The Devil's Promise

by Veronica Bennett

  I was aware that Jamie, hidden from Mrs McAllister by my parasol, was shaking his head. “Thank you, but no,” I said.

  “I do not need anything.”

  “Cat and I will wait for you, Grandmother,” he declared, “by the river, in that spot with the view of the church.”

  He led me down a cobbled slope between cottages, to a wooden seat in the shade of a stone bridge that spanned the river. It was the same river, I realized, that ran at the bottom of Drumwithie glen. That morning, Jamie and I had stood above it on the rocky ledge that supported the pine tree. The tall tree, standing proud of the others, visible from the middle pane of the tower window. My ghost’s tree.

  I sat down, and Jamie leaned against the arch of the bridge and lit a cigarette. “Good God, I’m glad to get away from my grandmother!” he sighed. “I can’t draw breath without her criticizing me, and now she’s started on you.” He gave me a sympathetic look. “It makes me even more relieved than I usually am that I was born male. Does your mother behave like she does?”

  “Not quite, no. But she does insist on decorum.”

  “Ah, our trusty friend, decorum!” Sitting down beside me, he stuck his cigarette in his mouth and took off his hat and jacket. The heat of the day had smeared his hair across his brow, and the starch in his shirt collar was wilting, but he looked more beautiful than ever. My heart quivered uncertainly, but I had discovered a truth: beauty, commonly believed to be in the eye of the beholder, is in the soul of the beloved. He was beautiful because he cared for me, as I cared for him.

  I cradled the thought inside me. This desire for Jamie was not a mere schoolgirl infatuation. It was meant to be. I had always been destined to come to Drumwithie, and love this strange, difficult man, full of such joy and such woe. And if I believed this, I must also believe that I really was the Cait Sìth, who had unknowingly awoken the ghost, and might yet discover how and why such a young girl had died.

  There on that quiet riverbank, sleepy in the sunshine, death seemed impossible. The water flowed, the trees were bright with new leaves, the sky reached to a blue infinity. Amidst all the splendour in the world, cruel fate had taken my father away and laid him in a wooden box in St Stephen’s churchyard. The memory of the box, with its brass handles, hurtled into my mind, but I squashed it. Father’s body was in that box, but his spirit was here among the trees and in my heart.

  I sat there, dreaming, only half-listening to Jamie’s idle talk while the smoke from his cigarette disappeared into the sunlight. But the dream brought guilt as well as pleasure. How could it be that, only a few weeks after the death of my beloved father, I was happier than I had ever been?

  1903

  Seven years previously

  The boy’s golden head was bent over his porridge bowl. As usual, he was eating as ravenously as if he had not tasted food for days. At fourteen years old, he was growing quickly.

  “Shall I ask Bridie for more toast?” she suggested, seeing there were only two slices left in the rack. Her husband, late for the surgery, had hurried out, a slice in each hand, to the stable.

  The boy’s mouth was full, so he shook his head instead of trying to speak. She was pleased to see it; her decision to continue to educate him at home instead of sending him to school was paying off. His manners were daily becoming more gentlemanly. His father had reported that the execution of his schoolwork was improving too, and had shown her some recent work selected by his tutor. She had been particularly taken by the accuracy and neatness of his map-drawing.

  She poured herself a second cup of tea. “Do you have geography today?” she asked him. “I thought your map of Canada and the United States was extremely well done.”

  He was scraping up the last of his porridge onto his spoon. “I like drawing,” he told her, “but I don’t like geography much. Today I have Latin verbs to learn, then French with Monsieur Lavelle this afternoon.”

  She nodded, glancing at the clock. “Well, if you are finished with your breakfast, you had better get to your books.”

  He kissed her cheek and left the dining room. She heard his boots striking the flagstones, then thudding on the library carpet. Why could fourteen-year-old boys not walk quietly?

  Bridie came in to clear the table before the second cup of tea was drunk. “Oh, Bridie, we seem to be running a little late this morning,” she said. “Will you sit down and we can go through the list here, to save time?”

  “Aye, madam, I have it in my apron pocket.”

  Wednesday was shopping-list day. Bridie took the list from her pocket and sat in the boy’s place. Familiarity with servants was greater at Drumwithie than it had been at her father’s vicarage, but even here it would have been unthinkable for Bridie to sit in the master’s chair. They pored over the list together. All the usual things were there. She granted Bridie’s request for two packets of laundry starch instead of one, and the task was finished.

  “I’ll be away to the kitchen, then, madam,” said Bridie. “Baking today, ye ken.”

  “Oh, yes!” She handed Bridie her empty cup. “May we have scones? Jamie loves them so, and he seems to need so much food these days!”

  “Aye, no bother, madam. There’s plenty of sour milk to use up.”

  “Thank you, Bridie.”

  Drawing her shawl about her shoulders, she went through the boot room and out of the side door. She had to pick up the hem of her dress as she made her way across the dew-soaked grass and into the scrubbier vegetation of the glenside. Once she had entered the caves and was standing in the first chamber, she let her skirts go. They swept the damp floor as she felt her way along the wall to the next cave, and up the staircase to the one with the slit between the boulders.

  The stripe of daylight bisected the gloom. She could just see the place where the passageway led off the cave, and when she went towards it, she could hear the water splashing into the pool.

  Quickly, she took off her shawl and jewellery. She left her wedding ring and the tortoiseshell comb her husband had given her on their tenth anniversary in the centre of the folded shawl. Then she slipped off her house shoes. Her stockinged feet silent on the wet stone, she felt her way along the wall towards the sound of the trickling water, and the promise of oblivion.

  THE SILVER CASE

  Meals at Drumwithie Castle followed rituals as predictable as train timetables. At suppertime, we did not change our clothes, but went straight to the dining room. Water, never wine, was served at table. The doctor would sometimes pour himself a whisky from the cupboard in the corner of the Great Hall, and drink it with his after-supper coffee. But he never offered Jamie or me a “dram”, as he called it.

  On the evening of our visit to the surgery, our early luncheon ensured I was ready for supper. I washed sketchily, pleased to see that Bridie’s skill had kept my hair much neater than usual. My heart was light; I took the shallow stairs quickly, and almost stumbled through the open door of the dining room.

  Bridie was alone there, putting the finishing touches to the table. Wine glasses had been set out, I noticed, and there was a bowl of roses in the centre of the cloth. The ritual, it seemed, had been broken. “Are we expecting company?” I asked.

  Bridie stood back from the table and inspected it. “Aye, miss. Mrs McAllister is here.”

  “But—” I began, about to protest that she had come to luncheon and never came to supper on the same day. But I remembered who I was speaking to. “The table looks beautiful.”

  “Orders are to lay a nice table when Mrs McAllister comes, miss.”

  “Ah.” If I had known, I would have changed into my evening dress. “Thank you, Bridie. Are the others in the Great Hall?”

  “Aye, miss.”

  I sighed, anticipating another admonishment from Jamie’s grandmother. But when I entered the Great Hall, I was relieved to see that Jamie had changed into his usual comfortable clothes, and the doctor still had on the tweed jacket he wore to work. Mrs McAllister’s influence on the Buchanans’ prefe
rence for an informal supper was, perhaps, weaker than she might have wished.

  Jamie was sprawled on a hard chair, a book in his hand, while Mrs McAllister sat at the fireside. The doctor sprang up from the other armchair and went to the corner cupboard. “Catriona, may I offer you a nip?”

  Jamie laughed loudly at my surprised expression. “He is not going to pinch you! A ‘nip’ is Scots for a small drink.” He nodded towards the bottle his father had taken from the cupboard. “In this case, sherry.”

  I sat down on the chair next to Jamie’s. “I thought a small drink was a ‘dram’.”

  “And so it is, but a dram is more often used when the drink in question is whisky,” said the doctor, setting out glasses.

  “That can also be a ‘tot’,” added Jamie. “But sherry is always a ‘nip’.”

  Doctor Hamish was looking at me from under his eyebrows. “Does your mother allow you wine now and then, my dear?”

  “I had some champagne at a wedding we went to last summer.”

  “And did you like it?”

  “Not much. It was so fizzy, it stung the roof of my mouth.”

  “Hah!” exclaimed Jamie with a delighted grin. “Then you did not consume enough of it to appreciate the pleasure of its effects!”

  While he and his father were laughing at this, I slid a look towards Mrs McAllister, who had remained silent. She neither laughed nor spoke, but gave an almost invisible nod.

  “I will try sherry, if you please, doctor,” I said.

  He poured some of the golden liquid into a very small glass and handed it to me. “If I give you any more than this, my dear, we shall have to carry you to the dining room,” he observed, mock-serious.

  I sniffed the sherry. It had a deep, evocative scent. When the doctor said “Cheers!”, I raised my glass with everyone else, and sipped. The drink was sweet, but very strong. I felt its warmth as I swallowed. I took another sip.

  “So, Catriona,” said Mrs McAllister, putting down her glass on a polished table, “I trust you are enjoying your stay at Drumwithie?”

  “Oh, yes! Very much, thank you.”

  “And what do you like in particular?”

  She pronounced it “part-ic-u-lar”, in her precise Scottish voice. Rapidly, I sifted through memories of the last week. If I were to tell her that the guest room was haunted by the ghost of an unknown young woman, or that I myself was haunted, in a less supernatural way, by the sad beauty of Jamie’s mother, what would she think of me? Under this roof I had experienced extremes of emotion I had never encountered before, from delicious happiness to fear and repulsion. But could I tell her that? Of course not.

  I smoothed my skirt. “The view from the tower room is very fine,” I said. “I never tire of looking at it.”

  Mrs McAllister raised her eyebrows. “Indeed? I would have thought a person of your tender years would prefer the more animated pleasures the country has to offer. Have you not explored the woods?”

  “Er … Jamie and I went a little way down the glenside this morning, but MacGregor came and gave us the message to come to luncheon, so—”

  “Hamish!” demanded Mrs McAllister. “Why has this poor girl not been shown the woods? The real woods?”

  The doctor, standing in his favourite spot before the fire, took a sip of his drink. “The real woods?”

  “You know the woods of which I speak,” she said in an I-have-the-measure-of-you tone. She turned back to me. “The castle grounds are magnificent, as I am quite sure you agree. But beyond them lies glorious woodland, where some of the trees are among the most ancient in Scotland. The woods are some walk away, but Hamish and my daughter did their courting there. I well remember that I wore out two pairs of very good boots before the ring was on her finger!”

  I pictured Anne, doggedly shadowed by her mother, when she wished to walk alone with her future husband. “I would like very much to see the woods,” I said, glancing involuntarily at Jamie.

  He was staring at his father, frowning. “Grandmother speaks of Blairguthrie’s woods, does she not, Father? But I thought Blairguthrie did not allow anyone on his property.”

  Doctor Hamish put his glass down on the mantelpiece and addressed Jamie calmly. “You were forbidden to go there as a child, because your mother was afraid of shooting parties and poachers’ traps.”

  Mrs McAllister snorted. “Of course one cannot go there in the shooting season, and traps are a danger wherever you go in this part of the country,” she declared impatiently. “But Blairguthrie has always allowed us to walk in his woods in the summer, as you well know!”

  The doctor and his son looked at each other. In Jamie’s face I saw distrust; in his father’s, unease. “Now you are grown up, Jamie,” said Doctor Hamish, “you may go there if you please. But do not expect me to accompany you. I no longer wish to visit the woods.”

  Mrs McAllister, unwilling to be seen as the cause of conflict, and perhaps realizing that she had trespassed on her son-in-law’s painful memories of a young, healthy Anne, took refuge in exaggerated astonishment. “But you must! I insist you take Catriona up there before the end of her stay!”

  The doctor drained his glass, avoiding his mother-in-law’s gaze. “Then she and Jamie may go, if they wish. They seem happy enough in each other’s company. But as I have already said, I do not go there.”

  Mrs McAllister was not to be bested. “Then MacGregor must go with them!” she demanded. “You cannot allow two young people—”

  “Jean!” Doctor Hamish felt in his pockets and withdrew a small, silver cigarette case. It was the one my mother had given him as a remembrance of my father. He took out a cigarette and lit it, his fingers fumbling slightly. “Jean, if you please, let us speak no more about it.”

  An unstoppable flush was creeping up my neck. Everyone seemed displeased. And I had offended Mrs McAllister. Although the impropriety of being left alone with Jamie had crossed my mind, I had dismissed it. We had been left unsupervised to fall in love. But on today’s visit to town, I had been chaperoned in his presence. Even when Mrs McAllister had allowed us to wander down to the river together, we had not been out of sight of the haberdasher’s shop. The freedom we had enjoyed for more than a week had apparently come to an end.

  Mrs McAllister opened her mouth to speak, but shut it unexpectedly, letting out a whimper. Her hand was at her throat. “Hamish, that cigarette case!” She was searching his face with troubled eyes. “David had one exactly the same, with that blue thistle on it. There cannot be two such—”

  “Actually, it is David’s,” interrupted the doctor matter-of-factly, dropping the case back into his pocket. “Mrs Graham was kind enough to give it to me.” He glanced at the clock. “Now, shall we go in?”

  Mrs McAllister rose from her chair on a perfect perpendicular, like a marionette picked up by a puppeteer. She was at her most dignified, her deportment as immaculate as only a lifetime of expensive corsetry could produce. But beneath the brim of her hat, her eyes – as brightly sea-green, I noticed for the first time, as her grandson’s – remained distracted.

  Why had my father’s cigarette case caused such agitation? As we went into the dining room, I stole another glance at her. All imperiousness was gone. She looked like an unhappy woman past her prime, oppressed beyond endurance, and longing only for peace.

  At ten o’clock Mrs McAllister went home. But although my eyes smarted with fatigue, I found myself loath to go upstairs. I had begun to fear the darkness of the tower room. Jamie went to return his book to the library, but I stayed in my chair, my heart murmuring uneasily, while Doctor Hamish put out lights and checked the windows were closed.

  When he turned and saw me there, he smiled kindly. “Let me get you a candle, my dear.”

  Bridie was already in her room, and MacGregor, who usually fetched the candles, had not yet returned from driving Mrs McAllister back to the Lodge. Beyond the door of the Great Hall, the house was covered in impenetrable blackness, denser than I had ever seen. The s
ky had clouded thickly during the evening, obliterating the moon and stars.

  I thanked the doctor, gripping the arms of my chair so that he would not see my hands shaking. As he approached the door to the kitchen passageway, Jamie came back.

  “Going for candles,” his father informed him.

  Jamie made a face behind his back. “If my illustrious father would dig his hand deep enough in his pocket, we would have no need of candles,” he told me tartly. “Even the most ordinary house is connected to the gas supply these days!”

  “But Drumwithie is no ordinary house.”

  He must have heard some apprehension in my voice, because he whipped round, full of concern. “What is the matter?”

  I could not speak; I could hardly breathe. In a second Jamie was kneeling at my feet, taking my hands, exclaiming at how cold they were, and gazing into my face. “You are nervous. Darling Cat, is it my grandmother? Did she upset you this evening?”

  I tried to shake my head, but Jamie went on, not noticing. “But you know, you need not heed her. My father is the master of Drumwithie. She is not its mistress, and neither is she your mother.” He embraced me and kissed both my cheeks warmly. “If I wish to be alone with you I will, and no one can stop me.”

  “Jamie…” I tried to whisper in case Doctor Hamish came back, but my breath came unevenly. “It is not that. It is… I am afraid to go to bed, in case the girl comes again, or I am beset by those hideous noises. I dread the thought of another disturbed night.”

  “Oh, my love.” He was looking at me with tenderness, frowning, trying to understand. “Don’t be anxious. You are the medium through which the ghost is speaking to us. She cannot hurt you, so—”

  “But she can frighten me!”

  He was taken aback. He regarded me silently for a moment, his green eyes glittering. Then, as his father’s shadow appeared on the wall, he stood up and held his hand out for mine. “Come on, I will come up with you.”