Emily

Chapter Fourteen

Coco’s ankle was X-rayed, bound up and she was ordered to rest it. Just before Christmas, however, Maisie Downleesh (one of Coco’s friends) decided to give a ball to celebrate her daughter Diney’s engagement. We were all invited.

There is something about the idea of a ball that lifts the spirits, however low one is. I suppose it’s the excitement; buying a new dress, new make-up, a new hairstyle and settling down in front of the mirror in an attempt to magic oneself into the most glamorous girl in the room. In the past, a ball had offered all the excitement of the unknown, opportunity knocking. This time, I hoped, it would be a chance to make myself beautiful enough to win back Rory.

The ball was being held at the Downleeshes’ castle on the mainland. Coco, Buster, Rory and I were all to stay there. In the morning I took the car across the ferry and drove to Edinburgh to buy a new dress. In the afternoon I had to pick up a couple who were coming to the dance from London, then drive back and pick up Rory from the Irasa Ferry, and then drive on to the Downleeshes’.

I was determined that a new me was going to emerge, so gorgeous that every Laird would be mad with desire for me. I spent a frenzied morning rushing from shop to shop. Eventually in a back street I tracked down a gloriously tarty, pale pink dress, skin tight over the bottom, slashed at the front and plunging back and front.

It had been reduced in a sale because there was a slight mark on the navel, and because, the assistant said with a sniff, there was no call for that sort of garment in Edinburgh.

I tried it on; it was wildly sexy.

‘A little tight over the barkside, don’t ye thenk,’ said the assistant, who was keen to steer me into black velvet at three times the price.

‘That’s just how I like it,’ I said.

It was a bit long too, so I went and bought new six-inch high shoes, and then went to the hairdressers and had a pink rinse put on my hair. I never do things by three-quarters. All in all it was a bit of a rush getting to the airport.

The Frayns were waiting when I arrived — I recognized them a mile off. He was one of those braying chinless telegraph poles in a dung-coloured tweed jacket. She was a typical ex-deb, with flat ears from permanently wearing a headscarf, and a very long right arm from lugging suitcases to Paddington every weekend to go home to Mummy. She had blue eyes, mouse hair and one of those pink and white complexions that nothing, not rough winds nor drinking and dancing till dawn, can destroy. They were also nauseatingly besotted with one another. Every sentence began ‘Charles thinks’ or ‘Fiona thinks’. And they kept roaring with laughter at each other’s jokes, like hyenas. She also had that terrible complacency that often overtakes newly married women and stems from relief at having hooked a man, and being uncritically adored by him.

She was quite nice about me being late, but there was a lot of talk about stopping at a telephone box on the dot of 6.30 to ring up Nanny and find out how little Caroline was getting on; and did I think we’d get there in time to change?

‘It’s the first time I’ve been separated from Caroline,’ she said. ‘I do hope Nanny can cope.’

She sat in the front beside me, he sat in the back; they held hands all the time. Why didn’t they both get in the back and neck?

It was a bitterly cold day. Stripped, black trees were etched on the skyline. The heavy brown sky was full of snow. Shaggy forelocked heads of the cows tossed in the gloom as they cropped the sparse turf. Just before we reached the ferry to pick up Rory and Walter Scott, it started snowing in earnest. I had hoped Rory and I could have a truce for the evening — but I was an hour late which didn’t improve his temper.

Fiona, who had evidently known Rory as a child, went into a flurry of what’s happened to old so and so, and who did so and so marry.

Rory answered her in monosyllables; he had snow melting in his hair and paint on his hands.

‘Too awful,’ she went on. ‘Did you know Annie Richmond’s father threw himself under a taxi in the rush hour in Knightsbridge?’

‘Lucky to find one at that hour,’ said Rory, looking broodingly at the snowflakes swarming like great bees on the windscreen.

I giggled. Rory looked at me, and then noticed my hair.

‘Jesus,’ he said under his breath.

‘Do you like it?’ I said nervously.

‘No,’ he said and turned up the wireless full blast to drown Fiona’s chatter.

Suddenly she gave a scream.

‘Oh look, there’s a telephone box. Could you stop a minute, Rory, so I can telephone Nanny.’

Rory raised his eyes to heaven.

She got out of the car and, giving little shrieks, ran through the snow. Through the glass of the telephone box I could see her smiling fatuously, forcing l0p pieces into the telephone box. Rory didn’t reply to Charles’ desultory questions about shooting. His nails were so bitten that his drumming fingers made little sound on the dashboard.

A quarter of an hour later, Fiona returned.

‘Well?’ said Charles.

‘She’s fine, but she’s missing us,’ she said. ‘She brought up most of her lunch but she’s just had two rusks and finished all her bottle, so Nanny thinks she’s recovered.’

Rory scurled off through the snow, his hands clenched on the wheel.

‘What b-awful weather,’ said Fiona, looking out of the window. ‘You really must start a family very soon, Emily,’ she went on. ‘It gives a completely new dimension to one’s life. I think one’s awfully selfish really until one has children.’

‘Parents,’ said Rory, ‘should always be seen and not heard.’

Punctuated by giggles and murmurs of ‘Oh Charles’ from the back, we finally reached the turrets and gables and great blackened keep of Downleesh Castle. The windows threw shafts of light on to the snow which was gathering thickly on the surrounding fir trees and yews. The usual cavalcade of terriers and labradors came pounding out of the house to welcome us. Walter Scott was dragged off protesting by a footman to be given his dinner in the kitchen.

In the dark panelled hall, great banks of holly were piled round the suits of armour, the spears and the banners. We had a drink before going upstairs. Diney, Lady Downleesh’s daughter, who’d just got engaged, fell on Fiona’s neck and they both started yapping about weddings and babies.

We were taken to our bedroom down long, draughty passages to the West Tower. In spite of a fire in the grate, it was bitterly cold.

I found when I got there that my suitcase had been unpacked and all my clothes laid out neatly on the mildewed fourposter, including an old bone of Walter Scott’s and a half-eaten bar of chocolate I had stuffed into my suitcase at the last moment. On the walls were pictures of gun-dogs coming out of the bracken, their mouths full of feathers.

I missed Walter. Sometimes in those awful long silences I had with Rory I found it a relief to jabber away to him.

‘Can he come upstairs?’ I said.

‘No,’ said Rory.

In the bookshelves was a book called A Modern Guide to Pig Husbandry. ‘Perhaps I should read it,’ I said, ‘it might give me some advice about being married to a pig,’

Across the passage were the unspeakable Frayns. They had already hogged the bathroom, and judging from the sound of splashing and giggling, it wasn’t just a bath they were having. I realized I was jealous of their happiness and involvement. I wanted Rory to start every sentence ‘Emily says’ and roar with laughter at my jokes.

I took ages over dressing, painting my face as carefully as Rory painted any of his pictures. My pink dress looked pretty sensational; I put a ruby brooch Coco had given me over the mark on the navel. It was certainly tight, too, everyone would be able to see my goose-pimples, but on the whole I was pleased with the result — it was definitely one of my on days. The only problem was that when I put on my new tights, the crotch only came up to the middle of my thighs. I gave them a tug and they split irrevocably, leaving a large hole, so I had to make do with bare legs.

I was just trying to give myself a better cleavage with Sellotape when Rory announced that he was ready. Even I, though, was unprepared for his beauty, dressed up in a dark green velvet doublet with white lace at the throat and wrists and the dark green and blue kilt of the Balniels. Pale and haughty, his eyes glittering with bad temper, he looked like something out of Kidnapped; Alan Breck Stuart or young Lochinvar coming out of the West.

‘Oh,’ I sighed. ‘You do look lovely.’

Rory grimaced and tugged at the frills at his neck.

‘I feel like Kenneth McKellar,’ he said.

‘Never mind, you’ve got exactly the right hips to wear a pleated skirt,’ I said.

Rory put a long tartan muffler thing on the dressing-table. ‘This is for you,’ he said.

‘I’m not thinking of going out in this weather,’ I said.

‘You wear it indoors,’ he said, draping it diagonally across my shoulders, ‘like this, and pin it here.’

‘But whatever for?’ I moaned.

‘It’s the Balniel tartan,’ he said evenly. ‘Married women are supposed to wear their husband’s tartan.’

‘But it completely covers up my cleavage.’

‘Just as well, you’re not at some orgy in Chelsea now,’ said Rory.

‘Do I really have to, it’s a bit Hooray for me.’

Very sulkily I arranged it; somehow tartan didn’t go with skintight pink satin, and brooches on the navel.

I wanted to fiddle with my hair and make-up a few minutes longer, but Rory was sitting on the bed, staring at me coldly, making me nervous.

‘Why don’t you go on down?’ I said.

‘I’ll wait here,’ he said.

I combed a few pink tendrils over my shoulders.

‘What made you go crazy with the cochineal?’ said Rory.

‘I thought I ought to change my image,’ I said, sourly. ‘My old one didn’t seem to be getting me very far.’

Downstairs in the huge drawing-room people were having drinks. The host and hostess stood near the door repeating the same words of welcome to new arrivals. Looking round I realized I looked better than most of the women but infinitely more tarty. Most of them were big, raw-boned deb types in very covered-up clothes, the occasional mottled purple arms were the nearest they got to décolletage. Very tall, aristocratic men in kilts stood talking in haw haw voices about getting their lochs drained and burning their grouse moors. Fishes in glass cases and mounted stags’ heads stared glassily down from the walls.

Fiona and Charles were standing near the door. She was wearing a blue dress and absolutely no eye make-up.

‘What a pretty dress,’ I said, with desperate insincerity.

‘Yes, everyone likes it,’ she said, ‘blue is Charles’ favourite colour.’

Charles was gaping at my pink hair, his mouth even more open than usual. Fiona started trying to bring Rory out about his painting.

‘Do you do all that funny abstract stuff?’ she said.

‘No,’ said Rory.

‘Some young man — he had a beard actually — painted my sister Sarah. She sat for two hours and all he had drawn after all that time were three figs and a milk bottle.’

She gave a tinkle of laughter, Rory looked at her stonily.

‘Charles paints quite beautifully too, I feel it’s such a shame his job in the City is so demanding he doesn’t have time to take painting up as a hobby — like you, Rory.’

‘Rory does not paint as a hobby,’ I said furiously, ‘it’s his profession.’ But I spoke to deaf ears, Rory had turned on his heel and gone off to get himself a drink. Charles and Fiona were suddenly shrieking at a couple who had just come into the room.

I was extremely pleased therefore that the next moment Calen Macdonald bore down on me and kissed first my hand, then my cheek, then both my bare shoulders.

‘I was just saying to Buster I wished I could see more of you,’ he said, pulling down my tartan sash and peering at my cleavage, ‘and now I have. I must say that dress is very fetching, pink looks like bare flesh if one shuts one’s eyes.’

‘Where’s Deidre?’ I said.

‘Oh, she’s stalking in Inverness.’

I giggled.

‘So I’ve got the whole evening off and I’m going to devote it entirely to you.’

Two matrons with red-veined faces stopped discussing herbaceous borders and looked at us frostily.

At that moment a voice shouted ‘Emily!’ and there was Coco, dripping with sapphires as big as gull’s eggs, wearing a glorious midnight blue dress. She was lying like Madame Recamier on a red brocade sofa, surrounded by admirers.

Rory sat at her feet.

‘I didn’t see you,’ I said, going over and kissing her.

‘You look very nice, doesn’t she, Rory,’ said Coco.

‘A bit prawn cocktail,’ said Rory.

I bit my lip.

‘I think she looks tremendous,’ said Buster giving me a warm look. ‘In the pink, I might say,’ he laughed heartily.

The room was filling up. Buster and Calen were joined by some ancient general, and they were soon busy recounting to each other the number of creatures they had slaughtered in the last week.

‘Grouses, and twelve bores, and twenty bores, and million bores, that’s all men can think about up here,’ said Coco. She began talking to me about shoes.

There was a sudden stir and a whisper ran through the room. The old general straightened his tie and smoothed his moustache.

‘What a beautiful girl,’ he said.

A swift flush mounted to Rory’s pale cheeks. With a sinking heart, without turning my head, I knew it must be Marina.

‘Hello, everyone,’ she said, coming over and kissing Coco, ‘how’s your poor leg, darling?’

She was wearing a pale grey chiffon dress, smothered in two huge pale grey feather boas. With her flaming red hair it made one think of beech woods in autumn against a cloudy sky. I noticed she had no truck with Hamish’s tartan across her bosom. I supposed it was Rory’s tartan she was after. Sadly I realized that if I spent a million years on my face and clothes, I would never be as beautiful as Marina. Hamish, all done up in black velvet and frills, looked awful.

‘Mutton dressed as cutlet,’ said Rory to Marina under his breath. Even worse was to come. Following her into the room came Finn Maclean in a dinner jacket, with a sleek brunette.

‘Oh God,’ said Rory, ‘here comes the virgin surgeon. Diney,’ he added, turning to the daughter of the house, ‘what the hell is Doctor Finlay doing here?’

‘He was absolutely wonderful about Mummy’s ulcer,’ said Diney, her eyes shining.

‘Probably gave it to her in the first place,’ said Rory.

‘Well, I must say, I think he’s rather super myself,’ said Diney.

‘I’m surprised at you,’ said Rory, ‘one really shouldn’t know one’s doctor socially.’

Finn came up to Coco.

‘How’s it feeling?’ he said.

‘Much better,’ said Coco.

‘May be, but there must be no dancing on it,’ he said firmly.

‘Who’s that with him?’ I whispered to Calen Macdonald.

‘I think she’s one of his nurses,’ said Calen.

‘She’s pretty,’ I said.

‘Not my type,’ said Calen, and started whispering sweet everythings into my ear. I, however, was much more interested in seeing how Rory and Finn reacted to each other.

‘Look, Rory,’ said Coco, ‘here’s Finn.’

Rory, just lighting a cigarette, paused, eyeing Finn without any friendliness.

Finn nodded coldly, ‘Hello, Rory,’ he said.

‘Good evening, Doctor,’ said Rory — he smiled but his eyes were cold, his face as pale as marble. There was an awkward pause.

‘Isn’t it nice Finn’s back for good,’ said Coco brightly to the assembled company.

‘Not for my good, he isn’t,’ said Rory.

‘This is Frances,’ said Finn, ignoring him and introducing the sleek brunette. ‘She works at the hospital.’

‘Oh, a staff outing,’ drawled Rory, ‘what fun. Did you come here by charabanc with a crate of beer, or is it part of the S.R.N. syllabus — a dazzling night of dancing and passion in the arms of Doctor Maclean?’

‘Only for very privileged nurses,’ said Frances, smiling at Finn.

‘I’m surprised you’ve been able to drag him away from delivering babies and darning up appendices,’ said Rory.

Frances was obviously uncertain how to take Rory.

‘Dr Maclean certainly doesn’t allow himself enough free time,’ she said warmly.

‘Quite so,’ said Rory, his eyes lighting up with malicious amusement. ‘He’s an example to us all. I gather that’s the reason your marriage came unstuck, Finn. I heard your ex-wife couldn’t cope with the short hours, or wasn’t your double bedside manner up to scratch? However,’ he smiled at Frances, ‘you seem to be consoling yourself very nicely.’

I turned away in embarrassment; if only he wouldn’t be so poisonous. Rory grabbed my arm.

‘You haven’t met Emily, have you, Finn?’

‘Yes he has,’ I said quickly.

‘Oh?’ Rory raised an eyebrow.

‘We met at Coco’s one day,’ I said, ‘when Finn came to see her about her ankle.’ Rory held out his glass to a passing waiter to fill up.

‘Are you still trying to paint?’ Finn said.

‘He’s got an exhibition in London in April,’ I said hotly.

‘Doesn’t really need one,’ said Finn. ‘He’s been making an exhibition of himself for years,’ and taking Frances by the arm, crossed the room to talk to his host.

‘Scintillating as ever,’ said Rory, but his hand shook as he lit one cigarette from another.

‘Do you like dancing reels, Emily?’ said Marina.

‘If I have enough to drink,’ I said, draining my glass, ‘I reel automatically.’

We went in to dinner.

The leathery, sneering faces of ancestors looked down from the walls. The candlelight flickered on the gleaming panelling, the suits of armour, the long polished table with its shining silver and glasses, and on the pearly white shoulders of Marina.

‘I hope there’s a huge flower arrangement in front of me so I don’t have to sit staring at Doctor Maclean,’ said Rory.

I was horrified to see that he and Marina were sitting next to each other on the opposite side of the table. I was next to Calen, who ran his fingers all over my bare back when he pushed my chair in. And now the bad news. On my other side was six feet four inches of Titian-haired disapproval — Finn Maclean.

‘Hello, Finn,’ said Calen, ‘how are things, have you met this steaming girl?’

‘Doctor Maclean isn’t one of my fans,’ I said.

‘Maybe not,’ said Calen, ‘but he’s tall enough to see right down your front, unless I rearrange that sash. That’s better, don’t want to give you blood pressure, do we Finn? Always get swollen heads, these quacks, think all the nurses and women patients are nuts about them.’

I laughed, Finn didn’t.

‘It must be exciting, running your own hospital,’ I said to him. He was about to answer when someone shoved a steaming great soup ladle between us. ‘Great fun running your own hospital,’ I went on. Then it was his turn to help himself to soup.

‘What’s the disease people suffer most often from round here?’ I asked.

‘Verbal diarrhoea,’ muttered Calen.

I was just warming to my subject, asking Finn all the right questions about the hospital and the operations he would perform there, when Calen lifted up the curtain of hair hanging over my left ear and whispered: ‘Christ, I want to take you to bed.’

I started to laugh in mid-sentence, then blushed:

‘I’m awfully sorry,’ I said to Finn, ‘it’s just something Calen said.’

Finn obviously thought we were too silly for words and turned his huge back on me and started talking to the girl on his right.

Footmen moved round the table, the clatter of plates mingled with the clink of knives and glasses and the hum of various animated conversations. Lady Downleesh sat at the end of the table, a large imposing woman who must once have been handsome. Only Marina and Rory sat mutely side by side, talking little, eating less. They appeared to see and hear nothing of what was going on around them. Suddenly I felt panicky. They were probably playing footy-footy. I imagined their cloven hoofs entwined. Calen and Finn were temporarily occupied with other conversations. I dropped my napkin and dived under the table to retrieve it. It was very dark. I hoped my eyes would soon become accustomed to it, but they didn’t; not enough carrots when I was a child I suppose. I couldn’t see which were Rory’s or Marina’s legs. I grabbed someone’s ankle, but it was much too fat for Marina’s and twitched convulsively — cheap thrill!!! All the same, I couldn’t stay here for ever exciting dowagers. I surfaced again.

‘Are you all right, Mrs Balniel?’ said Lady Downleesh, looking somewhat startled.

‘Fine,’ I squeaked, ‘absolutely marvellous soup.’

‘Everyone’s waiting for you to finish yours,’ said Finn in an undertone.

‘Oh I have,’ I said, ‘I’ve got a tiny appetite, I never eat between males.’

Finn didn’t laugh. Pompous old stuffed shirt.

Everyone started to talk about fishing as the soup plates were moved.

‘You’re not a bit alike,’ I said, ‘you and Marina.’

He shot me a wary glance.

‘In what way?’

‘Well, she’s so wild and you’re so well controlled. I can’t see you as a medical student putting stuffed gorillas in college scarves down Matron’s bed.’

He gave me one of those big on-off smiles he must use all the time for keeping people at a polite distance.

‘I was working too hard for that.’

‘Are all the people in this room your patients?’ I asked. ‘Must be funny to look round a table and know what every single woman looks like with her clothes off.’

‘Calen does anyway,’ said Finn. ‘What do you do with yourself all day?’

‘Not a lot, I’m not very good at housework. I read and grumble, sometimes I even bite my nails.’

‘You ought to get a job, give you something to do,’ he went on. ‘What did you do before you met Rory?’

‘Oh, I mistyped letters in several offices, and I did a bit of modelling when I got thin enough, and then I got engaged to an M.P. I don’t think I would have been much of an asset to him, and then Rory came along.’

‘It’s a full moon tonight,’ said a horse-faced blonde sitting opposite us. ‘I wonder if the ghost’ll walk tonight. Who’s sleeping in the west wing?’

‘The Frayns,’ said Diney Downleesh, lowering her voice, ‘and Rory and his new wife.’

‘What ghost?’ I whispered nervously to Calen.

Calen laughed. ‘Oh, it’s nothing. There was a Downleesh younger son a couple of centuries ago, who fell in love with his elder brother’s wife. The wife evidently had a soft spot for him as well. One night, when her husband was away, she invited the younger brother into her bedroom. He was just hot-footing along the West Tower where she was sleeping (all tarted up in his white dressing-gown), when the husband came back, and picking a dirk off the wall, he stabbed him. The younger brother is supposed to stalk the passage when there’s a full moon, trying to avenge himself through all eternity for not getting his oats.’

‘How creepy,’ I said with a shiver.

‘I’ll take care of you,’ said Calen, putting his hand on my thigh and encountering bare flesh.

‘Christ,’ he said.

‘My only pair of tights split,’ I said.

Finn Maclean pretended not to notice. Calen filled my glass over and over again.

Eventually we finished dinner and the ball began. The host and hostess stood at the edge of the long gallery welcoming latecomers. Every time the front door opened you could feel a blast of icy air from outside. It was terribly cold in these big houses. The only way to keep warm was to stand near one of the huge log fires that were burning in each room, then two minutes later you were bright scarlet in the face. I could see exactly why Burns said his love was like a red, red rose.

Rory came up to me. ‘What was Finn Maclean talking to you about?’ he said suspiciously.

‘He was stressing the importance of getting one’s teeth into something,’ I said.

‘If he got his teeth into me, I’d go straight off and have a rabies jab,’ said Rory.

‘On with the dance,’ I said. ‘Let Emily be unconfined.’

‘Come on, Rory,’ said Diney Downleesh, coming over to us, ‘we need two more people to make up an eightsome over there.’

We couldn’t really refuse.

Dum-diddy Dum-diddy Dum-diddy-diddy-diddy went the accordions. The men gave strange, unearthly wails, like a train not stopping at a station. We circled to the left, we circled to the right.

‘Wrong way,’ hissed Rory, as we swung into the grand chain. When it was my turn in the middle, I made an even worse hash of it, setting to all the wrong people and doing U-turns instead of figures of eight, and whooping a lot. ‘For Christ’s sake stop capering around like the White Heather Club,’ said Rory under his breath. ‘Women don’t put their hands up, or click their fingers, or whoop.’

The next dance, thank God, was an ordinary one. I danced it with Buster, who squeezed me so hard, I thought I’d shoot out of my dress like toothpaste.

‘Why don’t any of them look as though they’re enjoying themselves?’ I said.

‘You can never tell until they fall on the floor,’ said Buster.

On the other side of the room Marina was dancing with Hamish. She looked so glowingly beautiful and he so yellow and old and decayed I was suddenly reminded of Mary Queen of Scots dancing and dancing her ancient husband into the grave.

The evening wore on. I wasn’t short of partners. I danced every dance.

A piper came on, well primed with whisky, and assaulted our ear-drums for a couple of reels. My reputation as a reel-wrecker was growing. I messed up Hamilton House and then the Duke and Duchess of Perth, and then the Sixteensome. On the surface I must have appeared rather like a loose horse in the National, potentially dangerous, thoroughly enjoying myself and quite out of control. But through a haze of alcohol and misery I was aware of two things, Rory’s complete indifference to my behaviour and Finn Maclean’s disapproval. Both made me behave even worse.

I danced a great deal with Calen. I came into my own when they stopped doing those silly reels.

‘Did your wife dance professionally?’ I heard a disapproving dowager say to Rory, as I came off the floor after a gruelling Charleston. Calen and I went into the drawing-room for yet another drink. I put my glass down on a gleaming walnut table. When I picked it up two minutes later, there was a large ring on the table.

‘Oh God,’ I said, ‘how awful.’

‘Looks better that way,’ said Calen, ‘looks more lived in somehow.’ He led me back on to the floor. The music was slow and dreamy now.

‘You are the promised breath of springtime,’ sang Calen laying his handsome face against mine. I snuggled up against him for a few laps round the floor, and then I escaped to the loo. Big-boned girls stood around talking about Harrods and their coming-out dances. Really, I thought as I gazed in the mirror, I look very loose indeed. Tight dress, loose morals, I suppose.

I wandered along the long gallery so I could watch the people on the floor. A double line of dancers were engaged with serious faces in executing a reel. Marina and Rory faced one another, expressionless. God they danced beautifully. I was reminded of Lochinvar again:

So stately his form and so lovely her face

That never a hall such a galliard did grace…

And the bride’s maidens whispered, ‘T’were better by far

To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar.

Oh dear, I thought in misery. In this case young Lochinvar seems to have missed the boat, arriving too late and finding his love married to Hamish.

The dance ended. The couples clapped and spilled out into the hall. If only Rory would come and look for me. But it looked as though I’d have to wait for a Ladies’ Excuse Me before I had a chance to dance with him again.

I heard footsteps behind me. I felt two hands go round my waist, I turned hopefully, but it was Calen.

‘I’ve got a bottle,’ he said, ‘let’s go and drink it somewhere more secluded.’ He dropped a kiss on to my shoulder and led me downstairs along a long passage into a conservatory.

Chinese lanterns, hanging round the walls, lit up the huge tropical plants. The scent of azaleas, hyacinths and white chrysanthemums mingled voluptuously with the Arpège I’d poured all over myself. The sound of the band reached us faintly from the hall.

‘You are the promised breath of springtime,’ sang Calen, taking me in his arms.

‘There isn’t any mistletoe,’ I said.

‘We don’t need it,’ said Calen, his grey, dissipated eyes gazing into mine.

You’re rotten to the core, I thought. Mad, bad and dangerous to know. Bad from the neck upwards, and not at all good for Emily. Not that Rory was doing much good for me either.

‘God, I want you,’ said Calen undoing the top button of my dress. He bent his head and kissed the top of my cleavage, and slowly kissed his way up my neck and chin to my mouth.

I didn’t feel anything really, except a desire to slake my loneliness. God, it was a practised kiss. I thought of all those hundreds of women he must have seduced. Hands travelled over my bare back, pressing into every crevice. Suddenly a light flicked on in the library next door.

‘Calen,’ said a voice, ‘you’re wanted on the telephone.’

‘Go to hell,’ said Calen, burying his face in my neck, ‘don’t be a bloody spoilsport, Finn.’

Over Calen’s head, our eyes met. ‘It’s Deidre,’ Finn said.

‘Oh God,’ sighed Calen, as reluctantly he let me go. ‘You see before you the most henpecked husband in the Highlands. Goodnight, you dream of bliss.’ He kissed me on the cheek and walked somewhat unsteadily out of the conservatory. Finn and I glared at each other.

‘You are beyond the pale,’ I snapped, ‘beyond a whole dairyful of pales. Why do you have to rush around rotting up people’s sex lives? I thought you were a doctor, not a vicar.’ I lurched slightly without Calen to hold me up.

‘You won’t get Rory back that way,’ said Finn. ‘Getting drunk and going to bed with Calen doesn’t solve anything.’

‘Oh it does, it does,’ I said with a sigh, ‘it gets you through the next half an hour — and half an hour can be an eternity in Scotland.’

I wandered into the library and discovered a glass of champagne balanced on a stag’s head. I drank it in one gulp.

‘I’ll take the high road and ye’ll take the low road,’ I said, ‘and I’ll be inebriated before ye. Tell me, Doctor, you know the area better than I do, what gives between Rory and your sister?’

‘Nothing,’ he said roughly. ‘You’re imagining things, and you’re not making things any better behaving like this.’

I stared at him for a minute. ‘My mother once had an English setter who had freckles like yours,’ I said, dreamily. ‘They looked really nice on a dog.’

We went into the hall which was fortunately deserted. ‘What about your friend Frances Nightingale,’ I said, swinging back and forth on an heraldic leopard that reared up the bottom of the banisters. ‘Isn’t she missing you?’

‘That’s my problem,’ he said.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’m not usually as silly as this. It’s a pity you’re not as good at mending broken hearts as broken bones.’

‘I suggest,’ said Finn, ‘you go straight up to bed without making a fool of yourself any further. Take three Alka-Seltzers before you go to sleep, you’ll feel much better in the morning. Come on.’ He moved forward to take me upstairs, but I broke away.

‘Go and jump in the loch,’ I snarled, and ran away from him up the stairs. I fell into bed, preparing to cry myself to sleep, but I must have flaked out almost immediately.

In the middle of the night, it seemed, I woke up. I didn’t know where I was, it was pitch black in the room. The fire had gone out. Where the hell was I? Then I remembered — Downleesh Castle. I put out a hand — groping for Rory. He wasn’t there, I was alone in the huge fourposter. Suddenly the room seemed to go unnaturally cold, the wind was blowing a blizzard outside, the snow still falling heavily. As the windows rattled and banged and the doors and stairs creaked, it was like being on board ship. Then I felt my hair standing on end as I remembered the ghost in the white dressing-gown that walked when the moon was full. I gave a sob at the thought of him creeping down those long, musty passages towards me. I was trembling all over. Getting out of bed, I ran my hands along the wall, hysterically groping for a light switch. I couldn’t find one. The room grew even colder. Suddenly I gave a gasp of terror as the curtain blew in, and I realized to my horror the window was open. I leapt back into bed. Where the hell was Rory? How could he leave me like this? Suddenly my blood froze as, very, very gently, I heard the door creaking. It stopped, then creaked again, and, very, very gradually, it began to open. I couldn’t move, my voice was strangled in my dry throat, my heart pounding.

Oh God, I croaked, oh, please no! I tried desperately to scream as one does in a nightmare, but no sound came out.

Slowly the door opened wider. The curtains billowed again in the through draught from the window, and the light from the snow revealed a ghostly figure wrapped in white, gold hair gleaming. It suddenly turned and looked in my direction, and slowly crept towards the bed. Panic overwhelmed me, I was going to be murdered.

Someone was screaming horribly, echoing on and on through the house. The next minute I realized it was me. The room was flooded with light and there was Buster, standing in the doorway, looking very discomfited in a white silk dressing-gown. I went on screaming.

‘Emily, my God,’ said Buster. ‘I’m so sorry, pet. For Christ’s sake stop making that frightful row. I got into the wrong bedroom, must have got the wrong wing for that matter.’

I stopped screaming and burst into noisy, hysterical sobs. Next minute Finn Maclean barged in, still wearing black trousers and his white evening shirt.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ he said.

He was followed by the Frayns. She had tied her hair up with a blue bow.

‘Where’s Rory?’ I sobbed, ‘where is he? I’m sorry, Buster, I thought you were the ghost. I was so frightened.’ My breath was coming in great strangled gasps. Buster patted my shoulder gingerly.

‘There, there, poor Emily,’ he said. ‘Got my wings muddled,’ he added to Finn. ‘She thought I was the Downleesh ghost.’

‘I’m not surprised after all the liquor she shipped,’ said Finn. ‘I’ll go and get something to calm her down.’

Once I started crying I couldn’t stop.

‘Do try and pull yourself together, Emily,’ said Fiona. ‘Oughtn’t you to slap her face or something?’ she said as Finn came back with a couple of pills and a glass of water.

‘Get these down you,’ he said, gently.

‘I don’t need them,’ I sobbed, then gave another scream as Rory walked in through the curtains, snowflakes thick on his hair and his shoulders.

‘What a lot of people in my wife’s bedroom,’ he said blandly, looking round the room. ‘I didn’t know you were entertaining, Emily. You do keep extraordinary hours.’ A muscle was going in his cheek, he looked ghastly.

‘Where have you been?’ I said, trying and failing to stop crying.

‘Having a quiet cigarette on the battlements,’ said Rory. ‘Pondering whether there was life after birth. Hello, Buster, I didn’t see you, how nice of you to drop in on Emily. Does my mother know you’re here?’

‘She was quite hysterical,’ said Fiona, reprovingly.

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Rory, ‘with all these people in here.’ He came over and patted me on the shoulder. ‘There, there, lovie, pack it in now, everything’s all right.’

‘I thought Buster was a ghost,’ I explained, feeling terribly silly. ‘I could only see his dressing-gown and his hair.’

‘You what?’ For a minute Rory looked at Buster incredulously, and then he leant against the wall and started to shake with laughter.

‘I got into the wrong wing,’ said Buster, looking very discomfited. ‘Perfectly natural mistake in these old houses, thought I was going into my own bedroom.’

Rory sniffed, still laughing. ‘I didn’t know ghosts reeked of aftershave. Really, Buster, next time you go bed-hopping, you should take an A — Z. Just think if you ended up in our hostess’s room.’ He looked round the room. ‘Well, if you’ve all finished, I’d quite like to go to bed.’

Finn Maclean glared at Rory for a second and then stalked out of the room, followed by Buster followed by the Frayns.

‘What an extraordinary couple,’ I could hear her saying, ‘do you think they could be a bit mad?’

Still laughing, Rory started pulling off his tie. There was a knock on the door.

‘Probably Buster wondering if he’s forgotten someone,’ said Rory. Sure enough, Buster stood on the threshold. ‘Rory, dear boy, just like a word with you.’

‘Knowing you, it’ll be several words,’ said Rory.

‘Don’t say anything to your mother about this, will you?’ I heard Buster saying in a low voice. ‘She’s been under a lot of strain with her ankle, just taken a sleeping pill, wouldn’t want to upset her.’

‘You’re an old goat, Buster,’ said Rory. ‘But your secret is safe with Emily and me. I can’t, alas, vouch for Doctor Maclean, who is the soul of indiscretion, or for that appalling couple we gave a lift to.’

‘Goodness,’ I said after he’d gone. ‘Do you think he was being unfaithful to Coco?’

‘Probably,’ said Rory. ‘He and my mother trust each other just about as far as they can throw each other, which always seems a good basis for marriage.’

‘But whose bedroom was he trying to get into?’ I asked.

‘Probably taking pot-luck,’ said Rory.

‘Marina’s perhaps,’ I said, then could have bitten my tongue off.

‘Marina left hours ago, she and Hamish aren’t staying here,’ said Rory. ‘They were having the most frightful row when they left. They should lay off arguing occasionally, a short rest would re-charge their batteries for starting again.’

So he hadn’t been with Marina. Instead he’d been on the battlements by himself in a blizzard, driven by what extremes of despair. Somehow that seemed even worse. He got into bed, put his arms round me and kissed me on the forehead. I could never understand his changes of mood.

‘Sorry you were frightened by Buster,’ he said, and the next moment he was asleep. I lay awake for a long time. Towards dawn he rolled over and caught hold of me, groaning, ‘Oh my darling, my little love.’ I realized he was asleep and, with a sick agony, that it certainly wasn’t me he was talking to.