There were five of them, stone angels, their carved robes grey-white like bones, and they were coming from all sides. And they were past me, closing in on her now, walking slowly in their grey stone robes, chanting. Four of them closing over the black bell, making it stop, and one of them, huge, monstrous, bigger than the hill, bigger than the sky, bowing over the bones that were clothed in flesh, that was Lorna, and lifting her. The black bell clanged.
I closed my eyes. It was over.
20
The moon, looking as tremulous and iridescent as a soap bubble balanced on the branch tips of the bare dark trees, shone down through the windows of the schoolroom onto the heads of the Rural ladies. Miss Lindsay, standing on a set of steps with a taper in her hand, began touching its glowing tip to the candles and as the dots of light steadily grew into pointed, flickering flames and the flames spread all around the tree with each touch, the ladies began to murmur.
‘Oh, did you ever see so bonny!’
‘My, those bottle tops fair catch the light when they’re strung together.’
‘Away. It’s your bobbles you made that are twinkling.’
‘And what a fair heat comes off it. You’ve got the fire bucket there, eh no, Miss McCallum?’
Miss Lindsay stepped down and blew out the taper and we stood in silence for a while, admiring.
‘Let’s not put the lamps on again,’ she said. ‘Let’s have our tea in the candlelight.’
‘Are those mincemeat pies warmed through yet, Moyra?’
‘Aye, they’re rare and hot.’ And then, sotto voce. ‘I’d be as happy with a scone myself, mind.’
‘No! Fruit only lies heavy if you’ve put too much peel through it. You’d better have one of my ones, Mrs Martineau – with the wee stars on the top – and you’ll be fine.’
When we had collected our cups from the tea table and sat back down in the ring of chairs around the tree we looked, in the soft light, like children gathered around a manger, or rather like children pretending to be wise men gathered around a manger, half the air of wonderment acting and half of it real.
Miss McCallum settled down next to me.
‘I’m sorry about your talk, Mrs Gilver,’ she said. ‘You’re fated never to give it, it seems.’
‘If I’d insisted on the Household Budget instead of a Christmas party with a tree, there might have been a riot,’ I said and there was some soft chuckling from the ladies nearest us, who were listening in.
‘Well, you’re always welcome to come back and join us,’ said Mrs Hemingborough, from across the way. ‘You’ve been a good friend to Luckenlaw.’
‘Aye, some folk can fit in anywhere,’ said another voice, sounding rather grim for the setting. ‘And some folk just fit in nowhere, try as they will.’
There was a slight silence after that, and a few throats were cleared. I had seen the board as I drove past the gateposts of Luck House on my way down that afternoon. Fine small estate, historic mansion house, tenanted farm, cottages, trout stream, stocked shoot. Enquiries and viewing strictly through agents.
‘I hear that Vashti one is still in the hospital,’ said Annette Martineau. ‘What is it that’s wrong with her again?’
‘They’ve never said,’ said Molly.
‘I heard the pair of them had been dabbling . . .’ said a timid voice. I stiffened. ‘In . . . drugs.’
‘Now, ladies,’ said Miss Lindsay. ‘The Rural is no place for gossip.’ There was a rumble of assent, with just a hint of amusement too. ‘There but for the grace of God . . .’
‘I cannot agree with you there,’ said Mrs Palmer. ‘I think you make your own luck in this world.’
‘You’re right,’ said Mary Torrance. ‘The good you do and the harm you do: both come back to you threefold.’
‘And what’s for you won’t go by you,’ said Mrs McAdam, of course, because someone had to.
‘Let’s not dwell on it,’ said Miss Lindsay. ‘It’s Christmas time. Let’s be happy that we’ve got this first year behind us and the Rural is going strong.’
‘And we’ve a lot to look forward to next year,’ said a voice from the other side of the tree, sounding slightly knowing. ‘I hear we’ve a wedding coming.’
Lorna Tait looked down and said nothing, but she was smiling. Jock Christie from Luckenheart Farm had been there at the manse for tea before the meeting tonight, very well-scrubbed and uncomfortable in his good shirt and squeaky shoes, looking younger than ever but not much younger than Lorna with her rosy cheeks and dancing eyes, and while I was changing I heard from Grant who had heard from Mrs Wolstenthwaite in the kitchen that he was there two and three times a week, and they had been seen out walking together with no chaperone, and last Sunday young Christie had sat in the manse pew at the kirk and Mr Tait had looked mightily pleased and said nothing.
It could not have been the ideal way to meet one’s future mate, being carried down a hillside in a dead faint and laid on his kitchen table wearing nothing but a blanket, but Alec told me that Christie had taken it all in his stride and had attended to Lorna as he would attend to any sick calf or heifer struck with milk fever.
He had had time to gather himself, right enough. He had, of course, not believed me that nothing was wrong and had run to the manse at a sprint as soon as I had left him. He met Alec coming out of the gates.
‘I need to see Mr Tait,’ Christie panted.
‘He’s not in,’ said Alec, whose sides were also heaving. ‘I’m trying to find him too. I’ve just been up the law and there are lights, candles. I saw them and went to investigate but there’s no one to be found.’
‘I think they’re in that cave-thing at my place,’ said John Christie. ‘That dark-haired lady went in after them.’
‘A dark-haired lady?’ said Alec, starting to run. ‘Didn’t you try to stop her?’
By the time they had reached the cleft in the rock and Alec had seen my motor car sitting there, Mr Tait was almost all the way down the hill with Lorna in his arms, his knees threatening to give out at the strain.
‘Help!’ he shouted. ‘Captain Watson? Jockie? Someone help me.’
‘I’ve got her, sir. You can let go now,’ said Christie.
‘Where is she?’ demanded Alec.
‘I saw the lights,’ said Mr Tait. ‘I should have gone for help, but I was so worried about Lorna I just hared off up there alone and—’
‘Where is she?’ Alec almost shouted.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mr Tait, sounding enfeebled by his fright and exhaustion. ‘I couldn’t manage them both. She’s still up there.’
So she was, but she was quite safe. I had one of the stone angels kneeling at my side, smoothing back my hair and murmuring softly until, hearing Alec gallop up the stony steps and scramble to the top of the law, his breath ragged, she melted away. Alec returned to the rest of the party with me over his shoulder, like a fireman, and we all staggered and stumbled into Luckenheart Farm kitchen and collapsed there.
I did not remember any of this, of course. I remembered nothing after the black bell that was Vashti and the five stone angels who had disappeared except perhaps for that one who sat with me, but when Alec told me about the kitchen and, afterwards, the journey to the manse laid out across the back seat of my motor car beside Lorna, it was as though he was reminding me about a dream someone had told me a long time ago, or describing a picture I had seen once in a book in my nursery, but only once and never again.
The first thing I remember clearly was coming round in the spare bedroom, feeling sick and weak, and turning my head to find Hugh at my bedside, staring at me.
‘Mr Tait has told me everything,’ he said.
‘Lucky you,’ I croaked back. Hugh held out an invalid’s cup of water to me and I sucked thirstily on the spout before speaking again. ‘He’s hardly told me anything,’ I said.
‘A private detective?’ said Hugh, but I could not tell what he might be thinking from his voice, which was as blank as his face. ‘Why di
dn’t you tell me?’
I thought about it for a moment.
‘We’re not given to confidences,’ I pointed out. ‘I have no idea what you’re doing most days.’ Hugh looked at me as though he were my school matron and he had caught me inking my legs instead of darning my stockings like a good girl. ‘All right,’ I said at last. ‘I thought you would stop me.’
‘And how did you think I should do that?’ said Hugh, sounding resigned. ‘What have I ever managed to stop you doing?’
‘What else have I ever done?’ I said.
Hugh regarded me for a long time before he spoke again.
‘I saw “Captain Watson” this morning.’
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Well, the thing is, Hugh, that Alec is my . . . assistant. Actually my Watson, you know.’
‘Really?’
‘And truly.’
‘I thought,’ Hugh began, but then cleared his throat and started again. ‘I’m glad to hear that. I’m glad to hear you’re not foolish enough to be harbouring ideas, Dandy.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said, lifting my head a little but letting it fall back to the pillow as my head swirled and a sharp stab of pain reminded me that my rib was broken. ‘Ugh, I feel so sick. I could never be a bohemian.’
‘What do you think I meant?’ said Hugh. ‘You’d be making a fool of yourself, that’s all. You are very unworldly, my dear, which is a pleasant trait for any woman to exhibit, so don’t think I’m complaining, but what you don’t realise is that Osborne is no threat to another man’s wife.’
‘It was a disguise,’ I said, gaping at him. ‘You know it was. He was pretending to be an artist.’
‘Well, he looked very at home in it,’ said Hugh, sounding so comfortable and superior that I wished I felt well enough to kick him. ‘One man can tell these things about another.’
I forbore from pointing out that Hugh had been as thick as thieves with Alec over their two estates, their walls and drains and spaniel puppies and bird tables for the last two years, and had not been able to ‘tell’ anything.
‘Besides,’ he went on, ‘you must admit that you haven’t been a good judge of character recently.’
‘I admit no such thing,’ I retorted. ‘Which characters? The Howies were perfectly respectable people as far as anyone could tell.’
‘Mr Tait tells me they were connections of the Balnagowan Rosses,’ said Hugh.
‘Exactly!’ I said. ‘Those women never shut up about the Balnagowan Rosses and their illustrious ancestress.’ Hugh stared at me, his mouth pursing in that way that makes his moustache bristle.
‘The illustrious Ross ancestress,’ he said, ‘poisoned half her family and killed the other half with darts driven into wax dolls. And then her son, if memory serves me, buried his brother alive and sold him to the devil in exchange for his own life.’
I stared at him.
‘When was this?’ I asked, boggling at the matter-of-fact way he spoke.
‘Oh, a while back,’ said Hugh. ‘But still.’
‘That explains a great deal,’ I said. ‘They married into a lineage and found out their husbands couldn’t care less about it.’
‘Best thing I’ve heard about them,’ said Hugh. ‘And I’m glad I could clear it up for you, Dandy. I only wish you had asked me before.’
This, it pained me to reflect, was a good point. In fact, if I had ever listened to Hugh on the subject of ancient Scots history I might have been able to see the Howies for what they were at the outset. I closed my eyes, not feeling up to admitting it out loud.
‘That’s right, you rest,’ said Hugh. ‘I’ll go and tell Mr and Miss Tait that you are quite recovered and there’s no need to fuss you. They’ve had a dreadful shock, finding out about those two . . . women. And I have to say, Dandy, you didn’t really handle this case with a light touch. Surely it would have been better to get to the bottom of things without a lot of rushing about in the night and fainting. In fact . . .’
With great thankfulness, I felt myself beginning to fall into a doze again and when I reawakened, he was gone.
He had barely referred to any of it since then, but he had looked askance at me when I said I was coming back to Luckenlaw for the Christmas Social.
‘Very well, then,’ he had replied at last. ‘But let that be the end of it. I am putting my foot down.’
Poor Hugh, I suppose he had to be allowed to put his foot down about something; now that I had told him a bit more about a detective’s rates of pay he certainly was not going to stamp on that. So, I concluded, I should just have to find it in myself to let the chance of addressing the Rural on the topic of the Household Budget pass me by.
I was glad to have the chance to see them all one last time, though, and to have a quiet word with Mr Tait the next day too, once Lorna had excused herself. She was off to Luckenheart Farm with a basket over her arm.
‘Taking a picnic luncheon?’ I asked her.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m going to plant some crocuses in all those clay pots at the back door. They look a fair disgrace sitting there empty.’
‘And I’m sure they’ll be very happy,’ I said to her father as we watched her stroll off down the drive from his study window. ‘I’m glad the young curate didn’t work out in the end, aren’t you?’
‘Curate?’ said Mr Tait.
‘Wasn’t there a minister in the offing at one time, whom you dissuaded?’
‘No,’ said Mr Tait. ‘It was John Christie I was trying to keep her away from. I could tell he took to her from the first time he clapped eyes on her five years ago.’
‘And you disapproved?’
‘We all want the best for our children, don’t we?’ said Mr Tait. ‘We all want better for our children than we’ve had ourselves. It’s the one thing that we can do to change things.’
‘Well, it’s a hard life, I suppose, being a farmer’s wife,’ I said, slightly puzzled. ‘But he seems an excellent young man. Lettered and cultured, not at all a . . . well, a peasant, although it makes me sound a fearful snob to say so. And your wife was a farmer’s daughter after all.’
Mr Tait smiled at me for a while before he spoke again.
‘What can’t be cured must be endured, or even embraced – which makes for a happier life in the end, don’t you think, Mrs Gilver?’
I nodded, absently. I was still puzzled by his reluctance about Jock Christie, but there were many more puzzles besides.
‘What of the Howies?’ I asked him. ‘Are you adamant about not going to the police?’
‘No good would come of it,’ said Mr Tait. ‘And a great deal of harm.’
‘They kidnapped Lorna when you get right down to it,’ I reminded him, although he surely could not need reminding. ‘And they killed the kitten. They should be punished.’
‘Oh, they will be, I’m sure,’ said Mr Tait.
‘Where will they go now? What will they do?’
‘I neither know nor care,’ said Mr Tait. ‘Mischievous, muddle-headed women the pair of them and those husbands no more use than . . . Ah, but I suppose I should find some charity in myself even for the likes of the Howies.’
‘They really believed it, you know,’ I said to him. This was still a struggle for me to comprehend. ‘They thought that putting a girl back in the chamber – whether the same girl or another one – would bring back the good times to Luckenlaw.’
‘Fools the pair of them,’ said Mr Tait. ‘I don’t know where they got their ideas, for they didn’t understand the first thing about it.’
I was eyeing him, speculatively.
‘And what if they did?’ I said. ‘What would they think then?’
He eyed me just as thoughtfully before he spoke.
‘I suppose I owe you an explanation,’ he said at last. ‘And doesn’t our contract bind you to silence on whatever I tell you?’
‘It does, as would yours with me if you were that kind of minister.’ We both smiled.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘there are
those who think the Howies brought all the trouble with them. They were the ones who gave Luckenheart Farm to a boy on his own and changed its name. There are those who think none of it was anything to do with the girl in the chamber at all.’
‘I rather got the impression,’ I said, ‘that those people who seemed most concerned about Luckenheart – the farmers’ wives, you know – did believe in that girl.’
‘Oh, they did, they did, they do,’ said Mr Tait. ‘They thought she was causing the bother with the dark stranger. I’m talking about the other trouble. Are you familiar with the five elements, Mrs Gilver?’
‘Earth, air, fire, water and . . . I can never remember the other one.’
‘Ether,’ said Mr Tait. ‘Spirit. Well, there are those who looked at the blight and the fluke, the dry wells and the burned-out house and saw it as a punishment for what had happened at Luckenheart Farm.’
‘And Luckenheart Farm itself?’ I said. ‘Do you mean there was bad . . . ether there? That the place had a bad spirit?’ I spoke rather tentatively, unable to believe that I could be having this conversation, with a minister of the kirk, in Fife.
‘No spirit at all,’ said Mr Tait. ‘The place was dead with just that young boy who didn’t belong here. Although there was no harm in him, none whatsover. So that was the trouble – for those who believe it.’
‘But they thought the girl who had been buried in the law was the cause of the dark stranger?’
‘Until you found out about all the bread and bonfires and eggs and flowers and all that nonsense.’
‘I worked out the last smell in the end,’ I told him. ‘The first day I ventured out for a walk at Gilverton, it hit me. Stubble turnips.’
‘Wonderful winter fodder,’ said Mr Tait. ‘I’m quite with Hugh there.’
I shuddered. It has always been one of the least pleasant features of country life in the depths of winter as far as I am concerned – the smell of half-frozen turnips strewn in the bare fields for the sheep to nibble, rotting slowly there until spring.
Bury Her Deep Page 33
