God's Highlander (20 page)

Evangeline smiled at Wyatt, and he could see how much of a strain the argument with her father had been for her. ‘Wait for me outside. We'll go to the prison together and give the good news to Alasdair.'

E
VANGELINE WAS NOT in Edinburgh to see Alasdair released. She had left Edinburgh only hours before, accompanying her father to London. It was part of a reluctant agreement reached by father and daughter when John Garrett agreed to withdraw his charges against Alasdair Burns.

John Garrett explained to Evangeline that he needed to go to London to discuss urgent business with Lord Kilmalie. He played upon his daughter's sense of duty, declaring he would be expected to return at least part of the hospitality extended to him during his visit. There was no time to call Evangeline's mother from Eskaig to act as hostess for him – even were she strong enough in body and mind to undertake such a task. He added that the visit would also afford Evangeline a rare opportunity to view fashions in the world's most exciting city.

However, it was Alasdair who convinced her she should go. Evangeline was reluctant to leave Scotland while he was still behind prison bars, but the teacher had been officially informed that his release awaited only the signature of the sheriff when he ended his involvement in a long trial in the criminal court.

‘You must go,' repeated Alasdair. ‘He is your father – and this prison is no place for you to be spending so much of your time.'

At Wyatt's insistence, and helped by a sizeable donation from Evangeline, Alasdair had been moved to a small cell where he had privacy and a modicum of comfort. Yet the sounds and smells of the gaol were ever present and, visiting Alasdair on her own, Evangeline had been forced to run the gauntlet of prisoners who reached out from communal cells and expressed foul-mouthed resentment of those more privileged than themselves.

‘But what if something should go wrong and you're
not
released?'

‘Nothing will go wrong. I'm as good as a free man already. Besides, Wyatt will ensure I'm released.'

Alasdair had heard some of the abuse hurled at Evangeline as she walked along the prison corridors, and it disturbed him deeply.

‘Evangeline, you've been a wonderful friend these last few days. More. Were it not for you, I would be facing a bleak future in a prison colony. But it distresses me to have you come here.'

He felt uncommonly emotional and tried to dismiss the feeling with a weak joke. ‘One visit to prison is enough for a social experience. Too many tends to harden the heart.'

‘Is that how you see me, Alasdair? No more than a friend who comes to see you for an “experience”?'

Evangeline spoke quietly, her eyes not leaving Alasdair's face.

Alasdair stood up so abruptly he almost fell and he grimaced with momentary pain. ‘I'm a crippled man, locked inside a prison cell – and with two years of imprisonment behind me. I'm known to the authorities as a Chartist, a reformer and a
troublemaker
. There needs to be only the slightest whiff of discontent in the air and I'm arrested for questioning. It will always be so. It's as certain as the knowledge that I'll never grow a new leg and be a whole man again. Yet you ask me if I see you as “no more than a friend”. Look at me, Evangeline. Look at me
honestly
.'

Alasdair sank to the stool once more. ‘I'm deeply grateful to you for all you've done. To feel more than gratitude would be folly.'

Evangeline was quiet for some moments, before saying: ‘I
am
looking at you, Alasdair, and there's more true honesty in me at this moment than ever before in my life. I see a good and honourable man. A man who is concerned for others, and for whom I care very deeply. I may not fully understand your views yet, but I respect them, and I would like you to teach me more when we're back in Eskaig. Will you promise you'll do this?'

Alasdair rose to his feet once more, without a trace of unsteadiness this time. He looked at her for a few moments, and then held out his arms.

When he held her, he said: ‘At this moment I could forget where I am and promise you the whole world – but it would be only the delirium of a very happy man.'

‘I don't crave for the world, Alasdair – although I believe you could make it yours if you set your mind to it.'

Alasdair's hand came up to stroke her hair. ‘We'll talk more about it when you return to Eskaig from London. If you return from all the great city has to offer you and can still look at me as you are now, I'll believe in miracles. I'll even pray for one to happen.'

 

There was
some
truth in John Garrett's story. There
were
some estate matters needing the landowner's personal attention. But Garrett had also learned that Lord Kilmalie's heir, a distant cousin, was making a rare visit to London. Brought to England from his home in Australia by the news that his titled kinsman was seriously ill, the heir to the Kilmalie title and lands had no intention of remaining in London for long. As soon as a number of legal documents had been drawn up and signed confirming him as heir to Lord Kilmalie, he would return to Australia.

Father and daughter travelled part of the way to London on the newly constructed railway. Evangeline found it a dirty and uncomfortable mode of transport. Black smoke and ashes entered the open windows of the teeth-rattling carriages, making clothes and skin filthy.

As they reached a recently completed section of rail, the train slowed to a walking pace. Suddenly, on both sides of the train there was a crowd of many thousands of excited men and women. The dress of many of the men showed them to be ‘navvies', the labouring ‘navigators' employed to build the railway.

When John Garrett called to ask the reason for the assembly, a dozen men pointed to where a platform had been erected beside the line. On the platform stood perhaps a dozen men, among them a clergyman, a uniformed army officer and several well-attired gentlemen. There was also a young pale-faced man, no older than Evangeline. His arms were pinioned and he stood between two men who were dressed in the uniform of the warders Evangeline had seen in Edinburgh prison. Behind the group was a stout wooden frame from which dangled a noose.

‘It's a hanging…. He killed a ganger.'

Even as the words rang out a dark-coloured linen hood was placed over the young man's head. His body twisted and contorted as he fought against his executioners, while the crowd howled for him to accept his punishment ‘like a man'.

As the noose was passed over the shrouded head, Evangeline turned
away in horror, but not before she had seen the expression of almost gleeful anticipation on her father's face. It made her shudder. She remembered the chained and manacled man in the Edinburgh prison….

Her distress went unnoticed by her father and the other passengers who crowded the windows for a better view of the execution. The train slowed to a snail's pace now, the engineer as keen to witness the spectacle as his passengers. Moments later a great roar rose from the throats of the crowd, and Evangeline knew the law had taken revenge upon the young man. She closed her eyes and wished Wyatt was with her to say a prayer for the young man's soul. Or Alasdair Burns, to comfort her and explain why it had been necessary to take a young man's life.

The train gathered pace again, and the passengers returned to their seats. Evangeline kept her eyes closed, not wishing to be part of their excited chatter. She hoped they would soon find a topic of conversation that did not include the scene they had just witnessed.

Although Alasdair remained in the forefront of Evangeline's thoughts, London did much to dull her memory of the railside execution. She found herself caught up in an exciting whirl of carefully planned social activities, arranged for her by her father. Escorted to the theatre by attentive young men, she visited salons and at afternoon tea-parties met young women of her own age. She was even encouraged to purchase fashionable clothes that should have been far beyond the reach of her factor father.

John Garrett was determined to show Evangeline there was a whole new and exciting world beyond the Highlands. By doing this he hoped she would come to see Alasdair Burns for what he really was and to realise how much more the world had to offer.

Six months earlier, the factor's scheme would have succeeded. At that time Evangeline had been thoroughly dissatisfied with Highland life and forever finding excuses to visit Glasgow and Edinburgh. Much had happened since then. Evangeline found herself thinking more, and not less, of Alasdair Burns while she was in London. She
missed
him.

It was strange, really. She had felt only scorn for the one-legged Glasgow man when they first met, viewing him as less than a whole man. Then, as time went by and their work brought them increasingly together, her feelings had undergone a dramatic change. She learned to
admire his patience and saw the many kindnesses he performed, with no expectation of reward or even recognition. As she warmed towards him she learned that Alasdair Burns possessed a keen intellect, a more able brain than any man she had ever met. He also had an indomitable courage. His disability was not so much a handicap as a challenge. An opportunity to prove how much he
could
do.

Evangeline had fallen in love with Alasdair Burns. What was more surprising, she loved him for what he
was
and not for what she believed he might one day achieve with
her
as his wife.

It did not mean Evangeline had lost all ambition. She honestly believed Alasdair would one day become a university lecturer. Unless he did, the country would miss the opportunity to learn from a great free-thinker. Chartism was only
one
of the many causes in which Alasdair Burns passionately believed.

Thinking of Alasdair Burns and the look in his eyes when they had parted in his Edinburgh prison cell brought a warm glow to the whole of Evangeline's body.

She would enjoy the pleasures of London to the full. She would also accept the unprecedented generosity of her father. But when the time came to return to Scotland she would happily hurry back to Eskaig … and Alasdair Burns.

 

Knowing nothing of his daughter's thoughts, John Garrett believed everything was finally going his way. Evangeline was obviously enjoying all that London had to offer. She was also meeting many highly eligible young men. Far more than she would meet in Scotland. It was costing a huge sum to dress her in the fashion of those about her, but he was convinced the results would repay him many times over.

Evangeline's debut in London society had been made possible by the future Lord Kilmalie, ‘Major' Jock Skene. Deeply tanned, and rough-skinned, with manners to match his appearance, Skene was an unlikely socialite. Now in his mid-fifties, he had been sent to Australia by the family as a ‘remittance man', after abandoning a brief army career and leaving many debts behind him. On Kangaroo Island, off the coast of South Australia, Jock Skene became a seal-hunter. Helped by a series of Aboriginal ‘wives', he shipped the skins of fur seals and kangaroos to Europe. This venture ended when Skene maimed a man
in a drunken knife-fight for the favours of one of the Aboriginal women. He was forced to flee.

Jock Skene next surfaced in Eastern Australia as an employer of convicts, engaging them upon land-improvement projects. It was here, amidst fears of a convict uprising, that a small militia unit was mobilised and Jock Skene assumed his dubious rank of ‘major'.

Things went well for Skene from this time on. He acquired a great deal of land in Eastern Australia and was among the first to drive cattle and sheep overland to the newly colonised Province of South Australia. He bought more land here, stocked it well and then assisted in surveying the interior of the province.

Jock Skene was a tough, coarsened outdoor man, totally out of place in a London drawing-room – but he
would
be the next Lord Kilmalie. London society moved over to make room for him.

John Garrett and Jock Skene discovered a common interest at their very first meeting. Jock Skene had ridden to wealth and respectability on the woolly backs of a moving-tide of sheep. There was no disagreement on the course that would be followed to restore the flagging fortunes of the Highland estate when Jock Skene came into his inheritance.

The future policy for the Kilmalie estates was formulated over numerous bottles of brandy in the London house Skene had rented for his stay. For three weeks schemes were made and documents drawn up which were to shape the future of thousands of acres of Kilmalie-owned Highlands.

Jock Skene returned to Australia knowing it would not be long before he assumed a title and enough property in Scotland to make him a leading British landowner.

John Garrett would have preferred the heir-presumptive to remain in London until the title was secure, although in some ways the departure of Skene came as a relief. Supporting Evangeline's social activities had made alarming inroads into the factor's savings and, for all his high hopes, he could see few results of the expenditure. One or two of the ‘eligible young men' had expressed more than a passing interest in Evangeline, but none seemed to interest her. However, John Garrett hoped the experience she had gained would make her see the men in Eskaig – Alasdair Burns in particular – for what they were. Uninteresting
little
men who could give her none of the pleasures she had enjoyed in London.

Garrett returned to Scotland with documents he would deliver to the Eskaig estate administrator on the death of Lord Kilmalie. They contained detailed instructions on the policy to be pursued on estate lands when Jock Skene came into his inheritance. The letters confirmed John Garrett as factor and invested in him the authority to implement the proposed changes.