Nurse decided that this nonsense had gone on for long enough. She drew out a chair and sat down, the starched bib of her apron puffing out in front of her, so that all at once she looked like a pouter pigeon. “She’ll have to be told no,” she announced again.
Mrs. Watty and Isobel, in concert, sighed. “That’s not going to be so easy, Nurse,” said Mrs. Watty, in the voice of a parent with a brilliant but maddening child. “You don’t know Mrs. Armstrong the way Miss Isobel and I know her. Why, once she sets her mind on something, then not wild horses will make her see differently.”
Jason took some toast and buttered it. “I’ve never been to a dance,” he observed, but again nobody took the slightest notice of him.
“How about Antony, could he not talk to her?” Nurse suggested hopefully.
But Mrs. Watty and Isobel shook their heads. Antony would be no use at all. Besides, Antony was still in bed, catching up on his sleep, and nobody was going to disturb him.
“Well, if none of her family can make her see reason,” Nurse announced, her tones indicating that she thought them a very poor lot, “then Dr. Kyle will have to.”
At the mention of Hugh’s name, both Mrs. Watty and Isobel brightened visibly. For some reason, they had not thought of Hugh.
“Dr. Kyle,” repeated Mrs. Watty thoughtfully. “Yes. Now, that is a good idea. She’ll take no notice of anything we might have to say, but she’ll take a telling from the doctor. Is he coming to see her this morning?”
“Yes,” said Nurse. “He mentioned some time before lunch.”
Mrs. Watty leaned her massive forearms on the table, and dropped her voice, like a conspirator. “Then why don’t we just humor her till then? There’s no point, and I’m sure you will agree, Nurse, in upsetting Mrs. Armstrong with a lot of argument and fuss. Let’s just leave it to Dr. Kyle.”
And so the problem was satisfactorily shelved for the time being, and Flora had it in her heart to be sorry for Hugh Kyle.
The morning wore on. Flora helped Mrs. Watty with the breakfast dishes, vacuumed the dining-room carpet, and laid the table for lunch. Isobel put on her hat and bore Jason off to church. Mrs. Watty started cooking, whereupon Flora, primed by Nurse, went upstairs to see Tuppy.
“And mind you’re noncommittal about that dance,” warned Nurse. “If she starts on about it, you just change the subject.”
Flora said that she would. She was just on her way out of the kitchen when Mrs. Watty called her back, dried her hands, opened a drawer, and took out a large paper bag containing a number of hanks of gray with which she intended to knit a sweater for Jason.
“This’ll be a nice little occupation for you,” she told Flora. “You and Mrs. Armstrong can wind my wool for me. Why they can’t sell it rolled in those neat wee balls is beyond my comprehension, but there it is, they don’t seem to be able to.”
Obediently bearing the bag of wool, Flora made her way upstairs to Tuppy’s room. As soon as she went in she saw that Tuppy was looking better. Gone were the dark rings beneath her eyes, the air of restlessness. She sat up in bed and held out her arms as Flora appeared.
“I hoped it would be you. Come and give me a kiss. How pretty you’re looking.” Flora, in deference to Sunday, had put on a skirt and a Shetland sweater. “Do you know, this is the first time I’ve seen your legs. With legs like that I don’t know why you have to cover them up with trousers all the time.” They kissed. Flora began to draw away, but Tuppy held her. “Are you angry with me?”
“Angry?”
“About staying. It was very unfair of me to send you that message by Isobel last night, but I wanted you to change your mind, and I couldn’t think of any other way of doing it.”
Flora was disarmed. She smiled. “No, I’m not angry.”
“It’s not as though you had anything dreadfully important to get back to. And I wanted you to stay, so badly.”
She let Flora go, and Flora settled herself on the edge of the bed. “But now you’re in the doghouse,” she told Tuppy, deliberately forgetting Nurse’s instructions. “You know that, don’t you?”
“I don’t even know what a doghouse is.”
“I mean you’re in disgrace for planning another party.”
“Oh, that.” Tuppy chuckled, delighted with herself. “Poor Isobel nearly fainted when I told her.”
“You’re very naughty.”
“But why? Why shouldn’t I have another party? Stuck in this silly bed, I must have something to amuse myself.”
“You’re meant to be getting better, not planning wild parties.”
“Oh, it won’t be wild. And there have been so many parties in this house that it will practically run on its own momentum. Besides, nobody has to do anything. I’ve organized it all.”
“Isobel’s got to spend an entire day at the telephone, ringing people up.”
“Yes, but she won’t mind that. Anyway, it’ll keep her off her feet.”
“But what about the house, and the flowers that will have to be done, and the furniture moved and everything?”
“Watty can move the furniture. It won’t take him a moment. And…” Tuppy cast about for inspiration. “… you can do the flowers.”
“Perhaps I can’t do flowers.”
“Then we’ll have pot plants. Or get Anna to help us. Rose, it’s no good trying to put obstacles in my way, because I’ve already thought of everything.”
“Nurse says it depends on what Hugh says.”
“Nurse has had a face on like the back of a bus, all morning. And if it depends on Hugh, you can set your mind at rest. Hugh will think it’s a splendid idea.”
“I shouldn’t count on that, if I were you.”
“No, I’m not counting on it. I’ve known Hugh all my life, and he can be as pig-headed as the next man.” Tuppy’s expression changed to one of amused speculation. “But I’m surprised you’ve found that out so quickly.”
“I sat next to him last night at dinner.” Flora opened the paper bag and took out the first hank of gray wheeling. “Do you feel strong enough to wind wool for Mrs. Watty?”
“Yes, of course I do, I’ll hold it and you can do the winding.”
Once they had organized themselves and started in on this undemanding task, Tuppy went on, as though there had been no pause in the conversation, “I want to hear about last night, all about it.”
Flora told her, deliberately enthusiastic, making it all sound sheer fun from start to finish.
“And the Crowthers are so nice, aren’t they?” said Tuppy, when Flora had finally run out of things to describe. “I really like him so much. He’s rather overwhelming to meet for the first time, but such a really good man. And Hugh enjoyed himself?”
“Yes. At least, I think he did. But of course there was a telephone call for him halfway through the evening, and he had to go.”
“The dear boy. If only he’d get someone to help him. But there it is…” Tuppy’s hands dropped and Flora stopped winding wool and waited for her. “… I think that for Hugh being so busy is a sort of therapy. Isn’t that what they call it nowadays? A therapy?”
“You mean, because of his wife’s dying?”
“Yes. I think that’s what I mean. You know, he was such a nice little boy. He used to come here quite a lot to play with Torquil. His father was our doctor—I told you that. Quite a humble man, from the Isle of Lewis, but he was a splendid doctor. And Hugh was clever, too. Hugh got a scholarship to Fettes, and then he went on to study medicine at Edinburgh University.”
“He played rugger for the university, didn’t he?”
“Antony must have told you that. Antony always thought the world of Hugh. Yes, he played rugger for the university, but what was more exciting was that he passed his finals with honors and he won the Cunningham Medal for Anatomy, and the whole wonderful world of medicine was open to him. Then Professor McClintock—he was professor of surgery at St. Thomas’s in London—he asked Hugh to go down to London and study under him. We were
all so proud. I couldn’t have been more proud of Hugh if he’d been my own child.”
Flora found it difficult to equate all this brilliance with the dour dinner companion of last night. “Why did it all go wrong?” she asked.
“Oh, it didn’t go wrong exactly.” Tuppy lifted her hands with the hank of wool looped around them, and Flora continued winding.
“He got married, though?”
“Yes. To Diana. He met her in London and they got engaged, and he brought her back to Tarbole.”
“Did you meet her?”
“Yes.”
“Did you like her?”
“She was very beautiful, very charming, very well turned out. I believe her father had a great deal of money. It couldn’t have been easy for her, coming up here and knowing nobody. Tarbole was a very different world from the one she’d been used to, and she didn’t really fit in. I think she thought we were all dreadfully dull. Poor Hugh. It must have been a desperate time for him. I didn’t say anything to him, of course. It was nothing to do with me. But I believe that his old father was a little more outspoken. Too outspoken, perhaps. But by then Hugh was so besotted by her that it would have made no difference what any of us said. And although we didn’t want to lose him, we did want him to be happy.”
“And was he?”
“I don’t know, Rose. We didn’t see him again for two years, and when we did it was because Diana was dead—killed in a dreadful car accident—and Hugh had thrown everything up and come back to Tarbole to take over from his father. And he’s been here ever since.”
“How long is that?”
“Nearly eight years.”
“You’d think he’d have got over it by now. Married again…”
“No. Not Hugh.”
They fell silent, winding wool. The ball was getting quite big. Flora changed the subject. She said, “I liked Anna.”
Tuppy’s face lit up. “I am glad you liked Anna. I love her, but she’s not easy to get to know. She’s very shy.”
“She told me that she’s always lived here.”
“Yes. Her father was a great friend of mine. He was called Archie Carstairs and he came from Glasgow. He’d made a great deal of money and everybody thought he was a very rough diamond—people were so silly and snobbish in those days—but I always liked him. He was a great sailing man—he used to cruise around in a very ostentatious ocean-going yacht. That’s how he first came to Ardmore. He fell in love with the loch and the beautiful country, and indeed, who could blame him for that? There’s nowhere like it in all the world. Anyway, just after the First World War, he built Ardmore House, and as the years went by he spent more and more time here, and eventually he retired to Ardmore. Anna was born there. Archie married late in life—I think he’d always been too busy making money to get married before—and so Anna was the child of quite elderly parents. In fact, her mother lived only for a few months after Anna was born. I often think, if her mother had survived, that Anna would have been a very different sort of person. But there it is, these things happen, and it’s not for us to question why.”
“And Brian?”
“What about Brian?”
“How did she meet Brian?”
Tuppy gave a little smile. “Brian sailed into Ardmore loch one summer, in a shabby little boat that he’d brought single-handed from the South of France. By then Archie had started the Ardmore Yacht Club. It was his toy, a hobby to keep him busy in retirement, and also to make sure that he kept in touch with all his old sailing friends. Brian tied up and came ashore for a drink, and Archie got talking to him, and he was so impressed by Brian’s feat of seamanship that he asked him back to Ardmore House for dinner. For Anna it was like young Lochinvar, riding in on a white horse. She looked at Brian and lost her heart and she’s been in love with him ever since.”
“She married him.”
“Of course.”
“What did her father have to say about that?”
“He was fairly wary. He admired Brian and he even quite liked him, but he’d never intended him as his son-in-law.”
“Did he try to talk Anna out of it?”
“To give him his due, yes, I think he did. But the most unexpected people can be very stubborn. Anna was a woman by then, no longer a child. She knew what she wanted and she intended having it.”
“Was Brian in love with her?”
There was a long pause. Then Tuppy said, “No, I don’t think so. But I do think that he was fond of her. And of course he was also fond of all the material things that being married to Anna represented.”
“You’re saying—in a very nice way—that he married her for her money.”
“I don’t want to say that, because I’m so fond of Anna.”
“Does it matter anyway, provided they’re happy?”
“That’s what I asked myself at the time.”
“Is she very rich?”
“Yes. When Archie died she inherited everything.”
“And Brian?”
“Brian has nothing but the settlement Archie made on him. I happen to know it was very generous, but the capital, the bulk of the wealth, is Anna’s.”
“Supposing—the marriage broke up?”
“Then Brian’s settlement would be dissolved. He would have nothing.”
Flora thought of Anna with her diffidence and her beautiful diamonds. And she was sorry for her, all over again, because it must be a cheerless thing to have your husband tied to you by nothing but money.
“Brian’s very attractive.”
“Brian? Yes, of course he’s attractive. Attractive and frustrated. He doesn’t have nearly enough to do with himself.”
“They’ve never had any children?”
“Anna lost a child, that summer you and your mother were here. But I don’t suppose you’d remember. You’d probably gone by then.”
The ball of wool was nearly finished. The last few strands lay across Tuppy’s thin wrists. “She’s pregnant again,” said Tuppy.
Flora stopped winding. “Anna? Is she? Oh, I am glad,”
Tuppy was instantly concerned. “I should never have said anything. It just slipped out. I wasn’t meant to tell anyone. Hugh told me, just to cheer me up when I was feeling so ill. And I promised I’d keep it a secret.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” Flora vowed. “In fact, I’ve forgotten it already.”
* * *
It was midday and they were onto the last hank of wool before Hugh appeared. They heard his footsteps up the stairs and along the passage. There came a cursory thump on the door, and the next moment he was in the room with them. He wore his workday suit. His bag swung from his hand and a stethoscope spilled from the pocket of his jacket.
“Good morning,” he said.
Tuppy eyed him. “You don’t look as though anybody had ever told you that Sunday is meant to be a day of rest.”
“I forgot it was Sunday when I woke up this morning.” He came to the foot of the bed and straight to the point. “What’s all this I’ve been hearing?”
Tuppy made an exasperated face. “I knew they’d tell you before I had a chance to.”
He set down his bag on the floor and leaned his arms on the brass rail at the end of her bed. “Then you tell me now.”
The end of the wool slipped off Tuppy’s wrists and onto the last fat ball.
“We’re going to have a little party next Friday for Rose and Antony,” Tuppy told him, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
“How many people does a little party consist of?”
“About … sixty.” She met his eye. “Seventy?” she amended hopefully.
“Seventy people bouncing about in the hall, drinking champagne and talking nineteen to the dozen. What do you think that’s going to do to your state of health?”
“If anything, it will improve it.”
“Who’s going to organize all this?”
“It has already been organized. It took me exactly half an hour befo
re breakfast. And now I shall wash my hands off the entire affair.”
He looked, naturally, skeptical. “Tuppy, I find that hard to believe.”
“Oh, don’t be such an old stick-in-the-mud. Everybody’s carrying on as though we were going to give a state ball.”
Hugh looked at Flora. “And what does Rose think about it?”
“Me?” Flora had been gathering up the balls of wool, putting them back into the paper bag. “I … I think it’s a lovely idea, but if you think it’s going to be too much for Tuppy…”
“Don’t be such a turncoat, Rose,” Tuppy interrupted crossly. “You’re just as bad as the rest of them.” She turned back to Hugh. “I’ve told you, it’s all planned. Mr. Anderson will do the catering, Rose will do the flowers, Watty will clear the hall of furniture, and Isobel will telephone everybody and ask them to come. And if you don’t take that expression off your face, Hugh, you will not be asked.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“Me? Not a thing. I shall simply sit here and stare into space.”
Her blue gaze was innocent. Hugh cocked his head and watched her warily. “No visitors,” he said.
“What do you mean, no visitors?”
“I mean, nobody nipping upstairs to see you and having little chats.”
Tuppy looked bitterly disappointed. “Not even one or two?”
“Start with one or two, and by the end of the evening your bedroom would be like Piccadilly Underground at rush hour. No visitors. And I won’t even take your word on it. I shall post Nurse at the door as a sentry, armed with a pike or a bedpan or whatever weapon she chooses. And that, Mrs. Armstrong, is the deal.” He straightened up and came around to the side of the bed. “And now, Rose, if you’d be so kind as to go and find Nurse, and tell her I’m here.”
“Yes, of course.” Thus dismissed, Flora kissed Tuppy quickly, got off the bed, and went out of the room. Nurse was already on her way upstairs, and they met on the landing.
Nurse’s face was grim. “Is Dr. Kyle with Mrs. Armstrong?”
“Yes, he’s waiting for you.”