A Dark and Distant Shore (9 page)

It was a sadness to Vilia that she had never known her grandfather, who had loved Kinveil, she thought, with a passion as great as hers. After the disaster of Culloden, he had paused only long enough to collect a few of his worldly goods before sailing on the first tide for Europe and a life of wandering exile. He had been just eighteen years old at the time.

As far as she had been able to discover, he couldn’t afford, or hadn’t been invited, to accompany the defeated prince on that young man’s subsequent aimless progress through Europe. Instead, young Gideon had made straight for Rome and the court of the prince’s father, the throneless King James III. There, for twenty long years, he had survived as a minor functionary at the Palazzo Muti, the headquarters of the Jacobite cause in the Piazza dei San’ Apostoli, sometimes even being paid a few
scudi
when the Old Pretender had made one of his formal visits to the Vatican and been rewarded with the largesse due to a son of the Church, who might one day – although the possibility receded year by year – be called to rule over Scotland and England and bring those countries back to the true faith.

But in 1766 the Old Pretender had died and there were no more Vatican subsidies. Gideon had gone to France, but his kinsmen there had made him feel like a poor relation. It had wakened his pride again, dormant for so long. He was still under forty, and his portrait showed him as tall and slim, with clear grey eyes and slightly hollow cheeks. He looked as if he had charm. Certainly, he must have had something to recommend him to the pretty and by no means penniless miladi he had married in 1768. Their son, Theophilus, had been born two years later, and had grown up in the brittle, extravagant world of Paris before the revolution.

When he was fourteen years old, the British government had decided to offer back to their exiled owners some of the Highland estates that had been declared forfeit to the Crown after the ’Forty-five, though not for nothing. The owners were expected to reimburse the government for what it had paid out during its period of caretaking. Gideon Cameron had been told he could have Kinveil back for a mere £17,326. Plus a few shillings. The government was nothing if not meticulous in its reckoning.

He had just enough, even, he estimated, the little extra that would enable him to repair the damage done by years of neglect and the depredations of the Redcoats. But his elegant French wife had taken one look at the forbidding pile, swathed in October mists, that her husband proposed living in, and had gone straight back to Paris with her relieved son clasped firmly by the hand.

Gideon had died ten years later. He had done wonders, but he was still able to bequeath to the boy only a partially restored castle, thirty thousand acres of uncultivated and largely uncultivable land, and a derisory amount of money.

Vilia didn’t know, but she suspected that her father had tried to sell the place there and then. Failing, he had come to live here; and then Vilia’s mother, whom he adored, had died giving her birth. After that, nothing would have persuaded him to stay. Vilia supposed he was to be pitied, but there was no space in her mind for pity. All she could think of was the betrayals – of herself, who loved it so much, and of his own father, who had also loved it so much that he had stripped himself of everything for its sake.

Vilia stared at the ring of old weapons, the dirks and the claymores, that still hung in formal array on the wall above the fireplace, and wept a little, for her grandfather, and for herself.

She was not yet aware of Mungo’s consuming interest in her. He had been taken aback at first to find her so different from the passionate child he remembered. She was too pale, and too thin, and the fire in her eyes had been quenched. But because he knew what there had been, he refused to believe that this prim and correct young lady, with her conventional manners and almost oppressive politeness, could be all that was left. So he kept his distance to give her time to settle down, and was rewarded as day by day her complexion gained a little colour, and she began to come running up to the Gallery at suppertime with her hair very slightly ruffled and her company smile tinged with breathlessness and an afterglow of happiness.

Although five o’clock dinner was the main meal of the day at Kinveil, in summer it was informal. Those who chose to come indoors for it washed and tidied but didn’t change, because the sun was up for another four or five hours and life continued in the open unless it was very wet. But Mungo insisted that everyone sit down to supper at nine thirty.

‘Everyone’ consisted of Mungo, Vilia and Luke; Henry Phillpotts; Vilia’s governess, who spent her days like a lost spirit, wondering where her pupil had gone; and Edward and his tutor, an incorrigibly dull young man from somewhere around Aberdeen, whose accent no one but Edward could understand. Even everyday phrases came out like abbreviated hiccoughs. Luke amused himself one day trying to transliterate some of them, and the nearest he could get to ‘What do you want?’ was ‘Fitchywahhnt?’ Fairly soon, everyone became so tired of saying, ‘I beg your pardon?’ and the tutor of repeating himself two or three times, that he gave up altogether and relaxed into a Trappist silence.

Supper was brought up on trays. Jessie Graham knew that Mr Telfer liked something plain at this hour, and she had been brought up to believe that folk who had been out in the open all day needed to go to bed with something substantial in their stomachs. So there was a central dish of mutton cutlets, flanked by smaller dishes of mashed potatoes, minced collops, rumbled eggs, and the vegetable purée known as ‘bashed neeps’ – mashed turnips flavoured with chopped onion tops, pepper, and a hearty amount of butter. To follow, there would be some kind of fruit pie or pastry. Mungo unfailingly welcomed this collation with what he knew Jessie wanted to hear. ‘Nothing I like better than a good mutton chop. And a three-year-old Blackface ewe beats all the others to flinders.’

When Vilia, one evening, spooning a single best-end cutlet onto her plate, remarked, ‘I’m surprised you haven’t turned over to Cheviots, even so,’ he was privately much cheered. It was the first time she had volunteered an opinion, and he set himself to draw her out. ‘Aye, well,’ he said. ‘I might if I were going into the business, but I’m not moving folk to clachans on the shore just to make room for a wheen o’ sheep. There’s little enough good land hereabouts, and folk need it more than beasts do. No, I’ll stick to my wee flock of Linton Blackfaces. They’re enough to give us a bit mutton for ourselves and wool for the women’s spinning.’

‘But grandfather,’ said Edward in his pursed-up little voice. ‘Don’t you think sheep make better use of the land than people?’

Edward was a disappointment to his grandfather. He was George Blair all over again. ‘Aye, maybe they do. But what’s that got to do with it? There isn’t room for both.’

Henry, in insatiable pursuit of new material to add to the ragbag of his mind, inquired, ‘But, Mr Telfer, sir, is there no alternative to clachans on the shore? Could the people not emigrate?’ He waved his arm spaciously, and Vilia’s governess, who was seated next to him, flinched. ‘America or Canada, perhaps? All those wide acres! The land of opportunity! What might they not achieve in the New World?’

Mungo surveyed him dourly. ‘It’s well seen you’re a stranger here! Their own wee corner of their own landscape matters more to a Highlander than someone like you could ever imagine.’ Henry, who always claimed that imagination was his speciality, looked as if he were about to argue the toss, but Mungo forestalled him. ‘I grant you a good many thousands of folk sailed to America from hereabouts not very long ago, but that was because they weren’t given any choice.’

Vilia looked up. ‘The people from Glengarry, you mean?’

‘Just so.’ Mungo snorted. ‘That tup-heided tartan tooralorum that calls himself Alistair Ranaldson Macdonell of Glengarry...’ He was delighted to hear Vilia choke on a giggle, but went on witheringly, ‘Yon one! He’d geld a flea to make a farthing’s profit! He moved them all out of their cottages, told them where they were to live in future, and was so indignant when they refused that he even used force to try and stop them from sailing. In my own view, if they had to move, they were right to move properly. It’s a fine place, America; I served my own apprenticeship there. And looking back, the folk from Glengarry were lucky, too. It’s not so easy to emigrate these days. The landlords have seen to that!’

Henry, frowning, said, ‘But if they don’t want the people on their land, sir, why should they interfere?’

Mungo had no great opinion of Henry, but at least he was showing an intelligent interest. Resignedly, he put his knife and fork down and said, ‘They do want the people. It’s just that they don’t want them cluttering up the decent land Edward here thinks would be better for sheep.’ Edward gulped, and stared fixedly at his plate. ‘No, you have to understand. In these parts, there’s no such thing as good arable land. You can graze sheep and a few cattle, and they don’t need many people to look after them. But some things do need people, and a lot of them. You can’t afford to be short of labour if you’re cultivating timber, or barrelling fish, or making kelp...’

Henry said, ‘Kelp?’

‘Seaweed ash. It’s used for making soap and glass and bleaching powder; a kind of alkali, I’m told. But it takes a lot of seaweed to make just a wee bit kelp, and that means a lot of folk to gather it. If you want to know what I mean, take Master Luke along the coast a bit tomorrow. The season’s in full swing.’ He fixed Henry with a glare, and then popped a forkful of rapidly congealing mutton in his mouth, saying, not very distinctly, ‘My supper’s getting cold with all this talk. I’m sure Miss Vilia can tell you as much as I can.’ His pale eyes resting on her expressionlessly, he went on, ‘Why don’t you satisfy Mr Phillpotts’ curiosity about how the lairds have put a stopper on emigration?’

After a moment, Vilia transferred her slightly pensive gaze back to Henry. ‘You won’t have heard of the Passenger Vessels Act of 1803?’

Mungo grinned to himself.

‘It was sharp practice, nothing less. Conditions on the emigrant ships used to be terrible, and the Highland landowners prompted the government to pass an Act forcing them to improve their standards. It all sounded very fine, but the shipowners couldn’t meet the new regulations without doubling their fares. It used to cost £3 or £4 from Fort William to Nova Scotia. Now it’s nearer’ – she looked at Mungo questioningly – ‘nearer £10.’ He nodded. ‘And that’s the kind of sum no Highlander can raise, especially if he has a wife and children as well. It’s still a barter economy here, you know.’

Luke was feeling very much out of things. ‘Couldn’t they sell their furniture or something?’ He had no idea whether there even was any furniture in the little turf or stone cottages the local people lived in. He’d never seen inside one.

‘Don’t be daft, laddie,’ said his grandfather briskly. ‘I doubt there’s a cottage in the Highlands with furniture worth a couple of pounds, all in.’

Luke subsided into a sulky silence. His grandfather was looking at Vilia in a serious, approving kind of way, and she was looking seriously back at him. It was painfully clear that they were the only two people in the room who knew what they were talking about. Luke resented it deeply.

Next day, Luke insisted that Henry take him to see the kelping. It proved to be a splendid idea, not least because Edward explained in a very superior way that he had seen it all before, and besides, Georgiana might get dirty. So, if Luke didn’t mind, they wouldn’t accompany him.

Mind
?
Luke had been racking his brains for two weeks, wondering how to escape from the pair of them. If it had been Edward on his own, things wouldn’t have been so bad, but he always insisted on bringing the baby along. Dear little Georgiana! Luke could have strangled her. All their expeditions were circumscribed by her infant needs and whims, because she couldn’t run, or climb, or scramble, and a couple of hundred yards was as far as she could walk without becoming wobbly at the knees. The adults all nodded and smiled, and said how delightful it was to see two small boys taking such care of the little girl, but it was to be quite a while before Luke ceased to regard her with loathing and began to recognize her for the enterprising and engaging brat she was.

This unexpected respite from his cousins sent Luke off to watch the kelping in an unusually cheerful mood, and by the time he and Henry, inexpert oarsmen, had splashed their way up to the kelping beach – instead of doing the sensible thing, and walking – he was in a state bordering on hilarity. The beach was a hive of activity, and when the dingy hit bottom Luke leapt out with a squawk of excitement, recognizing, among the crowd of unknown faces, that of Ewen Campbell, his mentor of the year before. He was crouching over a long, low stone kiln that appeared to be stoked with peat, and barely took time to throw Luke a smile before he turned his attention back to the fire again.

Luke watched avidly, though what he was supposed to be watching he had no idea. After a moment Ewen raised his hand and said something in Gaelic, and a woman in a short jacket and heavy striped skirt stepped forward and gradually tipped the contents of her creel on to the peats. Then Ewen said something else in Gaelic, and she stopped. Ewen had a ten-foot pole in his hand, tipped with a three-foot iron hook, and he used it to spread the seaweed carefully all over the surface of the fire; like spreading butter on bread, Luke thought, and making sure it was smooth and even, and went all the way to the crust. After a while, Ewen said, ‘Aye, that should do,’ and turned to Luke with a grin. ‘The temperature iss ferry important, so it iss. Haff you come to giff us a hand, then?’

‘Can I?’ Luke demanded eagerly.

‘Well, you could maybe start filling some of the creels from the slype over there.’

‘Slype?’

‘That sledge thing with the box on top.’

There was a crowd of local women and children round the slype with its load of wind-dried seaweed, and Luke approached them with some trepidation, noticing how their laughter and chatter died, to be replaced with shy smiles and silence. It didn’t occur to him that none of them had the English, just as he didn’t have the Gaelic, and he was very much relieved when, after an hour of exchanging beams with anyone who happened to catch his eye, in a mute attempt to convey goodwill, he saw Ewen beckoning him over to show him what was happening in the kilns.