To Alison the peculiarly strained attitude looked suddenly dark and brooding, and when she lifted her hand to wave she hardly expected an answering salute in return.
None came. Margot continued to sit where she was, and the launch passed on and out of sight of the house.
It was as if the sun, too, had gone. When they rounded the end of the bay they were in the shadow of a headland that guarded the Silver Strand, and their adventure was over.
“You’ll come back to the house with us for lunch?” Fergus invited. “I’ve told Isobel to expect you, and Mrs. Cameron will take it for granted. She never cooks on a Sunday. It’s an old Scottish tradition and she sticks to it to the letter!”
What could she say? She did not want to refuse, yet all the way to Garrisdale she felt uneasy, unable to put the memory of Margot Blair out of her mind.
When the meal was over she followed Isobel through to the kitchen to help with the washing-up. There were two young maids at Garrisdale, but they were allowed Sundays off to spend with their people on the neighboring island, so that Isobel accepted Alison’s help willingly. As she rolled up her sleeves and began to collect the cutlery she said:
“Will you go up and have a word with Ronald before you go back to the lodge? I think he’s fretting having to lie flat on his back all the time. He’s so essentially the active type. He takes badly to any form of confinement.”
“I’m glad he’s got you to look after him, Isobel,” Alison said impulsively as they stacked plates into the cupboard above the sink. “Although I shouldn’t wonder if he won’t be something of a trial once he starts to get better.”
“I shall be able to deal with him!” Isobel laughed. “On you go up to the bedroom, and I’ll follow you with something for him to drink. It’s a couple of hours since he had his beef tea.”
Alison mounted the stairs and as she entered the bedroom Ronald said, “Hullo, stranger! Can’t you get me out of here? I thought you were a good nurse!”
“Good nurses obey doctor’s orders!” she smiled back. “You look heaps better.”
“Don’t bother with the pep talk,” he advised. “Tell me how long I’m likely to be here—honestly.”
“For a week or two, at least.”
“On my back, like this?”
“That will depend on Sir James’ next visit, so Fergus says.”
“ ‘Fergus’!” he mocked. “I had no idea it had got as far as Christian names!”
She looked away from his probing eyes. She could not tell him about Fergus and Margot.
“We’re calling Isobel by her Christian name too,” she pointed out evasively. “I suppose living on an island brings one into closer contact with the people one meets. It pulls down all sorts of barriers.”
“Isobel’s not the sort of person to erect barriers,” he mentioned reflectively. “She’s an altogether easy person to get to know, and as staunch as they come. She’s like a rock,” he added generously. “Blair would do well to marry her.”
Alison turned sharply away, crossing to the window to look out so that he might not see her face.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, sensing that something was wrong. “Are you in love with him?” His voice was suddenly harsh. “All right, you needn’t answer that,” he added. “It’s Margot, isn’t it? She’ll make sure of him, somehow. She doesn’t mean to be done out of Heimra and the soft life she has living here—not if I know Margot. She’ll wring some sort of promise out of Blair before long, or I’m a Dutchman! And after that—well, he’s not the sort of man to go back on his word.”
His bitter condemnation of the woman he had once loved fell into the heavy silence of the room, and for several minutes it seemed that neither of them could break it.
“I’m sorry,” he said, at last, all the bitterness gone out of his voice, “if I’ve hurt you, Alison, but I know Margot so well.”
Alison turned from the window. Was he still in love with Margot, she wondered, in spite of all his angry protests to the contrary?
“It won’t do any good worrying about it,” she tried to say evenly. “I think Fergus has already made his choice.”
“Not to marry her,” he said sharply. “Isobel says it would be unthinkable at the present moment. He’ll go on looking after her, of course, till the end of time, just as long as she’s as helpless as she is now.”
Alison could not bring herself to tell him that there was no hope of recovery for Monkdyke’s lovely invalid. She could not say that Fergus had given Margot a thousand-to-one chance of walking again and that she had refused it because failure would have meant death.
How could she judge Margot? How could any of them judge her without being in the same desperate position?
Isobel came in with a tray.
“More witches’ brew!” Ronald groaned, turning over in the bed. “I must have drunk gallons of that stuff since yesterday!”
“And look how it’s made you talk!” Isobel grinned, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “It’s the very best of beef tea.”
“I know. Almost slaughtered by your own hand, in fact!” He looked up into the determined brown eyes with a wry smile. “All right, Polly, I’ll drink it,” he conceded. “I’m as weak as a lamb where you’re concerned.”
“A lamb that roars like a lion,” Isobel reminded him. “Sure sign that you are getting back your strength. All men are the same. When they’re really sick they’re as mild as can be, but they need to bellow a bit to restore their masculine ego as soon as they feel the life-blood rushing through their veins again!”
Alison laughed as she rose to go.
“Tell me who wins in the end,” she suggested lightly. “You’re far too much alike, you two!”
Ronald Gowrie protested. “I’m right between the devil and the deep blue sea!”
“You’ll survive them both,” Isobel was assuring him as Alison reached the door. “Come back soon,” she said. “You do my patient a power of good—as you see!”
At the foot of the stairs Fergus was standing waiting for Alison. “I’ll walk back to the lodge with you,” he offered.
They walked slowly at first, down the drive, avoiding the shorter way through the Monkdyke trees. Perhaps she only imagined that Fergus did not want to go that way, though. He had no real reason for putting distance between himself and his sister-in-law. Unless—unless he did not want to annoy Margot.
She wondered if he was conscious of Margot’s jealousy and was therefore anxious to placate her to avoid a scene. Yet he could very well deal with scenes of the hysterical variety. It was part of his job. But perhaps Margot was too clever to deal in hysteria. Her approach, Alison felt, would be more subtle.
“Have you heard anything from the hospital?” Fergus asked when the tall chimneys of the lodge had come into sight.
“A letter came over yesterday with the salvage plane,” she told him. “I am to have a month’s convalescent leave on the strength of the letter you sent back with Ginger MacLean.”
He was silent for a moment, a tense moment in which she wondered if she should offer to go back to the mainland right away before he could say it for her.
“That should be enough to put you on your feet again,” he agreed slowly. “You’ll stay here, of course.”
It had been more command than question, yet she could not believe that he wished her to stay. He might just be trying to be kind in the circumstances because he had discovered that she had no close relative to whom she could go.
“If I may, I should like to stay till I’m sure that Captain Gowrie is out of the woods,” she said.
“Of course.” He turned at the lodge gates to look at her. “That’s—quite natural,” he agreed.
“Mrs. Pollock is doing so much for him,” she added nervously.
“Yes,” he agreed almost stiffly. “She is everything a good house-mother should be.”
He left her on that generous note of praise for Isobel, striding off in the direction of Monkdyke, able to go ba
ck to Garrisdale by this shorter route because he was alone. Or perhaps because he intended to pay Margot a visit on the way.
Alison went slowly into the lodge, feeling as if the sunshine of the early April day had suddenly been switched off.
Janet Cameron came through from the parlour, where she and Dougal sat on Sunday afternoons.
“Mistress Blair has sent down word for you to go to Monkdyke,” she intimated. “She wants to see you right away.”
Alison stood quite still, thinking that Fergus, too, might be on his way to Monkdyke. She could not go there immediately, she decided, even though Margot had sent such a peremptory command. She could not go and make an unwanted third.
She decided to wait until Fergus could have returned to Garrisdale for tea. He had told her that Sunday afternoon tea with the children was an institution at the big house.
Trying to force her thoughts away from Margot and Fergus, she went down towards the sea to walk along the Silver Strand for an hour. And as always beside the sea, she felt calmed and curiously strengthened when she finally made her way towards Monkdyke. Hannah opened the door.
“Mistress Blair is waiting for you,” she said formally. “Will you come this way?”
Aware of her story now, Alison felt sorry for Hannah. She was not a young woman any more, yet she remained constantly at Margot’s beck and call There was no other servant at Monkdyke, not even a handyman. Margot preferred to live in complete isolation, with only Hannah to look after her.
“I hope I’m not too late,” she said to the grim back as they crossed the hall. “I walked rather a long way round.”
“Mr. Blair has been to see Mrs. Blair this afternoon,” Hannah informed her. “He is her doctor.”
“Of course.” Alison drew a swift breath of relief. Hannah had used the past tense, so that she could be sure now that Fergus was already on his way back to Garrisdale. “It was such a lovely afternoon that I thought Mrs. Blair might be sitting out on the terrace,” she added.
“She was out in the morning,” Hannah said with her hand on the crystal knob of a door to the left of the dining room. “She came in before lunch and didn’t go out again.”
No doubt about it being Margot who had watched them from the terrace, then! Automatically Alison straightened her shoulders as Hannah knocked and opened the door.
“Nurse Lang, ma’am,” she announced.
The room, like the others leading on to the terrace, was bright and sunny. It was also lavish with cushions and far too warm, Alison noticed as she stepped over the threshold. Everything about Margot had a hothouse quality, and this afternoon, reclining on a deep velvet settee piled high with peach-coloured satin cushions, she looked like some exotic lily that was certainly too frail to be exposed to the harsh breath of the northerly wind.
She wore a peach-coloured velvet housecoat a shade darker than the cushions, the severity of its cross-over neckline heightening the effect of the fabulous white fox cuffs which completely hid the invalid’s hands as she sat waiting for her visitor.
Why, Alison wondered, should she imagine that these slim, frail hands, which scarcely seemed capable of holding a cup and saucer for any length of time, were tightly clenched beneath the obscuring fur?
“Perhaps you will have some tea with me, nurse?” Margot suggested. “It’s rather late, but I think you had quite a late lunch, didn’t you?”
Alison sat down in the chair on the far side of the hearth, suddenly reminded of a cat playing with a mouse.
“Yes,” she agreed. “It was such a lovely morning that Mr. Blair decided to come back by the north end of the island for the children’s sake.”
“So he tells me.” Margot considered her with wide, thoughtful eyes. “It could hardly be suggested, could it,” she added carefully, “that he also came back that way for your sake?”
“Yes, I think it could,” she attempted to say casually. “He knew I was anxious to see the island and more than curious about the birds.”
“The birds are Fergus’ hobby,” Margot commented. “Have you always been so interested in wild life, nurse?”
Alison tried to keep her temper.
“I’ve never seen anything like the north end of Heimra Beag before,” she confessed as Hannah made her appearance with the tea tray. “I had no idea there were so many kinds of sea-birds or that they came in such numbers, even to a remote island like Heimra.”
“Heimra is only a very small bird sanctuary when compared with some of the official ones,” Margot said as she poured out their tea. “Cream, wasn’t it, and only one lump of sugar? I’ve remembered that about you, nurse, at least!” she added with a smile.
Alison accepted her cup, but felt that she could not eat.
“Please do help yourself,” Margot invited. “I find it tiresome to keep passing plates, and I expect you’ve gained quite an appetite if you’ve been walking on the shore.”
“I came across the Strand.”
“After Fergus left you at the lodge? He said that he had taken you back there and that you had probably got my message.” Margot sipped her tea and put her cup back on the table between them. “I didn’t expect him to come here this afternoon,” she added swiftly, “but one can’t exactly tell a man that when he is being so—attentive.”
Alison drank her tea, wondering where this rather onesided conversation was leading. She could not think of anything to say to Margot. There was nothing spontaneous between them, and for the first time in her life she felt at a loss with a member of her own sex.
“I saw you coming back in the launch this morning,” Margot informed her. “Quite a touching little interlude, I should say. The conscientious nurse and the over-conscientious doctor! Fergus can be quite foolish at times about this ‘colony’ of his. There are plenty of official homes to cater for these children, but I don’t suppose it would be any use telling him that.”
“I don’t think it would,” Alison agreed. “Mr. Blair is dedicated to this work.”
“And you?” Margot asked almost languidly. “Do you imagine that it’s your life’s work, too, nurse?”
“I would give a great deal to be able to help,” Alison confessed unguardedly. “I don’t think there could be a more worthwhile job, or anyone more rewarding to work for than your brother-in-law.”
“It would depend upon what one considered adequate reward,” Margot pointed out. “Several people have come here with your burning desire for service, nurse, only to find out that my brother-in-law is not nearly so unattached as he would appear.”
Alison drew back.
“I don’t think I understand what you mean,” she said “and I think I mentioned before that I didn’t ask to come to Heimra.”
Margot dismissed the second half of her sentence with a gentle smile.
“What I’m trying to say,” she observed calmly, “is that Fergus and I are going to be married.”
The words struck Alison with the force of a physical blow. She could not believe them at first, but then she was asking herself why she should not believe. Fergus had just been here, and from the moment she had been ushered in by the grave-faced Hannah she had been aware of a subtle air of triumph about the girl who lay watching her now with faint amusement in her eyes.
“I didn’t know.” The words sounded foolish in her own ears, for how could she have known if Fergus had just proposed to his sister-in-law? “I—hope you and—Mr. Blair will be very happy.”
“You don’t mean one word of that!” Margot was no longer pretending. She swung her legs off the settee into a sitting position, and her lovely eyes were blazing. “You don’t want us to be happy, do you? You think, with your trained nurse’s mind, that Fergus would be mad to offer me marriage under the circumstances, but let me tell you the reason for it.” She drew in a deep breath in an effort to gain control of emotions which had suddenly run away with her. “Long before the accident—long before his brother died—Fergus Blair discovered that he was in love with me.”
&n
bsp; Alison recoiled before the revelation, her hand flying to her throat where the words of instant denial struggled for utterance.
“No! No, I won’t believe that!” she cried. It couldn’t be true. It was beyond all the bounds of reason. Not Fergus—with the mark of Cain on his brow! “You’re lying!” she added in a strangled whisper.
Margot shrugged her shoulders.
“Why not ask him?” she suggested. “He generally tells the truth.”
“You know I couldn’t!”
“Because you’re in love with him yourself!” Margot half-rose from the settee, and then sank back among her cushions with a gasp. “Get out!” she shouted wildly. “Get out! And I’ll make sure you’re off the island before tomorrow!”
Alison could never remember leaving Monkdyke. She must have let herself out, running all the way to the bay and up over the rocks which divided it from the Silver Strand.
She found herself at the end of the Strand where the Heron had come down, remembering Fergus as he had come to their rescue, thinking about his courage and the calm resourcefulness with which he had dragged her to safety, and remembering, too, the feel of his strong arms as he had carried her almost to this very spot. He had been kind and considerate, and in that moment, surely, she had fallen in love with him.
In the pearl-grey gloaming light she stood staring at the crippled plane, which had not yet been lifted by the salvage team, wondering what she could say to Fergus when she went to tell him that she must go. A desperate sort of anguish took possession of her, and she remained there, shaken by it, for many minutes before she turned in the direction of the lodge.
“Have you seen Mr. Blair?” Kirsty asked when she reached the lodge. “He’s been looking for you. He went to Monkdyke thinking you were there, and then he came on down here, but I told him you hadn’t been back since you went to take your tea with his sister-in-law.”
Alison’s heart seemed to miss a beat.
“Did he say why he wanted to see me?” she asked.
Kirsty shook her head.
“No,” she said. “He wasn’t here more than a minute after he knew that you hadn’t come straight back from Monkdyke. He said would you go up to Garrisdale as soon as you came in, and I said I would tell you.”
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