The Chieftain (7 page)

She turned to him again.

‘If I am so much beneath your contempt,’ she asked in a low voice, ‘why then did you marry me?’ But even as she spoke she knew it was a foolish question, for she knew the answer and it could only hurt her more to hear him confirm it.

He laughed faintly, with derision. ‘For your money, of course,’ he said. ‘What did you think?’

She turned away, sick at heart, and wandered to the window.

‘What possible use can my money be to you here?’ she asked wearily. ‘There’s nothing to buy, and nothing to spend it on.’

‘There speaks all the comfortable ignorance of the wealthy,’ he mocked her. ‘Did you not see how my people are living? Can you not guess that they want sound roofs and good clothes and a doctor? And a school perhaps, and help to grow better crops and to keep their animals from sickness.’

She gazed at him in astonishment. ‘You want my money for that!’

‘Is that so strange?’ he returned.

She could think of no reply, except that Hector was still an enigma to her. And then she remembered her thoughts of a few moments ago. ‘But why do you need schools? I have seen no children—And why are there no women?’

He smiled then, briefly, almost with pity. ‘I forget you know nothing of our way of life. They are at the shieling, the women and children together, with the animals. They will stay there until the autumn, while the men repair the houses before the storms, and the cattle grow fat on good grass. When you have eaten we shall ride there, so the women and children may see my bride.’

‘Are you not ashamed to show them a Lowlander?’ she asked sharply.

‘Ah, but they know what you bring with you,’ he said.

‘But I haven’t brought it with me - and you may never lay your hands on it,’ she retorted, with a little gleam of triumph.

‘You are my wife,’ he said simply, as though no other reply was necessary. And then he turned away to admit the man who brought warm water in a silver bowl, and a tray set with food and drink. ‘Make yourself ready quickly,’ he said. ‘I will return for you shortly.’

Washing and eating presented no problem, though Isobel shivered in the chill of the room as she stripped off the soiled garments. There was no fire in the wide hearth, and the solid walls admitted little warmth from the summer day.

Once she had eaten and washed, however, and replaced her petticoat, Isobel gazed at the plaid in perplexity. Where, she thought, does one begin with this vast expanse of cloth? She tried to wind it about her, first this way and then that, becoming only progressively more entangled and more dismayed. Hector had thought her unworthy even to wear this garment. What would he say if he knew she had no idea how to put it on?

She was close to tears by the time he returned. He smiled derisively.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I can see you are very much the Lowlander. The plaid has defeated you.’

But he came to her side, took the length of material and deftly draped it about her, securing it at the waist with the belt from the chest, and at the breast with the circular silver brooch from the little box.

‘There,’ he commented. ‘Now you are more fit to appear as my bride.’

She fingered the brooch, trying to accustom herself to the strange feel of the plaid about her. She had to admit that Hector had constructed a most effective garment from it.

‘It was my mother’s,’ he added, and it took her a moment or two to realise that he referred to the brooch.

‘Oh—’ she said, and then she indicated the brush and comb. ‘Were those hers, then?’

‘Indeed they were—And there is her likeness.’ His hand swept towards the portrait. The dark eyes, so like his own, gazed shrewdly at the tall graceful figure of his wife, as if they recognised the fear and misery tightening into a knot behind the silver brooch.

As Hector took her arm, and they turned to leave the room, Isobel caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and for a moment was startled. She had grown so used to her image clothed in matronly grey, or mourning black. Now, with the plaid draped in soft folds about her shoulders and her head, she looked unlike herself, the bright yet subtle colours of the tartan drawing colour even from her weary face. And she looked, too, as primitive as the Highlanders around her: another person, no longer the Isobel Carnegie who had left the kirk two mornings ago. It was an uncomfortable sensation, as if she had glimpsed a stranger.

As she followed Hector from the room she wondered whether the person inside the enveloping plaid still had anything in common with the young widow of so short a time before.

Chapter Five

They rode sturdy ponies to the shieling. The piper went with them, and the inevitable tall Highlander - Isobel was fast growing to hate his presence as Hector’s constant shadow. The other clansmen followed them on foot, and the deerhounds ran alongside, veering off at intervals in pursuit of elusive scents.

They took a steep winding track to the mountainside above the cliffs, where the rocky landscape was spread with grass and bracken and wild flowers. Little knots of stunted birch and hazel and rowan grew in the sheltered hollows, and bog myrtle scented the air. A breeze blew off the sea, but gently, just enough to take any discomfort from the heat of the mid-morning sun.

They had gone perhaps two miles when they saw a small black figure outlined against the sky, like a sentinel keeping watch from the rising ground. Either it was further away than it seemed, Isobel thought, or it was a child. Even as she narrowed her eyes to see better, he disappeared. A few moments later a crowd of dark figures appeared in his place, large and small, waving, calling out, their excitement visible even at this distance.

The approaching riders were almost swallowed up in the eager group as they reached the hill top. Hands reached out, voices were raised in lilting greeting, tousle-haired children jumped up and down. The welcome was for Hector, and he returned it warmly, dismounting to continue the short journey to the shieling on foot, asking questions of this one and that. Isobel could not understand what he said, but she could guess at the enquiries about the health of one and the child of another from the expressions and gestures of the women as Hector addressed them.

To Isobel they were cool, but respectful and courteous. And she sensed beneath the rather distant words and gestures an immense curiosity about her. Good manners kept it in check, but she glimpsed covert glances stolen in her direction, remarks exchanged in an undertone when they thought she was not looking. She could see that they thought her beautiful, and were surprised at it, but she knew they were judging her too. They were making guesses at the quality of this foreign bride of their chieftain, the woman who was to bring them riches and hope for a better future. She sat stiffly on the ambling pony, and tried to gaze ahead at nothing in particular so that she should not see the speculative eyes turned on her.

Beyond the rise the land dipped into a wide hollow. Sheltered on the windward side by tall pines, watered by a little burn, it lay bathed in sunlight, a natural haven on the bleak mountainside. Here a rough circle of simple turf huts, like large beehives, had been constructed, grouped in pairs, and close by shaggy cattle grazed on the soft hill grass.

In one place a cooking pot bubbled on a fire burning in a raised stone hearth, in another dishes of cream lay ready for making cheese or butter, with the wooden churns beside them. Washing was spread on the grass to dry. And as the welcoming women led Hector and the menfolk into the hollow, the sound of singing filled it, and the whole place seemed alight with happiness.

Once again Isobel had that overwhelming sense of unreality. She understood nothing that was said, no words of the songs, little of this foreign way of life. She was left at the end of that day with no more than a confused impression of the simple but joyous feasting that welcomed the chieftain and his bride.

When Hector had helped her from her pony, he led her to a quiet place beside one of the huts where an old woman sat on a stool mending a plaid. She looked up as they came near, her face glowing, her very blue eyes bright with tears. She laid down her sewing and reached out gnarled hands. And to Isobel’s amazement Hector fell on his knees beside her and bent his head and the old woman leaned over to kiss his dark hair, murmuring soft endearments as he grasped her hand in both of his.

After a time he sat back on his heels and looked up at Isobel, while the old woman continued to run one hand caressingly over his hair.

‘Isobel, I must make you known to my foster mother, Mairi MacLean.’

He turned to the old woman and said something in his own language, and then took Isobel’s hand and laid it in that of the other woman. Instinctively she knelt too, and she felt the hand laid on her head and the murmured words of blessing.
 

When she looked up the old woman cupped her face in work-worn hands and gazed into it long and silently, as if reading what lay there. Isobel felt that her whole soul was laid bare. It frightened her, and she shivered a little; and yet she sensed kindness and understanding, as if she could find a friend there if she chose. But what use was a friend who could not even speak to her in her own language?

The greetings and introductions over, Hector lingered to talk for a little longer and then led Isobel to where a rough seat had been prepared for her to one side of the hollow. The whole experience left her feeling an unaccustomed warmth towards her husband, now he had so openly exposed his emotions to her, and asked her to share a little of them. For the first time she almost liked him.

‘Did your mother die when you were young?’ she asked, as they crossed the trodden turf between the huts.

‘Indeed no,’ he replied, a little surprised. ‘She died last year, soon after my father. I think they could not live long apart.’

‘I thought that must be why you had a foster mother,’ she explained.

The warmth began to fade as she saw that derisive smile pass briefly across his face. Clearly she had only succeeded in reminding him once more that she was a Lowlander, ignorant of Highland ways.

‘It is the custom,’ he told her. ‘The son of the chieftain is always fostered until he reaches twelve years or so with a woman of the clan. Thus he grows at one with his people, and her children are his brothers.’ He glanced across at the tall Highlander, who stood talking to a pretty black-haired girl. ‘Hugh there is the son of Mairi MacLean and Seumas her man, now dead.’

Isobel’s sense of isolation returned to her, and the last remnants of her incipient liking for Hector vanished without trace. In silence she allowed herself to be deposited on her solitary throne and abandoned to her painful reflections. A slow lilting song aching with grief and loss reached her, sung in a deep contralto voice, entirely in keeping with her thoughts.

They returned to Ardshee late in the day, seen on their way by the same group who had gathered on the hilltop this morning, the evening sun now full in their faces.

Isobel felt utterly weary now, and thought longingly of sleep. Even the recollection that Hector would lie beside her - she supposed - could not quell the longing.

But she found as they entered the castle that the coming of night did not mean that activity was at an end. In the hall, watched by a solemn portrait of Hector’s father, as fair as his son was dark, a great fire was brought to life and the celebrations began in earnest.

Mutton was roasted, wine and whisky passed lavishly from hand to hand, the piper played ever more wildly. And there was no escape for Isobel. Hector led her to a carved oak chair near the hearth and there she sat, hour after hour, as the leaping flames lit the scene and the noise and movement set her head aching.

She had never before been the lone woman at the feasting of men. She knew that drink and the absence of the civilising company of women turned men to brute beasts, uncouth, full of lewd talk and unbelievable brutality. The thought of what she might have to face tonight filled her with fear.

And then they began to dance. Astonished, she forgot her weariness and watched wide-eyed. This was nothing like the stately minuets she knew at home, nor the light-hearted measures of the country people of the Lowlands, but fierce warlike dancing, performed with arrogance and grace and amazing skill.

She watched Hector dance alone, his slender feet in their supple shoes moving with incredible lightness and agility between the shining crossed blades of two great swords, his plaid swinging, his eyes bright in his flushed face. Head high, arms raised, his lithe body held as proudly as if those busy feet were not a part of him, he was like no man she had ever seen in her life before. And in spite of herself some of his excitement, and a quiver of pride in his animal beauty, reached her as she watched.

Then all the clansmen were on the floor, and the noise of the pipes became deafening. The figures dipped and weaved and leapt, tartans swinging, the brilliant colours blurring into a bewildering mass. Yet even now there was a pattern. This was not an uncontrolled mob of men sent wild by drink, but recognisably a dance in which each knew his part and performed it neatly, so that the steps followed from one to another in orderly sequence. And it seemed that the more they drank, the more intricate the dancing became. For one fleeting moment Isobel tried to imagine her father taking his part on the floor before her, and she almost laughed aloud. It only confirmed her feeling that these Highlanders were not like other men. And that was a frightening thought, for she knew how to deal with other men, how to appeal to their tenderness, or win their sympathy.