Free Lady of Fortune by Graham Masterton

this? Is this Effie, at last?’
    Fiona Watson turned around, and smiled. ‘Aye, this is Effie. My sweet young Effie. Effie, say hello to Jamie McFarlane. My friend, and my good companion.’
    Effie felt numb. Who was this young man, with whom her mother seemed to feel so completely and affectionately at ease? She looked to her mother for some kind of explanation; even a nod or a smile would have done. But her mother’s smile was all for him, for Jamie, and as he held out his hand to Effie, her mother possessively linked arms with him, and rested her cheek against the brown tweed of his shoulder.
    â€˜Effie,’ said Jamie, squeezing her fingers. ‘It’s good to meet you. Fiona’s told me so much about you. The dortiest daughter anyone could ever have, she said. Rare as summer snow.’
    Effie found herself incapable of saying anything at all. Again she looked to her mother for a sign that might have told her who this Jamie McFarlane could be; but again it was clear that her mother had almost forgotten her in her pleasure at meeting him. ‘How have you been?’ her mother asked him. ‘You’re looking tired.’
    â€˜Och, I was awake the night with old man Godden,’ said Jamie, without taking his eyes off Effie. ‘There isn’t too muchtime left for him, poor old fellow. But I think he’s happy enough to have a fair straw death, and not to be found one morning in the close, with his legs stickit up in the air.’ He held up his hands, in imitation of a dead dog, and grinned. Effie smiled, but shrugged, too, because she couldn’t understand what he was saying, or who he was.
    â€˜Jamie works with the sick and the poor in the Lands,’ explained Effie’s mother. ‘He’s a lawyer, of sorts; and a charity worker, of sorts; but, most of all, he’s an angel. Not just to me, but to all those poor souls who have nothing to sustain them, and nothing to look forward to. He’s a man who gives of himself.’
    Jamie stood in the snow, holding her mother’s arm, and watched Effie with a serious but receptive face. Come on, he was telling her silently, challenge me. Challenge my closeness to your mother. Tell me I’m wrong, and that I shouldn’t be here at all. Give me the chance to explain myself. Let me tell you that I love her, this mother of yours, and that she loves me in return.
    Effie said, ‘It would be best if I went home.’
    â€˜No,’ said Jamie, sharply. Then, more gently, he said, ‘No. I’d like you to stay, if you would. Your mother said she would bring you to meet me one day, and I’m proud that she has. You’re just like her, did you know that? You have the same demeanour.’
    â€˜Please stay, my dearie,’ said Fiona Watson, touching her daughter’s sleeve.
    â€˜Mother – I’ll only be a nuisance to you,’ insisted Effie.
    But now Jamie reached out and took Effie’s arm, quite firm and friendly and said, ‘You cannot go until you’ve had your tea. I’ve bought diet-loaf, and petticoat-tails, and two kinds of tea.’
    â€˜Effie?’ asked her mother.
    Effie looked at her mother carefully, and then at Jamie. The snow blew between them and clung to their hair, and to the fur of her mother’s muffler. She thought that she had never seen her mother look so romantic, nor so beautiful. She and Jamie McFarlane stood together as if they were a couple who were intended for each other by the wellness of their appearance, if not by fate.
    Jamie didn’t wait for an answer from Effie. With an arm for each of them, mother and daughter, he led them down thecurved cobbled path again, and out through the castle gates to the esplanade, and back down to the Lawnmarket. ‘I’ve one visit to make before we go for tea,’ he said. ‘Mrs McFee had her ninth last week; and I promised to call by on Sunday with some sugar. That’s why my