Highland Interlude

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Highland Interlude Page 2

by Lucilla Andrews


  ‘Just up for the week-end.’ I was looking him over as covertly as he was me. It was not the kind of scrutiny I had just exchanged with the younger Fentons.

  He looked about thirty. He was slight, with sandy hair, blue eyes, and an attractive and rather shy smile. His suit had been made in London, but his short haircut was as strictly transatlantic as his voice. ‘Is that so? I certainly hope it keeps fine for you.’ A steward was advancing on us. ‘Have I gotten in the right door? I do have a reservation.’

  The steward examined his ticket. ‘In the next carriage, Mr MacDonald. I’ll be giving you a hand with the bags. Will you come this way, sir?’

  ‘Be right with you.’ The American offered me his hand. ‘Thanks for letting me on. Have a real good trip.’

  ‘Thanks. And you.’ I was quite sorry to see him go. I’d enjoyed being reminded of my sex. Then I remembered why I was on that train. Pity, I thought, but nice.

  The steward had earlier shown us our berths. The boys had adjoining single sleepers on the far side of Judy’s. She and I shared another adjoining pair. When I went into mine the connecting door was closed.

  I sat on the bed and looked at it. There was no stop before Crewe, and as we were on the train, presumably my charges would settle for the night, even if they had dispensed with the formality of telling me so. Or should I risk it and check?

  Then I heard Judy’s voice. ‘Yes, come in. She’s in there.’

  Robin’s voice was beginning to break. ‘Why the hell did Joe have to lumber us with that drag?’

  Johnnie said, ‘She doesn’t look as draggish as Bitchy Bessie!’

  ‘Huh!’ snorted Judy. ‘She’s got the same name. I’ll bet she’ll gripe like B.B. once she gets started. They all do! It’d have been different with Joe. He’s good fun. I wish he’d come.’

  ‘I’ll bet he could’ve if he wanted to.’ It was Robin again. ‘He’s making like the rest. He doesn’t do what he says. None of ’em do.’

  Judy was sniffing. ‘And he did promise to take us up to Uncle Dougal.’

  ‘Oh, hell, Ju!’ wailed Robin. ‘You’re going to sniffle! Why do girls always have to sniffle?’

  ‘I am NOT! I’ve just got this stinking cold coming, nit. You know that. You know I couldn’t tell Bitchy Bessie as she’d have griped like crazy to Dad, and he’d have done his nut as he’s got to be in Italy tomorrow.’

  Johnnie said kindly, ‘Uncle Dougal’ll make your cold better, Ju. Dad says he’s jolly clever, and I think he’s jolly decent. I think it’s going to be smashing in Gairlie. He told me at Christmas he’s jolly glad to have his house back now the tenants have gone, and he wants us to stay with him lots of times. He said our Mummy was a jolly nice big sister, and he was jolly sorry when she died.’

  The sudden silence next door evoked memories I preferred not to think on even after fifteen years. Though I was now old enough to appreciate there were worse things than being a motherless child, it had not looked that way to me even at Robin’s age.

  I got off the bed and knocked on the door. ‘May I come in, Judy?’

  They were all on Judy’s bed. Robin’s long legs were propped on the covered wash-basin. He did not move them. He scowled. ‘Johnnie and I are just going to bed, if that’s what you’ve come to say.’

  ‘No.’ I leant against the swaying door. ‘I don’t know what time you normally go to bed, but you’re all old enough to have one late night without harm. I just looked in to say goodnight.’

  ‘’Night,’ they chanted in dismissal.

  ‘Thanks. Sleep well.’ I looked at my watch. ‘Nearly midnight. I hope Joe gets to bed earlier tonight. Know what I did to that boy at ten to three this morning?’ I did not expect or get an answer. I just told them. Then I told them about Mr Jadley-Grey’s demonstration list and Joe’s ethical position. ‘It’s hideously unfair as he should be off, but if doesn’t show up to assist tomorrow Mr Jadley-Grey’ll go spare, and what’s worse, he won’t forget it when Joe’s due for his next step up the hospital ladder.’

  Johnnie said, ‘That’s jolly unfair.’

  Robin muttered, ‘That’s what she said.’

  I said, ‘Yes. That’s what it is.’ They were silent. ‘Ah, well, see you in the morning ‒ and, incidentally, my name’s Elizabeth, and I’m a year younger than Joe.’

  I closed the door and heard Robin’s squeak of a whisper.

  ‘Twenty-two! Blimey, is she past it!’

  Johnnie whispered, ‘She’s got jolly long legs.’

  I sat heavily on my bed. In my co-ed grammar the boys had started at thirteen. I was past it. Then I looked at my legs and thought of that American. Perhaps not.

  Judy was still asleep, and her early-morning tea untouched, when I looked in next morning. ‘Glasgow in forty minutes, Judy. Hi!’ She was blinking and her face was flushed. ‘Sleep well?’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’ She turned her back.

  I hesitated. Her voice had a rasp. ‘Your throat sore, Judy?’

  ‘No. Thanks. I’m all right.’

  I did not believe her, but as there was no point in annoying her with more questions for the moment, I moved on to see if the boys were up. Johnnie came into the corridor, fully dressed. ‘Robin’s dressing. I’m starving! I hope Uncle Dougal isn’t late. He’s promised us a right nosh for breakfast.’

  I offered him a bar of chocolate. ‘If you can eat it at this time of the morning?’

  ‘Oh, gosh,’ said Johnnie, ‘I can eat chocolate any time. Can’t you?’

  ‘No. I have to be in the right mood. The mere idea before breakfast makes me want to throw up. Do take it all. Give some to Robin.’

  ‘I say, Elizabeth, thanks!’ He suddenly produced an enchanting smile. ‘It’s jolly decent of you to give us all this.’

  I could have hugged him. ‘Just hope it doesn’t spoil your breakfast.’

  ‘Oh gosh, no. Nothing stops me noshing!’

  Robin appeared in a doorway. ‘Come and get the rest of your stuff in, Johnnie. We don’t want to be late for Uncle Dougal.’

  It was Professor Grant who was late. We waited on the platform, and the children watched me exchange waves and smiles with the American. Johnnie asked who he was. Robin, without bothering to lower his voice, told Judy that the Yank looked another rip-roaring weirdie. Judy looked as if she had a headache as well as a sore throat. Mentally I damned all unpunctual professors, and suggested aloud that we should wait for him in the buffet. ‘If we sit by that window there we can watch this platform for Professor Grant while we eat.’

  Robin muttered, ‘You don’t have to bother. We’re having breakfast with Uncle Dougal.’

  Johnnie turned into my open ally. ‘I think it’s a smashing idea, Elizabeth. We can have one nosh now and another with Uncle Dougal. Come on, you lot!’

  I was glad to get Judy out of the cold, but otherwise breakfast was grim. Only Johnnie enjoyed the food or made any attempt to help me with the conversation. Robin looked as if being fed poison. Judy looked as if only capable of keeping down sips of tea.

  Grim or not, I spun it out until our table was wanted and I could spin no longer. The sun was warmer, so we moved out to a bench that overlooked the right platform and the station yard. Cars came and went. Taxis unloaded passengers, reloaded, drove off. Hovering porters asked if we wanted a cab. We took turns to say, ‘Thanks, we’re waiting for someone.’ An hour later we were still waiting. Judy’s flush had vanished. She was grey rather than white, apart from the nasty whitish circle round her mouth. By then my opinion of Professor Grant was unrepeatable.

  Robin returned from another visit to the Information Bureau, shaking his head. Judy rested against my shoulder and made no objection when I took her racing pulse. Johnnie watched anxiously. ‘You look dead grotty, Ju.’

  Robin sat down. ‘Suppose Uncle Dougal’s forgotten?’

  ‘He wouldn’t do that.’ I was revoltingly firm. ‘Probably he overslept after his lecture last night and is now stuck in a traffic jam. Glasgow’s
a big city. I could kick myself for forgetting to ask Joe or Mrs Evans where he was staying last night, as we could ring him up.’ I had a belated inspiration. ‘We could ring Gairlie! I take it there’ll be someone in his house to tell us?’

  ‘He’s got a housekeeper,’ said Robin gloomily. ‘But Gairlie’s miles away. Cost a bomb.’

  ‘Still, might be worth a try. We’ll wait a little longer, then get on to it.’

  Judy sighed. ‘That won’t be any good if he’s stuck in the traffic. Suppose his car’s busted? Suppose he can’t get it mended for hours and hours? You’ll have to get your train back, Elizabeth.’

  ‘No, love.’ They all looked at me. ‘I’d better break this to you, but you’re stuck with me until I can hand you over to your uncle. Sorry and all that, but I promised Joe ‒ and for a start, he’s a lot bigger than I am.’

  The twins were openly relieved. Robin said peevishly, ‘It’s a dead bore, but ‒’ Then he yelped with joy. ‘That’s Uncle Dougal’s car!’

  Judy said in a small, very adult voice, ‘But that’s not Uncle Dougal driving it.’

  The boys had leapt up and grabbed suitcases as a large grey car turned into the yard. They lowered the cases very carefully as if suddenly so unsure of the ground beneath their feet that they had to avoid even the slightest jolt in case it finally gave way.

  I stood up. ‘You’re sure that’s his car? Right. You stay here. I’ll see what gives.’

  The car was now parked across the yard. The driver was a youngish man with a very tanned face. He glanced uncertainly from the children to myself. ‘Will you be waiting on Professor Grant, miss?’

  I explained. He looked even more uncertain, then handed me an envelope addressed to Joe. ‘My dead brother Charlie’s wife, Mary Cameron, was asking me to be giving this to Dr Fenton when I was meeting him with the Professor’s car. I am thinking you would be doing well to open it yourself.’

  I accepted the envelope and turned it over to give myself time to think. ‘I take it Mrs Cameron is a friend of Professor Grant’s, Mr Cameron?’

  ‘The Professor’s housekeeper, miss.’ He had a very soft, very lilting voice. ‘She was coming to my house early this morning at the Professor’s request. He was aware I’m to return to my ship in Greenock by noon this day, and, being himself still away up the Ben, he’d a word with Mary Cameron yesterday concerning the transport of his dead sister’s bairns. Can you be driving a car, Miss Wade?’

  I was nearly as confused by his mixed tenses as by what he was saying. ‘Then Professor Grant isn’t in Glasgow? Didn’t he have to lecture here last night?’

  ‘Aye. But that was being cancelled for the search.’

  ‘Search ‒’

  ‘Up the Ben. There are being two English laddies lost away up the north face,’ he added, as if that explained everything.

  ‘Up the ‒’ I caught on. ‘You mean they’re lost on a mountain?’

  He bowed gravely. ‘That is being so. Ben Gairlie. They are being lost since the forenoon yesterday. The shocking wee mist in the night will be delaying the searching.’

  ‘Yes. I expect so.’ I took a mental breath and opened the letter.

  It had been written by Professor Grant before he left home yesterday morning. He explained having no time to ring London, and in any event considered that would be premature as he hoped to be back in time to drive in to Glasgow early today.

  Obviously, if you get this, I am still held up. In which case, will you drive up to Gairlie with the young for me? I will ask Mrs Cameron to book a flight ticket from Inverness for you on Sunday, which will get you back to London on time. Take the main road, as it is well signposted. There are maps in the car and the car is in good order. The drive covers approximately one hundred and forty miles. Take it easy, as it is a strange road and any time you arrive will be convenient to us. I am more than sorry to have to land you with this and not to appear on schedule at Glasgow, but the circumstances here being what they are, I have no alternative.

  I read the letter twice, then looked at the bench. All three were sitting on the edge, but their patience now was as unnatural as their instant obedience when I told them to stay there. Robin’s expression was defiant, Johnnie’s puzzled, Judy’s downright weary, but all three had in common the wariness in their eyes. They could see something had gone wrong now, but where a more secure teenager and a pair of sub-teens would now be driving my companion and myself crazy with questions the Fentons preferred to wait. Secure children never believe the worst can happen to themselves. The insecure know that anything that’s happened once can happen again. I remembered the feeling.

  I had another look at the letter in my hand. ‘Professor Grant says it’s about a hundred and forty miles to Gairlie.’

  ‘That is being so.’

  I glanced at Judy, clinically. I hoped she had nothing worse than a strep throat, but if she was cooking something more infectious no general hospital would want to touch her. If it was only a strep throat no fever hospital would want her. Any G.P. would almost certainly say, ‘Home to bed and watch her.’

  I had a driving licence and could read a map. There was no one to worry if I didn’t get back to London until I was due on duty again. It struck me that I had no alternative, either. So I asked Mr Cameron if he could tell me the best route to take out of Glasgow, and then we both walked over to the bench.

  Chapter Two

  AN INTERLUDE IN THE HIGHLANDS

  The only wrong turning we took was in Gairlie itself. I stopped a woman on a bicycle.

  ‘You’re wanting Achnagairl House? Och, it’s away across the water. There’s but two houses that side, and it’ll be the second on your road.’

  Loch Gairlie was a sea loch. The water was a smooth silver-grey and stretched towards the sea hidden behind the blue mountains curving round the estuary. The hills encircling the loch seemed very close in the late afternoon light, and a massive black mountain, its crest in cloud, towered over the hills like an adult in a kindergarten.

  The boys stuck their heads out of the car windows. ‘That must be Ben Gairlie. Wonder if Uncle Dougal’s still up there?’

  I had another look at the peeping Judy, and left them to chat it out together, as they had been doing most of the way. Judy had spent most of her drive asleep. Before leaving Glasgow I had bought a thermometer, aspirins, and glucose-lemonade, as well as a picnic meal for the boys and myself. An hour ago Judy’s temperature had been just over one hundred and one, which wasn’t high for her age, but could mean she was either in the middle of nothing very much or at the start of something serious. From her look now her temp was up. I glanced at the mountain as I turned the car. I sincerely hoped their uncle was down and had some antibiotics in his house. I also hoped we would not find he had returned crippled with rheumatism, bronchitis, or both. I did not know his age, and, while we had some youngish professors at Martha’s, none was under forty, which was slap in the coronary group. It hardly seemed sensible to start nipping up damp mountains after years in Africa, but that was his problem. I drove back along the road we had just taken, and turned off and over the stone bridge that ran into the narrow road running along the far side of the loch.

  Judy woke as I turned the car into a small front drive. The house was tall, narrow, and made of granite. I said, ‘Why not stay put while we get the things out and announce ourselves, Judy?’

  ‘All right,’ she said, with a meekness that made my professional blood run cold.

  Robin had jumped out. He looked up at the house, then went to have another look at the name on the open gate. ‘It’s the right place. Why aren’t there any lights?’

  I got out stiffly. ‘Still daylight. Maybe they like the gloaming.’ I rang the front-door bell. Nothing happened, so I rang again. ‘The housekeeper must be round the back.’

  Johnnie was beside me. ‘It doesn’t look as if Uncle Dougal is back.’

  ‘Mrs Cameron’ll tell us.’ I put my finger on the bell and kept it there. ‘Maybe she’s d
eaf?’ I looked over my shoulder at Judy, then tried the front door. It was unlocked. I opened it. The boys hollered with me, ‘Mrs Cameron?’

  The hall was long, narrow, darkly panelled, and highly polished. Johnnie found the envelope addressed to ‘Dr Fenton’ on the hall chest and handed it to me as if it were hot. ‘You’d better open this too, Elizabeth.’ I did so, then passed it to Robin.

  Mrs Cameron had written that one. Her daughter had acute appendicitis, her son-in-law was on night-shift, and she had had to leave for Inverness on the midday coach to look after her four small grandchildren. She explained that she had left another letter in the study for her employer. ‘The beds are aired and ready,’ she wrote, ‘and food is waiting in the slow oven. I have set the dining-room table, the room fires only require a match. I am hoping the Professor will be safely down from the Ben before your arrival, but should he be delayed I know he would wish me to ask you to make yourselves at home. I very much regret …’

  ‘Oh, God!’ Robin sat gloomily on the foot of the stairs. ‘How bloody awful!’

  Johnnie stood with his legs apart, his shoulders back, sniffing the air. ‘I say, Elizabeth! Think this house has got a ghost? Be jolly smashing, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘All I need to make my day, chum. Let’s get in the bags and find bedrooms for yourselves and Judy, and then I’ll get her straight to bed.’

  ‘Can’t we nosh first?’ protested Robin. ‘Can’t the bags wait?’

  ‘You can do what you like with yours. Judy’s must come in as she must get to bed. Can you get her case, Johnnie, as I’m not sure which is hers, and I’ll nip quickly upstairs and find her a room.’

  Johnnie shot off obligingly. Robin followed me up to the first landing. ‘You don’t really have to fuss, Elizabeth. Judy often has sore throats.’

  My shoulders were stiff with driving, so I was able to resist the urge to clout him. ‘That’s useful to know. I still think she must get to bed.’

  ‘You could just be fussing. You’re not a doctor.’

 

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