The Day of the Storm (26 page)

I was glad I had not been here. It all sounded very dramatic. I stood up. Poor Mollie. “I'll go up and talk to her.”

“And I—” said Joss—“will go and see Grenville.”

“Tell him I'll be there in a moment or two.”

Joss smiled. “We'll wait,” he promised.

I found Mollie, white-faced and tear-stained, still sitting in front of her frilled dressing-table. (This was in character. Even the deepest excesses of grief would not cause Mollie to fling herself across any bed. It might crease the covers.) As I came into the room, she looked up, and her reflection was caught three times over in her triple mirror; for the first time ever, I thought that she looked her age.

I said, “Are you all right?”

She looked down, balling a sodden handkerchief in her fingers. I went to her side. “Pettifer told me. I'm so very sorry.”

“It's all so desperately unfair. Grenville's always disliked Eliot, resented him in some extraordinary way. And of course, now we know why. He was always trying to run Eliot's life, come between Eliot and me. Whatever I did for Eliot was always wrong.”

I knelt beside her, and put my arm around her, “I really believe he meant it for the best. Can't you try to believe that too?”

“I don't even know where he's gone. He wouldn't tell me. He never said goodbye.”

I realized that she was a great deal more worried about Eliot's abrupt departure than she was about the evening's revelations concerning Joss. This was just as well. I could comfort her about Eliot. There was not a mortal thing I could do about Joss.

“I think,” I said, “that Eliot may have gone to Birmingham.”

She looked at me in horror.
“Birmingham?”

“There was a man there who wanted to give him a job. Eliot told me. It was to do with second-hand cars. He seemed to think that it might be quite interesting.”

“But I can't go and live in
Birmingham.
”

“Oh, Mollie, you don't have to. Eliot can live on his own. Let him go. Give him the chance of making something of his life.”

“But we've always been together.”

“Then perhaps it's time to start living apart. You've got your house at High Cross, your garden up there, your friends…”

“I can't leave Boscarva. I can't leave Andrea. I can't leave Grenville.”

“Yes, you can. And I think Andrea should go back to London, to her own parents. You've done all you can for her, and she's miserable here. That's why all this happened, because she was unhappy and lonely. And as for Grenville, I'll stay with him.”

*   *   *

I came downstairs at last, carrying the tea tray. I took it into the kitchen and put it on the table. Pettifer, sitting there, looked up at me over the edge of his evening paper.

“How is she?” he asked.

“All right now. She's agreed that Andrea should go home, back to London. And then she's going back to High Cross.”

“That's what she's always wanted. And you?”

“I'm staying here. If that's all right with you.”

A chill gleam of satisfaction crossed Pettifer's face, the nearest he could get to a look of delight. There was no need for me to say more. We understood each other.

Pettifer turned his paper. “They're in the drawing room—” he told me—“waiting for you,” and he settled down to the racing page.

I went and found them, backed by the two portraits of Sophia in her white dress, Joss standing by the fire, and Grenville deep in his chair. They both looked up as I came in, the long-legged young man with his villainous black eye, and the old one, too tired to pull himself to his feet. I went towards them, the two people I loved most.

 

ST. MARTIN'S PAPERBACKS TITLES BY ROSAMUNDE PILCHER

SLEEPING TIGER

ANOTHER VIEW

SNOW IN APRIL

THE END OF SUMMER

THE EMPTY HOUSE

THE DAY OF THE STORM

UNDER GEMINI

WILD MOUNTAIN THYME

VOICES IN SUMMER

THE BLUE BEDROOM AND OTHER STORIES

THE CAROUSEL

THE SHELL SEEKERS

SEPTEMBER

FLOWERS IN THE RAIN AND OTHER STORIES

COMING HOME

WINTER SOLSTICE

 

ENTER THE ENCHANTING WORLD OF ROSAMUNDE PILCHER 
…

P
RAISE FOR
C
OMING
H
OME
 …

“Rosamunde Pilcher's most satisfying story since
The Shell Seekers.
”

—
Chicago Tribune

“Captivating … The best sort of book to come home to … Readers will undoubtedly hope Pilcher comes home to the typewriter again soon.”

—
New York Daily News

…
F
OR
S
EPTEMBER
 …

“A dance of life!”

—
Philadelphia Inquirer

“Her characters inhabit your daily life … [a] rich story to get lost in … the sort of novel so many seek to imitate and fail. I'd call Pilcher a Jane Austen for our time.”

—
Cosmopolitan

…
FOR
T
HE
B
LUE
B
EDROOM AND
O
THER
S
TORIES
 …

“Breathtaking … A book you will want to keep, to read and re-read!”

—
Grand Rapids Press

…
FOR
T
HE
C
AROUSEL
 …

“Delightful … It exudes comfort as it entertains.”

—
Publishers Weekly

…
FOR
V
OICES IN
S
UMMER

“I don't know where Rosamunde Pilcher has been all my life—but now that I've found her, I'm not going to let her go.”

—
The New York Times

R
OSAMUNDE
P
ILCHER
has had a long and distinguished career as a novelist and short-story writer, but it was her phenomenally successful novel
The Shell Seekers
that captured the hearts of all who read it and won her international recognition as one of the most-loved storytellers of our time.
The Shell Seekers
was followed by
September
and then by
Coming Home
and
Winter Solstice,
which were also immediately embraced by Mrs. Pilcher's devoted readers to become worldwide bestsellers. She lives in Perthshire, Scotland, with her husband, Graham, and their dachshund, Daisy.

THE DAY OF THE STORM

Copyright © 1975 by Rosamunde Pilcher.

All rights reserved.

For information address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

ISBN: 0-312-96130-8

EAN: 80312-96130-5

St. Martin's Press hardcover edition published 1975

Dell paperback edition / May 1989

St. Martin's Paperbacks edition / February 1997

St. Martin's Paperbacks are published by St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

eISBN 9781466825024

First eBook edition: February 2013