Huntley Treverson put down his gun and turned to look at her. He had taken off his hat and Christine saw that his hair grew dark and thick about a shapely head. His face looked too thin, with high cheek bones and a long jaw, and his eyes were dark gray and penetrating under their thick, dark brows. It was the mouth, she considered, that entirely redeemed what might have been a forbidding countenance, distracting from the autocratic nose by its suggestion of humor. It quirked up at the corners now.
“Marooned, I suppose one might call it, but marooned, thank heaven, in comparative comfort!” he observed lightly.
“It’s certainly dry,” she acknowledged.
“But you wouldn’t call it sheltered?” he queried, listening to the wind as it howled furiously around them before he closed the door and bolted it securely on the inside. “I’ll have a fire going in no time, and then we’ll think about something to eat.”
He took off his coat, throwing it beside his hat in the corner, giving her time to adjust her thoughts to the strange adventure as he foraged in the room beyond one of the doors and returned with sticks and logs.
“A fire’s the thing! It’s amazing how much more cheerful one’s outlook becomes immediately there’s a fire going!” Hissing and spitting from the damp wood, the first sparks shot up the chimney as he spoke. “You’ll probably find a towel in one of the bedrooms,” he directed, with his back turned. “We’ll get you dry first and talk afterward.”
Christine found herself shivering.
“I must admit I’d like to feel dry,” she confessed, “but I’ve an awful conviction that I’m wet right through.”
“Toss your things out, then. There’s a knitted blanket or something over one of the beds. We can squat in front of the fire and eat, Indian-fashion, while they dry.”
She left him, going into the room he had indicated, where she slipped off her shoes and stockings and her sodden skirt, at last coming out shrouded in the blanket.
“I’ve lit a lamp and put it in the window,” he explained casually as he saw her hesitating in the doorway. “There’s sure to be a search party looking for you when it gets really dark. As for me—” he shrugged “—nobody is likely to miss me until the morning.”
“Do you think anyone searching would see the light from the far side of the flood?” Christine asked, spreading her skirt over a chair and holding her hands out to the comforting warmth of the fire.
“Sure to. Besides, they will see your car and,” he added lightly but quizzically, “if Leander is among them, I should imagine he would gladly swim this particular Hellespont!”
Christine laughed.
“I wouldn’t expect anyone to risk pneumonia in a flood even if they did see my beacon light, but I like the idea. It’s reassuring.”
He was heating beans in front of the fire and had produced biscuits and cheese. The smell of the beans and the thought of a cup of tea cheered her immensely.
“I’m really hungry,” she declared when she had warmed her hands and feet at the blaze. “I didn’t wait for tea at home before I set out.” She leaned back in her chair, smiling as he heaped beans onto a plate and passed them across to her. “Perhaps I had better introduce myself,” she added. “I’m Christine Helmsdale. My father is the doctor at Kinaird and I’m his receptionist.”
He inclined his dark head in acknowledgment.
“I should have known that, I expect, but I am not very often in Kinaird these days. You said you were going to meet your father, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” She felt suddenly worried about her adventure for the first time. “He’ll wonder what has happened when I don’t turn up.” The rain was pelting down in renewed fury and the sound of running water obliterated all other sounds. The word “marooned,” spoken so jocularly half an hour ago, had become a reality. They were in the lodge high above the flood water, warm and safe enough, it was true, but they were there, inevitably, for a very long time. She began to think of home, of her mother and Rhona wondering how far she had gone on her way to Letterness, and of Nigel finishing his surgery hour and thinking of her father’s return. “Worried?”
“I was thinking that they would soon become uneasy at home.”
She rose and crossed to the small lattice where he had set the lamp, cupping her hands round its heavy brass base and looking out at the steely curtain of rain falling beyond the leaded panes. “It’s not easing at all,” she said. “The road must be well under water by now.”
He drew her shoes away from the increasing heat of the fire before he answered, turning them over thoughtfully in his hands.
“I’m afraid we’ll have to accept the fact that we are here for the night if our little beacon isn’t seen,” he said. “We can put a light in the other window in case anyone gets through from the south, which I very much doubt, and I’ll keep the fire going. If it does nothing else, the smoke from the chimney might attract attention as soon as it’s light.”
They looked at one another and laughed.
“I thought this sort of adventure was strictly confined to books!” Christine said. “If you were really marooned—say on an island—for weeks and weeks, how would you spend your time?”
“It would depend on how much food we had, wouldn’t it?” he replied whimsically. “And if we were lucky enough to have books or records into the bargain.”
“If you had books,” Christine urged. “Say you were able to take three, perhaps.”
He considered for a moment.
“I’d take Treasure Island, to help me enter into the spirit of the thing and because I don’t think one ever tires of reading it, and Pickwick for humor when my own threatened to fail me, and—yes, War and Peace, because I skimmed through a lot of it for lack of time.”
They talked for a long while about their mutual love of books. Her shoes were dry by this time and she thrust her feet back into them while her companion made more tea, very black and very strong.
He told her stories of old Ben and of how they had fished and hunted when he was a boy home for the school holidays, and a good deal of what she had previously heard about “Old Treverson” and his nephew suddenly struck her as false.
Looking at the man who sat on the other side of the hearth, she found it difficult to believe in the scapegrace nephew who had been adopted by old Ben and then sent away again after some escapade at school.
She remembered the tragedy of old Ben, how his only son had been killed by a rock slide at the quarry he owned in the hills above Kinaird, and how it had been openly said at the time that Ben himself had been responsible for the accident because he had always been determined to take the last ounce out of the slate without putting very much into the workings in return. He had been a stubborn old man—and still was, she had heard her father say—but there was always a note of admiration in John Helmsdale’s voice when he spoke of Ben. It was quite true that he had made money out of the quarry and invested a good deal of it profitably in Glasgow, but he was a likeable old rascal in many ways and the tragedy of his son’s death had appeared to change him completely.
Apparently he had immediately sent for his widowed sister-in-law and her son and, where he had been mean and tight-fisted before, he suddenly become over generous. The boy had been brought up with every luxury and with the anticipation of eventually owning all that the old man possessed, and then, one day, there was a flare up and Huntley Treverson disappeared from the neighborhood. He had not come back for several years. By then his mother was dead and his visits were short and uncertain, but not without their spice of excitement for the local gossips. He had been one of the guests at the frequent parties at Bramshaw Mains—the big, showy farm recently purchased by a retired Glasgow businessman who had made a fortune in the wholesale grocery trade—and there were rumors of return parties at Glenavon, the rather bleak gray house on the hill above the quarries where Ben Treverson lived for most of the year with a housekeeper. Old Ben seemed to countenance these parties with a mild disregard for all his for
mer opinions of his nephew’s conduct, and wild, reckless and untrustworthy was the reputation that still clung to Huntley Treverson’s name.
Christine looked at the man bending to replenish the fire, finding it difficult to credit these rumors, and so she put the memory of them from her and helped him to make strong, sweet cocoa for their supper.
By now it was quite obvious that they were likely to be imprisoned in the lodge till morning, but when he had emptied his mug of cocoa and lit his pipe, Huntley rose to his feet and picked up his hat and raincoat from the corner. She looked up at him, her frank eyes holding a question.
“I’m going down as far as the road.” He turned up the storm collar of his coat, pulling his hat firmly over his brow. “If your search party gets as far as the flood on their side they’ll find your car, and if I can get across to mine I can signal with my lights, perhaps. They may also see the lights up here, of course, and conclude that you are safe.” He turned as he reached the door. “It’s still raining so it’s useless to feel that we may get away tonight. If you air a blanket or two at the fire there are comfortable beds in the bedrooms, and even though you mightn’t sleep very well you could lie down and rest. Get to sleep if you can, and I’ll look after the fire.”
He had spoken almost abruptly, conscious that she had been worrying about her family for the past hour although she had kept cheerfully talkative. When he had left Christine could think only of how solicitous he had been of her welfare.
Although she aired the blankets as he had suggested and curled up between them, she could not sleep until he returned. He came in, closing the door behind him, but not bolting it this time, and he called to her from the fire as he stamped the water from his boots.
“I saw lights on the far side of the flood, which rather suggests you’re being looked for, and I signalled to them as best I could with my headlights, but there was no possible way of getting through, so I expect they took it for granted that you were safe enough—probably that you were in the car.”
“It would be Nigel,” Christine said sleepily. “I hope he’ll go home and reassure the others.”
She knew that she would sleep now until morning, and she turned over in her blankets as Huntley Treverson threw another log onto the fire.
She slept soundly, and it was bright daylight when she awoke to the sun pouring in through the window. For a moment she had difficulty remembering the events of the night before because a luxurious sense of warmth and well-being enfolded her, and the sunshine lying in a bright slant across the brightly colored blanket made her spirits soar. Then she heard voices, Huntley Treverson’s voice and another.
She put on her skirt and sweater. When she opened the door Huntley Treverson and another man turned from the fire in the room beyond. The monk’s bench had been set in a rough-and-ready way for breakfast, and Huntley had evidently been preparing it when their visitor arrived. Christine recognized him at once as one of the gamekeepers on the Bramshaw Mains estate who lived in the village.
“Hello! Dan,” she greeted him pleasantly. “We’ve been marooned. But probably Mr. Treverson has been telling you about it.”
She looked in Huntley’s direction and for the first time noticed that he was frowning. He stood over the fire with the frying pan in his hand and she remembered now that his voice had sounded abrupt and noncommittal when she had heard him speaking from the other side of the door.
“Well, now, I’ll have to be on my way!” Dan’s little ferret eyes darted here and there. “I’ll be making my way back over the hill.” He glanced at Christine with a wicked suggestion in his eyes. “You’ll maybe not be wanting me to be leaving any messages, Miss Helmsdale, when Mr. Treverson thinks you can both get away now? But then, your family might be anxious for your safety, and I could be at Kinaird before you get there, maybe. I heard there was a search out last night, but I didn’t join it myself, me being on duty at the time.”
“You could take a message,” Christine told him calmly. “I really wish I could come back with you...”
“It’s a long, hard way over the hill, and I’ve got my bicycle at Craigdune.”
“We’ll get the car through all right,” Huntley said abruptly. “You couldn’t possibly walk all that distance over the hill.”
Dan grinned and was gone, and Christine was left thinking that she had never really liked Dan McKelvie or his gossiping little wife. Such a thought was perhaps an injustice because it would be through Dan that the news of her safety would eventually reach Kinaird.
They ate their breakfast while the sun shone high over the hills and birds sang in the thickets all around the lodge.
On the way down to his car, Huntley Treverson spoke mostly of his life in Glasgow and the work he did there. He was apparently looking after his uncle’s interests in the city and enjoying himself fully into the bargain, entering into the social life of a circle so far removed from Christine’s conception of living that she could not even begin to understand it. Yet, even if what he told her now seemed to bear out the truth of the reputation he had acquired in Kinaird, she could not forget how kind and considerate he had been in the past few hours. That was how one judged people, she thought: from the way you found them, from their behavior to you. She did not pause to think that it was not the way in which the world judged. She was strong-willed and fearlessly blunt in all her dealings and very few things had ever daunted her. In short, she was John Helmsdale’s daughter.
It was surprising how much the flood had diminished in the night, as if, after the rain stopped, nature had hastened to repair the ravages of three days of abnormal storm. Christine’s first reaction was a desire to return as speedily as possible to Kinaird to allay her mother’s fears, but she also thought of her father waiting at Letterness and could not quite make up her mind whether to go home or go on to the Sma’ Glen.
“I’ll take you home,” Huntley Treverson suggested.
“I’m thinking about my father,” she confessed. “I don’t really know what to do. He’ll be waiting for someone to take him back to Kinaird, and I really ought to try to contact him, but there’s my family, too.”
The problem was settled for her by the sound of an approaching car, which she recognized immediately as the coupe, and Nigel pulled up at the far edge of the water. He stepped out and waded across to them.
“Thank heaven you’re safe, Christine!” Nigel said harshly. “We’ve put in a bad night, worrying about you.”
“I—we spent the night safely enough in Mr. Treverson’s shooting lodge,” she explained. “Didn’t you see the lights? We hoped you would and that you would guess where I had gone.”
Nigel glanced at the big black car in its sheltered position behind the crags and nodded a brief acknowledgement of Huntley’s presence.
“I’ll take you home,” he said authoritatively. “Your mother is still worrying, I’m afraid.”
Christine turned to thank her companion of last night’s adventure and encountered a gleam of intense amusement in his dark eyes.
“Goodbye,” he said softly.
She smiled.
“The Hellespont was much deeper than this, you know!” she said, but before she could wade into the water he swung her up into his arms and carried her across to the coupe.
“No need to get your feet wet a second time,” he observed casually as Nigel opened the door.
“Thanks so much,” Christine said a little breathlessly. “Thanks—for everything.”
“A mere neighborly action,” he declared. “I’ll go back to Letterness for your father now. It’s no great distance and no trouble, and Doctor Kilbridge can see you safely home.”
He knew who Nigel was, although she had forgotten to introduce them when he had swept her so unceremoniously into his arms to carry her to the car, and somehow, as Nigel drove her away after a very cursory inspection of the stranded sedan, she felt that Nigel knew his identity, too, and furthermore, was well aware of his reputation.
The thought di
d not worry her for long, however. She was far too concerned about her mother. As he put the miles swiftly between them and her adventure of the night before, Nigel seemed to relax. He told her about the search party and how they had finally come upon the stranded car and seen the lights on the hillside in the direction of Treverson’s lodge and how it had been concluded that she had found shelter there for the night. Then, an hour ago, Dan
McKelvie had come to the surgery with news of her safety, and Nigel had set out to bring her home.
The recital of it all seemed so logical to Christine that she was able to laugh quite frankly at her adventure, and when she reached home the relief in her mother’s eyes was plain to see.
“The things we’ve been thinking!” her mother exclaimed, kissing her in a most unusual demonstration of affection. “But we’ve a fire on and a meal ready and you’ll soon be none the worse for a night on the hill!”
“To be strictly truthful,” Christine confessed, “I’ve probably fared much better than you have. I feel very guilty! There was even bacon out of a tin and beans for breakfast!”
She told them, quite simply, the story of those past few hours, of how Huntley Treverson had come to her aid. Rhona and her mother wanted to hear the tale twice, but Nigel strode away in the direction of the surgery in the middle of the first telling.
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