by Joan Aiken
There would be much to tell Elspie, she thought, and wondered how to broach the matter of Tibbie Gordon. This would have to be done with caution and tact.
But when she got back, and had handed Dunkie over to the ministrations of the dour Jock, she found Elspie in a very queer state, upset and preoccupied, hardly waiting to greet her, but soon flitting off with some murmured excuse.
Pieter explained this, as Val spooned up a bowlful of leek broth which had been left for her on the hob.
“An old man came here this afternoon. Do you remember, Aunt Valla, the old man who came up and spoke just when we were getting into the coach to come here? I think it was the same one. The man who gave you a letter for Elspie. He came limping into the kitchen when Elspie was giving us our tea, and she jumped up, all upset. She said he was sick, and she’s put him to bed.”
Elspie presently reappeared and confirmed this.
“Ay, it’s Mungo—it’s Mungo—an’ I fear he’s unco’ sick, puir auld carl—gey brockit an’ forfoughten; he shouldna ha’ come, he shouldna ha’ done it! Forbye I fear he has a fever on him an’ I’ve e’en pit him i’ the hay loft where he’ll no gie ony infection tae the bairns.”
Val was shocked. “You shouldn’t have put him there! He ought to be in a proper room with a fire.”
“Aweel, I’ll think on’t,” said Elspie. “He’s fine an’ comfortable the noo, an’ can bide the nicht where he lies. I’ll maybe fetch Doctor Ramsay tae him the morn.”
Val inquired how the children’s day had gone with Annot. Well enough, she gathered; they had spent the morning collecting driftwood on the sands, helped feed the poultry and carry straw to the young cattle in the afternoon, and Jannie had gone to bed, tired out, immediately after tea; Pieter had followed her as soon as he was assured of Val’s safe return. For a wonder, Jannie had not fallen into the pig trough, nor got lost in the policies, nor climbed on to the peat stack and fallen off, nor eaten quantities of poisonous laurel leaves, nor had a screaming tantrum, nor any of the other endless possibilities; it sounded like a most blameless day.
“Yon Annot’s no’ sae skaivie, an’ at least the lass is honest,” Elspie said, rather belligerently. “She does well enow.” Val began to feel that perhaps she had been recklessly precipitate in securing the help of Tibbie. At any rate she would keep her own counsel until the next day.
But in the dead dark middle of the night, after she had written up her journal and fallen into an exhausted slumber, Val was woken by the sound of stifled sobbing from the next room. With an irritable sigh—almost certainly Annot had allowed Jannie too many fig cakes for her tea—Val wrapped herself in a shawl, lit a candle, and went to see what was causing the trouble. She was surprised to find that for once it was not Jannie, who slept in her usual hedgehog ball, fingers jammed in her mouth, but Pieter, restless, wide-eyed, and whimpering softly. He clung with a frantic grip to Val’s hands, looking past her into the corners of the room.
“What is it, Pieter? Have you a pain? What’s the matter?”
“It’s the ghost cradle! I can hear it rocking.”
“What?”
“Annot told us about it. It’s the ghost bairn in its cradle. It was Thrawn Jane’s bairn, and whiles, when the wind blows, it wakes and cries, and whiles you hear it rocking, and whiles you hear it crying, and syne you see the bairn!”
He was obviously repeating Annot’s words; he clung desperately to Val. “And syne it puts its cold wee hands on you, and that’s when you know there’s going to be a death! I don’t want to hear it! I don’t want to see it! I want Mama! I want my mama!” And he wept desolately, pushing his frightened face into the hollow of Val’s shoulder and holding her with such a terrified grip that she felt his small fingers digging into her like staples.
If Annot Kelso had been there at that moment Val would have strangled her happily. She damned Annot from the bottom of her heart. May she burn in the pit! I’ll take good care she never sets foot in the house again.
It took a great deal to upset the usually calm and reasonable Pieter, but once he was thoroughly scared, it was equally hard to calm him again.
“Listen, Pieter—that’s not any ghost cradle you hear—there aren’t such things. It’s the loose latch on the door. Look, I’ll wedge the door open with a piece of paper, then it can’t rattle.”
“No, don’t—don’t!” He clung to her even more frenziedly. “Something might come in! I don’t want to see the ghostly bairn!”
Wait till I get hold of that Annot, Val thought.
“Listen, Pieter, why don’t we go down to the kitchen and make ourselves some hot milk? I’m hungry again after riding all that long way yesterday, and I expect you could do with a warm drink. Then I’ll wedge the door shut so it doesn’t rattle.”
“All right,” he finally agreed, with a subdued hiccup. She wrapped him in a plaid and he accompanied her downstairs, keeping tight hold of her hand.
The kitchen, huge, dark, and stone-flagged, with its meal tubs swathed in cheesecloth and the dusky shapes of ham and flitches hanging overhead, was not, perhaps, the best place for somebody in the grip of ghostly terrors. But at least the range, stuffed with peat for the night, was comfortingly warm, and Val set Pieter to blowing it up while she took a copper pan and went off to fetch some milk from the pantry.
This was a small ice-cold place with broad slate shelves round three of its sides. The milk stood in big earthenware basins with the cream settling for tomorrow’s porridge; a pewter skimmer lay beside, ready to draw it off. Not wishing to enrage Elspie by wasting the cream, Val set her candle on the shelf and hastily scraped off the top layer of cream that had formed, into a small pitcher. Then she dipped out two cups of milk. Having done so, she was about to take up her candle again, had stretched out her hand for it, when she was transfixed by the sight of a face outside the screened pantry window, looking in. An instant later it had gone, but she was certain that she had not been mistaken. It was a man: she had caught the flash of his eyes and seen something blue—the knot of a neckerchief—under his chin. It was the same man she had noticed among the group of tinklers on her way home the evening before. Seeing him outside the window at this hour of night was a devastating shock; she only just prevented herself from crying out. She bit her lip, stood still for a moment, then picked up the candle.
“Aunt Valla!” called Pieter nervously from the kitchen. “Why are you taking such a long time?”
“Here I come!”
“The fire’s burned up nicely.”
Val set the pan of milk over it.
“That’s fine, Pieter—now, you watch the milk, like a hawk, and don’t let it boil over while I check that all the doors are fastened.”
“Why?” he asked at once. “Doesn’t Elspie do that when she goes to bed?”
“She might have been a bit distracted by the old man coming—she might have forgotten.”
Could it have been the old man she had seen? But no, he had a long white beard; this one was clean-shaven, and wore the blue choker that she had noticed.
Walking from door to door, she checked the fastenings. Elspie had not forgotten; all the doors were secure, the windows shut and shuttered. The stable wings had countless outside entrances of their own, but they were cut off from the main part of the house by a massive door, which was kept bolted at night. It was shut and fastened. Val returned to the kitchen and poured the warm milk into two cups.
“Let’s take our drinks upstairs, shall we?”
She had built up the children’s bedroom fire before they left the room, and it was glowing brightly when they returned. While Pieter, comforted by its light, sipped his drink as slowly as possible, making it last, Val succeeded in wedging the rattling door. She had also prepared a whole ramification of rational arguments in case Pieter reverted to the subject of the ghostly bairn—that ghosts were inventions of ignorant, stupid people
who had too little to occupy their minds—that babies were harmless, so why should their spirits be thought baleful anyway—but, to her relief, Pieter did not allude to it again. Hoping to distract his thoughts, she described Mrs. Ramsay’s house and the village of Wolf’s Hope.
“Can we go there and see the boats?” he asked.
“Yes, I daresay. Perhaps Jock would let us take out the old gig that’s in the shed, and we could carry our dinner in a basket.”
Soothed by this plan he seemed ready to return to bed, yawning and relaxed. But Val remembered that throttling clutch round her neck when she had first gone to him.
“Would you like to sleep in with me?” she suggested.
For a moment he seemed tempted. Then his face tightened. He said, “No, I better not. If Jannie woke and found I wasn’t there she’d be frightened.”
“All right. Anyway I’m just next door. I’ll leave the door open. Goodnight, Pieter.”
“Goodnight, Aunt Val.”
Soon, listening from her own room, she heard his deep, regular breathing.
Val herself lay awake for hours, listening, straining her ears to try to catch any unwonted sound. She heard none. Where had that man gone? Why had he been there? What was he after?
And then she remembered where she had seen him before, why his face had seemed familiar. He was the man in the Tom-and-Jerry hat whom she had seen in the lobby of the Jersey Hotel.
Chapter 13
Next morning, choosing a moment when the children were out of earshot, playing in the stable yard, Val mentioned the band of tinklers to Elspie, and the fact that she had seen one of their number outside the pantry window.
Elspie took the announcement placidly enough.
“Och, ay, whiles yin or anither’ll be daikerin’ roond the policies, lookin’ tae see what they can pick up—but there’s little eneugh for the gangrels! I hae the pootry all lockit in the caveys, an’ the kye lockit i’ the byre. Ne’er fash yersel’ aboot them, hinnie. Aiblins they may keek in the wunda tae see have we ony siller, but we havena! A’body kens the Big Hoose is a poor auld hurleyhoose, naught but Castle Barebane.”
Val felt less calm about it. She somehow doubted if the intruder was after money. When the household tasks were done, she made a careful search around the outbuildings and the stable yard, through the neglected shrubberies and the big untended kitchen garden. But she could find no damage, or any sign of attempted entry. How was it possible to be certain, though? The whole place was in such a ramshackle state.
Returning, she ran into Elspie carrying a bowl of porridge toward the stable.
“May I come and visit the old man, Elspie?”
“Ay—if ye wish,” Elspie agreed rather unwillingly. But Val wanted to be sure that the sick man was not last night’s watcher; not that she had many doubts on that score. In fact the man in the loft was exactly as she remembered him—a lean, brown, bright-eyed weatherbeaten man with a shock of white hair, white beard, and tattoos on his forearms.
Elspie had made him comfortable enough on a bed of hay with several plaids and blankets over him. He was sleeping but woke at the sound of their feet on the ladder.
“Och, Elspie, ye shouldna ha’ brocht the young lady up here!” he said, rather shocked, but Val said she wanted to see how he was getting on, and he thanked her with dignity, adding, “Forbye I’m blythe to thank ye again, mistress, for carrying my letter to Elspie. Sin’ she never answered it, I made so bold as to come and pay a call on her.”
“Ye camsteery limmer!” said Elspie scoldingly, but just the same it was plain that her heart had been softened by the sight of him. “Eat your sowans and say no more.”
There did not seem to be too much the matter with him. Val thought it might have been mainly exhaustion, if he had come all the way from Edinburgh in such wintry weather. But, hearing the sound of hoofs in the yard, she said, “Here comes Doctor Ramsay. Why don’t you fetch him up, Elspie? He might as well look at Mr. Bucklaw before giving Jannie her lesson.”
“Ay, fegs, I’ll do that,” said Elspie, and climbed nimbly down. The moment she was out of earshot—“Why don’t you marry Elspie, Mr. Bucklaw?” said Val impulsively. “I’m sure she loves you—I’m certain she does! She was terribly moved when she read your note. If I were you, I’d ask her right away.”
Old Mungo Bucklaw burst out laughing. “Ey, ye’re a canny lassie! Ye dinna let the stoor settle. Aweel, I’ll no’ say I havena a mind tae try!”
Elspie came back with the doctor. Val now had leisure to observe that she was unusually pink-cheeked, and had put on a very becoming mutch with goffered frills and ribbons that tied under her chin. Also she had on a clean apron over her black dress.
Dr. Ramsay gave the old man a rapid examination and asked him, “Have you traveled in hot countries?”
“Ay, I have that. I’ve been a sailor all my life.”
“What you are suffering from is a touch of malaria. Take these pills night and morning for a few days, rest for twenty-four hours, and you should be through the worst of it.”
Old Mungo received the pills gravely; Val suspected that the diagnosis came as no surprise to him. In fact she had a strong notion that he had used the attack as a ploy to weaken Elspie’s defences.
She followed Ramsay back into the yard. The children were there, playing on a rope swing which Val had suspended, with the doctor’s help, in the doorway of an unused shed. Pieter was pushing Jannie, who gave her little chirps of delight and commanded her brother shrilly, “More grake, Pieter! More, more grake!”
“How good the boy always is with her,” Ramsay observed. Val felt a complicated, familiar pang as she watched the children playing. They reminded her continually of Nils and herself; Pieter, fair, blue-eyed, thin-faced was in appearance a small replica of his father. But in truth, how different! If Nils had been in Pieter’s place he would certainly have managed somehow to oust his sister from her seat on the swing—by outright force, or by contriving an “accident” in which she fell and hurt herself, or by some form of blackmail. And he would then stay in the swing for the next hour, not for his own pleasure but merely to torment her, while she stood impotently crying or wandered forlornly off to find some other occupation. Whereas Pieter showed no impatience; he seemed to enjoy Jannie’s pleasure.
However David Ramsay interrupted the swinging session by calling “Jannie! Jan-nee!” on the high note he had learned from Pieter. Directly she heard him, Jannie scrambled herself down with impetuous speed, fell, but rapidly picked herself up again, and came running, flapping her hands like fins, crying, “Crocker! Crocker!” When she reached David she attempted to climb up him, wrapping her sticklike arms round his legs.
“And how’s Little Miss Silence today? Did you say all your words to your aunt Val after tea? Did you wet your bed last night? You didn’t? So you stayed comfortably warm instead of waking up all wet and cold? Wasn’t that better, eh?” He swung her on to his arm and said, “Where shall we have our lesson today? In the kitchen, as Elspie’s in the loft? Come along—maybe we’ll find a plate of snaps or gingerbread.”
Val was about to follow with Pieter when she heard the sound of hoofs in the gateway, and turned to see the very unexpected sight of a stranger riding into the yard.
He was a spare, grey-haired, middle-aged gentleman with a decidedly pursed, sour cast of countenance; he was dressed in a neat brown suit, was clean-shaven, had a small buttoned-up mouth, pale-grey eyes, and wore a gold-rimmed pince-nez. He sat his horse as if he found the process of riding wholly uncongenial and greatly beneath his dignity.
“Good day, sir?” said Val, reflecting that more visitors had come to Ardnacarrig during the past twelve hours than in the previous three weeks. “Can I help you in any way?”
“I am obliged to you, ma’am,” he replied, in a thin, severe voice. “Are you by any chance Miss”—he consulted a paper which he brou
ght out from his jacket pocket, studying it shortsightedly—“Miss Valhalla Asloeg Montgomery?”
He made the name sound highly preposterous.
Val said that she was.
“In that case my errand is to you, ma’am. I will dismount, if you please,” and he did so, looking about him discontentedly for someone to take charge of his horse. As nobody did, he tied it up himself to a ring on the mounting block.
“Is there some—er—private place where we can—er—hold a conversation, Miss Montgomery?”
“Certainly, sir. Pieter, will you run in and help Doctor Ramsay with Jannie’s lesson while I talk to this gentleman in the library. And when Elspie comes, ask her if she can bring some refreshment—or, no, I’ll do that myself,” she added, reflecting that if Mungo intended proposing to Elspie on the spot, she might be in the loft for some time yet.
Collecting whisky, oatcakes, and glasses, Val put them all on a tray, and ushered the gentleman, who had been waiting with ill-concealed impatience, into the library.
He looked about him at the dusty, uncared-for place, primming up his lips, and muttered, more to himself than to Val, “Huts, tuts! I have told her ladyship, over and over, how it would be. Rack and ruin, rack and ruin!”
“What was it you wished to see me about, Mr.—?”
Val felt that the neglected state of Ardnacarrig was no affair of hers.
“M’Intyre, madam, Isaiah M’Intyre.” He waved away the whisky she offered. “I have the honour to be her ladyship’s man of business in Edinburgh, and I have come out here, at her behest, to put certain matters before you. And a devilish slow, inconvenient journey it has been,” he added aggrievedly, “for my hired conveyance broke down at Dunglass and I was obliged to ride over on that sorry, spavined beast which I procured from a tavern.”
“I am sorry you have been put to so much trouble on my account, sir,” Val replied civilly. “What is this communication from her ladyship that is so urgent it could not be stated in a letter?”