The Devil's Promise

by Veronica Bennett

  The winding stairs creaked as I crept down them. I had never noticed it in the daytime. No matter where on each tread I stepped, it creaked. I hoped that by this time everyone in the house would be too deeply asleep to hear. I sped along the lower landing to the door at the end, which I knew led to Jamie’s private sitting room. I had been in it once, to borrow a book.

  It was small, with a casement window looking onto the courtyard at the rear of the castle, and the same high ceiling as the first-floor landing that led to it. The door was arched like all the castle doors, with an iron ring for a handle, which operated an old-fashioned latch of the kind seen on outdoor gates. In the daytime, the room was warmed by a good fire and cosy in a masculine way, with a patterned rug, untidy piles of books and a sofa with a blanket thrown over it, perhaps to hide its shabbiness. At night, it was a shadowy obstacle course.

  I had never been in Jamie’s bedroom, of course, and had been shocked when he had turned up in mine, even in the middle of the day. But here I was, making my way towards his door in the middle of the night. And undressed. What would Mother have said?

  My shin struck something that turned out to be a footstool, and I cried out. There would be a bruise there tomorrow. I stood with my hand over my mouth and my eyes watering, waiting for the pain to lessen. And that was how Jamie found me when he opened the bedroom door.

  “Cat!” His wary expression turned into surprise. “What on earth are you doing?”

  I felt my way to the sofa and sat down, rubbing my shin. “She came again!”

  We were both hissing in exaggerated whispers, though Doctor Hamish slept three thick-walled rooms away, and Bridie above the kitchen yard. Jamie fetched a dressing-gown from his bedroom and came back with it loose around his shoulders. As he moved closer I could make out that he looked tousled, and was blinking in sleepy astonishment. “Good God, what did you do?”

  “Nothing. I was in bed and suddenly she was there.”

  “Are you sure you saw her?” He took a box of matches off the mantelpiece, lit the lamp and turned the flame low. The room was still shadowed, but now the gloom had a yellowish tinge. I saw that Jamie’s dressing-gown had peacocks in full plumage embroidered on it.

  “Of course I’m sure. But there is more, Jamie. Listen.”

  “I am listening.” He threw the spent match into the grate and sat down on the arm of the sofa, his face looking thin and hollow in the lamplight.

  “She gazed at me, with such … I don’t know, longing, pleading,” I told him. “She went to the window and laid her forehead against it, and then came away again and pointed at the middle pane. You know there are nine panes in that window? It was the middle one in the middle row. What do you think she meant by doing that?”

  I knew I was gabbling, but I could not stop, and continued before he had a chance to speak. “She wants our help. Or, at least, my help. I could see it in her eyes. Oh, Jamie, I was so frightened!”

  He put his hand on my arm. “Tell me again about the window.”

  “She pointed at the middle pane, then she disappeared. I went and looked, but there was nothing there.”

  “Perhaps if we look in daylight, we will see what she wants us to see.”

  “But the room is so high!” I could not help sounding impatient. “Outside the window there is only the sky!”

  Through the thin material of my robe, I could feel his fingers encircling my arm. He did not seem inclined to remove his hand. In fact, he took hold of my other arm with his other hand, slid off the arm onto the seat of the sofa and pulled me towards him. I held my breath. “Cat, do you not see?” He was no longer whispering, though his voice was low. “That window overlooks the glen, where there is nothing but trees. So it must be something to do with a tree.”

  His eyes gleamed softly in the half-light. I had never been so close to a boy before. I tried to answer him, but could not find my breath. He moved even closer and gazed into my face with such tenderness, my heart leapt. My body seemed to melt under his touch. All my senses were heightened, all my sensations exaggerated, as if every nerve had been laid bare. Without questioning anything, I laid my head in the place between his chin and his shoulder, which fitted it exactly. His arms closed around my waist and we sat there in an impromptu, but not an awkward, embrace.

  He squeezed me so tightly, I could feel the muscles in his arms and his ribs against mine. His chin rested on my forehead and he breathed quickly into my hair. “Cat,” he said softly, “do you … do you like me?”

  I could not speak; my breath would not come. He moved closer, so that our foreheads were almost touching. “I mean, really like me?”

  My heart was so full I said nothing for a moment. His presence overwhelmed me; I was as helpless as a doll. But I no longer felt his breath. He was holding it, waiting anxiously for my reassurance.

  “Jamie…” I turned my face up to meet his gaze. “I do not know the words to tell you what I feel. But I know that my feelings are real.”

  He bent his head and kissed me swiftly, then pulled away and held me at arm’s length. His face was alight with joy. “You are a beautiful and extraordinary person, my darling Cat,” he said. “And if you would only give me the word, I will be your slave for ever.”

  Wild and whirling words! And typical of Jamie, of course – melodramatic and poetic. “You would make a sorry sort of slave,” I said. “I would rather you cared for me as an equal, as I care for you.”

  “You care for me!” he echoed joyously. “I will care for you always!”

  The lamp had almost run out of oil. Jamie’s shaggy hair was an irregular shape against the moonlight from the window and I could no longer distinguish his features. I clung to him and he to me, and we kissed again, with more purpose. His lips felt warm and surprisingly soft. Drowning, submerged by this unexpected plunge into love, I kissed him and allowed myself to be kissed, over and over again.

  Then, suddenly, I felt self-conscious. I was in his room, I was not wearing my corset or underclothes, and everyone else was asleep. Reluctantly, I began to disentangle myself. “Jamie, I should go.”

  His hands still held both mine. “I will not be able to go to sleep, after this.”

  “Neither will I.” I stood up and pulled my robe close. “But you must agree, I have to go.”

  He opened the door. “Tomorrow, we will find what the ghost was pointing at,” he whispered.

  “I hope so.”

  We parted slowly, hands touching until the very last. “Goodnight,” he said, kissing me once more.

  My blood was still moving round my veins absurdly quickly. When I had turned the sitting room’s iron latch silently behind me, I hurried up the spiral staircase, in the irrational hope that speed would lessen its creaking. It did not. My room seemed cold, and I huddled beneath the bedclothes in my dressing-gown. When warmth did not come, I realized I was not cold at all, but shivering with excitement and intoxicated with love.

  THE TREE

  The events of the night flooded back as soon as I awoke. Still heavy-headed from the short sleep I had eventually had, I rose and went to the window. It was another bright May morning. The air was clear, the dew was still on the grass and the landscape sparkled with the bright greens and yellows that only early summer can bring. I glanced at the clock; a quarter past seven. Everything was perfectly still. No branch trembled on the trees below my tower, and beyond, farther across the glen and into the purple of the mountains’ shadow, the world lay expectantly, poised for the new day under the wide, unclouded sky.

  Had it really happened? Had the ghostly visitor pointed out the middle pane? Had I rushed downstairs in my nightdress? Had Jamie and I embraced in his untidy sitting room, kissing? I hugged the thought to my heart, astonished.

  There was a knock on my door. Thinking it must be Jamie, I rushed to open it. But Bridie stood there, as she did every morning at this time, bringing my hot water and ready to lay and light the fire. I backed towards the bed, found my robe and dragged it o
n. “Good morning, Bridie.”

  “Good day to ye, miss,” she said in her modest way. She set down the ewer and knelt in front of the grate. I opened the wardrobe. “This is in need of a good brushing,” I said, holding up my dark skirt and inspecting the hem. “Would you be so good as to—”

  “To be sure, miss!” She was on her feet and taking the skirt from my hands. “Will there be anything else I may do for ye?”

  I had never had a personal maid, but I had watched Susan wait upon my mother. “No, not now, thank you.” There were other fires to light and breakfasts to get. “But before supper tonight, if you have time, will you come up and help me do my hair? I can never get it right, and I wish to look as nice as possible at table and for the evening afterwards.”

  Her brown eyes brightened and softened at the same instant. “Aye, miss, I’ll do that gladly! And if ye have a blouse or a nightie to mend, or shoes to polish, give them to me and I’ll see to them!”

  “Thank you, Bridie.” I took out my striped cotton dress and closed the wardrobe. “Now, you had better get on.”

  I washed and dressed as quickly as I could, while Bridie swept the already-spotless grate and set a match to the kindling she had laid. She had only just left and I was still fastening my belt, when Jamie knocked. Without waiting for an invitation, he came in, crossed the room and gave me an affectionate kiss on the cheek, as if I were a wife and he a husband arriving home from the office.

  “This is what parents do!” I exclaimed.

  “My parents don’t.” He went to the window overlooking the glen. “The middle pane?”

  I nodded. “You will have to stand on the chair.”

  He climbed up, studied the view for a moment, then made room beside him on the chair and beckoned to me. “Tell me what you see.”

  I scrambled onto the chair. Jamie put his arm around my waist and held me tightly. “Can’t have you falling off,” he said solemnly. I was possessed of a desire to fling both my arms around his neck, but resisted it. There was important business at hand. However, as our faces came level, his lips brushed my cheek. I offered the other one and he kissed it. We smiled at each other with satisfaction and turned to the windowpane.

  The view was as I had declared last night: sky. A glorious sky to be sure, the colour of forget-me-nots and speckled with birds in full cry – but sky nevertheless. “You see?” I asked him. “This room is too high to see anything from the windows except the sky, unless you are looking downwards. And she did not point downwards.”

  “But she put her forehead on the glass, did she not?”

  “Yes, lower down.”

  “So could she be showing you what she wanted you to do with the middle pane?”

  Of course she was. She had given her instructions, but I had been too dull to understand them. “You are quite right!” I exclaimed. “I climbed up, but I didn’t put my forehead on the glass!”

  “Then do so now,” he instructed. “Lean forward, put your forehead on the middle pane, and look downwards. I have got you; you will not fall.”

  I did as he asked. I could still see sky, but now I could also see the tops of the trees that lined the glen. They grew thickly among the rocks, some so ancient they resembled rocks themselves. In particular, a spreading pine appeared in the very centre of the view. “I see that pine,” I said. “The big one.”

  “Let me look.”

  I moved out of the way and he placed his own forehead against the glass. His body was close enough for me to feel, rather than hear, his intake of breath. “Good God, Cat, that’s it!” He raised his head and looked at me with elation. “It is not the tree. It is what is beneath it.” He let go of my waist, got off the chair and leaned against the window frame. “There is another cave, down there in the glen. MacGregor never tires of pointing out the place where the land slid and an old oak fell across the entrance. It is directly beneath that pine tree!”

  I was still standing on the chair. In his excitement, he grasped me around my knees. “We must go down there today – immediately!”

  Almost overbalancing, I steadied myself by putting my hands on his shoulders and he lifted me down. “Jamie,” I began warily, “be sensible. The cave, as you have just told me, is blocked by an old tree. We cannot get in, even if the ghost wishes us to.”

  He stood back and contemplated me with affection. “Darling Cat, that is exactly why we have to go and investigate. Do you not see? The cave has been inaccessible for twenty years. But those twenty years were before you came. Now you are here, this girl is telling us something about the cave, accessible or not. We cannot admit defeat until we have seen what is down there with our own eyes.”

  My spirits sank. “Is it dangerous?” I dreaded the thought of a visit to another cave. “Your grandmother says—”

  “My grandmother hates all the caves and thinks they should be bricked up. But they are not dangerous. You have seen that yourself.”

  I was not so sure. When Jamie had left me alone in the caves, I had been assailed by panic. There might not have been any actual danger, but the sensation of being lost, blind and helpless was not one I wished to repeat. “Why do you not go alone?” I suggested.

  “Because the ghost has indicated the place to you!” He could not disguise his exasperation, though he still gazed at me kindly. “She is your guide and you must be mine!”

  I sat down on the chair, defeated. It was futile to argue, or try to refute him with logic; we were in the grip of something that defied logical explanation.

  “You cannot go alone,” said Jamie. He was standing in front of the window, his face silhouetted by the daylight; I could not see his expression. But I heard earnestness in his voice. “I am not so much of a coward that I would allow it. But you must come, do you see?”

  I did see. I pondered for a moment, struck by a sudden memory. My father, whose best friend had been a soldier, used to say, “All soldiers are frightened as they ride into battle, but not one amongst them is cowardly.” I was frightened, but if Jamie was not a coward, then neither was I.

  “Very well, then,” I told him. “I suppose now the ghost has brought me this far, I had better go the rest of the way.”

  He grinned. “That’s my Cat! You are as curious as any other cat, are you not?”

  “I suppose I am.” Apprehensively, I tried to return his smile. “But I am not as agile. I do not always fall on my feet.”

  “Why are you wearing that dress?”

  Jamie was looking at me critically, shading his eyes against the sun. The light was so relentless it had turned the side of the glen into a glittering wall, blackening the shadows so completely that I did not know how we were going to find the right tree. “Because it is the one I put on this morning,” I told him blankly, looking down at the dove-coloured striped cotton that reached to my ankles, supported as usual by two petticoats. It was my thinnest dress and I had not had time to have any summer mourning made. Father, I was sure, would not disapprove.

  “For the love of God,” sighed Jamie, “why can girls not wear sensible clothes?”

  I was offended. “Like every other girl, I wish I could!”

  He was standing in a shaft of sunlight. I saw his teeth glint as he smiled. “You can put on an old pair of my trousers and my smock, which needs mending anyway, and we can climb down together like mountaineers!”

  I began to laugh. “I cannot dress in your clothes!”

  He caught me around the waist and pulled me to him. “Why not?”

  Objections failed me. “Well, if I must. But I will never get out of the house without someone seeing me. You had better bring the clothes here and I will put them on.”

  He scampered off, whipping the twig this way and that. I took two or three tentative steps down the glenside, but was soon stopped by a knee-high wall of bracken, immoveable against my skirt. I picked up the hem and tried to make further progress, holding the skirt up and away from my body, but it was clear: a girl in a long dress and two petticoats ca
nnot climb down a rocky hillside. I needed my hands for balance, not for holding up my skirt.

  I sat down on a stump and raised my face to the warmth of the sun. Something caught the corner of my vision. I shaded my eyes. On the other side of the glen, where the trees thinned and the grouse moor began, a kilted man leaned on a stick. It was MacGregor. I was wearing a light-coloured dress; I could not have made myself more obvious against the dark greens and browns if I had tried. I waved to him. He did not wave back, though I was certain he had seen me.

  I got up and entered the shadow behind a tangle of branches, out of MacGregor’s view. After a few minutes Jamie appeared with a bundle in his arms. Taking it from him, my heart turned over; the smock smelled of carbolic soap and cigarettes, like Jamie himself.

  “If you were a gentleman, you would turn your back,” I told him.

  He grinned. “And if you were a lady, you would go behind that tree so I did not have to.”

  The rowan tree was in full foliage; I could not have had a better screen as I stripped off my dress, then, after a moment’s hesitation, my corset as well. When I put the trousers on over my drawers it was a strange sensation. The garments were the least restricting I had ever worn; I might as well be in my nightdress. I took the black ribbon from the crown of my head and used it to tie all my hair back, as I had worn it when I was twelve. Now, resembling something between a man and a woman, a child and an adult, I emerged from behind the rowan tree.

  “Do you approve?” I asked Jamie.

  He spun round and burst into laughter. “You look even more ridiculous than before!”

  “Thank you.”

  “But as lovely as ever,” he added, still chuckling. Then, serious again, he took my hand. “Now, tread where I tread, and hold onto anything you can with your other hand. I know what the climb is like. I used to roam all over this glen as a boy.”