The Empty House by Rosamunde Pilcher

Author:Rosamunde Pilcher [Pilcher, Rosamunde]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 0312961278
Google: XB8D3rxu5LoC
Amazon: 0312961278
Publisher: St Martin
Published: 1973-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

6

Travel-worn and tired, and with all the problems of Bosithick still to be faced, Virginia got out of the train at Penzance, took a lungful of cool sea air, and was thankful to be back. The tide was low, the air strong with the smell of seaweed. Across the bay, St. Michael’s Mount stood gold in the evening sun, and the wet sands were streaked with blue, where small streams and shallow pools of sea-water gave back the colour of the sky.

Miraculously, here was a porter. As they followed him and his barrow out of the station Nicholas said, “Is this where we’re going to stay?”

“No, we’ve got to drive over to Lanyon.”

“How are we going to drive?”

“I told you, I left my car here.”

“How do you know it hasn’t been stolen?”

“Because I can see it, waiting for us.”

It took some time to pack all their belongings into the boot of the Triumph. But in the end it was all piled in, crowned by the cardboard crate of groceries, and Virginia tipped the porter and they got in, all three of them in the front seat, with Cara in the middle, and the door on Nicholas’s side firmly locked.

She had put down the hood and then tied a scarf around her head, but the wind blew Cara’s hair forward all over her face.

“How long will it take us to get there?”

“Not long, about half an hour.”

“What does the house look like?”

“Why don’t you wait and see?”

At the top of the hill she stopped the car, and they looked back to see the view, the lovely curve of Mount’s Bay, still and blue, enclosed in the warmth of the day that was over. And all about them were little fields, and ditches blue with wild scabious, and they went on and dropped into a miniature valley filled with ancient oak trees, and a stream ran beneath a bridge, and there was an old mill and a village, and then the road twined up on to the moor again, and all at once the straight bright horizon of the Atlantic lay before them, glittering to the westward in a dazzle of sun.

“I thought the sea was behind us,” said Nicholas. “Is that another sea?”

“I suppose it is.”

“Is that our sea? Is that the one we’re going to use?”

“I expect so.”

“Is there a beach?”

“I haven’t had time to look. There are certainly a lot of steep cliffs.”

“I want a beach. With sand. I want you to buy me a bucket and spade.”

“All in good time,” said Virginia. “How about taking things one at a time?”

“I want to buy a bucket and spade tomorrow.”

They joined the main road and turned east, running parallel to the coast. They left Lanyon village behind them and the road which led to Penfolda, and they climbed the hill and came to the clump of leaning hawthorns which marked the turning to Bosithick.

“Here we are!”

“But there’s no house.”

“You’ll see.”

Bumped and jarred, the car and its occupants lurched down the lane.

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