by Gian Bordin
Gian Bordin
SUMMER OF LOVE
Scottish Highland
Saga of Forbidden Love
Copyright © Gian Bordin 2012
1
Mary and Helen MacGregor hurried down Killin’s crooked street, heads held high, their strides defiant. While Mary wore her scarlet plaid drawn around her head and shoulders, as was the custom of Highland women, Helen’s was arranged like the men’s.
The marked resemblance of the pair left little doubt that they were mother and daughter. It was like looking at pictures of the same woman, drawn twenty years apart—the older woman’s traits more angular, deepening lines pointing to her eyes, more resigned, perhaps the imprint of the harsh life in the unforgiving Scottish Highlands edged into her suntanned face, but still a hint of her once eye-catching beauty.
Both carried an empty creel on their back—a wicker basket woven of hazel rods. The girl was excited about going to the market, although she tried to hide it behind a stern expression. It was only her second time. They had moved to a small, north-facing glen at the foot of Creag Gharbh on the southern shore of Loch Tay just the previous year, shortly after her fourteenth birthday. Along with other members of their clan they had lost all ancestral lands in 1712 because of the imprudent dealing of their notorious chief Rob Roy, dead ten years already. Ever since then they had been reduced to live on land illegally occupied in remote areas or as mere tenants of the Dukes of Montrose, Argyle, or the Earl of Breadalbane—a cause of lingering humiliation. It hardened the righteous bitterness over the continued proscription of their name, decreed by King James I of Scotland more than a hundred years earlier. It had been his punishment for clan Gregor’s outrages perpetrated on their neighbors. So for the ears of outsiders, their small branch of MacGregors called themselves Campbell.
As the market stalls came into view, a young man stepped aside to let them pass. He wore the trews of a gentleman and a plaid in the green tartan of the Campbells of Argyle. Helen tried to ignore his shy, searching glance. For an instant, Mary seemed to falter in her proud stride, her face expressing dismay. Helen looked at the older woman inquisitively, but her mother resumed her pace and pressed on, oblivious to the mud puddles splashing her heelless boots.
"Why did you suddenly dither? Did we forget something, mother?" Helen asked.
Mary did not respond.
"Mother! Is anything the matter?"
"Nothing’s the matter, lass," she muttered. "Anyway, it’s none of your business."
"Something happened. Why don’t you want to tell me?"
"It’s nothing, just silly."
"What?"
"Oh, I might as well tell or you’ll never stop pestering me. For a moment I thought I saw a ghost."
"That young Argyle laird?" Helen sneered and quickly glanced back. The young man had not moved. He was still looking at her, his head slightly tipped to the side. She blushed, annoyed for being caught, particularly by an Argyle. Quickening her stride to catch up, she stepped inadvertently into a puddle. The oily mud squeezing between her toes heightened her vexation. "What about him?"
"He reminded me of somebody I met when I was a lass your age."
"At the castle in Inveraray?"
"Yes, he looks like one of the late Duke’s sons, but he can’t be. The older died last year and the younger must be … at least fifty by now."
"Did you fancy one of them?"
"Now, don’t you get saucy with me, lass. This is none of your business."
Her tone of voice signaled an end to the conversation. Helen knew that it was useless to press her any further right then.
They entered the open space in front of the church. Out-of-town merchants only came twice or three times a year to Killin, and it seemed the whole valley had flocked into town for the occasion. Mingling with the crowds and drooling over the many trinkets displayed, the incident soon slipped from Helen’s mind.
An hour later, their few purchases of necessities completed, they walked past Dougan Graham, the factor of the Earl of Breadalbane. He always set up his booth next to the fair to catch the earl’s tacksmen, usually relatives of the laird or other lesser chieftains, like Dougal MacGregor, leasing large parcels of land, part of which they sublet in small lots to other tenants, with all of them sharing some of the work and amenities.
"Do you have anything for me, Mrs. Campbell?" he shouted in English and winked, his face losing its cunning for a short moment.
"I have nothing to spare for fattening the lord! Maybe next time," she replied in her broad Scottish accent.
He laughed, shaking his head. "You better curb your sharp tongue, Mrs. Campbell!"
"Folks like us need it to survive," she answered, her voice challenging.
Helen’s displeasure reached her face when she noticed the young Argyle laird behind the factor. A shy smile softened his features as their eyes met briefly. She answered with haughty disdain. Feeling his gaze incessantly on her, she turned away ostensibly, while at the same time becoming aware of her mother watching him with a strange expression in her eyes. Helen’s own curiosity was now kindled. Surreptitiously, she stole another glance. He had dark, curly hair, cut to shoulder length, rather than gathered in a long tail as was the current fashion of the gentry. A strong, square chin, with a deep dimple, pointed to an obstinate determination, as did the pronounced cheekbones, all somewhat softened by his youth and the warm intensity of his light green eyes. He looked athletic, but was at least half a head smaller than the MacGregor men and lacked their massiveness. She tried to imagine what he would look like in ten years—the age the sons of the Duke of Argyle must have been when her mother lived at the castle—but she failed. She could not quite suppress her excitement at this glimpse into her mother’s unknown past.
As if her mother had guessed her thoughts, she took her arm and hurried her away, back amongst the market stalls. They briefly stopped at Mr. Hamilton’s cloth stand, inspecting the fine silks and linens displayed. The old Mrs. Hamilton joined them.
"You have some spare cash today, Mrs. Campbell," she said, chuckling. Her knowing smile left no doubt that she was well aware that disease had decimated the MacGregors’ herds, as those of most highlanders in Glen Dochart. Business was not good this year.
"Just admiring, Mrs. Hamilton. These silks are beautiful, and so soft. Come fall I may buy myself some for a little jacket." She went closer to the old woman and asked in a low voice that Helen could just barely overhear: "Do we have a new helper for the factor?"
"Yes. You noticed the fine-looking lad too?" Mrs. Hamilton leaned over to Mary and added in a whisper: "It is rumored he is the son of Archibald Campbell; not a legitimate heir, you know, sent here to learn a trade."
Mary clicked her tongue and replied: "You don’t say? So we’ll see him around. There’s good money as a factor." Then she turned to Helen. "Come, lass, we must be gone, or else we’ll be caught by the weather."
Billowing clouds, their underbellies an ominous dark, rolled threateningly down Glen Dochart. It might rain within the hour.
For a while they walked silently, their creels heavy with flour and oats to tide them over until harvest time in three months.
"What did you find out about the young gent—your ghost?"
"We didn’t talk about him. Be quiet now! Save your breath for the walk!"
"I heard you ask the old hag about him, mother."
"Lass, don’t you talk like that about dear Mrs. Hamilton. She has always been courteous to me."
"Mother, why don’t you want to tell me. What about him?"
Mary turned her face away, exasperated. After a few steps she said curtly: "There’s nothing much to tell. She only said that he is a son of Archibald Campbell, the current Duke of Argyle."
&
nbsp; "He can’t be legitimate then, otherwise he would hardly send him here as an apprentice."
Mary glanced sharply at her daughter. "What do you know about things like this? … But yes, she said there’s a rumor about that."
"Does Archibald Campbell have any sons from his marriage?"
"No, I don’t think he ever married. So the lad might be the last of that family. His brother just died the other year and left no heir either."
"How old were you when you lived at the castle, mother?"
Her mother hesitated for a moment, casting a quick frown at her, and then said: "Oh, I think I was your age … sixteen. So it’s nigh to twenty years by now."
"How old do you think that young man is?"
She shrugged. "Seventeen … maybe eighteen at the most."
"So he sired him after you left there."
"That seems right, lass."
They continued walking in silence.
"Mother, why were you sent to Inveraray?"
"To fulfil my mother’s ambitions and become a lady."
Helen smiled to herself. Didn’t work, did it? "But why did she want you to become a lady?"
"She was Rob Roy’s youngest daughter and may have had a secret wish herself to rise in society. I was her only surviving child. Both my brothers died in infancy, and the pox took my older sister just before I was born. So she loaded all her ambitions onto me. She never forgave me that I lasted less than two years there."
"Why did you leave?"
"I was very unhappy. Everybody looked down on me and laughed behind my back. I was barely tolerated. I hated it, and …" She let the words hang.
"And what, mother?"
"Oh, nothing. I was very homesick."
"And the man you fancied didn’t want you?"
"Don’t be nosy, lass! It’s all long in the past and better forgotten and left alone."
"Was that the reason why you married father so quickly after you returned?"
She did not answer, and Helen hesitated to press her any further. Her mother had already told her more than she had ever done. So father wasn’t mother’s first love. Who would have believed that she fancied a Campbell of Argyle. Her parents never spoke a good word about any of those Campbells. What a surprise! She sensed that this wasn’t something to be talked about.
After a few minutes she said with a frown: "I didn’t like the way he looked at me."
"Who? … Ah, that young man. Why, he gave you a nice, warm smile. He seemed to be quite taken with you. You are a pretty lass that will make a laird proud, one day."
"Ha, me making a laird proud. I don’t want to get married."
"Why would you say that?" Her mother’s voice betrayed her surprise.
"Oh, men just loaf around and put on airs, while we do all the hard work and don’t even get thanks for it." Helen startled herself. She had never consciously formulated these thoughts. But they sounded true. "Why do I have to go barefoot, while my younger brothers have boots?"
"You will get married one day, lass, sooner than you think—"
"No, I won’t!"
"We’ll see. And besides, there’s little point in grumbling over trifles. It has always been that way and will always be that way. The men’s honor is to keep our clan growing and their women folk safe."
"Paff, they can’t even do that properly. Why did they get us chased off our ancestral lands?"
"Don’t you get impudent now! That isn’t your father’s fault. And hasn’t he found us a good place to live?"
"A stony glen in the shadow of two mountains, with hardly any decent earth to sow oats! You call this a good place?"
"Don’t you dare talk like this about your father." Mary raised her voice sharply. "You hear me, lass? Be grateful that we have a decent roof over our heads and land for our cattle."
Helen was on the verge of repeating one of her grandmother’s favorite sayings: "A patch of land too poor to live off, but too big to starve." She caught herself in time. It would simply provoke her mother into a holy ire.
Her thoughts strayed back to the encounter with the young man. She could not remember any man ever looking at her in this way, not that she had been given much opportunity to meet any. Just at the occasional clan gathering, or when a few MacGregors of the Braes of Balquhidder stopped by their place, usually to hide for a few weeks. Mother is right. He has a warm smile, she mused silently. With a man like him, she could break out of the MacGregor curse. A factor made good money. She could have many nice dresses and even shoes, like Miriam McNabb. She could live in a big house with a parlor, a proper bedroom with its own fireplace to keep her warm in winter, a big separate kitchen with a real hearth, maybe even a cook and a maid … like in the books. She would never have to toil in the fields or tend the animals, no more going hungry in winter if the harvest is bad. Her children would be dressed in sweet frocks with lace ribbons, not hand-me-downs.
Her own thoughts horrified her. No true MacGregor would ever stoop so low as to marry a Campbell of Argyle. Did the fool think that I would be charmed by a mere smile? No, she definitely didn’t like him.
The first heavy rain drops smacked her face. The two women quickly stripped off their plaids and covered their creels. It would be no good to get their grains wet.
* * *
The young man standing behind the factor let his eyes roam over the crowd in the market square, hoping to catch another glimpse of the young woman with the flaming red hair.
"That is Dougal Campbell’s oldest daughter. A good-looking lass, proud and fiery like her mother. But you might as well forget her, Andrew, my lad," Dougan teased his young charge. "Her mother would never let her tie the knot except with another MacGregor."
"I wasn’t thinking of marriage," Andrew answered, blushing just a bit.
"No harm dreaming of a pretty lass. I wish I still could," chuckled Dougan, as he lifted his hat to scratch the bald scalp under his peruke. "You know, I was quite a lady’s man in my younger days. I bedded a few."
"I bet you did… The MacGregors, are they any relations of Rob Roy?"
"It is said that Mary Campbell’s mother was his youngest daughter."
"Where is their clachan?"
"On Allt Breaclaich west of Creag Gharbh, two miles along the loch. Just enough land for the half-dozen families of their immediate clan. But then beggars can’t be choosers, can they?"
"I guess not… Are they in with Rob Roy’s sons’ blackmail racket?"
Dougan shrugged his shoulders, rubbing his chin. "Difficult to say. No extra cattle have ever been spotted on their land yet. But no telling what is going on at night, and they are in arrears with the rent… Andrew, you are an observant lad. Why, you go pay them a visit one of these days and check out how they are doing. Just for a friendly chat, mind you. We don’t want to give cause for trouble."
"You can spare me for a day, next week, Mr. Graham?"
"Sure, lad. Thursday or Friday."
The factor looked over to the fair. Nobody had come their way for a while. He fastened the buckle of the leather-covered ledger and then tied his purse. "We took in sixty-two pounds and eight shillings."
He got up, groaning, and placed both hands on the small of his back, trying to straighten. The buttons of his little waistcoat threatened to pop open over his pot belly. His face distorted into a grimace of pain. "This gout just does not want to go away this year." He groaned again. "Never get old, laddie, never get old," he muttered. "It’s but a bane. Better you go young, while you are still a man."
Andrew smiled. The old fellow said that every time he got up. He stopped the ink pot and put it into a satchel, together with the quills and sand and the ledger. He folded the little table and the two stools and, loaded with all their things, briefly scanned the people around the fair stalls in the vain hope of catching another glimpse of the redhead. Disappointed, he hurried after the factor, who was walking slowly to The Bear, Killin’s only inn, for his dinner and his bottle of French claret.
* * *
Over the next few days, Andrew caught himself time and again thinking about the MacGregor lass. At night when he lay in the dark, he saw her boldly cut face—a sort of haunting beauty—her haughty, almost disdainful look in response to his smile, but then the quick glance back, as she walked away with her mother—that proud, striking woman. Did her face betray for just an instant a dismayed surprise when he met her in the narrow street, he wondered?
His mind strayed back to the girl. What could be her name? It wouldn’t be the same as her mother’s. That wouldn’t fit. He tried a few typical Highlander girls’ names. If she’s Rob Roy’s great granddaughter, it could be the same as her great grandmother’s. "Helen!" he whispered. That would fit well. For a moment, he was pleased with the thought, and then laughed at his own foolishness. But he was not ashamed. It felt good to think of her as Helen. Anyway, he might never see her again. She might not be at the clachan when he planned to visit them on Thursday. They might have come into town to get supplies for taking their cattle up into the summer grazing meadows—the shielings. It was about that time of year.
On Thursday morning, he was the first to ride out through the heavy gate of Finlarig Castle, the somber seat of Lord Glenorchy, the Earl of Breadalbane. It was built on a small mound just north of the river Lochay. Crossing the ford of that river, he guided his grey mare south through the awakening street of Killin and then crossed the Dochart above the falls and rapids that churned up the waters in their haste to swell Loch Tay, a short distance to the east. Beinn Leabhain had its top still shrouded in a veil of mist against a milky sky. As he passed by Achmore, a small huddle of dilapidated crofter’s cottages, a few urchins in scant rags stared at him with barely hidden hostility and then threw small pebbles after him. They scurried away cheering when he looked over his shoulder.
The glassy waters of Loch Tay, yet unruffled by the westerly breeze that would spring up later in the morning, mirrored the lofty heights of Ben Lawers. They were still capped by white crowns, glistening in the early sun, and dominated the sky across the narrow loch. He rode at a leisurely pace through coppices of birch, hazel, and oak scattered along the shore, enjoying the peace of the morning crispness.
