On the other hand, those young men selected by Lady Montrose, all of reputable families, cultured, educated, and of impeccable tastes, many of whom were completely smitten with Candice, were all, to the high-spirited young lady, boring, slow-witted, and hopelessly uninteresting. Candice had no taste for a man she could lead about like a dog on a leash. But her standards greatly limited the field, for there were not many men she would not be able to control either with her beauty or with her biting wit and seductive character. She desired a strong man, strong enough to be his own man, yet not so strong as to be able altogether to resist her enchantments. Few men, indeed, fit the bill.
That is, until Edward Graystone came back on the market. Now here was a man not easily cowed by her womanly wiles—frustratingly so, in fact! He was a genuine challenge! And the best part was that she had her parents’ blessing in the pursuit. He was a man of means, of ancient family of reputable standing, of some power in the county—an altogether perfect match. The only hitch from the mother’s standpoint was some rumor as to irregularity with respect to the title. There was reported to be a brother somewhere, off on the continent or in Asia somewhere, she couldn’t remember. But how serious could it be? Graystone himself had been at Aviemere alone and in charge since they had bought the estate southeast of the village. Whatever these so-called irregularities were, they must be minor. And Candice was getting no younger.
Over the past several months Candice had been zeroing in on her target. Winter had dampened the quest. The roads had been bad and extensive socializing had been impossible. She had spent several weeks on the Continent, the guest of a French baron at his estate on the Mediterranean, a man whom her mother had long cherished hopes for. But the appearance on the scene of a distant cousin he was apparently infatuated with immediately cooled him toward Candice, and the hopes of Lady Montrose in that direction were instantly quelled. Fortunately, she had not closed the door to Aviemere.
“Imagine,” Lady Montrose was saying as the carriage jostled them toward Montrose Manor, “him traipsing over the countryside with his child’s nurse!”
“Mother, you can’t be inferring—” Candice rolled her eyes in exaggerated disbelief. “Why, a man like Edward Graystone would not give that homely creature a second look!”
“I’ve seen homelier,” remarked Lady Montrose.
“She’s a mere child! He must be ten years older that she—perhaps twelve. It’s ridiculous, mother!”
“Hmm. I suppose you’re right.”
“And I’ve heard she is nothing more than a crofter’s daughter, or a shepherd girl, or something like that.”
“Who would ever think of hiring such a girl for that position?”
“They’ve had great difficulty keeping a nurse, from what I understand,” said Candice. “Perhaps he could find no one else.”
“All the more reason why he needs a wife, my dear. And soon!”
Candice cast her mother a canny smile.
“But no matter how desperate I was,” Lady Montrose went on, “I’d not have some poor tenant girl caring for my child. Just think of what filthy habits the boy could pick up! And if it was just a temporary measure, then why has she been there so long, answer me that!”
“She knows which side her bread is buttered on, that’s for certain.”
“Let’s hope the butter is not too thick!”
“Mother! The idea’s utterly preposterous!”
———
A week later, the vicar of the parish church and his wife came to Montrose Manor to call. When the subject of Edward Graystone came up again, no one but Candice—who knew the vicar’s wife to be a fountain of willing gossip regarding the goings-on of the area—was quite sure how the conversation had come to alight on him. Now that she had the discussion in the channel she desired, Candice sat back to listen and see what might come next.
“Lord Graystone has always been a tight-lipped man where his own affairs are concerned,” remarked the vicar.
“But the servants do say an astounding change has come upon him,” added Mrs. McVeagh knowledgeably.
“How so?” asked Lady Montrose.
“Well—” began the other, now into the rhythm of what she enjoyed most in the world—spreading information which was half true, half false, not bothering to distinguish between the two. “You know, of course, he took his wife’s death quite hard—so much so, he would have nothing to do with the child?”
“Pitiful,” remarked the vicar.
“Yes, but he’s made a complete turn-around, they say,” continued his wife. “Simply dotes on the boy now.”
“I suspect that new nurse he hired,” remarked Lady Montrose.
“I hardly think so, Mother,” Candice quickly put in, able to restrain herself no longer. “I told you, Mother, she’s nothing but a country girl.”
“The daughter of a tenant,” said Mrs. McVeagh, anxious not to lose the forward edge of her lead in the conversation.
“Disgraceful!” added Lady Montrose. “To think of the son of an earl being cared for by a peasant!”
“Is Lord Graystone actually the earl?” asked the vicar. “I thought there was some confusion concerning the old man’s inheritance—one brother got the title, the other the estate, something like that.”
“Oh, come now,” put in his wife, “you know nothing of the kind! Besides, you know very well we heard the other brother had been killed.”
“But there were reports questioning—”
“Nonetheless,” said Lady Montrose decidedly. “The Graystones are one of the county’s most prestigious families, and Lord Graystone should be aware of propriety.”
“I hear she’s a pretty wisp of a thing, though,” said the vicar’s wife.
“You’re not suggesting that he would . . .” said Candice, allowing her raised eyebrows to complete the sentence. “He is a Graystone, after all!”
“Yes, but a peasant girl raised so quickly to such a position might well begin to entertain certain, shall we say, lofty ambitions,” concluded Mrs. McVeagh.
“Whatever grand illusions a peasant girl might entertain,” said Candice, trying to convince herself more than the vicar’s tongue-wagging wife, “they would not have the least effect on a man like Edward Graystone.”
The conversation then drifted toward other topics. But Candice remained uneasy. She did not like the thought of the man she intended to marry associating with a common peasant. More than that, however, she did not like to be reminded that the girl was, in fact, not altogether unattractive, in her own homely sort of way, and had the laird all to himself—especially now that he had suddenly taken such an interest in the child. She wanted no scandal to taint her acquisition once she finally had him.
Somehow she must get rid of her!
Thus Candice Montrose vowed to keep apprised of the situation. There should be many more invitations to Montrose Manor, and also frequent “chance” visits to Aviemere. She could not afford to wait for invitations. If she sat at home and did nothing, who could tell what inroads the young vixen might make!
But of course, she would leave nothing to chance. Finding a new nurse must be the first priority of business. Edward would have to be convinced, but she could manage that. Then she had to make sure she was close enough to him to have an instrumental hand in choosing the new candidate.
31
A Journey into the Past
Happily oblivious to the maelstrom of discourse swirling around her, Jamie was as content as she had ever had reason to be, believing her life for the present had reached a most pleasant fulfillment in her custodial care of young Andrew. She had no reason to suspect the shaking about to come.
When George Ellice hailed her one morning as she was taking Andrew out for his usual morning walk, she thought it was merely a friendly greeting. But the factor had something more on his mind.
“Good morning, Jamie,” he said. “I’m so glad I caught you. Have you a moment? I have something to talk over with you.”
“Of cour
se. I’m sure Andrew won’t mind a slight delay to our excursion.”
“Come to my office, then.”
The factor’s office at the main house was a small room on the lower floor, toward the back near the stables. It was neat and orderly, though the furnishings were rather worn and there was much work stacked on the desk.
“Please, have a seat,” he said, offering her the only other chair in the room other than the one which stood behind the desk.
Jamie took her place, growing more curious by the moment at the formal treatment of this interview. She sat patiently as he shuffled through a few papers and slipped on his spectacles. He then cleared his throat somewhat stiffly.
“You may recall some time ago, last fall I believe,” he began, “speaking to my wife regarding your father and the uncertainties you had in your mind about his past, and yours.”
Jamie’s heart raced. “Yes,” she answered, betraying none of the emotions which by now hung on his every word.
“She mentioned this to me, though you probably thought the matter had been forgotten entirely. And I must admit it did slip my mind for a time. But as I was doing my spring cleaning of various extraneous paperwork, it suddenly came back to me. This year I had to do a more thorough job of it because a new cabinet will soon be arriving for this office. At any rate, I was keeping my eyes open, and that was how I first ran across the papers regarding the sale of your father’s land. Your father was Gilbert MacLeod, was he not?”
Jamie nodded.
“Then no doubt these documents would be of great interest to you, for they specify the location of the land. You said to my wife, I think, that you didn’t know exactly where you and your father had lived.”
For a moment Jamie sat as one stunned. “Yes—that’s right—I was only seven I think—I don’t think my grandfather even knew the place. Where is it?”
“It’s all outlined here,” said Ellice. “It is a large croft on the far border of the laird’s estate. I have been there many times to collect rents, and I shouldn’t wonder if it isn’t just as it was when your father had it.”
“Do the papers tell how he came to sell it?” Jamie asked.
“These documents give merely facts and figures. The croft was doing poorly and your father was in heavy debt. This indicates that his payment for the property was mainly the clearance of the debts, and it seems he walked away with some twenty pounds besides.”
“That doesn’t seem like much if it was, as you say, a sizeable croft.”
“No, it wasn’t much. But he had large payments on a portion of the land he had previously purchased from the laird that he was unable to meet.”
“How much would the land be worth now?” asked Jamie.
“Oh, several hundred pounds to be sure! I don’t know really. But the croft is doing much better now. And your father was ‘strapped,’ as we say. I imagine he had little other recourse to get him out from under those debts.”
“Mrs. Lundie says he was cheated.”
“Jamie,” returned Ellice, ruffled but not angry, “I am the laird’s factor.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think about what I was saying. I would never accuse the laird. I don’t care about the facts and figures anyway. All I wanted was to see the land again.”
“Of course, I know you mean no ill. But, you see, even though I wasn’t factor back then, the honor of the Graystone business dealings rests on me, in a manner of speaking. Granted, Mackenzie Graystone, who was laird at that time, was a shrewd character—above cheating I’m sure, though I expect he had no qualms about profiting from another’s loss. Now, about your seeing the property, when will you be available for such an undertaking?”
“Anytime! Today?” said Jamie eagerly.
Ellice smiled. “Shouldn’t take us more than two or three hours to get there. I’ll bring the wagon around for you at half-past eleven.”
“Thank you!” Jamie said, grasping the factor’s hand. “Thank you!”
At eleven-thirty Jamie left Andrew in Bea’s care and hurried out to meet Mr. Ellice. The wagon stood in front as the factor had promised.
On the way Ellice explained some of the interesting particulars about the croft.
“It’s been fairly prosperous since the laird bought the place, but of course he had unlimited capital to pour into it. It’s near the moor so there are some portions that can be downright unmanageable. I looked up a few things after you left and it seems that year and the year before were particularly bad ones for everyone. As a small landowner with nothing to fall back on, well, it’s no wonder your father had to sell.”
“Is someone living there now?”
“An older couple took over after your father and they were there until about a year ago when the man died. Made a decent go of it, too. But his wife moved away to live with relatives. It’s been empty since then and the laird has been working it with his own men. ’Tis a big croft and the rents are high, so we’ve had a bit of difficulty finding new tenants. We’ve discussed dividing it up into smaller crofts.”
As they approached, Ellice pointed out the cottage in the distance, while Jamie tried to take in every detail.
This is the place where she was born! In the distance she could see the barren moorland. Nearer at hand were fields—fallow now without the covering of rich stocks of grain—spreading away on either side of the road. Spring sowing was in full progress and Jamie saw several workers with “seed sheets” slung over their heads and strapped about their bodies, walking in a rhythmic pattern back and forth, up and down the harrows. It was a pleasant scene, and brought her father to mind even more clearly. He must have done these very things—ploughing, harrowing, sowing, and harvesting—year in and year out, a pattern as rhythmic as the scene she was now witnessing. Yet for him the pattern had finally been broken by the harsh realities of nature, ending in ultimate failure.
“Well, here we are!” Mr. Ellice called out cheerily.
Jamie looked up from her reverie to see the large stone house just off to their right, opposite the field where she had been watching the workers. It had certainly been a nice home, perhaps even imposing, at one time, possibly seventy-five years earlier, but poor landowners and struggling tenants could ill-afford to tend to its upkeep over the years. Little could Jamie know that her own mother’s ancestors had built the house and worked the land for several generations before it came into her father and mother’s hands, and thence into the grasping clutches of the grandfather of her beloved little Andrew.
Suddenly shy, Jamie looked all about, her mind filling with fragmentary bits and images and scenes from her distant childhood. Slowly she climbed down from the wagon, then turned and said, “I think I’d like to look at it alone. Would you mind terribly?”
“I understand, lass,” Ellice replied. “I have some business to tend to with the men. I’ll be back in forty or fifty minutes.”
He turned the horses around, and in a few minutes disappeared down the road.
Jamie stood frozen in the middle of the yard for some time. When she and the factor had been talking about the croft and the land and her father that morning in his office, it had all seemed so distant, so dreamlike, as if they were discussing some faraway place that had been a relic from history. As the wagon had brought her nearer, that hazy unreality began to change, and seeing the workers in the field had dissolved the detachment still further. But now, standing in the yard in front of the house she and her father and mother had lived in—suddenly it was close and personal and vivid once more in her mind: she felt as if she had come home.
She had scampered across this very place as a child. It was here that her father had scooped her up into his strong arms. It was here she had milked the cow and hung out the wash to dry.
At last she forced her legs into motion and toward the house itself. She walked up the two stone steps and turned the latch on the door. It creaked open. As she stepped inside a musty, unlived-in odor assailed her. The room was bare now, except for a heavy ol
d table in the middle of the floor, and a broken stool. The hearth was cold. She ran her hand along the rough surface of the table—was this the very table at which they used to sit and eat and talk? She could almost remember . . .
Dinner is ready fer ye, Papa . . .
Images flooded Jamie’s mind now, memories that time had long ago buried, but which the heart of the child could never fully relinquish.
Would ye like to go to the city, Jamie?
What aboot oor cottage here, Papa?
Ah, the house—I just can’t hang on to it anymore, not if it means starving.
I can work harder, Papa! We dinna have t’ go!
No need to work in Aberdeen. Ye’ll ride about in a carriage. Ye’ll wear a bonny pink bonnet. I’ll find what I’m looking fer there—I know it!
Were they all nothing but empty dreams—the hope of a better life? the desperate attempt of a failing man to cling to his fancies the only way he could?
She had always revered her father, in her childish way believing him incapable of failure. Yet now maturity had begun to open her eyes to the folly of his daydreams. Losing everything, up to the very moment of his death he refused to let go of the fantasy of his daughter as a high-society lady and he her gentleman father, both decked out in rich finery, riding about in an expensive carriage. Even the immediacy of death had only partially dimmed the vision.
Her grandfather had hinted to her of this many times, but she had never had ears to hear it, because she, too, still wanted to cling to the foolish dream. Over and over he had tried to tell her about the importance of being content with the lot which was given her.
She’s her father’s daughter, he had said once, and the mournfulness of his tone still echoed in her mind. Was that why he had kept silent about her father? Was he afraid for her, afraid that she, too, might somehow fail in the same way his own son had?
But had he really failed?
He had possessed his daughter’s love and devotion. Was that not a kind of success—perhaps the best kind of all? Yet how pitiful that it had never been enough for him! He had to have more. Oh, yes, he had tried to convince himself, it was all for Jamie. But the fruitless pursuit of an elusive quarry made him miss out on the joyful relationship he had been given, and which had been in his possession all along.
Jamie MacLeod Page 24
