The Posy Ring

by Catherine Czerkawska

  ‘I can’t believe that you didn’t even know your grandmother.’

  ‘She was quite lonely towards the end,’ says Mrs Cameron, with just the faintest hint of reproach. Before she can elaborate, she’s summoned to the kitchen and leaves them to the remains of their lunch with some reluctance.

  ‘Well, from what I knew of Viola,’ says Fiona, when she has gone, ‘she was something of a loner all her life, so perhaps it was her own doing. She was a great one for repelling boarders. “Don’t you get sick of people, Fiona?” she used to say to me. Have you decided what to do with the house, Daisy?’

  Cal groans. ‘Don’t go there, Mum. Poor Daisy’s thought of nothing else.’

  ‘He’s right. And I still don’t know. But I’m not in any hurry. The taxes are paid. Viola had been a great saver. Just that there’s no more cash to spend on the house and I certainly don’t have any.’

  ‘And old houses can be money pits of the worst kind.’

  ‘They can.’

  ‘Maybe Cal will help you?’ she says brightly. ‘To sort it all out, I mean. He told me about your picture. Lilias. A time will come. And the ring. A real posy ring. It’s so romantic. I’d love to see them, Daisy, if you wouldn’t mind. What William wouldn’t give to have them in the shop!’

  Cal looks alarmed. ‘You haven’t told him?’

  ‘No. I haven’t told him. And I won’t. Don’t worry. You’re not wanting to sell, are you, Daisy?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I have a lot of other things I do want to sell, but not those.’

  ‘Donal never sold the embroidered cabinet, did he? I was worried after I heard he’d got married, but I see it’s still here, in the hotel.’

  ‘Yes, Mum. It’s still here.’

  ‘It’s such a piece of island history. And I think so are your ring and your picture, Daisy. I just hate the idea of dismantling something. Of destroying a story. The story of this island. There will be a story, even if we never know it or know it only in fragments, like a crazy patchwork quilt. And it’s the same at Carraig, in a small way. The fiddle. The garden. They’re part of my family’s story. Our story. My great-grandfather, seemingly, made violins and that old fiddle is the last one.’

  She’s silent for a moment, then she eats toffee pudding and ice cream with gusto. ‘Oh you don’t know how much I’m enjoying this! To hell with the waistline.’

  ‘Cal has been a big help already,’ says Daisy.

  ‘I’m very glad to hear it.’ She looks from one to the other. A certain shrewd perception crosses her open features, but then she smiles at them both. ‘Very glad.’

  Her phone buzzes in her bag. She takes it out, glances at it, frowns, then mutes it altogether and puts it back in her bag. Daisy would lay bets the call was from William.

  ‘Problem is,’ says Cal, pouring more coffee for the three of them, ‘that I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here. You know Dad’s been here. He’s planning to sell Carraig. I think he wants me back in Glasgow all the time, working in the shop. Maybe he wants to get rid of Annabel. Who knows? She’s not exactly customer-friendly.’

  ‘No she isn’t. I could never understand why you went out with that lassie for so long!’

  Cal glances at Daisy. She can see, with a certain amount of satisfaction, that he’s blushing.

  ‘I thought you liked her, Mum.’

  ‘Your dad likes her. She irritates the life out of me, if I’m honest.’

  ‘I wish you’d told me.’

  ‘Would it have made any difference?’

  ‘Well, no,’ he concedes. ‘It wouldn’t. Not at the time.’

  ‘And is that what you want? I can see you don’t want Annabel. Not now. I mean, do you want to be in Glasgow all the time?’

  ‘No. I don’t want to be in the shop at all. But I worry about you.’

  ‘I can’t have you changing your whole life to suit me.’ She looks sad, suddenly. But then she pats his hand. ‘Anyway, it’s all right. I’ve told him.’

  ‘Told him what?’

  ‘That I won’t sell.’

  Cal looks utterly fazed. Daisy realises that this is a very big deal.

  ‘I went to see Mr McDowall. He’s your solicitor too, isn’t he, Daisy?’

  ‘That’s right. He’s been incredibly helpful.’

  ‘And to me too. Carraig was mine. OK, your dad has a half share, a significant interest in it. But he can’t sell it without my agreement, and I’ve told him I’ll never agree.’

  ‘Christ, Mum!’ says Cal.

  ‘I know, I know. It was a bit scary.’

  ‘Did he go ballistic?’

  ‘No. He went very quiet and, well, you know how he is.’

  ‘I know how he is.’

  ‘We all have lines in the sand, Cal. Your dad thinks everything has its price. I don’t. Although if it didn’t involve you, I’d probably have given in. I always do give in. I know my limitations. But in this case, I’m transferring my interest in the cottage to you. Well, it’s already done. I’ve brought papers for you to sign. He can’t sell without your say-so and even if you both agree that you want to sell, he has to give you first refusal to buy him out.’

  ‘I’m gobsmacked,’ says Cal.

  ‘I’m kind of surprised myself. You don’t think Catty will mind, do you? But I know you’ll see her right.’

  ‘No. I don’t think she’ll mind at all. But what did you say to him? To Dad?’

  ‘I said, he’d better agree, or I’d take early retirement, and then he’d have to find somebody else to work in the shop. I told him I’d been offered a bit of part-time art history teaching. Which is true. But it’s only a couple of hours a week. For once, he believed me. He’s not very happy.’

  ‘He’s never very happy, Mum. And now he’ll be very angry as well.’

  Daisy has been listening quietly. They both focus their attention on her.

  ‘Oh Daisy. I’m so sorry to take up your lovely lunch with all this boring family stuff.’

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ she says. ‘I was just thinking...’

  ‘What were you thinking?’ Cal asks.

  ‘About the Clootie Tree.’

  ‘Is that still there?’ asks Fiona. ‘I remember going up there when I was very young.’

  ‘Me too. Did your wishes come true, Fiona?’

  ‘Only after a fashion. Although I thought they had. I remember saying exactly that. All my dreams are coming true, I said. I went there with William. Be careful what you wish for, isn’t that what they say?’

  *

  They take a detour to Auchenblae so that they can pick up Hector, who is delirious with delight at seeing Fiona.

  ‘I think he always sees me as the bringer of cake,’ she says while he winds around her skirts, wagging his whole body rather than just his tail.

  Fiona makes suitably impressed and admiring and sympathetic noises about the house and gardens.

  ‘What a gift. But what a grave responsibility,’ she says.

  Daisy shows her both the posy ring and the portrait of Lilias with her golden gown, her lace collar, her jewelled head-dress and her red hair.

  ‘How young she looks!’ exclaims Fiona. ‘And how innocent.’

  Daisy is deeply impressed by how this woman, who seemed so whimsical, so Bohemian, suddenly turns solemn and professional when confronted with the portrait, examining it carefully, turning it this way and that in the light, clearly entranced by it.

  ‘Well?’ asks Cal impatiently. ‘What do you think, Mum?’

  ‘I can’t be absolutely certain, you know that. And it would be helpful to take it out of its frame, but I don’t want to do that. It’s so precious and so fragile. But...’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘I think the ring is older than the portrait. I think it is French, you’re right. And tha
t’s not just the inscription. I mean that’s a no-brainer. But it could have been inscribed in French and made elsewhere. Except that the style, the enamelling, looks French too. I think it was enamelled. You can just see some remaining fragments. It’s very hard to date such things. They were popular for such a long time. But if pushed, I’d say it’s fifteenth-century French.’

  ‘So how on earth did it end up here?’

  She shrugs. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. Washed ashore? All sorts of ships went down off this coast.’

  ‘Yes. We found an old oak block down at the beach, didn’t we, Cal?’

  ‘And yet I’m told there’s almost nothing of them left. Folk have gone diving down there and seen very little. Bits and pieces wash up from time to time. Maybe the ring too. Where did you find it? Was it in this house?’

  ‘Even stranger than that,’ Cal says. ‘We found it down there on the beach as well. Hector was digging under a rock, the way he does. Madly.’

  ‘How odd!’

  ‘It was down between two stones,’ says Daisy. ‘Honestly, if we’d been down there with a metal detector, we’d probably have found nothing. But Hector was digging a big hole and suddenly there it was.’

  ‘Bizarre. But I wonder how it came to these shores. Maybe with some foreign visitor? Do you think that’s a possibility?’

  ‘Would they have had visitors like that?’

  ‘Oh, it was far from being as uncivilised as people like to think. Garve – Eilean Garbh back then – was a strategically important place for all that it’s a small island. Or so I was always led to believe. The Laird of Garve would have been a man of some consequence, even then.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘That’s the problem. This may have been an old ring even when it came to the island. People would have treasured such things, just as we do. So, your ring may have been made in the 1400s, but come here in the 1500s. With some merchant. Some trader. Even with the Armada.’

  ‘You mean the Spanish Armada?’

  ‘That’s the one. There were shipwrecks. It’s a dangerous coast.’

  ‘But didn’t people murder them when they came ashore?’

  ‘Not necessarily. Not in Scotland anyway. I think it was much more complicated than that.’

  ‘Things usually are.’

  Fiona smiles. ‘Aren’t they just? This was a Catholic island. They would have been supporters of Mary, not Elizabeth. We forget how divided the place was, back then. How shifting people’s loyalties were. How much tension there would have been between the domestic, the requirements of day-to-day living, and the political. Dangerous, dangerous waters. Even now. How much more so back then? We tend to see everything from an English point of view because that’s the way it’s presented to us. But it would have been a lot more equivocal than that. Here in Scotland. Especially here, on the islands.’

  Daisy has known the bare facts, for sure, but Fiona has helped to shift her perspective.

  ‘What a good teacher you must be!’ she exclaims, involuntarily. Fiona looks a little embarrassed. It’s clear that she’s not used to receiving praise.

  ‘All the same, I’ve never heard of any Spanish ships being wrecked off Garve,’ she says regretfully. ‘Tobermory yes. But not Garve.’

  ‘And the picture?’ asks Cal, practical as ever.

  ‘Later, I think. I would say late sixteenth century. From the costume alone as well as the style. Was there a Lilias then? On Garve? It shouldn’t be impossible to find out.’

  ‘There was. There was Lilias McNeill. Her father was Ruaridh McNeill, Laird of Garve.’

  ‘So a fond father had his daughter’s portrait painted.’

  ‘We wondered if that was the case,’ says Daisy. ‘Lovely Lilias, in her posh frock.’

  ‘A very posh frock. But you’d be surprised how much finery might have come from Edinburgh, if you were one of the favoured few. The thing is,’ Fiona hesitates, ‘it has a continental look, just like the ring. If I didn’t know better, didn’t know its provenance, I would have placed it somewhere in southern Europe. A piece of Spanish or Italian art. I wonder who the artist was. It isn’t signed, is it?’

  ‘Not that we can see.’

  ‘Which together with the ring makes it even more of a mystery, doesn’t it? Don’t be selling it, will you?’ she says to Daisy, impulsively. ‘I mean, not unless you have to.’

  ‘No. I don’t need to, not right now, anyway, and I’m not planning to. I’m like those people on the Antiques Roadshow who go on about something being in the family, so they can’t sell it. I was always a bit sceptical, but I understand them now.’

  Cal shakes his head. ‘What are you two like?’

  ‘He feels the same, really,’ says Fiona, confidingly. ‘You know that, don’t you, but he’s far too macho to admit it.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  1589

  In June, word came to Eilean Garbh that a number of Spaniards who had taken refuge in various parts of Scotland were to be mustered in Edinburgh and transported home to Spain, via France, from the port of Leith. They had escaped the killing that had ended their ill-starred enterprise only through the good offices of those Scots who were far from well disposed towards the English Queen. This was by no means all of them, and depending upon where they had washed ashore, their position as foreign enemies was still precarious. Besides, some of them were men of means in their own country, and money might be paid for the release of people who were now seen, to some extent at least, as hostages. How far do you go to accommodate the stranger? So said some of the clan chiefs, although others disagreed and said that you went as far as necessary, especially where enemies of the English throne were concerned.

  Elizabeth had agreed to a request to grant the ships safe passage, although even those who were less than friendly to the Spaniards saw very little reason to trust her word where Scotland was concerned. But it might be a risk worth taking for those who wanted only to win home again. This news was brought to the island by McAllister, who had been told to relay it to ‘all those who had some knowledge of the Spaniards’ since their whereabouts had been kept a secret by those who had sheltered them.

  McNeill summoned Mateo and Francisco to his bedchamber where they could speak in private and told them of these developments.

  ‘I’m minded to let you go or stay as you choose,’ he said. ‘You’ve been no trouble to me. Quite the contrary. You’ve both worked hard, each man in his own way. I’m aware that there are some who are suspicious of you, but they’ll change, in time. They’ll accept you and if they won’t they’ll have me to answer to. If you decide that you want to stay, I propose to rent you some land here. There’s decent-enough land in the south that nobody is cultivating. I’m thinking especially of a place called Dun Sithe, above the seashore near the high cliffs at the south end. It’s not far from Knockbaird, which is the place dedicated to our poets. A bard and his family still live there, although he does little enough in the way of poetry these days and little enough in the way of tilling either. Perhaps the days of heroic deeds are all over. But Dun Sithe has been neglected these many years past. The name means the fort of the fairies, the good people. Do you understand what I’m talking about?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Mateo. ‘Beathag explained that they are somewhere between angels and men. They were cast out of heaven. And they are perilous beings.’

  ‘They are perilous beings if you offend them. Or so folk believe. Which explains why the people are hesitant to plough and sow down there. And those who do plough find the ground full of elf shot, wee arrowheads and the like, and so they are afraid. But there is nothing that cold iron will not drive away. And I hear that you are a good man with a cas chrom, Mateo.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘In more ways than one.’

  So he had heard. Did nothing happen on this island that he didn’t, sooner or later, hear about? God help them if that was t
he case.

  Mateo smiled uncertainly. ‘I am. And I could stay and make a life for myself here. But all the same, and grateful as I am for all that you have done for us, I am minded to go. What about you, Paco?’

  Francisco seemed very surprised. ‘I thought you would surely want to stay,’ he said, colouring up. ‘For myself, I’m very thankful for all your hospitality and your generosity, sir. But if there is a chance, however remote, of finding our way home again, then I should like to take it.’

  ‘Should you now?’ said McNeill. He seemed disappointed, but quick to disguise it. ‘I had hoped that at least one of you would want to stay.’

  ‘Are you sure, Paco?’ asked Mateo. He had been certain that Francisco would stay on the island. He would have stayed himself, if he had been able to bear the thought of Eilean Garbh without Lilias. He wondered if, yet again, Paco was being carried along against his will.

  ‘Yes, Mateo,’ said Francisco very firmly. ‘Cousin, even if you were not going to attempt the voyage, I would. I miss my home. I’ve never stopped missing my home. I’m grateful for all you’ve done, sir’ – this to McNeill – ‘but I should dearly like to see my own island again.’

  ‘Ah well, who am I to force you into a course of action that is against your better judgement?’ McNeill sighed. ‘My lassies will be disappointed. But when Lilias is married and away from here, later in the summer, perhaps Ishbel can go along with her for a while and the experience of new sights and sounds will be enough to cheer them both. My elder son will soon be coming home and searching for a wife of his own. Perhaps a whole crop of grandchildren will raise my spirits.’

  ‘I hope so, sir.’

  ‘You’ll sail with McAllister, initially. There are one or two more of you from nearby islands. A scant handful. Our people can keep secrets when there is need, you see. When you come to the mainland, you’ll be met, and you should follow the drove roads across to Leith. It’s a long journey, but this is the best time of year for it. And you’ll be travelling light.’

  When they were in their own room again, Francisco gazed at his cousin in some perplexity. ‘I don’t understand!’ he said. ‘I was sure that you would wish to stay here.’