A Turn of Cards (Lowland Romance Book 3)

by Helen Susan Swift

  Doctor Hetherington's ball closely pursued mine and we watched the dual flight. Both landed within a few feet of each other and rolled frustratingly into a damp hollow. We walked toward them with our steps sounding hollow in the cusp of the morning and our breath clouding around our faces. Golf in an Edinburgh winter morning is an exquisite pleasure, a combination of skill and exercise suitable to set the blood pounding and wake one up for the day ahead.

  The doctor took out his brassie next and eyed the distance to the hole. A couple of young lads were behind us, shouting as they swung, and laughing at each other's misfortunes. Golf is still like that, thank goodness, a game played by all classes on Edinburgh's ancient links and other places around the Scottish countryside. If it ever becomes the pastime of the spoiled rich, it will lose both its character and appeal.

  I preferred a spoon to a brassie and scooped the ball skyward to endeavour the green. The boys behind us cheered and clapped as my ball soared well past the hole and landed in a patch of rough. I acknowledged the boys' laughter by lifting my club. All the same, the lantern glow of the Golf Hotel was very welcoming as a haar crept across the course. I failed to hide my shiver, and the doctor tucked my cloak closer around my neck.

  'You have decided to make your stand then,' Doctor Hetherington waited until a couple of stray dogs barked past before he made his shot. His ball also flew wide, landing well clear of his intended target. I nodded, corrected my stance to allow for the westerly breeze that drove in the haar and hit the ball.

  'Good shot,' Doctor Hetherington said as my ball lofted, hung in the air for a heart-stopping moment and then fell straight onto the green.

  'I have decided to make my stand.' I did not mention Turnbull.

  We walked together to the doctor's ball, eyed its lie and pondered the doctor's next shot. The two dogs splashed through a puddle nearby, still barking.

  'Do you wish my support?' Doctor Hetherington continued with his brassie, slicing the shot, so it nearly smacked into one of the two dogs. The two boys grinned and nudged each other.

  'I may wish your advice, doctor.' That was hard to say. I had not asked for a man's help for a decade.

  We watched the doctor's ball land on a slight slope and roll damply toward the green. 'That was fortunate.' Doctor Hetherington said.

  'Or you have more skill than you admit.' I said as his ball rested two feet from the hole.

  'The devil looks after his own.' Doctor Hetherington accompanied me to my ball. 'You can knock this one right into the hole now, Miss Flockhart.'

  My putting was good that day. I holed the ball. 'Marie Elliot could be in serious trouble,' I did not say more.

  'Tell me over a bowl of punch,' Doctor Hetherington did not conceal his shiver. 'We have had sufficient exercise for one morning.'

  I did not object, scooping up my ball and heading for the hotel with my skirt snapping against my calves and the clubs under my arm.

  Alexander McKellar ran the Golf Hotel, or more accurately Mrs McKellar ran the hotel while McKellar spent much of his life on the Links as Cock o' the Green. We were fortunate that morning as McKellar had been playing the short holes by lantern-light the previous night and Mrs McKellar had called him to account. Now McKellar was behind the counter with his shirt sleeves rolled up and his golf clubs leaning against the far wall, ready for instant use.

  'By the Lord Harry!' McKellar greeted us as we entered his inn, 'you're the keen ones. How are the greens this morning?' He beamed at me from above his hooked nose.

  'Slow with the dampness,' Doctor Hetherington responded. 'But true. We are after a golfing breakfast Alex, and a bowl of steaming punch.'

  We sat at a crowded table as other early golfers came in and the talk was of niblicks and spoons and brassies and how poorly everyone had played that day. In a golfing tavern, nobody mentioned the war. Far more critical matters occupied their minds. Doctor Hetherington allowed me time to settle down before he began his gentle probing.

  'Tell me about Marie's problems,' he invited.

  I told him what I had seen in the Cowgait. He listened without interruption, nodding at all the correct places.

  'Do you wish me to talk to Mr Elliot?' Doctor Hetherington's gaze had not strayed from my face. 'I could perhaps warn him about infections and how they could affect Mrs Elliot, but with all due regard, Miss Flockhart, I am his doctor and not his moral guide.'

  'I know that Doctor,' I said. 'I am not sure that I expect you to do anything. I just wanted to tell somebody what I saw.' I wished to unburden myself of the memories I had carried for ten years. I did not know how.

  Doctor Hetherington looked away. 'It is a difficult thing to see a friend go wrong,' he spoke slowly. 'Or when you think a friend is going wrong. You only saw him leaving a public with two other men and some women. You do not know if any impropriety took place.'

  I clutched at that straw, desperate for some shred of hope. 'Gilbert was arm-in-arm with another woman,' I pointed out.

  'Does he not have a sister?' Doctor Hetherington asked.

  'I do not know,' I said.

  'He has two,' Doctor Hetherington drank more of the steaming punch. 'The younger still lives with their parents, and the elder is in Edinburgh.'

  'Oh,' I wondered, hopefully, if it had been the older Elliot sister that Gibbie had been with that evening. If so she required some strong maternal advice as to the kind of company she was keeping.

  Doctor Hetherington smiled. 'Now, Miss Flockhart, I am not saying that you are mistaken. I am saying that you had a brief glimpse of Mr Elliot, at night, from the window of a moving chariot in a dark street and in the rain. Are you certain that you saw what you think you saw?'

  I reconsidered, bringing every detail to mind. 'I also saw Old Q with Gibbie, that unpleasant McAra fellow and a group of women.'

  The doctor nodded. 'All right,' he said. 'I will have a wee word with Mr Elliot. Please remember that, given our respective social conditions, he has every right to tell me to mind my own business.'

  I flinched. Social standing was one of the biggest curses in Scotland. Everything one did and said and every person with whom one associated was class-dependent. I liked Doctor Hetherington, but he was only that, a country doctor, while Gilbert was a scion of the nobility, one of society's privileged. 'I see,' I said. And I did see. Doctor Hetherington was scared to step outside the limits of his class. For all his friendliness, he could not help me. I was, once again, on my own. It was a situation I was used to, but one that did not get easier with time. I sighed and wished I had never mentioned the subject.

  'Thank you, Doctor,' I thought I hid my disappointment. 'I'd better be getting back to Thistle Street now.'

  'I'll take you in my dog-cart,' the doctor offered.

  'Thank you, Doctor, I can walk.' I dismissed the dismay on Doctor Hetherington's face as unimportant.

  The knock at the door took me by surprise. I heard Mrs Macfarlane patter to answer and the low rumble of a male voice.

  'It's that man again,' Mrs Macfarlane entered the drawing room. 'The obnoxious one.'

  I felt sick. 'Mr Turnbull,' I put down my book.

  'That's him,' Mrs Macfarlane said. 'Shall I put a flea in his ear?'

  'No, bring him in.'

  'I thought we had seen the last of you,' I did not pretend politeness as Turnbull slithered into my drawing room. 'I gave you what you asked for last time, now state your business and get out.'

  'Oh, if life were only that simple,' Turnbull looked slightly the worse for wear, with a stain down the sleeve of his jacket and his breath foul with recent drinking. 'If the cards ran sweet and my faces did not meet other's aces, I would never trouble you again, but alas, fate does not smile kindly on me.'

  I glared at him. 'I'm not going to fund your gambling habit any further. Please leave.'

  'Yes, Miss Flockhart.' Turnbull sank into a chair and then laughed. 'Oh, what fun it will be when everybody finds out the truth and who you are. I will invite everybody to watch w
hen I make the announcement.'

  I knew when to fold my hand. 'How much do you want?' I asked.

  'Only another hundred guineas,' Mr Turnbull said. He looked around the room. 'That should not be hard for you, why the contents of this room alone must be worth ten times that. That picture there,' he indicated the portrait above the fireplace. 'That would sell for a few hundred. Who is the gentleman?' Uncoiling from his seat like the snake he was, Turnbull stepped to the portrait. 'Why, it's…'

  'I have a hundred,' I said. I had no desire to hear Turnbull's tongue befoul the name of anything or anybody in my house. 'I will get it for you, and you can hand it to your damned creditors.'

  Turnbull patted the portrait. 'My damned creditors will be most happy and very surprised if they learned the source of my blunt.'

  I could only glare at him. A few days ago I had hoped to make a stand and improve my life; now I felt as if I was sliding back into an abyss. Between Turnbull's blackmail and Gibbie Elliot's misbehaviour, I was not sure where to turn. I could not ask Captain Rogers for help without revealing more than I wished and Doctor Hetherington had proved less practical than I had hoped. I did consider informing Emily or Elizabeth, but they had known Marie and Gibbie longer than I had. They might not wish a relative newcomer to their circle to interfere. I was indeed alone again.

  Mrs Macfarlane was standing on the landing as I stepped upstairs to my office to retrieve the money from my bureau. She said nothing while the expression in her eyes spoke volumes. 'Haven't you got work to do, Mrs Macfarlane?'

  'Yes, Miss Flockhart,' Mrs Macfarlane said. 'And not the devil's work in which you are involved.' Mrs Macfarlane was not a woman to shirk from the truth as she saw it.

  'Then please attend to it.' I snapped. I liked Mrs Macfarlane and knew she would understand I was not directing my temper at her.

  'We'd be better attending to that Turnbull creature,' Mrs Macfarlane stomped away to show her displeasure.

  When Turnbull left with my hundred guineas, I knew that I had to make some decisions. I could not make them in the Thistle Street house, not with Mrs Macfarlane growling her disapproval every time I moved or made a statement. I needed space and clean air and the freedom of solitariness. In the hills, I could think with more clarity.

  I was fortunate that I am not afraid of my own company, and doubly fortunate that I was on good terms with Willie Anderson, the proprietor of the local stable. I procured a horse in short order and, giving Mrs Macfarlane instructions to keep the house secure for the next couple of days, I packed food, warm clothes and a few necessities into saddlebags and headed west.

  If you know Midlothian or Edinburgh, you will be familiar with the Pentland Hills, Edinburgh's guardian range. They are not high, as hills go, with the tallest not reaching 2000 feet, nor are they rocky or romantically precipitous, yet within the twenty- odd miles that they stretch there are some lonely places where Man barely sets foot. Much water had passed beneath many bridges since I had last visited those hills and I found my humour improving as I approached.

  An early ploughman lifted a hand in greeting as I approached. His plough gear slackened and rattled as he scrutinised me, and he spoke to his horse in some local dialect that only ploughmen and horses understood.

  'Aye, it's a grand day for it,' he said and continued ploughing, with the earth turning over to the hiss of the blade.

  I agreed and walked on. I had passed whatever test the ploughman had set me, for these men of the soil have standards that gentlemen, ladies and those who require silk beneath their well-cushioned posteriors would never understand.

  'Watch yourself,' the ploughman grunted over his shoulder. 'It's the season for peat reek.'

  Waving my thanks, I walked my horse on. Although peat reek was one name for illicitly distilled whisky, I could think of no reason why any whisky smuggler should concern me.

  It was pleasurable to return to the hills I had known so well. I followed the old trails once used by Border cattle reivers and now, more legally, by Highland drovers, and rode into the heart of the hills, with the heather slopes swelling brown and cool and austerely stark on either side and the air perfumed and clear. There were few people here, a scattering of sheep picking their way carefully over the thin soil and overhead a skein of geese dragging winter on their outstretched wings. I heard the bleat of sheep and the distant trilling of the curved-beaked whaup, the whistling of plovers and the raucous call of seagulls and allowed the deceptive peace of nature to settle into my soul.

  In a way, I was more at home here than in any city street, with no humans, no play-acting or deceiving, and no well-bred men to fawn and lie to me. The hills were austere and clean, and a significant part of me wished I could set up house here all alone, live my life and ignore the passage of the world. The idea was tempting, yet I knew I could never be a hermit. For a limited time, yes, but I would soon miss the shouts of children and the coy laughter of lovers, the bustle of the streets and the grand architecture of the city. I was a woman of many parts, and only one side wished solitude. That was what made my present situation so intolerable and why I continually longed for company, female or even, God-willing, an honest male.

  'Do you like this place?' I whispered into the ears of Mercury, my misnamed plodder of a horse, 'do you like the smells?'

  Mercury responded with a faint snicker, and we walked on, slowly and carefully along the track that wound through the pass. I took a deep breath, savouring the peace. Unusually, there was no wind to stir the vegetation, and the Lord had withheld the rain, so we walked dry-shod as the sky altered from amethyst blue to fine grey, the gloaming bringing sweet melancholy to the close of day.

  'This is another old path,' I told Mercury, 'like the path over the Royal Union Bridge.' And again I quoted the Bible 'ask for the old ways and walk therein and ye shall find rest for your souls.'

  I sought rest here as much as I had ever sought rest anywhere.

  The sunset took me by surprise. I had expected the gloaming to fade into winter night, but nature stored a surprise for me. I do not know from where it came, but a slender dark blue stratum of sky eased along the horizon as the sun made its final descent. For one glorious minute golden light suffused across every hill, every curve and every ripple of the dry-stane dykes that snaked across the heather miles. I stopped Mercury to wonder at this reminder of nature's blessing that puts all our infinitesimal troubles into focus, and then, as suddenly as it burst free, the radiant light snuffed out. The darkness was all the more intense for the splendour it replaced yet it was no less welcome. The sun had done its job, and I was as relaxed as I had been for some years.

  Pulling Mercury from the main track, I dismounted and led him up the slopes of the Cairn Hill, where small burns had worn a path in the heather flanks and night animals were beginning their circle of life. I knew where I was headed and did not care what else was abroad that night.

  It is not just the paths that are old in these hills. There are places where things happened in the dimness of history, places that have retained the atmosphere of ancient knowledge and forgotten wisdom. The pile of grey-granite rocks where I stopped is one such. We knew it as the Borestone. Here, in this lonely place a scant hundred yards from the pass, with no company except Mercury and the wind, I hoped to find a solution to the problems that beset me. Here, with nobody nearby and no distractions, I had space to think.

  I had brought a canvas sheet as shelter against wind and rain, sufficient food to last me two days and kindling and tinder to start a fire. Some may think me eccentric to camp out in the hills on a Scottish winter night, and they may be correct. If I was and am eccentric, then the world has made me so. Spreading the sheet at an angle between two rocks, I weighed down the corners and soon collected enough wood to start a fire. Out here in the Scottish hills, wind and cold are the only enemies. In India, I would have been afraid of badmashes, snakes and the wild creatures of the night. Of the two countries, Scotland was by far the safer. All the same, I kept J
oe Manton to hand.

  The flames were cheerful in the dark, and I relaxed with my back to the Borestone and the dark a comfortable blanket keeping people away.

  So what was best to do?

  I spoke out my problems one by one.

  The first was Turnbull and his blackmailing. As well as the constant drain on my finances there was the unsettling knowledge that Turnbull was aware of my past. One drunken slip and he could tell the world, with God only knew what consequences.

  The second was Gibbie Elliot and his unsavoury companions. I had only known Marie for fourteen months or so, yet she had welcomed me into her circle with open hands. Friendship was too precious a commodity to treat lightly, and I did not wish her to suffer what I had once endured.

  There was my past that I now knew I could never run away from and must confront sometime. Doctor Hetherington had advised that I stop running, and he was right, but how did I stop when there were so many problems to overcome?

  With the brisk air of the hills refreshing my tired brain, I allowed the problems to ease into my mind, and then I thought of a solution to one of them. Although I could do nothing about my past and had no idea how to deal with Turnbull, I could at least discover if Gibbie was the rake I suspected. To do that I would have to spy on him or send somebody, I trusted to do so.

  The idea was so novel that I nearly shocked myself. Unable to sit while the unprecedented thoughts raged through my head, I stood up and began to pace back and forward around the ragged clump of the Borestone. At times I recoiled from my own daring, and in between, I felt the cold grip of fear at the possible consequences.

  While in India I had adopted native dress and wandered among the local people. There was nothing sinister about my actions; I merely found that the people responded better to me when I looked less alien. As I was naturally dark-haired and took to the sun without burning, my Indian disguise was soon complete. Now I considered doing something similar in Edinburgh.