“Not always,” I said.
She laughed again. “Well, hardly anyone is … always. Sometimes it suits them not to be and then they forget how important they’ve always thought them. But never mind. Trust me. I’ll do my best for you and Jamie.”
SHORTLY AFTER THAT my father was ill again. This time Zillah had a mild form of the illness. She recovered first and gave herself up to the task of looking after my father with my help.
“It must have been something we ate,” said Zillah.
Mrs. Kirkwell was indignant.
“Does she mean something which came out of my kitchen?” she demanded.
I reminded her that they had both dined at the home of one of my father’s business colleagues on the night when they had been taken ill. “It couldn’t have been here,” I added, “because I dined at home on that night and I was all right.”
That mollified her. She said: “I think Mr. Glentyre ought to see a doctor. This is not the first time he’s been taken ill in a little while.”
“I’ll suggest it,” I told her.
When I did, Zillah said: “It might not be a bad idea, although I’m sure it was something we’d eaten, and that sort of thing soon passes. Moreover, I was ill, too. Admittedly I was not very ill, but I eat a good deal less than your father. I think it was the veal we had at the Kenningtons. Veal, I’ve heard, can be a little tricky. I’ll see what he says about seeing a doctor.”
He was firm in his refusal at first, but she managed to persuade him.
When Dr. Dorrington called my father was back to normal. The doctor came at about eleven-thirty and was asked to stay to luncheon. He had been a friend of the family for years. He must have been quite sixty and we had been wondering for the last year when he would retire. There was a young nephew in the offing who was just passing through the last stages of his training and was at the time working in one of the hospitals in Glasgow. It was an understanding that in due course he would take over his uncle’s practise.
I heard my father greeting the doctor in the hall.
“Oh, come on in, Edwin. This is all very unnecessary. But I’ve at last given in to my wife … for the sake of peace.”
“Well, it can’t do any harm to have a little check.”
They went upstairs to the bedroom.
When I went down to lunch, the doctor greeted me warmly. He had, as he was fond of saying and did so almost every time we met, brought me into the world. This seemed to give him a kind of proprietary interest in me. He had attended my mother through her illness and had been very upset when she died.
I could see that he was a little fascinated by Zillah.
“Is everything all right?” I asked.
The doctor replied: “Oh yes … yes.” But he did not sound altogether convincing.
However, it was a very pleasant luncheon. Zillah was in good spirits and made much of the doctor. She flirted with him mildly, which he seemed to like, and my father looked on with amusement.
Afterwards I talked to her.
“Is anything wrong with him?” I asked.
“Well, he’s not a young man, is he? But there’s nothing to worry about.”
“You don’t seem very certain.”
“Well, I made old Dorrington tell me the truth … the absolute truth. I made sure he knew that this was the second attack your father had had. It must have been the food the second time … because I had it, too. He said your father should take care. There could be a weakness … an internal weakness. His heart’s all right, but the doctor kept stressing his age.”
“He’s not so very old.”
“He’s not so very young either. People have to be careful as they advance in years.” She laid a hand on my shoulder. “Never mind. I’ll look after him. I’m discovering a hidden talent. Do you think I’m rather a good nurse?”
“My father seems to think so.”
“Oh, he’d think anything I did was good.”
“That’s nice for you.”
“Indeed it is, and I intend to keep it so.”
MATTERS CAME TO A HEAD soon after that when Alastair McCrae came to the house to see my father.
He was taken to the study and was there some time. He left without staying to lunch or seeing anyone else.
My father sent for me and when I arrived in his study he smiled at me benignly.
“Shut the door, Davina. I want to talk to you.”
I did so.
“Sit down.”
When I was seated he went to the fireplace and stood, his hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels as though he were about to address a meeting.
He said: “I have some very good news for you. Alastair has been to see me. He has asked my permission to marry you.”
I stood up. “It’s impossible.”
“Impossible! What do you mean?”
“I’m engaged to someone else.”
“Engaged!” He was staring at me in horror, words on his lips which he was too shocked to utter. “Engaged,” he said at length, “to … to …”
“Yes,” I said. “James North.”
“That … that … student!”
“Yes,” I said. “You met him.”
“But … you are a fool …”
“Maybe.” I was feeling bold. I was not going to be intimidated. I loved Jamie. I was going to marry him. I was not going to allow my father to rule my life. How dared he, who had brought Zillah into the house … who had kept her here in the pretence that she was a governess to me? I thought of her creeping into his bedroom. It gave me courage.
“You will forget this nonsense,” he said.
“It is not nonsense. It is the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
He raised his eyes to the ceiling as though speaking to someone up there. “My daughter is an idiot,” he said.
“No, Father. I am not. This is my life and I will live it as I want to. You have done what you want and I shall do the same.”
“Of all the ingratitude …”
“Gratitude for what?”
“All these years … I have looked after you … made your welfare my chief concern …”
“Your chief concern?” I said.
I thought he was going to strike me. He came towards me and then stopped abruptly.
“You’ve been meeting this young man?”
“Yes.”
“And what else?”
“We have discussed our future.”
“And what else?” he repeated.
I was suddenly angry. I said: “I don’t know what you are suggesting. James has always behaved to me with the utmost courtesy and in a gentlemanly fashion.”
He laughed derisively.
“You must not judge everyone by yourself, Father,” I said.
“What?”
“It is no use playing the virtuous citizen with me. I know you brought your mistress into this house. I know she visited your bedroom before you were married. As a matter of fact, I saw her going to your room.”
He stared at me, his face scarlet.
“You, you … brazen …”
I felt I was in command. I said: “Not I, Father. You are the brazen one. You are the one who poses as virtuous, self-righteous. You have your secrets, do you not? I think you should be the last one to criticise my behaviour and that of my fiance.”
He was aghast. I could see he was deeply embarrassed. I had unmasked him and he knew that I must have known this of him for some time.
His anger burst out suddenly. There was hatred in the look he gave me. I had cracked the veneer. I had exposed him as an ordinary sinful man; the aura he had always tried to create about himself had been destroyed by those few words of mine.
“You are an ungrateful girl,” he said. “You forget I am your father.”
“I find it impossible to do that. I am sorry I shall have to refuse Alastair’s offer, but I shall tell him that I am already engaged to Jamie.”