The House of the Laird (9 page)

CHAPTER
NINE

Before the week-end, A
ubrey Ainsworth arrived at Auchenwiel, and although she had been rather dreading meeting yet another stranger Karen found him quite a pleasant young man, with none of the usual hallmarks of an artist devoted to modern art. He was about a couple of years older than herself, and had fairish hair rather like her own, grey eyes that were utterly unlike Iain Mackenzie’s, and a thin, slightly careworn face.

The carewornness was explained by the fact that he had apparently little money, although his ambition was unbounded. He hoped one day to be as
well-known
as Picasso, and in the meantime he thought he would like to attempt a study of Karen’s face and head if she could spare the time to give him a sitting. He told her that there was something in her face which interested him, and that her bone structure was well-nigh perfect. She had
a curiously perfect skin, too, although she was so pale, and the tiny blue veins at her temples, and the delicate mauve shadows under her eyes, threw into prominence the perfection of her skin.

“I should imagine you’d tan well,” he told her, after a particularly prolonged scrutiny, “but at the moment you look positively ethereal.”

Karen smiled, because even though she still looked ethereal she was feeling very much better, and she was sure that was largely due to the fact that she had been out of doors quite a lot since coming to Auchenwiel. The weather had been very kind—it really did look as if spring was on its way—and for that part of the world almost balmy, and although she had not enjoyed the trip to Inverlochie with Mrs. Barrington—for no really good reason that she could explain even to herself, since Mrs. Barrington had been particularly kind and considerate—there was no doubt that such an outing had provided her with a break in the routine of an invalid. They had had coffee at the George, and she had felt that she was once more caught up in the daily life
o
f ordinary human beings. She had bought herself a twin-set which she had known she couldn’t really afford, but she had been unable to resist the soft, misty blue of it, which Fiona had insisted was exactly right with her eyes.

She had also, because she felt so dowdy and colorless, bought herself a new lipstick, and some new face-powder which had just the right touch of creaminess in it to deal with her pallor. When she put it on she knew that her skin looked even more perfect—more healthy was the way she put it herself—and the lipstick had a positively magical effect on her lips. They glowed like the pink petals of a flower, and at the same time they were alive and warm and generous.

Aubrey Ainsworth seemed to find it impossible to take his eyes off her when she appeared for the first time wearing her new make-up, and Aunt Horry looked faintly surprised. “It’s extraordinary how illness can pull one down,” she said, “and how something fresh in
the cosmetic line can do so much for one.” She put her head on one side and studied the girl consideringly. When she had first seen her and she had thought her almost painfully plain, and she had been amazed because Iain had announced that he intended to marry her. But now—now she was no longer so certain. The girl had a flower-like beauty which might well pull at the heartstrings of a man like her nephew, who had seen so much of indisputable feminine beauty, and was possibly a little bored by it. The girl, even without her
new make-up, had a pathetic poi
g
nant quality in her face, and with it she was almost if not quite lovely.

In Iain’s eyes she might even be very lovely—that intense darkness of his was probably attracted by the extreme fairness of Karen—and if only she were really well dressed she might be capable of dazzling quite a few people.

Aunt Horry began to puzzle her brains as to how she could provide new and suitable clothes for Karen with offending (a) the girl herself, and (b) her nephew, because it was very likely his intention to provide them for her himself as soon as they were married. But she couldn’t be married without a suitable outfit, and something would have to be done about it. She would have to consult Iain, because the girl herself was .as poor as a church mouse, although she was very gently bred. In some ways she would not be out of place as the mistress of Craigie House.

On the Saturday afternoon when Iain was due to arrive for his week-end Karen appeared in her new twin-set, and her mirror had told her that it really did suit her. Her eyes were bright and very blue. Inside her she was unable to deny the excitement which coursed through all her veins because the man she was supposed to be engaged to marry was coming to stay at Auchenwiel for at least one night, and perhaps two, and it already felt like years since she had last seen him. There was a faint excited glow in her cheeks, like the blush on a drift of apple blossom, and her lips hardly needed the application of lipstick they received before she went downstairs.

When she heard his car speeding up the drive and then coming to rest at the foot of the flight of steps before the front door her heart started to hammer so wildly that she was afraid those about her would hear it. And then the door was flung open, and Aunt Horry embraced her nephew on her own doorstep, and
he kissed her with a light, audacious smile in his eyes. The audacious look was still there when he advanced to greet Karen, and although for a moment surprise at her appearance almost banished it, it was there when he bent to sweep her into a quick embrace also, and she felt his hard masculine mouth claiming hers for a moment.

The color receded from her cheeks, and for one instant she looked so white that she felt everyone looking at her. Then, with a rush, it swept back, over her throat, and chin and brow as well as her soft cheeks, and Iain’s eyes were looking into hers with some amusement, although there was also something else very intent in his gaze.

“How delightful you look!” he told her, paying her the normal compliment of a
fiancé
might be expected to pay under the circumstances, especially when she really did look delightful. “And very much better,” he added, more gravely.

There you are, you see!” Aunt Horry exclaimed triumphantly. “Didn’t I tell you I could look after her at this stage of her convalescence better than you could, my dear?”

There was no disputing that she had obviously looked after Karen very well. And then, from the
foot of the stairs, Fiona came forward to greet him.

If Karen looked delightful, Mrs. Barrington’s appearance was so near perfection that it couldn’t fail to bring a glimmer of admiration to any man’s eyes. Karen saw it; she noticed that he also seemed to start slightly when Fiona appeared suddenly in front of him, holding out her hand, with
its
blood-red finger-nails, as if she had taken him aback. She was wearing a fine woollen dress in a burnt amber color, so moulded to the shape of her slender figure that it was almost as revealing as an evening dress. She wore chunky jewellery that appeared to be carved out of jade, and
her make-up was exotic. As always she brought her exciting Paris perfume with her.

“Hullo, Iain,” she said, and smiled up at him under her entrancing eyelashes. “So you’ve managed to survive without Karen! And she has just managed to exist without you,” stealing a look at the oth
e
r girl which, although nobody else probably recognized it, contained the merest suspicion of something which could have been a kind of half
-
affectionate contempt.

“Oh, I don’t think I can agree with that,” Iain replied, looking more carefully at his
fiancée
. “Karen has obviously found it very easy to exist
without me, which is undoubtedly due to Aunt Horry’s skill as a hostess.”

But he smiled very gently at Karen nevertheless, and she wanted to assure him that although she was so much better she had been counting the minutes until his coming, and that part of the glow of animation in her face was due to the fact that he had
arrived. But this was something she had to keep to herself, as she knew.

She was, however, unreasonably thrilled when he picked up her hand and drew it through his arm, conducting her over to the fireplace in the great library where they were to have tea. And he placed her almost tenderly in one of the comfortable chairs near the blazing logs that were lighting up all the handsome panelling, afterwards taking up his position near her, and giving her a wonderful feeling of being once more under his protection. And although Aubrey Ainsworth waited on her when the tea was brought in on an enormous trolley weighted down with old-fashioned silver and flowery porcelain cups, obviously taking a kind of pleasure in pressing her to an endless assortment of sandwiches and hot cakes, baps and bannocks, Iain merely regarded his efforts with a look of faint amusement, and agreed at once when he somewhat naively asked permission to paint her portrait.

“Certainly,” he said, “so long as you don’t paint her in cubes, or oblongs, or anything of that sort.”

And Aubrey looked frankly delighted by the permission obtained, and fell to studying Karen afresh, and with even greater enthusiasm, while he planned the medium he would use for consigning her to can
vas.

That night, when they all came down to dinner, Iain was wearing the Highland evening dress in which Karen had been secretly certain he would look at his best, and when she first set eyes on him when she entered the drawing-room where he was talking to
hi
s aunt she knew
—
and felt her heart give a kind of wild leap within her—that she had been absolutely right.

The velvet doublet and the lace jabot, which were a part of the dress, more than emphasized his dark good looks, and the swinging kilt seemed to have been expressly designed for his lithe and graceful build. As he came across the
room to
her she saw the shoulder brooch glittering where it c
a
ught up his plaid, the falls of lace over the hands she had so often admired in secret, and the
skeaa d
h
u
tucked into the top of one of his stockings.

She did not know it, but her admiration was plainly given away by her eyes as she gazed at him, and Aunt Horry looked a little amused. She was wearing black velvet and diamonds, and for once she, too, looked impressive, and only Karen was aware of the inadequacy of her attire when apparently everyone else was going to be unusually splendid tonight.

She was wearing her one evening frock, which although it would have done very well for a simple evening, failed her altogether against the background of the Auchenwiel drawing-room, with its Hepplewhite furniture and its damask curtains. Or so she was quite prepared to believe until she saw Iain looking at her with a smile in his eyes, and to her astonishment she discovered that he was not even looking at her frock, of the same rather shadowy blue as her twin-set, but at her
shining
hair.

“You’ve done something to it,” he said, puzzling over the transformation. “I don’t quite know what it is, but it’s different.”

She smiled, with an immense sensation of relief inside her, but as Fiona came into the room at that moment, followed by Aubrey, she was spared the necessity of explaining that Aunt Horatia’s own maid had washed and set it for her about an hour before dinner, and the finished result had amazed her, too.

At dinner she had Iain on her right hand, and on
ce
again she had that wonderful sensation of being protected and supported which was not hers when he was not there; and although most of his conversation was directed at Fiona, who demanded across the table a complete account of his recent travels, that did not seem to matter very much to Karen, who
was happy because she was allowed to sit quietly
and say
nothin
g
and
just listen intently to the pleasant baritone voice o
f
the man in the Mackenz
i
e ta
r
tan.

By comparison with Iain, Aubrey, in an uninspired dinner-jacket, looked completely ordinary, she thought.

After dinner Aunt Horatia wanted to play bridge, but as Karen did not play she had to sit alone and look on at the others, which, however, she declared
,
she was quite happy to do. Iain found her a large pile of magazines, and when he was dummy he moved over to talk to her, and even while he was playing he carefully watched the clock to make sure that the girl he was still inclined to regard as an invalid did not sit up beyond what he considered to be her most suitable bedtime.

Fiona Barrington watched
him with
a kind of open amusement in her golden eyes.

The next day
,
plainly t
o
his disappointment, it was raining and blowing half a gale, and when he told her that he had planned to
t
ake her for a short walk on the moor and discover how well she was using her legs these days, Karen realized how much she had missed. In fact, as she turned to look out of the window at the driving rain, and saw the still bare-branched trees being lashed by the wind, she felt for a moment as if she had been wilfully defrauded of something quite invaluable, which it might never
be her good
fortune to enjoy again. She was so ridiculously disappointed that her disappointment must have showed in her face; for Iain laughed and looked at her in faint surprise and reminded her that there would be other occasions.

“I’ll be over next week-end—if nothing prevents me
.
And you’ll probably be able to walk half a mile farther by then.”

He was rallying her, she knew, possibly a little perplexed by her, and the one thing he did not know was that the space of time between one week-end
and the next could be an eternity under certain conditions.

Before he returned to Craigie House on Monday morning he said lightly to Karen:

“Any messages? Anything you’d like me to say to Mrs. Burns?”

“Give her my love,” Karen answered.

He raised one eyebrow.

“You really mean your love? Isn’t that a little extravagant?”

“
I don
’
t think so,” Karen replied seriously. “I’m very fond of her, and she’s been awfully kind to me.”

“
And you make a practice of bestowing a portion of
your
love on people who are kind to you?”

“Of course not,” she assured him, with a sudden rush
of color to her cheeks, for his grey eyes were gazing directly down at her, and there was something besides amusement in them which she did not understand.

“Well, perhaps that’s just as well,” he told her, and then while she waited—wondering whether he was going to kiss her goodbye, as he had kissed her on arrival, although on this occasion there were no onlookers, and they were alone together in the hall—he lightly touched her cheek. His long, firm fingers merely brushed it, but it was a caressing touch.
“
Be a good girl,
”
he said—as if, she thought, she was not much more than a schoolgirl—
“
and don t do anything you know I wouldn’t approve of. By which I mean don’t under any circumstances do anything to tempt providence, will you?”

Then he ran away down the steps to his car, but before he got into it he looked up at her and smiled a little mockingly.

“I will give your love to Mrs. Burns,” he called out to her, and she stood watching .until the long black car had disappeared round a bend in the drive, and she heard Aunt Horatia coming down the stairs behind her.