‘But he would help ‒ surely ‒ for his own son-in-law.’
He put down the mug. ‘That’s just it. James Ferguson owns enough of his son-in-law. He can’t have my dreams also. He would laugh at such small ambitions ‒ a few acres here, a few acres there. What need does a gentleman have for such petty concerns? His wife’s husband worry about grazing for a few cows when he has thousands of acres of grouse moors? No, James Ferguson would never understand, and I’ve no need to try to explain. He must do things big, or not at all. So I leave it be just what it is ‒ a dream. No more.’
I looked at him, his hair clamped to his scalp with sweat, his kilt sodden, his hands gashed and bleeding, and I thought that, yes, it did lie in Gavin Campbell, baronet and soon to be marquis, to turn out in the snow before a March dawn to help with the lambing, to move his cattle to higher ground when the river was in spate, to turn some of his bog-acres up there on the mountain into clover-grass. It was not a great ambition ‒ but it was a dream.
I got to my feet. ‘I must go, Gavin. I’m glad I was here this morning.’
‘So am I, Kirsty. So am I.’
And each evening there was the return to Cluain. Often I had to hurry to be washed and changed before my grandfather came to the dining-room. It was very soon after my arrival that I noticed that he minded my absence; I did not know whether it was that he actually wanted my company, or that he demanded my attention. But I tried not to be late ‒ to be waiting with my Chinese shawl and the red slippers, waiting for the invitation ‘to take a dram with me’.
He did not like my going to Ballochtorra, but he never actually tried to prevent it. ‘Come back from that place?’ he would say to me, seeming to look at me through his whisky glass. ‘Well, this must seem humble enough after all the frippery and finery they tell me they have up there.’
‘Cluain can stand by any, Grandfather, and you know it. Besides,’ I added, watching my opportunity now, as he always did, to score my point. ‘I’m surprised you listen to gossip about what goes on at Ballochtorra. I thought such things didn’t interest you.’
‘Och, who can help hearing it? Doesn’t everything that Ferguson does cause talk? My own workers, who ought to know better, remembering that they make the best whisky in the Highlands, do pratter on about him like women. Just because he’s made a fortune in a few years with the cheap rot-gut stuff.’
‘But you sell Cluain’s whisky to him.’
‘And why not? He needs something to make his poison palatable. And believe me, Cluain’s whisky is the heart of his most expensive blend. What Cluain distils here is what makes it respectable to have a Ferguson whisky in a gentleman’s decanter. That is, for those who think they must have the blended stuff.’
‘I don’t understand about blended whiskies. Why can James Ferguson make a fortune in a short time when it takes so long to mature Cluain’s whisky? I’ve never tasted the other sort ...’
‘And may you never. It’s hardly fit to be called whisky when it’s stood beside Cluain’s ‒ and, aye, maybe a few other Highland malts. What a blend is, Kirsty, is the mixing of the product of the pot still, the malt, like Cluain’s, if they’re lucky enough to have it, with the much cheaper, quicker product of the grain or patent still whisky. Most patent stills are of the type invented by an Irishman called Coffey, and they’re known as the Coffey still. They make a spirit, you might say, but it can’t stand on its own as a single spirit ‒ you couldn’t drink it by itself, as you do a pot still whisky ‒ and that’s a fact, not just my prejudice talking. It’s simply a fillings, something to give volume to the blends of the malts you add to it. You might call grain whisky a silent spirit ‒ without the malts, it simply isn’t there, not drinkable.
‘The patent still is a continuously working unit, while our pot still whisky is an interrupted process, as I hope our knowledgeable Callum Sinclair made quite clear to you. It costs about half the price to distil as does your malt whisky, and if you set up a big enough production unit, as our fine rich Mr Ferguson has done, with distilleries all over the Lowlands, and people rushing to invest with him, then you can make a fortune. But never forget that he has to come himself, or send his buyers, into these Highlands to find the whisky that will make his silent spirit a palatable drink. He makes a dozen blends at least ‒ a little of this, a little of that ‒ a dash of Cluain with a dash of the Glenlivet with a dash of Glen Grant. Infinite variations, they tell me, with infinite blends, and all priced according to the price he had to pay for the original malts that made the blends. There’s no merit to a grain spirit by itself ‒ it’s what he adds to it. And the price and reputation of Cluain come high.
‘Mind you, though, even the grain distillers can’t get away completely from malted barley ‒ they use about twenty per cent of it, and the rest can be anything you want, maize, wheat, rye or oats. But whatever they use, they can’t do without the barley ‒ they have to cook their grain until its starch cells are burst open, so that the malt can get into the heart of it. There’s many that think malt is brought into grain distilling to give some life and colour and character to the stuff even at that early stage, but the plain fact is that the malt is necessary to bring about the chemical change that will start the fermentation. You cannot do without the malt, Gurrl, no matter what. And you cannot do without the malt whisky. The grain spirit does not need the ageing, nor the care in distilling, but it is simply not there without the malt. And never forget it. Malt can stand alone, be drunk alone, as it has been drunk in the Highlands for centuries. Grain spirit by itself is a useless, unsaleable thing. It will bring as little comfort or pleasure to a man’s soul as something drunk straight from a chemist’s bottle. As long as man needs solace for his grief, but no drunkenness, ease for his tired body, warmth for his blood, he will need the product of Cluain, and its like. Yes, Kirsty ‒ Cluain will go on forever.’
‘Cluain will go on forever, Grandfather. But you can’t ‒ nor I. Will there always be men skilful enough ‒ caring enough ‒ to make sure that it does?’
‘They have to care, Kirsty. They have to care ‒ and they are hard to find. That is the whole trouble with James Ferguson. He might as well be making boots or bricks, for all he cares. But we won’t worry about him and his like. His day will come and go ‒ and Cluain will still be here. Now let us eat our supper, and then we’ll take out the board, and we’ll see if the old brain or the young brain will win this night. In chess as well as whisky, experience counts. Experience counts, Kirsty.’
And nightly I was battling him over that board, sometimes winning, sometimes losing, but never again did our hands stray into the moves of William’s game.
Very slowly, and only by dint of pushing, I was being admitted into the life of Cluain ‒ the life of the distillery and the farm. Every day my grandfather was at his round of the farm, checking with the workers, watching the barley stand a little higher, the heads grow a little heavier, scanning the sky and sniffing the wind, like an animal, for rain. He watched for weak places in the fences, lest the cattle and sheep should break through to the precious crop, he gave orders about replacing the missing tiles on the barns and byres, he saw that the sheepfolds and cattle pens were in order and waiting for the snows of the winter, watched the meadows for the moment when he could cut the hay for winter livestock feeding. He would mount a horse who seemed as old and broad as himself, and ride up to the shielings, the small huts built up on the mountain slopes as living quarters for the men and young women who tended the cattle in their summer pasture ‒ they spent their summer watching that the cattle did not stray too far, did not cross into the bog and be lost. There was something that reminded me of the frugal care of the Chinese for their animals in this ancient practice ‒ each animal so precious that it could command this constant vigil. ‘Ah, well,’ my grandfather said, ‘it will not be long we have it so. The people are leaving. There will be few young ones to send up into the shielings. They go to the cities, looking for work, and end crowded into one room in some
filthy wynd, with buckets of slop thrown on their heads in the streets. And cattle breeding is becoming more scientific ‒ we will soon have only Aberdeen Angus, and Cluain’s herd is becoming famous. We will not risk the necks of the cattle up here in the shielings. We will have only as many sheep as we need for our own eating ‒ pesky things, they are, forever straying, eating the grasses to nothing, eating the crops, breaking into the vegetable plots of the workers. No, soon the farm will become a showplace, the barley and the Angus will be its function. The distillery workers must be well taken care of ‒ well-housed. A distillery does not need many men, but good ones we must have. But the young ones that are surplus, the sons who have grown up at Cluain, will be on their way, for I will not have the jobs to offer them, and the agricultural wage is low. But I must stay in business, and I cannot pay more than the going rate ‒ I am no gentleman farmer who breeds his cattle only to have something to point to when his guests come. The barley will provide the whisky, and the cattle bring always higher and higher prices at market ‒ with now and then a blue ribbon for a Cluain breeding bull. And the money will be saved, and another warehouse built. That is how it has always been at Cluain. More than forty years I have been here, and each year something added. The big harvests have provided against the years of the lean ones. We have grown our own food, and we have been beholden to no one. Since the day I paid back the loan that set up the distillery, there has never been a penny borrowed for Cluain. It stands alone ‒ it will stand.’
‘And the shielings,’ I said. ‘What will happen to the land when you no longer pasture animals up here ‒ when there is no one to herd and shepherd them?’
‘Och, the land will probably go back to the heather from which I first reclaimed it. The grouse will come in, and I will rent it to some rich Englishman who will come with his fine guns and dogs to shoot it over. Land is money, Kirsty. Never let go of land.’
‘And yet,’ I said, as we rode among the livestock, my grandfather’s head always twisting and turning, expertly inspecting each animal to watch for signs of sickness, ‘it will be a pity when that happens. Some more life gone from the Highlands … fewer people in the strath.’
His old face crumpled in a kind of scowl. ‘Yes and no ‒ the people have come here for hundreds of years, to the summer shielings. It used to be a good time ‒ a time of release from the harshness of winter. There were special songs they sung at those times, and the lassies would flirt with the young men in the long evenings. There was whisky taken ‒ to keep out the chill. It was beautiful … the twilights were long, and the shadows purple on the heather … Yes, there were good and bad times, and they are passing. Perhaps it will be no bad thing when it is gone completely. It is a sign of a poor people … you took your joys when you could and the summer nights were one of them, with a drop of whisky and a fire, and the stories told in the old tongue. No one speaks that any more, and this is the last generation of lads and lassies who will go to the shielings of Cluain …’
All the way back to the house that time he was silent, and his face wore its heavy, brooding look, as he remembered the past, perhaps, when life had been harder, but had held its joys ‒ perhaps not wanting to look to the future when both he and the boys and girls would be gone. I did not dare interrupt his thoughts. It was only after we had dismounted and led the horse and Ailis to their boxes, and carried our own harness to the tackroom, which was the practice at Cluain, since no one could escape the careful and frugal rules laid down by its master, that I attempted to speak to him. We were standing by the pump, and I pumped water for both buckets.
‘Grandfather …’ I panted a little; the pump was well oiled and in good repair, as was everything at Cluain, but a heavy old thing. ‘Grandfather, is there not some way I could help you a little …’
‘Help?’ He was instantly suspicious, on the defensive. ‘What kind of help could I need from you?’
I sighed as I picked up my bucket and turned away from him. At times we seemed to go back to our first evening, as if the weeks in between had never been. ‘I only meant in the office. You work there every afternoon on your papers and letters. I used to help my father with such things. I wondered if I could do anything …’ I banged down the bucket while I wrestled with the door of Ailis’s box, and half the water slopped over. ‘After all, you keep telling me that everyone works at Cluain.’
‘Why do you want to come spying into my affairs?’
‘Spying! ‒ is that what you think?’ I picked up the bucket and more water spilled over my boots. It would have been a relief to have hurled the rest at him. ‘Then you may forget I ever made the suggestion. I thought there might be a few unimportant letters I could take at your dictation. I don’t expect to be trusted with anything … I am not the granddaughter of Cluain, nor its hired help. I am just a guest, left to be idle all day ‒’
‘Hush, Gurrl, you’re hasty. You’re very hasty. Yes ‒ if I think of it there might be a few letters you might do ‒ a few accounts you might send out, and such. The men’s wage packets have to be made up weekly. Samuel Lachlan comes down from Inverness once or twice a month to go over the books ‒ there are some things in between that could be done. Nothing too important, but all of it taking time. And I’m not one to encourage idleness in any … Well ...’ grudgingly. ‘We’ll see. We’ll see.’
I didn’t know whether I was supposed to thank him, but I said nothing, just turned away to offer Ailis her water. The energy of my anger and resentment was eased as I rubbed her down. There was something, at least, to be proud of, in the healthy sheen of her coat. ‘Aren’t you a good wee thing,’ I said to her, standing off to admire the clean legs and hooves, the shining back, and, unconsciously, falling into an imitation of the accent I heard around me. And I gave her an extra measure of oats. She was fat already; let her be happy as well.
Very gradually, then, I was admitted to my grandfather’s office, a cold, narrow room, crowded into a corner of the main distillery building, and smelling of the forty years of the malting and the fermentation, an oddly sour smell of old beer, despite the fact that everything was swept and scrubbed meticulously. Even the paper and dockets, particularly the leather-bound ledgers, smelt of it. ‘It is only fitting,’ my grandfather answered, when once I remarked on it. ‘A thing should smell of what supports it. We do not pretend we are a sweet shop.’
It was dull enough, the work I did for him, and little enough. ‘Dear Sirs … we beg to draw to your attention … Dear Sirs … in answer to your esteemed communication of the fifteenth instant … We remain, dear Sirs, your humble servants … Humble ‒ not at all, I thought, as I carefully penned the words. My grandfather was a proud man, and he made and sold a proud product. I began to think that it eased him to be free of this ritual formula, by which he might seem to lessen himself. Of course, we could not change the wording, which was time-honoured established, but at least he had only to glance over it, and affix his signature; and it pleased him now that the signature was in a different hand from the letter. His had never been a clerkish script. ‘You write a fair enough hand,’ he allowed me. ‘At least, you cannot tell at a glance that it is a woman’s hand. Though some would guess it,’ he added doubtfully. ‘Perhaps it is not a good thing to let them know that there is a woman ‒’
‘You could have a typewriter, Grandfather. And then no one could tell who had written it.’
‘A typewriter! No good modern thing! Next you’ll be suggesting that we distil our own patent grain spirits! ‒ set up blending, perhaps?’
‘Oh ‒ I don’t know.’ I answered demurely, looking back to my papers. ‘It wouldn’t do to go too far, would it?’
‘You’ll not laugh at me, miss, I’ll tell you! Cluain managed before you came, and can manage after you’re gone.’ And he roared out, the draught from the slammed door lifting the papers on the roll-top desk at which I worked. At first I smiled to myself, and then I stopped smiling. Suddenly I thought of the world beyond Cluain ‒ of the time before I had know
n Cluain, of the time when I might not be here. It was a cold thought. I applied myself quickly to what needed attention, as much to distract myself from the thought of leaving, as to get through the work itself.
Samuel Lachlan did not at first welcome my presence in my grandfather’s office, and on the days he came, I was excluded. Over the years, firstly because he had to protect his investment, and then because Cluain had become an absorbing interest in his life, he had become accountant as well as solicitor; keeping Cluain’s books was a kind of relaxation for him, and he resented even the slightest infringement of his domain. The ledgers were his, almost forty years of them. He had grown old with Cluain, and with Angus Macdonald, putting to order the rough notations my grandfather had made of the business transacted since Lachlan’s last visit, setting it all out in his neat, eminently legible figures. I was an innovation, and he was too old to care for the new ‒ and besides that, I was a female with no place in an office of business. But I sensed that behind his sallow, thin face, and the perpetually stooped shoulders in the shiny black suit, there lived a passion for the welfare of Cluain almost as great as my grandfather’s. This I had to respect, and to try to understand the man who harboured it. When first we had been introduced he had avoided my eyes and muttered, ‘A pity about your brother ‒ yes, a great pity about William.’ But the pity was for himself and Cluain, not for me.
The day came when I was careless of the time, and had not left the office before his arrival. My grandfather had been called away to inspect a sick bullock, and I was alone when Samuel Lachlan opened the door of the office. He frowned when he saw the account books open. These were his property. ‘Your grandfather lets you do some of this?’
‘A very little. I only try to tidy up his notes, really. And just write a few letters about accounts ‒ sending them out ‒ writing to confirm appointments for buyers to come here ‒ helping with the wages. Very simple, really.’ I felt I had to defend my grandfather.
A Falcon for a Queen Page 19
