shook her head. ‘No—I’m the only one and it sounds as though I shan’t have much to do. A handful of volunteer patients—all men, a few technicians and the two professors; William Wyllie—he’s an asthma case himself and I may have to look after him; he’s quite old—well, not very old, touching seventy.’
‘And the other doctor?’ It was her mother this time.
‘Oh, a friend of his. I daresay he’ll have asthma too, he’ll certainly be elderly.’ She brushed the crumbs from her pretty mouth and sat back with a sigh of content. ‘Now tell me all the news, my dears. Have you heard from Henry? and has Pat got over the measles?’
Henry was a younger brother, working in Brussels for the Common Market, and Pat was her small niece, her younger sister Polly’s daughter, who had married several years earlier. Her mother embarked on family news, wondering as she did so why it was that this pretty little creature sitting beside her hadn’t married herself, years ago. Of course she didn’t look anything like her age, but thirty wasn’t far off; Mrs Proudfoot belonged to the generation which considered thirty to be getting a little long in the tooth, and she worried about Eliza. The dear girl had had her chances—was still having them; she knew for a fact that at least two eligible young men had proposed to her during the last six months. And now she was off to this godforsaken spot in the Highlands where, as far as she could make out, there wasn’t going to be a man under sixty.
The two days passed quickly; there was so much to do, so many friends to visit, as well as helping her mother in the nice old house and going for walks with her father, who, now that he had retired from the Civil Service, found time to indulge in his hobby of fossil gathering. Eliza, who knew nothing about fossils, obligingly accompanied him to the beach and collected what she hoped were fine specimens, and which were almost always just pebbles. All the same, they enjoyed each other’s company and the fresh air gave her a glow which made her prettier than ever, so that one of the eligible young men, meeting her by chance in the main street, took the instant opportunity of proposing for a second time, an offer which she gently refused, aware that she was throwing away a good chance.
She worried about it as she drove herself back to London. Charlie King was an old friend, she had known him for years; he would make a splendid husband and he had a good job. She would, she decided, think about him seriously while she was away in Scotland; no doubt there would be time to think while she was there, and being a long way from a problem often caused it to appear in a quite different light. She put the thought away firmly for the time being and concentrated on her driving, for there had been a frost overnight, and the road was treacherous.
The next few days went rapidly, for she was busy. Mary Price had gone on her promised weekend the day after she got back and although she had two part-time staff nurses to help her, there was a good deal of extra paper work because she was going away. It was nice to see Mary back again and talk over the managing of the ward while she was away. Eliza spent her last day smoothing out all the last-minute problems, bade her patients and staff a temporary goodbye and went off duty to while away an hour with her friends in the Sisters’ sitting room before going to her room to pack ready for an early start in the morning—warm clothes and not too many of them—thick sweaters and slacks, an old anorak she had brought from home and as a special concession to the faint hope of a social life, a long mohair skirt and cashmere top in a pleasing shade of old rose.
She left really early the following morning, her friends’ good wishes ringing in her ears, instructions as to how to reach her destination written neatly on the pad beside the map on the seat beside her. She planned to take two, perhaps three days to get to Inverpolly, for although the Fiat always did its best, it wasn’t capable of sustained speed; besides, the weather, cold and blustery now, might worsen and hold her up. She had three clear days in hand and she didn’t suppose anyone would mind if she arrived a little sooner than that.
She made good progress. She had intended to spend the night at York, but she found that she had several hours in hand when she reached that city. She had an early tea and pressed on to Darlington and then turned on to the Penrith road where she decided to spend the night at the George. She was well ahead of her schedule and she felt rather pleased with herself, everything had been much easier than she had expected. She ate a good supper and went early to bed.
It was raining when she left, quite early, the next morning. By the time she had got to Carlisle, it was a steady downpour and from the look of the sky, was likely to continue so for hours, but it was a bare two hundred miles to Fort William, though there were another hundred and sixty miles after that, probably more, it was so difficult to tell from the map, but she felt relaxed now, eager to keep on for as long as possible, perhaps even complete the journey. She had thought at first that she would take the road to Inverness, but the map showed another, winding road round the lochs, she had almost decided to try it when she reached Fort William for a quick, late lunch, studying the map meanwhile. But it would have to be Inverness, she decided, the coast road looked decidedly complicated, and there was a ferry which might not be running at this time of year. She would push on; it was only three o’clock and roughly speaking, only another hundred and thirty miles to go. Even allowing for the early dark, she had two hours of driving and she was used to driving at night. She took another look at the map and saw that she didn’t need to go to Inverness at all; there was a side road which would bring her out on the road to Bonar Bridge.
It was dark when she got there and she wanted her tea, but she was too near the end of her journey to spare the time now; only another thirty miles or so to go. But she hadn’t gone half that distance before she regretted her wild enthusiasm; it was a lonely road she was travelling along now and after a little while there were no villages at all and almost no traffic. To try to find the remote lodge where Professor Wyllie was working would be madness; fortunately she remembered that there was a village with an impossible name just outside the National Park of Inverpolly, she could spend the night there. She reflected rather crossly now because she was tired and thirsty and just the smallest bit nervous that it was an impossible place to reach, and if she hadn’t had a car what would they have done about getting her there? Being learned men, wrapped up in their work, they had probably not given it a thought. The road appeared to be going nowhere in particular. Perhaps she was lost, and that was her own fault, of course; she should have realised that parts of the Scottish Highlands really were remote from the rest of the world. Eliza glanced at the speedometer; she had come quite a distance and passed nothing at all; she must be on the wrong road and told herself not to be a fool, for there had been no other road to take. It was then she saw the signpost. Inchnadamph, one mile.
The hotel was pleasant; warm and friendly too, although by now she was so tired that a barn would have been heaven. They gave her a large, old-fashioned room and fed her like a queen because there was only a handful of guests and they had already dined. She met them briefly when she went to have her coffee in the lounge, and then, hardly able to keep her eyes open, retired to her comfortable bed. A good sleep, she promised herself, and after breakfast she would drive the last few miles of her journey.
It was raining when she started off again, but she wasn’t tired any more and she had had an enormous breakfast; even the friendly warning that the road, once she was through Lochinver, was narrow and not very good couldn’t damp her good spirits; it was daylight now and she had hours of time in which to find the lodge.
They were right about the road, she discovered that quickly enough, although she found the village of Inverkirkaig easily enough. The lodge was a couple of miles further on, said her instructions; there was a track on the left of the road which would lead her to the house. But the instructions hadn’t mentioned the winding, muddy road though, going steadily and steeply uphill until she began to wonder if the Fiat would make it. But she reached the track at last and turned carefully into it. It was, in fact, nothing more than a way beaten by car wheels through rough ground; the little car bounced and squelched from one pothole to the next, while the trees on either side dripped mournfully on to it. The rain had increased its intensity too.
