Call of Glengarron

by Nancy Buckingham

  “I realize it must be hurtful that I should know your son better than you do yourself, but then—”

  “I assume you want to point out that it’s all my own fault?” Craig suggested.

  How I longed to say that it most certainly was his fault. I would dearly have liked to tell him just exactly what I thought of his behavior toward poor Margo. But at the moment my one and only aim must be to secure the best life I could for Margo’s son.

  “At least we can agree that it isn’t Jamie’s fault,” I said quietly.

  He sneered. “A very clever evasion.”

  I refused to let myself be riled. “Nevertheless,” I said calmly, “it’s quite true. Jamie is the innocent victim.”

  “Hah. I must say that ‘victim’ is a strange word to apply to a boy coming to live with his father on the family estate which he will inherit one day.”

  “He was happy with Margo. I can only hope he will be equally happy with you.”

  Craig said nothing more. Was he annoyed with me for speaking so plainly, or had I given him something to think about?

  At last, after another very long silence, he roused himself. “We’re nearly there.”

  The road appeared to be dipping downward. Ahead, through the rain, I caught a glimpse of water—steely cold water. A few minutes later there was water on either side of us, and I could see a gaunt stone building coming out of the haze. And then we were beneath the sheer gray walls, stained with the lashing rain. We pulled up before a great iron-studded door, which was firmly closed. There was not a sign of life anywhere.

  Craig sounded the horn, and then leaned back in his seat as though he expected to have to wait. Wind whipped at the car, and I could hear it sighing mournfully in the angles of the masonry.

  Although we had arrived, I still let Jamie sleep. I was reluctant to let him see this starkly harsh world he had come to. I hoped that on the other side of that forbidding door there might be something more cheerful, more humanly warm, as his introduction to Glengarron Castle.

  Waiting there, a full minute must have passed. Then I heard a grating sound above the wind and the rain. Slowly the great door swung open. I glimpsed a short figure in a billowing mackintosh cape, and then I could see through the arch into a large courtyard.

  Craig drove through, acknowledging the man at the gate with an upraised finger.

  Inside, though the rain still fell heavily, the surrounding walls protected us from the extremes of the wind. On two sides I could see tall windows cut into the thick walls—very different from the mere embrasures on the outside.

  Craig drew up by a shallow flight of steps leading to an arched entrance. The servant, who had come hurrying behind us, opened the car door and stood bowing me out.

  I roused Jamie gently. “Come along, darling, wake up. We’re there.”

  Craig leaned across from the driver’s side and took Jamie from me, gathering his small son into his arms.

  “We’re home, Jamie,” he murmured softly. “We’re home at last.”

  Without a word to me he carried the child up the steps and disappeared through the doorway. I sat staring after them, feeling the full weight of such calculated rudeness. Craig’s intention was sharply clear. I was being made to understand that my job was over. Jamie was home, and I didn’t belong here. I could go when I pleased, go back to London and stay there. And nobody at Glengarron Castle was going to miss me.

  A discreet cough reminded me with a start that the manservant was still standing in the rain, holding open the car door.

  I managed a smile. “I’m so sorry—I was dreaming....” Quickly, I jumped out and ran up the stone steps. The door had swung to behind Craig and latched itself. I had to turn the handle to let myself in.

  The effect was as good as a slap in the face.

  Chapter 3

  I found myself in a small dark lobby, and was immediately faced with a pair of glass doors leading to a big apartment beyond. Rather diffidently, I opened one of the doors enough to slip through.

  The great hall was deserted. It was very lofty, the rough stone walls rising high above me and fading into a timbered ceiling. Two huge windows faced the courtyard, and a matching pair in the opposite wall looked out over a stretch of gray water. The furniture was all of heavy oak. A massive and enormously long refectory table had chairs ranged on either side. An ornately-carved buffet cupboard caught my eye—a handsome piece, and big enough not to be dwarfed by the great room.

  Of the several doors opening from the hall, one at the far end stood ajar. I imagined it was the way Craig had gone with Jamie, though I could hear nothing of them. At least I had to be thankful that Jamie wasn’t upset enough to be crying. Unless, that is, he had already been taken out of my hearing.

  A blazing log fire in a wide stone hearth made a magnetic focal point. I walked over to it slowly, grateful for the glowing warmth after such pervasive grayness. The roaring flames helped a bit to counteract the coldness of my welcome here. Or rather, I thought bitterly, the complete lack of any sort of welcome.

  Somewhere beyond I heard footsteps on a flagstone floor. I swung away from the fire to see a woman coming through the open doorway. She was middle-aged, moderately tall, and rather drab in a dark blue woolen dress and a beige cardigan.

  Isabel Lennox, Craig’s aunt. I remembered her vaguely, having been briefly introduced at the wedding six years ago. She hadn’t made impression enough to have stayed in my memory, but I could see now why Margo had described Craig’s aunt as a desiccated old stick.

  Right now the important thing was that she smiled as she came toward me. To be sure, it wasn’t a very bright smile. Though her lips were parted, her eyes seemed to be looking through me into some hazy distance. Maybe, I thought charitably, this was the effect of living in the wide spaces of the Highlands.

  She strode forward quickly, rather jerkily. “Miss Calvert, so pleasant... after all this time ...”

  Her hand was even limper than her greeting, and I dropped it as quickly as I decently could.

  She began to ask me the usual polite questions about the journey, and added an apology for the beastly weather.

  “I’m afraid we get rather a lot of rain and— But then it’s so beautiful here, it quite makes up for ...”

  Isabel Lennox seemed to have difficulty in completing a sentence. She struck me as a remarkably indecisive sort of person. I had a feeling that our aimless exchange of conventionalities might go on all day, with us still standing in the hall.

  I couldn’t help being anxious about Jamie, and I glanced meaningfully at the door she had just come through. “I hope Jamie’s all right.”

  “Oh yes, I expect he ... His father’s ... and Fiona...” Mrs. Lennox paused thoughtfully. “You did meet my daughter, I believe. At the wedding ... ?”

  Yes, I had met Fiona. A dumpy girl of about my own age, rather pasty-faced as I remembered. She had spent the time of the wedding reception mooching around in a lost sort of way, tucking in hard at the running buffet.

  But that was nearly six years ago. In all honesty, I expect I had looked a bit on the dumpy side myself in those days. Just because of Craig’s rudeness to me, I was prejudging his relatives through sour eyes.

  Mrs. Lennox led me into a smaller inner hall, and started to climb a massive oak staircase. On about the third step she hovered, turning back.

  “I thought you’d like to go to your room now, to ... er ... When you are ready ...” She indicated a door on the right with a fluttering hand. “We will have a glass of ...”

  Her inconclusive manner gave me an uneasy feeling of not wanting to speak for fear of interrupting something important that might emerge at any moment.

  The upstairs hall split into two long corridors running at right angles to one another. Mrs. Lennox chose the one facing the stairhead and went along it in silence.

  The corridor was quite dim, with only a glimmer of light from a window at the far end. But it wasn’t a window. I was suddenly aware of the sta
nding figure of a man, still and silent, silhouetted against the light. I gave a little gasp. Mrs. Lennox, though, appeared to notice nothing unusual. I realized then that I was looking into a big mirror, set in the end wall.

  Our own two reflections were a vague black blurr, the man’s was quite separate, sharply distinct and much smaller. He must have been standing right back by the head of the stairs. The mute, unmoving figure was slightly unnerving.

  I swung around quickly. He had disappeared. I turned my head to glance back at the mirror, wondering if a trick of light had made me imagine things. But the mirror too was empty now of any sign of the man.

  Mrs. Lennox had stopped, and was opening a door on the left. “I hope you’ll find everything ...” She spotted my suitcase on the floor. “I see Duncan has brought...”

  Of course, the silent figure in the mirror must have been the servant, the mackintoshed man who had opened the gate for us. Obviously, he had slipped up ahead of us by means of a second staircase.

  “As soon as you’re ... Just come down ...” Vaguely, Mrs. Lennox drifted out of the door, and I was alone.

  The bedroom had a touch of luxury—a gloss almost like a film set. The walls, not stone-faced like those downstairs, were papered in a delicate yellow and white stripe. Curtains, frilled bedcover and upholstered armchairs echoed this theme, and the sink-to-ankles carpet was warm amber brown. The furniture was all mahogany, or rosewood perhaps, in the graceful sort of tradition that is ageless. It was obvious that there had been no meanness about converting this medieval castle into a comfortable modern home.

  I went across to the window and looked out. In the misty wetness nothing was visible except the water directly below. I realized that the castle was built on some sort of promontory jutting out into the loch. No doubt it was in a magnificent position for the original defensive purpose, but just now I could have wished it was somewhere a bit more civilized.

  As I stood watching, the denseness of the mist appeared to be breaking up. For a brief second I caught a glimpse of land on the far side of the loch—just a vague outline of a wooded shore. And then it was hidden again.

  But a sensation of impending change held me at the window. I was rewarded. Suddenly the mist seemed to melt. The sky began to lighten, changing swiftly from a uniform gray to a patchwork of racing clouds—some still dark and heavy with rain, others white and fluffy, friendly-looking. Before I expected it, there was an expanding circle of blue sky. The sun stabbed through, picking out the woods across the loch.

  Instantly, my mood changed with the view. From seeing only a few yards of choppy water, I was gazing across a wide expanse of lake, ultramarine splashed with green shallows. Sunlight played on the rolling pine-cloaked hills on the far side, chasing away the few remaining cloud shadows. Within minutes the sky was blue and clear and sparkling, except for protective ruffles of white cloud around the necks of higher peaks away in the distance.

  Such a little while ago I had cuddled myself into the seductive warmth of the castle bedroom. Now the beauty outside pulled me. I threw open a casement and let the sharp cool air pour in.

  Maybe, after all, a boy might be happy here. It would be a healthier life for Jamie than in the stifling air polluted atmosphere of London. At Glengarron Castle he would grow up fit and strong, with a chance to know and understand natural beauty—the good and simple things of life.

  For a moment I managed to forget that what mattered most to any child was the love of the people around him.

  Less unhappy now than at any time since I’d had the news of Margo’s death, I set about getting changed. An unexplained door in the right-hand wall led into a bathroom. I washed, and then put on a green sweater dress.

  There was nobody about as I went down. Instinctively, I tried to walk softly, placing my feet on the uncarpeted polished treads with care. But even so the noise I made seemed to shatter the deep brooding quiet.

  I paused at the foot of the stairs. The silence seemed to be absolute. But as I listened I could just catch the muted sound of conversation from behind the door Mrs. Lennox had indicated. I tapped and walked straight in.

  There were four people in the room—four adults, that is, and Jamie. The little boy was kneeling on a stool by the window, gazing out, and I thought he looked very dispirited.

  Hearing the door close behind me he swung around and nearly overbalanced. His chubby face split open into a big smile, and he came running across the room toward me.

  “Jamie.” Craig’s sharp voice made the boy hesitate and glance back at his father uneasily.

  I had to pretend not to notice. Rigging a false smile, I looked around expectantly. Isabel Lennox was there, of course, and I recognized her husband—a tall, slimly handsome man, sandy-haired and with eyebrows of the same color. He hadn’t changed very much in the six years since I’d seen him at Margo’s wedding, and I guessed he made a point of taking care of his figure.

  The girl had to be Fiona. All trace of the dumpiness I’d remembered had completely vanished. Now she was slender and graceful, with warm blonde hair. But her eyebrows rose in two sharp supercilious arches, and her mouth looked tight. Even before she spoke, I knew I was not going to like Fiona.

  Alistair Lennox had been seated when I came into the room. The moment he stood up I realized that his was the figure I had seen in the mirror, the man who had glided so silently away. I shrugged inwardly. Probably he’d felt it hadn’t been the moment to greet me—that I’d want to remove the travel stains before I felt presentable.

  He crossed the room swiftly, smiling in the friendliest possible way. Alistair Lennox looked like a man who was quite accustomed to captivating women.

  I was in no mood to hold that against him. After Craig’s surly hostility, his uncle’s open-handed charm was a tonic.

  My hand was gripped in a warm greeting. “Welcome to Glengarron, Miss Calvert. And I must say it was very kind of you to bring Jamie all this way—very kind indeed. I hope you understand how much it is appreciated.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Lennox. But I was glad to help.”

  He half turned, glancing back toward Jamie. The child was hovering uncertainly in the middle of the room, horribly torn between his desire to come to me, and fear of his father’s displeasure. Fiona moved quickly, and stood with her hands lightly upon his shoulders.

  “Jamie has been asking for you all the time,” Mr. Lennox told me. “The boy seems to be very fond of his Lucy.”

  “I suppose it’s only natural,” I said, half in deprecation. I dropped my voice so Jamie wouldn’t hear. “Next to his mother, you see, he knew me better than anyone else.”

  “Of course, of course.” Mr. Lennox took my arm. “Come along now, my dear. You have met my daughter Fiona, haven’t you? But I don’t expect you’d recognize her now, eh?” His laughed was tinged with fatherly pride. “The ugly duckling turned into a beautiful swan.”

  Fiona acknowledged me with a careful smile, parting her lips to show perfect ivory teeth. For a second she must have relaxed her hold upon Jamie. He slipped from under her restraining hands and ran to me, clasping his little arms around my legs.

  I glanced down at him with a reassuring grin. When I looked up again, Fiona’s smile was still there. But now it was fixed, rigid, behind it I could detect sharp anger.

  If I had prejudged Fiona, she had apparently pre-condemned me. And Jamie’s simple reflex action had unleashed something fierce in her. Now she hated me.

  It was, of course, understandable that these people resented Jamie’s absolute dependence on me. Craig must find it infuriating to be spurned in favor of a mere cousin of his dead wife. As for Fiona, now that Jamie was going to live at the castle, she would see a good deal of him, and doubtless expected to play some part in his future upbringing.

  “He’s tired,” I said apologetically.

  “Oh, I don’t blame the child.” It could have been an innocently friendly remark. But the hint of emphasis on her last word was meant to imply that Fiona blamed
me for Jamie’s behavior. Was she suggesting that I’d put him up to it?

  I tried to switch off the heat “It’s an awfully long time since we met, Fiona.”

  “An unhappy time,” she said quickly, “for Craig.”

  “For both of them, I think.”

  She regarded me scornfully. “Naturally, I would expect you to stand up for your cousin. But...”

  Her father cut her off sharply. “Now what’s it to be, Miss Calvert? A sherry? Or are you like these modern young women who prefer vodka and something or other?

  I said sherry would suit me fine.

  “Do come and ...” said Isabel Lennox, her hand fluttering toward an armchair. “Over by the fire ... though now the sun has ...”

  “Thank you.”

  As I moved across the room, Jamie tacked on close behind. When I sat down I whispered to him to go and find something to play with, but he wouldn’t budge from my side.

  “I think I’ll take a jeep and do a tour this afternoon,” Craig said in a general sort of way. “Now the weather’s so much better it’ll give me a chance to have a look around.”

  Mr. Lennox brought over my drink and drew up a small occasional table to put it on. “Yes, if you like, my boy. I had arranged to go over for golf with Fergusson after lunch, but I’ll telephone and put him off.”

  “There’s no need for you to change your plans,” Craig told him. “I’ll just potter around on my own.”

  “But you’ll be wanting to hear everything that’s been done while you’ve been away.”

  Craig shook his head. “I leave the estate management to you.”

  Alistair Lennox was sipping his drink thoughtfully. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to settle down here now, eh? Take a real hand in things?”

  Craig strolled over to the window, hands thrust into his pockets. Gloomily, he stared out across the loch.

  “If I stayed,” he said at last, “it would be for Jamie’s sake. But I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

  The sun sparkling in at the window made the whole room glow. I looked around, taking it in for the first time. It was not on the grand scale of the great hall, but like my bedroom upstairs, it was very comfortably furnished. On the floor was a magnificent Persian carpet that must have cost a small fortune. The several armchairs were deep and relaxing. The fire was bright.