by Russell Kirk
The square room had a ceiling painted in faded reds and browns, geometrical designs by men long dead; and there were a few good pieces of furniture, principally eighteenth century, and a crimson Victorian sofa. A door in the further wall gave entrance, probably, to the seventeenth-century domestic range of the Old House; and another led presumably, to a sleeping-closet. “Do sit down,” the girl said, gesturing toward the sofa, “and you may put on your boots, if you like. I did not wish them to hear us on the stair.” For herself, she settled nimbly into a window-nook opposite him, her tiny feet hid by her skirt. “Now tell me truly,” she went on. “Are you a real American? I thought all Americans wore synthetic suits, and carried great cameras over their shoulders, and smoked cigars incessantly, and said ‘You bet’ and ‘I guess,’ and wore their hair sheared ever so close. Do you know, Mr. Logan, you could pass muster for a Scot? Now wherever are the others?”
“There’s no one with me,” Logan said. She still had him nearly tongue-tied, like an adolescent.
A little charming ripple of dismay passed over that lively face of hers. “No others? Then where are Mr. Duncan MacAskival and all his people?”
“I came alone from America, Miss MacAskival, and it was all I could do to make Carnglass by myself.”
“No!” That sweet mouth rounded to give force to the negation. “No!” She threw back from her forehead a lock of red hair, bewildered. “Mr. Logan, I’m afraid I have made a serious error. You must understand that I am not very worldly; I’m sorry for it. I thought any American millionaire would come in his own grand yacht, and servants beside him, and perhaps policemen and soldiers and cabinet-ministers. I never guessed that you, or anyone else, might come all alone. I do fear that I may have fetched you into a dangerous plight.” Her musical island English – and yet she must have been to a good school somewhere, too – was so pleasant to the ear that Logan almost neglected the warning in her words. “Now look here, Mr. Logan.” A quality of decision came into her soft voice that had some connection with that high-bridged nose of hers. “Do you think you could pretend – successfully, I mean – to be an Edinburgh man? A young bank clerk? The British Linen Bank, shall we say?” Despite the girl’s childish look, in some respects she was in advance of her years; just now she might have been a dowager duchess. “You can? Then you must do precisely that. I do hope you studied playacting once upon a time. I did, you know, at the convent-school. You’re very young, Mr. Logan – I had expected a very rich and very fat old man – but really, you must contrive to carry it off. Everything depends on it.”
“Just a question or two, please,” Logan said. “I met a man named Donley at the other end of the island.”
“Of course.” She smiled. “A great cheerful ruffian. And he said some things to you? They will not have caught him yet?”
“I don’t believe they’ll ever catch that man, Miss MacAskival. He told me that matters are dangerous here in the Old House.”
“He told you truly. What else did he tell you?”
“He said that Dr. Jackman intends to – to have Lady MacAskival die.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “O, no! Donley was mistaken. Lady MacAskival would not have been alive these past two months had not Dr. Jackman tended her with all his skill. He has been a good nurse. It’s to his own interest that she should live.”
Logan looked her compassionately in the eyes. “And Donley hinted that you, too, were to die.”
The girl shook her bright head impatiently. “Donley did not understand. Dr. Jackman does not mean to have me die – not now, and perhaps never. Dr. Jackman means to marry me.”
Logan had cultivated a calm courtroom presence, but now he blinked. “You’re not joking?”
Mary MacAskival smiled ever so slightly. “Do you think Dr. Jackman shows bad taste? Hush, now!” She sat listening intently, her head inclined toward the door that opened upon the body of the Old House. Logan could hear nothing, but of course this girl’s ears would be attuned to every footfall in that strange place.
“Stand up, please,” she said; and then, silent on her nimble naked feet, she approached him. “I do hope you’ll forgive me, Mr. Logan, but I am about to do something rude. I’ve done it seldom, and I may do it badly.” There came a light tap at the door. “Hold me, if you please,” she whispered, and pressed that lithe body against him, flinging her arms about his neck. Logan heard the door creak open, but he could not see, for the moment, who entered; and this was because Mary MacAskival’s red lips were thrust upon his, and the glory of her red hair was all about his face. Then, as she let him go a trifle, over her shoulder he saw a man standing in the doorway.
It was a small man, sturdy enough, but with an indescribable air of deformity about him – perhaps a curious thrusting forward of the shoulders. With his forehead, too, there was something faintly wrong. But the eyes were splendid: black, and piercing, piercing. The man’s face was one of those faces which never were young and never will be ancient. The face tightened, as if resisting shock, and Logan thought the man’s right hand strayed toward the back of his coat; but it returned gently to his side.
The man’s voice was controlled and well modulated. “I am surprised to find you have a visitor, Miss MacAskival.”
Mary MacAskival let go her arms from Logan’s neck and turned on her toes to face the man, with a wonderfully convincing air of surprise and embarrassment. “Oh, Dr. Jackman!” she murmured. “We must have looked dreadfully silly. Dr. Jackman, may I present Mr. Hugh Logan, of the British Linen Bank, Edinburgh? Mr. Logan and I are to be married.”
Chapter 7
“WHY, THEN,” Dr. Jackman said, “Mr. Logan is a fortunate young man.” The note of irony was faint. “I seem to recollect, Miss MacAskival, your mentioning that you met a young man at an Edinburgh party, last Christmas: I suppose this is he. And however did your betrothed contrive to come into this house, in this season?”
Whatever game the girl was playing, Logan thought, he too would have to play it now. And possibly he might carry it off. Jackman he took for an Englishman. Logan had some talent for languages and dialects; his courtroom years had taught him dissimulation; and since the war he had been in several amateur performances of the Players’ Club. Now for his present role: he had best play the part of a rather callow, but ambitious, clerk from the Lothians. His speech ought to have a strong suggestion of Scots, but to seem an imitation of public-school English, and with a touch of what people called “la-de-da.” A small moustache might have gone well with the part; it was a pity he hadn’t been given time to cultivate one.
So Logan stepped forward rather stiffly, offering his hand to Jackman. “Now the fat is in the fire, isn’t it? Rather. It’s grand to make your acquaintance, Dr. Jackman, but really, I must apologize for coming informally this way. It’s my fortnight’s holiday, and I had promised Mary to come for a holiday as soon as ever I could. Somehow my letters hadn’t reached her. The post is beastly nowadays, is it not? Some fishing-johnnies brought me over from North Uist, and set me ashore at the other end of your wee island. Now I must see Lady MacAskival today and ask her approval. For Mary and I do not mean to wait another quarter, do we, Mary, darling?”
The girl had stepped forward with him; and now Logan, putting an arm about her waist, gave her an overdemonstrative squeeze in keeping with his new character. She did not seem disconcerted. “No, Hughie,” she said, “we mustn’t wait a day longer than necessary.”
Dr. Jackman’s thin lips contracted, but he took Logan’s hand briefly. “You and I will have much to discuss soon, Mr. Logan,” he said, “but just now, tell me this: if you came from the shore at Dalcruach, did you meet no one on your way?”
“Indeed I did see some men hunting,” Logan replied, easily, “but they were away down in the glen, and their backs to me, so they did not see me when I waved.” He was doing well enough with his assumed pronunciation, he thought; he threw just a suggestion of “awa’ doon” into his words. “Then there were two sportsmen on the cl
iffs, and I called after them, but the mist came up and hid them. I kept to the cliffs, the better for finding the castle. And Mary here” – he squeezed her again – “had told me her rooms were at the back of the house, so I went round, and Mary saw me and let me in.” He felt sure that Jackman disliked him intensely. Who wouldn’t, in his present role? He hoped he was convincing as a pushing, canny, and unmannerly junior clerk.
Jackman looked vexed, though not especially with him. “Mr. Logan,” Jackman said, “did you ever dream that you were the commander of a garrison, for instance, with Red Indians all about your fort; but that the moment you turned your back, your troops would vanish like shadows; and any shot that was fired at the enemy, would have to be fired by yourself?”
“No, sir,” Logan replied, with what he trusted was a properly oafish perplexity, “I never did. The fact of the matter is, I never do dream.”
“I should have thought of that,” Jackman observed. “No, I’m sure you never dream. But to return to the heart of the matter: I dream a great deal. And the conduct of Lady Mac-Askival’s servants is like a nightmare to me. What incompetence! Yet several of them saw service during the late war. If none of them spied you on the cliffs, they must be even duller than I thought. I suppose that Miss MacAskival has told you a very dangerous man is at large in the island?”
“She has, sir; and I am thankful I did not meet with him on my way. An Irishman, she says.”
“Yes, Donley: an Irishman, and a homicidal maniac. Our people have been seeking to arrest him for more than three days, but he always escapes their net. Those were not sportsmen you saw, Mr. Logan, but our people tracking this Don-ley. Neither Miss MacAskival nor anyone else in this house will be able to set foot outside while that man is at large, unless accompanied by an armed guard. I regret to say, Miss MacAskival, that I must forbid you to visit your garden until the man is caught. And please have the goodness to remember to keep back from the windows. The man is armed, Mr. Logan, and a crack shot. Only Ferd Caggia, our cook, is his peer with a gun. To be defended by a Maltese cook in one’s own castle! Ludicrous, isn’t it, Mr. Logan? I suppose you wonder why we haven’t summoned the police. But possibly Miss MacAskival has had time to tell you that the madman destroyed our boats, and we have been quite out of communication with the mainland. Presumably, however, our agents in Glasgow will send a launch to us in a day or two, by way of inquiry, and then we can call in the police. That launch, by the way, can give you passage back to the mainland, Mr. Logan.”
“That’s very thoughtful, I’m sure, sir,” Logan said innocently, “but it’s my plan to stay the best part of a fortnight, if Lady MacAskival will permit me.”
“Lady MacAskival is in no condition to make decisions of any nature. As for your remaining here – why, we’d best go upstairs to my study and discuss certain matters, Mr. Logan. Will you excuse me, Miss MacAskival?”
That barefoot little girl stepped forward like a princess. “Dr. Jackman: surely you remember my Airedale, Tyke?”
“Yes,” Jackman said with a frosty smile, “I do. A great pity, that rabbit-hunting accident.”
“You took Tyke for a walk, Dr. Jackman,” Mary MacAskival went on, dispassionately, “and never did you bring him back. I wish you to bring Hugh back to me. I intend to give him tea here in my parlor, one hour from now.”
“Of course, my dear young lady.” Jackman bowed slightly. “I shall bring him back safe in wind and limb: eh, Logan?” He clapped Logan lightly on the back. “And now, be so good as to follow me up these stairs. Mind the worn stone treads: they’re treacherous. No one knows how many generations of MacAskivals have trodden that granite through. There’s a legend that the ghost of Old Askival snatches at one’s ankles on those stairs. Eh, Miss MacAskival? I’m sure he’d snatch at yours, and small blame to him.” Jackman nodded at the girl with a kind of paternal gallantry.
Mary MacAskival stood in the doorway as Logan and Jackman began to ascend. “I believe it was my ankles that you noticed first, wasn’t it, Hughie?” Though the stair was dark, Logan thought that Jackman almost winced. “I suppose I really ought to tell you how it was that Hugh and I came to meet, Dr. Jackman. You’ve already guessed that it must have been during that wonderful fortnight Lady MacAskival and you let me spend in Edinburgh in December with Anne Lindsay, who had been at school with me. I happened to go into the Lawnmarket office of the British Linen Bank to change a five-pound note, and Hugh was so very helpful and we found that he knew the Lindsays of George Square; and…”
“Quite,” said Dr. Jackman, “quite. Perhaps we had best leave the rest to my fertile imagination? Really, I am not in the least surprised; if you will pardon my saying so, Miss Mary MacAskival, the little episode is part and parcel with the traditional impulsiveness of ladies of your family. You understand what I mean. The inscription by the door of the old tower, for instance – we’ll show you that incised slab later, Mr. Logan. Just now, I’ve only one thing to say to you, Miss MacAskival. I advise you to go in to Lady MacAskival and tell her that a young man has come to call upon you. As for any mention of marriage, the shock might put an end to your aunt; and you know as well as I do the certain consequence to your own prospects. Yet you had best mention Mr. Logan’s coming, because old Agnes would tell her soon enough, in any event. I advise you to be extremely gentle and prudent in the telling. And while you are having your little chat with Lady MacAskival, I shall have my little chat with your Mr. Logan.”
Mary MacAskival sent a glance from her disturbing green eyes at Hugh as he followed Jackman up the dark stair; and she gave him a demure wink. Whatever else the girl had or lacked, she had sufficient courage in adversity. Then she was gone, and Jackman led him round and round the twisting stair in the thickness of the wall, past several shut doors, to the topmost chamber of the tower. Upon three sides were windows, not so large as those of Miss MacAskival’s room, but still big and handsome; and on the fourth wall was an immense fireplace, perhaps fifteenth-century work, with a ponderous chimney-piece carved crudely from basalt. On one side of the mantel, and standing two feet high, carved almost in the round, was the effigy of a naked man holding an axe; and on the other, a naked woman clutching a cross to her breast.
“A ponderous quaint affair, isn’t it?” Jackman observed, nodding toward the fireplace. “There are similar figures set into the outer wall, by the door of this tower: Askival and Merin, they say. The Old House is so well preserved only because it stood empty, but not a ruin, nearly the whole of the nineteenth century: the proprietors lived in the New House. They used the ground floors of the Old House for byres and rubbish-rooms. Sir Alastair MacAskival, the present old lady’s husband, restored the Old House – with his wife’s money. It’s far too large for such a household as she has now. The block that Sir Alastair added is all great drawing-rooms and dining-rooms and billiard-rooms and ballrooms, with the kitchens below; and the present servants sleep in the upper rooms of that wing. Lady MacAskival has a grand bedroom hung with Spanish leather, in the Renaissance range; and I have rooms in that building. But I spend much of my time in this study. For centuries it was the private chamber of the chiefs of MacAskival. There’s a fine prospect; but I’ll show you that later, Mr. Logan. And have you noticed the ceiling? But I presume you’re no antiquarian.”
Indeed, the ceiling was a wonder. Though the colors in which its panels were painted were much like those of the ceiling in Mary MacAskival’s parlor, here geometrical designs alternated with scores of stiff representations of queer men and beasties: kings, perhaps, and knights, and ladies, and lions, and leopards, and griffins, and waterhorses, and unicorns, and things for which Logan knew no name – no two alike. “Late fifteenth century, perhaps,” Jackman said, “and almost unique in the islands, this ceiling.”
At the center of all these painted ceiling-panels was a panel with a dull red background; and on it, little faded, was depicted a very odd creature. It had the body of a man; but there were cloven hoofs instead of feet, though it s
howed human hands; and the head was the narrow malign head of a goat. The face itself seemed to be a dismaying blend of human and animal features, in which the cunning slit goat-eyes dominated. “I see you are looking at the Firgower – the central panel,” Jackman went on. “A beast peculiar to Carnglass, it seems, the Firgower: half goat, half man. There’s still a ruinous building upon the cliffs called the Firgower’s house. I take it to have been the house of the last Pictish chief of Carnglass, before the Vikings came. There’s some remote Pict strain, as well as Norse, in your own Miss Mac-Askival, Mr. Logan. She is of the old family, true enough – not that she has the faintest legitimate claim to the property, you understand. But I suppose you have little interest in fictions like the Firgower. These legends sometimes have meaning, all the same. Once an archeologist told me that the Firgower may be some island memory of the last Pict chieftain himself: an ugly brute, to judge from this portrait. The old islanders used to say that the Firgower never died, but lives on from age to age. And that’s true enough, Mr. Logan, after a fashion – the goat strain, I mean. I don’t scruple to say that a goatish strain has run through the line of MacAskival, from beginning to end. Gallant men and handsome women; but concupiscent, Mr. Logan, concupiscent. You understand me? There are vessels for honor, and vessels for dishonor.”
“I can’t say that I do understand, precisely, sir.” The two of them were seated in leather chairs now, and Jackman was pouring sherry from an eighteenth-century decanter. What with Mary MacAskival absent, Logan could spend his time studying this unnerving Dr. Jackman. As Donley had told him, the fellow was clever, immensely clever; and more than that, wise, perhaps; and voluble. He made Logan uneasy to a degree Logan never had experienced with that gunman Donley. The little deformed man had a commanding presence. And still Logan was unsure of the nature of Jackman’s deformity: it was something about the spine and shoulders, though not crippling or really noticeable. Yet Jackman’s lean face had about it just a suggestion of that look of suffering and humiliation which one sometimes sees on the faces of congenital hunchbacks. And there was something dismaying about the man’s forehead. Right at the middle of his brow existed a small and shallow depression, about the size and shape of a sixpence; and there seemed to be no bone behind the skin at that spot. Now and then the place seemed to stir a little, as if the skin lay upon the quick brain. In an unpleasant way, it was fascinating.