It never occurred to Frances that any other life was possible for her. Wintringham Square was her home—the only home she knew. It never occurred to her that she was working very hard and receiving nothing in return except her board and lodging. She had a little money of her own which had been left to her by her father. It was not very much, but it was more than sufficient to buy her clothes. She was neither happy nor unhappy, for she had a contented nature and no standard by which to measure her life. Uncle Henry was kind to her in an unimaginative fashion, and Aunt Zoë was quite pleasant as long as she had everything she wanted. Unfortunately, however, Aunt Zoë’s wants were not always easy to satisfy, and when Frances failed her in any way she was not a pleasant person to deal with. The library books were a constant source of trouble. Aunt Zoë liked romance—it went so beautifully with chocolate creams—and above all she liked the romances of Janetta Walters; but as Miss Walters wrote three romances a year and Aunt Zoë read three a week—and sometimes more—there were forty-nine weeks in the year when Aunt Zoë had to make do with other authors. Every time a new book written by Janetta Walters appeared amongst the publisher’s advertisements Frances was informed of the fact and was sent off to the library to procure it, but Miss Walters’s books were popular and many other people rushed to the library upon the same errand—people with a good deal more push and drive than Frances. “They’ve put it on your list,” Frances would say as she presented her aunt with a couple of romances by some other (less absorbing) writer, and Aunt Zoë would storm and rave and declare that if only she were able to go to the library herself she would be able to obtain the books she wanted. “I want Her Prince at Last,” declared Aunt Zoë, “and I want it now. I don’t want it in three weeks’ time when every one else has read it.” Frances would never forget her struggle to obtain Her Prince at Last. She did not care for the book herself. It seemed to her that it was a trifle insipid. She knew very little about life, so she was not a very good judge as to whether or not the books of Janetta Walters portrayed life as it really was, or people as they really were, but she had her doubts on the subject. Frances did not care for any of the books on Aunt Zoë’s list, but she was obliged to read them, for she had nothing else to read—you cannot go on reading Dickens indefinitely, however much you may enjoy him.
When the war came Frances was anxious to attend Red Cross lectures, but Aunt Zoë received the suggestion coldly. “You have plenty to do at home,” she said. It was quite true, of course; the days were not long enough for all she had to do, and the servant problem was becoming increasingly difficult. Wintringham Square houses were designed in the days when no servant problem existed, and to run the house comfortably half a dozen servants would not have been excessive. Frances struggled to run it with four, and did a good deal of the work with her own hands.
“I think you should go to the country,” said Mr. Wheeler to his wife when the bombs began to fall. “You and Frances can go to Devonshire—Clara has offered to have you.”
“I couldn’t leave home,” declared Mrs. Wheeler in alarm.
The fact was she was so deeply sunk in her rut and so wedded to her comfortable routine that the thought of moving made her quite ill. She would rather risk the bombs—so she thought—than go and live with her energetic and somewhat unsympathetic sister. As she never went out—except to totter round the square with Frances in attendance—Mrs. Wheeler did not see any of the damage which had been caused in other parts of London, and, being of an unimaginative nature, she was unable to believe that a bomb might fall upon Wintringham Square.
One morning in February when Dr. Digby came to see the “invalid”, Frances accompanied him to the door. He hesitated a moment and, looking at her from beneath his bushy eyebrows, said in his brusque way: “Why aren’t you doing something?”
“I haven’t time, really—” began Frances, raising her eyes to his face.
“Time!” said the doctor. “No, I suppose she keeps you busy. It’s a pity.”
“I wanted to do something,” said Frances, who was very fond of Dr. Digby and was anxious that he should understand. “I wanted to go to a bandaging class, but Aunt Zoë doesn’t like me to leave her.”
“It would do her good,” said Dr. Digby. “You do too much for her—there’s nothing the matter with your aunt except laziness—”
“Nothing the matter . . .” echoed Frances in surprise.
“Nothing,” replied Dr. Digby. “It would do her good if she had to hustle round a bit. Why don’t you take a holiday?”
“A holiday!” cried Frances in amazement.
He laughed and said: “Everybody needs a holiday now and then,” and hastened away.
Dr. Digby’s words lingered in Frances’s mind and started a train of thought . . . it was really two trains of thought, but they arrived at the same place. “There’s nothing the matter with her except laziness. . . . Everybody needs a holiday.”
Frances had slaved for Aunt Zoë for years, had borne patiently with all Aunt Zoë’s vagaries, because she had been so sorry for her (it was dreadful to be ill, to lie on the sofa all day and never go out), and all the time there had been nothing the matter with her, “nothing except laziness.” Now that the idea had been put into her head Frances found a hundred proofs of its truth without the slightest difficulty and wondered how she could have been so blind. Why hadn’t she realised that Aunt Zoë was always well enough to do anything she wanted to do?
The other train of thought led Frances into strange places. “Everybody needs a holiday,” that’s what Dr. Digby had said, but Frances had never had a holiday in her life. She began to look at her life and to compare it with other people’s lives, and she began to realise that it wasn’t a life at all. Even Mary, the seventeen-year-old between-maid, had her afternoon off and went to the pictures and, sometimes, to a dance. She received regular wages and was given three weeks’ holiday every year and an occasional week-end into the bargain. In all these respects—and in others as well—Mary’s life was infinitely better than hers.
Frances thought of this as she went about her daily routine, and the daily routine became more and more irksome. The big gloomy house seemed to grow bigger and gloomier every day. It was more and more of a battle to keep it clean. Smuts drifted in and settled upon the newly washed curtains in greater numbers than ever before. The house pressed upon her spirit, it was like a huge vampire sapping her strength. Aunt Zoë was more exacting than ever—or perhaps it was Frances who was less patient. It was so much more difficult to be patient when you knew that Aunt Zoë was not really ill. . . .
Until now her life had been bearable because she had never thought about it; when she began to think about it and saw her life going on just the same for ever and ever until she was old and her hair turned grey and her teeth dropped out . . . then it became unbearable. She had thought of marriage, of course (what girl has not?), but she had only thought vaguely: Some day I shall be married and have children.
Now she had begun to think seriously, reasonably and frankly, and she saw that unless a miracle happened there was not the slightest chance of her getting married and having children, for she had no opportunity of meeting people of her own age. The Wheelers had friends, of course (elderly ladies and frumpy old gentlemen who dropped in to tea on Sunday afternoons), but Frances had no friends at all. She had never been to school, she had never been allowed to romp in the square with other children, she had never been to a dance in her life. Day after day Frances moved about the streets of London, doing the shopping and exchanging books at the library, and she saw hundreds of young people—men and women of her own age—dashing hither and thither, leaping in and out of cars and buses, or sailing past her on the tube escalators, but she had no means of getting to know them (she lived in a sort of glass ball cut off from all communication with her kind). These people were always seen by Frances in groups or in couples chattering to each other or waving to each other as they parted; calling out that they would see each other on Monday,
or meet at lunch on Tuesday, or would ring up and make a date. What fun they had, thought Frances, as she went her solitary way.
She was beginning to feel quite desperate when a bomb fell in the middle of Wintringham Gardens and broke most of the windows in the square. It happened in the middle of the night and made the most ghastly noise. Frances, who had seen a good deal of the damage done by bombs in other parts of London, had a sudden and most unpleasant conviction that her last hour had come and that the house was about to fall like a pack of cards, as so many other houses had done . . . but nothing disastrous occurred, and the only thing that was destroyed irrevocably was Mrs. Wheeler’s morale. Mrs. Wheeler had been certain that no bombs would fall upon Wintringham Square, and now that this comfortable assurance was dissipated she went to the other extreme and was convinced that every bomber in the Luftwaffe was making a bee-line for Wintringham Square with the intention of wiping it off the face of the earth.
“I can’t bear it,” she wailed. “It’s too awful. It’s far worse for me than for strong, active people who can go about and do things. I just lie and think about it all the time—I can’t bear it.”
“We’ll shut up the house and go to Devonshire,” said Mr. Wheeler in soothing tones. “It will be a nice change for us all.”
“Do you mean you’re coming too?” inquired his wife in surprise. “Can you leave the business?”
“The business has left me,” replied Mr. Wheeler dryly.
Frances realised that this was her chance. The spell which had bound them all together in the big gloomy house had been broken by a German bomb.
It was exceedingly difficult for Frances to take her chance, for she had never asserted herself before, but she knew that it was now or never. It was her last hope of escape from Aunt Zoë, and if she didn’t seize her opportunity she would be a prisoner for life.
“I’m not coming to Devonshire,” said Frances bluntly.
“Of course you’re coming,” said Mrs. Wheeler. “Clara knows that you’re coming and she’s quite pleased. You will be very useful in the house.”
“I’m not coming,” said Frances.
“Don’t be silly, Frances,” said Mrs. Wheeler firmly.
“I want a holiday.”
“We’re all going to have a lovely holiday in Devonshire.”
“I want a holiday by myself.”
“I shall need you,” said Mrs. Wheeler. “It’s a busy house and Clara has several evacuees. There will be plenty for you to do—”
“I’m not coming,” said Frances.
She said the same words over and over again. She clung to them, as a drowning man might cling to a raft, but more than once she was tempted to let go of the raft and drown.
“Why not let Frances have a holiday?” inquired Μr. Wheeler, who was sick to death of the eternal argument. “It will do her good to be on her own for a bit.”
“On her own!” screamed Mrs. Wheeler. “Henry, what nonsense you talk! How can she go and live in a hotel by herself?”
“I’m twenty-five,” said Frances desperately. “I can look after myself perfectly well. I want a holiday . . . I’ve never had a holiday in my life.”
“Where would you go? What would you do with yourself?”
“I’m going to Cairn.”
“Cairn—Where is it?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”
“Who told you about it?”
“Nobody told me.”
“Who lives there?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re mad,” declared Mrs. Wheeler. “You’re stark staring mad. Why do you want to go to a place you’ve never heard of?”
“I saw a picture of it,” said Frances, driven to desperation by the catechism. “I saw a pictured Cairn in the Academy. Oh, I know it sounds mad, but I can’t help it. I must get away. I want to think . . .”
“Think!” exclaimed her aunt, gazing at her in amazement. “Can’t you think here? Who prevents you thinking as much as you want?”
“You do,” replied Frances firmly. “I can’t be myself at all. I can’t even choose a hat without your approval.”
“You must be ill—” began Mrs. Wheeler, but Frances interrupted her.
“No,” said Frances firmly. “No, I’m perfectly well, but I must go away by myself. I’m twenty-five and I’ve never done anything that I wanted to do.”
Mrs. Wheeler had been very angry, but now she was alarmed. She was so much alarmed that she summoned Dr. Digby and explained the matter to him (Frances had taken the dog for a walk, so she was able to explain her own view of the case without fear of interruption). “It’s so strange,” said Mrs. Wheeler. “We’ve been so good to Frances. We couldn’t have done more for her if she’d been our own daughter—and now her one idea is to go away by herself. I can’t think where she got the extraordinary idea, it’s absolutely beyond me. She’s so worked up about it that she’s quite unlike herself. I thought you might prescribe a sedative for her, and perhaps a tonic would do her good.”
Dr. Digby laughed. “I’m the culprit,” he said. “I told Frances to take a holiday, and I’m glad to hear the suggestion has borne fruit.”
“But, Dr. Digby—”
“It’s not often a patient requires a sedative and a tonic at the same time,” he continued with a twinkle in his eyes, “and in any case Frances needs neither the one nor the other. She needs a holiday, and I’ll not answer for the consequences if she doesn’t get it.”
“But what about me?” cried Mrs. Wheeler, who had pinned her hopes on Dr. Digby.
“You don’t need her,” replied the doctor.
Mrs. Wheeler felt the ground sliding from beneath her feet. “Whatever can you mean?” she quavered. “Who’s going to look after me? I can’t do without Frances.”
“Of course you can,” said Dr. Digby.
Frances was free. She had enough money for her holiday, and when it was over she would find useful work. Her plans were vague, but she would have plenty of time to think things out when she got to Cairn. One thing only was certain—she was never going back to prison again.
CHAPTER III
Frances Field went out to explore Cairn.
The sun was bright this morning and there was a westerly breeze blowing in from the sea. A few white clouds came sailing by. The sky was the bluest blue that you could imagine. When Frances had seen the picture of Cairn she had decided that the colours were exaggerated—no sea and sky could be as blue as that, no rocks so red, no grass so green—but now she decided that far from exaggerating the colouring the painter had failed to reproduce it with sufficient brilliance—she did not blame him, of course, for she felt sure there could be no paints on earth to do justice to the sparkling atmosphere of Cairn.
She walked across the street and looked at the fishing boats which were tied up along the harbour wall. There was a man in one of the boats; he was sitting on the thwarts mending a net, but he raised his head as Frances passed and she saw that it was Alec.
“It is a fine morning for you, Miss Field,” said Alec in a friendly fashion.
Frances agreed that it was. She talked to Alec for a few minutes and learned that the boat was called the Kittiwake and that it was the best boat in the harbour. It belonged to Mr. MacDonald, but Alec had charge of it and could use it when he liked. It had brown sails and a petrol engine—but petrol was scarce.
“Maybe you would like to come out some day,” suggested Alec in his soft Highland voice.
“Would Mr. MacDonald mind?” asked Frances doubtfully.
“Why would he mind?” inquired Alec.
Frances wondered who Mr. MacDonald was. There were all sorts of questions she wanted to ask but she did not like to appear inquisitive. She wanted to know about Alec himself—last night she had decided that he was attached to the hotel in some sort of capacity, but this morning he seemed to be a fisherman. She had begun to realise that these people used the English language in a way of their own. They did not a
sk a question in a straightforward manner but merely made an observation with a questioning inflection in their voices; they never answered a question with a plain yes or no but preferred to answer it with another question. Frances liked to hear them talking. It made her holiday so much more adventurous, for she felt as if she were in a foreign land. She had had no idea that Cairn would be so “different” and the people of Cairn so unlike any people she had ever seen before.
“Do you ever wear a kilt?” she asked.
Alec laughed. “Och, you are like the other visitors,” he said. “Would you want me to wear the kilt when I’m in the boat? A kilt is a fine thing to wear on the hills but trousers are better for fishing.”
Frances looked round. She said impulsively: “What a lovely place this is! It’s so peaceful. The war seems far away—as if it were being fought in another world.”
“It was not always peaceful here,” he replied. “There were wars here—and bloodshed and murder—there were battles fought on this very spot, so there were.”
Frances found it difficult to believe.
“It was long ago,” Alec continued. “The Vikings landed here and ravaged the country. Some of them settled in these parts and gave their own names to places—Bordale is a Viking name—then when the Vikings went away there were wars amongst the clans. The Campbells and the MacDonalds were not often at peace with each other . . . maybe there will be battles here again,” added Alec hopefully.
“Battles here?”
“Och, we are ready for them,” he declared. “There is no need for you to be afraid. The Home Guard is in fine form . . .”
“But I don’t think—” began Frances.
“It would be a grand place for them to land with their flat-bottomed boats,” explained Alec, pointing to the lovely sweep of bay which stretched southwards from the harbour, “but maybe they would not get so far before the Navy would be after them . . . they would need to come round the north of Scotland, Mr. MacDonald says.”
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