The Last of the Kintyres

by Catherine Airlie

  “Another time, David,” Hew said as he let in his clutch and drove away.

  The morning wore on. Twice he put a call through to Edinburgh and twice Elizabeth watched him come from the telephone alcove, disappointed.

  The growing tension was telling on their nerves. Search parties had gone out along the coast, but nothing further had been found.

  Elizabeth was beginning to feel that she could not bear any more when the telephone pealed through the silent house.

  Hew passed her abruptly, taking the instrument off its cradle with one swift, decisive movement. “Ardlamond,” he announced.

  Elizabeth’s heartbeats seemed to be pounding close against her throat. Was this the end? Was this the final disaster?

  I can’t stand any more, she thought desperately. In a moment Hew is going to turn and tell me that Tony is dead.

  “Thank you, David,” she heard him say in a curt, emotionless tone. “No, don’t trouble. I’ll come over. In about half an hour, you said?”

  She stood waiting, each minute an eternity, but when he turned after replacing the receiver his expression told her nothing. He came over to where she stood, his hands strong yet gentle as he placed them on her shoulders, turning her to face him.

  “Don’t give up hope, Elizabeth,” he counselled. “We haven’t any proof that Tony took the launch.” He hesitated, as if he might confide something in her, and then he said: “I’ve got another theory, as a matter of fact. It may sound absurd, but I think he’s with Caroline.”

  “He couldn’t be!” Elizabeth gasped incredulously. “He wouldn’t just go off like that—”

  Disbelieving, she stared at him, praying that Tony had not done this thing, yet hoping, too, that the lesser evil might indeed be the truth.

  “I may be wrong,” he pointed out grimly, “but I’m going to Dromore again to find out. Caroline went to Edinburgh yesterday afternoon.”

  She could not offer to go with him.

  “I’ll phone you,” Hew promised, “as soon as I find out the truth.”

  For a split second his hands tightened over her arms, but he made no other sign of affection or regret.

  “I’ve got to do something,” she said in a strange, flat voice. “I’ve just got to find something to do.”

  He glanced at his watch.

  “If you could make me a meal,” he suggested. “I haven’t had anything to eat for twenty-four hours.”

  How thoughtless she had been! His clothes were still wet and he had not had any sleep, but she knew that he would neither rest nor eat till he had seen Caroline.

  “I won’t be long,” he promised. “Give me half an hour.”

  Dromore Castle had still that closed, uninhabited look when Hew drove up to it for the second time, but the downstairs shutters had been thrown back so that some of the morning sunlight might penetrate into the stately old rooms. He knew that Caroline had not come back. Somehow he had always been able to sense her presence, but now he could only think of it as disruptive.

  As he switched off the Daimler’s engine he became aware of another sound on the winding road behind him, the sound of a second car approaching the Castle at speed. Caroline!

  He stood waiting, his grey eyes narrowed a little as he watched for the Cadillac’s appearance.

  It swung in between the gateposts, still at a reckless speed, and Caroline pulled up and got out. She was done.

  When she saw him she drew in a quick breath, biting her teeth into her lower lip. He could see that she was fighting for control of a temper which she had lost rather easily.

  “What’s all this nonsense about a search?” she demanded without preliminary. “About the lifeboat being called out?”

  “We’re looking for Tony?”

  Hew’s voice was harsh, his grey eyes fully on hers. She took out a cigarette, fumbling with the case, her fingers nervous as she sought in her handbag for her lighter.

  “You’re—not suggesting that he might have drowned himself?”

  The words had been forced out in a jerky, tentative way, and her eyes had avoided his.

  “He wouldn’t be such a fool!” she flung out defiantly when he did not answer her immediately. “I told him he was wasting his time, following me around—”

  The movement Hew made was swift and unexpected. He caught her firmly by the arm, swinging her round to face him.

  “You told him?” he repeated. “What did you tell him, Caroline?”

  She shrugged, pretending indifference, but she was redly afraid. Afraid for herself. This thing would stink to high heaven if it got about. It had gone much further than she had thought, and the boy was a fool. A sentimental fool!

  “What did you tell him?” Hew repeated.

  “That we were through. That I never had been in love with him,” she said harshly. “A child like that—!”

  “Did he follow you to Edinburgh?” Hew was ruthless.

  “No: We went to Oban.”

  “Can you tell me how Tony got there?”

  “In your launch. He admitted he took it without your consent.”

  “And left it at Oban?”

  She hesitated.

  “No—I think he went back in it.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Some time after two o’clock. We had lunch together.”

  “And you told him that was the end—that you had been playing at being in love and you were no longer interested?”

  She tried to turn the question.

  “How could I be in love with him, Hew—a boy—a silly, petulant boy? How could I—after you?”

  His jaw tightened.

  “That wasn’t what I asked,” he told her.

  Her mouth hardened into a thin line.

  “I told him he couldn’t follow me around like a lost sheep,” she said. “I didn’t want him in Edinburgh.”

  Hew released her, but his scrutiny remained.

  “Had there been any suggestion that he should go there with you?” he asked.

  Caroline shrugged.

  “He wanted me to marry him.”

  “And when you refused—when you tired of him and turned him down flat—he went out to the launch and attempted the passage back to Ardlamond. In other words, Caroline, you killed him.”

  Her jaw dropped and she stared at him speechlessly. In that moment she was anything but a beautiful woman.

  “That isn’t true!” she cried when she had recovered. “He came here. He followed me back here—just before four o’clock.”

  Instantly Hew gripped her by the arm again.

  “And then—what?” he demanded tensely.

  “We quarrelled and he went away.”

  His breath came out through his teeth as he let her go.

  “Has he tried to get in touch with you since?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. He may have phoned. Bannerman will know.” Caroline was obviously weary of the whole affair, although she was still afraid.

  Hew turned sharply on his heel, making swiftly towards the house, but the butler had not received the call he had hoped for.

  “No, sir, nobody but yourself—and Mrs. Hayler, of course, saying she was coming back from Edinburgh.” The old man looked concerned at the sight of his set, grim face. “Is there anything wrong, sir? Anything I could help with, perhaps?” he suggested.

  “No—thank you, David.”

  Hew got into the Daimler to drive away, but Caroline had reached it first. Beneath her breath, so that the old servant could not hear what was being said, she begged:

  “Hew, can’t we do something about this? Can’t we patch up our differences? We’ve always loved each other. We always will. All this—foolishness about Tony Stanton was only a blind—a mad impulse of jealousy on my part. I’ve loved you to distraction all along. No one ever mattered to me but you. No one ever will. I love you. Do you understand? I love you!”

  He let in his clutch, looking straight ahead.

  “You don’t know the meaning
of the word, Caroline,” he said. “You love only yourself.”

  As if he had struck her, she drew back and the Daimler slid away, gathering speed down the hill.

  It had covered half the way back to Ardlamond when Hew drew up, as if by instinct, and got out. He had reached that part of the shore road where it curved round the edge of a small sandy bay, and here a sheep path went up and out along the cliff. His own sheep were grazing there, but he paid them scant attention as he strode along. It was almost as if he had some definite object in view. The path would take him eventually to Ardlamond, which he could have reached by the road he had just left in under five minutes.

  When he came to the edge of the cliff he saw Tony.

  He was walking slowly along the shore among the strewn rocks, his head down, his chin on his chest, but he was walking towards Ardlamond.

  Carefully, almost casually, Hew made his own way down to the shore. Tony saw him when they were almost upon one another and he halted. He stopped and stared at Hew out of reddened, haunted eyes, but somewhere beneath the dazed look in them there was anger. “Come home, Tony,” Hew said.

  “How can I?”

  ‘Tm asking you to come.”

  “I’ve been a fool—”

  “We’ve all been foolish at one time or another.”

  “But—you and Carol—?”

  “That’s all over.” Hew’s mouth was hard. “It was over a long time ago. Will you come? We need you at Ardlamond—and maybe at Whitefarland, too,” he added. “Caroline will sell the place now. She can have no real use for it, and—if you really want to invest your money in sheep, as you once told me you did, I’ll not stand in your way now.”

  Tony swung round, the past twenty-four hours momentarily forgotten.

  “You can’t mean that.”

  “I don’t generally say what I don’t mean.”

  “No.” Tony bit his lip. “I’m sorry I stayed away. I didn’t mean to cause a fuss.”

  Hew said lightly, because he could see how near to breaking point he was:

  “We even had the lifeboat out. We’ll have to pay for that.”

  “I’m sorry. Can I make a contribution?”

  Hew stood for a moment in silence.

  “It would be a gesture,” he said. Then he took Tony gently by the arm. “Come on,” he urged. “We’d better wend our way home. Elizabeth will have a meal ready.”

  Elizabeth was waiting for them. In the short period of Hew’s absence she had had two visitors. Stephen and Imogen Friend, coming post-haste to Ardlamond when they heard the news of Tony’s disappearance in Dromore, had seen the Daimler parked in the bay and had followed the sheep track on the cliff. Looking down from their vantage-point, they had seen Tony and Hew together.

  “He’s all right!” Stephen called to Elizabeth even before he got out of the brake.

  “Stephen—!”

  Elizabeth had only been able to manage that one word, and he had come and put an arm about her, supporting her as she leaned heavily against him.

  “It’s all right. Everything’s all right. Hew is bringing him.”

  Everything’s all right. Even when she saw Hew and Tony, in the ecstasy of her overwhelming relief, she could not take complete comfort from Stephen’s assurance. Everything had been far from all right between her and Hew when he had left Ardlamond little more than an hour ago.

  Tony kissed her, holding her fast in his arms.

  “I’ve made an awful mess of everything,” he gulped. “I had no idea there would be a search. I didn’t think. Hew warned me not to go for the sheep—not to cross to Lingay when there was a storm brewing—but after he’d gone I took the launch, all the same. I took it to go to Oban in search of Carol—”

  “Don’t think about it,” Elizabeth comforted him as Stephen and Imogen moved away. “We can sort everything out later.”

  She felt that she could cry, at last, but she would not allow the tears to fall.

  “Hew,” she said, looking at him for the first time, “Your breakfast’s ready.”

  He gave her a brief smile.

  “I’ve never had one so late before,” he reflected. “Come on, young Tony! I’ll bet you can do justice to double ham and eggs!”

  She could not believe that this was really Hew, and her heart contracted with a new pain as she watched him following her brother into the dining-room.

  Stephen came across the hall.

  “We’ll make ourselves scarce,” he suggested. “Bring Tony to Glenisla—some time soon,” he added with a swift look in Imogen’s direction.

  “Some time soon, Stephen,” Elizabeth repeated, wondering if the wistful promise would ever be kept.

  Hew appeared to finish his large breakfast in double quick time, and almost as swiftly he had washed and changed, coming down to find her on the sun-warmed terrace overlooking the sea.

  “How different it looks when you have no fear of it,” she mused, gazing down at the gently-breaking waves. “Last night I imagined that we would never see it like this again.”

  He took her in his arms without answering. She could feel the bracelet he had clasped round her wrist that day at Loch Tralaig pressing into her flesh and her fingers closed over it protectively. The amulet, she thought. Nothing could go wrong while I still wore the amulet!

  “There’s so much to say—so much to talk about,” he said, his lips just touching her hair. “But I don’t want to talk. I want you to take back my ring.”

  “There was always this.” She held out her wrist with the deep purple stones encircling it. “It was the same as the ring, Hew. I should have known that, but—when you said it was better the way I wanted it—when I gave you back the ring—”

  He silenced her with his lips. They came down against her own in a hard, possessive kiss, yet there was tenderness in his voice when he said:

  “That was my fault. It was an old sore. I thought that money mattered, that I could never have married you if you had come into Tony’s money. You know that would have happened, of course? I was too proud to see that nothing matters—not even pride—when you’re deeply, truly in love.”

  “I thought it was your pride that refused to take Caroline back,” she whispered, fingering the lapel of his jacket with a little proprietorial smile just curving her lips. “But perhaps I was wrong about that, too.” '

  “You were wrong if you thought I was ever in love with Caroline—like this,” he told her, drawing her close. “I fell in love with Caroline when I was very young. First love can be such a raw, emotional thing, and she tricked and betrayed me and made a bitter fool out of me. That was really what I couldn’t quite forgive her for—the bitterness she left in me. I kept her photograph by my bedside to remind me of it, so that I would never let myself be such a fool again.” He pressed his lips against her hair. “I told myself that I would never marry, and I was never ashamed of my harsh attitude to life until that day at Whitefarland when I saw you standing there looking at Caroline’s portrait. I must have loved you passionately even then, because I knew that you and Caroline had no place there—together. I told myself that I kept Caroline’s memory fresh to remind me of the faithlessness of all women. You see,” he added restlessly, “rightly or wrongly, I had always considered your mother as having been faithless to my father.”

  “No,” Elizabeth said gently. “No, Hew! It was a mistake. They parted and never came together again, but it didn’t mean that their lives were unhappy afterwards. It was just like—a gently-shut door in a small part of their heart. Don’t grudge them the memory they always kept of one another,” she pleaded. “It took nothing from your mother. It was a very precious link, but that was all.”

  He turned her face up to his so that he could look long and deeply into her shining eyes.

  “In a good many ways,” he said, kissing her once more, “I think you must be a lot wiser than I am.”

  “Sometimes,” Elizabeth mused with her head against his shoulder, “I’ve felt as if that old,
half-forgotten love of theirs was always there, working for us. As if it brought us together—”

  “Nothing could have prevented that,” he answered firmly, more prosaically. “Excepting my stupid, blundering pride.”

  She did not contradict him, for what did it matter now? They were together. They were here at Ardlamond—together for always!