A Dark and Distant Shore (111 page)

‘What would you suggest?’

‘How should I know? Not, I beg of you, temperance, or soup kitchens for the poor, or Bibles for the heathen. That kind of thing doesn’t need brains, only goodwill. You must have learned something in China, surely? About trade, or painting, or Ming vases, or opium.’

Amy chuckled. ‘I can’t imagine any kind of respectable occupation where a knowledge of opium would come in useful – if I had any! Except medicine, I suppose. But I do know quite a lot about Chinese art.’ She said it thoughtfully, because it
was
an idea.

‘There you are, then. Antiques.’ It was said as if all that was needed was a little application.

Vilia fascinated Amy, who loved beautiful things. She could see that her mama-in-law must have been exquisite when young. She still was – thin, delicately made, brittle. Not unlike a piece of fine porcelain without the translucence. Definitely without the translucence. Amy had no idea what she was thinking behind that crisp manner, sometimes charming, occasionally domineering, always enigmatic. She knew that she herself had been summed up, but had no notion of whether she had been found wanting. Gideon didn’t know either.

‘My dear, I gave up trying to analyse Vilia when I was five. Take her as you find her. At least she doesn’t patronize you – or Madge, for that matter – as she does poor Isa. She’s always been impatient with what she calls “wilting lilies”. I’ve sometimes thought she was the worst possible person to bring up my unfortunate little Lizzie. Juliana, too, for that matter.’

Amy had become very good at putting two and two together, and thought she now had a picture of what had happened with Gideon and Juliana. He, who had always tried to detach himself from human involvement, had found himself pitchforked, at a moment of complex inner turmoil, into a situation that would have touched a harder heart than his. Amy didn’t think that any normal man, finding Juliana alone and desolate in Lucknow, could have failed to become involved, especially – she reflected with a pang – as it seemed that Juliana was small and pretty, and had very taking ways. Amy had always regretted her own height, and air of competence, and undistinguished looks. In recent months, however, she had stopped being quite so afraid of Juliana, because her marriage to Gideon had developed a feeling of solid stability. It still lacked the passion that, wistfully, she would have hoped for, but they were true kindred spirits, and knew it. The baby had helped, too.

Before they came, Gideon, who had paid three hurried visits north since their return from China, had warned Amy to control her tongue on the subject of Kinveil, for where that was concerned Vilia had no sense of humour at all.

‘And where other things are concerned?’

He had wrinkled his brows a little and said, ‘I don’t know, any more. I suppose humour doesn’t die, but hers has been rather in abeyance for a long time now. She hasn’t had an easy time; never in all her life, when one thinks about it. It doesn’t show in obvious ways, but I can tell you that nowadays she’s a damned autocratic old lady!’

The autocratic old lady, presiding over the Christmas festivities, showed a distinct tendency to patronize Ian Barber as well as his wife; their astonishingly dull daughters, the eldest of whom was now fourteen, she simply ignored. Ian had recovered well from the accident at the Reform meeting, although it had made him nervous of crowds. Not, he explained earnestly, that he feared another assault upon his person, but his impaired sight was a handicap. Too often, he saw things that weren’t there, or failed to see things that were. Also, he thought that perhaps he wasn’t really cut out for public speaking.

Madge, who could see that Jermyn was just about to say, ‘Amen to that!’ intervened hurriedly. ‘Perhaps it’s just as well. You look far too piratical, with that patch, to make a really convincing social reformer!’

Ian, taking her seriously, said in distress, ‘Oh dear, I hope not. There seems to be no alternative. Isa and the girls assure me that a glass eye wouldn’t be the thing at all!’

‘It’s of no importance, anyway,’ Vilia remarked. ‘Glenbraddan needs you more than the Reformers do, now the Act has gone through at last.’

‘Yes, but there remains a great deal to be done. The Act didn’t go far enough. Only the urban labourers have benefited, and rural labourers are no better off than they were before. The first priority, however, is to frame the Scottish version of the Act that has just gone through for England and Wales.’

Amy said, ‘I am sure that Mr Randall is at a loss, as I am, to know why a separate Act for Scotland is necessary.’ Gideon glared at her, but she returned him a look of angelic innocence, and went on, ‘Couldn’t Parliament simply have incorporated the Scottish provisions in the Act they’ve just passed?’

Ian gasped in something very near outrage. ‘Oh, no! You must understand that when the Treaty of Union between Scotland and England came into effect on May the first, 1707...’

Twenty minutes later, Vilia brought his discourse to an arbitrary end. ‘I believe we are all sufficiently enlightened, Ian, thank you. And now that we have finished dinner, Fraser tells me there is a messenger from Glenbraddan to see you. He is in the dungeon.’

Amy, suppressing an almost insuppressible giggle, could see that Madge was in the same straits. Kinveil wasn’t exactly homey.

When Ian joined them in the Gallery a little later, it was to say that he was leaving for Glenbraddan almost at once. ‘No, nothing wrong,’ he assured his wife. ‘You know I was expecting the gentlemen from the Reform League soon after the New Year? Well, their arrangements had to be changed at short notice, and it seems they are at Glenbraddan now. They sent a telegram, but apparently Johnson thought it could wait until someone happened to be coming this way.’ He shook his head disapprovingly.

‘It seems unnecessary to set out tonight,’ Vilia said. ‘Must you?’

‘They have to leave again the day after tomorrow.’

‘New Year’s Day? Well, really!’ She said with some asperity. ‘They’re English, I suppose?’

‘Yes Aunt Vilia.’

Grace said, ‘But Ian, it’s after eight, now. You can’t possibly get back to Glenbraddan tonight!’

‘No, mother. But the moon is full, and the snow makes it as bright as day. I should think I might reach Jock Tamson’s before the moon goes down, and that will shorten tomorrow’s journey considerably, and give us several more hours for our discussions.’

It was the most marvellous night, if, as Theo remarked
sotto voce,
one cared for that sort of thing. There was a blanket of snow over everything, thick enough to muffle sound, but still thin enough for the going not to be difficult. Scarcely an inch of the sky was free from its dusting of stars, and the moon shone brilliantly, striking sparks off the frosted snow, and throwing long black shadows as thick and sharp-edged as woodcuts. It was as if the whole firmament was laid out on display, above and below, for the loch was a perfect mirror of the heavens, with every planet and nebula and star reproduced with pinpoint exactitude on its clear face. The air crackled with cold.

When Ian was no more than a moving silhouette against the landscape, the men went back indoors, rubbing their hands and stamping their feet to restore the circulation.

‘My God!’ Jermyn said, back in the Gallery. ‘Rather Ian than me!’ And then, in response to an exasperated glance from his wife, thought to add, ‘Don’t worry, Isa! He’s well wrapped up, and the exercise will keep him warm. Yes – that’s true, isn’t it? Maybe he’s got the right idea, after all.’

‘Jermyn!’ said his grandmother forbiddingly.

Kinveil kept the hours Vilia decreed, and she was by nature a late bird, so it was after midnight before they were allowed to retire. Gideon pulled Amy to him, his teeth chattering, and said, ‘Christ, but Lavinia was right! What a freezing barracks of a place this is! And how dared you, madam, invite that tiresome young man to give us a lecture on Scots law!’

She chuckled. ‘Because it’s the funniest thing watching all the Barbers hang on his words, while everyone else furiously tries to think of a way to stop him!’

He gave a chitter of laughter. ‘I suppose it is. Come here, you wicked woman, and let’s get warm.’

But the blessed warmth had scarcely begun to seep into their chilled bodies, when there was a violent rapping on the door.

It was Vilia’s voice, raw with urgency. ‘Gideon, come! Come quickly and bring Theo! Now, this minute!’

With an exclamation, he struggled out of bed and pulled his trousers on, tucking the nightshirt into them, and gathering up as many layers of cardigan and jacket as he could find without wasting time on it. With a hasty instruction to Amy to stay where she was, he picked up the oil lamp and set off downstairs to hammer on Theo’s door. There was no response, and he threw it open impatiently, but Theo wasn’t there. It didn’t look as if he had been, either. Had he gone downstairs already, or... Gideon groaned.
Not
the blacksmith in the village! Surely not! Oh, well. Bad luck, Jermyn. He beat a tattoo on his nephew’s door, saying, ‘You’re needed. Be quick.’

When he reached the courtyard, he almost collided with the housekeeper, swaddled in a blanket, and with a plaid over her shoulders and a long, grey pigtail dangling down her back.

‘What is it?’ he demanded. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Och, Mr Gideon! Go out to the causeway. Alec Fraser iss out there but he will not be managing on his own, and I am on my way to warm up some water and get the whisky.’

‘What
is
it? Is it Mr Barber? Has something happened?’

‘Mr Barber? No, no! It iss Sorley McClure. He iss lying out there on the causeway and he iss fast asleep! Mistress Cameron saw him from her window. Chust like a starfish, he iss, flat on his face. It gave her a terrible turn. He hass been overcome by the cold, she says. Och, she iss in an awful state, so she iss! Go on, Mr Gideon. Go and giff Alec Fraser a hand.’

They carried Sorley in to Vilia’s carpeted and panelled drawing-room, the warmest room in the place apart from the kitchen, and Gideon and Fraser, with Jermyn’s help, stripped him and wrapped him in layer after layer of plaids and shawls. He was ice cold all over, in a state that looked to Gideon more like a last sleep than unconsciousness. He had always been thin, but the muffling clothes he had taken to wearing in recent years had hidden the fact that he had diminished almost to a skeleton.

Vilia and the housekeeper came back, with stone hot water bottles and hot tea and milk and whisky. All Vilia’s self-possession was gone. While Gideon and the others chafed Sorley’s feet and hands, and slapped the unresponding face, she hovered, distracted and useless, murmuring, ‘Oh, Sorley. Oh, Sorley. What should we do? There was a man in the village – what was his name? The same thing. The doctor said... Oh,
God!
What did he say? Do you remember, Alec? Should we give him whisky, or shouldn’t we give him whisky?
I can’t remember
!’

One of the footmen came in to pile more logs on the fire, and Gideon said, ‘Can you warm up some blankets in the kitchen? Then we can get some direct heat on his flesh. Thank you. Alec, help me move this sofa closer to the fire. That’s it. And bring the candle stands nearer; even that might help. Come on, Sorley! Wake up, man.
Come on
!’
He slapped the unresisting face again, and rubbed the hands and forearms with all the energy he had.

This was Sorley, whom he had known all his life, who had looked after them all when they were babies, and then toddlers, and then boys, and taught them so many things. Who had always been there, with his narrow, friendly eyes, and his reassuring sanity, and that funny, amoral realism of his. And the smile that almost made you believe in God. ‘Come on, Sorley!’ he muttered again. ‘
Come on
!’

And then Theo appeared. ‘Oh-h-h-h, dear,’ he said, leaning negligently against the door frame. ‘I wondered why all the lights were blazing. Sorley caught cold, has he?’

Gideon could feel his face tighten. ‘Don’t stand there being so bloody superior,’ he said through his teeth. ‘Come and help.’

After a minute, Theo did. ‘Frozen, isn’t he? Where the devil has he been?’

Alec Fraser said, ‘He was saying he wass going up to see Bessie, his cousin, you know? It iss about a mile there, and another back.’

‘He shouldn’t have got as cold as this in a couple of miles.’

‘What the hell does it matter?’ Gideon exclaimed, exasperated. ‘He’s an old man, Theo! He shouldn’t have been out at all. Oh, there you are, Jermyn! Have those been warmed? Give them over here, then.’

Sorley’s head moved of its own accord. His eyes didn’t open, and his face was still slack, but he was trying to say something. It came out as an almost inaudible wheeze, ‘Mistress... Mistress...’

Vilia pushed Gideon violently aside and fell on her knees beside Sorley, both his hands in hers. ‘I’m here, Sorley. It’s all right. I’m here. You’ll be all right.’ Her face was pouring with tears that she didn’t seem even to be aware of.

‘I wass...’ And then something Gideon couldn’t hear. And then ‘...to help. Always knew what you... I knew.’

‘I know you did, Sorley. I know you did!’ There was a terrible intensity in her face, as if she were trying to will him to stay alive.

‘All life... This time too... But I did...’ His voice was so dreadfully slurred that Gideon could scarcely make out even the short, obvious words. ‘Only one... Only one left...’

‘Oh, Sorley. It’s all right, it’s all right! Don’t leave me, Sorley.’ Vilia’s voice broke. ‘
Don’t leave me, Sorley!
’

His eyes opened, and he tried to smile. But it was only a glimmer. The freckles were livid against his white face, and his sight was blurred and blank. ‘It iss a long time since we wass bairns. I did it, though. Only...’

His voice faded, but his breathing resounded through the room. Everyone was still and silent, knowing there was nothing to be done. Then he said very clearly, ‘Mistress Vilia. Mistress...’ And that was all. He gave a shuddering gasp, and then a kind of rictus took him, and then he was gone.