Hospital in the Highlands (20 page)

“I know. I—oh, it’s difficult, Robert!”

“Look!” he said more eagerly. “Tell me why you couldn’t marry him as he is now, Flo! Tell me in strict confidence.”

She looked at him. She had only to say “Because I’m in love with you, Robert,” and all might have come right for two lonely and unhappy people immediately. Instead, she told the truth in another way, a less personal way.

“I haven’t told Jim or anyone this, Robert, but it has to come out or I’ll go mad. Before Jim’s accident he told me he was in love with someone else. There was no quarrel,
I
released him.”

He misunderstood her lowered eyes for humiliation and grief. “Oh,” he said, quietly, “and that’s a part that’s erased, of course. You did right to refuse him in these circumstances. I understand, and I’m sorry, Flo.”

“I’m glad somebody knows and understands what I’ve been going through, lately,” she said from the heart. “I’ve had to withstand Jim, Sir Felix,
you ...
knowing that if I did marry him he might one day suddenly remember Jill, and hate me.”

“Whom did you say?”

“Jill. Jill Boscombe. He met her in Malaya.”

Robert fished in his breast pocket and eventually withdrew a piece of paper.

“This cable came addressed to me. I couldn’t make head or tail of it. ‘Expect arrive hospital October 15’ signed Gillian Boscombe. Would that be the lady?”

“It would. Monday’s the 15th, Robert. Should Jim see her, do you think?”

“At least
you
don’t need worry about it anymore, Flo. As your friend I hope I can be permitted to help where I can. When are you intending visiting Darvie again?”

“Not until after my leave. We had such a row that it was decided these three weeks’ grace were needed for us both to see things in perspective again.”

“I’m going to send you away, Flo. Right away from everything to a wee croft I own on the worst side of Iaine. There the rough winds will calm your spirit’s turbulence and the wild seas beat so madly you’ll think your own heart’s at peace long before it is. It’s a good place, Flo, and I want you to go because I’ve known what it is to be miserable and lost and found myself there in the wee croft at Glengael. I’ll see Jill and give her the facts, and I’ll see she’s brought into contact with Darvie, without declaring herself, to observe what effect she has on him. She may do the trick, you see, Flo? You won’t mind if she does, will you?”

“I’ll be happy for them,” she said through her sudden tears. “Oh, Robert! It’s been awful!”

“I know,” he said, sitting beside her and smoothing her hair sympathetically. “I know what a bad time it has been, my dear. Have a good cry for both of us. You have a darned good cry!”

So it was that a week later Flo Nightingale Lamont found herself huddled in the lee of a rocky bluff on the north-western tip of the Isle of Iaine, throwing pebbles into the ebbing tide thundering against the rocky coasts. The illusion of summer had fled with Meg’s wedding day and now it was autumn, not a leaf-dropping, dewy-grassed picture of that mellow season, but a malevolent
-
eyed promise of approaching winter. Here on the island the tourists were not only gone but well forgotten; the handicraft shops and amusement arcades in the towns were not only closed but boarded up against the elements, and here in this north-western corner the tourists had never even gained footing.

The croft keepers were a Mr. and Mrs. Duncan, and it was some time before Flo knew they could either of them speak English. With true Gaelic reserve they observed the bailiffs instructions to “gie the lassie a guid home the whiles” and obeyed to the letter without integrating themselves along with their duties. They spoke to one another in monosyllables; Gaelic monosyllables; yet the night Flo was scared by a ram butting at the door there was a strange comfort in hearing Mr. Duncan’s deep voice urging the animal back into its pen, and she knew this dour couple would shield her from all harm, uncommunicative though they might be.

“Mrs. Duncan,” ventured Flo, after another wonderfully appetising breakfast of porridge, gammon and warm wheaten bread, “I wonder if you understand me?”

The woman stood, without speaking, her black eyes watchful. “I want to buy a skirt or two while I’m here. Tartan skirts. Where will I get them?”

The woman was silent so long it seemed she didn’t understand. She opened the door and called her husband in Gaelic.

“It really doesn’t matter,” Flo said helplessly, but already Ronald Duncan was being drawn into the guest cottage, doffing his tweed hat.

The pair jabbered to one another for a full five minutes, then Mrs. Duncan turned her black beady eyes on Flo once more.

“Ma man kens a body who weaves the tartan,” she surprisingly volunteered in the most outlandish English Flo had even heard. “It would be the Strathallan tartan, would it no’?”

“Er—yes. Yes, of course,” she hastily agreed. “I have a young sister who wants a real kilt, and I would like a neat skirt for myself.”

“Cost ye the earth in the towns,” volunteered Mr. Duncan.

“Ay, But it’s no’ gaein’ tae cost the earth here!” his spouse admonished sharply. “There’s this body, Maire MacNeil wha weaves it, an’ Wullie MacIntyre who kens how tae make it up. Ye’ve jest got tae watch Wullie wi’ his hands: a mite free wi’ the bonny lassies he is, bein’ a bachelor since his wife passed away this ten year back. Onyway, Ah’ll accompany ye tae Wullie’s the
morn’s morn, an’ a mile down the road, past the auld lighthoose, ye’ll find Maire’s croft. She doesna’ speak English as well as Ah do, ye ken, but enough tae get by.”

So had Flo discovered Maire’s cottage, and had all the wonders of hand-woven tartan revealed to her. On their various bobbins were the bright or sombre soft Hebridean wools, and on the frame in the dim cottage was the fantasy of strand intermingling with strand to make the regular white-framed checks of the Strathallan tartan. Maire wove more than an inch of the material while Flo watched, though she could have sworn what she saw was complicated enough to be a lifetime’s work for the old woman.

Finally she purchased her roll, embarrassed that Mrs. MacNeil would accept no more than she had originally asked.

“Himself would take nae rent since ma guid man went awa”. Ah’ll no’ be fleecing you,” the woman said firmly.

“I’m nothing to Mr. Strathallan,” said Flo, “only a neighbor and friend. I would have to pay far more for your tartan in the towns, Mrs. MacNeil.”

“Ah ken the Loird sent ye here,” insisted the woman “an’ pale as a ghostie ye came. Ah’ll no’ ask more than’s decent, lassie.”

Flo went, feeling suddenly warm about her heart, as though she was accepted here among these people in their dour, undemonstrative way.

She began to feel the peace of which Robert Strathallan had spoken permeating her very being. There was healing here; healing in the down-to-earth philosophies of people who really lived in a physical sense, who were too busy wresting their meagre livelihoods from sea and croft to have learned the cynical niceties of congested civilization.

On the tenth day of her stay at Glengael she
really
knew she was accepted when a shawl-clad woman came hurriedly up the road and distractedly engaged Mrs. Duncan in conversation.

“Bide!” that lady said sharply, and then Flo’s door was opened, revealing her sitting cosily toasting by the turf fire.

“Here’s a body wantin’ a nurse, Miss Flo. Her wean’s havin’ a fit, she thinks
.
Wull ye go?”

Had it not been for her terrified companion Flo would have gone on a cloud of glory. She was a nurse. She was needed. There was always
that.

Jim Darvie had decided to discharge himself from hospital the very next day and move into a hotel. It wasn’t as if he was ill, and if it hadn’t been for dreams he would have felt as well as ever. These dreams were a source of torment to him, however. He couldn’t remember them.

While Flo had ministered to him he had been content to remain in hospital on the advice of his doctors, but now she had gone off to sulk somewhere, and he was sulking, too, hurt by her refusal to grant him the full sanctuary of her arms and heart.

“That’s a woman’s vaunted love for you!” he told himself bitterly. “She was keen enough before all this happened to me!”

“I beg your pardon?” said a voice at his elbow. “Were you speaking?”

Gray eyes were looking down at him from a colorless face. It was a nice face, though, he decided. This was Miss Green who had been coming in at odd times to dust and arrange flowers and so on. She called herself a hospital helper.

“I was having a wee natter to myself,” Jim said quickly, hoping he had mouthed nothing of an offensive nature. “I didn’t know you were there.”

The gray eyes calmed him strangely.

“I would have your nap now, Mr. Darvie. I’ll bring your tea at four o’clock.”

“
You
will?”

“Yes,” she smiled.
“I
will, in person. It’s Sister’s day off.” Jim hated sleeping, hated the point of being disconnected with his innermost self. Today, however, he closed his eyes resolutely and was soon in a different land, a green-jungle land of heat and steam and pests and—love. The girl, in his dream, came through the trees to meet him. She wore a white dress, her throat was white, her hat was shady and her eyes were gray; smiling, rather than laughing eyes. She wasn’t very tall, and she leaned back when she spoke. He took her hand, and her hand slid away, which proved he was dreaming. He began to sweat and toss, for this was always a warning that physical contact with the girl was forbidden. Soon her face would fade and he would forget her name. He screamed her name, knowing he was dreaming, and she began to run; she ran so fast he couldn’t catch her and his cries changed to sobs and desolation.

“My, Mr. Darvie, you were having a bad dream!” somebody said, shaking him gently.

He opened his eyes, his screams still ringing in his ears, and he saw gray eyes looking into his; nice, gray, sad eyes.

His breath caught in a sob, for he must still be dreaming, and then the girl and the dream became consciousness as Jill Boscombe murmured softly, “It’s over now, Mr. Darvie. Nothing to worry about.”

He said in stifled tones, as remembrance flooded, “My God, Jill! My God!” then he fainted.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“
I’ll miss the boat,” Flo said rather desperately, her eyes on the yellow-faced wall clock, and her thoughts with the young woman tossing on the bed. “Why doesn’t Doctor Stephenson get here, Mrs. Duncan?”

“More than probable young Morag McClusky is startin’ too. They were both due together. Ye ken?”

In good weather the mail was dropped fairly regularly by air, and twice a week the boat called, bringing in supplies and occasional visitors, taking back empties and orders and any who had business on the mainland. Flo knew the boat had arrived in the harbor three miles down from Glengael, and also knew it had suffered an extremely rough crossing, having to ride out the storm, half a mile off shore, before it was safe to come in and tie up. Though communications were primitive on Iaine in the off season, they were reasonably efficient, and a species of island telegraph kept items of news circulating, so that it would not be unknown in the nearest small town that Maggie Forbes was “having her wean, the day,” and was in the good hands of “that wee Sister Lamont, staying at the laird’s place” until such time as Doctor Stephenson, the ageing but active island physician, was free to attend her himself.

Flo, feeling physically
and mentally reborn, had advised Janet—and Pixie—when she intended coming home. The break had done her all the good in the world; for more than a week it hadn’t been a holiday, for there had always been someone coming to get her. The MacKinnon baby had safely survived two convulsions, and now the difficult tooth was through, so there wasn’t much likelihood of further trouble there.

Somehow the future was a drawn blind, and she did not care at the moment to lift it. Let the future remain like the sea, and herself an island. The ocean was infinity, and on the island only one wave broke at a time.

After a leisurely tea-drinking, during which it had been decided the new baby was to be named either Elspeth or Stuart, Mrs. Forbes became suddenly active in an urgent sort of way.

“She’s having strong contractions now,” Flo announced, while Mrs. Duncan—wearing an unfamiliar white overall and gauze mask—was busily keeping water heated on the old-fashioned turf-burning cooking-range, “but I think she could use a little help. I haven’t anything. See if the husband can find Doctor Stephenson and get some instructions at least, will you?” Annie Duncan called through to those who waited in the adjoining room, and for a moment there was the figure of the distracted, tousle-haired boy-father in the doorway.

“She’s fine,” Flo answered his unspoken question. “This baby’s in such a hurry now I’m having to keep him back, for your wife’s good. I simply think she’d be happier with the doctor here.” No good alarming everybody, Flo decided, knowing that Baby Forbes was presenting a bigger head than his young mother could cope with for a first confinement. She gave the young woman six grains of codeine, which was the only pain-killer she had in her possession, then fortunately there was a lull in events and Mrs. Forbes lay back exhausted.

“The doctor’s here! Himself s here!” announced Mrs. Duncan a little later. “He’s taking off his boots and coat in th’ither room.”

Flo felt, rather than saw, the comfortable presence alongside her.

“What have we here, Sister?”

“I would say a—forceps delivery, Doctor.”

“So would I.”

Flo’s heart was rioting with happiness and thanksgiving. Somehow Robert had come upon the scene when he was needed
most, and not only by the woman in labor. He was here, ready for work, and she was ready to assist him. Life, thus, was complete, and completely wonderful. She asked nothing more.

Two hours passed before sturdy Stuart Forbes
was placed in his drowsy mother’s arms, the stupefied father assured that all was well; the sleeping cherub a fact and flesh and blood. Now the local woman who acted as midwife had arrived at the cottage and could at least take over where the two specialists had finished.

“And now let me look at you!” said Robert out on the rain-swept road, and he regarded her as one might a jewel in a box, appreciating its value but having been warned not to touch. “You’ve improved,” he decided.

“Oh, yes. Thanks to you and this holiday. As you told me, Robert, it’s a good place to find—to find—”

“Yes?” he prompted.

“To find oneself again. I was going to say that.” She seemed less certain of herself now. “By the way, has—has the boat left?”

“No,” he told her, taking her arm resolutely and leading her away from the harbour. “It’ll still be there i’ the morn, so don’t fret. I came to take you back home, Flo. Leave things to me.”

“Yes, Robert,” she said dutifully. “But I seem to be leaving a lot of things to you lately. I’m an independent person really, you know.”

“Heaven forbid! I shouldn’t like my wife to be too independent.”

“Where are we going?” she asked, when her vision had cleared a little.

“Back to the croft. I’ve told Mrs. Duncan she’ll need to put me a bed in her sitting room, the night. I met Stephenson down the road dealing with a broken clavicle and he said you’d be at the Forbes’, and might need help.” Flo’s sigh was heartfelt and th
a
nkful. “Well, here we are! I hope I may share your fire until tonight?”

“Certainly.”

“I have much to say to you. To tell.”

The only interruption in that wonderful afternoon’s togetherness was Mrs. Duncan’s appearance with an equally wonderful Scots tea, and by that time Flo knew all about Jim and Jill, and how they were going to be married and were very happy. “I’m glad,” she decided.

“Jim told me of your conversation, prior to his accident,” Robert Strathallan said. “I do hope you don’t mind.”

“What did he tell you?” Flo pleaded, weakly.

“That you had sent for him urgently, and then confided you had fallen in love with—somebody else.”

“Jim said it wasn’t like you to fall out of love with a good, solid-citizen sort of chap like himself, and that he now concluded you were never meant for each other in the first place.”

“So we’re well out of it,” Flo agreed, softly.

“And who’s in, my dear? Who’s this lucky brute you tossed your heart to? In my opinion he ought to be horsewhipped!”

“Why?”

“Because he should never have allowed you the whigmaleeries he did. He should have locked you up and kept all harms away from you, knowing you were his from the moment you wore his tartan and made him the happiest man alive.”

' “Robert, I—don’t know what to say.”

“I do. I love and adore you, Flo. I ask once more, in all humility, will you be my wife?”

She drew the golden moment out, stretched the elastic, unbreakable thread, and named difficulties and snags she knew he would shrug aside or smooth away as easily as he breathed.

“What about Pixie, Robert, and Janet and Auld Willyum and Rowans?”

“They’ll fit in, my dearest, as will Hamish and a few pensioners dependent on me. The main thing they’ll all need is the assurance that they can depend on
us,
Master and Mistress of Glen Lochallan, and wi’ you beside me I’ll be a guid laird an’ a happy man. Well, Flo?”

“Yes, Robert. Oh, yes!”

So they came together and kissed, and were one in intent and purpose from that moment on. There would be storms in their lives, there would be squalls, but there would also be the inward peace of knowing their love had survived the trials and errors peculiar to human behaviour; survived and been crowned with the promise of happiness for a lifetime.