The House of Lyall

by Doris Davidson

  Perhaps it was the euphoria of organizing on such a large scale in such a short time, or perhaps Lady Glendarril had been warned by her husband to be more friendly towards her future daughter-in-law, but whichever it was, Marianne was very thankful that the woman grew less antagonistic towards her as the days went past. The only friction, a slight contretemps, was the compiling of the guest list for the wedding.

  ‘Have you decided whom you wish to invite?’ Clarice asked. ‘If you have, I would like a list of the names and addresses as soon as possible … not more than two hundred, if you can avoid it.’

  Marianne burst out laughing. ‘I can give you my list right now, Lady Glendarril.’ She stretched over for a piece of paper and a pencil, wrote for a minute or so and then handed it over.

  Clarice scowled. ‘I do not appreciate your sense of humour.’

  ‘It wasn’t meant to be funny. I just want to ask four people to my wedding, that’s all, and surely there’s nothing wrong in that?’

  ‘But have you no other relatives?’

  The smile was wiped off Marianne’s face. ‘No, and the Rennies are no relation either.’ She hesitated, wondering if she should divulge her early life to this out-and-out snob, and came to the conclusion that the least said about it the better. She had given Andrew the four sovereigns and the silver and copper before she left Aberdeen and asked him to put them in his church collection, and that, as far as she was concerned, was the end of that! Her conscience was clear … though she still had to account for her non-relationship to the Rennies.

  ‘They’re just three sisters who took me in when I arrived in Aberdeen, homeless and friendless after I ran away from my cruel stepmother. They gave me a job in their shop and a room in their house.’

  Lady Glendarril gasped. ‘When Hamish told me about you, I asked my solicitor to make inquiries about them, to satisfy myself of your … and he said that their father had been a sea captain who had left them some money when he died. This was how they bought their shop – selling children’s wear? – which, I understand, is quite successful. I had no idea … Hamish let me believe that they were your aunts –’

  ‘They’re Andrew’s aunts,’ Marianne interrupted, ‘and maybe Hamish didn’t realize –’ She broke off, then murmured, ‘I’m sorry, but they’re the only real friends I’ve ever had.’

  ‘But,’ floundered the older woman, ‘you must know a few girls …?’

  Marianne snorted. ‘Them that I met would be the last folk I’d invite.’

  ‘But there are already more than a hundred and fifty on my list.’

  Hector stepped in now, his eyes resting pityingly on Marianne before he addressed his wife.

  ‘You must crop your list, Clarice. Why can you not settle for the quiet ceremony Hamish said he would prefer?’

  Quite clearly averse to the idea of having to tone down her plans, but an aristocrat to her fingertips, she ignored his last question. ‘I presume you will want to invite the Mowatts, the Peats and the Winks?’

  This annoyed him further. ‘We must ask the whole glen,’ he scowled. ‘The workers would be deeply hurt if they were not allowed to see their future laird being married.’

  ‘Then I shall have to book Brechin Cathedral instead of St Giles’s,’ she declared, giving a resigned sigh, ‘and we shall have to provide transport for them. In the face of that, you must at least let me invite all my relatives.’

  ‘Just your sisters and their husbands,’ he stipulated. ‘That makes four for you and four for Marianne, and I suppose to be fair we should invite four of Hamish’s friends too.’

  ‘I did ask him, but he said there was no one in particular that he wanted to ask.’

  Marianne was disappointed at the turn events had taken. She didn’t want to be married in a small place like Brechin, even though it was in a cathedral. She wanted to be the main attraction at a big society wedding in St Giles, the most prestigious place of worship in Scotland’s capital city. On the other hand, though, now she came to think of it, she might make more of an impact as a big fish in a small pond.

  When Hamish came home that evening from a trip to Aberdeen, he was pleased to be told of the change in wedding plans. ‘That suits me,’ he grinned. ‘I was not at all keen on us being the focus of all eyes in Edinburgh, were you, Marianne?’

  ‘Not really.’ She had actually been looking forward to seeing the bystanders’ mouths drop open in reverence at her beauty, to having them whisper to each other that she was the next Lady Glendarril … but surely it would still happen like that, if on a smaller scale. After all, she could make a proper splash when she accompanied her husband and his parents to London for the Queen’s Jubilee on 22 June. Lady Glendarril had promised to help her choose some dresses for that occasion, too, and it was to be only two weeks after her own big day. She was bound to meet hordes of the nobility there.

  Excitement pulsed throughout the castle as the young Master’s wedding drew nearer. The servants were avidly looking forward to the trip to Brechin in the laird’s crested carriages and being guests in the cathedral along with the nobs. By early June, Lady Glendarril had taken Marianne to Edinburgh several times to select and fit a gown for the bride, and an outfit for herself, and although Marianne had been given no choice in hers, she didn’t care. The creation her future mother-in-law had plumped for was absolutely perfect. Its foundation was a plain ivory silk shift, and at the final fitting, when her waist was confined in a high corset which pushed up her bosom, Marianne was delighted with her new figure. The frothy Chantilly lace overdress had dozens of minuscule seed pearls sewn on, and the matching train trailed yards behind her as she paraded around the small salon in the Royal Mile, which, according to Lady Glendarril, was patronized by all the royal princesses when they were at Holyrood.

  It was at the final fitting, when Marianne first saw the headdress – which could have passed for a tiara with a veil – that she wondered if she would ever have the dress sense that Hamish’s mother seemed to have, a talent for instinctively going for what was most suitable … and most expensive.

  While Lady Glendarril was having some last-minute alterations done to her own ensemble – a straight, powder-blue dress with a long jacket to be worn with a huge straw hat with deeper blue fringing round the brim – Marianne was taken to another room for silk underwear, silk stockings and ivory-coloured satin shoes.

  ‘Nobody’ll see what I’ve got on underneath,’ she laughed.

  The assistant who was attending to her – the manageress was fussing around Lady Glendarril – did not smile. ‘Knowing that she is dressed to perfection, underneath as well as on top, gives a bride confidence.’

  Her hands slid down the hour-glass figure, then up again to make a small tweak at the neckline which then showed less bust.

  On the return journey in the train, Marianne noticed that her companion looked deathly pale and beads of sweat were sitting on her upper lip – though it would offend her dignity to be told so. ‘Are you all right, Lady Glendarril?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘To be honest, Marianne, no, I am not. A dreadful tiredness came over me after we had lunch, and it has grown worse and worse.’

  ‘You should have told me. We could have come home hours ago.’

  ‘I did not want to have to come back again.’

  She said no more, but Marianne kept a wary eye on her, watching for any further sign of exhaustion or illness, and she was glad when Lady Glendarril’s eyelids drooped. A short sleep should help her.

  When they arrived at Laurencekirk station, she was relieved to see Hamish standing on the platform. He came forward to give them a hand down, and then helped them into the landau while Carnie saw to their parcels.

  ‘Your mother’s not feeling well,’ Marianne whispered. ‘I think we should stop at the doctor’s.’

  But the woman had heard. ‘You will do no such thing,’ she said weakly. ‘It has been a long day and I am very tired, that is all. I will be back to normal by morning.’

/>   Her personal maid having been given the day off and not expected back until 10 p.m., Marianne saw Lady Glendarril to bed as soon as they entered the castle, and his Lordship himself carried up a tea-tray to her. ‘She does not want anything,’ he said, when he came down five minutes later. ‘And that is most unlike her.’

  Marianne tried to stop him fretting. ‘I’m tired myself, and I’m a lot younger than she is. Leave her to sleep.’

  Immediately after dinner, when Lord Glendarril took himself off to bed, the girl looked at her young man apologetically. ‘I hope you won’t be offended, Hamish, but I’ll have to get some sleep, too.’

  ‘I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes first.’

  ‘Make it quick, then. I’m dropping on my feet.’

  His eyes averted from her, he said, ‘I trust that you still want to go ahead with the wedding? I know that you do not love me, and I wondered if you had changed your mind …’

  She sighed. ‘You told me why you wanted me to marry you, Hamish, and I told you why I accepted you. It is a business arrangement – agreeable to both parties – nothing more than that.’

  ‘Yes, but …’ He hesitated, then burst out, ‘I had the feeling you were in love with Andrew Rennie, so if you want to carry on seeing him after we’re married, I won’t –’

  ‘I will carry on seeing him, Hamish, but I’m not in love with him either. I don’t need anybody to love, I’ll be quite happy the way we’ll be …’ She paused briefly then sighed. ‘Now, if that’s all you wanted to talk about, can I go to bed?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ He held his hand out and squeezed hers briefly as she stood up. ‘Thank you for being so honest with me, my dear, and remember, if ever you do fall in love, I shall sort something out.’

  ‘Divorce, you mean?’

  ‘Oh, no! Divorce would be unthinkable for a Bruce-Lyall, but we could arrange something, I’m sure. Something that would suit both of us. Now, off you go!’

  The early morning peace of Castle Lyall was shattered by a loud wail of anguish. ‘No! No! Oh dear God, no!’

  Marianne jumped out of bed and, not stopping to put on a wrap, hurried along the corridor. Servants were appearing in various kinds of night attire, converging at the point where Lord Glendarril, wild-eyed and ashen-cheeked, was standing in his nightwear at the door of his wife’s room.

  Gripping his silk dressing robe together on top of a night-shirt that was too short to hide his bare legs, Hamish pushed to the front and grabbed his father’s arm with his free hand. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Your mother! I came to see how she was, and she did not answer me. I think she … is dead!’

  This galvanized the entire gathering into action. Carnie said, ‘I’ll get the doctor,’ and he dashed downstairs. His wife, the cook – her hair hanging like a grey-flecked black blanket down her back instead of being pinned neatly on top of her head as it was normally seen – gathered her staff together to go down to make some tea and have some sustenance ready for his Lordship and his family; the chamber maids – looking uncomfortable in the dozens of little rags they had put in their hair in order to curl it – looked at each other in helpless blankness until Mrs Carnie told them to light the fires in all the public rooms and to have them spotless for the many callers who were certain to come. She also took one look at the mistress’s personal maid and said, ‘You’d better come down and all, Thomson, and get some brandy in you afore you land on the floor in a faint.’

  The gardener and his underlings went to waken the young lads who slept in a room above the stables, so that they could get the other carriages and equipment ready before Carnie came back.

  Having had a quick but close look at his mother to make sure that she really had stopped breathing, Hamish turned to Marianne. ‘I’ll take my father downstairs and give him a dram to steady his nerves, and I’d be obliged if you’ll stay with Mother until the doctor comes. You won’t be frightened, will you? Thomson is in no fit state but I could send up one of the other –’

  Despite the chattering of her teeth, Marianne said bravely, ‘No, I’ll be all right; it’s your father that needs the attention now.’

  She watched him helping the older man as far as the landing, then turned round and advanced slowly into the chamber of death. She made it to a chair and, her knees refusing to bend, sat down with a thump. She had no idea when Lady Glendarril had died, but already there was that unmistakable sense of another presence in the room. She’d had the very same feeling after her own mother died, and hadn’t been comforted by a neighbour’s doom-laden observation, ‘It’s the Grim Reaper letting you ken he’s been.’

  When the doctor arrived, almost an hour later because he had been at a difficult confinement, Marianne was stiff with cold and fear, and was glad to be packed off to bed with a sleeping powder. She was asleep in no time and heard nothing of the ensuing commotion, or the visits Hamish made to check on her.

  It was late afternoon when she came to her senses again, and she lay for some minutes remembering and conjecturing. This was Tuesday and the wedding had been planned for Saturday, but no doubt it would have to be postponed. It was ludicrous, she knew, but she couldn’t help feeling that Lady Glendarril had planned this as well, hoping the wait until the end of the recognized period of mourning would make her change her mind about marrying Hamish. But Marianne Cheyne certainly wasn’t going to give up the chance of the best marriage she would ever be offered, and if she did have to wait a year, she would hold out for St Giles’s and resurrect Lady Glendarril’s original guest list. Best of all, she would ask Andrew to find out the addresses of those horrible girls who had belittled her in Aberdeen and invite them all, rub their snooty noses in the splendour of her wedding gown and her castle home. Yet, even with the thought of an Edinburgh wedding enabling her to get her own back on Sybil and friends, she didn’t really want to wait. She would rather be married sooner than later.

  She got out of bed languorously and went over to the washstand where the willow-pattern ewer had been filled with water, probably hot at the time but now stone cold. Pouring some into the matching bowl, she splashed her face several times, which took her breath away but gave her the invigoration she needed. Selecting one of the lawn blouses Clarice had bought for her on their first visit to Edinburgh, she dressed herself with more care than usual, because she could hear strange voices wafting up, and guessed that the house would already be full of people come to pay their respects to the dead woman.

  She discovered that they were well past the respects stage, and had progressed to airing their views on when the wedding should now take place. No one noticed her as she circumnavigated the large group in the ballroom, her ears taking in every argument put forward for the postponement of the wedding, yet hoping that someone would advocate letting it go ahead as planned. After a time, concluding that this was too much to hope for, she moved into the vast library – walls lined with shelf after shelf of leather-bound tomes, with busts of famous authors placed in a seemingly random manner on all available surfaces – where another heated discussion was going on.

  Those assembled here were clearly relatives of Lady Glendarril, her sisters and their husbands amongst them, likely, who were not afraid of saying what they thought, no matter what. Here, also, were Hamish and his father, both scarlet in the face and looking ready to erupt at any moment.

  ‘Oh, no, Jarvis!’ exclaimed one whale-boned, silver-haired matron to a man who may or may not have been her husband. ‘They cannot be married as soon as that. Three months is not nearly long enough for –’

  ‘A year at least,’ agreed another high-bosomed lady who could have been her twin. ‘And it should be St Giles, like poor dear Clarice wanted. I simply cannot understand why she cancelled that. It was so inconsiderate! I had my dress made long before the letter came to say she had changed it to Brechin and we were not invited after all.’

  Hector could contain himself no longer. ‘No, and you will still not be invited, Priscilla, whatever I d
ecide. And I hope all of you heard that! Whatever I decide, I said, for it is my decision that counts, not what any of you think. I have been mulling it over ever since you descended on my house like a plague of locusts and I am sure Hamish and –’ He broke off to look round, then, spotting Marianne hovering near the door, he held out his hand to her. ‘Come here, my dear, and tell me what you think of my idea.’

  He put his arm round her shoulders when she went to him. ‘I see no reason to postpone the wedding for a year, not even three months. We could have the funeral on Friday and the wedding could go ahead in Brechin on Saturday as planned. Or … and this is what I believe we should do … we can have both wedding and funeral on Saturday in our own kirk here in the glen.’

  Shocked gasps and dismayed exclamations greeted this. ‘Hector, you simply can not have a wedding and a funeral …’

  ‘It isn’t done, Hector, old boy.’ This from a stout man with such a purple complexion that Marianne feared he was about to have a heart attack there and then.

  Hector looked at her. ‘What do you think, my dear? Would you be willing to … Do you feel you could cope with that?’

  ‘I’ll do whatever you say,’ she quavered, ‘as long as Hamish –’

  Her bridegroom-to-be drew in a long breath and let it out noisily. ‘I don’t see why not, if Duncan doesn’t object. The Reverend Duncan Peat,’ he added, for the benefit of those not familiar with the name.

  ‘Duncan won’t object,’ Hector said, waving his hand airily. ‘He is a product of the glen.’

  At this, several dissenting voices pointed out that his place of birth should have no bearing on his beliefs, and Hamish waited for silence before he said, ‘My father financed him while he studied for the ministry.’

  Embarrassed that his largesse had been made public, Hector mumbled, ‘That does not mean I expect him to kowtow to me. He is quite free to refuse to conduct one or other of the ceremonies, or both if he so wishes, but he holds liberal views. I think he will agree.’

  With barely concealed ill grace, the members of this gathering split into small groups to discuss the matter further, although some, out of curiosity, followed their host to the ballroom, where, with his arm still round Marianne, he made his announcement again. It was received in exactly the same way as before.