Call of Glengarron (2 page)

If I’d thought there was the slightest chance of keeping him, I’d have made a fight of it. But I knew I hadn’t a hope. To resist the father’s demands, and then inevitably lose, would do Jamie absolutely no good at all. It was better to make the break now, putting the brightest complexion on it that I could manage.

At least I had a few days left. Enough, perhaps, to wean Jamie away from such dependence on me and help him accept his new environment.

Craig’s aunt, Isabel Lennox, had written me from Glengarron Castle. Craig, it seemed, wanted his son there when he arrived home, which would be just as soon as he could wind up his work with the U.N. experimental forestry unit in the Middle East. I was asked to take Jamie up to Scotland. Mrs. Lennox suggested that it might be a good idea if I stayed over for a couple of days to help him settle in.

The letter was rather vague and abstracted. She barely referred to Margo, and betrayed no grief over her death. Condescendingly—though usefully—she enclosed a check to cover traveling expenses from London to Inverness. At least it looked as if Craig’s aunt was aware that I was a working girl.

I rang the office and outlined the position to my boss. Already I’d been off work for over a week while I coped with Jamie, and I asked if he’d let me count this time against my vacation.

Mr. Bentley brushed my suggestion aside briskly. “Forget it, Lucy. You take whatever time off you need, and we’ll call it compassionate leave. That poor little kid’s had a rough deal in life.”

I was surprised that he seemed to know so much about Jamie, until I rumbled that Mike Rogers must have filled in the details. As a free-lance photographer, Mike had run across Margo from time to time, and he was currently doing quite a bit of work for my own firm. Just lately we’d been going around together. Mike had developed rather a thing about me, and though I wasn’t able to feel quite the same for him, he doggedly kept on trying.

When the phone rang a few minutes before Jamie and I were due to leave, I wasn’t a bit surprised to find Mike on the line.

“Thought I’d rouse myself at the crack of dawn just to wish you
bon voyage....”
He yawned. “Or is that right for a plane trip?”

I smiled into the phone. “It sounds okay to me.”

“How’s the kid bearing up?” The underlying laughter that was almost a permanent feature of Mike’s voice was missing now. “You poor darling —is it awfully grim for you?”

I glanced quickly at Jamie. He still sat on the floor, aimlessly zipping and unzipping the bag. He didn’t appear to be taking any notice of me, but I was wary.

I made myself sound cheerful. “We’re looking forward to the flight, aren’t we, Jamie?”

He craned his neck to look up at me. “Will it be a jet, Lucy?”

“Did you hear that? Jamie wants to know if our plane will be a jet.”

With masculine scorn at my ignorance, Mike launched into a string of incomprehensible technicalities.

I grinned at Jamie. “He says it will probably be a jet.”

I was just going to say goodbye and hang up when Mike cut in, “Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you. I ran into Joe Ellison—you know, the picture man on
Glamour—
and he said he saw Margo the night she died.”

“Really? Did he say where?”

“Yup. Having dinner with some bloke at the Albatross.”

I wasn’t very knowledgeable when it came to the smarter restaurants. They were way out beyond my sphere.

“You know—in Mayfair. Very posh.”

“I wonder why it didn’t come out when the police were asking questions?’’ I had to be so terribly careful what I said, with Jamie within hearing. “I mean ... well, nobody came forward, did they?”

Mike laughed—a grating, worldly-wise sneer that he liked to put on sometimes. “You’re altogether too innocent for this big city, darling. What would the chap’s wife have said, if she discovered what hubby was really up to that time he was supposed to be kept late at the office with a client?”

“I don’t know why you’re always getting in nasty digs about Mar—about
her.
She wasn’t a bit the sort you make out.”

Mike laughed again, but it was a much gentler sound this time. “I suppose I’d better let you hang onto a few illusions.”

It was grossly unfair to poor Margo. Just because she was a model, everyone automatically assumed her to have been free and easy with men. Of course she appeared to be terribly glamorous, and in her job she’d had to mix with a lot of men. But beneath the facade of sophistication I reckoned I’d known my cousin better than anyone else.

We had always been close, in spite of the five years between us. We’d been drawn together more than most cousins because we had both of us lost our mothers while we were still children. They had been twins, her mother and mine—though as different as chalk from cheese. They had died from quite separate causes within six months of one another. Margo was sixteen at the time, and I was only eleven and from then on we’d seen a good deal of one another. When Margo’s father sold his home to take the post at St. Meredith’s, she came to live at our house. This happy arrangement lasted until her early success as a model enabled Margo to take her own apartment.

I was sixteen myself when my father, a research scientist, was killed in an accident during an experiment with some new electronic equipment. Margo did a lot to help me then, fixing me up at a Y.W.C.A. hostel while I went to secretarial college. Later on, she got me my job with a public relations firm—Margo seemed to know everyone concerned with the publicity game.

My cousin kept up her almost sisterly interest in me. Whenever she could find the time, she’d take me out for the evening. Complimentary theater tickets sometimes came her way, and even if she couldn’t make it herself, she’d often pass them on to me so I could dazzle a friend with the grandeur of front seats.

And then, quite suddenly, Margo was engaged to be married. He came, apparently, from a wealthy Scottish family with a large estate in the Highlands. Margo had been in Edinburgh for a week, modeling Scottish tweeds, and met Craig McKinross at a university party. They had fallen in love almost on sight, and naturally I thought it was terribly romantic.

Within three months the wedding was arranged, and hardly before I could turn around it was all over. Margo went off to live in Edinburgh, while Craig completed his post-graduate studies in agriculture and forestry. I was left in London, consoled by occasional glowing letters from Margo, and dreams of one day finding myself a husband like Craig McKinross.

It wasn’t long, though, before the letters began to tell a different story. The marriage wasn’t working out. Margo confessed that her husband was egotistical and selfish, a thoroughly unsociable man who demanded his own way in everything. As the months went by he grew more and more difficult, denying her any social life at all. And that, to a girl with Margo’s background, was sheer cruelty. In the end she was forced to leave him.

She came back to London, bringing with her the two-year-old Jamie. Full of bitterness, she was utterly determined never to return to her husband.

It seemed to be a total break. Margo never referred to any further contact between them. There must, in fact, have been some sort of communication, if only to settle up the loose ends. But she kept that to herself. It was almost by chance that I discovered Craig had packed up and gone abroad, somewhere or other in the Middle East.

“Mooching around studying his beastly trees, I suppose,” said Margo. “Well, good riddance to him. As far as I’m concerned, the farther away he is, the better.” Whenever she spoke of Craig, there was fierce loathing in her voice.

And now Margo was dead, and I was to deliver her small son to his father. How could I do that without a heavy heart?

I heard a car door slam, and went to the window to look down. A taxi was drawn up outside the house.

“Come on, Jamie,” I cried, making a cheerful bustle. “We’re off now. It won’t be long before we’re up in the air, high above the clouds.”

“But I don’t want ...” he began again. I knew that this was the critical moment. If I could get him out of the flat without tears the battle was half won. It was a battle that I hated having to fight at all, trying to win the boy’s allegiance to his father—a man I despised.

All Jamie’s luggage and my own suitcase were piled in the downstairs hall. I grabbed up the canvas bag stuffed at the last minute with toys, caught hold of his hand, and ran with him down the stairs, laughing.

Hearing our clatter, my landlady popped out from her kitchen, the smell of breakfast bacon wafting after her plump figure. Mrs. Collins knew a whole lot more about the unhappy business than I’d ever told her.

“Poor little lad,” she said, coming toward the front door with us. “It’s not right, the way he’s being pushed around....”

I shook my head in quick warning. “We’re off to Scotland in a great big airplane,” I cried gaily. “It’ll be such fun.”

She got the idea at once. “Yes indeed it will. I wish I was coming too. I’ve never been up in an airplane.”

She came out to the cab and chatted through the window while the driver loaded the bags. Then she stepped back and waved goodbye vigorously.

As we moved off, I noticed the twitch of curtains at neighboring houses down Faraday Road. Mrs. Collins, I realized, had not been idle yesterday.

There was enough going on at London airport to catch Jamie’s interest, beginning with the drive through the long entrance subway. Jets screamed a few feet over our heads, loudspeakers crackled announcements. It was a fantastic new world to him. We were shifted through the various stages of embarkation like a couple of fragile parcels —gently, but with an impersonal efficiency.

But the stewardess, neat and attractive in her dark blue uniform, had a personal smile for Jamie. “We’ll be off soon now, young man.”

“It isn’t a jet,” said Jamie, sorrowfully shaking his head. “I saw the prop ... prop ... ellers.”

In his resentful bewilderment Jamie seemed to have latched onto this one issue, as if it symbolized his fate. Would it be a jet—or not? Would he be happy in Scotland—or not?

And it was not a jet.

Before I had time to react, the stewardess was smoothly gathering up the broken pieces.

“No, not a jet today, dear. But you’re very lucky to be on this particular plane, because we’re giving away souvenirs.”

“Souv’nirs,” exclaimed Jamie. “What’s souv’nirs?”

Fascinated, I watched the girl improvising like mad. She fingered the shiny airline badge on her uniform lapel. “Why, one of these special mascots,” she said, slipping it out and giving it to him.

Jamie stared, much impressed. “Gosh.”

That wasn’t all the stewardess did to help me keep Jamie happy throughout the flight. Without a word of explanation from me, she’d caught on to Jamie’s special need for attention. Even the aircraft’s lordly captain was produced for Jamie’s awed inspection.

A car was to collect us at Inverness airport. I didn’t anticipate any difficulty, as obviously the chauffeur would have instructions to look out for a young woman with a five-year-old boy. We were the only ones on the plane remotely fitting that description.

As we walked across the tarmac toward the airport buildings, I breathed in deeply. I couldn’t remember tasting air like wine before, but this was it. Sharp, tangy, a dry bite lingering on the palate. Immediately I felt fortified, ready to cope with whatever lay ahead.

But I soon found I wasn’t ready after all. Jamie, holding tight to my hand, looked up at me puzzledly as I stopped in confusion. I pulled myself together, trying to act normally, entirely without surprise. I had to avoid my agitation communicating itself to him. Somehow or other I had to conceal my true feelings toward the tall, dark-haired man who was walking slowly in our direction.

I swallowed hard and forcibly injected a note of happy excitement into my voice.

“Look, Jamie darling,” I cried. “See over there. That’s your daddy.”

Craig McKinross was just as I had carried him in my mind, and yet quite utterly different. The leanly handsome face, the jet black hair, the determined set of his shoulders— those things were all still there. But his old carefree way had gone. Lines of strain marked his face and his smoky eyes were glowering.

Well, I thought bitterly, if life has been a disappointment for you, Craig McKinross, whose fault is that? A mite less preoccupation with yourself, a little readiness to treat Margo as a human being, and you could still have been leading a happy married life with her.

If the man had a shred of decency in him, he must be weighed down with guilt—the dreadful knowledge that his wife’s suicide stemmed from his own unspeakable treatment of her.

How I would have welcomed an opportunity to let my anger loose on him! But I had to keep the cork on for little Jamie’s sake. My goal was to foster a good relationship between father and child.

Jamie was gripping my hand, hanging back. As we drew near, Craig McKinross switched his attention from the two of us and focused on his son alone. The set expression eased into a half smile—only a half-smile, but immediately it brought warmth to his face. Then he raised his eyes to meet mine. The trace of a smile had vanished. His face was blank as he held out his hand in perfunctory greeting.

“Good morning, Miss Calvert.”

Before, six years ago, it had been Lucy.

“Good ... good morning.” Jamie was trying to hide himself away behind me, and I pulled him forward. “Say hello to your daddy, Jamie.”

Again I saw the tiny smile hovering. The stern eyes came sparkling to life, and momentarily I was reminded of the Craig I had once known—the man I had mooned over in my private dreams.

Craig squatted on his heels and held out both arms. “Hello, Jamie,” he said softly. I could sense the shyness in the man, the uncertainty—and the hope.

Jamie wouldn’t respond. He buried his face in my skirt.

“Jamie,” said Craig, more loudly this time. “Come on, Jamie....”

“Say hello to your daddy,” I repeated.

The only answer was an even more determined pressure of his nose against my thigh, a more compulsive grip on my fingers.