Anna of Strathallan (16 page)

Sophy had the porch light on for her. She tapped, found, the door unlocked and went in. Sophy called from the study. 'I'm in here, Anna.'

Sophy had a slightly defensive look about her. Anna thought she had decided to receive her in this room to give the interview a more formal background. As if Sophy wanted to stress the fact that she was a minister, that she had a career. She was in a blue tweed suit she wore often for visiting. It had a. white blouse under it, shirt style, with a black tie at the throat knotted like a cravat, rather a severe garb.

She stood on the hearthrug, a fire glowing redly behind her, her hands behind her back. Anna hesitated and all her carefully prepared opening dissolved from her mind like the mists of morning. Sophy looked so remote, so sure of herself, Anna's knees began to shake. She thought she ought not to have come.

S
OPHY
managed a stiff smile, said, 'It's all right, Anna. I tell you it's all right. I know exactly what you've come to say, and I admire you for having the courage. It's quite all right with me. I made my decision some time ago. Philip is entirely free. I know you'd never poach on anyone else's preserves - you're too honest. I recognized your integrity from the start. You've got the green light to go ahead!'

Anna boggled at her, then burst into laughter, really mirthful laughter that wouldn't be gainsaid. Then she managed, 'Oh, Sophy, Sophy darling, everybody, I repeat
everybody
gets their lines crossed. I thought—' she broke off and giggled again - 'I thought you were trying to make up your mind about
Calum,
not Philip!'

It was Sophy's turn to boggle. 'Calum? Calum and me? Why, he's engaged to Victoria, to Philip's sister. How on earth could you—'

Anna waved agitated hands. 'Sophy, let me explain, or we'll never get it sorted out. My grandmother, telling me how much they think of you, told me about your loss - about Roderick - and added that she thought you were fighting a certain attraction. I thought it was for Calum.'

Sophy's blue eyes were intense, but puzzled. 'But why? I mean Calum and I have never—'

'Well, you see when I thought Calum was drunk, Maggie said - oh dear, I'm not telling it well - the night I met him, and he'd swerved off the road. I thought he was drunk—' she saw the eyes watching her widen in incredulity. 'Oh, don't interrupt me, Sophy, or I'll never get it straight. And someone will be bound to ring you, or call, and I'm terrified you and Philip keep on crossing your lines - I know he wasn't drunk, but Barney's beer had smashed all over him and when Maggie heard us telling the family,
she
thought he must have been and said: "Whatever will Miss Kirkpatrick say?" Calum later told me he was spoken for, so I thought this Miss Kirkpatrick must be the one he meant.

'Grandmother said you were very fond of Calum - he seemed very concerned about you the night he thought the Balloch road would be icy, then when you came out to Strathallan - oh dear, I'm getting out of sequence. That day just after lunch, I copped Kitty and Philip talking about the situation. They thought it was you and were most relieved to see it was me. Of course I thought it was you and Calum they were talking about. Evidently Grandmother thought a spot of jealousy would help you make up your mind. I can see that now, I didn't then, because you and Calum began bringing the dishes out. They whispered to me just to follow Philip's lead.

'When he asked if I'd make up a foursome for the musical, I thought he wanted to create a less - a less - urn - ecclesiastical atmosphere, more a courting atmosphere, to encourage you to fall into Calum's arms. That incident after Philip had chased you round the paddock and I caught his hand gave colour to it. You and Calum had such a peculiar look on your faces. No wonder! I can see now that Philip thought you were jealous. I hope you were, Sophy. Oh, dear, I ought to be called addle-pated Anna - but it's not my fault nobody mentioned Victoria other than as Philip's sister.

'I thought if Philip was trying a spot of matchmaking, he was being stupidly obvious about it, trying to leave you together for coffee and so on. Then that night when I got in, Calum was waiting up for me and ticked me off for interfering. But nobody crossed their t's or dotted their i's.' She stopped, because she was out of breath.

Sophy looked as if she was afraid to believe that a tangled web was being disentangled, her eyes had lost their watchfulness, her stance its air of defence. She moistened her lips. 'Go on, Anna, don't stop there.'

Anna spread out her hands in a despairing gesture. 'You've got to do something, Sophy, and do it quickly. Philip told me of your conversation over the phone - that yqu'd twigged he was trying to rouse you, but then he got so flaming mad it hadn't worked, he insisted he
was
serious about me. I feel awful, it's bad enough feeling the cuckoo- in-the-nest as far as Calum and the estate is concerned, without feeling the spanner in the works with you and Philip. I promised him I wouldn't tell anyone but I'm breaking that promise here and now. He went to Dunedin this weekend to see the owner of Draviemore, a high- country sheep station near Tekapo. That man's ringing him tonight about ten to see if he'll take the job he's offered him, or not. Sophy... are you going to let him go?'

'I
should just think I'm not! I'll ring his mother and say he's on no account to take that call from Draviemore before he sees me. I'll ask her to send him over here as soon as he gets in.'

Anna's eyes were ashine. 'Oh, Sophy, does this really mean I've not done so much harm after all? Does it mean you're willing to give up your career? That after all, you think marriage—'

Sophy had held up an imperative hand. Her copper- coloured hair gleamed in the lamplight like a newly-minted penny, her eyes held a dreamy look, as if she'd glimpsed a happiness just waiting over the horizon for her. She said softly, 'Oh, Anna, that was never more than a smoke-screen. It wasn't my career. I know I could still be a part-timer, an assistant minister. It was something else.' She paused, and Anna felt her mind was turned inward. 'Roderick told me life was for getting on with. I think he saw what was ahead of me more plainly than I did. I thought that I was doing just that ... in service in the same field he'd had to relinquish.

'I've been fairly wise for other people who have been bereaved, but not, I think, for myself. The plain simple truth is, Anna, that I didn't think it would be fair to Philip to marry him while my thoughts still turned constantly to Rod. I hadn't quite stopped grieving for him. Oh, I've been wilful about it. Even when I knew I was weakening, I'd go and get Roderick's photo out of the drawer, look at it, re-live the past.

'That night we went to the musical I'd have given anything to have been sitting in the front seat with Philip and you in the back with Calum. When Philip paid you a compliment at dinner, about your purple dress, I nearly burned up with jealousy. Don't look so unbelieving, Anna, I did. I'm only human. I can't wear purple. My hair looks almost orange if I do - and clashes hideously. Lilac, yes, not purple. And - when he said he wanted to show you the moon over Crannog Dam it was the last straw. I couldn't bear to think about it.

'On the way home with Calum I asked if he thought Philip was doing it on purpose and he said he thought that was obvious, but that he'd wring his neck if he hurt you over it, but that you might just have been asked to do it, and I'd better put a stop to the silly nonsense pronto. When I rang Philip, and - well, scoffed at him for doing it, he got really mad and pretended it was for real. And just today, when I realized he hadn't come near me, or rung, I got myself into a fine state imagining it was true. I don't know why he didn't fall for you, Anna. You're much less complicated. But suddenly I knew that without Philip life would be dust and ashes, like fish without salt. That Roderick belonged to yesterday, Philip to. my present and future. Philip's face even got between me and my prep for next Sunday's sermon. And I had to admit to myself that I'd probably be a better minister if I was a wife - Philip's wife.'

Anna felt that Sophy's radiance reached out and touched her too. They stood regarding each other for a moment or two.

'So what now?' said Anna at last. 'You've got to move pretty fast. I said he was to ring me the moment he got home. I think I'd better get back to Strathallan, though it won't be for some time yet. He'd told his mother lateish, but he'd be in by ten for this ring. Sophy, you'll be here, won't you? You won't get tied up with anything?'

Sophy said simply and convincingly, 'Anna, if anyone needs me, domestic trouble, or a death or severe illness, I'd just have to go. But if that happens, and you can't get me, tell Philip for me that I love him, that I've come to my senses.'

'Yes. Oh dear, isn't it complicated? Let's pray it doesn't happen that way. When Philip rings Strathallan, I'll say I've seen you, that I have made it plain to you it
was
a put- up job to make you jealous and that I found you breaking your heart because you'd come to the conclusion it was for real. That'll bring him hot-foot to the manse, though if I were you I'd get straight in his car and go and find a moon. There aren't any telephone connections to the moon yet, thank goodness.'

She had turned to go and stopped dead as a bell rang. 'Or doorbells either. Sophy, I'll get it. If it's urgent I'll let 'em in. If it's somebody to say she'd rather take the cake-stall than the sweet-stall at the Spring Fair, I'll say you're out. Don't look like that, it'll be on my conscience, not yours.'

She started again for the door, but it flew open.

Calum! She would so much rather it had been Philip.

He said, striding in, and standing before the two of them, 'What's going on?' They were struck dumb, thinking of the explanations.

He caught Anna's arm. 'Come on, out with it. You're fighting other people's battles again and you'll get hurt. I'm here to see Sophy and Philip don't use you as a battledore.'

Anna burst out laughing. 'I think you mean a shuttlecock, Calum.'

He waved an impatient hand, began to speak again, but Sophy came to life, seized his hand, held it. 'Calum,' she said, and there was that in her voice and eyes that made him narrow his gaze. 'She won't get hurt. When you burst in, I was just on the point of asking her to be bridesmaid to Philip and myself.'

It was Calum's turn to boggle. Then he swung round on Anna, 'Is this true? Did you manage to sort it out, to persuade Sophy that—'

Anna suddenly felt miraculously carefree. Calum would fix it with Philip so there were no more crossed wires. 'She didn't need any persuading. She'd realized she loved Philip long before I got here. Her only problem was to know how to communicate it to Philip who'd obscured the issue by insisting to her that he was really attracted to me!'

Sophy was still clinging to Calum's hand. She gave it a little shake. 'It wasn't so much making a decision as coming to myself. To knowing myself. I'm going to be frank. I think Philip's parents and the Drummonds and you should know it. Otherwise they might think Philip was marrying someone who loved him so littie she put a career before him, before love and marriage. I wouldn't like Philip's mother to think I didn't love him as he deserves to be loved. It was just that I wasn't quite sure I'd got Roderick's loss out of my system or not. But when Philip took Anna to watch the moon over the daffodils, I knew, oh, I knew!'

Calum's dark face crumpled into laughter. He said, 'If only you'd known ... she came home as cross as two sticks because there was a heavy dew and she got her feet wet. She announced to me that she would probably lose all her toes from frostbite. And then I bawled her out for what she and Philip were doing to you.'

For a moment his dark-blue eyes looked into Anna's pansy-brown eyes, remembering. He smiled at his thoughts. Anna had the same thoughts. He hadn't bawled her out, he'd chided her gently, he'd washed her feet, dried them, put warm socks on her - his own. He'd kissed her, as he would have kissed Maggie.

Calum thought of something. 'Didn't you see me rush out on the porch tonight to try to stop you, Anna?'

'Yes. But I thought if you knew what I was doing you'd think I was meddling.'

'No, I didn't even know where you were going. I heard the car start up just after I answered the phone for you. It was Philip. He wanted you urgently, said he'd had a message from you to ring him and he'd got in early because the friends he was going to have dinner with had gone down with 'flu. I went to ask Kit where you were off to in such a hurry. She had a funny look on her face, said you'd been trying to get a message to Sophy all afternoon and had now gone to the manse, but she had a certain feeling you wouldn't want Philip to ring there. I thought I'd better come and sort it out, but it looks as if Anna has pulled the right rabbit out of the hat. I take it you've been in touch with Philip yourselves by now, if the wedding's fixed?'

Both girls gave way to mirth. Sophy said, 'Poor Philip, he doesn't even know there's going to be a wedding yet.'

Calum regarded them suspiciously. 'You're having me on.'

Sophy calmed down. 'We were trying to work out how I could see him without half the parish round. What did you tell Philip?'

'That Anna had gone to Crannog to get some fruit and would be home soon. Anyway, Philip said he was going out seeing he had a few hours to spare. He said to tell you when you came back he'd ring before ten all right. I thought I'd better come and try to find out what was happening, to sort it out if necessary. It so often happens that the one who tries to put things right gets the rough end of the stick, and I didn't want it to be Anna. She's not had a very good time between the lot of us. I didn't give her much of a welcome when she first came.'

Anna felt happiness well up in her. Calum might be promised to Victoria, but he had a caring concern for other people too. It would be all she'd ever have, but it was better than nothing.

Calum said, 'But for heaven's sake ring Philip now. You may just get him before he goes out. Put him out of his misery. Sophy, better just tell him if he likes to come over, he may hear something to his advantage. Say we're all here to get things straightened out.'