The Highland Countess

by M C Beaton

Morag found nothing strange about this greeting. In just such a manner did her father address his herdsmen. “And how are you today, my lord?” she rejoined politely.

  “There’s a letter frae yer faither,” he said, tossing over a piece of parchment, “and a wee bit in the Perthshire Times about the wedding. If I find the rat who wrote that rubbish, I’ll hae him whipped at the cart’s tail.

  “Did ye ever see the like?”

  Morag looked at the newspaper and blinked in surprise and delight at the description of the “beautiful Countess.” Further down the reporter had written, “The Marriage of the Earl and Countess of Murr was Consummated before the Altar to the sound of the Organ.”

  “Very pretty,” she remarked at last. “What is wrong with it?”

  “God gie me patience,” howled the earl. “Don’t ye see anything wrong with it? Consummated, indeed!”

  “Oh, yes, that… terrible,” agreed Morag politely, inwardly vowing to look up the word consummated in the dictionary. “I must write to father. He will be anxious to know the details of our married life.”

  “Tell him,” said the earl evenly, “and I’ll shoot ye.”

  Morag’s eyes clouded with confusion, then cleared. “Oh, you mean about what goes on in our bedchamber? Oh no, my lord. Miss Simpson says that a lady never talks about that.”

  “Quite right,” said the earl, mopping his brow and wondering whether there was madness in the laird’s family. He fell to studying his wife as she ate her food with a healthy appetite. Things had not worked out the way he had planned, but at least his marriage was successful to all outward appearances, and that was all that mattered. The fact that the servants must know that all was not well did not trouble him in the slightest, any more than he paused to consider the emotions of his horse.

  Morag must be worn and displayed like a gem and especially to one person in particular, his heir and brother, Lord Arthur Fleming.

  The earl detested Lord Arthur, but the fact that Lord Arthur showed every sign of remaining his heir did not trouble the earl one whit. He did not care in the slightest what happened to his lands or title when he passed on, and anyway he felt immortal most of the time. But he had long been in the habit of competing with his young brother, and Arthur had lately become wed to a young lady of high degree who was accounted a beauty. She would pale before the glory of his Morag, thought the earl gleefully. Also, Arthur would expect a bride as young and healthy as Morag to produce heirs and that prospect should give his dear brother at least a few uncomfortable years. Arthur and his wife had been visiting London and had not been present at the wedding. So much the better. He could study their sour faces at leisure when they came to call that very evening. He roused himself from his pleasurable thoughts.

  “Morag.”

  “My lord?”

  “My brither and his wife are to sup with us this evening. You are to wear your finest gown and you are to smile on me in a doting way… fetch me things and hang on the back of my chair. You are to tell the new Lady Fleming that I’m a powerful husband, understand?”

  “Yes, my lord. It will be like a play, I think… although I have heard such things are sinful,” she added thoughtfully.

  “It seems tae me there’s a great deal more sinful in that prudish mind of yours than play-going,” said the earl looking at her curiously. “Have you never felt the passion of a woman for a man?”

  Morag blushed painfully and stared at her plate.

  “Is it something I should feel?” she countered at last.

  “For God’s sakes, what feel ye when I kiss ye?”

  Morag wrinkled her pretty brow. The correct answer was “sick and suffocated” but she knew she should not say that.

  “I d-do n-not know,” she stammered. “I s-suppose my f-feelings are somewhat confused.”

  “Och, your mind’s a mess,” said the earl in disgust. “You’re as cold as charity, Morag, and you’ll always be the same. I would ha’ expected it had I married that old hag, Simpson, but a young girl like yourself should have mair red bluid in her veins. But you’re a fine-looking wench. I’ve a mind to try my leg over ye again. Let’s to bed.”

  Morag’s heart sank. She looked wildly toward the window where the countryside stretched out in an unobtainable vista of freedom. She had made her marriage vows and must obey, but she suddenly felt she could not bear the struggling weight of his old body again.

  “I should spend the afternoon preparing for your brother’s visit,” she said hurriedly. “You would have me look my best.”

  The earl’s sudden lust had fizzled and died. For all her great beauty, there was something repellently ladylike about Morag with her precise English, her straight back and her exquisite table manners. “Oh, very well,” he grumbled. “Off with ye and leave me tae my wine.”

  Morag rose and curtsied and then hesitated in the doorway, suddenly timid.

  “My lord.”

  “What?”

  “Is there any chance we may visit Edinburgh one day?”

  “I’m bound for Edinburgh tomorrow. You can come along provided ye behave yerself this evening.”

  “Thank you,” cried Morag, rushing forward to plant an impulsive kiss on his cheek. She tripped lightly from the room.

  “She’s a child,” grumbled the earl into his claret. “I cannae bed a child, and that one is never going to grow up. Never!”

  Chapter Two

  Murr Castle was only partly fortified, having been built in the middle of the sixteenth century in whinstone rubble with freestone facings. It was built on a small hill, a natural hollow at the east and southeast capable of being utilized for defense. It had a large round tower on each corner and a jumble of slate roofs and was surrounded by great walls some seventy yards from the castle which enclosed pleasant flower gardens and a lily pond. The ditch beyond the wall had been filled in long ago and the parkland and woods of the earl’s estates stretched out beyond the walls all the miles to the winding silver twists and bends of the River Tay. The countryside looked rich and placid, unlike the wild and savage scenery of the Highlands to which Morag had been accustomed.

  The drawing room in which the company met that evening was small and square and decked with trophies of the chase. Most of the first floor had originally consisted of a great banqueting hall but had since been divided into dining room, drawing room, morning room and saloon.

  Stags’ heads glared glassily down on the guests. A large stuffed pike took up most of one wall and sailed silently through the gloom in the flickering shadow waves thrown up by the wavering candles. Two other walls were hung with dull green silk which moved and whispered in the scurrying draughts which scampered blithely through the rooms of the castle like so many lost children of the north wind. On the remaining wall, a great smoking fire crackled and spurted and sent a perfectly splendid blaze roaring right up the chimney so that the roof of the castle must have been very well heated indeed. None of the heat, however, seemed to permeate the drawing room, and if any additional chill were needed, it was amply supplied by Lord Arthur Fleming and his wife.

  The couple managed to convey the impression that the earl was vulgar in the extreme and that his new bride was an ignorant schoolgirl. This they did without opening their mouths. Every time the earl spoke, they both gave infinitesimal shudders of disgust and Morag’s timid social sallies were received with high-bred disdain.

  Lord Arthur was a tall, thin man dressed in very fashionable, very tight clothes. His sparse hair was teased and combed into wispy artistic curls. He had flat, brown eyes and a rather rabbity mouth.

  The Lady Phyllis was arrayed in fine India muslin. Her face was beautiful according to the current mode—she had a very small pursed mouth, large liquid brown eyes, a long straight nose and a high forehead. Her cheeks had the strange, rigid, apple-red roundness of a wooden doll. Morag did not know that this was caused by rouge on the outside and wax pads on the inside. She had still an immense amount to learn about the uncomfortable vagaries of
fashion.

  Things were bad enough before supper, but no sooner were they seated at the table than the Earl of Murr began to make everything worse.

  “Well, Arthur,” he began. “It’s sorry ye must be to see me married.”

  “Really! Why?” asked his brother coldly.

  “Come, man, ye must have hoped to inherit. Aye—I’m sure ye didnae think for a minute that I would wed such a lusty young bride.”

  “Lusty, indeed,” murmured Lady Phyllis coldly, making Morag feel as if her bosom were too large and her mouth too wide and her hair too red.

  Lord Arthur dabbed fastidiously at his rabbity mouth with his napkin. “You are teasing, brother,” he drawled in a high, fluting voice in which Scottish and English accents were perpetually at war. “I am well enough. Money is a vulgar subject and not fit for the dining table. Let us talk of something mair entertaining. We had a monstrous amusing time in London and had the honor to be invited to Lady Mumpers’s ball.”

  “Did ye now?” said the earl with a great horse laugh. “Mumpers! Whita name. What was sae great about going there?”

  “The Mumpers,” said Lady Phyllis with a deprecating cough, “are related to the Fangles.”

  “Double Dutch to me,” said the earl, swallowing claret in great noisy gulps.

  Lady Phyllis gave a genteel sigh. “It is useless,” she said, addressing her husband, “to talk of the ton in such surroundings. Ah, dear London. How I miss you!”

  The earl picked up his gamecock from his plate and stuffed it in his mouth. “Issawunneryedonttayayre,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon,” said his sister-in-law.

  The earl spat out a small hail of crushed bones onto his plate. “I said, ‘It’s a wonder ye don’t stay there’—or does it take too much siller?”

  “We have money enough,” remarked his brother.

  “Oh, aye,” sneered the earl, laying a finger alongside his nose. “Ye forget, I ken fine your lands are mortgaged to the hilt.”

  The earl returned to his chomping while a cold, hostile silence fell on the dining room. Morag racked her brains for something to say. At last she turned to Lady Phyllis, who was examining a piece of smoked lamb as if doubting the animal’s pedigree. “You must tell me about the fashions of London, Lady Phyllis,” she said, addressing that lady’s cold face.

  Phyllis looked down her long nose. “I think it would be a waste of time to try,” she finally tittered. “High fashion is impossible to explain to the unsophisticated mind.”

  Morag’s face flamed as red as her hair. “It seems to me,” she replied in a level voice, “that being sophisticated means having no manners or breeding at all.”

  “Are you addressing me?” gasped Phyllis.

  “Yes, I am… you whey-faced bitch,” said Morag, gleefully using one of her husband’s pet expressions. Morag was still very much a schoolroom miss.

  The earl’s great booming laughter seemed to fill the castle. “Go to it, Morag,” he gasped when he could.

  Lady Phyllis rose to her feet, her languid airs and poise melting away.

  “How dare you, you common little strumpet!” she howled at Morag. “For the likes of you to criticize the likes of me. It makes me sick to… to…”

  “Your stomach,” said Morag helpfully, watching with fascination the cracking of Lady Phyllis’s veneer.

  With a great effort, Lady Phyllis pulled herself together. “Come, Arthur,” she said grandly. “Take me away from this vulgar company.”

  Her lord looked down at the table. “Sit down,” he said reluctantly. “You take things too much to heart. Don’t refine on it so.”

  “We are leaving, d’ye hear,” screamed Phyllis, leaning over the table and gazing at him as if she could not believe her eyes.

  “Sit down!” squeaked her husband, “and dae as ye are told.”

  Phyllis collapsed in her chair, her eyes filling with shocked tears. Never before had her husband disobeyed her commands. Lady Phyllis could not know that her husband had just remembered the sole purpose of his visit—that of borrowing money from his rich brother—and that when he wished to borrow money, there was no one in the whole of Caledonia stern and wild who could be more single-minded.

  And so she continued to sob over the tansey pudding and almost tottered when the time came to leave the gentlemen to their wine.

  Morag followed her out, feeling miserable. It was one thing to be rude to the icy, haughty Lady Phyllis but another to be unkind to this pathetic weeping girl. Her soft heart was touched.

  “I am truly sorry,” said Morag awkwardly, “to have caused you such distress.”

  “Of course it was all your fault,” said Phyllis, drying her eyes on a wisp of cambric and looking jealously at the younger girl’s glowing beauty. “But you cannot blame me for saying you would not understand high fashion. Why—one has only to look at your gown.”

  “What is wrong with it?” asked Morag, curiosity overcoming her temper. She privately thought her gown of gold damask very fine.

  “So outmodish,” sighed Phyllis. “The cut is antique and one never wears such heavy materials. One has the waist of the gown here”—she pointed to below her bust—“and only wears the thinnest of muslins, even in winter.”

  “I am to go to Edinburgh tomorrow,” ventured Morag. “Perhaps I may purchase something t-tonnish there.” Morag stammered slightly over the pronunciation of the unaccustomed slang.

  Phyllis treated her companion to a small, superior smile. “Edinburgh,” she said in accents filled with loathing. Then she shrugged. “On second thought, perhaps Edinburgh will suit you very well.”

  “Why are you so rude and unkind?” Morag demanded hotly. “Because, really, you do it very badly.”

  Lady Phyllis looked totally nonplussed, but the door opened and the gentlemen entered. Both were in high spirits: Arthur because he had got his money, and the earl because he had had a most enjoyable time humiliating his younger brother—unaware that when it came to the pursuit of money, nothing could really humiliate Lord Arthur Fleming.

  Arthur was so pleased with himself that he was inclined to flirt genteelly with Morag, a fact which distressed his wife even more.

  Morag, for her part, could only be glad when the evening came to an end. Phyllis was the first young lady of nearly her own age she had met and the whole experience had been a sore disappointment.

  There was more to follow. For after the unwelcome guests had gone, the earl cocked his great head on one side and listened to the song of the rising wind. “Weather’s turning bad,” he remarked. “We’ll no be going to Edinburgh if this keeps up. Off tae bed with ye. I’m right proud of the way you told that puddin’-faced coo what you thought but, och, I’ve had enough of yer cauld manners.”

  Morag trailed miserably to her room. Nonetheless, she packed a trunk, listening all the while in case her husband should join her, dreading the prospect as she used to dread being dragged before her father for a beating. But the earl did not come. At last, she pulled the bed curtains close. She would never see Edinburgh, she thought unhappily. She would molder in this draughty castle until the day she died.

  She awoke in the morning and lay very still. The sound of the wind had died and had been replaced by the sleepy chirping of birds. She drew back the bed curtains. A shaft of sunlight was shining through the small dusty windowpanes into the room. A vision of Edinburgh rose before her eyes and she fairly scrambled into her clothes, tugging impatiently at tapes and buttons in her hurry to get dressed.

  She was going after all!

  The child that was Morag blithely skipped downstairs to take her leave of the castle—not knowing that she would return a woman.

  Chapter Three

  Morag prepared herself for a long task of persuading her incalculable husband to get ready, but when she descended the curved stone stairs, it was to find the earl not only ready but on the point of departure, his cumbersome traveling carriage having been brought round to the door.


  He told her curtly that she would need to forgo breakfast if she wished to come and barely gave her time to don her bonnet and pelisse.

  Morag sat on the edge of the carriage seat in an agony of anticipation, frightened the earl would change his mind. But the coachman cracked his whip, and, flanked by two outriders, the earl’s carriage moved off.

  It was barely seven in the morning and an early mist was burning off the fields. The sun flashed and jogged through the overhead trees on the castle drive and, as the carriage clattered out of the woods, out of the shelter of the trees, a flock of woodpigeons sailed up, swooping and diving under a sky of pale, washed blue.

  Cow parsley spread their lacy heads through the red and thorny spikes of unripe brambles in the hedgerows and tangled vetch rioted in a mass of blue and purple. The clear air was like champagne. The carriage rolled sedately past a field of incredibly green grass which turned and rolled in the morning breeze like the waves of some enchanted ocean. The leaves were already turning to red and gold, and a hail of beechnuts rattled on the carriage roof. Now a field of stubble, blazing in the morning sun like cloth of gold, dotted with fat and roosting seagulls, looking awkward and strangely prehistoric so far from the sea.

  Morag turned to say something to her husband but he had fallen asleep, his great head lolling to the swaying of the carriage and his wig askew. She felt a strong twinge of unease. She did not feel as if she had behaved like a proper wife. Her mind, still adolescent, still innocent, nonetheless told her that she should have welcomed her husband’s attentions with more warmth. The castle housekeeper was efficient and the domestic arrangements of the castle were well run. Morag felt young and useless, a child adrift in an adult world.

  Assailed by a feeling of loneliness so deep it was almost a physical pain, she longed to belong somewhere, anywhere. She missed her home. She even missed the severe and reproving face of Miss Simpson. Distance lent her stern father enchantment and imbued him with a parental kindliness he did not have.

  She watched the passing fields through a mist of tears, all her excitement at seeing the capital gone.