by Betty Neels
Anything could happen in a couple of days, thought Rosie, allowing herself a pleasant daydream.
The daydream was shattered that evening.
Rosie and her mother, intent on an evening stroll, were standing on the pavement making up their minds which way to walk when the Rolls went by. Sir Fergus was driving, and sitting beside him was the same girl who she had seen before. What was more, he saw them standing there, and lifted a hand in greeting.
‘What a pretty girl,’ observed Mrs Macdonald. ‘Do you suppose she’s the one he’s going to marry?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Rosie waspishly, ‘and I’m not really interested.’
She marched her parent in the opposite direction to that in which the Rolls had been driven. ‘The wedding went off very nicely, didn’t it? I’m sure they’ll be very happy.’
‘They will. I thought your aunt looked charming. What would you like to do tomorrow, Rosie?’
‘Go home.’ And, at her mother’s surprised look she added, ‘Well, there’s nothing to do in Edinburgh, and Granny is very snappish. That is, unless you want to do some shopping, Mother?’
Mrs Macdonald, who had been looking forward to a pleasant browse down Princes Street and possibly the purchase of some inexpensive garment which wouldn’t make her feel too much of a spendthrift, replied promptly, realising that Rosie’s sudden urge to get away from Edinburgh had been uttered in urgent tones not to be ignored.
‘Shopping? No, dear—I thought I’d come again in the autumn, when I’ll need a new coat. There’s nothing I want…’
A brave lie, but she was rewarded by the relief on Rosie’s face, and she wondered what had happened to make Rosie—a girl with a normal interest in fashion—turn her back on the delights of the Edinburgh shops. Something to do with Fergus? But he had always treated Rosie with a casual friendliness now that they had decided to like each other after all; besides, had she not said on several occasions that he was thinking of getting married? Perhaps it was that girl sitting beside him in the car.
Old Mrs Macdonald, still brooding darkly over Aunt Carrie and, when she wasn’t doing that, criticising the wedding, expressed the opinion, when it was suggested that Rosie and her mother should return home the very next day, that she would prefer their room to their company.
‘I am an old woman, alone and defenceless, abandoned by all but my faithful maid. Go home, do!’
These piteous words were uttered in a bad-tempered and very loud voice which rather spoilt their effect, especially when she added, ‘In any case you would have had to leave on the day after tomorrow; I have arranged one of my bridge parties, and since neither of you have the least idea how to play with intelligence I had no intention of asking you to make up a four.’
‘Well, now, isn’t that fortunate,’ observed her daughter-in-law mildly, avoiding Rosie’s eye. ‘If we leave after breakfast that will give you plenty of time to arrange things.’
‘Will Elspeth be able to cope on her own?’ asked Rosie.
‘I have engaged a very good daily woman, which will allow Elspeth more time in which to look after me. I must say, Rosie, that she gives me more care and attention than my own kith and kin. I was bitterly disappointed at your lack of concern when I sprained my ankle, and the subsequent agony I endured.’
Rosie got up from her chair. ‘Dear Granny,’ she said cheerfully, and dropped a kiss on the beautifully dressed, still dark hair. ‘I shall go and pack our things so that we can leave directly after breakfast. Goodnight.’
She dropped a kiss on her mother’s cheek as she passed her chair. ‘Goodnight, Mother, don’t stay up too late.’
They left after breakfast after a severe scolding from old Mrs Macdonald, and Rosie drove thankfully through the city and took the road home, taking care not to look around her too much in case she should see Fergus in the Rolls. There was no sign of him, though, and she wondered unhappily when she would see him again. Probably never, she reflected gloomily, her spirits at their lowest possible ebb.
It was great to be home again, to tell her father about the wedding, go round the garden to see what had grown in two days, to take Hobb for a walk, visit Meg’s cottage because she wasn’t sure if the youngest child’s spots were measles or chicken pox, and consult Old Robert about the strawberry bed. Her day was filled with mundane tasks, and she was almost, but not quite, happy.
It was measles; the next morning Rosie phoned Dr Douglas, and when he arrived later and her mother had given him coffee she walked with him to Meg’s cottage and swept the other children out of his way while Meg took him to see the small sufferer, and when he returned she offered to drive in to Oban and fetch the penicillin he had prescribed, since the child was feverish and chesty.
They walked back to his car, talking about this and that, when he gave a sudden laugh. ‘You’ll love this,’ he declared. ‘Professor Cameron was operating a week or so ago, and we got talking—about my future and so on. He actually thought that you and I were going to marry! I quickly put him right, I can tell you…I wonder who gave him that idea? Of all the nonsense…!’
Rosie swallowed rage. ‘How frightfully funny,’ she said, and actually achieved a laugh. ‘As though I’d marry you, anyway…’
‘I’m not such a bad catch,’ he observed quickly.
‘I’m sure you’re not,’ she observed sweetly, ‘only not for me—you’ll find some nice little thing. The professor must have been amused?’
‘Funnily enough he didn’t say much, and he’s got such a poker-face one never knows if he’s amused or angry, or just bored.’
‘Probably bored. Do you intend to visit little Jamie again?’
‘Will you let me know if his temperature goes down, say, in a couple of days? If it doesn’t I’ll come and take another look.’ He got into his car, rolled down the window, and asked, ‘I say, you’re not peeved are you? About that nonsense about us?’
‘Peeved? Of course not. Someone was enjoying a joke at our expense.’ She gave him a brilliant smile. ‘I’ll phone you about little Jamie; goodbye.’
She watched him drive away, standing there seething. Fergus had mentioned Ian several times—had talked about them getting married, had asked if she had fixed the wedding day, and all the while he had known… She would never forgive him; better still she would take great care never to see him again. A resolve which cast her into a state of the deepest depression.
She saw him the very next day. She was in the attics, searching for a particular basket Simpkins had always slept in which had been banished to the attics along with a number of unwanted chairs and tables when her uncle had taken over, and the faint sounds of a car stopping below sent her to the tiny dormer windows. Sir Fergus was getting out in his unhurried fashion so that she had time to fly down the narrow wooden back stairs which opened into the kitchen, and nip through the kitchen door before he had so much as gained the front hall.
She encountered Old Robert at the far end of the kitchen garden, bending over his row of winter cabbages. ‘Don’t tell anyone you’ve seen me,’ she begged as she went past him, and ran smartly through the little door in the high brick wall which separated the garden from the small paddock beyond it. Beyond that was the river, tumbling over the rocks with the stepping-stones to its further bank. Rosie nipped over them with the ease of familiarity, and started making her way towards the line of fir trees at the foot of the hills ahead of her. She was out of earshot now and, unless anyone was looking that way, out of sigh
t too.
She slowed down, and presently sat down on a dead tree-trunk to think, something she hadn’t done since the moment when she had seen Fergus getting out of the Rolls. It had been silly to run away, she realised now; sooner or later she was bound to meet him. All the same, she had no intention of going back to the house.
The sun, hidden behind a cloud, shone with sudden brilliance, and Sir Fergus, standing at the drawing-room window talking to her mother, had a momentary and clear view of her.
‘She was in the attics,’ Mrs Macdonald was saying. ‘Why, she must have been there still when you drove up, for I was in the bedroom below and I could hear her dragging something along the floor. The floors need repairing, you know.’
Sir Fergus made a pleasant rejoinder, and added, ‘She is on the other side of the river, sitting on a tree stump. I’ll stroll over…’
Rosie’s attention had been taken by a squirrel near by, and she had turned away from the house and the river. Sir Fergus, despite his size and bulk, could move silently when he wished to do so, and he was beside her before she was aware of it, a firm, gentle hand on her shoulder as she started up.
‘Now why should you run away?’ he wanted to know.
‘Run away? What makes you think that? I felt like taking a stroll…’
A remark he ignored. ‘Why did you tell me that you and young Douglas were going to marry? And why—?’
‘Questions, questions,’ cut in Rosie peevishly. ‘I shan’t tell you.’
‘Then I’ll answer them for you,’ said Sir Fergus, studying her flushed face.
‘Don’t you dare! I’ll never speak to you again. I wasn’t going to, anyway.’
‘Now I wonder why? What have I done or not done, or said or not said?’
He sounded as though he was trying not to laugh.
‘Nothing, absolutely nothing. Why are you making such a fuss? And why aren’t you in Edinburgh at the hospital?’
‘I came here to see you, but you don’t want to see me, do you, Rosie?’
‘No I don’t. I do long for you to go away…’
He stood up. ‘Very well, Rosie.’ He sounded offhand, as though it didn’t matter in the least. ‘What a perfectly splendid morning, isn’t it? I could wish I were a hill-shepherd or a farmer.’
He smiled into her upturned, surprised face, and went away without another word. She stared after him until he had crossed the river and gone through the little door, and presently, silently sitting there, relieved her feelings by a good cry.
She had been silly and childish; she owned up to that, but what did that matter? He was going to marry soon; all he wanted from her was a casual friendship, and that, from her point of view, would be impossible. All the same, if she had answered him light-heartedly, treated the whole thing as a joke, they could have parted with polite, even if insincere, hopes to meet at some time, and in time their friendship would have died a natural death. Oh, well, it was too late now.
She went back to the house, back to the attics, where she banged and thumped around discarded furniture, old trunks and piles of books, making a great deal of noise, so that by lunchtime she was sufficiently restored to express the opinion that it was surprising Sir Fergus had called that morning.
‘He only stayed for a few minutes,’ she was at pains to explain. ‘Had he been in Oban? He didn’t say…’
‘On his way home, I dare say,’ said her father, and asked who was taking her to the Highland Ball at Fort William the following week.
‘Ian Douglas. It should be fun.’ It proved a topic of conversation for the rest of the meal.
She went to see Jamie the next day. He was pretty spotty and still feverish; Ian Douglas had said that there was no need to phone him for a couple of days, but she had her own reasons for ringing him. She reported on Jamie, and then said, ‘Ian, will you do me a favour?’
‘Of course—that is, if I can.’
‘Are you going to the ball at Fort William? You are? Alone? Good, will you take me? You don’t need to stay with me the whole evening, I just want someone to go with.’
‘Love to—didn’t ask before; I thought Sir Fergus might be going, he usually does.’
Rosie was aware of that; of course he would be there. His estate was close by, and his family was well-known in Cameron country.
‘Will you call for me? Come to dinner if you like.’
‘Delighted. Eight o’clock?’
She went away to tell her mother, who said, ‘How nice, dear,’ and began to plan the menu while she wondered just what had gone wrong between Rosie and Fergus to make her so very cheerful and chatty and he, when he had left on the previous morning, so politely inscrutable. Perhaps they would see each other at the ball and make it up.
Ian Douglas, arriving for dinner on the night of the ball, had to admit that Rosie, in white chiffon and her tartan sash, was certainly one of the prettiest girls he had met. In five years’ time, he mused, she might be just the wife I’ll be looking for. Not much money, but good family, and a splendid figure as well as beautiful. A pity she argues…!
She didn’t argue over dinner, however; she was the soul of amiability. He got into the car beside her presently, pleased at the prospect of a delightful evening ahead of him.
Inverlochy Castle Hotel was a grey stone pile with Ben Nevis in the background, a fitting background for the guests, the women in their white dresses and tartan, the men in dress kilts and here and there a white tie. The dancing was well under way when they arrived, and they joined in almost at once. Rosie was a good dancer, and the reels were as much to her liking as the more conventional dances. Ian was a good partner, too, and since both of them knew a number of people there they parted from time to time until they met for the supper.
They shared a table with half a dozen friends, and it was as they were making their way to it that Rosie saw Sir Fergus. She went rather pale at the sight of him, magnificent in his kilt, talking to the Provost’s eldest daughter—a girl Rosie had never liked, and now heartily and instantly hated. If she could have avoided him she would have done so, but there was no way of doing that, so she gave him a glittering smile and a glare which would have shaken a lesser man, paused long enough to go into raptures over his companion’s dress, and sailed on, to become the life and soul of the party at her table.
She danced every dance after supper, her strong feelings giving her a splendid colour and sparkling eyes while she hoped in vain that Fergus would ask her to dance so that she might refuse him. As far as he was concerned she might not have been there.
She couldn’t avoid him altogether, though. The dancing over and ‘Auld Lang Syne’ sung, everyone was milling around in the hotel foyer, finding coats, having a last-minute chat, calling goodnights. Ian had gone to get his car, and Rosie stood, wrapped in her mother’s rather grand velvet cloak, exchanging goodbyes with those she knew. There had been no sign of Sir Fergus; probably, she thought sourly, he was taking the Provost’s daughter home. She scowled at the very idea, and then jumped as he bent to say in her ear,
‘A delightful evening, was it not, Rosie? Young Douglas must feel very proud of you.’
She smiled brightly at an old friend of her mother’s, and waved to a girl with whom she had been at school before she replied.
‘You have no need to poke fun,’ she told him bitterly. ‘It must have amused you very much when Ian told you that—that—’ She broke off to exchange a word with old Sir William Bruce, eighty if he was a day, and
who had never been known to miss a ball. Then she turned a glittering eye upon Sir Fergus, towering beside her.
‘I hope I never see you again,’ she asserted and, for the benefit of two acquaintances who had paused close by, she added sweetly, ‘You must enjoy an evening out, Sir Fergus; it must make a nice change from bones.’
Her smile was a delight.
‘And here is Ian…’
She floated gracefully away to where Ian was standing. No one watching her would have known that her desire to turn round and fling herself into Sir Fergus’s arms was so strong that she felt quite faint…
CHAPTER NINE
IAN DOUGLAS had enjoyed himself, and he said so at some length as he drove away from Fort William.
‘That girl the professor was dancing with,’ he enthused, ‘the Provost’s daughter, isn’t she? A pretty creature, and very gentle, wasn’t she? They made a handsome couple—I must say Sir Fergus looks his best in a kilt.’
Rosie agreed through gritted teeth. The evening hadn’t gone according to plan; if he had been there at the moment and she had been capable of it she would have done Sir Fergus an injury. Mere wishful thinking, of course; he was as solid as an oak, and although she was a well-built girl she would have made no impression on him unless she had had a hammer handy. She wished she had a hammer, and brooded upon this prospect for some time while Ian waffled on about the provost’s daughter.
At Inverard she invited him in for coffee, and was thankful when he refused. It was past two o’clock by now, and she wanted above all things to get to her bed and sleep. She bade him goodnight and thanked him prettily for being her escort, saw him on his way, and went thankfully to her room. She had been longing for her bed, but now that she was in it at last she was wide awake, her head full of Sir Fergus, who, none the less, she never wanted to see again. She slept at last and, inevitably, dreamed of him.
She woke at her usual time, and at breakfast gave her parents a lively account of the ball, passing on the messages she had been given by their friends, detailing at length the various dresses, the excellent band and the splendid buffet-supper; from the sound of it she had had the time of her life, but her pale face and the pinkened tip of her beautiful nose gave that the lie.