Roderick was enjoying his audience, giving the quick, exciting dance more than the usual flourish. Rowena shook her black hair back proudly and suddenly grasped the arm of her attentive young suitor, and led him to the open French windows. They stepped out onto the lawn, her white dress fluttering in the twilight, and went to join the couples strolling in the garden.
I noticed, but Roderick did not. He was looking down at me, his eyes boldly surveying the tight-fitting bodice of my dress. His right hand resting on my waist tightened the barest trifle, the long delicate fingers exploring the smooth silk.
‘Do not make me create a scene in front of my godfather.’
‘Create a scene?’ he replied, smiling innocently. ‘We are only dancing.’ And he grinned his crooked, grey grin that made the young girls blush, and we whirled away. I marvelled bitterly how our lives had created a circumstance in which the man who had tried to have his way with me by force could now waltz with me before the approving eyes of all, under the very roof of Creagdhubh. And I was helpless to be free of him.
The last chords of the waltz did free me, then, and Roderick led me back across the floor, returning me with mocking grace to Duncan. Uncle Iain was there suddenly, standing between the two men, keeping them apart with words and jests. We all retired to a table, and soon the music began and the sets formed again. Later, Duncan and I strolled in the garden, I leaning lazily on his arm, the summer air soft on my face. It was midnight and the sky was a clear, dark lavender, with one white star low down in the south. In the north the hills glowed from beneath with the light of the sun, just barely below the horizon. In a few hours it would rise again. The mysterious grey hour in-between would be all we would see of night.
We returned through the French windows, leaving behind the garden with its white wrought-iron furniture and the couples whispering in the shadows of the rose-trellis.
‘Come now, Duncan,’ a voice greeted us, ‘Let us see your dancing.’ The man who spoke was the father of the two girls from Errogie, a tall man with a long face surrounded by wispy white hair. He was holding two silver swords which he flung down on the ballroom floor in the shape of a cross.
Others had taken up the call and Duncan, after leading me to Uncle Iain’s table, smiled and stepped out to where the crossed swords lay. Donald Ban took up his pipes and the music rose up from them and Duncan bowed once to us all and began the intricate steps of the sword dance.
It was a rough, strong, masculine dance, and Duncan did it well, weaving deftly around the shining blades, never touching them. He danced laughing, arms upraised, lace cuffs fluttering around his strong, brown wrists. He was enjoying himself, and so was his audience. Around the room, spontaneous whoops and claps joined the sound of his silver-buckled shoes and the droning song of the pipes.
The dance ended, Duncan bowed again and stepped across the silver swords which lay as neatly crossed as when the old gentleman had placed them on the floor. There were cheers for Duncan as he returned and mocking laughter for the young man, gay with champagne, who attempted to follow Duncan’s dance and ended in an ungainly scramble and a clatter of swords on the slippery floor.
With reel after reel, the evening continued on through the brief, dusky night and right into the dawn. With the first true light, breakfast was served to the tired guests; silver platters of grilled kippers were spread on the white linen, and with them the last of the champagne.
Many of the guests had already drifted away, though the fiddler played gamely on, when I confessed exhaustion and Duncan led me to the foot of the main-hall stairway.
He stood, leaning happily against the carved wooden lion-head that guarded the bannister, kissed my hand and wished me goodnight, and I drifted up the stairs dreamily fingering the Iona cross. The upper corridors were suddenly very quiet, and I heard only the light sound of my shoes and the silken rustle of my skirts on the carpet. Through the tall stained-glass window at the end of the corridor, a pale, pure morning-light shone.
It was only after I had entered my room and shut the gilt-trimmed door behind me, that I knew something was wrong.
There was no sound, and I was not at first aware of the old, strong, animal smell. But I sensed a presence; I felt something watching me.
I was frightened, and I bit my lower lip nervously, searching the room in the dim light creeping through the heavy draperies. I could see nothing, and I forced myself to step farther into the room.
It had been waiting for me to move. I saw it only as it was already leaping for me, and had barely recognized what I was seeing, when it was upon me.
I saw a flurry of grey, striped fur and the gleam of yellow eyes and then I felt the weight of it, surprisingly heavy against me, making me reel back against the door. The sharp claws raked down, shredding the green silk of my skirt and tearing through my light petticoats.
I screamed and kicked at the clawing beast, and it retreated for a moment, though not before I had felt those claws on my skin.
It crouched before me, ears flat, spitting and showing its gleaming teeth, as it had done in its cage behind the bar. I had not time to even wonder how Duncan’s wildcat came to be snarling here, amongst the luxurious fittings of my bedroom. I was thinking only of escape, edging towards the door.
Then it leaped for me again, and my hand that had clasped the doorknob flew up to protect my face. The claws raked my arm, and again I cried out in pain, fighting to keep my feet. The cat slid to the floor, and blood reddened the patches of green silk trailing in its claws. I thought of the heavy brass-poker at the fire, and turned to reach for it.
My torn skirts tangled, and as the cat came for me again I fell to the floor, throwing my hands up trying to save my face and eyes.
Savage teeth bit down into my arm and the strong hind legs scrabbled down, ripping at the flimsy fabric of my gown. I screamed frantically, and suddenly the door burst open and Duncan was in the room and the wildcat was backing, hissing towards the wall. Duncan knelt beside me and Uncle Iain ran through the open door, seeing me and the cat. He reached for the poker and the animal backed along the wall, its yellow eyes never leaving him.
It leapt to the window sill, and Uncle Iain swung at it with his weapon, missing the crouching animal and smashing the tall pane of glass. In an instant the wildcat was through the jagged opening, into the nothingness beyond.
‘Oh, it’s fallen!’ I cried out, thinking of the awful precipice and pitying the creature.
‘May it fall to hell,’ Duncan growled, ‘for doing this to you.’ He was horrified that his pet had harmed me, and he turned against it unjustly.
‘It was not the poor beast’s fault,’ I said wearily, getting painfully to my feet, with Duncan’s arm around me. ‘It was trapped and frightened. Besides, it has done me no real harm, only scratched me.’
‘I would not worry overly much about the beast,’ Uncle Iain said quietly from the window. ‘It landed quite happily, on four feet as cats do, and is this moment streaking off over the hill. By morning it will be halfway to Meall-fuar-mhonadh, no doubt.’
I laughed, wincing at my painful scratches as I did so. I was happy for the wildcat. I had liked it, and it had only harmed me because it was the unfortunate tool of some vicious person. I knew, even before Duncan found the heavy, hessian sack, how it had come to be in my room. It was carried there, wrapped to protect the carrier, and loosed in an alien, frightening place, where it crouched desperately waiting until I entered its trap, to threaten even that limited safety.
‘But who did this?’ Uncle Iain demanded, his voice low with shock. ‘And why?’
Chapter Twelve
At first I was sure that I knew the answer. But as I sat at my writing desk beside the boarded-up window the following evening, absently toying with pen and paper, my purpose of composing a note to an aunt in Dorset was quite lost in pondering on the incident.
I knew Roderick was capable of anything, and the ugliness of the trap laid for me alone, pointed to him. Also the possib
ility of his wanting to drive me from Creagdhubh was great.
I was still a threat to him, despite our impasse. I knew too much about him to be pleasant company. And even his ‘courtship’ of me could have a dual purpose. He knew he frightened me, and though he took a twisted pleasure in my fear of him, and perhaps did really desire me, it was likely still that he would be happiest if his attentions drove me completely away.
And he had been away during the evening, long enough that I noticed his absence. I imagined him waltzing with me as he had done, enjoying my body in his arms, and still knowing that the same body was soon to be clawed and mauled by the beast he had left waiting in my room. It was a mad act.
That thought drew me up short. Roderick was cruel enough, but was he mad? I did not know. I was sure however that Gordon was; mad with grief and possessed of a bitter hatred for me. And Gordon was not seen all that long night. It could well have been Gordon. Or Rowena. Rowena who had stalked out into the summer evening, seething with jealousy. I remembered the bog at Cnoc nam Feidh, and Rowena’s protestations of innocence. Had I been a fool to believe them? Duncan disliked and distrusted her. Perhaps he was right, and this playful, girlish creature was as coldly evil as she was beautiful.
I dropped the pen hopelessly on the paper, cautiously rubbing my bandaged wrist. It could have been any of them.
Uncle Iain had asked me again and again about the incident. I could not help him. He could not imagine who would wish to harm me. I saw no value in telling him that I suspected half the household would willingly harm me, though I could not prove which one was actually at fault.
What Duncan thought, I did not know. Surely he must have had suspicions of his own, but he did not share them. He had left the room with a look in his eyes that made me afraid of sharing my own thoughts. If I had told him then what I knew and suspected of Roderick, I honestly think he would have killed him.
It was little more than a week after the Creagdhubh ball that Uncle Iain had managed to obtain the services of the village glazier and my window had been repaired. That evening after a quiet family-dinner I had been standing once more at my window, admiring my restored view, when in the dim grey light, I saw Rowena.
So much had occurred since I came to Creagdhubh, and so much of that of a mysterious and disturbing nature, that I had for some time given little thought to my earlier discovery of Rowena’s visits to the gate house.
Then, too, I had often stood at my window at night, looking out at the dark hills and I had never again seen the girl.
This time I was determined not to miss my chance. If was quite late on a warm summer night; most of the household was in bed. I quickly took up a light shawl and went from my room, managing to get down the stairs and out the front door without meeting anyone.
I ran lightly across the cobbles and caught sight of the girl hesitating on the near side of the Creagdhubh bridge. She stood in the shadow of the building, looking cautiously around herself. I shrank back against the heavy growth of the ivy vines, hoping not to be seen.
I was successful, because in a moment she sprang forward, sprinting like a child across the arched stone bridge. It was not as easy to pass there unseen in the twilight of midsummer as it had been in the thick darkness of January.
I waited until she was within the shadow of the larch grove beyond the bridge, and I too slipped across, hoping the sound of the burn, muted now in the dry weather of summer, would be sufficient to mask my footsteps. When I reached the first larch tree at the edge of the ravine I peered ahead towards the gate house.
Through the window shone a soft rectangle of lamplight, as there had been that other night. Rowena passed through the light, her dark hair glistening.
Quickly I hurried after, knowing I must reach the corner of the gate house in time to see her enter.
I felt guilty, spying on her like the gossipy ferry-wife, but I reminded myself that I had a purpose in doing so beyond mere idle mischief.
At the corner I hung back in the shadow, watching as she passed beneath a second lighted window. Then, astonished, I saw that she never left the track, although it brought her to within feet of Roderick’s door. She continued on it, her steps soft on the close-cropped grass of the pasture track. When she reached the first pasture gate she hiked her skirts up and scrambled over, rather than bother with the heavy latch and hinges.
I stood watching her disappear into the soft mist on the hill, my astonishment and guilt over my unjust suspicions of her tempered by a growing curiosity. There was after all no secret meeting with Roderick. But what, then, was her purpose in leaving the house in the dark of night and climbing the rough hill-pasture road?
I was going to find out. I ran after her and climbed the gate as she had done, hastily sorting my trailing skirts.
The track was dry now and covered with dry grass cropped nearly to the ground by the grazing sheep.
Even in my flimsy evening-shoes, it was not difficult for me to keep within sight of the girl. It was like running on carpet and my slippers made no sound. Anyhow, Rowena never looked back; she obviously considered herself safe once out of sight of the house.
She reached the point where the road forked, the more heavily beaten track going up to the high pastures. The other turned right and downward; it was the infrequently used and overgrown path to the gorse-covered hillside of the chambered cairn.
Without hesitation Rowena turned that way, disappearing into the dark green brush. I ran, trying to keep my eyes on the slim figure. I turned at the fork, down the hillside, seeing her once just ahead. It was darker here in the shadow of the hill, and the way was stony. I stumbled, hurting my lightly clad feet. There were soft noises in the close-pressing gorse, the scurrying and scuffling of small animals and night birds. Somewhere above, the high faint shrieking of a bat drifted from the dusky sky.
I crept cautiously along the dimly remembered path. Then I stopped. I could go no further. The gorse ended and in the open pasture beyond was the chambered cairn. Rowena was walking across that space toward it.
I crouched down in the bracken. It smelled wet and earthy. The overhanging gorse branches scratched against my head, tangling in my hair. If she were to turn I was sure she would see me. The lavender twilight haze barely shadowed the colours of the grass and Rowena’s clothing. My yellow cotton frock and beige shawl would stand out like a light.
She did not turn, but continued right to the cairn and knelt before the dark arched shape of the cave-like entrance. Then crouching, almost crawling, made awkward by her skirts and petticoats, she crept into the low entrance and disappeared in the darkness.
Amazed, I rose slowly to my feet, shaking my skirt loose from the tangled brush. I took a step nearer to the cairn, and then stopped. I dare not go closer, or even remain. Though I was fascinated by Rowena’s strange behaviour, I did not wish her to find me here. I hardly felt like explaining why I had chosen to follow her.
As I turned away, a light flared within the cairn, the pale light of a candle, made brighter by the surrounding darkness, outlining the arched entranceway and dimly shining from the roof, open at the top to the sky.
So Angus Fraser had seen lights in the chambered cairn after all.
I ran back up the hill to where the track joined the pasture road. Then as quietly and cautiously as I could I returned to where the gate house guarded the bridge. Slipping past the lighted windows I ran again across the bridge, and then resumed a slow, careful pace. I had no more wish to be found out here than had Rowena. At this hour I too would find myself short of explanations.
I readied the house, and eventually my room, without meeting anyone other than Dhileas, who fortunately greeted me with a wagging tail rather than the shrill bark he reserved for strangers.
Once in my room I sat down on the edge of my bed and kicked off my shoes. Then I rose and went to my dressing table and slowly unpinned my tousled hair, thinking all the while of Rowena.
I could fathom no reason for her to choose to go to
that lonely place in the depths of night. I knew of nothing there but an empty, cold circle of stone. But there must indeed be something else to draw her there, not only today on a warm, summer’s night, but apparently in the cold of the winter as well.
There was only one way of finding out, and by the time I had blown my candle out and slipped under the quilts, I had already decided. I would go tomorrow, alone, to the cairn and see for myself.
Chapter Thirteen
Fortunately most of the household was occupied with business of its own the following day. After luncheon I was free of all commitments and able to walk quite naturally across the bridge and up the pasture road. It was of course an ordinary enough place to be going in the afternoon, though not so in the night.
I met no one on the pasture road, and of course I expected to meet no one once I had left the road for the track to the cairn. That lower, bracken-grown pasture was rough and of little value. The path to it was rarely used.
When I reached the open meadow in which the chambered cairn stood, I looked carefully around. There was nothing in sight; even the sheep had deserted this scraggly pasture for better. Over the stony mound of the cairn two grey and black hooded crows flapped in heavy circles.
I walked quickly through the rough grass, fighting the eerie mood of the place. Reaching the cairn, I knelt down before the dark entranceway and peered in. The passageway was low, roofed by an archway of stones whose neat, tight pattern had held the design of their ancient maker for thousands of years.
I ran my hand across them, marvelling that anything so simple could stand so long. The floor of the passageway was dry, packed earth leading into the darkness. I did not really want to go in there, creeping beneath the heavy, low roof, but having come this far, I was not going back unsatisfied.
I pulled my dark tweed walking-skirt up to unladylike heights, and crept forward, stockinged-knees on the cold earth and my hands feeling into the dimness. The stones of the roof scraped against my head, dislodging hairpins and sending a heavy lock of hair cascading across my eyes. I pushed it back and crawled father into the tunnel. It was several feet long, and I realized that the room inside must be very small, in spite of the wide circumference of the exterior mound of stones.
Christabel's Room: A spellbinding Victorian gothic romance Page 12