“… and Anna, Rose,” said Isobel in her gentle voice. “Anna Stoddart of Ardmore.”
Anna Stoddart smiled. She was obviously painfully shy and rather plain. It was hard to guess her age, and it was equally hard to guess how she had managed to collar such a devastating husband. She wore an expensive, if rather stodgy, dinner dress, but her jewelry was beautiful. Diamonds shone from her ears and her fingers, and trembled at the neck of the dull dress.
She put out her hand and then awkwardly withdrew it again, as though she had made a social gaffe. Flora, suffering for her shyness, quickly took hold of the hand before it disappeared altogether and held it firmly.
“Hello,” she said, feeling for clues. “I do remember you, don’t I?”
Anna gave a little laugh. “And I remember you,” she said. “I certainly remember you. And your mother.”
“And you’ve come from…?”
“Ardmore. It’s over the other side of Tarbole.”
“It’s a lovely place,” Isobel told Flora. “Right out on the end of Ardmore point.”
“Are you very isolated?” asked Flora.
“Yes, a little, but I’ve lived there all my life, so I’m quite used to it.” There was a pause and then, as if encouraged by Flora’s interest, she went on, in a rush of words. “You can see Ardmore from Fernrigg on a clear day. Right across the Sound.”
“It was clear this afternoon, but I never thought of looking.”
“Did you see the sunset?”
“Wasn’t it fabulous? I watched it while I was dressing…”
Quite happy together, beginning to make friends, they were interrupted by Brian. “Anna, Antony wants to know what you’re going to drink.”
She seemed confused. “… I don’t really want anything.”
“Oh, come along,” he said patiently, “you must have something.”
“An orange juice, then…” He went away to fetch it for her.
Flora said, “Would you like a sherry?”
“No.” Anna shook her head. “I don’t really like it.” With that the two of them were overwhelmed by Mr. Crowther’s coming at them across the carpet like a ship in full sail, saying, “Now then, we can’t let these two pretty girls spend their time talking together.”
* * *
Somehow, the evening progressed. Flora talked and smiled until her face ached, sticking close to Antony (so devoted, everybody would be thinking), and avoiding Hugh Kyle. Anna Stoddart found a chair and sat down, and Mrs. Crowther drew up a stool and settled herself beside her. Brian Stoddart and Antony discussed some mutual friends in Edinburgh, and Mr. Crowther and Hugh Kyle gravitated back to the fireplace and appeared, from their gestures, to be swapping fishing experiences. Isobel, making sure that all her guests were happily occupied, slipped away to speak to Mrs. Watty.
Presently the gong sounded, and they all finished their drinks and trooped out of the room and across the hall to the dining room.
Even in her present state of nerves Flora could not help but notice how charming it all was: the dark walls, the old portraits, the brightly burning fire. White linen and shining silver were reflected in the gleam of the mahogany table. There was a centerpiece of late roses, and pale pink candles filled the silver candelabra.
After some confusion on the part of Isobel, who had lost her plan and forgotten where everybody was meant to be, they were all finally seated in the right places: Hugh at one end of the table and Mr. Crowther at the other, while Brian and Antony faced each other across the middle. The women were placed in the four corners, Flora between Hugh and Brian, with Mrs. Crowther opposite her.
When at last they were all settled, unfolding enormous linen napkins and placing them across their laps, and before conversation could start in earnest, Isobel said quickly, “Mr. Crowther, would you say grace?”
Mr. Crowther rose ponderously to his feet. They all bowed their heads, and Mr. Crowther, in tones that would have filled a cathedral, gave thanks to the Lord for the food which they were about to eat, asked him to bless it and also all the people in this house, especially Mrs. Armstrong who could not be with them, but who held such a special place in all their hearts. Amen.
He sat down. Flora suddenly liked him very much. Mrs. Watty then emerged from the door at the other end of the dining room and, as conversation got going, began to serve the soup.
Flora, in agony in that she might be expected to make light conversation with Hugh Kyle, was thankful when Mrs. Crowther firmly took him over. Mrs. Crowther had had two sherries, and not only was her color high, but also her voice.
“I was visiting old Mr. Sinclair the other day, Doctor, and he was saying that you’d been to see him. He’s not been keeping as well as he should…”
Beside Flora, Brian Stoddart said, “You’re going to have to talk to me.”
She turned to him, smiling. “That’s all right by me.”
“I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see you again. Like a breath of fresh air. That’s the worst of living up here in the back of beyond. Without realizing it, we’re getting older and becoming very dull, and it’s hard to know what to do about it. You’re just in time to come and shake us all up.”
“I can’t believe you feel old or dull,” Flora told him, partly because this was obviously what he wanted to be told, and partly because there was such a sparkle to his eyes that the temptation to flirt a little was hard to resist.
“I do hope that’s a compliment.”
“Not at all, it’s a fact. You don’t look old and you don’t sound dull.”
“It is a compliment!”
She began to eat her soup. “You’ve told me the worst of living up here. Now tell me the best.”
“That’s more difficult.”
“I can’t believe that. There must be a thousand advantages.”
“All right. A comfortable house, good shooting, good fishing. A ketch moored in Ardmore Loch, and in the summer, time to sail her. And space on the roads to drive my car. How does that add up?”
She noticed, sadly, that he had not included his wife in this catalogue.
“Isn’t it a little materialistic?”
“Now come, Rose. You didn’t expect anything else.”
“How about a few responsibilities?”
“You think I should have responsibilities?”
“Don’t you?”
“Yes, of course I do.”
“Such as…?”
He seemed amused by her persistence, but remained obliging. “Running Ardmore uses up more of my time than you could possibly imagine. And then there’s the ‘Coonty Cooncil.’ It takes many committee meetings to decide where they’re going to widen the road for the fish lorries, or whether the Tarbole Primary School should have more lavatories. You know the sort of thing. Riveting stuff.”
“And what else do you do?”
“What are you anyway, Rose? Because you sound like a prospective employer.” But he still looked amused, and she knew that he was enjoying himself.
“If that’s all you do with your time, I’d say you were in real danger of becoming very dull indeed.”
He laughed out loud. “Touché! O.K., does running the Yacht Club count as a job?”
“The Yacht Club?”
“Well, don’t say, ‘The Yacht Club?’ in that blank voice as though you’d never heard of it before.” He began to speak very clearly, as though she were both deaf and stupid. “The Ardmore Yacht Club. You Came There with Me Once.”
“Oh. Did I?”
“Rose, if I didn’t know you so well, I really would believe you’d forgotten. Those five years must stretch further back than I’d imagined.”
“Yes, I suppose they do.”
“You should renew your acquaintance with the Yacht Club. Except that it’s closed for the winter right now, and there’s not much going on. But you could come over to Ardmore House and see us. How long are you staying?’
“We’re going tomorrow.”
“Tomo
rrow? But you’ve only been here about five minutes.”
“Antony has to get back to work.”
“And you? Do you have to get back to work too?”
“No. But I have to get back to London.”
“Why don’t you stay on, for a week or so, anyway? Give us all a chance to get to know you again. Get to know you properly.”
Something in his voice made Flora glance at him sharply, but his pale eyes were innocent.
“I can’t stay.”
“Don’t you want to?”
“Yes, of course. I mean, I’d like to come over and visit you and Anna, but…”
Brian had taken up a roll and was crumbling it between his fingers. “Anna’s going to Glasgow for a shopping spree at the beginning of the week.” His profile was dark and sharply cut against the glow of the candlelight. It seemed that the remark was significant, but Flora could not imagine why.
“Does she always go to Glasgow to shop?”
It was an innocent question, but now he laid down his spoon and turned to face her once more, smiling, his eyes dancing as though they were sharing some marvelous private joke.
“Almost always,” he told her.
* * *
Their conversation was interrupted by Isobel’s getting to her feet and going around the table to collect the empty soup plates. Antony, excusing himself, also rose, and went to the sideboard to deal with the wine. The door from the kitchen opened, and Mrs. Watty appeared once more with a tray laden with steaming dishes and a pile of plates. Mrs. Crowther, bereft of Antony, leaned across the table to tell Flora about the Christmas church sale, and the nativity play she planned to produce.
“Is Jason going to be in it?” Flora asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“Not an angel, I hope,” said Hugh.
“Now why shouldn’t Jason be an angel?” Mrs. Crowther was playfully indignant.
“Somehow,” said Hugh, “he doesn’t quite have the countenance.”
“It’s amazing, Doctor, how angelic the most devilish child can become once you dress him in a white nightgown and a gold paper crown. You’ll have to come and watch, Rose.”
“Huh?” said Flora, caught unawares.
“Won’t you be coming to Fernrigg for Christmas?”
“Well … I hadn’t really thought.” She looked for support from Antony across the table, but Antony’s chair was empty. Casting about for some alternative assistance she found herself, to her annoyance, gazing blankly at Hugh.
He prompted gently, “Perhaps you’ll be in New York?”
“Yes. Perhaps I will.”
“Or London, or Paris?”
She thought, How well he knows Rose! “It depends,” she said.
Brian leaned forward, chipping into the discussion. “I’ve already suggested that Rose not go back to London tomorrow but stay on here for a few days. But my idea was turned down flat. A blank refusal.”
“But that’s a shame!” Mrs. Crowther sounded quite indignant. “I think Brian’s is a wonderful idea. Have a little holiday, Rose. Enjoy yourself. I think we can see to it that you have a good time. What do you say, Dr. Kyle?”
“I think,” said Hugh, “that Rose would have a good time wherever she was. She certainly doesn’t need any help from us.” His voice was dry.
“Besides, just think how pleasant it would be for Mrs. Armstrong…”
But, if bemused by wine and company, Mrs. Crowther had not recognized Hugh’s snub for what it was, Flora had. She felt herself blushing with angry embarrassment. Her glass was full, and she took it up and drank the wine as though she were suffering from some unquenchable thirst. She saw that her hand, as she set down the glass, was shaking.
Neatly, without fuss, the next course was served. Some sort of a casserole, then creamed spinach and mashed potatoes. Flora wondered how she was going to be able to eat it. At the sideboard Isobel, who had been helping Mrs. Watty with the serving, picked up a small tray and started for the door. Mr. Crowther, with his eagle eye, spied her from the far end of the table.
“And where are you off to, Miss Armstrong?”
Isobel paused, smiling. “I’m just going to take Tuppy’s tray up to her. I promised I would, and tell her how the party’s going.”
Hugh got up to open the door for her.
“Send her our respects,” said Mr. Crowther, eliciting a murmur of assent from around the table.
“Of course I will,” Isobel promised as she went out of the room. Hugh closed the door behind her and came back to his chair. As he settled himself, Antony, having returned to his own place, leaned across Mrs. Crowther and asked Hugh if he had laid up his boat yet.
“Yes,” Hugh told him. “Last week. Geordie Campbell’s got her in the boatyard at Tarbole. I went to see him the other day. He was asking after you, Antony, and was very interested to hear that you’d got yourself engaged to be married.”
“I should try and take Rose down to see him.”
Fortified by the wine she had gulped, Flora had overcome her embarrassment, but Hugh Kyle’s snub still rankled. Now, she broke into the conversation coolly, as though he had never made that remark. “What kind of a boat have you got?”
He told her, in a voice that seemed to suggest that she would have no idea of what he was talking about anyway.
“A gaff-rigged seven-tonner.”
“Do you keep her at the Ardmore Yacht Club?”
“No, I’ve just said. She’s in the boatyard at Tarbole.”
“She must be getting pretty elderly now,” said Brian.
Hugh sent a chilly glance in his direction. “She was built in nineteen twenty-eight.”
“Like I said. Elderly.”
“Does everyone have a boat?” Flora asked. “I mean, do you all sail?”
Hugh laid down his knife and fork, and, sounding as though he were trying to explain something to a particularly dim-witted child, said, “The west of Scotland has some of the best sailing in the world. Unless one was totally disinterested one would be a fool to live here and not take advantage of it. But you need to know what you’re doing. You need experience and some knowledge to cope with, say, a Force Twelve gale when you find yourself out beyond the end of Ardnamurchan. It’s not quite the same as sitting in Monte Carlo harbor with a gin-and-tonic in one hand and a blonde in a bikini in the other.”
Mrs. Crowther laughed, but “I never thought it was,” Flora told him coolly. He was not going to intimidate her. “Have you sailed a lot this summer?”
He picked up his knife and fork again. “Scarcely at all,” he told her, sounding sour.
“Why not?”
“A sad lack of time.”
“I suppose you’re very busy?”
“Busy!” Mrs. Crowther could not listen in silence. “That’s the understatement of the year. No man in Tarbole works harder or longer hours than Dr. Kyle.”
“Tuppy thinks you should get a partner,” Flora told him, meanly. “She told me so before, when I was saying goodnight to her.”
Hugh was unimpressed. “Tuppy’s been trying to run my life for me since I was six years old.”
“If you’ll excuse my saying so,” said Brian, gently, “she seems to have made a melancholy failure of it.”
There followed an icy silence. Even Mrs. Crowther was bereft of words. Flora looked for help from Antony, but he had turned to talk to Anna. She laid down her knife and fork, very gently, as though it were forbidden to make a noise, and reached again for her wineglass.
Across her, forever it seemed, the eyes of the two men met and clashed. Then Hugh took a mouthful of wine, laid down his glass and said, quietly, “The failures have all been my own.”
“But of course, Tuppy is quite right,” Brian went on in his light voice. “You should take a partner. Some energetic, ambitious, thrusting young medico. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
“Better a dull Jack than an idle one,” Hugh threw back at him.
It was time to inter
vene before they started striking each other. “Don’t you … don’t you have anyone to help you?” Flora asked.
“I have a nurse in the surgery.” His voice was brusque. “She gives injections and eyedrops and makes up prescriptions and bandages cut knees. She’s a tower of strength.”
Flora imagined the nurse, aproned and buxom, perhaps young and pretty in a fresh, country way. She wondered if she was in love with the doctor, like an old A. J. Cronin novel. It did not seem beyond the bounds of possibility. Discounting the fact that she heartily disliked him, he was a personable man, even handsome in his heavy-built and distinguished way. Perhaps this was what had attracted Rose. Perhaps Rose had made a pass at him, and he had taken it seriously, and remained bitterly resentful ever since.
She had forgotten about Isobel. Now the door opened and Isobel returned to the party, apologizing for having been so long. She helped herself from the sideboard and came back to her place beside Mr. Crowther, who got to his feet and held Isobel’s chair for her.
“How is Tuppy?” everybody wanted to know.
“She’s splendid. She sends you all her love.” There was something special about Isobel this evening. “And she has a message for Rose.”
They all turned to Flora, smiling, pleased because the message was for her; then they looked back at Isobel, waiting to hear what the message was.
“She thinks,” said Isobel clearly, “that we should keep Rose for a little. She thinks that Rose should stay on at Fernrigg and let Antony go back to Edinburgh on his own.” She beamed at Flora. “And I think it’s a marvelous idea, and I do so hope, Rose, that you will.”
Oh, Tuppy, you traitor.
Flora stared at Isobel, scarcely able to believe her ears. It was like being on stage, blinded by footlights, and with a thousand eyes looking at you. She had no notion of what she was meant to say. She looked at Antony and recognized her own appalled expression reflected in his face. Silently begging him to come to her aid, she heard herself saying in a voice scarcely recognizable as her own, “I … I don’t think…”