Call of Glengarron (10 page)

Now that poor Margo was dead it was so easy for him to twist and distort, to put all the blame on her shoulders. But he wasn’t going to get away with it—not with me. I knew enough about Margo’s unhappy life with him to understand perfectly well who was at fault in the relationship.

“I suppose you’re going to claim you were
always
sweetly reasonable with Margo?” I said in a cold, scathing voice. “I suppose the breakup of your marriage was entirely due to her?”

Craig made a little gesture that might have meant anything. Indifference? The hopelessness of ever making me understand? Maybe it was even an admission of guilt.

“I don’t think anyone can claim to be entirely without blame in such circumstances,” he said in a low voice. “But I did try very hard to make Margo see reason.”

I cut in: “Yes—your sort of reason.”

“My God,” he cried. “She certainly put her poison into you, all right. Still, it’s not surprising that you’re two of a kind. You are her cousin, after all.”

“I certainly don’t regard that as an insult. If I have anything of Margo in me, then I’m proud of it.”

Again his hand went to his head, fingers plowing the thick black hair.

“I shouldn’t be quarreling with you, Lucy. You’ve been incredibly kind, looking after Jamie. Bringing him all the way up here.”

“I did it because I ... because I’m very fond of him. I couldn’t bear it if Jamie were to be made unhappy.”

Craig looked at me steadily, unblinking. “I want Jamie’s happiness too. Can’t you believe that?”

“I ... I do believe you love him. But whether you ... you’re...”

He said quite gently, “What you mean is—am I a fit and proper person to have charge of a small child?”

“Well, I ...”

“I’ve got to convince you, Lucy. Don’t you see, it’s not that I want to blacken Margo’s character to you. But I just can’t have you go away from here still believing I’m some sort of ogre who made life hell on earth for your cousin.”

There were tears in my eyes—and they were tears of pity for poor Margo.

“I saw what you did to her,” I said. “You had wealth and position, yet she gave all that up because living with you was so unbearable.”

Without rancor, without irony, without even a trace of bitterness, he said quietly, “Perhaps you’d better tell me just what it was Margo said about my treatment of her.”

“You know that well enough for yourself. It must be heavy on your conscience.”

“Nevertheless, please tell me.”

Oddly, now he was pressing me to be specific, I found it difficult to say. I realized, maybe for the very first time, that Margo hadn’t been very specific herself.

“The man is a perfect boor”,
she would storm.
“Everyone else must conform, never himself. He can’t bear to think his wife might have a few friends of her own.

I thought very carefully before answering Craig. I knew I mustn’t allow emotion my words.

“She told me you were selfish. That you always demanded your own way.” I was speaking distinctly, defiantly. “She often said you wouldn’t tolerate her having a few friends of her own.”

“And did she ever particularize about those friends?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—did she ever tell you what sort of people they were?”

“No, why should she?”

“Well then, I will tell you.” Excitably, Craig began to stride to and fro between me and the door. “They were a crowd of good-for-nothing sycophants who hung around our home pouring out the admiration Margo demanded in exchange for what they could get.”

Lambert Nairn’s words stabbed at me again.
“Men don’t dance that sort of attention for nothing.”

“Why does everyone say things like that about her?” I cried unguardedly. “It just isn’t fair....”

Craig asked sharply, “Who is ‘everyone’? Who else have you been talking to?”

I wished to heaven I hadn’t spoken so carelessly. “Oh ... nobody, really....”

“But I want to know.” Something about Craig’s set, determined face told me he wasn’t going to be easily brushed off.

How could I possibly tell him about my conversation with Lambert Nairn? Every unhappy word would only reinforce what Craig himself had said. Every sentence would help to convince him that he had been right and Margo had been wrong.

Craig would never understand the forces that had driven Margo to look elsewhere for the admiration she didn’t get from her husband. He had shown himself utterly insensitive to a woman’s needs. If he discovered that Lambert Nairn had been Marge’s lover, Craig would condemn her in vile terms. He would never grasp the desperation of a woman who was driven into paying such a high price for a little affection.

Even now that Margo was dead, I still had to protect her reputation. I answered Craig’s probing question with a lie that was a half-truth. “In the fashion world there’s an awful lot of talk. You know—jealous backbiting.”j

“And Margo came in for some pretty poisonous muckraking, did she? Well, it’s no more than I’d have expected.”

This wasn’t going at all the way I’d intended. “Don’t you see, they only slung mud because she was so good at her job. Nobody is jealous of a failure.”

“She wasn’t all that good,” Craig said cruelly. “I learned enough about the fashion world to know that Margo was never more than second rate.”

The man was quite impossible. His wife had been dead for such a short time, and he could speak about her like this. “I don’t want to discuss Margo with you,” I said icily. “But it was you who began it. I’ve scarcely mentioned her since you arrived here.”

“And I’m not a bit surprised. Her death—what drove her to it, I mean—must weigh very heavily upon your conscience.” I saw swift anger leap into his eyes as he spun away from me.

“My God, girl,” he cried in fierce exasperation. “Can you really be so blind?”

But when a moment later he turned to face me again, self-control had clamped down. He spoke in a level, unemotional voice.

“Margo’s death was accidental—the result of a theatrical gesture that misfired.”

For a few seconds I didn’t speak, didn’t move, as Craig’s brutal words pierced the armor of my loyalty to Margo. Then defensive anger welled up in me. How dare Craig suggest that her death had been anything but the suicide of genuine despair.

“I’m not going to listen to any more of this. You disgust me....” I crossed swiftly toward the door.

But he moved quicker, catching my arm. “Don’t say that, Lucy.” His tone was pleading, but his forceful grip made it plain that he wouldn’t let me go.

Tears of pure fury pricked my eyes, and the fact that I couldn’t check them made me angrier still.

“Will you please let me go?” But it came out almost as a sob, not as the sharp imperious demand I had intended.

He still gripped my arm painfully. “I know how fond you were of your cousin,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry to have offended you.”

I was poised on a knife-edge of sanity. It would have been all too easy to let myself drop into hysteria.

“Margo was very good to me,” I said with tight control. “I will not hear her spoken of like that. Besides, it just isn’t true.”

Craig nodded, but I knew he wasn’t conceding a thing. He meant just that he understood my feelings.

“I was very fond of Margo myself—once. I loved her.” He must have sensed my disbelief. “Can’t you take my word for it, Lucy? Why should I have married her, otherwise?”

How often in the past I’d asked myself that same question. Now I thought I knew the answer.

“Vanity, I suppose.”

“Vanity?” His eyebrows were raised in astonishment.

“You just wanted a beautiful woman as a showpiece. Parading Margo around as your wife must have boosted your ego.”

“Parading her ... ? Oh my God! Do you really imagine I’m so utterly shallow?”

“A lot of men ...”

Craig cut right across me. “I’m not ‘a lot of men.’” He lifted his head with a fierce sort of pride. “I am myself—and nobody else. I don’t beg for the approval of other people.”

“No—you just demand blind obedience to your wishes.”

Craig exclaimed sharply, an impatient sound. “I’m sick to death of this theme you keep harping on. Get this into your head—it was Margo who did all the demanding, not me. Margo demanded craven admiration. She insisted on having men around her all the time. I don’t mean she wanted lovers, because she was physically cold. She wanted men dancing attendance, men at her feet. And I don’t happen to be that sort of man. She made a bad mistake when she married me.”

Craig seemed to become aware that he was still holding my arm, gripping it tightly. With a muttered apology he released me very suddenly. But oddly I no longer wanted to get away from him. Somehow, for all his pride, for all his unyielding arrogance, he looked terribly vulnerable.

To my surprise I found myself saying softly, “There might have been fault on both sides.”

He responded at once with a warm smile that pitched me back six whole years. On the day of his marriage to Margo he had been so happy, so handsome. This was the image of Craig I had carried in my mind—and my heart. This was the Craig I had idolized until Margo began to confess her disillusionment with him.

“Thank you, Lucy.” He touched my arm again, this time with gentle fingers. “Thank you for believing in me a bit. That’s all I ask. Of course I know I’m not entirely blameless. No one ever is.”

For the first time I felt that Margo was a bond between us. Her memory no longer divided us. And yet nothing had been explained. There was still so much I didn’t know.

I looked up at Craig. “You said Margo’s death was the result of a theatrical gesture that misfired. What did you mean by that?”

“No, Lucy, let’s not go on tearing at one another. Try to forget what I said.”

“How can I ever forget it, unless you explain?”

He dropped his hand from my arm, but he didn’t move away. He still stood close, looking down at me steadily.

“All right then. But you must promise not to fly off the handle at me. Try to remember that I’m telling you the truth—as far as I can see it.”

I nodded. “Yes, Craig.”

“You see, I think I understood the way Margo’s mind worked. I believe she didn’t intend to kill herself.”

“But all those careful preparations.” I was suddenly afraid. “If she didn’t do it herself, then somebody else must have.”

“No,” he said quickly. “I think Margo just meant to frighten people—me ... you ... perhaps her friends.”

“How can you say that? I mean—she
did
kill herself.”

“I think she intended that somebody should discover her before it was too late.”

As if from far away came the muffled booming of the dinner gong. It seemed to have no relevance. Reality was a closed room. Reality was Craig and I talking about Margo. Craig and I talking ...

“I’m trying to understand,” I said. “But how can you even
think
such a thing of Margo?”

Craig was silent, his smoky eyes somber, his lips set tight. At length he said, “She tried it once before, that’s why.”

“Tried it before? You mean,
she pretended to commit suicide?”

“Yes.”

“But ... but when? How... ?”

“A few months before she walked out on me.  She pretended to have taken a heavy overdose of sleeping tablets. After making sure I knew how many there were in the bottle, she swallowed two tablets, and hid ten more. Then she put on a very convincing act of passing out. She didn’t come to until a doctor had been there. I was completely fooled until I found the other ten tablets a few days later, hidden in a china ornament on the mantelpiece. If I hadn’t accidentally knocked the thing over and broken it, I’d probably never have found her out. She had to admit it then.”

“Oh Craig, is this really true?” I wanted to trust him, to believe in him. And yet instinctively I rebelled against every word he was saying. Even listening seemed disloyal to Margo.

“Is this really true?” I repeated.

He didn’t reply. But I could sense the distress in his eyes and it was enough to convince me utterly. I knew now that his reluctance to talk about Margo was not to spare himself, but to save me pain.

I pressed him. “Why, Craig? Why should she pretend to kill herself?”

He had to drive the words out. “Margo was making ... impossible demands. She wanted me to quit my postgraduate work at the university, and come back to live here at Glengarron. She thought she could force my hand.”

“But surely—if it meant so much to her ... After all, this is your home.”

“I wouldn’t even consider it—not so long as Uncle Alistair remained an active man.”

I drew in my breath sharply. It looked as if Margo had been right after all about his stubborn, self-centered attitude. “What difference would your coming here have made? Two more people and a baby in a huge place like this.”

“You see, Margo wanted me to return here as the Laird— with herself as the Laird’s wife.”

“But you
are
the Laird.”

“Legally the estate is mine. But morally, it must remain in my Uncle Alistair’s hands for the time being. Considering the way he stepped in when my father died, that’s only fair.” Craig began to range about the room with slow, deliberate steps. “I was only twelve years old at the time, and my aunt and her husband took charge as though they were my own parents. It meant Uncle Alistair had to give up his own export business in Glasgow and take over the management of the estate. I reckon they’ve earned the right to stay here as long as they choose. Not just as guests in somebody else’s home. They must be able to regard Glengarron as theirs.”

I said quietly, “That’s very generous of you, Craig.”

“Not
generous,
Lucy. It’s just that I couldn’t do anything else.”

“But you can’t seriously imagine Margo would have wanted to push your uncle and aunt out of the castle?”

He frowned. “I don’t have to imagine it—I know she did. She made it extremely plain.”

I couldn’t lightly abandon my years of devotion to Margo. In spite of everything I’d heard, first from Lambert Nairn, and now from Craig, I still felt they had misjudged her true character.