Clandara (8 page)

“You've a fine bride,” the old man said. “And it's always wise to marry the enemy, for you never know when you might need to have them at your back. My greetings to your father, James. I saw him a while past in the Great Hall but he was drunk and in none too good a humour. But my greetings just the same. I'll see you on your wedding day, no doubt.”

James bowed to him. “No doubt. God go with you till then.” He moved over to take Katharine back to the Great Hall where they joined in one of the lively Fraser reels. His father and David Macdonald were standing where he had last seen them, both too drunk to speak to each other but still firmly on their legs. He made a mocking bow to his brother Hugh, who was talking to the gentle Fiona Mackintosh. He was leaning as close to her as he dared, and she was staring up at him, her large hazel eyes wide open as if she were being hypnotized by a snake. Hugh glanced at his brother and winked.

“If he seduces her tonight,” James said under his breath, “we'll have the biggest clan war for a hundred years.”

Katharine looked quickly over at them both and then away. For a moment she had found Hugh's eyes fixed on her and there was something in them that made her shudder.

There was a new light coming into the room, competing with the hundreds of candles, and it was the soft grey light of the coming dawn. As it turned from grey to palest pink, the first of Clandara's guests began to leave, among them the Chief of Dundrenan and his three sons. They travelled fast over the rough tracks and moors and reached their own fortress home within three hours, tired and eager for a few hours' sleep. But there was a strange horse tethered in Sir Alexander's stables and a stranger waiting for them in the Great Hall, dozing in a chair by the open fire. There was no sleep for any of the Macdonalds that July day in 1745.

Katharine was awoken early by the vigilant Annie. She stretched and turned over, settling deeper into her pillows, until the maid leant over the bed and shook her.

“Wake up, milady. It's past seven.”

“Oh, Annie! I'm still half asleep. Go away!”

“Ye told me yesterday to wake you for we're going to see this house at Kincarrig today. Wake up, milady!”

“Of course!” Katharine sat up quickly. “I promised to take you with me. Dear Annie, I'm sure you'll like it. James says it's beautiful and he's spent a fortune restoring it. Give me my robe and prepare some hot water.”

“Your robe's here,” said Annie, holding out the brocade dressing-gown, “and the hot water's in your bath.”

Katharine sang to herself as she washed and let Annie dry her and help her into her chemise and corselet. She dressed in a riding habit of blue cloth with a Scots bonnet in dark blue velvet, and held out her hand for her gloves.

“There's a picnic to come with us,” Annie said. “I took the liberty of ordering some chicken and pasties and two bottles of wine. Angus says it'll take us the best part of the day to ride there and back.”

“James is meeting us half-way,” Katharine reminded her. “Did you take him into consideration when you ordered the food?”

“I did, milady. Mrs. Duncan showed me the parcels before she packed them. There's more than enough for everyone.”

“Thank you,” Katharine said. “You are very good, Annie, when you're not scolding and grumbling, and I really don't know what I'd do without you.”

Annie tied her cloak under her chin and pulled the plain bonnet over her sandy hair.

“No more do I,” she said. “Angus was told to bring the horses round at half past eight. I think I hear them now.”

The Earl was not yet awake; Katharine sent a message to his steward telling him that she had gone without disturbing him and would be back that evening. There was no sign of Robert either. She walked very quickly past the Countess's door and then suddenly, remembering her promise to James, she astounded Annie by turning back and knocking on it.

“Who is there?” Margaret was up. No one even knew what time she rose. She had her own maid to wait on her; she was a dark, sullen girl who had come from Dundrenan and made friends with nobody in the five years she had been among the Frasers.

“It's Katharine. May I come in?” She paused a little awkwardly by the door until her step-mother came out of the inner room where she slept. She looked very tired and her eyes were red, though whether from sleeplessness or weeping it was hard to say.

“What can I do for you?” she asked.

Katharine shook her head. “Nothing, madam. I only came to wish you a good morning and to say I am going to see Kincarrig today. I wondered if you knew it.”

“I have been there,” Margaret answered dully. “But it was empty then. My family preferred Dundrenan; it was easier to fortify. Kincarrig is a very fine, large house. I am sure you will like it.”

“I'm sure I will.” Katharine hesitated. She had nothing to say to the other woman; her effort had been made and she was embarrassed and anxious to escape. For James's sake she made one more.

“After we are married, madam, I hope you will come and visit us from time to time.”

“If your father gives permission, I would like that very much. James will be going to Kincarrig with you, of course.”

“He's meeting us,” Katharine answered.

“Then give him my greetings. I wish you a good journey.” And the Countess opened the door for her and closed it firmly on her.

Her maid, Jean Macdonald, came out of the Countess's powder closet where she had been listening.

“We are invited to Kincarrig,” Margaret announced “After the wedding.”

“Will ye go, milady?” Jean asked her.

“I would rather die than see a Fraser mistress of Kincarrig or any other house belonging to our people. If he had taken her to Dundrenan it would have broken my heart.”

“Och, milady, maybe it'll be easier for you when they're married.”

Jean, whom everyone despised as stupid and taciturn, was the possessor of a particularly warm heart as well as an immutably unforgiving nature regarding her enemies. She loved her mistress as much as Annie Fraser loved hers, but it was the devotion of the servant, awkward and ill-expressed in words.

“Nothing will be easier for me,” Margaret said, “until the day his lordship dies and I can go back to my own people. And take you with me, you poor child. There's no man for you here among these people.”

“I don't want one,” Jean said quickly. “I'm content as I am. Come, milady, your toilette is ready for the day.”

Margaret still used her trousseau. She had not bought a new gown or a fresh set of underclothes for five years. She would wear the silks and velvets and the flowing robes of lace and lawn until they were patched and darned and fell to pieces. She would not spend one penny on herself nor ask a penny from her husband. It was a curious and dangerous idiosyncrasy which no one had noticed because they so seldom noticed her. She dressed and prepared herself for another day spent in organizing the household in opposition to the Earl's steward who hated her, and the servants who disobeyed her if they could. A day spent in boredom; riding alone except for a Fraser trotting behind her as custom decreed; drinking chocolate in the Library with her husband and Robert while they talked over her head as if she were not there, dining and supping with them in the enormous draughty hall at the end of a long table, and then retiring early to sit and sew in her own rooms until she chose to go to bed. And there was no release that she could see but Clandara's death or her own.

It was a lovely morning. The month of July had been warm with little rain, and the countryside had blossomed into heather and patches of bright yellow gorse. The mountains rose high in the distance, their sides a dark purple wreathed in drifting clouds; the little cavalcade rode down the rough and sometimes precipitous track towards Kincarrig and before noon they were well into Macdonald country. James had arranged to meet them at a small wooden bridge crossing one of the wider streams which found their way down from the mountains. When they arrived there a Macdonald was waiting for them with a message. Katharine read it and exclaimed in disappointment. James could not meet them; the Macdonalds had found a most important guest waiting for them when they returned from Clandara last night, and it was impossible for James to leave Dundrenan that day. The man he had sent in his place was his new grieve and would be in charge of the household at Kincarrig. He could show Katharine the house and carry out any orders she might have for him.

Led by the grieve, who presented himself as Ian Macdonald, the horses rode onwards towards Kincarrig and at last they came within sight of the lodge gates leading to the house.

The gates were opened by an old servant who saluted them, bowing and taking off his bonnet, and behind him Katharine saw a woman bustling several half-grown children out of sight.

James's descriptions had not prepared her for Kincarrig. It was built of grey Scots stone, the remains of some ancient castle long fallen into ruins, and the architect had been influenced by the elegant and decorative styles of the great French country houses. It was a beautiful mellowed house, large but not forbidding like Clandara, with a multitude of windows and a splendid entrance up a long flight of wide stone steps. He had told her the gardens were a wilderness, but they had been transformed into a gracious landscape, reminiscent of the rolling parklands of a French château, with shrubs and trees and shaded walks. A stone fountain played in the centre of the long drive up to the house; the waters cascaded from a centre group of nymphs, attending the dominant, triumphant figure of Pan, the pagan god of love.

At the steps, when she dismounted, servants ran out to take the horses, and Ian Macdonald introduced them all by name and, according to Highland custom, Katharine shook their hands and thanked them for their greeting. The house had a Great Hall, smaller than the enormous room where she had danced the night before, but panelled in oak, with a huge ancient fireplace surmounted by the arms of the Macdonalds. The stairs were oak, with a magnificent carved balustrade, the work of the same craftsmen who had made the panelling. The smell of paint and cedar polish was overpowering, though every window was open to admit the sun, making patterns of dappled light upon the shining floors.

Preceded by the grieve, Katharine went into the main rooms of her new home.

“This is the Grey Salon, milady,” Ian Macdonald said. “The master chose everything in it himself. Some of the best furniture from Dundrenan is in this room.”

It was a lovely room; she stood in the doorway, looking at the walls which were panelled in grey silk and hung with portraits. Macdonalds, every one of them. The same dark faces, arrogant and inscrutable with their curious likeness to the man she loved, stared down at her from the past, and under a magnificent silver-gilt table she saw the picture of a beautiful woman, dark-eyed and black-haired, with a wide, white ruff outlining her pale face, and knew, even before she asked the grieve, that this was James's grandmother who had been a cousin of the Duke of Alba and married Sir Donald Macdonald in Spain in 1660.

“I hope your ladyship is pleased,” the grieve said. “I know how much the master wanted to show this room to you himself.”

“I think it is beautiful,” she said at last. “The most beautiful room in Scotland.” And she turned triumphantly to Annie. “There's not a room in Clandara to match it! Where are the private apartments?”

“This way, if you will follow me.” He led them through the Grey Salon and on past two smaller ante-chambers, all furnished and decorated in exquisite taste, and then at last she saw the bedroom which she and James would share in a few weeks.

She had never imagined him to be artistic or to possess such an imaginative sense of colour and proportion, and yet the bedroom was the result of an artist's inspiration. It was golden from the tapestries which covered the walls to the enormous tester bed which stood in the centre of the floor, its brilliant, embroidered hangings sweeping the ground. Her dressing-table and closets were made of the faded golden walnut which so closely matched the scheme of the whole room. It was luxurious beyond belief, and yet it seemed to be full of sun. Even on the greyest Scottish day, with the fine Highland rain streaming past the windows, it would always seem as if it were full of morning sunshine.

Impulsively she turned to the grieve, and his rather solemn face softened and he smiled. She was a Fraser, and he had been polite but unenthusiastic. But her appreciation touched him; he could not help thinking how well her golden beauty would enrich the lovely room.

“How I wish your master were here,” she said. “He never told me what a wonderful place Kincarrig was. It is a palace, not a house.”

“Six months ago it was a shell, milady. The walls were peeling, half the windows without glass and not more than a few sticks of mildewed furniture in the whole place. The master has spent a lot of money to make it fit for you.”

“And the furnishings?” she asked him. “Those wonderful tapestries and bed … surely he did not buy them … such things are not for sale in Scotland.”

“The hangings and furniture were in the attics at Dundrenan,” the grieve replied. “Sir Alexander has no mind for fancy things, and they had been put away since my father's time. He was the old laird's steward, and his father before him. I know the master ordered the bed from France four months ago. It came by ship and we assembled it the week before. If you have finished here I'll show you the kitchens. My brother will be steward to the lord and yourself. He will be here next time to greet you.”

“Nothing would please me more,” Katharine answered. “And then we'll dine; it's been a long ride, and I'll be honoured if you'll join me. We brought some provisions with us.”

“They won't be needed,” he assured her. “The master gave orders and everything is prepared. It is ready in the Library. I thought you would wish to dine quietly today.”