Doctor Hamish had told me that the castle was built high in order to see and repel the approach of hostile clansmen in ancient times. But I had not taken in that it was built on a rock, which rose against the night sky like a stooping giant. The building itself seemed to grow out of the granite like a natural thing, its walls thick with vegetation. Swaying towards it through the dark, with the rumble of the wheels and the clopping of the horse’s hooves filling my ears, I was transfixed.
The place was both older and newer than I had imagined. A ruined tower rose at one corner, but the inhabited part of the house was oblong, with a tiled roof, a large collection of chimneys, polished casement windows and an arched door studded with nails. It looked like a bigger version of the manor house belonging to our local Gilchester squire. But as we drew nearer, I saw that there was no similarity between the pasture that surrounded the squire’s house and the situation of the castle.
Drumwithie’s grandeur was in its setting. The approach to the front door was by means of a narrow stone bridge, separated from the chasm of blackness below by a low, moss-covered wall. I clutched the side of the trap. On all sides, the land fell away from the house. Save for a strip of gravel and lawn beside the carriage sweep, it was supported by nothing but rock. The building looked as if it had been dropped from the heavens, to settle comfortably on the highest point of the landscape.
There was little moonlight to show the magnificence of the place, yet I sensed it. When we drew to a halt at the door, I turned to Doctor Hamish, fired with admiration. “This must be one of the most beautiful situations in Scotland!” I exclaimed. “How proud you must be to live here!”
He smiled diffidently. “Humble, rather than proud, my dear. Jamie is very attached to it.”
I waited for Jamie to acknowledge his father’s comment, but he was silent as he jumped down, unbolted the back of the trap and took hold of my trunk. I stole a glance at his face; his mouth was firmly set, but the expression in his eyes, shaded by the peak of his cap, was hidden from me.
Though there were lights each side of the castle door, Doctor Hamish took the carriage-lantern from its holder. “Watch your step, now,” he warned, holding it above my head. “Will you take my hand?”
I took it gratefully and stepped down from the trap. Jamie preceded us with my trunk into the vestibule, then turned back for his father’s suitcase. The two men did not look at each other. I felt anxious; what had caused this coldness between them?
When Doctor Hamish opened the door that led from the vestibule to the main hall, I saw only a long, vaulted room with a stone floor and a log fire at the far end. “We call this the Great Hall, because that is what it has always been called,” he said. “We use it as a sort of drawing room.”
At first I thought the room was empty. But then I heard the rustle of petticoats. A lady rose from a chair by the fire and turned to face us. My first impression was of a tall figure – not young, but erect, elegantly dressed, and with the demeanour of a person who considers herself important. She did not step forward, but waited for us to approach and offered me her hand.
“Good evening, Miss Graham,” she said, with no welcoming smile on her lips. “I am Jean McAllister, Doctor Hamish’s mother-in-law. I trust you have had a pleasant journey?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Our countryside is beautiful, is it not?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“And the city of Edinburgh stands comparison with Rome, or Athens, does it not?”
I hesitated; I had not been to Rome or Athens. What did this lady wish me to say?
“Have a heart, Grandmother!” cried Jamie, banging the door behind him. “There will be plenty of time to advertise the attractions of Scotland to Cat when she has had her supper!” He threw his cap onto a chair and sprawled on a small sofa, looking at us from under his flap of hair. “And talking of supper, if there’s any to spare, I am ready for it. Where’s Bridie?”
“Heating up the broth,” replied his grandmother. She sat down again in her chair and adjusted her skirt. “She will have heard you arrive.” She tilted her head in my direction. “Miss Graham, have you given my grandson permission to call you by that ludicrous name?”
“She did not need to give me permission,” said Jamie. He held his hair back with one hand and contemplated me, his eyes glittering. There was enough light now for me to see that they were an unusual colour, a bright sea-green, speckled like robins’ eggs. “It is obvious I must call her Cat. Is it not, Cat?”
“Jamie!” His grandmother rapped the arm of her chair. “You are not amusing. Do not weary our guest further than she has already been wearied by her long journey.”
“Quite right,” agreed Doctor Hamish. I was glad to feel his gentle touch on my back. “Come, my dear, sit by the fire,” he said, guiding me towards an armchair. He glanced at Jamie, who ignored him, lunging forward for a cigarette from the box on the table and feeling in his pockets for matches.
Jamie put a cigarette in his mouth. “Smoke, Cat?”
I shrank from the offered box. What would Mother have thought? “Um … thank you, but I do not smoke.”
“And nor should you,” said Mrs McAllister. “Jamie, you are critical of me for pressing my opinion onto Miss Graham immediately upon her entrance, but you show her the discourtesy of assuming she indulges in the smoking of cigarettes! Do you not know that smoking is for girls whose mothers have abandoned their education, and who wear bloomers to ride their bicycles?”
Doctor Hamish laughed uneasily. “I am sure Catriona does not do that!”
“What if she does?” Jamie threw his head back and blew out a column of smoke. “Bloomers are an entirely practical idea.”
My head ached, I was hungry and longed for my bed. I glanced at the doctor; his concern for me gave me courage. “Doctor Hamish,” I began, “may I eat my supper in my room? I am so tired I can barely sit up any longer.”
“Of course, I will tell Bridie. And, Jamie, will you take the trunk up, since MacGregor is not here?”
As he spoke, the arched door to the left of the fireplace opened, and Bridie, who was evidently the housekeeper, appeared with a tray bearing two bowls of broth and some bread and butter. She was about forty, thickset around the middle and not very tall, with a round face and a pinky-gold complexion, dressed in a dark blue dress and a white apron.
“Bridie,” said Doctor Hamish, “our guest is very tired and will take her supper in her room.”
“Aye, master, I’ll take the young lady up now. I can make up another tray and bring it up the stair, no bother.” She gave me a kind look. “It’s a long way ye’ve come today, miss.”
“Where’s my soup, Bridie?” asked Jamie, on his way out of the room.
Bridie put the tray on the table. “There’ll be some in the kitchen if ye want it. Now, miss, if ye’d like to follow me.”
I rose self-consciously, thanked her and turned to Jamie’s grandmother. “Goodnight, Mrs McAllister. Um … I hope to hear more about, er … Scotland tomorrow.”
She did not smile. “Very well, Miss Graham.”
They were all looking at me. “Oh, please call me Catriona,” I said.
“Then goodnight, Catriona,” said Mrs McAllister, with a nod of her head.
“Goodnight, my dear,” said Doctor Hamish. “Come down to breakfast as late as you like tomorrow.”
I wondered how I would find the dining room. I wondered why MacGregor, who must be a manservant, was not here. I wondered, again, about Jamie’s mother’s whereabouts. “I am very glad to be here,” I told the doctor, hoping my uncertainty did not show in my face. “Thank you for bringing me to Drumwithie. Goodnight.”
The cold was noticeable as soon as Bridie and I stepped through the door into the stone-walled vestibule. “There’s a good fire in your room, miss,” she informed me. “If ye’d put out the lamp when ye go off to sleep that’ll be fine, and just let the fire go down. I’ll be up in the morning to do it.”
; While she spoke, I followed her up a wide stone staircase that led from the vestibule to a carpeted landing. It was no warmer up here. “It is cold all year-round, then?” I ventured.
“Aye, inside the castle. Maybe in August, after a good hot summer, we can have a few days without fires, ye ken.”
I nodded, resolving to send home for warmer underwear.
“Folk say Scotland’s at its bonniest in the month of May,” went on Bridie conversationally. “So ye’ve arrived at the right time.”
As she led me along the landing I heard Jamie’s boots clattering down a winding staircase in the far corner. “Trunk’s at the end of the bed!” he said with an exaggerated bow. “Sleep well, bonny Cat!”
“Goodnight,” I said blankly. I had not yet settled on the best way to speak to him. I did not wish to sound cold towards a young man in whose presence I was to spend the entire summer, but neither did I think it prudent to show approval of his unconventional behaviour. “Please,” I added, trying to keep my tone friendly, “will you call me Catriona?”
“No, of course not!” He had already strode passed me, and was halfway along the landing. “You are Cat – our own mysterious Cait Sìth, is she not, Bridie? Oh! I forgot to say!” He wheeled on his heel like a soldier. “As this is your first night here, you must count the beams in your room before you sleep, and make a wish. If an unmarried girl does that, her wish will come true. Now, goodnight!”
And laughing loudly, he disappeared down the stairs.
“Och, never mind his nonsense, miss,” said Bridie sympathetically. “He’s full o’ these tales. Mrs McAllister is fond o’ telling them, so he’s known them since he was a wee boy.” She opened a door at the bottom of the spiral staircase, and I looked inside. It was a bathroom, with a washstand, a bathtub with carved lion’s feet and a water closet. “Now, if ye’d like to follow me up here to the tower.”
She led me up the winding staircase, which emerged onto another, smaller landing. “Master said to put ye in the tower room, for the view.”
“Oh!” A worrying thought crossed my mind. “Not the tower that’s, um, in ruins?” It had not looked habitable.
Bridie was breathing noisily from our climb. “Och, no, miss!” she exclaimed, patting her chest. If she was amused at my mistake, she was too kind to show it. “The new house, as we call it, has a wee tower of its own! I’ll show ye.”
She opened an arched door that led off the small landing. “There’s a ewer of hot water for ye in here,” she said. “I ran up with the kettle and filled it as soon as I heard the pony.”
I thanked her, suspecting “ran” was an exaggeration.
“Now, I’ll be away to get your supper,” she added.
Mother always insisted it was bad form to thank servants, but I secretly considered it impolite not to. Here at Drumwithie, I could follow my own inclination. “Thank you, Bridie,” I said again.
When she had gone I turned and gazed at the room before me. It was large and oddly shaped, roughly hexagonal. The shape of the “wee tower” itself, I supposed. A log fire, covered by a guard, burned below an old-fashioned, carved mantelpiece, and there was a high bed, a chest of drawers and a closet big enough to hold a hundred times as many clothes as I had brought. The furniture stood on a Persian carpet and thick drapes hung over the windows, of which there were two, facing opposite directions.
Forgetting my weariness, I ran to the nearest window and pushed back the curtain. All was blackness. But as I stood there, gooseflesh crept over my arms. I was certain that, like an eagle in its eyrie, whoever gazed from this window had command of Drumwithie estate and all that lay beyond it to the horizon. A magnificent aspect awaited me in the morning.
Bridie’s footsteps sounded on the stairs, and she appeared with my soup, the bowl covered by a tin lid. She put the tray on the table and retreated a few steps. “Ye’ll remember to turn out the lamp, will ye not, miss?”
“I promise.”
“Well, if there’s nothing else ye want, I’ll be away down the stair.”
“Thank you. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, miss.”
And with that, she left me alone. Nervously, I looked up at the ceiling. There were four beams, but I did not know what to wish for. It was certainly an odd superstition. And why had Jamie said I was their mysterious Cait Sìth? Cait perhaps meant cat, but Sìth?
Shrugging, I sat down at the table and took the lid off the bowl of soup. I felt the steam on my face, picked up the spoon and began to eat ravenously, as if I had not had a morsel for days. The broth was delicious, and Bridie had also brought the end of a fresh loaf and a dish of butter. I ate happily for a few minutes, but when I picked up the knife to spread the butter on the bread I heard a sound. It was such an odd sound I paused, the knife in my hand, straining my ears. There it was again: a sound somewhere between loud and soft, between inside and outside the house, between a human voice and an animal cry.
I put down the knife. It clinked against the plate and I jumped. “Silly girl!” I scolded myself aloud. There was nothing to be nervous of. And yet I was nervous. I began again on my soup, but before I had swallowed the first mouthful, I heard the sound again.
I stood up. Something or someone was speaking, or weeping, or moaning. Something was in this tower with me. Nervousness turned to fear. My heart felt heavy, dragged down by the weight of the blood pumping through it, and I put my hand over it, feeling it pulsing under my blouse. Nobody’s heart throbs like that unless there is something to be frightened of, I reasoned. My body was telling me to be wary.
I went first to one wall, then another in the strangely shaped room, listening closely at each. I opened the huge cupboard, which contained only spare pillows and blankets. I flung back the curtains at both windows. Nothing but darkness. And yet the sound went on. I closed my eyes, listening intently, trying to identify what it could possibly be.
The wind? There had been none when we drove up to the castle. Cautiously, I opened one of the windows a few inches, and put my hand out. The air was still.
Someone crying? A child? But there were no children in the house.
A woman keening sorrowfully, like a mourner by a graveside? That was the nearest approximation I could make. I pushed the casement farther open and leaned over the sill. Light from the downstairs rooms made yellow patches on the gravel path, but revealed nothing. No woman, no child, no grave.
I was certain I was not imagining it. I could still hear it after I closed the window, louder than when it was open. The sounds were here in this room, and whatever was making them was here too.
“Come out and show me who you are!” I demanded. My voice sounded shrill and filled with panic. I knew I would not sleep until I had confronted whatever it was that had so disturbed my peace. I listened for a moment; the sound diminished in intensity, but grew again, bitter and harrowing, when I moved towards the table. I put my hands over my ears, but could not obliterate it.
Then suddenly, it diminished to silence. I took my hands from my ears. As I did so I saw something so unexpected I had to clamp my teeth together to prevent myself from shrieking. I gazed in silence as a woman approached me from the direction of the window. No, not a woman, a young girl of about my age. Stiff with astonishment, I lunged for the knife on the table and gripped the handle. Where had she come from? No one had followed me and the door had not opened.
I could neither speak nor scream. My heart pounded, blood sang in my ears, but I could not move. The young woman stepped noiselessly nearer. Her pale skin looked as delicate as a child’s. Tangled, dark hair hung over her shoulders, and her dress was of the fashion popular twenty years ago, with an apron-style front gathered to a bustle at the back, and a low, tight bodice. The dress was creased, and even torn in places, as if she had been wearing it for a long time without an opportunity to tidy herself. The colour had once been pink, the material silk, but so much filth clung to it, especially around the hem, I could only guess how beautiful it might once have
been.
I looked into the face that sought mine. She had oval-shaped eyes, dark like my own. But their expression was unlike anything I had ever seen. She gazed at me with a suffering so elemental it chilled me to my bones. And then, although I did not turn away, or even blink, I no longer saw her. She simply vanished.
I gasped aloud with fear. This was surely the woman whose screams I had heard. She must be an apparition, something unreal. My schoolfriends had told ghost stories, which were enjoyably frightening because they were exactly that: stories. But this was real.
Trembling, I sat at the table again, put down the knife and tried to calm myself. Count the beams, Jamie had said, and your wishes will come true. I looked up and counted one, two, three, four beams, wishing fervently that what I had just experienced was the product of fatigue and overwrought nerves.
Counting the beams soothed my fear. But I did not pick up the spoon to finish the now-cold soup. I stumbled to the bed and lay down on it fully dressed, waiting tensely for the sound to return. When it did not, relief rushed over me with such force I was too numb to move. And without removing my boots or turning down the lamp, I tumbled into sleep.
1893
Seventeen years previouslys
I n her dream, the bare, sun-warmed rock felt smooth on her back, like the touch of another person’s skin. She lay there, looking at the sky, filled with loneliness and longing and love. He had risen from beside her, put on his shirt and stepped down from the outcrop without a word. If she sat up, she would see him making his way across the glen. She would watch him enter the shadow of the wood, the sun alighting for the last time upon his golden hair.
But she did not sit up. She could not bear to prolong the parting, to cling feebly to a final view of him. She was stronger than that; she would lie here until she was calm, and her cheeks were pale again, and then she would return to the house. She would take her place at one end of the table, her husband at the other, and they would speak briefly of their visitor’s departure. Her husband might express his hope that the train was punctual and his cousin’s journey pleasant. She would push her food around her plate, and think of his bright hair, the sensation of his fingers upon her flesh, and the wound his departure had left in her heart.
The Devil's Promise Page 3
