The House of Lyall

by Doris Davidson

  ‘Yes,’ she smiled, ‘I’d say we couldn’t do better.’

  ‘Right, then, Andrew, we can get down to brass tacks after dinner tonight – that is, if my sons haven’t exhausted us both by then.’

  When the three retired to bed that night, the wills had been made, papers had been drafted for the transfer from Mr Bowie to Andrew Rennie, and Marianne was very glad that the matter of Moll’s visit and the headstone had not been brought up. She knew it was worse to keep secrets from her husband than keeping them from a friend, but she didn’t want Hamish to know how she had neglected her father, nor what she was prepared to do as atonement.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It came as quite a shock to Marianne when Flora Mowatt came one Monday afternoon in the early summer of the following year and told her that Robert was thinking of buying into a practice in Dundee.

  ‘But … you’re the only true friend I have in the glen since Grace died,’ Marianne wailed. ‘I used to think some of the women who come to the WRI knew what happened …’ breaking off, she looked helplessly at Flora and muttered, ‘… in the manse that day.’

  ‘It had been your imagination, Marianne. Nobody else knows except the four of us.’

  ‘I still need you, though. Tell Robert he can’t take you away! I’ll get Hamish to have a bathroom put in for you. I’ll –’

  Flora smiled as she laid down the coffee cup she had been holding in her hand. ‘Oh, Marianne, he won’t take any bribes. He was born and brought up in the glen and he doesn’t want to leave. There’s still a lot of folk who remember his father.’

  Marianne nodded. ‘Yes, Hector used to speak about him. “Old Bob Mowatt didn’t often get paid in real money,” he told me, one night he was reminiscing, “but his patients gave him vegetables and eggs, and pork when any of the farmers killed a pig, and dozens of other things. He lived like a lord, did old Bob … better than I did at times.” ‘

  Flora laughed along with her for a moment, then her face straightened. ‘I’d made up my mind to tell you … Robert doesn’t think I should … but I couldn’t have left … I don’t like keeping it secret from you.’

  Marianne eyed her apprehensively. ‘That sounds very serious.’

  ‘It is serious. Robert doesn’t think he can go on with the deception, that’s why he decided to move.’

  ‘Look, Flora, I don’t want you to go, no matter what you tell me, but you’d better get it over before I die of curiosity.’

  The doctor’s wife took a deep breath. ‘Well …’ Shaking her head, she stopped briefly, then lowering her eyes, she whispered, ‘It’s about Melda.’

  ‘If you think we’re annoyed at her being brought here so often, we’re not. Everyone likes her even Miss Glover.’

  ‘That’s not … oh God, Marianne, I can’t tell you! You’ll never be able to forgive me for … living such a lie all this time …’

  A smile crossed Marianne’s face. ‘Don’t tell me you and Robert aren’t married? I don’t care about things like that, but we’d better not let anybody else know. Hamish might –’

  Her hands almost white with being gripped together, Flora cried, ‘It isn’t that! We’ve been married for thirteen years, but Melda’s not our child! She’s Grace Peat’s.’

  A shocked Marianne gave a loud gasp. ‘Her baby lived?’

  ‘Are you all right? Shall I ring for one of the maids to bring you a glass of brandy?’

  Flora stood up to pull the sash at the fireside wall, but Marianne said, ‘In the tantalus … over there …’

  Following the pointing finger, Flora hurried across and poured a good measure of the spirits into a brandy goblet. ‘Drink that!’ she ordered, handing it to her stricken friend.

  In only a few minutes, a touch of colour appeared in Marianne’s ashen cheeks. ‘You were telling me about … the baby,’ she prompted shakily.

  ‘I’d better leave it for another day.’

  ‘No, sit down and tell me now.’

  Flora sat back in her seat and let out a long sigh. ‘Poor wee mite, no mother and no father. Of course, Duncan’s parents died some years ago – they were very proud when their son was ordained minister in their kirk – and Robert did everything he could to find out if Grace had any living relatives, but their solicitor said her mother and father had gone to India and they’d both died of some tropical fever.’

  ‘So the poor infant …?’

  ‘She’d have been put in a home and I couldn’t stand aside and let that happen. The only thing was for us to adopt her. Robert didn’t want to distress you, Marianne, that was why he meant to leave without telling you, but I had to be honest with you.’

  Marianne took a small fluttery breath. ‘I’m glad you were, Flora, but I wish you’d told me at the time.’

  ‘If you remember …’ Flora bit her lip, ‘… you were in London and the day you came back … you were in an awful state when you came to us, and we thought you knew … that Duncan had told …’

  ‘He didn’t mention the baby, and I never had time to ask what happened. I just took it for granted that it had died, too, and later on, when I started going out again, I heard two of the women agreeing with each other that seeing the tiny coffin being buried with the other one had torn at their heartstrings.’ Her mind, which had tensed at Flora’s first revelation, was filling now with hateful things she didn’t want to remember, preventing her from thinking clearly, but one thing still had to be cleared up. There had been a tiny coffin … and if Grace’s baby hadn’t died … She had to ask, otherwise it would nag at her very being for evermore. ‘So whose baby was …?’ Before she finished her question, the answer hit her. ‘It was yours, wasn’t it?’

  ‘We shouldn’t have done it, I know, but oh, Marianne, it seemed the right thing to do. You see, my baby was stillborn about three hours before Duncan sent young Peter Wink to ask Robert to go to the manse, and when Grace died, in spite of all he did to save her, he could see Duncan wasn’t fit to look after the infant, so he took her to me. When he laid the poor little mite in my arms, I lost my heart to her straight away, and when she snuggled round to my breast, I suckled her without thinking. We only meant to keep her till Duncan came to his senses, but … well, you know what happened.’

  Marianne knew very well what had happened, but her mind refused to think about it. ‘I don’t know what to say, Flora,’ she faltered.

  ‘I’ll give you time to think it over. Tell Hamish everything if you want to, and let him know we are prepared to leave Glendarril, that Robert has the chance of a practice in Dundee.’

  Marianne let her friend go without ringing for a maid to see her out. Her brain had been taken over by one thing, and one thing only. Melda, the girl she had looked forward to having as a daughter-in-law at some time in the future, was Duncan Peat’s child! Duncan Peat!

  She sat on by herself for over an hour, wondering what on earth she could do, brooding about the man who had caused her so much misery. If she told Hamish what Flora had said it would be bound to remind him of that terrible day, and possibly rekindle the doubts he’d had that she had let the minister do what he wanted. God, if he only knew how she had fought against the maniac! How she had screamed, and bitten, and kicked … and all to no avail.

  He had taken her by force, ruthlessly, uncaringly, hurting her as much as he could. How could anyone understand the bitter shame she felt at being treated like an animal by another animal crazed with lust?

  Crazed! That was it exactly! Mad! Crazy! Insane! He’d hanged himself in a madhouse, what could be madder than that? A person couldn’t go off his head overnight, not even over a week, or a month, or a year. He must have been like that when … he made his wife pregnant, and his daughter had the same genes, the same dark hair and dark eyes … the same latent madness. Oh yes, it was definitely latent, hiding under the surface until something triggered it off.

  Dwelling on this, Marianne’s own mind was perilously near to breaking point, but at last, drained, she got to her feet, res
olving not to divulge Flora’s secret to Hamish. She would tell him that Robert was thinking of moving to Dundee, and, ignorant of all the facts, he would probably try to persuade the doctor not to leave. If he was successful, she would have to steel herself each time she saw Duncan Peat’s daughter.

  Robert had already agreed to remain in the glen by the time Flora went back to the castle. ‘Robert and I are very grateful to you for not telling Hamish,’ she said. ‘Neither of us wanted to go to Dundee, and I honestly don’t think the truth can ever come out.’

  ‘What about Ina Berry? She must have known what happened.’ Marianne had only remembered that morning about the woman who usually helped at births, sometimes officiating alone if the doctor was not available.

  Flora reddened. ‘She wasn’t there. She’d been looking after her own mother in Luthermuir on the Friday and Saturday – she’d had a seizure, you see – and Robert told her before she went that she needn’t come back till Monday. He thought it would be Tuesday at least before he needed her, but Grace and I were both early. So it all worked out perfectly, as though it was meant.’

  ‘Y – yes,’ Marianne said, uncertainly. She had a nasty feeling that Robert Mowatt had engineered the whole thing, though she knew it was ridiculous.

  For the next thirty minutes, they discussed glen gossip, then, when she was taking her leave, Flora said hesitantly, ‘This will be the last time I say anything about it, but … I hope you won’t treat Melda any differently now you know who her –’

  ‘Of course I won’t,’ Marianne assured her.

  Flora went away convinced that she had no further need to worry, but once again, Marianne sat thinking for some time afterwards. How could she treat that child the same as before now she knew Duncan Peat had fathered her? Perhaps she should have told Hamish that the girl did not come of a decent family, as they had thought; that she was the seed a deranged fiend had implanted in his delicate wife. A new thought arose now. What if Grace hadn’t been as delicate as she had seemed in that last year of her life? Perhaps she liked her husband’s sexual assaults, even enjoyed them? The daughter they spawned could have the same genes, and what if she sat her cap at Ranald … or Ruairidh? What kind of blood was that to inject into the Bruce-Lyall line?’

  At last, Marianne decided that it was not only too late to tell Hamish about the baby nobody knew had survived, it would be like opening an old wound to make sure it wasn’t infected. Hamish might not have forgotten what happened that day, but he hadn’t mentioned it for a long time, and there was no sense in reminding him.

  All she could do was to remove their sons from any temptation before they were old enough to recognize that they were tempted.

  PART TWO

  1917–1947

  Chapter Sixteen

  The war, now in its fourth year, had ruptured the slow way of life in Glendarril. Most of the single men – anxious in case they missed all the excitement and adventure if they tarried – had volunteered within a week of it beginning and, tragically, some were killed before its sixth month was over. Instead of deterring others, however, this had fired even married men with families with the desire to settle the score with the murdering b——s. So now, the only males around were either under eighteen or over forty, and a few who could still be safely at home had cheated their ages and gone off blithely to fight the enemy.

  With the rapid depletion of the mill workforce, Hamish Bruce-Lyall, Lord Glendarril, had thought he would have to close it down until the men came home, but fate was on his side. In March of 1915, when the foreman was making sure that no one was taking longer than the allowed half-hour to eat his ‘dinner piece’, he overheard something that made him prick up his ears. Two of the apprentices were discussing what could be done to prevent the rumoured closure.

  ‘The laird should gi’e the wives the jobs,’ said one. ‘My mother says she could work as good as ony man.’

  The other shrugged his shoulders. ‘I bet we could work as good as the men, an’ all, if he let us.’

  Thinking that their repartee would make his boss smile, Hughie Black duly recounted it and was disappointed that not even the flicker of a smile crossed the man’s face. It wasn’t like him to be so drear, but of course he had a lot of worries on his mind.

  Late in the afternoon, Hamish called the foreman into the office. ‘You know, Black, that might not be a bad idea of yours.’

  About to say, ‘What idea?’ the foreman remembered. ‘Hiring women?’ he asked incredulously. ‘But that wasn’t my idea, just young laddies blethering. A wife could never do her man’s job.’

  Nevertheless, when a poster was hung outside the post office the next day, it brought a queue of women to the mill, and Hamish employed the lot. Thus all the adult females became involved, for grannies and widowed neighbours, even those in their seventies and eighties who had never had any children of their own, volunteered to mind the infants and under-fives. With her own two safely away at boarding school, Marianne had made a round of the houses each weekday on a bicycle, in case there were any problems, but there never were, and even if there had been, the elderly women would never have told her. They looked up to her, respected her, offered her tea and home-made girdle scones and pancakes, because they wanted her to see how well they were coping.

  The old men, who had worked in the mill since before they left school at twelve or so, were none too pleased at having to waste time showing the newcomers the ‘ropes’, but the women – glad to be doing something to take their minds off sons, husbands or lovers at the front – learned quickly and soon earned their admiration.

  It did not take long, unfortunately, for admiration to deepen into attraction in some cases. Men of fifty were not too old to get a thrill from seeing a shapely ankle or having an unaccustomed view down a blouse when its wearer had opened the top buttons because of the heat. Illicit liaisons were nothing new, of course, for folk in a glen got to know each other better than those in a town, but with husbands out of the way for months at a time, they became a flourishing night-time sideline.

  * * *

  Not yet sixteen, Esmerelda Mowatt – known as Melda – was generally acknowledged to be the prettiest girl in Stonehaven’s Mackie Academy. Even the other girls grudgingly admitted it, although some were inclined to be jealous of her long black hair and creamy skin, and the way her black lashes curled away from her dark blue eyes. She accepted the adulation calmly, giving no indication of how she felt, yet she was not a vain person, nor a cold fish. She joined in the other students’ pranks and laughed as heartily as any; she bore the other girls’ cattiness without losing her temper; she was not above carrying on a mild flirtation but drew the line at going the least bit beyond that. Eventually, apart from those whose skins were so thick that they did not recognize a rebuff unless it was accompanied by a slap in the face or a knee in the groin, they stopped trying to make her forget her principles.

  If they had but known, it wasn’t just her principles which kept her from taking the biggest step a young girl ever takes – the surrendering of her virginity – but the thought of the two boys who had been her closest companions until they’d been sent to boarding school almost nine years earlier. As soon as she was old enough to think of such things, she had decided to marry Ranald Bruce-Lyall … or maybe Ruairidh. She couldn’t quite make up her mind which, for they were both so fair and handsome, though Ranald’s blue eyes usually held more than a touch of mischievous devilment, while Ruairidh’s had become more serious as he grew older.

  Last time she had seen them, Ranald had the suggestion of a moustache on his upper lip and had teased Ruairidh because his whiskers hadn’t started growing yet. That was the one thing about Rannie she didn’t much care for: he was inclined to make fun of his brother, though he jumped to Ruairidh’s defence if anyone else dared to criticize him. But she only saw them now when they came home on vacation, as they called their holidays.

  They still seemed to enjoy her company, though she was so much younger than
either of them. Unfortunately, last time they’d been home, Rannie’s seeming need to do things which led to trouble for himself and his brother had involved her, too …

  They were in the woods, not playing the childish games they had done before, not cycling like mad things until one or other fell off, but sitting on a mossy bank just talking, when Rannie said, ‘They’ve started up the still again. When we were home at Easter, I heard Carnie warning Jimmy Black to watch himself. He said if they were caught, it would mean jail for them, and they did stop for a while, but I took a look last Thursday afternoon and they’re at it again.’

  ‘What’s a still?’ Melda asked.

  He jumped to his feet and pulled her up. ‘I’ll show you. Coming, Ruairidh?’

  His brother unwound his long legs. ‘Might as well.’

  The showing, worse luck, led to the tasting, but what Melda thought was water in the huge container burned her mouth and she spat it out. Rannie, however, was determined to show that he was a man, and Ruairidh struggled hard to keep up with him. After about twenty minutes, the boys began to act strangely, their limbs not behaving properly, their words slurring a little, and in another half-hour, they reminded her of the time she had seen Jimmy Black and two of the old shepherds falling about as they tried to walk along the road, singing at full pitch, and when she told her father, he had said they were drunk.

  That was when she realized what was wrong with her two companions. She managed to get them on their feet, and going between them with their arms round her shoulders and hers round their waists, she got them outside, but had to wait several minutes until they stopped being sick before she could take them towards the castle. She couldn’t think what to do other than take them home, though she knew that their mother would be very angry when she saw the state they were in … and with her, too, probably.

  They hadn’t quite reached the gate into the rose garden when Rannie’s legs gave way, and the three of them landed on the stony path, and this time, no matter how hard she tried, she just could not get them back on their feet.