‘Two gentlemen?’ asked Murray, frowning.
‘That was certainly the way he said she put it, sir.’
VII
Murray was still frowning when Robbins left the library. At last he rose and went through to the hall, where he could look out of the window, across the carriage sweep to where the factor’s house stood at right angles to the main house, against the morning sunshine. The hall around him felt chilly, as if the morning were only happening elsewhere. He wondered if Thalland were in and available for a discussion on the problems and potential of Mr. Elliot’s plans. But as he watched, the front door of the factor’s house opened and the man himself came out, placed his hat on his curious head and began to walk away towards the village. Blair, suddenly appearing along the branch driveway from the stables like a brightly-coloured troll from under a bridge, broke into a trot to catch up with Thalland and the pair of them disappeared over the edge of the hill towards the river. Murray sighed, and went back to the office to look in the day book. Of course: Thalland was to go to the heritors’ meeting in the church this morning. Where Blair might be off to was anyone’s guess.
VIII
‘I hope to pay a call to the Fairlies before they depart,’ Blair was explaining to Thalland as they crossed the river and began to climb towards the village.
‘Will they not be in a bit of a pavie?’ asked Thalland politely. ‘I gather they are to leave for Edinburgh in the morning.’
‘Quite true, quite true. Perhaps I can be of assistance to them,’ said Blair, covering the vagueness of this statement with the sweetest of benevolent smiles. Thalland seemed reassured. ‘So what is your opinion of Mr. Elliot’s scheme for the servants’ wing?’ Blair asked eagerly.
The topic served to fuel their conversation as far as the kirk gate, where Thalland had perforce to attend his meeting on behalf of the Letho estate, and Blair had to turn down Kirk Hill and bear left on to North Street to visit the Fairlie household.
Thalland had not far to go to be reminded once more of the Fairlies and their present fluster: Miss Fairlie and Miss Mary Fairlie were carrying out the weekly tending of their grandmother’s grave on the west side of the church. Although it was of the local stone which was sadly friable, Mr. Fairlie had been able to afford good deep carving, and since it only dated from 1804, the name ‘Mary Kirkham, wife of Hugh Fairlie in Letho’ stood out clearly. Young Mary, named for her grandmother, haphazardly poked flowers into the grass, in a rush to be off to the wedding of her brother Hugh, named for his grandfather. Louisa Fairlie, in a cheerful, matter-of-fact voice, was describing Hugh’s wedding waistcoat and breeches as if her grandmother were sitting up alive. Thalland tipped his hat to them unnoticed and passed on into the church.
He was almost the last to arrive: Mr. Fairlie and the schoolmaster, Mr. Kenny, were already there, as well as a shilpit representative from Cullessie who was in need of a shave. Mr. Kenny was not himself a heritor, as he held no land, but was required to take the minutes of the meeting, a situation rendered awkward by the fact that he was also on the Kirk Session, amongst the ranks of the enemy.
Thalland was just seated when Mr. George, the final member of the meeting, came in breathless and apologetic.
‘Just saw your charming daughters out in the kirkyard, Fairlie,’ he added cheerfully. Fairlie managed not to eye him with suspicion, reasonably sure that his daughters were not really to Mr. George’s catholic taste.
‘Oh, aye, they’ve been scuttering about all over the village this morning. You’d think we were to leave for a year, for everyone and everything has to be bid farewell to. Between them and Mrs. Fairlie taigling the cleek we’ll never be away on time tomorrow. You’d think they did not want to go at all.’ He sighed. Mr. George smiled sympathetically, though it was possible that he had not in fact been listening.
‘Well, now, to business,’ he said, settling himself in his usual pew but turned about to look at the rest of the company. ‘Mr. Thalland and I inspected the school house last week, and found damage to one window and a stair tread. Nothing beyond the skills of any local carpenter, we believe. Are we agreed that the work should go ahead?’
‘Aye,’ said the Cullessie man, listlessly. He was fiddling with his bootlaces and appeared to find that more absorbing than the business of the meeting. Mr. Fairlie frowned at him, and asked,
‘How was the window broken this time? That’s the third in a month.’
‘The boys have invented a new game,’ said Kenny morosely, looking up from his notes, ‘involving two sticks and a stone. They call it battle gowf. I have, of course, banned it.’
‘Good,’ said Mr. Fairlie importantly. ‘Battle gowf, indeed. I hate to think how the stair tread was broken.’
‘Are we all agreed on the repairs?’ asked Mr. George again, looking discreetly at his watch.
‘Aye,’ said Thalland, echoed by Fairlie.
‘Mr. Thalland and I also inspected the church,’ Mr. George went on, ‘and found nothing in need of repair. However, it is time that the stove was given its cleaning for the summer and set aside, if someone could approach Mrs. Helliwell about this.’
‘Aye,’ said the Cullessie man absently, eyeing the cold stove.
‘You will?’ asked Mr. George.
‘Oh! No, I canna do that!’ replied the man, not willing to be any more involved in the proceedings than necessary. He clutched at the hard oak seat.
‘I’ll do it, sir, if you will,’ said Thalland. ‘Mr. Fairlie must needs be busy for a while yet.’
‘Thank you, Mr. Thalland,’ said Mr. George. ‘Now, the money is due again, I’m afraid. Have you all brought what is owed?’
Thalland and Fairlie each brought forward a small purse of money and handed it to Mr. George, their boots grating on the stone floor. The man from Cullessie tried to leave his pew but had become entangled in his own bootlaces. Mr. George grew impatient.
‘Oh, just toss it over, man, if it is in a purse!’
The Cullessie man did so, but threw it hard and Mr. George stopped it clumsily against his chest, with a bit of a wince.
‘Careful, man!’ said Fairlie. ‘This is a house of God, you ken!’
‘But he said –’ said the Cullessie man.
‘Oh, never mind,’ said Mr. George, ‘let’s get on. Now, to the manse. As you probably know, the Court of Session is to decide in the autumn. Now, it would undoubtedly save us a good deal of expense if we came to a settlement between ourselves before then. But we cannot afford to build a new manse, can we?’
The debate that ensued produced no better answer than before, and the man from Cullessie’s sole contribution was to succeed in sorting out his bootlaces before leaving.
IX
It took Blair a little while to walk down North Street, as it was his tendency to stop and talk to all of his acquaintance that he met. As he had been paying visits to Letho since his schooldays, when George III was trying on his crown for size, his acquaintance was wide and, as was his habit, varied. Each house with its dark sandy front walls, its open door and its lepping-on stone, the seat for the socially-minded by the roadside in the sunshine, provided him with conversation, and his shiny boots grew muddy and the seat of his purple breeches grew dusty with the course of his fidgety discourse, seated and standing. All who met him were encouraged to talk and they did, freely, on a variety of subjects: on the weather, on the state of the manse, on the recent murder, on the attack on a Letho kitchen maid, on the elegant Misses Kirk, on Hugh Fairlie’s forthcoming wedding and on the possible fathers of his mother’s kitchen maid’s approaching child. Blair listened very well, though his progress was slow: he could find no one who had any new stories to tell of the murdered woman’s identity, though one man came up with the notion that the bad weather could be blamed on the plumes of gunsmoke from the Peninsula, which turned to clouds and advanced north to Scotland. The fact that the prevailing weather usually came from the west rather than the south served, in his view, only to demonstrate that th
ere was something peculiarly pernicious about it. The competition for the post of father to Nan Watson’s baby was still open: Daniel was in the running, Blair was interested to hear, as were Mr. George, the blacksmith, the blacksmith’s wife’s brother, and the entire male portion of the Fairlie household. Some held the blacksmith’s wife’s brother to be the front runner because he was already the father of Nan’s second child, but others reckoned that this put him out of the race altogether, as the leash his wife had kept on him since then had been a tight one. As to where Nan was now, that none could tell him: she had last been seen on Sunday afternoon walking east from the Fairlies towards her widowed mother’s house, and that was that. Mrs. Watson was not available to speak to as she herself had vanished, off to stay with another daughter – married, in this case – who was close to her time near Perth.
This, along with general agreement as to the elegance of Miss Kirk and the beauty of the younger sister, was all Blair managed to glean before he arrived at the Fairlies’ house. This was more distinguished from its neighbours than usual by the tremendous bustle going on inside and out, as Mrs. Fairlie had apparently asked for their carriage to be brought round for her minute inspection, even though the luggage was only half-packed. Maids were shaking out cloths at windows and manservants were carrying boxes in different directions, and when Mrs. Fairlie distractedly waved Blair indoors he disappeared inside without making much difference to the general confusion. He glanced into the dining room, where Hugh Fairlie was engaged in reading a book, and trotted past unobtrusively towards the rear quarters of the house.
In the main kitchen, an unhurried cook was adjusting meat on a spit, while a little girl stood on a stool to chop onions at the table, tears running down her cheeks. The heat of the room, particularly as dinner was being prepared, was like a solid mass: Blair, not used to it, immediately felt his scalp prickle with sweat beneath his wig. When the cook and the girl saw Blair they both curtseyed, the girl somewhat perilously.
‘I was looking for Miss Nan Watson,’ explained Blair, hoping that he looked innocent.
‘Oh, aye?’ said the cook. ‘And why might that be?’
‘Because I heard that she was missing, and Mrs. Fairlie is anxious,’ said Blair, stretching the point a little. ‘You may know that I am staying at Letho House, and one of our kitchen maids was attacked on her way home on Sunday evening.’
‘Oh, aye, one of the Duff twins. I heared about that,’ the cook allowed.
‘Fortunately she escaped virtually unscathed,’ Blair went on, ‘but a suspicion has arisen that Nan might have met with the same man and been less fortunate.’
‘Look,’ said the cook, moving away from the intense heat of the fire. She came towards him with her arms folded like a battlement. ‘Effy Duff is a good girl. When a man comes up to her ill-gashioned after dark, she lets out a skirl and runs for home. Nan’s no that kind of girl, you understand my meaning?’
‘I do, madam,’ said Blair politely. ‘But you must see that even bad girls can wish to avoid bad men, and even bad girls should not be murdered.’
The cook sat down suddenly on a chair. Her face, despite the fire, had gone pale.
‘Oh, is it murdered we’re talking about now? You mean like that poor woman the night of the fireworks?’
‘That’s right,’ said Blair gently. ‘We are worried that the same thing might – and we have no proof now, so do not excite yourself –’ it was a little late for this advice, as the cook was already breathing very energetically and had a wild look about her eyes. ‘Madam, pray do not become hysterical!’ Blair exclaimed.
Surprisingly, this had the desired effect. The little girl brought the cook a cup of tea from the kettle by the fire, and she sipped at it urgently, growing calmer.
‘Do you know this cloth, madam?’ asked Blair when she was settled and the danger past. He held out to her the scrap he and Murray had found in the woodland, the one that was not Effy’s.
‘It is Nan’s, or very like,’ she nodded.
‘Now, when did you last see Nan?’ Blair asked. The fire was slowly roasting the left side of his face, and he had no wish to linger any longer than necessary.
‘On Sunday, after dinner,’ the cook said. ‘She had asked to go and visit her mother, to talk about being called up again by the Kirk Session, and I let her, the Lord forgive me, because I didn’t want the dirty hizzie in my kitchen.’
‘And did she go to her mother’s?’
‘Aye! Well,’ the cook had second thoughts. ‘I suppose so, for her mother left the next morning to Perth with the cooper’s cart to see Nan’s sister, and as far as I know she had made no complaint of not seeing her daughter.’
‘So that may be the last we know of her,’ Blair reflected. ‘Her mother lives just by the inn, does she not?’
‘The second house along from it,’ the cook confirmed. ‘Her uncle Watson lives in the first house.’
‘And when did she leave to walk there?’ Blair asked.
‘At around five,’ said the cook, ‘for we had just red up after dinner.’
‘Still daylight, then, by some way.’ Blair noticed a yellowish stain on the stone floor, and his thoughts wandered for a moment. Heat and light glared on the flat bases of rows of copper pans high on the wall. He shook his head to move the air about it. ‘Well, I have taken up enough of your time, madam, and distressed you more than you deserve. I shall leave you to your skilful labours.’ He twisted his mobile face into a benevolent smile, and was about to leave when a thought struck him.
‘Where was Nan on the night of the fireworks?’
‘Out with everyone else, watching them,’ the cook answered, frowning.
‘And afterwards?’
‘Aye, well,’ the cook returned to the fire, grimly, ‘that was another night she was late to her bed, wasn’t it? And her six months gone, as well.’ She slammed the door of the Carron oven, watching the flames jump. Blair felt himself dismissed. He left the kitchen, and was chilled in the cool of the passage as he wandered back through the house.
X
The Fairlies left only an hour after their planned departure time on the following day, Friday. Mr. Fairlie was upset by travelling for any length of time, and Mrs. Fairlie had been made anxious, on the principle of ‘many a slip twixt cup and lip’, about the ill omens that could befall them if they broke their journey and stayed the night anywhere, so they were to essay the entire distance in one day. The time of year was favourable to the attempt, with long bright days and short light nights, and they left at five in the morning in their own carriage with good horses. Despite the hour, several of their friends turned up to wish them well, to clap Hugh laughingly on the back and tease him with remarks about the loss of his freedom and the redeployment of his time. Louisa and Mary, their finery already assumed for the best first impression in the Capital, were waiting by the carriage, and John was seated in his green breeches on a strong hack. The whole performance was like a kind of puppet theatre for the bystanders, for no sooner were Mary and Louisa established in the carriage than one of them would remember something still to be brought or done, and would pop back out again, and then the other would follow, not wishing to miss anything. Then Mr. Fairlie would emerge in state and be seated, but his wife was nowhere to be found, until her voice would be heard on one of the upper floors explaining for the fifth time to the manservant what was to be done with the marriage flag in their absence – for it was to be raised from the upstairs window at eleven in the morning, and not a moment before or the greatest misfortune would attach itself to the whole ceremony and probably the household, as well. Then Mr. Fairlie, having sent both daughters to summon their mother and thus lost sight of all three women, reluctant to diminish his dignity by shouting, descended again from the carriage and returned to the house to shepherd them down in person. Even as she quitted the front door, Mrs. Fairlie was calling back instruction about mirrors and fires, and in the end was taken firmly by the arm by her husband and placed w
ith discreet force in the carriage, and a shout to the driver was all that was finally required to begin the journey. Hugh Fairlie, riding beside his brother, took his last look at Letho as a single man and followed his parents’ carriage down the hill to the Edinburgh road.
XI
Dinner that day, for what remained of the society of Letho, was at Letho House. Blair was in excellent humour, which Murray put down to the fact that he had informed Blair that he had decided to proceed with Mr. Elliot’s tunnel scheme and had already written to Mr. Elliot. The architect had mentioned that he was to be in Fife for some weeks, checking work that he had recently completed in Kirkcaldy, and Murray hoped he would be able to start soon. Murray had spent a thoughtful morning with the plans and elevations, and had discovered that the tunnel was to be six feet in height, allowing ease of inspection and a capacity that would certainly exceed any foreseeable water levels. A series of steps, rather than a slope, would form the base of both gutter and tunnel, and the whole would emerge in the kitchen garden by the kitchen door, where another set of steps would allow easy egress to ground level. The drain would continue, in Mr. Elliot’s fancy at least, open through the gardens to fall gently as it diminished in depth, through the flower gardens and thence into the park, where it would eventually empty into the lake. Blair was delighted with the whole idea: Murray, more practical in some ways, drew Blair’s attention to Mr. Elliot’s recommendation that for the best decorative effect in the flower gardens, the kitchen servants should be encouraged not to treat the drain as a slop bucket.
Blair had changed from his dusty walking clothes into proper black for dinner, adding an emerald and orange high-collared waistcoat and a fine gold fob with a large topaz on it. He was not a vain man, but colours seemed to please him. Murray and Kennedy wore fashionable but comparatively dull ivory waistcoats, but the flat gilt buttons on all their coats winked in the candlelight and daylight of the drawing room like golden pennies as they waited for their guests. Kennedy’s buttons perhaps winked with a little more agitation than the others, for he seemed more restless than usual, and sat only to stand again, standing only to pace the room and sit again briefly elsewhere. Murray put it down to Kennedy’s anxiety that he would be too ill to enjoy dinner.
An Abandoned Woman (Murray of Letho Book 4) Page 12
