The Tender Glory (17 page)

“Where did you get the salmon?” he had to ask.

“Major Searle gave it to me to take to the hospital.”

He laughed.

“They will be pleased. They’ve had three delivered to them this week.”

“It can be kept in cold storage till they need it—unless you’d like to have it?” Alison offered.

He shook his head.

“No, thanks! Cathie would serve it up for every meal till it was finished. I’m almost sprouting fins as it is!” He got into his car, waiting to follow her along the road. “Why don’t you get rid of that thing?” he asked. “It will let you down badly one of these fine days.”

“So long as it’s a fine day!” She couldn’t think of replacing the van with something more reliable just yet. “I’ll have to take my chance. Huntley thinks I deserve to be stranded.”

“Daviot?” He frowned. “What’s he got to do with it? Do you see a lot of him? You wouldn’t really go for a fellow like that, would you?”

She flushed scarlet.

“The question doesn’t arise,” she said as calmly as she could. “He’s going to marry someone else. Tessa Searle, to be exact.”

“Tessa?” He looked taken aback. “But that’s rot! Tessa wouldn’t play second fiddle to anybody.”

“It isn’t a case of playing second fiddle to Leone now.”

“Isn’t it? A fellow like Daviot takes a long time to forget. He was crazy about her sister, and Tessa knew it.”

“Leone’s dead.”

“Do you think that matters? She was a tremendous personality. Daviot wasn’t the only one to fall for her,” he added slowly. Her eyes searched his.

“Jim, what do you mean?” Her lips were dry as she asked the question. “Who else was in love with Leone?” He hesitated, avoiding her direct gaze.

“You can’t mean—Robin?” she asked harshly.

“I suppose so, though there couldn’t have been anything in it.”

“Why?—” sharply.

“Because she was engaged to Daviot. Now, don’t go losing your hair!” he cautioned. “There was no comparison. Daviot had everything she wanted.”

Alison drew back, stunned into silence by this amazing revelation.

“It’s—difficult to believe,” she said, at last.

“It could be the reason why Robin cleared off to America so suddenly.”

“He wouldn’t just—follow her for no reason at all,” Alison protested.

“No—not without a reason.”

“Then—you think she encouraged him?”

“I don’t know. Personally, I don’t know the first thing about it.” He pushed his peaked cap to the back of his head. “It’s Cathie’s theory.”

“Does she really know?”

“I suppose not. It was just a rough guess.”

“What a muddle!” Alison started her engine. “It might help if we knew even half the truth.”

At the hospital she was assured that her mother was well and getting stronger daily.

“We’ll soon have you out and home again,” she promised, bending over the bed to kiss Helen on a slightly flushed cheek. “You look blooming! What’s happened?”

“I’ve had a cable from Robin.” Helen’s eyes shone like twin stars. “If he had the money I think he would come home.”

They couldn’t send him the money, Alison thought.

They hadn’t enough to spare.

“I’ve got a bit put away,” Helen said. “Your father was always a careful man. He tried to leave me independent.”

“You’ll need your money,” Alison said firmly. “This isn’t definite.”

“No. We’ll have to wait and see.” Helen hesitated. “If he did come—if he felt he couldn’t settle anywhere else, it would make a big difference to you, Alison.”

“To me?”

“You could go back to your studies.”

Another door opening! The same door, although now the vista on the far side of it wasn’t quite so splendid. That first time all her dreams, all her desires had been centred in her career, and now they were centred on Huntley Daviot to no avail.

“I could go back,” she said in a frozen voice. “I’ve been offered a second chance.”

Huntley had been kind in that respect, too, in a cold, impartial way which had hurt her more than she had realised at the time. He had offered her another chance to conquer the world, which didn’t seem to matter so much any more.

“We must give him time,” Helen said, thinking of her son. “You can’t force that sort of decision on a boy.”

“He’s hardly a boy now,” Alison pointed out. “He’s twenty-five.”

“He’ll be twenty-five at Christmas,” Helen corrected her.

“And Christmas is almost here.” Alison rose to her feet. “How long does it take to come from Canada?”

“Five days, if he sailed.”

Helen had it all worked out, Alison thought as she turned to the door, and the chances were that Robin would fail her. Tears blinded her as she hurried along the passage to the main entrance.

It was more or less accepted by now that she should call in at Dyke Cottage for tea with Cathie Orbister before she started on her return journey, and she found Cathie setting the table in the pleasant little dining-room overlooking the moor.

“I was expecting you,” Cathie greeted her. “Jim came in for a bite before he went off to Thurso. We’re terribly busy these days, but he said he would try to get back before you left.” She infused the tea. “He worries about that van of yours.”

“So do I!” Alison carried in a plate of scones. “One day I must do something about it.”

Cathie scrutinized her across the table.

“You mean to stay?” she asked.

“Yes—and no. That’s really my answer, I think.” Alison drew a deep breath. “If Robin comes home I won’t be needed. Not after a bit, anyway. There isn’t room for both of us at Craigie Hill.”

“Which means you haven’t changed your mind about your career?”

Alison shook her head.

“It’s all I’ve got.”

“Marriage and a career often pose a problem,” Cathie mused. “I suppose so.” Alison looked at her squarely. “I won’t marry, Cathie. Not for a long time.”

“And not because of your career, either? Oh, Alison! I wish I could help you!” Cathie said.

“Nobody can.” Alison stirred her tea. “Maybe I was meant to hang on to my career like grim death and not to think about anything else. Maybe coming home like this was just meant to be—an interlude.”

“We can’t help falling in love,” Cathie said gently.

“If it was as easy as that!” Alison pushed back her chair. “Just falling in love and being loved. There wouldn’t be any need for a decision then. It would be easy—natural to choose. It’s when you fall in love with the wrong person—”

“I know.” Cathie’s quiet voice filled the silence. “It makes the whole world seem empty. But we’ve got to try to fill the void, somehow.”

“But how?” Alison raised bleak eyes to hers.

“Work can be a great compensation once you’re over the first terrible hurdle of loneliness.”

“And you think I’ll meet someone else one day?”

“I’m not looking quite so far ahead.” Cathie glanced through the window. “Here’s Jim,” she added. “I thought he’d come back in time to see you safely on your way home.”

They had become such firm friends in so short a time, Alison thought, waiting for Jim to come in.

“I don’t like you travelling all that way alone in the dark,” he said when he saw her into the van. “I ought to come with you. There’s a snow warning. Yesterday was cold enough for it, goodness knows!”

“I’ll make it,” Alison assured him as cheerfully as she could. “After all, I know the road. Even if it does start to snow it can’t get really deep before morning.”

“You’d phone me if you got into difficulties?”

“Of course! Who else?”

“Well!” He looked relieved. “Off you go, then. And I hope we’ll see you again before Christmas!” “Three weeks!” she laughed. “Surely you’re expecting an awful lot of snow!”

He reached into the van to kiss her on the cheek. “Just in case!” he said.

The kiss stung, because it wasn’t the kiss she wanted. Swiftly she drove away.

The van behaved quite well, although a gale-force wind began to blow as soon as she left the town behind. It struck at her viciously, rocking the van as it sped along. She had most of the way to go on an open, treacherous road, exposed to the sea and with no shelter between her and the vast, wild stretches of the moors. The darkness seemed impenetrable, without even a single star to cheer her.

Presently it began to snow. The first flakes drifted across the windscreen to be quickly dispersed by the sweep of the wipers, but when they began to fall thick and fast they piled up in an uneven white fringe, rising higher and higher until only a small half-circle of glass remained clear. Inside the van it became colder and colder and she felt as if her hands had frozen to the wheel. She had never driven alone in weather like this.

Where the road came close to the sea she could hear its angry pounding far beneath her and to see properly she was forced to wind down her window. After that the cold became intense and to her horror the wipers froze to the glass. Quickly the snowflakes obliterated the dark semicircle which was all the vision she had.

This was hopeless! She wiped away the snow with her glove, managing another yard or two. She had no idea where she was or how far she had come. Under such conditions a yard could seem a mile.

Small clusters of houses loomed up, showing a light or two, but she was determined not to stop. The stretch of road between Latheron and Dunbeath took her an hour, and from there on she could expect little shelter. She thought of the steep climb up out of Berriedale and shivered. If she ever reached there!

Once she had seen her father driving under similar conditions with the windscreen open, and after another mile or two it was the only thing she could do. She had been driving blind on a road that went nearer and nearer to the sea.

Suddenly there were trees ahead of her and she dropped down into Berriedale. A quick elation lifted her spirits, the sense of conquest which a mountaineer must feel when he had almost reached the summit of some coveted peak. Only a few more miles to go!

They were the most difficult miles. Grimly she recognised the fact, although she was equally determined not to give in. She could drive quite well. Robin had taught her long ago.

She thought about him, clenching her teeth as she forced the reluctant van up the hill on the other side and out again on to the moor. Would he ever come back?

The howl of the wind was her only answer. It swept down from Coire na Feama, driving a blizzard into her face.

When the engine stalled she was almost glad. There was no panic in her. Only the terrible, numbing chill of defeat. She had nine miles to go, nine desolate, empty miles before she turned towards the sea. It might just as easily have been nine hundred.

Giving way to fear for a moment, she sat huddled in the van, wondering if she was going to be blown off the road. Supposing the snow drifted, as it sometimes did, and she was buried for days? Who would find her? Who would come out in a night like this? At Craigie Hill they would think she had decided to stay in Wick, and when Jim heard how bad things were it would be morning. This bitter, exposed section of the road could be cut off for days and the nearest clachan was three miles away.

Three miles in blinding snow. Could she make it? And what about the van? It was the only means of transport they had.

The most stupid mistake she had made was to come on such a journey in ordinary walking shoes, not expecting snow. She should have known, of course. People up here were always prepared for such an emergency.

At this point she remembered the Highland Patrol. The little yellow Land-rovers, like true Knights of the Road, would surely be abroad in weather like this. If she stayed where she was one of them was sure to reach her eventually.

Yet she couldn’t just sit there and freeze. She had to keep moving. Sitting still was the danger.

Huddled in her sheepskin coat, she got out of the van only to walk a couple of yards before she was defeated in that direction, too. Within minutes she was covered in snow. It stuck to her hair and clogged her eyelashes, while the force of the wind

drove her almost to her knees.

Struggling with the bonnet, she raised it to peer in at an engine already turned stone cold. Everything seemed normal until she noticed that there was moisture round the plugs again.

Remembering Huntley’s efforts at Sterne, she felt for her tool-roll, but her fingers were almost too numb to hold a spanner. And even if she did manage to start the engine by some miracle the snow was already piled high against the radiator.

She hadn’t a chance! She felt defenceless and frustrated in the same breath. Why had all this to happen so near Craigie Hill? Nine miles. She wondered if she could walk it.

Determined to try, she faced the wind. The van was well to one side of the road and she had left her side lights on, although they were scarcely visible once she had staggered a yard or two.

A yard or two, and she had nine miles to go!

How far she walked, stumbling and falling, she never knew. The snow seemed to be pressing down on her now like a great blanket, obscuring everything. It was difficult to guess whether she was still on the road or not.