Moreton's Kingdom

by Jean S. MacLeod

  Katherine busied herself with the ridiculous non-essentials of rearranging the cushions on the settee and flicking imaginary dust from the highly-polished surface of the tables while he looked about him at the changes she had made in a room which had once been austere, smiling a little when he saw the flowers in the kitchen bowl which was all she could find.

  ‘I’ve made a start,’ she said breathlessly, indicating the copy of The Scotsman which lay folded on the side table. ‘There are plenty of situations vacant when you look for them and I’ve phoned my name in to an agency.’

  ‘Even though a job as a secretary may be the very last thing you want?’ She felt his hands strong on her shoulders as he turned her round to face him. ‘Look at me, Kate,’ he commanded. ‘Almost the last time I saw you you said you were in love.’

  As the hot colour of embarrassment flooded into her cheeks she could no longer look away from his demanding eyes.

  ‘I was angry—’ she began.

  ‘Do you have to be angry to say you love me?’ His tone was slightly amused as he let his arms slip round her, drawing her strongly towards him. ‘Say it again, Kate,’ he commanded, ‘so that I can be sure it’s true.’

  She stood quite still, hardly believing that all this was really happening, having to convince herself that Charles was asking for her love instead of telling her to go. Then, because she hadn’t answered him, he swept her into his arms, kissing her with a passion which seemed to shake him to the foundations of his being. No cold, disdainful kisses these, but kisses full of promise and hope.

  ‘I thought you’d never believe me about Coralie,’ she whispered, at last. ‘I thought you’d never want to see me again.’

  He held her close.

  ‘I don’t think we need to worry about Coralie any more,’ he said, his lips close against her hair. ‘It didn’t take me long after you came to Glassary to realise how different you were, though I’d misjudged you at first. There was nothing hard about you, although you had every right to tell me what you thought about me. I behaved pretty badly,’ he admitted, ‘but Sandy means a lot to us at Glassary. We knew Coralie would cheat again when she felt like it, but I was determined to bring Sandy back for my brother’s sake. I owe Fergus my life, you see. He wouldn’t be like he is now if he hadn’t pulled me out of a blazing plane and been caught in the wreckage as it blew up.’ His arms tightened as his thoughts slid into the past. ‘I thought he was in love with you when you first came to the glen, and that seemed to be the answer to a good many things until that day on the moor when we were caught by the mist. I knew then that I wanted you more than anything in the world, only there was Fergus. You were kind and helpful and he could so easily have fallen in love after all he’d been through, so it was up to me to stand aside.’

  ‘He’d fallen in love long before that,’ Katherine whispered. ‘Didn’t you know about Emma?’

  He kissed her forehead.

  ‘It’s funny how we all took Emma for granted,’ he said. ‘She’s always been “the girl next door” and it’s amazing how blind you can be when you try to convince yourself that you’re not interested in love.’ He looked over her head at the tidy room. ‘I suppose someone has told you about Deirdre?’ he asked.

  ‘I found her photograph,’ Katherine admitted, stirring in his arms. ‘It was in one of the bedroom drawers. Afterwards I wondered why you’d kept it hidden away there for so long.’

  ‘To remind me,’ he said harshly. ‘I spent three years regretting Deirdre, wishing we’d never met yet half believing I was still in love with her. Then, when I knew there were no scars left, I hung on to her portrait as a reminder of how treacherous a woman could be.’

  She held him back from her a little.

  ‘I knew you thought that when we first met,’ she told him gently. ‘There was a guarded look about you, that vague contempt, but it wasn’t fair to judge everyone by a first disappointment. It was natural enough, I suppose,’ she conceded, ‘when you found I had taken Sandy because you had only Coralie and Deirdre to judge me by, but now—but now all that doesn’t matter! I can’t believe I’m here in your arms and we’ve found each other at last!’

  ‘For good,’ he said tenderly. ‘Coralie phoned Fergus yesterday, by the way,’ he added as he led her through the hall towards the flat door, ‘offering to abide by the letter of the law. If she sees Sandy occasionally she’ll be content and she’ll have a successful career into the bargain,’ he added dryly.

  ‘She came here to say much the same thing to me,’ Katherine admitted. ‘Only she was really concerned about the decision she’d made. She was still not convinced that it was the right one and she was almost in tears because she wasn’t sure. She had tried to work it out, but I think she knew in the end that her career had to come first.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if she knew that in the beginning,’ Charles said uncharitably. ‘She made Fergus’s life a veritable hell with her indecisions and after Sandy was born she didn’t want to know.’

  ‘She loved him,’ Katherine protested. ‘She must have loved her own child.’

  ‘One part of her may have done, but it wasn’t her major concern,’ he decided. ‘She was obsessed by success even before she married Fergus, but it was love at first sight as far as he was concerned and they married within a month of meeting each other. Then, when Sandy was born, Coralie found out what she’d done. She’d sold her precious freedom down the river, and that was more than she could take. She’s tremendously talented—I’m not arguing against that—but she could have seen Fergus through his particular ordeal before she went off to indulge herself elsewhere.’

  ‘I wish it could have worked out better for you all.’ They had halted beside the stack of unsold paintings. ‘The exhibition has been a—sort of compensation for Fergus, hasn’t it? And Emma has done well, too.’

  ‘She’s elated in her own quiet way,’ Charles agreed.

  ‘Coralie saw them together at the gallery when Fergus came back there with Sandy from the Zoo. I think that’s what finally sealed her decision,’ Katherine said. ‘She saw him happy and contented, a normal little boy in a caring atmosphere where he could grow up without complications. It must have been very difficult for her, Charles, and it’s something we have to understand.’

  ‘It’s going to take me quite a while,’ he admitted, ‘but meantime I have to get this lot back to Glassary.’ He looked down at the paintings. ‘Where have you left your car?’

  ‘Just round the corner.’ She watched as he sorted out the canvases. ‘Did you come by air?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I flew down with the Cessna.’ His mouth lifted in a one-sided smile. ‘I was short of time.’

  ‘Then I can drive you to the airport?’

  ‘That was the idea,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll go ahead with this lot and you can follow with the others. I’d offer you lunch,’ he added as she opened the door, ‘but private aircraft, no matter how small, cost money while they’re standing on a municipal airstrip.’

  She thought of his swift transition to the glen, longing to go with him, but he had said so little about the future. Just that he loved her and her thoughts had stopped there. It was almost as if the whole world had stopped revolving while he had kissed her without restraint and she had responded as eagerly to his ardent caress.

  He passed her on the stairs coming back up.

  ‘Is that the lot?’ he asked.

  ‘Everything except my personal belongings,’ she agreed. ‘My case was already packed when Coralie appeared.’

  Charles made no reply to that, but when he came down to join her in the foyer he was carrying her suitcase and her coat. Apparently he didn’t want her to go back to the flat.

  Some of the radiance faded from her eyes.

  ‘I’ll get my handbag,’ she said, ‘and the keys.’

  She had already given him the key of her car and when she went back to the flat she allowed herself a few minutes to say goodbye. She had been hap
py here working so closely with such dedicated spirits as Emma and Fergus and feeling that she was gradually coming to understand Charles in spite of their initial misunderstanding.

  The bedroom door was slightly ajar and she noticed that one of the drawers in the dressing-chest had been opened. Crossing to it automatically, she realised that it was the drawer in which she had buried Deirdre’s photograph among all the tissue paper, but now the drawer was empty. All the other drawers were as she had left them, so she could only conclude that Charles had taken the photograph of his former love to dispose of it in some other way.

  Her car was drawn up at the kerb when she closed the outer door behind her, feeling that she had shut it on a dark track of Charles’s life.

  ‘I’m not going to need a taxi, after all,’ he said. ‘I’ve got everything into the boot and we can put the rest on the back seat.’

  ‘I see you’re going to drive,’ she smiled as he remained behind the steering-wheel. ‘Surely you can trust me!’

  ‘Implicitly! But I have my reservations about being driven by a woman. Besides,’ he added, smiling broadly, ‘this is a first-class kidnapping. I can’t afford to let you slip through my fingers a second time.’

  ‘Charles!’ Her heart was beating very fast as she got in beside him. ‘Does it mean you want me to come to Glassary?’

  ‘It means I’m taking you to Glassary,’ he said, letting in the clutch. ‘Where else? I told you it was a first-class kidnapping!’

  ‘You can’t call it that when the victim is so eager to go!’ Katherine put a hand on his arm. ‘Oh, Charles, it’s so difficult for me to believe! I should have had a little more time.’

  ‘Time doesn’t exist,’ he said. ‘Not when you’re thinking of a timeless future. Have you ever flown in a small plane before?’

  ‘Never.’ She felt quite breathless. ‘I’ve a notion I might be terrified!’

  ‘You can hold on to my arm!’

  They left her car in the airport parking lot when they had packed everything in the Cessna and Charles had completed the necessary formalities before take-off. Dwarfed by the giant jet-propelled aircraft waiting to travel to the farthest corners of the earth, the little blue-and-white plane looked like a hovering bird as they taxied down the runway, but soon they were airborne and flying into the sun. Katherine felt the lift as the wheels left the tarmac and the magic of the first moment of flight as the earth dwindled beneath them and the Pentland Hills became no more than a ruffle on its surface, and then they were leaving the blue expanse of the Firth behind them and travelling west along the line of the river with the smoke of industry far beneath them and the mountains of the north and west directly ahead.

  ‘Coming home must always be like this for you, Charles,’ she said, aware of the keenness in him as he looked down on a wide strath between the soaring peaks.

  ‘I wanted you to see it like this,’ he said, turning towards her. ‘You’re not nervous?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘It’s going to be over all too soon,’ she declared. ‘It’s lovely to look down on the world like this.’

  ‘Our world,’ he corrected as he pointed out the narrow ribbon of Loch Earn glittering in the sun, with the white sails of little yachts dotting its surface like resting birds. ‘We’ll soon be home.’

  ‘It’s like being on a magic carpet,’ she said fancifully as they glided close to the mountainsides, finding their way from glen to glen, and then there was another stretch of water and another glen before she realised that they were gliding slowly down to land.

  ‘It’s over so soon,’ she regretted. ‘Look! I can see Glassary and the loch! I can even see the Stable House and the road over the bridge!’

  Charles circled to bring it all in close.

  ‘Do you think you could stay here for the rest of your life?’ he asked quietly. ‘It wouldn’t be a prison, Kate, or even a fortress, as you once imagined. It would be a life apart, dedicated to Glassary, but the outside world wouldn’t be so far away. You can see for yourself how quickly we’ve come from Edinburgh. You would never need to feel—restricted or left out in any way. Even by car it’s a short enough journey and there’s always plenty to do.’

  She leaned forward to put her hand over his.

  ‘Don’t make excuses for Glassary,’ she said gently. ‘I’ll always love it, and besides, there’ll be Emma and Sandy and Fergus—and so many people I have yet to meet.’ Before he set the controls for the short approach down the glen he said:

  ‘I’ve got some news for you, come to think of it! Emma and Fergus will be married just as soon as Mrs. Falkland can get extra help in the hotel. It will be a very quiet affair,’ he added, ‘but you and I will have to be prepared for something quite different, Kate. We owe the glen a pukka wedding with all the trimmings, I’m afraid.’ He held her hand to his lips. ‘Will you mind very much?’

  ‘I’d even do that for Glassary!’ she smiled, kissing his cheek as his eyes narrowed in concentration for the final approach to the narrow grass runway beside the loch. ‘I’d do anything for you both.’

  The little plane touched down, bumping to a standstill at the very edge of the loch and Sandy came running from the Stable House with Emma and Fergus in his wake.

  ‘Welcome home!’ said Fergus, though a breathless Sandy had reached them first. ‘Welcome home to Glassary!’