Call of Glengarron (13 page)

 “Lucy, please, say you forgive us for treating you so ... so shamefully.”

I nodded dumbly.

“And you will stay, won’t you? Don’t go away tomorrow.”

I managed to find my voice. “Yes
,
Craig, I’ll stay. Of
course I’ll stay.”

Past Craig, through the doorway, the corridor was in semi-darkness. For a second I saw a movement, a flash of something white. And then it was gone.

Irrelevantly, I wondered why anybody should be going to one of the empty rooms beyond mine. But my eyes were still prickling with tears. Maybe what I’d seen was an odd trick of light, a reflection glinting.

“What is it, Lucy?” Craig asked.

“Nothing. It’s nothing....”

He went on standing there with his hands on my shoulders. He came a little closer and I felt his fingers curl, gripping hard. Then suddenly he released me and stood back in the doorway.

“We’ll talk later,” he said quietly. “For the moment, though, it’s good enough that you’ll stay. Thank you, Lucy.”

His gaze lingered on me. He seemed reluctant to go. Then in a swift movement he turned and strode away. I listened to the soft sound of his receding footsteps on the thick carpet.

Slowly, dreamily, I closed the door. Yes, I thought happily, for the moment it is enough that I’ll be staying. Quite enough.

At about four o’clock Mrs. Lennox knocked at my door. When I opened it she stepped inside.

“I want to apologize, my dear,” she began. She was trying, I think, to be carefully precise, but vagueness got the better of her. “What I said must have ... well, perhaps you got the impression ...”

“It’s all right, Mrs. Lennox,” I said quietly.

But she persisted. “What I wanted to say ... I do hope you didn’t get the idea that we ... I ...
wanted
you to go. It was just—” She was waving her hands helplessly, quite unable to bring her apology to a conclusion.

“I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding,” I said steadily. “I suggest we forget all about it.”

“You are so very ...” I was left to imagine the particular adjective, she had in mind. “Won’t you ... ? Tea is just ...”

So I went downstairs, and everything reverted to normal.

Or almost to normal. Craig’s aunt was perhaps a mite more distractedly vague, and her husband a shade more hearty. Fiona, playing a rather ostentatious game of hide and seek with an impatient Jamie, savaged me from time to time with smiling eyes.

Craig was smiling too.

          ++++

Isabel and Alistair Lennox were breakfasting in their rooms again. Stifling a yawn, Fiona looked as if a tray in bed would have suited her better, too. She regarded me sulkily as I helped myself to scrambled eggs from the hotplate.

Craig looked up from reading a letter.

“I’m sorry, Lucy, but something unexpected has come up. Would you mind if we postponed our outing until this afternoon?”

I’d been refusing to tempt fate by taking that outing with Craig for granted. After yesterday’s almighty row I could almost have forgiven him if he’d forgotten all about it.

Half a day with Craig was a whole lot better than none. “Oh—that’s all right,” I assured him. “This afternoon will be fine.”

Jamie piped up. “Where are we going, Daddy?”

“Sorry, old chap. You’re not coming this time.” Craig spoke very definitely, and the boy had learned already that his father meant what he said.

Fiona cut in quickly: “It’s no good expecting me to look after him. I ... I’ve got an appointment myself.”

Her sulkiness had gone, at any rate. She was obviously enraged to learn that Craig planned to take me out.

“Don’t worry, Fiona,” Craig said mildly. “Aunt Isabel is going to keep an eye on Jamie for me.”

This was something new. Mrs. Lennox had not volunteered to take charge of Jamie before. Maybe her conscience was troubling her, and she was exerting herself to placate Craig.

After breakfast Craig followed me out of the room. “I’m sorry about this change of plan,” he said awkwardly. “I had wanted to make it a nice long day, but I’ve got to go and see the lawyer about ... something to do with the estate. I’m afraid it will be about three o’clock before I’m back here.”

“Please don’t worry,” I said, smiling. “It doesn’t matter a scrap,”

He was thoughtful. “Look—I know you’re fond of walking. If you feel like it you could come to meet me. Do you know the track that runs above the far side of the loch?”

It was the path I’d been on when I’d encountered Lambert Nairn.

“Yes, I know it.”

“If you follow the track for about a mile and a half, it joins up with the road I’ll be taking. It would save quite a bit of time, because otherwise, to get back here I’d have to drive right around Ben Liath Mohr.”

I didn’t much enjoy the risk of meeting up with Lambert Nairn again. I probed cautiously, knowing the answer already. “Does your estate extend all that way?”

“No. You’ll be going through land owned by a neighbor of ours. But that doesn’t matter, of course.”

It was, after all, a pretty remote possibility that Nairn would come along that particular bit of his land just at the time I happened to be there. I told myself I was worrying unnecessarily.

We fixed the time. “If you can start out at two o’clock, Lucy, we’ll meet up at two-thirty. I promise you I won’t be late.” We fixed the place. “Just where the track meets the road. There’s a whitewashed barn on the corner.”

Craig went off at ten-thirty. I spent the morning playing with Jamie. I was having fun with him, but I knew in the back of my mind that I was really only killing time, waiting for the afternoon.

Fiona was particularly bitchy to me at lunch. Her mother wouldn’t notice a thing like that, but I intercepted a warning frown from Mr. Lennox. He brought his big bushy eyebrows together and looked quite fierce.

I skipped coffee to give myself more time to get ready.

It was another glorious day. Yesterday’s showers had given everything an extra sparkle. As the track rose higher, Loch Ghorm shone with unbelievable color—purple and turquoise in patches, dark blue-black where Ben Liath Mohr overhung the water, and a delicate whitish-green in the shallows.

Perched on its rocky promontory, Glengarron Castle slumbered in the afternoon sunshine. I marveled that I had ever thought of it as gaunt and ugly, even sinister.

As I stood gazing down I saw a tiny figure start out across the causeway, walking briskly. Fiona setting off. I recognized her blue coat.

I was surprised, though, that Fiona should be going anywhere on foot. I wondered whether in fact her “appointment” was merely a fiction, and she was going out now to give it a shred of substance. She’d obviously been astonished and livid that Craig wanted to take me out.

I myself found his sudden interest in me almost incredible. But since our candid talk about Margo there had been a new sympathy between us, a new understanding. I wasn’t going to analyze it. I didn’t dare consider where it might lead. I just clung to the memory of Craig’s dismay at the prospect of my going home, his anger at my peremptory dismissal from Glengarron.

Fiona had reached the end of the causeway and disappeared from my view. I turned and began to climb again. After a few minutes I came to the spot where I’d met Lambert Nairn the other day. I continued to climb until I reached the crest of the hill and then started descending the other side.

Here a great many trees had been felled recently. I marveled at this achievement on such a precipitous slope. At intervals down the track, wherever a level platform could be found, there were high stacks of logs awaiting transport.

The ground was thick with celandines, golden flowerlets brilliant against the lush green foliage. I spotted a paler yellow, shyly hiding at the foot of one of the stacks of timber. I crouched down and gently parted the long grass. Why did a small wild flower fill me with such joy? It was as if I had never seen a primrose before.

Quite nearby I heard a noise. Not a natural sound of wind or birds or some small animal. This was like a soft footfall, a twig snapped beneath a shoe.

I glanced around, but there was no sign of life anywhere. Everything was still, except for the very tips of the pine trees.

It was the deceptive moment of calm before the storm.

Suddenly the quiet was broken by a curious squealing, a protesting noise. In a horrifying split second I realized that the great pile of logs was falling, coming down on top of me.

I had no time to jump clear. Instinct flung up my hands to protect my head. Taut, trembling with fear, I crouched lower.

The sliding timber seemed to hesitate, silent for an instant. Then with a thunderous roar it was upon me.

I was being crushed. Surely I would be smashed to pulp by those massive logs. Nothing could survive such a murderous pounding.

But by some miracle I wasn’t crushed. Incredibly I was scarcely more than bruised. It was probably some moments, a full minute perhaps, before my battered senses grasped the astonishing fact that my body was still whole.

I was trapped within a cage, a lattice-work cage of logs. In falling, the great tree trunks had somehow locked themselves and interlocked. They were arched around me, each one a keystone that held all the rest.

Light came filtering through to me. There was even a needle shaft or two from the sun where it could find a direct path. I tried to push fear away and concentrate my thoughts on getting free.

Just ahead of me I could see a space where there was a little more room, and I decided to try to wriggle my way into it. Very carefully I edged forward, bringing up one knee.

Immediately, the logs above me shifted. It was only the smallest movement, but enough to terrify me. Next time I might not be so lucky.

I crouched, utterly still, sweating. I wasn’t thinking how the accident had happened. I wasn’t any longer thinking how I could get out. All my attention was focused upon keeping utterly still, controlling every breath with infinite measured care.

But at last I collected the courage to think again about escape. The answer, when it came, was a huge relief, because it absolved me from taking any action myself.

What I had to do was to go on staying quite still, to keep perfectly calm, to suppress my frenzied longing to get free. To wait.

Someone was bound to find me soon, I reasoned. Even if no one else passed by, Craig would come looking for me when I didn’t turn up at our rendezvous. Wouldn’t he? He might decide to return to the castle first, and that would make it longer. But eventually he would find me. He must find me.

At the very most, I promised myself, it will be no more than a couple of hours.

My arm was twisted above my head and by an odd chance I could see the face of my watch without moving. The hands seemed to stand still. But after an agonizing lifetime, when they had covered a full forty minutes, I heard—I thought I heard—the faint sound of voices.

I stifled the shout that rose in my throat. Dare I cry out? Dare I risk dislodging the precarious pile?

While my whirling brain calculated the danger, the voices drew nearer, quite positive now. I prayed that whoever it was would have seen the collapsed pile of logs.

“Help,” I cried in a carefully controlled shout. “Help.”

“My God! Is that you, Lucy?” It was Craig’s voice.

The next second he was close alongside. “What’s happened? Are you badly hurt?”

“No, I think I’m all right. But I’m scared it will all start shifting again.”

“Stay exactly as you are,” he commanded urgently. “Don’t move an inch. It won’t take us long to get you out. Try not to worry.”

He started rapping out brisk instructions to his companion, who was, I now realized, Lambert Nairn. The two men grunted with effort as they lifted the heavy tree trunks, picking them off me with delicate care. And having lifted them with such precision, Craig and Lambert Nairn flung them aside carelessly. I could hear the thumps as they rolled away, crashing through the undergrowth.

It went on like that for a long time, but at length there were only half a dozen trees left, propped up around me like a wigwam.

Craig knelt down and peered through at me anxiously. “You mustn’t move yet, Lucy—it’s still dangerous. We won’t be long now.”

I was watching Craig, but I got a glimpse of Lambert Nairn’s face. His expression betrayed great anxiety. I had a feeling, though, that it was not me he was worrying about, but himself.

It wasn’t the moment for seeing into another person’s mind, but I thought I understood. Nairn was concerned that I might show undue recognition—more, that is, than I would naturally display toward a man I had met only once, and very casually, at a dinner party. He was afraid that our previous meeting on this very path might come out. And a whole lot more besides!

As a married man—and even more as a neighbor of Craig’s—Nairn was desperately anxious that his affair with Margo should be kept secret.

He need not have worried himself. I hadn’t the slightest wish to blacken my cousin’s name still further in Craig’s mind.

With a last combined effort the two men heaved at the few remaining logs, pushing them clear of me in one swift movement.

In a curious way I felt naked and exposed. I longed to jump up and reclaim a proper dignity, but I found I couldn’t move. My legs were numb, the muscles utterly without power.

Craig crouched over me, stroking back the hair from my face.

“Are you quite sure you’re all right? No bones broken?”

I shook my head weakly. “I... I don’t think so.”

With gentle competence he swiftly ran his hands over me, probing. I felt his fleeting touch on my legs and arms, and then a deliberate pressure against my ribs,

Craig appeared to be satisfied. “Let me help you up.”

But it wasn’t mere help he gave me. Craig seemed to take my whole weight, lifting me in his powerful arms. As my feet touched the ground, pins and needles started prickling fiercely, first in one leg and then in both. I toppled against him uncertainly.

“Sorry,” I said with a feeble smile. “I expect it’ll pass in a minute.”

Now that the crisis was over, Craig turned on Lambert Nairn. The violence of his voice contrasted with his tenderness toward me.