by CL Skelton
‘You know Andrew then, Mr Bruce?’
‘Och, I ken him fine. We were laddies together. He’s just been made ma company commander, a verra satisfactory arrangement. But you’ll oblige me, ma’am, by no referring to me as mister. That is a title borne with pride by only the regimental sergeant major and with contempt by junior officers and civilians. I am Sergeant Bruce, or, if you’re of the family, Willie.’
‘I’m not of the family, but I’m staying here.’
‘Then you shall call me Willie, for you are a handsome lady, ma’am.’
She could not help smiling in spite of his impertinence. He was certainly a most attractive man. She could see now why she had first mistaken him for Andrew. They were very alike, but Willie was obviously harder, and there was a greater maturity about him. The corners of Willie’s mouth turned up, making it seem as if he was always slightly mocking. He was relaxed, lacking the strained stiffness of Andrew, and he seemed much more assured.
As for himself, Willie was in high good humour. He had been to Dingwall for the first two days of his recruiting drive, and in that time he had managed to increase the strength of the regiment by twelve. Of that twelve, four had been genuine volunteers, seeking him out in response to his recruiting poster. They were Highlanders who genuinely wanted to be soldiers ‒ a very high proportion. He had listened to the sheriff give a couple of the others the option of prison or army, and as they had seemed fairly strong and their offences minor (one was poaching and the other drunk and disorderly), Willie had taken them and they had taken the Queen’s shilling. As for the rest, he had bought beer and whisky in a pub and offered homes to the homeless and food to the hungry, and six had taken the shilling ‒ trading their present misery for the harsh discipline, and quite probably short life, which he offered.
Of course one got a better type of recruit in the Scottish regiments than they did south of the border, where the mill towns ground men into human trash. Especially now when so many had been thrown off their land by landlords more brutish than the severest discipline the army could offer, there were plenty who chose the security of army life. And over and above that was the personal popularity of the Maclarens throughout the district, and the knowledge that Sir Henry was a people’s laird.
And now Willie returned to Culbrech and was greeted by a bonnie lassie with a wave and a smile. What could be better?
‘I don’t think I should call you Willie, Sergeant Bruce,’ Maud spoke severely, but there was a slight smile in her eyes.
‘Oh, do not worry about it, you are quite worthy of the honour.’
‘I am to consider it an honour?’
‘Naturally, for that is what it is.’ He felt that perhaps he had gone far enough for a first encounter, so he abruptly changed the subject. ‘Has Master Andrew arrived yet?’ he asked.
‘Not that I know of. He is expected, though.’
‘Then I’ll awa’ to the stables and return her ladyship’s mare,’ said Willie. ‘Perhaps if you see her you would be kind enough to tell her that I have done that.’
Without waiting for an answer he mounted and trotted off in the direction of the house. Maud watched him go as his horse’s hooves crunched on the gravel drive and the sun glinted on his brasses and brought out the deep green and purple sheen of his black feather bonnet. She felt that she would have liked to continue talking to him, and she continued to watch until he disappeared out of sight around the back of the building.
So Andrew was due back today. Her drawn face mirrored the turmoil of her emotions. She could not explain it, but she was afraid of meeting him again. They would be strangers here once more.
She was now under the protection of Andrew’s mother, and dependent on the Maclarens to see her through the months ahead. What could she do if Andrew continued to make advances to her? Would it not be an abuse of his mother’s hospitality if she were to encourage him? Still, whatever happened, should the situation start to prove embarrassing, it could not be for long. Very shortly ‒ possibly within a matter of days, for she would have to leave before it started to show ‒ she would be off to Ireland.
She turned back towards the house. As she was about to go in she was aware of a man looking at her. It was Willie Bruce. He had stabled his horse and come back from the stables at the rear. He was standing at the west corner, watching her, smiling. She looked straight at him for a moment and returned his smile. His look made her feel uncomfortably nice; it also made her feel naked. Then quite suddenly she stopped smiling. Her face hardened, and Willie, thinking he had offended her, withdrew. But it was not Willie at all: just for a few happy moments, she had forgotten the whole set of circumstances which had brought her to Culbrech House.
Andrew arrived home the following day. He stood in the small hall on the first floor of Culbrech House, his Harris tweed suit steaming from the slight October drizzle, surrounding him with that musty smell which only Harris tweed can produce. MacKay, their butler and one-time batman, then senior mess steward to his grandfather, had greeted him and gone off in search of some of the family to announce his arrival. Smiling, Andrew watched the retreating figure of MacKay. That man must have been sixty, but he was still more soldier than butler. Straight-backed, white-haired, and with a limp that he refused to acknowledge, he always addressed the male Maclarens by their military rank. Andrew was glad to be back. He was happy to be among things familial and surrounded by the hills and glens he loved. Of course he was also surrounded by women ‒ his sisters, his mother, and now Maud. Maud was one problem.
Moreover, he never really understood his own mother. Women were strange and different ‒ and now one of them came into the hall to greet him, his sister Jean.
‘Andrew, whatever are you standing there for in all those smelly clothes?’ She kissed him on the cheek.
‘Hello, Jean, it’s good to be back. Where’s mother?’
‘In the morning room, I think.’
‘Is Miss Westburn with her?’
‘No, she’s out walking somewhere. I say, Andrew, she’s a delight, isn’t she?’
He wished that he could readily agree, but he could not. His mind was thoroughly confused where that lady was concerned. His father’s talk had had its effect, and he had spent most of the journey up from Perth thinking about her. Had he made a mistake in asking her to stay with them? Did he really want to see her again? Somehow, her intrusion into his life ‒ and it was an intrusion ‒ had disrupted the easy, even tenor of his existence, and he did not know whether he liked it or not. But things were as they were, and it was no use trying to imagine that things would have been easier had he never made his offer of hospitality to her, or indeed why he had done so in the first place. He supposed that had he not done so, he would by now have forgotten all about her. But now he was living under the same roof with her, wanting to be with her, wanting to avoid her, and above all, seeing her as a threat to the regiment.
Whatever happened, it was not going to be easy, unless she made it obvious that she wished to have no more to do with him. This thought made him smile; at least it would solve all problems. ‘Take her as your mistress,’ his father had said. But you could hardly take a pregnant woman as your mistress ‒ it made the whole idea seem sordid. However, he would have to see her soon, and alone, if possible. He wished he could, but he honestly could not say how he hoped that meeting would turn out.
He went along with Jean to the morning room, where they found Lady Maclaren sitting on a chintz-covered sofa with an embroidery ring in her hand and surrounded by a heap of coloured silks.
‘Andrew’s back, Mummy, and he smells.’
‘Don’t be rude to your brother, Jean. Hello, Andrew, darling. Did you have a good journey?’ She gave him the perfunctory familial kiss. ‘My goodness, those clothes do smell. You had better go and change them, then we can have a talk.’
‘Hello, mother. What on earth do you want to talk about? It‘s only a week since I saw you.’
‘Oh, things,’ she replied va
guely. ‘Now be a good boy and run along and change. I’m busy.’
It was late afternoon when he eventually found Maud. He had changed into a grey frock coat and spotted cravat, and wandered down to the withdrawing room in search of one of his father’s cigars to smoke before dinner. She was seated on a velvet-covered sofa, wearing a modest green-velvet crinoline that almost seemed to match. Half a dozen deep scalloped flounces descended from her still-small waist. The bodice was cut in a deep V with large lapels, and decorated with brown silk braid. Beneath, she wore a blouse of fine lace which revealed the rise of her breasts. It was drawn tight around the neck, and terminated in a tiny velvet bow. Her fine, fair hair was drawn back from a centre parting and arranged in two coils over each of her ears. To him she was achingly beautiful. At the first sight of her he felt that stirring in his loins and the dryness on his lips, making it hard for him to say anything. He nervously passed his tongue over his lips as she recognized him and gave him that strange, solemn smile of hers in greeting.
‘Miss Westburn.’ He had stopped just inside the door looking at her.
‘Surely I’m Maud by now,’ she smiled at him again.
He stood in silence. Quite suddenly he could find nothing to say. He searched his mind for conversation, but the words would not come.
‘It is nice to see you again, Andrew,’ she said.
She stretched out her hand to him and he moved over to her and took the tips of her fingers for just a moment, but still did not speak.
‘I hope you had a pleasant journey north?’ she said.
‘It was very nice, thank you,’ he replied. Really these empty pleasantries were quite absurd, but he could find nothing else to say, nothing that mattered. ‘I hope that you are comfortable and being well cared for.’
‘No one could be kinder than your mother, or, for that matter, your sisters and everyone in the house. I shall always be in your debt.’
Andrew gave an embarrassed, deprecating grunt. There was another long silence.
‘Shall I ring for tea?’ she asked.
‘Please, that would be nice.’
Tea arrived and the conversation staggered on its halting way. She suggested that he might smoke, remembering that he enjoyed a cigar. He lit one gratefully and puffed away at it while they discussed the weather and the estate. He was quite surprised to find that she already knew quite a lot about the estate. He assumed she had got that from Margaret, and he was quite at a loss when she asked him for his opinion of the relative qualities of the Cheviot and the black-faced sheep, both of which breeds grazed in vast numbers on their land. But Andrew was only mildly interested in the details involved in running the estate. He knew that they had enough to support the family in the regiment, and as far as he was concerned, that was all that mattered.
The conversation sank into awkward silence yet again, when suddenly she said, ‘I met Willie Bruce yesterday. I think that he admires me.’
Andrew looked at her hard and long. ‘He’d be a fool if he didn’t. You are a very beautiful woman, Maud.’
The compliment embarrassed her. ‘I leave for Ireland soon.’ Why she should want to remind him of her condition, she did not know. ‘Your mamma has made all the arrangements.’
‘Yes, I know, she told me. I’m sorry. I had hoped that I might see quite a lot of you during my leave.’
‘Well, I’m not going immediately. Not tomorrow.’ She looked up at him. ‘I had hoped so, too.’ Then she looked down at her hands.
‘Do you realize something?’ Andrew asked.
‘What?’ His tone had indicated a change of subject and she was glad.
‘This is the very first time that you and I have been in the same room together and alone.’
‘Do you think that is why we are both feeling so awkward?’
‘You, too?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘It’s silly, isn’t it? After what we’ve been through together.’
‘Bloody silly,’ and they both laughed. The ice was well and truly broken.
The conversation carried on in the same inconsequential way, but different in that they were now at ease in one another’s company. They still kept up some pretences; they talked of Ireland, but as if Maud was going on a holiday. The real reason was never mentioned. They chatted through two cups of tea each when Maud suddenly changed the subject.
Outside, the glowing October twilight had burnished the copper beeches, turning the park into an Edenlike setting in which all time had stopped.
‘Who is Willie Bruce?’ she asked.
‘Willie?’ Andrew was a little surprised at the question. ‘He’s my colour sergeant. He’s a local fellow. Why do you ask?’
‘When I saw him, I thought he was you.’
‘You’re not the first. Tell me, were you disappointed?’
The question was pointed, and she paused before replying. ‘Yes, until I found out it was him. Are you related? You’re very alike.’
To Andrew the question was not easy to answer. Related to Willie Bruce. The thought was neither unpleasant nor an impossibility, though one did not tend to jump to conclusions no matter how apparent they might be. He compressed his lips, not wishing to deny and yet not wishing to admit his own innermost suspicions.
‘I don’t know,’ he said after a long pause. ‘You see, people around here, most of them at any rate, have families who have lived in these parts for hundreds of years. I should think that more than half of them have never left the glen. We used to steal women from the Frasers ‒ they hold the next glen ‒ and they used to steal from us, but nobody went much further than that. We are a very small community, and I have no doubt that if you go back far enough, we are all related in one way or another.’
He left it at that. He had no intention of telling her how close his relationship with Willie Bruce could be.
‘I liked him,’ she said. ‘He was quite rude, but rather nice.’
‘He’s a damned good soldier,’ said Andrew, giving Willie the highest accolade of the clan.
The ‘damned good soldier’ was at that moment sitting on the grass outside the Dores Inn, a small, whitewashed, slate-roofed tavern, one storey high, with small square windows set into the thick stone walls. It was situated on the northeast corner of Loch Ness, about five miles from Inverness.
He had had a heavy day and had landed up at Dores for no good reason that he could think except that he wanted to get away and into the clean air after the stench of the unwashed, unwanted, and unloved whom he had been trying to persuade to join the army.
However, the weather was fine and he was hungry, so he decided to have his meal of bread, cheese, a raw onion, and a pint of best ale. Most of the day he had been at the Sheriff’s Court in Inverness, but it had been remarkable for its lack of success. Three miscreants whom he had regarded as possible recruits had opted for prison rather than take the Queen’s shilling. Two more had been unsuitable by reason of their age, and he had ended the day with only two. One was a burly tough who had been charged with smashing up his home and beating his wife, and the other, a man he might not have taken had the day been more successful, was a weedy character of about twenty-three charged with vagrancy. This latter, however, possessed one not too common virtue. He could read and write, an ability possessed by well under fifty per cent of the members of the 148th Foot.
The lawn behind the little pub backed right down to the shore of the loch, and after finishing his pint, Willie wandered down to the water’s edge to relieve himself. He was just about finished with this operation when a small voice interrupted him.
‘Hi, mister, are ye a sodjer?’
Willie looked quickly around and saw no one until he glanced down and espied a diminutive figure at his right elbow. He dropped the edge of his kilt and glared at the boy.
He had a figure like a matchstick, bony elbows poking through the torn sleeves of his shirt. Trews hung in rags around his bare feet. They were tied at the waist with a piece of greasy string. The little thin p
inched face and pallid lips were the legacy of years of grubbing around the dustbins and back alleys trying to scratch enough food to keep body and soul together so they could suffer another miserable day. But his eyes had a brightness and spirited look that set him off from the usual urchin. There were so many of them; they had no hope beyond prison, transportation, or the gallows.
‘Hi, mister,’ the boy repeated. ‘Are ye a sodjer?’
‘I’m a sergeant,’ he growled.
‘Polismen’s sometimes sergeants; yer no polisman, are you?’
‘I’m a soldier, a colour sergeant.’ Willie was offended at the inference.
‘Youse a real sodjer, then?’
‘That I am.’ He turned away.
‘Dinna go awa’, mister. Have you been to the wars?’
‘Hundreds of them,’ growled Willie.
‘I want to be a sodjer.’
‘Away, laddie, you’re no old enough.’
‘I am so. I’m thirteen. A man told me you could be a drummer boy when you was thirteen.’
‘You shouldn’t listen to everybody who tells you things, and you’re no thirteen.’
‘I am so, and ye canna say I’m not.’
‘What does your mam say about it?’
‘I have na got a mam.’
‘Well, your da then?’
‘He’s deed. They hanged him, I think.’
Willie compressed his lips. It was true that the child could be a drummer boy at thirteen. He was quite sure that he was not thirteen, but the army would not question that. He looked at the thin, emaciated, strangely appealing little figure before him.
‘What’s your name?’ he demanded.
‘Alex Maclaren.’
Willie raised an eyebrow. The name did not mean anything. There were several Maclarens in C Company alone. There weren’t any Maclarens this side of Strathglass, however.
‘How do you come to be called Maclaren?’ he asked.
‘How do you come to be called whatever you are?’