A Christmas Journey Read online

  Lady Warburton looked crestfallen, as if she had lifted a particularly delicate morsel to her lips, only to have it fall onto the floor.

  The ghost of a smile touched Isobel’s face.

  “How shall we know that you gave the letter to Mrs. Naylor, and did not merely say that you did?” Lady Warburton asked irritably.

  “You will have Mrs. Alvie’s word for it!” Omegus answered coldly.

  “You will also have Mrs. Naylor’s word, should you wish to ask her,” Isobel pointed out.

  “Really!” Lady Warburton subsided into indignant silence.

  “Bravo,” Lord Salchester said softly. “You have courage, my dear. It will not be a comfortable journey.”

  “It will be abysmal!” Fenton Twyford added. “Inverness could be knee-deep in snow, and the shortest day of the year is only three weeks away. In the far north of Scotland that could mean hardly any daylight at all. You do realize Inverness is another hundred and fifty miles north of Edinburgh, I suppose. At least!”

  “What if your train gets stuck in a snowdrift?” Blanche asked hopefully.

  “It is the beginning of December, not mid-January,” Sir John Warburton pointed out. “It could be perfectly pleasant. Inverness-shire is a fine county.”

  Lady Warburton looked surprised. “When were you ever there?”

  He smiled. “Oh, once or twice. So was Fenton, you know.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Wonderful country for walking.”

  “In December?” Hanning’s eyebrows shot up, and his voice was sharp with disbelief.

  “It hardly matters,” Vespasia interrupted. “Now is when we are going. We shall leave as soon as our packing is completed — if the trap can be arranged to take us to the railway station.”

  “You are leaving, as well?” Lord Salchester said with clear disappointment.

  Omegus looked at Vespasia.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  Isobel smiled, pride in her face, and a shadow of uncertainty. “Lady Vespasia has offered to come with me.”

  Omegus smiled, a sweet, shining look that lit his face, making him beautiful.

  “To give the letter to Mrs. Naylor, if Mrs. Alvie should lose her nerve?” Blanche Twyford said bitingly. “That hardly makes of it the ordeal it is supposed to be!” She turned to Omegus. “Are we still bound by our oaths, in spite of this new turn of events?”

  Omegus turned to her. “In the medieval trials of which I spoke, and upon which I have modeled my plan, the accused person was permitted friends to speak for them, and the friend risked facing the sure punishment along with them. If found guilty, the accused person promised to undertake the pilgrimage assigned, and if their friend were sure enough of their worth, had the courage and the selflessness to go with them, then that was the greatest mark of friendship that they could show. Neither the physical hardship nor the spiritual journey will be lessened, nor the threats that face them along the way. They will simply face them together, rather than alone. And the answer to your question, Mrs. Twyford, is, yes, you are just as bound.”

  Lord Salchester looked at Vespasia. “Remark-able,” he said with very obvious admiration. “I admire your loyalty, my dear.”

  “Stubbornness,” Lady Warburton said under her breath.

  Bertie avoided eye contact with Isobel.

  Vespasia looked at Omegus, who was regarding her with a happiness that she found suddenly and startlingly disconcerting. She wondered for a moment if she had made the rash promise for Isobel’s sake, or just so she could see that look in Omegus’s eyes. Then she dismissed it as absurd and finished her breakfast.

  The ladies’ maids would follow later with their luggage and remain at their respective houses in London. The expiatory journey was to be made alone. It would be both unfair and compromising to the integrity of the oath were the maids to have gone, as well. They did not deserve the hardship; nor were they party to any agreement of silence.

  Vespasia and Isobel departed just after ten o’clock, with ample time to catch the next train to London. Omegus saw them off at the front door, his hair whipped by the fresh, hard wind that blew off the sweeping parkland with the clean smell of rain.

  “I shall be waiting for your word from London,” he said quietly. “I wish you Godspeed.”

  “Are you quite sure it is acceptable for Vespasia to come with me? I have no intention of making this journey only to discover at the end that it doesn’t count.”

  “It counts,” he assured her. “Do not underestimate the difficulties ahead, just because you are not alone. Vespasia may ease some of it for you, both by her presence and her wit and courage, but it is you who must face Mrs. Naylor. Should she do that for you, then indeed you will not have made your expiation. If you should lie, society may forgive you, unable to prove your deceit, but you will know, and that is what matters in the end.”

  “I won’t lie!” Isobel said stiffly, anger tight in her voice.

  “Of course you will not,” he agreed. “And Vespasia will be your witness, in case Mrs. Naylor is not inclined to be.”

  Isobel bit her lip. “I admit, I had not thought of that. I suppose it would not be surprising. I… I wish I knew what that letter said!”

  His face shadowed. “You cannot,” he said with a note of warning. “I am afraid that uncertainty is part of your journey. Now you must go, or you may miss the train. It is a long wait until the next one.” He turned to Vespasia. “Much will happen to you before I see you again, my dear. Please God, the harvest of it will be good. Godspeed.”

  “Good-bye, Omegus,” she answered, accepting his hand to climb up into the trap and seat herself with the rug wrapped around her knees.

  The groom urged the pony forward as Isobel clasped her hands in front of her, staring ahead into the wind, and Vespasia turned once to see Omegus still standing in the doorway, a slender figure, arms by his sides, but still watching them until they went around the corner of the driveway and the great elm tree trunks closed him from sight.

  PART TWO

  The train journey to London seemed tedious, but it was in fact very short, little more than two hours, compared with the forthcoming journey northward. In London they took separate hansoms to their individual houses in order to pack more suitable clothes for the next step. Evening gowns would not be needed, and there would be no ladies’ maids to care for them. Additional winter skirts and heavier jackets, boots, and capes were definite requisites.

  Isobel and Vespasia agreed to meet at Euston Station preparatory to catch the northbound train at five o’clock that afternoon. Vespasia arrived first, and was angry with herself for being anxious in case Isobel at the last moment lost her nerve. She paced back and forth on the freezing platform. Odd how railway stations always seemed to funnel the wind until it increased its strength and its biting edge to twice whatever it was anywhere else! And of course, the air was full of steam, flying smuts of soot, and the noise — shouting, doors clanging to, and people coming and going.

  Then fifteen minutes before the train was due to depart, she saw Isobel’s tall figure sweeping ahead of a porter with her baggage, her head jerking from right to left as she searched for Vespasia, obviously afflicted by the same fear of facing the journey, and its more dreadful arrival, alone.

  “Thank heaven!” she said, her voice shaking with intense relief as she saw Vespasia. She waved her arm at the porter. “Thank you! This will be excellent. Please put them aboard for me.” And she opened her reticule to find an appropriate reward for him.

  “Did you doubt me?” Vespasia asked her.

  “Of course not!” Isobel said with feeling. “Did you doubt me?”

  “Of course not!” Vespasia replied, smiling.

  “Liar!” Isobel smiled back. “It’s going to be awful, isn’t it!” It was not a question.

  “I should think so,” Vespasia agreed. “Do you wish to turn back?”

  Isobel pulled a rueful face, and there was honesty and fear in her eyes. “I
would love to, but it would be worse in the end. Besides, I told those wretched people that I would. I sealed my fate then. Nothing this could do to me would be worse than facing them if I fail!”

  “Of course. That was the whole purpose of saying it at the breakfast table, surely?” Vespasia stopped the porter and added her financial appreciation as he loaded her luggage, as well, just one case, more and warmer clothes, in case they should be needed. If they were fortunate, the whole mission could be accomplished in two days, and they would be able to return. The long weekend at Applecross would be barely finished before they were in London again.

  The train pulled out with whistles and clangs and much belching of steam. Slowly it picked up speed through the city, past serried rows of rooftops, then green spaces, factories, more houses, and eventually out into the open countryside, now patched with the dark turned earth of plowed fields and the scattered leafless copses of woodland. The rhythm of the wheels over the track would have been soothing, were they going anywhere else.

  The winter afternoon faded quickly, and it was not more than an hour before they were rushing through the night, the steam past the window reduced to the red lines from lit sparks at speed, everything else a blur of darkness.

  They stopped regularly, to set down passengers or to pick up more, and, of course, to allow people to stretch their legs, avail themselves of necessary facilities, and purchase refreshments of one sort or another.

  Vespasia tried to sleep through as much of the night as she could. The movement of the train was pleasant and kept up a steady kind of music, but sitting more or less upright was far from comfortable. She was aware of Isobel watching the lights of stations and towns pass by with their steady progress northward, and knew she must dread their arrival. But they had exhausted discussion of the subject and Vespasia declined to be drawn into speculation any further.

  Dawn came gray and windswept as they climbed beyond the Yorkshire moors to the bleaker and more barren heights of Durham, and then Northumberland, and at last on toward the border with Scotland. They purchased breakfast at one of the many stations and took it back to eat on the train as it pulled out again.

  Vespasia determined not to return to the reason for their visit and talked instead of subjects that might ordinarily have aroused their interest — fashion, theater, gossip, political events. Neither of them cared just now, but Isobel joined in the fiction that everything was as usual.

  As they crossed the Lowlands toward Edinburgh, the brooding and magnificent city that was Scotland’s capital and seat of power and learning, the skies cleared, and it was merely briskly cold. They alighted and, with the help of a porter, took their luggage to await the train for the last hundred and fifty miles to Inverness.

  An hour and a half later they were aboard, stiff, cold, and extremely tired, but again moving northward. As they came into Stirlingshire there was snow on the hills, but the black crown of Stirling Castle stood out against a blue sky with wind-ragged clouds streaming across it like banners.

  The country grew wilder. The slopes were black with faded heather and the peaks higher and brilliant white against the sky. On the lower slopes they saw herds of red deer, and once what looked like an eagle, a dark spot circling in the sky, but it could have been a buzzard. The early afternoon was fading when at last they pulled into Inverness and saw the sprawl of sunset fire across the south, its light reflected paler on the sea. The mound of the Black Isle lay to the north, and beyond that, snow-gleaming mountains of Ross-shire and Sutherland.

  The wind on the platform was like a scythe, cutting through even the best woolen clothing, and there was the smell of snow in it, and vast, clean spaces. It was an unconscious decision to find lodgings for the night rather than make any attempt to find Mrs. Naylor’s house in the dark, in a town with which neither of them had the slightest familiarity. The station hotel seemed to offer excellent rooms, and had two available. The morning was soon enough to face the ultimate test.

  Inquiry of the staff of the hotel elicited the information that the address on Gwendolen’s letter was not actually in Inverness itself but was a considerable estate on the outskirts of Muir-of-Ord, a town some distance away, for which it would be necessary to hire a trap, and it would take a good part of the morning to reach it.

  Thus it was actually close to midday when they finally reached the Naylor house, set on several acres of richly wooded land sweeping down to the Beauly Firth and ultimately the open sea.

  Vespasia looked at Isobel. “Are you ready?” she asked gently.

  “No, nor will I ever be,” Isobel responded. “But then, I am so cold I am not even sure if I can stand on my feet, and whatever lies within that house, it cannot be less comfortable than sitting out here.”

  Vespasia wished profoundly that that would prove to be true, but she did not say so aloud.

  They alighted, thanked the driver, and asked him to wait, in case they should not be invited to remain and have no way of returning to the town. Vespasia hung back and allowed Isobel to step forward and pull the bell knob beside the door. She was about to reach for it a second time, impatient to get the ordeal over, when it swung open and an elderly manservant looked at her inquiringly.

  “Good morning,” Isobel said, her voice catching with nervousness now that the moment was upon her. “My name is Isobel Alvie. I have come from London with a letter of importance to give to Mrs. Naylor. With me is my friend Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould. I would be most grateful if you could give Mrs. Naylor that message, and apologize for my not having sent my card first, but the journey is urgent, and was unexpected.” She offered him her card now.

  “If you will come in, Mrs. Alvie, Lady Vespasia, I shall consider what is best to do,” the man said in a soft northern accent.

  Isobel hesitated. “What is best to do?” she repeated.

  “Aye, madame. Mrs. Naylor is not at home, but I am sure she would wish you to receive the hospitality of the house. Please come in.” He held the door wide for them.

  Isobel glanced at Vespasia, then with a shrug so slight it was barely visible, she followed the manservant over the step and inside. Vespasia went after her into a large low-beamed hall with a fire blazing in an open hearth, then past it and into an informal sitting room with sunlight vivid through windows. A lawn sloped downward to a magnificent view beyond, but it was distinctly cooler.

  “When do you expect Mrs. Naylor?” Isobel inquired. Her voice was rough-edged, and Vespasia could hear the tension in it.

  “I’m sorry, madame, but I have no idea,” the man said gravely. “I’m sorry you’ve traveled all this way an’ we cannot help you.”

  “Where has she gone?” Isobel asked. “You must know!”

  He looked startled at her persistence. It was discourteous, to say the least.

  Vespasia stepped forward. She was not completing the task for Isobel, only ensuring that she had the opportunity to do it for herself. “I apologize if we seem intrusive,” she said gently. “But there has been a tragedy in London, and it concerns Mrs. Naylor’s daughter. We have to bring her news of it, no matter how difficult that may be. Please understand our distress and concern.”

  “Miss Gwendolen?” The man’s face pinched with some emotion of pain, but it was impossible to read in it more than that. “Poor bairn,” he said sadly. “Poor bairn.”

  “We must tell Mrs. Naylor,” Vespasia said again. “And deliver the letter into her hands. It is a duty we have given our word to complete.”

  The man shook his head. “It’s no another death, is it?” he asked, looking from one to the other of them, and back again.

  Vespasia allowed Isobel to answer.

  “Yes, I am terribly sorry to tell you, it is. So you see why we must speak to Mrs. Naylor in person. We were both there, and can at least tell her something of it, if she should wish to know.”

  “It’ll be Miss Gwendolen herself this time,” he said, shaking his head stiffly, his eyes bright and far distant.

  Ves
pasia felt intrusive in his shock and sadness.

  “Yes. I’m profoundly sorry,” Isobel answered. “Where can we find her, or send a message so she may return, if that is what she would prefer? We are prepared to accompany her south, if she would permit us to.”

  “Aye, mebbe.” He nodded awkwardly. “Mebbe. It’s a long journey, and that’s the truth.”

  “Yes, it is, but the train transfer in Edinburgh is not too inconvenient.”

  “Oh, lassie, there’s no train from Ballachulish, and no likely to be in your lifetime, or your grandbairns’, neither,” he said with a sad little smile. “And mebbe that’s for the best, too. Boat to Glasgow, it’ll be. I’ve heard tell there’s railways to Glasgow now.” He spoke of it with an expression as if it were some exotic and far-distant Babylon.

  “Ballachulish?” Isobel repeated uncertainly. “Where is that? How does one get there?”

  “Oh, to Inverness, it’ll be,” he replied. “And then down the loch to the Caledonian Canal, and mebbe Fort William. Or else across Rannoch Moor and through Glencoe. Ballachulish lies at the end of it, so I’m told.”

  “How far is it?” Isobel obviously had no idea at all.

  “Lassie, it’s the other side o’ Scotland! On the west coast, it is.”

  Isobel took a deep breath. “When will Mrs. Naylor be back?”

  “That’s it, you see,” he said, shaking his head. “She won’t, least not so far as we know. It might be next spring, or then again it might not.”

  Isobel was horrified. “But that’s… that’s the other side of winter!”

  “Aye, so it is. You’re welcome to stay the night, while you think on it,” he offered. “There’s plenty of room. There’s been barely a soul in the house since poor Mr. Kilmuir met his accident. It’ll be good to have someone to cook for, and the sound of voices not our own.”

  “Has Mrs. Naylor been gone so long?” Vespasia put in with surprise. “I thought that was well over a year ago.”