Unknown (13 page)

They drove up to the Sir Francis Drake, where the doorman ushered them up a flight of wide, carpeted stairs to the reception hall at the top, and here Charles was waiting for them.

"I've just come in," he said. "I thought it best not to attempt the airport in case I couldn't make it before your flight got in." He looked beyond his grandmother to where Elizabeth stood, her heart hammering against her ribs as if she had been running. "Apparently there were no emergencies."

"Oh, but there was!" Adele told him gaily. "I ran off to shop at Honolulu while Elizabeth was posting a letter to John Kapala."

He frowned.

"I'm sorry," Elizabeth apologised. "It worked out all right in the end, as you see."

"I don't know why everyone appears to be so concerned about what I may do next," Adele complained. "I am really quite a rational sort of person when left to myself."

Charles took her by the arm.

"You'll have a new jailer from now on," he informed her. "I'm going straight back to Scotland with you."

Elizabeth's heart sank. It was exactly as she had feared. The Drake was to be the parting of their ways. If she wanted to stay in San Francisco for a day or two's sightseeing she would be at liberty to do so, of course. She would have no one to please but herself.

"Charles," said Adele, depositing her hand-luggage on the nearest table, "I want Elizabeth to travel to Scotland with us."

Elizabeth could almost feel the silence which followed. Charles's back was turned, but it seemed to exude his displeasure.

"Now that I'm here I suppose I ought to see something of the countryside," she offered awkwardly, trying to ease the sudden tension in the atmosphere. "A day or two—"

Mrs. Abercrombie put a restraining hand on her forearm.

"We'll show you what we can in the time we have," she promised. "Charles, how busy are you going to be for the next two days? We ought to take her to see the redwoods, and there's that lake I went to—not Lake Tahoe, the other one where there's more room to move —and she should go to Monterey and Santa Rosa and the Donner Pass."

Charles turned to look at them. His face was grey.

"I had no idea this was going to turn into a sightseeing tour," he said harshly. "You have three days. After that, I must insist you come to New York."

"Bien entendu!"
Adele agreed. "We can do so much in three whole days. I thought you might have been able to join us. I thought most of your business deals had been completed."

He hesitated.

"I had planned to take you to Portland to see the MacKenzies," he said.

"They are in Scotland on holiday, or I would have jumped at the chance," Adele told him. "Elizabeth would just love Oregon and all those great mountains up there in the north!"

Elizabeth knew that she had not been included in Charles's plans for the visit to Portland. He had thought of her as expendable once they had reached San Francisco.

He turned back to the reception desk.

"I don't think we should make any further plans," said Elizabeth, looking regretfully into Adele's smiling eyes. "You have no further need of me now that—your grandson can take you home."

"My dear child," said Adele firmly, "I have even more need of you than before. What do you think I am going to do with myself while Charles talks business with a boardroom full of men who can think of nothing but ships and shipping? He knows how restless I become when I have to sit still and wait, so I'm a little surprised that he isn't more grateful to you for being available."

"So long as you're not just—sorry for me perhaps I can forget about Charles," Elizabeth said.

Mrs. Abercrombie gave her a long, searching look.

"Sorry for you?" she repeated. "Good gracious, Elizabeth, the only regret I have is that we didn't meet earlier."

It was impossible to feel despondent in such exuberant company, and Elizabeth decided to ignore Charles. Certainly to ignore his displeasure.

They were all booked in at the Drake, so she could not avoid him entirely, but she could try to keep out of his way.

Meals would be the difficult issue, she realised, especially an evening meal. They were allocated a window table in the restaurant, set for three.

"I promised Elizabeth the Starlite Roof," Adele said as she took up her menu. "I'll book a table for tomorrow evening, Charles. Your business commitments surely can't include a working
dinner."

"No," he was forced to agree, waiting for them to make their choice. "A working breakfast or working lunch is bad enough. You needn't worry about booking a table at the Roof," he added with a faint smile. "I've already done that."

"How kind!" Adele murmured. "You think of everything,
mon cher.
It will be like did times for me, and Elizabeth will be able to share it."

A
glow of
pleasure lit Elizabeth's eyes.

"I've heard so much about California," she said, "and especially San Francisco, but I can hardly believe I'm actually here. It's probably the speed of flight which makes it all so breathtaking," she added, looking across the white tablecloth into Charles disinterested eyes. "I suppose it's hard for you to understand how I feel, travelling abroad for the first time, but I do appreciate the fact that I am here with your grandmother and not on my own. It makes a difference."

"Certain, it does,", said Adele, backing her up. "But Charles is so self-reliant these days he tends to forget. Come, Charles! you must remember what it felt like to travel for the first time," she chided gently. "You were so full of gusto you could hardly wait for the plane to take off!"

He smiled at the recollection.

"It was a long time ago," he said, yet some of the tension seemed to have gone out of him and Elizabeth felt glad.

The following day he hired a car to take them to see the spectacular trees around Oakwood while he stayed on in the city for a business lunch.

"Abercrombie's means so much to him," Adele sighed, "but I hope he will not make it his whole life, as his father did after Vera died. Vera was my daughter-in-law," she went on to explain. "Charles's mother. We were the greatest of friends."

She directed the hire-car driver to take diem to Monterey where the great Pacific, rollers broke on the sand and the dunes blazed with a carpet of mauve and yellow flowers, stretching for miles.

"If you've read Steinbeck," said Adele, "this is where it all happened, but further bade still there was Stevenson. How that man got around when travelling wasn't so easy? I wish we had time to do the Mission Chain," she added. "Perhaps—"

"No—please!" Elizabeth protested, smiling. "No more elaborate plans on my account. I'm more than satisfied with what I've already seen. In fact, I'm not quite sure that I can absorb it all, and we did promise to be back for dinner."

They left the ocean and the sea of purple ice plants behind, taking the road back to San Francisco where Charles was waiting. He looked more relaxed and he certainly seemed pleased with his day's endeavour.

"Everything is working out to schedule," he told them. "After tomorrow we can be on our way."

Elizabeth would not allow herself to think about tomorrow, enthralled as she was with today. They went up in the lift to the Starlite Roof.

They were a perfectly ordinary little party, she supposed, eating what might be
taken for
a celebration dinner in a popular night spot, an old lady with the glow of candlelight softening the lines on her face, and a young girl with the light of love in her eyes. And Charles? Did he recognise that light, thinking how foolish she was, how utterly impressionable on her first journey away from Australia? She told herself that she did not care, looking back into his shadowed eyes with pleasure in her own.

The Starlite Roof seemed part of the sky itself, the service was immaculate, and the view across the glowing city streets was the stuff of which memories are made. No matter how irritated he might feel by her unwanted presence, Charles turned out to be the perfect host, and when his grandmother said that she was ready to go to bed 'full of excellent food and good intentions', he took her down in the lift to the second floor.

"Go back and finish your brandy," she told him imperiously, "and take Elizabeth with you. She was half way through her coffee when I pulled you away."

"Really," Elizabeth heard herself protesting, "I don't mind turning in early. Today has given me so much to think about."

"It's only ten o'clock," said Adele. "You can't possibly want to go to bed at this hour at your age. Ask Charles to tell you about Glen Dearg," she suggested. "It's the sort of place your mother would have liked."

She closed the door of her room firmly between them.

Charles laughed.

"You can't win," he said. "Do you really want some more coffee?"

"If you would like to finish your brandy."

They made their way back to the candlelit restaurant where the waiter had kept their table vacant, expecting their return. They did not talk about Glen Dearg, however, because it seemed that Charles was reluctant to discuss his Scottish home with a comparative stranger.

"My grandmother wants you to stay in her employment," he said after a moment "How do you feel about it?"

Elizabeth looked down at the tablecloth.

"Isn't it what
you
feel?" she countered.

"Not entirely." He sounded amused. "I would have thought that you had recognised the fact by now. Grand'mere can be adamant about something she wants very much."

"And so can you," said Elizabeth, looking at him squarely. "Why have you given in about me, Charles? You were very firmly against the idea of your grandmother employing me in the first place."

He considered her question.

"We're privileged to change our minds," he said. "Perhaps I've got to know you a little better and accepted you."

"The necessary evil?"

"If you want to-put it that way."

She smiled, determined not to be daunted by his uncompromising manner.

"I feel I've served my purpose up till now as far as your grandmother is concerned," she told him. "There were moments, of course, when I expected to be dismissed on the spot, especially when I saw you at Waikiki waiting for someone who wasn't there. I deserved instant dismissal, to my way of thinking."

"You were promised San Francisco at least," he reminded her, "and a guaranteed flight to Scotland."

She studied the tablecloth.

"You've been very generous," she admitted.

He laughed abruptly.

"You must thank my grandmother," he said. "She made all the rules."

"And your brother."

He frowned.

"I wouldn't give Jason much credit, if I were you," he warned. "He never stays with an idea for more than five minutes at a time."

"I thought him charming!"

"It's a word that has its pitfalls. Of course, Jason is charming. He takes after Grand'mere."

"And you?"

Charles shrugged.

"I'm my mother's son, with a spicing of Grand'mere thrown in for good measure. My mother was a very practical person, but she had a very soft spot for Grand'mere. They were both dedicated to Abercrombie's, of course, and I suppose that's how one gets after years of sitting on a board of directors."

He was Chairman of the Board now, with all the attendant responsibilities the position carried with it, but she felt that there was more to his preoccupation than his ordinary business commitments. His brows were tightly drawn and there was a hardness about his mouth which completely changed him, but she did not know him well enough to question him further.

"Could we stand by the window for a moment or two?" she asked. "I want to absorb the view."

They stood looking down at the city, at the street lights scintillating twenty-one storeys beneath them and the tall buildings on either side shadowy in the moonlight. The stars were so close that it seemed to Elizabeth that she could hold one just by stretching out her hand.

Beyond the nearer skyscrapers the lights of the Oakland Bridge spanned the harbour and beyond again the long ridge of the surrounding mountains lay dark against the midnight sky.

Charles stood close behind her. They did not speak, yet a strange intimacy seemed to flow between them as they looked out at this magic city where they seemed to be suspended half way to the stars.

It would all end, of course. In a few minutes the restaurant would close and they would be going down in the lift to their separate rooms. Tomorrow would be another day, with Charles burying himself in work, and there would be no more magic left.

"I ought to look in on your grandmother before I go to bed," said Elizabeth, turning from the glitter of the skyscrapers to the dimmed light of the restaurant. "These past two hours have been truly wonderful. Thank you, Charles."

He took her arm to guide her between the emptying tables and they had to stand for a moment, waiting for the lift to come up. Conscious of his touch, like sudden fire, she moved a little way away from him. She had told herself that she couldn't fall in love.

He left her at Mrs. Abercrombie's door, but she stood quite still for several minutes before she opened it and went in. She was already in love, utterly and irretrievably in love with Charles Abercrombie, who was returning home to marry someone else.

The feeling had been with her all evening, gleaned from the odd remark about Glen Dearg which had passed between grandmother and grandson, and she thought that Adele was distressed by the fact Charles's choice would never have been her own, if she had been asked for her advice.

Jenny, or her sister Natalie? What did it matter, or the reason why Charles should have chosen either of them? She had no reason to believe that she had stirred his heart, even when he had kissed her on a romantic Hawaiian beach. She saw the way ahead for her like some dark corridor with no guiding light at its farthest end, yet her feet were already directed towards it and all the heartache she might encounter on the way.