A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h pervaded the house gradually began to be replaced by warmth and light. But this was all an expensive process, and the long summer lets to visitors became all the more important. Somebody like Tom, who was prepared to take the house for two or three months, was ideal.
“There it is,” said Isabel. “Can you see it? Over there.”
Jamie looked in the direction in which Isabel had pointed.
Just above a stand of trees, the roof could be made out, and a few of the windows on the top storey. But then the trees blocked the view, and all he saw were Scots pines and a hillside rising sharp behind.
“One of those tall, thin houses?” he asked.
“I’ve seen it only once,” said Isabel. “And I don’t remember it very well. They had a Scotland’s Gardens open day a few years back and I saw it then. But I didn’t go into the house.”
They turned off the public road at a lane end marked with a modest sign, a piece of painted board that announced tar-whinn house. They were now on the drive up to the house, a dirt track with only a little bit of gravel here and there. There were potholes, filled with water from the last rain, and Isabel slowed down to negotiate her way past them.
They rounded a large cluster of rhododendrons and the house revealed itself. It was four storeys high and had the small windows which marked the fortified houses which people needed to build in those days. It looked rectangular—like a cardboard box standing on its end—but there was a simplicity about it which made it beautiful. The walls were pebble-dash harling and painted with a soft terracotta-coloured wash with just a touch of pink in it. This imparted to the house a soft quality, a sort of luminescence, which the gentle sun of late afternoon now caught, made glow.
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“I love this place,” said Jamie impulsively. “I just love it.”
There were two cars parked on the edge of the large gravelled circle at the front of the house; one was Joe and Mimi’s hire car, a small red vehicle which somebody had dented at the back, and the other was the large car which Isabel remembered seeing in Edinburgh when she had first spotted Tom and Angie.
She nosed her green Swedish car into position behind Joe and Mimi’s car and stopped the engine.
Jamie, still in the car, looked round. “Yes,” he said. “This is it.”
“What?” asked Isabel. “What’s it?”
“It’s the place I wanted to be this weekend,” said Jamie. “It’s exactly what I wanted.”
Isabel was not sure what to say. “Good,” she said at last.
“You see,” Jamie continued, struggling to release his seat belt, “I’ve never been invited to a house party. Not once. I almost went a few years ago when some friends rented a cottage up near Aviemore for a weekend, but they miscalculated the numbers and two of us had to drop out. There were strict limits on the number of people who were allowed to stay, and so I didn’t go. That was my house party.”
Isabel laughed at this. She thought for a moment: This is where it shows, those years between us. He’s excited. And was she? She had been to house parties before—there was nothing new in that from her point of view. But was there something else? Yes, she did feel it. She felt an anticipation, especially when she thought of what Jamie had said. This was something special for him; not just being here, but being here with her.
Could she dare to think that?
They got out of the car. Jamie took both cases out of the back of the car—he had only a small weekend bag—and they 1 8 6
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h walked over the gravel towards the door. Isabel looked up at the house, which seemed much taller when one was right up against it like this. These Scottish houses were really towers, small castles, and they must have seemed impregnable to their attackers. Of course there was always the possibility of a siege; it was all very well being behind three feet of solid stone, but food had to be brought in from somewhere. And then there was fire, and disease, and all the other hazards of having something to defend in lawless times.
Tom appeared as they reached the front door. “I was watching you from one of those little slots in the wall,” he said. “Very useful, those. I can look all the way down the drive and see who’s coming up to lay siege to me.”
Isabel smiled at the joke, but then the thought came to her: What if the threat is already inside? Tom noticed how her expression changed suddenly, and he said, “Everything all right?”
“Yes,” said Isabel quickly. “Yes. It is.”
“Good,” said Tom. He glanced over his shoulder—they were standing in the hall, and he looked towards a back door. “There’s somebody who looks after us here. She comes with the house.
Mrs. Paterson. She’s made up your rooms and will show you to them.”
Mrs. Paterson appeared, emerging from the doorway behind Tom. She was a middle-aged woman with a broad, weather-beaten face—the sort of face, thought Isabel, that one doesn’t see in towns any more, where pallor reigns. She greeted Isabel and Jamie courteously in a Border accent and indicated for them to come upstairs.
They followed her into a corridor. “You’ve not been in this house before?” she asked.
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“I visited the garden once,” said Isabel. “Some years ago.
But not the house itself.”
“Oh, aye,” said Mrs. Paterson. “I remember that. An awful lot of folk came out from Peebles to see the gardens. They should open them again some time. But I think that people who rent the house don’t always like it. They want privacy—and who can blame them?”
“That’s reasonable enough,” said Isabel. “I’m not sure if I would want people traipsing through my garden, such as it is.”
Mrs. Paterson made a sound that seemed like agreement.
The corridor ran the length of the house, but because of the square shape of the house, it was not particularly long. Now they were at the end of it, outside a door of light, stripped pine, which Mrs. Paterson pushed open. “Your room,” she said to Isabel.
She went in. Jamie stayed outside.
“You can come in too,” said Mrs. Paterson, turning to Jamie.
“Your room is next door. Through here.” She pointed to an inter-connecting door.
Jamie came in, looking embarrassed, thought Isabel. She turned away. It was a large room, with painted wood wainscot-ing around the walls and two windows. The floor was wooden, with wide, old boards, and there were faded Oriental rugs here and there. An ancient wardrobe, oak and irregular, stood against a far wall and there was some sort of chest of drawers opposite it. On the walls there were small, dark oil paintings of inde-terminate country subjects: a hare at the edge of a field; stooks of wheat in a field; a winter landscape. There was a large double bed.
“I hope everything is all right,” said Mrs. Paterson. “If you 1 8 8
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h need to make tea or coffee or anything, the kitchen’s off the hall you came in. You’ll find everything you need there, even if I’m not around. And there’s a bathroom two doors down the hall—
we passed it. The hot-water pipes make a noise, but there’s lots of hot water, all the time.” She turned, smiled briefly at Isabel, and then left.
Isabel put her case down on the floor. Jamie had taken his case through to his room and had reappeared at the doorway between the two rooms. Now he moved over to her window and looked out.