“Quite,” Christine assured her. “I don’t think Iona seems unduly miserable.”
“There’s absolutely no reason why she should be,” Flora insisted. “She has everything a girl could want ... everything!”
“Yes,” Christine murmured, although she didn’t think so.
“One day Iona will thank me for all I have done for her,” Flora continued aggressively. “A mother knows best, really. We have come through life and recognize its pitfalls. If we stress the advantages of a suitable marriage it is because we have seen so many of the other kind fail.”
So, that was it! Flora had decided what would be a suitable marriage for her daughter, and though, in these days, she could not very well enforce it, she would encourage it by every means in her power. Christine cast around in her mind for the object of her aunt’s approval and had not far to seek when she remembered Flora’s constant praise of the two Henderson youths who had danced so often with Iona at the Highland gathering a week ago.
Christine thought about her cousin for the remainder of the afternoon, and because she was troubled walked down to the library to meet Iona at six.
The big, airy rooms were still open and a few elderly men sat reading at the long tables placed down the center of each room. Iona was seated at her desk near one of the windows, the bright sunlight falling on her hair, enhancing its beauty as the lamplight had done on the evening of the dance. In many ways she reminded Christine of Rhona, although Rhona’s spirit had never been crushed.
Iona looked up, smiling instantly at the sight of her, although Christine was conscious of a nervous reserve that was not there normally. She wondered if Iona had not wanted her to come.
With a nod and a smile she began to stroll around, looking at the books while Iona put on her coat. Presently she found herself thinking that her cousin was lingering longer than was necessary.
“I’m sorry if I’ve kept you waiting,” she said as she joined Christine. “I ... it’s just after six, isn’t it?”
“Five minutes past.” Christine saw the deep color that ran up under her skin as they exited between the swing doors. “It’s not really late.”
She looked at the man standing at the foot of the steps and knew that he had been waiting for Iona. He was hatless and his hair was graying slightly at the temples, but she thought that he had the kindest face she had ever seen. It was not an old face, because it had the suggestion of eternal youth about it, and the eyes were gray and sure as they looked out at the world. He wore shabby Harris tweed jacket and slacks, and he limped slightly as he put his weight on his left foot. Otherwise his body was tall and straight and agile.
“I thought you might have gone,” he said. “It was such a good day that I felt sure you would be walking home.”
His voice was low and cultured, his eyes steady and smiling on Iona’s, who looked half-distressed as she turned to Christine with a smile that was an appeal for understanding.
“Chris,” she said, “this is Bob Niven. We work together in the library.”
That was all, but tone and eyes betrayed so much more. Christine shook Bob Niven by the hand, liking him instantly but realizing what this attachment of Iona’s would mean at Merrivale if it were found out. It was the answer to all Flora’s probing about the change in her daughter, for Iona was in love with Bob Niven, and the fact that he was some fifteen years her senior and well below the financial standard hoped for by Flora, did not seem to distress her.
Bob Niven accompanied them to the bus stop.
Iona did not speak until the bus had gathered speed.
“We walk to the stop together every evening when we are on duty at the same time,” she explained. “Bob has been at the library longer than I have, of course, and he was very kind to me when I first started because he could see how hopelessly shy and awkward I felt among strangers.”
“I liked him,” Christine told her spontaneously. “He was most interesting—not the ‘booky’ sort of person one might have expected, yet I should imagine that he would be capable of talking sensibly on any subject.”
“He’s particularly fond of music.” Iona’s eyes were very bright. “We went to a concert in St. Andrew’s Hall ... when mother was at Kinaird with you.”
“Your mother hasn’t met him, of course?”
“No.”
The small, crushed monosyllable told Christine so much: it told of heartache and a final despair because Iona knew so well what her mother’s reactions to Bob Niven’s friendship would be.
When they finally left the bus at Eastwood Toll, Iona was still thinking about Bob.
“Iona,” Christine asked, “are you in love with him?”
There was a small, tense silence. “Yes. Do you wonder why?”
“No. I think I can see what you’ve found in him.”
Iona stood quite still in the deserted road, looking up through the leafy branches of the trees to the patch of blue sky above their heads.
“I may never be able to marry him,” she said, “but nothing ... nothing will ever take the memory of these past few months from me, Chris! I’ve lived. I’ve really lived! When mother finds out she will take me away from the library, but she can’t take these months from me ... ever.”
“If Bob loves you—” Christine began, but Iona shook her head. “He has never told me,” she said. “And somehow I think he never will. You see, I think he knows about mother and ... the difference in our ages is another reason. I don’t know if he has ever loved anyone else, but I don’t really care. It wouldn’t matter if only I knew that he loved me now, Oh, Chris! I’ve had to tell you all this! I’ve been bottling it up inside me for so long.”
“And you’re quite prepared, feeling as you do, to sit back and accept defeat?”
Iona’s fingers tore nervously at the light gloves she carried.
“I’ve asked myself that question so often, Chris,” she said wearily, “and I can’t find the answer.”
“Perhaps that is because you are just going on in the same old way,” Christine suggested.
“There’s one thing,” Iona said before they had quite reached the gate of Merrivale, “I know I’ve felt much happier at home since you came to stay with us.”
Christine felt immeasurably touched by the spontaneous little compliment. “I’ll stand by, Iona, if ever there’s any trouble.”
They found Mrs. Lamington in the lounge glancing almost suspiciously at the heavy ormolu clock on the mantelpiece so that Iona was forced to explain.
“We walked up from the Toll. It was such a lovely night.”
“You never seem to think about meals getting cold,” her mother returned snappishly, “but since Christine was with you I haven’t been worrying unduly. All the same, I expected you to remember that the Hendersons had asked you over for tennis this evening. It’s really very late and you shouldn’t rush your meals, but I think you might make an effort to get across by seven, even if you only stay for a couple of hours.”
Iona stood hesitating in the center of the floor, looking at Christine and then back at her mother.
“I wish I needn’t go, mother,” she said. “Their tennis parties last so long, generally ending up in dancing, and I’m on early duty tomorrow.”
“If this library job is proving too much for you, Iona, you must give it up,” she said peremptorily. “I’ve thought for some time that it was taxing your strength—”
“Oh, no! No, really, I’m all right.” Iona had flushed painfully and then grown pale at the thought of leaving the work which had come to mean so much to her. “I like my job, and it isn’t too much. It was the party after the tennis I was thinking about, but I’ll go if you wish.”
“I certainly do,” Flora told her, “since Douglas has suddenly decided to work late this evening after I told him more than a week ago that the Hendersons would be expecting him. One would almost think my children tried to upset me deliberately,” she observed irritably to the room in general.
Poor F
lora! Christine thought sadly, she was so firmly caught in her own web, denied the confidence of her children because she had never given them confidence in anything but her indomitable will.
“Perhaps we could go to the pictures, Aunt Flora?” she suggested helpfully, knowing that she had not been included in the Hendersons’ invitation. “You said you would like to see that film that’s on at Shawlands Cross.”
“I don’t think I’ll go out at all,” Flora answered peevishly.
Christine wrote her father a letter that night, filling it with the doings of her far-from-busy day in an effort to make it appear that she was contented. But when John Helmsdale read her letter, he read also between the lines, and the thought of Christine being unhappy troubled him greatly.
“I wonder if we did right,” he mused, sitting over a last pipe with Georgina while she darned his socks in the chair across the hearth. “Her whole interest is here in Kinaird and she’ll never be happy while she stays away.”
“Give her time,” his wife answered. “She’ll make friends in Glasgow, but after a while, if we think she’s still not too happy down there, we can find a reason to bring her back again.”
“I wouldn’t want to leave it too late,” John said uneasily. “I’ve seen lives spoiled by just one wrong decision.”
“I don’t think it was a wrong decision Christine made, and I don’t think we were wrong to agree to her going,” Georgina returned positively. “She needed the change, though I don’t suppose some of the folk about here have stopped talking about her going yet.”
“I’ve stopped hearing!” John said tersely. “I was up at Glenavon this afternoon, by the way. Old Ben’s had another touch of gout and there’s no living with him In consequence, but I thought, too, that there was something else on his mind. He didn’t say anything, but I’ve an idea he wants that nephew of his to come back, after all. The two of them will never do at the quarries—old Ben has to be the undisputed authority every time—but he may be thinking of retiring. The man’s well over sixty and I told him it was high time he was sitting back and taking things easy.”
“Do you think young Treverson will come back?” Georgina asked.
“I’ve no idea.” John frowned and knocked out the contents of his pipe on the edge of the fireplace. “Kinaird needs young blood, but it needs steady folk, folk that won’t rush off when things go wrong or the tempo of life isn’t suiting them.”
“They say young Treverson is like that.”
“I wonder if they really know.” He stood up and took a turn around the room, coming back to stand beside her chair. “Do you remember when I wanted to go to sea? Do you remember when all my thoughts were of boats and the prospect of medicine as a career was irksome to me? I even knew you then,” he added, not entirely irrelevantly.
“But you soon settled,” she reminded him. “Maybe we all have an unsettled time in our lives to make us more sure when we do settle down.”
“You never had,” he said with conviction.
“I knew what I wanted,” she answered simply, adding with a rare show of emotion: “I aye knew I’d be happiest wherever you wanted to be.”
He put his hand on her shoulder in a gesture of affection and humble thankfulness for her abiding love and a lifetime’s service to his career, and then he glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece.
“Nigel and Rhona are late, aren’t they?” he observed.
“They were to have their suppers with Mrs. MacNeish, and maybe they’ve walked back along the road. It’s a grand night for a walk along the loch.”
John grunted and nodded.
“I’m fond of that boy,” he confessed, “and Rhona would make him a good wife.”
“If his thoughts weren’t elsewhere,” Georgina answered in a disturbed voice. “I’m thinking it’s Christine his heart is set on, and I’m wondering if that’s why she went away.”
It seemed to Christine that these first few weeks of early summer sped with amazing rapidity in spite of her feeling of homesickness and the fact that she would never feel really settled in her aunt’s household. Flora found a lot to occupy her time, and one afternoon each week she went down to Douglas’s surgery to relieve his receptionist, a job which she thoroughly enjoyed doing. The experience, she believed, would come in useful one day, although the first time she had put on the white surgery coat and smelt the familiar tang of disinfectant in her nostrils such a longing for Kinaird had assailed her that she had felt ready to lay down everything and take the first train home.
Douglas had noticed her preoccupation and consequently had been kind and considerate, and after that first day she had looked forward to the weekly visit to the surgery as an oasis in a barren land of futile tasks around the house.
And then one day Iona came in from the library, white faced and tight lipped. She made only a pretense of eating and disappeared into the garden as soon as the table was cleared.
“What’s wrong with Iona?” her mother demanded, looking after her daughter with knitted brows. “She’s had an awful lot of those moods lately.”
“Maybe she’s in love!” Douglas offered, unconscious of how near the truth he was. “I’ve heard folk have different ways of showing it!”
“Whom could she be in love with—unless it was someone we knew?” Flora voiced the question with a slight lack of conviction, as her eyes searched her son’s face, but Douglas merely looked amused. “You’ve no right to make such suggestions, Doug,” she accused him, “when you know how they worry me!”
“I’m sorry,” he apologized instantly, “but really, mother, you shouldn’t worry so much. People fall in love and get married every day.”
“Other people!” Flora answered dryly. “It’s quite a different matter when it comes to one’s own family,” She turned querulous eyes upon her niece. “Christine,” she demanded, “has Iona spoken to you?”
“About being in love?” Christine turned at the door. “Of course,” she smiled. “All girls do. We wonder what it’s really like, and sometimes we talk about it.”
“You know I meant specifically!” her aunt said sharply. “Has Iona mentioned anyone at the library, for instance—” she added suspiciously.
“Good heavens, mother! You wouldn’t expect Chris to tell you that, even if she knew!” Douglas interposed.
All the resentment that Christine had long suspected, lay in Flora’s voice as she retorted, “I wouldn’t expect Christine to do anything for me unless it pleased her, even in spite of all I have done for her these past few weeks!”
Christine blushed, but managed to say quietly, “I’m sorry I’ve been a burden to you, Aunt Flora, but I simply refuse to carry tales.”
She made her way from the room, feeling blindly angry and subconsciously seeking Iona’s companionship in the shady garden away from sight and sound of the house.
Her cousin was seated on the low terrace wall surrounding the tennis court, and she started almost guiltily at the sound of footsteps behind her. When she saw Christine she smiled.
“Mother has sent you out for me, I suppose?” she asked listlessly.
“No, I came out here becauseI felt I had to get away, too, Iona.” Christine sat down on the sun-drenched Hags and ran the palm of her hand lightly over the clump of purple arabis at her side. “Is it Bob?” she asked.
Her cousin nodded. “He’s got another job ... away from the library.”
Christine felt her heart subside in genuine disappointment. “Oh—!”
“It’s ... a much better job,” Iona went on tonelessly. “It’s really a great chance for him and I ought to be glad.”
“But you’re not, because he’ll be going away from Glasgow?”
“Yes.” Iona gulped. “That’s it. I ... perhaps I’ll never see him again.”
“Surely you can write to one another?”
“How could I, with mother censoring all my mail!”
Christine was silent.
“I wish I knew what to do,” Iona sai
d. “Oh, Chris, I feel so dreadfully unhappy I could die.”
“Nobody has ever really died for love when it wasn’t completely hopeless,” Christine assured her practically.
“But you know how hopeless my love will be as soon as mother finds out.”
“It’s your life,” Christine said firmly. “Has Bob asked you to write to him?”
“Not yet.” Iona sighed. “I think he knows about mother.”
“You’re accepting unhappiness now,” Christine told her. “You’re even meeting it halfway.”
“What would you do? Oh, Chris, tell me!”
“It wouldn’t apply,” Christine said firmly. “We’re as different as chalk from cheese.”
“You don’t need to tell me that,” Iona said despondently. “I know. And I know what you would do in these circumstances. You would go out and meet your love and stand by him in the face of everything, wouldn’t you?” She swallowed hard. “But I’m not like that. I’m too much of a coward. People defeat me so easily, Chris. I can’t stand up to people.”
“You must learn to,” Christine said kindly, conscious of something in her young cousin’s words that had stirred her profoundly. “We can’t live our lives according to someone else’s pattern, and we must stand up for the things we believe in. We’re only cowards when we run away.”
“I can’t imagine your running away from anything!”
“I’m wondering if I did run away ... once, and not so long ago,” Christine said with sudden difficulty. “I thought I had another reason for it, but—that’s by the way. When does Bob leave?”
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