The Wild Island Page 15

  She touched the petals, damp and velvety.

  'Why, they're quite fresh,' she said in a startled voice.

  'So they should be,' Ossian's voice came from directly behind her. She turned round. His figure filled the doorway, another pattern of red against the bright light.

  'I only put them there this morning. The dew was still on them. Don't you like red roses?' His tone was mocking.

  'Not particularly, as it happens.' She added, 'And it seems rather an inappropriate gesture to come from you.'

  'Oh, do you think so?*

  'Don't you?'

  'Hardly. As a loyal member of the Red Rose, I find it very appropriate indeed.'

  There was a long silence between them.

  'I warned you, Jemima Shore, things up here are seldom all they seem,' said Ossian Lucas at length.

  'I was beginning to guess,' she began in rather a faint voice. 'Your appearance just now. So timely. I'll alter my charge. I find you a very inappropriate member of the Red Rose.'

  'Why so?' Against the light she could scarcely discern his face above its frilly shirt, but she suspected that his lips were still curving in that Pan-like smile. The long narrow bony face and curly fair hair were hidden. 'The local MP and all that. Why, you're not even from these parts!' she exclaimed. In her nervousness, she was aware that she had uttered two contradictory statements. 'Where are you from?' she demanded in her most brusque interviewing manner. 'You really can't get away with having "mysterious origins" in this day and age.'

  'Jemima Shore, Investigator, is back, I see,' commented Ossian. He was quick to see and mimic her change of manner.

  'My dear girl,' he went on, most blandly, 'but of course you're quite right. My origins are not particularly mysterious to me - though I may choose to present them as such to the rest of the world. If I told you - with perfect truth - that I, not Henry Beauregard, was the real descendant of Sighing Marjorie and Bonnie Prince Charlie, would you find me an appropriate member of the Red Rose then ?'

  'The baby,' stammered Jemima, 'drowned in the river by the soldiers. Or rescued and brought up to marry a Beauregard.*

  'Neither,' said Ossian. 'Nonsense - both stories. A child there was, a daughter Mary, as a matter of fact, brought up not far from here by foster parents and married later to a man called Lucas. I have the documents to prove it by the way, if I so wished. But for the time being I don't.'

  'But Charlotte Clementina - the memorial on the island-she couldn't have been invented'

  'Oh, she existed all right. There was no need to invent her. A Stuart cousin, orphaned at Culloden as so many were, brought up by her relations - where was the drama in that? She may even have been the Prince's god-daughter, hence the choice of names. She exists all right in the Beauregard family tree.

  'Her father was a Stuart, probably Marjorie's cousin, since everyone's related up here, but there is no direct connection with Eilean Fas. Getting back to my Mary Lucas who really did have royal blood-she was of course illegitimate. The marriage story is equal nonsense. Can you imagine a Prince in desperate straits bothering to marry some obscure Scottish girl ? About the only chance left to him was to make some rich and grand continental marriage.'

  'Then the Beauregards- how on earth did they get the idea ?' Jemima felt herself to be quite bewildered. The folly, the legend, the claims of the Red Rose, where did it all fit in ?

  'The answer to that, my dear,' said Ossian Lucas with a laugh, 'is really quite simple. A mixture of two common Highland failings of the past, self-aggrandizement and self-deception. I'm not sure they could even be described as failings at a time when life was so hard hereabouts that survival at any price was the local motto. Plus a strong dose of American romanticism in our own day, to provide the finishing touches to the mixture.

  'You see, for a long while after Culloden and the '45, everything round here was in complete chaos, with punitive government measures, estates forfeited and all the rest of it. Somehow, towards the end of the eighteenth century, when times got better, the Beauregards emerged not only with Castle Tamh and a good deal of the Glen restored to them, and Kilbronnack House which they owned already, but also Eilean Fas, the missing part of the Glen. It rounded off the property and they had long coveted it. In the nineteenth century, a more orderly period, it was necessary to explain exactly how this had come about and the answer was simple: Charlotte Clementina Stuart must obviously have been the Eilean Fas heiress. And that made her the missing daughter of Sighing Marjorie, and that gave the Beauregards royal blood as well as a proper claim to the island. The royal blood side of it was all very vague and pleasant and word-of-mouth to the Victorian Beauregards: they gave their children Stuart names like Charles Edward and Henry Benedict, but the property was what mattered.

  'And then of course Leonie Beauregard came along and in one of her mad fits of enthusiastic refurbishment and sorting out and clarifying, which she applied to the whole Castle and the Estates, decided to get the whole thing down between hard covers. Including her own ingenious - or perhaps ingenuous would have been a better word - theory of the marriage, which had certainly never been mentioned before. She it was who put up this folly, copied in the original style of the house, and the plaques. Naturally the story of the marriage was meat and drink to the Red Rose* provided them with a proper monarch of their own, right here in Glen Bronnack. In a way I rather admire the taste for fantasy in them all, from the Victorian Beau regards' clever legalization down to Charles Beauregard's exotic pretensions to be King of Scotland. Without, I'm afraid, being able to share it.' He looked down at himself, the velvet trousers whose hem was now bedraggled with grass and dew. 'My clothes express my only taste for fantasy I prefer it that way.'

  'But that changes everything!' cried Jemima She suddenly realized that Ossian even looked quite like his royal ancestor, a less handsome but also a less effeminate version. It was the resemblance which had teased her in the drawing room of Kilbronnack House that night before dinner, gazing at the portrait.

  'Does it?' answered Ossian in his quizzical style. 'I find it changes absolutely nothing so far Nothing about the state of Scotland, which is what happens to interest me Of course,' he added, 'it is true that Eilean Fas actually belongs to me, as the only h v ing descendant of Sighing Marjorie, not to the Beauregards. If I chose to claim it, that is'

  CHAPTER 17

  Remember me

  As Ossian and Jemima walked slowly back up the path towards the house, there was a violent thrashing in the undergrowth beside them.

  Jemima screamed and clutched Ossian's arm. Then she regretted it: there were too many shocks, that was all. A deer, small, graceful, with little pointed ears and antlers, leaped across the path just in front of them.

  'A roe,' said Ossian briefly. 'I wonder who or what put it up.' He did not seem surprised.

  'Colonel Henry tried to kill one my first day here,' said Jemima more calmly than she felt. 'He told me they ate the tops of the young trees.'

  'But there are no young trees at Eilean Fas, except the self-seeded ones,' replied Ossian. 'Nothing planted since Leonie Beauregard died here. Henry Beauregard just believes in extinguishing things which may get in his way for the principle of the thing.'

  Jemima said nothing.

  There was more noise among the leaves and bracken.

  'Ah, so it was you,' continued Ossian. A dog bounded towards them, as though in very slow pursuit of the vanished deer.

  It was Jacobite. As they came in sight of the house, a Land-Rover was seen to be standing there: Colonel Henry's.

  'It seems that you have a caller,' said Lucas in an expressionless tone. 'I'll be off. I have a meeting tonight. No, not the Red Rose. My constituents: the above-board lot. They're really all my constituents of course. I shall discuss a Scottish assembly and all that sort of thing, wisely and sagely.'

  'Is it wise to be quite so sure that I won't give you away?' she enquired. It was the first question she had asked him out there at the shrine: 'How do yo
u know I won't give you away.'

  'Two reasons, my dear.' He touched her cheek. There was something strong but sexless about his personality, as if his masculinity was held in abeyance by other stronger needs and interests.

  'First, you're curious. An observer. A journalist. It's in your nature. You want to investigate mysteries - no, I'm not just punning on your series - you really do, I recognize it in you, above all you want to be in on things. Second, rather more practically, you have absolutely nothing to gain by so doing. I doubt if you could even prove it - I've kept my tracks pretty well covered, you may be sure, and Aeneas, Lachlan and Co. would never give me away; even the Colonel himself, don't forget, begged you not to interfere between himself and the Red Rose.'

  'Oh, that's his heroism,' said Jemima. 'Brother Raiders and all that. I'm no heroine. You may do harm —' she began.

  'We did you no harm. As a matter of fact we've never done anyone any harm.'

  'Aren't you forgetting Hurricane Sophie?' she asked pointedly.

  'Oh, that. Threats and counter-threats. A few slogans and counter-slogans. The brave little Princess, blue eyes popping, chin held high against the Highland fiends ... That made everyone happy, including the Daily Express which gave it a headline. And of course as a publicity lover, it made HR H very happy indeed. I happen to know that she had no objection. There was never the remotest chance of action.'

  'But they actually grabbed Colonel Henry, they tied up Ben—'

  'Kidnapping Colonel Henry wasn't a bad idea except that they bungled it. One might have asked a ransom or at least got some nice anti-laird publicity. Tying up Ben was pointless and to involve you was ridiculous.'

  'But will the Red Rose never do any harm ?' she pressed him.

  'I very much doubt it,' he said. The words were cynical, but Ossian Lucas sounded calm rather than cynical. 'Not the Red Rose itself: it's a gallant body of men, when all's said and done, just as gallant as the Beauregard brothers in their own way, romantics all, with their signs and signals and passwords and their Queen, and before that their King. The absurdity of it all,' he went on. 'Who wants to be a king ? No, that's not where the power lies, in the empty shadow of royalty. What power did that little Princess have the other night? A minor royalty, a cousin of the monarch, daughter of a dunderhead duke, good for opening a dam or two, or closing down a regiment. Henry Beauregard the laird has more power up the Glen now that he's inherited it than HRH Princess Sophie of Cumberland has in the whole of Great Britain. That's why I'm interested neither in my royal blood, nor in my claim to Eilean Fas. Neither can forward my own cause in the slightest.'

  'Power is what interests you?'

  'Precisely. True power. Not the myth of it, the outward show. As a member of the Red Rose I keep an eye on my most obstreperous constituents, consolidate my own position up here and whichever way the wind blows for Scotland in the future, why, I'm ready to blow with it. Either as the guerrilla turned statesman or the politician turned nationalist leader, depending on your point of view.'

  'You're a wise man,' she said sarcastically. 'And a worthy Chief of the Red Rose.'

  'Ah, my dear,' replied Ossian Lucas, adjusting his wide lily-patterned collar with perfect aplomb. 'You do me too much honour. I never for one moment said I was the Chief, did I ? I am indubitably not the Chief of the Red Rose, as it happens.

  Now that really would be indiscreet. A nationalist leader in good time- yes. A guerrilla leader at the present time -no. But if you did know the identity of the present Chief, you would certainly understand for the first time, if I dare make the comment, how things really work in this part of the world.'

  He would not be drawn further from this, to Jemima, both irritating and enigmatic remark.

  'Oh no, my dear, I've sworn the most exotic oath, full of Gaelic words, of whose meaning frankly I didn't have the faintest idea. It would be most dangerous to break it under the circumstances; one might be turned into a toad, or even a crofter or something.' And from this maddeningly frivolous point of view he refused to budge.

  In revenge, and to herself, Jemima wondered whether the genuine Red Rosers and their mysterious Chief were not more attractive than this ambivalent man - born losers as they might turn out to be. Ossian Lucas, as he had indicated, was a survivor. He could not, and therefore would not, lose.

  Now, standing before the house, the MP prepared to jump into his own car with a wave through the window to the Colonel, but Henry Beauregard was gesticulating at him.

  'We'd better go in then,' said Lucas. 'But don't forget what I said —'

  'I won't betray you. Yet. Never fear. You're right. There's nothing to be gained, so long as the Red Rose steers clear of violence.'

  'Oh, it's not that,' Ossian shrugged off his dual roles - and who knew, maybe there were more - with indifference. 'Don't forget. Trust those least who are above suspicion. It's a good motto.'

  Inside the house, Colonel Henry looked wonderfully spruce; he had all but finished his own bottle of malt whisky. He was wearing an immaculate dark suit of the kind which hung so well on his tall figure. His handsome silvered head was held high, chest thrust out. It was in fact the suit in which Jemima had first seen him - his funeral suit.

  But on this occasion it proved to be his London suit. HenryBeauregard was off that evening on the overnight sleeper to London.

  'Flying visit. Business meetings. Back in the morning. Sleepering both ways.'

  'It's called doing a Colonel Henry in these parts’ observed Ossian sotto voce. 'He has lunch with his current lady friend, does his business and is back after two nights in a train looking a great deal fitter than you and me. He thinks Edith won't notice anything if he doesn't actually spend the night in London.'

  To say that Jemima felt chagrin was a mild estimation of her feelings. Wearily, she remembered that this was the man who had left her in the middle of the night for the lure of a family signal. Would it always be so? she wondered with childish disappointment; money, land, the island, the Glen, coming before... she stopped. She did not know how to finish the sentence. After all, what did she represent to Colonel Henry ? She had not yet had even the briefest time to find out. A phrase from a long-buried programme, one of her first independent ventures, about South America, came back to her. Some handsome gaucho had told her that on the pampas the motto was' Primero el cavallo, despues la dona. First the horse, then the woman. In the Highlands, the same motto seemed to apply, roughly translated as: First the land, then the lady.

  Jemima wondered if Colonel Henry had altogether forgotten that Saturday was her birthday, that he had promised to take her on an expedition —

  'And I'll be able to buy a birthday present in London’ said Colonel Henry with a charming smile. That's really why I'm going. Nothing worthy of you in Kilbronnack.'

  'There's always Robbie Mack's Tartan Shop’ suggested Ossian. 'The pride of Kilbronnack’ His voice was not without malice.

  'On the contrary, I was thinking of Burlington Arcade.' And with that the Colonel dismissed the subject. In his usual slightly mocking manner, Ossian then made his farewells and left the island.

  'What about the Red Rose ?' she began as soon as he had gone. 'What about Clementina, the guns?'

  'The Red Rose!' snorted Colonel Henry. 'We sorted them out pretty quickly, I can tell you. Sent over Jamie Mackay and the men. That soon sent them packing, vanished - the lot of them - at the hint of authority, just as they did at the church. I doubt if we shall see much more of Aeneas Stuart up here. Had the cheek to tell me he had got some job in an American university as a lecturer! Can you beat it? Damned Red. I've a good mind to tip them off. I've still got a few contacts in the military intelligence. At least it's not our money that's paying him. Bloody fools, the Americans.'

  Colonel Henry clearly derived some gloomy satisfaction from the notion of Aeneas Stuart subsidized by a campus in the United States.

  'And Lachlan?'

  'Ah, Lachlan. Going to work on the rigs, I hear. He'll earn a f
ortune. But he'll be back one day, I'll be bound. He was born in the Glen. He could never keep away long from the Glen. Let that be. I've still got a score to settle with Master Lachlan. Let him come back with his ridiculous Red Roses and see what kind of welcome he gets.'

  Jemima thought that Lachlan probably would return; but as Ossian had predicted, it would be under a new if equally romantic banner, the Black Thistle, the Red Lion. No doubt he would once again be defeated by Colonel Henry - up Glen Bronnack at least.

  She forbore to point out that by the same token Aeneas too, son of Young Duncan and the housemaid Ishbel, would be back one day to re-engage the Beauregards. She was less certain about the outcome of that particular struggle: but perhaps the next contest would turn out to be between Aeneas and Lachlan.

  'Their Chief,' she began uncertainly. 'They talked of their Chief

  'Oh, talk, talk,' Colonel Henry airily dismissed the subject. 'Told my niece Clementina that if she didn't behave herself I'd have her certified,' continued Colonel Henry. 'Gave her a good fright. Then I left a couple of men with her to stand guard and stop the Castle being used in future as a refuge for those kind of ruffians. Edith'll go over later and calm her down -woman's work - and all that. Besides, old Edith has got to organize the move into the Castle sooner or later; she'll hate leaving Kilbronnack House no doubt after all these years, and her garden. Still,' he brightened, 'plenty of scope for gardening at the Castle. For one thing the rose garden. Get rid of those bloody red roses. Oh yes, Edith will be much too busy to mope.'

  'Poor garden-loving, mope-forbidden Edith,' thought Jemima, but the Colonel was still pursuing his own line of thought.

  'No, we shall hear no more of the Red Rose in these parts, I can assure you.' He sounded extraordinarily confident.

  'Look - on your birthday, I thought we might have a picnic for you, here at Eilean Fas, with Edith and the boys, and then a sort of private stalk afterwards. It's a game we used to play when they were small. Stalking round the island. Someone suggested we should do it again. Father Flanagan, as a matter of fact, put it to Edith. It turns out August 30th is her birthday. Wouldn't that be jolly ?'