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“I don’t know, but Max wants Grisell to be here when the time comes.”

“Does she know?”

“Oh, good gracious, no! And please don’t tell her,” Evelyn begged. “Max would never forgive me if he thought I’d broken his confidence.”

“I don’t see why she shouldn’t know,” Susan objected. “She seems to be over-protected, if you ask me.”

“It’s Richard’s wish,” Evelyn told her. “Even Max couldn’t go against that.”

Which was true, Susan thought, even if she didn’t agree with the decision they had made.

Two days later Grisell started at the mill. She was an apt enough pupil, but the long hours they worked seemed trying to her and quite often she sat staring gloomily out of the window instead of matching the colours Susan had given her or copying a design. Yet she did appear to have some sort of creative flair for the work and turned in one or two good ideas.

The weather was against her, of course. Sitting at an office desk was no fun on a bright June day and Susan wondered how long Grisell would stand it.

On the day before the Common Riding they finished the last sketches for the autumn collections and she tidied them into her desk with a sense of relief. Another photographic session had taken up most of the morning, but it was the final one for their new catalogue of coats, which was issued in conjunction with Elliott’s tweeds, so, all in all, she felt reasonably content. Tomorrow would be a holiday and Grisell would be free to do as she pleased. Fergus had included her in his invitation to the Riding ceremony and to the dance afterwards and she was elated. They were to go together, but there was no suggestion that Max might join them.

Lilias looked in to say good-bye.

“All alone?” she asked. “You’re far too conscientious, Sue. I’m off to Edinburgh,” she added. “Where’s Grisell?”

“She went home half an hour ago.” Susan collected her handbag and gloves from the table beside the door. “Are you coming down for the Common Riding tomorrow?” she asked.

Lilias hesitated.

“I think not,” she decided. “I’ve something better to do.”

Susan closed the office door.

“Is Max taking you to the Riding?” Lilias asked, idly examining her fingernails. “He said he wanted to go. He’s mad keen on ancient history!”

“I don’t know what Max is doing,” Susan answered, “but I’m not going with him. Fergus has asked me.”

“Thrill for you!” Lilias mocked. “I see he wasn’t made Comet after all.”

“No, but he will be riding.”

“I don’t think I could possibly bear that dreadful Chase again,” Lilias mused. “Everybody galloping hell-for-leather from Haggisha to St. Leonards just to be first at the Square!”

“It’s tradition,” Susan pointed out, slipping her keys into her pocket. “But it evidently doesn’t appeal to you.”

“Not really,” Lilias yawned. “’Bye for now!”

She hadn’t asked about further employment in the autumn, but perhaps Max had already made her that promise.

Evelyn decided not to go to the Common Riding, although she dearly enjoyed pageantry and loved an outing.

“I’d better not,” she said. “Max asked me, but I thought I should say ‘no' for once! He’ll be calling for you, I suppose?”

“Calling?” Susan repeated. “But I’m not going with Max. He didn’t ask me, and Fergus did!”

Evelyn looked up from the letter she was writing. “Max is going to be rather annoyed,” she said.

“I can’t think why.” Susan bent to kiss her cheek. “Take care, won’t you? And no false alarms till I get back from Hawick!”

The telephone bell rang as she went out, but she left Evelyn to answer it. That was why they stood for two hours in the pouring rain, waiting for Grisell, who didn’t come.

“She’s gone off with someone else,” Fergus said. “Let’s forget her!”

But Susan couldn’t forget. The thought of Grisell persisted, together with the thought of Max. She remembered the phone call just before she had left that morning and wished she hadn’t been so hasty, because it could have been from the Carse.

Since Fergus was riding in the cavalcade which inspected the town’s marches, she stood on her own, wondering what had happened, and then, through the curtain of rain, she saw Max striding across the square towards her, his riding-boots glistening, his shoulders hunched aggressively as he made his way through the maze of television equipment which littered the cobbles.

“Where’s Grisell?” he demanded. “Evelyn said she might be with you.”

“She isn’t,” Susan said. “I’ve been waiting for two hours.”

“You’re soaking wet,” he noticed. “Come into the Cross Keys.”

“If we can get in,” Susan said. “What’s happened?”

He led her across the square to the comparative shelter of the hotel portico, but it was hopeless to try to get past the crowd already gathered there to await the procession.

“I’m sorry to involve you in this,” he began briskly, “but Grisell has to be found. I’ve a hunch she isn’t in Hawick at all. She went off early this morning, leaving a silly little note saying she was browned off sitting in an office all day and she had to try something else. She’s got the chance of a job, apparently, but what it is remains to be seen.”

“And you don’t want her to take it, anyway,” Susan suggested.

“Not at the present moment.”

She saw the muscles working in his cheek and knew how annoyed he was.

“Because of her father?”

He looked down at her.

“Evelyn told you?” His lips set in a harder
line.
“Grisell must be here when Richard gets back from Edinburgh. I need your help.”

“I’ll do what I can, but—”

“It may mean you missing the parade,” he warned. “That doesn’t matter.” Suddenly, she wanted to help, if not Max, then certainly Richard. “Where do you think she’s gone?”

“Edinburgh, at a rough guess.”

“Did she know her father was there?”

“No. She had a vague idea he’d gone to London, and Richard didn’t enlighten her.”

“I think he should have told her.” They were threading their way between the television cameras grouped round the equestrian statue. “She’s old enough to know about that sort of thing and she’s going to feel shut out if she isn’t taken into your confidence.”

He put a firm hand under her elbow.

“That may be so, but it’s not going to help us in the present emergency,” he decided. “I think she’s gone off with Lilias.”

“Lilias? But they’ve got absolutely nothing in common !”

“So I thought. We could, of course, be wrong. Do you know her address in Edinburgh?”

“I could find it.”

“Which means going back to Yairborough.”

“It wouldn’t take much more than half an hour. I could make a guess at the address, but we would need to know the number of her flat. She shares it with three other girls.”

He led her through the gathering crowd to where he had parked his car.

“I’m sorry about this, Susan,” he apologised. “I’m spoiling your day.”

“I’ve seen the Common Riding every year since I was old enough to stand,” she told him. “It won’t hurt me to miss it for once.”

“What about Graeme?” he asked.

“Fergus? Oh, he’s riding in the Cornet’s procession, so he won’t miss me till after the Chase.”

They had reached his car and he held the door open for her to get in.

"You shouldn’t have waited in the rain,” he said.

“I’m dressed for it.” Susan pulled off her waterproof hat to shake her hair free. “It certainly couldn’t have been a wetter day!”

They drove to Yairborough against the flow of cars pressing towards the town, and Max waited for her while she opened the mill door and found the address they needed.

“Buckingham Terrace, It’s easy enough to find,” she told him when she was in the car again.

“Thank you, Susan.” He let in his clutch. "You’ve been a great help.”

They drove back towards Hawick, but the traffic was heavier now, holding them up.

“We needn’t go right into the town,” she advised. "We’ll be hours getting through, if we do. We could cut off after Braxholm and take the Highchester road. It winds about a lot, but it would be quicker in the end. It joins the main road to Selkirk eventually and goes on through Galashiels.”

He turned for a fraction of a second to look at her.

“Do you mean to come with me?” he asked.

She supposed that was what she had meant to do. He had said that he had need of help, and help meant all the way.

“Yes, if you think I’m going to be any use once we get there,” she answered frankly.

“I think you might be,” he said. “And—thanks, Susan.”

They drove in silence for a while until she had to direct him at Branxholm Bridgend, and once they
were
back on the trunk road he increased speed until they were held up again at Selkirk. The clouds were breaking up now above the Broomy Law and they sped on towards the capital in intermittent sunshine. All along the Gala Water the fishermen were out, wading thigh-deep in the brown pools, and Hartside and Lammer Law stood out serenely against the clearing sky. It was a day to be going to Edinburgh, Susan thought, if only they had been going on some pleasant errand.

After Falahill, when the great city lay spread out before them with the backcloth of the Firth gleaming silver as far as the eye could see, he waited for her instructions.

“We go in through Liberton and Morningside, because we want to be on the Queensferry Road,” she directed him. “I think every city ought to have an area called Morningside,” she ran on when he didn’t answer her, “where the early sun shines.”

“There’s one in Brisbane,” he said. “Richard’s wife was an Australian. She lived there.”

“Grisell's mother,” Susan mused. “It must have been a terrible shock, losing her so unexpectedly.”

“Miriam was one of the finest women I’ve ever met,” he said. “In some ways she was rather like your stepmother,” he added thoughtfully. “She was amazingly attractive, but fundamentally there was no conceit in her.”

“You admire Evelyn, don’t you?”

“Very much.”

She glanced round at him, aware of an odd feeling of resentment which she could not understand. It wasn’t a new experience to hear a man praising her stepmother unstintedly, as Max had just done in those few brief words and he was quite sincere in his admiration, but in a blinding flash she found herself wondering if that was all. Was it possible—could it be possible— that he was already half in love with Evelyn ?

“We’re almost there,” she announced more stiffly than she realised.

They were crossing the Dean Bridge and she directed him to turn left. Half way along the terrace he stopped the car.

“Can I ask you to do something for me, Susan?” he said. “Would you go in on your own? I think you would do better than I would, and it might be less embarrassing for Grisell.”

“I can’t imagine you losing your temper,” she told him involuntarily. “You would be coldly cruel, I think.”

He smiled at that a trifle grimly.

“You have a poor opinion of me.”

Susan flushed.

“I tend to speak out of turn,” she admitted. “Evelyn’s always pulling me up about it.”

“It’s just struck me that we might have called in at Denham before we left or phoned to let her know what we’re doing,” he said.

“Evelyn won’t worry,” Susan assured him. “She won’t expect me back from the Riding much before midnight and she’ll have gone to bed before then.”

He opened the car door for her.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“It might be a good idea if I went in first,” she agreed, amazed at his thoughtfulness where Grisell was concerned. “One girl to another might do the trick, although I don’t know Grisell well enough to feel sure. What am I to say to Lilias?”

His mouth tightened a fraction.

“Concentrate on Grisell,” he said. “I think she may listen to you.”

Susan was completely unsure about her errand. She was doing this for Max and Richard and, possibly, Grisell, but in some queer, unfathomable way she also seemed to be doing it for her stepmother. Evelyn always seemed to be included, she thought.

Looking back once before she reached the massive stone portico over the entrance to the flats, she saw Max get out of the car to pace a few steps in the opposite direction, as if the enforced inactivity of his waiting role irked him intensely, and then she mounted the three stone steps to confront the row of bells on the left-hand side of the black-painted door. Each bell had a nameplate under it or a white professional card slipped into a convenient slot, and the third from the top bore Lilias’s name.

She rang the bell, waiting before the closed outer door until she heard the small click which told her that it had been released from the flat above. Lilias, or someone else, was at home.

Climbing the winding stone staircase, she wondered what would happen if she drew a blank. Max would be angrier than ever and their journey would be fruitless. She also wondered about Lilias. Had she really encouraged Grisell to come here, offering her the chance of some job or other when she knew quite well how furious Max would be? Lilias had made no secret of Max’s attraction for her, but this didn’t seem the right way of capturing his esteem, if that was what she wanted to do. Perhaps, of course, it was one way of getting Max to Edinburgh.

Two inner doors faced her on the first landing, leading, she supposed, to separate flats. The great old houses of Edinburgh were gradually being broken up to accommodate the legion of city workers, and Buckingham Terrace was no exception. The massive mahogany door ahead of her opened and Lilias stood on the threshold. Her start of alarm when she saw who her visitor was was unmistakable.

“May I come in?” Susan asked.

Lilias hesitated.

“It’s most inconvenient,” she began.

“I won’t keep you a minute.”

Lilias shrugged.

“Oh, well, if you must, but I was just going out. I’ve got an appointment,” she added sharply.

The door led directly into a large, well-proportioned room furnished in the modem style with a low divan and some black leather chairs and brilliant rugs on the floor. An electric radiator glowed on the wide marble hearth and other doors opened off in three directions. One of them was slightly ajar and it appeared to be a kitchen. The other two were tightly closed. Lilias didn’t invite her to sit down.