The Greatest Historical Novels & Stories of D. K. Broster. D. K. Broster

the pain of the burn which made his head swim as he ventured to meet them, and the chessmen dance wildly for a second or two in the firelight. Ah, beautiful and kind, and for ever impossible to love, you shall not know that it is my heart which you have between those healing hands of yours!

      “. . . But you see how little damage has been done,” he said, and knew not how dazedly he spoke. He tried to summon up resolution to draw his hand away. And there was a moment’s silence; only the fire crackled, and, without, the wind flung itself against the glass. Then Grizel came in, and Jacqueline after her.

      Ian rose to his feet at once. He did not intend any ministrations to be carried out in here. “I’ll come with you as meek as a sheep,” he said quickly, “if Miss Campbell will but excuse me. Jacqueline, will you not stay with our guest?” And he followed his elder sister out.

      “Do you think my brother’s hand is much burnt, Miss Campbell?” asked Jacqueline a little anxiously.

      Olivia was thoughtfully fingering a chessman. “It was not his hand; it was his wrist. I wish he had not been so rash. If I may say so, one would not have expected it of him.”

      “But one is never quite sure what Ian may not do,” explained Jacqueline, sitting down in Ian’s place. “He appears so composed, and then suddenly he is not composed.—But when I say that one is not sure what he may not do, pray do not think I mean that he would ever do anything dishonourable—that he would, for instance, ever forsake a friend.”

      “I hope we should none of us do that,” said Miss Campbell.

      “No, indeed! Yet I meant something more than that. . . . I do not know how to put it.”

      “You mean perhaps, Miss Stewart, that he would never forsake a cause,” suggested Olivia, leaning forward with her elbows on the table. “I do not forget that you are all Jacobites.—Perhaps you mean also that he would never forgive an enemy?”

      “I don’t know,” said little Jacqueline, looking troubled. “We ought all to forgive our enemies, ought we not?—But perhaps I do mean that.”

      “Yet I hope Mr. Stewart will forgive me for that burn,” said Olivia with a whimsical little smile. “You must intercede for me, Miss Jacqueline!”

      “Oh, dear Miss Campbell, the burn was Grizel’s fault, I think, not yours!”

      “Then I hope he will forgive me for having called attention to the injury, for it was undoubtedly I who did that in the first place, and he was not best pleased, I think.”

      “Men,” pronounced nineteen-year old Jacqueline with a great air of experience, “are very strange creatures in that respect. For if you neglect to notice their injuries they do not like that neither.”

      “In short,” said Olivia laughing, “we women are the only sensible sex. (Yet men say that we are not over faithful to our friends.) Come, let us put away the chessmen, for something tells me that your brother will not come back, although he challenged me to another game.”

      And in this prediction Miss Campbell found herself perfectly correct.

      CHAPTER VI

       THE FIELD OF DAISIES

       Table of Contents

      § 1

      June 25th—26th.

      If Ian slept ill that night he could, and did, attribute it to the smart of his burnt wrist. But he knew in his heart that that was not the cause.

      The last day of Miss Campbell’s sojourn at Invernacree was going, he saw, to be gloriously fine. The last day; yes, to-morrow would see her leave his father’s roof for ever. If, therefore, he could only get safely through to-day, all would be well. The best thing would be to invent some excuse which would keep him out of doors most of the time, and at a distance; and after some casting about he succeeded.

      But he had forgotten that his father had appointed this morning for going into the half-yearly accounts of the estate with him, and this there was no escaping. All morning Ian added, subtracted, verified and discussed; but in this unromantic pursuit he had less time to think of Miss Campbell, and at all events could not be in her company. His arithmetic, however, was not beyond reproach. At the end of their joint computations the laird began to talk of the sum which he intended in the future to apportion to his son when he married, for though he would not at first have a separate establishment he would need more money, and with economy Invernacree thought that he could allow him this.

      Ian thanked him in a voice which even to himself sounded choked, and his father asked if by ill chance he had taken a fever of cold, as well as burning his hand so foolishly yesterday (for enquiries at supper, not to speak of the presence of a bandage, had disclosed that fact to Mr. Stewart; and in truth Ian had not found writing too pleasant this morning). The young man repudiated this suggestion.

      “Indeed, I hope you are not indisposed,” said Invernacree, “for it is so fine a day that I think a row upon the loch this afternoon might benefit as well as interest Miss Campbell, and Grizel thinks so too.”

      “Dougal Livingstone and his brother are both available,” replied his son.

      “I think,” pronounced the laird, “that it would show more courtesy if you were to row Miss Campbell and your sisters yourself. Or at least (if the consequence of your folly last night incapacitates you) that you should accompany them.”

      “Since when,” asked Ian, “have you laid store, sir, by showing courtesy to a Campbell?”

      Displeasure sat upon the old man’s brow. “One does not war with women, Ian. I cannot think that I have ever trained you in such a notion. And Miss Campbell is our guest.”

      She has bewitched you too, thought Ian. Aloud he said submissively, “No, sir, you are in the right of it. I shall be pleased to row Miss Campbell and my sisters on the loch this afternoon.”

      And even as he said it he knew that what he desired was to row Miss Campbell without his sisters. He caught his breath. But that could never be . . . mercifully.

      “By the way,” said his father, reverting to business, “you will have to go to Glasgow for me in a few weeks’ time to see Buchanan about that affair I spoke of, and one or two others. I am too old for the journey now.—Where is that paper of memoranda I had under my hand a moment since?”

      § 2

      Dougal Livingstone and his brother were the rowers after all, and Ian, steering, was unable therefore to feast his miserable eyes upon the King of Lochlann’s daughter, where she sat beside him in the stern, as well as he could have done had he faced her on a thwart. On the other hand she was so close to him that his miserable body was only too conscious of the fact.

      The boat slipped over the hardly rippled loch, stained in the distance by the reflected mountains with hues that had vanished when the spot was reached, leaving the water as clear and colourless as before. Jacqueline chattered, the rowers at Olivia’s request sang a iorram, Grizel told legends of this place and that. All illusion, like this tormenting nearness on the other side of the helm—like the mirage on the water, pretence of what was not and could never be. . . . When he moved the tiller from him his hand all but brushed her; when a stray whisper of breeze caught a ribbon of hers it sent it across his face or knee . . .

      “Ian,” said Jacqueline, suddenly leaning forward and pointing, “why should we not land on Eilean Soa and show Miss Campbell the cairn where the ancient king was buried with his treasure?”

      Land, and be released from this torturing and intoxicating proximity? No . . . yes . . . which?

      His decision was not awaited. “Oh, let us land!” cried Olivia. “Of all things