The Curse of Loch Ness

by Peter Tremayne

  ‘I’m afraid I apply it to all priests, ministers and preachers, Mr Telstan,’ replied Jeannie. ‘To be truthful, you will be wasting your time in trying to convert me to any sect.’

  John Telstan nodded slowly.

  ‘Aye, well they say — tell the truth and shame the devil. You are very much a Millbuie, my dear young lady. I can see the old laird in you, right enough. You would have got on well with old Donald. He was not what I would call a believer in spite of the support he gave to the kirk. He was too fiercely independent. Ah, that independence was his undoing at the end.’

  Jeannie frowned.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Telstan suddenly stirred uncomfortably and looked at his watch.

  ‘I … en … I mean he did not seek to make his peace with God towards the end. But I must be on my way. I have a small flock but in this countryside they are widely dispersed and one takes a time to traverse the parish.’

  Jeannie escorted the portly minister to the door.

  He paused and held out his hand.

  ‘Well, my dear young lady, it has been nice making the acquaintance of another Millbuie and, if I may say so, perhaps the most attractive Millbuie I have seen. Perhaps you’ll grow to like it here and settle? Do not be put off by … well, I am sure you will be able to handle the situation and perhaps we can discuss religion again if only to air our differences?’

  As Jeannie closed the door on his retreating figure, she turned and found Mrs Murdo glaring at her across the hallway.

  ‘The old fool,’ she said vehemently. ‘I would be careful of that man, Miss Millbuie. ‘The old laird had little time for him, indeed, the old laird had little time for any priest or minister, parasites every one.’

  Jeannie stared at her open-mouthed.

  She did not particularly like John Telstan, there was something about him that made her flesh crawl in spite of his outward friendliness, his chubby smiling face and … of course! It was the eyes; cold, ice-blue eyes with no warmth nor feeling in them. That was what made her uncomfortable. The smile was superficial. It did not come from within. But that, of course, was no reason openly to dislike the man.

  ‘I thought, Mrs Murdo,’ she said coldly, ‘that the old laird was a friend of Reverend Telstan?’

  To her surprise Mrs Murdo gave a bray of laughter. ‘Friend? Friend of him? She seemed to catch herself. ‘I give you a friendly warning, Miss Millbuie, have as little to do with the likes of John Telstan as you can.’

  The housekeeper turned on her heel and was gone, leaving Jeannie with a strange feeling of disquiet.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It certainly was a beautiful Spring day. Jeannie took off her jacket. She had climbed up through the woods some distance from Balmacaan Castle towards the direction of the majestic slopes of Beinn a’ Bhacaidh. Now she turned slightly, going back in the direction of the loch. The sun was soft and warm on her face and she paused a while, sitting on the stump of a tree in a clearing in the fir wood. She had closed her eyes with her face turned towards the sun in order to soak in its warmth when an abrupt cold shadow passed across her face.

  She opened her eyes, half expecting to see a cloud blotting out the sun. Instead, the tall black figure of a man stood a few yards away glaring down at her. She raised a fist to her mouth to stifle a cry, so sudden was the man’s appearance.

  There was also something familiar about him. She screwed up her eyes.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It’s you.’

  It was the tall, willowy looking man who had helped her replace her punctured tyre on the road near Inverfarigaig.

  The man brushed his lock of black hair from his eyes and scowled down at her.

  ‘Aye, it is,’ he returned dourly. ‘And did I not tell you to avoid this spot, to avoid Balmacaan?’

  ‘You did indeed,’ agreed Jeannie solemnly, suppressing a smile.

  ‘Aye,’ scowled the man more fiercely, ‘and a lot of notice you have taken of Lachlan MacVey.’

  For a moment Jeannie was puzzled.

  ‘Oh, is that your name … Lachlan MacVey?’

  ‘It is.’ He hesitated a moment and took a step towards her. ‘I am a simple, unlettered man, miss … not used to subtle ways nor the correct way of saying things. But I am telling you this for your own good. Be away from here. Be away from here this instant. This is no place, no place for the likes of you. Go elsewhere for your holiday. You have no business here.’

  Jeannie regarded the man solemnly for a moment.

  He was obviously not altogether there and, she suspected, was probably the worse for the major part of an almost empty bottle of whisky she could see sticking out of his jacket pocket.

  ‘Listen, Mr MacVey,’ she said with emphasis, ‘I appreciate that you are telling me to go for my own good. I thank you for your concern. But my business is here and here I stay … my name is Millbuie and I am the new owner of Balmacaan Castle.’

  Jeannie was unprepared for what happened next.

  The dark, saturnine face of Lachlan MacVey turned a deathly pale and he gave a cry, staggered back a step or two, a hand to his chest as if trying to still the wild beat of his heart.

  ‘A Millbuie!’ he gasped. ‘You are a Millbuie?’

  ‘I am Jeannie Millbuie,’ confirmed the girl.

  Lachlan MacVey closed his eyes and shook his head from side to side.

  ‘Och, och … a Millbuie,’ he muttered. ‘But the old laird was said to be the last of them.’

  Jeannie gazed upon the man with some disgust. She hated people who could not hold their liquor.

  She rose to go.

  Lachlan MacVey’s eyes rooted her to the spot with such a glare of malevolence that she shuddered violently.

  ‘Millbuie,’ he breathed. ‘So it continues, it continues … when I thought it might be passing. Och, och! A curse on you! A curse on all the Millbuie clan! A curse on your dead ones! A curse on those that still live! A curse on those who are yet to be born!’

  With an inarticulate cry, Lachlan MacVey turned and ran stumbling down the hill, leaving Jeannie open-mouthed in surprise.

  It was some time before she drew herself together, giving a nervous laugh.

  ‘Well,’ she forced herself to say, ‘so much for the popularity of the Millbuies in Balmacaan. I’ll have to ask Reverend Telstan to revise his opinion.’

  She sat down for a moment because she suddenly felt weak at the knees.

  ‘Well,’ she finally muttered to herself, ‘it certainly is developing into a scene from Kidnapped , with the old woman cracking her thumb at the House of Shaws, except that Lachlan MacVey did not actually crack his thumb at Balmacaan Castle. And the man was boozed to the eyeballs. Ah well … ’

  She stood up and began to resume her walk down the hillside, through the fir wood, pondering on Lachlan MacVey’s curse and why he had come to hate the Millbuie family so much. Indeed, perhaps the man was dangerous? She would ask Mrs Murdo or Mr Telstan if they knew anything about him.

  Her thoughts shattered to a million fragments as a shotgun exploded to her left.

  She felt a sudden hot blast of air hurtle by her cheek and something smashed into the undergrowth further on.

  Someone had fired at her!

  She stood rooted to the spot, her terror making her unable to move a limb.

  ‘My God!’ a hoarse voice cried.

  There was a smashing of twigs and crackle of undergrowth and a man pushed into the clearing holding a shotgun whose breech was broken, with its barrel pointing to the ground. Behind him trotted a setter, obediently close to his heels.

  Jeannie heaved a sigh and stumbled forward against a tree trunk.

  Her heart was still beating a wild tattoo and she forced herself to take several deep breaths.

  The man before her was elderly, perhaps in his sixties; tall, with every appearance of a military bearing, a bristly grey moustache, red face distorted halfway between anger and concern. He wore a tweed suit, typical of those engaged in grouse
shooting, with a deerstalker cap and a knapsack flung over his shoulder from which the feathers of some bird protruded.

  ‘My God!’ he said again in his hoarse voice. ‘I might have killed you!’

  All Jeannie could do was nod in agreement.

  ‘So you might,’ she said after a moment, realising what a ridiculous thing it was to say.

  ‘What the deuce do you mean by it, young woman?’ demanded the man, his anger getting the upper hand.

  His manner helped Jeannie recover from her shock. She gazed at the man in amazement.

  ‘What do I mean by what?’ she gasped.

  ‘Don’t you know you are on private property?’

  ‘Is that still a shooting offence in these parts?’ she demanded, a slight sneer in her voice.

  ‘Damned socialist, are you?’ he retorted. ‘These are private grounds used for shoots. I thought you was a rabbit, lucky for you I saw you at the last moment and pulled the barrel up.’

  Jeannie had pulled herself erect now.

  ‘And do you usually shoot at things you cannot see?’ she returned coldly.

  The man turned a shade pinker in the face.

  ‘There is no reason to suppose that anyone is trespassing on my grounds. There are fences and notices about the place.’

  ‘Well, there were no fences or notices that I could see. I certainly have no wish to trespass on your property, Mr … ?’

  ‘Colonel,’ corrected the man, bristling. ‘Colonel Maitland.’

  ‘Maitland?’ Jeannie frowned. Where had she heard that name before? Oh, of course. Colonel Maitland was the next-door neighbour who had made the offer for Balmacaan.

  The colonel regarded her with a frown.

  ‘You seem to have heard of me, young woman?’ There was a question implied in his statement.

  Jeannie nodded.

  ‘Mr Kyle mentioned your name to me.’

  It was now the colonel’s turn to frown.

  ‘Kyle? Of Thompson, Kyle and Kyle?’

  ‘Yes. Mr Simpson Kyle.’

  The colonel reached up a hand and pulled at his moustache in bewilderment.

  ‘And you are?’ he ventured.

  ‘My name is Jeannie Millbuie.’

  ‘Millbuie?’

  The colonel looked at her closely and then his face creased into what was obviously meant to be an apologetic smile. He held out a hand.

  ‘My dear Miss Millbuie, how can I apologise to you? I had no idea … ’

  Jeannie grimaced, unappeased.

  ‘You mean you wouldn’t have shot at me if you’d known I was a Millbuie,’ she returned sarcastically.

  The colonel laughed, it was almost a boyish, disarming laugh.

  ‘I’m afraid you are on my property, Miss Millbuie, and some way off the normal pathways. I like to stalk rabbit for the pot or bag a grouse or two. I saw the undergrowth move and so I let fly. Just at the last moment I saw you emerge and was able to swing the barrel up a fraction. A near miss. I really am most frightfully sorry.’

  He turned and snapped a word to the gun dog that was sniffing suspiciously at Jeannie’s ankles. It retired to a position at the colonel’s heel but wagged its tail to let the world know that it was friendly.

  Jeannie felt disarmed.

  The colonel’s look of sincerity and his apology were handsome.

  ‘Really,’ he pressed, ‘I’m sorry. I became a trifle overheated, pure funk, of course. The emotion of the moment. Shock of what I could have done and all that. I had no right to shout at you in the manner I did. Beastly bad taste.’ Jeannie took his proffered hand. His grip was warm and open.

  ‘And now, Miss Millbuie, are you all right? Can I take you back to the house and get you a glass of something?’ Jeannie shook her head.

  ‘No, I shall be fine. I’m sorry I strayed onto your property, colonel. But there did not seem to be any sign of a border.’ The colonel inclined his head.

  ‘Yes. Between Balmacaan and my estate you could miss the signs unless you knew them. A line of spruce by a ditch is the main fencing, that’s all. Old Donald, the old laird, never bothered and neither did I because we used to get along famously. Old Donald would be your … er, your cousin?’

  Jeannie assented.

  ‘A very distant one, though. I’d never even heard of him until a few months ago. I’m from London.’

  ‘Lived there myself for part of my life,’ replied the colonel. ‘Had a place in Highgate, well, Parliament Hill, actually. When I was a lad I went to Harrow School.’

  ‘I thought that you did not sound particularly Scottish.’ The colonel threw back his head and laughed.

  ‘Now that is not the sort of thing to say to a Maitland, my dear Miss Millbuie. I’m supposed to be chief of the Maitland sect of the clan Fraser.’

  He waved his arm across the surrounding country.

  ‘This is all clan Fraser territory, you know. The Shaws and McBains further up towards Inverness. MacGillivray over the mountains to the east, but around this bank of the loch it’s all Fraser land. We’re Scots through and through.’

  Jeannie smiled.

  ‘Well, I’m really sorry to have strayed onto … ’

  He cut her short with a shake of his head.

  ‘No, it is for me to apologise, young lady. I’ve been very inhospitable, and that’s a crime in the Highlands. Will you dine with me tonight to make up for it?’

  Jeannie hesitated.

  ‘Well, I … ’

  ‘I’ll take it as an offence to my clan honour if you refuse. There’ll be a blood feud between us and all that. It’s a great offence to disregard clan honour,’ he said jokingly, and added: ‘After all, you’re just a short walk away.’

  ‘I’d be pleased to accept your invitation, colonel,’ she replied with a smile.

  ‘Magnificent,’ said the colonel. ‘Let me take you down to the lower path from where you can get back to Balmacaan without climbing through the woods again. Come over about seven-thirty. It’ll be nice to have some company. One doesn’t often see visitors this way … apart from the tourists, that is.’

  He guided her down through the woods until they came across a broad, well-trodden pathway.

  He pointed along it.

  ‘That way will bring you back to the gates of Balmacaan in about ten minutes. That way,’ he pointed in the other direction, ‘will bring you up to Tymony, which is the name of my house.’

  She turned and shook his hand again.

  ‘Thank you again, colonel. I’ll look forward to this evening.’

  ‘A pleasure, Miss Millbuie.’

  She had started along the pathway when a sudden thought occurred to her. She paused and turned back. The colonel had not moved.

  ‘By the way,’ she said, ‘does a Lachlan MacVey work on your estate?’

  The colonel’s eyes narrowed and his mouth formed a thin straight line.

  ‘Good God, no! MacVey? What do you know about him?’

  ‘I met him a short while before I encountered you. He seemed to be behaving oddly.’

  The colonel made a clicking noise in his mouth.

  ‘Don’t let it worry you, Miss Millbuie. He’s an odd man altogether. He lives down in the village … Balmacaan, that is. Doesn’t work regularly. Unstable sort. Drinks like a fish.’ Jeannie shook her head sadly.

  ‘I thought that must be his problem.’

  ‘The man is a no-account scoundrel, Miss Millbuie. But don’t worry yourself about him. Well, until the evening then.’

  With a word to his gun dog, the colonel turned and strode back into the woods.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It had been a beautiful walk from Balmacaan Castle along the loch side that evening. There was a lovely smell of pine in the air as she had come through the woods to the steep rise on which the old house of Tymony reared its wooden and red brick structure. The house seemed strangely out of keeping with other buildings that Jeannie had seen around the loch, for it was built entirely of red brick. It was Maitland
who afterwards explained that his grandfather, a Brigadier Maitland, had the bricks imported from Dorset to build the house for his Dorset-born wife back in the days when Queen Victoria had made Scottish country houses fashionable. The house had been built on the edge of a stretch of moorland which had once run unimpeded down to the banks of the Ness. ‘Hence the name Tymony,’ explained the colonel. ‘In the Gaelic, which was still the spoken language in these parts at the time, it means the house on the moor … tigh , a house, and monadh , a moor.’

  Jeannie felt refreshed and relaxed after her walk. The dying sun had still been warm and the countryside was still lush and breathtakingly beautiful.

  Colonel Maitland was charm itself. He was the perfect host, attentive and considerate. And the meal was magnificent. It was served by a homely faced man who was deferential yet had the stamp of military service. Maitland introduced him as Carson, his jack-of-all-trades, and later explained that Carson had been his batman in the army.

  Maitland’s house was like a miniature Scottish military museum. Ancient weapons, dirks, claymores, targets, all draped round with various plaids, bestrewed the walls. There were pictures of Scottish regiments in battle, cases of medals which had evidently been awarded to members of the Maitland family and many other military accoutrements.

  Jeannie, while feeling totally foreign to it all, also felt intrigued and even fascinated.

  During the exquisite meal, which Jeannie complimented Carson on, the colonel asked her several questions about herself and her background. He was an easy man to get along with, Jeannie found herself deciding. It was certainly proof that one should not judge people by first impressions. In fact, the colonel was very charming. She began to feel slightly flattered by his attentions, although somewhere dimly in the background a voice was warning her that this was not her milieu, she did not belong in spite of her family connection. Great estates, servants and such like were not part of her London bedsitter world.

  However, Jeannie found herself telling Maitland about her childhood and her father and her grandfather. She told him of how she had been orphaned during her final year at university but managed to stay on to take her degree and then work her way through a teachers’ training college. How, after a year of practical experience at a comprehensive school, she had received a break and secured a job at the London Polytechnic.