The scene at the quarry was greatly changed. Where there had been activity there was almost a deathly stillness. Always there was the suggestion of resentment lingering like a dark cloud that only the necessity of the moment kept from overshadowing everything.
Not all the quarry men were involved in the murmurings; Christine was well aware of that, and it seemed significant that the men who had worked most closely with Huntley argued greatly in his favor, although they were powerless to explain away the order he had given or even to account for it.
The wordy battle swayed to and fro for a week, at the end of which time Huntley was on his feet again, very much thanks to Laura, as Laura and her doting father made it generally known. His first act on returning to work was to close down the face where the accident had occurred, and very soon afterward it was rumoured that the whole quarry might be closed. This raised the specter of unemployment, because there were no concessions made in the matter of news about the new workings at Druim Alaig. “High-handed” was the term most generally applied to describe Huntley’s attitude, and Christine found herself wishing that he would trust Kinaird a little more.
But who was to tell him all this? She had tried, her father, too, had tried to help, but apparently he had not fared any better. Huntley’s determination to work this thing out in his own way had defeated them all.
There was just old Ben. Quite often Christine’s thoughts fastened on Ben Treverson as the only possible answer to the situation, yet Ben still remained paralyzed.
He had been moved up to Glenavon on the third day.
With two patients at Glenavon, Doctor John was frequently on the glen road, and quite often he was able to offer a lift to one workman or another, among them the foreman who had gone from the old workings to the new one at Druim Alaig. In this way he learned a great deal about the new methods that Huntley had introduced on the other side of the hill, gleaning the information bit by bit from a man who had never been biased in his life and who now appeared to be speaking the truth against a majority of discontent.
The days dragged past and the resentment against Huntley only seemed to mount, growing stronger with his reappearance at Druim Alaig, but he went his way in apparent indifference, giving his orders and expecting MacPherson, the foreman, to see them carried out. Gradually, the men who had worked at Glenavon were being absorbed in the larger project at Druim, although many of the older hands—men in their seventies, for the most part—were paid off and pensioned.
The transfer was not working quickly enough, however, and Huntley’s unshakable determination never to commit himself aided the grumblers. Ten days after the accident there were still a dozen men in and about Kinaird who were not yet reinstated or transferred “over the hill.”
In the middle of the controversy Georgina Helmsdale was preparing to go to Glasgow to her nephew’s wedding, and Christine, who would have stayed behind gladly, made ready to accompany her. It was a foregone conclusion that the doctor could not leave his practice, particularly with old Ben Treverson’s life still hanging by a thread, and Christine was determined to return at the earliest possible opportunity.
“I can go down the day before the wedding and come back with the early morning train the day after,” she explained to her father, and, surprisingly, he did not urge her to linger in Glasgow.
“Don’t stay away too long,” he said, giving her cheek a gentle pinch. “You’re needed here.”
“I wish Nigel were back,” she said impulsively. “You had such confidence in him.”
“I suppose I shall have confidence in this other fellow some day,” he reflected. “It takes time, building up confidence,” he added, and she thought that he wasn’t exactly thinking about Gordon Caitland at that moment.
Going to Glasgow was an event to Rhona and her mother, and Christine watched their eager preparations for the journey with a tender smile.
The journey south passed eventlessly and they were met by the bridegroom and his sister at the station.
They found Flora in a flurry of last-minute preparations, too absorbed by trivialities to take into account the fact that she had capitulated over Bob and admitted him as one of the family by sanctioning his presence at the wedding. She had very little time to ask much about Kinaird, only pausing to remark that her brother must surely be extraordinarily busy when he could not attend his only nephew’s wedding.
Douglas stayed with his family during the evening, running around in search of this and that, although Flora was quite convinced that she had attended to everything down to the last detail. Iona and Christine waited until he was safely in bed and asleep before they systematically unpacked his leather case and stuffed everything in it with confetti after sewing up arms and legs with the minutest stitches that would take him hours to undo.
“I wonder why people in love are considered fair game for those sort of pranks!” Iona laughed when they were through. “I mean to sleep with the key of my case securely fastened around my neck on my last night at home!”
“You’ll be married from here?” Christine asked, with a little rush of pleasure at the thought.
“I think so, now that mother has more or less recognized Bob.” Iona’s eyes were suddenly starry as she halted on the stairs. “I can hardly wait until tomorrow to see him again, Chris! These past few weeks have seemed an eternity—in spite of the fact that I was happy at Kinaird. Everyone was so kind up there,” she mused, the reflection sending her thoughts in another direction. “I hope Huntley will soon be well again. I liked him so much, Chris ... and I think he is very fond of you.”
Christine flushed sensitively.
“No, you’re quite wrong,” she said huskily. “I thought—at one time that we could have been friends, but now—”
“Friends?” Iona repeated. “He doesn’t want only friendship, Chris. It’s all your love or nothing. How can a man be just friends with the one person in the world who was made for him—after he’s recognized the fact?”
“I wish I could believe that,” she said breathlessly, “but I’ve had so much proof of his indifference lately.”
“Probably because you have never given him the slightest opportunity of seeing the truth,” Iona pointed out. “Besides, isn’t there quite a spot of trouble in Kinaird just now? Has it never occurred to you that he might not want to drag you into that, after the other business of the flood? After all,” she went on relentlessly, “you turned him down flat at the beginning.”
“Iona!” Christine cried in alarm. “How do you know that?”
“He told me.”
“He told you?” She repeated the words foolishly.
“Yes. We were having an honest-to-goodness heart-to-heart one evening in your garden—down by the rockery—and he told me that he had asked you to marry him once and that you would have none of him.”
Christine was glad that her cousin could not see her face in the full light.
“He told you, of course, when he proposed that it was from a sense of duty after the night on the moors.”
“He said he had proposed to you not long after he met you, but I can’t remember any mention of duty.”
“Of course he wouldn’t use the actual word, but any sane person would understand why he had done it!”
“Are we always quite sane when we are in love?” Iona asked musingly, and then, when they had reached the foot of the stairs: “You do care for him, Chris, don’t you?”
“I’d be telling an unforgivable untruth if I said no.”
“Then—don’t throw away your happiness.” Iona begged. “You have both been so good to me, I’d give anything to see you happy—anything!”
“It sounds easy enough, but what can I do?” Christine asked. “He’s so ...
“Pigheaded? You may as well say it as think it!” her cousin told her. “All men are a little, you know. Even Bob was at first because of something he called our different positions in life. Huntley won’t let you share his unpopularity, but I don’t thin
k he will leave Kinaird, either.”
“No,” Christine said slowly, “I don’t think he will, and I’m glad about that!” Her eyes were shining now. “I know how he feels, Iona, and it’s just how I would feel in similar circumstances. He’s not guilty of treachery, and he won’t deign to explain himself to a handful of people that don’t really matter anyway. But the majority of the people in Kinaird should know the truth about him. There must be some way...”
“I think you’ll find it, whatever it is,” Iona said before she opened the drawing-room door.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Douglas’s wedding day dawned clear and bright and a lovelier bride than Sheila Craig-Temple could not have been imagined. Iona, chief of six bridesmaids in long gowns of misty gray and pink chiffon, looked almost as radiant as she smiled to Bob Niven standing in a front pew beside Christine, and Douglas succeeded in appearing extremely self-possessed throughout the ceremony.
There was a lengthy luncheon, and dancing to a small orchestra afterward. When the happy pair had been duly seen off at Central Station amid a demonstration worthy of ten-year-olds, the guests were entertained at the Theater Royal.
“It’s been a long, glorious day!” Iona exclaimed at the end of it, voicing the thoughts of them all, and Flora went so far as to try to persuade Christine to stay for a day or so until Rhona and her mother went home.
Christine, however, had promised her father to return immediately, and that and the conversation she had had with Iona made her catch the early train for Fort William the following day.
Her father met her there, so sure was he that she would keep her word. There was a vaguely satisfied look about him that drew her attention immediately.
“You needn’t tell me that all your patients are on the road to recovery!” she commented when she had related all the wedding news. “I can see it sticking out a mile!”
“There’s more to it than that,” he told her as they entered the Ford. “Ben Treverson may get his speech back.”
“Oh, I’m glad! I’m glad for his sake.”
“When a man of Ben Treverson’s type thinks he is going to die it may not be altogether a bad thing.” He was pursuing his own thoughts, puffing meditatively at his ancient pipe. “He looks back on a long life of irregularities and believes that some of them can still be put right. In fact, he’s often in a devil of a sweat to overdo everything and enter heaven as a saint!”
Christine laughed at the thought of old Ben’s saintliness.
“I think he has something to say about the day of the accident,” the doctor returned carefully. “I think old Treverson can tell us the truth about that.”
For no definite reason Christine’s heart felt lighter than it had done for weeks, and she realized that the feeling had been growing within her gradually ever since she had spoken to Iona on the eve of Douglas’s wedding.
“I’m with you in everything you care to do,” she said firmly. “You’ll have to be,” he returned grimly. “I’ve already committed us both up to the hilt!”
“In what way?” She was remembering Huntley’s brusqueness when he had sent her away from Glenavon, his near hostility in the face of their former offer of help. “He won’t let us do a thing for him, and I can’t very well go back to Glenavon—”
“I wasn’t thinking of Huntley in person,” her father observed calmly. “I’ve been dropping a few observations from my Book of Common Decency—dropping them on fertile ground, I hope, and where the ground wasn’t exactly fertile I’ve just simple read the riot act!”
Old Ben recovered slowly, his power of speech returning last of all, and until he had full control of his voice again, he appeared reluctant to speak at all. Then, on the day he was permitted to go out for the first time, he ordered his nephew to drive him to Druim Alaig.
Huntley frowned at the request.
“There’s no point in your going there,” he told him frigidly. “You know what you think of my methods.”
“I’m not talking about methods or anything else!” the old man bellowed. “You’ve got ninety percent of my men up there now working for you, and the other ten percent who are still at Glenavon don’t count. I want to speak to these men.”
“If you’re thinking of making trouble...”
Ben silenced him with a look.
“Get your car out,” he commanded, and Huntley obeyed without demur.
They drove in silence to the head of the glen and over the hill to the green slopes of Druim on the other side, and when they were within sight and sound of the new workings Huntley brought the car to a standstill.
“Don’t begin to argue,” Ben advised. “Get the men together in front of your offices. I want to speak to them.”
Huntley walked away, his mouth grim, but he did not hesitate to carry out the command. When most of the men were assembled on the floor of the quarry, he went back to the car and opened the door.
“They’re waiting,” he announced laconically. “They’re all there, with the exception of the two men in the motor house, and I can’t spare them.”
Ben grunted and began to walk away in the direction of the restive group facing the office buildings. Huntley strode across to the motor house on the far side of the quarry where he could remain out of sight and sound.
His uncle walked purposefully toward the group of men, waving his stick until they parted to let him pass through to the door of the offices and here he climbed up the three steps leading into the building and turned to face them.
“Everybody’s here that was working at Glenavon?” he demanded. “Everybody but the few who haven’t the sense to see which side their bread is buttered on!”
The booming challenge was an unexpected broadside and it was met by a murmur that might have been a growl. No one was entirely willing to commit himself by speaking up.
“Well, if that’s so, I’ll tell you why I’m here.” Ben looked about him, his eagle gaze penetrating to the back of the crowd and returning again to those who stood in front. “I’m here to tell you the truth about a few things that you don’t seem able to see for yourselves. A few weeks ago there was an accident at Glenavon and I’ve heard a great deal of talk about it since and had to listen to it because I had lost the use o’ my tongue. But now, thank the Lord! I’ve been given it back to tell you what really happened. The accident at the quarry was nobody’s fault but mine.” He swallowed twice, glaring about him as if he would challenge anyone to contradict him, but no one spoke. “I gave the order to blast at that face, and my nephew carried it out. Not without a lot of argument, mind you! We argued like demons for hours, and then he did what he was told, although it went badly against the grain! He knew it wasn’t safe to put such a big shot in at that place, and after I had forced my will on him I knew it wasn’t safe either. Aye, I forced him to carry out my order, and because I was the boss down at Glenavon he did it, though he half-guessed the consequence. That’s discipline for ye!” The old man broke into broadest Scots, sure proof that he was deeply moved. “A man that can take an order and obey it even when he thinks it’s a wrong one is a man ye’ll take orders from! Some o’ ye learned that in the Army, no doubt, an’ I’ve learned it here. I’ve been a stubborn auld fool a’ my days, I’m thinking, and this was nearly the last o’ me, for I saw my mistake as soon as he turned his back on me and went to give the order. I thought maybe I could stop the blastin’ in time, but I was wrong.”
There were murmurings in the crowd now, low and conversational, but it was evident that the news had come as a surprise to most of them and that they were pleased with what they had heard.
“Och! I knew the lad was honest enough!” someone said aloud. “The old man’s always been an awkward old devil,” he added beneath his breath.
“And now ye’ll go back to your work,” Ben told them, “and show my nephew that there’s no more ill feeling against him. I know there’s some grumbling old sinners in the village that have been paid off, but they’ve been pensioned into
the bargain, and you can tell them while you’re at it that that was my nephew’s idea and not mine! I’d have kept them working until they dropped, but he’s acknowledged a long life spent in our service. That’s all I’ve got to say,” he ended abruptly.
When he had strode away, the men making way for him again, there was a general hubbub of conversation. Then four men detached themselves from the group and went in search of Huntley. He had taken his uncle back to Glenavon, quite ignorant of what had gone on at the face, and old Ben did not enlighten him, so that he met the deputation from his workmen with a suggestion of wariness in his candid gray eyes.
They made their explanations stiltedly, as became men who worked hard and energetically in the open.
“We’ve made a great mistake, sir, blaming you for that accident at the old quarry, but it was hard to come by the truth when nobody spoke up. We’ve just heard your uncle, though, and what we have to say is that we’re sorry we misjudged you, and maybe we should have known better.”
The last half-dozen words meant more to Huntley than a dozen apologies, and his strong mouth relaxed in a smile.
“We all make mistakes at one time or another,” he conceded. “I’ve made them myself, scores of times, but I feel that we can work together better now—on a firmer footing. My uncle has been very—magnanimous,” he added with just a trace of dryness in his deep voice.
The news from the new quarry was even more of a nine days’ wonder than anything that had gone before. The Helmsdales heard the news with the rest of the village and Christine did not think it strange that Huntley should remain slightly aloof at Glenavon until most of the excitement had died down and old Ben’s speech was no longer a novelty.
Doctor's Daughter Page 16