Highland Sisters

by Anne Douglas

  While Daniel without further words took himself off to the spare room and closed the door, all Rosa could do was lie in their double bed and cry to herself to sleep, from which she woke several times before the dawn broke and finally did not sleep again.

  The following day brought more trouble, even though Rosa tried to keep everything as usual, preparing porridge for Daniel, followed by fried bacon, while drinking only tea herself. He seemed to have no hangover following his night out and ate everything with a good appetite, as though he was determined now to show Rosa that he was able to cope with all she had done, but when it came to writing the letter to Jack, his fragile calm disintegrated and he refused to allow Rosa to write it herself.

  ‘I know what you will do!’ he cried. ‘Write some silly kind of regret for leaving that’ll have the fellow round here wanting to see you, trying to make you go back. But that’s not going to happen, Rosa, so leave everything to me.’

  ‘I made my own application for the job with him,’ Rosa said stubbornly, ‘and I’ll write my own resignation, so that’s the end of it, Daniel.’

  ‘That’s not the end of it, I tell you! If you write anything at all to him, he’ll be here like a shot, and I’m not having it!’

  ‘We don’t know he’ll be round – he’s never been here before. Just let me write to him myself and you can read what I’ve written. Surely that will do?’

  His blue eyes snapping furiously, Daniel held Rosa’s gaze for some moments before letting his shoulders relax into a shrug and reluctantly nodding.

  ‘Just get on with it, then,’ he said curtly. ‘I want to deliver it and then make some excuse and get late into work. God knows what’ll be said – I’ve never been late before, but it’s all I can do. It’d be over my dead body to let you go back to Jack Durno’s place, do you understand?’

  ‘Don’t,’ she answered with a shudder. ‘Don’t talk like that.’

  ‘Write the letter, then.’

  She made it so short and non-committal, Daniel, almost against his wishes, could find no fault. For what had she said? Only that she was grateful for all Mr Durno’s help in the past but was sorry she must now, for family reasons, give in her notice, to take immediate effect.

  ‘Perfect,’ Daniel said quietly. ‘I could have written something just like it myself.’

  Then he surprised Rosa by suddenly taking her wrist and holding it hard. ‘Tell me, on your honour, that you never loved him, Rosa. Will you do that? Will you say it for me?’

  ‘Oh, I will!’ she cried. ’Because it’s true. I keep telling you – why don’t you listen – that you are the only one for me, now and always.’

  For a long pause, he held her gaze, then folded her letter and put it into an envelope marked only with Jack’s name.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, turning to put on his jacket. ‘I’ll take this round, then, and you can stay here. If he comes, you know what to do – just don’t let him in. Don’t speak to him or listen to him. Tell him he must go home and out of your life. Do you hear me, Rosa?’

  ‘I hear you,’ she said steadily. ‘But he won’t come here, not after my letter. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Let’s hope you’re right,’ Daniel replied, then went out of the door with a backward glance at Rosa. No farewell kiss as usual, no last-minute hug. All she was conscious of was his banging the door and leaving her alone. Quite alone. Suddenly, she felt more alone than she’d ever been and knew that if her mother had still been alive she would have gone to her and cried on her shoulder.

  But now she did not cry; she went to clear the breakfast things, which she followed by first making the double bed and then the one Daniel had slept on in the spare room.

  ‘May he never do that again,’ she prayed. ‘May all go well between us now.’

  But some time later there came a knock at the flat door, and with a thumping heart she went to answer it. Knowing, all the time, who would be there.

  Forty-One

  As she had expected, and even feared, it was Jack Durno standing outside her door. Wearing the casual and untidy clothes he usually wore, he didn’t look much different, except for his eyes, his kind brown eyes, that now, as they rested on her face, held an appeal of such poignancy she had to look away. He was, of course, bewildered. Must be, for all would have been as usual for him until he read her letter, when it changed for ever.

  ‘Jack,’ she murmured, using his first name as though she always had, ‘you shouldn’t be here. Please, don’t stay. Please, go.’

  ‘How can I go when I don’t know why you wrote to me as you did?’ he cried. ‘Everything was the same as usual and then suddenly, out of the blue, you send in your notice. How do you think I felt when I read it? Everything that mattered collapsing around me without warning? And now you think I can just walk away from you when I don’t know why you did what you did? For God’s sake, Rosa, let me come in – we can’t talk here.’

  ‘There’s nothing more to say,’ she whispered. ‘The letter said it all.’

  ‘No, no, it didn’t – it explained nothing. But please, you must let me in, you must talk to me – it’s too much to expect me just to say goodbye. Let me in; let’s talk inside.’

  Sighing deeply, she stood aside, allowing him to enter until, after closing the door, she turned to face him. ‘You mustn’t stay, Jack. I told my husband you wouldn’t come here – I never thought you would – but if he were to come in and find you—’

  ‘I don’t care if he does. I’d like to see him face-to-face, have it out with him, because he’s behind all this, isn’t he? You didn’t say in your letter to me, but it doesn’t take much working out to know that he resents me now. Perhaps he always has. I didn’t let myself even consider what he might think of your working for me, just as long as he didn’t stop you. But now he has, after all this time, I don’t know why.’

  ‘It was the portrait,’ Rosa said after a pause. ‘The portrait you painted of me without telling me. Daniel saw it in the window of one of the galleries in Dundas Street. I’d said nothing about it because I knew nothing, but he couldn’t believe that and accused me of sitting for you and never telling him, and all at once, he thought—’

  For a moment, Rosa faltered. ‘Well, you know what he thought.’

  ‘May I sit down?’ Jack asked, sinking anyway into the nearest chair and putting his hand to his brow. ‘Yes,’ he said wearily, ‘I know what he thought. The trouble is he was right, wasn’t he? I can’t deny it.’ He laughed a little. ‘Not when I know I fell in love with you the first time I saw you.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Rosa cried as though stung. ‘No, don’t say that. Don’t put it into words. It’s never been put into words. Never.’

  ‘And that’s why you could stay, isn’t it? I had to bottle up all I felt in order to pay the price of your staying. Once I spoke, let you see how much I cared, that would have been the end of it. I’d never see you again.’ Jack let his now-tragic gaze rest on Rosa’s face and shook his head. ‘I thought I couldn’t bear that, but now it’s going to happen anyway, isn’t it? We’ll never meet again.’

  ‘We can’t,’ Rosa said quietly. ‘What we had – it’s over.’

  ‘Over,’ he whispered. ‘Can you mean that, Rosa? Can you mean you can accept that? We had so much—’

  ‘So much – yes. I’ll never forget all you gave me, Jack. You opened up a new life for me and I won’t let it go, what I’ve learned, I promise, because that would be wrong. To waste what you gave me.’

  Slowly, Jack shook his head. ‘I see you can think of the future,’ he said, his voice low. ‘A future without me. Because you’ve never felt the same as I feel, have you? Daniel is the only one for you.’

  ‘I believe for everyone there is just the one love, Jack. I mean, one true love. It doesn’t stop me caring for you in a different sort of way.’

  ‘A nice, grateful way?’ he asked shortly. ‘The sort of way that means you can say goodbye and never see me again and that will be all right? How I envy
you, Rosa! How I wish … Hell, what does it matter what I wish?’

  ‘Jack, you must go,’ Rosa said with sudden urgency. ‘Please don’t risk everything by staying … Just in case – for my sake, for yours – don’t be here when Daniel comes home. If he were to see you, he’d never believe in our true relationship!’

  ‘I believe he knows our true relationship,’ Jack said flatly. ‘Somehow he knows that I love you and you don’t love me. It’s the only reason we haven’t had pistols at dawn. Or even a fist fight.’

  Without warning, he ran his hand down Rosa’s face, then kissed her on the lips.

  ‘Don’t deny me that,’ he said quietly, then opened Rosa’s door for himself and, looking back in a low voice, said, ‘Goodbye, Rosa. Don’t forget me.’

  But Rosa’s eyes were suddenly misting and, rather than watch him walk away down the stairs, she had already closed the door without saying a word.

  Forty-Two

  Rosa did not tell Daniel that Jack Durno had come to see her, as he had predicted he would, but if he had asked her outright if Jack had been to the flat, she would not have lied. She’d already decided that she would not, to keep the peace, ever tell lies to Daniel.

  Fortunately, he had decided not to question her when he came home from work – why, she couldn’t be sure, but as the evening wore on, it seemed to her that his coldness towards her was gradually thawing. Maybe his time away from her had given him the chance to think objectively on the situation that had earlier so much upset him? Maybe he’d decided that the best thing to heal the hurt caused to him by Rosa’s association with Jack Durno would be to forget it? Put it behind him, think only of the future and the best one he and Rosa could make together.

  So much Rosa felt he must be thinking, and she wasn’t wrong. He’d already decided that there was no need to spell anything out – there’d been enough of that already. Now he and Rosa must just concentrate on being happy together, living their lives as they should be lived, he the breadwinner, she the home-maker. And Daniel was confident now that Rosa had learned her lesson – she would not want to face working away from home again. At home, she would be safe from involvement with a fellow like that artist; all she’d have to worry about would be which charity she’d like to work for. Because, of course, he understood she would want to spare some time for good causes. He’d always said that sort of work was the best for her.

  ‘Have you decided what you’d like to give some time to?’ he asked one evening when they’d finished tea. ‘I mean, weren’t you thinking once of charity work. God knows there’s plenty of call for it in the Old Town …’

  ‘Some time?’ Rosa echoed. ‘Well, I don’t think I’ll have much time, Daniel. I’m planning to take up my artwork again.’

  There was a stunned silence. ‘Your artwork?’ Daniel asked after a moment, putting down his cigarette as though shocked. ‘What artwork?’

  ‘What I’ve been doing. You remember, the copies of my sketches sold really well – you were quite surprised.’

  ‘Look, we’ve been through this before. We don’t need the money; you needn’t do that sort of work any more.’

  ‘I want to do it, Daniel. It’s not for the money, it’s – well, it’s my work. People say I’m talented. It would be a pity, if that’s true, if I don’t carry on.’

  So utterly crestfallen by this resurrection of an old problem he thought had died, Daniel took up his cigarette and furiously drew on it, his eyes not as cold as they could be, but cold enough as they rested on Rosa.

  ‘Look, we’re not going to argue again about your working, are we?’ he was asking. ‘I thought, after all we’ve been through, you wouldn’t have brought that up again.’

  ‘Oh, Daniel!’ Rosa went to him and, taking the cigarette from his fingers, kissed him on the mouth. ‘I don’t want to upset you, dearest, and I won’t. I’ll just do a bit of my artwork when you’re at work and you won’t know a thing about it. But it will keep me happy and you’d want that, wouldn’t you?’

  Taking his cigarette back, he stubbed it out and shook his head. ‘Sometimes, I think whatever I do, you’ll win,’ he said quietly.

  ‘As though there’s a battle!’ she cried, smiling, making him smile with her, and their moment of shared happiness was something that made them both think of the comfortable bed waiting for them and wonder why they should keep it waiting any longer. They had, in fact, both risen from their chairs, and were on their way to that same bed, when a quick, loud knock came at the flat door and both exchanged exasperated smiles.

  ‘Now who the hell could that be?’ Daniel muttered, while Rosa shrugged.

  ‘Probably only Molly, run out of something. She won’t stay long.’

  ‘Want to bet? Just tell her we’re out of everything.’

  Rosa, smiling, went to open the door, all set to say hello to Molly. But the words died on her lips when she saw it was not Molly who was waiting, and though she tried to speak to the slim blonde girl who was smiling at her, it was the girl herself who said, ‘Yes, it’s Lorne, Rosa. Back from the dead. Or, America, if you prefer. May I come in?’

  Forty-Three

  While Daniel stood like one turned to stone, his face pale, Rosa could not take her eyes off Lorne, who was so much the same, still so very attractive, still the sister Rosa remembered, yet mysteriously not. Just as perhaps she, Rosa, was not the same sister Lorne would remember. How could either of them be the same after their different life experiences had worked so well to change them?

  Though there was no doubt that Lorne was as smart as ever, in a dark grey jacket and ankle-length skirt. Had she done well in America, then, that country that was as far away in Rosa’s view as the moon? If so, why was she here? For Rosa knew her sister too well – she would not have turned up out of the blue as she had without a reason. When would she come out with whatever it was?

  Pretty soon, Rosa guessed, though at that moment she only seemed specially to want to speak to Daniel, who was still neither moving nor speaking and still very pale.

  ‘So nice to see you again, Daniel,’ Lorne was saying in her new voice that was not exactly American in accent but certainly no longer Scottish, and was putting out her hand to him and smiling at him as though, it seemed to Rosa, she had never done anything in the past to hurt him. Was that how she was going to carry off this awkward moment? Just pretend she had never left him on their wedding day? Oh, how typical of Lorne! Just as she thought it was quite all right to ask him now if he would mind bringing up her luggage she had left at the bottom of their stairs!

  ‘The taxi man said he’d take it all the way up for me, but I knew he’d want a bigger tip and I’m practically down to my last dime – penny, I mean.’ And with a brilliant smile, Lorne turned to Rosa. ‘That’s why I’m throwing myself on your mercy, Rosa. Will you take me in for a bit? Just till I get myself sorted out?’

  ‘But what’s happened?’ cried Rosa, flushing. ‘Lorne, you must tell us what’s happened! Why you’re here, for a start.’

  ‘I will, of course, but it’s a long story. Can Daniel bring my stuff up first?’

  ‘I’ll get it now,’ he said, his eyes going at once to Rosa, as though to say he’d have to do that, at least. In fact, Rosa was then so sure he was not urging her to make any commitment to Lorne, she felt a great rush of relief seep through her being. Even though, as Daniel left them to run down the stairs, Lorne’s look to her sister was knowing. All she did, though, was ask if there was any chance of a cup of tea?

  ‘I haven’t had a thing since a ham sandwich ages ago.’

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on now. But first I’ll show you where you can sleep. We’re lucky – in this flat, we have a spare room.’

  ‘My, I’m impressed. You’ve done well, haven’t you? All thanks to Daniel?’

  ‘He’s really very talented as a wood carver, Lorne. He doesn’t do any carpentry now – he works for a very experienced man who has a wonderful business. Their things sell really well. But let me show
you where you can sleep and put your things. Then I can get you something to eat.’

  When Lorne had had a light meal of eggs on toast, and they had afterwards all settled down in the living room together, she agreed she should tell Rosa and Daniel how she came to have returned to Britain and why she was alone. First, though, she said she must have a smoke and, smiling at Rosa’s expression, took a cigarette from a case and, having accepting a light from Daniel, lay back in her chair, appearing quite relaxed.

  ‘You never used to smoke,’ Rosa commented. ‘Is it what all American women do?’

  ‘Oh, no. Only women like me who don’t mind a bit of criticism.’ Lorne drew on her cigarette. ‘Just let me put this down, eh? Got an ashtray?’

  Immediately, Rosa set one before her and, having stubbed out her cigarette, Lorne at last began to tell her story.

  Forty-Four

  ‘You’ll have guessed that Rory gave me the push over in the States?’ she asked with one of her smiles that did not, however, reach her green eyes. ‘He did, anyway. Traded me in for a very attractive young lady with pots of money, daughter of his boss at the bank where he’d been given a job.’

  ‘I never thought Rory would work in a bank!’ cried Rosa as Daniel remarked that he was rather surprised he’d been allowed to work at all. Weren’t Americans very particular about allowing foreigners to work in the States?

  ‘Oh, yes, but as soon as Rory arrived in New York, he looked up some American chaps he’d met at university and they fiddled all he needed. Next thing I knew, he was working in a bank, not as a lowly clerk, you might guess, but as some sort of boss job that paid really well, and I was so thrilled! I thought the next step would be that we would marry, maybe become Americans, have a wonderful life … How stupid can you get?’