Alastair chatted while they climbed. “As I’m sure you saw at your arrival, a bit of the castle has fallen into disrepair in years past. We did as best we could to keep it up and we’ve managed to preserve most of the furnishings, moving the pieces to various other chambers for storage whenever it becomes necessary. I have a full inventory in the estate papers…”
Grace yawned on a nod.
“…But we can go over that in the morning, of course.”
He opened a door at the top of the stairs and stepped out into a wide hallway lined on each side with a number of closed doors similar in design to the one below. The walls and the floors were bare, slight discoloration showing where tapestries and rugs had once been. Alastair came to the first door on the hall, lifted its latch, and pushed it open.
A fire was already burning in the stone hearth inside, filling the room with a cozy warmth that enveloped them the moment they entered. Several candles were set in tall holders about the room, lighting a tall oaken bed hung with decorative crewel-work. The bed stood at the very center of the far wall, the coverings upon it already folded down. A small truckle had been set up at the foot of the bed just as Deirdre had said.
Grace walked slowly across the room to a small window that peeked out onto the loch view. Standing ready beside it in the corner was a wash basin and pitcher of fresh water. She dropped her cloak onto a chair and poured a bit of the water into the basin, cupping it into her hands and dousing her weary face. It was ice cold, but even the shock of it against her skin failed to rouse her. She was so very tired, she wondered how she had remained standing this long. She patted her cheeks with a drying cloth, smoothed a hand over her hair, and turned back to face Alastair.
“This is a lovely room,” she said, crossing to the fire. The hearth was ridiculously large, nearly as tall as she with no overmantel, merely a break in the wall. Black smudges from fires centuries past marked its rough stone surface.
“I cannot take the credit for the room or the fire, my lady. As you well know, ‘twas Deirdre’s doing, although I cannot for the life of me think why she would not have told me of your coming.”
“She likely didn’t wish to worry you.”
Alastair shrugged. “I suppose you are right. You probably haven’t yet noticed, but there are times when I have a tendency toward excitability.”
Grace simply smiled.
“Is there anything I can get for you, my lady? Have you any trunks that you’ll need brought up to you tonight?”
“There is other baggage, but you can ask Mr. McFee and Mr. McGee to see to them after they have their supper. All I would like is the tea right now and if you wouldn’t mind, I’d dearly love nothing more than to just climb into bed while I wait for Deirdre to bring it.”
“Of course, of course.” But Alastair made no move to leave, until he realized that Grace meant to get undressed. Then he went wide eyed again. “Oh! Of course, my lady. I beg your pardon. You wish to retire. I will go. I will go see to what is keeping Deirdre with the tea.” He bowed his head. Twice. “Good evening to you, my lady.” He backed out of the room.
When he had gone, Grace pressed a hand against the small of her back where the ache that had settled there hours earlier had begun to throb. It had been a long and exhausting day. They had risen with the dawn in order to make the last part of their journey up the coast to Skynegal by nightfall. And now that she was here, standing in the midst of her grandmother’s childhood home, she was so tired that she could scarcely even consider the significance of it.
Grace dropped her head to the side, rolling it back from one shoulder to the other to ease the tight muscles at the back of her neck. She glanced to the bed that looked so warm and so inviting. She sat in the chair and removed her half boots and then her stockings, flexing her toes before her. She stood and reached behind herself, struggling to unhook the fastenings at the back of her gown, wishing she had worn something easier to get out of. She worked for several moments at the buttons to no avail, and was nearly ready to give it up and retire in what she wore when a soft voice sounded behind her, taking her hands and lowering them to her sides.
“Let me put to a hand, my leddy.”
Deirdre set to loosening Grace’s gown so that she could easily step out of it. Wearing her chemise, Grace pulled the pins from her hair, giving it a shake and loosening it about her shoulders and back. She turned toward Deirdre. She saw a kindness about the woman’s eyes that set her immediately at ease. “Thank you, Deirdre.”
“Aye. I’ll just be settin’ the tae here at the table by the bed so you can take it afore you gae to sleep.”
Grace smiled, nodding. She was reminded how, as a little girl, there had been a good many nights when she had taken a cup of warm milk at bedtime while her grandmother had read some fascinating adventure tale to her. She remembered how she had fallen asleep to the soft, comforting sound of her grandmother’s voice, and how safe she had always felt there in her bed, tucked against the soft pillows as she had drifted off to sleep. It seemed as if it was a time forever ago, those days of childhood, of security.
Grace stooped to retrieve her gown from the floor. When she looked up again, she found Deirdre standing before her, holding out a white folded garment.
“I thought you might be needin’ something to wear this night, so I took this from an auld chest up in the castle garret and washed it for you this morn. ‘Twas once your grannam’s afore she left from here to wed your grandie.”
Grace took the nightgown, holding it as if it had been sewn with threads of gold. Any thoughts of fear or isolation she might have had vanished the moment she slipped the soft linen over her head. The simple shift enveloped her from chin to toe, immediately filling her senses with the scent her grandmother had always worn, a scent she now recognized as touched by the heather of the Highlands. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine herself safely tucked away in Nonny’s embrace.
“Oh, Deirdre, thank you,” Grace whispered, watching as she poured a cup of the tea for her. There was something about the small woman that reminded Grace of Nonny somehow. She couldn’t decide exactly what it was, especially since there was nothing at all similar about the two women in either age or stature. Still, the likening between them, whatever it was, gave Grace a small sense of the same comfort she had felt as a child.
Grace slid beneath the bedclothes, tugging the coverings up to her waist. She reached for the teacup Deirdre offered and took a sip from it. It was an unfamiliar brew—herbal, floral, immediately soothing.
“The tea smells so nice. What is it made with?”
” ‘Tis valerian with a bit o’ sobrach and brog na cubhaig.”
Grace stared at her, uncomprehending of the Gaelic.
“Primrose and cowslip,” Deirdre repeated in English as she handed Grace a small pewter dish with a round flat biscuit on it. “It will sure you hae a peaceful sleep, my leddy.”
“I remember that my grandmother was fond of cowslip wine sometimes at night.”
Deirdre nodded and Grace took a bite from the cake, chewing it lazily. It was tasty, not rich, just right for her travel-weary, unsettled stomach. She took another nibble and then set the plate aside to finish drinking her tea.
Deirdre had stoked the fire and had snuffed all but one of the candles about the room, leaving the one sitting on the table beside the bed before heading toward the door.
“A guid nicht to you, my leddy. If you hae need of anything, just call for me.”
“Thank you, Deirdre.” Grace set the tea cup aside and eased back against the pillows. They were soft as eiderdown, touched by a pleasant herbal scent. She closed her eyes, so very tired she could barely keep awake. “Deirdre?”
“Aye, my leddy?”
“Thank you for making our arrival so welcoming and pleasant. I know that it must ha—”
Grace was asleep before she could finish her sentence, finally giving over to her exhaustion.
Deirdre smiled and snuffed the candl
e beside the bed, tucking the coverings up around her before she quietly stepped from the room.
Chapter Twenty-one
Grace’s first morning at Skynegal issued in dark and heavy with rain, the wind blowing, thunder rattling what little glass remained in many of the windows, keeping everyone tucked away by the hearth fire behind the castle’s heavy walls. Grace postponed the tour she’d planned of the castle’s surrounding grounds and McFee and McGee were left to wait out the weather before they could go in search of the additional stock and other provisions they would need in the days to come.
The rain did, however, allow them one occupation— counting the precise number of leaks in the roof of the main tower. There were seventeen.
Sitting in the great hall wrapped beneath the warmth of a thick woolen shawl, Grace contemplated the extensive list they had spent the past hours compiling—the repairs that would be needed and the supplies to be had from Ullapool, the nearest town nearly a day’s sail away. Each time they would open one of the doors onto another of the long-neglected chambers, they would discover something more that needed doing—fireplaces to be swept clean of the mice who had taken up residence there; gunholes, unneeded for centuries, to be filled. The work was beginning to appear endless, but not, Grace thought resolutely, impossible. She focused on the first entry on the list, a secure roof, and called to Alastair where he stood by the fire, putting on the kettle for more tea.
“I was thinking—are there local men skilled as masons and carpenters who we might hire to begin the repairs on the castle instead of sending off to Edinburgh for the workers? It would seem a more prudent choice, both economically and to avoid the delay. If this rain continues, by the time they arrived, we might be living underwater with the way that roof is leaking.”
“Oh, yes, my lady, there are craftsmen close by, most within a half day’s journey from here. With the ‘Improvements’ taking place in the north and to the east, a good many of the Highlanders have had to move from the midlands to the shore and they have had a hard time of it making a living.”
Grace looked at him, puzzled. “But why would improvements on an estate force its tenants away?”
“Improvements, my lady, do not necessarily betoken a good thing in this part of Scotland. Here it is a term that has come to mean the displacement of many Highland tenants from their homes. Their leases are not renewed and thus they must take whatever they can carry and go, leaving their crops, their homes, their very livelihoods behind. Many of the displaced who can are leaving the Highlands and are emigrating to New Scotland and America.”
“But if the tenants’ leases are not renewed, then what is to be done with their previous holdings?”
“They are put to sheep instead.”
Grace stared at the Scotsman, incredulous. “People are being forced from their homes to make way for sheep?”
“Aye. It is a more profitable means of using the land for many of the landowners.”
Grace was appalled. She thought of the feeling of community that had always been so prevalent at Ledysthorpe. “But do the landowners feel no attachment, no responsibility for the lives of their people?”
Alastair shook his head dolefully. “Many of the old Scottish lairds went into exile after the failed Jacobite rebellion, leaving their people here, dependent upon the strangers who came to take over their estates. The new landlords—a good many of them English, begging your pardon, my lady—view their tenants more as an inconvenience than anything else.”
Grace stood and crossed the room to stand before the hearth fire. She stared into the flames licking at the peat brick, twisted inside with uneasiness. She knelt to pour a fresh cup of tea and sipped the soothing brew, remaining quiet for some time. She thought of the people being displaced from their homes, forced to leave all they had known and loved. It touched a chord deep within her, the injustice of it, the utter sorrow of it. It was a feeling she had herself been victim to when she had been made to leave Ledysthorpe for her uncle’s house in London, and then again when she wed Christian and removed to Knighton House. The only difference was that she hadn’t been left without a means of survival. She had been provided with a roof over her head and food on her plate. These poor people had been left with virtually nothing.
Grace turned to face Alastair once again. “I should like you to put out a communication asking for anyone in the vicinity who is interested in working on the castle renovations to come here to Skynegal. Carpenters, stonemasons, plasterers, woodworkers, all. Any who aren’t skilled can be taught.”
Alastair’s eyes went wide as they so often did. “My lady, a good many will come!”
“And we will find work for them. There is much to be done here, not only the repairs to the roof. It was my grandmother’s wish that I restore Skynegal to the great estate it once was. But I will need your help in figuring a fair wage for their work. Once we have a preliminary listing, I will write to Mr. Jenner in London and instruct him to forward the necessary funds.”
Alastair’s expression was fixed for several moments. He just stared at Grace, stunned. Finally his face broke into a smile and he closed his eyes.
“Alastair? Are you unwell?”
The Scotsman shook his head, his smile growing wider still. She saw that tears had come to his eyes. “Oh, my lady, I could not sleep last night for the fear that your sudden interest in Skynegal was for the very reasons I spoke of to you moments ago. Skynegal lies on much good arable land, with oak and pine forests and rich verdant glens. She is not an estate that turns a great profit by her rents, but she could were she to convert to a sheep walk. Factors from the neighboring estates have already come seeking to purchase portions of the estate in order to increase their own holdings for the same purpose. But with the estate held in trust, we could not even consider their offers, at least not until it reverted to its new ownership. And it has now and I praise God that Skynegal has come to you, my lady.”
With every moment she stayed at Skynegal, Grace began to sense more clearly her purpose in being called there. “My thanks, Alastair, for your kind words. But I fear I am not as learned in estate management as I will need to be. I will have to rely upon you to advise me on a good many matters. I only know that I cannot abide what you have told me has happened to the tenants on the other estates. My grandmother always said the life-blood of any great estate is its people. I will make a vow never to allow greed for pound profit to overstep my own sense of morality.”
Grace set down her teacup and crossed to the window. Outside, on the courtyard, the rain still fell steadily. “When the weather clears, I should like to take a tour about the estate and pay a visit to the tenants of Skynegal. I would ask that you accompany me, since you are acquainted with the people. I imagine my coming will give them thoughts similar to those which kept you up and worrying through the night. They will fear I seek to evict them. They will not trust me. I want to assure them no such action will be taken here at Skynegal as long as I am lady here.”
Alastair nodded.
“Now,” Grace finished, “if you would please set to putting out the call for workers, I would like to make use of this afternoon’s inclement weather to acquaint myself with the inside of the castle.”
“Of course, my lady, I would be happy to take you about and show you—”
Grace put up a hand. “I appreciate your offer, Alastair, truly, but I think I should prefer to explore the castle on my own. Skynegal has been a part of my family’s heritage for generations and yet I was never told of its existence. It has been home to people I have never known, setting to events I had never been told. I should like to spend some time getting acquainted with my history privately.”
Alastair inclined his head in a gesture of complete understanding.
“However,” Grace added on a smile, “if I do not return by nightfall, you may have to come searching for me.”
Grace set aside the last of the stack of books she’d found packed away inside the carved wooden trunk, one of
several she’d discovered in the many rooms and storage closets of the castle. They mostly contained estate papers, small memorabilia of days gone by, and even some old clothing, long-forgotten and moldering from the damp.
Grace leaned back against the trunk and closed her eyes, rubbing the taut muscles at the nape of her neck. She had placed several of the books apart to study later, texts on estate management and crop cultivation that she thought might prove useful in the coming months. She had been in this particular room for hours, it seemed, her skirts pooled around her, smudged by the dust that had settled over the past century or more. A small timepiece hung from a ribbon around her neck and she took it up, studying it again as she had many times that day.
She had found the piece soon after she’d begun her explorations through the castle earlier that day. It had only an hour hand and did not function at all accurately, its small dial going from sun to moon to sun again several times in the past hours. But that didnt’ matter to Grace. She wore the piece for the sentiment of its engraving. Modest, oval-shaped, and cased in tarnished silver, it had inscribed upon its case words in Gaelic.
Is e seo m’ uair-sa. Deirdre had given her its translation: This is my time.
Grace could have no way of knowing what meaning the words had represented nor what purpose the original owner of the watch could have had for inscribing them. It didn’t matter, for the words could not have been any more significant to her had she inscribed them herself.
This is my time.
For the first time in her life, Grace had found a sense of purpose, a feeling that her very existence had reason for being other than to interfere. Her parents, while kind and genuinely fond of her, had seen her as more of an inconvenience to the plans they had mapped out for themselves upon their marriage, a plan that didn’t allow for the addition of a third. Nonny had cared for her, raised her in love and security, yes, but doing so was not a decision she had been given any choice in. It was a duty Nonny had assumed in the wake of her children’s abandonment of their only unwanted child.
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