Miss Seeton Rocks the Cradle (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 13)

by Hamilton Crane

  The veteran Silver Ghost was, after his wife and child, the dearest possession of Ranald MacSporran, Earl of Glenclachan, just as it had been his grandfather’s. Allain MacSporran, the old earl, had been one of Scotland’s best-known and most enthusiastic motorists in the days of the walking red flag and the four-miles-per-hour speed limit. He took a horsewhip to the chauffeur when that unfortunate omitted to keep the plugs of his first car adequately oiled; and he allowed nobody else to drive him anywhere (the chauffeur being demoted to his original position as groom) until Ranald took and passed the driving test at ten o’clock in the morning of his seventeenth birthday, at the minimum permitted age. The earl and his grandson having spent many happy hours from the latter’s infancy in taking cars to pieces and putting them back together again, so now did Lord Glenclachan take full credit for young Ranald’s brilliant performance; and he acknowledged (under the influence of a celebratory dram) that, as his years now approached seventy, it might be wise for him to slow down a little. Which meant that for the first time in living memory since the sacking of the chauffeur, someone other than the car-crazy laird was to be seen behind the steering wheel of Allain MacSporran’s motor.

  Earl Allain died in his eighty-sixth year, succumbing to an apoplectic fit while listening to a wireless commentary on the racing from Brands Hatch. Everyone agreed that the old man couldn’t have wished for a better way to go; and, his father Colin having died seven years earlier of a heart attack (brought on by exertion during the opening round of the haggis-hurling competition at the annual Clan Games), in such a manner did Ranald inherit together the earldom, the castle, and the car. Liusaidh, his wife, was not the only person to smile through her tears at his inheritance, and to wonder aloud which part of it Ranald valued the most.

  Before they set out, Ranald had given the admiring Miss Seeton a guided tour of his treasure. “Bought to celebrate my father’s birth,” he said, stroking with a proud hand the bare water cap of the distinctive radiator. “Four years before Sykes designed the Spirit of Ecstasy, you know. One of the very first Silver Ghosts ever made—the best car in the world—although,” and he sighed, shaking his head, “I can’t help regretting that Grandfather sold his previous two-cylinder job to buy this one. Just think—there’s a 1904 ten-horsepower on the road to this day, Miss Seeton—and it’s in Scotland, what’s more. Lucky chap . . .”

  Miss Seeton looked suitably impressed. The earl sighed again. “They’re marvellous motors, Miss Seeton. D’you know that more than six out of ten of all Royces ever built—and that’s going back seventy years—are still in full working order? There’s a Royce in Moscow, in the Lenin museum—and in 1905 a twenty-horsepower was able to start in top gear up a gradient of one in six with nine men on board!”

  “Good gracious,” murmured Miss Seeton, understanding she must continue to be impressed, but not entirely sure why. Lady Glenclachan touched her husband lightly on the arm.

  “Ranald, my dear, don’t overwhelm poor Miss Seeton, will you? I’m sure she doesn’t understand half of what you’re telling her—any more than I did, when I first met you.” She turned to smile at their new friend. “Believe me, Miss Seeton, I do sympathise if it feels as though you’ve been set down in an utterly foreign country whose language you don’t speak. It must have been three years after our wedding before I knew what Ranald was talking about at least half of the time.”

  Lord Glenclachan swallowed his planned reference to the radiator grille and its manufacture by skilled hand and eye without the use of measuring instruments, patted the water cap once more, grinned sheepishly, and began to assist his passengers, and their luggage, into their appointed places. Liusaidh had made sure that the picnic basket contained more than adequate supplies for the entire journey north, though they had planned to make a short overnight stay with friends—as Lady Glenclachan so sagely said, it did no harm at all to be prepared.

  “Hope for the best, expect the worst, and take what comes, so my old nanny always told me,” she remarked to Miss Seeton as at last they set out. Miss Seeton nodded approval of this sentiment. Lord Glenclachan chuckled.

  “There’s nothing to worry about, believe me. Never has been before, has there? I promise you we’ll arrive all in one piece and all in good time—and I’m sure we shan’t need half of what you’ve packed. A Rolls-Royce, you see, Miss Seeton, doesn’t break down. Why, just listen to the engine! When the first Royces went across to the United States, the customs chappies thought they must be powered by electricity instead of petrol, because they were so quiet. The best car in the world,” he said again, and tootled a cheerful fanfare on the horn.

  He sounded another fanfare late the next afternoon, as the Silver Ghost turned into the gateway of MacSporran Castle and his wife began to rouse her sleeping daughter. “Here we are,” was all Ranald MacSporran said, but his tone said far more. Miss Seeton wondered fleetingly how he could ever bring himself to travel to London, when his heart was so clearly in the Highlands; then she blushed for her curiosity, and looked around with interest as the car glided up the drive.

  The MacSporrans’ home was not the castellated, moated, draw-bridged fortification of Miss Seeton’s imagining. There was a plain, square, solid tower at the centre, with a step-gabled roof of slate which overhung the walls so far there was no need for guttering. At two opposite corners of the central square stood round towers, equally solid and plain; the entire building was (she was later to learn) harled, or rendered with a lime-based roughcast hurled on the wall, and coloured a characteristic light pink which blended well with the soft greens and browns of the countryside, the brooding greys of granite outcrops, the hazy purples of heather, and the pale pearly gold of a sunset sky.

  “How delightful,” exclaimed Miss Seeton, feeling in her fingers the old, familiar tingle which she hoped—as she never ceased to hope—would for once herald true fulfilment of her creative yearnings. How glad she was she had remembered to pack sketchbook, paints, charcoal, and pencils . . . Then, even as she continued to express pleasure at the view, her sturdy realism reasserted herself. With a sigh, she added her all-too-valuable eraser to that mental list. Her artistic ability, she knew only too well after so long, could never adequately achieve on paper the visions that presented themselves before her inward eye . . .

  Once everyone was duly settled, Lord Glenclachan invited Miss Seeton to accompany him on a short tour of his estates. Liusaidh did not go with them, being preoccupied with little Lady Marguerite. While Nanny Angela remained in hospital—still unconscious, but happily off the danger list—nobody but the baby’s parents or the most trusted of family retainers could be permitted to care for her, and now every member of the castle staff insisted upon coming to see that all was well with their future clan chief. Miss Seeton had been embarrassed by their welcome, by their gratitude for the part she had played in restoring his heiress to their laird, and Ranald, to spare his honoured guest further blushes, spoke of the need to stretch his legs after the long drive, and of his wish to check on the general progress of affairs during his three weeks’ absence in Town.

  “Oh, you’ll find plenty to take your fancy for a sketch or two around Glenclachan, Miss Seeton,” he told her, leading the way out into the cool, sweet air of an evening slow to turn from dusk to dark, as in all northern latitudes. The open sky arched clear above their heads; the first few stars had begun their slow appearance in the distant, darkling east. “We’ve any number of magnificent views—this is all MacSporran country, you know, and chock full of history, too. Tomorrow, I’ll show you the picture room we’ve made at the top of the turret there”—he indicated one of the round corner towers—“with some of my ancestors on the walls. By all accounts they were a quarrelsome bunch, but I shouldn’t suppose their portraits could get up to anything like the rumpus that place must have seen in the old days.”

  He went on to explain that the “Z-plan” design of MacSporran Castle was a common one in the Highlands, for with only two corner towers (roun
d, not square) and the wise location of windows, a Scottish laird could have an uninterrupted line of sight in every direction for enemies attempting to take his house unawares. “And don’t think for one minute it was just paranoia, Miss Seeton. They had to contend with caterans—robbers, that is—and brigands and raiders from other clans, not to mention the Sassenachs, if you’ll excuse my saying so, and tax collectors. Not that we don’t still have tax collectors nowadays, of course, but we’re rather less likely to want to run them through with swords . . .”

  They came to a low boulder, covered in bronze-green moss and weathered with centuries of rain. Ranald stopped beside it, resting his folded arms on the top of the low wall which overlooked it. “The Wolf Stone—one of my ancestors killed his first wolf here at the age of seven, so the story goes; and it was here that the Glenclachan of his day mustered the fighting men of the clan, poor devils, before leading them out to battle on behalf of Charles Edward Stuart.” Ranald’s tone was not that of one who considered this to have been an altogether wise move.

  Miss Seeton ventured, “That is Bonnie Prince Charlie, is it not?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” Ranald shook his head. “He was a right Charlie, true enough—and I wonder how much of a legend would have grown up around him if he’d been called by a less harmonious name. Charles translates nicely into Gaelic as Tearlach— but suppose they’d used Edward, or Louis, or Philippe, or Casimir instead? Those were his other Christian names,” he added, as Miss Seeton regarded him questioningly. “Euphonic, is that the word? Bonnie Eddie—Teddy? No, he was lucky there. So now everyone remembers the romance of it all, or what they think of as the romance—Flora MacDonald, the white cockade, Cameron of Lochiel’s heeled-in beech saplings he never returned to plant properly . . .”

  He turned to scowl at the Wolf Stone, and favoured it with a brooding kick. “Oh, I suppose it’s only human nature not to want to admit there was never any real chance of success from the start. Charles pawned his mother’s own rubies to finance the invasion—very romantic, they were her dowry—and managed to have the weapons captured by the English before they’d been a week on the voyage from France. He didn’t speak a word of the language when he finally landed, he didn’t know how to wear the costume—more than half the clans refused to revolt on his behalf, and a great many of them actually took up arms against him. Do any of the great romantics ever tell you that?”

  Miss Seeton murmured that she didn’t believe they did, but Ranald was by now too wrapped up in his lament to hear her. “And of those clans that fought for Charles, an awful number were forced to it by their chiefs, under threat of having their homes burned and their families harmed—and most of the chiefs were in it for the plunder they hoped to take home with them. By the time it came to Culloden—oh, granted the English lost a few battles on the way, but that was sheer mischance—by the time they were ready to make a proper stand, it was sheer bloody slaughter of disorganised fanatics by well-trained, well-fed, well-equipped soldiers. At Culloden, Miss Seeton, when their bullets were gone, the Prince’s troops dragged the very stones from the earth with their bare hands and flung them against the enemy . . .”

  He suddenly recollected himself. “I do beg your pardon, Miss Seeton. The Forty-Five wasn’t so long ago, in Highland terms. We have long memories in these parts—to match our long summer evenings,” he added with a smile, gesticulating skywards. “Besides, there’s nobody in Glenclachan or nearby who hasn’t had their fill of the Jacobite Cause, these past few weeks, and I’ve not heard from anyone since we arrived back that things have changed . . .”

  Miss Seeton was too polite to ask what he meant, but it was clearly his intention to explain before she did. “We’re great ones for a cause, Miss Seeton, and to a Scot there’s no such thing as a cause that’s lost. There are Jacobites still in Scotland, and more than one self-styled heir to the Stuart throne hoping the nation will forget how Charles died without legitimate issue, and how his brother Henry became a cardinal of the Roman Catholic church, and not only never claimed to be Henry the Ninth, but went so far towards agreeing the rights of the Hanoverian claim as to accept a pension from George the Third—four thousand pounds a year, Miss Seeton, when he’d surely have tried for more if he thought he stood any chance. Yet there are those who firmly believe there’s but the proper legal arguments to be met, and away with Queen Elizabeth and her own Prince Charles, and welcome back to the Royal House of Stuart.” He snorted. “There’s a pair of them, brother and sister, staying with friends an hour or so from here: Archduke Casimir Sobieski and his sister, Archduchess Clementina, come to see the sights and enjoy a Highland summer. As if they couldn’t be sure of better weather for themselves by staying on the Continent! Casimir makes a great point, as I’ve been told, of not calling himself a Stuart for fear of disturbing the populace—as if anyone in their right minds,” scoffed Ranald MacSporran, “is going to start a rebellion on behalf of a pair of foreign youngsters trying to look pretty in the tartan! I’d say the Queen can rest easy in her bed, Miss Seeton, whether it’s at Buckingham Palace or Balmoral—or even Windsor Castle . . .”

  And Miss Seeton, visualising at his words a sudden image of the massive grey walls and rounded towers of Windsor—so very different in size, yet so similar in purpose, from the castle of Glenclachan—said with the utmost certainty that his lordship, of course, spoke no more than the truth.

  chapter

  ~9~

  MEL FORBY HAD warned Miss Seeton not to be surprised if she noticed a familiar face in the neighbourhood once she had arrived in Glenclachan. “Oh, ye’ll take the high road, and I’ll take the low road,” she sang down the telephone in mellow tones—she and Thrudd had been celebrating her imminent departure with a bottle of Chablis—“and I’ll be in Scotland afore ye—not that I’m too sure about that, with the trains. You don’t know how lucky you are, Miss S., going door-to-door—and in a Rolls-Royce, to boot. Which reminds me—talking of boots, have you packed your walking shoes? Our travel department tells me the hills round Glenclachan are famous for scenery and so forth. Right up your street, I would have thought.”

  Thrudd’s voice might be heard in the background pointing out that The Street was in Plummergen, and on level ground, as opposed to in Scotland, among mountains, but Mel ignored him, except for a quick giggle. Miss Seeton said that she had indeed packed her walking shoes, and her binoculars, for Highland birdlife was supposed to be most interesting; she looked forward to seeing dear Mel again, and hoped she would have a safe journey. Which Mel, having entrusted herself to the tender mercies of British Rail’s InterCity 125 diesel flagship, duly did.

  Glenclachan, the travel department of the Daily Negative had advised her, boasted only one hotel: the Pock and Tang, prop. Hamish McQueest. Hamish greeted his guest with a nod, a stare, and a thoughtful tug at his curling red moustaches, before he pushed the register across the desk for her to sign. Having studied her signature, he informed her that her room just happened to be on the first floor.

  “But there’s no lift, unfortunately,” he added, absently rubbing the base of his spine and wincing. “And my back’s seen better days—early retirement, you know. I’d offer to carry your bags for you, only . . .”

  “Only is the word, all right,” replied Mel cheerfully. “Only one bag, see?” She picked up her overnight case from where she’d put it, out of sight under the reception desk, and brandished it across the counter under Hamish’s startled nose. “You get used to travelling light, in my job. That’s my key, is it? Thanks.” And she whisked it out of his hand before he could utter a word, turned towards the stairs, and disappeared up them with an airy backward wave, leaving him to stare after her, tweaking his moustache.

  Having quickly unpacked, Mel found herself in need of a drink to wash away the dust of her long journey north. She headed back downstairs, noticed that the reception desk was now unmanned, and decided to explore: Amelita Forby, always on the trail, with a nose for what mattered, every time.
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  With nobody around to give directions, a left turn, she thought, would do as well as any, but this time her nose let her down, and the corridor she chose led to the curtained double doors of the dining room. Mel wasn’t hungry yet. British Rail sandwiches, she’d found as she travelled from London, were very much maligned by the popular press; she’d even made a start at an article on “The Fun of Food En Route,” to be offered first to the Negative’s travel editor. Now, however, she had forsaken journalism for the lure of other, more pressing pleasures. She saw a uniformed female figure in the distance, but it vanished through a doorway as she called out to it. Mel shrugged and strode off in the opposite direction, opening one or two likely-looking doors as she passed, only to be disappointed, but, with the buzz of deep male voices somehow reaching her ear, fairly confident she couldn’t be far out of her way.

  And then she opened one final door, which proved her instincts had not lied, as a heaviness of warm, smoky air came billowing out to greet her, proof that she had found the bar of the Pock and Tang. Her glance took in the entire room as every tongue fell silent and every head was turned towards her, standing on the threshold, and not one of the crowd of assembled drinkers appeared to be female. Amelita Forby, endangered species—the only albino in a flock of blackbirds. Mel blinked. Why had she thought of herself like that? She hardly expected to be mobbed in broad daylight.

  “Good evening, Miss Forby,” came the voice—the English voice, it suddenly dawned on her—of Hamish McQueest. The heads turned again, still silent. Mel followed the direction of their gaze and saw the landlord’s fiery face-fungus across the room behind the bar counter, his eyes gleaming, his hands busy polishing glasses. Glasses! Mel’s own eyes gleamed, and, with a nod and a general smile of greeting, she made her passage through the little groups of drinkers clustered about the low, dark wooden tables, towards the bar—where, to her surprise, she found herself stifling a quick sigh of relief at having arrived in safety.