“I bumped my head a bit, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You couldn’t help it.”
“Perhaps we should have stopped before now. Perhaps we should have stayed in Relkirk.”
Jody peered at the swirling darkness. He said, bravely, “You know, I think this is a blizzard. I’ve never been in a blizzard. The man at the garage said we had to stay in the car.”
“We can’t. It’s much too cold. You wait here, I’m going to look.”
“Don’t get lost.”
“Give me the torch.”
She buttoned up her coat, and gingerly got out of the car, falling knee-deep into a snow drift, and then clambering up on to the firm surface of the road. It was wet and bitterly cold and even with the torch to guide her, the snow was blinding, confusing. It would be easy to lose all sense of direction.
She took a few paces down the road, shining the torch along the stone wall which had proved their undoing. It carried on for about ten yards and then curved inwards to form some sort of an entrance. Caroline followed it, and came to a gate post and a wooden gate, open. There was a notice. Screwing her eyes against the snow she turned the beam of the torch upwards and read, with difficulty, CAIRNEY HOUSE. PRIVATE.
She switched off the torch and stared up into the darkness which lay beyond the gate. There seemed to be an avenue of trees, she could hear the thunder of wind in bare branches, high above, and then through the swirl of snowflakes, glimpsed, distantly, a single light.
She turned and went hurrying, floundering back to Jody. She pulled the car door open. “We’re in luck.”
“How?”
“This wall, it’s an estate, or a farm or something. There’s a sort of entrance and a gate and a drive. And you can see a light. It can’t be more than half a mile.”
“But the man at the garage said we had to stay in the car.”
“If we stay, we’ll die of cold. Come on, the snow’s thick, but we can make it. It shouldn’t be too long a walk. Leave the rucksack, just get our bags. And button up your jacket. It’s cold and we’re going to get wet.”
He did as she told him, struggling out of the car against its awkward angle. She knew that the important thing was to waste no time. Dressed for London in the spring, they were neither of them prepared for these Arctic conditions. Both were in jeans and thin shoes, Caroline had a suède jacket and a cotton scarf to tie around her head, but Jody’s blue anorak was sadly inadequate and his head was bare.
“Do you want the scarf for your head?” The words were torn from her mouth by the wind.
He was furious. “No, of course not.”
“Can you carry your bag?”
“Yes, of course I can.”
She shut the door. Already the car had collected a considerable coating of snow, its outlines were blurred, soon it would be buried and hidden completely.
“Will anyone drive into it?” Jody asked.
“I don’t think so. Anyway, there’s nothing we can do. If we left a light on, the snow would simply cover it.” She took his hand. “Now come along, we mustn’t talk, we’ve got to hurry.”
She led him back to the gate, following the wavering track of her own footprints. Beyond the gate the darkness swept ahead into a black tunnel shimmering with snow. But the light was there still, a pin prick, no more. Far ahead. Hand in hand, heads bent against the wind, they started to walk towards it.
* * *
It was a frightening business. All the elements were against them. In moments they were both soaked to the skin and very cold. The overnight bags, which had seemed so light, became heavier with every step. Snow cascaded on to them wet, sodden, clinging like paste. Overhead, high above the snow, the arched branches of leafless trees soughed and creaked ominously, flayed by the wind. Every now and then came the sound of a branch breaking, followed by the crash and splinter of its fall.
Jody was trying to say something. “I hope…” His lips were frozen, his teeth chattered, but he struggled to get the words out. “I hope a tree doesn’t fall on us.”
“So do I.”
“And my coat’s supposed to be shower proof.” His voice was testy. “I’m wet right through.”
“This is a blizzard, Jody, not a shower.”
The light still shone, perhaps a little brighter, and a little closer to hand, but by now Caroline felt as if they had been walking for ever. It was like an endless journey in a nightmare, with the will-o’-the-wisp light dancing ahead of them, always just out of reach. She had begun to give up hope of ever getting anywhere, when all at once the darkness became a little less dense, the sound of the creaking branches fell behind them, and she realized that they had reached the end of the avenue. At this moment the light disappeared, behind a looming bulk of what was probably a clump of rhododendrons. But as they picked their way around this, the light appeared once more, and now it was quite close. They went forward and stumbled over the edge of a bank. Jody nearly fell and Caroline pulled him to his feet.
“It’s all right. We’re on a lawn, or grass. Perhaps part of a garden.”
“Let’s go on,” said Jody. It was all he could manage.
Now, the light took shape, shining from an upstairs, uncurtained window. They were walking across an open space towards a house. It reared up ahead of them, made shapeless by the blurring edges of the snow, but they could make out other lights, faintly glowing behind thickly drawn curtains in the downstairs rooms.
“It’s a big house,” whispered Jody.
It was, too. “All the more room for us,” said Caroline, but she did not know if Jody heard. She let go of his hand and fumbled clumsily, frozen fingered, in her pocket for the torch. She turned it on, and the faint beam picked out a flight of stone steps, cushioned in snow, leading to the dark recesses of a square porch. They went up the steps and found themselves in cover, out of the snow. The torch’s beam played over the panels of the door, and picked out a long, wrought-iron bell-pull. Caroline put down her bag and reached out to pull it. It was stiff and heavy and apparently produced no result at all. She tried again, lending a little more weight to her efforts, and this time a bell rang, distantly, hollowly, from the back of the house.
“That’s working, at any rate.” She turned to Jody and inadvertently the torch’s beam caught his face and she saw that he was grey with cold, his hair plastered to his skull, his teeth chattering. She switched off her torch and put an arm around him and drew him close. “It’ll be all right.”
“I hope,” said Jody in a distinct voice that shook with nerves. “I hope that a horrible butler doesn’t come and say ‘You rang, sir?’ like they do in horror films.”
Caroline hoped so too. She was about to ring the bell again, when she heard the footsteps. A dog barked and a deep voice told it to be quiet. Lights sprang from the narrow windows on either side of the entrance, the footsteps came closer and the next moment the door was flung open and a man stood, just inside, with a yellow labrador, bristling, at his heels.
He said to the dog, “Be quiet, Lisa,” and then looked up. “Yes?”
Caroline opened her mouth to speak, but could think of nothing to say. She simply stood there, with one arm around Jody, and perhaps it was the best thing she could have done, for without another word being uttered, her bag had been picked up off the flagged floor, the pair of them had been swept indoors, and then the great door was closed against the stormy night.
The nightmare was over. The house felt warm. They were safe.
4
In his state of astonishment, the thing that struck Oliver more forcibly than anything else was their extreme youth. What were two children doing, at half past eleven, out on a night like this? Where had they come from with their little overnight bags, and where on God’s earth were they going? But as the questions crowded into his mind, he realized that they would have to be shelved till later. The only important thing now, was to get them out of their wet clothes and into a hot bath before they both died
of exposure.
Without wasting time on explanations he said, “Come along. Quickly.” And turned and headed, two at a time, up the stairs. After an instant’s hesitation he heard them follow him, hurrying to keep up. His mind raced ahead. There were two bathrooms. He went first to his own, snapped on the light, put the plug in the bath, turned on the hot tap, took time to be thankful that one of the things that really worked in this old house was the hot water system, for almost immediately the steam rolled up in comforting clouds.
“You go in here,” he told the girl. “Get in as fast as you can, and stay there till you’re warm again. And you—” he took hold of the boy’s arm, passive beneath the soggy chill of his clothes—“you come this way.” He jostled him back down the long passage to the old nursery bathroom, turning on lights as he went. This bathroom had not been used for some time, but the hot pipes kept it cosy and he drew the old faded curtains, with their pattern of Beatrix Potter characters, and turned on the second set of taps.
The boy was already fumbling with the buttons of his jacket. “Can you manage?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“I’ll be back.”
“All right.”
* * *
He left the boy to his own devices. Outside the door he stood for a moment, trying to decide what had to be done next. It was obvious that at this time of night they would have to stay until morning, so he went back down the passage to the big old spare bedroom. It was bitterly cold, but he drew the heavy curtains and turned on both bars of the electric fire and then turned down the bedspread and saw with relief that Mrs Cooper had left the double bed made up, with the best linen sheets and hemstitched pillowcases. A door from this room led into a smaller one, once a dressing-room, which contained a single bed, and this too was ready for an occupant, although again the atmosphere was frigid. When he had drawn the curtains and turned on another fire, he returned downstairs, picked up the two small pieces of luggage which had been abandoned in the hall, and carried them along to the library. The fire was dying. He had been on the point of going to bed when the bell disturbed him. But now he built this up, piling on the logs, and then placed a brass-railed fireguard in front of the spitting sparks.
He unzipped the first bag and took out a pair of blue and white striped pyjamas, some slippers, a grey woollen dressing-gown. Everything was slightly damp, so feeling like a conscientious Nanny, he draped them over the fireguard to dry. The other bag produced nothing so practical as blue and white pyjamas. There were bottles and jars, a hairbrush and comb, a pair of little gold slippers, and finally, a nightdress with a matching negligee; pale blue, very lacy, entirely useless. Oliver laid the nightdress alongside the pyjamas. It struck him as looking both suggestive and sexy and he found time to grin at the idea before heading for the kitchen and the business of finding something sustaining for his visitors to eat.
Mrs Cooper had made a pot of scotch broth for Oliver’s supper and there was still half of this left. He put it on the Aga to heat, and then remembered that small boys did not always like scotch broth, so he found a tin of tomato soup, and opened that and put it in another saucepan. He took out a tray, cut bread and butter, found some apples, a jug of milk. He considered this homely repast, and then added a whisky bottle (for himself if no one else) and a soda syphon and three tumblers. Finally, he boiled up the big kettle and after a search ran a couple of hot water bottles to earth in an unsuspected drawer. With these, fatly-filled, held under his arm, he went to collect the night-things, which were dry now, and warm, and smelt comforting, like an old-fashioned nursery. He put the bottles in the bed, and then went to his own room and took a shetland sweater from a drawer and a Viyella dressing-gown from the back of the door. Then he found a couple of bath-towels.
He thumped at the bathroom door with his fist. “How are you getting on?”
“I’m warm. It’s marvellous,” came the girl’s voice.
“Well, I’ll leave a towel and some things to put on, outside the door. You get dressed when you’re good and ready.”
“All right.”
He did not bother to knock on the door of the other bathroom, but simply opened it and went in. They boy lay in the deep water, slowly moving his legs to and fro. He looked up, unembarrassed by Oliver’s abrupt appearance.
“How do you feel now?” asked Oliver.
“Much better, thank you. I’d never been so cold in my life.”
Oliver pulled up a chair, and settled himself companionably.
“What happened?” he asked.
The boy sat up in the bath. Oliver saw the freckles, across his back, down his arms, spattered all over his face. His hair was damp and tousled and the colour of copper beech leaves. He said, “The car went into a ditch.”
“In the snow?”
“Yes. We came over the little bridge and we didn’t know the road turned so quickly. We couldn’t see in the snow.”
“It’s a bad corner at the best of times. What happened to the car?”
“We left it there.”
“Where were you going?”
“Strathcorrie.”
“And where have you come from?”
“London.”
“London?” Oliver could not keep the astonishment out of his voice. “From London? Today?”
“Yes. We left early this morning.”
“And the girl? Is she your sister?”
“Yes.”
“Was she driving?”
“Yes, she drove all the way.”
“Just the two of you.”
The boy looked dignified. He said, “We were all right.”
“Yes, of course,” Oliver assured him hastily. “It’s just that your sister doesn’t look old enough to drive a car.”
“She’s twenty.”
“Well, in that case of course she is old enough.”
A small silence followed. Jody took up a sponge, thoughtfully squeezed it and then dabbed at his face, pushing a crest of wet hair off his forehead. He emerged from behind the sponge and said, “I think I’m hot enough now. I think I’ll get out.”
“Out you come then.” Oliver reached for the bath-towel, shook out its folds, and as the boy stepped out on to the bath-mat, wrapped him in it. The boy faced him. Their eyes were level. Oliver gently rubbed at him with the towel.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Jody.”
“Jody what?”
“Jody Cliburn.”
“And your sister?”
“She’s Caroline.”
Oliver took up a handful of towel and rubbed at Jody’s hair. “Did you have any particular reason for going to Strathcorrie?”
“My brother’s there.”
“Is he called Cliburn, too?”
“Yes. Angus Cliburn.”
“Ought I to know him?”
“I don’t suppose so. He’s only been there a little while. He’s working in the hotel.”
“I see.”
“He’s going to be rather worried,” Jody said.
“Why?” Oliver reached for the pyjamas, held the jacket out for Jody.
“These are all warm,” said Jody.
“They’ve been in front of the fire. Why is your brother going to be worried?”
“We sent him a telegram. He’ll be expecting us. And now we aren’t there.”
“He’ll know about the blizzard. He’ll guess something like this has happened.”
“We never thought it would snow. In London there are crocuses and things and buds on the trees.”
“This is the far, frozen North, my boy. You can never depend on the weather.”
“I’ve never been to Scotland before.” Jody pulled on his pyjama trousers and tied the cord around his waist. “Neither has Caroline.”
“It was bad luck, the weather doing this to you.”
“It was rather exciting, really. An adventure.”
“Adventures are all very well when they’re safely over. But they’re not so fun
ny when they’re going on. I think you’ve come out of yours very well.”
“We were lucky to find you.”
“Yes, I think you were.”
“Is this your house?”
“Yes.”
“Do you live here all alone?”
“At the moment I do.”
“What’s it called?”
“Cairney.”
“And what’s your name.”
“The same. Cairney. Oliver Cairney.”
“Goodness.”
Oliver grinned. “Muddling, isn’t it? Now, if you’re ready we’ll go and find your sister and then get something to eat.” He opened the door. “Incidentally, would you rather have scotch broth or tomato soup?”
“Tomato, if you’ve got it.”
“I thought you would.”
As they came down the passage, Caroline emerged from the other bathroom. In Oliver’s dressing-gown she was submerged. She looked even smaller and thinner than his first impression of her. Her long hair was damp, and the high collar of his sweater appeared to be supporting her fragile head.
“I feel quite different now … thank you so much…”
“We’re going to find something to eat…”
“I’m afraid we’re being the most terrible nuisance.”
“You’ll only be a nuisance if you catch colds on me and I’m forced to look after you.”
He went on downstairs, and behind him, heard her brother say to Caroline in tones of the greatest satisfaction, “He says it’s tomato soup.”
At the kitchen door he stopped. “That’s the library door down there. You go and wait and I’ll bring you your supper. And put more logs on the fire, get a good blaze going.”
The soup was bubbling gently. He ladled out two bowls, and then carried the laden tray along to the library where he found them by the fire, Jody sitting on a footstool and his sister kneeling on the hearthrug trying to dry her hair. Lisa, Charles’s dog, sat between them, her head resting on Jody’s knee. The boy stroked her ears. He looked up as Oliver appeared.
“What’s the dog’s name?”
“Lisa. Has she made friends with you?”