Beyond the Green Hills Read Free Page A

eat us, Andrew. Why are you so bothered?’
    ‘I don’t know. Honestly, Clare, I don’t know.’
    He reached for her hand and they walked up the stone steps towards the heavy front door. It too stood open, the entrance hall in shadow beyond.
    ‘My goodness,’ Clare said, in a whisper, as they stepped across the threshold, leaving the afternoon sunlight behind.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Everything,’ she said, stopping dead before the polished table with its long out of date copies of Country Life and Shooting Times.
    She looked up at the chandelier above her head, its cut-glass drops tinkling minutely in the movement of air from the open door. ‘I’d forgotten how big this hall is. And the way the ancestors stare down at you. I must have got used to it the year I worked here. Don’t you feel it pressing down on you?’
    ‘I don’t know what I feel,’ he replied, looking round him as if he was hoping to find some way of escape. ‘Let’s go down to the kitchen and tell Junewe’re here.’
    ‘Ach, there’s ye’s are, the pair of you.’
    Before they’d time to move, they caught the echo of footsteps on the wooden stairs from the kitchen. Breathless from hurrying, June Wiley, once Andrew’s devoted nursemaid, then housekeeper, now the sole remaining pair of hands in this huge house, crossed the threadbare carpet and threw her arms around them both.
    ‘I was listenin’ fer the car. My, yer both doin’ powerful well,’ she said, looking them up and down. ‘Aren’t ye glad to be home, Andrew? An’ I’m sure Clarey’s glad to see ye back. Ach, Clare dear, I shoulden call you that these days.’
    ‘Call away, June,’ said Clare quickly, her eyes misting with tears. No one had called her Clarey since Granda Scott died.
    ‘It’s great to see you, June’ she said, returning the hug. ‘Can we come home with you and visit John and the girls when you finish?’
    ‘Deed aye. Sure they’re expectin’ ye both. We’ll want to hear all yer news. But I’d best not keep ye’s now. She’s waitin’ fer ye.’
    She nodded significantly. Putting an arm round each of them, she walked them across the hall to the foot of the broad, carpeted stairway.
    ‘Ye’ll see her badly failed, Andrew, since the Senator went. She can hardly walk at all, but don’t let on I told you. I’ll see ye’s later.’
    Their feet made no sound on the wide, and shallow stairs, the once-red carpet now faded by the sun that flooded through the tall windows and madepatterns on the walls. The air in the broad first-floor corridor struck chill. Clare shivered and felt goose pimples rise on her bare arms. She squeezed Andrew’s hand as they approached the one room in Drumsollen she had never been permitted to enter.
    ‘It’ll be all right, love,’ she whispered, as they paused at the door.
    ‘Come in.’
    The voice that responded to Andrew’s knock had lost nothing of its imperiousness. Madeline Richardson, The Missus to her one-time servants, her family, friends and acquaintances, sat in a high carved wooden chair that was well padded with cushions. She wore a silk blouse and pearls, a pleated tweed skirt and matching cardigan, heavy stockings and stout walking shoes – just what she would have worn in the long past days when she would go out to instruct the gardeners, or to pick the flowers she always arranged herself for the guest bedrooms.
    Now the garments hung on her emaciated body. Her face was gaunt, her cheeks hollow, her rouge an unconvincing area of colour on skin the colour of parchment. Her hands, bony and blue-veined, gripped the arms of her chair. Remaining upright was clearly an effort of will.
    ‘Andrew, bring that low chair for Clare, over here beside me, if you will,’ she said, before there was any question of kiss, or handshake. ‘What a splendid day for your visit. I’m sure you had a pleasant drive from Caledon,’ she went on, without looking at either of them.
    Clare seated herself on the low chair, her