Unknown (2 page)

“You’re talking to one who’s dedicated to her work,” Andy told Judith, and Mairi’s blue eyes shone with pleasure.

“There are times when I wish Mairi wasn’t quite so dedicated,” Mrs. Drummond observed. “I’m sure she could do much better elsewhere.” The glance that passed between mother and daughter was one that Judith could not fathom; it seemed compounded of affection and veiled hostility, pride and resentment, and to have little to do with schoolteaching.

The conversation turned to other matters. Barbara poured coffee and Judith handed round her sister’s cakes and scones.

“Judith only came yesterday,” Barbara explained, “so she hasn’t had much chance to see the island. How far did you get this afternoon?” She turned towards Judith.

“I thought I was going to make a complete circuit, but I didn’t even get halfway or to the middle.” Judith grimaced. “I was hopelessly lost among overgrown thickets —thanks to the man who misdirected me.”

The others turned enquiring faces towards her.

“Who would that be? Where were you?” asked Andy.

Judith flushed. She hadn’t meant to sound quite so blunt, for they would all know the man. “Oh, I went the opposite way to the ferry, then up a slope that I thought would bring me out on the other coast. Some sheepdogs came bounding out from a cottage, then a young man directed me to a path that was too overgrown for anything but a bulldozer. I had to turn back.”

“Sounds like Neil Raeburn.” Andy laughed. “He probably thought you were a seal woman.”

“But Neil would never have told you the wrong path.” A defensive hardness had crept into Mairi’s voice.

“I asked him to come along this evening if he had time,” Barbara put in, “so we can find out. And I think here he is now.”

Judith was glad of the distraction, but slightly apprehensive about the identity of the visitor.

Andy went out and came back a moment or two later accompanied by Judith’s acquaintance of the afternoon.

“Come along in, Neil,” Barbara greeted him, and turned towards Judith. “This is Neil Raeburn, a neighbour of ours. My sister Judith,” she added to Neil, “is staying with us for a holiday.”

The black and white collie who had remained close to Neil now moved towards Judith and thrust her muzzle into the girl’s hand. Without thinking, Judith caressed the dog’s head, and was rewarded by an affectionate glance from liquid brown eyes.

Neil formally acknowledged the introduction, greeted Mrs. Drummond and Mairi and sat down on the far side of the room. Then Mrs. Drummond said lightly, “We’ve just been hearing about you, Neil. It was very wrong of you to send Barbara’s sister up the wrong path.”

“How could he know that Judith was staying here?” Mairi put in.

Judith regretted now that she had ever mentioned her afternoon adventure, but even so, what reason could she have given for hiding the fact of that earlier meeting?

She looked across at Neil now. A fair-skinned man of twenty-eight or so, she thought, with dark chestnut hair and brown eyes. Heavy brows and a square jawline gave him a sombre look, but at this moment, in conversation with Mairi, he had none of the surliness he had shown to Judith this afternoon.

When Mrs. Drummond reminded Mairi of the time and said they must go, Neil accompanied them home.

Judith helped her sister to collect plates and glasses and stack them in the kitchen.

“Well, what did you think of Neil—now that you’ve met him in a more civilised way?” asked Barbara, as she and Judith started the washing-up.

Judith parried the question. “He’s not a Scot, is he? Has he always lived here?”

“No. He came after we did. He’s been here about a year. Neil’s something of a mystery man and he keeps his lips pretty tightly sealed about his past. But I think he was involved in some accident in a nuclear power station or research laboratory—something like that.”

“And what makes a research engineer or chemist tuck himself away on Kylsaig island?” asked Judith.

Barbara shrugged. “Some gossipers think there was trouble over a girl, so he chucked everything and came here.”

“To sit brooding in his cottage?” The words had spilled out of their own accord and Judith regretted her rashness. “Oh, I didn’t mean to sound unsympathetic ..

The sentence died away as Neil reappeared at the kitchen door. “I came back for Mrs. Drummond’s scarf. She thinks she left it here.”

‘I'll find it for you,” Barbara promised, and went through to the sitting room.

Neil stood in the doorway, and Judith lifted her head and stared at him, meeting the hostility in his eyes with her own mixed defiance and indifference.

The scarf was found and he went out again. By the time Barbara returned, Judith had finished drying the crockery and had tidied the kitchen.

"He heard what I said,” Judith stated the blunt fact. “I’m afraid so, but it was entirely my fault,” admitted Barbara “I ought to have made certain he was well out of the way, I know how he hates to be talked about. Still, perhaps he’s not as prickly as he was at first. Mairi’s influence probably.”

Judith hung up the tea-towels. “I liked her very much,” she said thoughtfully, “but I had the impression that she was fending me off. I suppose she’s in love with Neil?”

“Crazily. She’s convinced she can thaw whatever it is that is frozen in him—but I don’t know. Neil is quite unpredictable, and Mairi’s mother is much more ambitious to push her daughter over to the mainland.”

“Who’s the attraction there?” asked Judith.

“Stuart Huntly. He owns a large part of this island, but he lives on the mainland. Handsome, wealthy—oh, Mrs. Drummond would very much like her daughter to marry him. She regards Neil as a poor sort of provider. Ran away from his profession and now owns a couple of hundred sheep and lives in a cottage even below the standard of Mairi’s own home. However romantic it may sound, it’s not what a woman like Mrs. Drummond really hopes for her daughter.”

Judith looked at her sister and laughed. “Really, Barb, you’re as much a matchmaker as any of the mothers.”

“Not much else to do or think about here. Kylsaig’s fine for a fortnight’s holiday, but day in, day out—” Barbara sighed heavily. “Oh, it’s deadly, I think I’d go mad if it weren’t for—” she broke off abruptly as Andy came in. “Let’s have a nightcap pot of tea and drink it by the sitting room fire.” She began to clatter the cups and saucers on to a tray, and Judith was puzzled by the artificial brightness of her sister’s quick change of tone.

The next morning, Saturday, Mairi called. “I’m going to Cruban,” she announced to Barbara. “If Judith hasn’t made any other plans, I wondered if she would like to come with me? We could lunch at a cafe, look at the shops.”

“Oh, I’d like that,” Judith accepted with pleasure.

At the ferry slipway the two girls waited while the motor-boat returned from the mainland.

“On Saturday mornings the ferryman’s eldest boy, Donald, takes the boat back and forth,” Mairi explained.

As the boat came alongside, one of the passengers, a young man in green tweeds, leapt out and tied the mooring rope to an iron ring.

“Good morning, Mairi,” he greeted the schoolteacher.

“Hello, Stuart. Judith, this is Stuart Huntly. He lives on the mainland.”

“Don’t say ‘the mainland’ in that snobbish tone, as though I were not fit to associate with the aristocratic Kylsaig islanders,” he protested.

Mairi laughed. “Miss Judith Whitacre is staying with her sister, Mrs. Greenwood,” she told him.

“That’s interesting news.” Amusement shone in his hazel eyes as he looked at Judith. “Until now Mairi has considered herself the prettiest girl on Kylsaig. As she was the only one, apart from your sister Barbara, rivals didn't count. But now—”

“Save your pretty speeches until we come back, Stuart,” Mairi interrupted. “We mustn’t keep Donald waiting.” Judith followed her into the boat, Stuart untied and tossed the rope to Donald and waved to the two girls. He was tall and lean and his sun-tanned face was genial, but offset by the clean, almost grim line of his jaw. A man, Judith thought, who determined his own course of action and pursued it even against fierce opposition. Perhaps he was just an example of a tough young Scot.

“Pity he wasn’t coming in our direction,” Mairi commented as they stepped ashore on the tiny quay opposite. “He usually leaves his car here and he could have run us into Cruban. Still, it’s not far to walk. Only just over a mile.”

The winding coast road edged with bushes and steeply rising woods on the hillside was pleasant and almost free from traffic. Where the coast ran out to a point, massive gates across a drive indicated a house hidden by trees, and Judith wondered who lived there; farther along, a few cottages clustered opposite a small waterside park with a bathing place.

“Cruban is larger than I’d imagined,” Judith said when she and Mairi arrived there and walked along the harbour wall. “When I arrived at the station I saw practically nothing of it. Andy met me with a taxi and took me along to the ferry.”

They toured the shops, and after Barbara’s withering scorn, Judith took a more lenient view of all they had to offer. It was unreasonable to expect a little seaside town to look like the West End of London or the heart of Paris.

Mairi suggested lunching at the Roxburgh Hotel on the promenade. “We can leave all our parcels there and call back for them later.”

The food was excellent, and when they had almost finished the meal, a tall, heavily-built man stopped at their table and spoke to Mairi.

“Nice to see you, Mairi. Everything all right?”

“Wonderful, as usual. Judith, this is Mr. Mundon. He owns this hotel. Miss Whitacre is staying with the Greenwoods on Kylsaig.”

“Oh, you must be Barbara’s sister, then.” He gave Judith a hearty handshake. “How long are you staying?”

“Only a fortnight,” she answered, regretfully.

“Oh, well, even in that time we may be able to show you a little gaiety here. Tell Barbara and Andy to bring you over here to dinner one evening.”

After coffee and liqueurs in the sun lounge with Mr. Mundon, who insisted on cancelling the bill for their entire lunch, Mairi and Judith were at last able to get away and walk along the promenade as far as the bathing beach.

“Well, that must have been due to your pretty face,” Mairi commented. “Graham Mundon isn’t usually so generous with free meals.”

“Perhaps he expects Andy to spend freely at the hotel in return.”

The two girls returned to the island in the early evening and Judith was glad to accept Mairi’s invitation to stay to supper at her home.

“I don’t think Barbara’s expecting me home at any particular time,” she said.

The Drummonds lived in the end cottage facing the old boatyard. With one or two exceptions, most of the others in the row seemed empty and derelict. Once, there had apparently been a pier or slipway, but the rocky wails had crumbled. The boat-shed had disappeared, leaving only some of its stone foundations; several ancient boats lay rotting away quietly in the swampy waters of the inlet.

The interior comfort of Mairi’s home was in great contrast to the dilapidated outside. Simple, comfortable furniture, thick hand-made rugs, well-filled bookshelves and pretty curtains all combined to shut out the sad, bygone atmosphere outside and a small fire burning in the grate added just the right cosy touch for a chilly June evening.

Mairi noticed Judith’s admiring glances. “We’ve really turned two cottages into one,” she explained, “or we shouldn’t have all this space.”

“You’ve made a handsome job of it,” Judith replied.

“Oh, most of the thanks are due to Stuart,” put in Mrs. Drummond, setting a pile of girdle cakes on the table. “He’s one of the Huntly family and they live over on the other side.”

“Yes, Mother, we met Stuart this morning at the ferry.”

Mrs. Drummond’s brown eyes lit with interest. “Oh! Did he take you both into Cruban?”

“No. He was coming ashore here at Kylsaig, so we were going in opposite directions.” Mairi was intent on setting out cups and saucers on a tray and did not meet her mother’s glance.

“What a pity! So often you seem to miss him.”

Once again, it seemed to Judith, cross-currents passed between mother and daughter and their words held more than a superficial meaning. If Mrs. Drummond really wants Mairi to make a match of it with Stuart Huntly, Judith reflected, she’s not going the most tactful way about it.

To bridge the pause, Judith said to Mairi, “Don’t you find it a long way to walk to the school? In the winter it must be quite dark when you come home.”

“It’s no great distance, and you soon learn every bump or rut in the track.”

“We could have had a house quite near the school,’’ Mrs. Drummond added. “But when Stuart offered us these two cottages here and said he would pay all the cost of converting them into one, I jumped at the chance. The schoolhouse is much more exposed to the weather, and down here it’s more sheltered. And, of course, we have the view right across the Sound. Actually, if it weren’t completely hidden by trees, you could see the Huntly’s house from here.”

“Perhaps it’s just as well their house is sheltered and screened,” Mairi said with a laugh, “or Mother would train binoculars on them every time they had tea in the garden.”

“I should do no such thing!” protested Mrs. Drummond.

Mairi accompanied Judith back to Barbara’s house. "I won’t come right up to the door with you or Barbara is sure to ask me in. Then Andy feels bound to come home with me.”

“Thank you, Mairi. You’ve given me a wonderful day,” Judith said sincerely. “We must go out on the spree again when you have the time.”

Barbara was interested in Judith’s account of the day’s doings.

“I’m glad you’ve already met Stuart. He came here after lunch to bring us an invitation from his grandmother. We’re asked to dinner for next Tuesday.”

“Do you often go there?”

“No, only occasionally. I think this visit is especially to honour you.” In Barbara’s sherry brown eyes was a gleam of mischief. “You must have made a lightning impression on Stuart.”

“Oh! Am I included?”

“Of course. We’d better not turn up without you or Mrs. Huntly will consider she’s been flouted.”