by M C Beaton
“Myself,” said Lucy. “Me and my common sense.”
“I’m warning you for the last time,” said her mother, putting down her teacup. “If you do anything to lose this job, then neither I nor God will forgive you.”
It was useless! Lucy wandered outside, hoping that the evening air would clear her fevered thoughts.
The loch stretched out like beaten silver in the twilight. The mountains seemed to loom very near.
“The rain’s coming,” said MacGregor, suddenly at her elbow. “If you can see the mountains, the rain is coming …”
“… and if you cannot see them, then the rain is here,” finished Lucy. “A very old joke indeed, Mr. MacGregor.”
A faint breeze moved the skirt of Lucy’s black dress and whispered among the bushes. Thunder rumbled in the distance and the muted, mocking, tinkling sound of the dance band reached their ears—"Champagne Charlie Is My Name"—lilting out on the evening air, punctuated by the tinkling of glasses and sudden bursts of laughter.
Joined by a thin thread of mutual understanding, the butler and the maid walked slowly down to the loch, past the screen of pines and bushes until they reached the small strip of pebbly shore. Little waves hissed at their feet, a heron stood on one leg and eyed them solemnly, and the thunder rolled nearer, reverberating menacingly among the glens.
“Have you thought about what I said?” asked the butler.
“Yes,” replied Lucy simply.
A heavy drop of rain splashed on her hand and they both turned and began to walk back toward the castle.
“And when shall we leave?” asked MacGregor.
“I must think some more,” said Lucy.
MacGregor cleverly dropped the subject. “Would you like to take a peek into the ballroom, Lucy? Before the rain comes down heavy?”
She nodded and he led her around to the back of the house where a long terrace ran, along outside the ballroom. The curtains were drawn but a shaft of light escaped from one of the long windows that had not been completely closed.
With a thudding heart Lucy leaned against the window and looked inside. The ballroom was ablaze with lights and jewels. The dancers dipped and swirled. What would it be like, Lucy wondered, to be in there … to be part of it … accepted?
The crowd of dancers parted slightly and Lady Angela swung into view in the arms of Andrew Harvey. She was laughing up at him and he was smiling down at her. He raised his head and his mocking blue eyes looked straight across at the window to where Lucy stood with MacGregor beside her. He hesitated slightly and Angela asked, “Is anything the matter?”
He shrugged. “I’m seeing ghosts. Highland ghosts that once gathered brambles.” Then he swung her off into the dance.
Lucy moved away like a sleepwalker on MacGregor’s arm. “My day off,” she said suddenly. “We leave on Thursday.”
MacGregor smiled as the thunder crashed and rolled above the old castle. “Fine,” he said triumphantly. “Let’s get back to the kitchens and find that pack of cards!”
Two footmen were standing by the kitchen table grumbling about the discomfort of their powdered hair.
“Is it so very uncomfortable?” asked Lucy curiously as MacGregor went off in search of a pack of cards.
“How would you like to walk around with a great pudding on your head?” asked one, trying to scratch his head with a skewer. Lucy reached forward a tentative finger and touched one stiff white curl. “What is it?” she asked.
“Flour and water,” he replied gloomily. “We damps our hair and then sprinkles it with flour from the bin and then the whole bleeding lot dries as hard as a plaster. Christ! How it itches.”
When I am a lady, thought Lucy suddenly, I shall never make the footmen powder their hair. Unwittingly, she had taken another mental step toward leaving.
The next morning Viscount Harvey was to take Lady Angela riding before leaving for the South. Angela for once was thrown into too much of a flutter to leave a list of chores for Lucy to do, so she found herself, at last, with four precious hours of freedom.
She toppled headlong into her bed, plunging over a great, high, mental cliff into the depths of sleep. She had managed to prize her bedroom window open and was at last awakened by the sound of returning hooves.
She leaned out of the window that faced the loch. Lady Angela and Andrew Harvey were clattering up the drive.
Angela was wearing a close-fitting black riding dress with a saucy bowler perched on top of her blond curls. Andrew Harvey was wearing the hacking jacket and jodhpurs in which Lucy had first seen him. He dismounted and held up his arms to Lady Angela and swung her down from the saddle. She stayed in his arms for a minute, laughing up at him.
Lucy slowly left the window and began to dress. It was hopeless. It was all the fault of that old devil MacGregor. She needed someone sensible—some impartial judge—to make up her mind for her. She suddenly thought of her French teacher, Miss Johnstone. She would visit her on her day off and lay the matter before her. Feeling that the decision was now out of her hands, she returned to her duties.
After Viscount Harvey had left, Lady Angela once more became the aloof, exacting mistress, filling in every minute of her waking hours by supervising Lucy’s work.
MacGregor was furious when he heard of Lucy’s decision to consult Miss Johnstone. “What do you expect a dried up old stick of a schoolteacher to say?” he scoffed. But Lucy remained firm and the butler had to fret and fume until Thursday.
At last the morning of the precious day off arrived, and for several horrible moments it seemed as if Lady Angela was not going to allow her maid the time off.
“It’s not really as if you’ll be doing anything,” she said petulantly. “I have other plans for you.” Miss Jones, who had been sitting in the corner of the schoolroom, rose quietly and slipped from the room like a wraith.
“I am sure you have left something undone,” said Angela. “I think you had better let me see your workbasket.”
The door to the schoolroom opened and the countess walked in, followed by Miss Jones, who slipped quietly back into her seat.
The countess strode over to the fireplace and hitched her skirts up at the back and proceeded to warm her bottom with her usual blithe unconcern for convention. As Lucy stared, mesmerized, at a vast expanse of peach-colored knickers, the countess boomed, “Ready to go off gallivantin’, Lucy?”
Lucy gave Angela a nervous look. “I had planned to spend a quiet day at home, my lady.”
“Good girl!” said the countess. “Off you go.”
“Really, Mother,” said Angela. “I have need of my maid today.”
“Well, I have need of you, darling,” said her mother. “It’s early days yet, but it’s time we started planning a wardrobe for your first Season.”
“Oh, very well,” said Angela ungraciously. “You may leave, Lucy.”
Lucy paused in the doorway and looked fleetingly back at Miss Jones. Did the elderly spinster wink or was it merely one of her many facial ticks? Lucy did not wait to find out. She fled from the castle as if the hounds of hell were after her, down the tradesmen’s road that was nearest to the town, not stopping for breath until she was outside the grounds.
The still morning was pearly with mist, the trees and bushes sparkling and shining with drops of moisture, as Lady Angela’s ball gown had sparkled with pearls. Great branches lay like severed limbs across the road where the storm had wrenched them apart and thrown them down. The leaves of the trees seemed to have disappeared overnight, leaving the gray branches pointing up into the mist, signposts of the winter to come.
The day was so dark and misty that the gaslights had been lit in the town streets. Now that there was a chance that she might not see her hometown again, Lucy looked around at the shops and cobbled streets as if seeing them for the first time. Marysburgh was mostly made up of one main street and one main square which housed the town hall and the court. The wealthy trades-people lived in a smaller square at one end of the ma
in street and the professional classes in an equally small square at the other end. Little lanes ran down to the pier and the small promenade in front of the loch shrouded that morning with mist.
In summer, Marysburgh took on a brief life when the day-trippers arrived by boat from Glasgow to buy colored postcards and souvenirs while their children scrabbled to make sandcastles out of the mud beneath the pebbles on the scraggly beach. But Lucy loved it best at this time of year when the gaslights flared and the interiors of the shops shone with jumbles of color.
Miss Johnstone lived in a little cottage on the far side of town. She was working in her garden when Lucy arrived, snipping dead heads from clumps of geraniums.
She put down her scissors and straightened up as she saw the slim figure of Lucy approaching. Miss Johnstone, an elderly spinster, was dressed in sensible tweeds. Little beads of mist clung to her snowy curls and twinkled on her thick glasses.
“You’re just in time for a cup of tea,” she called as Lucy opened the garden gate. She led the way around to the kitchen at the back and put the black kettle on the hob. Lucy had planned to lead up to her problem slowly but the hours of waiting until her day off had made her feel as if she were ready to come apart. She burst out with the whole scheme, words tumbling one over the other, of her luck at baccarat, MacGregor’s plan, and “Isn’t it awful?” she finally ended with, breathless.
Miss Johnstone swung the kettle over and filled the teapot. “Now, we’ll leave the tea to steep while I try to sort this thing out. I cannot for a minute believe that any human being could be so consistently lucky at cards. You wait there. I’ve got a nice bit of Dundee cake and some fly cemeteries,” she said, unconsciously, using the school-children’s nickname for the latter, which was a type of raisin cake.
She bustled back in a few minutes carrying a grimy pack of colored cards. “Now, all I’ve got is Happy Families but they’ll have to do. You drink your tea, like a good girl, and I’ll just write numbers on these. You’ll just need to imagine that Mr. Bun, the Baker, is the King of Hearts, for example.”
Miss Johnstone bent her white head and scribbled away busily while Lucy looked on in amazement. She had expected a homily on gambling.
“I’m ready,” said Miss Johnstone at last. “I think I’ve grasped the rules of baccarat. Now, I’m the banker.”
For the next hour she systematically took Lucy through game after game. And Lucy won every time.
“Well, I never did,” said the schoolteacher finally, sitting back in her chair and unconsciously echoing the butler. “Now I see what’s got that old scoundrel MacGregor excited. You could make a fortune.”
“It’s the moral point of view that worries me,” said Lucy.
The schoolteacher pushed her glasses back on her head and surveyed her former pupil. “To my mind, what you’re doing at the moment is not particularly moral. I was anxious for your mother to send you to the university but I suppose she didn’t tell you anything about that? No. I thought she wouldn’t. Had her mind set on this lady’s maid business. I called her a snob and she wasn’t half mad. So there you are, waiting on some silly little girl hand and foot and here we are looking at the beginnings of a fortune.
“It may seem hard, my dear, but there’s no way for a young girl like yourself to make her way in the world without some sort of an income.
“Forget MacGregor’s wild ideas about a Season. But do as he says. Go to the casinos and get yourself a little nest egg. Hamish MacGregor is all right you know. A bit wild for an old man and more than often a bit drunk, but he’s a decent body for all that.”
Lucy began to feel the stirrings of heady excitement. “I told Mr. MacGregor that, if you decided in favor of his plan, we would leave tonight.”
“It’s as good a time as any,” said Miss Johnstone. “How are you both going to find the money for your travels?”
“Mr. MacGregor says he’s got his life’s savings put by,” said Lucy.
“Well, it’s fitting the auld devil should pay for something. I don’t think you should leave together. You take the steamer to Glasgow and I’ll send Hamish by road to meet you. Speak of the devil!”
The bony figure of the butler loomed in the doorway, his eyes sparkling. “It’s ‘yes’” he cried. “I can read it in your faces!”
“Calm down, man,” said Miss Johnstone, pouring an extra cup. “Have you thought about changing your appearances?”
“Aye,” said the butler. “Nobody will recognize miss, here, once she’s all togged out. As for me—a bit of a beard, a bit of a wig and nobody will be a bit the wiser.”
“Finish your tea and be off with you, Mr. MacGregor,” said the schoolteacher, “while me and Lucy sit here and write a letter to her mother. She’ll grieve a bit, Lucy. It’s only to be expected. But she’ll be glad to know that you’re safe. I’ll tell her that you’ve gone to Glasgow to find work so that you can pay for your studies at the university. Send me regular letters and I’ll get them posted to her from Glasgow. I can use a friend’s address. There’s no danger of her going to see you?”
Lucy shook her head. “She thinks that everything outside of Marysburgh is foreign country.”
“Then you had better go home and pack up what you need. Have courage, Lucy. If worse comes to worst and your luck fails, you can always come back here to me.”
After she and Miss Johnstone had composed a suitable letter for Mrs. Balfour, Lucy walked slowly back into the town and turned down the lane that was marked Glebe Road. She had only been a little over four weeks away from home and already the house looked smaller.
How quiet and dark it was in the kitchen! Everything was scrubbed and somehow lifeless. She climbed the narrow stairs to her room. She had very few belongings; some books, a school photograph, a lucky penny, school certificates. Lucy sighed. There was really nothing that was worth packing.
She slowly went downstairs and placed her farewell letter on the kitchen table. Then she opened the kitchen door and stepped out into a blaze of sunshine. The weather had changed in its usual mercurial fashion, a frisky breeze sending the wisps of mist up to the mountain tops.
Lucy began the long walk to the tradesmen’s entrance of the castle, which was a good three miles from the town. Suddenly she saw a bush of white heather growing among the rocks beside the road. She bent down and tore off a small spray and put it into her handbag. At least she would have one reminder of home.
That evening she waited nervously at the end of the pier for the last steamer to Glasgow. If anyone saw her, she had her story ready. She was merely delivering some old clothes to the next port of call down the loch.
But as the boat chugged away from the pier, she was the only passenger to get on board. She stood in the stern at the rail and watched the lights of Marysburgh fade into the twilight. She felt very young, vulnerable, and alone. She thought of her mother and father reading the letter in the kitchen and a tear rolled slowly down her cheek.
The peace of the loch was slowly left behind in the soft Highland twilight.
A seagull dived past her ear with a raucous cry—a noisy harbinger of the tumultuous days to follow.
CHAPTER FOUR
A dusty fiacre crawled up the hill above Monte Carlo bearing its ill-assorted burden.
A pale dawn was creeping over the expanse of the Mediterranean as Mr. and Miss Balfour-MacGregor went home to their villa high up in the pines.
Mr. Balfour-MacGregor, resplendent in a tall silk hat, evening clothes, and gold embroidered waistcoat, with his aristocratic features highlighted by a small imperial beard, seemed too distinguished a figure to have such a dowdy daughter. Miss Balfour-MacGregor was lumpy and fat with a pasty face and dull brown hair falling in lank, greasy strands from under a tired headdress of osprey feathers.
“I thought you would be delighted, Lucy,” said Mr. Balfour-MacGregor. “Five thousand pounds in francs at one sitting.”
“I am tired to death,” said Lucy. “How would you like to sit in the stif
ling heat of the casino with pillows stuffed down your dress and cotton wool wadding your cheeks?”
“It’s all to the good,” said the ex-butler. “I don’t want anyone to recognize you in London. And I don’t want any mashers hanging around my beautiful daughter. You’ll marry an English lord by the time I’m through with you.”
“Don’t you think we have enough money now, Mr. MacGregor?” pleaded Lucy,
“Call me Papa,” said the ex-butler, “and remember our name is Balfour-MacGregor. No, we have not made nearly enough. We must move on tomorrow. You caused quite a sensation tonight. We must move to another casino fast before these casino owners begin to pool their gossip.”
The fiacre came to a stop before a small villa and the couple alighted and trailed wearily indoors. MacGregor had not hired any servants so that there would be no witnesses to wonder why the beautiful Miss Balfour-MacGregor became transformed into a fat, frumpy woman as soon as night fell.
“Make us a snack, Lucy,” called MacGregor over his shoulder. “I’ll nip down to the cellar and get us a bottle of bubbly.”
Lucy shut the kitchen door behind him and then walked over and closed the heavy shutters. She then removed the heavy, lank wig and headdress and threw them in a corner. She stopped and listened and heard the faint sounds of MacGregor in the cellar underneath the house. She lifted her skirts and drew out one large pillow from the front and another from the back and threw them in the same corner. She dug her fingers into her mouth and removed the wads of cotton wool and, crossing to the sink, poured a basin of water from a wooden bucket on the floor and scrubbed the white paint and gray powder from her face.
She unbraided her own hair and, taking a brush from her handbag, began to brush it out with long, even strokes until it crackled and shone in the dim candlelight. She put a long loaf of bread and a box of Camembert together with some of the local cheeses on the table and, tying an apron around her waist, she lit the stove.
MacGregor came up the stairs from the cellar and into the kitchen as she was beating eggs for an omelet. “Sit down and I’ll do that,” he said, taking the wire beater from her. He cast a furtive, guilty look at her tired, drawn face and the shadows under her eyes and came to a decision. “I’ve been thinking, Lucy,” he said with his back to her. “We might stay on here for a few days and get a bit of rest. You know, just sleep and wander about the countryside.”