Margherita
I made my way along the loch shore early on a misty, chilly morning, towards Ramsay Hall. The silence was so complete that I could hear every little noise: the wind in the trees, little creatures scurrying in the bushes, the crackling of gravel under my feet. It felt like there was just me for miles around, approaching this enormous house.
Then, all of a sudden, I heard someone call my name and I jumped. I brought a hand to my chest to try to quieten my heart, as I turned around and saw a woman approaching. She was in her fifties, with short blonde hair, a weather-beaten complexion and mud-covered boots.
“Margherita?”
“Yes, hello,” I called, walking towards her.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Fiona.” She crushed my hand, and I had to hide a wince. “I work at the stables, as you probably guessed. Sorry, just making sure you were really you! I mean, Torcuil told me you were coming up today so I was keeping an eye out.”
“Yes, it’s me. Not a burglar or anything.”
She laughed a warm, roaring laugh. “Have you seen the stables?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, if you have a minute, I’ll show you.”
“I’d love to, thank you,” I said and followed her down a small path towards the stone outbuildings. Unlike the house itself, the stables were immaculate and perfectly kept. The smell of horse hit me at once – strangely pleasant in an earthy way. There were five horses peeking from their stalls, their huge brown eyes looking at me. I’ve never been into horses much – they’ve always looked a bit scary to me – but the last one of them made me do a double take. Fiona saw me staring.
“That’s Stoirin, Torcuil’s horse.”
“Story?”
“Sto-reen. It means little love in Gaelic.”
“Not so little!” I smiled. It seemed huge to me, with a warm, chestnutty coat and a blonde mane.
“You should have seen her when she was a foal. She was tiny, and so cute. That’s why Torcuil named her Stoirin.”
“So she’s a mare?”
“Oh yes. And very girly too. Look at her eyes.”
Stoirin and I looked at each other in the eye for a moment. Fiona was right, I could see it now – she was, somehow, girly. Womanly, more like, although I can’t quite explain why. She wasn’t moving or making a sound; then, suddenly, she snorted delicately and came forward in her stand. Without thinking, I laid a hand on her silky head, then on her muzzle – she was so warm, and soft. She rubbed herself against me ever so lightly, as if she were saying hello.
“You seem smitten.” Fiona smiled.
I couldn’t look away from Stoirin’s eyes. Finally, I forced myself to take a step back. “I’d better get on with it,” I said, turning away . . . and then turning to look at Stoirin again.
“You must have made an impression on her too. She doesn’t let just anyone touch her. She’s sweet, but not that sweet. Why don’t you come back and ride her? I mean, ask Torcuil first. Stoirin is his; we don’t use her for the school.”
“Oh, no, that wouldn’t be for me. Honestly. I don’t ride horses. They are . . . high.”
Fiona burst into her deep laughter again.
“I’d better go and get some work done,” I told her. “Thanks for the tour. See you later.”
As I walked on, I crossed paths with a group of mums and little girls in horse-riding gear. Fiona was going to be busy. Something made me turn around once more before the stalls were completely out of sight. I can’t swear by it, because it was quite a distance away, but I thought I saw Stoirin’s sweet, dark honey eyes following me.
I made my way into the kitchen. The place looked tidy and clean enough. Again, I suspected he had cleaned for me, because there was once more there was a faint hint of bleach underneath the damp, mouldy smell that was omnipresent at Ramsay Hall. On the kitchen table, there was a note.
So sorry about the mess in a rush as ever
looking forward to seeing you at the weekend
please put the heating on or you’ll freeze
T
Clearly, he was too much in a rush for punctuation too. I grinned, picturing Torcuil running out of the door, clutching stacks of paper.
He was right about the cold; there was a shiver building up in my body already. Somehow, the temperature inside was lower than outside. I switched on the thermostat in the kitchen and then I made my way down to the one of the cellars as he’d showed me. I went down the stony steps and opened the door to the basement. It was dark and silent in there, and quite spooky, with the bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling and cobwebs everywhere. I am not easily spooked, though, so I walked down the steps resolutely.
“Sorry, mate,” I said to the huge, old-fashioned boiler as I banged it a few times. No joy. Hopefully Torcuil would change the heating system one day . . . but in a house like this, that would cost a fortune. I went on kicking, and it felt quite satisfactory to let out some steam. I was about to kick it again when a low humming began emanating from the thing. Clearly, the dancing Mrs Gordon wasn’t the only one with the magic touch. I was about to turn around to go back upstairs when the door of the basement slammed closed, making me jump in fright. I silently cursed the draughts in that chilly old house, and ran up the steps to the door. For a moment, I had a vision of it having locked itself and me being stuck there until Torcuil came back in two days’ time – and then, as I turned the handle and the door opened, I laughed at my own silliness. Clearly, I was taking a leaf out of Lara’s book, turning every situation into a mini gothic novel. To be fair, at Ramsay Hall it wasn’t hard to do so.
I made my way back upstairs and ransacked the cleaning cupboard in the kitchen. I hesitated at Torcuil’s bedroom’s threshold; I had never cleaned anyone’s house before except mine, so it felt strange to intrude in somebody else’s space like that. His scent – wood smoke and pines and a hint of something else, something fresh and pure that reminded me of sea air – was everywhere. For a moment I stopped, and something in me responded to the scent. Like a long-lost memory, somewhere I’d been once and wanted to go back to . . . And then I shook myself.
My eyes fell on a photograph on Torcuil’s bedside table: two little boys wearing jeans and woollen jumpers, both on horses. One of them had bright-red hair and freckles and looked thin and small. There was a bright smile on his face and an aura of mischievousness and fun around him. It had to be Angus – he looked like the typical younger brother, I thought. My younger sister, Laura, the baby of the family, had the same look about her. The other boy was, without doubt, Torcuil. The picture must have been taken when he was about eleven, in between childhood and the beginning of young adulthood. He was tall already, with wavy, thick auburn hair and a wistful look in his eyes, like an old soul inhabiting a young body. He had a serious demeanour, like someone who already felt responsibility on his young shoulders.
There wasn’t much to do for the day. In fact, after cleaning all I could clean and opening all the windows I sat on the little bench against the back wall. Tomorrow I would bring groceries in and cook a feast for when Torcuil came back at night. In fact, I might even use him as a guinea pig for the baking experiments I had in mind. It was a warm day – by Scottish standards – and I closed my eyes for a moment, enjoying the breeze. A lovely scent of roses came to me. I opened my eyes and contemplated the garden. For the first time I noticed a few rose bushes lining the flower beds in the back of the garden, towards the trees. I made my way towards them, stepping onto the little gravel paths between the flower beds.
Dotted here and there were small ornamental statues, their shapes softened and blurred because of the exposure to the elements and the moss and lichen covering them. The boundaries between flower beds were blurred and the gravel paths in between them overrun with weeds. I wondered why Torcuil had let the garden fall into such disrepair – there seemed to be a stronger reason than not being able to afford a gardener. It was more of a sense of . . . defeat. He said he cared so much for Ramsay Hall, but I felt that part of him had given up, in a way. Like part of him didn’t believe this place could ever be restored to order, to its old beauty. To life.
It was a sad thought, and I wandered around in the fresh summer breeze, trying to dispel it. The roses in the flower beds, though left to their own devices, were beautiful – some of them were a colour I had never seen before, a mixture of pink and yellow and orange on the same rose. The yellow ones with pink tips looked like they were blushing, and the pink one with the touches of yellow seemed bathed in sunshine. I bent forward to look at them better and inhale their scent, when something moving at the edges of my vision made me straighten up quickly. It must have been a bird taking flight from a windowsill in the upper floor . . . but no, there it was again. There was something moving behind the furthest window on the right. A shadow. The curtain flickering. And then nothing. The fuchsia wrapped around the back door swayed gently in the breeze and a shower of pink flowers fell on the stony ground. But nothing else moved.
I dismissed the shadow as a trick of the eye. But as I unearthed a pair of gardening gloves and began tugging at the weeds, I kept my eyes on the windows and never turned my back to the house again.