By Eastern windows

by Gretta Curran Browne

  ‘I’m glad you understand. Perhaps you could explain that to my mother, more successfully than myself?’

  Elizabeth nodded, excusing herself with a faintly shamed smile.

  *

  The gloom in Mrs Macquarie’s eyes always receded whenever her son came to call, replaced by a bright and eager smile. ‘I’m so thankful for him coming here,’ she said to Elizabeth one afternoon. ‘Oh, aye … thankful as can be. But, to be honest with ye, all the work he had done to my house, I did resent it, didn’t I, Elizabeth hennie?’

  Elizabeth was not listening, reclining in the rocking-chair by the parlour window, unconscious of her surroundings and her mind lingering somewhere in the far distance, her blue eyes seeing something that occasionally made her mouth shape into a small smile.

  ‘And to be fair to him,’ Mrs Macquarie continued, ‘he did want me to leave here and go stay with him at the Inn at Callachally, even before the work started, to get me away from all the disorder, didn’t he, Elizabeth?’

  Still no answer came; and Mrs Macquarie found herself wondering about all the new furniture and drapes and carpets that Lachlan had ordered from Edinburgh.

  ‘It’s no’ necessary, is it, Elizabeth hen?’

  At last Mrs Macquarie realised she had been speaking to only herself. She turned round in her chair by the fire and stared at the girl. ‘Elizabeth hennie?’ she said loudly. ‘Have ye dozed off?’

  Like a sleeper aroused, Elizabeth looked around, recollected herself and smiled. ‘No, no, I was listening to you.’

  ‘And ye agree with me? Whatna way to waste money, eh?’

  As Elizabeth had not heard a word and so could not grasp the significance of the question, she responded agreeably, ‘Yes, it’s foolish to waste money,’ then quickly stood and moved over to the dresser and opened a drawer to lift out the tablecloth. ‘Shall I prepare the table for tea?’

  ‘Tea?’ Mrs Macquarie shot a glance at the mantel clock. ‘Elizabeth, it’s only ten minutes past three! I’ve no’ even put the chicken in the pot.’

  Elizabeth paused, then with a glance at the clock continued lifting plates from the shelf of the dresser. ‘I may as well get it done,’ she said mildly, ‘and then I can start mixing the flour and oats for the bannocks … it’s no trouble.’

  When Lachlan arrived a short time later, he looked at the table set up for the evening meal. ‘Are we not a bit early today?’ he asked his mother curiously. ‘I have only come for five minutes, not for dinner.’

  Elizabeth began to needlessly move everything around on the table until her hands suddenly lifted the beautifully ornate china teapot in the centre. ‘It’s just my excuse to take another look at this beautiful teapot,’ she said, smiling. ‘I’ve never seen one so beautiful.’

  ‘That’s one of the presents Lachlan brought me from India,’ Mrs Macquarie put in proudly. ‘In Bombay, ye got it, didn’t ye, son?’

  The teapot had been bought for his mother by Jane in Macao, but he deflected the question by asking Elizabeth if she often cooked for his mother.

  ‘Oh, aye, she does,’ Mrs Macquarie answered for Elizabeth. ‘I keep telling her that a gentle-bred young lady like herself should no’ be doing any kind of cooking at all’

  ‘Nor should a gentle-bred lady like you,’ Lachlan replied. ‘Remember, you were brought up in Lochbuy, with servants attending to your every need. If you had been allowed to inherit – ‘

  ‘Och, I couldna have inherited Lochbuy, and well ye know it!’ Mrs Macquarie said impatiently. ‘I may have been the eldest, but I was still only a woman.’

  ‘A woman who should not be still cooking her own meals and doing household chores at seventy. Will you behave yourself, Mother, and allow me to arrange things for you.’

  A short time later, after he had left, Mrs Macquarie looked apprehensively at Elizabeth. ‘What d’ye think he means – arrange things for me?’

  Elizabeth smiled. ‘He is just trying to be kind.’

  The following day, two local girls were employed as maids, and one of Lachlan’s cousins had agreed to give up his job as a kelper and take over complete control of the farm.

  ‘But, Lachlan!’ his mother cried anxiously. ‘What am I to do?’

  ‘Sit back and rest.’

  When she protested he railed her teasingly. ‘It was you who brought me back from India. So you owe it to me to live for another twenty years at least, and live comfortably. And you could do, if you stop wearing yourself out with work and take life a little easier.’

  Elizabeth voiced her agreement: ‘He’s right. You do need help, especially when you are here alone. Some times, when I arrive from Lochbuy, you’re worn so fine you look about to drop.’

  Lachlan smiled in appreciation of her support. ‘There, you see? Even Miss Campbell agrees with me.’

  Then he was gone again, and in the days that followed, in the company of George Jarvis, he rode over the ten thousand acres of land he now owned on Mull. He had bought the lands of Callachally, Gruline, Bentella, and Kilbeg. His Scottish home, he had decided would be built on the land at Callachally, because it was right beside the beautiful River of Mull.

  He even discussed his plans with Elizabeth, and found her suggestions very helpful and intelligent.

  ‘Do you intend to live here on a regular basis, then?’ she asked him one day as they rode their horses over the land of Callachally.

  He sat for a moment in silence, contemplating the land around him. ‘Yes, I plan to live here, one day.’

  Elizabeth unaccountably found herself thinking of Maria Morley. ‘Do you have plans to marry again?’

  ‘Me? Marry?’ His eyes and voice warmed with sudden amusement. ‘I am too old an Indian to marry again.’

  ‘You are not old, and you are not an Indian!’ she said indignantly. ‘You have merely reached your prime I would say, and eleven years in India does not take away the fact that you are Scottish.’

  He shrugged. ‘Yes, well, India does leave its mark on a man, you know. So many in the military return home pretending to hate India, then spend all their days seeking out the company of fellow Anglo-Indians returned from service there. And many, in the end, do go back.’

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘Perhaps. I honestly don't know. I’m employed by the Army and so must go wherever its commanders please to send me. And their pleasure at the moment seems to be that I should remain on the staff in London.’

  ‘And your servant ... the young Indian? He must surely find Britain a strange and cold place? Will he not wish to return to his family in India someday?’

  ‘George is not a servant.’ Lachlan turned his horse around. ‘And I am his family, Miss Campbell.'

  *

  After escorting Elizabeth home, Lachlan rode back to the Inn at Callachally where he and George Jarvis were lodged. George was surprised to see him back before evening. ‘I thought you said you stay all day with your mother?’ George said in almost perfect English.

  ‘No, George, I suddenly remembered an urgent matter that concerns you. Your education, as a matter of fact.’

  George's dark eyes flashed. ‘I do all my education in London! For one whole year! There is nothing more I can learn! I know everything!’

  Lachlan smiled. ‘You may think you do, George, but you don't. Not by a long shot. So I'm sending you to a school in Edinburgh.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘A year.’

  George smiled persuasively. ‘Three months?’

  ‘A year.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I go for six months,’ George agreed.

  ‘A year,’ Lachlan said firmly. ‘You need another year at least.’

  George knew it was pointless to argue. When it came to schooling Lachlan could be as strict as he was on the parade ground. He lowered his eyes and sighed.

  ‘Yes, my father.’

  *

  Lachlan's plans to build his house at Callachally were thwarted when he discovered that an adjoining strip of land was still un
der lease to a Dr Donald McLean for a further nineteen years.

  ‘A lease is a lease, Mr Macquarie,’ said McLean stubbornly. ‘And it was the Duke of Argyll who sold me the lease.’

  ‘But I bought the land from the Duke of Argyll,’ Lachlan replied. ‘So this land is now mine.’

  ‘Just so, just so, but this particular strip of your land is legally leased to me. And as I say, a lease is a lease.’

  Lachlan was forced to fall back on his second choice of site, and chose Gruline.

  *

  Elizabeth ventured out with him again on horseback and thought Gruline an even better selection than Callachally. The site was south of the valley, by a lovely fishing stream that ran into Loch Ba. All around were fine woods; and above Gruline the green and purple sweep of Ben More towered in mountainous beauty.

  ‘And Ulva is only a kooee-hai away across Loch Na Keal,’ Lachlan said as they dismounted.

  ‘What do those words mean?’ Elizabeth asked curiously. ‘George Jarvis used them almost every time he called at your mother's house.’

  ‘In Hindi the words are koi hai, which means, "Is anybody there?"’ Lachlan explained. ‘Nobody ever knocks on a door in India. As soon as they approach the veranda of a house they simply call out "kooee-hai" and a servant appears. George Jarvis has never quite lost the habit. My only hope is that he doesn't use it whenever he knocks on the master's door at his school in Edinburgh, as he continually did at his school in London.’

  They both laughed.

  Still curious, Elizabeth asked, ‘And where did he get the very English name of George Jarvis?’

  ‘From my wife,’ he replied quietly ‘Her maiden name was Jarvis.’

  ‘Oh,’ Elizabeth said, wishing she had not asked. Her mind ran riot looking for a change of subject, but her curiosity and mouth ran on the same subject. ‘And how … how did George come to be in your care?’

  For a moment he did not answer, but when he did, the strangeness of his words shocked her. ‘I stole him, Miss Campbell, from a slave-trader in Cochin.’

  *

  By the end of August the improvements to his mother's farmhouse were finished, the new furniture installed. ‘Now you really will be more comfortable,’ Lachlan told her.

  Mrs Macquarie wanted to cry at the loss of her old friendly furniture. These new pieces were like strangers, grand swanky strangers, and she felt very shabby in their presence, least of all comfortable. But she said nothing and pretended to be very pleased, knowing he was only doing his best, trying to make up to her for all her years of frugality.

  ‘And I've arranged with the stores in Tobermory to supply you with all the wines and groceries you will need, and the bills sent to me.’

  ‘Wines...’ his mother simply gaped, but minutes later he was gone again, seeing to business, meeting with the carpenters and stonemasons to discuss the plans he had drawn for the building of his own house at Gruline. It was to be of a traditional Georgian design in grey stone, spacious an elegant, but nothing ostentatious or baronial.

  ‘I would like it ready for my return next summer. Is that possible?’

  The builders agreed it could be done. ‘But Mr Macquarie,’ said the stonemason, ‘do you not think it's time you had this estate of yours registered? A new owner of a new estate usually means a new name.’

  Lachlan was well aware of that. He had already arranged for the Writer of the Signet to come to from Edinburgh to Mull for the registration.

  ‘And a new registration usually means a party,’ grinned one of the carpenters. ‘A party for all the tenants given by the new Laird.’

  Lachlan smiled. He was well aware of that also.

  *

  The party was a big one. A huge tent had been erected on the site of the house and the weather stayed fine for the outdoor jamboree which was attended by the Maclaines, Macleans, Mackinnons and Campbells, old and young kinsmen, drovers, farmers and tenants, all determined to enjoy the party in true Highland style.

  Eventually a silence was called for, tankards and glasses were filled in readiness for the toast. It was time for the new Laird to officially name his estate. ‘Speech!’ the tenants shouted. ‘Speech from the new Laird.’

  Elizabeth Campbell sat beside Mrs Macquarie who seemed overcome with pride as her son rose to address the gathering. At his side stood the Writer to the Signet who would register the title in Edinburgh.

  ‘Today...’ Lachlan began slowly, ‘is a very special day for me. Because today I can at last make true a promise I made to myself before leaving India, a promise that the name of my beloved wife would be kept alive in the family of Macquarie into which she married. So in honour of the memory of Jane Jarvis Macquarie, I name these lands and estate … Jarvisfield.’

  The tenants cheered as the new name of their estate echoed over the land: ‘Jarvisfield!’

  *

  Amidst the noise and the music that followed, no one noticed the change in Elizabeth Campbell who sat in silence throughout the ensuing conversations, lost in her own thoughts, occasionally flushing a deep red as if some angry or self-condemning thought had struck her.

  The following day Elizabeth returned to Lochbuy, and there she made the decision to leave Scotland far behind her and take a carriage to London where she intended to build a new life for herself.

  A life in London full of fun and dancing all night long, Elizabeth decided. She had spent years being good and helpful and everyone's sensible friend, and look where it had got her – ignored! She may as well go to London and simply swoooon helplessly into a delicate faint whenever she desired to attract a man.

  She dragged out her trunk, hauled it into the centre of her bedroom and kicked it open, all her natural composure completely deserting her.

  She had made an utter fool of herself!

  For almost four months she had practically thrown herself at a man who had not the decency to notice. Just as he had not noticed her all those years ago when he worked at Lochbuy before leaving for India!! A man who was still in love with his dead wife! A man who had not, after all, returned to the British Isles to start life afresh, but simply to perpetuate the name of his beloved wife in Scotland!

  She began to pack her clothes, hurt and smouldering, her mind racing. Her brother John had been right about those officers who returned from India, men who were used to their women wearing jewels and exotic scents and languishing in luxury all day long. And all of them, men and women alike, being waited upon by a tribe of cosseting Indian servants who attended to their every need and spoiled them like children.

  ‘Yaaa!’ She flung clothes in the trunk and yearned to scream out her contempt. She now knew all about Jane Jarvis Macquarie and hated her – hated her type. A pampered rich miss from the West Indian Islands who had owned her own slaves and inherited a fortune from her English papa.

  So how could she, Elizabeth Campbell, the daughter of a poor West Highland Laird who had left nothing but debts, ever compete with someone like that?

  And then she remembered that Jane Jarvis Macquarie was dead. And had died very young. Younger than she herself was now.

  She sat down on the bed and wiped an angry tear from her eye, ashamed and horrified at her thoughts. She knew nothing about that poor unfortunate girl, nothing at all.

  TWENTY

  From the day Elizabeth arrived at her house in London, Henrietta Campbell knew the poor girl was still suffering from neglect. A terrible neglect which Elizabeth had tried to brave as cheerfully as possible from her earliest days. Her mother had died not long after her birth and from then on Elizabeth had been left to scramble her own way up through childhood with the assistance of a few daft servants and her sister Margaret who, at that time, was little more than a child herself.

  Like many fathers, John Campbell had shown little interest in his daughters, all his pride being reserved solely for his precious son and namesake, the heir to his estate. On a number of occasions during her visits to Scotland, Henrietta had attempted to advise her br
other to be more mindful of his daughters, and he had tried, but the relief on his face when Margaret was married off to Murdoch Maclaine of Lochbuy was shamefully visible.

  Within months of Margaret’s marriage, Elizabeth had been sent packing to a Finishing School for Young Ladies in Hammersmith. A place where the daughters of England’s finest fathers were housed and instructed in the role of becoming England’s finest future wives and mothers. A place where even the teachers found little prestige was to be gained from devoting much time or affection to a somewhat gauche thirteen-year-old girl from the remote wilds of Scotland.

  Henrietta’s main regret was that she had not been informed of Elizabeth’s removal down to Hammersmith until six months after the girl had been sent there. A situation she had rectified immediately by ordering her carriage to be made ready to take her across London, a short journey of five or six miles.

  Henrietta still often smiled with amusement whenever she remembered those first few minutes after her arrival at the school. Her carriage, with its gold crest on the doors, and two footmen standing to attention on the back ledge, was enough to bring a gaggle of servants running out in attendance.

  The headmistress soon followed, red-faced with surprise. ‘Why, Lady Breadlebane! Oh my, to what do we owe this delightful honour!’

  ‘Any honour from my visit is owed to my niece.’

  ‘Your niece?’

  ‘Yes, my niece, Miss Elizabeth Campbell. I hope you are taking very good care of her? Now please bring her to me at once.’

  Henrietta was not shown into the Visitors Room, but into the Headmistress’s own pleasant parlour where Elizabeth arrived some minutes later, a faint blush on her cheeks and pushing a wisp of hair out of her eyes.

  The first few tense minutes were a trial for both of them, but as soon as tea had been laid out and the headmistress had departed, Elizabeth’s stiffness softened into enjoyment, overflowing with questions about the world outside, to which Henrietta had all the answers.