‘The SWRI ladies are witches?’ Alec said, regarding me with something beyond pity now.
‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘But perhaps they’re nodding as they pass. I mean, look what they believe about the girl in the cave. Or perhaps the instigators – the schoolteacher and the postmistress, I’m sure – are leading the others towards it unbeknown. I had thought their socialism was the worst of it, but perhaps when they spoke of men calling out dreadful names . . .’
‘All under the eye of their many guest speakers?’
‘The point is, Alec, that if one of the God-fearing majority caught a whiff of it, they might decide to teach the women a lesson, do you see? The husbands and fathers might very well band together, as Mr Black’s evidence suggest they have. Perhaps, while their wives are at the meetings, they’re at meetings of their own planning sabotage.’
‘Why wouldn’t they just forbid their wives to go?’
‘Because then other wives and spinsters would still be in thrall to it. And believe me, Luckenlaw is well served for spinsters.’
‘It seems rather a brutal thing to subject the women to, even to teach them the lesson that they should leave witchcraft alone.’
‘I suppose the men might just tell themselves that if women want to poke their fingers into such things they should jolly well take whatever dark strangers flit their way.’
He merely shook his head again.
‘I’m not saying I believe in witchcraft,’ I carried on and even to me it sounded sulky. ‘Just that if someone else does and someone else again has found out about it . . .’ I gave up. ‘I think it would at least be interesting to see who wears the witch’s heart and who doesn’t.’ Once again, Alec said nothing, but just waited patiently for me to return to my senses. ‘So,’ I went on, in quite a different voice, ‘the Martineau ladies, the Miss Mortons and Mrs Gow need to be tracked down.’
‘Oh, I’ll take care of the Miss Mortons for you,’ Alec said airily. ‘I already know where to find them.’ He smiled. ‘That nice Miss Tait told me when she came to see me yesterday. She suggested I drop in on them, in fact.’
I tried and failed to hide my astonishment.
‘They dabble too, you see,’ said Alec. ‘In watercolours. Miss Tait reckoned they’d be enchanted to see some of my work. But maybe she’s luring me into a trap, eh? Maybe she’s a witch?’
‘We can agree to differ,’ I said haughtily, ‘without any need for sarcasm, surely.’
After luncheon, I set out purposefully across the green – Mrs Martineau rented the house in front of the kirk wall and shared it with her grown-up daughter who worked in Colinsburgh – planning to take her in first and then cut round the farm lanes to Wester Luck Cottage, where the wife of Mr Gow the ploughman could be found.
Mrs Martineau, for all that she had given up the Rural in the spring, was clearly still within sound of the drums as far as life in general was concerned, for she knew who I was, where I hailed from and what I was (ostensibly) up to, as soon as she opened the door. She was a well-turned-out widow upwards of fifty, but still with a fine line to her jaw, roses in her cheeks and a high shine on her greying curls, who lived very comfortably on her army pension, her late husband having been a quartermaster-sergeant all his days.
‘And are you Luckenlaw born and bred?’ I asked her, thinking I could hear something rather more exotic in the lilt of her voice, but knowing that an army life can do strange things to anyone’s tongue.
‘Not me,’ she said. ‘I’m a Glasgow lass. Give me lights and shops and music halls any time.’
‘So what brings you here?’ I asked her, mystified. Anywhere less like Glasgow than the village of Luckenlaw was a stretch to imagine.
‘Oh, we used to have our holidays here whenever Wallace was on leave,’ she told me, ‘and my daughter – we only had the one – was always great chums with the wee Fraser boy, played together on the farm and wrote each other letters when we went away again. Then, as soon as she had left school, she announced that she was coming back here to work. Well!’ Mrs Martineau drew herself up and folded her arms, in the gesture that makes a bosomy woman look like a bridling little pigeon but gives more svelte individuals such as she the outline of a Vogue fashion plate, all shoulders and angles. ‘I know very well that Mrs Kinnaird takes in girls as lodgers, but they are barmaids and shop workers, and my Annette is in an office. You can see the problem, can’t you?’ I could indeed; the problem was that young Miss Martineau had been determined to come to Luckenlaw and land the wee Fraser boy, without a thought to decorum or her mother’s affront.
‘So here we are!’ said Mrs Martineau, staring blankly out of her window at the empty square of green and the solitary telephone kiosk on its far side.
‘And the wee Fraser boy?’ I asked gently.
‘Married last year to a local girl with a face like the back of a bus,’ she said. ‘Said he knew Annette would never settle to a farming life after a job in an office and her own pay-packet.’
‘Farming life?’ I said. ‘You don’t mean Mrs Fraser of Balniel, do you?’
‘A friend of yours?’ said Mrs Martineau warily, regretting the bus comment I supposed.
‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘And I should say Mr Fraser had more to worry about than her face.’ I hazarded a guess that I was safe to say it. ‘I mean, of course it’s wonderful to behold such godliness in these shocking times, but to be married to it . . . ?’ Mrs Martineau gave a comfortable chuckle, and nodded understandingly.
‘He’s certainly repenting at his leisure now,’ she said. ‘But it’s too late to unmake the bed and he needs to learn that he can’t have his cake and eat it for ever.’
After which impressive string of clichés, she closed her mouth firmly and nodded just once as though that was the matter put to rest for good and all.
‘Just so,’ I said, not quite following. ‘Now, Mrs Martineau—’
‘Oh, call me Moyra, do,’ she said, plaintively. I drew back, not shocked really although somewhat more than surprised. She saw my look and sighed heavily. ‘Forgive me,’ she said. ‘That would never do in Luckenlaw. What was I ever thinking?’ and I recognised in her amused despair a faint echo of the slump Gilverton can settle on my shoulders. Still, one cannot throw all of civilisation to the four winds.
‘My dear Mrs Martineau,’ I began again, as a compromise, ‘I wonder if I can ask you one or two questions to help me prepare my little talk.’
‘I’m not in the Rural any more,’ she said. ‘I stopped going when . . . Well, I stopped going.’
‘When what?’ I asked carefully.
‘Och, it was never really my cup of tea anyway,’ she said.
‘They do have some very odd ideas,’ I murmured, ‘about – um – folklore and ancient traditions and so on . . .’ but far from Mrs Martineau falling on my neck and pouring out a store of suspicions she merely looked puzzled.
‘And of course: Votes For All,’ I said, guessing again.
‘I’m not a fan of that caper right enough,’ said Mrs Martineau, ‘and there’s only so much fun to be had from knitting and baking. I only went because Annette was so keen on it.’
‘Then she tired of it?’ I said, hoping that my questions were not beginning to sound too pointed.
‘Her?’ cried Mrs Martineau indignantly. ‘She was never there. Oh yes, she joined up and she pushed me out the door keen enough every month, but she was always “too tired after her work, Mother” or “needing to wash her hair, Mother” and off I went as though I’d come up the Clyde on a biscuit.’ The arms, I noticed, were folded even tighter now, threatening to nip her slim figure quite in half.
At that moment, I had one of my very rare flashes of inspiration. All at once, I understood the source of Mrs Martineau’s affront, why Mr Fraser might have been said to be having his cake and eating it too, why Annette Martineau was so keen to have her mother out of the way on evenings when Mrs Fraser was also occupied, why Mr Black could not find Mr Fraser when he went look
ing earlier in the year, and the reason for the Martineaus giving up the Rural meetings, although . . .
‘Was it August you stopped going?’ I asked her. ‘I rather thought it was May.’
Mrs Martineau stared at me, as well she might. Why on earth should I know or care when it was, after all?
‘My dear,’ I said again, ‘please don’t be concerned – I’m a woman of the world and I know that girls will be girls. I just assumed that it would be Mrs Fraser stopping at home that foiled your daughter’s . . . moonlight interludes.’
‘Moonlight interludes!’ she cried. ‘That’s a new name for it.’
‘I shan’t tell a soul,’ I assured her. ‘And really – childhood sweethearts and all that – it’s rather romantic.’
I could see her trying to maintain her disapproval although her eyes were twinkling and her lips beginning to twitch.
‘Oh, well, at least it’s over,’ she said, sighing. ‘And no little mementoes on the way, thank the Lord. Now, as soon as Annette’s finished her training and worked out her notice we’ll be off back to Glasgow and I’m going to dance up and down Sauchiehall Street in a red dress.’
‘Good for you,’ I said, imagining that not only might Annette snag herself a beau once they got there, but her mother was sure to attract a follower or two as well, what with the curls, the cheeks and the army pension, red dress or no. ‘So if it wasn’t Mrs Fraser spoiling the party, do you know what it was? What went wrong in May?’
‘They quarrelled,’ said Mrs Martineau. ‘Because he wouldn’t walk her home. I came in from the Rural that night, gasping for a . . . well, a gin if you must know . . . and she was sitting here in her dressing gown by the fire, crying her eyes out, and saying she never wanted to see him again. “See who again?” I asked, thinking: first I’ve heard that you’re seeing anyone. She wasn’t going traipsing around in the dark after him any more, she said. If he didn’t even have the courtesy to see her home to the edge of the village – too scared of being spotted – then he didn’t deserve her and he could go and raffle.’
‘Good for her too,’ I said stoutly, although quietly to myself I rather thought that it was the marrying someone else and meeting Annette once a month on the sly that showed the discourtesy, not the leaving her to make her own way home.
Back outside on the village green, I made the mistake of pausing to gather my thoughts before heading off for the path around the law which would take me to Wester Luck and Mrs Gow and while I stood there, playing choo-choo with my breath in the cold and crunching patterns into the frosty grass with the toe of my boot, I heard the sound of a familiar puttering engine and the Howies’ motor car trundled into view, circled the cenotaph and drew up beside me, with a blast of its horn. Vashti Howie leaned out and grinned at me.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked but luckily did not wait for a sensible answer. ‘Hop in,’ she said. ‘I’ve been at the post, sending off orders for Lorna’s party whatnots, and spending precious moments with dear, dear Miss McCallum, of course. Always such a treat, any day when one gets the chance to refresh one’s spirits with that marvellous creature.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Come on, this thing’ll flood if I leave it idling.’
‘Where are you going?’ I asked her.
‘Speaking of marvellous creatures,’ she said, ‘I’m going to pick up Niccy. She popped in at our new tenant’s while I did the boring bits, as usual. Dandy, I tell you, you must see this. You won’t believe your eyes, but you must see it anyway.’
‘See what?’ I said, knowing quite well but remembering that I should not.
‘Captain Watson,’ said Vashti as I climbed into the motor car and she swung around the green for the school lane. ‘Luckenlaw has never seen anything like it, and even in Soho he would cause a bit of a stir.’
‘He’s an artist, isn’t he?’ I said cautiously. ‘I rather thought there was an artist or two scattered about here already. The Miss Mortons?’
‘Scream!’ said Vashti. ‘The Miss Mortons are nieces of a bishop who paint kittens in baskets, darling. Our Captain Watson is exploring the outer edges of expressionism in lavender trousers and riding boots. I left Niccy trying to pretend she’d heard of Kandinsky.’ Which was rather a relief, I thought, for if she had heard of Kandinsky and knew anything at all about him, she would surely have seen through Alec straight away.
‘Lorna Tait seemed to like him,’ I said.
‘Oh, that’s the cripplingest of all,’ said Vashti. ‘Lorna – poor sweet innocent soul – is smitten!’ She waited for my guffaw and when it did not come she explained. ‘Captain Watson, I would stake my life upon it, never dreamed of smiting her. Captain Watson is . . . how shall I put it? . . . shriekingly Not the Marrying Kind.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I see.’ I did; the feather, the pink smock, the theatrical boots might say ‘artist’ to Luckenlaw, Lorna and me but not to Vashti Howie, who had clearly met artists before. She had sought another explanation for Alec’s fantastic appearance and, apparently, had found one.
How doubly uncomfortable then, when we splashed through the ford to the cottage a minute later and Vashti swept in with a rap on the door and an air – justified, admittedly – of owning the place, to find Alec squirming in a kitchen chair, Nicolette Howie perched on the arm of a sofa with her cigarette holder at an elegant angle and Lorna stationed opposite, clutching a glass of something she did not appear to be enjoying, but smiling pinkly nevertheless. I could feel giggles beginning to form deep down inside me.
‘I’m not stopping,’ I said firmly, before Alec could fluff things with a reference to my earlier visit. ‘Please don’t concern yourself, Captain . . . Watson, is it? I just wanted to come along and say hello.’
‘Mrs Gilver is visiting from Perthshire,’ said Lorna. ‘Do you know Perthshire at all?’ Alec looked as though he was trying to think if he had ever heard of the place and then shook his head. Lorna turned to Vashti.
‘Captain Watson has agreed,’ she said. ‘We’ve never had a real artist, doing a real demonstration of his art before, have we?’
‘I take it we’re not counting Miss McCallum and her crochet?’ said Vashti. Lorna looked troubled and Alec, I considered, did a perfect imitation of one whose mind was on higher things. Lorna cleared her throat.
‘Shall you do a sketch, do you think, Captain? Or work on the painting of the moment? I am very ignorant about artistic things.’
‘I’m surprised you haven’t asked the Miss Mortons,’ said Alec. ‘They work in watercolours and it lends itself so much better to sketches. I shouldn’t like to cause a stir, by seeming to sweep in and take over.’
‘You’re always so attuned to the emotional plane, aren’t you? You . . . um . . . artists,’ said Vashti, causing Nicolette to snort and Lorna and Alec to frown in puzzlement.
‘The Miss Mortons left, Captain Watson,’ said Nicolette, when she had cleared her throat. ‘When was it now? They weathered that thrilling night in July, all right. What was it that drove them off in the end?’
‘Mrs Gilver is planning to address the Rural too, you know, Captain,’ said Lorna, cutting into Vashti’s speech in a rather quavering voice.
‘A fellow artist?’ said Alec.
‘Not at all,’ said Nicolette. ‘Don’t let the hat fool you, Captain Watson. She is doing some sociological research.’
‘Well, hardly that,’ I said.
‘Darling, if you went as far as the charmless Molly at our place, I’d call it sociology, wouldn’t you?’
‘Anthropology, even,’ said Vashti and they both tittered.
‘Did you get any joy from Molly?’ Nicolette asked me, blithely unconcerned by any thoughts of her servant’s indiscretion.
‘Not anything very useful,’ I assured her anyway. ‘She tends rather to the melodramatic.’
‘Ah yes, her famous ordeal in the privy yard,’ said Vashti.
‘Don’t you use watercolours then?’ said Lorna in a loud voice.
‘It paid off handsome
ly for her with the adventure last night,’ said Nicolette, before Alec could answer. He was looking rather wildly from right to left, like a spectator at a tennis match, trying to follow all the conversational threads at once.
‘You seem very unsympathetic to poor Molly,’ I said to Vashti.
‘So would you be if you had to eat her cooking,’ said Vashti, making me laugh in spite of myself. ‘And besides,’ she went on, ‘a moonlight walk! I ask you!’
‘We thought a visit to a prison cell might shake the nonsense out of her once and for all,’ said Nicolette, even less sympathetically.
‘Prison cell?’ said Alec, as Captain Watson would have, I was sure.
‘Our tenant farmer got himself arrested and locked up last night,’ said Nicolette. ‘The most excitement there’s been at Luck House since Irvine sat on the cat.’
‘Yes, it was odd, the Miss Mortons going off in high dudgeon like that,’ said Lorna frantically.
‘But they let him go again,’ said Nicolette, just as though Lorna had not spoken.
I took pity at last. Saving Lorna from mortification and Alec from the challenge of remembering what Captain Watson should know and what should puzzle him, I turned the conversation adroitly to the coming party (thinking regretfully, as I did so, that the adroit turning of difficult conversations was an unmistakable sign of creeping age).
‘It’s going to be very romantic,’ Vashti said. ‘Love is the theme.’
‘Because you are beloved, darling Lorna,’ said Nicolette.
‘And very loving to us too. So what else could the theme be?’ said Vashti. ‘We adore themed parties, Captain Watson. Life, don’t you think, should be full of celebration. Hallowe’en, St Valentine’s, Easter, Beltane. If you add some well-spaced birthdays the year can be full to the brim.’
‘Beltane?’ said Alec.
‘May day,’ Nicolette explained. ‘An old Scots word. You’ll get used to them, if you settle here, and I do hope you will.’
Bury Her Deep Page 19
