Anna of Strathallan (12 page)

Calum said, 'I'll get it. Come on, Sophy. I'll save you from any more manhandling. He's a wild chiel when he gets his dander up.'

Philip started after them. Impulsively, Anna caught his hand. 'No, don't, Philip. Leave them be.'

Philip gave her a peculiar look.

She said, 'It's a nice change for Calum. He and I don't always hit it off. We're always getting off-sides with each other.'

He looked amazed. 'Why, Calum's very easy to get on with.'

She dimpled, looked mischievous. 'Well, perhaps I'm not. We rub each other up the wrong way.' She paused, said, 'Though I-'

She'd been going to say: 'Though I think we've got our wires uncrossed at last,' but Philip came in with, 'What a pity! I thought we might have made a foursome up for a musical in Alexandra either Wednesday or Thursday night, depending on Sophy's engagements. It's a repeat of a very successful performance by a local playwright and cast. Called
All Roads Lead to Arrow.
About Arrowtown in the gold-rush days.'

Anna didn't hesitate. 'Philip, I'd love it. But any chance of you saying
we
were going, and would they like to make up a foursome? It would be more pointed. That's what Kitty's after, I think. It would create an atmosphere quite different from the parish outings and so on. I think Kitty feels Sophy takes her work just a little too seriously. I mean, everyone needs a break. Nothing like an atmosphere of romance.'

He burst out laughing. 'This'll please Kitty no end - plunging in!'

At his laughter the other two, the lamb now restored, turned round. Philip and Anna were still hand in hand. Calum and Sophy stood very still for a moment, strangely. Then they looked at each other rather uncertainly. As if they were exchanging a shared idea.

Anna knew inward laughter. Love was supposed to be catching. Perhaps Calum and Sophy were too prosaic, too cautious. A faint tremor went through Anna.
Could
one think of Calum as prosaic? Given the right circumstances, she thought Calum and she might have struck sparks off each other.

Perhaps, though, Sophy was slowing him up. Probably she hadn't always been like that. Her grief, no doubt sometimes too heavy to be borne, had stilled some spring of joy in her. Her work, too, had more than likely made her inclined to take things too gravely, to weigh up the pros and cons at length. But at times her natural light-headedness would bubble to the surface as it had when she'd played the joke on Philip.

Philip's pressure on her hand was insistent. He pulled her after him, making her bound with him from tuft to tuft of the springy turf of the paddock. They reached the others.

Philip said, 'I've just asked Anna to come with me to Alex on either Wednesday or Thursday night to see
All Roads Lead to Arrow.
I know you two have seen it before, but I could see it half a dozen times myself. How about you making up a foursome?'

Calum and Sophy looked a little strained. Strained or puzzled? They each demurred a little. Philip said a little roughly, 'I'm sure you haven't got both nights tied up this week, Sophy. It's time you got off the hook more. Plenty of male ministers aren't so single-minded as you. Even the married ones take time off to escort their wives and children to all sorts of performances. You aren't indispensable to the parish, you know.' (Oh, yes, Philip was on Calum's side all right.)

Calum grinned. 'He's right, Sophy. I've been preaching that at you for long enough, too. So has Kitty, and just about everyone else.'

Sophy gave in. For the rest of the time no one was as gay as she. Philip stayed for the evening meal too. Anna found out that the manse at Crannog had a glebe, relic of the days when the minister had covered the parish visiting with a gig, not a car, and had needed somewhere to pasture his horse. Sophy rented it out to a farmer for grazing, but her mount roamed at will among his wethers. 'Riding's so good for me, after sitting at my desk long hours. It will be idyllic tonight, riding home in the cool spring twilight. Riding home with me, Philip?'

He shook his head. 'Not tonight, I'm afraid. I want to be back here early tomorrow morning so I'll have to take the car, and besides, I've promised to show Anna the mysteries of the differing grades of wool in the farm offices. But I'm sure Galum's dying for the chance.'

Calum opened his mouth, closed it, said hurriedly, 'Too right. Sophy, how about us riding up Blue Spur before we take your road home? I bet you've not seen the daffodils down by the Crannog Dam this year? They're more numerous than ever and the light catches the water at sunset.'

Anna noticed Kitty concealing a smile.

Philip and Anna spent a matter-of-fact hour with the wool samples in the farm office, but there was no chance of private conversation because Gilbert couldn't stay out of it. His whole manner revealed his delight that his granddaughter was interested in this, and that it was perfectly natural because she was Anna of Strathallan. She had a pretty shrewd idea Kitty wouldn't have told him of her machinations. Once or twice she had the idea that Gilbert himself was thinking that if only Anna and Philip were attracted to each other seriously, then Strathallan would be safe in all the years to come. That those of Drummond blood, if not of name, would always farm here. But she didn't feel an atom of anything even approaching love for Philip. He was good fun, that was all.

She gazed madly at the samples, tried to take in the unfamiliar terms, make some kind of intelligent replies and all the time in spirit she was riding beside the sunset-stained waters of the dam, the perfume of daffodils and lily-of-the- valley rising to them. Kitty had planted the lilies long ago. Now tourists came from far and near to see them, Philip told her. He'd said in front of Calum and Sophy as they mounted, 'I'll take you to see them another time, Anna. Perhaps by moonlight. We'll stick to the wool samples tonight.'

When they'd finished in the office, she wrote her postscript to her mother's letter telling her how glad she was Magnus had the post in Dunedin. She was glad she had that to do. She was in bed long before Calum came home. No doubt Monday nights at the Manse were duty-free too, for Sophy. Was Calum making the most of his time? Had that aura of romance she and Philip had tried to create softened Sophy a little? But it was pretty feeble. They ought to think of something much more effective to help Sophy make up her mind. It was worth a try. If Calum loved Sophy, and she didn't think he was the man to love lightly, then he ought to have her.

Sophy had been in the parish a year and a half. Had Calum courted her, to no avail, most of that time? There was a betraying moment when Anna said to herself, 'Oh, if only I'd come here two years ago! I wonder if—' and she had bitten off the wish that had come unbidden to her mind. That was stupid.

Gran and Grandy were delighted about the outing. They were so transparent, the darlings. They must think that if she had some social life, it would be a recompense for the stir and gaiety of the guest-house. They were adamant that the four should make a night of it. 'Sophy is so rarely off the chain,' said Kitty, 'and I would like to see her a little less careworn. She's over-conscientious. Calum, you're to finish early. Gilbert and I can manage anything that crops up after that and it's always best to whisk Sophy out of the district before anything happens in the parish. I don't mind the urgent things interfering, but the really trivial makes me cross. So make it a dinner-party first. Anna, you'd like the chance to wear one of your long dresses, wouldn't you?'

Sophy liked it too. She sounded just like any girl when she rang Anna about it. Calum said to Philip, 'As you're nearer Crannog, how about you going over there, and we'll pick you up, Anna and I? You can leave your car in Sophy's drive.'

Philip shook his head. 'No, we're taking my car to Alex. It was my idea, so I'll carry it through. I'll bring my things over here in the morning, and we can all go into Crannog for Sophy.'

The men certainly didn't look like horny-handed sons of the soil when Anna came downstairs into the big lounge where they were standing by the fire. They'd looked up to watch through the open door her progress down the last half-dozen steps and their widened eyes were a tribute to the picture she made. Her dress was in two shades of purple, simply made, with a deep wide square-cut neck edged with bands of white
broderie anglaise,
and above it she had a piece of Celtic jewellery she'd brought back from Scodand with an amethyst gemstone set in its scrolls and symbols.

Nevertheless, as she watched Calum's face in the rear- vision mirror, from where she sat in the front seat of the car with Philip, she thought he looked grim rather than happy. But why, when he was having a night out with his ladylove?

However, the look disappeared when they drew up on the manse drive, and Sophy came running out on to the lighted porch, as eagerly as any girl. She wore a long deep blue skirt, and over it a tunic-style blouse with full bishop sleeves, pattered with a smudgy effect in blues and greens, peacock- bright. It had a high Chinese neckline and she needed no jewellery at all with those eyes like sapphires above the blue shadings. Her hair was piled high with a twist of tendrils in front of each exquisite ear.

Anna hadn't even had time for a trip to the hairdresser, the day had been so busy; she'd simply washed her hair herself. Her half-fringe slanted across her forehead in its dark-gold and pale-gold streaks and fell softly just to her shoulders, and was turned inward in a page-boy style. Given a black velvet suit she'd have looked exactly like one of the Princes in the Tower, Calum had thought.

Calum didn't kiss Sophy as he greeted her ... so the sunset over the dam hadn't worked a spell. He just took both her hands, held her off from him a little and said, 'We'll be the envy of everyone in the hotel dining-room tonight.'

Anna missed the fact that Sophy had instinctively taken a step towards the front of the car, then drew back as Calum's hand cupped her elbow and edged her towards the rear door.

Despite Calum's compliment to Sophy, she could sense that the two in the back seat weren't at ease. Their talk had a hint of reserve. To cover it up, Anna and Philip chattered madly all the way with what must have sounded like fond raillery.

It was a delightful evening... on the face of it. Lovely to dine in this dramatically situated town, encircled by dark jagged hills, with an immense lighted clock silhouetted against the rock face of one of them. They had a superb dinner to start with, and a musical treat to follow, with the added spice of it all being based on local history. They relaxed and conversation coming home was four-pointed and more natural.

Till Sophy asked them in for coffee. Philip hesitated, said, 'Calum will have some, no doubt. You could run him home later, Sophy. Fact is I know Kitty won't sleep till her one ewe lamb is safely in the fold, and I want to show Anna the moon over Crannog Dam. I reckon it'll be perfect about now. Night-night, you two.'

The two in the back got out as bidden, went inside the manse. Philip laughed all the way down the main street. He was in very high spirits. 'It's working! See the look on Calum's face, Anna? Gosh, you're a sport. And Sophy doesn't know what to make of it.'

Anna couldn't see how this would help the reluctant Sophy fall into Calum's arms. It was more likely to put her back up. It was too pointed, marooning Calum there without transport, so Sophy would have to drive him home. Yet perhaps Philip knew them better than she did. But men were so lacking in subtlety, and Philip seemed even more lacking in finesse than most. It was one thing to try to create an aura of romance and get Sophy away from the parish but another to leave a couple alone like a matchmaking mamma!

Suddenly all Anna wanted was to be at home at Strathallan, tucked up in bed. But there was this blasted moon. What did it matter if daffodils were paled to ghost-blooms by its blanching light, or if a heady perfume stole up from the water's edge if the wrong man walked by your side?

She was thankful to say goodnight to Philip at the front door of Strathallan. He grinned at her in his disarming way. 'Thanks a million. See ... what did I tell you? Grandmamma is waiting up for Red Riding Hood. Exit the wolf!'

Sure enough there was a light on in the lounge. She opened the door, reproof on her lips, then stopped dead. It was Calum. He smiled at her a little mirthlessly, waved his hand towards the table Kitty had set out with a flask of coffee, sandwiches, biscuits. 'Help yourself. You're a bit earlier than I thought. Didn't Philip take you to his place for supper?'

'No, of course not.' She sat down and rather nervously began to pour out. A used cup stood there too. She said, looking at it, 'Didn't you have coffee at the manse after all? Or did you feel like another?'

'Of course I didn't have coffee at the manse at that hour. Philip must be mad. It would have been quite different if we'd all stayed. Talk about the fierce white light that beats upon a throne - wasn't that what Tennyson said? - it's nothing to the light that beats upon a manse, especially when the minister is a young and beautiful woman. So you didn't go to Philip's place?'

She looked at him over the rim of her cup. 'I said I didn't, Calum. Why ask again? I'm not in the habit of telling lies. Is it because I'm my father's daughter that you have to ask twice? Just because he was a born liar it doesn't mean I am.'

He waved an impatient hand. 'Of course I don't think you are. It was just that you certainly took your time about coming home despite the fact Philip told you Kitty would be waiting up. I sent her off to bed. But of course, it was some moon, wasn't it?'

'I suppose it was,' said Anna without spirit. She was being made to feel guilty and she didn't like it. She added gloomily, 'But that grass was absolutely soaking. I was perished. I can't even feel my feet. My toes will probably drop off with frost-bite. I thought I'd
never
get Philip away!'

He was off his feet in a moment, a laugh escaping him. 'Oh, Anna, you're so funny. You disarm me when I'm most mad with you. Let me see your feet.'

He lifted the purple skirt, saw the inadequate shoes, the sodden stains, swore. 'Philip must be raving mad. If you catch a cold, Kitty'll sort him. I'd not be in his shoes for anything.' He laughed. 'Nor in
these
shoes, the rubbishy things. Why didn't you tell Philip it was no time to be wandering through daffodils - and you accustomed to a tropical island!' He had her shoes off as he spoke, and his hands, warm, rather rough, were rubbing her feet. It felt wonderful. She looked down on the smooth dark head and had a strong impulse to place her hand on it. It didn't last half long enough.