The Loveless Marriage Read online

  When the Earl had listened to the Clansmen’s anger and had seen the dead body of the shepherd, the Laird knew at once that it was too late for any compromises.

  The only possible way that he could prevent the McBraras from invading his territory and killing his men would be if the two Clans were joined by marriage.

  The Laird was also wise enough to know that it was something the women would enjoy.

  They more than anyone else wanted peace and for it to last.

  He knew what a woman felt when her husband went off to tend his sheep or his cattle.

  And she could not be certain that when darkness came he would return.

  Because the McBraras had been attacked, there were young men among them who would retaliate.

  Shepherds of the MacSteels had been wounded and the young men had been involved in fights that had left them with terrifying wounds.

  As he told the Earl, several of the Clansmen had either died or had been murdered and the Laird was well aware that his casualties were few compared to those of the McBraras.

  He knew in his heart that sooner or later there would be a reckoning and his Clan would suffer the most.

  ‘I have saved them,’ he thought impulsively to himself.

  At the same time he wondered a little uncomfortably what his daughter would say.

  She was so different from any of the other young women in the Clan.

  He often thought that she was more a spirit of the moors and the woods than a human being.

  He told himself again that he could not offer the Earl anything more valuable or more effective.

  Fyna would save a situation that could prove completely disastrous not only to the two Clans but also to the Highlands in general.

  Scotland was building herself up and the last thing anyone wanted politically or socially was a war between Clans at this particular moment.

  The Laird lived wholly in Scotland and had not been to England since he had been very young.

  He was, however, well aware that it was the novels and the poems of authors like Sir Walter Scott that had made Scotland sound so fascinating and intriguing.

  Readers thought of it as a most romantic country rather than one of rather primitive and aggressive people.

  The Highland Regiments had distinguished themselves under the Duke of Wellington in battle and that had given Scotland a new inspiration for their future.

  ‘How can fighting between our Clans be allowed to spoil it?’ the Laird asked himself.

  He knew that whatever sacrifice was made by the Earl and Fyna, they were only pawns in a very much greater game.

  Nevertheless, as he drove up to his Castle, which was not as impressive as the Earl’s, he was feeling apprehensive.

  He was late for luncheon and Fyna was waiting for him.

  As he came in through the front door, she ran down the stairs.

  “You are home, Papa,” she exclaimed. “I was wondering what had happened to you and where you had gone.”

  “I have a great deal to tell you about, my dear,” the Laird replied. “But at the moment I am both hungry and thirsty.”

  “Yes, of course,” Fyna replied, “and everything is ready for you.”

  She looked at him and said,

  “You have obviously been somewhere important, because you are dressed in your best clothes and look very smart.”

  The Laird smiled at her.

  “That is what I hoped, as I had to face some competition.”

  Fyna raised her eyebrows.

  “Now, whom have you been seeing? I was trying to think who it would be and rather disappointed that you did not take me with you.”

  The Laird did not answer her.

  He was climbing the staircase to the first floor.

  On it was situated the dining room and the other more special rooms of The Castle.

  The dining room was decorated with portraits of former Chieftains and an arrangement of ancient weapons and shields.

  The Laird sat down at the head of the table.

  Fyna sat beside him and the servants then began to bring in the food.

  It was a typical Scottish luncheon. There was salmon from the Steel River, venison from a stag that had been killed earlier in the week and a pudding made with fruit from the garden.

  As he ate, the Laird told Fyna that he had been to see the Earl.

  “He arrived,” he explained, “yesterday evening from England.”

  “So he is back!” Fyna exclaimed. “Oh, Papa, how exciting! I am sure now they will have the games as they always did on his estate. I am quite certain that Robert will win tossing the caber and there is no doubt that our pipers are superior to those of the McBraras.”

  “Who told you that?” the Laird asked.

  Fyna’s eyes twinkled.

  “The pipers themselves,” she said. “But, of course, as I have never heard the McBraras piping, I could hardly argue about it.”

  “It is something you will certainly hear in the future,” the Laird remarked.

  His daughter looked at him questioningly.

  “You mean that we shall be welcomed to the games if they do take place at Brara Castle? I was half-afraid that owing to the troubles there have been lately that our men would not be allowed to compete.”

  The Highland games had not taken place in the last few years.

  As the Earl was away and there had been so much animosity between the two Clans, the Elders of the McBraras had cancelled the games.

  They had upset not only the MacSteels but a number of the other Clans further up the Highlands.

  The MacSteels also had games, but they were not so large and impressive.

  Those that had always taken place under the patronage and on the grounds of the Earl of Braradale were the best and most revered in the Highlands.

  There was no talented young Clansman in the whole area who did not wish to show off his skill at throwing a caber, dancing over swords or playing the pipes.

  “The games will take place later on in the year,” the Laird was saying, “after the King’s visit.”

  “Is he really coming?” Fyna asked. “I have read the reports in the newspapers. One day they say he is and the next day they say he is not.”

  “There is no doubt that he is definitely arriving in August,” her father replied.

  There was a short silence and then Fyna asked,

  “I suppose there is no chance, Papa, of you taking me to Edinburgh? I would so love to see the King.”

  “I think that is what you will do,” the Laird replied after a short pause, “and now let us go into the sitting room while I tell you about it.”

  He pushed away his plate as he spoke and Fyna saw that he had eaten very little although he had said that he was feeling hungry.

  ‘There is something wrong,’ she thought. ‘I wonder what it can be.’

  They rose from the table and walked across the landing into the sitting room on the other side.

  Here the windows looked out over the river.

  In the sunshine it was a glittering silver ribbon that trailed away as it turned beneath the purple hill above it.

  Fyna’s eyes, however, were on her father.

  “What is it? What has happened, Papa?” she almost demanded.

  The Laird was standing in front of the fireplace.

  “I have discovered, my dearest,” he began, “how we can save the Clan from continuing to fight the McBraras and stop the shocking and unnecessary injury inflicted on our people and theirs during this past year.”

  “You have, Papa!” Fyna cried. “How wonderful and how clever of you. How can it be done?”

  “Quite easily, my dearest,” the Laird then replied, “if you will agree to marry the Earl of Braradale, as he has agreed to marry you.”

  Chapter Four

  Fyna stood at the window gazing out at the river.

  As soon as she could get away from The Castle and her father, she had gone to the river.

  I
t was the one place that could console her.

  As she watched it flowing past and surging over the stones, she felt that she had stepped into a dream.

  It could not be true that she had to marry a man whom she had never seen and who had never seen her.

  She had, however, understood why her father had suggested it so positively.

  She knew exactly what it would mean to both Clans if they were united.

  At the same time she was to be the sacrifice and her whole being rebelled against it.

  ‘How,’ she asked herself, ‘can I possibly contemplate marrying a man of whom I know nothing and who knows nothing about me?’

  Then she admitted that was not entirely true, she did know a great deal about the Earl.

  It had been impossible to live in the same part of the world and not hear the gossip about him.

  In the first place he was of great standing as a Clan Chieftain.

  Then, as recently he had been constantly in the company of the King, the Clanswomen talked of little else.

  It seemed so extraordinary to her when the MacSteels and the McBraras lived so near to each other that Fyna had never seen the Earl.

  But she had been away at school and so had he.

  When the Highland games had taken place in recent years he had been fighting under the Duke of Wellington or posted to France in the Army of Occupation.

  Of course the reports of his gallantry came straight back to Scotland.

  That the Earl had received a gold medal from the Duke was as much discussed by the MacSteels as if it had been Fyna’s brother, Alistair.

  Then, when the Earl finally returned to England, inevitably his association with beautiful women in London was known in the North just as the King’s endless love affairs were.

  Fyna had not paid much attention to all this talk, yet her father’s friends, when they came to luncheon or dinner, always discussed the Earl.

  The majority of men criticised him for not coming back to Scotland as he should have done after the Battle of Waterloo had been won.

  The women said that they were not surprised that his attractions were appreciated in the South as they had been briefly in the North.

  They seemed to delight, Fyna thought, in speaking about his looks.

  She saw amongst the younger women that there was a gleam in their eyes as if they all found him extremely attractive.

  Again she had not been particularly interested.

  But she thought that it was a mistake on the Earl’s part to stay away from Scotland for so long.

  Where marriage was concerned, she had her dreams about what would happen sometime in the far future.

  She was more concerned at the moment with keeping Hamish at bay than anything else.

  But now, as if by an explosion, her whole world was blown into fragments.

  Her father had told her exactly what had happened this morning at Brara Castle.

  She could hardly believe that he was not telling her a fanciful story in which she herself would have no part.

  At the same time she was perceptive enough to realise that he had done the only thing possible under the circumstances.

  If the infuriated McBrara Clansmen had all come rushing onto their land, the casualties could have been appalling and a great number of their people would have been left without houses and certainly without livestock or crops.

  She had read the history of the Clans of Scotland often enough.

  She had always shuddered at the dreadful injuries that hostile Clansmen had inflicted on each other.

  Of course her father could not allow that happen now.

  There was no point in pretending in any way that the MacSteels could have stood up to the McBraras.

  There were too many of them.

  If the fighting continued unchecked, the MacSteels might well have been eliminated for all time.

  ‘Papa did what was right,’ Fyna told herself firmly.

  At the same time she was more frightened than she had ever been in her whole life.

  She went and sat for a long time by the river.

  Then she realised that she had to be practical.

  If her father decreed that she must marry the Earl, she must buy herself a Wedding gown.

  It suddenly struck her that the Earl, coming from London, would despise his wife if she looked dowdy and countrified.

  ‘Why does it have to be in such a hurry?’ Fyna asked frantically.

  She was woman enough to feel that she did not want to be looked down on and perhaps despised from the moment the marriage took place.

  Of course the Earl would think himself superior with his larger and older Clan than that of the MacSteels.

  But for their sake as well as her own she had to make him at least accept her as an equal.

  She had only seven days, seven days in which to be dressed as would be correct for the wife of an Earl and a Chieftain of a major Clan.

  She knew that the seventh day would be a Saturday and her father had chosen that day as her Wedding day because some of the Clan worked in the adjacent towns and villages.

  They came home to their wives or parents at the weekends.

  She was trying to think where she could purchase a gown that would be acceptable, one that the Earl would not look on as a countrified rag.

  It was then that she remembered that one of the Clan who had come home when the War ended had brought with him a French wife.

  He had been wounded and carried to the nearest house.

  The English had behaved very well as far as the French were concerned and they paid for what they ate and acted in a very different way from the members of Napoleon’s Army.

  The wounded Highlander had been looked after and brought back to health by his French hosts.

  He had then fallen in love with their eldest daughter.

  When he came back to Scotland, she came with him.

  He settled down to cultivating his land, as he had before, and breeding a flock of sheep.

  While she was shy at first, his wife had made it known that she had worked for some time in Paris in a shop of a well-known dress designer.

  Because she was curious, Fyna had ordered from her a very simple gown that was well made and fitted far better than anything she had bought previously.

  It struck her now that Yvonne MacSteel could be of help and the croft in which she and her husband lived was not very far from The Castle.

  Instead of going straight home from the river, Fyna walked through the trees and joined a narrow and rather dusty road that led down to the village.

  It was quite a small village, but the Kirk which had stood there for centuries was a fine looking edifice and the Minister’s house, which adjoined it, was well-built.

  The Laird had contributed quite a large amount of money to make sure that these two buildings, if no others, were impressive.

  It was because of this that a number of tradesmen had come to the village and their shops saved the Clansmen from having to go a long distance for anything they required.

  The croft of Yvonne MacSteel and her husband was on the outskirts of the village.

  Fyna opened the gate into a well-kept garden.

  As she did so, she saw that the French woman was hanging out on the line some clothes that she had just washed.

  She looked up in surprise when Fyna appeared.

  But she was delighted when she was greeted in her own language.

  “Bonjour, madame,” Fyna said. “I am so delighted to find you at home because I need your help.”

  She spoke French fluently as she had learned it at the school in Edinburgh.

  She had extra tuition in it because her mother thought that it was such a useful language to speak.

  Fyna went inside the croft and sat down in a comfortable chair.

  The place was small but spotless clean.

  Although Yvonne MacSteel was wearing the most simple clothes, Fyna could not help appreciating that they had an elegance abou
t them.

  It was something which would not be found on any other Clansman’s wife.

  “You need my help, mademoiselle?” Yvonne MacSteel was saying. ‘Then, of course, I will do anything I can to assist you.”

  Fyna drew in her breath.

  “You will learn – about it all sooner or – later,” she said in a somewhat hesitating voice, “but I am to marry the – Earl of Braradale at the – end of next week.”

  The French woman stared at her and then she questioned,

  “At the end of next week? But, mademoiselle, how is that possible?”

  “That is why I have come to you,” Fyna said. “It is an attempt on the part of my father and the Earl to stop the Clans from fighting and killing each other.”

  She paused for a moment before she went on,

  “Instead, we hope we can – offer them a Wedding which they will – all enjoy, with the pipes playing – the stags roasted and, of course, when – the bride and bridegroom have – left there will be – dancing under the stars.”

  Yvonne MacSteel clasped her hands together.

  “That will be very exciting, mademoiselle, but have you a Wedding gown?”

  “I have nothing and no time to go to – Edinburgh to buy all the things I require.”

  There was a little silence and then Fyna added,

  “Please – please help me. I cannot let – down the whole Clan by looking like a – country bumpkin, when, as you are well aware – his Lordship has been in London with – His Majesty the King.”

  “I understand,” Yvonne MacSteel said, “of course, I understand. Now let me think.”

  She put her hand to her forehead and then she resumed,

  “There are three, no, four women in the village who I know can sew. They have showed me the things they have made for their friends and their children. I will get them working.”

  This was something that Fyna had not expected.

  She knew how well Yvonne MacSteel could sew, but she had not thought of there being others locally who could too.

  “We have often said,” Yvonne MacSteel went on, “that when the winter comes we will have meetings when I would teach them how to make their own dresses in a fashionable way and knit far more attractive garments than they do at the moment.”

  Fyna knew that she was referring to the thick stockings that the Clansmen wore, which were always made by their wives.