Rosamunde Pilcher - September

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?"

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.