The Last of the Kintyres (2 page)

“If you can come in to-morrow,” he suggested, “we can make the final arrangements for your journey. There are one or two points to clear up—”

He left the sentence unfinished, and Elizabeth wondered if he intended to discuss these relative details with his other client after they had gone.

“If you could manage to come in about eleven o'clock tomorrow,” Mr. Lord suggested, holding open the door for her, “I should be able to have all the details ready for you then.”

Elizabeth hesitated, wanting to tell him that she had changed her mind, and then she realized that, whether she agreed to go to Ardlamond Lodge or not, Tony would have to go. He was still a minor, and Sir Ronald had been appointed his guardian. Tony would have to go to Dromore and she with him, if only in an effort to keep the peace.

Sir Ronald had extended his invitation to her in the kindest possible way, feeling that she would like to be with her brother, and she had accepted that kindly gesture without hesitation until a moment ago.

It can’t make any difference, she decided, as she shook Richard Lord by the hand and bade Hew Kintyre a rather frigid good-bye. If he works in London we’re not likely to see him again.

The following morning, however, as she made her way slowly back towards Lincoln’s Inn alone, she was more than ever aware of Hew Kintyre and the disturbing impression he had made upon her.

She had talked and reasoned with Tony far into the night and the effort had left her tired and a little irri
t
ated, so that she had been almost glad when he had gone off with some friends for a day on the river, leaving her with his grudging promise to co-operate in what he called the “Dromore fiasco” for a week or two, at least.

She hoped that she would not meet Hew Kintyre again. There was no reason to suppose that he would be at the solicitor’s office when she got there. He had said so plainly, so definitely, that he had no responsibility for taking her to Ardlamond Lodge, that, in fact, she would never have been invited there if he had!

Well, she assured herself firmly, she could forget him. She believed that Sir Ronald lived at Ardlamond alone now, since his wife had died just over a year ago, but she could make quite sure of that by asking Mr. Lord.

Making her way through the narrow alley-way which led to his office, she saw a tall, vaguely familiar figure come down the worn stone steps at the entrance to the close and turn in the opposite direction, towards Hol
born
. The colour flamed in her cheeks as recognition became a certainty and she slowed her steps, but Hew Kintyre had strode on, looking neither to left nor right. He had been walking quickly, a man in a hurry, or an exasperated man, perhaps, who had just accepted the fact that he would be forced to bow to the inevitable?

Richard Lord was waiting for her when she reached his office. He did not say that she had just missed meeting Hew Kintyre for
the
second time, but she was even more surprised by what he did say.

“All the arrangements have been made for your journey by Mr. Kintyre. He is acting, of course, on behalf of his father.”

“Of course.” Elizabeth took off her gloves, folding them rather precisely on her knees before she asked, “Mr. Lord, can you tell me what exactly my position will be when I go to Ardlamond Lodge?”

He looked taken aback, and then he laughed and said:

“If it will make you feel any better about your invitation—more independent, perhaps—I feel quite sure that Sir Ronald hopes that you will be able to look after your brother and perhaps make him feel happier about the transition from London.”

There was a small, awkward pause before Elizabeth forced herself to say:

“Then he does know how—difficult Tony can be?”

Mr. Lord stroked his thinning hair.

“Shall we say that he appreciates the fact that all young people of your brother’s age are something of a problem?” he answered with a smile. “He does realize that perhaps your mother was a little lenient towards him because of the circumstances of your father’s death. A mother tends to spoil her son more than she does her daughter,” he added. “And you are older.”

“I’m twenty-two,” Elizabeth said. “That’s why I don’t intend to—sponge on Sir Ronald when it isn’t really necessary,” she added firmly.

“My dear young lady!” Mr. Lord exclaimed, “I don’t think that was ever suggested. Sir Ronald wants you there, too, for your mother’s sake.”

“Does he—live alone?” Elizabeth asked cautiously.

“Most of the time.” The answer seemed to be just as cautious. “His son farms several miles away,” he added with the barest suggestion of a twinkle in his eyes.

“Oh—I thought he worked in London!”

Richard Lord shook his head, smiling, as if the idea amused him.

“I can’t imagine Hew living anywhere but in the Highlands of Scotland,” he answered. “He’s not the type who would ever come to terms with a town. And besides, Ardlamond is his home.”

“Yes,” Elizabeth acknowledged slowly. “I suppose I should have recognized that as soon as I met him.” He gave her an odd, quizzical sort of look before he returned to the papers on his desk.

“You may never see him at Dromore,” he said. “He lives his own strange, isolated sort of life there.” Elizabeth did not know what to make of his statement and would not ask for an explanation. All she hoped was that Dromore was big enough to ensure that they would never meet now that she was quite certain that he resented them going there—even although he had made the necessary arrangements for their journey to Ardlamond Lodge.

The final details had probably been entrusted to him by Sir Ronald because he was coming to London on business, and that was made fairly obvious by the solicitor’s next remark.

“Sir Ronald doesn’t see any real reason why you and your brother shouldn’t travel north right away,” Richard Lord informed her. “Tony, of course, must go. He will be in Sir Ronald’s care until he is twenty-one. After that,” he added slowly, “he will come into your grandmother’s money. I never could understand why she didn’t provide more adequately for your mother,” he observed thoughtfully, “instead of leaving a considerable amount of money to accumulate for her grandson. A great many people do that sort of thing for no very obvious reason. However,” he commented, “that’s by the way. Tony can’t touch the money just now, which is perhaps just as well.”

“Yes,” Elizabeth agreed, “I t
hink
it is.” Her grey eyes looked troubled. “In so many ways, Mr. Lord, Tony is an enigma. Half a man and half a child. He can be so endearing—and so defiant. I sometimes wonder if I’m going to be able to cope.”

He leaned across the desk to pat her hand.

“That was why your mother thought about Sir Ronald, I should think,” he said. “You will have his help.”

It wasn’t until she had boarded the north-bound train two weeks later and it was steaming out of Euston that Elizabeth realized just how much she was depending upon that help.

Sometimes she felt completely at a loss when she was trying to cope with Tony, and certainly the past two weeks had been hectic. Rushing through a series of farewell parties which she had found herself unable to attend because there was so much to do otherwise, he had seemed almost indifferent to the breaking up of the only home they had known. She had excused him because she supposed that boys felt differently about such things, and now she told herself that she, too, must forget. This was a new life, and if they ever did come back to London it would not be to the security of a suburban home.

Her job was assured. A qualified secretary, she had only given it up during these past few months of her mother’s last illness, and she could pick up the threads again easily enough. There was always plenty of that sort of work to be found in a large city.

It was not of her return to London she was thinking as the train finally thundered across the Border and ran smoothly between the Lowland hills. The thought of Dromore was ever in the forefront of her
min
d, and the problem of how they would fit in at Ardlamond Lodge.

They spent the night in Glasgow, at an hotel previously arranged for them by Hew Kintyre, and the very fact strengthened the odd impression that he seemed to have been travelling with them all the way. His strong, dominant personality had left its mark on both their minds, because Tony mused, as the single track wound in among the mountains:

“One doesn’t have to think of Hew Kintyre living here. You can
feel
him! These mountains would make a bandit out of any man.”

Guardedly she laughed at the remark.

“I didn’t think you were so impressionable,” she told him.

“Don’t say he didn’t strike you that way!” he countered. “You didn’t exactly fall in love with him at first sight, did you?”

Elizabeth flushed.

“No,” allowed. “I—thought he might be quite ruthless if occasion demanded. But first impressions are sometimes terribly misleading. Besides,” she added hastily, “He’s not going to count, is he? He doesn’t even live at Ardlamond Lodge.”

“Which is perhaps just as well,” Tony decided. “I’m not counting on treading on his toes all the time. The old man ought to be easy enough to handle,” he re
f
le
c
ted. “I don’t mean to stay any longer than a week or two, of course,” he added controversially when she did not reply.

Elizabeth looked round from the carriage window. Facing her in the opposite
corner
, with the sombre mountains of Scotland flashing past them, her brother looked very young, very inexperienced, and very vulnerable.

“What do you want to do, Tony?” she asked.

He shrugged.

“I don’t quite know,” he decided. “I should say I was at a sort of dead end.”

“Don’t talk nonsense!” Elizabeth returned firmly. “You’ve only just started on your way.”

But which way, she wondered, when he did not answer her. Which way? He had had a good education. Nothing had been spared, yet there was nothing, really, that he wanted to do. Nothing within reason and their limited means. Several months ago he had decided that he “hadn’t the bent” for a university education, but perhaps Sir Ronald would insist on that.

“How do we get from Oban?” he asked as the train wound along beside the incredibly blue waters of Loch Etive. “We’re almost there,” he added for her enlightenment, because for the past half-hour she had said so little, caught up in a spell of utter enchantment as this lovely countryside had unfolded its beauty before their eyes.

“We go south, I think, but I understand we’re being met at Oban.” Suddenly her heart was beating hard and fast and her pulses had quickened expectantly. “Mr. Lord said that Sir Ronald would certainly come to welcome us.”

The thought of meeting the man who had once loved her mother had been much in her mind since she had left London, and now she found herself looking out at the mount
ain
s of Lome and felt that she had come home.

The train turned in a great loop into Oban Bay, and even Tony gasped his surprise. He got up to stand at the window, gazing down at a blue anchorage filled with little boats—a fishing fleet and yachts of every size and description, and glittering white cabin cruisers whose immaculate enamelled hulls reflected back the dazzling sunlight in little dancing waves.

The sun itself seemed to rest delightedly above the placid scene, and everything was closed in and closely guarded by a long green island like a friendly monster sleeping on the surface of the bay.

Beyond and above it towered the mountains of the west, the silent giants of Mull and Morven, with their heads buried in the clouds, and over everything lay a peace which could almost be felt.

“This is certainly something!” Tony exclaimed, looking at the yachts. “I had no idea Oban was like that. I wonder if the old boy has a boat.”

“It’s amazing how little we really know about him,” Elizabeth mused, turning to collect their luggage. “Apart from the odd thing Mr. Lord has told us and what Mother has said from time to time, we’ve no idea about Ardlamond at all.”

“I expect you’ve dreamed up something, though!” he grinned, swinging down the heaviest case. “Wasn’t there some sort of romance between Sir Ronald and Mother when they were young?”

Elizabeth’s eyes were fixed on the distant mountains beyond Lismore as she said:

“It was a long time ago, but somehow I don’t think Sir Ronald has forgotten.”

The train pulled into the station and she stood behind Tony, looking out. They were much of a height, tall and slim and dark, and there could be no mistaking their relationship even at the most casual glance.

“What will the old boy look like?” Tony asked over his shoulder as he let down the window to call a porter.

“Tall—and distinguished, I should think, with white hair and very blue eyes.”

Tony laughed at her imaginative description.

“In fact,” he grinned, “an older edition of Hew Kintyre!”

“They are father and son, after all!” she defended herself.

“I hope that’s where the resemblance stops,” Tony declared, gazing down the long platform for someone who might conceivably answer her fanciful description of their host. “I didn’t much like what I saw of Hew Kintyre in London.”