Free O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker Page B

the hillside before her, the great love she felt flow from her into Rosie, flow back from Rosie to her. Calm and tranced she walked up through the beeches again and saw two red squirrels leaping along their sinuous branches; they leapt and curvetted, stopped dead, flourished their tails and were off again, swift and smooth, fleeting like light up the trunks, so bright and merry and joyous that she wanted to shriek with delight. Thus armoured, it mattered nothing to her that the boys were sulking because Hector had forbidden them to swing from the chestnut tree. ‘ The boys must not bounce on the corrugated-iron roof, ’ he had pronounced, giving every vowel its maximum resonance and rolling the r ’ s into a thunderous finale.
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
     
    Winter descended on the glen; in mid-October came the first thin fall of snow, gone an hour later in the wet wind. The deer ventured down from the hills at dusk, tawny owls shrieked as they hunted through the darkness and shooting stars fled across the night sky. Leafless, the beeches and ashes shivered; the grass was parched with cold; pine and monkey-puzzle stood black and dominant. Only the red earth of the hill tracks retained its colour; the puddles looked like pools of blood.
    Of all the seasons this was the one Janet loved most. In the afternoons she would ride up through the forest on to the lonely moors; she felt then, looking into the unending distance of hills ranged beyond hills, that if only she had the courage to go on she, like True Thomas, might reach a fairyland, another element, the place of the ballads, of ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’. But as the light ebbed away to a pang of sullen gold on the horizon she would turn back. Often it was too dark for her to see the way down through the forest, but Rosie stepped briskly onwards, never faltering, never stumbling, until they reached the eerie cobbled stable yard. The stables were almost derelict. The roof of the central tower had fallen in and willow herb grew in profusion from the coach house. Once there had been stalls and loose boxes for twenty horses; now only one small part was safe to use, but it offered snug winter quarters for Rosie. Janet lingered, listening to the steady munch of hay, the rustle as the pony turned in her deep straw bed; through the cobwebbed window she watched the moon rise, the stars come out. The air grew warm. It was the most peaceful place she knew; she would have liked to stay there all night. At last she made her way up the back drive through the looming trees to the great glowing windows of Auchnasaugh; she walked slowly then, for she loved this moment. No matter how many times she did it, it always filled her with a strange and intense excitement, the traveller coming home through cold and darkness, returned from a great distance and after many days, moving silent and unseen towards the lighted windows.
    One November afternoon Vera and Nanny took Lulu and Janet to the dentist. The dentist was in Aberdeen, forty miles away, an unending journey by car. Before they left they had to clean their shoes, brown StartRite walking shoes, taking the laces out and laboriously rethreading them when Nanny had approved the gleaming leather. By this point Janet was already feeling sick. Whenever they went anywhere by car they had to clean their shoes; as Janet was sick every eight miles, sometimes sooner, the merest whiff of shoe polish, the sight of a polish brush, the texture of a yellow duster sent her stomach into churning mutiny. After the shoe ritual they were clamped into their good tweed coats with velvet collars, berets were jammed on their heads, gloves found and they were off.
    Lulu looked charming, her blonde hair waving prettily beneath the navy blue beret; Janet ’ s beret was dark green and did nothing to enhance her complexion. It kept slipping sideways; she pulled it firmly on to her forehead where it made a tight welt and pushed her eyebrows downwards,