‘You merely ask the nurse, dear,’ said Dr Currie calmly, and then she smiled an absolutely devastating smile, which included more than a hint of wickedness. ‘Besides . . . I know his father.’
Victoria could not eat, but drank three cups of hot, sweet tea between Dundee and Edinburgh, which meant an embarrassed muttering to Dr Currie before they got a taxicab. She saw the solid bulk of the castle and tried to fix it in her mind to describe to Catriona, for she knew that later her mother would be thrilled that she had seen it. In spite of her tension, she marvelled at the city’s skyline as they bumped and jolted their way up Lothian Road, around Tollcross and out to Craiglockhart.
They got out of the taxi and looked up at the massive stone building, with its welcoming open doors. Several young men, some with slings or crutches, were draped picturesquely on park benches, on the lawn itself and on the wide stone steps that led down to the grass tennis courts. Victoria cheered up. They didn’t look too awful. One even shouted, ‘Looking for me, darling?’ She laughed and waved.
And then they were inside, and the atmosphere changed. It was cool and quiet, and everything in sight was clinically scrubbed and polished. A nurse in a starched blue dress, and with starched white wings flying from her head, directed them up the wide marble staircase to the second floor. Robert was in a little room that held nothing but an iron bed, a chair and a small wardrobe. There was a lovely watercolour on the wall, of an old-fashioned boy with softly waving, long blond hair, a brown smock and blue stockings, standing in a wood full of bluebells. It imprinted itself on Victoria’s mind and never left her. A tall, slender, distinguished-looking man was sitting by the bed reading a book, and he got up when they entered. His face went quite white as Dr Currie held out her hands, which he gripped painfully.
‘By Jove, Flora, what a sight for sore eyes,’ he said and hugged her to him.
Victoria took all this in and then her attention focused on the bed. There was a long, painfully thin body lying under the white sheet and rough grey blanket, but whether it was that of a man or a woman . . .
‘Robert?’ she whispered and reached for the bandaged hands. The thing lying on the bed winced and drew them painfully away.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, aware that somewhere behind her Dr Currie (Flora – strange to realize that Dr Currie had a first name) and Robert’s father were talking softly, happily, like old friends.
There were slits in the bandages and she could see his eyes staring at her, alight as if with fever.
‘Victoria?’ It came from the grotesque slit that allowed his father to spoon soup into him and the nurses to administer oral medication. ‘Victoria,’ he said again, and this time the voice was more human, less tortured. ‘I prayed you’d come. They thought I was going to die, but I knew, Victoria, if I could get back to you, to the woods . . . I’ll get well in our woods, Victoria, won’t I?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered while the tears ran unchecked down her face. She could say no more.
Dr Currie was at her side, lifting her up. ‘Victoria, I think that’s enough for now: speaking tires him.’ She turned back to Lord Inchmarnock, who had moved to the other side of the bed and had one hand resting gently on Robert’s shoulder. ‘I’ll take her to Charlie’s flat, Sandy, to freshen up. Then we’ll come back after tea.’
Victoria must have shaken hands with Robert’s father, for ever afterwards she had the memory of a very kind face, but she felt nothing and cried helplessly all the way to Dr Currie’s cousin’s flat in Heriot Row. Even the fact that Charlie was an unmarried man who lived alone did not occur to her until they were on their way back to Dundee, and Catriona’s questions. She did recover though, after a bath and a lovely meal in the most beautiful room she had ever seen in her entire life. Charlie had been introduced – a gentle, stooping, scholarly man – but Victoria could not remember his name and afterwards she could not even remember his face. He had been solicitous during the meal, a charming and generous host, and then he had left them.
‘Not leaving to smoke, my dear,’ he had said to Victoria. ‘Cousin Flora has all the bad habits in our family. She smokes, as no doubt you know, but I like neither cigarettes nor coffee, both of which you will be offered now.’
He excused himself and Victoria sat back in the beautiful chair and relaxed. ‘This is class, isn’t it, Dr Currie,’ she said, looking at the light furniture, the Chinese rugs, the etchings, the exquisite lamps.
‘Well, it’s good taste, dear, which isn’t always the same thing. Old Tam Menmuir has class – a real gentleman. Sandy has it and so does Charlie, who also has good taste. I think that Grampa of yours probably had it too.’
Victoria smiled. ‘You mean class is more what a person’s like inside?’
‘Exactly. Never pay attention to labels, Victoria. Examine the merchandise for yourself.’
‘Is Robert going to get well?’ Victoria asked abruptly.
‘It’s too early to tell. We’ll go back for another visit.’
Victoria rested by the fire and drew strength from the atmosphere of peace and beauty in the lovely room. Then, when Dr Currie felt that Victoria was ready, they returned to Craiglockhart.
Robert was alone. His eyes were closed and his body was very still. Victoria looked down at him and in her heart she heard his laugh, as he had picked the primroses. The knight had gone to the Crusades and had come home battered, while the battles still raged. An overwhelming anger filled her and, as if he felt her passion, his eyes opened and slowly focused on her. They crinkled as if, under those bandages, he was trying to smile.
‘I thought you were a dream,’ he whispered. ‘I kept seeing you among the trees, and sometimes there were primroses and sometimes autumn colours. But when I tried to touch you, you dissolved, like a will-o’-the-wisp.’
‘No, I’m very real.’
‘Never leave me, Victoria. Promise you’ll never leave me.’
Again she heard an echo from the past – a little girl’s voice saying, I will never leave you, Mamma, never.
‘Promise.’
‘I promise, Robert. I’ll never leave you.’
She sat beside the bed, his bandaged hand resting in hers, until Dr Currie told her that he was asleep.
‘Write him a letter, Victoria, to say that we’ll come back just as soon as we can. Sandy will read it to him.’
‘I promised him. I said I’d stay.’
‘No, you said you wouldn’t leave him, dear. That’s not the same thing. His father will stay by his side. We have responsibilities in Dundee. Our work. Your mother.’
*
In Dundee, Catriona had finished her labours and had made herself a nice pot of tea. Wickedly she spread real butter on the heel of a loaf. She had worked so hard cleaning the rooms. Even John had been out all day. Where he got to she did not know, nor what he did with his time, and, she told herself, she did not care to know what he did. But today he hadn’t even come in for tea, so the fish pie could be heated up tomorrow. It was hard to get a nice bit of fish and she’d managed to fill this one out with some dried eggs.
Oh, the taste of real butter. Imagine, some children born in the past few years had never eaten anything but margarine. Well, Maypole wasn’t bad, and only elevenpence a pound, but butter . . .
Catriona was almost content. She lay back on the settee and looked around her, her eye catching the Wally Dug that Tam and Bessie had brought on their last visit. She really didn’t care for china animals, but it made her think of the farm and it cheered Victoria. Thanks to Dr Currie, Victoria had that lovely office job at Smart’s, and Mr Smart was talking about sending her for secretarial classes one day a week. If she could just get rid of John . . . But, honestly, did she want to get rid of him? Yes. No. She didn’t know.
‘Goodness,’ Catriona laughed at her fancies and put another log on the fire. What strange roads eating a pat of precious butter sent one down. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror before sitting down again.
She was quite a well-looking woman, considering, and although she had become scrawny and haggard after Jock’s death, she was beginning to relax and fill out again. And this scrape of butter will help that along, she thought and then she sighed. Where had she gone wrong? What had she not been able to give John that would have kept him beside her? By rights they should be out there at the Priory – solid Angus farmers, with a brood of children round the table of an evening. In the early days it had all been so wonderful.
Alone now, she allowed herself to indulge in happy memories. She had hardly been able to believe it when John first asked her to walk out with him. Her father was a farm labourer, but John’s father actually owned his land. John could have had any woman in the district, and the talk was that he had had many of them. But he had wooed her honourably, and their first days of marriage had been everything that any young bride could have dreamed about – sun-filled days of hard work, and nights . . . oh, the nights, of learning, seeking, loving. She arched her back slowly and stretched, yearning, remembering. ‘Oh, John, where did it all go wrong?’ Did she ask the question out loud?
She looked up out of memory-filled eyes and he was standing there on the rug in front of her. She had been so busy with her thoughts and, oh yes, her achingly sweet memories that she had not heard him come in. She had not lit the gas, and the firelight flickered, sending shadows over his handsome face. He knelt down beside her and she tensed, but he turned sideways so that he was looking at the fire and held his hands to the flames, as if for warmth. She relaxed again. For some time they were quiet, enjoying the peace and the warmth.
‘You’re still a fine-looking woman, Catriona,’ John said into the fire. ‘I came back to you, you know. I left her in Paris and came back to you and the lassie, to the blasted farm.’
So he had been with a woman. But how good, how noble of him to admit it, after all these years. She had known and had forgiven him long since.
When had he turned to imprison her work-worn hands? His head was on her knee: she could feel the warmth of his mouth against the thin stuff of her dress. She wanted to move, to break the spell, but she dared not, could not. His mouth, warm and soft, still against her thigh, his hands moving softly, gently, teasingly. Oh God, oh God, how sweet, how achingly sweet.
‘Do you remember yon Hallowe’en sociable, Catriona?’ His voice was as gentle and loving as his hands. ‘You had a yellow dress and a ribbon to match threaded through your curls.’ He could feel her relaxing and he smiled inwardly and let his hands continue to do their work. ‘You were as light as thistledown on your feet and I wanted to imprison you in my hands, in case someone else stole you away. I could hardly bear to wait for you until we were wed. You didn’t know your own power, did you, lass? You still have it, Catriona.’
He was up and beside her on the settee.
How good his arms felt. It had been so long. She allowed him to rest her head against him and to stroke her hair and cheek. The flames danced before her eyes and it was so warm and cosy. She sighed and his hands strayed lower, and she tensed again, but he knew the ways to make the old magic work and she gave herself up to him.
‘Catriona,’ he moaned softly and kissed her very gently on her lips. ‘Catriona,’ he said again, and he pushed her back against the cushions and his hands moved and his lips demanded. His hands were inside her blouse; they found her nipples, swollen and erect.
Dear God, what was she doing? With all her strength she pushed him away. Had she gone mad? This man had left her and her unborn child to spend his money on some floozie. For months now he had been playing with Victoria’s innocence, watching Catriona struggle out of the gutter that he had landed her in – and now this. No, no, no! She came back from the brink of insanity, or whatever this feeling was, and fought him with all the strength she possessed. And she begged.
‘No, John, please, I don’t want this. No.’
But if he heard, he paid no attention. Catriona struggled and cried out, but she was no match for him. Behind them the fire burned fiercely, like John’s passion, and then died low in the well-blackened grate.
Eventually John too was still. He lay heavy on top of her for a few moments, then he stood up and righted his clothing.
‘Christ, you never were any bloody good in bed. I must have been desperate for it. At least you were cheaper than the Dock Street whores, Catriona, but not nearly so much fun.’
She did not hear the words; she was barely aware that he had moved away from her. She did not hear the door close or the front door slam. She lay where he had discarded her and then, as the fire died and the room became cold, cold as her heart, she pulled herself up and sat rocking herself as she wept.
7
DR CURRIE DROPPED VICTORIA AT the door of Smart’s office and drove on to the Blackness Road house. She had enjoyed her short break; if she was honest with herself, she would admit that it had been especially good to see Sandy Inchmarnock again. He was one of those men who look better as they age, unlike his son, who had been a particularly lovely boy. She refused to admit to any feelings at all, besides pity, for her old friend. It would be a long time, if ever, before the boy recovered and there was obviously no consolation to be found for either Lord or Lady Inchmarnock in their marriage. The thought: What if he had married me, as everyone expected him to do? popped briefly into her head and she snorted in a most unfeminine fashion. All those years ago, none of their set had been able to see anyone else when Julia was in the room. It had been a competition, and Sandy had won the prize. Dr Currie banished the images of privileged Victorian youth and turned her attention to her driving.
It was she who had suggested that Victoria go into the office to begin catching up with the work that would have accumulated during their two days in Edinburgh. The girl had been quiet on the train, withdrawn and worried. Now that she was away from the boy, she had time to realize what she had seen in the last few days, to wonder about what she was expected to do now and to pray that she could cope.
‘Go to the office for the afternoon, Victoria. Mr Smart isn’t expecting you until tomorrow but he’ll be delighted to have you.’ She did not add, ‘Hard work will take your mind off your young man and his troubles.’
She thought about Victoria and young Robert, and about the conversations she had had with Lord Inchmarnock and the doctors attending the boy, all the way home. Her mood was as melancholy as Victoria’s as she stepped out of her little car and into the lovely May sunshine. What a delightful month it was in Dundee, with some trees still in glorious blossom and others unfurling their fragile green leaves tentatively to the sun.
The curtains at the house on Blackness Road were still drawn. How unlike Catriona, the most fastidious and conscientious of housewives, not to have the blinds drawn up and the windows open to allow the wind to blow away the bad night air. The doctor trod firmly, but without undue speed, up the path and opened the unlocked front door. She heard Flash barking from Victoria’s room, where he and Priory had no doubt decided to sleep during their mistress’s absence. She called out reassuringly to him and the dog fell quiet. So too was the rest of the house – deathly quiet. Dr Currie began to feel the first twinge of unease. At this time of day Catriona should have been cooking or ironing, and she could smell neither activity.
She found Catriona huddled on the settee in the living room. Her hair had escaped from its neat pins and her dress was torn and disarranged. Her knees were drawn up, she had her arms wrapped round them, and she was rocking herself back and forward and moaning, moaning, moaning. Dr Currie, who had seen such sights too often before and who realized without asking the cause of Catriona’s distress, went over to her quickly.
‘It’s all right, Catriona. I’m here. Everything is going to be all right.’
‘Victoria?’ It was a tortured, pleading gasp.
‘I sent her to work.’
The mother relaxed and allowed the doctor to help her from the room and upstairs.
Quickly and methodically Dr Cu
rrie stripped and examined her landlady, now so horrifyingly her patient. There was little external damage. The scratches and slight bruising would heal quickly. The real wounds, which were internal, would take time to mend.
An unforgivable invasion of her self, thought the doctor angrily as she worked.
Later, her patient finally sleeping peacefully, Dr Currie went to release the animals. Flash had contained himself, but not Priory.
‘If life isn’t one mess, it’s another,’ said the doctor, disobeying Catriona’s strict instructions and lighting up a cigarette before beginning her second clean-up operation.
She opened Victoria’s window to allow the cigarette smoke and animal odours to drift away together, then she set the living room to rights. Only then did she make tea for herself and her patient. She forced Catriona to drink a cup of tea and to eat a little bread and butter, while she sat by the side of the bed and listened to the distressed woman going over the sordid little story again and again.
‘It was my fault, doctor, my fault. He always was a . . . loving . . . man, and I led him on. I—’
‘For heaven’s sake,’ said Dr Currie, when she had listened to the story for the umpteenth time. ‘When will you stop blaming yourself for John Cameron? He’s no good, Catriona – never was – and it has absolutely nothing to do with you.’
Catriona looked at her. She did not believe her. She did not really believe that an unmarried woman could possibly understand what had happened. But Catriona had been brought up to look upon doctors, ministers and teachers as almost God-like creatures, with whom one never argued. ‘I don’t want Victoria to know,’ she said finally. ‘I’ve sheltered her from everything sordid.’
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