"All right. Yesterday. I decided yesterday."
"How much have 1 got to do with this decision?"
"I don't know. But it's not just you. It's Edmund and Henry as well. Everything. Everything's on top of me. I need time on my own. I need to stand back, and take the long view and get things into perspective."
"Where will you go?"
"To Leesport. To the old house. To Gramps and Grandma."
"Will I be around?"
"If you want to be. 1 hope you will be."
"I'm not sure if you appreciate the implications."
"Don't I, Conrad?"
"We'll be skating on pretty thin ice."
"We don't need to go out onto the middle of the ice. We can stay around the edge."
"I don't think I'll want to do that."
"I'm not sure about me, either."
"With your husband and your family an ocean away, I won't just feel like shit, but probably start behaving like one."
"That's a risk I'm prepared to take."
"In that case, I'll say no more."
"That's what I want you to say."
"Except that I'm flying Pan Am, eleven o'clock in the morning, out of Heathrow."
"I'll see if I can get on the same plane."
The worst part of growing old, Violet decided, was that happiness, at the most inappropriate of times, eluded one. She should feel happy now, but did not.
Now was the afternoon of her birthday, and to all intents and purposes everything was perfect. No woman could ask for more. She sat, cushioned in heather, high above the loch, and, despite a sinister-looking bruise of cloud that gathered in the west, the sun continued to shine, streaming down from a pristine autumn sky. Far below, but clearly visible, as though viewed through the wrong end of a telescope, the picnic party went about its business; small groups had dispersed to engage in their own activities. The two boats were out on the water. Julian Gloxby and Charles Ferguson-Crombie fished from one of them, Lucilla and her young Australian friend from the other. Dermot had drifted off on his own to search for wild flowers. Virginia and Conrad Tucker had made their way out along the top of the dam wall, and now could be seen walking, side by side, along the narrow shore on the far side of the loch. Edmund's two spaniels accompanied them. From time to time they paused, as though deep in conversation, or stooped to pick up some small flat pebble and send it skimming and jumping out over the glittering water. The others had chosen to stay where they were, gathered about the remains of the fire, lazing in the sunshine. Edie and Alexa sat together. Mrs. Gloxby, seldom seen off her feet, had brought her knitting and a book and was enjoying a spot of peace.
Small sounds reached Violet's ears. The buffet of the wind, a raised voice, the splash of oars, a bird-call. Every now and then the crack of guns from the far glen was carried towards them, borne on the wind across the summit of Creagan Dubh.
Everything just as it should be, and yet her heart lay heavy. It is because, she told herself, I know too much. I am the recipient of too many confidences. I should like to be ignorant, and so, blissful. I should like to be unaware of the fact that Virginia and Conrad Tucker ■.. that personable and attractive American… are lovers. That Virginia has come to a certain crisis in her life; that, with Henry gone, she is capable of making some disastrous decision. I should like not to know that Edie is still agonizing over poor Lottie.
And at the same time, there were uncertainties that she would prefer resolved. I should like to feel confident that Alexa is not about to have her heart broken, that Henry is not eating his heart out for his mother. I should like to know exactly what is going on in Edmund's unfathomable mind.
Her family. Edmund, Virginia, Alexa, Henry, and Edie. Love and involvement brought joy, but as well could become a hideously heavy millstone slung about one's neck. And the worst was that she felt useless because there was not a mortal thing she could do to help resolve their problems.
She sighed. The sigh was clearly audible, and realizing this, Violet, with some effort, pulled herself together, assumed a cheerful expression, and turned to the man who lay propped on one elbow beside her.
She said the first thing that came into her mind. "I love the colours of the moor because they remind me of the most beautiful tweed. All russets and purple, and larch-green and peat-brown. And I love the beautiful tweeds because they remind me of the moor. How clever people are to be able to emulate nature so perfectly."
"Is that what you've been thinking?"
He was no fool. She shook her head. "No," she admitted. "I was thinking… that it's not the same."
"What isn't the same?" asked Noel.
Violet was not certain why he had come with her. She had not invited him to join her on her walk, and he had not suggested that he might accompany her. She had simply started out, up the hill, and he had fallen into step beside her, as though without words they had made some pre-arranged assignment. And they had climbed together, Violet leading the way up the narrow sheep-track, pausing every now and then to admire the expanding view, to watch the flight of a grouse, to pick a sprig of white heather. Reaching the summit, she had settled herself down for a small breather, and he had made himself comfortable beside her. She was touched that he had chosen to be with her, and a little more of her reserve towards him melted away.
For, meeting him for the first time, she had been wary. Though prepared to like the young man whom Alexa had chosen to love, she kept her defences well up, determined not to be taken in by any brittle veneer of too-obvious charm. His dark good looks, his tall frame, his bright and intelligent blue eyes had caught her slightly off-balance, and the fact that he was the son of Penelope Keeling had further taken the wind from her sails. That was another thing that had occurred to cloud her day, for Noel had told her that Penelope was dead, and for some reason she found it painful to come to terms with this. Filled with the regrets of hindsight, she knew that she had no person but herself to blame for the fact that she had never again got in touch with that vital and fascinating woman. And now it was too late.
"What isn't the same?" he prompted gently.
She gathered her flying thoughts. "My picnic."
"It's a splendid picnic."
"But different. Missing out. Henry is not here, nor Edmund, nor Isobel Balmerino. This is the first time she's missed my birthday celebration, but she had to go to Corriehill to help Verena Steynton arrange the flowers for the dance tomortow evening. And as for my darling little Henry, he is now committed to boarding-schools for at least ten years, and by the time he is free to come again, I shall probably be six feet under the turf. I hope I shall be. Eighty-eight scarcely bears thinking about. Too old. Perhaps dependent on one's children. My only fear."
"I can't imagine you being dependent on anybody."
"Senility comes to us all eventually."
They fell silent. Out of this silence another spatter of distant and sporadic gun-fire echoed towards them over the hills.
Violet smiled. "They, at least, seem to be having a successful day."
"Who's shooting?"
"I suppose the members of the syndicate who happen to be here just now. And Archie Balmerino is with them." She turned to smile at Noel. "Do you shoot?"
"No. I never even owned a gun. I didn't have that sort of an upbringing. I lived in London all my life."
"In that wonderful house in Oakley Street?"
"That's right."
"What a fortunate young man you were."
He shook his head. "The shaming thing is that I didn't consider myself fortunate. I was sent to a day-school and thought myself very hard done by, because my mother couldn't afford to send me to Eton or Harrow. As well, my father had taken off by the time 1 was ready for school, and married some other female. 1 didn't exactly miss him, because I'd hardly known him, but in some strange way it rankled."
She did not waste her sympathy on him. Instead, thinking of Penelope Keeling, she said, "It is not easy for a woman to bring up a family on her own."