Clandara (26 page)

Janet had hardly slept for the past three days; her head ached and the uneven jolting of the ill-sprung carriage made her wretchedly uncomfortable. And again and again on that long, exhausting journey, she relived every word and incident of the quarrel which had ended their liaison. James had not been at home when she returned from Holyrood after the Ball. She had sat up in her dress, tired and anxious, until the dawn came and in the early hours she heard his heavy step upon the stairs. When she came out to meet him, she saw at once that he was drunk. He had stood leaning against the wall, staring at her through narrowed, red-rimmed eyes, swinging his bonnet to and fro in his right hand, and suddenly she heard him laugh. And then he had told her where he had been, and he told her very slowly and in such detail that she flinched and shrank away. But flight was not permitted to her. He caught her wrist and held her, his face a few inches away, glaring at her as if he were mad, describing the caresses he had exchanged with the whores in Temple Street, comparing their diseased and dirty bodies with hers until quite suddenly she struck him. And then he let her go, one hand to his face, and when he spoke she could have believed that he was sober.

“You cannot even strike me without reminding me of her.”

And she knew that it was not to any of the wretched strumpets he referred. It was then that her temper broke, and it broke as it had done only once before in her life when the miserable husband who had squandered her money and betrayed her with her own servant girls came whining back and demanded her submission to him.

It was then she unleashed the weeks of pain and bitterness and blighted hopes upon the man who stood before her, the stink of the brothels clinging to his clothes; that was when she reminded him of the money she had spent for his comfort, the nursing, the scandal she had incurred, the ingratitude and boorishness and now this unspeakable insult. Last of all she lashed him with her knowledge of his past. The name of Katharine Fraser fell upon him like a scourge, and with it came her scorn for him and her admiration for the woman who had rejected him. He had not answered her; when she was finished she leaned back trembling and exhausted, waiting for a blow, longing for the release of violence because she already knew that she had destroyed her happiness and he had deliberately made her do it. But he had not touched her. Instead he walked past her to his room and at the door he turned.

“There's nothing so vile-tongued as an unpaid whore. I see how true that old saying is now. I shall be out of your house within the hour.”

And within an hour his belongings were removed by his clansmen and the door shut with a bang upon them. When his brother came to see her a day later to ask what had happened and say good-bye before the army left, she had recovered her calm, and matched his mocking curiosity with her usual composure. The interlude was over; she was returning to Perth, and she would be glad to give his regards to her sister-in-law Margaret. And then when he was gone she had been very busy packing up the house, very efficient and capable and quite unruffled, but she did not sleep and the cook asked her mistress plainly what was wrong with the food that she sent every meal back to the kitchen without eating anything.

And in the privacy of her hired carriage, jerking and swaying along the rough road back to Perth, Janet gave way to the unbearable pain of that dreadful parting and to her reckless self-reproaches, for now his drunken insults seemed no worse than many others she had suffered. He had often taunted her openly with her lack of morals, and until that night she had answered him coolly, turning the barbed words aside with cynicism, pretending that whatever he said he could not hurt her. But the hurt had been intense and the strain of hiding it tremendous; the rare flashes of tenderness, the moment when he held her hand and wept after his recovery, a hundred incidents in their profoundly satisfying physical relationship seemed to show in retrospect that he was softening, and she had hoped more strongly and strengthened her formidable will in the battle for his love. And then she had thrown everything away. Already when he left her house for ever she was ready to crawl on her knees after him and beg him to return.

She leaned back and closed her burning eyes. Within the next few weeks the real battles of the war would start and he might lie rotting on some English field or suffering in some English jail, and she would never know his fate or have the power to help him. And all for the sake of that woman whom she had never seen, but whose description Hugh had given her. She felt as if she knew that face so well in her imagination that the real woman would be instantly recognizable. Beautiful, aristocratic, wilful and proud … Even the blow Katharine Fraser struck in anger was superior to the one she had given him.

They had been travelling for three hours when the coachman felt a sharp tug upon the cord with which his passengers communicated with him. Slowing the tired horses he leaned down from the box. The lady was half-way out of the window; her hood had fallen back, and the wind was whipping the black hair around her head. She looked wild and her face was wet with tears.

“Turn back!”

“What's that, lady? Speak up, I canna hear ye!”

“Turn back! Go back to Edinburgh at once.”

He halted the coach completely and climbed down.

“I'm hired for Perth,” he said stubbornly.

“And I hired you,” Janet said fiercely. “Turn back and do as you're told. If you can reach the city before dark I'll give you twice the fee.”

The next morning Janet had converted some of her jewels into gold and hired the services of a groom and a maidservant. By noon she was riding hard out of Edinburgh in the direction of Carlisle across the English border. The Prince's army was expected to reach there in the first week in November.

“Katharine, I must talk to you. Come into the Library.” The Earl of Clandara closed the door behind them; his daughter had been at home for less than a week, and Henry Ogilvie had announced his intention of leaving them and raising his clan for the Prince. The Earl had watched them closely since their return, and what he saw did little to satisfy his wish that Katharine should commit herself before Ogilvie left. She looked pale and strained, and made excuses not to be left alone with him; her father noticed all these signs of indecision and they angered him. As he looked down at her he was frowning and irritable.

“You've been home for four days,” he said abruptly, “and I wish to know what you've decided.”

“Decided about what?” Katharine asked. “I don't understand you, Father.”

“You understand perfectly well. I gave Henry permission to take you to Edinburgh because you told him it might help you to make up your mind! Well, he's leaving us in a few days and I want to know if it has!”

She faced him calmly; there was none of the friction or inequality which she used to feel when the man in question had been James. How old she had grown since then; the comparison almost made her smile. So old and so utterly without expectation of happiness. She did not want to quarrel with her father; he too looked worn and racked and the night before she had noticed how his hand shook at dinner.

“Let us sit down,” she said gently. “There, Father, by the fire, and I will sit by you.”

She came and sat on a stool at his feet as she had not done since her childhood when she and Robert curled up by the winter fires and asked him to tell them stories. He put out his hand and stroked her head.

“I've become a disagreeable, petulant old man,” he said suddenly. “Forgive me; I didn't mean to growl at you just now. Tell me the truth, child; do you not want to marry him?”

“I don't know,” Katharine answered. “He's such a good man, so kind and gentle … I know you want it, Father.”

“I do,” the old man nodded, and turned her face up to him. For a moment they looked at each other and he said quietly: “Katharine, I am no longer young. Since Robert's death I have lost my taste for life; when I die, what will become of you, my only child, and this estate, without a man to protect you? And if there are no heirs it will pass to some distant kinsman who won't love Clandara and care for its people as you and I have done. If you marry Henry I know that you and Clandara will be in good hands, and that the sons you bear will inherit it. I don't want to die and leave you alone, my daughter; this is no world for a single woman of beauty and position and some little wealth. You should have a husband. If it is Henry, I shall be truly happy. But I won't force you against your will.”

She turned and caught his hand in hers, and on an impulse she kissed it. It was strange how her love for James had sapped all her affections. Only her love for Robert had survived, and her feelings for her father had been cool to the point of hostility. As she made the gesture of tenderness and submission to him then, the lost filial love crept back a little and, with it, a deep sorrow for the misfortune her ill-judged love had helped to bring upon him.

“If it will make you happy,” she whispered, “then I will marry him. I owe you peace in your last years, my poor dear father, and I owe Clandara a son to inherit. You're right; it would be better for us all.”

“Tell him tonight,” the old Earl asked her. “The poor fellow is sorely disappointed at the way you've been avoiding him.”

“I will,” she said. “The sooner it is done, the better I shall feel about it.”

“Thank God,” he said. He bent down and kissed her on the forehead.

“You will be happy; he will make you so, I know it.”

“Perhaps.” Katharine stood up and for a moment turned away from him. “I'll go and find him now before my courage leaves me.”

The candles in the Green Salon threw their locked shadows on the wall, making the image of the man stooping with his arms about the woman into an enormous blur. Katharine's eyes were closed; her lips submitted, her body was unresisting. She felt terribly weak and tired, and only afraid that when he released her she would break down in tears. Nothing had changed; she could not feel the slightest stirring for the eager and impassioned man she had just agreed to marry. Whatever he did, she might have been dead in his arms. At last he let her go, and when she tried to hide her head against his shoulder he made her look at him. His eyes were curiously detached and kind.

“You don't love me, do you, Katharine?”

“No.” It was a wretched whisper, blurred by tears. “Oh, Henry, how can you forgive me!”

“Forgiveness isn't necessary,” he said gently. “My beloved, I have known from the first that you felt nothing like that for me. You made no pretence … It is still James Macdonald, isn't it? Don't be ashamed, my love, you can tell me.”

“No,” she said fiercely. “No – I've nothing but horror of the whole affair. But as I don't love you … Henry, knowing this, do you still want me?”

“I have wanted you all my life,” he answered. “I am not surprised that you don't care for me as I do for you. But if you marry me, my darling Katharine, I promise to spend my life making you happy and helping you forget. I ask nothing but your patience in return.”

“I shall love you,” she said at last. “I know I shall love you.”

“I know it too.” Henry smiled down at her and kissed her gently.

“Will you marry me before I leave to join the Prince or must I wait and claim you when we come back victorious?”

“When you come back,” she whispered, and despised herself for escaping once again. “It won't be long.”

“A month or two at the most,” he told her. “Within that time we shall have conquered England or else be fleeing back to Scotland. Will you marry me if I'm a fugitive?”

“I'd marry you whatever you were.” For the first time she smiled and a little of her old spirit flashed at him. “If I know the canny Ogilvies, they're not often slow to find a way out, and you'll be safely back at Spey House with a ready explanation!”

“I must go back to Spey,” he said. “I have to raise the clan and equip them and myself and see what money I can bring the Prince. I was talking to your father last night and he agrees that I can catch up with him in England in about a month if I leave Clandara quickly. And now that we're betrothed,” he broke off to kiss her hand and then her cheek, “I can return and prepare with all speed. The sooner gone, the sooner I shall return to you. I know your father will be happy.”

“You will be like the son he lost,” she said. “He has always loved you. And he does know, Henry, because I told him before we spoke. He is overjoyed and already talking about grandchildren.”

“Our second son shall take your name,” he promised her. “There'll be a Fraser at Clandara in the direct line and we'll claim for the earldom for him from the Prince. Clandara will be safe and so will you.”

They kissed again and then agreed that he should go alone to seek formal approval from the Earl. When he had gone Katharine went out into the Great Hall, half in darkness except for two guttering pitch-pine torches, and walked slowly up the stone staircase to her own apartments. Annie was dozing in her chair by the door, a piece of sewing on her lap where it had fallen when she slept, but she woke at the sound of her mistress's step and, with an apology, hurried to help her undress.

“Ye're pale, milady,” she scolded. “Why do ye sit up so late from your bed? You've never recovered your own bonny colour from the night ye went to Holyrood. Here, stand still and I'll untie the laces on your stays.”

Katharine stepped out of her red velvet dress and Annie eased the tight whalebone corselet off. She stood by the mirror in her white shift and white stockings and looked at herself.

“I'm going to be married, Annie.”

“God be praised! Mr. Ogilvie?”

“The same. I accepted him tonight and my father is delighted. Are you delighted, Annie? You've hinted at it often enough. Are you pleased now?”