The Portcullis Room

Chapter 2

2

THE bridge of the Ariel was essentially Captain McKenzie's domain. In acknowledgment of this disposition of values the owner's crisp 'Good-morning, McKenzie!' was shaded with a certain deference. Stephen Garrison would not have admitted it, but he never trod the bridge when the yacht was at sea without an uncomfortable feeling that, in this dour Nova- Scotian's eyes, he was merely a passenger, so strong was the atmosphere of discipline the man's personality radiated. To Wilson the mate and the rest of the Ariel's company Garrison was, to the exclusion of all else, the owner, and a millionaire owner at that. But Captain McKenzie was a tougher proposition.

To tell the truth, Stephen, like everybody else on board, stood somewhat in awe of the captain. McKenzie's natural dourness of mien was enhanced by the effects of a war injury, sustained in a 'dog fight' with an enemy submarine in the North Sea, which had wrecked one side of his face, leaving it puckered and partly paralyzed. Phyllis Dean, who cordially disliked him, told her mother's maid that he looked like a totem pole. He had none of the social graces and, from the moment he joined the Ariel at Newport, had shown no disposition to curry favour with the owner's guests. He left them severely alone unless they chanced to wander uninvited on the bridge, when he would speak his mind, politely but plainly.

As to Phyllis Dean, for instance. She had flown with her complaint to her host. But Stephen had merely laughed in that provoking way of his and said the captain was quite right— the bridge was no place for cocktail parties. Phyllis confided to Verity her indignant opinion that the captain was too big for his boots and that it was high time Steve asserted his authority. The incident had occurred five weeks before, a day or two out from New York; but Miss Dean was still extremely distant towards McKenzie.

Her host did nothing about it. Stephen did not consider that his authority was in jeopardy. Of course, no fellow would ever get to know McKenzie well—he was not that kind of a man; but he felt that he and the skipper understood one another perfectly. Apart from his appreciation of McKenzie's fine seamanship, he admired him as an individual and was proud to think that, in the short time they had been sailing together, his liking was reciprocated. He paid the captain a good wage, but he was well aware that the latter would unhesitatingly throw up his job sooner than surrender a single one of his principles. Brought up as he had been to believe that every desirable object has its price, this point of view intrigued Stephen. It flattered him, too, to find someone whose esteem for him went, not to the millionaire and employer, but to the man.

At Stephen's greeting the captain turned his crabbed, purplish face in his direction and punctiliously touched the brim of his sou'wester, as did the pilot. The shores of a little bay were unfolding before them in the drenching rain. Through the flying spume of the breakers thundering upon the rockbound coast they had glimpses of a dazzling white beach with huge boulders of dark red sandstone piled up behind. The loch, narrowing as it went, wound out of sight, driving deep into the heart of the island. It was ringed round with heathery slopes canting upwards from the edge of frowning, savage cliffs and dominated by the stupendous mass of the mountain, on whose shoulders swollen rain clouds pressed down upon the very crests of the tall, dark firs.

'They should have sighted us by this,' Stephen remarked, reaching for his binoculars which hung from a hook. 'I daresay they'll be sending a launch or something to show us our anchorage. Of course, they expected us yesterday...' He raised the glasses to his eyes. Captain McKenzie brushed the moisture from his shaggy moustache with his hand and shook his head dubiously. 'Too bad about that bearing seizing up, Mr. Garrison...' His definitely Canadian way of speaking retained a marked inflection that betrayed his ancestry. 'We'd have done better to have crossed yesterday, I'm thinking. It's beating up for dirty weather, sir. It'll be blowing great guns before twenty-four hours are up, I shouldn't wonder, and, with the wind in the quarter it is, the Lord knows, should you be wishful to return tomorrow...'

Stephen laughed. 'Don't worry, McKenzie! We shan't be coming back as quick as all that. We may stay a week, or even a month it all depends on what we find at Toray!'

The captain said no more, but gazed straight in front of him as though to make it clear that the responsibility was not his.

In his elfin, lilting voice the pilot suddenly broke his long silence. 'Wull ye pit her tae half speed, Cap'n?' he requested mildly.

As the telegraph clanged, Stephen took down his glasses. 'It's odd,' he said. 'There's no sign of any boat. They should have had our telegram—Verity wired last night!'

'There's nae tallygraft tae Toray, whateffer!' the pilot announced with owlish solemnity.

Stephen rounded on him. 'No telegraph? But the post-office at Port Phadric accepted the message!'

Shamus was unperturbed. 'The tallygraft, see you, mister? she's tae Ansay, an' they'll aye be deliverin' tallygrams an' such across th' Flow tae Toray. Mussus Campbell's Jamie awa' tae Ansay wull aye hae' to be waitin' on low watter wi' tallygrams for th' castle, see you?'

Stephen turned a bewildered face to McKenzie. 'Can you make out what he's saying?' he asked fretfully. 'What's a flow, anyway?'

The ghost of a smile played about the captain's hard mouth. 'Toray Flow, he means. Ansay, where the telegraph station is, is the next island and Toray Flow's the arm of the sea separating it from Toray. Many of these flows, as they call them, are fordable at low water— they cross them in high-wheel carts. What he's trying to tell us is that the messenger with your wire had just to be waiting for low water before delivering it!'

The owner chuckled and picked up his glasses again. 'It's a grand spot for a rest cure, it seems to me!' he remarked cheerfully, as he adjusted the sights.

McKenzie was speaking to the pilot. 'We tie up at the castle moorings, I suppose?' he queried.

Shamus shook his head and, pursing up his lips, ejected a dark stream over the side. 'There's nae ower much watter forninst th' castle for what a muckle beg shep like this'll be afther dhrawin'!' he chanted. 'Ye'll dae better lyin' up in th' bay, the way her'll be safe when she wull be comin' on tae blaw!'

With the wind and tide behind them they were entering the bay. Patches of bright green grass glinted on the top of the basalt cliffs but soon gave way to the misty purple of heather and, yet higher, to the sombre verdure of fir. Under the persistent drizzle the island wore a forlorn and abandoned air, the naked grey mass of the mountain, girt with vapoury clouds, hanging like a constant menace above it. Sea birds were everywhere, gulls and guillemots that hung poised above the yacht under the lowering sky or bobbed serenely in the dark green swell, flocks of little puffins skimming the water and here and there, on post or rock, a solitary cormorant with ruffled plumage misanthropically humped. The soft air was continually astir with the flutter of birds' wings and against their strange cries and whoops the silence seemed to come off the land in long, undulating waves. A faint odour of burning peat was mingled with the strong tang of the drifting tangles of seaweed.

As the Ariel, long and white and graceful, majestically steamed into the loch, a tower, dark red like the crags that sentineled it, began to lift above a bluff round which the loch wound itself out of sight. With the yacht's advance, crenellated battlements, and chimney-pots, and lines of windows began to appear, a crazy huddle of buildings clinging about the squat central tower, until the whole mass of Toray Castle stood disclosed. Stern and rugged as the rocks from which its stones were hewn, its sombre silhouette gave the crowning touch to the spectacle of desolate majesty which the glassy, dark loch, ringed with its solemn hills, presented.

A splash of vivid blue was visible below on the deck. Phyllis Dean in a bright pyjama suit with a striped vest and a French matelot cap with a scarlet pompon atop appeared, accompanied by Verity. With a glance to secure the captain's permission Stephen hailed the girl. 'Hey, Phyllis,' he called, 'come up and see the castle!'

The girl's arresting loveliness seemed to lighten the strictly utilitarian setting of the bridge— hers was the sort of blonde beauty that glows with the vividness of bougainvillea in flower. Stephen slipped his arm into hers. 'There it is!' he proclaimed with finger pointing. 'Isn't it a marvellous old place? And did you ever see such a gorgeous setting?'

'Quaint old dump!' said the girl. 'Do you suppose they have a bathroom?'

Stephen laughed quietly. 'I should think it very probable. The laird is quite civilized, you know. He used to be an officer in one of the Highland regiments!'

Phyllis shivered. 'Any four walls and a roof that don't keep pitching about are good enough for me. That goes for Mother, too. She's been frightfully ill—I thought she'd pass out on me...' Her tone was fretful. 'Does it ever stop raining here?'

'Sure,' Stephen cried gaily. 'We've just hit a wet spell, that's all. The climate in these islands is the mildest in Britain, the guide-book says!'

'That's the hell of a recommendation,' the girl remarked disgustedly. 'I think you're simply goofy to want to come to a gruesome spot like this, Steve, when we could have gone to Gleneagles and had a simply swell time playing golf and dancing. That reminds me— that wretched Marie left my face cream behind in the inn at Port Phadric. Could you have Dwight telephone back and ask them to send it on?'

'I don't believe they've got the telephone on the islands...' His glance consulted the pilot. 'Have they, Shamus?'

'There's nae tallyphone tae Toray, whateffer!' was the phlegmatic rejoinder.

Phyllis pouted disgustedly. 'What a place! Then Dwight'll have to wire. Will you tell him, please, Steve? It's urgent. Every scrap of cream I brought with me from New York is in that case of mine!'

Her host looked embarrassed. 'The only thing is, honey, that the telegraph doesn't seem to be working!'

'Not working?' she exclaimed sharply. 'Then how am I going to get my cream?'

'It doesn't make a scrap of difference whether the telegraph is working or not, Miss Dean,' the captain now struck in. 'The boat from the mainland calls with the mails at Toray only twice a week Tuesdays and Thursdays—and the post-office at Port Phadric is likely to be closed before the inn people would have time to act on your wire and catch the Tuesday boat tomorrow. But we can send a message back, by the boat that arrives tomorrow and they'll dispatch your cream by Thursday's boat!'

'And what am I to do in the meantime?' the girl demanded indignantly. 'Madame Jeannette makes up this cream especially for me and I can't use any other—my skin won't stand it. Steve, you've got to do something about it!'

Stephen patted her shoulder. 'That'll be all right, honey. They'll fix you up at the castle for a day or two or tell us where we can get you some cream at one of the shops...' At this the captain turned his head and looked sharply at the speaker. But he said nothing and Stephen went on, 'You cut along now, sweetheart, and get dressed. Phil and I are going ashore to investigate!'

'I suppose I'll have to use that foul cream of Mother's,' Phyllis ejaculated crossly. With an expression of unconcealed dismay upon her smooth young face she let her glance travel round the mournful panorama of sky and mountain and water. But no one was paying any attention to her. The engine-room telegraph had clanged, the yacht was slowing down. The captain and Shamus were in conference; Stephen was giving Verity instructions. With a woebegone air the girl left the bridge.