Spring Magic

by D. E. Stevenson

  Frances took the book off the chair and turned over the pages hastily; she was anxious to see what Tommy thought of her . . . here she was, here at the end, on the same page as Ellen MacNair—an excellent likeness this.

  “Well, how do you like it?” asked Tommy after a moment’s silence.

  Frances liked it immensely. “I didn’t know I was so nice-looking,” she declared.

  “I thought it good,” said the artist, leaning over the table and glancing at the sketch. “I’ve managed to get that wondering sort of look—that slightly blank expression you sometimes wear . . . it’s as if you didn’t quite know what you were going to meet round the next corner.”

  Frances laughed. “How can any one know that?” she inquired.

  “Some people know—or think they know,” replied Tommy quite gravely. “I don’t mean people who have second sight. Take Tillie, for instance, she knows quite well that there are going to be misfortunes round the next corner—and of course there are. Tillie is one of the most unfortunate people on earth. . . . Angela knows there will be men,” added Tommy vindictively.

  “I thought you liked her,” Frances said.

  “I used to like her, but she’s got terribly spoilt. I hope Guy won’t marry her.”

  “Guy?”

  “He’s taken a good deal of interest in Angela lately,” said Tommy in a thoughtful voice.

  Frances smiled to herself. She was not afraid of Angela. A natural sequence of thought led her back to Elise. “What about Elise?” she asked. “Does Elise know what’s waiting for her round the next corner?”

  Tommy hesitated and then said: “Elise knows a lot. I think Elise is prepared for anything she may meet—good or bad. I wish I were more like Elise.”

  They had finished their meal; Frances had moved into a comfortable chair and Tommy had taken up her favourite position on the hearthrug. Frances looked round the room and thought again how nice Tommy had made it.

  “That’s new,” said Tommy, pointing to a large square footstool covered with green plush to match the carpet. “I saw it in Rithie the other day and I just had to buy it. Midge said it was awfully extravagant of me—he said it was quite useless—but I liked it so much that I couldn’t resist it. . . .”

  Frances liked it too. She liked it all the more because Captain Widgery disliked it. “Clever of you to remember the exact shade,” she said.

  “It does match nicely, doesn’t it?” agreed Tommy. “Midge says it matches too well. He says someone will take a header over it some day—that’s why I put it under the table.”

  Having exhausted the subject of the footstool, Frances and Tommy went on to chat of other matters. Tommy spoke of her home at Aberdeen and of her brother who was somewhere in the Middle East.

  “He may be anywhere,” Tommy declared. “We haven’t had a letter from him for months. Mother got a cable from him the other day, but it didn’t comfort her very much. She sent it to me to read.”

  “Didn’t the cable say where he was?”

  “No, of course not,” replied Tommy, shaking her head and smiling. “The cable said ‘WELL UP WITH HOUNDS’ and nothing else. He may be in Abyssinia, chasing the Italians, or he may be at Tobruk . . . I hope he isn’t in Greece, poor darling.”

  They were silent for a few moments, and then Tommy sat up and listened with her head on one side. “It’s Midge,” she said in a low voice. “It’s Midge—I wonder—this isn’t his usual time—”

  Frances had heard nothing, but now, by straining her ears, she heard footsteps approaching the house . . . It was odd that Tommy had heard those footsteps so long before she had; it was even more odd that Tommy had known for certain whose footsteps they were. Tommy was sitting erect upon the hearthrug now; she reminded Frances of a terrier with its ears cocked, a terrier listening for the approach of its master—or its god. Suddenly Frances felt that she could not face Captain Widgery, and she rose and said she must go.

  “But you can’t!” said Tommy quickly. “I mean . . .”

  It was quite obvious what she meant. There was only one door to the house, so unless Frances intended to climb out of the window there was no way of avoiding her host. She could easily climb out of the window, but convention forbade this mode of exit—convention and something more. It would be a confession that she did not want to meet him, that she was afraid of him—she was afraid of him, of course.

  The door opened and Captain Widgery appeared. He burst in, and the wind, bursting in with him, filled the room with air. The curtains flew out through the open windows and fluttered wildly as if they—like Frances—were anxious to escape.

  “Hallo, Miss Field!” exclaimed Captain Widgery in quite a cheerful tone. “Hallo, Tommy—some day this house will be blown out to sea.”

  “Oh, Midge, have you got leave?” asked Tommy eagerly.

  “Instead of Saturday,” he replied. “Saturday is going to be a great day—a field day. We’re supposed to manoeuvre on the hills with the Home Guard.” He laughed, and added: “The Home Guard! I ask you! A collection of bootmakers and bakers, most of them in their dotage!”

  In spite of his derogatory words Frances received a distinct impression that he was pleased at the prospect . . . she was to remember this impression later.

  “Oh, Midge—Saturday!” exclaimed Tommy in consternation.

  “Yes, it’s a blue-pencil nuisance,” said Captain Widgery. “No chance of running over to Rithie and seeing a film. We shall be out all night, I’m afraid.”

  “All night!” repeated Tommy.

  He nodded. “It’s a nice prospect, isn’t it? Perhaps you’d like to spend the night at the hotel. You might be a bit lonely here all by yourself.”

  After some discussion it was arranged that Tommy should walk over to the Bordale Arms and have dinner with Frances. “We’ll ask Guy,” said Tommy, brightening a little at the prospect of a party.

  Her husband laughed shortly. “You’ll ask Guy, will you?” he said. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten that Guy happens to be a member of the Battalion, and the Battalion happens to be manoeuvring on the hills with the rag-tag and bobtail of Cairn.”

  “Oh, how silly of me!” Tommy said.

  Frances hated to see the hurt look on Tommy’s face. She burnt with rage . . . he was cruel . . . he enjoyed being cruel to Tommy.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  This was the day upon which Frances had been invited to take tea at the Castle, and, as always, there were half a dozen people ready and willing to advise her how to attain her objective. Mrs. MacNair told her that she must go up the road towards Rithie for about half a mile and she would see the Castle gates on her left just before she got to the foot of the brae, but Mr. MacNair, appearing from the bar in his shirt-sleeves, declared that she would be better to take the path along the top of the cliff and go up past St. Kiaran’s Spring. Annie, coming downstairs while the argument was in progress, joined in it with gusto; and Alec, who had been washing a car in the yard, leaned his elbows on the window-sill and gave his opinion in his usual forceful way.

  “Miss Field could go up through the fields and past the home farm,” declared Alec. “That is the shortest way of all—”

  “But she would never find it,” put in Annie firmly.

  “She would find it easily—”

  “She would not.”

  “The road would be the best,” said Mrs. MacNair. “She is wearing her good shoes; she will not want to go ploughing through fields in them.”

  “There is quite a good path,” Alec pointed out.

  “But she’ll not find it,” Annie declared.

  “You will put on your coat, Alec,” said Mr. MacNair at last, “and you will go with Miss Field, yourself, and put her on the right road. It would be a nice thing if Miss Field was late for tea at the Castle!”

  “. . . and you will take Shiela with you,” added Mrs. MacNair. “It will be a nice walk for Shiela over the fields.”

  The oracle having spoken, every one disappeared and for
once the hall was empty. Frances, who was neatly dressed for her tea-party in a tweed coat and skirt and a blue felt hat, went out and sat down on the seat outside the front door. It was half-past three by now, so there was not much time—she wondered how long Alec and Shiela would take to titivate. Although Mr. MacNair had registered horror at the idea of Miss Field being late for tea at the Castle, Frances was aware that none of the MacNair family was a slave to time. Meals were often late and sometimes early, and every clock in the Bordale Arms jogged along at its own sweet will . . . but Alec did not keep her waiting long; he came round the corner of the house struggling into his jacket, and with him came an enormous bob-tailed sheep-dog which leaped upon him from all directions and bounded between his legs, nearly tripping him up. The dog was so large and shaggy that it reminded Frances of the overgrown puppy which had tried to play with Alice in Wonderland.

  “Down, Shiela,” cried Alec, pushing it away with his hand. “Quiet Shiela . . . down, Shiela . . . yes, we are going for a walk. . . .”

  “So that’s Shiela!” exclaimed Frances, and she burst out laughing.

  Alec looked at her in surprise. “Have you not seen Shiela?” he inquired. “Och, that is a queer thing . . . she is usually all over the place and there is no holding her at all. It is because of the puppies that you have not seen her. Shiela is a very good mother and she will not leave the puppies for long . . . but it is nice for her to have a walk now and then—so it is.”

  The walk through the fields was very pleasant and Alec was an interesting companion with plenty to say for himself. When he had pointed out the different farms—or crofts—and told her their names, and had introduced her to the snowy peaks in the distant range of mountains, Alec began to talk about the Home Guard and to wax enthusiastic upon the subject. “There’s to be an exercise on Saturday night,” said Alec. “It is not the first we have had by any means but it will be a very special one, for the soldiers are going to take part in it—maybe you will have heard about it, Miss Field?”

  Frances admitted that she had heard something about it from Captain Widgery.

  “Is that so?” said Alec with interest. “He was talking about it, was he? He wouldn’t have mentioned what the soldiers were going to do? He wouldn’t have told you that?”

  “No, he didn’t,” replied Frances.

  “I was afraid he wouldn’t,” declared Alec with a sigh. “We’ll just need to wait until Mr. MacDonald has seen the Colonel. Och, it will be a fine show. Some of the soldiers will pretend that they are the enemy—that is the idea—and we shall be hunting them over the hills. It is a pity you could not come out and see the fun.” They had reached a gate by now and Alec opened it. “There is no need for me to come any farther,” he said. “That is the farm over there—it is Mr. MacDonald’s own farm—and when you have walked past the steading you will see the big gates with the MacDonald crest on them. It is only a quarter of a mile to the Castle, so you will be in good time for tea. It is a fine place. I am glad you are to see it.”

  Frances thanked him and said goodbye and walked on. Presently she turned and saw that Alec was still standing at the gate with Shiela beside him. She waved and Alec waved back.

  Castle Cairn was somewhat surprising to any one who expected to see a moated keep or an ivied tower, and Frances, as she turned a bend in the avenue and came upon it unawares, was greatly disappointed. It was a large house—not a castle at all—a large square, solid house with shining windows and well-kept paintwork. There was no reason why Frances should have expected anything different (except that she had been steeping herself in the Waverley Novels for the last ten days), and as a matter of fact until she saw the mansion she had not known what she expected to see . . . she knew now that she had expected to see Ellangowan Castle. It was so absurd that she laughed off her disappointment and, approaching over the neatly gravelled drive, she put out her hand and pressed the electric bell.

  It was a cold day with a biting wind, but inside the house it was warm and comfortable. The carpets were thick and the curtains were draught-proof and there was central heating in the rooms besides large fires. Frances noted all this as she followed the old butler across the hall and into a large comfortably furnished morning-room; she noted the shine on the wood, the twinkle of the brasses. Having struggled with a large house herself, she was aware of the work entailed to keep everything in such perfect order, and she decided that Mr. MacDonald’s housekeeper must be a capable person.

  Mr. MacDonald was sitting in a large arm-chair by the fire. He rose and welcomed her warmly and declared that it was very good of her to waive ceremony and come to tea. “My cousin has been ill,” he explained. “I meant her to call on you in the correct manner, but she has not been allowed out of the house and I wanted you to come. I was afraid that if I waited any longer you would have forgotten all about me.”

  Frances felt a little shy. She said somewhat awkwardly: “Oh no, of course not.”

  “My cousin keeps house for me,” continued Mr. MacDonald. “She has done so since my wife died. It is good of her, because I am afraid she finds Castle Cairn very dull. Come and sit down, Miss Field.”

  Frances sat down. She said: “I thought it would be old.”

  “Old?” he repeated in surprise. “Oh, you mean the Castle! The old Castle was burnt down about a hundred years ago and my grandfather built this somewhat unimaginative but extremely comfortable residence in its place. You are not by any means the first person to be disappointed in Castle Cairn.”

  “It was just that I expected something different,” declared Frances hastily.

  “Cairn has suffered another invasion since I saw you last,” said Mr. MacDonald, sitting down in the other chair and smiling at her. “A more pleasant invasion than that which took place in A.D. 700, and this time from the south.”

  “Yes,” agreed Frances. “There are soldiers everywhere. I expect it seems odd to you to see them here.”

  “Very odd indeed,” he replied. “It is strange to see them but even stranger to hear them talking. When one arrives at Euston one is prepared to hear Cockney spoken on every side, but to hear it in the wilds of Scotland is the strangest experience of all . . . Oh, here is my cousin to tell us that tea is ready. May I introduce Miss Stalker, Miss Field.”

  They had tea in the big dining-room on the other side of the house. There were scones and sandwiches and home-made plum cake laid out upon the huge mahogany table.

  “It’s dreadful,” declared Miss Stalker as they sat down, “it’s simply dreadful not to be able to give people a decent tea.”

  “It’s a lovely tea,” said Frances.

  “It wouldn’t look so skimpy if you gave it to us on a smaller table,” said Mr. MacDonald.

  “We’ve always had it on the dining-room table,” exclaimed Miss Stalker.

  Mr. MacDonald smiled. “My cousin is conservative,” he said.

  “Of course I am,” said Miss Stalker promptly. “My father was a conservative so I couldn’t be anything else—not that I ever wanted to be anything else, of course.” She sighed and added: “We used to have several kinds of cakes, and cream cookies and chocolate biscuits—I’m sure I don’t know what Miss Field will think.”

  “Miss Field is no doubt aware of the fact that we are at war,” said Mr. MacDonald gravely.

  “Well, of course,” said Miss Stalker in surprise. “Every one knows that, but it seems so dreadful when people come to tea and you can’t give them cakes or jam. I don’t know what we’re coming to, I’m sure. Half a pound of jam a month!”

  Miss Stalker was a small woman with a large nose and thick black eyebrows—it was her nose and eyebrows that you saw first—the rest of Miss Stalker seemed to be attached to these striking features. After having apologised for the absence of proper food she busied herself pouring out the tea and said no more; perhaps this was just as well, for in a few words she had shown herself deficient in sense and humour. Mr. MacDonald enjoyed talking and Frances was a good listener, so
before they were half-way through the meal she had learnt a great deal more about the history of Cairn.

  Suddenly the door opened and Captain Tarlatan was announced. He looked surprised when he saw Frances sitting there, and she was equally surprised to see him. She was also a trifle embarrassed, for, since she had seen him last, she had thought of him so much and with such varying emotions. She felt a hot blush mounting in her cheeks, and the fact that she was annoyed with herself for this show of feeling did not help matters. Fortunately Captain Tarlatan was talking to his host, explaining that he had come on business and suggesting that he should wait until Mr. MacDonald was disengaged.

  “Nonsense,” said Mr. MacDonald firmly. “You will just sit down and have a cup of tea with us. It’s a great pleasure to see you. The business can wait unless it is very important—there is nothing wrong, I hope.”

  “Oh no,” replied Guy, sitting down and accepting a cup of tea from Miss Stalker. “There’s nothing wrong. It’s a splendid place for a camp; we’re delighted with it. Colonel Thynne asked me to thank you very much indeed for all the trouble you have taken. He just wants to know if we may make another opening on to the road. It would be a great convenience to have another gate for the lorries, but I’m afraid it will mean cutting down a piece of the hedge.”

  “Of course,” said Mr. MacDonald. “Of course—I’ll send a man to do it to-morrow.”

  “We’ll do it ourselves, sir,” replied Guy. “There’s no need for you to bother. We didn’t want to do it without permission, that’s all.”

  “And what about this exercise on Saturday?” asked Mr. MacDonald. “Have you thought out the details? I want it to be a good test for the Home Guard, not just a picnic.”

  “Oh yes, that was another thing,” said Guy. “I’m afraid we can’t manage it this Saturday—we’ve just heard that we’re being inspected—but Colonel Thynne said I was to ask if you could fix another day.”

  “Any Saturday will do,” Mr. MacDonald replied. “It’s exceedingly good of you to help us—just let me know when you can manage it.”