My grandfather answered for me. ‘Och, it’s the harvest, and this damnable business at Ballochtorra. Well’ ‒ as if that disposed of the matter ‒ ‘the wind is drying. We need it after the rain.’ To back up his statement the window rattled suddenly in a sharpening gust.
They took their second dram more slowly, but my grandfather did not have his usual place in the settle before the fire. It was very uncharacteristic of him, the way he paced between the window and the sideboard, his glass left there, sipping each time he came back to it. There was a kind of frenetic mood upon him that I had never witnessed before; something either troubling or exciting him. I wished it were not so; I wished, too, for a respite, a time of peace. There was yet much to come ‒ so much more. All that the Inverness paper had hinted was yet to come.
Finally, it was Samuel Lachlan who spoke. ‘Kirsty ‒ there is something we have to say to you ‒’
My grandfather spun around from the window. ‘Not yet, Samuel. Not yet.’
He blinked through his spectacles. ‘We agreed that she should know, Angus. We agreed.’
‘Very well. But let us have our dram, at least, man. We’ve earned our spell away from it ‒’
‘Christina must know.’
‘A while yet, man ‒ awhile!’
Morag brought in the first serving dishes, and Samuel Lachlan hurried to take his place at the table. How he must look forward to Cluain’s food after those meals sent round from the chophouse. But when the food was set before him, he seemed less interested. He ate slowly, and forgot to have gravy, forgot even, the endless salt he craved. He was so slow, in fact, that Morag put her head inside the door several times to see if we were ready for the next course.
At last he spoke, and my grandfather seemed content to let him do so.
‘Kirsty ‒ Ferguson is going broke.’
‘Going ‒’ Then the door opened, and Morag appeared once more. This time she removed the meat dishes, and I went to the sideboard and served the apple tart that Samuel Lachlan loved. Morag closed the door, and he poured the cream with absent-minded lavishness.
‘Going broke,’ he repeated.
I could hardly believe it; did people who had castles and yachts on the Clyde go broke? But James Ferguson was clever, a self-made man. He could surely never fall into some pit he had not seen before his feet.
‘Why?’
‘Stretched too thin. There must be two dozen distilleries that have extended him credit ‒ for far too long. He has accepted orders from America, with some advance payment ‒ orders for millions of gallons that he now can’t fill. He has indulged in over-production of his own patent grain whisky, storing it up, extending, advertising, sending his salesmen all around the world. And now the malt that he needs for his blends ‒ from the cheapest to the best ‒ is locked up in warehouses all over the Highlands, and he hasn’t the money to buy out the stuff, or pay the Excise on it. Even if the distillers would extend credit still further, there’s still the Excise, and Her Majesty’s Excise doesn’t give credit ‒ and the tax is the largest part of the bill.’
‘But didn’t he know this would happen?’
‘He knew ‒ and didn’t pay much attention to it. There was a big loan being raised in the City ‒ London. He won’t admit so much, but the merchant bankers he was getting it from have done a more thorough investigation of the affairs of James Ferguson than he thought possible. The loan is now refused. He has creditors everywhere, and no cash. It will be, he now says, only a matter of days until the news of the refusal of the loan leaks out. He has been up and down the Highlands begging for more credit, begging for the distilleries to pay the Excise on what he takes from the warehouses, and once the whole picture is put together there will be a rush to sell by the shareholders. Once that starts, the share prices will drop to the bottom. If he ever had the chance of raising money by pledging his own shares, they themselves are about to be made almost worthless. That is why he will be broke.’
‘And he owes Cluain?’
My grandfather broke in. ‘No one owes Cluain. Not after the first twenty years did anyone ever get a penny’s worth of credit from Cluain. I am not in business to store unpaid-for whisky in my warehouses. The buyers come, and they pay, literally, cash on the barrel. Even the great James Ferguson has had to pay. I store it for them, and they are free to take it after the legal minimum, and they pay the Excise.’
‘Then he has whisky paid for and stored with you. Why doesn’t he use it?’
‘He has none. Not a gallon. His has all been taken. In this last year he has drawn out every barrel he owned. Telling me, always, that his business with England and America was so good he had to make up his blends as young as he could, to meet the demand. But I had a suspicion all along that he was drawing so quickly on his stock here because it might have been the only whisky he had already paid for. Why ‒ I’ve even had trouble getting him to return the casks …’
‘Then if he owes Cluain nothing, why does he keep coming? What has all the talk ‒’
Again Morag was back, removing the tart plates, placing the cheese, leaving the tray with tea. She was as quiet and deft as always, but I thought it odd that she came so often. Usually the task of clearing was done by myself. For some reason Samuel Lachlan liked to be waited on by me ‒ perhaps he enjoyed the change after the years of boys rushing over with his tray from the chophouse. Lachlan waited quietly, took his Cheddar made in Mairi Sinclair’s dairy, and piled the butter on her brownish golden biscuits. His poor false teeth worked hard at the task. He even sipped his tea a little without talking any more. I resigned myself to wait. His former impatience to tell me whatever was to be told had evaporated. There was enough to think about, besides savouring the relief that Cluain was not touched by James Ferguson’s madness. I had not known until that moment how much store I had placed in the independence of Cluain, its self-sufficiency. There was danger there, of course ‒ the kind of dangerous pride that my grandfather exhibited, his satisfaction at being able to snap his fingers at the world, and owe no man. But he had worked for it ‒ oh, yes, he had worked for it. And now James Ferguson stood helpless in the ruins of his own monumental pride. As if Lachlan read my thoughts he spoke suddenly.
‘Ah, well, that is often the way of it when a man gets in deeper than he knows.’ At last he was finished with his cheese and his tea, and he stood and moved back to his place at the settle. At once my grandfather poured two more whiskies, and handed one to Lachlan. ‘Yes,’ Lachlan said, as if he had never stopped, ‘if one will build castles and restore churches, and have a private railroad carriage, and a house in Belgrave Square, then there must be something very solid behind it. I have followed his career with interest ‒’ He rubbed his thin nose. ‘Yes, great interest. He was a wealthy enough man when his daughter married Campbell, but after that he would have had to be much more than merely wealthy to support the kind of things he did. But he had a name for making money, and he paid good dividends, and the shareholders came running. He built and he expanded. How much he speculated in other things one does not know. But I ‒ well, I myself was never tempted to buy a single share of Ferguson’s. No, not a single share.’ He recited all this carefully, as if again retelling to himself, and perhaps for my benefit, a lesson long ago learned. Lavish spending disturbed him greatly. And yet I could not hear a note of satisfaction in his recital. He did not rejoice in the downfall of James Ferguson. Any edifice that crumbled was another attack on the sacred idea of capital.
He sipped his whisky quietly, waiting for Morag to be done with the last of the dishes, and when she was gone, finally, the crumbs swept from the table, the tray removed, he resumed.
‘Yes, Kirsty, there has been much talk. Very much talk. And I have myself travelled too much for my age in these past weeks, in the matter of James Ferguson. I do not like too much to commit myself to paper in making enquiries. Discretion, and a quiet talk over a dram, with nothing recorded, is the better way. I have been back and forth between Cameron�
�s and Macquarie’s, and both distilleries are very inconveniently located. But both are solid ‒ very solid. Solid men of business in each of them, and each held by the family. They keep their books and do their business at the distilleries, and there are no castles. They keep good horses, but there are no thoroughbreds in their stables. The young men of the families marry sensibly, and settle down in new houses built near the distillery. Their wives keep good tables, but there is no waste. They fatten their own pigs, and silk dresses are for Sundays only. Yes, they are solid.’
I did not much like the sound of it. Where, in all the respectable mass, the great solidity, was there room for a falcon to spread her wings, to swoop, to soar, to stoop? Where would there have been a chance for a man like my grandfather to come from his poor Western Isle, and declare that on this piece of land he would make his kingdom? Was the day, then, of one’s own private kingdom gone ‒ was there no room, any more, to be free? No, I didn’t like the sound of all these solid people.
‘Then why does James Ferguson talk to you? He owes you no money. Why have you had to make these visits to Cameron’s and Macquarie’s on his behalf?’
‘I did nothing on behalf of James Ferguson. I simply did not trust what the man was saying. He spoke for others, and he was in a state where he might have said anything ‒’
‘But to what purpose?’
Now Samuel Lachlan gestured to my grandfather, as if deferring to him as Master of Cluain. ‘He proposes, Kirsty, that Cameron, and Macquarie, and Cluain should join together to take on the business of Ferguson’s. If the three distillers announced that they were joining up with Ferguson, Distillers, then the rest of the world need never know how much he was giving up in order to have us come in. Cameron and Macquarie are bigger than Cluain ‒ ours would be a minority share, but a biggish share. And for Ferguson it would be a face-saving action. It would stop a run ‒ at least this is what we think ‒ by the shareholders. James Ferguson would have a seat on the board, for the time being, but with little or no voting rights, it would be nominal. We have his word, and would have it in a private letter from him before we moved further, that he would resign in about six months’ time, giving ill-health and his daughter’s death as reasons. Face-saving only. His name would still remain. But Ferguson’s would belong to Cameron, Macquarie and Cluain.’
I gasped in utter disbelief. ‘But Ferguson’s is huge, isn’t it? Would it … well, it would need a great deal of money to keep it going. Can Cluain …?’ I didn’t dare ask the question of these two men.
Samuel Lachlan answered me. ‘It would be close. Yes, there’s no doubt it would be close. But we would be getting Ferguson’s at a rock-bottom price. We would have a great organisation for blending and distribution already made ‒ yes, and the market lies that way, Kirsty, no matter how the malt men may despise the product. And as to Cluain’s position in this … as I said, it would be tight. But do not think Cluain has no resources. They have been carefully built up, husbanded. Like Cameron’s and Macquarie’s, all our goods are not in the shop window. Your grandfather … well, Angus?’
‘No, not in the shop window, but in good, fine whisky. We have a certain production run each year, Kirsty. So many hundred thousand gallons. For the last ten or so years I have undersold the production run. I have my own warehouse ‒ just casks marked with numbers and the workers do not know which distillery they have been sold to. In fact, they are Cluain’s own. Unsold. The finest twelve-year-old malt, the first of it just ready, and each year more and more added, and maturing. And out of the operating profits I have set aside the Excise tax. That, and a little more besides, is Cluain’s capital. And then there is Samuel. He will come in with more capital, if I wish to move forward with the matter. But not one of us ‒ not Cameron’s, Macquarie’s ‒ will move without the other two. And if we don’t move, Ferguson sees no prospect of making an arrangement with others ‒ and has not the time for it. He will simply go bankrupt ‒ that is, he will go bankrupt publicly. The other way he has a chance simply to disappear, to fade out. In the end, as far as money is concerned, it is the same. He is broke.’ My grandfather was not like Lachlan; he did not even try to keep the satisfaction out of his tone.
I pressed my hands together, and rocked forward, looking into the fire. ‘And a few weeks ago, he was telling me that he would buy Cluain any time you wanted to sell. The Prince’s visit ‒ the cost of it! And all the time he was waiting on a loan simply to stay in business.’
‘A kind of madness,’ Lachlan said. ‘It got to the point where he could not stop. James Ferguson has never been known to gamble at cards or horses, or anything else. But a gambler he is. He is so used to everything coming as he tosses the coin, that he is quite unable to stop it. He went on spending like a fool, when the coffers were empty. A dangerous man ‒ dangerous to himself, and to everyone associated with him. He used shareholders’ money for reasons other than business. If we do not proceed, he will be lucky if he is merely bankrupt. There could be a gaol sentence for misrepresentation.’
I suddenly looked up, looked at my grandfather. ‘Then why ‒ why, in God’s name, are you even prepared to associate with him? Even if he is powerless, what is it you are looking for?’
‘Looking for …?’
I gestured to the room, the whole world of Cluain about me, and my voice rose. ‘Isn’t this enough? What more could you want?’
‘Och, I was afraid you would not understand. I thought you had more of a head for business than this. Understand me, Kirsty. This is a chance to own Ferguson’s. To be a world name in whisky. To ‒’
‘To be a fool!’ I almost screamed the words at him. ‘Wasn’t this what James Ferguson first dreamed? To be a world name in whisky. Well, he’s that, and it’s lying in ruins about him. He is so fevered he cannot even properly mourn the death of his only child. Ferguson’s is his child. That, and his pride, are more to him than anything else. And you tell me ‒ two old men …’ It was cruel, and I saw my grandfather’s face flush with anger and affront, ‘that this is what you are even tempted into. Why? You have a whole world here. No one can touch Cluain. No one may lay a finger upon it, except by your leave. You have a pile of gold stored up there in those warehouses, and you are going to gamble it just as James Ferguson would have done. You have been Master of Cluain since the day you first won the deed to it from the Campbells. Are you now going to give Cluain to some little group that goes under the name of Ferguson? You tell me there are young men in the Cameron and Macquarie families. Do you think they will let you have your own way completely? Will you be able to run Ferguson’s the way you’ve run Cluain? ‒ everything exactly as you want it? No compromise? ‒ no letting down of standards? Your precious twelve-year-old will be thinned out to nothing to help out the pile of rot-gut neutral spirits that James Ferguson has run off. The name of Cluain will mean nothing. It will be Ferguson’s. Those young men ‒ those solid young men ‒ will be here, looking over your stock, selecting what they want, three-year-old, four-year-old. Breaking your heart. And because you will be tied to them, hand and foot, you will not be able to stand out against them. You will go with them, because you have to. And why? Forget Ferguson ‒ why do you hand over your heritage to the Camerons and Macquaries? They will decide, whether you like it or not, that Cluain can expand ‒ can produce more whisky, and still more. There will be more stills put in, and men to manage them. And Cameron and Macquarie men at that. And what will become of you …? Where will the Master of Cluain be then?’
I thought he cringed a little, but his face was turned away from me. ‘And what else is there to do? Where else am I to turn? If William had lived ‒ but he didn’t. There is only you … and you’re a woman.’ Now he looked back at me, and his tone was nearly one of pleading. ‘It is mostly for your sake. You have said we are two old men, and that we are. What will you do when neither of us is here?’
‘Are you saying Cluain will be mine? Are you saying that precisely?’
He paused. ‘It is no
easy thing for a woman ‒ especially a young woman ‒ to run a business. It is not a woman’s world. But there is a prospect … Well, there is one of the young Cameron men yet unmarried. Personable, Samuel says. Intelligent. He has travelled, Kirsty ‒’ His tone grew more eager. ‘He has been in America, and places like Paris and Rome. He is very sharp in business, they say. He would make any young woman a fine husband. You could do much worse, Kirsty. And Cluain ‒’
‘No!’ My hands went to my mouth to try to keep down the words that came rushing. But I heard myself screaming, screaming as if I had been struck. ‘No! You must be mad! The two of you ‒ mad old men! Do you think I could marry because it would fit in nicely with the whole plan? Tell me! Tell me if that was part of all your visiting back and forth? Oh, God! ‒ that is what happens to women in China! Do you think my father would have permitted such a thing ‒ even thought of it?’
‘It is not unknown,’ my grandfather said curtly. ‘Marriages are arranged on much worse terms than these.’ He was stiff and embarrassed; the value of property was being questioned, and the value of Cluain being weighed against the capricious wishes of a young woman. I began to see what this madness was; if William had been here there would have been none of it. Two old men, I had said. It was true. They were two old men and between them they had only me with which to envisage the future ‒ me, unmarried, without a child, without a son … ‘Cluain is no mean dowry, Gurrl.’
‘Dowry! Whoever asked for a dowry? And given on condition that I marry a good solid young man who has travelled, personable, was what you said, wasn’t it? ‒ and no doubt wearing a good suit.’
A Falcon for a Queen Page 30