The Chieftain (12 page)

With an effort she controlled herself, though her eyes sparkled with anger, and said in a voice that only trembled a little:

‘I will not say what I think of that, because I respect you. Did he tell you how long I was to stay here?’

‘It will be until he returns,’ explained Mairi, with audible regret.
 

Whenever that is,
thought Isobel. Aloud she asked: ‘I suppose I will be fed?’
 

‘You are to have a fire,’ Mairi conceded, ‘and food in plenty, and candles. And I may bear you company sometimes, if you wish.’

So he wanted her alive and well at least, thought Isobel grimly. It was a small crumb of comfort.

At times during that autumn, while the frequent storms shook the very rock on which the castle stood, or when the landscape was shrouded in a chill sea mist, Isobel did not find her imprisonment irksome. She would not then in any case have wished to be outside. She was warm and well-fed, she had books to read and sewing to do, and Mairi sat with her and told stories and talked of this and that, almost as in the days before Hector came home.

But when the sun shone warm on the browning bracken and the sea sparkled and the gulls floated free against the blue sky, Isobel paced the room restlessly and longed to be outside.

She missed the company of the other women, too, the ceilidhs, the laughter, the many everyday tasks made enjoyable because they were shared with friends.

Most of all she regretted the change in Mairi.

The old woman treated her kindly, but Isobel knew that it would be a very long time before anything approaching the old ease and affection between them would return. However much she might sympathise with Isobel’s plight, it was Hector who was first in Mairi’s heart, as dearly loved as her own son. And if Isobel had offended him, for whatever reason, she would not quite be forgiven as long as his anger lasted.

It was fortunate that the years of her first marriage had taught Isobel patience above all else. Without that hard-earned lesson she did not think she could have faced so calmly the long and irksome imprisonment. As it was, she had long ago found that she had resources within her to endure solitude and confinement, if she chose to draw on them. The hardest part now was not the lack of freedom, but a constant ache of sadness, like a leaden weight about her heart, which seemed to have settled there since Hector left. She could not quite explain it, but she learned in time to live with it.

It was a quite unforeseen realisation that overturned her composure at last. It should not have been unforeseen at all, but the fact that she had escaped it so far had lulled Isobel into a false sense of security.

She realised she was going to have a child.

At first the knowledge struck her like a sudden cold shower, depriving her of any will to react. She said nothing to Mairi, explaining away an early bout of sickness as an upset occasioned by eating doubtful fish the night before. Slowly, another kind of nausea troubled her, settling deep inside her, fed by fear. For this new, strange, portentous thing had happened while she was far from home, estranged from the man responsible, a helpless prisoner.

In the end, after two days, Mairi noticed the shadows sleeplessness had left about her eyes and decided that the sickness could be no coincidence. She took Isobel’s hand in hers and asked her bluntly if she was to be the mother of Hector’s child.

Isobel nodded dumbly, not much liking the way the question was worded. But Mairi had fostered Hector, so to her it must be almost as if she were to become a grandmother. Her joy was instant, and transparent.

‘Then we must take every care of you,’ she exclaimed delightedly. ‘You must have the best food - and fresh air, when the weather is fine. A gentle walk: I shall go with you. I think that would be Hector’s wish—’

Isobel allowed the talk to flow round her, taking little in. Instead, her mind dwelt on the knowledge that she would have to bear her child according to the unknown, alien ways of the clan. She had shared the life of the people through the summer, and been happy. But this was different, and she was dreadfully afraid. Childbirth, she knew, was a dangerous and painful business. She longed suddenly for the reassuring, totally dependable love of her mother. Surely at such a time this was what any woman needed above all?

A further realisation hit her as Mairi helped her into her warmest plaid and they ventured out into the crisp sunlight of the early winter day. Here at Ardshee, even if she survived the birth, even if all went as well as could be, the child would not be her own. What was it Hector had said?
The son of the chieftain is always fostered until he is twelve or so with a woman of the clan.
They would take the child from her, put it in the arms of another young woman with small children of her own. And she would see him only at a distance, growing up in another home, away from her care and her love. Unless, she supposed, the baby was a girl. But even then she was not sure. She knew so little of the customs by which she would be forced to live.

Despair clutched at her heart, so that she scarcely noticed how sweet the air was after her long incarceration. She had never in all the past months longed so much as she did now for the dear familiarity of her home. She was amazed that it could ever have seemed unreal. It was this life that was unreal, walking on a foreign shore with the waves lapping at her feet and the uncouth plaid shrouding her body. If willpower had been all that was needed she would have dived into the icy water and swum and swum until she reached safety and freedom. Only it was not enough, and she could not swim.

There was nothing for it but to endure.

Chapter Nine

Now that Isobel was to bear Hector’s child, Mairi forgave her everything. The old warmth returned between them, tempered only by Isobel’s longing for home, which cut her off a little from everything at Ardshee. Gradually, Mairi relaxed her guard on the girl, feeling that in the circumstances even the unforgiving Hector would not want to carry revenge so far.

Winter had set in with frosts and storms and bitter winds. It was not often that Isobel wished to venture far from the fireside and Mairi’s attentive company. At times, though, the old woman’s enthusiasm for the prospect that so terrified her grew too much for her and she would go out to walk briskly along the shore, finding relief in the fierce power of wind and spray.

There was no further news from the absent clansmen. Patiently, rarely talking of the rebellion, the women carried on their daily lives as if nothing had changed. During the brief hours of daylight they toiled laboriously, fingers reddened and sore with cold, and after dark they huddled about the peat fires and found comfort in song and story.

It was during the shortest winter days, when the light seemed a fugitive thing, scarcely breaking through the darkness before night came again, that Isobel found herself wandering further along the shore than she had ever done before. Deep in gloomy thoughts, she followed the narrow shingly beach eastward from the bay, away from the castle.

It was colder than ever today, grey and cheerless, and even Hector’s plaid wound over the blue woollen gown did little to protect her from the wind. She thrust numbed fingers into the tartan folds and plodded doggedly on. She was not sure what she was thinking, only that she was desperately miserable, longing for some miracle to bring her hope for the future.

Unseeing, she scrambled over a rocky outcrop, and into another bay. Here the trees came to an end, and a steep grassy slope ran up from shore to skyline. Only a tiny huddle of pines at the far side of the bay broke its smooth line before the cliffs rose again, daunting and impenetrable.

Isobel paused, coming briefly back to the present, and gazed across the little bay.

On the shore a small boat was drawn up above the tide line, oars laid neatly together inside it.

She glanced quickly around. There was no sign of life. But someone must have brought the boat there. It was a small wooden boat, without a sail, and she knew it could not have come from Ardshee. She crunched her way over the shingle to look at it.

She had almost reached the boat when a shout from somewhere in the woods a little above where she had been standing just now caught her attention. She turned her head, and saw a man emerge from the trees and run swiftly across the bay towards her, clearly angry. And his appearance struck her motionless with amazement.

This was no Highlander wild in plaid and bonnet, but a respectable gentleman dressed in powdered wig and neat snuff-coloured coat, as if he had just stepped out of the streets of Edinburgh or Stirling. And as he came nearer she realised, her astonishment growing every moment, that she knew him.

John Campbell was running towards her, his face red with rage and exertion, crying out in English that she must keep her dirty hands from his boat.

She waited, quietly, pushing the plaid back a little from her face so that he should know her. And a few feet away he paused, his light blue eyes wondering, puzzled.

‘Isobel?’ he asked, uncertainly. ‘Mrs Carnegie?’

‘Not that any more,’ she said quietly. ‘I am Isobel MacLean now.’

She saw an angry light flicker somewhere in his eyes, and he swore under his breath. It was an extreme reaction for John, and it startled her. But he had himself under control in a moment, though his mouth was still held in a tight line.

‘Not for much longer, my dear,’ he said gently, coming closer. ‘Not if it is within my power.’ And he took her hands in his as she reached out to welcome him.

She saw his eyes travel over her, noting the unfamiliar clothes that had led him to take her for an inquisitive Highland girl. More than that, he was remembering her as he had last seen her, in her black widow’s gown, her hair neat under its little silk cap, quiet, innocent, inexperienced.

The blue eyes that gazed at him now, warm with welcome, had seen a great deal since that summer day. This was no longer an untouched girl who stood before him, but a woman. A woman who had suffered much, but who had faced it all with courage and an unsuspected strength. And she looked well—Not just well, he amended, but beautiful, more beautiful than ever. The colours of the tartan, barbaric though he thought them, emphasised the glowing rose and gold and blue of her skin and eyes. The hair falling in heavy shining waves beneath the folds of the plaid, unpinned, unadorned, was so springing with life that he longed to run his hands over it. The sweet-natured headstrong girl had become a lovely woman, glowing with vitality, for all the traces of unhappiness that still lingered below her welcoming smile.

She laughed suddenly, with surprise and pleasure. ‘But I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘How did you get here?’

Smiling, he indicated the boat. ‘I crossed the loch.’
 

That puzzled her. ‘What loch?’

He waved his hand towards the east.

‘There, beyond that point. Did you not know there was a great sea loch running into the sound just there? It almost cuts this godforsaken place off from the rest of the Scottish mainland.’

‘You mean...’ Her eyes widened. ‘You mean this is not an island? And all this time I could have run away and if I’d kept walking long enough I’d have reached home in the end?’

‘You’d not have got far in these hills,’ he assured her firmly. ‘It’s well enough for Highlanders, knowing their way about - though even they prefer to use the sea. Not,’ he added, with an unfavourable glance at the grey water, ‘that I can see that it’s any safer that way.’ He smiled with new gentleness, and drew her arm protectively through his, laying his hand over hers. ‘But we must not waste time talking. I have come to take you home. We have a long journey ahead of us.’
 

‘Home!’ she breathed, tears rushing to her eyes. ‘Oh, yes please—At once!’

He led her to where the boat stood, and helped her in. Then he thrust the boat onto the sea, jumped in, wetting his feet a little in the process, and took up the oars.
 

It was as simple as that.

But even Isobel, no expert herself, could see that he had little experience of rowing. And it became clear very soon that John Campbell was mortally afraid of the vast expanse of grey water, full of hidden rocks and treacherous currents. But he was no coward, and he bent his head against the wind, and set his teeth, and rowed doggedly if unevenly towards the distant line of mountains that marked the point where the loch he had spoken of met the sea.

Isobel did not find John’s obvious terror very reassuring, but it moved her deeply that he should have come to seek her in spite of it. She recognised, with humility, what it must have cost him, and knew it was a measure of his affection for her.

As the boat rocked and tossed its way over the waves John tried to take his mind from his fear by telling her, rather breathlessly, how he had come to find her.

By some amazing coincidence he had met one day with an acquaintance who had, briefly, been a prisoner of the Highland rebels. And that man had told in passing how he had heard talk of Ardshee’s new and wealthy bride. So, struck by a wild hope, saying nothing to her parents, John had set out in search of that bride.

‘And so,’ John ended, ‘here I am. I thought that if I landed on the coast a little way from Ardshee I might be able to watch the place unobserved, and see if you were there. It was pure chance that brought you walking this way.’