The House of Lyall

by Doris Davidson

  ‘I just kissed her, I swear it, but it’s been eating at my innards ever since. I’m so sorry, my dearest! I don’t even like her and I’ve hurt the only woman I’ll ever love.’

  She was hurt, so much that her first instinct was to retaliate by hurting him, but what was the point?

  Neither Ruairidh nor Melda tumbled to what was going on that summer. He was pleased to be trusted to deal with so much of the business of the mill on his own, and she was delighted to be allowed to promote the Fair Isle side single-handedly. The fact that they were never away at the same time, that she was sent off perhaps a week after her husband returned, and vice versa, escaped them in the satisfaction of their work, and they spent what little time they had in each other’s company discussing plans.

  Ruairidh did think it strange that he bumped into Kitty Furness in Edinburgh on one trip, Newcastle on another, but because she appeared to be just as surprised by the meetings as he was, he accepted them as coincidences and didn’t mention them to his wife. There was no sense in making her think things that weren’t true, because he had learned his lesson and had refused Kitty’s invitations in both cities to have a drink at her hotel, nor had he taken up her barely veiled hints that he should take her to his.

  When, however, she appeared one Sunday afternoon in September at Castle Lyall while Melda was in Glasgow, he could see his mother’s hand in it and determined to call her bluff. He asked Kitty to have a game of tennis, and afterwards, flopped down with her at the edge of the lawn. When, as he had known she would, Kitty suggested going for a walk, he said, in a loud stage whisper, ‘Why don’t we go up to my room instead?’

  His mother’s intake of breath satisfied him that she had heard and he prayed that she would be so outraged that she would stop him there and then. She did nothing, however, so he helped Kitty to her feet, put an arm round her waist and let his hand rest on her hip as he steered her past the deckchair.

  That was when Marianne’s parasol came sharply down on the back of his legs, and never was he more glad of any pain. ‘You will not take that girl to your bed!’ she said sharply. ‘This is not a brothel! Surely you didn’t expect me to turn a blind eye to your …’ She paused briefly, searching for a suitable word, and recalling what Hamish had said earlier, she ended, ‘… to you fornicating under my roof.’

  He turned to face her. ‘I thought you wanted me to put Kit in such a position that I’d have to marry her?’

  Kitty jumped in at this. ‘Here, wait a minute! Who said anything about marriage? I’m only out for a good time. I don’t want to end up with no waist, varicose veins and a noisy baby tying me down.’

  ‘I know you don’t. It was my mother’s idea …’

  ‘And I thought you’d fallen for my charms,’ she murmured, doing her best to look crestfallen.

  ‘Kit, I’m truly sorry for subjecting you to –’

  She giggled now. ‘Don’t be sorry, Ruairidh. I knew you wouldn’t say that in front of your mother if you meant it, so I guessed what you were up to. It’s a pity, though. I’d have enjoyed finding out how good a lover you are.’ She turned to look scornfully at the older woman. ‘You obviously don’t know how much your son loves his wife, Lady Glendarril, and I wish I knew why you’ve been trying to use me as a wedge between them.’

  ‘Melda can’t have any more children,’ Ruairidh explained, ‘so there won’t be any heir to the title when I die.’

  ‘She could only give him a daughter,’ Marianne said bitterly.

  Triumph replaced the puzzlement on Kitty’s face. ‘Well, there you are!’ she beamed. ‘Dorrie will marry eventually, and she’ll surely have a son. Hey presto, there’s the next heir.’

  ‘She’s right, Mother,’ Ruairidh said eagerly. ‘And you’d better keep your fingers in your own pies after this. Come on, Kitty, I’ll see you to your car.’

  Teasing him, she backed away, looking afraid. ‘I don’t know if I can trust you. You might throw me into the back seat and rape me.’ She winked saucily at Marianne as she turned away.

  When Ruairidh joined his mother again, she said angrily, ‘That exhibition was all for my benefit, was it? I thought you meant what you said. I thought –’

  ‘Mother, we all know what thought did. I knew you wouldn’t let me take Kit to bed.’

  ‘I see. You depended on me to stop you? What if I hadn’t?’

  A boyish grin curved his mouth. ‘Kit wouldn’t have taken another refusal from me, so I’d have been on top of her right now and you’d maybe have got your wish.’

  ‘You’re being very indelicate,’ she frowned.

  He locked eyes with her. ‘You’ve been far worse than indelicate. I’ve told Melda about Kitty and luckily for you, she doesn’t want any unpleasantness, otherwise I’d have taken her and our daughter away from here altogether. I might yet, if you try any more of your tricks.’

  The incident put an effective end to Kitty’s pursuit of Ruairidh, and to Marianne’s attempt at getting him to provide an heir for the title. Unfortunately, it did nothing to stop her jealousy of her daughter-in-law, who was building up a very profitable Fair Isle department at the mill, and to whom Hamish was referring more and more for advice on current trends in woollen fabrics.

  Melda was content with her life and was careful, in her differences with her mother-in-law, not to let them escalate into full-blown rows; she no longer held Marianne in awe, but she didn’t fancy making a mortal enemy of her. She did, however, stand up to Marianne if she deemed it necessary, blocking her from getting her own way.

  ‘I used to think Melda was a quiet wee mouse,’ Hamish confided to his son while they were having a glass of port and a cigar after dinner one night. ‘But she’s developed quite a shrewd brain, and she commands a lot of respect from the workers, and the buyers from even the largest of stores. The trouble is, your mother’s been cock of the walk for so long I think she’s just a teeny bit jealous.’

  The understatement of the century, Ruairidh thought, yet oddly enough, it didn’t worry him now. His wife could hold off herself, she wouldn’t let anyone ride roughshod over her, not even his mother. And that was as it should be.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Just as Marianne had done so many years before, Melda had sent her child to the glen school, but Dorothea didn’t fit in as well as her father and mother had done. She was quite bright and outgoing, but her arrogance kept the local children from being friends with her. Nevertheless, with her keen willingness to learn, she soon outstripped others of her own age.

  The dominie – forty-six-year-old Philip Stewart, not a product of the glen but the best candidate who had applied on Willie Wink’s retirement some years before – even went to the mill one day to talk to her father. ‘Dorothea could go to university in time, so I hope you will allow her to go on to Mackie after the holidays. She will be given every bit as good an education there as in any public school for girls that you care to name.’

  ‘Oh, I know that, and her mother would slaughter me if I suggested sending her away,’ Ruairidh smiled. ‘My wife was a product of Mackie herself, so I am sure she will want Dorothea to follow in her footsteps.’

  He made to turn away, then realizing that the other man looked as though he had something else to say, he waited, having a fairly good idea that it would be about Dorrie not behaving properly, and after opening and shutting his mouth a couple of times, Mr Stewart said, very apologetically, ‘I do not relish having to say anything like this, but …’

  ‘Yes?’ Ruairidh encouraged. ‘Whatever you have to say, spit it out. What has she done?’

  The dominie looked more uncomfortable than ever. ‘I am afraid … she is developing rather rapidly …’

  ‘She’s only eleven, for heaven’s sake, man. She has hardly started to develop yet.’

  ‘That is perhaps true physically, but –’ Mr Stewart broke off, wringing his hands.

  This annoyed Ruairidh greatly. Whatever the girl had got up to, it surely couldn’t be as bad as �
� but Philip Stewart was from a little village somewhere on the west coast, and he was likely easily shocked. ‘Has she been swearing, or what?’

  ‘Oh no, her manner of speech in class is exemplary, although she is inclined to use rather colourful language in the playground. It is a different … oh, this is most difficult, Mr Bruce-Lyall.’ He hesitated, but catching signs of impatience in his listener’s face, he hurried on, ‘She is taking a great deal too much interest in boys.’ He paused again for a moment. ‘I have caught her myself teasing them.’

  ‘What d’you mean, “teasing them”?’ Ruairidh’s voice was dangerously calm if the other man could have recognized it.

  ‘She was … lifting her skirts and showing them her … thigh.’ He stopped altogether now, his face beetroot red, his eyes sliding away.

  ‘I am sure there had been a perfectly simple explanation for it. She could have fallen and skinned her leg or … or something like that. Was that the only incident, or have there been others?’

  ‘That was the only one I saw.’

  ‘I must assume that you are too ready to jump to conclusions.’

  ‘Mr Bruce-Lyall, I am dreadfully sorry I brought the subject up. You are most likely right in what you said, and I was making a mountain out of a molehill. Please, I can assure you that nothing like this will happen again.’

  Thinking that the whole situation was somewhat ridiculous, Ruairidh gave a snorting laugh. ‘What did you think she was doing? Letting them put their hands up her knickers? At eleven?’

  A subdued impression of a smile crossed the dominie’s face. ‘Yes, it does sound far-fetched, doesn’t it?’

  Positive that it was exactly what the man had thought, Ruairidh said sharply, ‘Too far-fetched for my liking, and I want to hear no more of this kind of thing.’

  He did not tell Melda what had been said – he knew it would just upset her – and he did not approach Dorothea when he went home because he didn’t want to put ideas into her head. The dominie was a narrow-minded, dirty-minded fool, and had been making something out of nothing, possibly to titillate himself, and even though he was a good teacher, he would be out on his ear if he ever said anything like that again.

  As it happened, it was Kirsty, one of the large clan of Blacks, who reprimanded the girl. ‘You shouldn’t carry on with the boys like you do, Dorrie,’ she told her one afternoon on their way home from school.

  ‘I wasn’t carrying on with them!’ protested Dorothea.

  ‘Oh, you little fibber! I seen you! You and our Billy and Tommy Rattray!’

  ‘We were only having a laugh. They wanted to see my legs.’

  ‘Well, don’t let them see them again.’ Just months older in actual age but five years older in worldly wisdom, Kirsty knew what her brother and Tommy Rattray had been after. One of the older boys had tried to get his hand up the leg of her knickers last year – she’d kicked his shins – but Dorrie was maybe too much of a lady to do that, though it didn’t stop her from swearing like a trooper.

  Dorothea had been quite peeved at Kirsty Black. What right had she to tell anybody off for something she likely did herself? Besides, Billy Black and Tommy Rattray had only been kids and she had only been having a bit of fun with them, but now, a year later, it was Jakey Black she was interested in, he was so tall and good-looking. He wasn’t very clever, he’d left the glen school as soon as he was fourteen, but that made him all the more interesting. He was a gardener’s boy at the castle now, so he was hers, wasn’t he – to do with what she liked … and even to let him do what he liked to her, as long as he didn’t punch her or anything like that.

  It was quite easy to get him alone. She waited till she knew he’d be inside the stables and then went in after him, making sure nobody saw her because she knew she would be in trouble if she was caught. He had looked up in surprise the first time, and she felt so shy all of a sudden that she couldn’t tell him she wanted him to kiss her, just to see what it was like. She’d been alone with him several times after that, and it had finally dawned on the big galoot that she was making up to him.

  That was when he grabbed her and pushed her against the wooden wall. It wasn’t as nice as she had hoped. His mouth was all slobbery and his breath smelled, and she couldn’t get away from him no matter how hard she struggled. To make it worse, his horrible great hand had touched her chest, and his knee was trying to prise her legs open.

  Dargie, almost retiring age now, had seen Miss Dorrie coming out of the stable once or twice before, looking a wee bit guilty, and he’d wondered what she’d been up to, but he’d never dreamed …! ‘You filthy bugger!’ he shouted, yanking the lanky boy away from the girl by the scruff of his neck. ‘God Almighty! What the hell d’you think you’re playin’ at? Get oot o’ here this minute, and it’s the last I want to see o’ you.’

  Crimson-faced, the youth scampered off, and the old gardener turned to the girl now. ‘As for you, Miss Dorrie, I some think you were askin’ for it, but maybe you’re no’ auld enough to realize …’ He had to stop, for a sickness was flooding up in him at the thought of what could have happened if he hadn’t stopped it when he did. Jakey Black was just fifteen, but he could easily father a bairn, and the lass was twelve or thereabouts, so she’d be capable of conceiving.

  She drew herself to her full height and looked him straight in the eye. ‘You won’t say anything, Dargie!’

  He felt quite shocked, for it was an order not a request … the brazen little madam! ‘I’ll no’ say anything, Miss Dorrie, but no’ for your sake. I wouldna like to think on the hurt it would cause your mother and father if they ken’t their lassie had been lettin’ a stable laddie paw at her like yon. But if this kind o’ thing happens again, wi’ ony o’ my men, I’ll go straight to your father and tell him. D’you hear me, now? You’ll regret it if you dinna heed what I say, for you could easy land in the family way.’

  Walking away from him with her head in the air, Dorrie suddenly recalled a conversation she’d heard about a year ago between the two young parlour maids.

  ‘Ooh, Jenny, you never let him?’ one of them had asked in a shocked voice.

  ‘Well, I never meant to let him,’ Jenny had said, ‘but he … well, Vi’let, you ken.’

  ‘No, I dinna ken. What did he dae?’

  ‘You ken! My mother aye tell’t me no’ to let a lad inside my bloomers, but he was kissin’ me and strokin’ the top o’ my leg an’ afore I kent what he was daein’ he was inside me, never mind my bloomers.’

  Violet had given a gasp at that, and then, spotting the girl nearby, had hissed, ‘Watch what your sayin’, Jenny.’

  So that was all she had heard, Dorrie recalled, but a few months later, Jenny left suddenly, and she’d heard the other maids saying she was in the family way. But she could hardly believe what Dargie had said. That couldn’t be the way to make babies. There must be more to it than what Jakey had done, but she wouldn’t give anybody else the chance to do it.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  As the years passed, Dorothea matured more in body than in mind, and she took no interest in the discussions going on around her, mostly concerning Hitler and the trouble he was causing in Europe. She still sulked if she didn’t get her own way. At seventeen, having gained the qualifications necessary for entering university, she was determined to take up the opportunity, but she met with opposition from all quarters. The only person who encouraged her was her grandfather, who said it would do her good to knuckle down to the discipline needed in studying.

  ‘Your mother didn’t go to university,’ Marianne scolded one day at Sunday lunch, ‘even though she passed the entrance examinations.’

  ‘That was different!’ Melda snapped. ‘There were reasons, as well you know.’

  On another occasion, another attempt to make him change his mind, Ruairidh told her, ‘As my daughter, you do not have to earn your living, and I do not want you to go.’

  ‘What about thinking of what I want for a change?’ Dorrie retort
ed. ‘I can’t sit around here all day looking decorative.’ Giving a laugh at the very idea, she went on, ‘Anyway, I’m not a very decorative person, am I? I want to be doing something, something useful, and the only way –’

  He shook his head. ‘Being a wife and mother is the most useful thing a woman –’

  ‘Why did you send me to the Academy, then, if you didn’t want me to use my education? I don’t feel ready to settle down and raise kids. I don’t think I ever will.’

  ‘You’ll feel differently when you meet the right man,’ Ruairidh soothed, out of his depth and wishing that his wife hadn’t gone to Aberdeen for the day.

  ‘If I ever meet the right man,’ she said scathingly, ‘it wouldn’t make an ounce of difference. What’s the point of having kids and then rejecting them … like you did?’

  Her father gasped at this. ‘You were never rejected, Dorrie! You got everything you ever wanted, far more than you needed …’

  ‘But that’s not love! You and Mum were always so busy with the mill, you hardly paid any attention to me.’

  ‘Oh, come now. That’s a bit too much, Dorrie. Your mother and I loved you in spite of the spoiled brat you were when you were younger.’

  ‘Thank you!’ she said sarcastically. ‘It’s nice to know what you think of me.’

  At this, Ruairidh lost his temper. ‘All right!’ he said loudly. ‘Go to university if you want to. You may learn how to behave when you are subjected to proper discipline, but do not expect to come running home here if you do not like it.’

  It was while she was home for Christmas at the end of her first term as a medical student, that Dorrie met Archie Grassie. She had gone to the midnight service on her own – her mother and father said they were too tired, and her grandparents had gone to bed early – so she made for the Bruce-Lyall pew. She enjoyed all the old carols she remembered from her childhood, and while the collection was being taken, she had a quick glance round to see who else was there, or rather, who wasn’t there, because the little church was quite full. The Black tribe were out in full, she noticed, even Jakey, who had almost given her her first taste of sex. Studying him now, so rough and bucolic-looking, she wondered how she could have borne to let him touch her. Her eyes travelled on again, until she came to where the minister’s wife was sitting at the other side of the aisle. The Drummonds had moved to another parish and the popular Mr Mathieson had been called to the glen. Mrs Mathieson wasn’t alone today. She had a very personable young man sitting beside her – a very, very personable young man.