My Heart Remembers Page 2

  ‘Do you have to rush in here like that? As if the wind wasn’t bad enough you have to go tearing through the house like a mad thing,’ she grumbled. Then with a change of mood, an affectionate smile curving her mouth, she added, ‘Although it’s more like you to rush around. What can have happened to stir you up? You’ve even got some colour in your face.’

  Sally stood at the end of the bed and regarded her sister objectively, trying to see her as the man downstairs might see her. She had always been an admirer of Maeve’s beauty. Long strawberry-blonde hair waved naturally about a heart shaped face. Blue eyes put in with a smutty finger were set under finely-marked winged eyebrows. A perfect peaches and cream complexion, a full-lipped passionate mouth and a smoothly curving figure which showed to advantage in a swimsuit had all been inherited from Maeve’s Irish mother, Hugh’s first wife who had died in childbirth.

  How could a man not love such a beautiful person? How could he go away and forget her?

  ‘Maeve, Ross Lorimer is downstairs.’

  ‘Ross Lorimer?’ repeated Maeve, opening her eyes wide. “You mean Ross who used to live at Winterston? Why is he here?’

  ‘He says he’s come to work here. I thought I’d better warn you.’

  ‘Warn me about what?’

  ‘Warn you that he’s here, so that you wouldn’t get a shock when you came downstairs.’

  Maeve stretched lazily and chuckled.

  ‘Thanks, Sal. It would take more than the sight of Ross Lorimer to shock me. Are you coming to the dance tonight?’

  ‘Yes ... and oh, Maeve, I’m meeting someone there, a sailor off the submarine which is in the harbour. I saved his hat from being blown into the sea.’

  ‘Well, we are having an exciting evening,’ mocked Maeve. ‘A sailor? What will Aunt Jessie say?’

  They both laughed good-naturedly about their aunt’s well- intentioned efforts to protect Sally from the ways of the world.

  ‘Then you won’t want me to come with me if you have an escort,’ suggested Maeve mournfully.

  ‘Oh, yes, I want you to come,’ said Sally earnestly, not wishing her sister to think that she wasn’t wanted.

  But Maeve didn’t seem to be listening. She had swung her legs over the side of the bed so that she was facing the small dressing table. Leaning forward, she examined her face in the mirror. Then picking up her hairbrush she began to brush her hair with long sweeping strokes so that it snapped and crackled with electricity.

  Behind Maeve’s reflection in the mirror, Sally could see her own reflection. Her beechnut-coloured hair was an indeterminate length, neither long nor short. An untidy fringe which badly needed attention fell over her forehead and drew attention to her wide hazel eyes. Across one thin cheek a long pallid scar angled from the corner of her right eye to the corner of her wide mouth. Once her face had been rosy and smiling. Now a certain wistfulness added maturity to it. Sally scowled at herself, not liking what she saw, and glanced at Maeve again. Her sister was smoothing away the lines caused by a frown, as if she realised that frowning would not help her to preserve her beauty.

  ‘What’s he like ... Ross, I mean?’ she asked curtly.

  Sally found the sudden question much more natural than Maeve’s apparently unconcerned reception of the news of Ross’s return.

  ‘He’s changed a bit,’ she began. It was difficult to describe how he had changed.

  ‘Is he married?’ Again Maeve’s voice was sharp.

  ‘I don’t know. He didn’t say.’

  ‘Och, you’re hopeless!’ snapped Maeve. “You never notice anything about other people. You’d better go down and tell Aunt Jessie I’m coming or she’ll think no one wants tea tonight.’

  Sally went to her own room. A quick flick of the brush over her own hair and a touch of lipstick was all the interest she took in her appearance. As she went down the narrow staircase she could hear her father’s voice coming from the living room. Just as she was about to turn the door handle and enter the room, the door was opened and Aunt Jessie shouted,

  ‘Sally, Maeve, come for tea, or else! Och, bairn, I didna’ know ye were there. Come on now, y’re father’s hungry and my guess is that Ross is too. Fancy walkin’ all that way! Whatever did ye do a thing like that for? Ye must be daft, lad!’

  ‘Maybe I am, Aunt Jessie,’ said Ross equably. ‘I had a few days to spare and I wanted to feel the soft moorland air, the rain in my face and the springy turf under my feet. I needed to be alone for a while, and I know of no better way of being alone.’

  Sally looked at him in surprise. She also loved to walk the moors for the same reason, but she would not have believed that the very self-assured man who sat opposite to her would have required the spiritual balm offered by communing with nature.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, Aunt Jessie,’ breathed Maeve softly as she entered the room. ‘Hello, Dad. Have a good day?’ She bent over her father and kissed him on the cheek, an action which caused him to look askance at her as he answered her.

  ‘Hello, lass. Now what are ye after?’

  ‘Nothing, I’m just showing how pleased I am to see you,’ she replied charmingly as she moved round to the vacant seat beside Ross. ‘Hello, Ross, Sally told me you were here. It’s nice to see you again.’

  For the second time that day Sally saw her stepsister in a more objective light. Maeve had made an entrance, drawing attention to herself and her new blue dress with its short gathered skirt and romantic frills at the neckline and at the cuffs of the long sheer sleeves. She seemed to glow and she looked completely out of place among the heavy furniture of the homely room.

  Ross took her outstretched hand in his as he rose to his feet and murmured a polite commonplace greeting. As he released her hand she sent him a provocative underbrowed glance and said,

  ‘It’s taken you a long time to come back.’

  His smile had a slightly sardonic quality as he answered smoothly,

  ‘Don’t treasure any illusions about my reason for returning. I’ve only come back because I have to work for my living.’

  Maeve pouted prettily as she sat down and he resumed his seat.

  ‘Och, Ross, don’t be so unromantic!’

  “But I am. I’ve always been a realist.’

  ‘Whatever ye are, we’re all glad to see ye,’ put in Hugh. ‘Have ye thought about my suggestion ... about staying here? He could lodge here while he’s working, couldn’t he, Jessie?’

  ‘Aye, he could. There’s an empty room up the stair waitin’

  to be used. You won’t think of refusin’?’ queried Aunt Jessie.

  ‘After a supper like this you make it very difficult for me,’ replied Ross with an appreciative grin. ‘I’ll consider it, and let you know later.’

  ‘You do that,’ encouraged Hugh. ‘I’ll be glad to have ye in this house of women. The dance they lead me!’ He clucked his tongue and rolled his eyes.

  ‘I can guess,’ murmured Ross dryly.

  ‘Do stay, Ross,’ said Maeve in her most persuasive voice as she placed a hand on his arm.

  Sally cringed inwardly. Why did Maeve have to be so obvious? She invited caustic sardonic remarks. But this time Ross didn’t reply as he looked at Maeve. It seemed to Sally that they looked at each other for a long time, as if they had both forgotten that there were other people in the room, and she felt an imperative urge to break the intimate moment. ‘Where are you going to work?’ she asked abruptly.

  Maeve remove her hand from his arm and continued with her meal while Aunt Jessie poured more tea. Ross’s blue glance was cool and indifferent as he looked away from Maeve’s golden beauty to the nut-brown, scarred-faced girl who sat opposite to him.

  ‘At Winterston ... erecting fuel tanks.’

  Aunt Jessie set the tea-pot down with a thump and said sharply,

  ‘Och, no, ye canna be doin’ the devil’s own work!’

  Sally gasped and said hotly,

  ‘I might have guessed!’

  Hugh cautioned quiet
ly, placidly,

  ‘Now, now, both of ye, be careful what ye say.’

  Maeve looked up, faint puzzlement clouding her eyes, and said in her soft slurred voice,

  ‘Why all the fuss? What fuel tanks?’

  ‘The ones we petitioned against when the Government first approached Miss Wallace about purchasing the land from her as the most suitable site for the tanks,’ blurted Sally.

  The colour had left her face and the scar looked ugly against the sudden pallor, but her thick brown hair glinted with copper lights and her hazel eyes flashed green fire as she glared at Ross.

  ‘You and Aunt Jessie might have petitioned against them, but I didn’t. Anyway, the construction of fuel tanks will bring people into the town with money in their pockets to spend ... and it’s brought Ross back,’ said Maeve.

  Ross slanted an enigmatical glance at her and murmured, ‘Thanks, Maeve, for your kind welcome. It seems that I’ve given Sally a reason for disliking me.’

  Sally wondered whether the others had noticed the subtle challenge in his voice. She looked at her father, hoping for his support. He was frowning as he busied himself with the lighting of his after-dinner pipe.

  ‘I expect you won’t want me to lodge here, now you know I’m here to do the devil’s work, Aunt Jessie,’ jested Ross.

  ‘Och, well now, I wouldna’ say that,’ replied the hospitable Jessie. ‘But I’m a wee bit disappointed. Ye see, many of the folk in the town objected to the choice of the site. It’s a lovely piece of land, as ye ken well yerself, and many of us think that Portbride would never be the same if the tanks are put there. The old house has been a landmark in these parts for centuries and people are fond of it. Miss Wallace herself was very upset, and I wouldna’ be a bit surprised if the anxiety about the public hearing they held didn’t hurry her into her grave. After she died we didn’t hear any more about it. When was the decision made to sell the land?’

  ‘Soon after she died. The Government made a compulsory purchase. Since I had inherited it, I saw no reason to fight it. The place was mortgaged to the hilt, anyway.’

  There was a brief silence as they all digested the information that Ross had sold his inheritance.

  ‘Aye, aye, it’s a great pity. To think of a grand family like the Wallaces coming to an end like that, and their land becoming Government property,’ sighed Aunt Jessie. ‘I’d have thought more of ye if ye’d fought it.’

  Ross smiled tolerantly at her.

  ‘I’ve told you I’m a realist. I couldn’t afford the place, let alone a fight to keep it. No, it’s better out of my hands.’

  ‘I canna understand ye young folk, sometimes,’ complained Aunt Jessie. ‘But how is it you were sent here to work on the tanks?’

  ‘My company contracted for the work. I’d just finished a stint on a similar project in Pakistan, and they offered me the position of site boss here. Promotionwise it’s too good an opportunity to miss, so here I am.’

  ‘Your being here in a place you know so well is pure coincidence, then?’ put in Maeve.

  ‘Pure coincidence,’ agreed Ross. “You needn’t worry about seeing the tanks. They’ll be well concealed when they’re finished.’

  ‘But think of all that you’re going to destroy to put them there ... all the lovely wild plants and the bushes and the trees and the rocks and the heather,’ exploded Sally incoherently. ‘The place will look a mess for months.’

  ‘For two years, in fact,’ said Ross, as she paused for breath.

  ‘And it will never be the same, because we’ll know that the tanks are there even if they are covered up. Why couldn’t they have chosen another site? Why do they have to change Winterston?’

  ‘Everything changes sooner or later,’ remarked Ross quietly, looking directly at her, and she knew he meant that she had been changed by the accident and her hand crept to her cheek defensively.

  ‘Calm down, Sally,’ admonished Hugh, more briskly than usually. ‘You shouldna speak to Ross like that. He has his work to do. You know very well that Portbride has been chosen because the loch is a natural deep water harbour and that tankers and ships can get in easily at any state of the tide, as far as the Winterston jetty. They’ll be able to load and unload fuel without any problem. I think like Maeve that it’s a good thing for Portbride.’

  Sally was completely silenced. When her father talked like that she knew better than to argue.

  ‘For two years,’ murmured Maeve. ‘A lot can happen in two years. Will you be here all that time, Ross?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘And what about your wife? Where is she? Will she be coming to live here too?’

  Ross’s smile was slightly cynical as he looked at her.

  ‘You never could ask a direct question, could you? The answer is, unlike you, I’m not married.’

  Maeve’s expression grew sullen and Hugh said,

  ‘Aye, it’s about time you remembered you were married and went back to your husband, Maeve. I’m surprised he hasna come for ye.’

  Turning to Ross, completely ignoring the insinuation in her father’s words, Maeve smiled brilliantly, and Ross looked at her in a strangely intimate, assessing manner, almost as if he was weighing up how far he could go with her, thought Sally with a sudden frightening flash of insight.

  “You won’t let my being married make any difference, will you, Ross?’ urged Maeve.

  ‘No, I won’t let it make any difference,’ he replied, and there was a touch of mischief in his smile.

  Apparently he had meant what he had said, because later that evening Sally watched him and Maeve enter the crowded lounge of the MacKinnon Arms. Maeve was wearing a thin coat over her dress and she looked radiant. As usual she received many stares from the sailors who were mingling with the customary Friday night crowd of fishermen and young farmers, all in town for the weekly dance and getting themselves into the right mood for the dancing which would only start properly when closing time came round.

  Sally was sitting at a table drinking her favourite lemon squash with Jim Shaw and two of his friends, Joe and Lofty.

  ‘Whew, what an eyeful!’ commented Lofty. ‘Who is she, Sally? I hope you know her.’

  ‘She’s my stepsister Maeve,’ admitted Sally reluctantly. She didn’t really like it when men referred to Maeve in a disrespectful manner.

  “Then come on, lass, introduce us,’ urged Joe. ‘She’s looking for somewhere to sit. Why don’t you get up, Jim, and let her sit over there by Sally?’

  Jim, who was as mesmerised by Maeve’s beauty as the other two, moved obediently, never questioning the order, and Sally signalled to Maeve, who said something to Ross and then made her way to the table.

  Sally made the introductions and watched the three young men turn all their attention to Maeve, as she had guessed they would. Even when Ross arrived with Maeve’s drink and stood beside her, tall, self-assured and just a little aloof, they did not turn away from the object of their attention. They crowded round Maeve, showing off to attract her attention and cutting Sally off.

  As she sat in the shadow of the corner seat it seemed to Sally that it had all happened before. For some reason she was seeing Maeve much more clearly tonight, and it occurred to her that during the past few weeks whenever a young man had taken an interest in her at the dances to which Maeve had made her go, her sister had always appeared in her guise of protector and had diverted the young man’s attention with her beauty, charm and wit. It was as if she did it deliberately.

  Sally clamped down on the thought, regarding it as uncharitable. She must not think like that. She would become sour if she did. Maeve couldn’t help being beautiful and charming and it was quite reasonable for a young man to prefer her to an awkward, scar-faced person like herself.

  Yet tonight she had thought she would be safe because Maeve had Ross with her.

  Hand to her cheek, she looked at him. Leaning against the wall, beer-mug in hand, he wasn’t watching Maeve but was looking straight at her. Guilt
ily she moved her hand from her face and glanced away. He seemed completely unconcerned by the attention Maeve was receiving. He was sufficiently arrogant, Sally decided, to know that he had prior claim on Maeve tonight and he would have no hesitation in asserting his rights. With a queer flurry of apprehension Sally wondered whether he would consider he had more rights than Fergus, Maeve’s husband.

  The thought frightened her and knowing that no one would miss her Sally stood up, edged through the crowd and went out into the wild windy moonlit night. The MacKinnon Arms faced the harbour and was considered the best hotel in Portbride, commanding as it did uninterrupted views of the harbour and the sea-loch.

  Sally walked across the wide roadway to the wall which

  prevented the unwary from falling into the harbour and provided a favourite leaning place for the inhabitants of the town on a summer’s night. The tide was out and a little beach of pale sand glittered intermittently as the wind-driven clouds rushed across the face of the round silver moon. At the edge of the beach the water fell in small rippling phosphorescent waves. From the Town Hall up the main street came the sound of the band already playing for the dance, and immediately behind her there was the noise of many voices as the crowd left the hotel and went to the dance.

  In a few minutes everyone had gone and the place was quiet again. Jim and his friends, enthralled by Maeve, had obviously not noticed Sally’s absence and had gone to the dance without her.

  Sally gripped the edge of the wall beneath her hands as she fought against the self-pity which threatened to swamp her. Once she had been gay and happy, loving her parents, loving her sister, liking her work. Then the awful accident had happened. She had been coming home in the car with her mother after visiting relatives in Newton Stewart. It had been a dark winter’s night with wreaths of mist weaving across the moorland and occasionally cutting down visibility to nothing. They had hit a patch, her mother had changed down to second gear and then ... blank.