The Handfasters

by Helen Susan Swift

  “You mount up,” Mr Kemp ordered gently, “and I will lead. Did you bring a cloak?”

  I had only my light pelisse; it was pretty, with fine stitching, but was more suited for the dictates of town fashion than the rigours of the Scottish winter. Mr Kemp, forward thinking man, had found a heavy travelling cloak in bottle green, which he slipped around my shoulders. Strangely, it was scented with some perfume that was slightly familiar, but I could not say where I had experienced it before.

  With Mr Kemp walking at my side, we walked up river. So far that January we had been lucky, but now the rain started, weeping through the network of branches above and dripping down upon us. I huddled into my new cloak but poor Mr Kemp had only his jacket to cover him. He did not complain, but walked solidly onward as we passed the various small villages and chuntering mills that lined the Water of Leith.

  Now I will not bore you with the tedium of travel, but suffice to say that it is around fourteen miles from the Village of Dean to Malleny Mills on the outskirts of the Pentland Hills, and by the time we arrived I was drooping in the saddle. I am a reasonable rider, but parts of me were distinctly uncomfortable after the haul on the rough road, and I am sure that Mr Kemp was also fatigued, although he did not show it.

  We had spoken of many things during that walk, and I had got to know Mr Kemp a little better. I now knew more about engineering than I cared, but I also knew more about the fish and wildlife of the river, the name of just about every person we met on the road and even the politics of the French Wars. Of anything that mattered, and in particular of Mr Kemp's feelings for me, not a whiff did I have.

  I knew then that Mr Kemp would be a good man to trust with a secret, for he told only what he wanted you to know.

  “We will stay here the night,” he said quietly, “if you would care to dismount?”

  I obeyed at once and tried to ease the stiffness from my nether quarters without being seen, for of course a lady must never admit to even possessing such parts when in the company of a gentleman, or even Willie Kemp. If he noticed my discomfort, he did not say. “Where are we?” I asked, for we had stopped at a rather imposing tower a mile or so past the mills and at the head of a short but breathless rise.

  “Bavelaw,” he told me. “Now you wait here while I find us somewhere to sleep, and something to eat.”

  “Be careful, Mr Kemp,” I warned, and for the first time I realised that my behaviour could well get him into trouble. I told him so, and he gave that slow smile that I was getting used to.

  “Thank you for the thought,” he said, seriously, “but don't you worry about me. I'm quite well known around here. After all, mechanics and artisans are rather a rare commodity.” He smiled again, patted the pony and stalked toward the tower house.

  I say stalked with meaning, for he had a long loping stride that was very familiar to me. I had seen the like many times on the hill men of Badenoch, and suddenly I realised from where my attraction for Mr Kemp came. He had the same surety, the same dogged certainty and the same determination as the men of my home. Perhaps, I thought, it was not Willie Kemp with whom I was in love, but the familiarity that he portrayed?

  I shook my head. No, that could not be. I could not have made that mistake.

  It was nearly fifteen minutes before Mr Kemp returned and he was smiling. “It is all serene, my dear. It is arranged that we will sleep in the kitchen tonight, and the horse will be stabled and fed.”

  I chose to ignore the familiarity of that my dear and instead voiced my concern about the arrangements he had made. “In the kitchen?” I am not sure what I expected, but I had known only the best all my life. Although I knew that Willie Kemp was of a lower social standing, I was not prepared for everything that gulf in class would entail. After all, kitchens were for servants and I was a gentlewoman.

  “Yes, we'll be nice and warm there and safe from questions. I know these people and nothing will reach Lady Elspeth's ears that she does not already know, and that is a promise.”

  The servants seemed quite amused to greet us, treating Mr Kemp with far more respect than the rough humour they used on me, but they were pleasant enough and made us welcome in their own way. To be honest, my dears, I found them easier company than many of their so called betters, and they provided us with a warm place to sleep for the night. I shared a tiny cupboard; I really cannot call it a room, with a couple of bright young Abigails. They retired a little before midnight and were up well before dawn but between times they slept like corpses. I was not sure where Mr Kemp spent the night hours and I confess I barely gave the matter much thought, but he seemed very refreshed in the morning.

  “Are you sure that nobody will tell the master?” I did not know who owned this Bonaly Tower, but the owner would certainly know Aunt Elspeth.

  Mr Kemp just gave that infuriatingly slow smile. “You have nothing to worry about, Miss Lamont. As I have already explained, your aunt will not hear anything that she does not already know.” He leaned closer. “I know these people. You can trust them.”

  I liked Bonaly Tower. It was an old place of solid grey walls set within wooded policies, washed by the winter rain and soft with the breath of the Pentland Hills. I liked it better than anywhere I had been since I came south, and it lifted my spirits when I again sat on the pony's side-saddle and headed for the heights.

  Now, you girls should know this part of the world, but in case you have forgotten, I will give you a quick reminder. The Pentlands are a range of low hills that begin a few miles south of Edinburgh and stretch about twenty miles south west. The hills in the north are close together and relatively steep, while in the south they are broader and lonelier. Although only a few people live within the heather slopes, there are weaving and agricultural settlements around the fringes, while shepherds and cattle drovers actually traverse the heights and slaps, as we call the passes.

  Mr Kemp seemed as happy striding through the Pentland Hills as he had sitting in his boat in the Nor' Loch. I watched him from the corner of my eye, and fell in love all over again. While in his shed he had been an artisan, and a hard working mechanic on the steam boat, here he was a man of the hills, perfectly at home in the heather.

  “You have been here before, Mr Kemp,” I accused, and he grinned to me. Not just his usual careful smile, but a full blooded grin.

  “Once or twice,” he admitted.

  “I thought that you lived by the loch,” I was beginning to think that Willie Kemp was not everything he seemed to be.

  “I do, sometimes.” Mr Kemp was back to his usual enigmatic self as he lifted his head and, if anything; increased the length of his stride.

  I liked the Pentland Hills on first sight. I liked the shapes and the small, intimate scale compared to my native Badenoch, I liked the sough of the wind in the heather and the friendly bubbling burns, but most of all I liked the people. Hill people are probably the same everywhere, self reliant, slightly wilder than those on the level ground but sound as a church bell at bottom.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “I am taking you somewhere that Lady Elspeth will not come,” Mr Kemp told me. The further we travelled, the more relaxed he became.

  I sighed and again tried to draw a commitment from him. “You know that I love you,” I told him.

  “I know that you have told me so,” Mr Kemp said. He continued to walk, stepping across a small burn without breaking stride. “This is the Kitchen Moss,” he spread his hand as if he were granting me a favour.

  I looked across a heather moor, gloomy but not unfriendly under the drizzling rain. “I told you it because it's true,” I said, realising that he had avoided revealing any feelings at all.

  Mr Kemp did not reply to that, but led me into the heart of the moor, skirting the occasional peat hole with so much familiarity that he must have known these hills as well as he knew his own hut.

  “Where are you taking me, Mr Kemp?”

  “You will see,” was all he said, and within fifteen minu
tes we were ascending a great lump of a hill, with a straggle of Scots Pine trees leading us to the summit and a view of half Scotland stretching before us.

  “This is Harper's Hill,” Mr Kemp told me, “although people are beginning to change the name to Cairn Hill because of the cairn of stones on top.” He indicated a distant mound, scarcely visible in the drifting mist and rain.

  “I like Harper's Hill better,” I told him. “It's more romantic.”

  “It certainly is,” Mr Kemp approved my choice. “It was said that the ancient druids used to play their harps here, hence the name.”

  I nodded, imagining the druids in their long white coats living on these hills. Hills without stories are only pretty: hills with stories have a character all of their own. Badenoch had been full of legends and stories, from the days of Ossian and the times of the clans to tales of Bonnie Prince Charlie and Cluny Macpherson. It was good to know that these gentler hills also had their share of the old legends. Somewhere above us the call of a hunting bird accentuated the loneliness, and then, when we had walked for some time, I saw the future Mr Kemp had planned for me.

  It was a small cottage sitting deep in a hope, a tiny closed valley. Above and all around was the heather moor, and there was not even the smoke of a human habitation for miles.

  “You want me to live there?”

  I was shocked. I was a gentlewoman born and bred, used to servants and soft living. Possibly more importantly, I knew only company. In Badenoch there was always my brothers and sisters and as many retainers as anybody would need. Even in Edinburgh I had Louise in the same room and my aunt and her household within call. Here, deep in the swell of the Pentlands, I had nobody, except maybe Willie Kemp.

  And the cottage was tiny. Hardly larger than Mr Kemp's hut, it had drystone unmortared walls two rooms and a stone necessary built outside the walls. The roof was of heather thatch that matched the surroundings so perfectly that it was hard to see where the building ended and the hillside began. I fought the prickle of tears that threatened to embarrass me in front of Mr Kemp.

  “Do you like it?” Mr Kemp seemed vastly pleased with himself. “You wanted me to find you somewhere that neither your aunt nor John Forres would find; I believe I have done exactly that.”

  “You have indeed,” I agreed, somewhat reluctantly. My aunt would never venture to such an out of the way place, and John Forres would hardly put a delicate foot out of doors yet alone venture into these wild hills.

  Mr Kemp smiled. “Come inside.” I was glad to see that, despite the remoteness, there was a key for the front door, and that the inside was clean, if Spartan in its lack of amenities.

  The front room had a plain deal table and two chairs, with a small black fireplace complete with a pail of coal and a pile of kindling.

  “There's peat stacked outside,” Mr Kemp told me helpfully. “You do know how to start a fire, don't you?”

  I nodded, glad of my childhood in Badenoch when we had roamed the Monadhliath mountains at will; lifting trout from the burn had always necessitated a small fire for cooking.

  “There is some food hanging in the larder,” Mr Kemp showed me a tiny cupboard with hooks from which joints of meat and lumps of fish hung. There were also baskets of vegetables and apples. “So you won't starve.”

  “And there are books.”

  There were two shelves of them, showing a catholic taste. I noticed Voltaire and Burns, the latest Walter Scott and a few Gothic romances beside classic tales of Swift and poems of Ferguson as well as heavier tomes of philosophy and science, geography and religion. There was even one in Gaelic, which I lifted like an old friend.

  The second room boasted a wide bed with a rustling straw mattress and a bedside table with an oval mirror and a vase of winter roses.

  “You put these there,” I accused, hopefully.

  “I did not,”' Mr Kemp denied. “Well my dear; what do you think of your new home?”

  I was not sure. Although it was exactly what I had wanted, I was afraid. Life is like that, my dears, we constantly bang on the door to get inside our dreams, and the minute we are in, we want out. We never appreciate what, or who, we have. For one fleeting instant I knew that John Forres would never have expected his wife to live in such a place. And then I looked at Willie Kemp and wondered what he was thinking.

  He was wearing an expression that I had never seen before, and I realised that he was anxious. He really wanted me to like this cottage that he had found, and I suspected, furnished, for me, and I knew that I could not hurt him.

  “It's beautiful,” I said, and only I knew that I lied. Honestly, I felt like crying, to think that I had given up all the comfort of Edinburgh's New Town, and all the definite luxury of the Forres lands and estate, for a hovel, and for Willie Kemp. And I he had still never made any commitment to me, besides those few fleeting kisses.

  “Good,” he nodded, and his expression changed.

  “It's like our own little love nest,” I said and immediately regretted the words as I suddenly realised where I was.

  I was alone in a very out of the way place with a man who was a virtual stranger. Nobody knew that we were here, and nobody could trace me. Bred by years of gothic romances, the horrible thought came to me that Willie Kemp might have lured me here for purposes other than love. Perhaps he only wanted to slake his lust – and that phrase was also from the gothic romances. The brutal reality was of cruelty and sordid humiliation. What better place could there be than a lonely cottage deep in the moors?

  I looked at him with horror, and I am sure that I whimpered, but Mr Kemp made no lustful advances as they did in all the worst books, he did not extend his evil arms, nor did he growl menacingly or leer at me from narrowed eyes. Indeed he only smiled, as if secretly amused.

  “Good. Now I am afraid that I must leave you, Miss Lamont.”

  The words struck me like a blow. “Leave me? Are we not to live together here?”

  “I must work on my boat,” Mr Kemp, that evil, wicked, deceitful man said, putting his mechanical tinkering before me, the hopeful love of his life.

  “But Mr Kemp…” I looked around at the suddenly bleak and chilling hills, with their terrible stories of druids and no doubt of human sacrifice. “I have never been alone before.”

  “I am afraid it cannot be helped,” he said, unfeelingly. “I know some of the local shepherds. I will ensure that they pop in every few days to ensure that you are safe.”

  “Shepherds?” I am sure my voice must have betrayed my panic and disdain. In Badenoch, you see, we did not have a high opinion of sheep and shepherds. The great evictions had already started; what you may know as the Highland Clearances, when the Highland glens were cleared of the tenancy, who made little money, to make way for sheep, which were profitable. Indeed we had a rhyme in Gaelic that gave our feelings for these woolly monsters.

  Mo bheannachd aig na balgairean

  A chionn bhi sealg nan caorach.

  The words translate as

  “My blessings on the foxes

  Because they kill the sheep.”

  “Our Pentland shepherds are a decent bunch,” Mr Kemp assured me when I related my feelings. “You need have no fear of them.”

  I think I may have stared stupidly at him as the realisation was driven further home. I would now be living as a recluse, a virtual hermit in this tiny cottage, with nothing to look forward to but a possible visit by a shepherd. I had swapped my comfortable life for this? Suddenly marriage to John Forres did not seem so bad. True, he was an obnoxious man, but I would only be with him for a few hours each day, if that, and I would be mistress of huge estates, able to come and go as I pleased, with a bevy of admirers and friends.

  I fought off the tears. You see, my dears, sometimes life is not as you expect, but one must just accept it and strive for better times. I had chosen this life of my own free will, and, as the old saying tells us, she that tholes overcomes. It was my time of enduring, I had made my bed and I must lie in it
… och, you can add any other proverb you can think of.

  Oh God, girls, don't believe all these old wives tales! Take it from me, an old wife, that there is always a choice and sitting waiting for a better time is not the answer. Fight for yourselves, girls. Take the world by the throat and shake every advantage out of it, make sure you have a comfortable, happy life and forget all this nonsense about patient enduring. Life is too short to suffer through.

  “One last thing,” said my smiling tormentor. “This cottage is on Cairnsmuir land, so be careful not to wander too close to Cairnsmuir House.”

  “Cairnsmuir? Mrs Cairnsmuir?” I well remembered that evil old harridan who had asked the most penetrating questions.

  “That's the very lady,” Mr Kemp said, “I'd better return the pony to its proper owner.” And he slipped away without even a goodbye, or a parting kiss.

  I must confess that I sat down and cried. Although I had got exactly what I wanted, and there are those who may say I got exactly what I deserved, and they may be right, I was not a happy lassie. Here I was, a gentlewoman, stuck in a tiny cottage in the middle of nowhere, cut off from everything I had once known and for what? In return I had the memory of a few kisses and the feeling that I might love Mr Willie Kemp the artisan.

  The more I contemplated my position, the more foolish I felt, but once I had committed myself, what was the alternative? Could I return home with my tail between my legs and hope for a welcome like the prodigal niece? Hardly. After all, after spending a night with a man, my reputation would be in shreds: it was not likely that John Forres would want anything to do with me, nor, for that matter, would any respectable man, yet alone a gentleman with lands.

  I had, in truth, ruined my life, and it was nobody's fault but my own.

  I must have cried half that day, but when the well of tears finally ran dry, I realised that I had not bettered my position in the slightest. So I picked myself up, checked what there was to eat and cut myself a slice of bread and cheese. Good bread too, and the cheese had a fine, nutty tang. The knife, I noted, had the same crown and crossed sword motif as there had been on Mr Kemp's brushes in the shed, and I resolved to ask him from where they came, if he ever came back for me.