Soon they had come to another loch, remote and distant from all human habitation, it would seem, but before they had gone very far along its winding, white-sanded shore Hew turned the car abruptly and they drove smoothly along a dark avenue flanked by towering Douglas firs.
When the Daimler pulled up before a closed iron gate, it was as if they had come to the edge of the civilized world.
“I’m sorry about this,” Hew apologized as he got back behind the wheel after pushing the gate open. “It’s much the quicker way round.”
He had spoken so little all the way from Oban, and now it seemed that his anger had increased.
“You look tired,” he said, “but we haven’t much further to go.”
Elizabeth could not believe that there could be a house or an hotel anywhere near, and perhaps he had just been trying to buoy up her courage for the remainder of the journey.
Almost as if in answer to the thought lights winked and glimmered just ahead of them, but there were two more gates to open before they reached what appeared to be the back entrance to a small estate.
It was deeply wooded and densely overgrown, and no very successful attempt had been made to clear away fallen timber or to cope with the encroaching heather. A garden which had once been beautiful looked gaunt and neglected in the beam of the Daimler’s headlights, with weeds everywhere and an old swing seat hanging dejectedly on rusted iron supports.
Hew drove carefully round the end of an old grey stone house looking down from a craggy height on to the loch. The whole place seemed to drip with age and decay, but the front rooms were lit up and through the curtainless windows Elizabeth could see people moving about with some sense of urgency.
In strong contrast to the dilapidated state of the garden, the interior of the house looked fresh and bright. Cream paintwork gleamed and there were lamps everywhere, shedding a deep yellow glow out into the night. When the car drew up at the front door Elizabeth saw that it was standing ajar.
“Shona Lorimer has kept this as a sort of fishermen’s sanctuary for years,” Hew explained as they got out on to the damp, moss-grown drive. “She was widowed early in life, and ever since she’s done what she could to keep her home intact. It has been a struggle at times, but she’s managed to bring up her family and give them a reasonable education and a fair prospect for the future. She’d scorn the idea that she’s worked her fingers to the bone in the process, but that’s pretty much how it is. I think you’ll like her,” he added abruptly.
He did not wait to press the bell, but strode instead straight into the hall. He stood looking about him for a moment, listening to the sound of voices and as he turned towards one of the doors a small, dark-haired woman with the most vivid eyes Elizabeth had ever seen opened it and stood arrested with pleasure on the threshold.
“Hew!” she exclaimed. “That was quick work! And it’s you that I’m glad to see!” She came forward, clasping both his arms between small, shapely hands, as she looked with frank affection into his tired, set face. “Don’t worry too much,” she advised quickly. “There is not any great trouble. We have them safely upstairs and in bed. Doctor McTaggart has had a look at both of them and he’ll be back in an hour’s time to give us his final verdict.” She hesitated a moment and then added: “He’ll have to report the accident to the police, of course.”
Hew’s lips tightened, but he made no comment as he turned to introduce Elizabeth.
“You’re Tony’s sister,” Shona Lorimer said right away. “How amazingly alike you are! Don’t worry about your brother, my dear,” she urged. “Doctor Mac has been all over him and he says there’s no bones broken. He took a nasty bump on the head and that would account for the concussion.”
The swift sense of relief which the words brought made Elizabeth feel weak for a moment, and unexpectedly Hew put a firm hand under her elbow to propel her into the room which Mrs. Lorimer had just left.
It was a warm, friendly, untidy room, with books and mending and half-finished models of this and that everywhere. A family room, with two collies and a white cat lying languorously on a worn hearthrug in front of the fire, and a deep sense of being lived in permeating every inch of it.
Hew stooped to fondle the dogs and Shona Lorimer gave Elizabeth a brief, searching scrutiny across his bowed head, apparently liking what she saw.
“I’m sorry you had to come on an errand like this,” she said directly, “but it has let us meet. Sooner than we might have done, as a matter of fact. Hew wouldn’t have been able to spare the time to bring you up for quite a while yet, and I’m beginning to think my own visiting days are over! I’ve still got a full house of fishermen and bookings right into October.”
“It’s time you had a husband,” Hew suggested jokingly. “What about all your old regulars? The Brigadier, for instance?”
“Och, now be quiet, will you!” Shona laughed. “Can you see me playing second fiddle to a fish?”
“Indeed I can’t, Shona!” He put an arm affectionately about her shoulders. “But you should have a man to protect you, especially from this sort of thing.”
The smile had left his eyes and his mouth was hard again. It was plain to be seen that this friendly contact had done little to dispel his irritation now that he knew that neither Tony nor Caroline had suffered any serious injury.
To Elizabeth it had been something of a revelation to see him with Shona Lorimer. Their easy friendship went deep. Each respected the other, and Shona had been quite genuine in her expression of relief at sight of him. She had been more than glad that he had arrived to take command, although she looked the practical, competent type who could very well deal with most situations single-handed. Life, no doubt, had made it imperative that she should do so, although her experiences did not seem to have hardened her in any way or detracted from a very definite feminine appeal.
Shona was probably in her late thirties and looked several years younger because of an utter lack of sophistication and nature’s generous gifts of a flawless complexion and dark, wavy hair which clustered youthfully about her small, shapely head. There were so many laughter-lines at the corner of her blue eyes that she must have faced life with a perpetually challenging smile, and all her movements were quick and decisive.
“I sent Jenny to phone you,” she explained, as she led the way back into the hall. “I hope she didn’t give you a garbled story.”
“Not really,” Hew answered, pausing at the foot of the stairs. “She was a bit breathless and incoherent at first and I guessed she had run all the way to the call-box at the road junction.”
Before Shona could answer there was a movement on the half-landing above them and Caroline Hayler came down the remaining stairs towards them.
“Hew!” she cried. “Thank heaven you’ve come!”
Hew caught her, steadying her with both hands firmly on her arms. It was probably the only way to prevent her from flinging herself upon him in an abandonment of frenzied relief, and Elizabeth averted her eyes, half expecting him to permit a kiss, at least.
Apparently he was too angry for such a swift reconciliation, however, because he continued to hold Caroline away from him as she spoke.
“It happened so quickly, Hew! Neither of us saw it coming. It was the most ghastly accident, and really sheep ought to be kept off the roads in such a difficult half-light.”
He smiled grimly at the ridiculous statement. It was evident that Caroline was half hysterical and he no doubt intended to let her gain relief by talking.
“It was so dark under the trees,” she rushed on, “and then we seemed to swerve when we came out on to the moor and it was all over in a couple of minutes. Don’t blame Tony too much,” she begged. “He couldn’t really help it. There were a lot of pot-holes and the steering was rough.”
Hew’s grip tightened on her arms and he shook her a little.
“What are you talking about, Carol?” he demanded. “Surely you were driving the car?”
Caroline’s mane of b
londe hair fell over one eye as she twisted away from his searching scrutiny, and Elizabeth’s heart gave a small, sickening lurch of dismay.
“Answer me,” he repeated, his voice like ice. “Were you driving the car?”
“No.” Caroline swallowed hard, and then some of her former confidence seemed to be restored and she said rather arrogantly: “Don’t worry, I’ll fix it. The police needn’t know that Tony was at the wheel. I can say I was driving. They needn’t know,” she repeated less confidently, meeting Hew’s gaze. “We can square it with them, anyway—”
He released her with an expression of disgust.
“We’re not going to try to ‘square’ anybody,” he said angrily. “Least of all Dougal MacLean. He’s got his duty to do, and his duty is to report an accident when he sees one.”
“But he didn’t see this one,” Caroline protested. “I crawled out and got here. It only happened down the road. Shona and the boys got Tony out—”
Mrs. Lorimer moved towards the stairs.
“Dougal will be at the car by now,” she said quietly. “I don’t know what Doctor Mac will have told him, but he didn’t know about this—about Tony driving. Perhaps,” she suggested tentatively, “we could leave things as they are, just for the present.”
Elizabeth felt as if some great weight was pressing her down, crushing her to the earth with humiliation. Every word Caroline Hayler had uttered had struck deeply and painfully into her heart, condemning Tony as relentlessly as Carol herself. And all the time the heavier burden, the real responsibility, was being placed on Hew Kintyre’s shoulders. He had made himself answerable for Tony little more than an hour ago, and this was the result, the first fruits of his trust!
“Hew—I’m sorry,” she heard herself saying, as if she must spend her life apologizing to him. “This is a dreadful thing. Tony knew that he shouldn’t have been driving without a licence.”
Caroline turned to look at her for the first time. “Don’t start to lecture him as soon as he comes round,” she advised cuttingly. “It was an accident. It could have happened to anyone—to me, to Hew even!” Not to Hew, Elizabeth thought numbly. Hew wouldn’t go tearing along a narrow lochside road in a fast car without regard to anyone or anything but his own pleasure. Suddenly she thought about the dead sheep and knew that he would be concerned about that, too. The owner of the animals would be involved and would probably have to be completely satisfied that it had been an accident or compensation would have to be paid.
“If we’re going to be liable, Hew,” she began, but he brushed her offer aside.
“Leave this to me. Go up and see Tony,” he advised.
CHAPTER THREE
WHILE she sat by her brother’s bedside in the yellow circle of lamplight waiting for the first flicker of returning consciousness, Elizabeth could think only of Hew Kintyre and the added burden they had placed upon him.
She blamed Caroline, of course, but what was the use of that? Tony was equally to blame. He was not a child and he knew the rules of the road. He had done this thing in a spirit of reckless bravado, no doubt, and it had ended in an accident.
Her first thankfulness that nothing worse had come of it was short-lived. It gave way to irritation, followed by something very near to despair. Would she ever be able to curb Tony’s impetuosity—alone?
Now, of course, she was not really alone. Hew Kintyre’s strong hand was also on the rein, but Tony was the sort who would champ at the bit and bolt whenever he saw an opportunity.
How well she knew that! The blood ran swiftly into her cheeks as she remembered the look in Hew’s eyes when Caroline had first mentioned the police.
In all his life he had probably never come up against the law, and now, within a day almost, Tony had succeeded in dragging his name before the courts.
That, no doubt, was what it would finally amount to.
She bit her lip, feeling immeasurably ashamed, and could hardly bear the kindness of Shona Lorimer when Shona came to relieve her of her long vigil.
“Off you go and lie down in the spare room,” Shona whispered.
Elizabeth looked down at the bed. The long black lashes on her brother’s cheek flickered for an instant and a gleam of recognition flashed in Tony’s eyes as he caught sight of her sitting there.
“Hello, Liz!” he said faintly.
The heavy lids drooped and he sighed and went to sleep.
“Without the slightest bit of concern!”
Unconsciously Elizabeth had spoken the thought aloud, and Shona looked into her distressed face and smiled.
“Don’t judge him too harshly,” she advised, patting her hand. “He wouldn’t really remember what happened. He was just so dreadfully tired. He’ll be as sorry as can be in the morning!”
“But Hew!” Elizabeth protested. “All this is so unfair to Hew.”
A shadow passed in Shona Lorimer’s eyes.
“He, too, will feel better about it all in the morning,” she predicted after the briefest hesitation. “It is a pity it happened at such a time, of course, when he was upset about his father.” She drew Elizabeth gently on to her feet. “Hew Kintyre is not a petty man,” she added firmly. “He will not hold this against your brother once he has had it out with him.”
Elizabeth looked deeply into the blue eyes, her own full of an immense gratitude, and in that unguarded moment, while they were both thinking about Hew, Elizabeth glimpsed the secret longing in the older woman’s heart. For years, perhaps, Shona Lorimer had been in love with Hew. They had known each other for many years, and this was the result for one of them.
How could Hew have preferred Caroline, Elizabeth wondered, when there was someone like Shona in the background?
She went slowly along the corridor to the open door of the room Shona had prepared for her. All the other doors were tightly closed, the occupants asleep for the night, healthily tired after their long day in the open with rod or gun, and somehow she knew that it would always be like this for Shona. She would spend her life here, at Ravenscraig, welcoming her “visitors” each summer and filling in the long, lonely winter evenings reading and knitting while her little family studied at a distant university, and she would never marry again.
Was that how it always was, Elizabeth wondered, when one had fallen in love, finally and irrevocably? There could never be compensations; never any “second-best.”
She could not fall asleep immediately, although she was more tired than she had ever been. She turned her face into the pillow and closed her eyes, aware of Hew Kintyre in every fibre of her being, feeling the domination of his strength and the poignancy of his kindness with every breath she drew, and in the stillness her heartbeats were suddenly like the drum-beats of despair.
How could she say at which point she had fallen in love with him? How did she know where antagonism had ebbed away to leave only understanding and a deepening respect? Perhaps it had been in the moment when they had walked behind the old laird for that final journey to the Island, when she had seen him take up the burden of his inheritance with a resolution which looked the odds fully in the face and defied defeat. Or it may have been in that instant of true intimacy when she had seen the truth of Shona Lorimer’s loving mirrored in the older woman’s frank blue eyes, because then she had known herself as hopelessly committed as Shona.
Turning on to her back, she lay staring out of the long, curtainless window at the patch of starless sky above Ravenscraig’s sheltering trees. It was already growing pale with the dawn of another day, yet sleep was still far away from her.
She got up, standing with her coat about her shoulders to look down into the neglected garden and across a tangle of ferns and encroaching undergrowth which stretched between the house and the road. The whole night was so quiet until suddenly, startlingly, a car’s engine started up and she saw the Daimler moving slowly down the drive towards the main gate.
If Hew had slept at all, it could only have been for an hour or two, and now he was off somewhere,
driving through the chill dawn.
Was Caroline with him? It was impossible to see who was sitting in the car, but it was evident that Hew had found sleep as elusive as she had done. But for a different reason. She could quite well imagine the extent of his anger with Tony—and perhaps with herself for letting Tony go off with Caroline without question.
She lay down on the bed again and watched the sky as the throb of the car’s engine grew fainter and fainter in the distance until it was finally swallowed up in the myriad other sounds of the awakening day.
A blackbird whistled a single note and was still, and somewhere far out along the loch shore an oyster-catcher, disturbed, rose and fled protestingly far out across the water. The bleak cry seemed to Elizabeth like the echo of the agony in her own heart.
When deep came to her at last, it was no more than a fleeting oblivion, and she was up and dressed before Shona came to call her at nine o’clock.
“They’re getting Caroline’s car out of the ditch,” Shona explained. “Hew must have been up all night.”
“So have you,” Elizabeth said humbly. “I wish you had let me sit up with Tony, or at least help to make the breakfast. You haven’t had any sleep.”
“Och, I’ve all winter to sleep!” Shona smiled, looking at her closely. “Don’t you worry about me. And you’re not to worry about Tony, either. He slept like a baby all through the night. Doctor Mac will be here very soon to have another look at him.”
“Mrs. Lorimer,” Elizabeth said, “were you a nurse—before you married, I mean?”
“How did you guess?” Shona’s eyes twinkled. “Have we got S.R.N. written all over us for ever afterwards?”
“It’s a wonderful signature,” Elizabeth answered with feeling. “I thought you were a nurse by the way you handled Tony—so sure of what he needed.”
Shona crossed to the window, looking down at her dejected garden.
“He’s young and full of spirit,” she said. “Don’t try to stamp all the life out of him, but keep him away from Caroline Hayler—if you can.”
The Last of the Kintyres Page 6