invitations, of course." She gave Isobel a stern look. "I hope Lucilla will be here."

It was hard not to feel a little envious of Verena, sitting there planning a dance for her daughter, knowing that that daughter would be helpful and co-operative and enjoy every moment of her party. Her own Lucilla and Katy Steynton had been at school together, and friends in the lack-lustre fashion of children thrown together by their parents. For Lucilla was two years younger than Katy, and had a very different personality, and as soon as school was behind them, their ways had parted.

Katy, any mother's dream, had dutifully conformed. A year in Switzerland, and then a secretarial course in London. Graduated, she'd found herself a worthwhile job… something to do with funding for charity… and shared a small house in Wandsworth with three eminently suitable friends. Before long, she would doubtless become engaged to an excellent young man called either Nigel, Jeremy, or Christopher, her blameless face would appear on the front page of Country Life, and the wedding would be predictably traditional with a white dress, a great number of small bridesmaids, and "Praise My Soul the King of Heaven."

Isobel did not want Lucilla to be like Katy, but sometimes, as at this moment, she could not help wishing that her darling, dreamy daughter had turned out to be just a little more ordinary. But even as a child, Lucilla had shown signs of individuality and gentle rebellion. Her political tendencies were strongly Left Wing, and at the drop of a hat she would involve herself, with much passion, in any cause that caught her attention. She was against nuclear power, fox-hunting, the culling of baby seals, the cutting of student grants, and the planting of tracts of horrible conifers in order to provide pop stars with tax-deductible incomes. At the same time, she voiced much concern over the plight of the homeless, the down-and-outs, the drug addicts, and the poor unfortunates who found themselves dying of AIDS.

From an early age, she had always been intensely creative and artistic, and after six months in Paris working as an au pair, she was accepted at the College of Art in Edinburgh. Here, she made friends with the most extraordinary people, whom, from time to time, she brought to Croy to stay. They were a funny-looking lot, but no funnier than Lucilla, who dressed from the Oxfam shop and thought nothing of wearing a lace evening dress with a man's tweed jacket and a pair of Edwardian lace-up boots.

With Art School behind her, she had failed entirely to find any sort of a way in which to earn her keep. No person seemed inclined to buy her incomprehensible paintings, and no gallery wished to exhibit them. Living in an attic in India Street, she had kept herself by going out to clean other people's houses. This had proved strangely lucrative, and as soon as she had saved up enough to pay her fare across the Channel, she had taken off for France with a backpack and her painting gear. Last heard of she was in Paris, staying with some couple she had met on the road. It was all very worrying.

Would she come home? Isobel could write, of course, to the Poste Restante address her daughter had given her. Darling Lucilla, be here in September because you have been asked to Katy Steynton's dance. But it was unlikely that Lucilla would pay much attention. She had never enjoyed formal parties, and could think of nothing to say to the well-connected young men she had met at them. Mummy, they're quite gruesomely square. And they've all got hair like tweed.

She was impossible. She was also sweet, kind, funny, and overflowing with love. Isobel missed her quite dreadfully.

She sighed and said, "I don't know. I don't suppose so."

"Oh dear." Verena was sympathetic, which didn't make it any better. "Well, never mind, I'll send her an invitation. Katy would so love to see her again."

Privately, Isobel doubted this. She said, "Is your dance a secret, or can I talk about it?"

"No, of course it's not a secret. The more people who know, the better. Perhaps they'll offer to have dinner parties."

"I'll have a dinner party."

"You are a saint." They might have sat there making plans for ever had not Verena, all at once, remembered the business in hand. "Heavens above, I've forgotten those poor Americans. They'll be wondering what's happened to us. Now, look… the thing is"-she rummaged on her desk and produced some sheets of typed instructions-"that the two men have spent most of their time playing golf, and they want to play tomorrow, so they're going to give the trip to Glamis a miss. Instead, I've fixed for a car to come and fetch them from Croy at nine o'clock tomorrow morning and take them to Gleneagles. And the same car will bring them back sometime during the afternoon when they've finished their game. But the ladies want to go to Glamis, so if you could have them back here at about ten o'clock, they can join the others in the coach."

Isobel nodded, hoping that she would forget none of this. Verena was so efficient and, to all intents and purposes, Isobel's boss. Scottish Country Tours was run from a central office in Edinburgh, but Verena was the local co-ordinating agent. It was Verena who telephoned Isobel each week to let her know how many guests she could expect (six was the limit, as she had no room for more) and as well fill her in with any small idiosyncrasies or personality problems of her guests.

The tours started in May and continued until the end of August. Each one lasted a week and followed a regular pattern. The group, arriving from Kennedy, began their stay in Edinburgh, where they spent two days sightseeing in the Borders and in the City itself. On Tuesday their coach brought them to Relkirk, where they dutifully plodded around the Auld Kirk, the local Castle, and a National Trust garden. They were then transported to Corriehill, to be welcomed and sorted out by Verena. From Corriehill they were collected by the various hostesses. Wednesday was the day for Glamis Castle and a scenic drive to Pitlochry, and on Thursday they set off yet again in the coach to view the Highlands and to visit Deeside and Inverness.

On Friday they returned to Edinburgh, and on Saturday they flew home, back to Kennedy and all points west.

Isobel was certain that by then they must all be in a state of total exhaustion.

It was Verena who, five years ago, had roped Isobel into the business. She explained what was involved and gave Isobel the firm's hand-out to read. It was effusive.

Stay as a private guest in a private house. Experience for yourself the hospitality and historic grandeur of some of Scotland's loveliest homes, and meet, as friends, the ancient families who live in them…

Such hyperbole took a bit of living up to.

"We're not an ancient family," she'd pointed out to Verena.

"Ancient enough."

"And Cray's not exactly historic."

"Bits of it are. And you've got lots of bedrooms. That's what really counts. And think of all that lovely lolly…"

It was this that had finally decided Isobel. Verena's proposition came at a time when the Balmerino fortunes, in every sense of the word, were at a low ebb. Archie's father, the second Lord Balmerino, and the most charming and impractical of men, had died leaving the estate in some disarray. His unexpected demise took him, and most other people, quite by surprise, and because of this, stupendous death duties creamed off most of the inherited family wealth. With the two children, Lucilla and Hamish, in the throes of their education, the large and inconvenient house to keep going, and the lands to be maintained in some sort of order, the young Balmerinos found themselves faced with certain problems. Archie, at that time, was still a regular soldier. But he had joined the Queen's Loyal Highlanders at the age of nineteen simply because he could think of nothing else he particularly wanted to do, and although he had thoroughly enjoyed his years with the Regiment, he was not blessed with a driving ambition to succeed and knew that he would never make Major-General.

Keeping Croy, living there, come hell or high water, became their first priority. Optimistically, they laid plans. Archie would retire from the Army, and while he was young enough to do so, find himself some sort of a job. But before this could happen he was committed to a last tour of duty with his Regiment, and went with them to Northern Ireland.

The Regiment returned home four months later, but it was eight months before Archie came back to Croy, and it took Isobel about eight days to realize that any sort of a job was, for the time being, out of the question. In some desperation, through long and sleepless nights, she reviewed their plight.

But they had friends, in particular Edmund Aird. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Edmund moved in and took control. It was Edmund who found a tenant for the home farm, and Edmund who assumed responsibility for the grouse moor. Together with Gordon Gillock, the game-keeper, he saw to the burning of the heather and the maintenance of the butts, and then let the entire concern out to a syndicate of businessmen from the south, retaining a gun for himself and a half-gun for Archie.

For Isobel, to be shed of at least some of her anxieties was an enormous relief, but income remained a vexing problem. There was still some inherited capital, but this was tied up in stocks and bonds, and was all that Archie had to leave to his children. Isobel had a little money of her own, but this, even added to Archie's Army pension and his sixty-per-cent disability pension, did not amount to very much. The day-to-day expenses of simply running the house and keeping the family fed and clothed remained a constant source of worry, so that Verena's suggestion, initially daunting, was in fact the answer to a prayer.

"Oh, come on, Isobel. You can do it standing on your head."

And Isobel realized that she could. After all, she was well used to managing the big house, and accustomed to having people to stay. When Archie's father was alive there were always house parties to be arranged for the shooting, and the dances in September. During the school holidays, Croy filled up with the children's friends, and Christmas and Easter never passed without entire families coming to share the festivities.

Compared to all this, Verena's proposition did not sound at all arduous. It would only take up two days a week throughout the four months of summer. Surely that could not be too demanding. And… cheering thought… it would be stimulation for Archie, people coming and going. Helping to entertain them would give him an interest and bolster his morale, sadly in need of a boost.

What she hadn't realized, and what she had painfully learned, was that entertaining paying guests was a very different kettle of fish to having one's own friends about the place. You couldn't argue with them, any more than you could sit about in a companionable silence. Nor could you allow them to slope into the kitchen to peel a pot of potatoes or concoct a salad. The real rub was that they were paying. This put hospitality on a totally different level because it meant that everything had to be perfect. The tour was not cheap and, as Verena forthrightly insisted, the clients must be given value for their dollars.

There were certain guide-lines, printed out on a special instruction sheet for hostesses. Every bedroom must have its own bathroom, preferably adjoining. Beds must have electric blankets, and the rooms must be centrally heated. Also, if possible, there should be supplementary heating… preferably a real fire but, failing this, then an electric or gas fire. Fresh flowers must be arranged in the bedrooms.

(Reading this, Isobel had known some annoyance. Who did they think they were? She had never in her life put a guest in a room without seeing that there were fresh flowers on the dressing-table.)

Then there were more rules about breakfast and dinner. Breakfast must be robust and hearty. Orange juice, coffee, and tea, all available. In the evenings, a cocktail must be offered, and wine at dinner-time. This meal had to be formally served, with candles, crystal, and silver on the table, and consist of at least three courses, to be followed by coffee and conversation. Other diversions, however unlikely, could be offered. A little music… perhaps bagpipe-playing…?

The overseas visitors awaited them in Verena's drawing-room. Verena flung open the door. "I am sorry we've been so long. Just one or two ends that needed to be tied up," she told them in her best committee-meeting voice, which brooked no question nor argument. "Here we are, and here is your hostess, come to take you to Croy."

The drawing-room at Corriehill was large and light, palely decorated and little used. Today, however, because of the inclement weather, a small fire flickered in the grate, and around this, disposed on armchairs and sofas, sat the four Americans. To while away the time, they had switched on the television and were watching, in a bemused fashion, cricket. Disturbed, they rose to their feet, turning smiling faces, and one of the men stooped and politely turned the television off.

"Now, introductions. Mr. and Mrs. Hardwicke, and Mr. and Mrs. Franco, this is your hostess for the next two days. Lady Balmer-ino."

Shaking hands, Isobel understand what Verena had meant when she described this week's guests as being'slightly more robust than usual. Scottish Country Tours seemed, for some reason, to attract clients of an extremely advanced age, and sometimes they were not only geriatric but in a dicey state of health-short of breath and uncertain about the legs. These two couples, however, were scarcely beyond middle age. Grey-haired, certainly, but apparently bursting with energy, and all of them enviably tanned. The Francos were small of stature, and Mr. Franco very bald, and the Hardwickes were tall and muscled and slim, and looked as though they spent their lives out of doors and taking a great deal of exercise.

"I'm afraid I'm a little late," Isobel found herself saying, although she knew perfectly well that she was not. "But we can go whenever you're ready."

They were ready right now. The ladies collected their handbags and their beautiful new Burberry raincoats, and the little party all trooped through the hall and out into the porch. Isobel went to open the back doors of the minibus, and by the time she had done this, the men were humping and heaving the big suitcases across the gravel, and helped her to load them. (This, too, was novel. She and Verena usually had to do the job by themselves.) When all were safely aboard, she shut the doors and fastened them. The Hardwickes and the Francos were saying goodbye to Verena. "But," Verena said, "I'll see you ladies tomorrow. And I hope the golf's a great success. You'll love Gleneagles."

Doors were opened and they all climbed in. Isobel took her place behind the wheel, fastened her seat-belt, turned on the ignition, and they were away.

"I do apologize for the weather. We've had no summer at all yet."

"Oh, it hasn't bothered us in the least. We're just sorry you had to come out on such a day to come and collect us. Hope it wasn't too much trouble."

"No, not at all. That's my job."

"Have we far to go to your home, Lady Balmerino?"

"About ten miles. And I wish you'd call me Isobel."

"Why, thank you, we will. And I am Susan and my husband is Arnold, and the Hardwickes are Joe and Myra."

"Ten miles," said one of the men. "That's quite a distance."

"Yes. Actually my husband usually comes with me on these trips. But he had to go to a meeting. He'll be home for tea, though, so you'll meet him then."

"Is Lord Balmerino in business?"

"No. No, it's not a business meeting. It's a church meeting. Our village church. We have to raise some money. It's rather a shoe-string affair. But my husband's grandfather built it, so he feels a sort of family responsibility."

It was raining again. The windscreen wipers swung to and fro. Perhaps conversation would divert their attention from the misery of it all.

"Is this your first visit to Scotland?"

The two ladies, chipping in on each other like a close-harmony duo, told her. The men had been there before, to play golf, but this was the first time their wives had accompanied them. And they just loved every inch of the place, and had gone crazy in the shops in Edinburrow. It had rained, of course, but that hadn't bothered them. They had their new Burberries to wear, and both decided that the rain made Edinburrow look just so historic and romantic that they had been able to picture Mary and Bothwell riding together up the Royal Mile.

When they had finished, Isobel asked them what part of the States they came from.

"New York State. Rye."

"Are you by the sea there?"

"Oh, sure. Our kids sail every weekend."

Isobel could imagine it. Could imagine those kids, tanned and windblown, bursting with vitamins and fresh orange juice and health, scudding over starch-blue seas beneath the curving wing of a snow-white mainsail. And sunshine. Blue skies and sunshine. Day after day of it, so that you could plan tennis matches and picnics and evening barbecues and know that it wasn't going to rain.

That was how summers, in memory, used to be. The endless, aimless summers of childhood. What had happened to those long, light days, sweet with the scent of roses, when one had to come indoors only to eat, and sometimes not even then? Swimming in the river, lazing in the garden, playing tennis, having tea in the shade of some tree because it was too hot anywhere else. She remembered picnics on moors that simmered in the sunlight, the heather too dry to light a camp-fire, and the larks flying high. What had happened to her world? What cosmic disaster had transformed those bright days into week after week of dark and soggy gloom?

It wasn't just the weather, it was just that the weather made everything so much worse. Like Archie getting his leg shot off, and having to be nice to people you didn't know because they were paying you money to sleep in your spare bedrooms^ And being tired all the time, and never buying new clothes, and worrying about Hamish's school fees, and missing Lucilla.

She heard herself saying, with some force, "It's the one horrible thing about living in Scotland."

For a moment, perhaps surprised by her outburst, nobody commented on this announcement. Then one of the ladies spoke. "I beg your pardon?"

"I'm sorry. I meant the rain. We get so tired of the rain. I meant these horrible summers."

2

The Presbyterian church in Strathcroy, the established Church of Scotland, stood, impressive, ancient, and venerable, on the south bank of the river Croy. It was reached from the main road that ran through the village by a curved stone bridge, and its setting was pastoral. Glebe lands sloped to the water's edge, a grassy pasture where, each September, the Strathcroy Games were held. The churchyard, shaded by a mammoth beech, was filled with time-worn, leaning gravestones, and a grassy path led between these to the gates of the Manse. This as well was solid and imposing, built to contain the large families of bygone ministers and boasting an enviable garden burgeoning with gnarled but productive fruit trees and old-fashioned roses, for these flourished behind the protection of a high stone wall. All of this, so charmingly disposed, exuded an ambience of timeless-ness, domestic security, and God-fearing piety.

In contrast, the little Episcopal church, like a poor relation, crouched directly across the bridge, totally overshadowed, both literally and metaphorically, by its rival. The main road ran close by, and between the church and the road was a strip of grass which the rector, the Reverend Julian Gloxby, himself cut each week. A small lane led up a slope to the back of the church and to the rectory that stood behind it. Both were modest in size and whitewashed. The church had a little tower with a single bell, and a wooden porchway enclosed its main door. Inside, it was equally unassuming. No handsome pews, no flagged floors, no historic relics. A worn drugget led to the altar, and a breathless harmonium did duty as an organ. There was always a faint smell of damp.

Both church and rectory had been erected at the turn of the century by the first Lord Balmerino and handed over to the Diocese with a small endowment for maintenance. The income this produced had long since trickled to nothing, the congregation was tiny, and the Vestry, endeavouring to make ends meet, found themselves perpetually strapped for cash.

When the electric wiring was discovered to be not only faulty but downright dangerous, it was very nearly the last straw. But Archie Balmerino rallied his meagre troops, chaired committees, visited the Bishop and wangled a grant. Even so, some fund-raising was going to be necessary. Various suggestions were put forward, discussed, and eventually turned down. In the end, it was decided to fall back on that old dependable, a church sale. This would take place in July, and in the Village Hall. There would be a Jumble stall, a Plant and Vegetable stall, a White Elephant and Handwork stall, and, of course, teas.

A committee was duly appointed and met, on that grey and damp June afternoon, around the dining-room table at Balnaid, home of Virginia and Edmund Aird. By half past four the meeting was over, with business satisfactorily concluded and modest plans laid. These included the printing of eye-catching posters, the borrowing of a number of trestle-tables, and the organizing of a raffle.

The rector and Mrs. Gloxby, and Toddy Buchanan, who ran the Strathcroy Arms, had already taken their leave and driven away in their cars. Dermot Honeycombe, busy with his antique shop, had been unable to attend. In his absence, he had been given the job of running the White Elephant stall.

Now only three people remained. Virginia and Violet, her mother-in-law, sat at one end of the long mahogany table and Archie Balmerino at the other. As soon as the others had gone, Virginia had disappeared into the kitchen to make tea, and brought it to them on a tray, without ceremony. Three mugs, a brown teapot, a jug of milk, and a bowl of sugar. It was both refreshing and welcome, and it was pleasant to relax after the concentrated discussions of the afternoon and to be able to chat without restriction, enjoying the easy closeness of family and old friends.

They were still mulling over the church sale.

"I just hope Dermot won't mind being told he has to run the White Elephant stall. Perhaps I should ring him and give him the opportunity to say he doesn't want to do it." Archie was always cautious about other people's feelings, terrified of it being thought that he was throwing his weight about.

Violet pooh-poohed the very idea. "Of course he won't. Dear man, he never minds pitching in. He'd probably be far more hurt if we gave the job to somebody else. After all, he knows the value of everything…"

She was a tall lady in her late seventies and very large, dressed in a much-worn coat and skirt and shod in sensible brogues. Her hair was grey and wispy, skewered to the back of her head in a small bun, and her face, with its long top lip and wide-set eyes, resembled that of a kindly sheep. And yet she was neither plain nor dowdy. Wonderfully upright, she had presence, and those eyes were both merry and intelligent, dispelling any suggestion of haughtiness. Now they twinkled with amusement. "Even pottery doggies with bones in their mouths, and table lamps made out of old whisky bottles plastered in shells."

Virginia laughed. "He'll probably pick up some wonderful bargain for twenty-five pence and sell it for some incredible price in his shop next day."

She leaned back in her chair and stretched, like a lazy girl. In her early thirties, Virginia Aird was as blonde and as slender as the day she had married Edmund. Today, making no concession to the formality of the occasion, she wore her usual uniform of jeans, a navy-blue Guernsey sweater, and polished leather loafers. She was pretty in a pert and catlike way, but this prettiness was elevated to beauty by her eyes, which were enormous and of a glittering sapphire blueness. Her skin was fine, innocent of make-up, and the colour of a delectable brown egg. A fine tracing of lines fanned out from the corners of those eyes, and these alone betrayed her age.

Now she flexed her long fingers and circled her wrists, as though performing some prescribed exercise.

"And Isobel will be the tea-lady." She stopped stretching. "Why didn't Isobel come today, Archie?"

"I told you… or perhaps you were out of the room. She had to go to Corriehill to pick up this week's batch of visitors."

"Yes, of course, how stupid of me. Sorry…"

"That reminds me." Violet held out her mug. "Pour me a little more tea, would you, dear? I can drink it till it comes out of my ears… I met Verena Steynton in Relkirk yesterday, and she told me that I didn't have to keep it a secret any longer. She and Angus are going to throw a party for Katy in September."

Virginia frowned. "What do you mean, keep it a secret?"

"Well, she confided in me a few weeks ago, but she said I wasn't to say anything until she'd spoken to Angus about it. It seems that he has finally been persuaded."

"Goodness, how enterprising! A httle hop, or a full-blown affair?"

"Oh, full-blown. Marquees and fairy lights and copperplate invitations and everybody dressed to the nines."

"What fun." Virginia was filled with enthusiasm, as Violet had known she would be. "It's lovely when people throw private parties, because then you don't have to pay for your ticket. Instead I'll have a good excuse to go and buy myself a new dress. We'll all have to rally round and have people to stay. I'll have to be certain that Edmund's not planning to go to Tokyo that week."

"Where is he now?" asked Edmund's mother.

"Oh, in Edinburgh. He'll be back about six."

"And Henry? What's happened to Henry? Shouldn't he be back from school?"

"No. He's stopped off to have his tea with Edie."

"That'll cheer her up."

Virginia frowned, puzzled, as well she might be. The boot was usually on the other foot, and Edie the person who did the cheering. "What's happened?"

Violet looked at Archie. "Do you remember that cousin of Edie's, Lottie Carstairs? She was housemaid at Strathcroy the year you married Isobel?"

"Do I remember her?" His expression was one of horror. "Dread-fill female. Nutty as a fruit-cake. She broke most of the Rockingham tea-set, and she was always creeping around the place, just where you least expected to find her. 1 never knew what induced my mother to employ her."

"I think it was a case of any port in a storm. It was a busy summer and she was desperate for help. Anyway, Lottie only lasted about four months, and then she went back home to Tullochard to live with her aged parents. She never married…"

"That's no surprise…"

"… and now, of course, they're dead, and she's been on her own. Becoming, apparently, odder by the day. Finally, she went over the top and was wheeled off to the nearest mental hospital. Edie's her next of kin. She's been visiting the poor creature every week. And now the doctors say that she's well enough to be discharged, but of course she can't live alone again. At least, not just yet."

"Don't tell me Edie's going to have her?"

"She says she has to. There's nobody else. And you know how kind Edie is… she's always had a great sense of family responsibility. Blood is thicker than water and all that nonsense."

"And a great deal nastier," Archie commented drily. "Lottie Carstairs. I can't think of anything worse. When is all this going to happen?"

Violet shrugged. "I don't know. Next month maybe. Or August."

Virginia was horrified. "She's surely not going to live with Edie?"

"Let's hope not. Let's hope it's just a temporary measure."

"And where on earth will Edie put her? She's only got two rooms in that little cottage of hers."

"I didn't ask."

"When did she tell you this?"

"This morning. When she was Hoovering my dining-room carpet. I thought she was looking a bit down in the mouth, so I asked her what was the matter. I heard all about it over a cup of coffee."

"Oh, poor Edie. I can't bear it for her…"

Archie said, "Edie is a saint."

"She certainly is." Violet finished her tea, glanced at her watch, and began to gather her belongings. Her large handbag, her papers, her spectacles. "That was very nice, dear. Most refreshing. And now I must take myself home."

"Me too," said Archie. "Back to Croy to drink more tea with the Americans."

"You'll be awash. Who have you got this week?"

"No idea. Just hope they're not too elderly. Last week I thought one old boy was going to die of angina right there, in the middle of the soup. Mercifully, however, he survived."

"It's such a responsibility."

"Not really. The worst are the ones who've signed a pledge and take no drink. Bible Belt Baptists. Orange juice makes for sticky conversation. Have you got your car, Vi, or do you want a lift home?"

"I walked down, but I'd like a lift back up the hill."

"I'll take you then."

He too gathered together his papers and heaved himself to his feet. For an instant he paused and then, when certain of his balance, made his way towards them down the length of the thickly carpeted room. He limped only slightly, which was a miracle because his right leg, from a stump of thigh downwards, was made of aluminum.

He had come to the meeting today straight from his garden and apologized for his attire, but nobody took much notice because this was the way he looked most of the time. Shapeless corduroy trousers, a checked shirt with a patched collar, and a threadbare tweed jacket that he called his gardening coat, though in truth no self-respecting gardener would be seen dead in it.

Virginia pushed back her chair and stood up and Violet did the same, but much more slowly, matching her movements to Archie's painful gait. She was in no way impatient to be gone, but even if she were would never show it, for her feelings towards him were sympathetic and fiercely protective. She had, after all, known him all his life. Remembered him as a boy, as a wild young man, as a soldier. Always laughing, and an enthusiasm-almost a lust for life-that was as catching as the measles. She remembered him endlessly active. Playing tennis; dancing at the Regimental Ball, swinging his partners nearly off their feet; leading a line of guns up the hill behind Croy, his long legs covering the heather with an easy stride that left all the others behind.

Then, he had been Archie Blair. Now, he was Lord Balmerino. The Lord and the Laird. Fine titles for a man thin as a stick, with a tin leg to boot. The black hair was now flecked with white, the skin of his face netted with lines, his dark eyes deep-set and shadowed by the jutting brows.

He reached her side and smiled. "Ready, Vi?"

"All set."

"In that case, we'll go…" And then, in mid-step, he stopped again. "Oh, God, I've just remembered. Virginia, did Edmund give you an envelope to give me? I called him last night. It's rather urgent. Some document from the Forestry Commission?"

Violet was instantly suspicious. "You're not going to start planting conifers, are you?"

"No, it's about some access road they're wanting to build at the edge of the moor."

Virginia shook her head. "He didn't say anything about it. Perhaps he forgot. Let's go and look on his desk in the library. It's probably there…"

"Right. I'd like to take it with me if I can."

They moved at a leisurely pace out of the dining-room and into the hall. This was even larger, panelled in pine with a massive staircase, heavily balustraded, rising in three short flights to the upstairs landing. Various items of undistinguished furniture stood about. A carved oak chest, a gate-leg table, and a chaise longue that had seen better days. This was quite often occupied by dogs, but at the moment was empty.

"I shall not come and look for Forestry Commission documents," Violet announced. "I shall sit here until you have found them." And she settled herself majestically on the dogs' bed to wait.

They left her. "We shan't be a moment." She watched them go down the wide passage that led to the library and on to the drawing-room, and on again through glassed doors to the soaring conservatory.

Alone, Violet savoured her momentary solitude, with the old house around her. She knew it so well, had known it all her life. Its every mood was comfortably familiar. Every creak of the stair, every evocative smell. The hall was draughty, but the draughts did not bother her. No longer Violet's home, but Virginia's. And yet it felt much the same as it ever had, as though, over the years, it had assumed a strength of character all its own. Perhaps because so much had happened here. Because it had been the haven and the touchstone of a single family.

Not that Balnaid was a very old house. In fact, it was younger than Violet by a few years, and built by her father, then Sir Hector Akenside, and a man of considerable means. She always thought that Balnaid was a little like Sir Hector. Large, kindly, and lavish, and yet totally unassuming. At a time when men of newly acquired wealth were constructing for themselves huge monuments to their pride of startling hideousness, castellated and turreted, Sir Hector had concentrated his able mind on less glamorous but infinitely more important features.

Central heating, efficient plumbing, plenty of bathrooms, and kitchens filled with sunlight, so that servants (and there were plenty of them) would work in pleasant surroundings. And from the day it was finally completed, Balnaid never looked out of place. Built from local stone on the south side of the Croy, with its back to the village and the river, the face of the house smiled out over a view both domestic and magnificent.

The garden was large, rich with shrubs and mature trees. Sir Hector's passion, he had planned and landscaped it himself, so that formal lawns flowed into drifts of unmown grass, daffodils, and bluebells. Azaleas, coral and yellow, grew in fragrant masses, and mown paths twisted away invitingly out of sight between tall stands of pink- and scarlet-blossomed rhododendrons.

Beyond the garden, and separated from it by a steep ha-ha wall, was an acre or so of parkland, grazing for the hill ponies; and, beyond again, the stone-dyked fields of the neighbouring sheep farmer. Then, in the distance, the hills. They swelled to meet the sky, dramatic as a stage-drop. Constant, and yet continually changing, as the seasons and the light changed: snow-clad, purple with heather, green with spring bracken, swept by gales… whatever. They were always beautiful.

Had always been beautiful.

Violet knew all this because Balnaid had been her childhood home, and so her world. She had grown up within these walls, played solitary games in that magic garden, guddled for trout in the river, ridden her stubby Shetland pony through the village and up onto the lonely hills of Croy. At the age of twenty-two, she had been married from Balnaid.

She remembered driving the little distance to the Episcopalian church in the back of her father's stately Rolls-Royce, with Sir Hector, top-hatted, beside her. The Rolls had been decked out for the occasion with white silk ribbons. These somehow lessened its dignity, and it looked almost as incongruous as Violet felt, with her ample frame laced into a cream satin dress of quite hideous uncom-fortableness and a mist of inherited Limerick lace veiling her homely features. She remembered returning to Balnaid in the same opulent vehicle, but on that journey even the agonizing tightness of her stays had ceased to matter, because she was, at long last, the triumphant wife of Geordie Aird.

She had lived at Balnaid, on and off, ever since, and had not finally moved out until ten years ago, when Edmund married Virginia. He brought Virginia back to Balnaid to live, and Violet knew then that the time had come for her to bow out and allow the old place to welcome its new young mistress. She made the property over to Edmund and bought a gardener's derelict cottage from Archie Bal-merino. This house was called Pennyburn, and there, within the estate walls of Croy, she made a new home for herself. The restoration and refurbishment of the little house had kept her happy for a year, and she was still not finished with the garden.

I am, she told herself, a fortunate woman.

Sitting there, on the dog-smelling chaise longue, Violet looked about her. Saw the worn Turkey rug, the old bits of furniture that she had known all her life. It was pleasant when things did not change too much. When she said goodbye to Balnaid, Violet had never imagined that so little would change. Edmund's new wife, she decided, would be the new broom, come to sweep away all the dusty old traditions, and she was indeed quite interested to see what Virginia-as young and vital as a breath of fresh air-would achieve. But, apart from completely revamping the big bedroom, freshening up the drawing-room with a lick of paint, and turning an old pantry into a utility room that fairly hummed with deep-freezes, washing machines, drying machines, and attendant luxuries, Virginia did nothing. Violet accepted this, but found it puzzling. There was, after all, no lack of money, and to her it seemed strange that Virginia should be content to live with the worn rugs and the faded velvet curtains and the old Edwardian wallpapers.

Perhaps it had something to do with the arrival of Henry. Because after Henry was born, Virginia abandoned all other interests and immersed herself in her baby son. This was very nice, but came as something of a shock to Violet. She had no idea that her daughter-in-law would prove so deeply maternal. With Edmund away so much, and mother and child left on their own, Violet had secret reservations about this overwhelming devotion, and it was a constant source of astonishment to her that despite his upbringing, Henry had grown into such a delightful little boy. A bit too dependent on his mother, perhaps, but still, not spoiled, and a charming child. Perhaps…

"Sorry, Vi, to keep you waiting."

Surprise made her start. She turned and saw Archie and Virginia coming towards her, Archie holding up the long buff envelope as though it were a hard-won banner. "… took a bit of searching for. Come along now, and I'll drive you home."

3

Henry Aird, eight years old, banged with some importance at Edie Findhorn's front door, using her brass knocker shaped like a pixie. The house was one of a line of single-storey cottages that lined the main street of Strathcroy, but Edie's was nicer than anybody else's because it had a mossy thatched roof and forget-me-nots grew in the little strip of earth between the pavement and the wall. Standing there, he heard her footsteps; she unsnibbed the door and threw it open.

"Well, here you are, turned up like a bad penny."

She was always laughing. He loved her, and when people asked him who his best friends were, Edie came on top of the list. She was not only jolly, but fat, white-haired, and rosy-cheeked, and appetizing as a fresh and floury scone.

"Did you have a good day?"

She always asked this, despite the fact that she saw him every lunch-time, because she was the school dinner-lady and served out the midday meal. It was handy having Edie doing this because it meant that she stinted on helpings of things he hated, like curried mince and stodgy custard, and was lavish with the mashed potatoes and chocolate shape.

"Yes, it was all right." He went into her sitting-room, dumped his anorak and his school-bag on the couch. "We had drawing. We had to draw something."

"What did you have to draw?"

"We had to draw a song." He began to undo the buckles of his satchel. He had a problem and thought that probably Edie could help to solve it for him. "We sang 'Speed Bonnie Boat Like a Bird on the Wing over the Sea to Skye,' and we had to draw a picture of it. And everybody else drew rowing boats and islands, and I drew this." He produced it, slightly crumpled from contact with his gym shoes and his pencil box. "And Mr. McLintock laughed, and I don't know why."

"He laughed?" She took it from him, went to find her spectacles, and put them on. "And did he not tell you why he laughed?"

"No. The bell rang and it was the end of class."

Edie sat on the couch and he sat beside her. Together they gazed in silence at his work. He thought it was one of his best pictures. A beautiful speedboat slicing through blue waters, with white water pouring up at its bow and a snowy wake at the stern. There were seagulls in the sky and, on the front of the boat, a baby wrapped in a shawl. The baby had been difficult to draw, because babies have such funny faces. No noses or chins. Also, this baby looked a bit precarious and as though at any moment it might slip off the boat and into the sea. But still, it was there.

Edie did not say anything. Henry explained to her. "It's a speedboat. And that's the lad that's been born."

"Yes, I can see that."

"But why did Mr. McLintock laugh? It's not funny."

"No, it's not funny. It's a lovely picture. It's just that… well… speed doesn't mean a speedboat in the song. It means that the boat's going very fast over the water, but it's not a speedboat. And the lad that was born to be king was Bonnie Prince Charlie, and he was grown up by then."

All was now explained. "Oh," said Henry, "I see."

She gave him back the drawing. "But it's still a good picture, and I think it was very rude of Mr. McLintock to laugh. Put it in your bag and take it home for your mother to see, and Edie will go and start getting your tea."

While he did this, she heaved herself to her feet, put her spectacles back on the mantelpiece, and went out of the room through a door at the back that led to her kitchen and bathroom. These were modern additions, for when Edie was a little girl, the cottage had consisted solely of two rooms. A but and ben it was called. The living room, which was the kitchen as well, and the bedroom. No running water, and a wooden lavatory at the end of the garden. What was more astonishing was that Edie had been one of five children, and so seven people had once lived in these rooms. Her parents had slept in a box-bed in the kitchen, with a shelf over their heads for the baby, and the rest of the children had been crowded into the other room. For water, Mrs. Findhorn had made the long walk each day to the village pump, and baths were a weekly affair, taken in a tin tub in front of the kitchen fire.

"But however did five of you get into the bedroom, Edie?" Henry would ask, fascinated by the logistics of sheer space. Even with just Edie's bed and her wardrobe, it still seemed dreadfully small.

"Oh, mind, we weren't all in there at the same time. By the time the youngest was born, my eldest brother was out working on the land, and living in a bothy with the other farm-hands. And then, when the girls were old enough, they went into service in some big house or other. It was a sore wrench when we had to leave, tears all over the place, but there was no space for us all here, and too many mouths to feed, and my mother needed the extra money."

She told him other things, too. How, on winter evenings, they would bank up the fire with potato peelings and sit around it, listening to their father reading aloud the stories of Rudyard Kipling, or Pilgrim's Progress. The little girls would work at their knitting, making socks for the menfolk. And when it came to turning the heels, the sock was given to an older sister or their mother because that bit of the knitting was too complicated for them to do.

It all sounded very poor, but somehow quite cosy too. Looking about him, Henry found it hard to imagine Edie's cottage the way it had been in olden days. For now it was as bright and cheerful as it could be, the box-bed gone and lovely swirly carpets on the floor. The old kitchen fire had gone too, and a beautiful green tile fireplace stood in its place, and there were flowery curtains and a television set and lots of nice china ornaments.

With his drawing safely stowed, he buckled up his satchel once more. Speed Bonnie Boat. He had got it wrong. He often got things wrong. There was another song they had learned at school. "Ho Ro

My Nut Brown Maiden." Henry, singing lustily with the rest of the class, could just imagine the maiden. A little Pakistani, like Kedejah Ishak, with her dark skin and her shining pigtail, rowing like mad across a windy loch.

His mother had had to explain that one to him.

As well, ordinary words could be confusing. People said things to him, and he heard them, but heard them just the way they sounded. And the word, or the image conjured up by the word, stuck in his mind. Grown-ups went on holiday to "My Yorker" or "Portjig-gal." Or "Grease." Grease sounded a horrid place. Edie once told him about a lady who was very cut up because her daughter had married some fly-by-night who was not good enough for her. The poor lady, all cut up, had haunted his nightmares for weeks.

But the worst was the misunderstanding that had happened with his grandmother, and which might have come between them for ever and caused a lasting rift, had not Henry's mother finally found out what was bothering him and put it right.

He had gone to Pennybum one day after school to have tea with his grandmother, Vi. A gale was blowing and the wind howled around the little house. Sitting by the fire, Vi had suddenly made an exclamation of annoyance, got to her feet and fetched from somewhere a folding screen, which she set up in front of the glass door that led out into the garden. Henry asked her why she was doing this, and when she told him he was so horrified that he scarcely spoke for the rest of the afternoon. When his mother came to fetch him, he had never been so glad to see her and could not wait to scramble into his anorak and be out of the house, almost forgetting to thank Vi for his tea.

It was horrible. He felt that he never wanted to go back to Pennyburn, and yet knew that he ought to, if only to protect Vi. Every time his mother suggested another visit, he made some excuse or said he would rather go to Edie's. Finally, one night while he was having his bath, she came and sat on the lavatory and talked to him… she brought the conversation gently around to the touchy subject and at last asked him straight if there was any reason why he no longer wanted to go to Vi's.

"You always used to love it so. Did something happen?"

It was a relief at last to talk about it.

"It's frightening."

"Darling, what's frightening?"

"It comes in, out of the garden, and it comes into the sitting-room. Vi put a screen up but it could easily knock the screen over. It might hurt her. I don't think she should live there any more."

"For heaven's sake! What comes in?"

He could see it. With great tall spotted legs, and a long thin spotted neck, and great big yellow teeth with its lips curled back, ready to pounce, or bite.

"A horrible giraffe."

His mother was confounded. "Henry, have you gone out of your mind? Giraffes live in Africa, or zoos. There aren't any giraffes in Strathcroy."

"There are!" He shouted at her stupidity. "She said so. She said there was a horrible giraffe that came out of the garden, and through the door and into her sitting-room. She told me so."

There was a long silence. He stared at his mother and she stared back at him with her bright blue eyes, but she never smiled.

At last she said, "She wasn't telling you that there was a giraffe, Henry. She was telling you that there was a draught. You know, a horrid, shivery draught."

A draught. Not a giraffe but a draught. All that fuss about a stupid draught. He had made a fool of himself, but was so relieved that his grandmother was safe from monsters that it didn't matter.

"Don't tell anybody," he pleaded.

"I'll have to explain to Vi. But she won't say a word."

"All right. You can tell Vi. But not anybody else."

And his mother had promised, and he had jumped out of the bath, all dripping wet, and been gathered up into a great fluffy towel and his mother's arms, and she had hugged him and told him that she was going to eat him alive and she loved him so, and they had sung "Camptown Races," and there was macaroni and cheese for supper.

Edie had cooked sausages for his tea and made potato scones, and opened a can of baked beans. While he ploughed his way through this, sitting at her kitchen table, Edie sat opposite him, drinking a cup of tea. Her own meal she would eat later.

Munching, he realized that she was quieter than usual. Normally on such occasions they never stopped talking, and he was the willing recipient of all the gossip in the glen. Who had died and how much they had left; who had abandoned his father on the farm and hightailed it off to Relkirk to work in a garage; who had started a baby and was no better than she should be. But today no such snippets of information came his way. Instead Edie sat with her dimpled elbows on the table and gazed out of the window at her long, thin back garden.

He said, "Penny for your thoughts, Edie," which was what she always said to him when he had something on his mind.

She sighed deeply. "Oh, Henry, I don't know, and that's for certain."

Which told him nothing. However, when pressed, she explained her predicament. She had a cousin who had lived in Tullochard. She was called Lottie Carstairs and had never been bright. Never married. Gone into domestic service, but had proved useless even at that. She had lived with her mother and father until the old folks had died, and then turned very strange and had had to go to hospital. Edie said it was a nervous breakdown. But she was recovering. One day she would come out of hospital, and she was coming to stay with Edie because there was no other place for the poor soul to go.

Henry thought this a rotten idea. He liked having Edie to himself. "But you haven't got a spare room."

"She'll have to have my bedroom."

He was indignant. "But where will you sleep?"

"On the Put-U-Up in the sitting-room."

She was far too fat for the Put-U-Up. "Why can't Dotty sleep there?"

"Because she will be the guest, and her name's Lottie."

"Will she stay for long?"

"We'll have to see."

Henry thought about this. "Will you go on being dinner-lady, and helping Mummy, and helping Vi at Pennyburn?"

"For heaven's sake, Henry, Lottie's not bedridden.¹'

"Will I like her?" This was important.

Edie found herself at a loss for words. "Oh, Henry, I don't know. She's a sad creature. Nineteen shillings in the pound, my father always called her. Screamed like a wet hen if a man showed his face around the door, and clumsy! Years ago, she worked for a wee while for old Lady Balmerino at Croy, but she smashed so much china that they had to give her the sack. She never worked again after that."

Henry was horrified. "You mustn't let her do the washing-up or she'll break all your pretty things."

"It's not just my china she'll be breaking…" Edie prophesied gloomily, but before Henry could follow up this interesting line of conversation she took a hold of herself, put a more cheerful expression on her face, and pointedly changed the subject. "Do you want another potato scone, or are you ready for your Choc Bar?"

4

Emerging with Archie and Virginia from the front door of Balnaid, and descending the steps to the gravel sweep, Violet saw that the rain had stopped. It was still damp but now much warmer, and lifting her head she felt the breeze on her cheek, blowing freshly from the west. Low clouds were slowly being rolled aside, revealing here and there a patch of blue sky and a piercing, biblical, ray of sunshine. It would turn into a beautiful summer evening-too late to be of much use to anybody.

Archie's old Land Rover stood waiting for them. They said goodbye to Virginia, Violet with a peck on her daughter-in-law's cheek.

"Love to Edmund."

"I'll tell him."

They clambered up into the Land Rover, both with some effort, Violet because she was elderly, and Archie because of his tin leg. Doors were slammed shut, Archie started up the engine, and they were off. Down the curving driveway to the gate, out onto the narrow lane that led past the Presbyterian church, and so across the bridge. At the main road, Archie paused, but there was no traffic, and he swung out and into the street which ran through Strathcroy from end to end.

The little Episcopal church squatted humbly. Mr. Gloxby was out in front of it, cutting the grass.

"He works so hard," Archie observed. "I do hope we can raise a decent bit of cash with a church sale. It was good of you to come today, Vi. I'm sure you'd much rather have been gardening."

"It was such disheartening weather, I had no desire to get at my weeds," Vi said. "So one might as well spend the day doing something worthy." She thought about this. "Rather like when one is worried sick about a child or a grandchild, but you can't do anything, so you go and scrub the scullery floor. At the end of the day you're still worried sick, but at least you've got a clean scullery."

"You're not worried about your family, are you, Vi? What could you possibly have to worry about?"

"All women worry about their families," Violet told him flatly.

The Land Rover trundled down the road, past the petrol station, which had once been the blacksmith's forge, and the Ishaks' supermarket. Beyond this stood the open gates that led to the back drive of Croy. Archie changed down and drove through these, and at once they were climbing steeply. Once, and not so long ago, the surrounding lands had all been park, smooth green pastures grazed by pedigree cattle, but now these had been ploughed for crops, barley, and turnips. Only a few broad-leaved trees still stood, witness to the splendour of former years.

"Why do you worry?"

Violet hesitated. She knew that she could talk to Archie. She had known him all his life, watched him grow up. Indeed, she was as close to him as if he had been her own son, for although he was five years younger than Edmund, the two boys had been brought up together, spent all their time together, and become the closest of friends.

If Edmund was not at Croy, then Archie was at Balnaid; and if they were at neither house, then they were walking the hills with guns and dogs, potting at hares and rabbits, helping Gordon Gillock burn the heather and repair the butts. Or else they were out in the boat on the loch, or casting for trout in the brown pools of the Croy, or playing tennis, or skating on frozen flood-water. Inseparable, everybody had said. Like brothers.

But they were not brothers, and they had parted. Edmund was bright. "Twice as bright as either of his not unintelligent parents. Archie, on the other hand, was totally unacademic.

Edmund, sailing through University, emerged from Cambridge with an Honours Degree in Economics, and was instantly employed by a prestigious merchant bank in the City.

Archie, unable to think of any other career that he might successfully follow, decided to have a try for the Army. He duly appeared before a Regular Commission Board and somehow managed to bluff his way through the interview, for the four senior officers apparently decided that a modest scholastic record was outweighed by Archie's outgoing and friendly personality and his enormous enthusiasm for life.

He went through Sandhurst, joined the Regiment, and was posted to Germany. Edmund stayed in London. He became, to no person's surprise, enormously successful, and within five years had been head-hunted by Sanford Cubben. In the fullness of time he married, but even this romantic event added glitter to his image. Violet recalled pacing up the long aisle of St. Margaret's, Westminster, arm in arm with Sir Rodney Cheriton, and finding time to hope in her heart that Edmund was marrying Caroline because he truly loved her, and not because he had been seduced by the aura of riches that surrounded her.

And now the wheel had gone full circle, and both men were back in Strathcroy. Archie at Croy, and Edmund at Balnaid. Grown men in their middle years, still friends, but no longer intimate. Too much had happened to both of them, and not all of it good. Too many years had slipped by, like water under a bridge. They were different people: one a very wealthy man of business, the other strapped for cash and perpetually struggling to make ends meet. But it was not because of this that a certain formality, a politeness lay between them.

They were no longer close as brothers.

She sighed gustily. Archie smiled. "Oh, come on, Vi, it can't be as bad as that."

"Of course not." He had troubles enough of his own. She would make light of hers. "But I do worry about Alexa, because she seems so alone. I know she's doing a job she enjoys, and that "she has that charming little house in which to live, and Lady Cheriton left her enough to give her security for the rest of her life. But I am afraid that her social life is a disaster. I think she truly believes that she's plain and dull and unattractive to men. She has no confidence in herself. When she went to London, I so hoped that she would make a life for herself, make friends of her own age. But she just stayed at Ovington Street with her grandmother, like a sort of companion. If only she could meet some dear kind man who would marry her. She should have a husband to take care of, and children. Alexa was born to have children."

Archie listened sympathetically to all this. He was as fond of Alexa as any of them. He said, "Losing her mother when she was so little… perhaps that was a more traumatic experience than any of us realized. Perhaps it made her feel different from other girls. Incomplete in some way."

Violet thought about this. "Yes. Perhaps. Except that Caroline was never a very demonstrative nor loving mother. She never spent much time with Alexa. It was Edie who provided all Alexa's security and affection. And Edie was always there."

"But you liked Caroline."

"Oh yes, I liked her. There was nothing to dislike. We had a good relationship, and I think she was a good wife to Edmund. But she was a strangely reserved girl. Sometimes I went south, to stay for a few days with them all in London. Caroline would invite me, very charmingly, knowing that I would enjoy being with Alexa and Edie. And of course I did, but I never felt totally at home. I hate cities, anyway. Streets and houses and traffic make me feel beleaguered. Claustrophobic. But, quite apart from that, Caroline was never a relaxed hostess. I always felt a bit in the way, and she was an impossible girl to chat with. Left alone with her I had to struggle, sometimes, to make conversation, and you know perfectly well that, if pressed, I can talk the hind legs off a donkey. But pauses would fall, and they were silences that were not companionable. And I would try to fill those silences in, stitching furiously at my tapestry." She looked across at Archie. "Does that sound ridiculous, or do you understand what I'm trying to say?"

"Yes, I do understand. I hardly knew Caroline, but the few times I met her I always felt my hands and my feet were too big."

But even this mild attempt at levity did not raise a smile with

Violet, preoccupied as she was with Alexa's problems. She fell silent, brooding about her granddaughter.

By now they had climbed half-way up the hill that led to Croy and were approaching the turning for Pennyburn. There were no gates, simply an opening that broke the fence to the left of the road. The Land Rover turned into this, and Archie drove the hundred yards or so along a neatly Tarmacked lane bordered on either side by mown grass verges and a trimly clipped beech hedge. At the end of this the lane opened up into a sizable yard, with the small white house on one side and a double garage on the other. The doors of this were open, revealing Violet's car, and, as well, her wheelbarrow and lawn-mower and a plethora of garden tools. Between the garage and the beech hedge was her drying-green. She had done a wash this morning, and a line of laundry stirred in the rising breeze. Wooden tubs, planted with hydrangeas the colour of pink blotting paper, flanked the entrance to the house, and a hedge of lavender grew close to its walls.

Archie drew up and switched off the engine, but Violet made no move to alight. Having started this discussion, she had no wish to end it before it was finished.

"So I don't really believe that losing her mother in that tragic way is the root cause of Alexa's lack of confidence. Nor the fact that Edmund married again and presented her with a stepmother. Nobody could have been sweeter or more understanding than Virginia, and the arrival of Henry brought nothing but joy. Not a hint of sibling rivalry." The mention of Henry's name reminded Violet of yet another tiresome worry. "And now I'm fretting about Henry. Because I'm afraid that Edmund is going to insist on sending him to Temple-hall as a boarder. And 1 think he's not ready for that yet. And if he does go, I'm anxious for Virginia, because her life is Henry, and if he is torn away from her against her will, I'm afraid that she and Edmund might drift apart. He is away so much. Sometimes in Edinburgh for the entire week, sometimes on the other side of the world. It's not good for a marriage."

"But when Virginia married Edmund, she knew how it would be. Don't get too worked up about it, Vi. Templehall's a good school, and Colin Henderson's a sympathetic headmaster. I've got great faith in the place. Hamish has loved it there, enjoyed every moment."

"Yes, but your Hamish is very different from Henry. At eight years old, Hamish was quite capable of taking care of himself."

"Yes." Archie, not without pride, had to admit this. "He's a tough little bugger."

Violet was visited by another dreadful thought. "Archie, they don't hit the little boys, do they? They don't beat them?"

"Heavens, no. The worst punishment is to be sent to sit on the wooden chair in the hall. For some reason this puts the fear of God into the most recalcitrant infant."

"Well, I suppose that's something to be thankful for. So barbaric to beat little children. And so stupid. Getting hit by someone you dislike can only fill you with hatred and fear. Being sent to sit on a hard chair by a man you respect and even like is infinitely more sensible."

"Hamish spent most of his first year sitting on it."

"Wicked boy. Oh dear, it doesn't bear thinking about. And Edie doesn't bear thinking about either. Now I've got Edie to worry over, saddling herself with that dreadful lunatic cousin. We've all depended on Edie for so long, we forgot that she's no longer young. I just hope it's not all going to be too much for her."

"Well, it hasn't happened yet. Maybe it'll never happen."

"We can scarcely wish poor Lottie Carstairs dead, which seems the only alternative."

She looked at Archie and saw, somewhat to her surprise, that he was near to laughter. "You know something, Vi? You're depressing me."

"Oh, I am sorry." She struck him a friendly blow on the knee. "What a miserable old gasbag I am. Take no notice. Tell me, what news of Lucilla?"

"Last heard of, roosting in some Paris garret."

"They always say that children are a joy. But at times they can be the most appalling headaches. Now, I must let you get home and not keep you chattering. Isobel will be waiting for you."

"You wouldn't like to come back to Croy and have more tea?" He sounded wistful. "Help amuse the Americans?"

Violet's heart sank at the prospect. "Archie, I don't think I feel quite up to doing that. Am I being selfish?"

"Not a bit. Just a thought. Sometimes I find all this barking and wagging tails daunting. But it's nothing compared with what poor Isobel has to do."

"It must be the most dreadfully hard work. All that fetching and carrying and cooking and table-laying and bed-making. And then having to make conversation. I know it's only for two nights each week, but couldn't you chuck your hands in and think of some other way to make money?"

"Can you?"

"Not immediately. But I wish things could be different for you both. I know one can't put the clock back, but sometimes I think how nice it would be if nothing had changed at Croy. If your precious parents could still be alive, and all of you young again. Coming and going, and cars buzzing up and down the drive, and voices. And laughter."

She turned to Archie, but his face was averted. He gazed out over her washing-green, as though Violet's tea-towels and pillowcases and her sturdy brassieres and silk knickers were the most absorbing sight in the world.

She thought,. And you and Edmund the cbsest of friends, but she did not say this.

"And Pandora there. That naughty, darling child. I always felt that when she left she took so much of the laughter with her."

Archie stayed silent. And then he said "Yes," and nothing more.

A small constraint lay between them. "lb fill it, Violet busied herself, gathering up her belongings. "I mustn't keep you any longer." She opened the door and clambered down from the bulky old vehicle.

"Thank you for the ride, Archie."

"A pleasure, Vi."

"Love to Isobel."

"Of course. See you soon."

She waited while he turned the Land Rover, and watched him drive away, along the lane, and on up the hill. She felt guilty, because she should have gone with him, and drunk tea with Isobel, and made polite chat to the unknown Americans. But too late now, because he was gone. She searched in her handbag for her key and let herself into her house.

Alone, Archie continued on his way. The road grew steeper. Now there were trees ahead, Scots pine and tall beeches. Beyond and above these, the face of the hillside thrust skywards, cliffs of rock and scree, sprouting tufts of whin and bracken and determined saplings of silver birch. He reached the trees; and the road, having climbed as high as it could, swept around to the left and levelled out. Ahead, the beech avenue led the way to the house. A burn tumbled down from the hilltops in a series of pools and waterfalls and flowed on down the hill under an arched stone bridge. This stream was Penny-burn, and lower down the slope it made its way through the garden of Violet Aird's house.

Beneath the beeches all was shaded, the light diffused, limpid and greenish. The leafy branches arched thickly overhead, and it felt a little like driving down the centre aisle of some enormous cathedral. And then, abruptly, the avenue fell behind him and the house came into view, set four-square on the brow of the hill, with the whole panoramic vista of the glen spread out at its feet. The evening breeze had done its work, tearing the clouds to tatters, lifting the mist. The distant hills, the peaceful acres of farmland were washed in golden sunlight.

All at once, it became essential to have a moment or two to himself. This was selfish. He was already late, and Isobel was waiting for him, in need of his moral support. But he pushed guilt out of his mind, drew up out of earshot of the house, and switched off the engine.

It was very quiet, just the sough of the wind in the trees, the cry of curlews. He listened to the silence, from some distant field heard the bleat of sheep. And Violet's voice: All of you young again. Coming and going… And Pandora there…

She shouldn't have said that. He did not want his memories stirred. He did not wish to be consumed by this yearning nostalgia.

All of you young again.

He thought about Croy the way it had once been. He thought about coming home as a schoolboy, as a young soldier on leave. Roaring up the hill in his supercharged sports car with the roof down and the wind burning his cheeks. Knowing, with all the confidence of youth, that all would be just as he had left it. Drawing up with a screech of brakes at the front of the house; the family dogs spilling out of the open door, barking, coming to greet him, and their clamour alerting the household, so that by the time he was indoors, they were all converging. His mother and father, Harris the butler, and Mrs. Harris the cook, and any other housemaid or daily lady who happened to be helping out at the time.

"Archie. Oh, darling, welcome home."

And then, Pandora. 1 always felt that when she left she took so much of the laughter with her. His young sister. In memory, she was about thirteen and already beautiful. He saw her flying, long-legged, down the stairs, to leap into his waiting embrace. He saw her, with her full, curving mouth and her woman's provocative, slanting eyes. He felt the lightness of her body as he swung her around, off her feet. He heard her voice.

"You're back, you brute, and you've got a new car. I saw it out of the nursery window. Take me for a ride, Archie. Let's go a hundred miles an hour."

Pandora. He found himself smiling. Always, even as a child, she had been a life-enhancer, an injector of vitality and laughter to the most stuffy of occasions. Where she had sprung from he had never quite worked out. She was a Blair born and bred, yet so different in every way from the rest of them that she might have been a changeling.

He remembered her as a baby, as a little girl, as that delicious leggy teenager, for she had never suffered from puppy fat, spots, or lack of confidence. At sixteen, she looked twenty. Every friend he brought to the house had been, if not in love with her, then certainly mesmerized.

Life had hummed with activity for the young Blairs. House parties, shooting parties, tennis in the summer, August picnics on the sunlit, purple-heathered hills. He recalled one picnic when Pandora, complaining of the heat, had stripped off all her clothes and plunged naked, with no thought for astonished spectators, into the loch. He remembered dances, and Pandora in a white chiffon dress, with her brown shoulders bare, whirling from man to man through Strip the Willow and The Duke of Perth.

She was gone. Had been gone for over twenty years. At eighteen, a few months after Archie's wedding, she had eloped with an American, some other woman's husband, whom she had met in Scotland during the summer. With this man she flew to California, and in the fullness of time became his wife. Waves of shock and horror reverberated around the county, but the Balmerinos were so loved and respected that they were treated with much sympathy and understanding. Perhaps, said people hopefully, she will come back. But Pandora did not come back. She did not return even for her parents' funerals. Instead, as though engaged in an endless Strip the Willow, she flung herself, wayward as always, from one disastrous love affair to another. Divorced from her American husband, she moved to New York, and later to France, where she lived for some years in Paris. She kept in touch with Archie by means of rare and sporadic postcards, sending a scrawled address, a scrap of information, and a huge straggling cross for a kiss. Now she seemed to have ended up in a villa in Majorca. God knew who was her current companion.

Long since, Archie and Isobel had despaired of her, and yet, from time to time, he found himself missing her more than anybody else. For youth was over, and his father's household dispersed. Harris and Mrs. Harris had long retired, and domestic help was reduced to Agnes Cooper who, two days a week, climbed the hill from the village to give Isobel a hand in the kitchen.

As for the estate, matters were hardly better. Gordon Gillock, the keeper, was still in situ in his small stone house with the kennels at the back, but the grouse moor was let to a syndicate, and Edmund Aird paid the keeper's salary. The farm, as well, had gone, and the parkland was ploughed for crops. The old gardener-a weathered stick of a man and an important part of Archie's childhood-had finally died, and not been replaced. His precious walled garden was put down to grass; unpruned, the rhododendrons grew massive, and the hard tennis court was green with moss. Archie now was officially the gardener, with the sporadic assistance of Willy Snoddy, who lived in a grubby cottage at the end of the village, trapped rabbits and poached salmon, and was pleased from time to time to earn a little drinking money.

And he himself? Archie took stock. An ex-Lieutenant-Colonel in the Queen's Loyal Highlanders, invalided out with a tin leg, a sixty-per-cent disability pension, and too many nightmares. But still, thanks to Isobel, in possession of his inheritance. Croy was still his and would, God willing, belong to Hamish. Crippled, struggling to make ends meet, he was still Balmerino of Croy.

Suddenly, it was funny. Balmerino of Croy. Such a fine-sounding title, and such a ludicrous situation. It was no good trying to work out why everything had gone so wrong because there was nothing much he could do about it anyway. No more harking back. Duty called and the Lady Balmerino waited.

For some obscure reason he felt more cheerful. He started up the engine and drove the short distance across the gravel to the front of the house.

5

It had drizzled most of the day but now it was fine, so after his tea Henry went out into Edie's garden with her. This ran down to the river, and her washing line was strung between two apple trees. He helped her to unpeg the washing and put it into the wicker basket, and they folded the sheets together with a snap and a crack to get all the creases out of them. With this accomplished, they went back into the house and Edie set up the ironing board and began ironing her pillowcases and her pinafore and a blouse. Henry watched, liking the smell and the way the hot iron made the crunchy damp linen all smooth and shiny and crisp.

He said, "You're very good at ironing."

"I'd need to be after all these years at it."

"How many years, Edie?"

"Well…" She dumped the iron down on its end and folded the pillowcase with her dimpled red hands. "I'm sixty-eight now, and 1 was eighteen when I first went to work for Mrs. Aird. Work that one out."

Even Henry could do that sum. "Fifty years."

"Fifty years is a long way to look ahead, but looking back it doesn't seem any time at all. Makes you wonder what life's all about."

"Tell me about Alexa and London." Henry had never been to London, but Edie had lived there once.

"Oh, Henry, I've told you these stories a thousand times."

"I like to hear them again."

"Well…" She pressed a crease, sharp as a knife edge. "When your daddy was much younger, he was married to a lady called Caroline. They were married in London, at St. Margaret's, Westminster, and we all went down for the occasion, and stayed at a hotel called the Berkeley. And what a wedding that was! Ten lovely bridesmaids, all in white dresses, like a flock of swans. And after the wedding we all went to another very grand hotel called the Ritz, and there were waiters in tailcoats and so grand you've have thought they were wedding guests themselves. And there was champagne and such a spread of food you didn't know where to start."

"Were there jellies?"

"Jellies in every colour. Yellow and red and green. And there was cold salmon and wee sandwiches you could eat with your fingers, and frosted grapes all sparkling with sugar. And Caroline wore a dress of wild silk with a great long train, and on her head was a diamond tiara that her father had given her for a wedding present, and she looked like a queen."

"Was she pretty?"

"Oh, Henry, all brides are beautiful."

"Was she as pretty as my mother?"

But Edie was not to be drawn. "She was good-looking in a different sort of way. Very tall, she was, with lovely black hair."

"Did you like her?"

"Of course 1 liked her. I wouldn't have gone to London to look after Alexa if 1 hadn't liked her."

"Tell me about that bit."

Edie set aside her pillowcases and started in on a blue-and-white-checked table-cloth.

"Well, it was just after your Grandfather Geordie died. 1 was still living at Balnaid, and working for your Granny Vi. It was just the two of us in the house, keeping each other company. We knew that Alexa was on the way, because Edmund had come up for his father's funeral and he told us then. 'Caroline is having a baby,' he told us, and it was a wonderful comfort to your Granny Vi to know that even if Geordie was with her no longer, there was a new wee life on the way. And then we heard that Caroline was looking for a Nanny to take care of the bairn. Your Granny Vi was up to high doh. The truth of the matter was that she couldn't bide the thought of some uninformed bisom having the care of her grandchild, filling her wee head with all the wrong ideas, and not taking the time to talk to the child, nor read to her. I never thought about going until your Granny Vi asked me to. I didn't want to leave Balnaid and Strathcroy. But… we talked it over and in the end decided that there was nothing else to be done. So I went to London…"

"I bet Daddy was pleased to see you."

"Och, yes, he was pleased enough. And at the end of the day, it was a mercy I went. Alexa was born safe and sound, but after the baby arrived, Caroline became very, very ill."

"Did she have measles?"

"No, it wasn't measles."

"Whooping cough?"

"No. It wasn't that sort of illness. It was more nervous. Postnatal depression they call it, and it's a horrible thing to see. She had to go to hospital for treatment, and when she was allowed home she was really not good for anything, let alone take care of a baby. But eventually she recovered a wee bit and her mother, Lady Cheriton, took her off on a cruise to a lovely island called Madeira. And after a month or two there, she was better again."

"Were you left all alone in London?"

"Not all alone. There was a nice lady who came in every day to clean the house, and then your father was in and out."

"Why didn't you come back to Scotland and stay with Vi?"

"There was a time when we thought we might. Just for a visit. It was the week of Lord and Lady Balmerino's wedding… only then of course he was Archie Blair, and such a handsome young officer. Caroline was still in Madeira and Edmund said we'd all come north together for the occasion and stay at Balnaid. Your Granny Vi was so excited when she heard the news that we were coming to visit. She got the cot down from the attic and washed the baby blankets and dusted up the old pram. And then Alexa started teething… she was only a wee thing and what a time she had of it. Crying all night and not a mortal thing I could do to quieten her. I think I went two weeks without a proper night's sleep, and in the end Edmund said he thought the long journey north would be too much for the pair of us. He was right, of course, but I could have cried from disappointment."

"And Vi must have been disappointed too."

"Yes, I think she was."

"Did Daddy come to the wedding?"

"Oh, yes, he came. He and Archie were old, old friends. He had to be there. But he came on his own."

She had finished the table-cloth. Now she was onto her best blouse, easing the point of the iron into the gathered bit on the shoulder. That looked even more difficult than ironing pillowcases.

"Tell me about the house in London."

"Oh, Henry, do you not weary of all these old tales?"

"I like hearing about the house."

"All right. It was in Kensington, in a row. Very tall and thin, and what a work. The kitchens in the basement and the nurseries right up at the top of the house. It seemed to me that I never stopped climbing stairs. But it was a beautiful house, filled with precious things. And there was always something going on-people calling, or dinner parties, and guests arriving through the front door in their fine clothes. Alexa and I used to sit on the turn of the stairs and watch it all through the bannisters."

"But nobody saw you."

"No. Nobody saw us. It was like playing hide-and-seek."

"And you used to go to Buckingham Palace…"

"Yes, to watch the Changing of the Guard. And sometimes we took a taxi to Regent's Park Zoo and looked at the lions. And when Alexa was old enough, I walked her to school and dancing class. Some of the other children were little Lords and Ladies, and what a toffee-nosed lot their Nannies were!"

Little Lords and Ladies and a house filled with precious things. Edie, Henry decided, had had some marvellous experiences. "Were you sad to leave London?"

"Oh, Henry, I was sad because it was a sad time, and the reason for leaving was so sad. A terrible tragedy. Just think, one man driving his car far too fast and without thinking of any other body on the road, and in a single instant Edmund had lost his wife and Alexa her mother. And poor Lady Cheriton her only child, her only daughter. Dead."

Dead. It was a terrible word. Like the snap of a pair of scissors cutting a piece of string in two and knowing that you could never, ever put the piece of string together again.

"Did Alexa mind?"

" 'Mind' is not the word for such a time of bereavement."

"But it meant that you could come back to Scotland."

"Yes." Edie sighed and folded her blouse. "Yes, we came back. We all did. Your father to work in Edinburgh and Alexa and I to live at Balnaid. And things gradually got better. Grief is a funny thing because you don't have to carry it with you for the rest of your life. After a bit you set it down by the roadside and walk on and leave it resting there. As for Alexa, it was a new life. She went to Strathcroy Primary, just as you do, and made friends with all the village children. And your Granny Vi gave her a bicycle and a wee Shetland pony. Before very long you'd never have known she ever lived in London. And yet every holiday, when she was old enough to travel on her own, back she went to stay a little while with Lady Cheriton. It was the least we could do for the poor lady."

Her ironing was finished. She turned off the iron and set it in the grate to cool, and then folded up her ironing board. But Henry did not want to stop this fascinating conversation.

"Before Alexa, you looked after Daddy, didn't you?"

"That's what I did. Right up to the day when he was eight years old and went away to boarding-school."

Henry said, "I don't want to go to boarding-school."

"Oh, come away." Edie's voice turned brisk. She was not about to have any teary nonsense. "And why not? Lots of other boys your own age, and football and cricket and high jinks."

"I won't know anybody. I won't have a friend. And I shan't be able to take Moo with me."

Edie knew all about Moo. Moo was a piece of satin and wool, remains of Henry's cot blanket. It lived under his pillow and helped him to get to sleep at nights. Without Moo he would not sleep. Moo was very important to him.

"No," she admitted. "You won't be able to take Moo, that's for certain. But nobody would object if you took a teddy."

"Teddies don't work. And Hamish Blair says only babies take teddies."

"Hamish Blair talks a lot of nonsense." *

"And you won't be there to give me my dinner."

Edie stopped being brisk. She put out a hand and ruffled his hair. "Wee man. We all have to grow up, move on. The world would come to a standstill if we all stayed in the same place. Now"-she looked at her clock-"it's time you were away home. I promised your mother you'd be back by six. Will you be all right on your own, or do you want me to come a bit of the way with you?"

"No," he told her. "I'll be all right on my own."

6

Edmund Aird was nearly forty when he married for the second time, and his new wife Virginia was twenty-three. She hailed not from Scotland but from Devon, the daughter of an officer in the Devon and Dorset Regiment who had retired from the Army in order to run an inherited farm, a considerable spread of land between Dartmoor and the sea. She had been brought up in Devon, but her mother was American, and every summer she and Virginia crossed the Atlantic in order to spend the hot months of July and August in her old family home. This was in Leesport on the south shore of Long Island, a village facing out over the blue waters of the Great South Bay to the dunes of Fire Island.

The grandparents' house was old, clapboard, large and airy. Sea breezes blew through it, stirring filmy curtains and bringing indoors the scents of the garden. This garden was spacious and separated from the quiet, tree-shaded street by a white picket fence. There were decks furnished for outdoor living, and wide porches screened for coolness and sanctuary from bugs. But its greatest charm was that it adjoined the country club, that hub of social activity with its restaurants and bars, golf course, tennis courts, and enormous turquoise swimming pool.

It was a world away from damp and misty Devon, and the annual experience gave the young Virginia a polish and sophistication that set her apart from her English contemporaries. Her clothes, purchased during mammoth Fifth Avenue shopping sprees, were both sleek and trendy. Her voice held a trace of her mother's charming drawl, and returning to school with her groomed blonde head and her long, slender American legs, she was a source of much wonder and admiration and, inevitably, on the receiving end of a good deal of malicious envy.

Early on she learned to cope with this.

Not particularly scholastic, her passion was the open air and any sort of outdoor activity. In Long Island she played tennis, sailed, and swam. In Devon she rode, hunting every winter with the local foxhounds. As she grew up, young men flocked to her side, pole-axed by the sight of her in hunting gear astride some enviable horse, or flying expertly about the tennis court in a white skirt that barely covered her bottom. At Christmas dances they clustered like bees around the proverbial honey-pot. When she was home, the telephone constantly rang, was constantly for her.'Her father complained but secretly he was proud. In time, he stopped complaining, and installed a second telephone.

Leaving school, she went to London and learned to work an electric typewriter. This was extremely dull, but as she had no particular talent nor ambition, it seemed to be the only thing to do. She shared a flat in Fulham and did temporary jobs, because that way she was free to come and go whenever a pleasant invitation came her way. The men were still there but now they were different men: older, richer, and sometimes married to other women. She allowed them to spend enormous sums of money on her, take her out to dinner and give her expensive presents. And then, when they were at their wit's end with unrequited lust and devotion, she would without warning disappear from London-to spend another blissful summer with her grandparents, or head for a house party in Ibiza, or a yacht on the west coast of Scotland, or Christmas in Devon.

On one of these impetuous jaunts she had met Edmund Aird. It was September and at a house party in Relkirkshire for the Hunt Ball, where she was staying with the family of a girl with whom she had been at school. Before the ball, there was a lavish dinner party and all the guests-those staying in the house and others who had been invited-gathered in the great library.

Virginia was the last to make her entrance. She wore a dress of so pale a green that it was almost white, strapless but caught over one shoulder by a spray of ivy, the dark leaves fashioned of gleaming satin.

She saw him instantly. He was standing with his back to the fireplace, and he was tall. Across the room their eyes met and held. He had black hair streaked with white, like silver-fox fur. She was accustomed to men in all the peacock glory of Highland dress but she had never seen one who looked so easy and so well in his finery, the diced hose and the kilt, and the sombre bottle-green jacket sparked with silver buttons.

"… Virginia dear, there you are." This was her hostess. "Now who do you know and who do you not know?" Unknown faces, new names. She scarcely heard them spoken. Finally, "… and this is Edmund Aird. Edmund, this is Virginia, who is staying with us. All the way from Devon. And you mustn't talk to her now because I've put you next to each other at dinner, and you can talk to her then…"

She had never before fallen so instantly and totally in love. There had, of course, been affairs, mad infatuations in the high old days of the Leesport Country Club, but never anything that lasted longer than a few weeks. That evening was very different, and Virginia knew, without question, that she had met the only man with whom she had ever wanted to share the rest of her life. It did not take very long to realize that the incredible miracle was actually happening and that Edmund felt exactly the same way about her.

The world became brilliant and beautiful. Nothing could go wrong. Dazzled by happiness, she was ready to throw in her lot with Edmund, abandon all common sense and any tiresome principle. Give him her life. Live in the back of beyond if necessary; on the top of a mountain; in blatant sin. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

But Edmund, having lost his heart, kept a tight rein on his head. He went to some lengths to explain his position. He was, after all, head of the Scottish branch of Sanford Cubben, a man of some prominence and very much in the eye of the media. Edinburgh was a small city, and he had many friends and business colleagues, and their respect and trust he valued. To step too blatantly out of line and end up with his name plastered over the gossip columns of the tabloid newspapers would be not only foolish but possibly disastrous.

As well, he had to consider his family.

"Family?"

"Yes, family. I have been married before."

"I should think it very strange if you hadn't been."

"My wife was killed in a car accident. But I have Alexa. She's ten. She lives with my mother in Strathcroy."

"I like little girls. I would be very careful of her."

But there were still other hurdles to be faced.

"Virginia, I'm seventeen years older than you. Does forty seem so very decrepit?"

"Years don't matter."

"It would mean your living in the wilds of Relkirkshire."

"I shall drape myself in tartan and wear a hat with a feather."

He laughed, but wryly. "Unfortunately, it's not September all the year round. All our friends live miles apart and the winters are long and dark. Everybody hibernates. I am so afraid that you would find it very dull."

"Edmund, it sounds a little as though you're having second thoughts and are trying to put me off."

"It's not that. Never that. But you have to know all the truths. No illusions. You are so young, and so beautiful, and so vital, and you have all of life in front of you…"

"To be with you."

"That's another thing. My job. It's demanding. I'm away so much. Abroad so often, sometimes for two or three weeks at a time."

"But you'll come back to me."

She was adamant, and he adored her. He sighed. "I wish for both our sakes that it could be different. I wish that I were young again, and without responsibilities. Free to behave any way I wanted. Then we could live together and have time to get to know each other. And be totally sure."

"I am totally sure."

She was. Undeviating. He took her in his arms and said, "Then there's nothing for it. I shall have to marry you."

"You poor man."

"You will be happy? I want so much to make you happy."

"Oh, Edmund. Darling Edmund. How could I be anything else?"

They were married two months later, at the end of November, in Devon. It was a quiet wedding in the tiny church where Virginia had been christened.

The end of her beginning. No regrets. The casual, indiscriminate affairs were over and she let them go without a backward glance. She was Mrs. Edmund Aird.

After their honeymoon they travelled north to Balnaid, Virginia's new home, and her new and ready-made family: Violet, Edie, and Alexa. Life in Scotland was a new and very different experience from anything that Virginia had previously known, but she made every effort to adjust, if only because others, very obviously, were doing the same thing. Violet had already moved firmly out and gone to Pennyburn. She proved a mistress of non-interference. Edie was equally tactful. The time had come, she announced, for her to leave as well and settle herself in the cottage in the village where she had been brought up and which she had inherited from her mother. She was retiring from resident work but instead would continue on a daily basis, sharing her time between Virginia and Violet.

Edie was, in those early days, a tower of strength, a source of excellent advice, and a fund of cosy gossip. It was she who, for Alexa's sake, filled in for Virginia some details of Edmund's previous marriage, but once this was done, never mentioned it again. It was over, finished. Water under the bridge. Virginia was grateful. Edie, the old servant who had seen and heard everything, could well have proved to be the fly in the ointment. Instead she became one of Virginia's closest friends.

Alexa took a little longer. Sweet-natured and self-contained, she was inclined to be shy and withdrawn. She was not a beautiful child, with a dumpy shape and pale-red hair and the white skin that goes with this colouring, and was at first uncertain of her position in the family, yet almost touchingly anxious to please. Virginia responded to the best of her ability. This little girl was, after all, Edmund's child and an important part of their marriage. She could never be a mother, but she could be a sister. Unobtrusively, she eased Alexa out of her shell, speaking to her as though they were the same age, taking much care not to tread on any tender toes. She showed interest in Alexa's ploys, her drawing and her dolls, and included her in every possible activity and occasion. This was not always convenient, but the most important thing was that Alexa should never feel abandoned.

It took about six months, but it was worth it. She was rewarded by Alexa's spontaneous confidences, and a touching admiration and devotion.

So there was family, but there were friends too. Liking her for her youth, for their affection for Edmund, for the fact that Edmund had chosen to marry her, they made her welcome. The Balmerinos, of course, but others too. Virginia was a gregarious girl who did not relish solitude and found herself surrounded by people who seemed to want her. When Edmund was away on business, which he was right from the start, more often than not, everybody was enormously kind and attentive, asking her out on her own, constantly phoning to be certain that she was neither lonely nor unhappy.

Which she was not. Secretly she almost relished Edmund's absences because, in some strange way, they enhanced everything; he was gone but she knew that he was coming back to her, and each time he came back, being married to him was even better than before. Occupied with Alexa, with her new house, and her new friends, she filled in the empty days and counted the hours until Edmund should return to her. From Hong Kong. From Frankfurt. Once he had taken her with him to New York, and afterwards had indulged in a week's leave. They had spent it at Leesport, and she remembered that time as one of the best in the whole of her life.

And then, Henry.

Henry changed everything, not for the worse, but for the better, if that was possible. After Henry, she didn't want to go away any more. She had never imagined herself capable of such selfless love. It was different from loving Edmund, but all the more precious because it was utterly unexpected. She had never thought of herself as maternal, and never analyzed the true meaning of the word. But this tiny human being, this little life reduced her to wordless wonder.

They all teased her, but she didn't mind. She shared him with Violet and Edie and Alexa, and relished in the sharing because, at the end of the day, Henry belonged to her. She watched him grow and savoured every moment of his progress. He stumbled and walked and spoke words, and she was enchanted. She played with him, drew pictures, watched Alexa push him in her old doll's pram across the lawn. They lay in the grass and watched ants, walked down to the river and threw pebbles into the swift-flowing brown stream. They sat by winter fires and read picture books.

He was two. He was three. He was five years old. She took him to his first day at the Strathcroy Primary School and stood at the gate watching him walk away from her up the path to the school-house door. There were children everywhere but none of them took any notice of him. He seemed, at that moment, especially small and very vulnerable, and she could scarcely bear to see him go.

Three years later, he was still small and vulnerable, and she felt more protective of him than ever. And this was the cause of the cloud that had gathered and now lay on the edge of her own personal horizon. She was afraid of it.

From time to time the subject of Henry's future had come up, but she had shied from discussing it through with Edmund. He knew, however, her opinion. Lately, nothing had been said. She was happy to leave it this way, on the principle that it was best to leave a sleeping tiger to lie. She did not want to have to fight Edmund. She had never stood up to him before because she had always been happy to leave important decisions to him. He was, after all, older, wiser, and infinitely more competent. But this was different. This was Henry.

Perhaps, if she did not look, if she paid no attention, the problem would go away.

When Archie and Violet had left, trundling away down the drive in the battered old Land Rover, Virginia stayed where she was, in front of the house, feeling unsatisfactorily aimless and at a loss for something to do. The church meeting had broken the day in half, and yet it was too early to go indoors and start thinking about dinner. The weather was improving by the moment, and the sun was about to appear. Perhaps she should attempt a little gardening. She considered this idea and then rejected it. In the end she went into the house, gathered up the tea-mugs from the dining-room table and carried them through to the kitchen. Edmund's spaniels were dozing in their baskets under the table. As soon as they heard her footsteps, however, they were awake, on their feet and anxious for exercise.

"I'll just put these in the dishwasher," she told them, "and then we'll go out for a bit." She always talked aloud to the dogs, and sometimes, like right now, it was comforting to hear the sound of her own voice. Mad old people talked to themselves. At times it was not difficult to understand why.

In the back kitchen, with the dogs milling around her, she took an old jacket off a hook and pushed her feet into rubber boots. Then they set off, the dogs racing ahead, down the wooded lane that ran along the south bank of the river. Two miles upstream another bridge crossed the water, leading back to the main road, and so to the village. But she left this behind her and walked on to where the trees stopped and the moor began, untrammelled miles of heather and grass and bracken, leaning up into the hills. Far away, the sheep grazed. There was only the sound of flowing water.

She came to the dam, the river sliding over its rim, the deep pool beyond. This was Henry's favourite swimming place. She sat on the bank where, in summer, they brought picnics. The dogs loved the river. They stood now knee-deep, and drank as though they had not seen water for months. When they had done this, they came out and shook themselves lustily all over her. The afternoon sun felt warm. She pulled off her jacket and would have sat on, revelling in the sun's warmth, but inevitably the midges appeared in droves and started biting, so she got to her feet, whistled the dogs, and went home.

She was in the kitchen preparing dinner when Edmund returned. They were having roast chicken and she was grating breadcrumbs for bread sauce. She heard the car, looked with surprise at the clock, and saw that it was only half past five. He was very early. Driving from Edinburgh, he did not usually arrive back at Balnaid until seven or even later. What could have happened?

Speculating, hoping there was nothing wrong, she finished the breadcrumbs and dumped them into the saucepan with the milk and the onion and the cloves. She stirred. She heard his footsteps coming down the long passage from the hall. The door opened and she turned, smiling but faintly anxious.

"I'm back," he announced unnecessarily.

Her husband's masculine appearance, as always, filled Virginia with satisfaction. He wore a navy-blue chalk-striped suit, a light-blue shirt with a white collar, and a Christian Dior silk tie that she had given him for Christmas. He carried his brief-case and looked a bit creased, as well he might after a day's work and a long drive, but not in the least weary. He never looked weary and he never complained of feeling tired. His mother swore he had never been tired in his life.

He was tall, his figure youthful as it had ever been, and his handsome face, with the quiet, hooded eyes, hardly lined. Only his hair had changed. Once so black, it was now silvery-white but thick and smooth as ever. For some reason the ageless face, in juxtaposition to that white hair, rendered him more distinguished and attractive than ever.

She said, "Why so early?"

"Reasons. I'll explain." He came to kiss her; looked at the saucepan. "Good smells. Bread sauce. Roast chicken?"

"Of course."

He dumped his brief-case on the kitchen table. "Where's Henry?"

"With Edie. He won't be back till after six. She's given him his tea."

"Good."

She frowned. "Why good?"

"I want to talk to you. Let's go into the library. Leave the sauce, you can cook it later…"

He was already on his way out of the kitchen. Puzzled and apprehensive, Virginia put the saucepan aside and replaced the big lid on the hob. Then she followed him. She found him in the library, crouched by the fireplace, setting a match to the newspaper and kindling.

She felt faintly defensive, as though this were some sort of criticism. "Edmund, I was going to light the fire when I'd got the sauce made and the potatoes peeled. But it's a funny sort of day. We spent all afternoon in the dining-room, having the church meeting. We never came in here…"

"Doesn't matter."

The paper had caught, the kindling snapped and crackled. He straightened, dusting his hands, and stood watching the rising flames. His profile gave nothing away.

"We're going to have this sale in July." She sat on the arm of one of the chairs. "I've got the worst job of all, collecting jumble. And Archie wanted some envelope from the Forestry Commission… he said you knew about it. We found it in your desk."

"Yes. That's right. I meant to give it to you."

"… oh, and something frightfully exciting. The Steyntons are going to have a dance, for Katy, in September…"

"I know." *

"You know?"

"I had lunch with Angus Steynton in the New Club today. He told me then."

"They're going the whole hog. Marquees and bands and caterers and everything. I'm going to get a really sensational dress…"

He turned his head and looked at her, and her chatter died. She wondered if he had even been listening. After a little, she asked, "What is it?"

He said, "I'm home early because I haven't been in the office this afternoon. I drove down to Templehall. I've been with Colin Henderson."

Templehall. Colin Henderson. She felt her heart drop into her stomach and her mouth was suddenly dry. "Why, Edmund?"

"I wanted to talk things over. I hadn't made up my mind about Henry, but now I feel sure it's the right thing to do."

"What is the right thing to do?"

"To send him there in September."

"As a boarder?"

"He could scarcely attend as a day-boy."

Apprehension by now had gone, overwhelmed by a slow, consuming anger. She had never experienced anger like this against Edmund. As well, she was shocked. She had known him to be overbearing, even dictatorial, but never underhanded. Now, behind her back, it seemed that he had betrayed her. She felt betrayed, without defences, destroyed before she had even time to fire a single gun.

"You had no right." Her own voice, but it did not sound like Virginia. "Edmund. You had no right."

He raised his eyebrows. "No right?"

"No right to go without me. No right to go without telling me. I should have been there, to talk things over, as you put it. Henry is my child just as much as he is yours. How dare you sneak off and organize everything behind my back, without saying a single word!"

"I didn't sneak off and I'm telling you now."

"Yes. As a fait accompli. I don't like being treated as a person who doesn't matter, someone who has no say. Why should you always make all the decisions?"

"I suppose because I always have."

"You were underhanded." She rose to her feet, her arms folded tightly across her breast, as though the only way to stop them from actually striking her husband was to keep them under control. Always so compliant, she was a tigress now, fighting for her cub. "You know, you've always known, that I don't want Henry to go to Templehall. He's too little. He's too young. I know you went when you were eight to boarding-school, and I know that Hamish Blair is there, but why should it have to be a rigid tradition that we all have to follow? It's archaic, Victorian, out of date, to send little children away from home. And what is worse is that it doesn't have to happen. Henry can perfectly well stay at Strathcroy until he's twelve. And then he can go to boarding-school. That's reasonable. But not before, Edmund. Not now."

He gazed at her in genuine perplexity. "Why do you want to make Henry different from other boys? Why should he be marked out as an oddity, staying at home until he's twelve? Perhaps you're confusing him with American children who seem to rule the family household until they're practically adult…"

Virginia was incensed. "It's nothing to do with America. How can you say such a thing? It's to do with what any sensible, normal mother feels about her children. It's you who are on the wrong tack,

Edmund. But you won't ever consider the possibility that you might be wrong. You're behaving like a Victorian. Old-fashioned and pigheaded and chauvinistic."

She got no reaction from this outburst. Edmund's expression did not change. On such occasions, his was a poker-face, with sleepy eyes and an unsmiling mouth. She found herself longing for him to behave naturally, let himself go, lose his temper, raise his voice. But that was not Edmund Aird's way. In business, he was known as a cold fish. He stayed unmoved, controlled, unprovoked.

He said, "You are thinking only of yourself."

"I'm thinking of Henry."

"No. You want to keep him. And you want your own way. Life has been kind to you. You've always had your own way; spoiled and indulged by your parents. And perhaps I continued where they left off. But there comes a time when we all have to grow up. I suggest that you grow up now. Henry is not your possession and you must let him go."

She could scarcely believe that he was saying these things to her.

"I don't think of Henry as a possession. That is the most insulting accusation. He's a person in his own right, and I've made him that person. But he's eight years old. Scarcely out of the nursery. He needs his home. He needs us. He needs the security of surroundings he's known all his life, and he needs his Moo under the pillow. He can't be just sent away. 1 don't want him to be sent away."

"I know."

"He's too little."

"So he needs to grow."

"He'll grow away from me."

Edmund made no comment on this. Her bracing anger had dissolved and she was left hurt and defeated, and near to tears. To hide these, she turned away from her husband and walked to the window, and stood there with her forehead against the cool glass. She stared, hot-eyed, unseeing, at the garden.

There was a long silence. And then, reasonable as ever, Edmund began to speak again. "Templehall's a good school, Virginia, and Colin Henderson's a good headmaster. The boys are never pushed, but they're taught to work. Life is going to be hard for Henry. It's going to be hard for all these youngsters. Competitive and tough. The sooner they face up to this, and learn to take the rough with the smooth, the better. Accept the situation. For my sake. See it my way. Henry is too dependent on you." "I'm his mother."

"You smother him." With that, he walked calmly from the room.

7

In the golden evening, Henry walked home. There were few people about because it was nearly six o'clock and they were all indoors eating their tea. He imagined this comforting meal. Soup perhaps, and then haddock or chops and then cakes and biscuits, all washed down with strong and scalding tea. He himself felt pleasantly full of sausages. But perhaps before he went to bed there would be space for a mug of cocoa.

He crossed the curving bridge that spanned the Croy between the two churches. At the top of the curve he stopped and leaned over the ancient stone parapet to gaze down at the river. There had been much rain, too much for the farmers, and it was running deeply, carrying on its spate stray scraps of flotsam gathered on its journey. Branches of trees and bits of straw. Once he had seen a poor little dead lamb swept away beneath the bridge. Farther down the glen the land flattened out and there the Croy changed character, to widen and wind through pasture land, between fields where the peaceful cattle came down at evening time to drink at the water's edge. But here it flowed steeply downhill, leaping and sliding over the rocks in a series of miniature waterfalls and deep pools.

The sound of the Croy was one of Henry's earliest memories. At night he could hear it from the open window of his bedroom, and he awoke to its voice every morning. Upstream was the pool where Alexa had taught him to swim. With his friends from school he played many wet, muddy games on its banks, building dams and making camps.

Behind him, the big clock on the Presbyterian church tower struck the hour with six solemn, donging tolls. Reluctantly he drew back from the parapet and went on his way, down the lane that bordered the south bank of the river. Tall elms towered overhead, their topmost branches noisy with a colony of cawing rooks.

Reaching the open gates of Balnaid and anxious all at once to be home, he began to run, his satchel bumping at his side. As he came around the house he saw his father's dark-blue BMW parked on the gravel. Which was splendid, and an unexpected treat. His father did not usually get home until after Henry was in bed. But now he would find them in the kitchen, comfortably chatting and exchanging news of the day, while his mother prepared dinner and his father had a cup of tea.

But they were not in the kitchen. He knew this the moment he went through the front door because he could hear voices from behind the closed library door. Just voices and the closed door, so why did he have this feeling that it was wrong; that nothing was as it should be?

His mouth had gone dry. He tiptoed down the wide passage and stood outside the door. He had truly meant to go in and surprise them, but instead he found himself listening.

"… Scarcely out of the nursery. He needs his home. He needs us." His mother, speaking in a voice he had never heard before, high-pitched and sounding as though she was about to burst into tears. "… He can't be just sent away. I don't want him to be sent away."

"1 know." That was his father.

"He's too little."

"So he needs to grow."

"He'll grow away from me."

They were quarrelling. They were having a row. The unbelievable had happened: his mother and father were fighting. Cold with horror, Henry waited for what was going to happen next. After a bit, his father spoke again.

"Templehall's a good school, Virginia, and Colin Henderson's a good headmaster. The boys are never pushed, but they're taught to work. Life is going to be hard for Henry…"

So that was what the row was about. They were going to send him to Templehall. To boarding-school.

"… and learn to take the rough with the smooth, the better."

Away from his friends, from Strathcroy, from Balnaid, from Edie and Vi. He thought of Hamish Blair, so much older, so superior, so cruel. Only babies have teddies.

"… Henry is too dependent on you."

He could not bear to listen any more. Every fear that he had ever known crowded in on Henry. He backed away from the library door and then, reaching the safety of the hall, turned and ran. Across the floor, up the stairs and down the passage to his bedroom. Slamming the door shut behind him, he tore off his satchel and threw himself onto his bed, bundling the duvet around him. He reached under his pillow for Moo.

Henry is too dependent on you.

And so he was going to be sent away.

Plugging his mouth with his thumb, pressing Moo to his cheek, he was, for the moment, safe. Comforted, he would not cry. He closed his eyes.

8

The drawing-room at Croy, used only for formal occasions, was of enormous size. The high ceiling and scrolled cornices were white, the walls lined with faded red damask, the carpet a vast Turkey rug, threadbare in places but still warm with colour. There were sofas and chairs, some loose-covered, some in their original velvet upholstery. None of them matched. Small tables stood about, littered with Battersea boxes, silver-framed photographs, stacks of back numbers of Country Life. There were a great many dark oil-paintings, portraits and flower arrangements, and on the table behind the sofa stood a Chinese porcelain jar containing a flowering and scented rhododendron.

Behind the leather-seated club fender, a log fire burned brightly. The hearthrug was shaggy and white, and if wet dogs sat about upon it, smelled strongly of sheep. The fireplace was marble with an impressive mantelpiece, and on this stood a pair of gilt-and-enamel candelabra, two Dresden figures, and a florid Victorian clock.

This clock, chiming sweetly, now struck eleven o'clock.

It surprised everybody. Mrs. Franco, sleek in black silk trousers and creamy crepe blouse, announced that she could not believe it was so late. They had all been talking so much that the evening had just flown by. She must get to bed, and her husband as well, if he was to be fit and ready for his golf game at Gleneagles. With that, the Francos gathered themselves and rose to their feet. So did Mrs. Hardwicke.

"It's been perfect, and such an elegant dinner… Thank you both for your hospitality…"

Good-nights were said. Isobel, in the two-year-old green silk dress that was her best, led them from the drawing-room to see them safely on their way upstairs. She closed the door behind her and did not return. Archie was left with Joe Hardwicke, apparently disinclined to retire so early. He had settled back in his chair again and looked good for at least another couple of hours.

Archie did not mind, and was content to be left in his company. Joe Hardwicke was one of their better guests, an intelligent man with liberal views and a dry sense of humour. Over dinner… often a sticky session… he had done his bit to keep the easy conversation going; he told, against himself, one or two extremely funny stories, and proved to be unexpectedly knowledgeable about wine. Discussing Archie's inherited cellar had taken up most of the second course.

Now Archie poured him a nightcap, which the American gratefully accepted. He then filled a tumbler for himself, threw a log or two on the fire, and sank deep into his own chair, his feet on the sheepskin rug. Joe Hardwicke began to question him about Croy. He found these old places fascinating. How long had his family lived here? From where had the title come? What was the history of the house?

He was not curious but interested, and Archie happily answered his questions. His grandfather, the first Lord Balmerino, had been an industrialist of some renown, who had made his fortune in heavy textiles. His elevation to the peerage had followed on from this, and he had bought Croy and its lands at the end of the nineteenth century.

"There wasn't a dwelling house here then. Just a fortified tower dating back to the sixteenth century. My grandfather built the house, incorporating the original tower. So, although bits at the back are ancient, it's basically Victorian."

"It seems large."

"Yes. They lived on a grand scale in those days…"

"And the estate…?"

"Mostly let out. The moor's gone to a syndicate for the grouse shooting. I have a friend, Edmund Aird, and he runs it, but I have a half-gun in the syndicate and I join them on days when they're driving. I've kept some stalking, but that's just for my friends. The farm is tenanted." He smiled. "So you see, I have no responsibilities."

"So what do you do?"

"I help Isobel. I feed the dogs and exercise them when I can. Deal with all the fallen timber, keep the house supplied with logs. We've got a circular saw in one of the outbuildings and an old villain comes up from the village every now and then and gives me a hand. I cut the grass." He stopped. It wasn't much of an answer but he couldn't think of anything more to tell.

"Do you fish?"

"Yes. I have a beat on the Croy, about two miles upstream from the village, and there's a loch up in the hills. It's good to go up there for the evening rise. Take the boat out. It's very peaceful. And when it's winter and dark at four, I have a workshop down in the basement. There's always something that needs repairing. I mend gates, renew skirtings, build cupboards for Isobel, put up shelves. And other things. I like to work with wood. It's basic, very therapeutic. Perhaps instead of joining the Army I should have been a joiner."

"Were you with a Scottish Regiment?"

"I was a Queen's Loyal Highlander for fifteen years. We spent two of those in Berlin with the American forces…"

The conversation moved on, from Berlin to the Eastern Bloc, and so to politics and international affairs. They had another nightcap, lost track of time. When they finally decided to call it a day, it was past one o'clock in the morning.

"I've kept you up." Joe Hardwicke was apologetic.

"Not at all." Archie took the empty glasses and went to place them on the tray that stood on the grand piano. "I'm not much of a sleeper. The shorter the night, the better."

"I…" Joe hesitated. "I hope you don't think I'm being impertinent, but I see that you're lame. Did you have an accident?"

"No. My leg was shot off in Northern Ireland."

"You have an artificial leg?"

"Yes. Aluminium. Marvellous piece of engineering. Now, what time do you want breakfast? Would eight-fifteen do you? That should give you time before the car comes to collect you and take you to Gleneagles. And shall I call you in the morning?"

"If you would. About eight o'clock. I sleep like the dead in this mountain air."

Archie moved to open the door. But Joe Hardwicke was offering to dispose of the tray of drinks. Could he perhaps carry it to the kitchen for Archie? Archie was grateful but firm. "Not at all. House rule. You're guests. Not allowed to lift a finger."

They went out into the hall. "Thank you," said Joe Hardwicke, standing at the foot of the staircase.

"Thank you. Good night. And sleep well."

He stayed at the foot of the stairs until the American had disappeared and Archie had heard the opening and the shutting of his bedroom door. Then he returned to the drawing-room, settled the fire, put on the fire-guard, drew back the heavy curtains. Outside, the garden lay washed in moonlight. He heard an owl. He went out of the room, leaving the drink tray where it was, switched off lights. He crossed the hall to the dining-room. The table had been cleared of all traces of dinner, and was now set for breakfast. He felt guilty, for this was, by tradition, his job, and Isobel had accomplished it all alone, while he had sat talking.

He went on to the kitchen. Here again, all was neat and orderly. His two black Labrador bitches slumbered by the Aga in their round baskets. Disturbed, they woke and raised their heads. Thump, thump, went their tails.

"Have you been out?" he asked them. "Did Isobel take you out before she went to bed?"

Thump, thump. They were content and comfortable. There was nothing left for him to do.

Bed. He found himself, all at once, very tired. He climbed the staircase, switching off lights as he went. In his dressing-room, he took off his clothes. His dinner jacket, his bow-tie, his studded white shirt. Shoes and socks. Trousers were the most complicated, but he had perfected a routine for their removal. The tall mirror in his wardrobe reflected his image, but he made a point of not looking at it, because he so hated to see himself unclothed; the livid stump of his thigh, the shining metal of the leg, the screws and hinges, the belts and strappings that kept it in place-all revealed, shameless and somehow obscene.

Quickly he reached for and pulled on his night-shirt, easier to deal with than pyjamas. He went to the adjoining bathroom, peed, and cleaned his teeth. In their vast bedroom, no lights burnt but moonlight flowed through the uncurtained window. On her side of the wide double bed, Isobel slept. But as he moved across the room, she stirred and woke.

"Archie?"

He sat down on his side of the bed.

"Yes."

"What time is it?"

"About twenty past one."

She thought about this. "Were you talking?"

"Yes. I'm sorry. I should have been helping you."

"It doesn't matter. They were nice."

He was unstrapping the harness, gently easing the padded leather cup away from his stump. When it was free, he bent to lay the hateful contraption on the floor beside the bed, the webbing arranged neatly, so that in the morning he could put it on again with the least possible inconvenience. Without it, he felt lopsided and strangely weightless, and his stump burnt and ached. It had been a long day.

He lay beside Isobel and pulled the cool sheets up to his shoulders.

"Are you all right?" Her voice was drowsy.

"Yes."

"Did you know that Verena Steynton's going to throw a dance for Katy? In September." "Yes. Violet told me." "I shall have to get a new dress." "Yes."

"I haven't got anything to wear." She drifted back to sleep.

As soon as it started, he knew what was going to happen. It was always the same. Forsaken, bleak streets, plastered with graffiti. Dark skies and rain. He wore a flak jacket and drove one of the armoured Land Rovers, but there was something amiss because he should have a companion and he was on his own.

All he had to do was to get to the safety of the barracks. The barracks was a requisitioned Ulster Constabulary police station, fortified to the hilt and bristling with armoury. If he could get there, without them coming, he would be safe. But they were there. They always came. Four figures, spread out across the road ahead, shrouded by the rain. They had no faces, only black hoods, and their weapons were trained upon him. He reached for his rifle, but it had gone. The Land Rover had stopped. He could not remember stopping it. The door was open and they were upon him, dragging him out. Perhaps this time they were going to beat him fo death. But it was the same. It was the bomb. It looked like a brown paper parcel but it was a bomb, and they loaded it into the back of the Land Rover, and he stood and watched them. And then he was back behind the wheel and the nightmare had truly begun. Because he was going to drive it in through the open gates of the barracks, and it would explode and kill every man in the place.

He was driving like a lunatic and it was still raining, and he could see nothing, but would soon be there. All he had to do was to get through the gates, drive the explosive vehicle into the bomb pit, and somehow get out and run like Jesus before the bomb went off.

Panic was destroying him, and his ears roared with the sound of his own breathing. The gates swung up, he was through them, down the ramp, into the bomb pit. Its concrete walls rose on either side of him, shutting out the light. Escape. He tugged at the door handle but it was stuck. The door wouldn't open, he was trapped, the bomb was ticking like a clock, lethal and murderous, and he was trapped. He screamed. Nobody knew he was there. He went on screaming…

He awoke, screaming like a woman, his mouth open, sweat streaming down his face… arms caught him…

"Archie."

She was there, holding him. After a little, she drew him gently down onto the pillows. She comforted him like a child, with small sounds. She kissed his eyes. "It's all right. It was a dream. You're here. I'm here. It's all over. You're awake."

His heart banged like a hammer and he streamed with sweat. He lay still in her embrace and gradually his breathing calmed. He reached for a glass of water, but she was there before him, holding it for him to drink, setting the glass back on the table when he had had enough.

When he was quiet, she said, with a ghost of a smile in her voice, "I hope you haven't woken anybody up. They'll think I'm murdering you."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Was it… the same?"

"Yes. Always the same. The rain, and the hoods and the bomb and that fucking pit. Why do I have nightmares about something that never happened to me?"

"I don't know, Archie."

"I want them to stop."

"I know."

He turned his head, burying his face in her soft shoulder. "If only they would stop, perhaps then I could make love to you again."