September

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.'

'Growing up, I don't think that ever occurred to me.'

Violet laughed, appreciating his honesty. 'Youth is wasted on the young. But you enjoyed your mother's company?'

'Yes, I did. But from time to time we had the most stupendous rows. Usually about money.'

'That's what most family rows are about. And I don't imagine that she suffered from materialism.'

'The very opposite. She had her own philosophy for living, and a selection of homespun truisms which she would come out with in times of stress, or in the middle of some really acrimonious argument. One of them was that happiness is making the most of what you have and riches is making the most of what you've got. It sounded plausible, but I never quite worked out the logic.'

'Perhaps you needed more than wise words.'

'Yes. I needed more. I needed not to feel an outsider. I wanted to be part of a different sort of life, to have a different background. The Establishment. Old houses, old families, old names, old money. We were brought up to believe that money didn't matter, but I knew that it only didn't matter provided you had plenty of it.'

Violet said, 'I disapprove, but understand. The grass is always greener on the other side of the hill, and it is human nature to yearn for what you cannot have.' She thought of Alexa's little jewel of a house in Ovington Street, and the financial security she had inherited from her maternal grandmother, and knew a small stirring of disquiet. 'The worst is,' she went on, 'that when you achieve that green grass, you often discover that you never really wanted it at all.' He stayed silent, and she frowned. 'Tell me,' she said abruptly, coming straight to the point, 'what do you think of us all?'

Noel was taken aback by her bluntness. 'I… I've scarcely had time to form an opinion.'

'Rubbish. Of course you have. Do you think, for instance, that we are Establishment, as you term it? Do you think that we are all very grand?'

He laughed. Perhaps his amusement disguised a certain embarrassment. She could not be sure. 'I don't know about grand. But you must admit that you live on a fairly lavish scale. To achieve such a life-style in the south, one would need to be a millionaire ten times over.'

'But this is Scotland.'

'Precisely so.'

'So you do think we're grand?'

'No. Just different.'

'Not different, Noel. Ordinary. The most ordinary of folk, who have been blessed with the good fortune to be raised and to live in this incomparable country. There are, I admit, titles, lands, huge houses, and a certain feudalism, but scratch the surface of any one of us, go back a generation or two, and you'll find humble crofters, mill workers, shepherds, small farmers. The Scottish clan system was an extraordinary thing. No man was any man's servant, but part of a family. Which is why your average Highlander does not walk through life with a chip on his shoulder. He is proud. He knows he is as good as you are, and probably a good deal better. As well, the Industrial