“I can’t thank you enough,” she said, “though I seem to be always trying.” A wan smile touched her lips. “Some day, perhaps, I might be able to do something for you in return.”
He looked down at her.
“I wonder,” he said. “But the first thing to do is to get some rest. You won’t be able to do anything about the milk in the morning.”
She had forgotten about the van.
“But I must,” she protested. “There are children at the clachan.”
“Leave it to me,” he said briefly. “The snow plough should be out on the main roads by morning. If the wind drops they might just be able to keep them open. If it drifts, of course, we’re sunk.”
“What about the sheep?” she asked dully.
“I have plenty of help.” His tone was clipped. “They’ll be off the high ground by now.”
She felt too tired to argue. The brandy, coupled with the warmth of Kirsty’s amazing fire and the hot tea, was making her drowsy.
“Go straight to bed,” Huntley said. “That’s an order.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
LATE the following afternoon he brought back the van. Apparently he had towed it most of the way with the jeep.
“It’s going, but only just,” he informed her. “Don’t take it out again. I’m leaving you the jeep.”
The wind had dropped, but it was still snowing.
“I couldn’t possibly take it,” she protested. “You must need it at Sterne.”
“I can manage with the car.” He brushed the snow from the front of his coat. “Don’t be too independent, Alison.”
“It isn’t that.” She could scarcely meet his eyes. “I always seem to be needing your help and getting in your way.”
“There’s no point in thinking about it,” he said. “And you needn’t feel under any obligation to me.”
“I can’t dismiss the fact so easily.” She clasped her hands together to keep them from trembling. “Last night could have been the end of things for me.”
He looked down at the untrodden snow between them.
“It wasn’t,” he said, “so why worry? I didn’t do so very much.” She looked across at the van which had been the cause of all the trouble.
“I’ll have to get another one,” she mused. “Something more reliable.”
He walked towards it.
“You’d be wise. By the way,” he added, “I phoned the Orbisters last night. They were relieved to hear you were safe.”
“I hope they won’t tell my mother what happened.”
“I warned them not to, though they’ll have to explain why you won’t be able to get through for a day or two.”
“She’ll understand.” They stood looking at each other.
“Was Tessa very disappointed about her party?”
“Not unduly. I went back there to phone Wick. We had cold
chicken and coffee.”
He sounded so deliberately aloof, shutting himself away behind the old facade of indifference. Last night had spoiled whatever slight understanding had grown up between them. She had lost both his friendship and his respect by the pitiful revelation of her unwanted love.
“I’ll take my things out of the van,” she offered. “It might just get you back to Sterne. You couldn’t possibly walk all that way.”
“I was thinking in terms of a Scots convoy.” He smiled. “A lift back to Sterne when you deliver the milk. I wouldn’t trust the van even that far!”
He was making it easier for her now, putting them on a surer footing. She had work to do, and it was something he understood.
Cathie Orbister had called it a great compensation! “The crates are ready.” She stood back while he helped Neil to load them into the jeep. “I could drop you at the Lodge,” she suggested, “if your
car’s down there.”
He shook his head.
“I left it at Sterne. I’m afraid you’ll have to come all the way.”
With the jeep it was more or less easy. He insisted on driving it through the glen, however, while she made her belated deliveries from door to door. Nobody had really expected her. The children were at school, gathered cosily round a gigantic stove, while their mothers went about the endless task of housekeeping in a cold climate. Windows and doors were all firmly barred and peat smoke rose straight and blue into the chill air. They had the vast white world outside entirely to themselves.
“You can deliver to the Lodge on your way home,” Huntley suggested, putting the jeep to the hill. “The Searles won’t be short of milk.”
He had avoided Calders, going by the road instead of taking the shorter way through the estate. The memory of her intrusion there, too, must still be vivid in his mind.
“Did you manage to get the drawing-room window repaired?” she asked.
“I’ve had it boarded up. It will do for the present,” he said.
She left him at the lighthouse. A cold place, she thought, for a man to choose as a home. Bleak and remote, with the wind howling round it and the sea thrashing among the rocks at its base, it looked more isolated than ever in snow. It merged into the grey and white of the landscape, a hidden place of a thousand memories that could tear a man apart.
Huntley didn’t ask her in.
“We’re going to get more of this,” he predicted, glancing up at the sky. “Don’t linger about too long.”
The snow had slackened a little, but she made her way quickly to the Lodge. Ski marks criss-crossed the drive and Tessa came to the door in a pair of vivid red vorlages and a blue anorak. A pair of skis stood propped up against the wall.
“I’ve been out,” she intimated, her cheeks flushed a faint pink. “My father thought it would do me good.”
Suddenly Alison was reminded of the quick footsteps she had heard from the far side of the wall several days ago going away from her along the drive. Then Tessa had come back, walking at a distance without her limp.
“Tessa, it is true,” she found herself saying. “You can get about quite well!”
Tessa stared at her, a small pulse throbbing rapidly in her cheek.
“You must be mad!” she said.
“But I saw you,” Alison protested. “The other day. You were walking normally.”
“You’re quite wrong,” Tessa blustered. “You must be imagining it.”
“No, Tessa, I’m sure.” Alison caught her arm. “What is it? What’s wrong? You can walk, can’t you? You’re not limping any more. Why don’t you tell Huntley? Why are you afraid?”
Tessa refused to respond.
“I’m not afraid of anything!” she cried in a falsely confident voice. “You must be crazy to imagine I’d go on—pretending to be ill if I’m not. I hate my weakness and having to depend on Huntley all the time. Oh, if you only knew how I hated it!”
Her words trailed off in despair. Alison didn’t know what to say to be of any comfort to her.
“But, Tessa—” she began, only to be stopped by the look in the wavering dark eyes.
“All right,” Tessa said beneath her breath, “I can walk! I can hobble a yard or two on my own without dragging my foot. I can even manage a mile or so on skis. So what? Do you think that’s going to be enough for a man? A girl who’s always tired halfway through the day. I’ve got to be a whole person again, able to walk and run and dance,” she added almost desperately. “Half measures are no good to me. That’s why I won’t go to Inverness with Huntley. I want to be sure.”
There was an odd reserve about the last few words, a suggestion of playing for time.
“But surely this is something you can’t decide for yourself,” Alison objected. “Surely the specialist is the final answer?”
“Not quite.” Tessa’s expression was withdrawn. “I don’t need a specialist to tell me when I can begin to live again.” Suddenly her resistance crumbled and her face became distorted with emotion. “I could be so wrong,” she cried. “Hoping and hoping when it isn’t any use!”
“Do y
ou mean hoping that Huntley will love you completely one day?” Alison asked in a strangled undertone. “If you do, Tessa —if you do this isn’t the way to go about it.”
“Huntley could never love anyone again,” Tessa muttered. “Oh, you can’t understand, and—I couldn’t tell you.”
She ran into the house, not even remembering to walk slowly. Alison got into the jeep and drove away.
Gilbert Searle gazed at his daughter across the width of the Lodge kitchen.
“What is it now, Tessa?” he asked.
“I won’t go to Inverness,” she informed him sullenly, “no matter who says so—you or Huntley or anybody!”
“You must go one day.” The Major was upset. He hated rows. “You can’t go on just avoiding the issue for ever.”
She swung round to face him.
“What are you trying to say?” “You’ll have to tell Huntley the truth.”
She looked stricken.
“What do you know?”
“I know you’re holding him to a promise he shouldn’t be made to keep,” he answered slowly.
Tessa stared at him.
“He was the cause of my accident,” she pointed out bitterly.
He put a gentle hand on her arm.
“Think about it, Tessy,” he said. “Think carefully.”
She tried to avoid his touch.
“You don’t know,” she exclaimed. “You could never understand!”
“I wonder,” he said quietly.
“If I do go—” Tessa turned to the window. “If I let Huntley persuade me, it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Of course not.” Her father started to clean his waders, not pressing the point. “It’s always best to take one step at a time.”
It was several days, however, before any of them could leave the glen. The snow fell relentlessly, clothing the hills in a mantle of white. The firs along the burn-side were heavy with it, weighted down above the black channel of the water, and the silence could almost be felt.
When it finally ceased it was a pleasure to drive in the crisp, fresh air. The jeep was so easy and the roads were being used by the timber people again. Huntley, too, was out and about. Alison met him frequently, driving from Sterne or coming up from the Lodge. Once she saw him skiing with Tessa on the upper reaches of the moor. He was helping her and she seemed to be enjoying the recreation. Her laughter rang out like a bell on the windless air. It was like a challenge. One day she would be well enough to keep up with Huntley. One day quite soon!
It was another week before Alison could attempt the journey to Wick again. She considered phoning Jim to come for her, but decided that he would be too busy. It would hardly be fair to expect him to make the long trip if he had other business commitments, she reasoned.
Which meant that she would have to ask Huntley’s permission to use the jeep, at least as far as Berridale, where she could pick up the local bus.
Feeling that she was going to be constantly under one obligation or another to him, she made her way to Sterne. It wasn’t quite dark and a full moon lay hooped on the horizon. It swung clear as she reached the promontory, floating like a gigantic lantern above the sea. Sterne stood out in the pale yellow glow of it, remotely white above the dark rocks where the waves broke endlessly.
Today there was no fury of wind and tide. A great stillness lay over everything, broken only by the cry of the gulls.
And the sound of music. She heard it even before she had reached the lighthouse, pouring out through the half-open door, a wild threnody of despair beating against the silence. It was brilliantly orchestrated and she struggled to remember it, realizing that she was listening to a recording. Then, suddenly, it ceased. A thin thread of melody took its place and a woman’s voice drifted towards her. It was Leone’s voice. Leone singing again on a perfect recording!
That magnificent voice swelling, full and beautiful, to the heights of passionate desire kept her standing there, rooted to the spot, but when it ceased as abruptly as the concerto she turned and fled.
“Alison!”
Huntley had been too quick for her. Some sense of intrusion, some awareness of her presence, had brought him to the door. He stood looking after her, waiting for her to return.
Slowly she retraced her steps, conscious of his ravaged face and the fire of anger in his eyes.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I came to ask if I might borrow the jeep.”
He laughed abruptly. It was a terrible sound.
“Was that all? You already had it.”
“I’d like to go to Wick tomorrow.”
“And I have to go to Inverness.” His voice was harsh. “Our
paths take separate ways.”
“If you need the jeep,” she said, “I can wait.”
“I shall be going by car, if we can get through. I’m taking Tessa.”
“I see.”
“Will you come in?” He held the door open.
She shook her head.
“No, I won’t intrude.”
“You think you would be doing that?” he asked.
“I don’t want to chance it. You’ve been so kind about— everything else.”
“You’ll be going to see your mother?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like to send her some flowers. Perhaps I could do that from Inverness.”
They stood looking at one another in the pale moonlight.
“I hope everything’s going to be all right,” Alison said. “For Tessa.”
“She has agreed to see the specialist.”
“Will it be—a final verdict?”
“I think so.”
“You must feel very anxious.”
“I think I know what the result will be.”
He walked with her to the jeep.
“You’ll take it all the way, of course,” he said. “There’s no point in you catching buses.”
She didn’t attempt to thank him again.
“I’ll be most careful,” she promised.
“See that you do,‘” he said. “We don’t want any more accidents.”
All the way to Wick she thought of him driving south, in the opposite direction, with Tessa by his side.
The road was difficult in places, especially between Lybster and Thrumster where it was exposed for miles to the ravages of the wind sweeping across open moorland. There were no sheltering trees, no deeply indented dales to break its savage fury,
but the jeep was a sturdier vehicle than the temperamental van. It got her through without mishap. She drove up to the hospital at three o’clock and was about to go along to her mother when the ward Sister hurried towards her.
“Matron would like a word with you, Miss Christie,” she said. “If you’d come this way, please?”
Alison caught her breath, all the blood draining out of her cheeks.
“Is anything wrong?” she asked unsteadily. “My mother—?” “Oh, no.” The Sister smiled reassuringly. “She’s made a wonderful recovery. I think that’s what Matron wants to speak to you about.” She opened a door. “If you would just wait in here for a few moments, I’ll see if she’s free.”
The relief of knowing that all was well made Alison’s legs feel weak. She sat down on the nearest chair, gazing out of the window at the snow-covered garden. In no more than a minute or two the door opened. “Matron will see you now.”
In the room across the passage a bright fire burned, reflected in the few pieces of good furniture and in the kindly, smiling eyes of the woman who faced her across the desk.
“Now, Miss Christie,” she said, “we have a decision to make. Your mother is well enough to go out next week, but she doesn’t want to go to our convalescent home. It’s understandable, I think. She would like to be sitting at her own fireside on Christmas Day. The point is, she won’t be capable of doing very much for herself for some time. She certainly can’t take over her former household duties right away. The older one becomes the longer one tak
es to recover from the shock of major surgery. I’m sure you will appreciate the fact. She must rest as much as possible, at least for a month.” She spread her hands in a small gesture of finality. “That’s the position. I should have advised the convalescent home for that length of time if I hadn’t felt that it might not be the answer in your mother’s case. Home has a tremendous pull for her and she seems to be most anxious to be there for Christmas. I might say it is almost an obsession with her.”
“I can understand it,” Alison agreed. “And we’ll manage
quite well. There’s Kirsty. She’s been with us for thirty years. My mother won’t have to do any work.” “What about yourself?” Matron asked. “I understand you
were studying in London.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Alison said quickly. “I gave up my scholarship. I’m home for a while. Till the spring, at least.
So, you see, it will be all right for her to come out whenever she can.”
The matron looked relieved.
“A good home atmosphere is often the swiftest cure,” she said. “You can come for her at the beginning of next week.
That will give her ten days or so to settle in at home before the festive season.” She rose to terminate the interview. “She has been a wonderful patient. Is she expecting her son home from Canada?”
Alison bit her lip.
“I think that must be her dearest wish,” she said.
“One understands about these things.” The matron held out her hand. “I may not see you again, Miss Christie, but I hope it won’t be very long before you are able to continue your career.”
“Thank you.”
Alison could think of nothing but the wonderful news she had just received, although she had to crush back the hurt about Robin coming home. Her mother’s most cherished wish might never come true.
Helen was sitting up in bed when she reached the ward. Bright-eyed and expectant, she greeted Alison with the question that was uppermost in her mind. “Am I to get home? They said I might.”
“You’ve made yourself such a nuisance that they’re turning you out as soon as they can. They’re glad to be rid of you!” Alison laughed, hugging her close.
“You don’t mean that, surely?”
The Tender Glory Page 14
