Mr Muir, her chief clerk, pursued her with urgent correspondence. Sighing, she went to her office. She worked efficiently for an hour or two then, called again by the inner voice that was speaking to her about the new tartan, she went out into the town.
It was mid-afternoon. The place was quietly busy. She walked west along the mill lane, then up the slope towards Gala Hill. There was a bench by the church. She sat there, looking at the September sunshine on the rose sandstone of the houses, the tint of the trees as autumn laid her fingertips upon them.
The scene was full of colour, of light and shade. But it wasn’t the wild light of the northland where the regiment would be quartered. She would see that soon, in a few days.
Millicent was in vehement opposition when Jenny told her her plans. ‘Dear sakes, child, you won’t have been home long enough to take a wheezing breath! What’s the need to go rushing off again?’
‘I must see the Highlands. Ned told you what the Queen wants me to do?’
‘Aye, and a great honour for all, and very pleasant for Lucy to have such a long chat with Her Majesty ‒’
‘A long chat?’ Jenny stared then shrugged. ‘Well, no matter. Mr Gowan is making the arrangements for me and I’ll be off on Thursday.’
‘Then I shall come with you.’
‘Mother! Why on earth should you?’
‘I could visit my brother in Dornoch ‒’
‘Mother dear,’ Ned intervened, ‘Dornoch is another eighty miles or so north of where Jenny is going. I don’t even know if the railway line goes that far ‒ it might have to be done by stage-coach.’
‘Oh,’ said Millicent, taken aback. Her knowledge of geography was strictly limited. ‘Well, but I must go because it’s not fitting for Jenny to go alone.’
‘But I’ve travelled alone before ‒’
‘Not into the wilds of the Highlands, daughter!’
‘The wilds of the Highlands! The Queen walks about in the wilds with perfect safety,’ commented Lucy.
‘The Queen has a husband and John Brown to look after her. It’s no use arguing, I’m coming with you, Jenny.’
‘But Mother, you always get travel sickness. You didn’t even want to go as far as Berwick.’
‘Well, I … I’ll overcome all that.’
‘It’s a quite unnecessary discomfort for you. I’ll take Baird, and you know Baird is a fine dragon.’
When she got her mother alone Jenny put forward another reason, equally good. ‘I want you here to look after Ned.’
‘Ned? Lucy can look after Ned.’
‘Lucy can be a wee bit inattentive. Remember, it was while they were on their own in Glasgow that Ned fell sick.’
Her mother spoke with unexpected severity. ‘Ned brought that upon himself. Lucy cannot be held to blame.’
‘But she left it very late to call for help, Mother. And he’s been very nervy and upset recently.’
‘That stupid book!’ Mrs Corvill burst out. ‘Everyone is in a tither about it. The ladies in the Sewing Circle tell me their fathers and husbands talk about nothing else.’ She shook her head. ‘I thought after Ned had seen Dr Murdo, his mind would be at rest?’
Jenny had asked her brother what Murdo had said about Charles Darwin and The Origin of Species. ‘He says it’s a trial sent by God to test the strength of true believers.’
‘Like Job in the Bible?’
‘Exactly!’
Jenny forbore to point out that Job reached a point where he cried, ‘Let the day perish wherein I was born!’ Besides, she couldn’t understand why God should put Ned to the test ‒ Ned who was only hanging on by his fingernails against the need for a good glass of whisky.
Ned was still waiting for a copy of the book. The Edinburgh bookseller promised it any day now by post. Jenny was afraid that it would come while she was away and that her brother, in the midst of his temperance campaigning, would find time to read it. What the result would be she dreaded to think. From the reviews she’d read in the journals she gathered it was a well-argued scientific treatise. Ned had until recently always had a very open mind, trained in logic. The book might find a crack in his over-protective shield of faith.
Perhaps she ought to stay at home to help her brother through the crisis. Yet she needed, she really needed, to see the country which might give inspiration for the new tartan ‒ and time was short. She must go now.
She comforted herself with the thought that she’d seen letters in the newspapers from clergymen who pleaded for calm, who said they themselves had been able to reconcile this shatteringly new view of the world with belief in a loving God. Surely her intelligent, well-educated brother could come to a similar conclusion without a sister to soothe him like a child?
Her tickets were brought to the office by a railway porter on the day before she was to travel. She looked them over, glanced at the list of destinations and connections. ‘Overnight stay at the Royal George Hotel, Perth.’ The place name jarred her eagerness to be on her way.
Perth. Ronald Armstrong lived and worked there now.
She hurried along to the station to speak to Mr Gowan. ‘I didn’t want to stop in Perth,’ she said.
He stared at her. ‘What for no?’
‘Well, I … I wanted to get further on before stopping for the night.’
‘Where to? Dunkeld? Pitlochry? They’re wee places, Mistress Corvill ‒ ye’re better off at Perth for the comfort and convenience.’
‘Couldn’t I go on to Kingussie?’
‘Oh, aye, I hear there’s a fine new inn there ‒ but it would make you nearly two hours later for your supper and bed, and when you’re travelling it’s ill to be late at the hotel, do you no find that, mistress?’
It was only too true.
‘I’d have to send a message immediately to alter the hotel arrangements,’ Gowan went on, frowning at her. He didn’t want her to upset his beautiful schemes.
‘No … I see it would be best to go with your plan, Mr Gowan.’ After all, she would reach Perth around six tomorrow. At that time Mr Armstrong might very well be still at work in his dye-room and since the city was fairly large, there was hardly the slightest chance that she would run across him. ‘Yes, very well, thank you, Mr Gowan, we’ll go ahead as we are.’
Baird grumbled and muttered through the first stages of their journey. She had once been to the grouse moors with the family of a former employer, a shipping magnate. ‘There’s scarcely a level step, it’s a’ either up or down, and damp underfoot so that there’s no keeping a clean hem ‒’
‘Baird, if you hate it so much you can stay in the hotel once we get there! Now, can I have some peace to read my book?’
She was studying a treatise on the history of the British Army. Her chief interest was in the uniform. She had already learned that until after Waterloo British soldiers almost exclusively wore scarlet tunics, which dismayed her at first, for she couldn’t envisage the tartan she might design as worn with a scarlet jacket.
But as she read she realised that changes had come about in the present century. The officer’s blue greatcoat had been shortened to a frock coat worn on parade and then further to a jacket. More recently some regiments, particularly in the artillery and rifle brigades, had adopted dark green or grey jackets. She wasn’t called upon to design anything except the tartan for the kilt ‒ others would deal with the uniform and the accoutrements. Yet it was a comfort to her to think there might be a quiet colour to go with the rather sombre tartan already beginning to weave its web in her mind.
At Perth the porter put their luggage into a hackney. ‘Is it far to the Royal George?’ Jenny asked.
‘It’s by the bowling green ‒ you’ll see it in a minute in the gloaming, mistress.’
She had to admit to herself she was glad to have fallen in with Gowan’s wishes. She was weary of constant motion. The hotel was excellent, spacious and elegant, with the blessing of trees and greenery around it. Glad to change out of her travel costume and to wash the
grime of train smoke from her face, Jenny relaxed with Baird over a substantial meal.
Afterwards, since it was still early and she felt in need of exercise, she strolled out to look at the River Tay, which lay just beyond the bowling green outside the hotel. It was a cool September evening. Lamps shone on the bridge to her left. To her right, a ferry was making its laborious way to the Kinnoull Church side. In the distance someone was playing a fiddle, a plaintive air.
She walked towards Sir Walter Scott’s monument at the end of the High Street. Here was the commercial centre, all the banks were grouped nearby. Sight of the post office reminded her she ought to write a line to her mother. It was still open. She went in, bought a folding letter, and sat down to write.
‘Dear Mother, We have safely arrived in Perth where the hotel is very comfortable. Weather cool enough to hire a foot-warmer for the train but it stays fine.’ She paused, thinking what else to say.
She heard a voice she knew. ‘Is there a special delivery packet for me, Mr Howe?’
‘Ah, Mr Armstrong. Bide a minute, I’ll see.’
Jenny was sitting at a desk near the door, with her back to the counter. She turned her head a little.
That unmistakeable tall, angular figure … He was leaning with one elbow on the counter, whistling to himself as he waited. He took off his hat to smooth his hair ‒ sandy hair that gleamed in the light from the gas lamps.
Jenny felt her heart lurch at the sight of him. All the blood seemed to rush from her face, she felt cold, almost dizzy. She turned back to her letter, bent her head and leaned on one hand to recover.
‘Here you are, Mr Armstrong. “Fragile, Handle with Care” ‒ more dyestuffs, is it?’
‘Aye, urgently wanted, Mr Howe. I’m hanging about at the works for them. Good evening to you.’
She could hear his footsteps. He walked swiftly past her, his open jacket brushing her elbow.
She would go after him, call his name, apologise for the past. It was foolish to be in the same town with him, to be only yards away from him, and not take some step to repair their friendship.
She got up to hurry after him. But her knees seemed to buckle under her, she fell back on her chair.
When at last she got out into the street he was gone. Yet all she need do was ask the way to the firm of Pullar’s. At the gates she could inquire for him.
She walked a dozen steps up the High Street, almost at random, thinking to find a carriage and be taken to the works.
But then she slowed, becoming aware of the letter in her hand, unfinished.
She must write to her mother and get it in the post before the mail train left.
Anything, rather than face Ronald Armstrong and try to say she was sorry.
Chapter Twenty-two
There were two lengths of tartan cloth, wrapped in blue tissue paper and in a cardboard box made to fit them exactly. It lay on the seat of the hansom cab carrying Miss Genevieve Corvill of Corvill and Son to Buckingham Palace.
The date was Tuesday 11 December. Almost to the hour and the minute, Jenny was bringing the kilt tartan to the Queen. She had already sent two small pattern pieces of the two tartans she had designed, but now she had a sample length of each, hand-woven by herself on her father’s old loom and hand-finished to be ready in good time.
She was conducted at once to a room she had not seen before. It looked more like an office than the drawing-room where she had found the Queen on her previous visit. Victoria was alone, reading an official document. She laid it aside as Jenny was shown in.
‘Good morning, Miss Corvill.’
Jenny curtseyed, then took from the footman the box she had brought.
‘These are the lengths you spoke of in your letter?’
‘Yes, Ma’am. It’s easier to see what the pattern is like when there is a length giving several repetitions.’ With a glance at the Queen for permission, she untied the box, brought out the lengths and laid them on the back of a leather armchair.
The Queen rose. She studied the plaids with her head on one side.
‘The Prince is not able to be with us today,’ she said. ‘He is not quite well.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Your Majesty.’
‘It’s nothing, a digestive upset.’ But Victoria looked a little anxious. ‘However, he and I have discussed the designs you sent, and now that I see them in greater length I realise our choice was correct. The Prince and I were greatly pleased with this one, Miss Corvill.’
It was the one Jenny had known would please them.
She had taken as her inspiration the ancient Montgomery tartan, red and black lines crossing on a purple background. She had replaced the red line with white, and halved the purple background with a dark green mixing check, adding a single brown line to define the perpendicular edge. The effect was austere, sombre, but dignified.
She touched each of the colours now. ‘Purple for the heather, Your Majesty, green for the pine trees. Brown for the peaty rivers, black for the rocks as they break the surface of the stream, white for the snow on the mountain tops.’
‘You have been there,’ the Queen said. ‘You have caught the tints exactly.’
‘I was there in September. In fact, I saw Your Majesty in Grantown, but it was clear you were travelling incognito so I didn’t intrude.’
‘Oh, yes, it was so delightful! We called ourselves Lord and Lady Churchill, and General Grey was simply Dr Grey …’ Her voice was wistful as she recalled that holiday time. ‘Well, Miss Corvill, the Prince and I have decided that we shall use this design for the regimental tartan. It shall be called Grantown, for the headquarters barracks. The Prince is designing a jacket to go with it; we think it may be made of the green you have used as the broad check with the purple.’
‘I look forward to seeing it.’
‘The quartermaster is now set up at Grantown. I should like you to send this sample to him. He will tell you how much he needs for the regimental tailor so that you can at once begin manufacture. He will also forward an invitation to a little celebration the officers are giving to honour their new tartan. I trust you can attend?’
‘On what date, Ma’am?’
‘I believe it is New Year’s Day. They are anxious to come together as a regiment ‒ the officers are, of course, seconded or volunteers from other regiments.’ She rose. ‘We are very pleased, Miss Corvill. We put our faith in you and we have not been disappointed.’
She held out her hand, Jenny took it and curtseyed; the audience was over.
When the invitation arrived it was addressed to Miss Corvill of Corvill and Son, and was accompanied by a letter from Colonel Alistair Craig inviting Edward Corvill and his good lady as well. Lucy was ecstatic. To be invited to a unique occasion, by order of the Queen herself … She launched into a flurry of activity to get a balldress made, only to be stopped in full tilt when Jenny pointed out that the celebration was timed for three in the afternoon on 1 January.
‘Well, then, I shall have an afternoon gown of velvet trimmed with ermine! I am determined to be equal to the occasion!’
Though the weather was cold, snow did not hinder their journey. They put up at the Grant Arms, and they found that all the other occupants were the families of the regimental officers. Hogmanay was celebrated rather quietly, with a long evening meal that took them to midnight and a piper to play in the New Year. Guests first-footed each other with gifts of sweets or cake, but there was less drinking than usual because most of the residents wanted to be up in good time for the carriage drive to Grantown Barracks in all their finery.
If Jenny had expected to see a sample of the uniform of the Prince’s Scottish Regiment, she was disappointed. The soldiers on duty were in kilts which were a miscellany of tartans worn with black jackets. The officers in the great hall were likewise somewhat motley. They favoured some version of the blue or black frock coat and trousers, with epaulettes still denoting their former regiments, and a white belt.
Colonel Craig was the only man
in the Grantown tartan ‒ he had had dress trews made from the sample length Jenny had sent. He grinned and tugged at his moustaches in embarrassment when he saw her eye light upon them. ‘What do you think, eh? Smart, en’t they? The braid down the side is the Prince’s idea. I couldn’t get a jacket made in time. But next time you see us, we’ll be in full fig, you can rely on it, kilts and sporrans and all.’
The Prince had presented a set of silver drinking cups to the regiment. These were on display at first and then in use. Whisky was brought in a large flagon, and poured lavishly.
Jenny accepted a glass, as did Ned and Lucy. But they didn’t drink. Jenny watched her brother with some anxiety, for in the last few weeks he had been edgy and often had looked tempted when wine was served.
He had at last read the fateful book The Origin of Species, but had refused to discuss it with Jenny. That had worried her more than an outburst of anger would have done. She had been quite glad of the invitation to come to the regimental celebration as a way of taking his mind off it.
She was chatting with the quartermaster when she heard her name spoken. She turned, thinking she knew the voice from somewhere in the past.
She found herself facing Captain Bobby Prentiss, former equerry to the Prince Consort.
She went red and then white. When she was able to focus her gaze on him, she found he was smiling ironically. ‘Well, Miss Corvill, it’s many a long year since last we met.’
She drew a deep breath to steady herself. ‘Yes, and under very different circumstances.’
‘You two know each other?’ inquired Captain Hall.
‘Oh, yes, we met ages ago at Balmoral. Didn’t we, Miss Corvill?’
There was a taunting note in his voice. She decided to quell him. ‘Is your wife with you, Captain?’
‘Yes, she’s with the Colonel’s wife. And it’s Major Prentiss now, Miss Corvill. I decided to volunteer for the Prince’s Regiment because it was a most encouraging promotion.’
‘I thought you hoped for the diplomatic service?’
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