Mrs. Tim of the Regiment (39 page)

‘Oh, if she were not I would carry her off like old Hector MacQuill,' is the calm reply.

They are now walking down the path towards the Bentley, and the scrunch of gravel drowns what Guthrie is saying, but Tony's answer comes quite clearly to my ears.

‘That's my business,' he says drily. ‘If I choose to singe my wings – '

I remember the moth blundering against the window, and the queer nonsense he talked about it – he was thinking of himself, I suppose, and his own affairs. What a strange, incomprehensible creature he is!

I realise that the crisis is past – for some reason they are not going to fight each other tonight. I heave a sigh of relief – for I am very tired – and crawl backwards out of my frock and hang it over a chair.

The Bentley departs, the angry voices have subsided, the night sinks into velvet peace. I kneel at my window and gaze up into the sky – a deep blue, glowing canopy above the dark, lacy branches of the firs. The stars glimmer like tiny yellow lamps. There is no sound save the silver tinkle of the burn, and, far off amongst the hills, a lamb bleats once and is quiet.

Eleventh June

I jump out of bed and poke my head out of the window. There is a thick mist on the ground, and halfway up the hills, above the mist, floats the hilltop, crested with trees, like a fairy island in a lake of fleecy wool.

This is the day of my expedition with Tony, he is to call for me at ten, and the problem which confronts me is this – what am I to wear? It all depends upon what sort of a day it is going to be. Will the mist clear off, or will it thicken and spread? Will it resolve into rain or lift into sunshine?

Guthrie is very cross at breakfast – there is no other word for it. He eats his kidneys with a glowering face, and nearly bites my head off when I enquire what kind of a day it is going to be. Meanwhile Mrs. Loudon smiles to herself as if she has some secret cause for amusement which nobody else may share.

Seeing that my companions are occupied with their own thoughts – pleasant or otherwise – I too relapse into silence, and commune with mine.

After some minutes the silence becomes laden, like the stillness of a storm before it breaks, and, looking up, I see that Guthrie's mood has changed, his eyes are fixed upon me beseechingly – he is sorry.

I feel drawn to experiment with Guthrie – what will happen if I do not speak to this poor young man in a kind manner? Will he blow up and burst into a thousand pieces with the effort to contain his feelings, to keep all the things he wants to say locked up in his poor helpless body? Or will he merely finish his toast and marmalade and walk out of the room? What an alluring experiment it would be! But, alas, I cannot make it, for Mrs. Loudon is looking at me with pleading eyes. ‘Speak to him kindly,' they seem to say. ‘Speak to him kindly for my sake. For if he should blow up into a thousand pieces, where should I find another son?'

I cannot resist such an appeal, so I lean forward and say very sweetly:

‘Are you going to fish today, Guthrie?'

A sunbeam struggles through the clouds. ‘How can I without my ghillie?' he asks, half smiling, half sulky.

‘Don't go, Hester; we haven't got many days left. Why do you want to go dashing over the countryside, when we can spend a long day on the loch?' ‘Don't be selfish, Guthrie,' says Mrs. Loudon, and the wicked woman actually winks at me from behind her barrier of tea cosies. ‘You can get Donald to row the boat if you want to fish though you know perfectly well that you'll not catch anything with this mist all over everything. Of course Hester must go about, and see all she can of the country while she's here.'

‘She won't see much of it today and
I
could have taken her if she had
said
she wanted to go. I haven't got a
Bentley
, of course,' mutters Guthrie.

The owner of the Bentley now appears upon the scene and asks if I am ready. I reply cheekily that he is far too early, and that anybody who was not blind could see that I am still eating toast and marmalade and drinking coffee.

‘Hurry up then, Mrs. Impudence,' says Tony, with a smile.

Guthrie glowers.

‘What kind of a day is it going to be?' asks Mrs. Loudon, looking up from her paper. ‘The weather news says cloudy and unsettled, some mist locally, occasional sunshine.'

‘It seems a bit thundery to me,' replies Tony, with a glance in Guthrie's direction.

At this moment the door opens, and discloses Annie – whitefaced and breathless.

‘Miss Betty's gone,' she says.

‘Gone!' cries Guthrie.

‘I left her in the nursery while I took down the breakfast tray, and when I got back she wasn't there– '

‘She's hiding from you,' Tony suggests anxiously.

‘I thought she was at first,' Annie admits, suddenly dissolving into tears. ‘But I've looked everywhere – and her coat and hat's gone too.'

Something clutches at my heart, and the room swings round – Betty lost – Betty out alone in this horrible mist.

Tony's hand grips my shoulder. ‘Don't worry, Hester,' he says quietly. ‘She won't have gone far – we'll soon find her – ' ‘Pull yourself together, Annie,' says Mrs. Loudon in a firm, sensible voice. ‘It's not the slightest use weeping like that – try to think of something she said that might help us to find her – perhaps she has gone down to Donald's cottage to play with that boy of his.'

‘It was kelpies she was after,' cries Annie, wringing her hands. ‘She's been talking about them ever since Mr. Guthrie told her that they lived in the streams – and this morning she said, “Annie, it's just the sort of day to see a kelpie.”

' Guthrie's face is like a ghost. ‘My God!' he whispers. ‘What possessed me to tell her such a thing?'

‘She'll have gone up the path by the burn side,' Mrs. Loudon says.

‘I know,' he replies.

The two men rush out into the hall and seize their coats.

‘Sit down, Hester,' says Mrs. Loudon. ‘You'll only hinder them; they'll be far quicker themselves. Annie, pull yourself together for mercy's sake – tell Dobbie I want him, and send Jean down the garden for Donald and the garden boy – '

The house is full of bustle, and everyone seems to be doing something except me. I wander round the house and stare out of each window in turn. There is nothing to be seen but a thick white blanket of mist; a few branches of trees stick through it in a peculiar manner as if they had no trunks. The fence has disappeared. Oh, Betty, where are you? What will Tim say when he hears I have lost Betty?

Mrs. Falconer comes down the stairs, and corners me in the hall before I have time to escape into the dining room. By this time my nerves are frayed, and I am in no condition to cope with the woman. If she starts making fatuous remarks I shall scream; if she sympathises with me I shall weep. Fortunately for us both Mrs. Falconer does neither the one nor the other, and, for the second time in my acquaintance with her, I wonder whether she is really so foolish as she seems.

‘Things always turn up,' she says vaguely, more as if we were in the middle of a conversation about lost umbrellas than as if she were condoling with a bereft mother. ‘I'm always losing things myself, so I know. Why don't you look about yourself, my dear,' she adds, peering shortsightedly beneath the hall table, and motioning towards the umbrella stand. ‘Things never seem so lost when you're looking for them. I remember when I lost my gold locket which I always wear round my neck (it has some hair in it, you know, and I felt quite naked without it although, of course, I had on all my clothes as usual) I had to keep on looking for it all the time, and I must have looked down the back of the drawing-room sofa at least nineteen times before Susan found it under the mat in the bathroom but I just kept on looking for it, although I knew it wasn't there, because the moment I stopped looking for it I felt it was so much more lost.'

‘Yes,' I reply, with a slight lightening of gloom.

‘So just put on your hat and your raincoat,' continues the amazing woman. ‘You won't need an umbrella because the mist is really lifting a little (there was quite an orange patch in it where the sun is, when I looked out of my window just now), and take a turn around the garden. Poke amongst the rhododendrons with a stick or something – you'll feel
much
better if you just keep on looking– '

And the extraordinary thing is that she's right. I poke about the garden, and I feel better; the mist is white and thick, but it does not seem quite such a hopeless blanket as it did when viewed from the windows. So I poke amongst the rhododendrons, and peer over the gate into the woods and I wander blindly into the fruit garden, and shake the gooseberry bushes so that the mist, which has gathered on their leaves like diamonds, falls to the ground in showers.

Hours seem to pass, and then quite suddenly I notice that the mist is thinner I feel a slight breath of air upon my cheek. Trees, that were invisible before, now loom up like shadows in my path, their dark, dripping foliage spreads above me like a drift of smoke. I grope my way back to the house, and Mrs. Loudon meets me at the door. She tries to smile at me, but her face is grey and drawn: ‘There you are, Hester,' she says, with a nervous laugh. ‘I was thinking we'd have to be sending out a search party for
you
next. It's certainly lifting,' she adds.

The mist seems to be flowing now, eddying a little round the house; it moves slowly past like pieces of torn cotton wool.

‘There,' says Mrs. Loudon suddenly. ‘I thought I heard something what's that?'

We stand very still, listening, and sure enough a faint shout comes to our ears. I cling to Mrs. Loudon's arm.

‘It's all right, Hester,' she says anxiously. ‘They wouldn't be shouting unless they had found the wee lamb – they wouldn't be coming back at all unless they had found her, if I know anything about either of them– '

It is true, of course, but I can't help trembling. She may easily have fallen over some rocks.

We stand there, peering out into the mist for what seems hours, and, at last, two dark figures loom up into sight.

‘It's all right,' cries Tony's voice. ‘We've got them; they're quite safe.'

I see now that Guthrie and Tony are both carrying children.

‘Goodness me, there's two of them!' murmurs Mrs. Loudon as they come up the path.

‘It's Ian,' says Tony. ‘They went together to find a kelpie – they're quite safe, only tired and cold

By this time Guthrie has bundled Betty into my arms, and I feel her cold, wet hands round my neck. We carry the wanderers into the morning room, where there is a huge fire, and peel off their wet clothes. Everybody seems to be talking at once, but it is all hazy to me. I sit in front of the fire hugging Betty, and nothing matters at all except that she is safe. Mrs. Loudon bustles about getting hot soup and cherry brandy, and telling everybody to drink it up at once. ‘There's nothing better for keeping out the cold,' she says. ‘But if anybody would rather have whisky, it's here.'

‘It was rather fun at first,' Betty announces, sipping her hot soup, and stretching out a cold bare foot to the fire. ‘And then we got lost, and it was horrid, and then Guthrie came, and it was all right.'

‘It was frightfully naughty,' I tell her in a shaking voice.

‘But we wanted to see a kelpie and Ian took his net to catch it fancy if we had caught a darling little kelpie, Mummie.'

‘Someone had better let Ian's mother know that he's all right,' suggests Tony. ‘I'll go, shall I?'

‘You will not, then,' replies Mrs. Loudon firmly. ‘I'll send Jean. Drink up your cherry brandy, Ian. Yes, I know it's hot; boys who go looking for kelpies in the mist deserve to get their insides burnt.'

‘They were up the burn, nearly as far as the Tarn,' Tony is saying.

‘Near that big heap of rocks,' adds Guthrie.

‘Loudon found them,' says Tony, giving honour where honour is due.

‘It was the Major's idea, though – ' puts in Guthrie modestly. ‘Have some more brandy, sir.'

‘Thanks, I will,' replies Tony, helping himself.

The atmosphere is positively genial, which is most unusual, and I only hope it will last. I hug Betty tightly and rejoice silently in the feel of her soft body. She has been very naughty, of course, but I am so thankful to have her back, safe and sound, that I haven't the heart to scold her seriously.

‘Major Morley, your feet are soaking,' says Mrs. Loudon suddenly.

‘I know,' he replies. ‘It doesn't matter '

‘I'll find you some socks,' Guthrie says. ‘My shoes will be too big, but still '

Tony laughs, but allows himself to be persuaded into changing, and follows Guthrie upstairs.

‘Those men!' says Mrs. Loudon, laughing. ‘They'll be at each other's throats again tomorrow, I suppose.'

The excitement dies down in spite of Mrs. Falconer's efforts to fan the flame. By lunchtime everything seems normal, and I can hardly believe that anything has happened. The mist has vanished, and the sun blazes down on to a green and golden world. Betty is none the worse for her adventure, and eats largely of mince collops, a Scottish dish in which she delights.