Poverty Castle Read online

  Yes, but because he had been born and brought up amongst them the Scots were the only people he felt competent to portray.

  ‘Whereabouts in Scotland? For heaven’s sake, not Kilmory!’

  ‘Why not Kilmory? It’s the place I know best.’

  ‘What nonsense. You haven’t been back there for more than ten years. From what you’ve told me you couldn’t have been very happy there yourself, so how could you describe characters that were? Who would those characters be anyway?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t met them yet.’

  ‘You must have some idea.’

  ‘None at all. I’m looking forward to meeting them.’

  One thing she had vowed never to be, and that was jealous of his precious characters.

  ‘You’ll just exhaust yourself.’

  And for what? To produce a book that few would read and fewer still buy. Lack of appreciation didn’t seem to have embittered him but it had her.

  Writing her weekly letter to her daughter Morag in America she mentioned that Dad was talking about starting a new book. ‘A triumphant valediction, he has the nerve to call it.’ She didn’t expect it to get far because he wasn’t very well. He had become uneasy and strange. It had crossed her mind that he might be preparing himself for death. Though not very steady on his feet he went for a walk every day whatever the weather: in search of his characters, no doubt. She suspected he took tumbles for there was often mud on his clothes, but if asked about it he just smiled. He seldom looked at a newspaper or listened to radio or watched television: a sure sign that he was broody with a new novel. At such times he wasn’t much of a companion, but then he had always been aloof and solitary, as Jessie well knew. After more than forty years of marriage she knew that there were barriers beyond which she had not been allowed to pass. At her age she wasn’t complaining, she was just facing facts. He should never have got married. She had often accused him of having more interest in his imaginary people than in his wife and child. Here he was, proving it again.

  PART ONE

  One

  THEY LOVED the house from the moment they discovered it, though sheep had to be shoo’d out of the ground-floor rooms and ceilings had fallen in and Rebecca, four years old and very fastidious, slid on a cow-pat and made a greenish smelly mess on her knickers. They had caught sight of it from the beach and were eager to explore. The path up to it, or rather the numerous paths, for cattle, sheep and rabbits had made many, lay first over a wide machair of turf and wild flowers, then among shrubberies of whin, broom, and rhododendrons, and lastly, in what at one time must have been the garden though the surrounding wall was broken in several places, through grass as tall as Africa.

  Papa, his face under the Panama flushed with wine and sun, led the way, shouting encouragements and brandishing his arms, as if to chase off hostile natives or ferocious animals. Behind him nine-year-old Jeanie pretended to be frightened, though if any fabulous beast had been encountered she would have greeted it with the least fear and incredulity: she doted on all animals, even the ugliest creepy-crawly. Her twin Effie was as usual matter-of-fact and kept crying why were they all so excited, it was just an abandoned old house. Rowena, aged seven, always had to have a secret: now it was a small shiny green bug held in her fist. Rebecca who could see only grass, held on to Diana’s skirt. Diana at eleven was the oldest. She was also the only one dark-haired, all the others being fair, especially Rowena, the beauty of the family. Diana had long ago appointed herself its guardian, looking after not only her sisters but her parents too. She kept turning to make sure her mother was following. Oblivious of sticky-willies in her hair and wine stains on her white dress and butterflies dancing round her head, Mama was singing. She loved her family and would have given her life for them but often, in their midst, she was absent. They had once asked her where she went. To elfland looking for your little brother, she had answered. They had been, with reservations, satisfied for the time being anyway. Elfland, which didn’t exist, was as good a place to look for their little brother who didn’t exist either, at any rate not yet.

  It was July, about three in the afternoon, hot and sunny, ideal for blood-sucking clegs and pestiferous flies. The air was heavy with familiar scents: meadowsweet, mint, and honeysuckle. There were others, ambrosial and elusive, not identified then or afterwards.

  The picnic basket had contained two bottles of red wine. Behind their backs in the hotel Papa had slipped in the second one, thus breaking the agreement. To prevent him from drinking too much and falling asleep Mama had taken more than she could manage without becoming light-headed, and the girls had demanded their share. As a result they were all reckless and rushed in through the open door, scaring sheep which had been lying on the floor. It was then that Rebecca had slipped on the cow dung and Papa, shouting ‘Damn’, put his foot through a rotten floorboard and grazed his ankle for he was wearing no socks and his khaki shorts, though unfashionably long, were nonetheless no protection for his pale thin legs, as the clegs had found out: there was already blood where he had been bitten. Clegs, his daughters had decided, must like wine, for they bit Papa more than anyone else.

  All the windows on the ground-floor rooms were broken. What glass remained was black with dust and cobwebs and dead flies. Ceilings had fallen and most of the plaster had come off the walls.

  ‘Nobody’s lived here for ages,’ whispered Jeanie.

  She and Effie ventured through the house to the back door or rather to the opening there, for the door itself had disappeared. There was a large courtyard overgrown with brambles and briers, to which stuck tufts of wool. ‘Like messages left by somebody,’ whispered Jeanie. Beyond lay a wood of elm, beech, and ash, now silent in the sunshine except for the fervent moaning of doves. The twins smiled at each other. Here was a place of many enchantments.

  Rebecca’s knickers had to be taken off, they were making her uncomfortable. Diana helped her. Mama was still in a dwam. She looked lost and lovely.

  Rowena opened her hand. The little green bug did not move. She frowned. It had no business to be dead. She had not squeezed it hard. She blew on it, in vain. She pretended to be overcome with grief: tears came into her eyes. Inwardly she was smiling.

  Papa was testing the staircase. But for some loose or mouldy boards it was still usable, with care. It had been solidly built in the beginning, as indeed had the whole house. The walls were four feet thick.

  ‘Why don’t we buy it, Papa?’ asked Effie.

  Diana was also the family’s puncturer of wild ideas, its reducer of things to normal size. ‘It’s falling to pieces,’ she said.

  ‘But Papa’s an architect,’ said Jeanie. ‘Well, he used to be, anyway. He could get it repaired. Couldn’t he, Mama?’

  Mama then came back, laughing happily and kissing them all at random. Heedless of damage to her dress she sat on a rusty can that had once contained sheep dip. ‘Your Papa could repair the Acropolis in Athens if he set his mind to it.’

  That was the trouble, they all knew. Papa never put his mind to anything for long. He had many glittering ideas that he ran after briefly as they did soap bubbles.

  ‘It would cost a fortune,’ said Diana.

  ‘Well, we’ve got a fortune,’ pointed out Effie.

  Yes, and Diana sometimes wished they hadn’t. She thought she preferred the old hard-up but settled and sensible life in Edinburgh, where Papa had gone to his office every day and the girls, except Rebecca, had attended St Mabel’s School which they had liked except for the uniform of silly hat, itchy grey stockings, and navy-blue knickers. Since then they had wandered about the Highlands like rich gypsies, living not in caravans and tents, which might have been fun, but in hotels and freezing furnished rented mansions, seeking a permanent home where Papa would be inspired to proceed with his book on the characters in Sir Walter Scott’s novels. He had got stuck after only eighteen pages.

  An uncle in Canada had died and left him nearly three hundred thousand pounds.

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p; ‘I don’t think you should venture upstairs, my love,’ called Mama. ‘It might not be safe.’

  They knew that Papa attracted accidents the way he did clegs. It wasn’t just that he was often befuddled with wine, it was also that he had too much faith in the appearance of things.

  ‘If we do not venture what do we ever achieve?’ he cried.

  His daughters always felt most protective and loving when he was in this rash and defiant mood.

  ‘I’ll go first,’ said Effie. ‘I’m lighter.’

  They all cricked their necks gazing up the stairwell. They hadn’t realised the house was so high: three storeys, plus attics. If the roof or one of the upper floors collapsed they could all be killed.

  Papa tweaked his moustache, first the right side and then the left: it was his way of crossing himself. Then he ascended the stairs, very cautiously. Diana came close behind, ready to yell a warning or grab him. The twins followed her. Rowena and Rebecca stayed behind with Mama. Rowena, who hated unnecessary exertion, pretended to be aggrieved and tried on various expressions to indicate it.

  Sheep had not managed up into the rooms on the first floor, but birds had, and children: there were feathers and sweetie papers among the sand blown in from the beach. Cobwebs were everywhere. There were remnants of wallpaper. People had lived here once. They could live here again.

  ‘Look at those skirting boards and cornices,’ cried Papa. ‘The best materials were used in the building of this house. Nothing shoddy or skimpy. I wonder why it was allowed to go derelict.’

  ‘Perhaps there was a murder,’ said Effie, ‘and now there’s a ghost.’

  ‘It’s too bright and sunny for ghosts,’ said Diana.

  ‘What about at night, when the wind’s howling?’

  Jeanie shouted down. ‘It’s all right, Mama. It’s quite safe if you want to come up.’

  Intrepidly Papa led the way up to the second floor.

  ‘This is the style in which many old Scottish castles were built,’ he said, ‘very high and narrow, with thick walls and small windows.’

  ‘But this isn’t a castle,’ said Effie. ‘It’s got no turrets.’

  ‘With all these stairs and all these rooms we’d need a servant,’ said Diana.

  ‘Well, we could afford a servant,’ said Jeanie. ‘Couldn’t we, Papa?’

  But Papa, on his knees almost, was peering out of a window, ecstatic about the view.

  Jura’s great lumps of stone shone in the blue sky.

  ‘You can almost see the deer,’ said Jeanie.

  In the distance, southward, across the river, was the little harbour with boats in it; and on a hill above it people played on the nine-hole golf course. Walking over it that morning Papa had picked what he claimed to be mushrooms. To prove it he had eaten half of one while the girls shrieked in alarm and waited for him to turn black and die.

  ‘What’s that over there?’ asked Effie, pointing.

  Northward, beyond the wide machair, was a dense wood out of the heart of which rose chimneys and parts of a roof.

  ‘That’ll be the big house where the laird lives,’ said Papa.

  ‘Who’s the laird?’ asked Diana.

  ‘This is Campbell country so I suspect he’ll be a member of that clan.’

  ‘Was it him put up those notices on the beach?’ asked Effie.

  They were to the effect that the beach was private and trespassing was forbidden. The Sempills had not been deterred.

  ‘Does he own the ruins of the old castle?’ asked Jeanie. ‘That said private too.’

  ‘I expect his ancestors lived in it once, hundreds of years ago.’

  ‘Is this house on his land?’ asked Diana. ‘It could well be.’

  ‘I think he’s too greedy,’ said Effie.

  ‘Who is, my dear?’ panted Mama, arriving just then with Rowena and Rebecca.

  ‘The laird. He owns all the land.’

  ‘Look at that splendid rowan,’ cried Papa.

  They crowded round the window, looking.

  ‘Do you mean that tree with the white blossoms?’ asked Effie.

  ‘That is not just a tree, my dear. That is a symbol.’ He quoted:

  ‘Thy leaves were aye the first to spring

  Thy flo’ors the simmer’s pride.’

  ‘Did Sir Walter Scott write that, Papa?’ asked Jeanie.

  The girls had all been called after Scott’s heroines.

  ‘No, Jeanie, it was written by a lady called Caroline Oliphant or Lady Nairne. A very moving tune goes with it. Mama, please sing us a snatch.’

  ‘I’m still recovering my breath, darling.’ But after a few more deep breaths she broke into song.

  They loved listening to Mama singing. Sometimes she was out of tune or forgot the words but it never mattered.

  ‘I know that tune,’ cried Effie. ‘Pipe bands play it.’

  ‘So they do,’ said Papa. ‘It is one of the best known and best loved of Scottish songs. Some decry it as sentimental but in my opinion it expresses in a simple but moving way the sanctities of family life.’

  They gazed again at the tree, more earnestly this time. It was, they agreed, like a gigantic white rosebud and had more than its share of magic that all growing things had, including toadstools.

  ‘What are sanctities, Papa?’ asked Effie.

  Mama rescued her agnostic husband, not for the first time.

  ‘Papa will explain later. In the meantime I think we should go down. We are tempting providence by remaining here.’

  ‘Have no fear, my love,’ said Papa. ‘The rowan will protect us.’

  ‘How will it do that?’ asked Effie.

  ‘In the old days people planted a rowan near their home, to keep evil spirits away.’

  ‘That’s superstition,’ said Diana.

  ‘It didn’t stop the house from becoming a ruin,’ said Jeanie.

  ‘It is not yet a ruin. Restoring it would be costly but quite practicable. Perhaps we were sent here for that purpose.’

  ‘Are you going to buy it, Papa?’ asked Diana.

  ‘It may not be for sale.’

  ‘Aren’t we going to live in Spain?’ asked Rowena.

  A friend of Papa’s had offered to sell him a villa in the province of Alicante, beside the sea. Papa had pointed out the advantages: sunshine all the year round, which would help Mama’s arthritic little finger; cheap wine and fruit; miles of sand and a warm sea; orange and almond groves; a swimming pool in the garden.

  The girls had been learning Spanish.

  ‘Que hora est?’ asked Jeanie.

  ‘Uno, dos, tres,’ sang Effie.

  ‘Olé,’ piped Rebecca.

  Papa clapped his hands. ‘Muy bien. It does seem a pity to throw away such accomplishments.’

  Mama was not keen on their exiling themselves. ‘Do you really think, Edward, that this house could be restored?’

  ‘Indeed I do. It would be a challenge but it could be done.’

  ‘It would make a beautiful home. Don’t you think so, girls?’

  ‘Too many stairs,’ said Diana.

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ cried Effie. ‘None of us is fat or stiff or old.’

  ‘Granny Ruthven’s old,’ said Rowena.

  Mama’s mother was nearly eighty.

  ‘She could climb a mountain if she wanted to,’ said Effie. ‘Couldn’t she, Mama?’

  ‘Indeed she could.’

  ‘Carrying her handbag,’ said Papa.

  They all loved him for saying it. It showed how kind and forgiving he was. Granny Ruthven often made fun of him, rather cruelly. She called him fushionless. Her handbag was a family joke. It weighed a ton, they said.

  ‘Why don’t we go and make enquiries?’ cried Mama.

  ‘Ask the laird, do you mean, Mama?’ asked Diana.

  Mama laughed. ‘I was thinking of asking the village shopkeeper, who is usually a source of information.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Papa. ‘We could have tea among the apple
trees.’

  Suddenly Rebecca burst into tears. ‘I can’t go,’ she wailed.

  They comforted her. ‘Of course you can, darling.’

  ‘I’ve got no knickers on.’

  They took care not to laugh. ‘That doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Yes, it does. Look.’ She showed how immodestly short her light summer dress was.

  ‘You can have mine,’ said Effie, about to take hers off.

  ‘They’re too big and you need them yourself.’

  ‘So you do, my dear,’ said Mama.

  Papa and Diana saved the situation between them. He produced a white silk cravat and she two tiny safety pins.

  Mama’s eager hands quickly fashioned panties that Rebecca, to their relief, after much twisting and turning, accepted as satisfactory.

  It was the kind of little incident that happened often and brought them all close in loving dependence.

  Going down the stairs their feet were cautious but their minds soared.

  ‘If we bought it we should call it Eagle’s Nest,’ cried Effie.

  ‘Eagle’s Eyrie, you mean,’ said Jeanie. ‘We could keep dogs and hens and rabbits and goats.’

  ‘And pussy-cats,’ said Rebecca.

  ‘I would like a white peacock,’ said Rowena. She imagined herself leading it about with a silken cord.

  On their way back to the beach, where their things had to be gathered and carried a quarter of a mile over fences and through fields to the Daimler, Diana took it upon herself to warn the twins to hold their tongues while Papa was talking to the shopkeeper about the house. Blurters-out of truth, in accordance indeed with Papa’s precept, they sometimes gave away family secrets. Diana was old enough to know that if you were thinking of buying a house you shouldn’t appear too eager, otherwise the price might be increased. She agreed with Mr Chambers, the Edinburgh lawyer, that Papa’s money ought not to be wastefully spent. She and Mr Chambers had once exchanged winks to that effect, his amused but hers most serious.

  Two