A Dark and Distant Shore (53 page)

And the young fellow ‘...London to Leith quite often... parents thought me very odd.’

‘...away from home?’

‘Yes... quite on my own... months and months.’

And then they reached Kinveil and Briggs discovered it was a ruddy castle. The real thing. He gulped, took a firm grip on his P’s and Q’s, and wondered whether he’d be expected to tug his forelock. Damned if he would; he was an American now.

Later in the evening, Luke took Perry into his sanctum for brandy and a long, private gossip. Remembrance hit Perry like a blow. ‘Your grandfather’s study?’ he said. He could still see Mungo sitting there behind the old zebra wood table, small, tough, shrewd, and unbelievably kind. A pity the old man hadn’t lived to know that America had been the making, not the breaking of Perry Randall, that spineless young good-for-nothing of times past. Shame washed over him, always, when he allowed himself to think of the damage his irresponsibility had done to everyone who knew him.

‘Yes.’ Luke gestured towards the Chippendale secretaire. ‘And one of the things he left behind – which is why my desk’s so untidy – was a kind of
idée fixe
about keeping a family chronicle. I’ve been working on it all winter. You know he died a few years ago, of course.’

Perry’s eyebrows rose. ‘My dear Luke! That “of course” shows how innocent you are about communications between here and the States. There’s no “of course” about it, I can assure you. I had assumed he must have died by now, but I didn’t
know
until fairly recently.’

Without thinking, Luke said, ‘Who told you? You mean you’ve seen my parents?’

‘I doubt whether your father would tell me so much as the time of day, if we should have the misfortune to meet. No. It seemed to me that it might cause distress if I wrote to your grandfather here, and the letter were opened by someone else. So I addressed myself to his lawyers in Edinburgh and they told me what had happened.’ He stopped, his eyes fixed on the golden contents of the glass revolving between his long fingers, and after a pause went on. ‘They also told me a few weeks ago that my wife had died. They had some difficulty in reaching me, because I was travelling. It must have been bitter for Charlotte to think that all she possessed was still, in spite of everything, mine under the law. Fortunately, it wasn’t much. I’m arranging for it to be put in trust for the girls.’

‘Have you seen them?’

Perry shook his head. ‘They’re in Edinburgh, I understand.’

‘Yes, I’d forgotten. Edward’s taken Harriet and the baby – Harriet’s his wife – to see the doctors. The baby has something wrong with its brain.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ He was. Poor Edward, even as a boy nothing had ever gone really right for him, and it didn’t sound as if things had changed.

‘The girls have gone to keep Harriet company.’

Casually, as if it were a matter of little interest, Perry asked, ‘What are they like?’

What were they like? Luke had never thought very much about it, and there didn’t seem anything clever to say. ‘Grace is sixteen, now. Quite tall and pretty in a quiet way. Brown hair. Serious-minded. More like Aunt Charlotte than you. She has rather a – a managing disposition.’

Perry laughed. ‘
Very
like Charlotte.’

‘Not as bad as that,’ his nephew replied tactlessly. ‘I can’t see her ever frightening the life out of anyone, the way Aunt Charlotte used to do to me.’ He didn’t add that she was more likely to bore one to death. If he were to be honest, he suspected that Grace was developing a
tendre
for him, although perhaps she had fallen into the habit of riding over to consult him about all her problems and difficulties because she and Edward didn’t get on. She had a lot of problems and difficulties.

‘And – er – Shona?’

The child born to an embittered mother after her brief, very brief, reconciliation with her second husband, the Honourable Peregrine Francis Egerton Randall. Luke still felt his chronicle was rather sketchy about that whole episode, and wondered whether it gave him sufficient justification to ask his Uncle Perry straight out. But, looking at him, he decided perhaps not.

Perry Randall, now, was not the kind of man one put impertinent questions to. The last time Luke had heard of him, he had been a travelling salesman, a ‘drummer’, and Luke’s adolescent imagination had struggled to superimpose that seedy image on the elegant, amiable young Corinthian he remembered. It hadn’t been easy, and it seemed he could have saved himself the trouble. There was nothing at all seedy about him now, and Luke wasn’t sure about the amiability, either. But the elegance was very much in evidence. Perry’s riding coat and breeches had been made by a tailor whose name Luke would have liked to know, and the black, frocked coat he had changed into, thigh-length and tight-waisted over narrow black trousers and a grey-damasked waistcoat, suited his lean, athletic figure to perfection. His jaw above the snowy ruffle was hard, and the creases that had always bracketed his mouth were deeply etched. Not a trace of grey marred the admirably cut black hair, but there were two short vertical lines between his brows. He reeked of authority temporarily under leash.

Luke rose and went to refill their glasses. ‘Shona? The sweetest child you could imagine. A little like Aunt Charlotte to look at, but shy as a fawn.’ He didn’t mention that everyone ignored the poor child, except Vilia. ‘She’s still – unformed is the word, I suppose. Dreamy. Too sensitive for her own good, perhaps.’

‘Are they happy with Edward and Harriet?’

‘Oh, tol-lol. Well enough, I suppose. They miss Georgiana. You won’t know that she was married last year. French fellow, very dashing. In fact, Georgy was talking about you, wishing you’d been there to lend a bit of style to the wedding.’

Perry threw back his head and laughed, almost in the old way, and Luke found himself joining in with a spontaneity that, in his growing up, he had come near to losing.

‘How delightful,’ Perry remarked sardonically, ‘to know that at least one member of the family thinks of me with approval!’ But there was no expression at all in his voice when he added, ‘What do my own daughters think of me?’

‘I’ve no idea. Grace is a little wistful, perhaps.’

Perry rose and went to the window. It was almost ten o’clock but still daylight. One forgot how northern these latitudes were. Luke’s answer was much what he had expected. Charlotte, he knew, would have been bound to discourage the girls from thinking about him, as if he had died; she could scarcely pretend he had never existed. Perry wondered whether it freed him from responsibility. Paternal feeling, common humanity, legal obligation, all told him that, now their mother was dead, he should take them to America to live with him, and relieve Edward of the burden. He wanted to, or he supposed he did. But could he really transplant two daughters he didn’t know, and who didn’t know him, to the big handsome empty house in Boston where he had begun to roost occasionally, when he wasn’t in New York, or Philadelphia, or New Orleans? If they had been a little older, he thought, it would have been possible. But not now, not when he didn’t have a wife to care for them. And if he
had
the wife he wanted, he would want to have her to himself, quite alone, for a long, long time.

Charlotte’s death had freed him at last, and his own success in the last few years had given him back his pride. He had gone to Glenbraddan hoping to see his daughters, but had ridden on to Kinveil for one purpose only, and one that touched him far more nearly. He hadn’t expected to see Luke, hadn’t even thought about him. He had meant to drop in, casually, on Ewen Campbell, to discover what he knew about Vilia Cameron’s present situation. If anyone knew, he had thought, Ewen would. He had persuaded himself that it was logical, sensible, wise, to take time to spy out the land, but the truth was that he was deliberately postponing the moment he desired and feared – the moment when, for a second time, he would throw his fate in the balance with Vilia.

It had been a long silence. ‘Would you – er – like me to sound them out?’ Luke ventured.

His uncle turned, and Luke, seeing the blankness in his eyes, put it down to the darkness of indoors compared with out. Rising, he lit a taper from the fire and began setting it to the candles. He had an Argand lamp, but although it was useful enough for work its glare always seemed to him harsh and unfriendly.

‘That would be a kindness,’ Perry said after a moment. ‘Now! We seem to have talked only about me. Tell me about yourself and Kinveil. Have you taken up sheep-farming, like Edward? I saw the Cheviots on the hills.’

‘Edward’s sheep?’ Luke gave a mock despairing groan. ‘The way he’s handled them is enough to turn anyone grey. It was awkward enough when he moved the first tenants off their land to make way for the damned animals, even though he did
try
to do it decently. This last few months, though, he’s been so sunk in misery over the tragedy with the baby that he doesn’t have a thought for anyone else. He’s all set to clear out some more of the clachans, and making no attempt to soften the blow. The people at Grianan have refused to accept the writs, and things could turn nasty. If they decide to make a stand on eviction day, Edward will have to use force.’

‘Have
to?’ Perry surveyed him thoughtfully. ‘That sounds almost as if you approve.’

‘Not approve, precisely. I’m not, as it happens, a great believer in the Clearances, but I don’t think there’s any doubt that the future does lie with sheep. And it is, after all, a landlord’s prerogative to do as he chooses with his land. No gentleman can afford to have his tenants setting up in opposition to him.’

‘That doesn’t sound like the Luke I used to know. However, I suppose most people’s views about property change as they move from the ranks of the have-nots to the haves. No! Let it go, Luke!’ He raised one long-fingered, capable hand. ‘We’re not likely to agree on that topic, I can see. Tell me how you’ve been occupying your time since you went up to Oxford. In 1822, wasn’t it? I remember you were just going up when I was over here last.’

‘When you were...’ Luke’s hackles had risen, as they always did, at the hint of criticism, and his voice was sharper than was courteous. ‘I thought this was your first visit home since you left in 1815!’

Perry, now gracefully at ease in one of the leather chairs by the fire, didn’t allow his puzzlement to show. He could understand that Vilia mightn’t have mentioned his second visit to Marchfield House, but why the devil should she and Lucy Telfer have kept quiet about the first? Mungo had known he was in the country, after all. But if Luke didn’t know, Magnus probably didn’t either. There was something odd, here, but Perry didn’t want to land Luke’s mama – nice woman – in the chowder. He said non-committally, ‘I was over for a short time, just, and happened to be in Edinburgh during the royal visit.’

Luke was not to be put off. ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me? You met someone – you must have done. Who did you meet? I should have liked to see you, and grandfather would have been delighted to have your news, even if only at second hand.’

With an internal sigh, Perry recognized that in a moment Luke’s mystification would turn to suspicion. Protecting the inexplicable Lucy, he smiled and said, ‘You forget I have never been very popular with your family. But I wondered how everyone was faring, and paid a call on Mrs Lauriston as the likeliest fount of information.’ Wryly, he added, ‘She was even able to tell me I had a daughter of whose existence I knew nothing.’

‘Shona?’ Luke was temporarily diverted. ‘You mean you didn’t know anything about her? Jesus! Surely my aunt could have found some way of letting you know!’

‘Perhaps, if she’d wanted to. Perhaps not.’

His hand on the decanter and his back turned, Luke said casually, ‘I thought you and Mrs Lauriston were scarcely acquainted!’

But Perry’s instinct for danger had become highly developed during his years of exile, and he sensed at once that there was something badly wrong. He didn’t have an inkling of what it might be, but didn’t dare hesitate. ‘Very little.’ Then, conscious that it hadn’t been enough, despite the dismissive tone in which it had been uttered, he added, ‘We met once or twice in London, by chance, when I was there in ’15.’

‘Oh, yes. Gold Cup day at Ascot, if I remember.’

‘I believe it was, and there was another occasion. I don’t quite recall. Anyway, she was able to tell me how things were at Glenbraddan and Kinveil.’ His voice changed. ‘So! Did you find Oxford suited you! And did you have your Grand Tour afterwards? That was something I missed. No Grand Tours for the sons of the idle gentry when the Napoleonic Wars were on.’

Luke was reminded of his grandfather. Perhaps this was one of the talents one learned in commerce – to dictate conversations as one dictated one’s business affairs. How to leave one’s unfortunate
vis-à-vis
with no possible way of pursuing a subject without downright rudeness. Left stranded on the shoals of his Grand Tour, Luke gave Perry the edited version that nowadays tripped almost automatically from his tongue. A little bawdier than usual, perhaps, for this was Perry Randall and Luke still felt the old compulsion to try and impress him. He managed, he thought, to be fluent and entertaining in spite of everything. In spite of the light, crisp voice echoing in his ears. ‘I met him only twice, you know, the second time for no more than a few minutes at Ascot... I was told he went to America. Did you ever hear what became of him?’

‘...so I came back for Georgiana’s wedding last year. And then there was the opening of the new bridge over the Braddan – you crossed it on your way here. Did you know it was built with materials from Mrs Lauriston’s foundry? She was here for the opening.’

Then, moved by he didn’t know what – fear, suspicion, pride, self-defence – he went on, ‘Indeed, Uncle Perry, although no one else knows it yet, perhaps you will wish me happy? Mrs Lauriston and I are to be married.’ He watched his uncle with a fearful intensity, searching for the faintest sign that would tell him what he wanted to know. What he
didn’t
want to know. The room seemed to have become intolerably hot, and the candles hurt his eyes.