a falcon for a queen by Catherine Gaskin FIONA "Miss Gaskin is supremely entertaining." Sunday Express "I whole-heartedly enjoyed this fastmoving tale of high romance set in the West Indies of the early igth century." Argosy : EDGE OF GLASS "Catherine Gaskin has set a bunch of imaginatively conceived characters against s the unusual background of glass making described in fascinating and knowledgeable detail. She is an expert at compelling our attention and sustaining it." The Book Society THE FILE ON DEVLIN "Fast-moving and sometimes eerie thriller, set in fogbound London and a forbidding Swiss valley, with just the right touch of romance." Sunday Telegraph "Extremely taut and gripping." Bookman SARA DANE "Unfolds most graphically the growth of ? Australia between 1792 and 1814. The heroine is a young and lovely girl savagely and wrongfully transported from England,.. and the story tells of her rise to wealth and influence." Daily Telegraph THE TILSIT INHERITANCE "Full-size novel on an outsize canvas. Some most enjoyable scene setting and skilful suspense." Sunday Times isbn 0002212684 by the same author ^fIOVSA EDGE OF GLASS THE FILE ON DEVLIN THE TILSIT INHERITANCE I KNOW MY LOVE CORPORATION WIFE BLAKE'S REACH SARA DANE DAUGHTER OF THE HOUSE ALL ELSE IS POLLY DUST IN SUNLIGHT WITH EVERY YEAR THIS OTHER EDEN A FALCON FOR A QUEEN Catherine Gaskin COLLINS ST JAMES'S PLACE, LONDON 1972 William Collins Sons & Co Ltd London Glasgow Sydney Auckland Torontay^ Johannesburg For Terry and Tom with love First published 1972 Catherine Gaskin Cornberg 1972 ISBN 0 00 221268 4 Set in Monotype Garamond Made and printed in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co Ltd Glasgow THE CLANS THE MOTTOS ^9 MACDONALD OF CLANRANALD My hope is constant in thee CAMPBELL OF CAWDOR Be mindful SINCLAIR Commit thy work to God MACPHERSON Touch not the cat hot a glove (MAC)LACHLAN Brave and Trusty FERGUSON Sweeter after difficulties PROLOGUE There are places in the valley where I will never go again; there are paths up its glens where I will never direct my pony's steps. The faces, the voices, the names meet me there, and they do not go away. Regularly, of course, I must cross the path through the graveyard to the kirk, where those names are chiselled into the stone. But the spirits do not lie there; for me, they do not lie there. They are the restless ghosts those who loved wrongly, wilfully, with passion, without reason. They all wait for me, everywhere in that valley, but especially in some places, to which I do not go. Ballochtorra begins to crumble on its height; the rains and the snows take their toll of the roof, the ice creeps in to break chinks in the walls. The ivy is taking possession; very soon it will need the knowing eye to distinguish what was newly built, in the pride of wealth and ambition, from the very old. The rooks gather in the ivy-grown trees and on the battlements. And forever, ceaselessly, my eyes search the skies for the sight of a falcon. CHAPTER ONE It is a long way to come from China to the depths of the Scottish Highlands, for the sake of a few words splashed in confused Mandarin script, down the side of a scroll, with a drawing of a bird perched on a bare willow bough. But I had come, unbidden, unexpected, and for all I knew, unwelcome. I had come because my brother, William, lay buried in a churchyard in the heart of the Highlands, and before he had died had scratched those few words. Yes, a long way to come. I had sent no message, no telegram, perhaps for fear that I could be turned back from what I knew of Angus Macdonald he was capable of doing that. So I stood with my trunk and my father's leather bag on the tiny station ofBallinaclash, and there was no one to meet me, and, so far as I could judge, no way to get where I wanted to go. The stationmaster shook his head. "Cluain, is it? Well, that will be a good six miles and more. They are not expecting you ... they did not send the gig." The curiosity was evident; only an innate kind of courtesy held back the open questions the man longed to ask. "I'm very sorry, mistress, there will be no conveyance for hire about here. As you can see, it is not even a village. Just a halt when there's a passenger, and to collect the post, and such." "There has to be some way ..." I shivered; it was chill, and it was going to rain. Who would have expected to be dropped here in the middle of a seeming wilderness, pine and larch lining the steep railway cutting, and the sound of the train already lost in the distance as it had rounded the bend? There were no houses, no smoke curling from chimneys; there was nothing but the promise of rain, and the anxious, bewildered stare of the stationmaster. Clearly, no one came to Ballinaclash unheralded not even from Inverness, much less from China. Clearly, also, I must be mad to have done it. But there was something, beside the sigh of the wind through the pines, and the automatic clicking of the railway telegraph in the little office, there was he sound of footsteps behind me, and out in front of the station, tucked in to the shelter of the building, was a small, one-horse landau, the horse's head held by a man in a long tweed cape. He too was staring at me, and past me, and at that moment he took off his hat; but the action wasn't for me. "I see your bags there." I turned; the man who had evidently got off one of the end carriages of the train and walked along the track with his single bag in his hand, had also raised his hat, but he put it back on. A long, quizzical face, under blond streaked hair; his eyes were an intense, light blue which might have seemed innocent and even childlike if it hadn't been for the lines cut deeply at the corners, lines that almost exactly paralleled those at the corners of his mouth. It was a youngish face, and yet weary or was it the face of a young man, disenchanted. He continued, with no trace of shyness. "No one has come to meet you? My name is Campbell. " He was so cool, so matter-of-fact, that he would have flustered me if I hadn't been so tired, and had so much else to think of. "How do you do," I said automatically. Didn't one say that in polite society, however absurd the place and the meeting? The forms were always observed. "No no one has come to meet me. I'm not expected. I thought I could perhaps hire .. " He was already shaking his head, and I thought I detected a half shrug of the shoulders, as if in wonderment at the foolishness of some people. "Well, now you see you can't. Miss ... ? Is it miss?" "Howard," I said. For a second the detachment fell away. "Howard? You're William Howard's sister! Yes -Jcs, I should have known. You look like him." The sound of the name was comfort. It was so long since anyone had spoken it. No one, since I had left China, had spoken William's name. "You knew William?" I clutched at the thought. "Yes ... yes, I knew him. Not well, but then he wasn't here that long." "No not long. Just those visits from Edinburgh, and then last summer..." He did not let me dwell on it. Already he had taken my arm, and at the same time was beckoning the man who stood by the horse. "Stevens, give Mr. McBane here a hand with the luggage. All of it. We'll be taking Miss Howard to Cluain." "Cluain, sir? Cluain -' But then he stopped abruptly, as if there had been some authoritative signal from the man who held my arm. I felt I was being rushed, my decisions made for me. And yet, why not? My immediate problem was solved; I was grateful, as well as tired. "I like to drive," the man said. "Do you mind coming up front with me, or will the wind be too much for you? Stevens can sit with the baggage." I nodded; what was a little wind? The man had spoken William's name, and seemed to call him back to life. I let myself be helped up on to the seat, and then the man swung himself up beside me, taking the reins from Stevens. Then we waited as the bags were brought, carried by the stationmaster and Stevens, and stowed in the passenger space. Everyone seemed to move swiftly to Campbell's orders, yet there was an odd comradeship between them all; there was no sign of servility cloaking resentment. The stationmaster was relieved to have me off his hands but yet he had shown a concern for me. He raised his cap as we prepared to move off. "Well, then now, mistress. You'll be grand now, and like as not there'll be no rain before you reach Cluain..." Campbell made a vague salute of thanks with the whip, and we were off. The vehicle was well sprung, the horse strong and good, even the road between the pines and larches seemed smooth. It didn't even seem cold any longer. "I hope I'm not' I began. "Oh, now," he cut me short. "Please, I beg you, don't start all ii those politenesses. Would I have left you standing there on Ballinaclash station? If you're silly enough not to have warned them that you were coming, then the least I can do is save you from some of the consequences of your folly. I don't think," he added, without emphasis, fthzt Angus Macdonald likes surprises. " "Perhaps not. We'll see. All he can do is turn me away." "He'll not turn you away. The world may think us barbarians here in the Highlands oh, romantic barbarians, perhaps, but still barbarians. But somehow, in all our poverty we still have our traditions of hospitality, which we keep. And I suspect that Angus Macdonald is a believer in blood's being thicker than water. You're the only grandchild he has left." Then, with devastating candour came the thrust. "It was William he wanted, of course. A girl will hardly be of much use to him." "No," I answered flatly. "I hardly expect to be of much use." He glanced at me quickly, and then back to the road, his rather austere face softening a little, as if he regretted his words. "So... you decided to come here, after your father died ?" "You knew that my father was killed?" "The whole kingdom knew it. Perhaps you don't realise how good the British newspapers are at whipping themselves into a frenzy over a tragic and bloody happening far away most especially when it concerns a bishop of the Established Church. For a couple of days they were in a fever over it. There was talk of sending gun-boats. Imperial dignity had been gravely insulted. I wonder if anyone thought of what you must have suffered then with William so recently dead. " "Perhaps it was merciful that I didn't know William was dead at the time. My grandfather's letter had not reached me. He doesn't seem to believe in telegrams, either." "Good God!" He looked at me again, for longer this time. "You were quite alone, then, when the news of William came. I'm very sorry. Miss Howard. You've had .. " Now his voice dropped so that it was hard to hear above the sound of the hooves, the rush of the wind through the trees. "You've had a very bad time." "My father had many friends ... they helped very much. Yes, we knew about the talk of gun-boats, but no one in England seemed to realise that my father was killed in a local uprising two hundred miles from the point at which the Great River the Yangtse is navigable by a gun-boat. And what use would it have been? I knew it was the last thing my father would have wished. It was senseless, hysterical talk. These things are dealt with in their own way in China. But people in England seem to have some very odd ideas about China. When I prayed in those days, I prayed that the Foreign Secretary was better informed than the journalists. " They were plain, sensible words, calm words, ones I had long ago reasoned myself into, to try to stop the hurt. But yes, he was right, it had been a bad time. Very bad. But China was often cruel, and violent death was common. The hardest thing to bear had been the thought that it need not have been my father; there were many others he could have sent on that journey. But he never excused himself from what he conceived to be his duties never sought to, because he loved them. Even when visitation literally meant journeys of a thousand miles, and he would often be cold and hungry, his clothes sodden, or his skin burned with the fierce heat of those summers. No, the progress of a bishop in China had little in common with the stately procession from one parish to another he had described to me, with a kind of a laugh, as being the custom in England. To be fair, the Church paid for a greater dignity than my father ever maintained, he saying that there was so much else to spend the money on in China than keeping up episcopal state. He travelled usually only with one curate, who acted as his secretary. There could have been few bishops who had the frightful distinction of ending their lives with their heads on one of the ever-present bamboo poles of the Chinese. He had been unlucky. He could hardly even have consoled himself in those last horrible moments that he was dying in the cause of bringing the light of the faith to the heathen hordes. He had been unfortunate enough to have been caught unwittingly in a rising against a local war-lord in the remote Szechwan province he and the curate and two engineers travelling with him to prospect the route of a future railway into the interior. The i? forces of the war-lord had not come quickly enough to save the foreign devils. It was all the more sport for the faceless mass of peasants that one of their victims had been a high priest serving the foreign god. Some of jj e leaders of the rising had been punished with the usual refinements of public torture and execution by the war-lord. We had all known in Peking that no gun-boats or expedition would be necessary. And my father's body had been sent back for burial. They had tried not to let me know how brutally he had died. But I did know; one always knew these things in China. It had not been enough. Their gods, or my God, had decided it had not been enough. Less than a month after that burial came a letter and a chest which buried the last I had in the world. There was a letter, addressed to my father, in Angus Macdonald's formal script and phrases. "Your son, my grandson, William Howard, has died as the result of a hunting accident in the lands above Cluain. He is buried among his forebears in the kirk yard of St. Andrew in the parish of Ballochtorra, according to the rites of the Established Church of Scotland. Should you wish ..." My father had no more wishes; he too was buried, according to the rites of the Anglican Church, in the British Legation compound in Peking. And I was in possession of William's personal effects, dispatched to Peking along with the letter. And they included the scroll, the line drawing of the bird on the bare branch, with the confused, inaccurate characters in Mandarin splashed down its edge. And to what, and for what, had I journeyed? From Peking to Tientsin, by river to the coast, by larger boat to Hong Kong, then by British steamer through the Red Sea and Suez to the smoke and soot of London. Then by train on to Scotland, heading towards the heart of the Highlands, to Inverness, and then, by branch line to Ballinaclash, and from there . well, this man, Campbell, was taking me where I had decided to go to Cluain. How little I knew of it. How little I had cared to ask. Of course, all the English-speaking world had some fanciful notion of the Highlands. Hadn't we all seen those formalised sketches of the Queen and her Consort, and the castle they had built at Balmoral? and from a later date there were those sad daguerreotypes of the dumpy little Queen in her widow's weeds seated on a pony held by her gillie in his Highland dress. Pictures of stags and misty glens, tales of feuds and rebellions, and brave, hardy men the novels of Walter Scott. But the Diamond Jubilee had been celebrated the year before, and Victoria was now very old, and had to be in the last years other reign; Edward, the Prince of Wales, had waited almost beyond a man's patience to assume the responsibilities for which he had been a figurehead so long. The century was dying, as the old Queen was; and I knew very well that the reality of the Highlands must be quite different from those misty pictures. There had to be winter here, and people who did not live in castles. Why hadn't I asked more about Cluain? In the letters written in answer to William's I had hardly mentioned it, much less questioned him about it. Had I resented his inexplicable attachment to it, the place he had not even wanted to visit? He had gone to Edinburgh University to study engineering, and he had been expecting, in time, that he too would be planning and building China's railways, competing, as all the foreign interests did, for the concessions of its rich trade. But Angus Macdonald had known he was in Edinburgh, and letters had passed between them. William had at first gone to Cluain unwillingly. "I suspect this old man is possessive," he had written to me before the first visit, 'and I have to be free to do what I have always dreamed of doing. I have to belong to myself." There had not been any more written about being free. He had returned to Cluain at Christmas, and at Easter, and then the whole of the following summer. But it had been the onset of winter at Cluain again when he had died, and now it was the early days of June. My father had died in the middle of a Chinese winter without knowing his son was already dead. It had been the frozen earth for both of them, so far apart. I wondered now why, since I had not asked William, I had not thought to ask my father about Cluain; was it because I sensed that he felt a guilt about it, and it was cruel to probe it? I knew it was a breach that had never mended. He had married the only child of Cluain, and had taken her far away; she too lay in the Legation compound in Peking. He had known Cluain only for one summer one summer's idyll in the Highlands, and he had been deeply in love. So I asked nothing, did not care to remind him, and he did not speak oft^l had let myself be absorbed in the life of China the life that foreigners knew, that is, because no outsider could truthfully claim to know it fully. I had thought I would probably marry there and yet I had fixed my thoughts on none of the young men who came and went at the Legations. I had wanted someone who would stay in China. Unconsciously, perhaps, I had waited for William's return. I would have wanted his good opinion of any man I would marry. I had thought to make China my life, as it was my father's and would be William's. But now it was all behind me, the silken luxuries and savage cruelties, and I was headed towards Cluain, forearmed with so little knowledge, open to the wind. Perhaps, then, I shivered. "You're cold," the man said. "I'm sorry. It was thoughtless of me to have put you up here on the box. I could have ridden down there with you. But I've been a week in Edinburgh and when I've been away from here I have a terrible longing to be back. And when I'm back I have to sit up high, and see it all again. I know I'm home then." "I'm not cold," I answered. "Perhaps just tired. And I know what you mean about seeing it all...." There was so much to see, to try to know. It was beautiful; even my tired, bewildered gaze could appreciate that. Beautiful, but not soft. We passed from clumps of trees to vistas of open meadows, and beyond them boggy moorland. The wind raced through the young green crops; we seemed to climb and descend endlessly sometimes through open expanses of moor, sometimes the road wound down and up a glen so narrow that the very light seemed to be shut out. As the clouds scudded before the wind, from time to time I saw the mountains1 knew they had to be part of the Cairngorm Range. I had studied the map of Scotland so many times since Angus Macdonald's letter. We passed little cottages huddled where they could find a vestige of shelter I knew the snows would come here, as they did in China. It was strange and wild, and it exhilarated me in a way I had not expected. My mother's blood was in me also, I thought. Suddenly I began to understand the feeling of recognition which must have stirred in William. Then I saw it a great place perched on a craggy outcrop above a river, a river whose white water tumbled and sparkled even on this grey afternoon. The place itself was high and old, turreted and battlemented; the centre building was of a great age, and had once been a fortress dominating the narrow pass through the glen. But obviously when times had grown more peaceful, portions had been added to it, and gardens laid out in broad terraces that descended to the river. Despite the gardens, its splendour had still a kind of grimness about it. "What is that?" "Ballochtorra." It was a name already in my heart; William would lie buried somewhere near. "Who lives there?" "A Campbell." Then he added, turning and half-smiling at me the first time I had seen a smile. "I do." "Then why did you say it like that ? - a Campbell?" "Because you. Miss Howard, are a Macdonald, whether you're called that or not. In Scottish history, ever since the massacre at Glencoe oh, and before that, even the Macdonalds and the Campbells are thought to be implacable enemies. It wasn't always true, of course. Often they had fought on the same side just as often they've faced each other with drawn swords. As have most clans in Scotland. They've raided each other's cattle and castles. They've taken each other's women. Sometimes they've even arranged peaceful marriages. But you and I we're supposed by outsiders to be hereditary enemies, but in fact it was different septs of our clans who were involved at Glencoe. You are a Macdonald of Clanranald, and I'm a Campbell of Cawdor. But still it was Campbells who were quartered on Macdonalds at Glencoe, and who took their hospitality, and who slew them that morning in the February snow all from seven to seventy years old. Five o'clock in the morning, and many of them tumbling out of i7 their beds, and ending lying naked and dead in the snow. It isn't forgiven or forgotten even if the Macdonalds were rebels against King William of Orange and the Campbells were said merely to be carrying out orders. That it was done by stealth by men living in the houses ofTRHr victims is what is not forgiven. It happened more than two hundred years ago, but we're still supposed to hate each other. Scotland's been peaceful for a long time now, and it's only fanatics who keep bringing up the Stuarts and Bonnie Prince Charlie. We have our old Hanoverian queen living here among us, and none would think of harming her, or her son. But it's a romantic, foolish game we Scots play that all the clans still share ties of brotherhood and blood. We've been as cruel to each other as men could be Ballochtorra there would tell its tales, and its dungeons were there for other reasons than storing wines. But your name is Macdonald and my name is Campbell, and we're supposed never to let the memory of Glencoe die. Even though you and I are distant cousins. " I sat upright. "Cousins ? How?" He shrugged. "It does happen. Oh, it's an odd story, and your grandfather would like to keep its memory bright, because he won himself a great personal victory from it. He won the best that Ballochtorra owned. He won the dower house of Ballochtorra, which is Cluain. With it he won the best lands in the strath, the lands that in the old days gave Ballochtorra its grain and cattle gave it the lands to rent out to tenant farmers, who in turn gave service to the Campbells in times of trouble, so that the chief of the Campbells would protect their lands and houses, their women and children. Most would take the name of Campbell or Macdonald or Frazer or Grant whatever was the name of the chief they served. That's how the clan system worked then, when it was a real need, not a decoration. They clung together for mutual protection, as families do. And as families do, they often quarrelled. It was a system. It worked in its time. But that time is over now. On the order of the English, after the Stuarts' last hope vanished with Prince Charlie at Culloden, the clan system was broken. For many years no Highlander could wear the tartan, or bear arms. But we would do better to forget it, or at least understand where it belongs. It would be better if you and I were not expected to mistrust and dislike each other just because of our names. " "Montague and Capulet..." He sighed, a sound I heard even above the wind. "Yes, Montague and Capulet, if you like. Forgive me for indulging in all this lecturing on something you perhaps already know but you will perhaps be happier here if you remember a few of these things." We were crossing a graceful arched stone bridge, and he glanced up at the heights of Ballochtorra. "That was one of the things so attractive about William he had many qualities we all liked. He was like a clean wind blowing through all this nonsense. He hadn't come with any preconceived ideas. He didn't hate Campbells because of their name. And he went against everything your grandfather believed in when he came to visit at Ballochtorra. " "He always said he would be his own man." "He was. I never believed he would do anything he didn't want to do. You were very fond of William. " It was said in the same matter-of-fact tone. "I had only one brother. In China one is isolated. There are fewer of one's own kind. I hardly know how other brothers and sisters feel about each other if they are as close as we were. He was the elder he led me everywhere. For a long time I didn't know what to think before asking William. He was like Father but so much nearer my age." "And he led you here?" "Perhaps." We had started on the steep ascent again, the road winding up around the castle to take the bend along the shelf of the crag. We came to a gatehouse, stone-built, but quite new, I thought turreted in the fashion of the castle; splendid iron gates were embellished with a gold-tipped shield, the armorial bearings a bird of some sort, with long arched neck, like a hissing swan. The gold leaf was so fresh I could read the motto above the bird. Be mindful. I wondered if it were meant as advice or warning. I could not help the touch of acid. "For those who have lost " their best lands to another clan, you appear to be very prosperous. " He nodded. "Oh, yes our good farming lands are gone. What we still have are the majors for rich men to shoot on." "Then you are rich." 9 "Let us say my wife is rich." I was too tired; I couldn't take in any more of it. So I let the remark slide past me. I knew that soon I would face Cluain, and whatever waited for me there. I felt my shoulders sag, and it was then I truly began to feel the cold. The trees that had been cleared to give the castle its prominence were appearing again, an ancient planting of oak and beech. We were rounding the bend and coming out into a broad meadowland beside the river when I saw him. It would have been easy to miss him. He stood within the shadow of a beech, and the leaves above him were the only things that moved; the dog at his side was just as motionless. The man was dark1 could barely see his face in the shadow; he wore a kilt, some faded red pattern it was, and a ragged sheepskin jerkin above it. He looked at us steadily; his hand was raised, but not in greeting. We were almost past before I saw the bird perched on that raised gloved hand. A large bird, what kind I didn't know, but with intensely dark eyes, as still and unblinking as the man and the dog. Perhaps they all moved their eyes to watch us, but none turned a head. Oddly, though, Campbell, beside me, raised his whip in brief, rather curt, salute; the man did not respond. Then they were behind us, that strange trio, and somehow I managed not to turn my own head to look back at them. "What will you do at Cluain?" "Who knows. Perhaps I won't stay." We went on in silence for some time. Then he said: "Angus Macdonald was bitterly grieved by William's death. William must have seemed an answer to all his hopes. I have only glimpsed him once in the months since then. He seemed to me very aged. Perhaps it would be a kindness if you made yourself stay, whatever happens." "Does that mean you believe I will not be welcome? I told you I was not expected." "Who's to say? Cluain is not an ordinary household. If you should need a friend ... if you should need somewhere to come, Ballochtorra is close by." "And your wife will she welcome me?" "She will welcome whomever I do. She welcomes a lot that I don't. That is no reflection on her, but on me. I'm not .. very sociable. " "You have done me a service for which I'm sure my grandfather would wish to thank you. I'm sure Cluain will not fail in the Highland hospitality you were speaking of. After all as you said1 am his only grandchild." And then quickly added, to cover myself, "Most likely I will not stay long." "Not stay? A pity ..." A pity for whom, I wondered. But now he was gesturing again with his whip, and the reins urged the horse to a quicker gait. "There it is now Cluain." It stood there alone in the broad meadows that rose gently from the river; the wind rimed through the young green grain; the cattle grazed the early summer grasses on the higher pastures, and those down towards the river. The cloud had lifted, and the mountains were clear and sharp, the wind blowing straight off them. I could not easily pick out the dwelling-house of Cluain, because the other buildings dominated it. There were not just the usual outbuildings of a good farm, but a long series of identical stone sheds, adjoining one another, which must be used for warehousing, I thought. Then there was the odd stone pile with chimneys that ended in pagoda-like domes that might have come there straight from China. It was a strange sight the grouping of buildings in the midst of a rural scene, like some factory pile lifted from the industrial North through which the train had taken me, but with these stones cleansed of soot and grime by the slashing rain from the mountains. I had not known what to expect a whisky distillery to look like, but this had not been in my mind. "Angus Macdonald claims," Campbell said, 'that he makes the finest malt whisky in the whole Highlands, and I've never heard anyone seriously dispute that claim. Now he is old, and William had become his great hope. I'm afraid he is a very sad and angry man. " The road down from Ballochtorra's crag had taken such a wide curve to bring it to the leveT^F the river meadows that now it had to wind back on itself to approach Cluain; the whole group of buildings faced us on a diagonal, so that we looked into the very centre of it. The house I could now identify the first building we would reach, the smallest and oldest. There was a stable block, and a cobbled yard that served stables and house and distillery. Across the road, beginning in a line with the distillery, began the long row of warehouse buildings. These were low one storey only, but with roofs and dark slate. Although the pagoda chimneys of the distillery dominated the scene, the brooding bulk of the warehouses stretching along the road like a great gabled terrace had a compelling quality about them, a sense of permanence. From the height of Ballochtorra I had seen the roofs of farm buildings behind the distillery, and strung out along the road past the warehouses, some cottages with garden plots. A town all to itself, it seemed, and yet strangely quiet, as if everyone had gone and left it. But it did not remain quiet. A dog barked, and as the landau drew near to the house a great flock of geese came at a wild run from the direction of the warehouses, hissing and shrieking. Behind me I heard Stevens's half-stifled oath, and Campbell had to hold the horse in tighter to prevent it shying. Stevens slipped out of his seat and went to the horse's head; we moved on at a slow walk, and Campbell tossed the whip to Stevens, who used it to gesture the geese away. Finally, even the big gander in charge of the flock began reluctantly to accept our presence; he gave a honking signal, and the whole white stream of birds turned and waddled back to the warehouses, delighted, I guessed, with the fuss they had caused. "Damned animals," Stevens grumbled. "They should not be allowed. This is a public highway." Campbell did not answer him. The flurry of geese seemed to have brought no one to mark our arrival. The landau now stood before the house. In the confusion, I had not had time to look at it closely, but now it took on its overwhelming importance, as the very heart of Cluain. It was not, as we stood beside it, after all, so small. It was simply that the other buildings were bigger. They all shared the same, almost painful, neatness. The house was much the oldest of the group the dower house of Ballochtorra, it would have stood for perhaps two centuries before the distillery. It was L-shaped, built about two sides of a courtyard. The high stone wall of this courtyard was flush to the wall of the house itself, and an ancient studded door, like the door of the house, faced directly on to the road. Despite the noise of our arrival, both remained unyieldingly closed. The whole structure was built of massive, irregularly cut stone, two-storeyed, with gabled window in the steep pitched roof. What lifted it from the mere dignity of its age and good lines was a piece of sheer fantasy. Where the two wings of the building joined, a tower rose, its slightly inward-inclining walls reaching well above the rest of the house, and capped with a perfect rondel of slate, and a magnificently ornate weather vane. Its total proportions were so perfect that it seemed almost like a child's toy piece. My eye had long been educated to the studied delicacy of the Chinese houses, their walls and courtyards, the exquisite sense of detail that was not absent from anything they fashioned, so I responded to this place as if I had been born to it as William must also have done. He had written that Cluain was beautiful; how beautiful, and in what way, he had not said. Stevens went and banged the knocker on the door; it seemed to be minutes before we caught a glimpse of a figure near the window of one of the front rooms, and almost as long before the door at last opened. The woman who stood there wasted no effort on taking in the details of the scene; her gaze went at once to me, and eyes brilliant, dark, deeply set, and shadowed with black brows and lashes, seemed to scour me with their examination. She was dressed in servant's dress, completely black, even to the apron, severe, unadorned. Black hair, streaked with silver, was drawn sharply to the back other head; it was a handsome face. Tall, slender, she had an unassailable dignity, standing there, just looking at me. Even the man beside me, so cool and self-assured until now, seemed struck with the same feeling as I. I could feel my throat dry. So, in the end, it was the woman who spoke first. "If you had sent a telegram-we would have sent the trap. You are William Howard's sister. 9 How had she known? I was not so much like him. But she gave the impression that she knew things most people did not. I struggled for composure; I was not going to be put out by a servant. But she was like no servant I had ever encountered. I made a movement, and Campbell came to life, leaping down off the seat, and hurrying round to help me down. Stevens had returned to hold the horse. I advanced towards the woman. "Mr. Macdonald is at home?" "And why would Mr. Macdonald be at home at this time of day? We work at Cluain." The insult was deliberate, telling me that if I expected to put her in her place I must know that I first had to find it. As I came closer I saw that she was older than she had seemed. There were fine lines in her pale skin, many lines; and then I saw her hands. They were shockingly red and worn with work, the skin broken at the knuckles as if caustic soap had bitten into it. But she held them before her like a badge of virtue, despising all who could not boast of gainful toil. "I may wait then?" She held the door a little wider. "Aye, certainly you may. I see you have brought your bags...." She did not pause to see the effect of the remark, but turned and called over her shoulder, as if she knew someone would be close by. "Morag ... you are needed." From the back of the hall a girl came at once, and indeed she had been waiting and listening. She rushed forward, like a sudden flaring of light beside that dark figure; red curling hair spilled without discipline from her cap; she had red, soft, full lips and golden amber eyes. Xt was a perfect little heart-shaped face with white skin that flushed to apricot with excitement. No more than the woman beside her did she look like a servant, but she wore a white apron, and she bobbed me a slight curtsy. "Welcome to Cluain, Mistress Howard. Och, it will do your grandfather's heart good to set eyes on you." And she lifted her own glowing eyes to mine, and smiled. There was a bustle as she ran forward to get the bags; Campbell helped her with them, for the woman in black would not step across the threshold. Silently she indicated where they might be placed inside the hall, as if Campbell were her servant also. I felt the hot blood of embarrassment rush to my face. I turned to the woman directly. "You have the advantage of me, since you know my name. May I know yours?" "I am Mairi Sinclair, housekeeper at Cluain." "Then, Mistress Sinclair, may I, on my grandfather's behalf, offer this gentleman, Mr. Campbell, a cup of tea? He has been kind enough to bring me ' But she was looking past me, and her wintery lips twitched. "Sir Gavin, perhaps you will accept the hospitality of Cluain?" She knew he would not. He didn't even look at her, knowing better than to play her game, it seemed. He returned to the doorway, and raised his hat to me. "I hope all goes well. If I can be of assistance.... You saw I live not far away." "Thank you But the words were cut short by Mairi Sinclair. "We all know it's but a short step to Ballochtorra, Sir Gavin. Master William was not long in finding that out." And then to my horror she closed the door in his face, and I was left there in the sudden dimness of the hall, for a moment helpless between this dark wraith of a figure, and this radiant sprite of a girl. Then a sentence from one of William's letters flashed into my brain, yet one other thing I had passed over, not wanting to question, perhaps jealous again. "There is a dragon-lady here whom I believe the Chinese would respect and admire and there is also an enchantress." My eyes grew used to the dimmer light. What the stationmaster had predicted had come true; the rain, now it had come, slashed fiercely against the panes. There seemed a sudden massing of cloud across the valley the strath, Gavin Campbell had called it. I repressed the shiver that rose, and cursed myself for an impetuous fool. Why had I not sent at least a telegram from London? Even more, why had I ever left those many friends in China who had offSyd homes to me, certain, as we all were, that young Englishwomen always found husbands among the superfluity of men who came to reap the pickings of the rich trade. I had been a bishop's daughter, and there had been many who had loved my father. There had been little money even bishops do not grow rich on missionary work. But we had been rich in friends and goodwill; where servants and food are cheap, guests are a pleasure, not a burden. I could have made a slow progression from Peking to Shanghai, and even to Hong Kong, and I would have been welcome in a dozen houses. But I had chosen to come here, with no certain knowledge that I would stay, that I would even be asked to stay. And I had come all because of those nightmarish Mandarin characters scrawled down the length of William's scroll. Remembering them, I lifted my head and looked carefully about me. Approaching in the landau the house had seemed miniature; inside it had space and depth, and a kind of grandeur, possibly the grandeur of antiquity. It was spare and high and severe; the thought came that it was a little like the woman who ruled over it. There was a great stone fireplace here in the hall, and two carved oak chairs set stiffly before it. There was a dark refectory table with silver candlesticks upon it. The hall ran the whole length of this front wing of the building; I could see where the staircase curved outward around the tower. It was a stone staircase, floating, seeming without support except for the massive slabs set into the wall of the tower. It had no banister, only a rope handrail attached to the wall. Narrow windows gave light fitfully. But there was other light; everything that hand could polish gave back the outside light the planked oak floors, the candlesticks, the dark carved furniture. There was no flower, no rug, no picture. Even in the beautiful severity of the Chinese houses I had come to admire, there would have been a single flower or a dried reed in a vase. Here there were no concessions to human delight, or pleasure nothing. But no denying hand could take away this beauty. It had been shaped by unknown mastery of their craft hundreds of years ago. Having stripped it down to its bare bones, it was only the more beautiful. Then something brushed against me, and in the silence I almost shrieked, It was a cat. With difficulty I stood still as it investigated the unfamiliar smell of my skirt and boots. I had known cats before the house in Peking had always had cats, plump, striped creatures, or black and white, one or other always sitting on my father's desk, or on a chair on the veranda, stalking among the bamboo brakes in the garden. But there had been no cats like this one. It was all white, immaculately white, as if it often walked in the rain, and preened itself daily. Finding no comfort from my skirts it went to Mairi Sinclair, as to someone well trusted, and from the shelter of her skirt, it raised its eyes to me. They were without colour; no green or blue in them, a pinkish tinge in that grey an albino cat staring up at me, an elegant slim white shape against the black folds. It occurred to me that here also was a thing without colour or adornment, and Mairi Sinclair's creature as much as a cat will ever be. She did not put a hand down to pat or fondle it. I began to feel that for both such an action would have been unnecessary. "I take it you will be staying the night?" "Possibly." We both knew there was no place else to go, and that obviously I had come with the thought to stay for many nights. "That is," I thrust at her, 'if you have room for me. " "Room, aye and beds aplenty. All dry and well-aired. We have few guests at Cluain, but you'll find nothing amiss in the arrangements. Come, Morag. " With a quick, jerking movement she seized the trunk by one handle, and indicated to Morag to take the other. They set off along the hall. I was left standing beside the leather bag, and there was nothing to do but grasp it and hurry after them. It was a large bag, and almost too long for me to carry, so that it bumped against each step as I climbed. I found myself panting; the two women ahead of me were so quick, and I had a sudden awful fear of plunging sideways over that unprotected stair. I was too tired. I longed for hot water, and food, and a warm bed. I longed not to have to face my grandfather this night. When I reached the hall upstairs the two women seemed to have vanished; the stairs endeathere, and two passages opened to follow the L-shape of the house. I stopped, bewildered. I could hear the quick words that passed between them, but they were nowhere in sight. Then I looked and saw that the tower itself had an arched opening and a further spiral of stairs led on upwards within the walls themselves. It was still wide; the steps were broad wedges. They ended at the top of the tower in the most extraordinary room I had ever seen. It was surprisingly large, following the curve of its outer walls, with three windows that gave a view of the valley past the distillery and along the river, across the gradually rising lands to the mountains, and up to the crag on which Ballochtorra was perched. There was a stone floor, and the centre of the room contained a raised platform piled with split logs, a long copper hood reached up to form a chimney flue, ending where the sloping curved ceiling came to its point. The ornate weather vane I had noticed must have capped the chimney pot There was a fourposter bed, just fitted within two windows, hung with tartan curtains and covered with a wool spread of the same pattern. There was a tall hanging-cupboard with a drawer at the bottom set against the next space between the windows; beside it was a washstand. The third space was given to a desk that could only have been made especially for this room it took the curve of the wall, and its ends were cut on the slant. The dark carved oak chair set before it was its match. There was an oak bench before the fire, and a standing sconce with two candles. Tartan curtains hung on wooden poles at each window, straight, without fringe or tie; they were a great splotch of colour against the white walls. The last space left between the windows was the doorway in which I stood. The room was austere and plain and quite magnificent. "Was this ? Did my brother use this room?" Mairi Sinclair turned from her task of stowing the chest as neatly as it would fit beneath one of the windows; she was frowning, and I thought for a moment that it irked her because the curved walls must forever defeat the straight lines of most objects. "This room? yes, the Master directed it." Morag took the bag from my hand. " "Tis high and lonely up here, and when the wind blows and the snow falls, you could feel you were lost on a mountain." And high and mighty, I thought. Whoever lived in this room and saw Cluain's treasures spread before him would be tempted. Who would not feel the lonely splendour of this place, who might not ache to possess it? My grandfather had wanted William. "Fanciful thoughts, Morag," Mairi Sinclair said. "The tower room is the pride ofCluain." Her tone almost suggested that she thought me not worthy of it, but at the same time she had sought to isolate me here. Whoever lived in this room must also be able to live with their own company. I went close to one of the windows now and looked down on Cluain's two wings, and into the courtyard that was screened from the road by its high wall. Even from this height I could tell it was a garden that the Chinese might have delighted in filled with the herbs of their wonderful cooking, and their healing medicines. The straight paths that met precisely in the middle at the sundial were encroached by the sprawl of lavender and thyme, sage and chamomile, fennel and parsley. The pervading neatness of Cluain was here defeated. The plants went their own wild, sweet way. I hoped I saw the hand of my grandfather here. "The garden..." I began. There had to be some way to make contact with Mairi Sinclair. "The garden is mine." I repressed a sigh, and turned back to face her; for a moment her expression seemed unguarded, and she was not so much fierce, as pitiful, defending what she thought of as her own. But I could have been mistaken. Her tone was absolutely unrelenting as she spoke again. "I'll be getting down, then. Morag shall bring you some water to wash. The Master will be here directly." "You'll send for him?" She shook her head. "No one sends for Angus Macdonald. It is almost time for him to be in for his supper. He is very punctual. You will oblige him by not keeping him waiting, Miss Howard."