September

Strathcroy is a beautiful old village nestled in a valley in the Scottish Highlands, a community seemingly of another age, but one which has adapted and strengthened almost in spite of the progress of the rest of the worlda last bastion of the old values.

Those values are best embodied by Violet Aird. Sensible and understanding at seventy-eight years old, Vi looks out over the little community as though it were her own. That community includes her son Edmund, the commanding owner of Aird Electronics, who lives in the palatial Edwardian house Balnaird with his second wife, the American Virginia. Also Edmund´s oldest friend Archie or, more properly, Lord Balmerino, who has lapsed into bitter and lethargic melancholy, ostensibly over an accident in the army in Northern Ireland years before in which he lost a leg.

One day Vi is visited by her bossy but good-hearted friend Verena who has hit upon the idea of holding a ball in September, a lavish affair of dancing and music to which absolutely everyone will be invited. Including Pandora.

Pandora, we learn, is Archie´s sister who fled the village under a cloud some twenty years ago, and from whom no one has heard since. The news of Pandora´s invitation goes round the village like wildfire, stirring up all the old gossip about her. Half-mad Lottie´s muttered implications finally drive Virginia to ask questions about Edmund´s role in Pandora´s past, until Violet reluctantly tells what she knows: that years ago Edmund had an affair with Pandora, who became pregnant; that he and Archie had a row over it; that Pandora disappeared and presumably aborted the child, the guilt over which Edmund and Archie have lived with ever since.

At last the night of the ball arrives and with it, Pandora. In a dramatic climax, the truth is revealed about Pandora´s missing years, and old wounds, we see, will finally heal. But Pandora has a new secret that brings a bittersweet conclusion to this picturesque drama.

Includes Music CD!

Upplagd i sortimentet: 12 September, 2008