by Flora Kidd
'Let me carry those out for you, Helen,' he said politely, taking the cases from her. 'I'd like a word with you before you go.'
'All right,' she submitted with a sigh, and going in front of him opened the front door.
He put the cases in the back of her car which was parked out in front of the house in the wide road, which was really the main street of the small village and which was protected from the shoreline and the often flooding waters of the estuary by a sturdy stone wall.
'We can't talk here,' said Bob, looking around with a frown when Helen didn't make any effort to move but stood by the driver's door of the car as if ready to get into it. 'Let's walk along the pier.'
'I don't have much time, Bob,' she protested.
'Och, you haven't had much time for me all week!' he exploded suddenly, his grey eyes flashing.
'I've seen you nearly every day,' she reminded him.
'Aye, but there's always been other folks about. We've not had a minute by ourselves, not a minute. Are you coming now along the pier?'
Reluctantly she walked with him across the road and. through the gateway. On either side of the pier stretched the merse, the local name for the marshy grassland which lay above the mudbanks and which was often flooded with water when the tide was in. Now that the tide was out the thick reeds and stiff grass waved in the strong breeze which was blowing upriver, flurries of silver light passing over the green. The end of the pier was standing in the narrow channel of the river, which shimmered grey and white, reflecting the sky and the clouds which were rolling across it.
'Do you have to go back to Glencross today?' asked Bob as they leaned on the wall at the end of the pier.
'Of course I do. I go back to work tomorrow,' Helen replied.
'I was thinking… Helen, would you mind if I came up to see you next week? I've another week's holiday before I start at Melrose and Martin's and I'd like to spend it near you.'
'No,' said Helen quietly, 'I… I don't think you should, Bob—I don't think it would be worth your while. Finish your holiday here. You'll have much more fun here.'
'What do you mean, it wouldn't be worth my while?' he demanded. 'We'd be able to see teach other every evening. I'll probably see more of you than I've seen this past week.'
'No, I don't want you to come,' said Helen, staring down at the grey water that was swirling around the stone pillars of the pier. 'It wouldn't be fair… to you, I mean, for me to let you come up to Glencross. It wouldn't be fair to let you assume I'd agree to marry you if you decided to ask me.' She looked up and straight at him. 'And that's what you're hoping to do, isn't it? You want to ask me to marry you.'
'Well, yes, it is.' His fair face flushed slightly. 'How do you know?'
'My mother told me. But it's no use, Bob, it's no use you proposing. I don't want to marry you, so don't ask me,' she whispered.
There was an awkward silence while they both gazed at the water. The wind lifted Helen's fine hair and wafted it across her face, a silken screen behind which she could hide. Seagulls and terns soared and swooped, cackling and squealing. On the opposite shore thin clouds swept in a grey veil across the rounded summits of two distant mountains.
'There's someone else, isn't there?' Bob guessed shrewdly.
'Yes, I think so.'
'You think so?' he exclaimed. 'Surely you know? Is he from hereabouts?'
'No. But how can you tell?' She swept the hair away from her. face to glance at him, worried now. 'How can you guess?'
'I've known you a long time, Helen,' he replied, 'but I've never seen you like you've been lately. It's hard to describe. It's as if you're not here half the time. You don't hear when I speak to you some times. You've been far away, with someone else.'
'I didn't think you… I didn't think anyone would notice,' she whispered, staring at him, realising for the first time that he had also grown up. He wasn't the boy she had known and played with and gone sailing with for years. He was a man, ready to take on responsibilities of married life. 'I'm sorry, Bob,' she added. 'I didn't want to hurt your feelings, but it just can't be. You'll find someone else too, someone who'll say yes.'
She couldn't bring herself to say anything else, so turning away, she hurried back along the pier. Crossing the road, she ran up the pathway to the front door of the old granite cottage and into the hallway.
'Mother, Dad—I'm leaving now. Thanks for the holiday,' she called out. 'I'll give you a ring as soon as I get back to the flat to let you know I've arrived safely.'
'Helen, wait, wait a moment.' Janet appeared in the doorway from the kitchen. 'Did he? Did Bob ?' she asked urgently.
'No, he didn't propose,' said Helen. 'I told him not to. Oh, don't look like that, Mother! It's all right, really it is. Bob knows plenty of other girls he can ask.'
'But you and he… you've known each other for so long. You seem so suited to each other,' argued Janet, looking worried. 'Helen, don't go yet,' she urged. 'Stay and have some tea and we'll talk about it. You've been so quiet and pale this past week, as if you've something on your mind. Perhaps you should tell your father and me about it. Perhaps we can help, give you some advice.'
She was tempted, because all her life she had been able to confide her troubles to her parents and they had listened and had offered solutions, but something stopped her this time.
'No, I don't think so,' she replied. 'As you've just said, there are some things in this life you just have to do for yourself, and solving this particular problem I have is something I have to do without help. But thanks, Mum, all the same.' She gave Janet a quick hug. 'I'll phone you later.'
Perhaps she should have stayed and told her parents about Magnus, she thought an hour later as she drove out of Castle Douglas along the road that winds through the Kirkcudbrightshire countryside, past long narrow Lock Ken, and climbed over the moors under the shadow of the hills known as the Rhinns of Kells, down to the Doon valley and the plain of Ayrshire; Perhaps talking to them would have helped to ease the tension in her mind. After all, confession was supposed to be good for the soul, wasn't it?
But how could she have told them how close she and Magnus had been for that short while on Carroch? She couldn't have told them she had slept with him. Not only was that very private and personal, something she could never tell another person, a beautiful, natural happening that was her and Magnus's secret, but also it would shock her parents out of their minds if they learned that their well-behaved, sensible daughter, who had never given them a moment's cause for anxiety, had fallen passionately in love with a handsome film actor who had no interest in marriage. They would be horrified if they knew she had willingly made love with him and had slept all one night with him.
No, she couldn't have confided in them. The time for confiding in her parents was over. She was grown up, an adult person who could deal with her own problems, and she would have to suffer in silence, hoping that one day this raw ache, this longing to see Magnus again, to argue with him and make love with him, would gradually fade and wither.
She hoped it would, oh, she hoped it would. If it didn't she would die.
CHAPTER SEVEN
'There's a letter for you in today's post, Helen. It's marked Personal,' announced Jean MacIntyre as Helen walked into the laboratory office on the Thursday morning after she had returned to work. Jean's pale blue eyes, round and curious behind their glasses, surveyed Helen closely, noting the paleness of her face and the dark smudges beneath her eyes. 'You're a wee bit late this morning. What happened?'
'I… I overslept.' Helen slipped off the linen blazer she was wearing over a summer dress of flower-printed cotton and hung it on a hanger in the clothes closet, then went over to Jean's desk. 'Where's the letter?'
'Here you are.' Jean handed her a long blue envelope. 'It must be from someone who doesn't know your home address,' she added.
'Yes, it must,' replied Helen, and slipped the envelope into one of the pockets of her white technician's coat which she had just put on. She was
n't going to open it and read it in front of the nosy Jean. 'Is Dr Mason in the lab?' she asked in a whisper, glancing towards the half open door of the laboratory.
'No, not yet. You're lucky—he's at a meeting in the administrative offices and he'll be there all morning. He'll never know you were late today… unless Brenda tells him.' Brenda was the other technician.
'Thanks, Jean,' Helen said warmly, and went into the laboratory. Brenda Taggart was busy at her bench and scarcely looked up from what she was doing to acknowledge Helen's greeting. Going to her own bench, Helen sat down on the stool, looked at the array of sample tubes laid out for her examination and, sighing, leaned her elbows for a moment on the bench and rested her forehead on her hands. If only she didn't feel so tired and listless! If only she could sleep properly at night instead of spending hours thinking about Magnus. She had hoped that when she returned to work she would be so busy that he would slip into the background of her thoughts and eventually be forgotten.
But it hadn't been like that these past three days. She had thought of him continually, regretting that their parting had been so abrupt, that she hadn't been able to tell him she would think of him and would hope to see him again. She had never felt like this about any man before. Was it because he had gone away? Was absence causing her to grow fonder of him? Or was this the beginning of love, the love she had read about and had hoped to feel one day? Was this agony love?
She pushed her hand in her pocket to take out a handkerchief to wipe away the tears which had sprung to her eyes and felt the stiff envelope. She drew it out and stared at it. Her name and the address of the hospital had been typewritten. The postmark was rather faint and she couldn't make out the name on it. Who would write to her at the hospital? Any of her friends or relatives who would write to her would send their letters to the address of her flat.
Quickly she slit the envelope open and took out the single sheet of matching blue notepaper, her glance going immediately to the address which was embossed in the right-hand corner. Castle Carroch, by Barracuish, Argyllshire. Her heart leaping suddenly with excitement, Helen glanced quickly at the signature. Boldly written, it was not the one she had hoped to see. It was not Magnus Scott but Megan Scott-Murray, Magnus's mother.
'Dear Helen Melrose,' the letter began, 'I have been hearing much about you from my daughter Wanda and also from my son Magnus and I would like very much to meet you. At present I am staying at Castle Carroch and will be there for the next two weeks. I wonder if you would care to come to the Castle next weekend (the dates were in brackets). I realise this is short notice. I would have given more, only you were not at the hospital where you work last Friday when I called there to see you and I was told you would be back at work this week.
'If you are able to come please phone the number I have enclosed and let Archie or Isabel Macleish know when you will arrive. If you do not phone I will know that you have been unable to come. Yours sincerely, Megan Scott-Murray.'
Helen stared at the signature for a long time, trying to associate it with the plump smiling white-haired woman in the photograph she had seen in Wanda's room at Castle Carroch. Then excitedly she read the letter through again. All day she thought about the invitation, wondering whether to accept it or not, wondering why Megan Scott wanted to meet her. Wanda and Magnus had both told their mother about her. Why? What had they said about her? The only way to find out would be to go, wouldn't it? And she was going, wasn't she? Of course she was. She would go, because to visit his mother would be a step closer to Magnus. She would hear something about him, what he was doing, where he was, and that would be better than spending the weekend pining for him.
She phoned the Macleish number that evening and spoke to Isabel Macleish, who said that her husband would be pleased to take Helen over to the island on Saturday afternoon. That night Helen slept better than she had for several weeks, but she couldn't get through Friday fast enough, and after packing a weekend bag and getting everything ready for an early departure on Saturday morning she couldn't sleep much Friday night for excitement and anticipation.
It was just after seven o'clock in the morning that she drove away from Seakirk and took the road north across the river Clyde to the mountains beyond. Six weeks had gone by since she had first gone that way and there were changes in the countryside. Heather bloomed, a profusion of purple spreading across the moors under the deep, more mellow glow of the August sun. Instead of blossom clusters of berries were forming on rowan trees and every garden was ablaze with dahlias and early chrysanthemums.
This time she stopped for a while in Inverary to drink coffee in the lounge of an old eighteenth-century inn before continuing along the road beside the waters of Loch Fyne. She still felt excited but she also felt a strange contentment. She was going back to Carroch where she had met Magnus and perhaps while she was there she would find out whether this agony of spirit and emotions she had been suffering from was really love for him.
It was just one o'clock in the afternoon when she saw at last the Strait of Carroch, those dangerous waters which looked so blue and calm and were dotted with green islands. The Macleish cottage gleamed with reflected sunlight and the front door was open. Two children played with a sheepdog in front of the house and stared shyly at Helen when she approached the door.
Archie Macleish remembered her and welcomed her cheerfully. He took her down to the jetty and on to his varnished fishing boat. Helen would have liked to have asked him about Megan Scott-Murray and if her husband was with her at the castle, but the noise of the engine as the boat surged across the strait made conversation without shouting impossible—and then Carroch was looming before them, green and gold and earth-red, enticing them to its shores.
The stone walls of the jetty were perfectly reflected in the clear water, as was the shape of the sleek black motorboat tied up there. Archie put Helen's bag ashore, gave her a helping hand up the jetty steps, then said, 'Ye'll be able to find your own way to the castle, won't you, miss? I have to get back now. The missus wants me to drive her to Oban to visit her parents.'
'Yes, I can find the way, thank you,' Helen replied, and waited on the jetty until the fishing boat had chugged away.
In her moments of anticipation during the night she had imagined her arrival on the island. She had imagined hopefully that Magnus would have been on the jetty waiting for her. It had been wishful thinking entirely, she thought now, her lips quirking ruefully, because there was no tall figure with windblown dark hair standing on the stone wall. There was no one coming towards her along the path that twisted up through the pines either and no one coming across the moorland through the tall fronds of bracken and brown and purple branches of heather; no one in the garden where the vegetables were ready for harvesting.
Which door should she go to as an invited guest? she wondered. The front or the back? She decided on the front and walked around the old tower to the front entrance, pausing a moment to look at the view of the blue Sound stretching away to Jura and Islay, at the jumble of red rocks in the small bay, at the smooth yellow sand festooned with golden-green seaweed.
There was no bell to ring and no knocker to lift and let fall, so she tapped on the sturdy iron-studded oak door with her knuckles. No one came to open it, so she turned the iron knob and tried to push the door open. It didn't budge; presumably it was locked. After knocking again Helen gave up and wandered back to the back door and knocked on that. She was beginning to feel a little uneasy. Surely by now her hostess should be looking for her? The whole place seemed very quiet, the only sounds the lapping of the sea on the shore, the occasional cry of a bird, the rustle of leaves and grass in the light summer breeze.
No one came to answer her knock on the back door, so she turned the knob and opened it. The porch was just the same, cluttered with boots and waterproof jackets, but Magnus's jacket wasn't there, neither were his boots. Presumably they were still at the Macleishes' cottage where he had left them six weeks ago. Helen felt some of her excitement
fade away. He wasn't here after all.
The kitchen was the same too, clean and tidy, everything shining as if Isabel Macleish had just cleaned it. There were no, signs of anyone having cooked a meal recently. Helen put down her overnight bag on a chair and stepped across to the hallway door.
'Hello! Is there anyone at home? I'm here, Mrs Murray,' she called out.
No reply. She stood and listened. No one moving about. Did Megan Scott-Murray go in for an afternoon nap? Or was she out walking somewhere with her husband? Helen advanced into the hallway and went into the lounge. It was also very tidy. No papers and books were scattered across the big desk. No decanter of whisky and empty glass on the coffee table. The cushions on the sofa were all plumped up and a fire had been laid in the hearth ready for lighting.
'Hello, is there anyone at home?' Back in the hallway Helen shouted from the bottom of the stairs and listened to the echo of her voice. Slowly she went up the stairs and looked in the bedroom where she had slept before—clean and tidy, untouched. The bathroom was the same and the other room, the master bedroom, where she assumed Megan Scott—Murray slept when she was at the castle, was shrouded in dust covers.
Biting her lip, feeling disappointment beginning to well up in her, Helen withdrew from the silent sunlit room and glanced up the second flight of stairs to the third-storey landing. Once again she listened intently, remembering her first evening at the castle when she had sensed she had been watched while she had looked about the place. She had that feeling now. The hairs were beginning to prickle on the back of her neck. Was there someone upstairs? Was that a floor-board creaking as someone stepped stealthily across a room?
Resisting the temptation to turn and run downstairs and leave the castle, rush out from it as she had once before, she began to go up the second flight of stairs. The landing was quiet, sunlight slanting from a high latticed window across the polished floor. From the door to Magnus's bedroom a cool draught of air wafted, drawing her attention. Hesitantly she walked towards the door and then stopped, a feeling which was a mixture of fear and excitement pulsing through her. She felt suddenly as if she was trapped in some sort of horror film. Perhaps she was dreaming she was in Castle Carroch. Perhaps she had dreamed the whole business, the arrival of the letter, the drive to the Macleishes' cottage. Perhaps it was all the result of thinking too much about Magnus and wishing she could meet him again. Perhaps she was dreaming she could hear someone whispering her name.