Unknown (25 page)

Stuart would have come up to Barbara’s with her, but she said, “Let me go back alone, I want to tell Barbara and watch her face. She hasn’t an inkling of my—our tremendous news.”

Judith watched Stuart take his boat round the point, then she ran up to her sister’s house.

Barbara flung her arms around Judith’s neck. “Wonderful! But goodness, I thought you’d never get to the point. I tried to help—”

“What! You kept pushing me at Neil!”

“Of course! I thought if I ridiculed the idea that you were in love with Stuart, I might shove you in that direction.”

“Did you know I loved him?”

“Darling, I’m not that blind!”

Judith kissed her, and reflected that although Barbara might sometimes appear selfish or weak, she was a very understanding sister.

“Oh, thank you, Barbie. But for you and Andy coming here, I should never have met Stuart.”

Barbara laughed. “Old Uncle Hamish is the one to thank.”

In a vague, rapturous dream Judith sauntered out of the house and climbed the ridge to the high centre of Kylsaig, from which she could gaze across the Sound and see, faintly through the trees, the grey stone house that would be her future home.

Stuart’s empty dinghy was tied up at his landing-stage and nobody moved along the deserted shore, but there was no loneliness in Judith’s heart. Garranmure reached out towards her across the water.