Air Ambulance (21 page)

“Of course.” He looked round at Isobel, and something warm and understanding flashed between them. “Will you come back with us?” he asked.

Isobel shook her head.

“I must go on to Garrisdale,” she said. “It’s high time the children were in bed.” Her smile was steady and serene as she turned to Alison. “I don’t think you’ll need me at Monkdyke.”

Alison went with Fergus back towards the bay. They walked in a restrained silence, covering the distance quickly.

“Don’t worry about having to tell me about Margot,” he said as they neared the door. “Isobel has just done that.”

She could not read his expression in the dim light beneath the trees nor tell what he really thought from the firmly controlled tone of his voice, and Hannah had opened the door before she had time to reply.

Beyond Hannah she could see the small group by the fire, bathed in the warm orange glow of the peats. Andrew was still on the settee, lying back contentedly against the cushions, but Margot was now standing on the far side of the hearth, with her free hand in Ronald’s. The other still clutched the stout ash stick she had been using that first time Alison had seen her walking across the sand. She was leaning heavily upon it, but her eyes were full of a new triumph.

“Are you surprised, Fergus?” she asked in a deeply-controlled voice.

“Not so much surprised as delighted, my dear!” Fergus crossed the room without hesitation to kiss her lightly on the brow. “I had hoped for this, Margot,” he added, “some time ago. It doesn’t really matter how retarded a cure is so long as it comes along in the end,” he added.

He turned abruptly to where Andrew lay on the settee.

“Now, Andy, what about that leg?” he demanded. “Are we to tie it up or cut i
t
off?”

Andrew smiled a little wanly. He was so very tired now and he really wanted to go to sleep.

“It isn’t bad enough to cut off, Uncle Fergus,” he explained. “Just twisted. And Captain Gowrie has put a very nice bandage on.”

“All the same,” Fergus decided gently, kneeling on the floor beside him, “we’ll have to have Captain Gowrie’s nice bandage off for a couple of seconds, Andy just to have look-see at what you’ve done. When you’ve counted up to twenty, not too quickly! I’ll be through.”

While he had been speaking the long, sensitive fingers had been doing their work, probing gently, feeling here and there until Fergus was convinced that Andrew himself had been right. The injury to his ankle was not very serious.

“Just a rather bad sprain.” He turned to Alison, holding out a length of bandage. “Now we’re going to see how an ankle should be wrapped up!” he smiled. “Captain Gowrie may be all right in the air, Andy, or even on the ground for that matter, but he has quite a bit to learn about bandaging!”

Ronald laughed, the light, uninhibited laughter of a schoolboy.

“All right!” he agreed. “I never was much good at first-aid!” He gave Andrew a brief wink over Alison’s bowed head. “I’ll watch and see where I went wrong!”

He had not relinquished Margot’s hand, and he drew her with him towards the settee.

Alison’s hands were shaking as she manipulated the long crepe bandage, but finally she had Andrew’s foot and ankle securely swathed in its ample length, and the fair lashes were already dropping over the drowsy blue eyes.

“Upstairs now!” Fergus decided, taking the child into his arms. “We’
ll
see about getting you back to Garrisdale in the morning, perhaps.”

Margot moved at last, making a small, impulsive gesture towards them, and he passed her with a smile.

“Unless, of course,” he added for Andrew’s benefit, “you would like to stay here with your mother?”

The blue eyes flickered open.

“She’s going to stay with Captain Gowrie,” Andrew said sleepily, “on Heimra Mhor.”

“Ron and I are going to be married, Fergus,” Margot said when he came down into the hall again. “We knew each other a very long time ago.” Suddenly her eyes were eager and all the hardness, the harsh look of watchful calculation, had gone out of them. “Ron wants to make a home for Andrew, and he feels he could do it best here, on the islands.”

“I wondered about that job you offered me,” Ronald said, looking directly at Fergus. “Is the offer still open?”

“For as long as you like,” Fergus assured him, gripping his one good hand firmly in his own.

“I guess I’d better take it now,” Ronald decided with the old, one-sided smile from which most of the bitterness had gone. “Whatever they manage to do for this arm of mine in the hospital, I’ve a feeling that it will never help to fly a plane again. But it wouldn’t keep me from looking after your interests on Heimra Mhor.”

“
I’
m sure of that,” Fergus agreed.

Alison turned towards the door. She was suddenly thinking about Isobel, and there was a constricting lump in her throat, but with Ronald it
had
been first love—always. Just as it would always be for her.

She reached the open door, standing there to wait for the others and looking out into the star-filled night. All the island’s magic lay out there along the
machar,
where the flowers had gone to sleep and the little silver-edge waves came stealing in across the sand. There was no moon, but the brightness of the stars filled the whole dome of heaven with a brilliance that made the world quite light. She could see the curve of the bay glittering in a pale crescent between its dark headlands, and far out across the water beyond them, the twin swords of the Pladda light, sweeping rhythmically across the swift flood of Coirestruan.

There would never be anything like this for her again, she thought. Never the same, the same swift delight in beauty, because her heart would always hold a lonely place.

“Perhaps we ought to start on our way back,” Fergus suggested at her elbow. “I’ve given Ronald a couple of hours’ grace, to help Margot prepare for tomorrow.”

Alison turned to the couple beside the fire. There was no need to say goodbye to Margot, only goodnight. They would all be travelling back to the mainland together. Their goodbyes had been postponed.

Slowly she walked through the garden by Fergus’ side, and suddenly she knew that he had something to say to her. Something vital to both of them.

He stopped when they had reached the screen of pines which cut off Monkdyke from the road.

“When did you first know about Margot?” he asked. “How long ago, Alison?”

She could not believe that it was only a week ago.

“The day I gave Andrew the shells to make my bracelet,” she remembered, her fingers closing over the odd little gift that Fergus had clasped about her wrist three days ago. “I walked along the Strand to gather them, and somehow I found myself at Monkdyke.”

He stooped, taking her gently by the shoulders to turn her to face him.

“You didn’t tell me,” he said.

“No, I feel ashamed of that, but Margot wanted to surprise you, when she could really walk without help.”

He did not answer that. Perhaps he would never guess Margot’s real reason for keeping her secret to herself as long as she dared, her wish to make sure of their future together before she told him the truth.

“It set me free,” he said slowly, looking down at her in the bright starlight. “Free to love you, Alison.”

She drew in a small, quivering breath, scarcely able to believe what she had heard.

“At first I imagined it was Gowrie—that you were in love with him,” he said roughly. “Your work had thrown you together, and I could see that he was fond of you, but then—I think I knew.” He turned her face up to his and her eyes seemed full of starlight. “Alison, my love,” he said thickly, “if I’d lost
you...!”

In one brief moment he had gathered her into his arms, and his lips came down, close and warm against hers.

“Fergus!”

She clung to him, not wanting to go out of his arms ever again. And she needn’t. They would be about her now for the rest of her life. She and Fergus would live on Heimra Beag and work together and make a home at Monkdyke, perhaps, when Garrisdale became too full of children to hold them as well. There would always be the children—Fergus’ little “colony”—to work for and care about. That, too, would go with them into the future.

“Tomorrow,” she whispered into the starlit darkness, “I’m not going to feel quite so badly about going back to Glasgow and leaving my heart behind!”

He kissed her once again, full and tenderly on the lips.

“I shall be going with you,” he reminded her. “And then we can come back to Heimra to find your heart—together!”