“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.