The Laird of Lochlannan

by Fiona Monroe

  The corridor outside was empty.

  She closed the door firmly, and returned to Caroline's side. This time, she sat on the other end of the chaise longue and took Caroline's hand. Her cousin permitted it, languidly, while covering her eyes with the other.

  It was not the time to start remonstrating with Caroline over her treatment of Mackenzie, nor was it her place to do so; and she was certainly not going to challenge Caroline's claims about her brother and the maid, because she did not want to hear any more about it. A master exercising his power over a servant like that was dishonourable in a peculiarly nasty and squalid way, and at the same time she was dismayed that the girl should not value herself more. She did not like to think of it, so she ignored what Caroline had said altogether.

  "My dear cousin, you must be calm," she said again. "Come, think of it, the worst is over. Or at least, the die is cast, you have taken the one essential, brave step. Mr. Ross will not, cannot renew his addresses after this, no matter what anyone says to persuade him otherwise. No honourable man would, and from what I have seen of him, Mr. Ross is that—a good and sensible man. He will go away and trouble you no more. I expect your brother will be angry, but you will simply have to endure that. He cannot be angry forever."

  Caroline turned her head and stared at her, her eyes wide. "But you don't understand!" she breathed. "You—do not—understand! Ah! If only it were so! Oh! My life is miserable indeed." She covered her face with both hands and began to sob again.

  "Caroline! Tell me what has happened!"

  "I did not refuse Mr. Ross! I accepted him. I accepted him!"

  Catriona paced around the room, perturbed, while Caroline stammered out her story in staccato gasps. Mr. Ross had been almost agreeable after dinner the night before, and had seemed not at all to be pressing himself upon her. He had even made some delicate allusion, Catriona gathered, to his disappointment of the previous year, and expressed a hope that they could still consider themselves friends despite that.

  "So I thought, you know, that whatever Duncan said, he no longer thought of me—that Duncan was just trying what he could to make me think—that Mr. Ross was a man of honour and didn't mean to press his suit. I had been so afraid ever since I knew he was coming! And yet he seemed, the first night and yesterday, on the drive... he seemed to wish bygones to be bygones. And said good night to me so cordially, and yet with so little meaning... you know what I mean by meaning. And so this morning, when we met by chance in the new hall before breakfast, he said he was intent on seeing how the rose garden bloomed, and I said I would show it to him. It seemed the friendly thing to do, you know. And before breakfast... who does anything of any import before breakfast? I thought I should have been safe, for sure. We walked out, and we talked of this and that... the fine weather... how the roses got on... I swear, he was as pleasant as could be, and I was not afraid at all... and then from the roses, it was, and how the walls of the rose garden captures the sun, he started talking about Sgeir Dubh—his home, you know, except we are to call it Blackrock now—and how he can get nothing to grow there, but that if only I were there to direct the gardeners, they might have better luck—and then all of a sudden he was saying I was the most beautiful girl he had ever known, and that he still loved me with all his heart, and that for all the improvements he and his father were making to Sgeir Dubh, he cared about one improvement only, and that without that one it was all as nothing to him—and he plucked a rose and got down on one knee in the damp grass and held it up to me and begged me to be his wife. And I said I would!" She finished on a wail.

  Catriona was dumbfounded. For a moment she truly did not know what to say. "But Caroline, why?"

  "It seemed easier than causing such a fearful row with Duncan and my mother. Oh, I don't know. At that very moment, as he was kneeling in the dew and holding up a rose, you know, I didn't feel it was kind to disappoint him." She sniffed, and dabbed at her nose with her handkerchief.

  "But... your promise is already given to another..."

  "Yes! But he is not here! He is hundreds of miles away in Vienna, or perhaps somewhere else—anywhere but here to protect me! Oh, what shall I do?"

  "You must tell Mr. Ross that you have thought it over, and fear you cannot make him happy after all," said Catriona, simply. "Unless... you actually want to marry Mr. Ross."

  "Of course I do not want to marry Mr. Ross! You have seen him! Would you want to marry him?"

  "In truth, Caroline, Mr. Ross seems like a very amiable, sensible man, perfectly eligible."

  "Oh! You will take their part. You will turn against me too!"

  "That is unfair," said Catriona. "And it is not I who has just consented to an engagement with him."

  It was the wrong thing to say. Caroline threw her handkerchief over her face and wailed again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Mr. Ross set off after breakfast that very morning for Blackrock, in order to inform his parents of his success. There was a lively discussion over breakfast itself about the arrangements for the wedding, which Sir Duncan and Lady Buccleuch assured Mr. Ross could take place as early as the following week; just as soon as Sir John and Lady Ross could arrive, if they wished to attend. Mr. Ross was sure that they would, and he undertook to bring them back with him.

  Catriona felt it was a pity that Mr. Ross should depart in such haste. It gave Caroline no opportunity to summon her courage and give him his dismissal. Now, she must either write to him and put an end to the business while he was at his own home, or face the more appalling prospect of calling a halt to the wedding once his parents had already arrived and everything was arranged.

  Catriona tried her best to persuade Caroline to the lesser of these two evils, and to send a letter to Blackrock without any delay. "I know your mother and your brother will be angry, dear cousin, but think how they will feel if Sir John and Lady Ross make the journey to Lochlannan, expecting to see their son married, and you tell him then that it cannot be."

  "Oh! No. That would be so dreadful. I could not, I could not do it."

  "Then write, write this very morning, and send it express. Do it, and then only after you have dispatched it, tell your mother and brother. They might be angry but at least you will not put them in the highly embarrassing position of disappointing the Rosses once they are here as guests. I will help you compose the letter, if you wish. Look—here is paper, here are pen and ink."

  She proffered the items to her cousin urgently, but Caroline shrank back onto her chaise longue and all but batted them away. "Oh! I cannot. Oh! A letter. If only Lord Daventry would have replied to the letter I sent him."

  "My dear Caroline, you know quite well that it is impossible that he should even have received it yet."

  "I shall be married to another before it does!" she cried.

  "No! You need not be, indeed. Write now. Write, and face any consequences but that one."

  But Caroline shook her head violently, her face buried in her handkerchief once more.

  Catriona was exasperated, despite her real pity for her cousin's situation. She was also filled with a sense of dread as the time passed after which it would certainly be impossible to reach Mr. Ross by letter and break the engagement before the wedding party set off from Blackrock. A letter arrived for Lady Buccleuch from Lady Ross, expressing her delight at the happy event and her intention of leaving for Lochlannan the very next day. Lady Buccleuch read portions of this out over breakfast, and Caroline looked ready to dash from her seat in tears. She did not, however. She had received a letter of her own by the same post, and was toying with it listlessly.

  With the Rosses' imminent arrival confirmed, the castle was thrown into immediate confusion as it was prepared it for the wedding. Sir Duncan was in great good humour and seemed more active in directing the servants than his mother was. An army of housemaids emerged from the shadows to sweep the flagstones of the great hall and staircase, polish wooden panels and furniture, and beat carpets on the lawns.

  "Dec
ades of dust, by God," said Sir Duncan. "I do believe the old place hasn't had a good clean since before the time of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Have you seen the old chapel yet, Miss Dunbar?"

  When she told him she had not, he marched her immediately to a tiny vaulted chapel in the lower floor of the old keep, behind a great wooden door that had previously been locked and bolted. Now it was standing open, and servants were at work washing down the walls and floor and polishing the brass altar-rail. The atmosphere was deathly chill, despite the warmth of the day outside, and she realised that there were no windows at all. It might have been a dungeon.

  "I believe," said Sir Duncan, "that in my grandfather's time, household prayers were held here daily. My father had no truck with such carryings-on, so the place was shut up and is now looking on the shabby side. Still, it has not been deconsecrated, and I'm told it was used last year some time for a servants' hasty wedding. We can soon spruce it up a bit for Caroline's."

  Catriona found it at that moment very difficult not to attempt to remonstrate with him again, to appeal to him not to drive his sister into this match so relentlessly. She was mindful of his warning not to interfere, however, and she felt that her position in Caroline's favour was far weaker than when she had spoken to him about it before; because Caroline had now of her own free will given her consent to Mr. Ross, and had not withdrawn that consent over the course of five days now. She had bewailed it in private to Catriona, but had said nothing to her mother or brother.

  The letter proved to be from Mr. Ross himself, and Caroline gave it to Catriona to read quite carelessly. It was warm and full of expressive sentiments of attachment and delight, to the extent that Catriona blushed and felt that she was reading words that had been written very much for one pair of eyes only. Mr. Ross loved Caroline, it was quite clear; his parents were delighted with the match, every well-known stone and rampart of Blackrock seemed charmed and new-made now that she would soon grace them, and he was altogether the happiest man alive.

  "He seems to be sincerely attached to you," she said, with foreboding, handing the letter back.

  "Oh, anyone can write a fine letter. There are books for that!" Caroline twisted the letter in her hands, and paused by the fireplace.

  For a moment, Catriona thought that she was going to toss the letter into the fire. But she folded it, and put it between an ornament and the mantelpiece clock, and turned away.

  Sir John and Lady Ross, with an impressive retinue of servants, arrived within three days. Their son had already returned ahead of them on horseback, and the wedding was set for Friday, three days after this.

  Sir John was an energetic, excitable man who seemed younger than Catriona had imagined he would be. He appeared to have lost none of the vigour of youth, and she supposed he must have married early and be not yet fifty. He had the same flaming red hair as his son, peppered only slightly by age. Lady Ross was a quiet, faded woman with little to say, and this clearly suited her great friend Lady Buccleuch; one talked about nothing and the other said nothing, for happy hours at a time.

  Sir Duncan talked loudly and cheerfully about arrangements for the wedding to everyone, while Caroline sat by silent and glum. Catriona watched Caroline anxiously, unable to believe that she would not speak to Mr. Ross before Friday came. She could not imagine allowing herself to be married against her will, through inaction or fear. And yet it was Tuesday, and then it was Wednesday, and Friday was only two days away; and still, it seemed, Caroline was allowing the preparations to go ahead.

  Catriona had asked her cousin several times whether she intended to speak to Mr. Ross, and attempted on each occasion to urge her to do so. Caroline's response was always, "I cannot, I cannot," uttered in a low agitated voice, and she always got away from her as soon as possible. Then Catriona began to suspect that Caroline was actively avoiding her, or at least being alone with her.

  It worried her very much, perhaps more than it ought. She was mindful of Sir Duncan's clear and not perhaps unjust warning, that this was a family matter of no concern to her; she who was no more than a distant connection, lately arrived in the household. But exasperating as she could be, Caroline was her friend as well as her cousin-in-law, and she was moreover her only companion at Lochlannan. She did not want to see her take this serious, irredeemable step in such a frame of mind. She did not want her to leave Lochlannan, not under these circumstances anyway.

  She even felt sorry for Mr. Ross. He was a decent young man, and clearly did adore Caroline, and tried in his unimaginative way to cheer and comfort her. She felt he did not deserve to have a wife who cared nothing for him and loved another; she thought he would be better advised by Sir Duncan, who obviously had great influence over him, to go away and put Caroline out of his mind and find another young lady who could return his love. But it all seemed far too late now.

  On Wednesday evening after dinner, Caroline looked particularly miserable. She had kept up a decent pretence of conversation with Mr. Ross at dinner, although he had done most of the talking as usual. But as soon as the ladies withdrew, she pleaded a headache and said she would go straight to bed.

  Catriona thought that Lady Buccleuch looked at her sharply, with suspicion, but there was little that could be said before Lady Ross. On her way to bed, Catriona steeled herself for one further attempt and went to knock gently on Caroline's door.

  There was no reply. It was entirely probable that Caroline had long been fast asleep. Catriona wrestled briefly with her conscience, then opened the door uninvited. She would creep quietly in, and if Caroline truly were asleep—or determinedly pretending to be so—she would tiptoe away again without disturbing her. If, as she suspected, she was lying awake sulking and brooding, then Catriona was determined to keep her company at least. Perhaps she would at last persuade her to do the right thing and tell Mr. Ross the truth.

  She half expected to see Caroline prostrate on her chaise longue, but the sitting room was empty, although there were candles burning on the little table and the mantelpiece. The door to the bedroom was standing a little open, and it was dark within. Feeling foolish now, Catriona walked very quietly to the door just to ascertain that Caroline was indeed asleep, but after standing there for half a minute she could hear no sound of steady breathing.

  A little concerned now, she took a few silent steps beyond the door into the bedroom. She was shielding her candle with one hand, but it still cast a little light into the room; quite enough for Catriona to see that the bed was flat and empty, and neatly made.

  She felt a huge lurch of fright in her heart. How long had it been since dinner time? Two hours, at least. Could Caroline have been so desperate as to have run away, and done it under pretence of retiring with a headache? Should she go straight away to Sir Duncan, and let Caroline in for all the trouble that would ensue, or should she try to find her first herself? Even as she formed that thought, she knew it was hopeless. What could she do alone, at half past ten at night?

  She ran to the window and looked out, frantically wondering if Caroline might have made her escape that way. It seemed unlikely, however. Although the room was only on the first floor, not high up in a tower as her own was, there was no obvious way down to the gravel path below, and no signs that any attempt had been made to open the window. It was late, but it was nearly summer now and there was still enough pale light lingering to see the sweep of the lawn, the trees beyond and the summerhouse.

  Just as she was about to turn away from the window and consider seriously what she ought to do, she caught a flash of movement outside. Someone was hurrying out of the summerhouse, which was a small Grecian temple-style stone building intended only to provide a place to rest in the shade or shelter from rain. She had no doubt, despite the fading twilight, that the figure was Caroline, and she was half-running towards the house with her cloak pulled around her.

  Catriona retreated swiftly, her heart beating fast, and was halfway down the main staircase of the new wing before Caroline came in from the directi
on of the garden entrance. She gave a start when she saw Catriona, and stopped dead. Her face was white with agitation, and her eyes were bright and brilliant.

  "I thought you had gone to bed with a headache, cousin," said Catriona. "I just knocked on your door to enquire after you, but you did not answer..."

  "I needed air." Caroline's tone was breathless, as if she had been running. "I had to take a turn in the garden. The nights are so light."

  "It is damp now, surely. You will take cold."

  "So, I came in. Goodnight!" She bunched her skirts and mounted the stairs nearly at a run.

  Catriona hesitated for a moment, watching her go. She was relieved that Caroline had not after all fled the castle, but she was sure that she had not been taking the air. She considered following her, but the appearance of Cruikshank at the top of the stairs—doing his methodical round as he prepared the castle for nightfall—decided her against it. With foreboding in her heart, she went to bed.

  "Catriona! Dear cousin! Are you awake?"

  Catriona struggled to surface from a dream in which she had been walking up the aisle in the gloomy dungeon-like chapel of the castle, about to be married to Mr. Carmichael. When she reached the altar, and the waiting figure there turned around, she saw that it was Sir Duncan instead. Then the ghost of Margaret Buccleuch formed in the air between them and hissed that Sir Duncan was her own drowned lover, and that Catriona should never have him. The ghost's face was white as chalk, with great empty eyes like bruised pits, and its voice was a harsh, urgent whisper.

  Catriona felt a great swoop of dread as she awoke, cold and dazed in the atmosphere of the dream, and after a moment's befuddlement she realised that Caroline was sitting on her bed. Her voice was the ghost's whisper, and her face—deeply shadowed by the candle she carried—had a momentary likeness to that nightmare countenance.