Summer of Love (19 page)

    
"You can speak, John! Didn’t your own dame kick you out of the
conjugal bed too?" interjected the third cook.

    
"Yes, I did," exclaimed one of the maids who seemed to be in her late
thirties. "I won’t have another babe."

    
"What do you want me to do then? Tie a knot?" John mumbled with a full
mouth.

    
"Nothing that drastic. Just pull your sweet little thing out before it spurts!"
was her caustic response, met by whistles, catcalls, and laughter. She simply
shrugged her shoulders and continued eating.

    
"You’ve heard it," shouted John. "You’ve heard it all. My own wife’s
offending my virility, calling it a sweet little thing. I bet a shilling that I’m
bigger than any one of you buggers."

    
Andrew did not quite know whether the man was really angry over his
wife’s remark or simply play-acting for fun, but he couldn’t help blushing.
The maid, sitting across, watched bemused and then said: "We’d better curb
our tongues a bit. We’re embarrassing our wee laird here."

    
Andrew went crimson all over. Everybody laughed in good nature.

    
John winked at him and asked: "And how many of these lovely young
ladies have succumbed to your good-looks, master Andrew?"

    
Before Andrew could find an answer, one of the young maids came to his
rescue: "He’s very respectful of us. He treats us like a gentleman, like all of
you should."

    
"Admit Martha, you really want us to woo you."

    
"Yes, but also showing proper respect, like master Andrew does."

    
"Oh, I think the reason he isn’t after you is that he has a lass somewhere
else," Michael burst out, a twinkle in his eyes. "Isn’t that so, master Andrew?
That’s why you order such big lunches and go out riding so early in the
morning two or three times each week."

    
Andrew nodded, finding that agreeing was most likely to get the talk away
from him. In fact, during most of the dinner, he had not said a word, nor had
he understood all of the allusions made. Only later on, lying in bed, and
thinking about the remarks, did several of them fall into place.

* * *

On their next two meetings, both Andrew and Helen made an effort to
control their passion. They kissed and cuddled, sheltered behind the goat hut,
rather than playing, running, and lying in the heath. The constant danger of
being discovered by Helen’s mother or father bound them even more closely
and added fuel to their passion. So their tacit restraint faltered the time after.
Before they knew it, they lay intertwined in the soft grass, teasingly shedding
each other’s clothing, discovering each other’s bodies.

    
"Helen, I want to make love to you."

    
"Andrew, I want it too, but we can’t. I don’t want to be with child. Please,
don’t press me."

    
"There’s a way. I can withdraw before I come."

    
Her own urges unleashed, she needed little convincing. "But will you?
Promise!"

    
"Yes, Helen, I promise," he replied huskily, kissing her again, renewing
his fumbling love play. When he sucked her nipples too strongly, she begged
him to be more gentle. When he rubbed her crotch too hard, she took his
hand, touching herself lightly. In a flash of understanding, more of the cooks’
banter fell into place. He explored her inner thighs gently, encouraged by her
quickened breathing, his own excitement rising. When he pressed his
swollen member into her thighs, she parted her legs, raising them, and guided
him to her opening. He pushed timidly, but the blockage held.

    
"You’ve to help me, Helen."

    
She strained against him and suddenly it gave. A gasp of surprise and pain
escaped her. Then she smiled and raised her lips to his. When he began to
move slowly in and out, she responded, meeting his thrusts ever more
vigorously, her arousal heightening with each. And then suddenly, he
withdrew with a groan and almost collapsed next to her. In a desperate
frenzy, she reached for her opening, clasping it with both hands, pressing her
thighs together, as a wave of unbearable pleasure remained suspended, on the
verge of breaking, but not quite, and then suddenly burst, crashing through
her body, making her cry out softly. For a few seconds she lay still, letting
her excitement slowly ebb away. Then she turned to face him. He reached
out and put a hand on her shoulder. Their eyes shone brightly, exuding their
love shared.

    
After a while, propping his head up, he leaned against her, his right hand
resting lightly on her breast. She folded her arms around his neck and kissed
him.

    
"I love you, I love you, I love you," he murmured into her ear and she
responded, a glow in her eyes: "I love you too."

    
The tip of his index traced the curves of her body, the shape of her breasts,
her stomach, around her belly button, over her flat belly to the copper fuzz
on her mound, down the inside of her thighs, up over her protruding hip
bones, finding her left breast, making narrowing circles around the pink
areola, his soft palm cupping the nipple when it hardened, gathering the
softness.

    
"That feels good. Don’t stop," she whispered.

    
He smiled happily, kissed her, and let his finger take up its journey again.

    
"I want us to get married, Helen!"

    
"Yes, I want that to, Andrew."

    
"I’ll send a letter to your father, asking him to let me talk to him."

    
"No, Andrew. Let me talk to them first. Prepare them."

    
"Will you do it soon?"

    
"Yes, I promise."

    
They bathed in each other’s eyes, in the love shining in them, remaining
locked together for a long time, a smile occasionally deepening their fire.

8

The following day—it was late August by then, Mary told Helen to bring the
goats back, that they would move down into their cottages in the glen. Helen
blanched and uttered a distressed "Not yet, mother. Can’t we stay another
few days?"

    
"Why? What’s there to keep us up here? It’s more comfortable down
there and warmer at night. There’s enough pasture for our goats."

    
Helen was at a loss of what to answer. If they left the next day, she would
miss Andrew and couldn’t tell him of their return to the clachan. But she
couldn’t admit that to her mother, nor could she muster the courage to tell
her that Andrew had proposed, despite her promise to him. She sensed that
her mother’s mood was rather dark. So she simply repeated her plea: "Just
two more days, mother, please!"

    
"What’s the matter? What difference will two days make?" Her mother’s
eyes narrowed, and she said accusingly: "You are meeting somebody at the
lochan, aren’t you? … I’ve suspected this for a long time. Who is it?" She
stared at her sternly and then raised her voice sharply. "I ask you to tell me
who it is, lass."

    
Helen did not answer, just matched her stare stubbornly.

    
"Oh, I can guess. It’s the factor’s apprentice, isn’t it?"

    
Helen felt the blood rush into her face, but replied, defiantly: "Who else
could it be? You knew that the food I brought home didn’t grow under
planks in a goat house."

    
Her mother shook her shoulders violently, and almost hissed in an effort
to keep the voice down: "Lass, I told you two years ago not to get involved
with that lad. It can only lead to trouble. You hear me?"

    
As her mother’s agitation increased, Helen’s decreased, and she became
suddenly icily calm. "What kind of trouble?"

    
"He is gentry! He’s just out to take advantage of you—has anything
untoward happened already? Is that why he brought you food? Tell me,
child, I must know."

    
Helen chose to ignore her mother’s questions and answered: "He’s
different. He wants to marry me."

    
"They all say that until they get you pregnant, and then they drop you like
a hot coal."

    
"He loves me. I know. I love him."

    
"He’s a Campbell. You cannot marry him. Father would never agree, not
after what he did to us."

    
"What did he do to us, except help? Was it not he who helped Betty and
me getting away that day? If all he wanted was to have me, he could have
done it right then and there. Was it not he who revenged you? Father, with
all his big words hasn’t raised a finger yet. And he helped us survive, when
we had no food. He said he admired you. He said that he would have liked
to have a mother like you."

    
For two or three seconds, Mary seemed lost for words, then she shouted:
"What do you know of men? You foolish girl! I forbid you to see him again,
ever! You hear me?"

    
"I love him. We want to get married."

    
"You stay away from him, or I’ll send you to my cousins in Balquhidder.
They’ll keep you safe."

    
"You do that and I’ll run away with him. We’ll go to America. He has
enough money."

    
Mary’s agitation bordered on the hysterical. She again grabbed Helen and
shook her wildly, shouting, her voice almost snapping over: "You can’t! You
can’t!"

    
"Why not?"

    
"Because … because he is your brother!" groaned Mary and broke into
hysterical sobbing.

    
For a long moment, Helen looked at her without comprehension. "What
are you saying?"

    
Now that she had told her daughter the secret she had kept hidden from
everybody for those twenty years, Mary looked completely drained. In an flat
voice she repeated: "He is your half-brother. He is my son."

    
The ground was slipping away from under Helen. Everything around her
began to spin. She stumbled and tried to hold herself up against the wall.
And then she wailed plaintively: "Mother, tell me it’s not true. Mother,
please! Tell me that this is all a bad dream! Mother!"

    
Helen’s heart-rendering distress released the tears blurring Mary’s eyes.
She took her into her arms, rocking her gently from side to side, like a little
child. Helen just sank into her mother’s arms, weeping, whispering time and
again: "I love him."

    
After a while she fell silent, listening to Mary’s confession: "When I lived
at the castle in Inveraray, I fancied Lord Archibald, the brother of the duke.
Stupid, gullible girl I was, I believed him when he said that he loved me. But
he just saw me as his plaything. He had no intention of marrying me. I got
pregnant. His mother kept me secluded in the castle until after the birth of the
boy, and then sent me home. Nobody ever knew about it. That was twenty
years ago. Much later I learned that the boy had been named Andrew. Helen,
he is your brother… And now you have to promise me that you will never
reveal to anybody what I just told you. You’re the only living soul who
knows it besides Lord Archibald."

    
 Helen disengaged herself and leaned against the wall, hunched over.

    
"Helen, look at me!" Her mother was pleading. "You understand now
why you cannot see him again."

    
Helen nodded slowly. It was a major effort. Then she murmured: "I’ve to
tell him. I owe it to him."

    
"No, you’ll never see or speak to him again. I’ll tell him myself… Where
do you meet?"

    
"At the lochan… He’ll come down to the goat hut when you call."
Helen’s voice was completely resigned. There was almost no sound to it.