by Emma Fraser
Isabel was disappointed. It didn’t sound as if there was a girl of her age, also lonely and wanting a friend.
When her father stopped the cart at the side of the road to let a boy herding cattle pass, a thought was forming in her mind. Why shouldn’t she become a doctor instead of a nurse? She wanted to do exciting things, like set legs and perform operations. Papa always said how clever she was. She could go to university and study medicine. It was so obvious she wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before.
‘Papa, I’ve made a decision. Instead of becoming a nurse, I shall be a doctor like you.’
Her father laughed. ‘My dear, it’s difficult for a woman to become a doctor.’
‘Why? Aren’t girls as clever as boys? Aren’t there female doctors already? I read in the newspaper that there is a whole university in Edinburgh just for women medical students.’
Now her father was looking at her with speculative eyes. ‘I never thought of you as a doctor, but perhaps you are better suited to medicine than nursing.’
‘So I could become a doctor?’
‘It’s possible.’ He touched her cheek with the back of his hand. ‘I’m not sure what your mother will think of your latest scheme. I suspect she’ll care no more for your desire to become a doctor than she did for your wish to be a nurse. I know she would be happiest if you made a good marriage.’
‘I have no intention of marrying, Papa.’
He laughed as if he didn’t believe her. ‘Many women find satisfaction in getting married and having a family. Perhaps, one day, when you’re older, you will too.’
Isabel knew that she would never change her mind. She would be a doctor one day. Of that she had no doubt.
The trap pulled up outside the castle and a groom hurried over to take the horse. Isabel looked around, eager to see everything. Some of the windows were boarded up, giving the place the appearance of a Gothic ruin. She shivered with delight.
A footman led them up the staircase and into a large drawing room. He announced them and withdrew. At the far end of the room, next to the fireplace, was a woman with a pale face and a large nose. She reminded Isabel of one of the sea eagles that circled over Borreraig House.
‘Dr MacKenzie, how kind of you to come.’ The voice was strong, the tones perfectly modulated in the English way. ‘Please forgive me if I don’t get up. Now, who is this you have with you?’
‘May I introduce my daughter, Isabel.’
Isabel bobbed a curtsy.
The countess’s hand sparkled with diamonds as she beckoned them closer. ‘Please, do sit down.’
Once they were seated, Lady Glendale continued, ‘Are you finding the work here suitable, Dr MacKenzie? We’re not keeping you too busy, I hope.’
‘Not busy enough – yet.’ Isabel’s father answered with a smile.
‘And your wife? How does she find Skye? Where is she from?’
‘Mrs MacKenzie is from Edinburgh. You may know her father, Colonel MacLean.’
Lady Glendale frowned. ‘Not the MacLeans who own the distillery?’
‘Yes. Do you know them?’
‘We have little to do with the merchant class,’ Lady Glendale said, wrinkling her nose. Now she looks like a crow, Isabel thought.
‘My wife’s mother was Lady Olivia MacLean and her grandmother the Countess of Arbroath,’ Papa replied, after a small pause.
Lady Glendale’s brow cleared. ‘Oh, yes. I’d forgotten. In that case I must invite Mrs MacKenzie to tea and introduce her to some of the others who are here for the summer.’
Isabel suspected she wasn’t referring to the crofters’ families.
The countess rang a bell that stood on the small table next to her. Within seconds a male servant appeared. ‘Ah, Burton, could you bring us some tea?’
‘Is there anywhere Isabel could wait while you and I talk?’ Papa asked.
‘My eldest son, Lord Maxwell, will keep her company. He is with us for the summer. My other children remain in London. Burton, could you take the child to Lord Maxwell and ask him to entertain her until her father is ready to leave?’
Isabel stood. She would much rather have been let loose on her own to explore the castle, but she could hardly refuse what was clearly a command. She followed the servant from the room.
Burton paused in the corridor and pointed to a chair. ‘If you would wait here, Miss, I’ll let his lordship know you’re waiting.’
Isabel sat down, but as soon as Burton disappeared from view she jumped up and opened a door to her right. A little peep couldn’t hurt.
It was a dining room with portraits on every wall. She went in and stopped at one of a man wearing a white wig and dressed in red tartan.
‘The Red Man,’ she read aloud. ‘The twenty-second Laird of Dunvegan.’
‘He looks rather ridiculous, doesn’t he?’ a voice said, and she whirled around to find a boy of about sixteen standing behind her. He was good-looking in a way that Isabel wished she could be. His features were refined and his blue eyes challenging. The only thing that marred his otherwise perfect face was his mouth. It was small, almost as if it couldn’t stretch far enough to smile.
He sketched a bow. ‘I gather I’m to keep you company until your father has finished talking to my mother. I am Lord Charles Maxwell.’
Isabel felt unexpectedly gauche in his presence. ‘I’m Isabel MacKenzie,’ she replied. She pointed to the painting. ‘Why is he dressed like that?’
He came to stand next to her. ‘I wondered that too,’ he said, ‘so I asked. Apparently he was the laird when Sir Walter Scott came to stay. There was to be a meeting of all the clan chiefs in Edinburgh and Sir Walter persuaded him that he should dress all in tartan. I think Sir Walter was teasing, but it appears the laird took him at his word.’
‘Sir Walter Scott? The writer? He stayed here?’ Isabel could hardly believe what she was hearing. Perhaps this castle was the setting for the Wolf’s Crag? How perfectly marvellous if it was.
Charles raised his eyebrows. ‘You’ve read Sir Walter?’
‘I’m reading The Bride of Lammermoor at the moment. I only have a chapter or two left. It’s wonderful – although I do think Lucy might have had a little more backbone.’
‘I find books tedious,’ Charles replied. ‘I would much sooner be out riding and hunting.’ He smiled slightly. ‘If you like I can show you the dungeon.’
A real dungeon? She had to see it. ‘If you wish.’ She tried to keep her voice from betraying her excitement.
The glint in Charles’s eyes told her he wasn’t fooled.
‘It’s here,’ he said, opening a door at the other side of the room. Isabel followed him along what appeared to be a servants’ corridor and into a small, stone-flagged room. In the centre a grid covered a hole. It was so heavy that Charles grunted with the effort of lifting it. She peered down as he dragged it aside. The hole was at least twenty feet deep with stone walls that were smooth with age. At the bottom there was a space no more than four feet square.
‘How did they get out?’ Isabel asked.
Charles was standing close enough for her to feel the heat of his breath on her neck. He laughed. ‘The idea was that they didn’t get out. At least, not until they were dead.’
Suddenly his hands spanned her waist. ‘I could give you a shove,’ he taunted. ‘You could see what it was like for yourself. Of course, I might not be able to get you out again.’
She didn’t like his tone – she could almost believe he would do it.
Twirling out of his arms, she stepped away and glared at him. ‘That wasn’t funny. I believe I would like to go and wait for my father now.’
Her heart was beating fast as Charles studied her with amusement. She’d seen that expression before. On a cat just before it attacked a sparrow. She lifted her chin and returned his look steadily.
‘Very well, little Miss Doctor’s Daughter. You can go. I’ve had enough of playing nursemaid, anyway.’
Isabel was quiet on the
way home. She had decided she didn’t care for Dunvegan Castle now that she’d been there. She didn’t tell her father about Charles. What was there to say? That he’d teased her and threatened to throw her into the dungeon? Papa would just laugh. But he hadn’t seen the look in Charles’s eyes: she had the distinct feeling that he really would have pushed her into the dungeon and left her there.
Skye was a very strange place indeed.
Chapter 4
The remainder of the summer passed quickly. When Isabel wasn’t with her father, either helping him in his surgery or going with him on his visits, she was with Archie. She had enlisted Seonag’s help to clean the boathouse and Mr MacDonald had repaired the broken chairs. Then she brought down some cushions from her bedroom and a rug she had found in the attic. The boathouse was now her favourite place – especially for reading. No one, apart from Archie, ever disturbed her there.
He was like no other person she had ever met yet she was at ease with him in a way she was with no other, except for Papa. Archie teased her all the time, particularly about her fancy Edinburgh ways, but she soon grew accustomed to it and no longer took umbrage.
Sometimes, when the weather was poor, they met in the boathouse and she would read to him from The Bride of Lammermoor but he would soon become impatient with her ‘romantic nonsense’, as he called it, and insist that they did something more to his liking.
He taught her how to fish, how to lay a fire and, once, he’d even tried to show her how to catch a rabbit. Naturally she’d refused. There were things she would not do – even if doing them would have raised his opinion of her.
All too soon it was time for her to return to Edinburgh where she would start at Miss Gray’s School for Young Ladies. Soon after she had gone Archie would leave for Inverness to continue his education.
Her trunks were packed and her travelling outfit for the morning was laid out on the bed. Mama was to accompany her to Edinburgh and would stay for a week or two to spend time with her sons and see Isabel settled. Now, in preparation for the long journey, she had retired to her room to rest. Papa was out on a call.
Pulling on her coat, Isabel slipped down to the boathouse. The winter weather had set in and cold rain lashed the land, bending the branches on the trees and obscuring the view of the hills.
She’d had just enough time to light the fire, a miserable affair, when Archie appeared at the door. ‘Do you call that a fire?’ he said, by way of greeting. ‘It’s not enough to keep a family of mice from freezing.’ He crouched next to it, added some peats and stoked them until they flamed brightly. ‘You go tomorrow, then,’ he said, when it was burning to his satisfaction.
‘Yes. I am all packed.’
He took the seat by the fire that had become his and stretched his legs in front of him. ‘But you’ll come next summer?’
‘Papa wants me at home whenever it’s possible but I shan’t be back at Christmas or Easter. What about you?’
‘I’ll come back when I can. Certainly for the summer. There’s too much to do on the croft for my father to manage without me.’
She would miss Archie almost as much as Mama and Papa. She reached up to the mantelpiece, picked up the book she had brought with her and held it out to him. ‘I have something for you.’
‘What is it?’ he asked, turning it over in his hands.
‘It’s a volume by Yeats. You said you didn’t like poetry but I’m determined to change your mind. I thought you might find one in it that you liked.’ She shot him a smile. ‘One that might mean something.’
‘I won’t be converted. You know that.’ He slipped it into the inside pocket of his threadbare jacket. ‘Thank you. I’ll read it when I’m in Inverness.’
He hunted in the pockets of his trousers, pulled out his hand and examined the contents: a piece of rope, a crumpled handkerchief and a sweetie paper. His cheeks were red. ‘As you can see, I’ve nothing to give you in return.’
‘It’s all right. You don’t have to give me a present just because I gave you one.’
‘It’s not all right.’ His eyes glittered and she knew she had offended him. She twisted her fingers together.
‘Shall I see you next summer?’ she asked.
‘If you’re not too full of your Edinburgh ways.’
She tipped her head to one side. ‘You say the strangest things. Friends don’t forget each other.’
‘Aye, well, perhaps. We shall see.’
He was still cross with her. This was not the way she’d imagined their parting, but she didn’t know how to put it right. ‘I must go. Mama will be looking for me.’ She stood on tiptoe and dropped a kiss on his cheek.
He flushed a deeper shade of red and rubbed the place where her lips had touched his skin. ‘Go, then,’ he said, not looking at her. ‘I’ll dampen the fire before I leave.’
That night she was unable to sleep, regretting that their last minutes together had been so ill at ease. He was too proud, she decided, and there was little she could do about it.
The next morning, when she went to check the boathouse for anything she might have forgotten, she found, in front of the door, a single wild rose from which all the thorns had been carefully removed.
Chapter 5
Skye, summer 1904
Life in Edinburgh was not to Isabel’s taste. She liked the school well enough but the other girls weren’t interested in discussing things that mattered. They preferred to talk about teas and parties, dresses and future husbands, and she found herself counting the days until the summer holidays.
Finally she was back on Skye, and at the first opportunity that presented itself, she went down to the boathouse, wondering if Archie would seek her company again. She knew he, too, was back for the summer as she’d seen him in the distance, striding across the moors when she was in the trap with her father on their way to visit a child with a sore throat. Papa had promised that this year she could help him in his surgery and go with him on visits – as long as there was no sign of infection.
She needn’t have fretted. Almost as soon as she’d lit the fire, which took her far longer than it was supposed to, Archie appeared at the door.
‘Did you see what I’ve done?’ she said, gesturing towards the fire she’d made.
‘You did that? Without help?’
She picked up a cushion and flung it at him. ‘You know I only need to be shown once – twice at most – how to do something!’
When he laughed and threw the cushion back at her, she knew everything would be fine between them.
They talked about the time they’d spent at school, then Archie delved into his pocket and brought out the volume of poetry she’d given him the summer before. ‘I brought your book back.’
‘It was a present. I meant you to keep it.’ She wondered whether to mention the rose but decided against it. Even if he remembered, he might be embarrassed. ‘Did you read it?’ she asked.
‘I did.’
His hands, she couldn’t help noticing, were scrubbed, although soil still clung to his fingernails. At least, since he’d been in Inverness, he had taken to wearing boots.
He returned her scrutiny with a mocking smile. ‘Am I smart enough for you, my lady?’
‘You’ll do.’
‘Anyway I still think poetry is girls’ stuff!’
She held out her hand. ‘Pass it to me. How can you say you’re educated if you can’t appreciate it?’
‘I prefer science and mathematics. They make sense. They’re what I need to know if I’m to get on in this world. You should prefer them too if you’re to be a doctor. Poems don’t help sick people get better.’
‘On the contrary, poetry helps people, all people, understand the world.’
‘If they can afford the books in the first place. Most folk I know count themselves lucky to own a Bible.’
‘A doctor helps a body to heal but poetry is good for the soul. Take this one, for example. How can anyone not feel better after listening to it?’
He leaned forward in his chair, propping his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands. ‘Read it to me, then. Convince me.’
‘Very well. I shall read one that reminds me of us.’ She found the poem, slid him a look and began:
‘When you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep…’
When she stopped, she looked up. He was staring at her with the oddest expression. An unfamiliar sensation gathered in her chest. It was as if her heart were being squeezed.
‘Go on,’ he said, leaning back in his chair, but keeping his eyes on her.
She took a deep breath.
‘How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.’
She closed the book and placed it on the arm of her chair. Apart from the flickering flames of the fire, there was little light in the room and Archie’s expression was concealed from her by the shadows.
‘“Loved your beauty with love false or true”,’ he repeated, almost as if he were speaking to himself. ‘I wonder which applies to you.’
She laughed. ‘I shall always love truly, of course, when the time comes. As you shall.’ She looked at him from under her lashes. ‘I am sure many of the village girls already have their hearts set on you.’
To her dismay, he muttered something under his breath that sounded like a curse and sprang to his feet. ‘Don’t talk nonsense, Isabel. What do you know of love?’
She rose to her feet and stared at him. ‘As much as you.’
‘I doubt that,’ he said grimly. He stepped towards her and placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘Be careful, Isabel. You’re young yet. You don’t understand as much as you think you do.’