The Stalking Party Page 10

  Smile, she told herself. Look serene. This is meant to be fun. It is fun. Tonight’s guests are friends and neighbours, not PGs. She could see that Torquil was enjoying himself, and so would she be if only they could afford to do things properly for once, with shining mahogany instead of trestles from the village hall, and waiters to serve the food instead of herself and Morag – and Ian when he remembered.

  She tried to look on the bright side. As from this evening, the hostel was closed for the season. Just to be free of greasy breakfast fry-ups and the finicky, time-consuming chore of wrapping packed lunches should be enough to raise her spirits. From now until Easter, she would have no ashtrays to empty, no lavatories to unblock. For six glorious months, she need not brace herself to enter a bedroom which she had left fresh and pretty, its bathroom sparkling clean, knowing she would find it soiled and despoiled, the crumpled sheets stained, wet towels littering the bathroom, waste-basket overflowing with nameless horrors, mirror daubed, taps dripping, lavatory unflushed. Why did tourists have such filthy habits?

  The flip side was that there would be no money coming in. Never mind: once tonight’s meal was out of the way, and their guests began to recite, or dance, or sing for their supper, she would stop feeling hard done by and enjoy the party, she knew. She loved these people – really. It was just that from time to time the domestic drudgery and constant demands on her energy and goodwill made her want to scream.

  Mercifully, Torquil never felt as she did. He accepted the burden of his inheritance as easily and naturally as he did its privileges. He should be called Tranquil, not Torquil, she thought affectionately, watching him move round the long, high-ceilinged hall, courteously making his guests welcome, from angular Lady Priscilla to the cocky, chippy Macdougall twins from the fish-farm, with their slicked-down hair and aggression in every swing of their kilts, looking for a chance to show their mettle to their girlfriends, all eye-black and over-exposed thigh.

  Torquil stooped over old Mairi Kilbride’s wheelchair, his dark head attentively bent to catch her toothless mumbling. He looked the flower of Scottish chivalry in the old style, needing only a periwig atop his sleepy-eyed, long-featured face to pass as a Stuart pretender.

  Moving on, he exchanged a word with Sir Archie Hanbury, red-cheeked and jovial in the tight circle of the Glen Buie party; then smiled his sympathy at Colleen Taggart, the publican’s daughter, pipped on the post in the Ladies’ Sprint. ‘Can’t win them all, Colleen,’ she imagined Torquil saying. ‘Got to give someone else a chance now and then!’ and she saw Colleen’s chagrined face break into a reluctant smile.

  Fergus had covered himself with glory, winning most of the men’s races, though Johnny Forbes had hung doggedly on his heels and finally passed him to win the Men’s Mile. That was one in the eye for the cocky devil, thought Janie, who often crossed swords with Fergus over the harassment of hikers.

  ‘It’s Sir Archibald’s orders, my lady,’ Fergus had told her with barely veiled insolence when she had complained of the way he had frightened a middle-aged Dutch couple.

  ‘What harm were they doing?’

  ‘They were ower the march.’

  ‘You can’t expect foreigners to know that a broken wire fence is a boundary,’ she had said, trying to sound reasonable, but Fergus wouldn’t give an inch.

  ‘I’m only doing my job, my lady. Sir Archibald doesna like his deer disturbed.’

  His deer! As if they didn’t move freely from Strathtorran to Glen Buie and back several times a day!

  ‘I’ve a good mind to have it out with Archie,’ Janie had said later to her husband. ‘I bet he doesn’t know the half of what his stalkers get up to when he’s not there. Poor Kaatje was scared stiff, and Hans said that Fergus actually threatened him with a gun.’

  ‘Leave it, old girl. Leave it,’ Torquil had said, as if she had been a spaniel about to roll in a fox-dropping. ‘It’d only make bad blood.’

  ‘All the same –’

  ‘I said, leave it.’

  ‘If Fergus is going to scare our guests away, we might as well shut up shop,’ she’d replied angrily.

  ‘Oh, come on, darling, it’s not as bad as that. And even if you get Archie to read him the Riot Act, it won’t do a blind bit of good in the long run. The Hanburys are only somerlid, after all. We mustn’t let them get under our skins.’

  ‘Somerlid?’

  ‘Summer raiders, like the Vikings who used to harry this coast. Scots called them Somerlid buie – yellow-haired summer raiders. They’d come here for six weeks or so when the weather was good, and grab all they could lay hands on, but as soon as the winter gales began, they’d be off. Since we live here all year round, we might as well make up our minds to get on as well as we can with the Glen Buie people. No sense in starting feuds.’

  In her heart, she knew he was right. The Hanburys would always be outsiders, even though Sir Archie now owned the bulk of the peninsula. Any orders he gave to his stalkers and ghillies would be observed while he was there to see they were enforced. Once he went back down South, Sandy would again reign supreme, with Fergus as his second-in-command. There was no point in making enemies of them.

  Even now the Glen Buie party looked isolated, she thought. They were standing together, facing inward – all except Ashy, who was chatting up the fish-farm boys with the ease of long acquaintance, while Nicky stood with his shoulders propped against the wall, following her with his eyes. He looked strained and unhappy. Janie had heard the gossip about his girlfriend, and wondered if it was true that he obeyed her orders like a dog.

  It was strange how inherited riches could make a person miserable. If someone left me a few million, I’d know what to do with it, she thought.

  ‘Oil and water,’ murmured Ian, appearing at her side. He nodded at the Glen Buie party.

  ‘Just what I was thinking. They hardly even try to mix – except Ashy, of course.’

  ‘Have a drink.’ He gave her a glass and touched her forehead lightly, smoothing out the frown-line. ‘Relax! Everything’s going beautifully. Torquil’s about to herd them through into the dining-room.’ He scanned the room. ‘Where’s little Kirsty?’

  ‘Where would she be but minding the bairn?’ Janie pitched her voice into a prim Edinburgh lilt.

  ‘Couldn’t she bring him?’

  ‘He’s not well. Got a bit of a temp.’

  ‘Poor kid,’ said Ian, and she knew his sympathy wasn’t for wee Dougie. ‘Perhaps I’ll pop up there after supper. Take her a few goodies. All right, you needn’t look at me like that.’

  ‘Just watch it,’ she warned. ‘The last thing we need is a row with Sandy.’

  Ian smiled and moved away. She watched him cross the room and sit beside Maya Forrester. The Black Widow, the locals were calling her. Janie observed her curiously. Who would have expected Alec to marry a coloured girl? No wonder his mother had been a bit tight-lipped, and wedding photographs were not on display.

  A heavy crash in the kitchen, closely followed by a keening wail, put an end to her musing, and she hurried out to assess the damage. Morag’s luck – and that of the crockery – had finally run out.

  *****

  Dougie had at last fallen asleep, though his face was flushed and he whimpered from time to time. Kirsty held him until he settled into deeper slumber, then laid him in his cot and crept to the door.

  All day she had been up and down stairs, trying everything she could think of to soothe his fretfulness. She felt stiff and stale, her nostrils full of the sickness smells of Vapex and Friar’s Balsam.

  I’ll run to the bridge and back, just for a blow, she thought. It won’t take more than ten minutes.

  She was sorry to miss the Ceilidh, which would have given her a chance to wear the ruffled and pin-tucked emerald silk blouse which Sandy had given her on the anniversary of their meeting. She had admired it in a magazine, and he had sent secretly for it, getting the size right, and waylaying the postman to preserve the surprise. It suited her, just
as she had guessed it would, making her skin very white and her eyes big and dark. She had looked forward to seeing Colleen Taggart’s envious glance, and perhaps admiration from Ian McNeil.

  Half past seven, and the long gloaming was easing into dark. They would be eating their supper now at Strathtorran House, with the laird filling their glasses, and the company mulling over the events of the day. Then the prizes would be given out, and the pipes would squeal and drone...

  Just down to the bridge and back: wee Dougie wouldn’t wake for a while. She opened the door and sped lightly down the twisting path to the river, leaping the planks laid over culverts, flitting through the twilight with her long hair streaming. When she reached the bridge, she leaned panting against the parapet, her chest heaving and the taste of blood in her mouth. After the stuffy cottage, the sharp nip of autumn air was intoxicating, making her almost light-headed in her exhilaration.

  With her heart slowing to normal, she straightened and looked about. The confluence of two small rivers, the Torran and the Buie, had formed a broad triangular pool, with twin waterfalls above the bridge, and a long tail sweeping tightly under low cliffs on the Buie bank, while the Strathtorran side extended in a steeply shelved shingle beach overhung by a sheer wall of rock.

  For the few moments she had been standing there, a subconscious layer of her mind was registering the sound of splashing at the tail of the pool, and now her ears caught a hollow groan, not quite the grunting roar of a rutting stag: closer to a sheep’s cough but curiously prolonged.

  Suddenly alert, she strained her eyes into the dusk. Something was floundering against the water-smoothed rock, trying to hoist itself, then falling back. Superstitious fear gripped her. This was the pool where the laird’s young sister, Lady Helen McNeil, had drowned...but ghosts did not flounder and splash.

  Kirsty moved cautiously across the bridge, then scrambled over flat rocks interspersed with clumps of deep heather. On hands and knees, she ducked under lichened hazels fringing the cliff, and crawled to a spot where she could look straight down.

  An injured stag? One of Sandy’s ewes?

  ‘Oh, God!’ it groaned, and she caught her breath.

  ‘Hold on! I’m coming.’

  She looked in vain for something to use as rope, but the cliff was sheer and even the tough heather stalks would give a drowning man no support. Carefully she climbed to a ledge where she was close enough to see the big pale face and desperate eyes only inches above the water.

  A gentleman from the Lodge, she thought. One of Sir Archibald’s guests, and even at this anxious moment a corner of her mind found time to wonder how a fisherman in waders came to be in this forbidden pool.

  Kneeling on her ledge, she stared down at him. His hands were stretched out, grasping a knob of rock, but the current plucked at his sodden clothes, threatening to sweep him away.

  ‘Can’t reach,’ he gasped. ‘Done for.’

  ‘I’ll get help.’

  ‘Hurry!’ he groaned, but she needed no urging. Heedless of scraped hands and knees, she scrambled up the gully and across the rock slabs to the bridge. There she paused, remembering that all the men were down at Strathtorran House, the best part of a mile away.

  ‘Oh, God, what’ll I do?’ she murmured.

  Back at the Stalker’s Cottage were ropes, blankets, stretchers, all the kit required for rescue work in the hills, but without assistance she could do nothing. Yet by the time she got to Strathtorran to raise the alarm, the waterlogged fisherman would surely have drowned.

  As she stood there, irresolute, with the light fading rapidly from the surrounding hilltops, an echo of that despairing groan goaded her into action. Dropping her sweater, she began to run as she had never run before.

  *****

  The ham salads had been eaten, the plates stacked, and the company now faced the choice of chocolate mousse, treacle tart, or a selection of lurid trifles.

  ‘I’ve been totting up points, and you’ve won the Ladies’ Cup. Well done!’ said Ashy, depositing a plate piled high with creamy goo on the trestle table, and clambering over the bench to plump herself next to Maya.

  ‘Got to keep up my strength before the dancing,’ she explained, intercepting Maya’s amused glance. ‘Oh, what a shame, what a waste,’ she went on without a pause, following Ian McNeil with her eyes. ‘Such a dish as never was seen in days gone by, and look at him now. Gone bush, but totally. De mortuis and all that, but I can’t help blaming Eliza.’

  ‘His wife?’ prompted Maya, guessing there was more to come.

  ‘Did Alec tell you about her?’

  She thought back: had he? ‘He talked about so many people. I’m confused.’

  ‘You’d know if he’d talked about her,’ said Ashy positively.

  ‘Was she very beautiful?’

  The corners of Ashy’s expressive mouth turned down. ‘Depends what you call beautiful. I thought she looked like Cruella de Ville, all flashing eyes and floating hair, but men, well – you know.’

  Maya had no difficulty in imagining Eliza’s effect on men.

  ‘She was a form above me at school,’ Ashy went on. ‘I had a pash on her, actually, when I was in the Lower Fourth, but I soon grew out of it. After she left school, she teamed up with Beverley Tanner, and they started Gentlemen’s Relish. They did City lunches, Livery Company dinners, that kind of thing. Corporate entertaining. Did you hear about that?’

  ‘Your mom told me.’

  ‘A few years ago Gwennie had a kitchen crisis when Mary Grant was carted off to hospital for a hysterectomy, and Eliza came here at zero notice to take over the cooking. I must say, she was a marvellous cook. Then the next thing we heard was that she and Ian were engaged. Bingo.’

  Ashy fortified herself with a swig of the pinkish Europlonk which Maya thought would do a good job stripping paint, and held out her glass to the Macdougall twin who had taken charge of the bottle. ‘Yes, please, Hamish, while you’re at it. More for you, Maya? Truly? Where was I?’

  ‘Telling me about Eliza.’

  Ashy cocked an eye at her mother, two places away, but Lady Priscilla was absorbed in conversation with John Forbes. ‘You may think it strange that she didn’t try to land Torquil while she was about it,’ she went on in a slightly lower voice, ‘but poor Torkie was extremely groggy just then, something wrong with his innards, so the smart money was on Ian to succeed to the title.’

  ‘But – ?’ prompted Maya, and as if reassured of her interest, Ashy plunged on.

  ‘Torkie made a miraculous recovery and married his nurse’ – she nodded towards Janie – ‘the Auld Laird popped his clogs and left him all that remained of Strathtorran, and poor Ian was sent to Northern Ireland on an unaccompanied tour of duty. So after the wedding, Eliza found herself stuck here at the back of beyond, in the wettest winter in living memory, living with in-laws with whom – tell it not in Gath – she didn’t exactly hit it off. Not with Janie, anyway. Two women in one kitchen...’ She shuddered, and lowered more of the pink paint-stripper.

  ‘Couldn’t she go back to work in London?’

  ‘She and Bev had sold out to one of those celebrity chefs – Julian something, can’t remember the name – and Eliza tried to start a restaurant up here with her share of the money.’ She pulled a face. ‘Didn’t work. The locals don’t go for what they call messed-up food, and Janie wasn’t keen on losing the tourist trade. So what d’you think happened?’

  ‘They had a bust-up?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking. When Ian showed up round about Christmas, Eliza told him she had had enough. According to old Morag, who was in the next room doing what she called ‘dusting,’ and Janie calls ‘stroking the furniture,’ when the fur began to fly, Eliza told him she couldn’t stand it here any longer. She said she was in love with someone else, and was going to have his –’

  ‘Astrid!’ Lady Priscilla’s voice was sharp. ‘Everyone’s waiting for you.’

  Ashy flushed, plunged a spoon into her trifle and fin
ished the plateful, but not before Maya’s mind had completed her sentence: baby. Whose baby? Surely to God she didn’t mean Alec’s? He had often come up here at Christmas to shoot hinds, and since the house at Glen Buie was closed for the winter, he had told her he used to stay at Strathtorran.

  ‘Sorry. Rabbiting on as usual,’ mumbled Ashy with a sidelong glance.

  ‘No, really. It’s interesting.’ Maya’s lips felt stiff as she tried to smile. ‘You must tell me more.’

  To her relief, a ripple of applause heralded the after-supper speeches, and Ashy swung her legs over the bench and stood up. ‘I’m off. I’ve heard Archie do this umpteen times. I’ll go and give Morag a hand with the glasses.’

  She slid through the door that led to the kitchen, and Maya wished she could go with her. The voices around her seemed suddenly too loud, the heat oppressive, the bonhomie forced. What was she doing here? Why didn’t she catch that flight home, and leave these people to their outlandish traditions and recreations? No one would be sorry if she quit, herself least of all.

  Torquil was on his feet, flushed and jovial, splendid in his jabot and silver-buttoned velvet coat. After a few words of welcome, he called on Sir Archibald Hanbury to present the prizes.

  ‘My lord, ladies and gentlemen,’ boomed Sir Archie. The Macdougall twins sniggered and offered round cigarettes. Nicky tipped back his chair against the wall. Easing away from table and covertly loosenng waistbands, the company relaxed and waited for the evening’s familiar pattern to unfold.

  ‘I’m not going to make a speech.’ The easy confident voice washed over them like warm treacle. ‘I know everyone wants to get on with singing and dancing, so I’ll just say how honoured we are to be with you again, and I’m sure I speak for everyone here when I thank our charming hostess, Lady Strathtorran, for the wonderful feast she has put before us tonight...’

  He chuntered on agreeably, but by degrees Maya became aware that down at the far end of the room the audience’s attention was not with him. Heads were turning towards the door to the hall, through which came a piercing outdoor draught. A rising tide of whispers brought disapproving shushes from the top table.