by Flora Kidd
She stood beside Logan, a hand resting lightly but possessively on his shoulder, all part of her wifely act. Nancy ate the rest of her cereal. It tasted of chaff.
The sound of voices heralded the reappearance of Mary Maclaine carrying a tea-pot. She was followed into the room by Don and Rod.
‘Here’s your tea at last, Nancy. Sorry to be so long. Would you like a cup, Don, and Mr. ... er ... Ellis?’
‘Yes, please,’ said Don. ‘Hello, Nancy. Are you all right?’ He sounded very brotherly and quite unconcerned as he grinned down at her and Nancy had a strong inclination to hug him. Instead she smiled back and said,
‘I’m fine.’
‘There, I told you, Rod, that there was nothing to worry about,’ said Don, in his best ‘I told you so’ manner.
Rod, who had been staring at Nancy intently, ignored Don’s statement and asked,
‘What happened, Nancy? Where have you been?’
‘On Vagabond with Logan and Neil,’ she replied shortly. She had told Logan she could do her own explaining, but now, faced with Rod’s searching suspicious gaze, she found she did not want to explain.
‘Now do sit down, both of you, and be comfortable,’ said Mary as she placed two cups of tea on the table.
Rod and Don sat down obediently one on either side of Nancy.
‘Is that all you have to say?’ persisted Rod. ‘I don’t call it a very satisfactory explanation.’
‘It’s the truth,’ she retorted.
‘Maybe it is, but there must be more to it than that. It doesn’t take all night to cross from Skye to the mainland. Perhaps you have something to say, Maclaine?’
Logan finished what he was eating, placed his knife and fork carefully on his plate and wiped his mouth on a table napkin before replying. Then he gave Rod one of his disdainful stares and said laconically,
‘Water in the petrol. We had to anchor while I cleared it. By the time that was done it was dark and I decided not to risk coming across without navigation lights. Now perhaps you would be good enough to explain something to me. Why didn’t you wait for Nancy in Portree?’
Rod shifted in his chair and looked uncomfortable. He looked at Anya as if hoping she might come to his aid.
‘I wasn’t sure what Nancy intended to do, and Mrs. Maclaine said...’ he began reluctantly.
Anya moved away and flounced into a nearby chair.
‘Why make such an issue of it, darling?’ she interrupted. ‘It was my fault. I persuaded Rod to take us for tea to Sligachan. We were all enjoying ourselves so much we forgot the time. Then we decided you must have found Neil and had sent him and Nancy back to Lanmore in a taxi.’ She tilted her head and sent a sidelong glance across the table at Nancy and winked slowly. ‘You know, Nancy, I think we should both be pleased we have such jealous menfolk.’
Logan pushed back his chair from the table and stood up. His black frown had descended and when he spoke irritation rasped in his voice.
‘If Ellis found pleasure in doing what you asked I’m sure he was very welcome to your company, Anya. If you’ll excuse me, please, I must go. I promised my cousin and Stan I would go fishing with them.’
He nodded politely at all of them and strode towards the door. With a lithe movement Anya was on her feet immediately and hurrying after him.
‘But you can’t mean to leave me here all day alone,’ she complained.
‘You have Polly and Neil for company,’ was all they heard of Logan’s reply as he went out of the room.
Although Rod made no more reference to her absence until he and Nancy went for a walk after supper later that day, and although she hoped that he had accepted Logan’s brief explanation of what had occurred to cause her absence, she was aware that he was strangely silent and that he was watching her. Fortunately Linda returned from her trip to Skye and was full of stories and descriptions about Dunvegan and Meg’s parents and their croft and how different it was from Lanmore, otherwise the atmosphere might have been noticeably strained.
Even so, Nancy was glad when Rod suggested they went for a walk. It was a lovely evening, calm and golden. I should be happy, she thought, completely and gloriously happy, because here I am in a beautiful place on a perfect evening with the man I’m going to marry.
She looked across the water at the rugged island stretching out into the sea from the corner of the peninsula. That morning she had been the other side of the island, passing the small rocky islets where the seals had been basking. The morning had been perfect, full of colour, and she had been gloriously happy for a few stolen moments alone with a man she was not going to marry.
Rod's voice cut suddenly and sharply across her thoughts.
‘For the life of me. I can’t understand why you went after Maclaine yesterday in Skye. In the first place it wasn’t your business, and in the second place why didn’t you tell me what you were going to do? I’ve studied it from all angles and I can’t find a satisfactory answer. Why did you go?’
The question was too searching. He was suspicious of her after all. He had not accepted the explanation. She supposed he had a right to be suspicious but she was rather disappointed to find that he was.
‘I knew that he was worried about Neil and I had to offer to help,’ she replied frankly. ‘Wouldn’t you have offered help to a friend in the same situation?’
He looked at her with narrowed eyes. Nancy stared up at him. Her hopes that he had decided to attach no importance to the events of the previous night were fading fast.
‘Are you sure that is all he is to you?’ questioned Rod sternly.
‘What do you mean?’ challenged Nancy shakily.
‘I mean that perhaps Anya’s suspicions are not unfounded after all. She suspects that you and Maclaine have been having an affair this summer. He told her himself that he’s seen a lot of you.’
‘And of Don, and of Linda,’ Nancy spoke hotly. ‘And you believed her. Oh, you don’t trust me....’ She broke off sharply and then continued more quietly, ‘I suppose we could have had an affair, but I didn’t because I put you first, because I remembered that I am engaged to you.’
Rod’s eyes avoided hers and he kicked at a pebble, finally dislodging it from the rest and sending it through the air to fall with a small splash into the still water of the loch, where it created a circle of ever-widening ripples. Rod watched the ripples for a moment and then glanced down at Nancy. The expression on his face was one of shame.
‘It was wrong of me to doubt you. I’m sorry, Nancy. Shall we try to forget the whole business?’ he said quietly. ‘After all, to-morrow is my last day here, and we have many more important subjects to discuss.’
Nancy accepted his apology and they continued their walk. But there was a constraint between them and it persisted throughout the next day. It was caused for Nancy by the knowledge that he had doubted her, that he had not had complete trust in her. The small rift in their relationship caused by his dislike of Lanmore had been widened by his demonstration of unfaith. If he really loved her he would never have doubted her, she argued. And apart from this troubling thought Nancy was bedevilled by a feeling that Rod had been disappointed when she had denied having an affair with Logan. She had the oddest suspicion that he would have preferred her to have admitted having become emotionally entangled with another man. But why? It was all extremely puzzling, to say the least.
They had just finished supper, and Linda and Don had gone fishing on the loch, when Rod broached the subject of the house he intended to buy in Dulthorpe.
‘I’ve an option on it until the end of August. I’d like you to see it, so why not come back with me to-morrow?’
Taken by surprise by his suggestion, Nancy stalled for time.
‘But I promised Don I would stay until September.’
‘I know you did, but he doesn’t need you any more. Anyway, the end of August is only two weeks away. It would be much more sensible for you and Linda to come back with me. You’d save two rail fares.’ He sounded alm
ost desperately urgent.
‘But I don’t want to go back to Dulthorpe yet.’ The words surged through Nancy and she bit them back just in time. Instead she said, ‘Tell me more about the house.’
‘You’ve seen the Hargreaves’ house, haven’t you? Well, it isn’t unlike that.’ Suddenly enthusiastic, Rod produced a plan of the house from his jacket pocket.
Nancy stared at the lines on the paper and tried to rake up some interest.
‘I’d be just as happy in a flat for a while,’ she murmured.
‘It would give us time to look around and find something better.’
‘Better?’ exclaimed Rod. ‘There’s nothing better being built in Dulthorpe at the moment. These houses are being snapped up. Everyone at the works is buying them. I had the greatest difficulty in persuading Tom Lawrence the builder to let me have an option.’
Nancy frowned. .If everyone from the chemical works was buying the houses on this particular estate, living there would be like living at the works.
‘Rod, couldn’t we wait, please, before choosing? I’d rather like to live outside Dulthorpe, in the country. There are some lovely old cottages in the villages on the moors.’
‘Do you realise how long it would take me to commute from one of those places? Thirty minutes at least,’ he snapped exasperatedly. ‘Probably forty-five, at rush hour. Dead time, wasted time. And some of those old houses are draughty and cold in the winter. No, I’m settling for central heating and all the modern conveniences we can get. Living on the moors would be like living here, miles from anything.’
‘It would be pleasant and peaceful, and we could get a lot of pleasure out of modernising a cottage,’ said Nancy wistfully.
‘And spend a lot of money unnecessarily. Look, Nancy, from Greendale where these houses are being built it will take us only a few minutes to reach the centre of town. And , for entertaining they’re ideal, with the dining room leading straight out of the big living room. I can’t understand why you’re hesitating. If you would only agree I could give Tom the go-ahead. I could sign the contract when I return.’
Nancy was silent. How could she tell him that she was hesitating because she was not sure whether she wanted to marry him? Her sense of fairness told her that she should not let him go ahead and buy a house in which it was possible that they would not live together.
Rod leaned towards her and said urgently,
‘Don’t you trust me to do the right thing?’
She wanted to say, ‘You didn’t trust me, so why should I trust you?’ But it was true she didn’t trust him to choose a house she would like. In fact the more he talked about the house and its position the more she disliked it. And wasn’t it important to their future relationship that she should like the place where he wanted to live?
‘I don’t know, Rod. I’m not sure.’
‘Then come with me to-morrow,’ he argued. ‘Once you’re back in Dulthorpe and you’ve seen the house, you’ll feel better. You’ll be sure again.’ He spoke with unusual jauntiness as if he was trying to convince himself as much as her.
Go back to Dulthorpe. Leave Lanmore and return to the rat-race of the city. Faced with the decision once more, Nancy realised she had been dreading the end of August for some time.
‘I don’t want to go back to Dulthorpe.’ She didn’t attempt to bite back the words this time.
‘What do you mean?’ exclaimed Rod. ‘If you and I are going to be married you’ll have to go back. What’s the matter with you, Nancy? You’re behaving as if you’re bewitched!’
‘Maybe I am,’ she replied slowly. Now is the time to tell him, she thought. But how?
She got no further than the thought because at that moment she heard the sound of a car stopping at the gate. She went to the window to see who was coming.
‘It’s Anya Maclaine,’ she exclaimed in surprise. ‘I wonder what she wants.’
Glad that Anya’s arrival would put an end to further discussion with Rod and would give her time to sort out her incoherent thoughts, she went into the hall and opened the door before Anya had a chance to knock.
Brilliant long-lashed eyes gazed at her assessingly.
‘You look surprisingly glad to see me,’ drawled Anya with a touch of mockery. Her glance slid past Nancy to Rod who stood stiffly in the kitchen doorway. ‘Don’t tell me I’ve interrupted a lovers’ quarrel,’ she added.
‘Please come in,’ said Nancy politely.
‘Not for long, I hope,’ returned Anya as she swept past Nancy and walked after Rod into the kitchen. ‘The expression on your face, Rod, is positively thunderous. Perhaps my suggestion will change it.’
Graceful and tantalising, she swung round and leaned against the table to face them. Her blonde hair glinted in the shaft of sunlight which slanted through the window. She was wearing black bell-bottomed pants topped by a black tunic which had a mandarin collar and which ended at the top of her thighs. A belt of heavy gilt chain emphasized her waist and gilt earrings glimmered in her luxuriant hair. She looked complacently sure of herself as she smiled challengingly at Rod.
‘I wondered whether you would both like to come out for the evening. To be frank, Lanmore Lodge is driving me crazy. It always did. I can’t imagine why anyone wants to live there ... or anywhere else in the Highlands. When Angus was alive and we used to come and visit his father we relieved the monotony of our stay by going over to Port Ban on the other side of Loch Ort. There’s a good pub there and it’s a friendly place this time of the year, full of summer visitors from the south. There’s also a growing artists’ colony over there. Are you interested in coming? You needn’t worry about the ferry. There’s a special late one at ten o’clock to bring back the. pub-crawlers.’
Nancy could tell by Rod’s face that he was interested and she thought herself that an evening spent amongst other people might do both of them good, relieving as it would the strain which had been growing between them.
‘Like you, I feel the limitations of a place like Lanmore,’ said Rod enthusiastically. ‘I’d like to go with you. How about you, Nancy?’
‘Yes, I’d like to go.’
‘That’s fine,’ drawled Anya. ‘May we go in your car, Rod? I’ll take the estate car back to the Lodge when you are both ready. You can follow me there.’
She lit a cigarette and sat down in a chair to wait for them. Rod went over to Mrs. Macrae’s to change and Nancy ran up to her bedroom.
She was the first to return to the kitchen. Anya eyed her short green linen dress, gleaming red hair and well-applied make-up with deliberation.
‘Quite a transformation,’ she commented. ‘You’re not such a country bumpkin after all.’
‘Considering I’ve lived in a city all my life, that’s hardly likely,’ retorted Nancy. ‘Are Stan and Miss Martin and Logan going to Port Ban too?’
‘Oh, no. If they were I wouldn’t be searching for company. Polly left yesterday. She couldn’t stand the place any longer, and I couldn’t stand her. Logan has taken Stan off to an agricultural show somewhere. Oh, I’m so bored! Neil has been driving me distracted and Mary and Keith have ignored me. They’ve never liked me.’
‘Why didn’t you go to the agricultural show, then?’
‘Me? Go to a cattle show? My dear girl, Logan knows better than to ask me to go to one of those affairs.’
‘Well, if this place bores you so much why come and stay here?’ asked Nancy honestly.
Anya’s glance was oblique and mocking.
‘The answer is quite simple. I am out of work and I have nowhere else to go. There is a big attraction here ... my brother-in-law, who incidentally holds the purse-strings. My beloved husband left all his wealth to Neil and made Logan his guardian. That in a nutshell is why I am here. And if I can only get Logan to myself for a short while I’m hoping to persuade him to return to London when we are married. After all, his presence isn’t necessary to run the farm. He employs other people to do that.’
At that moment Rod returned
to the kitchen. He looked extremely amiable and he clapped his hands together and exclaimed jovially,
‘All set to go? Then what are we waiting for?’
Anya slid off her chair and going up to him slipped her hand through his crook of his arm in that semi-proprietorial way which she had.
‘For the company of the most congenial man at present visiting Lanmore, of course,’ she murmured flatteringly. ‘What a pity I didn’t know of your existence a few days earlier. Think of all the fun we’ve both been missing!’
The pub was small. It consisted of only two rooms in a traditional village house. The back room was considered by everyone to be reserved for local people only. Anya told them that she had been in it once when she had first visited Lanmore before she was married. It had been in the winter time when the front room was closed because of the small amount of custom at that time of the year.
The front room on that summer evening was full of people who were all summer visitors, judging by their clothes, their accents and their carefree manners. Anya had hardly stepped through the door when she was greeted by a bearded individual who was wearing a kilt. It wasn’t long before she was the centre of an admiring group. She was clever enough not to forget her companions. Introductions were made, drinks were bought and handed round, and Nancy and Rod were made to feel part of the group.
It made quite a pleasant change, Nancy found, to sip beer, to talk hard and fast to a strange young man who informed her that he was an artist and that he had just moved to Port Ban to be near Ewen MacKay, who was the man with the beard and who was fast gaining recognition as a leading Scottish artist. The easy-going jovial atmosphere of the pub made her forget her immediate problems and she found herself being silently grateful for Anya having appeared when she had and for having invited Rod and her to go out with her.
The young man, who was called Sandy, took her empty glass and struggled towards the bar to get another drink. Rod, his fair face flushed by the warmth of the room, was busily engaged in a three-sided argument with Anya and the bearded gigantic Ewen and he was obviously enjoying the company. Watching him, Nancy felt a return of all her liking for him. Perhaps he was right, she would see everything in better perspective if she went back to Dulthorpe with him to-morrow. Maybe she should go. She was sure Don didn’t need her help any more.
