2

‘Is she all right?’ Rowan asked when Hal got back to the car. He didn’t answer, just sat there with his head turned away. She repeated her question.

‘What?’ he said. ‘—Yes. I imagine so. She’d gone—across the fields.’

When he turned to face her she stared at him. ‘Hal,’ she said, ‘you look dreadful.’

He gave a little nod. His face was deathly pale and there were beads of sweat on his forehead. ‘I’ve just been sick,’ he said.

‘Sick? But—you were okay when you got out— What caused it, d’you think? I mean, you’ve never been car-sick before . . . What do you think it could be?’

He shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ He waved a hand distractedly. ‘Anyway—I shall be all right in a minute.’

Rowan continued to stare at him. He was sitting now with his clasped hands up to his chin. ‘Was it something to do with that woman?’ she asked.

‘What?’ His voice was almost sharp.

‘Well—with almost hitting her, I mean . . .’

‘No.’ He shook his head firmly. ‘Forget her. She’s okay, I told you.’ He paused. ‘I shall be too. Let’s forget it. It’s time we got going again.’

‘—Are you sure you’re all right to drive?’

‘Perfectly all right.’ He straightened, turned on the ignition, set the car in motion and drove away.

Ten minutes later they had reached Crispin’s House.

Crispin’s House had been named, they’d been told, after the man who had built it back in the late eighteenth century. It stood on the northern edge of the village, occupying the site in the right angle of Crispin’s Lane and North Road. An acre of land went with it—sufficient to promise a sense of seclusion while at the same time producing no feeling of isolation. And that, Rowan thought, was just about perfect.

A long, rectangular building of brick and stone, the house had two floors. It had been enlarged over the years and now showed clear evidence of the many compromises that had been deemed necessary. It would work, though,—Rowan knew it must—in spite of the occasional odd angles and the few minor inconveniences. She wouldn’t have had it any other way.

They had purchased it through a local bank, which had managed the transaction on behalf of a certain Mr Childs—the then owner of the house who was absent from the village. How, Rowan wondered, could anyone own such a property and not choose to keep it for himself? Still, that was the concern of Mr Childs. She could only be glad that it had all worked out in favour of Hal and herself.

Now, entering the house, Rowan carried a suitcase up to the main bedroom. There she changed into her work clothes—old faded blue jeans and blouse. That done, she left the room and moved back along the passage to the far end, where she crossed the landing and entered the room near the top of the stairs. This would be Hal’s study; a beautiful room with windows front and rear. If he couldn’t work here, she thought, he couldn’t work anywhere. The views were stunning. From the front one could look out south-west over the village and see the old houses and the spire of the tiny church. And there, too, beyond the other side, was the Stone, a great dark rock standing perched on the top of the highest hill. It was the Stone, she had learned, that had given the village its name.

Turning, she moved across the room and looked out through the rear window. Her view here took in the garden, bordered on either side by hedges and tall elms and there, away in the distance, the orchard with the woodlands beyond. Apart from the surrounding hills most of what she could see belonged to the house. One small acre. Crispin’s acre. Now Hal’s and hers.

She left the room, went down the stairs and out by the rear door into the cool, sweet-scented air. With her back to the house she stood at the edge of the garden and looked about her. The trees were still bare, but the signs of spring were too positive to be portents of anything but the real thing. Daffodils stood straight and brilliant yellow at the borders of the lawn while over on the banks among the rambling shrubs the primroses lay in lush clumps—like clotted cream. Mauve, yellow and white crocuses sprang up between the cracks of the patio’s flags and around the bole of the laburnum tree. Higher up in the branches of the tall elms the rooks flapped and cawed, their nests looking like fingerprints on the pale, hazy blue of the sky. This was the kind of place, she felt, where she belonged. It was like coming home. She would be happy here. And Hal would be happy too . . .

Hearing movement from the right she turned and saw Hal coming towards her from the kitchen doorway. ‘I was wondering where you’d got to,’ he said.

She smiled at him. ‘I’m afraid I got side-tracked.’

‘Well—I’ve brought in the luggage,’ he said, ‘and Mrs Prescot’s making some tea.’

‘Oh, good.’

‘Did you see the note from Paul Cassen?’

‘No . . . ?’

He grinned. ‘You must have walked straight over it on your way in. He says that he and Sandra were here this morning and that they’ve left a few things—groceries—in a box in the garage.’

‘Oh, isn’t that kind of them!’

He nodded. ‘I’ve just taken it inside. There’re eggs, bread, butter, milk and so on. And he says if we need anything or have any problems just let them know.’

‘They’re such nice people,’ Rowan said.

It was through Paul Cassen that she and Hal had come to the village in the first place.

Hal’s swift rise in monetary fortune last year had freed them from so many ties. His fifth novel, Spectre at the Feast, had, in the words of the ads, been a runaway bestseller, enabling him to forget about trying to teach the three R’s to a bunch of North London thugs and concentrate instead on his writing. His previous books had all done fairly well, but not to the degree where he would have risked giving up his regular teacher’s salary. Spectre had done it, though. Spectre had promised to do so many things—including getting them away from the city. To return to the country had long been Rowan’s­ all-consuming desire—and one which, she had begun to fear, would never be realized.

She had wanted to move not merely for her own sake but for Adam’s too. London, she had been convinced, was not the place in which one should try to bring up a child—not when one had a choice, anyway. Spectre, at last, had brought them that choice . . .

The necessary money and desire, though, were not enough, they had soon discovered. Together they had spent many hours driving into different parts of Berkshire, Wiltshire and Kent—and always they had returned disappointed to their ill-designed Hampstead flat. Either they had been too late in their viewing or else they’d found that their expectations were simply not in line with the reality. Then, after several weeks, Hal had become bored with the fruitless excursions. Rowan had watched it happen, had feared that it would. And it was understandable, perhaps—after all, he had his writing to get on with, and once the novelty of house-hunting was gone it became only a time-consuming interruption. Added to that, he was not motivated as she was. He had always lived in cities, had known and sought no life but city life. He would have been content to stay where they were, she knew . . .

And then, when it was too late for Adam, they had met Paul Cassen.

On a rare expedition to the West End—rare for Rowan, anyway—they had fallen into conversation with the young doctor whilst sitting in a small café near High Holborn. The February-grey streets of London had seemed to Rowan as frantic as she had known they would be and she had suggested the stop less for the purpose of getting a cup of coffee than for fifteen minutes’ respite from the overwhelming bustle.

The pleasantries that had started up between them and the tall, good-looking stranger who sat at the adjoining table had soon touched on the difficulties of life in the city, and it wasn’t long before Hal had mentioned their abortive searches for something better. The man had sympathized and then gone on to describe his own treasured environment, a tiny Devon­shire village which had been his home for the past seven years. It sounded nothing less than perfect.

Later, when he was gathering up his belongings in preparation to leave, Rowan, having put off asking the question, said: ‘Could I ask you—if anything becomes available in Moor­stone—I wonder—would you let us know about it . . . ?’

Cassen had smiled, looking from one to the other. ‘It’s a good bit further out than those other places where you’ve been looking. But of course I’ll let you know—if I hear of anything. You’d better give me your address.’

When he had gone from the café Rowan had sat thinking over all that he had said about the village. ‘It would be wonderful, wouldn’t it,’ she said, ‘—if we could find a place there? It sounds just—lovely.’ Then she sighed. ‘But, as he said, it is a very long way. . . .’ In the past Hal had limited their search to within a certain radius of London, and clearly Devonshire was way outside those limits. Now, though, he smiled at her across the table and said, ‘well, I don’t suppose it matters, does it? After all, I can take my work anywhere, can’t I?’

Paul Cassen had telephoned just a week later. Hal took the call. After replacing the receiver he had turned, smiling, to Rowan. ‘Have you got anything planned for tomorrow?’

‘You know I haven’t. Why?’

‘How would you like to drive down to Devonshire—to Dartmoor—and look at a house?’

And now, in early April, that house, Crispin’s House, was theirs.

‘It’s ours,’ Rowan said. She turned and smiled into Hal’s face. ‘I can hardly believe it.’

‘Believe it,’ he said.

Studying him she said, ‘How are you feeling now? Any better?’

‘I’m fine now—really.’

‘Good.’

After a moment she moved away, stepping from the flagstones onto the lawn. Walking across the grass she stopped by the border, crouched and picked one of the primroses. As she bent her face to it she felt the touch of Hal’s hand on her hair. She looked up. He was leaning over her.

‘Disraeli’s favourite,’ she said, holding the flower before her.

‘Yes, you can see why.’

Reaching up she put the stem of the flower into the button­hole of his breast pocket-flap. Head on one side she observed the effect. ‘Very pretty.’

Turning her head again she looked around her. ‘An acre is a lot of land. We shall need a gardener.’

‘Yes, we shall.’

‘We must ask Paul if he knows of anyone.’ As she spoke she noticed something lying among the leaves of a trailing shrub. Stretching out her hand she picked up a child’s ball. Obviously it had lain there for a long time; the colours had all faded and the rubber was brittle and crumbling.

A child was here once, she thought. Playing in the grass, in the sun.

She held the ball in both hands, looking over it into the past. ‘If only we could have found this place sooner,’ she murmured.

She was aware now of Hal kneeling at her side. Before her the flowers and the leaves were splintered by her tears. ‘Ro—please don’t,’ she heard him say. His arms came around her, pulling her gently to his shoulder, and she laid her cheek against his collar and quietly wept. The only movement was of his hand as he gently stroked her hair.

After a while she straightened, took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes. ‘I shall be okay,’ she said. Hal didn’t speak, just looked at her. ‘I’m sorry to be so—pathetic,’ she said, ‘—especially now—when we’ve only just arrived. But it was—this—’ she looked down at the ball and then around her at the surrounding garden, ‘—and all this—everything. It was just suddenly—too much.’

His own eyes were misty, she saw. He nodded. ‘I know how you feel . . .’

She sniffed; forced a smile. ‘I’m all right now.’

He stood above her and helped her up. They remained in silence for a moment or two, then she said:

‘This is a good place for us. I know it. And we won’t let anything spoil it—get in the way . . .’

‘No, we won’t.’

She shivered slightly. ‘That old woman—on the road back there. She gave me such a terrible fright.’

‘—Don’t think about her. That’s all over.’

‘Oh, it doesn’t upset me now. At the time, though—seeing her there, right in front of us like that. If we’d hit her—God, that would have been too awful.’

‘But we didn’t, did we.’

‘No, but—apart from any suffering she might have been caused—well, afterwards I was so much aware of how it would have—spoiled everything else.’ She shook her head. ‘Have you ever heard of anything so totally selfish?’ She shrugged. ‘I can’t help it, though. I kept on thinking about it. If there had been an accident—on our way here—well, everything would have been ruined. All of it. Still, it was all right, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, it was all right. Of course it was.’

She gave a little sigh, smiled and nodded with satisfaction. Then she looked at him, keenly. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? You look a little—preoccupied . . .’

‘Do I? No, I’m okay.’

‘That’s good.’ She took his arm. ‘Come on, then, let’s go in. Didn’t you say that Mrs Prescot’s making some tea?’ She halted. ‘Ah, so the gas and the water have been turned on. Great. What about the electricity?’

‘Yes, that too.’ They were moving towards the door near the kitchen. ‘The phone hasn’t been connected yet, though. And they said it would be done by noon.’

‘Ah, well, they’ll get round to it.’

Hal was frowning. ‘I think I’ll run down to the call box and give them a ring. Shake them up a bit.’ He turned and started to move away.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t bother yet,’ she said. ‘Give them time. They’ll get it done. We can call them later.’

‘There won’t be any time later. No, I’ll go now—then I can be back for when all the stuff arrives. I shan’t be long.’

Then he was stepping quickly around the corner of the house. A minute later she heard the car being driven away.