Clandara (12 page)

At Clandara, Katharine resumed her old life with its former duties of attending to the household and the servants and helping her father with the estate, and as the days passed and the rumours of the Rising reached them, it seemed as if the walls of Clandara grew taller and the light in the great Castle less as hope died in her heart and hatred turned everything to bitterness. Katharine worked until she was so tired at night that she sometimes fell asleep in her chair sitting opposite her father. One night when he tried to comfort her for the ruin of all her hopes, she told him gently that there was nothing to regret.

“My life,” she said to him, “is over. I shall never marry, Father, and I only want to live to try and make up to you for Robert. I am as happy now as I will ever be. When he killed Robert he also killed me.” And that was true, as the Earl knew. And when the loss of his son and his daughter's terrible grief became too much for him to bear, he bethought him of the woman who was imprisoned in her room upstairs, and then he would empty his whisky glass and go and take down the key of her room and go into it and relieve his pain by beating Margaret Macdonald until his arm ached.

But for Katharine there was no relief. She had destroyed James's letters and systematically ripped her wedding dress to pieces and ordered Annie to burn it. There was no sign of him anywhere in her room, no gifts or notes or even the dress in which they had become betrothed, for that too she had destroyed. And now the hated name was never mentioned between her father and herself and Annie was forbidden to speak of what had happened.

As Annie said to her grandfather, it would have been better for her ladyship to die, than live without love or hope or joy in life.

3

August came and the days were warm, with the fleeting brilliance of the Scottish summer; the days were so lovely and so full of the radiance of sun and fulfilment that Katharine preferred the coolness and gloom of the Castle. It was impossible to control the traitorous comparisons between Kincarrig and the idyllic days which might have been, and the emptiness and tragedy of what had become her daily life. She had tried not to think of James, his name was forbidden; even Robert was no longer mentioned, though his tomb in the vault was covered in fresh flowers, the gift of the servants who had known and loved him, and she often searched in vain for her father, only to find him kneeling in the cold beside the new grave in the vault.

Nothing could bring her brother back, and all she could do was to try to bury the memory of her love and the man who had betrayed it until it was as dead as the companion of her childhood. News came to them through friends who passed to offer their sympathy, but they were on their way to join the Prince, for the banner of the Stuarts was flying once again in the Highlands and the clans were rallying to it and to the romantic symbol of their vanished independence, Prince Charles himself. It was the middle of the month and their last visitor, the young laird Grant of Glenmoriston, had left them after a stay of two nights to join the Prince's army. The Castle was silent and empty. The Earl had gone to his rooms; he retired early, and often now Angus and his steward helped him to bed and took the empty whisky bottle out of his hand. The night was warm, and as Katharine sat on alone in the Green Salon, unable to sleep and unwilling to go to her room, the heat became oppressive to her. She threw her needlework aside and, opening the long windows out on to the terrace, she stepped through into the moonlit garden. There was no sound but the movement of a gentle wind that stirred the trees. Beyond the terrace there was an arbour, shaded by creepers and flowering shrubs. The smell of them was sweet and strong and she began to walk towards it. In the days of her engagement, James had often walked with her there and sat beside her on the stone seat, hidden from view of the house; there they had kissed and talked of their future.

She was in the shadow of the trees when someone sprang on her, and a hand covered her mouth, stifling her cry of fear, and then the arms which held her were familiar and the voice that whispered turned her to stone. Her body recognized him and her senses leapt in agony at the warmth and the touch which had been denied them for so long.

He turned her round and held her, still covering her lips with his hand, and then the hand was gone and his mouth met hers and took possession of it, demanding, desperate, and in that second she was lost and her lips opened. For a long moment they stayed still, the man and the woman, fused by his physical strength so that she was incapable of struggling free. His hold was so powerful that he hurt her, but the pain in her pinioned arms only added to the torturing delight of that wild savage kiss which denied her speech and breath until, at last, he raised his head and they were face to face.

“My love,” he said. “My love, my darling … I had to see you.” She pulled away from him, appalled at herself, her body trembling, her skin burning where he had touched her.

“You devil,” she spat at him. “You murdering devil …”

“Abuse me all you wish,” he told her, and she heard his voice break. “I knew if I could only find you, it would be all right again. Oh, Katharine, Katharine, whatever you say I know what happened when I held you in my arms … beloved, listen to me for one moment!”

“Listen to you!” Katharine backed away from him, but he had caught her hands and held them. “Listen to the man who took my love and my trust and then betrayed me? … You must be mad, Macdonald of Dundrenan, to come here and think that I would stand and listen to you! Are you so eager for death? Have you forgotten your servant who came here to give your lying message?”

“They said it was your doing but I did not believe them,” James whispered. “Even when I took the necklace from his neck, I didn't believe that you had taken any part in it …”

“Then you were wrong,” Katharine answered, and now her voice was cold and level, and the moment of abandonment was gone. He stood in front of her, holding her hands in his until she dug her nails into him and he released her.

“I watched my father's men kill your messenger,” she said. “And all I regretted was that it was him and not you … Do you suppose I have forgotten my brother? Robert, who loved me and whom I loved better than anyone in the world … he helped us, do you remember? He persuaded my father to receive you. And then you killed him, foully and vilely in an ambush!”

“I had no choice,” James said. “He wouldn't join the Prince; the Prince's emissary demanded his life of us as a point of honour. My father sent us after him, but I swear to God, Katharine, that it was not I who killed him. I fought him fairly and he might as well have killed me. My brother Hugh ran him through the back. And that's the truth!”

“You're lying,” she said. “There was a witness. One of our men was still alive and I heard his dying words as I held my brother's body in my arms … ‘James Macdonald did it' … you, James, not your brother, but you!”

“It was dark,” he countered. “The man must have been wounded to death. He didn't see what really happened. Katharine, why should I lie to you now? I didn't kill Robert – whether I meant to is not the point between us now. I didn't kill him.”

He came close to her and fell on his knees.

“I've never knelt to God or man for as long as I can remember,” he said hoarsely. “But I'm at your feet now, and all I ask is that you will believe me and forgive me. Call for your father, let him revenge himself as he will. I'll die contented if you will only say you love me still!”

His face was in shadow and she could not be sure, but from the sound of his voice she thought that he was weeping.

“I never loved you,” she said slowly. “As you never loved me. There was nothing between us but lust. And lust is all you've ever known. I am defiled from ever touching you.”

“I don't believe you,” he said; he stood up and they remained still, close enough to touch but without moving. “If I took you now you'd submit. And I know it, and you know it. There may be blood between us, but if you truly loved me you'd forgive and come to me of your own will. I'm going to Perth to join the Prince tomorrow, but I couldn't go without one word from you, one sight of you … and your forgiveness. Katharine, my only love, I beg of you. Forgive me.”

There was a moment when madness came upon her, a temptation so strong that she felt herself move and knew that in one more moment she would throw herself into his arms and swear that nothing mattered, neither Robert nor her father nor anything in the world but the overwhelming passion which had woken again when she believed it killed by hatred. Her only defence against herself was to attack him, and the hand which had reached out towards him now swung round and struck him a violent blow across the face.

“That is my forgiveness! And I pray to God you find an early grave. Now go!”

He touched his cheek very slowly. The moonlight was on her now and all he could see was the beautiful face he loved contorted by loathing, and the hatred in her eyes was like a second blow.

“I was prepared for death,” he said at last. “I was prepared for you to call out and deliver me to your people. I offered it, if you remember. If you had loved me I would have been content to die. But now I see I was a fool to come. Your love was given lightly, as lightly as you gave your kiss only a few moments ago. Whatever you had done, Katharine, I would have followed you to the end of the earth and defended you against God and all the hosts of heaven. I imagined that you had that kind of love for me. Good Christ,” he said savagely, “the poor harlots in Edinburgh have better hearts than you! What a fool, what a besotted fool, to think that a Fraser could be generous and give back love for love. Now listen well to me, for it's the last time you and I will ever speak … I didn't kill your brother. I thought he was a coward and a traitor to refuse to fight for his Prince and I might well have killed him, but I didn't. And now it doesn't matter to me. Give this message to your father. When the war is over and we are victorious, he'll know where to find James Macdonald of Dundrenan! And now you can scream for help without any hindrance from me. I wouldn't put a hand on you even to save my life!”

“James!” She cried out his name before she could stop herself but he had gone, and there was nothing but the shadowed arbour and the sound of the rising wind. He did not look back; he ran through the garden and out through the little side gate whose lock he had forced to get in and see her. He did not look back and so he did not see her slowly sink down on her knees or hear the sound of desperate weeping. It was nearly midnight when Annie came down to the Green Salon and out through the open window and found her mistress kneeling on the damp path, crying as if her heart would break. Gently she gathered Katharine into her arms. And then her sharp instincts told her what had happened.

“He's been here!” she whispered. “I know it. What happened, milady? Dry your poor eyes and tell me.”

“Oh God! I was out walking in the garden alone when suddenly someone sprang out on me … it was him, Annie. He said he'd come to ask me to forgive him. He swore he didn't kill Robert.”

“And what did ye do?” the maid asked her quietly.

“I struck him,” Katharine said slowly. “I told him I hated him and wished him dead.”

“It's as well you did,” Annie said. “He might well have abducted ye otherwise. Och, thank God no harm came to ye. It makes my heart stop to think what might have happened.”

“He wouldn't hurt me,” she said. “I knew that. And at the end he scorned to put a hand on me. I could have called out and betrayed him to his death and all he did was turn his back on me and walk away.”

“But you didn't call,” Annie muttered, helping her mistress to her feet again. “He'd have been caught in a few minutes and killed if anyone here had known …”

“I didn't call,” Katharine admitted. “Because I couldn't. Until this moment I thought I truly hated him; I thought of my brother and all I imagined was how happy I would be if only James were dead. But now I know the truth. Whatever he did, it makes no difference. I sent him away, Annie, and I know I shall never see him again … Let's go in now. And swear to me that you will never speak a word of this to anyone.”

“I swear,” the maid said. “God help you, milady. Whatever he is, he must have loved you too to seek you here. Thank God,” she said suddenly, “that I don't know what love is. Come, now.”

A column of men were marching through the hills, and they marched to the music of the Macdonald's piper. There were nearly three hundred of them, and the majority were the tenants and their sons who farmed the bleak Macdonald lands, and they were dressed for the campaign in kilts and skin jackets lined with fleece, their chests and arms bare, the heavy broadsword swinging from a belt at their sides and the short dirk on the hip. Their plaids were wrapped around them, and in these they slept, rolled into them as if they were blankets, and some carried their crude cooking pots and packs of oatmeal for kneading into cakes and baking in hot ashes. The men were the same as their ancestors of centuries past. Primitive, hardy, bound only by the intense loyalty of the clan for its chief, they followed that chief and his sons who rode at the head of the column as it made its way slowly across country towards Perth and the army of Prince Charles.

Sir Alexander Macdonald was humming the piper's rant under his breath. Peace did not agree with him; he had been bored for a number of years. Now he felt young and vigorous at the prospect of the war. His men smiled and murmured among themselves that the old lion scented a fight. It was a great pity, they said in the calm discursive manner of the Highlander, that the Chief's son James was in such a black and bloody mood. James Macdonald rode beside his father but hours passed without a word being spoken between them, and after a few attempts even the mischievous and intrepid Hugh decided it was best to leave him alone. No one had dared to ask him where he had been the night before they set out, but his father and his brothers guessed.