[Mirabelle Bevan 08] - Highland Fling

by Sara Sheridan

  ‘She is coping well, all things considered,’ Mirabelle agreed.

  ‘To be able to give up all that stuffy privilege and not care about her uncle’s title. Well, I think that’s fabulous.’

  ‘You never know what’s going on under the surface,’ Bruce told her, sagely. ‘When I was in the forces, chaps coped, of course, but there was a price. Al has come through rather well, I think.’

  ‘Al?’ Mirabelle heard her voice say his name. It seemed to hang in the air.

  ‘Yes,’ Bruce continued. ‘After what happened. He’s the kind of chap that it might have stuck with. Not being able to get everybody out.’

  Mirabelle stirred her tea, though the sugar cube had long since dissolved. It was as if a chill had settled. The table lapsed into awkward silence. Bruce peered at her. ‘Oh lord. He hasn’t told you. I’m sorry, Mirabelle. I assumed you knew. I mean, you must have wondered about the scar.’

  Mirabelle felt herself blush. McGregor had always been silent about his wartime experiences and she’d been grateful for that – she didn’t want to talk about hers either. Now, she looked mournfully at the pink diamond single stone on her engagement finger. It didn’t sparkle this morning – the light was too low. Instead it looked as flat as glass. She knew she had to ask. ‘Scar?’ she said. ‘What do you mean?’

  Bruce and Eleanor looked at each other and then Eleanor laid her hand on top of Mirabelle’s.

  ‘Oh my dear,’ she said. ‘We assumed you two would have … you know. Enjoyed the fruits of love. I mean, that’s why we put you in that wing, all on your own.’

  Bruce squirmed in his seat. ‘Really,’ he said, ‘Al ought to tell you himself.’

  ‘Tell her what?’ Alan came into the room, scenting the air with lavender. ‘There is no way we’re going to bag any pigeons in this,’ he said, nodding towards the window. ‘Though who wants sodden, miserable pigeons anyway? Bloaters.’

  ‘I thought we could drive over to the Dougals’ and fish instead. Until it clears,’ Bruce sounded bluff. ‘But I have a couple of things to see to first.’

  Eleanor jumped to her feet with a slice of thickly buttered toast still in her hand. ‘I really ought to help you with that, darling,’ she said.

  They disappeared as, unhurried, McGregor perused the warming trays and piled a plate with scrambled egg. ‘Sleep all right?’ he asked.

  Mirabelle waited. Her heart wasn’t exactly pounding but she could feel her pulse. Every noise in the room seemed amplified – the serving spoon on the porcelain plate, the scrape of his chair as he sat at the table. She felt horribly flustered. ‘Alan,’ she said.

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘I think it’s time we talked about what you did during the war.’

  McGregor turned over the paper. ‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘We ought to keep this away from Tash. Look, they got the times wrong and that’s a terrible picture of the poor woman.’

  ‘I mean it. If we’re going to be married, we have to be open.’

  McGregor put back the newspaper and laid down his fork. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘And are you prepared to be open too?’

  He had a good point. Mirabelle had never talked about what she’d done during the war. Not to anybody. Her war had mostly been spent in Whitehall and she’d never lied about that, but she had signed the Official Secrets Act and there wasn’t a lot she could talk about – not that, in truth, she had any inclination to. And then there was Jack. Darling Jack. She had loved him through the conflict and after it, despite the fact that he was married. He had been the love of her life and quite suddenly, after everything he’d been through – naval intelligence and a stint at Nuremberg – he’d died of a cardiac arrest in the street. And for a long time she’d wanted to die too. Some things, she thought, were best not shared with the man you intended to marry. ‘Is what you did secret for a reason?’ she asked quietly. ‘Is it secret for the public good?’

  McGregor cast his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Not even close,’ he said. It’s difficult to talk about, Mirabelle, that’s all.’ She kept her eyes on him. ‘I kept thinking that you were bound to notice and that we would talk about it then.’

  ‘Notice what?’

  McGregor sighed. He got up and closed the door. Then he put his foot on to one of the chairs and, with awkward fingers, pulled up his trouser leg to reveal a patch of uneven skin on his calf. It was a painful-looking scar about the size of Mirabelle’s palm. Her heart lurched. How had she never noticed? How?

  ‘There was a fire,’ he said quickly, without meeting her eyes. ‘Actually, the fire was my fault. It didn’t happen at the port in Edinburgh where I told you I was stationed. I was in Glasgow at Clydebank before that – early in the war in ’39. When the bombing started our bond was hit. The Clyde was a target – with all the shipyards. By the end of the war the whole place was just rubble, but then, well, I was supposed to be in charge. It was only for a few months – I was due to go into the navy but they wouldn’t take me after what happened and well, this took a long time to heal.’ He indicated his leg. ‘The warehouse blew up. Several fires broke out – in the offices and some of the stores. I didn’t get everyone out – we had a procedure, but I wasn’t prepared and I gave the order too late. I went in to try to save people but they were beyond … I got oil on my leg and it set alight. That’s how this happened. They said I was lucky. Lucky! I didn’t care about my stupid leg. All that mattered was the women in there.’ His eyes were hard now. He was trying not to cry. ‘They all died.’ He couldn’t look at her. ‘If you want to call off our engagement, I’d understand.’

  Mirabelle touched his skin, tracing the scar with her fingers. The livid craters on the surface felt dead. It did not seem part of the man she thought she knew. She suddenly remembered a performance of The Tempest at the Garrick when she was at school. The actor who played Caliban had crawled across the stage, twisted and ugly. ‘I never noticed,’ she said. ‘Is it sore?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s not a part of the body one generally spends time on.’ He looked guilty. ‘The truth is I didn’t want you to notice. I didn’t want to have this conversation. I left my socks on. I got up in the mornings and fetched you a cup of tea or went into another room. I made sure the light was out,’ he said bitterly. ‘It’s so ugly. And worse is what it means – I’m marked for life by the night I let everybody down, Belle. I thought I was so smart – freshly qualified in a spanking new uniform. I was so young.’

  ‘Qualified in what?’

  ‘I was an accountant. That’s why they put me in charge of the place. I was supposed to keep an eye on procurement.’

  ‘We’re engaged to be married, Alan. Did you think I was so shallow, I wouldn’t love you because of a scar?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Did you think I’d never see it?’

  ‘I should have told you. But you’re so beautiful. I watch you sometimes when you’re asleep. It never seemed the right time to admit—’

  ‘That you’re not perfect?’ She managed a slim smile. ‘It must have hurt.’

  ‘I walked with a stick for a while. I know it’s monstrous. Every time I see it, it reminds me that it’s my fault fifteen women are dead. Can you forgive me?’

  She took a moment. When she thought of the things she loved about McGregor, it was his bravery she admired most. And he had proved himself brave – four years ago he’d taken a bullet that had probably saved her life. He’d put hundreds of criminals behind bars, including members of his own force. But he hadn’t been brave about this. He hadn’t trusted her. ‘It’s not the scar. It’s the lie,’ she said. ‘I think I’ve always known you were holding something back.’ She tried not to cry but tears were threatening to spill.

  McGregor’s face twisted. ‘I was just a kid. All the emphasis was on not panicking. Keep calm, you know. If I’d been a minute quicker … Even if I had saved one person and it was fourteen dead or thirteen or twelve. And instead all that was on my mind was productivity. I weighed the risk wrongly.
If only—’

  ‘You can’t torture yourself with maybes,’ Mirabelle cut in. ‘Especially not about the Blitz.’ If there was one thing the war had taught her, it was that. McGregor had always seemed so honest. And this was important. This had formed him. The question wasn’t whether she could forgive him, but whether she would be able to trust him again. Did she know him at all, if this had been on his mind all these years and he’d never said a word?

  ‘I recuperated in Edinburgh,’ he continued. ‘There was hardly any bombing there. They should never have let me near responsibility again, of course, but they were short of men at the docks and I was no good for fighting. So they gave me a second chance and, after that, I moved to the police force. I’m sorry, darling. It got to the point where I should have told you and I hadn’t. I didn’t know how to.’

  ‘I need time to think,’ she said, her voice matter of fact as she rose from the table.

  Momentarily, she touched his arm. It was difficult to square this. He’d never lied before and she’d known him for more than seven years. He was a good officer – too careful, if anything, but now that made sense. This had been between them all the time. Was McGregor’s secret the reason she had found it so difficult to commit?

  ‘I’m going for a walk,’ she said.

  She left the room. When she glanced back through the open door, he was sitting at the table, wide eyed and devastated. She felt like a fool that she hadn’t noticed the scar. How could she feel as close to him as she had last night and not have known? This, she realised, defined so much about him. The cold menace that she caught a glimpse of now and then, just below the surface, as if he was angry. Well, he was. He was angry with himself. Did all the times he’d tried to stop her getting involved in his cases, hark back to the women he hadn’t protected? No wonder he was always trying to keep her away from his investigations.

  In the hallway, she picked her yellow coat off the hook and grabbed an umbrella from the stand. Outside, the rain was running in rivulets off the driveway and pooling on the grass. There was no point in putting up the umbrella – the wind was too strong. It was like standing under a waterfall. Mirabelle cut in the opposite direction to the one she’d taken with McGregor the day before, striding behind the house on to a laneway pockmarked with puddles that reflected the slate-grey sky. As she rounded the corner, the plants in the orangery were vivid blurs of green through the glass. There was only a single policeman now. They couldn’t search the grounds in this weather and a storm like this would destroy any evidence. The world was washing itself clean.

  Mirabelle kept going. Along the muddy lane she discovered a complex of old stables that had been converted into storerooms and a garage. The umbrella was useless but she held it aloft anyway. As she progressed she felt droplets of rainwater dripping off her hair, slipping down her neck and under her clothes. Beyond the old stables, there was another building across a cobbled yard. Blurrily, through the glass, she spotted Eleanor and Bruce sitting on opposite sides of a desk. As Mirabelle passed, Eleanor jumped up and appeared in the doorway. ‘Mirabelle!’ she called.

  Mirabelle wanted to keep going but she was freezing already and she didn’t want to be rude. She stopped but couldn’t quite bring herself to fake a smile. ‘Oh for heaven’s sake,’ Eleanor exclaimed as she ran across the cobbles on to the lane and grabbed Mirabelle by the arm, pulling her inside. It felt warmer under cover. Mirabelle put down the umbrella and a pool of water formed on the floor. The weather had suited her confusion, and now she felt becalmed. Though indoors again, she realised that walking off on her own might not be the best idea. After all, there was a murderer abroad.

  Bruce stood self-consciously in the hallway as his wife ushered Mirabelle inside.

  ‘Umbrellas are no use in this. It’s wellington boot and gabardine weather,’ Eleanor said with a smile. She had not taken her own advice and had got soaked in the seconds it had taken to pull Mirabelle indoors. ‘Come in,’ she gestured kindly.

  Beyond the small entrance hall, there was an office. An old oak desk dominated the room; on it a large Bakelite phone and papers scattered about. A single electric bar glowed in a freestanding heater. Behind the desk, open shelving housed several folders and a few books about sheep farming and distilling and some with Latin titles, which must have been about the law. Beside the shelves, there were a couple of modernist paintings. ‘I co-opted the estate office,’ Eleanor said as she tidied away the newspaper. ‘I mean, Bruce has his study, don’t you darling? The holy of holies. And I didn’t want a silly day room with a sewing box. So I came out here. That’s a Patrick Heron,’ she gestured towards one of the paintings.

  ‘It makes me feel itchy,’ Bruce said with a grin.

  ‘I love it,’ Eleanor cut in.

  Mirabelle removed her coat. Beneath it her clothes were damp. She wasn’t sure what to say.

  ‘Look at us.’ Eleanor laughed. She opened a door that led into a lavatory and came back with two small hand-towels. ‘Here.’ She gave one to Mirabelle. ‘It’s not love’s young dream, is it? I’m sorry. We didn’t know that he hadn’t told you. Bruce feels terrible. It would have been better if Alan had done it in his own time.’

  ‘Do you think he would have?’

  Bruce shrugged. ‘I’d hope so,’ he said.

  Mirabelle half-heartedly dried her hair and wiped her hands. She sank into a green tweed chair on the other side of the desk. It niggled her that Tash had apparently taken her godmother’s death better than she was taking this news about McGregor. ‘I know it’s spoilt of me,’ she said. ‘But if there was one thing I had to say about Alan, it would have been that he was always honest.’

  ‘He’s ashamed, I suppose,’ Bruce replied.

  ‘About the disfigurement or what happened?’ Mirabelle realised that she had used words that excused him. She’d said ‘what happened’ rather than ‘what he did’ and what McGregor had described was entirely his own responsibility.

  Eleanor smiled kindly. ‘Go on,’ she chided her husband. ‘We girls will be fine.’

  Bruce got up. ‘If you’re sure,’ he said. As he closed the door, Eleanor leaned in, her hands flat on the desktop. ‘I admire you, saving yourself like that. For marriage, I mean. I certainly didn’t.’

  Mirabelle’s throat opened and she let out a sob. ‘I didn’t save myself,’ she wailed. ‘I didn’t at all. I knew he was holding something back and I wondered if maybe I didn’t really love him. Because he’s not my first. I mean, at my age! And all this time I can’t believe that I didn’t notice. Everybody says I’m so observant, but I didn’t notice this one bloody thing. Not at all.’

  Eleanor sat down with a bump. Behind her the windows were foggy with condensation. The figure of Bruce had disappeared. ‘How?’ she asked.

  ‘The scar’s on his calf and I suppose it’s not a part of the body that gets all that much attention,’ Mirabelle said. ‘It was mostly dark when we … you know. He usually keeps his socks on. I knew there was something. I feel like an idiot.’

  Eleanor let out a giggle. ‘Socks,’ she repeated.

  Mirabelle felt her heart lurch and then she found suddenly that she was laughing too. ‘I know it’s ridiculous,’ she heaved. ‘But he always got up before I did. He used to fetch me a cup of tea.’

  ‘How long has it been?’

  ‘Years. It’s been years. I mean, it’s just awful.’

  ‘But you don’t live together?’

  ‘No.’

  Eleanor put her hands up to her face. Her eyes sparkled.

  ‘Well, what I say to Bruce when something comes out, is “that’s one to tell the grandkids.”’

  ‘What do you mean “when something comes out”?’ Mirabelle sniffed.

  ‘Oh, honey.’ Eleanor reached into a drawer in her desk and extracted a bottle of spirits and two glasses. ‘I got the distillery to make vodka out of the potatoes from the back field. It’s good stuff, though Bruce won’t drink it. Well, he thinks he doesn’t drink it, but I mix B
loody Marys. They’re all the rage in Manhattan.’

  She poured two small glasses of clear liquid.

  ‘Slainte,’ she said. ‘That’s chin-chin in Gaelic.’

  Mirabelle knocked back the vodka. It was smooth but it made her throat burn. Still, she didn’t feel cold any more and the taste was sweet and buttery. ‘Now that’s breakfast,’ Eleanor said good-naturedly and refilled the glasses. ‘Welcome to Scotland. I hope you can forgive Alan McGregor and become my cousin-in-law.’

  Mirabelle gave a half-shrug. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘Does it really change the man you thought he was?’

  ‘Maybe. Do you know what happened? Exactly what happened?’

  Eleanor took another sip. ‘Bruce told me the family stories – you know, when we first met. Then when we knew you were coming up, he reminisced a bit.’

  ‘Where did you two meet?’ Mirabelle asked. It struck her that perhaps Eleanor and Bruce’s courtship could offer guidance.

  Eleanor refilled the glasses. ‘London, believe it or not. I was reporting for an American paper and I ran into him. Four years ago this spring.’

  ‘Ran into him?’

  ‘I was curious. I wanted to understand privilege, real, old world privilege, so I took myself lots of places. Westminster, of course. The Albert Hall and the Victoria and Albert Museum. I strolled past Buckingham Palace because you can’t go in without an invitation. And then I came to The Ritz.’

  Mirabelle laughed. ‘You went to The Ritz to understand privilege?’

  ‘I was fierce. And furious, actually. I mean, here was this country that had set up the health service – that’s what I was reporting on. I mean, what a wonderful thing, right? Helping everyone – but mostly helping the poor. Changing lives. And yet, elsewhere there was all this privilege and that didn’t square. So I was in The Ritz, just walking through the hallway, and out on Piccadilly there was a demonstration. People were shouting and the police had formed a cordon. Of course, in the hotel everyone was ignoring it, except this one guy.’