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“I try not to think of my mother deserting Denham’s,” she said aloud, “and I don’t think Evelyn ever would, but she may think she has to sell for the best of reasons.”

“I suppose it will all be done from London,” Fergus ventured.

“I don’t know.” She moved restlessly towards the door. “I wish I hadn’t got to wait,” she added characteristically. “Every minute is going to seem like eternity now, marking time until Evelyn gets here.”

“It’s only another forty-eight hours,” he reminded her as they emerged into the open air. “Will you go to Edinburgh to meet her?”

Susan nodded.

“Pity you couldn’t come with me,” she said vaguely.

“I wish I could, but you know what it’s like on a farm when you suddenly find yourself short-handed.”

She walked with him to his car.

“Which means that you might not be at the sales tomorrow?” she suggested.

“I’ll look in some time, but I can’t be sure when.” He hesitated before starting up the engine. “Do you still intend to part with Hope’s Star?”

She looked hastily away from his sympathetic gaze.

“What else can I do? I can’t keep two horses eating their heads off while I’m working,” she declared. “At one time it was simple when Evelyn could ride Hope for me, but now—when she seems determined to stay in London—there’s no point in it. Heaven knows, I don’t want to sell my favourite horse !”

Her voice had faltered and he said almost brusquely: “Don’t go alone, Sue. I’ll collect you in the morning.”

“You said you were busy,” she reminded him.

A smile lit his good-natured face.

“ ‘All work and no play makes Fergus a dull boy'!” he laughed. “See you around ten!”

She watched him drive away towards Fetterburn Mains, the large mixed farm which he had inherited from his father three years ago, and something about the assurance with which he handled the big, powerful car reminded her of her encounter on the moor road earlier in the afternoon. The same sort of assurance in the other man had irked her because he had been handling a horse and because he was a stranger. But why? Why? Surely the Border country was wide enough to accommodate a newcomer, whoever he was. But Fergus had said that he meant to set up a stable at Fetterburn somewhere, which meant that they would be neighbours.

She frowned as she wondered which house could be for sale within ten to twenty miles that she didn’t know about, and then she was concentrating on a name. Elliott. Maxwell Elliott? It was the same name Fergus had mentioned in connection with the sale of Bucksfoot, the name of the man she had met so unexpectedly on the moor road. It was a familiar name. There were dozens of Elliotts scattered about the Borders, but it was also the name of a rival mill not ten miles away from Yairborough, a small family business as hard hit as Denham’s by the escalation of mergers and
take-over
bids.

Could Maxwell Elliott’s appearance in the Borders have anything to do with Elliott’s mill? New blood pouring in from the other side of the world. Elliott’s had been as conservative in their approach to change as Denham’s, as eager to keep the family image intact, and if this was a new breed of Elliotts about to take over they were managing to preserve that image.

Another generation, she thought jealously. Even if the relationship was far removed they were still Elliotts, but what could they really achieve that her father had not attempted during the past few years? The family business seemed to be on its way out. Only a set of circumstances over which they had no control had brought Denham’s first to the verge of defeat. If her father hadn’t died or there had been another Adam Denham to follow in his footsteps—a brother older than she was, perhaps—they might have survived.

I can’t bear to part with Denham’s, she thought. I want time to stand still.

That wasn’t quite true. She had worked for progress with her father and with Evelyn; they had been willing to try anything new, and her own designing had been amazingly successful.

Restlessly she got back into the car and drove towards the mill. It was silent and empty, perched on the banks of the swift-flowing Yair with its main frontage facing the narrow cobbled thoroughfare which had once been the main street. Now the traffic went hurtling past to Selkirk and Jedburgh and Melrose over a fine new bridge in the centre of the little town, leaving Denham’s in a pleasant backwater.

Was that it, Susan wondered, as she stood in the deserted yam store which would be full of life and activity in the morning. Was progress passing them by?

To refute the suggestion she walked slowly between the ranks of the machines, the giant, eight-division frames which her father had installed just before he died. They stretched the full length of the shed, with the top lights gleaming down on their chromium-plated efficiency, and they gave her confidence. They were new and they knitted the fully-fashioned garments which were in universal demand, the pullovers and golfers and jersey-suits she designed with a view to keeping Denham’s in the forefront of the
couture
trade.

Slowly she passed on to the hand machines in the finishing section where the girls worked, joining the pieces, point by point, in absolute accuracy. It was a happy part of the factory, its eau-de-nil walls decorated from floor to ceiling with the photographs of favourite pop singers where once it had been film stars, and she stood before the gay display of successful youth for a moment wondering why she felt so despondent. Although they came from far and near, the workers had a loyalty to the Yairborough mill which she had never questioned. It was their life as well as hers, and she wanted to fight to keep it.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be so easy for her as it was for Elliott’s, but she meant to try.

Old Mungo, the watchman, ambled through from his cubby-hole near the main door. He had worked for Denham’s, man and boy, for sixty years and he hoped to spend the remainder of his life in their service.

“I saw you come in, Miss Susan. Were ye needin’ anything?” he asked.

“No, nothing, Mungo,” she said, but was she really needing reassurance?

“I was brewin’ a wee cup o’ tea. Maybe ye would be drinkin’ a cup afore ye go?” he suggested.

“That’s kind of you, Mungo.” She turned towards the office. “I came for a pattern-string. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

When she returned Mungo’s famous ‘black brew’ was infused ready for her to drink, and she sat on his stool with the cup nursed between her hands as he settled himself on a nearby packing case.

Mungo cleared his throat.

“Would it be true," he asked, “what they’re saying about Denham’s being taken over, Miss Susan?”

“I don’t know, Mungo.” Her voice sounded flat. “It may have to come.”

“Aye,” he said, not looking at her. “There’s a great feeling for change these days, everywhere. Old folk like me will just have tae go, I suppose.”

He had asked a question and her first reaction was one of protest.

“Why should you? You’ve worked at Denham’s all your life.”

“Aye, that is so, but it wouldn’t be Denham’s then, would it? Somebody else would be in charge with a say in the matter, maybe. They might even think a watchman unnecessary, wi' all these newfangled burglar alarms they have nowadays on business premises. No, I would just hae to go, but what I would do wi’ no pension to come except the Old Age, I don’t know. I’ve aye worked—”

She felt guilty, knowing that, as a family concern, they didn’t offer pensions but guaranteed employment in some capacity until the end of a worker’s days. There was nothing she could say to Mungo, no reassuring word.

“There’s Elsie, too,” he went on, sipping his tea without his customary zest. “She was telling me this morning about her old mother, a cripple woman, who has to have this and that to make her life bearable. What would she do without her work in the canteen?”

Susan flushed.

“This is all hearsay, Mungo,” she suggested. “We don’t
know
we’re going to be taken over. Not yet,” she added beneath her breath.

They finished their tea, still talking about Denham’s and all that had been accomplished in her father’s time.

“You could do the same in the future,” Mungo said with pride. “You could keep Denham’s as it is.”

Susan felt a ridiculous desire to cry on the old man’s shoulder. His loyalty was almost more than she could bear, but when she drove home she was almost confident about the future.

PROMPTLY at ten o’clock the following morning Fergus Graeme drove up to the front of the house, reversed on the terrace and pulled alongside the horsebox where Susan had already installed the mare. Hope’s Star regarded him from the open top half of the rear door, tossing her head anxiously at his approach.

“All right, old lady!” he said too huskily for his own liking. “It won’t be long now. You’ve got to go, but we’ll see that you get a good home.”

Susan came out, pulling on her gloves.

“I don’t like this one little bit,” she said. “I hate parting with a horse.”

“I know.” He was quietly sympathetic. “I felt the same way about Bucksfoot.”

While he connected the tow-bar she got into the car. “So Maxwell Elliott did buy him?”

“Yes.”

He seemed disinclined to talk about their new neighbour, but Susan was naturally curious.

“Did you find out where he was staying?” she asked. “He’s taken over the Fetterburn mill.”

“I had a hunch!” she sat bolt upright in the seat beside him. “Why?”

"He's an Elliott. That would be a good enough reason,” Fergus suggested. “The old man was almost in his dotage before he agreed to retire.”

“Nathan Elliott must be his grandfather.”

“Or his great-uncle. He didn’t explain the relationship.”

“Is he staying at Fetterburn Carse?”

“For the present. The old man’s moving out, I gather, to Edinburgh.”

“So it’s a complete take-over! How long has he been there?”

“Several weeks.”

They had to drive through Fetterburn to reach Kelso because there was no other way out of the dale, and Susan couldn’t very well avert her gaze from the improvements which had taken place, even in so short a time. The tweed mill had been given a face-lift and the whole small Border town seemed rejuvenated because of it. Elliott’s was Fetterburn, just as Denham’s was the life’s blood of Yairborough, and Elliott’s had been given a vitalising transfusion at the right moment. It had come alive. New life was coursing through its veins. She had only to look at the town to see how true that was, because a community invariably reflected the prosperity of its principal industry.

“I’d give anything,” she said, “to be able to do this for Denham’s.”

“It would take a lot of money or a lot of enthusiasm,” Fergus returned awkwardly.

“I have the enthusiasm!” she declared. “I feel that all I need is time.”

He knew how true that was, but would not tell her so, and he was glad when they had left Fetterburn behind. He didn’t like to see that look on Susan’s face, the suggestion of courage overshadowed by defeat, and he would gladly have saved her from disappointment and, perhaps, heartbreak if he could. So many small concerns were folding up these days that it seemed almost inevitable that Denham’s should go.

They drove the remaining distance to Kelso in an odd sort of silence, the horse-box trundling behind them as an ever-present reminder that they were about to part with a favourite mount. Impulsively Fergus wanted to buy it from her, but he was faced with the same problem as she was of exercising two horses.
In their
present circumstances, it just couldn’t be done.
Colin
had been the one for riding the Marches
with the
younger element, but now that Colin had chosen to emigrate to Canada the position at the Mains
had
changed, too.

Even on this glorious spring day when, normally, he would have looked about him at the rolling hills and towering crags which were his natural heritage with a countryman’s pride and satisfaction, Fergus Graeme felt depressed. If only Susan had agreed to marry him she could have been spared this sort of thing, he reasoned with a man’s straightforward logic.

Long before they reached it they could see Kelso’s spires and the ruined tower of King David’s Abbey silhouetted against the vividly green backdrop of the distant Lammermuirs. They had come to Kelso so often for the spring and autumn pony sales and the ‘wee Highland’ in July; they had been frozen stiff watching Border ‘sevens’ at Poynder Park in winter before the grand new pavilion had been built; they had attended parties and balls together, and curled and skated at the ice rink, but now it seemed that something warm and intimate about the past was gradually breaking up.

They parked in the Square, running in over the cobbles to find space in front of the hotel. It was all so familiar, Susan thought, with its newly-planted flower-troughs and the window-boxes which would be gay with geraniums and lobelia in full summer, and the friendly blue-faced clock looking down from the dome of the Town Hall. The big gilt weathercock shone in the sun and it wasn’t difficult to imagine the tramp of ancient feet and the clangour on the cobbles as Mary, Queen of Scots rode through on her way to Craigmillar, or Charles Edward Stuart led his rough Highlanders over the Border.

Why was she dwelling so much on the past—the distant past? Susan got out, standing uncertainly to look about her. Kelso was at its smiling best on such a day, green and spacious and beautiful, but already it was crowded with strangers, people gathering from far and near for the horse and pony sales. Suddenly she felt incapable of going out to Springwood Park, and as if he could guess her every thought Fergus made his suggestion.

“Why not let me take Hope’s Star out for you, Sue? You could do your shopping till I get back, and then we might have a spot of lunch at the Cross Keys. What do you say?” he urged when she appeared to hesitate. “You won’t like it, seeing Hope’s Star being led into the ring.”

“I know.” She looked round at him, her eyes very bright. “What would I do without you, Fergus?”