Master of Glenkeith

by Jean S. MacLeod

  “Of course,” Margaret said. “Come away in! He’ll be delighted.”

  Hester appeared in the hall as the four men followed her daughter and Tessa into the house. She looked displeased, but managed to nod in Nigel’s direction when she recognised him.

  “Can Nigel Haddow not keep away from Glenkeith these days?” she observed with a thin smile in Tessa’s direction which Andrew saw as he hurried into the house in his visitors’ wake.

  Tessa could not look at Andrew. It seemed that Hester kept making these observations for some hidden purpose of her own, a dark purpose which she would achieve in the end by the very force of her own determination, and she felt suddenly sick and disheartened by the thought.

  With her sketching-block still in her hands she ran up the stairs, hoping to reach the sanctuary of her own room before she was waylaid by anyone else, but she had counted without Nigel.

  He was standing at the top of the staircase, apparently waiting for her to come up.

  “Mr. Meldrum has a full quota of visitors,” he grinned. “I came out to give them more air! Bill Meiklejohn is an old pal of his from Inverness and he thought he would have a word with him when he was so near Glenkeith, anyway.” Suddenly he stretched out and took the sketching block from her. “What have you been doing all afternoon?” he asked.

  “I saw you sitting in the shelter of the dyke and I’ve been wondering ever since!”

  “It’s very ordinary,” Tessa protested.

  “Not like your portraits?” he teased. “I hear they’re top class, Tessy!”

  “How did you know about the portrait?” she asked.

  “It’s amazing what I come to hear on my travels.” He tucked the sketching block under his arm. “Come and show me your masterpiece!”

  “It isn’t anything like that! Besides, it isn’t finished.” “All the same, I want to see it.”

  Almost reluctantly she moved towards the half-open door of the small room which Daniel Meldrum had placed at her disposal as a studio when he had first heard that she wanted to paint. It was near his own, and he had told her that he liked the idea of her being within call.

  The room had been furnished at one time as a small sitting-room, and when she had first been confronted by the suggestion that it should be used again Hester MacDonald had looked appalled.

  “You know who used it last,” she had said in that thin, hard voice of hers, so that Tessa guessed that it must have been her mother’s room. It had the loveliest view in all Glenkeith, looking out across the treetops to the undulating green of the hills, and Tessa had never had any difficulty in imagining her mother sitting there when she had been alone or with only Hester in the house to talk to. That quiet room must have been a sanctuary to which Veronique Meldrum had come often in those far-off days, and lately Veronique’s daughter had felt something in the room for her own comfort which she did not want to share with anyone.

  There was no deterring Nigel, however. He held the door open for her to precede him, and when they were in the room he went straight to the easel she had set up in the centre of the floor.

  “My dear girl!” he exclaimed. “But this is excellent. I don’t pretend to know much about these things, but it’s Sandy Ross all right. Every mischievous inch of him!” He stood back to get a better view in the now-fading light. “No wonder Isobel and his father are full of praise!”

  “It—was something I wanted to do,” Tessa said. “Something I felt I had to do. There’s always a sort of urge about these things. The creative urge, if you like. It just won’t give you peace till you’ve made a start.”

  “You do mean to finish this, of course?” he said. “Look here, Ortry really ought to see it!” He swung round to the open door as the sound of voices reached them from Daniel Meldrum’s room. “Hammy, come over here a minute,” he called. “Miss Halliday has something to show you.”

  It wasn’t true, Tessa thought in something like panic. She hadn’t really wanted Hammond Ortry to criticize her work, hadn’t wanted him to see it at all, but Nigel had taken the situation right out of her hands and there was nothing she could do about it but to acquiesce as pleasantly as possible.

  Hammond Ortry paused at the head of the staircase, drawing Ormond Walsh into the room with him. Bill Meiklejohn was still taking a prolonged farewell of Daniel, and Andrew, who had come up with them, did not turn to follow him into Tessa’s studio. Ortry supposed that he had seen the portrait many times or that he wasn’t interested in painting. These farming types were generally so close to the earth that the higher forms of art passed them by. Ortry shrugged. Ah, well! Chacun a son gout!

  He turned in at Tessa’s door and Andrew went on down the wide staircase to stand still and rigid in the hall below, waiting for his grandfather’s guests to take their leave. He had the air of a man who could not move away from the scene of his own execution while he listened to the movements in the room above him and heard the sound of laughter floating down the staircase at Glenkeith for the first time in twenty years.

  He supposed that Tessa must have shown Nigel her painting long ago, while he could not fail to remember that she had sought to conceal her work from him.

  A movement in the doorway behind him made him aware that he was no longer alone, but he did not need to turn round to know that it was Hester who stood there. His aunt came towards him with a cautious smile on her lips, standing for a moment to look up through the well of the stairs to the floor above.

  “Don’t fash yourself, Andrew,” she said slowly. “She’ll not be at Glenkeith much longer. She’s setting her cap in the right direction. Nigel Haddow will marry her before

  the year is out!”

  He turned violently, but she had gone, moving away like a wraith to leave nothing but the suggestion of dissention and dissatisfaction behind her.

  It had always been like that with Hester.

  He waited, not knowing what to do till the others had gone yet not wanting to be there when they did come down. He had work to do, more important than amusing a woman by admiring her painting!

  When the little group appeared at the head of the stairs Tessa was in its midst. Bill Meiklejohn was something of a wit and he had made her laugh when they had met on the landing. She threw back her head and laughed again, the sound of it gayer than anything Andrew had ever heard.

  How light she was, he thought bitterly. Light and inconsequential, like her mother, and just as dangerous, no doubt.

  “How about Perth, Drew?” Nigel was asking. “There’s no need for you to take the brake. I can pick you all up in the Daimler as I’m passing. It’s on my way, and Tessa has promised to come as my partner.”

  It seemed that Margaret appeared suddenly out of nowhere to stand by Andrew’s side.

  “That’s all settled then,” she said. “We’re looking forward to the ball. It was grand fun last year.”

  Tessa felt as if she had failed Andrew in some way and that it had been left to Margaret to come to his aid. If it had not been for Margaret stepping in like that she was quite sure that Andrew would have refused to go to Perth and probably caused a good deal of comment by his action. Yet Margaret effaced herself almost immediately their visitors had departed and Tessa found herself alone with Andrew.

  For the first time she noticed that he was carrying a small parcel.

  “There’s something I have to give you,” he said, holding it out towards her. “My grandfather thinks you should wear it when you go to Perth.”

  “Oh!” Her hands were trembling when she took the parcel from him. “What is it Drew?”

  “Something he believes you have a right to wear.”

  Her eyes flew to his.

  “And what do you believe?”

  “You may feel out of it if you are not wearing one.” It was no answer. Or had he told her quite plainly that he did not give her a thought unless her presence was thrust upon him like this? Her heart contracted with such a bitter pain

  that she all but gasped. />
  “Well, aren’t you going to open it?” he asked.

  She felt that all the excitement had gone out of the gift because his eyes had been cold and casual on hers over the rustling white tissue of its wrapping

  “Yes,” she said, at last. “Whatever it is I shall appreciate it because your grandfather wished me to have it.”

  He said almost awkwardly:

  “I’m sorry, Tessa. I’m not very good at this sort of thing.”

  Inside the parcel she found a tartan sash, the sort of thing she knew was worn at every Highland ball, and she realized that Daniel Meldrum had given it to her because he did not want her to feel different. He wanted her to feel one of them.

  There were tears in her eyes when she tried to thank Andrew.

  “It’s wonderful of him,” she said. “He has been so kind to me ever since I came here.”

  Unconsciously she had expressed her need, the need for understanding and the kind approach.

  “He asked me to get it for you,” Andrew said. “Meg chose it when we were in Ballater the other day.”

  Tessa had to swallow hard to avoid looking disappointed. “I thought that—perhaps you might have chosen it,” she confessed, and then, when he did not answer: “What tartan is it, Drew?”

  “You must have a right to a tartan,” he said, “Before you can wear one. Yours is the Fraser.”

  “Because of my grandmother?” Tessa said. “Janet Fraser! Your grandfather knew her, Drew, when she was a girl.”

  Yes, Andrew thought, that was still another link between them. A happier one than Veronique.

  “Perhaps that’s why he wants you to wear her tartan at Perth,” he said, surprising even himself with the extent of the sentiment.

  “Because he was in love with her, do you think?” Tessa

  asked.

  “I don’t know,” he returned almost harshly. “It’s something we’re never likely to know.”

  “Why should he mind—now?”

  He turned away.

  “The whole thing is nothing more than foolish supposition,” he said angrily.

  C H A P T E R V I I I

  TESSA dressed for the Highland Ball with a wild excitement in her heart. For the first time in her life she wore full evening dress and she stood before the long cheval glass in her bedroom looking at her reflection with a sort of dewy wonder in her eyes.

  Obeying something that she had sensed to be almost a command, she had gone with Margaret to Aberdeen to buy the dress that Daniel wanted her to wear. He had wanted it to be white, and they had found it in a shop in Union Street, together with a pair of white satin slippers to go with it. Andrew had taken them to Aberdeen, leaving the brake in the car park opposite the Town House so that it would be handy for them to put their parcels in during the afternoon when he went out to the Rowett Institute in search of a new pamphlet on animal nutrition which he thought might interest his grandfather.

  They had come back in friendly mood, although these past few days had tinged all their lives with sadness. As autumn passed and the richer purple faded from the heather, it was obvious that Daniel Meldrum had not so much longer to live. The shortening day seemed to mark the shortening of the old man’s life, but Margaret had said that he would not want anything to be changed.

  “He’s growing weaker,” she had said, “but it’s so gradually that we’ll hardly notice it, and it would only distress him to know that our lives were being influenced by the closing of his. He’s so fond of life that he still wants us to share ours with him. The Ball has been his foremost thoughts for weeks and we would only disappoint him if we refused to go.”

  Tessa knew that it was true, but every now and then there was a catch in her throat as she thought of her old friend.

  “Come and let me see you as soon as you are dressed,” he had said, and she caught up the tartan sash he had given her and ran along the corridor to his room.

  “Can I come in?” she asked.

  “I’m waiting for you!”

  He was confined to his bed now. Glenkeith was too full of draughts to permit him to sit by the window these days, but he was propped up with cushions and had been reading before she came in.

  “Let me look at you,” he demanded. “Stand over there beside the bureau where I can see you.”

  Tessa stood simply in the middle of the room, feeling her heart fill with tears as the vivid blue eyes took her in from head to toe, caressing the folds of the white dress as if he had touched it with his hand.

  “Where is your sash?”

  “I have it here.” It was only by the utmost effort that she had been able to steady her voice because, somehow, she knew that for him she was no longer Tessa Halliday, the unknown child he had brought to Glenkeith from Italy, but Janet Fraser, his first love, the girl he had remembered down through the years. “Will you show me how to put it on?” she asked.

  “Andrew will have to do that for you!”

  She had not heard Andrew come into the room, but when she turned to look he was standing just inside the door. How long he had been there it was impossible to say, but she knew that if he had seen his grandfather looking at her like that it must have touched him, too. His face was quite white, and when he approached the bed she could see a small pulse hammering strongly high in his cheek.

  “You’ll need this to fasten it,” Daniel said, holding out an old-fashioned blue velvet box shaped like a heart. “It was my mother’s, I believe. Meg has the other one.”

  Andrew took the brooch out of the box and held it in his hand. The golden cairngorm winked up at them in the light, amber fire against the dull silver of its chased setting.

  “There’s a way of putting on a sash,” Daniel said. “You’ve got to learn it.”

  His eyes were very blue in the direct light coming from the lamp by his bedside, and it seemed as if he had been waiting for this moment for a long time.

  Tessa looked at Andrew and her heart seemed to stand still. In a full Highland evening dress, he was like a figure out of some romantic legend, the soft, rich velvet of his jacket setting off to perfection the ancient colours of his kilt and the fine lace at wrists and throat. It seemed that time had spun back and they were standing there in another day and age, the original lovers of Glenkeith, happy in their love.

  He put the soft dark sash about her waist, drawing it up and over her shoulder to fasten it with the gleaming stone which had belonged to his great-grandmother, the replica of which Margaret might be wearing, with pride, at that very moment.

  The room spun about Tessa at the thought and Andrew’s very nearness made her want to cry out in protest. She wanted to be folded in Andrew’s arms, to be crushed against him till it hurt, but now that the sash was in place he seemed to have no further interest in her at all.

  He turned away to the window and stood there looking down into the starlit night.

  “Enjoy yourself,” Daniel said when she bent over the bed to kiss him good-night. “You and Andrew make a braw pair!” _

  It was the second time someone had said that, Tessa remembered. There was the woman at the Games who had seen them go hand-in-hand up the hill!

  The Ardnashee Daimler pulled up at the front door as she went down the stairs, but for a moment Margaret, who had been waiting in the hall, did not move. She stood looking towards the stairs as if she had seen a ghost or a vision of the future, and then she turned swiftly to the door to let Nigel Haddow in.

  Nigel monopolized Tessa from that moment onwards. He sat beside her in the back of the car while his chauffeur drove them to Perth over roads silvered by the first frost of winter, and Margaret sat facing them with Andrew by her side.

  When they reached the County Hall it was already gay with dancing couples, and Tessa drew her breath in at the splendour of it all. The decoration, the flowers, the beautiful women in their glittering dresses, each with her family sash pinned on her shoulder, were only a foil for the swinging kilts as the men spun round in a reel or danced the
Gay Gordons to the music of the pipes. It was like something out of a dream, and Tessa went through the evening in a dream. When Andrew danced with her the spell deepened; when he spoke to her she was too happy to remember what he had said for long. All she wanted was to be with him, to dance like this, on and on in the circle of his strong arms, for ever.

  When she danced with Nigel the spell was still there but it was not so strong.

  It was Nigel who took her in to supper.

  “You look like a little girl at her first party!” he chided gently.

  “It is my first party,” she told him. “My first grownup party, and I want it to last for ever!”

  As if he had taken his cue from that, Nigel danced every available dance with her in the second half of the programme and Andrew seemed quite content to stand aside. If someone else claimed Margaret as a partner, as they frequently did, he found another man to talk to or ambled out to the bar, and when they piled into the Daimler for the drive back to Glenkeith he put Margaret into the back seat with Nigel between her and Tessa and sat upright in the smaller chair in front.

  It was after three o’clock and Tessa was happily tired. The car was warm from the electric heater at their feet and Nigel had tucked a fur rug over their knees for extra comfort. It was a long way to Glenkeith. A long way in the moonlight. She felt her thoughts stretching out towards Andrew, all her love wanting to embrace him, warmly, drowsily, as the car sped northwards into Glen Shee.

  The mountains looked very close. She could see the dark shadows on their flanks where the trees grew thickly, and above them the moonlit peaks, and her breath came between her parted lips in a wild sort of ecstasy that was half pain and half delight. Her life might go on like this for a very long time.

  The warm drowsiness blurred her thoughts and her head fell slowly sideways on to a man’s shoulder, broad and comfortable and there when she needed it. Gradually, blissfully, sleep claimed her, and Nigel let her head rest there till he was sure that his movement would not disturb her, and then he settled more comfortably with his arm about her, turning his own head for a moment to press a light kiss on her brow.