The Blackhouse Bride

by Fiona Monroe

  Bridie started to say something, but Lady Crieff squeezed her arm again and put up her hand.

  "Dr Menzies was tactful, of course, and implied that your motive for leaving my service was sheer filial obedience, but Bridie - I know what has been happening at Dunwoodie. I know what my brother-in-law is."

  Bridie could not help the sigh of dismay that escaped her. She really had imagined her mistress oblivious to everything. A blush of shame mounted her cheek.

  It did not go unnoticed by Lady Crieff, because she slowed her step further, and spoke even lower, though there was no-one in sight. "My dearest Bridie, has he succeeded?"

  "No!" she cried.

  "You may tell me, I promise you. It will always be between ourselves."

  "No - I - no. But, oh - my lady - I fear he may."

  "I do not believe John would ever be violent. My dear husband holds his brother in low esteem, but he quite agrees that he would not force himself upon a woman. If you return to me, you would be safe from that."

  "But I would not be safe from myself!" Bridie broke away from her, and buried her blazing face in her hands. "Oh, my lady, I nearly yielded this very morning."

  "This morning! You saw John this morning?"

  "He met me on the road. I think - I think he set out to look for me."

  Lady Crieff sighed angrily. "Oh, John."

  "He offered me jewels to be his - mistress. Of course I told him my virtue was not for sale, at any price. But then - then I let him kiss me and I fear I would have let him do more, had Providence not sent me the strength to walk away."

  The Marchioness put her hand on Bridie's shoulder. "I cannot stop my brother being what he is. The Marquess himself has spoken to him often about his licentious behaviour. He always apologises and never desists. And I cannot have John sent away. The truth is, my husband has very little real authority over him - the best we can hope is that he might choose to go abroad again of his own accord, although I am coming to agree with the Marquess, that John has a particular reason for not wanting to return to Venice, at least."

  Absurdly, Bridie felt a deep pang of what she could only admit to be jealousy. She shook her head.

  "I do not want to lose you, dearest Bridie, but I fear if you remain here, you will be in constant danger. It would be very selfish of me to press you to stay. I think, for your own immediate safety, and for your greatest chance of future happiness, you should accept the offer from Dr Menzies's friend."

  Bridie wanted to protest again, but ingrained deference and real regard for Lady Crieff's opinion - for her friend's opinion, she dared to think in her secret thoughts - silenced her, and gave her pause.

  "As the wife of a steward, I'm sure you would be well situated," Lady Crieff continued. "Our steward Mr Reid has a very good house in the grounds, as does my father's at his estate. They keep three servants, I believe, and Mrs Reid always looks very nicely turned-out. I know you think that material considerations do not matter, but in your case I think they must! You are not meant for a life of drudgery, Bridie. I meant to offer you something different, but I realise now - even if I kept you as my companion forever, even if I had no wretched libertine brother threatening your safety, it would be selfish of me. You deserve to be mistress of your own home and have your own chance of happiness. Your own life. Here is a very fair opportunity."

  "But... my lady... how can I know whether I could love this Mr MacAllister?"

  "I'm not sure whether any woman, entering marriage, ever really knows whether she can love her husband. We only ever have a few short meetings, always with others around. I knew a girl who declared herself passionately in love with a young man whom in truth she scarcely knew, and who married him and found she hated him within the year. And other instances where a girl accepted a man because it was expedient, or to please her family, and became after marriage deeply and sincerely attached. You cannot really know, until you have lived with him and been intimate with him. You can only make a judgement on the basis of his character and your probable compatibility, and on the life he can offer you. The fact that Mr MacAllister values your learning is a very good start."

  "But my lady, you told me, you married the Marquess for love."

  "So I did." She smiled. "But it is easy for me to look back now, and say that it was meant from the start. In truth, Lord Atholl, as he was then, seemed to me to be the only man I had ever met who was in a position to address me, and whom I did not also find intolerable. I very much wanted to marry, to relieve my father's anxiety about the future of the Duchy, and to put an end to the wearisome pursuit of puppies. My feelings for him quickly grew, and once we were married I discovered just how wonderful it can be between man and wife." She smiled again, bashfully. "I fully believe, Bridie, that you have as much chance of finding the same happiness with Mr MacAllister - and for certain, escaping the dangers you face here."

  They had reached sight of the gate that led into the dairy yard at Easter Mains, and Bridie could see Bessie, one of the milkmaids, pouring water over the cobbles in front of the dairy-house door. Perhaps before the girl could catch sight of her and recognise her - or at least register that a most finely-dressed lady, nearing her time, was walking in the company of Bridie the farrier's daughter - Lady Crieff turned around and steered her back towards the village.

  "You are very quiet, dearest Bridie," she said after a moment. "Have I said too much? Have I offended you?"

  "No! You could never offend me, my lady. How could you offend me?"

  "Very easily, by putting forth my opinions on such an important and delicate subject too forcefully, knowing that you - in deference - would feel unable to reply."

  "I feel unable to reply because I do not know what to think myself, my lady."

  Lady Crieff stopped, and pressed Bridie's hands in hers. "I am afraid for you," she said. "I would feel so much easier in my mind to know that you were safe and happy. Very soon, I might not be here to protect you."

  "My lady - " Bridie began, horrified.

  "There is nothing to be gained from denying the truth, that I face a real danger. Please God that he will deliver me and the child, but if that is not his will, and I die - who will care for your welfare?"

  Bridie burst into tears. She had not expected to, but she had not expected the Marchioness to appeal to her in such a manner. She felt exhausted, emotionally at the end of her tether.

  Lady Crieff enfolded her in a warm embrace, and Bridie pressed her face against the soft velvet of her travelling cloak.

  "I'm sorry," said Lady Crieff, her voice wavering. "Perhaps I am putting my own fears upon you. You must do what you think best, my dearest."

  The trouble was, she had no idea what that might be.

  Chapter ELEVEN

  Bridie said farewell to Lady Crieff when she reached her carriage, and watched as the coach rattled away towards Dunwoodie. She was glad that the Marchioness had not made things with her father more awkward, by going again into the house to take leave of him. But she wondered, as the last of the dust whipped up by the horses' hooves settled onto the road, whether she would ever see her former mistress again.

  She wiped her hand across her cheek, swallowed down the fresh tears that threatened, and went with a heavy heart back into the house. She had hoped to slink unnoticed into the kitchen, but her father intercepted her and told her to join him in the parlour.

  There, once again, she found herself confronted by both her father and Callum.

  "Her ladyship has gone?" said her father, and it sounded more like an accusation than a question.

  "Aye, father. She left her regards."

  "And you did not go with her."

  "I gave you my word I would not return to Dunwoodie, father."

  "Lord John was seen riding through Kirkton this morning."

  Bridie said nothing.

  "You went to Kirkton, Bridie. Was it to meet with him?"

  "No, father!" she said quickly, and truthfully enough. She held her breath, hoping that he
would put no question to her that she could not answer without confessing to their meeting.

  "You're a lying - minx!" Callum cried. "She's lying, Mr MacFarlane. Look at her!"

  "Callum!" said her father sharply.

  Callum huffed and hunched his shoulders, scowling at her.

  "I have sent a note to Dr Menzies by the baker's boy," her father continued. "The sooner you are married, the better. Tomorrow morning, we will walk to Kirkton and see you and Callum wed."

  As Bridie started to reply, he put up the dreaded hand that stalled all debate.

  "No. I'll hear no argument, child."

  Bridie did not sleep at all that night. She lay in her narrow bed, watching the early dawn creep across the ceiling, wondering if it was the last night she would be permitted to sleep alone.

  By the time she heard Peggy stirring from her bed in the rafters above, she had made up her mind.

  #

  "Another offer of marriage?"

  Her father was scowling, but Bridie felt it was in puzzlement, not necessarily in anger. She had asked to speak with him privately as soon as he had come down to breakfast, and she knew that he must have been expecting a last-ditch attempt to refuse to go with him and Callum to the church. He was preparing to be angry, but nonetheless he had dismissed Callum, who had left the parlour with a bad grace and was doubtless listening at the door.

  Bridie did not care. She spoke to her father earnestly, as if they were truly alone. "Aye, from a most respectable gentleman who is a former pupil of Dr Menzies, and employed as tacksman on an estate in Inverness-shire. He studied at the University in Edinburgh, father, and Dr Menzies says he is a very honest and pious man. Father - I know how much you want to see me decently married, and for your sake I wish that too - but I do not want to marry Mr Dobbie."

  "But child, this is a man you know nothing about."

  "I trust Dr Menzies's judgement. I have trusted and respected Dr Menzies all my life."

  "And Callum is well known to you."

  "Aye, father! And that is why I can never marry him." She fell to her knees. "Father, I implore you, as you love me - please believe that I would rather remain single all my days, than become the wife of Callum Dobbie. But I would rather be a married woman. I would rather accept Dr Menzies's friend."

  She did not, could not touch upon her compelling reason for wishing to remove herself from the orbit of Dunwoodie, but she knew her father was well aware of it nonetheless. The fact that he had organised this supposed wedding with such haste suggested that he had drawn his own conclusions from Lord John having been seen riding about Kirkton, even if he did not know for sure that she had met with him.

  Her father was staring, brows drawn, into the empty fireplace. At least he was not refusing outright to listen.

  "Father, I would never agree to marry Mr MacAllister or anyone without your consent. So, I humbly beg for your consent."

  Her father turned his gaze to her and seemed about to speak, when there was a clumping sound at the door.

  Suddenly furious, Bridie jumped to her feet, went to the door and flung it open. Callum all but fell into the room.

  "I asked you to do me the courtesy of allowing me to speak to my father alone!" Bridie cried.

  "She - she - cannae wed anither loon!" he shouted, falling deeper into the local way of speaking in his agitation. "She's promised to me!"

  "I never promised myself to you, Callum Dobbie!"

  "She came to my bed!" he yelled, gesticulating wildly. "The night afore she went to the Great Hoose, she came to my bed!"

  "I did not!"

  "She might hae my bairn in her belly right noo!"

  "I went to Dunwoodie over six months ago! It would be obvious by now! You haven't even got the wit to work out the timing of your lies!"

  "Aye - well - maybe there's no bairn, but she's mine, she is. She gave herself to me."

  "I did not. Father, he's lying, I swear it - "

  "And I know she gave herself to that bastard lord up at the Hoose."

  "I did not!" she screamed, directly at him.

  "You filthy hussy!" He grabbed her wrist and started trying to pull her towards the door. "You'll come tae the kirk and marry me if I hae tae drag you a' the way!"

  "Enough!" her father bellowed, rising to his feet. "Callum Dobbie, get your hands off my daughter."

  Abruptly Callum let go, and Bridie stumbled backwards. She almost lost her footing and collided with her father, who caught her and steadied her with surprising gentleness.

  Callum stared at them both, his eyes blazing, his shoulders heaving, his hands balled into fists at his side.

  "You will not," said her father, quietly, "speak to my daughter like that, or use foul language under this roof. Get back to your work."

  "I'm sorry sir, she just - "

  "Get out."

  Callum looked as if he might protest further, but then he sagged and, with a filthy scowl at Bridie, turned and left the room. A moment later, the front door slammed.

  Warm relief, the first sweet hope she had felt in days, flooded through Bridie. She turned to her father with tears of gratitude in her eyes.

  He did not look at her, nor did his temper seem softened. But he said, "Come, child. We'll walk to Kirkton, since the minister is expecting us, and talk to him about this matter."

  Chapter TWELVE

  It had been raining all day, the evening that Bridie had her first sight of the church where she would be married. Her father's old cart had no protection at all from the weather, so Bridie had wrapped their one oilskin blanket over her head in a futile attempt to keep out the constant drizzle. After eight hours of sitting in the back of the cart, as comfortably as she could manage on the sack of grain that served as a makeshift seat, she was soaked to the skin, sore and shivering.

  "Is that the village at last, father?" she asked, rather pointlessly, through chattering teeth. It ought not to have been cold, not in the middle of June, but ever since they had started to climb into the mountains the temperature seemed to have plummeted and the season wound back to early spring.

  Her father was wet too, of course, but he seemed to be impervious to discomfort. He squinted through the mist-like rain towards the jutting square tower of a church ahead. "Aye, must be. They said at the inn that Scourie kirk was the only one along this road."

  The inn had been in a market town called Inverlannan, where they had stopped for a meal some hours before. Bridie had asked if they could stay the night and make the final leg of the journey in the morning, but her father had insisted that with so many hours of daylight still ahead of them - full darkness did not fall until after midnight, at this time of year - they should press on to their destination.

  They had already been travelling for eight days, along winding, climbing and increasingly narrow roads, rattling along in the old cart at a pace that any hearty walker would outstrip. Often Bridie felt that it might have been easier to have made the journey on foot, except that so long a trek would exhaust her father, who for all his apparent sturdiness was no longer young, and she could have brought even fewer possessions with her. They had been obliged to rest on the Sabbath, which had added a day's delay. After the wedding, of course - her mind was still blocking out that prospect, almost of its own accord - her father faced the same journey again back home. It was a long time for him to leave the forge in Callum's sullen resentful hands; inevitably, the workshop would lose trade, and he was using up a fair portion of his savings in the expenses of this journey.

  Bridie was intensely grateful, and truly felt now that she had been an ungrateful, undutiful daughter every time she had defied him, deceived him and resented him in her heart. They had said very little to each other during the long hours they had sat together in the cart, but she had tried to press upon him the sovereign that Lady Crieff had given her as a wedding present, and he had gruffly refused to accept it.

  Every day had taken her further away from the people she loved best in the world, and t
he people she feared most. She awoke each morning in another strange lumpy bed, heart aching with both relief and sadness. She was quite sure that whatever she felt for Lord John could not really be love, but she knew that leaving him further behind with every mile they trudged hurt in a lingering, poisonous way that was impossible to quell with reason. She was thankful nonetheless that she had avoided another assault. She had even gone to Dunwoodie at Lady Crieff's request to take her leave of her, and if he had been there, she had not seen him.

  Yes, she was thankful for that, she told herself firmly.

  Dr Menzies had taken down books of maps from the shelves in his study and they had planned their route, although the village of Scourie was too small and insignificant to appear in any of them. They had not gone via the city of Inverdoun, which was further to the north, but had headed straight up into the Cairngorms and along the banks of the great Loch Ness, a body of water so massive that it took them two days to circumvent it.

  Bridie had always longed to travel, and although in her dreams those travels would have been in Europe - with a city of culture and ancient learning, such as Rome or Athens, as her destination - she very much enjoyed venturing into the interior of her own country, which soon began to feel like another land. Once they had left behind the rich gentle pastures of the Dunwoodie estate, and begun to climb the stony mountain paths, they entered a world of wild beauty, endless rocky heather and bleak, lovely peaks.