by Anne Vinton
Flo answered the door, saying over her shoulder to Meg, “This’ll be Pixie now. I think she should be punished for disappearing like that without a word.”
She dumbly recognized Robert Strathallan and the large bundle of bandages with red-rimmed blue eyes which he was cradling.
“Pixie!” she gasped. “What have you done to her?” she demanded sharply. “What happened?”
The laird wasn’t feeling exactly angelic either after the afternoon he had had.
“I’d like to get rid of this, if you don’t mind,” he said sarcastically. “She needs to be put to bed. Frankly I’m sick of the sight of her!”
Meg led the way upstairs while Pixie sniffed and Flo followed looking—and feeling—agitated.
“Fortunately, from her family’s point of view, she’ll live,” he announced, as Pixie was groaningly placed in her white bed, “and also providing somebody takes time to teach her the rules of the road. Never,” he shouted, “should one stop to admire the view in the middle of the highway round a bend!”
Meg assiduously tucked Pixie in, and Flo clasped and unclasped her hands.
“Please don’t raise your voice,” she said sharply.
“If I am raising my voice it’s for the patient’s benefit through all that padding they put on her in Casualty. I might have killed the little fool. That would have been a nice thing, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, you didn’t, did you?” Flo pointed out. “You can’t knock somebody down and then behave as though they were a criminal, you know. I’m sure poor Pixie got the worst of the encounter, without you raging at her now.”
Meg looked unhappily from one to the other of them, sensing an imminent explosion.
“Really, Sister Lamont,” said Robert Strathallan eventually, after raking through his thick hair so that it stood on end like a defiant black brush, “your innate inability to see anyone else’s point of view defeats me. You can always see event and repercussion rolled up neatly into one tidy little ball, which, like the moon, only reveals one face, as far as you’re' concerned. You open your door and register a man holding a hurt child. Does your mind even inquire? No! It condemns immediately. ‘What have you done to her?’ you demand. It is futile for me to answer, to explain. You are not interested in knowing that I, too, suffered a shock when I saw, practically under my front wheels, this sister of yours in a position where I couldn’t completely avoid her. I thought I’d killed her. I was worried. Can you understand that? ‘I took her to the hospital, I helped examine her and we could find nothing but scratches. I thanked God, whether you believe it or not, and when she vociferously rallied and demanded to be taken home I agreed to bring her, as though I hadn’t spent enough time on her already. I little bargained, however, for my reception, and if you’ll excuse me I’ll go now.”
Flo ran ahead of him down the stairs. The door slammed after him.
Pixie said miserably, “And I thought they were secretly in love, Meg.”
“You never know,” said that young lady brightly. “A good fight is better than indifference, any day. But what am I talking about? Flo is engaged to Jim. You know that.”
“Oh yes. Jim.” Pixie wished that she, too, could have lost that part of her memory, which now troubled her. “I’ve been to see Jim, you know.”
“You have?” Meg looked worried. She knew why no one was supposed to see Jim Darvie without his doctors’ permission. “Tell me what happened, child!”
“Why wasn’t I told he—didn’t remember?” Pixie began to sob. “Why doesn’t this family treat me as a sensible human being?”
Because you’ve just proved, twice over, that you’re only one degree removed from an idiot, darling. Look! We’d better tell Flo, hadn’t we?”
Flo was told. Still feeling mauled from the head-on collision with Robert Strathallan, she felt nothing could make her feel worse than she did already.
Jim had been advised to retire early. He looked eagerly toward the door as it opened to reveal Flo, her arms filled with dahlias.
“I knew you’d come this evening,” he said without offering to kiss her. “I had Pixie, you know.”
“Yes, I do know. Please try not to get excited, Jim, dear.”
“Excited! I like that! I remember having a friendly glass of beer with your father when he wished me ‘bon voyage’, and now I hear he’s been dead for nine months! And that kid sister of yours had grown up.” He began to tremble. “Well, let’s have it, Flo! I didn’t only forget that fall down the Ben, did I? How much more have I forgotten? Produce our child, or something: tell me we’re married. But for God’s sake put me in the picture, I beg you!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Autumn’s chill swept through Glen Lochallan in a fury of equinoctial gales, rainstorms and the thin edge of the breath of approaching winter. Then Margaret Lamont’s wedding day dawned, and there was a, stillness about the air as excited, over-bright eyes opened to regard the miracle of an Indian summer’s day in the Highlands, a day borrowed from June without mist on the hills or cloud in the sky. Of course such weather couldn’t last; there was too sharp an outline about buttress and ben, loch and scree; but who was worried when today’s bride would be shone on, and today was a world of sufficiency in itself, a wedding day, a treasure for memory, a thing known and possessed?
Janet and Auld Willyum were up early; they had both refused to attend the actual ceremony in church, but had pleaded to be allowed to have the reception in the house.
“No expense must be spared!” Flo had assured them, and Janet’s offerings were surely fitted for a feast on Olympus. There were tiny baskets of ephemeral sponge filled with jelly and cream; logs of spiced loaf stiff with fondant covering; domino cookies with cherries instead of spots. The crowning glory was a three-tiered wedding-cake, lovingly piped and trellised. For savories there were chicken in aspic and pancakes spread with cheese-butter, pressed beef ready for the new rolls the baker had yet to deliver and a large, deep ham and egg pie of such proportions it was expected to be cut into one hundred and fifty portions if required.
All this had Janet done practically single-handed, though Flo insisted they have “Wee Jean” from the village to help with the house-cleaning and do the waiting and serving at the reception. For this event Robert Strathallan also intended lending his housekeeper. As he had consented to be Mike Lammering’s best man, he naturally wished everything to go as smoothly as possible. But he understood why Flo held the reception at home instead of at some hotel. The old retainers needed to be drawn into the affair, and could only contribute what was in their power to provide.
Thus it was that Auld Willy urn’s late roses and chrysanthemums shone throughout the house, that only Willyum’s flowers were to be made up into bouquets and nosegays, by a professional arranger.
Fay was up first of the family, surprisingly enough. She was an excited girl herself, was Fay Lamont, for she had every confidence in herself in the role of glamorous bridesmaid. She had stayed on for Meg’s wedding after Madame Dunfonteau had returned to Montelan, and was to follow within a week, escorted by the “maestro,” who not only kept Madame at concert pitch but was to teach Fay also. Nothing could make Fay happier than the events that had befallen her. She was not at heart the venomous and mischievous person she had appeared in her soul’s frustration and had taken to saying her prayers again in secret; long, private audiences with the Almighty, which were te deums of thanksgiving from her overflowing spirit rather than petitions and requests. Her one unselfish urge, finally, was: “Let them all be as happy as I am, please! All my sisters. I don’t know how they can be, but do what You can for them, I beg of You!”
For Flo the day had a dreamlike quality. There was so much to do, various relations assembled in the house to be fed and utilised where possible, and her sisters to be dressed and supervised and reassured on this great day for the family. An inherent efficiency and trained mind kept all wheels oiled and turning, and yet Flo Lamont was like a dark silhouette standing in
a corner, watching her active, physical counterpart darting hither and thither like an animated stranger. This stranger was eventually dressed in a rustling creation of lupin-blue taffeta with an attractive little bustle of net behind.
They were all ready with ten minutes to spare before the cars should begin to arrive, and Mrs. Mackie had insisted on coffee for all, and especially for the principals. Flo had taken hers into the small cloakroom adjoining the front porch. Here she could watch for the transport arriving and be alone for a little.
She was not alone for very long, however.
Robert Strathallan stood looking down at her for two minutes before her blurred vision cleared sufficiently to see him.
“Florence, are you all right?” he asked her softly.
“All right?” she laughed brightly, dabbing at her eyes. “Of course I’m all right. People always cry at weddings. She’s my sister, after all. Isn’t it time you were at church?” she suddenly demanded. “Don’t tell me Michael’s here, too?”
“He isn’t,” said the laird, still softly, smoothing his kilt beneath him as he sat a moment. “I just came to be sure everything was in order here. The bridegrooms’s fretting a bit, too.”
“Weddings are rather an ordeal,” Flo decided.
“Only some weddings,” he assured her. “I did want to say, Florence, that if I didn’t get around to apologizing for that stupid fight we had, I do so now. I wouldn’t quarrel with you for the world.” He rose. “For the world. Do ye hear?”
“I hear, Robert.”
“And after the ceremony take things more easily, will you? Let me keep things organized. I insist.”
“You’ll have me weeping again in a minute.”
“I know. I could howl myself. Well”—he braced himself suddenly—“I’ll take my charge as far as the altar now. He’ll be there. Don’t fret.”
“Thank you—Robert, darling!” she sighed after him as he strode out, though he didn't hear the gentle epithet, of course.
Uncle Clive had given Margaret Lamont’s hand in marriage to Michael Patrick Lammering, and as the blithe, happy couple signed the register two other names became linked in the space left for witnesses. Robert Strathallan jauntily intercepted Florence Nightingale Lamont’s glance and held out his arm to her. She felt his sleeve under her gloved fingers with a sweet familiarity she could not, in truth, lay claim to. It was weddings, of course; they spread their bonhomie and benevolence over all who attended them. Fay was being admired and surrounded by hitherto unknown young men, and even Pixie had come into her own, grown up into a bridesmaid with an adult dress and real court shoes, and Hamish Strathallan was actually emulating his brother and offering her his escort, not as a favor but as one requesting a privilege.
Robert’s speech was short and sincere; Uncle Clive’s was humorous and slightly inebriated, but Flo never really worried that he would get out of hand, for Robert had everything under control, even Uncle Clive, and saw that he sat down, with another hair of the dog that was biting him, before he could become an embarrassment. The food and drink melted away, to Janet’s intense satisfaction, and by two o’clock the newlyweds were dressing to leave. Destination unknown for three days, and then aboard the S.S. Faipur, bound for Bombay and their new life as missionaries. Fay was leaving with Uncle Clive Lamont for Edinburgh, where she was to meet Signor Signorelli and his wife, her escorts across the Channel and through France to Montelan. Flo was starting her annual leave the very next day, and when Pixie begged that she be allowed to go and stay with her school friend, who had been invited to the wedding, Flo could not refuse. Everyone was going somewhere and doing something, so why not Pixie?
“You’ll be sure to attend school as usual?”
“Of course. Agnes has to go to school as well, you know. Mrs. Bruce says I can stay as long as I like, and then you can get away for a real holiday, Flo. You will try, won’t you?”
“I hadn’t thought of it. I will now, I promise you dear.” Pixie looked happier as she rushed away, losing one of her real court shoes in the scurry.
By evening they had all gone, guests and helpers alike. Some of the china, which had been borrowed, was standing in the hall safely stacked in crates with plenty of straw. Janet had even found a reserve of energy and had swept up the confetti before retiring to bed to dream of her catering success.
“Tell me if I’m disturbing you,” invited a deep voice from close at hand. “I persuaded Willyum to let me in. I wanted to talk with you, Florence. I thought this was the time to do it, when they’re all gone. May I sit here and keep you company for a wee while?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It seemed to Flo they had been talking for hours, and all on the subject of Jim. But as Jim was all the disorder in her life, all her heaviness of spirit, it was as natural to discuss it with a friend as to breathe.
“Is it unusual for amnesia to persist like this, Robert?” she asked.
“Neither usual nor exceptional. Most slight amnesias clear up within a few days or weeks. Some never. But as there is no apparent damage to Darvie’s brain I see no reason for worry. It isn’t all that long, you know. Eight weeks.”
Flo sighed deeply. “It seems like eternity to me!”
“I haven’t noticed how hard you seem to be taking it,” the laird said drily, “and frankly I don’t understand. If you don’t mind my harking back a bit, you told me of this man’s existence and your engagement to him Right?”
“Right,” she said unhappily.
“So he comes on leave and you go off to enjoy yourselves. There’s an accident and a couple of years’ events are lost to him, but not you. He remembers you. He loves you.” Robert paused. “He wanted to marry you the same time as Meg”—Flo looked startled—“I know because he confided in me. He asked if I considered he was in a fit state to get married, and I said there should be nothing to stop him providing the lady was agreeable, that it might, indeed, help him by putting his mind at rest about some things.”
There was a silence.
“It was you he wanted to marry, wasn’t it?” Robert persisted.
“Yes. He asked me to make it a double wedding. I refused and Jim was very angry and upset. I know Sir Felix thought I was being silly and rather hard-hearted.”
“Well—?”
Flo sat up and sighed again.
“There’s a lot he hasn’t remembered, Robert. Such a lot.”
“A few rows? A lover’s tiff or two? Those don’t count in a love affair, Flo.”
“I know. I—oh, it’s difficult, Robert!”
“Look!” he said more eagerly. “Tell me why you couldn’t marry him as he is now, Flo! Tell me in strict confidence.”
She looked at him. She had only to say “Because I’m in love with you, Robert,” and all might have come right for two lonely and unhappy people immediately. Instead, she told the truth in another way, a less personal way.
“I haven’t told Jim or anyone this, Robert, but it has to come out or I’ll go mad. Before Jim’s accident he told me he was in love with someone else. There was no quarrel, I released him.”
He misunderstood her lowered eyes for humiliation and grief. “Oh,” he said, quietly, “and that’s a part that’s erased, of course. You did right to refuse him in these circumstances. I understand, and I’m sorry, Flo.”
“I’m glad somebody knows and understands what I’ve been going through, lately,” she said from the heart. “I’ve had to withstand Jim, Sir Felix, you ... knowing that if I did marry him he might one day suddenly remember Jill, and hate me.”
“Whom did you say?”
“Jill. Jill Boscombe. He met her in Malaya.”
Robert fished in his breast pocket and eventually withdrew a piece of paper.
“This cable came addressed to me. I couldn’t make head or tail of it. ‘Expect arrive hospital October 15’ signed Gillian Boscombe. Would that be the lady?”
“It would. Monday’s the 15th, Robert. Should Jim see her, do you think?”
“At least you don’t need worry about it anymore, Flo. As your friend I hope I can be permitted to help where I can. When are you intending visiting Darvie again?”
“Not until after my leave. We had such a row that it was decided these three weeks’ grace were needed for us both to see things in perspective again.”
“I’m going to send you away, Flo. Right away from everything to a wee croft I own on the worst side of Iaine. There the rough winds will calm your spirit’s turbulence and the wild seas beat so madly you’ll think your own heart’s at peace long before it is. It’s a good place, Flo, and I want you to go because I’ve known what it is to be miserable and lost and found myself there in the wee croft at Glengael. I’ll see Jill and give her the facts, and I’ll see she’s brought into contact with Darvie, without declaring herself, to observe what effect she has on him. She may do the trick, you see, Flo? You won’t mind if she does, will you?”