time to glance out, rubbing a clear space on the dusty glass of the windows, seeing the village below, the river, the glen, the distant hills. She would never find another house with such a view. The view and the burn seduced her, and she disregarded her son's advice.
Doing it all up had been tremendous fun. It had taken six months to complete the work, and during that time Violet-politely spurning Edmund's invitation to remain at Balnaid until such time as she could move into her new abode-camped in a caravan that she had rented from a tourist park a few miles up the glen. She had never lived in a caravan before, but the idea had always appealed to her gypsy instincts and she leaped at the chance. The caravan was parked at the back of the house, along with the concrete mixers and barrows and shovels and daunting piles of rubble, and from the open door she could keep an eye on the workmen, and dash out to have a word with the long- suffering architect the moment she spied his car come bumping up the road. For the first month or two of this cheerfully vagabond existence, it was summer, and the only hazards were the midges and a leaky roof whenever it rained. But when the winter gales blew, the caravan trembled beneath their blast and rocked unsteadily at its temporary mooring, not unlike a small boat in a storm. Violet found this quite exciting and relished the dark and gusty nights. She could lie in her bunk, which was far too short and too narrow for such a sizy lady, listening to the keening wind and watching the clouds racing across the cold, moonlit skies.
But she did not spend all her time alternately bullying and cajoling the builders. To Violet, a garden was even more important than a house. Before the workmen had started in on their labours, she had already engaged a man with a tractor, who tore up all the old fence posts and broken wire. In their place she planted a beech hedge on either side of her driveway and all around her small plot of land. After ten years, this was still not high, but thick and firm, always leafy, and so providing good shelter for birds.
Within this hedge, on either side, she planted trees. To the east, conifers. Not her favourites, but quick-growing and good for keeping the worst of the coldest wind at bay. On the west, overhanging the stream, grew gnarled elder, willows, and double white cherries. At the foot of the garden she had kept her planting low, in order to conserve the view. Azaleas grew there, and potentillas, with drifts of spring bulbs in the rough grass.
There were two curving flower-beds, one herbaceous and one filled with roses, and between them a good-sized lawn. This was on the slope and tricky to cut. Violet had bought an electric lawn-mower, but Edmund-interfering again-decided that she was likely to sever the flex and electrocute herself, and so engaged the services of Willy Snoddy to come once a week and do the job for her. Violet knew perfectly well that Willy was a great deal less competent than she herself at handling complicated equipment, but she went along with the arrangement as being the line of least resistance. Every now and then Willy, being laid low with a killing hangover, did not turn up, and then Violet, quite happily and efficiently, cut the grass herself.
But she did not tell Edmund that she had done so.
As for the house, that she had transformed, turning it back to front and opening out all the poky and ill- proportioned rooms. Now the main entrance stood to the north and the old front door had become a glassed garden door, opening straight out of her sitting-room. The concrete stairs she had demolished, and in their place stood a semi-circular flight of steps built of old stone salvaged from a fallen dyke. Aubrietia and scented thyme grew from crannies between these rocks and smelt delicious when one trod upon them.
After some consideration, Violet decided that she could not bear the dull colour of the stone walls of Pennyburn, and so had them all harled and painted white. Windows and doorways were outlined in black, which gave the face of the house a crisp and down-to-earth appearance. To embellish it, she had planted a wistaria, but, after ten years, it had scarcely grown as high as her shoulder. By the time it reached the roof, she would probably be dead.
At seventy-seven one was perhaps better off sticking to hardy annuals.
All that was missing was a conservatory. The one at Balnaid had been built at the same time as the house. Its erection was due to the insistence of Violet's mother, Lady Primrose Akenside, a woman not addicted to the great outdoors. It was Lady Primrose's opinion that, if forced to live in the wilds of Scotland, a conservatory was absolutely essential. Quite apart from the fact that it was useful for keeping the house supplied with pot plants and grapes, it was somewhere to sit when the sun shone and yet the wind blew with an edge like ice to it. Such days, everybody knew, occurred with amazing frequency during the winter and spring and autumn months. But Lady Primrose spent a good deal of the summers in her conservatory as well, entertaining her friends and playing bridge.
Violet had loved the Balnaid conservatory for less social reasons, relishing the warmth, the peace, the smell of damp earth and ferns and freesias. When the weather was too inclement to garden, you could always potter about in the conservatory, and what better place to sit down after lunch and try to do
Yes, she missed it, but after deliberation had decided that Pennyburn was too small and modest for such an extravagant addition. It would make the house look pretentious and foolish, and she was not about to inflict such an indignity upon her new home. And it was scarcely a hardship to sit in her sheltered and sunny garden and try to do the crossword there.
She was in her garden now, and had been out working all afternoon, staking clumps of Michaelmas daisies before the autumn winds arrived to fell them flat. It was a day to start thinking about autumn. Not cold but fresh, with a certain smell about the air, a briskness. The farmers were harvesting, and the distant rumble of combine harvesters working in tall fields of barley was seasonal and strangely reassuring. The sky was blue but sailing with clouds blown in from the west. A blinking day, the old country people called it, as the sun went in and out.
Unlike many people, Violet did not mourn the passing of the summer and the prospect of a long dark winter ahead. 'How can you bear to live in Scotland?' she was sometimes asked. 'The weather so unpredictable, so much rain, so cold.' But Violet knew that she could not bear to live anywhere else, and never yearned to move away. When Geordie was alive they had travelled together extensively. They had explored Venice and Istanbul, paced the art galleries of Florence and Madrid. One year they had taken an archaeological cruise to Greece; another time had sailed the fjords of Norway, as far north as the Arctic Circle and the midnight sun. But without him, she knew no urge to journey abroad. She preferred to stay right here, where her roots were deep, surrounded by a countryside that she had known since she was a child. As for the weather, she disregarded it, caring not if it froze or snowed or blew or rained or scorched, provided she could be out of doors and part of it all.
Which was proved by her complexion, weather-beaten and lined as an old farm worker's. But again, at seventy-seven, what did a few wrinkles matter? A small price to pay for an energetic and active old age.
She drove in the last stake, twisted the last length of wire. Finished. She stepped back onto the grass to survey her work. The canes showed, but once the Michaelmas daisies had thickened out a bit, they would be concealed. She looked at her watch. Nearly half past three. She sighed, always reluctant to stop gardening and go indoors. But she stripped off her gloves and dropped them into her wheelbarrow, then collected her tools, the last of the canes, the drum of wire, and barrowed the lot around the house to her garage, where all was stowed neatly away until the next day's labour.
Then she went into the house by the kitchen door, toeing off her rubber boots and hanging her jacket on a hook. In the kitchen, she filled the kettle and switched it on to boil. She laid a tray with two cups and saucers, a milk jug, a sugar bowl, and a plate of chocolate digestive biscuits. (Virginia would not eat anything at tea-time but Violet was never averse to a small snack.)
She went upstairs to her bedroom, washed her hands, found a pair of shoes, tidied her hair, slapped a bit of face powder onto her shining nose. As she did this, she heard the car come up the hill and turn into the lane. A moment later came the slam of its door, her own front door opening, and Virginia's voice. 'Vi!'
'Just coming.'
She settled her pearls, fixed a stray wisp of hair, and went downstairs. Her daughter-in-law stood in the hall waiting for her; her long legs were in corduroys and a leather jacket was slung around her shoulders. She had a new hair-do, Violet noticed, drawn back from her brow and fastened at the nape of her neck with a ribbon bow. She looked, as always, casually elegant, and happier than Violet had seen her for a long time.
'Virginia. How lovely to have you home again. And how chic you look. I love the hair.' They kissed. 'Did you have it done in London?'
'Yes. I thought perhaps it was time I changed my image.' She looked about her. 'Where's Henry?'
'He's out ferreting with Willy Snoddy.' 'Oh, Vi.'
'It's all right. He'll be home in half an hour.'
'I didn't mean that. I meant what's he doing spending his time with that old reprobate?'
