An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition (69 page)

But to Iona the most extraordinary, thing about London was the music of its bells. Not only church bells ringing out joyfully, but the bells rung by the dustmen, the sweeps, the knife-grinders, muffin men, old clothes men and postmen. Bells mingling with the street cries of “Chairs to mend”, “Scissors to grind”, and the haunting high notes of “Sweet Lavender”.

“I always wondered what London would be like,” Iona exclaimed, entranced by all she saw and heard.

“I will show you all you wish to see, my darling,” the Duke answered, “and then I shall take you back to Skaig. I wish above all things to be alone with you there.”

The implication in his voice made her flush, but her lips smiled as she answered,

“And I too would like that – above all things.”

He drew her close to him and everything was forgotten, the horses trotted on, passing the famous clubs of St. James’s Street, fine squares, elegant shops, a man standing in the pillory, three women being flogged through the streets, but Iona had eyes only for the Duke and ears only for the sweet things he was whispering to her. She was startled when finally the coach drew up outside a house.

“Where are we?” she asked a little apprehensively.

“We are in Berkeley Square,” the Duke replied, “and this is the house of my aunt.”

Iona looked apprehensive and he added understandingly,

“Do not be afraid, dear heart, I wish her to meet you.”

The door of the coach was opened and the Duke assisted Iona to alight.

When she entered the big hall with its pillars of green marble and its wide bronzed and gilt staircase, she felt both awed and overpowered. They walked on a thick rose-tinted carpet up the stairway and Iona was miserably conscious of her shabby and travel-stained appearance.

For the first time she noticed the Duke’s elegance, the exquisite cut of his pearl-grey velvet coat with its sapphire and diamond buttons that matched his ring and the pin in his lace cravat.

She had a glimpse of herself in the mirrors that decorated the brocade-panelled walls of the wide landing at the top of the stairs, and knew that though her hair gleamed brightly and her eyes were huge with excitement, her gown and cloak were unworthy of a lady’s drawing room.

The footman flung open a pair of double doors.

“The Duke and Duchess of Arkrae, my Lady,” he announced in stentorian tones.

Iona had no time to recover from the surprise of hearing her title for the first time, for at the other end of an enormous, over-furnished room sat a most formidable old lady. She was white haired, sharp nosed, and obviously of a great age, but her glance was shrewd and penetrating as the Duke bent to kiss the claw-like hand she held out to him.

“This is a surprise, Ewan,” she said in a strangely deep voice. “I had no idea you had come South.”

“I have been here some days, Aunt Anne,” the Duke replied, “but I have unfortunately not had the opportunity of calling upon you until now.”

“And whom have you brought with you?” the old woman asked, her sharp eyes taking in every detail of Iona’s appearance and being well aware of the manner in which she had been announced.

“I have the honour to present my wife,” the Duke answered. “Iona, this is my aunt, my father’s only surviving sister, the Dowager Countess of Tyndrum.”

Iona swept to the ground in a low curtsey.

The Countess’s eyes rested on her red head and said in a voice with a strange note in it,

“Why was I not told of your marriage, Ewan? And who, are your wife’s relations?”

“I will answer those questions one at a time,” the Duke replied, “but first permit me to offer my wife a chair. She has been travelling for some days and is, I am afraid, somewhat fatigued.”

As he spoke, he drew forward a low chair and set it at the Countess’s right hand. Then he took up his position on the hearth rug, his back to the fire. The Countess stared at Iona, who, conscious of her close scrutiny, felt embarrassed and glanced up appealingly at the Duke. But his face was stern and she wondered what had upset him until he said calmly and quietly,

“You asked me two questions Aunt Anne. First, why you had not been informed of my marriage. No one has learned of it until now save two people who were present when it took place, you are the first of the family to be told.”

“I suppose I should be flattered at that,” the Countess remarked sarcastically.

“Indeed, I think you will be when I tell you a little more,” the Duke replied seriously. “It has some bearing upon your second question as to who are my wife’s relations, but before I speak of that, I have a tale to unfold which I think will interest both you ladies – you, my aunt, who are a MacCraggan by birth, and Iona, my wife, who now takes her place with me at the head of the family.”

“What is this story?” the Countess asked impatiently.

She picked up an ebony stick from beside her chair and held it in her hands as if the feel of it afforded her a sense of protection.

“My story is this,” the Duke began. ‘When I was a boy, I had a favourite cousin. She was older than I, but Letricia – your only daughter, Aunt Anne – had an ageless charm for everyone who met her. There was, I well believe, never a man, woman or child who, having met Letricia, did not love her, and I was no exception. She was a beautiful creature, and when I went back to Eton after the holidays, I used to dream of her. She was my first love and I have never forgotten her.”

The Countess made a restless movement.

“When Letricia died,” she said sharply, “few people were brave enough to speak about her – to me.”

“Letricia died a long time ago,” the Duke answered, “but I have not forgotten her, nor have you, Aunt Anne. No, you could never forget her, and I would remind you now how lovely Letricia looked when she first fell in love. That was about twenty-one years ago, wasn’t it? When she fell in love with Roderick Cameron and you forbade her ever to see him again.”

The Countess thumped her stick on the floor.

“Stop!” she said. “How dare you? Be silent! These things shall not be talked of now.”

“That is where you are mistaken,” the Duke replied. “These things must be talked of, they can remain secret no longer, Aunt Anne, and I do not ask that you listen to me I insist that you do so.”

His words were so authoritative that the old woman sank back in her chair, but her face was grim as the Duke continued,

“You forbade Letricia to see Roderick Cameron, but she loved him, and one day when you were away they were married, secretly. You knew nothing of the marriage until six months later when Roderick was killed in a sword fight and Letricia, broken-hearted and unable to conceal her misery, confessed the truth. You were incensed at her deception and even more perturbed by the knowledge that Letricia was with child. You had always been ambitious, Aunt Anne, and now you were at your wit’s end to know what to do when your daughter, whose beauty you had valued so highly, was not only the widow of a penniless second son, but also about to become a mother. You were determined that her chance of social success should not be endangered. With shrewd ingenuity you made arrangements for Letricia to take a holiday in Iona.

“You had inherited a small castle there, an isolated place which no one ever visited. Letricia’s child was born there. It was a girl and was christened by the only name she was ever to own – Iona.”

The Duke’s glance rested for one second on Iona. Her hands were clasped together, her face as she stared up at him as white as the fichu round her neck, her eyes wide with astonishment.

“After Iona was born,” the Duke went on, “you sent Letricia back to Edinburgh, and taking the baby, you set sail for France. It was an arduous journey, but driven by your determination to save the daughter you loved from what you thought was a feckless, insane marriage, you were prepared to endure any discomfort, to surmount any difficulty. You reached France and went to Paris where your cousin, James Drummond, lived in exile – you had always been fond of one another, he had once wished to marry you, and persuaded by your distress, he agreed to take the child and bring her up. Before you left, you made him vow by all that he held most sacred that he would never reveal to your grand-daughter who she was or who were her parents.

“You returned to Scotland. Within a year you had contrived to marry Letricia, who was too miserable to care what happened to her, to the Marquis of Kinbrace. A year after that she died in childbirth, and her baby with her. And so you lost your second grandchild, Aunt Anne.”

There was a pause, a pause in which neither the Countess nor Iona moved, then the Duke went on,

“When I first saw Iona, my wife, she reminded me of someone. For a short while I could not think who it was, and then I remembered only one MacCraggan who had that peculiar combination of red hair and green eyes. It was obvious, when I compared the two that Iona was a MacCraggan, but of which branch of the family I was not sure.

“But when she told me inadvertently that she had been born in Iona, I stumbled on my first clue to the truth. You had covered your tracks skilfully, Aunt Anne, but servants have long memories. Not far from Skaig there lives an old couple that were at one time caretakers in your castle at Iona. I talked to them. They were loyal, but they were not clever enough to deceive me, and I pretended to know a lot more than I did. Gradually the whole story revealed itself.

“When I was in Paris a short time ago, I visited a lady who had devoted many years of her life to looking after Rory MacCraggan. He was a first cousin of yours and I am sure you remember him well. I went to Paris to collect some heirlooms that he had taken into exile and which I considered should be brought back to Skaig. The woman with whom Rory had lived spoke to me of James Drummond. She was but recounting tales of other exiles who had fled to France after the Rising in ’15. She happened to mention that James Drummond was dead and she wondered what had happened to his ward – a pretty girl with red hair and green eyes who had always seemed so devoted to him.

“It was not very difficult to piece the story together, Aunt Anne, the story of Letricia, your daughter and the story of Iona, your grand-daughter.”

The Duke’s voice died away but seemed to linger in the very atmosphere.

Unable to control herself, Iona started to her feet.

“Is this true?” she asked in a bewildered voice. “Really true?”

“You must ask your grandmother that question,” the Duke answered softly.

Iona looked down at the old lady. The Countess’s knuckles were white and she gripped her ebony stick with all the strength that was left in her.

For a moment Iona thought she was about to cry out and denounce the Duke as a fabricator of lies, then she saw that the old lady was crying.

Impulsively, with a lovely unhesitating gesture, Iona knelt down beside her chair.

“Am I really your grand-daughter?” she asked, and her voice trembled.

The tears ran slowly down the Countess’s wrinkled cheeks. She put up her hand and touched Iona’s cheek. For a moment she could not speak, and when she could, she said brokenly,

“You are very like Letricia, my dear.”

For a moment the two women clung to each other and both their faces were wet with tears, then the Duke drew Iona to her feet. He held her within the shelter of his arm.

“There are two things I would ask, Aunt Anne. One is that we may stay here tonight, and the other that tomorrow you will have a reception at which you will present Iona to your friends.”

The Countess looked up at him and wiped her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief.

“It shall be as you wish, Ewan,” she said. “I am too old to fight against you or anyone else. It shall be as you wish.”

The Duke drew a watch from his waistcoat, pocket.

“And now for a short while we must leave you,” he said. “We will return for dinner, but before then we have another call to make.”

Instinctively Iona looked down at her dress and the Duke said with a smile,

“If you hurry you have time to change.”

“Change?” Iona questioned.

The Duke nodded.

“I brought your trunk with me and Cathy too, in case you should need her. When we arrived here, I sent the coach to fetch her from the hotel where I have been staying pending your arrival. If I am not mistaken, she will at this moment be downstairs in the Hall waiting to hear if Aunt Anne will accept us as her guests or if we must repair to an hotel.”

“You must both stay here, of course,” the Countess said, and for a moment a faint wintry smile twisted her lips. “You meant to have your way, whatever I might say to the contrary. You don’t deceive me, my boy.”

“I’m glad of that,” the Duke replied and bent to help the Countess to rise from her chair.

With one hand she supported herself on her ebony stick, with the other she reached up and touched Iona’s red curls.

“You are very like Letricia,” she said again, “and I loved my daughter. Make what arrangements you wish, children, I am going to bed. I have a feeling that you should prefer the house to yourselves. I must gather my strength for the morrow when I shall present my grand-daughter – my only grandchild – to the
beau-monde.”

She went slowly across the room.

The Duke opened the door and turned to Iona.

“Change quickly,” he said. “I can allow you but twenty minutes. Case you manage in that time?”

“Of course I can,” Iona smiled.

But it was difficult because there was so much she wanted to tell Cathy. It was almost like coming home to see her sweet honest face again, to hear her soft Highland voice.

But in twenty minutes Iona’s hair was skilfully arranged and she was arrayed in a gown of blue muslin sprigged with flowers. It was not an elaborate dress but it became her, and her reflection in the mirror told her that the Duke would find her beautiful. She was just about ready to descend the stairs in order to join him when there came a knock on the door. The Countess’s maid stood outside.

“Her Ladyship’s compliments,” she said to Cathy, “and she thought Her Grace might wish to borrow a fur cape as the evenings are growing cold. She also asked me to inform Her Grace that she has ordered her dressmaker to call early tomorrow morning, for her Ladyship is sure Her Grace will require many gowns for her trousseau.”