Ten minutes later, the very picture of a well-dressed Highland gentleman, he was downstairs again. By now the caterers had arrived. Mr. Anderson, in a starched white jacket, was setting out smoked salmon on the buffet table, assisted by Mrs. Watty. Mrs. Anderson, a stately lady with a formidable reputation for good behavior, had taken up her position behind the bar and was engaged in giving the glasses a final polish, holding each one up to the light to check for possible smudges.
There did not seem to be anything more for Antony to do. He glanced at his watch, and decided there was time to pour himself a whisky and soda and take it upstairs to say goodnight to Tuppy. This he was just on the point of doing, when he was diverted by the sound of a car coming up the drive and grinding to a halt on the gravel outside the house.
“Who on earth can that be?”
“Whoever it is,” said Mrs. Anderson, sedately plying her teacloth, “they’re fifteen minutes early.”
Antony frowned. This was the west of Scotland, and nobody was ever fifteen minutes early. More likely an hour and three quarters late. He waited apprehensively, with visions of himself spending the next half hour trying to make polite conversation into Mrs. Clanwilliam’s hearing aid. A car door slammed, footsteps crunched on the gravel, and the next moment the front door opened and Hugh Kyle appeared. He wore a dinner suit and looked, thought Antony, immensely distinguished.
“Hello, Antony.”
Antony let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God it’s only you. You’re early.”
“Yes, I know.” Hugh shut the door behind him and came forward, his hands in his pockets, his eyes taking in the festive scene. “This is very splendid. Just like old times.”
“I know. Everybody’s been working like a beaver. You’re just in time for a dram. I was going to pour myself one and then go up to see Tuppy, but as you’re here…” He poured two whiskies, topped them up with water, handed one to Hugh. “Slaintheva, old friend.”
He raised his glass. But Hugh did not appear to be in a health-drinking mood. He stood there holding the drink and watching Antony, and his blue eyes were somber. For some reason Antony was instantly apprehensive. He lowered his glass, without having tasted the whisky. He asked, “Is something wrong?”
“Yes,” Hugh told him bluntly. “And I think we’d better talk about it. Is there somewhere we could go, where we wouldn’t be disturbed?”
* * *
Flora sat at the dressing table, wrapped in the shabby blue bathrobe she had had since she was at school, and applied mascara to her long, bristly lashes. Her reflection, the woman in the mirror who leaned toward her, seemed to have nothing to do with Flora Waring. The elaborate makeup, the carefully arranged fall of shining hair, were as formal and unfamiliar as a photograph in a magazine. Even the bedroom behind her was alien. She saw the glow of the electric fire, the drawn curtains, the ghost-like form of her dress hanging on the outside of the wardrobe door where Nurse McLeod, with some pride, had ceremoniously arranged it.
Her pride was justifiable, for it now bore no resemblance to the dim garment which Mrs. Watty had produced from the trunk in the attic. Bleached, starched, stitched, it waited for Flora, crisp and cold as newly-fallen snow. The blue lining showed in bands between insets of lawn and lace, and a line of tiny pearl buttons ran from waist to throat.
Its presence was disturbing. Silent and reproachful, it seemed to be watching Flora and, like a disapproving onlooker, was quite unsettling. She knew that she did not want to put it on. All this time she had been putting off the moment when she had to come to terms with it, but now there seemed no further excuse to delay. She laid down the mascara brush and sprayed herself recklessly with the last of Marcia’s scent. She stood up and reluctantly slipped out of the familiar comfort of the old blue dressing gown. For an instant her reflection stood before her: tall, slender, her body still brown from the summer’s sun, the tan emphasized by the white lace bikini of bra and briefs. The room was warm, but she shivered. She turned from the mirror and went to take the dress from the hanger, step carefully into it, ease her arms into the long tight sleeves, and finally edge it up over her shoulders. It felt resistant and cold, like a dress made of paper.
She did up the tiny buttons. That took some time because the buttonholes were glued shut with starch and had to be worked open and each button coaxed into place. The high collar was agony—hard as cardboard, it cut into her neck below her jawline.
But finally, everything was done, the little belt buckled, the cuff buttons fastened. She moved cautiously to inspect herself and saw a girl stiff as a sugar bride on the top of a wedding cake. I’m afraid, she told herself, but the girl in the mirror offered no comfort. She simply stared back at Flora dispassionately, as though she didn’t particularly like her. Flora sighed, stooped cautiously to turn off the electric fire, switched off the lights, and left her room. She went down the passage to show herself off and say goodnight to Tuppy as she had promised to do.
She heard the faint beat of jigging music. The house felt very warm (Watty had been bidden to turn up the heat) and smelt of log fires and chrysanthemums. Cheerful voices floated up from the kitchen, creating an atmosphere of suppressed excitement—like the day before Christmas, or the moment of opening some mysterious tinsel-wrapped parcel.
Tuppy’s door stood ajar. From within came the companionable murmur of voices. Flora tapped at the door and went in, and saw Tuppy plumped up against fresh pillows and wearing a white bedjacket tied with satin bows; and beside her, looking like a child out of an old portrait, her great-grandson, Jason.
“Rose!” Tuppy flung out her arms, a typical Tuppy gesture, gay, loving, rather dashing. “My dear child. Come and let us look at you. No, walk up and down so that we can really see.” Rigid with starch, Flora obliged. “What a clever creature Nurse is! To think that dress has been in the attic all these years, and now it looks as though it’s just been created. Come and give me a kiss. How good you smell. Now sit, just here, on the edge of the bed. Carefully, though, you mustn’t crush the skirt.”
Flora arranged herself cautiously. She said, “With this collar, I feel like a giraffe-necked woman.”
“What’s a giraffe-necked woman?” asked Jason.
“They come from Burma,” Tuppy told him, “and they put gold rings on their necks and their necks go on forever.”
“Was it really your tennis dress, Tuppy?” He gazed at Flora, scarcely recognizing her for the everyday person he had come to know, familiar in her jeans and sweaters. He felt rather shy of this new person.
“Yes, it really was. When I was a girl.”
“How you played tennis in this, I can’t imagine,” Flora said.
Tuppy considered this problem. “Well, it wasn’t very good tennis.” They all laughed. She took Flora’s hand and gave it one of her proprietary little pats. Her eyes were very bright, her color high, but whether it was due to excitement or to the brimming glass of champagne which stood on her bedside table, it was impossible to say. “I’ve been sitting here listening to the music, and my feet have been dancing away under the sheets, having a little party all to themselves. And then Jason came to see me, looking the image of his grandfather, and I’ve been telling him all about the party we had when his grandfather was twenty-one, when we lit the bonfire up on the hill behind the house, and all the country people came, and there was an ox roasting on a spit and barrels of beer. What a party that one was!”
“Tell Rose about my grandfather and his boat.”
“Rose won’t want to hear about that.”
“Yes, I will. Tell me,” Flora urged.
Tuppy did not need any more encouragement. “Well, Jason’s grandfather was called Bruce, and what a wild boy he was! He spent all his days with the farm children, and at the end of the holidays I could scarcely cram his feet into shoes. But he was the child who always had a passion for the sea. He was never afraid of it, and he could swim really quite strongly by the time he was five. And when he was only a little older tha
n Jason, he got his first dinghy. Tammy Todd—he works at Ardmore—well, it was his old father who built it for Bruce. And every year, in the summer, the Ardmore Yacht Club used to have a regatta, and there was a race for the children and … what was it called, Jason?”
“It was called the Tinker’s Race, because all the sails were patched!”
Flora frowned. “Patched?”
“He means that all the sails were home-made,” Tuppy explained, “all in marvelous colors, sewn together like patchwork. All the mothers worked for months, and the child with the gayest sails won the prize. And Bruce won it that first year, and I don’t think any prize ever meant so much to him as that one did.”
“But he won more races, didn’t he, Tuppy?”
“Oh, yes. Lots and lots of races. And not just at Ardmore. He used to go down to the Clyde and sail with the Royal Northern, and then when he left school, he crewed for an ocean race, and went over to America. He always had a boat. It was the greatest pleasure in his life.”
“And then the war came, and he joined the navy,” Jason prompted, not wanting the story to end.
“Yes, he went to sea. And he was in a destroyer with the Atlantic convoys, and sometimes they’d come into the Gairloch or the Kyles of Lochalsh, and he’d get home for a weekend’s leave, and as likely as not spend the whole time either working on his boat, or sailing one of the dinghys.”
“And my grandmother was in the navy, too, wasn’t she?”
Tuppy smiled indulgently at Jason’s enthusiasm. “Yes, she was in the Wrens. They were married very soon after the beginning of the war. And what a funny wedding it was. It kept being put off because Bruce was always at sea, but finally they got married in London on a weekend leave, and Isobel and I had such a time getting there—all the trains full of soldiers and everybody sharing sandwiches and sitting on each other’s knees. We did have fun.”
“Tell us more stories,” said Jason. But Tuppy threw up her hands.
“You didn’t come here for stories. You came to say goodnight and then go down to the party. Just think, it’s your very first dance. And you’ll always remember wearing your grandfather’s kilt and his velvet doublet.”
Jason, reluctantly, got off the bed. He went towards the door. He said to Flora, “Will you dance with me? I can only do ‘Strip the Willow’ and an ‘Eightsome Reel’ if everybody else knows how to do it.”
“I can’t do either, but if you can teach me, I’d love to dance with you.”
“I could probably teach you ‘Strip the Willow.’” He opened the door. “Goodnight, Tuppy.”
“Goodnight, my love.”
He left them. The door closed behind him. Tuppy leaned back on her pillows, looking tired but peaceful.
“It’s very strange,” she said, and her voice, too, seemed tired, as though the day had been too long for her. “This evening I seem to have lost all track of the years. Hearing the music, and knowing just how everything is looking downstairs, and all the fuss and the commotion; and then Jason coming in. And for a moment I really thought it was Bruce. Such a strange feeling. But a nice one, too. I think it has something to do with this house. This house and I know each other very well. You know, Rose, I’ve lived here all my life. I was born here. I wonder if you knew that?”
“No, I didn’t know.”
“Yes, I was born here and I grew up here. And so did my two little brothers.”
“I didn’t know you had brothers, either.”
“Oh, dear me, yes. James and Robbie. They were much younger than I was, and my mother died when I was twelve, so in a way they were my children. And such dear, wicked little boys. I can’t tell you how naughty they were, and the dreadful things they used to get up to. Once they built a raft and tried to launch it off the beach, but they got swept out to sea by the ebb tide, and the lifeboat had to go out after them. And another time they lit a campfire in the summer house and the whole place went up in smoke and they were lucky not to be roasted alive. It was the only time I ever remembered seeing my father really angry. And then they went away to school, and I missed them so much. And they grew into young men, so tall and handsome, but still as wicked as ever. I was married by then and living in Edinburgh, but oh, the stories I used to hear! The escapades and the parties! They were so attractive they must have broken the heart of every girl in Scotland, but so charming that no female had the heart to stay angry for long, and they were always forgiven.”
“What happened to them?”
Tuppy’s gay and valiant voice cracked a little. “They were killed. Both of them. In the First World War. First Robbie and then James. It was such a terrible war. All those fine young men. The carnage and the casualty lists. You know, even someone of Isobel’s generation cannot begin to imagine the horror of those casualty lists. And then, so near the end of the war, my own husband was killed. And when that happened I felt that I had nothing left to live for.” The blue eyes shone with sudden tears.
“Oh, Tuppy.”
But Tuppy shook her head, denying sentiment and self-pity. “But you see, I had. I had my children, Isobel and Bruce. But I’m afraid I wasn’t a very maternal person. I think I’d used up all my mothering on my little brothers, and by the time Bruce and Isobel turned up I wasn’t nearly as pleased as I should have been. We were living in the south, and they were so pale and quiet, poor little souls, and somehow I couldn’t make myself get enthusiastic about them, and that made me feel guilty and sorrier than ever for myself. It was a sort of vicious circle.”
“What happened?”
“Well, my father wrote to me. The war was over at last, and he asked me to bring the children home to Fernrigg for Christmas. So we got into a train and we came, and he met us at Tarbole on a dark winter’s morning. It was very cold and it was raining, and what a miserable little party we were, all dressed in inky black, gray in the face and sooty from the train. He had brought a wagonette and we got up behind the horses and drove back to Fernrigg just as the dawn was beginning to light the sky. And on the road we met an old farmer my father knew, and he stopped the horses and introduced the old man to the children. I remember them now, shaking hands so solemnly.
“I thought it was just for Christmas I’d come home. But we stayed over the New Year, and the weeks turned into months, and the next thing I knew, it was spring again. And I realized that the children were at home, they belonged to Fernrigg. And now they were rosy and noisy, and out of doors most of the time, just the way children should be. And I began to be interested in the garden. I made a rosebed and I planted shrubs and a fuchsia hedge, and gradually I began to realize that however tragic the past had been, there still had to be a future. This is a very comforting house, you know. It doesn’t seem to change very much, and if things don’t change, they can be very comforting.”
She fell silent. From downstairs now came the sounds of cars arriving, the swell of gathering voices rising above the jig of the music. The party had started. Tuppy reached out for her glass of champagne and had a little drink. She laid down her glass and took Flora’s hand again.
“Torquil and Antony were born here. Their mother had a difficult time when Torquil was born and the doctors told her that she really shouldn’t have a second child, but she was determined to take the risk. Bruce was naturally very anxious about her, and so we arranged that she should come to Fernrigg for her pregnancy and to have the baby. And I think everything might have gone well, but Bruce’s ship was torpedoed just a month before Antony was born, and after that I think she lost all will to live. There was no fight in her. And the worst bit of it was that I understood. I knew how she felt.” She gave a wry smile. “So there we are, Isobel and I, right back where we’d started, with two more little boys to bring up. Always little boys at Fernrigg. The house is crawling with them. Sometimes I hear them running in from the garden, calling up the stairs, making such a racket. I think, because they died, that’s why they’ve never grown old. And as long as I am here to remember them, then they are never r
eally gone.”
Once again, she fell silent. Flora said, at last, “I wish so much you’d told me this before. I wish I’d known.”
“It’s sometimes better not to talk about the past. It’s an indulgence which should be kept for very old people.”
“But Fernrigg is such a happy house. You feel it the moment you walk into it.”
“I’m glad you felt that. I sometimes think it’s like a tree, gnarled and old, the trunk twisted and deformed by the wind. Some of the branches have gone, torn away by the storms, and at times you think the tree is dying—it can’t survive the elements any longer. And then the spring comes again, and the tree opens out into thousands of young, green leaves. Like a miracle. You’re one of the little leaves, Rose. And Antony. And Jason. It makes everything worthwhile to know that there are young people around again. To know you’re here.” Flora could think of nothing to say, and with a characteristic change of mood, Tuppy became brisk. “What am I doing, keeping you here, talking a lot of rubbish, when everybody is downstairs waiting to meet you! Are you feeling nervous?”
“A little.”
“You mustn’t be nervous. You’re looking beautiful and everyone—not just Antony—will be in love with you. Now, give me a kiss and run along. And tomorrow you can come and tell me all about it. Every tiny detail, because I shall be waiting to hear.”
Flora got off the bed. She bent and kissed Tuppy and went to the door. As she opened it Tuppy said, “Rose,” and Flora looked back. “Have fun,” Tuppy told her.
That was all. She went out of the room, and shut the door behind her.
Under Gemini Page 25
