The Stalking Party Read online

  ‘Archie, you brute! Stop it! You’ll make me lose my fish!’ She had wriggled ecstatically, firm and sleek-bodied as a puppy.

  ‘Keep your rod point up!’

  ‘Stop it! No, really, I mean it. Archie! You filthy old man!’

  Her reel had screamed as the fish fled downstream. While she struggled to bring it to the bank, he had aroused her to such a frenzy of passion that the moment he had it safe in the net, she had flung down her rod and begun to tear off waders and breeks. They had made love on the little beach, getting very wet in the process.

  Fishing offered excellent opportunities for sex during the drowsy afternoons when the fish lay deep and torpid, and now that dear Gwennie’s interest had become so patchy, why turn down sporting invitations?

  Sex while stalking was another matter entirely. Difficult, he would have said, if not downright dangerous. You might die of exposure. Even if you were left for an hour in a peat-hag with a willing woman, the cold and the clothes were against you. Easier for Scots, of course, but only an idiot took off his boots on the hill. The thought of copulation wearing Hogg of Fife’s stubborn brogues made him smile. Besides, who could tell when the advance party might not crawl silently back and catch you at it?

  ‘Speaking from a purely personal viewpoint,’ he said judiciously to Beverley, ‘I can’t see stalking as a substitute for sex. No way.’

  ‘Well, you can’t deny that it’s cruel.’

  ‘Oh, I do!’ he said with vigour. ‘I deny it absolutely. It’s far less cruel than so-called humane killing in an abattoir. Take Ben’s stag today. He wouldn’t have had any idea what hit him, or that it was going to. No anticipation. No stress, no fear, no pain. One minute he was chewing the cud, surrounded by his mates. The next – bingo! Stone dead. What’s cruel about that?’

  ‘It’s barbaric.’

  ‘Let me suggest an experiment,’ he said, with heroic disregard of self. ‘I may stalk tomorrow. Why not come with us? You can judge for yourself whether or not it involves any cruelty.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly.’

  ‘Afraid to put theory to the test?’

  Beverley said angrily, ‘I couldn’t bear to watch anything so horrible.’

  ‘Come on, my dear,’ he goaded. ‘Try anything once.’ Except incest and Morris dancing, he added with an inward smile, and for a moment thought she was going to accept the challenge.

  Then she said edgily, ‘I have no intention of lending my support to a cruel and despicable activity.’

  ‘I’m not asking for your support. You’re entitled to your opinion, but it ought to be an informed opinion, not just prejudice. Come as an observer. Watch what happens from start to finish, then form your own judgement. Isn’t that fair?’

  Maya had turned to listen. A tinge of pink flared in Beverley’s cheeks, but she said, ‘No, thanks. I didn’t come here to murder animals.’

  He wanted to ask why she had come, but bit it back. Pudding plates had been cleared, and cheese was making its rounds. Everard trimmed a cigar and, as usual at this stage of the meal, people glanced expectantly towards their host.

  Sir Archie tapped his tumbler and, as silence fell, he said, ‘Well, it’s been a good day all round. A fine first stag: well done, Ben. First of many, I hope. Also a nasty little switch shot by Joss. Better off the hill.’

  ‘What about my fish?’ Cynthia flashed him a look from under her eyelashes. ‘Aren’t you going to congratulate me?’

  ‘Oh, that was the most remarkable catch of the week,’ he said, grinning. ‘I insist that you take it home to remember us by.’

  ‘That’s very decent of you, old man,’ said Joss, always on the scrounge for a free meal. ‘Sure you don’t need it to feed the troops?’

  ‘No, no. Yours by right of conquest, eh, Cynthie? I don’t have to tell you how sorry we are to lose you tomorrow.’ He paused, cleared his throat, began afresh. ‘Right, now. Plans for the rest of the week. Twelve stags to get, if we can, to keep up our numbers while the weather lasts. Tomorrow’s first rifle is Ashy, right?’

  He smiled at his god-daughter, Astrid Macleod, Lady Priscilla’s daughter from her first marriage, and his spirits rose as always at the sight of her: tall, blonde, athletic, with long flaxen plaits wound into a crown to give her the look of a Norse goddess. Now that would have been a match to gladden his heart. He wondered what had gone wrong between her and Nicky, and thought the reason was probably sitting beside him.

  Ashy smiled back, her teeth very white and even. ‘Lovely!’

  ‘You go with Sandy to the Black Corrie tomorrow. All right?’

  ‘Very all right.’

  ‘Everard will take the second rifle –’

  ‘Hang on, old boy,’ said Cooper quickly. ‘I meant to tell you before dinner that I’d like a day off, if it’s all the same to you. I’ve got the devil of a blister after yesterday’s death-march, and I can’t say I’m happy about my rifle. I want to take it down to the target again. It was firing all over the place yesterday.’

  Ashy looked down to hide a smile, but Sir Archie said seriously, ‘In that case, of course you must sort it out before you use it again. Let’s see...’ He looked round the table. ‘Johnny? I gather you’re driving your mother over to the McPhails?’

  John Forbes, Marjorie’s elder son, looked up keenly. He was a rangy, craggy-featured young man with a thatch of dark hair and an air of can-do enthusiasm which contrasted sharply with his cousin Nicky’s languid manner. ‘Oh, we can do that another day, can’t we, Mum?’

  ‘No, we can’t,’ said Marjorie firmly. ‘Sadie’s expecting us for lunch, and I want to see her arboretum before the gales ruin the leaves. I’m sorry, but that’s the plan, and we will stick to it.’

  John looked sulky. Sir Archie said quickly, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be happy to take the second rifle myself. All right, my love’ – as Gwennie began to protest – ‘we’ll take it steadily, I promise.’

  Though his tone was light, she recognised the order. He had made her swear to keep the doctor’s verdict to herself. ‘Just till I have things sorted out,’ he had said, and she knew he meant, ‘Until I’ve made up my mind what to do about Glen Buie.’ As soon as his heart trouble became generally known, all the people who depended on the deer-forest for their livelihoods would begin to fret about the future, and the less time they had to do that, the better. He wanted to present them with a fait accompli, but first he had to decide his own course of action, and not even Gwennie could help him do that.

  He turned directly to his son. ‘I leave it to you to entertain your guest, Nicholas. I’ve tried and failed to persuade her to come stalking, so it’s up to you to find something she’ll enjoy.’

  Nicky, who had been folding his place-card into ever smaller triangles while the sporting arrangements were made, looked up as if startled to find himself the centre of attention. He was thin, fair, and narrow-shouldered, with a mop of blond hair curling over his collar, and looked younger than his twenty-three years. His guileless blue eyes had an anxious, defensive look as he glanced across the table at Beverley.

  ‘Oh! Well, we’ll... we’ll...’ he mumbled, and briskly Beverley took charge.

  ‘Nicky will show me around the place,’ she said firmly and added with a challenging look at Sir Archie. ‘He’ll see I don’t wander into any danger.’

  ‘Fine,’ he said blandly, refusing to rise to the bait. ‘That’s all fixed, then. Oh, just one more thing, Nicky. Mary asked if she could have a word with you after dinner. She wants you to get her a nice young roebuck for the larder. She says the new plantation is fairly crawling with them.’

  ‘OK, Pa. Don’t worry, I’ll see to that.’

  With inward amusement Sir Archie registered Beverley’s look of shocked disgust, and thought she couldn’t know Nicky very well after all. His gaze roved the table. ‘All right, then? Everyone happy? Priscilla?’

  Her long horse-face broke into a smile. ‘I’m going on a tweed-hunt with Gwennie. There’s a new shop
on the road between Tounie and Fort Charles, and people tell me they’ve got wonderful handwoven stuff.’

  Sir Archie shuddered. ‘Chacun à son goût.’ He turned to Maya. ‘Would it amuse you to go with them?’

  ‘I’d rather go hunt deer with you,’ she said, and his heart sank a little.

  ‘You think you’d enjoy it? We may have a long walk.’

  ‘Sure. I’ve hunted quail with Alec. I won’t hold you up.’

  Sir Archie well remembered his own experience of shooting quail in Texas. The big Land Cruiser with its trunk full of food and cold drinks, negro boys to hold the pointers, the flat, dry, easy walking...

  ‘You’ll find this a bit different,’ he warned.

  ‘I know that,’ said Maya easily. ‘Alec told me it’s a whole different ball game.’

  On her own head be it, then. At least he would be there to see that she came to no harm, and once would probably be enough for her.

  ‘According to the forecast, it’s going to be wet. Have you got boots and a waterproof jacket?’

  ‘Oh, sure. I brought the whole outfit – kammo vest, foul-weather gear, gloves. Alec told me it can get real cold up in those mountains.’

  Why should it make him flinch every time she mentioned Alec? Sir Archie forced a smile. ‘I’ll ask Mary to put you up something to eat, then, and we’ll leave here sharp at nine.’

  Chapter Three

  ‘THEY’RE GOING THROUGH.’ Mary Grant the cook cocked an ear as the rumble of men’s voices grew suddenly louder with the opening of the dining-room door. A whiff of cigar-smoke, rich and greasy, pervaded the corridor.

  With one hand she stubbed out her own cigarette, and with the other sprinkled oatmeal into the big porridge-pot and set it on the back of the Aga. ‘Shift yourself, Elspeth,’ she urged. ‘Finish loading the machine and give Ishy a hand tae lay up breakfast, then awa’ tae your beds with both of ye, or ye’ll never be up for Early Tea.’

  Slave-driver, thought Elspeth, making a face at her aunt’s back. She was a slim, pert redhead, who found this holiday job a sight too much like hard work for her taste. The ritual of Early Tea, which involved carrying a heavy tray to the upper landing and distributing cups to a dozen sleepy, tousled guests, offended her free teenage spirit. She would have answered back, if she dared, but Auntie had a sharp tongue, and after Elspeth’s fall from grace at the end of the summer term, she preferred to keep a low profile until time should have dimmed her father’s memory of seeing his youngest daughter brought home drunk in a police car.

  Although the hours were long and the work demeaning for a girl with ambitions for going to college, there were compensations, among them the chance to flirt with her handsome cousin Fergus, the second stalker, and squint-eyed Donny, the pony-boy, as they ate their meals at the Formica-topped table in the corner of the kitchen. Other bonuses were the gossip she heard among the guests, and the substantial tips they left in envelopes on their dressing-tables when they departed.

  ‘Shift, lassie!’ Duncan the gardener, who doubled as butler, set a tray of glasses on the draining-board and gave Elspeth a friendly shove, holding his palms against her haunches a fraction longer than was necessary. ‘I’ll finish in here. Has Ishbel set the trolley?’

  He sauntered through the scullery door into the big, stone-flagged kitchen, untying his apron, and sat down at the table where Donny and Fergus were playing cards.

  ‘What’s the orders for the morn?’ asked Fergus, glancing up. ‘Do I take Ashy to Carn Beag?’

  ‘Ye do not. Miss Ashy,’ said his father with reproving emphasis, ‘goes tae the Black Corrie with Sandy. Ye tak’ the laird tae the hill, and mind ye get him a stag on the low ground, and don’t go racing him up the top of Ben Shallachan, or her leddyship will have your blood.’

  ‘There’s nae beasts on the low ground,’ said Fergus scornfully, ‘as ye’d ken weel if ever ye took your nose out o’ your damned tatties.’ He had been looking forward to a day on the hill with Ashy, and was annoyed to hear she was to go with Sandy, the head stalker, who would hardly notice if it was a Page Three topless or an old cow lying beside him in the heather, so long as she fired when he told her to.

  ‘I thought the laird wasna stalking this season, after the trouble last year,’ he added with a frown.

  ‘Why else would I tell ye to tak’ good care of him? None of your seven-league boots, now, Fergus! It’s good news for us all if he’s changed his mind, for when a man gives up the hill, the next you know he’s thinking about selling the forest. Now Mr Alec’s dead, the laird is all that stands between us and those damned busybodies of conservationists, and don’t ye forget it.’

  ‘There’s Mr Nicky,’ objected Mary, pulling up a chair and easing off her shoes. She was a lean, square-shouldered woman in her fifties, handsome in a battered way, with fine dark eyes, a bad skin, and an air of forceful confidence.

  ‘His young leddy doesna hold wi’ shooting puir beasties,’ said Duncan, putting on a falsetto whine.

  ‘She’s no leddy,’ snapped Mary. ‘That’s the stamp of lassie I canna abide. Sticking her nose into my kitchen and telling me I shouldna keep the rubbish bins by the sink. Where would she wish me tae keep them, I’d like tae know? And then she tells me she’d be happy tae see this big house full o’ the homeless folk she takes off the London streets! Says there’d be jobs for local people if they turned the byre into a craft centre, and tarmacked the road through the glen so the towerists wouldna get mud on their boots.’

  ‘She said that?’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘What’s Mr Nicky thinking of, bringing that kind here?’ demanded Duncan, bristling, and Mary shrugged and blew smoke at the ceiling.

  ‘Whiles he’s a strange laddie. D’ye mind the time he spent the night on the hill, sooner than tell the laird he’d lost a beast? And when the laird found him cleaning a salmon in my rubber gloves, and made him keep them on all through dinner? Poor Mr Nicky! It’s my belief Sir Archibald is tae blame as much as he is.’

  Fergus smoked and brooded as they reminisced. It made him impatient to hear his mother’s ‘Mr Nicky’ and ‘Miss Ashy.’ To listen to her, you’d never think this was the twenty-first century, when all humans were equal. Like Sandy McNichol, Duncan and Mary had lived and worked on this forest all their lives, and ingrained habits of speech died hard.

  He could only put up with it himself by pretending he was acting the part of a servant for two months of the year. Anyone could do it so long as he knew that release was just round the corner. From the third week in October until the third week of the following August, Sandy ruled this little kingdom of hill and loch; and he, Fergus, was the Crown Prince, the heir apparent.

  With that well in mind, he could endure the short annual reign of Sir Archie and his Sassenach guests, and even laugh at their demands and complaints. He could hide his contempt for their physical flabbiness, and curb his tongue in response to their patronising remarks. But nothing gave him more pleasure than to watch the last of their shiny cars bump away slowly down the drive and over the cattle-grid, leaving Glen Buie to its true owners once more.

  The threat of disruption to this pattern worried him.

  ‘Fancy a job as a towerist guide?’ asked Duncan with grim jocularity. ‘Eco-towerism, they’ll call it. Dinna harm the corbies and maggies. Dinna cull the deer. Dinna shoot the foxes. Let the bluidy towerists trample where they please.’

  ‘They do that already,’ said Fergus dourly. ‘There’s four camped bold as brass by the Sanctuary Burn the nicht, with two wee orange bivvies and a fire you can see for miles. There won’t be a beast left on that face by morning, for all the wind’s in the North, yet they claim they never disturb the forest! I’d a mind to put a couple of rounds over the tents, by way of a lullaby.’

  ‘Now, Fergus,’ reproved his mother. ‘That talk wouldna please the laird. They’re within their rights.’

  Fergus grunted, and ground out his butt. ‘I’ll take out the dogs. Coming, Donny?’r />
  Hunched over a well-thumbed comic, the boy shook his head. Fergus nodded to Mary and went out.

  His three dogs lived in a wired-off section of the old coach-house, a rank and gloomy cavern into which the light of day barely penetrated. It was one of the stalking season’s minor irritations that he had no time to exercise them properly, and he knew very well that if any of the guests – particularly the female guests – discovered their living quarters, he would get a lecture on cruelty to animals. That he could do without. All the same, he preferred to take them for a run after dinner, when chances of meeting the guests were minimal.

  Hearing his step, the dogs whined and scrabbled at the wire. He called to them softly, ‘Here, Dogger! Fisher! German Bight! Good lads!’

  He unbolted the door and they rushed out, the terrier leaping in a vain effort to lick his face, the flatcoat rolling ecstatically, and the dark-tipped golden Alsatian circling him with ears flattened, lips grinning.

  He moved off briskly towards the shrubbery, for Duncan complained if they emptied themselves on his smooth lawn, and carefully skirted round the house to avoid crunching on gravel.

  Music and laughter and the clink of glass came from the drawing-room overlooking the loch, but the four long windows were closely curtained, and he could only imagine the scene within. Next door a crack in the billiard-room shutters gave him a glimpse of Sir Archie’s firm profile bent over his cue, while velvet-clad backs and shawled shoulders watched.

  The other ground-floor rooms were dark, apart from the dining-room where Ishbel and Elspeth had pulled back the curtains and thrown up the sash windows to dispel the lingering cigar-fumes. He could see the two girls hurrying to and fro, silent and preoccupied, laying breakfast. Cups, bowls, juice-glasses ranged on the sideboard. Side-plates, cutlery, table-mats on the broad mahogany table.