Family Gathering Read online

  “Bellamy,” said Duncan. “But his mother was a Campbell, and his aunt—the one he went off to—is a Campbell. He’s surrounded by Campbells—he’s full of them—he’s crawling with Campbells. Alastair, you’ve got to—you’ve just got to help me!”

  Alastair eyed him.

  “You swear,” he said, “that there’ll be no police in it?”

  “I swear,” said Duncan.

  “And,” pursued Alastair, “you swear that it’ll take only an hour all in? I’ve a lot of people to meet and a hell of a lot to arrange. If you’ll swear—”

  “I swear,” said Duncan. “Will you do it?”

  “One thing more,” said Alastair, backing away as Duncan attempted to grip his arm again. “You’ve got to get rid of that Campbell beforehand—send him a message and draw him off somehow. He mustn’t be there.”

  “Not be there!” echoed Duncan. “But I’m going—”

  “That’s what I mean,” said his cousin. “You get him away.”

  “But he’s half a Campbell,” pleaded Duncan, “and—”

  “That’s just it,” said Alastair. “We’ll all get excited and forget which half it is and then there’ll be blood spilt. If I’m in on this, then nobody’s going to spill any blood—even Campbell blood,” he added regretfully.

  “All right,” said Duncan, after a while. “I’ll draw him off. Then—will you do it?”

  Alastair’s eye lit with the light of battle.

  “Do it?” he said. “You bet I’ll do it.”

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  Helen was unable to attend Mrs. Bellamy’s little party, and she so disliked the little she had seen of Philip’s mother that she was grateful to her sprained ankle for affording her an excuse to avoid further meetings.

  Natalie came in before leaving and saw that everything had been done to keep Helen happy and comfortable for the next few hours. Jeremy looked in for a moment.

  “Don’t be too lonely,” he said. “And don’t look so sleek at having got out of it, either—it irks those who—”

  “It what?” asked Helen.

  “Irks. A most satisfying word,” said Jeremy. “I use it frequently. And we’re all feeling particularly irked at the moment. Grandfather looks as though somebody’s been trying to give him poison, Granny’s wondering what could possibly turn up to save her from going at the last moment, and Lucille’s looking like the Lady of Who-was-it who stared through her casement.”

  “Where’s Duncan?” asked Helen.

  “Duncan,” said Jeremy, “hasn’t been seen at all. He didn’t have any breakfast—unless you call coffee breakfast—and nobody’s set eyes on him all day. Since he didn’t have Alexander’s sensible upbringing, I’m wondering whether he could have fallen into the water and got drowned. And poor Lu’s wondering the same thing, I think. Which brings me,” he went on, “to what I came in to say—would you like me to fetch Alexander to keep you company while we’re out?”

  “No, thank you,” said Helen. “It’s thoughtful of you, but—”

  Jeremy, looking disappointed, went away, and Helen wriggled herself into a comfortable position and opened a book. She read a few pages and then, putting the book aside, leaned back and lay thinking.

  She felt drowsy and happy, and had a curious sensation of being—not in a room in a large house, but on a ship far away in mid-ocean. Examining this feeling, she realized that it was not new—from the moment of her arrival, she had had the feeling of being slowly but surely borne away from familiar landmarks. She had boarded Romescourt and had been carried almost imperceptibly out on calm, peaceful waters.

  Her eyes closed. There was scarcely a sound to be heard—there was no rush and scurry of footsteps, no throb of buses, no roar and tremor of trains rumbling deep underground. There were no plans and there was no hurry. Somewhere there must be purpose and movement, but there were few evidences of it. Sir Jason grew his vegetables, Lady Rome kept the wilderness of weeds at bay, Natalie prepared a home for William, and Jeremy—

  Helen’s thoughts came to Jeremy and paused. She was unable to think clearly about Jeremy. She would have given much to know what his thoughts were on any one subject. He talked incessantly and said nothing. He could talk gently or brutally—he could be frank or teasing, but it was impossible to get behind his guard—if it was a guard. He was a brother, a lover—an enemy. He kissed her and called her bossy. He took her face gently in his hands, looked at it tenderly and told her she had an expression like granite. He called her beautiful and jeered at her clothes. He came into her room to say good night or good morning, sat on her bed and rumpled her hair, admired her night clothes and offered to send up bacon and butter to help her with her housekeeping when she was married. He buried his face in her hair and raised it to ask whether she intended to live in W.I or S.W.I. Helen was convinced, alternately, that he loved her—and detested her.

  That was Jeremy, and it was difficult to think about him. It was better to stop thinking and to rest peacefully; to enjoy this feeling of calm relaxation…

  When she opened her eyes, Jeremy was sitting in a chair nearby, his arms dangling over the sides and his eyes on her. Helen blinked, shook away sleep and looked at him in surprise.

  “Is it over?” she asked.

  “All over—while you slept,” said Jeremy. “You looked sweet—just like little Margaret. I kissed you—very gently—just once, and you didn’t stir. I wasn’t sure whether that was because you hadn’t been asleep the full hundred years or whether I was the wrong prince. Tricky point, isn’t it?”

  “What,” asked Helen, “happened at the party?”

  “Everything,” said Jeremy. “Natalie’ll be in to tell you about it but she’s busy downstairs at the moment, trying to explain to Granny exactly what happened.”

  “Something happened?” asked Helen anxiously.

  “I told you. Everything,” said Jeremy. “All in the space of twenty minutes. Then I drove the family home and—”

  “But Lucille was driving them,” said Helen. “You went in your own car, didn’t you?”

  “I did, but it wasn’t there to come back in,” said Jeremy, “and Lucille wasn’t there to drive them back, so I brought them back.”

  “But—but where’s Lucille?” asked Helen.

  “Gone,” said Jeremy.

  There was silence. Helen stared at him with her mouth open and Jeremy studied her admiringly.

  “Most people,” he said, “look a bit on the goopy side when they’ve got their mouths open like that, but—”

  “Where,” said Helen, “is Lucille?”

  “I told you—she’s gone,” said Jeremy. “G-o-r-n. Gone.”

  “But—but gone where?” cried Helen.

  “How on earth do I know?” asked Jeremy in surprise. “She just went. I suppose I could have asked where, but to tell you the truth, I said to myself, ‘Now, if I know, I shall have to tell Philip, so it’s far better for me not to know.’ And so,” he ended, “I don’t know.”

  “Will you please,” asked Helen, “go and call my mother.”

  “What for?” inquired Jeremy.

  “Because,” said Helen, “if you sit there much longer throwing silly little bits of information at me, I shall go mad; I know that would please you, but will you kindly get out of here and ask my mother to come.”

  “Is that an order?” asked Jeremy.

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so,” said Jeremy. “It sounded just like one—sort of peremptory.”

  “Are you going?”

  “No,” said Jeremy.

  Helen opened her mouth to speak and closed it again. She looked at Jeremy. His eyes were closed and he was slumped in his chair, peaceful and relaxed. Fighting for self-control, she waited for a few minutes and then addressed him.

  “Jeremy!”

  “You sound,” said Jeremy, without opening his eyes, “like doves cooing. Do that again.”

/>   “Jeremy—please.”

  Jeremy opened his eyes.

  “You mustn’t ever,” he said in warning tones, “speak to a man in that sort of voice. It’s—it’s very upsetting. Mothers ought to talk to their girls more, I think, and tell them how unfair it is to play on a fellow’s feelings and get him all worked up—men get worked up, you know, far more than girls. And they take longer to work down again, too. If—”

  “Please—please, Jeremy,” said Helen, “will you tell me what happened to Lucille?”

  “I might,” said Jeremy, “but—”

  “I’m sorry,” said Helen, “that I spoke to you peremptorily just now.”

  “And you won’t do it again?”

  Helen’s hands closed into two hard, tight fists, but her voice was gentle.

  “I’ll try,” she said.

  “I love you,” said Jeremy, “so of course I’ll tell you anything you want to know. It’s quite a story, too—sit back and I’ll begin at the beginning. You see,” he began, “the party was awfully dreary. I don’t know whether you ever had any of Mrs. Bellamy’s sherry, but grandfather took one sip and then looked round for a palm pot, but there wasn’t one—so I took his glass and swopped it for my empty one. What with the party already being a frost, and people having to drink that stuff, things broke up pretty early. The doctor and the vicar stayed until pretty well the last, but they went too, and then that left the Bellamys and us. Then Philip got a telephone message telling him to go and collect a parcel from Hunnytor station—why he went, I can’t think—it sounded a hell of a fishy message to me, but I think he thought it was a specially valuable kind of wedding present, so he pushed off, the poor fool.”

  “You mean—it wasn’t a proper message?” Helen asked.

  “It was what the melodramas term a decoy,” said Jeremy. “And he fell into it—I mean he seized the bait —oh well, he went, anyhow, and then Mrs. Bellamy said wouldn’t we look at the garden before we left. Nobody wanted to see the garden in the least, but if we said so, it might have looked as though the wallflower bed had something to do with it—so we went outside, and we’d hardly got there when we heard the most weird kind of yowling noises—like ten thousand cats all being tortured, and all mewing to the tune of ‘The Road to the Isles’.”

  “Bagpipes!” said Helen.

  “Don’t interrupt. Four of ’em, at the top of the slope,” said Jeremy. “My own guess is that three of the pipers were playing ‘The Road to the Isles’ and the fourth was having a go at ‘The Flowers of the Forest’— but all four were hard at it, and a fine lot they looked, too. The swing of kilts and the swirl of pipes, or vice versa, coming through the trees at the top there—and behind, a horde of kilted savages, coming—I mean surging forward and yelling at the—”

  “But who,” asked Helen, “were they?”

  “The Clan,” said Jeremy. “I never met a girl with so little imagination. The Clan Macdonald—all eighteen to twenty of them, clad in nothing but vests and kilts—and rugger boots. Down they came, down the slope, and in the middle of them their young Chieftain.”

  “Duncan?”

  “I don’t suppose he’s the—the The Macdonald, as you might say,” said Jeremy, “but he was at the head of them today.”

  “In a kilt?”

  “In grey flannel trousers, I’m sorry to say. And a sports jacket. A great come-down, I thought, but the Clan seemed to have scratched up all the available kilts —I had no idea the Macdonald tartans were so varied. All hues and colours, they were. And noise. Chiefly noise. They whacked down that hill fairly making the welkin sing and—”

  “Ring—”

  “Ring. It was an inspiring moment. Mrs. Bellamy gave a sort of leap into the air and then turned round and clutched me by the coat—I don’t know what she was saying, because of the bagpipes and the yells, but I gathered she was expecting me to disperse the Clan. I shook my head and she gave a snort—I didn’t hear it, I only saw it—and went streaking off to find Grandfather. Out he came—from the direction of the rhododendrons—striding out and obviously on the point of shouting ‘What, sirs, is the meaning of this?’—when he saw no fewer than four pairs of stout rugger boots backing into the wallflower bed. That was an inspiring sight, too—you could see Grandfather fairly transfixed. When he recovered, he took Mrs. Bellamy indoors to give her a drink and steady her down.”

  “Where was Mother?”

  “Natalie? In the middle of the lawn—quite still, and just sort of gazing.”

  “Was she frightened?”

  “Nobody,” said Jeremy, “was at all frightened— except me. Granny was magnificent—she hadn’t the faintest idea what it was all about, but she had one advantage that nobody else had—she could make herself heard without any difficulty above the wailings and the yellings. Lucille was near Natalie, and presently the Clan made a move towards her.”

  “You mean that Lucille was—”

  “—the aim, the object, the target, the sole purpose of the foray or raid,” said Jeremy. “The Macdonalds had come for their bride.”

  “Was anybody hurt?”

  “Nobody need have been,” said Jeremy. “But one or two of the clan got a little excited and jostled Natalie, so I had to take two of the stoutest-looking heads and bang them together. I must have been a bit excited myself, because both stalwarts sank to the ground and stayed there. That quieted a few of the yells, and Duncan came up and told me I needn’t have gone to extremes. There was a nice fellow with him—couldn’t make out who he was, but he was obviously running the performance.”

  “But where—where did Lucille go?”

  “I don’t know where,” said Jeremy. “I only know how—in fine style. They picked up the two bodies and Duncan lifted Lucille into his arms and they started up the slope, all falling in behind Duncan, bagpipes and all. I got hold of the nice fellow and asked him how they’d come and he said in a hired bus. It seemed a bit public for Lucille and Canny, so I pushed my way through the clan and got to Canny and told him he’d better take my car—I said he was to leave it at Hunnytor station, and not to tell me where he was going, in case Philip thought of asking me whether I knew. He was damn grateful, was Canny—not for the car, but because he’d only got Lucille a quarter of the way up the slope and he was wheezing worse than the bagpipes —he’d never have made the grade and I saved him from bursting his lungs—for what young chieftain could drop his bride half-way up in order to fetch a deep breath? He thanked me with a look and went downhill again to the car. And the clan climbed into the bus and went back to their native Highlands.”

  “And—and that was all?” asked Helen, as he stopped.

  “Certainly that was all,” said Jeremy. “What more did you expect? The man whistles up his followers, marches into his rival’s very courtyard, snatches the girl and makes away with her—and you say was that all!”

  “But you—you make it sound such a—”

  “A flop?” said Jeremy. “I can’t help that. I’m not Sir Walter Scott, and he’s the only fellow that could do justice to what happened today. I can only tell it in plain English.”

  “And he really carried Lucille off?” said Helen.

  “Yes, he did. Natalie’s trying to explain a little to Granny—Granny’s rather puzzled about it all, because she thinks that the whole thing was a mistake and that they were really looking for some people called Campbell. It’s rather muddling for her.”

  “Where will Lucille go?” asked Helen.

  “Scotland,” said Jeremy. “They’ll be on the London train now—Philip can’t race that to King’s Cross. They’ll pick up a train sometime tonight for the North. She’ll be all right—Canny’s clumsy, but he’s sound.”

  “And will Philip,” asked Helen, “will he—”

  “Howl? I suppose so,” said Jeremy. “He’ll probably howl loudly and quite unpleasantly, and I’m sorry for the poor chap, but we owe Canny something for bringing it off all by himself—we can say with truth that we didn’t
know the first thing about it. And there you’ve got,” he summed up, “an example of love—the hard way.”

  “I don’t see what was hard about it for Lucille,” said Helen. “All she did was agree with everybody and wait for Duncan to straighten everything out. I’d call that the easy way.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” agreed Jeremy. “But it would have been awkward, wouldn’t it, if Lucille had picked anybody but Canny?”

  “You mean that nobody else would have gone to—those lengths?” said Helen.

  “I can’t imagine it,” said Jeremy. “Can you see me, for example, sallying forth with bagpipes and so on?”

  “You mean you wouldn’t do anything?” asked Helen.

  “I wouldn’t have to,” said Jeremy. “I told you that I’m going to pick a girl who—having fallen hopelessly in love with me—will shake off all her previous fiancés without any help from me whatsoever.”

  Helen looked at him for a long time.

  “I believe,” she said slowly at last. “I really believe you mean that.”

  Jeremy’s gaze was expressionless.

  “You bet I do,” he said.

  Chapter 18

  Shortly after Lucille’s spectacular departure, Sir Jason left Romescourt to pay a week’s visit to the Macdonalds at their home near Fort William. The purpose of his journey was ostensibly to see that his granddaughter was comfortably installed in her new home, but it was suspected that his real reason was to avoid seeing Mrs. Bellamy and being constrained to offer her a new wallflower bed.

  Lucille’s clothes and books had to be packed, and this task fell almost naturally to Helen. She assembled Lucille’s entire wardrobe and found that it fitted easily into a small cabin trunk. There were many other articles left in cupboards—school tunics, blazers, outgrown woollen and cotton frocks of juvenile pattern, and underclothing of a type which Helen saw but, seeing, did not believe.

  Jeremy, who had come in to help her and was lying on his sister’s bed with his feet hanging over the end, looked at Helen’s expression and gave an amused laugh. She turned to him.

  “Why,” she asked, “couldn’t all that”—she waved a hand—“have been cleared out years ago and sent to the Orphanage or something?”