A Dark and Distant Shore (43 page)

Then, at last, the coffin lid was screwed down, and the coffin lifted from its trestles, and the trestles overturned, and the first bearers set out on the two-mile journey to the kirkyard. It was an impressive procession, with Dougal Mackinnon in the lead, black streamers flying from his pipes, and the mournful notes of
Cha till me tuille
–
‘I will return no more’ – echoing weirdly from the mountains across the loch. Luke was reminded of the last time he had heard it, when Perry Randall had sailed away down Loch Linnhe bound for the New World. He wondered whether that had been in his grandfather’s mind when he had asked for it to be played.

Behind the piper came the coffin, with its eight bearers and others marching in slow step beside them, ready to slide the coffin on to their own shoulders when the first half mile had been covered. ‘Half a mile?’ Luke had said. ‘That’s not very much. Must the bearers change so often?’ And Norman Cooper had replied, ‘It iss well seen you haff neffer had to carry a coffin, Mr Luke!’ Luke himself walked in solitary splendour behind, his stomach churning with nerves and lack of sleep, and the sheer physical strain of the slow march. He felt horribly conscious of his dignity, and preternaturally aware of the mile-long tail of honoured guests and tenants and neighbours stretching behind him. It was a relief to arrive at the kirkyard, rank with frost-browned nettles and yellowing grass, because to cut them would have shown disrespect for the dead, and to see the coffin lowered into the ground at last. The Reverend Mr Swinton, tall, shy, and well-meaning, was there to utter a short prayer at the graveside, although the Presbyterian Church had no burial service and it was not required of him.

And still it wasn’t over. Before the procession left Kinveil, food and drink had been served to mourners with no claim to rank or precedence, but afterwards there had to be the funeral feast for the elect. Luke presided, nervous as a cat. He was grateful that the journey to the kirkyard had gone off soberly, for, like everyone else, he had heard tell of long journeys when the bearers, pausing to refresh themselves, had set the coffin down and failed to notice, until several miles further on, that they had omitted to pick it up again. Funeral feasts were no less notorious. It was the rule rather than the exception for guests to progress from respectful sadness, to relaxation, and then to mirth, and finally to total incapacity. Luke had always thought this highly improper, but today he felt a glimmer of understanding. In his own relief from tension, he could easily have drunk far more than he should. But this funeral feast was perfectly sedate, he supposed because most of the guests were staid incomers from the south, rather than imaginative and emotional Highlanders. Gradually but irrevocably, all the great estates were passing into the hands of men who could afford to own them. Theophilus Cameron hadn’t been the first, and by no means the last, to surrender his centuries-old inheritance to the new rich.

The guests left next day, and then it was really over. Luke had never felt so alone. He wished, agonizingly, that Vilia had stayed. But women were, by custom, excluded from Highland funerals, so she had stood for a while at a high window in the tower watching the cortège wind away along the loch side, and listening to the piper’s lament. Then, when Sorley returned from the kirkyard, his duty as bearer done, she had walked downstairs, and through the Great Hall, and across the causeway, and had driven off back to her own life.

When Mungo Telfer died, Kinveil suddenly became empty. As Luke waited for his parents to arrive, he could feel that everyone in the castle and on the estate knew that the rudder had gone. Mungo had carried a sense of purpose round him like an aura. It wasn’t that he had been committed to doing things, and certainly not to innovation. His primary concern had been to preserve Kinveil as an oasis in a troubled world, but he had tried to preserve it at its best, so that the people who fished for a living fished more successfully, and the people who farmed their little patches for food farmed them more effectively. And that, Luke now recognized for the first time, had probably been a far more challenging task than sweeping the land clear of awkward, contrary humans and starting again with sheep and trees. Mungo had been tough, kindly, and unselfish, a rare combination in a Highland laird, and the people of Kinveil had responded by accepting him much more quickly than they usually accepted newcomers. Luke remembered his grandfather telling him, with a chuckle, what one of the local people had said about a family whose land marched with Kinveil’s. ‘Och, but they are chust incomers!’ Mungo, wondering whether he’d heard aright, had said, ‘The Grants? But surely... They’ve been here about three hundred years, haven’t they?’ And the local had said, ‘Aye, it would be about that.’

Mungo, after the first few years of feeling his way, had managed the estate himself, with a little help from a man who was dignified by the name of grieve, but given no latitude whatever. Mungo had strong views about grieves. ‘They’re no more nor a buffer between the laird and his people, and while I grant you the laird’s often happier for a buffer, the folk are anything but.’

When Magnus arrived, he had a new grieve in tow. He wasn’t even a Scotsman. ‘Splendid fellow!’ Magnus exclaimed to his disapproving son. ‘Heard about him from a man at White’s, and thought it would be worth breaking the journey to look him over. And when I saw he was an obliging sort and seemed to know something about this kind of country – he comes from the Yorkshire dales, you know! – I engaged him on the spot.’ He stopped and harrumphed. ‘Sorry you were left to handle the funeral, by the way, but I’m sure you managed very well.’ Luke stared at him. From the tone, it sounded as if that was the last his father intended to say about the old man’s death; and it was. ‘Anyway,’ Magnus resumed, ‘you don’t have to set off for Oxford yet awhile, do you, my boy? Henry Philipotts will keep your seat warm for you, won’t he? Take down lecture notes and all that rubbish. You can take another week or two to show Bannister round the estate. Better equipped than I am, and younger, too!’

With difficulty, Luke banished the disbelieving expression that was trying to take over his face. ‘Yes, Father,’ he said drily.

He didn’t take to Jonathan Bannister, a slight man several inches shorter than himself, with smooth black hair, quick brown eyes, and an eager and over-helpful manner that Luke distrusted. He had no reason for thinking the man dishonest or artificial, but he knew very well that his manner wouldn’t recommend him to the quiet, reserved folk whose lives he’d be meddling in. It didn’t.

After the first few introductions, Luke found he was tying himself in knots trying to convey that Bannister wasn’t his choice, and after a few more, gave up and retired into a kind of aloof courtesy, hoping he’d be able to sort everything out later. As a result, Jonathan Bannister set him down as an arrogant young puppy, and Ewen Campbell thought regretfully that young Master Luke was giving himself airs, now that he was next in line to inherit the estate.

It wasn’t easy for Luke to accept that he could no longer shuffle off responsibility for things he didn’t like, but after a few days he nerved himself to approach his father.

In a voice not quite his own, he said, ‘Now that I’m heir to Kinveil, I’d like to feel myself involved in the managing of it. I mean...’ He looked at his father’s astonished eyebrows and stumbled on. ‘I mean it would be – er – proper, wouldn’t it, for us to discuss together what’s to be done about things. Future plans and – er – things.’

Magnus’s ‘Ye-e-ess?’ was a masterpiece of incredulity.

‘I mean I ought to know about it, since it’ll be mine some day.’

‘But not,’ his father pointed out, ‘for a – very – long – time.’

‘No, no, of course not! I only meant...’ He rushed his fences. ‘I mean Bannister’s quite the wrong man for grieve, you know! You can see with half an eye that the tenants will never accept him!’

He groaned inside. His father’s expression was one of outraged dignity, as if someone had planted the sole of a boot on the seat of his spotless buckskin breeches.

Afterwards, his mother shook her head at him.
‘Not
the way to go about it, darling. You should have asked me first. Your papa is really feeling quite unsettled at the moment, not himself at all. You can’t expect him to like you telling him he’s in the wrong.’

So, teeth clenched and mind resentful, he went on showing Bannister round the estate, watching him mentally measure out the tracts of land suitable for new timber, and the raw hillsides that would be just the thing for the new breeds of sheep.

Seeing the sense of his mother’s warning, he tried not to offend his father again, but it was a near thing one day when his Aunt Charlotte came over on a visit and, by the most awkward mischance, he found himself an unwilling audience of one at an acrimonious disagreement.

‘Did that woman, or did she not,’ Charlotte almost screeched, ‘contradict me in my own house on the very day I lost my father? Did she, or did she not, try to tell me what to do?’

Luke was her only witness to Vilia’s iniquities, and he quailed at the glare she fixed on him. Aunt Charlotte had always been his idea of a Tartar. He knew she disapproved of him, and, unused to being disapproved of, he didn’t like it in the least.

‘Yes, but...’ he said weakly.

‘It was
not her place
to say where papa should be buried!’

‘But grandfather wanted...’

‘That has nothing to do with it. Of course it was necessary to respect papa’s wishes once we knew what they were. But until Cooper arrived, we didn’t know them. And yet she – that woman! – tried to tell
me
where
my
father should be buried!’

Magnus, bored, said, ‘Really, Charlotte, I can’t imagine why you are making all this fuss. Vilia Cameron was very attached to father, and you must admit she seems to have guessed his wishes better than you did.’

She said again, ‘That has nothing to do with it. Do I have to remind you, Magnus, that I am your sister, and you owe me a certain consideration? In view of her past behav...’ She bit the word off, and after a forbidding glance at Luke, went on, ‘In view of the past, as well as her intolerable impertinence last month, I don’t ever wish to see her again.’

Magnus shrugged. ‘No one asks you to.’

But Charlotte hadn’t finished, not by any means. ‘Papa allowed her to run tame at Kinveil, through some misplaced belief that he owed it to her, but you have no such excuse. And I warn you that, if you invite her here, it will place a very serious strain on our relationship.’

Christ! Luke thought, aware that panic must be written all over his face. But fortunately, neither of his elders was looking at him.

His father’s mouth was slightly ajar, and it was a moment before he spluttered, ‘Are you trying to dictate to me? Really, Charlotte! I thought you would have had more sense of what is fitting!’

‘I am your sister, Magnus. Your
elder
sister. You owe me a duty.’

‘Oh, do I! It would be wise for you to mind what you say. Remember, I’m the head of the family now...’

Charlotte wasn’t impressed, and her eyes met his, glare for glare. Then, after a brief, tense silence, Magnus thought of a clincher. Smiling superciliously, he said, ‘And I may not be disposed to open my purse to you as readily as Father did.’

Christ! Luke thought again, on a different note, and cast a swift look round the Gallery to be sure there weren’t any blunt instruments within reach.

But Charlotte only sneered. ‘How like you, Magnus! Empty threats. I need no money from Kinveil’s coffers.’

Magnus’s colour was considerably heightened, for as soon as the words were out he had recognized what a very vulgar thing it was to have said. He wouldn’t apologize, but compromised by drawing a long-suffering breath and saying, ‘I’ll be damned if I’ll – oh, sorry, sorry! – I’m dashed if I’ll tell her straight out that she’s not welcome here. But I’ll go so far as not to invite her, if that will satisfy you. Lucy won’t like it, mind you.’

‘I do Lucy the justice to believe that she will understand how I feel.’

Luke was feeling physically sick. ‘But
Father
!’
he exclaimed, and was irritably waved to silence.

‘Anyway,’ Magnus went on, with the air of a man who expected to be on the winning side whatever happened, ‘from what I know of Vilia Cameron, she’s as likely to invite herself as wait to be asked. And I tell you, Charlotte, if she does I won’t be so uncivil as to turn her away.’

There was a small, chill smile on Charlotte Randall’s face. ‘Thank you, Magnus. I’m pleased to know that we will remain on good terms. I imagine Mrs Lauriston will think twice before inviting herself, now that Kinveil is yours.’ The spite in her voice was unmistakable when she added, ‘And
that
will teach her!’

Later, Luke said in the airiest tone he could muster, ‘But Father, it’ll be damned hard on Vilia. You know how she loves the place. I do think Aunt Charlotte is being unreasonable.’

As always, it was a mistake. Magnus said, ‘You will oblige me by refraining from criticizing your aunt. It is presumptuous and unbecoming. At eighteen, you know nothing of the world.’

‘Dash it! You were only nineteen when you were
married
!’

‘Mind your tongue!’ There was a pause while Magnus regarded his son’s heated countenance. ‘That was different. But I will overlook your insolence this time. Let us hope that Oxford will help to mend your manners.’

Disregarding, with some difficulty, the injustice of this remark, Luke said, ‘Yes, Father. But what about Vilia?’ If she didn’t come to Kinveil, and he had no opportunity of going to Edinburgh, he might not see her for years. And if he didn’t see her, he didn’t think he could go on living.

Magnus was tired of the subject, and consistency was never his strong point. ‘Yes, well,’ he said. ‘Your aunt’s got no sense of proportion where Vilia Cameron’s concerned. You know what women are. She’ll cool down eventually, I suppose, and then we can all go back to behaving like civilized human beings again.’