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Authors: Catherine Airlie

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BOOK: The Last of the Kintyres
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There was relief for Elizabeth in the thought that they would not have to drive back to Ardlamond with Caroline in the same car, although there was torture, too, in the memory of the Daimler speeding southwards in the first magic of the dawning with Hew at the wheel and Caroline by his side.

She knew that she had no real right to feel jealousy or envy. Hew had belonged to Caroline long ago, and for all she knew the spell had never really been broken.

Doctor MacTaggart came at ten o’clock and, greatly to her surprise, declared that Tony was quite fit to travel back with them immediately.

“Let him stay here for a day or two, all the same,” Shona suggested unexpectedly. “The boys will love having him and he can go out with the guns or fish, if he would prefer that.” She gave Elizabeth a long, direct look. “It will make a change for him,” she added.

“It would be a most sensible idea,” the kindly, middle-aged doctor agreed. He was thoroughly at home at Ravenscraig and had sat down to coffee and home
-
baked scones “to help him on his way,” as Shona put it. “Maybe he won’t feel so confident in a car for a while after yesterday’s amazing performance.”

“We can bring him with us when we come down for the Trials,” Shona suggested, still looking steadily at Elizabeth. “That will give him a week.”

“If you promise to make him work for his keep,” Hew said, “I think it’s a very good idea.”

Shona laughed, having won her point.

“That’s Hew’s infallible recipe!” she declared.

Tony will be all right. Everyone has his fair share of work to do at Ravenscraig, and they accept it quite naturally. You know you always did, Hew, when you were here.”

. He agreed, although there was a hint of reserve in his eyes as he rose to go. He hadn’t a great deal of confidence in Tony, Elizabeth decided, which was hardly to be expected after the events of the past forty-eight hours.

She knew that he must want to get back to Ardlamond as quickly as possible and that she would have to return with him.

“I’d like to say good-bye,” she suggested, looking from Hew to the doctor. “I won’t be more than a minute or two.”

“Of
course, go ahead,” Doctor MacTaggart agreed. “When I was up there just now he was busy getting outside a large breakfast, so a few sisterly words of advice won’t do him a bit of harm!”

Nervously Elizabeth looked back to where Hew stood, but he obviously did not intend to accompany her to her brother’s room. Apparently what he had to say to Tony could wait till he returned to Ardlamond.

Tony, looking slightly guilty now, was sitting up in bed with a tray across his knees.

“I say, I’m terribly sorry about this, Liz,” he apologized in the spontaneous manner he could adopt at times and which generally won instant forgiveness from the offended party. “I had no idea you would be dragged all this way to pull me out of a ditch!” Elizabeth relieved him of the tray, noticing with some relief that he had just finished a substantial meal.

“It doesn’t matter so much about me,” she said, sitting down on the edge of his bed when she had put the tray on a convenient table between the two windows. “It’s all the other people you’ve upset that make it so annoying—Mrs. Lorimer—”

“And Hew Kintyre?” he supplied for her. “I expect he’s madder than a hatter about all this. Still, it wasn’t his car, thank goodness!”

“Which is entirely beside the point,” Elizabeth reminded him. “You had no right to be driving anybody’s car—not without L-plates, anyway.”

“I’ve got to learn some time,” he argued.

“Not outside the law, Tony. What you did may cause endless trouble for Hew.”

“Why should it? Unless he’s been a fool and told the police I was driving.”

Elizabeth could scarcely hide her irritation, for this had been exactly Caroline’s attitude.

“I don’t know what Hew has done,” she said, trying to keep her temper, “but, whatever it is, it won't be dishonest.”

“Surely you’ve changed your mind about him?” he mocked. “You resented his dictatorial attitude as much as I did in the beginning—remember?”

“Yes, I remember. But that doesn’t affect the present situation. You owe him an apology, at least.”

“Why should I apologize?”

“Because, whether you like it or not, Hew has taken his father’s place and he is now your legal guardian,” Elizabeth explained as evenly as possible. “You are entirely answerable to him now.”

“What utter rot!” Tony was indignant. “The days of guardians and that sort of thing are over. They went out with antimacassars and side-whiskers and Income Tax at sixpence in the pound!”

“Which doesn’t alter the fact that Mother made a will and that you can’t do just as you like unless someone else thinks it
is
right.”

“You mean Hew Kintyre, of course? Give me strength!” Tony implored. “He’s not all that much older than we are, when you come to think of it. What does he know about being a guardian?”

“Whatever you feel about it, Tony, give it a trial. Hew didn’t ask to be given this authority. He has accepted it as a duty, out of respect for his father. Try to see it that way and—and keep your side of the bargain,” she urged. “It won’t be for long.”

“Two years almost!” he exploded. “And you call that ‘not long’!”

“It isn’t a lifetime.”

“It’s going to feel like one if we have to stay here all the time,” he countered quickly. “Still, there might be compensations.”

She knew that he meant Caroline, but suddenly it seemed much too difficult to have the matter of Caroline out with him then and there.

“Mrs. Lorimer has suggested that you might like to stay here for a day or two,” she said aloud. “John and Donald would be good company for you, and the doctor said it would be a good idea.”

“And what about my guardian?” he asked dryly. “What did he say?”

“I don’t think Hew will mind.”

“Are you going back to Ardlamond with him?”

“Yes, I must. I—we can’t all stay here, causing Mrs. Lorimer extra work. She has other guests to look after.”

“What about Caroline?” Tony asked cautiously.

“She’s gone home. Hew took her—early this morning.”

“She was wonderful about the smash.” His eyes were distant, admiring Caroline in retrospect. “She didn’t make the slightest fuss when I put it in the ditch, and I really could have done a lot of damage.”

Elizabeth’s lips tightened.

“Well, don’t touch it again,” she advised. “That will be the easiest solution.”

“Are you suggesting that I shouldn’t see Caroline again either?” he asked somewhat aggressively. Elizabeth got up from the bed.

“I’m suggesting you shouldn’t fall in love with her,” she said, looking at him squarely. “She’s already in love with Hew.”

He gave an odd, disjointed little laugh.

“That’s ridiculous!” he declared, bluffing because his pride had been hurt. “She’s not in love with anyone.”

“Is that what she told you?”

“No, but—well you can guess that sort of thing after you’ve been in someone’s company for a while.”

“You’ve known Caroline for less than a week,” Elizabeth reminded him gently.

“So what? I’m not thinking about marrying her, if that’s what you’re driving at. I suppose I would have to ask the laird’s permission first,” he added scathingly.

“Tony, try to understand about Hew!” Elizabeth implored. “He can only want to do what’s best for you. It’s a sort of trust where he’s concerned.”

“Oh, all right!” he exclaimed, settling down beneath the blankets. “Have it any way you like! Admire him if you must, but don’t expect me to follow suit. I think he’s unbearable!”

The final, defiant outburst was so childish that Elizabeth was forced to smile. Tony, in so many ways, had never quite grown up.

Hew was waiting for her when she went downstairs. “Shona has gone to feed the livestock,” he informed her as he turned towards the open front door. “We can say goodbye on the way out.”

T
hey found Mrs. Lorimer surrounded by hens. Complete in Wellington boots and armed with two zinc pails, she was on her way to a row of huts in the middle of a field to collect the morning’s eggs, but she turned when she saw them, leaning over the dividing fence to shake hands and tell Elizabeth not to worry about Tony.

“We’ll take good care of him,” she added with a smile. “And Doctor Mac has promised to look in again tomorrow morning. He likes an excuse for a newly
-
baked scone!”

“You’re far too kind,” Elizabeth said seriously. “Nonsense!” Shona objected. She stood back, picking up her pails again, and for a moment there was just a hint of wistfulness in her blue eyes as she looked at Hew. In the next instant, however, she was smiling steadily at him. “Haste ye back, Hew!” she said, the soft Highland intonation in her voice deepening almost to a caress. “You know you are always welcome.”

“Fine I know it!” he told her, taking Elizabeth by the arm to guide her down the stony approach to the road, where he had parked his car.

They drove away, and when they were approaching Oban he said:

“I’m going to have to keep you waiting for me here for half an hour or so. I’ve got some business to do in the town, and then I thought we might have a bite of lunch. I told Mrs. Malcolm that we might not be back home till later. I wasn’t sure about Tony then.”

The invitation was so unexpected, so utterly desirable, that Elizabeth had to catch her breath before she could reply.

“Well,” he asked rather dryly, “doesn’t the idea appeal to you? You could at least go window-shopping while you are waiting. The Oban shops are quite attractive, I believe.”

“Of course it appeals to me!” Elizabeth sounded as if she had been running a very long way. “How long wi
ll
you be?”

“Not too long. Better say one o’clock at the Marine.” He slowed the car as they approached the town, winding down towards the promenade. “It’s the hotel with the glass frontage and a flight of steps up to the entrance. You can’t miss it. The shops are mostly along there, too, and opposite the harbour.”

He pulled up at the kerb and Elizabeth got out, looking about her with interest.

“Would you mind very much if I went up to that monument-thing on the hill?” she asked. “Someone’s Folly, I think you called it.”

He looked surprised.

“Yes, he said, “it was built by a banker named MacCaig. He meant to fill the niches with statues so that it would be an everlasting monument to his family and, presumably, their wealth! But the idea broke him in the end. He met with all sorts of snags and finally with disillusionment, I expect. Anyway, he ended up a bankrupt, and there the Folly stands—an everlasting memorial to a man’s foolish pride, if you like!”

“But the view must be beautiful from the top,” Elizabeth argued. “All the bay and the hills on the far side of the Firth, and the green islands far out on the sea!”

He gave her a sharply penetrating look.

“All right,” he agreed. “Go up and have your view, if you prefer it to the shops.”

She smiled without answering, and he drove away into the town.

Climbing up to the strange round monument which he had called “a memorial to a man’s foolish pride,” she remembered Caroline and the fact that Caroline could offer Hew so much. She could offer the money he needed now as well as her love, and perhaps his remark about the foolishness of pride had been a reflection of his innermost thoughts. Even Shona had said that he would sacrifice anything to keep Ardlamond.

Breathlessly she came to the Folly and, looking about her at the rubble and the debris within, was vaguely disappointed. She could not say what she had expected to find in this strange, high place far up on the hill. Only that it had drawn her irresistibly and she had had to climb up to it to satisfy some odd sort of urge within her.

She had also come for the view, she told herself, and the vast panorama of sea and hill and distant mountain ranges which met her eyes was truly magnificent.

Away out on the silver Firth of Lome she could see the islands dotted like green gems on the blue sea, emeralds, glittering in the sun, and one of these islands was Lingay, where the lairds of Ardlamond had been buried for hundreds of years. No wonder Hew was proud. No wonder he would do almost anything to safeguard this heritage of his!

Silhouetted in one of the high archways, she stood with her back against the sun-warmed stone, gazing
at the distant hills. The kindly, rounded shoulders of Mull were near and friendly, and already she knew them and called them by name—Ben More and Ben Tala, and the lower hills that swept down to the great red basalt cliffs which ran in a grim finger of stone out into the sea along the Ross. But to the north and west there were other hills, dark and fearsome mountains which seemed to cradle only despair.

Today these distant mountains had a peculiar crown of light upon their heads, but the shadows were still dark along their riven sides. Morven of the Sorrows! The name sprang out at her from the past, cradled by memory down through the years. Her mother had lived there for some time as a girl before her family had gone to live at Dromore, and there had been a song called Maid of Morven which she had sung quite often. Elizabeth was remembering it now, and how the inevitable sadness of the theme had always lingered after the song was done.

She had never imagined that she would look out across Loch Linnhe to the dark faces of these mountains on such a day as this, and she could not say now why her heart felt suddenly choked with tears. The haunting sadness of an old refrain was surely no reason for her eyes to fill, although she was deeply aware of belonging among these silent hills. There was always a heart’s place, she thought wistfully; a place of memories and love and sure belonging.

So lost in thought did she become that it was minutes before she became aware that she was no longer alone. Hew had parked the Daimler on the steeply
-
sloping roadway beneath her and climbed up to her va
n
tage-point.

He stood for a moment or two watching her as she gazed out across the bay before he said:

“Well, was it worth the climb?”

Elizabeth turned slowly, accepting him without question in that high place.

“I’ve never seen anything more wonderful,” she answered simply. “It’s something to capture for ever.”

He climbed the last few steps, standing close behind her in the broken archway. There was so little room that barely an inch separated them, and in the stillness she imagined that she could hear the heavy beating of his heart.

Minutes which held all the enchantment she might ever know fled away. The sun glittered on the water and there was no cloud visible in the sky. She turned her eyes away from shadowed Morven to look at the green hills of Mull, and in that moment, without moving, it seemed as if Hew had bent his dark head and pressed his lips against the nape of her neck.

The shock of contact was almost physical, and she drew back with a small, inarticulate cry on her lips.

Instantly his arm shot out, steadying her.

“Afraid?” he asked.

BOOK: The Last of the Kintyres
3.44Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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