‘Welcome to Cluain, Mistress Howard. Och, it will do your grandfather’s heart good to set eyes on you.’ And she lifted her own glowing eyes to mine, and smiled.
There was a bustle as she ran forward to get the bags; Campbell helped her with them, for the woman in black would not step across the threshold. Silently she indicated where they might be placed inside the hall, as if Campbell were her servant also. I felt the hot blood of embarrassment rush to my face. I turned to the woman directly.
‘You have the advantage of me, since you know my name. May I know yours?’
‘I am Mairi Sinclair, housekeeper at Cluain.’
‘Then, Mistress Sinclair, may I, on my grandfather’s behalf, offer this gentleman, Mr Campbell, a cup of tea? He has been kind enough to bring me ‒’
But she was looking past me, and her wintery lips twitched.
‘Sir Gavin, perhaps you will accept the hospitality of Cluain?’ She knew he would not.
He didn’t even look at her, knowing better than to play her game, it seemed. He returned to the doorway, and raised his hat to me. ‘I hope all goes well. If I can be of assistance … You saw I live not far away.’
‘Thank you ‒’
But the words were cut short by Mairi Sinclair. ‘We all know it’s but a short step to Ballochtorra, Sir Gavin. Master William was not long in finding that out.’
And then to my horror she closed the door in his face, and I was left there in the sudden dimness of the hall, for a moment helpless between this dark wraith of a figure, and this radiant sprite of a girl. Then a sentence from one of William’s letters flashed into my brain, yet one other thing I had passed over, not wanting to question, perhaps jealous again. ‘There is a dragon-lady here whom I believe the Chinese would respect and admire ‒ and there is also an enchantress.’
My eyes grew used to the dimmer light. What the station-master had predicted had come true; the rain, now it had come, slashed fiercely against the panes. There seemed a sudden massing of cloud across the valley ‒ the strath, Gavin Campbell had called it. I repressed the shiver that rose, and cursed myself for an impetuous fool. Why had I not sent at least a telegram from London? Even more, why had I ever left those many friends in China who had offered homes to me, certain, as we all were, that young Englishwomen always found husbands among the superfluity of men who came to reap the pickings of the rich trade. I had been a bishop’s daughter, and there had been many who had loved my father. There had been little money ‒ even bishops do not grow rich on missionary work. But we had been rich in friends and goodwill; where servants and food are cheap, guests are a pleasure, not a burden. I could have made a slow progression from Peking to Shanghai, and even to Hong Kong, and I would have been welcome in a dozen houses. But I had chosen to come here, with no certain knowledge that I would stay, that I would even be asked to stay. And I had come all because of those nightmarish Mandarin characters scrawled down the length of William’s scroll.
Remembering them, I lifted my head and looked carefully about me.
Approaching in the landau the house had seemed miniature; inside it had space and depth, and a kind of grandeur, possibly the grandeur of antiquity. It was spare and high and severe; the thought came that it was a little like the woman who ruled over it. There was a great stone fireplace here in the hall, and two carved oak chairs set stiffly before it. There was a dark refectory table with silver candlesticks upon it. The hall ran the whole length of this front wing of the building; I could see where the staircase curved outward around the tower. It was a stone staircase, floating, seeming without support except for the massive slabs set into the wall of the tower. It had no banister, only a rope handrail attached to the wall. Narrow windows gave light fitfully. But there was other light; everything that hand could polish gave back the outside light ‒ the planked oak floors, the candlesticks, the dark carved furniture. There was no flower, no rug, no picture. Even in the beautiful severity of the Chinese houses I had come to admire, there would have been a single flower or a dried reed in a vase. Here there were no concessions to human delight, or pleasure ‒ nothing. But no denying hand could take away this beauty. It had been shaped by unknown masters of their craft hundreds of years ago. Having stripped it down to its bare bones, it was only the more beautiful.
Then something brushed against me, and in the silence I almost shrieked.
It was a cat. With difficulty I stood still as it investigated the unfamiliar smell of my skirt and boots. I had known cats before ‒ the house in Peking had always had cats, plump, striped creatures, or black and white, one or other always sitting on my father’s desk, or on a chair on the veranda, stalking among the bamboo brakes in the garden. But there had been no cats like this one. It was all white, immaculately white, as if it often walked in the rain, and preened itself daily. Finding no comfort from my skirts it went to Mairi Sinclair, as to someone well trusted, and from the shelter of her skirt, it raised its eyes to me. They were without colour; no green or blue in them, a pinkish tinge in that grey ‒ an albino cat staring up at me, an elegant slim white shape against the black folds. It occurred to me that here also was a thing without colour or adornment, and Mairi Sinclair’s creature as much as a cat will ever be. She did not put a hand down to pat or fondle it. I began to feel that for both such an action would have been unnecessary.
‘I take it you will be staying the night?’
‘Possibly.’ We both knew there was no place else to go, and that obviously I had come with the thought to stay for many nights. ‘That is,’ I thrust at her, ‘if you have room for me.’
‘Room, aye ‒ and beds aplenty. All dry and well-aired. We have few guests at Cluain, but you’ll find nothing amiss in the arrangements. Come, Morag.’
With a quick, jerking movement she seized the trunk by one handle, and indicated to Morag to take the other. They set off along the hall. I was left standing beside the leather bag, and there was nothing to do but grasp it and hurry after them. It was a large bag, and almost too long for me to carry, so that it bumped against each step as I climbed. I found myself panting; the two women ahead of me were so quick, and I had a sudden awful fear of plunging sideways over that unprotected stair. I was too tired. I longed for hot water, and food, and a warm bed. I longed not to have to face my grandfather this night.
When I reached the hall upstairs the two women seemed to have vanished; the stairs ended there, and two passages opened to follow the L-shape of the house. I stopped, bewildered. I could hear the quick words that passed between them, but they were nowhere in sight. Then I looked and saw that the tower itself had an arched opening ‒ and a further spiral of stairs led on upwards within the walls themselves. It was still wide; the steps were broad wedges. They ended at the top of the tower in the most extraordinary room I had ever seen. It was surprisingly large, following the curve of its outer walls, with three windows that gave a view of the valley ‒ past the distillery and along the river, across the gradually rising lands to the mountains, and up to the crag on which Ballochtorra was perched. There was a stone floor, and the centre of the room contained a raised platform piled with split logs, a long copper hood reached up to form a chimney flue, ending where the sloping curved ceiling came to its point. The ornate weather vane I had noticed must have capped the chimneypot. There was a fourposter bed, just fitted within two windows, hung with tartan curtains and covered with a wool spread of the same pattern. There was a tall hanging-cupboard with a drawer at the bottom set against the next space between the windows; beside it was a washstand. The third space was given to a desk that could only have been made especially for this room ‒ it took the curve of the wall, and its ends were cut on the slant. The dark carved oak chair set before it was its match. There was an oak bench before the fire, and a standing sconce with two candles. Tartan curtains hung on wooden poles at each window, straight, without fringe or tie; they were a great splotch of colour against the white walls. The last space left between the windows was the doorway in
which I stood.
The room was austere and plain ‒ and quite magnificent.
‘Was this ‒? Did my brother use this room?’
Mairi Sinclair turned from her task of stowing the chest as neatly as it would fit beneath one of the windows; she was frowning, and I thought for a moment that it irked her because the curved walls must forever defeat the straight lines of most objects. ‘This room? ‒ yes, the Master directed it ‒’
Morag took the bag from my hand. ‘’Tis high and lonely up here, and when the wind blows and the snow falls, you could feel you were lost on a mountain.’
And high and mighty, I thought. Whoever lived in this room and saw Cluain’s treasures spread before him would be tempted. Who would not feel the lonely splendour of this place, who might not ache to possess it? My grandfather had wanted William.
‘Fanciful thoughts, Morag,’ Mairi Sinclair said. ‘The tower room is the pride of Cluain.’ Her tone almost suggested that she thought me not worthy of it, but at the same time she had sought to isolate me here. Whoever lived in this room must also be able to live with their own company.
I went close to one of the windows now and looked down on Cluain’s two wings, and into the courtyard that was screened from the road by its high wall. Even from this height I could tell it was a garden that the Chinese might have delighted in ‒ filled with the herbs of their wonderful cooking, and their healing medicines. The straight paths that met precisely in the middle at the sundial were encroached by the sprawl of lavender and thyme, sage and chamomile, fennel and parsley. The pervading neatness of Cluain was here defeated. The plants went their own wild, sweet way. I hoped I saw the hand of my grandfather here.
‘The garden …’ I began. There had to be some way to make contact with Mairi Sinclair.
‘The garden is mine.’
I repressed a sigh, and turned back to face her; for a moment her expression seemed unguarded, and she was not so much fierce, as pitiful, defending what she thought of as her own. But I could have been mistaken. Her tone was absolutely unrelenting as she spoke again.
‘I’ll be getting down, then. Morag shall bring you some water to wash. The Master will be here directly.’
‘You’ll send for him?’
She shook her head. ‘No one sends for Angus Macdonald. It is almost time for him to be in for his supper. He is very punctual. You will oblige him by not keeping him waiting, Miss Howard.’
Then they were both gone, with a backward look that contained a nod of encouragement from Morag. The rain came more strongly now, beginning to blot out Cluain’s world, the mountains disappearing in the cloud, the mist boiling up until it almost veiled Ballochtorra. I was left alone, to make what I would of it ‒ alone, except for the cat, which had settled itself upon the bed, paws folded in against its chest, staring at me with its wide colourless eyes. I tried to stare it down, but it was I, of course, who lost that contest.
Morag was back; I had heard the murmur of some song as she mounted the tower stairs, and she swept into the room with her blazing hair like some cheerful light. ‘There now, it’s nice and hot,’ she announced as she set the jug down and a pile of snowy towels on the washstand. ‘And I’ll just be giving you a wee bit of a fire. It’s a little comfort you’re needing now.’ As I watched, she rearranged the kindling with deft fingers, and put a match to a screw of paper. The dry wood caught at once; it was impossible not to know that Morag was one of those creatures for whom things always went right ‒ quick, neat, clever in her movements, wasting no effort. She was as superior to her tasks as her face and hair were to her plain servant’s dress.
‘Do you live here, Morag?’
‘Aye. I have my own room down there along the passage from Mistress Sinclair. The Master sleeps in the other wing. I have my own fire, and ’tis nice and cosy. The wages are fair, and the food is good ‒ everyone eats well at Cluain.’
‘Is that why you came?’
She laughed. ‘I had not much choice, had I? I was born at Cluain. Mistress Sinclair delivered me. My father worked in the distillery, and we had our own house then. But he was killed when I was a wee thing ‒ one of the drays overturned on the ice on that steep bit beyond the bridge at Ballochtorra, taking the whisky to the railhead. So then my mother came here to help Mistress Sinclair in the house. She stayed until I was eight, and then she was away to her sister in Inverness. She could not stick the loneliness any more ‒ or Mistress Sinclair, she said ‒ and I was welcome to come with her if I wanted.’
‘But you stayed …’
‘I did. I had been to Inverness, and seen it, and the place where my aunt has her dressmaking business, and I did not like it ‒ not one bit. Besides, the Master’s wife was alive then, and she favoured me ‒ her wee girl, she used to call me. My mother knew what she was about, leaving me at Cluain. I had my tasks to do, of course, but I had a better time of it than my mother could hope to give me. Lessons I had from Mistress Macdonald, and advantages that were beyond my mother. And Mistress Sinclair is not so bad when you know her ways ‒ we rub along, and I am not such a fool that I have not learned from her, too. Where else would it be like this? ‒ me with my own room, and the right to be private when I please. I’ve seen those skivvys in those town places, and I have no wish to be like them. No one even knows their names … No, ’tis not for Morag Macpherson. And Mistress Sinclair, she knows it. You think she’s fierce? ‒ Well, she’s proud, but what’s wrong with that? Terrible skilful she is, at everything she sets her hand to. And a wonder with her herbs and remedies. People around here would far rather have her than a doctor ‒ they come for miles to have her treat their ailments, and never a penny does she take. She says that the herbs and wild plants of the hedgerows grow free, and God put them there, and gave her the knowledge to use them, so she has no right to charge. A great Bible-reading woman she is. The doctor would like to see her stopped, of course, but she makes no claims, and takes no money. If people come to her, that’s their business. Besides, the doctor’s a great one for his dram, and none too clean …’
She rose from her crouching position before the fire, the flames now leaping high towards the metal hood. ‘There now, I am chattering again. Mistress Sinclair says my tongue is my great fault. I’ll leave you, mistress. The Master will be in directly ‒’ She paused. ‘I think he will be glad to see you. This past winter he has not had an easy time of it. Ill, he’s been, with a cough ‒ and at times he seems very tired. He will not have the doctor near him. Since Master William died … ah, well, perhaps the sight of you will lighten that sorrow, mistress.’ She dusted her hands together. ‘You’ll find him in the dining-room. ’Tis the only room he ever uses at Cluain. ’Tis the door on the right of the hall as you go down …’
She was turning to go, and then her gaze fell on the cat. Suddenly her voice took a strange edge, almost ugly. ‘Devil take that thing! Isn’t he always where he should not be, and never a finger to be laid on him, because he’s Mistress Sinclair’s!’ She made a threatening motion towards the cat, but I saw that she did not attempt to touch it.
‘Leave him, Morag.’ I don’t know why I said it. The cat had made me uncomfortable before, but now I sensed that it had often taken that place on the bed. ‘He seems to like it here.’
‘Och, he likes it fine. He knows he’s not supposed to be up here ‒ does a body ever know what damage a cat will be doing? But he took to coming here when Master William was here ‒ and you’re the first that used this room since then. I do not care to touch him, myself.’
Backing towards the door, her eyes were less friendly as she looked at the cat. ‘I must be away. Mistress Sinclair will know I’ve been gossiping. She knows everything, that one. But a body has a right to a little information about a strange place ‒ and it’s precious little you’ll get from Mairi Sinclair …’
She was gone, and now I approached the cat; I put my hand tentatively on his head. He did not stir. ‘Were you William’s friend, Cat? Did you know him well?’ He answe
red nothing, of course, and no welcoming purr rewarded my gesture. He merely stared at the fire. I shrugged, and turned away. He had not come here for my company, that was certain. Perhaps he liked the lonely grandeur of this room. He seemed hardly a cat to sit cosily by a kitchen fire.
I took my toilet articles from the leather bag, my fingers stiff with a chill and tension that the hot water did nothing to help. When I picked up my brush I was suddenly aware of staring at the blank white wall before me where one would have expected a mirror. Then I became conscious of something odd about this room ‒ something that I recognised now as being common to the other parts of the house I had seen. The furniture was old and rich, and it shone with the polishing of careful hands. The curtains were in good repair, but apart from their tartan pattern, utterly plain. I searched for something here that was not essential, and there was nothing, no ornament, no vase, no picture. One book only lay on the desk, and I knew without looking at it that it was the Bible. Surely William would not have suffered this ‒ the clutter of his possessions must have disturbed this austere order. Angrily I turned back to where my reflection should have met me in a mirror, and there was nothing. It was as if in this room Mairi Sinclair strove to make the occupant feel as if he or she did not exist.
Anger drove out the sense of desolation that had been creeping upon me. Feverishly I brushed at my hair, and my fingers arranged the knot without aid of a mirror. I did remember what I looked like ‒ I would remember. I did exist.
Defiantly I tied a red ribbon about the knot of hair, and found the red kid fur-lined slippers that I wore in the Peking winters. I found the cashmere shawl that William had brought me back from a visit to Canton, riotously glowing with the rich embroideries that the Chinese loved, and touched here and there with a thread of gold. I, at least, would not be forced into Mairi Sinclair’s mould.
A Falcon for a Queen Page 3