Highland Sunset

by Joan Wolf

  "Don't you think Niall is handsome?" Frances asked slowly.'

  "Of course."

  "You look very like Niall."

  "But Niall is a boy, Mother. It's handsome to be dark. Girls are supposed to be fair."

  "Must one be tail in order to be pretty?"

  "Well, yes," Van answered in surprise. Then, "You are."

  Frances stared at her daughter. "I have been thinking that I ought to tell you this, Van, so you will be prepared. It's true you aren't pretty. You're a great deal more than pretty, darling. You're beautiful. It's in your bones."

  Van looked at her mother with affectionate amusement. "Mother, it isn't necessary to flatter me, I promise you. I don't at all mind not being pretty. I like looking like a MacIan." Frances sighed. "Do you?"

  "Yes." Van turned to look out the window. It had been raining all morning but now there was a distinct brightening over the mountains. "The weather's turning fine," she said. "I'm going out."

  Frances gave her daughter a rueful look. "All right, darling. Just don't be late for tea."

  As she watched her daughter's slender back disappear around the doorway screen Frances thought fervently: Thank God she is going to England.

  She walked away from the hair-strewn sheet on the floor and went herself to the window where a few minutes ago Van had stood. She stared out at the loch. It was beautiful, yes, but—especially in winter— lonely. She was glad Van was going, true, but she would miss her daughter badly. She remembered, with a sudden ache, the years of her children's babyhoods... the feel of the little dark heads under her hands, the bliss of holding a sucking baby to her breast... she missed it sometimes so sharply it was like a physical stab of pain.

  Frances drew a deep, unsteady breath. It was so hard to let go of one's children, she thought, but it had to be done. And she had Alasdair. She turned from the window and her eyes fell on a lock of gray-streaked hair. She smiled.

  Alasdair was also thinking about Van's coming visit, but his mind was not running along the same lines as his wife's. The day before Van was due to leave, he called her into the room that served as his office for a talk. In this room Alasdair kept all the paperwork pertaining to his vast estate. Most of his land was rented out to tacksmen for cattle raising and farming, but the chief was the one who sold whatever they had managed to raise beyond what was needed for their own subsistence, and Alasdair kept meticulous records of all his dealings with French and Flemish merchants.

  He was a devoted chief, Alasdair MacIan, Mac mhic Iain, and one who understood perfectly his position in life. He was of the same blood and name and descent as his people, and in the hierarchy of authority on earth he stood somewhere between them and God. The law of the central government had never penetrated beyond the Highland Line. In the glens of the Scottish Highlands, it was the chief who was the king.

  Van admired her father more than anyone else she knew. Her mother and brother had her deepest love, but it was Alasdair's approval that she most desired.

  He looked up now from his accounts as she entered, and gestured her to a chair. Alasdair was dressed in his usual daytime clothes of tartan trews and jacket. On the walls of the office hung a collection of broadswords and pistols. The Highlands had technically been disarmed after the last Jacobite rebellion, but the castle walls had defiantly retained their extensive armory of weapons and no government agent had objected. The rest of the clan had disarmed by pragmatically burying their weapons in convenient places so they would be ready when called for again.

  "Your mother has set her heart on this visit of yours, Van," Alasdair said now, and there was a thin line between his well-marked black brows, "which is why I agreed to it. But I tell you frankly, I don't like it. Especially not now."

  "Is there going to be a rising, Father?"

  Two more lines bracketed Alasdair's mouth. "I don't know. The prince is eager to come but both Lochiel and I sent word that there will be little chance of success unless he can bring a French army with him. I don't know what is going to happen, Van, and I don't like the idea of you being so far away."

  Van swallowed. "Do you want me to stay home, Father?"

  "No." Van relaxed and Alasdair went on, "No, I promised your mother you should go, and go you will. But I want you to understand clearly that if there should be a French landing, you are to come home."

  "Of course, Father," Van replied quickly.

  "I will give you a letter to your mother's cousin to that effect."

  Van nodded.

  Alasdair's hard gray eyes scanned his daughter's face appraisingly. "Left to myself, I would not choose to send you," he repeated. "However, since you are going, it has occurred to me you might be useful to the cause."

  Van's oddly light eyes widened in surprise. "How, Father?"

  "If there is to be a successful rising, we need English help. There are many powerful Tory families in England but I fear that since the battle at Sheriffmuir in 1715, their Jacobitism has been steadily decaying. It is vitally important to the cause that their attachment to the Stuart family be reawakened." Van nodded. "This cousin of your mother's, for example," Alasdair went on slowly. "She comes from a family of steady Cavalier faith, as did your Mother, but I doubt the flame is burning so brightly as it once did. Perhaps you can be the means of rekindling it, my daughter."

  Van's chin rose on her long, lovely neck. "I will do my best, Father."

  "I have never been to London but I know Paris well and I cannot imagine the social life differs greatly from one place to the other. Through Lady Linton you will have the opportunity to meet many of the people I am interested in knowing about."

  There was a deep frown now between Alasdair's brows. "Take their temper, Van. You have a good brain—a better brain than Niall's, I think. I need to know the disposition of the English Tories. If the prince lands, will they join us? It is vitally important that we know where we stand in this matter."

  A lovely warm color had flushed into Van's cheeks. "I understand, Father. I shall do my best."

  Alasdair looked thoughtfully at his desk, picked up a paper knife, and began to turn it over in his hands. "You have a good brain, but you have very little experience of the world, Van, and your mother will not be there to guide you." Van's eyes were watching her father's slender fingers as they turned the knife over and over while he talked. "You have had very little experience of men." He looked up, his gray eyes suddenly narrow. "Be careful," he said. "Don't be taken in by fine clothes and soft words."

  He was deadly serious. "Of course not, Father," Van said hastily.

  "Do you like Alan MacDonald?"

  Van moved infinitesimally back in her chair. "Yes," she said with reserve.

  Alasdair sensed rather than saw her withdrawal. He stopped turning the knife and stared at his daughter in silence. She was a mystery to him, this girl-child of his. Niall he understood perfectly, but Van.... What would they make of her in England, with her beautiful face and her quiet intensity and her lack of sophistication? She lived such a secret life, Van did. Would anyone ever touch the deepest part of her?

  Not Alan MacDonald. The thought came unbidden and it was not welcome to him. He put the paper knife down firmly. "Remember always who you are," he told her, and he spoke now in Gaelic. "The Sassenach will respect you because you are the daughter of an earl. But you are more than that. You are a chiefs daughter, and you are Highland."

  Her chin rose to the challenge and she answered in the same language, "That thought is always in my heart, Mac mhic Iain."

  His hard gray eyes never wavered. "Go along to your mother now. She wants to see you."

  "Yes, Father," she replied, and obediently left the room.

  Van left the following morning as soon as the sky began to lighten. Niall was to accompany her as far as Edinburgh, and from there she would be escorted by Alan Ruadh MacIan, Alan the Red, her father's foster brother, and two of his sons. Frances had made arrangements with a cousin of Alasdair's in Edinburgh to find a respectable
woman to accompany Van as well. Frances could just imagine the stir Van would create when she arrived at the Lintons' country house accompanied solely by three wild clansmen, two of whom did not speak any English. But Alasdair was adamant that his daughter be well-protected. Frances devoutly prayed nothing would happen to provoke the bodyguards' quick tempers, and gave in.

  Before she left, Van went to her mother's room to say good-bye. Frances was sitting up in bed propped against a pile of lace-edged pillows, her long brown hair streaming over the fine woolen shawl around her shoulders. She held out her arms and Van went to kiss her.

  How lovely mother always smelled. Van hugged Frances with unaccustomed fierceness. She would miss her so! Frances' arms loosened and Van stood up.

  "I want you to remember one thing, darling," Frances said gravely. "I want you to remember that you are one-half English and that Katherine is as much your blood as any MacIan."

  Van's lashes lifted in surprise.

  "Will you promise me to remember that?" Frances asked.

  "Yes, Mother."

  "And try to judge people by their hearts, not by their politics!"

  Van frowned. Whatever was her mother trying to say? But Frances smiled gaily and squeezed her hand. "Good-bye, darling. Enjoy yourself. And listen to the opera for me."

  Saying good-bye to her father was easier. They were all on horseback in the courtyard—there was no way to get a carriage through the mountains—when Alasdair came out to bid his daughter farewell.

  After issuing a few more instructions to Niall and to Alan Ruadh, he turned to Van. "Beannachd Leat," he said. "Blessings go with you, my daughter."

  "Thank you, Father."

  "Remember all I said yesterday."

  "Yes, Father."

  He nodded and Niall wheeled his pony and started out of the courtyard. Van's pony followed close behind. She looked up at the brightening sky as they started down the path and thought, with a flash of wry amusement, that her parents had given her totally contradictory admonitions.

  They went through the mountains to Fort William, one of the great forts built by General Wade to pacify the Highlands after the last rising. From Fort William they went south and east, through mountain passes and across river ferries, stopping overnight at the house of a MacDonald who was a friend of Lord Morar's. They left the mountains the following day, coming through Stirling, with its great castle guarding the gateway to the Highlands, past Bannockburn, where a MacIan had fought with Robert the Bruce for Scotland's independence, across the Forth and into Edinburgh, ancient capital of Scotland and once home to the Stuart kings.

  In Edinburgh Niall saw to the transfer of Van's baggage from the pack ponies to the coach Lord Morar had hired for the trip to London. They stayed overnight with a cousin of her father's and there met the middle-aged widow who was to chaperon Van. The widow, Mrs. Robertson, was an Englishwoman who had been visiting relatives in Edinburgh and who was delighted by the prospect of a free trip home. The two women were to ride in the coach, with Alan and his two sons riding escort on horseback.

  Niall kissed his sister before he handed her up into the coach.

  "You look splendid; Van," he said with genuine admiration. "That new outfit makes you look a regular lady of fashion. You'll be the most beautiful girl in London."

  Van glanced down at her traveling dress of deep green velvet. The material had come from France, but it had been made by one of the castle seamstresses.

  "I wish you were coming with me, Niall," she said impulsively.

  He grinned at her engagingly. "You are very well able to take care of yourself, my sister. Only—do you not forget Alan."

  "I am not likely to forget any of you," Van replied austerely. She was a little irritated. It seemed to her that her father and Niall were taking far too much for granted about Alan.

  "Up with you, then," Niall said cheerfully, and handed her into the carriage, closing the door behind her.

  "You have your pistol, Alan?" he asked his father's foster brother.

  "Aye." Alan the Red, who was now more like Alan the Gray, unearthed a weapon from the folds of his plaid and showed it to Niall.

  "Good. But keep it hidden unless you need-to use it. I don't have to remind you that the clans are supposedly disarmed."

  "I will remember, Son of Alasdair. And we will guard the Lady Van with our lives."

  Niall nodded and stepped back. The coachman slapped his reins and the team moved off. Van sat back and tried to get comfortable. It was a long way from Edinburgh to Kent in the south of England.

  It was a week, in fact, before Van reached Staplehurst, principal seat of the Earls of Linton. The trip south had been tedious and uncomfortable but uneventful. They changed horses regularly at posting houses on the Great North Road and stayed overnight in a series of inns designed to accommodate travelers such as themselves. Alan and his sons, dressed in their tartan trews and great swathing plaids, created a stir wherever they stopped, but nothing occurred to provoke Alan to use his pistol.

  They finally arrived at Staplehurst late in the afternoon of March 20. The setting sun lent a warm glow to the great golden stone house as they came up the drive. It was not the house, however, but the park that caught Van's attention. It stretched away all around them in vistas of lawn and ponds and waterfalls, all interspersed by groves of trees and wide avenues.

  Van was impressed, although she would have died before she admitted it.

  "My, my, my," her traveling companion, Mrs. Robertson, said admiringly. "So this is the famous Staple-hurst park. The earl commissioned Capability Brown, a landscape architect, dear Lady Vanessa, to do it two years ago. It has been much talked about, I assure you."

  "It's very pretty," Van said politely.

  Mrs. Robertson stared at her in surprise and the coach pulled up in front of the house. A magnificently liveried servant came down the front steps and went authoritatively to the door of the coach, only to be virtually pushed out of the way by Alan Ruadh. "I will be opening the door for the daughter of Mac mhic Iain," Alan said haughtily, and proceeded to do so with dignity. Van repressed a smile at the look on the lackey's face.

  "Thank you, Alan," she said to the clansmen in Gaelic as she stepped out of the coach.

  "Vanessa, my dear," came a charmingly husky feminine voice, "is it really you at last?" And Van looked up to see her mother's cousin coming down the wide stairs.

  "Lady Linton?" Van asked reservedly.

  "Cousin Katherine, if you please." The countess had reached Van by now and took her hands into a warm, friendly clasp. "I am so delighted to meet you," she said, and smiled directly into Van's eyes.

  Katherine Romney's own eyes were so dark a blue they were almost purple. She wore her hair powdered so Van could not tell what color it was, but her skin was very fair. She looked much younger than Van expected. Only the fine lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth gave away her age.

  "I am happy to meet you also, Cousin Katherine," Van said composedly. "And may I present my traveling companion, Mrs. Cornelia Robertson." Mrs. Robertson blushed and curtsied and stammered, all of which the countess observed with serene good humor.

  Donal Og spoke to his father in Gaelic and Lady Linton's violet eyes widened as they took in the sight of Van's escort.

  "We will be leaving you', then, Lady Van," Alan said. "I will be telling Mac mhic Iain that you are safe."

  "Are you really wishing to stay here?" Donal said in a rush to Van, speaking in the only language he knew. He looked around with ill-concealed doubt.

  "I must," Van replied gravely. "It is the wish of Mac mhic Iain."

  The three clansmen stepped back. If it was the wish of Mac mhic lain, it must be done.

  "Surely your... er... escort will stay the night?" Lady Linton asked. "They cannot start back north now. It will be dark soon."

  "They would not wish to stay here," Van said simply. Then, to her father's loyal trio, "Beannachd Leat."

  "Bennachd Leat," they replied w
ith dignity, wheeled their horses, and were gone down the drive.

  "Come into the house," Lady Linton said firmly. "I will show you to your room and then we shall have some tea."

  The bedroom Lady Linton showed Van to was large and, to Van's eyes, extremely luxurious. Creag an Fhithich was filled with beautiful, priceless things, but her father's style of living had always tended toward the Spartan. About some things he was fussy; he would not drink any but the best claret, nor would he wear any shirts but those her mother exquisitely stitched for him out of the finest French cambric. But he did not believe in spoiling either himself or his children with an excess of creature comforts. The only one he spoiled in that fashion was his wife.

  So the warm, comfortable, chintz-filled room, with a fire burning in the fireplace—in March! at this hour! —impressed Van greatly.

  "Would you like a bath, Vanessa?" Lady Linton asked. "You have been traveling for so long, surely a nice hot bath would be refreshing."

  A nice hot bath. Van looked at her hostess in wonder. They bathed frequently at Creag an Fhithich—her father thought it was good discipline—but only her mother rated hot water in the tub.

  "That would be lovely," she murmured faintly.

  A high-sided tin bathing tub was brought in, set in front of the fire, and filled with hot water. Van soaked luxuriously while a maid stood next to the tub holding a towel. Van didn't drag herself out until the water was almost tepid. She felt completely refreshed. A hot bath! she thought. No wonder her mother enjoyed them so.

  Lady Linton was chatting pleasantly to Mrs. Robertson in the salon when Van arrived. She looked up, smiled warmly, and patted the sofa next to her. "Sit here by me, Vanessa. I want to hear all about your mother."

  Van sat down rather stiffly and answered the countess's first questions with a good deal of reserve. But there was something about Lady Linton that reminded her of her mother. It was not her looks, but rather a warmth, a charm, a sense of genuinely caring about what you said and how you felt. She soon found herself relaxing and answering far more spontaneously. Mrs. Robertson, overwhelmed by her surroundings, was silent.