by Fiona Monroe
"My grandfather," said Sir Duncan, "had the good luck to pick the right side in 1745. So instead of having his lands seized, he was raised to the rank of baronet. Before that, we were clan chiefs and led these people here for hundreds of years. I find myself reluctant to become the Buccleuch who replaces them with sheep."
Catriona in her heart honoured the sentiment. She could not approve of Sir Duncan's character on the whole, but she thought he had some right notions, including some—like this—which surprised her.
Small strips of cultivation were interspersed about the lower slopes of the hills with untilled land, and cattle and goats grazed at liberty. Once, they were held up by one of the cows, a great shaggy-haired long-horned beast that had decided to wander into the middle of the road and stay there. The coachman and then Sir Duncan himself resorted to dismounting the carriage and shooing and finally pushing the creature out of the way.
Mr. Ross kept his seat, and laughed. "Fences, Buccleuch, you see, are useful after all."
Caroline laughed too, and as she put her hand to her head to hold fast her hat in a sudden sharp breeze, Catriona thought she looked cheerful for the first time that day. The fresh summer air had given colour to her cheeks.
The road went only as far as the township, which they reached after rattling for an hour very slowly along a track that was scarcely fit for the vehicle. It was a road mostly built for farm carts, which rolled down to market in Inverlannan once a week to sell cloth woven by the women, or any other produce not needed for the farmers' own subsistence. Baille nam Breac was nothing at all like any kind of town or village that Catriona had seen before. It had no streets or paving of any kind. It was nothing more than a cluster of about fifteen of the long low dry-stone huts built by the Highlanders themselves, huddled together on a grassy slope above the river. Their roofs, thatched with dried grass, were steeply sloped almost to the ground and their walls were built from tight, dry-packed stones. The dwellings formed a rough circle around a central fire pit, which proved to be a smoking-rack for hanging rows of great silver fish. The pungent aromas of peat smoke and cooking salmon hung in the air.
As they approached, knots of children ran down the road to stare and turn tail back to the township. By the time the carriage pulled up at the end of the track, it seemed that everyone in the township had emerged from their homes and gathered to greet them in a quiet, respectful crowd. The women, old and young, wore shawls over their heads; the old women had faces that looked as if they had been tanned hard as leather, but the girls were remarkably fresh and pretty. Catriona wondered how soon the one turned into the other, under the harsh influence of the Highland wind and sun. The men, she supposed, were mostly out working the land.
One man, however, stepped forward with a confident air to greet them. He was tall and well-built and although his complexion was ruddied, it was not yet weathered. His eyes were intelligent, Catriona thought, and he seemed to meet Sir Duncan's gaze fearlessly. He removed his cap and made a gesture with his hand, saying something in the Gaelic.
Sir Duncan responded in the same language, which surprised Catriona, although she was not sure why it should. The tone of his voice sounded different in the unfamiliar tongue, with its soft hissing sounds and musical lilt. Then he turned to her and said, "Miss Dunbar. Let me introduce the tacksman of Baille nam Breac, Angus MacAllister. Miss Dunbar is my cousin, MacAllister, and has spent all her life in Edinburgh. She's not used to our wild Highland ways. Don't scare her."
Catriona was indeed a little nonplussed to be introduced with due formality to a man who looked more or less like another of the rough-clad crofting peasants, although she saw that his dress was somewhat finer. She knew that her father's own father had been a tacksman, somewhere in Highland Perthshire, but she understood from her mother that he had striven to leave that background far behind.
Angus MacAllister showed no embarrassment, nor did he reply directly to Sir Duncan. He shook Catriona's hand unabashed with a firm grip, and said in heavily lilting English, "My home is yours, Miss Dunbar."
He handed her and then Caroline down from the carriage, and led their party towards what looked to be the largest house in the township.
"Never seen inside a blackhouse before, I warrant, cousin?" said Sir Duncan, with satisfaction.
"I have never seen outside one before today either, sir," Catriona replied coolly. If he thought that she was going to be fastidious about entering this farm cottage, then he would be disappointed of his sport; perhaps he had never visited the squalid depths of Auld Reekie. At least here, the air was clean.
The entrance door was low, obliging her to stoop as she followed Sir Duncan and MacAllister in. Behind her, Caroline sighed and picked up her skirts, and Mr. Ross touched her elbow to steer her safely across the threshold.
The interior was so dark, after the brightness of the summer's day without, that at first Catriona had to blink furiously to distinguish any objects within. The only clearly visible feature was a fire pit, right in the middle of the floor, where slabs of peat burned low and orange even on this warm day. She realised that there were no windows, and the only light from outside spilled through the open wooden door. The atmosphere was dense and thick with peat smoke. She glanced up and saw that there was a simple hole high up in the rafters directly above the fire, presumably to allow the smoke to escape; much of it lingered, however. The stone walls seemed coated with a dark patina, like the inside of an ill-swept chimney.
After a few moments her eyes adjusted well enough for her to see that they had stepped into a narrow room with a flagstone floor, covered with rushes. The outside walls were undressed sooty stone and the space was bounded on each side by what seemed to be simple wooden partitions. There was a table, crowded with books and papers, and a tall dresser stacked with disorganised crockery and jars. Surprisingly—to Catriona, anyway—there was a well-stocked bookcase, its contents more neatly arranged than the rest of the room. Other than a rocking chair, the only other article of furniture was a long low bench against the wall, where Angus MacAllister invited her to take a seat.
He swept away a pipe and a pouch of tobacco before she could sit on them.
"MacAllister, your home needs a woman's touch," said Sir Duncan. "I told you that last time. Take a wife! Or take a woman, at any rate. Do you know, Miss Dunbar, both words are the same in the Gaelic."
"And so it is in French, sir, and I'm sure many another language. That does not make them equivalent in the sight of God."
Mr. Ross chuckled and Angus MacAllister smiled, but Catriona wondered if she had gone too far. But he was so provoking in addressing his indelicate remarks directly to her, and doing so with an air that defied her to react.
"Miss Dunbar," said Sir Duncan lightly, "is the daughter of a schoolmaster, but talks like a veritable Sunday school teacher. Wife or bean, at any rate—why are you still living here all alone?"
"Ach, Mairi and Oighrig come in and cook for me, and tidy up," said the tacksman. "And here is Mairi now."
A slim figure dipped in through the open door, carrying a platter covered with a cloth. She was a dark-haired girl in the first bloom of youth, with a face as fresh and pretty as a snowdrop. She glanced shyly at the visitors from dark eyes, then placed the plate on the table—pushing aside the clutter—and lifted the cloth to reveal a spread of steaming cakes. Then she said something softly to MacAllister, and ducked out the house again.
"And what is wrong with that one, MacAllister?" said Sir Duncan. "A tasty little morsel."
"She's promised to Cormag, youngest of Alisdair red-beard. Anyhow, Sir Duncan, I'll want an educated woman for my wife, if I ever want a wife at all."
Mairi appeared again bearing a pitcher of water, and set about filling a big iron kettle that she hung from a hook on a chain that suspended it directly over the peat fire in the middle of the floor. When the kettle boiled, she made them tea, and served them with the cakes on wooden plates. These turned out to be a kind of scone, flavoured w
ith something that Catriona could not identify. They were remarkably good, however, especially when spread with the fresh, sweet butter that MacAllister told them was made by the crofters from the milk yielded by the township's herd of cattle. The China tea was a luxury, brought up from the market town and saved for special visitors.
"Almost everything else we eat here, miss," said the tacksman, "we produce ourselves. Besides the cattle we've goats, and pigs, and rigs of oats and kale, and we catch salmon in season and smoke it too."
"You see, Ross?" said Sir Duncan. "No room for sheep."
Catriona felt that she had enjoyed her visit to the township and she was impressed, almost against her will, by Sir Duncan's easy manner with his tenant and the crofters. She was inclined to disagree with what Mr. Ross had said, that the common people here, living on the land, were little better than animals; they seemed healthy and content, and certainly not savage. She had seen Gibbons' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, as well as volumes of poetry by Milton and Shelley on the shelves of the blackhouse's bookcase.
"That MacAllister fellow is a tacksman, though," said Mr. Ross, when they were driving away. "He holds the baille on Sir Duncan's behalf. He's a degree or two above the common crofters. We have done away with tacksmen at Blackrock. My father's steward handles the whole estate."
"That must be so much better a system," said Caroline. "And I expect you are not obliged to go visiting in a blackhouse. Urgh! I shall never get the stink of peat smoke out of this gown."
CHAPTER NINE
The next day brought a surprising development; or at least, it was surprising to Catriona.
She had been shocked by Sir Duncan's declaration of violent intent towards his sister's lover the night before last, and had thought about it so much that it had stopped her falling off to sleep for some time. She had been inclined to attribute melodramatic talk of duels to Caroline's evident love of romance and exaggeration, and it had disturbed her to hear how seriously Sir Duncan spoke of shooting at Lord Daventry. For all his bluntness of manner, she thought that her guardian was a sensible man, even clever. What he said sincerely, she thought he must mean. There had been nothing of levity in his tone, and she was now more inclined to believe that Caroline really had reason to fear for Lord Daventry's safety if she simply defied her brother and married him without his blessing.
She took a walk alone before breakfast next morning, as was becoming her habit, and pondered Caroline's difficulties. It was a fine May morning, scented with roses and the freshness of haar from the loch dissolving in the strengthening sunlight. In Edinburgh, in Souter's Close, this faint refreshing mist would be a stinking, disease-heavy fug rising from the Nor Loch, and sunshine itself barely penetrated to the depths of the narrow streets between the towering tenements of the Auld Toon. Beautiful as Lochlannan was by contrast, Catriona was too anxious for her cousin to feel the blessing of her own situation.
She could imagine nothing worse for any woman than to be forced to marry a man she disliked, while loving another, and she was now beginning to understand why Caroline feared it might happen to her whatever her own wishes were. It was all very well in theory to know that the law of the land allowed a woman freedom to marry without a guardian's permission, and the law of the kirk did not allow a wedding to take place between unwilling participants; but the reality was very different, if you had lived all your life subject to an older brother who was determined to impose his will.
What an arbitrary and unreasonable man Sir Duncan was, she thought resentfully. He was kind to his tenants, and did not seem to want to disrupt their way of life. Why would he not let his sister marry the man she loved, and who loved her?
She had taken one turn around the shrubbery, wondering about this, when she heard voices coming from behind the hedge that bordered the maze. One, she thought was male, and higher-pitched than Sir Duncan's. There was a reply in a female tone, a voice she recognised immediately as Caroline's; and in that moment, Caroline herself emerged from the arched entrance to the maze, walking very quickly, her expression distraught and her manner highly agitated. When she caught sight of Catriona, Caroline burst out into violent sobs and ran past her towards the house.
Catriona was just debating whether to follow her, when Mr. Ross stepped out of the archway also. He stood for a moment, gazing after her, clearly not intending to pursue.
With a sinking feeling, Catriona realised that she had stumbled upon Mr. Ross's latest failed proposal attempt. She felt desperately awkward, and had a surge of resentment towards Mr. Ross for persisting in making an offer which he must know was unwelcome. She greeted his cordial, "Miss Dunbar," with bare courtesy, therefore, and found herself walking back to the house with him in a near-silence.
Mr. Ross seemed dazed rather than dejected by his failure, and his composure—when he had caused Caroline such distress, and was likely to involve her in further difficulties—disgusted Catriona further. Common courtesy obliged her to go with him into breakfast, however, where they found only Lady Buccleuch. Sir Duncan was out hunting and not expected to return for breakfast, and Caroline had not made an appearance.
Catriona was impatient to go to Caroline, and ate a hasty bowl of porridge for form's sake. To her irritation, Mr. Ross allowed the servant to help him to a full plate, and as she hurried away to comfort her poor cousin, the author of her distress was tucking into kippers, kidneys and cold pheasant as if nothing were amiss.
When Catriona knocked tentatively on Caroline's door, it was opened immediately by Mackenzie, the smart, pretty little lady's maid.
"My mistress is ill, madam," she said. "She does not want to see anyone." There was an undertone of impudence in her every respectful utterance, Catriona thought, and definitely something impertinent in the way she made eye contact.
"Perhaps Miss Buccleuch would make an exception for me?"
Caroline's voice from within cried, "Is it Miss Dunbar?"
Catriona did not like to get into a shouted conversation, so she hesitated. Mackenzie was still very definitely blocking the doorway, her hand firmly on the door itself as if to close it in Catriona's face. She could see beyond to Caroline's boudoir, and then Caroline herself rushed out of the inner bedroom.
She was dressed for outdoors, her very bonnet still on her head, and her face was red with tears. As she saw Catriona, she held out her arms to her. "Oh cousin!"
It seemed for a moment that Mackenzie would stand her ground in the doorway, and she moved aside to allow Catriona entry into the room with a very reluctant air. Catriona found herself half-embraced, half-clung to, and she was alarmed that Caroline would faint in her arms. Her breathing sounded ragged and hard.
"Mackenzie," she said sternly, leading Caroline to the chaise longue and sitting her down. "Your mistress really is not well. You should have sent for help."
"No!" cried Caroline, propelling herself upright with a burst of energy that reassured Catriona that there was nothing genuinely wrong with her health. "I don't want help. I don't want anyone. I want to be left alone." She trailed off into renewed sobs, burying her head in her arms against the chaise longue.
Mackenzie, with quiet efficiency, had already gone into a japanned cabinet and brought out a small cut-glass bottle, which she brought to her mistress. Her attempts to administer the contents, however, were batted irritably away.
"No! Take your beastly smelling salts away!"
"This is not smelling salts, it is lavender oil, madam, very soothing for the nerves."
"I don't care! My nerves will not be soothed by your little bottles. How do I know it is not poison—or—or ether, designed to render me senseless!"
Catriona was attempting to subdue her cousin's hysteria, but she had to step aside smartly as Caroline seized the bottle from her maid's hand and flung it with all possible force across the room. It shattered against the far wall and fell to the carpet in a shower of silver shards. The room filled with the pungent, pleasant odour of lavender.
"Go!" she
cried. "Go running to my brother and tell him I wish to die, that I may as well die! That will please him! Will it please you? You lying, spying hussy! No! Leave it, I tell you!"
Mackenzie had stooped to begin clearing up the broken glass.
"Leave it!" Caroline shrieked again. "Get out! And you may tell my brother that I do not want his whore waiting on me any longer!"
The maid rose to her feet, her face white and perturbed. She dropped a curtsy, then turned and left without another word.
Caroline threw herself back onto the chaise longue and wailed with anguish.
Catriona stepped warily around the shards of glass on the floor, and knelt by her weeping cousin. "Caroline," she said at last, and tentatively stroked her hair, "you must try to calm yourself. You will make yourself ill."
"Good, then I will die."
"Caroline! You must not talk like this."
She sat up with another flash of energy and glared. "And why must not I? It is all very well for you. You have your mysterious Mr. C. When you come into your fortune you may marry him or not as you please."
It was a sign that Caroline's apprehensions had affected her that Catriona glanced nervously round, and wished that her cousin would lower her voice.
"Oh! Have no fear. She is gone. I don't think she dare even listen at the door, not after I told her I knew the truth."
"What truth?" Catriona was feeling ever sicker.
"That she is my brother's whore."
"You must not say such things."
"Why not, when it is true? He takes her into his bed whenever he pleases, and she tells him everything I say and do."
Catriona got quietly to her feet and padded to the door. She listened for a moment with her hand resting on the doorknob, then opened it suddenly.