Family Gathering Read online

  Mr. Macdonald brought his philosophizing to an end and began to plan his day. Here was soft rain and a strong girl who knew how to walk. He would take Lucille up that inviting-looking hill after breakfast. Hand in hand, they would go to the top and look down—there was a thick mist now, but that would clear— they would look down upon the world far below. At this thought, Duncan beat a triumphant tattoo with open hands upon his stomach, and, in the middle of producing a series of low nasal sounds reminiscent of the hum of bagpipes, heard a stir behind him and turned to find that the usual thin maid had entered with his morning tea and was regarding him with wonder. Duncan retired modestly behind his muslin curtains and waited for her to depart.

  Lucille agreed to a walk, and soon after breakfast Duncan buttoned her into her mackintosh and tied under her chin a blue scarf which matched her eyes and made her look almost Madonna-like. They went across the park together, and Natalie, watching them go, turned to Jeremy with a puzzled expression.

  “I can’t understand,” she said, “how Philip could possibly—I mean, it seems to me that Duncan was just beginning to give up the idea of—”

  “Whoa!” commanded Jeremy. “You’re off the track. Canny’s not giving anything up. He’s a bit slow in coming into action—that’s solidity he’s got, not spring—but you’ve only got to look at his jaw to see that he doesn’t know when he’s licked.”

  “But,” pointed out Natalie, “time’s passing, and Philip’s mother is making wedding preparations and people are beginning to send wedding presents and—”

  “Well, yes,” conceded Jeremy. “But probably Duncan’s working out one of these snatching-from-the altar acts that his forebears were so famous for.”

  “I hope not,” said Natalie, “but I do think that Philip is being very—it’s like tempting Providence—”

  “He can’t help himself,” said Jeremy. “This Julia isn’t his aunt—I mean, she’s his great-aunt and godmother, and the idea is that when she dies he’ll come in for a packet. I know her—she used to turn up at school—Phil and I went to the same school and this Aunt Julia used to descend every so often, issue a lot of orders and give him a fat tip. Whenever she blows a summons on the golden horn, he has to obey it, and obey it pronto. Nothing but a summons from Aunt Julia could take Phil away at this stage of the proceedings.”

  “But his aunt’s money—without Lucille—” began Natalie.

  “That’d be tough,” said Jeremy. “But auntie’s money with Lucille would be a nice double to bring off. Life,” he ended on a platform note, “is just a gamble—or do I mean love?”

  The thought of love was in Duncan’s mind as he walked happily by Lucille’s side. They reached the foot of the hill and began the ascent, and Duncan was pleased to see that his companion walked steadily and well. Having told her to take it slowly, he began to wish, half-way up, that he had told her to take it still more slowly. He was constrained to stop more and more frequently to point out the beauties of the scene below. The mist had not yet wholly disappeared, but the day showed signs of brightening.

  They reached the top and found a sheltered mound on which to rest. Duncan leaned against a damp slope and watched Lucille’s face—fair, sweet and faintly flushed. There was silence for a time and then he spoke slowly.

  “Lucille,” he asked, “are you really going on with it?” He saw the lift of her brows and continued: “With marrying that—that fellow?”

  Lucille gave him her kind, gentle look and nodded her head slowly.

  “Well, yes, Duncan,” she said. “I’m so sorry—but I—I don’t know what happened to me in London.”

  Duncan’s voice was a little shaky.

  “It can happen again, Lucille,” he said.

  Lucille shook her head once again.

  “I—I hope not,” she said. “I ought to have told you at once about Philip, instead of not remembering until it was too late.”

  “It wouldn’t have made any difference,” said Duncan. “It didn’t make any difference. If you hadn’t come back here you wouldn’t ever have given him another thought.”

  “But I did come back,” pointed out Lucille.

  “And you let them talk you into an engagement,” said Duncan. “You were engaged to me first.”

  “I’ve known Philip,” said Lucille, “since I was four.”

  “Then you must be pretty sick of him,” replied Duncan. “I’ve only known him since I was twenty-four and I think he’s a weak-kneed son of a—”

  “Hush,” said Lucille.

  “I won’t hush,” said Duncan. “I didn’t worry you—much—when he was hanging about, but if he chooses to leave you and go off on some business which he obviously considers as important as looking after you, then—”

  “He had to go,” said Lucille. “His aunt, Miss Campbell, sent for—”

  She stopped. Duncan was staring at her open-mouthed. In a few moments he found his voice.

  “His aunt what?” he shouted.

  Lucille looked at him in astonishment.

  “His aunt, Miss Campbell,” she repeated. “His aunt Julia.”

  “Campbell!—Campbell!” intoned Duncan hollowly. “You can’t know what you’re saying. Are you telling me that this Bellamy chap has a Campbell aunt?”

  “Mrs. Bellamy’s name before she was married,” explained Lucille, “was Miss Campbell.”

  Duncan, a sombre look in his eyes, was gazing over the hills and muttering to himself, and Lucille watched him with puzzled interest.

  “Do you know any Campbells?” she asked.

  Duncan turned and stared at her. After attempting once or twice to frame a coherent sentence, he addressed her solemnly.

  “Do you not know,” he inquired, “your Scottish history?”

  “Well, yes,” said Lucille. “You mean Dunbar and Flodden Field and—”

  “I do not,” said Duncan. “Did you never hear of Bannockburn and Stirling Bridge and—and so on?”

  Lucille shook her head.

  “Did you ever,” demanded Duncan, his r’s beginning to roll, “did you ever hear tell of Glencoe?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Lucille. “We saw it last year—we walked through quite a bit of the way and it was—”

  “I’m speaking,” said Duncan, “of history—not geography.”

  “Oh,” said Lucille. “History? Well, yes,” she remembered, “there was the massacre—oh!” She stopped and put a hand gently on Duncan’s arm. “Oh—the Macdonalds were massacred, weren’t they?”

  “My ancestors,” said Duncan. “The dirtiest deed in history. And the Campbells had a hand in it.” Lucille looked distressed.

  “There was a girl called Campbell at school,” she said after a time. “She was quite nice—as a matter of fact, she was Head Girl.”

  “Then,” said Duncan, “your Headmistress was not a Macdonald.”

  “No, she wasn’t,” admitted Lucille. “But they couldn’t all be bad, could they? I mean, wouldn’t there be some who are—are all right.”

  “No,” said Duncan.

  Lucille frowned a little doubtfully.

  “But wasn’t it the Macdonalds,” she said, “who murdered—”

  “That,” interrupted Duncan, “has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. I knew,” he went on, “I knew, the moment I set eyes on that Bellamy, that there was fish about somewhere. I knew.”

  “But, surely,” protested Lucille gently, “all that’s—well, it’s over now.”

  “Over, is it?” inquired Duncan grimly. “Would you like to walk into Glencoe with a Campbell and see whether it’s over? Would you like to—”

  “But Philip,” said Lucille, “is only half a Campbell.”

  “Well, then,” promised Duncan, “I’ll spare the other half.”

  “But you must remember—”

  “I remember,” said Duncan, “the year sixteen hundred and ninety-two, and so does every Macdonald of Glencoe. Let this Campbell look to himself.”

  Bro
w knitted, jaw clamped, the descendant of the Macdonalds of the Glen glared into the distance. Lucille, feeling that the matter had gone a little beyond her scope, watched his ferocious expression with wide blue eyes. A grunt from Duncan made her open them still wider. He looked as though a thought had struck him and turned to face her.

  “I’ve got an idea,” he said.

  Lucille waited. It was not, she hoped, a bloodthirsty idea.

  “This Bellamy-Campbell,” said Duncan. “He isn’t going to marry you, but I don’t think we’ll have any trouble with him.”

  “But he—”

  “We’ll take his mind off,” said Duncan, “and get it fixed on something else. He can’t have you, but there’s no reason why he shouldn’t have a go at marrying that other girl.”

  “Other girl?” echoed Lucille.

  “That one that’s coming—your stepmother’s daughter,” said Duncan.

  “You mean Helen Forrester?”

  “That’s the one,” said Duncan. “He can have Helen.”

  “But,” protested Lucille, “Helen is engaged.”

  “That’s all right,” said Duncan. “So were you.”

  Helen’s rising on that morning was less joyous than Duncan’s. She was, as her mother had sensed, far from happy, but as the sensation was new and strange, Helen failed to recognize it. Being a young woman who liked to analyse her emotions, however, she examined her symptoms and came to the conclusion that she was over-excited and, perhaps, suffering from a sense of anti-climax after her engagement to Maurice Hunter.

  Her mother’s going had left her with an odd little feeling which she had also diagnosed as anti-climax.

  The idea that she missed her mother did not enter her head, and if it had, she would have dismissed the notion as absurd. People, thought Helen impatiently, allowed themselves to be led away by false sentiment. Her mother was a pet, but it was ludicrous to imagine that she missed her or was lonely without her. It was, of course, more pleasant to come to a dainty little supper and a devoted parent than to have to stand over a spattering frying-pan and wait for food to cook. Breakfast, too, seemed a more pleasant meal when it was waiting on one’s plate every morning.

  Helen’s plan for accepting Maurice Hunter had been made before her mother left London. He was the kind of man she liked most—tall and well dressed, and a charming escort. Her evenings with him were quiet, smooth affairs; dinner, dancing on a small but uncrowded floor and love-making that never gave any sign of reaching the point at which it became a nuisance. She knew that her mother liked him, and Helen, with her passion for arranging her life in a neat and orderly manner, decided that soon after her mother’s departure, she would tell Maurice that she would marry him.

  She had told him, and Maurice had been very happy, but the odd feeling which had irritated Helen did not go away. She was puzzled, for she had felt certain that it was caused, if not by anti-climax, then by a natural feeling of restlessness before her engagement. She had become engaged and the odd feeling had grown into something much worse—a sense of emptiness and loss.

  She spent the first night of her engagement tossing restlessly from one side of her bed to the other, and rose the next morning with a severe headache.

  It might be lack of exercise. She had not done much walking lately. She walked to Maybelle et Cie and arrived looking so pale that Mrs. Creech put her into a chair and applied lavender to her forehead.

  “You’re ill,” she said sympathetically. “You must go home—I’ll get a taxi for you.”

  Helen, far from being grateful for these ministrations, wished irritably that Mrs. Creech would go away. She was not ill, and if people would stop dabbing things on her forehead she would be able to pull herself together.

  She refused the offer of a taxi, told Mrs. Creech that she was better, and prepared to settle down to the day’s work.

  By eleven o’clock she had made up her mind that she needed a brief change. She would ring her mother up when she got home, tell her about her engagement and explain that she was coming down on a visit.

  From that moment, Helen was once again cool, steady and confident. She saw a great many advantages in her plan of going to Romescourt. It would give her mother pleasure; it would be a change of air and scene; and it would get her visit to William’s people over and done with. More, and most important, it would get her away from Maurice and she could examine at her leisure the feeling of emptiness which came over her every time she thought of him.

  Slippy was very much interested in her plans, and asked her to convey to her mother many messages of affection.

  “I’d come with you,” he said, “but I’m busy just now. Not that I don’t need a change—number of times I’ve taken you and that Mr. ’Unter up’n this lift, nobody couldn’t count. ’E goin’ with you?” he inquired.

  “Why,” inquired Helen in her turn, “don’t you go and work somewhere where there’s more going on for you to look into? I don’t think you’ve enough scope here.”

  “I got scope all right,” said Slippy. “I bet you fixed it up with Mr. ’Unter las’ night, didn’t choo? I once give a cat the very top o’ our milk, I did, and it looked like ’e did. You’re the cream,” he explained kindly, “and that Mr. ’Unter—”

  There was no point in continuing a conversation with a girl who had entered her flat and banged the door. Slippy took the lift down dejectedly.

  Helen made herself some supper, ate it and, after looking at the dirty plates distastefully for some time, collected them and carried them to the sink in the little kitchen. She decided that when she married she would have a perfect home, with or without maids. She would make beds and dust, sweep and polish; she would do anything…

  Anything except the washing-up.

  Her telephone call to her mother over, she settled herself in a chair with a book. She had rung Maurice up from the office and told him not to come tonight, and he had been, she considered, intelligent and reasonable. He would see her tomorrow. Feeling restless, Helen got up and, opening the bureau, looked for a calendar. She turned the pages, studied the days of the month and decided that she would go down to Romescourt on the following Tuesday.

  She walked into her bedroom and looked idly through her wardrobe. There was nothing in it designed for country wear. Helen held up one or two suits critically and realized that they were more suited to a Hyde Park setting than to the open fields and country roads of Dummerton.

  Well, she lived in Town, and nobody could have two or three sets of clothes nowadays. If the Romes didn’t like her Bond Street finish, that was too bad. Maybelle et Cie used very little tweed. Her shoes were even less suited to country roads. The heels were very high, and there was not one pair that looked capable of taking its wearer through a field. Her mother had written that Lucille Rome wore very simple clothes. That meant nice sensible tweeds and beetle-crushers. Lucille was welcome to them. Nobody was going to persuade Helen to clump about in half-inch heels.

  She put the things away and went early to bed. She lay in the dark for some time, relaxed and at ease, her mind on the Romescourt scene as she pictured it through her mother’s letters. This Lucille—in fact, everybody in the Rome family—seemed to lack organizing ability. To have two fiancés on the scene at once showed a lack of direction which Helen considered pitiful. Her mother would, of course, side with the one who was getting the worst of it, but Helen inclined to the tidiness of a boy-and-girl settlement. Duncan Macdonald, she thought sleepily, was an interloper and he was obviously making a great nuisance of himself. It would be kind to detach him from the affair—and it would be a great relief to Lucille. The visit to Romescourt would be less boring if she had something to interest her, and anybody with a flair for organization could straighten out the muddle of Lucille’s affairs in an instant.

  Nobody had ever doubted Helen’s flair. She had organized her own life, and her mother’s, with great efficiency.

  She would settle Lucille’s affairs. And she would settle Mr.
Macdonald.

  Chapter 10

  The days before Helen’s arrival were spent by Natalie in a way which gave her more employment than she had had since coming to Romescourt, and made her very happy. Her little house was to be ready for Helen’s inspection on her arrival. It was still yellow outside, but it would be painted in time for William’s return. For the moment, the furniture was to be chosen and put in, and curtains and carpets from Romescourt fitted as far as possible. Thus Helen would be able to get a fair picture of her mother’s future home, even though it would not be ready for occupation.

  Jeremy and Duncan moved beds, bureaux and chests, dragged mattresses and pushed chairs and sofas, and turned the billiard-room into a furnishing store. Duncan showing an astonishing knack of stacking articles of furniture in the least possible space. In three days Natalie was able to announce that only curtains and carpets remained to be done.

  Alexander was to arrive, with his sister and his nurse, on Thursday afternoon, and Lucille was instructed by her grandmother to call at Jimmie Batch’s on her way to Dummerton West, where she was to meet the children, and to ask him to bring up his largest van on Friday to effect the removal.

  Natalie spent the early part of Thursday afternoon in a half-empty room in which a sewing machine had been placed for her use. She sat busily altering curtains until her watch told her that it was almost time for tea, and then, putting her work aside, went downstairs and into the garden to see if she could see anything of the new arrivals.

  Baby Margaret was lying cooing softly in a large perambulator outside the nursery, which was on the ground floor because, Lady Rome explained, nobody could fall out. Natalie, leaning over the pram, put out a finger and Margaret seized it, using it as a lever to pull herself to a sitting position. She gazed at Natalie with wide-eyed interest.

  “How do you do, Margaret?” said Natalie softly. “One of these days you’re going to look exactly like your second cousin Lucille—aren’t you glad?”