Rosamunde Pilcher - September

"I'm afraid it doesn't look very welcoming." She dropped his hat and coat on a chair and went to fling open the tall sash window. The night wind flowed in, stirring the curtains. Conrad joined her and they leaned out, gazing into the velvety darkness. Light from the window drew a chequered pattern on the gravel beyond the front door, but all else was obscured.

He took a deep lungful of air. He said, "It all smells so clean and sweet. Like fresh spring water."

"You have to take my word for it, but we're looking at a wonderful view. You'll see it in the morning. Out over the garden to the fields and the hills."

From the trees by the church, an owl hooted. Virginia shivered and withdrew from the window. She said, "It's cold. Shall I close it again?"

"No. Leave it. It's too good to shut away."

She drew the heavy curtains, settling them so that there should be no chinks. "The bathroom's through that door." He went to investigate. "There should be towels, and the water's always hot if you want to take a bath." She turned on the small lights on the dressing table, and then the bedside light, and then went to switch off the cold brilliance of the chandelier. At once the high-ceilinged room was rendered cosier, even intimate. "I'm afraid there's no shower. This isn't a very modem establishment."

He emerged from the bathroom as Virginia turned back a heavy bed-cover, revealing puffy square pillows encased in embroidered linen, a flowered eiderdown. "There's an electric blanket if you want to turn it on." She folded the cover, laid it aside. "Now."

There was nothing more to occupy her hands, her attention. She faced Conrad. For a moment neither of them spoke. His eyes, behind the heavy horn-rims, were sombre. She saw his rugged features, the deep lines on either side of his mouth. He was still holding his drink in his hand, but now moved to set it down on the table beside the bed. She watched him do this, and thought of that hand gently fondling the head of one of Edmund's dogs. A kindly man.

"Will you be all right, Conrad?" An innocently intended question, but as soon as the words were spoken she heard them as loaded.

He said, "I don't know."

There's no problem, she had told him, but knew that the problem had lurked between them all evening and now could no longer be pushed out of sight. It was no good prevaricating. They were two grown-up people, and life was hell.

She said, "I'm grateful to you. I needed comfort."

"I need you…"

"I had fantasies about Leesport. Going back to Grandma and Gramps. I didn't tell you that."

"That summer, I fell in love with you…"

"I imagined getting there. In a limousine from Kennedy. And it was all the same. The trees and the lawns, and the smell of the Atlantic blowing in over the Bay."

"You went back to England…"

"I wanted someone to tell me 1 was great. That I was doing all right. I wanted not to be alone."

"I feel like shit…"

"It's two worlds, isn't it, Conrad? Bumping, and then moving apart. Light-years away from each other."

"… because I want you."

"Why does everything have to happen when it's too late? Why does everything have to be so impossible?"

"It's not impossible."

"It is, because it's over. Being young is over. The moment you have a child of your own being young is over."

"I want you."

"I'm not young any more. A different person."

"I haven't slept with a woman…"

"Don't say it, Conrad."

"That's what loneliness is all about."

She said, "I know."

Outside in the garden, nothing moved. Nothing stirred the dripping leaves of the rhododendrons. Eventually, a figure slipped away down the narrow paths of the shrubbery, leaving a trail of footmarks on the sodden grass, the indentations of high-heeled shoes.

Wednesday the Fourteenth

Isobel sat at her kitchen table, drank coffee and made lists. She was an inveterate list-maker, and these small inventories of things to be done, food to be bought, meals to be cooked, telephone calls to be made, as well as reminders to herself to split the polyanthus or dig up the gladioli, were constantly pinned to her kitchen notice-board, along with postcards from friends and children, and the address of a man prepared to clean the outside of the windows. At the moment she was working on three lists. "Today, tomorrow, and then Friday. With one thing and another, life had suddenly become very complicated.

She wrote: "Dinner Tonight." There were some chicken joints in the deep-freeze. She could grill these or make some sort of a casserole.

She wrote: "Get chicken legs out. Peel potatoes. String beans."

Tomorrow was more complicated, with her house party committed in three different directions. Isobel herself would be at Corriehill for most of the day, helping Verena and her band of ladies to arrange flowers and somehow decorate that enormous marquee.

She wrote: "Secateurs. String. Wire. Wire-cutters. Beech-branches. Rowan-branches. Pick all the dahlias."

But, as well, there was Vi's birthday picnic by the loch to think about, and a day's shooting for Archie, because tomorrow they were driving grouse over Creagan Dubh, which meant that he would be joining the other guns.

She wrote: "Baps and cold ham for Archie's piece. Gingerbread. Apples. Hot soup?"

As for Vi's picnic, Lucilla, Jeff, Pandora, and the Sad American would probably want to go to that, which meant a hefty contribution of goodies from Croy.

She wrote: "Sausages for Vi's barbecue. Make some beefburgers. Sliced-tomato salad. French bread. Two bottles wine. Six cans lager."

She poured more coffee, went on to Friday. "Eleven people for dinner," she wrote, and then underlined the words and sat debating over grouse or pheasant. Pheasant Theodora was spectacular, cooked with celery and bacon and served with a sauce of egg yolks and cream. As well as being spectacular, Pheasant Theodora could be concocted in advance, which precluded a lot of last-minute labour while the dinner guests were drinking cocktails.

She wrote: "Pheasant Theodora." The door opened and Archie appeared.

Isobel scarcely raised her head. "You like Pheasant Theodora, don't you?"

"Not for breakfast."

"I didn't mean for breakfast, I meant for dinner the night of the party."

"Why can't we have roast grouse?"

"Because it's a fiddle to serve. Little last-minute bits and pieces, like scraps of toast to arrange and gravy to stir."

"Roast pheasant then?" •

"Same objections."

"Is Pheasant Theodora the one that looks like sick?"

"It does, a bit, but I can cook it ahead."

"Why don't you just cook a head?"

"Ha ha."

"What's for breakfast?"

"It's in the bottom oven."

Archie went over to the Aga and opened the oven door. "A red-letter day! Bacon, sausages, and tomatoes. What's happened to the porridge and boiled eggs?"

"We have visitors staying. Bacon, sausages, and tomatoes are what we always give visitors." He brought his plate over to the table and settled himself beside her, pouring coffee, reaching for the toast and the butter.

"I thought," he said, "that Agnes Cooper was coming to help on Friday evening."

"So she is."

"Why can't she roast the pheasant?"

"Because she's not a cook. She's a washer-up."

"You could always ask her to cook."

"All right. I will. And we'll have mince and tatties for dinner because that's all the poor woman's capable of."

She wrote: "Clean silver candlesticks. Buy eight pink candles."

"I just wish Pheasant Theodora didn't look like sick."

"If you say it looks like sick in front of all our guests, I shall cut your throat, there and then, with a fruit knife."

"What are we going to have for starters?"

"Smoked trout?"