Croy.
Enough. Pandora jerked her wayward memories back into line as though they were over-eager children. She had no wish to go farther. Enough of self-indulgence. Enough of Scotland. She swam a final length and then climbed the shallow steps up and out of the pool. The stones beneath her bare feet were already hot. Dripping, she made her way back into the house. In her bathroom, she showered, washed her hair, put on a fresh dress, loose and sleeveless, the coolest garment she owned. She left her bedroom, crossed the hall, went into the kitchen.
"Seraphina."
Seraphina swung around from the sink where she was busily engaged in scrubbing a bucket of mussels. She was a small, squat, brown woman with sturdy bare legs thrust into espadrilles, and dark hair drawn back into a knot at the nape of her neck. She always wore black because she was perpetually in mourning. No sooner was she out of mourning for one old grandparent or distant relation than another of her clan passed on and she was back in mourning again. The black dresses all looked exactly the same, but as if to make up for their gloom, her pinafores and aprons were invariably brightly coloured and hectically patterned.
Seraphina went with the Casa Rosa. Previously, she had worked for fifteen years for the English couple who had originally built the villa. When, two years ago, due to family pressures and uncertain health, they reluctantly returned to England, Pandora, searching for some place to live, had bought the property from them. Doing this, she discovered that she had inherited Seraphina and Mario. At first Seraphina was not certain whether she wished to work for Pandora, and Pandora was in two minds about Seraphina. She was not exactly attractive and very often looked quite grumpy. But tentatively they tried out a month together, and then the month stretched to three months, and then to a year, and the arrangement, quite comfortably, settled itself, without anything actually being said.
"Senora. Buenos dias. You are awake."
After fifteen years with her previous employers, Seraphina spoke reasonable English. Pandora was grateful for this small mercy. Her French was fluent but Spanish a closed book. People said it was easy because of having done Latin at school, but Pandora's education did not include Latin and she was not about to start now.
"Any breakfast?"
"Is on the table. I bring the coffee."
The table was set on the terrace, which faced out over the driveway. Here it was shady and cooled by any breeze that blew from the sea. Crossing the sitting-room, Pandora's eye was caught by a book that lay on the coffee-table. It was a large and lush volume, sent as a present from Archie for her birthday. Wainwright in Scotland. She knew why he had sent it. He never stopped, in his simple and transparent way, trying to lure her home. Because of this, she had not even opened it. But now she paused, her attention caught. Wainwright in Scotland. Scotland again. Was this a day to be drenched in nostalgia? She smiled at herself, at this weakness that had suddenly come upon her. Why not? She stooped and picked up the book and carried it out onto the terrace. Peeling an orange, she opened it on the table.
It was indeed a coffee-table book, built for browsing. Pen-and-ink drawings, beautifully executed maps, and a simple text. Coloured photographs sprang from every page. The silver sands of Morar. Ben Vorlich. The Falls of Dochart. The old names resounded satisfactorily, like a roll of drums.
She began to eat the orange. Juice dripped on the pages of the book, and she brushed them carelessly away, leaving stains. Seraphina brought her coffee but she never looked up, so engrossed was she.
Here the river, after a long and sedate journey, suddenly erupts into a furious rage, descending in a turbulent cataract of white foam along a wide and rocky channel in a remarkable display of thrashing waters. The flow of the rapids is interrupted by wooded islands, one of which was the burial place of the clan MacNab, and a bower of lovely trees enhances a scene of outstanding beauty…
She poured coffee, turned a page and read on.
Wainwright in Scotland consumed her day. She carried it from the breakfast table to a long chair by the pool and then, after lunch, took it to bed with her. By five o'clock, she had read it from cover to cover. Closed at last, she let it drop to the floor.
It was cooler now, but for once she had scarcely been troubled by the heat. She got off her bed and went out of doors and swam once more, then dressed in white cotton trousers and a blue-and-white shirt. She did her hair, her eyes, found earrings, a gold bracelet. White sandals. She sprayed on scent. Her bottle was nearly finished. She would have to buy more. The prospect of this small luxurious purchase filled her with pleasure.
She said goodbye to Seraphina and went out of the front door and down the steps to where her car was parked in the garage. She got in and drove down the winding hill and so out onto the wide road that led to the port. She parked her car in the courtyard of the post office and went in to collect her mail. She put this in her leather-strapped basket and then left her car and walked slowly through the still-crowded streets, pausing to glance into shop windows, to assess a dress, to price a delectable lacy shawl. At the scent shop, she went in and bought a flagon of Poison, then went on, always walking in the direction of the sea. She came at last to the wide, palm-fringed boulevard that ran parallel to the beach. At the end of the day it seemed as busy as ever, the sands crowded and people still swimming. Far out, windsurfers' sails caught the evening breeze, dipping like birds' wings out across the surface of the water.
She came to a little cafe where a few tables stood empty on the pavement. The waiter came and she ordered coffee and cognac. Then, leaning back in the uncomfortable iron chair, pushing her sunglasses up onto the top of her head, she reached into the basket and took out her letters. One from Paris. One from her lawyer in New York. A postcard from Venice. She turned it over. Emily Richter, still staying at the Cipriani. A large stiff white envelope, addressed to Croy and readdressed in Archie's handwriting. She opened it and read, in disbelief and then with some amusement, Verena Steynton's invitation.
At Home For Katy
Extraordinary. As though she were receiving a summons from another age, another world. And yet a world which, by some strange coincidence, like it or not, she had inhabited for the whole of the day. She knew uncertainty. Was it an omen of some sort? Should she pay heed? And if it was an omen, did she believe in omens in the first place?
At Home Fof Katy. She remembered other invitations, "stiffies" she and Archie had called them, propped on the mantelpiece of the library at Croy. Invitations to garden parties, cricket matches, dances. Dances galore. There had been a week in September when one scarcely slept, somehow surviving with the stolen naps in the backs of cars, or a doze in the sun while others played tennis. She remembered a wardrobe filled with ball dresses, and she herself perpetually complaining to her mother that she had nothing to wear. Everybody had seen the ice-blue satin because she'd worn it at the Northern Meetings, and anyway, some man had spilt champagne all down the front and the stain wouldn't come out. And the rose-pink? The hem was torn and one of the straps had come loose. Whereupon her mother, the most indulgent and patient of women, instead of suggesting that Pandora find a needle and thread and mend the rose-pink, would put her daughter into the car and drive to Relkirk or Edinburgh and there suffer the traumas of Pandora's capricious whims, trudging from shop to shop until the most beautiful-and inevitably most costly-dress was finally run to earth.
How spoilt Pandora had been, how adored, how cherished. And in return…