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“Loved and lost, I suppose you mean?”

“No, just loved a person completely. Evelyn loved my father that way, and I don’t think she’ll marry again without a great deal of thought,” Susan answered.

“Even if it were to secure Denham’s for her son?” Susan got back into her car.

“We all take the ‘son’ bit for granted,” she said. “I really must go,” she added. “I promised to be home early to tell Evelyn all about the Riding.”

“I don’t see how you’re going to do that when you spent the day in Edinburgh,” he remarked.

“No. Life’s a problem, isn’t it?”

“Not to worry!” he grinned back at her. “Worse things happen at sea, they tell me! Can I call for you to take you to the dance ?”

“If you like, but I thought you were taking Grisell?”

“We were all going together, remember?”

They drove off in opposite directions, but in less than a mile Susan pulled up again, her thoughts too confused to let her return to Denham immediately. Instead, she sought the far reaches of the open fells where, long ago, she had come with another heartache. The suddenness of her father’s swift passing had left her shocked and numb for days, but gradually, in the silence of the hills, she had come to accept her loneliness, if not to understand it. Her true companion was no more. Flesh of his flesh, she had missed him more than anyone understood, except, perhaps, Evelyn, but she had been unable to talk about her loss for a very long time.

And now it seemed as if she had another battle to fight up here among those lonely hills, a bitter conflict with herself. Why had she defended so passionately her belief that Evelyn, if she ever married again, would choose Richard Elliott and not his brother? Why was it so difficult for her to utter Evelyn’s name linked with that of Max? Didn’t she know? Didn’t she? She couldn’t bear to think of them together. She wanted Evelyn to marry Richard Elliott because she herself was in love with Max!

When had it happened? Did anyone ever know? She had resented him because of her loyalty to Denham’s and her father’s memory, but she had admired him instinctively. She knew that what he had already done for the mill at Fetterburn was necessary for Denham’s also, but she had been proud and resentful because she had not been able to do it herself, or because it had taken an enterprising stranger to show her the way.

And now Max was a stranger no longer. Perhaps she had known all along that his place was here, an Elliott descended from a long line of Elliotts, whose home was the Border. He had a right to be at Fetterburn and he had chosen that right. As far as she could see, the Elliotts were a closely-knit family and Max had shown that his concern over Grisell was no light matter. Instinctively she had helped him when they had gone to Edinburgh, but that was an isolated incident which had almost been thrust upon her by circumstance. By now he must be convinced of her antagonism and think of her accordingly. He had told her frankly that he would have to live with her dislike while they worked together for Denham’s, and she had made it so obvious—so terribly obvious that she would always resent him, no matter what he did.

Restlessly she got out of the car to walk up over the heather to the base of the high crags where she had first seen Max, the horseman, riding towards her. On a clear day such as this the whole broad dale could be seen in detail, with the great rampart of the fells rising up against the sky and today it seemed as if the whole world was at peace. Yet, not so long ago, the glaring bale-fires blazed from height to height along those gentle hill tops and terror spread at the sound of marching feet. From tower and castle wall the watchman’s cry rang out as wreaths of distant smoke heralded the approach of Tynedale men coming ‘to gather in blackmail'. Banners of white and blue and crimson, shield and helmet and spear waved and glistened in the Border sun as Lord Dacre’s bill-men led the Kendall archers and the foreign mercenaries down from Larriston to plunder the Liddel’s southern shore. She could almost hear the songs of Teutonic feuds sung by the men of the Rhine as they marched under the banner of Conrad of Wolfenstein and the rallying cries of more youthful knights eager to gain their spurs and justify their ladies’ favours in their crests or on their gloves.

Not so long ago, she thought, yet half forgotten now, but could there be a stirring in the blood at times, a fierce resentment of the stranger come to pillage in a more peaceful guise?

That was what she had thought about Max at first, but it was all so foolish now, although she could not tell him so. She was not quite free from pride.

Retracing her steps, she felt the moss soft beneath her tread and the gorse harsh on her ankles as she brushed through it towards the road. She was sensitive and prickly as the gorse by turns and she could do nothing about it! She loved Max, but she could not tell him so. For very pride she could not even let him see that her opinion of him had changed. Her heart might pound when he came too near, but there was no way of scaling the barrier between them which she had erected in the beginning.

She quailed at the thought of living out her days without him, of never knowing what his love might mean, seeing him, perhaps, in love with someone else, as Fergus had hinted.

Evelyn! She couldn’t think of Evelyn in love with Max, although, of his own accord, Max had told her how much he admired her stepmother.

Where did they go from here? Where did they all go? Max in love with Evelyn, perhaps, and she in love with Max, while Fergus looked on, hoping that they would eventually marry. There was Grisell, too; Grisell, the restless girl, half in love with Fergus and half in love with life as she wanted it to be—gay and full and exciting, the kind of life she imagined that Lilias led, day by day!

And Lilias? Was she really content with her odd moments of front-page recognition in the trade journals? Had she wanted bigger things, but settled for what she could get in Edinburgh because the competition was too fierce elsewhere? It was difficult to say, because Lilias was difficult to know.

Then there was Richard Elliott, kind, gentle Richard, who wanted nothing better than his daughter’s ultimate happiness, Richard who had most things in life except the companionship of the mature and gentle woman he had loved and lost on the other side of the world. They had all come together in this gentle dale which had known the fury of conflict and the desolation of defeat, but to what purpose? More conflict? Continuing defeat?

Her eyes blurred at her own inability to find a solution to the problem of Denham’s and the heartache of her love. How could she ever stay here if Max was in love with Evelyn, but how could she run away while Evelyn needed her?

Coming down off the moor, she watched the flight of a bird circling above the ruined peel tower half way between Fetterburn and Yairborough and which Max now owned. He had spoken about renting it out to the film-makers and they had argued about that, too, but really she had no right to question his actions, about Fetterburn, at least. They were in a sort of partnership at Denham’s, but it didn’t seem complete,
probably
because they didn’t trust one another.

Thrusting in her clutch, she drove the remaining distance to Denham House with a deep sense of frustration in her heart. She could do nothing at the moment. Nothing at all!

Because she would be taking the car out again she pulled up at the front door, which was immediately opened to her. Nellie, pale and agitated, stood on the threshold.

“Thank goodness you’ve come!” she exclaimed. “I was just about at my wits’ end, wondering where you were.”

Susan caught her by the arm.

“Why? Nellie, what’s happened?”

“It’s the mistress.” Nellie’s voice was little more than a gasp. “She’s come to her time sooner than we expected.”

“The baby?”

“The doctor’s up there with her now, and the nurse.” Nellie wrung her hands. “Oh, my! I hope she’s going to be all right, for a nicer lassie I’ve never set eyes on !”

“Why shouldn’t she be all right?” Susan asked with an awful, strangling lump in her throat. “Did the doctor say there was any danger?”

Without waiting for Nellie’s answer she reached the inner hall and fled up the nearest staircase to the door of her stepmother’s room, the room they had prepared for Evelyn so short a time ago. Not her father’s room, because it might bring back bitter-sweet memories for his young widow, but the sunniest room in the house, facing the hills.

Holding her breath, she knocked on the door. Somehow she couldn’t go in without being bidden by Evelyn herself. The doctor came in answer to her summons, but he shook his head.

“Nothing so far,” he said. “It might be a long waiting.”

“Are there—complications?” she asked anxiously.

His good-natured face lit in a smile.

“None at all. Your stepmother has the heart of a lion, allied to an amazing determination. She’ll have her baby with the minimum of fuss, in the end,” he declared. “But you said ‘a long waiting’,” Susan objected.

“Some babies are lazier than others.” He put his arm about her shoulders. “Would you like to go in?”

Susan hesitated.

“She asked to see you as soon as you got back.”

When she went into the room all she could see was the bed and Evelyn lying on it with the nurse bending over her. The woman straightened, passing her as she went out.

“You won’t stay too long, Miss Denham? She has to conserve her energy.”

“No, I won’t stay,” Susan promised.

Evelyn looked up at her with bright, happy eyes. “What a fraud I am, kidding everybody !” she smiled. “I thought I had another week, at least.”

“Oh, Evelyn!” Susan sank down on the chair beside the bed, her knees weak. “I’d make a terribly bad nurse!”

“You haven’t been trained to it. You make a better businesswoman!”

“I’m not much of a businesswoman, either,” Susan sighed, “or so Max seems to think.”

“Max?” Evelyn smiled. “Did he find Grisell?” Her brows drew together in a small, perplexed frown. “She’s a great problem to them both—Max and Richard—but she’ll settle down in time.”

“She’d gone to Edinburgh,” Susan explained, “and I went there to try to find her.”

“With Max?”

“Yes.”

There was a little pause.

“Did she come with you?” Evelyn asked.

“Yes.” Susan took her hand. “Don’t worry about Grisell. Max knows how to deal with her.”

“But not Richard,” Evelyn said. “He’s too closely involved, and—he has so little time.”

A spasm, which Susan took for physical pain, crossed her face.

"You ought to rest,” she said anxiously.

Evelyn held on to her hand for a moment longer, her fingers clinging hard. When she looked up her eyes were very bright.

“You won’t mind too much if it’s a girl?” she begged.

“No, I won’t mind,” Susan replied with truth.

Going slowly back down the staircase, she wondered why it should have mattered so much in the beginning.

As she reached the hall Nellie was coming away from the telephone.

“That was Mr. Elliott,” she said. “Mr. Maxwell Elliott. He was asking to speak to the mistress, but I told him he would have to wait till the baby was born.”

“Yes,” Susan answered dully. “Max will have to wait.”

ALL through that long night of waiting Susan could only think of Evelyn, her loneliness in the face of birth without the man she had loved by her side, but somehow she felt that Evelyn expected her to take her father’s place, as far as she could. She was the last of the Denhams, and this was a Denham child, a baby arriving quicker than they had expected.

When the light faded and it grew dark she tiptoed to her stepmother’s door, but all seemed quiet and still within the room and she went back to her lonely vigil downstairs, standing at one of the windows overlooking the terrace to gaze out across the deep, still dale.

The stars appeared, pricking through a cloudless sky, bright stars above the gentle shoulders of the hills, with one larger and brighter than all the others. Venus, she thought. The star of love!

Behind her the room grew cold and Nellie came to replenish the fire.

"You’d be better in your bed,” she advised practically. "I’ll call you if there’s any news.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Susan decided. “I’d rather stay where I am.”

“There’s nothing we can do,” Nellie pointed out. “Everything was prepared.”

“Yes, I know.”

Nellie sighed.

“Ah, weel, I’ll mak’ ye a cup o’ tea, since you’re fair determined to bide where ye are!”

The tea was a comfort, but it would not speed the time away. The long hours drew on. Susan tried to read, but the printed words made little sense as she heard the doctor come and go again and brisk footsteps echoed on the polished floor of the upstairs corridor, yet no one came to tell her how Evelyn fared. If only she could
do
something!

Wildly she considered phoning through to the Carse to Max, but what could she say to him? What reason could she give for disturbing him in the middle of the night? But perhaps he, too, was awake, anxiously watching the stars.

When morning came at last, the one bright star above the hills remained long after the others had paled and disappeared, and out of sheer physical exhaustion she slept in her chair beside the fire.

The sun was bright and full in the room when Nellie roused her.

“Oh, Miss Susan, it’s a wee laddie, and the mistress is fine!” she cried, her face shining as brightly as her highly-polished brasses on the hearth. “She’s just fine, and proud,” she added. “As proud as she has every right to be!”

Susan’s eyes filled with tears and a great lump rose in her throat. She couldn’t speak for very joy and thankfulness at Evelyn’s safe delivery, and she knew that this was how her father would have felt if he had lived. A son had been born. Another Adam Denham! Oh, proud, oh, happy Evelyn!

“Can I see her?” she asked, at last.

“Right away!” Nellie opened the door for her.

As Susan went up the stairs the doctor was coming down.

“He’s a bonnie wee lad,” he said with pride. “A true Denham, if ever there was one! Yelled his head off for five minutes without even being smacked !”