The House of Lyall (42 page)

‘I'm going to marry her whatever you say, whatever you think you have against her!' His voice had risen, and turning, he strode out.

Hamish rounded on his wife. ‘What is all this? What has she done that's so bad?'

‘It's not what she's done, it's who she is!'

‘Who she is? She is Duncan Peat's daughter, isn't she? She had a good background – father a minister of this parish, mother also the daughter of a minister.'

‘Her father may have been minister of this parish, but that didn't make him good. He was as mad as they come.'

‘But that was his wife's death –'

‘That's what brought it to the surface, but it must have been there … since he was born. And when I remember your father's insistence on good blood in the family, I can't believe you'd be willing to let Duncan Peat's blood contaminate your son's children.'

With a sinking of his heart, Hamish realized that Marianne was unusually desperate. Her obsession with Peat's lapse, although understandable to a certain degree, was getting beyond what was acceptable, and it would have to be stamped out, faced up to, head on. ‘You are being unreasonable,' he said, quietly but firmly.

Before he could say what he had intended to say, however, she burst out, angrily, ‘I wish you'd try to understand, Hamish! He
was
mad, raving mad. Robert had to have him certified –'

‘Granted, but Robert was also under the impression that Duncan would return to normal once he got over Grace's death, and I say we should bow to his superior knowledge. You must banish all your mistaken, unhealthy certainties from your mind, Marianne, because I am going to agree to our son marrying his daughter.' With that, he turned and walked out.

His wife realized that, for once, her husband was not going to stand for any argument, but wished she could make him understand how she felt. Every time she went to church, or even passed the manse, her stomach churned wildly, her heart beat faster, her mouth went dry, for it wasn't only Peat she hated, but all ministers, everywhere. They were all the same – hypocrites who thought only of their own pleasure. Look at that boy in Aberdeen – he'd been studying for the ministry. Even Mr Drummond, the present incumbent of the glen kirk, looked at all the young girls' legs as they went past. What was worse, as far as she was concerned, was his habit of squeezing past her when it was her turn to arrange the church flowers, and no doubt he did the same to other members of the ‘Rural' when their turns came. He possibly got a thrill out of it, but it sickened her, and proved her point.

Melda blanched when she opened the door to Ruairidh, and recoiled when he tried to take her in his arms.

‘What on earth's happened?' he asked. ‘My mother says I shouldn't marry you …'

‘Neither you should,' she muttered.

His eyes showed the hurt he felt. ‘I don't understand, but we can't talk here.'

Although she was doubtful as to whether or not she could hold out against him if they were alone together, she put on her coat and followed him outside. They had to thresh this out.

Once they reached the woods and she realized where he was heading, she muttered, ‘Not the hut, Ruairidh.'

‘Why not? That's where we –'

She couldn't tell him the result of their previous visit. She couldn't risk breaking the promise she had made to his mother. ‘Not the hut,' she said again.

‘I thought you loved me as much as I love you.'

‘Things change,' she prevaricated. ‘You've been away for such a long time.'

He took her elbow in a vicelike grip and propelled her forward. ‘I wish I knew what's going on, but I know you can't have stopped loving me.'

He pushed her through the doorway and, with his hands on her shoulders, turned her to face him. ‘You haven't stopped, have you?'

With his blue eyes entreating her, she could only shake her head, and he said exultantly, ‘I knew it! Oh, my darling, please tell me what's wrong. If it's something you've done to offend my mother it doesn't matter to me.'

‘I didn't do anything,' she gulped, ‘it's …'

His kiss stopped her, and the love for him that flooded from her eyes, from her mouth, from the closeness of her body, told him all he wanted to know. ‘Oh, my darling, darling, Melda,' he whispered, ‘I knew you hadn't changed. I knew you still loved me.'

‘Yes, I still love you,' she admitted, ‘but I can't marry you.' She jerked away from him and ran through the open door, but, pounding after her, he soon caught up and yanked her to a halt.

‘You'd better tell me why,' he said harshly.

Unable to stop the tears, she sobbed, ‘Ask your mother. She'll be pleased to tell you.'

‘I want you to tell me.'

‘Let me go! I can't marry you! I can't!'

Letting her go, he watched her speeding away from him.

Chapter Twenty-three

Tempers were frayed in the castle during dinner, the dark moods of the laird's wife and son passing below stairs via those who came in contact with them.

‘God kens what's going on,' Ruby sighed, having had to climb up and down to the kitchen several times for unusual items requested. ‘The only pleasant face is the laird himsel', and I think it's his smile that's annoyin'
her
.'

The cook, Mrs Burr, red-faced and sweating with the heat from the vast range, tutted in disgust. ‘Fancy her getting angry at him for smiling … of course, we need to mind she wasna born into the gentry like him.'

‘True enough,' agreed one of the chamber maids. ‘I'd forgot about that, for she's aye so …'

Mrs Burr had already regretted the reminder. ‘She's no' a bad mistress, though – a bittie short in the trot sometimes, but aye fair. She never raged a soul that wasna needing to be put in their place.'

‘She sacked Melda for nothing,' Ruby reminded her.

‘Aye, that was a funny business. In fact, if you ask me, there's been a lot mair funny business lately, and I was tell't on good authority, no names mind, that Master Ruairidh was seen in the woods wi' Melda on Saturday …'

This was another eye-opener for Mrs Burr's underlings, who were drinking in her every word. Nodding knowingly, she went on, ‘… so that could be the reason she got the sack. Her Ladyship couldna let her son take' up wi' the lass that was her maid.'

Ruby felt obliged to stick up for the girl who had been her friend. ‘You ken, I never understood why Melda took on being a lady's maid, for she was well educated, bein' the doctor's daughter.'

‘That's another thing,' Mrs Burr said triumphantly. ‘I've the idea there was more to
that
than met the eye.'

The scullery maid, a fair-haired thirteen-year-old normally as timid as a rabbit, could contain her curiosity no longer. ‘What d'you mean, Cook?' she burst out, then turned crimson at having been so bold.

Mrs Burr was too taken up with what she was thinking to give more than a cursory glance of reprimand at this lowliest member of the household. ‘Of course I might be wrong,' she began, her set face denying even the possibility of such an event, ‘but –' She halted, shaking her head. ‘No! It's no' my place to say onything, and I'm saying no more.'

In spite of the chorus of voices begging, ‘Oh please, Cook,' she was true to her word, and would only remind them that they had duties to carry out.

Robert Mowatt was rather wary of speaking to Marianne when he called three days later, but unless he made her see sense, as Hamish had requested him to do, there was bound to be trouble of some kind.

He was relieved at her welcome, however. ‘I suppose you've been called in to talk me round.'

He nodded. ‘You'll have to accept things, my dear. I can assure you that Duncan Peat only suffered from temporary insanity. I know how you must feel about him, but …' He stopped and started again. ‘There is no tainted blood in Melda's veins. You must believe that, because your prejudice is breaking two young hearts, and you could lose Ruairidh if you don't give in.'

She turned her head away, and he couldn't help thinking, not for the first time, what a handsome woman she had become. Her hair, still a lustrous copper, was piled high on her head in loose waves, her nose was as straight as any of the Greek statues in her rose garden, giving her a strong profile. She had kept her figure, too, her corset nipping in her waist and pushing up her bosom and her hips still boyishly slim, even at the age of … she must be forty if she was a
day. His eyes travelled down to the shapely ankles which were all he could see below the narrow skirt. She looked every inch the true aristocrat, though she could lay no claim to being of noble birth.

‘Robert.'

The soft voice stopping his appraisal of her, he lifted his head and met the full power of her lovely brown eyes. ‘Robert,' she murmured again, ‘I can't help admiring your nerve, coming to tell me I'm a wicked mother.'

‘That's not what …' He inhaled deeply, then said quietly, ‘I'm going to tell you something I never meant to tell anyone, but I hope it will help you to understand why I took the infant from the manse that night. Duncan said he wasn't her father, and I was afraid he would try to harm her in some way.'

Marianne was taken aback by this information. ‘If he wasn't her father, then who …?'

‘He thought it was the gardener – you know, the tinker. The man came back for a few years on his way to and from the fruit-picking, to tend the manse garden after that first summer when Duncan had a broken leg.'

Even more shocked at this, Marianne exclaimed, ‘But Grace would never have –'

‘It was just in his imagination,' Robert pointed out.

Something she had forgotten for many years now made its way to the surface of Marianne's mind. ‘Oh, God! That's what he meant! He said it was my fault, and I thought he was blaming me for leading him on, which I never did, but he'd meant –' She broke off, looking at the doctor imploringly. ‘Don't you see, Robert? I was the one who told Jamie MacPhee they were needing a gardener at the manse. That's what he'd been blaming me for.'

‘More than likely, but don't forget that he was not responsible for his thoughts at that time. I can only assure you, however, as I have done before, that his condition would have been purely temporary.' He regarded her now with his eyebrows raised.

She smiled wryly. ‘You haven't changed my mind about the man, Robert, but you
have
made me realize I'm fighting a losing battle. I've done all I could to prevent his daughter from being the mother of the son Ruairidh needs as the next heir, yet why should I bother when Hamish doesn't seem to care about decent breeding any more? So I'm going to climb down. They can be married in St Giles and I'll take her to Edinburgh before then to let her choose her trousseau, like Hamish's mother did with me.' She gave a dry laugh. ‘I only hope I don't die before the wedding, like she did.'

Robert stood up now. ‘You won't die,' he grinned. ‘You've a constitution like a horse. I'd better go, though. There could be urgent calls waiting for me.'

She rose to her feet and clasped his hand for a moment. ‘Thank you for coming, Robert.'

‘Thank you for not being too proud to give in. You'll not regret it, Marianne.'

‘I hope not. I do like Melda, you know, as a person.'

‘I'm glad to hear it. I was a bit worried you would –'

‘Take my spite out on her? No, no, I'd never do that.'

He saw himself out and had a new spring in his step as he walked smartly down the avenue. He felt like sprinting as fast as he could to tell Melda the good news and watch the sadness leave her eyes, but he was too easily puffed these days. He'd have to tell Flora to stop making suet puddings, otherwise he'd soon be as round as a ball.

Marianne sat staring into the fire for some time after her visitor left. She felt drained and little wonder. For over a year she'd had a deep fear in her, a fear that she had tried to banish in the only way she knew, yet she had just made it possible for it to flourish and become reality. Plus … a new fear had reared its ugly head, a smidgen of fear that could grow into something big if she didn't face it now and stamp it out.

Grace had been quite a delicate woman, shy with strangers despite her outgoing manner, genteel as befitted one who was the daughter of one minister and wife of another, so it was impossible to imagine her breaking any of the ten commandments. So why had Duncan said that? He must have had some reason for … but he was beyond all reason that day. Possibly he'd been jealous of the tinker because of his good looks, and that jealousy could have been building up every time Jamie MacPhee was there. He had been left on his own after the funeral, brooding about it, and finally gone over the edge and taken it out on her, the first woman who'd gone into the manse. Whatever Robert Mowatt said, the man had definitely been insane, and that kind of insanity wasn't temporary. It
had
been there from the day he was born, lying in wait for something to trigger it off.

Marianne gave her head a small shake of resignation. No one, not Robert nor Hamish nor anyone else, would ever convince her otherwise, yet she had committed herself to agreeing to a union that was absolutely abhorrent to her, and she would have to abide by that.

When Hamish came home, he strode straight across to her. ‘You look worn out, Marianne. Why don't you go to bed, and I shall arrange for your meal to be sent up?' Getting no answer, he said, ‘Robert's been to see you, hasn't he? I asked him to call to –'

‘To get me to climb down about the wedding?'

‘To try to make you see sense. I am sorry to have to say it, my darling, but you were being most unreasonable, and I thought that perhaps he could –'

‘He didn't get me to change my mind about Duncan Peat – I'll never do that – but I said I would agree to Ruairidh marrying Melda.'