SHE TOOK SUGAR to the horses, and they watched her go away from them and then watched the place where she disappeared into the coppice. She went rapidly up to the crest of the ridge, giving the pines the affectionate respect due the beloved elders they had become for her. She sat down on the fallen tree and dropped her shawl back from her shoulders. The almost constant breeze played capriciously around her bare head; it was scented with unknown, unseen flowerets. The stench of the fire seemed to have existed on another continent, and she had thought once that she could never get it out of her nostrils.
The loch reflected azure back to the zenith. A Sabbath quiet lay over the cottages, and the animals grazed or lay peacefully in the sun. Why didn’t Archie go down there himself if he was so worried about anarchy? That was a ridiculous word to be used in this place, but she’d heard it twice within a week. If anyone was undermining the Laird’s and the minister’s authority, why did Archie hide himself in Linnmore House while Christabel called his tenants either barbarians or stupid peasants? Perhaps the reason Archie hadn’t been fishing the loch was that it was too close to one set of cottages, and he might hear something he didn’t like or couldn’t answer.
No wonder they were overjoyed to have as factor another son of the Old Laird, when this son had no wish or ability to deal with them.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Gilchrist,” a man’s voice said softly.
He must have come up the steep track behind her, but she had heard nothing. Alick Gilchrist leaned against the nearest pine, and a shaggy brown pony grazed a little way off. The man’s expression was politely equivocal, and he hadn’t taken off his bonnet. If he was looking for signs of distaste or snobbery, she thought, he was about to be cheated of an excuse for resentment.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Gilchrist!” she said with a smile.
“It is a handsome prospect, is it not?” He waved his hand at the moor.
“Oh, yes! I’m sure this will always be my favorite view.”
“How long do you think it will remain as handsome?”
“That’s an odd question. Why shouldn’t it remain so always? Oh, the seasons change it, but in winter there’ll be smoke from the cottages to show life. There’ll always be the loch like the sky’s looking glass, and the mountains in and out of the clouds, changing their colors.”
He took off his bonnet and sat down on the fallen tree at a courteous distance from her. His hair was not black, as she had thought, but a very dark brown.
“The cottages, then, you think will always be there.”
“Yes, but improved. New ones, with proper fireplaces and chimneys. More windows. Separate stabling for the animals. But cottages always, and peat to burn.”
“So the cottages are to be improved,” he said musingly.
“Surely you don’t disapprove!”
“Och, not at all. Anything that is done for the tenants of Linnmore I approve.” With his elbow on his knee, and his chin in his hand, he studied her, and she tried to stare him down. His eyes were a darker gray than Morag’s and narrowed with amusement, or possibly contempt. She should leave this place at once before he said something insolent; she picked up her shawl.
“Mrs. Gilchrist,” he said in that soft voice, “were you ever hearing of Bliadhna nan Corach, the Year of the Sheep?”
She was caught, as always, by the Gaelic. “No, but tell me.”
“I can see it would not be talked about in your presence. It was the year seventeen hundred and ninety-two, when the first Cheviots were brought to Scotland.”
“I know the Cheviots,” she said, glad to assert herself in something.
“It is said that they are a much better animal than the black-faced Lintons, the sheep of the Highlands. It is beginning to be said that they are a much better animal than the Highlander.” Without raising his voice he said, “Do you know what is the most dreadful sentence for a Highlander to hear?”
“I should think for anyone it would be the sentence of death. When he knows he is dying, or that his wife and child are—”
“Those are very terrible moments. But the worst sentence is Cuiridh mi as an fhearann thu. It means ‘I shall evict you.’ ”
She wrapped her shawl tightly around cold arms; she had gotten chilled very quickly. “Have they been afraid of that here? Because Mr. Grant went away and the Laird didn’t come himself to talk with them?”
“Yes, they think it was discussed, and Davie Grant bitterly opposed it, so he had to go.”
“They think!” she exclaimed. “What facts had they to go on?”
“It has happened, it is happening in other places.” The Gaelic s’s hissed about her ears. “They could not find out what Linnmore intended. I could not find out, and I have no fear of walking into Linnmore House and asking questions, in spite of the lady. I have been there just now.”
“And what did Ar—Linnmore say?”
“He was asleep, the man told me. And Madam would not have me come into her drawing room, and she would not come to me.”
“Well, I can promise you,” she said indignantly, “that my husband has assured me that improvements, not evictions, are planned, and I hope if you have any influence, you’ll convince the tenants it’s not the Devil’s work that builds new cottages and makes the gardens better and the animals healthier.”
He inclined his head. “Whatever is best for them I will help. I have heard about your school. Do you have Linnmore’s leave for it?”
“Not yet,” she said quickly, “but I expect to have it very soon, as soon as I show him my completed plans. Dr. Macleod is going to help me collect the materials.”
One of his eyebrows went up. “Indeed! A day of wonders!” For the first time he really smiled. It stung her. He was probably the one who was terrifying the others with rumors of eviction, and Christabel was right about him.
“Do you approve of my school?” she asked boldly.
“Who am I to approve or disapprove?”
“I thought you were someone who cared about the children.”
“Aschool is fine, if it does not try to turn them into little Sassenachs. Our pride is all that is left to us.”
“I know what pride is. A man is nothing without it, and neither is a woman.” She sensed his liking for that, or at least respect. “Mr. Gilchrist, is there a fairy hill at Linnmore? I am not going to laugh about it or write amusing things to my relatives. I am quite serious.”
“Some say the way into the Fairy Hill is through the Pict’s House.”
“Is that where it is then?” She was delighted. “Nigel and I are going to picnic there. Take a strupach,” she explained, to show off her few Gaelic words.
“It will disappoint you,” he said dryly. “It is not high; it is hardly a hill.”
“Did you ever go looking for the way in when you were a child?”
“Och, we knew we could never find it. Only the Fair Folk can open it, from their side. But we never went under the lintel of the Pict’s House, for fear we would never come out again. It was once believed that if someone disappeared, he had been stolen by the fairies. The poor soul would have been drowned or collapsed in some mountain pass in a blizzard.”
“Were they believed to be happy with the fairies, or should they have been in a Christian heaven?”
“No one,” he said, “has ever returned from either place to give an account of the amenities.”
She laughed. “Tell me about the Pict’s House.”
“It is only the remains of a stone hut built into the slope. Some say a Pictish monk lived there in the old days, when Christianity was young in Scotland. Myself, I believe that. But when we were lads, it was different. We dared each other to pass under the lintel, but no one ever took the dare.”
She saw him as a small dark boy, bare-legged in tattered breeches or a ragged kilt like the boys she had seen at the cottages. He’d have been impish and quicksilver, jeering at someone else’s cowardice while trying to conquer his own.
“Did anyone ever hear music from inside the hill?” she asked. “I’ve read about that and wished I could hear it. Magic fiddling that nobody could resist.”
He shook his head. “No, but we swore we did. To each other, not to our elders.”
“There were things my sister and I never told either. . . . Was Nigel one of the boys?”
“No, he is younger than me.” He stood up and put on his bonnet. “This has been very pleasant, Mrs. Gilchrist.” The pony came to him, nodding its head. He mounted and turned the pony toward the track leading down to the cottages.
“Yes, it has been very pleasant,” she agreed. “Good afternoon, Mr. Gilchrist.” He touched a finger to his bonnet and rode away. He disappeared partway down, in the transverse valley she remembered, then reappeared farther along. The pony ambled toward the cottages, the rider drooping in the saddle as if he were half-asleep. A man came out of the shadow of a wall, and his red hair seemed to flame up suddenly in the sun; it was the lame man who walked with two sticks. Goats bleated. There was a stir of awakening around the cottages as the Sabbath moved to its end. If they hadn’t gone to church for their own reasons, they had still kept the Day.
When she got back to the house, Nigel was just seeing off Patrick MacSween and one of his men. She went into the kitchen to get their light supper; a teakettle with a spirit lamp had been one of their more practical wedding gifts, and she made tea. Nigel came into the pantry, smelling of pipe smoke and whisky, and hugged her from behind while she was slicing bread. She leaned back contendedly against his chest.
“What would Dr. Macleod say about business meetings on the Sabbath?” She teased him. “Desecration!”
“I’d charm him out of his wrath. Besides, I didn’t expect Patrick today, so I can’t be blamed, can I? And I had to live up to the obligations of Highland hospitality. And I didn’t get my letters written. What have you been doing?” He took the knife away from her and began whacking off thick wedges of crusty bread. “That’s the way I like it. Ungentlemanly, what?”
“It’s lovely. You might cut some ham and some cheese, too.” She took out knives and forks. “I had a conversation with Alick Gilchrist up on the ridge.”
“The devil you did!” He seemed more amused than annoyed. “What did you talk about?”
“He approves of my school,” she said.
“Is that all he said?”
“Well, no. I asked him about a Fairy Hill, and he said the Pict’s House was supposed to hide the entrance to it. When are we going to picnic there? Tomorrow, if it’s fine?”
“My dear girl, it’s back to business as usual on Mondays.”
“What about business not as usual on Sundays? What did the keeper and his henchman need to talk about so urgently that it couldn’t wait? Has he discovered a still? Does he wish to hang a poacher?”
Nigel picked a sliver of cheese off the knife and ate it. “Are you sure Alick hasn’t been preaching revolution at you?”
“Not a hint of it,” she said blandly. “Nigel, what is the reason for his special position around here?”
“I’ll tell you while we’re eating.” They carried the food out to the table set with delftware. Nigel drank a cup of tea and ate two slabs of bread and butter with ham while she attempted to possess her soul in patience. Finally he said abruptly, “We share the same grandfather. His father was a half brother to ours, a by-blow, fruit of our grandfather’s hot youth. He was born to a maid in Linnmore House. Our grandfather built that cottage for her and her heirs and made sure that it could never be disturbed. So—mustard, please—Alick is a fixture here, no matter how much his existence goads Christabel.”
“So he’s your first cousin,” she said.
“Yes, not that any of us cherish the connection,” he said dryly. “Sandy was the oldest son, by-blow or not, and it must have roweled him all his life, knowing our father was the legal heir. And Alick’s presence reminds Archie that his father wasn’t the firstborn. Thorn in the side, what?”
“Thorn in your side?”
“No, and he never has been.” He picked up a slice of ham in his fingers and ate it in two bites. “He’s a part of the place, like the pines up there. He wouldn’t become a soldier; he won’t emigrate; he’s never had a mind to seek his fortune over the hills and far away. Like the song, eh?” He grinned at her. “We shall see more of him when he finds he can’t go to Archie over my head with his complaints. Archie doesn’t wish to hear them; that’s why I’m here.”
“What sorts of complaints?”
He shrugged. “Alick can always think of something. I expect we’ll have more and more trouble with him.” He didn’t seem concerned.
“What about his family, his father? Sandy?”
“He enlisted and died in America during the war with the colonies, so I don’t remember him, or his wife either. They had an allowance from my grandfather, and it’s been passed on to Alick. Not much, but he can afford new boots when he needs them. More tea?” He held out his cup.
Jennie had read Nigel to sleep and was reading to herself when she became conscious of a stir in the house. It was nothing clearly audible, but rather like knowing that the tide has turned; the servants must be back. She got up and went out into the hall, quietly opened the door to the back stairs and listened. The door at the foot muffled the voices in the kitchen, but she heard an exclamation quickly stifled, an outbreak of sobbing, followed by murmurs of consolation. She went back to the bedroom; Nigel slept on while she put on a peignoir and her padded silk slippers. She went down the front stairs and through the hall to the kitchen door and knocked. All sounds ceased within. She called, “May I come in?”
Morag opened the door to her, unsmiling, ducking in a curtsy. In the candlelit room she saw Fergus just going out the back way, moving fast. Mrs. MacIver stood regally by the hearth. She looked extremely tall in black, and she was still wearing her bonnet, which was also black. Aili was red-faced, and her eyes were swollen as if she’d been crying for hours. When she curtsied to Jennie, her eyes overflowed. She scurried for the back stairs, bumping into things on the way.
“May I go to my room, Mistress Gilchrist?” Mrs. Maclver asked distantly.
“Yes, of course.” Jennie nearly stammered in her bewilderment. What had she done? Had she offended, merely by coming to her own kitchen?
Mrs. MacIver lighted her candle from one on the table and took her stately departure. Jennie turned to Morag. The lovely color was lacking, and her eyes were like a doll’s glass ones.
“Morag, whatever happened today? Is anyone hurt or ill? Is it”—she had to moisten her throat—“bad news from the war?” The thud of her heartbeat was sickening.
“No, Mistress,” Morag said stolidly, her eyes fixed on a point beyond Jennie’s ear.
“If it’s something very private, I don’t wish to pry. But if there’s any way I can help, please tell me, Morag, I beg of you! Mrs. MacIver is plainly upset, Aili is wretched, and so are you. You don’t hide it well, Morag.”
“It’s the burning!” the girl cried passionately. “Yesterday eight townships were put to the torch, and the people turned out with what they could carry in their hands and on their backs! Surely you knew, Mistress!”
“Surely I did not!” The scent was thick again in Jennie’s nostrils, and lain Innes spoke from the box. A terrible burning and a sinful one. “But I know now that I smelled it. It’s monstrous! It can’t be true, Morag. Who told you this?”
“Alick Gilchrist, but—”
The troublemaker, thinking himself cheated of his heritage. “And how did he know?” she asked coldly.
“A man rode in to see him last night; he’d just come from it. He said they were clearing for sheep at Kilallan. Alick didn’t come to tell us then; it was so late to upset everyone. He went before daybreak this morning to see for himself.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Och, the poor souls! Over two hundred of them in all! Some had not gone away yet; they waited by the embers. One old couple had sat all day and all night by their dead cow. They said they don’t know where to go. The young men are mostly away to war, and this is how they are paid, their wives and babies and their parents robbed and driven away like beggars or gypsies.”
Her color had poured back, and she was beautiful in her rage. “Oh, Morag,” Jennie whispered. She sat down because she felt too weak to stand. “If this is so, it is horrible.”
“It is so,” the girl insisted. “Mrs. MacIver told us more, just now. They had an hour’s warning, and then the men came with the torches. The whole glen went up in the flames! Some ran in terror and hid in the hills, thinking they would be murdered, and some were so frightened they could only lie down and be sick. Niall Geddes, who was Mrs. MacIver’s brother-in-law, shook his fist at the men and cursed them, and when they pushed him aside, his heart stopped and he dropped where he stood.”
She gripped the back of a chair. “May I sit down, Mistress?”
“Yes, yes!” She kept thinking how peaceful the cottages had looked this afternoon while she sat on the ridge with Alick Gilchrist talking nonsense about a fairy hill, and all the time he had known what he was going to tell them down there.
“Alick asked if any wanted to come back here with him, but they said, ‘Linnmore will be next.’ ”
“It will not be.” Jennie pounded her fist on the table. “Is that what everyone’s fearing? Can’t you make them believe it won’t happen here? Listen, Morag, the minister is going to help me start my school.”
“Dr. Macleod?” The girl was aghast.
“Yes. He was very interested,” she said emphatically. He could not have known the truth about the burning; a man of God would have had to speak of it. But she remembered some set or disturbed faces outside the church, and some tense, low voices. Someone had known. And if it was known in the village, how could Dr. Macleod have been ignorant?
“Dr. Macleod,” Morag murmured, shaking her head. “He has not set a foot inside any cottage in Linnmore for a long time; he goes only to Linnmore House. Mistress, the ministers preach that the landlords’ rights are the will of God.”
That was a speech straight from Alick Gilchrist’s mouth, Jennie was sure.
“Linnmore is quite safe. Do you think my husband would allow me to go on planning the school if such a terrible thing is to happen here?”
“Alick stopped at Linnmore House this afternoon to talk to the Laird, but he could not see him.”
“Yes, I know. I met him.” She thought: I know now why he asked me if I had heard of the Year of the Sheep. He was trying to find out if I knew. What a babbling, inconsequential child he must have thought me. . . . She was tired enough to lay her head on the table, but she knew she would not sleep now with all this seething in her.
“Morag, don’t worry,” she said. “And tell Aili. Poor Mrs. MacIver, she has sorrow enough, so don’t disturb her tonight.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
The most terrible sentence a man can hear: I shad evict you. One hour’s warning and then the torch. “Can you sleep after all this, Morag?”
“I am tired enough to die.”
“Then sleep, and tomorrow you may have leave to tell them at home that Linnmore is safe.”
The girl suddenly sobbed as if she could no longer hold back. “Oh, Mistress!” she choked, helpless and ashamed.
Jennie went to her and stroked her back. Her throat ached; she strained her eyes wide and stared up at the ceiling to hold back tears. Where were they now, those turned out of their home by their own countrymen with as little compunction as boys kick over an anthill and stamp on the hurrying victims? Her own homesickness for Pippin Grange now seemed an obscene self-pity.
In the four-poster Nigel slept as purely as a child. She wanted to wake him and tell him of the outrage and be comforted in his arms, but to break that innocent sleep would be mere self-indulgence. The only thing he could do tonight was to assure her that it could not happen here, and she already knew that.
She wished she could hand it all over to God, but as she’d told Aunt Higham, she sometimes questioned His motives. Surely He’d have a hard time explaining a good many things He allowed to happen and be piously explained away as His will.
Besides, one of His ministers had just lied to her. Or had he? She tried to remember the exact words. . . . one of those unfortunate things, all too common. Perhaps he hadn’t lied, but he surely hadn’t wanted to explain. She gave him credit for being unhappy about it, and at least he had promised to help with the school.
She slept at last, and it seemed as if she had just closed her eyes when she was awake again, with the light of a crimson dawn in the room. Red enough to be the reflection of fire, but a cold glare, like a winter sunrise foretelling a blizzard.
“What is it?” Nigel asked, up on one elbow, and she jumped. He put his arms around her. “I’ve been watching you sleep. You were frowning and twitching, and when you woke up—what an expression!” He laughed and cuddled her against his naked body, brushing his lips over her temple and brow. “What awful thing did you think of? A nightmare about spilling wine on your favorite gown?”
“The people at Kilallan,” she said at once. “Where are they all? It’s cold, it’s going to rain, and they’ve been burned out of their homes. How far would they have to go to find shelter?”
His amused caresses stopped. He tightened as if holding his breath, then let it go, in a long sigh edged with exasperation. “You did have a nightmare, didn’t you?”
She put her hands against his chest and braced back against his restraining arms. “Are you trying to protect me from cold facts, my darling? Yesterday, when the smoke was all but choking us, you pretended it wasn’t there. But Iain knew what it was; do you remember what he said? And Christabel claimed he was insolent.”
“He is, you know,” he said lazily, drawing her close again. “He takes advantage, just as I told you they do. When did you hear this nonsense about burnings at Kilallan?”
“Last night when the girls came back. You were asleep, and I went down to speak to them. Morag told me.”
“Morag again!” he said angrily. “Why do you persist in believing every rumor, every fantasy—”
“My dearest, you know it’s not a rumor or a fantasy; Mrs. MacIver’s brother-in-law is dead because of it. Alick Gilchrist rode out to Kilallan yesterday to see for himself. It was hideous. He tried to bring some bewildered old people back with him, and they said, ‘No, Linnmore will be next.’ ”
She burrowed closer to him, trying to entwine herself around his warmth. “Did you and Alick talk this over?” he asked.
“No!” she protested. “He never mentioned it. I told you what we talked about. But he must have been on his way back from there. He’d tried to see Archie, and now I know why. He wanted some assurance for the people. They’re so frightened, Nigel. It’s disgraceful that they should be so terrified of their own countrymen! These aren’t the days of Cromwell or the Jacobite risings.”
He stroked her flank, but the gesture seemed automatic. “Did he see Archie?”
“No, nor Christabel either.”
“Doubtless Archie saw him coming and took precautions.”
“Then it’s up to you, isn’t it, to tell them they’re quite safe? That there’ll never be clearing to make room for sheep? After all, there’s room for both here, isn’t there?”
His murmured answer was more a vibration in his chest than anything intelligible, but it was enough.
“I’ve told Morag already,” she said, “but it will mean so much more coming from you. So—today—Nigel, will you?”
“Yes, yes, I will go.” The promises were mumbled amorously into her hair.