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Judith would be interested in the assistant manager’s reaction to her design, but uppermost in her mind was the need to tackle Barbara about the price for Andy’s holding.

“But of course I told Graham!” Barbara declared, when Judith helped to clear away the tea-things. “Why on earth shouldn’t I?”

“You must have known that he’d offer a higher price than Stuart’s.”

“Naturally. If Andy’s going to sell, then he needs the best possible price. I think it’s a marvellous idea to make Graham and Stuart keep raising their bids against each other. That’s only business.”

“Business!” Judith echoed disgustedly. “D’you realise that if Graham is really determined to grab, he’ll probably be able to offer some sky-high price and Stuart will be knocked out? Stuart needs money for all kinds of projects, he can’t spend everywhere at once.”

“I don’t know that Graham would offer a silly price. He’s merely doing his best to help Andy and me.”

“And in the bargain get the property he wants so that he can build his holiday camp or smart hotel, either of which will ruin Kylsaig.”

Barbara laughed gently. “You’re being selfish, dear. If there were a luxury hotel here, instead of a little, tumbledown pub that Stuart wants to rebuild, then I might be prepared to stay here quite a while. Not permanently, but two or three years at least. I could take a job in the hotel, receptionist or something of the sort, and, best of all, we could live in the hotel in a modern apartment. That would be like a dream after this almost derelict old cottage.’’

“And for Andy it would be more like a nightmare. You know his heart is set on farming. How can you be so wilfully blind to his wishes?”

“Andy will never impose on me—or the children—a way of life that we’re not cut out for. Andy’s only a farmer by accident. He didn’t even choose that career, and he’d be just as happy working on the mainland for Stuart or someone else instead of slogging over his own little patchfields or worrying about his own sheep.” Judith put away the crockery into a cupboard. “You’re hard Barbara,” she said.

“Not hard. Realistic. For Andy this life on the island is still a novelty, but in time it will wear off. Then he’ll have to start making a new career, and the years will have marched on and he won’t find it so easy to start something new in his late thirties. I have to think ahead for all of us, including the children.”

Judith sighed. “I suppose you’re right in one way, but I still think a wife ought to try to fit in with the kind of life her husband wants.”

“When that life is changed in mid-stream, you can’t help it if it’s not your kind. How d’you suppose you’d fit in if you married Neil, knowing that now he’s a research chemist, and then a few years later he wants to live on a barge and trundle up and down canals with loads of coal?”

“That question won’t arise over Neil,” Judith snapped.

“I never thought it would happen over Andy, but life hands us quite a few surprises.” After a pause, she added “Andy isn’t completely happy here. I’ve known it for some time, but I’ve only just found out why. Why did you tell him that h—half intended leaving him?”

Judith whirled round to face her sister. “I’ve never said a word, or even hinted,” she declared.

“Well, somehow he knows, and he suspects that the attraction was Graham, whom he doesn’t like.”

“Could Graham have told him?”

“Judith, don’t be absurd! Would any man admit to another?—‘Sorry, old chap, but I thought of running away with your wife!’ In any case, it wasn’t really true. I intended to live in London, get a job—”

“And leave Andy to cope with the two children and try to earn his living as well? What sort of behaviour was that?”

“Scandalous and quite immoral!” Barbara was really angry, and two bright spots of colour burned in her cheeks. “But I was ill and depressed. Now you can pat yourself on the back that you saved me from dishonour and a life of heartache and shame!”

Judith caught her sister’s arm. “But, Barbara dear, I didn’t mean to upset you. You know I’d always do all I could to help.”

Barbara slumped into a chair and put her head down into her hands on the table. “It’s my own fault,” she sobbed. “I should never have come here in the first place.” After a moment, Judith said, “Barbara, pull yourself together. Andy will be in soon and he won’t want to see you like this.”

Barbara rose, pushed back her hair and tried to smile. “I probably look a sight.” She went upstairs to tidy herself and Judith stepped out of the kitchen door into the yard.

So Barbara would persuade Andy to sell out, she mused. In that case, she might as well stay on Kylsaig until they went.

Andy and Robbie appeared along the lower path. They had been on what they called the “sheep-tour” in the top fields. Kim, Andy’s collie, headed for his water-bowl and gulped noisily, then flopped down outside his kennel.

“I’ve the new cooking stove coming tomorrow,” Andy told Judith. “Stuart says he’ll lend one of his men who knows how to fit it.” He grinned. “I hope all the mess and untidiness won’t make Barbara tear her hair, but it’s a good thing to get it all fixed before the winter.”

Judith caught her breath for an instant. This didn’t look as though Andy were giving up his holding yet, but was he fighting Barbara or Graham?

BY early December, Judith was vaguely surprised that she and her sister’s family still remained on Kylsaig. Nothing very definite had happened about the buying or selling of Andy’s property, and Barbara showed no impatience. Certainly the two sisters had been occupied with other matters, for Judith had been promoted at Dalkeith’s to assistant designer and had then persuaded the management to present fashion parades and displays. Barbara had acted as chief model on these occasions, especially when they were held at the Roxburgh Hotel, and created a minor sensation at a tea-time show. The local press gave her special write-ups, describing her as the “famous London model, now living in seclusion with her husband and family on Kylsaig,” and splashing her photographs across the pages.

Barbara was delighted. “One can’t compare these affairs with the hectic whirl of London shows,” she said to Judith, “but it’s pleasant to have rave notices, even in your late middle age.”

Other shops in Cruban began to take notice of the two “Whitacre sisters” and an enterprising furrier sent in mink stoles and ermine capes specially for the privilege of having his name advertised on the programme or on a display card.

Graham Mundon, too, had welcomed a certain publicity for his hotel as the right background for displays, although he claimed that he lost money over them.

He came and sat at Judith’s table while she watched the pre-Christmas show, which included accessories like handbags and' costume jewellery—“Gifts for modest purses.”

“Do these shows make much difference to Dalkeith’s profits?” he asked Judith. “Or perhaps you wouldn’t know. But it’s good to think that somebody else loses money.”

“Apart from you?” she queried. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever done anything in your life that’s really lost you money in the end. Think of the publicity. The Roxburgh Hotel is miles ahead of its rivals.”

“You’re wasted here, Judith. In London a clever designer like you could make a handsome income.”

“Don’t add your prods to those of everybody else. So many people here seem to be saying ‘Judith, go home!’ ”

“What makes you unpopular, do you think?”

She shrugged and turned to look at the next approaching model in handwoven tweed suit and lace-knit jumper. “Different people have varying reasons, I expect,” she replied.

“I have connections among people concerned in what you call the ‘rag-trade’,” he said lazily. “I could give you introductions to one or two buyers in London.”

“Thank you, Graham,” she answered with a bright, polite smile. “But I have a great deal to learn here in Scotland. I’m interested in tweeds and handwoven materials. Almost anybody with a slight sense of design can make clothes from cotton prints or French silks, but I’d like to do something in a modest way for the native weaving crafts.”

His eyes were cold and hard, but his mouth lifted in a slight smile. “I see you’ve caught Garranmure’s enthusiasm for reviving ancient crafts and industries. But I doubt very much whether that’s what Scotland, or at any rate the Western Highlands, needs. Modernisation is the real answer.”

“Motorways? Luxury hotels? That may be one way to encourage more tourists. But Stuart is concerned with those who live here all the year round.”

“Well, when you get tired of handlooms in cottage homes, let me know and I’ll put in a word for you with my friends.”

Judith made an excuse to get away from him as soon as the parade was over. His patronising arrogance jarred on her, and she wondered how Barbara could tolerate his self-satisfied materialist outlook.

In the workroom at Dalkeith’s next day, it dawned on Judith as she turned the pages of a book of fashion designs just why Graham would be glad to have her settled in a London job. He was not in the least concerned with her successful future. His idea was to separate the two sisters. Barbara might again become depressed during the winter, would then persuade Andy to sell out quickly, and thus Graham would clinch his bargain.

There was a further, more subtle aspect of the matter in Judith’s mind. She did not really believe that he wanted Andy’s croft or any other property on Kylsaig, but making an offer above Stuart’s price was tantamount to a smooth threat—“take my price or I might take Barbara.”

During the last two or three months Barbara had seemed more reconciled, Judith thought, to life on Kylsaig. The weather had been mild with only a few wet spells and a couple of gales.

“Ah, but wait until after Christmas,” Barbara had warned her sister. “That’s when the weather’s at its worst.”

“Does it snow?”

“Not usually here. On the mainland, of course, all over the northern half of Scotland.”

“This year they want plenty of snow to make the new winter sports centres popular. What with all I read about chair lifts and skiing schools, the Highlands sound like a little Switzerland.” Judith was hoping to spend at least a week-end in the Cairngorms or Glencoe during January, when experts said the snow would probably be at its best.

The comparatively good weather had enabled Stuart to make progress on the new inn. Angus allowed him to use a couple of men to help during the slacker part of the year.

“I wouldn’t dare to take them away if Angus had more important work for them to do,” Stuart confided to Judith when she was down there one Sunday. Nothing was being done today, for a stricter view of Sabbath working prevailed here, and not even Stuart would have set a bad example by continuing the work.

The walls were finished on the outside and some of the roof timbers were in place.

“When we have the roof completely up,” Stuart said, “we’ll tie a small tree-branch to the ridge. It’s a custom all over Europe, to bring good luck to the house or inn or whatever it is. There’s usually a small celebration, a drink and sandwich, for all those who’ve worked on the building. The happy owner, of course, foots the bill for that!”

“That sounds interesting!” Judith’s grey eyes sparkled. “Is there some small job I can do before then so that I can come to the party?”

“If you can see in the dark. Now that you’re a working girl, there isn’t much daylight just now—unless, of course, you’re intending to take time off? But I’ll send you a gilt-edged invitation to the celebration, just the same."

"Thank you.”

She talked about her work and some of the ideas she had in view for using Scottish materials.

“Dalkeith’s are letting me go to Tobermory next week to see several people there. The little knitting factory and one or two very skilled weavers.”

“You’ve been to Dalkeith’s own tweed mill just outside Cruban, haven’t you?” he asked.

"Yes. I saw material there which we never see in London. All goes for export to the States, so they say. But most lovely lightweight fabrics in the softest colours.”

He turned to look at her glowing, enthusiastic face, and she caught his glance.

“If you ever want to use the boathouse studio on my beach, you’re welcome,” he told her.

She was not sure what work she would do there which she could not do at Barbara’s or the shop, but she smiled at Stuart and thanked him.

“While Fiona’s in London, she won’t be able to disturb you,” he added.

It was like being struck on the head with a heavy weight. Of course, she could use the studio while Fiona was away. In fact, Stuart himself might even make an opportunity to come and talk to her
—while Fiona was away.
As he was doing now.

In the autumn, after the Highland Ball, when Stuart and Fiona had gone to London together, the girl had stayed, and Stuart had explained that she was doing a preliminary term of violin study before applying for an audition at the Academy.

“She may not be good enough for the Academy to accept,” Stuart had said, “but I think she’ll work hard.” At the time, Judith had been surprised at this sudden plan of Fiona’s but since then she had realised that Fiona knew the value of absence from Stuart. At Garranmure he could take her for granted, but away in London, living in a Kensington hotel, practising in rehearsal rooms for several hours a day and then enjoying her leisure, Fiona was not so handily within reach.

Barbara had openly doubted Fiona’s intentions of making music her career. “She’s a competent violinist, but not, I think, brilliant or likely to be. She has a comfortable income and no real incentive to earn a living.”

“And every possibility of marrying Stuart and acquiring Garranmure as a permanent home,” Judith had added.

“She must be pretty sure of Stuart. Yet I wouldn’t have imagined that everything was sewn up so definitely between them. Oh, well,” Barbara had added, “she’ll be home for Christmas, no doubt, and New Year, so we’ll know then what’s happening.”

Now Stuart had reminded Judith of Fiona, dropping Fiona’s name into the conversation casually enough. Judith took the hint.

“Your grandmother must miss Fiona,” she remarked.