Free The Tender Glory by Jean S. Macleod Page B

letters from the other side of the Atlantic during the past year, but miraculously this one had come at the right moment.
    She stood by the window, looking down at the bedraggled garden while her mother read it through to the end. When she turned back into the silent room Helen’s face was radiant.
    “He’s well,” she said. “And he’s got a job which he seems to like.”
    Alison waited.
    “Is that all?” she asked at last.
    Helen was reading the letter a second time.
    “He says he’s content, but I wonder if he really is. It’s a job in a city.” She held out the two flimsy sheets. “Read it for yourself.”
    Almost reluctantly Alison read what her brother had to say. It was very little, when all came to all. He had gone to Canada because he hadn’t been able to get a work permit in New York for any length of time. He was well; he had this job as a costing clerk with a large timber concern in their city offices; he had comfortable lodgings with a Scots couple in a growing suburb, but there the information about himself ended.
    Reading between the lines, Alison felt that he was homesick,
    although he would never say so.
    “It’s put my mind at rest,” Helen said valiantly, although she must have wished for other news. All along she had been convinced that Robin would come home one day. “I worried when he was moving about so much, not able to settle to anything. He went off so suddenly, without an explanation to anyone.”
    “He may come back just as suddenly,” Alison suggested without conviction. “And now I’m going to bring you up some breakfast and you can come down about eleven o’clock.”
    “I feel a terrible fraud,” Helen smiled, “lying here like this. I wish Hamish Lindsay hadn’t made me promise to rest so much. I feel so idle and the days are so long.”
    “Doctor Lindsay wouldn’t have said you were to rest if you didn’t have to,” Alison pointed out. “He’s not a man like that. My guess is that he knows you so well he had to insist! I’ll phone Jim Orbister right away,” she added. “He said he would help whenever he could.”
    “He’s doing very well for himself,” Helen mused. “I wonder if he ever hears from Robin.”
    “He said not.” Alison was glad that her brother had written home first. “Robin may write to him later on. They were good friends.”
    Helen picked up her precious letter again.
    “Canada doesn’t seem nearly so far away now,” she said. Immediately after she had cleared away their midday meal Alison set out to phone through to Wick. The nearest telephone was at the foot of the glen close beside the back entrance to Calders, where she had seen Huntley Daviot that morning. It was more than a mile from Craigie Hill, but she enjoyed the walk, although she realised perhaps for the first time how much more convenient it would be if the farm was linked more closely with the outside world. Her father hadn’t seen any point in installing a private telephone when there was a public kiosk so near, and nothing had been done about it since his death.
    The kiosk stood at the far side of the old bridge over the Calder Water and she noticed to her surprise that the jeep was still parked there, on the far side of the road. Voices echoed suddenly against the quiet of the trees and a dog barked joyously, running free.
    Wondering if it was the collie, she pulled open the kiosk door. Again and again she dialled the number she wanted, but the phone was dead. When she turned away Huntley Daviot was
    striding towards her across the road.
    “I’m afraid you’re going to draw a blank for an hour or two,” he told her. “We’re completely cut off. The line comes from Calders down here, through the woods, and we’ve got trees down all over the place after the storm.” He stood looking down at her. “Was it very important?”
    “It was, as a matter of fact.” She bit her lip. “I was trying to contact a friend in Wick. I wanted to hire a taxi.”
    “Has