Air Ambulance

by Jean S. MacLeod

  Andrew had become strangely silent, seeming to hold his breath as they passed, and when they came to a gap in the trees he tugged at Alison’s hand.

  “Hurry,” he chided. “She may be looking out!”

  Alison felt her blood beginning to boil. This was preposterous! No woman with any heart at all would lend herself to such a situation, she decided. Margot Blair must be the most unfeeling creature that had ever been born, and the wonder was that her brother-in-law had not put a stop to all this nonsense long ago. Fergus Blair was certainly not the man to tolerate such a position for long, especially if he had seen the reflection of it in his nephew’s eyes. It would interfere with the work he was trying to do—indirectly, perhaps, but none the less disastrously. An atmosphere of hostility to the children he brought to the island would be the last thing he wanted.

  They had reached a point in the path where it came very near to the house, and Andrew had averted his eyes from the long, uncurtained windows which overlooked a small stretch of lawn.

  Alison, however, would not look away. Someone was sitting out on the narrow terrace which overlooked the lawn, on a chair drawn into the shade of a large golf umbrella.

  The gaudy coloured sections of the umbrella seemed curiously out of place in their present surroundings, but it appeared to serve its purpose of sheltering from both wind and sun the loveliest girl Alison had ever seen.

  She was like some exotic flower as she sat there listlessly turning over the pages of a magazine without, apparently, reading very much. Her hair was soft and like spun gold as it lifted gently in the wind from a brow like the finest alabaster. It hung down almost to shoulder level on either side of the girl’s perfect oval face, and the vividly-red lips were parted, as in a sigh.

  “That’s her!” Andrew breathed. “That’s my mother.”

  Alison took him firmly by the hand.

  “Then we must go and say good afternoon,” she decided. The impulse had been instantaneous and almost as swiftly regretted, but there was no way of drawing back once they had cleared the trees. The slim girl seated in the cane chair beneath the gaudy umbrella had seen them.

  She made no effort to rise to her feet as they came nearer, as Alison had half expected she would. She remained seated, with a heavy tartan travelling rug securely wrapped about her knees, but in one small, hostile gesture she appeared to draw herself up to full height, waiting for them to reach the terrace steps, like the intruders they undoubtedly were.

  Alison did not hesitate after that single moment of indecision under the pines. She approached across the springy green turf with Andrew’s reluctant hand in her own, and said pleasantly: “Good afternoon, Mrs. Blair. We were taking a short cut through your garden, I’m afraid, but Andrew was so very tired and I thought it best to bring him back to Garrisdale by the shortest possible way.”

  The girl in the chair—or was she already a woman, with a woman’s matured emotions reflected in these lovely violet-coloured eyes?—looked at her for fully a second before she replied.

  “Who are you?” she asked in a voice that was almost gentle. “And why have you come here? If you are a new nurse at Garrisdale House you should have been told that I will not have any unauthorised person coming to Monkdyke. You should have been warned that this is out of bounds.”

  “I had been told, Mrs. Blair,” she admitted, “but I couldn’t believe that the edict applied to Andrew.”

  Margot Blair’s eyes changed from violet to a hard, glittering blue.

  “You must be a fool,” she said, “to risk your job in this way. I can so easily have you dismissed,” she added as lightly as if she had been inviting them both to stay to tea. “Insubordination is one of the things that we do not tolerate at Garrisdale, nurse.”

  Alison smiled, although her heart was beating turbulently and Andrew’s hand had grown hot and sticky in hers.

  “I don’t think that would be at all easy,” she explained. “You see, I’m not employed at Garrisdale, although I’m deeply interested in the work that is going on there.”

  “What do you mean you’re not employed at Garrisdale?” Margot Blair demanded. “You are a nurse, aren’t you?”

  It was obvious that she had neither heard nor been told about the disaster to the Heron, and with a sick sense of betrayal Alison wondered if she was now revealing something Fergus Blair had sought to conceal from his sister-in-law.

  It did look as if Margot lived a peculiarly sheltered life here in her small, hidden bay facing the wide sweep of the Atlantic, and although Alison could not see any reason for such seclusion, she had, after all, no right to question it, even for Andrew’s sake.

  Fergus Blair might not want her to champion his nephew, and he certainly would not want her to cause trouble with his sister-in-law.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have come, but it was a big temptation when I saw you sitting here. I’ve wanted to meet Andrew’s mother.”

  “Stop repeating that!” The lovely voice had risen, and it was harsh and embittered now. “You’re a stranger—a blundering stranger! Go away, and take the child with you. I’m tired!” She had scarcely moved. The rigid body and the lovely elfin face hardly seemed to belong together, and the thin white fingers plucked restlessly at the tartan rug as she waited to be obeyed.

  “I’m sorry,” Alison repeated, “but I wish you would let me come to see you again—alone, if you like. I shall only be on the island for a very short while, and there aren’t very many people to speak to of my own age.”

  “There’s my brother-in-law,” Margot suggested guardedly.

  “Doctor Blair is a very busy man,” Alison reminded her.

  “And stands very much on his professional dignity, do you mean?” Margot laughed. “Oh, well, perhaps he has to do that. We have had so many nurses here. They’ve not lasted very long.” The final half-dozen words were surely a warning, yet Margot’s eyes were entirely innocent of guile. She’s making a fool of me, Alison thought, just as she has been doing with other people all her life, but I can’t do anything about it short of accusing her to her face, and that would make me out to be a bigger fool than ever. She’s the most innocent-seeming deceiver I’ve ever met.

  “Perhaps I should allow you to come,” Margot decided before they turned away. “I’m often lonely, and Fergus gets distressed about me.” In that moment her smiling, wistful expression would have softened a heart of stone. “You’ve heard about my accident, I suppose?”

  Alison could not believe that she was referring to the car smash which had cost Gavin Blair his life. It had happened six years ago, but perhaps that was a short space of time to a woman who had brooded ever since over her loss.

  “Your brother-in-law told me,” she answered. “It was a great tragedy.”

  Margot regarded her speculatively for a moment.

  “Fergus has been so good ever since,” she mused, almost as if she were speaking to herself. “There’s nothing that I’ve ever wanted that he hasn’t got for me immediately. He could not have been more attentive or more devoted.” She looked up, straight into Alison’s eyes. “We are very fond of one another,” she added deliberately.

  Alison felt her heart contract with a sudden dull pain. The information had been meant for her future guidance. There was no doubt about that. In the briefest possible way Margot Blair had told her that Fergus was her property. If they were not already engaged to be married—perhaps because of Margot’s continuing sorrow at the loss of her husband—at least they were bound by an understanding. Fergus Blair had undertaken to look after his brother’s widow as well as the heir to Heimra, and in doing so had fallen in love with Margot himself.

  It could be as simple as that, Alison thought, as she turned back along the path under the trees, but why, oh why, had Margot abandoned her child, and how could a man like Fergus Blair, whose life had been dedicated to healing the sick and the deformed and the handicapped, tolerate such an attitude?

  Her fingers t
ightened over Andrew’s damp little hand as they walked through the trees. He had not tried to speak to his mother. Probably he had been rebuffed too often in the past to make the attempt, but Alison could feel his need of her even in his silence. This bewildered small boy had more need of love and affection than most, yet it was being deliberately denied to him by the one person who could have given it to him in fullest measure.

  They began to hurry, Alison because she feared that she had spent too long at Monkdyke when Ronald Gowrie might be waiting for her, and Andrew because he seemed anxious to put as much distance as possible between himself and the frail, lovely creature under the gaudily—striped umbrella on the terrace. He appeared apprehensive and ill at ease until they were back on the wide, sweeping drive again on the way to Garrisdale House, only relaxing when the grey turrets of the lovely old mansion came into view.

  Built in Scottish baronial style, Garrisdale stood in a clearing surrounded by trees. They were mostly great Douglas firs, giants of their kind, which had been planted originally to shelter the house from the north and west. Garrisdale itself faced east and south, its two battlemented wings joined by a round central tower into which the main doorway had been built. All the morning sunshine lingered on its many windows, and before it stretched a grassy slope of parkland starred with daffodils.

  With a little thrill of sheer delight Alison stopped to look at it. It was a magnificent house and the ideal place for the purpose Fergus Blair had assigned to it. The children, with the vivid imagination of youth, must have peopled it with all the legendary heroes and heroines of the past, and evidently Mrs. Pollock, who looked after them, was no mean raconteuse. What Highland woman ever was?

  As if he had been waiting for them for some time, Fergus Blair made his appearance in the open doorway. Dressed in his ancient kilt, with his head uncovered and the island breeze ruffling his dark hair, he looked more than ever the fitting custodian of Heimra, seen now in his perfect setting, and her heart contracted with a small stab of fear as she remembered all that Margot Blair had just told her.

  How could she have fallen in love with him so soon, she asked herself dully as Andrew relinquished her hand and went towards his uncle.

  “There’s milk and biscuits waiting for you in the morning room, my lad!” Blair told him when he had ruffled the fair hair with a playful gesture of reproof. “You’re late for tea, but Mrs. Pollock has a very soft heart!”

  “I’m afraid that was my fault,” Alison explained as Andrew fled in the direction of the side entrance. “I stopped to talk to Andrew’s mother.”

  He looked every bit of his surprise.

  “You must have gone to Monkdyke, then,” he observed.

  “Yes.” Was it possible, Alison wondered, that Margot Blair rarely left the other house in the shelter of its secluded bay? “I asked Andrew if there was a short cut from the lodge, and he said there was one through the Monkdyke grounds. I’m sorry,” she added a trifle frigidly, “if we should not have gone there. We didn’t expect to meet Mrs. Blair, but I don’t think we really disturbed her. She was sitting out on the terrace, reading.”

  He did not answer for a moment. His face had changed completely, his expression no longer quizzically amused, as it had been when he had first greeted them. Her reference to their meeting with his sister-in-law had brought the shadow back into his eyes and the old half-bitter hardness to his handsome mouth, so that he appeared remote and unapproachable again—a world away.

  “She often sits there,” he observed briefly, “hoping to remain undisturbed. Margot is a peculiar problem,” he added without any real suggestion of imparting a confidence, even although she might have been expected to understand, if only because of her professional training. “She has never really recovered from my brother’s unfortunate death.”

  His voice had been low-pitched and tense, and she remembered that Mrs. MacIver on Heimra Mhor had said that he and Gavin had been devoted to one another.

  “The accident must have been a great shock to Mrs. Blair,” she murmured sympathetically. “And equally great to you.”

  He turned, looking at her and yet beyond her.

  “It was,” he agreed remotely. “You see I happened to be driving the car when it crashed.”

  In the tense silence which followed his brief confession, the daffodils starring the parkland shimmered uncertainly before Alison’s eyes. He could not believe—surely he could not believe that he had killed his brother?

  “The fool who was driving the other car was quite drunk,” he said after a pause, “but that was no excuse. My reaction was just a fraction of a second too slow.”

  “One can’t analyse these things, apportioning blame,” she told him painfully.

  “Perhaps not.” Again he appeared to be looking beyond her. “But Margot’s child was born as you see him because of that accident, and I hold myself responsible in a great many ways.”

  She drew in a small, quivering breath, while something hurt and bewildering seemed to be seeking a hiding place in the furthest reaches of her heart.

  “It’s all so long ago,” she said involuntarily. “One can’t live with a tragedy like that forever.”

  “Unfortunately,” he answered almost frigidly, “my sister-in-law has to live with it. Margot is crippled from the waist down.”

  “I can’t begin to say how sorry I am,” she heard herself apologizing. “If I’d known, I should never have criticised her.”

  “Because of her attitude to Andrew?” Blair smiled a little. “That’s something we must try to understand,” he pointed out. “For months before his birth she lay unable to move. Life must have been hell for Margot then.” His voice vibrated with pity. “Afterwards, when the child was born, in considerable pain and anguish, it was discovered that he was lame. Into the bargain, Margot had to face the fact that she herself had been left paralysed.”

  “Can nothing be done?” she asked, with the odd feeling that she was grasping at a lifeline.

  “Everything that was possible at the time has been done. Margot, it would appear, has never really been very strong, and she has a horror of the knife.”

  She could not bring herself to ask if an operation had been possible at one time and his sister-in-law had refused to take the risk, but he answered the unspoken question without hesitation.

  “In the beginning there was the chance that an operation might have been successful and so equal chance that things might right themselves of their own accord. The operation would have been the swifter and perhaps the surer answer, but Margot refused to risk it.”

  “It must have been terribly difficult for her,” she said, “having to make a decision of that kind. Life can be very precious.” He did not answer her for several seconds.

  “Margot’s life was certainly precious to her,” he agreed, at last. “But not the kind of life she leads now. She was a very gay person, always on the move. That’s why I ought to feel grateful, I suppose, that she appears to be content with what I can give her.” The personal note was very strong, Alison realized as she turned away to avoid meeting his eyes. He had made himself responsible for Margot, but would he marry her in the present unfortunate circumstances?

  Margot apparently thought so. She had hinted as much, hadn’t she?

  Rather desperately Alison said,

  “Am I too late to see Captain Gowrie? I seem to have got your message such a long time ago.”

  “Of course you may see him,” he agreed somewhat abruptly. “I should have realized that I was keeping you without cause.”

  “Not without cause,” she said. “I think what you have just told me will help me to understand Mrs. Blair a great deal better than I might have done. She has asked me to go to see her.”

  He looked surprised, but made no comment about the unexpected invitation.

  “Will you find your own way,” he asked, “or would you like me to take you?”

  “I think I can find my own way,” Alison said.

  He turn
ed with seeming relief, leading the way into the house. It was a noisy place. The laughter of children was everywhere, and the rooms had apparently been stripped of all unnecessary ornament. There were no valuable rugs to trip over or fine vases precariously set on uncertain pedestals, as might have been expected in a house of this size. The hall was workmanlike and warm, with small looms dotted about it where some of the older children had been learning to weave. Handicraft played a big part in the work Fergus Blair was doing, and it must have been tremendous fulfillment to him to see it all taking shape in his own home.

  “We work mostly with mohair,” he explained. “The girls love the vivid colours, and we keep our own small herd of Angora goats on the island. The boys learn to tend them, and so they become responsible for almost the whole process of production. The finished article is theirs alone.”

  Alison wished she could have lingered in the hall, talking to him about the future of Garrisdale, but already he was walking towards the fine old staircase which mounted to a minstrel’s gallery and the rooms above.

  “You must come whenever you like,” he told her. “I think Gowrie feels that he has hit the edge of the world.”

  He led her up the broad stairs and along the gallery to a massive door at its far end.

  “How long can I stay?” Alison asked as he ushered her in. “I don’t want to tire him too much.”

  “I shall leave you to judge that for yourself,” he told her. Alison’s heart was beating fast and unevenly now because she was remembering all that Ronald Gowrie had told her about the past, about Margot and the love they had shared before Gavin Blair came on the scene. Perhaps Ronald would even ask her about Margot now that he found himself stranded in her former home, and, if he did, what could she possible say to him?

  “I’ve brought you your visitor at last,” Fergus said as he opened the heavy door. “And now I’ll tell Mrs. Pollock she can bring up your tea.”