The Last of the Kintyres (17 page)

“I think I’ve made it already, Hew,” she told him. “It’s—yes, I’ll marry you.”

He looked surprised, but covered it up with a brief smile.

“Do you want me to announce our engagement when we go back?” he asked conventionally. “Or do you want to wait and think again?”

She remembered Caroline and her mouth grew hard. “I don’t think there’s any reason why we should wait, is there?” she said.

“None in the slightest.” He put his hand beneath her elbow, guiding her through the lounge to the open door of the ballroom. “Any reservations?” he asked. Elizabeth looked straight ahead.

“No,” she answered. “None.”

“Not even about the date of our marriage?”

“No.”

Caroline was still part of the group round their table. She was standing beside Tony, holding a glass of champagne and laughing at something he had said, but behind the laughter there was a watchfulness and an uneasiness which suggested that her high party spirits might not be quite so spontaneous as they appeared to be. Her eyes glittered in the bright light from the overhead chandeliers as Hew and Elizabeth approached.

“We wondered where you had gone,” Imogen greeted them, as if she had to say something to cover up her own unhappiness. “But we knew Elizabeth wouldn’t want to miss the last dance.”

Stephen was on his feet, looking at Elizabeth with a half-rueful smile, as if he had already guessed her secret.

“We’re going to be married,” Hew told them without preamble. “Elizabeth has just promised to be my wife.” The rather stilted, wholly conventional announcement dropped into a tense silence, broken only by the little background noises of the ballroom—the low-toned conversation, the muted laughter, the scrape of a chair on the polished floor, the sound of the orchestra tuning up for the last waltz.

Caroline stood with her glass half raised to her lips, like a figure carved in stone. There
was no colour in her face and her nose looked sharply pinched as she drew in a deep, quivering breath. “Whom do we congratulate?” she asked at last.

“Both of us,” Hew said, looking fully into her narrowed eyes.

“This is wonderful!” Tony cried, swinging round to shake Hew by the hand. “I had no idea—”

“Neither had anyone else!” Stephen backed him up loyally. “Hew, you old dark horse! You’ve been holding out on us!”

“Everything is happening at once!” Imogen said, forgetful of her own heartache for the moment. “But this is wonderful news! You’ll love it at Ardlamond, Elizabeth, and—you’re just the right sort of person for Hew!” She dropped a light kiss on Elizabeth’s cheek. Behind her Elizabeth could see Caroline standing close to the table, still with her champagne glass in her hand. She had looked stunned, but now slowly, slowly she was coming to life. A dark, burning colour swept into her cheeks and she bit her teeth into her lower lip. When she laid down the glass her hand was trembling. The champagne spilt from it in a little river that ran swiftly across the table’s polished surface to trickle on to the floor.

Everyone stared at it, not speaking for a moment, and then Caroline said:

“Come on, Tony, let’s dance this! It’s much too good a tune to miss.”

Something in the hard, clipped tone, something about the way she looked at Tony, turned Elizabeth’s blood to ice. Caroline had been defeated, but the battle was not entirely lost. Tony was easy prey—foolish prey—and through Tony she hoped to injure Elizabeth. She was humiliated enough to see that as the only way left to her, to take her revenge through Tony.

But how could she? How could she, if Tony would only be sensible!

“Shall we dance?” Hew asked. “Or would you like the last one with Stephen? He’s a far better dancer than I am.”

“I’m going to take Imogen home,” Stephen said. “She looks tired. Will you say good night to Tony for us?” He held Elizabeth’s hand a second longer than convention demanded, looking closely into her radiant face. “I don’t think I need say ‘be happy,’ Elizabeth,” he added quietly. “I think you are.”

Imogen kissed Elizabeth again without speaking. The quick tears of a keen disappointment were very near her eyes and her lips quivered a little as they touched Elizabeth’s cheek.

“Come to Ardlamond one day soon,” Elizabeth said, not quite sure whether she should have issued the impulsive invitation or not. “Tony and Hew will probably be too busy to entertain us, but at least they can join us for tea.”

Imogen did not promise, and Stephen slipped a protective arm about her as they moved through the crowd towards the door.

“Would you mind if I got my coat, Hew?” Elizabeth asked suddenly. “I feel that I’ve danced enough for one evening.”

“I’ll wait for you outside,” he said with some relief. “It’s stiflingly hot in here.”

He followed her through to the lounge, where he was immediately accosted by a group of yachtsmen coming from the cocktail bar.

“A word with you, Hew, before you go!” one of them greeted him. “We won’t keep you more than a minute or two.”

Elizabeth turned quickly into the ladies’ cloakroom, hoping for a word with Imogen, but she had already gone. The little room with its pink and grey decor was momentarily deserted. She passed in her ticket and waited for her coat, her heart beating swiftly at the thought of Hew and all the changes this evening had brought with it for both of them. It was impossible to think clearly yet about all that had happened—the day itself had been so full—and she did not attempt to question her swift decision about the future. She loved Hew and she would make him happy.

The attendant passed over her coat.

“It’s been a nice day, miss,” she ventured a trifle wearily.

“A lovely day,” Elizabeth responded as the door behind her opened.

She turned, slipping into her coat, to find herself confronted by Caroline. And face to face with all the fury of a woman scorned.

Caroline stood with her back to the door, her eyes narrowed in the calculating way she had when she was very angry, her red
li
ps curved in a cruel
li
ttle smile which was more like a sneer.

“Do you expect to be happy
li
ving with a man who keeps a memory in his heart?” she asked beneath her breath. “If so, you’re being a greater fool that I take you for. Every time Hew sees me he will remember the past. You’ve caught him on the rebound, but it won’t last,” she declared with icy conviction. “It won’t last five minutes with the thought of me always there!”

Eliz
abeth caught her breath. She was tremb
li
ng from head to foot. She was no real match for Caro
li
ne because she be
li
eved what Caroline said to be true, but she would not be browbeaten.

“I think I can blot it out in time,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry you feel this way about my marriage to Hew, but—but it can’t be helped. There’s only one thing, Caroline,” she added on an impulse which she was afterwards to regret in an agony of despair. “Please give Tony a chance. Please leave him alone.”

Caroline drew back, and in that moment E
li
zabeth recognized the mistake she had made. She had put a weapon into Caroline’s ruthless hand.

“Tony and I understand one another,” Caro
li
ne said smoothly. “Don’t worry too much about us, E
li
zabeth.
You’re going to have enough to do, worrying about your marriage to Hew.”

She moved swiftly to collect her wrap, like a sleek panther, Elizabeth thought with a sickening feeling of despondency in the pit of her stomach.

She tugged at the door, hurrying in the direction of the lounge to find Hew. In the ballroom the orchestra was playing Auld Lang Syne, but the music seemed a world away.

Hew turned, saw her and came instantly to her side. “Shall we collect the rest of the family?” he asked.

“Tony was dancing,” she reminded him shakily. “But Caroline has gone for her wrap. He’s probably out in the car park.”

“Probably.” Hew’s mouth hardened a little, but he did not seem particularly angry. “I hope they won’t attempt to go down along the coast. There’s quite a bit of mist coming up.”

They had been back at Ardlamond for the best part of an hour before the white Cadillac drew up at the front of the house. Tony got out and called something to Caroline, but if it had been an invitation to come in when he had seen the lights still burning in the hall, she did not accept it. With a sharp, almost angry sound she let in her clutch and drove away, and they could hear the engine roaring right along the coast road.

Hew got up and began to extinguish the lights on the wall sconces, leaving the two above the high chimney-piece.

“There’s some hot chocolate, if you feel like it,” he told Tony when he came in.

Elizabeth rose, infinitely relieved that Tony had returned without mishap. She felt much happier now, able to look about her and visualize the future without the disturbing thought of Caroline in the forefront of her mind. She would work for her happiness, putting everything she could into her marriage of love and service to achieve the tranquillity and peace which Hew wanted at Ardlamond.

This much, at least, she knew. He would value peace in his home and look to her to keep it there.

When she had poured out the hot drink for Tony, Hew moved with her to the foot of the stairs.

“Good night, Elizabeth,” he said.

Quite deliberately she turned her face up to his, waiting for his kiss, but instead of touching her lips he raised her hand from the carved newel-post and carried it to his with an odd little gesture which she would have believed utterly foreign in him.

“Good night,” he repeated. “Sleep well.”

CHAPTER NINE

THE full, heavy September tide came right up over the rocks as the days shortened. The autumnal equinox was approaching with its threat of high water and a fury of seas, but still Hew was busy with the other affairs of the estate and had not decided to take the sheep off the island.

Lingay drowsed in the intermittent sunshine, with the cloud galleons sailing over her green pasturage, and Tony helped with other things, going off occasionally with Caroline for mad jaunts in the w
hi
te car but always returning to the task Hew had set him.

Caroline did not seem the sort of person to remain indefinitely at Dromore with little to do and no excitement to stimulate her restless spirit save a mild flirtation with someone several years her junior, but then it was difficult to be sure about Caroline.

She seemed to be keeping out of Hew’s way, too angry, perhaps, to trust herself to meet him, and only through Tony had they any news of her activities.

Stephen, busy laying up
Naomi
for the winter months, had taken the yacht through the Crinan Canal to the Clyde. He had phoned Hew from Crinan, explaining his absence and saying that Imogen had gone to stay with Shona Lorimer for a few days, but Elizabeth knew that even Shona and Ravenscraig would not help Imogen to forget.

Hew had made no further reference to their engagement. It was an accepted thing with him, she supposed, trying to look at it with the same casualness and failing miserably. To her even such a fragile linking of their two lives was something to be lived with every minute of the day and cherished in the deep and secret places of her heart.

In time, she thought. In time he may come to love me. Here, at Ardlamond, where time descended slowly, like the gentle rain, affection and respect and kindness might eventually be nurtured into love.

She had already planned a small, helpful routine for herself, persuading Hew that she could quite easily handle the paper work connected with the estate, setting him free for the more practical tasks of management which came more easily to him.

She was sitting in the business-room one afternoon about a fortnight after the regatta dance, typing letters, when Hew came in. He had changed out of his wet clothes and looked relaxed in an old pair of corded trousers and an open-necked shirt with a silk cravat at his throat.

Without speaking he went to stand beside the window, and she finished the letter she was busy with, placing it with the other completed ones for him to sign.

“It’s four o’clock,” he said. “Time to let up. Jessie tells me you’ve been working in here all day.”

“I didn’t start till ten, and I’m rather slow,” she confessed, putting the cover on the typewriter.

He came across to where she sat, lifting the letter she had just completed. Reading it, he smiled onesidedly.

“There are two t’s in attest,” he observed, “and an ‘e’ on the end of gauge!”

“You fluster me”, she laughed confusedly, “when you come in so unexpectedly!”

He turned back to the window.

“I didn’t know I had that effect on you,” he said. “I thought we were bearing with each other rather well.”

“I—we don’t see so very much of one another,” she reminded him.

“No,” he agreed, setting down the spoiled letter on the table at her elbow. “I suppose we’ve worked hard enough to merit a holiday or, at least, a respite. I’m going to take you to see Loch Tralaig.”