The rain did not stop. The ground, hardened by weeks of fine weather, could not absorb the deluge, and huge puddles formed on the driveway. Water cascaded down the roof, spilling in torrents from gutters and pipes too narrow to contain its volume.
By the following day, the relentless drumming had become the background to our lives. And still it did not stop. I spent the morning in my room, writing to Mother. How I longed for her! It was scarcely credible that I had left Chester House less than two weeks ago. But the event that had so fundamentally changed my life during that short time was the very one I could not write down: Jamie and I loved each other. I wrote of the weather, our imprisonment in the castle, the delicious raspberry pudding Bridie had made, and the wonders she worked with my hair. I asked dutifully after Edith, Susan, Mrs Jamison and Jarvis. I sent my greetings to the Reverend Baxter, and to the grocer’s wife, who was lying-in after the birth of her sixth child. I even remembered to enquire after the health of Sergeant, Mother’s thoroughbred, who had had a slight cough.
Then I sat back, chewing my pen. The little world of Gilchester seemed so remote, and its concerns so meaningless, I could not conjure it. In the forefront of my thoughts, as insistent as the rain streaming down my window, stood the figure in the pink silk dress, and Jamie’s gleaming gaze.
I left the unfinished letter on the table. Who knew when MacGregor would be able to get to the post office, anyway? Discontented, I went downstairs.
I found the Great Hall deserted. I went to look for Jamie, but he was not in the library or the drawing room. In the passageway to the kitchen I met Bridie. “Where is Mr Jamie?” I asked.
“Gone out, miss.”
“Gone out?” I was astonished.
“Aye, he went off with MacGregor.”
“When?”
“I’ve a mind it must have been about an hour ago, miss. I heard Mr Jamie and MacGregor speaking, and then they went out the boot-room door.”
I had no wish to return to the tower room. I could not even see my precious view. All there was to do was plod on with my letter and think. “Very well,” I told Bridie, “I will be in the small drawing room.”
“Aye, miss,” she said good-naturedly. “It’s good and warm in there.”
I had no sooner opened the door than boots sounded on the flagstones of the Great Hall, and Jamie appeared, followed by MacGregor. Both were thoroughly drenched. The shoulders of Jamie’s overcoat were sodden, his hat dripping, and his boots and trousers heavy with wet mud. MacGregor’s boots, socks and kilt hem were equally filthy. The gillie’s face was pinched with anxiety.
“Cat, there’s been a slide!” announced Jamie importantly. “Some of the big trees have fallen!”
I gazed at him numbly. He had taken off his hat, and was rubbing his streaming hair with his scarf. “We do not yet know which ones,” he told me. “MacGregor and I tried to go down there to see, but it’s impossible. We shall have to wait until the weather lets up.”
His expression made it clear that he was thinking the same thing as I was: if the tree that had blocked the entrance to the cave had fallen away, the mouth of Drumwithie’s underground labyrinth might once more be accessible. Dread the caves though I did, I felt a tingle of excitement.
“The master must decide what to do,” declared MacGregor.
Jamie nodded. “I will speak to my father about it as soon as he returns this evening.” He took off his wet things and handed them to the gillie. “Thank you, MacGregor.”
When the gillie had stumped off to the boot room, Jamie pulled me towards him and kissed me. He was warm from his exertions, rosy-cheeked, his hair darkened by its recent soaking, but beginning to dry in golden wisps. I received and returned the kiss with equal warmth, electrified by the sensation, and we kissed again and again. When we eventually drew apart, in his eyes I read a sort of discontented delight, or delightful discontent – double-edged, like many of Jamie’s expressions. “You have done this!” he exclaimed.
The rain beat against the windowpanes. The wind rattled the frames. Bridie had built a good fire in the Great Hall, but I was still not warm enough and shuddered in my shawl. I wished he would take me in his arms again. “The Cait Sìth has done it, you mean?” I asked.
“Of course. If that oak tree trunk falls further down the glen, we will be able to get into the cave. Why would the ghost draw our attention to it if we could not enter it? She knew you would make this happen!”
Of course I had not made it rain, but I did not object. It was impossible to reason with the unreasonable. I gave a small sigh. “Will you kiss me again?”
“With pleasure!” He laughed, taking my face in his hands. But at the same moment, the door opened. Jamie let me go as suddenly as if my cheeks were red-hot. Demonstrations of affection were not permitted in front of servants, even in a liberal household like Drumwithie. But it was not only Bridie who entered. Behind her was Mrs McAllister.
“Grandmother!” Jamie raised his eyebrows in my direction while Bridie took Mrs McAllister’s mackintosh and left the room. “This is an unexpected pleasure, in this weather!”
Mrs McAllister eyed him coldly. “As if you didn’t know that we Scots are made of hardy stuff! I hailed the milk van as it passed the Lodge. I can do more good here than sitting at home in my room.”
I could imagine the “good” she intended to do. She was clearly aware that in such conditions, the doctor would not ride up to the house for luncheon, and Jamie and I would be left alone all day. Feeling disappointed, I warmed my hands at the fire. “Are you joining us for luncheon, Mrs McAllister?”
She sat down in the fireside chair. “I am indeed,” she said steadily, studying my face. “And then, Catriona, you and I had better spend the afternoon at something useful, and leave Jamie to his studies.”
During the next half-hour Mrs McAllister spoke more than I had expected. She behaved like an attentive hostess, at pains to keep the conversation flowing and superficial. She asked Jamie what he was reading. She talked of her own interest in Scottish literature, and told me, as Jamie had predicted, about the society in Edinburgh whose committee she sat on, dedicated to the preservation of folklore. When this subject was exhausted, she asked me what “useful” things I liked to do. “Do you sew, my dear?”
I had been taught to sew, but I did not care to do it, for usefulness or pleasure. “No, not really,” I confessed.
“Then do you have a pony?”
“Er … my mother is a far better horsewoman than I am. She keeps horses, but I do not have one of my own and, no, I do not often ride.”
“So you do not hunt, then?”
“No.”
“Ah. So what is your pastime, when you are at home?”
I glanced at Jamie. Intent upon the newspaper, he presented me resolutely with a view of the top of his head. “I like reading,” I told his grandmother, “and sometimes I play the piano, though since Father died…”
I had not touched the piano since my father fell into his near-death sleep. When he had still been able to sit in his chair, he had liked to listen to my playing, not because I was talented – I certainly was not – but because he loved me. The music made a connection between us when other forms of discourse were no longer possible.
“Then you are musical!” said Mrs McAllister triumphantly. “I knew it! Have you brought your music with you?”
I wished I had not mentioned the piano. “No, I have not. And please do not think I am musical. I only learned to play because my mother considers it a necessary accomplishment for a girl.”
“And so it is! Jamie, we must have some music lying about the place. It would be delightful if Catriona could give a little concert one evening!”
I could feel myself colouring. “Mrs McAllister, I must insist that you do not plan any such thing. I am an indifferent pianist and do not play for company.”
Jamie still had his head down, but he was looking at us from under his eyebrows, chuckling softly. “Well said, Cat! And you know, Grandmother, that old piano in the Great Hall hasn’t been tuned for decades. I have no desire to hear anyone play it!”
Mrs McAllister’s intention was to find me something to do that did not include Jamie. She could not have made it more obvious had she announced it. Undefeated, she leaned towards me. “Then what about reading?” she suggested. “Are you a novel reader, like me? Do you know Sir Walter Scott’s books?”
“I do not, I am afraid. But I do like novels.”
“Then that is how we shall spend this rainy afternoon! The library contains Scott’s complete works. You may read aloud to me while I do my tapestry. Catriona – a most appropriate title, you will agree.”
And so it came about that Jamie was allowed to do whatever he wished, and I was compelled to join his grandmother in the small drawing room and read Sir Walter Scott’s novel about someone called Catriona while Mrs McAllister sewed a cushion cover, her spectacles on the end of her nose. Every so often she looked up and gave me an approving smile. At last, she had got her way. And I was powerless against her.
“That will be enough for now,” she said after twenty pages or so. “Mark the place and we can go back to it tomorrow. Here, use this.”
She handed me a length of tapestry wool. I slid it between the pages and closed the book with relief. But when I made to stand up, she gave me a stern look over her spectacles and motioned with her needle for me to sit down again. “Do not run away, Catriona. I wish to speak to you.”
Dismayed, I waited while she knotted off her thread, placed her needle in the pin-cushion, removed her spectacles and put them in their case. “Now,” she began, folding her hands upon the work in her lap, “in the short time you have been here, my grandson seems to have become rather fond of you.”
I remained silent, clutching the book tightly between my palms to avoid betraying my agitation.
“You have made a profound impression on him,” continued Mrs McAllister. Her green eyes looked at me steadily. She had something to say and was determined to say it. “Indeed, he is very impressionable. Perhaps more so than other young men. You see,” she went on, before I could speak, “he has not been much in the world. He has no experience of young ladies.”
I understood. She was telling me that he only liked me because I was the first girl he had ever met. This was undeniably rude, but to show myself offended would be to supply her with further ammunition. It would make me seem sure of myself, vain and flirtatious. “I suppose he does not,” I said blankly.
“Furthermore, he adores his mother. He does not see her often because the hospital distresses him. But he misses her dreadfully. Jamie is a loving boy, who has had nobody on whom to bestow his affection for some years. Is it any wonder that you have set his head spinning? ”
Astonished, I gasped. “I have not done anything of the sort! Truly, I would not know how to set anyone’s head spinning.”
“But you are aware of his feelings for you?”
I felt my colour rise, but kept my voice steady. “Mrs McAllister, I can only suppose what Jamie feels. He appears to care for me, yes.”
“But that does not mean you can set your cap at him!” All amiability was gone. Two pink spots had appeared on her cheekbones. “Hamish invited you here in order to set straight an old feud that is nothing to do with you. I would not have done so in his shoes, but he is the master of Drumwithie and may invite whomever he pleases. He did not expect you to…” As she searched for words, an idea came to her suddenly, setting her eyes ablaze. “This was cooked up between you and your mother, was it not? The instant she set eyes on Hamish, she planned for you to be mistress of Drumwithie. Do not deny it!” She was twisting her hands, creasing the tapestry, staring past my head, talking more to herself than to me. “And who would not exchange a modern house such as your father’s, bought with money from trade, for an ancient estate, and a real, inherited fortune? I wanted the same for my own daughter and I achieved it! She is the present mistress of Drumwithie, but the next one will not be you, Miss Catriona!”
I sat still, looking into her face. I hardly knew which of many emotions I felt most forcibly: rage, for the insult to my mother and myself; amazement at the tortuousness of Mrs McAllister’s thoughts; and pity, for a woman to whom love meant nothing but an advantageous marriage. I had to clear my throat before I could speak. “And who will be the next mistress of Drumwithie?”
She had collected herself. Her face was resuming its usual pallor, and her voice was icy. “That is for destiny to decide. My grandson, as you are aware, is about to go up to university, where he will meet young ladies who are the daughters of more suitable families. You, meanwhile, will go back to Gilchester, where you belong.”
She said the word with distaste, as if Gilchester were a place of such low social standing, she would have to be deranged to enter it. I smoothed my skirt while I considered how to reply, then I looked up at her. If my face showed defiance, I did not care. “Yes, I am aware that Jamie is on the brink of his new life. But I am younger even than he is and on the brink of my life too. I have no thought of making an alliance with anyone at present. And I must insist, Mrs McAllister, that you take back your accusation of my mother’s ambition for me. I absolutely assure you that such a thing never entered her mind.”
She had the grace to bow her head, though her expression did not change. “Very well, ” she said.
“However,” I continued before my courage failed me, “I refuse to apologize for the fact that Jamie has become fond of me. Love, I have heard it said, will run its course. And I intend to follow that course wherever it takes me.”
Into her eyes came a different light. She stared at me, her mouth working. “You will regret this! You will find out, as your father did before you, that Drumwithie is an unlucky place for lovers!”
With that she got to her feet and, abandoning her workbasket, left the room.
I was too crushed to move. The fire burned low, but the room was warm now, and I did not replenish the coals. The afternoon dimmed almost to darkness, but I did not light the lamps.
Mrs McAllister’s parting words about my father would not leave me. What could she have meant? She had never known my father. He had never visited Drumwithie as an adult. Doctor Hamish had clearly stated that the cousins had become estranged before “either of us had met our future wives”. According to Jamie, Mrs McAllister knew about their falling-out, but as she had only begun to visit the castle after the doctor’s courtship of her daughter had begun, she had never seen David Graham.
Staring into the fire, I remembered Mrs McAllister’s face when Doctor Hamish had taken out Father’s cigarette case. Troubled, agitated, full of dread. Why had she been so distressed, since she had never known the man to whom it had belonged?
I sat up, struck so forcefully by a thought that my ears buzzed. If it were true she had never known my father, how did she recognize his cigarette case?
My heart beat so hard the roar in my ears grew louder and louder. I tried to breathe deeply, but could not calm myself. My father’s mother, Granny Graham, had given him that cigarette case when he was nineteen, and about to go up to Cambridge. But he and Doctor Hamish fell out soon afterwards and Father never went back to Drumwithie. So how did Mrs McAllister know the case had belonged to him? She had even referred to him as “David”, which her cultivated manners would never allow her to do if she did not know him. Evidently, she did know him!
He must have come here, sometime after he went to Cambridge, perhaps during a university vacation. Contrary to what Doctor Hamish had told me, my father had met Mrs McAllister and, without doubt, her daughter Anne.
My eyes travelled irresistibly to the portrait above the mantelpiece. The beautiful, just-married Anne. Her husband’s handsome, golden-haired cousin. Unchaperoned meetings. Ungovernable feelings. Unlawful love.
Numb, I stared at the portrait. That was why Mrs McAllister was so anxious to get me away from Jamie. “An old feud that is nothing to do with you,” she had said. But the feud between our fathers was to do with me, and with Jamie. Handsome, golden-haired Jamie. Out of all the girls in the world, I was the one his grandmother could not allow him to fall in love with. It had nothing to do with my inferior wealth, my supposed desire to “set my cap” at the heir to Drumwithie. It was because there was a strong possibility that my father was Jamie’s father too.
Jamie, I thought, my heart lurching. Jamie, my love. Like my father’s before me, my own unchaperoned, ungovernable, unlawful love.
I sat by the fire for the rest of the afternoon. The gloom inside the castle and the lowering clouds outside made it as dark as it was possible for a place to be in daylight. The ruined tower was invisible, the trees a blur, the sky obliterated. It was banal to liken a wet day to sadness, but like many clichés, it contained a truth. Perhaps if the weather had been glorious, the weight upon my heart would not have felt so heavy.
Mrs McAllister did not return. At five o’clock, Jamie came in. “Why are you sitting in the dark?” he asked. But he did not stop to light the lamps. He squashed himself into the armchair beside me and put his arms around me. “Darling Cat, I have been lurking in the library all afternoon, thinking you were being subjected to some ghastly reading by my grandmother and impatient to talk to you – and here you are, all alone! However did you manage to get rid of her?”
I allowed my body to collapse against his. Whatever my dread about our possible blood relationship, Jamie remained Jamie. My handsome winsome Johnny. In his embrace I felt secure. “She got rid of herself,” I told him. “Perhaps she was bored or had something else to do. Of course, the moment she left the room I put down that tedious book, and have been dozing by the fire.”
He looked at me sideways. “You quarrelled. Do not deny it.”
“Oh, Jamie, what nonsense you—”
“I can see it in your face, even by firelight,” he insisted. He slid off the chair and sat at my feet. “You are not yourself. Your spirits are oppressed; there is something different about your eyes. You are not feeling ill, are you?”
What should I say? I could not speak of his grandmother’s words, nor my suspicions about their significance. Jamie was unsettled enough; what if my fancy had run away with me, and the estrangement had been caused by something else entirely? “I do have a headache,” I told him, glad of the excuse he had provided.
It was clear from his expression that I had not fooled him. He could see the uncertainty Mrs McAllister had planted in my mind. He was not as sure of my heart as he had been yesterday. “I suppose,” he said, his eyes still searching my face, “a couple of hours spent reading aloud to my grandmother is enough to give anyone a headache!”
His tone was light, but I was not fooled either. “Jamie, my afternoon has not been pleasant, it is true, but apparently neither has yours, and you are perfectly well. My headache has nothing to do with that. It is just a headache.”
To my relief, he did not pursue the point, but sat back on his heels and patted his pockets for his cigarettes. “Actually,” he said, “my afternoon was not as unpleasant as you think.” He threw his match on the fire and regarded me through the cigarette smoke. “It was really rather extraordinary. Indeed, one might say wonderful.” He drew on the cigarette, smiling enigmatically as he exhaled. “Though for once, the wonder has not been caused by the beautiful Cait Sìth.”
Removing Mrs McAllister’s crumpled tapestry from the other chair, he sat down and leaned towards me, his elbows on his knees. His hair had grown long enough by now to be brushed back and slicked down with water, and the firelight revealed his smooth, suntanned face without hindrance. I was touched, as always, by his eagerness and innocence.
“This afternoon,” he began, “Father returned from the surgery earlier than usual. When he found me alone in the library, he asked to see some of my work. I was amazed. I said, ‘Do you mean my poetry, Father?’ He has never in his life called it my ‘work’ before. And what he said when he looked at it – while I sat with my back to him, rigid with fear, as you can imagine – was more amazing still. He said it was far better than he had imagined it would be. Then he started to talk about keeping an open mind, and not allowing his love of his own profession to stand in the way of his judgement. He said that the important thing is to get there in the end, even if the path is twisting. I must say, I’ve never heard him sound so reasonable.”
Neither had I. But the words themselves I had heard before. At Chester House, when Doctor Hamish and Mother had discussed Jamie’s several attempts to pass his examinations, Mother had made her usual comment about perseverance: “But he got there in the end, however twisting the path, and that is the important thing!” Unbeknown to Jamie and if only indirectly, the influence of the faerie cat was at work in his father’s words.
“Jamie, that is wonderful. What did you say?”
“Well, I didn’t have much hope, but I thought I’d chance it, so I asked him if he might consider my giving up the University altogether. I thought he’d give me his usual sour-faced lecture, but – this is scarcely believable, Cat, you may have to pinch me – he told me he had spoken on the telephone this afternoon to the Dean of the Medical School. Father and I have an appointment for tomorrow, to see this fellow and discuss retaining my place, but changing from medicine to a different subject!”
“Oh!” I flushed with surprise and pleasure. “This is the very outcome I myself have wished for! You see, your father is not such a pompous oaf after all!”
He looked at me happily, but ruefully. “And what subject do you think will suit a man with poetic ambitions? Shall l study history and become an eminent historian? Or found a publishing house? That would give me plenty of time for composition and ensure my poems are published! Failing that, I could write books on Scottish history and give public lectures – and open the ruined part of Drumwithie to the public on the first Sunday of every month!” He laughed gleefully. “What a lark! I would be known as ‘That glaikit auld fuil, Buchanan o’ Drumwithie’!” he added in his most exaggerated Scots.
I did not laugh. “Perhaps,” I pointed out, “the choice of subject will be discussed at your meeting tomorrow.”
“Aye,” he said dreamily, leaning back in his chair. “And as long as it does not involve cutting up dead bodies, I do not care what it is.” He looked at me from under lowered eyelids. “And now, you must tell me the real reason you are so out of spirits.”
I smoothed my skirt. “So you and your father will be off to Edinburgh in the morning?”
“On the nine fifteen train. Father and Doctor Skerran over in Dunkeith share emergencies on Saturday afternoons and Sundays, and it is Doctor Skerran’s turn tomorrow.” He waved his cigarette theatrically. “Cat, this evasiveness is making me so very agitated! Is it the thought of going down to the cave? Has Grandmother been frightening you with her nonsense?”
“It is nothing to do with the cave.”
I stood up and went to the window, glad to stretch my legs after sitting so long. Jamie followed and stood beside me. The rain had eased to a drizzle. The lawn was visible, and Anne’s garden. Beyond that lay the valley, blue–green in the gathering dusk and absolutely still. How beautiful it was, and how mysterious.
“It is to do with Grandmother, though, is it not?”
He went to draw me towards him. His face was so full of tenderness and love, my heart swelled. But the moment had come; I slid free of his embrace and leaned against the windowsill, weakened by the flood of emotions. “I am sorry,” I said, but I do not… I cannot…”
“What is it, darling Cat?” He was so close to me, his breath dampened my cheek. “What ideas has she been putting into your head?”
“Nobody has put any ideas into my head!” I could not look at him. “But I have been thinking … this dalliance may not be—”
“Dalliance!” He was offended. He stood back. “What, do you think I am a philanderer? My intention is not to dally with you, Cat! What an awful word – it reminds me of those sentimental songs about maids and soldiers kissing at the garden gate. What is the matter with you?”
I did not wish to witness his hurt. I closed my eyes, but could not stop tears welling behind my eyelids. I loved him; I knew I did, and he knew I did. But loving him might prove impossible. “Please understand—”
“Have no fear, I do understand!”
My eyes were stinging, but I dared not open them, in case the tears fell and alerted him to my misery. I stood with my back to him, fumbling in my sleeve for a handkerchief, sniffing and mumbling. “I am so sorry, Jamie. I am sorry I accused you of dalliance. That was an unforgiveable choice of word. I did not mean that I think you wish to take advantage of me or anything like that. I was only trying to explain that I am overwhelmed by my feelings, and yours.”
Half blinded with tears, I turned and looked into his face. Fear was gathering in his eyes. He stepped closer. “I do not believe you,” he said softly, no longer accusing. “Something has placed doubt in your mind. What the devil has happened?”
“Nothing!” I protested. “At least, all that has happened is that I have been sitting here thinking, and—”
“And you have decided that love is too precious to run at like a pole vaulter runs at the bar? You wish to cry ‘Hold, hold!’ like Lady Macbeth, in case our feelings carry us away? You think I am such a puppy, while you are the goddess of reason?”
I was too distressed to speak. Jamie crushed his cigarette angrily in an ashtray. “Do not try and pretend, Cat. You are hopeless at it. My grandmother obviously considers me a worthless bounder who wishes only to seduce you. I am not surprised at that. But what does surprise me is that you believe her!”
Although I had no reason to feel shame, his accusation humiliated me nonetheless. That he should think such a thing was intolerable. But I could not let him suspect that his grandmother had said not that he was unworthy of me, but that I was unworthy of him. Furthermore, her unguarded words about my father and my suspicions about Jamie’s parentage must be kept from him at all costs.
My helplessness silenced me. I stood there, the warmth of the glowing embers drying the tears on my cheeks, unable to defend either myself or Mrs McAllister. Jamie turned and grasped the edge of the mantelpiece with both hands, his head bowed beneath his mother’s portrait. Perhaps he could no longer bear to look at me. But my heart expanded with love.
Together, Jamie and I had kept the secret of the ghost and felt our way towards its revelation: the tree, the cave, the rain, the slide. And all the while we had been feeling our way towards a true attachment to each other. But now, I had repulsed him. How disappointed he must be! At the exact moment when his father’s change of mind had increased his happiness, my own apparent change of mind had begun to threaten it.
His breath came unevenly; he was angry and upset. I knew I could not leave him like this. I could no longer permit myself to feel the thrilling, abandoned happiness of yesterday, but my love, and desire for his love, endured regardless. “Jamie…” I ventured softly, “please hear me. Your grandmother did speak to me about you, but she did not accuse you of philandering. She merely expressed her concern that we were rushing too quickly into an attachment, considering that we are both so young, and you are on the brink of your university career. She was quite sensible about it.” I braced myself for the lie. “So sensible, I found myself almost agreeing with her.”
He whipped round, astonished, but when he tried to protest, I held up my hand. “Of course, she has no inkling of the depth of our feelings! But I must own the truth of her words, though it pained me to hear them. And so must you.”
His eyes bore through me, suspicious still, but gleaming with that familiar, and beloved, excitement. After a long moment, he whispered, “You do love me, then?”
My throat constricted; I whispered too. “Of course I love you.”
He looked at the ceiling, as if thanking some deity for his deliverance. Then he laughed. “Do you know what I wish, little Cat?” he said. “That we could run away together like people in stories, and live in an attic in Bloomsbury. I could be a poet and you could mend my shirts and cook my porridge, and my father and grandmother, and your mother, and the Dean of the Medical School and everyone else who thinks we are too young and irresponsible wouldn’t be there, and it would be heaven.”
“It would not.” My voice had recovered, though my spirits had not. “And you know it. Listen to the goddess of reason.”
He smiled at me. The anger of a moment ago had evaporated. “I will not kiss you, though God knows I want to! The puppy has been admonished and will behave himself.”