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      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER ONE

      THE LOFT WAS warm, dusty and redolent of apples; the autumn sunshine peeping through its one dusty window tinted the odds and ends hanging on the walls with golden light, so that the strings of onions, cast-off skates, old raincoats, lengths of rope, worn-out leather straps and an old hat or two had acquired a gilded patina. Most of the bare floor was taken up with orderly rows of apples, arranged according to their kind, but there was still space enough left for the girl sitting in the centre, a half-eaten apple in one hand, the other buried in the old hat box beside her. She was a pretty girl, with light brown hair and large hazel eyes, extravagantly lashed and heavily browed, and with a straight nose above a generous, nicely curved mouth. She was wearing slacks and a thick, shabby sweater, and her hair, tied back none too tidily, hung down her back almost to her waist.

      She bit into her apple and then bent over the box, and its occupant, a cat of plebeian appearance, paused in her round-the-clock washing of four kittens to lick the hand instead. The girl smiled and took another bite of apple, then turned to look behind her, to where a ladder led down to the disused stable below. She knew the footsteps climbing it and sighed to herself; holidays were lovely after the bustle and orderly precision of the ward in the big Edinburgh hospital where she was a Sister; the cosy homeliness of the manse where her parents and five brothers and sisters lived in the tiny village on the northernmost coast of Scotland, was bliss, it was only a pity that on this particular week’s holiday, both her elder brothers, James and Donald, should be away from home, leaving Henry, the youngest and only eight years old, recovering from chickenpox, with no one to amuse him but herself. She doted on him, but they had been fishing all the morning, and after lunch had been cleared away she had gone to the loft for an hour’s peace before getting the tea, and now here he was again, no doubt with some boyish scheme or other which would probably entail climbing trees or walking miles looking for seashells.

      His untidy head appeared at the top of the ladder. ‘I knew you’d be here, Eleanor,’ he said in a satisfied voice. ‘There’s something I must tell you—it’s most exciting.’

      ‘Margaret’s home early from school?’

      He gave her a scornful look, still standing some way down the ladder so that only his head was visible. ‘That’s not exciting—she comes home from school every day—besides, she’s only my sister.’

      Eleanor trimmed the core of her apple with her nice white teeth. ‘I’m your sister, Henry.’

      ‘But you’re old…’

      She nodded cheerfully. ‘Indeed I am, getting on for twenty-five, my dear. Tell me the exciting news.’

      ‘Someone’s come—Mother’s invited him to tea.’

      Eleanor’s eyebrows rose protestingly. ‘Old Mr MacKenzie? Not again?’

      Her small brother drew a deep breath. ‘You’ll never guess.’

      She reached over for another apple. ‘Not in a thousand years—you’d better tell me before I die of curiosity.’

      ‘It’s Fulk van Hensum.’

      ‘Fulk? Him? What’s he here for? It’s twenty years…’ She turned her back on her brother, took a bite of apple and said with her mouth full: ‘Tell Mother that I can’t possibly come—I don’t want to waste time talking to him; he was a horrid boy and I daresay he’s grown into a horrid man. He pulled my hair…nasty arrogant type, I’ve never forgotten him.’

      ‘I’ve never forgotten you, either, Eleanor.’ The voice made her spin round. In place of Henry’s head was the top half of a very large man; the rest of him came into view as she stared, so tall and broad that he was forced to bend his elegantly clad person to avoid bumping his head. He was very dark, with almost black hair and brown eyes under splendid eyebrows; his nose was long and beaky with winged nostrils, and his mouth was very firm.

      Eleanor swallowed her apple. ‘Well, I never!’ she declared. ‘Haven’t you grown?’

      He sat down on a convenient sack of potatoes and surveyed her lazily. ‘One does, you know, and you, if I might say so, have become quite a big girl, Eleanor.’

      He somehow managed to convey the impression that she was outsized, and she flushed a little; her father always described her as a fine figure of a woman, an old-fashioned phrase which she had accepted as a compliment, but to be called quite a big girl in that nasty drawling voice was decidedly annoying. She frowned at him and he remarked lightly: ‘Otherwise you haven’t changed, dear girl—still the heavy frown, I see—and the biting comment. Should I be flattered that you still remember me?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Could we let bygones be bygones after—let me see, twenty years?’

      She didn’t answer that, but: ‘You’ve been a great success, haven’t you? We hear about you, you know; Father holds you up as a shining example to Donald.’

      ‘Donald? Ah, the medical student. I’m flattered. What’s in the box?’

      ‘Mrs Trot and her four kittens.’

      He got up and came to sit beside her with the box between them, and when he offered a large, gentle hand, the little cat licked it too.

      ‘Nice little beast. Don’t you want to know why I’m here?’ He chose an apple with care and began to eat it. ‘How peaceful it is,’ he observed. ‘What are you doing now, Eleanor? Still a nurse?’

      She nodded. ‘In Edinburgh, but I’m on a week’s holiday.’

      ‘Not married yet?’ And when she shook her head: ‘Engaged?’

      ‘No—are you?’

      ‘Married? No. Engaged, yes.’

      For