Family Gathering Read online

  Family Gathering

  Elizabeth Cadell

  Friendly Air Publishing

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, locals, business, organizations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1950 by Elizabeth Cadell

  This edition, Copyright © 2017 by the Heirs of Elizabeth Cadell.

  “About the Author” Copyright © 2016 by Janet Reynolds

  Cover art by Nikita Garet

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  The Lark Shall Sing

  Also by Elizabeth Cadell

  About the Author

  Afterword

  Introduction

  Natalie Rome, timid and retiring, discovers that a new life at forty is not, after all, as difficult of achievement as she had feared. With new relations and a new home, she finds security and happiness. She also finds a stepdaughter as timid as herself and a stepson of exceptional charm; a mother-in-law in garden boots and ancient, formal hats who talks loudly and a great deal; and a father-in-law who seldom talks at all.

  Into this assembly comes Natalie’s own daughter Helen; young, beautiful, successful and supremely confident. Helen and her new stepbrother enter at once into the age-old struggle between the woman who likes to organize other people’s lives, and the man who prefers to arrange his own. In the lovely old house, Romescourt, the battle is fought—and won.

  Chapter 1

  Mrs. William Rome sat in a blue plush alcove of London’s famous Skylark Club and looked about her.

  It was a glittering scene. There were bright lights, gaily-dressed women and a band dressed in coats of the Club’s predominating colour—a bright blue.

  The dancers were pressed together in a space which looked, from Mrs. Rome’s table, no larger than a child’s play pen, and she found herself thinking of the enormous, flower-decked halls in which the dances of her girlhood had taken place. She had not danced for twenty years, but there seemed nothing in the present-day arrangements that could make her eager to begin again.

  The musicians were working very hard. Mrs. Rome thought that they looked thoroughly nice young men, and wondered how they could sit, night after night, blowing upon trumpets in a stuffy room, when there were so many healthy, outdoor professions they might have chosen—farming, for example, or the Navy—

  At the thought of the Navy, Mrs. Rome’s thoughts paused. It was no longer a general term; it now had a special—a personal—significance. The Navy had come into her life and changed it—it had changed her name, her circumstances, and tomorrow it was to change her address.

  She was no longer Mrs. Natalie Forrester, a widow, living near Sloane Square and shopping and cooking and washing up. She was Mrs. William Rome, wife of Captain William Rome, and tomorrow she was to leave London, to leave Helen, to leave the flat which, eight years ago, had seemed so un-homelike and which was now so dear and familiar, and betake herself to Devonshire. It was a fearful prospect, and even more dreadful was the thought of going alone—to make a new life among strangers.

  At forty-two, Natalie Rome was still timid, retiring and utterly unable to shoulder a way through life. She was not weak—she could do whatever she considered right, but matters which the majority of women thought straightforward and commonplace became, for her, difficult and full of pitfalls.

  Her present problem was simple—to leave her daughter Helen, and go to her husband’s people in Devonshire; to live with them for a short time and then to choose a small house or cottage nearby. No complicated issues were involved; her daughter was twenty-two, competent and independent; her husband’s people, he had told her, were affectionate, kind and eager to welcome her. But in spite of all these reassurances, Mrs. Rome felt nothing but apprehension and sick, nervous fears.

  She listened to the band’s unmelodious sounds and wished herself at home, where she could be quiet—and weep. She wept a good deal; try as she would, nothing could check her tears when she was touched or distressed. They brimmed, they gushed, poured, cascaded in spite of all her efforts to stem them.

  Mrs. Rome knew that it was to keep her from weeping that Helen had insisted upon their coming out on this, their last evening together. She acknowledged that Helen was always right—to stay at home would have been a strain on both of them—it was far better to come out and be cheerful.

  If the evening had not been exactly cheerful, it had at least been a change. Helen had chosen Maurice Hunter, one of the most pleasant of her many young men, to accompany them, and they had gone to a theatre and seen a good play. It was unfortunate that the dialogue between two of the secondary characters contained so many references to the hardships and dangers of life at sea, and it would have been nicer if the hero’s brother had not been sunk without trace, but the acting had been excellent. After the theatre, they had come, at Mr. Hunter’s invitation, to the Skylark Club, where he and Helen had had two or three dances and Mrs. Rome had sat at their table and listened to the band.

  A fourth member was to be added to their party. Shortly before leaving the flat that night, Mrs. Rome had received a telephone call from a young man whom she had never met but who had recently become engaged to her stepdaughter, Lucille Rome. Since Mrs. Rome was to depart next day, no future meetings could be arranged, and the young man, Duncan Macdonald, had agreed to join them for a short while after the theatre.

  Mrs. Rome glanced at her watch and saw that he was late. She felt a little anxious; he had seemed to have difficulty in getting the right name and had referred to the Club as the Lark, the Skybird and the Swallow. She hoped he was not now looking for her in any of these places—if, indeed, they existed at all.

  A little disturbance beside her roused her with a start and she looked up to find a young man standing at the table and waiting, a little awkwardly, to attract her attention.

  “I think you must be Mrs. Rome,” he said. “I’m sorry I’m late.”

  “Mr. Macdonald? I’m so glad,” said Mrs. Rome. “Won’t you sit down?”

  Mr. Macdonald sat down and gave a glance round the Club, taking in the blue plush, the gold chairs, the writhing musicians and the enormous crystal ball suspended in the middle of the cramped dancing space. It was obvious to Mrs. Rome that he disliked it all very much indeed.

  His eyes turned to her, and, with great relief, she saw their expression change. Timid as she was, she could not help feeling sure that Mr. Macdonald liked the look of her.

  Mr. Macdonald did. She was the antithesis of what he had expected to find. He had, in fact, looked forward to the meeting with as much dread—though of a different kind—as Mrs. Rome herself could have done. She had been a widow; she lived in London; she went to theatres and made appointments with strangers in night clubs. Building an unattractive figure on this frail structure, Duncan Macdonald had found nothing e
xhilarating in the prospect of meeting his future step-mother-in-law.

  But this! He looked at her with frank relief, taking in new and pleasant impressions. She was not young, of course, but she was really pretty in a sort of quiet way. She would be—forty?—more? She didn’t look it, but women’s ages were difficult to work out once they’d got past twenty-five; they merged into a dull confusion of spinsters, matrons, dowagers, aunts, great-aunts or great-grandmothers—it didn’t matter which.

  But this woman was no fat, flashing, bejewelled hag. She was slim and quiet and—yes, she was actually shy.

  Thank God, she was all right.

  Mrs. Rome, less vehemently, reached exactly the same conclusion about Mr. Macdonald. She liked his appearance—he was a little gauche and looked as out of place as herself in these surroundings, but he was sturdy, with hair of the shade of red she most liked, and his eyes were brown and steady.

  “Had a job finding this place,” he told her. “Silly names they give them. And if you do remember their names, you can’t ask anybody to direct you—you can’t stop a fellow in the street and ask him if he knows where the Skyblue or the Skylark or the what’s-it is—he’d wonder what you took him for.”

  “We were very glad you rang up,” said Mrs. Rome. “It’s such a pity I’m going off tomorrow. You don’t live in London, do you?”

  Mr. Macdonald, looking surprised and a little annoyed at this extraordinary suggestion, said that he had never thought of doing such a thing. He had always lived, and would always live, in Scotland. In the West of Scotland. In the Highlands of Scotland. He would not, he added, dream of living anywhere else. Continuing, he said that he worked in a firm of lawyers—of which his father was the head—at Fort William. His home was on the shores of Loch Leven, a few miles from the office, with water at the end of the garden in front and mountains rising from the end of the garden at the back. He and his father—he had no mother—walked and fished, climbed the hills and strode over the heather. He came to London seldom, reluctantly, and always on his father’s business.

  “And I’m always thankful to be back,” he said. “I don’t know why people—men, I mean—don’t choke down here. Of course, I don’t”—he threw another glance of contempt round the Club’s expensive decorations—“I don’t go in much for all this.”

  The music stopped and Duncan turned and looked towards the dancers.

  “Which one,” he asked, “is your daughter?”

  “There—with the tall, fair man,” said Mrs. Rome. “The—” She stopped herself on the point of saying pretty and substituted a less prejudiced adjective. “The dark girl in white,” she said.

  “I see. She’s very pretty, isn’t she?” said Duncan sincerely.

  Mrs. Rome could only agree. It was stupid to deny that Helen was lovelier than any other girl in the room. She watched her as she drew near—cool, slender and graceful.

  “Helen, this is Mr. Macdonald,” she said as her daughter came up.

  Helen glanced at Duncan. Copper-top; wide shoulders; on the clumsy side and probably heavy in hand.

  “How d’you do?” she said.

  Mr. Macdonald eyed her. Beautiful, certainly. Aware of it, definitely. And well-dressed—but she worked, he had heard, in a dress shop. He didn’t like dark and assured beauties. He liked them tender and blue eyed and—

  “Mr. Hunter—Mr. Macdonald.”

  Nothing much, thought Duncan. One of the usual about-towners. Looked quite at home on the blue plush.

  There was a little awkwardness when the music began to play again. Mr. Hunter, having monopolized Helen for the last three dances, felt obliged to yield the next to the newcomer who, he doubted not, was eagerly awaiting the privilege.

  Mr. Macdonald, however, showed no sign of wanting to lead Helen on to the floor. Helen, who was not accustomed to inattention, looked at him across the table and spoke with raised eyebrows.

  “You don’t dance?” she inquired.

  “Me? Well, yes, I do, in a way,” said Duncan. “Not really my line, but if you’re keen—I mean, if Mr.—er —if he’s tired, I’ll see what I can—”

  Helen’s glance had swept to Mr. Hunter.

  “Shall we?” he asked eagerly, and Helen nodded. The two rose and returned to the dance floor, leaving the unconscious Duncan to continue his conversation with Mrs. Rome.

  “You haven’t,” he said, sincere pity sounding in his voice, “you haven’t met Lucille?”

  “No,” said Mrs. Rome. “I shall see her tomorrow —she’s going to drive to the bus station—I forget what it’s called—to meet me. And you,” she added with a sympathy that equalled Duncan’s, “have never met Lucille’s father.”

  “No—pity,” said Duncan. “But you see, the whole thing was—well, it was awfully sudden. I don’t want to bore you, but—”

  “Please tell me,” said Mrs. Rome.

  Duncan, only too delighted, poured out his tale, and Mrs. Rome listened with absorbed interest.

  He had set out, not long ago, on what he had regarded as a routine business trip—not dreaming that it was to be the most fateful journey of his life. He was to inspect, for one of the Macdonald clients, a large studio in London which was being sold by an artist. The artist—Duncan paused and put a question.

  “You haven’t met Lucille’s brother?”

  Mrs. Rome shook her head, regretting the timidity which had moved her to plead for the quietest of weddings, with only Helen present. She would have met Lucille and her brother, Jeremy, and she could have talked of them to Mr. Macdonald, instead of merely listening.

  The artist, Duncan went on, had turned out to be, not a long-haired and venerable gentleman, as he had half expected, but a young man about his own age—twenty-four. He had bought the studio a short time before and, finding London uncongenial, had decided to sell it and return to his home in Devonshire.

  The business had soon been concluded. The interview over, Mr. Rome invited Mr. Macdonald to stay to tea. In the middle of tea, which took place in the flat adjoining the studio, the two gentlemen were joined by Mr. Rome’s sister, Lucille, who was on a visit to the capital.

  At this point, Mr. Macdonald’s narrative appeared to come to an end. He stared at Mrs. Rome absently, and for so long, that she was finally compelled to prompt him.

  “Lucille came in—” she said gently.

  “Yes,” said Duncan slowly. “She came in in a sort of—a sort of warm coat and she had some—some sort of chrysanthemums in her arms. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t, and I just sat there and—well, I sort of stared at her. She looked like—like—”

  His voice died away and, after a long pause, during which the band had time to play two encores, Mrs. Rome learnt that—in the course of the next five days—the engagement of Lucille and Duncan had been “all fixed up”. A small matter of Lucille’s half-engagement to a young man living near her home had been dismissed by Mr. Macdonald as a ‘sort of boy and girl affair”. At the end of the five days, he had put Lucille reluctantly on her train and hurried North to give his father a short and uninformative summary of his business and a long and enthusiastic history of his successful wooing.

  That was eons—whole decades away. Well, amended Mr. Macdonald, perhaps it was only two months. And here he was once more in London, soon to go down to his love’s retreat and to carry her off to his Highland castle—though actually, he explained, it was not exactly a castle—it was a double-fronted stone house. But it was in the Highlands—his beloved Highlands, where he would take Lucille and tell her of his glorious ancestors who were Lords of the Isles and who fought with Robert Bruce.

  Mrs. Rome’s blue eyes were wet as the story came to an end and she thought of the happiness in store for the two young people. She promised Duncan to convey his love to her stepdaughter.

  “But you’ll soon be down yourself,” she said.

  “Yes,” agreed Duncan. “I’ve got a bit of business to fix up for my father—then I’m to be free for a whole month. I
don’t know whether Lucille will marry me and come back with me.” He paused and seemed to have a little difficulty in framing his next sentence. “I’m glad I met you,” he said at last. “I mean, I’m glad you’re—well, like this. Lucille’s very gentle and I was a bit worried for fear—well, I wanted you to be —as a matter of fact I wanted you to be just as you are.”

  Mrs. Rome looked at him gratefully and felt that he had done much to bridge the gap which lay between her and her new relations. She was beginning to express something of this feeling, when the music stopped and the dance ended. Soon Helen was making preparations for departure.

  As the two men rose, Natalie realized with a sick feeling that the last evening was over. Tomorrow—today—she was to go away and leave Helen behind. A hundred pictures of their life together flashed into her mind—Helen’s childhood, her schooldays, the coming to London and her own difficulties in adjusting herself to London life. It had been difficult—but nothing had ever been as difficult as this—

  The moment was too bitter for tears. Helen, watching her mother anxiously, saw with concern and a touch of impatience her fleeting look of panic and wished—as she had wished a hundred times since William’s departure—that the parting was over and done with. Where, she wondered, was there reason for panic? She knew that her mother needed gentle handling and careful transplanting, but she wished that she could make her realize that mothers and daughters parted every day—it was a natural and healthy proceeding. Looking at Natalie, white and shaken, Helen realized that a large part of this distress sprang from the feeling that she had a duty to her daughter almost equal to that which she owed to William.