The House of the Laird (10 page)

Aunt Horatia came up behind
h
er and encircled her shoulders with a plump and friendly arm:
“
He hasn’t gone for ever, my dear,” she said, and there was something humorous in her tone
.
“And be careful never to mistake gratitude for anything warmer than gratitude!”

CHAPTER
TEN

Somewhat
to Karen’s surprise the days crawled by, and the week-end came at last. It was followed
b
y another week-end, and yet another, and by this time the weather really had improved. Spring was in th
e
air—it was painting a picture a
l
l about them, a picture in many tones of green, enlivened by the pale gold of celandines and the sprightly mauve of crocuses. The little cascades coming down from the hills were running fresh and free, there were green patches amongst the brown of the moorland, and stagnant tarns reflected the sunshine.

Karen was feeling a very different human being from the one who had left London so many weeks before, and not only did she feel different but she looked different. The wan hollows, in her cheeks had vanished, and her eyes were very blue. There was always a delicate color under her peculiarly fine skin, and the attentions of Aunt Horatia’s personal maid had transformed her ordinary short, fair, curling hair into a spun-gold wonder that amazed her when she looked into a glass.

One day Aunt Horatia called her into her room and showed her some lengths of material that were spread out on her bed. They were lengths
of
gleaming silk, one in ivory, with a tiny, threadlike pattern of silver leaves, another in faintest cyclamen pink. There was also a huge bale of Harris tweed, with a delightful blue fleck in it, and half a dozen rich silk evening shawls spread out across the bed.

“I’ve been turning out my cupboards,” Aunt Horry told her, declining, however, to meet her eyes,
“and I’ve found all this stuff that I must have picked
up sometime somewhere or other. It struck me that this ivory silk is the very thing to make up into an absolutely perfect evening dress for you, and I could I imagine you looking quite enchanting in this pale pink.”

She picked it up and mad
e
as if to hold it up against her guest, but Karen’s clear blue eyes looked at her accusingly. She was not greatly surprised, for Mrs. Montagu-Jackson had been hinting so frequently lately that she would like to take her on a shopping expedition, offering as the excuse the fact that it was so long since she had shopped for anyone young, and that it made her so happy to see young things really well dressed.

“And as you’re going to be my niece before very long, I don’t see why we shouldn’t have a wonderful time buying you an outfit—so what do you say?” she had asked.

Karen’s cheeks had first burned with embarrassment, and then she had shaken her head fiercely.

“I wouldn’t even dream of allowing you to do anything of the sort,” she had said. “You’ve already been far too kind to me—far too kind!
”

“
Rubbish!” Aunt Horry had exclaimed mildly. She had not looked acutely disappointed but as if the answer she had received was one she had expected. “Well, we’ll have to think up some other way of providing you with new clothes
,”
she had concluded, with a sigh of frustration.

“I don’t need new clothes,” Karen had declared.
“At least
—”
And then in a rising panic she
had said to herself that the sooner the deception she was practicing was ended, and she was back in London, the better. She was being basely unfair to people who were good to her, and she would have to let Iain know her decision very soon. Now that she was quite well again there was no excuse for
her remaining where she was. “At least
,
” she had repeated, “I don’t need them so badly that I’m going to let you provide them for me.
”

Aunt Horry’s eyebrows rose, and she had looked at the slim figure of determ
i
nation in front of her with a faintly puzzled frown
.

“But you are going to marry Iain, aren’t you
?”

“I—I—”

“
Aren’t
you?”

Karen had remembered the promise she had made to the man who had befriended
her, and she had swallowed something in her throat, and then nodded her head.

“Yes, but we haven’t discussed when we’re going to get married, or anything like that. It
’
s merely—merely
—”

“Merely a
n
engagement! Well,
my dear, that’s all; it could have been as you’ve only just begun to pick up your strength after
being so unwell, but talk of m
a
rriage is bound to crop up before very long now. And you must have some clothes to get married in. You can’t expect a man to buy them for you until he becomes a husband, although I’ve no doubt at all
that Iain would be delighted
—”

“Oh, no!” Karen had exclaimed in horror. “I wouldn’t accept a thing from, him—not anything like
that!”

“And even if you’re not going to get married you, still need clothes,” her hostess had declared, with
a return of her mildness, “and it doesn’t seem to me that you earn enough to keep yourself alive, let alone buy other necessities. From all you’ve told me about that flatlet
affair
of yours in London, and the way you’ve lived
,
I’d never h
a
ve an easy moment if you ever thought seriously of going back to it. And I’d see that you
didn’t
go
b
ack to it,” with
a
sudden firmness.
“Whatever
happens about Iain, I’m quite determined that someone has got to do something about you in future!”

Karen had felt such a rush of gratitude—almost pathetic gratitude—to her heart that she had almost choked, and she could only mutter. “You’re terribly kind!—you’re far too kind!
”
and rush from the room.

And now here was Mrs. Montagu-Jackson with her ornate French bed entirely covered with costly silks and expensive tweed, and Karen realized as soon as she saw them that she had had a new inspiration.

“I’ve a dressmaker coming here from the village this afternoon—a really excellent dressmaker!—and I thought if you agreed with me that these would make up very nicely we’d get her to take your measurements and see what she can do with them,” Aunt Horry declared, thinking with admiration that the pink performed miracles for her guest’s delicate complexion.

Karen shook her head almost
sadly.

“You know you’re just trying to be generous again,” she said, “and I can’t let you.”

“But, my dear girl, why not? If it pleases me? I’m tired of seeing these things lying about in my cupboards, and the tweed will get the moth in it if I don’t do something about it. I thought it would make you a
couple of nice skirts, and perhaps a big coat as well. It’s exactly the tweed I would choose for you for a
coat.”

Karen’s blue eyes filled slowly with tears. She wished she could make Aunt Horry know how grateful she really was.

“
All the same, I can’t let you.”

“Then I’ll send the whole lot to a jumble sale and be rid of it.”

After that, of course. Aunt Horry won the day, and the dressmaker arrived to take Karen’s measurements and carried away the lengths of silk, while Aunt Horry insisted upon Karen’s accepting one of the silk evening shawls as a gift.

“You can wear it over that pretty blue dress of yours,” she said, “and until the others arrive it will ring the changes for you nicely.”

She patted Karen on the cheek, and said gently: “You know, my dear, I do like having you staying here. You’re so young and different, somehow, from most modern young women. And I want you to be happy. Although I was not at all sure when I first met you, I hope now tha
t
you really will marry Iain
!”

Iain’s visits at the week-ends were things Karen looked forward to with a blaze of longing in her heart. When he came, although perhaps he was merely friendly to her—even a little distant—she felt weak with relief because he was there. Whilst he was at Craigie House she was constantly worrying lest, perhaps, something might call him away—to Londo
n
, or even farther afield, and that she felt she could not endure, although she knew that before long she would have to endure doing without him altogether, and that the sooner she was sensible and told him that this sort of thing could not go on any longer, the sooner some sort of peace of mind would be restored to her.

O
nce away from him—once
really
away from him—she would have to forget him. And when you know you’ve got to tear something by the roots out of your heart, every moment’s delay is
merely strengthening the agony when the operation itself takes place. She knew that if she had any pity on herself she would turn her back on Auchenwiel and Craigie with as little delay as possible and fly back to London, obscurity and work.

A
nd perhaps if she worked hard enough at something she disliked she might forget these past weeks altogether...

She made up her mind that the next time she saw Iain she would have
this matter out with him, and explain that in her view the deception they were
practicing had already gone on long enough. So far as she could see he
was not in any serious need of protection from his former
fiancée
, although how he secretly felt about her she often wondered. Fiona was so beautiful; assured, and a little mysterious, but apparently quite willing to be nothing more than friends with him now that at last she had
come back into his life. To Karen she was quite charming, which seemed to prove that she had
n
o secret designs on the man she had once proposed to marry. Sometimes Karen had the odd feeling that, if anything, she was a little too charming, and there were moments when the younger girl asked herself why—
why,
if Fiona was no longer interested, had she decided to make her re-entry into Iain’s life? It should have been embarrassing for them both, especially as she had treated him so shabbily. But apparently it was not. They met and talked with one another as if they were old and well-tried friends, and were quite at ease in one another’s company. Iain had been distant at first—perhaps cautious. But he had rapidly thawed, as any man must thaw beneath the
a
ppeal of those golden eyes; and Fiona’s desire to be friendly. And if sometimes the golden eyes rested on him, when neither he nor anyone else appeared to be aware of them, with a
s
trange
slumbrous, brooding quality that had set a
w
arning telegraph working in Karen’s brains, because she
had
observed it, it was really nothing whatever to do with Karen, as she realized.

But although it was nothing to do with her there was one thing she would have avoided for Iain if she could, and that was that he should once again become a victim of a woman who had already badly let him down.

When the fourth week-end arrived and, as usual, he made his appearance at Auch
e
nwiel, Karen made up her mind that this
was the
occasion to come
to a clear
understanding with him. To tell him that the time had come to stop pretending, and for
them to part. She simply couldn’t go on accepting hospitality and kindness from his aunt and wilfully deceiving her at the same time, and he had to be made to see it. And perhaps once she pointed it out to him he would be glad to agree that the thing had gone on rather too long. He might even meet her half-way and suggest some manner in which they could terminate the affair without making it appear too obvious that from the very beginning it had been nothing more than a hollow pretence.

But Karen was glad she was going to have this weekend—it would be something to hug to herself in after days, and re-live wistfully when she could bear to do so.

On Sunday morning they all went to church in the big Daimler, and then after lunch she and Iain set off for their usual walk. At least, for the past two Sundays she had walked with him on the moor, and she found it an exhilarating experience.

He looked so well in his tweeds, and he never tried her beyond her strength. And he seemed to know just how much strength she had. It was not as much as she liked to pretend to herself, and the most disconcerting thing about her recovery so far was that moments of sudden exhaustion had not been altogether left behind. Those were the moments when he saw to it that she rested, and when, after a glance at her face he decided to turn for home. Those were the moments, too, when she felt that he had not given up protecting her, and thinking for her. They were the moments that were going to be the bitterest of all to recall when their paths had permanently divided.