The Last of the Kintyres Read Online Free PDF

of the day.
    Caroline Hayler drew the car up on the gravelled stretch in front of the main door and a man’s tall figure made its appearance in the shadowed porch.
    In that moment Elizabeth knew that Sir Ronald Kintyre was dead.
    Hew Kintyre came slowly towards them. He had the look of a man who had received a crippling blow, yet Elizabeth was instantly aware of the determination in him to keep his grief to himself. His mouth was set and the granite line of his jaw looked harder than ever as he surveyed them for a moment without speaking. Then, clearly and concisely, he said:
    “I’m sorry you had to come at such a time. My father is dead. He never regained consciousness, which was perhaps for the best. The specialist has just told me that he would have been a cripple for the remainder of his life. He was a most vigorous man. It would have been a living death to him,” he added, as if for his own comfort.
    All that day, Elizabeth thought, while they had been travelling hopefully towards Ardlamond, he had been here alone with the prospect of death, helping an old man along the last, difficult mile.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am that we’ve—thrust ourselves on you like this—at such a time—”
    “Hew, my dear! this is really dreadful. Dreadful for you!” Caroline had passed Elizabeth and taken Hew Kintyre by the arm, but he seemed to stiffen at her touch. Perhaps he could not bear any man’s—or any woman’s—sympathy. He was a lone wolf and wanted to suffer alone, to lick his wounds in silent obscurity. “When did it happen?” Caroline rushed on. “I haven’t been gone so very long. Not more than three or four ho ur s.”
    “It was less than an hour ago.” Hew ran a hand through his hair in a gesture which seemed to break, for a moment at least, the iron barrier of reserve which he had raised between him and the outside world. It was the action of a boy, perplexed beyond reasoning, yet, almost instantly, the man was in command again.
    “I’m sorry I could not get to the station to meet you,” he apologized, turning to Elizabeth. “I hope you will excuse me. You will find the house rather chaotic, but at least your rooms had been prepared for you.”
    It was no tim e to tell him that they would not stay, Elizabeth decided. No time to promise to rid him of his responsibility for them as soon as ever they could. In fact, it was no tim e to say anything very much, since Caroline had already asserted her prior claim to his attention—her right, it would see m , to be with him in this hour of need.
    Yet for a split second he did not move away from the door. He seemed to be standing between even Caroline and the interior of the house, where death had set its s ea l .
    “Come inside, Hew,” Caroline said. “I’ll see to everything.”
    “There’s nothing very much to see to, Carol,” he told her distantly. “Mrs. Malcolm has already done all there is to do.”
    In the dimness of the hall behind him a small woman in a grey tweed skirt and a knitted cardigan hovered in the shadows.
    “Jessie,” he said, “this is Miss Stanton and her brother. Will you see that they are made comfortable for the night?”
    “Look here,” Tony suggested clumsily, “if we’re going to be in the way we could quite easily go back to Oban—”
    “Or come over to the castle,” Caroline Hayler supplemented. “I wouldn’t mind a bit, Hew,” she added carefully, “if it would be any help to you.”
    Elizabeth felt her throat go dry and humiliation rushed the angry tears to her eyes, but Hew Kintyre said firmly enough:
    “I don’t think there’s any need to trouble you, Carol, thanks all the same. Miss Stanton and her brother were expected, and we have everything prepared.” The grey figure of Jessie Malcolm was still hovering at his elbow and he turned to Elizabeth to explain: “Mrs. Malcolm is my father’s housekeeper. She will see you to your rooms.”
    Tony, with a