The Fairbairn Girls (25 page)

Diana wavered nervously but Laura grabbed the handle and, turning it, pushed it open with a flourish before striding fearlessly into the room. Diana followed on tiptoe and looked around anxiously.

‘It looks pretty empty to me,’ Laura said, taking in the smooth brocade counterpane on the bed, the oak dressing table and bookcase, still filled with Freddie’s books. There was a faint, musty smell but the window was closed so that was to be expected.

Suddenly Diana gave a shrill cry of fear as she pointed to the lower shelf of the bedside table. ‘Look!’ she choked.

Laura bent down swiftly and picked up a copy of the
Scottish Herald
. Her eyes flew to the date. April 30th, 1901.

‘Put it back!’ Diana whispered in panic.

Laura replaced the newspaper but she was in no hurry to leave the room.

‘Come
on
!’ Diana pleaded from the doorway.

‘Why should we be frightened of our own brother?’

‘You know what he’s like! Look what he did to the stable boy! He’ll go mad if he finds out we know he’s here.’

Laura left the room, slowly closing the door behind her, deep in thought. ‘I wonder how long he’s been back? He must have heard about Henry by now. I suppose, knowing the place as well as he does, he’s been living a nocturnal life, helping himself to food and drink and anything he wants while we all slept.’

Diana shuddered. ‘I want to go home with Robert. I’ll never be able to sleep here tonight. Are we going to tell the police? That would be the best thing to do, wouldn’t it?’

Laura paused halfway down the wide staircase to the great hall and looked out of the window at the mountains in the distance on this warm May day. ‘Could you live with yourself if you did that?’ she asked. ‘Sent your own brother, your own flesh and blood to the gallows after all these years?’

Diana looked at her, concerned. ‘You’re not thinking of keeping it a secret, are you? After what he did? After he beat Hamish to death and then stole the family jewels, breaking Mama’s heart and bringing shame on the family? Freddie was rotten to the core. He was a cruel boy who put Henry down all the time because Henry was more popular.’

Laura turned to face Diana. ‘You’re talking about the Freddie who was only seventeen when he committed those crimes and who was so frightened he ran away. He’ll be twenty-five now and he may have repented. We must talk to him before we go rushing off to the police, or,’ she added, gripping Diana’s wrist, ‘before we tell anyone he’s here.’

‘I must tell Robert,’ Diana said instantly.

‘Give me twenty-four hours,’ Laura insisted. ‘That’s all I ask. Think about it, Di. Do you want to have to live with the thought for the rest of your life that you sent your brother to his death, when he may well have repented and made amends?’

Diana hesitated. ‘If he’d made amends then why is he here? In hiding?’ she asked grudgingly.

‘That’s exactly what I want to find out.’ Tears rushed to Laura’s eyes. ‘We’ve lost Henry. Just think how wonderful it would be, especially for Mama, if Freddie had returned full of contrition for his past sins.’

‘All right,’ Diana replied uncertainly, ‘but I don’t like having secrets from Robert.’

Laura wrapped a black shawl around her shoulders and slipped into Eleanor’s room, leaving the door open a fraction. It was nearly midnight and everyone had gone to bed, including the servants.

The silence and stillness were almost palpable and all she could hear was the beating of her heart. Freddie had been violent and brutal and after being on the run for nearly eight years he might be even more so. Nevertheless the situation had to be resolved. One thing was certain: in spite of what he’d done she didn’t want to be the one responsible for the law to seek just retribution.

A footfall suddenly alerted her and at that moment she saw a flicker of candlelight pass through the open crack in Eleanor’s door. Jumping up she flung the door wide, whispering, ‘Freddie?’

Stepping into the corridor she saw he was standing rigidly with his back to her, holding the candlestick aloft. In silhouette he appeared to be wearing a long, heavy coat.

‘Freddie! It’s me. Laura,’ she whispered urgently.

He raised the candle higher and then, turning very slowly, stepped towards her. For a moment she thought he was going to strike her and she braced herself, looking up into his bearded face which she could see more clearly now. Then her heart started hammering faster than ever.

This man wasn’t Freddie. This was a tall, powerfully built stranger who was standing menacingly before her, glaring into her eyes.

‘Who are you?’ she asked, fear making her voice shrill.

He pursed his lips and raised his forefinger to them. ‘Hush. I won’t hurt you. I’m not here to do any harm,’ he whispered. ‘Freddie, as you call him, he asked me to come here.’ His accent was French and he was smiling down at her now. ‘We can talk?
Oui?
’

Dumbfounded, Laura backed away. ‘Who are you?’ she repeated, hoping she sounded haughty now. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I tell you. Your brother wanted me to come to this castle to do something for him. He gave me instructions. In great detail.’

Laura started walking towards the stairs which led down to the great hall, from where she would be able to raise the alarm by striking the old brass dinner gong.

‘So he’s sent you to rob the place for him, has he?’ she asked angrily, as she gripped the banister in case she fell in the darkness. The shock of coming face-to-face with this strange man had numbed her feelings, making her fearless.

He followed her closely, still holding the candle aloft as they descended together.

‘Rob?’ he queried.

‘Steal. Take what doesn’t belong to you,’ she said harshly.

‘
Au contraire!
’ he retorted loudly. ‘I have brought you something. It is a long story. Can we sit somewhere? I want to explain.’

Once down in the hall Laura lit an oil lamp and set it on a table near the gong before seating herself on a carved bench. Only then was she able to have a good look at this weird intruder who was being so polite.

To her surprise he looked clean and tidy, and his hair and beard were neatly trimmed. He had the ruddy complexion of someone who works outdoors and his hands gave testimony to the fact he was a manual labourer. What would Freddie be doing with a man like this?

‘Let me introduce myself,’ he began with strange formality under the circumstances. ‘My name is Pierre Dussord and I’m a gardener. I work in the Tuileries Garden in Paris; the most lavish gardens in the whole of France.’ His dark eyes beamed with pride as he spoke and he gesticulated with his hands as he added, ‘And you are Lady . . .?’

‘Laura,’ she replied. This encounter was taking on a dreamlike quality. Was she really sitting in the hall in the middle of the night making polite conversation with a French gardener who’d been secretly living in the castle in Freddie’s old room?

‘How do you know my brother?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘He liked to sit in the gardens. He said they reminded him of Lochlee.’

‘So he’s living in Paris?’

Pierre frowned. ‘You did not know? Did no one tell you?’ he asked uneasily.

‘Tell us what?’

‘M’Lord Fairbairn – he died several months ago.’

The flicker of hope that Freddie was still alive dissolved in a heartbeat at that moment. ‘He’s dead? How did he die?’

He spoke haltingly and averted his gaze. ‘He died of syphilis. I promised him before he died that I’d come here and carry out his last wish.’

Laura blanched. ‘What, in secret? Creeping around the place in the middle of the night? Why couldn’t you have come as a guest?’

‘He wanted me to . . . how you say? . . . create magic? He said the family had been cursed and he wanted me to lift the curse.’

Laura leaned forward. ‘So it
was
you who removed the Rowan tree?’ Her eyes were sharp with enlightenment. ‘Of course. You’re a gardener. You knew what to do and how to lay fresh turf where the tree had been.’

Pierre nodded. ‘He insisted it must vanish and leave no mark, no trace. He also drew me diagrams of the castle so I’d know which was his room and where I would find food.’

Her eyes widened with amazement. ‘So when did you arrive here?’

‘Two days ago. I go back to Paris tomorrow but I have something to give you first. I was going to put it in an envelope and leave it on the hall table over there,’ he gestured again, ‘but I will give it to you now, to return to your mother.’

He groped in an inner pocket of his coat and drew out a small leather pouch. ‘This is all that he had left and he asked me to bring it back here.’

Laura took the worn and grubby pouch and opened it with shaking hands. Then she pulled out a small pearl brooch which she remembered her mother used to wear, pinned at the throat of a cream lace blouse. It was such a simple, innocent-looking piece of jewellery compared to the dazzling emeralds and diamonds that had been handed down from previous generations, and it brought tears to Laura’s eyes.

‘This is all that was left?’ she asked brokenly.

Pierre nodded. ‘He was destitute at the end. Everything had gone because he’d lived the high life around the capitals of Europe. Especially Paris.’ He paused, as if wondering if he should continue.

‘Go on,’ Laura urged, wiping away the tears from her cheeks.

‘Freddie, he was filled with remorse at the end and feared he’d go to hell,’ Pierre said quietly. ‘He knew he’d sinned and he was truly sorry. I know he wanted to return here but he feared he’d be spotted and so he sent me instead.’

Laura sat weeping for the baby boy she’d seen lying in his cot as the family celebrated the birth of their first son and she wept for the bright-eyed little boy who’d played at being a soldier on the ramparts of the castle and had later grown into an accomplished rider to Papa’s delight. When had it all gone wrong? Had Mama spoilt him by telling him he was the heir to all that surrounded them? Had he become jealous when Henry had been born? Maybe having nine sisters had overwhelmed him and made him feel smothered by femininity?

‘I’m sorry I upset you,’ she heard Pierre say gently. ‘Perhaps I say too much.’

‘I wanted to know,’ she assured him as she sat up and straightened her shoulders. ‘Thank you for telling me everything. My mother will never know the details of Freddie’s death but I shall give her this,’ she continued, opening her hand to reveal the pearl brooch lying in her palm, ‘and I shall tell her Freddie sent it to her, with his love.’

‘Very good,’ he replied, and there was warmth in his voice, ‘because that is the truth.’

Laura stood up and held out her hand. ‘Thank you also for removing the Rowan tree.’

He rose too and gave her a little bow as they shook hands. ‘It was nothing. It was just a little bit of magic and I hope your family enjoys
bonne chance
in the future.’

Wending her way upstairs to bed Laura could hardly believe how the night had unfolded in such an extraordinary way. Would Diana believe a word of what she had to say? The pearl brooch was her only real proof of her strange encounter. That, and the fact that a Parisian gardener had expertly removed the Rowan tree and repaired the damaged soil with fresh turf.

Laura felt that for those who believed in the evil curse only time would tell whether it had been banished or not. She was one who believed that people on the whole make their own good or bad luck and nothing would change that. There was no need to tell anyone the cause of Freddie’s death either; she felt she owed him loyalty about how he’d lived his life during the past few years, but she would stress how he’d repented for the terrible sins he’d committed. It was a life that had been wasted and that was the saddest part of it all.

Laura dreamed of Freddie that night. Dreamed he’d returned to Lochlee, fit and well, and he’d heaped all the stolen jewellery on to the middle of Mama’s bed.

Although two years had passed since the death of Queen Victoria, the ladies of Edinburgh were still flocking to Laura to have their clothes made, especially since official mourning had come to an end. Now they wanted dresses in blue and burgundy, primrose yellow and pink, and for a change the workroom was a riot of brightly-hued fabrics and trimmings.

During the day Laura was too busy to think about the tumultuous changes that were happening to the family back at Lochlee as she, Helen and their two assistants machined and hand-stitched, made delicate buttonholes and added final trimmings to garments from early in the morning until six o’clock in the evening.

The girls chattered and gossiped throughout the day and Laura half-listened idly, but mostly she concentrated on thinking up new designs for her demanding clients. The day seemed to pass swiftly and then the others couldn’t wait to get home to their families or, in Helen’s case, her husband.

That was when Laura felt both lonely and sometimes even abandoned. From a busy little hive of activity her flat suddenly seemed utterly deserted. The silence was almost palpable. She was alone and coming from such a large family this was something she wasn’t used to. Sometimes she visited Mrs Sutherland but mostly she read, favouring the historical novels of Sir Walter Scott, particularly
The Legend of Montrose
, which she was reading for the second time. In comparison to Lizzie, Diana, Beattie and Georgie, who had recently married Shane in a quiet ceremony, her own life was barren.

At twenty-nine there was little chance of her meeting anyone now and she had long since banished her foolish fantasies of Walter Leighton-Harvey falling in love with her. She’d heard nothing of him since his formal and polite reply to her letter of condolence and she figured he’d probably met someone else by now anyway. Looking around her flat she realized it was a work place, a tiny, highly productive factory, and not a home. Not that she blamed anyone else. She’d wanted to be independent and earn her own money and she’d succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. She should be proud of herself and thankful she was not dependent on her family, but she couldn’t help wondering if the price she was paying was too high? No husband. No children. No beautiful home to which she could invite her sisters and their families.