Christabel's Room: A spellbinding Victorian gothic romance Read online

  ‘May I?’ I asked Uncle Iain, as I stretched my hand towards the animal.

  ‘Oh yes, Dhileas loves everybody,’ Iain chuckled. He rubbed his hand along the dog’s bony back. It came to me and put its light, flat chin on my knee, as I scratched its soft black ears and rubbed the knobbly point at the back of its head.

  ‘Dhileas, the faithful,’ Iain translated his name for me. ‘And faithful you’ve been, haven’t you?’ he said to the dog, which had settled leaning against its master’s long legs. ‘Fifteen years I’ve had him, and a grand one for the sheep he was too, in the old days. The best I’ve ever had. He was a runt of a litter, too, and I would not have bothered, but Chrissie wouldn’t see him left to die. Rowena was a wee thing then and Chrissie had her mother-love in her good and strong. Any wee thing was the same, all to be protected and cherished. So these two grew up together. They used to sleep in a heap on the nursery floor, unless nanny caught them,’ he laughed to himself. ‘Then you were out on your own, weren’t you old thing?’ he rubbed the old dog’s head and looked long and silently into the fire.

  It was not ten, but nearer eleven, when Rowena arrived in the schoolroom, where I had been waiting since breakfast.

  She flopped down into a chair, still in her black riding habit, and stretched her booted feet out in front of herself.

  ‘Oh, Roderick and I had such a fine gallop,’ she exclaimed, ‘poor Gordon was left miles behind. He can never keep up,’ she giggled. She glanced up elaborately at the mantel clock. ‘Oh my dear Elspeth, I do seem to be rather late. I’m dreadfully sorry, we were having such fun that we quite forgot the time. Have you been waiting long?’

  ‘That’s quite all right,’ I replied calmly, ‘I’ve been busy sorting out some books.’ I gestured to the table. Not knowing what I would find at Creagdhubh, I had taken the precaution of purchasing a few basic texts in London.

  Rowena rose and sauntered to the table where she stood uninterestedly surveying the books, occasionally prodding at one or another with one delicate finger. ‘Well this can go back for a start,’ she announced, holding one text up between two offended fingers.

  The title was Basic Mathematics.

  ‘You are quite competent in mathematics, then, I trust,’ I responded mildly.

  Rowena laughed loudly. ‘I’m absolutely dreadful. I simply can’t be bothered. I never could, and,’ she looked pointedly at me, ‘I’m not about to begin now.’ In emphasis she flipped the book disdainfully onto the table, missing her aim and allowing it to careen off onto the floor, where it ended in a crumpled heap of open pages and splayed covers.

  ‘Now you may pick it up, young lady,’ I said, so swiftly and sharply, that after a moment’s rebellious hesitation, she did what I asked. She banged it down on the table and stalked to the far end of the room.

  ‘What do I need mathematics for, anyhow?’ she demanded. ‘I’m not going to end up an old-maid schoolmistress.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I replied quietly, ‘you won’t. On the other hand, perhaps you would find it useful to be able to add up your household accounts at least as well as your cook and your pantry maids.’

  I turned my back, half expecting her to throw something at me, but instead she came and sat down again and after a moment asked, almost plaintively, ‘Can’t we do anything fun, like painting, or poetry.’

  ‘Of course we can,’ I said. ‘There will be time for everything. Your father has shown me the music room and I’ve requested some oil paints to be ordered from Edinburgh. As for poetry, I see you have a complete Shakespeare on that shelf, and I’ve brought this edition of Browning, and here’s Tennyson …’ I paused, holding up the leather-bound book.

  ‘Tennyson, that dottering fool, why can’t we have some real poets,’ she demanded, furious.

  ‘Such as?’ I replied, finding increasing difficulty in keeping anger out of my voice.

  ‘Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Lord Byron,’ she announced defiantly.

  ‘I sincerely doubt your father would approve your reading the works of any of those gentlemen,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t care what my father approves. Roderick reads them, and he reads them to me. He knows more about art than you ever will, and I wish he was my tutor and then you could take your stuffy old Tennyson back to London where you belong.’

  ‘You know as well as I do that such an arrangement would hardly be proper.’

  ‘Proper. That’s all your kind of people ever think about, isn’t it? “Is it the proper thing?” ’ she simpered at me. ‘What do you know about artists, or art, or … or life?’

  I did not care to say that through my father’s work and my brief glimpses of the grim tenements I had learned more of what she called ‘life’ than she would likely learn in all her sheltered, high-born years. That was not really the point of her argument anyhow. The point, the centre of all she was saying, was Roderick Grant-Davies, whose all-too-apparent influence over her was not going to make my work any easier.

  She had expressed her disdain for ‘my kind of person’. But what kind of person was this Roderick, for whom she had only admiration?

  I shook my head wearily and returned to my pile of books. I found something simple and uncontroversial, a page of French translation, and set her to work at it, more to re-establish some semblance of discipline than for any educational reason.

  When she had finished and flippantly presented me with her paper, she flounced out of the room with an air of immense relief. She was hardly more relieved than I, however, that our first lesson was over.

  I had finished tidying the schoolroom and had only just commenced sorting some of my personal belongings which Catriona had unpacked from my cases and arrayed neatly on the dressing table in my own room, when the gong rang for luncheon.

  When I entered the big dining room I was greeted by Roderick, who escorted me graciously to my seat. Rowena was already seated, her expression guarded. Uncle Iain was at his place at the head of the table, but Gordon was absent. I soon learned that Gordon’s presence at meals was both occasional and erratic, and that too was accepted by the household without comment.

  As Morag brought in the soup, Uncle Iain said, ‘Well now, how was our first lesson, then?’

  He looked from me to Rowena, who responded with a quick, almost surreptitious glance at me. It struck me that she was just the slightest bit worried about what I was going to say. Apparently her father’s discipline did mean something to her after all.

  I paused, giving her a moment longer to think about it, and then said, ‘I believe we’ve made satisfactory progress.’

  Uncle Iain looked at me curiously, but did not, fortunately, press for further explanation. Rowena changed the subject with great enthusiasm, enquiring about the sheep with an interest I was sure was not typical.

  The conversation ran on agricultural lines throughout the meal, with Uncle Iain stopping on occasion to explain some detail to me. Roderick showed a polite interest in all that was said, though it was evident that the farming aspect of Creagdhubh was not its main attraction for the young poet.

  Rowena, however, displayed an extensive knowledge, if only a limited interest, in the subject. But then, she was bred to it and found it a natural background to her life.

  Uncle Iain suggested that I should take advantage of the current improvement in the weather and see something of the estate before the winter snows closed in and made that impossible. I agreed, though when he offered to have a pony saddled for me, I explained that I was still tired from my journey and felt that a brief walk would probably be all I was up to today.

  I was just setting out, in my walking costume, when Rowena stopped me in the grand hallway.

  ‘Elspeth,’ she called, walking down the corridor towards me.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Have you decided where you are going to walk?’

  I shook my head replying, ‘I thought I would have a look around once I was out of doors.’

  ‘Would you like a good view of the loch?’ she
asked.

  ‘Yes that would be nice,’ I replied, wondering if her friendly smile was her way of thanking me for not revealing her behaviour this morning to her father.

  ‘Come, I’ll show you,’ she said quickly, leading me out the door. She stood beside me in front of the house and pointed to a garden path and beyond the garden to where a high ridge of rocky pasture rose at some small distance from where we stood.

  ‘It’s not a very long walk, really, and if you just follow that path carefully, it will lead you to a sheep track that will take you right to the top of the ridge. From up there, there’s a wonderful view of the loch and all the hills beyond. Stay right on the path and you’ll find your way easily.’

  ‘Thank you, Rowena, it sounds lovely,’ I said, and she waved from the doorway as I went. Perhaps, I thought, I had made some progress after all. Certainly Rowena’s whole manner was much friendlier.

  Of course she hadn’t yet offered to accompany me on my walk, but that was too much to expect so soon.

  I crossed the short, wet grass of the lawn where patches of crusty snow still remained in the shadow of the walls, and followed the garden path around the corner of the house. The gardens were extensive behind the building, carefully sculptured into the hill that rose away from the precipice above the burn and continued gently upward toward the pasture. The garden path became a corridor, roofed with rose trellising and lined with rows of Italian-marble busts, set on marble pillars. Even with the roses a bare winter scrabble of thorns, it was quite enchanting, and I imagined how beautiful it would look in summer.

  On the left I passed the walled kitchen-garden, a painted wooden door at its entrance. Eventually the rose-trellis ended, and I passed through a formal garden of box hedging, at the end of which was another wooden door, set right into the hedge.

  It opened with a rusty, wet screech, and the cold January wind hit me as I stepped through. Beyond was open pasture, pale green with winter grass and marked here and there by rusty-red patches of dead, wet bracken and the grey-white of lichen-coated stones. Amongst the stones, and not unlike them in appearance, the sheep were scattered, moving quietly, their heads turned away from the strong wind.

  I stepped through another gate, this one a plain rail one in a stone wall that kept the sheep in their pasture and out of the garden. A narrow beaten-path worn into the low grass indicated the way I should go. Rowena was quite right, it was very easy to follow.

  The sheep looked curiously for a moment as I walked between them, and then the small black heads went down and the quick mouths returned to the endless nibbling search. The slope was steep, and a little slippery where the snow had melted and run down the hard-packed path, but my sturdy walking boots served me well and I reached the first crest of the hill without a fall. I stood on the top, breathing heavily, the cold air painfully sharp.

  Looking back I saw the old house, already well below me, set in the neat geometric patterns of its gardens and drives. The ravine was hidden now by the structure itself which was even larger than I had thought. At the back, two wings, one L-shaped, formed almost a closed courtyard, with just a narrow opening leading from the rear servant-quarters to the kitchen garden and the stables. The roofs were grey Ballachulish slate, surmounted by rows and rows of tall, buff-coloured chimney pots, so many of which were in use that a blue-grey, wispy haze hung in the sheltered air over Creagdhubh.

  I was tired already, but I could see that the next ridge would undoubtedly offer the sweeping view that Rowena had described. Besides, the fresh cold wind, the high, stormy, broken clouds, the land splashed about with patches of brilliant sunshine were stirring and irresistible. Even the shape of the path was tantalizing: narrow and secretive, winding through the heather.

  My eyes followed down to where it dipped into the hollow before the next rise, and then up to the summit where three tall Caledonian pines swayed their feathery, dark tops. I decided to go as far as those trees and return.

  Going down the slope was more difficult than going up, and I wished I had thought to take one of the curved wooden crooks I had dimly noticed at the doorway. Without such aid, I leant back, dug the heels of my boots into the wet, peaty earth and clambered rather awkwardly down.

  It was sheltered in the hollow between the two rocky ridges. I stopped, and sat down on a smooth, rounded boulder, enjoying the amazing warmth of the sun where the cold wind could not reach. It was then that I saw the black water, and the white fluffs of bog cotton on their thin, swaying stems. Something flickered across my memory, something distant I had read, or heard, about those lovely white tufts, I could not place it, and the vague feeling of uneasiness it caused was the only warning I had.

  I stood, and looked carefully at the path. There were perhaps fifteen feet of it remaining before it reached and climbed the second ridge. It curved, velvety green, between the standing pools of dark water, with their island tufts of dead, yellow grass and the drift of bog cotton.

  I stepped forward on the track, it was narrow, but certainly firm. I thought of the sheep, with their slim black legs, setting delicate, hard hooves one after the other. I hesitated and then I knew I wasn’t going to go back to Creagdhubh and confess to Rowena that I had not the nerve to go where even the sheep went, when she herself had shown me the way.

  But my feet were not as sure as the feet of these mountain-bred creatures. The track was only a slim bridge between the still pools and it was wet. My boot slipped, I teetered, but I had no crook to balance myself and I fell headlong into the slimy black water.

  It was icy and deep and my first reaction was simple shock at the cold. Then as I raised my muddy face from the dankness and tried to turn I was irrationally angry, but when the wet ooze dragged at my body and I sank deeper, I felt the fear.

  I am not a brave person, but I knew if I panicked I would die, and that knowledge was shocking enough to keep panic at bay.

  I lay as still as I could, my arms and legs outstretched, and slowly raised my face again. I could see over the surface of the bog to the ridge beyond, against the skyline. Upon it, one black-faced sheep stood looking, its black-horned goat-head still, the look of the devil about it.

  I turned my head away. A branch, I thought, the prickly boughs of the gorse, even a root of heather. There was nothing in reach. Five feet or more from my outstretched hand I could see a twisted, whitened tangle of wood, a dead scraggle of broom, remnants of the heather-burning, perhaps. I would have to try to reach it.

  Holding to tufts of the bog grass I tried to pull myself by the arms towards the branches. My legs sank deeper, the ooze gurgled and sucked like a living thing. Exhausted, I dropped my head down against my arm, breathing in gasps. Around me there was eerie stillness.

  High above, the wind whined across the ridges, and as I lay still I heard the sweet call of a curlew. From the corner of my eye I could see the sheep, still watching. Far away I heard a dog barking. A hooded crow, grey and black with sharp beak and glittering eyes, flapped onto my broom bush. It too watched.

  The dog barked again, a little closer. I reached once more for the broom branches, floundering, swimming a little, but always sinking farther.

  Sudden revulsion swept over me when I realized that the branch for which my hand was striving had a curving animal shape of its own. It was no branch at all, but the whitened, curving horns of a ram whose bony skull looked out at me with empty eyes from the tangle of the broom.

  I knew what the hooded crow waited for, and I screamed and panicked and thrashed foolishly in the water.

  The dog barked twice, sharply from the ridge behind me. The grey crow flapped heavily away and the black-faced sheep scurried down the ridge.

  ‘Lie still, you fool,’ a loud, harsh voice called from the ridge with the barking dog.

  I did what I was told. I had no idea who was speaking, but the fortune of a human voice when I had no hope of hearing one, indeed perhaps ever, swept me with relief, and I silently thanked God.

  ‘That is better, n
ow,’ the voice was closer, softer, the accent native Highland, ‘we will have you out just now.’ He spoke gently, soothingly, as one would speak to frightened children or sheep.

  He had crossed the narrow bridge of pathway from which I had fallen, and was, with the black and white dog, on the solid ground behind the broom. He knelt down carefully, extending his long shepherd’s crook towards me. I clutched at the smooth wood, desperate for the safety it offered.

  ‘Good lass,’ he said, quiet, concentrating on getting me free. Gently he pulled the crook back toward him. The bog squelched horribly, reluctant to lose me, but he won easily against it. His arms reached out, dragging me from the black water, lifting me onto the solid ground, holding me as I crouched against him, crying.

  We knelt there together for a long while, my head against the heavy tweed of his jacket, my wet, muddy hair streaming about my face. He stroked my hair gently again, speaking softly in Gaelic the comforting words that came most naturally. I did not need to understand them. The soft, lonely notes of the curlew came again and again over the hill. The dog whined and shifted its wet, cold paws.

  ‘Come lass,’ he said, then, in English, ‘It will be your death of cold if I do not get you to a warm fire.’

  I rose shakily, realizing suddenly that if I was ever to return to Creagdhubh I would have to cross back to the other side of the bog.

  ‘No,’ I said, shaking, drawing back, as he led me towards that treacherous green ribbon.

  ‘It will be all right,’ he answered quietly, and with his arm supporting and guiding me and the sturdy crook balancing us, it was. The dog padded silently through the wet grass behind us.

  We climbed the ridge that lay between us and the house, his arm still supporting me. I looked up at him. Until now I had not really seen him, other than as the owner of the strong arms that saved me and the voice that comforted.

  I looked now and saw him as a man, tall and red-headed, a sun and wind tanned face with pale green eyes. He was handsome and strongly built, wearing a working kilt in shepherd’s plaid, grey tweed jacket, thick, white wool kilt-stockings and heavy brogues. The hand on my shoulder felt heavy and good there, and suddenly embarrassed, I drew away. He noticed.