Prisoner of Love (10 page)

“Lance? He’s fourteen. He’s going to be so excited about everything up here, Blair,” she added. “You can imagine a boy of his age being let loose in the glen!”

“We’ll have to teach him to fish,” he said with an oddly reminiscent smile. “I cast my first fly at that age—successfully. It wasn’t so very far from here, either,” he added, “and I thought the man who taught me to use the rod and gaff was pretty wonderful! The eyes of youth are readily given to that sort of hero-worship, I suppose.”

“I was wondering about that,” Laura said tentatively. “There’s nobody around about to show Lance—”

“Do you want me to do it?” he asked.

“I'd like you to, if it isn’t too much to ask.”

“I still possess enough energy for a day’s fishing,” he said rather bitterly. “Bring him up to the lodge when he feels like it and we’ll have a day together along the burn.”

Laura hugged the offer to her all the way to Dunraven. Lance would love the experience, and it would be something to interest Blair, too. Later, they might even take out the yacht. But, no, she decided swiftly. That decision had better wait until Julius got back.

“Is your brother traveling up from London alone?” Blair asked as they neared the causeway.

“I think so. Really,” Laura confessed, “I’m waiting for word from Julius. It was all arranged quite suddenly, you see. Julius had to go to London in rather a hurry, and he promised to send Lance up as soon as he got there.”

“Yes,” Blair said. “He left me some capsules on the way to the station. He’s trusting me with these rather than trouble your Morag to give me the usual injection.”

Julius had not mentioned the injections to Laura, and after he had gone she had wondered about them; but Blair was looking so vastly improved now that she had thought Julius must have decided to do without drugs altogether.

“Are you sleeping any better?” she asked kindly. “That’s the most important thing.”

“I got five hours at a stretch last night, and that was about my usual before—this happened. I could always get along with a minimum of sleep.”

“Like most good doctors!” she smiled, and was instantly sorry that she had made the remark because his eyes darkened with the old pain of failure and he took his leave of her almost abruptly.

When Lance arrived two days later she told him about Blair’s offer. Zachray MacKellar had run her to the station to meet the train and brought them back to Dunraven, but he could not be persuaded to come in.

“I’ve got lots of work waiting to be done,” he excused himself. “How about you coming up to Garvie and lending a hand, Lance?” he suggested to cover up any embarrassment Laura might have felt at his refusal to accept her hospitality. “There’s always lots to do and see on a farm.”

Lance looked eagerly in Laura’s direction.

“May I?” he asked. “And would you come too, Laurie?”

“I’m sure you would like it very much,” Laura said, thinking how kind everyone was being in Julius’s absence. “And of course I’ll go with you.”

“Mr. MacKellar’s very nice,” Lance proclaimed as they stood watching Zachray drive away. “Is everyone up here like that?”

“The few people there are!” Laura smiled. “One of Julius’s patients has offered to teach you to fish. He’s living up in a shooting lodge in the glen just now. It’s a sort of experiment with his health that Julius is trying out, but I think it might be better if you didn't mention it. He’s rather sensitive about being ill, you see.”

“He must be able to get about all right if he can fish,” Lance decided. “Golly! This is going to be a wizard sort of holiday—coming all that way in the train by myself, and having a sleeper, and you meeting me—”

“Lance,” Laura asked, “who put you on the train?”

“In London? Oh—Holmes, of course. Julius was too busy.”

“And Holmes took you to Ashleigh. Has Julius heard the result of your examination?”

“Not yet, I don’t think.” Lance looked worried. “I hope I’ve done all right. Julius would be furious if I failed.”

Laura turned in the doorway, feeling the house behind her suddenly chill and cold.

“What makes you say that?” she asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s just the sort of feeling you get with Julius. He’s so clever. I suppose he thinks it’s all easy enough—to be brilliant, I mean.” He ran a hand through his hair, a small gesture he had when he was confused, and Laura put a comforting arm about his shoulders.

“Don’t worry about it,” she advised. “And, anyway, I don’t think you’ll fail.”

“What would happen if I did, Laurie?” he asked anxiously.

“We’re not going to consider that possibility,” she told him firmly. “It’s no use crossing our bridges before we come to them.”

“Talking about bridges," he grinned. “What a great place this is, with the bridge across to the island and the house built on it! It’s like a fortress.”

“I thought you might find it a bit grim,” Laura said with relief, “but I can see you like it.”

“Like it! I think it’s terrific! Does it all belong to Julius?”

“Yes.”

“It’s rather strange,” Lance observed, walking about the hall, “Julius wanting to live all this way from London, but then I suppose he can live where he likes.”

“Yes,” Laura said again as Morag came into the hall at the sound of their voices.
“
Lance,” she introduced them, “this is Mrs. Finlayson, Julius’s housekeeper.”

“My goodness! Isn’t it the big boy he is!” Morag exclaimed with her warmest smile. “We will have to be getting out a kilt for him one of these days and making a true Highlandman of him!”

“Could you?” Lance asked eagerly, taking her at her word. “I’ve always wanted to wear a kilt. Could you find one, Mrs. Finlayson, do you think?”

“I will have to have a try!” Morag promised, looking at Laura. “What does Mistress Behar think about it?”

“I think it’s ideal,” Laura said. “But isn’t there some question about having the ‘right’ to wear a tartan?”

“Oh, indeed
!
” Morag agreed. “But we could be turning a blind eye to that, just for once, I think! Go up and see the MacKellars,” she advised Lance. “They’re sure to have a kilt of some sort hidden away in a drawer.”

Under these conditions, Lance could hardly wait till he got to Garvie Lodge, and when he found himself the proud possessor of one of Zachray’s outgrown kilts his delight was complete. He swaggered about in it and would not change it for his corduroy shorts even when he went up the glen for his first fishing lesson with Blair.

Laura hadn’t seen Blair for two days and she was rather anxious about him. Julius had not asked her to keep an eye on his patient, of course, but it seemed only neighborly to go and see how he was.

He was lying on a long cane chair on the verandah when they looked up at the lodge from the path beneath it. When he saw them he put the book he had been reading aside and came to lean on the rail as they negotiated the final steeper stretch to the door.

“Come up and have a seat for a minute till you get back your breath,” he invited. “I’ll see what Callum can do about some coffee.”

Laura looked up at him, recognizing instantly, that he must have had two distressing nights. All the progress he had seemed to be making had been wiped out by a recurrence of the fever that he had suffered from for weeks in London, and her heart began to beat unsteadily as she wondered what was the best thing to do in the circumstances. She introduced Lance and sent him in search of Callum.

“Blair—don’t worry about the fishing trip," she said swiftly. “Lance can come up another day, when you feel better.”

He smiled, turning to face her.

“You’re seeing the aftermath,” he told her. “The worst of the attack was over twenty-four hours ago.
”

“Why didn’t you send for me?” she asked. “You should have done. Callum could have come down with a message and I would have done what I could.”

“And risked Julius’s wrath when he discovered that I had exposed you to a midnight journey up the glen? Callum wanted to bring you,” he mused reminiscently when he saw her flush. “I think he felt that I was likely to pass out on him at any moment. Thank heaven I was able to tell him what to do before things got really frightening,” he added whimsically. “I think the terror on his face kept me more or less conscious all the ti
m
e, though. I felt far more sorry for Callum than I did for myself, as a matter of fact!”

She knew that he was trying to minimize his ordeal, but probably he was right when he said that the fever had subsided. All the same, she insisted on taking his temperature and his pulse.

“Laura,” he said with the thermometer still in his mouth, “how long were you a nurse?”

“Long enough to decide that you’re not going fishing with a temperature,” she told him firmly.

“You’re wasting your time,” he said. “I know whether I have a temperature or not.”

“You have a very quick pulse.”

“That’s quite natural—under the circumstances!”

She took the thermometer out of his mouth and examined it
.

“No?” he said hopefully.

“It’s only one degree above,” she was forced to admit. “All the same, Blair, I want you to rest.”

“You told me not so very long ago that fishing was by far and away the best relaxation I could find,” he reminded her, “and I mean to fish. You wouldn’t have me let Lance down, would you—kilt and all?” he grinned. “Where did he get it? From MacKellar?”

“Yes. It was one Zachray had when he was about Lance’s age.” Laura stood uncertainly, facing him in the morning sunshine. “If you do mean to defy me,” she said, “I’m coming, too.”

“To pick up the fragments when I fall to pieces?” he asked with sudden bitterness. “They wouldn’t be a lot of use to you, Laura.”

The change of mood had been so utterly unexpected that she could not pretend not to have noticed.

“You’re bound to have this sort of setback, Blair,” she reasoned, “until the effect of the germ is completely out of your system. I wish Julius hadn’t been in London,” she added with a hint of desperation in her voice. “There might have been something he could have done.”

“Julius couldn’t have done a great deal this time,” he said, turning back to the rail so that she could no longer see his face.
“
I practically brought it on myself.”

It was an admission she had not expected and one that she did not understand.

“How could you? These things
happen.
One doesn’t ‘bring them on’,” she pointed out.

“No?” He turned to face her again. “I decided to try an experiment of my own. I convinced myself that I could do without the capsules Julius left, but, you see, I was wrong.”

Dry, soul-shaking bitterness underlined the words. As a doctor he had failed once again. He had experimented and set himself back, possibly by weeks.

“Don’t look at it in that way, Blair,” she pleaded.

“What other way is there?” he demanded, his eyes darkened by pain. “I thought I knew what was going on inside me, but now I have to admit that I don’t.”

“You’re a surgeo
n
, not a physician,” she reminded him.

“What difference does that make?” he asked scathingly.

“This is a specialized branch of medicine. Julius knows all about it because he studied it—”

“My dear Laura,” he said flatly, “Julius is a genius. That is the real difference.”

“Blair!” she cried, her voice trembling, “don’t give in. It’s so unworthy of you.”

“What do you really know about me?” he asked.

“Laurie!” Lance called from the lodge doorway before she could find an answer, “I’ve got a rod! And come and see the flies! They’re all colors, and Callum has found me a creel to put the fish in!”

“You see,” Blair said in quite a different tone, “We’ve got to go. We couldn’t disappoint a budding Isaak Walton, and on such a day!”

CHAPTER NINE

“
You’ve fished every day for a week,” Laura pointed out several days later when Lance appeared for breakfast carrying the old pair of waders he had found in the gun room at Dunraven. “Blair can’t possibly want you up there every minute!”

“If he doesn’t he’s a hypochondriac—a hypocrite, I mean!” Lance retorted between hurried mouthfuls of oatmeal porridge. He had learned the “correct” way to eat it from Morag, spooning it into a separate bowl of rich goat’s milk, which she provided freshly each morning for his benefit. “He says it’s doing him all the good in the world, and he likes me to come. And it keeps him in fish,” he added with a true angler’s conceit.

“Seeing that you’ve only caught one salmon in a week—”
Laura began.

“Yes, but you should have seen the ones that got away!”

“Blair will hardly get very fat on those!” she teased him. “Did he really say you could go today?”

“Yes, honest he did! He’s great, isn’t he?” Lance enthused, having finished the porridge and started on two boiled eggs. “It would have been terrific if you had married someone like Blair—Oh! sorry, Sis!
”
he apologized in the same breath as he saw the quick color running into her cheeks. “I shouldn’t have said that, should I?”

“No,” Laura agreed in a voice she hardly recognized as her own. “You shouldn’t, Lance. You owe a lot to Julius, you know.”

“I guess so,” he said, looking ashamed.

“You’re coming up afterward, aren’t you?” he asked after a pause in which the second egg disappeared. “Blair said it was a sort of special day and we could take a picnic down to the rocks, only you’ve not to prepare anything this time because it’s his treat.”

Laura had been taking food up to the lodge, partly because fishing all day gave Lance a gargantuan appetite and partly because she considered that Blair needed extra nourishment apart from the rather rough-and-ready fare Callum prepared for him. Culinary art was hardly Callum’s strong point. He could make tea and stir coffee powder into a cup, filling it up with hot water, but eggs were his specialty. He boiled them hard or soft, but never medium, the three-minute art being something he did not understand. When they looked ready, Callum took them out of the water. It was as simple as that, and Blair never thought to complain.

“I can’t go till after the post gets here,” Laura told him. “But you go ahead and I’ll join you at the rocks.”

There had been no letter from Julius for the past three days, no indication of when he was likely to be back, and the postman was the only link between them. She had often wished that Dunraven was connected by telephone to the outside world, yet probably that would spoil its sense of isolation and peace for Julius. There was no telephone line near the coast at this point, in any case, so they were very dependent on the visits of Will-the-Post. They could see him coming a long way away, cycling down the glen road and up toward the causeway, and always, when he reached the bridge, he would hail them with his unmistakable blithe whistle that went gaily up and down the scale.

Laura found herself listening for it with a swiftly-beating heart after Lance had gone. If a letter came from Julius heralding his return it might only arrive a couple of hours before he came himself. Not that they had any need to prepare for his coming—not especially. He was accustomed to coming backward and forward as he pleased.

“Here’s the post!” Morag called, looking out of the dining-room window as she cleared the table. “He’s early today. There couldn’t have been anything for the lodge.”

Laura walked out toward the bridge, but there was nothing for her but a circular and a picture postcard from Gillian Davis, who had gone to Majorca for her summer holiday. The other letters, most of them official
-
looking documents in foolscap envelopes, were addressed to Julius.

With a peculiar sense of release she had no right to feel, she made her way to the glen for the picnic. It was easy enough to trace Blair and Lance by the sound of the latter’s ready laughter, and she followed the path along the burn with a smile.

“No self-respecting fish would ever get himself hooked in an atmosphere of this kind!” she chided when she came upon them fixing new flies to their rods.

“You’ve no idea how difficult it is!” Blair grinned. “Here! Have a try with this.”

He thrust a rod into her hands, but she drew back.

“I’m no good,” she protested. “Besides, I don’t like to see a fish on the end of a line.”

“No?” He looked at her and something in his eyes made her look swiftly away. “Better get hold of the landing net, then,” he said casually after a minute. “The burn’s full of big fellows this morning.”

They were in a coolly shaded spot where birch and alder met across the narrow chan
n
el that the water had gou
g
ed out of the solid rock, making deep pools of still, dark water between the scattered boulders. The sun filtered through the thick foliage in a desultory pattern of light and shade, dappling the water with little yellow pools of light. Blair took up his stand on one of the rocks.

There was no sound apart from birdsong and the murmur of the hidden burn, no break in the healing quiet of the hills. She felt that she could sit on here forever, unmoving, not even thinking very much, with her face turned to the sun.

Half an hour passed—an hour—and she felt the true endlessness of time stealing over her. But suddenly it was rudely shattered by a discordant yell from the bank.

“I’ve got one! I’ve got one! Blair! Blair! I’ve got a whopper!”

“You won’t have it for long,” she heard Blair say, “if you jump about like that and lose your head! Play him to this side of the pool—that’s it! Make him think he’s getting away and then secure your hook the way I showed you!”

His voice had risen to almost the same pitch of excitement as her brother’s, and Laura smiled as she went down the bank.

“Do you need any help?” she asked.

“No—no, stand back in case you slip in!”

“Which would mean losing a good fish!” she suggested with a laugh. “Oh well, call out when you want me to return, won’t you?”

“We may need you to bring the net,” Blair said, without taking his eyes from the struggle in midstream. “Ease him up a bit, Lance—toward you. That’s the way!”

It took them twenty minutes to land the salmon and it seemed like five. Laura found herself caught up by the excitement at last, standing on the bank above the pool with her heart in her mouth every time the reel spun out and the plunging fish seemed to gain a new lease on life. Blair had vaulted across to the bank to help Lance, and she saw the animation in his face and the sureness of his hands as further proof that the glen was setting its quiet seal on his recovery. A week or two of this—

“The net! Quick—the net!
”

She ran quickly and the salmon was flung into the net, but suddenly the ground beneath her feet seemed to give way. She clutched out helplessly, the glittering, bucking salmon beside her and then above her. She felt no more bank, only a desperate sensation of sliding rapidly down slabs of smooth rock to plunge straight into the ice-cold water below.

She heard Lance cry out before she was swept into sudden darkness through a long tunnel of rock with only a narrow opening to the sky. The deep water of the burn surged through it with a quick, dark deliberation, pressing swiftly onwards in its journey to the sea.

For an eternity, it seemed, she struggled before acceptance came, a vague, numbing acceptance that paralyzed both movement and thought. Her attempts to strike out toward the bank were futile, because here, there was no bank, only the sheer gray sides of the rock channel closing her in.

A great surge of water sang in her ears and the burn seemed to boil and tumble all about her. She struck out for the last time in an effort to swim, but the treacherous channel had narrowed, adding a power and ruthlessness to the surging torrent that buffeted her from side to side. Above the angry roar of the water there seemed to be no sound—no hope.

She was hardly aware of panic, and soon there was the beginning of a deep, comforting silence.

“Laura!”

The voice seemed to come from some great distance—Blair’s voice. She made a feeble, almost a despairing effort to reach it.

“Blair—”

“Hold on!”

He was in the water beside her, supporting her, keeping her head above the surface, and she clung to him desperately.

Slowly, terribly slowly, they edged their way toward the bank. He had come into the river at a spot just above the bridge where it widened a little, letting in more light, and suddenly Laura felt her feet touch the gravelly bottom of a shallow pool.

Blair was still supporting her and he, too, was on his feet. The darkness that had shadowed her brain suddenly cleared, and then, inexplicably, naturally, he held her close for a brief instant that defeated time. She felt his heartbeats strong and vital against her own, throbbing in unison with her swift return to life.

“Laura!” he said harshly, “I thought you’d gone!” His arms tightened, crushing her to him, and his lips came down against her hair. “It was a terrible moment—”

“Yes,” she whispered, aware of nothing but the continuing comfort of his arms, their unbelievable gentleness as he held her. “I—it happened so suddenly.”

He held her for a moment longer before he released her.

“All right now?” he asked with a forced casualness as Lance rushed up to them. “The main danger was knocking your head when you first went under. If you had lost consciousness—”

“Laurie!” Lance cried in a shaken voice. “Are you all right? You went in so suddenly nobody had time to think!”

“Blair did,” Laura said with a wavering smile. “Oh I think—perhaps—I’d better sit down—”

Reaction had set in and her limbs were trembling. She was also cold and very wet. Blair took the situation in hand with what appeared to be relief, glad, perhaps, of action after that moment of confusion when he had held her against him and put his lips to her hair.

“On you go ahead, Lance," he commanded, “and tell Callum to stoke up the fire and get something hot ready to drink. Blankets, too,” he added. “As many as he can find. We’ll have to dry Laura out!”

“And you!” Laura had tried to echo the lightness of his tone without success. “Blair,” she said, “I can never thank you enough—”

“Don’t try,” he said gruffly. “You didn’t expect me to let you drown without making some sort of effort, did you?”

“No,” she said, trying to smile. “But it was a near thing, wasn’t it?”

“Very near,” he agreed, his mouth gone suddenly grim.

Lance scrambled up the bank, racing off in the direction of the lodge, and Blair put out his hand to help her on to the bridge.

“I’m going to make you run,” Blair said. “All the way to the lodge.” She turned to obey him, only to be stopped by the distinct sound of a car’s engine far down the glen. In the quiet, windless air the sound traveled clearly up to them, and as they listened, the car climbed from bottom into second gear and then into top, purring quickly away into the distance.

Laura’s heart lurched forward with a little sickening jab, and Blair said: “It must have been MacKellar. I wonder if he was up at the lodge.”

“Wouldn’t he have come down to the burn to look for us?” she asked shakenly. “Callum would have told him where you were.”

“It may not have been important." He dismissed Zachray with a shrug. “What is important,” he added, looking at her closely, “is getting you dry. Come along!”

They ran, hand in hand, Blair helping her up the steeper places because it was quicker to go over the heather than up by the twisting path that led more gradually to the lodge.

Both Callum and Lance were standing on the verandah when they finally reached the small plateau, and Laura thought that Lance looked rather white and afraid. Callum darted indoors to throw more wood on the fire and make the cocoa Lance had ordered.

“Julius has been here,” Lance said, as if that might be the most important thing now.

“Julius!”

The word left Laura's lips on a sigh that had the sound of acceptance in it. It did not hold surprise. There had been the sound of the car drawing away, almost furtively it seemed now, as they had stood down there beside the bridge; the car drawing away and driving swiftly toward Dunraven.

“He came when he didn’t find us at Dunraven, I think,” Lance explained. “Callum told him we were fishing along the burn, but he said he preferred to wait for us at the house.”

Involuntarily Laura shivered.

“I’ve got to get back,” she said.

“Not until you’re dry and have had time to relax a bit.”

Blair was determined. She could see it in the hard set of his jaw and the grimly compressed mouth.

“You’d better nip down to the house and explain what’s happened,” he advised as Lance stood uncertainly in the doorway. “Julius will want to bring the car up when he knows.”

“No!” Laura protested. “I can quite easily walk down. Please, Blair—”