by CL Skelton
After going through the locks at Fort Augustus, they sailed through Loch Oich and into Loch Lochy. Here the southwesterly wind started to rise, and soon little splashes of spray began to come up over the gunwales. The water was different now; they were in a sea loch, and the tang of salt in the air seemed suddenly to emphasize to Maud that fact that she was leaving the sheltered security of the Maclarens’ home and heading towards the unknown.
Alex wandered off. He had found an open door which looked down into the engine room and he stood by it, his dark brown eyes wide with amazement as he watched the rods and wheels and levers clanking away, turning the steamer’s paddles.
There were two men working down there. One was shovelling coal into the open door of what appeared to Alex to look like the gates of hell. The other was wandering around with an oil-can in his hand, his overall shining with the saturation of oil. He looked up and saw the boy gazing, enraptured, down at him.
‘Awa’ doon wi’ ye and we’ll mak a sailor o’ ye,’ he called.
‘Ye no will. I’m going to be a sodjer.’
‘More fool you!’ And the man went on with his oiling.
There was a decided air of tension between Maud and Willie. Perhaps he had gone too far when he had talked to her of beauty. The simple fact was that they were young, and they had each found the other attractive, and this made them both feel guilty; he because of the social barrier between them, and she because of her condition.
‘No doot you’ll be sorry to be missing the ball,’ said Willie at length, in an attempt to make some sort of conversation. ‘It’s the great night of the year in these parts.’
‘But you will miss it as well,’ she responded.
‘Och, no, miss. The ball’s no for the likes of me. We have the estate party at Hogmanay; everybody goes to that, even the colonel and his lady. The ball is for the quality, and I think it is sad that you should miss it.’
There was a long silence before she replied. She was standing looking straight ahead over the bow, the wind catching little wisps of hair under her bonnet and her face damp with spray. Or was it tears? Willie could not be sure.
‘I suppose you know why I cannot stay for the ball,’ she said.
‘I’ve heard rumours, miss, but then there’s always so many rumours in the glen, nobody minds them.’
‘This one is true, Willie.’
She turned to look at him and there were tears in her eyes.
‘I thought it might be,’ he said casually. ‘Though why certain kinds of folk mak such a fuss about these things, I just dinna ken. Look at me. I was eight months old when my parents invited me to their wedding, and who thinks the less of me or them for that?’ That was not quite true, but he thought it would help.
There was nothing more that needed to be said; the barriers were down. Maud looked at this big, solid, gentle man and smiled. She reached out towards him.
‘Take my hand, Willie Bruce,’ she said.
‘I couldna do that, miss.’
‘And call me Maud. I want you to be my friend.’
He took her hand and turned his head away from her towards the shore.
Chapter Seven
Mr MacKay, ex-colour sergeant of the 148th Foot, and now butler to Sir Henry Maclaren, was in the midst of his preparations for the Autumn Ball at Culbrech House. This was the major social event of the year, and MacKay treated it as he treated everything else, as a military operation. Belowstairs, the footmen in green baize aprons were busy polishing the already immaculate silverware. Up in the banqueting hall, he had impressed Donnie Driver and Iain Doig, who worked in the stables under Donnie, into erecting the dais where the orchestra would play throughout the night. Below them, in the dining room, Morag and Grizel, the two upstairs maids, polished furiously at the already gleaming, long, dark dining table; while Elizabeth, Lady Maclaren’s personal maid, rushed around with a feather duster, dusting where no dust lay.
Rooms were being prepared for the houseguests, the MacDonalds from Strone and the Worthings from England. A carriage had already arrived containing the Worthings’ luggage, and General Worthing and his wife and daughter, accompanied by their personal servants, were expected at any moment. They would be lodged in rooms in the west tower, where coal had already been laid in the grates ready to light upon their arrival.
Amid all of the preparations, Lady Maclaren was fussing about like a mother hen who had lost her chicks, interrupting the well-ordered plan of MacKay and oblivious to his glowering looks whenever she entered a room where he was working.
As for Andrew, he was really not interested; not after what had happened. To begin with, he had not said goodbye to Maud. He had slept in on the morning of her departure, and had rushed downstairs in a dressing gown just in time to see her coach disappearing along the drive. He found himself suffering from cross-currents of emotion and of feelings of a kind that had never before troubled the tranquil flow of his growing up.
The immediate effect of Maud’s departure had been to leave him lonely, morose, and introspective. He knew that he was desperate to get back to Perth and lose himself in the old familiar military routine. Suddenly, here in his own house, he felt a stranger. He wanted to avoid everybody, and during the following days he took to walking the hills alone. He especially wanted to avoid meeting his father when he heard that the colonel would be arriving on the morning of the ball with General Worthing and his family. On that day, he dressed in old tweeds, packed some sandwiches and a flask of brandy, and fled to the hills. That was how he met Maggie Buchannan.
It was warm. All in all it was a wonderful October, and he first caught sight of her walking purposefully along the skyline on the crest of the hill behind the house. She was wearing a brown homespun skirt, a black knitted blouse, and a tartan shawl. Her brown hair hung free, blowing softly in the breeze. She was not wearing the mutch, that white frilled linen bonnet which was the mark of the married woman.
He watched her as he climbed the hill, watched her as the little gusts of wind blew her skirt against her body, displaying well-rounded buttocks and tapering thighs. She saw him coming and stopped, waiting so that he could not fail to meet her without being deliberately rude.
‘Good day to ye, Master Andrew,’ she said when he had arrived within a few yards of her.
‘How do you do,’ he replied formally. ‘I don’t think that I know you, miss?’
‘Maggie,’ she said. ‘Och, youse seen me before, I’ve lived here all my life.’
‘Where? On the estate?’
‘Aye, over yonder,’ she replied vaguely.
‘Of course,’ said Andrew, enlightenment coming to him. ‘Of course I remember you. Now don’t tell me, it’s ‒ it’s, I’ve got it, Maggie! Wee Maggie.’
‘That’s right, Master Andrew. And thank you for remembering me, especially now that you have got so big and grand and me still a simple lassie.’
‘Oh, I remember, all right. There were others, too ‒’
‘Aye, Willie Bruce was one of them. Then you all went awa’ and joined the army and forgot all about the lassies.’ Her tone was mocking, friendly.
‘Willie’s been here, you know.’
‘Aye, I ken fine he’s been here,’ she replied.
‘Will you walk with me awhile, Maggie?’ he asked, glad of the company.
‘Indeed I shall, Master Andrew. It will be like old times.’
He smiled at her and they strode out across the patches of purple heather.
‘And what is it that you are doing up on the hill, with the ball and all the fine people at the big hoose tonight?’
‘The house is no place for me, not at a time like this,’ he replied. He was already beginning to enjoy her company, and she was beginning to fit into his memories of childhood. A friend, someone he had played with. She had sometimes been the nurse who tended himself and Willie when they were wounded in their mock battles.
‘Do you remember ‒’ They had started speaking simultaneously; they both stopped and laughed.
‘What were you going to say?’ he asked.
‘’Twas nothing,’ she replied. ‘I was just remembering.’
‘So was I,’ said Andrew, and he felt embarrassed. ‘Would you like something to eat? I have some sandwiches with me.’
‘Aye, I will share your piece with you.’
‘I think,’ he replied, ‘we had better find somewhere sheltered.’
For though the day was pleasant, there was a little chill in the October breeze.
‘Over there looks like a nice spot,’ she announced and headed in the direction of a rocky outcrop cradling a sunlit, heather-and-bracken-carpeted bowl shielded from the wind. She sat herself down and grinned up at him. ‘Well, now, where’s the piece?’ she demanded.
As he opened his sandwich case and shared its contents between them, she sat, knees up, her chin cupped in the palms of her hands, gazing down the hill.
‘’Tis a grand sight,’ she said.
‘What?’ asked Andrew. ‘Oh, the house. Yes, I suppose it does look good from up here.’
And indeed it did, standing there beneath them and surrounded by the bright green of its lawns, solid and timeless.
‘But,’ she continued, ‘I dinna think I should like to stay there myself. It is too big.’
‘There are a lot of people live in it,’ said Andrew.
‘I ken that, but they’d all be strangers to me.’
They munched away at their sandwiches for some time. Andrew kept glancing at her, but she seemed oblivious of him. He watched the turn of her head as she followed the path of a black-headed gull.
‘It’s gone,’ she said sadly, and their eyes met.
He moved over towards her because it was the only thing he was capable of doing, and slipped his arm around her waist. Her lips parted and he kissed her. He felt her body straining against his, and then suddenly they were apart.
‘I’m sorry, Maggie,’ he said. ‘I had no right. What can you think of me?’
‘I think you are just a laddie who is needing to take his lassie. Come Andrew, it will be right for you. It is time you know.’
Gently and tenderly, for she instinctively knew that she was his first, she let him take her. When it was over, he wanted to speak, but she put a finger to his lips. ‘No. It was good for me, and I want that it should have been good for you, too. And now, perhaps it is time for you to go back to your big house and for me to be away to my little house.’
He nodded, not able to speak, but he tried to take her hand as they walked away from their little hollow.
‘Oh, no, Master Andrew, you must no take my hand. What would people say if they saw us?’
‘Look, Maggie,’ he said, ‘if there’s anything I can do for you, if there’s anything you want, well, you only have to ask.’
Suddenly she became serious. ‘There is something, Master Andrew, though I ask it only because of what you have just said.’
‘Tell me.’
‘My husband ‒’
‘Husband!’
‘Och, aye, I’m a married woman. Did ye no ken?’ And she pulled the mutch out of her pocket and tucked her long brown hair under it. ‘I’ve been married to Angus Buchannan for three years now.’
‘Oh, my God!’ said Andrew.
‘You’ve done nothing that any other man would not have done under the same circumstances. Now don’t you be silly about it, Master Andrew. What we did was for me every bit as much as it was for you. I need a man, Master Andrew, and that is what I wanted to ask you about. You see, Angus got drunk the other night wi’ Willie Bruce, and the fool went and took the Queen’s shilling, and the ploughing still to be done.’
‘But what can I do?’ Andrew was even more horrified to discover that he had had relations with the wife of one of the men who would be serving under him.
‘Can you no get him out of the army and send him home to me?’
‘That would not be easy.’
‘Please, Master Andrew, I want ma mannie back.’
‘But suppose he doesn’t want to come out?’
‘What man in his right mind would want to stay in the army? But will you do what you can?’
‘All right, Maggie, I’ll do what I can.’
‘You promise?’
‘I promise, Maggie.’
‘Thank you, Master Andrew. And now we had better be awa’ home, you to yours and I to mine. And thank you, Master Andrew.’
He turned away from her to go.
‘And Master Andrew, don’t ye look so sad. Ye mind me of the time when you were fourteen when you took your father’s favourite mare wi’oot permission and brought her back lame.’
He laughed. The tension had gone.
When he got back to the house, his feelings were of happiness tinged with guilt. He did not want to see anybody, so he went in through the iron-studded front door and through the servants’ hall. He had just reached the stairway to the east wing, which would lead him to his room and safety, when MacKay called his name.
‘The colonel is back and wants to see you, sir.’
‘Oh,’ said Andrew, ‘when did he get here?’
‘An hour or more ago, sir. He came with the Worthings.’
‘What are the Worthings like, MacKay?’ asked Andrew.
‘That is not for me to say, sir. But I would say that they have a great deal of luggage, and each one of them has brought along a personal servant, thus providing us with an accommodation problem.’
‘Which you will solve.’
‘Only because I have no option, Captain Maclaren. I think that you had better go and see the colonel. I think that you will find him in the library.’
He had barely arrived at the library door when the familiar voice barked out:
‘Andrew, come here.’
He went into the dark, oak-panelled room with its mountainous shelves. His father was standing with his back to the fire, a whisky in one hand and a medical journal in the other. Sir Henry had been most impressed by the behaviour of the nurses under Miss Nightingale in the Crimea, especially with their hygiene, and had as a consequence developed a consuming interest in medicine, especially as it applied to the military.
‘Have a dram, boy,’ said Sir Henry. ‘I want to have a talk with you.’
Andrew poured out a large one. He felt that he needed it.
‘Sorry to have to spring this on you, but we’ve got to go back to Perth tomorrow.’
‘Oh, good,’ said Andrew.
His father looked at him quizzically. ‘Not enjoying your leave?’
‘Oh, yes, sir. But I really would like to get back,’ he replied.
‘In that case, you’re getting what you want. We’re off to China in a couple of months. That means an intensive training programme for the new recruits. China will be quite an experience for you.’
It struck Andrew as strange that his father had bothered to come all the way up from Perth if he was going to return the next day.
‘Didn’t want to miss the ball, you know,’ said Sir Henry in answer to his son’s unspoken question. ‘Besides, I promised General Worthing that I’d bring him up. He wants you to meet his daughter.’
The implication of his father’s remark was completely lost on Andrew. ‘That will be nice,’ he said lamely.
‘You’d better get packed and ready before dinner tonight. We’ll be leaving tomorrow morning. The Worthings won’t be coming with us; they’re going to stay on for a few days.’ He paused, and when Andrew made no remark, he continued, ‘Well, I suppose I’d better take you along and introduce you. They’re in the morning room with your mother.’
‘Father,’ said Andrew as the colonel started to move, ‘before we go, can I ask you something?’
‘Of course, what is it?’
‘Actually, it’s about women. I don’t think that I understand them.’
Sir Henry laughed and put his arm around Andrew’s shoulder, a rare paternal gesture on his part. ‘If you did, you’d be the first man ever. I’v
e been married to your mother for getting on to twenty-six years, and I’m damned if I understand her yet. No, Andrew, what little you learn about women before they push you into your hole in the ground, they’ll teach you themselves. They’re not the same as us, quite a different animal. They’re born fourteen years older than men. You stick to the regiment, boy, and you’ll be all right.’
‘Yes, but ‒’
‘What’s on your mind, Andrew? Is it Maud Westburn? She’s gone, hasn’t she?’
The mention of Maud brought a feeling of guilty nostalgia to Andrew. It made him feel dirty. ‘No, sir, it’s not Miss Westburn,’ he said.
‘Thank God for that,’ said his father. ‘What is it then, a woman, or just women in general?’
But Andrew could not reply. All he could think of was that he had promised Maggie that he would try to get Angus Buchannan out of the regiment.
‘Is there something wrong, lad?’ his father asked.
‘Oh, no, sir. Really there isn’t. Nothing, nothing at all.’
‘I wish I could believe you. Still, we’d better go and take a look at this Worthing filly. See what you think of her, eh?’
He accompanied his father into the morning room. This was dominated by a massive Raeburn portrait of his great-grandparents. There was also a collection of Raeburn miniatures which Lady Maclaren had recently taken to collecting. This was really his mother’s room. The whole feeling of it was feminine. It was situated at the corner of the house and the windows opened to the east and the south, so that on a pleasant day such as this the sunlight streamed in, picking out the flowered chintzes of the comfortable furnishings, and gleaming off the polished mahogany of the small tables scattered about the room. It was also the only room on the first floor which was not wood-panelled, and the light-coloured drapes and the blue and gold of the striped damask wall covering gave it a spacious, gracious air.
Andrew’s mother was pouring tea for the other two ladies, the younger of whom was sitting demurely, hands folded on her lap, eyes downcast, and blending into the chaise longue on which she was seated, so that it was difficult to separate her from the furniture.
General Worthing was stocky, grey, and moustachioed, his huge head seemingly out of proportion to the rest of his body. Like most of his breed, he had not pursued his military career without it leaving its mark, both physical and in the shape of a pronounced limp, and more obviously in his abrupt and often embarrassing directness of manner.