Cauldstane (10 page)

‘Since
Fergus wants to sell up anyway, I don’t really understand why he doesn’t just up sticks and head for the Antipodes. He must have lots of skills that could form the basis of a new career.’

‘It’s not that simple.
Fergus doesn’t
want
to sell, he thinks we have no choice
but
to sell. He wants to deliver the
coup de grâce
to Cauldstane. Sholto and I are prepared to witness its agonizingly slow death. But one of the reasons I won’t consider pressurizing Sholto to sell – apart from the fact he’d knock me down if I did – is that Cauldstane is as much Ferg’s inheritance as mine. He’s worked for it. And if anything happens to me, he’s the heir.’

‘W
hat could happen to you?’ Alec looked up sharply as if I’d touched a nerve. Backtracking, I said, ‘I mean, you look fit as a flea, despite your reluctance to eat.’ He said nothing. ‘I suppose your job is quite dangerous, isn’t it? And those tournaments must be. But you haven’t sustained an injury for years now, have you?’

He raised an eyebrow and I saw the suggestion of a smile at the corner
s of his mouth. ‘You’ve been
researching
me?’

I’m embarrassed to admit I probably blushed
. I had indeed spent more time googling Alec (and pictures of Alec) than was strictly necessary for researching a book about Sholto, but I recovered quickly and, I hope, confidently. ‘Just as background. I need to see the bigger picture. And readers are going to love the idea of Sholto producing a son as fearless as himself.’

‘Is that what you think I am?
Fearless?’

A
n unaccountable shiver went down my spine, then I remembered those were the very words Sholto had said when I’d referred to his reckless courage. ‘Have I got that wrong, then?’

Alec looked at me warily, but I sense
d he wanted to talk. ‘It has as much to do with fear as courage. But there’s passion as well. A passion for history. For the art of making a beautiful blade.’

‘But you don’t deny what you do is dangerous?’

‘Driving a car is dangerous. Look what happened to Meredith. Fergus could end up Laird of Cauldstane courtesy of black ice on the A9. Sholto was a younger son who didn’t expect to inherit. But Fergus is ready, should the need arise and since I’m unlikely now to produce an heir, Cauldstane could end up in the hands of his family. If we don’t sell up.’

‘You wouldn’t consider marrying again?’

‘You heard what Rachel said. And a similar thing happened to me a year or so ago. I thought I might be heading towards another long-term relationship, but as soon as she found out about the curse and what happened to Coral… and Meredith… and my mother…’ Alec’s sigh was weary. ‘Ferg is younger. He’s thirty-eight and he’s never been married, never even lived with a girlfriend. He wants to give it a go. And he should! A future Laird of Cauldstane could be a nephew of mine, yet unborn.’

‘I
t’s so sad you’ve given up hoping things will work out for
you
. You seriously underestimate women if you think all of them are as superstitious as Rachel.’

He looked at me then, his grey eyes dark and unfathomable.
It was a long, incomprehensible look that sent another shiver down my spine. I thought he was about to say something, but then he seemed to change his mind. Eventually he shook his head and said, ‘It’s not that simple, Jenny. There are other factors… I hold myself responsible for what happened to Coral.’ There was now a steely glint in his eye. ‘And that’s not going to happen to anyone else.’

‘But
, Alec, you don’t
know
what happened to Coral. Not for certain.’

‘No, I don’t. But I saw what happened to her before she died. What happened to her mind. The curse doesn’t have to be real for it to do real harm
, Jenny. Look at Ferg and Rachel!’

I had to acknowledge the truth of this depressing statement.
‘So you’re saying your life now is just some kind of… damage limitation exercise?’

He
nodded. ‘Aye, that’s exactly what it is. I see it as my job to make sure no one else comes to any harm through their association with the MacNabs. Now if you’ll excuse me, Jenny – I’ve spent too much time today enjoying your company. I have orders to fulfil.’

‘Yes, of course. I should get back to work too. Thanks for explaining things to me. I
do appreciate it.’

He gave me a curt nod, lowered his
safety glasses and turned back to the grinding wheel. As I lifted the catch on the door, he called out, ‘Jenny?’ I spun round, but Alec still faced the wheel. ‘What
you
see as courage is in fact the opposite. Sholto put his life on the line time and again because he’s terrified of death. Of becoming…
nothing
. That’s partly what this book is about for him. A bid for immortality. And
this
…’ Alec turned slowly and raised the unfinished blade. ‘This is about fear, not courage.’

I didn’t reply for a moment, then feeling quite stupid, I said, ‘I’m sorry, Alec, I don’t understand.’

His smile was slow and sad. ‘Aye, I know. How could you? I’m just blethering on. Take no notice.’ He turned back to the wheel. ‘I really should get out more.’

‘I would
like
to understand. Really, I would.’

He stood quite still with his back to me. There was not
hing for me to do but stare at the way his damp hair curled at the back of his neck and his shoulder blades shifted as he raised the unfinished sword to the grinding wheel. I’d already turned away when he spoke again.

‘
If you ever need to understand, I promise I’ll explain. But I trust there’ll be no need.’

He
flipped a switch and the noise of the machine made any further conversation impossible, so I left.

CHAPTER TEN

I was in no mood for work after my conversation with Alec, so I headed back to my room where I lay down on the bed feeling tired and confused.
I was concerned about the MacNab brothers and their blighted lives, but I knew that wasn’t the only reason for my confusion. Another was Alec.

I enjoyed spending time with
him. I found him intriguing in his quiet, understated way. We’d come a long way since the awkwardness of our first meeting outside my room and I’d been quite wrong about him being hostile to Sholto’s project. Alec was supportive of my work and clearly wanted to help in any way he could. In fact I thought he was enjoying spending time with me.

T
here was surely nothing more to it than that. Just good manners. Weren’t Highlanders famed for their good manners and legendary hospitality? But holding my hand as I downed his whisky and talked about my breakdown?... No doubt I was making something out of nothing. That in itself gave me cause for concern. It was all too easy to get involved with your subject and their family. Up to a point you had to
become
family, but you also had to keep a professional distance. Apart from anything else, I was working to a deadline and didn’t have time for a relationship. In any case, various hints had been dropped about Alec’s emotional fragility. Someone with a history of instability was the last person I should think of getting involved with.

To my dismay, I realised
I was sounding just like Rupert, giving myself a good talking to. It was all very sensible advice – Rupert would have been proud of me – but it failed to take into account that when Alec was around, my breathing changed slightly. I was always aware of his position in the room and what he was doing. I didn’t watch him. I didn’t need to. I automatically registered his presence and the distance, or lack of it, between us.

I rolled over on the bed and
drew up my knees, trying to recall the photographs on the notice board in the armoury, photos in which Alec was demonstrating historical swordsmanship in period costume. I’d always thought that sort of historical re-enactment was for sad, geeky types. Maybe it was, but I doubted whether most blade enthusiasts looked as dashing or dangerous as Alec in doublet and hose.

Despite taking sensible precautions, I
’d succumbed to the glamour of Cauldstane and the MacNab men – Alec in particular. Work would be the remedy. Putting pleasant thoughts of Alec aside, I resolved that I would get off my very comfortable bed, settle down with my notes and get some work done.
Soon
.

I
must have been dozing off when the music began. It was distant and indistinct, but I thought it sounded like a harpsichord. I sat up on the bed, straining to hear. The piece was sad and stately and I assumed it must be coming from a radio or CD player. The music stopped abruptly. In the silence that followed, I decided I must have imagined it. After all, I spent a lot of time cooped up with a harpsichord in the music room and I often tried to imagine what it would sound like.

I conclu
ded I was in need of tea and possibly some of Mrs Guthrie’s restorative home baking. I’d eaten very little at lunchtime. As I swung my legs off the bed, the music began again – a different piece, frenetically complex this time. I’m sure it demonstrated great technical brilliance, but I found the jangling noise completely enervating. After only a moment or two, I felt a headache coming on and wished the music would stop – which it did, just as suddenly as it had started. I sat on the edge of the bed, braced for the music to start again, but there was nothing but silence – silence and a chill in the room that sent me rooting in a drawer for a jumper.

As I pulled it
on over my shirt, I glanced out the window, across the river. On the opposite bank the leaves had already started to change colour. The wind tossed the tops of the trees and a few yellow leaves spiralled into the air, whirling madly before they drifted down to the surface of the rushing water. I watched them as they hurtled under the stone bridge and were gone. Despite my thick jumper, I shivered.

~

I was heading for the stairs, on my way to the kitchen, when Zelda opened her door. Her head shot out and when she saw it was me, she smiled broadly. ‘Jenny! I’m glad I caught you. I’ve dug out some old photo albums. Come and have a look. Wilma’s just brought me some tea, so we can have a wee blether.’ Her head shot back inside again and I heard her say, ‘Wilma, would you bring another cup, please?’ Mrs Guthrie emerged carrying an empty tray and nodded to me before setting off downstairs at a lick.

Knowing Zelda, I doubted whether the blether would be all that wee, but I obeyed
what was in effect a royal command to peruse the family albums. Sholto had shown no interest in choosing the illustrations for his biography, so Zelda and I had taken it upon ourselves to make a first selection.

As I entered
the room, soft classical music was playing. It stopped abruptly as Zelda switched off a radio.

‘
Please don’t turn it off on my account,’ I protested.

‘Och
, it’s just Classic FM. Wallpaper music. I have to have something on in the background. I can’t bear the silence of this place. It gets on my nerves. Sholto says he loves it, but he’d live in Antarctica if he could. All that silence and no litter. He gets so worked up about that.’

‘Litter?’

‘Litter in Glasgow, litter on Mt. Everest. Sholto goes on and on about it.’ Zelda plumped up a needlepoint cushion in an armchair and indicated I should sit. She poured a cup of tea, handed it to me, then drew up another chair and sat down. ‘Help yourself to gingerbread. Wilma excels at gingerbread!’

I obeyed and, as I sat, took a moment
to survey the room. When I entered, I’d expected to find Zelda’s bedroom, but I found myself in a tiny sitting room which must once have been a dressing room. A closed door led, I presumed, to the bedroom. I had to admire the way she’d made herself a little den, heated by a primitive two-bar electric fire. Small pieces of furniture had been crammed in for the sole purpose of displaying bric-a-brac. Zelda was evidently a collector. I spotted lace bobbins and darning mushrooms arranged in different areas of the room, but I was unable to guess the purpose of what appeared to be a bowl of china apples. Pastel-coloured and surprisingly modern, these plain and patterned china balls turned out to be a set of 1930s carpet bowls. (Zelda told me later that her mother had allowed the children to play with them indoors on rainy days.) There was a shelf full of cookery books, many of them French, and a piece of needlepoint canvas stretched over a frame had been set down beside a sewing box, open on the floor beside Zelda’s chair.

It was all very cosy, charming and feminine. I couldn’t help thinking what a contrast it was to
Alec’s workshop and it suddenly struck me how separately all the MacNabs lived – all of them single, all in their separate areas. If Sholto wasn’t in the walled garden, he’d be holed up in the library. Fergus was always out working on the estate and went home to his bachelor cottage. We rarely saw him except for the occasional meal. I wondered if the melancholy atmosphere I was beginning to sense at Cauldstane was just the family’s palpable loneliness and isolation. Undoubtedly they’d known happier times, but those seemed long gone.

Mrs Guthrie
re-appeared at the open door with more crockery. ‘Thanks Wilma! I’ll take that.’ Zelda got up to take a cup and saucer, then shut the door and came back to the table. Pouring her own tea, she resumed her complaints about Sholto’s anti-social tendencies.

‘
I just don’t bother to take him out any more. It’s not worth the lecture on the evils of modern society, particularly chewing gum and what Sholto would like to do to the folk who drop it.
He’s
happy enough at Cauldstane, buried alive, but it’s too quiet for me. I used to run a restaurant, you see. In France. I loved all the pandemonium! The
joie de vivre
! And Johnny was hard of hearing, so everything was always full blast with him. Conversation. Music. TV.’

‘Johnny?
That was your husband?’

‘
My ex. Jean-Claude. A life spent racing cars wrecked his ears. He couldn’t converse below a shout. And all in French, of course. Not at all what I’d grown up with here. Our mother was one of those soft-spoken Highland women who never raised her voice, even when she was angry with us.’ Zelda pushed the plate of cake towards me. ‘Will you not have some more gingerbread? No? Och, well…’ She helped herself to a piece. ‘But you can get used to anything. I got used to the noise of the race track and the restaurant kitchen and Johnny bellowing at me across the breakfast table. I really missed it when it stopped. All that racket. It made you feel
alive
.’ Zelda cast a jaundiced eye round her room. ‘This place is like a morgue now. When Meredith was alive it was very different. There was always music in the air.’

‘She played the harpsichord, didn’t she?’

‘Aye, she did. And she was always singing or playing her own CDs. Cauldstane used to be full of music.’

‘She listened to her own recordings?’

Zelda nodded. ‘Especially in the years before she died. That was a particular treat for her. She liked to sit in a darkened room – she was very fond of candlelight, said it was flattering – and she’d listen to her old recordings. There weren’t that many if truth be told, so it got a wee bit repetitive. But she liked to have company when she listened, so I used to humour her. Sholto’s tone deaf and the boys weren’t interested of course, but Coral and I used to sit with her sometimes.’ Zelda shook her head. ‘She tried very hard to get on with Meredith.’

‘Coral
did?’

‘S
ay what you like about that lassie, she did her best to fit in with the MacNabs. And Meredith didn’t make it easy for her.’

‘Oh? Why was that?’

‘I couldn’t say. Meredith liked to be queen bee, of course. She was very much a man’s woman. The type who lights up when a good-looking man walks into the room – you know the kind I mean? But Coral was hardly the sort of woman to inspire jealousy. She couldn’t hold a candle to Meredith. Not that she even tried.’

‘So you think
Meredith just didn’t like women? Wasn’t she Liz’s friend?’

‘
She was the younger sister of Pamela, one of Liz’s friends. Meredith and I got along well enough. We had a lot in common. We loved to swap stories about our time abroad, we both loved French food and wine. And French men! No, it was just
Coral
Meredith took a dislike to.’

‘Dislike?
As bad as that?’

‘Och n
o, not really. Meredith was just impatient with her. Intolerant. But I think you have to make allowances for the artistic temperament.’ Zelda paused and lowered her voice. ‘Especially if the artist is no longer in demand. Meredith found that hard. Very hard when the phone stopped ringing. And, it has to be said, Sholto was
not
the most attentive of husbands, so naturally she got bored. And when Meredith got bored, she could be… well, a wee bit spiteful. Coral’s only crime was to be young and very much in love. An old wifie like me was harmless enough. And of course Meredith was much younger than Liz. I suspect Meredith just had no time for younger women.’ Zelda chortled, as if something amusing had suddenly struck her. ‘She’d have hated
you
!’

‘
Hated
me? Why?’

‘Too much competition, my dear
! You’re pretty, blonde and
slim
. Poor Meredith fought a constant battle with her weight. She always had a generous figure, but as she got older and more indolent she became quite…
substantial.
She was always crash dieting, but being hungry made her miserable and being miserable made her eat. It was a vicious circle. Comfort-eating was what she did when Sholto was away on his travels. We used to sit and blether in here when she was bored or miserable. She liked to play with all my bits and pieces.’ Zelda indicated a shelf unit behind her full of small pieces of china and porcelain – thimbles, pill boxes and something I couldn’t identify.

‘
What are the things that look like pepper pots?’

‘Holders for
hat pins. I collect hat pins.’ She stood up and took what looked like a large pincushion down from the top of the shelf unit. It was stuffed with long pins, each of which finished in a piece of coloured glass or ornate beadwork. ‘Meredith called this my hedgehog,’ Zelda said, holding it out for me to examine. ‘She loved it. She bought me several of these pins, in fact. She liked to browse round junk shops and antique fairs and whenever she saw a nice hatpin, she’d buy it for me. She was very taken with them after I told her a bit of their history as a weapon.’

‘A
weapon
?’

‘Did you not know
? They were sometimes used in self-defence. Some were ten inches long! They could be hidden in your hair – Edwardian women wore hair pieces to bulk out their own – and a hat pin could double as an impromptu weapon if the occasion arose.’

‘Really? I had no idea!’