A Dark and Distant Shore (11 page)

Luke stared at the other people around the table, his mouth open and his eyes almost popping out of his head. His grandfather’s face was expressionless. Georgiana was bouncing happily up and down, being held in some kind of check by her unmistakably bored brother. The tutor wore his usual slightly vacuous expression. But Vilia – thank God! – had obviously heard the noise, too. For a moment, Luke had thought he was going mad.

The silence lasted for only a few seconds. Then, right at Luke’s back, and – inconceivably – at even greater volume than before, all caterwauling hell broke loose. It was far, far worse than anything he could have imagined. It was like massed choirs of banshees, screaming hordes of Valkyries, a prehistoric plain-chant of tone-deaf dinosaurs. And all of them screeching in unison. Luke turned, very slowly indeed.

It was a man playing the bagpipes.

Weakly, Luke subsided into his chair while the noise, in which he was now able to discern something that might have been a tune, rolled round and round the Great Hall, rattling the glasses and the cutlery, shaking the candles in their sconces so that the flames shuddered and the wax dripped onto the floor, roaring from wall to wall and bouncing from echoing flagstones to resounding roof and back again. It was indescribable. Luke sat and shook, and waited for his eardrums to burst.

The governess was white as a winding sheet, but Henry was watching with the liveliest interest and an appreciative smile as the man strode up and down the length of the room, kilt swinging, eyes closed, cheeks puffed out, one long black tube between his lips, another in his fingers, and what appeared to be a whole fan of them over his shoulders. ‘Good old Henry!’ Luke thought faintly.

Then he glanced beyond Henry to Vilia. She wasn’t looking ethereal any more. In fact, she was scarlet in the face, and her mouth was opening and closing as if she were saying something. Although she was only about five feet away, she might have been shrieking treason, murder, rape, and arson, for all Luke could tell. Then suddenly, and quite uncontrollably, she began to giggle as if it had all become too much for her. She had her hand flat against the base of her throat as if she were trying to hold back the pressure of her laughter, and he could see her drawing great gasping breaths. And in the end she collapsed completely, reduced to utter helplessness and clutching at both sides of her waist as if her ribs were aching. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

Luke’s grandfather was watching her with the suspicion of a frown on his brow and an expression that was a little puzzled, perhaps even disappointed.

Silence fell. Crash. It was the first time Luke had ever understood the meaning of the expression. He had never thought of silence as such a positive thing.

No one said anything. It was as if all life and breath had been suspended. Everyone just sat.

Then, after a few blissful moments, Mungo said in a very polite, quiet, and controlled voice, ‘Do you not like the pipes either?’

Vilia stared at him, and then, breathlessly, said, ‘Not indoors. Never indoors!’

Mungo was surprised. ‘They play them indoors in Glasgow.’

She turned to the piper, standing there waiting for his encore. Luke wasn’t surprised to discover that she knew him.

‘Dougal Mackinnon!’ she said. ‘I’m ashamed of you!’

‘But I
told
him, Miss Vilia,’ the piper replied, injured. ‘I swear to God, I did! He chust would not lissen. He said you would be pleased!’

She turned back to Mungo. ‘It was a lovely thought. But no matter what they do in Glasgow, it’s different here.’

His beetling white brows lifted a little.

‘The pipes are military instruments,’ she explained, almost as if she were apologizing. ‘They’re meant to call the clans to arms and cheer them on in battle. They’re no more intended for indoors than a battery of guns. I shouldn’t think you’ll ever meet a Highlander who truthfully likes the pipes in his ear any more than he likes standing under a gun emplacement.’ She looked at him, her eyes wide. ‘Truly. They’re much better at a distance!’

Edward made his contribution. ‘They sound best from across the water,’ he said helpfully.

Mungo’s smile was rueful. ‘Aye, well. You know better than I do. So much for my surprise!’ He pursed his lips. ‘And what are we going to do tonight, then? Dougal here’s supposed to be playing for the dancing.’

Vilia looked as if she were about to have a relapse. She turned to the piper. ‘In the courtyard, with the doors open?’

‘It’s aawful near, Miss Vilia,’ Dougal objected. ‘But you’ll maybe chust be able to stand it, I suppose.’

Luke saw that his grandfather was watching Vilia with amusement, admiration, and something very like affection. ‘Whatever you say,’ the old man agreed.

So Dougal stood out in the courtyard to play for the reels and jigs in the Great Hall that evening. The pipes did sound better from a distance. But Luke had the feeling that Edward was right about them being best across the water. Preferably the Atlantic.

Magnus and Lucy, much refreshed by two self-indulgent months in Ramsgate, viewed the imminent return of the Kinveil pilgrims with an optimism that, in the event, proved to be sadly unjustified. When the lumbering berline rolled into St James’s Square in September, it was at once apparent that, whatever their Highland sojourn might have done for the travellers’ health, it had done nothing for their spirits. Even the horses looked despondent. Henry Phillpotts reported that two months of fat living and no exercise had turned them into the merest plodders, and Moonlight Flit had given up lying down in every stable yard because he knew he would be put to all the trouble of getting up again.

Lucy sighed and resigned herself. Her son, it appeared, disliked Vilia even more than before, and Vilia was as withdrawn as she had ever been. Her governess had re-entered the portals of St James’s Square only to leave them again forthwith – Lucy had no idea why – but Vilia refused to employ another. Instead, she took on the role of companion to Lucy, shopping for her, arranging the flowers, consulting with the housekeeper, dealing with correspondence in her neat, legible hand, and keeping everyone at arm’s length. It was as if they had never been away. The only one to derive any satisfaction from the situation was Magnus, who was able to say, ‘I told you so.’

Then, in the downstairs parlour just before dinner one cold, raw evening in November, when Vilia and Magnus were conducting a desultory conversation before the fire, with Henry Phillpotts fidgeting in the background, and Luke, who had only just been promoted to dining with the grown-ups, standing by the window minding his P’s and Q’s,
the air was rent by a faint shriek, accompanied by some rattling noises, and followed by a succession of bumps. Then there was silence. After a frozen moment, Luke, who was nearest, bolted through the intervening arch and doorway to the staircase hall.

There, he stopped dead, so that Vilia, close on his heels, collided with him. The scene that met their eyes was surprising enough, for there sat Lucy on the second stair from the bottom, knees wide, ankles showing, and an expression of extreme outrage on her face.

The butler and the first footman were already on their way to her when Magnus pushed past the two youngsters with a cry of ‘No!’ Reaching his wife’s side, he knelt and took her hand. ‘What happened, my dear? Are you all right?’

She didn’t even look at him. Her gaze was fixed on her son, and she was clearly – and for the first time in anyone’s experience – in a twenty-four carat rage. Jehovah confronting the legions of the damned could scarcely have invested his voice with a more ominous significance. ‘Luke!’ she said.

‘Me, mama?’

‘Yes, you.
Marbles!
’

All eyes swivelled towards him, and he turned a dusky red. ‘I... I... I don’t know anything about any marbles!’

She raised her hand and pointed. The marbles were not easy to see, because some were white china with cinnamon or ginger hairlines that merged almost invisibly into the
antico rosso
marble floor, while others were clear glass that picked up colour from their background. Luke’s favourite shooter, a big black beauty, had come to rest at the foot of one of the pillars. It had always brought him luck. But not this time.

‘Then how do you explain,’ asked his mama, ‘the fact that I – have – just – trodden – on – some?’

He couldn’t. He had left Sorley McClure to dispose of the evidence. The game of marbles, much in favour with street urchins, was strictly
non grata
in polite society, and Luke and Sorley, who would have given themselves away if they had gone around chalking circles on the floor, had been inspired to use the stairs, whose inlaid pattern might have been made for the purpose. They had even invented special rules about the penalties to be imposed if one player sent his opponent’s ‘bool’ over the edge of the tread. But today, they had heard someone coming, and Luke had cravenly taken to his heels. Sorley could hardly be raked down for being found in possession of marbles; he was only a servant. But it was different for Luke, whose papa held the strongest possible views on what gentlemen’s sons did, and did not, do.

Looking a picture of guilt, Luke opened his mouth and then closed it again. His father advanced on him sternly. ‘Have you been playing marbles, Luke? Answer me!’

The boy gulped. He knew only too well that he wasn’t very popular with anyone. If he put the blame where it belonged, no one would believe him.
Everyone
liked Sorley.

The butler and footmen had tactfully evaporated, and Vilia was nowhere in sight. Henry was hovering uselessly, and Luke’s mama showed no sign of moving from her stair, where she sat with one hand laid absent-mindedly over her heart. His father said again, ‘Have you been playing marbles, Luke? Answer me!’ And then, because the boy seemed to have lost his tongue, he took him by the shoulders and shook him until his teeth rattled. It was the first time anyone had laid hands on Luke in anger since his infancy, and on that occasion the offending nurserymaid had been dismissed without a character. Even through his mounting hysteria, Luke thought it silly that his father should be so angry about him
playing
marbles. What really mattered, surely, was that someone had left the beastly things where they could cause an accident. If his mother hadn’t fallen backwards rather than forwards, she might have been killed. It was a very hard floor.

He gulped again and shook his head violently. From the corner of his eye he could see Vilia leaning against the archway to the front hall, her eyes closed and both hands pressed against the jamb.

‘
Luke!
’
his father bellowed.

And then Vilia’s clear, silvery voice broke in. She was back at Lucy’s side. ‘Mr Telfer,’ she said. ‘I have sent a servant for the doctor, and asked the housekeeper to come up. I believe the most urgent thing is to see whether Mrs Telfer has sustained any injury.’ Reminded, Lucy clutched at her heart and looked as if she were about to swoon.

Magnus loosed his son so abruptly that he almost fell. There was the briefest pause, and then he said, ‘Thank you, my dear. You have done just as you should.’

Between them, they persuaded Lucy to her feet. No serious damage had been done except to a well-cushioned part of Lucy’s anatomy that nothing in the world would have induced her to mention. It did cause her to groan a little as she was helped upstairs by Vilia and the housekeeper, clucking sympathetically. Magnus brought up the rear. Luke noticed that be didn’t volunteer to carry her.

Apprehensively, Luke wondered whether he should join the procession, but all his instincts said no, and so did Henry. That young man grasped his charge firmly by the arm and sent him off to the schoolroom, recommending the backstairs route and a policy of least-in-sight for the next day or two. ‘I’ll see that someone brings you something to eat,’ he said. Watching the boy scamper off, he decided that perhaps he, too, would be wise to make himself scarce.

It was almost two hours before Vilia was able to leave Lucy, suffering from slightly delayed shock, and make her way to her own room. She had just enough strength to close the door before her knees began to give way. Dispassionately, she wondered whether she would even be able to reach a chair.

Ten minutes later, she was still shivering completely and ungovernably, as if every nerve in her body were separately sheathed in ice. However tightly she clenched her teeth, however closely she drew her limbs together, compressing herself into the smallest possible compass like some wild animal preparing for hibernation, she couldn’t stop it. When there came a quiet tap at the door, she had to summon up all her reserves to reply.

Her maid took one look at her and ran to the drawer that held the shawls. They didn’t really help, but Vilia, through chattering teeth, thanked her just the same. ‘And Berthe... F-fetch me a cup of hot w-water, if you p-please!’

With a hasty curtsy, the girl disappeared leaving her still in the half-dark. She stared at herself in the glass, her face ghostly above the garish plaid that hadn’t been worn since her father died. In the weak glimmer of the single vigil candle, all the planes were softened and blurred – the high, slanting cheekbones, straight nose, the neat, firm chin and the arched brows over eyes that appeared huge and almost black. It was a face that didn’t
look
wicked or evil, only ill. But she knew she wasn’t ill. This was a
crise des nerfs
of a kind that had attacked her twice in her life before; once when she was seven years old and her father had told her they were to leave Kinveil forever; and once just a year ago, on her first day at St James’s Square, when Luke Telfer had pushed her beyond the bounds of her endurance.

This time, she had no one to blame but herself.

She had found, at Kinveil, an unexpected kinship with Mungo Telfer. Her first uncomplicated joy at the prospect of going back – going home – had almost at once been alloyed by more and subtler emotions than she had been able to identify. There had been fear of change, of course; and resentment of Mungo Telfer. But when she found that Kinveil hadn’t changed, and that Mungo Telfer had restored it and cared for it with insight and a loving discrimination, it had neither relieved her mind nor diminished her desire. Seeing it at its best, as in her dreams she had always done, had only made her exile more brutal. Better that the man himself had been vulgar and insensitive, and Kinveil transformed into a parody of what it should have been. She would have hated that, but it would have forced her to recognize that the past was irrevocably dead. Instead, her need was greater than ever.