The Lammas Curse (24 page)

“I’m sure it will be a great
success,” ventured Miss Lambert, nibbling on a cheese and ham
scone.

Hamish Ross shrugged his
substantial shoulders as he shovelled down some cold roast beef.
“What does it matter whether it is a success or a failure? It is
being staged for the benefit of publicity for the golf tournament –
so even a dismal failure will be counted a success as long as
someone writes an article for the newspapers.”

“The tournament,” pointed out
Dr Watson somewhat morosely, “has finished ahead of schedule due to
a lack of competition so a bit of positive publicity cannot be a
bad thing. The Dees will play-off against each other as scheduled
on the fifth of November. Will your mother be amongst the audience
tonight?” asked Dr Watson, changing the subject and trying not to
picture performances past that would have made words such as
‘dismal failure’ sound like high praise.

Hamish Ross shook his head as
he shovelled down more cold cuts slathered with apple jelly. “My
mother has gone to help out at the hotel. Your coachman has been
roped in as well, along with several local lads and lassies. The
hotel is full. My aunt is in quite a tizzy. There are eleven
reporters, five photographers and two sketch artists. Most have
come from Duns and Peebles or towns nearby, but two have come all
the way from Edinburgh. Miss O’Hara is the draw card, of course,
but the reporters are all staying on for the wedding, the golf
final and the inquest into Mr Brown’s death too. I imagine they
will be nosing around the estate for the next few days, getting
underfoot and making life difficult.”

“You don’t seem too sorry not
to be starring in the play,” observed the doctor, noting the
bountiful appetite and the lack of bitterness in the young man’s
forthright tone.

Hamish Ross gave a vigorous and
throaty laugh. “No fear, Dr Watson! I am immensely relieved! I
prefer to work behind the scenes, backstage. It suits me. I guess
it comes from being a ghillie and spending long days with only
Thane for company. I don’t crave an audience and I’m not one for
hogging the limelight. Besides, Carter Dee is a natural thespian.
Some men are born to it. No disrespect,” he said, lowering his
voice, “but he always struck me as a bit of a show pony.” He
glanced meaningfully at Miss Lambert. “Remember the Lammas
Ball?”

“Oh, yes,” she said,
elaborating. “It was a costume ball with a prize for the best
costume. Miss Dee and Mr Dee swapped roles. He dressed as his
sister and she dressed as her brother. They had everyone fooled all
night. It was only after the masks came off at midnight that anyone
knew - and how we gasped!”

“I suppose no one bothered to
look at his shaky hands,” said the doctor dryly.

“Oh, no,” countered Miss
Lambert. “His hands only started shaking recently. I cannot
remember when exactly.”

“I think it was after the third
death,” interposed Hamish Ross. “Everyone was a bit on edge after
the third death. I think it affected him more than most since he
was the favourite for taking out the big prize.”

“Are you sure?” queried the
doctor. “I watched them play yesterday and I thought the sister was
the superior player.”

“No doubt about that now,”
agreed the ghillie. “But at the commencement of the tournament
Carter Dee was relaxed and in top form. His sister was tense and
anxious. You could see it in the way she held herself, as tight as
a coiled spring, and the way she hit her shots off the tee was
plain dangerous. It wasn’t safe to stand too close. But it seems to
have gone the other way now - done a complete turnaround. He is a
bundle of nerves and she is incredibly sure of herself. If she
doesn’t take out the prize I will be surprised. What do you think
Miss Lambert” he put to his companion, drawing the young lady back
into the conversation. “Would you say that is a fair
assessment?”

She nodded enthusiastically and
smiled prettily. “Yes, quite, in fact I cannot help thinking of the
Dees in terms of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth but taking on the
opposite roles, same as the Lammas Ball. I hope that doesn’t sound
too frivolous,” she expressed blushingly.

The doctor’s bushy brows
pleated fretfully. “I’m sorry I don’t follow.”

“Oh, I’m hopeless at explaining
things. Lady Moira is always saying that complicated thoughts only
lead to complications.”

“Not at all,” disputed the
doctor. “Complex thoughts are the making of us. Have a go at
explaining what you mean,” he encouraged.

“Well, what I meant was, Miss
Dee was ill at ease to begin with, reluctant to throw herself into
the competition, she had no taste for it, the same as Macbeth was
reluctant when Lady Macbeth first suggested they murder Duncan.
Whereas Mr Dee was keen as mustard, ready to hurl himself into the
fray and eliminate the competition by fair means or foul, as greedy
and ambitious as Lady Macbeth, without scruple. Now, after the
three deaths, well, it is even more like the play. There has been a
complete turnaround with regards to character. Miss Dee is
unstoppable, as if she has got a knack for killing off the
competition and cannot stop herself, the same as Macbeth who takes
to murdering with a passion, while Mr Dee is going to pieces, a
bundle of nerves, wringing his hands - just like Lady Macbeth.”

“You expressed that very
clearly, Miss Lambert,” praised the ghillie, causing a most
becoming blush to suffuse her cheeks.

“Yes,” agreed Dr Watson, full
of respect for his wife’s niece. “You have drawn parallels with the
play and put forward your ideas most succinctly. I am very proud of
you.”

With a head crammed full of
parallel thoughts, Dr Watson picked up his now empty plate. “Excuse
me, but the buffet beckons and I will return for seconds of the
curried haddock.” He forced a smile, not because he was worried or
upset but because he was acutely aware that he had forgotten to ask
the question that had been on the tip of his tongue for some time
and which he had wanted to put to the ghillie. What was it? He got
halfway across the conservatory before he remembered and turned
back but the lovebirds were already slipping out the French doors
leading to the walled garden. Ah, well, his question would
keep.

The red velvet curtain with the
elaborate gold bullion fringing parted at precisely five o’clock.
The first three rows of pews were reserved for the eleven newspaper
reporters, pads and pencils poised, the five photographers with new
box cameras at the ready, and the two artists who were sketching
feverishly with pencil and charcoal. Behind them sat the more
prosperous farmers and some shopkeepers from Duns and Peebles,
meaning those who could afford to pay ten shillings for a ticket,
along with two vicars, a deacon, a sexton and a curate. Among this
group the Countess recognized the red-faced owner of the coaching
inn and his buxom young wife, the grand-daughter of the old lady
from whom she had bought the willow basket and the bodkin. Crammed
on benches to the rear were some of Lady Moira’s retinue – butler,
cook, house-keeper, chambermaid, parlourmaid, footman, hall porter
and coachman – who had been given tickets by their mistress much to
Miss O’Hara’s disgust who had expressly forbidden any of the
servants from Cruddock Castle to attend, citing that it would give
them insufferable airs and graces.

In the mezzanine could be found
Fedir with his drum, the curate’s daughter on the harp and the
curate’s wife at the organ. Mr Hamish Ross with a handful of
assistants was juggling the demands backstage. Mr Chandrapur was in
charge of the limelights, a dangerous task that required consummate
skill to avoid setting fire to the stage, the chapel and Cruddock
Castle.

Act 1, scene 1: The Tragedy of
Macbeth opened to polite applause that did nothing to bolster the
amateur actors waiting nervously in the wings for their moment to
strut and fret upon the stage, but the moment the three witches
stepped onto the windy heath midst claps of thunder and flashes of
lightning the audience was transfixed and theatrical success was
assured.

From that opening scene the
trio of beautiful crones transported the watchers back through the
mists of time to the metaphor inside themselves. The power of
Shakespeare did the rest. There were a few minor glitches but by
the time Macbeth’s knell was knolled they were well and truly
forgotten. In the final act of the final scene, where Siward and
Malcolm were extolling fair death, no one cared that the manly
English general resembled an Indian Rajah or that the new king of
Scotland looked like a Viking.

Enter MacDuff as Macduff,
clutching the bloody head of the usurper. “Hail, King of Scotland!”
he cried.

All: “Hail, King of Scotland!”
And the audience cried with them.

Flourish. Exeunt omnes.

And so the curtain fell and the
applause was deafening. Encore! came the clamour. And again,
Encore! The curtain lifted and the dramatis personae were bundled
together for a final bow, Miss O’Hara taking centre stage,
glorious, victorious, marvellous! No one noticed the strange figure
cloaked in Black Watch tartan standing on the mezzanine until she
raised a bony hand and addressed the crowd portentously.

“How now, Hecate! You look
proud and angerly.

I came to say: How did you
dare

To trade and traffic in my
affair?

You were mistress of all
charm,

Close contriver of all
harm,

And for what? A wayward
son?

Who will bring it all
undone?

But to make amends tis not too
late,

Lend a helping hand to
Fate.

Set right a hundred years of
wrong,

Strike the fatal gong,

Spurn life, scorn death, be
clear,

Summon the Spirits and have no
fear!”

The applause built to
thundering crescendo. The audience thought the weird sister on the
mezzanine was an addendum to the play and though some were thrown
into confusion, they remembered it was Hallowe’en and so cast off
the vague illusion of something not quite right and clapped and
clapped until their hands were red raw and chapped.

“Bravo! Bravo!” rang the chorus
of applause.

Mad Mother MacBee, stunned and
thrilled and humbled, bowed her frowzy head, waved an arm as though
she were the Queen of England acknowledging her adoring subjects,
and then was gone, the same way that she came, just like that!

Supper was served in the
library where trestle tables had been set groaning with food,
flowers and scented candles. In the heart of the eighty foot room,
where the séance table had stood, was a glass cabinet which housed
a few priceless curios – a lock of hair from Mary Queen of Scots, a
belt buckle belonging to Bothwell, an arrowhead from Flodden Field,
a Pictish rune - and taking pride of place was the magnificent
Lammas tiara. The jewel in the crown - the Govinda diamond -
glittered right royally as it caught the flash of bulbs.

“Put on the tiara, Miss
O’Hara!” beseeched a photographer for
The Quotidienne
.

“Yes! Do!” came the call from
every quarter.

Lola, wearing a beatific smile,
turned hopefully to her fiancé. But his lordship’s stony face
rendered those hopes crestfallen.

“Sorry, darling,” he tendered
apologetically. “Not until the wedding day. We cannot unlock the
cabinet for reasons of security.” His eyes fell on the four
liveried footmen who had been tasked with guarding the cabinet,
tall and trusted fellows who had been discretely posted to the far
flung corners of the longitudinal empire.

Despite the lack of a tiara to
crown her shining glory, Lola was the star. Venus in her firmament
paled in comparison to the luminous Irish actress as she posed in
cameo after cameo of loveliness. By ten o’clock the audience had
all drifted home. Some had miles of hard ground to cover but time
was meaningless and they were floating airily, borne along on the
wings of myth, metaphor and the magic of Shakespeare.

As the chime for midnight
counted twelve, the Countess donned her warmest fur cloak over the
top of her silk nightdress and navigated her way to the west wing.
She had a vague idea of the direction since she had visited Dr
Watson’s bedroom during the hours between the rehearsal and the
play to ask if he would mind if Fedir slept in his adjoining
dressing room since the doctor did not have a valet of his own who
would normally occupy the space.

Bluish moonlight shone a beam
through the un-shuttered windows and helped to guide her, but she
knew her way around large country houses, having spent most of her
life in one or another of them. Unmarried women were generally
housed in the east wing, bachelors in the west wing, married
couples and family members in the south wing, and servants and
children in Siberia. The double-storied entrance hall was the place
to head. It was the terminus from which all paths radiated.

She had tip-toed to the end of
the east corridor when she heard footsteps on the servants’ stairs
and ducked back into a bathroom. Through a crack in the doorway she
watched as Carter Dee wearing a purple velvet smoking jacket, a
chartreuse cravat and tartan pyjama pants slipped quietly into his
sister’s bedroom.

When the coast was clear she
continued. A few moments later she arrived in the upper gallery of
the alabaster entrance hall and realized that she and Mr Dee
weren’t the only ones unable to sleep. Someone was stealing across
the hall, moving swiftly, a man with long blond hair. She assumed
the Viking was on his way to a midnight tryst. She hid behind a
pillar and waited for him to disappear.

She began skirting the
galleried landing when she heard the soft but distinctive rustle of
satin and pressed herself into a niche featuring a statue of Robbie
Burns. A heartbeat later Miss O’Hara flew past her and stole down
the stairs like a perfumed ghost.