Priscilla sat down at the kitchen table and pushed back the hood of her anorak. “Father thought I ought to call on the newcomers,” she said.
Of course, thought Hamish bleakly, and while you’re playing lady of the manor, drop in on the local bobby at the same time.
“What did you think of them?” he asked, putting on the kettle.
“They seem very pleasant. She’s got quite a forceful personality. Dr Brodie’s wife was helping her get things arranged. Mrs Brodie’s delighted to find a friend at last, of course.”
“Why of course?” Hamish measured tea leaves into the teapot with a careful hand.
“Mrs Brodie’s a lonely woman. She should have been one of those vague academics, writing her thesis and taking yet another degree or doctorate. Lots of brains and no self-confidence and very little common-sense. Trixie Thomas has taken her over with a firm hand. She’s going to perm her hair for her tomorrow.”
“She shouldn’t have a perm,” said Hamish. “That baby hair of hers suits her.”
“Oh, well, she’s happy and perms grow out,” said Priscilla.
Hamish handed her a cup of tea, poured one for himself, and sat down opposite her at the table.
“And what do you make of the husband, Paul?” he asked.
“Nice man. Bit of a helpless child. Seems Trixie’s got a hard job managing him and all the arrangements for the bed and breakfast.”
“Or that’s the way she plays it,” said Hamish. “Has she asked you for any furniture?”
“As a matter of fact she did. But I told her she’d need to see my father. I don’t own any of it.”
“I hear you’ve been back for over a week.”
Priscilla looked at Hamish’s hazel eyes, which were calm and appraising.
“I meant to get down and see you sooner,” she said defensively, “but time seemed to fly past. I’ve got these friends up with me. They’re leaving tomorrow.”
“Who are they?”
“Oh, just friends. Sarah James and her sister, Janet, David Baxter, and John Burlington.”
“I saw them,” said Hamish casually. “I was driving past. Who’s the hairy fellow?”
“You mean the good-looking one with the tanned face? That’s John.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s a very successful stockbroker.”
“Looks a bit old for a yuppie.”
“Hamish, I wouldn’t have thought you would be the type to sneer at yuppies. He’s not exactly young, he’s thirty.”
“Nearly as old as me,” said Hamish dryly.
“Anyway, he’s very hard-working and ambitious. He’s bought this brill farmhouse in Gloucester for weekends and he’s going to take me down to see it when I get back in September. I’m studying computers. My course starts up again in the autumn.”
“And you’re in love with him,” said Hamish flatly.
Priscilla coloured up. “I don’t know. I think so.”
All in that moment, Hamish could have struck her. If she had said, “Yes,” then that would have been the end of hope and he could learn to be comfortable. But Hamish knew people in love were never in any doubt about it and he cursed her in his heart for the hope she had so unwittingly held out.
He had no claim on her. As far as Priscilla was concerned, they were friends, nothing more.
Priscilla changed the subject. “After that business in Cnothan, I thought you would have got a promotion.”
“I told you, I don’t want a promotion. I’m very comfortable here.”
“Hamish, there seems something very…well…immature about a man who doesn’t want to get on.”
“You’re hardly a dynamo of ambition yourself, Miss Halburton-Smythe, or are you just an old–fashioned girl who wants to realize her ambition by marrying an ambitious man?”
“This tea’s foul,” said Priscilla. “And you’re foul. You’re usually so friendly and pleasant.”
“Priscilla, you naff jist called me an immature layabout and you expect me to be pleasant!”
“So I did.” She put a hand on his jersey sleeve.
“I’m sorry, Hamish. Let’s start again. I have just arrived, you have just poured me a cup of something made out of sawdust, and we are talking about the Thomases.”
Hamish grinned at her in sudden relief. He prized their usual easygoing friendship and did not want to lose it.
Priscilla smiled back and then sighed. Hamish was tall and gangly and lanky and unambitious. But when he smiled and his hazel eyes crinkled up in his thin face, he seemed part of an older, cleaner world that John Burlington knew nothing about and could never belong to.
“Yes, the Thomases,” she said. “She’s very good at getting one to do things for her. I think half the village has been up at the house already, getting them food and fixing things for them.”
“Where are they from?”
“Edgware, North London.”
“Plenty of jobs in London,” said Hamish. “Not like the north. Wonder why he’s on the dole?”
“Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he threw up his job to come here and went on the dole after he arrived. You’re very curious about them.”
“I have an uneasy feeling they are going to cause trouble,” said Hamish slowly.
There was a knock at the kitchen door and Hamish went to open it. John Burlington stood there. “Is Priscilla here?” he asked. “I saw her car.”
“I’m here,” called Priscilla, getting to her feet. She introduced the two men. John Burlington’s handsome face broke into an engaging smile. “You’ve been away for ages, Cilia,” he said. “The others are outside.”
Priscilla and John left. Hamish wandered through to the office and idly picked up some forms and put them down again. Cilia! What a name. He could hear them laughing outside. He could hear John Burlington saying, “You’ll never guess what our Cilia was doing. Drinking tea with the local copper. Darling, you’re too marvellous!” He must have brought the others with him.
Hamish sat down at the desk. He felt he did not really know Priscilla Halburton-Smythe very well. He himself could not have tolerated such company for very long, but then, perhaps jealousy was clouding his judgement.
Dr Brodie sniffed the air suspiciously when he came home that night. Everything seemed to smell of furniture polish and disinfectant. Angela must be worn out with cleaning. Still, he had always wanted a clean house. He sat down at the table.
Angela lifted two boil-in-bag curries out of a pan and then the packets of rice. She cut open the bags and tipped the contents on to two plates.
“Where’s Raffles?” asked the doctor, ladling mango chutney on to his rice.
“I shut him out in the garden. He will climb on to the table during meals and cats are full of germs.”
“I think over the years we’ve become immune to Raffle’s germs,” said the doctor, pouring a glass of something that was simply emblazoned claret without the name of any vintage to sully its label. “Why the sudden fear of pollution by Raffles?”
“Trixie Thomas says cats are a menace. Besides, I’m sick of the hairs everywhere.”
“Poor old Raffles,” said the doctor, but his wife had retreated into a book.
He finished his curry. “Anything for dessert?” he asked. “The trouble with these instant meals is that they don’t fill you up.”
Angela rose from the table. “I made a butterscotch pudding,” she said. “Trixie showed me how.”
She put a plate in front of her husband. He took a mouthful and his eyebrows rose in surprise. “This is delicious,” he said. “Absolutely delicious. You clever girl.”
“I couldn’t have done it without Trixie.”
“Well, God bless Trixie,” said the doctor, looking around the shining kitchen with pleasure.
He was to regret those words bitterly in the weeks to come.
The summer crawled into July. The days seemed long and irritable. Intermittent drizzle and warm wet winds brought the flies and midges in droves. Trixie had made a sign that hung outside the house – The Laurels, Bed & Breakfast. She already had guests, a broken-down looking woman from Glasgow with a brood of noisy, unhealthy children and a thin, quiet man who drifted about the village like a ghost.