The Judas Tree

Chapter One

Dawn comes early in the Swiss Oberland. Its hurtful brightness and the clanging of the cowbells awoke him. As he had feared, the pheno-barbitone had failed to act, and in those hours of wakefulness he had relived every moment of those fatal, youthful months until, tortured, at three in the morning he had fumbled for a capsule of sodium anytal, which had given him a brief respite of total blackout. Now, with throbbing temples, deadened by the drug, he faced the situation dully yet with almost desperate resolution, aware that, at long last, he must take the decisive step.

Wilenski had told him so, at that last consultation in New York, smiling down encouragingly, as he always did, with one arm across the headrest of the couch and lapsing into that caressing Southern accent which he used to untie the inner tangles of his patients.

“You may have to go back one day, just to break that little old guilt-complex for keeps. Actually, you want to go back, partly because you’ve got a suppressed nostalgia for home, but of course mainly to see your—your friend and straighten things out with her. Well, why not? Better late than never. If things haven’t gone too well for her, you’re in a position to help. Why,” his smile took on a genial slyness, “now you’re a gay widower, if you find her still attractive, you could clear the whole thing up by marrying her—provided, of course, she’s free.”

“She will never have married.” He had no doubts whatsoever on that score, though he hoped she might have found happiness.

“Keep what I’m telling you in mind, then. And if you feel you’re getting into trouble again, take my advice and go back.”

Yes, he would do it, and at once. Relief came to him with the reaffirmation of his decision. He pressed the bell and, after consulting the Swissair schedule, told Arturo to ring Zurich and reserve a seat on the two o’clock plane for Prestwick. He got up, shaved, dressed, breakfasted downstairs. Afterwards, while Arturo packed his valise, he smoked a pensive cigarette. He was taking only a few things, returning quietly, humbly, without the slightest fuss or ostentation, no Rolls, no signs of wealth, nothing. The thought, arousing sombre anticipation, injected his melancholy with a transitory gleam. As for the villa, in his absence, with a household so well organised, staffed by such trustworthy servants—he had hinted to them of an urgent business appointment—it was simplicity itself to leave, even at a moment’s notice.

The phone rang: he rose and went to the instrument. As he had expected, it was Frida von Altishofer.

“Good morning. Am I disturbing you?”

“Not at all.”

“Then tell me quickly. Are you well . . . better?”

His frightful night made him long for a word of sympathy, but he knew this to be unwise.

“Definitely better.”

“I am so glad—and relieved, my friend. Shall we go walking this morning?”

“I wish we could. However . . .” he cleared his throat and delivered the polite fiction he had prepared: yesterday there had been a telegram, purely a matter of business, but upsetting, as she had observed, which he ought to put right by a visit to his British lawyer. He must leave this morning.

There was a sharp silence in which he sensed surprise, disappointment, perhaps even a hint of dismay, but quickly she recovered herself.

“Of course you must go—such a man of affairs. But do not tire yourself. And come back soon, before I leave for Baden. You know how much you will be missed.”

Arturo drove him to the airport in the Humber utility car, thus setting the tone of moderation for the entire journey. In Zurich it was his custom to lunch at the Baur-au-Lac, but today he passed by that admirable hotel, telling Arturo, who expressed concern, that he would probably get some sort of snack on the plane. They were early at the airport but fortunately the plane was on time, and at two o’clock precisely it took off. As the D.C.7 soared through low cloud into the blue his fixed expression did not relax, yet a strange elation took possession of him. He was going back, at last, back after thirty years to the country of his birth. Why in God’s name had he delayed so long?—for there alone could he find peace of mind, a final liberation from that remorse which from time to time had fallen upon him like a dark oppressive cloud. A word came to mind, edifying and full of promise. He was not a religious man, but there it was; Redemption! He repeated it to himself, slowly, earnestly.

Suddenly, elevated though they were, his thoughts were interrupted. The pretty stewardess was smiling down at him in her smart blue uniform, serving the snack he had deprecated and which now appeared as an excellent meal appetisingly arranged on a tray; smoked salmon, a wing of chicken with braised celery, peach melba, and a glass of excellent champagne. After this, despite his wretched night, he felt more himself, and drowsed over the Irish Sea, but always with an eye for the landfall of the Scottish coast. Prestwick was sighted at half past six, in the indigo haze of an early twilight through which pinpoint lights had begun to sparkle. Their landing was smoothly perfect and, only a few moments after, he was hearing with quickened pulse the almost forgotten burr of his native tongue. Bareheaded, on the tarmac, he drew deep breaths of the soft lowland air.

Home, at last . . . home. Unconsciously he murmured the famous words of Rob Roy Macgregor: “My foot is on my native heath.” Emotion flooded him.

Outside the customs shed the coach was waiting, and presently it set off, running smoothly through the Ayrshire farmland. Eagerly he kept rubbing the moisture from his window in the effort to snatch glimpses of the darkened landscape, scarcely realising the passage of time until the noise of traffic alerted him: they were at the air terminal in Winton.

He took a taxi to the Central Hotel where he secured a room on the quiet side, away from the station platforms and the noise of trains. Now it was late and he was tired. He ordered milk and sandwiches brought to him; then, after a hot bath in which for fifteen minutes he soaked, relaxing his tense nerves, he went to bed. He slept immediately.

Chapter Two

Next morning, awakening early to the thrilling awareness that he was actually in Winton, physically present, in the city of his youth, scene of his homeric strivings as a student, he had to damp down a great sweep of sentiment. He must be calm and judicious in his approach to this great turning point of his life. Yet as he rose quickly, dressed, and went down to breakfast in the warm, red-carpeted coffee-room, where for the first time in thirty years he tasted with relish real Scottish porridge and cream, followed, to the accompaniment of tea and toast, by an authentic finnon haddock, he was increasingly alert to the momentous prospects of the day.

Immediately he had finished his third cup of excellent tea he went to the lounge, took up the Winton Herald and, running through the advertisements, obtained the name of a motor hire agency. A small car, while inconspicuous, would facilitate his journey to Ardfillan and any subsequent movements which might be necessary. A curious inhibition withheld him from the obvious course of asking the head porter to arrange the hire, and instead he telephoned the agency personally. Could he have explained this vaguely irrational act? He was not known at the hotel, it seemed altogether unlikely that he would be recognised, yet all his instincts impelled him to concealment. At any rate, after requesting that the car, a small standard model, be delivered at the Central at the earliest possible moment, he was promised it, after some pressing, for one o’clock.

Restlessly, he looked at his watch: it was now just past eleven. With two hours to spare he went out, surrendering to the impulse to make a brief pilgrimage to the familiar places of his youth. The city, grey, cold, and soot-encrusted as ever, still with its overcast of smoke, showed few alterations from the days when he walked its drab and bustling pavements. At the corner of Grant and Alexandra Streets he boarded the yellow tram that would take him to Eldongrove Park. Outside the Park gates he got off, walked slowly through the gardens and, with increasing melancholy, up the hill to the University. But here, wandering through the shadows of the old cloisters, recollections of his student days were so painful and acute that, after a brief survey, he hastened from the precincts, passing at the lower gates the Gilhouse shop where he had sold his microscope to buy the ring with the little blue stone for Mary. His eye moistened. What a pitiful gift, compared to all that he could shower upon her now. Yet it had taken every penny he possessed. No one could have accused him of meanness or of the least foreknowledge of all that was to follow.

From Eldongrove it was not far to the Blairhill tenement and, driven by his mood, he took the road over the hill down to the docks. Yes, his old lodging still stood, a disreputable barrack, grimier, even more sordid, than before. Gazing upwards he saw himself, as a youth, bent over his books behind that narrow garret window. How he had battled and endured, fitting himself for a great and wonderful career.

And what, in God’s name, had he made of his life? After noble beginnings, what had been the result? As he stood there, gazing upwards with an air of vacancy, a shaft of sincere compunction pierced him and he experienced not only genuine and bitter regret, but also an overwhelming sense of the futility of all that he had done since he left that attic room.

He had made a fortune, a large fortune, but how? Not as a brilliant surgeon, a specialist of the first order, esteemed and revered in his profession, but as a wretched pill-maker, a timeserving purveyor of popular remedies, of slight clinical significance, advertisements for which debased the landscape, and all sold at such profit over cost as to constitute a further imposition on the public. No, he must not be too hard on himself; some of his work—the group of analgesics he had developed from the phenothiazines, for instance—had been of value. Yet on the whole, what a burlesque of the career he had planned. Why, under heaven, had he done it? Why, above all, had he been such a foot as to marry Doris Holbrook?

Surely, on that fateful voyage, he might have foreseen her psychotic tendencies, realised that the moods he found so entertaining on board would be insufferable later on, that the physical excitements she offered him would quickly pall. His mind went back to the neat little Cos Cob house her father had set them up in, convenient to the new Connecticut offices in Stamford. She had adored it—for six months—then suddenly hated it. Their move to nearby Darien, at first an immense success, was soon an equal failure. She seemed incapable of settling down or of adapting herself to a new environment, and his refusal to move again had started her off on daily trips to New York, almost a commuter on the morning and evening trains. Then came her futile art and sculpture classes, her style of dress increasingly extreme, her new, ever-changing, dubious acquaintances with whom he soon suspected she was deceiving him. When he remonstrated there were recriminations, estrangements, shouts through locked doors, hysteric reconciliations. She wanted to go back to Blackpool—could one believe it! More incredible still was the fact that now she actually seemed to hate him. When, after a long interval, he had smilingly attempted to resume marital relations, she had picked up her ivory hairbrush and practically brained him!

But he was getting on fast. Divorce might mean a break with the Holbrooks; he managed to put up with her. After five years in Darien an act of appeasement by old Holbrook had given them Fourways, a handsome property in the Quaker Ridge district of Greenwich. Quieter, conservative people here, the garden club—he persuaded her to join—their modest entertaining; he had hopes that she might settle down. All an illusion. Gradually, through increasingly erratic and intractable moods, fits of violence and periods of amnesia, she passed into depressive delusions. Finally the moment when Wilenski, called in consultation, put a consoling hand on his shoulder.

“Paranoid schizophrenia. She will have to be certified.”

And then, for fifteen years, he had been the man with a wife in a mental clinic, awaiting the results of the insulin and electroshock treatments, the slight improvements and deeper relapses, enduring the whole hopeless muddle, until the unmentionable relief of that terminal hypostatic pneumonia.

Was it surprising, in these tragic circumstances, that—himself walking the tightrope of nerve tension—he had needed, had thrown himself into, his work with Bert. There was nothing wrong with Bert, good, decent, genial Bert, who had always stood by him fair and square, helped him repeatedly in dealing with Doris, even admitted liability in the matter for having glossed over her adolescent attacks, and who, after old Mr Holbrook’s death, had given him outright an equal partnership in the rich and expanding American firm.

And work apart, as a man sorely victimised, had he not been justified in devoting himself to himself: to set out to cultivate his personality, to study the arts, acquire languages, French, German and Italian to be precise, to dress with taste—in short, to develop himself into a finely mannered man, consciously dated in his style—in his reading he favoured the gracious Edwardians—a veritable “man of distinction” who with his natural charm and ability to please could command, even in this appalling age when all sense of values had gone by the board, immediate interest, attention and respect. And of course, in his position, he had a physical obligation to himself, which as a well-read man he could sanction—if this were necessary—by quoting Balzac’s pointed letter on the subject to Madame de Hanska. He too had no intention of allowing himself to degenerate into impotence and imbecility! Naturally he recoiled from promiscuous adultery, from those brief and unreliable encounters that took place after cocktail parties in cars parked in the country club shrubbery. Chance threw him in the way of a quiet little woman—he had always preferred the small-boned type—a widow in her early thirties, blonde and of Polish extraction, her name Rena, who worked, humbly enough, as a binder in a Stamford commercial publishing house. His tactful approach produced surprisingly agreeable results. He found her both soothing and satisfying, neat, clean in her person, undemanding, and absurdly grateful for his help. Soon a discreet and regular arrangement was reached between them. He even grew quite fond of her, in her own way, and though she was fearfully broken up when he left America, he had done the right thing with a generous settlement.

Yes, there had been good reason for the pattern of his life, yet though self-exoneration brought some relief his thoughts were still painful as he turned away and, descending Blairhill, made his way back to the Central. Here he could not even think of lunch. But, feeling the need of something in preparation for his journey, he took a glass of dry sherry and an Abernethy biscuit in the bar, after which he felt better.

The car arrived at the specified hour and when he had signed the necessary papers and paid the deposit he drove off. No need to ask the way. Free of the busy streets, he took the main western road, past the Botanic Gardens and the Westland playing fields, then on to the highway leading from the city outskirts to the lower reaches of the Firth. This, since his time, had been widened and improved, yet while now it bypassed the shipyards and steel works of the riverside industrial towns it still was the road that had taken him to Mary. He drove slowly, prolonging his sensations, though almost overcome by them as, one after another, known sounds and scenes broke upon him. That steady rat-a-tat from the yards, the hoot of the Erskine ferry boat, a long-drawn rusty wail from an outgoing tramp—these blended to a haunting dissonance that fairly ravaged him, as did the fleeting vistas of green woods and gleaming water, of distant purple mountain crests that sudden outward, upward sweeps of the way revealed to him. All, all brought before him, in sweet anguish, the image of the one woman he had truly loved.

Some thirty miles from Winton he reached the village of Reston and, turning off the main route, took the winding, narrow road that followed the widening estuary towards Ardfillan. His heart was beating like those shipyard hammers as he entered the little town, all so unchanged, as though he had left it only the day before. Still the same narrow strip of esplanade lapped by quiet waves, the iron bandstand, the tiny pier, the curve of low grey houses, the square church towers. So blurred was his vision, he had to stop the car momentarily. Oh, God, he had stopped exactly opposite that same wooden shelter where, when Willie was sent on the errand, he had taken Mary in his arms. He was in a turmoil, confused thoughts poured through his mind: would he find her greatly altered, would she recognise, let alone forgive him, was it even possible that she might refuse to see him?

At last he took himself in hand, drove further along the front and parked the car. Then, with lowered head, he walked up the lane giving access to the Douglas shop. He reached the familiar back street, lifted his head, then suddenly drew up. The shop was no longer there, instead, a high brick frontage from which a whirring of machinery emerged, confronted him. He had built with such irrational confidence on finding everything as he had left it that he was less disappointed than stupefied. After a few blank moments he moved further along the narrow cobbled way, and saw that a wide new cross street had been cut at right angles to the old, giving access to a large double-fronted glittering establishment with a neon sign: Town and Country Bakeries Ltd.

Motionless, he stood gazing at the trays of starkly coloured cakes which filled the windows, then he crossed the street and went into the shop. Two pert-looking young girls in mauve dresses with white collars and cuffs were behind the counter.

“Excuse me,” he said, “I am seeking a family who once owned a shop in this vicinity. The name is Douglas.”

They were of the age that construes the unusual as the absurd, and seemed prepared to giggle. But something, perhaps the excellence of his clothes, restrained them. One glanced at the other.

“I never heard tell of any Douglas, did you, Jenny?”

“Me neither,” Jenny said, with a shake of her head.

There was a pause, then the first girl said:

“Maybe old Mr Donaldson could help you. He’s been here a long time.” Now she did giggle. “A lot longer than us.”

“Donaldson?” The name touched a chord of memory.

“Our caretaker. If you go through the van entrance on the left you’ll find his wee house opposite the bakery.”

He thanked her and, following her directions, found himself in what had once been the Douglas yard, greatly enlarged now, with the big machine bakehouse on the left, a garage for motor vans facing him, and on the right the old stable converted to a small one-storey apartment. He rang the bell and after an interval slow steps were heard within. The door opened, revealing the stooping, steel-spectacled figure of a man of seventy in a cloth cap, worn back to front, a black alpaca apron and carpet slippers. When Moray questioned him, he remained silent for a moment, soberly reflective.

“Know of James Douglas?” he answered finally. “I think I should. I was his foreman for more nor twenty years.”

“Then I hope you can give me news of him, and his family.”

“Come in a minute,” Donaldson said. “It’s nippy by the door, this time of year.”

Moray followed him into a small dark kitchen with a faint blink of fire in the grate, the stuffy, untidy room of an old man living alone. Donaldson pointed to a chair, then, still wearing his cap, shuffled to his own corner and sat down below the wooden pipe rack.

“You’re a friend of the Douglases?” he inquired, with caution.

“Of long ago,” Moray said hurriedly. “And now almost a complete stranger here.”

“Well . . .”, the other said slowly, “the story of the Douglases is not a very cheery one. James, poor man, is dead and in his grave, lang syne, and Minnie, the sister-in-law, too. Ye may as well know that for a start. Ye see, James failed in his business and was made a bankrupt—there was queer work behind it, to do with condemning the property and making the new street, all by order of the town council. Anyhow, the disgrace just fair killed James, for he was an upright man and as honest as the day. Minnie, who was aye an ailing sort of body, soon followed him up the road to the cemetery. So that was that, and in place of James’s shop we got these grand premises, and pastries that would rot your bowels—not that I have anything against the company, mind ye, they kept me on and gave me this bit of a job.”

He broke off, lost momentarily in the past. Intently Moray pressed forward.

“There was a daughter, was there not?”

“Ay,” the other nodded. “Mary . . . and she had her troubles too. When she was a lass she got engaged to some fly-by-night that away and left her. A sore, sore heart she had for many a day. When I cam’ out the auld bakehouse I used to see her greetin’ by her window. But in time she come to, got verra religious in fact, and some years later when the new young minister, Urquhart by name, came to the Longend church, and a fine man he was, she had the luck to marry him. And ’deed, a nice bairn she gave him a year or so after.”

Stunned, Moray sat rigid in his chair. She had married, forgotten him, or at least betrayed what he had believed to be a unique and lifelong love: more painful still, had borne another man a child. In his present state of mind it seemed a desecration. And yet, for all his chill dismay, reason had not entirely left him. Who was he to deny her the right to happiness, if indeed she had found it?

At last, in a strained voice, he said:

“She is here, then, in the town, with her husband?”

“No. She left Ardfillan with her daughter not long after the husband died.”

“Died?” he exclaimed.

The old man nodded.

“He wasna’ one of the strongest, ye ken, and when we had the big Spanish ’flu epidemic in thirty-four he was taken to his eternal reward.”

Unconsciously, Moray relaxed slightly, drew an easier breath. The situation was suddenly and to some degree ameliorated. Dreadful, of course, to have lost a young husband whom he, on his part, would never have wished the slightest harm. Still, the unfortunate fellow had apparently been weakly from the start; the motive on Mary’s side might well have been pity rather than love. Partially restored, and with renewed feeling, he put his final question.

“Where did they go, Mary and her daughter?”

“A village in the Lothians. Markinch they call it. The daughter wanted to train for a nurse and they sought a place that was near to Edinburgh. But what’s come of them since I cannot tell ye. They werena’ in the best of circumstances, and they’ve never looked near Ardfillan since the day they left.”

A long silence followed while Moray, with bent head, tried to reassemble his thoughts. Then, still visibly affected, he stood up and with a word of thanks pressed a note into Donaldson’s hand. The old man, after feigning reluctance to accept it, was peering at his visitor across his spectacles with growing curiosity.

“My sight isna’ what it was,” he remarked, as he accompanied Moray to the door. “But I have an odd notion that I’ve seen you before. I’d like fine to ken who ye are?”

“Just think of me as someone who means to do well for Mary Douglas and her daughter.”

He made the statement firmly, with the consciousness of a new honesty of purpose and, turning, made his way back to the car. Now he perceived how illusory his hopes had been, how an his imaginings had been falsely based on a romantic re-creation of the past. Had he actually expected, after thirty years, to find Mary as on the day he had abandoned her, sweet with the freshness of youth, tenderly passionate, still virginal? God knows he would have wished it so. But the miracle had not occurred and now, having heard the history of a woman who wept for him late and long, who married, though not for love, then lost an invalid husband, who suffered hardships, ill-fortune, perhaps even poverty, yet sacrificed herself to bring up her daughter to a worthy profession—knowing all this, he had returned to reality, to the calm awareness that the Mary he would find at Markinch would be a middle-aged woman, with work-worn hands and tired, gentle eyes, bruised and beaten by the battle of life, but because of that the more willing, perhaps, to forgive and accept his generous attentions.

His heart warmed to these thoughts as he drove back to Winton through the fascination of the deepening river dusk. Then, all at once, it occurred to him that he had forgotten to ask Donaldson about Willie. Inexcusable omission! What, he now wondered, had happened to that bright little boy, the eager inquirer of their evening hours? Well, he would find out soon enough, and from Mary herself.

Seven o’clock was striking when he reached the hotel, and having eaten little all day he was thoroughly sharp set. After a quick wash and brush-up he descended to the grill room, ordered a double rump steak, onions, baked Arran Chief potato, and a pint of the local Macfarlane’s ale—all with such aplomb that he might never have been away. Afterwards he proposed to yield to the rich seductions of golden syrup tart. How good these native dishes were. He attacked them hungrily, secure in the knowledge that he would leave for Edinburgh and Markinch first thing tomorrow.

Chapter Three

Although the car was not running particularly well, misfiring occasionally on one cylinder, he decided to retain it rather than face a chafing delay at the agency, and at eleven o’clock on the following morning, having settled his bill at the Central, he set out for Edinburgh. According to his road map, Markinch lay some five miles inland from Dalhaven on the east coast, a small village apparently—at least he had not heard of it—and its limited population would undoubtedly facilitate his search.

The day was grey and breezy, with woolpack clouds tumbling about the sky, but in the early afternoon, when he reached Edinburgh, a low sun broke through, sending shafts of brilliance from the Castle ramparts across the gardens of Princes Street. A good omen, he thought, setting his course along the eastern road to Portobello. Here the traffic was held up for a few minutes at the Cross to let the Portobello Girls’ Pipe Band go through, on their way, he fancied, to some local gathering. It did him good to see the bonnie Scots lassies swing past to the strains of “Cock o’ the North”, their kilts swishing about their hurdles, Glengarry ribbons streaming in the blast of the chanters. Scotland’s natural resources, he told himself, with a smile, his discriminating eye singling out several most promising little pipers. But the hooting of cars behind recalled him and he drove on, through Musselburgh and Newbigging. He struck the coast beyond Gosford Bay and, drawing up beside a deserted beach, ate the sandwiches they had packed for him at the Central. Then he was off again. The sea had a sparkle, and a keen wind blew across the cropped links and the yellow dunes fringed with sharp-edged, bleached grass and tangled aromatic wrack. Offshore on his left the Bass Rock came in sight, and far ahead, on the landward side the green cap of Berwick Law. Gulls were wheeling and calling above the blowing sands. He could taste the salt in the spray-filled, gritty air; the tang of it against his teeth was the very feel of home.

He had fixed on Dalhaven in advance, as a convenient centre, but when he arrived and circled the town seeking an inn, he could find nothing that looked suitable. The low, windswept houses, built of red sandstone, cowered about the fishing harbour with an inhospitable air, while the inhabitants, confronted with a stranger, proved dourly uncommunicative. Eventually, however, he found a friendly native and was directed with strong recommendations to the Marine Hotel, which stood above the golf course two miles beyond the town. This he discovered to be altogether superior, an establishment of the first class, where he was quietly welcomed by the manageress and shown to an excellent front room.

When he had washed he made inquiry as to the exact route, and after a short drive inland through winding country roads lined with hawthorn trees came to the village of Markinch, which as from an inner voice, he knew suddenly to be his true and final objective.

This conviction calmed his nerves, as he drove slowly down the single deserted street. Whitewashed cottages stood on either side, climbing nasturtiums still flowering against their walls. Not a soul in sight, only an old collie half asleep, one eye open, by the kerb. There was a general store and post office combined, then came a smithy, an oldfashioned shop with bottle-glass window panes and the sign: Millinery above, then across the way what looked like a small dispensary with the notice outside: Welfare Centre. In which of these should he make his inquiry? Perhaps the store and post office, although this would, unfortunately, bring notice of his arrival into the public domain. At the end of the street he was about to turn when some distance ahead he saw the village church and the adjoining manse. A thought struck him, induced by the recollection of a remark of Donaldson’s, and by the desire also for privacy and discretion. He continued towards the church, which was of Scots baronial design with a square tower instead of a steeple, parked the car opposite, then advanced towards the manse, a small but decent greystone dwelling, and pulled the brass handle of the bell.

After a considerable interval the door was opened, and by the minister himself, a small sallow man with extremely short legs and an oversized head topped by a bush of grey hair. His old black suit and the frayed edge of his clerical collar gave him a disheartened appearance, confirmed by the cast of his features. A pen in one hand and a heavily corrected manuscript in the other suggested that he had been disturbed in the preparation of his sermon, but his manner was civil enough.

“What can I do for you, sir?”

“If I may trouble you, I am seeking a lady by the name of Urquhart.” Now the new name came more easily to Moray; at first it had wounded him to think of her as other than Mary Douglas. “I understand she lives in your parish.”

“Ah, you must mean our excellent district nurse.” The little man’s expression cleared, showed willingness to assist. “She lives above the welfare centre you’ve just gone by. She is a very busy young person but if she’s not at home you will find her in the dispensary from five until six.”

“I’m much obliged to you,” Moray said, well satisfied. “You are obviously speaking of my friend’s daughter. I presume that her mother lives with her?”

“Her mother?” The minister paused, studying the other. “You are a stranger in these parts?”

“I’ve been away for many years.”

“Then you’d no idea how ill she had been.”

“Ill?”

The minister made a gesture of affirmation.

“I fear I must prepare you for sad news. I buried Kathy’s mother in our churchyard just nine months ago.”

The words, spoken with professional condolence, were reinforced by the church bell which now, like a passing knell, struck the hour with a harsh cracked note. There could be, there was, no mistake . . . it was the finish of his seeking, the end. Not disappointment alone but actual shock must have shown in Moray’s face, painful shock, that drove the blood from his heart and forced him to lean against the lintel of the door.

“My dear sir . . . come in and sit down for a minute. Here in the lobby.” Taking Moray’s arm he led him to a chair in the hall. “I see it has affected you deeply.”

“I had hoped so much to see her,” Moray muttered. “A very dear friend.”

“And a truly worthy woman, my dear sir, among the chosen of my flock. Don’t grieve, you will meet her in the hereafter.”

The afflicted man had not much confidence at that moment in the promise of the hereafter. She was gone, carrying with her to the grave the memory of his unfaithfulness. To the end, he had remained for her despicable, a festering wound in her memory. And now he could never redeem himself, never break the hateful complex which perpetually threatened his peace of mind, must continue to bear the burden of his guilt. Bowed with sorrow, disappointment, and a welling self-pity, he heard the parson run on, extolling the dead woman.

“Her daughter, too,” the other continued, “has the same high standards, a most devoted girl. But now, if you’re more composed, perhaps my wife could offer you a cup of tea.”

Moray straightened and, though still not master of himself, had the wisdom to decline.

“Thank you, no.”

“Then I feel sure you would like me to show you where she lies.”

They went to the graveyard behind the church. The grave, marked by a simple Celtic cross, was indicated, and the minister, lingering a moment, between sympathy and curiosity, said:

“You are of our persuasion, I trust. If so I hope we may see you at divine service on Sunday. The Word is a great healer. Are you residing in the neighbourhood?”

“At the Marine,” Moray mumbled.

“Ah, an excellent hotel—Miss Carmichael, the manageress, is a good friend of ours.” The credentials of the stranger thus established, he introduced himself with an almost pathetic eagerness to be of service. “My name is Fotheringay—Matthew Knox Fotheringay, B.A. of Edinburgh, at your disposal, sir, should you require me further.”

With a bow, he moved discreetly away. Alone, Moray still gazed down upon the green sward of which a long rectangle, the turf annealed yet still slightly elevated, presented a sad, significant outline. There lay that sweet body which in youth he had caressed. And in the form of sweet youth he now visualised her—as on that day upon the moor, while the lark sang above the heather, and the stream rippled over its fretted, pebbled bed. Clearly he saw her, fresh and glowing, with her trim figure, her red-brown hair and peat-dark eyes, with youth, youth pulsing through her, alive. Overcome, he supported himself against the granite monument and closed his smarting eyes.

How long he remained bent and motionless he never knew. A slight sound, a footstep on the gravel path, disturbed him. He turned, raised his head; then almost collapsed. There, risen from the grave, Mary Douglas stood before him, Mary, exactly as he knew her, as he had dreamed of her a moment ago, the fearful, ghostly illusion heightened by the spray of white flowers clasped to her breast. He tried to cry out, but he could make no sound. Dizzily, with swimming head, he realised that it was Mary’s daughter, the mortal image of her mother.

“I must have startled you.” She came towards him, concerned. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” he said, confusedly. “But thoroughly ashamed of myself . . . behaving so stupidly.” And seeking an excuse, he added: “I—was quite unprepared . . . You see . . .”.

She look at him understandingly.

“I met our minister, on the way in. You were a friend of my dear mother’s.”

He inclined his head, indicating respectful sadness.

“And of all your family. They were very good to me when I was a poor . . . and homeless student.”

Her face expressed sympathy and kindness. It was evident that his grief at the grave had strongly predisposed her in his favour.

“Then you knew James, my grandfather?”

“A wonderful man . . . I could see that, though I was a heedless young fellow then.”

“And Uncle Willie?” she asked, with a warmer sympathy.

“Willie and I were the best of friends,” he said, with a half sigh of recollection. A sudden inspiration led him to validate their association. “We often bunked together. Long talks we had at night. He was a fine boy.”

“Yes,” she said, “I can believe that.”

There was a pause, during which he could not bring himself to look at her. His mind was not yet clear, not fully adjusted to this extraordinary turn of the wheel. He still regretted the mother and all that her loss entailed, yet it had begun to dawn on him that in the daughter he might still find the opportunity he sought. Perhaps, after all, it wasn’t the end of his journey; at least, in sudden anxiety, so he fervently hoped. With an effort he maintained an air of calm.

“I must introduce myself. My name is Moray—David Moray.”

Her expression did not change. As she took the hand he held out to her, he could barely suppress a sharp breath of relief. She did not know of him, nor of his unedifying history. Why had he doubted? Mary would never have told her, the secret was still locked up in that poor broken heart, now stilled for ever, down there, six feet under his expensive hand-made shoes.

“You have my name,” she was saying shyly, while he still held her hand. “Kathy Urquhart.”

He gave her, though still with quiet sadness, his most winning smile.

“Then, if I may, as an old friend of your dear mother, and of all your family, I shall call you Kathy.” He said it kindly, almost humbly, anxious to put her at ease, to make her feel at home with him. Then, standing aside in subdued fashion, with a sense of compunction and responsibility, conscious of his defects and deficiencies, of all his misdeeds of the past, he watched her as she placed her few chrysanthemums in a green enamelled vase before the Celtic cross and began, with a few touches, to move some fallen beech leaves from the sward.

She was bareheaded, wearing a dark blue, noticeably shabby coat over her denim nurse’s uniform of lighter blue, and one of her shoes, he observed with a pang, was patched, a neat patch to be sure, yet an actual cobbler’s patch. These little economies, so apparent to his expert examining eye, moved him. We will change all that, he told himself, with a sudden burst of feeling. Yes, his opportunity was here, certain and predestined, he felt it in his bones.

“There!” she exclaimed, straightening herself with a confiding smile. “We’re all tidy for the Sabbath. And now,” she hesitated shyly, scarcely daring, yet venturing to say it, “. . . would you like to come away home with me for a nice cup of tea?”

They walked down the pathway of the graveyard together.

Chapter Four

Seated by the window in the room above the dispensary while she went into the kitchenette to infuse the tea, he glanced about him, surprised by the want of comfort, the bareness of all that met his eye. Not even a rug on the scrubbed and polished wooden floorboards, the furnishings scanty, little more than a square deal table and some horsehair covered chairs, the fireplace blackleaded yet lacking coal, the walls white-distempered, relieved by only one picture and that a religious subject, a reproduction from the Christian Herald of a bad copy of Valdez Leal’s Transfiguration. There were a few books, mainly nursing manuals and a Bible, on a shelf. A hart’s-tongue fern in an earthenware pot stood on a blue saucer on the window-sill beside a work basket holding a piece of knitting, ready to be picked up. But while admitting its spartan neatness, and the touch of brightness which a vase of wild asters on the mantelpiece, caught in the yellow light of sunset, gave to it, he saw in the room, as in the little alcove bedroom, the door of which on entering she had quickly closed, disturbing evidence of straitened circumstances. On the tray, too, which hospitably she now brought in, the china was of poor quality and the single plate held nothing more than buttered slices of cottage loaf. He could not altogether understand it, yet with a sudden lift of mood he reasoned that the more help she needed the more would he be able to give her.

“If only I’d known you were coming,” a little flustered, pouring the tea, she reproached herself as she handed him his cup, “I’d have had something nice. When I’m busy I don’t bother about shopping till the Saturday. But never mind me, tell me about yourself. . . . You’ve been abroad.”

“Yes, for many years. You may imagine what it’s meant to me, coming home.” He sighed, then smiled. “Now that I am here I mean to make an extended stay.”

“Where were you?”

“Mostly in America.”

“I almost hoped you’d say Africa.” She half smiled to him, though her gaze, passing beyond, was remote. “Uncle Willie is out there—at Kwibu, on the border of northern Angola.”

Although he gave no sign, he nevertheless experienced a strong sensation of relief. Willie would certainly have known him; any premature meeting might well have induced a most undesirable crisis.

“You don’t surprise me a bit,” he said pleasantly, with a light note of interest. “Even as a boy Willie was wild about Africa. Why, he and I walked practically every mile of the way with Livingstone, to Lake Victoria. And when Stanley found him you should have heard us cheer. But Angola, isn’t that rather primitive country?”

“It’s all that. Since Uncle went out he’s had some terrible rough years. But things are going better now. I’ve all sorts of interesting snaps I can show you. They give a good idea of the conditions out there.”

At this stage he thought it wise not to enlarge on the question of Willie’s pioneer activities—whether mining or engineering he could not guess—so he refrained from pressing the matter.

“When you’ve time I’ll enjoy seeing the photographs. But what I really want to hear about is your own work here.”

She made involuntarily a shy, disclaiming gesture.

“Oh, it’s nothing much. Just the usual run of district nursing, health visiting, and the like. I go round the countryside on my bicycle, sometimes on foot. Then there’s the Welfare Centre for pre- and post-natal care, with a clinic—we call it the milk bar—for the babies. And odd times I do a turn at the Cottage Hospital in Dalhaven.”

“All that sounds as if they work you much too hard.” He had already noticed that her hands were rough and badly chapped.

“It’s nice to be busy,” she said cheerfully. “And they’re very decent. I have Thursday afternoons off and three weeks’ holiday in the year—I still have two weeks of it to go, in fact.”

“Then you like your job?”

She simply nodded, with a reserve more convincing than any outburst of enthusiasm. “At the same time, there isn’t quite enough scope here. But—well, I have something much better in view.”

At this remark, and the reserve with which she made it, a disconcerting thought crossed his mind. Although he knew it to be bad taste, he had to say it.

“You mean to get married?”

She laughed outright, showing even white teeth against healthy pink gums, a wonderful laugh that fell sweetly, reassuringly on his ears.

“Good gracious, no,” she exclaimed, composing herself at last. “Who would I find round here but a few farm laddies that think of nothing but their Saturday night dances and the movies in Dalhaven? Besides,” she continued, slowly and very seriously, “I’m—well, so set on my work, I scarcely think I could ever give it up for anything—or anyone.”

All this was exactly as he would have wished it. Quite alone and without encumbrances, sensibly though not permanently attached to a worthy but dull and unrewarding profession, she could not have been a more perfect subject for his affectionate and philanthropic attention. His thoughts flashed ahead. Unacquainted with the law, he wondered if she might be made his ward: adoption seemed to him unfeasible, reminiscent of orphanages and partaking of frustrated parenthood. Be that as it may, his heart swelled with genuine feeling. He was, always had been, a most generous man, no one could deny him that slight virtue. What couldn’t he do for her! He mustn’t force things unduly least he alarm her, since it was apparent that she had taken him for a man of moderate means. Yet this was an aspect of the situation which struck him as being rich, in the double sense of that word, with the most delightful possibilities of revelation and fulfilment.

In the silence that had fallen between them, he considered her as, with lowered gaze, she put together the used tea things on the tray. She was, after all, not quite the living replica of her mother he had fancied in that first emotional shock. She had the same fresh complexion, dark brown eyes and short slightly thickened nose, the same soft chestnut hair clustering naturally on her neck. Yet her expression was different, reflective, almost reserved, the mouth wider, fuller, more sensitively curved, and in the set of the lips he saw evidence of a nature less given to gaiety. There was a certain aloofness about her that he liked—a sense of detachment. She smiled rarely, yet when she did it was the sweetest thing he had ever seen. But what struck him most was her touching look of youthfulness. Mary had been a sturdy lass with rounded breasts and well marked hips. This girl was slender, almost undeveloped—an immaturity contrasting with her serious air that strongly aroused his most protective instincts. He meant no injury to the dead when he concluded that this sweet child, equal in looks, had more depth, perhaps even greater capacity for feeling. . . . He came to himself. A hint of emabrrassment, something in her manner which she was unwilling to express, made him suddenly recollect that Fotheringay, the minister, had told him her dispensary began at five. Glancing at his watch, he discovered it to be ten minutes past the hour. He rose precipitously.

“My dear Kathy, I’ve stayed much too long,” he apologised. “I’m keeping you from your patients.”

“They’ll not mind waiting a few minutes. It’s not every day I have visitors.”

“Then just let me say quickly what a joy it’s been for me to . . . to discover you. I hope this fortunate meeting will be the first of many, for you must understand that I’ve much to repay for the kindness of your family.”

When she had seen him to the door he walked to his car, and drove back to the hotel meditating emotionally on the events of this extraordinary, this memorable afternoon. Sadness mingled with a kind of exhilaration. Here he had come, from the highest motives, and instead of an ageing woman who might have met him with reproaches, even rancour, remaining unresponsive to his offers of amendment and assistance, he had found a poor, hard-working girl who stood in need of, and must benefit by, his help. He deplored the loss of the mother, it had been a blow, yes, had cut him to the heart. But there was compensation in this dear child, who might, but for unavoidable circumstances, have been his own daughter, and on her, in reparation for the past, he would bring to bear, readily and freely, a benign influence, wise, helpful, paternal. The ways of Providence were indeed wise and inscrutable, beyond the mind of man.

Chapter Five

That evening after dinner he arranged with the manageress of the hotel to have a sitting-room. Fortunately there was one adjoining his bedroom, a large comfortable apartment with a good fireplace which Miss Carmichael confidently assured him “drew well”. This settled, he put through a trunk call to his villa, in Switzerland.

When Arturo answered, almost comically delighted to hear his voice, Moray instructed him to dispatch golf clubs and additional clothing by air freight from Zurich. As to mail, he should use his discretion and forward those letters which seemed important. Was there any news? Everything was going well, Arturo replied, the weather kept fine, they had picked the damsons and the plums, Elena had made ten kilos of jam, one of the pier-master’s children had been sick but was well again, and Madame von Altishofer had telephoned twice asking for his address: should he give it? Although gratified by her solicitude Moray, after considering for a moment, indicated that he would be writing to Madame himself.

But later, as he prepared for bed, his mood changed unexpectedly. Reviewing this eventful day he was struck, suddenly, by a chilly wave of self-condemnation. How quick he had been to find consolation in the prospect of exercising his charity on Kathy. How wrong to forget his own dear Mary, to accept the daughter and forget the mother, with no more than momentary sorrow. An ageing woman who might have received him with rancour—had he actually thought of her in such terms a bare hour after viewing her lonely grave? Never, never, would she have met him with anything but forgiveness and love. Standing in his long silk monogrammed sleeping-jacket, one of the individual coats specially tailored for him by Gruenmann in Vienna, he raised his eyes to the ceiling and swore he would make reparation openly, tomorrow. The thought comforted him.

Next day, true to his vow of the previous evening, he obtained from Miss Carmichael the name of Edinburgh’s premier florist and telephoned his order. Presently there arrived by special delivery a great gorgeous wreath of arum lilies. This he took personally to the cemetery and placed reverently beneath the Celtic cross. Then, setting forth freely, swinging his stick, he turned towards the sea and walked upon the links, taking deep breaths of the bracing air. Resisting all inclination, he did not go near Markinch, wisely reflecting that whatever Kathy might be to him he was to her still more or less a stranger. However, on the day after, which was Sunday, he dressed in a dark suit and sombre tie, ascertained the time of morning service from the invaluable Miss Carmichael, and set out for the village kirk.

He had not been to church for more years than he could readily remember. On Sundays in America he had played golf with Bert Holbrook, gone through the routine of the usual exurbia weekend at the local Country Club, where the course bore the surprising name of Wee Pinkie Burn. The members, for the most part New York executives who bedecked themselves in remarkable sporting attire, ranging from chartreuse shorts to scarlet tam-o’-shanters, were a friendly and congenial group. But he had never felt quite at home there. He was not the type who could readily be at ease in the exuberant bonhomie of mass masculine society; and besides, he felt that they all knew of his unfortunate domestic situation and must therefore pity him. Still, it was a good course and he enjoyed the golf, at which he excelled. When the Sunday was too wet for play he usually went to the laboratory at the works. On one rainy and fortunate Sunday he had come up with the formula for, of all things, a new perfume, which Bert, with his unerring instinct for a selling name, had immediately christened Church Parade, and which, marketed as a sideline, had made a small fortune for the firm. It must, he estimated, be a matter of fifteen years since, on that Friday when Doris was finally certified and taken away to Wilenski’s clinic at Appletree Farm, he had sneaked into the back seat of St. Thomas’s Church on Fifth Avenue. On his way to the University Club almost next door his eye had fallen on the sign: “Open all day for prayer and meditation.” He was feeling so abject, almost psycho himself, that he had thought it might help him to go in. But it hadn’t: although he had crouched in a back seat, gazing furtively towards the dim altar, and had even shed a few miserable tears—for he could weep on appropriate occasions—he emerged without the faintest sense of benefit or improvement, obliged to fall back on his original intention: a Turkish bath at the Club.

Now, however, his state of mind was altogether more propitious. He approached the little country church, to which a sparse congregation was being summoned by the discordant pealing of a cracked bell, in a mood of keen anticipation. And immediately, as he entered, he had the satisfaction of Kathy’s swiftly lowered glance of recognition. When the service began with a hymn, sung rather uncertainly, and later, during Fotheringay’s sermon, which was long and dull, a truly laboured effort, he had the privilege of observing her, though always discreetly, as she sat with the village children. He was struck by the competence with which she controlled her restless charges and by the patience she brought, sitting very erect, to the tedious discourse. Her profile had a purity of outline that reminded him of an Italian primitive—Uccello, perhaps, no, no—her sweetness of expression suggested a much later canvas—Chardin’s The Young Teacher, he decided finally, pleased to have hit it exactly, but wincing at an increasing volume of disharmony from the choir.

His reward came afterwards when, outside the church doors, he waited for her. She came out with Mrs Fotheringay. The minister’s wife was a short, stout woman with a downright manner and a broad, plain, honest face, her lined but keen blue eyes set behind highly coloured cheekbones—a Raeburn face, Moray thought instinctively. She wore her “Sunday best,” an antique black feathered hat and a dark grey costume that had seen much service and was now too tight for her. Moray was introduced and presently, after a few moments’ conversation, they were joined by Fotheringay. Immediately, Moray congratulated the minister on his sermon.

“Most edifying,” he said. “Listening to you, sir, I was reminded of a spiritual experience I had in the church of St. Thomas’s in New York.”

At the implied comparison with the great city Fotheringay reddened with pleasure.

“It was good of you to come to our country service. We are a small congregation and our poor old bell does not attract many people from the outside world.”

“I did notice,” Moray raised his brows deprecatingly, “that the tone was not particularly clear.”

“Nor loud,” the other said, glancing upwards towards the church tower with sudden irritation. “The bell fell last year from a rotted cross-beam. It will take near to eighty pounds to recast it. And where is a poor parish to find that siller?”

“At least there is nothing wrong with your voice,” Moray said diplomatically. “I found you most eloquent. And now,” he went on agreeably, “I’m going to take the liberty of inviting all three of you to Sunday dinner. I’ve made arrangements at the hotel. I hope you are free to come.”

A brief, rather blank pause ensued: such invitations were not current in the district. But almost at once Fotheringay’s expression cleared.

“You’re very kind, sir. I must confess that when I come out of the pulpit I always seem to be sharp set.” He glanced almost jocularly at his wife. “What do you say, my dear? Our little roast will do tomorrow, and you won’t have to wash up today.”

From the start, with the blunt look of a woman who must be convinced rather than persuaded, she had been openly taking stock of this newcomer who had arrived so dramatically from the unknown. But her first impressions seemed not unfavourable and the prospect of emancipation from those menial duties imposed by the meagreness of her husband’s stipend was a mollifying one. She gave Moray a dry sort of smile.

“It’ll be a treat for me. If Matthew gets his appetite in the pulpit, I lose mine by the kitchen stove.”

Kathy looked pleased, less perhaps at the prospect of her own visit to the Marine than at this hospitable treatment of her old friends. After Moray had settled them in the car, the minister and Kathy behind, Mrs Fotheringay beside him in front, he drove off. From the outset he had realised that the Fotheringays must be won over, if necessary propitiated, and everything seemed to be going well.

At the hotel they were welcomed by Miss Carmichael. As the season was virtually over—only a few visitors remained in the hotel—half of the main restaurant was closed and she had given them a table by the fire in the cosy breakfast room, a privacy especially pleasing. The food, simple and unpretentious, was of the first quality: a Scotch broth, saddle of Lothian lamb with roast potatoes and garden beans, home-made trifle laced with sherry and topped with double country cream, then a native Dunlop cheese and hot oatcakes. Moray had hoped the parson and his spouse would enjoy this repast and they did, especially Mrs Fotheringay, who ate with hearty and honest appreciation of the good things. The more he saw of this plain, outspoken woman, the more he liked her. But what gave him most satisfaction was the fine blood that the nourishing meal—so different from the meagre fare which, he was convinced, awaited her at home—gradually brought to Kathy’s cheeks, making her eyes brighter, her smile warmer. Thank heaven, he thought, she isn’t all spirit, and pressing her to another helping of trifle, he set out to ensure that the flesh was not neglected. Indeed, with that flexibility which enabled him to attune himself to any society, he was the perfect host. Kindly and serious rather than gay, he charmed them all. Keeping the conversation moving with discretion, he spoke briefly of his business in America, of his early retirement and return to Europe, finally of the home he had made for himself above the Schwansee; and, since Kathy was listening with attentive interest, he took pains and, with feeling, described the lake, the village, the surrounding landscape.

“You should see it under snow, as it will be soon.” He concluded on a high note. “A mantle of the purest white.”

“It sounds a braw spot,” Mrs Fotheringay said. Assured that her first doubts had been unjustified, she had long since thawed towards him, revealing an unsuspected archness. “You’re a lucky chiel to live amongst such beauty.”

“Lucky, yes.” He smiled. “But lonely, too.”

“Then you’re not married?”

“I have been a widower for some years.”

“Oh, dear,” she exclaimed, concerned. “But you have children?”

“None.” He raised his eyes, looked at her gravely. “My marriage . . . was not a particularly joyful one.”

The painful words, so obviously the understatement of a perfect gentleman, produced a sudden silence. But before this became prolonged he rallied them.

“That’s all past. And now I’m happy to be back in my own country and in this present company.” He smiled. “Shall we go into the lounge for coffee?”

Regretfully the minister looked at his watch.

“I’m afraid we must decline. Kathy has her Sunday School class at three. And it’s after half-past two.”

“Good gracious,” said Mrs Fotheringay. “How time has flown. And so very agreeably too. We’re most indebted to our new friend. Come, dear, we’ll leave the men for a wee minute.” She rose and took Kathy’s arm, adding with her usual directness, “Miss Carmichael will show us where to tidy up.”

Left alone with the parson, who had also risen and was standing by the window viewing the sea, Moray seized the opportunity to take his cheque book from his inside pocket. A few strokes of his ballpoint pen and he got to his feet.

“As a token of friendship and good will, permit me to offer you this so that your congregation may be summoned fittingly.”

Fotheringay turned sharply. A dejected little stick of a man, with more bile than blood in his veins, he was now completely overcome. Staring at the cheque, all taken aback, he stammered:

“My dear sir . . . this is more than generous . . . it’s . . . it’s munificent.”

“Not at all. It’s a pleasure. One I can well afford.” Moray placed a finger on his lips. “And please—not a word to the others.”

As he spoke the two ladies returned and Mrs Fotheringay, struck by her husband’s attitude, cried out:

“Matthew! What on earth’s the matter?”

He took a deep breath, swallowed the dry lump in his throat.

“I cannot help it. I must speak. Mr Moray has just given me the eighty pounds to recast our bell!”

There was a sharp silence. A deeper colour had rushed into his wife’s cheeks, already flushed by the substantial meal.

“Well, I never,” she said in a low voice. “That is most extraordinar’ handsome.” She came slowly towards Moray and took his hand tightly in both of hers. “That wretched bell has had my poor old man worried near out of his wits. I just cannot thank you enough. But there, I hadn’t been five minutes in your company before I kenned ye were one of the best.”

He was not often at a loss but now the genuine feeling in her voice unexpectedly embarrassed him.

“Nothing . . . nothing,” he said awkwardly. “If I’m to get you back in time we ought to be on our way.”

Ignoring their protests he insisted on taking them back in the little car. This time the Fotheringays were in the rear seat, Kathy beside him. During the short run she did not speak, but as he said goodbye outside the manse she remained behind the others to thank him—quickly, shyly, but with unmistakable sincerity.

Chapter Six

On Monday afternoon his golf clubs and two valises arrived by special delivery van from Prestwick Airport: he had known that the good Arturo would not fail him. The sight of his beautiful leather bag and shining true-temper clubs stimulated him, and although it was late in the day he went to the clubhouse, introduced himself to the secretary, and arranged for a temporary membership. Then he got hold of the professional and had just time to play twelve holes with him. The open, rolling course suited Moray, he was in excellent form, and when fading light forced them to stop he was actually one up on his opponent, a dour and stocky Scot, who had started with all the expert’s disdain of the amateur, but rapidly and rather comically changed his views.

“Ye hit a verra sweet ball, sir,” he conceded, as they walked back to the clubhouse for a drink. “It’s not often I come up against a visitor that can beat me. Would ye care for a return tomorrow?”

Moray accepted.

“Ten o’clock sharp,” he said, slipping a pound note to the other. “And perhaps we’ll go out again in the afternoon.”

Firmly, he was controlling his persistent wish to go to Markinch. Not only was discretion imperative, lest his motives be misconstrued; he well knew the wisdom of delay, the advantage of an interlude in which expectation could develop and recollection could have its way.

He took no action until noon on Wednesday, when he wrote a note, which he dispatched by the hotel boots, a lad of seventeen.

His fear that she might not be free was quickly removed; a verbal message of acceptance was brought back by the boy, and on the following afternoon when he drew up at the dispensary she was waiting for him outside, dressed in a clean white blouse, a speckled grey Harris tweed skirt which, at a glance, he decided she had made herself, and, as the breeze was keen, the rather shabby coat in which he had first seen her. Though her fresh young face redeemed everything, exhaling an innocent smell of brown soap, it was an unbecoming outfit, little better than that of a country maidservant on her day out. Nevertheless it pleased him, especially the worn coat, since it might present the opportunity he sought. She would be difficult to convince, but he meant to try.

How delightful it was to find her beside him after those three days of self-enforced abstinence. Not only had she been glad to see him, her mood was lighter than before, she seemed full of expectation for their expedition. He sensed that she was becoming less shy of him. After they had driven for some time in silence, she said:

“This is much nicer than the bus. It was good of you to ask me. And convenient, too. It so happens I have an errand in Edinburgh.”

“Then we’ll do it whenever we arrive,” he said heartily. “Just tell me where you want to go.”

“Number 10a George Street,” she told him. “The offices of the Central African Missionary Society.”

He glanced at her quickly. Their eyes met for only an instant before he returned his gaze to the road ahead, yet she had caught the blankness of his expression, and with a smile she said:

“Did you not know? Uncle Willie is out there for the Society? It’s my fault for not showing you the photographs, but I thought you surely understood. He’s been working for years in the foreign missionary field.”

It took him a few moments to overcome his surprise.

“No . . . I didn’t quite realise . . .”.

“Well, he is. And doing wonderfully under the most difficult conditions. You’ve no idea of what he’s been through.”

In spite of himself, and his lack of sympathy for Willie’s spiritual objectives, he was impressed by her glowing and ingenuous tone. A sentimental recollection of the bright-eyed little boy in Ardfillan thirty years ago came over him.

“Well, well. Come to think of it, it’s just the thing I would have expected of Willie. I honour him for it.”

“I knew you would,” she said in a low voice.

“I must admit . . .”. They were now in the outskirts of Edinburgh and a momentary difficulty in negotiating the traffic caused him to pause, before resuming. “Yes, I admit I was puzzled at your asking me to take you to the—to George Street. But I see it now. I suppose they keep you in touch with Willie’s movements.”

“Indeed they do. And besides, the least I can do is to send him regular parcels. I arrange it through the Society. They know what he needs and are able to buy the right things at reasonable prices.”

“You go in and leave the money?”

“Why not?” she answered light-heartedly. “It’s little enough. Uncle Willie’s worth more than that. Besides, he’s the only relative I’ve got.”

He saw then the reason for her cheap clothes, poor lodging and indifferent food, saw the purpose of her sparing way of life. This devotion touched him, yet his main sensation was one of indignation that she should be denied the things that were due her, and he had a sudden impulse to speak of the resources at his command, of all that he could, and would, do for her. But his instinct warned him—no, no, he thought, not yet; above all he must avoid too sudden, too startling an advance.

They were now approaching the centre of the city and, following the directions she gave him, he turned off Princes Street at the Scott monument, drove for some distance along Craig Terrace, then, after crossing a wide square, arrived at a grey stone building marked by a well-polished brass plate bearing the name of the Society. It had the look of an old dwelling house, Victorian in character, which, he surmised, had been donated by some deceased benefactor, possibly the pious widow of a city merchant. In the windows several posters were displayed showing representations of what appeared to be, at this distance, distressing groups of emaciated native children.

“Miss Arbuthnot will be expecting me,” she told him as she stepped briskly from the car. “I won’t be more than a few minutes.”

She was as good as her word. There was just time to smoke a Sobranie cigarette—he had been careful to bring a plentiful supply of his special brand from Switzerland—before she reappeared. The dashboard clock, which was actually going, showed only half-past three. But glancing at it she apologised, rather breathlessly.

“Och, I have kept you waiting.”

“Not a bit of it. Was everything all right?”

“Oh, fine, thank you.”

“Now then, Kathy,” he said, decisively engaging gear, “you’ve done your good deed for the day and you’re in my hands for the rest of the afternoon. Let’s forget Central Africa for a bit and think a little about ourselves. First of all we’ll park the car, then we’ll go shopping together.”

He found a garage nearby and presently, taking her arm, he guided her back to Princes Street. The sun was shining as they walked along. In the gardens opposite roses were still blooming and a cool breeze fluttered the leaves of the plane trees. Above, the battlements of the Castle were as though cut clean by a knife against a wide swathe of luminous sky. He still held her arm protectively, steering her along the crowded pavement.

“Isn’t Princes Street nice?” she remarked. “They say it’s the bonniest street in Europe.”

“It is a bonnie street, Kathy,” he answered gaily, “and full of bonnie shops—all with lovely things in them.”

“Ay,” she nodded soberly, “and all dreadful expensive.”

He burst out laughing. A wonderful mood was descending upon him. The scene, the sun, the brisk invigorating air, all exhilarated him.

“Kathy, Kathy,” he exclaimed, pressing her elbow. “You’ll be the death of me. When you know me better you’ll realise that the one thing I really enjoy is spending money.”

She had to smile in sympathy, though a little doubtfully.

“Well,” she said practically, “so long as you don’t waste it.”

“My dear, you’re the very one who ought to know that what’s spent on others is never wasted.”

“Oh, you’re so right,” she agreed, her expression clearing. “That was the most splendid and generous thing you did, giving the bell to Mr Fotheringay.”

“Yes, the old boy’s got his bell. But we mustn’t forget poor Mrs F., who got nothing—and I think she’s had plenty of that all her life. So we must find something pretty for her. But first of all,” he had stopped opposite Ferguson’s, the confectioners, “I want to send some Edinburgh rock to two little friends of mine in Switzerland.”

He went in with her and ordered a large box of the famous sweet to be mailed to the children of the pier-master in Schwansee. Next he sought her advice and, in a neighbouring shop, purchased a fine capacious black lizard-skin handbag for the minister’s wife.

“It’s a beauty.” Kathy stroked the shining leather admiringly. “And I know it’s the very thing she’s wanting.”

“Then you’ll have the pleasure of giving it to her.”

Emerging, he conveyed her further along the street towards an establishment which, as he drove in, he had observed to be of special merit.

“Now,” he announced in great good humour and with a rather mischievous air, “I’m going in here to do some real shopping.”

He took a step forward, but as he prepared to lead the way in she stopped him hurriedly.

“Don’t you see—this isn’t a man’s shop.”

“No,” he replied, looking down at her seriously. “It isn’t. But I’m going in—to buy you a new coat—and a few other things which I’m sure you need. Now, not a word. I’m an old family friend, you must learn to accept me as . . . well, someone like Uncle Willie. Or better still, as an older brother. And as such, I simply can’t have you sending all your money to Angola and doing without absolute necessities—a pretty girl like you.”

A warm colour had risen to her brow. She tried to speak but could not. Her eyes fell.

“I never bother what I have on—not much, anyway.” Then, to his relief, she looked at him again and, unable to resist, after a faint tremor of her lips, she smiled. “I mustn’t pretend. I suppose I like to be as nice as the rest.”

“And you shall be, only nicer.”

They went into the shop which, as he had surmised, was of the first order. Aided by a discreet, mature saleswoman who rustled towards them, and ignoring all Kathy’s whispered protests, he selected a coat of fine Shetland material, warm yet light, new gloves and shoes, a hand-blocked silk scarf, and finally a restrained yet tasteful dark green lovat suit. He wished to do more, infinitely more: nothing would have given him greater joy than to have swathed her in those rich furs past which, with a speculative glance, the saleswoman had tentatively led him. But he dared not—not yet. While Kathy retired to the fitting room upstairs he took an armchair in the elegant red-carpeted salon, stretched out his legs, and lit a cigarette, perfectly at home. Presently she came down, and, with lowered gaze, stood before him. He could not believe his eyes, so startling was the change. She looked ravishing.

“Madame is rather different in the lovat, sir.” The saleswoman, with an air of achievement, was studying him covertly.

Under that experienced gaze he restrained himself.

“A great success,” he said coolly. “It seems to fit.”

“Naturally, sir. The young lady is a perfect thirty-four.”

He insisted that she wear the suit and the new coat: the other articles, elegantly wrapped, were easily portable, the old discarded coat could be sent to Markinch with her Harris skirt. When the bill was presented, though he was careful not to expose the total, she kept murmuring remorsefully in his ear, but as she left the shop in her new possessions he did not fail to notice the sparkle of pleasure in her eyes. He had done well, he reflected with an inward thrill, and this was only the beginning.

She remained silent as they walked back together along the street, where the low sun behind a bank of clouds cast a golden gleam, then looking straight ahead she said:

“I think you are the kindest person, Mr Moray. I only hope you have not ruined yourself.”

He shook his head.

“I told you I had something to repay. But it is you who are repaying me.”

She half turned, looking at him steadily.

“That’s just about the nicest thing that’s ever been said to me.”

“Then you will do a nice thing for me? Mr Moray is so stiff, won’t you please call me David?”

“Oh, I will,” she said shyly.

Before the silence became awkward he exclaimed lightly:

“Good gracious! Past five o’clock. Time for tea. I’ve been running the show so far, but now I’m going to let you take over. Which place do you recommend?”

She named a cafe unhesitatingly as being not only the best but moderate in price. It was not far off and presently they were seated upstairs in a bright, warm room filled with the cheerful sound of voices and overlooking the gardens across the way. The table, in Scottish fashion, was already laden with tempting scones and buns, and with a many tiered-central stand bearing every variety of that native confection made of sponge, icing and marzipan, known as a “French” cake. He handed her the menu which was safely anchored in a little metal ball.

“What do you suggest?”

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

“Starving.”

“So am I.” She gave him a modest, playful smile. “You haven’t forgotten what a good Scots high tea is?”

“Indeed I haven’t. And the best I had were in your old home at Ardfillan.”

“Well, there’s a dish they have here, fried fillet of fish with parsley sauce; it doesn’t sound much but it would just melt in your mouth.”

He looked at her quizzically.

“Is it expensive?”

She laughed outright, freely and spontaneously, such a happy laugh it evoked responsive smiles from dour Edinburgh citizens at the adjoining tables.

“It’ll cost a good half crown. And after the perfect ransom you’ve spent today I think I’d better pay.”

When the waitress approached he let Kathy give the order. The fish, as she had promised, was delicious, fresh from the sea, the toast hot buttered, the tea strong and scalding. The excitement of the expedition and the consciousness that she was looking her best had released her from shyness, giving her an animation that made her companionship the more delightful, since already he had detected an introspective strain in her nature, even a tendency to sadness, and it was good to be able to lift her to a lighter frame of mind. And how attractive she was in her new smart outfit, so transformed as to draw towards her many admiring glances, which he clearly saw but of which she remained unaware. Yes, he thought, watching her indulgently, she’s worth all that I mean to do for her, she’ll do me credit.

When they had finished they sat for some time in a communicative silence, then she gave a contented sigh.

“It’s a shame this wonderful day has to end. But I must be back to relieve Nurse Ingram at seven o’clock.”

“Must you really?” he exclaimed with a note of disappointment.

“I’m afraid I must.”

“And I was hoping we could stay and go on to a theatre. Wouldn’t you have liked that?”

She lowered her eyes, but after a moment raised them and looked at him frankly.

“It will probably amaze you, Mr Moray—I mean, David—I have never been to the theatre in my life. When Mother was alive we went every year to the Orpheus Choir’s performance of ‘The Messiah’. And I’ve been to concerts at the Usher Hall.”

“But the regular theatre—good plays, the opera, and such-like?”

She shook her head with such a look it touched him to the heart.

“But Kathy dear, I can’t bear to think what you’ve missed. Didn’t you ever want to go?”

“No—not really.”

“But why?”

She paused, as if to consider his question. In the end she said, simply:

“Mother didn’t care for me to go. Besides, I suppose I’ve been too busy . . . and had other things on my mind.”

“What a serious little person you are.”

“Don’t you think we’re living at a pretty serious time.”

“Yes,” he had to admit, “I suppose we are.”

Her capacity to astound him seemed unlimited. And how withdrawing she could be at times, when that contained expresssion came into her eyes. Yet how wonderful, in this age of debased morality, to find such fresh unspoiled innocence.

“Come then, my dear,” he said gently. “I’ll take you home.”

He drove back slowly through the little towns on the firth where lights were already springing up against the encroaching night, and as the car purred softly he meditated on the future. Virgin soil, he repeated to himself, worthy of any effort on his part. Time was on his side of course but there was much to be done. Despite her sweetness and native wit he was obliged to acknowledge, as a man of the world, that she was a simple and untutored girl, knowing nothing of music, art, or literature. That one picture in her room—terrrible: those few text-books and the Bible, edifying no doubt, but scarcely comprehensive. Poor child, she was probably too hard-worked, too tired at night to read. That must be changed, she must be educated, taught several languages, attend a good university, Geneva or Lausanne would be suitable, take a course in, say, social science. All this, and mixing with cultured and civilised people would give her poise, smooth out her little gaucheries, bring her to perfection. Her upbringing must in a sense be held responsible—pure and spartan though it had been, it had undoubtedly been . . . well . . . narrow. And this obsession with Willie, splendidly unselfish though it might be, was a nuisance and must be watered down. But the most pressing need was to remove her from her present work. Indeed, she had hinted that she was preparing to leave it, and with an idea of encouraging this, he said:

“I’ve been wondering if you’d take me on your round one day. I’d be most interested. Could it be this week?”

“Of course,” she said readily. “Not tomorrow, for I have to see the County Medical Officer at Dalhaven, but the day after if you like.”

“Good. I’ll call for you at nine o’clock.”

When they reached Markinch he collected her parcels, escorted her to her door, stilled her renewed thanks, said good-night kindly yet briefly. The day he had so carefully planned would speak for itself. A bond had been created between them; he would not risk breaking it by doorstep sentiment.

Chapter Seven

Moray turned in early that night with an unusual sense of serenity, conscious that everything had passed off well, had indeed been perfect. And what a refreshing little companion she had proved, how supremely restful! Properly educated she could be a source of interest to him, a new objective in his life, besides affording him the long-sought satisfaction of an exercise in virtue. He fell asleep as soon as he had settled his head comfortably on the pillow.

Next morning when his early tea was brought the weather, unfortunately, had changed. Heavy rain beating on the window gave no inducement to rise in haste. Having swallowed his tea and the thin bread and butter that accompanied it, he lay back and closed his eyes, but failing to get off again rang for the morning paper. The boots, who brought it up, handed him a packet of mail forwarded by Arturo from Schwansee: a few business communications from his New York brokers, a couple of bills, several dividends, an illustrated catalogue of a sale of Daumier drawings to be held in Bern, and finally a letter from Madame von Altishofer. He opened it.

He put down the letter slowly. A nice letter, he told himself, despite its rather stilted style, the letter of a well born and distinguished woman who was utterly devoted to him. Normally he would have been touched by it, but now, perhaps because of his mood, the aftermath of yesterday, it found him unresponsive. He was glad, naturally, to hear from her, flattered that she should miss him, yet at the moment he could not generate his usual interest in her activities. And was she not slightly exaggerating her solitude? She was a woman who invited and enjoyed society. That frugal lunch, too, struck an incongruous note. He well knew that she was not averse to the pleasures of the table, and on her last visit to Baden had brought back a marvellous recipe for chestnut soup. In any case, he was not in the mood to answer today. He would advise her about the Seeburg, but later; at present he had other things upon his mind.

It was almost noon when he got up and began idly to dress. After lunch the rain continued. He hung about the hotel trying to occupy himself with some ancient magazines, devoted mainly to Scottish sport and agriculture. Then an impulse took hold of him to get out the car and drive to Markinch, but he reflected that she would not be there. She had told him that she must go to Dalhaven. Still, he would have the satisfaction of passing her window. . . . At this absurdity he drew himself up with a sudden self-conscious flush. He would see her tomorrow and must wait. Gazing in bored fashion out of the blurred windows of the lounge he hoped the weather would turn fine.

But when the next day came it was still raining, the sky remained heavily overcast. Nevertheless he was in a mood of cheerful expectation as he backed the car out of the hotel garage and drove between the sodden hedgerows towards Markinch.

She had already finished the forenoon clinic when he arrived. She locked the dispensary door and, carrying her black bag, got in beside him.

“Good morning.” He greeted her, feeling how good it was to see her again. “Or rather, what a morning! I’m glad to be driving you today. Not having you cycle around in the rain.”

“I don’t mind cycling,” she said. “Or the rain either.”

The tone of the remark mildly surprised him but he made no comment except to say:

“Anyhow, I’m entirely at your disposal. Where do we go?”

“Towards Finden. I can’t promise you beautiful country. It’s all poor clay land. And Finden is a poor village, built round a brickworks that’s just been re-started after a long shut-down.”

“Well, it’s not a day for viewing the scenery,” he said amiably, and after asking and receiving directions he set off through the village.

As they proceeded, she remained unnaturally silent, and he began to fancy a certain reserve in her manner. Not exactly a coldness. But she had lost that uplifted and responsive spirit that marked their day in Edinburgh, when he had felt the beginnings of a sympathetic understanding throb between them. After glancing sideways towards her several times, he said: “You look tired.” And indeed she had not her usual air of well-being. “You’ve been working too hard.”

“I enjoy hard work.” She spoke in that same odd, rather constrained tone. “And I’ve quite a number of serious cases on hand.”

“That proves you’ve been doing too much. You’re quite pale.” He paused. “Surely it’s time you took the remainder of your vacation?”

“In this weather?”

“All the more reason for you to get away from it.”

She did not answer. And why did she not look at him? He waited a few moments then said:

“What is wrong, Kathy? Have I offended you in any way?”

She blushed deeply, vividly, all over her fresh young face.

“No, no,” she said hastily. “Please don’t think that. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s just that . . . probably I am a little out of sorts.”

It was true enough, though very far from the full explanation. Yet how could she tell him of the mood which had followed their day in Edinburgh, or of the intensity of her reaction to it? On awakening yesterday morning she had experienced, in warm and sleepy recollection, an afterglow of happiness, but this had been succeeded, almost immediately, by a sharp pang of troubled conscience. The gay and spendthrift adventure of the day before, far exceeding all her previous experience, now took on the colours of an act of self-indulgence, almost of wrong-doing. With what silly vanity she had preened herself in her new clothes. They were beautiful, of course, but they were not for the likes of her. Be not solicitous what you put on—had she forgotten that? She felt guilty . . . guilty, untrue to herself and all that she had been brought up to believe. Remembrance of the smart saleswoman, seeing her undressed in her cheap rayon slip and darned navy blue woollen knickers, patting and patronising her in the fitting room, made her flush painfully. What would her dear mother have thought had she seen her then!

It was not Mr Moray, or rather—true to her promise she corrected herself—David, who was to blame. No one could have been kinder or more generous, he had meant well, acted from the most disinterested motives. He was so nice, too, so interesting and companionable, and had such a tactful and pleasing way with him that it would have seemed most ungracious to refuse his gifts. Yet an inner sense told her that she should have done so. Yes, the fault had been entirely hers, and she must see that it was not repeated.

She had risen quickly, washed in cold water and put on her uniform. But as she did so, trying to fix her mind on the work awaiting her at Dalhaven Hospital and the difficult interview with the M.O.H., when she must tell him of her intention to leave the Welfare Service, the prospect looked so flat and dull she could scarcely face it. Worst of all, longing came over her for a repetition of the previous unique day, not necessarily a return to the city, but something of a similar nature, under the same kindly guidance and patronage.

Abruptly, with all the firmness of a mind habituated to self-discipline, she had put the thought away, yet even now she had not altogether forgiven herself. However, as they drew near the first cottage she was due to visit she willed herself to throw off her constraint. Turning to him she asked if he would like to come inside with her.

“That’s why I’m here,” he exclaimed. “I want to see everything.”

The cottage was tenanted by a farm-worker whose leg had been caught in a threshing machine at the last harvest. He lay in the usual alcove bed in the dark little kitchen, where also were his wife, a defeated-looking woman in a torn wrapper, and three half-dressed unwashed young children, one of whom was crawling on the floor with naked buttocks, slavering over a slice of bread and jam. The room was in a state of disorder, used pots piled in the sink, greasy dishes on the table which was covered by an old soiled newspaper. Into this mess and muddle, which left him appalled, Kathy walked with an air of unconcern, said good morning to the woman and the children, calling each by name, then turned to the bed.

“Well, John, man, how are you today?”

“Oh, not so bad, nurse.” His face had cleared at the sight of her. “It’s just that, like the wife there, I never seem to get out the bit.”

“Tuts, man, don’t give up. You’ll be getting about in a week or so. Now let’s have a look at you.” As she opened her bag, she added casually: “This gentleman is a friend who has come along to say hello to you.”

It was a severe and extensive injury. Viewing it across her shoulder Moray could see that only by the barest margin had the femoral artery escaped. Several of the tendons had been severed, and as healing had not taken place by first intention, some of the sutures had gone septic. He watched as, having noted pulse and temperature, she cleansed the wound, renewed the dressing and rebandaged the leg, meanwhile maintaining a flow of encouraging remarks. Finally, straightening, she said:

“John here doesn’t know how lucky he’s been. Another inch and the thresher would have been through the big blood vessel of the leg.” In an undertone to Moray, modestly displaying her knowledge, she added: “It’s called the femoral artery.”

He restrained a smile, accepted the information with an appreciative glance, meanwhile continuing to observe her as she closed her bag and moved from the bed exclaiming:

“That’s enough for you, John. Now let’s give your lass a hand.” She turned to his wife. “Come away now, Jeannie Lang, and get a move on. If you redd up the dishes, I’ll see to the bairns.”

It was amazing: in fifteen minutes she had washed and dressed the children, swept and straightened up the room, dried the dishes as they were handed dripping from the sink. Then, almost in the same breath, she had rolled down her sleeves and was on her way out, calling over her shoulder:

“Don’t forget now, send to the Centre for the children’s milk this evening.”

Moray made no comment until they were back in the car and he had restarted the motor, then he said:

“That was well done, Kathy.”

“Oh, I’m used to it,” she said lightly. “It’s just a matter of method.”

“No, it was much more than that. You seemed to put new heart in them.”

She shook her head.

“The Lord knows, they need it, poor things.”

It continued dismally wet and windy, the tangle of country by-roads which served her district were smeared in liquid mud, the labourers’ and brick-workers’ rows of cottages, small, poor homesteads, all were dripping and bedraggled in the rain. Yet this wretchedness seemed never to depress her. The troubled mood of the morning was gone. As she stepped from the car with her black nurse’s bag, splashing her way towards damp kitchens and attic bedrooms, there was about her an alacrity beyond professional pretence, an unforced willingness he couldn’t understand. Although she wanted him to stay in the shelter of the car, he insisted on accompanying her: something unknown compelled him to do so. All that day he watched her at work; tending nursing mothers and fractious children; a schoolgirl with a painfully scalded arm, the dressing so adherent it must be removed with time-consuming care; the wife of a brick-worker propped up in bed, struggling with asthma; then the old people, some bedridden, full of their tedious complaints, one old man, helpless and incontinent, who must be washed, the sheets changed, his bedsores cleaned with spirit.

And beyond ail this were the extra duties she imposed upon herself: the dusty rooms, smelling of lamp oil, to be aired and tidied, soiled linen to be rinsed, dishes washed, milk to be heated, soup put to simmer on the kitchen range; all under conditions which would have reduced him to the lowest ebb of melancholia, and all accomplished not with quiet competence alone, but with a sympathy, a sense of spirited enterprise that left him baffled.

He might, at times, have obtruded with a remark arising from his own knowledge, for this renewed contact with sickness and disease, although so long deferred, induced a strange evocation of the days when he had walked the wards of Winton Infirmary. Yet he refrained, mainly because, in an effort to interest him, she had continued to make simple little medical comments on the condition of her patients. He did not wish to wound her.

In the late afternoon, on one of her last visits, when she had been to a case in a row of cottages, a woman called her in from a neighbouring doorway. Angus, her youngest, had “a bit of a rash,” she thought that nurse ought to have a look at him. The boy, looking fevered and uncomfortable, was lying down under a plaid shawl on two chairs placed end to end. His mother said that he complained of headache and had refused the dinner. Then she had seen his spots, some of them like little blisters.

Kathy talked with him for a minute, then, having gained his confidence, turned back the shawl and undid his shirt. At the sight of the rash Moray could see her face change. After sending the mother into the scullery on a pretext she turned to him.

“Poor boy,” she whispered. “It’s the smallpox. They’ve had two cases down in Berwick and I’m terribly afraid this is another. I’ll have to notify the M.O.H. at once.”

He hesitated; then, for her own sake, felt obliged to intervene. In a tone which lightly parodied the professional manner, he said:

“Take another look, nurse.”

She stared at him, disconcerted at his use of that word, above all to find him smiling at her.

“What do you mean?”

“Only that you needn’t worry, Kathy.” He bent forward, pointing to illustrate his remarks. “Just look at the distribution of these vesicles. They’re centripetal, none at all on the hands, feet, or face. Also they’re not multilocular and show no signs of umbilication. Finally these papules are at different stages of development—unlike smallpox where the lesions appear simultaneously. Taken with the mildness of the prodromal symptoms there isn’t the slightest doubt about the diagnosis. Chickenpox. Tell his mother to give him a dose of castor oil, some baking soda for the itching, and he’ll be over it in a week.”

Her expression of surprise had gradually deepened until now she seemed almost petrified.

“Are you sure?”

“I am absolutely and positively certain.” He read the unspoken question in her eyes. “Yes, I’m a doctor, Kathy.” He spoke with a kind of mild frankness, half in apology. “Does that shock you?”

She could scarcely speak.

“It fair takes my breath away. Why did you not tell me?”

“Well, you see . . . I’ve never been in practice.”

“Never practised! It’s beyond belief. Why in all the world not?”

“It’s a long story, Kathy. And one I’ve wanted to tell you ever since we met. Will you hear it . . . when you’ve finished your round?”

After a brief but intense silence, during which she still gazed at him wide-eyed, she nodded uncertainly, then, as Angus’s mother returned, she reassured her, gave her Moray’s instructions, and they went out. In another half hour she had finished for the day and, without further ado, he pressed hard on the accelerator and drove fast to the hotel. As the deserted lounge was cold and draughty he took her up directly to his sitting-room, where a bright driftwood fire blazed, pressed the bell and ordered hot consommé and buttered toast to be brought immediately. Her look of fatigue, which had worried him that morning, had suddenly intensified—and no wonder, he thought bitterly, after those long hours of chill and sodden slavery. He did not say a word until she was refreshed and warmed, then he drew his chair up to hers.

“I’ve so many things to tell you I scarcely know how to begin, and the last thing I want to do is to bore you.”

“Oh, you won’t. I must hear why you never practised.”

He shrugged slightly.

“A poor student just through college, with an honours degree. A sudden exceptional offer to work in the laboratory of a large commercial enterprise. It’s as simple as that, my dear.”

She studied him earnestly for a full minute.

“But what a waste—what a dreadful waste!”

“I was doing scientific work,” he reasoned mildly, translating his adventures with the pills and perfumes into more acceptable terms.

“Oh, I daresay,” she said, with vigour. “That’s very well for some. But a man like you, with such personality . . .”. She coloured, but went on bravely: “Yes, such gifts, to throw away the chance of helping people, the sick and the suffering, the real purpose of the doctor. It seems a crying shame.” A thought arrested her. “Have you never thought to take it up again?”

“At this late hour!” Hurriedly, to correct any false impression the unfortunate phrase might have given her, he added with pardonable subtraction: “I’m not far off the middle forties.”

“What of it! You’re fit, healthy, in the prime of life: yes, a young-looking man. Why don’t you go back to your real work? Remember the parable of the buried talents.”

“I should have to brush some of the dust off mine.”

At her gratifying reference to his youthful appearance he had smiled so engagingly she was forced to smile in sympathy.

“At least you put me right on my smallpox scare. And me trying to tell you about the femoral artery. What a cheek!”

There was a brief silence. How sweet she was with the firelight playing upon her earnest young face against the darkness stealing into the room. A wave of protective tenderness, almost, but not quite, paternal, swept over him. He half rose.

“Let me get you another cup of that soup.”

“No, no, it was really good, made me much better, but I want, I would like to . . . go on with our talk.”

“You feel strongly on that subject?” His brows were raised humorously.

“I do, oh, I do. It’s my idea of what life should be—helping people. It’s what we’re here for, to do our best for one another. And the greatest of all is charity—that’s what I was brought up to believe. That’s why I trained as a nurse.”

The spiritual content of her words was mildly discouraging but he accepted them kindly. Then, with firmness, he said:

“Kathy, you’re a wonderful nurse—haven’t I seen you in action? I admire and respect you for the work you’re doing, though frankly I don’t think you strong enough for it, but we’ll let that pass. What I do feel, however, is that you could exercise your talents on a different, let’s say a higher level, with much broader and rewarding results. Now, now, wait a minute.” Gently, he stilled her interruption and resumed. “Ever since we met there’s something which I’ve bidden from you, deliberately, because I wanted you to take to me, to like me on my own merits, if I have any.” He smiled. “And I hope you do like me?”

“I do, very much,” she answered, with impetuous sincerity. “I’ve never met anyone who’s made such . . . such an impression on me.”

“Thank you, Kathy dear. So now I’m free to tell you, with all the humility in the world, that I am rather well off. I’m sorry I can’t put it less crudely, for in fact, I’m lamentably and outrageously rich—for which I was never more grateful than at this moment, because of what it’ll enable me to do for you. No, please,” he raised his hand again, “you must let me finish.” Then after a pause, in a graver manner, he went on. “I’m a lonely man, Kathy. My marriage was unhappy . . . well, let’s face it, a tragedy. My poor wife was for years confined to a mental institution, and she died there. I have no children, no one like you to occupy me. All my life I’ve worked hard. Now, at an early age, I’ve retired, with ample leisure and more material possessions than I need, or deserve.” He paused again. “I’ve already told you that I owe a great debt to your family—don’t ask me what it is, or you’ll remind me of my graceless and ungrateful youth. All I need to say is that I must repay that debt, and I want to do so by interesting myself in you, by taking you out of this drab environment, giving you a fitting background, and all the things that you deserve. A full, rich, and rewarding life, and not of course an idle one, for as you have humanitarian ideals you may fulfil them with my co-operation, and with the resources I can put at your disposal.”

While he was speaking she had been looking at him with growing agitation, and now that he had finished she lowered her eyes and for an appreciable moment remained silent. At last she said:

“You are very kind. But it is impossible.”

“Impossible?”

She inclined her head.

“Why?” he asked, persuasively.

Again there was a silence.

“You have probably forgotten . . . but that first day I told you I was giving up the district work for something better. At the end of next month I’m going out to Angola . . . to work with Uncle Willie at the Mission.”

“Oh, no,” he exclaimed in a loud, startled voice.

“But I am.” Smiling faintly, she looked up and met his eyes. “Uncle Willie is coming home to fetch me on the 7th of next month. We’ll fly back together on the 28th.”

Almost stupidly he asked:

“And how long do you mean to stay there?”

“For good,” she answered simply. “I gave my notice to the M.O.H. yesterday.”

A prolonged stillness descended on the room. She was leaving—he calculated quickly—in five weeks’ time. The news devastated him—his hopes blasted, plans fatally ruined—no, he could not, would not accept it. The projects, so well considered, which he entertained, had reached possessive force, not only for her sake, but for his own. She was to be his mission in life. Nothing so inane as this wild desire for self-immolation in the wilds of a tropical jungle must interfere. Never, never. But his wits were coming back to him, he saw the danger of opposing her outright and risking an immediate break. He must work for time and opportunity to change her mind. When he spoke his voice was calm, with the right note of regret.

“This is a severe disappointment, Kathy, a blow in fact. But I can see how intensely, how close this lies to your heart.”

She had been prepared for opposition. At this quiet acceptance her eyes brimmed with grateful sympathy.

“You understand so well.”

“And I’ll help, too.” The thought seemed to revive him. “Willie will have a donation for the Mission—and a handsome one—by the next mail. You’ve only to let me have his address.”

“Oh, I will, I will. How can I thank you!”

“But that is only the beginning, my dear. Didn’t I tell you how much I want to do for you? And the future will prove it. As for the present—let me think. When did you say Willie would return?”

“In about a fortnight’s time. We leave three weeks after.”

He was silent, his brows contracted in thought.

“I believe I have it,” he said at length. “As you’re to disappear so unexpectedly and so soon I think you might reasonably give me a little of your remaining time. Furthermore, I’m worried about your health. You’re quite run down and if you’re to stand up to hard work in tropical heat you owe yourself a holiday, or at least a rest. So I suggest, with all reserve, that you take the two weeks’ vacation still owing to you and spend it at my home among the mountains. Willie, on his return, will join us there, and even though neither of you can stay long, we’ll have the happiest reunion in the world!”

For five fatal seconds he thought she would refuse. Surprise and doubt clouded her open expression, but this, merging through indecision, was followed by a hesitant smile. He saw that his inclusion of Willie in the invitation had been sheer inspiration. But was it enough? Doubt had returned to her eyes.

“It would be nice,” she said slowly. “But wouldn’t it be too much trouble for you?”

“Trouble! I don’t know the meaning of the word.”

“The mountain air would be good for Uncle Willie,” she reflected, “coming beck from Kwibu.”

“And for you, going out there.” With an effort he maintained a matter-of-fact tone. “So you’ll come?”

“I want to,” she said in a low voice, looking small and unprotected in the deep armchair. “But there are difficulties. My work, for instance. Then as I’ve given notice I might not be allowed my vacation. I’d have to see Matron or the M.O.H. about it.” She took a long breath. “I’m on duty at the hospital for the rest of this week. Will you please let me think it over till then?”

At that moment he saw there was nothing he could do but agree.

Chapter Eight

He drove her back to Markinch for the evening clinic. When they arrived, afraid of saying something injudicious in his present state of mind, he confined himself to a few words of goodbye and a restrained though speaking glance. Then he started back slowly towards the hotel.

The rain had ceased, and, with that perversity of Scottish weather which occasionally at the end of a drenching day affords an illusory promise of better things, a bar of dear light appeared on the horizon. But this transient brightness did little to raise his spirits, and presently he drew into the side of the road to think things over and switched off the ignition.

Yes, it was a nasty set-back, made worse since it was the last thing he’d expected. Who could have foreseen it? A sweet young girl bent on throwing herself away on a pack of primitive, painted savages who could no more appreciate her than—well, than they could the lovely little Bonnard that hung in his study at Schwansee. His hand shook with vexation as he thumbed at his gold lighter and drew deeply at a cigarette. Of course, he could not deny that he had heard or read of such extraordinary cases. Hadn’t some rich young society woman renounced her fortune recently and gone to live on bananas with some eccentric doctor in the Brazilian jungle? Then again, nuns went out as nursing sisters, but that was part of their vocation. And he supposed that the wives of missionaries, if they felt it their duty, might accompany their husbands. Yet in this instance there was no need for renunciation, no moral or matrimonial obligation; in all its aspects the project appeared to him preposterous and futile.

What could he do about it?—that was the question. Lighting one cigarette after another, an excess completely foreign to his moderate habit, he applied himself to the problem with a concentration made possible by the force of his indignation. The simplest solution, of course, would be to abandon his plans, to give up, spare himself all further trouble, and go home. No, no, that he could never do: he rejected the thought outright. Apart from his tacit obligation to her and to himself, he had in the short time become fond, yes, extremely fond of little Kathy. The mere idea of never seeing her again was too defeatist, too dismal to be entertained.

The more he reflected, the more he became convinced that his best chance of winning her from her obsession lay in showing her, even briefly, the fullness and richness of the life he could give her. Brought up so strictly, isolated, one might say, from the world, she hadn’t the faintest idea of what he could do for her. If only he might take her to Europe, demonstrate the charm and elegance of the great Continental cities he knew so intimately: Paris, Rome, Vienna, with their art galleries, historic buildings, famous monuments and churches, their choice restaurants and fine hotels, and introduce her thereafter to the comfort and resources of his home, she must surely swing to reason and be convinced. His invitation, then, made on the spur of the moment, had been a brilliant stroke, which now after serious deliberation he could not improve upon. All that remained was to ensure that she accept. But how? Casting around for assistance and support, it was not long before the obvious person came to mind.

At this, he stubbed out his cigarette, pushed hard on the starter button, then swung round and drove back through Markinch to the manse. Within five minutes he was there. As he parked the car and entered the drive he made out a rough scaffolding on the upper part of the tower and heard Fotheringay’s voice raised commandingly within, all of which seemed to indicate that the bell was in process of being removed. But he had no wish to meet the minister, to be embarrassed by further expressions of gratitude; and with relief, as he passed through the overgrown laurel shrubbery, he saw Mrs Fotheringay in the vegetable garden at the side of the house. He went straight towards her. She wore a man’s battered felt hat, an old stained mackintosh and heavy tackety boots, and in her hand she held a pair of garden shears.

“You have really caught me in my braws,” she exclaimed, with a wry though welcoming smile, as he approached. “I’ve been slaughtering slugs. After the rain they fairly go for my cauliflowers. But I seem to have done for most of them. Come away ben the house.”

“If you don’t mind,” he hesitated, “might I speak to you here?”

She studied his expression frankly, then without a word led the way to a green-painted trellis summer-house that stood at the foot of the garden. Seating herself on the wooden bench, she: indicated a place beside her, then, after a further scrutiny, she said:

“So Kathy has finally told you?”

Her penetration surprised him, but it was helpful, giving him a lead.

“I heard only an hour ago.”

“And ye don’t approve?”

“Who would?” he said in a suppressed voice. “The very idea, a young girl burying herself for life in that wilderness. I’m . . . I’m inexpressibly distressed.”

“Ay, I thought you might be upset.” She spoke slowly, wrinkling up her broad weatherbeaten brow. “And ye’re not the only one. My guid man is against it, though as the minister it’s hard for him to speak out. But I’m just the minister’s wife and I say that it’s an awfu’ pity.”

“It would be bad enough at any time. But now especially, when trouble seems to be stirring in Africa . . .”

She nodded soberly, restrainingly, but he was not to be held back.

“She’s not fit for it. After her work today she was quite done up. Why is she going? What’s the reason of it all? Is it this uncle of hers that’s responsible?”

“Ay, in a way, I suppose she’s going for Willie’s sake. But for her own too.”

“You mean from religious motives?”

“Well, maybe . . . though not entirely.”

“But she is religious?”

“She’s good, in the best sense of the word.” She spoke with feeling, lapsing more and more into the doric. “She helps us in the church, teaches the bairns, but—she’s not the kind that aye has a Bible under her oxter and the whites of her eyes turned up. No, to understand her reasons for going, ye must understand Kathy. I don’t have to tell ye that she’s unusual in this shameless day and age, different as chaff from good Lothian corn from the horse-tailed, empty-headed sexy little besoms ye see gaddin’ around, wi’ their jazz and their rock and roll, out for nothing but a good time, or a bad one I might say. She’s a serious, sensitive lass, quiet mind ye, but high strung, with a mind and ideals of her own. Her upbringing—for her mother was unco’ strict—has had a deal to do with it. And living away out here in the country has kept her very much to herself. Then, since Willie went out to Angola, where apparently there’s baith sickness and starvation, she seems, as was only nat’ral, to have become more and more taken up with this idea of helping him. Help where it’s maist needed—service, that’s her word for’t. It’s become the one thing, ay, the mainspring of her life.”

He was silent, biting his lip in protest.

“But she can be of service without burying herself.”

“Hav’na I told her that, again and again.”

“Why doesn’t Willie tell her? He must realise that the whole thing is utterly impractical.”

“Willie is not practical.” She seemed about to say more but merely added: “He doesna’ really live in this world.”

“Well, I do,” he exclaimed, with nervous feeling. “I’m interested in Kathy. You must have seen that. I want to do things—for her own good. Give her all that she needs and deserves.”

She made no reply but continued to look at him with questioning eyes, in which also there was such open sympathy that he was seized by the sudden emotional necessity to unburden himself, to justify his motives and win her completely to his side by a full admission of the past. The impulse was irrestible. Yielding, he took an agitated breath; then rapidly, at times almost inarticulately, and sparing himself considerably in the narration, he told her all that had brought him to Markinch.

“So, you see, I’ve every reason, every right, to make up for the past. Why, if I hadn’t taken that unlucky voyage, Kathy,” his voice almost broke, “might well have been my own daughter.”

In the pause that followed he kept his eyes lowered. When he raised them her smile was kinder than before.

“I guessed as much from the start. Kathy’s mother was a reserved woman, but once she was showing me an old album, and there, on a page, was a spray of pressed flowers. In my usual style I made a bit joke about them. She looked away and sighed, and said just enough to let me know there was someone she had cared for dearly before her marriage.”

He flinched slightly at this too vivid evocation of his desertion, but recovered himself quickly.

“Then you’ll help me! I’ve asked her to come to Switzerland to meet Willie in my home. If I can get them both there, Kathy especially, in a fresh environment, I believe I can make them see reason. And she does need a holiday, poor child. Will you persuade her to come? She’s sure to ask your advice.”

She did not immediately answer, but continued to consider him with a reflective, womanly air. Then, as though giving expression to her thoughts:

“It’s a strange thing. I’ve hoped, ay, and prayed, that something would turn up to save Kathy from this step in the dark. It’s not just the danger, which is bad enough, for Willie, the crazy loon, has near been killed half a dozen times, it’s the fact that she’s so intense, she’ll wear herself out in a twelvemonth in that ungodly climate. And she’s such a dear sweet lass, made for different things. Well, it seemed hopeless, and then at the very last, when I’ve given up and she’s on the point of going, you come along like a second father, since ye’ve put it that way, and it’s plain to me why ye’ve been sent.” She paused, reached over and put her large roughened hand on his. “We all do heedless things when we’re young. It’s no matter that ye made a mistake then. I believe you’re an upstanding, generous-hearted man. There’s not many I would trust with Kathy, but I trust you. If only you can take her out of this rut, get her to travel a bit, mix with people, and, best of all, find her a braw steady young husband who’ll give her a good home and children to look after, someone who’ll look after her, then you’ll have more than made up for things.” She pressed his hand firmly. “I believe in the intervention of Providence. Although you may not know it, I’ve a sound notion you’re the answer to what I’ve been seeking, and I’ll help you all I can.”

His eyes were still moist as he left the manse. He felt restored, purified by his confession and, aware of the worth of that good woman’s promise, sufficiently reassured to wait patiently for word from Kathy. She had warned him that she would be fully occupied at the Dalhaven hospital until the end of the week. He must not, he told himself, expect an answer till then. Yet when the first day merged into the second, and the second into the third, a restless uncertainty began to torment him, his concern returned and his mood grew less hopeful. There was nothing else to engage his attention or to relieve the monotony of waiting. The weather had turned cold and windy, the sea raged, spume and blown sand whirled across the dunes and links. Even if he had been in the mood, golf was out of the question. Finlay, the professional, had shut up his shop and gone back to club-making in Dalhaven. The hotel, too, had suddenly contracted, more rooms were closed with windows shuttered, the last of the autumn guests had taken their departure, and only two permanent residents, both elderly ladies, remained with Moray to share the rigours of the north-eastern gales. Since he could no longer offer the excuse of a vacation, people both here and abroad were beginning to wonder at his prolonged stay. Miss Carmichael had twice asked him if he could give her some idea of his plans, while in Schwansee his admirable servants were becoming uneasy about him. Yet all this was as nothing compared with his increasing anxiety, the realisation that time was going on, shrinking the limited period at his disposal.

On Saturday, in an effort to distract his mind, he decided to spend some hours away from the hotel and to make inquiry in Edinburgh regarding the possibility of plane reservations. He passed the forenoon in the city; then, as the sky had brightened, rather than return early he set off idly in the car to explore the northern countryside. He lost his way, not unpleasantly, a couple of times in rural surroundings, stopped to ask directions and drink a glass of milk at a small farm-steading, started off again to get his bearings, and in the end must have wandered further than he knew, for suddenly, as he began to think of turning back, he found himself in a strangely familiar landscape. Looking about him with a tightening of his nerves, he marked one feature after another. There could be no mistake. Perhaps it was not chance but some strange subconscious prompting that had brought him here. He was in the Fruin valley, on the deserted side road that led up from the loch, through that same stretch of lovely heath-land where, on the day they came back from the hospital at Glenburn, all those years ago, Mary had given herself to him.

A strange weakness took hold of him, made him want to turn back, but he resisted it. With a set expression he drove on for a few miles, then, pressing hard on the foot brake, skidded to a stop. Yes, it was the very spot. Undecided, he sat for some moments, a rigid figure, then he got out of the car and walked across the grassy verge to the moor which, as he advanced, presently fell away into that sheltered, unforgettable dingle where the stream ran clear and strong over its pebbled bed. My God, he thought, it’s exactly the same, everything so unchanged it might all have happened yesterday.

Standing there, with a hollow stomach and a fast-beating heart, the past re-created itself before him. The arrival on the bike, the picnic in the warm sunshine, the laughter and tender glances, the hum of the honey bees, and then under the blue sky, while the curlews circled and called unheeded, the joy and fear of those ecstatic moments when, irresistibly drawn, they clung together. He saw it all, felt it all, lingered over it, in a bath of sentimental recollection, until with a start of panic, an actual physical shock, he pressed his hand across his eyes.

The girl in his arms was not his long-lost love. Every sensation, every burning detail of that passionate scene, he had relived not with the mother but with the daughter. It was Kathy he had held so closely in his arms, whose soft warm lips had pressed on his, who had yielded in sweet abandon. He cried out to the deserted heath. Utterly unnerved, struck by a sudden shame, he broke away, stumbled uncertainly up the slope and through the tufted heather, back to the car. Like a man possessed he drove away. Why had he not realised it before? He was in love—not with the old, but with the new. His thought of Kathy as his daughter, a ward whom he might protect, had been no more than self-deception, a protective camouflage, of his subconscious desire. From the first moment of their meeting, his original love, long cherished as the one love of his life, had been re-created, reinforced and transposed to her. Not only was the image there, fresh, young, even more beautiful, but a living, flesh-and-blood reality as well. Staring fixedly ahead, steering automatically, he tried to stem this tide of sensation. The situation was a delicate one, quite proper of course, nothing dishonourable about it, yet somehow arousing scruples, calling for second thoughts or at least restraint, otherwise the evil-minded might discover a bad odour where none existed. But how could they? His motives were of the highest, his feelings, natural, honest, and normal, could never be construed as incestuous, he had no cause for compunction, no reason to recoil. Who could blame him? How could it have been otherwise? The thought gave him release, filled him with a sudden pulsing joy, and the future, which hitherto had never exactly taken shape, now fell into place precisely, took on colours that were enchantingly sensuous and vivid. And, God, how young he felt, rejuvenated in fact, by this exciting double passion so enticingly made one.

Now, more than ever, must there be no hesitation, no more delay. Discretion always, of course—no ill-advised or premature revelation of his feelings. But he would telephone her at Dalhaven immediately he got back. Down went the accelerator, the car flew, as on wings. Arrived at the hotel he leaped out, made directly for the telephone booth in the hall, was about to enter when the porter signalled to him from the desk.

“There’s a message for you, sir. Mrs Fotheringay called when you were out. She brought you this note with her best regards.”

The man handed him a plain sealed envelope with his name written on it. He dared not open it here. Hurrying upstairs to his room he tore it open and with unsteady fingers drew out the cheap sheet of notepaper within. A glance told him it was from Kathy.

No need to telephone, of her own free will she would come with him. He sat down in a convenient soft armchair, suffused by a glow of triumph. And on the way to Schwansee, mindful of his original intention, why shouldn’t they stop off at his favourite city, at Vienna, just for a few days, to give her a taste of Continental life? He re-read the letter: so she had written to Willie. A cable would be quicker, better too. Tomorrow he would send one, a long, frank, personal message that would explain things to Willie and so ease their eventual meeting. Once again he read the postscript: I am very happy to be going with you. There was only one thing possible for a man of such taste and feeling, a man of his particular refinement, untouched by the crudity and vulgarities of this barbarous age. He raised the shabby little scrap of paper and pressed it to his lips.

Chapter Nine

From an altitude of twenty thousand feet the Caravelle began gradually to edge down from the starry night sky into the darker plateau of cloud below. Moray glanced at his watch: half past nine. He turned to his companion.

“Not long now. You must be tired.”

Their journey had been protracted, with delays at London and Paris, but he, at least, would not have missed a minute of it. To sit beside her, so closely, in the intimacy of the de luxe class cabin, observing with amused yet tender solicitude her reactions to her first flight, anticipating what he judged to be her wishes, though she expressed none—this, and her companionship, had afforded him a rare and precious pleasure. Since it was all so strange to her, she had not said much, and because of these silences which seemed to indicate some slight degree of tension, he now struck a note of encouragement.

“I do hope you’re going to enjoy yourself, dear Kathy. Forget about slogging through the mud at Markinch and have a real holiday. Let yourself go a bit.” He laughed. “Let’s both relax and be—well—human.”

“Oh, I’m only too human,” she smiled responsively. “You’ll maybe think I’m a regular nuisance before long.”

The voice of the stewardess on the inter-communication system broke in upon them.

“We are now arriving at Vienna Airport. Please fasten your safety belts and extinguish all cigarettes.”

She was still inexpert, and helpfully he guided her fingers to make the adjustment of her belt. As he touched her small trim waist and felt the warmth of her body, a sudden joy took possession of him.

The lights of the airport, now visible below, tilted sharply as the plane banked, then with a final turn and a perfect approach they were on the runway, manoeuvring towards the wooden customs shed.

“It’s a poor little airport,” he told her as they descended, “not built up since the war. But we’ll soon get you through.”

With practised efficiency, he was as good as his word. In less than seven minutes they came out to the main driveway and there, as his cable had commanded, was the Rolls, gleaming under the neon lights, with Arturo, in his best uniform, all bows and smiles, in attendance. Of this he had said nothing, meaning to surprise her, and he succeeded. When greetings had been exchanged with Arturo and they purred off into the night, enclosed by a fur rug and the soft grey upholstery, she murmured, in a small voice, “What a lovely car.”

“I’ve never appreciated it more than now.” He patted her hand reassuringly under the rug. “It’ll help in showing you around.”

The road to Vienna from the Flughaven was, he knew, a bad introduction to gaiety, being flanked by a long succession of cemeteries and, as though this were not enough, by mournful establishments for the manufacture and display of tombstones. But now the kindly darkness masked these grim intimations of mortality. Within half an hour the cheerful illuminated city welcomed them. They drew up at the Prinz Ambassador. It was not a large hotel but it was luxurious and he preferred it to the others as the most Viennese in character, with a delightful old-world situation overlooking the Donner fountain and the Kapuziner Kirche. Here, too, he was known and appreciated, quickly shown to a double suite on the upper floor, the sitting-room a period piece in brocade and red velvet with a dazzling central chandelier, crystal wall lights and a baroque gesso table where already the direction had set out a great vase of bronze chrysanthemums and a basket of choice fruits.

“Now, Kathy,” he said decisively, when he had approved her bedroom and adjoining modern bathroom, both done in a delightful pale yellow with dove grey hangings, “you’re quite exhausted, in spite of your protests, so I shall say goodnight. I’m going to order something nice sent up to you on a tray, then you’ll take your bath and go straight to bed.”

How wise he was, how gentle and courteous. He could tell from her eyes that he had divined exactly what she wanted. Not a word more was needed, only the simple, graceful exit. He raised her wrist lightly, brushed it with his lips, nodded briskly, then with a cheerful: “We’ll meet at breakfast in the morning,” he was gone.

He rang for the floor waiter, ordered breast of chicken sandwiches and hot chocolate to be sent up, then descended to the restaurant. Before going in he lit a Sobranie, and took, bareheaded, a short stroll along the Ringstrasse. How good to be in Vienna again, to hear laughter in the streets and waltz music coming from the cafés, even to see the naughty little dirnen starting out on their evening promenade. Scotland was very well, if one accepted the weather, excellent for golf and fishing, but this was better, more gemütlich, more his style altogether. And once she found her feet, how Kathy would adore it.

Next morning came clear and fine, a crisp autumnal day, and at nine o’clock, when breakfast was wheeled in, he went through the sitting-room, tapped discreetly on her door. She was up, already dressed, occupying herself with some knitting while waiting to be summoned. They sat down together. He poured the coffee, hot, fragrant and delicious, the very best coffee; it frothed into the fine Meissen porcelain cups, white as the snowy table-cloth and decorated with a gold crown. The butter, on ice, had the colour of cream, the honey in its silver pot was a rich golden yellow. The rolls, crisp and sweet smelling, were still warm from the bakehouse.

“Try one of those,” he said informatively. “They’re Kaisersemmeln—fit for an emperor. They’ve been going for almost a century. So you had a good night? Well, I’m delighted. Now you’ll be ready for a good day’s sightseeing.”

“I’m looking forward to it.” She glanced up inquiringly. “Shall we need to go by car?”

He saw instantly that she was shy of using the Rolls. What a dear unspoiled child she was, and so sweet this morning, all dewy fresh from sleep. He said sympathetically.

“We must drive this morning, we are going some little distance. But another time we’ll use Shank’s mare.”

The phrase must have pleased her. She smiled.

“That will be nice, David. Don’t you think, when you walk, you see more? And more of the people, too.”

“You’re going to see everything, my dear.”

Arturo was already waiting outside and could be seen from the window pacing up and down, maintaining vigil against the press of an admiring and inquisitive crowd. When at last they descended he whipped off his cap, bowed respectfully, and presented Kathy with a single rosebud and—delighted gesture—a brass-headed pin.

“You see,” Moray murmured in her ear, “how much my good Italian approves . . .”.

She had blushed deeply but, when they were seated in the car, submitted while he pinned the rose to the lapel of her lovat suit. Then they were off, bound for the Kahlenberg,

It was a dazzling drive, winding upwards through clean bright little suburbs to the high pine-clad greensward of the Wiener Wald. The sun shone, the air, electric with the hint of frost, was crystal clear, so that, when they breasted the ultimate slope, suddenly, far below, the whole panorama of Vienna lay revealed with breath-taking brilliance. Leaving the car, they wandered about the summit while he pointed out the landmarks of the city: the Belvedere Palace, St Stephen’s Kirche, the Hofburg, the Opera House, and, just opposite, the famous Sacher’s, where he proposed to take her for lunch.

“Is it a very grand place?”

“One of the best in Europe.”

At this, she hesitated, then diffidently placed her hand upon his arm.

“David, couldn’t we just have something here?” With her glance she indicated the little café just across the way. “It looks such a nice simple place. And up here it’s so lovely.”

“Well,” he queried doubtfully, “simple is the word. And the menu will be simpler still.”

“Probably good plain wholesome food.”

When she looked at him like that, her cheeks glowing in the keen air, he had to yield.

“Come along then. We’ll risk it together.”

He could refuse her nothing, though his forebodings were more than justified. A bare trestle table, cheap cutlery, and the inevitable Wiener Schnitzel, tough and rather tasteless, with which, of all things, they drank apfelsaft. Yet she did not seem to mind, appeared actually to enjoy it, and so, in the end, he became good-humouredly reconciled. Afterwards they sat for some time—she was still fascinated by the view—then, towards two o’clock, returned to the car and set out for Schönbrunn.

This was the special treat he had promised himself, for, as one set inflexibly against the architectural horrors of the modern age, he had a romantic affection for the stately eighteenth century summer palace of Maria Theresa and the lovely gardens, designed in the old French manner, which surrounded it. Besides, the role of cicerone was dear to him. From the moment they passed through the massive iron gateway he laid himself out to be interesting and, since he knew his subject, he was handsomely successful. Wandering through the great baroque apartments be re-created the Imperial Court in all its luxury and splendour. Vividly he sketched the life of Maria Theresa: from the quaint demure little maiden—he paused before her portrait at the age of six—in her long gown of blue and gold brocade, reproducing the dress of a fashionable Viennese lady, who seeing her father in state array called out, to the diversion of the entire court: “Oh, what a fine papa! Come here, papa, and let me admire you”—from that sweet child to the woman of strong and noble individuality, central figure in the politics of Europe, patron of the arts, mother of five sons and eleven daughters who, asked on her death bed if she suffered greatly, as indeed she did, answered calmly—her last words:

“I am sufficiently at ease to die.”

Time passed unnoticed. Never had he let himself go with such dramatic fervour. They were both surprised to discover that it was almost six and beginning to get dark when they came out again to the cobbled entrance court.

“Good heavens,” he exclaimed, in apology, “I’ve walked and talked you to a shadow. And, what’s worse, made you miss your tea. That’s inexcusable in Austria where the kuchen are so marvellous.”

“I wouldn’t have missed this for anything,” she said quickly. “You know so much and make everything so real.”

Apparently he had given her something to think about, for on the way back to the hotel, after a reflective silence, she remarked:

“The privileged classes certainly did well for themselves in those days. But what was life like for ordinary people?”

“Not quite so attractive.” He laughed. “It’s said that in Vienna more than thirty thousand families had each no more accommodation than a single room. And if the room happened to be fairly large, two families lived in it—divided by a clothes-line!”

“How dreadful!” she said, in a pained voice.

“Yes,” he agreed, comfortably. “It’s wasn’t a good age in which to be poor.”

“And even now,” she went on, “I’ve seen signs of poverty here. As we came out, children barefoot, begging in the streets . . .”.

“There always have been, always will be beggars in Vienna. But it’s a city of love, laughter, and song. They’re quite happy.”

“I wonder,” she said slowly. “Can people be happy when they’re hungry? I was talking to the woman who came to do my room this morning—she speaks very good English. She’s a widow with four young children, her husband was killed in some trouble during the occupation, and I can tell you she’s had a fearful struggle, with the high cost of everything, just to keep her family alive.”

“Doesn’t that sound like the usual hard-luck story?”

“No, David, she’s a decent wee body and completely genuine.”

“Then you must give her something from your pocket money.”

“Oh, I have!”

The pleased exclamation made him glance at her sideways. After they left the airport, so that she should have something to spend, he had pressed a bunch of notes into her purse—probably some 1500 Austrian schillings, the equivalent of twenty pounds sterling.

“How much did you give her?”

She looked up at him rather timidly.

“All.”

“Oh, no, Kathy.” Then he burst out laughing. “What a little do-gooder you are. Parting with your entire fortune at one go.”

“I’m sure she’ll put it to good use.”

“Well, if it pleases you, it pleases me,” he said, still amused. “And one has to be liberal and a little crazy in Vienna. I love this city, Kathy—so much that it hurts me to see how quickly it is changing. You must take it all in now, my dear, for only too soon, like so many of the beautiful places of the world, it will be completely ruined. Just look at that horror on your right.” They were passing a tall new working-class apartment building. “That faceless nightmare of steel and concrete full of hundreds of little rooms like dog kennels has replaced a lovely old baroque house, a petit palais that was bulldozed down twelve months ago so they could stick up this—this penitentiary.”

“You don’t like it?”

“Who could?”

“But, David,” she took a full thoughtful breath, “the people who live in it will like it. They’ll have a sound roof over their heads and comfort too, heating, hot water, proper sanitary arrangements, and privacy. Isn’t that better than pigging it across a clothes-line?”

He frowned at her quizzically.

“Won’t they pig it in any case? But that’s not the point. What one resents is the destruction of beauty that’s going on all over the world. Tractors and trucks tearing about, gouging and rooting at the lovely monuments of the past, acres of jerry buildings springing up, all identical and all so drearily ugly. England is now swallowed up by dreary suburbs. Italy is full of factories. Why, even in Switzerland they’re crowding scores of tenements on to their loveliest lakeside sites—though not near me, thank God.”

“Yes, it’s a new world we have to live in,” she agreed, after a moment. “But that’s all the more reason to make the best of it. And to do our best to make it better.”

She looked at him inquiringly, as though anxious to know how he would answer her remark. But by this time they had reached the Ringstrasse, where lights were springing out and people beginning to leave their offices, congregating at the pavement cafés, talking, laughing, bringing a note of anticipation to the air. It was a fascinating hour and here, at least, there was nothing to offend his eye. As they slid easily through the evening traffic he drew near to her and, in the gathering dusk, passed his arm through hers.

“I’ve worn you out with lectures and arguments. You must rest in your room for an hour. Then we’ll go out to dinner.”

He had sensed that she was shy of going to Sacher’s, yet for her own sake decided he would take her there. With a little encouragement she would soon overcome her constraint: besides, at Sacher’s one need not dress. As eight o’clock struck on the clock of St Stephen’s he escorted her downstairs and out of the hotel. As the night was fine, they walked the short distance along Kärntnerstrasse. The glassed-in terrace of the restaurant was crowded but he had taken the precaution of making a discreet reservation in the little side room known as the Red Bar. He could see that his choice of table gave her confidence and, glancing across the menu, which he had been studying, his expression became reminiscent.

“I hope we’ll get something as nice as the fish you chose in Edinburgh. Our first meal together. I’ll never forget it. Tell me, do you like foie gras?”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “But I suppose I might.”

“Well, then, we’ll have it. With some Garnierter Rehrücken and Salzburger Nockerln to follow.” He gave the order, adding: “As we’re in Austria we must honour the country and drink a little Durnsteiner Katzensprung. It comes from the lovely Danube valley about fifty miles from here.”

The foie gras was brought, tenderly pink; he sniffed it delicately, assuring himself it was the real Strasbourg, adequately truffled, then ordered it served with raspberry sauce. When the wine was shown, sampled, approved and poured, he raised his glass.

“Let’s drink a little toast to ourselves.” Then, mildly, as she hesitated: “Remember, you promised to be human. I want to get you out of that dear little Scottish shell of yours.”

Obediently, though a trifle tremulously, she raised the long-stemmed glass, put her lips to the fragrant, amber liquid.

“It tastes like honey.”

“And is just as harmless. I think you know me by this time, Kathy.”

“Oh, I do, David. You’re so very nice.”

The venison was all he had expected, served with a savoury radish and apple sauce. He ate slowly, as was his custom, and with feeling, giving to each mouthful the respectful attention it deserved. In the adjoining alcove someone had begun to play softly on the piano, a Strauss waltz of course, but in this setting how right—charming, haunting, melodious.

“Isn’t this agreeable,” he murmured across the table. He loved to see the colour come and go in her fresh young cheeks. What a darling she was, arousing the best in his nature, bringing out all that was good in him.

The sweet, as he had hoped, proved to be a triumph. Reading her expression, at which he was not expert, he explained:

“It’s made almost entirely from fresh eggs and cream.”

“How many eggs?” she wondered.

He turned to the waiter.

“Herr Ober, how many eggs in Salzburger Nockerln?”

The man shrugged, but with politeness.

“So many, sir, you forget the number. If Madame wishes to make good Nockerln she must not count the eggs.”

Moray raised his eyebrows at Kathy across the table.

“We’ll have to start a poultry farm.”

She broke into a peal of laughter, like a schoolgirl.

“Oh, the poor hens, trying to keep up with that.”

Delighted with her unusual high spirits, he did not fail to notice that she offered no objection to his hint of their future association. Presently the bill arrived and, after a casual survey, he paid it with a note of high denomination, and tipped so lavishly as to produce a succession of bows, almost a royal progress.

As they came out of the restaurant they were met on the pavement by the usual outstretched hands—the match and paper flower sellers, the cripples, fake and genuine, the ragged old man with the wheezy accordion, the old women who now had nothing to sell but flattery. With the change from the bill he gave freely, indiscriminately, just to be rid of them; then, escaping towards the hotel, he was unexpectedly rewarded. She took his arm and of her own accord came close to him as they walked towards the Neuer Markt.

“I’m so glad you did that. I’d have felt ashamed after that delicious, expensive meal if you hadn’t. But then that’s just you, David, to be so unsparingly kind and generous. And what a day you’ve given me. Everything so new and exciting. I can scarcely believe it all. When I think that only a few days ago I was washing dishes in Jeannie Lang’s back kitchen, it’s . . . it’s like a dream.”

It was so good to see her relaxed, free of her inhibitions, actually gay. Listening in indulgent silence, he let her run on, aware that her one glass of honey-tasting Durnsteiner could not alone have induced this mood but that he was in the main responsible for it. And in a sudden flashback he remembered that with Mary he had shown the same talent, one might even say the power, of lifting her from her serious preoccupation to a new lightheartedness. It was an auspicious omen.

Only too soon they were at the hotel. Outside her room she turned to him to day goodnight.

“Thank you for a most wonderful time, David. If you won’t forget our day in Edinburgh, I can tell you I’ll never forget this one here.”

He lingered a moment, unwilling to let her go.

“Did you really enjoy it, Kathy?”

“Terribly.”

“Sure?”

“Cross my heart.”

“Then tell me, what did you like most of all?”

She paused in the act of closing her door, became suddenly serious, seemed to examine her thoughts. With averted head, not looking at him, she said very simply:

“Being with you.” Then she was gone.

Chapter Ten

During the next three days the weather, though colder, remained brilliantly fine. Conditions could not have been more perfect for the pleasures and excitements of continued sightseeing. Varying his programme with commendable skill, Moray escorted her to the Hofburg and Hofgarten, to the Imperial Museum of Fine Arts, the Rathaus, the Belvedere, the Parliament. They took tea in Demel’s, made the tour of the fashionable shops in the Graben, attended a performance at the Spanish Riding School—which, however, proved rather a disappointment since, although reserving comment, she had obviously disliked seeing the lovely white horses strained into unnatural circus attitudes. He had also accompanied her on a visit to Anna the chambermaid’s four children, all lined up in a row and dressed in new warm clothes with strong winter boots, and this had been perhaps the most successful expedition of all. These were, Moray told himself, the happiest days he had ever known. She had brought joy and sweetness into his life, renewed his buoyant youth. The more he saw of her, the more he realised he could not do without her.

And yet at times she puzzled him, even caused him an odd concern. Was she truly entertained by all that he so engagingly displayed? Impossible to doubt; he had seen her eyes light up a score of times, fill with interest and animation. Nevertheless there had been occasions when, while willingly attentive, she seemed troubled, nervously disturbed. At one moment she drew near, very near to him, and the next suddenly drew back. She had a strange capacity for receding into herself and could surprise him by her constancy to her own point of view.

When in the Graben he had vainly used all the subtlety he possessed to induce her to accept a gift—a necklace, simple in design but set with emeralds—which, unthinkingly and with slight knowledge of the price, she had admired.

“It’s beautiful,” she had answered, with a shake of her head, “but it is not for me.”

And nothing would move her. Nevertheless, though as yet she remained unaware, he meant to have his way.

His greatest surprise lay in the realisation that his money counted for so little with her. She had not responded to the luxury of the hotel, rich and elaborate meals were becoming merely an embarrassment to her, and he sensed that she had preferred the little hired car to the silent comfort of his Rolls. Once, indeed, when he dropped a hint on the subject she had unexpectedly replied:

“But, David, money can’t buy any of the things that really matter.”

Disappointed and somewhat chagrined by this lack of appreciation, he was nevertheless comforted by the thought that he would be loved or, as he now dared to hope, was being loved for himself alone. And since the simplicities of life so obviously pleased her, he decided to divert her attention towards Switzerland and the restful quiet she would find there. Vienna had not been a mistake; not only had he got to know her better, he had made progress, great progress, in these last few days. Intimacy had been positively established, a current of vibrations now passed between them. Though she herself might still be unaware, he knew from her sudden changes of colour, the touch of her hand, the brightening of her eye when he appeared, that she was passing the point of no return. Every instinct told him so. And to see and feel this shy, intense young girl gradually expanding under the novel compulsions of love was the most delicious experience of his life.

On Saturday morning, when they had finished breakfast, he remarked lightly, but with an undertone of consideration:

“It begins to look as though we’ve had enough of the city for the time being. Would you like to leave tomorrow for Schwansee? If this cold continues we’ll undoubtedly have snow in the Oberland and that’s something you shouldn’t miss.”

The warmth of her response gave immediate confirmation of his intuition.

“I’d like it better than anything—that is, if it suits you to go. I do so love the country. Not,” she added quickly, “that I am not happy to be here.”

“Then that’s settled! We’ll take the Sunday afternoon plane. I’ll send Arturo on ahead today—the journey by road across the Arlberg would be much too trying for you at this time of year. But before we leave,” he paused and smiled, “there is just one more hurdle for you to clear, I think you’ll find it a pleasure and not a penance.”

“Yes?” she queried rather uncertainly.

“There is a gala at the Opera House tonight—Madame Butterfly . . . but a quite exceptional performance, since Tebaldi is singing. And the décor is by Benois. It’s been practically impossible to get tickets but I’ve succeeded by a stroke of luck. As I’m sure you’ll enjoy this particular opera, will you come?”

“Yes, David,” she answered with only a scarcely perceptible hesitation. “But I’m worried at the way you keep putting yourself about for me.”

“Don’t give it a thought.” He did not tell her that only by the payment of an enormous premium, effected through the concierge, had he been able at this late date to secure a loge. “By the way, we’ll take it easy today so that you’ll be fresh for tonight.”

Both were glad of the rest, especially since the sky had become overcast and a keen wind blowing down from Semmering made passage through the streets a chilly business. However, after giving Arturo his instructions to leave for home he was out and about in the afternoon, on some affair of his own. At his suggestion they had an early dinner in the sitting-room: no more than a cup of strong turtle soup, omelette fines herbes with pommes pont neuf, pêche melba and coffee: by design a light meal, but good.

When they had finished he stood up.

“It’s a nuisance, my dear little Puritan, but we have to dress up a bit for this affair. Luckily I knew your size, so you’ll find something in your room. I had your nice Anna lay it out for you.” He put a comradely arm about her shoulder, bent forward close to her in his most winning manner. “Please wear it—for my sake.”

Humming a snatch of the love duet from Butterfly under his breath, he changed in leisurely manner: first the electric razor until the smoothness of his cheek satisfied him, then a hot bath followed by a tepid shower, a good rub down, and a dust of plain talcum. The hotel valet had already put out his evening clothes, with the onyx and diamond links and studs in the fresh frilled starched shirt, the black silk socks half folded over, the patent shoes, trees removed and tongues turned back, set nearly by the armchair. Arturo could not have done better, he must remember to tip the man. At last he was ready. A touch of Eau de Muget and a brisk drill with his monogrammed ivory-backed, military brushes—thank God he had kept his hair—completed the picture. He studied himself in the glass. He had always looked well in white tie and tails—no one could touch Caraceni, in the Boncompagni, for perfection of cut—and tonight, in all modesty, he knew unquestionably that he made a handsome, distinguished, and amazingly youthful figure. In a spirit of some anticipation he switched off the light—the habit persisted from his youth—and went into the sitting-room.

She did not keep him waiting. Presently the door opened and slowly she came out wearing the green dress he had chosen for her and, to his delight, the thin necklet of emeralds that so exactly matched it. Literally, he held his breath as, still slowly, with lowered eyes and cheeks faintly flushed, she advanced and stood before him. If he had thought her ravishing in the lovat suit, now there was no word to fit the case.

“Kathy,” he said in a low voice, “you will not like me to say this, but I must. You look enchantingly and unutterably lovely.”

He had never in his life spoken such absolute truth. So young, so fresh, and with that warm complexion and reddish gold hair, green undoubtedly was her colour. What he would make of her when he took her to Dior or Balenciaga! But was she trembling? She moistened her lips.

“It is the most beautiful dress,” she said haltingly. “And, after all, you bought me the necklace.”

“Just to go with your frock,” he said gaily, determined to lighten her mood. “A few green beads.”

“No. Anna was admiring them. She says they are cabochon emeralds.”

“Ah, well! I only hope your escort looks good enough to go with them.”

She looked at him, then looked away.

“I never knew there could be anyone like you.” He saw that she was seeking a phrase; it came with unusual awkwardness, “You’re . . . you’re just out of this world.”

“I hope I won’t be for some time.” He laughed. “And now let’s be off. It will delight your democratic spirit—since Arturo is away, we must take a taxi.”

“Am I to wear these gloves?” she asked nervously, on the way down. “They seem so long.”

“Wear them or carry them, as you please, dearest Kathy, it makes no difference. You can’t improve upon perfection.”

The concierge, though shocked that in such splendour they should be denied their usual conveyance, bowed them into a respectable cab. In a few minutes they arrived at the Opera House, passed through the crowded foyer and were shown to the loge he had secured in the second circle. Here, in the privacy of the snug, red-carpeted little box, which was all their own, he felt her relax. Free of her nervousness, she gazed out upon the brilliant scene with increasing interest and excitement while he, seated close behind, looking over her shoulder through his opera glasses, had the delightful consciousness of reproducing that incomparable Renoir on the same theme, not, alas, his own, but one he had always admired.

“This is new, of course, rebuilt since the war,” he explained. “A little too white and glittering perhaps—the Viennese tend to overdo their crystal—but still quite charming.”

“Oh, it is,” she agreed unreservedly.

“And as you see, everyone in their best bib and tucker for Tebaldi. Incidentally, as she’ll be singing in Italian I ought to give you an idea of what it’s all about. It opens at Nagasaki in Japan where Pinkerton, an officer in the United States navy, has arranged through a broker to marry a sweet little Japanese girl, Cho-Cho-San . . .”. Concisely he ran through the main points of the story, concluding: “It’s very sentimental, as you see, one of Puccini’s lighter offerings, far from being grand opera, but nevertheless delightfully moving and poignant.”

He had no sooner concluded than a burst of applause announced the appearance of the conductor, Karajan. The lights dimmed, the overture began, then slowly the curtain went up, revealing a Japanese interior of exquisite delicacy.

Moray had already seen this opera twice at the Metropolitan in New York, where he had been for years a season-ticket holder, and where, in fact, he had several times heard Tebaldi sing. Once he had assured himself that the great diva was in voice, he was able to devote himself to the reactions of his companion, and unobserved, with a strange and secret expectation, he watched the changing expressions that lit then shadowed her intent young face.

At first she seemed confused by the novelty of the experience and the oriental strangeness of the scene. But gradually she became absorbed. The handsome Pinkerton, whom he had always found insufferable, obviously repelled her. He could sense her rising sympathy for Cho-Cho-San and a worried precognition of impending disaster. When the curtain fell at the end of the first act she was quite carried away.

“Oh, what a despicable man,” she exclaimed, turning to him with flushed cheeks. “One knows from the beginning that he is worthless.”

“Vain and self-indulgent, perhaps,” he agreed. “But why do you dislike him so much?”

She lowered her eyes as though reflecting, then said:

“To me, it’s the worst thing—never to think of others, but only of oneself.”

The second act, opening on a note of tender sadness, sustained by an undertone of hope deferred, would, he knew, affect her more acutely than the first. As it proceeded, he did not look at her, feeling it an intrusion to observe such unaffected swelling of the heart. But towards the end of the scene, as the lights dimmed upon the stage and Cho-Cho-San lit her lantern by the doorway to begin her nightly vigil, while the haunting melody of the aria “Un bel di” swelled then faded from the darkening room, he took one swift glance at his companion. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

“Dearest Kathy.” He bent towards her. “If it is upsetting you, we will leave.”

“No, no,” she protested chokingly. “It’s sad but it’s wonderful. And I must see what happens. Just lend me your handkerchief, mine is useless now. Thank you, dear, dear David—you are so kind. Oh, that poor, sweet girl. That any man could be so inhuman, so—so beastly.” Her voice failed, yet she willed herself to be composed.

Indeed, during the third act, rising through unbearable pathos to the final shattering tragedy, she retained control. When the curtain fell and he dared look towards her she was not weeping, but her head had fallen forward on her breast, as though she could endure no more.

They left the theatre. Still overcome, she did not speak until they were in their taxi; then, secure from observation, she said, in a muffled voice:

“I shall never forget this evening . . . never . . .”

He chose his words carefully.

“I knew you had feeling, a great capacity for emotion. I hoped you would be moved.”

“Oh, I was, I was. . . . And the best thing of all, dear David, was seeing it with you.”

No more than that, but enough for him to sense through her still quivering nerves a melting softness towards him. Silently, gently questing in the closed intimacy of the cab, he took her small hand in his.

She did not withdraw it. What had happened to her? Nothing, ever, like this, before. Oh, she had naturally had attentions paid her. While attending her nursing classes, a student at the University, working for his M.A. degree, had been strongly attracted to her. She had not responded. At the hospital during the previous Christmas festivities, the young asistant doctor had tried to kiss her under the mistletoe, succeeding only in clumsily reaching her left ear. She had passed off the attempt with indifference, and refused, later, when he asked her to go to the New Year’s dance. She knew herself to be a serious-minded person, not interested in young men, sharing indeed her mother’s view, so often forced upon her until it had become her own, that they were brash, inconsiderate and undependable.

But David was none of these things, instead his qualities were exactly opposite. And his maturity, oddly reassuring, had from the first appealed to her. He was still holding her hand, quietly and soothingly, as they reached the hotel. Nor did he relinquish it then. The night concierge was half asleep at his desk as they entered and took the lift to their floor. In the corridor he paused, opened the door of their sitting-room, conscious of a quick thread of pulse in her imprisoned fingers, his own heart beating fast.

“I ordered hot chocolate to be left for us. It would restore you, dearest Kathy.”

“No.” Half turned away from him, she shook her head. “Nothing . . . please.”

“You’re still upset. I can scarcely bear to let you go.”

He led her, unresisting, into the room where, as he had said, a Thermos jug, with fruit and sandwiches covered by a napkin, had been placed upon the table. The room was faintly lit by a single shaded light that cast a soft glow on the carpet while the walls remained in shadow, and they too were in shadow as they faced each other.

“Dearest Kathy,” he said again. “What can I say? What can I do for you?”

Still not looking at him, she answered in a stifled voice.

“I’ll be all right in the morning.”

“It’s almost morning now,” he reasoned gently, despite his pounding blood, “and you’re not all right. What really is the matter?”

“Nothing, nothing . . . I don’t know. I feel lost somehow. I’ve never been like this before—sad and happy at the same time.”

“But how can you be lost when you’re with me?”

“Oh, I know, I know,” she admitted, then hurried inarticulately on. “That wretched man has made me see how different—but that’s just the trouble. You’re so . . .”. She broke off, tears coursing afresh down her cheeks.

Her head was bowed, but placing his fingers beneath her chin he raised her tear-stained face so that they looked into each other’s eyes.

“Kathy darling,” he murmured in a tone of ultimate tenderness, “I’m in love with you. And I believe that you love me.”

Bending, he kissed her upturned fresh young lips, innocent of make-up—which he abominated—and deliciously salt from her tears. The next instant, with a gulping sob, she was closely in his arms, her wet flushed cheek pressed hard against his breast.

“David—dearest David.”

But it was only for a moment. With a cry she broke away.

“It’s no use—no use at all. I should have known it from the beginning.”

“But why, Kathy? We love each other.”

“How can we love each other three thousand miles away? You know I’m going away. We’d only break our hearts. Mine is breaking now.”

“You could stay, Kathy?”

“Never—it’s impossible.”

He had caught her wrist, to keep her from flying to her room. Still straining away from him like a captive bird, she went on wildly.

“I must go. All my life I’ve been preparing for that one thing—training as a nurse, getting experience at Dalhaven. I’ve thought of nothing else. I’m needed out there. . . . Uncle Willie expects it. . . . Most of all, I promised Mother before she died that I would go, and I would never fail her, never.”

“Don’t, Kathy,” he cut in, fearfully. “For God’s sake—you mustn’t do it.”

“I must do it for God’s sake . . . for both our sakes.”

She freed herself and, half running towards her room, was gone.

He stared painfully at the closed door. Resisting an impulse to follow her, he began to pace the soft piled carpet in a state of acute agitation. Yet, with the imprint of her soft lips still lingering on his, gradually his distress passed and his main feeling became one of joy. She loved him, utterly, unmistakably, with all her heart. Nothing else mattered. There were difficulties in the way, but they could be overcome. He must, and would, persuade her. Anything else was unthinkable. At all costs he would have her.

Suddenly he felt strong, filled with vigour, and an immense potentiality for love. Hungry, too. As his eye fell upon the good things on the table, he became conscious of the hours that had elapsed since dinner—and the meal had not been notably substantial. Seating himself, he poured the chocolate, still steaming hot, folded back the napkin and began the sandwiches. Ah! Caviar, and the real Beluga, too. Absently, yet with relish, he scoffed the lot.

Chapter Eleven

He had forecast snow in Switzerland and, as though confirming his infallibility, snow had greeted them—an early, light covering that had frozen hard and now lay glittering under cobalt skies. For almost a week they had been in Schwansee, rigidly conforming to the covenant of restraint which, as a condition of her coming, she had obliged him to accept. Throughout this horrid stalemate of emotion, in a frantic effort to sway her, he had made simplicity and calm the order of the day. Their too theatrical welcome by Arturo and Elena had been quickly suppressed, staidness imposed, and plain meals commanded, served with an absence of formality. Straining to demonstrate the desirability of his picturesque landscape, he took her walking every afternoon in the crisp, tingling air: excursions, conducted mainly in silence, which brought them into the white foothills of the Alps, seen above as soaring pinnacles made rosy by the rising and setting of the sun. In the evenings, seated in the library on either side of the crackling log fire, tired less from their long outings than from persistent strain, he gave her a programme of his records—selecting mainly Handel, Bach, Mozart—which, rising from time, to time, he played upon the stereophonic radiogram, its varnished mahogany skilfully concealed in his lacquer Coromandel cabinet. No one knew of his return, there were no intrusive visitors, no distractions, just themselves alone.

How idyllic under normal circumstances such an existence would have been. But, alas, beneath that superficial control a bowstring tension quivered insufferably with, for him, a rankling sensation of frustration and defeat. With all his charm and subtlety he had tried to dissuade her from her intention to desert him, and he had failed. Persuasion and argument alike had proved futile. And time was flying—indeed, had flown. She must leave when Willie arrived in three days’ time.

This inflexibility in one so young, untried and inexperienced, remained for him a perpetual source, not of anguish alone, but of stupefaction. It was not as though she did not love him. Every hour of the day presented him with evidence of her suffering through the constant suppression of her natural desires. Now when he accidentally touched her hand, as in passing a dish at table, the tremor that ran through her was physically perceptible. And how often, when she thought herself unobserved, had he surprised her glance bent upon him, charged with longing, with all the sad hunger of the heart.

One morning, although visitors were proscribed, he had felt he must introduce her to his two little friends, the children of the pier-master. So Hans and Suzy were summoned, introduced, and given “elevenses” of cherry cake and orangeade. Afterwards all four had gone into the garden to make a snow-man from a drift blown against the thick bole of the Judas tree. This snow, beneath its hard crust, was soft and malleable, and he tied back the swing he had put up for them last summer, so they could get at it. What fun the children had, what shouts of glee, what rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes! Watching them, he had said to her, almost curtly:

“Wouldn’t you like to have children like these?”

She had flushed, then paled as from a sudden hurt.

“They are sweet.” She avoided his question. “So completely natural and unspoiled.”

Why—why—why should she refuse his love, the children he could give her, and all the immense advantages of his wealth and position? Above all, what could the alternative offer? That same afternoon, when they took their favourite walk along the high ridge of the Riesenthal, he kept asking himself these questions with a kind of brooding, desperate despondency induced for the first time by a gleam, a breaking through so to speak, a compelled recognition that there must be something in her point of view. And although a truce had been declared between them, as they strode along the high path between the silver-dusted pine trees he could hold back no longer.

“Dearest Kathy, I’ve no wish to reopen our wounds, but it would help to—to soothe mine, if only I could get a fuller understanding of your motives. Are you leaving me mainly because you have pledged your word?”

“Partly for that reason,” she answered, walking with lowered head. “But also for another.”

“What other?”

“As I told you, because of what I believe is demanded of all of us. We’re living at a terrible time, David. We just seem to be drifting towards self-destruction, moral and physical. Beneath the surface we’re all terrified. Yet the world keeps moving away from God. We’ll never get through unless everyone, every single person does something about it, each his own part, no matter how small. Oh, I’m not clever, but it’s so obvious, what Uncle Willie says—that we must prove love is stronger than hatred—show that courage, self-denial, and above all charity, can defeat brutality, selfishness and fear.”

Mentally he had made the state of the world taboo, except to reflect that it would see him out. But in spite of this he was impressed—who wouldn’t have been by such ingenuous fervour?

“So because of your ideas of—of duty and service, you condemn yourself to a life of hardship and misery.”

“Misery?” Quickly she raised her head in protest. “You can’t imagine the personal rewards of such a life.”

“A life of self-sacrifice.”

“It’s the only way life can be lived. Nowadays especially.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I was never more in earnest. Wait till you see Uncle Willie. He’s had what you might think of as a miserable time, and a great deal of illness, but he’s the happiest person in the world.”

He was silent. This hitherto had been beyond him, something outside his conception of life. Could one really be happy out there, doing good, in that confounded wilderness? He asked himself the question with a sense of growing agitation.

“And there’s more than happiness,” she went on, with difficulty, still striving to express herself. “There’s contentment and peace of mind and a sense of accomplishment. One can never get these by enjoying oneself, by running after pleasure all the time, shutting one’s eyes to the agony of others. And they certainly can’t be bought. But if one does a really fine job, something to benefit other people—people in need . . . Oh, I’m no good at explaining things, but surely you understand what I mean . . .”. She broke off. “If you had practised as a doctor you would know . . . and I think—please forgive me, David—I’m sure you would have been a much happier man.”

Again he kept silence, biting his lip, and switching with his steel-pointed stick at the iced lumps of snow turned back by the passage of farm wagons. She was enunciating, naively, a humanitarian cliché. And yet, wasn’t there more than a grain of truth in what she said? In the pursuit of the rewards of this world, had he found anything but heartache, ennui, recurrent dissatisfactions and regrets, and a bunch of neurotic complexes which had more than once brought him to the verge of a breakdown?

“Dear Kathy!” With sudden self-pity and a rush of sentiment. “I’ve always wanted to be good, and to do good, but circumstances have been too much for me.”

“You are good,” she said earnestly. “It’s—it’s looking out of your face. You only need the opportunity to prove it to yourself.”

“Do you honestly believe that?”

“With all my heart.”

“My God, Kathy—if you knew what my life had been, what I’ve endured until . . . well, virtually, until I met you.” Emotionally, he went on: “As a young man, in India, trapped—yes, literally trapped—into a disastrous marriage and then, for years, the American treadmill, trying to get on . . . on . . . on, finding some refuge in the arts, but only a temporary respite, make-believe, really never achieving true satisfaction though deluding myself that I had. It all springs from my poor unwanted childhood. The whole tree of my life, roots, stem, and branch, was formed then. I’ve been told,” he refrained from mentioning Wilenski, “I know it too, all my present being comes from those early years when I had nobody but myself.”

“All that you’ve said only convinces me that you still can do great things.”

He was too moved to reply and they continued in constrained silence. But her words vibrated in his mind and he felt that she was right—the potential for high achievement still lay within him. What was that line? “Do noble deeds, not dream them all day long.” He remembered suddenly the last advice Wilenski had given him on leaving New York: “When you get over there, for heaven’s sake find yourself something worthwhile to do, something to do with other people, that’ll take your mind off yourself.” Why had he ignored, forgotten this? It had taken Kathy to remind him. Her sweetness and goodness, the purity of her being—he did not shrink from the phrase—had worked on him unconsciously, affected him without his knowing it. How could it have been otherwise?

He was about to speak when, looking up, he saw they had reached the mountain hut where on a previous occasion they had stopped for coffee. It was a poor brew made from some inferior powder, but it was hot, Kathy had appeared to like it, and the peasant woman, skirt kilted over her striped petticoat, was already welcoming them. They sat down on the wooden terrace, in the cold sunshine, both conscious of something momentous and unavoidable developing between them. Nervously, he began drumming on the table, took a quick incautious sip of coffee, spilling it slightly, for his hand shook, then said suddenly:

“I do admit, Kathy, that everyone ought to have some worthy objective in life. I had hoped to find it in devoting myself to you here. But now—it begins to seem as though something more is being demanded of me.”

“What, David?” Her lips were trembling.

“Can’t you guess? You’re the one who’s made me feel it, not only by speaking out now, but simply by your presence. Kathy,” he murmured, in a low, reaching-out voice, “all other considerations apart, do you really need me?”

She looked at him, drawn beyond endurance.

“How can you ask that?” Then with a sudden weakening of control, pitifully avoiding his eyes: “I need you so much . . . I want you to come with me.”

It was out at last, she had been forced to say it, the unspoken longing that until now she had kept locked up within her breast. He gazed at her in a shaken silence of revelation, realising that he had wanted and waited for that plea through all these recent days of strain.

“You mean,” he said slowly, demanding more, at least a repetition, “to take the trip out with you?”

“No, no . . . to stay.” She spoke almost feverishly. “As a doctor, there’s the greatest need for you. Uncle Willie is planning a little hospital adjoining the orphanage. You would find there the very work you are fitted for, which in your heart you are seeking. And we would be together, working together, happy.”

“To be with you, Kathy,” he conceded feelingly, “I’d give my right arm. But think of the changes it would mean, in my—my way of living for one thing. Then again, it’s some time, since I took my medical degree.”

“You could brush up quickly—you’re so clever. And you’d get used to the life.”

“Yes, dear Kathy, but there are other difficulties.” The inordinate desire to be pressed further made him go on. “Financial affairs that require constant attention, responsibilities; then as regards the mission, you know I’m not a religious man. While agreeing with what you’ve just said, I doubt if I could surrender my mind to your spiritual convictions.”

“The work you’d do is the best kind of religion. In time, David, you would know the meaning of grace. Oh, I can’t speak of such things, I never could, in words they become stiff and wooden, I can only feel them in my heart. And you would too . . . if you’d only come.”

Their hands glided together. Hers, from inner strain, was cold, a marble hand; he held it tightly until the blood began to throb. Never had he felt closer to her. All her soul seemed to flow into him.

The arrival of the peasant woman cut into this splendid moment. While he looked up at her, unseeingly, she pointed to the northern sky and said, practically:

“Es wird Schnee kommen. Schau’n sie, diese Wolken. Es ist besser Sie gehen zurück nach Schwansee.”

“She’s advising us to get back home.” Returning to earth, he answered Kathy’s inquiring glance. “Snow is forecast and it’s already clouding over.”

He paid the score, leaving generous trinkgeld, and they set off back along the ridge, now in total silence, for he was deep in thought. The air had turned grey, cold and very still and the sun was dropping fast behind the mountains like a great blood-orange. Within the hour they had descended to the flatlands and, worried for her in the chill twilight, he looked forward to reaching the villa quickly. But as they were about to cross the short stretch of main road that intersected the path to Schwansee, a red sports M.G. flew past, hesitated, screeched to a stop, and noisily reversed towards them.

“Hello, hello, hello,” came the effusive greeting in high-pitched tones. “I felt sure it was you, dear boy.”

Jarred out of his meditation, Moray recognised with misgiving the brass-buttoned blazer of Archie Stench. Leaning airily out of the window from the driver’s seat, smiling with all his teeth. Stench extended a gloved hand which Moray accepted with the forced affability of extreme annoyance. The solemn pattern of the afternoon was shattered.

“This is Miss Urquhart, daughter of an old friend,” he said quickly, bent on extinguishing the suggestive gleam already glittering slyly in Stench’s eye. “Her uncle, a missionary in Central Africa, is joining her in two days time.”

“But how inter-esting.” Archie split and stressed the word. “Coming here?”

“For a brief visit,” Moray nodded coldly.

“I should like to meet him. Africa is in the news, and how. The wind of change. Ha, ha. Dear old Mac. It’s quite a breeze now in the Congo. Are you enjoying your stay, Miss Urquhart? You are staying with Moray, I presume?”

“Yes,” Kathy replied to both questions. “But I shall be leaving soon.”

“Not for wildest Africa?” Ogling, Stench threw out the question facetiously.

“Yes.”

“Good Lord!” Stench thrilled. “You’re really serious? Sounds like quite a story. You mean you’re in the missionary racket—sorry, I mean business—yourself?”

Kathy half smiled, to Moray’s annoyance, as though taking no exception to Stench’s persistence.

“I am a nurse,” she explained, “and I’m going out to help my uncle—he’s opening a hospital at Kwibu, on the Angola border.”

“Good work!” Stench glowed. “While everyone’s running away from that windy area you’re rushing in. The nation ought to hear about it. We British have to keep the flag flying. I’ll drop over when your uncle arrives. You’ll give me a drink, dear boy, just for old lang syne? Well, got to be off. I’m all in. Been down at the Pestalozzi Village doing a conjuring show for the kids. Sixty kilometres each way. Damn bore. But decent little brats. Cheerio, Miss Urquhart; chin-chin, dear boy. Wonderful to have you back!”

As he drove off Archie called out, ensuring his prospective visit:

“Don’t forget, I’ll be giving you a ring.”

“He seems nice,” Kathy remarked conversationally, when they had crossed the road. “Good of him to entertain those children.”

“Yes, he’s always up to something like that. But—well, a bit of a bounder I’m afraid,” Moray answered in the tone of one unwillingly forced to condemn, adding, as though this accounted for everything, “Correspondent for the Daily Echo.”

The unfortunate meeting at this particular moment, when vital soul-subduing issues surged in his mind, had thoroughly put him out. Stench was a menace. Confound it, he thought, brought back to the mundane, in half an hour news of his return with Kathy would be all over the canton.

Indeed, no sooner had they got back and taken tea than the phone rang.

“Put it through to the study,” he told Arturo briefly. “Excuse me for a few minutes, dear Kathy. Friend Stench has been at work.”

Upstairs, he unhooked the receiver, pressed the red button with an irritable premonition immediately confirmed by Madame von Altishofer’s contralto overtones.

“Welcome home, dear friend! I heard only this moment that you were returned. Why did you not let me know? It has been so long. You have been missed greatly; everyone is talking about your mysterious absence. Now, how soon may I come to see you, and your exciting young visitor who has designs on darkest Africa?”

It was amazing how disagreeable he found this intrusion—not only what she said, but her manner, her inverted English, even her modulated well-bred voice. He cleared his throat, launched into a perfunctory explanation, the essence of which was simply that the demands of old family friends had detained him much longer than he had anticipated.

“Relatives?” she queried politely.

“In a way,” he said evasively. “When my other guest arrives I hope you’ll come over and meet them both.”

“But before, you must come to me for a drink.”

“I wish I could. But I have so many things to attend to, after being away.” Looking out of the window he saw that the first frail snowflakes were beginning to drift down. He seized upon the topic. “Good gracious! It’s actually snowing. I’m afraid we’re in for an early winter.”

“No doubt,” she said, with a little laugh. “But are we reduced to speaking of the weather?”

“Of course not. We’ll get together soon.”

Frowning, he hung up, terminating the conversation, annoyed at her interference—no, that was totally unjust; despite her Germanic strong-mindedness she was a thoroughly nice woman and he had perhaps over-encouraged her. He was very much on edge. Again he had a strange feeling that time was closing in upon him. Downstairs he was disappointed to find that Kathy had gone to her room. She did not appear again until dinner, and then he saw, that, to please him, she had put on the green dress. Touched to the heart, he knew that there was only one woman in the world for him. He wanted her with a need so extreme he had to turn away without his usual compliment, without a word. All evening, despite his efforts to entertain, he was not himself—preoccupied, obsessed rather, with the need of achieving some decision, in the ever-dwindling hours at his disposal. After he had played a few records she must have seen that he wished to be alone, for on the plea of fatigue she went early to bed, leaving him in the library.

Chapter Twelve

When she had gone he stood for several minutes listening to her light movements in the room above. Then, automatically, he began to slip the long-playing discs into their polythene covers and to replace them in the cabinet. He half opened one of the three tall windows and peered across the terrace into the night. The snow, beginning with light flurries, had fallen steadily all through the late afternoon, gentle, silent, clouding the air with great drifting flakes. Now the garden was blanketed, nothing visible beyond, life seemed extinguished. No sounds disturbed the unnatural stillness but the abandoned wail of a paddle boat groping its way across the shrouded lake, and the faint whine of the bise springing up, imperceptible at first, but gaining in force. He well knew that wind, spiralling down from the mountains with immediate violence, and recognised through all his senses the portents of a storm. Within five minutes, as he had foreseen, the wind was howling round the house, creaking the shutters and tearing at the roof tiles. The air, turned colder, edged the whirling flakes with ice. They fell sharper, mixed with a heavy spattering hail and clots of driven snow. The trees, unseen but plainly audible, had begun that familiar mad fandango which, mingling Berlioz with the blast, he had so often dramatised for his own entertainment.

But his mood was too disturbed to permit of Berlioz. Wagner would have been more appropriate, he reflected grimly, something like the Ride of the Valkyries, but he had no heart for anything, could think only of the fateful decision he must make, and of her. He shut the window and pulled the tasselled cord that drew the pale pink quilted curtains, wondering if she were asleep, or if, as seemed probable, the storm had disturbed her. The thought of her lying there, alone, listening wide-eyed to the harsh discords of the night! If only he might go to her. But of course he could not. God, how restless he was, he must compose himself, try to clear his mind. Taking a book from the shelves, a new biography of Lord Curzon, he threw himself into a chair. But he could not settle to read, not even of Curzon, a man he deeply admired, had in fact unconsciously adopted as an exemplar. His attention wavered, the words ran together into a meaningless blur. He got up, looked at the Tompion longcase clock: only half past ten: too early for bed, he’d never sleep. Never. In the drawing-room he began to pace up and down, head bowed, without a glance towards his paintings, so often a consolation in the past. He felt unendurably hot, suppressed an inordinate impulse to go out on to the snowbound terrace, went instead to the pantry and turned down the thermostat. No sounds came from the kitchen; Arturo and Elena had retired to their own quarters. Even they had shown signs of disquiet lately, as though waiting, uneasily, for an announcement. Returning to the drawing-room, he was about to resume his pacing when forcibly he drew up short, facing at last the core of his problem.

Once it had been established, finally, that she would not stay, only one possible course of action remained open to him. Though he had stubbornly evaded the issue, he saw that from the beginning, when he set eyes on her in Markinch churchyard, the end had been inevitable, part of his destiny. It was the pressing need to amend his life that in the first instance had brought him back to his native land. Now she offered the very opportunity he sought, and with it all the wonder of her love. How could he refuse? She had become an absolute necessity to him. If he should lose her through vacillation or stupidity, life would be impossible. Hadn’t he learned that lesson from his sad youthful mistake? He must accompany her to Kwibu, give himself up completely to the work ordained for him. And why not? It was splendid work. He truly wanted to be the new person she would make of him. And he would be. It was not too late. It was not impossible. Others had found that saving spark, and in comparable manner. He had read of them, tortured men in spiritual travail, who discovered themselves in strange suspenseful backgrounds, habitually tropical, and at the last gasp.

“I’ll go,” he said out loud. “It’s the only way.”

When he had spoken these thrilling words, he experienced an immediate singing sensation of release. He felt lighter suddenly, freed, as if a load had been lifted from his shoulders. What a liberation—almost a transfiguration! Was it what they called a conversion? She had spoken of grace, and now he seemed not alone to sense its meaning, but actually to feel it flowing into and through him. A sweet ichor, a fountain of light—the words came to him as, with head thrown back, he looked upwards, deeply and genuinely moved, experiencing fully this moment of beatitude, even feeling himself, though distantly, in touch with Heaven. He could not yet ascend to the heights, he had been earthbound too long, and so he did not attempt a prayer, but that—later perhaps—might come.

Slowly, he relaxed. It was done, the die heroically cast. Gladness overwhelmed him. And how easy it had been, simply an acceptance of the truth and an offering of himself. Why had he hesitated so long, keeping her waiting in an agony of protracted uncertainty? For she had suffered, poor little thing, perhaps more acutely than he. If only he could tell her now, spare her these extra hours of suspense. Yet would it be quite proper? Right and reason were on his side. But no, he felt it might scarcely be correct. Well, at least he would rest with a mind at peace.

After standing motionless for several minutes he switched off the lights and went slowly upstairs to his room. Still inspired, warm with salvation, he took a tepid bath and his usual dust with talcum, put on his sleeping coat, morocco slippers and dressing gown, sat down on the edge of his bed. He must really turn in. Yet the excitement of his decision kept mounting within him. His good news simply would not keep, physically he could not contain it. Was she asleep? If not, it would be only Christian charity to deliver the good tidings now, in person. He got up, hesitated, speculatively opened his door, and gazed across the long upper landing. Then, holding his breath, he tiptoed cautiously, without a single creak, over the thick Wilton carpet towards her room.

The wind, still roaring outside, intensified the inner stillness of the darkened landing as he paused outside her door. He almost turned back. Then, his pulse sounding in his ears, he tapped upon the panel, gently turned the handle.

“Kathy,” he whispered, “are you awake?”

An immediate stirring in the darkness answered him, even before her startled voice came back.

“David!”

“Don’t be alarmed, dear Kathy. I thought the storm might have kept you awake. And as you are . . . I have something important to tell you.”

Feeling his way forward, he came to the bed and knelt down beside it. Faintly, he could see the outline of her head upon the pillow, of a bare arm resting upon the counterpane. He touched it lightly, reassutingly.

“Kathy, dearest. Kathy. My mind is made up. I had to let you know at once. I am coming with you.”

“David!” she said again, in a soft thrilling whisper. He could feel the sudden joy that took possession of her, every nerve in her seemed alive. “Oh, thank you—thank you, from my heart.”

“You’re not angry with me . . . for disturbing you?”

“Angry! Oh, my dear, I’ve been lying here, longing and longing to hear what you have just told me.”

“I couldn’t bear the thought of you waiting, through what might have been a sleepless night.” He paused. “Now I am here, may I stay a little while and talk?”

“Yes, stay, stay. I am wide awake now. Shall I switch on the lamp?”

“No, dearest. I can see you clearly now.”

“And I can see you.” She gave a low joyful sigh. “Oh, I’m so happy. Do you know what I was half dreaming, just before you came in?”

“Tell me, dear.”

“That we were out in Kwibu together and that Uncle Willie . . .” she hesitated, then opened her heart, “that Uncle Willie was marrying us in the Mission church.”

“And so he will, dear Kathy.”

They remained looking at each other. His heart, swelling in his side, was a pain and a delight. With gentle fingers he began gently to stroke her arm.

“I am still thinking of our future,” she went on in a lulled, dreamy voice. “All settled. You and I together.”

Outside rain and hail kept drumming on the window, then came a flash and a crack of thunder. He shivered slightly.

“Dear David, you are cold. Please get a rug to cover yourself.”

“It is chilly.” A lump rose in his throat, yet he spoke reasonably, with calm moderation. “If you could share the counterpane, we could bundle—like they do in the Islands at home. There’s so much we have to say to one another.”

A moment later he lay beside her, but in the semi-darkness, fumbling to lift the counterpane, almost inadvertently, he had raised also the blanket and linen sheet that covered her. Her face was close to his on the pillow. At first she had turned rigid, lying so still he thought she had ceased to breathe, then he felt that she was trembling. Quickly he reassured her.

“Dearest, you know I don’t mean to distress you.”

“But David . . .”.

“I respect and cherish you more than anything in the world.”

Gradually, very slowly, she relaxed. The warmth of her young body came to him through her cotton nightdress. The rain hissed down the gutters and thunder rolled and echoed amongst the mountains. Half turning, he pressed his lips against her hair.

“David, this is wrong,” she said at last, in a breaking voice. “Please don’t let us do a wrong thing.”

“Darling,” he said, with deep conviction, “how could it be wrong? We are already one in the sight of Heaven.”

“Yes, David, but please let us wait, dear.”

“Don’t you love me enough?”

“Oh, I do—I do—so much that it hurts. But we’d be so sorry, after.”

“No, dear Kathy, love like ours is itself a forgiveness.”

“But David . . .”.

“And surely my—our mutual pledge makes this moment a sacred one.” He could feel the struggle within her. He murmured earnestly: “It cannot be wrong, dear, when in only a few days, almost a matter of hours, Willie will marry us.”

He took her in his arms, inhaling the scent of her fresh young skin. How thin and slight she was, how young, and how violently her little heart was beating against his breast, like a bird just captured and fluttering in its cage.

“No, David, dearest.”

Then, nature overcame, released her from conscience. Sighing, she put both her hands behind his neck and kissed him fiercely. “I cannot help it. I love you so much it’s . . . like dying.”

A consciousness of rectitude welled up in him. Whispering, he sought to still her trembling. Pure unprofane sex was no sin, a sanctification rather, almost an act of worship—that had been said recently, ecclesiastically, had it not?—in a court of law. Tenderly enclosing her, he readjusted his embrace, but with prayerful gentleness. How sweet at last to taste the slow pleasure, the mounting rapture, all in the odour of sanctity. Later, as he felt her tears on his cheek, he sighed, appeased, though still exalted.

“You are crying. But why, dear child?”

“I’m afraid for what we’ve done, David.”

“Was it not sweet for you too, my love?”

“Yes, it was sweet,” her voice stifled in the pillow. “But it was a sin, David, and God will punish us.”

“No, dearest. He knows. He will understand. And if you think it was just a little wrong, you know we will make up for it.”

She is different from her mother, he thought dreamily, as of a shadow passing before him. Mary had no regrets. Yet she too had turned religious, in the end.

“Don’t, dear,” he said soothingly, wiping her hot sad face with the cool entangled sheet. “Think of our work—of the happiness that lies ahead of us.”

“Yes, David.” Striving obediently to check her tears, she clung to him. “I am trying . . . thinking of you and me, David, in the little Mission church.”

Chapter Thirteen

At Zurich airport, striding to and fro between the flower stall and the newspaper kiosk that flanked the exit of the douane, Moray expanded his chest with a long deep breath, suffused by a new sense of the joy of living. The sensation was so strong he smiled involuntarily, and it was a proud smile. Often he had experienced a delightful consciousness of himself, but never before with such intensity as now. He had seen the Super-Constellation land, it could be no more than a matter of minutes before Willie appeared. Admittedly he was nervous, and for that reason, among others, had managed to persuade Kathy not to accompany him, explaining that for her so emotional a reunion was best conducted in private. In any event, she was still rather agitated, not yet quite herself. When he looked into her room before leaving for the airport, he had been concerned to find her kneeling in contrite prayer. But while he respected these tender scruples, they would pass. If he himself felt a twinge of compunction, he was sustained by the inner consciousness that he was at last on the way he had sought so long, loved for the vital decision he had taken, a man with a mission in life, soon to savour the joy of energetic action the thrill of enthusiasm, the sacred peace of duty accomplished. Rising early, he had squared his shoulders against the task ahead. Already the latest medical textbooks had been ordered by telephone, inquiries sent out as to tropical equipment, consideration given to the adjustment and settlement of his affairs. Looking back he now regarded the emptiness, the falsity, of his previous life with shamed and scornful self-contempt. But the future prospect exonerated him, filled him with the double anticipation of spiritual regeneration and the sweetness of continued love.

He paused abruptly in his promenading. Customs examination was over, the passengers of the big Trans-World plane from Luanda via Lisbon were filing through the glass doors, and there, at the end of the line, came a tall, emaciated-looking man with sloping shoulders, carrying a small blue airlines zipper bag, dressed in an open-necked drab shirt and a thin khaki service suit, the blouse with flat pockets suggestive of the war-time pattern. He wore no hat and his streaky sun-bleached hair had the same colour as his face which, lined and sunken, was of a withered yellow. But his eyes, though hollow in their orbits, were still youthful, almost unnaturally bright, and, meeting them across the crowd, Moray knew that, unmistakably, this was Willie.

They shook hands. Then to Moray’s relief—for despite his newfound faith in himself he had experienced a sudden wilting inrush of near-panic—Willie smiled.

“You knew me,” he said. “And I knew you, too.”

“Wonderful to see you again. Kathy is expecting you at the house. Was it a good flight? Have you had lunch?” In his excitement Moray almost babbled, there was so much he wanted to say, to explain, all in one breath.

Willie did not want lunch but said he would be glad of a cup of coffee.

“You feel the cold, coming back,” he added mildly.

And no wonder, thought Moray. No overcoat and such an outfit. Aloud he said:

“We’ll go immediately your luggage is brought out.”

“This is it.” Willie indicated the zipper bag. “All I need. Some shirts and a pack of coloured slides. You know I can’t stay long.”

In the café below the restaurant the waitress brought two steaming cups. As Willie applied himself to his, Moray took a painful yet purposeful inspiration.

“I want to explain everything to you, Willie . . . in the hope of your forgiveness. It’s a long tragic story, but perhaps you’ll listen, for it has a—I fully believe—a good ending. You see, when I . . .”.

“Don’t,” said Willie, fixing the other with tired, brilliant eyes. “That’s all in the past and forgotten. Human beings should not judge one another. I had your cable and Kathy’s letter. So not another word.”

An immense wave of gratitude flowed over Moray, so warm and overwhelming it left him speechless. In total silence he sat watching Willie nursing the hot cup, drinking in little gulps. If there seemed no flesh on his body, there was less on his hands; the fingers holding the cup were skeletal. He noticed also that Willie had a marked tic which periodically caused his head to jerk laterally, exposing a scar that ran from one side of the neck to the larynx.

“I see you’ve spotted my beauty scratch.” Willie had caught his eye. “One of my old scoundrels was a prize spear-thrower in the early days. Now he’s my chief catechist. It doesn’t trouble me much, though once in a while I lose my voice. It was worth it.”

All this was said in such a natural lighthearted manner as to impress Moray even more. He’d have given a lot, there and then, to announce the intention that burned inside him. But no, Kathy had claimed the privilege of imparting this sensation, linked to the news of their marriage, so with all his newfound self-denial he refrained, saying instead:

“If you’re ready we may as well be off.”

In the station wagon Moray turned the heating full on, but they hadn’t gone far before he observed that Willie was shivering. He wanted to stop and offer his overcoat, but this, although St Francis of Assisi had set the precedent, struck him as officious in the present case. Yet his heart glowed towards Willie. Dressed as he was, with that explosive tic and his strange shivering remoteness, Willie looked odd, extremely odd, but there was something real about him, he was undoubtedly a man. Already Moray had identified himself with him and, half turning, while still keeping one eye on the road, he said:

“If I had some idea of your plans, it would enable me to make the best possible arrangements for your stay.”

“I’m due in Edinburgh on the eleventh. Let’s see,” Willie reflected, “that’s three days from now. I’ve some serious matters to put before my committee. And a lecture to deliver in the Usher Hall. Kathy,” he added, “had better come along to help me and collect her gear.”

“Must you both go so soon?” Moray exclaimed in a disappointed tone. “I’d banked on keeping you for some time.”

“It’s all very pressing. We shall not stay long in Edinburgh but work down to London, lecturing on the way. I’m needed at the Mission. So I’ve arranged to fly back to Kwibu on the twenty-first.”

“Good heavens, that’s sooner than we expected—less than two weeks from today. And I did want to do something for you here.”

Already, at the back of his mind, Moray had felt the need of a definite act to mark his departure from Schwansee. He meant to go off with a bang. No hole-and-corner business, no slinking off, he’d march out with head high and flags flying. And now, under the stress of urgency, this idea took definite form: he’d have a farewell party, introduce Willie to a gathering of his friends, there would be a frank declaration by himself, an appropriate speech by Willie—ah, that suggested an added attraction.

“You say you’re to deliver some lectures?”

“They call it a lecture.” Willie smiled. “Just a little descriptive talk about the Mission, chiefly our beginnings there, illustrated by coloured slides. I only do it to raise funds.”

“Then,” said Moray warmly, “why don’t you raise some here? Give the lecture in my house tomorrow. I can promise you a substantial response.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Willie said, after a moment’s thought. “I’m not much of a speaker. At least I could run through some of it.”

“Good, then that’s settled.”

They were now beyond Lachen, on the last stretch of their journey, yet the dazzling view of the mountains which presented itself brought no comment from Willie. Instead Moray became increasingly aware that his companion, drawn up in the corner of the seat and despite the fact that the station wagon had become excessively warm, was enduring a sharp return of his earlier shivering fit. Momentarily neglecting the road, Moray turned full round to find the other’s over-bright gaze bent apologetically upon him.

“Don’t mind me,” Willie said. “I felt this coming on in the plane. Just a little snatch of fever.”

Reverting to eyes front, Moray groped along the seat and found Willie’s bony fingers. They were dry and hot.

“Good heavens, man, you’re obviously getting a temperature. You must go to bed immediately when we get back.”

Selecting an interlude between the rigors, Willie smiled.

“If I lay down every time I had a temperature I’d never be up.”

“What is it?” Moray asked, after a pause. “Malaria?”

“It could be. But then I’ve so many interesting bugs inside me—amoebae, cocci, trypanosomes, and whatnot—one never knows.”

“Surely not trypanosomes?”

“Oh, yes, I’ve had a go of sleeping sickness. Then I did have to be flat on my back.”

“We’ll stop at the chemist’s and at least get you some quinine.”

“Thank you, David, you’re a goodhearted chap. However, I’ve had a staple diet of quinine so long it’s stopped doing any good. I stoke up with atabrine and paludrin occasionally, though actually it’s better to let the bugs fight it out amongst themselves. If you leave them alone the different strains go into battle and knock each other out.”

Good God, thought Moray, staring straight ahead and frowning, this man is a hero or a saint—or else he’s a little bit dotty.

But now they were in Schwansee and, turning up the hill from the lake, into the winding avenue lined with acacia trees, Moray drew up at his house. Immediately Kathy rushed from the porch—she had been waiting more than an hour for the sound of the car.

Watching the reunion of uncle and niece, Moray suffered a twinge of jealousy that it should be so affectionate. But, manfully, he dismissed the unworthy sentiment—Kathy, he well knew, was all his own. He smiled at her meaningly.

“Show Willie to his room, my dear. I’m sure you have lots to say to him.”

When he had washed and restored himself with a quick glass of amontillado he went into the library to wait for her. She was a long time in coming down, and although he occupied himself by drawing up a list of the people he meant to invite to the lecture party—Arturo would telephone them later in the day—he had begun to feel anxious at the delay when the door swung open and she appeared. Her cheeks were flushed, she flew like a homing dove straight into his arms.

“I’ve explained everything. Uncle Willie is coming down to have a talk with you, so I won’t stay. I think it’s all right. I’m sure he likes you . . . And, oh, dearest David, I’m happy again.”

When she had gone, he waited with a touch of apprehension, aware of the many points on which he might be interrogated. But when Willie arrived his expression, with its mixture of patience and kindness, was far from intimidating. Standing there, with his sloping shoulders and thin, dangling hands, his bones seemed loosely strung together under the thin, parchment-dry skin. He looked at Moray from under his brows with those bright, luminous eyes, in an embarrassed manner, made evident by an exacerbation of his tic.

“Kathy has told me,” he said. “I could be glad for all our sakes. She wants you. I want you. But . . .” he hesitated, “do you really want to come? I think you should consider that question carefully before you proceed.”

Moray, who had hoped for warm acceptance, perhaps even for congratulations, stared at Willie, disappointed and at a loss.

“I have considered it. And I do want to come. Of course . . .” his eyes fell, “I suppose you’ve good reason to distrust me.”

“No, no, it’s not that, David. I only feel that you must be strongly attached to your own way of life. Perhaps that life may call you back in spite of yourself. You may not succeed in breaking away from it.”

“You misjudge me,” Moray protested seriously, with unmistakable sincerity. “My life, my old life; has become obnoxious to me. For a long time, even before I set eyes on Kathy, I had felt how empty and trivial it was—a useless existence. Now I know that I needn’t be a slave to the past, that it’s possible for me to make what I will of myself. I’m determined to build a new—a happy life.”

“A happy life,” Willie repeated, as though reflecting on the words. “When you say that, are you not thinking only of yourself? That kind of life has no part in our work. Happiness should never be regarded as an end in itself—it is found only in a total absence of concern about oneself. If you come with us you’ll be called on to do many things which are neither pleasant nor enjoyable.”

“I recognise that,” Moray said, in a hurt voice, not without dignity. “But with Kathy at my side, and your help, I believe I can acquit myself creditably. At least I will try.”

There was a stillness during which Willie gazed intently at Moray. His eyes were guileless but held something searching in their depths. Then he smiled and held out his hand.

“I believe you will,” he said, with sudden cheerfulness. “And if you do, you will be rewarded in a manner far beyond your present expectation. I believe, David, that anyone who has been accorded talents such as yours must devote them to the service of his fellow men. If he does he’ll achieve the ultimate purpose of every man’s being. If he does not he will be consumed by unhappiness and sooner or later suffer an atrocious punishment. So for your sake as well as my own I rejoice in your decision. It’s all settled then. And I may now tell you how much your help will mean to me—you and Kathy, doctor and nurse, a team of husband and wife working together, it’s a gift straight from the Lord.”

Chapter Fourteen

Moray’s sense of the dramatic had been a feature of his character even in those early days when he had so carefully built up that thrilling surprise for Mary in demonstrating the wonders of Glenburn Hospital and the little house which, alas, they were never to occupy. As a different man, and in a different cause, yet with unchanged enthusiasm, he had resolved to make his farewell party for Willie’s lecture an occasion that would be remembered in Schwansee long after he had gone. His preparations had been elaborate, and now the day, the hour, and the moment had arrived. They were here, all his friends, seated expectantly in a neat semicircle in the drawing-room where, against the closed double doors, a white screen had been unrolled. A projector, hired for the occasion, stood on a Pembroke table at the other end, already connected to an electric point.

From the beginning, when Leonora Schutz arrived in a new hat with Dr Alpenstuck, quickly followed by little Gallie and Archie Stench, who had given her a lift, then by Madame Ludin and her husband, and finally, after an anxious interval, by Frida von Altishofer, the party had gone well, progressively enlivened by his excellent buffet and superlative champagne. Leonora was in a gay mood, her laugh ascending with an extra trill; Stench, wandering around, glass in hand, kept repeating, “Lavish, dear boy. Indubitably lavish,” while little Gallie, handbag at the ready, kept smiling to herself that secret, self-contained smile of the very deaf. One did not expect an equal response from the placid Ludins but even they had responded to the current of anticipation in the air. Moray was pleased—perhaps Archie had been active, dropping hints in his usual fashion, but not enough, he hoped, to spoil his final surprise. Once or twice, glancing at Madame von Altishofer, who partook sparingly of the good things, he wondered how much she guessed of his decision, and a queer conviction came over him that already though by what means he could not decide, she knew. Yet her manner, pleasantly amiable, so especially nice towards Kathy, altogether so completely at ease—occasionally he had even caught her eyes resting upon him quizzically—gave no indicaton of the disappointment he might have expected of her. He could only commend her breeding and hope, charitably, that memories of their friendship would survive unimpaired.

What did particularly gratify him was the success, deserved though unexpected, of his two house guests, Kathy especially, though he might have wished her a little less nervous, more socially at ease. Still, Madame Ludin and the vivacious Leonora made much of her, while the ubiquitous Archie hovered unsteadily around, full of giggling compliments. Willie, too, though at first, because of his unclerical appearance, rather oddly regarded, had soon proved a centre of sympathetic interest. Observing them both, Moray was filled with a warm sense of comradeship. He had never felt happier. He was like a schoolboy breaking up at the end of term, going off for the holidays. How satisfying, how charged with anticipation these last three days had been, days of cosy intimacy during which they had held long talks, discussed plans, grown together into a close-knit partnership. The sweetness of Kathy’s presence, the joy of knowing that she loves him, had been intensified by Willie’s presence. To be with Willie was to realise the value of the work that he, himself, would do. Yes, amazing, in this short time, the effect Willie had produced upon him, by his practical, human cheerfulness, even by his silences. Inspired, Moray told himself repeatedly how glad he was to have linked his life with a character so transparently simple yet strong—and, with it all, so good. Somehow you felt that Willie loved the whole human race.

And now it was time for him to give his lecture. Moray stepped forward and, taking him by the arm, led him towards the circle of chairs. As he did so, he was swept again by a deep, sincere wave of feeling, of affection, and more, for this thin, sickly string of a man in the faded khaki suit. He rapped with his knuckles on the occasional table, causing a cessation of chatter and a polite craning of necks.

“Ladies and gentlemen, or rather good friends all, my dear friend the Rev. Willie Douglas will now deliver his address. Afterwards I may have just a few words to say to you.”

Facing his audience, who had come mainly from curiosity, in the secret expectation of an entertainment such as might be given by some eccentric performer, like a conjurer producing rabbits out of a hat, Willie stood awkwardly, a lanky and ungainly figure, his arms hanging loosely from his sloping shoulders, his neck twitching faster than usual. But he was smiling, a gentle and remote smile that humanized all his oddity.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he told them mildly, “I’m not going to preach at you, or lecture you either, for that matter. Instead, I think it might interest you to hear how, with God’s help, a little Christian colony was built from nothing in the remote wilderness of Central Africa. And please don’t hesitate to interrupt if you have any questions to ask; or if I’m not making things clear.”

Moving over to the projector he cleared his throat and, in an informal conversational manner, went on:

“First of all, how did we get there? It wasn’t so easy, twenty years ago. Usually missionaries go out from our headquarters in Melopo two or three together, but that wasn’t possible in this instance. All that could be spared me was a native catechist, but he was a fine man, baptised Daniel—I’ll show you his photograph presently. Well, off we started, bound for the Kwibu district in the extreme north-east, one of the wildest parts of the borderland between Angola and the Congo. Since we wanted to take cattle with us and as the country was so rough and rocky, we had decided to use an old ox-waggon for transport instead of a truck. It was a blessing we did so, otherwise we should never have got there. I had made a few short trips around Melopo while gathering experience and learning the dialects, but this beat anything I’d ever seen. Let me give you some idea of the country we went through. It’s not the sort of country you associate with the tropics, swamps and steaming jungles and such-like, but it had a few problems of its own. Of course these photographs, and many of the others, were taken at a later date.”

In succession he showed a number of slides on the screen: deep, dried-up river beds choked with boulders, precipitous slopes of sharp-edged black rocks in tangles, of yellow scrub, thickets of thornbush so dense as to evoke a murmur from his audience.

“How on earth did you get through those, dear boy?” Archie voiced the general feeling. “Didn’t they tear you to shreds?”

“We lost a little skin.” Willie smiled. “But we averaged at least fifty yards an hour. Yet that wasn’t the worst. Just after we got through that last bit I showed you, because of my stupidity we lost our compass and wandered off the high northern tableland into the Cazar desert. It was a bad mistake—sand, deep sand, everywhere, and low scrubby bush, a waterless waste land. In the heat and blinding dust storms we ran out of water and would have fared rather badly if we hadn’t come on three Bushmen who led us to a sucking hole—a muddy pit they had dug in the sand.”

“Aren’t the Bushmen dreadful little aboriginals, with hair all over their faces?” asked Leonora, intelligently.

“These were not large, only four feet in height,” Willie answered gently. “But they were certainly not dreadful, for if they had not humanely shared their scanty supply of water, neither my companion nor I would have survived. In fact we very nearly didn’t, for presently my good catechist went down with dysentery, three of the oxen sickened and died, and I—well, by this time we were both covered with sores from tick and mosquito bites, so I got a touch of malaria. As if this wasn’t enough, the waggon chains broke and it was really a miracle that we did at last reach our destination, Kwibu, the chief village of the district and tribal headquarters of the Abatu. I have an old photograph which I took shortly after arrival.” He projected another slide on the screen. “As you see, it’s just a scattered collection of conical mud hovels roofed with palm thatch, no cultivation whatsoever, and in the background you can make out a few skeleton cattle, poor starved creatures, always covered with flies, wandering miserably around on the parched ground.

“Well, we had arrived, and were feeling pleased with ourselves, when we received a nasty shock. The chief of the Abatu wouldn’t let me enter the village. Here he is, all painted up for the occasion, and I think you’ll agree that I was not wise to press him too hard.”

“Oh dear,” Leonora thrilled with sympathy. “What a fearful old sinner.”

“Sometimes the biggest of sinners make the best of saints,” Willie smiled. “And old Tshosa hasn’t done so badly, as you’ll see. However, at that time he wasn’t too full of brotherly love, so we were obliged to up stakes and move off some distance, to higher ground above the village where there was a small clump of tacula trees and a spring. Here, first of all, we set to and built a little hut. It was hot work. I wasn’t used yet to the sweltering temperature, and the tacula wood was so tough it blunted my axe. We didn’t have any roofing material, and by now we were running very short of food supplies.”

“I was going to ask you that,” interposed Madame Ludin. “How did you live? Catering is my business and I’d be interested to know.”

“Our only food was a kind of porridge. I would boil my kettle and pour the boiling water into a bowl containing a handful of oatmeal. It sounds little enough, but it’s good solid Scotch fare and stood by us well.”

“It wouldn’t me,” exclaimed Archie. “I’m all for the liquid Scotch.”

“Anyway,” said Willie, joining in the laugh, “we had already started to make a garden and to dig ditches to carry the spring to irrigate the land. Properly watered, the grass grew amazingly quickly, we raised mealies, potatoes and Indian corn, and our remaining oxen began to thrive. All this time none of the tribe came near me; our only visitors were lions, cheetahs and an occasional rhinoceros.”

“Oh dear. Did you shoot them?” said Leonora. She was fascinated by Willie, his oddness, his tic, that marvellous sweet expression. A thought flashed through her giddy brain: if there was game, why not take Herman on safari, drop in on the Mission, like a Hemingway heroine? But he was answering her question.

“No,” he said thoughtfully. “We’ve never had a gun. They came close too, but I scared them away by throwing pebbles at them.”

“Good heavens, weren’t you afraid?”

He shook his head.

“I think we didn’t fear them because we were both terribly weak and our spirits were at a low ebb, especially when the rainy season began, continuous thunderstorms followed by a plague of white ants. Daniel and I were both ill with fever. He was so weak he had to be fed with a spoon. I didn’t seem to be doing any good; it looked as though our Heavenly Father had no use for us at all. But just when I felt ready to give up, Tshosa, the chief; suddenly appeared, at the head of a long line of his best warriors, all carrying spears. It was an alarming sight and I was very frightened, for of course I thought it was all up with us. But no, he had come bearing an offering.” Willie paused with a faint smile. “Would you like to guess what it was?”

No one seemed able to advance a suggestion but they were all listening intently.

“Well,” Willie said, “it was a bowl of blood and milk, the Abatu token of friendship. So I drank this awful brew, though it was a struggle, and communications were established between us. It appeared that they had been closely watching my gardening efforts, and now they wanted me to show them how to cultivate their dried-up land. Well, we began to work their fields for them and presently, in return, got some of the tribe—mostly women, for they did all the hard labour, poor things—to build a little church of sun-dried mud bricks. This is it.” A poor little shanty with a palmetto roof and sacking over the window and door appeared on the screen. “Here I began my first services, trying to plant the seeds of the gospel in the minds of those poor savages. Then I went often to the cattle posts to try to explain Christian principles to the men, and especially to teach the children. It wasn’t easy, we had to face primitive ignorance and ingrained superstition. And there was always the danger of a sudden mass uprising incited by those who feared the word of God because it might undermine their prestige and destroy the pagan fetishism that’s the basis of many tribal customs. For instance, I had some little trouble with this fellow.” Another slide came on the screen.

“Oh, what a horrible old man,” exclaimed Leonora. “He’s worse than the chief.”

“That’s the witch doctor and rain maker. When the droughts came, and they were frequent, his job was to dispel them with magic. And when his mumbo-jumbo didn’t work he blamed it on the bad medicine of the new religion. During my second year we had a dry spell so prolonged and serious that things looked very bad for us. I don’t think I ever prayed so hard for rain—I almost cracked the heavens.”

“And the rains came,” Leonora murmured in a dreamy voice. She already felt herself a little in love with Willie.

“No, not a drop,” Willie said calmly, and paused. “But I had a sudden idea, an inspiration if you like—that my spring, which disappeared high on the hill, might be running down the slope underground. I’d never done a stroke of water divining in my life but I cut myself a mangana twig, which was the nearest I could find to hazel, asked the good Lord to help me if He didn’t want to see His servant without a head, and started walking down the hill towards the village. By the time I got there the whole tribe were round me, watching, including our friend there on the screen. Suddenly, just outside the chief’s hut, the twig gave a twitch. I thought it might only be my shaky nerves, but I took a chance and told them to dig. Twenty feet down we came on a rushing subterranean stream that went right through the centre of the village. I couldn’t describe to you the wild scene that followed, for I was on my knees reciting the fourteenth Psalm, but since that moment we have never lacked water and it was then that I made my first converts.”

There was a ripple of interest and appreciation, a spontaneous reaction that fell warmly on Moray’s ears. Now a full partner in this splendid enterprise, he exchanged a quick communicative glance with Kathy.

Meanwhile Willie had resumed, describing the further progress of the Mission, the slow and painful emergence from darkness to light of a savage, isolated tribe. There had been setbacks of course, and some bad disasters. His original church had been burned down and when, having gained a mastery of the language, he tried to change the tribal initiation rites, in which youths and young girls were subjected to indescribable indignities, he’d had a difficult time. But for the intervention of Tshosa the entire Mission would have been wiped out. As it was, three of his converts were killed and several attempts made on his life. The following year a Swedish missionary, his nearest neighbour, ninety miles away, and his wife and two little daughters were murdered—all beheaded. It was so difficult to change the hearts of men inured to brutality and bloodshed that he had determined to concentrate on the children; by early teaching he could obtain positive results, and for this reason he had built the school and, later, the orphanage. He showed several slides of these little ones grouped around Daniel the catechist, now an old man, touching photographs which caused Leonora to exclaim: “Oh dear, aren’t the whites of their eyes so divinely pathetic.”

“Their eyes are pathetic because so many of them have trachoma. And as you see, some of the faces are pitted with smallpox scars.”

“Then it’s not a healthy district?” someone asked.

“Unfortunately not. Malaria is still endemic, sleeping sickness too, and we get a lot of hookworm and filariasis, even an odd case of leprosy.” So the main necessity was now a hospital, and—with a half smile towards Moray—he hoped to have this soon. Proper medical treatment would prove of immense benefit. Still, after nearly twenty years of continuous labour he was not ashamed of the results: the fine stone church, the school and orphanage, the proper mission house—he displayed them on the screen—all were rather different from that first mud shed. And he now had over three hundred practising church members, besides four catechists and several out-stations in the bush which he visited in rotation every month in his jeep. Needless to say, they still had their troubles. He was worried over the situation that might develop in the neighbouring province of Kasai. If the civil authority failed there, now that the Belgians were going out, there might be some disorders. And they were very near, in fact two of his new out-stations were actually across the border. Nothing had happened so far, at least nothing to speak of, but because of the possibility of trouble he must get back to the Mission quickly, to be on hand if needed.

“And now,” Willie said, with an apologetic smile, looking at the clock, “that’s about all. I only hope I haven’t bored you and that you’ll forgive me for having taken so much of your time.”

When he concluded there was a cordial round of applause, a tribute only faintly tempered by the slight note of misgiving on which the talk had ended. Encouraged by the general approbation which, through his inclusion in the scheme of medical reform, must apply in some measure to himself, Moray seized the appropriate moment and stood up. He was normally a confident speaker but now he was restrained, almost humble. Still, the words came to him.

“I think I speak for all of us, in offering warmest thanks to our good friend for his stimulating and moving discourse. His has been a supremely brave and unselfish accomplishment—an epic humanitarian achievement. Incidentally,” he added, striving for humorous parenthesis, “if you should wish to express your appreciation in more tangible form, a salver has been placed for that purpose in the hall. And now,” he followed on quickly, “if I may impose upon you for a moment, I should like to add a personal postscript to what has already been said.” He paused, almost overcome by a rush of feeling. “The truth is . . . I’ve come to a decision that may surprise you . . . but which I hope you will hear with understanding.”

A stir passed over the audience, a decided stir.

“You might imagine it to be a sudden decision. It is not. Although I’ve been happy here I’ve been conscious of a prompting, an urge, one might say, towards a more active, a more useful existence, in which my medical knowledge might be utilised, not for reward but for good. And in how remarkable a manner that intention has been given effect. Early last month it so happened that I felt myself recalled to my native country. Here I made contact with a family I had known and loved in my youth, a family, in short, of which Kathy and Willie are members. Kathy I had not known, the joy of finding her was therefore all the greater. Willie I already knew. He and I, in those early days, had been friends, he as a little lad, I as a thoughtless though striving youth, and often, during our long conversations, he had thrilled me with his boyish enthusiasm for the missionary life. And now the wheel has turned full circle.” He paused, so affected he could scarcely go on. “My friends, I don’t want to weary you with the story of a soul’s regeneration. I will say simply that I am going out with Willie to the Mission, as a doctor, and Kathy, my dear Kathy,” he moved over to where she stood beside the projector and placed his arm about her shoulders, “will be there with us, as my wife.”

Now, indeed, there was a marked reaction which took the form of an immediate silence, followed by a sudden outburst. In a hurry, everyone got up and began to speak at once. Congratulations were showered on Moray, his hand was shaken, the ladies pressed round Kathy.

“More champagne,” Stench shouted. “A toast to the bride and groom.”

Champagne was available, the toast was drunk, it seemed as though the party would begin all over again. Most encouraging of all was Madame von Altishofer’s composed acceptance of the accomplished fact. He had feared trouble, some marring exhibition of pique or displeasure, but no, her behaviour had been perfect, a smile of congratulation, gently tinged with sadness perhaps, yet a definite smile for him, and for Kathy a kiss upon the cheek.

Indeed, when half an hour later the others had begun to leave and, standing in the hall, he was speeding them on their way, she stopped briefly for a final word.

“Dear friend, I rejoice in your happiness. Such a sweet child. All that—and heaven too, with this splendid new work.”

“You are most kind, Frida.”

“Ah, I had a premonition that we should lose you, even when I was at Baden and you did not write.”

“I always knew you were intuitive,” he said guardedly.

“Unfortunately, yes. But all that is past. Now is the time to be practical, to show the value of a true friend who also is, as you say, matter-of-fact. Your déménagement in so short a time will be most difficult. You will need help, and if you wish I can give it. Your little one tells me she leaves with her splendid Willie tomorrow. I would wish to come then, but as you may be at the airport . . . yes? . . . very well, shall I come the day after?”

“You’re most thoughtful,” he said, realising after a moment’s reflection that nothing could be more acceptable. She was so capable, and already he had begun to worry about the complexity of the arrangements that must be made. “I shall expect you. And thank you.”

She smiled, and passed through the door.

Immediately he hurried back to rejoin Kathy and Willie in the salon. He took the salver from the hall table with him.

“Well, was it a success?” he asked gaily.

“It went ever so well,” Kathy said, looking flushed and happy.

“Did you think so too, Willie?”

He nodded. He was sitting down, looking tired.

“They were all very kind.”

“Let’s just see how kind,” Moray said slyly. He was in tremendous spirits. With the air of a conspirator he handed the salver to Kathy and, while she held it, began to count the money. There was a respectable heap of fifty- and hundred-franc bills and one coin—a two-franc piece.

“I bet that’s from little Gallie,” Moray laughed.

“Then it means a lot,” Willie said, unexpectedly.

“Oh, yes,” Kathy agreed warmly. “I liked her much the best.”

There was a pause, then Kathy said again:

“Haven’t you forgotten that bit of paper at the bottom?”

“Have I? Good lord, don’t tell me someone’s chipped in with a bad cheque. Take a look, Kathy.”

She gazed at the cheque, quite speechless, then she handed it to Willie. Still silent, she looked at Moray, then suddenly put her arms around his neck and kissed him.

Chapter Fifteen

Next day, at two in the afternoon, Moray arrived back from Zurich, still rather cast down by the departure of Kathy and Willie for Edinburgh on the noon plane, yet charged with vigorous purpose. Only eleven days remained before he would join them at London Airport, and much must be accomplished in that brief span; the need for immediate action was imperative. As he let himself into the house—following the departure of his guests he had given Arturo and Elena the afternoon off—he felt glad of Madame von Altishofer’s promise of assistance and hoped she would not fail to turn up next morning.

However, he had only begun to go through his mail in the study when, to his surprise, he heard the beat of her litle Dauphine in the drive. Leaving unopened the Journal of Tropical Medicine, to which he had just subscribed, and a parcel of lightweight nylon camping equipment that promised to be interesting, he went to meet her.

“Am I too prompt?” She spoke briskly, looking extremely workmanlike in a grey linen skirt and knitted grey cardigan. “I happened to see you pass in the Humber and thought not to waste the afternoon.”

“You’re quite right,” he agreed heartily, leading the way into the library. “There’s so much to do, the sooner we start the better.”

“Tell me then, what, roughly, are your plans?” She sat, not in the chair, but on the arm, indicating instant obedient readiness.

“The villa, of course, will be put on the market. Arturo and Elena will move into the chalet and act as gardiens of the property until it is sold.”

“And your things?”

“My pictures and silver must go provisionally to the bank. Their ultimate disposition will be in my lawyer’s hands—Stieger is a most reliable man. My furniture and books can remain here temporarily—quite safe if the house is shuttered.”

“These lovely books,” she exclaimed, looking at the long double rows of fine Sangorski bindings. “You cannot leave them so, in a shut-up house, or they will become altogether foxed. Every one must be separately wrapped, and that is something I can do for you.”

“Arturo . . .” he began.

“No.” She got up smilingly. “He will have enough on his hands. And he is so overthrown by your going, he is not fit for anything extra. Besides, I love books; my father had a famous library at Kellenstein. So off to your own work and leave this to me.” As he moved towards the door, she added, tactfully, but with a glance both ironic and approving: “By the way, I suppose you have read Mr Stench’s article in the Tageblatt.”

“I haven’t seen today’s papers. What article?”

“It is a piece about your party for the Mission, but there is much in it about you, and of your courage in going out there, in spite of this tribal affair. It is most flattering.”

He reddened, chiefly from pleasure, thinking of his friends in Melsburg and so many others in the canton who would read of him.

“Archie is rather a nuisance,” he said. “Though basically good at heart. I hope he didn’t overdo it. And what’s this tribal affair?”

“Apparently an outbreak of some sort, probably no more than the general unrest your friend referred to in his lecture. Now tell me, where may I find lots of wrapping paper?”

“In the pantry. Elena has stacks of it in a cupboard.”

When she went off he stirred himself and set about his first important task, to make the inventory of his antiques. This was something after his own heart and as he toured the house with paper and pen, noting down this piece and that—the Charles II red lacquer cabinet bought at the Antique Fair in London, the exquisitely mellowed Queen Anne bureau listed in Macquoid’s classic The Age of Walnut, the Louis XVI fauteuils he had bid for successfully at the Parke-Bernet Galleries—waves of recollection, of bitter-sweet nostalgia, flowed over him. It was hard to part with these costly trifles, yet never had he felt so spiritually elevated, so convinced of the merit of his renunciation. Archie Stench was right. He was doing a worth-while thing.

The tabulation was not quite complete when, at five o’clock, Madame von Altishofer found him brooding over his Elizabethan buffet in the dining-room.

“Time for tea,” she announced.

He looked up.

“Have you finished?”

“Not nearly. The books alone will take at least another half day. But workers of the world require refreshment. And I have presumed to make a few amaretti.”

The break was in fact most welcome.

“What good biscuits,” he remarked. “I never associated you with the domestic virtues.”

“One learns from necessity—and disappointments, of which I’ve had many. Please take another.”

“I shouldn’t.” He smiled deprecatingly. “The impression I’ve received lately is that I’m rather over-addicted to the pleasures of the table.”

“What nonsense,” she said spiritedly. “Now especially, to build your strength, you should be eating well. Goodness alone knows what wretched fare you will get out there.”

“I’ll be all the better for it. I supped plenty of porridge in my youth.”

“In your youth, yes, dear friend.” She smiled tolerantly. “But now?”

A brief silence followed this remark, during which she gazed round the, as yet, undenuded room, her eyes coming to rest on the lovely pastel of Madame Melo and her child.

“Do you remember the afternoon you showed me the Vuillard? It seems only yesterday, yet so much has happened in that short time. Promise me to keep your paintings on the walls until the last possible moment. You often told me you could not live without them, and certainly that you would never sell them.” Althought seemed to strike her. She hesitated, glanced away, then towards him, finally exclaimed impulsively: “Must you really sell your home? Couldn’t you keep it, well, as a kind of rest house which you could fall back on in case of need? Dear friend, I worry about you, and the last thing I wish is that you should get one of those tropical diseases that have broken up poor Willie. And what a catalogue he recited, malaria, sleeping sickness, leprosy and the rest; the poor man looks ill enough to have half of them himself. . . . But as I was saying, if you should contract something serious, at least you would, have a safe place in proper climate to recover and recuperate.”

He looked at her, at first frowning, as in doubt, then, thoughtfully. The idea had never occurred to him and, at first sight, it appeared to have considerable merit. Why should he sell out in a blind rush; he had not the slightest financial need. Besides, if he took time, with mounting property values he would undoubtedly secure a far better price. But no, no, that would be merely temporising, playing around with half-measures, a dangerous procedure at all times. He was going for good, and would not return. He shook his head decisively.

“No. I prefer to make a clean, sharp cut.”

“Yes, I suppose you are right. Always you see things so clearly, never thinking of yourself. I did wrong to make such a weak proposal, but it is because I think only of you. God knows I shall never for one moment have peace once you are out there.”

“But why, Frida? It’s not so dreadful at the Mission.”

“Oh, my friend, because you are brave and strong, don’t pretend in order to make this easier for me. You understand, better than I, the dangers that will surround you. Last night, for thinking of that poor Swedish family whose heads were hacked off, I could not sleep. If such a cruel death occurs for a man after many years of service, what might not occur to you, a newcomer.”

He glanced at her irritably, with a touch of asperity.

“For goodness’ sake, Frida, don’t exaggerate.”

“Exaggerate, because I tell you of the thoughts of one small bad night. If that were all I feared for you, I should be happy. But besides the fevers, are there not beasts of the jungle, scorching sun and torrential rains, and, worst of all, this trouble in the Congo. Mr Stench says it is beginning and must spread. And you are so near. But why am I so foolish to talk of what you already fully understand?” She stood up abruptly. “Work work, that’s what we must do, in order not to think for a moment of the future. There are some books on the high shelves of the library that I cannot reach. When I have put away the tea trolley you must hand them down to me. After that, it is time for me to rush back to Seeburg.”

He moved slowly into the library, frowning, vaguely displeased, not with her, for no one could have his interests more at heart, but rather with the manner of her presentation of the obvious. As if he did not realise what he was getting into. Absurd. The books to which she referred were mainly special full folio editions of the Paragon art series, but although his eye was cast towards them they left no conscious imprint on his retina. Finally, however, with a slight start, he came to himself, decided against fetching the step-ladder from the basement and instead brought forward the long needlepoint stool that had its place before the fireplace. Mounting, he reached up and, one at a time, began to transfer the heavy, richly clasped and padded volumes to a lower and more accessible shelf. He had almost finished when she appeared and stood watching him.

Only three books now remained at the end of the top shelf. Hurrying, he stretched up and sideways, took hold of all three. But in the effort of lifting he lost his balance and, still clutching the books above his head, was obliged to make a quick backward step off the stool that brought him safely though jarringly to the floor.

“Well done,” she complimented him. “You saved yourself most cleverly.”

“Yes . . .” he spoke through compressed lips, “but I rather think I’ve wrenched my back.”

“You did come down sharply. You must sit down and rest.”

He seated himself cautiously on the end of the stool and, with his hand pressed against the affected part, watched while she wrapped up the Paragon edition.

“Now, you are better?” she inquired, when she had finished.

“Not altogether. But it’s nothing, it’ll pass.”

“If not, you must see to it. For tonight take aspirin and get Arturo to rub you. Have you some antidolor liniment?”

“I think there’s some in the medicine cabinet.”

She continued to study him sympathetically, head on one side.

“I wish I did not have to leave you, but there. . . . Now do not forget, antidolor and aspirin, after your bath. No, don’t get up. I will let myself out. And for tomorrow, shall we say ten o’clock?”

He nodded agreement, with as little movement as possible, and, when she had gone, remained seated for several further minutes, prodding his back with a speculative finger. Then, as everything seemed intact, he got up and began, though awkwardly, to move about. The inventory was complete, he must now arrange a meeting with his lawyer. He went to the telephone, dialled Stieger’s number. It was the girl, his secretary, who answered, with that sing-song cadence which the local Swiss imparted to their school-taught English.

“I am sorree, Mr Moree, Herr Stieger is in Munich.”

“When will he be back?”

“Saturday morneeng. But if eet is important I will telephone heem.”

He reflected quickly.

“Saturday will be all right. Make an appointment for eleven a.m.”

“Very well, Mr Moree. I will myself inform Herr Stieger.”

He swung away from the phone, an injudicious movement that made him wince. Annoying that Stieger was away; he wanted everything done quickly; yes, at once. His earlier mood of vigorous confidence, a state verging on exaltation, had lapsed, he felt a longing for Kathy: the touch of her lips, her sweet glance of encouragement. For one who had always enjoyed his own society it was strange how he now disliked being alone. If only Madame von Altishofer had not been obliged to dash away—what a help she was, in his present emergency. The idea of a solitary dinner did not appeal to him, moreover he felt he owed it to himself to turn in early. He rang for Arturo, told him to prepare a tray and take it up to the study, explained the necessity of massage later on, then, passing between the piles of wrapped books, he tuned in the radio to the evening broadcast of the B.B.C. Lately he had been so preoccupied with his own affairs he had not listened to the news. But he was too late, immediately a voice said:

“That is the end of the news.”

With an exclamation he switched off and went upstairs, reminding himself to take his vitamin tablets.

Chapter Sixteen

Punctually at ten o’clock next morning the door bell rang and Arturo, with an expression more enigmatic than usual, showed Madame von Altishofer to the drawing-room where Moray, seated on the sofa before the open Dutch cabinet, was pensively contemplating his collection of Chinese porcelain.

When he had greeted her and asked to be excused from rising he waved an expressive hand.

“The futile tyranny of possessions. All this will have to be packed. When I bought it with such joy, and every piece is authentic K’hang Hsi, little did I think it would be such a nuisance in the end.”

“I will pack it.” She spoke quietly. “So it will be no nuisance. But first, how is your back?”

“No worse, I hope, though I slept badly. But I seem to have developed a queer sort of limp.”

“A limp?”

“In my right leg, when I walk.”

“Then you must see to it at once.”

“No.” He shook away the suggestion. “It can’t be serious. At least I’ll give it another day.”

Turning from the cabinet he found her gaze bent upon him in a fashion so oddly concerned it gave him quite a start.

“Is anything wrong, Frida?”

“No, no,” she said quickly, forcing a smile. “I was thinking only of your injury. I hope you will be able to go to the party this afternoon.”

“What party?”

“Why, naturally, Leonora’s.”

“I know nothing of it.”

“But surely you are invited. We are all going, all our circle. It must be a mistake that you are overlooked. So you will come with me, yes?”

He bit his lip, vexed that he should have been left out, at this last hour, already regarded by the others as a dead letter.

“I’m much too busy to go. Anyhow, the lecture party was my swan song. I’m no longer interested in Leonora’s frivolous nonsense.”

“I am sorry, my friend. I know that all is finished for you here and that you must seek society where you are going, if indeed it is possible to find it among these—these uncivilised people.”

“I shall have Willie and my dear wife,” he said sharply. “And my work will be to civilise the people.”

“But of course, you will be very happy,” she agreed in a conciliatory tone. “Still, three together is a limited group after the interesting society to which you have been accustomed. But now, no more, you have enough to worry you. I must go to finish the books. Another time, perhaps tomorrow, I will see to the porcelain.”

What’s the matter with her, he asked himself, when she had departed for the library. Yesterday she had been bright and brisk, today a subdued melancholy clouded her yellow eyes. He found the change in her mood and manner quite inexplicable.

As the forenoon wore on, he took time off from his desk, where he was busy with the settlement of ail outstanding accounts, to look in at the library—ostensibly to inspect her progress but actually to determine if her mood had changed. It had not, was indeed keyed to a lower pitch.

“Something is on your mind, Frida,” he said, on his second visit.

On one knee beside the bottom shelf, she straightened, but without looking at him.

“There is nothing, nothing.”

The evasion in her tone was only too apparent. At lunch—she had consented solely as an economy of time to remain for a light meal—he made an effort to dispel the gloom.

“You’re eating nothing. May I give you some of this salad?”

“Thank you, no.”

“Another slice of galantine.”

“Nothing more, please. I have little appetite today.”

“Then if you’ve finished, let’s take a rest on the terrace. The sun is quite strong now.”

Outside it was distinctly warm, and Wilhelm had swept away the snow and put out garden chairs. They sat down facing the marvellous skyline of the Alps.

“You have the finest view in Switzerland,” she murmured. “At least for a few more days.”

A silence followed, then thinking to please, perhaps to placate her, he said: “I hope you understand, Frida, that I will always have the highest regard for you.”

“Will you?”

“Always. Moreover, Frida, I don’t take your help for granted. I’d like you to choose something for yourself from my collection as a souvenir.”

“You are generous, my friend, but I do not care for souvenirs. Always they invoke sadness.”

“But you must. I insist.”

“Then if I am to be sad, I shall be deeply so. You shall give me the small photograph standing on the right side of your desk.”

“You mean the little snapshot of you and me on the Riesenberg.”

“Exactly. That I will keep for remembrance.”

“My dear Frida.” He smiled chidingly. “You sound like an obituary notice.”

She gave him a long sombre look.

“That is not surprising.” Then, her reserve breaking down: “Mein Gott, how I am sad for you. I meant not to show you this, but soon enough you must know.”

She opened her handbag, took out a newspaper clipping, handed it to him. He saw that it had been cut from that morning’s Daily Echo, a paper she did not usually take, and was headed:

Quickly, he read the dispatch:

“Now,” she said, “you know where you are going.”

He looked up, meeting her gaze which had remained fixed upon him. He was not in the least discomposed, confirmed rather, hardened and fortified.

“Frida,” he said coldly, “I’m perfectly aware that for the past two days you have been trying to dissuade me from going—no doubt with the best intentions. But I don’t think you quite understand how deeply I’m in love. I fully realise that conditions are bad out there. But I am going. I would follow Kathy to the ends of the earth.”

She compressed her lips.

“Yes, my friend,” she sighed. “Is it not always like that when an elderly man is possessed by a young girl? And always the end is so tragic. How well I remember that great German film, The Blue Angel.”

He coloured with indignation.

“The circumstances are in no way comparable.”

“No,” she agreed, in an extinguished voice. “The old professor went only to the circus. You are going . . .”. She turned her head, shielding her face with one hand to hide emotion. “Yes, I feel it in my heart . . . you are going to . . .”. Even then she could not say it, merely adding in a low voice: “To something much worse.”

An angry retort had risen to his lips but, respecting her distress, he stifled it. She had always been one to conceal her feelings, tears were not her medium of expression, yet she was clearly upset. Upright in his chair, he stared straight ahead at the distant snowcapped peaks. A prolonged silence descended upon them. Finally, in a subdued manner, but still with averted head, she rose.

“My friend, I can do no more for you today. Tomorrow I will come.”

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, put out by this unexpected departure. “Must you really go?”

“Yes, until tomorrow. If I am to visit with Madame Schutz and our friends, first I must compose myself.”

He did not protest further, saw her to her car, waited till the beat of the Dauphine died away. Then he closed the gate and limped back to the house. Deliberately, word for word, he read the newspaper clipping again, then decisively tore it up.

During that afternoon he continued his preparations, but always with an eye on the clock. At five he was to telephone Kathy at Markinch, where she was staying at the manse: the arrangement had been made before she left. After the trials and problems of the last two days, how he looked forward to it!

After a quick cup of tea, he went to the telephone, dialled long distance and gave the Fotheringays’ number. There was little traffic on the lines and within ten minutes he was put through. To his delight it was Kathy herself who answered: but of course she would be seated at the phone, waiting for his call.

“Kathy, it’s you! How are you, my dear?”

“Quite well, David. And most terribly busy. It’s so lucky you caught me. I was just rushing off to Edinburgh this very minute.”

Chilled slightly, he said: “What have you been doing?”

“Oh, everything. . . . Getting ready to go. . . . Like you, I suppose.”

“Yes, I’ve been busy too. It’s very near now.”

“Oh, it is. And I’m so happy and excited. I’ll be sending you all particulars of where we are to meet in London whenever I find a minute to write.”

“I was rather expecting a letter from you, dear.”

“Were you, David? I thought, as we were to be together so soon. . . . And I’ve worried about Uncle Willie. He’s been running quite a high temperature since we came here, and he’s due to give his talk this evening.”

“I’m sorry,” he said rather perfunctorily, thinking of his own troubles. “Give him my best wishes.”

“Oh, I will, David. And I’ll write you tonight, whenever we get back from Edinburgh.”

“I don’t wish to force you to write, Kathy.”

“But, David dear . . .”. She broke off. “Are you cross?”

“No, dear. Still, I will say I’ve felt rather lonely. I’ve been hard at it here. I’ve hurt my back. And through it all I’ve been longing to hear from you, just a word to say that you’re missing me.”

“Oh, I have missed you, dear . . .”. The catch in her voice made her words indistinct, “. . . just so busy, and Uncle Willie ill . . . I didn’t think . . .”.

“All right, my dear,” he said, mollified by her distress. “But if Willie is so ill, will he be able to leave on the twenty-first?”

“He will go, David,” she said confidently. “Even if he has to be carried on the plane on a stretcher.”

Much good he’ll be in that condition, he thought rather acidly, then regretted it, for he was devoted to Willie.

“I suppose you’ve seen that fighting has started in Kasai.”

“Yes, and it may be serious. But of course we’ve been expecting it. Now, dear, I really must go. I think I hear the bus. Uncle Willie is outside calling for me to come.”

“Wait, Kathy . . .”.

“If I don’t go, dear, we’ll miss the bus and Uncle Willie will be late for his lecture. Goodbye for just now, dear David. We’ll be together soon.”

She had gone, or at least had been obliged to go, leaving him disappointed and with a chilling impression of neglect. What an unsatisfactory talk it had been, making so much of Willie, so little of himself. No, no, he mustn’t think like that—quickly he banished his unworthy jealousy. Kathy loved him, the poor child had simply been rushed and harassed, and telephone conversations were never satisfactory. He found these excuses for her, but illogically the sense of slight persisted, remained with him all evening.

At bedtime, still upset, he decided to take a sleeping pill, a thing he had not done for weeks. Fifteen centigrammes of soneryl, followed by a glass of hot milk, sent him into a deep sleep which should have lasted for at least six hours. Unfortunately this was marred, broken in fact, by a frightful yet ridiculous dream.

He was lying on a camp bed in an unknown place behind high black rocks. The air, filled with the hum of insects, was insufferably hot—the humid heat of a tropical night. Darkness was everywhere, yet he could see faintly, and gradually became aware of the tall shadowy form of a man standing some paces away, gazing ahead. The man wore a khaki shirt and trousers and short gum-boots. Although the face remained invisible, he knew the man to be Willie. He tried to call to him, but although his lips formed the words no sounds emerged. Suddenly, to his horror, he saw three enormous beasts advancing from beyond. They were lions, at least they had the size and shape of lions, but to their appearance something preternatural had been added which gave to them a ferocity that paralysed him. Behind these beasts a line of Abatu tribesmen, armed with spears, stood outlined against the further darkness. He attempted vainly to rise. He wanted to get away—anything to escape this double danger. The futile effort made the sweat pour from him. Then, as he gave himself up for lost, the man who was Willie began to laugh and, picking up some pebbles, flipped them casually at the lions, like a boy taking random shots at an alley cat. Immediately the beasts stopped, hesitated for a moment, then came on again with a terrifying rush.

“The Lord is our shepherd,” Willie said. “A silver collection will be taken later.”

Immediately the charge ceased. The lions faced about and sat up on their haunches in a begging attitude, whereupon the black soldiers began to mark time and clap their hands. Then, with disharmony resembling that of the Markinch choir, they boomed out the hymn “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”

The grotesque and ridiculous vision was too sudden a release. Moray tried to laugh, to howl with laughter, and finally let out a shout that woke him up.

Exhausted, yet relieved by the reality of his own bedroom, he lay for a long time gloomily pondering the reasons for this absurd and painful fantasy. What rankled most of all was his own behaviour. Was he as weak as that? God, no—he would not admit it. He set his teeth and shook the thing off. Obviously, he decided, a subconscious conflict between his admiration for Willie’s heroic and self-sacrificing life and his own past indifference towards religion. With that he got up. The luminous dial of his Gubelin bedside-clock showed three o’clock. Feeling around, he stripped off his wet pyjama jacket and, having rubbed himself down, put on a fresh one and returned to bed. After turning uneasily for more than an hour he got off to sleep.

Chapter Seventeen

Next morning when he awoke, only half rested, he was bitterly annoyed with himself. He rose hurriedly, prompted by a sense of shame, welcoming as a corrective the discomfort of his strained back which now seemed definitely worse. Ranging about the house, restlessly awaiting Madame von Altishofer’s arrival, he checked and rechecked his preparations: the inventory was complete, all his papers were in order, the bank had been notified, his appointment with Stieger definitely arranged for the following day. All that remained, then, was to finish off his packing, impatiently, his ears alert for the sound of the Dauphine, he looked at his watch: past ten o’clock. Why on earth did she not come? Punctuality had always been outstanding amongst her many virtues. He was on the point of telephoning when, with a disproportionate sense of relief, he heard her step on the gravel drive. The door bell rang. He answered it himself.

“You didn’t drive. I wondered why you were late. Come along in. I’ll take your coat.”

“Thank you, no. I will not come in. Or at least only to the hall.”

He stared at her, blankly, as she took a bare step forward across the threshold. She was not wearing her usual grey working outfit, but the faded russet costume and the bersagliere hat in which she went walking. Yet it was her expression, calm yet firm, that astonished him most of all, and caused him, fearing some disaster, to exclaim: “What’s wrong, Frida?”

She did not immediately answer; then, gazing at him almost pityingly with those remarkable yellow eyes, she said: “My friend, despite my great wish to help you, I have decided I must not see you now, or ever again.”

“What!” In his confusion he brought out the word with difficulty. “But why? You promised. I’m relying on you to do the porcelain.”

“The porcelain,” she echoed with scornful emphasis. “What does that matter? You have no use for it now. You will never see it again.”

“But I—I need your help for other things.”

“Then I must not give it.” Still with her gaze fixed upon him, she shook her head slowly from side to side. “It is altogether too painful for me. Better, in your own words, the sharp, clean cut.”

A moment of complete silence followed, during which he could find nothing to say except “why”, and he had said that before. Then she went on, with that same solemnity, almost sounding a note of doom.

“My friend, my dear friend, my feeling for you, and it is deep beyond your knowledge, has misled me. I am a woman, and weakly I have given in, to help you. But yesterday, at the party, meeting all your friends, I see that I have been wrong, greatly wrong. For all are in dismay, all have the same opinion of you.”

“I’m obliged for their concern,” he muttered, nettled that they should have discussed him in his absence. “But I don’t see how I merit it.”

“They see it!” Her voice stung him. “They were, every one, speaking of you, a man who has worked all his life to make a great success, and become rich, who has good friends, and a beautiful home. And who, no longer young, throws all, all away, for a sudden idea, so extreme that even your Mr Stench was saying, in his nasty smiling way, you had bitten more than you could chew.”

“I’m obliged to Stench, and the others,” he said bitterly. “Nevertheless, I believe I know what I’m doing.”

“But do you? Now you are so busy, so obsessed, you never read or even listen to the news. Yesterday Mr Stench was telling us—it had just come in—that in another town, Kalinda, which is so near your Willie’s place, hordes of these tribesmen came with flaming arrows and cutlasses, broke into the Belgian mission and massacred all who were inside. Not killed alone, first mutilated them, cutting off their hands. Mein Gott, when I think of your hands, so fine and sensitive, which I have always admired, and some beastly savage hacking them off, do you wonder that I, and others too, are heartbroken for you?”

He bit his lip, frowning, uneasiness and anger striving for mastery in him. Anger predominated.

“You seem to forget that Willie warned me there might be danger. I’ve fully considered the risks to run.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Do you accuse me of lying?”

“I accuse you of deliberate self-deception.”

“If so, it’s from the highest motives.”

“So you want to be a holy martyr, perhaps be shot with arrows, for a change, like Sebastian, and win a harp and a halo after.” Her eyes narrowed scornfully. “I am speaking in your true interest when I tell you . . .”

“It’s no use,” he interrupted her sharply. “You won’t dissuade me.”

They faced each other during a long and, on her part, a calculated silence.

“So you are going,” she said at last, in a hard voice.

“Yes.”

“Then go. You are totally blind and devoid of sense, in fact quite out of your mind.”

“Thank you.”

They were quarrelling, creating a scene—the realisation caused him an acute distress.

“You say you do this because of a great ideal, to amend your life. You do not. It is all done for the sake of going to bed with a silly young woman, a religious killjoy, who has infatuated you, who has no maturity, no meeting of minds, a common nurse who does not know a Bonnard from a bedpan.”

Pale to the lips under these insults, delivered with a fatal, telling force, he ran true to form in his indignant reply: “You are speaking of the young lady who will be my wife.”

“And as such, what do you delude yourself she can give you? Not passion, for it is not in her. These religious women are without sex.” He winced. “For passion such as you demand, you need a strong, vital body. An answering force which she does not possess. She is feeble. And she is already bound to her Willie, you are for her only a father figure. Besides, you have too strong a competitor. She cannot love both you and the Lord.”

“I’m afraid I must ask you to leave.”

She was breathing with a deep, though controlled violence, a Wagnerian prima donna, splendid in figure, with fire in her eyes. Then all at once she was calm, cold as ice.

“Yes, I am leaving. But do not forget that I have warned you. And remember one important thing: if you should return to reason, I am still at the Seeburg, still your friend.”

He barely waited until she had passed the drive before shutting the door with a bang. He was furiously angry, hurt, outraged, and above all inflexibly confirmed in his intention. How dared she take such scandalous liberties with Kathy and himself! This, and the maddening fact that his friends had made him the object of their malicious gossip at the party, was in itself enough to fuse and forge his resolution, into solid steel. What stung most of all, quickened by a flashback thought to that night of docile surrender, was the shameful allegation against the pudendum of his future bride. A father figure indeed, competing for affection against Willie and the Lord—could any allegation be more unjust, more unutterably shameful—blasphemous, in fact? Yet that poisoned barb, worst of all, had pierced deep and still quivered in his flesh. To make matters worse, in slamming the heavy door he had aggravated his strained back and now, blaming her all the more since the casualty was basically her fault, he found that his limp had become more pronounced.

Altogether he was so worked up, he could not bring himself to remain passive in the house. What then? It was essential that he get his back put right at once and, as he had additionally some final purchases to make, he decided to take the train for Zurich and consult his good friend Dr Müller. Having cancelled lunch, he was driven by the mystified Arturo to Schwansee station in time to take the 11.45 Schnellzug.

Settling himself in the comfortable window seat—no other trains, in his opinion, could match the Swiss—he opened the Gazette Suisse which, almost instinctively, he had picked up at the bookstall. Naturally, Madame von Altishofer had exaggerated in order to alarm him; nevertheless it was true, as she suggested, that he had lately been too preoccupied to heed external events. He rarely did heed them, preferring to banish from his exclusive life the shocks and discords of a disordered world. Now, however, he felt it would repay him to sift the news. He had no need to sift. There, on the front page, were the headlines.

Still keyed to a high intensity, he read the graphic report. More than a hundred persons, men, women and children, who had sought refuge in the mission, had been butchered with inhuman ferocity. In this blood-bath the missionaries themselves, two Franciscan priests, had been singled out for special treatment, first mutilated, then beheaded, and their bodies hacked to bits. It was a gruesome story, yet it had the ring of truth and following on the earlier slaughter at Tochilenge, was undoubtedly part of the general pattern of frenzied outrage that had broken loose.

Frida had spoken the truth: what an end for a sensitive, civilised man. A quiver of nausea constricted his stomach as he lowered the paper and gazed out at the placid Swiss landscape, the belled, brown cows grazing peacefully in the green pastures amongst the pear and cherry trees. Perhaps, after all, in making his heroic decision he had not fully weighed the obligations and dangers imposed by it. But he killed the thought before it entered his mind. Even if he had not wanted to go, he wanted Kathy. He would never turn back.

The train drew into Zurich station and he got out, finding the step down so awkward he wished he had brought a stick. His noticeable limp drew sympathetic glances as he traversed the Bahnhofstrasse, but making an effort he managed his shopping at Grieder’s which, unlike so many of the other establishments, did not close between twelve and two. Then, with scarcely a thought of the Baur-au-Lac, he lunched sparingly at Sprungli’s on minced veal and noodles followed by compote and a café crême. He was, indeed, too upset, too depressed to eat, and in this chastened mood he took a taxi to Dr Müller’s office in Gloriastrasse, being fortunate to get hold of the good doctor before his consultations had begun. Müller, moreover—and this seemed even more important—was unaware of his visitor’s imminent departure for the Dark Continent. At this moment either congratulations or reproaches would have been equally unbearable to Moray, who came immediately to the point, enumerated his symptoms, and concluded: “I’m almost sure I’ve slipped a disc.”

Müller, a ruddy, jovial little man in an over-size starched white coat, who looked as though he enjoyed good living, had listened to the recital in the hunched attitude he assumed at his desk, darting occasional good-humoured glances at Moray. Now he got up, made an examination which to Moray seemed brief, almost cursory.

“A slight sprain of your latissimas dorsi. Get your man to rub you with a good liniment.”

“I have, and it’s no better.”

“Naturally, it will take a few days.”

“But this limp I have developed, surely that is rather a matter for concern.”

“Purely psychosomatic. A protective transference of your worry about your back—though why that should worry you I can’t imagine. I suppose there’s nothing else on your mind, no more pressing anxiety?”

Frowning, Moray chose to ignore the question.

“Then you don’t think I should have a spinal X-ray?”

“Mein Gott,” Müller laughed the idea away, “here we do not X-ray for a simple strain.”

Moray left the doctor’s office in worse case than when he entered, trying not to limp, an effort that exaggerated the condition and made him stiffen and drag his leg.

“Confound the fellow,” he muttered to himself. “He has this psychosomatic nonsense on the brain.”

He was tempted to seek another opinion, but the fear of making himself ridiculous restrained him. Instead, in the hope that exercise might help, he walked down the hill to the Belvedere, then wandered along the front of the Zürichsee. A pale sun, glinting on the still water through a nacreous haze, had made the afternoon tranquil and luminous. Yet this strange light flooded him with confused misgiving—a doubt of the truth of his own reality, a desolate consciousness of his own insecurity in a hostile world. What was he doing here, limping aimlessly, his mind clouded by a host of conflicting thoughts that struck at him like a swarm of hornets? The direction his life was taking suddenly seemed preposterous. He felt a loss of support, an impression of falling into an abyss. Why had Frida made that violent and upsetting attack on him this morning? It was unpardonable and yet, seeking her motive, he found much to excuse and even to forgive. She was in love with him, jealous of Kathy, broken by the thought of his departure, fearful for his safety and health. Deeply, he regretted the rupture between them. He had always liked and admired her and had been to blame, perhaps, in encouraging her hopes of a closer relationship. Yet in the circumstances it was best that their friendship should be severed.

With an effort he pulled himself together, hailed a taxi and was driven to the station. The evening paper, which he read on the return journey, amply confirmed the bad news of the morning—an official statement had been issued from the United Nations deploring the outrage against innocent civilians. There was also a report that smallpox and bubonic plague had broken out; appeals for medical assistance had been broadcast. When he got home an hour later he found nothing to alleviate his despondency: no telephone message from Kathy, not even a letter, and the house now in such a state of upheaval—stacked books on the library floor, his silver in tissue paper, curtains dismantled in the salon—that all sense of comfort and security was gone. When he was enduring all this, abandoning everything for her sake, Kathy owed him at least a few words of encouragement and support. He must speak with her at once.

He went to the library telephone and put through a call to the Fotheringay manse in Markinch. The delay on this occasion was interminable, yet he would not leave the instrument. At last, following a muddle of Scottish accents at the local exchanges, a lamentable connection was established. It was Mrs Fotheringay who spoke; he could scarcely hear her voice over the persistent hum, and once intelligible contact was made, all proved fruitless. Willie and Kathy had left on the previous day, were now on their way through England, probably in Manchester, though at what address she did not know. She could, however, give him the number of the mission centre in Edinburgh, where they might be able to help him.

Cutting short the conversation, which she would have prolonged indefinitely, he rang the Edinburgh number, and was more successful in getting through. But here also he drew blank. Mr Douglas had delivered his lecture in Edinburgh and departed for London with his niece. They had no knowledge of his present address.

He ate a poor dinner and afterwards moved to the study, the only sitting-room which still remained habitable. Almost an hour later, while he sat brooding, suddenly the telephone rang.

His pulse missed a beat. He knew that it was Kathy, compelled by love and an instinctive awareness of his present need. He was at the phone in a second.

But, no—his heart sank sickeningly—it was not the sweet expected voice that came from the void, but the glottal accents of Stieger, his lawyer, who, detained in Munich, asked for a postponement of their appointment until Monday.

“Naturally, if the matter is urgent, I will fly back tomorrow morning and return to Munich in the evening.”

“No,” Moray said, struggling to recover himself. “There’s no immediate need. Don’t put yourself out. Monday will suit equally well.”

“Then we will meet in three days’ time.”

Three days, Moray reflected, as he hung up the phone; no harm could come of this brief postponement. At least it would afford him a breathing spell to recover and consolidate his forces. He was conscious of a vague feeling of relief.

Chapter Eighteen

A week had passed. Was it a week? Waiting like this, ready to go off, everything settled, it was difficult to keep track of the days. But of course, today was Sunday, and a wet one, drenching rain turning the snow into muddy slush, the mountains invisible behind swollen, dropsical clouds. God, what a horrible day, so damnably depressing to anyone, like himself, susceptible to weather. He turned from the window and for perhaps the twentieth time took Kathy’s letter from his pocket, her solitary letter posted on the morning after she had been to Edinburgh. She must have written and mailed it immediately she got back to Markinch.

With a renewed sense of disappointment, Moray put down the letter which, when it arrived, he had opened so eagerly. Surely he might have expected something better than these few brief, restrained lines. Instead of the bare schedule of their departure, couldn’t she have dwelt more freelingly on her love, said that she was missing him, that she longed to be once again in his arms? In all her vocabulary was there no stronger word than “dear”? He admitted that she was shy, poor child, troubled by the consciousness of their intimacy—so he construed the phrase “I will soon be your own true wife”—and limited by the small size of the note-paper. Yet she had found space to devote to Willie—his lectures, his fever, his anxieties and arrangements, his request not to be late. Not a word, not a single inquiry as to his own state of mind and body, or the distress and difficulties he might be experiencing, away from her. Really, it was too bad. He loved her, he wanted her, and all she could do was to throw Willie at his head.

This strange feeling that he had been deserted was intensified by the isolation of his present existence. His normal routine was broken, he had said goodbye to his friends in Schwansee, no one came to see him, they had all written him off as a departed member of their group. And Frida—for more than a week he had not set eyes upon her, although on several occasions, in the hope of meeting her, he had essayed a halting walk in the rain round the lake shore towards her domain. He missed the companionship she had so freely given and which, now above all, when certainty and uncertainty chased each other across his mind, he so sorely needed. Bitterly he regretted the rift between them, the result of a few outspoken words on her part which, realising their purpose, he had already condoned. Surely he could not leave her without attempting to resolve their differences. Time was getting so short, so very short; in two days he would be off. He ought to go up the hill to visit her. Yet something, pride perhaps, a restraining gleam of caution, had hitherto intervened.

The summons to lunch recalled him. He ate in abstracted silence, without appetite; then, as was his Sunday habit, took a short nap. Awakening about three he saw that the rain poured down more mercilessly than ever. He got up, moved about the house, checked his packed suitcases, smoked a cigarette, tried to kill time, but gradually his spirits sank, reached their lowest ebb and, after resisting during the hours of daylight, as the miserable grey afternoon turned to sodden evening, he succumbed to the craving for one word of human comfort. Frida would give it. She was, had always been, his friend. They would not argue, would discuss nothing involving controversy, would simply spend in sympathy one last quiet restorative hour of human intercourse.

Hurriedly, before he could change his mind, he put on his Aquascutum, took an old golf umbrella from the stand and, letting himself unobtrusively out of the house, hobbled off. The ferry took him across the lake, but for a lame man it was a long walk and a stiff climb up the steep, winding path to the schloss. Yet he was there at last, trembling at the knees like a horse after a stiff pull. God, he thought, what a wreck I’ve become.

Almost lost in the low clouds, the tall Seeburg towered above him. Built of rough mountain granite in the seventeenth century Swiss style, with a machicolated roof and twin pepperpot towers, it had, in the swollen darkness, a spectral, haunted air, an impression heightened by the harsh croaking of drenched ravens sheltering beneath the overhang of the eaves. Advancing on the mossy terrace outside the narrow double windows that gave on to her sitting-room, he drew up with a catch of breath. Yes, there she sat, alone on the sofa, beside the antique tiled stove, working at her needlepoint under a single shaded light that barely illuminated the large and lofty apartment, sparsely furnished with heavy high-backed walnut chairs and a great Bavarian armoire. Her favourite little weimaraner, Peterkin, lay on the rug at her feet with his nose between his paws.

The sombre domesticity of the scene touched Moray. With an agitated hand he tapped on the pane. Immediately she raised her head, turned towards the outer darkness; then, putting down her work, she came slowly forward and opened the tall window. For a long moment she looked at him fixedly, then in a calm, firm voice, totally devoid of solicitude, she said:

“My poor friend, how ill you look. Come! I will help you. So.” Taking his arm she guided him towards the sofa. “Here you must sit and rest.”

“Thank you,” he muttered, breathing with difficulty. “As you see, I’m rather under the weather. You may remember I hurt my back. It hasn’t quite cleared up.”

“Yes,” she said, standing over him. “Three times I have seen you by the lake, attempting to take your walk. I said to myself, unfortunate man, soon he will come to me.”

No note, no sign of triumph was evident in her tone or manner, but a kind of calm protectiveness, as though she were dealing with a favoured yet refractory pupil.

“I felt I must come,” he defended himself hurriedly. “I couldn’t bear to leave the breach between us permanently unhealed. I . . . I am due to go the day after tomorrow.”

She did not answer but sat down beside him on the sofa and took his hand, holding it with strong, compelling fingers. For several moments there was absolute silence; then, gazing at him intently and speaking with the calm conviction of accomplished fact:

“My poor friend, you are not quite yourself. And now it is for a woman who knows and understands you, who has for you the best and strongest feelings, yes, it is now time for her to save you from yourself.”

“From myself?” he repeated, confused and startled.

“You have been led foolishly into a bad situation. Because you are an honourable man and, although ill, would wish to be a brave one, you want to go through with it. Even when it is plain you will not survive.” She paused quietly. “But for that I will not stand aside.”

In the ensuing silence, compelled by a strange mixture of attraction and revulsion, he forced himself to raise his head and look at her.

“I must admit,” he said, trying to assert himself, “with this lameness, I’m . . . almost in doubt. I mean, it has crossed my mind as to whether I’ll be able to go as arranged, or whether I should follow later.”

“You are no longer in doubt, my friend. I do not intend to let you go.”

A complex shock passed through him, a combination of opposites, positive and negative charges of electricity perhaps, anyhow a decided shock.

“But I’m committed . . . in every way,” he protested.

“Yes, you have been wrong.” She lifted a forefinger in admonition. “And stupid also. But listen. When you are walking in the mountains and discover yourself upon the wrong road, do you continue and fall into a crevasse? No. When you have asked directions of someone who knows better you turn and go back. That is what you will do.”

“No, no. I couldn’t. What would Kathy and Willie think of me? Even the people here, after all the talk, my speech at the party, the publicity in the Tageblatt. I’d be the laughing-stock of the canton when they still saw me around.”

“They will not still see you around,” she answered, almost casually. “For you must go away for a long holiday . . . with me.”

Again he started visibly, but she held him silent with a faint calm smile, went on in the same even, conversational tone.

“First we go to Montecatini, where there are wonderful baths for your back, and also, once you are better, a fine golf course where I will walk with you and admire your play. After, we take a cruise on that nice select little ship the Stella Polaris. Only then, in the Spring, do we return here, by which time all the silly business is finished and long forgotten.”

Immobilised by those hypnotic eyes he stared at her as though in a trance, yet perceiving, for the first time, that her hair had been freshly rinsed and set, that—as if she had expected him—she wore a new mauve silk dress, high in the waist, full and pleated in the skirt, a dress at once classic and correct, which enhanced her natural distinction. Certainly a fine figure of a woman and still beautiful—at a distance. Yet from close range his dilated pupils mirrored the commencing stigmata of middle-age; the faint reticulated network beneath the orbits, the slight sag of the muscular neckline, the speckled discoloration of the strong even teeth. How could this be compared with that other sweet face, that frail, fresh young body? An inward sigh shook him. And yet—in his present lamentable state—wasn’t she a haven, an anchorage, a lady too, cultured, distinguished, and, in the ultimate analysis, not unbedworthy? He drew a sharp breath, was about to speak when, with a gleam of ridicule, she forestalled him.

“Yes, I am a reasonable bargain. And I will be the proper wife for you—by day and by night. Have I not also had strong longings during the years I have lived alone? We shall fulfil together. And what an interest for us both to restore and redecorate the Seeburg, to fill it with your beautiful things! We shall have a salon more famous than was Coppée in the days of Mme. de Stael.”

He still mumbled a protest.

“I’m terribly fond of you, dear Frida. But . . .”.

“But, yes, my poor man, and I of you. For once and all, I will not let you go out there to destroy yourself.”

A silence. What more could he say, or do? He felt overpowered, dominated, possessed, yet filled with a slow, creeping tide of comfort. The plan she presented was so sane, so agreeable in all respects—vastly different from that dark future which, during these last few days, he had come to dread. Acceptance would be like sliding into a warm bath after a long exhausting journey. He closed his eyes and slid. The relief was indescribable. He lay back on the sofa.

“Oh, my God, Frida . . . I feel I want to tell you everything . . . from the very beginning.”

And he did, at length, with feeling.

“Ah, yes,” she murmured, sympathetically if ambiguously, when he concluded. “I see it all.”

“You’re the only woman who has ever understood me.”

As he spoke the dog stirred from sleep, looked up and, with a bark of recognition, jumped on to his knees.

“You see,” she nodded, “Peterkin accepts you also. Now you are tired. Rest while I bring something to restore you.” She was soon back, glass in hand. “This is from your own country, very old and special. I have kept it for you for a long time. Now, to please me, you must drink all.”

The one spirit he detested was whisky—it always disagreed with him, soured his stomach, upset his liver. But he did need a stimulant, and he wanted to please her; besides, he hadn’t the will to resist.

“Well done,” she commended him, resuming her place beside him. “Now we will sit quiet as two mice in church until you feel better.”

As he had expected, the whisky went straight to his head. His face became flushed and in no time at all he felt, not better, but stupid and inflamed. Presently, observing him, she said thoughtfully: “I have been considering the best, way to arrange our marriage. It must be done not only most quietly, but also quickly, if we are to get away before all the fuss, which you fear so much, becomes known. Yes?”

“The sooner we clear out the better.”

“Then it is best that we go to Basle, leaving early tomorrow. It will take altogether three days, for there are several formalities. But we can be back here on Wednesday evening.”

“And then, dear Frida?”

“Off on our long holiday next morning.”

Hazily he saw her smiling down at him. Damn it, she wasn’t a bad-looking gammer, with those wonderful eyes and that solid, Wagnerian body which gave promise of well sprung resilience. What was she saying?

“You were sweet a moment ago. You called me dear Frida.”

“You are rather a dear, you know.” Unexpectedly, he sniggered. “A regular Brunnhilde.”

“It is for you to know—in the future. You have never seen the upstairs of the Seeburg. My room, that will be our room, is nice. That we shall not look at this evening. But after? So? You will not find me cold. Some people do not need the love of the body, but with us it will be natural and frequent. Yes? And necessary also, for it puts one at ease. Now let us talk about our so pleasant future.”

An hour later, the Dauphine bore him triumphantly to the villa. In the close darkness of the little car she patted his cheek and gave a meaning little laugh.

“Now, like me, you will have happy dreams. Goodnight, mein lieber Mann, tomorrow I will come to you early. We must start for Basle before nine o’clock.”

Dead beat, but dulled and comforted, he stumbled into the house, thankful for the fact that he was so extinguished he must instantly fall asleep.

“I’m going straight to bed,” he told Arturo, in a voice he made an effort to keep normal. “See that you lock up before you turn in. And I’ll want breakfast at eight sharp.”

“Yes, sir,” said Arturo, somewhat blankly. “And tonight, will you have your hot milk and sandwiches upstairs?”

No, he thought, not after the whisky, he was still not quite sober.

“Nothing tonight.” He paused, confronted by the necessity of conveying the change in his plans: Well, with Arturo it would not be so difficult; he had been quite broken up at the prospect of his departure.

“By the way,” he sought for the words, “something quite unexpected has come up. I shall not after all be obliged to leave for good, but only for a matter of perhaps three months.”

Several shades of expression passed over the other’s face before radiance shone from it.

“Oh, sir, I am so happy, so filled with joy, so thankful to the good God and Santa Philomena to whom I pray for you to stay. Only wait till I tell Elena.”

Arturo’s extravagant delight was an added solace. Such loyalty, such affectionate devotion he thought, on his way up the stairs, and from Elena too, both so deeply attached to him. And now for bed.

Gazing upwards with a queer expression, Arturo watched him enter his bedroom, then he turned and went back to the pantry. Elena looked at him expectantly. He responded with an affirmative gesture and a significant grimace.

“You were right. The German has hooked him. Got him by the short hairs.”

“Madre d’ Dio.” She let out the exclamation and broke into broad Neapolitan. “Lu viecchio ’nzannaluto.”

“He’s that, all right.” Arturo shrugged in agreement. “And how he will suffer.”

“But so also will we,” said Elena despondently. “That squaldrina will watch the money like a Swiss tax collector. Goodbye to our little ribasso from the market when she gets her claws on the bills.”

“Still, it’s better than having him go. We can still milk him.”

“Llecca ’o culo a chillu viecchio ’nzannaluto?”

“That’s it, lay on the butter thick.” He went to the cupboard, took out a bottle and drew the cork. “He’s the softest touch I ever handled.”

“Watch out though, with her around.”

“I know what I’m doing. Besides, we have to make the most of him while he’s got it. Before she finishes, that culo will take everything off him.”

“Chella fetente va a ferni c’ ’o mette ’nterra,” said Elena, with meaning.

At this prediction of complete emasculation for their employer they looked at each other and burst into fits of laughter.

Chapter Nineteen

Three days later, at the hour of twilight on Wednesday afternoon, the Humber utility car, mud-bespattered as from a journey, slid unobtrusively through the village of Schwansee, swung discreetly into the familiar acacia drive and drew up at Moray’s villa.

“Well, here we are, Frida.” Pulling off his driving gloves he stated the obvious with a congratulatory smile, adding, with a glance at the dashboard clock, “and dead on time.”

The successful secrecy with which they had invested their wedding gave him a distinct glow of achievement; it had all gone exactly according to plan. He squeezed out of the driving seat and, hurrying round the car, helped her with uxorious solicitude to alight. At the same moment the door of the villa swung open and Arturo appeared, advanced with a determined smile of welcome.

“Everything all right?” Moray asked aside, as the man removed the suitcases from the boot.

“Quite all right, sir. We have the salon in order again with the china all arranged. But the library and the other rooms will take more time.”

“You’ll have time. We shall be off tomorrow for quite a long spell.” He seemed to hesitate. “There were no messages of any kind?”

“None, sir.”

Impossible to repress that involuntary breath of relief. He had feared the possibility of a last-minute telephone call, a distressing message awaiting his return. But no, they had gone off, without a word, exactly as Frida had predicted, off to the Mission, to their work—not his, it had never been his—yes, their life’s work, which, by its very complexities, its difficulties and dangers, would absorb them, make Kathy speedily forget. How misguided he had been ever to imagine that he could beneficially link his future to that dear dedicated girl, yet how wise, in her interests and his own, to realise his mistake before it was too late. And now there would be no more idealistic nonsense, no more reaching after spiritual moonbeams: safely married to a mature and distinguished woman he experienced a warm feeling of security, a sense of having at last reached journey’s end.

“Bring tea quickly, Arturo,” he said, following Frida into the drawing-room. Seating himself beside her on the Chesterfield settee, he glanced round appreciatively. Yes, everything was in order, exactly as before—the word had now a definite historic import, like A.D. or B.C., denoting the demarcation between his pre- and post-redemption periods. His pictures bloomed more attractively than ever—God, to think he could ever have existed without them—his silver shone, his porcelain, freshly washed and arranged, gleamed in the light of a heart-warming fire of crackling cedar logs.

“Isn’t this gemütlich?” He gave her an intimate smile. “To be back, together, and to have managed it all so cleverly.”

“But of course, David. You will find I manage things always well.” She gave him a short pleasant nod. “You will see later, when we are established at the Seeburg.”

He was about to answer—a compliment was on his tongue—when Arturo came in, wheeling the tea trolley, so instead, rubbing his hands, he said: “Ah, tea. Will you pour, darling?”

Meanwhile Arturo, having adjusted the trolley, was offering him the salver from the hall.

“Your mail, sir.”

“What a lot of letters,” she exclaimed, lifting the silver teapot—George I, 1702. “It appears that you are an important man.”

“Mostly business.” He shrugged, running them through. But one, apparently, was not. With a shrinking of his nerves he recognised Kathy’s round, even writing. But, glancing covertly at the date stamps on the envelope, he was immediately reassured. The latter had been posted on the 17th, four days before her departure, and received at Schwansee on Monday the 20th, the day he left for Basle with Frida. As such, thank heaven, it could contain neither reproaches nor regrets. With a cautious side glance at Frida, who was still pouring tea, he slid it unobserved into his side pocket—he would read it later, when he was alone.

“Since we speak of business,” she added sugar and lemon and handed him his cup, “you must one day soon tell me of your affairs—perhaps when we are at Montecatini, yes? I have a very good head for these things. The actions of the German chemicals, for example, these are strong at this moment.”

“They are,” he agreed, tolerantly, as he leaned forward to cut the cake. “And we’re comfortably supplied with them.”

“That is nice. And German bonds. These also are affording a high rate of interest.”

“I see you’re going to be a great help, dear. Now try this. It’s Elena’s special recipe and she’s baked it in your honour.” He watched while she sampled the slice of cherry cake he handed her. “Good, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is good—quite good. But it can be better, much better. For one thing there is too much vanilla and too little fruit. Afterwards I will show her properly.”

“You’ll have to be tactful, dear. Elena is terribly touchy.”

“Oh, my poor David, you make me smile. As if I was without great experience! Why, at Kelienstein we had a staff, in and out, of fifteen persons, all requiring to be overseen. Here, I am sure, you have been ill served and also well cheated. No doubt your good Elena has many private arrangements, besides taking out fresh butter and eggs, while your wonderful Arturo—don’t I know these Neapolitans—is all smiling in front and all stealing behind.”

A momentary misgiving troubled him, gone when she patted his hand with a protective smile.

“Another cup of your nice Twinings. That, at least, I shall not change.”

How gracefully she managed the tea things—to the manner born, neither nervous like Kathy nor clumsy like Doris, who in those distant almost forgotten days had always upset things during her attacks. Yes, after all his troubled years he had been right in this, his ultimate decision. He had always aspired to a well-bred woman, not only for the social advantages she would bring him, but also for that extra refinement with which, from her breeding, she would enrich their conjugal intimacies. Ah, yes, Frida would remake his life. And how restful was the immediate prospect: Montecatini, the Polaris cruise—she had already made their cabin reservations at the American Express in Basle—and then all the interest of restoring the Seeburg. Comfortable though his villa was, it would never be more than a bourgeois little house, really unfitted to hold his treasures which would now adorn and transform the big schloss above the lake. Yet, through his complacency, as he sipped his tea in the warm comfortable room, he could not restrain his thoughts from reverting, not exactly self-accusingly, but with a kind of pricking discomfort, to that plane, which even now, after its overnight stop at Lisbon, must be winging towards Luanda. Surely by now she must have got over the worst of it. She was young, she would recover, sorrow did not last forever, time was the great healer . . . He consoled himself with these and other profundities.

“I believe you are asleep.” A half-chiding, half-amused voice recalled him.

“No—no—not really. But on that subject, Frida, must you really spend the night at Seeburg? Why not stay here? After all, we are married.”

“Yes, we are nice married people, and for that reason must be sensible.”

“But why, dear Frida? It’s been quite, well, difficult for me, away with you two nights . . . and separate rooms.”

She laughed, well pleased.

“I am glad you have the same feeling as I. But for newly-weddeds it is better to make the honeymoon away. For me there is more novelty. And for you, especially, it is better to be free of recent associations that might trouble you.”

“Yes,” he agreed, unwillingly. “I suppose there’s something in that. Still . . .”.

Assuagingly, she pressed against him imprinting the edge of her corsets upon his short ribs, then, before he could encircle her, withdrew.

“So . . . our need will grow if held back. I promise I will be nice for you at Montecatini. The Freiherr, my late husband, was a strong man in the bed, yet never did I fail to answer him with equal vigour. Since we are married, I can openly speak of these things. And now I will go upstairs. After that long drive I have much need to wash.”

When she left the room he sat half-dozing before the hot fire, as though drugged by the scent of the burning cedar. At times his mind became an absolute blank; then, recovering, he enjoyed a moment of calm relaxation. Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed. What was she doing upstairs? Taking a bath? He had not liked that reference to the late lamented baron, but at least it showed she wasn’t frigid. He thought drowsily of her ample dugs, those extensile mountaineering thighs. Then absently, through his euphoria, he remembered the belated letter. Whatever his reluctance, he owed it to Kathy to read and cherish it as a last sweet message. Feeling in his pocket he withdrew it and after considering the envelope again, and confirming the date stamps, he manfully opened it.

As he did so he became conscious of the ringing of a bell. The front door? Yes. He sat up suddenly, hoping to high heaven that it was not a caller. If one of their friends, Stench particularly, burst in upon them at this precise moment, it would be a fatal embarrassment, would in fact ruin all their plans for a discreet departure. He should have warned Arturo to say he was not at home. Too late now, the fellow was answering the door.

He got up, parted the curtains of the side window and peered out at the dark driveway. No car—it couldn’t be a caller, must be a tradesman or a travelling pedlar; he had no need to worry. Yet the conversation at the door appeared to be prolonged. Straining his ears he heard Arturo say, almost entreatingly: “Please, if you will wait here, I will see.”

“But there’s no need,” a thin voice answered, with a strained note of urgency. “I’m expected. I’ll go straight in.”

Moray’s heart contracted. My God, he thought, it can’t be. I’m dreaming, or out of my mind. Instinctively he took a few steps backwards. Futile retreat. There came the sound of hurried footsteps in the hall and the next instant Kathy was before him.

“David!” she cried, in sheer relief. “I thought from Arturo you weren’t here.” All her body seemed to incline towards him: then, running forward, she put her arms round him and laid her head against his breast.

He had turned deathly white, his face blank with horror and amazement. It was a nightmare, unreal, couldn’t be true. He stood frozen into paralysed stillness.

“Oh, David, dear David,” she kept murmuring. “Just to be with you again.”

He could not speak, the skin around his mouth had suddenly become tight. But at last he gasped: “Kathy . . . what . . . why are you here?”

“Because I need you now . . . so much more . . .”. Still close to him, she looked up as though uncomprehending. “You know that Uncle Willie sent me?”

“Willie?” he echoed, like a parrot.

“Didn’t you get my letter?”

“No—yes—at least . . . I’ve been away.”

“Then you don’t know. Oh, David, it’s too terrible. The entire Mission is destroyed, burned to the ground. There’s been a fearful outbreak by armed terrorists. They’re fighting all around, and almost all of our people are dead. All Uncle Willie’s work, the labour of twenty years, destroyed.” Tears were beginning to flow down her cheeks. “Uncle Willie has gone out to see the worst, if they’ll allow him to get there, but he knows it’s finished. He wouldn’t let me go with him. He’s broken-hearted. I think he’ll have to give up. And for me, there’s nothing out there now . . . I have . . . only you, dear David. Oh, I thank God for that. But for you, I think I would have lost my mind.”

Silence. A cold sweat of panic beaded his forehead; his heart kept banging irregularly in his side. He broke away slightly, hand pressed against his brow, still struggling for speech.

“This . . . dreadful, Kathy. A great shock. If I had only known . . .”

She looked at him with faithful, uncomprehending eyes.

“But, David, when you didn’t come to the airport I felt sure you had my letter telling you everything.”

“Yes, precisely . . . it’s just . . . so difficult . . . having been away.” What he was saying he scarcely knew, and she had begun to look at him strangely, nervously too, with a sudden anxiety in her tired, thin little face.

“David, is anything wrong?”

“Nothing, except . . . it’s all so unfortunate . . . so unforeseen.”

Now all the joy that was in her died. She showed real alarm, seemed to shrink into herself.

“David, please, for pity’s sake.”

Oh God, he thought, this can’t go on, I must, I’ll have to tell her. He tried to pull himself together.

“Kathy . . .”. He braced himself. “Dear Kathy . . .”.

He could not go on, could not to save his life have spoken the words. There followed a moment of complete and frightful silence. His mouth filled with bitter water, and through it all he kept thinking, I could have had her here, on my own terms, if only I had waited. It was agony. And as he stood rigid with clenched hands, unable/to meet her frightened eyes, the door opened and Frida came into the room. Arrested by the scene, with one comprehensive glance she took it in; then, without change of expression, came quietly forward.

“Kathy, you are here,” she said, and kissed her on the cheek. At the same time she made towards Moray a brusque gesture of dismissal which said decisively, go, this you must leave to me.

Still rooted, he seemed unable to set himself in motion, but somehow, stumbling forward, he got himself out of the room. Kathy was very pale, but had stopped crying. Bewilderment and alarm had dried her tears.

“What is wrong with David? Is he ill?”

“I think he is unwell slightly, at this moment. The shock, you see. But come, dear child, we must sit down and be composed and have a little talk together.” Persuasively, an arm round Kathy’s shoulder, she led her to the settee. “Now first, my dear, how did you arrive here?”

“By plane to Zurich, train to Melsburg, then the little steamboat to Schwansee.”

“What a tiring journey. Wouldn’t you like to rest or have some refreshment?”

“No, thank you, no.” Kathy was shivering slightly, her teeth pressed together to prevent them chattering.

“At least a cup of tea. It can be brought so quickly.”

“Oh, nothing, please. I only want to know about David.”

“Yes, of course, we must speak of David, for he is, like that nice book says, the heart of the matter. But we must speak plainly of him, for even if it gives pain we must establish the truth.” She paused and took Kathy’s hand in hers. “You see, dear child, this David whom you love is a very nice man, so full always with good intentions, yet, alas, not always with the strength to perform them, which is often sad for him and for others. Have you not an English proverb, the pavement of hell is made of good intentions? Did you never ask yourself, dear little Kathy, for what real reason he came back to discover your family in Scotland? You thought, to repay a youthful kindness. That was not so. It pains me to tell you, and it will pain you to hear. It was because as a young man this David was the lover of your mother, really her lover if you understand me, had promised marriage, then cruelly left her, for a rich man’s only daughter.”

“No—no.” She took a sharp anguished breath, her pupils wide with shock. “It’s impossible. You’re making this up.”

“How do I make it up when I have heard it all from David himself? Yes, he is the kind of man who seeks to discharge his guilt by an emotional confession. And succeeds. With weeping too, for, like other great men, he weeps easily—like a woman.”

“I won’t . . . I won’t listen to you.”

“But you must, dear Kathy, for your own sake. So our David came back full of the best intentions to make his wrong completely right. And when your mother was untortunately not available, you became the object of his kind attentions. And it was all good in the beginning, yes, beautifully good and proper, but then things changed a little, he wished very nobly to do even more for you, and so—for those soft charming men have so much a way with women—on the promise to marry and go to your mission he became your lover, as with your mother.”

“Stop!” Distractedly she covered her ears. “I can’t—I’ll not hear any more. It’s too horrible.”

“Certainly it is not a nice thought, to seduce first the mother, then the daughter, and all with the highest intentions. Yet I assure you he is not altogether bad, compared with others, for I know men, dear child, and some are by far more horrible, as you say, than David, who is only selfish and weak, avoiding trouble and difficulty for himself at all costs. No, do not run away.” Detainingly, as Kathy tried to rise, she held her arm. “Can’t you see I speak for your own good. I must show you your mistake. If you had married this famous David he would have tired of you and in six months broken your heart. You are altogether different, not of the same kind. You would never convert him to religion, or even to work again as a doctor. Nor could he have made you like his stupid antiques or his famous pictures, all a mode created by the dealers. Your marriage would have been a fatal disaster.”

Kathy sat quite still, her expression blurred, as though the structure of her face had given way. There was something terrifying in her immobility. She felt feverishly sick, stripped of all that she had prized, degraded and unclean. She wanted to get away but there was no strength in her, only weakness and self-disgust.

“So, is it not evident? The wife this David needs is not a sweet, gentle girl such as you, but a woman strong enough to master him, one who will make him obey, and do always, always what is needed.”

Kathy’s eyes widened suddenly, great pools of darkness in her small white face.

“You,” she gasped.

“Yes. Today we were married in Basle.”

Silence again. Kathy’s brows, knit in pain, gave her a twisted look. What thoughts raced through her tortured mind! Her head drooped, could not contain or combat them—the meeting at her mother’s grave, that charming, serious smile, a friend of your family, the day in Edinburgh, so gay and generous, the round of visits, what a wonderful nurse, but quite worn out, a cup of soup, my dear, so tenderly, and then Vienna, strange and whirling confusion of lights, sounds, music, Pinkerton, dear David, you could never be like that, Switzerland next, a mantle of purity, yes, I will come with you, the little mission church, one in the sight of heaven, and then, like her dear dead mother. . . . Oh God, she could not bear it. She jumped up, wildly, frantically, bent only on escape.

But Frida had risen quickly and stood at the door, blocking the way.

“Wait, Kathy, you must be sensible. Believe me, I mean well by you. There is much we can do for you.”

“Let me go. All I want is to go away . . . to go home.”

“Kathy, the car will take you to the hotel.”

“No, no . . . I’ll take the boat . . . I only want to go home.”

The doorway was still blocked. She looked feverishly round, ran to the french window, flung it open.

“Stop, Kathy.”

But she had already dashed across the terrace and the lawn to the narrow garden path that led to the village. Down the steep path she ran, into the darkness, mindless of the unseen steps, falling to her knees in her desperate haste, rising again, straining through the vicious shadows, seeking only to escape. Dark shapes of bushes whipped against her like things alive, stinging her with all the malice of mankind. Shocked out of sorrow, she was no longer herself, not altogether living, moving in a confused and tragic dream. In the dim world in which she ran, everything within her drifted away but pain, all was gone. She was lost.

Frida could not follow. Standing silent and distressed at the open french window, which threw out a following beam, she watched, watched until the stumbling, wavering little figure was lost as the brutal night took possession of it. Then, turning slowly, she shook her head, closed the window and, advancing into the hall, called upstairs. He came down slowly, nervously, with watery eyes and a veal-white face. He had been seated on the upper landing, trying to steady himself with one of his monogrammed Sobranies.

“It is all settled,” she told him calmly. “She has gone.”

“But where . . . and how” His voice shook.

“I offered the car but she prefers to return as she came, by boat. She goes home at once. All she wishes is to go home.”

“But Frida . . .” he faltered. “She has given up her job. She can’t go to Willie. Where is her home?”

“You have put the question. You had better answer it.”

A pause.

“Was she—much hurt?”

“Yes.”

“In—in what way?”

“Cannot you guess?”

“What did you tell her?”

“The truth. For her sake and ours it was necessary to perform a surgical operation. And I did so.”

“You told everything?”

“Yes.”

“But you—explained that I had meant well.”

“All was explained.”

“And yet—she was hurt—badly?”

“Yes.” With increasing sharpness: “Have I not already said it.”

“Surely she understood I couldn’t go out there.”

“She did not come here for you to go.”

He threw up his hands.

“But how in God’s name was I to know the Mission would burn down.”

“In the present circumstances it was more than a possibility. They are making bonfires of all the missions.”

“My God, Frida, I feel horribly upset. I worry about her getting back.” He looked at the clock. “She may have missed the boat—and it’s the last to Melsburg. I should go after her . . . if she’s still on the pier.”

“Then go.”

She said it cuttingly. The look in her yellow eyes, with their narrow slits of pupils, made him flush and wilt.

“No,” he said. “You’re quite right. It wouldn’t be wise.”

Silence again. Then firmly she put her hand on his shoulder.

“For the sake of pity, pull yourself into something like a man. She is young and, like her mother, will get over it. You can afford to make a settlement to her, and a large one. Later you must send it in proper legal form.”

“Yes.” His face lifted slightly. “I can do that, thank God, and I will. Make her comfortable for life. But, Frida . . .”. He hesitated, then, after a longish pause, said pleadingly, “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

She seemed to study him, with almost a clinical curiosity, seemed about to refuse, then relented.

“Well, then, though you should be punished, I shall stay. You must go upstairs and take your bath. Then to bed, for you are tired. I will speak with the servants and have a tray brought to you. Afterwards I will come.”

He looked at her abjectly.

“Bless you, Frida.”

She waited until he had climbed the stairs; then, passing through the drawing-room, she went out upon the terrace. The moon, behind ragged clouds, shone faintly. It was thawing, the snow on the lawn had turned a dirty yellow, a damp sensual smell of leaves filled the air. She gazed out across the lake. Yes, there was the steamer, a little fountain of light, cosy and bright, already on its way, quite far on its way, to Melsburg. A faint thrum of the engines came back to her. Kathy must just have managed to get on board. Turning, she looked down at the little pier. Yes. All quiet and deserted. The single yellow lamp that was kept alight all night shone upon the solitary wooden bench. No one was seated there.

Chapter Twenty

Starting painfully from a restless snatch of sleep Moray awoke to the muddled consciousness of unfamiliar darkness. Where was he? And why alone? Then, through the oppression clamped on his forehead, the first dulled glint of consciousness brought the humiliating answer.

God, it had been frightful, his inability to find consolation in Frida’s arms! She had tried to help him, at first with desire, then with encouragement, and finally in a state of weary patience. All useless—he could not succeed. And then, sorely tried by his futile fumblings, she had said, in a tone which concealed contempt but not bitterness and frustration: “We both need some rest if we’re to be off tomorrow morning. Would it not be wise if you moved to another room?”

And so he was here, in the guest room—a guest, almost, in his own house. Why, he agonised, had his normal virility deserted him? Had the sudden shock of Kathy’s reappearance induced a depressive impotence? It might well be so—the oversized female in his antique bed, her musky odours and muscular anatomy, had brought paralysing images of the slender young form he had once possessed: Kathy, whom he could easily have had, and instead had hopelessly lost.

Kathy . . . Stretched out on his back, he groaned. If only he had not failed her, everything would have turned out as he had wished. Oh God, what a fool he had been, in his weakness, his craving for sympathy, to marry Frida. She had caught him: he had swallowed the bait, hook, line and sinker, and was now landed, gasping, on the bank. And how skilfully she had angled for him: first that resigned acceptance of his departure, congratulations, sweet offers of assistance; then the gradual dissemination of doubt, working up to a frontal assault upon his fears; and finally, when he had been sufficiently reduced, that determined stand, a command virtually, to take her. Miserably he acknowledged her strength. She would possess him body and soul.

God, what a horrible situation! Weak rage flooded him, followed by a spasm of self-disgust. Tears came burning to his eyes at the thought of his disloyalty to Kathy. Yet it had not been a deliberate betrayal, he told himself, simply a moment of aberration, a lapse for which he had already been punished, and for which he would eventually make amends.

Amends—yes, that was still the key, the imperative word. At all costs he must not lose contact with Kathy. No matter what had happened she was still his responsibility, his charge, as essential to him as he to her. He must, yes, he must get in touch with her at once. A letter, explanatory; contrite yet constructive, was the immediate necessity, not only to outline his plans to make provision for her, but also to express the hope that when sorrow had been tempered by compassion they might meet again. He would pour out his heart in it, and since he must leave early with Frida tomorrow it was essential for him to write it now. A faint and wavering gleam dawned in the grisly prospect of his future. There was always hope—one need never give up; with his money especially there were many ways and means. Perhaps in due course everything might be straightened out. He began even to envisage, though dimly, an amicably arranged divorce that would set him free. Surely he could rely on his dear child’s forgiveness.

Stirring himself with an effort, he got up, switched on the light and, while struggling into his dressing gown, looked at his wrist watch. Twenty minutes to twelve—he couldn’t have been asleep for much more than an hour. Guardedly, he felt his way across the landing. Rhythmic unmelodious crescendos, percolating from his room, now hers, made him wince. He hastened past. Downstairs in the library, he sat at the bureau by the window, switched on the shaded lamp, and took notepaper from the central inlaid drawer. Then, pen in hand, he stared into the outer darkness, anxiously seeking the most appropriately, touching form of address. Should it be “Dear Kathy,” “My Dearest Kathy,” or even “Darling Kathy,” or simply the restrained, sombre, but oh, so significant, “My Dear’?

After some thought he had decided on the last when, through his abstraction, he became conscious of a glow, shining distantly through the opacity of the night. The moon is rising, he thought, seeing a hopeful omen in this sudden brightness; he was indeed in a mood receptive to signs and portents. Yet it could scarcely be the moon, for the sky still remained darkly unbroken and the light itself seemed less a radiance than a strange coruscation, a shifting sparkle of pin-point lights dancing like wildfire against the unseen waters of the lake below. What on earth was it? Accustomed to the wildest elements unleashed amongst these unpredictable peaks, he was unlikely to be startled by any terrestrial phenomenon: Yet so overwrought and unstable was his present state of mind, he could not repress a faint shiver of distrust. He got to his feet, opened the french window and, despite the lightness of his attire—he had always had a tendency to catch cold—went out on the terrace.

The night, as he had suspected, was pitch and unexpectedly chill. Clutching his thin dressing gown about him he peered down towards the lights. They were near, mysteriously and disconcertingly near. But suddenly he understood, and in a reflex of absurd relief could have smiled, though he did not, at his own foolishness. It was the little fishing fleet, half a dozen boats bouncing gaily on the waves, the men casting their nets, night fishing with naphtha flares. The felchen must be running, and in shoals, to have brought them out so late.

He was about to turn back into the comfort of the house when a thought arrested him. Surely the felchen didn’t run in winter and never, to his knowledge, in this part of the lake? They always swarmed at the mouth of the river where it flowed in through the Reisenberg gorge. And shading his eyes—though this was unnecessary—for a more particular scrutiny, he saw with amazement that a number of people were gathered on the pier. At this hour of the night! He hesitated. He wanted to leave it, leave the matter as it stood, but something impelled him to run into the house for his field glasses, the splendid Zeiss binoculars he had bought in Heidelberg.

At first he could not find them, but after rummaging untidily through several drawers, they came to hand. Back on the terrace, he focussed them hurriedly. Then, just as he saw that all the flares were now congregated round the pier, one by one all of them went out and a curtain of darkness, barely relieved by the feeble pier lamp, cut off his view.

He lowered the glasses uncertainly. He had a splitting headache and for some extraordinary reason his heart was fluttering against his ribs. He ought to go in, he had the letter to write, the letter beginning simply and movingly, “My Dear.” And he would have gone in, but the sound of approaching footsteps detained him. He swung round. Two men, at first dimly seen, then gradually taking recognisable shape, were coming up the path from below. The pier-master and Herr Sacht from the village Polizeiwache.

It had always been for him a source of mild entertainment that the cantonal police, in entire outward look—their stiff helmet, blue uniform and capacious boots—bore so close a resemblance to the London bobbies: perhaps a delicate compliment, he had surmised, contrived in earlier days to make the visiting English milords feel safe and more at home. But now Moray was not entertained, nor did he feel safe and reassured as Herr Sacht and his companion advanced towards him. He felt instead a sinking of his heart that was the sickening premonition of unknown yet inevitable disaster.

“Grüss Gott, mein Herr.” Respectfully, apologetically almost, the pier-master made himself spokesman—Sacht, a slow and stolid man, was at all times sparing of words. “We have some trouble down below, and have come for your advice—though not wishing to disturb you. A young woman . . .”.

“No . . . no . . .” said Moray, barely breathing.

“Alas, yes. We have just found her.”

“But how . . . ?” He could say nothing more. Pale and rigid, he had ceased to breathe.

“After the night boat I heard a splash—like a springing fish. Of it, I thought nothing. But when I made my last round of the pier, there was a handbag, fallen down, and in the water, floating, a lady’s small brown hat. I thought it wise to alarm the Polizei.” He glanced at Sacht, who nodded in heavy confirmation. “We got the boats out and after dragging, just two hours, we found the young person—of course completely dead.” He paused in respectful sympathy. “I fear it is—may be a friend to you. . . . The young Englische girl, she who came this afternoon on the five o’clock boat.”

He drew back, staring at them, horrified. Then, all at once he was crying hysterically.

“Oh, my God, it can’t be. But yes, a young lady . . . she did come . . . Kathy . . . Kathy Urquhart . . . a friend, as you say, daughter of an old, very dear friend. . . . She left us, running, running to catch the last boat . . .”.

“Ach, so?” Sacht said, with a slow comprehending nod. “She was running, in the darkness. Perhaps—or surely, then, this has been an accident.”

Moonfaced, Moray looked from one to the other, grasping towards the chance of exoneration, dizzily seeking a way out of the impact of this atrocious disaster.

“But what else could it be?” Struggling, he forced himself to bring out explanatory words. “She was on her way home, looked in to visit me again . . . briefly . . . to say goodbye. She was a nurse, you understand . . . fully trained . . . a fully trained nurse . . . meaning to work with her uncle in Africa . . . a missionary. I wanted to send her back by car . . . but she had her ticket and liked the boat. She must have slipped, missed her footing . . . it had been raining, the melting snow is very treacherous. . . . And now . . .”. He covered his face with his hand.

“It is sad for you, Herr Moray,” said the pier-master, “and we do not wish to cause you inconvenience. But you could help. Herr Sacht says, if only you will come to identify the body, he can then complete his report.”

“Yes, of course. . . . Yes, I will come,” His tone was expressive of assistance, complete willingness to co-operate.

“First you must put on warmer clothes, so you do not get chilled. We will wait here until you are ready.”

He had not realised his state of undress. In the hall cupboard he found a coat, cap and scarf, a pair of felt-lined snow boots. Hastily rejoining the other two, he went down the path. Still in a state of shock, he was instinctively, protectively, acting a part, but as they approached the little-pier, where a silent group stood gathered outside the low wooden shed that served as waiting-room, he could not repress a shudder of numbed and, silent dread.

The group parted, still in silence, as they drew near. They went into the bare waiting-room, where they had laid her on the pitchpine table under a single hanging electric globe. There was no sheet; she lay half covered by a fisherman’s jacket which Sacht now discreetly withdrew. At first Moray could not look. Frozen. Too much to demand of him. A physical impossibility. He stared woodenly at the near end of the table, seeing only the worn sole of one small brown shoe, hearing a slow steady drop of water from the upper edge of the table. The room smelled of the drifted fume of the paraffin flares and of stale cigarette smoke. Wandering away to safety, his gaze caught an ashtray, stamped Melsburg Bier, on the floor. It was filled with stubs and had been removed. But the pier-master was speaking to him; he must look or they would begin to think something was seriously out of order. Slowly and with great effort he raised and twisted his head, still protecting himself, not looking at the face, not yet, making only a swift and limited survey.

Her total stillness was astounding, and her extraordinary immaturity. God knew he had reason to know that she was small and slight—but never had he dreamed her to be so—so young as this. The sodden clothes moulded her thin body, cupped the tender breasts, bisected the slender limbs, nakedly revealing the delicate swell between, the mons veneris—the phrase came—he was a doctor—and all, all with the stark indecency of death. One of her stockings had come down, wrinkling about the ankle, a button on the blouse was undone; one hand, the palm upturned receptively, the soaked skin already blanched, hung over the table edge.

A faint convulsion went through him as, knowing it must be done, he forced himself to look towards her face. Once he had looked, he could not look away. Upturned to the light, the face was shrunken and of a greenish colour, the blue lips flattened and fallen away, the drenched hair plastered back from the brow, hanging in dank switches about the thin white neck, still exuding the trickle that kept drip, dripping to the floor. Almost unrecognisable in its dead ugliness, the face was wrapped in a strange unbearable enigma. Most mysterious, most unbearable, were the eyes, still open, expressionless, gazing directly at him. Within their unfathomable depths, suddenly, in a moment of truth, he saw himself, exactly as he was, without illusion, naked under the watchful sky.

“Ach so? It is the young English lady?” It was spoken in a low voice of sympathy.

Moray turned, made a slow, melancholy gesture of assent. Revelation might have shattered him, but habit, the style and form of years, persisted.

“Alas—yes,” he said, with careful articulation. “It is too painful for words. Cut off so suddenly—and so young. Only an accident could account for it. Did you observe the shoe, the sole—worn smooth? On the wet planks of the pier—the slippery edge . . .”.

“Yes, it is always bad in such weather.” The pier-master spoke defensively. “But not possible for me to dry it.”

“Oh, I only pray God she did not suffer.”

“Ach, no,” Sacht said, crudely, yet trying to be kind. “The cold of the water would kill quickly.” He had taken out his notebook.

“Well, you will want particulars,” Moray said, and standing erect, he gave them calmly, name, age, nationality, while Sacht indited in the dog-eared book with a moistened stub of pencil.

When it was all done, the pier-master, presuming in his sympathy, pressed Moray’s arm.

“You do not look well, Herr Moray. Come to my house for a cup of coffee.”

“You are most kind. But, thank you, no.” He turned to Sacht. “You are finished with me now? I suppose you have no further need of me.”

“For the present, no. But of course we will require you at the Leichenschau.”

“Ah, the inquest . . .”. Moray said, in an extinguished voice. “You consider it will be necessary?”

“It is for you only a formality, Herr Moray, but officially required, for the records of the Stadt.”

“I see.” He drew himself up. “You understand, of course, that it will be my privilege to defray all expenses of the interment.”

Was there anything more to say? Apparently not. He shook hands with both men and, not looking again, went out.

Though he went slowly, sparing himself with many enforced stops, his breath suffocated him as he went up the hill. He was sweating too, despite the cold, an abject sweat that ran from his armpits and the back of his knees, sweating from the ghastly futility of his effort at self-deception. All part of the usual sham, the impressive front, the grand façade. He knew the truth now, the truth about himself. And soon they would all know. Yes, it would all come out, all, all, the party for Willie, his engagement to Kathy, the heroic announcement of his departure for Africa. And now, within a few days, he was still here, married to Frida, and Kathy dead. God, what would they think of him? The gossip, the scandal, the odium that would fall upon him. And he couldn’t escape it, not this time, couldn’t leave with Frida in the morning, couldn’t slide away and conveniently forget. He must stay for the Leichenschau, stay till it all came out, and afterwards stay bound hatefully to Frida, who would never let him go, but would grind him down remorselessly to an ultimate subjection. And all this when he might have had Kathy, when even at this moment she might have been alive, warm and loving, in his arms.

In a spasm of sweltering despair he clenched his teeth and hung on to the railings for support. It was a bad dream, a nightmare, impossible to grasp how it had come about. He had meant well, tried to do the right thing, oh God yes, he had tried so hard, he had wanted to do well for everyone. It simply wasn’t in him to hurt even a fly. He couldn’t be blamed if, with the best intentions, he had over-estimated his strength, broken down and been obliged to withdraw. It had not been a deliberate betrayal, simply a moment of . . . no, he’d said that before, it was no use any more. Simply wouldn’t work. The instant of illumination when he stared into those dead eyes had shattered his self-constructed image. The hollow shell had broken, there was nothing left, nothing. In destroying her, he had destroyed himself.

Amongst the ruins, the clearness with which he viewed the stale imposture of his life was amazing, stereoscopic, four dimensional. All that had happened was his own doing, springing not from accident, but from something within, always his propensity for taking the way he thought most advantageous for himself. A genius at dodging responsibility, trouble, unpleasant issues, he saw with a sudden access of reason that he had developed to his logical conclusion. And yet, such a nice man, a charmer, cultured too, patron of the arts. How often had he heard, and merited, these compliments. Pity it was all gone—or would shortly go: reputation, position, freedom, happiness, hope in the future, and, naturally, his belief in himself. A queer logic had begun to take hold of him, comforting almost. He nodded twice in complete agreement. Imprisoned, walled in, every outlet sealed.

He reached the top of the hill and paused, exhausted but, strangely, more reasonable than ever. What a view! And a lovely night! A faint air stirring, the moon, alive again, drifting from the clouds, a soft mist rising from the lake, a nocturnal barge, unseen, chugged distantly. His thoughts strayed. A man had once told him that chugging note was his earliest childhood memory. Who? He had forgotten. It would have been interesting to ask him what he meant by it. Elusive shapes, records of his own past, swelled and faded in his mind. Say what they liked, he’d had an interesting life. An owl hooted in the orchard. Suddenly he caught sight of a hedgehog, a small brown ball, moving into its own shadow across the lawn with painful lack of speed. Of all things, a hedgehog; amused, he almost smiled, recollecting how Wilhelm had reviled the little creature for its shallow rootings. He lost contact momentarily, then suddenly became aware of where he stood.

“Cercis siliquastrium . . .” he murmured. “The leaves are used for salads in the East.”

Yes, a lovely tree in summer, dangling its purple drops that fell staining the lawn. A winepress. He had always been poetic.

He ceased to mediate and, under the moving branches of the tree, raised his head in a sudden, upward glance. The swing, with its long ropes, was oscillating gently in the breeze. Seductive, the motion—it fascinated him. Following the gentle movements across the face of the moon, he simply couldn’t take his eyes away. The faint rhythmic creak of the metal cleats began to beat a little tune inside his brain. Reality had left off, illusion was brightening his eys. He was beginning to understand everything in a peculiar and interesting way. This extraordinary calm was the most marvellous sensation he had ever experienced. And now he was talking to himself, in a quiet, confidential manner, carefully forming the words: restitution, complete vindication, the court of last appeal—absolving all guilt, restoring his ideal self. He stood there for a long time smiling to himself, enjoying his triumphant acquittal in advance, before he decided it was time for him to produce the evidence.

Next morning, just after seven o’clock, directed by the new Madame, Arturo went to the guest room, knocked on the door and brought in the breakfast tray: fresh orange juice, toast and boiled eggs, mountain honey, delicious Toscanini coffee in the silver Thermos. Arturo was in an unhappy frame of mind, almost convinced now that he would not keep his situation, but he said good morning, put the tray down on the oval occasional table by the window. Then he drew the lined silk curtains and flung the shutters back into their automatic catches.

The morning was cold, grey with mist, the raw air made his eyes water, and the wine he had drunk last night had left him with a thick head. He was about to close the window when he straightened suddenly, wondering if he were still not quite himself. He peered into the mist, not seeing clearly, yet held by an extraordinary mirage. Turning his head, slowly, he saw that there was no one in the bed. He caught his breath, slewed round again, more slowly, then convulsively stepped back, knocking over the tray with a crash. A breeze from the lake had stirred and thinned the luminous haze. Now he saw quite clearly what was hanging in the tree.