Wild Catriona

by Oliver, Marina

  'No,' Rory said, suppressing his chagrin. He hadn't noticed these fine details, nor had Joshua. He'd been so pleased the colours hadn't run, he hadn't inspected the linen for other faults. Perhaps these were the details women noticed. Catriona would have noticed them. She would also know the answer to his other problems.

  'They are only just beginning though, Papa told me,' Susannah said, placing a small gloved hand on his arm. 'I'm sure they will get better in time.'

  'Of course they will.'

  'Are you coming to the Assembly Rooms next week?' she asked, returning to her chair. 'Papa wanted me to invite you to join our party, if you are not already engaged elsewhere.'

  'I cannot,' he replied. 'Thank your father, but I'm afraid I have to go out of Glasgow for a few days, and I doubt if I'll have returned by then.'

  She pouted, then smiled up at him. 'Next time, perhaps. Papa says I must go about as much as possible this year. My Aunt Elizabeth is coming to stay with us, as my chaperone. You will come to my ball, though, next month?'

  'That I will not miss. I will be delighted to come,' Rory replied.

  He was unsure whether to be annoyed or amused. Having failed in a direct attack, Silas MacNab was using his daughter to draw him into their coils. He wondered whether Susannah was aware of her father's plans, or was an innocent tool. But he was not to be caught this way. The beginning of an idea had entered his head while talking to Susannah, and suddenly his optimism returned. He would succeed. He'd do it on his own, without Mr MacNab's money, and without Susannah. At least, not yet. One day, when he could feel her equal, and not have to depend on her father, she might make a suitable wife. Meanwhile, he had other plans.

  *****

  Chapter 5

  Early Autumn, 1758

  Mary Duncan lay sleeping, and Catriona watched. Her mother had not improved over the past few weeks. She was able to sit out of bed for a short while each day, but she had lost the will to live.

  Hers had been a true love match. When Catriona had been a little girl her mother had often told her of the time her parents had taken her to Glasgow, hoping to find a suitable match for their only daughter. She had dutifully attended balls and other social events, and she had met several young men who had been interested in offering her marriage. But one day, in the house of a friend, she had seen this handsome older man, large and blond, walking across the room towards her. He was a sailor, and had just acquired his own ship.

  On the following day he had approached her father and asked for her hand in marriage. Rejected as unsuitable, he had delayed sailing, keeping his crew idle. Everywhere she went Alexander Duncan had appeared. Mary had suspected he'd bribed one of the maids to inform him of her movements. She liked him, and eventually, between them they had persuaded her parents to allow them to become betrothed.

  A delay of two years had been enforced, so Alexander had sailed away, and come back much richer from the cargo he had bought in the spice isles. After another equally successful voyage they had prevailed upon her parents to permit the wedding, and from that day on, according to Mary, she had been deliriously happy. She had even endured with patience the necessary separations when Alexander was at sea. Now, without him and without news for more than a year, she had simply faded away, and Catriona had no idea what to do except care for her as well as she could.

  Anne, one of the maids, came quietly into the room.

  'Is she asleep, Miss Catriona?'

  'Yes, but she took some of the broth you prepared, and enjoyed it. Thank you.'

  'Shall I sit with her now. Mr Samuel sent me to say you have a visitor.'

  'For me? Who is it?'

  'I don't know him. He's a merchant, a manufacturer, he said, from Glasgow. He mentioned your Dutch relatives, so perhaps it's some message from them. He's in the drawing room.'

  For a moment Catriona wondered if this could be a message about her father, but she suppressed the hope. It was most unlikely, too much time had elapsed. She hastened downstairs and smoothed her hair as she went.

  As she entered the room the man who had been staring out of the window turned round, and her eyes widened. It was the traveller she'd helped that summer, Rory Napier. She'd never expected to see him again. A faint stirring of excitement made her breathless.

  'You!'

  Rory smiled and came towards her, offering his hand. 'Yes, me. It's taken me two days to track you down.'

  'Why have you come?' she asked, and her heart was beating so rapidly she was astonished she could speak so calmly.

  'Will you not ask me to sit down?'

  Catriona flushed. Her surprise had made her forget her duties as a hostess. 'I beg your pardon! Pray seat yourself, sir!'

  Rory grinned at her and took a seat near the fire. He was even more attractive than she recalled, and over the past few months she had frequently thought of him, and wondered where he was, what he was doing.

  'I came to ask you for more help,' he said quietly. 'I manufacture linen, I manage the business for my uncle.'

  'You're a linen master? That's why you were so interested in my designs?'

  'Yes. I buy the flax, send it to spinners, then send the thread to weavers. I have to send it to Holland for bleaching, though. They are the most skilled, and I do not have the facilities here yet.'

  'My grandmother was Dutch. She came to Scotland with her brother, when he came to discuss a project they were then considering.'

  'You mean when Dutch experts were brought over to train people here to do the bleaching?'

  'He came to look at the possibilities, that was a few years before the new bleaching fields were laid out,' Catriona said, smiling. 'She met my grandfather, and soon afterwards they were married.'

  'And that is where you inherit your very blonde hair.'

  'Not all Dutch people are so fair-haired.'

  They looked at one another for a moment, and then Rory shook his head slightly.

  'You were telling me about your business,' Catriona said. 'How can I help?'

  'I want to do more than produce plain linens. I am attempting to print patterns on it, but my workmen cannot do it correctly. I cannot tell whether they are careless, or do not properly understand the processes. Will you explain it to me?'

  'Why me? Surely there are people in Glasgow who can help you? Isn't there a large printing workshop in Scotland?'

  'Yes, in Pollokshaw.'

  'Block printing is an old method, hundreds of years old. Many people know the skills.'

  'Not so many, here. It's only twenty years, I'm told, since the process was introduced here, commercially.'

  'But it's been done for hundreds of years in Holland, and Italy, and even longer in India and the East.'

  'Besides,' Rory continued, 'I have competitors in Glasgow, and I do not want to alert them to what I am doing. If I can produce good printed linen with well-designed pictures on it, and sell it before anyone else does so, I can make a bigger profit and restore my business. I've brought some samples, and I hope you can tell me what is being done wrong.'

  'It takes some time to learn the skills. My father's family in Amsterdam have such a business, and taught me how to do it. Who is doing the work for you? Have they had any previous knowledge of it?'

  'No,' Rory confessed. 'I am hoping my weavers can do it on the lengths they weave.'

  'At their homes?'

  'Yes. They all work at home, spinners and weavers. That's the way it has always been.'

  'Tell me what you have asked them to do.'

  Rory did so, and Catriona listened intently.

  'You have started with simple shapes. That was sensible. Who carved the blocks?'

  'A man I know who carves figures, a form of sculpture. He sells to rich merchants who admire his work.'

  'But if he has never carved printing blocks before, he may not know what is needed. Let me see the samples.'

  She studied them intently. 'The dyes seem good.'

  'Yes, I employed an experienced dyer to prepare th
em. The first ones were not fast.'

  'The colours are uneven, though. It looks as though they do not use the same pressure to place the blocks. Do they have mallets to tap them?'

  Rory shook his head. 'Mallets? I didn't know that was necessary. I thought pressure was sufficient.'

  'No, you need a mallet. And look here,' she pointed, 'this unevenness is in every shape. It indicates the surface of the wood is not absolutely flat, quite smooth, so the dye cannot be applied evenly. Your carver didn't use the correct sort of wood.'

  'I see,' Rory sighed. 'There is such a lot to know.'

  Cationa nodded. 'Do they have proper tables, big ones where they can spread out the material?'

  'They work at home, on whatever they have,' Rory explained.

  'And try to hasten the process. See, here are a few smudges where they have folded the material before it is dry. They would have been trying to work on the next length. And the pattern is slightly uneven. Look, here, and this part too. The spacing is not the same throughout the length.'

  'I had noticed that,' Rory admitted. 'Is that because of lack of attention?'

  'No. I'm sure they have done the best they know. Have you brought one of the blocks to show me?'

  Rory pulled one out of the bag beside him. 'This is one I have used.'

  Catriona inspected it closely. 'Yes, here is a slight indentation in the surface. You don't have pins at the corners, either.'

  'Pins? What do you mean?'

  'Usually pins are put at the corners, to leave a faint mark on the fabric where the last block was placed. Then the pins can be positioned in these marks again, for the next pattern, so that it is all in line. They are essential and they have to be absolutely accurately placed, especially when you overprint with two or more colours, but I see you have not yet attempted that.'

  'And will not until I can get this simple process right. But I will, Heather girl, you have solved most of my problems.'

  'Do you think it is as simple as that? You will merely tell them to use a mallet and pins?'

  'Perhaps not. I need to know much more, clearly. But I am determined to made this venture succeed.'

  Catriona sighed. 'Perhaps. I can show you my own fabrics, and explain how the work is done.'

  'I would appreciate that, very much.'

  Catriona nodded. 'I'll fetch some,' she said.

  An hour later, Joan Menzies found them absorbed in discussing the relative merits of several pieces of fabric spread out all over her drawing room. There were silks and cottons from China and India, embroidery from France and Italy, a small piece of tapestry, and a vividly coloured woven rug from Arabia. Catriona was gesticulating and talking rapidly, holding up the various pieces to illustrate one point or another.

  'Catriona, you and your precious fabrics! What in the world are you doing? Your mother is awake and asking for you.'

  Catriona looked up and grinned. 'At last I have found someone as interested in my great-aunt's collection as I am,' she said. 'Mr Napier is a manufacturer in Glasgow, he heard about them, and that I knew about printing with blocks, and he came for advice. But I must go to my mother now, Mr Napier. I hope I have explained enough?'

  *****

  As he rode back to Glasgow Rory was preoccupied. Catriona had been a surprise. She had been demurely gowned in a rose-pink dress with a modest hooped skirt. A white muslin kerchief had filled in the low neckline, crossing over and tucking into the stomacher, and she wore a short white silk apron. Her blonde curls were neatly brushed and confined with a ribbon. Seen in a clearly prosperous household, she was utterly unlike the wild girl who had tended his hurts some months before.

  She had behaved differently, too, especially after her aunt had appeared, rather flustered that while she had been visiting one of the villagers, Catriona had been entertaining a young man, unchaperoned. He had been amused to see how her opinions, though still as firmly held, had been expressed with suitable decorum in front of her aunt and uncle. With him she had shown no hesitation in contradicting him, even to the point of calling him a witless fool when they had been arguing fiercely about the merits of plain or more complicated patterns.

  'The people you employ won't be proficient enough for months, especially if they are working alone, without supervision,' she had insisted. 'They must start on simple designs to begin with. They won't be able to manage overlaying colours.'

  'But the simple designs are boring,' he'd objected.

  'These you have been using are! The shapes are simple, there's no style, no feeling in them. They're just blobs of colour. And the colours are wrong too, they don't go well together. I could make you much more interesting patterns. Look, like this,' and she pulled out a square of silk with a picture, repeated, of birds sitting in the branches of a tree.

  'That's embroidered, and two colours.'

  'Yes, of course it is. It's Italian, about two hundred years old, I think, but the idea is what I'm showing you, not the way it's been executed here. The shapes are solid, very easy to carve, but it's a picture. It says something. What's more, it could be done in one colour, and it would be attractive.'

  He'd been surprised, too, at the extent of her collection. 'How did you acquire all this?'

  'My father's mother came from a family in Amsterdam. I told you how she and my grandfather met. Her family had owned a fabric business for generations. I think one of them, long ago, had been a weaver. That was probably how it began. My grandmother's sister collected the fabrics, and she had a room in their town house where they were displayed, like a picture gallery.'

  'For people to look at? Who?'

  'Customers, sometimes, if they were ordering a special fabric, to decide what sort of printing or designs they wanted, but it was used mainly for the designers, to see what ideas they suggested.'

  'An interesting notion. Did it work? Inspire them?'

  'Yes, it did, and the business was noted for exciting designs. It still is.'

  'Where did they all come from? These fabrics, and the others in the collection?'

  'Many of the pieces had been sent to them for samples, or had been collected deliberately when any of their people travelled, to give their artists ideas for designs. It was not my great-aunt's idea originally, but she started the gallery. When she died she left them to me, because my cousin, her son, who now controls the business, felt they were too old-fashioned, and they had quarrelled. They were both very determined people,' she added, and Rory burst out laughing.

  'So that's where you get your stubbornness from!'

  Catriona glowered at him. 'I am not at all stubborn, when people are reasonable. Great-aunt Christina knew I was designing patterns myself. My father often brought me pieces back from his voyages, too, because I was interested.'

  She'd been silent for a while, and now he wondered. Mistress Menzies had invited him to remain for dinner, and during it he had learned that Catriona's mother, sister of the laird, was ill. There was no mention of her father. He was a sailor, and Rory suddenly wondered whether he was dead. Catriona had spoken of him bringing fabrics back as though she did not expect to have any more.

  He dismissed the speculations. She had helped enormously, and despite her freely expressed reservations, he was sure he could explain what was wanted to any of the men who were willing to do the printing for him. All new skills took time to learn, he accepted that, but it surely could not be as complicated, with only one colour, as Catriona had made it appear. He would still have simple designs, but he could gradually introduce more complicated ones as his men grew more proficient.

  He reached Glasgow at dusk three days later, having visited a couple of his weavers on the way and explained to them what was now wanted. He lived in two rooms in a house on Drygate, close by the Cathedral, and his landlady had a hearty meat soup simmering on the fire in her kitchen. Exhausted, he fell into bed after two bowls of soup and some of her fresh bread, and woke the following morning full of energy for his schemes.

  Joshua greeted hi
m with a dour smile. 'I hope you got your answers. Your uncle sent word he'll be here in a few days.'

  Rory groaned. 'Why's he coming?' He could do without Matthew's interference while he set up the new system, and Matthew in Glasgow inevitably meant interference. Matthew had been so unhappy when he'd seen him in Braemar, but within a week of that visit his uncle had been sending him letters almost daily, with instructions, demands for information, and complaints. Many were contradictory.

  He seemed to have come out of retirement since John's death, was probably restless, and unfortunately had renewed his interest in the business. In this mood the old man was incapable of leaving things alone if he was near them.

  'He didna say. How did you do? Did you find this lass you call the Heather girl?'

  'I found her, and it's helped. Let me show you.'

  'That man Mackenzie came by yesterday.'

  'Mackenzie? What does he want now?'

  'He didna deign to inform me. The man wanted to speak to you himself. But he said he'd be back.'

  'Confound the fellow! I've told him I am not interested in his offer. Why can't he accept my answer?'

  'He's most like running out of money,' Joshua said. 'I heard he's selling that showy pair of horses he bought a year ago.'

  'Those chestnuts that pull his new carriage?'

  'Aye. And he's selling that too.'

  Rory was intrigued. This could be good news for him.

  'So this may mean he won't be able to keep his prices low and his wages high for much longer. If my scheme works we'll win, after all, Joshua!'

  Rory put out of his mind both the impending visit of his uncle, and thoughts of Angus Mackenzie, while he demonstrated to Joshua the techniques Catriona had explained to him.

  It was, to his annoyance, less easy to dismiss her image. Whenever he paused, and later when he was dealing with the business that had accumulated during his brief absence, a picture of Catriona Duncan took shape before his eyes.

  She was a most unusual girl. Obviously well-connected, through her Scottish uncle and her father's Dutch relatives, she had spent days and nights alone in a half-ruined bothy, isolated in the sparsely inhabited mountains. She had travelled to Holland and Flanders, she'd told him, and had been educated to a much greater degree than most girls of her class. Opinionated, and perfectly willing to argue her case with him, a man and a dozen years older than she was, she deferred to her aunt as a well-behaved lass should.