If Love Be Love

by Flora Kidd

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Oh, Nancy!’ wailed Linda. ‘Why shouldn’t we?’

  Struggling with a wave of new and violent emotion, aware that Logan was watching her with suddenly wide-awake observant eyes, Nancy searched vainly for an excuse and found none.

  ‘I ... we...’ she began, and stopped. Logan raised an eyebrow and looked amused, and she plunged into speech, saying what she thought, regardless of the consequences.

  ‘Mr. Maclaine is only being polite. He doesn’t really want us to go and take tea with him. He thinks that because we’ve looked after Neil for him and because he has eaten here, he owes us hospitality.’

  ‘Nancy!’ exclaimed Linda in shocked tones.

  ‘Don’t you think that’s going a bit too far?’ cautioned Don.

  ‘It’s true, though,’ said Logan surprisingly. ‘I am being polite. I do owe you hospitality. I can’t accept it without returning it.’

  ‘But you don’t really want us, do you?’ persisted Nancy. ‘You’re asking us only because it’s the right thing to do ... and not because you want our company.’

  ‘Whether I really want you to come or not has no part in it. I have accepted your hospitality, now I must repay it,’ he replied coldly, and Nancy experienced a queer little tremor at the thought that for once she had annoyed him. “You and Linda will now go and change into more suitable clothing,’ he ordered firmly, his glance sweeping over her rather disreputable jeans and striped cotton sweater. ‘Neil and Don and I will wait for you in the estate car.’

  His arrogance brought more defiant words to Nancy’s tongue, but on encountering the expression in his eyes she bit them back. Instead she said in mimicry of his own polite phrase,

  ‘As you wish. Come on, Linda.’

  Trembling a little, slightly appalled by her own bad behaviour but at a loss to account for it, Nancy dressed in a plain green dress. It’s brief skirt revealed her well-shaped legs clothed in pale stockings. For the first time since she had arrived in Lanmore she used make-up skilfully in the way she had been taught when she had served on the cosmetic counter at Green and Selby’s, the pharmacists where she had worked. She brushed her hair until it shone like an orange silk cap.

  Linda had already joined the others in the estate car, so after locking the front door Nancy walked down the path to the car whose engine was running.

  ‘You may sit in front with me, Miss Allan.’ There was a touch of irony in Logan’s voice as he opened the door for her. Unsmiling, Nancy sat down beside him and closed the door. Wondering why he didn’t engage gear at once, she looked at him and encountered a glance which made her want to shout for help.

  ‘I see that you’ve found it necessary to put on warpaint. Does this mean an end to preliminary skirmishing? Should I take it as a declaration of war?’ he drawled, as he released the handbrake and the car slid forward.

  Unnerved by his glance as well as by his words, Nancy could not reply and she kept her head averted during the short journey. To her relief Logan did not pursue the conversation with her but contented himself with answering Linda’s impetuous questions as they drove over the humpbacked bridge and on to the main road. There they turned left and after a mile of bends came to two stone gateposts through which they entered. They went up a long tree-lined driveway which ended before a white house.

  The Lodge was quite different from what Nancy had expected. Influenced possibly by Linda’s descriptions of Scottish castles and her references to Dunvegan, she had expected a severe turreted building. Instead she was pleasantly surprised to see a low rambling whitewashed house. The Lodge was, in fact, a simple Scottish house with a slate roof and dormer windows, to which additions had been made in the form of two wings built at right angles to the original building.

  Inside the house parquet floors gleamed and Indian carpets glowed. Choice pieces of antique furniture were arranged effectively amongst well-designed twentieth-century pieces. In the lounge, a high-ceilinged austere room, Nancy noticed a glass-fronted cabinet full of ornaments from the East which she assumed had been collected by Logan’s great-grandfather.

  Logan showed them the whole of the ground floor, explaining that the right wing of the house was used by his cousins Keith and Mary Maclaine and their sons during their regular visits to Lanmore. He led them eventually to the kitchen where a blue-eyed, dark-haired woman called Mrs. MacFadyen, who was the housekeeper, was preparing tea.

  ‘You can bring it to the lounge,’ Logan told her.

  ‘Oh, no,’ objected Linda. ‘Can’t we have it in the room you call your office? That’s the best room by far. Please, Logan.’

  He looked at her in surprise, and then said politely, ‘As you wish. May I ask why?’

  ‘Because it’s your room,’ replied Linda simply.

  Linda was right, thought Nancy, as she looked round the bright westward-looking room. It was the best room in the house because apart from the kitchen it was the only room they had seen which had a lived-in atmosphere. It was panelled with a golden-hued wood and was furnished with an old but beautiful Indian carpet, a large oak desk, some wheelbacked chairs with cushioned seats and a very large comfortable settee. It was full of books and pictures, and in one corner there was a stereo record player and a stack of records. Its french window opened on to a small stone terrace.

  Nancy went to stand beside the window. A lawn sloped down to the rough grass which bordered the shore of Lanmore Bay. Out at sea the islands looked like half-submerged porpoises in the water. A small squat boat with two masts swung at a mooring in the bay.

  ‘Is that your brother, in that photograph?’ she heard Linda say behind her.

  ‘Isn’t that a picture of the car you drove at Le Mans?’ she heard Don ask, followed by the murmur of Logan’s voice as he answered their questions politely.

  ‘Don’t you miss the racing?’ Don asked next. ‘I can’t understand why you gave up.’

  ‘Whose boat is that?’ asked Nancy loudly, cutting in at the end of Don’s words, hoping to divert the conversation into less personal channels.

  Her ruse worked. Ignoring Don, Logan came to stand beside her.

  ‘That’s Vagabond, my father’s old cruising boat, very old but very reliable. We used to go cruising in the Outer Hebrides during the summer. My father was a very keen amateur naturalist and he liked observing the birds in their island sanctuaries. One year my brother and I stole the boat and set out to look for the island of Rockall by ourselves.’

  ‘Did you find it?’ asked Don.

  ‘No. We soon got bored with looking at each other and with going up and down in the same waves, so we turned round and came back.’

  ‘How old were you then?’ asked the curious Linda.

  ‘Seventeen. Angus was fifteen.’

  ‘Don’t you go cruising now?’

  ‘No. At least, not much. My cousins use the boat, and I’ve used her to do some scuba-diving round the coast. But I haven’t been out this summer. It isn’t sensible to dive alone.’

  ‘Scuba-diving?’ echoed Linda. ‘You mean in a skin suit with a mask and air tanks?’

  Logan’s smile was indulgent as he looked down at her. ‘That’s right. Are you interested?’

  Linda’s eyes blazed with enthusiasm and delight.

  ‘Of course I am. And so is Don. We’ve always wanted to do it, but we haven’t had much opportunity and we couldn’t afford the equipment,’ she sent a withering glance in her sister’s direction. ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘Nancy wouldn’t let me go. She thought it was too dangerous and that I might have an accident.’

  ‘Would you like to come with me?’ asked Logan. ‘We have several wet suits and I think there’s one which would fit you which my cousin used last year. Can you swim well? You have to be able to float or tread water for at least half an hour, and to be able to swim at least three hundred to four hundred yards on the surface.’

  ‘Swimming is about the only thing I did well at school ... and the one reason why they didn
’t kick me out. I used to bring home the county free-style trophy from the annual swimming meet,’ put in Don dryly. ‘If you need company while you go diving I’ll be glad to come with you.’

  ‘He’s not the only one who’s won trophies for swimming,’ added Linda swiftly. ‘I have too. But if you want me to come I expect you’ll have to ask Nancy.’ She sighed exaggeratedly and rolled her eyes in a manner which made Nancy long to retaliate. ‘She never lets me do anything I really want to do.’

  ‘That isn’t true,’ Nancy defended herself. ‘I only try to stop you from making a nuisance of yourself.’ She looked at Logan, trying to assess his real feeling about the subject, but as usual his expression was bland. ‘You can’t really want to take Linda diving with you,’ she said hopefully.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She’s too young.’

  ‘Oh, Nancy, you spoil everything!’ moaned Linda.

  Logan looked at Linda appraisingly.

  ‘I don’t think she is,’ he announced at last. ‘But would it make you feel any better if I invite you to come along too? You can look after Neil and keep watch for us on the boat.’

  ‘You can’t say no this time, Nancy. Can’t you see he isn’t being polite? He can’t go diving unless he takes someone with him,’ urged Nancy.

  Nancy hesitated for two reasons. One was that she resented the fact that Logan seemed to want Linda’s company and in order to have it he was prepared to put up with herself as baby-sitter for Neil. He hadn’t invited her to go diving and since she was as good at swimming as both Don and Linda she was just as interested in diving. The resentment worried her because she had never felt like this towards Linda before. It was almost like jealousy and seemed closely bound up with her other reason for hesitating.

  A spark had been ignited between herself and Logan this afternoon and it had made her very aware of him. His reaction to her ‘warpaint’ had unnerved her. He had hardly spoken to her during their tour of the house and she had said very little to him. But the many times she had glanced at him when she had thought he was not looking at her she had been surprised by a bright alert stare from eyes which were no longer sleepy; a stare to which her senses had responded in the most disturbing way.

  So she hesitated, wondering if it would be wise to agree to a suggestion which would bring not only Linda into closer contact with Logan but also herself.

  ‘Nancy, pleeease!’ urged Linda.

  ‘Give her time,’ said Logan softly. ‘She’s thinking whether her intended will approve or not.’

  ‘Her intended?’ gasped Linda, and went off into peals of laughter. ‘Oh, what a good description of Rod!’

  ‘I’m thinking nothing of the sort,’ flashed Nancy. She hadn’t thought about Rod for days and the mention of his name gave her a slight jolt of guilt.

  ‘Then why the hesitation?’ persisted Logan. ‘Is it fear of the water, or of the company you’ll have to keep?’

  ‘Neither,’ lied Nancy. ‘I’m just as good a swimmer as the other two ... and I’m certainly not afraid of you or of Neil. All right, I’ll come. But you must be honest with us. As soon as you’re tired of taking us you must say so.’

  She could not look straight at him as she felt that amusement would be lurking in his eyes.

  ‘It shall be as you wish,’ he answered politely, making her wonder why she had made such a fuss.

  ‘Goody!’ yelled Linda, and the door opened and Mrs. MacFadyen walked in with a tea trolley laden with a silver tea pot, a fine china tea set and plates of home-made scones and biscuits.

  ‘Maybe Miss Allan would like to pour for ye,’ she suggested with a gentle smile in Nancy’s direction as she left the room closing the door after her.

  Logan placed a hand on Nancy’s shoulder and guided her towards the trolley. To her consternation she shivered in reaction to his touch.

  ‘Will you pour, please. You see I’m not in the habit of inviting people to tea,’ he said quietly.

  ‘There, I knew you were only being polite!’ she pounced. ‘How I hate people who extend invitations only because it’s etiquette and not because they want to!’

  ‘Hate?’ he queried as she picked up the tea pot and began to pour the tea. ‘That’s a very strong emotion. I should take care about indulging in it, if I were you. By the way, is it normal to pour the tea until it overflows into the saucer?’

  After that verbal engagement Nancy determined to say no more directly to Logan and she concentrated on pouring tea properly and on handing round the scones and cakes. Contrarily she was rather annoyed when he made no further attempt to talk to her or even to include her in conversation, allowing Linda to monopolise his attention to such an extent that Nancy decided to put an end to their visit by abruptly rising to her feet when they had all eaten and drunk and saying that it was time they returned to the cottage because Linda had homework to do.

  In spite of Linda’s protests Logan rose politely to his feet and said he would drive them home. On the way back to the cottage arrangements were made that he should take them all diving the following Saturday if the weather was suitable, and Nancy found herself secretly hoping, for no valid reason, that the weather would not be suitable because she was doubtful about the wisdom of becoming too involved with Logan Maclaine.

  A few weeks later Nancy sat in the cockpit of Vagabond untangling Neil’s fishing line. It was a placid Saturday afternoon at the end of July and the boat was moored in the middle of a small bay on, one of the islands. Looking across the water, she could see the white mass which was Lanmore Lodge set amongst the dark green of its surrounding pines. Behind it rose the gentle hills of Lanmore and behind them were the more rugged outline of the mountains of the mainland.

  Nancy threaded the end of the line through the last tangled knot, wound it round the reel and handed it back to Neil with a warning that he should not get it tangled again. The little boy thanked her with a smile and walked away to the bow of the boat to try his luck again.

  Watching him walk with confidence along the side-deck Nancy thought how much better he looked than he had a bare month ago when she had first met him. She could not help feeling pleased that his recuperation was due in some part to the attention she had given him. He had lost his dislike for fishing and instead of being a person he distrusted his uncle was now his hero from whom he did not like to be parted for long.

  Nancy sighed suddenly. The doubt which she had felt originally about becoming too involved with Logan had increased gradually, fed by the numerous intrusions which he had made recently into the life of the Allan family.

  It had all happened so naturally that it had been difficult to stop. Having extracted a promise from Nancy to baby-sit Neil while he took Don and Linda diving, Logan seemed to assume from then on that she was willing to baby-sit at other times too. During the week following the tea party at Lanmore he had turned up one morning at the croft with Neil and had asked her to mind the boy for the day. She could have asked him why his housekeeper could not mind the child or she could have refused. But she had done neither because Neil had been so happy to see her again. Logan had returned just as Linda had come home from school and had invited the girl to go fishing with him and Neil that evening. He had told Nancy she could come too, if she wanted to, but he didn’t want her to think she had to come just to be polite. The off-hand invitation had been extended in a certain tongue-in-the-cheek manner which had infuriated her and of course she had gone fishing ... not only that day but on other days too.

  The first time they had gone diving Logan had taken them to a shallow bay and had insisted that all three of them tried with snorkels first. Having satisfied himself that they were quite competent the next week-end he had shown them how to use the tanks of compressed air in conjunction with face masks and regulators and for the first time in her life Nancy entered .the strange fascinating underworld of the sea, an underworld which she would always associate with Logan, who in his black wet suit, mask and fins reminded her more than ever of t
he mysterious Pluto, as he guided her with hand signals through the translucent water on a tour of his kingdom beneath the surface.

  The Allans enjoyed diving so much that they had no hesitation in accepting Logan’s invitation to go with him every week-end, weather permitting. Nancy soothed her doubts away by deciding that if their contact with him was limited to week-ends there wasn’t much danger.

  But after the second week-end she found herself minding Neil for two days in succession. On both days Logan returned from where he had been after school was out, and on both days Neil had gone on some jaunt with Linda. So Logan had sat down on the bench under the cottage window to wait for his nephew. He accepted politely the tea and biscuits Nancy had offered him, and gradually his politeness had melted, he had relaxed and they had talked. Their conversations, it was true, often resembled boxing matches because they tended to circle round each other verbally, feinting and withdrawing, testing each other and occasionally landing a shrewd blow, which would be followed by a brief silence while they re-assessed each other.

  By the end of July, with Linda on holiday from school, both diving and baby-sitting had become almost habits, and Nancy knew she would have been disappointed if a week had passed without two or three visits from the boy and his uncle. She knew the boy benefited and she had a secret hope that the man did too, although after over four weeks of seeing him almost every day Logan was still as much as an enigma to her as he had been when she had first met him. Some days he was so polite and distant that she was hurt and bewildered. Other days he was amusing and good-humoured, making them laugh with stories about their grandfather and of the mischief Logan himself and his brother Angus had done during their boyhood at Lanmore.

  With Don he was always patient and encouraging, giving the younger man the benefit of his own farming and fishing knowledge. With Linda he was an indulgent listener, giving the girl far more attention than Nancy thought she ought to receive. It seemed often that it was only in the hope of seeing Linda that he sat and talked to Nancy in the ‘quiet world’ of the garden, thought Nancy with a frown.