Читать книгу Collected Works (Historical Novel) - D. K. Broster - Страница 126

Supper that night at Invernacree was an uncomfortable meal, at least for all the Stewarts at the board, though it was not in old Invernacree to show a grudging hospitality. As for Mr. Campbell of Cairns, his anxiety for his daughter and his own recent escape from serious accident, joined to the probability that he was not himself aware that Alexander Stewart regarded him as having the blood of his eldest son upon his hands, protected him in some measure from the full realisation of the prevalent malaise, though naturally he could not suppose that one of his name would ever be very welcome under the roof of a Stewart, more especially of one who had lost a son at Culloden. Whatever he perceived, however, or did not perceive, he excused himself soon after the meal and retired to bed, while the old laird withdrew with a clouded face into his own study, whither no one liked to follow him. Grizel returned to the bedside of her patient, and Ian and Jacqueline were left alone together, she to enquire of every particular of the accident, and he to deplore the strange and unfortunate chance which had thrown Campbell of Cairns and his daughter, of all people, upon their kindness.

“Not that one could hold her responsible for anything, Ian,” observed Jacqueline almost pleadingly. “She can have been little more than a child when Alan was killed.”

“No, naturally not,” agreed her brother. “Yet I wish, chiefly for our father’s sake, that it had been anyone—any Campbell even—but Campbell of Cairns!”

Jacqueline sighed. She herself had been but ten years old when the Cause went down in the sleet and the wind. She remembered her brother Alan well, of course, but nine years seems a long space of time to a girl not yet twenty. Ian had never replaced Alan in her father’s heart—she knew that—but he had in hers.

“She is very beautiful, this Miss Campbell,” she remarked after a moment.

“Is she?” asked Ian indifferently. “I had not time to observe it.”

He was not speaking the truth. If there had not indeed been time in the overturned coach to see whether the huddled girl he had lifted out were plain or comely, he had not helped to carry Miss Campbell all the way to Invernacree without observing the face upon which he had looked during that slow transit. And even viewed upside down, even with a handkerchief bound about the forehead and half obscuring the beautiful pencilling of the eyebrows, that face was one which a man would not willingly take his eyes from. Young Invernacree, therefore, was quite aware that the lady of the coach was lovely; and quite unmoved by the fact. She was a Campbell.

The invalid, reported Grizel next morning at breakfast, had passed a very fair night; the headache from which she had suffered yesterday was gone, nor was the slight cut on her forehead troubling her. But the doctor had decreed last night that she was not to leave her bed for a couple of days, nor to take her departure from Invernacree for a week or more.

“We shall be very pleased, shall we not, Grizel, to keep the young lady for as long as it suits her to remain?” said the laird at breakfast, with no trace of hostility in his tone. Nor was the speech due to the presence of the young lady’s parent, since Mr. Campbell was breakfasting in his own room.

“But what about her father, sir?” queried Ian.

Invernacree’s fine old face grew dark. “God forbid that I should turn even the slayer of my son from my door when he is in need of succour. Since Campbell of Cairns has broken bread beneath my roof, I cannot hasten his departure, but I can hope that he will soon take it of his own motion, for last night I seemed to see Alan’s wraith behind him at every turn.”

“If Mr. Campbell had shot poor Alan with his own hand our father could not feel it more acutely,” observed Grizel with a troubled face a little later, when she found herself alone with her half-brother and sister. “I cannot quite so regard the matter; it was the fortune of war that he and not another should have commanded the Campbell militia and thus——”

“Was it the fortune of war which made the Campbells prostitute themselves to the service of the Hanoverian?” demanded Ian, suddenly fierce. “No, it was another kind of fortune, that which they have always known where to find—the profitable, the winning side in every quarrel!”

“My sorrow!” sighed Grizel. “I know that as well as you, Ian. Yet Cairns seems a decent man enough, and it’s likely has regrets now.”

“Grizel is over douce,” pronounced Jacqueline, twining her arm in her brother’s. “For my part, I shall be very glad when Mr. Campbell is gone, but I have no desire to see his daughter drive away. She has a face like . . . like moonlight on the loch yonder.”

“Your enthusiasm has betrayed you into a very unsuitable metaphor,” said Ian coldly, and somehow his arm disengaged itself from the girl’s. “I cannot but feel with my father in this matter, and wish them both gone as soon as may be.”

And half of Ian’s inhospitable wish found itself fulfilled with more promptitude than he had dared to hope. Whether Mr. Campbell made the urgent business of which he spoke an excuse, or whether it really was as pressing as he asserted, at any rate he alleged himself bound to depart next morning. He was well satisfied with his daughter’s condition, and ready to leave her behind under Miss Stewart’s care with full confidence and, as he added with much feeling, with deep gratitude. He departed in a postchaise, his coach, though now fished up from its ignominious position on the shore of Loch Linnhe, being still lamentably wet and muddy and having a broken window.

His host omitted no courtesy at his departure, but the courtesy was stern and strained, and Campbell of Cairns’ own leave-taking was not free from embarrassment. He, or one of his sons, was, however, to return to fetch his daughter in about a week’s time.