Read The Last of the Kintyres for Free Online

simply.
    “Mrs. Malcolm,” Elizabeth found herself asking impulsively, “did you know my mother?”
    Jessie smiled, warming to her immediately.
    “Fine I did, miss,” she said. “She used to come here when the old laird was a young man. She was a bonny girl, like yourself. She had the same colouring and the same bright, honest eyes. There weren’t so many cars in those days to take folks off to Oban or Edinburgh or such like at a moment’s notice and the young folk made their fun at home. Many a grand ball I’ve seen here at Ardlamond,” she mused, “and up at the castle, too. But things have changed now, although maybe we’ll be seeing something of the old entertaining at the Castle before long now that Mistress Hayler has come back.”
    Her tone was suddenly dry, as if she had no great affection for Caroline Hayler and never could have.
    “I wondered,” Elizabeth confessed, “If Mrs. Hayler had always lived here.”
    “She’s lived hereabouts for quite a while, but not always up at the Castle. She bought that when her rich Canadian husband was killed in an air accident less than a year ago. Before she met him she was plain Caroline McArthur of the Letter Farm up the glen.” And in love with Hew Kintyre even in those days, Elizabeth thought. Why, then, had they never married?
    “In these days we were both so hopelessly poor ,” Caroline had said, but was that all?
    “I never had much time for Caroline McArthur,” Mrs. Malcolm added tightly. “She was educated away from the glen, and it gave her big ideas. She came back with all sorts of fancy notions in her head. Then, when she met money and married it, there was no holding her. She always had an eye for the young master— the new laird, I should be calling him,” Jessie amended sadly. “A body just canna’ think about that so soon,” she excused herself, wiping away a tear. “And what Mr. Hew is going to be laird to I just don’t know, because Ardlamond hasn’t been paying its way this many a day, and Whitefarland isn’t on its feet yet.”
    “Whitefarland?” Elizabeth echoed. “That’s where—Mr. Kintyre lives, isn’t it?”
    “If you can call it living!” Jessie agreed. “It’s been one long struggle, if you ask me, against odds. He’s had nothing but bad luck since he went there. He could have done well enough with a better start, but Ardlamond was in debt and he wouldn’t ask for help. He wouldn’t have his father sell Ardlamond either, because it had been in the family for so long. He just struggled on.” Jessie crossed to the wardrobe, opening the double doors. “You see, he is Ardlamond. He was born to it and he can see a long line of Kintyres stretching away behind him who all did their best for the place, and he’ll work to do the same till he drops.”
    Elizabeth was at the window, and suddenly she understood so clearly what Jessie Malcolm was trying to convey. This lovely spot, carved out of the rock and all but surrounded by the sea, was well worth any man’s struggle, yet there was so very little to sustain it. Whitefarland, if it was a sheep farm of any size at all, might have done that in time, but now there would be death duties to pay and all sorts of other things to take into consideration.
    “We’ve chosen the wrong time to come, Mrs. Malcolm,” she said with a small, regretful sigh.
    “I’m not so sure about that,” Jessie returned. “Maybe it was the right time, if you ask me.”
    The blunt rejoinder surprised Elizabeth, but she did not question it. She had gossiped enough to Jessie, and perhaps Hew Kintyre would be waiting for her to come downstairs.
    What could she say to him, knowing what she did now? Only that she and Tony would efface themselves as quickly as possible, even before the old laird’s funeral, if he so desired.

 
    CHAPTER TWO
    HALF an hour later Elizabeth descended the staircase in search of Hew, still not quite sure of what she was going to say to him and far more conscious now