As she left her room and hurried down the corridor, it struck Audra how truly attached she had become to her friend. Ever since Gwen had come to work at the hospital a year ago, her life had changed for the better and it was much more bearable now. Until then none of the other nurses had ever attempted to be friends with her. Audra knew that this was mainly because of her background, her manners and her cultured way of speaking.
The other nurses thought she was a snob, that she was stuck up and unapproachable. But this was not true at all. It was her shyness that held her somewhat apart, prevented her from making the first gesture.
As if she had instinctively understood this, happy, laughing, gregarious Gwen had paid not the slightest attention to her reserve. Having singled Audra out as the one girl she wanted as her friend, she had persisted, and had broken down the protective walls Audra had built around herself. Within the first week of knowing each other they had become inseparable.
I don’t know what I’d do without Gwen, Audra thought, banging the front door of the hospital behind her. She’s the only person I have in the world.
She had not intended to go to High Cleugh.
But before she realized it she was almost there.
When she had set out from the hospital, Audra had had no particular destination in mind. She had taken the road that led to Sharow and Copt Hewick, both small villages on the outskirts of Ripon.
There was no special reason for her to go there, other than that they were pleasant little spots; also, the route was picturesque, the surrounding landscape pastoral and unusually pretty at this time of year.
Arriving at Copt Hewick, Audra wandered slowly up the cobbled main street, thinking how well-kept everything looked on this hot June afternoon. The dainty gardens in front of the neat cottages were bright with lupins and poppies and delphiniums; lace curtains glowed whitely behind sparkling windows; every doorstep was newly scrubbed, each step outlined with yellow scouring stone.
Glancing up ahead at the Blackamoor Inn, Audra noticed that it, too, was spruced up. Its white walls and black shutters had been treated to fresh coats of paint, and even the sign swinging over the front door appeared to have been artistically embellished with a few colourful daubs from somebody’s paintbox.
Audra hesitated at the Blackamoor Inn, which was the junction of several roads, wondering whether to take the main thoroughfare to Boroughbridge or the secondary side road that led to Newby Hall and Skelton. She chose the latter, although she did not follow the road to its end. Instead she veered off to her right when she was halfway down, favouring a narrow lane flanked on either side by dry stone walls.
After only a few steps along the lane she stopped dead in her tracks, immediately understanding exactly where her feet were leading her. She half turned, wanting to go back the way she had come. She discovered she could not.
High Cleugh drew her towards it like a powerful magnet.
With every step she took Audra Kenton told herself she was making a mistake, exposing herself to heartache, especially today of all days, yet still she continued to walk, almost against her own volition.
By the time she came to the bottom of the long, twisting lane she no longer cared whether she was being foolish or not. She was conscious only of her yearning to see the one place she loved above all others on this earth. She had stayed away far too long.
She climbed over the stile set in the wall, jumped down into the long pasture and ran through the tall grass. It rippled and swayed like an undulating sea of green under the light breeze which had blown up. Unexpectedly, a couple of cows lazily lumbered across her path, and she dodged around them, plunging ahead, her young face taut with anticipation, her long hair flying out behind her as she ran.
Audra did not break her pace until she came to the huge sycamore tree at the end of the pasture. Upon reaching it she stooped down and stepped under its spreading branches which formed a canopy of green, shutting out the sky. She leaned her body against the tree, pressed her face to its trunk and closed her eyes. She was out of breath and panting with exertion.
After only a few moments she began to breathe more evenly. Slowly, she smoothed her hand over the tree, felt the rough texture of the bark under her fingertips, and she smiled to herself. This was her tree. Her place.
She had named it the Memory Place in her mind. For that was exactly what it was – the place to remember them, to relive the past, to recall the happiness and joy that had once been hers and was no more.
Frequently they had come here together. Her mother. Her brothers, Frederick and William. And Uncle Peter. And when she was here at the tree they were with her again, and her misery was vanquished for a brief while.
Audra opened her eyes, blinking in the cool green darkness of the sycamore’s shade, and then she moved out from underneath its branches. Circling the tree, she came to a standstill at the edge of the little slope that fell away to the banks of the River Ure just a few feet below her. Finally she lifted her head and gazed out across that narrow band of swift-running water to the wooded valley on the opposite side of the river. There it was, nestled in the palm of a natural dell set amidst the trees.
High Cleugh: the small but lovely old manor where she had been born nineteen years ago today. The house where she had grown up, had lived for the best part of her life. Her beloved home until five years ago.
She feasted her eyes on it, struck as always by its simplicity and gentleness which, to her, were the things that made it compellingly beautiful.
High Cleugh was an eighteenth-century house, long and low, with a fine symmetry that gave it an incomparable gracefulness. It was built of local grey stone and had many leaded windows that winked and glinted now in the bright sunlight. These faced out onto a terrace made of the same ancient stone; running the length of the house, the terrace was broken in the centre by a very long flight of steps that sliced its way through lawns tilting to the river. Herbaceous borders, wide, rambling, grew beneath the terrace walls, splashed vivid hues against the dark stone and verdant grass.
But it was the massed delphiniums which caught the eye, entranced. These flourished in great abundance at the bottom of the lawns near the river’s edge, their blossoms blanketing the ground with a breathtaking mixture of blues. Cobalt bled into a powder blue so delicate it was almost white, this tint giving way to cornflower, then a luscious violet-blue that in turn brushed up against lavender and the purple tones of belladonna.
Her mother’s delphiniums…planted with such care and nurtured so lovingly by her over the years. Audra’s heart clenched with a bittersweet mixture of pleasure and pain. Oh, how she longed to be in those gardens once again. It would be so easy for her to slip over to the other side of the river. All she had to do was follow the path along the bank until she came to the stepping stones. These giant flat slabs, worn smooth by running water and time, stretched across the shallowest part, led directly to the copse adjoining the manor.
But she could not go to High Cleugh. If she did she would be trespassing. Another family lived there now.
She sat down on the springy grass, pulled her knees up to her chest, rested her chin on them and clasped her arms around her legs.
For the longest time Audra stared at High Cleugh.
There was no sign of life. It appeared to slumber in the brilliant sunshine as if it were not inhabited at all. A peacefulness lay over the motionless gardens. Not a blade of grass, not a single leaf stirred. The wind had dropped and the air was warm and languid. There was no sound except for the faint buzzing of a bee somewhere nearby and the gurgle and splash of water rushing over dappled stones as the Ure wended its way below her.
Audra’s gaze became more intense than ever. She saw beyond the exterior walls to the inner core of