Crane Castle

CRANE CASTLE Jean S MacLeod

If charm were all that mattered, there was really no contest. Warren Harper, a wealthy young Canadian, could win hands down over lain MacAllister, the impoverished laird of Crane Castle. But Cathie came to understand the dour laird's love for his ancient family home -- perhaps because she came to love the dour laird himself!

CHAPTER I The big Canadian strode up and down the hotel foyer, looking impatiently at the clock above the reception desk. A man not to be kept waiting. Tall, broad-shouldered, purposeful, his keen blue gaze took in the busy scene at a glance, although he was not particularly interested in the ebb and flow of Edinburgh social life. He was here on business. At exactly half-past ten the revolving doors started to move and a girl in a blue coat came towards him. They had never met but subconsciously they recognized each other. 'Mr Harper?' Catherine Roy enquired. He nodded. 'You're from the agency?' 'Yes.' She was younger than he had expected, but she looked efficient. He stooped to take the typewriter she carried, motioning her towards the lifts. 'I'll have some coffee sent up. No need to waste time,' he suggested. Catherine smiled, walking ahead of him into the nearest lift. He had paid for her services for one week and he evidently meant to make the most of them. Mrs Lacey, at the agency, had said he was a millionaire, but Alice often exaggerated. Certainly he did look as if he were used to command, and maybe that was why he had made so much money, she reflected. Because he knew what he wanted and he never wasted time.

'I've taped the letters I want you to do this morning,' he informed her, acknowledging the attendant's respectful salute as they shot up to the second floor. ' I have an appointment at eleven o'clock.' He lifted an immaculate cuff to consult his watch. ' It just gives me enough time to settle you in.' 'I could have come earlier,' Catherine suggested, ' but you did say half-past ten.' She couldn't imagine him being a reluctant riser. At the agency they had thought ten-thirty rather late. ' You never know with these Canadians,' Alice had said. ' He'll probably have done a day's work by the time you get there.' 'I had some calls to make and a date with a lawyer.' He smiled reminiscently, the blue eyes crinkling with wry amusement. ' You don't believe in hustle here in this town,' he observed. ' I had the dickens of a job to get to see this lawyer fellow by half-nine o'clock. Didn't usually come in till ten, his clerk informed me.' 'We live at a slower tempo, I suppose,' Catherine reflected as they stepped from the lift, ' but I hope we're just as efficient. I can come earlier tomorrow,' she pointed out. 'Sure, that'll be fine.' He was fumbling for his key. ' I generally bring my own stenographer across with me when I come to Europe, but she was taken ill. I guess she wasn't too keen on being away so long, either. She's married and has a family. Six months is a long time to go without seeing them.' He opened a door at the end of the corridor, stepping aside so that she could go in ahead of him. The suite consisted of a small, square hall from which three doors opened on to bedroom, bathroom and sittingroom.

'In here.' He passed her to open the nearest door. ' I think you'll find everything in order,' he added. ' If not you can ring and ask for what you want. I've left word with Reception. Your coffee will be up in a few minutes.' He put her typewriter on the table beside the window while she took off her coat. The room was bright and sunny, looking west along Princes Street, and she could see the Gardens and the tall spires of the Scott monument and the battlements of the castle standing out grey against the turquoise sky. Edinburgh was lovely in this clear, autumn weather when the sun picked out the first turning of the leaves and flung the Auld Toon into bold relief high up on its ancient rock. She would work here happily and as quickly as she could, since speed appeared to be her employer's maxim. 'I should be back around twelve o'clock,' he announced, turning at the door. ' I've another appointment with Shaw, Russell and Moncrief this afternoon. You'll find a letter to that effect somewhere on the tape. I'd like to take it with me.' 'I'll have it ready,' Catherine promised, feeling as if she had encountered a whirlwind. After the door had closed behind him she took time to think about the Canadian. If he had really made his million he had achieved his goal in a surprisingly short space of time. Even giving him a year or two, he looked no more than thirty. Young, virile and strong, he looked as if he had lived much of his life in the open, and although his eyes were shrewd and keen he had a pleasant mouth. His brusque manner might be typical of most Canadians. She didn't know. Applying herself to her task, she switched on the tape- recorder and worked diligently until her coffee was brought in at eleven o'clock. It was black and strong, with no cream, the sort of coffee Warren Harper would have ordered for himself.

Exactly on the stroke of twelve he returned, standing in the doorway to look at her for a moment as if he were turning over something of importance in his mind. Catherine drew the final letter from her machine and stretched her fingers. 'Cramped?' he asked. 'You've certainly worked.' He picked up the sheaf of letters she had laid on the table beside her machine. ' I'll sign these and then we can get something to eat,' he said. ' Maybe the hotel restaurant would do for today. I'm not acquainted with Edinburgh yet.' It sounded as if he was inviting her to share a meal with him, and perhaps Canadian business men made a habit of taking their secretaries out to lunch. Generally she made do with a sandwich and a glass of milk at one of the coffee bars, waiting for a more substantial meal till she returned home in the evening. Her mother preferred it that way because it was more suitable for the rest of the family. More suitable for herself, too, because cooking in the middle of the day tied Isobel Roy to a routine she disliked. Catherine wasn't important, and Hamish Roy and his son lunched at the University. 'The hotel restaurant has an excellent reputation,' she agreed, rising to find her coat. ' I don't think you could really do any better.' 'I was thinking about you getting a breath of fresh air.' He began to sign the letters. ' You're cooped up most of the day.' 'I make up for it when I go home in the evening.' Her laugh was light and infectious. ' We live right out on the edge of the hills.' 'The Pentlands,' he said, airing his knowledge. 'Edinburgh's fortunate in that respect, I must admit. It's surrounded by hills. What's it like farther west?' he asked unexpectedly.

'Well, there's Glasgow, the Clyde estuary and that sort of thing.' She wasn't quite sure what he wanted to know. ' Unless you mean the Western Highlands.' 'I guess that's what I mean,' he said, lifting the letter he was about to sign. ' Do you know this place—Glen Fionn?' Catherine thought for a moment. 'It's somewhere west of the Grampians, isn't it— Lochaber of Badenoch? It's pretty remote,' she decided. 'So I'm led to understand.' His thoughts appeared to have slipped into the past. ' Did you read the letter to Shaw, Russell and Moncrief?' Her colour rose a little. 'I typed it, Mr Harper.' 'Then you read it.' He smiled disarmingly. ' Which means you know I'm trying to buy a place up there. Crane Castle, to be exact. It's the property I want.' The smile faded from his lips. ' And this fellow won't sell.' 'So I gathered,' Catherine admitted, picking up her gloves and handbag. He held out her coat for her. 'It seems that he's up to his ears in debt—death duties and that sort of thing—but he's reluctant to part with the place. He's hanging on to it like grim death, waiting for a miracle to happen, I guess, but they rarely do.' 'He may feel that he can pay off the debt if he's given enough time,' she pointed out, aware of a hardness in him which she hadn't noticed

before. ' So many of these old family estates are burdened with death duties these days. It must be a desperate sort of struggle, trying to make them pay.' He moved towards the door. 'You'd think they'd know when they were beaten, though,' he said. ' The lawyers tell me the place needs a lot done to it, but he refuses to give me a lease of more than six months at a time. I've got to be content with it that way, I guess, but I'm dissatisfied. I've never had to do a deal like this before and if I wasn't sold on the place I'd look elsewhere.' 'There aren't so very many castles for sale,' she reminded him dryly before she could check the cynicism. 'I realize that.' He didn't seem at all offended. ' That's why I've fixed on this one. It's where I want to be. The place I want for my family to settle in.' Somehow, she hadn't thought of him married and with a family. 'Surely your wife will want to see the glen before you settle down,' she suggested. He laughed, this time without reserve. 'I haven't got a wife,' he said. 'Not so far. I was talking about my mother and my sister. They're coming across here in a fortnight's time and I have to get Shaw, Russell and Moncrief moving before then. I want possession of Crane as soon as possible. It's to be a surprise for my mother. She's worked long enough. Now it's time for her to retire. I'm meeting the owner this afternoon.' They went down in the lift to the ground floor.

'You'll join me?' he asked. ' I don't like eating in strange restaurants by myself.' Catherine hesitated, glancing down at her workaday coat. 'I've brought sandwiches,' she murmured. 'Well, keep them in your purse!' he advised, taking her firmly by the arm. ' You can eat them this afternoon with your tea.' He turned out to be a charming companion, talking to her about Canada throughout the meal. 'We're in timber,' he explained. ' My mother built up the business after my father died. He was struck by a falling tree when I was ten years old—far too young to take over the reins. They were just beginning to see success ahead of them, and it was the sort of tragedy that might have embittered a lesser woman, but my mother saw it as a challenge. She went up to the timber camp and worked in the offices like a man. Her hand was on everything. She was, and still is, magnificent. It was a tough fight for a woman, but she did it so that I could come into the business when I was of age, as she had planned with my old man. That's why I sort of owed it to her to make good, and I did.' There was nothing arrogant about the simple statement of facts, and Catherine could hardly blame him for his straightforward pride in achievement. 'You must have worked very hard,' she acknowledged as the waiter came to change their plates. ' Even with so good a start.' 'I worked because I loved it.' He was looking round the crowded restaurant. ' This sort of life doesn't appeal to me much,' he observed.

' I feel caged, fenced in, if you like. I need the sun on my face and the wind against me.' 'Wide open spaces, in fact!' she smiled. ' You'll get them at Glen Fionn.' 'Yes?' He seemed undecided about that. ' Maybe if I had this place I could breed cattle, like I've always wanted to.' 'You'd have to be sure,' she said. ' About getting it, I mean.' 'I dare say he'll sell in the end.' His pleasant mouth hardened. ' If the price is high enough.' In the abrupt little pause which followed his cynical observation, Catherine looked about her. The restaurant was fairly busy, most of the tables already filling up with business executives and their clients or their fashionably- dressed wives. Many of the women already wore furs, although they still hung on to their glamorous summer hats. It was October, but Edinburgh was basking in the comparative heat of an Indian summer. The wind sweeping in from the Firth was reasonably warm. There was nothing ' snell' about it, although they couldn't hope to be spared much longer. Edinburgh, on the whole, was a cold place. 'Have you lived here all your life?' Warren Harper wanted to know. 'So far.' Catherine's grey-green eyes with the little yellow flecks in them came round to settle on his face. ' It must seem strange to you, I suppose. I've wanted to travel, of course, but I never have. There's always been —other things to do. My people haven't a lot of money and my brother's still at the University.' 'The brilliant son, eh?' he said with understanding. ' Well, maybe a girl hasn't got to be a blue-stocking to succeed.'

She laughed. 'My parents don't look at it that way,' she confessed. ' I've been a great disappointment to them.' 'You'll survive!' He smiled down at her rueful face. ' Look how helpful you're being to me.' 'I haven't been trying for very long,' she reminded him, feeling as if she had known him for much longer than one half day. ' I like my work and I never did think I could be a good teacher.' 'Was that what your people wanted you to do?' he asked. ' For you to be a schoolma'am?' 'Yes.' Her smile obliterated the seriousness in her eyes. ' But it's like nursing—you have to be dedicated.' 'I guess so,' he agreed. ' All that blood-and-bandages and chalk-andblackboards! You look as if you enjoyed an outdoor life.' He was studying her closely, weighing up her potential usefulness to him, but Catherine's attention had strayed from their conversation for a moment. Her eyes had been drawn, almost against her will, to the far end of the room, to the tall figure in the restaurant doorway, a man who would stand head and shoulders above most of the other men in the room. There was an aura about this stranger which she could not quite define, and as he moved forward she saw the mass of thick black hair growing above the high, narrow forehead and the dark, finely-marked eyebrows above the thin aquiline nose which gave the face an almost hawk-like appearance as he looked about him.

He remained unattended for less than a moment, however. The head waiter rushed to his side. Someone of importance, Catherine presumed; a man accustomed to deferential treatment by right. As they passed behind her chair she heard the head waiter say: 'It isn't often- we have the pleasure of your company in Edinburgh, sir. Are you going to be with us for a day or two?' The answer was lost in the hubbub of the general conversation at the surrounding tables, and Catherine found herself turning back to Warren Harper wondering what that reply would have been. The man had worn a city suit, but this dominating stranger didn't belong in any town. The piercing eyes under their dark brows reflected a restlessness and intolerance of the crowded scene which was quite obvious, although he had spoken with the waiter on familiar terms. As he had smiled for a brief moment in recognition of the older man's welcome some of the hardness had gone out of his face, making him look younger, but almost instantly the arrogant mask had been replaced. 'I've been wondering,' Warren Harper said, ' how you would feel about leaving Edinburgh.' Catherine gave him her complete attention. 'I don't think it would worry me a great deal,' she admitted. 'And your parents?' She looked away from his probing gaze. 'They would probably consider it quite a good thing,' she was forced to confess. ' " Spreading my wings ", I suppose they would call it.' He lit a cigarette.

'Even when I take over at Crane,' he said, ' I'm going to need a stenographer. I'll need someone up there who can take charge while I'm away. Maybe it's more of a social secretary I have in mind, to help, my mother as much as me.' He looked directly into her surprised eyes. ' How about it, Miss Roy? Do you think the agency would spare you for the whole of six months? Your boss sounded an accommodating sort of woman when I met her, and I feel you're the kind of person we need at Crane.' Catherine found it difficult to hide her astonishment. 'I don't know what to say,' she admitted. ' I—can't make up my mind, just like that. How long could I have to think it over?' 'I've booked your services for a week,' he reminded her. ' That ought to be long enough. I'd want you to go on ahead of me to the castle and open it up a bit. There's a caretaker of sorts, I believe, but we'll need a housekeeper. You could maybe interview some here, in Edinburgh, before you set out. I have to be in Switzerland for a few days on business and I'd have to leave it to you entirely. What I want to make sure about is that there won't be any snags when my family gets there. That's the main point. It's got to be like coming home for them. I think you could cope.' She flushed slightly at the direct compliment, her pulses beginning to stir with a strange excitement. Glen Fionn and Crane sounded remote and lovely. All her life she had harboured a deep love of the Highlands, aware of the enchantment of high and secret mountain peaks and deep, lone lochans aflame with yellow water-lilies and rivers rushing in spate towards the sea. Her family had spent holiday after holiday west of the Great Glen, and that was where she wanted to be. Suddenly, and yet not suddenly, because she had left her heart there long ago.

'I don't really belong in a city either,' she said, half beneath her breath. ' Maybe I will go.' 'Take your week to think about it,' Warren Harper advised. ' Six months isn't too long. It's all I can promise you at the present time.' He signalled to the waiter for his bill, signing it with his room number when it was put before him. ' As I told you, I'm meeting the owner of Crane this afternoon. The lawyer doesn't hold out much hope for a direct sale yet, but I may be able to break him down. I'll try, anyway, and you can wish me luck!' Catherine got to her feet without wishing him his hoped-for victory, however. Somehow, the thought of Crane made her feel sad. 'Off you go and have a walk round the Gardens before you start work again,' Harper advised as they reached the foyer. ' If I'm not back before five o'clock, I'll see you in the morning.'

CHAPTER II The time passed quickly. Catherine was kept busy. The ramifications of Warren Harper's business empire proved to be enormous. There were letters to Zurich and Geneva; Cairo and Stockholm; London and Moscow. His interests weren't entirely confined to timber. They embraced a dozen sidelines, all of them obviously paying propositions, and he had agents in every capital city. A big man in more ways than one. When five o'clock came he was still absent, still arguing, perhaps, with the unfortunate owner of Crane. More and more she felt her sympathy deepening for the man who might be forced to sell his home. Knowing Scotland so intimately, she guessed that Crane had stood there in Glen Fionn for hundreds of years and its present owner could well be the direct descendant of the original laird. Sympathy was all very well, sympathy for an unknown man, but it was more than compassion he needed. It was money. The money to pay off a debt which the estate he had inherited couldn't meet. The thought rankled in the back of her mind all the way home, yet it was really no concern of hers. She hadn't even promised to go to Glen Fionn, Not yet. As she got down from the bus at the corner of the road a car drew up behind her. 'If I'd known you were going to be home as early as this I could have picked you up in town.' Her mother's precise, cultured voice hailed her from the kerb. ' You don't seem to be particularly busy these days. Of course, I know absolutely nothing about commerce,' she added, opening the car door for Catherine to get in. 'I've been getting some books for Colin,' she explained priggishly. ' He simply must have them, although it's an appalling expense.'

'Couldn't he borrow them from the library, like everybody else?' Catherine suggested. 'I prefer him to have them.' Isobel Roy sighed. 'You never will understand, Cathie.' 'I'm fond of books,' Catherine almost snapped, 'but Colin doesn't need to own every single volume that's mentioned in the syllabus.' Her mother's temper snapped. 'It's no use you criticizing,' she warned. ' You were given your chance.' 'And I didn't take it,' Catherine said quietly. 'I know, Mother. I didn't want to be a teacher.' 'An M.A. degree never did anyone any harm.' Isobel's lips were thin. ' All your friends have graduated. I can't see why you had to be the awkward one.' 'Maybe I just wasn't clever enough.' Catherine knew she had been a disappointment to this ambitious woman. 'I'm happy as I am, funnily enough.' Suddenly she added: ' I've got the chance of a very good job.' Her mother changed gears to negotiate the hill before she answered. 'That's very nice,' she said without enthusiasm. ' I suppose you will get on, eventually.' 'It's only temporary at present.' The colour rose in Catherine's cheeks. ' But it just might last. It—isn't in Edinburgh.' 'Oh?' Isobel Roy turned the car in between the gateposts of Claremount. ' Where do you propose to go?'

'To Glen Fionn.' 'Glen Fionn?' Isobel's brows came together. ' What a preposterous idea. It sounds as if it might be somewhere in the Highlands, if I haven't forgotten my Gaelic. What could possibly take you there?' 'The offer of something different, something I think I would like,' Catherine said. 'Well, you know your own mind best.' Isobel braked at the front door and the car halted with a jerk. ' We won't stand in your way if this is really what you want.' Catherine gathered up the pile of books from the back seat. Why, she wondered, did she feel cheated, thrust aside? She had said this was what she wanted to do, but was it? Did she really want to leave Edinburgh? Her home meant much to her and she was happy enough. She could truthfully say that she wasn't at all jealous of Colin, of the adulation her parents poured out at the feet of their brilliant son. In a good many ways Colin was human enough. Left to himself; he could have been bright and much better company. Fundamentally studious and reserved, he was studying for the Bar and he had a long way to go, but he would get there. He would live with his nose to the grindstone for years and never think of relaxation; he would cover himself with academic glory and lose his youth. 'Colin's staying in town this evening,' her mother told her. ' There's a debate in the Union. Will you take his books up to his room for me? He'll want to look through them as soon as he comes in, I dare say.' She smiled with justifiable pride, peeling off her gloves. They were rather shabby gloves, lying beside a once- glorious crocodile handbag, which was her status symbol. That and her musquash coat. 'Don't worry about dinner,' Catherine said. ' I'll get it.'

She was happy and contented in the kitchen and for the next hour she occupied hands and thoughts in the preparation of their evening meal. There was broth from the day before to be used up and her mother had brought in some fillet steak. She prepared potatoes and two vegetables and, on impulse, she baked an apple pie, which was her father's favourite sweet. The big, old-fashioned kitchen was warm now. She had stoked up the fire and the heat from the electric grill flushed her cheeks so that, when she turned from the cooker at the sound of her father's voice, he thought that she looked really pretty, with her red-gold hair ruffled a little and her eyes welcoming him. 'Dad,' she asked when he came to peer into one of the pots, ' what would you think if I took a job away from home?' He looked surprised, but he said without hesitation: 'I'd miss a very good cook, but I think you would be wise to go. Is it at your own job?' 'Yes.' She drew a deep breath. ' I've had an offer to go as secretary to a Canadian family. They're taking a place in the Highlands for six months, hoping to buy it eventually.' 'I see.' Unexpectedly he put his arm about her shoulders. ' It's up to you, Cathie,' he said. Absurdly, tears were struggling behind her eyes. She looked away from his kindly smile. 'It will do you good,' he said. ' Young people ought to spread their wings.'

But not Colin. The thought thrust itself at her out of nowhere. She looked up at him and, surprisingly, there was understanding in his tired grey eyes. 'You'll come back refreshed,' he said. ' Six months isn't a lifetime.' 'That's true,' she agreed. ' Do you know Glen Fionn, Dad?' 'Not very well.' He sniffed at the savoury smell emanating from the oven. ' Apple pie, or I'm a Dutchman ! It's in Badenoch, a wild enough region. What's taking your Canadian family there?' 'I don't know,' she was forced to confess. ' I've only met one of them. I suppose you could call him the head of the family. He's very nice.' 'Will the agency let you go?' he asked on his way through to the hall. 'Why not? That's what we're there for. One day, two weeks, six months—it's all the same. I can come back to the agency whenever I like. Our jobs aren't permanent.' 'I envy you,' he said, ' going up there just now. The glens will be at their- best—and the fishing. I once landed a salmon at Kincraig that put up the toughest fight for survival I've ever seen. He was a big fellow, well known to the local ghillies, and I caught him! It seemed almost sacrilege to take him away with me. He belonged there, where he was spawned. He was never meant to be conquered.' Long before she had served the meal Catherine had made up her mind. She was going to Glen Fionn. When Colin came in shortly after ten o'clock she told him her news. 'But, Cathie,' he protested, ' how can you? We're used to your being here.'

She smiled rather wanly. 'Are you? Well, I'm not going far away,' she assured him. ' Maybe you could come up and see me in the Christmas vacation. There's bound to be a hotel of sorts somewhere in the vicinity.' 'I'd like that,' he said with more enthusiasm than she had expected. ' I could study like mad afterwards, to make up.' 'To make up for enjoying yourself?' She ruffled his fair hair. ' Maybe we both take life too seriously, Colin,' she added. The following morning she told Warren Harper that she had decided to accept his offer if the job was still open to her. 'It sure is,' he said. ' I'm glad. It's more luck than I've had with Crane. They won't sell. Not on any terms. Not yet. I argued all ways, but the fellow wouldn't listen. Old lawyer Moncrief wasn't much help. He's been the family's man of business for half a century and he goes along with everything they say. The laird's word is law, so to speak, whether he's committing financial suicide or not.' 'I suppose they feel a certain amount of loyalty to an old and respected client,' Catherine pointed out. ' I hope you don't think I'm rushing things, Mr Harper,' she added, ' but I thought I would like to get the job settled.' 'That's just fine with me.' He smiled down at her. ' And now, to business! I've got to be in Zurich on Saturday afternoon, which is sooner than I expected. It's going to leave you with a whole lot more responsibility, but I figure you can cope. Will you see to putting an ad in the local paper for a housekeeper? And as soon as you've got that fixed you'd better go on up to the glen. It'll be all ready for you. I've been assured of that, and maybe the laird himself will be waiting to receive you! He didn't promise, mind you, so don't hold out too

much hope,' he laughed. ' There's a caretaker—a Mrs Sinclair — who'll look after you, but if you can get the housekeeper to travel up with you it might be as well.' 'We're not giving her much time,' Catherine pointed out, ' but I'll do what I can.' She put an advertisement in The Scotsman and one in the Glasgow Herald, although it would be more convenient if she could interview someone from Edinburgh. Feeling slightly nervous and a little bit out of her depth, she sorted through the bunch of replies on Thursday morning, discarding those she considered unsuitable. In the end, she made three appointments, timing the most likely applicant for the final interview. The first woman had good references but she had a teenage daughter, whom she wanted to take with her, understandably enough. The second one looked slovenly and altogether unsuitable, and the third applicant seemed ideal. She had worked for some years in a similar position in the Lowlands and, although she appeared slightly nervous, she seemed eager to have the job. She said she was a widow and her name was Edith Lindsey. Satisfied, Catherine reported to her employer. 'Everything seems more or less settled. You'll be able to fly off to Zurich with an easy mind.' 'I wish you were coming with me,' he said. ' I could use your help, but I've written to the family and told them Crane will be ready for them whenever they decide to come. I'd like it to feel sort of homely, if you know what I mean.'

Catherine nodded. 'Yes,' she said. ' I know.' 'By the way,' she said later the same afternoon, ' I don't know your laird's name. You've always talked about Crane—the castle. If he did happen to be there to meet us it might look rather foolish if I had to ask.' He laughed, laying an enormous box of chocolates on the table before her. 'That's for you,' he said. ' For the journey, and your laird's name is MacAllister. Iain Angus MacAllister of Crane. He couldn't be more Highland if he tried.' 'You don't like him?' she suggested. 'I've only met him once,' he reminded her with a brief shrug. ' We didn't exactly cotton on to each other on that occasion, but I was trying to drive a hard bargain and he was being stubborn. Maybe we'll both mellow with time.' 'I hope so.' She was quite sincere. ' Glen Fionn sounds as if it might be too small for enmity if the laird is still living there.' 'I wouldn't know about that. He's certainly not at the castle.' He stood waiting for her to cover her machine. 'How about a bit of relaxation?' he suggested. ' Dinner tonight, for instance. We're both going to be working pretty hard for the next two weeks.' She hesitated. 'When do you want me to go to Glen Fionn?'

'Next week some time, if you can manage it. I'll write and tell the family to book on a plane some time after that.' He held the door open for her. ' Stacey's crazy to come. She's sixteen. Not a bad kid, though she needs a bit of discipline from time to time. It has always seemed odd to me that my mother couldn't handle Stacey. She never spoiled me.' 'So you think!' She smiled up at him. ' But I'll come to dinner, all the same. What time?' 'Around seven.' He grinned down at her. 'You're good for me, Cathie. Shall we make it the Hansel at half-past seven to give you plenty of time?' The evening flew past on enchanted feet. She had never felt so happy. Warren Harper was a gay and interesting companion. He had travelled all over the world, and the wonder was that he had never married. He could, she supposed, have been too busy building up his timber empire. They danced easily together and he held her close at one point. 'Maybe I was waiting for this, Cathie,' he said. She drew back a little, suddenly uncertain. They had known each other for only a week. 'I'm looking forward to Glen Fionn more than ever now,' he told her before they said goodnight. 'Don't stint the expenses, Cathie. I've put in a draft for you at the bank and you can cash what you need. I want you to have a month's salary in advance. That way I'm sure of keeping you!' His arm tightened about her as they stood in the shelter of the bedraggled rhododendrons flanking the path to Claremount. ' Now that I've found you,' he added.

She drew away, holding his hand to say goodnight. 'Have a nice trip,' she said as steadily as she could. 'I'll contact the caretaker and we'll travel up to Glen Fionn next week.' 'See you do,' he smiled. ' I'll phone you around Thursday from Switzerland.' Her life seemed to have changed dramatically. Her quiet life. 'Was that the boss?' Colin asked, coming downstairs as she closed the vestibule door behind her. ' He looked quite young.' Catherine eased off her shoes. 'Don't go telling Mother that or she'll get ideas into her head!' She followed him through to the kitchen. ' He's off to Zurich and I'm going north next week to pave the way for his family coming from Montreal. What could be more correct?' 'Nothing, it would seem.' He hesitated. ' I've been looking up your glen on the map. You seem to have picked a pretty isolated spot, so are you sure about this? Absolutely sure?' She nodded emphatically. 'I couldn't change my mind now, even if I wanted to,' she said. ' I've promised. Do you want a sandwich? I notice a somewhat "lean and hungry look", Cassius! You've been burning the midnight oil.' They sat in the kitchen over their sandwiches and hot milk till one o'clock.

'There's a hotel of sorts up there,' Colin said, his thoughts reverting to the glen. 'It's not exactly in Glen Fionn, but it's quite near. A fellow I know went up there two years ago pony-trekking. It was one of the overnight stops. Maybe I could come up for a few days later on.' 'I wish you would,' Catherine said, feeling suddenly alone. ' I'll write and let you know what it's like.' Two days later she discovered that she would have to make the journey to Glen Fionn on her own. Edith Lindsey wrote to say that she couldn't travel to Crane till the following week. It was a nuisance, but not exactly an unsurmountable barrier. She was perfectly capable of keeping house till Mrs Lindsey arrived. Besides, there was the caretaker already at the castle. She might be persuaded to sleep in, if Crane was really isolated, and surely there would be a ghillie or a gamekeeper around. Her mother drove her to the station. 'I'm not too sure that I like this idea,' she remarked half-heartedly just as the train was about to move. ' It isn't the distance, it's the isolation of the place. You've always lived in a city.' 'I'll survive.' Catherine smiled, looking along the platform to where a tall, oddly-familiar figure was striding towards them. ' And if I can't cope I'll come home.' The man she felt that she ought to recognize drew level and passed. She had seen him before, that day in the restaurant of the hotel while she had been lunching with Warren Harper. There could be no mistaking the proud lift of his head and the almost arrogant walk. The porter in attendance had to run to keep up with him, and once again she got the impression that he was well known.

'You'll write, of course,' her mother was saying. ' We'll be anxious to hear what the castle is like.' The train drew away. Isobel Roy didn't linger. She disliked longdrawn-out farewells. Catherine waved vaguely to her half-turned back and pulled up the corridor window. Almost instantly she was conscious of a sense of freedom, of being on her own, at last, to please herself. Somehow, she felt that she had to make a new life for herself, now or never. As the train thundered over the Forth bridge she looked down at the blue firth with its tiny specks of shipping and felt far removed from the world she had known for twenty-two years. Ahead of her lay the unknown, but she had no fear. She looked east, into the eye of the sun, picking out the familiar line of the Fifeshire coast, and west towards the crowding mountains ahead of her, and a strange excitement stirred in her veins. After Perth the train seemed to meander more leisurely, climbing steadily towards the great barrier of the Grampians, and at Dunkeld the hills came close. They were still wooded and kind, with wide glens running through them, and in places the blue lochs on either side of the railway line lay almost under the carriage wheels. The Tay thundered its way towards the sea and the noisy Tummei leapt through the Pass of Killiecrankie with a mighty, triumphant shout. There was water everywhere: the blue water of silent lochs; the brown, still water of the peat bogs, and the roaring torrents of silver rivers cascading over their gravelly beds. Dappled in light and shade, the laughing burns ran down to meet them, mingling in their glee, and far and distant the great mountain peaks stood waiting, remote and austere, keeping their own counsel, giving nothing away. Looking at their grim faces, she felt suddenly perturbed. The train approached them with caution, although today the sun was on them.

Ben Vrachie and Ben-y-Gloe and stark Beinn Dearg raised their arrogant heads against a cloudless sky and the distant Cairngorms were as blue as their name. The train tan along Glen Garry, accompanying the river through the gorge. It was quiet here, shady and restful, with the tall pines of the Atholl Forest rising on either side. The carriage wheels made a deep swishing sound, pressing on to the dark Pass of Drumochter. 'Dalwhinnie next stop!' The attendant came along the corridor and Catherine moved to the carriage door. 'I do get down here for Glen Fionn?' she asked. The man scratched his head. 'That's right, but it's a fair journey, miss, after that. You'll be met, though,' he suggested. ' There isn't any rail connection.' 'No. I understand I have to go on by bus,' Catherine said. 'They'll be few and far between,' he informed her unhelpfully. ' Dalwhinnie next stop!' Catherine gathered her hand luggage together. She had a cabin trunk in the guard's van, holding all her worldly possessions apart from her books. I mean to stay, she thought, smiling at the idea. Dalwhinnie was cold even on this sunny, early autumn day. The winds sped down from the surrounding glens to this high meetingplace among the mountains, vigorous and strong, with the kiss of ice already on their lips. Catherine drew in a deep breath as she struggled into her coat. The train had been overheated, she supposed, feeling suddenly chilled.

Several passengers and an accumulation of luggage adorned the platform. She would have to find a porter to cope with her trunk. 'Are you going on, miss?' the man asked when she had finally claimed his attention. ' I thought maybe you'd be for the hotel.' 'I'm going to Glen Fionn.' 'Is that so?' He regarded her with frank curiosity. 'If I had known you were for the glen, now, I could have got you a lift. The laird has just driven away. He had a load of stuff to take back with him, but he would have made room for you, no doubt. You'll be for Tordarroch or the farm,' he decided. ' You've a while to wait for the bus. There's only two go through a day.' 'I've a cabin trunk and this suitcase,' she told him hesitantly. ' Would the bus take them or will they have to come by carrier?' 'The bus might, though he's not supposed to,' she was informed. ' I'll see what I can do. Dugald McLean's an accommodating man, but it's a pity you missed the laird.' A pity in more ways than one, Catherine thought, but the laird had been swiftly off his mark, anxious to return to the glen. It was over an hour before the bus trundled in. Her trunk, it was decided, had better come on by carrier ' in a day or two '. There was nothing certain about it. She would be lucky, she supposed, if she saw it within a week. 'Most folk have their own conveyance round about here,' the porter told her. ' A jeep or a heavy car.' She tipped the man, glad of the good seat he had secured for her in the bus out of the biting wind. Two other passengers got in before they moved away, both of them pleasant, fresh-faced countrywomen

laden with heavy shopping baskets which they deposited on the empty seat in front of them. At the first stop they picked up several schoolchildren who were let down in ones and twos at the entrance to every glen. The two women got out together at a little village among the hills, glancing at her curiously as they passed. It seemed to Catherine that they were now driving straight into the mountains. Their steep, dark sides hemmed in the narrow road, rearing up like hostile giants to bar her way. Then, suddenly, the bus turned a corner and a long, sun-filled valley opened out to the north. The driver leaned back in his seat, half-turning to explain: 'This is the start of the glen. I go up to the powder mills, but if there's any special place you're wanting I'll goon.' She said, as if she ought to keep it to herself: 'I'm going to the castle.' The bus lurched almost to a standstill. 'To Crane?' he repeated, flabbergasted. 'I'd never have thought -' He hesitated. ' Ay, well, you've farther to go than the mills. They made gunpowder up here during the war.' Which war he didn't say. ' I can take you to the castle gates, if you like, but you'll have to manage by yourself after that, for they'll be fast shut, I'm thinking.' He thrust the engine into bottom gear to negotiate a treacherous bend where the road overhung a deep gully. ' You're sure of where you want to go?' he added doubtfully. 'Quite sure.' Catherine's heart seemed to drum loudly in the silence. ' I understand there's a caretaker at Crane, a Mrs Sinclair. Surely she must be expecting me.' 'No doubt she will be,' the man answered, ' if you're coming to stay.'

She didn't answer that, aware of his curiosity and doubt. He would soon get to know all about her. They drove along the glen, passing a group of stone- built cottages and a little church on the hill. The tiny clachan appeared to be deserted, though fowls and sheep strayed across the road. The end cottage turned out to be the post-office and local store and they stopped here to hand out several parcels and a bundle of newspapers. The woman who came to collect them stared at Catherine in surprise, said it was a fine day, and continued her conversation with the driver. 'I've just had the laird in,' she said. ' It's the first .time I've seen him for weeks. He was looking well. They're telling me that there's to be changes up at the castle, Dugald. Would you be knowing about them?' 'Ay and no.' The driver gave her a meaning look. ' I'll be picking up these empty crates for you on the way down, Morag. See and have them ready.' Morag glanced with renewed curiosity at the sole occupant of the bus, nodding briefly as they drove away. Beyond the village the glen broadened out to cradle a long, narrow loch, its glassy surface reflecting a whole inverted firmament of mountains and trees and sky. Now that the sun was drawing rapidly towards the west, the shadows were creeping down the hillsides, lending the scene an added mystery and beauty. The whole glen was suddenly aflame with the glory of autumn. The pale yellow larches, the burnished copper beeches and the dying birch blazed like glowing candles against the sombre green of pine and spruce, making Catherine catch her breath in wordless admiration. This was surely the loveliest place she had ever seen, but even as she looked there was something heartbreaking about its quiet serenity. Its beauty caught at the heart, but already there was conflict here.

She felt it, like some tangible thing, as they drove along the lochside and past the ruined powder mills, but nothing could have prepared her for the beauty and the loneliness of Crane. The castle gates were indeed closed against them. They looked as if they had been shut tightly like that for a hundred years. Grass grew on the margin of the wide sweep of gravel where Dugald turned his bus, and giant Douglas firs clustered in a thick and hostile phalanx between her and her destination. 'How far is it?' she asked. 'About half a mile. You'll follow the drive and come back to the lochside, and Crane's there. You can't see it from the road.' She thanked him, decided to tip him, and walked towards the great iron gates. They creaked in protest as she opened them. 'Good luck to you,' the man called after her. ' I'm thinking you'll be needing it. It's a lonely place for a young woman such as yourself.' There was bound to be someone at the castle, Catherine told herself. After all, the gate hadn't been locked and the caretaker knew she was coming. Under the giant trees the driveway was cool and full of shadows and the scent of wood smoke drifted down to her from the hill. She heard the bleating of sheep in the distance and the bark of a dog, and where the rays of sunlight filtered through the trees she stood for a moment on an ancient stone bridge looking down into a deep brown burn. The parapet under her gloved hand was covered in moss, with tiny hart's tongue ferns growing between the stones and a blue-flowered plant creeping everywhere.

Enchantment made her linger in this quiet place before she took up her suitcase again and crossed the bridge. Coming suddenly on the castle, she stopped once more, holding her breath in sheer delight. It was lovely beyond imagining, a perfect little baronial keep standing in a clearing among the hills. It looked across the sunlit loch to the grim and rugged mountains beyond, with Cairn Toul and Braeriach and Ben Macdhui shouldering each other to the north, its pink sandstone walls deepened to rose, its grey turreted tower barely topping the surrounding firs. There was no formal garden. A rough lawn edged with yew dropped in terraces to the lochside and a hedge of golden privet fenced in an ornamental pool and the rose garden. The neglected driveway took her round to the front door, where it ended in a wide terrace overlooking a flight of stone steps. The great nailed door set into the castle wall was firmly closed. Crane, Catherine thought, didn't welcome visitors. She looked up at the narrow windows set in its grim old face and felt rebuffed. After the barest hesitation she pulled the ancient bell- iron, sending its echoes through the house, but it was several minutes before footsteps sounded on the other side of the door in answer to her summons. Bolts were pulled and the door moved inwards. With a sense of immeasurable relief she found herself confronted by a short, elderly woman in a flowered apron. 'You'll be Miss Roy,' she suggested pleasantly. 'Will you please come in? Did Dugald not bring up your case for you? My, but he's a lazy character, and no mistake! It's lucky it was for him he got the busdriving, for he was never good for much else.'

Catherine stepped over the threshold, more glad of. this pleasant welcome than she cared to admit. The entrance hall was dim and shadowy, lit only by two narrow windows in deep stone embrasures on either side of the door, but a flight of stone steps led immediately to a higher, larger hallway with a minstrels' gallery looking down on a wide stone fireplace and some comfortable chairs. The walls were panelled and set with portraits and ancient firearms. It had all been dusted and kept clean, but it looked curiously lifeless. Crane was a place to be lived in. Her guide turned to look at her with the frankness she was learning to accept. 'I thought you were bringing a housekeeper with you,' she said. ' You're young to be left here on your own.' Catherine's heart sank. 'I was hoping I could persuade you to stay, Mrs Sinclair,' she said. ' It would only be for a day or two, till Mrs Lindsey arrives from Edinburgh.' Janet Sinclair shook her head. 'I couldn't do it,' she said. 'Then perhaps you know someone from the village who might oblige, just for a night or two?' Apprehension clutched at Catherine's throat. ' Someone who hasn't any ties.' 'I know of no one.' Janet seemed to be struggling with a desire for truth. ' No one who would come, that is to say.' Catherine faced her squarely.

'Mrs Sinclair,' she said, ' are you trying to tell me that everyone is prejudiced against us from the start, that we're not exactly welcome here at Crane?' Janet looked taken aback. 'I wouldn't be saying so,' she answered. ' It's just that they're loyal to the master. They don't like to see him living as he does while there's strangers here in his own home.' 'But Mr MacAllister has rented the castle of his own free will,' Catherine protested. ' He can't expect -' 'Not of his own free will,' Janet corrected her. ' It was because he had to do it, because there was no other way. It must have taken the very heart out of him to leave it.' 'Yes.' Catherine could only agree to that, looking about her at the portraits and the spears and the heavy old furniture which were all part of Crane, owned down the years by MacAllister after MacAllister, father and son following one another in unbroken succession since the castle was built. Five or six generations of these men. Four hundred years of belonging. 'It's always sad when someone has to leave a dearly loved home,' she said slowly, 'but perhaps Mr MacAllister will come back one day.' Janet gave her an odd, distant smile. 'There's talk about the castle being sold outright,' she said. ' I thought you might be knowing about that.' 'I haven't been Mr Harper's secretary long enough to know very much about his future plans,' Catherine said as she was led up the

magnificent mahogany staircase which dominated the hall. ' His mother and sister are coming from Canada. That's all I can tell you.' 'They wouldn't be coming all that way just for a holiday at a place like Crane and in the winter weather,' Janet observed shrewdly. ' No, it looks to me as if the laird is being forced to sell, and there's not a body in the glen who will take kindly to the idea.' 'I'm sorry,' Catherine said quite sincerely as they mounted a second, narrower stone stairway. ' It does seem a pity if the Harpers are going to meet with opposition through no fault of their own.' 'They're strangers,' Janet reminded her doggedly. ' And the laird's our own.' There was nothing Catherine could say to that. She contented herself with admiring the room which had been aired for her while Janet went off ' to see to her tea'. The small, compact sitting-room was plainly but comfortably furnished and a wood fire burned cheerfully in the iron grate. She held her hands out to its comforting glow, feeling warm for the first time since she had got off the train. To her surprised delight the bedroom adjoining this room was completely round, with one tiny window high in the wall. The rooms were set in one of the turrets which adorned the corners of the castle and the sitting-room gave on to a narrow stone balcony close under the crow-stepped roof. The door leading to the balcony was locked, however, and there was no key. Catherine took off her coat and tidied her hair, prepared to go back down the winding staircase in search of Janet, but the caretaker was already coming back along the corridor with a tray in her hands.

'You shouldn't have come up all this way,' Catherine protested. ' I was coming down.' 'You'll be warmer here,' Janet assured her. ' There isn't another fire, except in the kitchen.' She pushed past with the tray. ' The master said it would be the best place to put you till you made up your own mind where you wanted to be.' So the laird had still some say at Crane, Catherine mused. He had been here, he had given Janet his orders, but he had left, deliberately, perhaps, before she had arrived. Impelled by something more than just idle curiosity, she wanted to know more about him. 'Where does Mr MacAllister live now?' she asked as Janet poured her tea. 'He's at Dromore.' Janet's lips were closely set. ' A cold, inhospitable place, if ever there was one. I've been thinking,' she added before Catherine could reply, ' since you can't be left here on your own, I'll be going back to the clachan and bringing my nightgown. I'll stay the night with you. Would you be expecting your housekeeper in the morning?' 'I don't know, Mrs Sinclair, but I'm terribly grateful to you for offering to come back,' Catherine confessed. 'You'd better call me Janet,' she was informed. ' It's a lot easier. And now I'll leave you to your tea. There's a poached egg on toast and some of my home- baked scones and a pancake or two.' 'Janet,' Catherine asked before she turned away, ' is there a key to the balcony door? There must be a wonderful view up the glen from out there.' Janet halted in her tracks.

'There is a key,' she answered slowly, 'but it's not to be used. The master took it away on the night of the accident and the balcony doors haven't been opened since. It happened on the main balcony, but this one is nearly as high.' Janet sighed. ' He's been a changed man since that terrible day, and it would seem that trouble begets trouble, for he's never really lived at Crane since. The debts were accumulating even then, so that he had to let or sell. He went to Dromore within a year and he's been there ever since.' She had disappeared before Catherine could frame the question trembling on her lips. What was the accident—the tragedy, perhaps—which had driven Iain MacAllister from Crane sooner than he might have gone?

CHAPTER III The sun seemed reluctant to desert the turret room, and Catherine stayed there, waiting for Mrs Sinclair's return. In retrospect the, remainder of the house seemed inhospitable in comparison and she had no desire to explore it until Janet could act as her guide. Her small, secluded domain under the crow-stepped roof took on the proportions of a sanctuary as she waited, although she crossed often to the balcony door to look out. The view from her high vantage point was magnificent. She could see the whole glen with its loch stretching like a silver mirror to the disused powder mills and the grey roofs of the clachan beyond. The white ribbon of the road followed the indentations of the loch until it ended at the castle gates, but now she made out a narrower, steeper road winding towards the head of the glen. Disappearing occasionally beneath the pines, it emerged at last on the bare hillside where there didn't appear to be any human habitation at all. High up there the rounded, heather-clad slopes gave place to open scree and then to dark and awful mountain peaks cleft by a narrow pass, as if a giant had thrust his sword between them to conquer or destroy. The road probably led to another glen, a higher, hidden place guarded by these dark, unsmiling peaks. Suddenly she was aware of a movement above the treeline and her narrowed eyes picked out the gliding descent of a giant bird as it skimmed down from the pass. Slowly it hovered above the scree, remote and pitiless in its own domain, a single golden eagle patrolling the entrance to its mountain retreat. It looked magnificent up there against the hills and she stood watching it for several minutes until another, nearer movement claimed her attention. A man and a dog were coming down the hill road towards the loch— towards Crane.

A shepherd, perhaps, making his way home to some croft farther down the glen. He came towards the castle, surely and steadily, with a purposefulness and arrogance in his long stride which was vaguely, disturbingly familiar. She could see now that he wore the kilt and the long staff he carried was probably a cromag. When he cleared the trees he looked up at Crane as if, even now, he was about to hesitate, and then he came on. Unless she had been out on the forbidden balcony as he had approached he couldn't possibly have seen her standing there, but he glanced upwards towards the turrets as he crossed the rough lawn between the yews. Catherine's heartbeats quickened. What had he to do with Crane? Was he shepherd, ghillie, gamekeeper or casual acquaintance? Certainly he was no stranger to the place. The dog, too, knew its way about, bounding joyfully ahead of him until it was lost to sight from her high vantage point close under the roof. In a moment or two, if he wished to gain entrance, the man would ring the ancient bell at the main door. She stood waiting, her breath held, until the bell clamoured against the stillness of the hall below. It was almost dark on the winding staircase with only a gleam of light penetrating in through the deeply- recessed arrow-slits in the thick walls to guide her down. There seemed to be some form of electric lighting, but she had no idea where to find a switch. Her feet lagged and the walls felt cold under her touch until she reached the upper hall. If only Janet had come back! She paused beneath the minstrels' gallery, suddenly aware of a row of piercing eyes surveying her from the panelled walls. The portraits she had noticed fleetingly on her way up seemed to have come to life, regarding her, the intruder, with suspicion and hostility. The

MacAllisters down through the centuries were all alike, amazingly alike, and the odd thing was that she seemed to know them. The dark, aloof faces with their high- bridged nose and deeply-set eyes were strangely familiar. She fled down the few remaining steps to the front door. It had been re-bolted. Janet must have gone out by the back way, through the kitchens. A dog snuffed at the other side of the door, wanting to be let in, and she took courage from the friendly sound to withdraw the bolts. When she opened the door she found herself face to face with the man who had come down off the hill. No shepherd this, she thought automatically. No ordinary shepherd. Then something familiar about him made her draw back. She had seen this man before. Not just up there on the dim staircase looking down at her from frame after frame, one of a row of portraits that might have been of the same man, but long before that. Not in an ancient kilt, as he stood now, with the ram's horn cromag in his hand, but in a city suit and again in hand-woven tweeds boarding the same north-bound train. 'I saw you in Edinburgh,' she said foolishly. ' You were there, that day in the hotel.' Intensely blue eyes looked down into her own. 'You have me at a disadvantage,' he said. ' Have we met before?' 'No—no, of course not.' She held the door open. ' I was just very much surprised. I noticed you in the hotel while I was having lunch and again at the station. We must have travelled on the same train. You're Mr MacAllister.' She stood aside to allow him to come in. ' I've been studying the family portraits,' she explained.

He stepped back on to the gravel, refusing her unspoken invitation to enter his own house. 'I came to see if you were comfortably settled in,' he said stiltedly. ' I noticed Janet cycling off down the glen some time ago.' Catherine felt taken aback. He had obviously no intention of accepting hospitality at Crane—a stranger's hospitality. 'Janet's coming back,' she explained. ' She thought I shouldn't spend the night here alone.' 'Alone?' He looked surprised. ' But surely you have company? I understand there was a housekeeper and a secretary coming together.' 'I'm the secretary,' Catherine explained. ' Mr Harper won't be coming up for a day or two. As a matter of fact, his family might arrive first.' She hesitated. ' I'd like to get the—feeling of the house before they come,' she added. ' To make it seem—welcoming.' It wasn't quite what she had meant to say, and she saw him stiffen. 'That shouldn't be hard,' he said. ' Crane has been welcoming visitors for four hundred years.' The grim set of his jaw hardened his whole expression as he looked up at the shadowed buttresses and the blue eyes were like flint as they steadied on the stone balcony above the jutting west wing. It overlooked the front of the castle and the wide stretch of rough grass dropping down to the loch and it must have commanded an even wider view than Catherine's smaller balcony on the gable end of the house. The collie, less reluctant than its master, had disappeared into the dimmer regions at the back of the hall,

'Please come in,' Catherine ventured, ' if it's only to rescue your dog! I'm afraid I don't know my way around yet. Janet put me up in the turret rooms and I've been there ever since, wondering how I was going to find the light, switches if she didn't come back!' 'Janet will come if she promised,' he said. ' And the light switches are on the ledge of the panelling just inside the doors. My father didn't want them to be seen. They're fairly-high up, but you ought to be able to reach them. If you'll come round to the stables,' he suggested, moving deliberately away from the door, ' I'll show you how to start the motor. It's fairly simple. We have our own plant, of course. Crane is too isolated for the hydro-electric board to service us at present. I dare say our turn will come eventually,' he added as the collie came back to join them. The dog stood gazing up at his master, tongue lolling, eyes questioning. 'Perhaps he's thirsty,' Catherine suggested. 'Do let me get him a drink.' 'He's scrounging.' For the first time Iain MacAllister smiled. ' Janet spoils him. A working dog shouldn't be fed tit-bits.' 'You're much too hard on him.' Catherine bent to stroke the rich, glossy coat. ' He's terribly thin.' 'He has all the food he needs.' He put out his stick, barring the way to the door. ' No, Liath, you're begging, and that's not how it should be!' The collie lay down at his feet. 'I won't shut the door,' Catherine said. ' Janet may come back.'

And she might even persuade you to come in, she thought. There was no reason why he should remain aloof; none that she could understand. He led the way round the side of the house across a paved yard to some outbuildings which had been constructed of the same pinkishcoloured stone but had probably been erected at a much later date. They were quite apart from the castle and were less mellowed by age. Catherine noticed half a dozen empty loose-boxes, a garage capable of housing two cars, and two large storage sheds. Her companion slid the door of one of the sheds open and went in ahead of her, striking a match so that she could see before he pulled down a stable lantern and lit it. The shed was empty apart from a well-kept lighting plant and a few drums of oil standing against one of the whitewashed walls. 'Duncan will take charge as soon as he gets back from Fort William,' he explained. ' He went off this morning to have a tooth out, I'm told, but maybe it was for some other reason.' He bent over the plant. ' I'll send him up as soon as he gets back. I promised to supply you with a handyman to do this sort of thing, and Duncan seemed to fill the bill.' Catherine couldn't help remembering the reluctance of the glen folk to serve the strangers at Crane, and suddenly she felt angry. 'Maybe Duncan is like the others, Mr MacAllister,' she observed. ' He just doesn't want to serve two masters.' He straightened from his self-imposed task, towering above her in the tiny shed. 'Duncan will serve you if I say so,' he said without arrogance. ' One can't exactly condemn a man for his loyalty.'

She felt ashamed and longed to say so, but he was difficult to approach. He had built a wall about himself, a defensive rampart which she might never be able to scale however much she tried. 'I'm sorry,' she apologized. ' I didn't mean that. But it is difficult to come to a strange place and find you're not wanted.' He smiled without humour, his lips twisting painfully as he said: 'Believe me, Miss Roy, you are more than wanted. You and Mr Harper and his family. Without your employer's bountiful support Crane would have come under the hammer a week ago. This lease has helped me to stave off the evil day, and for that alone I am grateful.' There was nothing she could say to him. His pride would not allow him her pity. He had saved Crane for the time being and although, eventually, he might have to sell, he would not discuss it with a stranger. The little diesel engine was chugging contentedly when they left it, closing the shed door behind them. 'It isn't hard on fuel,' he told her. ' Your supplies come up with the carrier once a fortnight and that gives you adequate lighting. Otherwise, you will have to use peat and wood. The price of coal is prohibitive up here.' 'I won't mind about that,' she assured him, walking briskly by his side. ' I love the smell of peat, and there's nothing like a log fire for real warmth. Probably the Harpers are used to wood fires, being Canadian.' He nodded abruptly. 'You haven't come from Canada?'

'Oh, no, only from Edinburgh,' Catherine explained. ' Mr Harper employed me there through an agency. I suppose I'm more or less a social secretary. I understand that Mrs Harper will want to entertain once she arrives.' He glanced up at the pink walls of Crane, his mouth twisting in a bitter smile. 'She will have every opportunity,' he said briefly.- ' It was never difficult to get people to come.' Before they reached the door he turned to whistle for the collie. Liath came bounding round the far gable, imagining that he had come home to stay, but this time Catherine didn't press her hospitality. She knew that it would be refused. Iain MacAllister bade her an abrupt' good afternoon', signalled to the dog, and strode off in the direction of the main gates. Standing at the open door, Catherine watched him go, a tall, broadshouldered, kilted figure swinging purposefully down the weedgrown drive, looking every inch the laird although the estate might be slipping slowly but surely out of his grasp. An hour passed before Janet returned. In the meantime Catherine had switched on the lights in the hall and done a little exploring, finding the kitchens and a cosy morning-room facing the hills at the back of the house and a long, panelled banqueting hall looking out over the loch. The drawing-room was on the first floor, its furniture shrouded in striped dust-covers, a room used only on formal occasions, she supposed. 'Duncan McFee's come back,' Janet announced without trying to hide her surprise. ' He was off to Fort William this morning with a pretence of toothache, but it seems the laird's had a word with him.

He'll see to the fires and the odds and ends about the house till you can get somebody else.' From Edinburgh, she meant. 'Has Duncan got another job?' Catherine asked. Janet took off her coat, smoothing down the apron she wore beneath it. 'There's the fishing,' she said carefully, ' and the extra work at the hotel in the season. And Miss Daviot can always do with a handyman over at Inverlarig.' These must be their nearest neighbours, Catherine supposed. 'How far is the hotel from Crane?' she asked. 'A goodly bit. Four or five miles on the other side of the clachan.' 'And Inverlarig?' 'Oh, that's right over the Pass into Glen Larig. It Used to be a lonely place, but now, with the pony- trekking in the summer and the skiing as soon as there's enough snow, it's a profitable business, they're telling me. Flora Daviot has made the most of it, anyway,' Janet concluded. ' We all thought she would marry the laird, but it didn't come off. She would have made him a good wife. Better than the other one -' She hurried away to attend to her fires, leaving Catherine poised on the edge of curiosity. The story of Crane was evidently more than a dwindling heritage, but she supposed she might never know the real truth about Iain Angus MacAllister of that ilk.

It was difficult to thrust the man completely out of her mind, however. Everything about Crane bore his signature, and there were the portraits looking down at her from the walls. In the full light of day she detected little differences about them which singled them out, but on the whole they might have been portraits of the same man done at varying stages of an adventurous lifetime. The first laird was so like the last that they could have passed for father and son. Curiously enough, there were no female portraits. The MacAllister women remained anonymous. Going from room to room in her search for the truth about Crane, she was aware of a certain shabbiness, but it blended in with the mellowed stone and high raftered ceilings and the heavily-carved furniture which had stood the test of time. Anything more modern would have looked completely out of place, but she couldn't help wondering what Mrs Harper would think of the castle and what effect it would have on a spoiled teenager like her daughter. What would Stacey Harper find to do in a place like Glen Fionn all the long winter through? Of course, there was Edinburgh. In a fast car they could reach the capital in a few hours when the roads were open. 'I think I must take a walk,' she told Janet when they had finished their midday meal. ' I feel I need to stretch my legs after all your good cooking!' Janet, who was busy cleaning silver, nodded in agreement. 'I wouldn't be going too far, though,' she warned. ' Not till you're sure of the glen. There's a nice walk along the loch and down to the clachan.'

Catherine was more ambitious, however. Having been virtually indoors for two days, she chose the upper reaches of the glen and was fascinated to discover that the Fionn River linked not two lochs, but three. They lay no more than a mile apart, bright blue jewels in their rugged setting of heather-clad hills with the great peaks of the Grampians rearing up above them. Drawn by the majesty and beauty of these guardian mountains, she walked on, scarcely aware of the fact that she had been climbing steadily since she had left the castle behind her. There was a fascination about these wild upper regions of Glen Fionn which drew her irresistibly, beckoning her on. At the end of that long, wet summer the burns were in spate and the rowans hung red and heavy on the boughs of the mountain ash. The sky above her head was blue and the hills as far as she could see were clear. She was still in among the trees, alder and thorn and birch following the rocky bed of the river until they gradually thinned out, leaving her only the hills. She could see for a great distance, right down the glen. She picked out Loch Fionn and the clachan and the winding ribbon of the main road and the castle standing in splendid isolation in its semicircle of pines. Nothing could have prepared her for the beauty and the loneliness of Crane, and suddenly she saw it reflected in a man's character. Born and bred here, how could Iain MacAllister be anything other than remote? His reserve was natural, a product of these lonely hills. Climbing higher still, she saw the Pass ahead of her and was tempted to reach it now that she had come so far. The rough, boulder-strewn road was hard under her feet, but it seemed imperative that she should see what lay on the far side of that dividing range of hills. The Pass itself was clearly defined and sheep grazed right up to the top, although there was no sign of a dwelling of any kind after Crane.

With her head down against the wind, she was still climbing when the rain came. It drifted down in a filmy veil, obscuring the distant peaks and finally the hills. The Pass and even the road ahead of her became vague, hidden behind it, as if nature had rung down the curtain on the first act of some obscure play. Now I've done it, she thought. Janet had warned her not to go too far until she knew the glen thoroughly, and here she was, on her first walk, completely and utterly trapped. Turning at once, she plunged back along the way she had come, following the river. In the sudden mist it seemed to mock her, laughing hollowly in its throat. Before she had reached the first lochan she was wet through, her stockings clinging to her legs, her hair plastered in a copper-coloured casque against her head. Rain trickled down her forehead and on to the nape of her neck, but worst of all her shoes were chafing. Soon a blister formed and it was agony to walk. Wondering if she dared sit down for a while in the hope that the rain would clear, she huddled in the shelter of some boulders, but they afforded her little respite from the swirling mist. It was cold, too, and her blistered heel made her feel miserable. Why had she come so far? Why had she chosen the lonely upper reaches of the glen when a safer, more clearly-defined path had stretched the other way? She could have walked for miles by the lochside without inconvenience or discomfort to herself, but she had chosen this difficult way to climb into the unknown hills. The thickening mist stole closer as she stumbled to her feet. It was foolish to sit still courting disaster from a chill, she reasoned, although to walk on could be dangerous, too.

There was very little sound now, and what she did hear began to baffle her. Sometimes the river seemed to be on her right, sometimes on her left, and she strayed off the path, again and again, sinking into sphagnum moss and wet peat bog almost up to her knees. Fear began to clutch at her throat, the fear of this vast silence and the unseen road. Twice she believed that she had stumbled off the main track on to the moor itself, but she couldn't be sure. There was a road of sorts disappearing into the greyness ahead. When a sheep coughed close beside her she almost screamed until she heard the distant barking of a dog. Somewhere, not too far away, there was human habitation—a dog, a house, a fire, perhaps. She had never wanted to see a fire as much as she did at that moment. Somewhere ahead of her the road must divide. She hadn't come to the second lochan yet, although in the blanket of mist which reduced distance to guesswork she felt that she should have passed it long ago. Suddenly the track she was following began to climb. It went away from the river, but the bleating of the sheep came nearer. She rounded a crag and saw the house less than a dozen yards away. It was built of grey stone so that it was little wonder she hadn't noticed it up here against the grey scree, but it suggested shelter and rest. The dog she had heard barking was nowhere to be seen. The whole place, in fact, appeared to be deserted. Thinking of nothing but shelter, her heel paining her more and more with every step she took, she approached the door. It was tightly closed. The house was larger than she had imagined, a low, stonebuilt lodge huddled on a grey ledge close in to the hillside, a grim eagle's aerie of a place poised in splendid isolation far above the glen.

When she tried the door it gave unexpectedly to her hand, yet there seemed to be no other human being within miles. 'Is there anyone there?' she called. Only the silence answered her. With an odd sense of intrusion she pulled the door shut again and hobbled round the gable end of the house to the back, where the same state of affairs prevailed. The door was unbolted, but the rooms beyond it were apparently uninhabited. Well, she decided, she couldn't wait for permission. She would go in and explain later, if somebody came. The back entrance gave on to a rough scullery where a meal had recently been prepared. Pots and dishes lay in the sink and adorned the table in the adjoining kitchen, but there was no fire, although the unmistakable fragrance of peat smoke hung in the air. Beyond the kitchen, through an open door, she glimpsed chintz- covered chairs and a vast stone fireplace, which probably formed part of the entrance hall. In its utter isolation the house seemed curiously like Crane when she had first seen it. It had been lived in, after a fashion. She sat down on a wooden chair to examine her heel. The blister was now the size of half-a-crown and looked ready to burst at any moment. Hobbling over to the sink, she wrung out her stockings, wondering what to do. The mist had cleared a little, giving place to a steady drizzle of rain. She was soaked through, so it didn't matter very much about the rain, but the prospect of walking all the way back to Crane made her flinch. 'Maybe you can tell me what you're doing here?'

Catherine looked up and round at the woman standing in the outer doorway. She had two buckets in her hands and had probably been out somewhere, feeding livestock, and she was wrapped in an old duffle coat which must have belonged to a very big man. The hood, drawn well down over her sharp, pointed face, gave her the disconcerting appearance of a witch, and her thin legs disappeared into a pair of mud-spattered Wellington boots. Catherine stumbled to her feet. 'I'm sorry,' she apologized. ' I had no idea there was anyone around. I did knock and—I wouldn't have come any farther than the kitchen. Please believe me.' 'The kitchen was far enough,' the old crone grumbled, setting down her pails. ' We don't expect intruders up here. You're a stranger.' She pulled back the hood to reveal a thin, weather-beaten face and sharply-penetrating eyes. ' What were you doing on the hill?' 'Walking,' Catherine explained. ' I had no idea it would start to rain like this—out of a clear sky. That mist was awful out there. I could hardly move in case I lost my footing.' The woman made no comment, going to the sink to rinse her pails. 'What's wrong with your heel?' she asked grudgingly. 'It's blistered.' Catherine looked down at it ruefully. ' I shouldn't have come so far.' The woman took off her coat to reveal a surprisingly clean apron, over which she tied another one made of rough sacking. 'I come in to clean up,' she explained almost aggressively. 'Twice a week. It's difficult for a man to manage, living on his own.'

She began to search in a drawer, bringing out a rough first-aid kit. 'You'll find a bandage in there,' she said, thrusting the lidless box into Catherine's hands. ' Where are you from?' 'Crane.' The impact the word made on the old woman was electrifying. 'Crane?' she repeated. 'You're one of them? You're one of the folk that's taken over the castle? Well, all I can say is that you'd better go. You'd better go straight away,' she added, ' before the master gets here.' Catherine gasped. Even in the shelter of the kitchen she could hear the rain pouring down now as if, once the mist had lifted, the very heavens had opened. 'But surely,' she protested, ' you can't mean to turn me out in this? I'm not asking you to make me anything to eat,' she added, glancing distastefully at the disorder in the sink, ' or even a cup of tea. All I want is shelter.' She peeled off the backing from a large plaster and applied it to her heel, watched by the sullen old woman, who seemed to be hovering over her to hurry her away. 'Now that the mist's lifted,' she said inexorably, 'you'll be off down the glen. You'll be finding no shelter up here. If the master comes back and sees you he won't be pleased.' Catherine struggled to her feet, pushing her wet stockings into the pocket of her sodden coat as angry frustration got the better of her. 'Your master must be some sort of ogre if he expects me to trudge off in tins!' she exclaimed. ' A—a monster, to say the least!'

'All right, Morag, I'll take care of this.' The man's voice had come from the inner doorway. He was standing between the hall and the kitchen, looking in at them. It was Iain MacAllister. For a moment Catherine couldn't think why he should be there, and then she understood. This was Dromore, the farm on the hill where he chose to live in isolation while he attempted to work out the salvation of Crane. No doubt it had been a comfortable hunting lodge at one time, but now it was simply somewhere to eat and sleep, a bleak mountain retreat devoid of the creature comforts he had come to scorn. 'I lost my way,' she explained half-apologetically. ' The mist came down when I was nearly at the head of the Pass. This isn't a social call.' His cold scrutiny took in her dishevelled appearance from the crown of her damp head to her sodden shoes. 'No,' he agreed, 'and I would hardly have expected it. We don't encourage visitors at Dromore.' Especially visitors from the castle, she supposed. He was bitter about Crane, having to rent his home to a stranger. She could understand that, but not the personal animosity. Perhaps he was determined that women should have no place in his life while he struggled to retain his heritage. It was a foolish, mistaken idea, but it was one that a man often cherished to bolster up his pride. She looked straight into his unsmiling eyes.

'Believe me, Mr MacAllister,' she said, ' I'm not here from choice. As soon as I can I'll go back down the glen, but I doubt if I could find my way in this rain any more than I could in the mist.' He agreed with her. 'The roads are like burns,' he admitted, ' and you did stray off the main hill road to get here. You're wet through into the bargain,' he added. ' When I've lit a fire you'd better try to dry yourself out a bit. Morag will make you some tea as soon as she gets the stove going.' He disdained fires in the early morning, apparently, and Morag obviously didn't put in an appearance until the afternoon. It was an unsatisfactory arrangement, but no doubt it was the best he could do. Dromore was well off the beaten track, even more isolated than Crane itself. 'You're very kind,' she murmured, following him into the hall. ' It was a pretty mad impulse that took me so far up the glen on my first walk, but I suppose I was led on by the sheer enchantment of it.' She didn't want him to think that it was curiosity that had brought her to Dromore, but while he bent to put a light to the fire she couldn't help looking about her. All the heavy oak doors leading from the hall were closed, but in itself it made a charming and probably a useful room. The big armchairs on either side of the fireplace were deep and comfortable looking and a chesterfield covered in rich, buttoned velvet occupied the centre of the floor. Odd tables littered with books and papers stood around, while a couple of fishing rods and a selection of salmon flies adorned the surface of an ancient chest. A man's room, with no pretensions to softer living. Goatskin rugs covered the parquet flooring, and a great pile of freshly-sawn logs had been stacked at the side of the stone hearth ready to be thrown on the fire when it needed replenishment.

It was surprising how quickly the logs caught and flared into life. 'Larch,' her reluctant host told her laconically. 'We've been felling all summer on the far side of the glen. The timber ought to bring in a reasonable return.' He could think of nothing but the repayment of Crane's debt, about his fight to save the estate. 'Will it take a long time?' she asked involuntarily. ' To—to put Crane on its feet again?' He smiled grimly. 'A good many things depend on circumstances,' he said. 'Fate, if you like. Crane will survive, with or without me.' He straightened to his full height, bracing himself subconsciously against the uncertainty of the future, his unsmiling mouth and set jaw underlying his determination to succeed at all costs. He had spoken of circumstances, recognizing that they were often stronger than the human will to. control them, although there hadn't been any hint of self-pity in his voice. 'You certainly are soaking,' he observed, taking her coat from her. ' A fancy thing like this is no protection in this sort of weather. You'd be better with an oilskin or a duffle coat if you mean to stay in the glen.' He didn't wait for her answer, so she couldn't accuse him of curiosity where she was concerned. He strode towards the door leading into the kitchen without removing his own coat. 'There's plenty of wood,' he pointed out, ' and Morag will bring you some peat later on. You'd better dry yourself out, if you can. This rain may go on for hours.'

Catherine drew in a swift breath, ready to protest her unwillingness to stay where she was so obviously unwelcome, but he had already gone. Glad of the fire, which was now burning steadily, she tried to dry her skirt, which was not too wet. She wrung out the hem and took off her shoes again, which was the greatest relief of all, although she had the sense not to put them too near the fire. Morag clattered away in the kitchen. There was no other sound. Iain MacAllister must have gone out. 'He's away to see to the beasts,' Morag told her when she came in with a cup of tea. ' There's aye danger when the burns are in spate.' She put the cup and saucer down grudgingly. 'You'll no' be staying long,' she observed, ' after the rain eases.' It was hardly a question and certainly not an invitation. It was more like an order, issued in the odd, blunt phraseology of the glen. Morag was almost aggressive in her desire to protect her master's privacy. Of course, she could have been briefed by MacAllister himself, but why? 'I've no desire to stay a moment longer than is necessary,' she told the ungracious old creature, ' but it really would be senseless to go out in this. I've never seen rain quite like it.' 'Senseless or no',' Morag informed her, ' you'll have to go. The master'll be back in a while for his meal and he likes it in peace.' In peace! Catherine couldn't help smiling at the oddly incongruous remark. 'In absolute isolation,' she murmured. ' Doesn't he ever entertain at all?'

It seemed unlikely, but she was scarcely prepared for the violence of Morag's retort. 'What would he want to entertain for in a place like this?' the old woman demanded. ' It takes him all his time to keep it going. Working night and day he is sometimes. It can't last. He thinks he can run Dromore without help even inside the house, but he'll have to come to his senses before the winter sets in. He'll never face the lambing up here on his own. It's a wife he's needing, but that's something he's turned his back on, too, since the accident.' For the second time in twenty-four hours Catherine had come up against the past. Janet had mentioned ' the other one' only the evening before, tight-lipped and unsmiling, when she had said that Flora Daviot would have made the laird a good wife, and now Morag, too, had acknowledged the nameless girl who was part of Iain MacAllister's past. Morag stooped to pick up her brogues. 'I'll stuff them with newspaper,' she offered unexpectedly. 'It's the only way to keep their shape. What you need up here is stout boots. Your heel looks sore,' she acknowledged. ' Maybe it'll teach you not to walk so far in future.' With this ungracious sally she departed, taking the new brogues with her. Catherine had thought them adequate enough when she had bought them back in Edinburgh, but she hadn't reckoned with a downpour in Glen Fionn. Shaking out her hair, she dried it at the fire, her bare toes curling into the goatskin rug. The hall had taken on a warmth and friendliness which she would not have credited half an hour ago, probably because of the crackling logs and the fact that she could still hear the

rain streaming down outside. It sounded as if a reservoir had burst somewhere in the hills and come gushing all round the house.' When she finally crossed to the window to look out she could see nothing but the steely curtain of rain drawn between her and the way back to the castle. For want of something to do she tidied up the hearth and straightened the rugs on the wood floor. A long time ago it had been polished with loving care to a mellow honey colour, and it still looked beautiful. She sorted out magazines and books, but had the sense not to interfere with the fishing tackle. Flies of every sort were arranged in neat rows along the top of the chest, their feathers curving over the vicious-looking hooks. Bait for the unsuspecting fish. No doubt Iain MacAllister lived on fish and game plus the eggs produced by a dozen or so hens. Selfsupporting, self-sufficient. She was thinking about him more than she should. Morag came to set her master's evening meal in the hall. She had a checked linen tablecloth under her arm and a fistful of cutlery. 'I suppose you'll have to have something to eat,' she remarked. ' The master didn't say so, but if you're still here when he comes back he'll be bound to ask you.' Anger stirred in Catherine for the first time. 'I don't intend to be here if I can possibly help it!' she exclaimed. ' I didn't wish to come, in the first place, and as soon as the rain slacks off I'll go.' 'Hoity-toity!' Morag sparred back. ' You can please yourself. Nobody asked you to come.'

And nobody would have done, Catherine reflected, if I hadn't found my own way. All the same, she was determined not to be disconcerted by an ill-mannered old woman. 'Let me do that,' she offered, holding out her hand for the tablecloth. ' It will let you get on with your other work.' Morag hesitated, looking on her offer with characteristic suspicion. 'You can set for two,' she conceded at last, ' and if you go before he gets home I can clear the extra things away.' The silver and glass she produced was beautiful and not at all incongruous once she had set it out neatly on the gate-legged table at the far end of the room. It was all monogrammed with a family crest, a double eagle between two small, intricately patterned flags. The motto on the scroll at the foot said simply: ' Lahore et honore.' With labour and honour! It was the MacAllister motto, and Iain Angus MacAllister was certainly living up to it. Catherine did her best with the table, finding napkins in the top drawer of the chest. They had been laundered some time ago and their folded edges were slightly soiled, but she turned them the other way and placed them deliberately on the two side plates. If she had to share a meal with her reluctant host this was going to be one evening when Iain MacAllister would dine with most of the refinements he had been used to. There were no flowers to grace her effort, of course. The whole house was devoid of any aid to gracious living, yet once the china was on the table its lovely old pattern lent colour enough. An hour had passed and she. was still alone. She piled more logs on the fire and tried some peat when Morag struggled in with something

like a fisherwoman's creel to deposit it on the far side of the hearth. The old woman eyed the table with disdain.