Dear Hugh,
How very good it was to see you just before Christmas. You will remember that I told you that after my father’s death, Mother moved to Ayrshire to live with my uncle, my father’s brother, and, since I am a pupil teacher at Burnside Primary, I am living in the house of the headmaster . . .
Kirsty chewed the end of her pen while she deliberated and then added:
. . . a Mr Buchanan. I spent a few days at the end of the year with my mother and we discussed the possibility of living together again. Mother has recovered from the trauma of my father’s death and I think she will be happier if she can have a home of her own again and, of course, I cannot tell you the joy living with my mother would be to me.
I wonder if there is a cottage somewhere on the estate – that Colonel Granville-Baker does not need for a farmworker – which we might rent for a nominal sum. I believe 1⁄3 d to 1⁄9 d is the going rate for a farm cottage.
The end of the pen received further rough treatment. Was that the price to the farmworker who was also employed on the farm? Well, Hugh could only laugh at her stupidity and tell her the proper rental.
I hope you and your parents are well and that your career . . .
What did you say to a soldier about his career? She rubbed the offending words with breadcrumbs until they were almost invisible and finished the letter with the words:
I hope you and your parents are well and that you excuse my impertinence in writing to you.
Yours sincerely,
Kirsty Robertson
She put the letter into an envelope without rereading it and slipped it into her bag to post the next time she was in the town.
*
Hugh received the letter almost a month later. He was lying in a wicker chair on the verandah of the Officers’ Club in Calcutta sipping a long, cool Pimm’s.
‘Looks like a lady’s hand, Hugh,’ laughed Captain Mansfield who had picked up the letters. ‘The rest are tailors’ bills, by the looks of things, plus the usual half-dozen from your devoted mama.’
‘If you ever wrote a letter, Oliver, you might receive some,’ answered Hugh mildly, trying to hide his irritation at the pile of letters from his mother, letters that would tell her ‘darling boy’ that society was nothing without him, that his father was the world’s most selfish and thoughtless husband, and that she had had to close the castle for the season because ‘Scotland is too positively wet’.
He closed his eyes for a moment, the better to conjure up an image of Aberannoch, but the brutal Indian sun would not be ignored and forced its way through his eyelids. He opened them and read the letter.
‘Kirsty Robertson. Who on earth is . . .?’ And then he remembered the little school and the afternoon he had gone there with his father in an attempt to relieve the boredom of another leave spent listening to his mother’s complaints about the thirteenth-century castle her husband had bought her. ‘And was it Jock or Tam who had wet his pants, and young Kirsty . . .’ His mind conjured up a picture of nut-brown curls and a determined little chin as she had set the child standing in the playground to dry in the fresh air. ‘Poor wee laddie,’ laughed Hugh to himself. ‘And Miss Kirsty wants to return to Aberannoch. Me too, Kirsty,’ he said across the miles. He rose, stretched and went indoors to the writing room.
Dear Kirsty,
How nice to hear from you; it was no impertinence, believe me. Are we not sixth – or is it seventh – cousins, twice removed? You see, I have remembered.
I am glad your mother is well, and I will send your letter to my father by the next post. If there is an empty cottage on the estate, I am sure he will be happy to rent it to you for a nominal rate. Had Father been at home when your father died, I am sure he would have discussed the future with you and your mother, and offered help.
No need to say that Lady Sybill should have been there to take a real interest in the people of the estaste, that this was how his father saw his role.
As you see, I am stationed for a time in India, but my father is in Surrey and so the letter may take some time to reach him, but I am sure he will contact his agent to see about the availability of a cottage.
Are you still enjoying teaching all those small children? You are very brave. The thought of being in a room alone with forty-odd scruffy little people makes me quake in my shoes.
Yours,
Hugh
P.S. By the way, since February 14th we have had an aerial post in India and so you should receive this reply quite quickly. I hope so.
Hugh sealed the letter, then he sent Kirsty’s letter back to Britain with a covering note:
I have no idea what the rents are, Father, but I think from the way Miss Robertson has phrased her letter, she must be financially strapped. The Dominie couldn’t have left much, if anything, and I shouldn’t think a pupil teacher makes a great deal of money.
Why it should be, I do not know, but her letter has left me feeling slightly uneasy. Did I ever hear you say anything about this headmaster, Buchanan, after one of those School Board meetings? I should also tell you that I met Miss Robertson one morning before Christmas in Arbroath when I was returning from a party. I’d had rather too much to drink, and it was only later that I thought she had seemed somewhat distraught.
There, aren’t you pleased that I am taking an interest in the estate, even if, I suppose, technically Mrs Robertson was never really a tenant of ours since the Schoolhouse belongs to the education wallahs.
Life here is as you remember it. Too little to do and too much to drink. Their Majesties are to come to Delhi in December. That, at least, should give us something to do.
Love,
Hugh
His duty, as he saw it, done, Hugh sealed his letter and returned to the verandah.
*
Kirsty waited for a reply to her letter. Every morning for a week she ran to the front hall when she heard the postman’s step on the path, but when no letter came from Hugh she very sensibly decided that either he was abroad or he was ignoring her, in which case there was nothing constructive for her to do.
The Board met and Bob was transferred to another school.
‘In my best interests – that’s all they said, Kirsty. Not a word about Buchanan’s complaints. I’m to start tomorrow. Can you believe it, just like that? I’m off to the Abbey.’
‘But Bob, that’s a lovely school with a really good Dominie. You’ll be very happy.’ Kirsty was trying hard to be delighted for Bob. No need to say what was really in her mind, that she wished she were the one to be leaving. ‘Are we to have another pupil teacher? Did they tell you?’
‘No, but Mr Watson did.’
Mr Watson had been acting headmaster while Mr Buchanan had been ill.
‘He says it’s another final year student, a Mr Hunt. That’ll upset the Queen, don’t you think?’
Kirsty thought before answering. How could she tell Bob of the unusual relationship that seemed to exist between Miss McNeil and the Dominie? It was doubtful that anyone, male or female, could usurp the senior pupil teacher’s position.
‘Because he’s a man, you mean,’ she said finally. ‘I doubt that will worry Miss McNeil, Bob, especially since Mr Buchanan comes back on Monday and he thinks the sun rises and sets on her head.’
‘You’re looking a wee bit drawn these days, Kirsty. Is it difficult living in that house? Mrs Buchanan strikes me as a definite non-person – not much personality there.’
‘She’s nice.’ She could say nothing of the rows that raged in the house, of Mrs Buchanan’s threats to leave, of the Dominie’s horrible taunts about her childlessness. ‘I’d leave,’ thought Kirsty fiercely. ‘I’d never tolerate that nonsense from any man. Even if I had nowhere to go and no money, I’d leave. Perhaps it’s different when you’re old . . . and scared, and she’s obviously more afraid of the world outside than of her horrid little world inside.’
To her dismay, Mr Buchanan met her as she walked up the path to the house that same evening after school.
‘Spring is here, Miss Robertson,’ he said. ‘Fresh new growth everywhere. A joyous season, is it not?’
Kirsty looked at him warily but answered steadily enough. ‘Yes, I always enjoy the daffodils, Mr Buchanan.’
‘I came out into the garden specifically to have a word with you, Miss Robertson. You’ll take a turn around with me?’ He gave her no chance to protest but took her arm in an almost fierce grip. ‘Almost April, and you have been with us nearly a year. Miss McNeil has been with us for four years. She’s been like a daughter to me. You’ll have noticed, Miss Robertson? Well, naturally Mrs Buchanan and I hope that she will be able to stay with us, but that will depend on where she is given a post. I had thought Miss Purdy might retire, but no, she insists that she will stay. Finance, of course. Her brother is a minister, did you know? No money, no wife, and too many children.’ He stopped talking but continued to stroll quietly along the paths, up and down, up and down, with Kirsty unwillingly towed along. How had she ever thought she would find solace and joy in this garden?
‘And Mr Cargill is to go. You will be disappointed. I know how . . . fond of him you were, but he defied me at every turn.’ Kirsty tensed, waiting for his voice to change to that almost-scream that constantly startled her, but his voice remained calm . . . dangerously calm? ‘I feel, however, that I have worried so much about Mr Cargill’s intransigence that I have quite neglected you – and then, I looked out of my window this morning and watched you as you walked to school, and do you know what I thought, Miss Robertson? I thought, “Good heavens, Angus, a wee lassie walked in your door last September and it’s a woman who’s walked out of it this morning.” ’ He stopped and pulled her round to face him and she stared at him in growing fear, though fear of what she hardly knew. ‘A very lovely young woman,’ he breathed, ‘a woman who could do such things for a man, oh, such things.’
‘Stop it,’ cried Kirsty, and with an effort she pulled herself free and ran from him along the path bordered by pure white snowdrops. She brushed past Mrs Buchanan, hurried up the stairs to her room and after locking the door, threw herself against it as if she and the lock together would better keep out any danger. She stood for a few moments catching her breath, then hurried to the bed and pulled her suitcase out from under it and began frantically to throw clothes into it – dresses, blouses, petticoats, stockings. And then she stopped, and slowly and carefully put the clothes back on their pegs or on the shelves in the large oak wardrobe. Suddenly she understood Mrs Buchanan. Where could she go? To Ayrshire, to tell her mother that their dreams of Miss Robertson, qualified teacher, and of a home together were gone? To gallant Miss Purdy, with her overfull house and overfull heart? It was only in the early hours of the morning – when she had carefully thought out exactly how she could keep well out of the Dominie’s way – that she remembered Meg. She could have gone to Meg. And she should have, of course, but things never look so bad in the morning as they do in the night when only the house seems to be alive. In the morning all four members of the ill-assorted household met at the breakfast table.
‘Is your headache better, Kirsty?’ asked Mrs Buchanan, who had dropped the formal ‘Miss Robertson’ after that distressing breakfast. ‘I’ve scrambled you some eggs. The carrier brought them this morning from Carmyllie; they’re nice and fresh.’
Kirsty managed a faint smile. ‘I’m much better, thank you, and hungry. I’ll enjoy the eggs.’
Miss McNeil sat, as usual, with her thin toast and a cup of tea, and the Dominie emerged from time to time from behind his newspaper to shovel in more food.
‘It’s as I thought,’ said Kirsty to herself. ‘He can’t possibly taste anything.’
At school she met the new pupil teacher, Willie Hunt, a scholarly-looking young man.
‘He could never cycle all the way from Auchmithie,’ thought Kirsty, and then heard him tell Miss Purdy that, ‘Yes, Ma’am. My father is Dominie at Fern, and sends his very best wishes to you and the Reverend.’
‘What a long way to come every day,’ exclaimed Kirsty, revising her opinion of the young man’s muscles.
‘By the new session I shall have found somewhere in Arbroath – if, of course, I’m not accepted at the university.’
‘Mr Hunt could join our happy home, could he not?’ Kirsty had not seen Mr Buchanan and Miss McNeil join them. ‘My wife has always wanted a son, and we could find an attic for him, could we not, girls?’
No reply was needed, for he was already leading the new pupil teacher off to the office and, without a word, Miss McNeil followed them.
‘Willie’s father and I taught together in the early days, Kirsty. What a fine man. Willie looks just like him.’ She paused reflectively. ‘I never could resist red hair on a man – very attractive, don’t you think?’
Kirsty was too stunned to answer. Miss Purdy and a man?
Miss Purdy laughed. ‘I did not spring from the head of Zeus fully formed, you know.’
Kirsty, reared on classical mythology, understood the slight rebuke. Of course Miss Purdy had once been young, had formed a young girl’s fancies, had . . . loved?
Love. Her thoughts went to Hugh and her letter. Had it reached him? Had he ignored it? Had he and some bright young socialite laughed at her hesitant phrases? She should have written in a businesslike fashion to the Colonel and Lady Sybill. She could hardly do that now. If Hugh had tossed away, in disdain, her first letter to a man, she had cut off her only avenue of escape. Another year before qualifying, if she qualified. The headmaster had seemed perfectly normal this morning. Could she avoid him, in his own house, for over a year?
This morning there was not even the comfort of a cup of tea with the janitor.
‘It’s sleep I need, not food,’ she decided and went off to answer the persistent clanging of the bell.
At last, at last, it was four o’clock and Kirsty finished her classroom chores as quickly as possible. She had some last-minute studying to do for her Saturday class, but first she would just lie down on her bed and rest until Mrs Buchanan called her for tea.
The house was quiet. Perhaps there was no one at home. Kirsty threw her cape over its peg in the front hall, and did not notice the thin blue airmail letter on the oak table as she slipped silently upstairs. She would rest, just rest, for half an hour or so. Sound asleep in no time, she did not hear her door open.
She woke to unbelievable terror. The depressing of the bedsprings as he sat down stirred her into consciousness and she opened her mouth to scream as she looked into his face so close, so horribly close to hers. His hand covered her open mouth and the scream died in her throat as she struggled wildly like a hare caught in a thresher.
‘Don’t scream, Kirsty, my wee Kirsty,’ he crooned and he pressed his face to hers, his wet lips on her open eyes, his breath rank. Her stomach heaved and she kicked again. His other hand was on her shoulder and he lowered his body onto hers and pinned her to the bed. The weight of a man – how could women welcome it night after night? She would stifle. Every rib would break.
What was he doing? If this is what men and women did together it was not what she had expected.
He lifted his head. ‘Oh, wee Kirsty, you’ll make it happen for Angus, won’t you, my love, my lassie with the light brown hair?’ He went on muttering and grinding his body against hers in that obscene way, but his hand against her mouth relaxed and from somewhere she summoned the strength to bite him, and when he snatched his hand away from her mouth she screamed, a scream that reflected all the terrors of hell.
He hit her then. ‘Bitch,’ he screamed, ‘Bitch! You made it happen for Cargill, didn’t you, and the fisher laddies, no doubt.’
His hand was inside the neck of her dress, a new dress, her hand-stitched gift from her mother at Christmas, and Kirsty began to struggle again as she felt it rip to her waist, and then his body fell across her and she heard another voice.
‘I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him!’ Mrs Buchanan stood there, the frying pan in which she had been cooking sausages for tea still in her hand. She raised the pan to strike her unconscious husband again.
‘No,’ screamed Kirsty and jumped from the bed.
‘I’m sorry, lassie. Oh, dear God in Heaven above, I am so sorry.’
Kirsty looked at her standing there, the frying pan dripping fat still clenched in her hand. Automatically she held out her shaking arms and found herself comforting the older woman.
‘It’s not your fault. He didn’t hurt me but I have to get away, you understand that, don’t you? I can’t stay here. I’ll go to my friend Meg, or to Miss Purdy.’
That threat calmed Mrs Buchanan. ‘No, not Miss Purdy. Her brother will tell the Board.’
‘The Board.’ Kirsty hadn’t thought of the Board, hadn’t thought of revenge, only of getting away from the sight and sound of him. She began to shake uncontrollably, but there was nowhere to fall; he was still on the bed where she had pushed him. He was so still . . . A frightening thought . . . so still . . . so still.
‘Is he . . . all right?’
Mrs Buchanan approached the still form of her husband, the frying pan held warily as if, at any minute, she might need to strike again.
‘He’s not dead,’ she said flatly, turning to Kirsty who stood with the two sides of the top of her dress hanging limp like sails when there’s no wind. ‘I wouldn’t have cared,’ she said. ‘Thou shalt not kill – that’s what the Good Book says – but I wouldn’t have cared. Get another dress, lass. We need to decide what to say, what to do before he comes round.’ She touched her husband almost gently. ‘Well, his migraine will be real enough the morn, won’t it?’ and she began to laugh.