By Eastern windows (34 page)

‘Me? Marry?’ His eyes and voice warmed with sudden amusement. ‘I am too old an Indian to marry again.’

‘You are not old, and you are not an Indian!’ she said indignantly. ‘You have merely reached your prime I would say, and eleven years in India does not take away the fact that you are Scottish.’

He shrugged. ‘Yes, well, India does leave its mark on a man, you know. So many in the military return home pretending to hate India, then spend all their days seeking out the company of fellow Anglo-Indians returned from service there. And many, in the end, do go back.’

‘Will you?’

‘Perhaps. I honestly don't know. I’m employed by the Army and so must go wherever its commanders please to send me. And their pleasure at the moment seems to be that I should remain on the staff in London.’

‘And your servant ... the young Indian?
 
He must surely find Britain a strange and cold place?
 
Will he not wish to return to his family in India someday?’

‘George is not a servant.’ Lachlan turned his horse around. ‘And
I
am his family, Miss Campbell.'

*

After escorting Elizabeth home, Lachlan rode back to the Inn at Callachally where he and George Jarvis were lodged. George was surprised to see him back before evening. ‘I thought you said you stay all day with your mother?’ George said in almost perfect English.

‘No, George, I suddenly remembered an urgent matter that concerns you. Your education, as a matter of fact.’

George's dark eyes flashed. ‘I do all my education in London! For one whole year! There is nothing more I can learn! I know everything!’

Lachlan smiled. ‘You may think you do, George, but you don't. Not by a long shot. So I'm sending you to a school in Edinburgh.’

‘How long?’

‘A year.’

George smiled persuasively. ‘Three months?’

‘A year.’

‘Yes, yes, I go for six months,’ George agreed.

‘A year,’ Lachlan said firmly. ‘You need another year at least.’

George knew it was pointless to argue. When it came to schooling Lachlan could be as strict as he was on the parade ground.
 
He lowered his eyes and sighed.

‘Yes, my father.’

*

Lachlan's plans to build his house at Callachally were thwarted when he discovered that an adjoining strip of land was still under lease to a Dr Donald McLean for a further nineteen years.

‘A lease is a lease, Mr Macquarie,’ said McLean stubbornly. ‘And it was the Duke of Argyll who sold me the lease.’

‘But I bought the land from the Duke of Argyll,’ Lachlan replied. ‘So this land is now mine.’

‘Just so, just so, but this particular strip of your land is legally leased to me. And as I say, a lease is a lease.’

Lachlan was forced to fall back on his second choice of site, and chose Gruline.

*

Elizabeth ventured out with him again on horseback and thought Gruline an even better selection than Callachally. The site was south of the valley, by a lovely fishing stream that ran into Loch Ba. All around were fine woods; and above Gruline the green and purple sweep of Ben More towered in mountainous beauty.

‘And Ulva is only a
kooee-hai
away across Loch Na Keal,’ Lachlan said as they dismounted.

‘What do those words mean?’ Elizabeth asked curiously. ‘George Jarvis used them almost every time he called at your mother's house.’

‘In Hindi the words are
koi hai
, which means, "Is anybody there?"’ Lachlan explained. ‘Nobody ever knocks on a door in India. As soon as they approach the veranda of a house they simply call out "
kooee-hai
" and a servant appears. George Jarvis has never quite lost the habit. My only hope is that he doesn't use it whenever he knocks on the master's door at his school in Edinburgh, as he continually did at his school in London.’

They both laughed.

Still curious, Elizabeth asked, ‘And where did he get the very English name of George Jarvis?’

‘From my wife,’ he replied quietly ‘Her maiden name was Jarvis.’

‘Oh,’ Elizabeth said, wishing she had not asked. Her mind ran riot looking for a change of subject, but her curiosity and mouth ran on the same subject.
  
‘And how … how did George come to be in your care?’

For a moment he did not answer, but when he did, the strangeness of his words shocked her.
 
‘I stole him, Miss Campbell, from a slave-trader in Cochin.’

*

By the end of August the improvements to his mother's farmhouse were finished, the new furniture installed. ‘Now you really will be more comfortable,’ Lachlan told her.

Mrs Macquarie wanted to cry at the loss of her old friendly furniture. These new pieces were like strangers, grand swanky strangers, and she felt very shabby in their presence, least of all comfortable. But she said nothing and pretended to be very pleased, knowing he was only doing his best, trying to make up to her for all her years of frugality.

‘And I've arranged with the stores in Tobermory to supply you with all the wines and groceries you will need, and the bills sent to me.’

‘Wines...’ his mother simply gaped, but minutes later he was gone again, seeing to business, meeting with the carpenters and stonemasons to discuss the plans he had drawn for the building of his own house at Gruline.
 
It was to be of a traditional Georgian design in grey stone, spacious an elegant, but nothing ostentatious or baronial.

 
‘I would like it ready for my return next summer. Is that possible?’

The builders agreed it could be done. ‘But Mr Macquarie,’ said the stonemason, ‘do you not think it's time you had this estate of yours registered? A new owner of a new estate usually means a new name.’

Lachlan was well aware of that. He had already arranged for the Writer of the Signet to come to from Edinburgh to Mull for the registration.

‘And a new registration usually means a party,’ grinned one of the carpenters. ‘A party for all the tenants given by the new Laird.’

Lachlan smiled. He was well aware of that also.

*

The party was a big one. A huge tent had been erected on the site of the house and the weather stayed fine for the outdoor jamboree which was attended by the Maclaines, Macleans, Mackinnons and Campbells, old and young kinsmen, drovers, farmers and tenants, all determined to enjoy the party in true Highland style.

Eventually a silence was called for, tankards and glasses were filled in readiness for the toast. It was time for the new Laird to officially name his estate. ‘Speech!’ the tenants shouted. ‘Speech from the new Laird.’

Elizabeth Campbell sat beside Mrs Macquarie who seemed overcome with pride as her son rose to address the gathering. At his side stood the Writer to the Signet who would register the title in Edinburgh.

‘Today...’ Lachlan began slowly, ‘is a very special day for me.
 
Because today I can at last make true a promise I made to myself before leaving India, a promise that the name of my beloved wife would be kept alive in the family of Macquarie into which she married. So in honour of the memory of Jane Jarvis Macquarie, I name these lands and estate … Jarvisfield.’

 
The tenants cheered as the new name of their estate echoed over the land: ‘
Jarvisfield!
’

*

Amidst the noise and the music that followed, no one noticed the change in Elizabeth Campbell who sat in silence throughout the ensuing conversations, lost in her own thoughts, occasionally flushing a deep red as if some angry or self-condemning thought had struck her.

The following day Elizabeth returned to Lochbuy, and there she made the decision to leave Scotland far behind her and take a carriage to London where she intended to build a new life for herself.

A life in London full of fun and dancing all night long, Elizabeth decided. She had spent years being good and helpful and everyone's sensible friend, and look where it had got her – ignored! She may as well go to London and simply
swoooon
helplessly into a delicate faint whenever she desired to attract a man.

She dragged out her trunk, hauled it into the centre of her bedroom and kicked it open, all her natural composure completely deserting her.

She had made an utter
fool
of herself!

For almost four months she had practically thrown herself at a man who had not the decency to notice. Just as he had not noticed her all those years ago when he worked at Lochbuy before leaving for India!!
 
A man who was still in love with his dead wife! A man who had not, after all, returned to the British Isles to start life afresh, but simply to perpetuate the name of his beloved wife in Scotland!

She began to pack her clothes, hurt and smouldering, her mind racing. Her brother John had been right about those officers who returned from India, men who were used to their women wearing jewels and exotic scents and languishing in luxury all day long. And all of them, men and women alike, being waited upon by a tribe of cosseting Indian servants who attended to their every need and spoiled them like children.
 

‘
Yaaa!
’
 
She flung clothes in the trunk and yearned to scream out her contempt. She now knew all about Jane Jarvis Macquarie and hated her – hated her type. A pampered rich miss from the West Indian Islands who had owned her own slaves and inherited a fortune from her English papa.

So how could
she
, Elizabeth Campbell, the daughter of a poor West Highland Laird who had left nothing but debts, ever compete with someone like that?
  

And then she remembered that Jane Jarvis Macquarie was dead. And had died very young. Younger than she herself was now.

She sat down on the bed and wiped an angry tear from her eye, ashamed and horrified at her thoughts. She knew nothing about that poor unfortunate girl, nothing at all.

TWENTY

From the day Elizabeth arrived at her house in London, Henrietta Campbell knew the poor girl was still suffering from neglect. A terrible neglect which Elizabeth had tried to brave as cheerfully as possible from her earliest days. Her mother had died not long after her birth and from then on Elizabeth had been left to scramble her own way up through childhood with the assistance of a few daft servants and her sister Margaret who, at that time, was little more than a child herself.

Like many fathers, John Campbell had shown little interest in his daughters, all his pride being reserved solely for his precious son and namesake, the heir to his estate. On a number of occasions during her visits to Scotland, Henrietta had attempted to advise her brother to be more mindful of his daughters, and he had tried, but the relief on his face when Margaret was married off to Murdoch Maclaine of Lochbuy was shamefully visible.

Within months of Margaret’s marriage, Elizabeth had been sent packing to a Finishing School for Young Ladies in Hammersmith. A place where the daughters of England’s finest fathers were housed and instructed in the role of becoming England’s finest future wives and mothers. A place where even the teachers found little prestige was to be gained from devoting much time or affection to a somewhat
gauche
thirteen-year-old
girl from the remote wilds of Scotland.

Henrietta’s main regret was that she had not been informed of Elizabeth’s removal down to Hammersmith until six months after the girl had been sent there. A situation she had rectified immediately by ordering her carriage to be made ready to take her across London, a short journey of five or six miles.

Henrietta still often smiled with amusement whenever she remembered those first few minutes after her arrival at the school.
 
Her carriage, with its gold crest on the doors, and two footmen standing to attention on the back ledge, was enough to bring a gaggle of servants running out in attendance.

The headmistress soon followed, red-faced with surprise. ‘Why, Lady Breadlebane! Oh my, to what do we owe this delightful honour!’

‘Any honour from my visit is owed to my niece.’

‘Your niece?’

‘Yes, my niece, Miss Elizabeth Campbell. I hope you are taking very good care of her? Now please bring her to me at once.’

Henrietta was not shown into the Visitors Room, but into the Headmistress’s own pleasant parlour where Elizabeth arrived some minutes later, a faint blush on her cheeks and pushing a wisp of hair out of her eyes.

The first few tense minutes were a trial for both of them, but as soon as tea had been laid out and the headmistress had departed, Elizabeth’s stiffness softened into enjoyment, overflowing with questions about the world outside, to which Henrietta had all the answers.

Henrietta’s friendship and fondness for the girl ripened from that day. As the months and years passed Elizabeth spent every Sunday and all her holidays at Henrietta’s home in Wigmore Street, until, reaching the age of eighteen and perfectly finished in all her schooling, she had been summoned back to the estate at Airds, to keep house for her father and brother.