Anne Douglas (21 page)

But when the buffet was over and the dancing had begun again, there was no sign of Scott, and Brigid rather accusingly told Lynette and Ronan that he was exhausted and had gone off to his bed.

‘Poor laddie, he’s had so much to do, while everybody else has been having a good time, eh?’

‘Not everybody,’ Lynette said defensively. ‘You were working too, Brigid.’

‘Aye, but the buffet was not my responsibility, was it? And anyway, I’m going dancing now.’

As Brigid was whirled on to the floor by a young man who had been hovering, Ronan looked at Lynette.

‘Scott’s not really exhausted, you know, he loves his work, it never tires him. He’s just upset, not to be with you.’

‘Oh, look, I said I’d dance with him! I wanted him to join us!’

‘I think you know what I mean,’ Ronan answered steadily.

‘They’re forming the sets for the next reel,’ she said after a moment.

‘Maybe we could sit it out?’

‘No, I think we should dance it.’

‘You’re afraid of people noticing?’

‘No! Are you?’

‘Haven’t shown much sign of it up to now, have I?’

She looked at him with sudden objectivity, setting apart her own feelings. ‘I bet some people will be surprised, eh?’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’re the manager. It’s your job to care what people think.’

‘Not about everything.’

His voice was soft, his unusual eyes never moving from her face.

‘I wish I could ask you what you mean,’ she began, but he shook his head.

‘They’re forming the sets, we’ll have to go.’

As they ran to take the last places for ‘Hamilton House’, he managed to whisper, ‘May I take you home tonight, Lynette? I have my car outside.’

‘Do you have to ask?’ Her eyes were shining. ‘I’ll tell Dad not to wait for me.’

He would only have Ishbel for a passenger, she thought, as the dance began, for Monnie was being driven home by Torquil. How strange, that both she and her sister had got what they wanted. Even stranger, was that what she wanted was Ronan Allan. How had it happened? How had it come about? One thing for sure was that dancing a Scottish reel was not the time to be pondering on it. But the question, she knew, would come back to her and fascinate her, as the handsome face of the man opposite fascinated her now.

The dance ended, and by midnight, the evening had ended, too. Ronan had to make another little speech, drawing the gathering to a close and thanking everyone for coming. ‘Auld Lang Syne’ was sung, there was applause for the band, then it was over. Except for those looking forward to what would follow. An evening was not over, after all, until the journey home had been made, and goodnights had been said. Particularly, goodnights to certain people.

‘All set?’ Frank asked Ishbel, helping her into her coat. ‘There’s just you and me going back. Hope I don’t have to change a wheel again.’

‘Hope not,’ she agreed, with a nervous little laugh. ‘I see Agnes is giving Monnie and Torquil a send off.’

‘Aye, Tony’s taking her home.’

‘Now you two take care,’ Agnes was saying, smiling broadly. ‘And don’t drive into the Sound by mistake, eh?’

‘Hey, I am not drunk!’ Torquil exclaimed, opening the door to his van for Monnie. ‘At least, not with alcohol.’

Oh, just let’s go, thought Monnie. Let’s be on our own, please!

And they did go, followed by Ronan and Lynette in Ronan’s large Wolseley, and a little later by Frank and Ishbel, as Agnes waved and murmured to Tony, ‘Guess they’ll all be taking the long road home, eh?’

‘There is no long road home,’ said Tony. ‘Mind if I squash in Nina, Mother? Means we’ll have to go to Glenelg first, but Jill’s gone off with some guy she knows and Nina’s on her own.’

‘Seems like you’ve found a long way home, anyway,’ his mother told him tartly. ‘Better drop me off on the way.’

And Tony’s battered Morris took its place in the convoy leaving the Talisman, the red tail lights of the cars ahead glinting through the darkness, their headlights picking out the grass verges and hedges, hostellers walking back, and one or two startled rabbits leaping away.

Thirty-Four

There was certainly to be no long road home for Frank, for he had to be back at the hostel to open the door for his young clients – which didn’t mean that he couldn’t spend a few minutes saying goodnight to Ishbel first.

‘I meant what I said,’ he told her quietly, as he helped her from his car. ‘About this being one of the happiest evenings I’ve had in a very long time.’

‘I meant what I said, too.’

Though her shop window was dark, the light over her side entrance showed Ishbel’s face to be as serious as Frank’s, her lips slightly trembling, her eyes intent on his.

‘I’ve never been so happy. Never thought I could be – after Robbie died.’

‘I feel the same. Never thought, after my Ellie left me, that I could ever want to be with someone else the way I want to be with you.’

‘It is not wrong, to feel like that, Frank. It doesn’t mean, you’re forgetting. Only that—’

‘I know what you’re saying.’ Very gently, he drew her into his arms. ‘Time heals, moves on, and we move on, too. The loved ones – they’d understand.’

‘I think so.’ She slowly raised her face to his, offering her lips for his first kiss, which, when it came, made all words, all thoughts, vanish for the long, long moment it lasted. Even when they had drawn apart, looking at each other just a little self-consciously, they made no effort to speak, until, finally, Frank sighed and released her from his arms and whispered her name.

‘Ishbel, Ishbel – how do I leave you?’

‘You have to let your young folk in,’ she murmured. ‘They’ll be sitting waiting on the doorstep.’

‘I’d like to say, let ’em!’

‘But you’re too conscientious.’ She ran her fingers down his cheek. ‘Better go, Frank, before it gets too hard.’

‘Hard enough now.’ He put his hand on his car door. ‘But I’ll come to the shop tomorrow, eh? Bring a shopping list as long as my arm so I can spend a good long time with you?’

‘It’s Sunday tomorrow,’ she answered demurely. ‘But I could come round to see you tomorrow afternoon?’

‘Ishbel, would you?’

‘I would!’

They laughed and he got into the driving seat.

‘You never know, my girls might be home before me. They could let the hostellers in.’

‘Your girls home before you?’ Ishbel laughed again. ‘You must be joking.’

‘Aye, maybe I am. Goodnight, dear Ishbel.’

‘Goodnight, Frank.’

‘See you tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow.’

Driving the short distance to the hostel after Ishbel had vanished into her own door, Frank found himself shaking with continuing excitement. It had happened. He had declared himself. He’d never believed it possible that he would be able to let Ishbel know what was in his heart, though he’d been pretty sure for some time that her heart was feeling the same as his own. But feeling and declaring – they were two different things. Without the ceilidh that had brought a new intimacy to their meeting together, would they ever have dared to take the risk of speaking out?

Oh, God, I’d have had to, Frank thought, but knew that he might not. Might have been afraid. Of what? Of rejection. But there had been no rejection. As he drove up the hostel drive and parked his car, his spirits rose like birds and his heart was singing.

‘Grand party, Mr Forester!’ a young voice called, and remembering his responsibilities enough to take notice of what was going on, he saw that Ishbel had been right. Quite a crowd of his hostellers were sitting on the steps of the house waiting for him, all as happy as he was, from the look of them, having been so royally entertained at the Talisman.

‘Have a good time, then?’ another voice asked.

‘You bet!’ Frank answered, taking out his keys. ‘Am I the first back?’

Well, of course, it was clear that he was, for his daughters would have unlocked the door, but they’d be along soon and in the meantime, he’d bedtime to organize for all his overexcited hostellers.

‘Lights out in fifteen minutes!’ he called, ignoring groans, only pausing to wonder, after the house finally grew quiet, just when his girls would be coming home.

Both Torquil and Ronan had had the same idea – not to find a long way home, but just to move off the road, park beside trees under a dark velvet night sky; quite away, of course, from one other. Quite away from anyone at all.

‘You weren’t wanting to go straight home?’ Ronan asked quietly, taking Lynette’s hand in a firm, dry clasp.

‘No, I wasn’t wanting that,’ she answered, breathing a little fast as she felt the pressure of his hand.

His face, like hers, was no more than a pale blur in the darkness that held them, but they didn’t need to see faces; the nearness of their bodies in the cramped seats of the car was enough to drive up an excitement they could hardly contain.

‘This is the first time we’ve been alone,’ Ronan said huskily.

‘If you don’t count your office,’ Lynette whispered.

‘Don’t talk of that.’ He slowly drew her towards him. ‘I don’t want to be reminded.’

‘I can’t forget.’

‘You can’t forgive me?’ They were very close now, their faces touching, his hand stroking back her hair, smoothing her brow.

‘It’s not that. Just I can’t understand the way we were . . . seeming to hate each other—’

‘Hatred is close to love, they say, but there was no hatred, Lynette. Never any hatred.’

His mouth sank to hers, and then for some time there was no more talking. No need for talking, only the longing to kiss and kiss again, to shut out the world, to be as close as possible, until at last they had to draw away, if only to breathe, laugh a little with joy, and sit back, trying again to see each other in the darkness.

‘How did it happen?’ Lynette asked at last, putting her hand to her lips, as though she could still feel Ronan’s kisses.

‘How did what happen?’ His words were slow, a little dreamy.

‘Us. How did we change?’

‘We never changed. The way I see it, underneath all that antagonism was something we didn’t want to recognize.’

‘No, no, I never felt that. I took against you from the first, I don’t know why.’ She put her hand to his cheek, to soften what she was saying. ‘Perhaps because I thought it was you who’d taken against me.’

‘Taken against you? I was attracted from the start!’

‘You never showed it. You just seemed cold and arrogant – prejudiced, because I came from the hostel.’

‘Oh, God, is that true? Is that how I seemed? Lynette – darling – it’s not how I felt. I was attracted and – I don’t know – angry about it, because I could tell, I suppose, that as you’ve just said, you’d taken against me.’

Suddenly, he caught her in his arms again, and again they kissed, but more gently, more sweetly, until he released her.

‘Let’s not talk of it any more,’ he said quietly. ‘What’s past is past. Let’s think of now.’

‘I want to, Ronan, but I must go. It must be getting very late, Dad doesn’t keep tabs on us, but he must be wondering by now what’s happened to me.’

‘We’ll go, as long as you promise me, we’ll be together again soon.’

‘It won’t be easy.’ She smiled in the darkness. ‘Considering where we work.’

‘I’m talking of free time.’

‘Free time? Oh, wonderful!’

‘It will be, it will be.’

At the gates to the hostel, she turned to him, glad now to see his face in the lamplight, her heart leaping at the expression in those strange eyes of his, knowing her own look reflected it.

‘You know when things really changed for us?’ she asked softly.

He shook his head. ‘Tell me.’

‘It was when you told me of your life here, at the house, and of how you’d had to leave it. For the first time, I saw another side of you, a human side, and I began to understand.’

‘Lynette, that’s amazing. I don’t know what to say. Even then – you were beginning to care for me, weren’t you? You were recognizing what we might have?’

She hesitated, was about to speak, when a horn sounded on the drive and swinging round, she and Ronan saw Torquil’s van stopping and both Torquil and Monnie getting out.

‘Hi, there!’ Torquil cried. ‘Seems you are as late returning as we are!’

‘Monnie, where’ve you been?’ Lynette asked, stupidly, for what right had she to ask that? Especially when it was so clear from the radiant look on Monnie’s face that she and Torquil had been to the same lovers’ haven as Lynette and Ronan themselves.

Thirty-Five

Some few days later, Monnie was spending a half day, not with Torquil who hadn’t yet fixed up the boat trip, but Paul Soutar. At long last, they had met to drive to Kyle in search of climbing boots, and having found a pair that passed Paul’s inspection, had had an argument over buying them, which Monnie had won.

‘I’d like to have got them for you,’ Paul told her earnestly. ‘It was my idea, after all, to take you hill walking.’

‘I’m the one who wants to go,’ she said firmly, ‘and the boots are for me, so I’m paying. But you can take me to tea, if you like.’

‘Thank the Lord for that! I’m dying for a cup.’

They walked leisurely through the busy village, conscious all the time of their nearness to Skye just over the water; enjoying the soft early May weather, and, indeed, being together.

Paul was so easy to be with, Monnie thought as she had thought before. So – she searched for the word – undemanding. His first instinct would always be, she felt sure, to fit in, if possible, with whatever his companion wanted, at the same time keeping his own strength of purpose, making sure things would go well. Whatever happened, wherever you found yourself with him, you’d be able to trust him. And how much that meant! More than charm? Oh, yes. More than that something it was impossible to describe, that drew you to a person and held you fast? Oh, no.