September

by Rosamunde Pilcher

  “It’ll look wonderful. You’ve thought of everything.”

  “Except flowers. That’s the other favour I’ve got to ask you. Would you help with the flowers? Katy will be there, and I’ve press-ganged one or two others, but nobody does flowers the way you do, and I’d be endlessly grateful if you’d help.”

  Isobel felt flattered. It was nice to think that there was something that she could do better than Verena, and gratifying to be asked.

  “The thing is,” Verena went on before Isobel had a chance to speak, “I can’t think how to decorate the marquee. The house isn’t so difficult, but the marquee presents something of a problem because it’s so enormous and ordinary flower arrangements would simply be dwarfed. What do you think? You’re always full of bright ideas.”

  Isobel searched for a bright idea but drew a blank. “Hydrangeas?”

  “They’ll be over by then.”

  “Hire some potted palms.”

  “Too depressing. Like the ballroom of some provincial hotel.”

  “Well, why not make it really countrified and seasonal? Sheaves of ripe barley and branches of rowan. Lovely red berries and those pretty leaves. And the beeches will be turning as well. We can soak the stems in glycerine and simply cover the tent-poles, make them look like autumn trees…”

  “Oh, a brainwave. You’re brilliant. We’ll do it all the day before the party. The Thursday. Will you write it down in your diary?”

  “It’s Vi’s birthday picnic that day, but I can give that a miss.”

  “You’re a saint. What a weight off my mind. The relief of it.” Verena stretched luxuriously, swallowed a yawn, fell silent.

  The clock on the mantelpiece ticked gently, and the quiet of the room closed in on the two women. Yawns were catching. And it was a mistake ever to sit down in the middle of the afternoon because you didn’t feel like ever getting up again. Summer afternoons and nothing in particular to do. Once more Isobel drifted back into that illusion of timelessness in which she had been lost before Verena’s interruption. She thought again of old Lady Balmerino, who used to sit here, as she and Verena sat, reading a novel or peacefully sewing her tapestry. Everything now as once it had been. Perhaps in a moment there would come a discreet tap on the door and Harris the butler would enter, pushing before him the mahogany trolley laid with the silver teapot and the eggshell china cups; the covered dishes of scones, fresh from the oven, the bowl of cream, the strawberry jam, the lemon sponge-cake, and the dark, sticky gingerbread.

  The clock, with silver notes, struck four, and the illusion dissolved. Harris was long gone and would never return. Isobel yawned again and then, with some effort, pulled herself to her feet. “I’ll go and put the kettle on,” she told Verena, “and we’ll have that cup of tea.”

  22

  Friday the Ninth

  “…That was the year my cousin Flora had her bairn. Did you know her parents? Uncle Hector was my father’s brother, much younger, of course, and married to a girl from Rhum. Met her when he was a policeman; she was always a shiftless creature, lost all her teeth when she was scarcely out of her twenties. When my granny heard, she was up to high doh, didn’t want any candle-bearing Catholics in the family; she’d been brought up Wee Free. I knitted a matinee coat for the bairn. Pink silk with a fern pattern, but she put it in the boiler with the sheets, it just about broke my heart…”

  Violet stopped listening. It didn’t seem necessary to listen. One just nodded, or said “Oh, yes,” every time Lottie paused for breath, and then she was away again on some other confusing tack.

  “…went into service when I was fourteen, over in a big house in Fife; I cried buckets, but my mother said I had to go. I was the kitchen maid and the cook was a bisom; I’ve never been so tired in my life, up at five o’clock in the morning and slept in the attic with a moose.”

  This at least caught Violet’s attention. “A moose, Lottie?”

  “I think it was a moose. One of those stuffed heads. On the wall. Too big for a stag. Mr Gilfillan had been in Africa, a missionary. You wouldn’t have thought a missionary would have gone round killing mooses, would you? Christmas they had roast goose, but all I got was a bit of cold mutton. Mean. Wouldn’t give you the drippings off their noses. The attic was that damp, my clothes were wringing wet, caught pneumonia. The doctor came, Mrs Gilfillan sent me home, never been so glad to get back. Had a cat at home. Tammy Puss. He was that quick. Open the larder door and in with the cream; once we found a dead mouse in the cream. And Ginger had a litter of kittens, half-wild, scratched the skin off my mother’s hands…she was never good with animals. Hated my father’s dog…”

  They sat, the two elderly ladies, on a bench in the big park in Relkirk. Before them, the river flowed, heavy with floodwater and stained brown with peat. A fisherman, up to his hips in water, flogged his salmon rod. So far he did not seem to have had so much as a nibble. Across the river stood large Victorian houses, deep in spacious gardens with lawns that ran down to the water. One or two had little boats moored. There were ducks on the water. A man, passing with his dog, threw crusts and the ducks came gobbling, squabbling, to snatch the crusts up.

  ‘…the doctor said it was a stroke, said she’d got nerves. I wanted to go and be a volunteer, with the war on and everything, but if I’d gone there’d be no one to stay with my mother. My father was a worker out of doors, he grew lovely turnips, but indoors, sit down and take off his boots and that was it…never seen a man who could eat so much. He was never a talker, some days never said a word. Trapped rabbits. Ate a lot of rabbits, we did. ’Course that was before mixamytoasties. Filthy things now…”

  Violet, having made her promise to Henry that she would take Lottie off Edie’s hands for an afternoon, had suffered an uneasy conscience until she had finally decided to take the plunge and get it over, and had invited Lottie to come shopping with her in Relkirk and to have high tea. She had duly collected Lottie from Edie’s cottage, packed her into the car, and driven her into the town. For the occasion Lottie had dressed in her best, a beige Crimplene coat and a hat the shape of a cottage loaf. She carried a huge handbag and wore her tottery high-heeled shoes. From the moment she got into the car, she had not stopped talking. She had talked as they made their way around Marks & Spencer, talked as they waited in the queue to buy fresh vegetables, talked as they searched the crowded streets for what Lottie insisted on calling a haberdasher’s.

  “I don’t think there are any haberdasher’s any longer, Lottie…”

  “Oh, yes, a little one down that street…or was it the next? Mother always came for her knitting wool.”

  Never believing they would find it, Violet allowed herself to be led around in circles, getting more hot and footsore by the moment, and was torn between annoyance and relief when Lottie finally ran the shop to earth. It was very old and dusty, and crammed with a collection of cardboard boxes containing crochet hooks, faded embroidery silks, and out-of-date knitting patterns. The old woman behind the counter looked as though she had just managed to make it out of a geriatric home, and it took her fifteen minutes to find what Lottie wanted, which was a yard of boiling knicker elastic. Finally, however, it was produced from a drawer filled with odd buttons, put shakily into a paper bag, and paid for. They stepped out on to the pavement, and Lottie was triumphant. “Told you so,” she crowed to Violet. “Didn’t believe me, did you?”

  With their shopping over and it not yet being time for tea, Violet had suggested a walk in the park. They had made their way back to her car, dumped their purchases in the boot, and then crossed the wide sward of grass that led to the river. At the first bench, Violet had firmly sat down.

  “We’ll have a little rest,” she told Lottie, and so here they were, side by side in the golden sunshine, and Lottie still with plenty to say.

  “That’s the Relkirk Royal, that’s where I was, you can just see it through the trees. Nice enough place, but I couldn’t stand the nurses. The doctor was good enough, but no more than a
young student, don’t imagine he knew anything, although he pretended he did. Lovely gardens, though, just as nice as the Cremmy. I wanted Mother cremated, but the minister said she wanted to lie by my father in the churchyard at Tullochard. Though I don’t know how he should know more than me.”

  “I expect your mother told him…”

  “More likely made it up himself, always liked to interfere.”

  Violet looked across the river to where the Relkirk Royal stood high on the hill, its red stone turrets and gables scarcely visible through the leafy trees that surrounded it. She said, “The hospital certainly has a lovely position.”

  “That’s doctors for you. They can pay for anything.”

  Casually, “What was he called, the young doctor who took care of you?”

  “Dr Martin. There was another, Dr Faulkner, but he never came near me. It was Dr Martin who said I could go and live with Edie. I wanted a taxi but it was an ambulance.”

  “Edie is very kind.”

  “She’s had a good-enough life, some people have all the luck. Different living in a village to being stuck away up the hill.”

  “Perhaps you could sell your parents’ house and move into a village?”

  But Lottie ignored this sensible suggestion and went on, full flood, as though Violet had never made it. It occurred to Violet then that Lottie was more astute than any of them suspected. “Worry about her being so fat, it’s a heart attack she’ll have one morning, carrying all that flab around with her. And always flying out of the house, off to your house or Virginia’s, never sits down for a bit of peace or a chat or to watch the telly. Ought to think of herself sometimes. She told me that Alexa’s coming up for Mrs Steynton’s party. Bringing a friend. That’s nice, isn’t it? But you’ll need to watch, men are all the same, after what they can get their hands on…”

  “What do you mean, Lottie?” Violet was sharp.

  Lottie turned dark round eyes upon her. “Well, she’s no pauper, is Alexa. Old Lady Cheriton was never short of sixpence. I read the newspapers, know all about that family. Nothing like a bit of cash to start a man leering at a young girl.”

  Violet found herself assailed by a helpless rage that seemed to surge up from the soles of her feet and, reaching her cheeks, burn them red. Rage at Lottie’s impertinence, and helplessness because Lottie was, after all, only voicing what all Alexa’s family, obscurely, feared.

  She said, “Alexa is very pretty and very dear. The fact that she is also independent has nothing to do with the friends she chooses.”

  But Lottie either ignored or missed the snub. She gave a little laugh, tossing her head. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that. And coming from London, too. Lot of money-grubbers. Yuppies,” she added with some force, saying the word as though it were dirty.

  “Lottie, I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”

  “All these girls are the same. Always were, see a handsome man and they’re away like a bitch on heat.” She shivered suddenly, as though the excitement of the thought had reached every nerve-end of her gangling frame. Then she put out a hand and closed it over Violet’s wrist. “That’s another thing. Henry. See him about the place. He’s small, isn’t he? Comes to Edie’s and never says a word. Looks funny to me sometimes. I’d worry if I were you. Not like other little boys…”

  Her bony fingers were strangely strong, the grip vice-like. Violet, repelled, knew an instant of panic. Her immediate instinct was to prise the fingers loose, get to her feet and escape, but just then a girl walked by pushing a child in a buggy, and common sense came to Violet’s rescue. The panic, the annoyance, faded. It was, after all, just poor Lottie Carstairs, to whom life had not been kind, letting her sad, sexual frustrations and her rambling imagination run away with her. And if Edie could stand having her cousin to live with her, surely Violet could cope calmly for a single afternoon.

  She smiled. She said, “It’s good of you to be concerned, Lottie, but Henry is a very ordinary little boy and sound as a bell. Now…” She shifted slightly, glancing at her watch, and felt Lottie’s fingers loosen their manic grip and slip away. Violet, unhurried, reached for her handbag. “…I think it’s time we went and found somewhere pleasant to have our tea. I’m feeling quite peckish. I fancy fish and chips. How about you?”

  23

  Friday the Ninth

  As Isobel, worn out with the daily demands of her busy life, retreated from time to time to the linen room, so her husband found solace in his workshop. This was in the basement of Croy, an area of stone-flagged passages and dimly lighted cellars. The old boiler lived down here, a brooding, smelly monster that looked large enough to drive a liner, and demanded constant and regular attention and enormous quantities of coke. As well, one or two other rooms were still employed — to store unused china, unwanted items of furniture, the coal and the logs, and a much-diminished wine cellar. But mostly, the basement stood deserted, hung with cobwebs and invaded each year by families of fieldmice.

  The workshop was next door to the boiler room, which meant that it was always pleasantly warm, and it had large windows, barred like a jail’s, which faced south and west and let in sufficient light for cheerfulness. Archie’s father, neat with his hands, had set it all up, with heavy benches, racks for tools, vices, and clamps. And it was here that the old man had liked to potter, repairing his children’s damaged toys, dealing with various inevitable breakages that occurred about the house, and concocting his own salmon flies.

  After he died, the workshop had stood empty for some years, unused, neglected, and gathering dust. But when Archie came back to Croy after his eight months in hospital, he painfully made his way down the stone stairs, limped the length of the echoing passage, and took repossession. The first thing he saw as he entered the room was a broken balloon-back chair, its back legs shattered by the weight of some corpulent occupant. It had been brought down to the workshop before old Lord Balmerino died. He had made a start on its repair but never finished the job, and the chair had been left, forgotten and untended, ever since.

  Archie stood and looked at the forlorn piece of furniture for some time. Then he shouted for Isobel. She came. She helped him sweep away the dirt and the cobwebs and the mouse-droppings and the drifts of old sawdust. Scuttling spiders were sent packing, as were solidified pots of glue, piles of yellowed newspapers, ancient tins of paint. Isobel cleaned the windows and somehow forced them open, letting in the sweet fresh air.

  Meanwhile Archie, having wiped and oiled all the fine old tools, the chisels and hammers, saws and planes, replaced them in orderly fashion in their racks. With that done, he sat down and wrote out a list of all that he needed, and Isobel went into Relkirk and bought it for him.

  Only then was he able to get down to work and finish the job that his father had started.

  Now he sat at that same bench, the afternoon sun slanting through the top half of the window, and finished priming the carving he had been working on, from time to time, over the last month or two. It was about ten inches high and depicted the figure of a girl sitting on a boulder with a small Jack Russell terrier leaning against her knee. The girl wore a sweater and a kilted skirt, and her hair was windblown. It was, in fact, Katy Steynton and her dog. Verena had given Archie a photograph of her daughter, taken up on the moor last year, and from this he had made the drawings for the carving. With the primer dry, he would paint it, reproducing as closely as possible the muted colours of the photograph. And then it would be given to Katy as a twenty-first birthday present.

  It was done. He laid down the brush and leaned back in his chair to stretch the aches out of his limbs, and assess his creation over the top of his half-moon spectacles. He had never before attempted the complications of a sitting figure, and a female one at that, and was inordinately pleased with the way it had turned out. Girl and dog made a charming composition. Tomorrow he would paint it. He looked forward with some satisfaction to applying the final touches.

  From upstairs, he heard t
he faint sound of the telephone ringing. It was only just audible, and for months he and Isobel had been talking about the sense of installing another bell in the basement so that he could hear the sound more easily, should he be alone in the house. But they had done nothing about this and he was alone in the house now and wondered how long the telephone had been ringing, and if there was time for him to make his way upstairs and pick up the receiver before the caller, losing heart, hung up. He thought about ignoring it but the ringing continued. Perhaps it was important. He pushed back his chair and made his slow way down the passage and up the stairs to answer the wretched instrument. The nearest receiver was in the kitchen and it was still ringing shrilly as Archie crossed over to the dresser and picked it up.

  “Croy.”

  “Dad!”

  “Lucilla!” His heart leapt with joy. He reached for a chair.

  “Where were you? The phone’s been ringing for hours.”

  “Down in my workshop.” He settled himself, taking the weight off his leg.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Is Mum not there?”

  “No. She and Hamish have gone blackberrying. Lucilla, where are you?”

  “I’m in London. And you’ll never guess where I’m ringing from. You’ll never guess in a thousand years.”

  “In that case you’d better tell me.”

  “The Ritz.”

  “What the hell are you doing there?”

  “Staying the night. And then we’re driving up tomorrow. we’ll be home tomorrow night.”

  Archie took off his spectacles; he could feel the grin of delight spreading over his face. “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “Jeff Howland and me. And…wait for it…Pandora.”

  “Pandora?”

  “I thought that would surprise you…”

  “But what’s Pandora doing with you?”

  “She’s coming home. She says it’s for Verena Steynton’s dance, but I suspect it’s really to see Croy and all of you again.”