Authors: Jean S. MacLeod
The van was old and needed attention. Neillie had driven it hard over their inadequate roads and it rattled at every joint. She put in the milk crates and slammed the rear doors, only to find them swinging back defiantly in her face.
“You’ll be needin’ a bit o’ string,” Neillie advised. “It’s the only way to keep them shut once ye get her going.”
Wondering if ‘once ye get her going’ was some sort of veiled warning on Neillie’s part, she pressed the starter, but the engine responded immediately, roaring into vigorous life. The body shuddered and quivered as Neillie slammed the back doors and
fastened them with the necessary length of string.
“I’m on my way!” she shouted, letting in her clutch. “Tell Kirsty I’ll be more than hungry by the time I get back for breakfast.”
It was a lovely morning, clear and bright now that the sun had come up over the sea. There was a diamond sparkle in the air, the prelude to a glorious autumn day, and far beneath her the tide slipped gently in. The whole grey-blue expanse of the North Sea lay before her, wide and empty as the sky above it, a vast world of loneliness where only the seabirds moved. She watched them wheeling and circling above the rocks out on Sterne Point where the old, disused lighthouse stood starkly white against the sky. Unoccupied for years, it had always been a favourite haunt for the children of the neighbourhood and she had gone there often in the past, breasting the wind on a day of violent storm or, in the peaceful weather, lingering along the cliff top listening to the hum of bees and the bleating of the sheep.
But now she couldn’t linger. There was work to do. She delivered the milk at the clachan, setting down the bottles at cottage doors where most of the blinds were still undrawn. Here and there, where a farm labourer had already gone to work, she was waylaid by his bright and cheerful wife and smiled at shyly by his children, so that it was almost seven o’clock before she turned into the glen.
Sunningdale cradled the Calder Water from its source in the hills to where it plunged eagerly to the sea. Belying its name for the first mile or two, it was narrow and dark, widening to the vast expanse of moorland where the sheep grazed in uninterrupted silence.
Most of the crofters still kept their own cow, but here and there, where sheep was their main concern, their milk was delivered daily from Craigie Hill.
Alison decided to leave the Lodge for her return journey, but renewing old acquaintances was a time- stealing business. It was nearly eight o’clock before she drove back down the glen and the back entrance to Calders faced her. The gates lay wide open and by going through the grounds she would save herself a mile or more of tortuous, winding road to the Lodge.
Without hesitation she drove through into the green twilight of the trees. Giant firs and larch grew tall on either side of her, shutting out the sun, and the deserted driveway was softly cushioned by fallen pine needles. Even the rattle of the van was muted in the prevailing stillness. It was a road that hadn’t been
used for a very long time.
Coming to the house itself, she found it shuttered and silent. Calders, which had once been the hub of entertainment in the neighbourhood, turned a harsh face towards her, regarding her trespass with vacant eyes.
Oddly disconcerted, she drove on, winding down the drive towards the Lodge. Here she found a difference. The small, octagonal house guarding the south gates was fully alive. Smoke rose from its chimneys straight into the still morning air and the front door stood hospitably open.
Alison got out and put two bottles of milk on the white-stoned step, collecting the empty bottle which had been left there. The sound of music came to her from inside the house together with the appetising smell of cooking bacon.
“There’s the milk at last,” a girl’s voice announced. “Neillie gets later and later with that van of his. It’s high time it was on the scrap heap!”
“He does his best.”
The answering voice was older, more restrained. Alison was turning back to the van when a small, dapper little man made his appearance in the open doorway, wearing a cotton apron. He looked so comical and so completely disconcerted at sight of her that she was half inclined to drive on without speaking. Then she thought she might owe him an apology.
“I’m terribly sorry about the milk being late, but I’ve taken over from Neillie, and I mustn’t be so quick.”
The little man untied the apron from about his waist and came down the steps towards her. His bearing was military and a small, thick moustache adorned his upper lip. He was smiling and friendly.
“You must be Miss Christie,” he suggested. “Delighted to meet you!” He held out a chubby hand. “The name’s Searle— Major Searle. We’ve lived here, at the Lodge, for about a year. I suppose you went the long way round.”
“I wasn’t quite sure about driving through the estate,” Alison confessed, “but I did come back that way. It’s much shorter.” While they were speaking she had become aware of being watched from inside the house, but the owner of the girlish voice kept her distance. The curtains at the nearest window fluttered once and were drawn quickly into place, but there was no further sign of the other occupant of the Lodge.
“I’ll try to be earlier tomorrow morning,” Alison promised, waving Major Searle goodbye. “I’m new to all this, but I expect
I’ll learn quickly enough.”
While she started the engine she took one swift look at the house. The curtains had been parted again and a girl’s face was framed for a moment in the opening. It was small and pinched and dark, with thin black eyebrows drawn down above the most piercing eyes she had ever seen. She got the impression of straight black hair falling on the girl’s shoulders and thin hands grasping the curtains before they slid together again, and she drove off with a small shiver of revulsion. The face had been young and sullen and devoid of expression except in the eyes, and the voice she had heard had been high-pitched and querulous.
Major Searle, she thought in a blinding flash of revelation. It wasn’t such a common name in these parts. Was he—could he be related to Leone Searle in some way? And, if so, what was he doing at the Lodge, and who was the girl in his care?
She remembered that Huntley Daviot had been going to marry Leone Searle, but Huntley was no longer at Calders. The house had been closed for a long time and nobody seemed to know where he was. Suddenly she wondered if they could be expecting him at the Lodge, and then she laughed outright. Just because she had delivered an extra pint of milk there was no reason for her to suppose that the Searles were expecting a visitor.
All the way home, however, she found herself thinking about Huntley Daviot, wondering what manner of man he was who had been in love with Leone Searle. Leone’s name had been legend in the musical world for years, her golden voice something that had to be heard to be believed, and Huntley Daviot must have worshipped her.
Alison began to think of him with pity and understanding. Everybody had been shocked by the news of Leone’s untimely death in America. Even she had felt it, wondering when she would ever hear such a beautiful voice again.
Strange that Leone should have come here to Calders! And stranger still, perhaps, that her family had remained in this bleak outpost overlooking the North Sea.
“You’ve taken your time,” Kirsty observed when she finally swung the van into the yard. “You’ll be gettin’ frizzled ham and eggs this morning and I wouldn’t thank you for the porridge! I’ve taken your mother’s breakfast up to her,” she added virtuously, “but she hasn’t much of an appetite. If you ask me, it’s as much grieving as the thought of the operation that’s wrong with her. She needed Robin here when your father died.
She needs him now, and not knowing where he is—not hearing from him for months—isn’t helping her to relax.”
“I know, Kirsty,” Alison agreed. “And that’s why I’m here.” Her chin firmed and her eyes were suddenly hard, but she wouldn’t discuss her brother with Kirsty. “I wrote to Robin from London at his last address. We can only go on hoping that he’ll come now.”
“If it hadn’t been for that limmer at the Lodge,” Kirsty said, and then stopped. “Did you remember the extra milk?”
“Yes.” Alison took off her coat. “I met Major Searle. There was someone else there, but she didn’t come out.”
“That would be Tessa.” Kirsty was busy at the stove. “She wouldn’t show herself. They say she’s crippled, but nobody seems to be sure. You won’t get to know her, that’s for certain. There was some talk of Huntley Daviot marrying her after her sister died, but that was just gossip. He takes her about with him when he’s here, but I’d say there was little to it.”
“How long have the Searles been at the Lodge?”
“They rented it for the summer two years ago and they came back again last year. That’s all we know. The singer one liked the isolation, for some reason or other, and then we heard she was going to stay. We expected a big wedding in Wick, or even here, in the glen, but it all came to nothing. She was killed, you know, in America, in an aeroplane crash. I couldn’t say I liked what I saw of her.”
The brief assertion was typical of Kirsty. She had her likes and dislikes and nobody could budge her from a decision once it was made. Curiously enough, she was rarely mistaken in her summing up, but Alison was quite sure she must be wrong this time.
“Miss Searle was very beautiful, Kirsty,” she said as she sat down to her breakfast. “Beautiful and talented and respected wherever she went. She had the voice of an angel. It was wonderful to hear.”
“Maybe so,” Kirsty acknowledged dryly. “But they say in the glen that she brought trouble with her. She was a witch.”
“Kirsty!” Alison laughed outright. “You don’t believe that! The days of witches and warlocks are long since past.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Kirsty allowed, “but some folk have inherited their power, if you ask me. The Searles are strangers. It would have been better for the glen if they had stayed where they belonged.”
Alison applied herself to her porridge, aware that it would be useless to argue with Kirsty in her present mood. When she had finished her breakfast she turned her attention to the housework. Kirsty was getting old and the dairy work alone would be enough for her. Her butter was famed throughout the glen and well beyond it, and it would be a long time before Alison could equal her skill.
The beds made, she went to her mother’s room, but Helen was asleep. She had fallen into the blissful doze which sometimes follows a restless night and Alison closed the door behind her and tiptoed away.
There was much to be done, but she found herself spending more than an hour in her own room browsing through old books and gazing across the moor to High Morven on the far horizon. All her childhood joys were reflected in the wide panorama of moor and hill and memories crowded in, one behind the other, until the intense cold drove her back to the kitchen. The midday meal was to be prepared for Kirsty and Neillie and her mother and the stove had gone out.
The mass of brown ash gave her no encouragement. Peats were sullen things and she had to search for wood and chop it before she could re-kindle even a small flame. The stove seemed determined to defy her. It was an awkward contraption, bent on reducing her to exasperation from the beginning. Well, she would leave it and use the cooker!
The stove, however, was their only means of obtaining hot water and she was forced to persevere. The bitter cold seemed to take possession of the whole kitchen and her mother would be coming downstairs quite soon.
“Bother you!” she exclaimed, blowing on the peats. “Why can’t you light?”
“You’d do better if you opened the front!” Kirsty edged her aside. “Peats need plenty of draught.” She knelt down on the hearthrug. “T’ch! you’ve got enough sticks here to light a bonfire and them as scarce as gold! Away ye go and keep an eye on my butter. I’ll see to the stove.”
Alison pushed the hair from her forehead with the back of a sooty hand. It was no use arguing with Kirsty, and the stove really had defeated her.
The dairy was ice-cold. She rinsed her hands, trying not to notice how red they were, and began to collect the skimmed milk from the shallow pans into a single can. The newly-acquired electric churn hummed at its work, shutting out all other sound, and the cold grew intense. From long habit Kirsty worked with the door to the yard wide open, and today was no exception. The north-east wind, sweeping down across the moor, swirled a few dead leaves across the yard, striking at her with cruel intent. Her fingers grew numb and clumsy. The pan of milk she lifted seemed suddenly heavier than the others. It caught against the edge of the bench, spilling its contents across the grey stone floor.
“Oh, no!”
Her cry of protest rose above the hum of the churn as she watched the white tide of milk spreading to the door. Never had a gallon of anything gone so far! She stood staring down at it for a moment, but there was only one thing to do. Seizing Kirsty’s sackcloth apron, she found a bucket and cloth and started to mop it up. Down on her knees, with the milk sopping around her, she was suddenly, acutely aware of someone watching her.
Resentfully she raised her eyes. The man was standing less than a dozen paces away. He was tall and well-dressed in rough tweeds, a man of substance with a faintly arrogant air about him which made her embarrassingly aware of her own dishevelled state. His grey eyes met and held hers for a split second, questioning her presence at Craigie Hill.