The Kilted Stranger

by Margaret Pargeter

  THE KILTED STRANGER

  by

  MARGARET PARGETER

  Obeying her mother’s last request, Sue planned to go to Scotland and deliver a letter to a man she had never heard of. She felt she must go.

  But more than one surprise awaited her at the end of the journey: the father she had believed dead — and his formidable partner, Meric Findlay.

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was August and the midday sun was hot. Susan Granger’s smoky grey eyes followed the dancing rays of it across the white-tabled restaurant. When another diner complained she noticed that the young proprietor walked over to the window and drew the thin cotton curtains, effectively cutting out the glare. The curtains were made of a brown cotton material with a white geometric pattern on it. They were attractive. Sue hadn’t noticed them before. They looked new. Carefully, her attention caught, she forgot the man she was having lunch with and stared.

  ‘Susan!’ Tim Mason’s impatient exclamation made no impact even when it sharpened on the last syllables of her name. It wasn’t until he spoke again that her wandering gaze returned to fix itself unhappily on his face.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, shrivelling a little beneath his withering regard, grateful when the waitress arrived with their coffee, creating a diversion. It had been a mistake to come here with Tim today, but he had been so insistent. He couldn’t be expected to understand that she still found it difficult to concentrate. Along with other things the shock of her mother’s accident had done this to her. That man with the curtains ... Was it strange that such a simple everyday performance should bring such a comforting sense of normality? A reassurance which all Tim’s effusive sympathy and stringent advice had failed to give.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated, as he stirred his coffee angrily, lapsing into a rather sullen silence as the waitress went.

  His sandy brows raised and he shot her a quick look, not bothering to hide a faint hint of reproach. ‘I wouldn’t mind, darling, but my lunch hour doesn’t go on indefinitely, and old Wilcox will have a fit if I’m so much as five minutes late. You might at least listen to what I’m saying. I was asking you about that letter. Now that you’ve had time to think things over, you aren’t still considering it seriously, are you?’

  Looking away from him quickly, Sue gazed uncertainly down at her hands. ‘And what if I am?’ she asked defiantly.

  Oh, Sue!’ His eyes probed her pale face despairingly. ‘To begin with - well, that wasn’t hard to understand, but surely it’s time you began to think rationally?’

  Resentment flared, bringing a surge of colour to her pale cheeks, a healthier sparkle to her sombre eyes. ‘I did promise.’ She swallowed painfully. ‘The last promise that I’ll ever make.’

  Tim’s good-looking face darkened and he gave a small grunt. ‘I think you’re being far too dramatic, Sue,’ he said. He leant nearer, across the table, suddenly intent. ‘You can tell me to mind my own business if you like, but you’ve devoted all your life to your mother - she saw to it that you never had much real freedom.’ As Sue started to protest he threw up a restraining hand. ‘She asked you to deliver this letter when she was really too ill to have known what she was asking. Don’t you see, Sue, it could mean more strings, and I think you’ve had quite enough of those. You’ve never even heard of the person to whom this letter is addressed. It could be some old relative - almost sure to be if she wrote it some time ago. Whoever it is they’ll probably be in need of care and attention, and knowing you, you’ll be unable to refuse!’

  Sue’s hands clenched nervously beneath the table. Tim had no right to speak to her like this. She didn’t belong to him in any way, nor did she want to. Yet probably he only spoke as he did because he was anxious?

  ‘Tim,’ she faltered, ‘you could be wrong. And I’ve told you before, Mother only wrote the letter a few weeks ago. She wasn’t a very sensitive person, but she did get these sudden premonitions.’ She didn’t allude to his other remarks, unable to deny the truth of them.

  He wasn’t impressed. She hadn’t really expected he would be. He retorted dryly, his brown eyes sceptical, ‘We can all imagine that we’re going to have an accident, Sue. It’s a sort of psychological impact. They happen every day. It must be my turn next - that sort of thing. Your mother was too highly strung to apply a little common sense.’

  ‘It’s not that exactly, Tim.’ His voice cut cruelly across her ragged nerves. His air of disparagement set her teeth on edge. She wanted to get up and walk out, only some stubborn streak in her make-up kept her sitting where she was. ‘You must see,’ she went on, ‘that this is something I feel I have to do whether I really want to or not. I don’t particularly wish to go chasing off into the wilds of Scotland at the moment, but I did promise!’

  ‘When you were naturally upset! If you’d just consider carefully, darling. Promises ...’ For the first time he hesitated, uncertain, not really intending to wound.

  ‘Deathbed promises, you mean,’ she prompted expressionlessly as he paused.

  He muttered angrily, sensing her contempt, his eyes suddenly as hostile as hers. ‘I suppose I do, but I wasn’t going to put it so bluntly. Not many people are able to refuse requests at a time like that ...’ Carefully he spooned more sugar into his coffee, giving himself time to think.

  ‘Look, Sue,’ decisively he replaced his spoon in his saucer, ‘can I be frank?’ Numbly, although slightly warily, she nodded, and he continued, his eyes gentler now on her smooth, beautifully boned face. ‘I know you feel that this letter is very important, but so far as you’re concerned I didn’t trust your mother when she was alive, and I’m afraid I still don’t now.’

  ‘Please ...’

  But he didn’t allow her small, protesting gasp to deter him. ‘Just hear me out, Sue. It’s only for your sake I’m saying this. Sometimes I didn’t think your mother liked you very much, which seemed strange, considering you were all she had. I’ve seen her gazing at you with the most peculiar expression in her eyes, almost as if she didn’t care for what she saw. As if you reminded her of someone she didn’t like, and no one could say you looked a bit like her. But -well, most of the time she was possessive, sometimes scarcely willing to let you out of her sight. Look at how she insisted you found a job in the immediate vicinity after you left college! She always wanted you near, but that doesn’t prove how much she loved you. Of course it might just have been that she wasn’t very maternal, but can you wonder if I’m suspicious about all this other business now?’

  Sue flinched, her lips suddenly dry, her face paler as the logic of his words hurt, the pain spreading insidiously. She hadn’t realized he’d been aware of so much. That his interest had been self-motivated she had little doubt. He wouldn’t know how much it hurt to have one’s private doubts and fears exposed to such cruel analysis. The relationship she had shared with her mother was something she never wanted to talk about, certainly not with Tim, with his methodical, detached way of looking at everything. ‘I’d rather not discuss it,’ she answered at last - very coolly.

  Impatience flared again as he watched her dark-lashed eyes widen defensively. ‘Sometimes I think I don’t understand you at all, Sue,’ he muttered, eyebrows and temper shooting up simultaneously.

  Most of the time I don’t understand you either, Sue felt like retorting. But she didn’t; not aloud. After all, he had been kind and helped her a lot during these last few days, and appeared to be the only close friend she had. He had also been the only man in their small circle of acquaintances whom her mother had tolerated reasonably well. She looked at him, her grey eyes solemn. ‘It hasn’t been long, Tim, you could try to be tolerant.’

  ‘I’m trying, Sue.’ Across the table his deep sigh was quite audib
le. Then suddenly he was softly pleading, changing his tactics, bewildering her as he often did by his complete volte-face. ‘Darling,’ his hand crept across the table to cover her clenched one, ‘why don’t we get married? Then I could take care of everything. Your mother would have approved, I’m sure of that. Then I could be responsible for all your affairs, and if you insist we could deliver that mysterious letter together - maybe during my next holiday or long weekend.’

  ‘Oh, Tim!’ Tears came, and she wished she wasn’t quite so jumpy. A hint of kindness still did this to her. Tears! Staring at him aghast, she blinked them back before he could notice. She hadn’t reached the age of twenty without having gone through a handful of boy-friends. She was young and healthy and enjoyed her fun. Only most of them hadn’t been a lot of fun really, not with her mother doing her best to antagonize them, and it had never seemed possible to keep them completely out of her way. Always there had been some fault, subtly yet sharply pointed out, effectively spoiling a gay but easily destructible relationship.

  Looking back, Sue wondered why she had often given in so quickly. She sometimes fretted that she had reached the age she had without ever being in love. Was she too much like her mother, without any real capacity for deeper feelings? Or perhaps the emotions she dreamt about were totally unrealistic, the heady, warm, bubbling feelings a myth. She was extremely fond of Tim most of the time. Perhaps this was sufficient? But even as the thought entered her head she dismissed it. She knew that she couldn’t agree to marry him, not yet. Not until she was completely sure.

  ‘I’m sorry, Tim,’ her voice trembled slightly as she attempted to hide her uncertainty, ‘I just couldn’t think of marrying anyone at the moment.’

  Tim, looking into her pale, faintly flushed face, thought he understood. It was too soon after her bereavement. He had been too hasty. His hand tightened reassuringly over hers. ‘Don’t worry, darling, I’ll ask you again. Just keep it in mind. But,’ he frowned, glancing anxiously at his watch, ‘you must promise me that you’ll do nothing about this other matter without letting me know.’

  Irrelevantly Sue wished he wouldn’t keep calling her darling. It might give people the wrong impression. She felt something like a surge of relief when he didn’t pursue the subject of marriage any further, but she didn’t particularly want to promise him anything, not even brief details of her movements. It might be good to get away for a little while, but she wouldn’t say so. There seemed little sense in hurting him deliberately and he might not understand.

  Uncertainly she shrugged, glancing at him swiftly, curiously evasive. ‘I’m not sure what I’ll be doing, Tim,’ she replied, gathering up her bag as he drained his coffee cup and signalled to the waitress, his lunch hour nearly over. ‘Not until I’ve seen Mother’s solicitor. I have an appointment with him this afternoon.’

  A dry, late summer wind blew skittishly along the street as she parted from Tim outside the cafe and made her way towards the bus stop. It was too fine a day to take the tube, but the wind was disagreeable, whirling untidy bits of litter, stirring fine dust about her feet. Sue, taking a grip of herself, resisted a half-formed impulse to scruff her toes in it as the bored-looking schoolboy in front of her was doing. Instead she straightened her shoulders and told herself resolutely that London, even in August, could be nice. And if she didn’t care for life in a huge city, there were thousands who did. Her mother had loved it, finding in the busy streets the anonymity she had always appeared to crave.

  Sue sighed uneasily, hopping on to the bus when it came, seating herself precariously on the top deck, staring out through the window at the rows of houses and shops which obtruded on to her vision, then dissolved into a meaningless blur. Mingling with this came an almost tangible sense of freedom, an awareness that for the first time in her life she could please herself entirely as to where she lived and worked. Of course there was the flat, but it was only rented and could easily be disposed of, and her present job was only temporary, in a local bookshop, taken until she could find a more permanent teaching post. Now that her mother had gone, there was nothing and no one to keep her here. Tim would eventually accept that she couldn’t marry him. If he still wished to keep in touch - well, that would be up to him.

  The solicitor didn’t keep her waiting. He was a youngish man with a computer-like brain and a conveyor-like system of dealing with his clients. ‘Sit down, Miss Granger.’ He was quick to wave her to a seat and even quicker to offer his condolences, the thin formality of his voice grating. Yet she found his unemotional courtesy oddly bracing, and a welcome change from Tim’s well-intentioned but often suffocating sympathy. She sat down where the solicitor indicated, facing him gravely.

  ‘I would have sent for you sooner,’ he went on, his pale grey eyes sliding impersonally over her, ‘but I’ve been out of town. Actually your mother’s estate constitutes no problem, but there’s something which I’m not quite clear about.’

  Sue waited patiently as he paused, appearing to search for a paper on his desk. She hadn’t met this man before, although she had known that her mother had consulted him once or twice, mostly about trivial matters concerning rent and such-like. She had never heard of any estate. Of course he was probably referring to the few pounds which her mother might have left in the bank. She had always used a bank account, although usually there had been very little in it. It was then that Sue remembered the insurance.

  Startled, she glanced up into the solicitor’s sharp-eyed face. ‘There is an insurance, I believe. My father apparently had a good one and, since he died, my mother received a regular monthly sum. She never said how much. I don’t suppose it would be all that much after inflation. My father died, you see, before I was born, but it was a great help - the money, I mean. I expect, now that she’s gone too, that the company ought to know about it. It was silly of me not to think of it before.’ Unhappy with her rather muddled presentation of the facts, and the pain it induced, Sue gripped her hands tightly together on her lap.

  Frowning slightly, the man found the notes which he looked for and glanced at her keenly, his eyes resting for a moment on her pale silky head, noting the distress in her wide, clouded eyes. ‘I shouldn’t worry about that, Miss Granger,’ he said quietly. ‘A week or two is neither here nor there. Actually, though, this was one of the things I wanted to speak to you about. Your mother did mention an insurance some time ago, but when I consulted her bank I was surprised to find that, strictly speaking, there isn’t any. There certainly is money paid into her account every month, but more than that I cannot find out. I wondered if you could throw any light on the matter?’

  Sue started, feeling her cheeks grow cold as she stared apprehensively at the solicitor’s smooth face. There was a hollow feeling at the pit of her stomach. If there was no insurance, and she saw no reason to doubt this man’s word, wherever was the money coming from? ‘Are you sure there’s been no mistake?’ she floundered nervously.

  ‘Not possibly. ’ Emphatically he shook his head, waiting patiently.

  Defeated she accepted this while her mind searched frantically for a suitable explanation. Her face registered dismay, followed quickly by an unexplainable fear as she found none. Intuitively she knew there was something very much wrong, but she tad simply no idea what it could be. ‘I only have the letter,’ she whispered uneasily, speaking her thoughts aloud. Guilt surged as she mentioned it, but what else could she do?

  ‘A letter?’ A shrewd gleam lit the man’s grey eyes. ‘Perhaps I might see it.’

  He held out his hand expectantly.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Sue flinched inwardly as she drew the letter from her handbag. ‘I promised my mother I would deliver it in person and that I wouldn’t open it. But if the address on the envelope is of any help, then you’re welcome to look at it.’ She didn’t tell him that she carried it about with her all the time, almost afraid to let it out of her sight.

  Gravely he took it from her cold fingers, making no comment on her odd little statement a
s he studied it closely. ‘I see that it’s addressed to a Mr. John Frazer of Glenroden, Perthshire. In your mother’s handwriting, if I’m not mistaken.’ Swiftly he reached for a sheet of paper, compared the two, then nodded his head, satisfied. ‘Exactly the same,’ he murmured, glancing briefly at Sue. ‘I have here your mother’s signature. This letter,’ he lifted it thoughtfully, ‘you have no idea what it’s about?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not,’ Sue’s eyes were tensely anxious, fixed on the letter as if afraid he wouldn’t give it back. ‘I do intend going to Scotland as soon as possible, though, so perhaps I’ll find out. Do you think,’ she asked slowly, ‘that it might have some bearing on this other matter, this insurance?’

  ‘It might.’ Another frown creased his high forehead. ‘You don’t happen to have heard anything about this Mr. Frazer, by any chance?’

  As puzzled as he was, Sue shook her head. ‘So far as I know Mother had never been to Scotland. We always lived in London. She used to say that Scotland was a cold, barren sort of place.’

  ‘And you believed her?’ His voice was faintly, uncharacteristically incredulous.

  ‘Well—’ Sue’s pale cheeks flushed, ‘not entirely. I think she might have changed her mind if she could have been persuaded to go there. I have seen films and heard other opinions. I’m only trying to explain why I find this letter so surprising. I can’t think who this man can be.’

  ‘To you he’s a complete stranger?’

  ‘I’ve never even heard him mentioned before.’

  ‘And you wouldn’t consider opening this letter? You don’t think it might save a lot of - er — trouble in the long run?’

  ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t!’ Why had he hesitated before he said trouble? He must know that he was asking the impossible. Perhaps, like Tim, he thought her too dramatic? Bewildered, she turned her head away from the solicitor’s probing eyes. She had promised her mother, and a promise was a promise, no matter what the circumstances.

  ‘I see.’ He made no other comment, but she was aware that he continued to gaze at her speculatively. ‘I rather think,’ he said at last, ‘that we will wait to see what you make out in Perthshire before we go any further. In many ways this trip of yours could be enlightening. If not - well,’ he shrugged, ‘another week or two can’t make any difference.’