It was her father who had all the anxieties to face. It was he who had a bolt attached to the garden gate, and made sure she went nowhere unattended, and dealt with the troublesome suitors. And he knew very well that it was not simply her fortune and her beauty that attracted these men, but also the fact that Isobel the widow was a virgin still, untouched and unawakened. It was very well known that James Carnegie had suffered an apoplectic fit on the evening of their wedding day, and lain speechless and paralysed ever after. Most of the men who flocked to the door had been waiting eagerly for the past two years, expecting every hour to hear of James Carnegie’s death. That it had not come sooner was, Andrew knew, due largely to Isobel’s devoted care.
‘I think,’ he said proudly to John one day, ‘there’s not another girl in Scotland who’d have kept her marriage vows so faithfully with no hope of anything in return. And it’s not as if he had very much to offer before he was ill—A fortune, of course, and he was a kindly man—But old enough to be her father, and with no good looks to speak of—’ He sighed. ‘Many times I’ve wished we’d never urged the match on her, but there—We can’t know what’s to come.’
‘And perhaps she’s the better for it,’ John consoled him. ‘For was she not a little wilful in her younger days? The past years have calmed and matured her. I watched her grow up through the months of her married life. The man who wins her now will be fortunate indeed.’
Andrew Reid looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Aye, very fortunate, my friend. And he’ll have to be something of a hero to be worthy of my girl.’ He saw John’s face fall, and smiled kindly. ‘We’ll see—We’ll see—’ he said.
He’s a fair few years older than Isobel, he was thinking, and no more good looking than James Carnegie. But a good man, making a name for himself in his quiet way. And he cares for her, that’s plain. If she should want him, she could do worse. Time will tell.
His greatest pleasure these days lay in watching the colour return to his daughter’s cheeks, and the pretty girlish roundness that months of sleeplessness and constant anxiety had worn away. He thought proudly that she was like the summer countryside itself, with that complexion of honey and rose, those eyes blue as the morning sky, that silken hair the colour of ripened corn: lovelier far than her mother in her younger days, though she too had been a beauty once.
As the days passed Isobel began to feel as if she were slowly awakening from a bad dream. The past two years became gradually a merciful blur in her memory, and she began instead to remember her life before her marriage: the simple pleasures of family life, the walks and picnics, the laughter and games. But those things seemed to have gone for ever, and she had not yet found whatever pleasures life now had to offer. Sometimes, now and then, she felt a yearning restlessness, an uneasy longing for something unknown and unrecognised. She had strange dreams, in some of which the Highlander in the orchard played a part, in ways that disturbed and excited her. In her waking hours, she was not bored exactly, but felt all the same that something was missing.
It rained heavily one Sunday morning about three weeks after the funeral, and Isobel agreed to have her coach brought to the door to convey herself, her parents, and her maid, Janet, to the Kirk for the morning service.
‘I’m beginning to fear we’re haunted by Highlanders,’ exclaimed her mother, as her father gave the coachman his orders to move.
‘Oh?’ enquired Isobel. The memory of the Highlander in the garden still had power to bring the colour to her cheeks. ‘Why is that?’
‘There’s another one skulking out there just now, looking as if he’s up to no good. Did I not tell you of the man who was gazing into the window of Widow Frazer’s shop last Wednesday forenoon? Very odd, for I can’t imagine he had need of ribbons and laces - soap perhaps, by the smell of him, but that’s another matter. They seem to be popping up all over the place wherever I go. I do hope it doesn’t bode ill for us, with all these rumours of that tiresome young man across the water—’
‘Och, come now, Margaret my dear, surely to goodness a man can do his shopping in town without giving cause to think the Pretender’s upon us? Maybe he wanted some knick knack for his sweetheart back home. After all, they are but men, if barbarous in dress and behaviour. Clean them and dress them like ourselves and teach them English and give them some education, and you’d scarcely be able to tell the difference. Take John Campbell, for instance—’
‘Oh, John’s quite another matter—And he has passed most of his life amongst us. I don’t think he’d wish to call himself a Highlander now. He would agree with us on that score. No, John now, he’s—’
Isobel was glad to listen to the ensuing discussion of John’s virtues, until the church was reached.
The service was long and the sermon impassioned, and when they emerged at last into the fresh air the rain had long since given way to brilliant sunshine. Isobel would dearly have loved to walk home, but her father bundled them into the coach, saying it was already long past dinner time, and they set off down the street at a steady pace.
A little further on, the coach rounded a corner and then lurched suddenly, coming to a shuddering halt.
Andrew Reid put his head out of the window and called to the coachman. After a moment or two of a shouted exchange he drew back and said quickly: ‘There’s been an accident ahead—Some old woman hurt, he thinks—I’ll go and see—Wait here.’
He scrambled out, closing the door behind him, and disappeared from view.
‘Poor old soul!’ murmured Isobel. ‘Do you think we should go and help?’
‘Your father will let us know if there’s anything we can do,’ her mother reassured her.
They waited quietly, talking of nothing in particular, while a few minutes passed. And then all of a sudden the coach quivered, jolted, and started forward at an alarming speed.
Eyes wide, Isobel clung to the door, crying: ‘Oh, mother, the old woman! Oh, what can he be thinking of?’
And then she thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of her father, white-faced, horrified, pinned to one side by two rough tartan-clad figures, while behind them a third held a knife to the coachman’s throat.
‘Oh dear God, who is driving? What’s happened?’
Her mother screamed, and flew to the door, trying to force it open. Isobel grasped her.
‘No, no! You’ll be killed at this speed. Oh, sit still, mother dear—Janet, help me!’
Together they pulled Mrs Reid to safety, and she subsided onto the seat, sobbing wildly. ‘Oh, it’s the Highlanders, I know it is! We shall all be murdered in our beds!’
‘Nonsense,’ said Isobel as calmly as she could, hoping her mother had not seen who had her father prisoner. If that had been real - perhaps after all she had imagined it. ‘And we’re not in our beds,’ she added.
It was doubtful comfort, and had little effect on Margaret Reid. So distraught was she that it was not for some time that Isobel realised they had left the town and were travelling fast through the countryside. It was not a reassuring sight, but she did not risk speaking of it.
What has happened? she thought. Who can be doing this, and why? Or have the horses simply bolted? But she knew that was unlikely, or the coach would not have kept so unerringly to the road for so long.
And then at last, in the cool shade of a wood, the coach turned into a narrow lane and halted. Orders were shouted, there was a distant noise of horses’ hooves, over and above the coach horses, and then all at once the door was flung open. Hands reached in, and Isobel felt herself grasped and dragged roughly into the open.
Then, horribly, the door was slammed shut again, an order shouted in Gaelic, and the coach drove on, out of her sight.
‘Mother!’ she cried, and began to run along the lane after it.
Hands caught her and held her.
‘She’ll be safe enough. He’ll leave the coach at the next crossroads. They’ll have a long walk home, but they’ll take no harm.’
She knew that voice, deep and lil
ting, completely untroubled. She turned sharply and met the unforgettable dark eyes, full of ironic amusement.
Hector MacLean bowed.
‘We meet again, Mrs Carnegie—I give you that name,’ he added, ‘because it is still yours. But not for long... I do not like to be insulted.’
A trickle of fear ran coldly down her spine. ‘What…what do you mean?’ It was all so unreal, like a nightmare. Had she fallen asleep in the coach? Was this all just a bad dream?
‘You’ll know soon enough.’ He called another order in Gaelic, more softly this time, and she saw that the wood seemed to be crowded with Highlanders, and that it was not horses she had heard, but ponies, the shaggy sure-footed garrons best suited to the mountains. One was brought forward, and she realised she was supposed to mount. She shook her head, stubbornly refusing to move.
Hector MacLean drew his dirk. ‘Do you want me to bind you to the beast? Get up!’
Would he use that knife, if she were to refuse him? She dared not to risk it, and struggled onto the pony’s broad back, with a little ungentle assistance from Hector. And then most of the others mounted, bareback like herself, and they set off into the trees, one man leading her pony. They went quickly, but the men on foot kept pace with them easily, moving with silent loping strides through the patchwork of light and shadow. She noticed how the bright tartan merged into the background as they went, and understood its advantages as clothing for a race of cattle thieves and murderers. Was she to be their latest victim? What could they want with her? A ransom? That seemed the most likely. Yet such things did not happen, not to Isobel…
In that bewildered dreamlike state, she was aware of very little, except for the bumpy motion of the pony; and that after a time they left the wood and emerged into the bright hot sunlight, and then that they splashed through a shallow burn. On through another wood, and then along the edge of a cornfield, and a second, until at last they came to a cottage sheltered by trees; and halted in the ivy-shaded yard behind it.
The cottage looked almost derelict, with holes in the roof and broken windows. It could not have been lived in for years. But it was not empty now. Yet more Highlanders came softly out to greet them, speaking quietly in Gaelic, but clearly excited. Innumerable pairs of eyes peered up at her, full of lively interest from beneath shaggy fringes of hair. She recoiled as one man reached out a grimy hand to finger the shining black silk of her gown, but at a sharp command from Hector he drew back again.
She felt Hector’s touch on her elbow. ‘Into the house with you, Mrs Carnegie!’ he ordered, one hand on his dirk.
There was no point in arguing. Even if Hector had no intention of using his knife, his wild-looking band of retainers still hemmed her in, and she did not trust them at all. Obediently, with a sleepwalker’s dazed half-consciousness, she made her way towards the back door of the cottage, half off its rusted hinges.
There was an evil-smelling kitchen, and beyond that a living room, lit with a dim green light because of the trees and bushes crowding close to its windows. And in there waited a small, respectable looking man, dressed in dark grey, with brown hair neatly tied back, and a small leather-bound book in his hand. He came forward as if to greet her, but paused as Hector spoke to him in Gaelic.
Then she realised that Hector had bent close to her and was whispering in her ear. ‘One little sign that you’re less than willing, and you’ll not see the moon rise tonight!’
She gazed at him in bewilderment, and then back at the other man, and then at the three Highlanders who had followed them into the room, closing the door behind them. Her heart thudded. What was going to happen now?
Hector took her left hand in his and led her forward to stand before the quiet man, who cleared his throat and opened his book, and began to read.
And Isobel realised with appalling clarity that Hector MacLean had brought her here to make her his wife.
She looked about her, thinking fast, desperately seeking some way of escape. How long had it taken to ride here? Was it possible that her father might have freed himself in time to follow the speeding coach and come to her rescue?
And if Hector wished to marry her, were his menacing words against her any more than empty threats? He would gain nothing by her death. If she were to defy him now and try to escape, would he let her go?
She dared not risk it. Who knew what went on in the mind of a wild Highlander? It would be easy enough to conceal a body in this deserted and lonely spot, and then no one would ever know what had become of her.
She realised that the minister - if such he was - had paused, and was looking at her with concern, so she turned back quickly to face him, trying to appear as calm and untroubled as possible. If only her hands did not tremble so! But perhaps he would think it natural for a fugitive bride to be nervous. What tale, she wondered, had Hector told him? That they must marry secretly, because they loved in spite of her family’s disapproval?
Then she wondered about the minister. Was he indeed a minister of the Scottish Kirk? Or was he perhaps a Catholic priest, or a non-juring episcopal clergyman in trouble for refusing the oath of allegiance to the King? She knew many Highlanders preferred these forbidden faiths to the Presbyterian church of the land. Would this marriage be legal if he were not a minister? She could not guess from the words he read. Though the service was conducted in English she was too frightened to remember if her first marriage had followed the same form. She had been frightened then, too—
But she was careful all the same to give the right answers, as clearly as she could, though her voice was low and shaking. She did not look up once, not even when she felt Hector raise her hand to push his ring onto the finger where James Carnegie’s had once lain. She realised he must have removed that some time before the ceremony, though she did not remember him doing so.
And then his hands grasped her shoulders, and she felt his lips cool and light on her forehead, and she knew it was over.
Except that it wasn’t over. The next moment he pulled her into his arms. And then a shock ran right through her, as she felt him bring his mouth to hers with a kiss like nothing she had ever known in her life before.
Urgent, demanding, it seemed to sear her body, fill her, melt her. It was as if they were fused together, white hot, while the room around them, the minister, the throng of men, the wood beyond, the whole world outside, all faded, dwindled to nothing and fled.
Then, as if it had never been, it ended - so suddenly, so abruptly, that she almost fell as he drew away from her, so little power was there left in her legs.
He put out a hand to steady her, just for a moment, without looking at her. And then he simply turned away, going first to thank the minister and then on to share his satisfaction with the other men.
He had got what he wanted. She was his, before God and the law.
Alone, feeling suddenly utterly bereft, Isobel watched as the men cheered and shook Hector’s hands and slapped his back, and laughed together, comrades sharing a triumph. It was as if they had forgotten all about her, now the vows were exchanged, the formalities over. Yet there had been that kiss—Could that have meant nothing?
She leant against the wall, feeling weak still, her whole body aching with longing for - what? Her feelings were in turmoil. She was fearful, excited, wanting desperately to be away from here; and yet in some tiny hidden part of her, not wanting it at all.
What was going to happen to her, now the marriage was over and she was bound before God to Hector MacLean? Would he allow her to go home, to her parents, to her old life? She doubted it. He had married her for her fortune, and until he had that in his hands, he would surely not set her free.
And for that to happen, for their marriage to be fully recognised, there was one other thing that must be done. ‘A wife’s duty’, her mother had called it, on the night before her marriage to James. Did she owe that duty even to this man?
She shivered. The men were passing a leather bottle round now, laughing and joking in Gaelic, nev
er once looking at her. The minister had joined them, and seemed to be in as convivial a mood as the rest of them.
She wondered fleetingly if they would notice if she crept to the window and tried to escape, but she knew she would attract attention trying to break enough of that jagged glass to climb through. Was there any other way out?
She jumped as a hand grasped her elbow. Hector was at her side, his eyes very dark, his voice soft. ‘Upstairs now, Mrs MacLean!’
She followed his gaze to a shadowy corner of the room, where a rickety ladder led up into darkness. She could scarcely breathe for the thudding of her heart. She tried to obey his commanding pressure on her elbow, but her limbs would not respond. For a moment he whispered in her ear, trying to urge her on, and then he laughed and swept her off her feet into his arms.
There was a great encouraging shout of laughter from his companions, and they called after him as he bore her across the room to the ladder and mounted it slowly, sure-footed as a cat on the narrow rungs. She lay limp and trembling in his arms.
At the top of the ladder was an attic running the length of the cottage, lit only by holes where the thatch had fallen from the roof. It was cleaner than the rooms downstairs, and a heap of dried heather had been spread at one side, covered with a plaid.
‘Brought from Ardshee for our marriage bed,’ he whispered. And there, on that makeshift bed, he laid her down.
Unbidden, her thoughts flew back to another wedding day, another marriage bed... Then too she had faced this moment, made inevitable by the vows exchanged, when she must give herself to a bridegroom she scarcely knew…She had been afraid then, very afraid, repelled by the caresses already endured, terrified at the thought of those to come. But at the very last moment she had been spared…
The Chieftain Page 2