As each of the crofting families came in, Kate welcomed them with a smile. She was glad she’d dressed in her nicest clothes—fawn slacks and cream cashmere sweater—because the crofters were obviously wearing their Sunday best. Kate sensed a quiet pride among them, and instinctively liked them for it. She wondered when the banquet hall had last been so full. Not in the days of Colin Chisholm, she guessed. Probably not for sixty years or more, since the “Lost Generation” parties given by Janet and Struan between the wars. However, despite the fact that there were about forty people gathered in the hall, there was nothing like a party atmosphere now. The occasional hushed conversation or two served only to accentuate just how quiet it was. Kate toyed nervously with the “cheat sheet” in her hands and occasionally glanced at it, reading over the notes she’d made for the little speech she was about to give. Public speaking wasn’t her thing, and the coming hour would have been an ordeal even if the subject matter hadn’t been such a troubling one.
Five minutes before the meeting was due to start all the seats were taken and there were half a dozen people standing, including Miss Weir, Finlay, and Cameron. One of the crofters came over and said, “We’re just missing Auld Davie, Lady Kate. He’s maybe having a struggle with the stairs. If you don’t mind, I’ll go out and see if he needs a hand.”
Before Kate could answer, the crofter looked past her and said, “Talk of the devil.”
The man he referred to was making his way through the chapel with the aid of a walking stick, and made Finlay look in the first flush of youth by comparison.
When the old man reached the door to the banquet hall, Kate said, “I’m sorry, I hope you’ve not had a struggle with the steps.”
“I must be getting old,” the man said, as if just realizing it. “I used to take the stairs two at a time when I was coming up here for a ceilidh. Now I have to rest after every single one.”
“Well, thanks for coming,” Kate told him. “I’ll go and look for another chair.”
“No need, Lady Kate,” the first crofter said.
Kate soon saw what he meant: at least half a dozen crofters got up to offer Auld Davie a seat. Watching them, Kate got the impression that this gathering was made up of true neighbours rather than just people who happened to live next to each other.
The quiet conversations fell silent row by row when Kate walked towards the grand fireplace at the far end of the hall. She was accompanied by Archibald Cunningham, who’d accepted her invitation to come along and assess whatever ideas were put forward.
There was an expectant hush by the time Kate reached the fireplace and turned to face the people of Glen Cranoch. Looking around the rows of seated crofters Kate saw everything from a young mother with a baby cradled in her arms to the man who was older than Finlay. She was aware that they were all watching her, depending on her, that their fate was in her hands. A wave of panic washed over her, and she froze on the spot.
They could have let her suffer, revelled in seeing the person who lorded over them being humbled. But, instead, the young mother with the baby said in a gentle voice, “I think you’ve made some notes, Lady Kate.”
Kate smiled at her, mouthed a “thank you,” and looked at the sheet of paper she’d been holding, forgotten, in her hands. After a deep breath she said, “First of all, I’d like to thank—”
“Lady Kate …” It was Miss Weir, calling out from the back of the hall. “You’ll have to speak up a bit, or us oldies at the back won’t hear.”
Kate nodded, glanced down at her notes, and in a louder voice said, “I’d like to thank you all for coming, and apologize for the short notice. I thought I should call a meeting as soon as possible to let you know where we all stand.” She looked up from the notes, and found she didn’t have to look back down at them again. “I don’t know if Colin Chisholm kept you informed about how the estate was faring, but I think you have a right to know, because The Cranoch is your home as well as mine.”
She sighed, then said, “I’m afraid the news isn’t good. In latter years Mr. Chisholm only managed to keep the estate going by selling the family silver, so to speak. Now there’s nothing left to sell except Greystane and the glen itself. I have a little money, but not enough to keep the estate going much longer. The bottom line is that I’m faced with the choice of coming up with a way to turn The Cranoch’s fortunes around, or selling it.”
Kate had never heard a silence so loud. She broke it by saying, “Apart from the selfish reason of how much I love it here, and the fact that I dearly want to make Glen Cranoch my home, I feel a responsibility for every one of you. Especially given the fact that some of the people whose pictures hang on that wall,” she gestured at the portraits to her right, “seem to have badly let down the people who lived here in the past.” It seemed to the people listening that Kate was thinking aloud rather than addressing them when she added, “On top of all the other debts, it seems I face a debt of honor.”
The watching crofters could see how heavily that debt weighed on Kate as she looked at the line of portraits.
Then she turned back to them and said, “I’d hate my picture to be the last one on that wall, and to be looked at in the same way as Lady Carolyn.” In a lighter tone she added, “Yes, I saw the looks she got from a few of you earlier!”
There were a few embarrassed little laughs at that.
There was nothing light about Kate’s tone when she continued. “What I’m trying to say is that I’d hate to have to sell Glen Cranoch and Greystane, but if things carry on as they are—if the estate isn’t paying for itself by the time I run out of money—I won’t have any choice.” She let out another sigh.
Gathering her thoughts, she carried on: “That’s bad enough, but what really worries me is the nature of the only likely buyer.” She hesitated, the way a person does when they’re trying to work out how to word bad news. “I can hardly bring myself to tell you this …”
If anything, the silence now seemed even more complete.
Finally, Kate said, “It’s a property company that would change the glen completely, and I don’t think any of the changes would be for the better.” She looked down at the paper in her hand, not to remind herself of anything she’d written down, but because she couldn’t look at the crofters as she said, “They want to turn the lochan into a water-sports center and the glen into a ski resort.” Kate thought she heard restive stirrings. “They would turn this place—” she held out her hands to indicate the old house around her—”into a visitor center: a ‘tartan tat’ shop was how their representative put it to me.”
There was no doubt now about the stirrings.
“What about the crofts?” Auld Davie shouted out from the back.
“Aye,” another voice called out.
Kate looked up from the paper, at all the faces looking back at her. “I wish … If there was any other …” Archibald Cunningham put his hand on her shoulder in a gesture of support but Kate didn’t notice. She literally hung her head in shame as she said, “There wouldn’t be any place for the crofts in Glen Cranoch.”
The stirrings gave way to a stunned silence, which was broken when the woman with the baby asked, “Could they force us out like that?”
“Once your leases are up, they could,” said Archibald Cunningham.
“And they’d be allowed to do all those terrible things to the glen?” another voice asked.
“They must be pretty sure of planning approval, or they wouldn’t be prepared to make an offer,” the lawyer answered.
“Be honest, Lady Kate,” the old crofter asked from the back, “aren’t you tempted to just sell up now and have done with it—and with us?”
“No, Davie. It is Davie, isn’t it?”
He nodded.
“No, Davie, not even nearly. The money they’re offering couldn’t buy me another place like Glen Cranoch. I don’t think any amount of money could. And it couldn’t make up for the guilty conscience I’d have if I thought I’d made that money at the
cost of all of you having to leave your homes. To be honest, Davie, I don’t feel like I own Glen Cranoch; I feel like I hold it in trust, and that selling it to the sort of people who want to buy it would be an unforgivable betrayal of that trust.”
“So what are you going to do?” the young mother asked.
“I really don’t know,” Kate said. “That’s one of the reasons I’ve called you all here. I wanted to warn you that although I don’t want to sell The Cranoch, I might not have any choice—and to let you know what’s likely to happen as a result.
“But I also wanted to ask for ideas about how I could turn the place around so that I won’t have to sell it. I’m hoping that somebody who knows the glen better than I do might have ideas about how to change its fortunes without changing its nature.”
There was another long silence.
“I can assure you that this isn’t a token effort to save the place,” Kate told them. “It’s a plea from the heart for help. If you have any ideas, no matter how outlandish you think they seem, please, please don’t keep them to yourself. We’re all in this together.”
“A distillery!” Auld Davie called out from the back of the banquet hall a few moments later, to some quiet laughter and a few shouts of support.
Kate smiled and turned to Archibald Cunningham.
“It would take a lot of money to set it up, and a lot of time before there was any return,” the lawyer said. “I have a feeling you’d have been just the man to run it, though, Davie.”
There was a ripple of laughter, because it was well known throughout The Cranoch that Auld Davie was a master of the illicit still.
“Aye, I suppose I know a good dram when I taste one, right enough,” he said.
There was more laughter. “You’re too modest, by far,” Archibald Cunningham told the old crofter.
The silence that followed was ended by a voice from the back row asking, “How about bottling the glen’s water?”
“Mr. Chisholm looked into that, but the soil around here is too peaty,” the lawyer said. “Water that’s flowed over it doesn’t store well in plastic bottles, and glass ones would be too expensive.”
The woman sitting next to the young mother—the baby’s grandmother, Kate guessed—said, “How about a hotel, Lady Kate?”
Archibald Cunningham answered before Kate could: “Greystane’d look great in a brochure, but it just doesn’t have enough rooms to make money.”
“What about films, Archie?” a man in his fifties with a bad sweepover and round, pasty-complexioned face shouted from the back of the hall. “What about trying to get movies made here, like Rob Roy or Braveheart? The Yanks love places like this.”
There were more than a few guffaws, and Kate saw the pasty complexion turn bright red when the man realized why people were laughing.
“Sorry, Lady Kate,” the embarrassed crofter said in a voice that was much quieter than the one he’d made his suggestion in.
Kate laughed. “No need to apologize. I appreciate all suggestions. And you’re right, Yanks are suckers for places like this. At least, this Yank is.”
Somebody applauded her for that. A few others joined in, and soon nearly all of them were clapping and it was Kate who blushed.
When the applause died down, Kate turned to the lawyer next to her and said, “What do you think, Mr. Cunningham—have we got a future in the movies?”
Archie made a note on the pad he held in his hand, but Kate sensed he was doing it just so that he didn’t discourage them by shooting all their suggestions down in flames. “The Cranoch is as beautiful as any place I’ve seen in the movies, so I don’t see why we shouldn’t look into it,” he said. “But we’d be relying on the right film waiting to be made, at the right time. It’s a good idea, but not one I’d want to stake my future on.”
Half a dozen other proposals followed, most of which Archie Cunningham had to dismiss out of hand as they fell into the same category as the movie idea: long-shots you wouldn’t want to stake your future on. The most promising was the idea of a craft collective, using the Internet for marketing. Kate knew it had some potential—she could use Kate’s Crafts as a US outlet—but, even without looking at Archie’s face as he scribbled the idea in his notebook, she knew it was the sort of thing that could only make a small difference, not transform the fortunes of the estate. Experience told her that the effort needed to produce craft goods was rarely reflected in the price people would pay for them.
When a long silence signalled that nothing more would be forthcoming, Kate said, “I think it’s perhaps time to turn to the food which Miss Weir and Finlay have prepared.” Trying to hide her disappointment at the fact that nothing promising had emerged from the brainstorming session, she added, “Thanks again for coming along tonight. And remember, any ideas you have in the days ahead will be much appreciated, so I hope you won’t hesitate to bring them to my attention. You never know, they might make all the difference.”
There was some half-hearted applause, then the hall was quickly filled by the sound of chairs being pulled back and conversations starting up.
Kate turned to Archie and said, “I’m sorry nothing more positive came out of this, Mr. Cunningham. I hope you don’t feel I’ve wasted your time here tonight.”
“I hate to say it, but I think you’re wasting your time, Lady Kate. I sincerely hope you can prove me wrong, but nothing I heard tonight leads me to believe you can.”
Just then Cameron came over, and the solicitor said, “So, what do you think of your cottage, Mr. Fraser?”
Before Kate could hear Cameron’s reply, her attention was distracted by the approach of a stocky, swarthy man with a thick moustache.
“Lady Kate?” he said in a deep but quiet voice.
Kate smiled and reached out a hand for him to shake.
“I wonder if I might have a word?”
Sensing the crofter wanted a little privacy, Kate said, “Of course,” and took a couple of steps to the side.
The man hesitated, then said, “I have a favour to ask.”
Absurdly, for some reason Kate felt like Marlon Brando at the start of The Godfather, and suddenly pictured a succession of crofters approaching her one after the other, toying nervously with flat tweed caps as they asked her to execute troublesome neighbours, pronounce judgment on blood feuds and the like. So although she said, “Go ahead,” the smile that went with her words was a little strained.
“I know you have enough on your mind at the moment, Lady Kate, but … it’s my daughter, Pamela. She wants to get married.”
Kate wondered what that had to do with her. She remembered reading somewhere that back in olden times the lord or lady of the manor had to sanction any marriage among the locals. Surely that can’t still be the case, she thought.
“I don’t know quite how to put this,” the crofter said, “but time is of the utmost importance, if you see what I mean.”
Kate knew exactly what he meant, but couldn’t figure out why he was telling her about it.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not holding a shotgun to the laddie’s head. Thank goodness I don’t have to …” His voice trailed away, then he said, “A wedding in Inverness is beyond our means, Lady Kate. It probably still would be even if I had time to save up, because I wouldn’t have the money to save up with.”
Kate thought she was about to be asked for a loan she could ill afford to give, but instead the man said, “So I was wondering if they could get married in your chapel, here in Greystane.”
“Of course,” Kate said, relieved. “I’d love that.”
Kate’s relief was nothing compared to the crofter’s. “Lady Kate, I don’t know how to thank you,” he told her. “I don’t know what I would have done. The churches in Inverness charge money to hold a wedding; then there would have been the cost of one of those fancy limousines, or else she’d have been crammed into my car, her dress all creased and crumpled by the time she got out.”
“Well, you won’t have to worr
y about any of that. The chapel’s at your disposal, Mr….”
“Sandy,” he told her, “but I’m also known as Double Ecky.”
“I’m trying to work out how ‘Sandy’ could become ‘Double Ecky’, but I’m not even coming close,” Kate told him, bemused.
“Eck’s short for Alec in these parts, and my name is Alexander Alexander.
Kate smiled. “Well, Sandy—Double Ecky—it would be a pleasure.”
“Her mother’s going to be so relieved,” Sandy said. He turned to face a nervous woman who stood beside a tall, gangly youth and a plump teenage girl with a pale face and raven black hair that fell down past her shoulders. The two teenagers made an odd couple because of the difference in their height, but something about the way they held hands made Kate think they were a good fit.
Kate got the feeling Sandy was giving his wife a reassuring smile. His face still had a trace of worry on it when he turned back, however. Kate found out what was bothering him when he said, “The only thing is that they really couldn’t wait too long, Lady Kate. Pamela kept things to herself until she could barely hide it any longer, the daft wee thing.”
“I understand. Just say when, and the chapel is yours.”
He hesitated, then tentatively said, “Would a week on Saturday be too soon?”
Kate shook her head. “It’d be fine.”
“I can’t thank you enough.”
“It’s nothing,” Kate said.
“No, Lady Kate, it’s everything. I’d been trying to think of what else I could do. I’d even thought about seeing if I could persuade a minister to hold the ceremony in the old church at the far end of the lochan, and convince Pamela and young Ross that it would be romantic. I know they’d have smiled to make me feel better, but deep down they’d have felt a chill because it’s an unholy place to the people of this glen.”
“I can understand why,” Kate said, remembering Hamish backing away from the door, the sigh of a Bible page being caught by a breeze that seemed to come from within the old building and not without, and the whispering of old leaves—or something even older—from among the pews. “Anyway,” she told the crofter, “there’s no need to worry. It won’t come to that.”
Waterfall Glen Page 16