Wild Mountain Thyme

by Rosamunde Pilcher

  Soon after this, the usual small activities began to take place. Trucks and tankers converged on the stationary plane. Steps were wheeled up to its side by two men in black oilskins. Doors opened. An air hostess appeared at the head of the steps. Slowly the passengers began to alight, to walk across the windswept apron towards the terminal building. They struggled with cases and baskets and awkwardly shaped parcels. The wind caught their clothes, they ducked their heads against the rain. One woman’s hat blew off.

  Victoria, with her hands in the pockets of her coat, stood just inside the plate glass doors and waited. One by one the other people, who had waited with her, claimed their various friends and relations. “There you are, pet. And did you have a good flight?” Affectionate kisses. There were two nuns met by a priest in a black biretta. “I’ve got a car waiting,” he told them matter-of-factly. A woman with far too many children and no husband to help her, a few businessmen with briefcases.

  The straggle of passengers thinned. There was still no sign of Oliver. She imagined him still sitting in the aircraft, taking his time, waiting until the first ugly rush was over. Then he would unfold his long legs, reach for his coat, and make his own leisurely way down the aisle. He would probably stop to chat with the air hostess. Victoria found herself smiling wryly, because she knew him so well.

  “Excuse me.” The voice spoke from just behind her. Startled, she turned. She saw one of the businessmen, with his bowler hat and his stiff collar and his briefcase. “Are you by any chance Miss Victoria Bradshaw?” He held an envelope in his hand.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I thought you must be. This letter’s for you. Your friend asked me to give it to you.”

  She did not take the letter. “My friend?”

  “A young man with a beard. I’m afraid I never caught his name. He asked me to give you this.”

  “But isn’t he on the plane?”

  “No, he couldn’t come. But I’m sure this will explain everything.”

  Victoria took her hand from her pocket and took the envelope. She saw Oliver’s tightly formed black writing. Miss Victoria Bradshaw.

  “But where is he?”

  “He just said he couldn’t make the flight, and he told me what you looked like and asked me to give you the letter.”

  “I see. Well, thank you. I … I’m sorry you were bothered with it.”

  “No bother. It was no bother at all,” he assured her. “Well, I must be off. My wife’s waiting in the car, and she’ll wonder what’s happened to me.” He began to back away, eager to be off. He tipped his bowler hat. “I’ll say good-bye.”

  “Good-bye.”

  She was alone. Everybody had gone. Only a few official looking people moved briskly about. A man in overalls wheeled a trolley of luggage. Shocked, confused, Victoria stood there, with Oliver’s letter in her hand. She could not think what she was meant to do with it.

  On the other side of the arrivals hall, she saw a small refreshment booth. She went across the polished floor and sat on one of the tall stools and asked for a cup of black coffee. A homely woman poured it for her from an urn.

  “Do you take sugar?”

  “No. No sugar, thank you.”

  She slit the envelope and took out the letter.

  “It’s a terrible night, isn’t it?”

  “Yes it is.” She opened her bag and found her purse and paid for the coffee.

  “Have you far to go?”

  “Yes. I have to drive to Sutherland.”

  “Oh, my, what a way. Rather you than me.”

  She unfolded the letter. He had typed it, on his battered old typewriter. She was filled with cold apprehension. With her hand closed around the mug of hot coffee, she began to read.

  Fulham

  Tuesday

  February 24.

  Victoria,

  If I were any other sort of man I should start this letter by telling you that it is a difficult one to write. But I’m not going to say that, because writing is the one thing I have never found difficult, even when it has to be a letter like this one.

  I am not coming back to Scotland. I have spent most of the day with my agent, and he is very anxious that I should go to New York where a director called Sol Bernstein is already waiting to sign on the dotted line and to launch A Man In the Dark—with, I hope, a tremendous fanfare of trumpets—on Broadway.

  So I am going, catching a plane out of Heathrow this evening.

  But he can’t do this to me.

  Oh, yes he can. He has.

  I don’t know when I shall return. This year, next year, sometime, never. Certainly not in the foreseeable future. There is too much at stake for plans to be made. Too much to think about. Too much buzzing around in my head.

  I haven’t made this decision without thought of you. In fact, I thought about you most of last night. The night is a good time to get things sorted out. It’s dark and quiet and the truth comes more clearly. It’s easier to see.

  And the truth is that I could never stay with you, because I could never stay with any woman. A long time ago, when I left you for the first time, I told you that I’d never loved anybody, and it’s still the same way. I suppose what I feel for you is something rather special, but still the only thing that really turns me on is what goes on inside my head and somehow putting all that down on paper.

  This decision had nothing to do with what happened when we were at Benchoile. It has nothing to do with the letter that you wrote the Archers, it really has nothing to do with you. The few days we spent together were unforgettable, and you gave me the closest thing to delight that I have ever known. But they were days stolen out of time and now I have to get back to reality.

  There are things that you will have to do. You’ll have to get Thomas back to the Archers for one, and hand him over once more to their loving care. I still resent their hold over him. I still curl up at the sort of conventional life they will undoubtedly map out for him, but it is obvious that this is just one of those things that I am going to have to accept.

  The Volvo is another problem. You probably won’t feel like driving it south by yourself. If this is the case, then ask Roddy if he will take it off your hands and perhaps find a buyer for it in Creagan. Tell him I shall be writing to him.

  There is also the vexing problem of cash, but I have spoken to my agent and I will put his name and address at the bottom of this letter, so that if you get in touch with him when you get back to London, he will reimburse you and cover any expenses that you may have to incur.

  So that’s it. I did not mean to finish on such a mundane and mercenary note. I did not mean anything to finish quite this way. But happy endings are things that don’t seem to be part of my life. I’ve never expected them, and in a funny way, I don’t suppose I’ve ever wanted them.

  She was crying. Now the words swam and shimmered before her eyes, and she could scarcely read them. Tears fell on the paper and blurred the handwritten signature.

  Take care of yourself. I wish I could end by telling you that I loved you. Perhaps I do a little. But it could never begin to be enough, either for you or for me.

  Oliver

  Victoria folded the letter and put it back into the envelope. She fumbled in her bag and found a handkerchief. It wasn’t any good crying. With a two-hour drive ahead of her through the stormy night, she had to stop crying. Otherwise she would drive into a ditch, or a river, or another car, and have to be dragged, mangled, from the wreckage of the Volvo, and then what would happen to Thomas?

  After a little the kindly woman behind the bar, unable to ignore the obvious distress of her lonely customer, said, “Are you all right, dear?”

  “Yes,” lied Victoria.

  “Was it bad news?”

  “No, not really.” She blew her nose again. She tried to smile. “I have to go.” She got off the stool.

  “Have another cup of coffee. Have a bite to eat.”

  “No, I’m all right. I’m really all right.”
r />   * * *

  The Volvo stood lonely in the deserted car park. She found the key and got in behind the wheel. She fastened the seat belt. High above, a hidden plane droned, perhaps coming in to land. She thought of being in an airplane, going somewhere, anywhere. She thought of landing on some sunbaked airstrip surrounded by palm trees, in a place where nobody knew her, where she could lick her wounds and start again. Like a criminal, searching for a new life, a new identity.

  Which was, of course, exactly what Oliver had done, settling his few affairs with a single letter, shedding his responsibilities like an old coat. By now he would be in the transatlantic plane, high over the ocean, Victoria and Thomas already fading into the past, into forgetfulness. Unimportant. Important was what lay ahead. She imagined him, drinking a highball, filled with anticipation for the excitement ahead. A new production. Probably a new play. New York.

  Oliver Dobbs.

  The only thing that really turns me on is what goes on inside my head.

  This was the key to Oliver, his own personal, private key. And Victoria had never come near to understanding the private obsessions of his innermost mind. Perhaps if she had been his intellectual equal, a brilliant bluestocking with a university degree, it might have been different. Perhaps if she had known him longer, or closer; if she had been a stronger personality, able to stand up to his moods. Perhaps if she had not always been so dependent upon him, had been able to give him something in return.

  But I gave him myself.

  That wasn’t enough.

  I loved him.

  But he never loved you.

  I wanted to make a life for him. I wanted to make a life for Thomas.

  She was back to Thomas. At the thought of Thomas, the old, ridiculous, protective tenderness took possession of her. For the time being Thomas still needed Victoria. For his sake, she would be efficient, calm, practical. Thomas must be delivered back to his grandparents with as little upheaval as possible. She saw herself calmly packing, buying train tickets. Hiring a taxi, taking him to Woodbridge, finding the Archer’s house, ringing the bell. She saw the door opening.…

  But beyond that her imagination shied. Because once Thomas was gone from her life, then it really was the end. It would be all over. Not simply the reality, but the dream as well.

  She started the car, switched on the headlights and the windscreen wipers and moved forward, away from the little airport and out onto the main road.

  * * *

  Two hours later she had reached Creagan, but it was not until she had turned into the single track road that led to Benchoile that she began to realize that something was wrong. The weather conditions, unpredictable as always, had begun to improve. The wind had dropped slightly, the clouds thinned, and as these were blown to rags across the night sky, the stars were revealed, and a pale new moon rose out of the east.

  But it was not starlight that warmed the darkness ahead of her, and stained the sky like the glow from a whole city full of street lamps. It was not starlight that flickered and billowed and sent great storms of smoke up into the wind. She rolled down the window and smelled the reek of bonfires. Bonfires? More likely burning heather. Someone has started to burn heather, and it had got out of control and started a hill fire. But did one burn heather in February? And even if one did, surely the fire would have been extinguished by now.

  Suddenly, she was afraid. She put her foot down on the accelerator, and the Volvo surged forward, swinging around the bends of the narrow road. The brightness of the fire seemed to grow no less. She had passed the Guthrie’s house, she was coming at last to the final bend of the road. Then the house lay ahead of her, the gate and the pine trees, and she knew then that it was neither heather nor bonfires that burned, but Benchoile itself.

  With a roar of its powerful engine, the Volvo racketed over the cattle grid and up the slope to the sweep in front of the house. The light of flames made all as bright as day. She saw the cars lined up at random, the fire engine, the huge snaking hosepipes. There seemed to be people everywhere, all grimed and red-eyed. A man ran across the beam of her headlights, shouting instructions to a colleague, and she saw, with a shock, that it was Davey Guthrie.

  The big house was untouched, although lights blazed from every window. But the Stable House … She brought the Volvo to a screeching halt, struggled with her seat belt, the door handle, remembered the hand brake. Panic, like the worst sort of sickness, threatened to choke her.

  Thomas.

  The arch to the stableyard was there, but Roddy’s house was almost gone. Only the stone gable end had withstood the onslaught of the flames; it loomed, stark as a ruin, the void where the window had been bright as an eye, with the glow of the conflagration that still raged beyond.

  Thomas, in his room, on the ground floor, in his bed. She had to know, but there was not time to ask, no time to wait for answers. She began to walk towards the fire, to run. The smoke was acrid in her nostrils, and the heat was blown towards her on great gusts of wind.

  “Thomas!”

  “Look out there…” a man shouted.

  She had nearly reached the archway.

  “Victoria!”

  She heard the footsteps coming up behind her. Arms came around her, caught her, held her. She struggled to be free.

  “Victoria.”

  It was John Dunbeath. Because she could not hit him with her hands, she kicked backwards at his shins with the heels of her boots. He swung her round to face him.

  “Don’t you understand?” she shouted into the blur that was John Dunbeath. “It’s Thomas.”

  “Listen, stop…” She kicked him again, and he took her by the shoulders and shook her. “Thomas is all right. He’s all right. He’s safe.”

  She was still at last. She could hear her own breathing, labored, like a person on the point of death. When she felt strong enough, she looked up into his face. In the glow of the fire, she saw his dark eyes, red-rimmed and bloodshot, and there was dirt all over his face and down the front of his shirt.

  She said, faintly, “He’s not in there?”

  “No. We got him out. He’s fine. He’s all right.”

  Relief made her weak as a kitten. She closed her eyes, afraid that she was either going to be sick or faint. She tried to tell John that her legs had started to feel like cooked spaghetti, but somehow could find neither the words nor the energy to speak them. By then it didn’t matter anyway. Because by then John had already picked her up in his arms and was carrying her across the gravel and in through the front door of the big house of Benchoile.

  * * *

  By midnight it was more or less over. The fire was out, the ruin of the Stable House a still-smoking confusion of charred stone and fallen timber. The cars John had managed to rescue, backing them out of the garage onto the grass by the loch while Roddy telephoned the fire brigade. With them disposed of, and the cans of petrol that stood about, fuel for the motor mowers and the chain saws, he had felt a little easier in his mind for the safety of the big house. But even so, the garage roof had been swallowed and destroyed in the conflagration, and all that remained within it had gone as well.

  And yet, the main house stood, miraculously unharmed. Within it, in various rooms, the survivors of the household were now bedded down. Thomas had wept, heartbreakingly, not from fear, but because he had lost Piglet. There was no way to tell him that Piglet was no more. Ellen had found him some other toy, a teddy bear that had once belonged to John’s father, but at the very sight of this harmless, threadbare creature, Thomas had screamed more loudly than ever, and had finally gone to sleep with his arms wrapped around a wooden engine, the paint scarred and scratched and one of the wheels long since missing.

  Ellen had come through it like the tough old thing she was. Only at the very end had she given way and started to tremble, and John had sat her down and given her a brandy, and Jess Guthrie had helped the old woman to bed. For Jess and Davey had been on the scene almost before Roddy had made his telephone
call, and it was Davey who organized the team of fire fighters, and helped the men from Creagan—torn so abruptly from their own firesides—to set up the pumps and go about extinguishing the flames.

  As for Victoria … As though he were controlling, reining-in a bolting horse, John’s thoughts came to an abrupt halt. But one indisputable fact stood out. She had returned from Inverness alone, and nobody had had the time nor the inclination to ask her what had happened to Oliver. As far as John was concerned, her sudden reappearance in the midst of chaos, her mindless dash towards the holocaust which was all that remained of Roddy’s house, had simply been the unthinkable climax of what had so nearly been a ghastly tragedy, and then he had had no thought in his head but to grab her back from the edge of the fire and carry her to safety.

  He had taken her, for want of anywhere better, to his own bedroom, placed her on his own bed. She had opened her eyes and said once more, “Thomas is really safe, isn’t he?” and he had time to do no more than reassure her before Jess Guthrie came bustling in to take over with soothing words and hot drinks. Now, presumably, Victoria was sleeping. With luck, she would sleep till the morning. In the morning there would be all the time in the world to talk.

  So, it was midnight, and it was over. He stood at the edge of the loch, with his back to the water, staring up at the house. He realized that he was exhausted, drained of emotion and energy, and yet beneath this aching lassitude lay a calmness and a peace that he had not known for years.

  Why he felt thus was a mystery. He only knew that Thomas was alive, and Oliver Dobbs had not come back from London. He sighed with an enormous content as though, single-handed, he had successfully achieved some impossible task.

  Around him, the stormy evening was slipping into a peaceful night. The wind had dropped, the clouds thinned to a few sailing shreds, like billows of mist. Above, a sliver of moon hung in the sky, and the dark waters of the loch were touched with the silver of its reflection. A pair of ducks flew over. Mallards, he guessed. For an instant he glimpsed them, silhouetted against the sky, and then they were swallowed into the darkness and their cry faded to an immense silence.