by Betty Neels
She apologised silently to the unknown girl who had his heart, and said briskly, ‘Ian would like to get a partnership in Edinburgh.’
He had mentioned it casually to her when she had gone to see him; what he hadn’t mentioned was that he wanted her to go with him. But there was no need to tell Fergus that. Ian Douglas was a nice young man, but he wasn’t serious about her; he was prudent enough to marry a girl with money and good connections. True, she had the connections, but there was no money to spare; her father intended to spend every penny on getting Inverard back on to its feet again. Fergus wasn’t to know that, and she would take care to see that he never did.
‘That shouldn’t be too difficult. Shall I keep an eye open for him? I have contacts with most of the medical men there?’
‘I’ll ask him. Do you have a practice, or do you just work at the hospital?’
He was still holding her arm. ‘Oh, I have a practice, quite a busy one. Of course I work at the hospital too—two lists each week and outpatients and an after-care clinic. I have a registrar and several housemen, and I take a teaching round…’
‘You can’t have a minute to yourself…’
He laughed. ‘My registrar is my right arm; he takes over and two of the housemen at least are more than competent. They need to be, for I am away from time to time.’
‘You went to Holland?’
‘Yes—I go quite frequently. I go to London, Birmingham, Leeds and Bristol, too.’
She spoke without remembering to curb her tongue. ‘You’ll never have any time to be at home. Won’t your wife mind?’ She added, ‘When you’re married.’
‘I shall take her with me. If we walk a little further there is an old stone hut—I considered it mine when I was a boy. It is overgrown with trees and shrubs, and it is a splendid hideaway.’
‘How interesting,’ commented Rosie, feeling snubbed. He considers that we are friends, she thought crossly, but if I ask questions about his life and what he does he slams the door in my face.
She added defiantly, ‘Ian is most interested in old buildings.’
Which was a fib thought up on the spur of the moment.
All in a good cause, she reflected, crossing her fingers behind her back.
The hut, when they reached it, was interesting—a kind of look-out post on the curve of the loch. It was roofless, and over the years trees had grown in and around it, almost screening the small openings which took the place of windows.
‘I used to shoot with my bow and arrow through them,’ observed Sir Fergus. He put a remembering hand on the rough stonework. ‘And later on my father gave me an air-gun—I taught myself to shoot here.’
Rosie didn’t speak; she was afraid that if she did he might stop talking—such a small scrap of information, but she treasured it. However, it was all she was going to get.
He gazed at his watch, and said, ‘We had better stroll back, lunch is at one o’clock.’
They ate it in a large square room overlooking the grounds and, beyond, the loch. The room was panelled with light oak, and the ceiling was of elaborate plaster-work. The dining table was rectangular, ringed by leather-seated chairs of the Regency period. There was a vast sideboard and a splendid marble fireplace with a mirror above. The table had a white damask cloth, and the porcelain plates and dishes were blue and white, the remnants of a vast service sent over from China some hundred and fifty years previously, each bearing the family coat-of-arms.
Lunch did justice to its elegant surroundings—smoked salmon, trout, a salad, and strawberry tartlets with lashings of cream. Rosie, who had a healthy appreciation of good food, enjoyed every mouthful. She enjoyed the conversation, too, although never once did Sir Fergus allow her an insight into his life.
Why should he? she reflected, drinking coffee in the drawing-room, its grandeur softened by chintz-covered armchairs and sofas, and the vast dim pink carpet on its floor. There were vitrines on either side of the enormous window, filled with miniature silver and porcelain, and two small tables—Dutch marquetry on rosewood. There were elaborate gilt sconces on either side of the fireplace, and an ornate crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. The room’s grandeur was further domesticated by Bobby and Gyp, who had flung themselves down on the carpet, a pile of magazines and books on one of the tables, and a half-knitted garment cast down on one of the chairs. It was a lovely room, and lived in; Rosie would have liked to have seen the rest of the house, but Sir Fergus put down his cup and said,
‘I have to go to Arisaig—just to cast an eye on a patient of mine. Come with me, Rosie?’
It was a beautiful drive—alongside the loch for a good deal of the way until they glimpsed the sea and the islands beyond on their right, and presently reached the village. Arisaig House stood in the grounds which swept down to the loch, and stood surrounded by mountains.
‘It’s an hotel,’ observed Rosie unnecessarily.
‘Yes—and a very nice one, too. One of the boys broke a leg a couple of months ago—I took the plaster off last week, and I want to make sure that he’s not running races on it.’
He swept the car up to the door, and several people came out to meet them—a large and cheerful family, all talking at once. Rosie, introduced simply as Rosie Macdonald, found herself surrounded by a group of children, one of them with a crutch. They all went back indoors, through the hotel foyer to the private wing, where she was invited to sit down, and submitted to a friendly cross-examination while the boy with the crutch was led away by Sir Fergus and his mother.
There were five children, their father and an aunt left to entertain her. The talk was generally impersonal for a start, but the children were full of questions. Where did she live? Had she a horse of her own? Did she like dogs? Was she going to marry Fergus?’
It was unfortunate that this last question was fired at her just as Sir Fergus returned, and while she might have been able to ignore it and hope that no one had heard it the aunt spoilt it all by saying in a clear voice,
‘That is rude, Robert—you mustn’t ask Rosie if she is going to marry Sir Fergus.’
There was a lull in the conversation so that everyone in the room heard her. Rosie went delightfully pink and looked at her feet; she would have to say something…
Sir Fergus spoke instead. ‘A perfectly natural question,’ he observed blandly, ‘but I wouldn’t ask if I were you, Robert; you would be jumping the gun.’
‘What’s jumping the gun?’ asked Robert, instantly diverted.
‘Oh, lord, what have I started?’ The professor went on to explain patiently with great good humour, and by the time he had finished Rosie’s colour was normal again and she was being borne off to the enormous kitchen to have tea.
They all sat round the big table while a stout elderly woman they addressed as Nanny poured tea, admonished the children from time to time, and handed scones and cake, jam and honey. Rosie, with the lady of the house beside her and one of the smaller daughters on the other side, began to enjoy herself. They were such a happy family, and she had been absorbed into it with instant ease. As for Sir Fergus, he was sitting opposite her, eating any number of scones and illustrating something with teaspoons and the bread-and-butter plate on the scrubbed table. He will make a marvellous father, thought Rosie, suddenly sad at the thought.
They left presently, and she was sorry to go, but the hotel had to be run, and there were certain duties waiting.
‘Do come again,’ they begged her. ‘It’s
such an easy run for Fergus—he can bring you for a meal…’
Rosie thanked her hostess, and murmured vaguely. Of course he could bring her for a meal, but would he want to? He would more likely wish to bring the girl he was going to marry. She wondered if he had done so already, and on their way back she asked, ‘Do you often go there? They’re awfully nice…’
‘I’ve known them for years, and since there are six children I’ve had arms and legs to deal with from time to time. I’m glad you liked them.’
‘Do you—that is, have you…?’
He turned to grin at her. ‘Oh, yes, once—we had a delightful time.’ Presently he asked, ‘Should I feel flattered at your interest in my private life, Rosie?’
‘I am not in the least interested!’
He said coolly, ‘Well, you have no reason to be, have you? And when you are married to your Ian you will forget me until such time as you should break a leg or invite me to set a child’s arm or collar-bone.’
She looked away so that he shouldn’t see the sudden threat of tears.
Presently she said, rather too brightly, ‘They are charming children—it must be delightful to be one of a large family.’
After that they fell into a silence broken only by a desultory remark from Sir Fergus from time to time, and when they got back to the house his mother was there waiting for them in the sitting-room and the talk became general until they were summoned to dinner.
Before that Rosie had had her chance to see something of the house, for her hostess had led her upstairs to tidy herself, and shown her into a charmingly furnished room with a rose-patterned wallpaper and little canopied bed. She had sat herself down before the old-fashioned looking-glass and studied her face as she powdered it. It surprised her that her sadness didn’t show.
They dined in a leisurely fashion; cock a leekie soup, shoulder of lamb carved by the masterly hand of Sir Fergus, a variety of vegetables grown, Mrs Cameron observed, in their own kitchen gardens, and a dream of a trifle. They talked about a great many things, but never anything remotely connected with Sir Fergus.
They sat over their coffee, and a pleasant hour had slipped by before Rosie saw the time.
‘Heavens, it’s late—I’m so sorry, I should have noticed.’ She added ingenuously, ‘I have enjoyed myself.’
‘So have I, Rosie; you must come again.’ Mrs Cameron smiled warmly as she spoke.
Sir Fergus said nothing at all, only got up as Rosie got to her feet.
‘You’re going back to Edinburgh?’ she asked as she got into the car.
‘Tomorrow.’
‘But if you drive me home you won’t be back here for hours!’
‘A little more than an hour to Inverard, and a little more than an hour back here. I like driving at night.’
They turned to wave to Mrs Cameron standing at the open door, and the car shot away smoothly along the drive and on to the empty road.
Sir Fergus drove fast, but never recklessly. What traffic there was had died down; he slowed from time to time for sheep, and once to direct a tourist driving to Mallaig, and he talked about this and that in an easy manner, friendly and impersonal. She could have been an aunt he was being polite to for his mother’s sake, Rosie thought with something like despair.
She sat there beside him making suitable replies to his remarks and pondered the fact that convention prevented her from uttering what her heart wished to say. Although that, she reminded herself sensibly, would have embarrassed him and put an end to their friendship.
There was only a dim light in the hall when they arrived at Inverard. So Fergus got out of the car and opened her door, and she stood beside him for a moment, looking up at the sleeping house.
‘Would you like to come in for coffee? Mother will have left something…’
He shook his head. ‘It is late, and I have to be up early in the morning. Is the door locked?’
‘No. Thank you for a lovely day; I have enjoyed it.’
He walked with her to the door and opened it for her. ‘Lock it after you.’
‘Yes, although there is no need here, you know.’ She put out a hand. ‘Goodnight, Fergus.’
He took her hand and held it, and bent and kissed her with a swift gentleness. ‘A day to remember,’ he said softly, and got into his car and waited until she had gone through the door and closed it behind her.
She wouldn’t see him again, she supposed sadly, getting ready for bed.
She was quite right; there was neither sight nor sound of him for the next week. She did her best to forget him, quite unsuccessfully, and when Dr Douglas invited her to have dinner with him in Oban’s leading restaurant she accepted, wearing one of her pretty new dresses, and listening with every sign of interest to his plans for the future. She gathered that they included her, but only vaguely; what was important to him was his career. He was ambitious, and she had the lowering feeling that it wouldn’t much matter who he married as long as she fitted into his own plans.
Rosie thanked him prettily for her dinner, aware that she had no interest in him at all and, although he showed a flattering interest in her for the moment, it could be easily diverted. All the same it would do no harm to let Fergus assume that she had serious intentions of marrying Ian, even though it was very likely that he hadn’t given her another thought.
She was wrong. Sir Fergus, engrossed in his work as he was, still had time to think about her—something which he did frequently. He had been in Edinburgh for more than a week when he had occasion to go to Oban to give his opinion upon a particularly complicated compound fracture of tibia and fibula. The leg had been crushed by a falling wall, and its fragmented bones would need assembling, wiring and rearranging into something resembling their original pattern, something at which he excelled. He spent a long morning at the hospital doing just that, assisted by the resident surgeon and watched by Ian Douglas.
Afterwards they had coffee in Sister’s office, and the RSO had gone off to check the patient’s condition, leaving Ian and Sir Fergus finishing their coffee.
The younger man was full of admiration. ‘I mean to make my mark too,’ he told Sir Fergus. ‘General surgery. Only, of course I must get to Edinburgh first—there’s no future for me here.’
Arrogant young pup, thought Sir Fergus, and wondered what Rosie, of all people, saw in him.
‘I shouldn’t be in too much of a hurry,’ he advised quietly. ‘A few years here will establish you. You plan to marry?’
‘Marry? Certainly not. Perhaps in five or six years. A wife would be a millstone round my neck right now.’ He laughed rather awkwardly because Sir Fergus was looking at him rather strangely.
‘Popular local rumour has Rosie Macdonald as your future wife,’ he observed blandly.
‘Rosie? Good lord, no. She’s a nice girl—we’re friendly, but that’s all. I fancy small fragile women who don’t argue.’
Sir Fergus looked amused. ‘Does Rosie argue?’
‘All the time.’ He added hastily, ‘Mind you, sir, she’s a charming girl.’ He laughed a little. ‘But I’ve no intention of settling down yet awhile.’
‘A wise decision.’ Sir Fergus got up. ‘I must be off. Let me know how that leg does, will you? I’ll be over in a day or so to check X-rays—get some more taken in a couple of days, will you?’
He didn’t drive straight back to Edinburgh. He went to Inverard and found Rosie in the rose garden, trying to bring order to the tangled bushes, and att
acking the weeds choking them. She had prudently worn an old dress and worn-out gym shoes she had found in the garden shed, and a pair of gardening-gloves sizes too large. She had gathered up her hair and tied it in an untidy tangle with a piece of twine, and her face shone with her exertions.
Sir Fergus, coming upon her silently, thought that she looked enchanting.
His ‘Hello, Rosie’ was uttered softly, but it surprised her none the less. She had been thinking about him too, and the bright colour flooded her face as she turned round.
‘Oh, hello. Are you on your way home?’
‘Yes.’ He didn’t say which home; he was, in fact, on his way back to Edinburgh and his house there. ‘How are you, Rosie?’
‘Me? Very well—and happy. There’s such a lot to do, you know, the days aren’t long enough.’
‘No fun at all?’ he asked with casual amusement. ‘No friends, no young men?’
‘Oh, well, yes—lots of friends…’
‘And young Douglas, of course.’
‘Yes, yes.’
She bent to tug at a recalcitrant weed, and she didn’t look at him as she added, ‘We see quite a lot of each other.’
‘Naturally,’ said Sir Fergus smoothly. ‘Have you fixed the wedding day yet?’
The weed came away suddenly so that she almost lost her balance. Sir Fergus caught her neatly and set her upright.
‘September would be a good month for a wedding,’ he prompted, his eyes half closed so as to conceal their wicked gleam.
‘Well, yes, but of course Ian is busy—it’s a large practice, you know. We—that is, I, haven’t decided.’
‘Very wise,’ said her companion gravely. ‘When is your aunt marrying?’
‘The day after tomorrow.’
‘So you will be staying with your grandmother?’
‘Yes. Mother is coming too—Father has too much to do; besides, men don’t really like weddings, do they?’
‘Er—possibly they find some pleasure in their own.’