Mrs. Sutherland had told Pepita that she was unearthing the clothes that Alistair and his brother had worn when they were children and she was sure that there would be a complete outfit for Rory, including a sporran and a small skean dhu.
Now dressed in his finery, Rory was delighted with himself.
“Now I look like a real Scot, he exclaimed proudly. “Any Sassenach who gets in my way I shall fight with my skean dhu!”
“I am a Sassenach,” Pepita said quietly.
“Oh, I don’t mean you, Aunt Pepita,” Rory replied. “I love you and, whatever you were, you would still be my favourite aunt.”
Pepita laughed.
“That is a very big compliment, considering that I am the only aunt you have!”
But Rory was not listening. He was looking at himself in the mirror and admiring his sporran, which he knew was a small replica of the one that his grandfather wore in the daytime.
“I want to have a kilt too,” Jeanie piped up plaintively.
“If we can buy some tartan, I will make you one,” Pepita promised, “but you look very pretty as you are.”
It was true. In her pink coat and bonnet trimmed with tiny roses she looked like a small flower.
It seemed impossible that even somebody as hard-hearted as the Duchess could dislike her.
They drove to the Kirk, which was not far from The Castle, in three carriages and, while Rory travelled with his grandfather and the Duchess, Pepita and Jeanie were with Lady Rogart and her husband.
Torquil was with three other guests in the last carriage and, when they reached the Kirk, Pepita found that she and Jeanie were in the second pew behind the Duke and Duchess and Rory and Torquil.
As she knelt and prayed, it was difficult not to be acutely aware of the man just in front of her and during the Service she found that her eyes kept straying to his broad shoulders and the way his hair was cut so neatly at the back of his neck.
Even to be near him made her feel as if her love welled up inside her so that as well as her prayers her whole being was filled with an awareness of him.
The Kirk was very austere and the Minister did not wear a surplice but only a black cassock.
He was a gaunt ageing man with hard features and, when he climbed into the pulpit, Pepita expected to hear a Sermon denouncing sinners and threatening them with dire punishments in the next world.
Instead his Sermon was a long discourse on the iniquities that the English had perpetrated on the Scots.
She realised that he was speaking of what had happened when the Scottish were defeated at the Battle of Culloden and how they had suffered in the ensuing years.
Not only were their lands and their arms taken from them but also their tartans and their kilts.
They had suffered cruelly, she thought. No one could dispute that.
At the same time the Minister spoke as if it had happened yesterday and she found it hard to realise that it was all quite ancient history and there was nobody left alive who could remember what had occurred.
Then, as the Minister went on and on, inciting, she thought, the feelings of those who listened against the English, she knew despairingly that it would be impossible for her ever to marry Torquil whatever he might say.
How could she live in an atmosphere where she was not only despised and hated but, because she was English, was considered responsible for the atrocities that had taken place more than a hundred years before she was born?
What was more, how could she ever bring her children to the Kirk for them to hear perhaps Sunday after Sunday such a discourse, knowing that every word accused their mother of belonging to what to them was a criminal race?
‘It’s hopeless,’ she told herself despairingly and once again she knew that she must go away.
What at last the Sermon ended and she knelt to pray, Pepita had the greatest difficulty in controlling her tears and preventing them from running down her cheeks.
They drove back in the same order as they had come and Pepita wondered as she sat in the carriage if Torquil was feeling, as she did, that any union between them was impossible.
Because the attack was so bitter and made her so miserable, she wanted to cry out at the injustice of it.
But by the time she had tidied Jeanie and Rory and washed their hands before luncheon, she had regained control of herself.
When she took the children to the drawing room she held her head high and there was a look of defiance in her eyes. She would not humble herself to the Scots, whatever they might feel about her.
Nevertheless, as they sat at the great dining room table with the Duke at its head, looking every inch a Chieftain, she knew that she could expect no mercy from a race that never forgets.
*
The last members of the house party were to leave after luncheon and, as they talked about their journeys to other parts of Scotland, Torquil said to Rory,
“You and I are going on a journey later today.”
“Where to?” Rory asked him.
“I am going to take you to see the pigeon caves.”
“I have heard about them from Grandpapa,” Rory replied excitedly. “Shall we take a gun to frighten the birds out of the caves?”
“As it is Sunday, we will have to make do with our voices,” Torquil replied. “I assure you that if we shout very loudly, they will come flying out and disappear so quickly over the edge of the cliff that you will find it impossible to count them.”
“I shall try!” Rory exclaimed.
“You must be careful, Torquil,” the Duke warned him. “Remember that if the boat is dashed against the rocks and overturned, not even the strongest swimmer has a chance in the currents at this point.”
“I have not forgotten,” Torquil replied with a smile. “I have been there so often that I assure you I know every rock and every place that is dangerous for at least five miles along the coast.”
Rory was so excited at going to see the caves that he found it difficult to settle and do anything else for the rest of the afternoon.
Torquil arranged that they should have an early tea and because it seemed the sensible thing to do, Pepita and Jeanie joined them at the teatable just before four o’clock.
“I want to go in the boat,” Jeanie said as soon as she realised what her brother was doing.
“I will take you another day,” Torquil promised.
“I want to go with you now, Uncle Torquil!” Jeanie persisted.
“I tell you what we will do,” Pepita interposed, knowing that Jeanie felt she was being deprived of a special treat. “We will go to the little house in the trees and watch them from there.”
The child cheered up immediately and, as soon as tea was finished, Torquil and Rory went through the garden and down to the quay where the boats belonging to The Castle were moored.
Pepita and Jeanie set off in the opposite direction through the woods, but when they reached the little house, Pepita realised that there were so many leaves on the trees that it might be difficult to see the boat if it kept close to the cliffs.
“What we will have to do is to walk along the edge of the cliffs,” she said to Jeanie, “and wave to Rory and Uncle Torquil as they pass us. Then afterwards we will climb up to the little house.”
Jeanie was quite amenable to this suggestion and they wandered through the trees onto the rough ground that lay between the woods and the sea.
As they arrived there, they saw that they had taken longer to get there than Pepita had anticipated and already the boat containing Torquil and Rory was almost ahead of them.
“We must run,” Jeanie said, “or they will not see us!”
She started to run quickly over the rough ground and, as she did so, Pepita saw about twenty yards ahead of them on the edge of the cliff something that looked, she thought, like a large animal lying down.
Jeanie was running towards it and it flashed through Pepita’s mind that it could be one of the cattle, which might get up and frighten her.
/> Then, as she hurried after the child, she saw that it was not an animal but a person.
Somebody was lying on the very edge of the cliff and it occurred to her that it was a very strange thing to do.
Then as Jeanie, intent on waving at the boat that contained her brother, had almost reached the person lying down, Pepita saw that it was a woman and, although it seemed incredible, it was the Duchess.
There was no mistaking, now that she was nearer, the fawn-coloured tweed that Her Grace had been wearing at luncheon, which blended with the rough grass so that it appeared almost as if she was camouflaged.
It flashed through Pepita’s mind that the Duchess must have fallen down by accident or because she felt ill.
Then incredibly she saw that in her hands she was holding a rifle.
It seemed strange that she should be practising shooting at the sea until with a sense of shock Pepita realised, as she drew nearer still, that the Duchess was training her sights on the boat that was being rowed by Torquil and it was now almost opposite her.
In the flash of a second, although it seemed very much longer, Pepita understood what the Duchess was intending to do.
The warning the Duke had given Torquil at luncheon that the sea at this particular point was so dangerous that the strongest swimmer would not survive in it, came to her mind as if written in letters of fire.
She knew that, if the Duchess’s aim was successful, the boat would sink and both Rory and Torquil would be drowned.
She rushed forward, but Jeanie had reached the Duchess before her.
“Is that a gun?” she heard the child ask.
The Duchess, intent on what she was doing, had not heard Jeanie approach, but now she turned her head and there was an expression of fury on her face.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “Go away and leave me alone!”
The angry way she spoke astonished Jeanie and then, as if she was aware of what the Duchess was doing, she said,
“It’s wrong to shoot on Sundays!”
The Duchess made an inarticulate sound of rage.
Then, realising that Pepita was just behind Jeanie, she shouted out furiously,
“Get out of my way, both of you, and mind your own business!”
As she spoke she rose from the prone position that she had been lying in and seemed to point her rifle at Jeanie.
Frightened, Jeanie took a step back from her and in doing so she stumbled on the edge of the cliff.
She gave a shout of fear, and only by flinging herself forward onto the ground did Pepita manage to catch hold of her arm as she fell.
But Jeanie’s weight was too much to enable her to pull the child to safety and she hung over the edge with Pepita holding her by the wrist and with her other hand catching hold of her coat.
Jeanie was screaming in fear and for the moment, with the force of her fall, Pepita had the breath knocked out of her body.
Then she realised that the Duchess had risen to her knees and now, as if what had happened made her completely lose control of herself, she screamed,
“Let her fall – and the boy shall die too! He shall not – stop my son from inheriting!”
As she spoke, she raised the rifle to her shoulder, trying to aim it on the boat beneath her.
It was then that Pepita found her voice.
“Stop! Stop!” she shouted. “You cannot commit – murder! It is wicked!”
“He shall die! Both of them shall die!” the Duchess rasped furiously.
From the hysterical way she spoke, Pepita now knew that she was mad.
She was still struggling frantically to pull Jeanie back over the edge of the cliff, but while the child screamed and trembled, she had not the strength to do it, although she tried to lever herself backwards.
Even as she struggled, she was aware that the Duchess was intending to kill Rory and Torquil and somehow she found enough breath to cry out,
“Help – Oh, God! – Help them!”
Then, when she expected any moment to hear the report of the rifle and know that the Duchess had been successful, a deep voice said behind them,
“Stop, Your Grace, and give me the rifle!”
Once again just as she was about to pull the trigger, the Duchess turned her head.
“Go away!” she snarled. “They have to die and no one shall – stop me!”
It was then that Pepita was aware that Hector, the Head Keeper who had taken Rory out fishing, was reaching out to take the rifle from the Duchess’s hands.
“Leave me alone!” she yelled. “How dare you interfere! I will have you dismissed for your impertinence.”
“Even so I’ll take the gun,” Hector replied sharply.
There was a struggle as he tried to take the gun from the Duchess’s hands, but she was fighting with him, struggling to her feet and at the same time pulling at the rifle, determined that he should not have it.
Then, as Jeanie’s screams added to the confusion, Hector managed to wrench the rifle from the Duchess and, as she frantically resisted, she slipped on the grass and fell.
There was one ear-splitting scream as she disappeared over the edge.
The horror of what had happened seemed to envelop Pepita like a dark cloud and then she felt Hector pull Jeanie to safety.
Then, for the first time in her life, she fainted.
She must have been unconscious for some time, because she came back through the dark to hear Jeanie crying,
“Wake up, Aunt Pepita, wake up. I’m frightened!”
With an effort Pepita managed to sit up and now she saw that she and Jeanie were alone and she guessed that Hector had gone to fetch help.
Because she knew that it was the right thing to do, she tried to breathe deeply.
She was very cold, which she appreciated came from fear and it was difficult to think clearly and even her eyes seemed to be out of focus.
She managed, however, to put her arms closer round the child and held her against her.
“I fell over the cliff!” Jeanie was saying tearfully. “If you had not held on to me, I would have fallen into the sea!”
“But – you are – safe.”
Then, as Pepita spoke, she wondered if Rory and Torquil were safe too.
It was difficult, now that it was over, to remember exactly what had happened.
She had a sudden fear that the Duchess had fired at the boat before Hector had arrived to take the rifle from her.
Then she was sure that she had not had time to do so.
The Duchess had fallen and somehow she must take Jeanie back to The Castle before the child was aware of the tragedy that had taken place.
“I fell over the cliff,” Jeanie replied. “I’m frightened, very very frightened!”
“You are – quite safe now,” Pepita said again weakly.
She knew she must get on her feet and walk back to The Castle, but she found it impossible to move.
Then, as she put her hand up to her forehead, to find it wet with sweat even though she was cold, she saw in the distance a man running towards them.
Because her heart gave a leap even before she was able to identify him, she knew instinctively who it was.
As if Jeanie was aware that the one person who could help them was Torquil, she moved from Pepita’s arms, saying,
“There is Uncle Torquil. I shall go and tell him how frightened I was.”
She ran towards him as she spoke and once again Pepita told herself she must get to her feet.
But she could do no more than watch Torquil as he picked Jeanie up in his arms and kissed her.
Then, carrying the child, he moved more slowly towards her and she knew that God had saved him and Rory from being murdered.
*
Lying comfortably in bed, with Mrs. Sutherland fussing over her, Pepita knew that everything was different from the moment Torquil had reached her.
She had not only ceased to struggle against her weakness but, because he was there, the horror
of what had happened seemed to recede and gradually she was able to breathe normally.
He had knelt down beside her and taken her hand in his and kissed it before he said,
“I saw everything that happened, my darling, and you saved not only Jeanie’s life but also mine and Rory’s.”
“It was – Hector who did – that,” Pepita murmured and then she realised that Torquil was not listening.
“I want you to go back to The Castle while I try to arrange about the Duchess.”
“She is – dead?”
“Yes, she is dead,” Torquil confirmed quietly.
He drew Pepita to her feet and carried her back through the woods until she said that she could walk on her own.
Jeanie had run ahead of them to find Rory, whom Torquil had sent straight back to The Castle.
He had given him instructions to tell Fergus, the footmen and anybody else who was available, to go to the top of the cliffs and also to take a boat round to where the Duchess had fallen.
Only when he was alone with Pepita did he say in a voice that told her how deeply he was upset by what had occurred,
“My precious darling! You should not have been involved in anything so horrible.”
“She – she intended that Rory – should die,” Pepita whispered. “And – you might have – died as well.”
“She was mad, though we did not realise it,” Torquil replied. “But it is most important that, as far as the world is concerned, when she was walking along the cliffs she stumbled and fell.”
He spoke sternly, as if he defied anybody to argue with him, and Pepita asked,
“Will you tell the Duke – the truth?”
Torquil nodded.
“He will know and, of course, Hector, but nobody else, and the rifle will already be lost in the sea, so there will be no evidence to show what occurred.”
Pepita shivered.
Although she was now walking, Torquil’s arm was supporting her and she had the feeling that nothing mattered because he was there.
“It is something you will have to forget, my darling,” he said as they came in sight of The Castle, “and now I must leave you and go to find Hector and convince him that it was an accident.”
The Scots Never Forget Page 11
