Under Gemini (14 page)

“Did you go to the Beach House?” asked Jason.

“Yes.” They began to walk back to the house, Jason holding Flora's hand. “But it's all shuttered up and I couldn't see inside.”

“I know. Watty goes down at the end of every summer and does that, otherwise boys come out from Tarbole and break the windows. Once somebody broke a window and got in and stole a blanket.” He made it sound as criminal as murder.

“And what have you been doing this morning?” Flora asked him.

“We went to Lochgarry to see Willie Robertson about the holes in the drive, and Willie's going to come with his tar machine and fill them all up. He said he'd come next week.”

Antony was not so sure. “That probably means next year,” he told Flora. “This is the west of Scotland and the passage of time is of no concern.
Mañana
means yesterday.”

“And Mrs. Robertson gave me some toffee and then we went to the pier at Tarbole and there's a ship in from Denmark and they're packing herrings in barrels and I saw a gull and it ate a mackerel in
one gulp.
”

“Herring gulls are always very greedy.”

“And this afternoon, Antony's going to make me a bow and arrow.”

“Perhaps,” suggested Antony, “we should ask Rose what she wants to do.”

Jason looked up at her in some anxiety. “You'd like to make a bow and arrow, wouldn't you?”

“Yes, I would. But I don't suppose it'll take very long. Perhaps there'd be time to do something else as well. Like go for a walk. Don't the dogs like being taken for walks?”

“Yes, Plummer loves it, but Sukey's lazy, she just likes sitting on Tuppy's bed,” Jason answered.

“I must say, she looks very comfortable there.”

“She's Tuppy's dog, you see. She's always belonged to Tuppy. Tuppy loves her. But I think Sukey's breath smells horrid.”

*   *   *

As the dining-room table had already been laid for the supper party that evening, everyone had lunch in the kitchen, sitting around the big scrubbed table. It had been spread with a blue-and-white checked cloth and decorated with a jug of yellow chrysanthemums. Antony sat at one end of the table and Jason at the other, with Isobel, Nurse McLeod, Flora, and Mrs. Watty ranged down either side. There was the promised shepherd's pie, and then stewed apples and cream, all very simple and very hot and very delicious. When they had finished, Mrs. Watty made coffee, and they sat there discussing how they would spend the remainder of the day.

“I'm going to garden,” said Isobel firmly. “It's going to be a beautiful afternoon and I've been wanting to get at that border for days.”

“We thought we'd go for a walk,” said Antony.

“In that case you can take Plummer with you.”

Jason broke in. “But Antony, you said that…”

Antony interrupted him. “If you mention that bow and arrow once again, I shall make one and then shoot you with it, straight through the heart.” He aimed an imaginary bow and arrow in the direction of Jason and fired it. “Twang.”

With an air of righteousness, Jason said, “You mustn't ever fire things at people. Never never let your gun pointed be at anyone.”

“It's a laudable stricture,” said Antony, “but a useless piece of verse.” He turned to Flora. “Shall we go up and see Tuppy for a moment?”

But Nurse McLeod invervened. “Mrs. Armstrong had a bad night and didn't sleep at all, so not just now, if you don't mind. I'm just away upstairs to settle her for a little nap. It doesn't do for her to get overexcited.”

Antony, meekly, accepted this. “Just as you say, Nurse. You're the boss.” Nurse pushed back her chair and stood up, towering over them all like some formidable nanny. “But when can we come and see her?”

“How about before dinner tonight? When you're all dressed up and ready for the party? It'll make a wee occasion for her, to see you all then.”

“All right. Tell her we'll be along about seven o'clock, looking unbelievably dressy.”

“I'll do that,” said Nurse. “And now, if you'll all excuse me, I must see to my patient. And thank you for lunch, Mrs. Watty, it was just delicious.”

“I'm glad you enjoyed it, Nurse,” Mrs. Watty beamed, reaching out her huge arm to pour them all another cup of coffee.

When Nurse had left them, Antony leaned his elbows on the table and said, “She talks as though we were going to throw some great reception here, with all the men in boiled shirts and monocles, and Aunt Isobel sweeping about in the heirloom diamonds and a train. Who's actually coming?”

“Anna and Brian. And Mr. and Mrs. Crowther…”

“Gayer and gayer,” murmured Antony. Isobel sent him a fairly cool glance and went on, undeterred. “And, provided he isn't called out for a baby or an appendix, or some other emergency, Hugh Kyle.”

“That's a bit better. Conversation will doubtless sparkle.”

“Now don't try to be too clever,” his aunt warned him.

“He'll not catch Mr. Crowther napping,” Mrs. Watty observed. “Mr. Crowther is very quick at the repartee.”

Flora asked, “Who's Mr. Crowther?”

“He's the Presbyterian meenister,” Antony told her, in an accent more Highland than Mrs. Watty's own.

Jason chipped in. “And Mrs. Crowther teaches Sunday school, and she's got very big teeth.”

Isobel said, “Jason!” but Antony said, “All the better to eat you with. Are you coming to the party, Jason?”

“No,” said Jason. “I don't want to. I'm going to have supper here with Mrs. Watty, and Aunt Isobel's got me a bottle of Coke.”

“If conversation gets too sticky in the dining room,” said Antony, “I might well come and join you.” Isobel said, “Antony!” again, but Flora could tell that she knew he was teasing. He had probably teased her all his life, which was one of the reasons she so missed him and looked forward to his coming home.

Making the bow and arrow took a little time. Antony's good penknife and a length of suitable string had to be found, and then the right sort and shape of branch for the bow. Antony was neat-fingered and had obviously done this thing many times before, but still indulged in a good deal of cursing and bad language before the new bow and a few arrows were finally done. Then with a piece of chalk he drew a target on the trunk of a tree, and Jason, straining every muscle of his puny arms, fired the arrows, missing with most but finally making some sort of contact with the target. The arrows, however, were not flying true.

“They need to be feathered,” Antony told Jason.

“How do I feather them?”

“I'll show you tomorrow. It'll take too long now.”

“I wish you'd show me now.”

“No. We're going for a walk now. We're going to take Plummer. Do you want to come?”

“Yes.”

“Well, put the bow and arrow away, and then we'll go.”

Jason gathered up his new possessions and went back to the house to stow them inside the front door, along with a battered croquet set and a number of fraying deck chairs. Antony came over to where Flora and Plummer had been sitting patiently on the grass, waiting for the target practice to be over.

He said, “I'm sorry. It took a long time.”

“That's all right. Do you know, it's like summer, sitting here. It's turned into a beautiful summer's day.”

“I know. It happens in this part of the world. And tomorrow will probably be a drencher.” Jason came running back up the grass toward them. Antony held out a hand to Flora. “Come along,” he said.

They went down the drive, through the gate and across the road, and on up the hill that rose behind the house. They crossed fields of stubble and pastures full of sturdy cattle. They climbed a dike and jumped down into deep heather crisscrossed with sheep tracks. Plummer, nose down, tail going like a piston, startled a family of grouse which exploded out of the heather at their feet and sailed away ahead of them, calling,
Go back, go back, go back.

The slope of the hill became steeper, sweeping on and up to the skyline. Ahead, the ruins of a croft appeared with a scarlet-berried rowan tree by the gaping doorway, and nearby a lonely Scots pine, twisted and deformed by the constant wind, stood guard.

In front of the croft was a stream, its water peat-brown, tumbling down the hill in a series of miniature waterfalls and deep pools where the dark foam gathered like lather beneath tufts of overhanging heather. Rushes grew in clumps as green as emerald. The ground was boggy and the white canna blew in the wind. They crossed the stream by means of some wobbling stepping stones and came into the shelter of the ruined walls.

They had now reached the crest of the hill. On all sides the land fell away, and suddenly unexpected breathtaking views revealed themselves. To the south, beyond the forested hills, lay the Sound of Arisaig; to the north the blue waters of an inland loch, imprisoned by massive flanks, reached deep into the hills. And to the west …

They sat with their shoulders against a crumbling dike and gazed at the incomparable view. The western sea, a brilliant blue now, was dancing with sun pennies. The sky was cloudless, and the visibility clear as crystal. Under those conditions, the islands lay on the water like mirages.

“Imagine living here,” murmured Flora, “and looking at that every day of your life.”

“Yes, except that you wouldn't see it. Most of the time you couldn't see the end of your nose for rain, and if it wasn't raining it would be blowing a force twelve gale.”

“Don't spoil it.”

He quoted, “‘A naked house, a naked moor, a shivering pool before the door.' Robert Louis Stevenson. Tuppy used to read him to Torquil and me when she thought we were in need of a little culture.” He pointed. “The small island is Muck. And that is Eigg. The mountainous one is Rhum, and then away to your right is Sleat, and beyond Sleat the Cuillins.”

The distant needle peaks glittered silver against the sky. “That looks like snow,” said Flora.

“It is, too. We must be in for a hard winter.”

“And the loch, the one in the mountains. What's that called?”

“That's Loch Fhada. You know the sea loch where the Beach House is? That's Fhada, too. The fresh-water loch runs out into the sea, right there, under the road bridge. There's a dam and a fish ladder for the salmon…”

His voice trailed away. Talking, they had forgotten about Jason. He stood beside them, listening, puzzlement in his eyes.

“Why?” he asked. “Why do you tell Rose all these things as though she'd never been here before? You make it sound as though she'd never been to Fernrigg before. As though she'd never
been
here.”

Antony said “Yes … well…”

But Flora spoke quickly. “It was so long ago, and when I was seventeen, I wasn't very interested in learning the names of places. But now I am.”

“I suppose that's because you're coming to live here.”

“No, I won't come and live here.”

“But if you marry Antony?”

“Antony lives in Edinburgh.”

“But you'll come and stay here, won't you? With Tuppy?”

“Yes,” Flora finally had to agree, “yes, I expect I will.”

*   *   *

The slightly strained silence which fell upon the party was tactfully broken by Plummer who, though old enough to know better, suddenly decided to chase a rabbit. Off he went, bouncing through the heather with his ears flying, while Jason, who knew that Plummer was quite capable of chasing the rabbit to the ends of the earth and losing himself in the process, went after him.

“Plummer! Plummer, you're very naughty. Come back!” His legs were spider-like, his high voice carried away by the wind. “Plummer, come back!”

“Ought we to help?” asked Flora.

“No, he'll catch him.” Antony turned to her. “We nearly messed things up there, didn't we? Jason's a bright child. I never realized he was listening.”

“I forgot, too.”

“Are you going to be all right tonight? Conversation-wise, I mean?”

“If you stick near me, I'll be all right.”

“I was teasing Aunt Isobel at lunchtime. They're nice people.”

“Yes, I'm sure.” She smiled, to reassure him.

He said, slowly, “You know, I can't get used to this idea that you look like Rose, but you aren't Rose. It keeps coming back and hitting me just as hard as it did the first time.”

“Do you wish I were?”

“I didn't mean that. I meant that something—perhaps the chemistry—is different.”

“You mean you're not in love with me like you were with Rose.”

“But if I'm not in love with you, then why aren't I?”

“Because I'm Flora.”

“You're nicer than Rose. You know that, don't you? Rose would never have had any time for Jason. Rose wouldn't have known how to talk to people like Mrs. Watty and Nurse.”

“No, but she would have known what to say to you, and perhaps that's more important.”

“She said goodbye to me,” Antony pointed out with some bitterness. “And went off to Spetsai with some bloody Greek.”

“And you told me you were so hard-headed.”

He grinned, ruefully. “I know. But I do want to get married, that's the funny thing. After all, I'm thirty, I can't go on being a bachelor for the rest of my days. I don't know. I suppose I just haven't met the right girl.”

“Edinburgh must be running with them. Fresh-faced lassies living on their own in Georgian flats.”

He laughed. “Is that how you imagine life in Edinburgh?”

“Life in Edinburgh, to me, is dinner with Antony Armstrong, on a wet, black night.” She looked at her watch. “You know, when Jason and Plummer finally return, I think we should go home. If Isobel's going to wear the family diamonds, I should at least wash my hair.”