The rich aroma of porridge caused Gilbert to stir; then the hissing of the bubbling teakettle brought him fully awake. He stretched his long body and rubbed his hands over his face. His eyes were dry and still weary—the short sleep had not been altogether refreshing. He coughed several times, while in the other room Jamie listened with concern.
He pulled his suspenders up and over his shoulders as he came out into the front room. He smiled at his daughter, but her heart quivered at the sight of his haggard face.
“Papa, are ye sure ye’re not sick?”
“Aye, child, I’m sure,” he replied carelessly. “Well, ye have breakfast all ready!” he went on, acting both surprised and pleased as if that very occurrence had not been the routine for months on end. “Ye’re a dear one, my Jamie!”
They partook of their humble fare in silence for some time. At length Gilbert spoke.
“I’ll be goin’ to the village this morning for a spell.”
He paused and ate several more spoonfuls of porridge.
“Shall I take Gracie an’ Callie oot t’ pasture, Papa?” Jamie asked.
“My business won’t take me long, and I must come back by here on my way to work at the mill. So I was thinkin’ ye might want to come to the village with me.”
“Really, Papa?”
“Ye’d like that, would ye?”
Her sparkling eyes answered for her.
“Then,” he said, “ye can put on your prettiest dress, and we’ll be off.”
As soon as the breakfast things were cleared away, Jamie scurried off to the chest where her clothes were neatly kept. There was only one suitable dress, a pale blue linen with a bit of white lace at the neck. It had been mended only two or three times, and she thought it was still pretty. She found a blue ribbon and attempted to tie it in her hair. The bow was twisted and clumsy, so she went to her father and asked him to fix it as best he could.
Gilbert held her out at arms’ length. What a beautiful child she is! he thought. With alabaster skin framed by silky dark locks, and her large green eyes looking almost as if they had been painted on, she resembled an expensive china doll. But his proud heart ached as he noted the mended places covering the tears in her dress. Would she always have to remain such a poor ragamuffin because of him? She was fit for better things! Maybe if he was not meant to have them, she could. If his life had been a disappointment, there was no reason why hers would have to be!
The village was an hour’s walk away. They went but seldom together; Jamie could recall only two or three visits to the valley since her mother died. The village itself, set on the edge of the valley, was composed of two intersecting lanes, themselves so hilly that the stone buildings gave the appearance of being set haphazardly into position. On the topmost hill sat the ancient parish church, its thick stone walls covered with dark green moss and ivy. The cross on the steeple stood proudly as the very crown of the village. With wonder Jamie gazed upward at it as they passed, wanting more than anything to see inside the grand building with its pretty colored windows. Gilbert promised they would do just that when he finished his business.
The pair trudged along the main street beyond the church and up a steep hill toward the other side of the small town until it leveled off and they found themselves in front of a building where Gilbert stopped. On a wooden placard was carved a picture of a black rearing pony. Jamie could not read the words beneath the pony, but they read: The Ebony Stallion. It was the only public house for miles in either direction.
Looking now in one direction, now in the other, Gilbert loitered about outside the inn for some time while Jamie stood quietly at his side. There were few others about on the streets, and no one came in or out of the great oak door. Neither was there much activity in the shop across the way, which Jamie watched until she became bored. She had no idea why her father had come to town.
Suddenly she sensed movement in her father’s frame. Following his gaze down the road at the foot of the hill, she could hear a sound of approaching horses. A carriage came into view, sleek and black, drawn by two lively chestnuts. She did not take her eyes off it during its entire ascent to the top of the hill, and finally to her amazement it came to a spirited stop before the very spot where she and her father stood, the horses snorting and pawing as if they would charge off again if given half a chance. She felt as if the fairy-tale carriage had been sent for them, and had Jamie been older and read romance stories she might have expected the driver to jump down from his high perch and offer her his hand.
Self-consciously she stepped back behind her father. But no one was paying the slightest attention to her. There would be no hands offered this young princess in peasant’s clothing today. Instead, a man stepped from the enclosure of the coach and called up brusquely to the driver, “Wait here, Adams. I’ll not be long!”
He was of medium height, not so tall as MacLeod, who stood nervously awaiting him. His thickset frame, while far from fat, was nonetheless dignified, and was made even more so by the black cape that fluttered out behind him. He wore a black silk hat, and his stern face was clean-shaven except for a thin moustache. Strands of gray hair peeked timidly from under the edges of the hat, but they were the only timid features about the man. He was altogether an imposing man—in voice, in stature, in the total authority which his carriage commanded.
“Lord Graystone,” Gilbert said rather hesitantly as he stepped forward slowly.
“Yes,” the man replied with a hint of condescension. Because of Gilbert’s height, it was physically impossible for Graystone to look down on him, yet he somehow managed to convey that impression.
“I’m Gilbert MacLeod. We—uh—had an appointment.”
“Quite so, MacLeod,” Graystone replied. “Of course, that’s why I’m here.”
“Would ye—would you be wantin’ to come into the inn? The ale is none too bad, and I’d be glad to buy.”
Graystone glanced disdainfully toward the building. “Would you now?” were his only words as he swept past Gilbert into The Ebony Stallion.
“Wait here, Jamie,” Gilbert said, then turned and followed the laird of Aviemere.
The following thirty-minute wait passed quickly for Jamie, for she now had the carriage and the horses to keep her active mind occupied. Graystone’s coachman, while obviously not accustomed to children and hardly comfortable with the nursemaid’s role which had been thrust upon him, nevertheless allowed her to pet the team with many stern injunctions he needn’t have given; Jamie was well-used to such creatures. The horses were the finest animals she had ever seen, and her eyes studied them intently as they continued to prance with impatience.
Jamie imagined what it would be like to ride in such a carriage. If it were hers, she would tell the coachman to give the chestnuts every inch of freedom they desired, and she would feel herself fly down the road, looking out the curtained window as the countryside whizzed past.
Engrossed in such childish fancies, Jamie hardly noticed the passing of time. Before she knew it, Graystone strode out of the inn. He looked considerably pleased; the sternness she had felt from him before now seemed to have changed into a smug look of triumph. His man helped him into the carriage, then jumped back up onto his seat and whipped the reins into action; the horses lurched down the hill. They quickly reached full stride, and within a minute they moved out of sight in the same way they had come.
It was several minutes before her father exited. The relief that the carriage was gone showed clearly on his face. He mumbled something under his breath that if he must pay for the brew, he wasn’t going to let it go to waste. But he said nothing more and Jamie could feel the cloud that hung over him; he remained sullen all the way home, saying hardly a word.
They did not stop at the church, nor pay a visit to the store where Jamie had secretly hoped another treat might await her. She tried hard not to be disappointed.
4
Lundie’s Proposal
It was dark when Gilbert came again to the inn.
His mood had changed little despite a hard day’s work, and he had not yet been home. He had carried out what work was to be done at the mill, and the few other odd jobs he had hired himself out for on that day. But when the time came to return home, he could not bear it.
It would never be his home again!
The bargain had been sealed that morning between him and Mackenzie Graystone with a cold handshake. That was all there was to it; a lifetime of hopes and dreams were suddenly washed away in a flood of grim necessity.
Ah, yes, there were other dreams, and Gilbert clung to them with the tenacity of a drowning man hanging on to a thin hunk of driftwood. Yet somehow they were more difficult to conjure up at this moment. Now, all he could feel was loss—hollow and inevitable loss; the emptiness of dreams that would never be.
He felt dirty, too, as if he had deceived poor, dead Alice. If he had come away with something it might have been different. But as he had guessed, his arrangement with Graystone barely left him with his debts paid and twenty pounds to his name.
Twenty pounds!
It might seem wealth untold to most of the peasants around him. But he had been a landowner! Now his land was gone and he had nothing to show for it.
He should probably have considered himself fortunate. Graystone could have waited and simply repossessed the land by default. At least this way he had something. But the mere memory of the laird’s pompous face when he made his brutal offer was enough to enrage Gilbert. “I’m doing you a favor, MacLeod, by offering you this much,” the laird had sneered. “I could just wait you out—so take it or leave it.” Gilbert had seen in the man’s eyes the faint hope that he would turn it down. What could make a man so eager to prey upon his fellows?
Twenty pounds! thought Gilbert again. ’Tis an outrage!
Well, at least a couple of shillings from it would be spent tonight—trying to forget.
The pub was dark, and the glow from the hearth provided nearly the only light. It revealed several men standing about, others seated at the rough tables—and all holding pints of cheap ale. Some preferred to drink in solitude; others sat in tightly knit groups discussing everything from the weather to their livestock. Gilbert bought a pint from the barman and carried it to an empty table in a lonely corner of the place. He sipped the dark beer slowly, for he was not a drinking man, though it was true that many of his daughter’s sleepless nights had been spent waiting while he sought what courage was to be found within the dank walls of The Ebony Stallion. If no courage was to be had from its brew, at least there was a certain amount of companionship there. It prolonged the moment when he must trudge home and dulled somewhat the daily reminder of the raw pain of his failure.
Tonight he was not long to remain alone, for soon after he settled into his seat, a man arose from one of the groups at the far end of the large room and ambled toward him. He set his glass on the table and slid onto the bench opposite Gilbert without a word. It was not until after he took a long swallow of beer that he spoke.
“Evenin’, MacLeod.”
“Evenin’, Lundie.”
Both men drank deeply.
“I heard ye sold yer property t’day,” Lundie said.
“’Tis true.”
The conversation between the two men had been subdued; neither had been that intimate with the other previously. But suddenly Lundie’s glass slammed down on the table.
“’Tis a blasted shame!” he said passionately.
All eyes in the place turned momentarily toward him, to which he replied with a fierce sneer. Gradually all resumed their previous activities and took no further notice of the pair.
“’Tis true,” repeated Gilbert mildly, revealing none of the churning emotions within him. “But that’s life. She’s a cruel mistress, sometimes.”
“Ha!” returned Lundie. “’Tis that slimy snake Mackenzie Graystone.”
“I know we’re friends, Frederick, an’ have drunk a pint or twa together upon occasion, but I’ve never heard ye speak out before against the laird.”
“That’s because the scum had not quit me o’ my job before!”
Frederick Lundie, a compact, muscular man in his forties, had been until two days earlier the factor at Aviemere. He was considered by some hot-blooded, quick-tempered, quick-witted, and just as quick to befriend any man who treated him fairly. He had come to Aviemere from Lord Michalton’s estate near Perth, with extremely high credentials. He was a good man, and Graystone had hired him immediately. That was ten years ago.
“What do ye mean?” Gilbert asked.
“Hae ye gane deaf, MacLeod? Ten years o’ perfect service o’er—ended! That’s what I’m meanin’. Told me t’ get oot. No notice. Nothin’!”
“He gave ye no reason?”
“Reason!” Lundie spat on the floor. “I killed his horse, he’s sayin’. But it’s a lie!”
“What happened?”
“I took the horse oot fer his usual paces—’twas his prize stallion. When I brocht him back t’ the stable he was sound an’ whole. I dinna ken what happened. That evenin’ when the laird went oot t’ hae a look at him, there he lay on the straw, leg broken—’twas an awful sicht!”
“He didna believe ye?”
“In ten years I ne’er once lied t’ the man! I’ll tell ye what happened. That weasel o’ a son o’ his took the horse oot an’ rode him to his death.”
“Do ye know that of a certain?”
“I know fer certain that the blaggart more’n once took the animal oot to impress his friends, wi’oot his father knowin’ a thing aboot it. I looked the ither way, I did. He’s a rum ’un t’ hae on yer back. An’ in the laird’s eyes the boy can do no wrong. But I’ll show ’em. I’ll show ’em all!”
They were silent for some time while they finished what remained in their glasses and began fresh ones. At length Lundie broke the silence.
“They treated me like scum fer ten years,” he said, as if the previous conversation had never ended. “I gave ’em the best years ’o my life. I stayed because good jobs are hard t’ find. An’ they were payin’ me more’n I could hope t’ git anywhere else. I had my family t’ think of. Then one mistake—an’ it weren’t e’en my mistake!—an’ see what becomes o’ me!”
“’Tis a sorry pass,” Gilbert sympathized. “I’m sorry.”
“Ye should ken more’n anyone what I mean.”
Gilbert had temporarily forgotten his own plight, and now, reminded of it again, said nothing but stared into his glass.
“Come now, man!” Lundie went on. “The vermin has done the same t’ ye!”
“I—I don’t understand,” said Gilbert looking up.
“Ye dinna think he bought yer land oot o’ the kindness o’ his heart, do ye?”
Gilbert looked down again. Of course Lundie was right! That very thing had fueled his own anger and brought him here this very night.
“I’ll answer fer ye!” Lundie went on. “The man has no heart! How much profit did ye make on the sale?”
Gilbert remained silent for a long, tense moment. He knew he had been, if not swindled directly, certainly exploited by Graystone. But he had been taught to guard his words, and one could never tell where the laird’s ears might be.
“Enough to make a new start in Aberdeen,” he said at length.
“Start like paupers, I’ll warrant!”
Gilbert offered no response.
“Everyone knows ye got less than half what ye paid Graystone himself fer the land!”
“It’s over and done with now.”
“He’s been eyein’ yer plot o’ land fer years,” Lundie continued; “since e’en before yer wife inherited it. He was jist waitin’ fer the right moment, jist waitin’ fer the right circumstances that would send ye under. He hated the likes o’ a common man—meanin’ no disrespect, MacLeod—tryin’ t’ better himsel’!”
“It’s over, I said!” repeated Gilbert, his voice rising. “I did the best I could—but it wasn’t enough!” The color in his
face flushed, but then his voice fell once more to a toneless whisper. “It’s over.”
“It doesna hae t’ be, Gilbert, my friend.”
“I’m leavin’ for Aberdeen. My child and I. We’ll make a good life there. I’ll be startin’ over.”
“Fine! Go yer way t’ Aberdeen. Hae yer good life!” Lundie drew close to his companion, and his voice dropped to a barely audible whisper. “But dinna go wi’ yer pockets empty.”
“You’re speakin’ in riddles, Frederick. You’ve had too much to drink.”
“I’m thinkin’ more clearly than maybe I hae fer years!” returned Lundie. “’Tis oor chance, MacLeod. Don’t ye see? Oor chance t’ prove t’ them Graystones that they aren’t the only ones wi’ power.”
He paused and took a slow drink as if waiting for the impact of his words to sink in. But Gilbert continued to stare at him, bewildered.
Jamie MacLeod Page 3