A Christmas Journey Page 9

  How desperately alone she must have felt — a second time falsely accused, and no denial would help. How can one deny something that has only been hinted at, never said? Some people might have attacked in return, but where would that end? Almost certainly in a defeat even more painful. This way ended it almost before it began, certainly before any but a handful of people knew of it.

  And then the worst possibility of all struck her. Had Gwendolen believed that Isobel knew Kilmuir’s charge and was very subtly telling her so, and threatening a lifelong blackmail, a cat-and-mouse torture never to end? If that was true, no wonder she had killed herself! The thought was hideous beyond the mind to realize. Could it even be true? She hated herself that she could even frame the idea — but Isobel’s anger, her need came sharply into focus, as if it had been moments ago that Vespasia had seen the look in her eyes, the desperation for her own social position and safety. Then sanity reasserted itself and she thrust it away. It had been a moment’s cruelty, no more.

  She rose and dressed at last, weighed down by a sadness and an overwhelming pity for both Gwendolen and Mrs. Naylor. She went downstairs to find breakfast; she knew the wisdom of not attempting anything on an empty stomach, however little she felt like eating.

  She found Isobel downstairs, pacing the floor. She turned around the moment she heard Vespasia’s footsteps. She looked very pale, dark circles around her eyes making her look ill. “Where have you been?” she demanded.

  “I slept late,” Vespasia answered. “And I did not get up immediately.” That was true as far as it went. She had decided not to tell Isobel of her conversation with Mrs. Naylor, and certainly not of the thoughts that had resulted from it. She was ashamed of where it had led her. She liked Isobel, she always had, but perhaps she did not now trust her as deeply as she once had.

  “What are we going to do all day?” Isobel pressed. “What is this place, do you suppose? I have seen all sorts of people here, as if it were a religious retreat.”

  “Perhaps it is.” The thought was not absurd. One could hardly retreat further than this!

  Vespasia had a breakfast of oatmeal porridge, then toast and very sharp, pungent marmalade, which, when she inquired, she was told was made on the premises. She immediately purchased two jars to take away with her, regardless of the inconvenience of carrying them. One was for herself, the other for Omegus Jones. She knew his tastes; she had watched him at his own table.

  They spent the day quietly. The house proved indeed to be a form of retreat, not religious, but beyond question spiritual. Mrs. Naylor had found a vocation in listening to the troubled, the lonely, and the guilty whose fears robbed them of courage, or the hope that battles could be won.

  Vespasia found herself wishing they might stay longer, and she forced herself to remember that this was not her calling, certainly not now, when winter was closing in rapidly. They must accompany Mrs. Naylor to London, and then return to Applecross to report to Omegus and to face Lady Warburton and the others, if they were to still their tongues before spring. They would be bound by the silence of expectation only so long.

  She saw Finn several times and observed in him a humor and a great strength of self-understanding, and she perceived without effort why Mrs. Naylor found happiness with him. There was a reserve in him so that there would always be thoughts and dreams to surprise.

  It was with regret that she and Isobel set out at daybreak the following morning, with Mrs. Naylor and MacIan, and a troop of ponies. Finn saw them to the entrance of the yard, standing with the fierce wind blowing his hair and whipping at his coat. Vespasia knew his good-byes to Mrs. Naylor had already been said, and words were an encumbrance to the understanding they shared.

  They set off south, away from the Glen along the High Road. It was almost seven miles to Tyndrum, and another five or so to Crianlarich. If they pressed on with only such breaks as the horses needed, they might make it by nightfall. On easy roads a carriage would have done it by luncheon, but this was wild country, the peaks snow-covered. They went in the teeth of a gale with ice on its edge, and one good blizzard might end their journey altogether.

  But Mrs. Naylor did not hesitate. She led the way with MacIan and left Vespasia and Isobel to keep up the best they could. Their ponies were as good as anyone’s; it was a matter of human endurance, and they were half her age. If Mrs. Naylor even thought of doubting them, she gave no sign of it.

  They plodded silently through a great sweeping wilderness of mountain and sky, sometimes lit by dazzling sun, blinding off the snow slopes above and ahead. Then squalls would drive down from nowhere, and they huddled together, backs to the worst of it, until it was past and they would plow forward again.

  Vespasia glanced at Isobel and received a rueful smile in answer. It was as clear as if they had spoken: At least this flesh-withering cold, the slow, uneven progress, the need to guide their ponies with all possible attention, and even the waste of time to get off and walk, knee-deep in fresh snow, skirts sodden to the thighs, made conversation completely impossible. With Gwendolen’s death heavy on heart and mind, it was a blessing, however profound the disguise.

  It was well past midday when they reached the inn at Tyndrum, and the weather was closing in as if it would be all but dark by three.

  “We’ll no make Crianlarich the night,” MacIan said, squinting upward at the sky. “It’s after one now, an’ it’s another five hard miles. We’d best rest the ponies an’ start fresh in the morning.”

  “Surely we can make five miles by dark?” Isobel said urgently. “We’ve done most of it already!”

  “We’ve done seven, Mistress Alvie,” MacIan told her dourly. “Ye mebbe think ye can do the like again, in two hours, but ye’re mistaken. An’ I’ll no have ye drive my ponies to it. Rest while ye can, and be glad of a spot o’ warmth.” He looked at Mrs. Naylor. “Take a dram, mistress. I’ll care for the beasts. Get ye inside.”

  It was what Vespasia also had dreaded, a long afternoon by the fireside with Isobel and Mrs. Naylor. The meal was endurable. They were all still numb with cold and glad of any food at all, let alone hot, savory haggis rich with herbs, offered them in spite of the nearness to Burns’s night. It was served with mashed potatoes and sweet turnips, and afterwards flat, unleavened oatcakes and a delicately flavored cheese covered with oatmeal, called Cabac.

  It was finally cleared away, and they were left alone in the small sitting room by the fire, peat to replenish it on the hearth, stags’ heads on the wall. The silence was leaden, and Vespasia saw the slight smile cross Mrs. Naylor’s lips. She knew in that instant that Mrs. Naylor understood exactly what was in Isobel’s mind, and Vespasia’s, and that she was mistress of herself sufficiently to outlast both of them. Grief would wound her, perhaps to the heart, but it would not bend or break her. She would meet them on her own terms.

  Twice Isobel began to speak, and then stopped. Finally Mrs. Naylor turned to her.

  “Is there something you wish to say, Mrs. Alvie?”

  Isobel shook her head. “Only that we cannot sit here in silence all afternoon, but I see that we can, if that is what you wish.”

  “What would you like to speak about?”

  Isobel had no answer.

  “Glen Orchy,” Vespasia said suddenly. “I should like to know about how you found it, and how word travels of what you do there, and who is welcome.”

  Mrs. Naylor regarded her with a wry humor, the smile all turned inward, as if facing some moment of decision at last. “You do not ask what I do there, or why I stay,” she observed. “Is that because you believe I would not tell you? Or does courtesy suggest it would be intrusive?”

  “Both,” Vespasia replied. “But principally because I believe that I know.”

  Isobel looked confused.

  Mrs. Naylor ignored her. “Do you indeed?” she said dubiously. “I think not, but we shall not discuss it. If there is debt between us, and I am not sure that there is, then it is you who owe me.”

  “I hav
e children,” Vespasia said gently. She was going to add that she knew the consuming love and need to protect, then she saw the warning in Mrs. Naylor’s face, the sudden tightening of fear, and she remembered also that Isobel had been widowed before she had had a chance to bear children. So she said nothing, but she knew that she was right, and Mrs. Naylor knew it also. For the first time, Vespasia took charge of the conversation. She repeated her questions. Mrs. Naylor answered them, and through the darkening afternoon both younger women heard a story of extraordinary courage and strength of will, compassion, and determination, but told in a way that made it seem the most natural and ordinary thing, in fact the only possible way to behave.

  Out of an empty house falling into dereliction, Mrs. Naylor and Finn had built and repaired it, until the house was restored to its earlier comfort. Then one guest at a time, first by chance, it had become a hostelry for wanderers who needed shelter not only from the elements of the Highland winter, but from the harder seasons of life, a time to rest and regain not so much strength as a sense of direction, an understanding of mountains, of paths, and above all of hope.

  When they retired after dinner Isobel followed Vespasia up the stairs, almost on her heels. “What am I going to do?” she said when they reached the bedroom they were to share. There was a note of desperation in her voice.

  “What you have told Omegus that you will do,” Vespasia answered. “Mrs. Naylor won’t tell people anything other than whatever you tell them yourself.”

  “I don’t mean about Gwendolen’s death!” Isobel said impatiently. “I mean about anything! I don’t want to marry Bertie Rosythe, even if he offered! Or anyone like him. I should die of loneliness, even if it took me all my life to do it, an inch a day.” Her voice was suddenly harsher, as if the anger ran out of control. “For heaven’s sake, are you really so damnably complacent that you don’t even know what I mean? Can’t you see anything further than money and fashion, the season, knowing everyone who matters and having them know you, going to all the right parties?” She flung her hand out stiffly. “When the door is closed, and you take off your tiara and the maid hangs up your gown? Who are you then?” Now she was almost weeping. “What have you? Have you anything at all that matters? Is that what comfort has given you — that you are dead at heart — of self-satisfaction?”

  Vespasia saw the contempt in Isobel’s eyes and knew that it had been there dormant for all the time they had known each other. Did she care enough to strip away the armor of her own protection to answer truthfully? If not, then she was denying herself, almost as if she were making it true.

  “I have too much pain and too much hope to be dead,” she replied gravely. “My best days were not wearing a tiara, or a ball gown. I carried bandages, and water, and sometimes even a gun. I wore a plain gray dress that was borrowed, and I stood on the barricades in Rome, and fought for a revolution that failed.” She lowered her voice because the tears choked in her throat. “And loved a man I shall never see again. You have no right to despise anyone, Isobel, until at least you know who they are. And we will probably none of us ever know anyone sufficiently well for that. Be happy for it. It is not a sweet thing to look down on others, or to feel their inferiority. It’s lonely, ugly, and wrong. Sleep well. We must make Crianlarich, at least, by tomorrow evening. I know it’s only about five miles, but five miles of storm in these hills may seem more than thirty miles at home. Good night.”

  “Good night,” Isobel said gently.

  The following day they traveled through glancing blizzards, one of them heavy enough to halt them for over two hours, but they reached Crianlarich before sundown, and the day after as far as the head of Loch Lomond, with Ben Lomond towering white in the distance to the south.

  After that, they kept close to the water until they were past the Ben itself, and on the morning of the fifth day since leaving Glen Orchy, they bade MacIan good-bye and thanked him heartily. They took the boat to the farthest shore of the loch little more than twenty miles from Glasgow itself. From there it was a matter of hiring a vehicle of any sort and driving their own way to the railway station. With a trap and good roads, even if the weather was inclement, it was a journey that could be done in one day.

  After breakfast Isobel was assisted in, then Vespasia, leaving Mrs. Naylor last. Vespasia had intended it so, knowing that Mrs. Naylor was an excellent horsewoman, used to driving. After all, it was she who had gained control of the runaway horse that had killed Kilmuir. Whether it was an accident or not she did not know, nor did she wish to. She herself was a fine rider, but very indifferent at managing a carriage horse, which was a different skill entirely.

  Mrs. Naylor hesitated.

  Vespasia wondered if memories of Kilmuir’s death were returning to her; doubt, guilt, horror, regret — even fear that Gwendolen, having witnessed it from her horse, even a hundred yards away or more, had made her courage for life so fragile. Did she know that her mother had killed to save her? Was that the burden Gwendolen finally could not bear?

  Mrs. Naylor sat in the driving seat and picked up the reins awkwardly. She held them in her hands together, not apart in order to give her control of the animal.

  The hostler showed her how, patiently, and still she looked clumsy. The horse sensed it and shifted, shaking its head.

  The truth struck Vespasia like a hammerblow. Mrs. Naylor did not know how to drive. It was not she who had held the reins when Kilmuir had fallen, accidentally or otherwise; it was Gwendolen herself! Vespasia had seen her in London; she was brilliant at it! And it was Mrs. Naylor who had been out riding and had seen. It made infinitely more sense! She had had to protect her daughter, and Gwendolen, in the shock of it, had allowed herself to forget — to move the blame to a more bearable place.

  It fell in front of her eyes in a perfect pattern: The guilt was for having arranged and permitted a marriage to someone like Kilmuir, not to have judged him more accurately. It was a mother’s primary duty toward her daughter, and Mrs. Naylor had signally failed. That was why she was prepared to take the burden of guilt now. And Gwendolen had allowed it.

  Then in one trivial, cruel remark Gwendolen’s fragile new image had been shattered, hope, the shield of forgetting, all gone, and the specter of a lifetime’s blackmail from others who knew, or guessed at least part of it.

  “I’ll drive!” Vespasia said aloud, her voice surprisingly steady. The slight tremor in it could be attributed to the cold. “Let me. I am not as good as Gwendolen was, but I am perfectly adequate.” She scrambled forward to take Mrs. Naylor’s place. Their eyes met for a moment, and Mrs. Naylor knew that she understood.

  Vespasia smiled. It would never be referred to again. Isobel could not afford to — she had her own secrets to keep — and Vespasia had no wish to.

  Mrs. Naylor handed her the reins, and they began the last part of their journey to Glasgow, before the long train ride to London.

  The journey was tedious, as it had been on the way up, but they reached London at last. It was three days before Christmas. The final meeting was to be at Applecross, and Vespasia knew that Omegus Jones would already be there. There seemed little point in remaining in the city, so she invited Mrs. Naylor and Isobel to go with her to her own country house, which was within ten miles of Applecross. She was uncertain if Mrs. Naylor would wish to accept, and was surprised how it pleased her when she did.

  PART THREE

  After greeting her husband and children, the first thing Vespasia did was to write a letter to Omegus Jones and tell him that they had completed their mission, and it remained only to report that fact to make the oath binding. Then she sealed it and called one of the footmen to ride over and deliver it.

  “Shall I wait for an answer, my lady?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes! Yes, indeed,” she answered him. “It is of the utmost importance!”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  When he returned several hours later and gave her the envelope, she thanked him and tore it open without waiting for him
to leave.

  My dear Vespasia,

  You cannot know how relieved I am to hear that you are safely returned, and that you have accomplished in full all you set out to do. The letter of the law would have sufficed to bind our fellows to silence, but it is the spirit which heals the transgressor, and that is in essence what matters.

  I admit I have worried about you, veering from one moment having the utmost faith that you would come to no harm, and the next being plunged into an abyss of fear that some natural disaster might overtake you. Had I known the true extent of your journey to the north, I should not have allowed you to go, and none of this would have succeeded. Perhaps it is good that at times we do not know what lies ahead, or we would not attempt it, and failure would be inevitable.

  Naturally, you will wish to be with your own family for Christmas Day, but will you bring Isobel and Mrs. Naylor to Applecross on Christmas Eve, so we may complete our covenant, and Isobel be free?

  I await your answer with hope,

  Your friend and servant,

  Omegus Jones

  She folded it with a smile and placed it in her escritoire in the drawer that had a lock on it, then she found Isobel and Mrs. Naylor and gave them Omegus’s invitation. The following morning she sent the same footman back with their acceptance.

  They set out in the afternoon in order to arrive at Applecross for dinner. The day was crisp and cold, but this far south there was no snow yet, only a taste of frost in the air. By the time they arrived they were shivering, even beneath traveling rugs, and glad to alight and go into the great hall decked with holly and ivy, scarlet ribbons, gold-tipped pinecones, and great bowls of fruit. The fire blazed in the hearth, burning half a log. Footmen met them with glasses of mulled wine and marzipan sweetmeats, warm mince pies and candied peel.