Dark Hills Rising Read online

'I wouldn't describe it quite like that,' answered Gail ruefully, and, on noticing her sister's inquiring, persuasive expression she went on to relate what had occurred as a result of her innocent acquaintanceship with Robin. 'I can't altogether blame Andrew,' she continued after a pause. 'He's suffered, Heather, and his pride's been abominably hurt. And he now seems to be tormented by the idea that were I seen even speaking to another man the wrong conclusions would be drawn-that people would begin to pity him. I was angry, and defiant, but I'm sorry now because I should have been more understanding. Had I reasoned, instead of losing my temper, I'm sure he'd have adopted a more tolerant attitude.'

  'Had you allowed yourself to be intimidated, you mean, don't you?' was

  the swift and scathing rejoinder. Gail shook her head, becoming thoughtfully silent for a while. On that first occasion Andrew's swift dark fury had melted on his perceiving the scar, melted so suddenly that it could not have been the hard inflexible thing it had appeared when on impulse he had shaken her with such force that she had started to cry. No such providential occurrence had brought a similar happy ending to the second scene, but Gail now had the sure conviction that had she been more conciliatory, reasoning with him in a calm unruffled way, his anger would again have subsided, leaving in its place the tolerance and friendliness she had begun to take for granted. Instead, there now existed this coldness on his part, creating a rift that could soon widen and deepen until it became an insurmountable barrier between them.

  'It wasn't intimidation, exactly,' said Gail on suddenly noting her sister's attitude of waiting. 'Andrew was anxious to avoid gossip and that's why he told me I mustn't speak to Robin again. I just flared up, and so he naturally became more angry and She broke off, shrugging unhappily. 'We're not very friendly now, as a result of it.'

  'He's not been noticeably unfriendly towards you since our coming,' reflected Heather, sending him a glance. 'But there is a difference in his way with you- although I expect he thinks he's successfully hiding it,' she added as an afterthought. Gail said nothing and Heather went on hesitatingly, 'You're still in love with him?' Gail gave a startled little laugh. 'You don't expect I've fallen out of love with him?'

  'You're crazy, Gail,' her sister murmured softly. 'If only you'd waited!'

  'Waited? What for?'

  'Someone really nice to turn up. He would have done, you know-sooner or later.'

  'And what about Robbie and Shena? What would have happened to them?' Heather made no answer, but it was not difficult to read her thoughts. They would have had someone else.... Gail frowned darkly at the idea of that. 'They need me, Heather ... and I need them. This is fate- theirs and mine, and if I'd my time to come over again I'd still marry Andrew.' He was looking straight at her and she blushed. His eyes narrowed and his mouth went tight. He knew he was the object of their conversation, and was angry in consequence.

  'If you must discuss me,' he said icily when, just as she was going up to bed he stopped her in the hall, 'then please have the manners to do so in my absence!' The hurt was almost physical. Her lovely eyes held deep reproach as she said, 'If you knew what I was saying, Andrew, then perhaps you wouldn't speak so unkindly to me.' And although she knew he gave an involuntary little start she left him no time to comment as she went past him and mounted the stairs.

  The four children could scarcely contain themselves as they waited for Gail and Heather to prepare the food and drinks for the picnic.

  'When are we going?' Simon asked impatiently. 'We don't want all that food.' Heather, cutting sandwiches at the kitchen table, gave him a determined little shove. 'Out! Or you won't come at all!'

  'Heather,' began Gail remonstratingly, 'it's only natural they're impatient.' '

  You're too soft with them-' She stopped to wave a warning hand towards the children, now clustered by the door. 'I said out-all of you!' They went, heads down, and Gail had to smile. This sort of treatment was entirely new to Shena and Robbie-at least, since the arrival of their stepmother on the scene. 'Wait till you've had them a little while longer; you'll not allow them to tantalize you as they do now.'

  'Can you manage?' asked Gail a few minutes later. 'I just want to go up to Morag for a while.'

  'Yes, I can manage. How many flasks are we taking?'

  'Two. I've made lemonade for the children.'

  Morag was sitting up in bed, a sulky expression on her face. The nurse was in a chair, reading the news-paper. Gail nodded and smiled as she passed her and sat down on the bed. 'How do you feel today? You're looking much bet-ter.'

  'I am much better.' Morag scowled at the nurse as she added irascibly, 'I want to get up!'

  The nurse merely raised her head, then resumed her reading.

  'The doctor said a fortnight,' Gail gently reminded Morag. 'It's for your own good. You must have complete rest.'

  'I know what's for my own good! Where's Father?'

  'He'll be up soon.'

  Morag crushed the bed cover between her hands.

  'He won't let me get up- Oh, I could scream!' Gail sighed.

  'Why don't you read?' she suggested. 'Shall I look out some books for you and bring them up?'

  The girl's eyes swept contemptuously over her.

  'The sort of books you'd choose wouldn't be very entertaining. No, I don't want to read in any case.' She paused a moment: 'I want a cigarette,' she then added softly. 'I could smoke it when she goes down for her coffee.'

  But Gail shook her head.

  'Sorry, Morag, nothing doing. The doctor said definitely no cigarettes..'

  'Are you refusing out of concern for me?- or because you're afraid of what Father would say?' Gail had no patience to reply to that and Morag changed the subject, asking Gail where they were all going.

  'Your sister said last night that you'd arranged to take the children on a picnic,' she added.

  'We haven't decided. I expect we'll decide once we're on the road.'

  'What a way to spend your time! I'd be bored to tears with four children around me.'

  Gail rose, cutting short her intended stay, and be-coming overwhelmed with guilt the moment she had closed the door behind her.

  'I feel so mean and selfish,' she told Heather on re-turning to the kitchen. 'I wish I could have more patience with Morag'

  'Patience-with that one?' Heather picked up the jug of lemonade and began pouring the contents into a bottle. 'I think you're an angel to bother with her at all. I've been up there only twice-and I wanted to leave before the wretched girl had spoken half a dozen words. She doesn't deserve any consideration at all. The tales about her haven't been exaggerated, that's not difficult to see.'

  'But what's going to happen to her?' Gail spoke dejectedly, almost to herself. 'Why should you care?'

  'Because it's a terrible thing, Heather, when you see a young girl ruining her life and you're helpless to do anything about it.'

  An exasperated sigh from Heather and then she said practically,

  'For the time being, forget her and let's enjoy ourselves. Will you put the basket in the car, and tell those scamps we're ready. I'm just going upstairs to fetch my handbag.'

  Heather drove Roger's car, taking the road to Killie-crankie and then following the shores of lovely Loch Tummel, where towering conifers often overshadowed the road, spilling down from the smooth dark hills which rose on both sides of the loch. 'Can we stop?' asked Manda as they neared the western end of the loch. 'We want to play in the woods.'

  'Stop? Already?' They had covered no more than twenty miles. 'Aren't you enjoying the ride?'

  'Yes, but we want to play a bit.'

  'What do you say, Gail?'

  'It's nice here. I think we'll let them get out and run off some of their energy.'

  'I might have known,' laughed Heather.

  'You'll spoil those two before you've done.'

  'I don't think so,' returned Gail with confidence.

  She and Heather drank their coffee on the bank while the four children played noisily in the wo
ods.

  'It casts a spell on you,' murmured Heather after a long silence between them.

  'It's certainly cast a spell on me.' Gail fell silent again, staring dreamily around. The wooded slopes and heathered moorland pastures; the heights of Doire Leathan and Tairnechan and Craig Chean forming part of the watershed from which numerous little burns came foaming down to join the still clear waters of Loch Tummel; the loch itself, with its bright green banks and little odd-shaped promontories; the pro-found awareness of colour-purples and blues, and a bewildering number of greens blended with the skill and perfection only Nature can achieve.

  'It must be fantastic in winter,' Heather was saying. 'I hope we have snow at Christmas.'

  'I'm sure we shall.' Gail was waiting eagerly for the spectacle of grandeur despite Sinclair's warnings of the severity and bleakness of a Highland winter. True, there would be times when icy mists would swirl across the moors and frowning ominous clouds would wrap their cloak of darkness round the hills, but there would be the good days-days of breathtaking wonder when the sun in a clear blue sky would touch the brilliant white snow with gold, when frost-draped trees would sparkle and shimmer in the glen and the roar of the burn would become no more than a murmur under its covering of ice. There would be days when the fresh dear air would intoxicate and days when the winds would blow sharply over the moors ... 'winds austere and pure'.

  'Do you want to drive?' Heather's voice brought Gail back from her pleasant musings and she smiled.

  'I was miles away! No, I don't want to drive. It's nice to be driven for a change.' Heather glanced oddly at her. 'Andrew doesn't take you out?'

  Reluctantly Gail shook her head. 'He hasn't a great deal of time,' was all she said, but Heather's next words echoed her thoughts.

  'A man in his position could make time, were he so inclined. He seems to have enough men employed on the estate.' This was true. Andrew had seven farm hands, two foresters and two gamekeepers in addition to the joiner and mason and, of course, his estate manager, Sinclair.

  'He likes working,' submitted Gail after a pause, and then changed the subject, asking Heather if she would like to go south, to Loch Tay, or carry on along the valley towards Loch Rannoch. 'I don't mind. We'll go a little further along this road; it looks attractive.' Heather called to the children and they all got into the car.

  'It's a very pretty road; I'm glad we took it.' Gail had driven to Loch Rannoch one day on her own, after taking the children to school. We can have our lunch somewhere on the loch side.' The heights rose all 'around, with the prominent Ben Chaullaich to the north and the resistant quartzite summit of the graceful Schiehallion dominating the landscape to the south. 'That's the Sugar Loaf Mountain,' Robbie informed his companions. 'You think it's snow on top, don't you? But it isn't.' After travelling along for some time by a wooded hillside they entered a wider part of the valley, coming to the charming village of Kinloch Rannoch. On leaving it behind they came upon wilder territory, where the complex nature and scale of the faulting and contortion of the rocks gave a greater diversity of landscape. There were more crags, and the valleys were for the most part deep defiles between ridges of high land. However, after travelling about five miles alongside the loch they reached gentler country again, with soft rolling hills' coming almost down to the shore on both sides of the loch.

  'Can we go round to the other side of the loch?' Robbie leant forward to speak to Gail. 'Mummy, can we go to Black Wood?'

  'Black Wood?' echoed Manda. 'That sounds creepy!'

  'It is creepy, isn't it, Mummy? The trees are dark and so close together that it's all shadowy inside the woods, and there are ghosts!'

  'Ghosts?' Manda spoke in an awed voice, and shuddered. 'I don't want to go, then.' 'There aren't any ghosts, Manda,' laughed Gail. 'Robbie's only teasing you.'

  'Are you, Robbie?' asked Simon, disappointed.

  'Well...' he began, then saw Gail's expression. 'Yes,' he owned, grinning, 'I was only teasing-about the ghosts, that is.

  But the wood's creepy, isn't it, Mummy?'

  'Yes, I'll admit it is. Do you others want to go?' she then asked.

  'The boys do and the girls don't,' submitted Robbie. 'But the boys are older, so they have the pick.'

  'Do they, now?' from Heather. 'And what gave you the idea that because you're older you should have the pick?'

  'It's only fair,' put in Simon. 'The fair way is to vote.'

  'Yes, that's fair,' said Shena eagerly. You and Mammy are girls, so we'll have the most votes.'

  'Certainly we'll have the most votes.'

  'I shall vote with the boys,' promised Gail as they both gave dissatisfied little grunts. 'In that case,' laughed Heather, 'we'll have our picnic on this side of the loch and then go over to the other side.' No sunlight entered the Black Wood of Rannoch, relic of the ancient Caledonian Forest where wolves once freely roamed, because the firs were tall and thick and very close together. But despite its density all four children entered, the boys making weird howls as they raced on ahead.

  Gail and Heather then played hide and seek with them until at last they all piled into the car and made for home. 'We've had a marvellous time!' Robbie told his father. 'You should have come with us; it was super!' Catching his wife's eye, Andrew smiled, but it was a forced smile, produced for the benefit of Heather and Roger and one or two other guests who happened to be there.

  'We went into Black Wood,' Simon gave this piece of information as he drew a not very clean handkerchief from his pocket. Out fell a knot of dirty string, two rusty nails, a few small sweets and several crumpled snapshots. 'Simon!' cried his mother. 'What? The way that child shows me up!' She made a helpless gesture with her hands. 'The things he puts in his pockets-and just look at the colour of that handkerchief !' Everyone else laughed, as much at Heather as at her son. Stooping, Andrew picked up the snapshots ... and instantly his attention was arrested.

  'Where did you get those?' Heather was standing by Andrew and she glanced at one of the pictures in his hand. 'You were sorting out one day and you threw them away, saying they were no good-you said those of Gran were awful, and so were those of Auntie Gail and her boyfriends. Don't you remember?' He blew his nose loudly and began stuffing the handkerchief back into his pocket.

  'You kept some others because they were nicer. I didn't like those going in the dustbin,' he added, getting up on tiptoe in order to take a look. 'So I took them out of the waste-paper basket and put them in my pocket.'

  After flicking through them with assumed carelessness Andrew passed the snapshots to Heather and, his gaze meeting that of his wife, he noted the sudden flush which had risen to her cheeks.

  It was the following morning before he found him-self alone with her and was able to put the questions she guessed he had been wanting to ask.

  'Who was the man you were sunbathing with?'

  'He-he was my fiance-' Gail twisted her hands together. It was a totally unconscious gesture, but one portraying nervousness, and a frown settled on her husband's brow.

  'You've been engaged? You never mentioned it.'

  A wan little smile touched her lips. 'We didn't have much time to confide in one another,' she reminded him gently.

  'You broke the engagement?' Andrew looked at her through narrowed eyes. Gail hesitated, but because she was completely honest she said, 'No, Michael broke the engagement.'

  'He did?' sharply, and with a quick and questioning raising of his brows. 'Why?'

  Suspicion again, no doubt of that. Should she tell him the whole? But no, for somehow she had always considered her inability to have children as a stigma, putting her on a plane below the level of other women. Had Andrew loved her she could have told him, but he did not love her, and at the forefront of her mind were the words Morag had spoken about his never tolerating anything inferior. True, he had once chided Gail for entertaining the idea of her own inferiority, when she had been so reluctant to tell him of the scar on her shoulder, but at that time he had been in a totally
different mood from that in which he was at present.

  'I prefer to keep the reason to myself,' she told him unhappily at last. His eyes raked, contempt in their depths: Obviously he inferred from her evasion that the blame had been hers, that Michael had had some valid reason for breaking the engagement.

  'You had been engaged some time?'

  'Almost a year.'

  He paused a moment.

  'The accident you mentioned-it must have occurred after that snapshot was taken?'

  'It did, yes-a few months afterwards.' What was he thinking? she wondered. Perhaps that she had been out with another man when the accident had happened, and that was the reason for the broken engagement ? The idea was like a piercing dart of agony and she wanted to tell him everything, but be-fore she could make up her mind he was speaking again.

  'The other snapshot-who was that man you were with?' Andrew's voice was edged with condemnation, his manner that of a judge. Gail felt her temper rise, crushing any desire she might have had to vindicate herself. 'What I did before I met you is my own affair!' she flashed at him. 'I don't inquire into your past, and you've no right to inquire into mine!'

  CHAPTER NINE

  HER words did nothing to improve the position, and it was with a sense of dread that she watched the car drive away, carrying her sister and her family from her ... leaving her alone with Andrew. No such sense of dread and dejection had occurred on the previous occasion, but at that time Gail had been filled with optimism for the future, clinging to the hope that one day Andrew would turn to her, his bitterness and hurt ,dissolved. He might fall in love with her, Gail had confidently said to Beth, but with the qualifying, 'If my stars up there just keep going in their present direction'. Well, her stars had not kept going in their pre-sent direction, and now Gail was forced to accept the fact that the happiness she derived from Shena and Robbie was all she would ever experience. And indeed this would have been all she desired, and more, had she not foolishly fallen in love with her husband. Beth had called her a chump, Heather had said she was crazy- and they were right. But Gail was ever grateful for the opportunity of loving, and being loved by, Shena and Robbie, and as the weeks passed she discovered that with resignation, with the acceptance of her fate, she was acquiring a sense of peace, becoming alive to the beauty around her as the seasons began their first almost imperceptible change and the warm soft colours of autumn appeared, first in the high places and then spreading down to the lower ground. There was the russet of bracken among the green hill slopes, the red of the mountain ash in the glen; there were Bolds and browns and yellows even while the heather remained purple on the moors.