a healthy glow from the energetic walks she took each day. It was a pity that the weather was changing; there was more persistent rain and a strengthening wind—hardly a day for a tramp—but Dr Cameron had said that morning that her grandmother was well enough to return home, and this might be her last chance to take a last look… She borrowed an old mac from one of the maids, tied her head in a scarf, assured her grandmother, with not a vestige of truth, that the weather was clearing, and left the hotel.
The steady drizzle didn’t bother her, nor did the great gusts of wind. The sky was leaden and the mountains loomed, grey and forbidding, but she had been brought up in surroundings such as these, and wasn’t deterred from her resolve to walk as far as possible towards Rannoch Moor. She had no hope of actually getting there, but at least she would be able to reach its very edge. She would walk for an hour and then turn back.
The hour was almost up and she was a good four miles from the hotel when the drizzle turned to torrential rain. There was no escaping it; she was on a lonely stretch of road bordered by coarse grass and last year’s bracken, patterned with the vivid green of the new growth. The low-lying shrubs offered no shelter, and there was nothing to do but turn round and walk back. She paused to wipe the rain from her face with an already sopping hanky, and didn’t hear the Land Rover come to a halt on the other side of the road. Its door opened and Dr Cameron roared, ‘Over here, Rosie, and look sharp about it!’
She sloshed across the road, her shoes full of water, relieved to see him, and at the same time vexed that he should bawl at her in such a fashion. He had the door open, and she climbed in and squelched into the seat beside him, and he drove off, far too fast she considered, before she had fastened her seatbelt. She mopped her face, glad that she would be back soon.
‘An emergency?’ she asked, and when he didn’t do more than grunt, ‘Thank you for picking me up, I’ll be glad to get out of these wet clothes.’
They were approaching Bridge of Orchy; she could see the hotel, standing back from the station and the road. A cup of tea and a hot bath would be more than welcome. She gave a sigh of relief which turned to a surprised gasp as he drove down a side-road which joined the road to Oban.
‘Sorry I can’t stop,’ said Dr Cameron in what she considered to be a heartless manner. The next minute she felt ashamed of herself; what were hot baths and cups of tea compared with emergencies?
She peered through the driving rain as he turned off the road on to a narrow country lane running through fir trees. She knew the lane, for it was within a few miles of her old home. They would pass close to Inverard unless he turned off again, and side-roads were few and far between.
He didn’t turn off, but presently raced through an open gateway and slowed then because the drive was steep and narrow and winding.
‘Why are you coming here?’ She strove to keep her voice quiet.
‘Dr Finlay is out on a case. The medical men at Oban are tied up—I got a call on the car phone.’
They had reached the end of the drive, and the house came into view. It hadn’t changed—white walls, gables, tall chimneys, shallow steps to the wide front door standing ajar, sitting cosily within its circle of trees and gardens, facing the mountains across a wide grass meadow.
She gave a small sigh, and he turned to look at her.
‘Know this place? Who lives here? I was only given the address…’
‘Macdonald,’ and at his sudden understanding look, ‘I was born here. Donald Macdonald is my uncle.’
He had the doors open. ‘Out you get and inside with you, and don’t waste my time. You can dry off somewhere…’
He mounted the steps and went into the square hall with doors on all sides. One of them opened now, and a small elderly woman in a flowered pinny came to meet them.
‘The doctor—thank God for that. He’s in the drawing-room, we’ve not dared to move him.’ Her eyes lighted on Rosie, and her face broke into a wide smile. ‘Miss Rosie—in with ye, lassie, while I take the doctor along.’
The doctor had cast down his Burberry and followed the woman through the door, and Rosie stopped to take off her mac and headscarf, and made haste to follow. Nothing had changed, she saw that at a glance as she crossed the charming room to the vast sofa where her uncle lay.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ She looked at the unconscious face of her uncle, and felt a pang of pity; he had treated her father with unkindness and she had never liked him, but now he lay, a lonely elderly man with no wife and no family to be with him.
‘Open my bag and get out the syringe in a plastic envelope, the small bottle with spirit written on it, and one of the woollen swabs beside it. Put them where I can reach them, and get someone to get a bed ready.’
He didn’t look at her; he was bending over his patient, listening to his chest, so she did exactly as she had been told and then, leaving Mrs MacFee with him, hurried through to the dining-room through the open archway and up the small second staircase leading from it. Old Robert, the odd-job man, and a young girl with a tear-stained face were standing in the doorway leading to the kitchen, and Rosie said, ‘Come up with me, will you, and help me get a bed ready?’
Her uncle’s room was at the front of the house; if he was to be carried upstairs, then it would be easier if they used the main staircase in the inner hall leading up from the drawing-room. Rosie ran through the passages and opened the door wide. ‘We’d better take the bedclothes off.’ She gave the girl a reassuring smile. ‘What is your name?’
‘Flora, miss, I’m the housemaid.’
‘Well, Flora, would you switch on the lights? And I should think one pillow would do.’ She frowned. ‘Perhaps you’d better fetch several more, though, for I’m not sure if Mr Macdonald should sit up or not.’
She gave a quick look round, moved a bedside table to make it easier to reach the bed, and said, ‘I’m going downstairs again to tell the doctor to use the main staircase.’
Dr Cameron was still bending over her uncle. He didn’t look up as she went in, but said in his calm way, ‘Is the bed ready?’ and when she said ‘yes’ he lifted his patient with apparent ease.
‘Lead the way…’
She went ahead, turning every few steps to make sure that the doctor was all right. ‘Pillow?’ she asked urgently as they reached the bedroom.
‘One,’ Dr Cameron laid his patient on the bed. He was breathing rather fast, but that was all. He must be all of fifteen stone, reflected Rosie and, being a practical young woman, began to ease off her uncle’s shoes.
Her uncle was still unconscious.
‘We will get him undressed,’ stated the doctor. ‘Trousers and jacket, leave everything else.’
When that was done he turned to Rosie and said, ‘Go and telephone the hotel, reassure your grandmother. Will it upset her to be told?’
‘She hasn’t spoken to Uncle Donald since he came here to live, but I’d rather not tell her—not yet, anyway.’
‘Tell her what you think is best, and then come back here.’
She was still wringing wet and with no hope of getting dry, at least for the moment. When she got downstairs she kicked off her shoes, stripped off her tights, and went to the telephone. It took a minute or two to explain to the manager where she was and why.
‘If you could tell my grandmother,’ she asked, ‘that I am quite safe, and will be back just as soon as Dr Cameron can leave his patient.’
Mrs MacFee was at her elbow as she put down the phone.
‘You’ll get these wet things off you, Miss Rosie. Ye can sit in my dressing-gown while they dry—it’ll take but a wee while.’
‘I can’t just yet, Mrs MacFee, the doctor might need help.’ She raced back upstairs,