She smiled complacently, as if the idea intrigued her.
“I think I’d love it,” she said. “It would prevent me attending concerts that promised to be a bore, and I might even settle down in one spot for the whole winter ... if the snow and ice lasted that long. Usually I’m on the move so much that I often long to be somewhere where circumstances would force me to be static, and where I could enjoy being lazy, and doing all the things I sometimes crave to do. In short, I sometimes think I’m a little world-weary and would love to give up my present life and live an ordinary one for a change.”
Alaine regarded her as if he didn’t really believe her, and indeed he actually said as much.
“You’d soon feel the pull of the world again ... and find an ordinary life dull.”
But she shook her head. A tinge of colour had crept up in her slightly sallow cheeks, and for an instant her eyes glowed as she looked at him ... so dark and sleek and masculine, and bound to appeal to any really feminine woman.
“I said if circumstances forced me,” she repeated. “And it would depend, of course, on what those circumstances were!”
Alaine met her eyes for perhaps a full half minute after that, and then he abruptly swung his gaze away from her and looked at Amanda.
“And you, Miss Wells?” he asked. “Could you endure spending a long winter in a house without either a telephone or electric light, in the dead of winter?”
She appeared to give the matter thought before she answered. And then in addition to answering she nodded her head.
“Of course. Towns are dull ... at least, I think they are. And there’s always so much to do in a house— if it’s your own,” she added.
Alaine’s eyes smiled slightly. He stuffed tobacco into the bowl of his pipe and then set it alight. The whole room was filled with the fragrance of his special mixture.
“You know,” he said, “I’m inclined to believe you. But I think Miss Greystoke would prefer a nice flat in Vienna if there was a question of choice.”
“Oh, that’s not fair,” she protested, and she actually looked hurt. “It really is not fair!”
CHAPTER X
FOR the next few days the atmosphere of Ure became more like the atmosphere of an hotel on the mainland, with no fewer than five people claiming the hospitality of the Lord of the Tower.
The fifth visitor arrived unexpectedly the day after Miss Urquhart and Miss Greystoke arrived. He got someone to row him across to the island soon after he had signed the register at the Three Goats and made the discovery that the woman who employed him was being entertained elsewhere. Without waiting for instructions from her he crossed to Ure and then made his way through the woods, very much as Amanda and Judy had done on the night they missed the return ferry; only in his case there was no mist to delay his progress, and although he was somewhat scratched and scarred by the time he reached the main entrance he was by no means put off by the roughness of his welcome, because before he became secretary to Miss Greystoke he had made several safaris to inhospitable corners of the world, and was in point of fact an explorer.
Which made it seem a little odd that he should be secretary to Miss Greystoke.
She flew downstairs to welcome him when she heard that he had arrived. She was wearing a cashmere sweater and a slimline skirt, and she looked as elegant as she did in clinging silk. In fact, she was the sort of woman who looked well in most things, and never wore strictly casual clothes.
“Michael!” She appeared as if she was about to hurl herself into his arms, and then stopped short and turned delicately pink instead. But there was no doubt about her pleasure at seeing him. “How did you know I was here?” she asked. “Did they tell you at the hotel?”
“Yes.” He was very tall and blond, and he had indolent blue eyes and excellent teeth, and was somewhere in his middle thirties. “They said you had been spirited away to an island, and so I followed. After all, it’s part of my job to make sure no one kidnaps you, isn’t it?”
“Don’t be silly.” But the delicate pink flush deepened. “As a matter of fact, something happened to my reservation at the Three Goats, and by the greatest good luck a fellow traveller suggested I accompany her here. I was going to get a message across to the hotel to await your arrival instructing you to board the ferry and follow me, but apparently you didn’t need to be instructed. You’re so clever, Michael,” beaming at him. “That’s one thing I value you for!”
“Thanks, dear lady,” a little drily, lifting her hand and kissing it. “But,” glancing around him with an interested air, “this is a somewhat odd spot for a celebrity like yourself to end up in, isn’t it? I mean ... I don’t imagine you’ll be giving any concerts here, and it’s a little primitive, isn’t it?”
“Very primitive, but I love it.” She linked her arm in his and introduced him to Miss Urquhart, who had appeared in the hall. Later he met Judy and Alaine, who had just come in from a walk—Judy having decided she might as well recover with the maximum amount of speed from the disadvantages of a sprained ankle, particularly as there was another woman in the house who was as good-looking as she was. And later still he met Amanda, who, as usual, had been helping out in the kitchen, and was flushed from contact with the wood-burning stove, although recently changed into something quite becoming, and spick and span after a bath in one of the antiquated bathrooms.
“Well, well!” he said, when he was introduced to her in the drawing-room, and drinks were being handed round. And as she looked at him in faint surprise he repeated, “Well, well!”
Miss Greystoke turned her head and regarded him somewhat sharply. Alaine stopped pouring sherry and also studied them with a touch of alertness.
“You haven’t met Miss Wells before, have you?” Miss Greystoke asked.
Michael shook his head. He had looked his admiration at the Australian girl without betraying any symptoms of being in danger of being overcome by her looks, but it was something more than admiration that filled his eyes as he studied Amanda. He appeared amused and intrigued and gratified all at the same time. He gave her fingers an enthusiastic squeeze which caused her to snatch them away rather sharply and noticeably.
“No, we haven’t met, but I’m delighted that we’re doing so now. Miss Wells has something reminiscent of the spirit of the island about her in that dress.” Amanda was wearing a slim green dress with touches of white about it that certainly served to emphasise her sprite-like quality of delicacy, and her fawn-like eyes undoubtedly appealed to Mr. Manners. But Alaine said quickly, and a little curtly, that so far as he knew Miss Wells was as solid as the rest of them, but of course he was not in a position to vouch for it; and Miss Greystoke appeared mildly surprised, because in her opinion Miss Wells was a nice little thing who knew how to make herself useful, and it would never have occurred to her that a sophisticated man of the world like her secretary could find anything about her worthy of commenting on ... not while she herself was present, and the dark-eyed beauty, Judy Macrae, whom she neither liked nor admired, although she recognised her attractiveness.
Amanda was a little amused by the obvious tightening of Miss Greystoke’s lips, and it occurred to her to wonder whether the singer looked upon Michael Manners as someone rather more important than a secretary. Although, if that was the case, it also occurred to her to wonder why she was so plainly impressed by Alaine Urquhart, to such an extent that she had not hesitated either to angle for, or to accept an invitation to stay at the Tower for several days.
After dinner—and by this time Jean was becoming so accustomed to visitors that one more did not throw her into the state of panic and resentment that would have been inevitable a few days before—the entire party returned to the drawing-room for coffee, and then Alaine was prevailed upon to show them all over the Tower.
It was a wonderful evening—a perfect conclusion to a hot summer day—and although they dined fairly late there was still plenty of light left to show them the beauties of the countryside as they mounted the
inside stairway that eventually led them out on to the flat roof of the main portion of the Tower. The pepper-box shape of the original watch-tower was still several feet above them to their right as they leaned on the parapet, and Alaine pointed out the interesting features in the panorama that was spread before them. It was a breathtaking panorama from that height, and Judy suffered a touch of vertigo which made it necessary for her to cling to the host’s arm for support, while Camilla Greystoke clutched at Michael Manners’ arm. Miss Urquhart had declined to accompany them up to the roof, and Amanda stood squarely before the low parapet without anything in the nature of a male arm to clutch at ... although as it was not in her nature to depend upon masculine support this was no deprivation.
It was enough for her to feast her eyes upon the view, and it really was an utterly fantastic view. She had admired it on the morning after her arrival, when in the bright morning sunlight the distant hills had worn a tawny-gold look, and the loch had had the brilliance of a blue diamond. Now, in the tranquillity of late evening, with night like a shadowy mantle about to close in upon them, the hills were deep purple, and the waters of the loch were as transparent as glass, with little or no colour save that borrowed from the paling sky.
The woods that crowded down to the water’s edge were shadowy and still, for there was only the lightest of breezes blowing, and not even the tall pine-tops moved. A bird flew out from a tight clump of juniper and circled the tops of the trees, and then flew out over the loch and was mirrored in the crystal brilliance of the water, one wing-tip edged with gold as the radiance of the after-glow touched it.
The watchers on the roof heard the lonely cry of it as it vanished in the woods on the opposite shore.
Miss Greystoke shivered with, a kind of inverted pleasure.
“I think I know why you choose to live here,” she declared to Alaine. “It’s not merely the beauty of it all—” she waved a hand to indicate it—“the peace, the feeling of changelessness, but the isolation itself. It gets a hold of one. I think, when I give up singing, I shall look for a spot just like this and settle down in it for the rest of my life,” and she glanced sideways at Alaine.
Michael lighted himself a cigarette and made a slight sound that unmistakably had a disparaging quality about it.
“Then I hope you won’t continue to need my services,” he said, consigning the spent match to the depths below the parapet, “because the one thing I do not intend to do when I retire from active employment is settle down in a place like this ... delightful though it may be,” in a slightly more drawling tone, in order not to give offence to his host.
Miss Greystoke glanced at him under her thick black eyelashes, and then lightly squeezed his arm.
“Darling, don’t be silly,” she said. “When you retire from active employment you will not be working for me.”
“Won’t I?”
His blond head came round swiftly, and in his blue-eyed look there was a mixture of quizzicalness and questioning.
“Going to kick me out when you no longer need me?”
“I hope I’m a long way yet from giving up singing altogether,” was her only reply, but in the dark depths of her eyes there was something that mocked him faintly as their glances met and held for a moment.
Judy, who had apparently fallen into an ecstatic state of dreaming, remarked suddenly:
“I don’t think I can ever go back to Australia and leave all this behind.” She shook her head quite vigorously. “No; I’m certain I can’t.”
“Then what do you propose to do?” Michael Manners enquired softly, mockingly, at her elbow. Possibly his recent interchange with Miss Greystoke had rendered him a trifle edgy and insensitive, for there was something harsh and cool and gleaming in his smile as he switched it to Judy. And plainly, despite her beauty, she was not his type ... possibly because his was not the arm she had elected to cling to. “As I see it there are only two things you can do if you decline to be separated from all this, and that is make Mr. Urquhart an offer for the Tower, or suggest that you stay on here with him ... in a conventional capacity that would not offend anybody, of course!”
“Really!” Camilla Greystoke exclaimed with a swift flush of annoyance, and Judy also flushed brilliantly, but for an entirely different reason. Her pansy-dark eyes actually beamed a sparkling form of thanks at Michael.
“Well, I’m perfectly ready to buy the Tower,” she announced. “... If Mr. Urquhart is willing to sell,” she added, glancing up at Alaine’s dark and suddenly rather aloof face. “If he isn’t, well, I suppose there is some sort of a compromise we could arrive at.”
“You mean you might rent it furnished for a while?” Camilla put in, as if determined that something along those lines should clinch the matter.
“Perhaps.”
Judy smiled at her without either friendliness or liking in her smile.
Alaine suddenly freed his arm from Judy’s clutching hold and walked several feet away from her until he reached an angle of the parapet. Leaning on it as if to admire a different and possibly favourite aspect of the view, he spoke curtly:
“Urquhart Tower is neither for sale nor to let furnished,” he remarked with great distinctness, and a touch, also, of finality. He glanced upwards at the deepening turquoise of the sky—in that latitude it sometimes never dissolved into the deep purple of night throughout the whole twenty-four hours, but remained as if dawn was not far off even when highlighted with stars and a climbing moon—and suggested that the ladies might like to return to the drawing-room as it was growing cool.
“The sun has been down now for about half an hour,” he said.
Miss Greystoke turned away from the parapet with a sigh of regret.
“Ah, well, I suppose we have to be sensible ... And I am used to a warm climate,” shivering in her thin dress. “But, like Miss Macrae, I shall never forget the Tower of Urquhart. I don’t suppose we shall ever really forget it once we leave here,” and her eyes were on Alaine’s back as he moved ahead of them.
Judy, when they reached the head of the flight of corkscrew stairs, made a determined effort to repossess herself of Alaine’s arm, but without appearing in the slightest degree rude or desirous of administering a snub he stood aside until the entire party had had the opportunity to precede him down the stairs, and as Amanda was the one who lagged behind—she was the only one, in fact, who had admired the view in silence from the roof-top—it was behind her that he eventually fell into step, although she exhibited every symptom of intending to be the last to leave.
“If you find it difficult to tear yourself away you must come up here again,” he said, a whimsical gleam in his eyes as they met hers. “In fact, you must come up here whenever you feel like it. Only be careful of these stairs, because they’re dangerous!”
Possibly the way he looked at her affected her in some curious way; or else she was momentarily careless and made no allowance for the dimness of the staircase after the lingering light on the roof ... but, whatever the cause, she very nearly proved him right before the words had hardly left his lips. Groping for the next step, she missed it, reached for the handrail blindly, missed that, and only the merciful intervention of Providence in the shape of Alaine’s steel-strong right hand prevented her catapulting down the stairs and landing on the hard stone floor of the first landing with a thud that must have broken some of her bones, at least.
When she realised what had very nearly happened to her she felt as if her heart stopped for a moment in retrospective fright. She even felt sick for a moment as she contemplated the shadowy depths below her ... And then the feel of Alaine’s fingers refusing to release the upper portion of her bare arm gave her confidence and banished the sickening fear, and she looked round and up at him gratefully and gasped:
“Thank you! I can’t imagine what I was thinking about...”
“I can,” he returned, a little strangely. In the gloom his dark eyes were holding hers, and by this time his arm was firmly about her should
ers, gripping them strongly. “But it doesn’t matter what preoccupied you for a moment. The thing is that you might have plunged to your death!”
“It would have been my own fault,” she said shakily.
“Whether or not it would have been your fault is not the point. Forget what I said to you just now about coming up here whenever you please. I strongly forbid you to come up here at any time unless I’m with you!”
Her lips parted to say something, but no words came. She nodded her head.
When they reached the drawing-room the rest of Alaine’s guests, including his aunt, had all disposed themselves comfortably in the shabby but comfortable chairs. Judy was looking a trifle sullen, as if the trip to the roof had not entirely pleased her, and when the host and Amanda entered the room she looked up at once and spoke sharply and almost peremptorily to Amanda.
“Go upstairs and fetch me a handkerchief, there’s a dear,” she said”... without sounding in the least as if she looked upon Amanda as a dear at all. “I put one ready to slip into my bag before dinner but forgot it. You’ll find it on my dressing-table.”
“If you want your handkerchief I’m afraid you’ll have to go and get it yourself,” Alaine prevented Amanda from answering by saying smoothly. “Miss Wells slipped just now on the stairs to the roof and I’m afraid she still feels a bit shaken, I recommend a sip of brandy...”
“Oh, no!” Amanda exclaimed, and Judy’s eyebrows arched. “How careless!” she remarked coldly.
“Not careless, but the simplest thing in the world if you’re not concentrating as much as is absolutely necessary on those stairs,” Alaine contradicted her with equal coolness.
Judy was obviously both affronted and taken aback. “But I managed them,” she protested. “I managed them, and I’m still suffering from the effects of a sprained ankle!”
Bride of Alaine Page 9
