by Betty Neels
It was a two-hour train journey to London, but once there she found that the queue for taxis was long and slow-moving; she missed the train to Edinburgh she had planned to catch, and sat impatiently, drinking coffee she didn’t want, until she could board the next train, see to her cases, and settle into a corner seat for the journey north. She was excited now, still not quite believing that she was going back to her old life once more, but she was tired too, and dozed off, only to wake and find that they had reached Berwick-on-Tweed, and Edinburgh was no longer a dream but a reality barely forty minutes or so away.
Waverley Station was busy and bright with the late-afternoon sunshine. Rosie collected her hand-luggage and got out of the coach, intent on getting the luggage and then telephoning her father to say that she would be on a later train to Crianlarich.
She had one foot on the platform when she had her overnight bag taken from her and Sir Fergus said,
‘Hello, Rosie. Where’s the rest of the luggage?’
She gaped at him. ‘How did you know…? I missed the train at King’s Cross… Are you going somewhere?’
‘Plenty of time to talk later,’ he told her easily. ‘Is the luggage in the front van?’
She nodded, and stood watching his commanding figure stride away, her surprise at last giving way to good sense. She hurried after him, and plucked at his sleeve. ‘I’m catching the next train—there’s one to Fort William in half an hour…’
‘I’m going to Fort William with the car; I’ll drop you off.’ He picked up the luggage. ‘The car’s outside; come along.’
Since he had the luggage she went. When they reached the car she tried again. ‘Look, it’s out of your way—and how did you know?’
‘Your father told me. Get in, there’s a good girl.’ Rosie eyed the car. ‘It’s the Rolls-Royce again.’ She turned an accusing eye upon him. ‘It’s yours, isn’t it? You were pretending…’
‘I had no need. I wasn’t asked, if you remember.’ He was stowing the luggage in the boot. ‘Are you coming or not?’
Put like that there was nothing much she could do about it. She got in and settled thankfully into the comfort of the big car.
He got in beside her, and as he drove off asked, ‘Tired?’
She thought back over a long day. ‘Yes.’
‘When did you last have a meal? And I don’t mean a sandwich on the train.’
Thinking about it, she realised that she hadn’t; breakfast had been a slice of toast and a pot of tea, and then a sandwich at King’s Cross, and then a cardboard mug of tea on the train and two rich tea biscuits in plastic.
‘Well, at supper, last night.’
He growled something at her, but she wasn’t listening. She was suddenly sleepy; for the first time that day she had no worries. Here she was, borne in luxury, the luggage safely stowed, and home only an hour or two away. She closed her eyes and went to sleep.
He woke her very gently as he drew up before the Inverbeg Inn at the upper end of Loch Lomond. She opened her eyes, and sat up at once. ‘Oh, Luss already; I went to sleep.’
‘Now I hope you are as hungry as I am?’ He leant over and undid her seatbelt, and then got out to open her door.
She hung back. ‘But I’m sure there’ll be a meal for me when I get home—don’t stop on my account.’
‘I’m stopping on both our accounts.’
He whisked her into the inn without more ado, sat her down at the bar, watched her drink her sherry, and then said, ‘Go and tidy your face or whatever while I see what there is to eat. I’ll be here.’
So she went away and did her face and her hair, feeling a bit strange because of the sherry on an empty stomach, and then she went back to join him. He handed her the menu and offered her another sherry.
‘No, thank you, I feel rather peculiar as it is. May I have the poached salmon?’
He said gravely, ‘You may; and I would suggest that you try the mushrooms in garlic butter to start with. A cucumber salad with the fish, or would you rather have spinach?’
‘Oh, the cucumber, please.’
The dining-room was half full and pleasant; they ate their meal without haste, exchanging small talk of an undemanding nature, and presently got back into the Rolls and drove on. There were rather less than forty miles to go, and since the road for most of the way was a good one, and the Rolls swallowed the miles with well-bred speed, Rosie calculated that she would be home well within the hour. Her pleasure at the thought was tinged with regret that Sir Fergus would bid her a polite goodbye and very likely never see her again. Not that she minded that, she reminded herself stoutly, only if she could get to know him better she might be able to discover why she still wasn’t sure if she liked him or not.
‘Now you are home again what do you intend to do?’ asked her companion suddenly.
‘Help Mother run the house, help old Robert with the garden. I don’t know if Uncle Donald kept chickens, but I shall, and in the winter I shall knit. We had a kind of cottage industry, you know, and sold what we had knitted to the shops in Oban and Fort William.’
‘Will you be content with that?’
She said, suddenly fierce, ‘Have you ever sat at a desk from nine till five typing letters full of long words and dry as dust?’ She cast a look at his profile, and saw that he was smiling. ‘Oh, of course you haven’t,’ she went on crossly. ‘If you had, you would know that anything is better than that.’
‘Better than marrying?’
‘Well, of course not. That is, if one married the right person—there can’t be anything better than that.’
He said idly, ‘You’re a very pretty girl; one would assume that you have had your chances.’
‘Oh, yes. Perhaps I’m hard to please.’
‘Perhaps you have never fallen in love and loved too?’
‘Have you?’
‘Oh, yes. It brings its difficulties, but they will be overcome in due course.’
They drove in silence for a while until he said, ‘Here’s your turning,’ and slid the Rolls on to the narrow country lane she knew so well.
The daylight was beginning to fade very slowly, its pearly light enhancing the colours around them, so that the mountains, never far away, showed steely grey, and the firs crowding their lower reaches had become a vivid green in the evening light.
‘I can’t believe it,’ murmured Rosie softly. ‘It doesn’t change, does it?’
He understood her. ‘No, but the best time of day is early in the morning.’
‘Oh, yes, about six o’clock. I don’t suppose you get much chance to enjoy that, though. Do you come to stay with Dr Finlay very often?’
‘Not as often as I would wish. Do you fish, Rosie?’
‘Yes. There’s splendid trout fishing here you know; salmon, too.’
They were almost in sight of the house now, and Rosie sat forward so that she would get the first delightful glimpse. There were lights in most of the windows downstairs, and as they swept gently up to the front door it was thrown open and her mother and father, Hobb and Simpkins with Mrs MacFee and Old Robert behind them came out to meet them.
Rosie was hugged and kissed as though she hadn’t been seen for years, while Hobb and Simpkins wound themselves around her legs, and it was her father who held out a hand to Sir Fergus and said, ‘We are so grateful to you. Do come in and have coffee and a sandwich…’
‘And stay the night,’ added Mrs Macdonald quickly. ‘We have rooms enough now, an
d we would love to have you.’ She cast a motherly eye over him. ‘You’re tired—could you not stay?’
Rosie had turned to look at him. ‘It would be nice if you could; you’ve been so kind, and I haven’t thanked you properly.’
He gave a wicked little grin and looked at her from under drooping lids, and she found herself, to her great annoyance, going red.
It was to her mother, however, that he spoke. ‘It would be delightful, but I am expected tonight.’
‘Then you’ll have a cup of coffee?’
He said regretfully, ‘Not even a cup of coffee, Mrs Macdonald, but I hope that if I come this way in the future you will invite me again.’
To Rosie’s astonishment her mother stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, and that was the second time.
‘I do hope that someone looks after you properly. We won’t keep you.’
He shook Mr Macdonald’s hand, bade Mrs MacFee and Old Robert goodbye, and turned to Rosie. She broke into speech before he could utter a word.
‘Thank you for bringing me, and for my dinner—you’ve been very kind.’ She was conscious that she had said it all before more than once, and she felt a fool under his cool look.
‘A pleasure, Rosie, goodbye.’
He got into the car and drove himself back up the lane, and they all stood and watched until he was out of sight.
‘Such a nice man,’ observed her mother, ‘don’t you think so, Rosie?’
Rosie said, ‘Yes, Mother,’ quite unable to voice her muddled thoughts; of course he was nice. He was also a man who liked his own way and expected to get it; moreover she knew nothing about him. Did he live in Edinburgh? she wondered. And why was he going to Fort William? Was that where the girl he was going to marry lived? And if so, why couldn’t he have said so?
They all went indoors, and the rest of the evening was taken up with the exchange of news.
She pottered around getting ready for bed. She was back in her own room once again, and it was as though she had never left it. Uncle Donald had made very few alterations in the house, and the furniture was almost exactly as she remembered it. At length she had a bath in the rather old-fashioned bathroom at her end of the house and, since it was a lovely night, went to hang out of the window. It was a clear night and starry, a small wind stirred the trees around the house, which somehow added to the peace. Rosie allowed her thoughts to roam in a sleepy fashion. Only they didn’t roam far; they stopped at Sir Fergus.
‘I’m not really interested in him,’ she said out loud, her wits woolly with sleep. ‘But it would be nice to know more about him.’
She got into bed, and Simpkins, who was already there, opened an eye and looked annoyed at being disturbed.
‘I wonder what sort of a girl she is?’ Rosie asked of the little cat and, since there was no answer, put her head on the pillow and went to sleep.
CHAPTER FIVE
SIR FERGUS CAMERON drove back the way he had come, but when he reached the road again he turned the car in the direction of Fort William. There was almost no traffic, only a stray sheep from time to time and an occasional small hotel or youth hostel by the side of the road, for it was used during the summer months by a great many walkers. At Fort William he turned off to Banavie and so to Glenfinnan; this was Cameron country now, and he was almost home.
Through Glenfinnan and very shortly a glimpse of Loch Eilt and then the two gate-posts, the gates opening on to a narrow drive winding between trees beside the water. He rounded a corner and saw his family home ahead. A magnificent house—a sixteenth-century fortified house, added to, modernised, but very little altered over the years. It had square towers at each end of it, and corbelled battlements, long, wide windows on the lower floors, and very small dormer ones tucked into irregular roofs. The stout door was set at an angle between the front of the house and a short wing at right angles to it.
As he drew up the door was opened by an old man, tall and very thin with a rugged face and an eye-patch. Sir Fergus got out of the car, and crossed to him in two strides.
‘Good evening, Hamish. I’m late. Is my mother still up?’
‘Aye, Sir Fergus, and disappointed that it is too late for a guid blether!’ He took the professor’s bag from him. ‘Ye’ll be biding a wee while?’
‘Until tomorrow evening. How’s the rheumatism?’
The old man hesitated, ‘Weel…’
Sir Fergus put a gentle hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘I’ll have a look at you before I go.’
He crossed the hall, large and square with its flagstoned floor partly covered by a beautiful worn carpet, its low curved ceiling and plain plastered walls, he opened a door to one side of the oak staircase, and entered a charming sitting-room. It had a plaster-work ceiling, rather crude strap-work—several hundred years old—and a Saxe blue wallpaper of a much later date. The furniture was a pleasing mixture of cretonne-covered chairs and several small tables, a Louis XV writing table under the one long and narrow window, and a bombe commode. There were a great many small pictures on the walls and a small ormolu Cartel clock on the narrow mantelshelf.
His mother was in one of the chairs, knitting, but she got up as he crossed the room—a woman in her sixties, rather stout, grey hair framing serene good looks.
She put up her face for his kiss. ‘My dear, you must be tired; Hamish will bring you coffee and sandwiches. Such a pity that you have to go again so soon. Your secretary said that you were due in Leiden for a consultation, but lovely to see you, and so unexpected.’
He had taken a chair opposite her, and the Jack Russell who had been sitting with her went to sit with him and put his chin on the professor’s shoes. He smiled a little at his mother’s remark, for it had sounded like a question.
‘I’m late because I gave someone a lift. You remember me telling you about the Macdonalds at Inverard?’
‘Oh, yes—he died, did he not? Donald Macdonald. You were called to old Mrs Macdonald at Bridge of Orchy—there was a granddaughter…’
‘Rosie, and a more inappropriate name would be hard to find.’ He had bent down to pull gently at the Jack Russell’s ears and didn’t see her quick look. ‘Malcolm Macdonald, her father who lived there originally, has inherited, and they’ve moved back there. I collected Rosie and some luggage from Waverley Station this evening, and drove her up. Her parents had already come up by car.’
‘How kind, dear, especially if I remember rightly you said you neither of you have much time to waste on each other.’
He laughed. ‘That’s true; we have to try hard to be civil, but we seem to have a mutual antipathy.’
He began to talk about family matters then, and Hamish came in with the coffee and sandwiches, and his mother, placidly knitting and making appropriate replies to his remarks, wondered about Rosie.
Fergus, she reflected, was thirty-five, and although he had fancied himself in love on a number of occasions she was sure that he had never been serious; none of the girls had been suitable, she considered. He needed a wife to stand up to him; he was a successful man, self-assured, well-to-do, and inclined to be impatient and like his own way—things which he concealed very well under beautiful manners and, when he troubled to exert himself, great charm. This Rosie sounded exactly right…
They sat talking for an hour or so before she got up to go to bed. ‘Any plans for tomorrow?’ she wanted to know as she bade him goodnight.
‘An hour’s fishing before breakfast. A pity I didn’t bring Gy
p with me, but I wasn’t sure how much luggage Rosie would have.’
‘You’ll manage a few days before the summer’s over? She can come then.’
He went to open the door for her,
‘Bobby will stay down here with you—let him into my room as you come up, will you, dear?’
The professor went back to his chair, pouring himself a nightcap as he went. He was tired, but it was pleasant to sit in the peaceful room with Bobby at his feet. He allowed his thoughts to wander, and presently found himself wishing that Rosie was sitting with him. ‘A tiresome girl,’ he observed to the little dog, ‘but her conversation is stimulating, to say the least—that is if we aren’t arguing!’ He sighed. ‘She’ll make young Douglas a good wife.’
He went through the quiet old house presently, using the secondary staircase leading from an inner corridor in the main part of the house. His room overlooked the grounds at the back of his home; he spent ten minutes there with Bobby, and stood listening to the wind in the trees and the soft lapping of the water at the loch’s edge, and once again he wished that Rosie were with him. He laughed at himself, and went back into the house.
As for Rosie, she hadn’t given him a thought, there was so much to talk about and, in the morning, so much to do. After all, Mrs MacFee and Old Robert had six years’ events to tell about, and there was furniture to rearrange, odds and ends which had been banished to the attics to be brought down into the house once more, and a detailed tour of the gardens to be made. Uncle Donald hadn’t bothered much with flowers; the kitchen garden flourished—there was enough stuff there to keep Rosie and her mother busy bottling and freezing for days—but the rose garden and the herbaceous borders had been neglected. Rosie went round pulling up weeds and frowning over roses which hadn’t been cut back for years while Old Robert stumped along beside her explaining that Donald Macdonald wouldn’t allow him so much as a boy to give a hand, and forbade him to waste his time on flowers.
