The Tender Glory by Jean S. Macleod Read Free Book Online Page A

the yard wall when she reached Craigie Hill.
    “I thought I’d give you a look in,” he said, in his brash, matter-of-fact way. “There’s a dance at Lybster. Would you like to come?”
    “I’d like to, but I’m sure I can’t,” Alison told him regretfully. Jim was easy to know. “Maybe later on, when things are a little more settled, Jim.”
    “Your mother wouldn’t mind,” he persisted. “She says it would do you good. I’d bring you back in the car.”
    The taxi she had hired in Wick was standing outside on the road. It seemed a long, long time since she had landed at the airport that day and Jim had met her by chance.
    “I know how Mother feels,” she said, “but I’m not lonely. Honestly, Jim. There’s too much to do.”
    “You’ll miss London,” he suggested tentatively.
    “I must forget about it.” She found it difficult to lie to Jim Orbister. “Jim,” she asked briefly, “do you know why Robin went away?”
    He hesitated.
    “Maybe he was just restless. We all feel like that at times— wanting to kick over the traces.”
    “It isn’t the whole truth, is it?” She looked directly into his blue eyes. “Something happened, something connected with Calders. Sometimes I think my mother knows what it was, but she won’t say. Do you think—it had anything to do with the Searles?”
    “They were always there,” he admitted, “but I wasn’t seeing so much of Robin just before he left.”
    “If you heard from him —if he wrote to you by any chance— you would let us know?” she asked earnestly.
    “I wouldn’t wait to post it,” he promised. “I’d come straight down.”
    “Thank you, Jim. I think if my mother only knew about him it would make all the difference when she went in for her operation.”
    He glanced towards the house and she said, as he expected her to do:
    “You’ll come in for something to eat with us.”
    He talked with her mother about the land while she made the tea. Sheep, he said, were the only thing that mattered in Caithness and, if you had enough land and enough money, afforestation. But that was for the large estates.
    When he finally rose to go it was quite dark. Alison saw him to the door.
    “Jim,” she asked, “if I brought the van through to Wick one day next week would you service it for me? I don’t think it’s very safe.”
    “I’ll take a look at it now,” he offered.
    She shook her head.
    “I couldn’t expect you to do that. You were going to the dance,” she reminded him.
    “I asked you to go,” he said. “Since you won’t, I may as well look at the van.”
    He spent an hour working on the engine while she saw her mother into bed.
    “I’ll never be able to repay you adequately,” she told him as he washed his hands at the scullery sink.
    “You never know!” He grinned down at, her. “One day I might send you a bill.”
    She drew back, painfully aware of his nearness. “You do!” she said with unreasonable nervousness. “I’ll pay up willingly.”
    “I hope so.” He dried his hands on the towel she offered him. “And don’t worry too much about—everything,” he added awkwardly. “When you bring your mother to the hospital you’ll want to stay in Wick. Cathie and I would like to have you. We’ve moved out to a bungalow on the Milton road. You’d be more than welcome, and Cathie would visit your mother after her operation if you had to come back here to Craigie Hill.” She drew a deep breath of relief .
    “Jim, you’re being far too kind.”
    As they crossed the yard he looked down at her in the light of the hurricane lamp.
    “Don’t embarrass me,” he laughed. “We’re old friends.” He put his arm about her shoulders, drawing her towards the parked car. “You’ll remember that, won’t you, if you need anything done in a hurry? I’m always there, at the end of the telephone.”
    She nodded, hardly knowing what to say. He was being kind because he had been her brother’s friend, but he hadn’t