The Chieftain (2 page)

John was crimson now to the ears, his blue eyes bright with rage. ‘Thank God at least I have not your name! Thief, and murderer—!’

The blade of the Highlander’s dirk flashed brilliantly in the sunlight as he leapt forward. Isobel screamed in terror, and threw herself in his path. John struggled to pull her aside, the Highlander paused; and Andrew Reid and his wife came running along the path towards them.

‘What in heaven’s name is all this?’ demanded Isobel’s father, glancing swiftly from one to another of the angry and frightened faces about him. ‘You—!’ A contemptuous glance swept the Highlander. ‘What are you doing here?’

In a moment the dirk was sheathed, the furious young man restored to his former courtliness as he performed a sweeping bow.

‘I am MacLean of Ardshee, with one hundred fighting men to my name,’ he replied proudly, though there was a dangerous light still lingering somewhere in his eyes. ‘I come to seek the hand of Mrs Carnegie in marriage.’

‘Marriage!’ It was Andrew Reid’s turn now to explode in fury. ‘She has been scarcely widowed a week! How can you insult her so?’

Isobel thought that for a moment the young man looked almost disconcerted, but he answered quietly enough.

‘I understand that it was—’ he paused, seeking the most tactful words, and went on: ‘—scarcely a marriage, shall we say.’
 

‘Get out!’ Andrew Reid broke in. ‘You have said more than enough! Get out, and do not dare to show your face here again. You insult my daughter beyond endurance!’

The Highlander drew himself up to his full height, his head held with arrogant poise. ‘I will leave only at Mrs Carnegie’s express request,’ he returned haughtily.
 

His eyes met Isobel’s, level and expressionless. The emotions she felt now were also a little foreign to her, but she recognised them at once: anger, and disgust, and a feeling that he had somehow dirtied her by the naked greed of his proposal.
 

‘Then I do request it,’ she said, the coldness of her tone matching his, though there was a quiver of anger in it too. Yet somewhere buried beneath her anger lurked a sense of disappointment, as if the intruder had somehow let her down. She pushed it aside. ‘Most strongly!’ she added with emphasis. ‘You will leave us at once.’

His eyes darted a look of furious intensity in her direction, and then he bowed, his mouth set in a harsh line.

‘Good day, Mrs Carnegie! And to you—And you—’ He bent his head towards her parents, deliberately excluding John Campbell.

Then he turned sharply on his heel and in a final swirl of tartan left the garden.

With satisfaction and relief Isobel saw the gate close behind him. But as she turned to take her father’s arm she had an odd sense that something vibrantly alive, some promise of excitement and adventure, had gone with their unwanted guest. Everyone around her seemed to have become suddenly curiously flat and dull, from John Campbell in his powdered wig and snuff-coloured coat, to her mother in her grey silk. Even the roses looked faded.

They walked slowly together towards the house, regaining their customary composed good manners with each step.

‘Who is that objectionable young man?’ Andrew Reid asked as they went. ‘You seemed to be acquainted with him.’

‘Yes,’ admitted John Campbell, with a glance at Isobel. ‘It is a long story, and one scarcely fit for a lady’s ears. Suffice it to say that Hector MacLean is the penniless chieftain of an insignificant clan, and the latest in a long line of thieves and scoundrels.’

‘You called him a murderer,’ Isobel reminded him.

John halted, frowning slightly. After a moment he said: ‘Yes, Mrs Carnegie. And I fear I did not use the word lightly.’ There was another pause, and then his voice fell so that they could scarcely hear him. ‘But it was because of his father I used the word. And in memory of
my
father whom Alan MacLean killed in furtherance of a cattle raid, when I was still a child. For that, though I would not take the Highland way of revenge, I can never forgive, nor forget.’

Impulsively, Isobel took his hand in hers, her eyes warm with sympathy.

‘Then I am glad indeed that I sent him away - and only sorry I did not do it before you came on the scene, to have such terrible memories brought to mind.’
 

‘Thank you for that,’ he said, huskily. ‘For my part I regret deeply that you were subjected to so insulting an offer. There can, I fear, be no doubt of his motives. Though how he dared to come like this, so soon—’ Words failed him, and he broke off.

Andrew Reid drew Isobel closer to him. ‘We must make sure that in future no such rogue comes near her,’ he said firmly. ‘We who love her must keep her safe from insults of that kind, at all costs.’

‘Most certainly,’ agreed John, with decision. ‘And you know you will have my assistance in that, to the limits of my power.’

Chapter Two

Hector MacLean might be the first suitor to be attracted to Isobel by her late husband’s great wealth, but he was certainly not the last.
 

In fact two more chance callers were at the door on the very next day, and after that the flow of eager visitors never ceased. Few were as open about their intentions as Hector. Some came to inquire after the young widow’s health, a little embarrassed by the fact that they scarcely knew her. Others pretended to long acquaintance or a distant family relationship to try to gain access to her. But Isobel saw none of them. With her agreement, her father turned the most ineligible from the door, and her mother received the more presentable in the parlour and entertained them politely over tea and cakes. All went away disappointed.

Only John Campbell was admitted freely to see Isobel, and more and more she came to value his quiet good manners, his air of strength and sound common sense. For two years of her life she had borne single-handed all the burdens of caring for a man she did not love and scarcely knew. Now the thought of being protected and cherished and cared for was very appealing. But she felt the need to give it a little more time, to make quite sure that she wanted to share her life with him. She understood so little of what marriage meant, and there was no reason to hurry. Meanwhile she walked in the garden with John at her side, and told him her feelings, and enjoyed his kindly, loving attentiveness.

It was her father who had all the anxieties to face. It was he who had a bolt attached to the garden gate, and made sure she went nowhere unattended, and dealt with the troublesome suitors. And he knew very well that it was not simply her fortune and her beauty that attracted these men, but also the fact that Isobel the widow was a virgin still, untouched and unawakened. It was very well known that James Carnegie had suffered an apoplectic fit on the evening of their wedding day, and lain speechless and paralysed ever after. Most of the men who flocked to the door had been waiting eagerly for the past two years, expecting every hour to hear of James Carnegie’s death. That it had not come sooner was, Andrew knew, due largely to Isobel’s devoted care.

‘I think,’ he said proudly to John one day, ‘there’s not another girl in Scotland who’d have kept her marriage vows so faithfully with no hope of anything in return. And it’s not as if he had very much to offer before he was ill—A fortune, of course, and he was a kindly man—But old enough to be her father, and with no good looks to speak of—’ He sighed. ‘Many times I’ve wished we’d never urged the match on her, but there—We can’t know what’s to come.’

‘And perhaps she’s the better for it,’ John consoled him. ‘For was she not a little wilful in her younger days? The past years have calmed and matured her. I watched her grow up through the months of her married life. The man who wins her now will be fortunate indeed.’

Andrew Reid looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Aye, very fortunate, my friend. And he’ll have to be something of a hero to be worthy of my girl.’ He saw John’s face fall, and smiled kindly. ‘We’ll see—We’ll see—’ he said.

He’s a fair few years older than Isobel,
he was thinking,
and no more good looking than James Carnegie. But a good man, making a name for himself in his quiet way. And he cares for her, that’s plain. If she should want him, she could do worse. Time will tell.

His greatest pleasure these days lay in watching the colour return to his daughter’s cheeks, and the pretty girlish roundness that months of sleeplessness and constant anxiety had worn away. He thought proudly that she was like the summer countryside itself, with that complexion of honey and rose, those eyes blue as the morning sky, that silken hair the colour of ripened corn: lovelier far than her mother in her younger days, though she too had been a beauty once.

As the days passed Isobel began to feel as if she were slowly awakening from a bad dream. The past two years became gradually a merciful blur in her memory, and she began instead to remember her life before her marriage: the simple pleasures of family life, the walks and picnics, the laughter and games. But those things seemed to have gone for ever, and she had not yet found whatever pleasures life now had to offer. Sometimes, now and then, she felt a yearning restlessness, an uneasy longing for something unknown and unrecognised. She had strange dreams, in some of which the Highlander in the orchard played a part, in ways that disturbed and excited her. In her waking hours, she was not bored exactly, but felt all the same that something was missing.

It rained heavily one Sunday morning about three weeks after the funeral, and Isobel agreed to have her coach brought to the door to convey herself, her parents, and her maid, Janet, to the Kirk for the morning service.

‘I’m beginning to fear we’re haunted by Highlanders,’ exclaimed her mother, as her father gave the coachman his orders to move.

‘Oh?’ enquired Isobel. The memory of the Highlander in the garden still had power to bring the colour to her cheeks. ‘Why is that?’

‘There’s another one skulking out there just now, looking as if he’s up to no good. Did I not tell you of the man who was gazing into the window of Widow Frazer’s shop last Wednesday forenoon? Very odd, for I can’t imagine he had need of ribbons and laces - soap perhaps, by the smell of him, but that’s another matter. They seem to be popping up all over the place wherever I go. I do hope it doesn’t bode ill for us, with all these rumours of that tiresome young man across the water—’

‘Och, come now, Margaret my dear, surely to goodness a man can do his shopping in town without giving cause to think the Pretender’s upon us? Maybe he wanted some knick knack for his sweetheart back home. After all, they are but men, if barbarous in dress and behaviour. Clean them and dress them like ourselves and teach them English and give them some education, and you’d scarcely be able to tell the difference. Take John Campbell, for instance—’

‘
Oh, John’s quite another matter—And he has passed most of his life amongst us. I don’t think he’d wish to call himself a Highlander now. He would agree with us on that score. No, John now, he’s—’
 

Isobel was glad to listen to the ensuing discussion of John’s virtues, until the church was reached.

The service was long and the sermon impassioned, and when they emerged at last into the fresh air the rain had long since given way to brilliant sunshine. Isobel would dearly have loved to walk home, but her father bundled them into the coach, saying it was already long past dinner time, and they set off down the street at a steady pace.

A little further on, the coach rounded a corner and then lurched suddenly, coming to a shuddering halt.

Andrew Reid put his head out of the window and called to the coachman. After a moment or two of a shouted exchange he drew back and said quickly: ‘There’s been an accident ahead—Some old woman hurt, he thinks—I’ll go and see—Wait here.’

He scrambled out, closing the door behind him, and disappeared from view.

‘Poor old soul!’ murmured Isobel. ‘Do you think we should go and help?’

‘Your father will let us know if there’s anything we can do,’ her mother reassured her.

They waited quietly, talking of nothing in particular, while a few minutes passed. And then all of a sudden the coach quivered, jolted, and started forward at an alarming speed.

Eyes wide, Isobel clung to the door, crying: ‘Oh, mother, the old woman! Oh, what can he be thinking of?’

And then she thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of her father, white-faced, horrified, pinned to one side by two rough tartan-clad figures, while behind them a third held a knife to the coachman’s throat.
 

‘Oh dear God, who is driving? What’s happened?’

Her mother screamed, and flew to the door, trying to force it open. Isobel grasped her.

‘No, no! You’ll be killed at this speed. Oh, sit still, mother dear—Janet, help me!’

Together they pulled Mrs Reid to safety, and she subsided onto the seat, sobbing wildly. ‘Oh, it’s the Highlanders, I know it is! We shall all be murdered in our beds!’

‘Nonsense,’ said Isobel as calmly as she could, hoping her mother had not seen who had her father prisoner.
If
that had been real - perhaps after all she had imagined it. ‘And we’re not in our beds,’ she added.

It was doubtful comfort, and had little effect on Margaret Reid. So distraught was she that it was not for some time that Isobel realised they had left the town and were travelling fast through the countryside. It was not a reassuring sight, but she did not risk speaking of it.