Summer of Love (2 page)

    
"Does Archibald Campbell have any sons from his marriage?"

    
"No, I don’t think he ever married. So the lad might be the last of that
family. His brother just died the other year and left no heir either."

    
"How old were you when you lived at the castle, mother?"

    
Her mother hesitated for a moment, casting a quick frown at her, and then
said: "Oh, I think I was your age … sixteen. So it’s nigh to twenty years by
now."

    
"How old do you think that young man is?"

    
She shrugged. "Seventeen … maybe eighteen at the most."

    
"So he sired him after you left there."

    
"That seems right, lass."

    
They continued walking in silence.

    
"Mother, why were you sent to Inveraray?"

    
"To fulfil my mother’s ambitions and become a lady."

    
Helen smiled to herself. Didn’t work, did it? "But why did she want you
to become a lady?"

    
"She was Rob Roy’s youngest daughter and may have had a secret wish
herself to rise in society. I was her only surviving child. Both my brothers
died in infancy, and the pox took my older sister just before I was born. So
she loaded all her ambitions onto me. She never forgave me that I lasted less
than two years there."

    
"Why did you leave?"

    
"I was very unhappy. Everybody looked down on me and laughed behind
my back. I was barely tolerated. I hated it, and …" She let the words hang.

    
"And what, mother?"

    
"Oh, nothing. I was very homesick."

    
"And the man you fancied didn’t want you?"

    
"Don’t be nosy, lass! It’s all long in the past and better forgotten and left
alone."

    
"Was that the reason why you married father so quickly after you
returned?"

    
She did not answer, and Helen hesitated to press her any further. Her
mother had already told her more than she had ever done. So father wasn’t
mother’s first love. Who would have believed that she fancied a Campbell
of Argyle. Her parents never spoke a good word about any of those
Campbells. What a surprise! She sensed that this wasn’t something to be
talked about.

    
After a few minutes she said with a frown: "I didn’t like the way he
looked at me."

    
"Who? … Ah, that young man. Why, he gave you a nice, warm smile. He
seemed to be quite taken with you. You are a pretty lass that will make a
laird proud, one day."

    
"Ha, me making a laird proud. I don’t want to get married."

    
"Why would you say that?" Her mother’s voice betrayed her surprise.

    
"Oh, men just loaf around and put on airs, while we do all the hard work
and don’t even get thanks for it." Helen startled herself. She had never
consciously formulated these thoughts. But they sounded true. "Why do I
have to go barefoot, while my younger brothers have boots?"

    
"You will get married one day, lass, sooner than you think—"

    
"No, I won’t!"

    
"We’ll see. And besides, there’s little point in grumbling over trifles. It
has always been that way and will always be that way. The men’s honor is
to keep our clan growing and their women folk safe."

    
"Paff, they can’t even do that properly. Why did they get us chased off our
ancestral lands?"

    
"Don’t you get impudent now! That isn’t your father’s fault. And hasn’t
he found us a good place to live?"

    
"A stony glen in the shadow of two mountains, with hardly any decent
earth to sow oats! You call this a good place?"

    
"Don’t you dare talk like this about your father." Mary raised her voice
sharply. "You hear me, lass? Be grateful that we have a decent roof over our
heads and land for our cattle."

    
Helen was on the verge of repeating one of her grandmother’s favorite
sayings: "A patch of land too poor to live off, but too big to starve." She
caught herself in time. It would simply provoke her mother into a holy ire.

    
Her thoughts strayed back to the encounter with the young man. She could
not remember any man ever looking at her in this way, not that she had been
given much opportunity to meet any. Just at the occasional clan gathering, or
when a few MacGregors of the Braes of Balquhidder stopped by their place,
usually to hide for a few weeks.
Mother is right. He has a warm smile,
she
mused silently. With a man like him, she could break out of the MacGregor
curse. A factor made good money. She could have many nice dresses and
even shoes, like Miriam McNabb. She could live in a big house with a parlor,
a proper bedroom with its own fireplace to keep her warm in winter, a big
separate kitchen with a real hearth, maybe even a cook and a maid … like in
the books. She would never have to toil in the fields or tend the animals, no
more going hungry in winter if the harvest is bad. Her children would be
dressed in sweet frocks with lace ribbons, not hand-me-downs.

    
Her own thoughts horrified her. No true MacGregor would ever stoop so
low as to marry a Campbell of Argyle.
Did the fool think that I would be
charmed by a mere smile?
No, she definitely didn’t like him.

    
The first heavy rain drops smacked her face. The two women quickly
stripped off their plaids and covered their creels. It would be no good to get
their grains wet.

* * *

The young man standing behind the factor let his eyes roam over the crowd
in the market square, hoping to catch another glimpse of the young woman
with the flaming red hair.

    
"That is Dougal Campbell’s oldest daughter. A good-looking lass, proud
and fiery like her mother. But you might as well forget her, Andrew, my lad,"
Dougan teased his young charge. "Her mother would never let her tie the
knot except with another MacGregor."

    
"I wasn’t thinking of marriage," Andrew answered, blushing just a bit.

    
"No harm dreaming of a pretty lass. I wish I still could," chuckled
Dougan, as he lifted his hat to scratch the bald scalp under his peruke. "You
know, I was quite a lady’s man in my younger days. I bedded a few."

    
"I bet you did… The MacGregors, are they any relations of Rob Roy?"

    
"It is said that Mary Campbell’s mother was his youngest daughter."

    
"Where is their clachan?"

    
"On Allt Breaclaich west of Creag Gharbh, two miles along the loch. Just
enough land for the half-dozen families of their immediate clan. But then
beggars can’t be choosers, can they?"

    
"I guess not… Are they in with Rob Roy’s sons’ blackmail racket?"

    
Dougan shrugged his shoulders, rubbing his chin. "Difficult to say. No
extra cattle have ever been spotted on their land yet. But no telling what is
going on at night, and they are in arrears with the rent… Andrew, you are an
observant lad. Why, you go pay them a visit one of these days and check out
how they are doing. Just for a friendly chat, mind you. We don’t want to give
cause for trouble."

    
"You can spare me for a day, next week, Mr. Graham?"

    
"Sure, lad. Thursday or Friday."

    
The factor looked over to the fair. Nobody had come their way for a while.
He fastened the buckle of the leather-covered ledger and then tied his purse.
"We took in sixty-two pounds and eight shillings."

    
He got up, groaning, and placed both hands on the small of his back,
trying to straighten. The buttons of his little waistcoat threatened to pop open
over his pot belly. His face distorted into a grimace of pain. "This gout just
does not want to go away this year." He groaned again. "Never get old,
laddie, never get old," he muttered. "It’s but a bane. Better you go young,
while you are still a man."

    
Andrew smiled. The old fellow said that every time he got up. He stopped
the ink pot and put it into a satchel, together with the quills and sand and the
ledger. He folded the little table and the two stools and, loaded with all their
things, briefly scanned the people around the fair stalls in the vain hope of
catching another glimpse of the redhead. Disappointed, he hurried after the
factor, who was walking slowly to The Bear, Killin’s only inn, for his dinner
and his bottle of French claret.

* * *

Over the next few days, Andrew caught himself time and again thinking
about the MacGregor lass. At night when he lay in the dark, he saw her
boldly cut face—a sort of haunting beauty—her haughty, almost disdainful
look in response to his smile, but then the quick glance back, as she walked
away with her mother—that proud, striking woman. Did her face betray for
just an instant a dismayed surprise when he met her in the narrow street, he
wondered?

    
His mind strayed back to the girl. What could be her name? It wouldn’t
be the same as her mother’s. That wouldn’t fit. He tried a few typical
Highlander girls’ names. If she’s Rob Roy’s great granddaughter, it could be
the same as her great grandmother’s. "Helen!" he whispered. That would fit
well. For a moment, he was pleased with the thought, and then laughed at his
own foolishness. But he was not ashamed. It felt good to think of her as
Helen. Anyway, he might never see her again. She might not be at the
clachan when he planned to visit them on Thursday. They might have come
into town to get supplies for taking their cattle up into the summer grazing
meadows—the shielings. It was about that time of year.

    
On Thursday morning, he was the first to ride out through the heavy gate
of Finlarig Castle, the somber seat of Lord Glenorchy, the Earl of Breadalbane. It was built on a small mound just north of the river Lochay. Crossing
the ford of that river, he guided his grey mare south through the awakening
street of Killin and then crossed the Dochart above the falls and rapids that
churned up the waters in their haste to swell Loch Tay, a short distance to the
east. Beinn Leabhain had its top still shrouded in a veil of mist against a
milky sky. As he passed by Achmore, a small huddle of dilapidated crofter’s
cottages, a few urchins in scant rags stared at him with barely hidden hostility
and then threw small pebbles after him. They scurried away cheering when
he looked over his shoulder.

    
The glassy waters of Loch Tay, yet unruffled by the westerly breeze that
would spring up later in the morning, mirrored the lofty heights of Ben
Lawers. They were still capped by white crowns, glistening in the early sun,
and dominated the sky across the narrow loch. He rode at a leisurely pace
through coppices of birch, hazel, and oak scattered along the shore, enjoying
the peace of the morning crispness.

    
After two miles a glen opened to his right, rising gently beneath the round
peak of Creag Gharbh.
That must be their glen
, went through his mind. He
felt reluctant to enter right away and continued along the shore.

    
A small row boat plied the smooth surface of the lake. Its V-shaped wake
drew silvery stripes through the reflections in the water. The lone occupant
beached the boat about a mile further on, near a couple of houses on a small
rise that overlooked the clachan of Ardeonaig, and unloaded a basket full of
fish.

    
On the spur of the moment, Andrew rode down to the fisherman and
bargained for three good-sized trout. As he hooked the fish to his saddle bag,
he felt suddenly silly. They’d spoil before he got back to the castle, and the
cook would just growl if he asked to have them prepared for his dinner. But
then it dawned on him why he had bought them. They were a sort of peace
offering to Mary MacGregor. Hopefully, the bottle of claret in his pouch
might serve the same purpose for her husband. But why did he feel he had to
make this gesture? He didn’t know them. He didn’t owe them anything. Was
it simply because he was a Campbell from Argyle and they were MacGregors? … On strive with each other for hundreds of years? He did not
know the answer. All he knew was that he had this vague urge to be on good
terms with them and with their daughter. Was it Helen? He spoke the name
softly. It sounded melodious.
I’m being silly again,
he chided himself
silently.