Flora remembered Antony talking about Hugh Kyle.
He’s lived here on and off, all his life.
He must be a happy man.
No. I don’t really think he is.
“Is he married?” she asked, without thinking.
Tuppy sent her a sharp look. “Don’t you remember, Rose? Hugh’s a widower. He was married, but his wife was killed in a car accident.”
“Oh, Oh, yes, of course.”
“It was all so sad. We’ve known Hugh all our lives. His father was the Tarbole doctor for years, and we watched Hugh growing up. He was always such a clever, bright little boy. He was working in London for his F.R.C.S., but when his wife died he threw the whole thing over and came back to Tarbole to take over from his father. He was still in his twenties then, and I could hardly bear it for him. Such a waste of all the promise, all that talent.”
“Perhaps he should get married again.”
“Of course he should, but he won’t. He says he doesn’t want to. He’s got a housekeeper called Jessie McKenzie, but she’s very slapdash and careless and between the two of them they manage to run a very cheerless establishment.” Tuppy sighed. “But what can one do? We can’t run other people’s lives for them.” She smiled, her eyes bright with amusement. “Even I can’t run Hugh’s life for him, hard though I try. You see, I’ve always been an impossibly bossy, interfering person. But my family and friends know this, and they’ve come to accept it quite graciously.”
“I think they probably enjoy it.”
“Yes.” Tuppy became thoughtful. “You know, Rose, lying here this afternoon, I had such a good idea…” Her voice faltered a little, and she reached out and took Flora’s hand in her own, as though the physical contact would give her some of the younger person’s strength. “Do you have to go back with Antony?” Flora stared at her. “I mean, Antony has to get back to Edinburgh because of his job, but I thought perhaps—do you have a job in London?”
“Well, no, not exactly, but…”
“But you have to get back?”
“Yes, I suppose I should. I mean…” It was Flora’s turn to falter. She found herself, horrifyingly, without words.
“Because,” Tuppy went on, more forcefully now, “if you didn’t have to get back, you could stay here. We all love you so much, and two days is scarcely long enough to get to know you again. And there are so many things I want to do. I really ought to do. About the wedding…”
“But we don’t know when we’re getting married!”
“Yes, but there are lists to be made of people who ought to be invited. And then there are things here that belong to Antony, that he should have when he sets up an establishment of his own. Some silver that was his father’s and pictures that belong to him. And furniture, and his grandfather’s desk. All those things should be arranged. It isn’t good to leave everything in the air.”
“But Tuppy, you’re not meant to be worrying about Antony and me. That isn’t why we came back to see you. You’re meant to be resting, getting strong again.”
“But I may not get strong. I may never get better. Now, don’t put on that prissy face, one must face facts. And if I don’t, then it makes everything so much easier if all these tiresome little details have already been seen to.”
There was a long pause. At last Flora, hating herself, said, “I really don’t think I can stay. Please forgive me. But I must go tomorrow with Antony.”
Disappointment clouded Tuppy’s face, but only for an instant. “In that case,” she said, smiling, and giving Flora’s hand a little pat, “you’ll just have to come back to Fernrigg again before too long, and we’ll have a little session then.”
“Yes, I’ll try to do that. I … I’m truly sorry.”
“My dear child, don’t look so tragic. It’s not the end of the world. Just a silly idea I had. And now, perhaps you should go downstairs. Our guests will be arriving and you must be there to greet them. Off you run.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Of course. Goodnight, my dear.”
Flora leaned forward to kiss her goodnight. As she did so, the door behind them opened and Jason appeared in his dressing gown, with his bedtime book under his arm.
“I’m just going,” Flora assured him, getting up off the edge of the bed.
He closed the door. “You look nice. Hello, Tuppy, did you have a good sleep this afternoon?”
“A splendid sleep.”
“I didn’t bring Peter Rabbit, I brought Treasure Island, because Antony says it’s time I made myself brave enough to listen to it.”
“Well, if it’s too frightening,” said Tuppy, “we can always stop and try something else.”
He handed her the book and without more ado climbed into the large soft bed beside her, arranging the sheets and blankets over his knees, and generally making himself snug.
“Did you have a good supper?” asked Flora.
“Yes, delicious. I’m all burpy with Coke.” Wanting her to go away so that he and Tuppy could get on with the story, he added, “Hugh’s downstairs, but not anybody else yet.”
“In that case,” said Flora, “I’d better go down and say good evening.”
She left them, closed the door behind her, and stood there, her hands pressed to her cheeks, trying to compose herself. She felt as though she had come through some dreadful ordeal, and hated herself for feeling this way. The disappointment she had seen in Tuppy’s eyes would haunt her, she felt, for the rest of her life. But what else was there to say? What else could she have done, but refuse to stay?
Why couldn’t life remain simple? Why did everything have to be complicated by people, emotions, and human relationship? What had started out as well-intended and innocent deception, was turning ugly, swelling out of all proportion. How could Flora have known what she was letting herself in for? Nothing Antony had said could have prepared her for the impact that Tuppy’s warm and loving personality had made upon her.
She sighed deeply, bracing herself for the next hurdle. She started downstairs. The carpet felt thick beneath the soles of her gold slippers. There was a fresh arrangement of beech leaves and chrysanthemums on the windowsill. The hall had been tidied for the expected company, the curtains drawn across the french windows, the fire made up. The drawing-room door stood half-open and from beyond it came the sound of voices.
Antony was speaking. “What you’re telling, us, Hugh, is that Tuppy’s going to make some sort of a recovery. Is that it?”
“Certainly. I’ve said so all along.”
The voice was deep, the intonation dismayingly familiar. Flora stopped dead, not meaning to eavesdrop but all at once unable to move.
“But Isobel thought…”
“What did Isobel think?”
Isobel replied, sounding both nervous and foolish, “I thought … I thought you were trying to protect me. To keep it from me.”
“Isobel!” The voice was filled with reproach. “You’ve known me all my life. I would never keep anything from you. You must realize that. Most certainly if it was to do with Tuppy.”
“It … it was the expression on your face.”
“Unfortunately”—he sounded as if he were trying to make a joke of it—“I can do nothing about the expression on my face. I was probably born with it.”
“No, I remember.” Isobel was being very definite. “I came out of the drawing room, and you were standing halfway up the stairs. Just standing there. And there was a look on your face that frightened me. I knew it had to be about Tuppy…”
“But it wasn’t about Tuppy. It was something else, something that was worrying me very much, but it wasn’t about Tuppy. And I told you she was going to be all right. I told you, if I remember, that she was as strong as an old heather root, and she would probably outlive us all.”
There was a pause and then, Isobel admitted, “I didn’t believe you,” sounding as if she were about to burst into tears.
Flora could bear it no longer. She wal
ked in through the open door.
The drawing room at Fernrigg that evening had the aspect of a stage set, lit and furnished for the opening act of some Victorian piece. The illusion was heightened by the disposal of the three people who, as Flora suddenly appeared, stopped talking and turned to look at her.
She was aware of Antony, in a dark gray suit, occupied at a table on the far side of the room, and in the process of pouring a drink; and of Isobel in a long dress of heather-colored wool, standing at one side of the fireplace.
But she had eyes only for the other man. The doctor. Hugh Kyle. He faced Isobel across the hearthrug. He was so tall that his head and shoulders were reflected in the Venetian mirror that hung above the high, marble mantelpiece.
“Rose!” said Isobel. “Come close to the fire. You remember Hugh, don’t you?”
“Yes,” said Flora. As soon as she had heard his voice, she had known that it would be him. The man she had met on the beach that morning. “Yes, I remember.”
7
TUPPY
“Of course,” he said. “We remember each other. How are you, Rose?”
She frowned. “I couldn’t help hearing. You were talking about Tuppy.”
Antony, without asking what she wanted, brought her over a drink. “Yes,” he said. “There seems to have been some sort of a misunderstanding.”
She took the tumbler which was iced and very cold to her hand. “She’s going to be all right?”
“Yes. Hugh says so.”
Flora felt as if she might burst into tears.
“It was my fault,” Isobel explained quickly. “My silly fault. But I was so upset. I thought Hugh was trying to tell me that Tuppy was going to…” She couldn’t manage the word die. “That she wasn’t going to get better. And that’s what I told Antony.”
“But it’s not true?”
“No.”
Flora looked at Antony and his steady eyes met hers. The two conspirators, she thought. Hoist with their own petard. They need never have come to Fernrigg. They need never have embarked on this maniacal charade. The whole carefully manufactured deception had been for nothing.
Antony had an expressive face. It was plain that he knew what Flora was thinking. They had made fools of themselves. He was sorry. And yet there was a sort of relief there, too, a lessening of the tension in his fine-drawn face. He was inexpressibly fond of his grandmother.
He said again, with the deepest satisfaction, “She’s going to get better.” Flora found his hand and pressed it. He turned back to the others and went on, “The thing is, that if Rose and I hadn’t believed there was a certain urgency to the situation, we probably wouldn’t have come at all this weekend.”
“In that case,” said Isobel, sounding recovered, “I’m very glad I was so silly and misunderstood Hugh. I’m sorry if I frightened you, but at least it got you here.”
“Hear, hear,” said Hugh. “I couldn’t have prescribed a more effective medicine. You’ve both done Tuppy a world of good.” He turned his back to the fire and settled his wide shoulders against the mantelpiece. Across the room, Flora felt his eyes on her. “And now that you’re here, Rose, how does it feel to be back in Scotland?”
His manner was pleasant, but his blue eyes no warmer, and she remained wary of him.
“Very nice.”
“Is this your first visit since you were last here?”
“Yes it is.”
“She’s been in the States all summer.” That was Antony, the alert prompter in the wings.
Hugh raised his eyebrows. “Really? Whereabouts?”
Flora tried to remember where Rose had been. “Oh … New York. And the Grand Canyon. And places.”
He inclined his head, acknowledging her traveled state. “How is your mother?”
“She’s very well, thank you.”
“Is she coming back to Fernrigg, too?” He sounded patient as he persevered with the sticky conversation.
“No. I … I think she’s going to stay in New York for a bit.”
“But she’ll doubtless be coming over for the wedding. Unless you plan to be married in New York?”
“Oh, don’t suggest such a thing,” said Isobel. “How could we all get to New York?”
Antony said quickly, “Nothing’s been decided, anyway. Not even a date, let alone where it’s going to take place.”
“In that case,” said Hugh, “it sounds a little as though we’re crossing bridges before we get to them.”
“Yes. It does.”
There was a small pause while they all sipped their drinks. Flora cast about for some fresh topic of conversation, but before she could think of one, there came the sounds of cars arriving, the slamming of doors, and Isobel said, “There are the others.”
“It seems,” said Antony, “that they’ve all come at once.” And he laid down his drink and went out to greet the new arrivals.
After a moment Isobel said, “If you’ll excuse me,” and to Flora’s horror, she, too, put down her glass and followed Antony, doubtless to take the ladies of the party upstairs, to divest themselves of coats and perhaps comb their hair.
Thus, Flora and Hugh Kyle were left alone. The silence that lay between them was pregnant with things unsaid. She toyed with the idea of going straight into the attack—of saying, I can see that you want to keep the good opinion of the Armstrongs, but you’re being a great deal more pleasant to me now than you were this morning. But, she told herself, this was neither the time nor the place for a showdown. Besides, it was impossible to defend herself when she had no idea what it was she was supposed to have done.
The possibilities, however, were daunting. Rose, Flora was beginning to accept, was not a woman of the highest principles. She had ditched Antony without a qualm of conscience, swanned off to Greece with some newly met swain, and deliberately left Flora to pick up the pieces of her broken engagement.
Who could guess at the horrors that Rose, at seventeen, would have been capable of committing? Flora had imagined her as young and frustrated and bored stiff. Was it so unlikely that in order to amuse herself, she had taken up with the first eligible man who came her way?
But Hugh Kyle did not look that sort of person. Not a man that any girl would consider playing fast and loose with. He was, in fact, formidable. Flora made herself look at him, standing as before with his back to the fire, his penetrating blue eyes watching her, unblinking, over the rim of his tumbler of whisky. This evening he wore a dark suit of some distinction, a silk shirt and some sort of a club tie with emblems on it. She wished that he were not so large. It was disconcerting having to stand there, looking up at him, and the expression she found on his face caused the very last of her courage to dribble away. She was confounded. She was without anything to say.
He seemed to be aware of her discomfiture and, surprisingly, to take pity on her, for it was he who broke the silence.
“Tuppy tells me that you and Antony have to leave tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’ve had one lovely afternoon.”
“Yes, it was lovely.”
“How did you spend it?”
“We went for a walk.”
At that juncture they were mercifully interrupted by Antony, ushering in the two males among the newly arrived guests.
“Everyone came at the same time,” he told them. “Rose, I don’t believe you’ve met Mr. Crowther. He came to live in Tarbole after you’d been here.”
Mr. Crowther was dressed in his minister’s somber best, but with his red face, thick gray hair, and well-set-up figure he looked more like a successful bookie than a man of the church. He took Flora’s hand in a hefty grip and proceeded to pump it up and down, saying, “Well, this is a pleasure. I’ve been looking forward to meeting Antony’s young lady. How do you do?”
He sounded like a bookie as well. The very timbre of his deep voice made the crystal baubles of the chandelier knock together with a fine chiming sound. Flora imagined him preaching hellfire and br
imstone from his pulpit. She was sure he had a fine reputation for meaningful sermons.
“How do you do?”
“Mrs. Armstrong’s been so looking forward to a visit from you, as indeed we all have.” He caught sight of Hugh Kyle, let go her hand at last, and went toward the other man. “And it’s yourself, Doctor. And how’s life treating you?”
“Rose,” said Antony.
She had been aware of the other man, waiting for all the effusion to run its course. Now she turned toward him.
“You remember Brian Stoddart?”
She saw the brown face, the dark eyebrows, the laughter lines around his eyes and mouth. His hair was dark, too, and his eyes a very pale, clear gray. Not as tall as Antony, and older, he nevertheless radiated a sort of animal vitality which Flora recognized as being immensely attractive. Unlike the other men of the party, he had put on semiformal evening clothes—dark trousers and a blue velvet smoking jacket—and with these he wore a white turtleneck sweater.
He said, warmly, “Rose, what a long time it’s been.” He held out his arms and without thinking Flora moved toward him, and they kissed each other, circumspectly, on both cheeks.
He held her off. “Let me see if you’ve changed.”
“Everybody thinks she’s got prettier,” said Antony.
“Impossible. She couldn’t get prettier. But she’s looking wonderfully happy and well. You’re a lucky man, Antony.”
“Yes,” said Antony, not sounding particularly certain. “Well, having decided that, and kissed the poor girl silly into the bargain, come over and tell me what you want to drink.”
While they were thus occupied Isobel made her entrance escorting the two wives, and the whole scene was replayed, this time with Isobel making the introductions. This was Mrs. Crowther, whom Rose had not met before. (Big teeth, as Jason had warned, but a pleasant-faced person, dressed, as if for a ceileidh, in a tartan dress pierced by a Cairngorm brooch.) Mrs. Crowther was as enthusiastic as her husband. “So lovely that you were able to come and see Mrs. Armstrong again. It’s just a shame that she’s not able to be with us tonight.” She smiled over Flora’s head. “Good evening, Dr. Kyle. Good evening, Mr. Stoddart.”