The House of Lyall (16 page)

This was how he explained the seriousness of their expressions after the nuptials were tied, creating a tide of sympathy for them by saying that each anniversary of their wedding would remind them of Lady Glendarril's death. He ended with, ‘And so, as the Honourable Hamish Bruce-Lyall and his bride start married life with sorrow dimming the joy they should be sharing, let us wish them every happiness for the future.'

Alfie laid down the newspaper as Moll set an enamel mug of tea before him. ‘Well?' she demanded.

‘Well, what?' Alfie was not particularly bright at the best of times, but what he had just read had completely flummoxed him.

‘Are you to be writin' to her?'

‘Writin' to her? What the devil for?'

‘For God's sake, Alfie! Can you nae see what this means? Here's us, countin' every ha'penny an' never having enough to go round, and there's her, rollin' in it!'

He banged his clenched fist on the table top, making the tea splash out of both mugs. ‘If you think I'd beg fae my ain lassie, you're softer in the heid than I thought you were.'

‘But she's got plenty, an' you
are
her father.'

‘I used to wonder what had became o' her, an' I'm pleased she made something o' hersel', but a father's supposed to provide for his bairn, nae the other wey roon'.'

‘Aye, well, but … maybe we should let her ken the Moodies never did nothin' aboot that money she took, an' tell her she's welcome back ony time she –'

Alfie's face darkened even further. ‘She'll nae be welcome back! I'm having nae trock wi' a thief though she
is
my ain lassie. And dinna you think on writing to her, for you'll nae get me to speak to her supposing she's got the nerve to show her face here!'

Recognizing that nothing-would make him change his mind, Moll gave up, but she cut out the item about the wedding and hid it away for future reference. Should Alfie ever have to stop working because of his chest, she would write and ask Marion – Marianne, as she called herself now – for help … but she wouldn't tell him.

After all the house guests had left, Hector joined the young couple in the Blue Room and said quietly, ‘Do you remember me saying you would have to take Clarice's place as mistress of the castle, Marianne? Now, because of her death, I cannot let you take a honeymoon, but I will allow you one week to spend as much time with Hamish as you wish. After that, I expect you to acquaint yourself with the layout of the castle, and what goes on behind the scenes, so to speak. You will probably have noticed that the running of the every day household matters is in Miss Glover's capable hands, but if you do not like her, it will be up to you to find a replacement, and that goes for all the members of our staff. Mrs Carnie is an excellent cook, but if you and she do not get on –'

‘I'm sure I'll get on with Mrs Carnie,' Marianne interrupted, ‘and Miss Glover.'

‘Roberta Glover can be a bit abrupt at times, but she knows her job inside out, and she'll keep you right if there is anything you are not sure of. And now,' he went on, getting to his feet, ‘if you two young things do not mind, I must go to bed. I still feel a little off colour after yesterday. I do not make a habit of getting drunk, as Hamish will verify, but whisky was the only thing to numb the ache. Sorrow is not the best of bedfellows.'

‘No, indeed,' observed Hamish.

And Marianne said, ‘We won't be long in going to bed, either. I didn't get much sleep last –' Her eyes widened as her hand flew to cover her errant mouth.

Misconstruing her embarrassment, Hector gave a great roar of laughter as he went out.

Marianne looked at her husband in dismay. ‘I'm sorry, Hamish. I don't know why I said that.'

‘Probably because it was the truth,' he said, but not unkindly. ‘I feel the need of a good night's sleep myself, and so I shall …' He paused, eyeing her warily. ‘I shall sleep in my own room again.'

‘Your own room,' she echoed faintly.

‘You know what our arrangement was,' he muttered self-consciously, ‘and the chamber maid knows to keep a bedroom ready for me. My mother and father slept in separate rooms for years.'

Marianne felt like saying, ‘But not on the second night of their marriage,' only what good would it have done? She had entered into this anything-but-ideal contract in order to have wealth and power, and the gates to that world were to be opened for her a week from tomorrow. Love would be an additional blessing.

Alone in the marriage bed again, Marianne boosted her low spirits by thinking that she would soon be in sole charge of everything and everybody in Castle Lyall, and once she had it running her way, both Hamish and his father would see that she was capable of much more than breeding children. She would provide the two sons they needed in order to be sure of an heir, and then …

By God, and then! She would make the gentry sit up and take notice of her, fall over themselves to invite her to their homes, be they mansions, castles or palaces. She had the beauty the nobility lacked – horse-faced, most of them. She would be the talk of the glen, the whole of Scotland, even – and England, too.

Chapter Nine

On the first full day of their marriage, Hamish showed his bride the kitchen gardens where all the vegetables were grown, sheltered from frost and winds by the high wall enclosing them, and the flourishing herb patch situated where the kitchenmaid could quickly cut whatever Cook might suddenly decide she needed. Marianne was impressed, although she had never heard of most of the herbs here before.

The flower gardens and lawns also appealed to her – the symmetry of the layouts, the subtle mixing of colours, the more delicate being kept together in patterns around the perimeter, and the shaped beds within graduated up to the most flamboyant. ‘I won't remember their proper names,' she whispered to Hamish, after Dargie, the head gardener, reeled
off over a dozen, unintelligible as far as she was concerned, before he went off to supervise his undergardeners and left The Master and his wife to carry on alone. ‘It sounded Greek to me.'

‘It was Latin,' Hamish told her, courtesy forbidding him to laugh.

‘We always called
them
red-hot pokers,' she explained, pointing to the tall clump of red and yellow blooms in the centre. ‘And that's mappies' mou's,' she went on, indicating the antirrhinums.

‘What on earth does that mean?' her husband asked, bemused.

‘Surely you ken what …?' She stopped with an embarrassed laugh. ‘No, I don't suppose you do. Well, mappies is what we called rabbits at hame, and a mou' is a mouth. To let you see …' She took one of the florets between her forefinger and her thumb to show him. ‘If you squeeze a wee bit out and in, like this, it's like a rabbit's mouth opening and shutting.'

‘So it is!' he exclaimed, trying it for himself.

A large rockery set with alpine plants held her attention next, and when they moved on to where one of the younger gardeners had been trying his hand at topiary, she was fascinated by the shapes he had created. ‘That's a duck! And that's a swan! And that's a … stork on one leg!' She clapped her hands in delight. ‘Oh, I just love this, and he's done animals down the other side. He must be awful clever with his shears.'

Hamish gave a wry smile. ‘I doubt if Dargie will be so happy about it. He has spent years training these hedges to be perfect and this boy has hacked into them –'

‘No, Hamish, he hasn't hacked into them. He's done it carefully … it's a work of art.'

There were apples, pears, plums in the orchard, and even a small orangery built against a south-facing wall, and strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries and blackcurrants in the soft fruits cages. ‘I bet Mrs Carnie makes hundreds of jars of jam with that lot,' Marianne remarked, adding without thinking, ‘I used to love watching Mam boiling the berries, and she let me sup the scum before she poured the jam into jars. I liked rasps best, then strawberries, then the goosers, but I didna like the rhubarb, for she aye put ginger in, and I canna stand ginger.'

He let her ramble on, not wanting to let her know that he had asked Andrew where she came from originally, and was well aware that she had been in service to a banker's wife in Tipperton. It was the first time she had ever spoken about her first home, and she was using the words of her childhood. She was like a breath of fresh air to him, even when she did remember to talk and act like a lady. If only he could tell her how he really felt about her.

Next day, he took her along well-trodden paths through the woods outside the family's private grounds, and even where there were no paths. ‘I suppose we should really call this a forest,' he smiled as they penetrated deeper into a closely packed mass of tall straight conifers, ‘but I'd like you to get to know every bit of the estate and love it as much as I do.'

‘I love it already,' Marianne sighed, picking up one of the cones that were lying about. ‘I love the smell, I love to feel my feet sinking into the pine needles, it's like a thick carpet, isn't it? And it's so dark in here I can imagine wolves circling all round us, waiting to snarl out on us when they're hungry.'

‘You wouldn't be scared of wolves?' he grinned.

She chuckled like the child she really was, for she wouldn't be eighteen for four months. ‘I'd be terrified, but it's fun to pretend they're there, and I'd have you to protect me, wouldn't I? Any road, the sun sometimes flickers through between the leaves so I know it's a lovely summer's day outside.'

Her bridegroom took her hand. ‘Are you happy, Marianne?'

She looked up into his now serious face. ‘Of course I am!'

‘You don't regret …?'

‘I don't regret anything. Mind you, I
am
a bit worried in case your father'll expect too much of me, but I'll do my best to run the house as good as your mother.'

He smiled at the grammatical error; she only made these slips when she was excited or worried, and she would probably grow out of them, yet he hoped she would always retain some of her naïvety and not turn out like all the other girls he knew.

‘This really is a big forest,' she observed presently. ‘Would you say we're halfway in yet?'

‘I'd say we were more likely to be halfway out.' He tried to keep a straight face but it was difficult when hers was so earnest.

‘How do you know?' she asked in all innocence. ‘What's the halfway mark when you're coming out?' The truth suddenly striking her, she pulled her hand out of his indignantly. ‘Ach, you're making fun of me. Halfway in and halfway out's exactly the same.'

‘I'm sorry, my dear. I shouldn't have teased you, but I couldn't resist it.'

When they emerged into the open air again, they carried on uphill for some time until they chanced upon a wide flat boulder. ‘I think we have come far enough today,' Hamish remarked. ‘I don't want to exhaust you, so perhaps we should take a seat here for a few minutes before we turn back.'

While they rested, he pointed out items of interest in the glen below. ‘That's the doctor's house. Robert Mowatt is a good friend of mine, and Flora, his wife, is in her middle twenties, I'd say. She is a sensible girl and would be ideal if
you needed someone to talk to.' His finger moved a little to the right. ‘The manse is next to the church, there, but you can't see it for the trees. I don't know what to make of Duncan Peat. He's quite dour at times although he is a splendid preacher. But you must make up your own mind what you think about him.'

‘He was very good about having the funeral and the wedding on the same day,' Marianne reminded him, ‘and Miss Edith always used to say we should take people as we find them.'

‘That is probably best, and I am sure you will like his wife. When Duncan is with her, Grace behaves as befits the wife of a minister of the Church of Scotland, but she can be great fun if he is not around, which is surprising in view of the fact that her father was also a minister. Robert and Flora are exactly the opposite. She is the quiet one – Robert has more go – yet she and Grace Peat are very close.'

‘What about the dominie and his wife?' Marianne could not see the school from where they were sitting, but she knew its approximate position.

‘Will Wink is much older, a bit over fifty, and he often comes to talk things over with Father. They sit in the study, with the smoke from their pipes curling out into the hall, and discuss which pupils have the ability to carry on their education. They look on it purely from that angle, not whether or not the parents can afford the fees, because Father takes care of the financial side of it for them. He says that it would be a disgrace if any child could not take full advantage of the brains God blessed him with.'

‘That's very kind of him.'

‘Well, it usually works out to his benefit in the end. Once they get their degrees, he knows he can get a man he can trust if one of the professional posts here falls vacant. As for Agnes Wink, she keeps herself to herself.'

This surprised Marianne. ‘Doesn't she mix with the doctor's wife and the minister's? That's what usually happens in small places – they all stick together.'

‘Agnes's father, who sadly passed away last year, was a professor at Aberdeen University before he retired, so she considers herself better than either Flora or Grace – better than her own husband, if it comes to that, because his father was just one of my father's crofters.' Hamish shrugged his shoulders. ‘Apparently, when she first came to Glendarril, she was most put out that my mother kept her distance, and for over twenty years she has resented being buried in this backwater of a glen, as she has been heard to describe it. However, if you want to be friendly with her, I shall not object.'

‘I'll see how things work out,' Marianne smiled. Even having known Lady Glendarril for only a few weeks, she could visualize her reaction to Agnes Wink if she'd thought the woman was trying to insinuate her way into the castle.