Master of Glenkeith

by Jean S. MacLeod

  He glanced at her sharply, realizing that he had never heard Margaret speaking quite so seriously as this before, that they had met in the past mostly on a plane of light banter which had concealed their deeper and more personal feelings.

  Fleetingly he wondered what his real feelings were for this girl whom he had known all his life. She was his cousin—his full cousin—but somewhere at the back of his mind he recognized a difference, a reservation, perhaps, as if the blood ties were not the only ones that had bound them together during the past few years.

  “I’m taking you to the airport,” Margaret said in lighter vein as he relieved her of the egg basket and carried it towards the house for her. “Don’t dare to try to put your foot down on that one, Drew! It means a day in Aberdeen for me, which I’m not likely to get for some time after you come back.”

  He supposed that she meant that her mother would find a child in the house a disadvantage, creating more work and causing a reversal of some of Hester’s carefully-planned routine, and for the first time he wondered how closely the changes would touch his own life.

  She packed his grip for him and drove the brake to Dyce with the quiet confidence which was an essential part of her make-up, but Andrew could not imbibe the peace of Margaret on that gentle August day. For the first time in his life he was out of tune with his surroundings as they journeyed along the familiar Dee-side road, past Balmoral and Crathie and Ballater, with green Culbleen and “Morven of the Snows” smiling down at them and the deep glens and their silences pressing close on every side.

  “You’ll not be away long,” Margaret said, but thereafter she felt tongue-tied and inadequate, unable to offer him the help he needed because of some strange new quality of deepening reserve which had fallen between them in the past forty-eight hours.

  If Andrew was suddenly seeing life through a glass, darkly, she also was confused and uncertain about the future, and as the plane took off and rose into the blue above her head she strained her eyes to watch the window in the long silver fuselage where he had settled for the beginning of his journey.

  He waved and she waved back, but there was a sudden sinking at her heart as she stood there. The plane rose and circled and flew southwards until there was nothing left for her to see but a diminishing black speck against the sky, and finally she turned away with a sigh.

  There were so many tangled webs at Glenkeith, and hers among the rest!

  CHAPTER II

  ANDREW reached Rome in a fine drizzle of rain so different from anything he had expected that he came to the conclusion that the element of surprise was never very far removed in life. It was, in fact, a constant factor, and here he was in Italy to prove it, bowling swiftly down the length of the Corso on a humid August afternoon in a ramshackle taxi whose interior smelled strongly of garlic and whose driver sang lustily between bouts of good-natured abuse hurled at his fellow countrymen as they

  sped across the road almost beneath his wheels.

  Melancholy, Andrew recognized, had no part in the Latin character. In spite of the rain which had swept across the airfield from the Sabine Mountains, there had been smiles everywhere and a ready courtesy which had passed him swiftly through the Customs and found him the taxi in next to no time. It was not till he was within sight and sound of the city, however, that he had recognized the persistent suggestion of adventure which had been with him most of the way.

  In spite of his irritation, in spite of the fact that there was so much waiting for him to do at Glenkeith, he was conscious of a curious sort of fulfilment in coming here, a broadening and expansion of the mind, perhaps, as his grandfather had suggested.

  Yet there would be little time to gaze at Rome. He had promised to return to Glenkeith as soon as possible, and at any moment now he would have the added responsibility of a child on his hands.

  He looked through the window, seeing the white marble buildings on either side of the wide, straight highway like a colossal wall closing him in, and suddenly he gripped the open frame, as if he would escape before it was too late.

  The gesture irritated him. What he was doing was a duty, a job of work, he assured himself. It would soon be over and he would be back at Glenkeith and everything would be the same.

  The taxi turned off the main thoroughfare and went in under an archway to trundle down a narrow street with an ancient pavement of cobbles, and he thought that nowhere else in the world must there be such a pomp of gates and walls and towers and columns soaring like steeples into the sky.

  If he had come to Rome for any other reason he would have walked the streets until he was exhausted, drinking in the wealth of beauty that was her past, treading back along the years to those ancient days when one man, robed in purple on the Palatine, was a god on earth and swayed the destiny of half the world. The grandeur of ancient Rome had always fascinated him as a boy, although he knew nothing of its art, but he was in Rome only for a day.

  Hastily, he glanced at his watch as the taxi drew up at the approach to a narrower archway which he supposed was his destination. It was twenty minutes past three.

  “Signor!” the driver announced, leaning back from the wheel to address him through the half-open screen. “The Via Media!”

  Andrew paid him and went in under the arch, finding himself in what was obviously a poor quarter of the city in spite of its close proximity to the almost fabulous Corso. It seemed respectable enough, however. The rain had slackened a little and the sun had thrust its way through the canopy of grey cloud above the city, raising little spirals of steam from the paving stones as he walked across them.

  The street was numbered the opposite way from the arch and he was soon to discover that there was a happy-go-lucky inconformity about the numbers, presumably because the larger mansions of what had once been a good residential quarter had been divided up into numerous flats. He hesitated about asking advice in a neighbourhood where English might be quite unknown and walked doggedly on. He had no knowledge of Italian, but had allowed himself to be buoyed up by the hope that Signor Zanetti’s English might at least be as fluent as his written effort which had started him on the journey from Glenkeith.

  When he thought of Glenkeith it seemed very far away, yet, curiously enough, the thought of his grandfather was in no way remote. The old man seemed to march beside him along the worn cobbles with all the determination of his Celtic nature uppermost, brooking no delay in the carrying out of his plan, suffering no slightest excuse to deflect him from his purpose.

  At the far end of the street he came to a second archway and was almost swept bodily off his feet by the impact of a group of children set free by the cessation of the rain to run headlong into the enclosed piazza which was an ideal playground. They were young and brown and boisterous, like most children of their age, and in their midst ran a slim, tall child, older than them yet in some strange, undefinable way at one with them.

  Andrew found himself looking at the girl longer than he should have done. With her short, wind-blown hair framing a pointed oval face, there was something almost gamine in her appearance, an urchin-like quality that suited her and the circumstances in which he had run up against her, but when he looked directly into her eyes for one fleeting moment in passing he felt disconcerted, almost stunned. They were wide and dark, with a violet blueness in their depths which surprised him to the verge of shock. They seemed to hold the suggestion of some deeper quality which the laughing mouth belied.

  A creature of unexpected passions, he mused. A child hesitating on the threshold of womanhood.

  The conflicting thought followed him through the arch and up a broken flight of stone steps to a dilapidated villa smothered in creepers which had been broken up into several dwellings reached by a narrow stone balcony running round three sides of the central courtyard.

  Doors lay wide open and a line of washing was fast drying in the strengthening sun. There was no wind in this secluded spot and the general effect was that of an oven, with the steam rising li
ke a grey curtain from the wide paving stones.

  Andrew approached a circular flight of stone stairs leading to the balcony. It was guarded by an iron railing over which a busy housewife was beginning to throw her rugs, but she hesitated and disappeared through the open doorway behind her as she saw the stranger approaching.

  Damn! Andrew thought explosively. This is going to be difficult.

  He supposed that he was on the right track. The Villa Rosa, of all names! It bore the number that had appeared at the top of Signor Zanetti’s letter, however, and at least he could produce Luigi’s signature to lead him to the end of his quest.

  Suddenly he found himself wondering if the child he sought had been one of the little group which had swept past him in the entrance to the court, and then he turned to find the girl with the dark violet eyes standing a few paces behind him.

  Framed in the ancient stone archway, with a strand of white-starred creeper almost touching her cheek and the soft dark hair that had fallen over her eyes as she had run in pursuit of the children swept backwards from a clear, high brow, she looked different—older somehow. The cut of her dress was nondescript, but it curved over her young, high breasts and clung to the long, slim line of her figure with a certain attractiveness which Andrew sensed rather than saw, and her eyes were smiling now, gently and challengingly, as she looked at him.

  “Are you Mr. Meldrum?” she asked in a firm, clear voice that bore only the slightest trace of an accent. “Luigi said that you would come.”

  Taken completely aback, Andrew could do nothing but stare at her for a full and uncomprehending second before she spoke again.

  “I am Tessa Halliday. Luigi said that he had written to Scotland and that Mr. Meldrum’s son would come to fetch me.”

  “His grandson,” Andrew corrected, feeling completely at a loss to cope with the situation. “I am—your guardian’s grandson.”

  She was looking at him now with her head on one side, the dark-lashed violet eyes considering him with deepening interest until her smile flashed out, widening the too-generous mouth and setting the seal of an urchin cheerfulness upon her without the shadow of a doubt.

  “I knew you would come!” she said. “I knew it was going to be all right.”

  He felt awkward and decidedly uneasy standing there with the thought of Glenkeith flashing through his mind, but at that moment a small, rotund figure appeared in the doorway above them and Luigi Zanetti waddled down the steps to bid him welcome to Rome.

  “I have told Tessa that you would come quite soon!” he beamed, holding out his plump hand. “And all day she is excited to know when it will be! Every time there is a cab come into the street she must run out for fear it will pass and you not knowing the way you are to come to the Villa Rosa!” He fussed round his visitor, leading the way up the steps, which were now alive with children. “Ah! the leetle ones, they are everywhere!” he said, his dark eyes glowing in his round perspiring face as he picked two of the youngest up in his arms and allowed a third to ride pick-a-back on his shoulders. “Never do you go anywhere in Italy where there are not a lot of children making a lot of noise, but always they are laughing!”

  His own laugh was so infectious that Andrew found himself smiling in return, although he was all the while conscious of some cataclysmic event marching inexorably towards its destined end.

  Luigi ushered him into the nearest flat.

  “Ben venuto, Signori,” he said. “It is not much, but it is my home!”

  They entered a big, untidy room full of the smell of cooking and hung with children’s clothes. The small Zanettis had obviously been out in the rain before they had been stripped and put to bed for the midday siesta, and as yet the big bed in one corner of the room was unmade. A table in another corner was set for a meal, and Andrew noticed with relief that everything on it was scrupulously clean, from the lace-edged cloth, which was no doubt kept for christenings and other special occasions, to the last cup and saucer of motley design which adorned it.

  “You will stay and eat with us?” Signor Zanetti invited, and Andrew was conscious of his own refusal like a cold douche of water flung in the face of impulsive kindness.

  “I shall have to find an hotel,” he explained.

  “You can go to your hotel afterwards.” The voice behind him was eager in its youthful insistency. “I will take you. It is not very far. There are many hotels on the

  Corso from which to choose.”

  Her English was perfect. Andrew found himself looking at Tessa and realizing for the first time that it was only natural, since she had a Scottish grandmother and a mother who had accepted Scotland as her place of adoption, and, presumably, an English father.

  The thought of Veronique struck him like a blow between the eyes and he realized for the first time that here was Veronique’s daughter, no more the product of the Italian scene than he was himself, but a strange, wilful mixture of nationalities that might so easily lead him astray.

  Not that he would have anything to do with her once they reached Glenkeith, he assured himself. He knew that she must be older by far than she looked and far older than he had expected. He smiled grimly to himself when he thought that he had come to Rome expecting to find a child.

  “I have arranged that we will fly back,” he said, turning to her stiffly. “I have booked seats on a plane leaving the day after to-morrow, if that is not too great a rush for you. The fact is that I have little time to spare. We are a farming community at Glenkeith and we should be getting in the harvest.”

  He had not sought to spare her the knowledge of his impatience. Something in him wanted to strike back for the shock she had given him when they had first met, for the fact that she had grown to woman’s estate almost before his eyes, and he saw her face sober a little as she turned away.

  “I could have come with you at once,” she told him with a dignity he had not expected in anyone so young. “I am ready. Everything I have is packed, waiting.”

  Evidently she had taken them for granted. A more generous estimation of the situation might have suggested that Tessa had faith in their kindness, but Andrew had thrust generosity from him at the memory of Veronique. This, he reminded himself, was Veronique’s daughter, and what was bred in the bone showed in the flesh, didn’t it?

  He watched as she put the finishing touches to the table in Signora Zanetti’s absence, her hands sensitive as those of an artist going about the everyday task with a swiftness which might be appreciated at Glenkeith if Hester MacDonald could sink her prejudices against the mother.

  Andrew drew his thoughts up there, realizing that he had no right to demand from others what he could not give himself, and during the meal which followed he kept his eyes deliberately averted from those sensitive hands, as if they might be capable of telling him much that he was not willing to learn.

  The buxom Signora Zanetti had come from an inner room to be introduced before they sat down, but she had no knowledge of English and could only smile and nod brightly as her contribution to the conversation.

  When the meal was over Andrew sat with Luigi on the narrow balcony while Tessa and Signora Zanetti washed up at the sink in another corner of the room. A great wooden platter of fruit and a flask of red wine were set on the little iron table at Andrew’s elbow, but neither Tessa nor Signora Zannetti joined them while they smoked.

  Luigi explained to Andrew that Veronique’s second husband had been an English artist who had come to Rome because of his health and also because of the atmosphere it afforded for his art. They had been neighbours in the Villa Rosa for twenty years and Tessa had been born there eighteen years ago and had grown up with Luigi’s children because Roger Halliday had never quite made the grade with his painting. He had sold the odd canvas now and then to tourists and supplemented his living by driving other tourists along the coast to Naples or Amalfi in Luigi’s decrepit old car which he kept for carting his greengrocery products in from the Campagna, but that could only be spared to him occas
ionally when Luigi himself was not in need of it.

  Andrew smoked in silence, and for the first time in his life it had no power to soothe him. The tobacco had an acrid taste in his mouth and finally he thrust his pipe into his pocket and rose to his feet.

  “I must go now and find an hotel,” he said, looking down into the little Italian’s beaming face. “Will you thank your wife for her hospitality and tell—Miss Halliday that I shall come back to collect her the day after tomorrow.”

  “But she is here!” Luigi smiled. “She is waiting to take you back to the Corso by a way that you would not find by yourself.”

  Andrew swung round to find Tessa standing dutifully behind him in the aperture of the window. She was still smiling, but he imagined a new reserve in her for a moment before she turned back into the room to make way for him.

  “If I had known you were already packed and waiting,” he said almost frigidly as they went down the outside stairs, “I should have arranged our return for to-morrow instead of Friday.”

  Her eyes opened wide in surprise.

  “But surely you will want to see Rome while you are here?” she suggested, as if the thought of his indifference or pressure of business anywhere else had never entered her head. “There is so much to see. The Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Palatine—St. Peter’s itself! They have so much to give—a glimpse into the distant past, the art of another age. You cannot go away without having had at least that glimpse!”

  “I know nothing of art,” Andrew said, conscious of bewilderment at the maturity of her observations and suddenly aware that his remark must have sounded uncommonly churlish when she did not reply.

  When he turned to look down at her, the violet-coloured eyes under their dark lashes seemed enormous.

  “It seems impossible,” she said with a deepening seriousness, “that anyone should not appreciate the Eternal City. Would it not stir you to stand in the footprints of the past? Would you find nothing in the Forum where the Romans and the Etruscans and the Sabines came down from their separate hills to do their marketing and sacrificing to their gods? Would you feel only bored on the spot where Mark Antony delivered his oration over Caesar’s body or standing beside the fountain where