“But you’ve got forty minutes to wait till it leaves.”
“I’ll be all right. Please go now.”
“All right.” But he sounded unconvinced. “If that’s what you want.”
Leaving her case in the ticket office, they went out into the station yard. By his car, he said, “This is it, then?”
“Tuppy said au revoir.”
“You’ll write? You’ll keep in touch?”
“Of course.”
They kissed. “You know something?” said Antony.
She smiled. “Yes, I know. I’m a super woman.”
He got into his car and drove away, very fast, and almost instantly seemed to have disappeared around the corner by the bank. Flora was alone. The rain was thin, but steady and very wetting. Above her, the wind banged about at chimney pots and television aerials.
There came a moment of hesitation.
Two proud people, misunderstanding, can make for tragedy.
She began to walk.
* * *
The hill, black with rain, seemed steep as the side of a roof. The gutters ran like waterfalls. As she climbed up out of the shelter of the town the force of the wind struck like a solid thing, causing Flora to lose her breath and her balance. The air was filled with blown spume and she could feel its salt on her cheeks and taste it on her mouth. When she finally reached the house at the top of the hill, she stopped at the gate to get her breath. Looking back, she saw the gray and turbulent sea, empty of boats. She saw the tall columns of spray rearing up beyond the far harbor wall.
She opened the gate and closed it behind her and went up the sloping path to the front door. Inside the porch, she rang the bell and waited. Her shoes were sodden and the hem of her coat dripped onto the tiled floor. She rang the bell again.
She heard someone call, “I’m just on my way…” and the next instant the door was flung open and she was faced by a woman of indeterminate age, spectacled and flustered. She wore a flowered pinafore and bedroom slippers that looked like dead rabbits, and with the certainty of someone who has just been formally introduced, Flora knew that this was Jessie McKenzie.
“Yes?”
“Is Dr. Kyle in?”
“He’s still in surgery.”
“Oh. When will he be finished?”
“I couldn’t say for sure. We’re all at sixes and sevens this morning. Surgery’s usually at ten o’clock, but this morning, because of the accident, the doctor wasn’t able to get started ‘till half past eleven…”
“Accident?” said Flora faintly.
“Did you not hear?” Jessie was agog with the horrific news. “Dr. Kyle had not even started on his breakfast when the telephone rang, and it was the harbormaster, and seemingly, there’d been an accident on one of the fishing boats; a derrick cable snapped and a muckle load of fish boxes fell to the deck, right on top of one of the young laddies working there. It crushed his leg. Seemingly, it was a mangled mess…”
She was unstoppable, settled down to a good gossip, with her arms folded across her pinafored breasts. Jessie was not fat, but her unsupported body appeared to be slipping in all directions. She was obviously a woman who put comfort before beauty and yet, Flora knew instinctively, should there be a whist drive or a church soiree in the offing, Jessie would be the first to lace herself into a formidable all-in-one, in the same way that some people only wear their teeth when company is expected.
“… Dr. Kyle was there first thing, but they had to get the ambulance to take the poor laddie to Lochgarry … and Dr. Kyle went too … an operation, of course. He wasn’t home till the back of eleven.”
It became necessary to interrupt.
“Would it be possible to see him?”
“Well, I couldn’t say for sure. Mind, I saw Nurse on her way home, so maybe surgery’s finished. And the doctor’s not had a bite to eat all morning. I’ve a pot of soup on the store, and I’m expecting him any moment…” She peered at Flora, her eyes, behind their round spectacles, bright with curiosity. “Are you a patient?” She probably thought Flora was pregnant. “Is it urgent?”
“Yes, it is urgent, but I’m not a patient. I have to catch a train.” The moments were slipping by and Flora began to be desperate. “Perhaps I could go and see if he’s still busy.”
“Yes.” Jessie thought this over. “Maybe you could.”
“How do I get to the surgery?”
“Just follow the wee path round the house.”
Flora began to back away. “Thank you. I…”
“It’s a terrible morning,” Jessie observed, conversationally.
“Yes. Terrible.” And with this, she made her escape out into the rain.
The concrete path led around the side of the house and beneath a covered way to the surgery door. Flora went in and found it empty, but muddy footmarks all over the polished linoleum, chairs standing around the walls, and a few disarranged magazines on a table bore witness to the queues which had tramped through during the course of the morning. There was a smell of disinfectant and wet mackintoshes. At the far end of the room, a small office had been formed by means of glass partitions, and inside was a desk and filing cabinets and boxes of card indexes.
The door with his name on it stood at the far end of the long room, and Flora went toward it, her wet shoes leaving a fresh track of damp footprints behind her. She found it in her heart to be sorry for whomever had to clean the floor at the end of the day.
With a conscious gathering of courage, she knocked at the door. There did not seem to be any reply, so she knocked again, and from within his voice bellowed, “I said, Come in!” It was not a good start. Flora went in.
He did not even look up from his desk. She could only see the top of his head, and that he was busy writing something.
“Yes?”
Flora shut the door behind her with a small slam. He looked up. For a moment he appeared to be transfixed, and then he took off his spectacles and sat back in his chair the better to stare at her.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to say goodbye.”
She was already wishing she had not come. His office was impersonal and unnerving. It offered neither encouragement nor comfort. His desk was enormous, the walls were the color of margarine, the linoleum brown. She caught sight of a case of sinister-looking instruments and hastily averted her glance.
“But where are you going?”
“I’m going back to Cornwall. To my father.”
“When did you come to this decision?”
“I had a letter from him this morning. I … I wrote to him at the beginning of the week to tell him what was happening. Where I was. What I was doing.”
“And what did he have to say to that?”
“He said I had to go home.”
A glimmer of amusement crossed Hugh’s face. “Are you in for a hiding?”
“No of course not. He’s not angry. He’s just being very kind. I told Tuppy, and she said that she thought I should go. And I’ve said goodbye to everybody at Fernrigg and Antony brought me to Tarbole in his car. I’ve got my ticket and my suitcase is at the station, but the train doesn’t leave till one, so I thought I’d come and say goodbye to you.”
In silence, Hugh laid down his pen, and stood up. All at once he seemed as enormous as his ponderous desk, in proportion to it. He came around to where Flora stood, and sat on the edge of the desk, bringing their eyes to the same level. She thought he looked very tired, but, unlike Antony, he had apparently found time to shave. She wondered if, between the premature baby and the young boy with the crushed leg, he had had any sleep at all.
He said, “I’m sorry about last night. Did you wonder what had happened to me?”
“I thought you’d forgotten about having supper with me. And then someone told me about the phone call.”
“I did forget,” Hugh confessed. “When the call came through, I forgot about everything else. I always do. It wasn’t until I was halfway there that I re
membered our date, and then, of course, it was too late.”
She said, “It didn’t matter,” but it didn’t sound, even to Flora, very convincing.
“Believe it or not, it mattered to me.”
“Was the baby all right?”
“Yes, a little girl. Very small, but she’ll make it.”
“And the boy, this morning, on the fishing boat?”
“How did you know about that?”
“I’ve been talking to your housekeeper. She told me.”
“Yes, she would,” said Hugh dryly. “We won’t know about the boy for a day or two.”
“You mean, he may die?”
“No, he’s not going to die. But he may lose his leg.”
“I am sorry.”
Hugh folded his arms. “How long are you going to stay with your father?”
“I don’t know.”
“What will you do then?”
“Like I told you last night, I suppose. Go back to London. Look for a job. Look for somewhere to live.”
“Will you come back to Fernrigg?”
“Tuppy’s asked me.”
“But will you?”
“I don’t know. It depends.”
“On what?”
She looked him straight in the eye. “On you, I suppose,” she told him.
“Oh, Flora…”
“Hugh, don’t push me away. We’ve been so close. We can surely talk.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-two. And don’t say you’re old enough to be my father, because you’re not.”
“I wasn’t going to say that. But I am old enough to recognize the fact that you have everything in front of you, and I’m not going to be the man who takes it away from you. You’re young and you’re beautiful and very special. You may imagine that you’re marvelously mature, but in truth, your life is only just beginning. Somewhere, some time, you’ll find a young man waiting for you. Someone who hasn’t been married before, and has more to offer you than second best—who one day will be able to afford to give you all the good things of life that you truly deserve.”
“Perhaps I don’t want them.”
“Mine would be no sort of a life for you.” He was trying to be very kind. “I tried to make you see that last night.”
“And I told you that if somebody loved you, that would make it the right sort of life.”
“I already made that mistake.”
“But I’m not Diana. I’m me. And that terrible thing I once said to you was absolutely true. By dying the way she did, Diana destroyed you. She’s destroyed your trust in people, and your confidence in yourself. And she’s made you so that to stop yourself from being hurt, you’re prepared to hurt other people. I think that’s a horrible way to be.”
“Flora, I don’t want to hurt you. Can’t you understand? Supposing I did love you? Supposing I loved you too much to let you destroy yourself?”
Bleakly Flora stared at him. It seemed an extraordinary time to start talking about love, right in the middle of a quarrel. For they were quarreling, momentously, their voices raised to a pitch where, if Jessie McKenzie were sufficiently curious to put an ear to the wall, she would be able to hear every word. For Hugh’s sake, Flora hoped that that was not happening.
She said at last, “I don’t destroy that easily. If I’ve survived this last week, I can survive anything.”
“You said that Tuppy had asked you back to Fernrigg.”
“Yes.”
“Will you come?”
“I told you, it depends…”
“That was a ridiculous thing to say. Now, when you do come…”
Flora lost her temper. There seemed to be no way of breaking down his stubborn pride without actually going to the lengths of telling him that he was behaving like a fool. “Hugh, I’m either coming back to you, or I’m never coming back at all.”
The silence that followed that outburst was fraught with the astonishment of both of them. Then Flora stumbled on, with the hopeless despair of one who knows that she has burnt her boats behind her. “Though why I should bother, I can’t imagine. I don’t think you even like me very much.” She glared at him crossly. “And your tie’s coming undone,” she added, as if this were the last straw.
It was, too. Perhaps he had dressed quickly and carelessly. Perhaps, during the course of the morning, it had simply slipped of its own accord, the way her father’s so often did, and …
Her reflections came to a dead halt as she suddenly realized the significance of what she had so thoughtlessly said. She stared at the wretched tie, waiting for Hugh to pig-headedly straighten it for himself. She decided that if he did this, she would walk out of this room, and down the hill, and she would catch the train and go away, and never think about him again.
But he made no move to do anything about the offending necktie. His arms remained rigidly folded across his chest. He said at last, “Well, why don’t you remedy the situation?”
Carefully, slowly, Flora did so. She pulled up the knot, set it neatly in place, dead in the center of his collar. It was done. She stood back. He still didn’t move. It took more determination than she would have believed possible, just to look up and meet his eyes. She saw him, for the first time disarmed and defenseless as a very young man. He said her name and held out his arms, and the next instant, with a sound that was halfway between a sob and a shout of triumph, Flora was in them.
* * *
She said, “I love you.”
“You impossible child.”
“I love you.”
“What am I going to do with you?”
“You could marry me. I’ll make a marvelous doctor’s wife. Just think of it.”
“I’ve been thinking of nothing else for the past three days.”
“I love you.”
“I thought I could let you go, but I can’t.”
“You’re going to have to let me go, because I’ve got a train to catch.”
“But you’ll come back?”
“To you.”
“How soon?”
“Three days, four days.”
“Too long.”
“No longer.”
“I shall ring you up every night at your father’s house.”
“He’ll be impressed.”
“And when you do come, I’ll be on the station platform, with a bunch of roses and an engagement ring.”
“Oh, Hugh, not an engagement ring. I’m sorry, but I’ve had enough of engagement rings. You couldn’t make it a wedding ring?”
He began to laugh. “You’re not only impossible, you’re intolerable.”
“Yes, I know. Isn’t it awful?”
He said it at last. “I love you.”
Jessie was anxious about the pot of soup. If the doctor delayed a moment longer, it was going to be boiled to nothing. She was already partaking of her own midday meal: leftover potatoes, a leg of cold chicken, and a tin of baked beans. Her favorite. For afters she was going to eat up the tinned plums and custard and then make a strong and restoring cup of tea.
She was about to pick up the chicken leg in her fingers (it didn’t count, provided you were on your own) when she heard voices, and footsteps running up the path from the surgery. Before she had time to dispose of the chicken leg the back door was thrown open, and Dr. Kyle stood before her, holding by the hand the woman in the navy blue coat who had come asking for him.
The woman was smiling, her hair blown by the wind all over her face. And Dr. Kyle’s face was a picture. Jessie was at a loss. By rights he should be exhausted, weighed down by troubles and hard work, treading heavily up from the surgery for his bowl of soup, the sustaining broth that she, Jessie, had concocted for him.
Instead, here he was, all smiles and bouncing good spirits and looking as though he were good for another forty-eight hours without a wink of sleep.
“Jessie!”
She dropped the chicken bone, but he didn’t seem to have noticed, anyway.
“Jessie, I’m going down to the railway station, I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
“Righty ho, Dr. Kyle.”
It was still raining but, although he wore no raincoat, it didn’t seem to bother him. Out he went again with the woman still in tow, leaving the back door standing open and a wind like a knife pouring into Jessie’s kitchen.
“How about your soup?” she called after him, but it was too late. He had gone. She got up to shut the door. Then she went through to the front of the house, and, cautiously, not wishing to be observed, opened the front door. She saw them going away from her down the path. They had their arms around each other and they were both laughing, oblivious of the wind and the rain. She watched them go through the gate and start down the hill towards the town. Their heads disappeared below the top of the wall, first the woman’s and then Dr. Kyle’s.
They were gone.
She closed the door. She thought, Well! But she knew that sooner or later, she would find someone to tell.
ST. MARTIN’S PAPERBACKS TITLES BY ROSAMUNDE PILCHER
WINTER SOLSTICE
SLEEPING TIGER
ANOTHER VIEW
SNOW IN APRIL
THE END OF SUMMER
THE EMPTY HOUSE
THE DAY OF THE STORM
FLOWERS IN THE RAIN AND OTHER STORIES
UNDER GEMINI
WILD MOUNTAIN THYME
VOICES IN SUMMER
THE BLUE BEDROOM AND OTHER STORIES
THE CAROUSEL
THE SHELL SEEKERS
SEPTEMBER
COMING HOME
ENTER THE ENCHANTING WORLD OF ROSAMUNDE PILCHER …
PRAISE FOR COMING HOME …
“Rosamunde Pilcher’s most satisfying story since The Shell Seekers.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Captivating … The best sort of book to come home to … Readers will undoubtedly hope Pilcher comes home to the typewriter again soon.”
—New York Daily News
… FOR SEPTEMBER …
“A dance of life!”
—Philadelphia Inquirer
“Her characters inhabit your daily life … [a] rich story to get lost in … the sort of novel so many seek to imitate and fail. I’d call Pilcher a Jane Austen for our time.”