The House of the Laird (7 page)

Marry him!...

Somehow she was not even quite certain that she had heard him aright. II it had been a serious proposal it had been so casually made that surely no other woman had ever received one quite like it
before! ...
“
Craigie can do with a mistress, someone to run the place. And I
’
m sure you could do that quite adequately.
”
She took a deep breath, and wondered how she would be feeling at this moment if she had said
“
Yes.
”

She stared hard at his hands—such beautifully shaped hands, strong and capable, with admirably cared-for finger nails that were dealing expertly with the cards. There was a gold signet ring on one of his little fingers, and it winked like a bright eye in the
fire glow
. The white line of his cuff as it escaped from the blackness of his sleeve was almost start
l
ingly immaculate, and an equally white handkerchief tucked partly up his sleeve brushed the top of the table as he demonstrated with the pack.

Karen lifted her eyes to his face, and not for the first time she thought what an utterly purposeful line of jaw he had. There was no weakness about the mouth, either; it was an attractive mouth when he smiled in a certain fashion, because there was something faintly provocative about his smile. His
eyes reminded her of
th
e grey of roof slates with the frost upon them when he was not smiling, but at other times they could resemble the grey running of the stream at the bottom of the garden, quiet but buoyant, deceptively placid, sparkling in the sunlight. And the sleek smoothness of his hair, so dark that it made her think of a blackbird
’
s plumage.
If only she had said
“
Yes
”
she could spend the rest of her life like this, watching him whenever she wanted to do so, knowing that he would never be far away, that he was someone who had taken upon himself the right to care for her and look after her. Craigie would be her home, and the seasons would come and go there, and everything would be very peaceful, because Craigie was peaceful. But, above all, if she had said
“
Yes
”
she would have the right to call herself the wife of Iain Mackenzie
!...

She felt that excitable little pulse beating wildly again in her throat, and for a solitary instant she wondered just as wildly as the pulse was beating why she had not said
“
Yes.
”
And then as he looked up and met her eyes she felt the vivid pink dye her cheeks, and she looked away abashed—terrified lest he should be able to read, in her face the thoughts she had been thinking.

But all he said was:

“
Are you a little bit tired tonight? Would you rather go to bed and learn this game another night? We mustn
’
t forget you
’
ve had rather a lot of fresh air today—for you—and you
’
re probably sleepy.
”

She agreed at once that she was, and as he stood up to open the door for her she felt anxious to dart past him wildly and escape. But instead she forced herself to walk sedately towards the foot of the stairs, and although she knew he was still watching her she mounted them slowly.

B
ut she thought in almost a frantic fashion:
“
He must have guessed!... I
’
m sure he guessed!..
.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Two days later A
unt Horatia Montagu-
J
ackson and Mrs. Barrington arrived just in time for lunch, without any warning whatsoever. They drove up in an old-fashioned chauffeur-driven Daimler. Aunt Horry was wearing tweeds and a hat rather like a Tyrolean hat, with a feather stuck in it. She was small but agile, with grey hair
a
nd a pair of bright blue eyes that beamed from under the Tyrolean hat, and an incongruous note was added to her appearance by a great many diamonds, in the shape of brooches, brac
e
lets and ear-rings, that adorned her diminutive person.

She advanced upon her nephew when he arrived to greet her in the hall and embraced him with obvious fervor, kissing him heartily on both cheeks.

“
You look,
”
she told him,
“
extraordinarily well, and I
’
m delighted to see you.
”

“
And you,
”
he told her,
“
don
’
t look even half a day older!
”

“
My dear, I
’
m being treated by a wonderful Italian doctor who
’
s performed miracles—simply miracles!—for my rheumatism, and in fact I just haven
’
t
go
t it any more!
”
She looked around her as if searching for someone, and then exclaimed quickly:
“
But where
’
s the young woman? My new niece-to-be! I must see her—I must see her at once, because I
’
ve been simply dying to know what she looks like!
”

As Karen emerged from the shadows of the hall she felt rather than saw the keen blue eyes fasten upon her, and then Aunt Horatio darted forward and caught her by her slender shoulders and looked at he
r
so hard that the girl
’
s blush rose uncontrol
l
ably.

“
H
’
m!
”
the elderly lady exclaimed, at the end of her inspection, and then
“
h
’
m!
”
again. She sent an
oddly quizzical sideways glance at her nephew, light
l
y patted Karen’s cheek, and then released her. And then they all turned as footsteps sounded at the end of the hall near the open front door, and Fiona Barrington appeared, moving gracefully towards them, with her arms full of flowers and parcels she had stopped to collect from inside the car. It was a habit of Mrs. Montagu-Jackson’s—her husband had been Montagu Jackson, who made a fortune out of baby powder and other nursery toilet requisites many years before he died, and after his death she had decided to give herself a double-barrelled name by including his Christian name—to bring with her, on her visits to her nephew, large quantities of useful provender, such as eggs from her own farm, and vegetables cultivated by her gardener, being firmly of the opinion that they were always most acceptable to a bachelor. So behind Mrs. Barrington came the chauffeur who maintained the Daimler at such a shining pitch of perfection, bearing the heavier articles which the slight figure of the widow could hardly be expected to carry.

Karen, who realized that she had been waiting with something not nearly so stimulating as curiosity for this moment, knew that all
her worst fears were instantly realized when she took her first look at Fiona Barrington.

To begin with, the coat she was wearing was so obviously mink that Karen’s heart dropped like a plummet when she remembered her own cheap tweed. And she wa
s
wearing a little mink cap, too, specially designed to call attention to corn-silk hair. Not
fair
hair, like Karen’s own, but a deep, shining, lustrous gold.

Her eyes were golden, too—golden as quartz or topaz—and they were smiling in an enchanting way under the mink cap. She couldn’t have been much older than Karen herself, in spite of her widowhood, but she had all the sophistication and the poise in the world, and as she shook hands with K
a
ren the
latter caught the first faint breath of the delicate perfume she brought with her, like something belonging exclusively to Paris in the springtime.

“And this is the little
fiancée
?” she said, and just as Aunt Horatio had done she shot a sudden, sideways glance at Iain’s face that had the merest suspicion of something both quizzical and amused in it.

Mackenzie’s face remained cool and slightly aloof—an expression that had appeared in it the instant he had ceased greeting his aunt. But Karen did not dare to look at him, and she only knew that she herself had failed to create an impression that could quite truthfully be described as favorable—or, at any rate, she herd been something of a surprise to both of these women visitors. Although she was wearing her best tweed skirt, and a jumper that was neat and unspectacular, she had all the colorlessness of an invalid about her—or one who was only just
c
easing to be an invalid—and it was plain at a
j
glance that she lacked both confidence and poise, and moreover that she was almost desperately shy and aware of how badly she fitted in just then.

She wanted to escape with Mrs. Burns when the housekeeper appeared to receive instructions about extra places at the luncheon table; and she would have been happy to have been simply Prout, whose only task was to hand round drinks in the
drawing room
before they all went in to the meal. But she was the prospective mistress of the house, or so they all fondly believed, and she could not merely sit tongue-tied and afraid that if she did open her lips she might say something unwise and foolish that would glaringly proclaim her to be acting a part.

It was not so bad while lunch was in progress, for the service of the meal caused enough diversion, and Mrs. Burns was agitated because she had not known beforehand that the visitors were preparing to descend upon them. She infected Prout with some of her own agitation as a result of supervising her too closely whenever they were in the dining-room together, until, in order to pour oil on the troubled waters. Aunt Horatia declared when they were nearing the coffee stage that the lunch was far more perfect than anything she ever enjoyed |n her own house, and Mrs. Burns at least was happy again.

Iain, too, while they will still seated at the long table in the dining-room, was careful to give Karen all the support he could, and dangerous topics like how long he and Karen had been engaged to be married, exactly, where they met, and when they were proposing to get married, were skilfully sidetracked by him in favor of his aunt’s rheumatism, and the wonderful cure for which the Italian doctor was responsible.

But once back in the drawing-room after lunch, Karen knew that the real attack was coming. Mrs. Montagu-Jackson managed to install herself in a chair close to Karen’s, while Mrs. Barrington occupied a corner of a Chesterfield and successfully persuaded her host to desert his post in the middle of the rug before the fireplace and talk to her about his recent travels abroad.

Out of the
corner
of her eye Karen could see that he gravitated somewhat unwillingly to the side of the lovely widow—for anyone more deserving of the appellation “lovely” Karen had never seen—and Mrs. Barrington produced a long turquoise holder from her handbag and allowed him to light the cigarette she placed in it. Then Aunt Horatia began to talk to Karen in a friendly, sociable manner, and her opening gambit was very much to the point.

“And now, my dear,” she said, as if she wa
s
going to suggest getting to know one another, “you can tell me the truth about yourself and Iain
!
”

Karen looked at her, faintly horrified, but Aunt Horatia was lying back in her chair and smiling comfortably.

“Go on, you silly child, and don’t be afraid of me! I’m not easily shocked, I can assure you.”

And so, in view of the fact that it was plainly not much use dissembling, Karen told her the truth—all the truth that is, apart from the actual falsity of her engagement, which, because she had given her promise to Iain, she did not disclose to his aunt. And at the end of her simple recital Mrs. Montagu-Jackson nodded her head, as if it was all much as she had expected, and observed:

“Well, that’s all quite understandable but it was quixotic of you both to become engaged—at least, it was quixotic of Iain, but I haven’t quite made up my mind about you yet.”

Karen felt a tiny, cold feeling stealing about her heart, as if something she had been hugging to herself recently as precious was likely to be snatched away from her altogether. She looked at the elder lady with vaguely troubled eyes.

“You—you haven’t made up your mind about—me?”

“No, my dear.” The old eyes were gentle, and the voice had a sympathetic note in it. “You appear to have had quite a lot to put up with in the way of illness, and I’d say at this moment you are far from strong, and Iain can be terribly kind when he feels like it—I know that! But you can’t marry a man because he’d kind, or because he offers you a home.”

“N-no,” Karen agreed, and wished that this visitation from Iain’s relative had been postponed until she was feeling just a little stronger than she was at present, and therefore more capable of putting up some sort of camouflage.

“On the other hand, if you’re really sure
—”