The Blackhouse Bride

by Fiona Monroe

  Callum was sullen and silent about her departure, which the Marchioness - probably perceiving something of the difficulties, with her quick understanding and insight - kindly arranged to be as swift as possible. Her father paid his visit to Lady Crieff on the Wednesday morning, and Bridie was packing her bags that night to await a carriage from Dunwoodie early on Thursday morning.

  Her unwanted betrothed made only one attempt to speak to her, as she was waiting at the roadside for first sight of the conveyance that was to deliver her. "Dinnae forget you're promised to me," he said gruffly.

  "I am not promised to you, Mr Dobbie," she said boldly, not so much as favouring him with a glance. She kept her eyes on the Kirkton Road, expecting every moment to see the dust of the horses' hooves.

  He loomed closer to her, and spoke almost in her ear. "You so much as look at another man at the Great Hoose, and I'll tell your da you let me into your bed last night."

  She could not help it. She recoiled in disgust and looked up into his face. "You're a filthy swine, Callum Dobbie. He would not believe it."

  "Aye, he would. Mind what I said, Bridie."

  He lumbered away, back towards the workshop, where her father was expressing his own feelings about her departure by doggedly persisting in his hammering and ignoring it. In the end only Peggy bid her farewell, and in tears. Bridie wasn't sure whether the tears were for her, or for the extra work that would now burden the little maid.

  There were so many reasons to feel she was doing wrong, and yet - she could not. The sight of Callum's bulk retreating into the distance as the carriage pulled briskly away was all the justification she needed.

  How could she have known, then, that she would face a far greater peril at Dunwoodie House?

  #

  The first three months, from January to early April, were unalloyed pleasure. Bridie felt that she had indeed been transported into Paradise. Comfortable as she had always thought her father's house - certainly compared to the hovels of the poor - it was nothing to the bedchamber she was given at Dunwoodie House. Tucked under the eaves, in the very corner of the east wing, it had once belonged to the younger Dunwoodie girls' governess and had four good windows, a desk, soft armchairs and a small fire which was made up every morning by one of the junior housemaids. Best of all was a bookcase, already laden with volumes. Bridie was not sure whether the Marchioness had been kind enough to put these there especially for her, or whether they had been left there by the departed governess, but she was thrilled.

  And she had plenty of leisure to read them, for she had no work to do but to attend to Lady Crieff's amusement. Since the Marchioness proved to be quite as sweet-tempered and gentle as she had seemed at first, Bridie had nothing to suffer at her hands. Her mistress often required her to read to her late at night, but that was no hardship; there was no need to be up before dawn the next day, as Lady Crieff rarely stirred before ten in the morning, and hardly ever called for her until after breakfast. Bridie had the luxury of rising at seven, and eating a breakfast in the upper servants' hall that she had not had to prepare, and then retiring to her room to read until her mistress wanted her. Sometimes, when the Marchioness went abroad visiting, she had whole days of leisure.

  She asked at first whether there was sewing or other work that she ought to do when not needed to keep Lady Crieff company, but her mistress had replied firmly, "No, Bridie. Your work, the work I require you to do, is to read as much and as widely as you can, so that you may meet me more easily in conversation. And once you have made more progress in Latin, we will start you on German, or Italian."

  Bridie did not protest.

  She soon grew accustomed to being in spacious and luxuriously furnished surroundings, and walking with Lady Crieff through the meticulously tended gardens. While at her mistress's side, she had access to all the splendours of Dunwoodie House and its grounds, almost as if she had been a lady herself. She could never dine with the family in the magnificent dining room, of course, nor could she roam the house freely when alone, but she began to feel that the great house was her home.

  Her mistress honoured her with confidences, too. Now that she met daily with the Marchioness, it was impossible for Bridie not to perceive her as a person rather than a remote aristocratic figurehead.

  The whole Dunwoodie estate had buzzed with slightly unkind rumours when the Marquess - then, merely Viscount Atholl - had, three years after his first wife's death, married a lady half his age. When it was discovered that she was sole heiress to an English Dukedom, and was neither plain nor feeble-minded, the excitement had increased. Most loyal residents of the estate believed that no young lady could be too good for the Marquess, and found nothing astonishing in the match, but Bridie had heard the odd snide or cynical comment. Some people dared to express the view that it was strange that a beautiful and wealthy young woman, who would be a Duchess in her own right upon her father's death, should choose the middle-aged Lord Atholl, when she might have married anyone.

  Bridie, too, began to wonder why a woman who had travelled and studied in Europe, and lived half her life in London - where she could meet with famous authors and thinkers - had chosen to isolate herself on an estate in the far north of Scotland, where she had been driven to seek out a farrier's daughter for intellectual companionship. Dunwoodie House was magnificent, and to Bridie it was the centre of the only world she had ever known, but she knew that if she had been born a lady, she would have taken every opportunity to travel far beyond its borders.

  "And so I shall again, I expect, some other year," said the Marchioness, when Bridie hesitantly expressed something like these thoughts. "But I have seen Rome, I have seen Venice and Paris and Bonn. I have sat in literary soirees in London since I was seventeen years of age, surrounded by people trying to prove how clever they are to each other. And I have danced, danced, danced, and been courted by untold numbers of flatterers. It sounds charming, does it not, to be the toast of the ton?"

  "I cannot imagine it, my lady."

  "It is at first overwhelming, and then boring, and in the end, deeply confusing and distressing. I was an object of aspiration and desire, for everything superficial and external about me - my rank, my face and figure, my fortune - ultimately, those are nothing to do with me. No man wanted to know who I really was, but many, many wanted to appropriate my outward ornaments, even if few were in a rank of life to have any hope of addressing me." She flicked pensively through the pages of the book on her lap. "Other girls did not seem to like me, though they were civil, of course. Perhaps they were jealous. I wish they had known how little cause they had. I truly believed I would never marry, because I could not imagine how I could meet someone who would care about me, whom I could also love, and who was eligible. And I knew how it would break my honoured father's heart if he found himself on his deathbed, with no heir to the dukedom even in prospect." She smiled then, and laid her hand where her stomach had begun to swell slightly. "Lord Atholl cared nothing for any of those superficialities. He would not even court me. I sat by him at a dinner at Lady Sheringham's, and we talked of the new poetry, and then of the abolition, and other political matters. I had to make him talk, at first, and to begin with he would not even look at me. It was... charming. I exercised myself so much to put him at his ease that we spent the whole of the rest of the evening in conversation. I found out how well-informed his mind was that very first evening, but it took oh so many subsequent meetings to draw him out completely. His first wife was of humble origins and had no fortune, did you know that?"

  "Yes, my lady." The old Lady Atholl, who had died childless when Bridie had been about sixteen, had in fact been the daughter of a respectable squire from somewhere in the Lowlands, and had brought one thousand pounds to her marriage. It was a lesson in perspective, thought Bridie, who would account such a sum wealth beyond imagining.

  "When I understood that, I knew that in his sweet heart, Lord Atholl must truly care nothing for the trappings of the world. If he could defy hi
s family's expectations and marry a girl of no rank or fortune, and propose to make her a Marchioness one day, then he could certainly marry me. I began to be so afraid that he would never find the courage to make me an offer, though." A smile was dancing irrepressibly around the edges of her mouth. "And then one beautiful night in Vauxhall Gardens, it happened. We had gone there with a large party, and it was an easy matter for me to slip away from my chaperone and find myself alone with Lord Atholl in one of the dark walks. I had always thought Vauxhall rather gaudy and vulgar. I never shall again. He had needed only a moment of privacy and oh, he stammered like a schoolboy. I had to tell him several times that my answer was yes, before he seemed really to believe it. Subject to my father's approval, of course, but I knew that my dear father would not raise an objection." She sighed, a happy sigh. "I have been truly blessed, and now, if all be well, I shall be blessed anew. You look wistful, Bridie."

  "No, my lady." She had been thinking about how Robbie Johnson the baker's apprentice had stuttered and stammered his proposal to her, and how entirely unprepossessing she had found his shyness. What had charmed her mistress in the Marquess, would doubtless have merely irritated Bridie. It was not what appealed to her in a man, at all.

  "Is there someone who makes your own heart beat faster?"

  "No, my lady. Not at all. I have never seen any man who has made me feel anything at all. I don't think I ever shall."

  "Ah, I thought just the same, and I was quite wrong. Just wait and see."

  Unfortunately, it was not long before her mistress's prediction proved true.

  Chapter EIGHT

  It was a noise in the night that woke her.

  Bridie usually slept very soundly. At home she had always been exhausted from a day's hard work and an hour or two stolen to read under the covers; and at Dunwoodie, life was so peaceful and regular that the silence at night was profound. The household was all abed, from the Marquess himself to the little scullery maids, and there was nothing below Bridie's window but the stable block, where the horses snoozed in their stalls and the grooms in their haylofts.

  She sat up in bed, befuddled. It was still the deepest night, although a pale moonlight spilled across the carpet. At first she could not be sure that she had really heard anything, because she could not remember what kind of sound had awoken her; then she heard it again, a clattering of hooves and men's shouts, far below.

  Her first thought was for the Marchioness, particularly as she then heard running feet in the passage outside and a muted but urgent banging on a distant door. Her heart jumped into her mouth. The child was expected to be born some time in the early summer, and it was only April. It was far too soon.

  Fear for her mistress's safety made Bridie bold. Mrs Swankie the housekeeper and Mr Grieves, the butler, would certainly be angry if any of the servants prowled about out of their rooms at night, and normally she would never think of doing so. But she had to find out what was happening. She paused only to snatch her walking shawl, to throw over her shoulders and make herself more respectable, before slipping out of her room and padding down the corridor towards the east wing back staircase.

  The door to Mrs Swankie's bedroom was standing open, and a quick glance showed her that there was nobody within. Mrs Swankie had been roused from her bed, then, and although Bridie did not know exactly what the hour was, it seemed to be well before dawn. Her fears mounting, she tiptoed down the stairs towards the main upper landing, which was the most direct way towards Lady Crieff's suite of rooms.

  The upper landing was a kind of circular gallery that looked directly down, a dizzyingly long way, to the great sweeping double staircase that dominated the grand entrance hall of Dunwoodie House. There was another, larger gallery directly below. Even from such a height, Bridie could feel a chill of air that told her the main doors of the house were standing open. Moonlight shafted through the cupola above her, gleaming on the white marble of the steps, and she could see the light of a lamp bobbing along the lower corridor.

  Mrs Swankie emerged, draped in her own makeshift shawl, and bustled down the main stairs to meet the gentleman who had just swept in through the main doors. From above, Bridie could see little of the new arrival at first but the top of his hat. She had thought - feared - that it would be the apothecary from Kirkton, but this was certainly not grave, mild old Mr Law. He lolloped up the stairs two at a time and caught Mrs Swankie in an embrace, clear lifting her off her feet.

  Bridie gaped. She had never seen anyone offer to lay a finger upon the dignified and forbidding Mrs Swankie, far less manhandle her in such a manner. She was too far above to hear their words, but she could tell from Mrs Swankie's tone that she was only pretending to be reproachful in her protests. The visitor's reply was laughing, ringing, smooth.

  Bridie relaxed. The commotion in the house was about the sudden strange arrival of this gentleman, whoever he was, in the middle of the night, and nothing to do with Lady Crieff's health. It was no business of hers, and she had better get back to her room before Mrs Swankie spotted her.

  Before she could turn to slip away, however, the man below released the housekeeper, swept off his hat and handed it to her, and then happened to glance upwards.

  There was no doubt that he noticed her. She must have been a shadowy figure, far above on the moonlit uppermost gallery, but their eyes met. She could see his upturned face quite clearly, as he was illuminated by the lamp he was carrying. Strikingly handsome, with sculpted, sensitive features and a fair complexion tinged bronze by a stronger sun than ever shone on Scotland. Thick, curling golden hair growing long about the ears and collar, and fine, intelligent eyes which locked onto hers for a long moment.

  He broke into a dazzling smile.

  #

  The little maid who was laying her fire as Bridie opened her eyes the next morning was already bursting with the news, and eager to impart it.

  "Lord John, miss," she said, deftly scraping out the ashes as she chattered. The servants at Dunwoodie, even the very youngest ones, were much more diligent in their work than Peggy. Mrs Swankie would never have tolerated her idling. "He came all of a sudden, past three in the morning. He must have ridden from Aberdeen in the moonlight! Nobody knew he was to come, none of the family either, I heard Mrs Swankie tell Jeannie. He woke up everyone in the stables, of course, and Mrs Swankie herself had to get out of bed! She roused Jeannie and Meggie to get the east wing yellow rooms ready for him. They look so tired this morning!"

  "Lord John is the old Marquess's fourth son?" Bridie asked sleepily. She had slept only fitfully herself since waking in the night, and her dreams had been strange.

  "Fifth, miss!" said the maid promptly. "He was born twenty minutes after his brother, they were saying in the kitchen, though Mr Reeves thinks it was half an hour. But he's definitely the younger twin, that makes him the fifth son, and Lord Gordon the fourth."

  Bridie did not think she had ever even laid eyes upon Lord Gordon Dunwoodie, who was a Minister of State and lived in London most of the year. She felt sure that she would have remembered a face identical to the one she had seen last night.

  "Fifth son, then, but not the fifth child?"

  "No, miss. There's also Lady Mary Featherstonehaugh, and Lady Drummond, who are older than the twins, so he was the seventh child of the old Marquess."

  "Goodness, you're quite the family historian - Birnie, isn't it?"

  "Aye, miss. No, miss. I just listen in the kitchen when I can. It's - interesting, that's all. Mrs Swankie, she's the one who knows everything. She's been here since before the old Marquess was wed."

  That must have been an astonishingly long time, considering that the present Marquess was well over forty years old. Mrs Swankie must have come to Dunwoodie as a mere child, probably a scullery maid, and worked her way up to her present exalted position within the household.

  "And there are three more siblings after Lord John and Lord Gordon?"

  "Aye, miss," said Birnie promptly. "Captain Lord Malcol
m, the Countess of Leith, and ah, Lady Elspeth."

  Bridie did not want it being said in the kitchen that the Marchioness's personal attendant was asking for rumours about Lady Elspeth, so she quelled her curiosity. She found, in truth, that at the moment she was far more interested in her older brother. "It was said in Kirkton that Lord John was living in Italy?"

  "Aye, miss. He came directly from there, Stuart at the stables said. He rode all the way from Italy himself on a big black stallion."

  "He could not have done that, Birnie, unless the stallion also swam."

  "Oh miss! He took a boat from France, of course, but the horse with him, and it docked late last night in Aberdeen, and Lord John didn't wait but got straight back on the horse and rode here! And nobody had any idea of it. Mr Grieves told Mrs Swankie that his lordship had no letter from him, nor her ladyship. Jeannie thinks he must have killed someone in a duel, like they do all the time in Italy, to have to flee like that."

  "I'm sure he did no such thing, Birnie."

  "Well, miss." She had efficiently finished her ministrations at the grate, and a cheerful fire now blazed there to take the chill off the damp March morning. She gathered up her dustpan and brush and scuttle of ashes and dropped a quick curtsy, but before she turned to go she paused and said with a small bashful smile, "He's awful handsome though, don't you think, miss?"

  She did think, though she did not say so to the little housemaid, and she thought so again when she had the opportunity to see him at close quarters.

  #

  The Marchioness was delighted by her brother-in-law's sudden arrival, unexpected though it had been, as she always was with any new person or circumstance. Lady Crieff always seemed to hope the best in all situations, which Bridie loved in her. Perhaps it was easy for someone born to wealth and consequence to expect the sun to go on shining, but Bridie suspected that great folk were just as prone to discontent, ill-temper and vice as those who toiled to earn their bread.