Unknown (20 page)

"Straight upstairs," he ordered, "and into a hot bath. I'll get Mrs. Murdoch."

"Please, Charles," she begged, "don't worry about me. I'll be all right."

"Will you?" He took her firmly by the arm. "Your teeth are chattering, so this is one time you must do as I say."

"Your grandmother—"

"She'll be all right. We'll get her to bed and give her a brandy till Doctor Cummings gets here. He can have a look at you, too," he added. "It's early in the year to go swimming in the burn!"

"Oh, Charles!" She tried to smile. "It could have been serious. It might still be," she added anxiously.

"I don't think so. Grand'mere looks as bright as a new penny for some reason or other. You'd almost think she had caught that fish!"

"Charles." Elizabeth hesitated. "It was really Jenny who saved your grandmother. I heard her cry out and when I got to the bank she was holding Mrs. Abercrombie out of the water—holding on
with both hands.
I couldn't believe it when I first saw the effort she had made. Don't you see it means that Jenny can use that injured arm. She's been saving it subconsciously up till now, but when the test came she used it automatically."

"It's incredible."

"It's true," she said. "It's almost a miracle."

"It's staggering," he confessed. "Something that will ~ take a lot of thinking about."

Elizabeth made her way upstairs, followed after several minutes by Mrs. Murdoch.

"You'll get right into a hot bath," Effie insisted, "and then into your bed."

"Oh, Mrs. Murdoch, I'm not ill!" Elizabeth protested, realising that she was about to miss an evening in Charles's company. "I'll be fine after I've had a bath."

"You haven't got much choice in the matter," said Effie. "It's an order from Mr. Charles, so you'll be obeying it without so much as a murmur."

The doctor had arrived by the time Elizabeth got out of the bath.

"I'll take a look at you," he offered, "but I don't think you will be any the worse for your dip in the burn, Miss Drummond. It's lucky you were there, though. Mrs. Abercrombie could easily have drowned."

"Not while Jenny was around," Elizabeth said. "She held her above the water with both hands, Doctor Cummings!"

"I've had a look at Jenny," said David Cummings, "and this is something of a revelation. I've seen it happen before, of course, and Jenny had been exercising her arm regularly, I believe. Yes, I'm delighted," he agreed. "She could have the full use of that hand before very long, with a complete return of her confidence into the bargain."

"Can you tell me about Mrs. Abercrombie?" Elizabeth asked. "I hope she didn't suffer any serious injury."

"She has a bump on her head, which caused a slight, temporary concussion, but that's all. She'll be as right as rain in a couple of days. Just you wait and see!"

"I'm glad. She's such a marvellous old lady."

"Don't let her hear you say that," David Cummings laughed. " 'Old' is a word she never uses about herself, and now she's just plain mad about the whole incident. You know what she's like, I suppose. She just wouldn't let go. No fish that size was going to get the better of an indomitable Frenchwoman who's half a Scot!"

"I'm sure you're right," Elizabeth smiled, settling down between the sheets.

In a few minutes the door opened and Charles came in with a glass in his hand.

"You're to drink this," he informed her. "Doctor Cummings's orders, not mine."

She took the glass from him, aware that her hands were trembling.

"Cold?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"It could be retarded shock," she laughed. "Seriously, though," she added, "I wish it hadn't happened except —that Jenny must feel as if the world is going round for her again."

"Yes." He walked to the window, his back turned towards her. "It will make a great difference to her."

What was he thinking? If his responsibility to Jenny was almost at an end was he regretting the fact because he had fallen in love with impulsive, lovable Jenny in the meantime and wanted to marry her, keeping her here, at Kilchoan, beside him?

Elizabeth's heart contracted at the thought of these two marrying quite soon, yet she could not grudge Jenny this happiness when she had already endured so much.

When she had emptied the glass he took it from her, their hands touching for a brief moment. Charles turned away.

"Don't attempt to get up," he admonished sternly. "You could quite easily catch pneumonia after your little episode along the burn. I want to thank you, Elizabeth," he added more seriously, "for what you did for my grandmother this afternoon. She's gone to bed with a hot toddy and Jenny to look after her and swears she'll be as good as new in the morning. Doctor Cummings appears to agree with her, too."

"I'm glad," said Elizabeth. "It was quite a homecoming for you, Charles, and she meant to bring you that fish. She was determined to catch one for your evening meal."

'That's chiefly what's wrong around here," he said. "Too much determination. When it comes down to fundamentals, we're a pretty self-willed lot, hardly ever ready to accept advice. Willing to give it, though," he added. "I once gave Jason a piece of advice, which I now regret, but at the time someone was needed in Sydney and he went there. It was a question of Abercrombie's against all else, I suppose."

"Is that all you really care about, Charles?" she heard herself asking with a kind of horror. "What happens to the firm? You think about it all the time, or so it seems. You're Abercrombie's and nothing else."

His eyes lashed hear with scorn as he stood beside the bed, looking down at her as if he would like to shake her.

"You don't seem able to make up your mind," he said distantly. "One minute I'm 'almost human' while the next I'm 'Abercrombie's and nothing else'. When you've come to your final decision, no doubt you'll tell me."

He turned on his heel and went out without giving her time to protest or even to apologise, and Elizabeth lay staring blankly at the ceiling, thinking how dreadfully she had mismanaged her effort at conciliation. She had wanted Charles to trust her, at least, and he had told her that she couldn't even make up her own mind.

Alone in the darkening room, with the glory of a spring sunset painting the hills and loch a vivid red and all the clouds drawn down to the horizon, she knew how difficult it would be for her to say goodbye to Kilchoan, but quite soon that would be what she would have to do. When all Mrs. Abercrombie's accumulation of correspondence was seen to there would be no further need for her services as a secretary, and already Jenny had taken over the -companion part. I can't be another 'lame duck', she decided, remembering Charles's scathing comment when they had first met I can't go on living at Kilchoan against his will, even if his grandmother wishes it.

Obeying his command, she lay very still between the sheets, willing herself not to take pneumonia and feeling the effect of the warming drink he had brought her like fire in her veins. I can't be ill so that I have to stay here, was her last conscious thought before she fell asleep.

"WE'VE come to the conclusion that you're cheating!" Jenny announced, standing beside the bed two days later. "You have no temperature worth mentioning now and your pulse is quite normal, or so Doctor Cummings says."

"Jenny!" Elizabeth raised herself on one elbow, feeling weak and utterly miserable. "What's been going on? What day is it, and why don't I remember a single thing since—since Charles brought me that awful concoction and forced me to drink it?"

"One question at a time!" Jenny smiled down at her with a new excitement in her eyes. "First of all, you've been pretty ill and we've all been desperately worried about you. That ducking in the burn didn't do you a bit of good, especially as you sat around in your wet clothes afterwards without moving."

"So did Mrs. Abercrombie!"

"Grand'mere is a law unto herself," Jenny declared. "She's absolutely different For one thing, she's as tough as an old hazelnut and she has a tremendous will. Even germs quail before her glittering eye and the common cold skulks off into the nearest corner! Shell have no truck with them, but apparently you were a sitting duck, having come all the way from a warm climate. You just hadn't time to get used to our Scottish way of life, so you went down before pneumonia like a ton of bricks and before we even had time to say 'thank you for everything'."

"Charles tried to," Elizabeth murmured, expecting that Charles had returned to Glasgow by this time, "but it was you who did everything, Jenny. If you hadn't held Mrs. Abercrombie out of the water she would have drowned."

"And if
you
hadn't been there we might both have drowned," Jenny said more seriously. "It was a joint effort, Elizabeth, and everyone is terribly in your debt." She sat down on the edge of the bed. "I feel it more than the others," she confessed. "You see, I know I wouldn't have been able to hold on much longer. I was doing it subconsciously, but I think, once I'd realised I was using my 'useless' hand, I might easily have panicked and let go."

"But you didn't," said Elizabeth, "and now you know that you'll be able to use it fully, in time."

"That's what makes everything so wonderful," Jenny admitted. "I'm not 'poor little Jenny' any more, Elizabeth. I'm a new person, the kind of person I was before it all happened, someone to be loved and not just 'cared for' because I was the unfortunate victim of an accident I'm my true self once more, and I can't begin to tell you how happy it makes me feel."

The brightness in her face, the shining expression in her eyes, must point to only one conclusion, Elizabeth thought Jenny, who had fallen in love with Charles because he had been so kind, now found herself beloved.

"It's the warmest thing in the world, being in love," Jenny went on. "I've always known it, but when I was so badly injured after the accident' I turned away from everything. I saw only pity, and pity was the one thing I didn't want I even tried to push Grand'mere aside at first, but she wouldn't let me. She brought me here and took me under her wing, and I'm so glad—so very glad I didn't turn away!"

Unable to bear the utter joy in the younger girl's eyes, Elizabeth asked about her employer.

"Are you sure she didn't suffer any ill effect from her accident?" she asked. "We lay on the bank for almost an hour before Charles came."

"She's perfectly well," Jenny assured her. "The sun has been shining all day and she's been gardening. She wants masses and masses of nasturtiums and calendulas along the rockery walls, and night-scented stock on the terrace so that the wind will waft the scent of it into the sitting-room in the evening when the sun goes down. She sits there a lot while she's at Kilchoan, you know, although I've a notion that she might be half-way across the world before the marigolds are in bloom."

"Do you mean that she may go back to Australia?"

Jenny nodded.

"Back to Hawaii, anyway. She had a letter from Henri Duroc's lawyers this morning asking what she means to do about the plantation and she thinks the details might best be worked out on the spot. That means Maui. Think of it, Elizabeth. A trip to a wonderful Pacific island half way between here and Australia!"

"You would go with her this time?"

Jenny hesitated, a brief shadow appearing in her eyes for a moment.

"If everything else turns out as I hope," she answered.

Oh, Jenny, Elizabeth thought, the world is turning very bright for you and all your dreams are coming true!

"I must go," Jenny said. "There's so much to do. I've seen Doctor Cummings again and he's over the moon about the power coming back into my arm. Of course, I have to see the specialist again, but Charles is coming to take me to Glasgow on Friday. I'll have to do masses of exercises, I expect, but that won't bother me at all."

"Natalie must be very pleased," said Elizabeth.

Jenny took a long time to answer.

"She doesn't know," she said abruptly. "Not yet. I'll have to tell her, of course, before Charles takes me to Glasgow. She knows you pulled me out of the water, but that's all. Nat lives a life of her own up there at Windy Brae and she doesn't really worry about me so long as I'm here with the Abercrombies. It sort of halves her responsibility, you see, knowing that Grand'mere and Charles are around to take care of me."

Especially Charles, Elizabeth thought; and now everything could be coming right for Natalie, too. She wanted Jenny to marry Charles, to be the young mistress of Kilchoan, so that she might bask in her sister's reflected glory and retain her use of the stabling for as long as she wished. Horses were her true passion, but they were also her livelihood, and she would go to any lengths to keep them.

Jenny paused on her way to the door.

'You can get up tomorrow," she said, "for an hour, at least The house seems deserted without you."

It was easy enough for Elizabeth to stay in bed when she felt so weak, but altogether pleasant when she was allowed to go down to the sitting-room for a lengthening period each day. The one small cloud on her immediate horizon was the fact that Mrs. Abercrombie would not allow her to work.

"There's plenty of time for that," she declared. "I've answered all the essential letters and Charles has taken diem to the office to be typed. Jenny's a tremendous help, too," she added thoughtfully, "now that she's almost her old self again."

"Mrs. Abercrombie—" Elizabeth began impulsively, but Adele held up a dismissive hand!

"No, I will not hear of your departure," she declared, "if that was what you were about to say. Surely you will allow me to take care of you for a few days when you did so much for me? It is not asking too much, I think. Then, when you are quite well again, you will be able to make your own decision."

"Thank you." Elizabeth's heart was vary full. "I should hate to become a nuisance."

"When you do that I shall tell you," Adele assured her. "Meantime, just get well."

"I feel quite fit enough to do a day's work sitting in a chair," Elizabeth told her. "Jenny says you may return to Maui."