I had never missed Alec Osborne more; him and his interminable pipe, his drawling dismissal of all my most fanciful imaginings. I needed his sharp brain hacking through the clouds in mine. I needed someone who was not hog-tied by motherhood and crippled by being a houseguest. For although we had often worked rather closer to home than Hugh was happy about, this was something else again and I needed Alec to keep an eye on the jagged rocks below the surface and pilot me. I needed him so much that when my bedroom door handle started to turn I was convinced that he had somehow magically arrived.
Of course, he had not. In the doorway stood Mrs McReadie, staring stolidly at Mallory. I wondered how much she had heard and whether she would go straight to Lady Love to report it. I had seen enough earlier to know they were extraordinarily close for mistress and maid.
‘I’ve your wools for you,’ she said, holding up a fistful of coloured strands wound into loops. ‘I wondered where you’d got yourself to, Miss Mallory. I’ve got yours too,’ she added, glancing at me.
‘Thank you, Mrs McReadie,’ Mallory said, leaping up and holding out her hand. The older woman sorted through the handful, peering closely at one or two necklets before selecting one.
‘And then you, Mrs Gilver,’ she said. ‘I know which one is yours. I was most particular about winding yours.’ She held out a loop of hairy-looking heather-hued wool on one of her fingers. I took it and gave it an uncertain look before putting it round my neck.
‘I have the jealous,’ said Mrs McReadie. At my look, she explained. ‘Eolas. A strong ken of charms. It came down my mother’s side. You’ve no need to fear my wools round your neck. You or those boys of yours.’ She could not have dreamed up anything less comforting to say if she had tried. ‘If his lordship had worn the wools I had given him when he went away to the war he’d not have been sitting in that chair since he got back,’ she went on. ‘Fine and sure my Roddy was wearing his and came through, didn’t he?’
I was speechless. To credit a twist of wool instead of the courage and sacrifice of the man to whom she owed her son’s life, and to do so out loud in front of the man’s daughter, marked her out as a heedless fool. And her wool was scratchier than horsehair. I put a finger underneath it to pull it up over my collar.
‘Next the skin’s best,’ she told me. ‘For his lordship’s sake. I’ll see you at the kirk, Miss Mallory,’ she added, making her way back to the door. ‘I’ve a drop of broth to hand in at the shop. Mr Spencer was along the street buying baccy and said the Logans are all bad with the whooping cough, and wee Mrs Logan is still in her childbed yet a few days.’
When the woman was gone Mallory laughed and shook her head. ‘She’s not as bad as she seems,’ she told me. ‘That broth of hers could raise the dead, for one thing.’
I fervently hoped that it would not need to.
7
I was never sure afterwards who cancelled the plans to go to the church. The gong did not sound and, after a while, the thought of that broth began to shove its way to the front of my mind, although I did not know whether I would rather fortify myself with it and then venture out or brave the elements with broth and a toddy to come home to.
When Hugh rapped on the door and came in, I was looking out of the window again at the snow dashing down into the black salt water of the bay and at the way the walls and gateposts were softening as I watched, their edges disappearing under the constant dredging. The lane was invisible, with just a few scribbles of bracken strands and brambles showing its borders.
‘Unless they’ve got a sleigh I don’t fancy our chances of getting to the clachan and back tonight,’ Hugh said.
‘They might be adamant enough to make us tramp along there in snowshoes,’ I said.
‘Did I ever tell you of the Boxing Day I came down the hill with tennis racquets on my feet and a newborn foal over my shoulders?’ said Hugh.
Of course he had. When one has been married as long as I have been married to Hugh, one has been told everything, at least once.
‘I had forgotten!’ I said with a smile, terribly wifely tonight for some reason. ‘For goodness’ sake don’t mention tennis racquets to the Dunnochs. I wouldn’t put it past them.’
But when we ventured downstairs, it was to find the family gathered at the hall fire once more and we could see lit candles and a white cloth through the dining-room doorway.
‘Well, now, here we all are,’ said Dickie Tibball. ‘Aren’t we just! All present and correct.’
I managed to stop my lip from curling, but could not help a glance at Lord Ross. It would be annoying enough to be stuck in a wheelchair, but to be nursed all day every day by a man who came out with twaddle like that would be excruciating. And he could not sack his daughter’s father-in-law, presumably.
‘Except Mummy,’ said Cherry. ‘We can’t go in without Mummy.’ She had shed her wellingtons and retied her ribbon, making it even more bedraggled for the extra manhandling. In her tea-gown and a cardigan she now looked simply dowdy rather than eccentric. Her husband had put on a tie and a pair of brogues. Donald, Teddy and Hugh had divined that we were not changing – men always seem to find out somehow – and were in their tweeds. Mallory and I alone looked as though we were about to eat dinner, in velvet and satin with a few jewels here and there. I had brought a shawl against the draughts I expected and I swathed myself in it now to damp down my splendour.
‘Didn’t you say she was having a tray, Mallory?’ said Biddy Tibball.
‘When we have guests?’ said Lord Ross.
‘Headache, Daddy,’ Mallory said. ‘And you know LL’s headaches. She needs to get in front of it tonight so it doesn’t spoil her birthday.’
‘Poor Mummy,’ said Cherry.
‘I shall take her an oat pillow later,’ Mallory said. ‘Lairdie?’ The footman had come to the dining-room door. ‘Can you ask Mrs McReadie to put an oat pillow on the back of the range, for my mother, for after dinner? Thank you.’
‘Let’s go in then,’ said Lord Ross. ‘Would you mind pushing, Dickie? I’m finding myself tired tonight.’ Cherry and Mallory both turned troubled eyes upon him and he hastened to dispel their fears. ‘It’s just fatigue, my dears. It’s nothing more than the upset of the day. I’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep. Dandy?’ he said.
I fell into step beside him to be taken in first as guest of honour, although his low seat in the wheeled chair meant that he could not take my arm. I glanced behind and saw Hugh take Mallory’s arm. Donald took Cherry, and Teddy and Mitten made an elaborate show of not fighting over the last remaining lady, who was Biddy. She looked coldly furious about it too. Perhaps she had thought that with Lady Love hors de combat she would rise up the ranks.
Dinner was uneasy and, while not silent, was marked by conversation desultory enough to be more tiring than a whirl of chatter. The food was good, although the fabled broth made no appearance. We dined off sea trout, pigeon and something with pineapple and a great deal of sweet syrup; a hefty enough meal to make me long for coffee and bed. Perhaps Mallory was exhausted too, despite her youth. Certainly when Lairdie, bringing in the wine for the pigeon, told her that her mother was not to be disturbed she hardly argued.
‘Has she got an oat pillow already?’ was all she said.
‘Dinnat ken. Jist that she’s tucked up and doesn’t want anyone knocking.’
‘That’s my Lady Love,’ said Lord Ross. ‘She’s always been the same the night before her birthday, even when she’s not laid low with a bad head. Christmas Eve too. Alone in her room, communing with the spirits of Applecross. All those ancestors.’
I nodded with as little encouragement as was polite. I had had enough of the spirits of Applecross, be they black dogs, crows or turnip-eating fairies.
My sons were nicely brought up though. Donald murmured with feigned interest and Teddy found a conversational ball to bat back. ‘It seems odd that Applecross has an English name,’ he said, ‘when everything else is so very Scottish.’
‘It�
�s a bastar—’ Lord Ross began, then cleared his throat and flushed a little. ‘Excuse me, ladies. It’s a corruption of Aporcrosan. Similar to all our “Aber”s around the land. It means the confluence of two rivers. Nothing to do with apples actually.’
‘The things we can say when Mummy’s not here!’ said Cherry and there was a ripple of laughter.
‘My wife prefers the older name,’ said Lord Ross. ‘A’ Chomraich – “sanctuary”.’
‘But any place where rivers meet is a lucky spot,’ said Hugh. He had told me that many times early in our marriage, standing on the hill top behind Gilverton, showing me where the Tummel and the Dun met at Lochaber.
‘But the rivers no longer run in their old beds,’ said Lord Ross. ‘We had to divert the River Applecross and the Allt Mor when we made the new roads, a culvert being so much more affordable than the bridges it would have taken to span and re-span them. These days the Allt Mor empties into the river upstream.’ He waved a hand behind him. ‘It was hard for my wife when the luck drained from the place she loves so much. I think that’s when she started making her plans.’
‘Her plans?’ I asked.
‘Such as looking at the Clachan manse with new eyes.’
‘For sanctuary?’ said Hugh. ‘Does Lady Love think Applecross is unlucky then, without the rivers meeting?’
‘She’s as fey as a crofter sometimes,’ said Lord Ross. ‘She heard so many tales from the cailleachs, sitting in those black houses.’
‘She sat in a what?’ I said. ‘And listened to … Do you mean the cries of ravens?’ I was sure that the coal yak was what they had all called the crow in the dovecote. Their laughter told me I had got it wrong again.
‘A cailleach is just an old woman, Dandy,’ said Hugh.
‘A crone,’ said Dickie Tibball. ‘Of which Applecross has many.’
‘And my darling wife was in and out of their cottages for a bowl of crowdie and a bite of oatcake all her childhood through. Listening to them talk. Just like her mother before her and her daughters in their time.’
‘They’re called black houses because the fire’s in the middle of the floor and the smoke goes up through a hole in the roof,’ said Donald. He turned to Lord Ross. ‘But they’ve all got chimneys now, sir, haven’t they?’
‘Indeed they have, thanks to Lady Love’s efforts and pockets,’ he said. ‘And yet there are those on the estate who say they’re plagued by coughs and colds now that they don’t have the “good peat smoke” in their lungs any more. Ungrateful wretches.’
‘But they still make crowdie and oatcakes and they still spin and they still have lots of stories,’ said Cherry. ‘It added to the atmosphere no end, hearing “Rapunzel” and “Sleeping Beauty” from an old lady in a lace cap, spinning yarn while spinning tales.’ She grinned at me. To be fair, she had made it sound charming.
‘Enough of the local crones,’ came Dickie Tibball’s voice, and I saw Cherry’s smile fade. ‘The cailleach – definite article – is something else again, you know.’ Cherry’s smile was now completely gone. ‘It’s an avoidance of her real name, you see. The washerwoman. A Highland version of the grim reaper. Isn’t that about right?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Mallory.
‘Anyway, we didn’t see her,’ said Cherry. ‘We told you at lunch. Now, let’s talk of happier things. Has anyone started trying to prise a few blooms out of McReadie’s grip for Mummy’s party?’
‘Flowers?’ I said.
‘Oh ho,’ said Mallory. ‘Haven’t you seen McReadie’s hothouses yet? They’re at the far side of the apple crosses garden, against the west wall. And they’re a sight to behold, aren’t they Daddy?’
‘Lady Love’s birthday is just about the only time the old curmudgeon will put a hand to his secateurs,’ Lord Ross said. ‘He treats every bud as if it’s his firstborn child.’
‘That’s gardeners for you,’ said Dickie Tibball, with great good humour. Since he did not have a gardener now and, presumably, if he had ever had one the loss must be a painful memory, it seemed a strange choice of banality to deliver.
‘Does he grow fruit?’ said Hugh. Donald, Teddy and I all laughed.
‘Oh, he patrols the fruit with a rifle cracked over his arm,’ said Lord Ross.
‘Because our old chap at home was a fiend,’ said Teddy. ‘He’s retired now, but one year I had to steal a basket of grapes so we had dessert for a dinner party. Do you remember, Ma?’
‘Very well,’ I said. ‘Poor man. He was looking forward to a rosette at the flower show and all he got was an assurance that you’d be punished.’
‘It’s McReadie’s pineapples that consume him,’ said Mallory. ‘We’re only getting one tonight because it was bashed.’
We all laughed and the conversation ran on along these harmless lines until the pineapple cake had been reduced to crumbs and the pot of coffee in the drawing room was wrung dry. Donald and Teddy went to play a quiet game of billiards, and Mallory and Cherry had some unspecified preparations to make for their mother’s birthday morning, but the rest of us went gratefully to bed.
I looked out again just before retiring. The snow had stopped but lay thick on the ground. A crystalline drift of it was piled up on the windowsill and the transoms of the window itself were ruffled as though with lacy shelf-edgings, like a cottage dresser. Gratefully, I pulled the curtains closed and climbed in between my warm sheets.
I have always loved waking up on a snowy morning. The cold white light, the muffled softness of the usual daily sounds, the eerie transformation of one’s humdrum surroundings into a stage set: all of these turn me back into a girl again. Add blue sky and sunshine and a snowy morning is a holiday indeed. I met Mallory coming back from the bathroom with her sponge bag as I sallied thence with mine and the beaming smile I gave her took no effort.
‘Poor Mummy,’ she said. ‘Have you peeked yet? We were hoping against hope that the Marshalls and the Dents would be coming for her party, but it doesn’t look very likely. It must be two foot thick out there. We’ll still have the minister and his wife and the Miss McIntoshes from the street, of course. They always come hours early and stay till the bitter end. They have skis and it won’t be the first time, but arriving on skis is their most entertaining moment, I’m afraid.’
‘I shall do my valiant best,’ I assured her. ‘And I’m sure your mother will be happy with her family. Is she going down for breakfast or does she have it in her room?’
‘In her room today, Mrs McReadie told me,’ Mallory said. ‘She went up with poached eggs and coffee just a minute ago.’
‘Up?’ I said.
‘The tower room,’ said Mallory. ‘It was Mummy’s nursery and she never gave it up. Cherry and I threw fits of envy when we were children – it’s like something from a fairy tale and we coveted it like anything – but it’s so very much Mummy’s room it would seem odd now. I still can’t believe she and Daddy are moving out, after— Well, after the summer.’
After the wedding, she meant. ‘One party at a time,’ I said.
‘We shall all certainly do our best.’ Then she sidled closer and spoke in a whisper. ‘I want her to have a perfect birthday. One glowing day. And then we’ll speak to her tomorrow, as you and I laid out.’
I would not have said that our peculiar discussion had laid anything out, exactly, but I could readily agree to the plan to make Lady Love’s fiftieth birthday a proper treat for her. I went into the bathroom wondering how I could add some celebratory touches to the rather dull cashmere scarf and suede gloves I had bought to serve as a birthday present from Hugh and me. Grant, my maid, had wrapped the box very nicely and tied it up in ribbon, but it was still a scarf and a pair of gloves.
Donald was waiting in the passageway when I came out. He had his towel round his neck as though he had just played a set of tennis.
‘What on earth?’ I said. ‘Have you been lounging there waiting your turn? As if it were a bus stop?’
‘Only five minutes,’ he said.
‘You were nice and quick.’
‘What if it hadn’t been me?’ I said. ‘Donald, really. You are not one of the family yet and I must insist on better manners than that. What would Nanny say?’
‘I knew it was you,’ said Donald. ‘You were singing that song you and Alec always sing when you’re puzzling something out.’
I knew Alec Osborne had an irritating habit of humming ‘The Entry of The Gladiators’ at moments of distraction but I had no idea I had caught it from him.
‘Are you puzzling something out, Mother?’ Donald said.
‘Not really, ‘I said. ‘What did you get Lady Love for her birthday?’
‘A wooden apple that comes undone like a puzzle, with a secret compartment,’ said Donald.
‘And Teddy?’
‘A box of playing cards with botanical paintings of apples on the backs. Why?’
‘Good boys. Never mind,’ I said and went on my way.
Lord Ross was still in the breakfast room, with Dickie Tibball at his side, as ever. ‘Good morrow, good morrow,’ Tibball said. ‘How do you like us in our winter cloak?’ It was all I could do not to shudder. He was so horribly proprietorial about the place.
‘You got here all right through the drifts then?’ I said, and was rewarded by his grin lessening from maniacal to merely insufferable. ‘It looks awfully deep.’
‘Oh, we bunk here when it’s as bad as this,’ he said. ‘We have a hammock in an attic, you know, and no pig or parrot at the cottage. The aspidistra will survive until it thaws and we can venture home again.’
‘And a thaw never takes long, this close to the sea.’ said Lord Ross.
‘It’s very pretty while it lasts,’ I said. ‘Even just glimpsed from a window.’
A Step So Grave Page 7