Authors: Highland Rivalry
“Now we shall go upstairs to present you to my aunt,” Lord Murray said when all those in the hall had been introduced. “She regrets her infirmities prevented her from coming down to greet you.”
Phoebe and Celeste followed Lord Murray up the spiral stairs and into a dark hallway faintly illumined by the deep set windows. They came to a door which he opened, and they stepped into another world. The room was wainscoted and a rich Brussels carpet of predominantly cream and blue covered the floor. A fire burned cheerfully in a carved white marble fireplace and fine Chippendale furniture was artfully arranged to afford comfort as well as beauty.
Lord Murray spoke, addressing the look of relief he had seen in his betrothed’s eyes.
“My grandfather partitioned this floor into smaller rooms and my mother furnished them to her taste. This is the floor where my aunt and I have our chambers; my kinsmen stay below, and the servants are on the second floor.”
He led them through into a second drawing room where a frail-looking lady with snow-white hair sat regally upon an open armchair covered with petit-point.
“Aunt Margaret, may I present Miss Hartwell and Miss Laurence to you. Miss Hartwell, Miss Laurence, my aunt, Lady Melville.”
Phoebe and Celeste curtsied gracefully.
“I am pleased to meet you,” Lady Melville said sincerely. “I trust you are not over-fatigued from your journey and have been given refreshment?”
Phoebe assured her of their care, and Lady Melville bade them be seated.
“Who were all the people below?” Celeste asked, unable to restrain her curiosity. “I did not realize you had so many relatives who lived with you, Lord Murray.”
“You will find things rather different here than they are in England, Miss Laurence,” Lord Murray replied. “While I call them my cousins, kinsmen or even foster-kin might be a more accurate term. Some are so distantly related that the connexion is difficult to trace. However, their families have been associated with the Murrays for many years. They provide labour, and in return I provide them with food and shelter.”
“They live below-stairs?” Phoebe commented, remembering his earlier remark, and wondering where they could possibly stay, for she had seen only the one large room.
“They wrap themselves in their plaids and sleep on piles of heather,” he said, and watched their faces for their reactions. This was their first exposure to one of the harsher realities of life in the relatively poor Highlands, and he wondered what their response would be.
That explained the brush piles and pungent smell, Phoebe thought, but Celeste looked shocked at the idea of so housing one’s relatives, however distantly connected. Lady Melville saw Celeste’s distress and tried to explain.
“If we should offer our kinsmen rooms on this floor with us, provided we had that many, they would not accept, but rather be offended, viewing it as charity. What they are given is what they have a right to, as members of our ‘clan.’ Those kinsmen with families are given small cottages, and the single men reside in the castle.” She smiled kindly at Celeste. “We Scots have very strong ideas of independence. You will become accustomed to our ways with time, and not think them so odd,” she promised.
“Perhaps I should warn you we take dinner with all kinsmen in the great hall below,” Lord Murray added. “However, breakfast and supper will be served up here.”
Celeste looked rather dazed, and Phoebe took the opportunity to ask a question that had been teasing her.
“Is Mrs. Baird from another district?” she enquired, thinking of the housekeeper’s thick accent, so different from the lilting one of the other kinsmen and servants.
“Yes. My mother brought Mrs. Baird here when she came to Castle Abermaise as a bride,” Lord Murray said. “My mother was a Lowlander. Lowlanders speak a stronger dialect than Highlanders, although you will sometimes hear Highlanders speak Gaelic, which you will not understand at all.
“You may have noticed that Balneaves and Mrs. Baird do not appear to get along,” Lord Murray continued with a smile. “Should you hear them arguing, do not let it trouble you. Their feud is of longstanding, and mostly for show. The Highlanders preyed upon the Lowlanders for generations, and some resentment is still felt.”
“Like in
Lady of the Lake”
Celeste commented. “The Highlanders in the poem called the Lowlanders ‘Saxons.’ ”
The sparkle reappeared in Celeste’s eyes. With the resilience of youth she had bounced back from her initial disappointment and was covering the whole with romanticism.
Phoebe and Lord Murray exchanged a look that suggested they were in agreement that Celeste had much to learn, and then Phoebe averted her eyes. Such wordless communication shared with Lord Murray was not wise. Under the circumstances encouraging even a silent bond could only lead to pain.
“I think it is time Miss Laurence and Miss Hart-well were shown their rooms,” Lady Melville proclaimed, ringing for a maid. “They will wish to rest before supper.”
Phoebe and Celeste had been given adjoining chambers with a connecting door. Phoebe’s room was tastefully decorated in gold and grey, and Celeste’s in shades of rose. Both had the Chippendale furniture Lord Murray’s mother had evidently admired.
“I am glad the rooms on this floor have been redone,” Celeste confessed to her friend. “The Great Hall is so dreary.”
“Yes, but I liked it,” Phoebe said. “It spoke to me of history.”
“You are welcome to it. I prefer modern times,” Celeste said, and sank onto a graceful bench at the foot of Phoebe’s bed. “I am beginning to feel tired. Perhaps we could have our suppers on trays in here tonight.”
“That is an excellent idea. I shall ask,” Phoebe agreed. It had been a very tiring journey, and now they had arrived, she was beginning to succumb to fatigue. Phoebe felt she could sleep for two days, at least.
* * * *
When Phoebe awoke the next morning she lay a moment in that confused state sometimes caused by waking in a new place. There was an odd noise, too, impinging on her consciousness. The din grew louder and she came fully awake, recognizing the sound as bagpipes and remembering that she was now in Scotland. She glanced at the small ormolu clock—it was early, barely nine of the clock.
A tap sounded at their connecting door, and Celeste came in, clad in a dressing gown.
“Whatever do they mean, making such a noise so early in the morning?” she complained, covering her ears.
“I believe it is bagpipes.”
“Yes, of course, it is bagpipes,” Celeste said impatiently, “but where is it coming from?”
Phoebe was also curious about the source of the early morning music. She pulled on a dressing gown and slid her feet into some slippers, and the two ventured out of the room into the hallway.
“I think it is coming up the stairs,” Phoebe said as they paused a moment outside the door.
Seeing no one about, they made their way to the stairway and peeped over the railing into the Great Hall below. The sight that met their eyes was both diverting and impressive. The piper, Dinsmore, in full Highland dress, was striding back and forth across the hall, playing his pipes. Brightly coloured ribbons tied to his chanters flowed down to trail along the floor, and various of the kinsmen followed in his wake, seemingly entranced by the sound of the pipes. Phoebe watched intently, fascinated by the manner in which Dinsmore manipulated the bag with his arm and coaxed such beautiful music from the instrument. She found the stirring music appealed to something deep inside her.
Celeste, however, was not so enchanted. “Whyever is he playing so early,” she complained again. “How is one expected to be able to sleep?”
Phoebe was about to reply when she heard someone approaching, and she and Celeste turned around to find Lord Murray had joined them. Phoebe flushed, feeling embarrassed to be caught like a child peeping over the bannister, but Celeste was not so easily put out of countenance when she was irritated by something.
“We were wakened by the noise and wondered where it could be coming from,” she explained. “Must he play the pipes so early?”
“Nine o’clock is not considered early here, Miss Laurence,” Lord Murray replied, finding the sight of the two girls in their dishabille quite captivating. Evidently, they had escaped their rooms before their maids saw them, for their hair was loose, and their hastily donned dressing gowns revealed their night-rails underneath. “Dinsmore plays every morning,” he added, trying to focus his eyes strictly on their faces.
“Every morning?” Celeste repeated, aghast. “Can he not do so later? We are not accustomed to rising so early. In London during the Season one often sleeps until noon.”
“I can ask Dinsmore, Miss Laurence, but I cannot promise he will agree.”
“Why don’t you simply order him to wait until later?” Celeste asked, perplexed.
“It is not quite that simple. Being a piper is a hereditary office in the families of Highlanders. Dinsmore has the
right
to play the pipes in the morning. I cannot forbid it. It is not within my power.”
Celeste rolled her eyes at Phoebe as if to say the customs here were beyond belief. Phoebe smiled, and found herself exchanging another look of understanding with Lord Murray.
“I promise to speak to him and shall do my best for you. Miss Laurence,” Lord Murray offered, wondering that he could not bring himself to call Celeste by her given name despite the fact that their betrothal gave him that right. His eyes kept straying to Phoebe, and he made a strong effort to bring his errant thoughts into line. “I shall see you both in the breakfast room shortly,” he said abruptly, and left.
“Can you imagine not being able to order a servant to do something,” Celeste asked Phoebe as they walked back to their rooms.
“I do not think Dinsmore is considered a servant, precisely,” Phoebe responded. “Things
are
very different here, though. I expect we shall become accustomed in time, as Lady Melville said.”
“Perhaps,” Celeste said, but silently she rather doubted she would ever become accustomed to the pipes and hoped Lord Murray would be able to persuade Dinsmore not to play them.
* * * *
The sideboards in the breakfast room were heavily laden with boiled eggs, cream, butter, brose, bannock, goat cheese, venison pastry, ham and wheat bread. Phoebe suspected the ham and wheat bread had been included particularly for the English guests. She helped herself to a plate of oatmeal brose, remembering it from the previous afternoon.
“You like our solid Scots fare?” Lord Murray enquired, noting Phoebe’s choice. “I told you that you were a Scots lassie.”
“Yes, I find I quite like oats,” Phoebe confessed. “I must take after my Scottish grandmother.”
“I do not care for oats,” Celeste said candidly. “I prefer toast and preserves.”
“I do myself,” Lady Melville said kindly, not wishing her nephew’s fiancée to feel she must appear to like everything Scottish.
Lord Murray smiled at Celeste’s frankness. This was going to be interesting. He suspected there would be many aspects of Scottish life his betrothed would not find to her liking. Being an only child, Miss Laurence would be used to having things as she wished, and since her father was fairly wealthy, she would not be accustomed to deprivations or having to make do. He wondered how his kinsmen would take to her should she decide to stay and marry him. There were already indications they would not be willing to make many allowances. When he had spoken to Dinsmore, the piper had refused to stop his morning playing. For a regular guest, he would have ceased to play at all until the guest left, for Highlanders had a very strict code of hospitality. But evidently he felt that since Miss Laurence was to become the lady of the castle she could not be considered an ordinary guest and the sooner she adjusted to their customs, the better.
After breakfast Lord Murray excused himself, explaining there were estate matters he had to attend to after his month’s long absence, and suggested that Phoebe and Celeste might care to walk about his lands.
“Do not be alarmed if one of my kinsmen or servants follows you,” he warned. “It is the custom here that the laird and his family and guests never be left alone. The area can be dangerous to those who are not familiar with it.”
Phoebe and Celeste found the idea of a walk was appealing, and after changing into sturdy shoes, they ventured downstairs and into the open air.
Celeste’s temper had been on the sour side since being awakened by pipes, but once she was outside her irritations were banished by the beauty of the land. They walked slowly down a footpath that led from the castle to the lake, followed, as Lord Murray had warned, by one of his personal servants, or gillies, as Phoebe had heard them called.
They came to a small rise and stopped, looking out over the lake. Celeste became lost in an airdream, and Phoebe knew her young friend was most likely imagining herself to be Ellen Douglas, the heroine of
Lady of the Lake,
again. She wondered if Celeste would ever learn to reconcile her two Scotlands—the one of her dreams and the one of reality, and feared she would not.
* * * *
That day Phoebe and Celeste took their first dinner in the Great Hall with all the kinsmen, and Phoebe could tell that the meal was taking the glow off Celeste’s newly polished romantic view of the Highlands. They all sat together at the huge board-and-trestle table, Lord Murray in an outsized chair at the head. A gillie stood directly behind him, anticipating his master’s every need. Phoebe was surprised at the lack of deference the others showed their laird. But she quickly realized they meant no disrespect as it became clear that his kinsmen all seemed to feel that their opinions were of as much value as anyone else’s, and they did not hesitate to voice them, or to disagree with their laird. It made for a noisy, rather boisterous meal.
Lord Murray watched his two guests closely during their first meal in the Hall, and observed that while Miss Hartwell was intrigued, Miss Laurence was clearly uncomfortable. He felt a surge of tender indulgence towards Miss Laurence, recognizing at the same time it was not a feeling generally associated with one’s beloved, but rather the natural impulse he as an older experienced person might feel to protect the young.