‘So you are better now, then,’ he said gently, seeming to understand my embarrassment.
‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘I was just frightened, that was all.’
He nodded, and stopped and stood on the crest of the hill smiling down at me.
‘I need not ask who you are,’ he said, ‘for you must be the “lovely English girl”, that Catriona went on about so this morning. Miss Martin, it will be surely?’
I nodded, pleased with his simple compliment and said, laughing, ‘I could hardly imagine Catriona “going on” about anything, such a quiet girl she seemed.’
‘Och, well. She is not easy with the English, you see, but there are more than enough Gaelic words in her to make up for that.’
I laughed and said, ‘I am afraid you have the advantage in knowing my name, for I have not been told yours.’
‘Forgive me,’ he replied, ‘I am Duncan MacKenzie, I am factor at Creagdhubh. I look after the estate for Sir Iain.’ He stopped, for that statement had apparently begun a train of thought which led him to remember precisely why we were standing on this windy ridge in the middle of the pasture.
‘But wait, now, lass. Here I am enjoying your company when all along I had intended to give you a proper thrashing the moment I had you out of that bog.’
I recoiled in amazement, for despite the twisting of a smile beginning at the corners of his mouth, he sounded gruff enough to really do it.
‘But why?’ I demanded, as he burst out laughing at my astonishment.
‘Because,’ he said, quite serious again, ‘someone had better do something to save you from your own stupidity, if nothing else.’ His voice rose, ‘And as it were, if I had not been just after seeing to a crippled animal on the hill this morning, and happened by in time to hear you cry out, you would be drowned in that bog this very moment. Is it a fool you are to go blithely tramping across the moor, as wet as it is, and straight through the wettest piece we have, at that? It is not still London you are in, my good lady.’
If I hadn’t been quite so wet, or tired, or frightened, or for that matter grateful to this man, I would have been angry. As it was I bent my head and said tiredly, ‘I didn’t know. Besides, Rowena told me about the path, she said I should go this way to see the view from the top of the hill.’
‘She what!’ he exclaimed, and then he said something hard and sharp in Gaelic, turning his face from me.
‘Come, Miss Martin,’ he turned towards me again. ‘You must be very cold.’
He led the way down the hill to Creagdhubh and I followed behind his stalking figure, trotting like the black and white dog after him, wondering what I had said to make him so angry.
But his anger was not, I soon learned, for me, but for Rowena. She had the great misfortune to be standing in the doorway when we returned, talking with Roderick. He strode directly to her, ignoring Roderick, and loomed over her slim figure, his face dark. ‘You damned, simpering, little vixen,’ he said, his voice low and hard, ‘you’ve got plenty to answer for.’
‘Here, here,’ said Roderick, interposing himself between Duncan MacKenzie and Rowena, ‘this will not do.’ His words were so soft I barely heard them, but I sensed his anger instantly.
Their eyes met with a clash I could almost hear, and I think they would have fought right there on the threshold of Creagdhubh if Uncle Iain had not suddenly appeared behind them. Catching sight of me he said, ‘Elspeth, what’s happened?’ with such concern that everyone’s eyes returned to me. Rowena then saw how my clothes and face were splattered with swamp mud, my skirts wet and trailing around my sodden boots.
‘Why Elspeth, your clothes are soaking, wherever have you been?’ she cried.
‘She has been in the bog below Cnoc nam Feidh, Rowena, but you should not be needing to ask, now, should you?’ Duncan said harshly.
‘What’s this, Duncan?’ Uncle Iain asked, his face showing that he already suspected. Duncan said nothing, and Uncle Iain turned to Rowena who shrugged her slim, pretty shoulders petulantly and said, ‘I don’t know what Duncan is talking about. Elspeth seems to have slipped in the mud and Duncan thinks that is my fault. Though how it could be I don’t know, I was right here all afternoon.’ She looked innocently at her father.
‘Slipped in the mud is hardly a sufficient description,’ Duncan exploded in anger. ‘She sent her on a path that even I would not use this time of the year, and with the thaw in the night it was as bad as it could be. She would have drowned, Rowena. She nearly did and it was only the grace of God that made me find her when I did.’
Rowena visibly shrank back. Her face went very white, so that her fine brows stood out in frightened black arches.
‘I didn’t know,’ she whispered.
‘All your years you have lived at Creagdhubh, and you did not know there was the bog below Cnoc nam Feidh. You did not know that we always go around by the south pasture in winter. I am thinking now that you did not know that there are sheep on the hill, or fish in the sea.’
‘But Duncan,’ Rowena was crying, tear-streaks marking her pale face, ‘I’ve been over Cnoc nam Feidh in the summer; it’s wet, I know it’s wet. And I did want her to get herself all muddy,’ she confessed miserably, ‘but I swear it, Elspeth, I didn’t know it was really dangerous.’ She sagged weeping against the stone of the doorway, her face buried in the frothy lace-cuffs of her blouse. Roderick instinctively moved to comfort her, but Uncle Iain intervened, saying, ‘Rowena, you will go to your room. I will speak to you later.’ She was apparently too shaken to argue for once and fled through the inner door. I heard the quick clatter of her light feet on the stairs.
‘Uncle Iain,’ I protested as he hurried me inside, his protective arm around my shoulders, his expression angry and hard and unhappy, ‘I know she did not mean me harm. She is just a petulant child having a prank. She could not have known it would go wrong.’
Behind me in a voice so low it might have been for his own ears only, I heard Duncan say, ‘That is no child.’
Chapter Six
I stood at my window, brushing out my hair, still wet from the washing Catriona had given it. After a warm bath and a luxurious rest by the crackling fire in my bedroom, I felt relaxed and comfortable, the memory of the dark waters on the hill receding. I could not believe, as I knew that Duncan MacKenzie did, that Rowena had meant me to drown. She was a foolish, jealous, selfish girl, and I smiled wryly remembering how grateful I had been for her interest in my walk but this same slim, winsome creature with her girlish, giggly laugh could not have the mind of a murderess. I would not face such a thought.
After the very real dangers of the afternoon, I had almost forgotten my strange, frightening vision of the night before. Now recalling it, I looked instinctively to the spot on the cliff edge where I had seen the figure. There was, of course, nothing there.
Across the bridge I watched two of Uncle Iain’s keepers walking together down from the pastures, their dogs yapping and snarling at each other, tumbling on the stony roadway. I watched as the men in their rough clothes disappeared around the corner of the house. Then I noticed the girl walking up the road from the village. She wore a tattered brown skirt, and a dark shawl was wrapped around her shoulders against the growing cold of the evening. The sun was down and frost was stiffening the grass already.
She walked steadily, knowing where she was going, but as she neared the gate house she slowed her pace and glanced cautiously around. She seemed to be either looking for someone or looking out for someone, not wishing to be seen. She passed the gate house and stopped in the shadow of a larch tree beside the bridge. Her eyes scanned the house; I could see the brief, white blur of her face, the reddish glint of her hair beneath the shawl.
She remained in the shadow for some minutes, the shawl clutched tight, her eyes on the house. I watched, my curiosity growing, the hairbrush still in my hands.
She saw what she wanted, and stepped forward. Another figure had appeared from the direction of the stable and hesitate
d on the near side of the bridge, seeing the girl. She called and beckoned to him, low, so that I could not hear, but I did not need to hear the name. The dark, curling hair might have been Roderick’s, but the tense figure, shoulders hunched, was clearly not. Gordon lacked Roderick’s height, and equally obviously, he lacked Roderick’s gay, carefree walk. After a long moment, he walked slowly towards the waiting girl. They stood close together, in the centre of the curved bridge. I saw her white face turned up to him, animated, talking quickly. He shook his head, again and again. Suddenly he raised his arm. I thought he would strike her and she did too, for she jumped back, still talking, her face pushed forward at him.
He shouted something and turned, and stalked back to the house. The girl stood, hands on hips, her head flung back, careless now of who heard or saw her. She shouted back at him and laughed harshly, the sound echoing across the black stone chasm to where I stood high above. Then she turned and ran, skirts hiked up, grey petticoats flapping over her heavy boots.
For a long moment I stood wondering about the girl, about Gordon, what they had spoken of that had caused such bitterness and anger. Then, realizing that whatever else it was, it was none of my affair, I pulled the curtains slowly across the darkened window and went to the fire to dry my hair.
When I entered the drawing room before dinner, Rowena was there, sitting alone. She looked up, and I could see that her face, despite any efforts to conceal the fact, was swollen from crying. I wondered what Uncle Iain had said to her that afternoon in her room.
‘Elspeth,’ she said hesitantly, ‘I … I really didn’t know.’
‘Of course not,’ I replied quickly. ‘Let’s not talk about it, all right?’ She nodded, her eyes downcast, her fingers fumbling with her dress. Roderick’s arrival broke the awkward moment.
‘Dear cousin,’ he said to me, his smile showing concern as well as the familiar teasing. ‘I do hope you have quite recovered from your accident.’ He smoothed away the question of Rowena’s guilt. I was pleased he was thoughtful as well as charming, balancing the conversation deftly so that we both could be at ease with him.
I assured him that I was indeed very well, and we talked quite freely until Uncle Iain arrived with Duncan MacKenzie at his side. Duncan stood in the doorway, the firelight playing on the woven colours of his dress kilt and glinting from the silver-tipped handle of his sgian dhubh, the sharp, short knife he wore in his stocking. His green eyes swept coldly from Rowena to Roderick, only warming when they rested on my own face.
I was suddenly glad that he was seeing me, not wet with the black swamp mud, but clad in my soft, mauve velvet that I knew to be flattering to my face and figure. Even if I had not come to Creagdhubh to make conquests, I could not help wanting a handsome man who had seen me at my undoubted worst to see me at least once at something more like my best.
He strode into the room and stopped before me, taking my hand and saying, ‘I trust you are quite well, Miss Martin.’ His manner was as courtly as Roderick’s, only the traces of his Gaelic accent setting him apart. It was odd to think that this same man had threatened to thrash me this afternoon.
‘Ah, Duncan,’ Roderick cut in loudly, ‘and how are things among the sheep?’ I thought momentarily that there was a slight change in Roderick’s own speech, as if he were very lightly mimicking Duncan’s lilting inflection.
Duncan looked up slowly and said, speaking very carefully, ‘They are very well, and I am grateful for your concern, sir.’
There was no mistaking the fact that there was no friendship between these two men. I realized now that the clash over Rowena this afternoon was only a brief skirmish in an existing war.
Uncle Iain moved in quickly to ease the tension, pouring sherry for myself, though not for Rowena who accepted this with uncharacteristic submission, and serving the gentlemen with pale whiskey from the heavy crystal decanter. When Duncan remained protectively at my side, Uncle Iain hurriedly made up a threesome, steering the conversation to general topics.
Roderick remained beside Rowena, and her pleasure in his company was obvious. Indeed his attentiveness appeared totally genuine. Still, I looked up more than once to see his dark eyes on me. I had come to believe that perhaps Roderick was that sort of young gentleman who found it difficult to limit his choice when the field offered variety.
Gordon joined us only just before we went in to dinner. His face was as white as his lace jabot and as he sat in a chair apart from us, drinking whiskey, his slim fingers nervously played across the bone handle of his sgian dhubh. Occasionally his eyes darted quickly from one of our faces to another, blankly, almost as if he did not know any of us. When his dark glance turned to me I felt as if I once more looked into the still, waiting waters below Cnoc nam Feidh.
Dinner was tense. The atmosphere around the long, glistening table fairly crackled, like green larch on the fire. Uncle Iain strove hard to keep the peace, but Roderick prodded relentlessly at Duncan with jests and mockery, and although Duncan responded always with his careful, thoughtful smile, I was not sure that his quiet dignity did not conceal a fierce temperament underneath.
His presence however was in one way a blessing, because Rowena was undoubtedly relieved by his deliberate attentions to me, which kept me from Roderick. She even managed an occasional pleasant remark in my direction.
Later in the drawing room, she sat prettily poised by the piano while Roderick played, smoothly and well. Duncan and Uncle Iain were talking by the fire, deeply engrossed in a discussion of cattle breeding. I sat, pleasantly relaxed after a delicious meal, in a chair by the coffee table. Gordon had resumed his sullen posture in his corner chair.
When Morag entered with the coffee she placed it on the table, indicating the cups arrayed before me.
‘Shall I?’ I said quickly to Uncle Iain, for Rowena was too engrossed in Roderick to have noticed the maid’s entrance.
‘Please,’ said Uncle Iain, smiling.
I lifted the lovely coffee pot, feeling with pleasure the silky cool of the hollow-silver handle, and bent the curving spout over the first of the cups.
‘No!’ the cry was so choked by rage that I did not recognize the voice until Gordon’s strong hand closed over my own and slammed the coffee pot down onto the table so hard that the hot liquid splashed out, burning my fingers.
‘You shall not!’ he ordered, his face contorted, unaware of the shocked faces turning towards him. ‘You, a governess, a servant … how dare you touch my mother’s things. Do you presume you can walk into Creagdhubh and take my mother’s place at her own table?’
‘Gordon!’ Uncle Iain shouted, stepping toward him.
‘I will not have it,’ Gordon raged, unheeding. ‘I have not forgotten her, even if they have. I will never forget her. No governess will take her place here … we do not want you,’ he added bitterly. ‘Creagdhubh belongs to my mother, there is no place for you here.’
‘Gordon,’ Uncle Iain took his arm, speaking in a low, desperate voice. ‘Stop, please. You cannot say these things. Elspeth has come to stay.’
Gordon broke away and ran, stumbling to the door, where he whirled and spoke in a pained, cracking voice, ‘Aye, perhaps she will stay,’ he paused, his wild eyes glittering, ‘as she nearly did stay, in the bog at Cnoc nam Feidh.’
I sank shaking, stunned, in my chair as the heavy door slammed shut behind him.
Uncle Iain came and knelt on one knee beside my chair. ‘Elspeth,’ he said, ‘how can I ever apologize enough for my son’s terrible behaviour?’ He shook his head sadly. ‘He is so … so distant since Christabel died I have never been able to talk with him. He grieves for her always, still. And I think at times his grief has quite affected his mind, he becomes irrational about her things, the way she kept the house. He won’t have me change anything … and, well I have humoured him. I thought he would get over it sooner …’
‘I understand, Uncle Iain,’ I whispered. ‘Please, I do know that grief does strange things to people,’ I assured him
gently, though in my own mind I wondered fearfully if what grief had done to Gordon Grant’s mind was not beyond cure, forever. Uncle Iain shook his head again, silently.
The thought flitted frighteningly through my consciousness; if in Gordon’s mind Christabel’s silver coffee service was too sacred for my hands, what did he think of me sleeping in her own beloved bedroom?
‘Come, let’s have a song,’ Roderick said suddenly, his fingers returning to the ivory keys and striking up the familiar ‘Loch Lomond’.
I smiled weakly at him, and Rowena, who had been quietly crying, shook back her dark hair and began to sing in a high, pure voice. I joined in the song as best I could, and Uncle Iain took up the chorus with ringing gusto. Only Duncan stood silent, his strong features quite still, looking at the door which Gordon had closed behind him.
We were none of us in a party mood, however, and when Roderick left after several more songs, Rowena soon followed. Uncle Iain, Duncan, and myself sat silently watching the fire lower to embers.
Duncan stood up then, stretching himself, saying, ‘I must be off, then; there will be work enough in the morning, with the beasts to be fed.’ He smiled down at me and bade me goodnight. I heard the outside door close as he returned to his own residence, a cottage just to the east of the big house.
Uncle Iain and I were left alone. After a moment I said, gently, ‘Perhaps it would be better, after all, if I did return to London.’
For a long time he made no answer, but sat staring into the fire, then he spoke, his voice tired, ‘I am afraid I have no right any longer to ask you to stay Elspeth; I feel we have given you a very poor welcome indeed.’
‘Do you wish me to stay?’ I asked.
Christabel's Room: A spellbinding Victorian gothic romance Page 6