The Last of the Kintyres Read Free Page B

told him.
    “Don’t say he didn’t strike you that way!” he countered. “You didn’t exactly fall in love with him at first sight, did you?”
    Elizabeth flushed.
    “No,” allowed. “I—thought he might be quite ruthless if occasion demanded. But first impressions are sometimes terribly misleading. Besides,” she added hastily, “He’s not going to count, is he? He doesn’t even live at Ardlamond Lodge.”
    “Which is perhaps just as well,” Tony decided. “I’m not counting on treading on his toes all the time. The old man ought to be easy enough to handle,” he re f le c ted. “I don’t mean to stay any longer than a week or two, of course,” he added controversially when she did not reply.
    Elizabeth looked round from the carriage window. Facing her in the opposite corner , with the sombre mountains of Scotland flashing past them, her brother looked very young, very inexperienced, and very vulnerable.
    “What do you want to do, Tony?” she asked.
    He shrugged.
    “I don’t quite know,” he decided. “I should say I was at a sort of dead end.”
    “Don’t talk nonsense!” Elizabeth returned firmly. “You’ve only just started on your way.”
    But which way, she wondered, when he did not answer her. Which way? He had had a good education. Nothing had been spared, yet there was nothing, really, that he wanted to do. Nothing within reason and their limited means. Several months ago he had decided that he “hadn’t the bent” for a university education, but perhaps Sir Ronald would insist on that.
    “How do we get from Oban?” he asked as the train wound along beside the incredibly blue waters of Loch Etive. “We’re almost there,” he added for her enlightenment, because for the past half-hour she had said so little, caught up in a spell of utter enchantment as this lovely countryside had unfolded its beauty before their eyes.
    “We go south, I think, but I understand we’re being met at Oban.” Suddenly her heart was beating hard and fast and her pulses had quickened expectantly. “Mr. Lord said that Sir Ronald would certainly come to welcome us.”
    The thought of meeting the man who had once loved her mother had been much in her mind since she had left London, and now she found herself looking out at the mount ain s of Lome and felt that she had come home.
    The train turned in a great loop into Oban Bay, and even Tony gasped his surprise. He got up to stand at the window, gazing down at a blue anchorage filled with little boats—a fishing fleet and yachts of every size and description, and glittering white cabin cruisers whose immaculate enamelled hulls reflected back the dazzling sunlight in little dancing waves.
    The sun itself seemed to rest delightedly above the placid scene, and everything was closed in and closely guarded by a long green island like a friendly monster sleeping on the surface of the bay.
    Beyond and above it towered the mountains of the west, the silent giants of Mull and Morven, with their heads buried in the clouds, and over everything lay a peace which could almost be felt.
    “This is certainly something!” Tony exclaimed, looking at the yachts. “I had no idea Oban was like that. I wonder if the old boy has a boat.”
    “It’s amazing how little we really know about him,” Elizabeth mused, turning to collect their luggage. “Apart from the odd thing Mr. Lord has told us and what Mother has said from time to time, we’ve no idea about Ardlamond at all.”
    “I expect you’ve dreamed up something, though!” he grinned, swinging down the heaviest case. “Wasn’t there some sort of romance between Sir Ronald and Mother when they were young?”
    Elizabeth’s eyes were fixed on the distant mountains beyond Lismore as she said:
    “It was a long time ago, but somehow I don’t think Sir Ronald has forgotten.”
    The train pulled into the station and she stood behind Tony, looking out. They were much of a height, tall and slim and dark, and there