O Caledonia

She stood on the terrace shaking the wet honeysuckle over her face, breathing its perfume, a creature momently compounded of dew and air and fragrance. There was still not a soul about. The great windows shone and flashed in the rising sun but the curtains hung black and motionless behind them. All this early morning belonged to her alone; she need share it with no one. She thought of Christmas and the thrilling parcels addressed to her which turned out to contain board games or jigsaws or boxes of crystallised fruits to be shared with her siblings. “Mine, mine, mine,” she said to herself. Twice only was her solitary triumph marred by the sight of Jim moving furtively about on the small lawn near Lila’s room, apparently uprooting daisies. She pretended not to see him and when she turned again he had vanished.

The pleasures of the day continued. Lessons were conducted outside. They were reading Macbeth, and it was clearly set at Auchnasaugh. Lying on the warm grass, Janet watched the house martins skim and hover about the battlements.

Where they most breed and haunt I have observed

The air is delicate

She was usually given the part of Lady Macbeth to read and this was deeply satisfying. There were also some lines of Macbeth’s which she coveted, especially

The multitudinous seas incarnadine

Making the green one red

but these she swiftly learnt by heart. The dark night of the Macbeths’ souls was the dark night of Auchnasaugh in winter. She felt that Shakespeare couldn’t have liked babies either. Later they read The Tempest, and Janet was Miranda. She imagined Lila as the witch Sycorax and Jim as Caliban, but Caliban was too robust and talkative. Hector could be Prospero and Auchnasaugh could be adapted to island form.

In the afternoons they took a great picnic into the hills, where there was a brimming deep brown pool and dam; the burn cascaded down a steep fall into a dark mossy ravine and wound its way past rocks towards the glen. High grassy banks and groves of pine surrounded the pool and beyond in all directions massed the hills; the shadows of clouds moved over them, their colours changed from minute to minute, now crowding near, now withdrawn and remote. This was Janet’s favourite place on earth, the place where she wished to be buried.

She would ride up there and set the pony loose to graze the delicate forest grass. In a glade nearby she could change unseen and slip through the trees into the icy waters of the pool. When the shock had gone she swam lazily about, watching the sunlight probe the pebbles on the muddy floor, the trout flicker under the banks, listening to the boys splashing and shouting far on the other side. When she came out she would creep through the bushes to the place where the capercailzies had their nest and watch the astonishing huge green-and-black male bird stamping about his little clearing while his dim wife crouched in admiration. The cock was less impressive when he tried to fly, veering and tilting from side to side, brushing branches, narrowly missing tree trunks. His wings droned as he went.

When the sun sank behind the hills they returned to Auchnasaugh down paths fringed with campion and foxgloves and fresh bracken. Once Janet came upon Lila in the midst of a thicket of wild raspberries. She was wearing her wide-brimmed straw hat with its faded wreath of flowers and her bare arms glimmered through the green gloom of the flickering leaves and the pendant fruits. When she saw Janet, she smiled her rare sweet smile and Janet knew that she, too, was happy and recognised for the first time that Lila had been beautiful, at this moment was beautiful. She felt deep shame at having imagined her as Sycorax. The scent of raspberries was poignant as the sound of pipe music, the scent of romance, of loss.

Late into the evening they lingered out on the terrace. So rare a summer must not be wasted. The boys vanished into the rhododendrons or down to the burn. Francis and Rhona went fishing, Janet sat on a rug reading Tennyson. They had given up trying to make her go and build a dam or play tennis. The grown-ups wandered back and forth with glasses in their hands. Even Lila was there, mothlike in her long old-fashioned white dress, with its flounces around the hem. The drawing-room windows were wide open and the plangent tones of the Papal Count drifted out into the tranced dusk. He was singing “The Last Rose of Summer.”

So soon may I follow, when friendships decayAnd from Love’s shining circle, the gems drop awayWhen true hearts lie withered…