Christabel's Room: A spellbinding Victorian gothic romance

by Abigail Clements

  I found to my surprise that I was feeling a trace of disappointment that I would not likely see Duncan very often. So when after luncheon I was enjoying a stroll in the garden in the brief afternoon sunlight, I was more than a little pleased to see his tall figure striding down the neat rows of box hedges.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ I said, smiling.

  ‘It is that,’ he replied, standing before me, ‘and the better for your company.’ For just a moment he stood, a nervous hand ruffling his red-gold hair, and then he said abruptly, ‘I am after getting the brougham for the journey to the village. Would you be wanting to ride along with me?’

  ‘I would very much like that,’ I said honestly.

  ‘Well fetch a cloak, lass,’ he answered hurriedly, as if he feared I might reconsider. ‘It will be cold with the sun down so early.’

  I went quickly to the house and collected my warm cape and fur hat and muff from the hall. Then I stepped briefly into the library where Uncle Iain sat with the old dog, Dhileas, at his feet.

  Dhileas rose to greet me, his stiff old tail wagging, and his soft nose pressed against my hand.

  ‘Hello, Dhileas,’ I said, fondling the black velvet ears. ‘You seem none the worse for the night’s cold, anyhow.’

  ‘I should think not,’ Uncle Iain laughed, rising, ‘seeing as how he spent the whole evening curled up asleep on my bed. He was quite annoyed when I came to bed and he had to content himself with the hearth rug.’

  I think Uncle Iain saw the startled look on my face, because he glanced up, oddly questioning. Quickly I changed the subject, while my mind tried to settle the fact that Rowena had, after all, lied about last night.

  ‘Duncan MacKenzie has asked me to ride to the village with him. I would like to go, unless you have any objections.’ Uncle Iain was, after all, my employer, and I felt bound to ask his permission.

  ‘Of course I haven’t, my dear,’ he answered. ‘Besides, I doubt I would dare face Duncan if I didn’t allow you to go.’ He was laughing at me, and I turned my blushing face quickly away and pretended to adjust the set of my fur hat in the mirror over the mantel. I’m afraid I have never been capable of hiding my emotions, and the pleasure I found in Duncan MacKenzie’s company was clearly no secret from Uncle Iain.

  I was pleased that he seemed to approve.

  Duncan was waiting with the brougham, on the curving drive in front of Creagdhubh. He helped me up to the seat and tucked the sheepskin rugs around my knees. Then he joined me on the seat and sent the horse clattering down the frozen cobble-drive over the arched stone bridge.

  The day was lovely. The sky was a soft, clear blue, and though the grasses were whitened and stiff with frost where the shadows remained, elsewhere the sun had melted and thawed the land, revealing surprising colour where I would have expected winter drabness.

  The pastures were a soft yellowy green, and the dead, wet bracken splashed patches of rusty red across them. The hardwoods were steely grey against the colours, but in the wet hollows by the burns they were draped with soft green mosses and lichens. Even the low heather made patterns of greys and browns, greens and lavenders as the sun and shadow shifted over it. On the hilltops the great Caledonian pines waved green boughs over their pale pinkish trunks and the winter larches splashed their feathery yellow branches among them. I wondered how long the fortune of the winter thaw would remain with us.

  Duncan kept a careful eye on the rutted, narrow road as the sure-footed horse picked its way down the hill. When we reached the curve that looked out over the length of Loch Ness he said, ‘See there, now, Miss Martin, is that not a sight worth seeing?’

  It was. It was magnificent. The loch was black as coal, and the many-coloured hills reflected in its still surface as in a true mirror. High above the far shore, the mountains rose to white tops, glittering in the sun. Here and there on the smooth water, thin rings appeared and spread and vanished.

  Duncan pointed. ‘Salmon,’ he said. I nodded. ‘It is a day for an-t-each uisge,’ he said softly, and I glanced a question at the Gaelic. He seemed to pause as if he was not going to explain and then he said, ‘The water-horse. It is a day for the water-horse.’

  I looked sharply at him to see if he was teasing me, for I had not forgotten Uncle Iain’s nursery fables of the water beast of the loch. ‘The kelpie?’ I said, my eyebrows raised.

  ‘Aye,’ said Duncan, smiling a little. ‘It was a day like this, and I was but a young lad. My father and I saw the water-horse, there,’ he pointed out to the dark water, ‘from this very spot.’

  ‘Did you?’ I said, amazed.

  ‘Och, surely,’ he replied, ‘there, below that hill, with its great black back above the water and the water flowing off its dark, curling mane, and a white wash in the loch behind it like from the steamer.’

  I stared from Duncan to the water and back.

  He smiled, ‘You do not believe me then?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘That is all right too then,’ he replied mildly, but then I did not know what to believe. Duncan called up his horse, and the carriage rolled on. He was still smiling and began to sing lightly in Gaelic.

  In the drab, grey village of Foyers, Duncan pulled up the horse in front of a small cottage, not unlike any of the others except for the painted wooden sign that read, Fraser’s Stores. The unpaved street was thick with dark mud, gouged and rutted by the wheels of vehicles and the hooves of a herd of cattle, whose shaggy backs were just disappearing at the bottom of the street ahead of the men and dogs that drove them.

  ‘You had best stay in the carriage,’ Duncan advised as he stepped down into the mud. ‘I will not be long.’

  I agreed and settled down into the seat, clutching the rug close around me as he entered the shop. I saw the woman when she was yet a long way down the street, and she was not many steps closer before I recognized her huddled figure as that of the strange Mrs. MacDonald who had ridden beside myself and Angus Fraser on the night of my arrival.

  She was walking slowly in my direction, with a younger woman at her side. I stayed as close in to the sheltering coach-roof as I could. I had found the old woman’s odd, hinting gossip upsetting, and I did not wish to hear more of it.

  But Mrs. MacDonald had the sharp eyes of a village busybody, not about to miss anything. She spotted the brougham and quickened her step, eagerly. The woman beside her raised her head, and her shawl slipped back off her ruddy hair. Suddenly I recognized the girl whose conversation on the Alltdhubh Bridge had left Gordon so angry.

  When the pair were directly across from me, they turned and splashed across the muddy street, making not even an attempt at pretext. They came right to the brougham and the old woman spoke. ‘And how are you liking Creagdhubh, then, Miss Martin?’ she asked with a crooked, yellow smile.

  ‘I like it very well, thank you,’ I said, glancing toward the shop door, and hoping to see Duncan coming out.

  He wasn’t, and Mrs. MacDonald pushed her companion forward and said, ‘This is my daughter Bella, Miss Martin.’ The red-haired girl was looking me over boldly, assessing my face and my costume. ‘Bella knows Creagdhubh, you see, she did service there, two years past. You know Creagdhubh then, do you not?’ she asked of the girl.

  ‘Well enough,’ said Bella. Her face beneath her dirty shawl was pretty, but the hard lines around the mouth showed when she spoke. I wondered what age she would be; likely not much older than myself, though she had the knowing look of a woman of many more years.

  ‘Aye, those were fine days at Creagdhubh, were they not, Bella?’ the old woman continued. ‘And so much to see with all the fine gentlemen coming and going.’ Her voice rasped hard on ‘gentlemen’ and her quick eyes caught my own.

  ‘Och, aye,’ sighed Bella, as if reminiscing. ‘There were many fine things I saw there. There was not much that I missed when I was in service to Lady Christabel.’ Again there was the sharp, ironic twist in the voice and the low malicious laugh. Suddenly the pretty daughter was very
like the ageing mother, and I saw how bitterness could draw age over a young face. Indeed, the crone herself might be not more than fifty, for all her lines and wrinkles.

  The door of the shop banged shut behind Duncan, and in the space of time it took for me to look up to him and back to the two women, they were away, scuttling off down the street, heavy skirts trailing in the mud.

  Duncan lifted a package up behind the seat and asked, ‘And what had the ferry-wife to say to you?’ He sounded grim, even guarded.

  I looked up into his quiet, gentle eyes. I wanted to tell him about every one of the many odd, frightening things I had met and found since I came to Creagdhubh. I could not, of course, so I said instead, ‘She asked me how I was getting on at Creagdhubh.’

  ‘How did she know you?’ he said, and I explained how I had met the woman on that first night. He was silent for a while and then he said, ‘That was not all, was it?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘There was more, but how did you know?’

  ‘She is the village gossip, the ferry-wife. You need pay her no mind.’ It was almost precisely what Angus Fraser had said. I thought it odd that Duncan did not ask what gossip she had imparted. It was as if that was a fact so obvious as to be taken for granted. I remembered the diary, the secret I had learned. Was it possible that it was of this that old Mrs. MacDonald hinted? I put the thought from my mind; my own unfortunate knowledge of the affair had made me too sensitive. Surely the old woman referred to some trivial or invented matter, spun for the fertile loom of her cruel imagination.

  ‘Duncan?’ I said as we left the village at a brisk trot. He turned to me. ‘You called her the ferry-wife. What does it mean?’

  He seemed to be thinking of something else and did not answer at first. Eventually he said, ‘The ferry-wife. It is she who keeps the boat, you see. To cross to Invermoriston. And to take folk to the abbey at Fort Augustus. And to Achnahannet.’ He had stopped the brougham and pointed back down towards the loch, his finger indicating each of the places on the far shore of the loch. ‘The boat is on the shore, not far below Creagdhubh,’ he finished.

  I nodded, thinking that the old woman had indeed a rough life, plying the cold waters of Loch Ness in a small boat.

  ‘She said her daughter used to work at Creagdhubh,’ I said suddenly, wondering how he would react.

  ‘Aye,’ said Duncan. ‘She did so.’ He paused and then said quickly, ‘She stole silver and money and was dismissed.’

  He spoke with finality and I realized that even had I any intention of enquiring further about the ferry-wife and her daughter, he would tell me nothing more. I acknowledged however that it was, after all, not my concern.

  Around us, the hills were already thickening with soft blue dusk, and wisps of white cloud were forming over the loch and in the low places where the burns ran. I felt dreamy and deliciously comfortable listening to the soft clopping of the horse’s hooves on frozen earth. Duncan and I talked, about Creagdhubh and his work, about my home in London, and the time passed far too quickly.

  With a clash of iron on cobblestones we arrived reluctantly at Creagdhubh. A groom came and took charge of the brougham and we stood alone in front of the main entrance, not really wanting to part. Duncan paused and then said quickly, as if he had just thought of it, ‘Would you be coming just now to the stables, there is something there I am wanting to show to you.’

  I rather fancied it was an invention to protract the afternoon, and I imagine propriety would have had me refuse, but I fear I was as willing as he to find an excuse to remain together.

  ‘Certainly,’ I said, and together we followed the wheels of the brougham past the big house and past Duncan’s cottage to the low stone-archways of the stable.

  We stepped beneath the central arch and into the cobbled inner courtyard. It was a place full of the smells of horses and hay and I liked it. Big-eyed milk cows watched from the shelter of a large stone barn. We stepped among them, rustling through the hay where chickens scrabbled and an uncountable number of cats and kittens rolled and tumbled, dashing half-wild from us and up the wooden roof-supports to the safety of dark, cobwebby rafters.

  Another stony-roofed corridor led us through the horse barn where Uncle Iain’s splendid carriage horses looked around at us with dignified curiosity and a scraping and thudding of restless hooves.

  Duncan shut the door of the horse barn behind us and we were outside again, behind the square complex of farm buildings. Beyond was the hill pasture, raising a knobby silhouette against a pale, star-sprinkled sky.

  ‘Here,’ said Duncan, leading me to a low, long wooden structure built against the wall of the barn and, with its wire-net enclosure attached, appearing not unlike a very large rabbit hutch. He knelt down on the grass beside it and leaned forward, calling softly in Gaelic. Two brilliant green eyes showed momentarily in the dark entrance of the shelter, and then vanished in a hustle of grey fur. The eyes reappeared, cat’s eyes I realized, and then the creature slowly, suspiciously crept forward into the open.

  It saw me, then, beside Duncan, and again it was gone in a streak of grey fur. But after a while it emerged once more, and crept right up to the edge of the cage, its ringed tail swishing and its yellowy green eyes never off me.

  It was the biggest cat I had ever seen, but when it rubbed its odd, flat ears against Duncan’s fingers as he scratched its neck through the wire, it closed its eyes and began to purr like any tabby.

  ‘What a beautiful cat,’ I exclaimed, ‘but why is the poor thing locked up out here?’ I asked. Duncan caught my outstretched hand well before it could reach the wire, but I still gasped with fear as the soft-furred creature was transformed in seconds to a fury of hissing and snarling, its claws and teeth white at the wire.

  ‘That is why,’ said Duncan, smiling, his hand still protecting mine.

  ‘What is wrong with it?’ I managed to whisper, watching fearfully as it tried to claw its way out to me.

  ‘Nothing,’ he laughed. ‘That is simply its nature. It is a wildcat you see, Elspeth.’

  He had never used my name before, and I think he did so then without noticing. I liked the way it sounded, softened by his accented English, and I was pleased that he never called me Miss Martin again.

  ‘Angus the keeper found it on the hill beside the dead mother. It was he who brought it to me, wrapped in a blanket, no bigger than your hand. There are some that say they are trouble for the lambing, but it is not lambs they are wanting, up on the hill. They keep high up, the wildcats. They have their place too, as we do.’

  I smiled, watching the fierce, beautiful animal settle down into a tail-swishing hump. I was glad Duncan had kindness in him for such a creature whose only value was its beauty.

  ‘What will you do with it?’ I asked.

  ‘Och, it will go back soon,’ he said, roughly because it had decided now I was no threat and had resumed rubbing against Duncan’s hand with its furry ears. ‘Before it gets out and causes trouble. I will take it right up Meall-fuar-mhonadh, the mountain-on-the-cold-moor. That is a place for you, then,’ he said to the purring cat. ‘Perhaps Elspeth will come with us and watch you go back to where you belong.’

  ‘Perhaps Elspeth will,’ I said, smiling, as we stood up together, looking into each other’s eyes.

  Duncan still held my hand and we stayed silent until suddenly the rising wind flicked at the edges of our garments and we remembered that it was night, and cold, and hardly proper that we should be here at all.

  We made our way, stumbling and giggling through the darkened barn and passed the warm, jostling cows.

  Under the yellow light of the windows of Creagdhubh, Duncan bade me a formal goodnight.

  In the days that followed I was so swept up with the pleasures of Creagdhubh, enhanced as they were by Duncan’s company, that I nearly forgot the darker vision of the old house that I had been shown earlier.

  My troubles seemed over. Rowena, conscious of such things as young girls are, had not missed the
warmth that was growing between Duncan and me. It pleased her, I think, partly because she grew to regard me as somewhat of a comrade, now that each of us was the object of our young man’s attentions. And too, she was glad to see me in Duncan’s company, for that freed Roderick for herself. She did not like Duncan ‒ he spent little effort hiding his scorn for her elaborate airs ‒ but she made a show of being nice to him for my sake.

  Content now, Rowena submitted with limited grace to the restrictions of the schoolroom. However, I soon found that her real talents, as well as interests, lay in her painting and music, and we spent many quite pleasurable afternoons with our easels or at the piano in the music room.

  In the evenings the beautiful drawing room was filled with laughter and music. Roderick was gay and romantic as ever, playing popular songs on the piano, reciting flippant bits of verse, and still on occasion turning his teasing smile on me. I hid my distaste for him under pretence of prudish disapproval, as I knew I must. And like many young men of his kind, he found my coolness a challenge to be met with bolder advances.

  Uncle Iain sat by the fire, happy and relaxed, enjoying the gaiety around him. As I watched him one such evening, beating, time with his big hand to the high, reckless music of Duncan’s Highland fiddle, I was sure that his life was as contented now as perhaps it could ever be again without Christabel.

  Of course, I reminded myself, there was still Gordon, roaming the house like some dark, lost mountain-spirit. But after all, Rowena had suffered the same loss as he, and had recovered. In time, surely, Gordon would sit laughing here with us, too.

  One by one the others drifted away that night, and eventually only myself, Duncan, and Uncle Iain remained. He then rose with elaborate nonchalance and strolled out of the room. I smiled to myself. Dear Uncle Iain. He could not properly say goodnight and leave us alone in the drawing room, but to leave the room on some pretext and forget to come back was another thing, apparently.

  We stood together in front of the great log fire. Duncan took my hands in his. The firelight lit his ruddy hair, making it glow coppery. He said nothing at all, but bent his head and kissed me gently. I wanted to return that kiss, but I knew I must not. I stood still for a moment then gathered up my skirts and fairly ran to the door, his low laughter following me.