From London Far

by Michael Innes

  IV

  Miss Dorcas advanced across the base-court and observed that the Travellers – for they were decidedly that – stood engaged in rapid consultation. Miss Dorcas thought this a little odd. But her manners being Highland – which is to say perfect – she paused once to pick a buttercup, once to shoo away a sow, and so delayed an encounter until the conference was over. ‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘Our man has no English, but I gather that you seek Mr Properjohn?’

  The scholarly man bowed – which was eminently a Traveller’s way of replying to such a question.

  ‘Then I fear that there has been misapprehension. I am Miss Dorcas Macleod, and only my sister – who is Miss Macleod of Moila – and myself live in the castle. Mr Properjohn lives at Carron Lodge on the mainland.’

  ‘We are exceedingly sorry.’ The scholarly man made motions of withdrawal; at the same time he held with his companion a mute correspondence which Miss Dorcas did not fail to observe. And again she thought it a little odd. The stranger, however, was of polished manners, and Miss Dorcas judged it likely that he was a man of much observation – perhaps, indeed, of extensive views. And, having these good early-Georgian characteristics, he ought not to be turned incontinently away.

  ‘The castle’, Miss Dorcas said, ‘is lonely. We must not part with these suburban civilities. Pray enter and refresh yourselves!’

  ‘Thank you. My name–’ And Miss Dorcas observed the scholarly man to hesitate and look at her fleetingly with quite remarkable penetration, so that she felt obscurely that she was a comma or a colon in a suspected place. ‘My name is Meredith – Richard Meredith. My friend is Miss Halliwell. We are altogether strangers here, and stand a little in need of information with which it would be kind of you to furnish us. We will come in most gladly.’

  ‘Then let us make no more ado.’ And Miss Dorcas turned and spoke to Shamus in Gaelic this for the purpose of giving orders that Mrs Cameron should bring whisky and oatcakes to the solar. The girl called Miss Halliwell, she noticed, glanced at her with quick wariness as the unintelligible words were spoken; and she noticed, too, that as they crossed the base-court and rounded the great bastions of the Inner Ward, her companions kept well to the wall and looked with veiled apprehensiveness about them. No doubt they had been much bombed, Miss Dorcas thought, and were a little shy of the open. Miss Dorcas sympathized with them. Of late she had herself been uneasy when moving about the courts of the castle. She preferred being indoors – and most of all preferred thinking of tunnels, catacombs, and caverns. This troglodyte habit in Miss Dorcas, although doubtless the consequence of shocking goings-on among her brothers and sisters during their nursery years, had been exacerbated of late by the Flying Foxes. It was not so much the contraptions themselves, creaking and straining on their course overhead, as the oblique and sinister line traced by their shadows on the tussock-grass and clover and meadowsweet of the empty and desolate courts that now got Miss Dorcas down. The curve and swoop, the sudden fore-shortened or elongated wing-shadow of a gull, had here for many years given a rhythmic pleasure to her eye. Now the steady shapeless creep of these things filled her with obscure alarm.

  Mr Meredith was glancing upwards. He was wondering whether it would be civil to remark upon the incongruous objects. Somewhat nervously, Miss Dorcas forestalled him. ‘Your friend Mr Properjohn, as you no doubt know, carries out certain quarrying operations on the island of Inchfarr. The great buckets which you see overhead are the means of transport to the mainland.’

  ‘Dear me!’ said Mr Meredith, and peered again with a sort of puzzled attention overhead. ‘And has there been this activity for long?’

  ‘For a number of years. I seemed to remember that the machines were in operation shortly before the outbreak of war.’

  ‘No doubt’, said Mr Meredith, ‘it has been work of national importance.’

  ‘We did it for money.’ Miss Dorcas was uncompromising. ‘Subsequently we learnt that it was useful – it is a fertilizer, you will understand – but it was for money that we let the things be put up. What would you think it was worth?’

  Mr Meredith considered this carefully. He paused and surveyed the dark-honey-coloured stone that ran out like the two paws of a couchant lion round the anchorage; he looked back at the dull purple mass of Ben Carron and forward again to where, through a crumbled arch rising above a floor of poppy and ragged robin, blue–green water veined with indigo led the eye to a gleaming shoulder of Inchfarr. Then he had another look at the pylons and cables of the Foxes. ‘A substantial sum,’ he said decidedly.

  ‘Precisely so.’ Miss Dorcas was pleased. ‘Your friend offered my sister a sum of money which – though with little knowledge of such things – I have subsequently felt unaccountable.’ And Miss Dorcas looked from Mr Meredith to Miss Halliwell, her mind obscurely working. ‘You must see our water-closet,’ she continued – the more startlingly because in exactly the same tone – ‘and our tiled bathroom in the Outer Enceinte.’

  ‘We shall be delighted.’ Mr Meredith spoke with a level voice and faintly arched eyebrows. It was his first indication that the lady who had received him lived something on the farther side of eccentricity. Castle Moila was famous alike in legend, history, and fiction. To these courts Magnus Barelegs had brought fire; Donald, Lord of the Isles, a traitor’s promise; Macleod of Lewis a gratricidal knife. Here had come Prince Charles Edward, thwarted of a throne, and daughters of a hereditary Captain had offered him manchets and wine. Of these walls Walter Scott had dreamed, sitting in an Adam house in an Edinburgh square, and had peopled them with romantic and loquacious shades. Now Flying Foxes swept above them, and obscurely prompted an ancient gentlewoman to invite inspection of a bathroom and a privy. Meredith found this last association altogether incomprehensible.

  ‘So out of Mr Properjohn’s quarrying you at least got some solid and prosaic comfort?’ It was Jean Halliwell who spoke, having found the concatenation of ideas less mysterious.

  ‘There has been that to be said for it.’ Miss Dorcas looked at the young woman with approval. ‘To sell the sky above our heads for money in a bank would be unpardonable. To exchange it for a hot-water circulation was rational. But it appears that rational actions are not always quite the right thing. For now I know it was a mistake.’ As Miss Dorcas spoke there came from overhead the creaking sound of a cable straining over pulleys, and a large black shadow crept out from a corner of the courtyard they were about to cross. Miss Dorcas looked another way. ‘Of how my sister feels in the matter I cannot be assured. It must be confessed some years since she opened her mind to me.’

  The idiom of Miss Dorcas, Meredith was thinking, suggested that the Misses Macleod must have enjoyed the attentions of a superior governess far advanced towards senescence when they were themselves scarcely in sight of long frocks. But this was a reflection of very minor interest. What was significant was this: that Moila, which ought to have been the lair of a ruthless foe, was actually in the occupancy of two harmless gentlewomen rejoicing in a tiled bathroom and a water-closet.

  Or so it appeared. Meredith was not altogether unfamiliar with that species of romantic fiction in which persons of the most benign and estimable exterior, unreservedly respected by all good men, suddenly drop the mask and reveal themselves as being the very fiends whose abominable crimes have held whole regions in fearsome awe. Could Miss Dorcas be like this? And when they were shortly led into the presence of her sister, Miss Macleod of Moila, would that lady receive them with a frank and inhuman glee and incontinently hand them over to several naked Ethiopian executioners? Or would there simply be a furniture van waiting in the next court? This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself… But in some great chamber within there had been pacing Lady Macbeth, invoking no nimble air, but the dunnest smoke of hell. Was the elder Miss Macleod similarly engaged now?

  ‘I envy you such a home,’ Jean Halliwell wa
s saying. ‘The air is wonderful.’

  Meredith felt inclined by some surreptitious act of natural magic to avert this omen. But Miss Dorcas was shaking her head in a manner comfortingly devoid of all sinister suggestion. ‘There is a great deal of air,’ she said. ‘It is undeniable that the castle is airy – particularly where there is no roof. But we do not know that the quality is to be recommended. On the east coast of Scotland there is ozone. But here the atmosphere is commonly muggy. And this makes various domestic appointments particularly desirable. Drying cupboards, for example, well supplied with hot pipes. Of course, one could get away from it by burrowing.’

  ‘By burrowing?’ said Meredith mildly.

  ‘Or tunnelling. I dare say you are aware that the London Tubes are full of ozone?’

  ‘I have heard something of the sort said. But I imagine that to be because electrical–’

  ‘And thus we may suppose that at a certain depth ozone would be obtained.’

  It was evident that anything with which Miss Dorcas would positively interrupt a guest must be in the nature of an idée fixe. ‘Of course one could travel,’ suggested Meredith. ‘A lateral progression, as it were, towards North Berwick or St Andrews, even if it involved a journey of a hundred miles, might be less laborious than the necessary perpendicular excavation in what appears to be the living rock beneath the castle.’ Meredith paused happily on this; he observed that Miss Dorcas was one who would follow such a well-turned period; and this gave him confidence that she was a reliable sort of person after all.

  ‘Do you, in fact, travel much?’

  ‘Dear me, no.’ Miss Dorcas’ tone was surprised. ‘The mode of life of my sister and myself is retired. The fact is that on the mainland we have a relative, our Great-aunt Patuffa, whom we do not at all trust. But we have been given to understand that her malign power will not extend over water. And for this reason we do not leave the island. Are you fond of Rome?’

  ‘Extremely so.’ Meredith found the transition as odd as the information which had preceded it. ‘There is a professional sense in which it might be called my native city.’

  ‘But one has so far to go in the summer.’ Miss Dorcas was evidently moved to show that despite her present insularity she too was a citizen of the world. ‘At one time my sister and I thought of domiciling ourselves in Florence. Our Uncle Archibald lived most of his life in Venice. He was a virtuoso.’

  ‘A very nice place to live.’ Jean Halliwell was ingenuous. ‘But who told you that your Great-aunt Patuffa’s power would not extend to the island?’

  Miss Dorcas considered. ‘I think it must have been our brother, the former hereditary Captain. He advises us to live permanently in the castle. But that, of course, was money.’ Here was a subject upon which Miss Dorcas was evidently always uncompromising. ‘Florence, I suppose, would have been not expensive. But Castle Moila is unchallengeably less expensive still. Pray have a care in mounting the steps. They frequently work loose, I fear, and Tammas has even less readiness in such repairs than was his formerly. I do not doubt that you will find Mr Properjohn’s house admirably appointed.’

  ‘I think we ought to explain that Mr Properjohn–’ Meredith thought better of this opening and paused. ‘We are climbing, are we not,’ he said, ‘to a considerable height?’

  ‘The solar is my sister’s favourite room. It stands, of course, above and beyond the banqueting hall, and was constructed so as to catch the southern sun. Such places are nowadays called sun-traps, I believe. But I think I ought to explain that my sister–’ And Miss Dorcas in her turn paused on this. ‘You have known Mr Properjohn in a business way?’ she asked.

  ‘Neither of us has ever set eyes on him.’

  ‘Indeed!’ Miss Dorcas’ last doubt about the Travellers were dissipated. ‘I wonder if you would be so kind as to pause by this balistraria for a few moments? I confess to finding the winding stairtcases more fatiguing than formerly. And there is a word that I should like to say before joining Miss Macleod.’ She paused and looked up, startled, as the light from the narrow window by which they stood faded as if at a sudden eclipse. ‘Dear me, it is only one of the Flying Foxes again! This is the point at which they come closest to the castle. When the plan was first discussed we were given the impression that they would by no means swoop so low. But, of course, a certain gradient has to be maintained, and it would be expensive to give the pylons a greater elevation, no doubt. Now, what was I saying? Yes, to be sure. I simply wished to warn you that Tibbie – my sister, that is to say – is now far advanced in years, and her mind tends to dwell more and more upon the past.’

  ‘It is a thing very common’, said Meredith, ‘upon the approach of old age.’

  ‘I suppose it is.’ Miss Dorcas sounded doubtful. ‘And I must admit that I find my own girlhood returning to me more and more. Most of it was spent with relatives on my mother’s side – at Glowrie Castle. Does either of you know it, I wonder?’ Miss Dorcas was wistful. ‘There are wonderful dungeons – some of them, it is said, nearly fifty feet below the surface. We used to go there in secret and play all sorts of odd games. I know they were very exciting. But, curiously enough, I remember very little about them.’ Miss Dorcas had begun to climb again, a perplexed frown on her face. ‘Sometimes I think there was something that it is important to remember…’ She broke off and threw open a door. ‘But this is the solar. Tibbie, I have brought visitors – Travellers – whom you will be sure to welcome. They are Miss Halliwell and Mr Meredith, and have been misdirected while seeking Mr Properjohn. They have business with him, but I understand’ – Miss Dorcas added this rather hastily – ‘that they do not enjoy his personal acquaintance. Pray let me introduce you to my sister, Miss Macleod.’

  The solar was a large room of undressed stone, with a groined roof and a flagged floor. Three narrow windows with deep embrasures faced south – and these, through a mysterious skill often to be found in such buildings, flooded the entire apartment with a very sufficient light. It was possible to see at once that there were threadbare patches on most of the rugs; that to sit on some of the chairs or lean on some of the tables would be to court immediate disaster; and that of the innumerable ornamental objects with which the place was crowded a substantial majority were sadly in need of dusting. On the walls were a number of steel engravings of Biblical subjects in massive mahogany frames, several ancient oleographs after Rembrandt, a number of Arundel prints (recalling Florence and Rome), several original Landseers (the curly-headed dog-boy, thought Meredith absently), and – dazzling distinct from all these – a Raeburn portrait over the great empty fireplace. It was on this that Meredith immediately fixed his eye. An old lady erect in a high-waisted gown, with grey hair under a filmy cap, looked directly at him with dark and penetrating eyes – with the ironic sadness, too, of one who remembers her own great beauty long departed.

  A superb Raeburn… Meredith, realizing that his glance had remained longer than was civil upon what was but an inanimate object after all, turned in some confusion to greet the lady of the castle. The result was comical. His eyes flew back to the portrait and at the same time he uttered an audible exclamation of surprise. For it seemed there could be no doubt of it. The lady whom Raeburn had painted somewhere in the last years of the eighteenth century was now advancing to receive him from a corner of the room.

  It was, of course, a trick of family resemblance – and partly, too, that Miss Macleod of Moila a little dressed the part. But Meredith’s impression had been so obvious that there was nothing to do but refer to it. ‘I cannot be the only one’, he said as he bowed over Miss Macleod’s hand, ‘to have been immediately struck by a resemblance–’

  ‘It is always remarked.’ The old lady before him had faintly flushed. ‘The portrait is of Flora Macleod – that Lady Flora Macleod who raised a regiment for Prince Charles Edward in the Forty-five. To every man who came out she offered a kiss. She was eighteen the
n. My brother has her portrait as taken at that time by Allan Ramsay. Her hair is dark and falls in ringlets. And in it she wears a white flower.’

  ‘That must be very striking, too.’ Meredith allowed himself another glance at the Raeburn – almost as if to make quite sure that it was still there. For it seemed just the sort of thing near which Mr Properjohn would affect to find a time-bomb, or for which he would send a brightly painted furniture van. And Mr Properjohn was not many miles off. Indeed, by his subordinates he appeared to be thought of as Mr Properjohn of Moila, and this island with its solitary castle was supposed by them to be the place at which he was to be met. But that might be only a loose manner of speaking, for all that one had to go on, after all, was what Jean had managed to pick up in distinctly harassing circumstances. Could it be possible that these impoverished gentlewomen were in some comparatively innocent manner his accomplices? It was evident that everything tended to strike them in decidedly an old-world guise: might they believe, then, that they had lent themselves simply to a little romantic smuggling after the fashion of the age of Scott and Burns? In a way, indeed, the activities of Mr Properjohn and his associates were no more than that – except that they operated on the largest scale, that their smuggling was out rather than in, and that they stood in some definite, if as yet undefined, relationship to certain late enemies of the King. And in that there surely lay a crucial point: the thing had been going on nearly all through the war. Incredible that in such circumstances the Misses Macleod would play any conscious part in irregular comings and goings off the coast of Scotland. The conclusion was clear. Mr Properjohn with his Flying Foxes was carrying on under their noses (or rather some way above them) a nefarious traffic of which they were entirely ignorant.