The Secret of the Glen Page 3

  “When I looked at your candelabra,” she answered, “I was thinking of a story my mother told me about one of her ancestors.”

  “I think I know the one to which you are referring,” Lord Strathcairn said, “but tell me all the same.”

  “He was Macdonald of Keppoch and one of his guests tried to impress him with stories of the great candelabras to be seen in the houses of England.”

  Lord Strathcairn smiled.

  “Of course I remember the tale! He ringed his table with tall Clansmen, each holding aloft a flaming pine knot!”

  “That is right!” Leona exclaimed. “Then he grinned at his guest and asked where in England, France or Italy was there a house with such candlesticks!”

  “I am sorry that I cannot offer you anything so sensational,” Lord Straithcairn said.

  “Everything I see is a delight in itself, my Lord, I cannot tell you how much it means to me to be in Scotland!”

  “So your mother was a Macdonald? I think it would be easy to find that we are related. There are quite a number of MacDonalds in my family tree.”

  “Papa used to say that the Scots turned up everywhere! There was no stopping them!” Leona said with a mischievous smile.

  “I am delighted to welcome you as a kinswoman.”

  As the meal progressed, Leona thought she had never enjoyed a dinner more.

  There was salmon from the loch, which Lord Strathcairn said he had caught that morning and grouse from the moors he had shot the previous day.

  It was the first time she had ever dined alone with a man and Lord Strathcairn explained to her that he lived alone except when, occasionally, one of his relatives came to stay with him.

  “One of my aunts has been here recently,” he said, “and only last week returned to Edinburgh.”

  He glanced around at the large array of servants waiting on them and added,

  “I hope you will feel that you are adequately chaperoned. Mrs. McCray has arranged for one of the maids to sleep in the dressing room of your bedchamber.”

  “I feel I am quite safe with you, my Lord,” Leona answered.

  It was true, she thought, that ever since he had put her on his horse and put his arm around her, she had felt safe and somehow protected by his very presence.

  She realised that her answer pleased him.

  “Do you really feel that,” he asked, “or are you just being polite?”

  “I am speaking the – truth,” Leona replied in a low voice.

  Her eyes met his and somehow something strange passed between them, something she could not explain to herself.

  After a moment Lord Strathcairn said,

  “I want to be sure of that. Will you remember that, wherever else you may be in Scotland, there is always a place for you here in The Castle and I am always at your service.”

  “Thank – you,” Leona answered.

  She wondered why it was difficult to speak and again her eyes were held by his.

  Then, as it seemed as if he was about to say something else, there came the high notes of the pipes, which grew louder as the piper entered the dining room.

  Wearing the full dress of the McCairn Clan, he strode round and round the table, his kilt swinging and his music called up the memories of Highland wars and Highland dreams.

  Leona remembered her mother telling her that the greatest of all pipers in the Highlands were the MacCrimmons, who could make men weep or fight like Gods just by playing on their flute of bone.

  Every Chieftain, she knew, had his piper, who awoke him in the morning and played to him during the last meal of the day.

  When a Chieftain went to war, his piper marched behind him with the wild music of the pipes spurring men on to new deeds of valour, as he played of those that were past.

  The piper played three tunes, then stopped beside Lord Strathcairn to salute him and accept from his hand a small silver cup filled with whisky.

  He raised it in a toast, poured it down his throat, saluted again and left the dining room.

  “That is something I have longed to hear,” Leona said. “The pipes?” Lord Strathcairn asked.

  “I know now, having heard them, that I am indeed a Scot!”

  “The music draws you?”

  “It makes me feel wild and excited, it makes me proud and a little sad. It makes me realise too that the Scottish spirit is unconquerable.”

  She spoke with a sincerity that seemed to come from her very heart.

  Lord Strathcairn reached out and took her hand in his. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

  Then, as he kissed her fingers, she felt a very different emotion, but which, in its way, was even more wonderful!

  CHAPTER TWO

  Lord Strathcairn rose from his high-backed chair and asked,

  “Would you like to see some Highland dancing?”

  “I would love it!” Leona answered, “but should I not leave you to your port?”

  “I think I have no need of port this evening,” he replied and led her from the dining hall and up the stone stairs to the floor above.

  Leona’s mother had told her that in all Scottish castles there was what was known as the ‘Chief’s Room’, which was where the Chief of a Clan received his followers, where plans of battle were discussed and where he entertained.

  Leona had imagined a large and impressive Baronial Hall, but the one they entered took her completely by surprise.

  It must have run the whole length of The Castle. There was a musicians’ gallery at one end and the walls were decorated with stags’ heads and antlers with shields and claymores.

  But the most unusual feature about it was the ceiling covered in wood and bearing the Strathcairn arms.

  There was, as might have been expected, a large open fireplace in which huge logs were burning and waiting round the room were a number of Clansmen all wearing the Strathcairn tartan.

  They were very colourful, but Leona knew that the tartans were of comparatively modern origin and that, in the past, it was not a Highlanders’ kilt, which was little more than a piece of cloth, that denoted his Clan but his ‘slogan’ and his badge.

  Every tribe had its slogan – a wild savage exhortation to slaughter or a reminder of the heroic past and Clan identity was determined by a badge of heather, oak, gule or myrtle worn by the men in their bonnets.

  Each plant had its mystic significance and was a charm against witchcraft and disaster, or else it had its origin in the necessities of the Clan’s life, like the badge of the MacNeils, which was seaweed.

  “It is with seaweed,” Mrs. Grenville had explained, “that the MacNeils manure the barren fields of their western islands.”

  But in the well-cut kilts with their swinging pleats worn by the McCairns there was little to remind the onlooker of the coloured faded cloth which the Highlanders had called a braecan.

  Lord Strathcairn led Leona to a small platform near the musicians’ gallery on which were arranged two high-backed chairs carved with heraldic designs.

  They seated themselves and immediately the Clansmen began to dance.

  Leona had always been told of the lightness and the agility that the men of Scotland showed in their dancing, and now she could see for herself that the stories were not exaggerated.

  They danced with pointed toes over crossed swords, they danced reels and as the bagpipes swirled and wailed, Leona thought it was more fascinating than anything she had ever seen before.

  She thought too that Lord Strathcairn looked every inch a Chieftain as he sat beside her and she remembered how in the past the Chieftains in Scotland had been the Kings of their Glen.

  “A Chief protected his Clan and they would follow him and obey him whatever he might ask of them,” her mother had told her.

  But then Mrs. Grenville had added sadly,

  “Alas, the Highlanders have been forgotten by their Chiefs and without them they are lost!”

  They did not understand life without a leader.

  Leona learn
t that even in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Chief of a Scottish Clan was a man whose understanding and experience was often far wider than that of most Englishmen.

  “A Chieftain could speak English and Gaelic,” Mrs. Grenville had said, “and very often Greek, French and Latin as well. He sent his sons to be educated at Universities in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Paris and Rome!”

  She smiled as she continued,

  “He drank French claret, wore lace at his throat and his pastimes were based on the land and the culture of his people.”

  Again she had looked sad as she continued,

  “But now the Chiefs are no longer content with shooting the stag, the wolf, the wild cat and the grouse. They have come South, leaving their people like ships without rudders.”

  Watching Lord Strathcairn taking an interest in the dancing, Leona thought that here was a Chief who was concerned with his people.

  She wished that her mother could be with her, for she knew that she would have been as thrilled as she was by the dancing and the whole picture the Chief’s Room presented.

  When the Clansmen had finished, Lord Strathcairn introduced many of his men to Leona.

  She noticed that, while he said that she had Macdonald blood in her veins and this was her first visit to the Highlands, he did not mention that she was to be the guest of the Duke of Ardness.

  She had a feeling that there was some tension between the Duke and her host and she tried to remember if she had ever heard of any feud between the McCairns and the MacArdns.

  She wished now that she could remember more of what her mother had told her when she had talked so often of Scotland and related the colourful legends of the campaigns and the superstitions that were so much a part of her blood.

  Far away in the South of England it had seemed unreal.

  But now that she was actually in Scotland, Leona felt herself responding to everything around her, just as she had felt the first notes of the pipes bring her a strange excitement and exaltation she had never known before.

  Finally, having congratulated the dancers, Lord Strathcairn escorted Leona back to the salon on the first floor.

  “Thank you,” she enthused. “Thank you more than I can say.” “You enjoyed it?” he asked.

  “It was very exciting,” she answered, “and Mama was right when she said that no one could be so light on his feet as a Scotsman dancing a reel!”

  Lord Strathcairn went to the grog tray, which stood in one corner of the salon and poured Leona a glass of lemonade.

  When he had done so, they moved towards the hearth and stood in front of the log fire, the flames picking out the gold in Leona’s hair, so that she seemed almost to have a halo of light around her head.

  As they stood in companionable silence, they heard the wind whistling round The Castle and the rain beating on the windows.

  “I am blessing that wind for having blown you here tonight,” Lord Strathcairn said in his deep voice. “It is something I never expected.”

  “For me it has been an enchantment,” Leona said.

  As she spoke, she raised her eyes to his and once again was held strangely spellbound by the expression in them. “You are very beautiful!” he said.

  There was a note in his voice that brought colour to her cheeks.

  Because she was shy she looked away from him into the flames.

  There was a silence. Then, thinking again how he looked exactly as a Chieftain should, she asked,

  “Do you stay here all the year round?”

  “This is my home, my life,” he replied. “This is where I live!”

  To her surprise he spoke in what suddenly seemed a very different tone of voice.

  There was something sharp, almost hard in the way he answered her and, as she looked at him in surprise, he said,

  “I am sure you are tired, Miss Grenville. It has been an exhausting day for you. You will therefore wish to retire.”

  His manner made Leona feel that he had withdrawn from her and he was no longer close and protective, as he had seemed ever since taking care of her after the accident.

  She longed to say that she had no wish to retire to bed, but wanted to stay talking to him.

  There was so much she wanted to learn, so much she wanted to hear. But she thought that it would seem forward to suggest such a thing. Perhaps in fact he was already bored with her company.

  She suddenly felt very young and inexperienced.

  Perhaps, she told herself humbly, she should have suggested going to bed the moment they had left the Chief’s Room.

  Instead she had allowed him to show that he was ready to be rid of her and therefore put her in a humiliating position.

  “May I thank you for being so very kind?” she asked.

  Her eyes sought his pleadingly, but he was looking away from her. In fact he led the way across the room, opening the door and stepping out into the corridor.

  “You will find Mrs. McCray, the housekeeper, waiting for you,” he said. “Goodnight, Miss Grenville.”

  “Goodnight, my Lord.”

  Leona curtseyed and, as she walked away down the corridor alone, she was aware that he had gone back into the salon.

  ‘What did I say? Why did he change?’ she asked herself when she was in bed and the light from the fire cast strange shadows around the room.

  She could hear again the softness of his voice as he had said, “you are very beautiful!”

  Then suddenly, after her simple question, there had been a sharpness in his tone that was undeniable and she had felt almost as if he had thrust her to one side.

  ‘I cannot understand it,’ Leona told herself unhappily and she was still worrying about it when she fell asleep.

  *

  “It’s a fine morning, miss, and the wind’s gone,” Mrs. McCray announced.

  She pulled back the curtains and as she did so Leona could hear the music of the pipes on the other side of The Castle.

  The sun came streaming in through the windows, casting a golden glow. The worries of the night seemed to have disappeared and she wanted to be up and perhaps to breakfast with Lord Strathcairn.

  But Mrs. McCray had other ideas.

  “I’ve brought your breakfast up, miss, seeing you might be tired after your experience of yesterday.”

  “I feel in perfect health this morning,” Leona replied.

  She glanced at the heavy tray the housekeeper was bringing into the room to set down by her bed and ventured somewhat tentatively,

  “Will not his – Lordship expect me to – breakfast with him?”

  “His Lordship had breakfast an hour since,” Mrs. McCray replied. “He’s an early riser, but he suggests that when ye are dressed, miss, ye might like to see the gardens afore ye depart.”

  “Yes, of course, I should like that very much!” Leona agreed.

  She ate quickly and afterwards, as she dressed, Mrs. McCray assisted her and a housemaid packed her trunk.

  Leona had half hoped that it would either be such a rough and windy day that she could not continue her journey or that the Duke’s carriage would not be repaired in time to take her.

  As she said goodbye to Mrs. McCray and left her room, she found that two footmen were outside waiting to carry her trunk down to the carriage, which she gathered was already at the front door.

  She had an uneasy feeling that she was being hurried into doing something she did not wish to do and she admitted to herself that she wanted to stay on at Cairn Castle rather than proceed to Ardness.

  ‘It’s ridiculous of me,’ she thought as she reached the salon, ‘but I feel as if I am leaving something very precious.’

  Her introspective thoughts, however, were forgotten when she saw Lord Strathcairn, who was sitting at his writing desk.

  He rose as she entered and Leona found she had to repress an impulse to run towards him and tell him how glad she was to see him.

  Instead she curtseyed formally as he said gravely,

  “Good m
orning, Miss Grenville.”

  “Good morning, my Lord.”

  “You slept well?”

  “Very well, thank you.”

  “As you can see,” he said, “the wind has died away in the night and it is now a day of sunshine and warmth.”

  “Mrs. McCray said that you would show me the gardens.” “If that would please you.”

  “I would love to see them!”

  “I think you will find them rather beautiful,” he said. “They were laid out by my mother and I have always tried to carry out her wishes.”

  They descended the stairs and, when they reached the gardens by a side door of The Castle, Leona could understand that Lord Strathcairn was justifiably proud of them.

  Sloping down from The Castle to the very edge of the loch, they were protected on either side by shrubs and there were many plants and flowers that one would not expect to find in the Highlands.

  And yet today the sun was very warm and the hills on either side of the loch seemed protective.

  Now, as Leona looked over the expanse of silver water, she could see that there were many little crofts on either side of it, nestling in the shadow of the hills, and in the green holdings the shaggy Highland cattle with their huge horns.

  “Do you own a great deal of land?” Leona asked.

  “Not as much as I should like,” Lord Strathcairn replied, “but I have many acres stretching Eastwards to the sea and South into Inverness.”

  It seemed to her that the expression in his eyes darkened. “My boundary is at the top of the far moor. After that, one is in Ardness.”

  “As near as that?” Leona exclaimed. “Then how far is Ardness Castle?”

  “By road,” Lord Strathcairn replied, “you will have to travel nearly ten miles before you reach your destination, but as the crow flies we are not more than perhaps three miles from it.”

  “How extraordinary!” Leona exclaimed.

  “There are many gorges, crevasses and burns to cross,” he explained, “and, when the burns are in spate, they can easily sweep away a road unless it is built high above them.”

  “I can understand that,” Leona said.