chapter
~22~
MEL FORBY, RISEN late from her bed when Shona came knocking to service the room, encountered Hamish in the foyer of the hotel. As he greeted her, she recalled his suggestion of the previous afternoon that she should consult Miss Philomena Beigg about the Jacobites. But her brain was working slowly this morning: lack of sleep, she supposed.
“That thunderstorm last night—” she began, then broke off with a yawn. “Wow. The Scots really go in for weather in a big way, don’t they?”
“Last night was certainly out of the ordinary,” acknowledged the landlord with a smile. “Will you have breakfast before setting about your affairs?”
“If there’s any still on offer, guess I should.” She’d ignore his passing comment on her morals, thought Mel with a giggle. “I need something to wake me up properly—nothing too heavy, though. I’ve got problems to solve today, so I have to be right on the ball from the start. Toast and coffee will do fine, and then I’m off to talk to the local historian, if she’s in.”
“On a Saturday morning, she’s usually doing the housework after working on her books all week,” said Hamish, confirming Mel’s suspicion that villages were no different the whole country—if not the world—over. In Plummergen, too, your business was as much your neighbour’s as your own, even if you’d only lived in the place for five minutes. There was only one exception to this rule—
“Miss Seeton!” Mel slapped a hand across her forehead. “Hey, I forgot—I was going to ring the castle!”
Hamish eyed her strangely. “That’s your friend staying with Lord Glenclachan—the one who found the baby? You’ve no need to worry about her—I saw her earlier on, just by the church, when I slipped out for a breath of air. She had the look of someone going out for a long time, and I can’t say I blame her, knowing how the builders will be running round the castle today getting under everybody’s feet. She seems the type to enjoy a walk.”
“Oh, she is. You’re sure, well, she looked okay?”
“She looked fine. Off for another day’s bird-watching, I expect—let’s hope she has rather better luck than last time. Only joking,” he reassured her, as Mel still looked anxious. “She’ll be fine—no reason on earth why she shouldn’t be. A sensible little woman, by all accounts.”
“She used to be a teacher, before she retired . . .”
“There you are, then—no need to worry! If she’s anything like the schoolmarm who first taught me my letters, you couldn’t wish for anyone better able to take care of herself. Just as you,” Hamish reminded her, “should be taking care of your good self, Miss Forby. Breakfast, wasn’t it, before you go to talk to Philomena Beigg?”
And, before Mel quite knew how it had happened, she’d been hustled by Hamish through to the dining room, seated at a table, and left while he departed kitchenwards, calling for Shona and talking of coffee, hot brown toast, and, as a special treat, heather honey.
New Year’s Eve, reflected Mel half an hour later, might be the traditional time for making resolutions—but there was always room for someone to challenge tradition. August the eighteenth would henceforth go down in her personal calendar as “never eat honey with newly washed hair unless you’ve first tied it back with a ribbon” day . . .
And it was not until she was towelling the last sticky traces from her shoulder-length locks that the significance of that date struck her. August the eighteenth—just one day before August the nineteenth: Glenfinnan Day. One of the high spots of the Jacobite calendar . . .
The ache in her ankle was almost forgotten as Mel made her hurried way to the cottage of Miss Philomena Beigg. She hadn’t bothered to telephone ahead, Shona having assured her that in and around Glenclachan it was a rare individual who could vanish for long without his or her neighbours knowing. “Except,” she added, as Hamish busied himself elsewhere, “Mr. McQueest, for he aye disappears and leaves the running of this place to the rest of us—but who cares for him? He’s a Sassenach, begging your pardon, Miss Forby.” And Shona pressed another helping of honey on Mel to show there were no hard feelings, before explaining that if a visitor were to arrive on Miss Beigg’s doorstep and she not there to greet her, then someone would not only know where she might have gone, and how long she was like to be away, but would most probably offer to send to fetch her, if the said visitor seemed in a hurry.
Mel, pondering once more the complexities of country life, decided it would do no harm to trust the waitress’s local knowledge. What if she phoned, and nobody answered? By the time she’d walked as far as the cottage to check, the missing Miss Beigg would no doubt be back at home . . .
Miss Beigg was, however, already at home when Mel rapped on her front door. About her middle she had tied a checked apron, in her hand she carried a feather duster, and on her face she wore a look of extreme boredom—which disappeared the instant Mel introduced herself.
“Amelita Forby of the Daily Negative? And my book only just out! Isn’t that splendid? Do come in.”
She tossed the duster into a corner, tugged at her apron in a halfhearted manner, and ushered Mel right through to the kitchen with the grubby gingham still flapping round her waist. “I loathe housekeeping,” she said. “Any excuse to stop, and I’ll take it. I was on the point of making myself a cup of coffee—you’ll join me, won’t you? And then you can tell me why you’ve really come—oh”—as Mel tried to speak—“there’s no need to be polite, my dear. I’m enough of a realist to know that the national press doesn’t come all the way into the Highlands to talk to someone like me just because of a few books on natural history and a novel or two.”
Mel was charmed by this approach. So many people—Miss Seeton being one of the rare exceptions—would do virtually anything to have their names in the newspapers; most of them (and what they did) were hardly, in her opinion, worth the effort, although more than once she’d struggled valiantly to suppress that opinion as she wrote her story.
“Oh, I’m not so sure about that,” she said slowly. “Not after all I’ve heard about you—and especially now I’ve met you. I reckon I could do a nice little feature on you, Miss Beigg. Once you’ve told me what I want to know, of course. You help me. I help you: have we got a deal?”
Philomena raised an eyebrow. “We most certainly have, Miss Forby, though I might well have chosen to tell you what you wished to know in any event. It’s a lonely life, being an author. You’re always glad of the chance to chat—once you’re finished your work for the day, that is.” She tugged again at her knotted apron strings, muttered what Mel took to be a Gaelic imprecation, and snatched open the drawer of the kitchen table. As she took out a wicked-looking pair of scissors, she sighed.
“Yet what my poor dear father—an idealist, Miss Forby—would have said if he’d ever dreamed I would become not only the victim, but the perpetrator of even such a gentle blackmail, heaven alone can say.” She brandished the bright steel blades under Mel’s startled nose. “Would you mind?” And promptly turned her back. “I am quite unable to think straight with this abomination about my midriff.”
Mel shrugged. She didn’t much care for the domestic life, either. “With one bound, our heroine was free,” she said, snipping cheerfully. “What do you plan to do with the pieces—a patchwork quilt, or something?”
Miss Beigg snorted. “Your sense of humour, Miss Forby, may yet lead to a breach between us before you have achieved the object of your visit. Suppose you sit down and tell me all about it, while I boil the kettle?”
When you decided to tell everything in due order, mused Mel as she obeyed Miss Beigg’s command, it sounded rather, well, unlikely. Unless you knew Miss Seeton, and, since she was a person whose privacy must be respected, it wasn’t easy to explain just why you felt as strongly as you did that something odd was going on. Careful now, Forby . . .
“I’ve heard you know pretty much all there is to know of Highland history,” she began, waited for Philomena’s modest disclaimer, and then continued. �
��So suppose you give me some sort of condensed Jacobite background? Modern times, I mean—not the two-hundred-years-ago stuff—fanatics of the nineteen-seventies sort of thing.”
“Modern Jacobites?” Philomena frowned. “There’s always the Seventeen Forty-Five Association, but nobody could call them fanatical. Scholarly, intelligent—but that’s not”—as Mel stirred—“what you want, is it? You’re looking for a bunch of dreamers who think all they have to do is supply an heir—Archduke Casimir, as he calls himself, for example—and Queen Elizabeth will bow gracefully out of Balmoral and off the Scottish throne. Right?”
“Right. I’m staying at the Pock and Tang, and the other night, at Ewen Campbell’s wake, there seemed to be an awful lot of Jacobite-type songs floating around—at least, the landlord said that’s what they were. Nobody else was willing to talk to me.” Mel smiled. “So I wondered . . .”
Miss Beigg smiled back. “August is indeed the silly season, Miss Forby, if reporters are reduced to the writing of stories based on the visit of a pair of minor European royalty—self-styled royalty, at that—and the maudlin music of whisky-sodden songsters.” She paused. “Dear me. Not bad, for an impromptu effort! But, seriously, to answer your question—I know of no such group of persons, nor can I credit that any could flourish without falling by the wayside before too long. Oh, there might be a burst of initial enthusiasm, if someone sufficiently—I dislike the debased modern meaning of the word, but charismatic will have to do—if someone of that nature should put him or her self forward as a leader . . . but whoever it was would soon find that stirring the populace to rebellion is far easier said than done. The momentum would have to be maintained, and there would need to be even the least chance that something would happen—which is improbable in the extreme—to keep the general interest. We Scots are romantic, nobody is going to deny that fact, but”—switching suddenly to a strong brogue—“aye canny wi’ it. There’s a solid ground of guid common sense beneath all the kilts and the singing and the bagpipe laments, ye ken.” She chuckled, and returned to her normal voice. “I honestly don’t believe you’ll find much to write about in Casimir and Clementina, I’m afraid.”
Mel hesitated. Would it be betraying a confidence? But unless she said who’d drawn the thing, she didn’t think . . .
“What do you make of this?” she enquired, drawing Miss Seeton’s sketch out of her pocket and unfolding it. “Looks awfully like a crown, to me—and they were singing ‘Good luck to my blackbird,’ which Hamish McQueest assured me—”
“Hamish McQueest!” Philomena dismissed the landlord of the Pock and Tang with a toss of her grey head. “That man’s borrowed more history books from me, and caused more trouble with the borrowing, than anyone else I can think of. Goodness knows why he seems to take such delight in trampling on the finer feelings of his customers, but he does. I’m not a frequenter of the hotel myself, but I’ve heard about Hamish McQueest.”
“Oh, yes?” Mel cocked her head to one side, her eyes as bright as any blackbird. She knew professional rivalry when she saw it: Thrudd Banner, for one. “Have you also,” in her crispest tones, “heard about John Stuart Fraser?”
Philomena Beigg stared. Mel’s smile was triumphant. “John Stuart Fraser,” she repeated, with emphasis. “There’s an awful lot of people interested in him—including yours truly. What do you know about him? Where’s he hiding out? Nobody seems to know anything about him . . .”
Philomena continued to stare. She blinked, and shook her head. “John Stuart Fraser,” she repeated. “Well, if it weren’t for the fact that you seem so very sure he’s alive today, I could have told you a little about him, but—”
“Alive today—you mean he’s not? He’s dead? Was he murdered, like Ewen Campbell? When?” But then Mel noticed Philomena’s expression. It was a mixture of amusement and apology—for bursting the bubble, Mel suddenly guessed. She said slowly, “So . . . he was in history . . . not recent?”
“He was indeed, if he’s the one I’m thinking about. One of the last great Highland heroes, in many people’s opinion; not that of my father, I hasten to add, for he wasn’t only a romantic at heart, he was a strict elder of the kirk. Which made it easier for him than for many Scots to pay his taxes to the government with hardly a murmur, though I’m sure it hurt him every bit as much. Whereas your man Fraser . . .”
Mel said nothing, but her look was eloquent. Philomena might almost have been said to smirk. “Why, he was one of the finest whisky smugglers who ever gave the Revenue men a run for their money—the last of the big-time boys, by all accounts. The first quarter of the nineteenth century, as far as I recall. In earlier days, Miss Forby, the distillation of whisky had been more or less a cottage industry for centuries—but then authority tried to muscle in, as it always does. John Stuart Fraser, who was obviously a canny fellow, used to smuggle the stuff south in coffins, up to thirty gallons a week—pure malt, what’s more. Until the government reduced the excise duty and forced distillers to store the spirit in warehouses, there were around fifteen hundred illicit stills in the Highlands.”
“Oh,” said Mel. “Then—if anyone came along asking for John Stuart Fraser . . .”
“I’d suspect,” said Miss Beigg in a dry tone, “that he—for any woman would have more concern for the state of her liver—was dropping a coded hint that he’d been told about a secret still, somewhere in the area—and wanted to sample a dram or two before committing himself to buy. Because, of course, there’d be a risk. He’d be worried about breaking the law . . .”
“And the people running the still,” said Mel, “would be breaking it too. Wouldn’t they?”
But were they likely to be worried about it—worried enough to kill?
chapter
~23~
MISS SEETON HAD not been walking for very long, and was wondering in which direction she should strike out across the moor—her map had shown that the nearest suitable burn was half a mile away—when there came a rattle and a toot from behind her. Turning, she beheld a ramshackle single-decker bus, khaki and dark green in livery, drawing in to the side of the road.
Though the sun was in her eyes, she could see the driver beckoning to her through the windscreen. “You’ll be wanting a ride, hen,” he said, as she trotted up in response to his summons. “Hop in now, and save your legs. Where had you a mind to go?”
Miss Seeton replied that really, she had no idea; she’d simply thought that it was a lovely day for a little exploring—she produced the map—although she had no intention of going too far, as she had promised to be back in time for lunch. The driver, with a chuckle, advised her in that case to give Balmoral a miss, for today. Miss Seeton smiled, and replied that perhaps—if it would not trouble him to do so, of course—the driver might be kind enough to suggest a few places of interest—a view worth sketching, the habitat of some unusual birds—that she could reach without having to travel too far?
The driver rubbed his nose, and asked to study the map, which made Miss Seeton a little anxious lest his passengers might complain at being delayed in this fashion, when she’d only meant him to make a few suggestions; but, standing on tiptoe and leaning on her umbrella as she craned her neck, she could make out only one other person in the body of the bus: a white-haired old gentleman bent over a gnarled stick, nodding in apparent slumber. Since he said nothing—and the driver was holding out his hand—and she would be so grateful for any advice, Miss Seeton passed her new friend the map, and stood waiting while he pondered and the engine idled.
“Aye,” he said at last, rubbing his nose again, “there’s no problem, if it’s birds you’re wanting. Three or four miles further on there’s a wee loch, a matter of a few hundred yards from this turning”—he leaned out of the window to indicate the spot on the map—“and a shelter put up a short while since that’s not shown here, on account of being new. You could settle yourself for an hour or so to watch the birds, then come back to the main road to hail the next one of our buses that
comes by. It’s a regular route, and the driver’s sure to stop, just as I did. How does that sound?”
It sounded splendid. Miss Seeton asked how often one might expect a bus to come by, and learned that the Saturday service ran once an hour, which was sufficiently reassuring to make up her mind for her. She hurried round to the passenger door and quickly climbed the steps.
“And be sure to wait on the other side of the road from where I’ll set you down,” said the driver, taking her money with a smile. “About quarter past the hour—och, no, you may as well make that twenty past, today.” He sighed, and shook his head. “We cannae be so sure of running to time at present, I have to tell you, on account of the traffic being held up Larick way while some fancy film director’s taking what they call location shots—for the cinema, ye ken.”
“How very exciting,” interposed Miss Seeton, inveterate filmgoer. The driver stared at her.
“Exciting? Aye, well, mebbe it is, if you’re not fashed by living with all the commotion. Three days, it’s going to take, they told us—starting yesterday. Market day! Local colour, the man called it.” He sighed again. “But it’s not just the damned disruption, if you’ll excuse me, while they close the roads: it’s the way everyone’s gone rampaging mad. Dressing in costume as extras, if you can credit anything so daft.” He chuckled suddenly. “The director, or whatever he calls himself, asked my cousin Jamie if he was interested, so Jamie said he might be, if there was money in it. Twenty pound a day, says the man. But Jamie’s aye canny. ‘And how much is the star being paid?’ he wanted to know—never one at a loss for words, isn’t Jamie. There’s some folk think a Scotsman will do anything for money, and near enough a whole town willing to make believe it’s the time of the Highland Clearances and go prancing around like a pack of fules!”
His final words woke the sleeper halfway down the bus, who jerked himself upright, blinked, and remarked in a loud voice that he couldn’t agree more. Whereupon Miss Seeton, feeling guilty at having delayed proceedings with her questions, made haste to take her seat near the front, while the driver stamped on the accelerator and sent the bus jolting down the road.
Miss Seeton Rocks the Cradle (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 13) Page 18