Moreton's Kingdom (8 page)

‘It’s completely feudal!’ she declared in exasperation as he drove the car over a stone bridge which spanned the narrow arm of the loch. ‘Your attitude—this place—everything that’s happened in the past twenty-four hours! If it wasn’t such a nightmare I’d believe it impossible,’ she rushed on. ‘Are we really on an island?’

‘Not quite,’ he shrugged. ‘There’s a narrow neck of land at the north end, but I’d advise you not to use it. The bridge is the only way across.’

Katherine looked down at the shining water surrounding the house as they crossed the bridge and at the belt of pines which sheltered it from the north, aware that she would have loved this place if she had come to it under happier circumstances. The old grey stone kissed by the sun could have seemed welcoming and friendly and real contentment might have blossomed from its stillness and peace.

‘It’s your family home,’ she said.

Charles Moreton nodded.

‘I was born at Glassary,’ he said. ‘So was Sandy, for that matter, and my brother, whom you’ll meet very soon.’ A frown creased his dark brow. ‘I wouldn’t say he’s the most hospitable of men,’ he added, ‘but you must work that out for yourself.’

They were almost at the house, skirting a semi-circular lawn which divided the two carriageways, and Katherine saw the grey facade of Glassary clearly for the first time. A stone canopy supported by stone pillars guarded the doorway between two long mullioned windows which looked out on either side of it, watching for strangers, no doubt, and there were four other similar windows along the front of the house and six above on the first storey, while at each corner stood a round tower crowned with a little turret of grey slate.

An elderly woman came to the door.

‘This is Mrs. Stevas,’ said Charles. ‘She’ll look after you while you’re here.’

Mrs. Stevas didn’t look at all like a gaoler, Katherine thought as Sandy rushed towards her to be enveloped in a gigantic hug.

‘I’ve got a bear!’ he announced excitedly. ‘A little wooden bear!’

‘There won’t be any prizes for guessing who made him!’ Mrs. Stevas smiled, stepping back into the hallway. ‘And none for guessing where your first port of call will be once you’ve had your lunch!’

“To see Fudge!’ Sandy cried. ‘Has he been lonely while I’ve been away, Mrs. Stevas?’

‘He’s been eating his head off—with grief, if you like!’

The housekeeper turned to Katherine. ‘If you’ll come this way, miss, I’ll be showing you to your room,’ she added conventionally. ‘You must want to get settled in after so long a journey,’ she said. ‘I’ll feed the bairn while you’re having a wash.’

Whatever explanation Charles had offered her about their unexpected visitor, Mrs. Stevas appeared to be the soul of discretion, too good a servant to show her feelings at a first encounter.

Katherine looked round for Charles.

‘He’ll be off to the Stable House,’ Mrs. Stevas said. ‘Mr. Fergus will be waiting.’

‘Is—Mr. Fergus his brother?’ Katherine asked.

‘His
younger
brother.’ The housekeeper underlined the relationship as if it was very important. ‘You’ll be meeting him as soon as you’ve had a meal. He doesn’t come to the house at lunchtime because he can’t walk that distance more than once a day. He has the electric wheelchair, of course, but he’s stubborn about using it. Like all men, he thinks it diminishes his dignity in some way or other. We’re always telling him it won’t be for ever, but I don’t think he believes us. Even Dr. Farquharson has a job with him at times, though he’s much better than he was in the beginning. You’ll like Mr. Fergus,’ she concluded with a smile. ‘Everybody does.’

They climbed a wide flight of stairs adorned by a red carpet which shone like a ruby against the dark mahogany of the panelled walls, and Katherine wanted to ask Mrs. Stevas a thousand questions, although she knew that not all of them would be answered. Instead, she concentrated on the layout of the house which could become her prison for a number of days.

The stairs went up to a wide landing where they branched right and left to the upper storey of the house along a corridor with doors on either side.

‘Glassary is a very old house,’ Mrs. Stevas explained, ‘but this is the sunnier side. The family always slept here when they were at home, but now it’s mainly for guests.’

Katherine wanted to laugh out loud at the misnomer, since she was far from considering herself a guest.

‘We’re a long way from the main road,’ she suggested instead. ‘Glassary is really isolated. My car broke down,’ she hurried on to explain, although she had a strong suspicion that Mrs. Stevas knew all about her odd adventure. ‘It was too late to have it towed to a garage last night, but I’m hoping something can be done with it quickly. You see,’ she added carefully, ‘I’m on holiday and I had hoped to get to the Trossachs this morning.’

‘You’re not so far away from them.’ The housekeeper opened a stout mahogany door near the end of the corridor, ‘You’ll be quite comfortable here in the meantime.’ Some of Charles’s determination had tinged her voice. ‘There’s no need for you to feel isolated,’ she added cheerfully. ‘There’s plenty to do at Glassary if you have a mind to look for it.’

The words might have been some kind of warning, yet Katherine felt that Mrs. Stevas could easily be won over.

‘If there’s anything more you might need just ring the bell,’ she said, turning to go. ‘Jamie will bring up your suitcase in a wee while and lunch is at one o’clock. It’s a meal everybody pleases theirselves about—generally cold venison or salmon because the men are out—but they manage to make up for it at dinner time! Mr. Fergus is in by then, too.’

Wondering about ‘everybody’, but not prepared to ask, Katherine inspected her room. Although somewhat forbidding with its heavy Victorian furniture standing round the walls and a large half-poster bed dominating the centre of the floor, it was completely adequate, and there was a smaller apartment leading off it which she discovered to be a bathroom. Quite a modern bathroom, she noted, with a handy shower and glazed waterproof curtains tucked into the bath.

All mod. cons! she thought whimsically, although she was half inclined to look for a barred window.

Maybe if I had a strong sense of humour I’d be able to see the funny side of all this, she thought, as she crossed the bedroom to look out of the casement window to the hills. No need for bars, she decided, seeing the long drop to the gravelled drive beneath her.

When she had washed her face and tidied her hair she went back to the window as if drawn there inevitably. It was the only way of finding her bearings and working out her escape.

The short gravelled drive held out its arms to embrace the lawn with the wooden bridge which spanned the narrow neck of water behind it, while beyond the bridge the gravelled approach road led eventually to the road through the glen. There was nothing complex about it, but the fact of Glassary’s isolation stood like a barrier between her and the outside world. Without a car there would be little hope of getting away even if she did appeal to Mrs. Stevas for directions and possible understanding.

She was still at the window when Charles Moreton made his appearance on the approach road. He was driving a Range Rover with two dogs in it, both black and white collies who sprang to the ground even before he had drawn up at the front door. She heard him reprimanding them as she stood back from the window. He had come from the Stable House, she supposed, where he had no doubt put his brother in the picture. Whatever Fergus Moreton turned out to be like he would be this man’s strongest ally.

Within minutes there was a brisk knock at her door.

‘Come in!’ she commanded, but was completely unprepared for Charles acting the part of porter. ‘I—Mrs. Stevas said Jamie would bring up my case.’

He deposited it in the centre of the room.

‘I wanted to talk to you,’ he said.

‘Yes?’

He prowled round the half-poster.

‘When you’ve had something to eat I want you to meet my brother.’ He stood gazing across the room, his dark face devoid of expression, but somehow Katherine knew that what he was about to say affected him deeply. ‘A year ago he had a serious accident and he isn’t completely recovered. He avoids strangers as much as possible, so I hope I can trust you not to make your sympathy too obvious. Above all, he abhors pity. What he did was beyond the bounds of affection,’ he added, ‘but I’ve no intention of burdening you with the details. He’s prepared to meet you because you’ve been brought here on Sandy’s account, but that’s all. Can I ask you to understand?’

‘I’ll do my best.’ She looked back at him without anger this time. ‘I’m sorry about your brother. Does he manage to work on the estate?’

‘He’s an artist,’ said Charles. ‘A considerable one, I’m led to believe by the people who know about that sort of thing, and he can sell most of his canvases as soon as they’re finished. He and Emma Falkland are very much alike: they would prefer to keep the fruits of their labour but they realise how uneconomic that is. They produce them at local exhibitions and sell through the hotel. It’s quite a lucrative idea when they get round to it.’

‘I can appreciate the point of them not always wanting to sell their work,’ said Katherine, thinking back to her meeting with Emma. ‘A great many artists would rather give their work away, like Emma did with Sandy’s bear.’

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘but Sandy is special where Emma is concerned! He’s having his lunch, by the way, and then he’ll have a nap while we have ours. Afterwards, I’ll take you to the Stable House.’

‘It’s part of the estate, I suppose?’ Katherine suggested. He nodded.

‘Within riding distance. We keep Sandy’s pony down there.’

‘Fudge,’ Katherine remembered, thinking that Sandy must have lived happily at Glassary in the past, learning to ride on a stout little Highland pony which had become his greatest treasure.

She followed Charles down the staircase, deciding to leave her suitcase unpacked. I mean to run, she thought, as soon as ever I can.

They passed a curtained alcove in the hall.

‘The phone is in there if you want to use it,’ said Charles.

‘But I thought—’

‘That you were being kept a prisoner?’ His steely gaze came down on hers. ‘In no way,’ he said, ‘but I need your co-operation. I think I’ve made that clear. Till your car is fit for the road again you will remain at Glassary, but you’re quite free to use the telephone, even though it’s only to contact Coralie in your own time to report.’

A slow colour dyed her cheeks.

‘I’m not prepared to lie about that,’ she countered steadily. ‘I do mean to get in touch with Sandy’s mother, if only to tell her where he is.’

‘She won’t come back here,’ Charles said grimly. ‘She knows the score only too well.’

His uncompromising manner where Sandy’s mother was concerned disconcerted her even when she knew him prejudiced.

He must have phoned ahead from the hotel, because a substantial meal was set out in the mahogany-panelled dining-room which could have seated twenty or more with ease.

When they had made their choice from the cold dishes set out on the sideboard, Charles sat down at the head of the table and Katherine pictured a family gathering in the long room, each member with his tale to tell on his homecoming, a happy family, close-knit, and looking towards the mother of the house for love and support. She would have sat in the high-backed chair at the foot of the table, a gracious presence, eager to share their individual joy, but that chair was now conspicuously empty. Coralie had vacated it without compunction.

Charles Moreton’s father would have sat where Charles was sitting now, with the portrait of a man behind him who was surely his father and Charles’s grandfather. The family likeness was unmistakable, with the same dominant aquiline nose and identical penetrating gaze, the same high forehead above thickly aggressive brows, dark men in their own dark environment of brooding loch and mountain and glen gazing down the long table at the children who had crowned their marriage with love and contentment and the woman who had made it all come true. However far their ancestry went back in this one spot they would all have looked the same, their mutual air of supreme confidence stemming from their superiority in the past, from the ancient clan system which bred such men in the days when courage meant something more than lip service to a cause and when blood was thicker than water wherever a name was shared. Dark deeds had been done in these hidden glens, like the treacherous Massacre of Glencoe when the Campbell hordes had swept down on their neighbours who had offered them hospitality on a winter’s night, slaying them, one by one, in the darkness, or the killing of James of the Glens, who must have trodden these mountains in his youth as Charles Moreton had done. In those days there had been many sons to carry on the family name, but now there were only two—Charles and his brother Fergus.

‘When you’re ready,’ said Charles, looking down the table to where she sat. ‘I can hear Sandy chafing at the bit out there on the terrace, waiting for us.’

The child’s clear, resonant voice reached them through an open window, wondering how long they would be, and Mrs. Stevas answering him.

‘You must have patience, Sandy. You’ll have all the time in the world to ride Fudge from now on.’

Katherine got hastily to her feet.

‘He’s so eager to go,’ she said.

Charles had said that the pony was kept at the Stable House and the house itself was a reasonable ride away. How far? she wondered, shrugging into her coat which had been left in the hall.

They went along the edge of the loch by a well-defined path which wandered through a shrubbery of rhododendrons and azaleas in full bloom, a breathtaking glow of vivid colour which she had glimpsed from the window of her bedroom when she had first looked out.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said as they walked along. ‘Just beautiful!’

‘I think so,’ he admitted. ‘It was planned by my grandmother when she came to Glassary as a bride and she made it her life’s work. Every shrub and tree had its individual place so that she could see them all reflected in the loch on a clear day.’

‘Like today!’ said Katherine, drawing in a deep breath of the pine-laden air. ‘It’s—almost perfect.’

‘But you qualify the perfection,’ he said, looking down at her as Sandy skipped ahead of them.

‘I was thinking of freedom,’ she answered. ‘Sandy seems to have it now.’

‘It’s his by right.’ Charles’s tone was grim. ‘No one but Coralie would wish to deny him all this.’

He looked about him with pride, and Katherine could only agree with him, thinking that if she had come to Glassary in different circumstances she would have loved it as he did.

The Stable House stood at the edge of the loch reflected in the mirror-like surface of a tiny bay. It was long and low, with an open stone staircase at one end, giving access to a sizeable loft whose windows looked back to Glassary through the trees. The corresponding windows on the lower floor were all open, suggesting that someone worked there for most of the day in ideal conditions if he happened to be an artist.

Fergus Moreton came to the open door of the house in a wheelchair. The impact of his handicap was something she had not expected, but she had been forewarned by his brother not to show pity. Dressed in shabby jeans and a rough brown shirt, Fergus was small and bearded, with dark, sombre eyes and dark hair growing thickly on a well-shaped head. Younger than Charles by several years, he looked the elder of the two, the brown eyes haunted by a memory.