by CL Skelton
Gently and gracefully she seemed to float across the floor towards them. What was it that he had said that evening after the court martial? It was impossible? It was a long time ago?
This fabulous creature, now standing before him and smiling a greeting, was many things, and all of them were beautiful. Ian glanced quickly at the doll-like creature beside him to whom he was committed for the rest of his life, and then again at the woman who was now extending her hand in greeting.
‘Congratulations, Ian,’ she murmured in her low, soft voice ‒ a voice that flooded him with memories of those nights of passion at the Priory Inn and made him forget for a split second that he was standing there with his wife of less than an hour. ‘You have a beautiful bride,’ she concluded.
‘This is Victoria,’ said Ian. ‘A very dear friend, Naomi Bruce.’
‘May I present Mr Wilks,’ said Naomi.
‘How do you do,’ said Ian, forcing himself to take his eyes off Naomi.
‘How kind of you to come, Mr Wilks. You will find many of your admirers, among whom I number myself, are here today,’ said Victoria.
‘Charmed, ma’am,’ said Mr Wilks in a resonant tone. ‘If I may be permitted, I must say that you make a handsome pair. I understand that you and Naomi are old friends.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Naomi before Ian could reply; and, echoing his words, ‘very dear friends.’
‘Naomi and I,’ said Ian to Victoria, ‘are cousins by adoption. You must have heard me talk about her.’
‘Come, my dear,’ said Mr Wilks, ‘I fear that we are keeping the bridal pair from their other guests.’ And he led Naomi towards the banqueting hall.
Inside the banqueting hall, all cream and gilt with its windows screened from the view of the vulgar by heavy salmon-pink curtains, its walls supported by pillars whose ornate and intricate plaster capitals moulded into a magnificent ceiling, all was ready. Down each of its sides the room had long tables swathed in snow-white linen and weighted down with every imaginable kind of meat and game and sweets too numerous to mention. At the far end, and in the centre of the room, stood a smaller table on which rested the four-tiered wedding cake. The room was by now a mass of people circulating among each other, shrouded by an intense hum of conversation as they smiled and accepted glasses of champagne handed around by the hotel staff.
Gordon Bruce pushed his way into the room and managed to find himself a chair. He stood on this and called, ‘Ladies and gentlemen.’
There was absolutely no response.
‘Ladies and gentlemen!!’ he shouted at the top of his voice, and this time they heard him, and he waited until the conversation had died down before continuing: ‘It is my most pleasant duty as best man to ask you to welcome the bridal pair.’
There was a polite murmur of pleasure and the company drew to the side of the room to leave a clear aisle for Ian and Victoria.
Gordon got down from his chair and signalled to the two periwigged footmen at the double doors. They opened the doors and a gentle handclap started, only to die away and give place to a series of gasps as Naomi Bruce and John Wilks walked into the room.
In the ensuing silence they moved a few paces inside the door and then stopped, a slight smile playing around Naomi’s lips. Suddenly John Wilks’s voice boomed out in carefully enunciated tones.
‘Great heavens, me dear,’ he said, ‘it looks as if we have trumped someone’s ace. We had better make ourselves scarce.’ And he steered Naomi over to the side of the room.
As they moved, Ian and Victoria came in to a somewhat subdued welcome as half the guests speculated on the identity of the pair who had preceded them.
It was some time later, after the speeches and the cutting of the cake, during that hiatus while the bride and groom changed into travelling clothes, that Willie managed to buttonhole Naomi.
‘I don’t think that you have met Mr Wilks,’ said Naomi as Willie approached.
‘How de ye do?’ said Willie, glaring at Naomi. ‘Naomi, what the de’il do ye mean, coming here dressed like this?’
‘Like what, Father?’ said Naomi, wide eyed and innocent. ‘Don’t you think that it is attractive?’
‘You know fine that it’s bonny, and I’m damned sure that you ken well what it does tae your mother!’
‘What?’
‘It makes her remember. It makes her remember things that are best forgot.’
‘You mean,’ said Naomi, ‘that it reminds her that I am her daughter?’
‘You can put it any way you like,’ growled Willie, ‘but there are things in your mother’s life that are best forgot and you know fine what those things are.’
‘Would you rather we left?’ she demanded, stung by Willie’s disapproval.
‘That would only make things worse.’
‘In that case we shall stay.’
‘Aye,’ said Willie, ‘you stay, but I want you to know that I am not verra pleased wi’ the way that you have behaved today. Excuse me, Mr Wilks,’ and Willie left them.
Ian had taken his bride away to the room which had been set aside for them. Victoria’s travelling clothes had been carefully laid out on the bed and Ian’s civilian suit in the adjoining dressing room. When they went in and shut the door, Ian felt all the awkwardness of adolescence returning to him as he looked at this girl with whom he was destined to share the rest of his life. He knew what was expected of him, but he was suddenly afraid. The only other woman in his life had been Naomi, and she had done all the leading. Now it was up to him, and he felt lost and unsure. Naomi had been an exciting adventure, with the added spice of illegality, but now of course everything was legal, and the marriage bed awaited him.
They were to catch the afternoon train to Perth. There they would spend the night at the Royal George before catching the morning train for London where they would have two weeks before Ian had to return to the regiment. Tonight was scary, but it was still a long way off and he told himself that he did not have to worry about his performance just yet. It was not that he did not want her; it was just that Naomi’s arrival had given him a feeling of guilty nostalgia.
He had grown up in the past few years, but he had grown up in a society devoid of women. When he had left Scotland for Africa, he had left nursing what he believed to be the great love of his life. He had come back and found Victoria and believed that that love was all over, and that Victoria must be the one. But now he had seen Naomi again, and with the vision of her had flowed back all of those erotic memories of their brief relationship.
He had undressed when he heard a small voice from the adjoining room.
‘Ian.’ There was a pause, and then again, ‘Ian, Ian, come here.’
‘I can’t, I’m not changed yet,’ he said, viewing his nakedness.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Victoria’s voice. ‘Come in just as you are. You’re my husband, remember?’
Among the things which had been laid out for him was a heavy quilted blue dressing gown. He quickly slipped into this and went into the main bedroom. As he stepped inside the room, he gasped, for his bride was standing there completely naked. She had closed the curtains and the contours of her body were lit by the flickering light of the big fire burning in the grate.
He stood there transfixed, staring at her until she cast her eyes down and covered her full breasts with her hands crossed in front of her.
‘I thought that you would like to see,’ she murmured, without catching his gaze. She waited, but he could not speak.
‘Ian,’ she said. ‘Do you like what you see?’ Still he could not reply. ‘It’s a little chilly like this,’ she said. ‘Won’t you come closer to me?’
Slowly he took the three or four paces which separated them until her body was brushing his dressing gown. Without looking up, she slipped her hands inside his robe and he felt her fingers fluttering over his back as she investigated his nakedness. Ian put his arms around her and drew her close so that his robe enveloped them both.
‘Hello, husband,’ she said, looking up at him with a little smile. ‘Are you going to make your bride your wife?’
Still he could find no words. He led her over to the bed where they lay together, still for a minute or two, and then he took her.
He tried to be gentle, but was astonished at the ferocity with which she responded to him. Her strong young body moved beneath him and she moaned quietly as they panted in unison until, as they reached their climax, she gave forth a long ‘Aaaaaah’ and then was still.
Very gently he withdrew from her. ‘Oh, Victoria,’ he said. ‘Oh, Victoria.’
The matter-of-fact tone of her voice brought him back to reality. ‘Come on, Ian, we’d better get dressed, they’ll be waiting for us.’
‘Was it all right?’ he asked.
‘It was delicious, my darling,’ she replied. ‘Absolutely beautiful. I’m not a virgin, you know. Mummy and Daddy think I am, but I’m not. Do you mind?’
‘What right have I to mind?’ he asked.
‘Well, it’s different for a man, isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’
‘You are not a virgin,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to tell me, I know.’
‘How do you know that?’ he asked, feeling guilty.
‘Was the Indian lady as nice as me?’ she asked.
Oh, my God, thought Ian, she knows. ‘But that was years ago, how do you know about it?’
‘A woman does.’
‘She was the only one.’
‘Then, my dear,’ said Victoria, ‘she will always be very special to you because she was the first. No,’ she said as he was about to speak. ‘Don’t ask me to forgive where there is nothing to forgive. Just remember this, I am truly your wife now that we have consummated our marriage. All that has gone before is of no consequence, there is nothing to forgive or to be forgiven. I love you and I am yours.’
‘My darling, what can I say except to thank you, and to tell you that there is nothing I would not do for you.’
‘In that case,’ she said, suddenly jocular, ‘we had better get dressed and go down or they will surely know what we have been doing.’
They dressed hurriedly, he in a grey frock coat and she in a brown worsted travelling costume; it was dark brown and trimmed with little bits of even darker brown velvet. He looked at her, wondering. Could this poised, self-possessed lady ‒ But then, she could be, because she was, the same as the voluptuous animal he had known only minutes ago.
‘Ian,’ she said, ‘you must stop looking at me like that.’
‘Why?’
‘If you don’t, when we go down it will show.’
‘Is it so obvious?’ he asked.
‘You’re a man, darling,’ she said. ‘Men are always obvious.’
He smiled at her. ‘Shall we go? I’ll try not to tell them, but I really don’t care.’
‘Come on,’ she said, with a half laugh, and put her hand into his.
They walked out of their room and down that beautiful staircase, across the lobby, and into the banqueting hall.
Ian knew then that everything was all right. He could face Naomi now. He glanced at his wife and murmured something. ‘What did you say, dear?’ she asked.
‘I said that everything is all right. I love you, Victoria. Thank you for marrying me.’
BOOK TWO
THE GREAT BOER WARS
Chapter One
It was a glorious afternoon in the summer of 1899. Major General Willie Bruce was standing with Sir Andrew Maclaren looking out of the windows of the library at Culbrech House down on to the sunlit lawns. Outside, amidst the hum of the bumblebees and the scent of the newborn roses, Andrew’s grandchildren were playing. Emma, the eldest, was seven. Henry, named after his great-grandfather, was six. Albert was four, Phillipa three and wee James in his high perambulator, not yet a year old.
Victoria had gone out to spend an hour with her children and they were enthusiastically throwing a large woolly ball from one to the other.
It was two years since the old Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, during which Willie had been promoted major-general and had promptly retired. Upon his retirement, he had been given the singular honour of the appointment to colonel-in-chief to the Maclaren Highlanders. This event had stirred in Andrew a slight twinge of jealousy. After all, he was The Maclaren, even though Willie was a couple of years his senior and born of the same father. But the jealousy did not last long; these two were bound together too tightly by ties of blood and comradeship.
Ian and Victoria had moved permanently into Culbrech House where they had settled down as the Laird and his Lady. There had been a lot of changes in the past nine years, changes that had affected both of their families. Apart from his brief visit of a month timed to coincide with the Jubilee, Willie had not seen Donald since the day that Ian and Victoria had married. Donald had gone off that night on the train which was the first leg of his journey to South Africa and the diamond mines of Kimberley.
Naomi contacted them occasionally by letter, but seldom came up to the Highlands now. She seemed to be more contented with her life in London, where she moved in the highest circles of literature and the arts. In the context of the society in which she moved Naomi was one of the most sought-after hostesses in London. It was in the world populated by actors, artists, and writers that she had made her niche. ‘Polite society’ was barred to her. She was not acceptable within the doors of the establishment. She had not been presented at court. Never would she receive an invitation to a garden party at Buckingham Palace and matrons of the establishment would never countenance any sort of liaison between her and their sons. And Naomi did not give a damn. She wanted no part of the establishment cattle market. Her friends and acquaintances were interesting people whose company was never dull and if she occasionally went to bed with one of them, well, that was her business.
Ron Murray, that hard-working and truly professional soldier, had been transferred to the General Staff in London and was now, according to Willie, a Something-or-other in General Wolseley’s headquarters. The command had passed briefly to Alex Farquhar who had soon tired of the responsibilities and within a year had resigned his commission and gone back to his estates and his beloved thoroughbreds. He used to invite the serving officers over to his home and proudly show them around his stud with the remark, ‘You see? Not a bloody mule in sight.’
Ian had been promoted over the head of Hugh Grant with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and been given command of the first battalion. Not that Grant minded. He had been offered the second battalion but turned it down, maintaining that he wanted to see out his service among the officers and men he had known and loved for so long. So he had remained a very senior major and second-in-command. Gordon Bruce was now adjutant and a major, and Robert Maclaren commanded C Company. R.S.M. Macmillan had retired, and Frankie Gibson had taken his place, and, with the royal coat of arms on his sleeve, had become a staunch upholder of the law which he had so long ignored.
For three of the intervening years the regiment had been on the Northwest Frontier where, apart from the odd skirmish, they had lived their tour of duty in the comfort and ease provided by the loyal native subjects of the Queen Empress, while none the less remaining ever vigilant to the possible threat of the Russians from the north. Victoria had settled down instantly into the role of army wife and mother. She had gone out to India with the regiment, and had refused to return home for the birth of her first child in spite of the knowledge that her late mother-in-law had done the same at the cost of her life. She proved herself a woman of great strength and of absolute devotion to both her husband and her children.
Willie, too, was a grandfather. Brenda had given Donald two fine boys and a daughter during their years in South Africa. But Willie had never seen any of them, and duty now kept him where he was, much to his own private sorrow. Maud had, however, determined to see them, and was even at this moment on the high seas bound for the Cape, where she intended to spend the winter with her son an
d his family.
As for Gordon Bruce, he had been married recently to the daughter of a hill farmer. Grisel was a strong Highland lassie, and the last person on earth that anyone would have imagined Gordon marrying. He had courted her quietly for over a year, saying nothing to anybody until the day, about six months ago, when he had told his father that he intended to marry. Only the dashing Robert remained a bachelor, but his bachelorhood was always at risk, for his liaisons were many and his prudence limited, to say the least. In 1899, birth control was still a primitive science.
Willie turned to Andrew. ‘Shall we go oot and join them?’ he asked. ‘They’re going tae have tea now.’
Kirsty, their attractive parlourmaid, about whom Andrew had several times had to warn Robert, was crossing the lawn with a great silver tray covered with little pink cakes and cucumber sandwiches, her neat little bottom swaying in the sunlight beneath a skirt too tight for the ladies but a delight to the men.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Andrew, turning away from the window. As a grandfather he was more than adequate, except when his grandchildren were, as they were now, en masse. Then their boisterous pleasures made him all too aware of his own infirmity as he tried to keep up with them, stomping about on his wooden leg.
‘Shall I get us some tea in here, Willie?’ he asked.
‘Nay, Andrew,’ said Willie, looking at the marble dock on the mantelpiece. ‘I ken it’s a bittie early, but I have a feeling that I could take a dram.’
Andrew grinned and started to stomp over towards the sideboard.
‘Sit ye doon, Andrew,’ said Willie. ‘I know fine where you keep it. I’ll get it.’ He took out the bottle of Glenlivet and poured out two generous measures.
