“I’ve tried to be patient,” he answered, “but it’s difficult when you see someone you love suffering as Iona has done.” He turned toward her, his eyes deeply shadowed by anxiety. “She’s been ill since she came to us and we sent for the doctor yesterday. She says she’s on the verge of a complete breakdown, brought on by mental suppression.” He sat gazing down at his locked hands. “I’ve felt guilty, as if I had no right to tell her of my love and inflict this added burden of frustration and unhappiness on her at such a time,” he said dismally.
Christine put an impulsive hand on his arm.
“Don’t think that your love has hurt her, Bob,” she persuaded gently. “I think this rebellion of Iona’s had to come for her own sake, and it is only the knowledge of your love that will be sustaining her now. I’m not really surprised about the breakdown,” she added truthfully. “Iona is sensitive and easily hurt, but at least she knows now that her love is returned.”
“I hope you’re right,” he confessed. “I was beginning to doubt my own judgment.”
“Iona could never love anyone else,” Christine told him with the utmost conviction.
She did not hesitate to tell him the truth about the situation at Merrivale because even in the short time of their acquaintance she recognized this man’s ability to face the truth with courage and complete understanding.
“There’s only one snag, Christine,” he said as they got off the bus. “The doctor does not advise a quick marriage. She thinks Iona should go away for a month or two into restful surroundings where she might be able to forget her former unhappiness. By that time we should be firmly settled in Aberdeen. I’d be able to take her there without her being involved in the confusion of moving.”
“It sounds logical enough,” Christine agreed.
“The problem is, where can she go alone?”
They were walking up a quiet avenue with tall, red sandstone tenements on one side and neat, semi-detached villas on the other, but suddenly Christine was walking in a Highland glen where the hills came close and blue water sparkled in the sun, and the air was balm and comfort to a troubled soul.
“She must go to my home,” Christine said. “She must go to Lochaber.”
Bob Niven turned to her, his gratitude shining in his eyes.
“This is good of you, Christine “
“It’s only natural that she should go there,” Christine said as they paused before a small wicker gate set in a low stone wall over which she glimpsed a square of neatly kept garden and white steps leading up to a vestibule and an open glass door. “My father is a doctor and will be able to look after her.”
“I couldn’t have hoped for anything like this,” he confessed as he led the way toward the welcoming doorway. “You’ll help me to persuade her, won’t you? At the moment her one thought seems to be to get back to work, imagining, I suppose, that she’s a burden to us.”
“She musn’t think of it,” Christine declared, as a small, frail-looking lady came toward them from the long passage leading to the back of the house.
“This is my mother.” Bob introduced them.
“You’re Iona’s cousin? Come in, my dear,” Jenny Niven said. “We’re living in one room at present because we’re busy packing. It’s such a stir, sorting out all the bits and pieces and deciding what can stay and what must be thrown out.” She smiled pleasantly, looking up at her son, who slipped an affectionate arm around her shoulders. “We cling to so many odd little things as we grow older—junk, Bob calls them, but they’re all tangled up in our memories.”
“Take ‘em all with you, then!” her son encouraged her. “We’ll find a corner for them so long as they’ll make you happy.”
After that there was no question in Christine’s mind about liking Bob Niven and no doubt about Iona’s ultimate happiness.
Iona was lying on the big, comfortable chesterfield in the homely room into which Mrs. Niven ushered her guest, and her eyes lit up when she saw Christine.
“Don’t get up! I’m coming to sit beside you.” Bob was relieving Christine of her hat and coat while his mother produced a savory-smelling pie from the kitchen and placed it on the table which was already set for their meal. “We’ve got all sorts of plans, but we’ll leave them until after tea.” She turned to her hostess, pretending not to see the quick, emotional tears that had flooded her cousin’s eyes. “Mrs. Niven, I believe I’m famished!”
“I’m right glad of that,” Bob’s mother responded, “since I’ve baked a pie big enough for six!”
“Bob exists on sandwiches in the middle of the day just to come home to his mother’s cooking!” Iona was making a tremendous effort, and beneath it Christine could see how completely she had been accepted into this happy household. “I’ve got an awful lot to learn, Chris, if I’m ever going to be able to follow in her footsteps!”
“It’s all practice,” Mrs. Niven assured her. “It will come naturally enough in time. I couldn’t cook a pot o’ broth without the barley or something sticking to the bottom when I was first married.”
“The elimination of error!” Bob grinned. “What we men suffer for love! But with forty years’ experience behind it, this pie smells good!”
Iona was helped to her chair at the table and when they were all seated and grace had been said, Bob looked up and asked casually, “How would you like to go to Lochaber? To Kinaird.”
Iona’s eyes leapt to her cousin’s. “Chris, are you going home?”
“No, but you are,” Christine said smilingly. “It’s the most natural idea in the world. I’ll write to father tonight and arrange everything.”
A deep light of love and yearning mingled with the gratitude in Iona’s eyes as she looked around the table from one to the other of these three people who were doing so much for her.
“She can’t travel alone,” Bob decided. “I’ll have to get some time off.”
“You know you can’t ask for another day’s leave.” Iona was firm in her refusal of his suggestion, taking new courage and new strength from the thought of their love and support. “I’m quite capable of traveling to Lochaber alone. If you put me on the train
I’ve nothing to do but get off at Fort William to find Uncle John waiting for me.”
“That’s true,” Jenny Niven said. “We mustn’t make too much of an invalid of her. All she needs is fresh air and sunshine for a few weeks and a mind at peace.”
“She’ll get all that and more at Kinaird,” Christine assured them, rising because it was eight o’clock and she had to travel to the other side of Glasgow.
Bob Niven went to bring her coat and his mother murmured an excuse and followed him from the room, leaving the two girls alone. Christine turned from the fire and bent over the chesterfield.
“Don’t worry any more,” she urged gently. “Bob will have everything settled in less than no time and you’ve got years of happiness before you, Iona.”
“And ... my mother?”
“She’s angry and disappointed, of course, and she won’t give in yet, but people don’t hold a grudge all their lives, Iona. When she sees you happy with Bob, she’ll realize that she’s been wrong.”
“Mother has never admitted to being wrong in her life,” Iona said. “All this must have been the most terrible shock to her.” Christine nodded.
“That’s all it is, really,” she agreed. “A shock. And I’m not going to pretend that she will get over it in a week or two, but I’ve promised to stay at Merrivale, and I’ll do all I can to convince her about you and Bob.”
Iona clung to Christine’s hand, reluctant to let her go.
“Why should you be so good to me?” she wondered. “I know you don’t want to stay in Merrivale—I know you wish with all your heart that you were coming north with me.”
“Yes, I wish that,” Christine confessed huskily, “but things don’t always work out exactly the way we wish.”
There was no time for further conversation. They said goodbye and Bob Niven wal
ked to the terminus with her and put her on a bus, standing back from the curb with a smiling salute to watch until she was out of sight.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was very seldom that Christine gave way to depression, but walking back from her first interview with her prospective employer two days later she felt that the difficulties of life were crowding in upon her thick and fast. Douglas had described “old MacDornoch” as a difficult man to work for and after that first meeting Christine was quite prepared to believe anything she heard about him, but she wanted the job. It was the kind of work she liked best.
She walked hurriedly, as if to direct her thoughts into other channels by covering the ground to her cousin’s surgery at a rapid pace. Then she remembered that this was the afternoon Huntley Treverson had made his appointment with Douglas. Everything seemed to be drawing her heart and thoughts relentlessly back to Lochaber. But soon her thoughts were linking Iona’s name with Huntley’s in another, more practical way. Why shouldn’t they travel north together? If Huntley was going alone, Iona and he would be company for one another, and it would set Bob Niven’s mind at rest to know that Iona had a practical male to attend her on the way.
She was making out accounts in the office when the door bell rang punctually at three-thirty. She could not still the mad beating of her heart as she went briskly along the passage to answer its summons, and when she opened the door to Huntley the stereotyped, conventional greeting seemed so utterly out of place between them that she did not speak at all.
He looked at her keenly as she closed the door behind him.
“You haven’t changed your mind about going home?” he asked. “No.” Her voice was slightly unsteady, yet she forced herself to meet his eyes. “I haven’t changed my mind, but I want to ask a favor.”
“What do you want me to do for you, Christine?” he asked, his dark eyes searching her face.
“I want you to look after my cousin on the journey to Kinaird, if you will. She’s traveling this weekend, and you said you were going up on Friday, so she could arrange to travel then, too.”
He smiled whimsically. “Not a great favor,” he suggested. “Is your cousin young and very inexperienced, or just the usual confident schoolgirl who will end up by looking after me?”
She smiled because he was making it all very easy for her. “Iona isn’t a schoolgirl. She’s almost as old as I am and she is Doug’s sister,” she explained. “You’re sure to like one another,” she added confidently. “There’s been a spot of trouble at home, but Iona’s going to be married shortly and she needs a rest.”
“So she is going off to Lochaber with your love and blessing while you stay behind to sweep up the battlefield?”
She stood looking at him, remembering his proposal of marriage and the conviction in his voice when he had told her that she would never be happy away from Lochaber, and his unwavering eyes met and held her own. Before she could speak the door behind them opened and Douglas came into the room.
“Well!” exclaimed Douglas cheerily, “next for the torture chamber! How are you, Treverson? I hear you’re leaving us for the wilds of Lochaber in a day or two. My sister’s going up there, too. Funny if you should happen to travel together!”
“I’ve just been suggesting it,” Christine said. “Mr. Treverson is traveling up on Friday morning.”
“What about Iona?” Douglas asked with a frown. “Is she fit to travel so soon?”
“Her doctor thinks so and, after all, she is going to be in good hands. Dad will meet her at Fort William with the car.”
“Everything appears to be settled then,” Douglas agreed with some relief. “Good show! Will you come this way, Treverson, and we’ll see about the teeth? Chris, you might have a look at Mrs. MacBean. She’s coming out of the anesthetic and I’m afraid she’s going to be a handful!”
Mrs. MacBean proved more than a handful that afternoon. An exceedingly nervous type of woman, she had sought to conceal the fact by a show of bravado when she had first come in, but the anesthetic had stripped her of all pretense and she came around in tears. Christine murmured words of encouragement while her ears were strained for the sound of Huntley’s departure.
Douglas came in a few seconds later, rubbing his hands briskly and looking pleased.
“Now, Mrs. MacBean! How are you? I’ve phoned a taxi for you and it will be here in a jiffy.”
Oh! the interminable delays of the commonplace! Christine went about her duties automatically with her heart crying out to hear all Douglas could tell her about Huntley, yet subconsciously she knew that there was very little to tell.
“Well, that’s that!” Douglas had ushered Mrs. MacBean to the door. “Isn’t tea coming up yet? You’re behind yourself this afternoon, Miss Helmsdale, aren’t you?”
“Disgracefully!” She had forgotten about tea and she still lingered by the window. “Did you make any definite arrangements about Friday?”
“In detail. But I’ll tell you all about that when you produce the tea! Have we another patient?”
“Not till five-thirty. Miss Creighton never comes until after office hours, you know.”
“Bless the woman! I’d forgotten her.” He glanced at the clock. “That gives us half an hour, and I’m gasping for that cup of tea!”
“All right, you shall have it,” Christine promised, relieved beyond measure that Huntley had not gone back on his promise.
When she had brought in the tea they sat down together to enjoy the first break in a busy afternoon.
“Treverson isn’t a bad sort,” he ruminated, idly. “He appears prepared to go to no end of trouble to see Iona safely there. Even offered to hire a car from Fort William to save your father the journey. I telephoned your father, by the way, when you were at old MacDornoch’s and he has promised to meet Iona. Only too pleased to have her, he says. I guess he misses you, Chris.”
The quiet observation, uttered so naturally, stirred all the old longing in her so that she was forced to look away.
“How did you get on with old MacDornoch?” he asked presently, and she roused herself from thoughts of Kinaird to reply.
“He must need a receptionist pretty badly or he would never have engaged me on the spot!” she confessed with a chuckle. “He’s completely overbearing and doesn’t expect anyone to have a mind of his own. He told me quite pointedly that he thought I would do ‘in the meantime.’ “
“He’ll keep you as long as you’ll stay,” Douglas declared. “He hasn’t had a really efficient receptionist in years, and I believe his bark is much worse than his bite.”
Christine was silent for a moment. “I want to feel useful again, as if my work meant something in the scheme of things.”
“And it was necessary at Kinaird, wasn’t it? Why did you leave?” he asked.
“Because I had to. It’s a long and rather difficult story, Doug.” He poured himself another cup of tea and passed her a cookie. “You met Treverson at Kinaird, didn’t you?” he reflected. “He told me he was going back to work with his uncle, but I gathered that he expected to encounter quite a lot of opposition from the old man. They don’t seem to see eye to eye very readily.”
“I wonder if it’s the natural opposition between an older and a newer generation,” Christine mused. “The old people hang on to their fixed ideas—the proven things—and then we youngsters come along and tell them that the world has changed for the better, we know Our way about, and what we do and think is the new way and, therefore, so much superior and infinitely more enlightened! But there’s always experience—”
“Experience is all very well when it’s not cluttered up with obstinacy,” Douglas declared. “Of course people learn mostly by experience—even I think that—but you’ll stumble across your obstinate old folk who have done something over and over again and, therefore, it must be right! Old MacDornoch is a bit like that, I’m afraid. He doesn’t have much time for new ideas, and I gathered Treverson expects to wage war with his fire-eating old uncle
for much the same reason.” Douglas laughed. “When you meet again you can spend the time consoling one another!”
“There’s no reason why we should ever meet.” Christine’s face was suddenly pale and strained. “Even in Kinaird our worlds are very far apart.”
“He didn’t sound to me as if he thought that,” her cousin observed, “but you’ll see him at the station on Friday, won’t you? You’ll be coming to see Iona off.”
“Yes, I’ll come,” she promised, wondering why the sunshine seemed suddenly to pour straight through the window.
Flora Lamington made no further reference to her daughter’s departure for Lochaber after the one brief remark that Iona could do as she pleased in future, but Christine felt that her aunt was secretly relieved at the unexpected turn of events. She knew that Flora had written a long letter to her father to which he had replied by telephone the following afternoon.
Christine had been out when the call had come through and she was bitterly disappointed when she had heard about it.
Her aunt made no effort to join them, and Douglas, who had attempted to persuade her to do so the evening before, ate his breakfast in silence with a worried frown replacing his habitually cheerful expression.
Christine had told Flora that she was going to the station, but her aunt would not send any word of comfort to her errant daughter. It seemed that she would never forgive Iona. It seemed that forgiveness was a thing she did not understand.
As they entered the station she saw Huntley almost immediately, his tall figure standing out above the shoulders of the crowd, and in that moment Christine recognized him as the one man who would always be able to stir in her the deep, true emotion of love. She stood shaken to the depths of her being by the knowledge and doubly shaken by the thought that her realization of the truth had come too late. He had asked her to marry him once—how long ago it seemed now—and she had refused him in no uncertain terms.
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