Moreton's Kingdom

by Jean S. MacLeod

  ‘When you’re ready,’ said Charles, looking down the table to where she sat. ‘I can hear Sandy chafing at the bit out there on the terrace, waiting for us.’

  The child’s clear, resonant voice reached them through an open window, wondering how long they would be, and Mrs. Stevas answering him.

  ‘You must have patience, Sandy. You’ll have all the time in the world to ride Fudge from now on.’

  Katherine got hastily to her feet.

  ‘He’s so eager to go,’ she said.

  Charles had said that the pony was kept at the Stable House and the house itself was a reasonable ride away. How far? she wondered, shrugging into her coat which had been left in the hall.

  They went along the edge of the loch by a well-defined path which wandered through a shrubbery of rhododendrons and azaleas in full bloom, a breathtaking glow of vivid colour which she had glimpsed from the window of her bedroom when she had first looked out.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said as they walked along. ‘Just beautiful!’

  ‘I think so,’ he admitted. ‘It was planned by my grandmother when she came to Glassary as a bride and she made it her life’s work. Every shrub and tree had its individual place so that she could see them all reflected in the loch on a clear day.’

  ‘Like today!’ said Katherine, drawing in a deep breath of the pine-laden air. ‘It’s—almost perfect.’

  ‘But you qualify the perfection,’ he said, looking down at her as Sandy skipped ahead of them.

  ‘I was thinking of freedom,’ she answered. ‘Sandy seems to have it now.’

  ‘It’s his by right.’ Charles’s tone was grim. ‘No one but Coralie would wish to deny him all this.’

  He looked about him with pride, and Katherine could only agree with him, thinking that if she had come to Glassary in different circumstances she would have loved it as he did.

  The Stable House stood at the edge of the loch reflected in the mirror-like surface of a tiny bay. It was long and low, with an open stone staircase at one end, giving access to a sizeable loft whose windows looked back to Glassary through the trees. The corresponding windows on the lower floor were all open, suggesting that someone worked there for most of the day in ideal conditions if he happened to be an artist.

  Fergus Moreton came to the open door of the house in a wheelchair. The impact of his handicap was something she had not expected, but she had been forewarned by his brother not to show pity. Dressed in shabby jeans and a rough brown shirt, Fergus was small and bearded, with dark, sombre eyes and dark hair growing thickly on a well-shaped head. Younger than Charles by several years, he looked the elder of the two, the brown eyes haunted by a memory.

  Sandy ran towards him, arms outstretched.

  ‘Daddy!’ he cried, ‘I’ve come back!’

  It seemed minutes before the words penetrated Katherine’s mind. Fergus, and not Charles, was Sandy’s father! The possibility had never occurred to her, because Charles’s own attitude to Coralie had been so harsh and it had been Charles, after all, who had come to London in search of her.

  Looking at Fergus now she knew why. Quite apart from his physical disability, he wouldn’t have it in his nature to persecute anyone, she thought.

  In the first few minutes of their meeting his whole attention was centred on his son, caressing him with his eyes while his hand fumbled with the fair curls which must have reminded him of Coralie, but presently he looked up at his other visitors, at the brother who owed him so much and the girl who had returned his child to him, unwittingly though it may have been.

  ‘Will you come in?’ he asked, looking straight at Katherine. ‘You’ve had a long walk.’

  Charles led the way into the house which had been converted from an old stable block, and Katherine thought how homely Fergus had made it look. Flagged with stone hewn from the surrounding hills, the entrance hall was long and narrow with the main rooms opening out of it at the far end. The one they entered was square and low-raftered and dominated by a huge stone fireplace where logs glowed warmly between ancient iron dogs and an ample skin rug covered the floor. Deep, comfortable-looking armchairs covered in cream linen flanked the fireplace and were repeated here and there in the room beside polished tables which mostly held books. Books that were read, Katherine thought, from cover to cover and sometimes again and again.

  Fergus had propelled his chair down the hall in their wake, and now he produced a tray with drinks on it: orange juice for Sandy and a home-made concoction for his brother and their guest.

  ‘It’s elderberry wine,’ he explained to Katherine. ‘We make it every autumn, enough to last a year. If you don’t like it I’ll get you some tea, though there’s nothing much to eat except biscuits.’

  ‘We had an excellent lunch,’ Katherine assured him, accepting the glass he offered, ‘but this looks delicious.’ Obviously Fergus had abandoned the Stable House as a home to live in, returning each evening to Glassary, where he had been born, but he had been determined to retain a presence there with his work. Through an open door she could see a studio and the untidy clutter of a cultured man who had come to terms with the life he was now forced to live, glad of the work he was still able to do and the friends he had kept.

  ‘You stayed with the Falklands last night,’ he said to Charles. ‘How are they? Did they send any message?’

  ‘Morag did more than that,’ his brother assured him. ‘She sent you a jar of honey, and Emma promised to pay us a visit as soon as she could.’

  ‘She’s the busy one,’ Fergus mused. ‘Always with something to do, though I think she should widen her horizons a bit. We’ve spoken about a shared exhibition in Edinburgh one of these days, but I can’t pin her down to a definite date so far. She’s a clever artist, but she just seems to be content where she is.’

  ‘Maybe that’s all she wants,’ Charles suggested. ‘She has a full life with her sculpture and the hotel.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Fergus said thoughtfully, ‘but sometimes I think she would be wise to look for more. She has a tremendous talent, you know, something that should be shared with a wider and maybe more appreciative public.’

  ‘You should talk!’ said Charles, standing beside his chair. ‘Hiding your own light under a bushel as you do!’

  Fergus smiled at Katherine.

  ‘My brother is prejudiced,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps you would let me see your paintings,’ she suggested tentatively. ‘I’m quite sure they’re good.’

  Fergus hesitated, a look in his candid brown eyes which she found difficult to meet.

  ‘They’re average,’ he said. ‘But come and see.’

  Sandy took his hand.

  ‘Can I ride Fudge?’ he asked. ‘He must be tired waiting for me.’

  Charles ruffled his hair.

  ‘I’ll saddle him up for you,’ he offered.

  Katherine was left alone with his brother, not in the least disconcerted by his handicap. Fergus propelled the invalid chair as easily as he would have walked beside her, leading the way into the studio to show her where he worked for most of the day. It held all the essentials of his art, paints and brushes and easels propped against the walls, some with completed pictures on them waiting to be varnished, others supporting boards ready for use. One huge canvas caught her eye. It was a picture of the loch on a winter’s day in subtle shades of grey and blue with snow capping the surrounding hills and one ray of pale sunshine escaping between the clouds. Somehow it seemed symbolic of this man’s life, and she felt quick tears stinging at the back of her eyes as she looked at him. Fergus had come up behind her and was assessing his masterpiece over her shoulder.

  ‘It’s Glassary in one of its less generous moods,’ he explained.

  ‘When everything seemed dark,’ she said.

  ‘Sandy was the one ray of sunlight.’ He moved across the room. ‘Perhaps I was too possessive, but how are we to know?’

  ‘You must have loved Coralie very much—’

  ‘
Yes,’ he said when she hesitated. ‘I was shattered when she had to go, but now I know that it was more or less inevitable. She had her own life to lead and she couldn’t hope for the fulfilment she wanted here at Glassary. I was confined to my wheelchair,’ he added. ‘It was—constricting for us both.’

  ‘But Coralie—’ Katherine pulled up short of saying what she thought this time.

  ‘Coralie was talented in so many ways,’ he said. ‘She had a duty to follow her particular star.’

  But no right, Katherine thought, aware that she was seeing Coralie in an entirely new light.

  ‘We’ve all got to have the courage to make our own decisions, though I couldn’t see it at the time,’ said Fergus.

  ‘And Charles can’t accept it even now!’

  ‘Don’t blame him too much.’ Fergus turned to the far side of the studio where the north light flooded through the windows. ‘He had reasons of his own.’

  ‘He’s dedicated to this place,’ Katherine said.

  ‘Can you blame him? If I had been the heir to Glassary I would have felt the same.’

  ‘Why has he never married?’

  Fergus drew a deep breath.

  ‘For a good many reasons,’ he said. ‘But I think he will, in time.’

  Without actually snubbing her, he had brought their conversation to a close. He would not discuss his brother’s reason for remaining a bachelor, even if he did know it.

  ‘I’ve often wished I could paint,’ Katherine said. ‘There’s so much to be said besides the obvious things.’

  ‘Is that what you discovered looking at “A Shaft of Sunlight”?’ He nodded towards the canvas on the far wall. ‘Emma sees beneath the surface, too, but she hadn’t much to say about “Shaft”. You met her, of course?’

  Katherine nodded.

  ‘Under difficult circumstances, I’m afraid,’ she suggested. ‘You know why I’m here?’

  ‘Because Charles felt you were helping Coralie.’

  Her gaze was locked on his.

  ‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘You’re Sandy’s father.’ He nodded.

  ‘I don’t hold you responsible for what happened,’ he said slowly. ‘Coralie and I are to blame. I needed Sandy, though, but Coralie may have needed him more than we did. We had the legal right to keep him at Glassary.’

  She looked at him askance.

  ‘You mean you had full custody?’ she asked incredulously.

  ‘Oh, yes. There was never any question about that. It was part of the legal settlement.’

  ‘And the reason why Charles was so determined to have him back, why he came to London in search of him.’

  ‘What else could we do?’ Fergus gripped the arms of his chair, his eyes remote. ‘I couldn’t go myself. You see that, of course.’

  Katherine nodded.

  ‘Coralie—I thought that Charles was trying to kidnap him,’ she amended.

  ‘Why would he do that?’ Fergus asked. ‘Coralie had reasonable access to him, but she refused to part with him after the allotted time. It was my ex-wife who was doing the kidnapping, but I find that an ugly word to use. If I thought Sandy would fare better in her keeping I would let him go, but alas, I don’t. I believe he’ll lead a better life here at Glassary, where he belongs.’

  It was also what Charles believed. The fact that Coralie had lied to her as well as tricking her into helping her shocked and angered her, but it was really what Charles thought that mattered. He still believed her capable of aiding and abetting his sister-in-law, and he was not so generous as Fergus seemed to be. He would never believe that she had been tricked, because she had seemed more than willing to help, and she had accused him mercilessly while she still believed him to be Sandy’s father. He would not be able to forget that, however she tried to explain it away.

  ‘I wish there was some easy solution,’ she said to the man beside her. ‘Some logical way out.’

  ‘I’ve wished the same thing many times,’ he confessed, ‘both before and after my accident. We all hope for a painless solution, don’t we? It’s part of our escape mechanism. “Dear Lord, don’t let it happen to me!” I think I’m over the worst of Coralie now, but I can’t be sure. Did you know her very well?’

  ‘I don’t think I really knew her at all,’ Katherine decided.

  He seemed perplexed by her admission.

  ‘Yet you helped to get Sandy away from London. Perhaps you felt that you owed Coralie some kind of debt?’

  ‘I made a promise,’ she said, ‘on the strength of an old infatuation—a schoolgirl crush, if you like—and I’m still not sure what I should have done.’

  ‘You feel that you should keep your promises once they’re given?’

  ‘Something like that,’ she confessed. ‘I feel that Coralie ought to know where Sandy is.’

  ‘Have you been in touch with her since you left London?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ said Katherine. ‘I phoned her flat several times and didn’t get a reply.’

  ‘Was she living alone?’ He seemed impelled to ask the question.

  ‘No. There were two other girls—photographic models, I think. One of them owned the flat and charged the others rent, but they were often away on assignments abroad, I gathered.’

  ‘Do you think that Coralie may have moved out?’ he asked. ‘She was a restless person and there could be another man.’

  The thought hurt; she could see that, realising that he had not quite got over his first love. It was still Coralie as far as he was concerned, although he knew that their marriage was over.

  ‘I don’t think there is,’ she answered truthfully, ‘but she did say something about having to go to New York in the near future.’ Suddenly she remembered that Coralie had gone to the party expecting to meet someone important to her. ‘I wish I could help,’ she added lamely.

  Their eyes met.

  ‘I think you really mean that,’ said Fergus. ‘Anyway, you’ve brought Sandy back, and that’s the main thing. Charles had heard the rumour about New York and we were very worried.’

  He wheeled his chair to the open main door as Charles appeared from behind the shrubbery leading a small piebald pony on which Sandy sat with confidence, sheer joy shining on his chubby little face.

  ‘Look at me!’ he cried when he saw them. ‘I can do it all by myself. Galloping, too!’ Charles had let go of the leading rein and he dug his impatient little heels into the cream-and-brown Bank. ‘Here I go! Watch me!’

  They watched as the pony cantered across the greensward between the house and the lochside, far too wise to gallop at speed with such a precious burden on his back. ‘We’ll make a horseman out of him yet,’ said Charles.

  ‘He’s where he wants to be,’ Fergus decided.

  Katherine saw the grim look on Charles’s face as she turned towards him. He agreed with his brother, but he was also determined that they would never be tricked again.

  Sandy rode the pony to the loch edge and back.

  ‘Leave him with me for a while,’ Fergus suggested. ‘He needs practice, and I can follow him in the chair.’

  It was a concession to his son’s need because he tried to use the electric wheelchair as little as possible, preferring to hobble about with the aid of a stick when he wasn’t going very far. Charles gave the chair a cursory inspection before they moved away.

  ‘He hates it, but it’s the only real mobility he has at present. He perseveres with the stick, but he can’t manage without the chair for very long.’

  Katherine stood looking after Sandy and his father with a lump in her throat as pony and wheelchair disappeared between the trees.

  ‘I wonder why you didn’t tell me,’ she said.

  ‘Tell you what?’ Charles had obviously been thinking of something more important.

  ‘That you weren’t Sandy’s father.’

  His face darkened.

  ‘We didn’t get that far, did we?’ Charles looked back towards the loch where Sandy and his brother could be see
n again on the path beyond the trees, close together now on the wider approach to a small wooden jetty where a rowing-boat lay among the reeds. ‘Fergus is like that because of me,’ he added grimly. ‘He saved my life two years ago, ruining his own. If Coralie had been the right sort of person she would have stood by him, she would still be here—but I expect you’ve heard her side of the story. She couldn’t live with half a man,’ he added bitterly, ‘so she opted for divorce—and freedom.’

  ‘And you can never forget what Fergus did for you,’ Katherine guessed. ‘You’re trying to make amends.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Nothing could ever compensate for what he’s been through,’ he said sternly, ‘so do you wonder that I haven’t time for women like Coralie?’

  ‘Did you give her a chance?’

  He paused, arrested by her question, surprised, perhaps, that she should have asked it.

  ‘More than one,’ he said.

  ‘And you’ll never forgive her.’ It was a statement more than a question, but he answered her.

  ‘No. What she did was unforgivable.’

  It was the sort of uncompromising reply she had expected him to make, and she knew herself cast in the same mould as Coralie in his estimation.

  ‘I thought I knew Coralie very well,’ she said slowly as they walked on, ‘but people change. It’s almost seven years since we were at school together.’

  He looked unimpressed.