Hospital in the Highlands (8 page)

CHAPTER TEN

M
eg Lamont was quite cheerful during that Saturday before the ceilidh, which pleased Flo. Glen Lochallan, it would appear, had more to offer in the way of forgetfulness to the blighted heart than life in the teeming city.

Of course Flo was not to know that while she was taking her bath there was a visitor to Rowans, a pastoral visitor in the person of the Reverend Michael Lammering, who told Meg that his call was quite unofficial; in fact he merely wished to be assured that the sisters were being satisfactorily transferred to Lochside that evening, as he was invited and would be most happy to act as escort and chauffeur.

“Oh, Mr. Strathallan has already offered,” Meg told the other, “but it is very kind of you, Padre.”

“Not at all, Miss Lamont. It would have been my pleasure.” Meg didn’t mention the offer to her sisters, for it wasn’t as though it was important. Still, it was nice to know Mr. Lammering would be at the gathering, as he was such a pleasant young man.

Fay was conspicuous by her absence most of the day, and when she hadn’t arrived home at six p.m. Flo felt rather anxious and cycled half a mile t
o
the nearest telephone to find out if Doctor Bexley knew where she was.

“I haven’t seen Fluff since she did the library,” Keith said somewhat acidly. “I don’t go in for kidnapping, my girl. It does seem she takes me into her confidence more than her family. I happen to know she’s having an audition today.
”

“An audition?” Flo gasped. “For what?”

“Some job or other, playing in a hotel. I also happen to be busy, Flo, so if you don’t mind I’ll ring off.
Give Meg my regards
.”

They hung up at the same moment, each impatient with the other now that lack of sympathy had been established. Flo cycled back thoughtfully to Rowans.

“A job in a hotel?” she pondered. “Maybe that would be ideal for Fay, but why couldn’t she tell us what she was doing?” Pixie, however, had found a letter from Fay in her bedroom, which she handed over excitedly to Meg.

“Sisters, dear,” Fay had written cynically, “just in case you miss me I am hoping to get a job in Alec Wylie’s orchestra, which plays through the season at the Heather Hotel, and he has suggested that I show him what I can do by playing in the quartet for the afternoon teas! Sounds
ghastly,
doesn’t it? However, the fees are pretty good and this ‘pop’ stuff I can play standing on my head. I may, therefore, be late for the ceilidh, but will make my own way there. You’ll be sure to know when I arrive!”

“That’s all right, isn’t it?” Meg asked.

“All the same, I wish she had gone with us to the ceilidh,” Flo said thoughtfully. “I don’t quite like that ‘You’ll be sure to know when I arrive’ bit. How can she change her dress?”

“Maybe she took it with her,” Pixie said. “I lent her my weekend case this morning, first thing. She came into my room and asked for it, and she gave me a shilling. I couldn’t believe it!”

“We’d better get ready, I suppose,” Meg decided, quite blithely. “I’m not letting Fay spoil
my
fun, if you are, Flo.”

Flo hesitated only a moment over the bright length of tartan ribbon before taking it across her chest and fastening it both at waist and shoulder with the amber-headed pins enclosed in the package.

Would Meg comment on the sash, she wondered?

Meg did, but only briefly.

“You look lovely, Flo, and I see you’re following this Highland fashion of wearing a tartan. It shows up against the white. Have I seen that dress before?” Without waiting for an answer she pirouetted and asked, “How do I look? Will I do?”

“You look lovely, Meg, and so much younger!”

Flo’s hand flew to her lips as she realized what she had said. “It’s all right,” grimaced the other. “I can take it. I was beginning to qualify for the old age pension, according to Pixie,
but I want to look my real age tonight and—and forget some things.”

Robert Strathallan arrived in good time and proved to be a fairy godfather, however.

“I’ve come to ask a favor,” he said craftily, after observing Pixie’s dejected countenance. “I’ve just had television installed at Glen Lochallan, and my young brother declares it’s no fun watching it alone. I wondered if Miss Pixie could keep him company and have supper with him? My housekeeper will bring her home in the estate car whenever she feels tired.”

“Oh, let me!” Pixie urged desperately. “Let me go, Meg! There’s always a good show on T.V. on Saturdays.”

“Well, I—I think you can, dear,” Meg said, all of a flutter. “Thank you, Mr. Strathallan.”

“Right!” So far he hadn’t appeared to glance in Flo’s direction. “If you and your sister will get in the back of the car, and the wee one in the front with me, we’ll drop her off first.”

Flo had wanted him to notice her, had wanted him to see that she was wearing his tartan as requested. Huddled in the back of the car, however, she could only observe his apparent determination to engage Meg in conversation. He asked her how she was liking the Highlands, if she had ever danced a reel, and whether she had any views on man and the kilt? Meg was positively lilting as she answered him, and Flo—who should have been happy for her sister’s apparent success—could only wish that she could recapture the Robert who had so hesitantly, in the darkness last evening, asked her to make him proud by wearing his ribbon.

Pixie was deposited in the big house on the hillside, and then the car descended the road to where the lights of the town made a necklace which hung above the dark waters of the loch.

Colonel MacGregor’s house was low and rambling, but acquainted with every modern convenience, including central heating. It was still cold in the evenings in these parts, and the warmed air was welcome once wraps were discarded. Introductions were effected quickly and easily, and though everything about the occasion was well-bred, there was a certain amount of curiosity among the other guests to see the females who had come to live among them, and whose reputation for good looks had travelled ahead of them.

Meg’s hair was fair and waved naturally: she wore it short, and the royal blue velvet dress she had on complemented her eyes. The eldest and the youngest both had their father’s colouring, but Fay had unusual eyes, green and catlike under long, golden eyelashes. Flo was brown-haired and brown-eyed, and didn’t expect to turn any heads this evening. Nevertheless she
did, for her figure was small and exquisite: even fifteen-year-old Pixie’s proportions were more magnanimous than Flo’s, and they often joked about the matter, saying that “little sister” did not now apply to the youngest member of the family.

Still Robert Strathallan had not put himself about to justify his previous request. He idled the time away talking to various people while Colonel and Mrs. MacGregor made the necessary introductions on the newcomers’ behalf and Flo explained that Fay would probably be late, having been detained in town.

“I think we’d better warm up with a Strathspey, my dear,” the Colonel said to his lady. “That’s the best way of shaking up the mixture.” He turned to Meg, smiling. “Do you dance, Miss Lamont?”

“Only ballroom fashion, I’m afraid,” she laughed. “But we’d love to watch, wouldn’t we, Flo?”

Flo tore her eyes away from the splendor of the menfolk who were present, their kilts—whether bright or braided and brightly buttoned, their lace cuffs and j
a
bots immaculate.

“Yes, we would,” she agreed, and back went her eyes to the colorful throng. The Strathallan of Glen Lochallan stood half a head above the rest of them, and he had shoulders that must have been the despair of his tailor, like a Highland bull. His dress kilt, equal squares of red and green with white and yellow intersecting lines, was of a finer material than the one he wore normally, and the plaid—which was more an item of decoration than necessity—was fastened on his left shoulder with a large cairngorm
.

“Ye’re not here to sit and watch,” Colonel MacGregor said jovially. “Your feet will follow the rhythm soon enough. Come on!”

He took both girls by the hand and led them forward like two debutantes.

“Here I have two willing pupils,” he said ringingly. “Who’s for the honor?”

There was no lack of volunteers. Meg was claimed by Michael Lammering, who was not a Scot by birth and so did not wear a kilt, and Flo found herself looking up at the chest of a slim, very young man who was a son of the house.

“I hope you won’t find me a bad pupil, Mr. MacGregor,” she said rather nervously. “I should know what a Strathspey is, but I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Don’t worry, Miss Lamont. It’s not unlike the English dance, Sir Roger de Coverley. It’s slow and—we like to think—graceful.”

“Don’t you think it’s disgraceful, young Roderick, that Miss Essie is without a partner?” demanded a new voice.

Flo looked up. Her heart did its usual gymnastic leap as she recognized the laird.

“Sir?” inquired Roderick MacGregor.

“I think you’d better dance with Essie MacPhie, and I’ll look after Miss Flo. She’ll excuse you.”

Roderick bowed somewhat regretfully in Flo’s direction and went off.

“Why couldn’t
you
have danced with this Essie, Mr. Strathallan?” she asked as coolly as she dared.

“Because she wouldna thank me for my company, and my eyes would be wandering after you.” He took her arm very firmly in his own and really seemed to look at her for the first time that evening. “Now that you’ve been shown off by our host, Miss Flo, I consider I’ve resigned enough of you to make my welcome good. You’re wearing
my
tartan, and you’ll dance with me. Unless,” he added, “you have strong feelings against that arrangement?” Her heart soared with happiness as her eyes fell.

“If that’s all right,” she agreed softly. “I don’t want to keep you from your other friends.”

“A ceilidh is a mingling,” he explained, “but not quite as free and easy as your ballroom affairs. We usually stick to our partners, and numbers are asked accordingly.”

“Is there somebody for Fay, when she comes?”

“There’s an elder MacGregor son somewhere about. It takes a face as pretty as your sister’s to drag him from a bottle.” Somehow they were in a line the length of the room, and on either side of the french windows stood the pipers, magnificent in bearskins, plaids, chequered hose and buckskin-topped boots. The abandon of the drones seemed to put fire in the blood, suddenly, and as the lilt of the tune whined out light feet tripped on to the floodlit smooth lawns and the dancers took up their positions in sixes and stepped and turned and honored and bowed in time to the music.

Flo enjoyed every minute of the dance, and in a nearby set she could see that Meg was enjoying herself with the padre, also. Each time Robert Strathallan’s arm went around her she became slightly delirious, and she wondered what falling in love with such a man would do to a woman.

There wasn’t much respite between dances, for the night air was cool and there was a white mist rising from the waters of the loch. After an eightsome reel Flo felt she must rest or die, however, and she had actually to cling to her partner while she fought for breath, though she still laughed when she could.

“Don’t go in just yet,” he said as the others wandered indoors. “You haven’t seen the gardens.”

He unpinned his plaid and draped it shawl-wise around her shoulders, and his hands trembled as he did so.

“Not that way,” he told her as she nervously edged away. “There’s nothing there but dark water, ninety feet deep in parts.”

“Any monsters?” she asked faintly as he led her away from the lights, and panic welled in her bosom.

“I don’t keep such things in my glen,” he assured her, and now they were in darkness and there were scents of narcissi and tulips and wallflowers and pine-needles and—romance.

“There’s nothing happening here,” she said wildly. “Let’s go back!”

“Something’s going to happen, Miss Flo, if you’ve no objection?”

Her head floated away as his arms reached round her, drawing her onto her tiptoes.

“Miss Flo, Florence,” he said, caressing every syllable of her name, “I cannot be patient any longer. Ever since I first saw you I knew what must be done, and this is my promise to that end.” His lips, firm and muscular, descended, drawing what she had
regained of her breath quite away. For a long time they clung together, thus, then she laid her hot cheek against his heart, hearing its thunder and strangely loth to speak. His hand caressed her hair, and then there was the demand for her lips again, a demand to which she acceded far too readily for her own peace of mind.

“This has to stop,” came the murmur of conscience below the roar of desire. “He has to be tol
d
about Jim.”

But she could no more have spoken of Jim in that moment than
fly.

Just then there was an altercation outside the house.

“Of course I’m invited, you fool!” came a female voice, indignantly. “Take your filthy hands off me!”

“Fay!” said Flo in dismay. “She has arrived!”