Prisoner of Love

by Jean S. MacLeod

  “I’m making arrangements to go back to London,” he said when Morag had left the room.

  “Oh?” Laura looked up in amazement. “But you’ve only just come back, and—and I thought you intended to make Dunraven your permanent home?”

  “Nothing has changed in that respect,” he told her, “but I now feel that I ought to take you with me when I move about. You have not proved yourself entirely reliable when left to your own devices, I’m afraid.” She flushed scarlet.

  “I’ve been to Garvie Lodge, and I’ve been up to the glen on two occasions, fishing with Lance—”

  “And Cameron,” he reminded her stiffly.

  “Yes," she agreed flatly. It was futile to argue.

  “Is he in love with you?”

  Her eyes flew to his, swift denial in them and no small amount of contempt.

  “I see you’re not quite sure about that,” he went on before she could find words to answer him. “Nevertheless, we won’t take risks. I have to go to London again in two weeks’ time, and you will come with me.”

  “For how long, Julius?” she asked. “I offered to come with you this time, too, you know.”

  There was no reply. He wrote a final address on an envelope and sealed it, rising as she poured out his tea.

  “Have you heard the result of Lance’s exam?” she asked uncertainly, aware that the conversation about her own immediate future was now closed. “I hope he has passed.”

  He took his cup to the fire, placing it on the high mantelpiece before he answered.

  “Is there any reason why he should fail?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “No, I suppose not.”

  “We’ll be taking Lance back to London with us,” he said. “The term at these schools begins around about the twentieth of September, I think. We should hear the result of his examination before that, of course.”

  It would be a dreadful disappointment for Lance when he heard that they were leaving Scotland so soon, but Julius had already made his plans.

  “What about—the lodge?” Laura asked. “Will you discontinue the treatments there?”

  He seemed to take an eternity to answer and the silence drained the blood away from her heart.

  “No,” he said, at last. “I never abandon an experiment halfway. I have already engaged a nurse to come to the lodge and I shall always be available in an emergency.”

  The word nagged at Laura’s mind for days afterwards. What kind of an emergency did Julius expect?

  He told her nothing. The subject of Blair’s health became a sealed one between them. When he went to the lodge, he went alone, and there were no more trips in the yacht. Northern Bird rode, alone and deserted, in the blue bay beyond the headland until the day before they were due to leave for London. Then Julius sent for Callum and took it out across The Minch alone.

  When he came back there was a dead seal aboard and a look of terrible, vengeful anger on Callum’s face. The seal had been shot through the neck.

  Laura turned away, sickened, remembering the sleek gray seals as they had fed their young on the sun-baked skerries that day when Blair had steered Northern Bird into the safety of the bay.

  That evening the nurse who had been engaged to take charge at the lodge arrived in her own car. She had come from somewhere locally, and Julius remained closeted in the study with her for an hour. When he opened the door at last, Laura was crossing the hall on her way to the dining room, and she thought that she had never seen such a hard, dead face in all her experience of hospital work. There was no humanity in it, no pity. It was the face of a martinet—or a robot.

  When Julius introduced them Nurse Scyler examined her through the thick lenses of her spectacles and was evidently disappointed in what she saw, yet she said with reserve: “I’m pleased to meet you,” leaving Laura to wonder how she could possibly be pleased to meet someone she had never seen before.

  I’m getting rattled, she thought in the next instant, because all this has happened so swiftly, putting me out of my stride, unsettling everything.

  She was beginning to feel settled at Dunraven. She could quite easily have made her home here in this fair corner of Scotland for the rest of her life if only—

  If only! These simple words that held so much meaning and despair! What was it she lacked? What did she want other than what she had?

  Blair came to say goodbye to them. Lance had been going up to the lodge, as usual, but Laura had not gone. It was late August now and the weather stained the moor a deep purple high up on the breasts of the hills. These mellow days, with their first hint of approaching autumn, would have been a keen delight to her if only Julius had allowed her to enjoy them, but he seemed to watch her incessantly, giving her no time to be alone.

  “I ought to have gone and said goodbye to the MacKellars,” she said as Blair held her hand. “It seems a rather churlish way of rewarding their friendship just to go off without a word.”

  “They’re coming down,” he said unexpectedly. “I told them yesterday that you were leaving.”

  He relinquished his hold on her fingers and they stood waiting for Julius to join them on the stone terrace surrounding the house.

  “Before you go, Laura,” Blair said quietly, “I want to thank you for all you’ve done for me.”

  “I’ve done nothing,” she said, not looking at him. “I’ve only tried to be friendly—and kind.”

  There was a little silence.

  “That must have been it,” he said, smiling a trifle grimly.

  The MacKellars’ Ford came lurching and bumping over the glen road even before Julius appeared, and Zachray drove it along the causeway with a tight mouth and remote, dark eyes. His sister got out but he remained behind the wheel.

  “We couldn’t let you go without a visit from us,” Cathie declared. “It’s been quite sudden, hasn’t it, this decision of Julius’s?”

  “In a way—yes,” Laura tried to say lightly. “We would have had to go, of course, in about two weeks time, to see Lance safely settled in at his new school.”

  “Of course!” Cathie said, turning to where Lance was standing beside Blair. “You’re going to a fine school, aren’t you?”

  “I'd much rather be staying here!” Lance told her without hesitation. “It’s the most wonderful place I’ve ever been to!”

  Blair ruffled the dark hair over the suntanned brow.

  “Why worry?” he said. “You’ll be coming back in next to no time.”

  “Three months,” Lance mused. “Maybe it’s not so very long, after all. I’ll be back before Christmas for the holidays. Will you still be here?” he added eagerly. “You might still be up at the lodge, mightn’t you?” Laura found herself waiting for Blair’s answer with a curiously constricted feeling in her throat.

  “It isn’t so very long,” he agreed slowly. “I’d like to be completely cured by then, of course, but—who knows?”

  “I think you’re cured now,” Lance said. “You couldn’t fish if you weren’t, or walk so far across the moors, and yesterday you said you might even tackle Suilven before the winter set in in earnest!”

  “That was proud talk,” Blair answered. “We’ll leave the mountaineering till the spring, I think.”

  Laura knew that he was talking to please Lance, so that there was no reason to believe that he would still be a patient at the lodge on their return.

  This, then, might be their final goodbye. A tremor of regret ran through her as Julius came out on to the terrace, and Cathie turned toward the car.

  “Don’t go, Cathie,” she appealed suddenly. “I’ve hardly had a word with you and I haven’t seen you for over two weeks. Won’t Zachray and you stay and have a meal with us?”

  Cathie looked swiftly in her brother’s direction and just as swiftly shook her head.

  “It’s kind of you, Laura,” she said, “but Zachray is on his way to Ullapool. He has a meeting there at eight o’clock.”

  It was not quite half-past six. They co
uld have strolled on the terrace for a while, or even had a drink, but Julius did not extend the invitation, even to Blair, whom he had said he wanted to see professionally before he went back to the lodge.

  “Have you finished your packing, Laura?” he asked when the silence became oppressive. “We have a fairly early start in the morning, you know.”

  Hot color rushed into Laura’s cheeks. This was insufferable! Julius was treating her like a child again.

  “It’s all but finished,” she told him with a cool dignity she was far from feeling. “I can quite easily do the rest in the morning.”

  His quickly-raised brows accentuated his displeasure, but she was determined not to take any notice.

  “Will you come in for a moment, Cathie?” she asked. “Morag has been making a blackberry preserve which she says you like. She has left two jars for you in the kitchen.”

  They crossed the hall, shadowed now that the sun had left the front of the house, and Cathie said:

  “Perhaps we shouldn’t have come. I think we have vexed Julius.”

  “Why shouldn’t you come to say goodbye?” Laura turned, and there were tears in her eyes, tears of vexation and tears that went deeper to a hopeless sort of humiliation which Julius had no right to make her feel. “You made me very welcome and very happy at Garvie, Cathie—”

  She broke off, suddenly unable to control the rush of frustration and sadness that swept across her heart at the thought of going away. Cathie put a friendly hand on her arm.

  “I’d like you to come to Garvie whenever you wish,” she said, “if Julius doesn’t actually forbid it.”

  Laura’s distressed eyes flew to hers.

  “Why should he?” she demanded. “It’s not the sort of thing a grown-up person does.”

  “No,” Cathie agreed, looking as if she wished she had never started the conversation. It was embarrassing her and hurting Laura, she thought. “Perhaps Julius will change.”

  “Change?”

  “Change his mind,” Cathie countered hurriedly.

  “About allowing me to come, do you mean?” Laura’s voice was dangerously low-pitched and uneven.

  “Don’t let’s talk about it anymore,” Cathie appealed. “It won’t do any good.”

  Laura faced her.

  “Because Julius was like this with Helene?” she suggested levelly, although there was a desperation in her voice which Cathie MacKellar was quick to hear. “That was what you meant, wasn’t it, Cathie?” Laura rushed on. “Julius has always been like this. What was Helene really like?” she asked unsteadily. “I’ve got to know. Don’t you see, I’ve got to know!”

  “She was young and sweet and lovely.” Cathie could not quite control the quiver in her voice. “I’ve never known a nicer person, and she wouldn’t have hurt a fly.”

  “Yet she hurt Julius?”

  Was it in defense of Julius or in defense of her own marriage that she asked that? Laura wondered.

  “No! She could not. She was in love with him,” Cathie cried, suddenly overcome by emotions that she had believed locked away in her heart forever. “But Julius pursued her with his strictest censure. She had no freedom. He locked her away here in the wilds—or what she considered the wilds—and then he became suspicious of her. Insanely suspicious and jealous. That was the end.” Cathie’s eyes were tragic and she was conscious of trespass when she looked at Laura, but she made one appeal for forgiveness. “Don’t let him do that to you, Laura,” she begged.

  “I—can take care of myself,” Laura said, hardly able to form the words because of the mounting doubt in her heart.

  “Yes,” Cathie said swiftly, “I’m sure you can.”

  They went out to where the men were still waiting on the terrace, and the last Laura saw of Cathie was her stocky little figure sitting bolt upright in the Ford beside Zachray with the two jars of preserve clutched on her knees.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The weeks that followed were very full. Laura took a keen delight in preparing the long list of clothes and personal effects that Lance needed for his new school, proud that he had passed the entrance examination with flying colors and pleased Julius, yet a little sad at the thought of the long parting that lay before them.

  Lance was quite excited about the new adventure. He treated Julius with awe and the necessary respect, but they never reached the happy state of companionship and mutual understanding that had characterized the friendship with Blair right from the beginning. Sometimes Laura thought Lance was afraid of Julius in some way.

  They drove down to Ashleigh on a bright day in mid-September when the trees in the vast park surrounding the school had taken on russet and gold mantles and the first suggestion of autumn tinged the air. The old buildings, mellowed and steeped in hundreds of years of tradition, stood high and looked down on the broad river that wound gently through the green belt of the playing fields. Laura felt content to leave Lance here. “It’s a wonderful old place,” she said. “Thank you, Julius.”

  “The boy could not have remained at Harley Street,” Julius returned. “He should be able to make a life for himself here.”

  The rather cold observation disturbed her, because it seemed as if Julius had dismissed her brother from their scheme of things now that he had successfully settled him in a worthy school.

  Perhaps she was wrong about that, though, nervous and a little upset at the thought of parting with Lance for the first time.

  Other cars began to fill up the quadrangle where they had parked and boys tumbled out, lugging lunch boxes and various badly-tied packages of food. They all appeared to be assured and quite happy, and she was able to draw a freer breath.

  “I think you had better report to your form master now, Lance,” Julius advised in a slightly longer pause when there appeared to be nothing more to say, no further, last-minute instructions to be given. “Laura will come down at half-term, of course, and take you out.”

  “Yes,” Lance said. “I shall look forward to that.”

  He was keeping a stiff upper lip, but he clung to Laura’s side, making the most of these last few minutes together, drawing time out where he could with a question or a smile.

  “You wouldn’t like to have a last walk around the grounds, would you?” he suggested. “We don’t really have to be in till six.”

  Julius glanced at his watch, frowning.

  “It’s after five,” he said. “You’ll find your way around. I have to be back in London before seven o’clock.”

  “I see,” he said. “Well—it won’t be long till half-term, will it?”

  “Of course not!” It was almost more than Laura could do to keep back the tears. “It’s only weeks, really, when you count it that way.”

  Julius slipped a treasury note into her brother’s hand and Lance looked at it uncertainly for a moment. He had never been given so much money before.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said. “It’s—rather a lot, isn’t it?”

  “You may need it,” Julius said, getting into the car.

  Afterwards, Laura thought that they had driven away rather abruptly; but perhaps that was only her imagination, her natural sensitiveness at saying goodbye to someone she had cared for and loved for so long.

  Harley Street seemed strangely deserted after Lance had gone, and for a time Julius appeared to be engrossed in his work to the exclusion of all else. Laura longed to ask him about Dunraven and Blair Cameron, but could not, although she knew that reports came to him from the lodge with efficient regularity. She knew that he intended to go back to Dunraven, that his original plan for the lodge had not been changed or discarded, but he did not discuss the future with her in any detail. She felt, however, that she must always be ready to go at a moment’s notice, and the suggestion in itself was vaguely unsettling.

  Gradually, very gradually, the days began to seem long. Even when Holmes was off duty for an hour or two, Laura was never really permitted to take over. Julius’s secretary-receptionist was a brisk young wo
man who came and went almost unseen, the soul of efficiency, but strangely cold when it came to the personal touch. Julius seemed to gather her type around him almost inevitably, Laura thought with a small feeling of dismay.

  Half-term came and went. She traveled down to Ashleigh without Julius, because he was busy with some conference or other, and spent two gloriously happy days with Lance, coming back wonderfully refreshed. Lance, it appeared, was writing to Blair regularly once a week and had all the news of the glen at his fingertips. There were two other patients at the lodge now, and they had been doing some easy rock climbing on the surrounding hills. At Christmas, Blair had promised, they might still be able to tackle Suilven, going up the easier way through the corrie.

  Laura began to look forward to the Christmas vacation when school would break up and they would all travel north together. The weather had been mild and sunny, a glorious, rich autumn prolonged into November without frost or the usual London fogs. Because Julius was always busy she began to go about on her own.

  She phoned the flat at Chiswick and renewed her friendship with Anne Meakin and Gillian Davis. The initial shyness and hesitancy with which they greeted her was soon blown away, and once or twice they even included her in small parties, although these were never connected with the hospital. They felt, perhaps, that she must stand aloof where St. Clement’s was concerned because of Julius’s position there.

  It was on one of these occasions, when they had dropped into a convenient coffee bar after an afternoon’s tour of the West End shops, that they were suddenly confronted by the junior registrar from St. Clement’s and two of his friends, both young doctors working at nearby hospitals. Without ado, the men joined Anne and Gillian at their table and the next hour was uproarious. Laura felt herself slipping back into the old happy, carefree atmosphere of her student days, and possibly she had not laughed so much for years.