“One door opening where another has closed? Well, maybe. It has happened before, and you belong here, Alison.”
Was that the answer? The fact that she had come home. But without Robin Craigie Hill meant nothing. “Do you think he’ll ever come back?” she asked.
“Robin? I’d like to think he would, but, quite honestly, I don’t know. He got a sort of wanderlust on him. It seemed he couldn’t get away quickly enough.”
She felt that he could tell her a great deal more but wouldn’t. Men were like that, she supposed; staunch to one another, especially if they had been friends for a long time.
Shortly after nine they rose to go. Time was lagging on leaden feet.
“I’ve not been a very bright companion,” she excused herself. “I think I’d like to get back to Wick.”
“I thought we might have gone round by Mey and Castletown.” Jim was frankly disappointed. “But if you don’t feel like it we’ll go straight back.”
A full moon had risen over the Pentland Firth, widening the panorama of cliff and bay and scattered islands for miles. They could see Stroma quite plainly, with Mell Head standing out like the prow of a ship. Beyond it, far across the silvered water. Ronaldsay gleamed like a pale ghost in the distance. It was her country, the place she had known and loved since infancy, and Jim was part of it. He was part of this night, too, and her agony of waiting. She took his arm as they walked to the car. “How far is it round by Castletown?”
His fingers closed over hers.
“Not much farther than going back by the coast and not half so windy. We’ll be back before eleven,” he promised.
Gills Bay lay like quicksilver under the moon, with the jagged pinnacles of St. John thrusting up above it, and the Castle of Mey appeared and disappeared between the road and the sea. The roar of the tides round Dunnett Head was the same thundering concerto she had listened to at Duncansby, and she was almost grateful when they turned south to be enveloped in the timeless silence of the moors. The road before them was white and clear. Jim knew every inch of the way, as she knew it.
“Alison,” he said when the lights of Wick were once more on their horizon, “I want you to promise you’ll come to me if anything goes wrong. I would have come for you today if I had known. You know that, don’t you? Daviot hasn’t any time for women.”
She felt her cheeks burning in the darkness.
“He makes it reasonably clear,” she agreed, “but I’d never have got here if he hadn’t helped.”
“You won’t need to bother him again. He’s not our sort.” He pulled up at the hotel. “I’ll come for you tomorrow. What time have you to be at the hospital?”
“In the afternoon. Any time after three o’clock.”
He held her hands tightly as they parted in the vestibule.
“I’ll take you home to Craigie Hill,” he offered. “Whenever you want to go.”
Before she went down to breakfast the following morning a note had been pushed under her door. She opened it with a puzzled frown.
‘Chin up!’ she read. ‘I’m off to Thurso, but I’ll be back before three. Always yours, Jim.’
She stood looking down at the signature for a long time before she went out to roam round the harbour in the bright morning sunlight. It glanced on the water and on the clustered roofs of Pulteneytown, but it couldn’t reach her heart. She walked and walked, finding herself at Staxgoe, facing the sea again. It was lonely here, with only the cliffs and the flat land behind her. She watched a plane take off from the airport, veering northwards into the wind. It made her think of her first meeting with Jim and her journey home.
Then she could think of nothing but her mother, praying wordlessly that all would go well. When she looked at her watch it was two o’ clock.
She caught a bus, but Jim was at the hotel before her. “Ready?” he asked. “You have had something to eat?” She nodded, not wanting to tell him the truth in case he would insist on her sitting down to a meal, even at this late hour. They walked to the hospital because it was no great distance. “Cathie will be home tonight,” Jim said. “I phoned her. She was upset about you having to go to an hotel.”
“It didn’t matter. Funnily, I slept some of the time.” They were nearly there. Jim took her arm.
“I suppose we ask for the Sister in charge,” he said.
They mounted the steps. Alison’s legs felt like jelly and the sun had disappeared.
“Miss Christie?” a young nurse asked.
“Yes.”
“Will you come this way?” The nurse looked at Jim, but he kept his hand firmly under Alison’s elbow. “Sister is waiting for you. ”
There seemed to be a great many swinging doors and endless, white-walled passages, but at last they came to the end of them. A door opened and closed behind them, and a small, stout woman in a starched apron and white coif came towards them. “The operation has been a great success,” she said. “Your mother is as well as can be expected ...”
There was a great deal more, but words meant nothing to Alison now. A great joy rushed over her, a thankfulness such as she had never known before.
“May I see her?” was all she could say.
The Sister hesitated.
“Only for a few minutes. She’s hardly out of the anaesthetic yet.” She glanced at Jim. “Only one visitor, please.”
“You’ll be all right,” Jim said, squeezing her arm. “I’ll wait.” Alison followed the Sister into a side ward where Helen Christie lay on one of the two high beds. The other was empty. “Mother!”
She stood beside the bed, waiting for Helen’s response. It was slow in coming, but sure once she had opened her eyes on the misty room.
“I never thought to see you again, wee dear,” Helen whispered, “but here I am!”
She held out her hand and Alison clasped it between her own. She couldn’t speak.
“You’ll tell Robin,” Helen said. “You’ll let him know now that I’ve pulled through.”
“Of course.” Alison kissed her. “At least we've got an address to write to.”
“How long will I be in here?”
“Not long. But that’s a detail. You’re not to worry about how long or how much. Just get well.”
Helen smiled, already half asleep.
“That should be easy now. Did you see my flowers?” A bowl of yellow roses stood on the top of a locker in the corner.
“It was kind of him to remember,” Helen murmured. Alison crossed to the locker. There was a card with the flowers and she picked it up, supposing they had come from Jim. The name she head was Huntley’s.
“To wish you well—Huntley Daviot.”
That was all, but the tears she had kept at bay stood suddenly in Alison’s eyes. He had done this thing. He had cared. He had probably arranged for the roses to be sent before he went back to Sterne.
“They’re lovely.” She touched them gently. “You must have told him the yellow was your favourite ...”
But Helen was already asleep, and Jim was waiting outside. “How is she?” he asked.
“She seems to have come through all right.” For the first time happiness choked in her throat. “Oh, Jim, I prayed so hard—” He took her arm, roughly, awkwardly.
“You need something to eat,” he said.
CHAPTER SIX
THE following afternoon she met Cathie Orbister.
“Come away in!” The door of the cottage on the Milton road was opened wide. “Jim’s been telling me the good news about your mother. He phoned the hospital this morning. I wish you had come to stay here, Alison, and not at the hotel.”
Cathie was small and dark, with merry blue eyes which seemed creased permanently in a smile. Her face was round and shiny, without even a trace of make-up, and everything about her said ‘welcome’. Alison remembered her from their schooldays. She had been head girl and captain of hockey and more or less everybody’s friend.
“It was real bad luck that I was away at Invemaver when all this
happened,” she ran on, showing Alison into a bedroom where she could take off her coat. “Millie MacKenzie has just had twins and Jock’s away at sea. I couldn’t leave her on her own. They’re bonnie bairns, but two’s a handful, whichever way you like to look at it. I’ll go over again next week-end and see what I can do for her, but meanwhile you’ll come here. Did they let you see your mother this afternoon?”
“For ten minutes.” Allison laid her coat on the bed. “She was still rather hazy and she looked terribly weak.”
“It was a major operation,” Cathie reminded her. “But she’ll mend, You’ll see her getting stronger every day. How long can you stay away from Craigie Hill?”
“Not very long.” Alison followed her into the sitting-room where their tea was set and a bright fire burned. “I’ve been away two days. I can’t expect Kirsty and Neil to carry on alone. Craigie Hill’s a demanding place.”
Cathie nodded. “It asked too much of your mother. It needs a younger woman.” She turned on her way to the kitchen. “But not you, Alison.”
“I can’t think who else.”
“Robin ought to come home and settle down.” Alison sighed.
“I don’t think he ever will.”
“Have you asked him?”
“No.”
“Why ever not?”
“Because I think it’s something he must decide for himself.” Alison ran her fingers through her hair. “You can’t force anyone into a decision like that.”
“He’s your brother and Craigie Hill was his responsibility,” Cathie said. “Jim sees it that way and so do I. You can’t live for the rest of your life working for something Robin might decide is valuable in the dim and distant future.”
Alison smiled.
“You’re such a realist, Cathie, but what am I to do?”
“You can’t do very much at the moment, but I’d write to Robin, if I were you. I’d call a spade a spade for once and see what effect it has.” Cathie tied on an apron. “After all,” she added, “he was fond of Craigie Hill at one time. He could talk of nothing else.”
“Something changed him,” Alison said. “It shook me terribly when I knew he had gone.”
“It shook a lot of people.” Cathie’s pleasant voice hardened. “He had a good life before him. A man’s life.”
“We’ve had a letter from him.” Alison followed her to the kitchen door. “It came just before my mother went into hospital. It made all the difference to her.”
Cathie bent over the sink.
“Was it —a permanent address?” she asked.
“More or less. He’s got a job in an office.”
“An office?” Cathie looked round at her. “He’ll never stick it. Robin was always the one for the open air. He’ll shrivel and die in an office. It’s funny,” she mused, her blue eyes suddenly distant, “what a set of circumstances can do, a chance encounter, so to speak.”
“Do you mean the Daviots?” Alison’s voice was slightly unsteady. “Jim thinks Calders changed Robin.”
“Calders and the people in it.” Cathie began to clean the fish for their tea. “He seemed fairly mesmerised by them."
“I can hardly believe it,” Alison said. “He wasn’t like that.” “Folk can change.” Cathie turned to the electric cooker. “Are the Searles still at the Lodge?”
“Yes. I feel rather sorry for Tessa Searle. Jim says she’s changed so much since her accident.”
Cathie put the fish to cook in a pan of milk.
“We’re having haddock and poached eggs,” she said deliberately. “Do you like it?”
“Anything for me.” Alison was aware that the subject of
Tessa Searle was closed. Cathie didn’t want to discuss Tessa’s accident. “You’ve prepared so much, and everything home-baked! How do you do it, Cathie?”
“I’ve plenty of time on my hands. When I get home from the school I’ve exercises to mark, but Saturday mornings are free for the baking. We’ve always made our own bread and scones. My mother was a great woman for that sort of thing and I suppose what you see you do. A good example is better than all the argument in the world.”
A car drew up in the short drive at the side of the house. “That’ll be Jim,” Cathie said. “He’s early, for a change! In you go and talk to him while I infuse the tea. He’s always as hungry as a hunter when he gets home and he probably has to go out again. When you’re building up a business from scratch you haven’t much time to yourself.”
Over the meal they tried to persuade Alison to move from the hotel, but she had already decided to go home.
“I can come up each afternoon,” she pointed out. “The van’s comfortable enough when you’re in the driver’s seat.”
“When you can’t visit we will,” Cathie promised. “We’ll see to it that your mother isn’t lonely.”
Jim wasn’t too happy about the van journeys.
“It might be all very well in good weather,” he objected “but you know what November can be like up here. The thing isn’t roadworthy half a mile away from Craigie Hill.”
“It will have to do, at least for the present,” Alison decided. “Honestly, it’s something of an adventure going out in it!”
“Let’s hope you’re not stuck with an adventure you can’t cope with,” Jim warned. “I’ll come for you when I can.”
Cathie smiled.
“He makes himself responsible,” she said.
But Alison didn’t want Jim to feel responsible for her safety. She felt that the van would be adequate, although even Huntley had condemned it.
“I’ll get back early, if you don’t mind,” she suggested when they had washed up and were sitting before the fire. “I mean to write to Robin before I go home.”
Jim drove her back to the hotel.
“You could have stayed with us,” he said. “We’ve got three
bedrooms and Cathie would have been glad of your company when I’m out at nights.”
“There’s Craigie Hill, Jim,” she reminded him. “I can’t leave everything to Kirsty and Neil.”
“Must you take the early milk round?” he wanted to know.
“I believe I enjoy it now,” she told him.
He looked at her intently.
“You’ve been seeing a lot of Daviot,” he said.
“Not a lot.” A fine colour stained her cheeks. “I deliver his milk and he was press-ganged into bringing us to Wick. That’s all.”
He wasn’t completely convinced.
“You needn’t be beholden to him a second time,” he said. “We’re on the end of the telephone. You can ring if you need me.”
“I will, Jim,” she promised. “You and Cathie have been wonderful.”
“Havers!” he said, awkwardly pleased by the knowledge of her gratitude. “We did nothing.”
As soon as she reached her own room Alison wrote her letter to Canada. The hotel was practically deserted and she could have used the writing-room, but she felt that she needed complete privacy. It was going to be a difficult letter to write.
‘Dear Robin,’ she began, wondering what she could say to make him realise how much he was needed.
‘I think you ought to know that Mother is in hospital.’ That seemed rather bald, but she had good news to follow it. ‘She had a major operation on Tuesday and has come through it very well. She got your letter the day before we left Craigie Hill and that made all the difference to her. She felt content, knowing where you were, at last. All the same—’ She hesitated, resting her chin on her hand. ‘All the same,’ she added firmly, ‘things might have been better if you had been here, but since you’re not, will you write to her more often? I’ve put the hospital address and her ward number at the top of this letter. If she’s moved to another ward later on it won’t matter. She’ll still get your letters. The decision at the moment is that she’ll be here for three or four weeks and then she may go for a time to a convalescent home. She was very run down. Craigie Hill was too much for her, but I’m ther
e now, trying to keep the flag flying. After all, it’s our home.’
She sat for a long time wondering what else she could say to him.
‘Craigie’s much the same,’ she added hurriedly, ‘but Neil and Kirsty are getting older. We muddle through, though. One of these days I’ll have to invest in a new van. The old one is falling to pieces. Jim Orbister has had a look at it and doesn’t recommend it for long journeys. It gets me to the glen and back, however, and up to Sterne. I also deliver at the Lodge. The Searles are still there. Tessa had an accident some time ago. I don’t know the details, but it has left her with a bad limp. She’s going to marry Huntley Daviot.’
Reading that final sentence she could picture Tessa so vividly; Tessa with her haunted eyes and nervous, fluttering hands. Slowly, deliberately she crossed out the last half-dozen words. It couldn’t matter to Robin that Tessa was going to marry Huntley. She had erased the words on her own account because she couldn’t bear to see them written down. They seemed to make Tessa’s ultimate marriage to Huntley a reality.
Pacing up and down the room, she thought of him. What had he done to stamp his image so indelibly on her heart? They had never met on equal terms; he had never encouraged her love. It had come all unbidden, this bitter-sweet longing, this strengthening desire to be always near him. She had tried to ignore it, but right from the beginning she had felt its power to make or destroy her. Love unwanted! It was a terrible thing.
Proudly she thrust the thought of it away. Her letter was finished. She had said all she wanted to say, hinting that Robin might come home for her mother’ s sake, not her own. When she thought of Craigie Hill now she thought of Huntley, who could think of no one but Leone, whom he would never see again.
Signing her name at the foot of the sheet of writing-paper, she sealed and directed the envelope to Canada, posting it the following morning when she went to buy her mother some flowers.
Jim drove her to the hospital in the afternoon. Helen lay on
the high bed, propped up with pillows, smiling at them both. “You’re wasting a lot of time on me,” she said.
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