by Karen Ranney
She was grateful that the days were still temperate. The evenings would be chilly, as well as the mornings, but the cold wouldn’t start to seep into their bones for a few weeks. By that time, the Americans would have settled in, relishing their Scottish heritage.
They wouldn’t, however, be prepared for winter in the Highlands.
But they were wealthy and could well afford the coal to heat the rooms they wished to use. As for the Clan Hall and the Family Parlor, both were so cavernous that it made no difference that each had two tall fireplaces.
Her nose nearly froze on her face if she stepped more than ten feet away from a roaring fire.
“I won’t miss the winter here,” she said, shutting the window.
Helen didn’t say anything, but her look was dubious.
“I would think it would be lovely, what with the snow and ice. Does the loch never freeze?”
She shook her head. “It’s too deep, I think.”
“I’ve always liked winter,” Helen said. “Until I was alone. Then it seems like a cruel season, don’t you think?”
She didn’t know quite how to answer that comment. Luckily, Helen didn’t seem to expect one.
“I wish I’d married when I was younger. Now it’s too late, of course.”
Another comment for which she didn’t have a response. What could she possibly say? That marriage had been a blessing? That it had given her comfort? It hadn’t. It had simply been there, a partnership she and Bruce had shared. She’d attempted to be the wife he wanted, and he’d succeeded in being kind and generous to her.
But for the whole of it? Would she do it again?
Better to be miserable alone than to share that emotion with another person.
They retreated to the Laird’s Chamber once more. Old Ned had taken himself off somewhere, but Fergus had taken his place on the bed.
Her heart lurched when she saw him so pale. Fear was immediately replaced by anger. Why couldn’t Gordon have done what he’d said he’d do? Why hadn’t he remained in Inverness? Why had he brought Fergus here?
Stepping to the side of the bed, she placed her hand on Fergus’s clammy forehead.
“Don’t hover, Shona,” he said without opening his eyes.
“I’m not hovering.”
He opened his eyes. “I’m just resting,” he said.
“You’ve hurt yourself.”
“I’ve hurt myself,” he admitted. His wry smile touched a corner of her heart, reminding her of their childhood together. “I was trying to demonstrate that I’m not quite an invalid, but those stairs are damnable.”
Alarmed, she swept her gaze down to his leg.
“Your wound is worse?”
“No,” he said, sitting up. “It just hurts like the devil himself is jumping up and down on it.”
She glanced over at Helen who was looking as worried as she felt.
“Helen thinks we’re stubborn. You’ve just proven her point, Fergus,” she said. However irritated she was at him, she couldn’t harden her heart when he looked at her that way—the corner of his lip tilted in a grin, the look in his eyes unrepentant.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, helping him to sit on the edge of the bed.
“Especially when you expressly forbade me to come?”
“I didn’t.” Well, she had. “Not in so many words,” she said. “I wanted to deal with the Americans myself.”
“I don’t want to deal with them at all.”
She glanced at Helen, as if to concede that her companion was indeed right. They were two stubborn people, perhaps the most stubborn people in all of Scotland.
She had the feeling she would need every bit of her resolve before the sale of Gairloch was finalized, and before she left the past behind.
Chapter 6
Shona awoke at dawn, lighting the oil lamp in the room she and Helen had claimed as theirs. She couldn’t bear to sleep in the spacious chamber she’d had as a girl. The view from the window was of Rathmhor, and a secret part of her was afraid that she’d stand there, fingers pressed against the glass, yearning to be seven years younger and desperately in love.
Love died.
A flower withered if not watered. A plant shriveled if not given care. Even the hardy heather could be destroyed.
If not nourished, love perished.
They’d claimed one of the guest bedrooms, a chamber overlooking the winding approach to Gairloch. The last person to occupy this room had been a guest at her parents’ funeral ten years earlier.
The sunlight through the window was sullen, as if grudging the start of day.
Shona felt the same.
The room smelled dusty, overlaid with a tinge of mildew. Were the windows in this wing secure? Or had Old Ned simply left them open to the rain? The smell was an admonishment, as tangible as the layer of dust over every surface.
She and Fergus had not been good stewards of their heritage.
Gairloch was the symbol of her clan’s honor, filled with so many memories that they could drown her if she let them. Every room held a reminiscence: her father’s booming voice, her mother’s smile, the sound of Fergus’s running feet.
Now she prayed for the courage to say good-bye.
She had no other recourse but to sell the castle. Instead of dwelling on the bad, she should think of the good. Once she sold Gairloch, she’d never have to see Gordon’s home. She’d never again have to think of the crofter’s hut tucked neatly in the woods, or the path to the loch and the brae where they’d had their picnics so many years ago.
If she sold Gairloch, they’d have enough money to go away to some warmer place, where Fergus could sit in the sun and brown, where the chilled wind didn’t hint of winter even in the middle of summer.
Fergus, however, was not cooperating.
For now, she would dust the fixtures, clean the floors, polish the fireplace andirons, sweep the corridors, and brush away the cobwebs. Perhaps she’d even sing in the shadows to banish the ghosts in the unused wings.
Her stomach rumbled, as if to remind her that dinner last night had consisted of only brown bread, jam, some beef tea, and the last of a jarred stew. By unspoken agreement, she and Helen had forced the stew and the beef tea on Fergus, ensuring that he ate, rather than drank, his dinner.
Old Ned had procured a bottle of wine from the cellar and Fergus had appropriated it, making headway to the bottom before their dinner was finished. Since they had no laudanum or anything else he might use for pain, she remained silent.
“Is this all there is?” Fergus had said at the beginning of the meal.
“We’re saving the oats for breakfast,” she’d said, with more good humor than she felt.
They’d exchanged a look.
“I simply didn’t plan well enough,” she said, unwilling to let him know the full degree of their poverty. “I should have arranged for provisions in Invergaire Village.”
“I hope you will, tomorrow,” he said, pouring himself another tumbler of wine.
She bit back in the remark she might have made. What could she say? There isn’t any money, brother. There hasn’t been for the longest time. The sale of Gairloch is the only thing to save us.
He’d never questioned her inheritance from Bruce or the expenses of her Inverness home. He probably wouldn’t query her on the money to be spent in readying Gairloch for visitors. That question would be easily answered. She had none. Somehow, she would have to entertain the Americans with creativity and sleight of hand.
Prayers wouldn’t hurt, either.
In his defense, Fergus had other things to concern him, such as surviving his injuries.
Her stomach made its presence known again. The idea of breakfast was holding a great deal of interest, even if it was only boiled oats.
Helen, whose face had been buried in a very lumpy pillow, turned her head and blinked several times. Her hair was a nimbus of frizz; her face bore several wrinkles from the sheets. The disarray was disturbing, since Hele
n was normally so neat in appearance.
“Will he send some food today, do you think?”
Their thoughts were such twins of each other that she smiled.
“If he doesn’t, we’ll simply have to return to Inverness and sell my clan brooch.”
“Would you truly sell the brooch, Shona? It’s all you have left of your mother.”
Why had she told Helen that in a moment of weakness?
“Memories can’t be sold,” she said.
“There are a great many weapons in the Clan Hall,” Helen said.
She only nodded.
As laird, Fergus wouldn’t hear of any of the artifacts being sold. Every one of the swords saved from countless battles, shined and polished with edges kept honed, was sacrosanct, along with the shields, dented and bloody in spots, either indicating a victory or the death of a clan member. Some of the pipes hanging in the Family Parlor hadn’t been played since the first years of Gairloch. The reeds were clogged with dust and the bags hung in tatters, but they might fetch a few pennies.
Not if Fergus had anything to say about it.
They might starve to death, but Gairloch would remain inviolate.
Helen threw back the covers from her side of the bed. There hadn’t been time to ready two chambers last night, so countess and companion had shared a lumpy mattress in a stale room. Helen stared at the floor as if trying to come to grips with the reality of dawn. With her hair arranged in one fat braid, she looked a great deal younger than once she was dressed all proper and prim.
“We’ll make what we can for breakfast,” she said, smiling at the other woman. “When that’s done, we’ll begin cleaning.”
Helen nodded. “It will take my mind from my hunger.”
She hesitated at the screen and turned back to Helen. “Thank you,” she said.
“Whatever for?”
“For not grumbling about the task. I know you were not hired to be a charwoman.”
Helen shrugged. “One must do what one must do,” she said. A smile trembled on her lips. “You’re a countess, and yet I’ll wager that you work as hard as anyone today.”
“There’s no other choice,” she said. “Old Ned seems useless. Fergus will insist on helping but shouldn’t tax himself.”
Helen slid from the bed. “Then we’ll have to be enough,” she said.
Once dressed and fed—such as it was—they began in the Clan Hall.
The room was cavernous, taking up the whole of the middle of Gairloch. Its mirror was the Family Parlor, reached through a tall arched doorway in the middle of the far wall. Here, however, was where the members of the clan had congregated to adjudicate disputes, pay their yearly rents, or meet before battle.
The room had not been furnished for comfort but for gatherings. In the corner, on a small pedestal barely a foot high, sat the laird’s chair. Constructed of wood that had once been painted but was worn and dark now, it had two broad arms, and a tall back inscribed with the clan’s badge: five upward pointing spears gathered by a ribbon on which were written the Gaelic motto: Be afraid of nothing.
She stared at it for a moment, wondering if any of the lairds of the past faced what she did now—a penury so encompassing that she worried about food.
Two round tables with accompanying chairs sat on either end of the room. Other than a series of benches arrayed against each wall, there was no other seating. Comfortable chairs, settees, and lamps were reserved for the Family Parlor.
The echoes of war seemed to linger in this room, and it had always been odd to her that no one had ever sighted any of the ghosts of Gairloch in the Clan Hall.
“I think it would be best,” she said, looking over the room, “to begin from the top down. We’ll lower the chandelier, clean it first, then dust, and lastly sweep and wash the floors.”
“A masterful plan of attack, my general,” Fergus said from the doorway.
She turned, surveying him from head to toe. His clothing was wrinkled, but that was to be expected. His hair was brushed, however, and he’d taken the time to shave. Neither Fergus nor Gordon wore beards, so at odds with fashion that she wondered if it was a small rebellion of theirs.
His eyes, however, were clear, and if he leaned a bit too heavily on his cane, she wouldn’t mention it.
“Did you use the back stairs this time?” she asked, arranging the buckets, brushes, and rags as if they held more interest than her brother’s health.
“I nearly slid down them,” he said.
She quickly glanced up to see the smile he and Helen exchanged.
“I care about you,” she said, annoyed. “Or I wouldn’t ask.”
“You care too much, Shona,” he said, entering the room. “One would think you were my mother. Not my younger sister. My much younger sister.”
His look was steady and this time she glanced away first.
“We left toast for you,” Helen said.
“Found it, ate it, and looked about for more food. Shouldn’t we solve that problem before we begin to clean?”
“I’ll solve the food situation,” she said, handing Helen a bucket and some rags.
Inside the bucket was a jar of ashes to be used to brush into the carpet in the Family Parlor. If they could finish the almost monumental task of cleaning the Clan Hall, they’d move on to that room.
“We could live here,” Fergus said. “We’ve the forest for wood and there’s plenty of game. You could set the kitchen garden to rights. Who cares if there’s only the three of us, plus Old Ned, rattling around?”
He could barely walk. Now he was talking of hunting and chopping wood?
She pushed down her impatience, remaining silent as if she was entertaining his idea. He didn’t know that she’d spent many, many sleepless hours trying to figure a way out of their dilemma. The lamentable fact was that the three of them were woefully unequipped to fend for themselves, even at Gairloch.
“Have you come to help?” she asked.
When he nodded, she smiled, having figured out a task that would leave him his pride and not exhaust him.
She went to the doorway, pointing to where a rope was wound around a pair of iron spikes set into the wall.
“If you’d lower the chandelier, please,” she said, “Helen and I will clean it.”
She walked away, determinedly not looking to see if he needed assistance. The chandelier was heavy, and even with the rope on a pulley, it would be a chore. But the effort would require his arms, not his wounded leg, and use enough strength that Fergus wouldn’t feel she coddled him too much.
What a delicate thing was a man’s pride.
She grabbed her bucket and walked to the other side of the room. Fergus swore, then swiftly apologized. Neither Helen nor she looked in his direction. He would just have to manage. If he asked for her help, she’d be at his side the next second. However, the creak of the pulley indicated that he was managing quite well.
“Damn heavy, Shona,” he said, before apologizing for his language again.
She looked up at the lowering chandelier.
For months, worry had filled every moment, but for a few short minutes, it was pushed aside by regret. And, perhaps, grief as she stared at the cobwebs that swept from the corners to tenuously perch on the chandeliers, and then draped from shield to claymore to dirk. A message that the past was dead, given a dust shroud, and decorated by industrious spiders.
Helen’s stomach growled, the sound embarrassingly loud in the silence. When she excused herself to go and fill the buckets, Shona turned to her brother.
“I’ll have food here by this afternoon,” she said.
The villagers of Invergaire would be more than happy to assist them, since all their ancestors had been clan members. But she wasn’t about to go door to door, explaining their plight. The shame of even having that thought was painful.
We’re poor. We’re beyond poor. We’re destitute, and we’ve nothing but Gairloch.
Hardly words she’d utter aloud.
Helen should never have asked Gordon for help. He’d aid Fergus, perhaps, but she couldn’t even be sure of that. Not once in the six months since they’d returned from India had he written.
And have my letters returned?
She wouldn’t have done that. A still, small voice whispered that she might have. She had no reason when it came to Gordon.
The black dress she was wearing was one of her oldest, so she wasn’t concerned about its welfare. She used one of the longer rags to bind her hair. After Helen returned from filling up the two buckets, she did the same.
The chandelier, an elaborate ring of interlocking circles, held sconces for two dozen thick pillared candles. In the last century, glass shields had been placed around the candles so that the hapless visitors standing under the chandelier wouldn’t be showered with hot wax.
She’d thought to bring a knife from the kitchen and it was the first tool she used, scraping off dried puddles at the base of the candles.
“Are there any more candles in the pantry?” she asked, turning toward Fergus, who was tying off the rope now that the chandelier had been lowered.
“Is that my new task?” he asked.
“That, and making sure the stove is lit,” she said, smiling.
He only nodded and left the room, leaving her and Helen to their chore.
By the time he returned, they’d finished scraping and polishing. The iron would never be attractive, being a dull gray cast, but the glass shields sparkled.
“We’ve only got three candles,” Fergus said.
With the remaining five, they would provide some illumination. Perhaps the Americans would see the dimness of the Clan Hall as atmospheric. A true Scottish castle, complete with shadows and hints of other times.