The Chieftain Without a Heart Read online

  They lived, she was told, in caves by the seashore or were forced aboard the ships that carried them defenceless and half-starved to the other side of the world.

  She began to understand as she never had before what her father meant to the Clansmen who followed him and she knew that for him to betray his own people in such a manner would be unthinkable.

  She was sure that, when her father died, Andrew would take his place and be the guide and leader of the Kilcraigs in exactly the same way.

  But she could not help wondering whether the Marquis of Narn, whom she had heard spoken of in Edinburgh, would return from the South to take the place of his father, the Duke of Strathnarn.

  Several of the gentlemen whom her grandmother entertained had met the Marquis in London.

  They spoke of his success on the turf, of his expertise at driving a phaeton drawn by six horses and also his attraction for women.

  The latter was of course not spoken of openly in Clola’s presence. Their voices would be lowered when they discussed such things with her grandmother, who delighted in learning of the scandals and the affaires de coeur which took place at Carlton House.

  Yet invariably, when such whispered conversations took place, Clola heard the name Narn repeated and re-repeated.

  When Mr. Dunblane had left and The Kilcraig had told his family that he would not negotiate the release of Torquil McNarn except with the Chief of his Clan, Clola had asked,

  “Now that the old Duke is dead, he will be the new Duke of of Strathnarn?”

  “That is right,” The Kilcraig agreed.

  “But he is in the South. Will he come North?”

  She thought there was a faint twinkle in her father’s eye as he replied confidently,

  “He will come!”

  “How can you be sure?” she persisted. “Supposing like other Chieftains, he prefers the South?”

  “He will come!” The Kilcraig repeated.

  “You really think this incident of cattle-stealing will force him to return to his own people?” Andrew questioned.

  Clola had been surprised that her brother appreciated the situation, because she thought from all she had heard it was very unlikely that the Duke had any interest in Scotland or Scottish affairs.

  “Blood is thicker than water,” The Kilcraig said. “The Chieftain of the McNarns will come home!”

  He had been right and it had been exciting!

  Long before the Duke’s ship had docked in Perth, the Kilcraigs as well as his own Clan were aware that he was on his way.

  Clola was not surprised, as visitors to Scotland were, that somehow without newspapers everyone always knew what was happening in other Clans, even though they hated each other and did not speak.

  Her father knew the very hour the Duke would arrive and, when the day after his arrival, a messenger from Castle Narn came with a letter, Clola sensed an atmosphere of triumph in the very air.

  With the other women at Kilcraig Castle she watched the Duke’s approach.

  The others were scandalised by the fact that he was not wearing the customary kilt.

  “A Chieftain dressed like a sassenach!” they scoffed. “Does he mean to insult us?”

  They speculated amongst themselves as to whether The Kilcraig would refuse to see him, but to Clola the Duke seemed very elegant and exactly as she had expected him to look.

  She had known he would be handsome and as tall, if not taller than her brothers. She had been sure he would also have an air of authority and consequence that they had never achieved.

  There had been many handsome Scots in Edinburgh, who moved with a pride and assurance that was somehow different from those who came from the South. But the Duke surpassed them all.

  When Clola watched him walk from the Chief’s Room at her father’s side, she had thought that the McNarns were fortunate in having a Chieftain worthy of their long history and the deeds of valour that had been attributed to their forefathers.

  As the Duke rode away, she had watched from an upper window until she saw the procession behind him mount their horses.

  Then with a little sigh she went down the twisting stone stairs to be told that her father wished to speak to her.

  Because he had summoned her to the Chief’s Room she expected that what he had to say might be of significance, but his actual words had rung in her ears like the firing of a cannon.

  “In three days’ time you are to marry the Chief of the McNarns,” The Kilcraig announced briefly.

  For a moment Clola was speechless.

  Then she asked,

  “D-do you – mean the – Duke of Strathnarn? B-but why?”

  Her father then told her the terms he had imposed for the release of Torquil McNarn.

  Clola drew in her breath.

  “How could you – ask such a thing of him?” she enquired. “And how indeed can he – agree?”

  “If he had not agreed, his nephew and your brother Andrew would be setting out for Edinburgh at this moment with those who would give evidence against him.”

  “But, father, I cannot – marry like that. It is – wrong. It is not a – civilised way of doing such a thing.”

  Her father looked at her from under his eyebrows in the searching manner that had always made her afraid as a child.

  “Are you challenging my decision, Clola?” he enquired.

  “You know, father, I am always prepared to do as you wish,” Clola answered. “At the same time surely this is too precipitate. Could any marriage succeed in such circumstances? I have not even met the Duke.”

  “There will be plenty of time after you are married to get to know each other,” The Kilcraig said, “and it would be difficult to gather the Clansmen together for a second time when they are engaged on the harvest.”

  Clola knew this was true. To show their allegiance to their new leader the McNarns would be coming now from all over their territory.

  For many it would be a long and tiring journey and they would be forced to leave their wives to look after their cattle and to bring in what harvest was ready.

  They would certainly resent, if not find it impossible, having to leave home a second time for the marriage of their Chieftain in the months before the winter made it difficult for them to travel.

  She could appreciate the practicality of what her father had decided. At the same time her instinct told her that from her personal point of view and from that of the Duke it was intolerable.

  “Please – father, I do not – wish to be – married in such haste,” she pleaded.

  “You will obey me,” the Kilcraig replied and she knew that nothing she could say, nothing she could do, would have any influence on him.

  What was more, as the Duke had agreed to what her father had asked, she knew that the joining of the Clans was a victory that nothing would make him forgo.

  “Unfortunately, there will be no time for a trousseau,” Andrew’s wife had said almost gleefully. “But you have enough already to last you for a dozen years or more.”

  She was usually a placid woman and made Andrew a good wife, but it would have been impossible for any woman not to feel envious of the great trunkloads of clothes that Clola had brought home with her from Edinburgh.

  Her grandmother’s one great extravagance had been clothes – she loved the new fashion which thrilled her in the same way that her granddaughter was thrilled by music and a new style of the hair would bring a light to her eyes even when she was ill.

  When she was almost on her deathbed, she had said to Clola,

  “Don’t waste the clothes in my wardrobe. Take them with you when you return home. You can easily refashion the gowns and the wraps trimmed with fur will keep you warm.”

  There was a faintly sarcastic note in her voice as if she remembered the bleakness of the castle where her granddaughter would live after her death, and, because she only wished to please her grandmother, Clola had done as she said.

  She had thought as she travelled Northwards tha
t she would give her sister-in-law anything she desired from her plenteous wardrobe.

  But on arrival she found that the gowns were far too small for her, as were those belonging to her grandmother who had grown thin in her old age.

  What was more Clola realised she would consider it an insult to be offered clothes that had been worn by somebody else.

  Her ballgowns, the silks, satins and muslins which she had worn in the afternoons, were therefore left in the trunks, ready now, she thought, to be carried just as they were over the moors to Narn Castle.

  Fortunately and it would have been surprising if she had not, she had a dress that would be very appropriate as a wedding gown.

  Her grandmother had bought it for her with a number of others a few weeks before her death because she had learnt of the likelihood of George IV coming to Edinburgh.

  The date had not been settled, but the rumour had spread like wildfire and at the first mention of such a tremendously grand occasion her grandmother had the dressmakers round, ordering gowns for herself and for Clola.

  She was too weak at the time to do anything but superintend the fittings from her bed.

  Although her doctors had shaken their heads and said it was too much excitement, Clola knew it gave her great pleasure and she had stood for hours fitting the gowns enduring endless amendments, additions and alterations.

  She could not help feeling when her grandmother died that it was desperately sad that she should not have had the pleasure of being in Edinburgh for all the festivities that were planned to welcome the King.

  No one would have enjoyed them more – no lady, she felt, would have been more outstanding. But by the time the date for the King’s arrival had been fixed, her grandmother was already buried and Clola was back at home at Kilcraig.

  Now she looked at the gown lying on the bed in the small room that she occupied in one of the towers.

  Two storeys above her was Torquil McNarn’s prison. He had been confined there in solitude since the night he had been brought to Kilcraig Castle.

  Clola had suggested that she might visit him, but her brother Andrew had been horrified and said harshly,

  “We will not have you talking to a McNarn!”

  “He is only a boy,” Clola protested, “and it must be very lonely for him up there.”

  “He will fare far worse in a prison in Edinburgh,” Andrew answered savagely and the others laughed. Hamish, however, who was Clola’s youngest brother and about the same age as Torquil McNarn, had whispered to her later,

  “Don’t worry about our prisoner, Clola. He’s all right.”

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  “I’ve seen him!”

  “You have done that? I thought Andrew kept the key of his room.”

  “I know where he hides it,” Hamish said with a grin. “So I’ve talked to Torquil McNarn and I took him one or two things to make him more comfortable.”

  “That was kind of you.”

  “He was unlucky,” Hamish answered. “I’ve got away with what he did half-a-dozen times!

  “You mean you have stolen from the McNarns?” Hamish grinned at her.

  “Of course! It’s a fine sport as long as one isn’t caught.”

  “Oh, Hamish, how could you do anything so dangerous?” Clola exclaimed. “If father knew he would be furious!”

  “I bet he does know,” Hamish answered, “but he wouldn’t stop me getting the better of the McNarns. It’s the MacAuds he’s afraid of.”

  “Afraid?” Clola questioned.

  Hamish looked over his shoulder as if he was scared that someone was listening.

  “They broke a man’s back last week and killed two of our Clansmen last year.”

  Clola gave a little cry.

  “Father told us not to speak of it, but you can understand why he hates them.”

  “I can indeed. But I am sorry for Torquil McNarn ­– he must be terrified of what is going to happen to him.”

  Hamish nodded.

  “Yes, he’s afraid all right. He doesn’t think his uncle will come to his rescue. He says they all know how much he loathes Scotland.”

  “I have always been told that the Duke’s father was cruel to him,” Clola remarked.

  “He beat him until he ran away,” Hamish agreed. “One thing about father, he doesn’t often beat us.”

  It was true, Clola thought, that The Kilcraig’s authority rested not on his physical strength, but on his personality which dominated his family and his Clan.

  He had only to look at one of his sons or his henchmen in disapproval and they shook in their shoes.

  She could understand if the new Duke had been as proud as her brothers were, how much he would have resented the humiliation of being beaten.

  Hamish then told her of Torquil’s reaction to the news that the Clans were to be united and she was to marry his uncle.

  “He didn’t believe me at first,” he related. “Then he said scornfully, ‘my uncle would never marry a Kilcraig!’ ‘You don’t suppose my sister wants to marry a stuck-up polecat of a McNarn?’ I answered.”

  Clola gave a little cry,

  “Oh, Hamish, you did not say that! If he repeats it to his uncle, it will make things more difficult for me than they are already.”

  “How do you know they’ll be difficult?” Hamish asked. “You’ve not met him yet.”

  “How would you like to be told to marry one of the McNarn women whether you liked it or not?”

  “I would slit my throat first,” Hamish answered.

  Clola laughed.

  “I promise you that is something which will never happen.”

  “You never know,” her brother said gloomily. “Only father could have thought of anything so fantastic as our being united with the McNarns after all the years we have fought them and all the things we have said about them.”

  “I expect they feel the same,” Clola answered philosophically, “and what we have to do, you included, Hamish, is to see that the bargain works. You know as well as I do that the fights between the two Clans and the stealing of each other’s cattle means only misery and worse poverty than there is already.”

  “Those McNarns won’t change any more than a wildcat can change his stripes,” Hamish grumbled.

  Clola had laughed and kissed him because he was too young to understand the deeper issues as she was trying to do.

  Only now did she realise that in a few moments she would be leaving her family and the castle in which she had been born and felt desperately afraid of what the future held.

  She could understand that her father’s plan would be for the benefit of both Clans and would certainly safeguard those who lived on the border where their lands joined.

  But what he had forgotten, she thought, was the human element and she wondered how long it would be before the McNarns could accept the Kilcraigs as brothers-in-arms and vice versa.

  Over her relationship with the Duke was a question mark that made her tremble to think of it.

  With a sigh she put on an attractive summer habit in which she would ride across the moor.

  She had some difficulty in making her father realise that it would be impossible for her to ride a horse for two hours in her wedding gown without arriving hot and dishevelled at the castle where she was to be married.

  He might have planned everything else to his satisfaction, but she was well aware that he had not thought of her as a woman, but merely as a weapon in his hands to force the Duke into accepting the terms he suggested.

  Now as a woman, she protested volubly.

  “I will not, father, I repeat not, whatever you may say, arrive with my gown creased, my slippers dirty and my hair blown about my face!”

  “Women! Women!” The Kilcraig exclaimed in disgust. But he gave in and finally sent a messenger to Mr. Dunblane to ask where Clola could change and where the Kilcraig Clansmen could assemble.

  To gather them together a fiery cross had been sent across the countr
y. This consisted of two burnt or burning sticks to which was tied a strip of linen, traditionally stained with blood.

  This item was omitted on this occasion, but the cross was still passed from hand to hand as if by runners in a relay. Clola knew that one of the last occasions on which the fiery cross had been sent was when Lord Glenorchy rallied his father’s people against the Jacobites in 1745.

  Then it had travelled thirty-two miles around Loch Tay in three hours.

  She was aware that a Clan that had been gathered by the cross was moved by deep and ancient superstitions. A stag, fox, hare, or any beast or game that was seen by the runners and not killed promised evil.

  If a barefoot woman crossed the road before the marching men rallied by the fiery cross, she was seized and blood was drawn from her forehead by the point of a knife.

  When Clola learnt that her father intended to send the fiery cross, knowing no Clansman would refuse to obey its message, she had, with her own hands, overhauled the strip of linen that held the sticks together with a bow of white satin ribbon in which she fixed two pieces of white heather.

  The men might scoff at it, but she knew it would interest and excite the women.

  It would be a bitter blow that for most of them it would be impossible to leave their children and the harvest to join their husbands as they rallied to their Chieftain.

  Mr. Dunblane’s reply to what Clola had thought of as a cry for help had been to say that the manse was at her disposal and the Kilcraig Clansmen could also gather there the night before or as early in the morning as they wished.

  Clola was to ride across the moors, while the long journey involving nearly four hours by road was to be undertaken by her sister-in-law and her small children in a carriage.

  “You would be more comfortable with us,” she suggested, but Clola shook her head.

  “It is far quicker on horseback,” she insisted, “and besides, if your carriage should get stuck in the mud or held up by a sudden spate, what do you think would happen at Narn?”

  Her sister-in-law laughed.

  “A wedding without a bride would certainly be as dismal as a wake, but perhaps the Duke would find a pretty crofter’s daughter to satisfy him!”