Priscilla brightened. The Chief Superintendent’s wife. “Hallo, Mrs. Daviot,” she said.
“Now didn’t I tell you to call me Susan?” said Mrs. Daviot coyly. “Ai have been thinking, Priscilla, dear, that there are some vairy nice houses around Strathbane. If Hamish got a promotion, you’d need to live here. It wouldn’t do any hairm to look at just a few of them.”
“I suppose not,” said Priscilla cautiously. “But Hamish might not like it. He’s set on staying in Lochdubh.”
“All that young man needs is a push,” said Mrs. Daviot. “Once you get him out of Lochdubh, he’ll forget the place existed.”
? Death of a Charming Man ?
2
What ills from beauty spring
—Samuel Johnson
Hamish was surprised to find the next day passed without his seeing Priscilla. The short absence rapidly made the heart grow fonder, and he forgot her cleaning and remembered her kisses. The cooker gleamed in the corner of his dark kitchen in all its pristine glory and he felt he had been sparing in his thanks, to say the least.
By late evening, he was just making up his mind to phone her when Priscilla herself arrived in a cloud of French perfume.
“My, you look grand,” said Hamish, standing back to admire a short black silk skirt, black stockings, and a glittering evening top.
“We had a reception for the guests, a computer company with money to burn. Nothing but the best. Gosh, I am tired.”
He noticed for the first time how thin she had become, and the shadows under her eyes.
“You’ll need to learn to relax,” he said.
Priscilla sighed. “I don’t think I know how to.”
“I’ll show you,” he said huskily. He wrapped his long arms about her and held her close, and then he kissed her with all his heart and soul. For one dizzying moment she responded, and then he felt her go rigid in his arms. He drew back a little and looked down at her. She was staring over his shoulder at a corner of the kitchen ceiling.
“What’s the matter?” asked Hamish, twisting his head to follow her gaze.
“There’s a great big cobweb up there. How could I have missed it?”
“Priscilla, forget the bloody cobweb, forget the cleaning, come to bed.” His fingers began to unbutton the back of her top.
She twisted away from him. “Not now, Hamish, there’ll be time enough for that when we are married.” Priscilla blushed the minute the awful words were out of her mouth, those trite words, the cry of the suburban prude. “See you tomorrow, Hamish.” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and almost ran out of the door. As she drove back to Tommel Castle, the seer’s words rang in her head. But if she gave in to Hamish now, she would never have the strength to realize her ambitions for him, and all Hamish Macbeth needed was a push. When she reached the hotel, she was met in the reception by Mr. Johnston. “You’ll need to take over the bar, Priscilla, for the last hour. Roger’s fallen down.” Roger was the barman.
“Drunk?” asked Priscilla.
“Again.”
“Been pinching the drinks?”
“No,” said Mr. Johnston. “I’ll say that much for him. But the customers will say, “Have one yourself, Roger,” and he does, and the maids can’t mix the fancy drinks.”
“Where’s my father?”
“Gone tae his bed.”
“I’ll do it.”
“You’d better button up the back of that blouse,” remarked Mr. Johnston. “It’s nearly falling off you.” Priscilla blushed again. “Here, I’ll do it.” The manager buttoned her up, smiling his approval of what he took to be a hopeful sign that Hamish was getting down to business at last.
The bar, to Priscilla’s relief, was not very full. She relieved the maid, Jessie, who was plaintively asking a customer how to make a Manhattan. The bar closed at eleven. Priscilla glanced at the clock. Not too long to go. Then, as one by one the guests left to go to their rooms or through to watch television, she noticed one of the most beautiful young men she had ever seen sitting at a table in the corner. He was reading a magazine and had a half- finished pint of beer in front of him. His golden hair gleamed softly in the overhead lights and his long eyelashes cast shadows on his tanned cheeks. He looked up and saw her watching him and gave her a slow, intimate smile, and Priscilla found herself smiling back. Another customer came up and she forgot about the beautiful young man for the moment, but just before closing time he came up to the bar and said, “Have I time for another?”
“Just,” said Priscilla. “Another pint?”
“I’ll have a whisky to see me on my way.”
“Make sure you’re not over the limit,” said Priscilla, holding a glass under the optic. “The police can be quite strict.”
“I shouldn’t think Hamish Macbeth would be too strict about anything,” came his voice from behind her.
She felt a sudden superstitious stab of fear. Was this Angus’s beautiful young man? But she turned around and, putting the glass on the bar, said, “So you know our local copper.”
“He paid a call on me. I live in Drim.”
“Do you have relatives there?”
He paid for his drink. “No, I just wandered in one day and stayed. What about you?”
“My parents run this hotel.”
“Poor you. Hard work, I should think. Ever get a night off?”
“From time to time, when we’re not too busy.”
“You must come over to Drim and see my place,” he said, leaning easily on the bar. He held out his hand. “Peter Hynd.”
“Priscilla Halburton-Smythe.” Priscilla took his hand and then gave him a startled look as something like an electric, charge went from his hand up her arm. “I’m not free even on my nights off,” she said. “I am engaged to be married, and that takes up my time.”
“Who’s the lucky man?”
“Hamish Macbeth.”
He stood back a little and surveyed the cool and sophisticated Priscilla from the top of her smooth blonde head to the expensive French evening top, which was as much as he could see of her behind the bar. “Well, well, well,” he said. “You amaze me.”
Priscilla gave herself a mental shake. Peter Hynd was talking to her as if he had known her for a long time, not so much by his words as by his manner, which seemed to be creating a heady atmosphere of intimacy. To her relief another customer came op and Peter took his whisky and retreated to his corner.
He stayed in the bar until she closed it down and pulled the grille over it. He looked about to speak to her again but she quickly left the bar and went to see Mr. Johnston. She experienced the same feeling as Hamish had had – that once she was out of Peter’s magic orbit, she found she neither liked him nor trusted him. “I must tell Hamish,” she thought, but then forgot all about the meeting until some time later.
¦
Over in Drim the next day, Miss Alice MacQueen was up early to prepare for business, and business had never been so good. She was the village hairdresser and worked from the front parlour of her cottage. Before the arrival of Peter Hynd, she had not been very busy, the women of Drim getting their hair permed about once a year, usually before Christmas. But now her services were in demand, and the number of grey-heads who wanted to be dyed blonde or black was mounting.
Mrs. Edie Aubrey was also preparing for a busy day. For the past six months, she had been trying to run an exercise class in the community hall but without much success. Now her classes were suddenly full of sweating village women determined to reduce their massive bums and bosoms.
