Master of Glenkeith (15 page)

“You’re going to paint?” she asked, seeing the familiar block under Tessa’s arm. “You’ll find ample opportunity at Ardnashee. It’s one of the loveliest old places for miles around and Nigel ought to be very proud of it.”

“You’re not quite sure whether he is or not, Meg, are you?” Tessa asked. “Has he always been the restive type?”

“He’s travelled around a good deal,” Margaret said as they went out to where Andrew was waiting beside the brake.

They all sat in front this time, packed closely together, because the back was piled high with crates and boxes which Andrew was returning to a dealer in Aberdeen, and they were also towing a trailer with two of the prize rams uneasily housed inside. They were fierce, independent creatures with black, beady eyes that peered steadily ahead waiting for the moment when they could most effectively elude their captors, and Tessa wondered how they were to be conveyed all the way to the Border without mishap.

She wished, suddenly, that she was going with Andrew to see this side of his life, the man in action doing the sort of job he loved, but it seemed that she was destined to go to Ardnashee instead.

“You’ve never been this way before,” Andrew informed her, “though you were trespassing on Ardnashee property that day Nigel found you on the moor.”

“You were lucky that day,” Margaret mused. “Anything might have happened to you when the mist came down.

“I realize that now,” Tessa confessed. “But I didn’t know about your Scottish mists at the time. I promise not to be so foolhardy again!”

“Nigel will look after you to-day,” Margaret assured her. “You might even catch a glimpse of some red deer if we go the right way.”

“Ardnashee has all the advantages, as you see,” Andrew said dryly.

“Is it a very big house?” Tessa asked, slightly intimidated by his remark.

“Not really. None of the old ‘Scottish baronial’ castles were, in fact. They were compact and easily defended, and Ardnashee hasn’t suffered much from being added to over the years. It’s almost a perfect example of the original type of building, although it has been greatly modified inside. Mrs. Haddow insists on her comfort and Nigel gives her everything she needs.”

The suggestion of unlimited generosity did not surprise Tessa very much. She had recognized it in Nigel Haddow almost from the first, and his mother had seemed a contented woman.

Content to go on living at Ardnashee so long as her son needed her.

They had been driving over open moorland for the past few miles, but now they were descending to the tree line again and the lush vegetation of a river valley. It enfolded them like a green mantle and the brake’s tyres had a muted sound on the leaf-covered road.

Andrew swung off to the left.

“We’re almost there,” he said.

The Ardnashee gates were standing open, but a keeper came out to touch his cap to them as they passed through, and from that moment onwards Tessa was conscious of the subtle evidence of wealth which had wrapped the Haddows round at Braemar.

The winding drive, the dark-clipped yews and immaculate parkland, were all synonymous with abundant means, and the house itself proved to be a gem in a perfect setting. It stood, surrounded by trees, on a natural terrace of richest green, its shining grey turrets reminiscent of Balmoral, one at each of the four corners of a square tower, with the main doorway sheltered by a wide, castellated porch of native stone.

The house clustered about the tower and there were smaller turrets at the back which must have been a delight to all the Haddow children who had grown up there in the past.

Two ancient cypresses stood, sentinel-like, on the terrace, flanking the wide gravelled sweep which led to the house and, beyond it, to immaculate stabling enclosed in a high wall, and as Andrew drew the brake up a clock chimed the hour.

“Even the stable clock keeps excellent time at Ardnashee!” Margaret smiled. “Are you coming in, Drew?”

He shook his head.

“Not to-day.”

Tessa saw that the main door lay hospitably open, contrasting it unconsciously with Glenkeith on the day she had arrived there, and then Nigel came out across the wide flagged step to greet them.

“Come in for a drink, Drew,” he invited. “ A stirrup-cup, if you will, but you must have something. I definitely insist!”

“I have to be in Aberdeen by eleven,” Andrew told him, but he followed Tessa into the shelter of the porch A large party seemed to have gathered in the hall. It was a vast, raftered place, square and solid-looking, like the outside tower, and hung with antlers and stags’ heads and battle-axes from skirmishes long ago, yet it had an air of modern comfort blending in well enough with all these things. Rich, velvet-covered divans stood against the tapestry-covered walls, which Tessa saw were of stone, and deeply comfortable leather easy chairs were grouped carelessly about the enormous stone fireplace where a huge single log burned and crackled, sending a shower of sparks chasing each other up the vast chimney.

Several men, who were all strangers to her, stood on the dark Persian rug, and there was a babble of talk and deep throated laughter which made the rafters ring.

Mrs. Haddow came over to meet her son’s latest guests.

“This is too unkind of you, Andrew!” she said. “We were looking forward to your being with us all day, but Nigel tells me you have a couple of prize rams on tow and are going to Aberdeen instead.”

Tessa did not hear Andrew’s reply because Nigel led her away to be introduced to the people she did not already know. It was difficult to catch names in the general hearty uproar, and presently she realized that Andrew had gone.

I wish I hadn’t come, she thought. I wish I had stayed at Glenkeith!

She stayed behind with Margaret and her hostess when the guns moved off, watching Alice Walsh as she strode confidently by Nigel’s side. The beaters had gone on ahead and Nigel carried both Alice’s gun and his own, but Tessa had no wish to join them.

A maid in a trim brown and cream uniform served coffee and biscuits in the sunny morning-room at the back of the house, and at twelve o’clock they set off with the picnic baskets to join the guns.

It was a typical mid-September day, hazy in the hollows of the hills, but bright and sunny once they had reached the moors. Tessa drank in deep breaths of the keen air and was glad, after all, that she had accepted Nigel’s “bidding.”

Once or twice, as they climbed, they heard the report of the guns in the distance, but it had been arranged that their rendezvous should not be anywhere near the line of fire, and they made their way to a sheltered spot where a brown burn hurried down across the stones and heather to join the waiting river far below.

Margaret spread the rugs and Celia Craven and Mrs. Haddow unpacked the baskets which had been dropped by car and would be picked up in the same way later. Celia had decided against going out with the men, even to load, and came and sat beside Tessa while they waited.

“Do tell me about your painting,” she encouraged. “Nigel says you are very clever at it.”

“That’s just Nigel trying to be kind!” Tessa laughed. “He hasn’t seen anything I’ve done yet.”

“Someone in the village told him about it. They said you had done a head of one of their children and it was excellent.”

Tessa flushed.

“That would be Mrs. Ross. She’d be biased because I managed to get a likeness of Sandy and promised to let her have it when it was finished.”

“You don’t mean to show your work, then?” Celia asked, surprised. “I think you really ought to if it’s good.” “There's so much good drawing about, Tessa pointed out modestly. “You have to be almost a genius to be recognized, you know.”

“Hammond Ortry would tell you what he thought,” Celia said. “He’s not in any way inhibited, believe me! You wouldn’t need to feel that he was praising your work because he thought he owed it to Nigel for a lengthy stay at Ardnashee.”

Tessa had thought that about Ortry’s rather bored interest in her in the first place, but she supposed that he could not encourage unworthiness just to please a friend.

“I don’t quite see what Nigel has to do with it,” she said embarrassed by Celia’s particular brand of frankness.

“Don’t you?” her companion laughed. “Surely you’re not quite as naive as all that, Tessa!”

“If you mean that I’ve—asked Nigel to help, you’re wrong,” Tessa said bluntly. “I’m quite prepared to stand on my own feet where my painting is concerned. Besides,” she added with her quick smile which banished discord, “I haven’t really painted anything yet. Not anything worthwhile.”

“I’d advise you to show it to Nigel when you have,” Celia laughed, but not unpleasantly. “He’ll be prepared to give you all the encouragement you need.”

This talk of Nigel was difficult to cope with, Tessa decided. So much seemed to be taken for granted by Celia and her friends and they had no qualms of conscience when it came to discussing other people’s private affairs. They spoke about them quite openly and with disconcerting amusement, a form of gossip which made her feel curiously afraid. She was frankly relieved when the men came striding down over the heather to join them, their guns under their arms, the morning’s bag a larger one than they had expected.

Lunch consisted of cold chicken and ham, with crisp bread rolls and farm butter, followed by several kinds of cheese and what seemed to be the inevitable champagne.

Munching contentedly, Nigel came to sit on the heather beside Tessa.

“Are you coming to the Highland Ball with me?” he asked.

“I’ve no idea,” she countered, wondering why Andrew had not mentioned a ball if, indeed, there was one in the offing. “Is it an annual affair?”

“Very much so. There are dozens of them up and down the country at this time of year, mostly Hunt affairs, but this is a special effort. It is held in Perth at the County Hall and we generally make up a party between Glenkeith and Ardnashee.”

“I’d love to go!” Tessa cried, her eyes sparkling now. “Andrew must have forgotten to mention it.”

“Dare I suggest that Andrew has slept in this time?” Nigel pointed out. “I’m inviting you to come as my partner, Tessy!”

“But you said you always went in a party—Glenkeith and Ardnashee together.”

“That’s it,” he agreed, “but it doesn’t prevent us from having our own particular partners. Andrew will take Meg. He always has done.”

“I see,” Tessa whispered. “I’m sure it will be—very nice.”

“Don’t forget to tell Andrew that you are already booked.” He got to his feet to go off with the guns for the afternoon’s sport. “It’s the day after the opening meet of the Perth Hunt.”

Tessa spent the afternoon sketching with her back to a low stone wall and her face to the sun. She worked rapidly while Margaret and Celia Craven walked on up the miniature glen and came back at four o’clock with their arms full of autumn branches, the scarlet rowans like a bright red challenge in the paling light. Mrs. Haddow had wanted the foliage to decorate the house, and they piled it into the back of the car when the chauffeur came to collect the picnic baskets.

A little tired and drowsy with the effect of so much fresh air, they were quite willing to drive back to the house in comfort, and when they had taken tea with their hostess she insisted that Margaret and Tessa should go back to Glenkeith by car.

“Andrew would expect it,” Mrs. Haddow said. “Come again, both of you—soon!”

When they reached Glenkeith the brake was in the yard but Andrew was nowhere to be seen.

“Look!” Margaret exclaimed in some surprise, “the guns are coming down over the hill.”

Only four of the shooting party put in an appearance at Glenkeith that afternoon, however. The others had gone back to Ardnashee with the bag.

“I’ve someone here who wants to see your grandfather,” Nigel explained to Margaret as he came across the cobbles towards them. “I thought we might just have a word with Mr. Meldrum before we went back for our meal.”

“Of course,” Margaret said. “Come away in! He’ll be delighted.”

Hester appeared in the hall as the four men followed her daughter and Tessa into the house. She looked displeased, but managed to nod in Nigel’s direction when she recognised him.

“Can Nigel Haddow not keep away from Glenkeith these days?” she observed with a thin smile in Tessa’s direction which Andrew saw as he hurried into the house in his visitors’ wake.

Tessa could not look at Andrew. It seemed that Hester kept making these observations for some hidden purpose of her own, a dark purpose which she would achieve in the end by the very force of her own determination, and she felt suddenly sick and disheartened by the thought.

With her sketching-block still in her hands she ran up the stairs, hoping to reach the sanctuary of her own room before she was waylaid by anyone else, but she had counted without Nigel.

He was standing at the top of the staircase, apparently waiting for her to come up.

“Mr. Meldrum has a full quota of visitors,” he grinned. “I came out to give them more air! Bill Meiklejohn is an old pal of his from Inverness and he thought he would have a word with him when he was so near Glenkeith, anyway.” Suddenly he stretched out and took the sketching block from her. “What have you been doing all afternoon?” he asked.